بخش 05 - فصل 06

CHAPTER SIX

BUT AS SOON AS she went out, he got up, latched the door, undid the parcel which Razumikhin had brought in that evening and started dressing. Curiously, he seemed all at once to have become perfectly calm—not a trace of his recent delirium, nor of the panic that had haunted him of late. It was the first moment of a strange and sudden peace. His movements were precise and definite; there was even a firm purpose to them. “Today, today,” he muttered to himself. He understood that he was still weak, but his intense spiritual concentration gave him strength and self-confidence. He hoped, moreover, that he would not fall down in the street. When he had dressed in entirely new clothes, he looked at the money lying on the table, and after a moment’s thought put it in his pocket. It was twenty-five rubles. He also took all of the copper change from the ten rubles spent by Razumikhin on the clothes. Then he softly unlatched the door, went out, slipped downstairs and glanced in at the open kitchen door. Nastasia was standing with her back to him, blowing up the landlady’s samovar. She heard nothing. Who would have dreamed that he would go out? A minute later he was in the street.

It was nearly eight o’clock; the sun was setting. It was as stifling as before, but he eagerly drank in the stinking, dusty town air. His head felt very dizzy; a sort of savage energy gleamed suddenly in his feverish eyes and in his wasted, pale yellow face. He did not know and did not think where he was going; he had one thought alone, “that all this must be ended today, once and for all, immediately, that he would not return home without it, because he would not go on living like that.” How, what to put an end to? He had no idea; he did not even want to think about it. He drove away thought; thought tortured him. All he knew, all he felt was that everything must be changed “one way or another,” he repeated with desperate and immovable self-confidence and determination.

Out of old habit he took a walk in the direction of the Haymarket. A dark-haired young man with a barrel organ was standing in the road in front of a little store and was grinding out a very sentimental song. He was with a fifteen-year-old girl, who stood on the pavement in front of him. She was dressed up in a crinoline, a mantle and a straw hat with a flame-colored feather in it, all very old and shabby. In a strong and reasonably pleasant voice, cracked and coarsened by street music, she was singing in hope of getting a copper from the store. Raskolnikov joined two or three listeners, took out a five kopeck piece and put it in the girl’s hand. She broke off abruptly on a sentimental high note, shouted sharply to the organ grinder “Come on,” and both moved on to the next store.

“Do you like street music?” said Raskolnikov, addressing a middle-aged man standing idly by him. The man looked at him, startled and curious.

“I love to hear singing accompanied by a street organ,” said Raskolnikov, and his manner seemed strangely out of keeping with the subject—“I like it on cold, dark, damp autumn evenings—they must be damp—when all the passersby have pale green, sickly faces, or better still when wet snow is falling straight down, when there’s no wind—you know what I mean?—and the street lamps shine through it . . . ” “I don’t know . . . Excuse me . . . ” muttered the stranger, frightened by the question and Raskolnikov’s strange manner, and he crossed over to the other side of the street.

Raskolnikov walked straight on and came out at the corner of the Haymarket, where the salesman and his wife had talked with Lizaveta; but they were not there now. Recognizing the place, he stopped, looked round and addressed a young fellow in a red shirt who stood gaping before a corn chandler’s store.

“Isn’t there a man who keeps a booth with his wife at this corner?”

“All sorts of people keep booths here,” answered the young man, glancing at Raskolnikov with a superior air.

“What’s his name?”

“What he was christened.”

“Aren’t you a Zaraisky man, too? Which province?”

The young man looked at Raskolnikov again.

“It’s not a province, your Excellency, it’s a district. Kindly forgive me, your Excellency!”

“Is that a tavern at the top there?”

“Yes, it’s an eating-house and there’s a billiard-room and you’ll find princesses there too . . . La-la!”

Raskolnikov crossed the square. In that corner there was a dense crowd of peasants. He pushed his way into the thickest part of it, looking at the faces. He felt an inexplicable inclination to enter into conversation with people. But the peasants took no notice of him; they were all shouting in groups. He stood and thought a little and took a turning to the right in the direction of V.

He had often crossed that little street which turns at an angle, leading from the market-place to Sadovy Street. Recently he had often felt drawn to wander about this district when he felt depressed, so that he might feel even more so.

