be denied. And do you suppose, from the character of our
legal system, that they will accept, or that they are in a posi-
tion to accept, this fact— resting simply on a psychological
impossibility—as irrefutable and conclusively breaking
down the circumstantial evidence for the prosecution? No,
they won’t accept it, they certainly won’t, because they found
the jewel-case and the man tried to hang himself, ‘which he
could not have done if he hadn’t felt guilty.’ That’s the point,
that’s what excites me, you must understand!’
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‘Oh, I see you are excited! Wait a bit. I forgot to ask you;
what proof is there that the box came from the old wom-
an?’
‘That’s been proved,’ said Razumihin with apparent re-
luctance, frowning. ‘Koch recognised the jewel-case and
gave the name of the owner, who proved conclusively that
it was his.’
‘That’s bad. Now another point. Did anyone see Nikolay
at the time that Koch and Pestryakov were going upstairs at
first, and is there no evidence about that?’
‘Nobody did see him,’ Razumihin answered with vexa-
tion. ‘That’s the worst of it. Even Koch and Pestryakov did
not notice them on their way upstairs, though, indeed, their
evidence could not have been worth much. They said they
saw the flat was open, and that there must be work going on
in it, but they took no special notice and could not remem-
ber whether there actually were men at work in it.’
‘Hm! … So the only evidence for the defence is that they
were beating one another and laughing. That constitutes a
strong presumption, but … How do you explain the facts
yourself?’
‘How do I explain them? What is there to explain? It’s
clear. At any rate, the direction in which explanation is to
be sought is clear, and the jewel-case points to it. The real
murderer dropped those ear- rings. The murderer was up-
stairs, locked in, when Koch and Pestryakov knocked at the
door. Koch, like an ass, did not stay at the door; so the mur-
derer popped out and ran down, too; for he had no other
way of escape. He hid from Koch, Pestryakov and the por-
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ter in the flat when Nikolay and Dmitri had just run out of
it. He stopped there while the porter and others were go-
ing upstairs, waited till they were out of hearing, and then
went calmly downstairs at the very minute when Dmitri
and Nikolay ran out into the street and there was no one in
the entry; possibly he was seen, but not noticed. There are
lots of people going in and out. He must have dropped the
ear-rings out of his pocket when he stood behind the door,
and did not notice he dropped them, because he had other
things to think of. The jewel-case is a conclusive proof that
he did stand there…. That’s how I explain it.’
‘Too clever! No, my boy, you’re too clever. That beats ev-
erything.’
‘But, why, why?’
‘Why, because everything fits too well … it’s too melo-
dramatic.’
‘A-ach!’ Razumihin was exclaiming, but at that moment
the door opened and a personage came in who was a strang-
er to all present.
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Chapter V
T
his was a gentleman no longer young, of a stiff and port-
ly appearance, and a cautious and sour countenance. He
began by stopping short in the doorway, staring about him
with offensive and undisguised astonishment, as though
asking himself what sort of place he had come to. Mistrust-
fully and with an affectation of being alarmed and almost
affronted, he scanned Raskolnikov’s low and narrow ‘cabin.’
With the same amazement he stared at Raskolnikov, who
lay undressed, dishevelled, unwashed, on his miserable
dirty sofa, looking fixedly at him. Then with the same de-
liberation he scrutinised the uncouth, unkempt figure and
unshaven face of Razumihin, who looked him boldly and
inquiringly in the face without rising from his seat. A con-
strained silence lasted for a couple of minutes, and then, as
might be expected, some scene-shifting took place. Reflect-
ing, probably from certain fairly unmistakable signs, that
he would get nothing in this ‘cabin’ by attempting to over-
awe them, the gentleman softened somewhat, and civilly,
though with some severity, emphasising every syllable of
his question, addressed Zossimov:
‘Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov, a student, or former-
ly a student?’
Zossimov made a slight movement, and would have an-
swered, had not Razumihin anticipated him.
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‘Here he is lying on the sofa! What do you want?’
This familiar ‘what do you want’ seemed to cut the
ground from the feet of the pompous gentleman. He was
turning to Razumihin, but checked himself in time and
turned to Zossimov again.
‘This is Raskolnikov,’ mumbled Zossimov, nodding to-
wards him. Then he gave a prolonged yawn, opening his
mouth as wide as possible. Then he lazily put his hand into
his waistcoat-pocket, pulled out a huge gold watch in a
round hunter’s case, opened it, looked at it and as slowly
and lazily proceeded to put it back.
