Fomich, volviéndose afable hacia Raskolnikov. —Pero en eso se equivocó usted; él es un tipo magnífico, le aseguro, ¡pero explosivo, explosivo! Se calienta, se enciende, hierve, ¡y no hay quien lo pare! ¡Y luego se acabó! ¡Y en el fondo tiene un corazón de oro! Su apodo en el regimiento era el «teniente Explosivo»…
—¡Y qué regimiento, además! —exclamó Iliá Petróvich, muy lisonjeado por aquella broma tan agradable, aunque seguía enfurruñado.
Raskolnikov had a sudden desire to say something exceptionally pleasant to them all.
“Excuse me, Captain,” he began easily, suddenly addressing Nikodim Fomitch, “will you enter into my position? … I am ready to ask pardon, if I have been ill-mannered. I am a poor student, sick and shattered” (“shattered” was the word he used) “by poverty. I am not studying, because I cannot keep myself now, but I shall get money. … I have a mother and sister in the province of X⸺. They will send it to me, and I will pay. My landlady is a good-hearted woman, but she is so exasperated at my having lost my lessons, and not paying her for the last four months, that she does not even send up my dinner … and I don’t understand this I.O.U. at all. She is asking me to pay her on this I.O.U. How am I to pay her? Judge for yourselves! …”
—Pero ese no es nuestro asunto, ya sabe —comentaba el primer oficial.
“Sí, sí. Estoy perfectamente de acuerdo con usted. Pero permítame explicarle...”, intervino de nuevo Raskólnikov, dirigiéndose