Crime and Punishment
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| believe in it all. But that seemed utterly unattainable. So it
seemed to himself at least. He could not imagine, for in- stance, that he would sometime leave off thinking, get up and simply go there…. Even his late experiment (i.e. his vis- 10 Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com it with the object of a final survey of the place) was simply an attempt at an experiment, far from being the real thing, as though one should say ‘come, let us go and try it—why dream about it!’—and at once he had broken down and had run away cursing, in a frenzy with himself. Meanwhile it would seem, as regards the moral question, that his analy- sis was complete; his casuistry had become keen as a razor, and he could not find rational objections in himself. But in the last resort he simply ceased to believe in himself, and doggedly, slavishly sought arguments in all directions, fumbling for them, as though someone were forcing and drawing him to it. At first—long before indeed—he had been much occu- pied with one question; why almost all crimes are so badly concealed and so easily detected, and why almost all crimi- nals leave such obvious traces? He had come gradually to many different and curious conclusions, and in his opinion the chief reason lay not so much in the material impossi- bility of concealing the crime, as in the criminal himself. Almost every criminal is subject to a failure of will and rea- soning power by a childish and phenomenal heedlessness, at the very instant when prudence and caution are most es- sential. It was his conviction that this eclipse of reason and failure of will power attacked a man like a disease, devel- oped gradually and reached its highest point just before the perpetration of the crime, continued with equal violence at the moment of the crime and for longer or shorter time after, according to the individual case, and then passed off like any other disease. The question whether the disease Crime and Punishment 10
gives rise to the crime, or whether the crime from its own peculiar nature is always accompanied by something of the nature of disease, he did not yet feel able to decide. When he reached these conclusions, he decided that in his own case there could not be such a morbid reaction, that his reason and will would remain unimpaired at the time of carrying out his design, for the simple reason that his design was ‘not a crime….’ We will omit all the process by means of which he arrived at this last conclusion; we have run too far ahead already…. We may add only that the practical, purely material difficulties of the affair occupied a secondary posi- tion in his mind. ‘One has but to keep all one’s will-power and reason to deal with them, and they will all be overcome at the time when once one has familiarised oneself with the minutest details of the business….’ But this preparation had never been begun. His final decisions were what he came to trust least, and when the hour struck, it all came to pass quite differently, as it were accidentally and unexpectedly. One trifling circumstance upset his calculations, before he had even left the staircase. When he reached the land- lady’s kitchen, the door of which was open as usual, he glanced cautiously in to see whether, in Nastasya’s absence, the landlady herself was there, or if not, whether the door to her own room was closed, so that she might not peep out when he went in for the axe. But what was his amazement when he suddenly saw that Nastasya was not only at home in the kitchen, but was occupied there, taking linen out of a basket and hanging it on a line. Seeing him, she left off hanging the clothes, turned to him and stared at him all the
10 Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com time he was passing. He turned away his eyes, and walked past as though he noticed nothing. But it was the end of ev- erything; he had not the axe! He was overwhelmed. ‘What made me think,’ he reflected, as he went under the gateway, ‘what made me think that she would be sure not to be at home at that moment! Why, why, why did I assume this so certainly?’ He was crushed and even humiliated. He could have laughed at himself in his anger…. A dull animal rage boiled within him. He stood hesitating in the gateway. To go into the street, to go a walk for appearance’ sake was revolting; to go back to his room, even more revolting. ‘And what a chance I have lost for ever!’ he muttered, standing aimlessly in the gate- way, just opposite the porter’s little dark room, which was also open. Suddenly he started. From the porter’s room, two paces away from him, something shining under the bench to the right caught his eye…. He looked about him—no- body. He approached the room on tiptoe, went down two steps into it and in a faint voice called the porter. ‘Yes, not at home! Somewhere near though, in the yard, for the door is wide open.’ He dashed to the axe (it was an axe) and pulled it out from under the bench, where it lay between two chunks of wood; at once, before going out, he made it fast in the noose, he thrust both hands into his pockets and went out of the room; no one had noticed him! ‘When reason fails, the devil helps!’ he thought with a strange grin. This chance raised his spirits extraordinarily. He walked along quietly and sedately, without hurry, to Crime and Punishment 110
