CHAPTER I
So he lay a very long while. Now and then he seemed to wake up, and atsuch moments he noticed that it was far into the night, but it did notoccur to him to get up. At last he noticed that it was beginning to getlight. He was lying on his back, still dazed from his recent oblivion.Fearful, despairing cries rose shrilly from the street, sounds which heheard every night, indeed, under his window after two o'clock. They wokehim up now.
"Ah! the drunken men are coming out of the taverns," he thought, "it'spast two o'clock," and at once he leaped up, as though someone hadpulled him from the sofa.
"What! Past two o'clock!"
He sat down on the sofa--and instantly recollected everything! All atonce, in one flash, he recollected everything.
For the first moment he thought he was going mad. A dreadful chill cameover him; but the chill was from the fever that had begun long before inhis sleep. Now he was suddenly taken with violent shivering, so that histeeth chattered and all his limbs were shaking. He opened the door andbegan listening--everything in the house was asleep. With amazement hegazed at himself and everything in the room around him, wondering how hecould have come in the night before without fastening the door, and haveflung himself on the sofa without undressing, without even taking hishat 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 drunkbut..."
He rushed to the window. There was light enough, and he began hurriedlylooking himself all over from head to foot, all his clothes; were thereno traces? But there was no doing it like that; shivering with cold, hebegan taking off everything and looking over again. He turned everythingover to the last threads and rags, and mistrusting himself, went throughhis search three times.
But there seemed to be nothing, no trace, except in one place, wheresome thick drops of congealed blood were clinging to the frayed edgeof his trousers. He picked up a big claspknife and cut off the frayedthreads. There seemed to be nothing more.
Suddenly he remembered that the purse and the things he had taken out ofthe old woman's box were still in his pockets! He had not thought tillthen of taking them out and hiding them! He had not even thought of themwhile he was examining his clothes! What next? Instantly he rushedto take them out and fling them on the table. When he had pulled outeverything, and turned the pocket inside out to be sure there wasnothing left, he carried the whole heap to the corner. The paper hadcome off the bottom of the wall and hung there in tatters. He beganstuffing all the things into the hole under the paper: "They're in! Allout of sight, and the purse too!" he thought gleefully, getting up andgazing blankly at the hole which bulged out more than ever. Suddenlyhe 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 hidethings?"
He had not reckoned on having trinkets to hide. He had only thought ofmoney, 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 anotherunbearable fit of shivering. Mechanically he drew from a chair besidehim his old student's winter coat, which was still warm though almost inrags, covered himself up with it and once more sank into drowsiness anddelirium. He lost consciousness.
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 nottaken 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 bitsamong his linen under the pillow.
"Pieces of torn linen couldn't rouse suspicion, whatever happened; Ithink not, I think not, any way!" he repeated, standing in the middleof the room, and with painful concentration he fell to gazing abouthim again, at the floor and everywhere, trying to make sure he had notforgotten anything. The conviction that all his faculties, even memory,and the simplest power of reflection were failing him, began to be aninsufferable torture.
"Surely it isn't beginning already! Surely it isn't my punishment comingupon me? It is!"
The frayed rags he had cut off his trousers were actually lying on thefloor 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.
Then a strange idea entered his head; that, perhaps, all his clotheswere covered with blood, that, perhaps, there were a great manystains, but that he did not see them, did not notice them becausehis perceptions were failing, were going to pieces... his reason wasclouded.... Suddenly he remembered that there had been blood on thepurse too. "Ah! Then there must be blood on the pocket too, for I putthe wet purse in my pocket!"
In a flash he had turned the pocket inside out and, yes!--there weretraces, stains on the lining of the pocket!
"So my reason has not quite deserted me, so I still have some sense andmemory, since I guessed it of myself," he thought triumphantly, witha deep sigh of relief; "it's simply the weakness of fever, a moment'sdelirium," and he tore the whole lining out of the left pocket of histrousers. At that instant the sunlight fell on his left boot; on thesock which poked out from the boot, he fancied there were traces! Heflung off his boots; "traces indeed! The tip of the sock was soaked withblood;" he must have unwarily stepped into that pool.... "But what am Ito 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 theroom.
