Crime and Punishment

I

At the beginning of July, during an extremely hot spell, towards evening, a young man left the closet he rented from tenants in S------y Lane, walked out to the street, and slowly, as if indecisively, headed for the K------n Bridge.

He had safely avoided meeting his landlady on the stairs. His closet was located just under the roof of a tall, five-storied house, and was more like a cupboard than a room. As for the landlady, from whom he rented this closet with dinner and maid-service included, she lived one flight below, in separate rooms, and every time he went out he could not fail to pass by the landlady's kitchen, the door of which almost always stood wide open to the stairs. And each time he passed by, the young man felt some painful and cowardly sensation, which made him wince with shame. He was over his head in debt to the landlady and was afraid of meeting her.

It was not that he was so cowardly and downtrodden, even quite the contrary; but for some time he had been in an irritable and tense state, resembling hypochondria. He was so immersed in himself and had isolated himself so much from everyone that he was afraid not only of meeting his landlady but of meeting anyone at all. He was crushed by poverty; but even his strained circumstances had lately ceased to burden him. He had entirely given up attending to his daily affairs and did not want to attend to them. As a matter of fact, he was not afraid of any landlady, whatever she might be plotting against him. But to stop on the stairs, to listen to all sorts of nonsense about this commonplace rubbish, which he could not care less about, all this badgering for payment, these threats and complaints, and to have to dodge all the while, make excuses, lie—oh, no, better to steal catlike down the stairs somehow and slip away unseen by anyone.

This time, however, as he walked out to the street, even he was struck by his fear of meeting his creditor.

“I want to attempt such a thing, and at the same time I'm afraid of such trifles!” he thought with a strange smile. “Hm...yes...man has it all in his hands, and it all slips through his fingers from sheer cowardice...That is an axiom...I wonder, what are people most afraid of? A new step, their own new word, that's what they're most afraid of...I babble too much, however. That's why I don't do anything, because I babble. However, maybe it's like this: I babble because I don't do anything. I've learned to babble over this past month, lying in a corner day in and day out, thinking about...cuckooland. Why on earth am I going now? Am I really capable of that? Is that something serious? No, not serious at all. I'm just toying with it, for the sake of fantasy. A plaything! Yes, a plaything, if you like!”

It was terribly hot out, and moreover it was close, crowded; lime, scaffolding, bricks, dust everywhere, and that special summer stench known so well to every Petersburger who cannot afford to rent a summer house—all at once these things unpleasantly shook the young man's already overwrought nerves. The intolerable stench from the taverns, especially numerous in that part of the city, and the drunkards he kept running into even though it was a weekday, completed the loathsome and melancholy coloring of the picture. A feeling of the deepest revulsion flashed for a moment in the young man's fine features. Incidentally, he was remarkably good-looking, taller than average, slender and trim, with beautiful dark eyes and dark blond hair. But soon he lapsed as if into deep thought, or even, more precisely, into some sort of oblivion, and walked on no longer noticing what was around him, and not wishing to notice. He only muttered something to himself from time to time, out of that habit of monologues he had just confessed to himself. And at the same moment he was aware that his thoughts sometimes became muddled and that he was very weak: it was the second day that he had had almost nothing to eat.

He was so badly dressed that another man, even an accustomed one, would have been ashamed to go out in such rags during the daytime. However, the neighborhood was such that it was hard to cause any surprise with one's dress. The proximity of the Haymarket, the abundance of certain establishments, a population predominantly of craftsmen and artisans, who clustered in these central Petersburg streets and lanes, sometimes produced such a motley of types in the general panorama that to be surprised at meeting any sort of figure would even have been strange. But so much spiteful contempt was already stored up in the young man's soul that, for all his sometimes very youthful touchiness, he was least ashamed of his rags in the street. It was a different matter when he met some acquaintances or former friends, whom he generally disliked meeting...And yet, when a drunk man who was just then being taken through the street in an enormous cart harnessed to an enormous cart-horse, no one knew why or where, suddenly shouted to him as he passed by: “Hey, you, German hatter!”—pointing at him and yelling at the top of his lungs—the young man suddenly stopped and convulsively clutched his hat. It was a tall, cylindrical Zimmerman hat,^[1] but all worn out, quite faded, all holes and stains, brimless, and dented so that it stuck out at an ugly angle. Yet it was not shame but quite a different feeling, even more like fear, that seized him.

“I just knew it!” he muttered in confusion. “It's just as I thought! That's the worst of all! Some stupid thing like that, some trivial detail, can ruin the whole scheme! Yes, the hat is too conspicuous...Ludicrous, and therefore conspicuous...My rags certainly call for a cap, even if it's some old pancake, not this monster. Nobody wears this kind, it can be noticed a mile away, and remembered...above all, it will be remembered later, so there's evidence for you. Here one must be as inconspicuous as possible...Details, details above all! ... It's these details that ruin everything always...”

He did not have far to go; he even knew how many steps it was from the gate of his house: exactly seven hundred and thirty. Once, when he was far gone in his dreaming, he had counted them. At that time he did not yet believe in these dreams of his, and only chafed himself with their ugly but seductive audacity. Whereas now, a month later, he was beginning to look at them differently and, despite all those taunting monologues about his own powerlessness and indecision, had grown used, even somehow involuntarily, to regarding the “ugly” dream as a real undertaking, though he still did not believe himself. Now he was even going to make a trial of his undertaking, and at every step his excitement grew stronger and stronger.

With a sinking heart and nervous trembling he came up to a most enormous house that faced a canal on one side and ------y Street on the other. The house was all small apartments inside, and was inhabited by all sorts of working people—tailors, locksmiths, cooks, various Germans, girls living on their own, petty clerkdom, and so on. People kept coming and going, darting through both gateways and across both courtyards. Three or four caretakers worked there. The young man was very pleased not to have met any one of them, and slipped inconspicuously from the gate directly to the stairway on the right. The stairway was dark and narrow, a “back” stairway, but he had known and made a study of all that before, and he liked the whole situation: in that darkness even a curious glance was no danger. “If I'm so afraid now, what if it really should somehow get down to the business itself? . . .” he thought involuntarily, going up to the fourth floor. There his way was blocked by some porters, ex-soldiers who were moving furniture out of one apartment. He already knew from before that a German, an official, had been living in that apartment with his family: “It means the German is now moving out; which means that on the fourth floor of this stairway, on this landing, for a while only the old woman's apartment will be left occupied. That's good... just in case...” he thought again, and rang at the old woman's apartment. The bell jingled feebly, as though it were made not of brass but of tin. In the small apartments of such houses almost all the bells are like that. He had forgotten the ring of this bell, and now its peculiar ring seemed suddenly to remind him of something and bring it clearly before him...He jumped, so weak had his nerves become this time. In a short while the door was opened a tiny crack: the woman lodger was looking at the visitor through the crack with obvious mistrust, and only her little eyes could be seen glittering from the darkness. But seeing a number of people on the landing, she took courage and opened the door all the way. The young man stepped across the threshold into the dark entryway, divided by a partition, behind which was a tiny kitchen. The old woman stood silently before him, looking at him inquiringly. She was a tiny, dried-up old crone, about sixty, with sharp, spiteful little eyes and a small, sharp nose. She was bareheaded, and her colorless and only slightly graying hair was thickly greased. Her long, thin neck, which resembled a chicken's leg, was wrapped in some flannel rags, and, despite the heat, a fur-trimmed jacket, completely worn out and yellow with age, hung loosely from her shoulders. The little old woman coughed and groaned all the time. The young man must have glanced at her with some peculiar glance, because the earlier mistrust suddenly flashed in her eyes again.

“Raskolnikov, a student, I was here a month ago,” the young man hastened to mutter with a half bow, recalling that he should be more courteous.

“I remember, dearie, I remember very well that you were,” the old woman said distinctly, still without taking her inquiring eyes from his face.

“And so again, ma'am...on the same little business . . .” Raskolnikov continued, a bit disconcerted and surprised by the old crone's mistrust.

“Though maybe she's always like that, and I didn't notice it last time,” he thought, with an unpleasant feeling.

The old crone was silent for a moment, as if hesitating; then she stepped aside and, pointing towards the door to the room, allowed the visitor to go ahead, saying:

“Come in, dearie.”

The small room into which the young man walked, with yellow wallpaper, geraniums and muslin curtains in the windows, was at that moment brightly lit by the setting sun. “So the sun will be shining the same way then! ... ” flashed as if haphazardly through Raskolnikov's mind, and with a quick glance he took in everything in the room, in order to study and remember the layout as well as possible. But there was nothing special in the room. The furniture, all very old and of yellow wood, consisted of a sofa with a huge, curved wooden back, a round table of an oval shape in front of the sofa, a dressing table with a mirror between the windows, chairs against the walls, and two or three halfpenny prints in yellow frames portraying German damsels with birds in their hands—that was all the furniture there was. In the corner, an oil lamp was burning in front of a small icon. Everything was very clean: both furniture and floor were polished to a high lustre; everything shone. “Lizaveta's work,” the young man thought. There was not a Speck of dust to be found in the whole apartment. “It's wicked old widows who keep everything so clean,” Raskolnikov continued to himself, and he cast a curious sidelong glance at the cotton curtain hanging in the doorway to the second tiny room, where the old woman's bed and chest of drawers stood, and where he had not yet peeked even once. The whole apartment consisted of these two rooms.

“What's your business?” the little old woman said sternly, coming into the room and, as before, standing directly in front of him, so as to look him directly in the face.

“I've brought something to pawn; here, ma'am!” And he took an old, flat silver watch from his pocket. A globe was engraved on its back. The chain was of steel.

“But the time is up for your last pledge. It was a month to the day before yesterday.”

“I'll give you interest for another month; be patient.”

“That's as I please, dearie, whether I'll be patient or sell your thing right now.”

“How much will you give for the watch, Alyona Ivanovna?”

“You bring me trifles, dearie, in my opinion it's not worth anything. Last time I gave you two roubles for your ring, and you could buy one new from a jeweler for a rouble and a half.”

“Give me four roubles anyway—I'll redeem it, it's my father's. I'll be getting money soon.”

“A rouble and a half, sir, and interest paid in advance, if you like, sir.”

“A rouble and a half!” the young man exclaimed.

“As you please.” And the old crone held the watch out to him. The young man took it and became so angry that he wanted simply to leave; but he at once thought better of it, remembering that there was nowhere else to go and that he had also come for another reason.

“I'll take it!” he said rudely.

The old crone felt in her pocket for her keys and went into the other room behind the curtain. The young man, left alone in the middle of the room, was listening with curiosity and figuring things out. She could be heard opening the chest of drawers. “Must be the top drawer,” he figured. “So she carries the keys in her right pocket...All in one bunch on a steel ring...And there's one key, the biggest of them, three times bigger, with a toothed bit, certainly not for a drawer...It means there's also some coffer, or a trunk...Now that's curious. Trunks always have keys like that...But how mean this all is . . .”

The old crone came back.

“Here you are, dearie: if it's ten kopecks to the rouble per month, you'll owe me fifteen kopecks on a rouble and a half for the month to come, sir. And you also owe me twenty kopecks by the same reckoning for the previous two roubles. That makes thirty-five altogether. I now owe you altogether one rouble and fifteen kopecks for your watch. Here, take it, sir.”

“What! So now it's one rouble and fifteen kopecks!”

“Right you are, sir.”

The young man did not argue and took the money. He looked at the old woman and made no move to leave, as if he still wanted to say or do something, but he himself did not seem to know precisely what . . .

“One of these days, Alyona Ivanovna, I may bring you yet another thing...silver...nice...a cigarette case...once I get it back from a friend of mine...” He became confused and fell silent.

“So, we'll talk then, dearie.”

“Good-bye, ma'am...And you stay at home alone like this, your sister's not here?” he asked as casually as he could, walking out to the entryway.

“What business do you have with her, dearie?”

“Nothing special. I just asked. And right away you...Good-bye, Alyona Ivanovna!”

Raskolnikov went out decidedly troubled. This trouble kept increasing more and more. On his way down the stairs he even stopped several times, as if suddenly struck by something. And finally, already in the street, he exclaimed:

“Oh, God, how loathsome this all is! And can it be, can it be that I...no, it's nonsense, it's absurd!” he added resolutely. “Could such horror really come into my head? But then, what filth my heart is capable of! ... Above all, filthy, nasty, vile, vile! . .. And for the whole month I . . .”

But neither words nor exclamations could express his agitation. The feeling of boundless loathing that had begun to oppress and sicken his heart while he was still only on his way to the old woman now reached such proportions and became so clearly manifest that he did not know where to flee from his anguish. He went down the sidewalk like a drunk man, not noticing the passers-by and running into them, and was in the next street before he came to his senses. Looking around, he noticed that he was standing by a tavern, the entrance to which was downstairs from the sidewalk, in the basement. At that same moment two drunks came walking out the door and, supporting and cursing each other, climbed up to the street. Without another thought, Raskolnikov immediately went down the stairs. He had never gone into taverns before, but his head was spinning now, and besides he was tormented by a burning thirst. He wanted to drink some cold beer, all the more so in that he attributed his sudden weakness to hunger. He sat down in a dark and dirty corner, at a sticky little table, asked for beer, and greedily drank the first glass. He immediately felt all relieved, and his thoughts became clear. “It's all nonsense,” he said hopefully, “and there was nothing to be troubled about! Just some physical disorder! One glass of beer, a piece of dry bread, and see—in an instant the mind gets stronger, the thoughts clearer, the intentions firmer! Pah, how paltry it all is! ... ” But in spite of this scornful spitting, he already looked cheerful, as if he had freed himself all at once of some terrible burden, and cast an amiable glance around at the people there. Yet even at that moment he had a distant foreboding that all this receptiveness to the good was also morbid.

There were few people left in the tavern by then. Just after the two drunks he had run into on the stairs, a whole party left together, five men or so, with one wench and an accordion. After them the place became quiet and roomy. There remained one man who looked like a tradesman, drunk, but not very, sitting over a beer; his friend, fat, enormous, in a tight-waisted coat, and with a gray beard, who was quite drunk, had dozed off on a bench, and every once in a while, as if half awake, would suddenly start snapping his fingers, spreading his arms wide and jerking the upper part of his body without getting up from the bench, while he sang some gibberish, trying hard to recall the verses, something like:

“The whole year long he loved his wife, The who-o-ole year lo-o-o-ng he lo-o-oved his wife . . .”

Or again, suddenly waking up:

“Down Podyacheskaya he did go, He met a girl he used to know...”

But no one shared his happiness; his silent friend even looked upon all these outbursts with hostility and mistrust. There was yet another man there who in appearance resembled a retired official. He was sitting apart over his little crock, taking a sip every once in a while and looking around. He also seemed somewhat agitated.

II

Raskolnikov was not used to crowds and, as has already been mentioned, fled all company, especially of late. But now something suddenly drew him to people. Something new was happening in him, as it were, and with that a certain thirst for people made itself felt. After a whole month of this concentrated anguish, this gloomy excitement of his, he was so tired out that he wished, if only for a moment, to draw a breath in another world, whatever it might be, and, despite all the filthiness of the situation, it was with pleasure that he now went on sitting in the tavern.

The proprietor of the establishment was in another room, but frequently came into the main room, descending a flight of stairs from somewhere, his foppish black boots with their wide red tops appearing first. He was wearing a long-skirted coat and a terribly greasy black satin waistcoat, with no necktie, and his whole face was as if oiled like an iron padlock. Behind the counter was a lad of about fourteen, and there was another younger lad who served when anything was asked for. There were chopped pickles, dry black bread, and fish cut into pieces, all quite evil-smelling. It was so stuffy that it was almost impossible to sit there, and everything was so saturated with wine-smell that it seemed one could get drunk in five minutes from the air alone.

We sometimes encounter people, even perfect strangers, who begin to interest us at first sight, somehow suddenly, all at once, before a word has been spoken. Such was precisely the impression made on Raskolnikov by the guest who sat apart and looked like a retired official. Later the young man recalled this first impression more than once and even ascribed it to a presentiment. He kept glancing at the official, also no doubt because the latter was looking persistently at him, and one could see that he very much wanted to start a conversation. But at the others in the tavern, not excluding the proprietor, the official looked somehow habitually and even with boredom, and at the same time also with a certain shade of haughty disdain, as at people of lower position and development with whom he saw no point in talking. He was a man already past fifty, of average height and solid build, with some gray in his hair and a large bald spot, with a yellow, even greenish, face, swollen from constant drinking, and with puffy eyelids behind which his reddish eyes shone, tiny as slits, but lively. Yet there was something very strange in him; his eyes seemed even to be lit with rapture—perhaps there were sense and reason as well, but at the same time there seemed also to be a flicker of madness in them. He was dressed in an old, completely ragged black frock coat, which had shed all its buttons. Only one still somehow hung on, and this one he kept buttoned, obviously not wishing to shirk convention. From under his nankeen waistcoat a shirtfront stuck out, all crumpled, soiled, and stained. His face had been shaved in official style, but a good while ago, so that thick, blue-gray bristles were beginning to show on it. And there was indeed something solidly official in his ways. Yet he was agitated, kept ruffling his hair, and every once in a while leaned his head on his hands in anguish, resting his torn elbows on the spilt-upon and sticky table. Finally he looked straight at Raskolnikov and said loudly and firmly:

“May I venture, my dear sir, to engage you in a conversation of decency? For though you are not of important aspect, my experience nevertheless distinguishes in you an educated man, and one unaccustomed to drink. I myself have always respected education, coupled with the feelings of the heart, and moreover I am a titular councillor.^[2]Marmeladov—such is my name—titular councillor. May I venture to ask whether you have been in government service?”

“No, studying . . .” the young man replied, surprised partly at the peculiarly ornate turn of speech and partly at being addressed so directly, point-blank. In spite of his recent momentary wish for at least some communion with people, at the first word actually addressed to him he suddenly felt his usual unpleasant and irritable feeling of loathing towards any stranger who touched or merely wanted to touch his person.

“A student, then, or a former student!”^[3] the official cried. “Just as I thought! Experience, my dear sir, oft-repeated experience!” And he put his finger to his forehead in a sign of self-praise. “You were a student, or were engaged in some scholarly pursuit! Allow me . . .” He rose slightly, swayed, picked up his little crock and glass, and sat himself down with the young man, somewhat catercorner to him. He was drunk, but spoke loquaciously and glibly, only now and then getting a bit confused in places and dragging out his speech. He even fell upon Raskolnikov with a sort of greediness, as though he, too, had not talked to anyone for a whole month.

“My dear sir,” he began almost solemnly, “poverty is no vice, that is the truth. I know that drunkenness is also no virtue, and that is even more so. But destitution, my dear sir, destitution is a vice, sir. In poverty you may still preserve the nobility of your inborn feelings, but in destitution no one ever does. For destitution one does not even get driven out of human company with a stick; one is swept out with a broom, to make it more insulting; and justly so, for in destitution I am the first to insult myself. Hence the drinking! My dear sir, a month ago Mr. Lebezyatnikov gave my wife a beating, and my wife is a far cry from me! Do you understand, sir? Allow me to ask you something else, if only for the sake of curiosity: did you ever happen to spend your nights on the Neva, on the hay barges?”^[4]

“No, never,” Raskolnikov replied. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, sir, but that's where I've come from, and it's already the fifth night, sir . . .”

He poured himself a glass, drank it, and lapsed into thought. Indeed, one could see bits of hay stuck here and there on his clothes and even in his hair. It was quite possible that he had not undressed and washed for five days. His hands were especially dirty—greasy, red, with black under the nails.

