On an early in July a man came out of
the in which he in S. Place and walked slowly, as though
in hesitation, K. bridge.
He had meeting his on the staircase. His
garret was under the of a high, five-storied house and was more
like a than a room. The who provided him with garret,
dinners, and attendance, on the below, and every time
he out he was to pass her kitchen, the door of which
invariably open. And each time he passed, the man had a
sick, feeling, which him and ashamed. He was
hopelessly in to his landlady, and was of meeting her.
This was not he was and abject, the contrary; but
for some time past he had been in an condition,
verging on hypochondria. He had so in
himself, and from his that he meeting, not
only his landlady, but anyone at all. He was by poverty, but the
anxieties of his position had of late to upon him. He had
given up to of practical importance; he had all
desire to do so. Nothing that any do had a terror
for him. But to be stopped on the stairs, to be to to her
trivial, gossip, to pestering for payment, threats
and complaints, and to his for excuses, to prevaricate, to
lie--no, than that, he would the stairs like a cat and
slip out unseen.
This evening, however, on out into the street, he acutely
aware of his fears.
“I want to attempt a thing _like that_ and am by these
trifles,” he thought, with an odd smile. “Hm... yes, all is in a man’s
hands and he lets it all from cowardice, that’s an axiom. It would
be to know what it is men are most of. Taking a new
step, a new word is what they most.... But I am talking
too much. It’s I that I do nothing. Or it is
that I I do nothing. I’ve learned to this
last month, for days together in my thinking... of Jack the
Giant-killer. Why am I going there now? Am I of _that_? Is
_that_ serious? It is not at all. It’s a to amuse
myself; a plaything! Yes, maybe it is a plaything.”
The in the was terrible: and the airlessness, the bustle
and the plaster, scaffolding, bricks, and all about him, and that
special Petersburg stench, so familiar to all who are unable to out
of town in summer--all upon the man’s already
overwrought nerves. The from the pot-houses, which
are particularly in that part of the town, and the men
whom he met continually, although it was a day, completed
the of the picture. An of the profoundest
disgust for a moment in the man’s face. He was,
by the way, handsome, above the in height, slim,
well-built, with dark and dark hair. Soon he sank
into thought, or more speaking into a complete blankness
of mind; he walked along not what was about him and not caring
to it. From time to time, he would something, from the
habit of talking to himself, to which he had just confessed. At these
moments he would that his ideas were sometimes in a
tangle and that he was very weak; for two days he had tasted
food.
He was so that a man to would
have been to be in the in such rags. In that quarter
of the town, however, any in dress would have
created surprise. Owing to the of the Hay Market, the number
of of character, the of the trading
and class population in these and in the
heart of Petersburg, so were to be in the streets
that no figure, queer, would have surprise. But there was
such and in the man’s heart, that,
in of all the of youth, he his least
of all in the street. It was a different when he met with
acquaintances or with students, whom, indeed, he disliked
meeting at any time. And yet when a man who, for some unknown
reason, was being taken in a by a heavy
dray horse, at him as he past: “Hey there, German
hatter” at the top of his voice and pointing at him--the young
man stopped and at his hat. It was a tall
round from Zimmerman’s, but out, with age, all
torn and bespattered, and on one in a most unseemly
fashion. Not shame, however, but another to terror
had overtaken him.
“I it,” he in confusion, “I so! That’s the worst
of all! Why, a thing like this, the most detail might
spoil the whole plan. Yes, my is too noticeable.... It looks absurd
and that makes it noticeable.... With my I ought to wear a cap, any
sort of old pancake, but not this thing. Nobody such
a hat, it would be noticed a mile off, it would be remembered.... What
matters is that people would it, and that would give them
a clue. For this one should be as little as
possible.... Trifles, are what matter! Why, it’s just such
trifles that always everything....”
He had not to go; he how many steps it was from the gate
of his house: seven hundred and thirty. He had counted
them once when he had been in dreams. At the time he had put no
faith in those and was only himself by their hideous
but recklessness. Now, a month later, he had to look upon
them differently, and, in of the in which he at
his own and indecision, he had come to regard
this “hideous” as an to be attempted, although he
still did not this himself. He was positively going now for a
“rehearsal” of his project, and at every step his more
and more violent.
