Chapter V (2)

The door, as before, was opened a little, and again the two eyes, with mistrustful glance, peeped out of the dark. Then Raskolnikoff lost his presence of mind and made a serious mistake. Fearing that the old woman would take alarm at finding they were alone, and knowing that his appearance would not reassure her, he took hold of the door and pulled it toward him in order to prevent her shutting it again if she should be thus minded. Seeing this, she held on to the lock, so that he almost drew her together with the door on to the staircase. She recovered herself, and stood to prevent his entrance, speechless with fright.

"Good evening, Alena Ivanovna," he commenced, trying to speak with unconcern, but his voice did not obey him, and he faltered and trembled, "Good evening, I have brought you something, but we had better go into the light." He pushed past her and entered the room uninvited. The old woman followed and found her tongue.

"What is it you want? Who are you?" she commenced.

"Pardon me, Alena Ivanovna, your old acquaintance Raskolnikoff. I have brought a pledge, as I promised the other day," and he held out the packet to her.

The old woman was about to examine it, when she raised her eyes and looked straight into those of the visitor who had entered so unceremoniously. She examined him attentively, distrustfully, for a minute. Raskolnikoff fancied there was a gleam of mockery in her look as if she guessed all. He felt he was changing color, and that if she kept her glance upon him much longer without saying a word he would be obliged to run away.

"Why are you looking at me thus?" he said at last in anger. "Will you take it or not? or shall I take it elsewhere? I have no time to waste." He did not intend to say this, but the words came out. The tone seemed to quiet her suspicions.

"Why were you so impatient, _batuchka_? What is it?" she asked, glancing at the pledge.

"The silver cigarette case of which I spoke the other day."

She held out her hand. "But why are you so pale, why do your hands shake? What is the matter with you, _batuchka_?"

"Fever," replied he abruptly. "You would be pale too if you had nothing to eat." He could hardly speak the words and felt his strength falling. But there was some plausibility in his reply; and the old woman took the pledge.

"What is it?" she asked once more, weighing it in her hand and looking straight at her visitor.

"Cigarette case, silver, look at it."

"It doesn't feel as though it were silver. Oh! what a dreadful knot!"

She began to untie the packet and turned to the light (all the windows were closed in spite of the heat). Her back was turned toward Raskolnikoff, and for a few seconds she paid no further attention to him. He opened his coat, freed the hatchet from the loop, but did not yet take it from its hiding place; he held it with his right hand beneath the garment. His limbs were weak, each moment they grew more numbed and stiff. He feared his fingers would relax their hold of the hatchet. Then his head turned giddy.

"What is this you bring me?" cried Alena Ivanovna, turning to him in a rage.

There was not a moment to lose now. He pulled out the hatchet, raised it with both hands, and let it descend without force, almost mechanically, on the old woman's head. But directly he had struck the blow his strength returned. According to her usual habit, Alena Ivanovna was bareheaded. Her scanty gray locks, greasy with oil, were gathered in one thin plait, which was fixed to the back of her neck by means of a piece of horn comb. The hatchet struck her just on the sinciput, and this was partly owing to her small stature. She scarcely uttered a faint cry and collapsed at once all in a heap on the floor; she was dead.

The murderer laid his hatchet down and at once began to search the corpse, taking the greatest precaution not to get stained with the blood; he remembered seeing Alena Ivanovna, on the occasion of his last visit, take her keys from the right-hand pocket of her dress. He was in full possession of his intellect; he felt neither giddy nor dazed, but his hands continued to shake. Later on, he recollected that he had been very prudent, very attentive, that he had taken every care not to soil himself. It did not take him long to find the keys; the same as the other day, they were all together on a steel ring. Having secured them, Raskolnikoff at once passed into the bedroom. It was a very small apartment; on one side was a large glass case full of holy images, on the other a great bed looking very clean with its quilted-silk patchwork coverlet. The third wall was occupied by a chest of drawers. Strange to say, the young man had no sooner attempted to open them, he had no sooner commenced to try the keys, than a kind of shudder ran through his frame. Again the idea came to him to give up his task and go away, but this weakness only lasted a second: it was now too late to draw back.

He was even smiling at having for a moment entertained such a thought, when he was suddenly seized with a terrible anxiety: suppose the old woman were still alive, suppose she recovered consciousness. Leaving at once the keys and the drawers, he hastened to the corpse, seized the hatchet, and prepared to strike another blow at his victim, but he found there was no necessity to do so. Alena Ivanovna was dead beyond all doubt. Leaning over her again to examine her closer, Raskolnikoff saw that the skull was shattered. He was about to touch her with his fingers, but drew back, as it was quite unnecessary. There was a pool of blood upon the floor. Suddenly noticing a bit of cord round the old woman's neck, the young man gave it a tug, but the gory stuff was strong, and did not break. The murderer then tried to remove it by drawing it down the body. But this second attempt was no more successful than the first, the cord encountered some obstacle and became fixed. Burning with impatience, Raskolnikoff brandished the hatchet, ready to strike the corpse and sever the confounded string at the same blow. However, he could not make up his mind to proceed with such brutality. At last, after trying for two minutes, and staining his hands with blood, he succeeded in severing the cord with the blade of the hatchet without further disfiguring the dead body. As he had imagined, there was a purse suspended to the old woman's neck. Besides this there was also a small enameled medal and two crosses, one of cypress wood, the other of brass. The greasy purse, a little chamois-leather bag, was as full as it could hold. Raskolnikoff thrust it in his pocket without examining the contents. He then threw the crosses on his victim's breast, and hastily returned to the bedroom, taking the hatchet with him.

