“Hm!” Razumihin cleared his throat loudly. Luzhin looked at him inquiringly.
“That’s all right, go on.”
Luzhin shrugged his shoulders.
“Your mamma had commenced a letter to you while I was sojourning in her neighbourhood. On my arrival here I purposely allowed a few days to elapse before coming to see you, in order that I might be fully assured that you were in full possession of the tidings; but now, to my astonishment …”
“I know, I know!” Raskolnikov cried suddenly with impatient vexation. “So you are the fiancé? I know, and that’s enough!”
There was no doubt about Pyotr Petrovitch’s being offended this time, but he said nothing. He made a violent effort to understand what it all meant. There was a moment’s silence.
Meanwhile Raskolnikov, who had turned a little towards him when he answered, began suddenly staring at him again with marked curiosity, as though he had not had a good look at him yet, or as though something new had struck him; he rose from his pillow on purpose to stare at him.
There certainly was something peculiar in Pyotr Petrovitch’s whole appearance, something which seemed to justify the title of “fiancé” so unceremoniously applied to him.
In the first place, it was evident, far too much so indeed, that Pyotr Petrovitch had made eager use of his few days in the capital to get himself up and rig himself out in expectation of his betrothed—a perfectly innocent and permissible proceeding, indeed. Even his own, perhaps too complacent, consciousness of the agreeable improvement in his appearance might have been forgiven in such