When was it?" Raskolnikov stopped still to recollect. "Two or three days before her death it must have been. But I am not going to redeem the things now," and conspicuous solicitude about the things. "I've not more than a silver rouble left Jingling the change in his hand he shook his head. . . after last night's accursed delirium!"
He laid special emphasis on the delirium.
"Yes, yes," Razumihin hastened to agree--with what was not clear. "Then that's why you . . . were stuck . . . partly . . . you know in your delirium you were continually mentioning some rings or chains! Yes, yes . . . that's clear, it's all clear now."
"Hullo! How that idea must have got about among them. Here this man will go to the stake for me, and I find him delighted at having it /cleared up/ why I spoke of rings in my delirium! What a hold the idea must have on all of them!"
"Shall we find him?" he asked suddenly.
"Oh, yes," Razumihin answered quickly. "He is a nice fellow, you will see, brother. Rather clumsy, that is to say, he is a man of polished manners, but I mean clumsy in a different sense. He is an intelligent fellow, very much so indeed, but he has his own range of ideas. . . . He is incredulous, sceptical, cynical . . . he likes to impose on people, or rather to make fun of them. His is the old, circumstantial method. . . . But he understands his work . . . thoroughly. . . . Last year he cleared up a case of murder in which the police had hardly a clue. He is very, very anxious to make your acquaintance!"
"On what grounds is he so anxious?"
"Oh, it's not exactly . . . you see, since you've been ill I happen to have mentioned you several times. . . . So, when he heard about you . . . about your being a law student and not able to finish your studies, he said, 'What a pity!' And so I concluded . . . from everything together, not only that; yesterday Zametov . . . you know, Rodya, I talked some nonsense on the way home to you yesterday, when I was drunk . . . I am afraid, brother, of your exaggerating it, you see."
"What? That they think I am a madman? Maybe they are right," he said with a constrained smile.
"Yes, yes. . . . That is, pooh, no! . . . But all that I said (and there was something else too) it was all nonsense, drunken nonsense."
"But why are you apologising? I am so sick of it all!" Raskolnikov cried with exaggerated irritability. It was partly assumed, however.
