. In
short, the family was dear to him for many reasons, and he refused
to admit the idea that, for the sake of a paltry fifteen hundred
roubles, a blot should be cast on the escutcheon that was beyond
all price. If all the motives he had brought forward were not
sufficiently convincing, he, Ivan Markovitch, in conclusion, begged
his listeners to ask themselves what was meant by crime? Crime is
an immoral act founded upon ill-will. But is the will of man free?
Philosophy has not yet given a positive answer to that question.
Different views were held by the learned. The latest school of
Lombroso, for instance, denies the freedom of the will, and considers
every crime as the product of the purely anatomical peculiarities
of the individual.

"Ivan Markovitch," said the Colonel, in a voice of entreaty, "we
are talking seriously about an important matter, and you bring in
Lombroso, you clever fellow. Think a little, what are you saying
all this for? Can you imagine that all your thunderings and rhetoric
will furnish an answer to the question?"

Sasha Uskov sat at the door and listened. He felt neither terror,
shame, nor depression, but only weariness and inward emptiness. It
seemed to him that it made absolutely no difference to him whether
they forgave him or not; he had come here to hear his sentence and
to explain himself simply because kind-hearted Ivan Markovitch had
begged him to do so. He was not afraid of the future. It made no
difference to him where he was: here in the hall, in prison, or in
Siberia.

"If Siberia, then let it be Siberia, damn it all!"

He was sick of life and found it insufferably hard. He was inextricably
involved in debt; he had not a farthing in his pocket; his family
had become detestable to him; he would have to part from his friends
and his women sooner or later, as they had begun to be too contemptuous
of his sponging on them. The future looked black.

Sasha was indifferent, and was only disturbed by one circumstance;
the other side of the door they were calling him a scoundrel and a
criminal. Every minute he was on the point of jumping up, bursting
into the study and shouting in answer to the detestable metallic
voice of the Colonel:

"You are lying!"

"Criminal" is a dreadful word--that is what murderers, thieves,
robbers are; in fact, wicked and morally hopeless people. And Sasha
was very far from being all that. . . . It was true he owed a great
deal and did not pay his debts.