“An hour and a half ago, he came in when I was asleep, waked me, and introduced himself,” Raskolnikov continued. “He was fairly cheerful and at ease, and quite hopes that we shall become friends. He is particularly anxious, by the way, Dounia, for an interview with you, at which he asked me to assist. He has a proposition to make to you, and he told me about it. He told me, too, that a week before her death Marfa Petrovna left you three thousand roubles in her will, Dounia, and that you can receive the money very shortly.”
“Thank God!” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna, crossing herself. “Pray for her soul, Dounia!”
“It’s a fact!” broke from Luzhin.
“Tell us, what more?” Dounia urged Raskolnikov.
“Then he said that he wasn’t rich and all the estate was left to his children who are now with an aunt, then that he was staying somewhere not far from me, but where, I don’t know, I didn’t ask. …”
“But what, what does he want to propose to Dounia?” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna in a fright. “Did he tell you?”
“Yes.”
“What was it?”
“I’ll tell you afterwards.”
Raskolnikov ceased speaking and turned his attention to his tea.
Pyotr Petrovitch looked at his watch.
“I am compelled to keep a business engagement, and so I shall not be in your way,” he added with an air of some pique and he began getting up.
“Don’t go, Pyotr Petrovitch,” said Dounia, “you intended to spend the evening. Besides, you wrote yourself that you wanted to have an explanation with mother.”
“Precisely so, Avdotya Romanovna,” Pyotr Petrovitch answered impressively, sitting down again, but still holding his hat. “I certainly desired an explanation with you and your honoured mother upon a very important point indeed. But as your brother cannot speak openly in my presence of some proposals of Mr. Svidrigailov, I, too, do not desire and am not able to speak openly … in the presence of others … of certain matters of the greatest gravity. Moreover, my most weighty and urgent request has been disregarded. …”
Assuming an aggrieved air, Luzhin relapsed into dignified silence.
“Your request that my brother should not be present at our meeting was disregarded solely at my instance,” said Dounia. “You wrote that you had been insulted by my brother; I think that this must be explained at once, and you must be reconciled. And if Rodya really has insulted you, then he should and will apologise.”
Pyotr Petrovitch took a stronger line.
“There are insults, Avdotya Romanovna, which no goodwill can make us forget. There is a line in everything which it is dangerous to overstep; and when it has been overstepped, there is no return.”
“That wasn’t what I was speaking of exactly, Pyotr Petrovitch,” Dounia interrupted with some impatience. “Please understand that our whole future depends now on whether all this is explained and set right as soon as possible. I tell you frankly at the start that I cannot look at it in any other light, and if you have the least regard for me, all this business must be ended to-day, however hard that may be. I repeat that if my brother is to blame he will ask your forgiveness.”
“I am surprised at your putting the question like that,” said Luzhin, getting more and more irritated. “Esteeming, and so to say, adoring you, I may at the same time, very well indeed, be able to dislike some member of your family. Though I lay claim to the happiness of your hand, I cannot accept duties incompatible with …”
“Ah, don’t be so ready to take offence, Pyotr Petrovitch,” Dounia interrupted with feeling, “and be the sensible and generous man I have always considered, and wish to consider, you to be. I’ve given you a great promise, I am your betrothed. Trust me in this matter and, believe me, I shall be capable of judging impartially. My assuming the part of judge is as much a surprise for my brother as for you. When I insisted on his coming to our interview to-day after your letter, I told him nothing of what I meant to do. Understand that, if you are not reconciled, I must choose between you—it must be either you or he. That is how the question rests on your side and on his. I don’t want to be mistaken in my choice, and I must not be. For your sake I must break off with my brother, for my brother’s sake I must break off with you. I can find out for certain now whether he is a brother to me, and I want to know it; and of you, whether I am dear to you, whether you esteem me, whether you are the husband for me.”
“Avdotya Romanovna,” Luzhin declared huffily, “your words are of too much consequence to me; I will say more, they are offensive in view of the position I have the honour to occupy in relation to you. To say nothing of your strange and offensive setting me on a level with an impertinent boy, you admit the possibility of breaking your promise to me. You say ‘you or he,’ showing thereby of how little consequence I am in your eyes … I cannot let this pass considering the relationship and … the obligations existing between us.”
“What!” cried Dounia, flushing. “I set your interest beside all that has hitherto been most precious in my life, what has made up the whole of my life, and here you are offended at my making too little account of you.”
Raskolnikov smiled sarcastically, Razumihin fidgeted, but Pyotr Petrovitch did not accept the reproof; on the contrary, at every word he became more persistent and irritable, as though he relished it.