فصل 07 - بخش 01

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE DOOR WAS AS before opened a tiny crack, and again two sharp and suspicious eyes stared at him out of the darkness. Then Raskolnikov lost his head and nearly made a great mistake.

Fearing the old woman would be frightened by their being alone, and not hoping that the sight of him would disarm her suspicions, he took hold of the door and pulled it towards him to prevent the old woman from attempting to shut it again. Seeing this she did not pull the door back, but she did not let go the handle, either, so that he almost dragged her out with it on to the stairs. Seeing that she was standing in the doorway not allowing him to pass, he advanced straight upon her. She stepped back in alarm, tried to say something, but seemed unable to speak and stared with open eyes at him.

“Good evening, Aliona Ivanovna,” he began, trying to speak as casually as possible, but his voice would not obey him, it broke and shook. “I have come . . . I have brought something . . . but we’d better go over here . . . to the light . . . ” And leaving her, he walked straight into the room uninvited. The old woman ran after him; her tongue was loosened.

“Good heavens! What are you doing here? Who are you? What do you want?”

“Why, Aliona Ivanovna, you know me . . . Raskolnikov . . . here, I brought you the pledge I promised the other day . . . ” and he held out the pledge.

The old woman glanced for a moment at the pledge, but at once stared in the eyes of her uninvited visitor. She looked intently, maliciously and mistrustfully. A minute passed; he even thought he saw something like a sneer in her eyes, as though she had already guessed everything. He felt that he was losing his head, that he was almost frightened, so frightened that if she were to look like that and not say a word for another half minute, he would have run away from her.

“Why do you look at me as though you didn’t recognize me?” he said suddenly, also with malice. “Take it if you like, if not I’ll go elsewhere, I am in a hurry.”

He had not even thought of saying this; it was just suddenly said of itself. The old woman recovered herself, and her visitor’s resolute tone evidently set her at ease.

“But why, sir, all of a sudden … What is it?” she asked, looking at the pledge.

“The silver cigarette case; I spoke of it last time, you know.”

She held out her hand.

“But why are you so pale somehow? And your hands are trembling too! Have you been bathing, or what?”

“Fever,” he answered abruptly. “You can’t help getting pale . . . if you’ve nothing to eat,” he added, with difficulty articulating the words.

His strength was failing him again. But his answer sounded like the truth; the old woman took the pledge.

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

“A thing . . . cigarette case . . . Silver . . . Look at it.”

“It does not seem somehow like silver . . . How he has wrapped it up!”

Trying to untie the string and turning to the window, to the light (all her windows were shut, in spite of the stifling heat), she left him altogether for several seconds and stood with her back to him. He unbuttoned his coat and freed the axe from the noose, but did not yet take it out altogether, simply holding it in his right hand under the coat. His hands were terribly weak, he himself felt them every moment growing more numb and more wooden. He was afraid he would let the axe slip and fall . . . Suddenly his head seemed to spin.

“But what has he tied it up like this for?” the old woman cried with vexation and moved towards him.

He had not an instant more to lose. He pulled the axe out completely, swung it with both arms, scarcely conscious of himself, and almost without effort, almost mechanically, brought the blunt side down on her head. He seemed not to use his own strength in this. But as soon as he had once brought the axe down, strength was born in him.

The old woman was as always bareheaded. Her thin, light hair, streaked with gray, thickly smeared with grease, was plaited in a rat’s tail and fastened by a broken horn comb which stood out on the nape of her neck. As she was so short, the blow fell on the very top of her skull. She cried out, but very faintly, and suddenly sank all of a heap on the floor, though still managing to raise her hands to her head. In one hand she still held “the pledge.” Then with all his strength he dealt her another and another blow with the blunt side, and on the same spot. The blood gushed as from an overturned glass, the body fell back. He stepped back, let it fall, and at once bent over her face; she was already dead. Her eyes seemed to be starting out of their sockets, the forehead and the whole face were drawn and contorted convulsively.