Raskolnikov himself lay without speaking, on his back,
gazing persistently, though without understanding, at
the stranger. Now that his face was turned away from the
strange flower on the paper, it was extremely pale and wore
a look of anguish, as though he had just undergone an ago-
nising operation or just been taken from the rack. But the
new-comer gradually began to arouse his attention, then
his wonder, then suspicion and even alarm. When Zossi-
mov said ‘This is Raskolnikov’ he jumped up quickly, sat on
the sofa and with an almost defiant, but weak and breaking,
voice articulated:
‘Yes, I am Raskolnikov! What do you want?’
The visitor scrutinised him and pronounced impressive-
ly:
‘Pyotr Petrovitch Luzhin. I believe I have reason to hope
that my name is not wholly unknown to you?’
But Raskolnikov, who had expected something quite dif-
ferent, gazed blankly and dreamily at him, making no reply,
Crime and Punishment
10
as though he heard the name of Pyotr Petrovitch for the
first time.
‘Is it possible that you can up to the present have received
no information?’ asked Pyotr Petrovitch, somewhat discon-
certed.
In reply Raskolnikov sank languidly back on the pillow,
put his hands behind his head and gazed at the ceiling. A
look of dismay came into Luzhin’s face. Zossimov and Ra-
zumihin stared at him more inquisitively than ever, and at
last he showed unmistakable signs of embarrassment.
‘I had presumed and calculated,’ he faltered, ‘that a letter
posted more than ten days, if not a fortnight ago …’
‘I say, why are you standing in the doorway?’ Razumihin
interrupted suddenly. ‘If you’ve something to say, sit down.
Nastasya and you are so crowded. Nastasya, make room.
Here’s a chair, thread your way in!’
He moved his chair back from the table, made a little
space between the table and his knees, and waited in a rath-
er cramped position for the visitor to ‘thread his way in.’
The minute was so chosen that it was impossible to refuse,
and the visitor squeezed his way through, hurrying and
stumbling. Reaching the chair, he sat down, looking suspi-
ciously at Razumihin.
‘No need to be nervous,’ the latter blurted out. ‘Rodya
has been ill for the last five days and delirious for three, but
now he is recovering and has got an appetite. This is his
doctor, who has just had a look at him. I am a comrade of
Rodya’s, like him, formerly a student, and now I am nurs-
ing him; so don’t you take any notice of us, but go on with
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your business.’
‘Thank you. But shall I not disturb the invalid by my
presence and conversation?’ Pyotr Petrovitch asked of Zos-
simov.
‘N-no,’ mumbled Zossimov; ‘you may amuse him.’ He
yawned again.
‘He has been conscious a long time, since the morning,’
went on Razumihin, whose familiarity seemed so much
like unaffected good- nature that Pyotr Petrovitch began to
be more cheerful, partly, perhaps, because this shabby and
impudent person had introduced himself as a student.
‘Your mamma,’ began Luzhin.
‘Hm!’ Razumihin cleared his throat loudly. Luzhin
looked at him inquiringly.
‘That’s all right, go on.’
Luzhin shrugged his shoulders.
‘Your mamma had commenced a letter to you while I
was sojourning in her neighbourhood. On my arrival here
I purposely allowed a few days to elapse before coming to
see you, in order that I might be fully assured that you were
in full possession of the tidings; but now, to my astonish-
ment …’
‘I know, I know!’ Raskolnikov cried suddenly with im-
patient vexation. ‘So you are the fiancé? I know, and that’s
enough!’
There was no doubt about Pyotr Petrovitch’s being of-
fended this time, but he said nothing. He made a violent
effort to understand what it all meant. There was a mo-
ment’s silence.
Crime and Punishment
1
Meanwhile Raskolnikov, who had turned a little towards
him when he answered, began suddenly staring at him again
with marked curiosity, as though he had not had a good look
at him yet, or as though something new had struck him; he
rose from his pillow on purpose to stare at him. There cer-
tainly was something peculiar in Pyotr Petrovitch’s whole
appearance, something which seemed to justify the title of
‘fiancé’ so unceremoniously applied to him. In the first place,
it was evident, far too much so indeed, that Pyotr Petro-
vitch had made eager use of his few days in the capital to
get himself up and rig himself out in expectation of his be-
trothed—a perfectly innocent and permissible proceeding,
indeed. Even his own, perhaps too complacent, conscious-
ness of the agreeable improvement in his appearance might
have been forgiven in such circumstances, seeing that Pyotr
Petrovitch had taken up the rôle of fiancé. All his clothes
were fresh from the tailor’s and were all right, except for be-
ing too new and too distinctly appropriate. Even the stylish
new round hat had the same significance. Pyotr Petrovitch
treated it too respectfully and held it too carefully in his
hands. The exquisite pair of lavender gloves, real Louvain,
told the same tale, if only from the fact of his not wearing
them, but carrying them in his hand for show. Light and
youthful colours predominated in Pyotr Petrovitch’s attire.