His impatience was now intense, he seized the keys, and again set to work. But all his attempts to open the drawers were unavailing, and this was not so much owing to the shaking of his hands as to his continual misconceptions. He could see, for instance, that a certain key would not fit the lock, and yet he continued to try and insert it. All on a sudden he recalled a conjecture he had formed on the occasion of his preceding visit: the big key with the toothed wards, which was attached to the ring with the smaller ones, probably belonged, not to the drawers, but to some box in which the old woman, no doubt, hoarded up her valuables. Without further troubling about the drawers, he at once looked under the bed, aware that old women are in the habit of hiding their treasures in such places. And there indeed was a trunk with rounded lid, covered with red morocco and studded with steel nails. Raskolnikoff was able to insert the key in the lock without the least difficulty. When he opened the box he perceived a hareskin cloak trimmed with red lying on a white sheet; beneath the fur was a silk dress, and then a shawl, the rest of the contents appeared to be nothing but rags. The young man commenced by wiping his bloodstained hands on the red trimming. "It will not show so much on red." Then he suddenly seemed to change his mind: "Heavens! am I going mad?" thought he with fright.

But scarcely had he touched these clothes than a gold watch rolled from under the fur. He then overhauled everything in the box. Among the rags were various gold trinkets, which had all probably been pledged with the old woman: bracelets, chains, earrings, scarf pins, &c. Some were in their cases, while the others were tied up with tape in pieces of newspaper folded in two. Raskolnikoff did not hesitate, he laid hands on these jewels, and stowed them away in the pockets of his coat and trousers, without opening the cases or untying the packets; but he was soon interrupted in his work------

Footsteps resounded in the other room. He stopped short, frozen with terror. But the noise having ceased, he was already imagining he had been mistaken, when suddenly he distinctly heard a faint cry, or rather a kind of feeble interrupted moan. At the end of a minute or two, everything was again as silent as death. Raskolnikoff had seated himself on the floor beside the trunk and was waiting, scarcely daring to breathe; suddenly he bounded up, caught up the hatchet, and rushed from the bedroom. In the center of the apartment, Elizabeth, a huge bundle in her hands, stood gazing in a terror-stricken way at her dead sister; white as a sheet, she did not seem to have the strength to call out. On the sudden appearance of the murderer, she began to quake in every limb, and nervous twitches passed over her face; she tried to raise her arm, to open her mouth, but she was unable to utter the least cry, and, slowly retreating, her gaze still riveted on Raskolnikoff, she sought refuge in a corner. The poor woman drew back in perfect silence, as though she had no breath left in her body. The young man rushed upon her, brandishing the hatchet; the wretched creature's lips assumed the doleful expression peculiar to quite young children when, beginning to feel frightened of something, they gaze fixedly at the object which has raised their alarm, and are on the point of crying out. Terror had so completely stupefied this unfortunate Elizabeth, that, though threatened by the hatchet, she did not even think of protecting her face by holding her hands before her head, with that mechanical gesture which the instinct of self-preservation prompts on such occasions. She scarcely raised her left arm, and extended it slowly in the direction of the murderer, as thought to keep him off. The hatchet penetrated her skull, laying it open from the upper part of the forehead to the crown. Elizabeth fell down dead. No longer aware of what he did, Raskolnikoff took the bundle from his victim's hand, then dropped it and ran to the anteroom.

He was more and more terrified, especially after this second murder, entirely unpremeditated by him. He was in a hurry to be gone; had he then been in a state to see things more clearly, had he only been able to form an idea of the difficulties besetting his position, to see how desperate, how hideous, how absurd it was, to understand how many obstacles there still remained for him to surmount, perhaps even crimes to commit, to escape from this house and return home, he would most likely have withdrawn from the struggle, and have gone at once and given himself up to justice; it was not cowardice which would have prompted him to do so, but the horror of what he had done. This last impression became more and more powerful every minute. Nothing in the world could now have made him return to the trunk, nor even reënter the room in which it lay. Little by little his mind became diverted by other thoughts, and he lapsed into a kind of reverie; at times the murderer seemed to forget his position, or rather the most important part of it, and to concentrate his attention on trifles. After a while, happening to glance in the kitchen, he observed a pail half full of water, standing on a bench, and that gave him the idea of washing his hands and the hatchet. The blood had made his hands sticky. After plunging the blade of the hatchet in the water, he took a small piece of soap which lay on the window sill, and commenced his ablutions. When he had washed his hands, he set to cleaning the iron part of his weapon; then he devoted three minutes to soaping the wooden handle, which was also stained with blood.

