with terror. But the noise having ceased, he was already imagining
he had been mistaken, when suddenly he distinctly heard a faint
cry, or rather a kind of feeble interrupted moan. At the end of a
minute or two, everything was again as silent as death.
Raskolnikoff had seated himself on the floor beside the trunk and
was waiting, scarcely daring to breathe; suddenly he bounded up,
caught up the hatchet, and rushed from the bedroom. In the center
of the apartment, Elizabeth, a huge bundle in her hands, stood
gazing in a terror-stricken way at her dead sister; white as a
sheet, she did not seem to have the strength to call out. On the
sudden appearance of the murderer, she began to quake in every
limb, and nervous twitches passed over her face; she tried to raise
her arm, to open her mouth, but she was unable to utter the least
cry, and, slowly retreating, her gaze still riveted on
Raskolnikoff, she sought refuge in a corner. The poor woman drew
back in perfect silence, as though she had no breath left in her
body. The young man rushed upon her, brandishing the hatchet; the
wretched creature's lips assumed the doleful expression peculiar to
quite young children when, beginning to feel frightened of
something, they gaze fixedly at the object which has raised their
alarm, and are on the point of crying out. Terror had so
completely stupefied this unfortunate Elizabeth, that, though
threatened by the hatchet, she did not even think of protecting her
face by holding her hands before her head, with that mechanical
gesture which the instinct of self-preservation prompts on such
occasions. She scarcely raised her left arm, and extended it
slowly in the direction of the murderer, as thought to keep him
off. The hatchet penetrated her skull, laying it open from the
upper part of the forehead to the crown. Elizabeth fell down dead.
No longer aware of what he did, Raskolnikoff took the bundle from
his victim's hand, then dropped it and ran to the anteroom.
He was more and more terrified, especially after this second
murder, entirely unpremeditated by him. He was in a hurry to be
gone; had he then been in a state to see things more clearly, had
he only been able to form an idea of the difficulties besetting his
position, to see how desperate, how hideous, how absurd it was, to
understand how many obstacles there still remained for him to
surmount, perhaps even crimes to commit, to escape from this house
and return home, he would most likely have withdrawn from the
struggle, and have gone at once and given himself up to justice; it
was not cowardice which would have prompted him to do so, but the
horror of what he had done. This last impression became more and
more powerful every minute. Nothing in the world could now have
made him return to the trunk, nor even reenter the room in which it
lay. Little by little his mind became diverted by other thoughts,
and he lapsed into a kind of reverie; at times the murderer seemed
to forget his position, or rather the most important part of it,
and to concentrate his attention on trifles. After a while,
happening to glance in the kitchen, he observed a pail half full of
water, standing on a bench, and that gave him the idea of washing
his hands and the hatchet. The blood had made his hands sticky.
After plunging the blade of the hatchet in the water, he took a
small piece of soap which lay on the window sill, and commenced his
ablutions. When he had washed his hands, he set to cleaning the
iron part of his weapon; then he devoted three minutes to soaping
the wooden handle, which was also stained with blood.
After this he wiped it with a cloth which had been hung up to dry
on a line stretched across the kitchen. This done, he drew near
the window and carefully examined the hatchet for some minutes.
The accusing stains had disappeared, but the handle was still damp.
Raskolnikoff carefully hid the weapon under his coat by replacing
it in the loop; after which, he minutely inspected his clothes,
that is to say so far as the dim light of the kitchen allowed him
to do so. He saw nothing suspicious about the coat and trousers,
but there were bloodstains on the boots. He removed them with the
aid of a damp rag. But these precautions only half reassured him,
for he knew that he could not see properly and that certain stains
had very likely escaped him. He stood irresolute in the middle of
the room, a prey to a somber, agonizing thought, the thought that
he was going mad, that at that moment he was not in a fit state to
come to a determination and to watch over his security, that his
way of going to work was probably not the one the circumstances
demanded. "Good heavens! I ought to go, to go away at once!"
murmured he, and he rushed to the anteroom where the greatest
terror he had yet experienced awaited him.
He stood stock-still, not daring to believe his eyes: the door of
the lodging, the outer door which opened on to the landing, the
same one at which he had rung a little while before and by which he
had entered, was open; up till then it had remained ajar, the old
woman had no doubt omitted to close it by way of precaution; it had
been neither locked nor bolted! But he had seen Elizabeth after
that. How was it that it had not occurred to him that she had come
in by way of the door? She could not have entered the lodging
through the wall. He shut the door and bolted it. "But no, that
is not what I should do? I must go away, go away." He drew back
the bolt and, after opening the door again, stood listening on the
landing.
