Free delirifacient by trist black Page B

missy, it's a shame!" He shook his head again, shocked, sympathetic and indignant.

    "It's a difficult job," the policeman said to Raskolnikov, and as he did so, he looked him up and down in a rapid glance. He, too, must have seemed a strange figure to him: dressed in rags and handing him money!
    "Did you meet her far from here?" he asked him.
    "I tell you she was walking in front of me, staggering, just here, in the boulevard. She only just reached the seat and sank down on it."
    "Ah, the shameful things that are done in the world nowadays, God have mercy on us! An innocent creature like that, drunk already! She has been deceived, that's a sure thing. See how her dress has been torn too.... Ah, the vice one sees nowadays! And as likely as not she belongs to gentlefolk too, poor ones maybe.... There are many like that nowadays. She looks refined, too, as though she were a lady," and he bent over her once more.
    Perhaps he had daughters growing up like that, "looking like ladies and refined" with pretensions to gentility and smartness....
    "The chief thing is," Raskolnikov persisted, "to keep her out of this scoundrel's hands! Why should he outrage her! It's as clear as day what he is after; ah, the brute, he is not moving off!"
    Raskolnikov spoke aloud and pointed to him. The gentleman heard him, and seemed about to fly into a rage again, but thought better of it, and confined himself to a contemptuous look. He then walked slowly another ten paces away and again halted.
    "Keep her out of his hands we can," said the constable thoughtfully, "if only she'd tell us where to take her, but as it is.... Missy, hey, missy!" he bent over her once more.
    She opened her eyes fully all of a sudden, looked at him intently, as though realising something, got up from the seat and walked away in the direction from which she had come. "Oh shameful wretches, they won't let me alone!" she said, waving her hand again. She walked quickly, though staggering as before. The dandy followed her, but along another avenue, keeping his eye on her.
    "Don't be anxious, I won't let him have her," the policeman said resolutely, and he set off after them.
    "Ah, the vice one sees nowadays!" he repeated aloud, sighing.
    At that moment something seemed to sting Raskolnikov; in an instant a complete revulsion of feeling came over him.
    "Hey, here!" he shouted after the policeman.
    The latter turned round.

    "Let them be! What is it to do with you? Let her go! Let him amuse himself."
    He pointed at the dandy, "What is it to do with you?"
    The policeman was bewildered, and stared at him open-eyed. Raskolnikov laughed.
    "Well!" ejaculated the policeman, with a gesture of contempt, and he walked after the dandy and the girl, probably taking Raskolnikov for a madman or something even worse.
    "He has carried off my twenty copecks," Raskolnikov murmured angrily when he was left alone. "Well, let him take as much from the other fellow to allow him to have the girl and so let it end. And why did I want to interfere? Is it for me to help? Have I any right to help? Let them devour each other alive—what is to me? How did I dare to give him twenty copecks? Were they mine?"
    In spite of those strange words he felt very wretched. He sat down on the deserted seat. His thoughts strayed aimlessly.... He found it hard to fix his mind on anything at that moment. He longed to forget himself altogether, to forget everything, and then to wake up and begin life anew....
    "Poor girl!" he said, looking at the empty corner where she had sat—"She will come to herself and weep, and then her mother will find out.... She will give her a beating, a horrible, shameful beating and then maybe, turn her out of doors....
    And even if she does not, the Darya Frantsovnas will get wind of it, and the girl will soon be slipping out on the sly here and there. Then there will be the hospital directly (that's always the luck of those girls with respectable mothers, who go wrong on the sly) and then...