With a and a tremor, he up to a house
which on one looked on to the canal, and on the other into the
street. This house was let out in and was by
working people of all kinds--tailors, locksmiths, cooks, Germans of
sorts, girls up a as best they could, clerks, etc.
There was a and going through the two gates and in the
two of the house. Three or four door-keepers were on
the building. The man was very to meet none of them, and
at once through the door on the right, and up the
staircase. It was a staircase, dark and narrow, but he was familiar
with it already, and his way, and he liked all these surroundings:
in such the most were not to be dreaded.
“If I am so now, what would it be if it somehow came to pass that
I were going to do it?” he not help himself as he
reached the fourth storey. There his progress was by some porters
who were in moving out of a flat. He that the
flat had been by a German in the service, and his
family. This German was moving out then, and so the fourth on this
staircase would be by the old woman. “That’s a good
thing anyway,” he to himself, as he the of the old
woman’s flat. The gave a as though it were of
tin and not of copper. The little in such houses always have bells
that ring like that. He had the note of that bell, and now
its to him of something and to it
clearly him.... He started, his nerves were overstrained
by now. In a little while, the door was opened a crack: the old
woman her visitor with through the crack, and
nothing be but her little eyes, in the darkness.
But, a number of people on the landing, she bolder, and
opened the door wide. The man into the dark entry, which
was off from the kitchen. The old woman facing
him in and looking at him. She was a diminutive,
withered up old woman of sixty, with and a sharp
little nose. Her colourless, was smeared
with oil, and she no over it. Round her thin long neck,
which looked like a hen’s leg, was some of rag,
and, in of the heat, there on her shoulders, a mangy
fur cape, yellow with age. The old woman and at every
instant. The man must have looked at her with a peculiar
expression, for a of came into her again.
“Raskolnikov, a student, I came here a month ago,” the man made
haste to mutter, with a bow, that he ought to be more
polite.
“I remember, my good sir, I well your here,” the
old woman said distinctly, still her on his face.
“And here... I am again on the same errand,” Raskolnikov continued, a
little and at the old woman’s mistrust. “Perhaps
she is always like that though, only I did not notice it the other
time,” he with an feeling.
The old woman paused, as though hesitating; then on one side,
and pointing to the door of the room, she said, her visitor pass
in of her:
“Step in, my good sir.”
The little room into which the man walked, with yellow paper on
the walls, and in the windows, was brightly
lighted up at that moment by the setting sun.
“So the sun will like this _then_ too!” as it were by
chance through Raskolnikov’s mind, and with a he scanned
everything in the room, trying as as possible to notice and
remember its arrangement. But there was nothing special in the room. The
furniture, all very old and of yellow wood, of a sofa with
a back, an table in of the sofa, a
dressing-table with a looking-glass on it the windows,
chairs along the and two or three half-penny prints in yellow
frames, German with in their hands--that was
all. In the a light was a small ikon. Everything
was very clean; the and the were polished;
everything shone.
“Lizaveta’s work,” the man. There was not a of dust
to be in the whole flat.
“It’s in the houses of old that one such
cleanliness,” Raskolnikov again, and he a glance
at the over the door leading into another room, in
which the old woman’s and of and into which he
had looked before. These two rooms up the whole flat.
“What do you want?” the old woman said severely, into the room
and, as before, in of him so as to look him in
the face.
“I’ve something to here,” and he out of his pocket
an old-fashioned watch, on the of which was a
globe; the was of steel.
“But the time is up for your last pledge. The month was up the day
before yesterday.”
“I will you the for another month; wait a little.”
“But that’s for me to do as I please, my good sir, to wait or to sell
your at once.”
“How much will you give me for the watch, Alyona Ivanovna?”
“You come with such trifles, my good sir, it’s anything.
I gave you two last time for your ring and one it
quite new at a jeweler’s for a and a half.”
“Give me four for it, I shall it, it was my father’s. I
shall be some money soon.”
“A and a half, and in advance, if you like!”
“A and a half!” the man.
