- cid
- bafkreihabdjev746k75e36insuvkpw23duk35jbzscz6mkllv4ww7a5qra
- content_type
- image/jpeg
- filename
- crimepunishment00dostiala_page_0332.jpg
- key
- pdf-page-1768923151896-0a1r4to2z8lr
- page_number
- 332
- pdf_type
- born_digital
- size
- 217692
- text
- 324 CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
psychologically unable to escape me, he-he! What an expression!
Through a law of nature he can't escape me if he had anywhere
to go. Have you seen a butterfly round a candle? That's how
he will keep circling and circling round me. Freedom will lose
its attractions. He'll begin to brood, he'll weave a tangle round
himself, he'll worry himself to death! What's more he will pro-
vide me with a mathematical proof — if I only give him long
enough interval. . . . And he'll keep circling round me, getting
nearer and nearer and then — flop! He'll fly straight into my
mouth and I'll swallow him, and that will be very amusing,
he-he-he! You don't believe me?"
Raskolnikov made no reply; he sat pale and motionless, still
gazing with the same intensity into Porfiry's face.
"It's a lesson," he thought, turning cold. "This is beyond the
cat playing with a mouse, like yesterday. He can't be showing
off his power with no motive . . . prompting me; he is far too
clever for that ... he must have another object. What is it? It's
all nonsense, my friend, you are pretending, to scare me! You've
no proofs and the man I saw had no real existence. You simply
want to make me lose my head, to work me up beforehand and
so to crush me. But you are wrong, you won't do it! But why
give me sucK a hint? Is he reckoning on my shattered nerves?
No, my friend, you are wrong, you won't do it even though you
have some trap for me ... let us see what you have in store
for me."And he braced himself to face a terrible and unknown ordeal.
At times he longed to fall on Porfiry and strangle him. This
anger was what he dreaded from the beginning. He felt that his
parched lips were flecked with foam, his heart was throbbing.
But he was still determined not to speak till the right moment.
He realised that this was the best policy in his position, because
instead of saying too much he would be irritating his enemy by
his silence and provoking him into speaking too freely. Anyhow,
this was what he hoped for.
"No, I see you don't believe me, you think I am playing a
harmless joke on you," Porfiry began again, getting more and
"more lively, chuckling at every instant and again pacing round
the room. "And to be sure you're right: God has given me a
figure that can awaken none but comic ideas in other people;
a buffoon; but let me tell you and I repeat it, excuse an old man,
- text_extracted_at
- 2026-01-20T15:32:31.896Z
- text_extracted_by
- pdf-processor
- text_has_content
- true
- text_source
- born_digital
- uploaded
- true