“You’re perfectly right,” resumed Porphyrius cheerily, whilst looking at the young man with a kindliness which immediately awoke the latter’s distrust.  “Our judicial customs deserve your satire.  Our proceedings, which are supposed to be inspired by a profound knowledge of psychology, are very ridiculous ones, and very often useless.  Now, to return to our method or form:  Suppose for a moment that I am deputed to investigate something or other, and that I know the guilty person to be a certain gentleman.  Are you not yourself reading for the law, Rodion Romanovitch?”

“I was some time ago.”

“Well, here is a kind of example which may be of use to you later on.  Don’t run away with the idea that I am setting up as your instructor—­God forbid that I should presume to teach anything to a man who treats criminal questions in the public press!  Oh, no!—­all I am doing is to quote to you, by way of example, a trifling fact.  Suppose that I fancy I am convinced of the guilt of a certain man, why, I ask you, should I frighten him prematurely, assuming me to have every evidence against him?  Of course, in the case of another man of a different disposition, him I would have arrested forthwith; but, as to the former, why should I not permit him to hang about a little longer?  I see you do not quite take me.  I will, therefore, endeavor to explain myself more clearly!  If, for instance, I should be too quick in issuing a writ, I provide him in doing so with a species of moral support or mainstay—­I see you are laughing?” (Raskolnikoff, on the contrary, had no such desire; his lips were set, and his glaring look was not removed from Porphyrius’s eyes.) “I assure you that in actual practice such is really the case; men vary much, although, unfortunately, our methods are the same for all.  But you will ask me:  Supposing you are certain of your proofs?  Goodness me, batuchka! you know, perhaps as well as I do, what proofs are—­half one’s time, proofs may be taken either way; and I, a magistrate, am, after all, only a man liable to error.

“Now, what I want is to give to my investigation the precision of a mathematical demonstration—­I want my conclusions to be as plain, as indisputable, as that twice two are four.  Now, supposing I have this gentleman arrested prematurely, though I may be positively certain that he is the man, yet I deprive myself of all future means of proving his guilt.  How is that?  Because, so to say, I give him, to a certain extent, a definite status; for, by putting him in prison, I pacify him.  I give him the chance of investigating his actual state of mind—­he will escape me, for he will reflect.  In a word, he knows that he is a prisoner, and nothing more.  If, on the contrary, I take no kind of notice of the man I fancy guilty, if I do not have him arrested, if I in no way set him on his guard—­but if the unfortunate creature is hourly, momentarily, possessed by the suspicion that I know all, that I do not lose sight of him either by night or by day, that he is the object of my indefatigable vigilance—­what do you ask will take place under these circumstances?  He will lose his self-possession, he will come of his own accord to me, he will provide me with ample evidence against himself, and will enable me to give to the conclusion of my inquiry the accuracy of mathematical proofs, which is not without its charm.