Now he walked along, thinking of nothing. On the bend there is a large block of buildings, entirely let out to liquor stores and eating-houses; women were continually running in and out, bare-headed and in their indoor clothes. Here and there they gathered in groups, on the pavement, especially around the entrances to various festive establishments on the lower floors. From one of these a loud din, sounds of singing, the tinkling of a guitar and shouts of merriment, floated into the street. A crowd of women were thronging round the door; some were sitting on the steps, others on the pavement, others were standing talking. A drunken soldier, smoking a cigarette, was walking near them in the road, swearing; he seemed to be trying to find his way somewhere, but had forgotten where. One beggar was quarrelling with another, and a man, dead drunk, was lying right across the road. Raskolnikov joined the throng of women, who were talking in husky voices. They were bare-headed and wore cotton dresses and goatskin shoes. There were women of forty and some not more than seventeen; almost all had blackened eyes.

He felt strangely attracted by the singing and all the noise and uproar in the saloon below . . . Someone could be heard dancing frantically inside, marking time with his heels to the sounds of the guitar and of a thin falsetto voice singing a jaunty air. He listened intently, gloomily and dreamily, bending down at the entrance and peeping inquisitively in from the pavement.— “Oh, my handsome soldier

Don’t beat me for nothing,”—trilled the thin voice of the singer. Raskolnikov felt a great desire to make out what he was singing, as though everything depended on that.

“Shall I go in?” he thought. “They’re laughing. Because they’re drinking. Shall I get drunk?”

“Won’t you come in?” one of the women asked him. Her voice was still musical and less thick than the others, she was young and not repulsive—the only one of the group.

“She’s pretty,” he said, drawing himself up and looking at her.

She smiled, much pleased at the compliment.

“You’re very nice looking yourself,” she said.

“Isn’t he thin though!” observed another woman in a deep bass. “Have you just come out of a hospital?”

“They’re all generals’ daughters, it seems, but they have all snub noses,” interposed a tipsy peasant with a sly smile on his face, wearing a loose coat. “See how jolly they are.” “Go along with you!”

“I’ll go, sweetie!”

And he darted down into the saloon below. Raskolnikov moved on. “Hey, sir,” the girl shouted after him.

“What is it?”

She hesitated.

“I’ll always be pleased to spend an hour with you, kind gentleman, but now I feel shy. Give me six kopecks for a drink, there’s a nice young man!”

Raskolnikov gave her what came first—fifteen kopecks.

“Ah, what a good-natured gentleman!”

“What’s your name?”

“Ask for Duclida.”

“Well, that’s too much,” one of the women observed, shaking her head at Duclida. “I don’t know how you can ask like that. I believe I should drop with shame . . . ” Raskolnikov looked curiously at the speaker. She was a pock-marked wench of thirty, covered with bruises, with her upper lip swollen. She made her criticism quietly and earnestly. “Where is it,” thought Raskolnikov. “Where is it I’ve read that someone condemned to death says or thinks, an hour before his death, that if he had to live on some high rock, on such a narrow ledge that he’d only got room to stand, with the ocean, everlasting darkness, everlasting solitude, everlasting tempest around him, if he had to remain standing on a square yard of space all his life, a thousand years, eternity, it were better to live like that than to die at once! Only to live, to live and live! Life, whatever it may be! . . . How true it is! Good God, how true! Man is a vile creature! . . . And vile is he who calls man vile for that,” he added a moment later.

He went into another street. “Bah, the Crystal Palace! Razumikhin was just talking about the Crystal Palace. But what the hell did I want? Yes, the newspapers . . . Zossimov said he’d read it in the papers. Have you got a copy of the papers?” he asked, going into a very spacious and definitely clean restaurant, consisting of several rooms, which were however rather empty. Two or three people were drinking tea, and in a room further away were four men drinking champagne. Raskolnikov thought that Zametov was one of them, but he could not be sure at that distance. “What if it is!” he thought.

“Will you have vodka?” asked the waiter.

“Give me some tea and bring me the papers, the old ones for the last five days and I’ll give you something.”

“Yes, sir, here’s today’s. No vodka?”

The old newspapers and the tea were brought. Raskolnikov sat down and began to look through them.

“Oh, damn . . . these are the items of intelligence. An accident on a staircase, spontaneous combustion of a storekeeper from alcohol, a fire in Peski . . . a fire in the Petersburg quarter . . . another fire in the Petersburg quarter . . . and another fire in the Petersburg quarter . . . Ah, here it is!” He found at last what he was seeking and began to read it. The lines danced before his eyes, but he read it all and began eagerly seeking later additions in the following numbers. His hands shook with nervous impatience as he turned the sheets. Suddenly someone sat down beside him at his table. He looked up, it was the head clerk Zametov, looking just the same, with the rings on his fingers and the watch-chain, with the curly, black hair, parted and pomaded, with the smart waistcoat, shabby coat and dubious dress. He was in a good mood; at least, he was smiling very merrily and good-humoredly. His dark face was rather flushed from the champagne he had drunk.