After this he wiped it with a cloth which had been hung up to dry on a line stretched across the kitchen. This done, he drew near the window and carefully examined the hatchet for some minutes. The accusing stains had disappeared, but the handle was still damp. Raskolnikoff carefully hid the weapon under his coat by replacing it in the loop; after which, he minutely inspected his clothes, that is to say so far as the dim light of the kitchen allowed him to do so. He saw nothing suspicious about the coat and trousers, but there were bloodstains on the boots. He removed them with the aid of a damp rag. But these precautions only half reassured him, for he knew that he could not see properly and that certain stains had very likely escaped him. He stood irresolute in the middle of the room, a prey to a somber, agonizing thought, the thought that he was going mad, that at that moment he was not in a fit state to come to a determination and to watch over his security, that his way of going to work was probably not the one the circumstances demanded. "Good heavens! I ought to go, to go away at once!" murmured he, and he rushed to the anteroom where the greatest terror he had yet experienced awaited him.

He stood stock-still, not daring to believe his eyes: the door of the lodging, the outer door which opened on to the landing, the same one at which he had rung a little while before and by which he had entered, was open; up till then it had remained ajar, the old woman had no doubt omitted to close it by way of precaution; it had been neither locked nor bolted! But he had seen Elizabeth after that. How was it that it had not occurred to him that she had come in by way of the door? She could not have entered the lodging through the wall. He shut the door and bolted it. "But no, that is not what I should do? I must go away, go away." He drew back the bolt and, after opening the door again, stood listening on the landing.

He stood thus a long while. Down below, probably at the street door, two noisy voices were vociferating insults. "Who can those people be?" He waited patiently. At last the noise ceased, the brawlers had taken their departure. The young man was about to do the same, when a door on the floor immediately below was noisily opened and some one went downstairs, humming a tune. "Whatever are they all up to?" wondered Raskolnikoff, and closing the door again he waited a while. At length all became silent as before; but just as he was preparing to go down, he suddenly became aware of a fresh sound, footsteps as yet far off, at the bottom of the staircase; and he no sooner heard them than he guessed the truth:--some one was coming _there_, to the old woman's on the fourth floor. Whence came this presentiment? What was there so particularly significant in the sound of these footsteps? They were heavy, regular, and rather slow than hurried. _He_ has now reached the first floor, he still continues to ascend. The sound is becoming plainer and plainer. He pants as though with asthma at each step he takes. He has commenced the third flight. He will soon be on the fourth! And Raskolnikoff felt suddenly seized as with a general paralysis, the same as happens when a person has the nightmare and fancies himself pursued by enemies; they are on the point of catching him, they will kill him, and yet he remains spellbound, unable to move a limb.

The stranger was now ascending the fourth flight. Raskolnikoff, who until then had been riveted to the landing with fright, was at length able to shake off his torpor, and hastily reentered the apartment, closing the door behind him. Then he bolted it, being careful to make as little noise as possible. Instinct rather than reason prompted him to do this. When he had finished, he remained close to the door, listening, scarcely daring to breathe. The visitor was now on the landing. Only the thickness of the door separated the two men. The unknown was in the same position toward Raskolnikoff as the latter had been a little while before toward the old woman. The visitor stood panting for some little time. "He must be stout and big," thought the young man as he clasped the hatchet firmly in his hand. It was all like a dream to him. The visitor gave a violent pull at the bell. He immediately fancied he heard something move inside. He listened attentively during a few seconds, then he gave another ring and again waited; suddenly losing patience, he began to shake the door handle with all his might. Raskolnikoff watched with terror the bolt trembling in the socket, expecting to see it shoot back at any moment, so violent were the jerks given to the door. It occurred to him to hold the bolt in its place with his hand, but the _man_ might have found it out. His head was turning quite dizzy again. "I shall betray myself!" thought he; but he suddenly recovered his presence of mind as the unknown broke the silence.

"Are they both asleep, or has some one strangled them? The thrice-confounded creatures!" growled the visitor in a guttural voice. "Hi! Alena Ivanovna, you old sorceress! Elizabeth Ivanovna, you indescribable beauty!--open! Oh! the witches! can they be asleep?"

In his exasperation he rang ten times running, and as loud as he possibly could. This man was evidently not a stranger there, and was in the habit of being obeyed. At the same moment some light and rapid footsteps resounded on the staircase. It was another person coming to the fourth floor. Raskolnikoff was not at first aware of the newcomer's arrival.

"Is it possible that there's no one at home?" said the latter in a loud and hearty tone of voice, addressing the first visitor who was still tugging at the bell pull. "Good day, Koch!"

"Judging by his voice, he must be quite a young man," immediately thought Raskolnikoff.

"The devil only knows! I've almost smashed the lock," replied Koch. "But how is it you know me?"

"What a question! The day before yesterday I played you at billiards, at Gambrinus's, and won three games right off."

"Ah!"

