“But how could you forget it?”
“Nothing easier. It is in just such stupid things clever people are most easily caught. The more cunning a man is, the less he suspects that he will be caught in a simple thing. The more cunning a man is, the simpler the trap he must be caught in. Porfiry is not such a fool as you think....”
“He is a knave then, if that is so!”
Raskolnikov could not help laughing. But at the very moment, he was struck by the strangeness of his own frankness, and the eagerness with which he had made this explanation, though he had kept up all the preceding conversation with gloomy repulsion, obviously with a motive, from necessity.
“I am getting a relish for certain aspects!” he thought to himself. But almost at the same instant he became suddenly uneasy, as though an unexpected and alarming idea had occurred to him. His uneasiness kept on increasing. They had just reached the entrance to Bakaleyev’s.
“Go in alone!” said Raskolnikov suddenly. “I will be back directly.”
“Where are you going? Why, we are just here.”
“I can’t help it.... I will come in half an hour. Tell them.”
“Say what you like, I will come with you.”
“You, too, want to torture me!” he screamed, with such bitter irritation, such despair in his eyes that Razumihin’s hands dropped. He stood for some time on the steps, looking gloomily at Raskolnikov striding rapidly away in the direction of his lodging. At last, gritting his teeth and clenching his fist, he swore he would squeeze Porfiry like a lemon that very day, and went up the stairs to reassure Pulcheria Alexandrovna, who was by now alarmed at their long absence.