avoid awakening suspicion. He scarcely looked at the pass- ers-by, tried to escape looking at their faces at all, and to be as little noticeable as possible. Suddenly he thought of his hat. ‘Good heavens! I had the money the day before yester- day and did not get a cap to wear instead!’ A curse rose from the bottom of his soul. Glancing out of the corner of his eye into a shop, he saw by a clock on the wall that it was ten minutes past seven. He had to make haste and at the same time to go someway round, so as to approach the house from the other side…. When he had happened to imagine all this beforehand, he had sometimes thought that he would be very much afraid. But he was not very much afraid now, was not afraid at all, indeed. His mind was even occupied by irrelevant matters, but by nothing for long. As he passed the Yusupov garden, he was deeply absorbed in considering the build- ing of great fountains, and of their refreshing effect on the atmosphere in all the squares. By degrees he passed to the conviction that if the summer garden were extended to the field of Mars, and perhaps joined to the garden of the Mi- hailovsky Palace, it would be a splendid thing and a great benefit to the town. Then he was interested by the question why in all great towns men are not simply driven by ne- cessity, but in some peculiar way inclined to live in those parts of the town where there are no gardens nor fountains; where there is most dirt and smell and all sorts of nastiness. Then his own walks through the Hay Market came back to his mind, and for a moment he waked up to reality. ‘What nonsense!’ he thought, ‘better think of nothing at all!’
111 Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com ‘So probably men led to execution clutch mentally at ev- ery object that meets them on the way,’ flashed through his mind, but simply flashed, like lightning; he made haste to dismiss this thought…. And by now he was near; here was the house, here was the gate. Suddenly a clock somewhere struck once. ‘What! can it be half-past seven? Impossible, it must be fast!’ Luckily for him, everything went well again at the gates. At that very moment, as though expressly for his benefit, a huge waggon of hay had just driven in at the gate, com- pletely screening him as he passed under the gateway, and the waggon had scarcely had time to drive through into the yard, before he had slipped in a flash to the right. On the other side of the waggon he could hear shouting and quar- relling; but no one noticed him and no one met him. Many windows looking into that huge quadrangular yard were open at that moment, but he did not raise his head—he had not the strength to. The staircase leading to the old woman’s room was close by, just on the right of the gateway. He was already on the stairs…. Drawing a breath, pressing his hand against his throb- bing heart, and once more feeling for the axe and setting it straight, he began softly and cautiously ascending the stairs, listening every minute. But the stairs, too, were quite desert- ed; all the doors were shut; he met no one. One flat indeed on the first floor was wide open and painters were at work in it, but they did not glance at him. He stood still, thought a minute and went on. ‘Of course it would be better if they had not been here, but … it’s two storeys above them.’ Crime and Punishment 11
And there was the fourth storey, here was the door, here was the flat opposite, the empty one. The flat underneath the old woman’s was apparently empty also; the visiting card nailed on the door had been torn off—they had gone away! … He was out of breath. For one instant the thought floated through his mind ‘Shall I go back?’ But he made no answer and began listening at the old woman’s door, a dead silence. Then he listened again on the staircase, listened long and intently … then looked about him for the last time, pulled himself together, drew himself up, and once more tried the axe in the noose. ‘Am I very pale?’ he wondered. ‘Am I not evidently agitated? She is mistrustful…. Had I better wait a little longer … till my heart leaves off thumping?’ But his heart did not leave off. On the contrary, as though to spite him, it throbbed more and more violently. He could stand it no longer, he slowly put out his hand to the bell and rang. Half a minute later he rang again, more loudly. No answer. To go on ringing was useless and out of place. The old woman was, of course, at home, but she was suspi- cious and alone. He had some knowledge of her habits … and once more he put his ear to the door. Either his senses were peculiarly keen (which it is difficult to suppose), or the sound was really very distinct. Anyway, he suddenly heard something like the cautious touch of a hand on the lock and the rustle of a skirt at the very door. someone was stand- ing stealthily close to the lock and just as he was doing on the outside was secretly listening within, and seemed to have her ear to the door…. He moved a little on purpose and muttered something aloud that he might not have the
11 Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com appearance of hiding, then rang a third time, but quietly, soberly, and without impatience, Recalling it afterwards, that moment stood out in his mind vividly, distinctly, for ever; he could not make out how he had had such cunning, for his mind was as it were clouded at moments and he was almost unconscious of his body…. An instant later he heard the latch unfastened. Crime and Punishment 11
Chapter VII T he 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 drew 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 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, Alyona Ivanovna,’ he began, trying to speak easily, but his voice would not obey him, it broke and shook. ‘I have come … I have brought something … but we’d better come in … to the light….’ And leaving her, he passed straight into the room un- invited. The old woman ran after him; her tongue was unloosed. ‘Good heavens! What it is? Who is it? What do you want?’