His conversation seemed to arouse general, if lax, attention. The lads at the counter began to snigger. It seemed the proprietor came down from the upstairs room on purpose to listen to the “funnyman,” and sat some distance away, occasionally yawning lazily but grandly. It was obvious that Marmeladov had long been a familiar there. And his penchant for ornate speech he had probably acquired as a result of his habit of frequent tavern conversation with various strangers. This habit turns into a necessity for certain drunkards, mostly those who are treated harshly and ordered about at home. Hence, in a company of drinkers, they always seem eager to solicit justification for themselves and, if possible, even respect as well.

“Funnyman,” the proprietor said loudly. “And why don't you work, why don't you serve, since you're an official?”

“Why do I not serve, my dear sir?” Marmeladov picked up, addressing Raskolnikov exclusively, as if it were he who had asked the question. “Why do I not serve? And does my heart not ache over this vain groveling? When Mr. Lebezyatnikov gave my wife a beating a month ago, with his own hands, while I was lying there in my cups, did I not suffer? Excuse me, young man, has it ever happened to you...hm...let's say, to ask hopelessly for a loan of money?”

“It's happened...that is, what do you mean by hopelessly?”

“That is, completely hopelessly, sir, knowing beforehand that nothing will come of it. Say, for example, you know beforehand and thoroughly well that this man, this most well-intentioned and most useful citizen, will under no circumstances give you any money—for why should he, may I ask? He knows I won't repay it. Out of compassion? But Mr. Lebezyatnikov, who follows all the new ideas, explained the other day that in our time compassion is even forbidden by science, as is already happening in England, where they have political economy. Why, then, should he give, may I ask? And so, knowing beforehand that he will not give anything, you still set out on your way and . . .”

“But why go?” Raskolnikov put in.

“And what if there is no one else, if there is nowhere else to go! It is necessary that every man have at least somewhere to go. For there are times when one absolutely must go at least somewhere! When my only-begotten daughter went out for the first time with a yellow pass,^[5] and I went, too, then...(for my daughter lives on a yellow pass, sir...),” he added parenthetically, glancing somewhat worriedly at the young man. “Never mind, my dear sir, never mind!” he hastened to declare at once and with apparent calm, when both lads at the counter snorted and the proprietor himself smiled.

“Never mind, sir. I am not troubled by this wagging of heads, for everything is already known to everyone, and everything hidden will be made manifest;^[6] I regard it not with disdain, but with humility. Let it be! Let it be! 'Behold the man!'^[7] Excuse me, young man, but can you...Or, no, to expound it more forcefully and more expressively: not can you, but would you venture, looking upon me at this hour, to say of me affirmatively that I am not a swine?”

The young man did not answer a word.

“Well, sir,” the orator went on, having waited sedately and this time with greater dignity for the renewed sniggering in the room to die down. “Well, sir, so I am a swine, and she is a lady! I have the image of a beast, and Katerina Ivanovna, my spouse, is an educated person and by birth an officer's daughter. Granted, granted I am a scoundrel, while she has a lofty heart and is full of sentiments ennobled by good breeding. And yet. .. oh, if only she felt pity for me! My dear sir, my dear sir, but it is necessary that every man have at least one such place where he, too, is pitied! And Katerina Ivanovna, though she is a magnanimous lady, is unjust... And though I myself understand that when she pulls me by these tufts of mine, she does it for no other reason than her heart's pity—for, I repeat it without embarrassment, she does pull these tufts of mine, young man,” he confirmed with increased dignity, having heard more sniggering, “but, God, if she would only just once...But no! no! it is all in vain, and there is no use talking, no use talking! ... for my wish has already been granted more than once, and already more than once I have been pitied, but...such is my trait, and I am a born brute!”

“That you are!” the proprietor remarked, yawning.

Marmeladov banged his fist resolutely on the table.

“Such is my trait! Do you know, do you know, sir, that I even drank up her stockings? Not her shoes, sir, for that would at least somehow resemble the order of things, but her stockings, I drank up her stockings, sir! Her angora kerchief I also drank up—a gift, a former one, hers, not mine; and our corner is cold, and this winter she caught a chill and took to coughing, with blood now. And we have three small children, and Katerina Ivanovna works day and night, scrubbing and cleaning and washing the children, for she has been used to cleanliness since childhood, and she has a weak chest and is inclined to consumption, and I feel it. Do I not feel it? And the more I drink, the more I feel it. It is for this I drink, that in drinking I may seek compassion and feeling. It is not joy I seek, but sorrow only...I drink, for I wish doubly to suffer!” And he bent his head to the table as if in despair. “Young man,” he continued, unbending again, “in your face I read, as it were, a certain sorrow. I read it when you entered, and therefore I addressed you at once. For by telling you the story of my life, I do not wish to expose myself to disgrace before these lovers of idleness, who know everything anyway, but am seeking a sensitive and educated man. Know, then, that my spouse was educated in an aristocratic provincial institute for the nobility and at her graduation danced with a shawl before the governor and other notables,^[8] for which she received a gold medal and a certificate of merit. The medal...well, we sold the medal...long ago...hm...the certificate of merit is still lying in her trunk, she showed it to our landlady just recently. And though she is in the most ceaseless strife with our landlady, still she wished to feel proud before someone at least and to tell of the happy days gone by. And I do not judge, I do not judge, for this is the last thing left to her in her memories, and the rest has all gone to ruin! Yes, yes, she is a hot, proud, and unbending lady. She washes the floors herself and eats black bread, but disrespect for herself she will not tolerate. That is why she would not let Mr. Lebezyatnikov get away with his rudeness, and when Mr. Lebezyatnikov gave her a beating for it, she took to her bed, not so much from the beating as from emotion. She came to me already a widow, with three children, each one smaller than the next. She had married her first husband, an infantry officer, out of love, and eloped with him from her parental home. She loved her husband exceedingly, but he got into card-playing, was taken to court, and thereupon died. He used to beat her towards the end; and though she would not let him get away with it, as I am informed of a certainty and with documents, yet to this day she remembers him with tears and holds him up to me in reproach—and I am glad, I am glad, for at least in her imaginings she beholds herself as having once been happy...And after him she was left with three young children in a remote and savage district, where I was living at the time, and she was left in such hopeless destitution as I, though my adventures have been many and varied, am scarcely able to describe. And her relations had all renounced her. Besides, she was proud, much too proud...And it was then, my dear sir, it was then that I, being a widower myself, and having a fourteen-year-old daughter from my first wife, offered her my hand, for I could not look on at such suffering. You may judge thereby what degree her calamities had reached, if she, well educated and well bred, and of a known family, consented to marry me! But she did! Weeping and sobbing and wringing her hands—she did! For she had nowhere to go. Do you understand, do you understand, my dear sir, what it means when there is no longer anywhere to go? No! That you do not understand yet...And for a whole year I fulfilled my duties piously and sacredly and did not touch this” (he jabbed a finger at his bottle), “for I do have feelings. But even so I could not please her; and then I lost my position, also through no fault of my own, but because of a change of staff, and then I did touch it! ... It is now a year and a half since we finally ended up, after much wandering and numerous calamities, in this splendid capital adorned with numerous monuments. And here I found a position...Found it, and lost it again. Do you understand, sir? This time I lost it through my own fault, for this trait of mine appeared again...We now live in a corner at Amalia Fyodorovna Lippewechsel's, and what we live on and pay with I do not know.^[9] There are many others living there besides ourselves...A Sodom, sir, a most outrageous one...hm...yes... And meanwhile my daughter from my first marriage also grew up, and what she had to suffer from her stepmother while she was growing up, that I shall pass over in silence. For though Katerina Ivanovna is filled with magnanimous feelings, she is a hot and irritable lady, and an abrupt one...Yes, sir! Well, no use going over that! Sonya, as you can imagine, received no education. I tried four years ago to teach her geography and world history; but since I myself was not firm in this knowledge, and there were besides no suitable textbooks, for whatever books we had left. . . hm! ... well, there are no books anymore, so that was the end of all education. We stopped at Cyrus of Persia.^[10] Later, having reached maturity, she read several books of a novelistic purport, and recently, thanks to Mr. Lebezyatnikov, one more book—Lewes's Physiology,^[11] perhaps you know it, sir?—read it with great interest and even recited some extracts aloud for us: that is the whole of her enlightenment. And now, my dear sir, I will address you with a private question of my own: how much, in your opinion, can a poor but honest girl earn by honest labor?... Not even fifteen kopecks a day, sir, if she is honest and has no special talents, and even then only if her hands are never still for a moment. And even then the state councillor^[12] Klopstock, Ivan Ivanovich—perhaps you've heard of him?—has not only still not paid for the half dozen holland shirts she made him, but even offended her and chased her away, stamping his feet and calling her bad names, on the pretext that the collars were the wrong size and too pointed. And here the children were hungry...And here Katerina Ivanovna was pacing the room, wringing her hands, and flushed spots came out on her cheeks—as always happens with this illness: 'You live with us,' she says, 'you good-for-nothing, you eat and drink and use up warmth'—and what is there to eat and drink, if even the children don't see a crust of bread for three days on end! I was lying there...well, what of it! ... lying there in my cups, sir, and I heard Sonya say (she's uncomplaining, and has such a meek little voice...she's fair, her face is always so pale, thin), and so she said, 'What, Katerina Ivanovna, must I really go and do such a thing?' And Darya Frantsevna, an ill-meaning woman and one oft-known to the police, had already made inquiries three times through the landlady. 'And what,' Katerina Ivanovna answered mockingly, 'what's there to save? Some treasure!' But do not blame her, do not blame her, my dear sir, do not blame her! She said this not in her right mind but in emotional agitation, in sickness, and with the children crying from hunger, and said it, besides, more for the sake of the insult than in any strict sense...For such is Katerina Ivanovna's character, and when the children get to crying, even if it's from hunger, she starts beating them at once. So then, some time after five, I see Sonechka get up, put on her kerchief, put on her wrap, and go out, and she came back home after eight. She came in, went straight to Katerina Ivanovna, and silently laid thirty roubles on the table in front of her. Not a word with it, not even a glance; she just took our big green flannel shawl (we have this one flannel shawl for all of us), covered her head and face with it completely, and lay down on her bed, face to the wall; only her little shoulders and her whole body kept trembling...And I was lying there in the same aspect as previously, sir...And then I saw, young man, after that I saw Katerina Ivanovna go over to Sonechka's bed, also without saying a word, and for the whole evening she stayed kneeling at her feet, kissing her feet, and would not get up, and then they both fell asleep together, embracing each other...both...both...yes, sir...and I...was lying there in my cups, sir.”

Marmeladov fell silent, as though his voice had failed him. Then suddenly he poured a quick glass, drank it, and grunted.

“Since then, my dear sir,” he went on after some silence, “since then, owing to an unfortunate occurrence and reports made by ill-meaning persons—which Darya Frantsevna especially abetted, on the pretext that she had not been shown due respect—since then my daughter, Sofya Semyonovna, has been obliged to carry a yellow pass, and under such circumstances could no longer remain with us. For the landlady, Amalia Fyodorovna, would not allow it (though she herself had abetted Darya Frantsevna before), and Mr. Lebezyatnikov also...hm...It was because of Sonya that this story happened between him and Katerina Ivanovna. First he sought after Sonya himself, but then he suddenly got puffed up: 'What?' he said. 'Is such an enlightened man as myself to live in the same apartment with such a woman?' And Katerina Ivanovna would not let that pass, she interfered...well, so it happened...And now Sonechka comes to us mostly at dusk, and helps Katerina Ivanovna, and brings whatever means she can...But she lives at the tailor Kapernaumov's, she rents a room from him, and Kapernaumov is lame and tongue-tied, and the whole of his extremely numerous family is also tongue-tied. And his wife, too, is tongue-tied...They occupy one room, and Sonya has her own, separately, with a partition...Hm, yes...The poorest people, and all of them tongue-tied...yes...So I got up that next morning, sir, put my rags on, lifted up my hands to heaven, and went to see his excellency, Ivan Afanasyevich. Do you know his excellency, Ivan Afanasyevich? No? Then you have missed knowing a man of God! He is wax...wax before the face of the Lord; as the wax melteth!^[13]...He even shed a tear when he heard it all. 'Well, Marmeladov,' he said, 'you have deceived my expectations once already....I am taking you one more time, on my personal responsibility'—that's just what he said. 'Remember that,' he said, 'and now go!' I kissed the dust at his feet—mentally, because in reality he would not have allowed it, being a dignitary, and a man of the new political and educated thinking; I went home again, and when I announced that I had been taken back into the service and would have a salary, Lord, what went on then! . . .”

Marmeladov again stopped in great agitation. At that moment a whole party of drinkers walked in from the street, already drunk to begin with, and from the entrance came the sounds of a hired barrel organ and a child's cracked seven-year-old voice singing “The Little Farm.”^[14] It became noisy. The proprietor and servants occupied themselves with the newcomers. Marmeladov, ignoring the newcomers, went on with his story. He seemed to have grown quite weak, but the drunker he got, the more loquacious he became. The recollection of his recent success in the service seemed to animate him and was even reflected in his face as a sort of radiance. Raskolnikov listened attentively.

“That was all five weeks ago, sir. Yes...As soon as the two of them, Katerina Ivanovna and Sonechka, found out, Lord, it was just as though I'd moved into the Kingdom of God. I used to lie there like a brute, all I heard was abuse! But now they were tiptoeing around, quieting the children: 'Semyon Zakharych is tired from his work, he's resting, shh!' They brought me coffee before work, with scalded cream! They started getting real cream, do you hear! How they managed to knock together eleven roubles and fifty kopecks to have me decently outfitted, I don't understand. Boots, cotton shirtfronts— most magnificent, a uniform, they cooked it all up for eleven fifty, in the most excellent aspect, sir. The first day I came home after a morning's work, I saw that Katerina Ivanovna had prepared two courses, soup and corned beef with horseradish, which we'd had no notion of before then. She doesn't have any dresses...I mean, not any, sir, and here it was as if she were going to a party, all dressed up, and not just in anything, no, she knows how to do it all out of nothing: she fixed her hair, put on some clean collar, some cuffs, and—quite a different person emerged, younger and prettier. Sonechka, my dove, contributed only money, and as for herself, she said, for the time being it's not proper for me to visit you too often, or only when it's dark, so no one can see me. Do you hear? Do you hear? I went to take a nap after dinner, and what do you suppose? Katerina Ivanovna simply couldn't help herself: just a week earlier she had quarreled to the ultimate degree with the landlady, Amalia Ivodorovna, and now she invited her for a cup of coffee. They sat whispering for two hours: 'So,' she said, 'Semyon Zakharych has work now and is getting a salary, and he went to his excellency himself, and his excellency came out in person, and told everyone to wait, and took Semyon Zakharych by the arm, and led him past everyone into the office.' Do you hear? Do you hear? ' “Of course I remember your merits, Semyon Zakharych, and though you were given to that frivolous weakness, since you have now promised, and, moreover, since without you things have gone badly for us” ' (hear that, hear that!), ' “I shall now place my hopes,” he said, “in your gentleman's word” '—that is, I must tell you, she up and invented it all, and not really out of frivolousness, not merely to boast, sir! No, she believed it all, she delights in her own fancies, by God, sir! And I do not condemn that, no, I do not condemn it! ... And six days ago, when I brought home my first salary—twenty-three roubles and forty kopecks—brought it in full, she called me a sweet little thing: 'You sweet little thing!' she said. We were by ourselves, sir, you understand. And what sort of beauty would you say is in me, and what sort of husband am I? But no, she pinched my cheek and said, 'You sweet little thing!’”

Marmeladov stopped, wanted to smile, but suddenly his chin began to tremble. He restrained himself, however. The pot-house, the depraved look of the man, the five nights on the hay barges, the half-litre bottle, and at the same time this morbid love for his wife and family, bewildered his listener. Raskolnikov listened tensely, but with a morbid sensation. He was annoyed that he had stopped at the place.

“My dear sir, my dear sir!” Marmeladov exclaimed, recovering himself. “Oh, sir, perhaps it's all just a laughing matter for you, as it is for everyone else, and I am merely bothering you with the foolishness of all these measly details of my domestic life, but for me it's no laughing matter! For I can feel it all... And in the course of that whole paradisal day of my life and of that whole evening I spent in fleeting dreams— that is, how I would arrange it all, and would dress the children, and would give her peace, and would bring back my only-begotten daughter from dishonor into the bosom of the family...And so much, so much...It's permissible, sir. And then, my dear sir” (Marmeladov suddenly gave a sort of start, raised his head, and looked straight at his listener), “and then, sir, the very next day after all those dreams (that is, exactly five days ago), towards evening, by means of cunning deceit, like a thief in the night, I stole the key to Katerina Ivanovna's trunk from her, took out all that remained of the salary I had brought home, I don't remember how much, and now, sir, look at me, all of you! Five days away from home, they're looking for me there, and it's the end of my service, and my uniform is lying in a tavern near the Egyptian Bridge, and these garments I received in exchange for it...and it is the end of everything!”

Marmeladov struck himself on the forehead with his fist, clenched his teeth, closed his eyes, and leaned heavily on the table with his elbow. But a moment later his face suddenly changed and, glancing at Raskolnikov with a certain affected coyness and forced insolence, he laughed and said:

“And today I went to see Sonya and asked her for the hair of the dog! ... Heh, heh, heh!”

“Did she give it to you?” one of the newcomers shouted from the side, shouted and guffawed at the top of his lungs.

“This very bottle here was bought on her money, sir,” Marmeladov said, addressing Raskolnikov exclusively. “She took out thirty kopecks for me, with her own hands, the last she had, I saw it myself...She didn't say anything, she just looked at me silently...That is not done on earth, but up there...people are grieved for, wept over, and not reproached, not reproached! And it hurts more, it hurts more, sir, when one is not reproached! . .. Thirty kopecks, yes, sir. And doesn't she also need them now, eh? What do you think, my dear gentlemen? For she has to observe her cleanliness now. This cleanliness—of a special sort, you understand—costs money. Understand? And to buy a bit of pomade as well, can't do without that, sir; starched petticoats, some shoes of a frippery sort to show off her foot when she steps over a puddle. Do you understand, do you understand, sir, what this cleanliness means? So, sir, and now I, her blood father, snatched, these thirty kopecks for the hair of the dog! And I'm drinking, sir! And I've already drunk them up, sir! ... So, who's going to pity the likes of me? Eh? Do you pity me now, sir, or do you not? Speak, sir, do you or do you not? Heh, heh, heh, heh!”

He wanted to pour some more, but there was nothing left. The bottle was empty.

“Why pity you?” shouted the proprietor, who turned up near them again.

There was laughter and even swearing. The laughter and swearing came both from those who were listening and from those who were not listening but merely looking at the figure of the retired official.

“Pity! Why pity me!” Marmeladov suddenly cried out, rising with his hand stretched forth, in decided inspiration, as if he had only been waiting for these words. “Why pity me, you say? Yes! There's nothing to pity me for! I ought to be crucified, crucified on a cross, and not pitied! But crucify, judge, crucify, and having crucified, pity the man! And then I myself will come to you to be crucified, for I thirst not for joy, but for sorrow and tears! ... Do you think, wine-merchant, that this bottle of yours brought me sweetness? Sorrow, sorrow I sought at its bottom, sorrow and tears, and I tasted it and found it; and He will pity us who pitied everyone, and who understood all men and all women, He alone, and He is the judge. On that day He will come and ask, 'Where is the daughter who gave herself for a wicked and consumptive stepmother, for a stranger's little children? Where is the daughter who pitied her earthly father, a foul drunkard, not shrinking from his beastliness?' And He will say, 'Come! I have already forgiven you once...I have forgiven you once...And now, too, your many sins are forgiven, for you have loved much^[15]...' And He will forgive my Sonya, He will forgive her, I know He will... Today, when I was with her, I felt it in my heart! And He will judge and forgive all, the good and the wicked, the wise and the humble...And when He has finished with everyone, then He will say unto us, too, 'You, too, come forth!' He will say. 'Come forth, my drunk ones, my weak ones, my shameless ones!' And we will all come forth, without being ashamed, and stand there. And He will say, 'Swine you are! Of the image of the beast and of his seal;^[16] but come, you, too!' And the wise and the reasonable will say unto Him, 'Lord, why do you receive such as these?' And He will say, 'I receive them, my wise and reasonable ones, forasmuch as not one of them considered himself worthy of this thing . . .' And He will stretch out His arms to us, and we will fall at His feet. . . and weep...and understand everything! Then we will understand everything! ... and everyone will understand...and Katerina Ivanovna...she, too, will understand...Lord, Thy kingdom come!”^[17]

And he sank down on the bench, exhausted and weak, not looking at anyone, apparently oblivious of his surroundings and deep in thought. His words produced a certain impression; for a moment silence reigned, but soon laughter and swearing were heard again:

“Nice reasoning!”