"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, bettergo out and throw it all away somewhere. Yes, better throw it away," herepeated, sitting down on the sofa again, "and at once, this minute,without lingering..."
But his head sank on the pillow instead. Again the unbearable icyshivering 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 thatit may be out of sight and done with, at once, at once!" Several timeshe 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!" shoutedNastasya, banging with her fist on the door. "For whole days togetherhe's snoring here like a dog! A dog he is too. Open I tell you. It'spast 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 apositive pain.
"Then who can have latched the door?" retorted Nastasya. "He's taken tobolting himself in! As if he were worth stealing! Open, you stupid, wakeup!"
"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 thebed. Yes; the porter and Nastasya were standing there.
Nastasya stared at him in a strange way. He glanced with a defiant anddesperate air at the porter, who without a word held out a grey foldedpaper sealed with bottle-wax.
"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 togo away.
"He's downright ill!" observed Nastasya, not taking her eyes off him.The porter turned his head for a moment. "He's been in a fever sinceyesterday," she added.
Raskolnikov made no response and held the
paper in his hands, withoutopening it. "Don't you get up then," Nastasya went on compassionately,seeing that he was letting his feet down from the sofa. "You're ill, andso don't go; there's no such hurry. What have you got there?"
He looked; in his right hand he held the shreds he had cut from histrousers, the sock, and the rags of the pocket. So he had been asleepwith them in his hand. Afterwards reflecting upon it, he remembered thathalf waking up in his fever, he had grasped all this tightly in his handand so fallen asleep again.
"Look at the rags he's collected and sleeps with them, as though he hasgot hold of a treasure..."
And Nastasya went off into her hysterical giggle.
Instantly he thrust them all under his great coat and fixed hiseyes intently upon her. Far as he was from being capable of rationalreflection at that moment, he felt that no one would behave like thatwith a person who was going to be arrested. "But... the police?"
"You'd better have some tea! Yes? I'll bring it, there's some left."
"No... I'm going; I'll go at once," he muttered, getting on to his feet.
"Why, you'll never get downstairs!"
"Yes, I'll go."
"As you please."
She followed the porter out.
At once he rushed to the light to examine the sock and the rags.
"There are stains, but not very noticeable; all covered with dirt,and rubbed and already discoloured. No one who had no suspicion coulddistinguish anything. Nastasya from a distance could not have noticed,thank God!" Then with a tremor he broke the seal of the notice and beganreading; he was a long while reading, before he understood. It was anordinary summons from the district police-station to appear that day athalf-past nine at the office of the district superintendent.
"But when has such a thing happened? I never have anything to do withthe police! And why just to-day?" he thought in agonising bewilderment."Good God, only get it over soon!"
He was flinging himself on his knees to pray, but broke intolaughter--not at the idea of prayer, but at himself.
He began, hurriedly dressing. "If I'm lost, I am lost, I don't care!Shall I put the sock on?" he suddenly wondered, "it will get dustierstill and the traces will be gone."
But no sooner had he put it on than he pulled it off again in loathingand horror. He pulled it off, but reflecting that he had no other socks,he picked it up and put it on again--and again he laughed.
"That's all conventional, that's all relative, merely a way of lookingat it," he thought in a flash, but only on the top surface of hismind, while he was shuddering all over, "there, I've got it on! I havefinished by getting it on!"
But his laughter was quickly followed by despair.
"No, it's too much for me..." he thought. His legs shook. "From fear,"he muttered. His head swam and ached with fever. "It's a trick! Theywant to decoy me there and confound me over everything," he mused, ashe went out on to the stairs--"the worst of it is I'm almostlight-headed... I may blurt out something stupid..."
On the stairs he remembered that he was leaving all the things just asthey were in the hole in the wall, "and very likely, it's on purposeto search when I'm out," he thought, and stopped short. But he waspossessed by such despair, such cynicism of misery, if one may so callit, that with a wave of his hand he went on. "Only to get it over!"