"So they're not at home? That's strange. I might almost say it's ridiculous. Where can the old woman have gone? I want to speak with her."

"And I too, _batuchka_, I want to speak with her."

"Well, what's to be done? I suppose we must go back to whence we came. I wanted to borrow some money of her!" exclaimed the young man.

"Of course we must go back again; but why then did she make an appointment? She herself, the old witch, told me to come at this hour. And it's a long way to where I live. Where the deuce can she be? I don't understand it. She never stirs from one year's end to the other, the old witch; she quite rots in the place, her legs have always got something the matter with them, and now all on a sudden she goes gallivanting about!"

"Suppose we question the porter?"

"What for?"

"To find out where she's gone and when she will be back."

"Hum!--the deuce!--question!--but she never goes anywhere." And he again tugged at the door handle. "The devil take her! there's nothing to be done but to go."

"Wait!" suddenly exclaimed the young man, "look!--do you notice how the door resists when we pull it?"

"Well, what then?"

"Why, that shows that it's not locked, but bolted! Hark how it clinks!"

"Well?"

"Don't you understand? That shows that one of them must be at home. If both were out, they would have locked the door after them, and not have bolted it inside. Listen, don't you hear the noise it makes? Well, to bolt one's door, one must be at home, you understand. Therefore it follows that they are at home, only for some reason or other they don't open the door!"

"Why, yes, you're right!" exclaimed the astonished Koch. "So they're there, are they?" And he again shook the door violently.

"Stay!" resumed the young man, "don't pull like that. There's something peculiar about this. You've rung, you've pulled at the door with all your might, and they haven't answered you; therefore, they've either both fainted away, or----"

"What?"

"This is what we had better do: have the porter up, so that he may find out what's the matter."

"That's not a bad idea!"

They both started downstairs.

"Stop! you stay here; I'll fetch the porter."

"Why stay here?"

"Well, one never knows what might happen----"

"All right."

"You see, I might also pass for an examining magistrate! There's something very peculiar about all this, that's evident, e-vi-dent!" said the young man excitedly, and he hastily made his way down the stairs.

Left alone, Koch rang again, but gently this time; then, with a thoughtful air, he began to play with the door handle, turning it first one way, then the other, so as to make sure the door was only bolted. After this, with a great deal of puffing and blowing, he stooped down to look through the keyhole, but the key was in the lock, and turned in such a way that one could not see through. Standing up on the other side of the door, Raskolnikoff still held the hatchet in his hands. He was almost in a state of delirium and was preparing to attack the two men the moment they forced an entrance. More than once, on hearing them knocking and planning together, he had felt inclined to put an end to the matter there and then by calling out to them. At times he experienced a desire to abuse and defy them, while awaiting their irruption. "The sooner it's over the better!" he kept thinking.

"The devil take them!" The time passed; still no one came. Koch was beginning to lose patience. "The devil take them!" he muttered again, and, tired of waiting, he relinquished his watch to go and find the young man. By degrees the sound of his heavy boots echoing on the stairs ceased to be heard.

"Heavens! What shall I do?"

Raskolnikoff drew back the bolt and opened the door a few inches. Reassured by the silence which reigned in the house, and, moreover, scarcely in a fit state at the time to reflect on what he did, he went out on to the landing, shut the door behind him as securely as he could and turned to go downstairs. He had already descended several steps when suddenly a great uproar arose from one of the floors below. Where could he hide? Concealment was impossible, so he hastened upstairs again.

"Hi there! hang it! stop!"

He who uttered these cries had just burst out of one of the lodgings, and was rushing down the stairs as fast as his legs would carry him, yelling the while: "Dmitri! Dmitri! Dmitri! May the devil take the fool!"

The rest died away in the distance; the man who was uttering these cries had already left the house far behind. All was once more silent; but scarcely was this alarm over than a fresh one succeeded it: several individuals talking together in a loud tone of voice were noisily coming up the stairs. There were three or four of them. Raskolnikoff recognized the young man's sonorous accents. "It is they!" No longer hoping to escape them, he advanced boldly to meet them: "Let happen what will!" said he to himself: "if they stop me, all is over; if they let me pass, all is over just the same: they will remember passing me on the stairs." They were about to encounter him, only one flight separated them--when suddenly he felt himself saved! A few steps from him, to the right, there was an empty lodging with the door wide open, it was that same one on the second floor where he had seen the painters working, but, by a happy chance, they had just left it. It was they, no doubt, who a few minutes before had gone off, uttering those shouts. The paint on the floors was quite fresh, the workmen had left their things in the middle of the room: a small tub, some paint in an earthenware crock, and a big brush. In the twinkling of an eye, Raskolnikoff glided into the deserted apartment and hid himself as best he could up against the wall. It was none too soon: his pursuers were already on the landing; they did not stop there, however, but went on up to the fourth floor, talking loudly among themselves. After waiting till they had got some distance off, he left the room on tiptoe and hurried down as fast as his legs would carry him. No one on the stairs! No one either at the street door! He stepped briskly outside, and, once in the street, turned to the left.