“What, you here?” he began in surprise, speaking as though he’d known him all his life. “Razumikhin told me only yesterday you were unconscious. How strange! Did you know I’ve been to see you?” Raskolnikov knew he would come up to him. He laid aside the papers and turned to Zametov. There was a smile on his lips, and a new shade of irritable impatience was apparent in it.

“I know you have,” he answered. “I’ve heard. You looked for my sock . . . And you know Razumikhin has lost his heart to you? He says you’ve been with him to Luise Ivanovna’s, you know the woman you tried to befriend, for whom you winked to the Explosive Lieutenant and he wouldn’t understand. Do you remember? How could he fail to understand—it was quite clear, wasn’t it?” “What a hothead he is!”

“The explosive one?”

“No, your friend Razumikhin.”

“You must have a jolly life, Mr. Zametov; free entry to the best places. Who’s been pouring champagne into you just now?”

“We’ve just been . . . having a drink together . . . You talk about pouring it into me!”

“As a fee! You profit by everything!” Raskolnikov laughed, “it’s all right, my friend,” he added, slapping Zametov on the shoulder. “I’m not saying that because I’m angry, but in a friendly way, for sport, as that workman of yours said when he was scuffling with Dmitri, in the case of the old woman . . . ” “How do you know about it?”

“Perhaps I know more about it than you do.”

“How strange you are . . . you must still be very unwell. You shouldn’t have come out.”

“Oh, do I seem strange to you?”

“Yes. What are you doing, reading the papers?”

“Yes.”

“There’s a lot about the fires.”

“No, I’m not reading about the fires.” Here he looked mysteriously at Zametov; his lips were twisted again in a mocking smile. “No, I am not reading about the fires,” he went on, winking at Zametov. “But confess now, my friend, you’re pretty anxious to know what I am reading about?” “I am not in the least. Mayn’t I ask a question? Why do you keep on . . . ?”

“Listen, you are a man of culture and education?”

“I was in the sixth class at the gymnasium,” said Zametov with some dignity.

“Sixth class! Ah, my little sparrow! With your parting and your rings—you’re a lucky man. God, what a charming lad!” Here Raskolnikov broke into a nervous laugh right in Zametov’s face. The latter drew back, more amazed than offended.

“Pah, how strange you are!” Zametov repeated very seriously. “I can’t help thinking you are still delirious.”

“I am delirious? You are lying, my sparrow! So I am strange? You find me curious, do you?”

“Yes, curious.”

“Shall I tell you what I was reading about, what I was looking for? See what a lot of papers I’ve made them bring me. Suspicious?”

“Well, what is it?”

“You prick up your ears?”

“How do you mean—prick up my ears?”

“I’ll explain that afterwards, but now, my friend, I declare to you … no, better ‘I confess’ . . . No, that’s not right either; ‘I make a deposition and you take it.’ I depose that I was reading, that I was looking and searching . . . ” he screwed up his eyes and paused. “I was searching—and came here on purpose to do it—for news of the murder of the old pawnbroker woman,” he articulated at last, almost in a whisper, bringing his face extremely close to Zametov’s. Zametov looked at him steadily, without moving or drawing his face away. What struck Zametov afterwards as the strangest part of it all was that silence followed for exactly a minute, and that they gazed at one another all the while.

“What if you have been reading about it?” he cried at last, perplexed and impatient. “That’s no business of mine! What of it?”

“The same old woman,” Raskolnikov went on in the same whisper, paying no attention to Zametov’s explanation, “who you were talking about in the police office, you remember, when I fainted. Well, do you understand now?” “What do you mean? Understand . . . what?” Zametov brought out, almost alarmed.

Raskolnikov’s set and earnest face was suddenly transformed, and he suddenly went off into the same nervous laugh as before, as though utterly unable to restrain himself. And in a flash he recalled with extraordinary vividness of sensation a moment in the recent past, that moment when he stood with the axe behind the door, while the latch trembled and the men outside swore and shook it, and he had a sudden desire to shout at them, to swear at them, to put out his tongue at them, to mock them, to laugh, and laugh, and laugh!

“You are either mad, or . . . ” began Zametov, and he broke off, as though stunned by the idea that had suddenly flashed into his mind.

“Or? Or what? What? Come, tell me!”

“Nothing,” said Zametov, getting angry, “it’s all nonsense!”