He wore a charming summer jacket of a fawn shade, light
thin trousers, a waistcoat of the same, new and fine linen, a
cravat of the lightest cambric with pink stripes on it, and
the best of it was, this all suited Pyotr Petrovitch. His very
fresh and even handsome face looked younger than his for-
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ty-five years at all times. His dark, mutton-chop whiskers
made an agreeable setting on both sides, growing thickly
upon his shining, clean-shaven chin. Even his hair, touched
here and there with grey, though it had been combed and
curled at a hairdresser’s, did not give him a stupid appear-
ance, as curled hair usually does, by inevitably suggesting
a German on his wedding-day. If there really was some-
thing unpleasing and repulsive in his rather good-looking
and imposing countenance, it was due to quite other causes.
After scanning Mr. Luzhin unceremoniously, Raskolnikov
smiled malignantly, sank back on the pillow and stared at
the ceiling as before.
But Mr. Luzhin hardened his heart and seemed to deter-
mine to take no notice of their oddities.
‘I feel the greatest regret at finding you in this situation,’
he began, again breaking the silence with an effort. ‘If I had
been aware of your illness I should have come earlier. But
you know what business is. I have, too, a very important
legal affair in the Senate, not to mention other preoccupa-
tions which you may well conjecture. I am expecting your
mamma and sister any minute.’
Raskolnikov made a movement and seemed about to
speak; his face showed some excitement. Pyotr Petrovitch
paused, waited, but as nothing followed, he went on:
‘… Any minute. I have found a lodging for them on their
arrival.’
‘Where?’ asked Raskolnikov weakly.
‘Very near here, in Bakaleyev’s house.’
‘That’s in Voskresensky,’ put in Razumihin. ‘There are
Crime and Punishment
1
two storeys of rooms, let by a merchant called Yushin; I’ve
been there.’
‘Yes, rooms …’
‘A disgusting place—filthy, stinking and, what’s more, of
doubtful character. Things have happened there, and there
are all sorts of queer people living there. And I went there
about a scandalous business. It’s cheap, though …’
‘I could not, of course, find out so much about it, for I am
a stranger in Petersburg myself,’ Pyotr Petrovitch replied
huffily. ‘However, the two rooms are exceedingly clean,
and as it is for so short a time … I have already taken a
permanent, that is, our future flat,’ he said, addressing Ras-
kolnikov, ‘and I am having it done up. And meanwhile I
am myself cramped for room in a lodging with my friend
Andrey Semyonovitch Lebeziatnikov, in the flat of Madame
Lippevechsel; it was he who told me of Bakaleyev’s house,
too …’
‘Lebeziatnikov?’ said Raskolnikov slowly, as if recalling
something.
‘Yes, Andrey Semyonovitch Lebeziatnikov, a clerk in the
Ministry. Do you know him?’
‘Yes … no,’ Raskolnikov answered.
‘Excuse me, I fancied so from your inquiry. I was once his
guardian…. A very nice young man and advanced. I like to
meet young people: one learns new things from them.’ Lu-
zhin looked round hopefully at them all.
‘How do you mean?’ asked Razumihin.
‘In the most serious and essential matters,’ Pyotr Petro-
vitch replied, as though delighted at the question. ‘You see,
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it’s ten years since I visited Petersburg. All the novelties, re-
forms, ideas have reached us in the provinces, but to see
it all more clearly one must be in Petersburg. And it’s my
notion that you observe and learn most by watching the
younger generation. And I confess I am delighted …’
‘At what?’
‘Your question is a wide one. I may be mistaken, but I
fancy I find clearer views, more, so to say, criticism, more
practicality …’
‘That’s true,’ Zossimov let drop.