He knew very well, he knew without a doubt, that they who were seeking him were at that moment in the old woman's lodging, and were amazed to find that the door, which a little while before had been shut so securely, was now open. "They're examining the corpses," thought he; "it won't take them a minute to come to the conclusion that the murderer managed to hide himself from them as they went up the stairs; perhaps they may even have a suspicion that he stowed himself away in the empty lodging on the second floor while they were hurrying to the upper part of the house." But, in spite of these reflections, he did not dare to increase his pace, though he still had a hundred steps or so to go before reaching the first turning. "Suppose I slipped into some doorway, in some out-of-the-way street, and waited there a few minutes? No, that would never do! I might throw my hatchet away somewhere? or take a cab? No good! no good!" At last he reached a narrow lane; he entered it more dead than alive. There, he was almost in safety, and he knew it: in such a place, suspicion could hardly be fixed upon him; while, on the other hand, it was easier for him to avoid notice by mingling with the crowd. But all these agonizing events had so enfeebled him that he could scarcely keep on his legs. Great drops of perspiration streamed down his face; his neck was quite wet. "I think you've had your fill!" shouted some one who took him for a drunken man as he reached the canal bank.

He no longer knew what he was doing; the farther he went, the more obscure became his ideas. However, when he found himself on the quay, he became frightened at seeing so few people there, and, fearing that he might be noticed on so deserted a spot, he returned to the lane. Though he had hardly the strength to put one leg before the other, he nevertheless took the longest way to reach his home. He had scarcely recovered his presence of mind even when he crossed the threshold; at least the thought of the hatchet never came to him until he was on the stairs. Yet the question he had to solve was a most serious one: it consisted in returning the hatchet to the place he had taken it from, and in doing so without attracting the least attention. Had he been more capable of considering his position, he would certainly have understood that, instead of replacing the hatchet, it would be far safer to get rid of it by throwing it into the yard of some other house.

Nevertheless he met with no mishap. The door of the porter's lodge was closed, though not locked; to all appearance, therefore, the porter was at home. But Raskolnikoff had so thoroughly lost all faculty of preparing any kind of plan, that he walked straight to the door and opened it. If the porter had asked him: "What do you want?" perhaps he would simply have handed him the hatchet. But, the same as on the previous occasion, the porter was absent, and this gave the young man every facility to replace the hatchet under the bench, exactly where he had found it. Then he went upstairs and reached his room without meeting a soul; the door of his landlady's apartments was shut. Once home again, he threw himself on his couch just as he was. He did not sleep, but lay in a sort of semiconsciousness. If anybody had then appeared before him, he would have sprung up and cried out. His head was swimming with a host of vague thoughts: do what he could, he was unable to follow the thread of one of them.

Raskolnikoff lay on the couch a very long while. At times he seemed to rouse from this half sleep, and then he noticed that the night was very far advanced, but still it never entered his head to rise. Soon it began to brighten into day, and the dawn found him in a state of stupefaction, lying motionless on his back. A desperate clamor, and sounds of brawls from the streets below, rose to his ears. These awakened him thoroughly, although he heard them every morning early at the same hour. "Ah! two o'clock, drinking is over," and he started up as though some one had pulled him off the couch. "What! two o'clock already?" He sat on the edge of the couch and then recollected everything, in an instant it all came back! At first he thought he was going out of his mind, a strange chill pervaded his frame, but the cold arose from the fever which had seized upon him during his sleep. He shivered until his teeth chattered, and all his limbs fairly shook. He went to the door, opened it, and listened; all was silent in the house. With astonishment he turned and looked round the room. How could he have come home the night before, not bolted the door, and thrown himself on the couch just as he was, not only not undressed, but with his hat on? There it lay in the middle of the floor where it had rolled. "If anyone came in, what would he think? That I am drunk, of course."

He went to the window--it was pretty light--and looked himself all over from head to foot, to see if there were any stains on his clothes. But he could not rely upon that sort of inspection; so, still shivering, he undressed and examined his clothes again, looking everywhere with the greatest care. To make quite sure, he went over them three times. He discovered nothing but a few drops of clotted blood on the ends of his trousers which were very much frayed. He took a big clasp-knife and cut off the frayed edges. Suddenly he remembered that the purse and the things he had abstracted from the old woman's chest, were still in his pockets! He had never thought of taking them out and hiding them! indeed, it had never crossed his mind that they were in his pockets while examining his clothes! Was it possible? In a second he emptied all out on to the table in a heap. Then, turning his pockets inside out to make sure there was nothing left in them, he carried the things to a corner of the room. Just there, the paper was hanging loose from the wall; he bent down and commenced to stuff all the things into a hole behind the paper. "There, it's all out of sight!" thought he gleefully, as he stood gazing stupidly at the spot where the paper bulged out more than ever. Suddenly he began to shudder from terror. "Good heavens!" murmured he in despair, "what is the matter with me? Is that hidden? Is that the way to hide anything?"