“Blather!”

“A real official!”

And so on and so forth.

“Let us go, sir,” Marmeladov said suddenly, raising his head and turning to Raskolnikov. “Take me...Kozel's house, through the courtyard. It's time...to Katerina Ivanovna . . .”

Raskolnikov had long been wanting to leave, and had himself thought of helping him. Marmeladov, who turned out to be much weaker on his feet than in his speeches, leaned heavily on the young man. They had to go two or three hundred steps. Confusion and fear took more and more possession of the drunkard as he neared home.

“It's not Katerina Ivanovna I'm afraid of now,” he muttered in agitation, “and not that she'll start pulling my hair. Forget the hair! ... The hair's nonsense! I can tell you! It's even better if she starts pulling it; that's not what I'm afraid of...I...it's her eyes I'm afraid of...yes...her eyes... I'm also afraid of the flushed spots on her cheeks, and also—her breathing . .. Have you ever seen how people with that illness breathe...when their feelings are aroused? And I'm afraid of the children's crying, too...Because if Sonya hasn't been feeding them, then...I don't know what! I really don't! And I'm not afraid of a beating...Know, sir, that such beatings are not only not painful, but are even a delight to me...For I myself cannot do without them. It's better. Let her beat me, to ease her soul...it's better...Here's the house. Kozel's house. A locksmith, a German, a rich one...take me in!”

They entered through the courtyard and went up to the fourth floor. The higher up, the darker the stairway became. It was nearly eleven o'clock by then, and though at that time of year there is no real night in Petersburg,^[18] it was very dark at the top of the stairs.

At the head of the stairs, at the very top, a small, soot-blackened door stood open. A candle-end lighted the poorest of rooms, about ten paces long; the whole of it could be seen from the entryway. Everything was scattered about and in disorder, all sorts of children's rags especially. A torn sheet hung across the back corner. Behind it was probably a bed. The only contents of the room itself were two chairs and an oilcloth sofa, very ragged, before which stood an old pine kitchen table, unpainted and uncovered. At the edge of the table stood an iron candlestick with the butt of a tallow candle burning down in it. It appeared that this room of Marmeladov's was a separate one, not just a corner, though other tenants had to pass through it. The door to the further rooms, or hutches, into which Amalia Lippewechsel's apartment had been divided, was ajar. Behind it there was noise and shouting. Guffawing. Card-playing and tea-drinking seemed to be going on. Occasionally the most unceremonious words would fly out.

Raskolnikov immediately recognized Katerina Ivanovna. She was a terribly wasted woman, slender, quite tall and trim, still with beautiful dark brown hair, and indeed with flushed spots on her cheeks. She was pacing the small room, her hands pressed to her chest, her lips parched, her breath uneven and gasping. Her eyes glittered as with fever, but her gaze was sharp and fixed, and with the last light of the burnt-down candle-end flickering on it, this consumptive and agitated face produced a painful impression. To Raskolnikov she appeared about thirty years old, and Marmeladov was indeed no match for her...She did not hear or notice them as they entered; she seemed to be in some sort of oblivion, not hearing or seeing anything. The room was stuffy, yet she had not opened the window; a stench came from the stairs, yet the door to the stairs was not shut; waves of tobacco smoke came through the open door from the inner rooms, she was coughing, yet she did not close the door. The smallest child, a girl of about six, was asleep on the floor, sitting somehow crouched with her head buried in the sofa. The boy, a year older, stood in the corner crying and trembling all over. He had probably just been beaten. The older girl, about nine, tall and thin as a matchstick, wearing only a poor shirt, all in tatters, with a threadbare flannel wrap thrown over her bare shoulders, probably made for her two years before, since it now did not even reach her knees, stood in the corner by her little brother, her long arm, dry as a matchstick, around his neck. She was whispering something to him, apparently trying to calm him, doing all she could to restrain him so that he would not somehow start whimpering again, and at the same time following her mother fearfully with her big, dark eyes, which seemed even bigger in her wasted and frightened little face. Mar-meladov knelt just at the door, without entering the room, and pushed Raskolnikov forward. The woman, seeing the stranger, stopped distractedly in front of him, having come to her senses for a moment, and appeared to be asking herself why he was there. But she must have fancied at once that he was going to some other room and only passing through theirs. Having come to this conclusion, and taking no further notice of him, she went to the entryway to close the door and suddenly gave a cry, seeing her husband kneeling there in the doorway.

“Ah!” she cried in a frenzy, “he's come back! The jailbird! The monster! ... Where's the money? What's in your pocket, show me! And those aren't the same clothes! Where are your clothes? Where is the money? Speak! ... ”

And she fell to searching him. Marmeladov at once spread his arms humbly and obediently, to make the search of his pockets easier. Not a kopeck was left of the money.

“But where is the money?” she shouted. “Oh, Lord, did he really drink up all of it? There were twelve roubles left in the trunk! ... ” And suddenly, in a rage, she seized him by the hair and dragged him into the room. Marmeladov made her efforts easier by meekly crawling after her on his knees.

“And it's a delight to me! It's not painful, it's a deli-i-ight, my de-e-ear sir,” he kept crying out, being pulled by his hair all the while and once even bumping his forehead on the floor. The child who was asleep on the floor woke up and started to cry. The boy in the corner could not help himself, trembled, cried out, and rushed to his sister in a terrible fright, almost a fit. The older girl, half awake, was trembling like a leaf.

“Drank it up! Drank up all of it, all of it!” the poor woman kept shouting in despair. “And they're not the same clothes! Hungry! Hungry!” (she pointed at the children, wringing her hands). “Oh, curse this life! And you, aren't you ashamed,” she suddenly fell upon Raskolnikov, “coming from the pot-house! Were you drinking with him? Were you drinking with him, too? Get out!”

The young man hastened to leave without saying a word. Besides, the inner door had been thrown wide open and several curious faces were peering through it. Insolent, laughing heads with cigarettes or pipes, in skullcaps, craning their necks. One glimpsed figures in dressing gowns that hung quite open, or in indecently summerish costumes, some with cards in their hands. They laughed with particular glee when Marmeladov, dragged about by his hair, shouted that it was a delight to him. They even started edging into the room. Finally an ominous shrieking was heard: this was Amalia Lippewechsel herself tearing her way through, to restore order in her own fashion and frighten the poor woman for the hundredth time with an abusive command to clear out of the apartment by the next day. As he was leaving, Raskolnikov managed to thrust his hand into his pocket, rake up whatever coppers he happened to find from the rouble he had changed in the tavern, and put them unobserved on the windowsill. Afterwards, on the stairs, he thought better of it and wanted to go back.

“What a stupid thing to have done,” he thought. “They have their Sonya, and I need it myself.” But realizing that it was now impossible to take it back, and that he would not take it back in any case, he waved his hand and went home to his own apartment. “Sonya needs a bit of pomade as well,” he went on, and grinned caustically as he strode along the street. “This cleanliness costs money...Hm! And maybe Sonechka will also go bankrupt today, because there's the same risk in it. . . trapping...prospecting for gold...and so tomorrow, without my money, they'd all be on dry beans...Bravo, Sonya! What a well they've dug for themselves, however! And they use it! They really do use it! And they got accustomed to it. Wept a bit and got accustomed. Man gets accustomed to everything, the scoundrel!”

He fell to thinking.

“But if that's a lie”,” he suddenly exclaimed involuntarily, “if man in fact is not a scoundrel—in general, that is, the whole human race—then the rest is all mere prejudice, instilled fear, and there are no barriers, and that's just how it should be! . . .”

III

He woke up late the next day, after a troubled sleep, but sleep had not fortified him. He woke up bilious, irritable, and angry, and looked with hatred at his little room. It was a tiny closet, about six paces long, of a most pathetic appearance, with yellow, dusty wallpaper coming off the walls everywhere, and with such a low ceiling that a man of any height at all felt creepy in it and kept thinking he might bump his head every moment. The furniture was in keeping with the place. There were three old chairs, not quite in good repair; a painted table in the corner, on which lay several books and notebooks (from the mere fact that they were so covered with dust, one could see that no hand had touched them for a long time); and finally a big, clumsy sofa, which occupied almost the entire wall and half the width of the room, and had once been upholstered in chintz but was now all ragged and served as Raskolnikov's bed. He often slept on it just as he was, without undressing, without a sheet, covering himself with his old, decrepit student's coat,^[19] and with one small pillow under his head, beneath which he put whatever linen he had, clean or soiled, to bolster it. In front of the sofa stood a small table.

To become more degraded and slovenly would have been difficult; but Raskolnikov even enjoyed it in his present state of mind. He had decidedly withdrawn from everyone, like a turtle into its shell, and even the face of the maid who had the task of serving him, and who peeked into his room occasionally, drove him to bile and convulsions. This happens with certain monomaniacs when they concentrate too long on some one thing. It was two weeks since his landlady had stopped sending food up to him, but it had not yet occurred to him to go and have a talk with her, though he was left without dinner. Nastasya, the landlady's cook and only servant, was glad in a way that the tenant was in such a mood, and stopped tidying and sweeping his room altogether; only once a week, just by accident, she would sometimes take a besom to it. It was she who woke him now.

“Enough sleeping! Get up!” she shouted over him. “It's past nine. I've brought you tea; want some tea? You must be wasting away!”

The tenant opened his eyes, gave a start, and recognized Nastasya.

“Is it the landlady's tea, or what?” he asked, slowly and with a pained look raising himself a little on the sofa.

“The landlady's, hah!”

She placed in front of him her own cracked teapot, full of re-used tea, and two yellow lumps of sugar.

“Here, Nastasya, please take this,” he said, feeling in his pocket (he had slept in his clothes) and pulling out a handful of copper coins, “and go and buy me a roll. And a bit of sausage, too, whatever's cheapest, at the pork butcher's.”

“I'll bring you a roll this minute, but don't you want some cabbage soup instead of the sausage? It's good cabbage soup, made yesterday. I saved some for you yesterday, but you came back late. Good cabbage soup.”

Once the soup was brought and he had begun on it, Nastasya sat down beside him on the sofa and started chattering. She was a village woman, and a very chattery one.

“And so Praskovya Pavlovna wants to make a complaint against you with the poliss,” she said.

He winced deeply.

“With the police? What does she want?”

“You don't pay her the money and you won't vacate the room. What do you think she wants?”

“Ah, the devil, that's all I need,” he muttered, grinding his teeth. “No, it's just the wrong time for that...now...She's a fool,” he added aloud. “I'll stop and have a talk with her today.”

“A fool she may be, the same as I am, and aren't you a smarty, lying around like a sack and no good to anybody! You say you used to go and teach children before, so why don't you do anything now?”

“I do something . . .” Raskolnikov said, reluctantly and sternly.

“What do you do?”

“Work . . .”

“Which work?”

“I think,” he replied seriously, after a pause.

Nastasya simply dissolved in laughter. She was the sort much given to laughter, and when something made her laugh, she laughed inaudibly, heaving and shaking her whole body, until she made herself sick.

“And a fat lot of money you've thought up, eh?” she was finally able to say.

“One can't teach children without boots. Anyway, I spit on it.”

“Don't go spitting in the well.”^[20]

“They pay small change for children. What can one do with kopecks?” he went on reluctantly, as if answering his own thoughts.

“And you'd like a whole fortune at once?”

He gave her a strange look.

“Yes, a whole fortune,” he said firmly, after a pause.

“Hey, take it easy, don't scare a body; I'm scared as it is. Shall I get you a roll?”

“If you want.”

“Ah, I forgot! A letter came for you yesterday while you were out.”

“A letter! For me! From whom?”

“I don't know from whom; I gave the mailman my own three kopecks. Will you pay me back?”

“But bring it here, for God's sake, bring it here!” Raskolnikov cried, all excited. “Oh, Lord!”

The letter appeared in a moment. Sure enough, it was from his mother, from R------province. He even turned pale as he took it. It was long since he had received any letters. But now something else, too, suddenly wrung his heart.

“Leave, Nastasya, for God's sake; here are your three kopecks, only for God's sake leave quickly.”

The letter trembled in his hands; he did not want to open it in front of her: he wished to be left alone with this letter. When Nastasya had gone, he quickly brought it to his lips and kissed it; then for a long time he gazed at the handwriting of the address, familiar and dear to him, the small and slanted handwriting of his mother, who had once taught him to read and write. He lingered; he even seemed afraid of something. Finally, he opened it: it was a big, thick letter, almost an ounce in weight; two big sheets of stationery covered with very small script.

“My dear Rodya,” his mother wrote, “it is over two months now since I've spoken with you in writing, and I myself have suffered from it, and even spent some sleepless nights thinking. But you surely will not blame me for this unwilling silence of mine. You know how I love you; you are all we have, Dunya and I, you are everything for us, all our hope and our trust. What I felt when I learned that you had left the university several months ago because you had no way of supporting yourself, and that your lessons and other means had come to an end! How could I help you, with my pension of a hundred and twenty roubles a year? The fifteen roubles I sent you four months ago I borrowed, as you know yourself, on the security of that same pension, from our local merchant, Afanasy Ivanovich Vakhrushin. He is a kind man and used to be your father's friend. But, having given him the right to receive my pension for me, I had to wait until the debt was repaid, which has happened only now, so that all this while I could not send you anything. But now, thank God, I think I can send you more, and generally now we can even boast of our good fortune, of which I hasten to inform you. And, first of all, guess what, dear Rodya, your sister has been living with me for a month and a half already, and in the future we shall not part again. Thanks be to God, her torments are over, but I will tell you everything in order, so that you will know how it all was and what we have been concealing from you until now. When you wrote me two months ago that you had heard from someone that Dunya was suffering much from rudeness in Mr. and Mrs. Svidrigailov's house, and asked me for precise explanations—what could I then write y-ou in reply? If I had written you the whole truth, you might have dropped everything and come to us, on foot if you had to, because I know your character and your feelings and that you would brook no offense to your sister. And I was in despair myself, but what was one to do? I myself did not even know the whole truth then. And the greatest difficulty was that when Dunechka entered their home last year as a governess, she took a whole hundred roubles in advance, against monthly deductions from her salary, and therefore could not even leave her position without paying back the debt. And this sum (I can now explain everything to you, my precious Rodya) she took mainly in order to send you sixty roubles, which you needed so much then and which you received from us last year. We deceived you then, we wrote that it was from previous money Dunechka had saved, but that was not so, and now I am telling you the whole truth, because now everything, by God's will, has suddenly changed for the better, and so that you will know how Dunya loves you and what a precious heart she has. Indeed, Mr. Svidrigailov treated her very rudely at first and gave her all sorts of discourtesy and mockery at table...But I do not want to go into all these painful details, so as not to trouble you for nothing, now that it is all over. In short, despite good and noble treatment from Marfa Petrovna, Mr. Svidrigailov's wife, and all the rest of the household, it was very hard for Dunechka, especially when Mr. Svidrigailov, from his old regimental habit, was under the influence of Bacchus. And how did it finally turn out? Imagine, this madcap had long since conceived a passion for Dunya, but kept hiding it behind the appearance of rudeness and contempt for her. Perhaps he was ashamed and horrified himself, seeing that he was not so young anymore and the father of a family, while having such frivolous hopes, and was therefore angry with Dunya involuntarily. Or perhaps by his mockery and the rudeness of his treatment he simply wanted to cover up the truth from everyone else. But in the end he could not restrain himself and dared to make Dunya a vile and explicit proposition, promising her various rewards, above all that he would abandon everything and go with her to another village, or perhaps abroad. You can imagine how she suffered! To leave her position at once was impossible, not only because of the money she owed, but also to spare Marfa Petrovna, who might suddenly have formed suspicions, and it would have meant sowing discord in the family. And for Dunechka, too, it would have been a great scandal; that was unavoidable. There were also many other reasons, so that Dunya could not hope to escape from that terrible house for another six weeks. Of course, you know Dunya, you know how intelligent she is and what a firm character she has. Dunechka can endure much, and even in the most extreme situations she can find enough magnanimity in herself so as not to lose her firmness. She did not write about everything even to me, so as not to upset me, though we exchanged news frequently. The denouement came unexpectedly. Marfa Petrovna chanced to overhear her husband pleading with Dunya in the garden and, misinterpreting everything, laid the whole blame on Dunya, thinking she was the cause of it all. There was a terrible scene between them, right there in the garden: Marfa Petrovna even struck Dunya, refused to listen to anything, and shouted for a whole hour, and in the end ordered Dunya to be sent back to me in town at once, in a simple peasant cart, with all her belongings, linen, clothing thrown into it haphazardly, not even bundled or packed. Just then it started to pour, and Dunya, insulted and disgraced, had to ride with a peasant in an open cart the whole ten miles. Now think, what could I have written you in reply to your letter, which I had received two months earlier, and what could I have said? I was in despair myself; I did not dare write you the truth, because you would have been very unhappy, upset, and indignant, and, besides, what could you have done? You might even have ruined yourself, and, besides, Dunechka kept forbidding me; and to fill a letter with trifles and whatnot, while there was such grief in my soul, was beyond me. For a whole month there was gossip going around town about this story, and it came to the point where Dunya and I could not even go to church because of the scornful looks and whispers and things even said aloud in our presence. And all our acquaintances avoided us, they all even stopped greeting us, and I learned for certain that the shopclerks and officeboys wanted to insult us basely by smearing the gates of our house with tar,^[21] so that the landlord began demanding that we move out. The cause of it all was Marfa Petrovna, who succeeded in accusing and besmirching Dunya in all houses. She is acquainted with everyone here, and during that month was constantly coming to town, and being a bit chatty and fond of telling about her family affairs, and especially of complaining about her husband to all and sundry, which is very bad, she spread the whole story in no time, not only around town but all over the district. I became ill, but Dunechka was firmer than I, and if only you could have seen how she bore it all, comforting me and encouraging me! She is an angel! But by God's mercy our torments were shortened: Mr. Svidrigailov thought better of it and repented, and, probably feeling sorry for Dunya, presented Marfa Petrovna with full and obvious proof of Dunechka's complete innocence, in the form of a letter Dunya had been forced to write and send him, even before Marfa Petrovna found them in the garden, declining the personal explanations and secret meetings he was insisting on— which letter had remained in Mr. Svidrigailov's possession after Dunechka's departure. In this letter she reproached him, in the most ardent manner and with the fullest indignation, precisely for his ignoble behavior with respect to Marfa Petrovna, reminding him that he was a father and a family man, and, finally, that it was vile on his part to torment and make unhappy a girl who was already unhappy and defenseless as it was. In short, dear Rodya, this letter was written so nobly and touchingly that I wept as I read it, and to this day cannot read it without tears. Besides, there finally emerged the evidence of the servants to vindicate Dunya; they had seen and knew much more than Mr. Svidrigailov himself supposed, as always happens. Marfa Petrovna was utterly astonished and 'devastated anew,' as she herself confessed to us, but at the same time she became fully convinced of Dunechka's innocence, and the very next day, a Sunday, she went straight to the cathedral, knelt down, and prayed in tears to our sovereign Lady for the strength to endure this new trial and fulfill her duty. Then she came straight from the cathedral to us, without stopping anywhere, told us everything, wept bitterly, and in full repentance embraced Dunya, imploring her forgiveness. That same morning, without the slightest delay, she went straight from us to every house in town, and restored Dunechka's innocence and the nobility of her feelings and behavior everywhere, in terms most flattering to Dunechka, shedding tears all the while. Moreover, she showed everyone the letter Dunechka had written with her own hand to Mr. Svidrigailov, read it aloud, and even let it be copied (which I think was really unnecessary). Thus she had to go around for several days in a row visiting everyone in town, because some were offended that others had been shown preference, and thus turns were arranged, so that she was expected at each house beforehand and everyone knew that on such-and-such a day Marfa Petrovna would read the letter in such-and-such a house, and for each reading people even gathered who had heard the letter several times already, in their own homes and in their friends' as well. It is my opinion that much, very much of this was unnecessary; but that is Marfa Petrovna's character. In any case she fully restored Dunechka's honor, and all the vileness of the affair lay as an indelible disgrace on her husband as the chief culprit, so that I am even sorry for him; the madcap was dealt with all too harshly. Dunya was immediately invited to give lessons in several houses, but she refused. Generally, everyone suddenly began treating her with particular respect. All of this contributed greatly towards that unexpected occasion by means of which our whole fate, one might say, is now changing. You should know, dear Rodya, that a suitor has asked to marry Dunya, and that she has already had time to give her consent, of which I hasten to inform you as quickly as possible. And although this matter got done without your advice, you will probably not bear any grudge against me or your sister, for you will see from the matter itself that it was impossible to wait and delay until we received your answer. And you could not have discussed everything in detail without being here yourself. This is how it happened. He is already a court councillor,^[22] Pyotr Petrovich Luzhin, and a distant relation of Marfa Petrovna, who contributed much to all this. He began by expressing, through her, the desire of making our acquaintance; he was received properly, had coffee, and the very next day sent a letter in which he quite politely expressed his proposal and asked for a speedy and decisive answer. He is a man of affairs and busy, and he is now hastening to go to Petersburg, so that every minute is precious to him. Of course, we were quite amazed at first, because it all happened too quickly and unexpectedly. We spent that whole day reasoning and considering together. He is a trustworthy and established man; he serves in two posts, and already has his own capital. True, he is already forty-five years old, but he is of rather pleasing appearance and can still be attractive to women, and generally he is quite a solid and decent man, only a bit sullen and, as it were, arrogant. But perhaps he only seems so at first sight. And let me warn you, dear Rodya, when you meet him in Petersburg, which will happen very soon, do not judge him too quickly and rashly, as you tend to do, if something in him does not appeal at first sight. I am saying this just in case, though I am sure he will make a pleasant impression on you. And besides, if one wants to know any man well, one must consider him gradually and carefully, so as not to fall into error and prejudice, which are very difficult to correct and smooth out later. And Pyotr Petrovich, at least from many indications, is a quite respectable man. At his very first visit, he declared to us that he was a positive man, but in many ways shares, as he himself put it, 'the convictions of our newest generations,' and is an enemy of all prejudices. He said much more as well, because he seems to be somewhat vain and likes very much to be listened to, but that is almost not a vice. I, of course, understood little, but Dunya explained to me that, though he is a man of small education, he is intelligent and seems to be kind. You know your sister's character, Rodya. She is a firm, reasonable, patient, and magnanimous girl, though she has an ardent heart, as I have come to know very well. Of course, there is no special love either on her side or on his, but Dunya, besides being an intelligent girl, is at the same time a noble being, like an angel, and will regard it as her duty to ensure the happiness of her husband, who in turn would be looking out for her happiness, and this last point, so far, we have no great reason to doubt, though one must admit that the matter has been done a bit too quickly. Besides, he is a very calculating man and, of course, will see for himself that the happier Dunechka is with him, the more his own marital happiness will be assured. And as for some unevenness of character, some old habits, perhaps also some differences of thinking (which cannot be avoided even in the happiest marriages), Dunechka has told me that in this respect she trusts to herself; that there is nothing here to worry about, and that she can endure much, provided their further relations are honest and just. At first, for example, he seemed somewhat abrupt to me; but that could be precisely the result of his being a straightforward man, and so it must be. For example, at his second visit, when he had already received her consent, he expressed in the course of the conversation that even before knowing Dunya he had made up his mind to marry an honest girl without a dowry, one who must already have experienced hardship; because, as he explained, a husband ought to owe nothing to his wife, but it is much better if a wife looks upon her husband as a benefactor. I should add that he expressed it somewhat more softly and tenderly than I have written it, because I have forgotten his actual expression and remember only the thought, and, besides, it was by no means said deliberately, but apparently escaped him in the heat of the conversation, so that he even tried to amend and soften it afterwards; but all the same it seemed to me a bit abrupt, as it were, and I later said so to Dunya. But Dunya answered me, even with some vexation, that 'words are not yet deeds,' and, of course, that is true. The night before she made her decision, Dunechka did not sleep at all and, thinking that I was already asleep, got out of bed and paced up and down the room all night; finally she knelt and prayed ardently before the icon for a long time, and in the morning announced to me that she had made her decision.