Both were silent. After his sudden fit of laughter Raskolnikov became suddenly thoughtful and melancholy. He put his elbow on the table and leaned his head on his hand. He seemed to have completely forgotten Zametov. The silence lasted for some time.

“Why don’t you drink your tea? It’s getting cold,” said Zametov.

“What! Tea? Oh, yes . . . ” Raskolnikov sipped the glass, put a morsel of bread in his mouth and, suddenly looking at Zametov, seemed to remember everything and pulled himself together. At the same moment his face resumed its original mocking expression. He went on drinking tea.

“There have been many of these crimes recently,” said Zametov. “Only the other day I read in the Moscow News that a whole gang of false coiners had been caught in Moscow. It was a real club. They used to forge tickets!” “Oh, but that was a long time ago! I read about it a month ago,” Raskolnikov answered calmly. “So you think they’re criminals?” he added smiling.

“Of course they’re criminals.”

“Them? They are children, simpletons, not criminals! Fifty people meeting for a purpose like that—what an idea! Three would be too many, and then they want to have more faith in one another than in themselves! One of them just has to blab when he’s drunk and it all collapses. Simpletons! They engaged untrustworthy people to change the notes—what a thing to trust to a casual stranger! Well, let us suppose that these simpletons succeed and each makes a million, and what follows for the rest of their lives? Each is dependent on the others for the rest of his life! Better hang yourself at once! And they didn’t know how to change the notes either; the man who changed the notes took five thousand rubles, and his hands trembled. He counted the first four thousand, but did not count the fifth thousand—he was in such a hurry to get the money into his pocket and run away. Of course he roused suspicion. And the whole thing came to a crash through one fool! Is it possible?” “That his hands trembled?” observed Zametov, “yes, that’s quite possible. That I feel quite sure is possible. Sometimes people can’t stand things.”

“Can’t stand that?”

“Could you stand it then? No, I couldn’t. For the sake of a hundred rubles, to face such a terrible experience! To go with false notes into a bank where it’s their business to spot that sort of thing! No, I wouldn’t have the nerve to do it. Would you?” Raskolnikov had an intense desire again to stick his tongue out. Shivers kept running down his spine.

“I would do it differently,” Raskolnikov began. “This is how I would change the notes: I’d count the first thousand three or four times backwards and forwards, look at every note and then start on the second thousand; I’d count that halfway through and then hold some fifty ruble note to the light, then turn it, then hold it to the light again—to see whether it was a good one. ‘I’m afraid,’ I would say. ‘A relation of mine lost twenty-five rubles the other day because of a false note,’ and then I’d tell them the whole story. And after I began counting the third, ‘no, excuse me,’ I would say, ‘I think I made a mistake in the seventh hundred in that second thousand, I am not sure.’ And so I would give up the third thousand and go back to the second and so on to the end. And when I had finished, I’d pick out one from the fifth and one from the second thousand and take them again to the light and ask again ‘change them, please,’ and put the clerk into such a stew that he would not know how to get rid of me. When I’d finished and had gone out, I’d come back, ‘No, excuse me,’ and ask for some explanation. That’s how I’d do it.” “Pah, what terrible things you say!” said Zametov, laughing. “But all that is only talk. When it came down to doing it you’d make a slip. I believe that even an experienced, desperate man cannot always count on himself, much less you and I. To take an example closer to home—that old woman who was murdered in our district. The murderer seems to have been a desperate man, he risked everything in open daylight, was saved by a miracle—but his hands shook, too. He didn’t manage to rob the place, he couldn’t stand it. That was clear from the . . . ” Raskolnikov seemed offended.

“Clear? Why don’t you catch him then?” he shouted at Zametov mockingly.

“Well, they will catch him.”

“Who? You? Do you think you could catch him? You’ve got a tough job on your hands! A great point for you is whether someone is spending money or not. If someone has no money and suddenly starts spending, they must be guilty. Any child can mislead you.” “The fact is they always do that, though,” answered Zametov. “A man will commit a clever murder, risk his life and then at once go drinking in a tavern. They are caught spending money, they are not all as cunning as you are. You wouldn’t go to a tavern, of course?” Raskolnikov frowned and looked steadily at Zametov.

“You seem to enjoy the subject and would like to know how I would behave in that case, too?” he asked with displeasure.

“I would like to,” Zametov answered firmly and seriously. His words and looks were becoming a little too earnest.

“Very much?”

“Very much!”