11 Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com ‘Why, Alyona 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 fancied something like a sneer in her eyes, as though she had already guessed everything. He felt that he was los- ing his head, that he was almost frightened, so frightened that if she were to look like that and not say a word for an- other half minute, he thought he would have run away from her. ‘Why do you look at me as though you did not know 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, but it was sud- denly said of itself. The old woman recovered herself, and her visitor’s resolute tone evidently restored her confidence. ‘But why, my good sir, all of a minute…. 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 how pale you are, to be sure … 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 articu- lating the words. His strength was failing him again. But his answer Crime and Punishment 11
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 sti- fling heat), she left him altogether for some 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 al- together, simply holding it in his right hand under the coat. His hands were fearfully weak, he felt them every moment growing more numb and more wooden. He was afraid he would let the axe slip and fall…. A sudden giddiness came over him. ‘But what has he tied it up like this for?’ the old woman cried with vexation and moved towards him. He had not a minute more to lose. He pulled the axe quite out, 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, his strength returned to him. The old woman was as always bareheaded. Her thin, light hair, streaked with grey, 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
11 Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com very faintly, and suddenly sank all of a heap on the floor, raising her hands to her head. In one hand she still held ‘the pledge.’ Then 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 dead. Her eyes seemed to be starting out of their sockets, the brow 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 avoid the streaming body)—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 collected and careful, trying all the time not to get smeared with blood…. 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 cov- ered with a silk patchwork wadded quilt. Against a third wall was a chest of drawers. Strange to say, so soon as he began to fit the keys into the chest, so soon as he heard their jingling, a convulsive shudder passed over him. He sud- denly 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 positively smiled at himself, when suddenly another terri- fying idea occurred to his mind. He suddenly fancied that the old woman might be still alive and might recover her Crime and Punishment 11
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 perfect pool of blood. All at once 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 cut the string from above on the body, but did not dare, and with difficulty, smearing his hand and the axe in the blood, af- ter 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 image in sil- ver filigree, and with them a small greasy chamois leather 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 body and rushed back into the bedroom, this time taking the axe with him. He was in terrible haste, 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
11 Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com fit, still he tried to put it in. Suddenly he remembered and realised that the big key with the deep notches, which was hanging there with the small keys could not possibly be- long 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 left the chest of drawers, and at once felt under the bedstead, knowing that old women usu- ally 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 fitted at once and unlocked it. At the top, under a white sheet, was a coat of red bro- cade lined with hareskin; 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 red brocade. ‘It’s red, and on red blood will be less noticeable,’ the thought passed through his mind; then he suddenly came to himself. ‘Good God, am I going out of my senses?’ he thought with terror. But no sooner did he touch the clothes than a gold watch slipped from under the fur coat. He made haste to turn them all over. There turned out to be various articles made of gold among the clothes—probably all pledges, un- redeemed or waiting to be redeemed—bracelets, chains, ear-rings, pins and such things. Some were in cases, others simply wrapped in newspaper, carefully and exactly fold- ed, and tied round with tape. Without any delay, he began filling up the pockets of his trousers and overcoat without examining or undoing the parcels and cases; but he had not Crime and Punishment 10
time to take many…. He suddenly heard steps in the room where the old wom- an lay. He stopped short and was still as death. But all was quiet, so it must have been his fancy. All at once he heard distinctly 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. Suddenly he 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 Liza- veta was so simple and had been so thoroughly crushed and scared that she did not even raise a hand to guard her face, though that was the most necessary and natural action at the moment, for the axe was raised over her face. She only put up her empty left hand, but not to her face, slowly hold- ing it out before her as though motioning him away. The axe fell with the sharp edge just on the skull and split at one
11 Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com blow all the top of the head. She fell heavily at once. Ras- kolnikov completely lost his head, snatching up her bundle, dropped it again and ran into the entry. 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 realise all the difficulties of his position, the hopelessness, the hideousness and the absurdity of it, if he could have understood how many ob- stacles and, perhaps, crimes 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 flung up everything, and would have gone to give himself up, and not from fear, 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. He would not now have gone to the box or even into the room for anything in the world. But a sort of blankness, even dreaminess, had begun by degrees to take possession of him; at moments he for- got 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 bethought him of washing 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 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 Crime and Punishment 1
where there were spots of blood 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 was a long while 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 wet- ted 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. Dark agonising ideas rose in his mind—the idea that he was mad and that at that mo- ment he was incapable of reasoning, of protecting himself, that he ought perhaps to be doing something utterly differ- ent from what he was now doing. ‘Good God!’ he muttered ‘I must fly, fly,’ and he rushed into the entry. But here a shock of terror awaited him such as he had never known before. He stood and gazed and could not believe his eyes: the door, the outer door from the stairs, at which he had not long before waited and rung, was standing unfastened 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.
