One devil offered me yesterday, on the bridge, to murder Lebyadkin and Marya Timofyevna, to settle the marriage difficulty, and to cover up all traces.

He asked me to give him three roubles on account, but gave me to understand that the whole operation wouldn't cost less than fifteen hundred.

Wasn't he a calculating devil! A regular shopkeeper.

Ha ha!" "But you're fully convinced that it was an hallucination ?" "Oh, no; not a bit an hallucination! It was simply Fedka the convict, the robber who escaped from prison.

But that's not the point.