‘Nonsense! There’s no practicality.’ Razumihin flew at
him. ‘Practicality is a difficult thing to find; it does not drop
down from heaven. And for the last two hundred years we
have been divorced from all practical life. Ideas, if you like,
are fermenting,’ he said to Pyotr Petrovitch, ‘and desire for
good exists, though it’s in a childish form, and honesty you
may find, although there are crowds of brigands. Anyway,
there’s no practicality. Practicality goes well shod.’
‘I don’t agree with you,’ Pyotr Petrovitch replied, with ev-
ident enjoyment. ‘Of course, people do get carried away and
make mistakes, but one must have indulgence; those mis-
takes are merely evidence of enthusiasm for the cause and
of abnormal external environment. If little has been done,
the time has been but short; of means I will not speak. It’s
my personal view, if you care to know, that something has
been accomplished already. New valuable ideas, new valu-
able works are circulating in the place of our old dreamy
and romantic authors. Literature is taking a maturer form,
many injurious prejudice have been rooted up and turned
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1
into ridicule…. In a word, we have cut ourselves off irre-
vocably from the past, and that, to my thinking, is a great
thing …’
‘He’s learnt it by heart to show off!’ Raskolnikov pro-
nounced suddenly.
‘What?’ asked Pyotr Petrovitch, not catching his words;
but he received no reply.
‘That’s all true,’ Zossimov hastened to interpose.
‘Isn’t it so?’ Pyotr Petrovitch went on, glancing affably at
Zossimov. ‘You must admit,’ he went on, addressing Razu-
mihin with a shade of triumph and superciliousness—he
almost added ‘young man’—‘that there is an advance, or, as
they say now, progress in the name of science and economic
truth …’
‘A commonplace.’
‘No, not a commonplace! Hitherto, for instance, if I were
told, ‘love thy neighbour,’ what came of it?’ Pyotr Petrovitch
went on, perhaps with excessive haste. ‘It came to my tear-
ing my coat in half to share with my neighbour and we both
were left half naked. As a Russian proverb has it, ‘Catch sev-
eral hares and you won’t catch one.’ Science now tells us,
love yourself before all men, for everything in the world
rests on self-interest. You love yourself and manage your
own affairs properly and your coat remains whole. Econom-
ic truth adds that the better private affairs are organised in
society—the more whole coats, so to say—the firmer are its
foundations and the better is the common welfare organised
too. Therefore, in acquiring wealth solely and exclusively for
myself, I am acquiring, so to speak, for all, and helping to
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bring to pass my neighbour’s getting a little more than a
torn coat; and that not from private, personal liberality, but
as a consequence of the general advance. The idea is simple,
but unhappily it has been a long time reaching us, being
hindered by idealism and sentimentality. And yet it would
seem to want very little wit to perceive it …’
‘Excuse me, I’ve very little wit myself,’ Razumihin cut in
sharply, ‘and so let us drop it. I began this discussion with
an object, but I’ve grown so sick during the last three years
of this chattering to amuse oneself, of this incessant flow
of commonplaces, always the same, that, by Jove, I blush
even when other people talk like that. You are in a hurry, no
doubt, to exhibit your acquirements; and I don’t blame you,
that’s quite pardonable. I only wanted to find out what sort
of man you are, for so many unscrupulous people have got
hold of the progressive cause of late and have so distorted in
their own interests everything they touched, that the whole
cause has been dragged in the mire. That’s enough!’
‘Excuse me, sir,’ said Luzhin, affronted, and speaking
with excessive dignity. ‘Do you mean to suggest so uncer-
emoniously that I too …’
‘Oh, my dear sir … how could I? … Come, that’s enough,’
Razumihin concluded, and he turned abruptly to Zossimov
to continue their previous conversation.
Pyotr Petrovitch had the good sense to accept the dis-
avowal. He made up his mind to take leave in another
minute or two.
‘I trust our acquaintance,’ he said, addressing Raskolnikov,
‘may, upon your recovery and in view of the circumstances
Crime and Punishment
1
of which you are aware, become closer … Above all, I hope
for your return to health …’
Raskolnikov did not even turn his head. Pyotr Petro-
vitch began getting up from his chair.
‘One of her customers must have killed her,’ Zossimov
declared positively.
‘Not a doubt of it,’ replied Razumihin. ‘Porfiry doesn’t
give his opinion, but is examining all who have left pledges
with her there.’
‘Examining them?’ Raskolnikov asked aloud.
‘Yes. What then?’
‘Nothing.’
‘How does he get hold of them?’ asked Zossimov.
