And he prepared to brave boldly the terrible catastrophe he anticipated.  Occasionally the desire came upon him to rush on Porphyrius, and to strangle him there and then.  From the first moment of having entered the magistrate’s office what he had dreaded most was, lest he might lose his temper.  He felt his heart beating violently, his lips become parched, his spittle congealed.  He resolved, however, to hold his tongue, knowing that, under the circumstances, such would be the best tactics.  By similar means, he felt sure that he would not only not become compromised, but that he might succeed in exasperating his enemy, in order to let him drop some imprudent observation.  This, at all events, was Raskolnikoff’s hope.

“I see you don’t believe, you think I am jesting,” continued Porphyrius, more and more at his ease, without ceasing to indulge in his little laugh, whilst continuing his perambulation about the room.  “You may be right.  God has given me a face which only arouses comical thoughts in others.  I’m a buffoon.  But excuse an old man’s cackle.  You, Rodion Romanovitch, you are in your prime, and, like all young people, you appreciate, above all things, human intelligence.  Intellectual smartness and abstract rational deductions entice you.  But, to return to the special case we were talking about just now.  I must tell you that we have to deal with reality, with nature.  This is a very important thing, and how admirably does she often foil the highest skill!  Listen to an old man; I am speaking quite seriously, Rodion”—­(on saying which Porphyrius Petrovitch, who was hardly thirty-five years of age, seemed all of a sudden to have aged, a sudden metamorphosis had taken place in the whole of his person, nay, in his very voice)—­“to an old man who, however, is not wanting in candor.  Am I or am I not candid?  What do you think?  It seems to me that a man could hardly be more so—­for do I not reveal confidence, and that without the prospect of reward?  But, to continue, acuteness of mind is, in my opinion, a very fine thing; it is to all intents and purposes an ornament of nature, one of the consolations of life by means of which it would appear a poor magistrate can be easily gulled, who, after all, is often misled by his own imagination, for he is only human.  But nature comes to the aid of this human magistrate!  There’s the rub!  And youth, so confident in its own intelligence, youth which tramples under foot every obstacle, forgets this!

“Now, in the special case under consideration, the guilty man, I will assume, lies hard and fast, but, when he fancies that all that is left him will be to reap the reward of his mendacity, behold, he will succumb in the very place where such an accident is likely to be most closely analyzed.  Assuming even that he may be in a position to account for his syncope by illness or the stifling atmosphere of the locality, he has none the less given rise to suspicion!