you’ve only to assume that I, too, am a man et nihil humanum … in a word, that I am capable of being attracted and falling in love (which does not depend on our will), then everything can be explained in the most natural manner. The question is, am I a monster, or am I myself a victim? And what if I am a victim? In proposing to the object of my passion to elope with me to America or Switzerland, I may have cherished the deepest respect for her and may have thought that I was promoting our mutual happiness! Reason is the slave of passion, you know; why, probably, I was doing more harm to myself than anyone!”
“But that’s not the point,” Raskolnikov interrupted with disgust. “It’s simply that whether you are right or wrong, we dislike you. We don’t want to have anything to do with you. We show you the door. Go out!”
Svidrigaïlov broke into a sudden laugh.
“But you’re … but there’s no getting round you,” he said, laughing in the frankest way. “I hoped to get round you, but you took up the right line at once!”
“But you are trying to get round me still!”
“What of it? What of it?” cried Svidrigaïlov, laughing openly. “But this is what the French call bonne guerre , and the most innocent form of deception! … But still you have interrupted me; one way or another, I repeat again: there would never have been any unpleasantness except for what happened in the garden. Marfa Petrovna …”
“You have got rid of Marfa Petrovna, too, so they say?” Raskolnikov interrupted rudely.
“Oh, you’ve heard that, too, then? You’d be sure to, though. … But as for your question, I really don’t know what to say, though my own conscience is quite at rest on that score. Don’t suppose that I am in any