his strange actions... before this, in the university, how morose he used to be, how gloomy... But what’s the meaning now of that letter? There’s something in that, too, perhaps. Whom was it from? I suspect...! No, I must find out!”

He thought of Dounia, realising all he had heard and his heart throbbed, and he suddenly broke into a run.

As soon as Razumihin went out, Raskolnikov got up, turned to the window, walked into one corner and then into another, as though forgetting the smallness of his room, and sat down again on the sofa. He felt, so to speak, renewed; again the struggle, so a means of escape had come.

“Yes, a means of escape had come! It had been too stifling, too cramping, the burden had been too agonising.