‘Koch has given the names of some of them, other names
are on the wrappers of the pledges and some have come for-
ward of themselves.’
‘It must have been a cunning and practised ruffian! The
boldness of it! The coolness!’
‘That’s just what it wasn’t!’ interposed Razumihin. ‘That’s
what throws you all off the scent. But I maintain that he is
not cunning, not practised, and probably this was his first
crime! The supposition that it was a calculated crime and a
cunning criminal doesn’t work. Suppose him to have been
inexperienced, and it’s clear that it was only a chance that
saved him—and chance may do anything. Why, he did not
foresee obstacles, perhaps! And how did he set to work? He
took jewels worth ten or twenty roubles, stuffing his pockets
with them, ransacked the old woman’s trunks, her rags—
and they found fifteen hundred roubles, besides notes, in
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a box in the top drawer of the chest! He did not know how
to rob; he could only murder. It was his first crime, I assure
you, his first crime; he lost his head. And he got off more by
luck than good counsel!’
‘You are talking of the murder of the old pawnbroker, I
believe?’ Pyotr Petrovitch put in, addressing Zossimov. He
was standing, hat and gloves in hand, but before departing
he felt disposed to throw off a few more intellectual phrases.
He was evidently anxious to make a favourable impression
and his vanity overcame his prudence.
‘Yes. You’ve heard of it?’
‘Oh, yes, being in the neighbourhood.’
‘Do you know the details?’
‘I can’t say that; but another circumstance interests me
in the case— the whole question, so to say. Not to speak of
the fact that crime has been greatly on the increase among
the lower classes during the last five years, not to speak of
the cases of robbery and arson everywhere, what strikes
me as the strangest thing is that in the higher classes, too,
crime is increasing proportionately. In one place one hears
of a student’s robbing the mail on the high road; in another
place people of good social position forge false banknotes;
in Moscow of late a whole gang has been captured who used
to forge lottery tickets, and one of the ringleaders was a lec-
turer in universal history; then our secretary abroad was
murdered from some obscure motive of gain…. And if this
old woman, the pawnbroker, has been murdered by some-
one of a higher class in society—for peasants don’t pawn
gold trinkets— how are we to explain this demoralisation
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0
of the civilised part of our society?’
‘There are many economic changes,’ put in Zossimov.
‘How are we to explain it?’ Razumihin caught him up. ‘It
might be explained by our inveterate impracticality.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘What answer had your lecturer in Moscow to make to
the question why he was forging notes? ‘Everybody is get-
ting rich one way or another, so I want to make haste to
get rich too.’ I don’t remember the exact words, but the up-
shot was that he wants money for nothing, without waiting
or working! We’ve grown used to having everything ready-
made, to walking on crutches, to having our food chewed
for us. Then the great hour struck,[*] and every man showed
himself in his true colours.’
[*] The emancipation of the serfs in 1861 is meant.—
TRANSLATOR’S NOTE.
‘But morality? And so to speak, principles …’
‘But why do you worry about it?’ Raskolnikov interposed
suddenly. ‘It’s in accordance with your theory!’
‘In accordance with my theory?’
‘Why, carry out logically the theory you were advocating
just now, and it follows that people may be killed …’
‘Upon my word!’ cried Luzhin.
‘No, that’s not so,’ put in Zossimov.
Raskolnikov lay with a white face and twitching upper
lip, breathing painfully.
‘There’s a measure in all things,’ Luzhin went on super-
ciliously. ‘Economic ideas are not an incitement to murder,
and one has but to suppose …’
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‘And is it true,’ Raskolnikov interposed once more sud-
denly, again in a voice quivering with fury and delight in
insulting him, ‘is it true that you told your fiancée … within
an hour of her acceptance, that what pleased you most …
was that she was a beggar … because it was better to raise
a wife from poverty, so that you may have complete control
over her, and reproach her with your being her benefactor?’
‘Upon my word,’ Luzhin cried wrathfully and irritably,
crimson with confusion, ‘to distort my words in this way!
Excuse me, allow me to assure you that the report which
has reached you, or rather, let me say, has been conveyed
to you, has no foundation in truth, and I … suspect who …
in a word … this arrow … in a word, your mamma … She
seemed to me in other things, with all her excellent qualities,
of a somewhat high-flown and romantic way of thinking….
