“Why, are you both joking?” Razumihin cried at last. “There you sit, making fun of one another. Are you serious, Rodya?”

Raskolnikov raised his pale and almost mournful face and made no reply. And the unconcealed, persistent, nervous, and discourteous sarcasm of Porfiry seemed strange to Razumihin beside that quiet and mournful face.

“Well, brother, if you are really serious⁠ ⁠… You are right, of course, in saying that it’s not new, that it’s like what we’ve read and heard a thousand times already; but what is really original in all this, and is exclusively your own, to my horror, is that you sanction bloodshed in the name of conscience , and, excuse my saying so, with such fanaticism.⁠ ⁠… That, I take it, is the point of your article. But that sanction of bloodshed by conscience is to my mind⁠ ⁠… more terrible than the official, legal sanction of bloodshed.⁠ ⁠…”