He stood thus a long while. Down below, probably at the street
door, two noisy voices were vociferating insults. "Who can those
people be?" He waited patiently. At last the noise ceased, the
brawlers had taken their departure. The young man was about to do
the same, when a door on the floor immediately below was noisily
opened and some one went downstairs, humming a tune. "Whatever are
they all up to?" wondered Raskolnikoff, and closing the door again
he waited a while. At length all became silent as before; but just
as he was preparing to go down, he suddenly became aware of a fresh
sound, footsteps as yet far off, at the bottom of the staircase;
and he no sooner heard them than he guessed the truth:--some one
was coming THERE, to the old woman's on the fourth floor. Whence
came this presentiment? What was there so particularly significant
in the sound of these footsteps? They were heavy, regular, and
rather slow than hurried. HE has now reached the first floor, he
still continues to ascend. The sound is becoming plainer and
plainer. He pants as though with asthma at each step he takes. He
has commenced the third flight. He will soon be on the fourth!
And Raskolnikoff felt suddenly seized as with a general paralysis,
the same as happens when a person has the nightmare and fancies
himself pursued by enemies; they are on the point of catching him,
they will kill him, and yet he remains spellbound, unable to move a
limb.
The stranger was now ascending the fourth flight. Raskolnikoff,
who until then had been riveted to the landing with fright, was at
length able to shake off his torpor, and hastily reentered the
apartment, closing the door behind him. Then he bolted it, being
careful to make as little noise as possible. Instinct rather than
reason prompted him to do this. When he had finished, he remained
close to the door, listening, scarcely daring to breathe. The
visitor was now on the landing. Only the thickness of the door
separated the two men. The unknown was in the same position toward
Raskolnikoff as the latter had been a little while before toward
the old woman. The visitor stood panting for some little time.
"He must be stout and big," thought the young man as he clasped the
hatchet firmly in his hand. It was all like a dream to him. The
visitor gave a violent pull at the bell. He immediately fancied he
heard something move inside. He listened attentively during a few
seconds, then he gave another ring and again waited; suddenly
losing patience, he began to shake the door handle with all his
might. Raskolnikoff watched with terror the bolt trembling in the
socket, expecting to see it shoot back at any moment, so violent
were the jerks given to the door. It occurred to him to hold the
bolt in its place with his hand, but the MAN might have found it
out. His head was turning quite dizzy again. "I shall betray
myself!" thought he; but he suddenly recovered his presence of mind
as the unknown broke the silence.
"Are they both asleep, or has some one strangled them? The thrice-
confounded creatures!" growled the visitor in a guttural voice.
"Hi! Alena Ivanovna, you old sorceress! Elizabeth Ivanovna, you
indescribable beauty!--open! Oh! the witches! can they be asleep?"
In his exasperation he rang ten times running, and as loud as he
possibly could. This man was evidently not a stranger there, and
was in the habit of being obeyed. At the same moment some light
and rapid footsteps resounded on the staircase. It was another
person coming to the fourth floor. Raskolnikoff was not at first
aware of the newcomer's arrival.
"Is it possible that there's no one at home?" said the latter in a
loud and hearty tone of voice, addressing the first visitor who was
still tugging at the bell pull. "Good day, Koch!"
"Judging by his voice, he must be quite a young man," immediately
thought Raskolnikoff.
"The devil only knows! I've almost smashed the lock," replied
Koch. "But how is it you know me?"
"What a question! The day before yesterday I played you at
billiards, at Gambrinus's, and won three games right off."
"Ah!"
"So they're not at home? That's strange. I might almost say it's
ridiculous. Where can the old woman have gone? I want to speak
with her."
"And I too, batuchka, I want to speak with her."
"Well, what's to be done? I suppose we must go back to whence we
came. I wanted to borrow some money of her!" exclaimed the young
man.
"Of course we must go back again; but why then did she make an
appointment? She herself, the old witch, told me to come at this
hour. And it's a long way to where I live. Where the deuce can
she be? I don't understand it. She never stirs from one year's
end to the other, the old witch; she quite rots in the place, her
legs have always got something the matter with them, and now all on
a sudden she goes gallivanting about!"
"Suppose we question the porter?"
"What for?"
"To find out where she's gone and when she will be back."
"Hum!--the deuce!--question!--but she never goes anywhere." And he
again tugged at the door handle. "The devil take her! there's
nothing to be done but to go."