He laid the axe on the ground near the dead body and felt at once in her pocket (trying to not get smeared with the streaming blood)—the same right hand pocket from which she had taken the key on his last visit. He was in full possession of his faculties, free from confusion or giddiness, but his hands were still trembling. He remembered afterwards that he had been particularly cautious and careful, trying all the time not to get stained . . . He pulled out the keys at once, they were all, as before, in one bunch on a steel ring. He ran at once into the bedroom with them. It was a very small room with a whole shrine of holy images. Against the other wall stood a big bed, very clean and covered with a silk patchwork wadded quilt. Against a third wall was a chest of drawers. Strange to say, as soon as he began to fit the keys into the chest, as soon as he heard their jingling, a convulsive shudder passed over him. He suddenly felt tempted again to give it all up and go away. But that was only for an instant; it was too late to go back. He even smiled at himself, when suddenly another alarming idea occurred to his mind. He suddenly fancied that the old woman might be still alive and might recover her senses. Leaving the keys in the chest, he ran back to the body, snatched up the axe and lifted it once more over the old woman, but did not bring it down. There was no doubt that she was dead. Bending down and examining her again more closely, he saw clearly that the skull was broken and even battered in on one side. He was about to feel it with his finger, but drew back his hand and indeed it was evident without that. Meanwhile there was a whole pool of blood. All of a sudden he noticed a string on her neck; he tugged at it, but the string was strong and did not snap and besides, it was soaked with blood. He tried to pull it out from the front of the dress, but something held it and prevented its coming. In his impatience he raised the axe again to hack at the string from above, right on the body, but did not dare, and with difficulty, smearing his hands and the axe in the blood, after two minutes’ hurried effort, he cut the string and took it off without touching the body with the axe; he was not mistaken—it was a purse. On the string were two crosses, one of Cyprus wood and one of copper, and an enameled icon, and with them a small greasy suede purse with a steel rim and ring. The purse was stuffed very full; Raskolnikov thrust it in his pocket without looking at it, flung the crosses on the old woman’s chest and rushed back into the bedroom, this time taking the axe with him.

He was in a terrible hurry, he snatched the keys, and began trying them again. But he was unsuccessful. They would not fit in the locks. It was not so much that his hands were shaking, but that he kept making mistakes; though he saw, for instance, that a key was not the right one and would not fit, still he tried to put it in. Suddenly he remembered and realized that the big key with the deep notches, which was hanging there with the small keys, could not possibly belong to the chest of drawers (on his last visit this had struck him), but to some strong-box, and that everything perhaps was hidden in that box. He abandoned the chest of drawers, and at once felt under the bedstead, knowing that old women usually keep boxes under their beds. And so it was; there was a good-sized box under the bed, at least a yard in length, with an arched lid covered with red leather and studded with steel nails. The notched key fit at once and unlocked it. At the top, under a white sheet, was a coat of thick red silk cloth lined with hare skin; under it was a silk dress, then a shawl and it seemed as though there was nothing below but clothes. The first thing he did was to wipe his blood-stained hands on the thick red silk. “It’s red, and on red blood will be less noticeable,” the thought passed through his mind; then he suddenly came to. “Good God, am I going out of my mind?” he thought with terror.

But no sooner did he touch the clothes than a gold watch slipped from under the fur coat. He started turning everything over. And in fact there were various articles made of gold among the clothes—probably all pledges, unredeemed or waiting to be redeemed—bracelets, chains, earrings, pins and such. Some were in cases, others simply wrapped in newspaper, carefully and exactly folded, in double sheets, and tied round with tape. Losing not a moment, he began stuffing the pockets of his trousers and overcoat without examining or opening the parcels and cases; but he didn’t get to take many . . .

He suddenly heard steps in the room where the old woman lay. He stopped short and was still as death. But all was quiet, so he must have been imagining things. All of a sudden he distinctly heard a faint cry, as though someone had uttered a low broken moan. Then again dead silence for a minute or two. He sat squatting on his heels by the box and waited holding his breath, then suddenly jumped up, seized the axe and ran out of the bedroom.

In the middle of the room stood Lizaveta with a big bundle in her arms. She was gazing in stupefaction at her murdered sister, white as a sheet and seeming not to have the strength to cry out. Seeing him run out of the bedroom, she began faintly quivering all over, like a leaf, a shudder ran down her face; she lifted her hand, opened her mouth, but still did not scream. She began slowly backing away from him into the corner, staring intently, persistently at him, but still uttered no sound, as though she could not get breath to scream. He rushed at her with the axe; her mouth twitched piteously, as one sees babies’ mouths, when they begin to be frightened, stare intently at what frightens them and are on the point of screaming. And this hapless Lizaveta was so simple and had been so thoroughly scared and browbeaten that she did not even raise a hand to protect her face, though that was the most necessary and natural action at the moment, for the axe was raised over her face. She only lifted her empty left hand ever so slightly, still far from her face, slowly holding it out before her as though motioning him away. The axe fell with the sharp edge just on the skull and split at one blow all the top of the head. She collapsed at once. Raskolnikov completely lost control of himself, snatched up her bundle, dropped it again and ran into the entryway.