“All right then. This is how I would behave,” Raskolnikov began, again bringing his face close to Zametov’s, again staring at him and speaking in a whisper; the latter started shuddering. “This is what I would have done. I would have taken the money and jewels, I would have walked out of there and have gone straight to some deserted place with fences round it and scarcely anyone to be seen, some kitchen garden or place of that sort. I would have found beforehand some stone weighing a hundredweight or more which had been lying in the corner from the time the house was built. I would lift that stone—there would be sure to be a hollow under it, and I would put the jewels and money in that hole. Then I’d roll the stone back so that it would look as before, would press it down with my foot and walk away. And for a year or two, three maybe, I wouldn’t touch it. And, well, they could search! There’d be no trace.” “You are a madman,” said Zametov, and for some reason he too spoke in a whisper, and moved away from Raskolnikov, whose eyes were glittering. He had turned extremely pale and his upper lip was twitching and quivering. He bent down as close as possible to Zametov, and his lips began to move without uttering a word. This lasted for half a minute; he knew what he was doing, but could not restrain himself. The terrible word trembled on his lips, like the latch on that door; in another moment it will break out, in another moment he will let it go, he will speak out.

“And what if it was I who murdered the old woman and Lizaveta?” he said suddenly and—realized what he had done.

Zametov looked wildly at him and turned white as the tablecloth. His face had a contorted smile on it.

“But is it possible?” he brought out faintly. Raskolnikov looked angrily at him.

“Own up, you believed it, yes, you did?”

“Not at all, I believe it less than ever now,” Zametov cried hastily.

“I’ve caught my sparrow! So you did believe it before, if now you believe it less than ever?”

“Not at all,” cried Zametov, obviously embarrassed. “Have you been frightening me to lead up to this?”

“You don’t believe it then? What were you talking about behind my back when I went out of the police office? And why did the Explosive Lieutenant question me after I fainted? Hey, there,” he shouted to the waiter, getting up and taking his cap, “how much?” “Thirty kopecks,” the latter replied, running up.

“And there is twenty kopecks for vodka. See what a lot of money!” he held out his shaking hand to Zametov with notes in it. “Red notes and blue, twenty-five rubles. Where did I get them? And where did my new clothes come from? You know I hadn’t a kopeck. You’ve cross-examined my landlady, I’ll be bound … Well, that’s that! We’ve talked enough! Goodbye!” He went out, trembling all over from a sort of wild hysterical sensation, in which there was an element of unbearable ecstasy. Yet he was gloomy and horribly tired. His face was twisted as if he had just had a fit. His fatigue increased rapidly. Any shock, any irritating sensation stimulated and revived his energies at once, but his strength failed just as quickly when the stimulus was removed.

Zametov, left alone, sat for a long time in the same place, deep in thought. Raskolnikov had unwittingly worked a revolution in his brain on a certain point and had made up his mind for him conclusively.

“Ilia Petrovich is a blockhead,” he decided.

Raskolnikov had hardly opened the door of the restaurant when he bumped into Razumikhin on the steps. They did not see each other until they almost knocked against each other. For a moment they stood looking each other up and down. Razumikhin was greatly astounded, then anger, real anger gleamed fiercely in his eyes.

“So here you are!” he shouted at the top of his voice—“you ran away from your bed! And here I’ve been looking for you under the sofa! We went up to the garret. I almost beat Nastasia because of you. And here he is after all. Rodia! What is the meaning of it? Tell me the whole truth! Confess! Do you hear?” “It means that I’m sick to death of all of you and I want to be alone,” Raskolnikov answered calmly.

“Alone? When you are not able to walk, when your face is as white as a sheet and you are gasping for breath! Idiot! … What have you been doing in the Crystal Palace? Tell me now!” “Let me go!” said Raskolnikov and tried to pass him. This was too much for Razumikhin; he gripped him firmly by the shoulder.

“Let you go? You dare tell me to let you go? Do you know what I’ll do with you? I’ll pick you up, tie you up in a bundle, carry you home under my arm and lock you up!” “Listen, Razumikhin,” Raskolnikov began quietly, apparently calm, “can’t you see that I don’t want your benevolence? A strange desire you have to shower benefits on a man who . . . curses them, who feels them to be a burden, in fact! Why did you seek me out at the beginning of my illness? Maybe I was very happy to die. Didn’t I tell you plainly enough today that you were torturing me, that I was … sick of you! You seem to want to torture people! I assure you that all of this is seriously hindering my recovery, because it’s continually irritating me. You saw Zossimov went away just now to avoid irritating me. You leave me alone too, for goodness’ sake! What right do you have to keep me by force? Can’t you see that I am in possession of all my faculties now? How can I persuade you not to persecute me with your kindness? I may be ungrateful, I may be mean, but just let me be, for God’s sake, let me be! Let me be, let me be!” He began calmly, gloating beforehand over the venomous phrases he was about to utter, but finished, panting for breath, in a frenzy, as he had been with Luzhin.

