One trifling circumstance upset his calculations, before
he had even left the staircase. When he reached the
landlady’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 time he was passing. He turned
away his eyes, and walked past as though he noticed
nothing. But it was the end of everything; 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
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go back to his room, even more revolting. ‘And what a
chance I have lost for ever!’ he muttered, standing
aimlessly in the gateway, 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—nobody. 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 avoid awakening suspicion. He scarcely looked at the
passers-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
yesterday and did not get a cap to wear instead!’ A curse
rose from the bottom of his soul.
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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 building 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 Mihailovsky 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 necessity, 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,
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and for a moment he waked up to reality. ‘What
nonsense!’ he thought, ‘better think of nothing at all!’
‘So probably men led to execution clutch mentally at
every 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, completely 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 quarrelling; 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….
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Drawing a breath, pressing his hand against his
throbbing 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 deserted; 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.’
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?’
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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 suspicious 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 standing 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 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
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unconscious of his body…. An instant later he heard the
latch unfastened.
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Chapter VII
The door was as before opened a tiny crack, and again
two sharp and suspicious eyes stared at him out of the
darkness. Then Raskolnikov lost his head and nearly made
a great mistake.
Fearing the old woman would be frightened by their
being alone, and not hoping that the sight of him would
disarm her suspicions, he took hold of the door and 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….’
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And leaving her, he passed straight into the room
uninvited. The old woman ran after him; her tongue was
unloosed.
‘Good heavens! What it is? Who is it? What do you
want?’
‘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 losing his head, that he was almost frightened, so
frightened that if she were to look like that and not say a
word for another half minute, he 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
suddenly said of itself. The old woman recovered herself,
and her visitor’s resolute tone evidently restored her
confidence.
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‘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
articulating the words.
His strength was failing him again. But his answer
sounded like the truth; the old woman took the pledge.
‘What is it?’ she asked once more, scanning
Raskolnikov intently, and weighing the pledge in her
hand.
‘A thing … cigarette case…. Silver…. Look at it.’
‘It does not seem somehow like silver…. How he has
wrapped it up!’
Trying to untie the string and turning to the window,
to the light (all her windows were shut, in spite of the
stifling heat), she left him altogether for 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
altogether, simply holding it in his right hand under the
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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 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
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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 covered 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
suddenly felt tempted again to give it all up and go away.
But that was only for an instant; it was too late to go back.
He positively smiled at himself, when suddenly another
terrifying idea occurred to his mind. He suddenly fancied
that the old woman might be still alive and might recover
her senses. Leaving the keys in the chest, he ran back to
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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, after two minutes’ hurried effort, he cut
the string and took it off without touching the body with
the axe; he was not mistaken—it was a purse. On the
string were two crosses, one of Cyprus wood and one of
copper, and an image in silver 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.
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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 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 belong to the chest of drawers (on his
last visit this had struck him), but to some strong box, and
that everything perhaps was hidden in that box. He left
the chest of drawers, and at once felt under the bedstead,
knowing that old women usually keep boxes under their
beds. And so it was; there was a good-sized box under the
bed, at least a yard in length, with an arched lid covered
with red leather and studded with steel nails. The notched
key fitted at once and unlocked it. At the top, under a
white sheet, was a coat of red brocade 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
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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,
unredeemed 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 folded,
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 time to take many….
He suddenly heard steps in the room where the old
woman lay. He stopped short and was still as death. But all
was quiet, so 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
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the strength to cry out. Seeing him run out of the
bedroom, she began faintly quivering all over, like a leaf, a
shudder ran down her face; she lifted her hand, opened
her mouth, but still did not scream. She began slowly
backing away from him into the corner, staring intently,
persistently at him, but still uttered no sound, as though
she could not get breath to scream. He rushed at her with
the axe; her mouth twitched piteously, as one sees babies’
mouths, when they begin to be frightened, stare intently at
what frightens them and are on the point of screaming.