Indeed, he had not reckoned on such spoil, he had only thought of taking the old woman's money; so he was not prepared with a hiding place for the jewels. "I have no cause to rejoice now," thought he. "Is that the way to hide anything? I must really be losing my senses!" He sunk on the couch again exhausted; another fit of intolerable shivering seized him, and he mechanically pulled his old student's cloak over him for warmth, as he fell into a delirious sleep. He lost all consciousness of himself. Not more than five minutes had elapsed before he woke up in intense excitement, and bent over his clothes in the deepest anguish. "How could I go to sleep again when nothing is done! For I have done nothing, the loop is still where I sewed it. I forgot all about that! What a convincing proof it would have been." He ripped it off and tore it into shreds which he placed among his underlinen under the pillow. "These rags cannot awaken any suspicions, I fancy; at least, so it seems to me," repeated he, standing up in the middle of the room, and, with an attempt rendered all the more painful by the effort it cost him, he looked all round, trying to make sure he had forgotten nothing. He suffered cruelly from this conviction, that everything, even memory, even the most elementary prudence, was abandoning him.

"Can this be the punishment already beginning? Indeed! indeed! it is!"

And indeed the frayed edges he had cut from the bottom of his trousers were lying on the floor, in the middle of the room, exposed to the view of the first comer. "But what can I be thinking of?" exclaimed he in utter bewilderment. Then a strange idea came into his head; he thought that perhaps all his clothes were saturated in blood, and that he could not see this because his senses were gone and his perception of things lost. Then he recollected that there would be traces on the purse, and his pockets would be wet with blood. It was so. "I am bereft of my reason, I know not what I am doing. Bah! not at all!--it is only weakness, delirium. I shall soon be better." He tore at the lining. At this moment the rays of the morning streamed in and shone on his left boot. There were plain traces, and all the point was covered. "I must have stepped in that pool. What shall I do now? Boot, lining, rags, where shall they go?" He rolled them up and stood thinking in the middle of the room. "Ah, the stove. Yes, burn them. No, I cannot, I have no match. Better throw them away. Yes, yes, that is the thing," said he, again sitting on the couch. "At once, and without delay too, quick." But, instead, his head fell back upon the pillow, and chilly shiverings again came over him. He covered himself with his cloak and slept again. It appeared hours to him, and many a time in his sleep he tried to rise to hasten to throw away his bundle, but he could not, he seemed chained to the bed. At last he awoke, as he heard a loud knock at his door.

"Eh, open, will you?" cried Nastasia. "Don't lie there like a dog. It's eleven o'clock."

"Perhaps he is not in," said a man's voice.

"The porter's voice. What does he want?" Raskolnikoff rose, and sat on the couch listening. His heart throbbed violently. "Who has bolted the door then?" exclaimed the servant. "Open, will you?"

"All must be discovered?" He rose a little and undid the bolt, and fell back again on his bed. There stood the porter and Nastasia. The servant looked strangely at Raskolnikoff, while he fixed a despairing glance upon the porter.

"Here is a notice for you from the office," said the latter.

"What office?"

"The police office."

"What for?"

"I don't know. You are summoned there, go." The porter looked anxiously at the lodger, and turned to leave. Raskolnikoff made no observation, and held the paper unopened in his hand.

"There, stay where you are," said Nastasia, seeing him fall back on the couch. "If you are ill, do not go. What is that in your hand?"

He looked down; in his right hand were clutched the pieces of frayed cloth, his boot, and the lining of his pocket. He had evidently fallen asleep with them as they were; indeed he recollected how, thinking deeply about them, he had dozed away.

"The idea of taking a lot of rags to bed and hugging them to you like a treasure!" laughed the servant in her sickly manner.

In a second he hid all under his coat and looked at her attentively. Although little was capable of passing in his mind, he felt she would not talk thus to a man under arrest for a crime. But then, the police?

"Is there anything you want? You stay here, I will bring it."

"No, I will go. I am going at once," murmured he, rising to his feet.

"Very well."

She went out after the porter. As soon as she had disappeared, he rushed to the light to look at his boot. Yes, there were spots, but not very plain, all covered with mud. But who would distinguish them? Nastasia could know nothing, thank heavens! Then with trembling hand he tore open the notice, and began to read. At last he understood; it was simply the usual notice to report himself at the office of the district that day at half-past nine o'clock.

"But why to-day?" cried he. "Lord, let it be over soon." He was about to fall down on his knees to pray, when a fit of laughter seized him. "I must trust to myself, not to prayers." He quickly dressed himself. "Shall I put the boot on?" he thought, "better throw it away, and hide all traces of it." Nevertheless he put it on, only, however, to throw it off again with an expression of horror. As, however, he recollected he had no other, a smile came to his face, and he drew it on once more. Again his face changed into deep despair, his limbs shook more and more. "This is not from exertion," thought he, "it is fear." His head spun round and round and his temples throbbed visibly.