“I have already mentioned that Pyotr Petrovich is now going to Petersburg. He has big doings there, and wants to open a private attorney's office in Petersburg. He has been occupied for a long time with various suits and litigations, and won an important case just the other day. It is necessary for him to go to Petersburg because he has an important matter before the Senate.^[23]So, dear Rodya, he may also be quite useful to you, even in everything, and Dunya and I have already decided that from this very day you could definitely begin your future career and consider your lot already clearly determined. Oh, if only this could come true! It would be such a benefit that we should regard it as the direct mercy of the Almighty towards us. That is all Dunya dreams about. We have already risked saying a few words in this regard to Pyotr Petrovich. He expressed himself cautiously and said that, of course, since he would be unable to do without a secretary, it would naturally be better to pay a salary to a relative than to a stranger, on condition that he proves capable of doing the work (as if you could prove incapable!), but at the same time he expressed doubt that your university studies would leave you any time to work in his office. For the time being we left it at that, but Dunya now thinks of nothing else. For the past few days she has simply been in a sort of fever and has already made up a whole project for how you could go on to become an assistant and even a partner of Pyotr Petrovich in his lawsuit affairs, more especially as you are in the department of jurisprudence. I fully agree with her, Rodya, and share in all her plans and hopes, seeing them as fully possible; and despite Pyotr Petrovich's present, quite understandable evasiveness (since he does not know you yet), Dunya is firmly convinced that she will achieve everything by her good influence on her future husband, and she is convinced of it. Of course, we took care not to let Pyotr Petrovich in on these further dreams of ours, above all that you will become his partner. He is a positive man, and would perhaps take it very dryly, since it would all just seem nothing but dreams to him. Likewise, neither Dunya nor I have said even half a word to him about our firm hope that he will help us to assist you with money while you are at the university; we did not speak of it, first of all, because it will come about by itself later on, and he will most likely offer it without much talk (as if he could refuse that to Dunechka), especially as you may become his right hand in the office and receive his assistance not as a boon, but as a well-earned salary. That is how Dunya wants to arrange it, and I fully agree with her. And secondly, we did not speak of it because I would especially like to put you on an equal footing in our now forthcoming meeting. When Dunya spoke rapturously about you with him, he replied that in order to judge a man, one must first observe him more closely, and that he would leave it to himself to form an opinion of you after making your acquaintance. You know, my precious Rodya, it seems to me from certain considerations (by no means relating to Pyotr Petrovich, incidentally, but just so, from my own personal and perhaps even old-womanish caprice), it seems to me that I would perhaps do better, after their marriage, to live separately, as I do now, and not with them. I am fully convinced that he will be so noble and delicate as to invite me himself and will suggest that I no longer be parted from my daughter, and if he has not said anything yet, that is naturally because it goes without saying; but I shall refuse. I have noticed more than once in my life that husbands do not much warm up to their mothers-in-law, and I not only do not want to be even the slightest burden to anyone, but I also want to be fully free myself, as long as I have at least a crust of bread of my own, and such children as you and Dunechka. If possible, I will settle near you both, because the most pleasant thing, Rodya, I have saved for the end of my letter: you must know, my dear friend, that we shall all perhaps come together again very soon and embrace each other after an almost three-year separation! It has already been decided for certain that Dunya and I are to leave for Petersburg, precisely when I do not know, but in any case very, very soon, perhaps even in a week. It all depends on Pyotr Petrovich's instructions, and as soon as he has had a look around Petersburg, he will let us know at once. He would like, from certain considerations, to hasten the wedding ceremony, and even celebrate the wedding, if possible, before the next fast, or, if that does not work out, because time is short, then right after our Lady's feast.^[24] Oh, how happy I will be to press you to my heart! Dunya is all excited at the joy of seeing you, and said once, as a joke, that she would marry Pyotr Petrovich for that alone. She is an angel! She will not add anything now to my letter, and has only told me to write that she has so much to tell you, so much that she cannot bring herself to take the pen now, because one cannot say anything in a few lines, and only gets upset; but she has told me to embrace you warmly and send you countless kisses. But despite the fact that we shall perhaps be together in person very soon, I shall still send you money one of these days, as much as I can. Now that everyone has learned that Dunechka is marrying Pyotr Petrovich, my credit has suddenly gone up, and I know for certain that Afanasy Ivanovich will now trust me, on the security of my pension, even for as much as seventy-five roubles, so that I will be able to send you twenty-five or even thirty. I would send more, but I am afraid of our travel expenses; and although Pyotr Petrovich has been so good as to take upon himself part of the cost of our trip to the capital—that is, he has volunteered to pay for the delivery of our luggage and the big trunk (somehow through his acquaintances)—even so, we must calculate for our arrival in Petersburg, where we cannot appear without a kopeck, at least for the first few days. However, Dunya and I have already calculated it all precisely, and it turns out that we will not need much for the road. It is only sixty miles from here to the railway, and we've already made arrangements ahead of time with a peasant driver we know; and there Dunechka and I will be quite satisfied to travel third class. So that perhaps I can contrive to send you not twenty-five but certainly thirty roubles. But enough; I've covered two sheets with writing, there is not even any space left—our whole story, but so many events had accumulated! And now, my precious Rodya, I embrace you until we meet soon, and I give you my maternal blessing. Love your sister Dunya, Rodya; love her as she loves you, and know that she loves you boundlessly, more than herself. She is an angel, and you, Rodya, you are everything for us—all our hope, and all our trust. If only you are happy, then we shall be happy. Do you pray to God, Rodya, as you used to, and do you believe in the goodness of our Creator and Redeemer? I fear in my heart that you have been visited by the fashionable new unbelief. If so, I pray for you. Remember, my dear, in your childhood, when your father was alive, how you prattled out your prayers sitting on my knee, and how happy we all were then! Goodbye, or, better, till we meet again! I embrace you very, very warmly, and send you countless kisses.

Yours till death, Pulcheria Raskolnikov.”

Almost all the while he was reading, from the very beginning of the letter, Raskolnikov's face was wet with tears; but when he finished, it was pale, twisted convulsively, and a heavy, bilious, spiteful smile wandered over his lips. He laid his head on his skinny, bedraggled pillow and thought, thought for a long time. His heart was beating violently, and the thoughts surged violently. Finally, he felt too stifled and cramped in that yellow closet, which more resembled a cupboard or a trunk. His eyes and mind craved space. He grabbed his hat and went out, this time with no fear of meeting anyone on the stairs—he forgot all about it. He made his way towards Vasilievsky Island, along V------y Prospect, as though hurrying there on business, but, as usual, he walked without noticing where he was going, whispering and even talking aloud to himself, to the surprise of passers-by. Many took him for drunk.

IV

His mother's letter had tormented him. But concerning the main, capital point he had not a moment's doubt, not even while he was reading the letter. The main essence of the matter was decided in his mind and decided finally: “This marriage will not take place as long as I live, and to the devil with Mr. Luzhin!

“Because the thing is obvious,” he muttered to himself, grinning and maliciously triumphant beforehand over the success of his decision. “No, mama, no, Dunya, you won't deceive me! ... And they still apologize for not asking my advice and deciding the matter without me! Well they might! They think it's impossible to break it off now; but we'll see whether it's impossible or not! And what a capital excuse: 'Pyotr Petrovich is just such a busy man, such a busy man that he can't even get married any other way than posthaste, almost right on the train.' No, Dunechka, I see it all and know what this so much is that you want to talk to me about; I also know what you were thinking about all night, pacing the room, and what you prayed about to the Kazan Mother of God^[25] that stands in mama's bedroom. It's hard to ascend Golgotha.^[26] Hm...So it's settled finally: you, Avdotya Romanovna, are so good as to be marrying a practical and rational man, who has his own capital (who already has his own capital; that's more solid, more impressive), who serves in two posts and shares the convictions of our newest generations (as mama writes), and who 'seems to be kind,' as Dunechka herself remarks. That seems is the most splendid of all! And that very same Dunechka is going to marry that very same seems! ... Splendid! Splendid! . . .

“. . . Curious, however; why did mother write to me about the 'newest generations'? Simply to characterize the man, or with the further aim of putting Mr. Luzhin in my good graces? Oh, you sly ones! It would also be curious to have one more circumstance clarified: to what extent were they sincere with each other that day and that night and in all the time since? Were all the words between them spoken directly, or did they understand that each of them had the same thing in her heart and mind, so that there was no point in saying it all aloud and no use letting on? Most likely it was partly that way; one can see it in the letter: to mother he seemed abrupt, just a bit, and naive mother thrust her observations on Dunya. And Dunya, naturally, got angry and 'answered with vexation.' Well she might! Who wouldn't get furious if the thing is clear without any naive questions, and it's been decided that there's nothing to talk about. And what's she doing writing to me: 'Love Dunya, Rodya, and she loves you more than herself? Can it be that she's secretly tormented by remorse at having agreed to sacrifice her daughter for the sake of her son? 'You are our hope, you are our everything'! Oh, mother . . .” Anger boiled up in him more and more, and he thought that if he met Mr. Luzhin right then, he might kill him!

“Hm, it's true,” he went on, following the whirlwind of thoughts spinning in his head, “it's true that one must 'approach a man gradually and carefully in order to find him out,' but Mr. Luzhin is clear. The main thing is that he's 'a practical man and seems kind': no joke, he took the luggage upon himself, delivers a big trunk at his own expense! Oh, yes, he's kind! And the two of them, the bride and her mother, hire a peasant and a cart, covered with straw matting (I've traveled like that)! Never mind! It's only sixty miles, and then 'we'll be quite satisfied to travel third class' for another six hundred miles. That's reasonable: cut your coat according to your cloth; but you, Mr. Luzhin, what about you? She's your bride...Can you possibly be unaware that her mother is borrowing money on her pension for the journey? Of course, you've set up a joint commercial venture here, a mutually profitable enterprise, and with equal shares, so the expenses should also be divided equally; bread and butter for all, but bring your own tobacco, as the saying goes. And even here the businessman has hoodwinked them a bit: the luggage costs less than the trip, and it may even go for nothing. Don't they both see it, or are they ignoring it on purpose? And they're pleased, pleased! And to think that this is just the blossom; the real fruit is still to come! What matters here is not the stinginess, the cheese-paring, but the tone of it all. Because that is the future tone after the marriage, a prophecy...And mother, why is she going on such a spree, incidentally? What will she have left when she gets to Petersburg? Three roubles, or two 'little bills,' as that...old crone...says. Hm! What is she hoping to live on afterwards in Petersburg? Because she already has reasons to believe that it will be impossible for her to live with Dunya after the marriage, even at the beginning. The dear man must have let it slip somehow, betrayed himself, though mother waves it away with both hands: 'I shall refuse it myself,' she says. What, then, what is she hoping for? A hundred and twenty roubles of pension, minus what's owed to Afanasy Ivanovich? She also knits winter kerchiefs and embroiders cuffs, ruining her old eyes. But these kerchiefs add only twenty roubles a year to her hundred and twenty, and I know it. So they're putting their hopes on the nobility of Mr. Luzhin's feelings after all: 'He'll suggest it himself, he'll beg us to accept.' Good luck to them! And that's how it always is with these beautiful, Schilleresque souls:^[27] till the last moment they dress a man up in peacock's feathers, till the last moment they hope for the good and not the bad; and though they may have premonitions of the other side of the coin, for the life of them they will not utter a real word beforehand; the thought alone makes them cringe; they wave the truth away with both hands, till the very moment when the man they've decked out so finely sticks their noses in it with his own two hands. Curious, does Mr. Luzhin have any decorations? I'll bet he has the Anna on the breast^[28] and wears her when he's invited to dinner with contractors and merchants! Maybe he'll even wear her for his wedding! Ah, anyway, devil take him! . . .

“. . . Mother, well, let her be, God bless her, that's how she is; but what about Dunya? I know you, Dunechka, my dear! You were going on twenty when we saw each other last: I already understood your character then. Mother writes that 'Dunechka can endure much.' I know she can! I knew it two and a half years ago, and for two and a half years I've been thinking about that, precisely about that, that 'Dunechka can endure much.' If she was able to endure Mr. Svidrigailov, with all the consequences, then indeed she can endure much. And now they imagine, she and mother, that one can also endure Mr. Luzhin, expounding his theory about the advantages of wives rescued from destitution by their benefactor husbands, and expounding it almost the moment they first met. Well, suppose he just 'let it slip,' though he's a rational man (in which case maybe he didn't let it slip at all, but precisely meant to explain it then and there), but Dunya, what of Dunya? The man is clear to her, and she'll have to live with this man. She could eat only black bread and wash it down with water, but she would never sell her soul, she would never trade her moral freedom for comfort; she wouldn't trade it for all Schleswig-Holstein,^[29] let alone Mr. Luzhin. No, Dunya was not like that as far as I knew her, and...well, of course, she's no different now! ... What's there to talk about! Svidrigailovs are hard! It's hard to spend your life as a governess, dragging yourself around the provinces for two hundred roubles, but all the same I know that my sister would sooner go and be a black slave for a planter or a Latvian for a Baltic German^[30] than demean her spirit and her moral sense by tying herself to a man she doesn't respect and with whom she can do nothing— forever, merely for her own personal profit! And even if Mr. Luzhin were made entirely of the purest gold, or a solid diamond, she still would not consent to become Mr. Luzhin's lawful concubine! Then why has she consented now? What's the catch? What's the answer? The thing is clear: for herself, for her own comfort, even to save herself from death, she wouldn't sell herself; no, she's selling herself for someone else! For a dear, beloved person she will sell herself! That's what our whole catch consists of: for her brother, for her mother, she will sell herself! She'll sell everything! Oh, in that case, given the chance, we'll even crush our moral feeling; our freedom, peace of mind, even conscience—all, all of it goes to the flea market. Perish our life! So long as these beloved beings of ours are happy. Moreover, we'll invent our own casuistry, we'll take a lesson from the Jesuits,^[31] and we may even reassure ourselves for a while, convince ourselves that it's necessary, truly necessary, for a good purpose. That's exactly how we are, and it's all clear as day. It's clear that the one who gets first notice, the one who stands in the forefront, is none other than Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov. Oh, yes, of course, his happiness can be arranged, he can be kept at the university, made a partner in the office, his whole fate can be secured; maybe later he'll be rich, honored, respected, and perhaps he'll even end his life a famous man! And mother? But we're talking about Rodya, precious Rodya, her firstborn! How can she not sacrifice even such a daughter for the sake of such a firstborn son! Oh, dear and unjust hearts! Worse still, for this we might not even refuse Sonechka's lot! Sonechka, Sonechka Marmeladov, eternal Sonechka, as long as the world stands! But the sacrifice, have the two of you taken full measure of the sacrifice? Is it right? Are you strong enough? Is it any use? Is it reasonable? Do you know, Dunechka, that Sonechka's lot is in no way worse than yours with Mr. Luzhin? 'There can be no love here,' mother writes. And what if, besides love, there can be no respect either, if on the contrary there is already loathing, contempt, revulsion—what then? So it turns out once again that it will be necessary 'to observe cleanliness.' It's true, isn't it? Do you understand, do you understand what this cleanliness means? Do you understand that this Luzhinian cleanliness is just the same as Sonechka's cleanliness and maybe even worse, nastier, meaner, because in your case, Dunechka, some extra comfort can still be reckoned on, while there it's quite simply a matter of starving to death! 'It's costly, Dunechka, this cleanliness is costly!' And if it gets to be too much for you, and you repent later? Think of all the anguish, the grief, curses, tears, hidden from everyone—because you're not Marfa Petrovna, after all! And what will happen with mother then? She's uneasy, tormented even now; but then, when she sees it all clearly? And me? What, indeed, do you take me for? I don't want your sacrifice, Dunechka, I don't want it, mama! It won't happen as long as I live, it won't, it won't! I don't accept it!”

