"I have called just to clear things up a bit. I owe you an explanation," he went on, smiling and gently slapping the young man on the knee; but almost at the self-same moment his face assumed a serious and even sad expression, to Raskolnikoff's great astonishment, to whom the magistrate appeared in quite a different light. "At our last interview, an unusual scene took place between us, Rodion. I somehow feel that I did not behave very well to you. You remember, I dare say, how we parted; we were both more or less excited. I fear we were wanting in the most common courtesy, and yet we are both of us gentlemen."
"What can he be driving at now?" Raskolnikoff asked himself, looking inquiringly at Porphyrius.
"I have come to the conclusion that it would be much better for us to be more candid to one another," continued the magistrate, turning his head gently aside and looking on the ground, as if he feared to annoy his former victim by his survey. "We must not have scenes of that kind again. If Mikolka had not turned up on that occasion, I really do not know how things would have ended. You are naturally, my dear Rodion, very irritable, and I must own that I had taken that into consideration, for, when driven in a corner, many a man lets out his secrets. 'If,' I said to myself, 'I could only squeeze some kind of evidence out of him, however trivial, provided it were real, tangible, and palpable, different from all my psychological inferences!' That was my idea. Sometimes we succeed by some such proceeding, but unfortunately that does not happen every day, as I conclusively discovered on the occasion in question. I had relied too much on your character."
"But why tell me all this now?" stammered Raskolnikoff, without in any way understanding the object of his interlocutor's question. "Does he, perhaps, think me really innocent?"
"You wish to know why I tell you this? Because I look upon it as a sacred duty to explain my line of action. Because I subjected you, as I now fully acknowledge, to cruel torture. I do not wish, my dear Rodion, that you should take me for an ogre. Hence, by way of justification, I purpose explaining to you what led up to it. I think it needless to account for the nature and origin of the reports which circulated originally, as also why you were connected with them. There was, however, one circumstance, a purely fortuitous one, and which need not now be mentioned, which aroused my suspicions. From these reports and accidental circumstances, the same conclusion became evolved for me. I make this statement in all sincerity, for it was I who first implicated you with the matter. I do not in any way notice, the particulars notified on the articles found at the old woman's. That, and several others of a similar nature, are of no kind of importance. At the same time, I was aware of the incident which had happened at the police office. What occurred there has been told me with the utmost accuracy by some one who had been closely connected with it, and who, most unwittingly, had brought things to a head. Very well, then, how, under such circumstances, could a man help becoming biased? 'One swallow does not make a summer,' as the English proverb says: a hundred suppositions do not constitute one single proof. Reason speaks in that way, I admit, but let a man try to subject prejudice to reason. An examining magistrate, after all, is only a man—hence given to prejudice.
"I also remembered, on the occasion in question, the article you had published in some review. That virgin effort of yours, I assure you, I greatly enjoyed—as an amateur, however, be it understood. It was redolent of sincere conviction, of genuine enthusiasm. The article was evidently written some sleepless night under feverish conditions. That author, I said to myself, while reading it, will do better things than that. How now, I ask you, could I avoid connecting that with what followed upon it? Such a tendency was but a natural one. Am I saying anything I should not? Am I at this moment committing myself to any definite statement? I do no more than give utterance to a thought which struck me at the time. What may I be thinking about now? Nothing—or, at all events, what is tantamount to it. For the time being, I have to deal with Mikolka; there are facts which implicate him—what are facts, after all? If I tell you all this now, as I am doing, I do so, I assure you, most emphatically, so that your mind and conscience may absolve me from my behavior on the day of our interview. 'Why,' you will ask, 'did you not come on that occasion and have my place searched?' I did so, hah! hah! I went when you were ill in bed—but, let me tell you, not officially, not in my magisterial capacity; but go I did. We had your rooms turned topsy-turvy at our very first suspicions, but umsonst! Then I said to myself: 'That man will make me a call, he will come of his own accord, and that before very long! If he is guilty, he will be bound to come. Other kinds of men would not do so, but this one will.'
"And you remember, of course, Mr. Razoumikhin's chattering? We had purposely informed him of some of our suspicions, hoping that he might make you uneasy, for we knew perfectly well that Razoumikhin would not be able to contain his indignation. Zametoff, in particular, had been struck by your boldness, and it certainly was a bold thing for a person to exclaim all of a sudden in an open traktir: 'I am an assassin!' That was really too much of a good thing. Well, I waited for you with trusting patience, and, lo and behold, Providence sends you! How my heart did beat when I saw you coming! Now, I ask you, where was the need of your coming at that time at all? If you remember, you came in laughing immoderately. That laughter gave me food for thought, but, had I not been very prejudiced at the time, I should have taken no notice of it. And as for Mr. Razoumikhin on that occasion—ah! the stone, the stone, you will remember, under which the stolen things are hidden? I fancy I can see it from here; it is somewhere in a kitchen garden— it was a kitchen garden you mentioned to Zametoff, was it not? And then, when your article was broached, we fancied we discovered a latent thought beneath every word you uttered. That was the way, Rodion Romanovitch, that my conviction grew little by little. 'And yet,' said I to myself, 'all that may be explained in quite a different way, and perhaps more rationally. After all, a real proof, however slight, would be far more valuable.' But, when I heard all about the bell-ringing, my doubts vanished; I fancied I had the indispensable proof, and did not seem to care for further investigation.
"We are face to face with a weird and gloomy case—a case of a contemporary character, if I may say so—a case possessing, in the fullest sense of the word, the hallmark of time, and circumstances pointing to a person and life of different surroundings. The real culprit is a theorist, a bookworm, who, in a tentative kind of way, has done a more than bold thing; but this boldness of his is of quite a peculiar and one-sided stamp; it is, after a fashion, like that of a man who hurls himself from the top of a mountain or church steeple. The man in question has forgotten to cut off evidence, and, in order to work out a theory, has killed two persons. He has committed a murder, and yet has not known how to take possession of the pelf; what he has taken he has hidden under a stone. The anguish he experienced while hearing knocking at the door and the continued ringing of the bell, was not enough for him: no, yielding to an irresistible desire of experiencing the same horror, he has positively revisited the empty place and once more pulled the bell. Let us, if you like, attribute the whole of this to disease—to a semidelirious condition—by all means; but there is another point to be considered: he has committed a murder, and yet continues to look upon himself as a righteous man!"
Raskolnikoff trembled in every limb. "Then, who—who is it—that has committed the murder?" he stammered forth, in jerky accents.
The examining magistrate sank back in his chair as though astonished at such a question. "Who committed the murder?" he retorted, as if he could not believe his own ears. "Why, you—you did, Rodion Romanovitch! You!—" he added, almost in a whisper, and in a tone of profound conviction.