ask you whether you believe that ghosts are seen, but whether you
believe that they exist."

"No, I won't believe it!" Raskolnikov cried, with positive anger.

"What do people generally say?" muttered Svidrigaïlov, as though
speaking to himself, looking aside and bowing his head. "They say, 'You
are ill, so what appears to you is only unreal fantasy.' But that's not
strictly logical. I agree that ghosts only appear to the sick, but that
only proves that they are unable to appear except to the sick, not that
they don't exist."

"Nothing of the sort," Raskolnikov insisted irritably.

"No? You don't think so?" Svidrigaïlov went on, looking at him
deliberately. "But what do you say to this argument (help me with
it): ghosts are, as it were, shreds and fragments of other worlds, the
beginning of them. A man in health has, of course, no reason to see
them, because he is above all a man of this earth and is bound for the
sake of completeness and order to live only in this life. But as soon
as one is ill, as soon as the normal earthly order of the organism is
broken, one begins to realise the possibility of another world; and the
more seriously ill one is, the closer becomes one's contact with that
other world, so that as soon as the man dies he steps straight into that
world. I thought of that long ago. If you believe in a future life, you
could believe in that, too."

"I don't believe in a future life," said Raskolnikov.

Svidrigaïlov sat lost in thought.