He suddenly recalled how, an hour before carrying out his design on Dounia, he had recommended Raskolnikov to trust her to Razumihin’s keeping. “I suppose I really did say it, as Raskolnikov guessed, to tease myself. But what a rogue that Raskolnikov is! He’s gone through a good deal. He may be a successful rogue in time when he’s got over his nonsense. But now he’s too eager for life. These young men are contemptible on that point. But, hang the fellow! Let him please himself, it’s nothing to do with me.”

He could not get to sleep. By degrees Dounia’s image rose before him, and a shudder ran over him. “No, I must give up all that now,” he thought, rousing himself. “I must think of something else. It’s queer and funny. I never had a great hatred for anyone, I never particularly desired to avenge myself even, and that’s a bad sign, a bad sign, a bad sign. I never liked quarrelling either, and never lost my temper—that’s a bad sign too. And the promises I made her just now, too—Damnation! But—who knows?—perhaps she would have made a new man of me somehow....”

He ground his teeth and sank into silence again. Again Dounia’s image rose before him, just as she was when, after shooting the first time, she had lowered the revolver in terror and gazed blankly at him, so that he might have seized her twice over and she would not have lifted a hand to defend herself if he had not reminded her. He recalled how at that instant he felt almost sorry for her, how he had felt a pang at his heart...

“Aïe! Damnation, these thoughts again! I must put it away!”