He suddenly came to his senses and stopped.

“It won't happen? And how are you going to keep it from happening? Forbid it? What right do you have? What can you promise them in return for such a right? To devote your whole fate, your whole future to them, once you finish your studies and find a position? We've heard that before, but it's still a blind deal, and what about now? It's necessary to do something now, do you understand? And what are you doing now? You're fleecing them. Because they get the money on the credit of a hundred-rouble pension, or as an advance from the Svidrigailovs! How are you going to protect them from the Svidrigailovs, from Afanasy Ivanovich Vakhrushin, you future millionaire, you Zeus disposing of their fates? In ten years? But in ten years your mother will go blind from those kerchiefs, and maybe from tears as well; she'll waste away with fasting; and your sister? Go on, think what may happen to your sister after those ten years, or during those ten years. Have you guessed?”

He kept tormenting and taunting himself with these questions, even taking a certain delight in it. None of the questions was new or sudden, however; they were all old, sore, long-standing. They had begun torturing him long ago and had worn out his heart. Long, long ago this present anguish had been born in him, had grown, accumulated, and ripened recently and become concentrated, taking the form of a horrible, wild, and fantastic question that tormented his heart and mind, irresistibly demanding resolution. And now his mother's letter suddenly struck him like a thunderbolt. Clearly, he now had not to be anguished, not to suffer passively, by mere reasoning about unresolvable questions, but to do something without fail, at once, quickly. Decide at all costs to do at least something, or . . .

“Or renounce life altogether!” he suddenly cried out in frenzy. “Accept fate obediently as it is, once and for all, and stifle everything in myself, renouncing any right to act, to live, to love!”

“Do you understand, do you understand, my dear sir, what it means when there is no longer anywhere to go?” he suddenly recalled Marmeladov's question yesterday. “For it is necessary that every man have at least somewhere to go . . .”

Suddenly he gave a start: a certain thought, also from yesterday, raced through his head again. But he started not because this thought raced through his head. Indeed, he knew, he had anticipated that it would certainly “race through his head,” and was already expecting it; and it was not yesterday's thought at all. But the difference was that a month ago, and even yesterday, it was only a dream, whereas now...now it suddenly appeared not as a dream, but in some new, menacing, and quite unfamiliar form, and he suddenly became aware of it himself... It hit him in the head, and everything went dark before his eyes.

He glanced hastily around; he was looking for something. He wanted to sit down, and was looking for a bench; at the moment he was walking along the ------ Boulevard. He could see a bench ahead, about a hundred steps away. He walked as quickly as he could; but on the way a small adventure befell him, which for a few minutes took all his attention.

As he was looking out for a bench, he had noticed a woman walking ahead of him, about twenty steps away, but at first he did not rest his attention on her any more than on all the other objects flashing in front of him. It had happened to him many times before that he would arrive at home, for example, having absolutely no recollection of which way he had come, and he had already grown used to going around that way. But there was something so strange about this walking woman, and so striking, even at first glance, that little by little his attention became riveted on her—reluctantly at first and as if with annoyance, but then more and more strongly. He suddenly wanted to understand what precisely was so strange about this woman. First of all, she had to be very young, a girl, and she was walking bareheaded in such heat, with no parasol or gloves, swinging her arms somehow ridiculously. She was wearing a dress of some light, silken material, which was also somehow oddly put on, barely buttoned, and torn behind at the waist, near the very top of the skirt; a whole strip had come away and was hanging loosely. A little kerchief was thrown over her bare neck, but it stuck out somehow crookedly and sideways. To top it off, the girl was walking unsteadily, stumbling and even reeling this way and that. The encounter finally aroused all of Raskolnikov's attention. He caught up with the girl just by the bench, but she, having reached the bench, simply collapsed on it at one end, threw her head against the back of the bench, and closed her eyes, apparently from extreme fatigue. Taking a close look at her, Raskolnikov realized at once that she was completely drunk. It was strange and wild to see such a phenomenon. He even thought he might be mistaken. Before him was an extremely young little face, about sixteen years old, perhaps only fifteen—small, fair, pretty, but all flushed and as if swollen. The girl seemed to understand very little; she crossed one leg over the other, exposing it much more than she ought, and by all appearances was scarcely aware that she was in the street.

Raskolnikov did not sit down and did not want to go away, but stood perplexed in front of her. That boulevard was generally deserted anyway, but just then, past one o'clock in the afternoon, and in such heat, there was almost no one about. And yet, a short distance away, about fifteen steps, at the edge of the boulevard, a gentleman had stopped, who by all evidence would also have liked very much to approach the girl with certain intentions. He, too, had probably noticed her from afar and was overtaking her, but Raskolnikov had hindered him. The man kept glancing at him angrily, trying at the same time to keep him from noticing it, and was waiting impatiently for his turn, when the vexatious ragamuffin would leave. The thing was clear: this gentleman was about thirty, thickset, fat, full-blooded, with pink cheeks and a little moustache, and very foppishly dressed. Raskolnikov became terribly angry; he suddenly wanted to insult the fat dandy in some way. He left the girl for a moment and went up to the gentleman.

“Hey, you—Svidrigailov!^[32] What do you want here?” he shouted, clenching his teeth and laughing, his lips foaming with spite.

“What is the meaning of this?” the gentleman asked sternly, scowling in haughty amazement.

“Get out of here, that's what!”

“How dare you, canaille! ... ”

And he brandished his whip. Raskolnikov fell on him with both fists, not stopping to think that the thickset gentleman could take on two men like him. But at that moment someone seized him firmly from behind; a policeman stepped between them.

“Enough, gentlemen; no fighting in public places, if you please. What do you want? Who are you?” he addressed Raskolnikov sternly, having noticed his rags.

Raskolnikov looked at him attentively. He had a good soldier's face, with gray moustache and side-whiskers, and sensible eyes.

“You're just what I want,” he cried, gripping his arm. “I am a former student, Raskolnikov...You may as well know that, too,” he turned to the gentleman, “and you, come with me, I want to show you something.”

Gripping the policeman's arm, he pulled him towards the bench.

“Here, look, she's completely drunk, she just came walking down the boulevard: who knows who she is, but it doesn't look like it's her profession. Most likely they got her drunk somewhere and deceived her...for the first time...understand?...and then just put her out in the street. Look how her dress is torn, look how it's put on; she's been dressed, she didn't do it herself, and it was clumsy male hands that dressed her. That's obvious. And now look over there: that dandy I was going to fight with is a stranger to me, I've never seen him before; but he, too, noticed her on the way just now, drunk, out of her senses, and he's dying to come and intercept her—seeing what state she's in—and take her somewhere...And it's certainly so; believe me, I'm not mistaken. I saw myself how he was watching her and following her, only I hindered him, and now he's waiting until I go away. There, now he's moved off a little, pretending he's rolling a cigarette...How can we keep him from her? How can we get her home? Think, man!”

The policeman understood and figured it all out at once. The fat gentleman was no mystery, of course; what remained was the girl. The good soldier bent down to look at her more closely, and genuine commiseration showed in his features.

“Ah, what a pity!” he said, shaking his head. “Seems quite a child still. Deceived, that's what it is. Listen, miss,” he began calling her, “tell me, where do you live?” The girl opened her tired and bleary eyes, looked dully at her questioners, and waved her hand.

“Listen,” said Raskolnikov, “here” (he felt in his pocket and took out twenty kopecks that happened to be there), “here, hire a coachman and tell him to take her to her address. If only we could find out her address!”

“Miss, eh, miss?” the policeman began again, taking the money. “I'll call a coachman now and take you home myself. Where shall I take you, eh? Where is your home?”

“Shoo! ... pests! . . .” the girl muttered, and again waved her hand.

“Oh, oh, that's not nice! Oh, what a shame, miss, what a shame!” And again he began shaking his head, chiding, pitying, indignant. “This is a real problem!” he turned to Raskolnikov, and at the same time gave him another quick glance up and down. He, too, must surely have seemed strange to him: in such rags, and handing out money!

“Did you find her far from here?” he asked him.

“I tell you she was walking ahead of me, staggering, right here on the boulevard. As soon as she came to the bench, she just collapsed.”

“Ah, what shame we've got in the world now! Lord! Such an ordinary young girl, and she got drunk! She's been deceived, that's just what it is! Look, her little dress is torn...Ah, what depravity we've got nowadays! And she might well be from gentlefolk, the poor sort...We've got many like that nowadays. She looks like one of the pampered ones, like a young lady,” and he bent over her again.

Perhaps his own daughters were growing up in the same way—”like young ladies and pampered ones,” with well-bred airs and all sorts of modish affectations . . .

“The main thing,” Raskolnikov went on fussing, “is to prevent that scoundrel somehow! What if he, too, abuses her! You can see by heart what he wants: look at the scoundrel, he just won't go away!”

Raskolnikov spoke loudly and pointed straight at him. The man heard him and was about to get angry again, but thought better of it and limited himself to a scornful glance. Then he slowly moved off another ten steps or so and stopped again.

“Prevent him we can, sir,” the policeman replied pensively. “If only she'd say where to deliver her; otherwise...Miss, hey, miss!” he bent down again.

She suddenly opened her eyes wide, gave an attentive look, as if she understood something or other, rose from the bench, and walked back in the direction she had come from.

“Pah! Shameless...pests!” she said, waving her hand once again. She walked off quickly, but staggering as badly as before. The dandy walked after her, but along the other side of the boulevard, not taking his eyes off her.

“Don't worry, I won't let him, sir!” the moustached policeman said resolutely, and started after them.

“Ah, what depravity we've got nowadays!” he repeated aloud, with a sigh.

At that moment it was as if something stung Raskolnikov, as if he had been turned about in an instant.

“Hey, wait!” he shouted after the moustached policeman.

The man looked back.

“Forget it! What do you care? Leave her alone! Let him have fun” (he pointed to the dandy). “What is it to you?”

The policeman stared uncomprehendingly. Raskolnikov laughed.

“A-ach!” the good soldier said, waving his hand, and he went after the dandy and the girl, probably taking Raskolnikov for a madman or something even worse.

“He kept my twenty kopecks,” Raskolnikov said spitefully when he found himself alone. “Well, let him; he'll take something from that one, too, and let the girl go with him, and that will be the end of it...Why did I go meddling in all that! Who am I to help anyone? Do I have any right to help? Let them all gobble each other alive— what is it to me? And how did I dare give those twenty kopecks away? Were they mine?”

In spite of these strange words, it was very painful for him. He sat down on the abandoned bench. His thoughts were distracted...And generally it was painful for him at that moment to think about anything at all. He would have liked to become totally oblivious, oblivious of everything, and then wake up and start totally anew . . .

“Poor girl! . . .” he said, having looked at the now empty end of the bench. “She'll come to her senses, cry a little, and then her mother will find out...First she'll hit her, then she'll give her a whipping, badly and shamefully, and maybe even throw her out... And if she doesn't, the Darya Frantsevnas will get wind of it anyway, and my girl will start running around here and there...Then right away the hospital (it's always like that when they live with their honest mothers and carry on in secret), well, and then...then the hospital again...wine...pot-houses...back to the hospital...in two or three years she'll be a wreck, so altogether she'll have lived to be nineteen, or only eighteen years old...Haven't I seen the likes of her? And how did they come to it? Just the same way...that's how...Pah! And so what! They say that's just how it ought to be. Every year, they say, a certain percentage has to go...somewhere...to the devil, it must be, so as to freshen up the rest and not interfere with them.^[33] A percentage! Nice little words they have, really: so reassuring, so scientific. A certain percentage, they say, meaning there's nothing to worry about. Now, if it was some other word...well, then maybe it would be more worrisome...And what if Dunechka somehow gets into the percentage! ... If not that one, then some other? . . .

“And where am I going to?” he thought suddenly. “Strange. I was going for some reason. As soon as I read the letter, off I went...To Vasilievsky Island, to Razumikhin's, that's where I was going . . .

now I remember. What for, however? And how is it that the thought of going to see Razumikhin flew into my head precisely now? Remarkable!”

He marveled at himself. Razumikhin was one of his former university friends. It was remarkable that Raskolnikov had almost no friends while he was at the university, kept aloof from everyone, visited no one, and had difficulty receiving visitors. Soon, however, everyone also turned away from him. General gatherings, conversations, merrymaking—he somehow did not participate in any of it. He was a zealous student, unsparing of himself, and was respected for it, but no one loved him. He was very poor and somehow haughtily proud and unsociable, as though he were keeping something to himself. It seemed to some of his friends that he looked upon them all as children, from above, as though he were ahead of them all in development, in knowledge, and in convictions, and that he regarded their convictions and interests as something inferior.

Yet for some reason he became close with Razumikhin—that is, not really close, but he was more sociable, more frank with him. However, it was impossible to be on any other terms with Razumikhin. He was an exceptionally cheerful and sociable fellow, kind to the point of simplicity. However, this simplicity concealed both depth and dignity. The best of his friends understood that; everyone loved him. He was far from stupid, though indeed a bit simple at times. His appearance was expressive—tall, thin, black-haired, always badly shaved. He could be violent on occasion, and was reputed to be a very strong man. Once, at night, in company, he knocked down a six-and-a-half-foot keeper of the peace with one blow. He could drink ad infinitum, or he could not drink at all; he could be impossibly mischievous, or he could not be mischievous at all. Razumikhin was also remarkable in that no setbacks ever confounded him, and no bad circumstances seemed able to crush him. He could make his lodgings even on a rooftop, suffer hellish hunger and extreme cold. He was very poor, and supported himself decidedly on his own, alone, getting money by work of one sort or another. He knew an endless number of sources to draw from—by means of working, of course. Once he went a whole winter without heating his room, asserting that he even found it more pleasant, because one sleeps better in the cold. At present he, too, had been forced to leave the university, but not for long, and he was trying in all haste to straighten out his circumstances so that he could continue. Raskolnikov had not visited him for about four months now, and Razumikhin did not even know his address. Once, some two months ago, they had chanced to meet in the street, but Raskolnikov had turned away and even crossed to the other side so as not to be noticed. And Razumikhin, though he did notice, passed by, not wishing to trouble a friend.

V

“In fact, just recently I was meaning to go to Razumikhin and ask him for work, to get me some lessons or something...” Raskolnikov went on puzzling, “but how can he help me now? Suppose he does get me lessons, suppose he even shares his last kopeck with me, if he has a kopeck, so that I could even buy boots and fix up my outfit enough to go and give lessons...hm...Well, and what then? What good will five coppers do me? Is that what I need now? Really, it's ridiculous to be going to Razumikhin . . .”

The question of why he was now going to Razumikhin troubled him more than he was even aware; he anxiously tried to find some sinister meaning for himself in this seemingly quite ordinary act.

“So, then, did I really mean to straighten things out with Razumikhin alone? To find the solution for everything in Razumikhin?” he asked himself in surprise.

He went on thinking and rubbing his forehead, and, strangely, somehow by chance, suddenly and almost of itself, after very long reflection, there came into his head a certain most strange thought.

“Hm...to Razumikhin,” he said suddenly, quite calmly, as if with a sense of final decision, “I will go to Razumikhin, of course I will...but—not now...I will go to him...the next day, after that, once that is already finished and everything has taken a new course...”

And suddenly he came to his senses.

“After that, “ he cried out, tearing himself from the bench, “but will that be? Will it really be?”

He abandoned the bench and started walking, almost running; he had been about to turn back home, but going home suddenly became terribly disgusting to him; it was there, in that corner, in that terrible cupboard, that for more than a month now all that had been ripening; and so he just followed his nose.

His nervous trembling turned into some sort of feverishness; he even began shivering; in such heat he was getting a chill. As if with effort, almost unconsciously, by some inner necessity, he began peering at every object he encountered, as though straining after some diversion, but he failed miserably, and every moment kept falling into revery. And when he would raise his head again, with a start, and look around, he would immediately forget what he had just been thinking about and even which way he had come. In this fashion he went right across Vasilievsky Island, came to the Little Neva, crossed the bridge, and turned towards the Islands.^[34] At first the greenness and freshness pleased his tired eyes, accustomed to city dust, lime, and enormous, crowding and crushing buildings. Here there was no closeness, no stench, no taverns. But soon these pleasant new sensations turned painful and irritating. Occasionally he would stop in front of a summer house decked out in greenery, look through the fence, and see dressed-up women far away, on balconies and terraces, and children running in the garden. He took special interest in the flowers; he looked longer at them than at anything else. He also met with luxurious carriages, men and women on horseback; he would follow them with curious eyes and forget them before they disappeared from sight. Once he stopped and counted his money; it came to about thirty kopecks. “Twenty to the policeman, three to Nastasya for the letter—so I gave the Marmeladovs some forty-seven or fifty kopecks yesterday,” he thought, going over his accounts for some reason, but soon he even forgot why he had taken the money from his pocket. He remembered about it as he was passing an eating-house, a sort of cook-shop, and felt that he wanted to eat. Going into the cook-shop, he drank a glass of vodka and ate a piece of pie with some sort of filling. He finished it on the road. He had not drunk vodka for a very long time and it affected him at once, though he had drunk only one glass. His feet suddenly became heavy, and he began feeling a strong inclination to sleep. He started for home; but having reached Petrovsky Island, he stopped in complete exhaustion, left the road, went into the bushes, collapsed on the grass, and in a moment was asleep.

In a morbid condition, dreams are often distinguished by their remarkably graphic, vivid, and extremely lifelike quality. The resulting picture is sometimes monstrous, but the setting and the whole process of the presentation sometimes happen to be so probable, and with details so subtle, unexpected, yet artistically consistent with the whole fullness of the picture, that even the dreamer himself would be unable to invent them in reality, though he were as much an artist as Pushkin or Turgenev.^[35] Such dreams, morbid dreams, are always long remembered and produce a strong impression on the disturbed and already excited organism of the person.