"Wait!" suddenly exclaimed the young man, "look!--do you notice how
the door resists when we pull it?"
"Well, what then?"
"Why, that shows that it's not locked, but bolted! Hark how it
clinks!"
"Well?"
"Don't you understand? That shows that one of them must be at
home. If both were out, they would have locked the door after
them, and not have bolted it inside. Listen, don't you hear the
noise it makes? Well, to bolt one's door, one must be at home, you
understand. Therefore it follows that they are at home, only for
some reason or other they don't open the door!"
"Why, yes, you're right!" exclaimed the astonished Koch. "So
they're there, are they?" And he again shook the door violently.
"Stay!" resumed the young man, "don't pull like that. There's
something peculiar about this. You've rung, you've pulled at the
door with all your might, and they haven't answered you; therefore,
they've either both fainted away, or--"
"What?"
"This is what we had better do: have the porter up, so that he may
find out what's the matter."
"That's not a bad idea!"
They both started downstairs.
"Stop! you stay here; I'll fetch the porter."
"Why stay here?"
"Well, one never knows what might happen--"
"All right."
"You see, I might also pass for an examining magistrate! There's
something very peculiar about all this, that's evident, e-vi-dent!"
said the young man excitedly, and he hastily made his way down the
stairs.
Left alone, Koch rang again, but gently this time; then, with a
thoughtful air, he began to play with the door handle, turning it
first one way, then the other, so as to make sure the door was only
bolted. After this, with a great deal of puffing and blowing, he
stooped down to look through the keyhole, but the key was in the
lock, and turned in such a way that one could not see through.
Standing up on the other side of the door, Raskolnikoff still held
the hatchet in his hands. He was almost in a state of delirium and
was preparing to attack the two men the moment they forced an
entrance. More than once, on hearing them knocking and planning
together, he had felt inclined to put an end to the matter there
and then by calling out to them. At times he experienced a desire
to abuse and defy them, while awaiting their irruption. "The
sooner it's over the better!" he kept thinking.
"The devil take them!" The time passed; still no one came. Koch
was beginning to lose patience. "The devil take them!" he muttered
again, and, tired of waiting, he relinquished his watch to go and
find the young man. By degrees the sound of his heavy boots
echoing on the stairs ceased to be heard.
"Heavens! What shall I do?"
Raskolnikoff drew back the bolt and opened the door a few inches.
Reassured by the silence which reigned in the house, and, moreover,
scarcely in a fit state at the time to reflect on what he did, he
went out on to the landing, shut the door behind him as securely as
he could and turned to go downstairs. He had already descended
several steps when suddenly a great uproar arose from one of the
floors below. Where could he hide? Concealment was impossible, so
he hastened upstairs again.
"Hi there! hang it! stop!"
He who uttered these cries had just burst out of one of the
lodgings, and was rushing down the stairs as fast as his legs would
carry him, yelling the while: "Dmitri! Dmitri! Dmitri! May the
devil take the fool!"
The rest died away in the distance; the man who was uttering these
cries had already left the house far behind. All was once more
silent; but scarcely was this alarm over than a fresh one succeeded
it: several individuals talking together in a loud tone of voice
were noisily coming up the stairs. There were three or four of
them. Raskolnikoff recognized the young man's sonorous accents.
"It is they!" No longer hoping to escape them, he advanced boldly
to meet them: "Let happen what will!" said he to himself: "if they
stop me, all is over; if they let me pass, all is over just the
same: they will remember passing me on the stairs." They were
about to encounter him, only one flight separated them--when
suddenly he felt himself saved! A few steps from him, to the
right, there was an empty lodging with the door wide open, it was
that same one on the second floor where he had seen the painters
working, but, by a happy chance, they had just left it. It was
they, no doubt, who a few minutes before had gone off, uttering
those shouts. The paint on the floors was quite fresh, the workmen
had left their things in the middle of the room: a small tub, some
paint in an earthenware crock, and a big brush. In the twinkling
of an eye, Raskolnikoff glided into the deserted apartment and hid
himself as best he could up against the wall. It was none too
soon: his pursuers were already on the landing; they did not stop
there, however, but went on up to the fourth floor, talking loudly
among themselves. After waiting till they had got some distance
off, he left the room on tiptoe and hurried down as fast as his
legs would carry him. No one on the stairs! No one either at the
street door! He stepped briskly outside, and, once in the street,
turned to the left.