But I was a thousand miles from supposing that she would
misunderstand and misrepresent things in so fanciful a
way…. And indeed … indeed …’
‘I tell you what,’ cried Raskolnikov, raising himself on his
pillow and fixing his piercing, glittering eyes upon him, ‘I
tell you what.’
‘What?’ Luzhin stood still, waiting with a defiant and of-
fended face. Silence lasted for some seconds.
‘Why, if ever again … you dare to mention a single word
… about my mother … I shall send you flying downstairs!’
‘What’s the matter with you?’ cried Razumihin.
‘So that’s how it is?’ Luzhin turned pale and bit his lip.
‘Let me tell you, sir,’ he began deliberately, doing his utmost
to restrain himself but breathing hard, ‘at the first moment
Crime and Punishment
I saw you you were ill-disposed to me, but I remained here
on purpose to find out more. I could forgive a great deal in a
sick man and a connection, but you … never after this …’
‘I am not ill,’ cried Raskolnikov.
‘So much the worse …’
‘Go to hell!’
But Luzhin was already leaving without finishing his
speech, squeezing between the table and the chair; Razu-
mihin got up this time to let him pass. Without glancing
at anyone, and not even nodding to Zossimov, who had for
some time been making signs to him to let the sick man
alone, he went out, lifting his hat to the level of his shoul-
ders to avoid crushing it as he stooped to go out of the door.
And even the curve of his spine was expressive of the hor-
rible insult he had received.
‘How could you—how could you!’ Razumihin said, shak-
ing his head in perplexity.
‘Let me alone—let me alone all of you!’ Raskolnikov cried
in a frenzy. ‘Will you ever leave off tormenting me? I am not
afraid of you! I am not afraid of anyone, anyone now! Get
away from me! I want to be alone, alone, alone!’
‘Come along,’ said Zossimov, nodding to Razumihin.
‘But we can’t leave him like this!’
‘Come along,’ Zossimov repeated insistently, and he went
out. Razumihin thought a minute and ran to overtake him.
‘It might be worse not to obey him,’ said Zossimov on the
stairs. ‘He mustn’t be irritated.’
‘What’s the matter with him?’
‘If only he could get some favourable shock, that’s what
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would do it! At first he was better…. You know he has got
something on his mind! Some fixed idea weighing on him….
I am very much afraid so; he must have!’
‘Perhaps it’s that gentleman, Pyotr Petrovitch. From his
conversation I gather he is going to marry his sister, and that
he had received a letter about it just before his illness….’
‘Yes, confound the man! he may have upset the case al-
together. But have you noticed, he takes no interest in
anything, he does not respond to anything except one point
on which he seems excited—that’s the murder?’
‘Yes, yes,’ Razumihin agreed, ‘I noticed that, too. He is
interested, frightened. It gave him a shock on the day he was
ill in the police office; he fainted.’
‘Tell me more about that this evening and I’ll tell you
something afterwards. He interests me very much! In half
an hour I’ll go and see him again…. There’ll be no inflam-
mation though.’
‘Thanks! And I’ll wait with Pashenka meantime and will
keep watch on him through Nastasya….’
Raskolnikov, left alone, looked with impatience and mis-
ery at Nastasya, but she still lingered.
‘Won’t you have some tea now?’ she asked.
‘Later! I am sleepy! Leave me.’
He turned abruptly to the wall; Nastasya went out.
Crime and Punishment
Chapter VI
B
ut as soon as she went out, he got up, latched the door,
undid the parcel which Razumihin had brought in that
evening and had tied up again and began dressing. Strange
to say, he seemed immediately to have become perfectly
calm; not a trace of his recent delirium nor of the panic
fear that had haunted him of late. It was the first moment
of a strange sudden calm. His movements were precise and
definite; a firm purpose was evident in them. ‘To-day, to-
day,’ 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 ta-
ble, and after a moment’s thought put it in his pocket. It was
twenty-five roubles. He took also all the copper change from
the ten roubles spent by Razumihin on the clothes. Then he
softly unlatched the door, went out, slipped downstairs and
glanced in at the open kitchen door. Nastasya was standing
with her back to him, blowing up the landlady’s samovar.
She heard nothing. Who would have dreamed of his going
out, indeed? 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 rather dizzy; a sort of savage energy
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gleamed suddenly in his feverish eyes and his wasted, pale
and yellow face. He did not know and did not think where
he was going, he had one thought only: ‘that all this must be
ended to-day, once for all, immediately; that he would not
return home without it, because he would not go on living
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