Raskolnikov had a terrible dream.^[36] He dreamed of his childhood, while still in their little town. He is about seven years old and is strolling with his father on a feast day, towards evening, outside of town. The weather is gray, the day is stifling, the countryside is exactly as it was preserved in his memory: it was even far more effaced in his memory than it appeared now in his dream. The town stands open to view; there is not a single willow tree around it; somewhere very far off, at the very edge of the sky, is the black line of a little forest. A few paces beyond the town's last kitchen garden stands a tavern, a big tavern, which had always made the most unpleasant impression on him, and even frightened him, when he passed it on a stroll with his father. There was always such a crowd there; they shouted, guffawed, swore so much; they sang with such ugly and hoarse voices, and fought so often; there were always such drunk and scary mugs loitering around the tavern...Meeting them, he would press close to his father and tremble all over. The road by the tavern, a country track, was always dusty, and the dust was always so black. It meandered on, and in another three hundred paces or so skirted the town cemetery on the right. In the middle of the cemetery there was a stone church with a green cupola, where he went for the liturgy with his father and mother twice a year, when memorial services were held for his grandmother, who had died a long time before and whom he had never seen. On those occasions they always made kutya^[37] and brought it with them on a white platter, wrapped in a napkin, and kutya was sugary, made of rice, with raisins pressed into the rice in the form of a cross. He loved this church and the old icons in it, most of them without settings, and the old priest with his shaking head. Next to his grandmother's grave, covered with a flat gravestone, there was also the little grave of his younger brother, who had died at six months old, and whom he also did not know at all and could not remember; but he had been told that he had had a little brother, and each time he visited the cemetery, he crossed himself religiously and reverently over the grave, bowed to it, and kissed it. And so now, in his dream, he and his father are going down the road to the cemetery, past the tavern; he is holding his father's hand and keeps looking fearfully at the tavern over his shoulder. A special circumstance attracts his attention: this time there seems to be some sort of festivity, a crowd of dressed-up townspeople, peasant women, their husbands, and all kinds of rabble. Everyone is drunk, everyone is singing songs, and near the porch of the tavern stands a cart, but a strange cart. It is one of those big carts to which big cart-horses are harnessed for transporting goods and barrels of wine. He always liked watching those huge horses, long-maned and thick-legged, moving calmly, at a measured pace, pulling some whole mountain behind them without the least strain, as if the load made it even easier for them. But now, strangely, to such a big cart a small, skinny, grayish peasant nag had been harnessed, one of those—he had often seen it—that sometimes overstrain themselves pulling a huge load of firewood or hay, especially if the cart gets stuck in the mud or a rut, and in such cases the peasants always whip them so painfully, so painfully, sometimes even on the muzzle and eyes, and he would feel so sorry, so sorry as he watched it that he almost wept, and his mother would always take him away from the window. Then suddenly it gets very noisy: out of the tavern, with shouting, singing, and balalaikas, come some big peasants, drunk as can be, in red and blue shirts, with their coats thrown over their shoulders. “Get in, get in, everybody!” shouts one of them, still a young man, with a fat neck and a beefy face, red as a carrot. “I'll take everybody for a ride! Get in!” But all at once there is a burst of laughter and exclamations:

“Not with a nag like that!”

“Are you out of your mind, Mikolka—harnessing such a puny mare to such a cart!”

“That gray can't be less than twenty years old, brothers!”

“Get in, I'll take everybody!” Mikolka cries again, and he jumps into the cart first, takes the reins, and stands up tall in the front. “The bay just left with Matvei,” he shouts from the cart, “and this little runt of a mare breaks my heart—I might as well kill her, she's not worth her feed. Get in, I say! I'll make her gallop! Oh, how she'll gallop!” And he takes a whip in his hand, already enjoying the idea of whipping the gray.

“Get in, why not!” guffaws come from the crowd. “She'll gallop, did you hear?”

“I bet she hasn't galloped in ten years!”

“She will now!”

“Don't spare her, brothers, take your whips, get ready!”

“Here we go! Whip her up!” They all get into Mikolka's cart, joking and guffawing. About six men pile in, and there is still room for more. They take a peasant woman, fat and ruddy. She is dressed in red calico, with a bead-embroidered kichka^[38] on her head and boots on her feet; she cracks nuts and giggles all the while. The crowd around them is laughing, too, and indeed how could they not laugh: such a wretched little mare is going to pull such a heavy load at a gallop! Two fellows in the cart take up their whips at once to help Mikolka. To shouts of “Giddap!” the little mare starts pulling with all her might, but she can scarcely manage a slow walk, much less a gallop; she just shuffles her feet, grunts, and cowers under the lashes of the three whips showering on her like hail. The laughter in the cart and in the crowd redoubles, but Mikolka is angry, and in his rage he lashes the mare with quicker blows, as if he really thinks she can go at a gallop.

“Let me in, too, brothers!” one fellow, his appetite whetted, shouts from the crowd.

“Get in! Everybody get in!” cries Mikolka. “She'll pull everybody! I'll whip her to death!” And he lashes and lashes, and in his frenzy he no longer even knows what to lash her with.

“Papa, papa,” he cries to his father, “papa, what are they doing? Papa, they're beating the poor horse!”

“Come along, come along!” says his father. “They're drunk, they're playing pranks, the fools—come along, don't look!” and he wants to take him away, but he tears himself from his father's hands and, beside himself, runs to the horse. But the poor horse is in a bad way. She is panting, she stops, tugs again, nearly falls.

“Whip the daylights out of her!” shouts Mikolka. “That's what it's come to. I'll whip her to death!”

“Have you no fear of God, or what, you hairy devil!” an old man shouts from the crowd.

“Who ever saw such a puny little horse pull a load like that?” someone else adds.

“You'll do her in!” shouts a third.

“Hands off! It's my goods! I can do what I want. Get in, more of you. Everybody get in! She's damn well going to gallop! . . .”

Suddenly there is a burst of guffaws that drowns out everything: the mare cannot endure the quick lashing and, in her impotence, has begun to kick. Even the old man cannot help grinning. Really, such a wretched mare, and still kicking!

Two fellows from the crowd get two more whips and run to whip the horse from the side. Each takes a side.

“On the muzzle, on the eyes, lash her on the eyes!” shouts Mikolka.^[39]

“Let's have a song, brothers!” someone shouts from the cart, and everyone in the cart joins in. A drunken song breaks out, a tambourine rattles, they whistle to the refrain. The peasant woman cracks nuts and giggles.

. . . He runs past the horse, runs ahead of her, sees how they are lashing her on the eyes, right on the eyes! He is crying. His heart is in his throat, the tears are flowing. One of the whips grazes his face, he does not feel it, he wrings his hands, he shouts, he rushes to the gray-bearded old man, who is shaking his head in disapproval of it all. A woman takes him by the hand and tries to lead him away; but he breaks free and runs back to the horse. She is already at her last gasp, but she starts kicking again.

“Ah, go to the hairy devil!” Mikolka cries out in a rage. He drops his whip, bends down, and pulls a long and stout shaft from the bottom of the cart, takes one end of it in both hands and, with an effort, swings it aloft over the gray horse.

“He'll strike her dead!” people cry.

“He'll kill her!”

“It's my goods!” shouts Mikolka, and with a full swing he brings the shaft down. There is a heavy thud.

“Whip her, whip her! Why did you stop!” voices cry from the crowd.

Mikolka takes another swing, and another blow lands full on the miserable nag's back. Her hind legs give way, but then she jumps up and pulls, pulls with all the strength she has left, pulls this way and that, trying to move the cart; but six whips come at her from all sides, and the shaft is raised again and falls for a third time, then a fourth, in heavy, rhythmic strokes. Mikolka is furious that he was unable to kill her with one blow.

“She's tough!” they shout.

“She'll drop this time, brothers; it's the end of her!” one enthusiast yells from the crowd.

“Take an axe to her! Finish her off fast,” shouts a third.

“Eh, let the fleas eat you! Step aside!” Mikolka cries out frenziedly, and he drops the shaft, bends down again, and pulls an iron crowbar from the bottom of the cart. “Look out!” he yells, and he swings it with all his might at the poor horse. The blow lands; the wretched mare staggers, sinks down, tries to pull, but another full swing of the crowbar lands on her back, and she falls to the ground as if all four legs had been cut from under her.

“Give her the final one!” shouts Mikolka, and he leaps from the cart as if beside himself. Several fellows, also red and drunk, seize whatever they can find—whips, sticks, the shaft—and run to the dying mare. Mikolka plants himself at her side and starts beating her pointlessly on the back with the crowbar. The nag stretches out her muzzle, heaves a deep sigh, and dies.

“He's done her in!” they shout from the crowd.

“But why wouldn't she gallop!”

“It's my goods!” Mikolka cries, holding the crowbar in his hands, his eyes bloodshot. He stands there as if he regretted having nothing else to beat.

“Really, you've got no fear of God in you!” many voices now shout from the crowd.

But the poor boy is beside himself. With a shout he tears through the crowd to the gray horse, throws his arms around her dead, bleeding muzzle, and kisses it, kisses her eyes and mouth...Then he suddenly jumps up and in a frenzy flies at Mikolka with his little fists. At this moment his father, who has been chasing after him all the while, finally seizes him and carries him out of the crowd.

“Come along, come along now!” he says to him. “Let's go home!”

“Papa! What did they...kill...the poor horse for!” he sobs, but his breath fails, and the words burst like cries from his straining chest.

“They're drunk, they're playing pranks, it's none of our business, come along!” his father says. He throws his arms around his father, but there is such strain, such strain in his chest. He tries to take a breath, to cry out, and wakes up.

He awoke panting, all in a sweat, his hair damp with sweat, and started up in terror.

“Thank God it was only a dream!” he said, leaning back against a tree and drawing a deep breath. “But what's wrong? Am I coming down with a fever? Such a hideous dream!”

His whole body was as if broken; his soul was dark and troubled. He leaned his elbows on his knees and rested his head in both hands.

“God!” he exclaimed, “but can it be, can it be that I will really take an axe and hit her on the head and smash her skull... slip in the sticky, warm blood, break the lock, steal, and tremble, and hide, all covered with blood...with the axe...Lord, can it be?”

He was trembling like a leaf as he said it.

“But what's wrong with me?” he went on, straightening up again, and as if in deep amazement. “I knew very well I could never endure it, so why have I been tormenting myself all this while? Even yesterday, yesterday, when I went to make that...trial, even yesterday I fully realized I could not endure it... So what is this now? Why have I doubted all along? Just yesterday, going down the stairs, I myself said it was mean, nasty, vile, vile...the mere thought of it made me vomit in reality and threw me into horror . . .

“No, I couldn't endure it, I couldn't endure it! Suppose, suppose there are even no doubts in all those calculations, suppose all that's been decided in this past month is clear as day, true as arithmetic. Lord! Even so, I wouldn't dare! I couldn't endure it, I couldn't! ... What, what has this been all along? . . .”

He got to his feet, looked around as if wondering how he had ended up there, and walked towards the T------v Bridge. He was pale, his eyes were burning, all his limbs felt exhausted, but he suddenly seemed to breathe more easily. He felt he had just thrown off the horrible burden that had been weighing him down for so long, and his soul suddenly became light and peaceful. “Lord!” he pleaded, “show me my way; I renounce this cursed...dream of mine!”

Walking across the bridge, he looked calmly and quietly at the Neva, at the bright setting of the bright, red sun. In spite of his weakness, he was not even aware of any fatigue in himself. It was as if an abscess in his heart, which had been forming all that month, had suddenly burst. Freedom, freedom! He was now free of that spell, magic, sorcery, obsession!

Later on, when he recalled this time and all that happened to him during these days, minute by minute, point by point, feature by feature, he was always struck to superstition by one circumstance which, though in fact not very unusual, afterwards constantly seemed to him as if it were a sort of predetermination of his fate.

Namely, he could in no way understand or explain to himself why he, for whom it would have been most profitable, tired and worn out as he was, to return home by the shortest and most direct way, instead returned home through the Haymarket, where he had no need at all to go. The detour was not a long one, but it was obvious and totally unnecessary. Of course, it had happened to him dozens of times that he would return home without remembering what streets he had taken. But why, he always asked, why had such an important, decisive, and at the same time highly accidental encounter in the Haymarket (where he did not even have any reason to go) come just then, at such an hour and such a moment in his life, to meet him precisely in such a state of mind and precisely in such circumstances as alone would enable it, this encounter, to produce the most decisive and final effect on his entire fate? As if it had been waiting for him there on purpose!

It was about nine o'clock when he walked through the Haymarket. All the merchants with tables or trays, in shops big and small, were locking up their establishments, removing or packing away their wares, and going home, as were their customers. Numbers of various traffickers and ragpickers of all sorts were crowding around the ground floor cook-shops, in the dirty and stinking courtyards of the houses on the Haymarket, and more especially near the taverns. Raskolnikov liked these places most, as well as all the neighboring side streets, in his aimless wanderings. Here his rags attracted no supercilious attention, and one could go about dressed in anything without scandalizing people. Just at ------ny Lane, on the corner, a tradesman and a woman, his wife, had been selling their wares from two tables: thread, trimmings, cotton handkerchiefs, and so on. They, too, were heading for home, but lingered, talking with a woman acquaintance who had come up to them. This woman was Lizaveta Ivanovna, or simply Lizaveta, as everyone called her, the younger sister of that same old woman, Alyona Ivanovna, widow of a collegiate registrar,^[40] the money-lender whom Raskolnikov had visited the day before to pawn his watch and make his trial...He had long known all about this Lizaveta, and she even knew him slightly. She was a tall, awkward, timid, and humble wench of thirty-five, all but an idiot, and was a complete slave to her sister, worked for her day and night, trembled before her, and even suffered her beatings. She stood hesitantly before the tradesman and the woman, holding a bundle and listening to them attentively. They were explaining something to her with particular ardor. When Raskolnikov suddenly saw her, some strange sensation, akin to the deepest amazement, seized him, though there was nothing amazing in this encounter.

“Why don't you decide for yourself, Lizaveta Ivanovna,” the tradesman was saying loudly. “Come tomorrow, between six and seven. Those people will also arrive.”

“Tomorrow?” Lizaveta said slowly and pensively, as if she were still undecided.

“See how Alyona Ivanovna's got you scared!” the hawker's wife, a perky little woman, started pattering. “You're just like a little child to look at you. And she isn't even your real sister, just a half sister, but see, she does what she likes with you.”

“This time just don't say anything to Alyona Ivanovna,” the husband interrupted, “that's my advice—just come to us without asking. It's a profitable deal. Later on your sister will realize it herself.”

“Should I, really?”

“Between six and seven tomorrow, and one of those people will arrive, so you can make the deal in person.”

“Around the samovar,” his wife added.

“All right, I'll come,” Lizaveta said, still hesitant, and slowly started to leave.

At that point Raskolnikov had already passed by them and did not hear the rest. He was walking softly, inconspicuously, trying not to miss even a single word. His initial amazement gradually gave way to horror, like a chill running down his spine. He had learned, he had learned suddenly, all at once, and quite unexpectedly, that tomorrow, at exactly seven o'clock in the evening, Lizaveta, the old woman's sister and only companion, would not be home, and that therefore, at exactly seven o'clock in the evening, the old woman would be left at home alone.

It was only a few more steps to his place. He walked in like a man condemned to death. He was not reasoning about anything, and was totally unable to reason; but he suddenly felt with his whole being that he no longer had any freedom either of mind or of will, and that everything had been suddenly and finally decided.

Of course, even if he had waited years on end for a good opportunity, having his design in mind, he could not have counted with certainty on a more obvious step towards the success of this design than the one that had suddenly presented itself now. In any case, it would have been difficult to learn for certain, the day before, with greater precision, yet without the least risk, without any dangerous inquiries or investigations, that the next day at such-and-such an hour, such-and-such an old woman, on whose life an attempt was being prepared, would be at home as alone as could be.

VI

Later, Raskolnikov somehow happened to find out precisely why the tradesman and the woman had invited Lizaveta to come back. It was a most ordinary matter, and there was nothing very special about it. A family that had moved to the city and fallen into poverty was selling things off, dresses and so on, all women's things. Since it was not profitable to sell them in the market, they were looking for a middleman, and that was what Lizaveta did: she took a commission, handled the deals, and had a large clientele, because she was very honest and always named a final price: whatever she said, that the price would be. Generally she spoke little and, as has been mentioned, was humble and timid ...

But Raskolnikov had lately become superstitious. Traces of superstition remained in him for a long time afterwards, almost indelibly. And later on he was always inclined to see a certain strangeness, a mysteriousness, as it were, in this whole affair, the presence as of some peculiar influences and coincidences. The previous winter a student acquaintance of his, Pokorev, before leaving for Kharkov, had told him once in conversation the address of the old woman, Alyona Ivanovna, in case he might want to pawn something. For a long time he did not go to her, because he was giving lessons and getting by somehow. About a month and a half ago he had remembered the address; he had two things suitable for pawning: his father's old silver watch, and a small gold ring with three little red stones of some kind, given him as a keepsake by his sister when they parted. He decided to pawn the ring. Having located the old woman, who, from the very first glance, before he knew anything particular about her, filled him with insurmountable loathing, he took two “little bills” from her, and on his way back stopped at some wretched tavern. He asked for tea, sat down, and fell into deep thought. A strange idea was hatching in his head, like a chicken from an egg, and occupied him very, very much.

Almost next to him, at another table, sat a student he did not know or remember at all and a young officer. They had been playing billiards and were now drinking tea. Suddenly he heard the student talking with the officer about a money-lender, Alyona Ivanovna, widow of a collegiate secretary, and telling him her address. That in itself seemed somehow strange to Raskolnikov: he had just left her, and here they were talking about her. By chance, of course; but just then, when he could not rid himself of a certain quite extraordinary impression, it was as if someone had come to his service: the student suddenly began telling his friend various details about this Alyona Ivanovna.

“She's nice,” he was saying, “you can always get money from her. She's rich as a Jew, she could hand you over five thousand at once, but she's not above taking pledges for a rouble. A lot of us have gone to her. Only she's a terrible harpy . . .”

And he began telling how wicked she was, how capricious; how, if your payment was one day late, your pledge was lost. She gives four times less than the thing is worth, and takes five or even seven percent a month, and so on. The student went on chattering and said, among other things, that the old woman had a sister, Lizaveta, and that the disgusting little hag used to beat her all the time and kept her completely enslaved, like a little child, though Lizaveta was at least six feet tall . . .

“She's quite a phenomenon herself!” the student cried out, and guffawed.

They began talking about Lizaveta. The student spoke of her with some special pleasure and kept laughing, and the officer, who listened with great interest, asked the student to send this Lizaveta to him to mend his linen. Raskolnikov did not miss a word and at once learned everything: Lizaveta was the old woman's younger half sister (they had different mothers) and was thirty-five years old. She worked day and night for her sister, was cook and laundress in the house, and besides that sewed things for sale, and even hired herself out to wash floors, and gave everything to her sister. She did not dare take any orders or any work without the old woman's permission. Meanwhile, the old woman had already made her will, a fact known to Lizaveta, who, apart from moveable property, chairs and so forth, did not stand to get a penny from this will; all the money was to go to a monastery in N------y province, for the eternal remembrance of her soul. Lizaveta was a tradeswoman, not of official rank; she was unmarried and of terribly awkward build, remarkably tall, with long, somehow twisted legs, always wore down-at-heel goatskin shoes, but kept herself neat. Above all the student was surprised and laughed at the fact that Lizaveta was constantly pregnant . . .

“But you say she's ugly?” the officer remarked.

“Well, yes, she's dark-skinned, looks like a soldier in disguise, but, you know, she's not ugly at all. She has such a kind face and eyes. Very much so. A lot of men like her—there's the proof. She's so quiet, meek, uncomplaining, agreeable—she agrees to everything. And she does have a very nice smile.”

“Ah, so you like her, too!” the officer laughed.

“For the strangeness of it. No, but I'll tell you one thing: I could kill and rob that cursed old woman, and that, I assure you, without any remorse,” the student added hotly.

The officer guffawed again, and Raskolnikov gave a start. How strange it was!

