“Quite so,” Svidriga�lov smiled with engaging candour. “What of it? You seem to find something wrong in my speaking like that about women?”
“You ask whether I find anything wrong in vice?”
“Vice! Oh, that’s what you are after! But I’ll answer you in order, first about women in general; you know I am fond of talking. Tell me, what should I restrain myself for? Why should I give up women, since I have a passion for them? It’s an occupation, anyway.”
“So you hope for nothing here but vice?”
“Oh, very well, for vice then. You insist on its being vice. But anyway I like a direct question. In this vice at least there is something permanent,