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- 322 CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
quicker, looking at the ground, with his right hand behind his
back, while with his left making gesticulations that were ex-
traordinarily incongruous with his words. Raskolnikov suddenly
noticed that as he ran about the room he seemed twice to stop
for a moment near the door, as though he were listening.
"Is he expecting anything?"
"You are certainly quite right about it^" Porfiry begain gaily,
looking with extraordinary simplicity at Raskolnikov (which
startled him and instantly put him on his guard) "certainly
quite right in laughing so wittily at our legal forms, he-he!
Some of these elaborate psychological methods are exceedingly
ridiculous and perhaps useless, if one adheres too closely to the
forms. Yes ... I am talking of forms again. Well, if I recognise,
or more strictly speaking, if I suspect some one or other to be
a criminal in any case entrusted to me . . . you're reading for the
law, of course, Rodion Romanovitch?"
"Yes, I was . . ."
"Well, then it is a precedent for you for the future — though
don't suppose I should venture to instruct you after the articles
you publish about crime! No, I simply make bold to state it by
way of fact, if I took this man or that for a criminal, why, I ask,
should I worry him prematurely, even though I had evidence
against him? In one case I may be bound, for instance, to arrest
a man at once, but another may be in quite a diflFerent position,
you know, so why shouldn't I let him walk about the town a
bit, he-he-he! But I see you don't quite understand, so I'll give
you a clearer example. If I put him in prison too soon, I may
very likely give him, so to speak, moral support, he-he! You're
laughing?"
Raskolnikov had no idea of laughing. He was sitting with
compressed lips, his feverish eyes fixed on Porfiry Petrovitch's.
"Yet that is the case, with some types especially, for men are
so different. You say evidence. Well, there may be evidence. But
evidence, you know, can generally be taken two ways. I am an
examining lawyer and a weak man I confess it. I should like to
make a proof, so to say, mathematically clear, I should like to
make a chain of evidence such as twice two are four, it ought
to be a direct, irrefutable proof! And if I shut him*up too soon
— even though I might be convinced he was the man, I should
very likely be depriving myself of the means of getting further
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