“Excuse me, I want to ask you a serious question,” the student began ardently. “I was joking just now, but look: on the one hand you have a stupid, meaningless, worthless, wicked, sick old crone, no good to anyone and, on the contrary, harmful to everyone, who doesn't know herself why she's alive, and who will die on her own tomorrow. Understand? Understand?'

“So, I understand,” the officer replied, looking fixedly at his ardent friend.

“Listen, now. On the other hand, you have fresh, young faces that are being wasted for lack of support, and that by the thousands, and that everywhere! A hundred, a thousand good deeds and undertakings that could be arranged and set going by the money that old woman has doomed to the monastery! Hundreds, maybe thousands of lives put right; dozens of families saved from destitution, from decay, from ruin, from depravity, from the venereal hospitals—all on her money. Kill her and take her money, so that afterwards with its help you can devote yourself to the service of all mankind and the common cause: what do you think, wouldn't thousands of good deeds make up for one tiny little crime? For one life, thousands of lives saved from decay and corruption. One death for hundreds of lives—it's simple arithmetic! And what does the life of this stupid, consumptive, and wicked old crone mean in the general balance? No more than the life of a louse, a cockroach, and not even that much, because the old crone is harmful. She's eating up someone else's life: the other day she got so angry that she bit Lizaveta's finger; they almost had to cut it off!”

“Of course, she doesn't deserve to be alive,” the officer remarked, “but that's nature.”

“Eh, brother, but nature has to be corrected and guided, otherwise we'd all drown in prejudices. Without that there wouldn't be even a single great man. 'Duty, conscience,' they say—I'm not going to speak against duty and conscience, but how do we really understand them? Wait, I'll ask you one more question. Listen!”

“No, you wait. I'll ask you a question. Listen!”

“Well?”

“You're talking and making speeches now, but tell me: would you yourself kill the old woman, or not?”

“Of course not! It's for the sake of justice that I... I'm not the point here . . .”

“Well, in my opinion, if you yourself don't dare, then there's no justice in it at all! Let's shoot another round!”

Raskolnikov was greatly agitated. Of course, it was all the most common and ordinary youthful talk and thinking, he had heard it many times before, only in different forms and on different subjects. But why precisely now did he have to hear precisely such talk and thinking, when...exactly the same thoughts had just been conceived in his own head? And why precisely now, as he was coming from the old woman's bearing the germ of his thought, should he chance upon a conversation about the same old woman?...This coincidence always seemed strange to him. This negligible tavern conversation had an extreme influence on him in the further development of the affair; as though there were indeed some predestination, some indication in it . . .

Having returned from the Haymarket, he threw himself on the sofa and sat there for a whole hour without moving. Meanwhile it grew dark; he had no candle, and besides it did not occur to him to make a light. He was never able to recall whether he thought about anything during that time. In the end he became aware that he was still feverish, chilled, and realized with delight that it was also possible to lie down on the sofa. Soon a deep, leaden sleep, like a heavy weight, came over him.

He slept unusually long and without dreaming. Nastasya, who came into his room at ten o'clock the next morning, had difficulty shaking him out of it. She brought him tea and bread. It was re-used tea again, and again in her own teapot.

“Look at him sleeping there!” she cried indignantly. “All he does is sleep!”

He raised himself with an effort. His head ached; he got to his feet, took a turn around his closet, and dropped back on the sofa.

“hailing asleep again!” Nastasya cried. “Are you sick, or what?”

He made no reply.

“Want some tea?”

“Later,” he said with an effort, closing his eyes again and turning to the wall. Nastasya stood over him for a while.

“Maybe he really is sick,” she said, turned, and went out.

She came in again at two o'clock with soup. He lay as before. The tea remained untouched. Nastasya even got offended and began shaking him angrily.

“You're still snoring away!” she cried, looking at him with disgust. He raised himself slightly and sat up, but said nothing and stared at the ground.

“Are you sick or aren't you?” Nastasya asked, and again got no reply.

“You'd better go out at least,” she said, after a pause, “you'd at least have some wind blowing on you. Are you going to eat, or what?”

“Later,” he uttered faintly. “Go!” And he waved his hand.

She stood there a while longer, looking at him with compassion, and went out.

After a few minutes he raised his eyes and stared for a long time at the tea and soup. Then he took the bread, took the spoon, and began to eat.

He ate a little, three or four spoonfuls, without appetite, as if mechanically. His head ached less. Having finished his dinner, he stretched out on the sofa again, but could not sleep now: he lay motionless, on his stomach, his face buried in the pillow. He kept daydreaming, and his dreams were all quite strange: most often he imagined he was somewhere in Africa, in Egypt, in some oasis. The caravan is resting, the camels are peacefully lying down; palm trees stand in a full circle around; everyone is having dinner. And he keeps drinking water right from the stream, which is there just beside him, flowing and bubbling. And the air is so fresh, and the wonderful, wonderful water is so blue, cold, running over the many-colored stones and over such clean sand sparkling with gold...All at once he clearly heard the clock strike. He gave a start, came to, raised his head, looked at the window, realized what time it was, and suddenly jumped up, pulling himself together, as if someone had torn him from the sofa. He tiptoed to the door, quietly opened it a little, and began listening down the stairs. His heart was pounding terribly. It was all quiet on the stairs, as if everyone were asleep...It seemed wild and strange to him that he could have slept so obliviously since the day before and still have done nothing, prepared nothing...And meanwhile it might just have struck six o'clock...In place of sleep and torpor, an extraordinary, feverish, and somehow confused bustle came over him. The preparations, incidentally, were not many. He strained all his energies to figure everything out and not forget anything, and his heart kept beating, pounding, so that it was even hard for him to breathe. First he had to make a loop and sew it into his coat—a moment's work. He felt beneath his pillow and found one of his shirts among the linen stuffed under it, old, unwashed, completely fallen to pieces. From its tatters he tore a strip about two inches wide and fifteen inches long. He folded the strip in two, took off his sturdy, loose-fitting summer coat, made from some heavy cotton material (the only outer garment he owned), and began sewing the two ends inside it, under the left armhole. His hands trembled as he sewed, but he managed it so that nothing could be seen when he put the coat on again. The needle and thread had been made ready long ago and lay in the table drawer wrapped in a piece of paper. As for the loop itself, this was a very clever invention of his own: the loop was to hold the axe. He could not go through the streets carrying an axe in his hands. And if he were to hide it under his coat, he would still have to keep it in place with his hand, which would be noticeable. But now, with the loop, he had only to slip the axe-head into it, and the axe would hang quietly under his arm all the way. And with his hand in the side pocket of his coat, he could also hold the end of the axe handle to keep it from swinging; and since the coat was very loose, a real bag, it could not be noticed from the outside that he was holding something through the pocket with his hand. This loop he had also thought up two weeks ago.

Having finished that, he thrust his fingers into the small space between his “Turkish” sofa and the floor, felt near the left corner, and pulled out the pledge he had prepared long before and hidden there. This pledge was, incidentally, not a pledge at all, but simply a smoothly planed little piece of wood, about the size and thickness of a silver cigarette case. He had found this piece of wood by chance during one of his walks, in a courtyard, where there was some sort of workshop in one of the wings. Later he added to the piece of wood a thin and smooth strip of iron—probably a fragment of something— which he had also found in the street at the same time. Having put the two pieces together, of which the iron one was smaller than the wooden one, he tied them tightly, crisscross, with a thread, after which he wrapped them neatly and elegantly in clean, white paper, tied round with a thin ribbon, also crosswise, and with a little knot that would be rather tricky to untie. This was to distract the old woman's attention for a while, as she began fumbling with the knot, and thereby catch the right moment. And the iron strip was added for weight, so that at least for the first moment the old woman would not guess that the “article” was made of wood. All this had been kept for the time being under the sofa. He had no sooner taken out the pledge than someone shouted somewhere in the courtyard:

“It's long past six!”

“Long past! My God!”

He rushed to the door, listened, snatched his hat, and started down his thirteen steps, cautiously, inaudibly, like a cat. He was now faced with the most important thing—stealing the axe from the kitchen. That the deed was to be done with an axe he had already decided long ago. He also had a folding pruning knife, but he could not rely on the knife and still less on his own strength, and therefore finally decided on the axe. We may note, incidentally, one peculiarity with regard to all the final decisions he came to in this affair. They had one strange property: the more final they became, the more hideous and absurd they at once appeared in his own eyes. In spite of all his tormenting inner struggle, never for a single moment during the whole time could he believe in the feasibility of his designs.

If he had ever once managed to analyze and finally decide everything down to the last detail, and there were no longer any doubts left—at that point he would most likely have renounced it all as absurd, monstrous, and impossible. But there remained a whole abyss of doubts and unresolved details. As for where to get the axe, this trifle did not worry him in the least, because nothing could have been simpler. It so happened that Nastasya was constantly in and out of the house, especially during the evening: she would run to see the neighbors or to do some shopping, and would always leave the door wide open. That was the landlady's only quarrel with her. All one had to do, then, was go quietly into the kitchen when the time came, take the axe, and an hour later (when it was all over) go and put it back. But doubts also presented themselves: suppose he comes in an hour to put it back and there is Nastasya. Of course, he would have to pass by and wait until she went out again. But what if meanwhile she misses the axe, looks for it, starts shouting—there is suspicion for you, or at least the grounds for suspicion.

But these were still trifles he had not even begun to think about, nor did he have time. He had thought about the main thing, and put the trifles off until he himself was convinced of everything. But this last seemed decidedly unrealizable. At least it seemed so to him. He could in no way imagine, for example, that one day he would finish thinking, get up, and—simply go there...Even his recent trial (that is, his visit with the intention of making a final survey of the place) was only a trying out and far from the real thing, as if he had said to himself: “Why not go and try it—enough of this dreaming!” and he was immediately unable to endure it, spat, and fled, furious with himself. And yet it would seem he had already concluded the whole analysis, in terms of a moral resolution of the question: his casuistry was sharp as a razor, and he no longer found any conscious objections. But in the final instance he simply did not believe himself, and stubbornly, slavishly, sought objections on all sides, gropingly, as if someone were forcing him and drawing him to it. This last day, which had come so much by chance and resolved everything at once, affected him almost wholly mechanically: as if someone had taken him by the hand and pulled him along irresistibly, blindly, with unnatural force, without objections. As if a piece of his clothing had been caught in the cogs of a machine and he were being dragged into it.

At first—even long before—he had been occupied with one question: why almost all crimes are so easily detected and solved, and why almost all criminals leave such an obviously marked trail. He came gradually to various and curious conclusions, the chief reason lying, in his opinion, not so much in the material impossibility of concealing the crime as in the criminal himself; the criminal himself, almost any criminal, experiences at the moment of the crime a sort of failure of will and reason, which, on the contrary, are replaced by a phenomenal, childish thoughtlessness, just at the moment when reason and prudence are most necessary. According to his conviction, it turned out that this darkening of reason and failure of will take hold of a man like a disease, develop gradually, and reach their height shortly before the crime is committed; they continue unabated during the moment of the crime itself and for some time after it, depending on the individual; then they pass in the same way as any disease passes. But the question whether the disease generates the crime, or the crime somehow by its peculiar nature is always accompanied by something akin to disease, he did not yet feel able to resolve.

Having come to such conclusions, he decided that in his own personal case there would be no such morbid revolutions, that reason and will would remain with him inalienably throughout the fulfillment of what he had plotted, for the sole reason that what he had plotted—was “not a crime”...We omit the whole process by means of which he arrived at this latter decision; we have run too far ahead of ourselves as it is . .. We will only add that the factual, purely material difficulties of the affair generally played a most secondary role in his mind. “Since I will have kept all my will and reason over them, they, too, will be defeated in due time, once I have acquainted myself to the minutest point with all the details of the affair...” But the affair would not get started. He went on believing least of all in his final decisions, and when the hour struck, everything came out not that way at all, but somehow accidentally, even almost unexpectedly.

One quite negligible circumstance already nonplussed him even before he got down the stairs. Having reached the landlady's kitchen, wide open as always, he cautiously took a sidelong glance to see if the landlady herself might be there in Nastasya's absence, and, if not, whether the door to her room was tightly shut, so that she could not somehow peek out as he went in to take the axe. How great was his amazement when he suddenly saw that Nastasya was not only at home this time, in her kitchen, but was even doing something: taking laundry from a basket and hanging it on a line! Seeing him, she stopped hanging, turned towards him, and looked at him all the while he was passing by. He turned away and walked past as if noticing nothing. But the affair was finished: no axe! He was terribly struck.

“And where did I get the idea,” he was thinking, as he went down to the gateway, “where did I get the idea that she was sure to be away right now? Why, why, why was I so certain of it?” He was crushed, even somehow humiliated. He wanted to laugh at himself in his anger...Dull, brutal rage was seething in him.

He stopped in the gateway, reflecting. To go out, to walk around the streets just for the sake of appearances, was revolting to him; to return home—even more revolting. “To lose such an opportunity forever!” he muttered, standing aimlessly in the gateway, directly opposite the caretaker's dark closet, which was also open. Suddenly he gave a start. From the caretaker's closet, which was two steps away from him, from under the bench to the right, the gleam of something caught his eye...He looked around—nobody. On tiptoe he approached the caretaker's room, went down the two steps, and called the caretaker in a faint voice. “Sure enough, he's not home! Must be nearby, though, somewhere in the yard, since the door is wide open.” He rushed headlong for the axe (it was an axe) and pulled it from under the bench, where it lay between two logs; he slipped it into the loop at once, before going out, put both hands into his pockets, and walked out of the caretaker's room; no one noticed! “If not reason, then the devil!” he thought, grinning strangely. The incident encouraged him enormously.

He went quietly and sedately on his way, without hurrying, so as not to arouse any suspicions. He barely looked at the passers-by, even tried not to look at their faces at all and to be as inconspicuous as possible. Then he suddenly remembered his hat. “My God! I had money two days ago, and couldn't even change it for a cap!” A curse rose up in his soul.

Glancing into a shop by chance, out of the corner of his eye he noticed that the clock on the wall already showed ten minutes past seven. He had to hurry, and at the same time he had to make a detour, to get to the house from the other side ...

Earlier, when he had happened to picture it all in his imagination, he sometimes thought he would be very afraid. But he was not very afraid now, even not afraid at all. He was even occupied at that moment with certain unrelated thoughts, though not for long. Passing the Yusupov Garden, he even became much absorbed in the notion of setting up tall fountains, and of how they would freshen the air in all the public squares. Gradually he arrived at the conviction that if the Summer Garden were expanded across the entire Field of Mars and even joined with the garden of the Mikhailovsky Palace, it would be a wonderful and most useful thing for the city. At which point he suddenly became interested in precisely why the people of all big cities are somehow especially inclined, not really out of necessity alone, to live and settle in precisely those parts of the city where there are neither gardens nor fountains, where there is filth and stench and all sorts of squalor. At which point he recalled his own walks through the Haymarket and came to himself for a moment. “What nonsense,” he thought. “No, better not to think anything at all.

“It must be the same for men being led out to execution—their thoughts must cling to every object they meet on the way,” flashed through his head, but only flashed, like lightning; he hastened to extinguish the thought...But he was already close, here was the house, here were the gates. Somewhere a clock suddenly struck once. “What, can it be half past seven? Impossible; it must be fast!”

Luckily for him, everything again went well at the gates. Moreover, as if by design, a huge hay-wagon drove through the gates at that very moment, just ahead of him, concealing him completely all the while he was passing under the archway, and as soon as the wagon entered the courtyard, he slipped quickly to the right. On the other side of the wagon, several voices could be heard shouting and arguing, but no one noticed him, and he met no one coming his way. Many of the windows looking out onto the huge, square yard were open at that moment, but he did not raise his head—he had no strength. The stairway to the old woman's was close by, immediately to the right of the gates. He was already on the stairs . . .

Having caught his breath and pressed his hand to his pounding heart, at the same time feeling for the axe and straightening it once again, he began cautiously and quietly climbing the stairs, pausing every moment to listen. But the stairway also happened to be quite empty at the time; all the doors were shut; he met no one. True, one empty apartment on the second floor stood wide open, and painters were working in it, but they did not even look. He paused, thought for a moment, and went on. “Of course, it would be better if they weren't there at all, but...there are two more flights above them.”

But here was the fourth floor, here was the door, here was the apartment opposite—the empty one. On the third floor, by all tokens, the apartment just under the old woman's was also empty: the calling card nailed to the door with little nails was gone—they had moved out! ... He was gasping for breath. A thought raced momentarily through his mind: “Shouldn't I go away?” But he gave himself no reply and began listening at the old woman's door: dead silence. Then he listened down the stairs again, listened long, attentively...Then he took a last look around, pulled himself together, straightened himself up, and once more felt the axe in its loop. “Am I not pale...too pale?” he thought. “Am I not too excited? She's mistrustful...Shouldn't I wait a little longer...until my heart stops this...?”

But his heart would not stop. On the contrary, as though on purpose, it pounded harder, harder, harder...He could not stand it, slowly reached for the bell, and rang. In half a minute he rang again, louder.

No answer. To go on ringing in vain was pointless, and it did not suit him. The old woman was certainly at home, but she was alone and suspicious. He was somewhat familiar with her habits...and once again pressed his ear to the door. Either his senses were extremely sharp (which in fact is difficult to suppose), or it was indeed quite audible, but he suddenly discerned something like the cautious sound of a hand on the door-latch and something like the rustle of a dress against the door itself. Someone was standing silently just at the latch, hiding inside and listening, in the same way as he was outside, and also, it seemed, with an ear to the door . . .

He purposely stirred and muttered something aloud, so as not to make it seem he was hiding; then he rang for the third time, but quietly, seriously, and without any impatience. Recalling it later, vividly, distinctly—for this moment was etched in him forever—he could not understand where he got so much cunning, especially since his reason seemed clouded at moments, and as for his body, he almost did not feel it on him. . . A second later came the sound of the latch being lifted.

VII

The door, as before, was opened a tiny crack, and again two sharp, mistrustful eyes stared at him from the darkness. Here Raskolnikov became flustered and made a serious mistake.

Fearing the old woman would be frightened that they were alone, and with no hope that his looks would reassure her, he took hold of the door and pulled it towards him so that the old woman should not somehow decide to lock herself in. Seeing this, she did not pull the door back towards her, but did not let go of the handle either, so that he almost pulled her out onto the stairway together with the door. Then, seeing that she was blocking the doorway and not letting him in, he went straight at her. The woman jumped aside in fear, was about to say something, but seemed unable to and only stared at him.

“Good evening, Alyona Ivanovna,” he began, as casually as he could, but his voice would not obey him, it faltered and started trembling. “I've brought you...an article...but we'd better go over there...near the light...” And leaving her, he walked straight into the room uninvited. The old woman ran after him; her tongue came untied.

“Lord! What is it?...Who are you? What's your business?”

“For pity's sake, Alyona Ivanovna...you know me...Raskolnikov...here, I've brought you that pledge...the one I promised you the other day...” He was holding the pledge out to her.

The old woman glanced at the pledge, then at once fixed her eyes directly on the eyes of her uninvited visitor. She looked at him intently, spitefully, mistrustfully. A minute or so passed; he even thought he saw something like mockery in her eyes, as if she had already guessed everything. He felt himself becoming flustered, almost frightened, so frightened that it seemed if she were to look at him like that, without saying a word, for another half minute, he would run away from her.

“But why are you looking at me like that, as if you didn't recognize me?” he suddenly asked, also with spite. “If you want it, take it— otherwise I'll go somewhere else. I have no time.”

He had not even intended to say this, but it suddenly got said, just so, by itself.

The old woman came to her senses, and her visitor's resolute tone seemed to encourage her.

“But what's the matter, dearie, so suddenly...what is it?” she asked, looking at the pledge.

