"And how well he does it all," the mother was thinking to herself. "What generous impulses he has, and how simply, how delicately he put an end to all the misunderstanding with his sister--simply by holding out his hand at the right minute and looking at her like that.... And what fine eyes he has, and how fine his whole face is!... He is even better looking than Dounia.... But, good heavens, what a suit--how terribly he's dressed!... Vasya, the messenger boy in Afanasy Ivanitch's shop, is better dressed! I could rush at him and hug him... weep over him--but I am afraid.... Oh, dear, he's so strange! He's talking kindly, but I'm afraid! Why, what am I afraid of?..."

"Oh, Rodya, you wouldn't believe," she began suddenly, in haste to answer his words to her, "how unhappy Dounia and I were yesterday! Now that it's all over and done with and we are quite happy again--I can tell you. Fancy, we ran here almost straight from the train to embrace you and that woman--ah, here she is! Good morning, Nastasya!... She told us at once that you were lying in a high fever and had just run away from the doctor in delirium, and they were looking for you in the streets. You can't imagine how we felt! I couldn't help thinking of the tragic end of Lieutenant Potanchikov, a friend of your father's--you can't remember him, Rodya--who ran out in the same way in a high fever and fell into the well in the court-yard and they couldn't pull him out till next day. Of course, we exaggerated things. We were on the point of rushing to find Pyotr Petrovitch to ask him to help.... Because we were alone, utterly alone," she said plaintively and stopped short, suddenly, recollecting it was still somewhat dangerous to speak of Pyotr Petrovitch, although "we are quite happy again."

"Yes, yes.... Of course it's very annoying...." Raskolnikov muttered in reply, but with such a preoccupied and inattentive air that Dounia gazed at him in perplexity.

"What else was it I wanted to say?" He went on trying to recollect. "Oh, yes; mother, and you too, Dounia, please don't think that I didn't mean to come and see you to-day and was waiting for you to come first."

"What are you saying, Rodya?" cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. She, too, was surprised.

"Is he answering us as a duty?" Dounia wondered. "Is he being reconciled and asking forgiveness as though he were performing a rite or repeating a lesson?"

"I've only just waked up, and wanted to go to you, but was delayed owing to my clothes; I forgot yesterday to ask her... Nastasya... to wash out the blood... I've only just dressed."

"Blood! What blood?" Pulcheria Alexandrovna asked in alarm.

"Oh, nothing--don't be uneasy. It was when I was wandering about yesterday, rather delirious, I chanced upon a man who had been run over... a clerk..."

"Delirious? But you remember everything!" Razumihin interrupted.

"That's true," Raskolnikov answered with special carefulness. "I remember everything even to the slightest detail, and yet--why I did that and went there and said that, I can't clearly explain now."

"A familiar phenomenon," interposed Zossimov, "actions are sometimes performed in a masterly and most cunning way, while the direction of the actions is deranged and dependent on various morbid impressions--it's like a dream."

"Perhaps it's a good thing really that he should think me almost a madman," thought Raskolnikov.