Razumikhin stood a moment, thought and let his hand drop.

“Well, go to hell then,” he said gently and thoughtfully. “Stay here,” he roared, as Raskolnikov was about to move. “Listen to me. Let me tell you, that you are all a set of babbling, posing idiots! If you’ve got any little trouble you brood over it like a hen over an egg. And you are plagiarists even in that! There isn’t a sign of independent life in you! You’re made of spermaceti ointment and you’ve got lymph in your veins instead of blood. I don’t trust any of you! When anything happens the first thing all of you do is fail to behave like human beings! Stop!” he cried with redoubled fury, noticing that Raskolnikov was again making a movement, “hear me out! You know I’m having a house-warming this evening, I dare say they’ve arrived by now, but I left my uncle there—I just ran in—to receive the guests. And if you weren’t a fool, a common fool, a perfect fool, if you were an original instead of a translation . . . you see, Rodia, I recognize you’re a clever fellow, but you’re a fool! And if you weren’t a fool you’d come round to me this evening instead of wearing out your boots in the street! Since you’ve gone out, there’s no help for it! I’d give you a snug easy chair, my landlady has one . . . a cup of tea, company . . . Or you could lie on the sofa—in any case, you would be with us . . . Zossimov will be there too. Will you come?” “No.”

“R-rubbish!” Razumikhin shouted, his patience lost. “How do you know? You can’t answer for yourself! You don’t know anything about it . . . Thousands of times I’ve fought tooth and nail with people and run back to them afterwards … You feel ashamed and go back to them! So remember, Potchinkov’s house on the third storey . . . ” “Razumikhin, you’d let anybody beat you from sheer benevolence.”

“Beat? Whom? Me? I’d twist his nose off at the idea of it! Potchinkov’s house, 47, Babushkin’s apartment . . . ”

“I shan’t come, Razumikhin.” Raskolnikov turned and walked away.

“I bet you will,” Razumikhin shouted after him. “I refuse to know you if you don’t! Stop, hey, is Zametov in there?”

“Yes.”

“Did you see him?”

“Yes.”

“Talked to him?”

“Yes.”

“What about? Damn you, don’t tell me then. Potchinkov’s house, 47, Babushkin’s apartment, remember!”

Raskolnikov walked on and turned the corner into Sadovy Street. Razumikhin looked after him thoughtfully. Then with a wave of his hand he went into the house but stopped short of the stairs.

“Damn it,” he went on almost aloud. “He talked sensibly but yet … I am a fool! As if madmen didn’t talk sensibly! And this was just what Zossimov seemed afraid of.” He struck his finger on his forehead. “What if . . . how could I let him go off alone? He may drown himself . . . Ah, what a blunder! I can’t.” And he ran back to overtake Raskolnikov, but there was no trace of him. With a curse he returned swiftly to the Crystal Palace to question Zametov.

Raskolnikov walked straight to X____ Bridge, stood in the middle and, leaning both elbows on the rail, stared into the distance. On parting with Razumikhin, he felt so much weaker that he could scarcely reach it. He longed to sit or lie down somewhere in the street. Bending over the water, he gazed mechanically at the last pink flush of the sunset, at the row of houses growing dark in the gathering twilight, at one distant attic window on the left bank, flashing as though on fire in the last rays of the setting sun, at the darkening water of the canal, and the water seemed to catch his attention. At last red circles flashed before his eyes, the houses seemed to be moving, the passersby, the canal banks, the carriages all danced before his eyes. Suddenly he started, saved again perhaps from fainting by an uncanny and hideous sight. He became aware of someone standing to his right; he looked and saw a tall woman with a kerchief on her head, with a long, yellow, wasted face and red sunken eyes. She was looking straight at him, but she obviously saw nothing and recognized no-one. Suddenly she leaned her right hand on the parapet, lifted her right leg over the railing, then her left and threw herself into the canal. The filthy water parted and swallowed up its victim for a moment, but an instant later the drowning woman floated to the surface, moving slowly with the current, her head and legs in the water, her skirt billowing like a balloon over her back.

“A woman drowning! A woman drowning!” shouted dozens of voices; people ran up, both banks were thronged with spectators, on the bridge people crowded around Raskolnikov, pressing up behind him.

“Mercy! It’s our Afrosinia!” a woman cried tearfully close by. “Mercy! Save her! Good people, pull her out!”