On the stairs he recollected that all the things were in the hole in the wall, and then where was his certificate of birth? He stopped to think. But such despair, and, if it may be so called, cynicism, took hold of him, that he simply shook his head and went out. The sooner over, the better. Once again in the open air, he encountered the same insufferable heat, the dust, and the people in drink rolling about the streets. The sun caught him full in the eyes and almost blinded him, while his head spun round and round, as is usual in fever. On reaching the turning into the street he had taken the day before, he glanced in great agitation in the direction of the house, but immediately averted his eyes again. "If they ask me, I should confess, perhaps," said he to himself, as he turned away and made for the office. This was not far distant, in a new house, on the fourth floor. As he entered the court, he saw to the right of him a staircase, ascending which was a man carrying some books. "It was evidently there." He did not think of asking.

"I will go and fall on my knees and confess all," he murmured, and began to ascend the narrow and very steep stairs. On every floor the doors of the kitchens of the several apartments stood open to the staircase, and emitted a suffocating, sickening odor. The entrance to the office he was in search of was also wide open, and he walked in. A number of persons were waiting in the anteroom. The stench was simply intolerable, and was intensified by the smell of fresh paint. Pausing a little, he decided to advance farther into the small low room. He became impatient when he found no one took any notice of him. In an inner room were seated a number of clerks engaged in writing. He went up to one of these.

"What do you want?" Raskolnikoff showed him the notice.

"You are a student?" asked a clerk, glancing at the notice.

"Yes;--that is, I used to be."

The clerk glanced at him--without, however, any particular curiosity. He was a man with unkempt hair and an expressionless face.

"There is nothing to be learned from him, evidently," thought Raskolnikoff.

"Step in there to the head clerk," said the man, pointing to a farther room, which was quite full of people, among whom were two ladies.

The assistant district officer, a man adorned with red whiskers standing out on either side of his face, and with extremely small features, looked up impatiently at Raskolnikoff, whose filthy attire was by no means prepossessing. The latter returned his glance calmly and straight in the face, and in such a manner as to give the officer offense.

"What do you want here?" he cried, apparently surprised that such a ragged beggar was not knocked down by his thunder-bearing glance.

"I am here because I was summoned," stammered Raskolnikoff.

"It is for the recovery of money lent," said the head clerk. "Here!" and he threw a paper to Raskolnikoff, "Read!"

"Money? What money? It cannot be that," thought the young man, and he trembled with joy. Everything became clear, and the load fell off his shoulders.

"At what hour did you receive this, sir?" cried the lieutenant; "you were told to come at nine o'clock, and now it is nearly twelve!"

"I received it a quarter of an hour ago," loudly replied Raskolnikoff, over his shoulder, suddenly angered, "and it is sufficient to say that I am ill with a fever."

"Please not to bawl!"

"I did not bawl, but spoke plainly; it is you that bawl. I am a student, and am not going to have you speak to me in that fashion."

The officer became enraged, and fumed so that only splutters flew out of his mouth. He jumped up from his place. "Please keep silence. You are in court. Don't be insolent."

"And so are you in court; and, besides bawling, you are smoking, so you are wanting in politeness to the whole company." As he said this, Raskolnikoff felt an inexpressible delight at his maliciousness. The clerk looked up with a smile. The choleric officer was clearly nonplused.

"That is not your business, sir," he cried at last, unnaturally loud. "Make the necessary declaration. Show him, Alexander Gregorivitch. Complaints have been made about you! You don't pay your debts! You know how to fly the kite evidently!"

Raskolnikoff did not listen, but greedily seized the paper. He read it through more than once, and could make nothing of it. "What is this?" he asked of the clerk.

"It is a writ for recovery on a note of hand of yours. Please write," said the clerk.

"Write what?" asked he rudely.

"As I dictate."

The clerk stood near and dictated to him the usual form of declaration: that he was unable to pay, that he would not quit the capital, dispose of his goods in any way, etc., etc.

"You cannot write, your pen is falling from your fingers," said the clerk, and he looked him in the face. "Are you ill?"

"Yes, my head swims. Go on."

"That is all. Now sign it."

Raskolnikoff let fall the pen, and seemed as if about to rise and go; but, instead of doing so, he laid both elbows on the table and supported his head with his hands. A new idea formed in his mind: to rise immediately, go straight to Nicodemus Thomich the ward officer and tell him all that had occurred; then to accompany him to his room, and show him all the things hidden away in the wall behind the paper. His desire to do all this was of such strength that he got up from the table to carry his design into execution. "Reflect, reflect a moment!" ran in his head. "No, better not think, get it off my shoulders." Suddenly he stood still as if shot. Nicodemus Thomich was at this moment hotly discussing something with Elia Petrovitch, the inspector of police, and the words caught Raskolnikoff's anxious attention. He listened.

"It cannot be, they will both be released. In the first place, all is contradictory. Consider. Why did they call the porter if it were their work? To denounce themselves? Or out of cunning? Not at all, that would be too much! Besides, did not the porter see the student Pestriakoff at the very gate just as he came in, and he stood there some time with three friends who had accompanied him. And Koch: was he not below in the silversmith's for half an hour before he went up to the old woman's? Now, consider."

"But see what contradictions arise! They say they knocked and found the door closed; yet three minutes after, when they went back with the porter, it was open."

