’ Then she went out and her train seemed to rustle. Isn’t it nonsense, eh?”

“But perhaps you are telling lies?” Raskolnikov put in.

“I rarely lie,” answered Svidriga�lov thoughtfully, apparently not noticing the rudeness of the question.

“And in the past, have you ever seen ghosts before?”

“Y-yes, I have seen them, but only once in my life, six years ago. I had a serf, Filka; just after his burial I called out forgetting ‘Filka, my pipe!’ He came in and went to the cupboard where my pipes were. I sat still and thought ‘he is doing it out of revenge,’ because we had a violent quarrel just before his death. ‘How dare you come in with a hole in your elbow?’