Fear gained more and more mastery over him, especially after this second, quite unexpected murder. He longed to run away from the place as fast as possible. And if at that moment he had been capable of seeing and reasoning more correctly, if he had been able to realize all the difficulties of his position, the hopelessness, the hideousness and the absurdity of it, if he could have understood how many obstacles and, perhaps, villainies he had still to overcome or to commit, to get out of that place and to make his way home, it is very possible that he would have abandoned everything, and would have gone to give himself up, and not from fear for himself, but from simple horror and loathing of what he had done. The feeling of loathing especially surged up within him and grew stronger every minute. Not for anything in the world would he now have gone to the strong-box or even into the room.

But a sort of blankness, even dreaminess had begun by degrees to take possession of him; at moments he forgot himself, or rather, forgot what was of importance, and caught at trifles. Glancing, however, into the kitchen and seeing a bucket half full of water on a bench, he did realize that he needed to wash his hands and the axe. His hands were sticky with blood. He dropped the axe with the blade in the water, snatched a piece of soap that lay in a broken saucer on the window, and began washing his hands right there in the bucket. When they were clean, he took out the axe, washed the blade and spent a long time, about three minutes, washing the wood where there were spots of blood, even rubbing them with soap. Then he wiped it all with some linen that was hanging to dry on a line in the kitchen and then he spent a long time attentively examining the axe at the window. There was no trace left on it, only the wood was still damp. He carefully hung the axe in the noose under his coat. Then as far as was possible, in the dim light in the kitchen, he looked over his overcoat, his trousers and his boots. At the first glance there seemed to be nothing but stains on the boots. He wetted the rag and rubbed the boots. But he knew he was not looking thoroughly, that there might be something quite noticeable that he was overlooking. He stood in the middle of the room, lost in thought. A dark agonizing thought rose in his mind—the thought that he was going mad and that at that moment he was incapable of reasoning, of protecting himself, that he ought perhaps to be doing something utterly different from what he was now doing. “Good God!” he muttered “I must run, run,” and he rushed into the entryway. But here a shock of terror awaited him such as he had never of course known before.

He stood and gazed and could not believe his eyes: the door, the outer door from the stairs, the one at which he had not long before waited and rung, was standing unlocked and at least six inches open. No lock, no bolt, all the time, all that time! The old woman had not shut it after him perhaps as a precaution. But, good God! Why, he had seen Lizaveta afterwards! And how could he, how could he have failed to reflect that she must have come in somehow! She could not have come through the wall!

He dashed to the door and fastened the latch.

“But no, the wrong thing again. I must get away, get away . . . ”

He unfastened the latch, opened the door and began listening on the staircase.

He listened a long time. Somewhere far away, probably in the gateway, two voices were loudly and shrilly shouting, quarrelling and scolding. “What are they yelling about?” He waited patiently. At last everything was still, as though suddenly cut off; they had separated. He was meaning to go out, but suddenly, on the floor below, a door was noisily opened and someone began going downstairs humming a tune. “How is it they all make such a noise!” flashed through his mind. Once more he closed the door and waited. At last everything was still, not a soul was stirring. He was just taking a step towards the stairs when he heard fresh footsteps.

The steps sounded very far off, at the very bottom of the stairs, but he remembered quite clearly and distinctly that from the first sound he began for some reason to suspect that this was someone coming there, to the fourth floor, to the old woman. Why? Were the sounds somehow peculiar, significant? The steps were heavy, even and unhurried. Now he had passed the first floor, now he was mounting higher, it was growing more and more distinct! He could hear his heavy breathing. And now the third storey had been reached. Coming here! And it seemed to him all at once that he was turned to stone, that it was like a dream in which one is being pursued, nearly caught and will be killed, and is rooted to the spot and cannot even move one’s arms.

