your state of mind? . . . Only it’s not just yourself you’ll make giddy, but Razumikhin, too. He’s far too good for all this, you know that yourself. You’re sick and he’s good, so sickness is bound to stick to him . . . Once you’ve calmed down, dear boy, I’ll tell you something . . . Now do sit down, for the love of Christ! Please, have a rest, you look terrible. Take a seat, I say.’
Raskolnikov sat down, shaking less now and feeling hot and feverish. In deep astonishment, he listened intently as Porfiry Petrovich fussed about him like a concerned friend. But he didn’t believe a word he said, though he felt a strange inclination to do so. Porfiry’s unexpected mention of the apartment had astounded him. ‘So he knows about the apartment. How come?’ he suddenly thought. ‘Then he tells me about it himself!’
‘Yes, sir, we had an almost identical case in court, sir, lots of psychology there, too, and illness,’ Porfiry pattered on. ‘He also tried to slander himself as a murderer and you should have seen how he did it: he came up with a complete hallucination, presented the facts, described the circumstances, succeeded in muddling and confusing everyone, and why? He himself, quite unintentionally, did partly cause the murder, but only partly, and when he discovered that he’d given the murderers a pretext for their crime, he fell into a state of depression and stupor, started seeing things, became completely unhinged and ended up convincing himself that he carried out the murder himself! Eventually, the Governing Senate got to the bottom of it all, and the unfortunate man was acquitted and taken into care. Thank heavens for the Governing Senate! Ay-ay-ay! What are you playing at, father? You’ll give yourself a fever by irritating your nerves with these sudden fancies – ringing doorbells at night and asking about blood! I know all this psychology inside out, sir, from practical experience. A man can end up wanting to throw himself from a window or a bell tower – such a tempting sensation. The same goes for doorbells, sir . . . It’s an illness, Rodion Romanovich, an illness! You’ve started neglecting your illness far too much, sir. Try having a word with an experienced doctor, not this fat friend of yours! . . . It’s delirium, sir! Everything you’re going through is sheer delirium!’
For a moment Raskolnikov felt the room begin to spin.
‘Surely, surely,’ flashed across his mind, ‘he’s not still lying even now? Impossible! Impossible!’ He pushed the thought away, sensing in advance how furious, how livid it could make him, sensing he might go mad with rage.
‘I wasn’t delirious. I was fully awake!’ he cried, straining all his powers of reasoning to enter into Porfiry’s game. ‘Fully awake! Do you hear?’
‘Yes, I understand, sir. I hear you! Yesterday, too, you said you weren’t delirious. You even laid particular emphasis on the fact! Say what you like and I’ll understand you, sir! Dearie me! . . . But hear me out, Rodion Romanovich, my benefactor, at least on this one point. Say you really, truly, were a criminal or that you were somehow mixed up in this wretched business, well, for heaven’s sake, would you really start emphasizing the fact that you weren’t delirious while you did all this, but, on the contrary, in full possession of your faculties? And, what’s more, emphasize it in such a particularly obstinate way – I mean, how could such a thing be possible, for heaven’s sake? It should be exactly the other way round, if you ask me. I mean, if there were anything bothering you, then you ought to emphasize precisely the fact that yes, absolutely, you were raving! Isn’t that so? Isn’t it?’
There was something sly about the tone of the question. With a jolt, Raskolnikov shrank back from Porfiry to the very spine of the couch and stared in silent bewilderment at the man leaning over him.
‘Or take Mr Razumikhin and the matter of whether it was his idea to come by yesterday or you who prompted him? “His idea” is what you should say, of course, concealing the fact that you prompted him! But no, you don’t conceal it at all! You even emphasize the fact that you prompted him!’
Raskolnikov had never emphasized this