“A boat, a boat” was shouted in the crowd. But there was no need of a boat; a policeman ran down the steps to the canal, threw off his overcoat and his boots and rushed into the water. It was easy to reach her; she floated within a couple of yards of the steps, he caught hold of her clothes with his right hand and with his left seized a pole which a comrade held out to him; the drowning woman was pulled out at once. They laid her on the granite pavement of the embankment. She soon recovered consciousness, raised her head, sat up and began sneezing and coughing, stupidly wiping her wet dress with her hands. She said nothing.

“She’s drunk out of her senses,” the same woman’s voice wailed at her side. “Out of her senses. The other day she tried to hang herself, we cut her down. I ran out to the store just now, left my little girl to look after her—and here she is, in trouble again! A neighbor, we live close by, the second house from the end, over there . . . ” The crowd broke up. The police still remained around the woman, someone mentioned the police station . . . Raskolnikov looked on with a strange sensation of indifference and apathy. He felt disgusted. “No, that’s loathsome . . . water . . . it’s not good enough,” he muttered to himself. “Nothing will come of it,” he added, “no use to wait. What about the police office . . . ? And why isn’t Zametov at the police office? The police office is open until ten o’clock . . . ” He turned his back to the railing and looked about him.

“Very well then!” he said resolutely; he moved from the bridge and walked in the direction of the police office. His heart felt hollow and empty. He did not want to think. Even his depression had passed, there was not a trace now of the energy with which he had set out “to make an end of it all.” Complete apathy had succeeded it.

“Well, it’s a way out of it,” he thought, walking slowly and listlessly along the canal bank. “Anyway I’ll put an end to it, because I want to . . . But is it a way out? What does it matter! There’ll be the square yard of space—ha! But what an end! Is it really the end? Shall I tell them or not? Ah . . . damn! How tired I am! If I could find somewhere to sit or lie down soon! What I am most ashamed of is the fact that it’s so stupid. But I don’t care about that either! What idiotic ideas come into my head.” To reach the police office he had to go straight forward and take the second turning to the left. It was only a few yards away. But at the first turning he stopped and, after a minute’s thought, turned into a side street and went two streets out of his way, possibly without any purpose, or possibly to delay a minute and gain time. He walked, looking at the ground; suddenly someone seemed to whisper in his ear. He lifted his head and saw that he was standing at the gate of the house. He had not passed it, he had not been near it since that evening. An overwhelming inexplicable prompting drew him on. He went into the house, passed through the gateway, then into the first entrance on the right, and began mounting the familiar staircase to the fourth floor. The narrow, steep stairway was very dark. He stopped at each landing and looked round him with curiosity; on the first landing the framework of the window had been taken out. “That wasn’t how it was then,” he thought. Here was the apartment on the second floor where Nikolai and Dmitri had been working. “It’s shut up and the door’s newly painted. So they’re going to rent it.” Then the third floor and the fourth. “Here!” He was perplexed to find the door of the apartment wide open. There were men there, he could hear voices; he had not expected that. After brief hesitation he mounted the last stairs and went into the apartment. It, too, was being done up; there were workmen in it. This seemed to amaze him; he somehow thought he would find everything as he left it, even perhaps the corpses in the same place on the floor. And now, bare walls, no furniture; it seemed strange. He walked to the window and sat down on the window sill. There were two workmen, both young men, but one much younger than the other. They were papering the walls with a new white paper covered with lilac flowers, instead of the dirty old yellow one. Raskolnikov for some reason felt horribly annoyed by this. He looked at the new paper with dislike, as though he felt sorry to have it all changed. The workmen had obviously stayed beyond their time and now they were hurriedly rolling up their paper and getting ready to go home. They took no notice of Raskolnikov; they were talking. Raskolnikov folded his arms and listened.

“She came to me in the morning,” said the elder to the younger, “very early, all dressed up. ‘Why are you preening yourself?’ I said. ‘I’m ready to do anything to please you, Tit Vassilich!’ That’s one way of going about it! She was dressed up like a real fashion book!” “What’s a fashion book?” the younger one asked. He obviously regarded the other as an authority.

“A fashion book is a lot of pictures, colored, and they come to the tailors here every Saturday, by post from abroad, to show people how to dress, men as well as women. They’re pictures. The men are usually wearing fur coats and as for the ladies’ fluffy stuff, they’re beyond anything you can imagine.” “There’s nothing you can’t find in Petersburg,” the younger cried enthusiastically, “except father and mother, there’s everything!”

