d keep away from everyone. I shall tell mother nothing _of this_,
but I shall talk about you continually and shall tell her from you that
you will come very soon. Don't worry about her; _I_ will set her mind at
rest; but don't you try her too much--come once at least; remember that
she is your mother. And now I have come simply to say" (Dounia began
to get up) "that if you should need me or should need... all my life or
anything... call me, and I'll come. Good-bye!"

She turned abruptly and went towards the door.

"Dounia!" Raskolnikov stopped her and went towards her. "That Razumihin,
Dmitri Prokofitch, is a very good fellow."

Dounia flushed slightly.

"Well?" she asked, waiting a moment.

"He is competent, hardworking, honest and capable of real love....
Good-bye, Dounia."

Dounia flushed crimson, then suddenly she took alarm.

"But what does it mean, brother? Are we really parting for ever that
you... give me such a parting message?"

"Never mind.... Good-bye."

He turned away, and walked to the window. She stood a moment, looked at
him uneasily, and went out troubled.

No, he was not cold to her. There was an instant (the very last one)
when he had longed to take her in his arms and _say good-bye_ to her,
and even _to tell_ her, but he had not dared even to touch her hand.

"Afterwards she may shudder when she remembers that I embraced her, and
will feel that I stole her kiss."

"And would _she_ stand that test?" he went on a few minutes later to
himself. "No, she wouldn't; girls like that can't stand things! They
never do."

And he thought of Sonia.

There was a breath of fresh air from the window. The daylight was
fading. He took up his cap and went out.

He could not, of course, and would not consider how ill he was. But all
this continual anxiety and agony of mind could not but affect him. And
if he were not lying in high fever it was perhaps just because this
continual inner strain helped to keep him on his legs and in possession
of his faculties. But this artificial excitement could not last long.

He wandered aimlessly. The sun was setting. A special form of misery had
begun to oppress him of late. There was nothing poignant, nothing acute
about it; but there was a feeling of permanence, of eternity about it;
it brought a foretaste of hopeless years of this cold leaden misery, a
foretaste of an eternity "on a square yard of space." Towards evening
this sensation usually began to weigh on