At last when the unknown was mounting to the fourth floor, he suddenly started, and succeeded in slipping neatly and quickly back into the flat and closing the door behind him. Then he took the hook and softly, noiselessly, fixed it in the catch. Instinct helped him. When he had done this, he crouched holding his breath, by the door. The unknown visitor was by now also at the door. They were now standing opposite one another, as he had just before been standing with the old woman, when the door divided them and he was listening.

The visitor panted several times. “He must be a big, fat man,” thought Raskolnikov, squeezing the axe in his hand. It seemed like a dream. The visitor took hold of the bell and rang loudly.

As soon as the tin bell tinkled, Raskolnikov seemed to be aware of something moving in the room. For some seconds he listened quite seriously. The unknown rang again, waited and suddenly tugged violently and impatiently at the handle of the door. Raskolnikov gazed in horror at the hook shaking in its fastening, and in blank terror expected every minute that the fastening would be pulled out. It certainly did seem possible, so violently was he shaking it. He was tempted to hold the fastening, but he might be aware of it. Dizziness came over him again. “I shall fall down!” flashed through his mind, but the unknown began to speak and he recovered himself at once.

“What’s up? Are they asleep or murdered? D-damn them!” he bawled in a thick voice, “Hey, Aliona Ivanovna, old witch! Lizaveta Ivanovna, hey, my beauty! Open the door! Damn them! Are they asleep or what?”

And again, enraged, he tugged with all his might a dozen times at the bell. He must certainly be a man of authority and an intimate acquaintance.

At this moment light hurried steps were heard not far off, on the stairs. Someone else was approaching. Raskolnikov had not heard them at first.

“You don’t say there’s no-one at home,” the newcomer cried in a cheerful, ringing voice, addressing the first visitor, who still went on pulling the bell. “Good evening, Koch.”

“From his voice he must be quite young,” thought Raskolnikov.

“Who the hell can tell? I’ve almost broken the lock,” answered Koch. “But how do you come to know me?”

“Why! The day before yesterday I beat you three times in a row at billiards at Gambrinus’.”

“Oh!”

“So they are not at home? That’s strange. It’s pretty stupid though. Where could the old woman have gone? I’ve come on business.”

“Yes; and I have business with her, too.”

“Well, what can we do? Go back, I suppose! And I was hoping to get some money!” cried the young man.

“We must give up, of course, but what did she fix this time for? The old witch fixed the time for me to come herself. It’s out of my way. And where the devil she can have got to, I can’t make out. She sits here from year’s end to year’s end, the old hag; her legs are bad and yet here all of a sudden she is out for a walk!” “Hadn’t we better ask the porter?”

“What?”

“Where she’s gone and when she’ll be back.”

“Hm . . . Damn it all! . . . We might ask . . . But you know she never does go anywhere.”

And he once more tugged at the door-handle.

“Damn it all. There’s nothing to be done, we must go!”

“Stay!” cried the young man suddenly. “Do you see how the door shakes if you pull it?”

“Well?”

“That shows it’s not locked, but fastened with the hook! Do you hear how the hook clanks?”

“Well?”

“Why, don’t you see? That proves that one of them is at home. If they were all out, they would have locked the door from the outside with the key and not with the hook from inside. There, do you hear how the hook is clanking? To fasten the hook on the inside they must be at home, don’t you see. So there they are sitting inside and aren’t opening the door!” “Well! And so they must be!” cried Koch, astonished. “What are they doing in there!” And he began furiously shaking the door.

“Stay!” cried the young man again. “Don’t pull at it! There must be something wrong . . . Here, you’ve been ringing and pulling at the door and still they don’t open! So either they’ve both fainted or . . . ”

“What?”

“I tell you what. Let’s go fetch the porter, let him wake them up.”

“All right.”

Both of them went down.

“Stop. You stay here while I run down for the porter.”

“What for?”

“Well, you’d better.”

“All right.”

“I’m studying law, you see! It’s evident, e-vi-dent there’s something wrong here!” the young man cried hotly, and he ran downstairs.

Koch remained. Once more he softly touched the bell which gave one tinkle, then gently, as though reflecting and looking about him, began touching the door-handle pulling it and letting it go to make sure once more that it was only fastened by the hook. Then puffing and panting he bent down and began looking at the keyhole; but the key was in the lock on the inside and so nothing could be seen.

