Petrovith said as though in haste, and after he had said it he took the paper and looked at it.

‘yes, it’s
all right. Nothing more is needed,’ he declared with the same rapidity and he laid the paper on the
table.

A minute later when he was talking of something else he took it from the table and put it on
his bureau.

‘I believe you said yesterday you would like to question me... formally ... about my
acquaintance with the murdered woman?’ Raskolnikov was beginning again. ‘why did I put in ‘’I
belive’’,’ passed through his mind in a flash. Why am I so uneasy at having put in that ‘’I belive’’?’
came in a second flash. And he suddenly felt that his uneasiness at the mere contact with porfiry , at
the first words, at the first looks, had grown in an instant to monstrous proportions, and that this
was fearfully dangerous. His nerves were quivertoins, his emotion was increasing. ‘It’s bad, it’s bad! I
shall say too much again.’

‘Yes, yes, yes! There’s no hurry, there’s no hurry,’ muttered porfiry petrovitch, moving to and fro
about the table without any apparent aim, as it were making dashes toward the window , the
bureau and back to the table, at one moment avioding Raskolnikov’s suspicious glance, then again
standing still and looking him straight in the face.

His fat round little figure looked very strange, like a ball rolling from one side to the other
and rebounding back.

‘We’ve plentry of time. Do you smoke? have you your own? Here,a cigarette!’ he went on,
offering his visitor a cigarette. ‘you know I am receiving you here, but my own quarters are through
there, you know, my government quarters. But I am living outside for the time; I have had to have
some repairs done here. It’s almost finished now... Government quarters, you know, are a capital
thing. Eh, what do you think?’

‘ Yes, a capital thing,’ answered Raskolnikov , looking at him almost ironically.

‘A capital thing, a capital thing,’ repeated porfiry petrovitch, as though he had just thought
of something quite different. ‘Yes, a capital thing,’ he almost shouted at last, suddenly staring at
Raskolnikov and stopping short two steps from him.

This stupid repetition was too incongruous in its ineptitude with the serious, brooding and
enigmatig glance he turned upon his visitor. It stirred Raskolnikov’s spleen more than ever and he
could not resist an ironical and rather incautious challenge.

‘Tell me, please,’ he asked suddenly , looking almost insolently at him and taking a kind of
pleasure in his own insolence, ‘I believe it’s