In the street the heat was insufferable again; not a drop of rain hadfallen all those days. Again dust, bricks and mortar, again the stenchfrom the shops and pot-houses, again the drunken men, the Finnishpedlars and half-broken-down cabs. The sun shone straight in his eyes,so that it hurt him to look out of them, and he felt his head goinground--as a man in a fever is apt to feel when he comes out into thestreet on a bright sunny day.
When he reached the turning into _the_ street, in an agony oftrepidation he looked down it... at _the_ house... and at once avertedhis eyes.
"If they question me, perhaps I'll simply tell," he thought, as he drewnear the police-station.
The police-station was about a quarter of a mile off. It had lately beenmoved to new rooms on the fourth floor of a new house. He had been oncefor a moment in the old office but long ago. Turning in at the gateway,he saw on the right a flight of stairs which a peasant was mounting witha book in his hand. "A house-porter, no doubt; so then, the office ishere," and he began ascending the stairs on the chance. He did not wantto ask questions of anyone.
"I'll go in, fall on my knees, and confess everything..." he thought, ashe reached the fourth floor.
The staircase was steep, narrow and all sloppy with dirty water. Thekitchens of the flats opened on to the stairs and stood open almostthe whole day. So there was a fearful smell and heat. The staircasewas crowded with porters going up and down with their books under theirarms, policemen, and persons of all sorts and both sexes. The door ofthe office, too, stood wide open. Peasants stood waiting within. There,too, the heat was stifling and there was a sickening smell of freshpaint and stale oil from the newly decorated rooms.
After waiting a little, he decided to move forward into the next room.All the rooms were small and low-pitched. A fearful impatience drew himon and on. No one paid attention to him. In the second room someclerks sat writing, dressed hardly better than he was, and rather aqueer-looking set. He went up to one of them.
"What is it?"
He showed the notice he had received.
"You are a student?" the man asked, glancing at the notice.
"Yes, formerly a student."
The clerk looked at him, but without the slightest interest. He was aparticularly unkempt person with the look of a fixed idea in his eye.
"There would be no getting anything out of him, because he has nointerest in anything," thought Raskolnikov.
"Go in there to the head clerk," said the clerk, pointing towards thefurthest room.
He went into that room--the fourth in order; it was a small room andpacked full of people, rather better dressed than in the outer rooms.Among them were two ladies. One, poorly dressed in mourning, sat at thetable opposite the chief clerk, writing something at his dictation.The other, a very stout, buxom woman with a purplish-red, blotchy face,excessively smartly dressed with a brooch on her bosom as big as asaucer, was standing on one side, apparently waiting for something.Raskolnikov thrust his notice upon the head clerk. The latter glancedat it, said: "Wait a minute," and went on attending to the lady inmourning.
He breathed more freely. "It can't be that!"
By degrees he began to regain confidence, he kept urging himself to havecourage and be calm.
"Some foolishness, some trifling carelessness, and I may betray myself!Hm... it's a pity there's no air here," he added, "it's stifling.... Itmakes one's head dizzier than ever... and one's mind too..."
He was conscious of a terrible inner turmoil. He was afraid of losinghis self-control; he tried to catch at something and fix his mind on it,something quite irrelevant, but he could not succeed in this at all. Yetthe head clerk greatly interested him, he kept hoping to see through himand guess something from his face.
He was a very young man, about two and twenty, with a dark mobileface that looked older than his years. He was fashionably dressed andfoppish, with his hair parted in the middle, well combed and pomaded,and wore a number of rings on his well-scrubbed fingers and a gold chainon his waistcoat. He said a couple of words in French to a foreigner whowas in the room, and said them fairly correctly.
"Luise Ivanovna, you can sit down," he said casually to thegaily-dressed, purple-faced lady, who was still standing as though notventuring to sit down, though there was a chair beside her.
"Ich danke," said the latter, and softly, with a rustle of silk she sankinto the chair. Her light blue dress trimmed with white lace floatedabout the table like an air-balloon and filled almost half the room. Shesmelt of scent. But she was obviously embarrassed at filling halfthe room and smelling so strongly of scent; and though her smile wasimpudent as well as cringing, it betrayed evident uneasiness.