And this hapless Lizaveta was so simple and had been so
thoroughly 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 holding it out before her
as though motioning him away. The axe fell with the
sharp edge just on the skull and split at one blow all the
top of the head. She fell heavily at once. Raskolnikov
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
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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 obstacles 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 forgot
himself, or rather, forgot what was of importance, and
caught at trifles. Glancing, however, into the kitchen and
seeing a bucket half full of water on a bench, he 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
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minutes, washing the wood 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
wetted the rag and rubbed the boots. But he knew he was
not looking thoroughly, that there might be something
quite noticeable that he was overlooking. He stood in the
middle of the room, lost in thought. Dark agonising ideas
rose in his mind—the idea that he was mad and that at
that moment he was incapable of reasoning, of protecting
himself, that he ought perhaps to be doing something
utterly different from what he was now doing. ‘Good
God!’ he muttered ‘I must 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
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at least six inches open. No lock, no bolt, all the time, all
that time! The old woman had not shut it after him
perhaps as a precaution. But, good God! Why, he had seen
Lizaveta afterwards! And how could he, how could he
have failed to reflect that she must have come in
somehow! She could not have come through the wall!
He dashed to the door and fastened the latch.
‘But no, the wrong thing again! I must get away, get
away….’
He unfastened the latch, opened the door and began
listening on the staircase.
He listened a long time. Somewhere far away, 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.
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The steps sounded very far off, at the very bottom of
the stairs, but he remembered quite clearly and distinctly
that from the first sound he began for some reason to
suspect that this was someone coming there to the fourth
floor, to the old woman. Why? Were the sounds
somehow peculiar, significant? The steps were heavy, even
and unhurried. Now he had passed the first floor, now he
was mounting higher, it was growing more and more
distinct! He could hear his heavy breathing. And now the
third storey had been reached. Coming here! And it
seemed to him all at once that he was turned to stone, that
it was like a dream in which one is being pursued, nearly
caught and will be killed, and is rooted to the spot and
cannot even move one’s arms.
At last when the unknown was mounting to the fourth
floor, he suddenly started, and succeeded in slipping neatly
and quickly back into the flat and closing the door behind
him. Then he took the hook and softly, noiselessly, fixed
it in the catch. Instinct helped him. When he had done
this, he crouched holding his breath, by the door. The
unknown visitor was by now also at the door. They were
now standing opposite one another, as he had just before
been standing with the old woman, when the door
divided them and he was listening.
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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
seconds he listened quite seriously. The unknown rang
again, waited and suddenly tugged violently and
impatiently at the handle of the door. Raskolnikov gazed
in horror at the hook shaking in its fastening, and in blank
terror expected every minute that the fastening would be
pulled out. It certainly did seem possible, so violently was
he shaking it. He was tempted to hold the fastening, but
he might be aware of it. 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?’
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.
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At this moment light hurried steps were heard not far
off, on the stairs. someone else was approaching.
Raskolnikov had not heard them at first.
‘You don’t say there’s no one at home,’ the newcomer
cried in a cheerful, ringing voice, addressing the
first visitor, who still went on pulling the bell. ‘Good
evening, Koch.’
‘From his voice he must be quite young,’ thought
Raskolnikov.
‘Who the devil can tell? I’ve almost broken the lock,’
answered Koch. ‘But how do you come to know me?
‘Why! The day before yesterday I beat you three times
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
herself. It’s out of my way. And where the devil she can
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have got to, I can’t make out. She sits here from year’s end
to year’s end, the old hag; her legs are bad and yet here all
of a sudden she is out for a walk!’
‘Hadn’t we better ask the porter?’
‘What?’
‘Where she’s gone and when she’ll be back.’
‘Hm…. Damn it all! … We might ask…. But you
know she never does go anywhere.’
And he once more tugged at the door-handle.
‘Damn it all. There’s nothing to be done, we must go!’
‘Stay!’ cried the young man suddenly. ‘Do you see how
the door shakes if you pull it?’
‘Well?’
‘That shows it’s not locked, but fastened with the
hook! Do you hear how the hook clanks?’
‘Well?’
‘Why, don’t you see? That proves that one of them is
at home. If they were all out, they would have locked the
door from the outside with the key and not with the hook
from inside. There, do you hear how the hook is
clanking? To fasten the hook on the inside they must be at
home, don’t you see. So there they are sitting inside and
don’t open the door!’
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‘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.’
‘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
pulling it and letting it go to make sure once more that it
was only fastened by the hook. Then puffing and panting
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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 restless.
