“Let me go!” said Raskolnikov and tried to pass him. This was too much for Razumihin; he gripped him firmly by the shoulder.

“Let you go? You dare tell me to let you go? Do you know what I’ll do with you directly? I’ll pick you up, tie you up in a bundle, carry you home under my arm and lock you up!”

“Listen, Razumihin,” Raskolnikov began quietly, apparently calm—“can’t you see that I don’t want your benevolence? A strange desire you have to shower benefits on a man who... curses them, who feels them a burden in fact! Why did you seek me out at the beginning of my illness? Maybe I was very glad to die. Didn’t I tell you plainly enough to-day that you were torturing me, that I was... sick of you! You seem to want to torture people! I assure you that all that is seriously hindering my recovery, because it’s continually irritating me. You saw Zossimov went away just now to avoid irritating me. You leave me alone too, for goodness’ sake! What right have you, indeed, to keep me by force? Don’t you see that I am in possession of all my faculties now? How, how can I persuade you not to persecute me with your kindness? I may be ungrateful, I may be mean, only let me be, for God’s sake, let me be! Let me be, let me be!”

He began calmly, gloating beforehand over the venomous phrases he was about to utter, but finished, panting for breath, in a frenzy, as he had been with Luzhin.

Razumihin stood a moment, thought and let his hand drop.