1 Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com ‘But no, the wrong thing again! I must get away, get away….’ He unfastened the latch, opened the door and began lis- tening on the staircase. He listened a long time. Somewhere far away, it might be in the gateway, two voices were loudly and shrilly shouting, quarrelling and scolding. ‘What are they about?’ He waited patiently. At last all 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 all was still, not a soul 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 high- er, 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 Crime and Punishment 1
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 indeed. The visitor took hold of the bell and rang it loudly. As soon as the tin bell tinkled, Raskolnikov seemed to be aware of something moving in the room. For some sec- onds 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 cer- tainly did seem possible, so violently was he shaking it. He was tempted to hold the fastening, but he might be aware of it. A giddiness 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, Alyona Ivanovna, old witch! Lizaveta Ivanovna, hey, my beauty! open the door! Oh, damn them! Are they asleep or what?’
1 Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com 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 new-comer 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 Ras- kolnikov. ‘Who the devil can tell? I’ve almost broken the lock,’ an- swered Koch. ‘But how do you come to know me? ‘Why! The day before yesterday I beat you three times running at billiards at Gambrinus’.’ ‘Oh!’ ‘So they are not at home? That’s queer. It’s awfully 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, Aie—aie! And I was hoping to get some money!’ cried the young man. ‘We must give it up, of course, but what did she fix this time for? The old witch fixed the time for me to come her- self. 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?’ Crime and Punishment 1
‘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 don’t open the door!’ ‘Well! And so they must be!’ cried Koch, astonished. ‘What are they about 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.’
1 Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com ‘All right.’ Both were going down. ‘Stay. You stop here while I run down for the porter.’ ‘What for?’ ‘Well, you’d better.’ ‘All right.’ ‘I’m studying the 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 pull- ing 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 making ready to fight when they should come 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! ‘Only make haste!’ 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 rest- less.
‘What the devil?’ he cried suddenly and in impatience deserting his sentry duty, he, too, went down, hurrying and Crime and Punishment 1
thumping with his heavy boots on the stairs. The steps died away.
‘Good heavens! What am I to 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 rath- er fell than ran down the stairs, bawling at the top of his voice.
‘Mitka! Mitka! Mitka! Mitka! Mitka! Blast 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 ring- ing voice of the young man. ‘They!’ Filled with despair he went straight to meet them, feel- ing ‘come what must!’ 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 from him—and suddenly deliverance! 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.
1 Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com 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 hid- den behind the wall and only 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, nor in the gateway. He passed quickly through the gateway and turned to the left in 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 completely realise 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 quicken his pace 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 half way to safety, and he un- derstood 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 all he had suffered had so weakened him that he could scarcely Crime and Punishment 10
move. Perspiration ran down him in drops, his neck was all wet. ‘My word, he has been going 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 on coming out on to the canal bank, he was alarmed at finding few people there and so 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 quite 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 recollected the axe. And yet he had a very grave prob- lem 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 re- store the axe at all, but to drop it later on in somebody’s yard. But it all happened fortunately, the door of the por- ter’s room was closed but not locked, so that it seemed most likely that the porter was at home. But he had so completely lost all power of reflection 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 as before. He met no one, not a soul, afterwards 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
11 Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com 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…. |