"That's true. The murderer was inside, and had bolted the door, and certainly he would have been captured had not Koch foolishly run off to the porter. In the interval _he_, no doubt, had time to escape downstairs. Koch explains that, if he had remained, the man would have leaped out and killed him. He wanted to have a _Te Deum_ sung. Ha, ha!"

"Did nobody see the murderer?"

"How could they? The house is a perfect Noah's ark," put in the clerk, who had been listening.

"The thing is clear, very clear," said Nicodemus Thomich decisively.

"Not at all! Not at all!" cried Elia Petrovitch, in reply.

Raskolnikoff took up his hat and made for the door, but he never reached it. When he came to himself he found he was sitting on a chair, supported on the right by some unknown man, while to his left stood another, holding some yellow water in a yellow glass. Nicodemus Thomich, standing before him, was looking at him fixedly. Raskolnikoff rose.

"What is it? Are you ill?" asked the officer sharply.

"He could hardly hold the pen to sign his name," the clerk explained, at the same time going back to his books.

"Have you been ill very long?" cried Elia Petrovitch from his table; he had run to see the swoon and returned to his place.

"Since yesterday," murmured Raskolnikoff in reply.

"You went out yesterday?"

"I did."

"Ill?"

"Ill!"

"At what time?"

"Eight o'clock in the evening."

"Where did you go, allow me to ask?"

"In the streets."

"Concise and clear."

Raskolnikoff had replied sharply, in a broken voice, his face as pale as a handkerchief, and with his black swollen eyes averted from Elia Petrovitch's scrutinizing glance.

"He can hardly stand on his legs. Do you want to ask anything more?" said Nicodemus Thomich.

"Nothing," replied Elia Petrovitch.

Nicodemus Thomich evidently wished to say more, but, turning to the clerk, who in turn glanced expressively at him, the latter became silent, all suddenly stopped speaking. It was strange.

Raskolnikoff went out. As he descended the stairs he could hear an animated discussion had broken out, and above all, the interrogative voice of Nicodemus Thomich. In the street he came to himself.

"Search, search! they are going to search!" he cried. "The scoundrels, they suspect me!" The old dread seized him again, from head to foot.

Here was the room. All was quiet, and no one had, apparently, disturbed it--not even Nastasia. But, heavens! how could he have left all those things where they were? He rushed to the corner, pushed his hands behind the paper, took out the things, and thrust them in his pockets. There were eight articles in all: two little boxes with earrings or something of that description, then four little morocco cases; a chain wrapped up in paper, and something else done up in a common piece of newspaper--possibly a decoration. Raskolnikoff distributed these, together with the purse, about his person, in order to make them less noticeable, and quitted the room again. All the time he had left the door wide open. He went away hurriedly, fearing pursuit. Perhaps in a few minutes orders would be issued to hunt him down, so he must hide all traces of his theft at once; and he would do so while he had strength and reason left him. But where should he go?

This had been long decided. Throw the lot in the canal and the matter would be at an end! So he had resolved in that night of delirium, when he cried out, "Quick, quick! throw all away!" But this was not so easy. He wandered to the quays of the Catherine Canal, and lingered there for half an hour. Here a washing raft lay where he had thought of sinking his spoil, or there boats were moored, and everywhere people swarmed. Then, again, would the cases sink? Would they not rather float? No, this would not do. He would go to the Neva; there would be fewer people there and more room, and it would be more convenient. He recognized that he had been wandering about for fully half an hour, and in dangerous places. He must make haste. He made his way to the river, but soon came to another standstill. Why in the Neva? Why in the water at all? Better some solitary place in a wood, or under some bushes. Dig a hole and bury them! He felt he was not in a condition to deliberate clearly and soundly, but this idea appeared the best.

This idea also, however, was not destined to be realized, and another took its place. As he passed the V---- Prospect, he suddenly noticed on the left an entrance into a court, which was surrounded entirely by high walls. On the right, a long way up the court, rose the side of a huge four-storied building. To the left, parallel with the walls of the house, and commencing immediately at the gate, there ran a wooden boarding of about twenty paces down the court. Then came a space where a lot of rubbish was deposited; while farther down, at the bottom of the court, was a shed, apparently part of some workshop, possibly that of a carpenter or coach builder. Everything appeared as black as coal dust. Here was the very place, he thought; and, after looking round, went up the court. Behind the door he espied a large unworked stone, weighing about fifty pounds, which lay close up against the hoarding. No one could see him where he stood; he was entirely free from observation. He bent down to the stone, managed to turn it over after considerable effort, and found underneath a small cavity. He threw in the cases, and then the purse on the top of all. The stone was not perceptibly higher when he had replaced it, and little traces of its having been moved could be noticed. So he pressed some earth against the edges with his foot, and made off.

He laughed for joy when again in the street. All traces were gone, and who would think of looking there? And if they were found who would suspect him? All proofs were gone, and he laughed again. Yes, he recollected afterwards how he laughed--a long, nervous, lingering laugh, lasting all the time he was in that street.