“A silver cigarette case—I told you last time.”

She held out her hand.

“But why are you so pale? Look, your hands are trembling! Did you go for a swim, dearie, or what?”

“Fever,” he answered abruptly. “You can't help getting pale...when you have nothing to eat,” he added, barely able to articulate the words. His strength was abandoning him again. But the answer sounded plausible; the old woman took the pledge.

“What is it?” she asked, once again looking Raskolnikov over intently and weighing the pledge in her hand.

“An article...a cigarette case...silver...take a look.”

“But it doesn't seem like silver...Ehh, it's all wrapped up.”

Trying to untie the string and going to the window, to the light (all her windows were closed, despite the stuffiness), she left him completely for a few seconds and turned her back to him. He unbuttoned his coat and freed the axe from the loop but did not quite take it out yet; he just held it in his right hand under the coat. His hands were terribly weak; he felt them growing more and more numb and stiff every moment. He was afraid he would let go and drop the axe...suddenly his head seemed to spin.

“Look how he's wrapped it up!” the old woman exclaimed in vexation, and made a move towards him.

He could not waste even one more moment. He took the axe all the way out, swung it with both hands, scarcely aware of himself, and almost without effort, almost mechanically, brought the butt-end down on her head. His own strength seemed to have no part in it. But the moment he brought the axe down, strength was born in him.

The old woman was bareheaded as always. Her thin hair, pale and streaked with gray, was thickly greased as usual, plaited into a ratty braid and tucked under a piece of horn comb that stuck up at the back of her head. Because she was short, the blow happened to land right on the crown of her head. She cried out, but very faintly, and her whole body suddenly sank to the floor, though she still managed to raise both hands to her head. In one hand she was still holding the “pledge.” Then he struck her again and yet again with all his strength, both times with the butt-end, both times on the crown of the head. Blood poured out as from an overturned glass, and the body fell backwards. He stepped aside, letting it fall, and immediately bent down to her face; she was already dead. Her eyes bulged as if they were about to pop out, and her forehead and her whole face were contracted and distorted in convulsion.

He set the axe down on the floor by the dead woman, and immediately put his hand into her pocket, trying not to smear himself with the flowing blood—that same right pocket from which she had taken her keys the last time. He was in full possession of his reason, the clouding and dizziness had ceased, but his hands were still trembling. He recalled afterwards that he was even very attentive, careful, tried to be sure not to stain himself... He immediately pulled out the keys; they were all in one bunch, as before, on a steel ring. He immediately ran to the bedroom with them. This was a very small room; there was a huge stand with icons and, against the opposite wall, a large bed, quite clean, covered with a silk patchwork quilt. Against the third wall stood a chest of drawers. Strangely, as soon as he began applying the keys to the drawers, as soon as he heard their jingling, it was as if a convulsion ran through him. He again wanted suddenly to drop everything and leave. But only for a moment; it was too late to leave. He even grinned to himself, but then another anxious thought struck his mind. He suddenly fancied that the old woman might still be alive, and might still recover her senses. Abandoning both the keys and the chest of drawers, he ran back to the body, seized the axe and raised it one more time over the old woman, but did not bring it down. There was no doubt that she was dead. Bending over and examining her again more closely, he saw clearly that the skull was shattered and even displaced a little to one side. He was about to feel it with his finger, but jerked his hand back; it was obvious enough without that. Meanwhile a whole pool of blood had already formed. Suddenly he noticed a string around her neck; he tugged at it, but the string was strong and refused to snap; besides, it was soaked with blood. He tried simply pulling it out from her bodice, but something was in the way and it got stuck. Impatiently, he raised the axe again to cut the string where it lay on the body, but he did not dare, and with difficulty, smearing both his hands and the axe, after two minutes of fussing over it, he cut the string without touching the body with the axe, and took it off; he was not mistaken—a purse. There were two crosses on the string, one of cypress and the other of brass, besides a little enamel icon; hanging right there with them was a small, greasy suede purse with a steel frame and ring. The purse was stuffed full; Raskolnikov shoved it into his pocket without looking, dropped the crosses on the old woman's chest, and, taking the axe with him this time, rushed back to the bedroom.

He was terribly hurried, snatched up the keys, and began fumbling with them again. But somehow he had no luck: they would not go into the keyholes. It was not so much that his hands were trembling as that he kept making mistakes: he could even see, for instance, that the key was the wrong one, that it would not fit, and he still kept putting it in. Suddenly he recalled and realized that the big key with the toothed bit, which was dangling right there with the other, smaller ones, must certainly not be for the chest of drawers at all (as had also occurred to him the last time) but for some other trunk, and that it was in this trunk that everything was probably hidden. He abandoned the chest of drawers and immediately looked under the bed, knowing that old women usually keep their trunks under their beds. Sure enough, there stood a sizeable trunk, about two and a half feet long, with a bowed lid, upholstered in red morocco, studded with little steel nails. The toothed key fitted perfectly and opened it. On top, under a white sheet, lay a red silk coat lined with rabbit fur; beneath it was a silk dress, then a shawl, and then, deeper down, there seemed to be nothing but old clothes. First of all he began wiping his blood-stained hands on the red silk. “It's red; blood won't be so noticeable on red,” he began to reason, but suddenly came to his senses: “Lord! Am I losing my mind?” he thought fearfully.

But no sooner had he disturbed these old clothes than a gold watch suddenly slipped out from under the fur coat. He hastened to turn everything over. Indeed, various gold objects were stuffed in among the rags—all of them probably pledges, redeemed and unredeemed— bracelets, chains, earrings, pins, and so on. Some were in cases, others simply wrapped in newspaper, but neatly and carefully, in double sheets, and tied with cloth bands. Without the least delay, he began stuffing them into the pockets of his trousers and coat, not choosing or opening the packages and cases; but he did not have time to take much . . .

Suddenly there was the sound of footsteps in the room where the old woman lay. He stopped, still as death. But everything was quiet; he must have imagined it. Suddenly there came a slight but distinct cry, or more as if someone softly and abruptly moaned and then fell silent. Again there was a dead silence for a minute or two. He sat crouched by the trunk and waited, barely breathing, then suddenly jumped up, seized the axe, and ran out of the bedroom.

Lizaveta was standing in the middle of the room, with a big bundle in her hands, frozen, staring at her murdered sister, white as a sheet, and as if unable to utter a cry. Seeing him run in, she trembled like a leaf, with a faint quivering, and spasms ran across her whole face; she raised her hand, opened her mouth, yet still did not utter a cry, and began slowly backing away from him into the corner, staring at him fixedly, point-blank, but still not uttering a sound, as if she did not have breath enough to cry out. He rushed at her with the axe; she twisted her lips pitifully, as very small children do when they begin to be afraid of something, stare at the thing that frightens them, and are on the point of crying out. And this wretched Lizaveta was so simple, so downtrodden, and so permanently frightened that she did not even raise a hand to protect her face, though it would have been the most necessary and natural gesture at that moment, because the axe was raised directly over her face. She brought her free left hand up very slightly, nowhere near her face, and slowly stretched it out towards him as if to keep him away. The blow landed directly on the skull, with the sharp edge, and immediately split the whole upper part of the forehead, almost to the crown. She collapsed. Raskolnikov, utterly at a loss, snatched up her bundle, dropped it again, and ran to the entryway.

Fear was taking hold of him more and more, especially after this second, quite unexpected murder. He wanted to run away from there as quickly as possible. And if he had been able at that moment to see and reason more properly, if he had only been able to realize all the difficulties of his situation, all the despair, all the hideousness, all the absurdity of it, and to understand, besides, how many more difficulties and perhaps evildoings he still had to overcome or commit in order to get out of there and reach home, he might very well have dropped everything and gone at once to denounce himself, and not even out of fear for himself, but solely out of horror and loathing for what he had done. Loathing especially was rising and growing in him every moment. Not for anything in the world would he have gone back to the trunk now, or even into the rooms.

But a sort of absentmindedness, even something like revery, began gradually to take possession of him: as if he forgot himself at moments or, better, forgot the main thing and clung to trifles. Nevertheless, glancing into the kitchen and seeing a bucket half full of water on a bench, it did occur to him to wash his hands and the axe. His blood-smeared hands were sticky. He plunged the axe blade straight into the water, grabbed a little piece of soap that was lying in a cracked saucer on the windowsill, and began washing his hands right in the bucket. When he had washed them clean, he also took the axe, washed the iron, and spent a long time, about three minutes, washing the wood where blood had gotten on it, even using soap to try and wash the blood away. Then he wiped it all off with a piece of laundry that was drying there on a line stretched across the kitchen, and then examined the axe long and attentively at the window. There were no traces, only the wood was still damp. He carefully slipped the axe into the loop under his coat. Then, as well as the light in the dim kitchen allowed, he examined his coat, trousers, boots. Superficially, at first glance, there seemed to be nothing, apart from some spots on his boots. He wet the rag and wiped them off. He knew, however, that he was not examining himself well, that there might indeed be something eye-catching which he had failed to notice. He stood pensively in the middle of the room. A dark, tormenting thought was rising in him—the thought that he had fallen into madness and was unable at that moment either to reason or to protect himself, and that he was perhaps not doing at all what he should have been doing...”My God! I must run, run away!” he muttered, and rushed into the entryway. But there such horror awaited him as he had surely never experienced before.

He stood, looked, and could not believe his eyes: the door, the outside door, from the entryway to the stairs, the same door at which he had rung, and through which he had entered earlier, stood unlatched, even a good hand's-breadth ajar: no lock, no hook the whole time, during the whole time! The old woman had not locked it behind him, perhaps out of prudence. But, good God, had he not seen Lizaveta after that? How, how could he fail to realize that she must have come in from somewhere! And certainly not through the wall!.

He rushed to the door and hooked it.

“But no, again that's not it! I must go, go . . .”

He unhooked the door, opened it, and began listening on the stairs. He listened for a long time. Somewhere far away, downstairs, probably in the gateway, two voices were shouting loudly and shrilly, arguing and swearing. “What's that about?” He waited patiently. At last everything became quiet all at once, as though cut off; they went away. He was on the point of going out when suddenly, one floor below, the door to the stairs was noisily opened and someone started to go down humming a tune. “How is it they all make so much noise?” flashed through his head. He again closed the door behind him and waited. At last everything fell silent; there was not a soul. He had already stepped out to the stairs when again, suddenly, some new footsteps were heard.

The sound of these steps came from very far away, from the very bottom of the stairs, but he remembered quite well and distinctly how, right then, at the first sound, he had begun for some reason to suspect that they must be coming here, to the fourth floor, to the old woman's. Why? Could the sound have been somehow peculiar, portentous? The steps were heavy, regular, unhurried. Now he was already past the first floor, now he was ascending further, his steps were getting louder and louder. The heavy, short-winded breathing of the approaching man became audible. Now he was starting up the third flight... Here! And it suddenly seemed to him as though he had turned to stone, as though he were in one of those dreams where the dreamer is being pursued, the pursuers are close, they are going to kill him, and he is as if rooted to the spot, unable even to move his arms.

At last, and then only when the visitor started climbing to the fourth floor, he roused himself suddenly and had just time enough to slip quickly and adroitly from the landing back into the apartment and close the door behind him. Then he grasped the hook and quietly, inaudibly placed it through the eye. Instinct was helping him. Having done all that, he cowered, without breathing, just at the door. By then the uninvited visitor was also at the door. They now stood opposite each other, as he and the old woman had done earlier, with the door between them, but it was he who was listening.

The visitor drew several heavy breaths. “He must be big and fat,” Raskolnikov thought, clutching the axe in his hand. Indeed, it was as if he were dreaming. The visitor grasped the bell-pull and rang firmly.

As soon as the bell gave its tinny clink, he suddenly seemed to fancy there was a stirring in the room. For a few seconds he even listened seriously. The stranger gave another clink of the bell, waited a bit, and suddenly began tugging impatiently at the door handle with all his might. Horrified, Raskolnikov watched the hook jumping about in the eye, and waited in dull fear for it to pop right out any moment. Indeed, it seemed possible: the door was being pulled so hard. It occurred to him to hold the hook in place, but then he might suspect. His head seemed to start spinning again. “I'm passing out!” flashed through him, but the stranger spoke, and he immediately recovered himself.

“What's up in there, are they snoring, or has somebody wrung their necks? Cur-r-rse it!” he bellowed, as if from a barrel. “Hey, Alyona Ivanovna, you old witch! Lizaveta Ivanovna, you indescribable beauty! Open up! Ohh, curse it all! Are they asleep, or what?”

And again, enraged, he pulled the bell ten times in a row as hard as he could. He was certainly an imperious man, and a familiar of the house.

At that same moment there was a sound of rapid, hurrying footsteps close by, on the stairs. Someone else was coming up. Raskolnikov did not even hear him at first.

“What, nobody home?” the newcomer cried in a ringing and cheerful voice, directly addressing the first visitor, who was still pulling the bell. “How do you do, Koch!”

“He must be very young, judging by his voice,” Raskolnikov suddenly thought.

“Devil knows, I almost broke the lock,” answered Koch. “And how do you happen to know me?”

“Well, I like that! Didn't I just beat you three times straight at billiards, the day before yesterday, at Gambrinus's?”

“A-a-ah . . .”

“So they're not there? Strange. Terribly stupid, though. Where could the old woman have gone? I'm here on business.”

“I'm also here on business, my friend.”

“Well, what's there to do? Go home, I guess. Bah! And I was hoping to get some money!” the young man cried.

“Go home, of course—but then why make an appointment? The old witch told me when to come herself. It's far out of my way. And where the devil she can have taken herself is beyond me. The old witch sits rotting here all year round with her bad legs, and all of a sudden she goes for an outing!”

“Maybe we should ask the caretaker?”

“Ask him what?”

“Where she's gone and when she'll be back?”

“Hm...the devil... ask him...But she never goes anywhere...” and he tugged at the door handle again. “Ah, the devil, nothing to be done; let's go!”

“Wait!” the young man suddenly shouted. “Look: do you see how the door gives when you pull?”

“So?”

“That means it's not locked, it's just latched, I mean hooked! Hear the hook rattling?”

“So?”

“But don't you understand? That means one of them is home. If they'd all gone out, they would have locked it from outside with a key, and not hooked it from inside. There, can you hear the hook rattling? And in order to fasten the hook from inside, someone has to be home, understand? So they're sitting in there and not opening the door!”

“Hah! Why, of course!” the astonished Koch exclaimed. “But what are they up to in there!” And he began to tug violently at the door.

“Wait!” The young man shouted again. “Don't tug at it! Something's not right here...you rang, you pulled...they don't open the door; it means they've both fainted, or . . .”

“Or what?”

“Listen, let's go get the caretaker; let him wake them up.”

“Good idea!” They both started down the stairs.

“Wait! You stay here, and I'll run down and get the caretaker.”

“Why stay?”

“You never know . . .”

“Maybe . . .”

“I'm studying to be a public investigator! It's obvious, ob-vi-ous that something's not right here!” the young man cried hotly, and went running down the stairs.

Koch stayed. He gave one more little tug at the bell, and it clinked once; then quietly, as if examining and reflecting, he began to move the door handle, pulling it and letting it go, to make sure once more that it was only hooked. Then he bent down, puffing, and tried to look through the keyhole; but there was a key in it, on the inside, and therefore nothing could be seen.

Raskolnikov stood there clutching the axe. He was as if in delirium. He was even readying himself to fight with them when they came in. Several times, while they were knocking and discussing, the idea had suddenly occurred to him to end it all at once and shout to them from behind the door. At times he wanted to start abusing them, taunting them, until they opened the door. “Just get it over with!” flashed through his head.

“Ah, the devil, he . . .”

Time was passing—one minute, two—no one came. Koch began to stir.

“Ah, the devil! ... ” he suddenly cried, and impatiently, abandoning his post, he, too, set off down the stairs, hurrying and stomping his feet as he went. His steps died away.

“Lord, what shall I do!”

Raskolnikov unfastened the hook, opened the door a little—not a sound. And suddenly, now without thinking at all, he went out, closed the door behind him as tightly as he could, and started down the stairs.

He had already gone three flights when a loud noise suddenly came from below—where could he go? There was nowhere to hide. He was turning to run back to the apartment again.

“Hey, you hairy devil! Stop him!”

With a shout, someone burst from one of the apartments below, and did not so much run as tumble down the stairs, shouting at the top of his lungs:

“Mitka! Mitka! Mitka! Mitka! Damn your eyes!”

The cry ended in a shriek; the last sounds already came from outside; then it was quiet. But at the same moment, several men, talking loudly and quickly, began noisily climbing the stairs. There were three or four of them. He heard the ringing voice of the young one. “It's them!”

In utter despair he marched straight to meet them: come what may! If they stopped him, all was lost; if they let him pass, all was lost anyway—they would remember him. In a moment they would come face to face; there was only one flight between them—and suddenly, salvation! A few steps away from him, on the right, was an empty and wide open apartment, that same second-floor apartment where the painters had been working and which, as if by design, they had now left. Surely it was they who had just run out with so much shouting. The floors were freshly painted; in the middle of the room was a small bucket of paint and a potsherd with a brush on it. He slipped through the open door in an instant and cowered behind the wall, and not a moment too soon: they were already on that very landing. Then they passed by and headed upstairs to the fourth floor, talking loudly. He waited, tiptoed out, and ran downstairs.

No one on the stairs! Nor in the gateway. He quickly walked through the gateway and turned left onto the street.

He knew very well, he knew perfectly well, that at that moment they were already in the apartment, that they were very surprised at finding it open, since it had just been locked, that they were already looking at the bodies, and that it would take them no more than a minute to realize and fully grasp that the murderer had just been there and had managed to hide somewhere, slip past them, get away; they would also realize, perhaps, that he had been there in the empty apartment while they were going upstairs. And yet by no means did he dare to quicken his pace, though there were about a hundred steps to go before the first turning. “Shouldn't I slip through some gate and wait somewhere on an unfamiliar stairway? No, no good. Shouldn't I throw the axe away somewhere? Shouldn't I take a cab? No good! No good!”

Here at last was the side street; he turned down it more dead than alive; now he was halfway to safety, and he knew it—not so suspicious; besides, there were many people shuttling along there, and he effaced himself among them like a grain of sand. But all these torments had weakened him so much that he could barely move. Sweat rolled off of him in drops; his whole neck was wet. “There's a potted one!” someone shouted at him as he walked out to the canal.

He was hardly aware of himself now, and the farther he went the worse it became. He remembered, however, that on coming out to the canal he had felt afraid because there were too few people and it was more conspicuous there, and had almost wanted to turn back to the side street. Though he was nearing collapse, he nevertheless made a detour and arrived home from the completely opposite side.

He was not fully conscious when he entered the gates of his house; at least he did not remember about the axe until he was already on the stairs. And yet a very important task was facing him: to put it back, and as inconspicuously as possible. Of course, he was no longer capable of realizing that it might be much better for him not to put the axe in its former place at all, but to leave it, later even, somewhere in an unfamiliar courtyard.

Yet everything worked out well. The caretaker's door was closed but not locked, meaning that the caretaker was most likely there. But by then he had so utterly lost the ability to understand anything that he went straight up to the door and opened it. If the caretaker had asked him, “What do you want?” he might simply have handed him the axe. But once again the caretaker was not there, and he had time to put the axe in its former place under the bench; he even covered it with a log, as before. He met no one, not a single soul, from then on all the way to his room; the landlady's door was shut. He went into his room and threw himself down on the sofa just as he was. He did not sleep, but was as if oblivious. If anyone had come into his room then, he would have jumped up at once and shouted. Bits and scraps of various thoughts kept swarming in his head; but he could not grasp any one of them, could not rest on any one, hard as he tried . . .