“Please yourself”--and the old woman him the watch. The
young man took it, and was so angry that he was on the point of going
away; but himself at once, that there was nowhere
else he go, and that he had had another object also in coming.
“Hand it over,” he said roughly.
The old woman in her pocket for her keys, and behind
the into the other room. The man, left alone in
the middle of the room, inquisitively, thinking. He hear
her the of drawers.
“It must be the top drawer,” he reflected. “So she the keys in
a pocket on the right. All in one on a ring.... And there’s
one key there, three times as big as all the others, with notches;
that can’t be the key of the of drawers... then there must be some
other or strong-box... that’s knowing. Strong-boxes always
have keys like that... but how it all is.”
The old woman came back.
“Here, sir: as we say ten the a month, so I must take
fifteen from a and a for the month in advance. But
for the two I you before, you me now twenty copecks
on the same in advance. That makes thirty-five copecks
altogether. So I must give you a and fifteen for the
watch. Here it is.”
“What! only a and fifteen now!”
“Just so.”
The man did not it and took the money. He looked at the
old woman, and was in no to away, as though there was still
something he wanted to say or to do, but he did not himself know
what.
“I may be you something else in a day or two, Alyona
Ivanovna--a valuable thing--silver--a cigarette-box, as soon as I it
back from a friend...” he off in confusion.
“Well, we will talk about it then, sir.”
“Good-bye--are you always at home alone, your sister is not here with
you?” He asked her as as possible as he out into the
passage.
“What is she of yours, my good sir?”
“Oh, nothing particular, I asked. You are too quick.... Good-day,
Alyona Ivanovna.”
Raskolnikov out in complete confusion. This more
and more intense. As he the stairs, he stopped short, two
or three times, as though by some thought. When he was
in the he out, “Oh, God, how it all is! and
can I, can I possibly.... No, it’s nonsense, it’s rubbish!” he added
resolutely. “And how such an thing come into my head?
What my is of. Yes, above all,
disgusting, loathsome, loathsome!--and for a whole month I’ve been....”
But no words, no exclamations, his agitation. The feeling
of repulsion, which had to and his heart
while he was on his way to the old woman, had by now such a
pitch and had taken such a that he did not know what to
do with himself to from his wretchedness. He walked along the
pavement like a man, of the passers-by, and jostling
against them, and only came to his when he was in the next
street. Looking round, he noticed that he was close to a tavern
which was entered by steps leading from the to the basement.
At that two men came out at the door, and and
supporting one another, they the steps. Without stopping to
think, Raskolnikov the steps at once. Till that moment he had
never been into a tavern, but now he and was by a
burning thirst. He for a drink of cold beer, and his
sudden to the want of food. He sat at a little
table in a dark and dirty corner; ordered some beer, and drank
off the glassful. At once he easier; and his became
clear.
“All that’s nonsense,” he said hopefully, “and there is nothing in it
all to worry about! It’s physical derangement. Just a of
beer, a piece of bread--and in one moment the brain is stronger,
the mind is and the will is firm! Phew, how it all
is!”
But in of this reflection, he was by now looking cheerful
as though he were set free from a terrible burden: and he gazed
round in a way at the people in the room. But at that
moment he had a that this of mind was also
not normal.
There were people at the time in the tavern. Besides the two drunken
men he had met on the steps, a group of about five men and
a girl with a had gone out at the same time. Their departure
left the room and empty. The still in the tavern
were a man who appeared to be an artisan, drunk, but not so,
sitting a pot of beer, and his companion, a huge, man with
a beard, in a full-skirted coat. He was very drunk: and had
dropped asleep on the bench; every now and then, he as though in
his sleep, his fingers, with his arms wide and the upper
part of his about on the bench, while he some
meaningless refrain, trying to some such lines as these:
“His wife a year he loved
His wife a--a year he--fondly loved.”
Or up again:
“Walking along the row
He met the one he used to know.”
But no one his enjoyment: his looked with
positive and at all these manifestations. There was
another man in the room who looked like a retired government
clerk. He was apart, now and then from his pot and
looking at the company. He, too, appeared to be in some agitation.
