"Are you so sure that she can't?" Svidrigaïlov screwed up his eyes and smiled mockingly. "You are right, she doesn't love me, but you can never be sure of what has passed between husband and wife or lover and mistress. There's always a little corner which remains a secret to the world and is only known to those two. Will you answer for it that Avdotya Romanovna regarded me with aversion?"
"From some words you've dropped, I notice that you still have designs—and of course evil ones—on Dounia and mean to carry them out promptly."
"What, have I dropped words like that?" Svidrigaïlov asked in naïve dismay, taking not the slightest notice of the epithet bestowed on his designs.
"Why, you are dropping them even now. Why are you so frightened? What are you so afraid of now?"
"Me—afraid? Afraid of you? You have rather to be afraid of me, cher ami. But what nonsense. . . . I've drunk too much though, I see that. I was almost saying too much again. Damn the wine! Hi! there, water!"
He snatched up the champagne bottle and flung it without ceremony out of the window. Philip brought the water.
"That's all nonsense!" said Svidrigaïlov, wetting a towel and putting it to his head. "But I can answer you in one word and annihilate all your suspicions. Do you know that I am going to get married?"
"You told me so before."
"Did I? I've forgotten. But I couldn't have told you so for certain for I had not even seen my betrothed; I only meant to. But now I really have a betrothed and it's a settled thing, and if it weren't that I have business that can't be put off, I would have taken you to see them at once, for I should like to ask your advice. Ach, hang it, only ten minutes left! See, look at the watch. But I must tell you, for it's an interesting story, my marriage, in its own way. Where are you off to? Going again?"
"No, I'm not going away now."
"Not at all? We shall see. I'll take you there, I'll show you my betrothed, only not now. For you'll soon have to be off. You have to go to the right and I to the left. Do you know that Madame Resslich, the woman I am lodging with