“Except them, there’s everything to be found, my friend,” the elder declared pompously.

Raskolnikov got up and walked into the other room where the strong box, the bed, and the chest of drawers had been; the room seemed to him very tiny without furniture in it. The paper was the same; the paper in the corner showed where the case of icons had stood. He looked at it and went to the window. The elder workman looked at him sideways.

“What do you want?” he asked suddenly.

Instead of answering Raskolnikov went into the passage and pulled the bell. The same bell, the same cracked note. He rang it a second and a third time; he listened and remembered. The hideous and agonizingly fearful sensation he had felt then began to come back more and more vividly. He shuddered at every ring and it gave him more and more satisfaction.

“Well, what do you want? Who are you?” the workman shouted, going out to him. Raskolnikov went inside again.

“I want to rent an apartment,” he said. “I am looking round.”

“Night’s not the time to look at the rooms! You ought to come up with the porter.”

“The floors have been washed, will they be painted?” Raskolnikov went on. “Is there no blood?”

“What blood?”

“The old woman and her sister were murdered here. There was a real pool there.”

“But who are you?” the workman cried, uneasy.

“Who am I?”

“Yes.”

“You want to know? Come to the police station, I’ll tell you.” The workmen looked at him in amazement.

“It’s time for us to go, we are late. Come on, Alyoshka. We’ve got to lock up,” said the elder workman.

“Very well then, come along,” said Raskolnikov indifferently, and going out first, he went slowly downstairs. “Hey, porter,” he cried in the gateway.

At the entrance several people were standing, staring at the passersby; the two porters, a peasant woman, a man in a long coat and a few others. Raskolnikov went straight up to them.

“What do you want?” asked one of the porters.

“Have you been to the police office?”

“I’ve just been there. What do you want?”

“Is it open?”

“Of course.”

“Is the assistant there?”

“He was there for a while. What do you want?”

Raskolnikov made no reply, but stood beside them lost in thought.

“He’s been to look at the apartment,” said the elder workman, coming forward.

“Which apartment?”

“Where we’re at work. ‘Why have you washed away the blood?’ he says. ‘There has been a murder here,’ he says, ‘and I’ve come to take it.’ And he began ringing at the bell, all but broke it. ‘Come to the police station,’ says he. ‘I’ll tell you everything there.’ He wouldn’t leave us.” The porter looked at Raskolnikov, frowning and perplexed.

“Who are you?” he shouted as impressively as he could.

“I am Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, a former student, I live in Shil’s house, not far from here, apartment Number 14, ask the porter, he knows me.” Raskolnikov said all this in a lazy, dreamy voice, not turning round, but looking intently into the darkening street.

“Why have you been to the apartment?”

“To look at it.”

“What is there to look at?”

“Take him straight to the police station,” the man in the long coat jerked in abruptly.

Raskolnikov looked intently at him over his shoulder and said in the same slow, lazy tone, “Come along.”

“Yes, take him,” the man went on more confidently. “Why was he going into that, what’s in his mind?”

“He’s not drunk, but God knows what’s the matter with him,” muttered the workman.

“But what do you want?” the porter shouted again, beginning to get angry in earnest. “Why are you hanging about?”

“Are you afraid of the police station then?” said Raskolnikov jeeringly.

“What do you mean, afraid of it? Why are you hanging around?”

“He’s a rogue!” shouted the peasant woman.

“Why waste time talking to him?” cried the other porter, a huge peasant in a full open coat with keys on his belt. “Get out of here! He’s causing trouble. Get out of here!” And seizing Raskolnikov by the shoulder he flung him into the street. He lurched forward, but recovered his footing, looked at the spectators in silence and walked away.

“He’s strange!” observed the workman.

“There are strange people about nowadays,” said the woman.

“All the same, you should have taken him to the police station,” said the man in the long coat.

“Better have nothing to do with him,” decided the big porter. “A real troublemaker! Just what he wants, but once you take him up, you won’t get rid of him … We know the sort!” “Shall I go there or not?” thought Raskolnikov, standing in the middle of the crossroads, and he looked around him, as though expecting a decisive word from someone. But no sound came, everything was dead and silent like the stones on which he walked, dead to him, to him alone . . . All at once at the end of the street, two hundred yards away, in the gathering dusk, he saw a crowd and heard people talking and shouting. In the middle of the crowd stood a carriage . . . A light gleamed in the middle of the street. “What is it?” Raskolnikov turned to the right and went up to the crowd. He seemed to clutch at everything and smiled coldly when he recognized it. He had decided to go to the police station; soon, it would be over.