Fyodor Dostoevsky: Crime and Punishment

PART II 4. CHAPTER IV (continued)

"To-morrow evening I shall take him for a walk," said Razumihin. "We are going to the Yusupov garden and then to the Palais de Crystal."

"I would not disturb him to-morrow at all, but I don't know . . . a little, maybe . . . but we'll see."

"Ach, what a nuisance! I've got a house-warming party to-night; it's only a step from here. Couldn't he come? He could lie on the sofa. You are coming?" Razumihin said to Zossimov. "Don't forget, you promised."

"All right, only rather later. What are you going to do?"

"Oh, nothing--tea, vodka, herrings. There will be a pie . . . just our friends."

"And who?"

"All neighbours here, almost all new friends, except my old uncle, and he is new too--he only arrived in Petersburg yesterday to see to some business of his. We meet once in five years."

"What is he?"

"He's been stagnating all his life as a district postmaster; gets a little pension. He is sixty-five--not worth talking about. . . . But I am fond of him. Porfiry Petrovitch, the head of the Investigation Department here . . . But you know him."

"Is he a relation of yours, too?"

"A very distant one. But why are you scowling? Because you quarrelled once, won't you come then?"

"I don't care a damn for him."

"So much the better. Well, there will be some students, a teacher, a government clerk, a musician, an officer and Zametov."

"Do tell me, please, what you or he"--Zossimov nodded at Raskolnikov-- "can have in common with this Zametov?"