He sat down again, and began looking about him, in silence. They were all looking at him in perplexity.
“But what are you all so dull for?” he shouted, suddenly and quite unexpectedly. “Do say something! What’s the use of sitting like this? Come, do speak. Let us talk.... We meet together and sit in silence.... Come, anything!”
“Thank God; I was afraid the same thing as yesterday was beginning again,” said Pulcheria Alexandrovna, crossing herself.
“What is the matter, Rodya?” asked Avdotya Romanovna, distrustfully.
“Oh, nothing! I remembered something,” he answered, and suddenly laughed.
“Well, if you remembered something; that’s all right!... I was beginning to think...” muttered Zossimov, getting up from the sofa. “It is time for me to be off. I will look in again perhaps... if I can...” He made his bows, and went out.
“What an excellent man!” observed Pulcheria Alexandrovna.
“Yes, excellent, splendid, well-educated, intelligent,” Raskolnikov began, suddenly speaking with surprising rapidity, and a liveliness he had not shown till then. “I can’t remember where I met him before my illness.... I believe I have met him somewhere——... And this is a good man, too,” he nodded at Razumihin. “Do you like him, Dounia?” he asked her; and suddenly, for some unknown reason, laughed.
“Very much,” answered Dounia.
“Foo!—what a pig you are!” Razumihin protested, blushing in terrible confusion, and he got up from his chair. Pulcheria Alexandrovna smiled faintly, but Raskolnikov laughed aloud.