The lady in
mourning had done at last, and got up. All at once, withsome noise, an officer walked in very jauntily, with a peculiar swing ofhis shoulders at each step. He tossed his cockaded cap on the table andsat down in an easy-chair. The small lady positively skipped from herseat on seeing him, and fell to curtsying in a sort of ecstasy; but theofficer took not the smallest notice of her, and she did not venture tosit down again in his presence. He was the assistant superintendent. Hehad a reddish moustache that stood out horizontally on each side of hisface, and extremely small features, expressive of nothing much excepta certain insolence. He looked askance and rather indignantly atRaskolnikov; he was so very badly dressed, and in spite of hishumiliating position, his bearing was by no means in keeping with hisclothes. Raskolnikov had unwarily fixed a very long and direct look onhim, so that he felt positively affronted.
"What do you want?" he shouted, apparently astonished that such a raggedfellow was not annihilated by the majesty of his glance.
"I was summoned... by a notice..." Raskolnikov faltered.
"For the recovery of money due, from _the student_," the head clerkinterfered hurriedly, tearing himself from his papers. "Here!" and heflung Raskolnikov a document and pointed out the place. "Read that!"
"Money? What money?" thought Raskolnikov, "but... then... it's certainlynot _that_."
And he trembled with joy. He felt sudden intense indescribable relief. Aload was lifted from his back.
"And pray, what time were you directed to appear, sir?" shouted theassistant superintendent, seeming for some unknown reason more and moreaggrieved. "You are told to come at nine, and now it's twelve!"
"The notice was only brought me a quarter of an hour ago," Raskolnikovanswered loudly over his shoulder. To his own surprise he, too, grewsuddenly angry and found a certain pleasure in it. "And it's enough thatI have come here ill with fever."
"Kindly refrain from shouting!"
"I'm not shouting, I'm speaking very quietly, it's you who are shoutingat me. I'm a student, and allow no one to shout at me."
The assistant superintendent was so furious that for the first minute hecould only splutter inarticulately. He leaped up from his seat.
"Be silent! You are in a government office. Don't be impudent, sir!"
"You're in a government office, too," cried Raskolnikov, "and you'resmoking a cigarette as well as shouting, so you are showing disrespectto all of us."
He felt an indescribable satisfaction at having said this.
The head clerk looked at him with a smile. The angry assistantsuperintendent was obviously disconcerted.
"That's not your business!" he shouted at last with unnatural loudness."Kindly make the declaration demanded of you. Show him. AlexandrGrigorievitch. There is a complaint against you! You don't pay yourdebts! You're a fine bird!"
But Raskolnikov was not listening now; he had eagerly clutched at thepaper, in haste to find an explanation. He read it once, and a secondtime, and still did not understand.
"What is this?" he asked the head clerk.
"It is for the recovery of money on an I O U, a writ. You musteither pay it, with all expenses, costs and so on, or give a writtendeclaration when you can pay it, and at the same time an undertaking notto leave the capital without payment, and nor to sell or conceal yourproperty. The creditor is at liberty to sell your property, and proceedagainst you according to the law."
"But I... am not in debt to anyone!"
"That's not our business. Here, an I O U for a hundred and fifteenroubles, legally attested, and due for payment, has been brought usfor recovery, given by you to the widow of the assessor Zarnitsyn, ninemonths ago, and paid over by the widow Zarnitsyn to one Mr. Tchebarov.We therefore summon you, hereupon."
"But she is my landlady!"
"And what if she is your landlady?"
The head clerk looked at him with a condescending smile of compassion,and at the same time with a certain triumph, as at a novice under firefor the first time--as though he would say: "Well, how do you feel now?"But what did he care now for an I O U, for a writ of recovery! Was thatworth worrying about now, was it worth attention even! He stood, heread, he listened, he answered, he even asked questions himself, butall mechanically. The triumphant sense of security, of deliverance fromoverwhelming danger, that was what filled his whole soul that momentwithout thought for the future, without analysis, without suppositionsor surmises, without doubts and without questioning. It was an instantof full, direct, purely instinctive joy. But at that very momentsomething like a thunderstorm took place in the office. The assistantsuperintendent, still shaken by Raskolnikov's disrespect, still fumingand obviously anxious to keep up his wounded dignity, pounced on theunfortunate smart lady, who had been gazing at him ever since he came inwith an exceedingly silly smile.