Raskolnikov stood keeping tight hold of the axe. He was in a sort of delirium. He was even getting ready to fight when they came in. While they were knocking and talking together, the idea several times occurred to him to end it all at once and shout to them through the door. Now and then he was tempted to swear at them, to jeer at them, while they could not open the door! “Just hurry up!” was the thought that flashed through his mind.

“But what the devil is he about? . . . ” Time was passing, one minute, and another—no-one came. Koch began to be restless.

“What the hell?” he cried suddenly and in impatience deserting his sentry duty, he, too, went down, hurrying and thumping his heavy boots on the stairs. The steps died away.

“God! What should I do?”

Raskolnikov unfastened the hook, opened the door—there was no sound. Abruptly, without any thought at all, he went out, closing the door as thoroughly as he could, and went downstairs.

He had gone down three flights when he suddenly heard a loud voice below—where could he go! There was nowhere to hide. He was just going back to the flat.

“Hey there! Catch the brute!”

Somebody dashed out of a flat below, shouting, and rather fell than ran down the stairs, bawling at the top of his voice.

“Mitka! Mitka! Mitka! Mitka! Mitka! Damn him!”

The shout ended in a shriek; the last sounds came from the yard; all was still. But at the same instant several men talking loud and fast began noisily mounting the stairs. There were three or four of them. He distinguished the ringing voice of the young man. “Them!” Filled with despair he went straight to meet them, feeling “come what may!” If they stopped him—all was lost; if they let him pass—all was lost too; they would remember him. They were approaching; they were only a flight away from him—and, suddenly, salvation! A few steps from him on the right there was an empty flat with the door wide open, the flat on the second floor where the painters had been at work, and which, as though for his benefit, they had just left. It was they, no doubt, who had just run down, shouting. The floor had only just been painted, in the middle of the room stood a pail and a broken pot with paint and brushes. In one instant he had whisked in at the open door and hidden behind the wall and just in the nick of time; they had already reached the landing. Then they turned and went on up to the fourth floor, talking loudly. He waited, went out on tiptoe and ran down the stairs.

No-one was on the stairs or in the gateway. He passed quickly through the gateway and turned to the left into the street.

He knew, he knew perfectly well that at that moment they were at the flat, that they were greatly astonished at finding it unlocked, as the door had just been fastened, that by now they were looking at the bodies, that before another minute had passed they would guess and eventually realize that the murderer had just been there, and had succeeded in hiding somewhere, slipping by them and escaping. They would guess most likely that he had been in the empty flat while they were going upstairs. And meanwhile he dared not speed up too much, though the next turning was still nearly a hundred yards away. “Should he slip through some gateway and wait somewhere in an unknown street? No, hopeless! Should he fling away the axe? Should he take a cab? Hopeless, hopeless!” At last he reached the turning. He turned down it more dead than alive. Here he was halfway to safety, and here he understood it; it was less risky because there was a great crowd of people, and he was lost in it like a grain of sand. But everything he had suffered had so weakened him that he could scarcely move. Perspiration ran down him in drops, his neck was all wet. “My God, he’s been at it!” someone shouted at him when he came out on the canal bank.

He was only dimly conscious of himself now, and the farther he went the worse it was. He remembered, however, that when he came out onto the canal bank, he was alarmed at finding few people there and at being more conspicuous, and he had thought of turning back. Though he was almost falling from fatigue, he went a long way round so as to get home from a different direction.

He was not fully conscious when he passed through the gateway of his house; he was already on the staircase before he remembered the axe. And yet he had a very grave problem before him, to put it back and to escape observation as far as possible in doing so. He was of course incapable of reflecting that it might perhaps be far better not to put the axe back at all, but to drop it later on in somebody’s yard. But it all turned out beautifully: the door of the porter’s room was closed but not locked, so it seemed most likely that the porter was at home. But he had lost his powers of reflection so completely that he walked straight to the door and opened it. If the porter had asked him “What do you want?” he would perhaps have simply handed him the axe. But again the porter was not at home, and he succeeded in putting the axe back under the bench, and even covering it with the chunk of wood just as before. He met no-one, not a soul, on the way to his room; the landlady’s door was shut. When he was in his room, he flung himself on the sofa just as he was—he did not sleep, but sank into blank forgetfulness. If anyone had come into his room then, he would have jumped up at once and screamed. Scraps and shreds of thoughts were simply swarming in his brain, but he could not catch at one, he could not rest on one, in spite of all his efforts …