He knew very well, he knew without a doubt, that they who were
seeking him were at that moment in the old woman's lodging, and
were amazed to find that the door, which a little while before had
been shut so securely, was now open. 'They're examining the
corpses," thought he; "it won't take them a minute to come to the
conclusion that the murderer managed to hide himself from them as
they went up the stairs; perhaps they may even have a suspicion
that he stowed himself away in the empty lodging on the second
floor while they were hurrying to the upper part of the house."
But, in spite of these reflections, he did not dare to increase his
pace, though he still had a hundred steps or so to go before
reaching the first turning. "Suppose I slipped into some doorway,
in some out-of-the-way street, and waited there a few minutes? No,
that would never do! I might throw my hatchet away somewhere? or
take a cab? No good! no good!" At last he reached a narrow lane;
he entered it more dead than alive. There, he was almost in
safety, and he knew it: in such a place, suspicion could hardly be
fixed upon him; while, on the other hand, it was easier for him to
avoid notice by mingling with the crowd. But all these agonizing
events had so enfeebled him that he could scarcely keep on his
legs. Great drops of perspiration streamed down his face; his neck
was quite wet. "I think you've had your fill!" shouted some one
who took him for a drunken man as he reached the canal bank.
He no longer knew what he was doing; the farther he went, the more
obscure became his ideas. However, when he found himself on the
quay, he became frightened at seeing so few people there, and,
fearing that he might be noticed on so deserted a spot, he returned
to the lane. Though he had hardly the strength to put one leg
before the other, he nevertheless took the longest way to reach his
home. He had scarcely recovered his presence of mind even when he
crossed the threshold; at least the thought of the hatchet never
came to him until he was on the stairs. Yet the question he had to
solve was a most serious one: it consisted in returning the hatchet
to the place he had taken it from, and in doing so without
attracting the least attention. Had he been more capable of
considering his position, he would certainly have understood that,
instead of replacing the hatchet, it would be far safer to get rid
of it by throwing it into the yard of some other house.
Nevertheless he met with no mishap. The door of the porter's lodge
was closed, though not locked; to all appearance, therefore, the
porter was at home. But Raskolnikoff had so thoroughly lost all
faculty of preparing any kind of plan, that he walked straight to
the door and opened it. If the porter had asked him: "What do you
want?" perhaps he would simply have handed him the hatchet. But,
the same as on the previous occasion, the porter was absent, and
this gave the young man every facility to replace the hatchet under
the bench, exactly where he had found it. Then he went upstairs
and reached his room without meeting a soul; the door of his
landlady's apartments was shut. Once home again, he threw himself
on his couch just as he was. He did not sleep, but lay in a sort
of semiconsciousness. If anybody had then appeared before him, he
would have sprung up and cried out. His head was swimming with a
host of vague thoughts: do what he could, he was unable to follow
the thread of one of them.
Raskolnikoff lay on the couch a very long while. At times he
seemed to rouse from this half sleep, and then he noticed that the
night was very far advanced, but still it never entered his head to
rise. Soon it began to brighten into day, and the dawn found him
in a state of stupefaction, lying motionless on his back. A
desperate clamor, and sounds of brawls from the streets below, rose
to his ears. These awakened him thoroughly, although he heard them
every morning early at the same hour. "Ah! two o'clock, drinking
is over," and he started up as though some one had pulled him off
the couch. "What! two o'clock already?" He sat on the edge of the
couch and then recollected everything, in an instant it all came
back! At first he thought he was going out of his mind, a strange
chill pervaded his frame, but the cold arose from the fever which
had seized upon him during his sleep. He shivered until his teeth
chattered, and all his limbs fairly shook. He went to the door,
opened it, and listened; all was silent in the house. With
astonishment he turned and looked round the room. How could he
have come home the night before, not bolted the door, and thrown
himself on the couch just as he was, not only not undressed, but
with his hat on? There it lay in the middle of the floor where it
had rolled. "If anyone came in, what would he think? That I am
drunk, of course."
He went to the window--it was pretty light--and looked himself all
over from head to foot, to see if there were any stains on his
clothes. But he could not rely upon that sort of inspection; so,
still shivering, he undressed and examined his clothes again,
looking everywhere with the greatest care. To make quite sure, he
went over them three times. He discovered nothing but a few drops
of clotted blood on the ends of his trousers which were very much
frayed. He took a big clasp-knife and cut off the frayed edges.
Suddenly he remembered that the purse and the things he had
abstracted from the old woman's chest, were still in his pockets!
