Pagina 471 van 1294

"But I'll go to the landlady here," Pulcheria Alexandrovna

insisted, "I'll beseech her to find some corner for Dounia and me

for the night. I can't leave him like that, I cannot!"

This conversation took place on the landing just before the

landlady's door. Nastasya lighted them from a step below.

Razumihin was in extraordinary excitement. Half an hour earlier,

while he was bringing Raskolnikov home, he had indeed talked too

freely, but he was aware of it himself, and his head was clear in

spite of the vast quantities he had imbibed. Now he was in a

state bordering on ecstasy, and all that he had drunk seemed to

fly to his head with redoubled effect. He stood with the two

ladies, seizing both by their hands, persuading them, and giving

them reasons with astonishing plainness of speech, and at almost

every word he uttered, probably to emphasise his arguments, he

squeezed their hands painfully as in a vise. He stared at Avdotya

Romanovna without the least regard for good manners. They

sometimes pulled their hands out of his huge bony paws, but far

from noticing what was the matter, he drew them all the closer to

him.