"You shameful hussy!" he shouted suddenly at the top of his voice. (Thelady in mourning had left the office.) "What was going on at your houselast night? Eh! A disgrace again, you're a scandal to the whole street.Fighting and drinking again. Do you want the house of correction? Why,I have warned you ten times over that I would not let you off theeleventh! And here you are again, again, you... you...!"
The paper fell out of Raskolnikov's hands, and he looked wildly at thesmart lady who was so unceremoniously treated. But he soon saw what itmeant, and at once began to find positive amusement in the scandal. Helistened with pleasure, so that he longed to laugh and laugh... all hisnerves were on edge.
"Ilya Petrovitch!" the head clerk was beginning anxiously, but stoppedshort, for he knew from experience that the enraged assistant could notbe stopped except by force.
As for the smart lady, at first she positively trembled before thestorm. But, strange to say, the more numerous and violent the terms ofabuse became, the more amiable she looked, and the more seductive thesmiles she lavished on the terrible assistant. She moved uneasily, andcurtsied incessantly, waiting impatiently for a chance of putting in herword: and at last she found it.
"There was no sort of noise or fighting in my house, Mr. Captain," shepattered all at once, like peas dropping, speaking Russian confidently,though with a strong German accent, "and no sort of scandal, and hishonour came drunk, and it's the whole truth I am telling, Mr. Captain,and I am not to blame.... Mine is an honourable house, Mr. Captain,and honourable behaviour, Mr. Captain, and I always, always dislike anyscandal myself. But he came quite tipsy, and asked for three bottlesagain, and then he lifted up one leg, and began playing the pianofortewith one foot, and that is not at all right in an honourable house, andhe _ganz_ broke the piano, and it was very bad manners indeed and I saidso. And he took up a bottle and began hitting everyone with it. And thenI called the porter, and Karl came, and he took Karl and hit him in theeye; and he hit Henriette in the eye, too, and gave me five slaps on thecheek. And it was so ungentlemanly in an honourable house, Mr. Captain,and I screamed. And he opened the window over the canal, and stood inthe window, squealing like a little pig; it was a disgrace. The idea ofsquealing like a little pig at the window into the street! Fie upon him!And Karl pulled him away from the window by his coat, and it is true,Mr. Captain, he tore _sein rock_. And then he shouted that _man muss_pay him fifteen roubles damages. And I did pay him, Mr. Captain, fiveroubles for _sein rock_. And he is an ungentlemanly visitor and causedall the scandal. 'I will show you up,' he said, 'for I can write to allthe papers about you.'"
"Then he was an author?"
"Yes, Mr. Captain, and what an ungentlemanly visitor in an honourablehouse...."
"Now then! Enough! I have told you already..."
"Ilya Petrovitch!" the head clerk repeated significantly.
The assistant glanced rapidly at him; the head clerk slightly shook hishead.
"... So I tell you this, most respectable Luise Ivanovna, and I tell ityou for the last time," the assistant went on. "If there is a scandalin your honourable house once again, I will put you yourself in thelock-up, as it is called in polite society. Do you hear? So a literaryman, an author took five rou
bles for his coat-tail in an 'honourablehouse'? A nice set, these authors!"
And he cast a contemptuous glance at Raskolnikov. "There was a scandalthe other day in a restaurant, too. An author had eaten his dinner andwould not pay; 'I'll write a satire on you,' says he. And there wasanother of them on a steamer last week used the most disgracefullanguage to the respectable family of a civil councillor, his wife anddaughter. And there was one of them turned out of a confectioner's shopthe other day. They are like that, authors, literary men, students,town-criers.... Pfoo! You get along! I shall look in upon you myself oneday. Then you had better be careful! Do you hear?"
With hurried deference, Luise Ivanovna fell to curtsying in alldirections, and so curtsied herself to the door. But at the door, shestumbled backwards against a good-looking officer with a fresh, openface and splendid thick fair whiskers. This was the superintendent ofthe district himself, Nikodim Fomitch. Luise Ivanovna made hasteto curtsy almost to the ground, and with mincing little steps, shefluttered out of the office.
