“No,” mumbled Raskolnikov, looking away, but feeling that it was better to keep up the conversation.

“She isn’t, is she?” cried Razumihin, delighted to get an answer out of him. “But she is not very clever either, eh? She is essentially, essentially an unaccountable character! I am sometimes quite at a loss, I assure you.... She must be forty; she says she is thirty-six, and of course she has every right to say so. But I swear I judge her intellectually, simply from the metaphysical point of view; there is a sort of symbolism sprung up between us, a sort of algebra or what not! I don’t understand it! Well, that’s all nonsense. Only, seeing that you are not a student now and have lost your lessons and your clothes, and that through the young lady’s death she has no need to treat you as a relation, she suddenly took fright; and as you hid in your den and dropped all your old relations with her, she planned to get rid of you. And she’s been cherishing that design a long time, but was sorry to lose the I O U, for you assured her yourself that your mother would pay.”

“It was base of me to say that.... My mother herself is almost a beggar... and I told a lie to keep my lodging... and be fed,” Raskolnikov said loudly and distinctly.