‘What the devil?’ he cried suddenly and in impatience
deserting his sentry duty, he, too, went down, hurrying
and 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.
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He had gone down three flights when he suddenly
heard a loud voice below—where could he go! There was
nowhere to hide. He was just going back to the flat.
‘Hey there! Catch the brute!’
Somebody dashed out of a flat below, shouting, and
rather fell than ran down the stairs, bawling at the top of
his voice.
‘Mitka! Mitka! Mitka! Mitka! Mitka! 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
ringing voice of the young man. ‘They!’
Filled with despair he went straight to meet them,
feeling ‘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. The floor had only just been
painted, in the middle of the room stood a pail and a
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broken pot with paint and brushes. In one instant he had
whisked in at the open door and hidden 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!’
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At last he reached the turning. He turned down it more
dead than alive. Here he was half way to safety, and he
understood it; it was less risky because there was a great
crowd of people, and he was lost in it like a grain of sand.
But all he had suffered had so weakened him that he could
scarcely 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
problem before him, to put it back and to escape
observation as far as possible in doing so. He was of course
incapable of reflecting that it might perhaps be far better
not to restore the axe at all, but to drop it later on in
somebody’s yard. But it all happened fortunately, the door
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of the porter’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 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….
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PART II
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Chapter I
So he lay a very long while. Now and then he seemed
to wake up, and at such moments he noticed that it was
far into the night, but it did not occur to him to get up. At
last he noticed that it was beginning to get light. He was
lying on his back, still dazed from his recent oblivion.
Fearful, despairing cries rose shrilly from the street, sounds
which he heard every night, indeed, under his window
after two o’clock. They woke him up now.
‘Ah! the drunken men are coming out of the taverns,’
he thought, ‘it’s past two o’clock,’ and at once he leaped
up, as though someone had pulled him from the sofa.
‘What! Past two o’clock!’
He sat down on the sofa—and instantly recollected
everything! All at once, in one flash, he recollected
everything.
For the first moment he thought he was going mad. A
dreadful chill came over him; but the chill was from the
fever that had begun long before in his sleep. Now he was
suddenly taken with violent shivering, so that his teeth
chattered and all his limbs were shaking. He opened the
door and began listening—everything in the house was
asleep. With amazement he gazed at himself and
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everything in the room around him, wondering how he
could have come in the night before without fastening the
door, and have flung himself on the sofa without
undressing, without even taking his hat off. It had fallen
off and was lying on the floor near his pillow.
‘If anyone had come in, what would he have thought?
That I’m drunk but …’
He rushed to the window. There was light enough,
and he began hurriedly looking himself all over from head
to foot, all his clothes; were there no traces? But there was
no doing it like that; shivering with cold, he began taking
off everything and looking over again. He turned
everything over to the last threads and rags, and
mistrusting himself, went through his search three times.
But there seemed to be nothing, no trace, except in
one place, where some thick drops of congealed blood
were clinging to the frayed edge of his trousers. He picked
up a big claspknife and cut off the frayed threads. There
seemed to be nothing more.
Suddenly he remembered that the purse and the things
he had taken out of the old woman’s box were still in his
pockets! He had not thought till then of taking them out
and hiding them! He had not even thought of them while
he was examining his clothes! What next? Instantly he
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rushed to take them out and fling them on the table.
When he had pulled out everything, and turned the
pocket inside out to be sure there was nothing left, he
carried the whole heap to the corner. The paper had come
off the bottom of the wall and hung there in tatters. He
began stuffing all the things into the hole under the paper:
‘They’re in! All out of sight, and the purse too!’ he
thought gleefully, getting up and gazing blankly at the
hole which bulged out more than ever. Suddenly he
shuddered all over with horror; ‘My God!’ he whispered
in despair: ‘what’s the matter with me? Is that hidden? Is
that the way to hide things?’
He had not reckoned on having trinkets to hide. He
had only thought of money, and so had not prepared a
hiding-place.
‘But now, now, what am I glad of?’ he thought, ‘Is that
hiding things? My reason’s deserting me—simply!’
He sat down on the sofa in exhaustion and was at once
shaken by another unbearable fit of shivering.
