Rodion. If you walk alone it will take you time to find a right way. This apartment is just a maze! There are too many rooms for a philosopher. The old Diogenes would have praised my dad for it.
Myshevskiy. Then show me to his room. If it doesn’t trouble you.
Rodion. Well, let’s go then. Follow me and don’t turn anywhere. If a bat seats on your shoulder don’t think that it’s a pipe dream. After my mom’s death our house has got quite shabby.
Myshevskiy. I feel quite comfortable here as if I came back home after a long trip.
Rodion. Really, you are not a normal guy. I noticed it right away, when you refused from drinking.
Myshevskiy. It could happen after your mother’s death. Sometimes houses get shabby when a brownie leaves them.
Rodion. What’s the rubbish?
Myshevskiy. It looks like you don’t know the folklore beliefs. In old times in Russia a good-natured brownie was believed to keep hearth and home. It was the brownie who maintained coziness at home and kept the quite spirit of its hosts.
Rodion. Oh, blimey! Actually, I thought that cats keep hearth and home.
Myshevskiy. Cats get used to people, but brownies – to homes. When an old host dies the brownie starts exhausting the new one if he doesn’t like him. However, sometimes the brownie just leaves. The house is getting shabby and abandoned.
Rodion. So, you mean, that my dad and me put a slight upon your good guy brownie, huh?
Myshevskiy. Actually, this is your brownie. By the way, how long have you been living here?
Rodion. As long as I remember myself. My father inherited this apartment from my grandfather who used to say that it belonged yet to his grandfather. So, it’s a kind of family castle devolving by the Golyshkins. I am balling of it! The noble Golyshkins family!
Myshevskiy. Are you absolutely sure?
Rodion. You mean that we are a noble family?
Myshevskiy. I mean that this apartment belonged to your grand-grandfather?
Rodion. Hey, listen, you screw me down with your questions! Why are you stuck in them?
Myshevskiy. It’s just curiosity.
Rodion. It’s bullshit! Okay, we’ve come finally…
Rodion and Myshevsky enter the room which serves as a working office for Golyshkin. He is writing something on a sheet of paper sitting at a massive antique desk. Along the walls there are book shelves filled with books in golden leather covers. There are a few arm-chairs and chairs, as well as a small coffee table in the corner. All is antique. Only a telephone on a desk indicates the present times. The canvases with portraits of ancient philosophers hang on the walls. Among them there is a portrait of Stalin which is of a little bigger size.