Raskolnikov folded his arms and listened.

“She comes to me in the morning,” said the elder to the younger, “very early, all dressed up. ‘Why are you preening and prinking?’ says I. ‘I am ready to do anything to please you, Tit Vassilitch!’ That’s a way of going on! And she dressed up like a regular fashion book!”

“And what is a fashion book?” the younger one asked. He obviously regarded the other as an authority.

“A fashion book is a lot of pictures, coloured, and they come to the tailors here every Saturday, by post from abroad, to show folks how to dress, the male sex as well as the female. They’re pictures. The gentlemen are generally wearing fur coats and for the ladies’ fluffles, they’re