He had never thought of taking them out and hiding them! indeed, it
had never crossed his mind that they were in his pockets while
examining his clothes! Was it possible? In a second he emptied
all out on to the table in a heap. Then, turning his pockets
inside out to make sure there was nothing left in them, he carried
the things to a corner of the room. Just there, the paper was
hanging loose from the wall; he bent down and commenced to stuff
all the things into a hole behind the paper. "There, it's all out
of sight!" thought he gleefully, as he stood gazing stupidly at the
spot where the paper bulged out more than ever. Suddenly he began
to shudder from terror. "Good heavens!" murmured he in despair,
"what is the matter with me? Is that hidden? Is that the way to
hide anything?"
Indeed, he had not reckoned on such spoil, he had only thought of
taking the old woman's money; so he was not prepared with a hiding
place for the jewels. "I have no cause to rejoice now," thought
he. "Is that the way to hide anything? I must really be losing my
senses!" He sunk on the couch again exhausted; another fit of
intolerable shivering seized him, and he mechanically pulled his
old student's cloak over him for warmth, as he fell into a
delirious sleep. He lost all consciousness of himself. Not more
than five minutes had elapsed before he woke up in intense
excitement, and bent over his clothes in the deepest anguish. "How
could I go to sleep again when nothing is done! For I have done
nothing, the loop is still where I sewed it. I forgot all about
that! What a convincing proof it would have been." He ripped it
off and tore it into shreds which he placed among his underlinen
under the pillow. "These rags cannot awaken any suspicions, I
fancy; at least, so it seems to me," repeated he, standing up in
the middle of the room, and, with an attempt rendered all the more
painful by the effort it cost him, he looked all round, trying to
make sure he had forgotten nothing. He suffered cruelly from this
conviction, that everything, even memory, even the most elementary
prudence, was abandoning him.
"Can this be the punishment already beginning? Indeed! indeed! it
is!"
And indeed the frayed edges he had cut from the bottom of his
trousers were lying on the floor, in the middle of the room,
exposed to the view of the first comer. "But what can I be
thinking of?" exclaimed he in utter bewilderment. Then a strange
idea came into his head; he thought that perhaps all his clothes
were saturated in blood, and that he could not see this because his
senses were gone and his perception of things lost. Then he
recollected that there would be traces on the purse, and his
pockets would be wet with blood. It was so. "I am bereft of my
reason, I know not what I am doing. Bah! not at all!--it is only
weakness, delirium. I shall soon be better." He tore at the
lining. At this moment the rays of the morning streamed in and
shone on his left boot. There were plain traces, and all the point
was covered. "I must have stepped in that pool. What shall I do
now? Boot, lining, rags, where shall they go?" He rolled them up
and stood thinking in the middle of the room. "Ah, the stove.
Yes, burn them. No, I cannot, I have no match. Better throw them
away. Yes, yes, that is the thing," said he, again sitting on the
couch. "At once, and without delay too, quick." But, instead, his
head fell back upon the pillow, and chilly shiverings again came
over him. He covered himself with his cloak and slept again. It
appeared hours to him, and many a time in his sleep he tried to
rise to hasten to throw away his bundle, but he could not, he
seemed chained to the bed. At last he awoke, as he heard a loud
knock at his door.
"Eh, open, will you?" cried Nastasia. "Don't lie there like a dog.
It's eleven o'clock."
"Perhaps he is not in," said a man's voice.
"The porter's voice. What does he want?" Raskolnikoff rose, and
sat on the couch listening. His heart throbbed violently.
"Who has bolted the door then?" exclaimed the servant. "Open, will
you?"
"All must be discovered?" He rose a little and undid the bolt, and
fell back again on his bed. There stood the porter and Nastasia.
The servant looked strangely at Raskolnikoff, while he fixed a
despairing glance upon the porter.
"Here is a notice for you from the office," said the latter.
"What office?"
"The police office."
"What for?"
"I don't know. You are summoned there, go." The porter looked
anxiously at the lodger, and turned to leave. Raskolnikoff made no
observation, and held the paper unopened in his hand.
"There, stay where you are," said Nastasia, seeing him fall back on
the couch. "If you are ill, do not go. What is that in your
hand?"
He looked down; in his right hand were clutched the pieces of
frayed cloth, his boot, and the lining of his pocket. He had
evidently fallen asleep with them as they were; indeed he
recollected how, thinking deeply about them, he had dozed away.
"The idea of taking a lot of rags to bed and hugging them to you
like a treasure!" laughed the servant in her sickly manner.