Mechanically he drew from a chair beside him his old
student’s winter coat, which was still warm though almost
in rags, covered himself up with it and once more sank
into drowsiness and delirium. He lost consciousness.
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Not more than five minutes had passed when he
jumped up a second time, and at once pounced in a frenzy
on his clothes again.
‘How could I go to sleep again with nothing done?
Yes, yes; I have not taken the loop off the armhole! I
forgot it, forgot a thing like that! Such a piece of
evidence!’
He pulled off the noose, hurriedly cut it to pieces and
threw the bits among his linen under the pillow.
‘Pieces of torn linen couldn’t rouse suspicion, whatever
happened; I think not, I think not, any way!’ he repeated,
standing in the middle of the room, and with painful
concentration he fell to gazing about him again, at the
floor and everywhere, trying to make sure he had not
forgotten anything. The conviction that all his faculties,
even memory, and the simplest power of reflection were
failing him, began to be an insufferable torture.
‘Surely it isn’t beginning already! Surely it isn’t my
punishment coming upon me? It is!’
The frayed rags he had cut off his trousers were actually
lying on the floor in the middle of the room, where
anyone coming in would see them!
‘What is the matter with me!’ he cried again, like one
distraught.
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Then a strange idea entered his head; that, perhaps, all
his clothes were covered with blood, that, perhaps, there
were a great many stains, but that he did not see them, did
not notice them because his perceptions were failing, were
going to pieces … his reason was clouded…. Suddenly he
remembered that there had been blood on the purse too.
‘Ah! Then there must be blood on the pocket too, for I
put the wet purse in my pocket!’
In a flash he had turned the pocket inside out and,
yes!—there were traces, stains on the lining of the pocket!
‘So my reason has not quite deserted me, so I still have
some sense and memory, since I guessed it of myself,’ he
thought triumphantly, with a deep sigh of relief; ‘it’s
simply the weakness of fever, a moment’s delirium,’ and
he tore the whole lining out of the left pocket of his
trousers. At that instant the sunlight fell on his left boot;
on the sock which poked out from the boot, he fancied
there were traces! He flung off his boots; ‘traces indeed!
The tip of the sock was soaked with blood;’ he must have
unwarily stepped into that pool…. ‘But what am I to do
with this now? Where am I to put the sock and rags and
pocket?’
He gathered them all up in his hands and stood in the
middle of the room.
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‘In the stove? But they would ransack the stove first of
all. Burn them? But what can I burn them with? There are
no matches even. No, better go out and throw it all away
somewhere. Yes, better throw it away,’ he repeated,
sitting down on the sofa again, ‘and at once, this minute,
without lingering …’
But his head sank on the pillow instead. Again the
unbearable icy shivering came over him; again he drew his
coat over him.
And for a long while, for some hours, he was haunted
by the impulse to ‘go off somewhere at once, this
moment, and fling it all away, so that it may be out of
sight and done with, at once, at once!’ Several times he
tried to rise from the sofa, but could not.
He was thoroughly waked up at last by a violent
knocking at his door.
‘Open, do, are you dead or alive? He keeps sleeping
here!’ shouted Nastasya, banging with her fist on the door.
‘For whole days together he’s snoring here like a dog! A
dog he is too. Open I tell you. It’s past ten.’
‘Maybe he’s not at home,’ said a man’s voice.
‘Ha! that’s the porter’s voice…. What does he want?’
He jumped up and sat on the sofa. The beating of his
heart was a positive pain.
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‘Then who can have latched the door?’ retorted
Nastasya. ‘He’s taken to bolting himself in! As if he were
worth stealing! Open, you stupid, wake up!’
‘What do they want? Why the porter? All’s discovered.
Resist or open? Come what may! …’
He half rose, stooped forward and unlatched the door.
His room was so small that he could undo the latch
without leaving the bed. Yes; the porter and Nastasya
were standing there.
Nastasya stared at him in a strange way. He glanced
with a defiant and desperate air at the porter, who without
a word held out a grey folded paper sealed with bottlewax.
‘A notice from the office,’ he announced, as he gave
him the paper.
‘From what office?’
‘A summons to the police office, of course. You know
which office.’
‘To the police? … What for? …’
‘How can I tell? You’re sent for, so you go.’
The man looked at him attentively, looked round the
room and turned to go away.
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