other’s little shoulders, stared straight at one another and both at once opened their mouths and began screaming. They were both still in their fancy dress; one in a turban, the other in the cap with the ostrich feather.
And how did “the certificate of merit” come to be on the bed beside Katerina Ivanovna? It lay there by the pillow; Raskolnikov saw it.
He walked away to the window.
Lebeziatnikov skipped up to him.
“She is dead,” he said.
“Rodion Romanovitch, I must have two words with you,” said Svidrigaïlov, coming up to them.
Lebeziatnikov at once made room for him and delicately withdrew. Svidrigaïlov drew Raskolnikov further away.
“I will undertake all the arrangements, the funeral and that. You know it’s a question of money and, as I told you, I have plenty to spare.
I will put those two little ones and Polenka into some good orphan asylum, and I will settle fifteen hundred roubles to be paid to each on coming of age, so that Sofya Semyonovna need have no anxiety about them. And I will pull her out of the mud too, for she is a good girl, isn’t she?
So tell Avdotya Romanovna that that is how I am spending her ten thousand.”
“What is your motive for such benevolence?” asked Raskolnikov.
“Ah! you sceptical person!” laughed Svidrigaïlov. “I told you I had no need of that money. Won’t you admit that it’s simply done from