“It’s for you, for you, Sofya Semyonovna, and please don’t waste words over it. I haven’t time for it. You will want it. Rodion Romanovitch has two alternatives: a bullet in the brain or Siberia.” (Sonia looked wildly at him, and started.) “Don’t be uneasy, I know all about it from himself and I am not a gossip; I won’t tell anyone. It was good advice when you told him to give himself up and confess. It would be much better for him. Well, if it turns out to be Siberia, he will go and you will follow him. That’s so, isn’t it? And if so, you’ll need money. You’ll need it for him, do you understand? Giving it to you is the same as my giving it to him. Besides, you promised Amalia Ivanovna to pay what’s owing. I heard you. How can you undertake such obligations so heedlessly, Sofya Semyonovna? It was Katerina Ivanovna’s debt and not yours, so you ought not to have taken any notice of the German woman. You can’t get through the world like that. If you are ever questioned about me—to-morrow or the day after you will be asked—don’t say anything about my coming to see you now and don’t show the money to anyone or say a word about it. Well, now good-bye.” (He got up.) “My greetings to Rodion Romanovitch. By the way, you’d better put the money for the present in Mr. Razumihin’s keeping. You know Mr. Razumihin? Of course you do. He’s not a bad fellow. Take it to him to-morrow or … when the time comes. And till then, hide it carefully.”

Sonia too jumped up from her chair and looked in dismay at Svidrigailov. She longed to speak, to ask a question, but for the first moments she did not dare and did not know how to begin.

“How can you … how can you be going now, in such rain?”

“Why, be starting for America, and be stopped by rain! Ha, ha! Good-bye, Sofya Semyonovna, my dear! Live and live long, you will be of use to others. By the way … tell Mr. Razumihin I send my greetings to him. Tell him Arkady Ivanovitch Svidrigailov sends his greetings. Be sure to.”

He went out, leaving Sonia in a state of wondering anxiety and vague apprehension.

It appeared afterwards that on the same evening, at twenty past eleven, he made another very eccentric and unexpected visit. The rain still persisted. Drenched to the skin, he walked into the little flat where the parents of his betrothed lived, in Third Street in Vassilyevsky Island. He knocked some time before he was admitted, and his visit at first caused great perturbation; but Svidrigailov could be very fascinating when he liked, so that the first, and indeed very intelligent surmise of the sensible parents that Svidrigailov had probably had so much to drink that he did not know what he was doing vanished immediately. The decrepit father was wheeled in to see Svidrigailov by the tender and sensible mother, who as usual began the conversation with various irrelevant questions. She never asked a direct question, but began by smiling and rubbing her hands and then, if she were obliged to ascertain something—for instance, when Svidrigailov would like to have the wedding—she would begin by interested and almost eager questions about Paris and the court life there, and only by degrees brought the conversation round to Third Street. On other occasions this had of course been very impressive, but this time Arkady Ivanovitch seemed particularly impatient, and insisted on seeing his betrothed at once, though he had been informed, to begin with, that she had already gone to bed. The girl of course appeared.

Svidrigailov informed her at once that he was obliged by very important affairs to leave Petersburg for a time, and therefore brought her fifteen thousand roubles and begged her accept them as a present from him, as he had long been intending to make her this trifling present before their wedding. The logical connection of the present with his immediate departure and the absolute necessity of visiting them for that purpose in pouring rain at midnight was not made clear. But it all went off very well; even the inevitable ejaculations of wonder and regret, the inevitable questions were extraordinarily few and restrained. On the other hand, the gratitude expressed was most glowing and was reinforced by tears from the most sensible of mothers. Svidrigailov got up, laughed, kissed his betrothed, patted her cheek, declared he would soon come back, and noticing in her eyes, together with childish curiosity, a sort of earnest dumb inquiry, reflected and kissed her again, though he felt sincere anger inwardly at the thought that his present would be immediately locked up in the keeping of the most sensible of mothers. He went away, leaving them all in a state of extraordinary excitement, but the tender mamma, speaking