"Again thunder and lightning--a hurricane!" said Nikodim Fomitch to IlyaPetrovitch in a civil and friendly tone. "You are aroused again, you arefuming again! I heard it on the stairs!"
"Well, what then!" Ilya Petrovitch drawled with gentlemanly nonchalance;and he walked with some papers to another table, with a jaunty swing ofhis shoulders at each step. "Here, if you will kindly look: an author,or a student, has been one at least, does not pay his debts, has givenan I O U, won't clear out of his room, and complaints are constantlybeing lodged against him, and here he has been pleased to make a protestagainst my smoking in his presence! He behaves like a cad himself, andjust look at him, please. Here's the gentleman, and very attractive heis!"
"Poverty is not a vice, my friend, but we know you go off like powder,you can't bear a slight, I daresay you took offence at something andwent too far yourself," continued Nikodim Fomitch, turning affably toRaskolnikov. "But you were wrong there; he is a capital fellow, I assureyou, but explosive, explosive! He gets hot, fires up, boils over, and nostopping him! And then it's all over! And at the bottom he's a heart ofgold! His nickname in the regiment was the Explosive Lieutenant...."
"And what a regiment it was, too," cried Ilya Petrovitch, much gratifiedat this agreeable banter, though still sulky.
Raskolnikov had a sudden desire to say something exceptionally pleasantto them all. "Excuse me, Captain," he began easily, suddenly addressingNikodim Fomitch, "will you enter into my position?... I am ready toask pardon, if I have been ill-mannered. I am a poor student, sickand shattered (shattered was the word he used) by poverty. I am notstudying, because I cannot keep myself now, but I shall get money.... Ihave a mother and sister in the province of X. They will send it tome, and I will pay. My landlady is a good-hearted woman, but she is soexasperated at my having lost my lessons, and not paying her for thelast four months, that she does not even send up my dinner... and Idon't understand this I O U at all. She is asking me to pay her on thisI O U. How am I to pay her? Judge for yourselves!..."
"But that is not our business, you know," the head clerk was observing.
"Yes, yes. I perfectly agree with you. But allow me to explain..."Raskolnikov put in again, still addressing Nikodim Fomitch, but tryinghis best to address Ilya Petrovitch also, though the latter persistentlyappeared to be rummaging among his papers and to be contemptuouslyoblivious of him. "Allow me to explain that I have been living with herfor nearly three years and at first... at first... for why should I notconfess it, at the very beginning I promised to marry her daughter, itwas a verbal promise, freely given... she was a girl... indeed, I likedher, though I was not in love with her... a youthful affair in fact...that is, I mean to say, that my landlady gave me credit freely in thosedays, and I led a life of... I was very heedless..."
"Nobody asks you for these personal details, sir, we've no time towaste," Ilya Petrovitch interposed roughly and with a note of triumph;but Raskolnikov stopped him hotly, though he suddenly found itexceedingly difficult to speak.
"But excuse me, excuse me. It is for me to explain... how it allhappened... In my turn... though I agree with you... it is unnecessary.But a year ago, the girl died of typhus. I remained lodging there asbefore, and when my landlady moved into her present quarters, she saidto me... and in a friendly way... that she had complete trust in me,but still, would I not give her an I O U for one hundred and fifteenroubles, all the debt I owed her. She said if only I gave her that,she would trust me again, as much as I liked, and that she would never,never--those were her own words--make use of that I O U till I could payof myself... and now, when I have lost my lessons and have nothing toeat, she takes action against me. What am I to say to that?"
"All these affecting details are no business of ours." Ilya Petrovitchinterrupted rudely. "You must give a written undertaking but as for yourlove affairs and all these tragic events, we have nothing to do withthat."
"Come now... you are harsh," muttered Nikodim Fomitch, sitting down atthe table and also beginning to write. He looked a little ashamed.
"Write!" said the head clerk to Raskolnikov.
"Write what?" the latter asked, gruffly.
"I will dictate to you."
Raskolnikov fancied that the head clerk treated him more casually andcontemptuously after his speech, but strange to say he suddenly feltcompletely indifferent to anyone's opinion, and this revulsion tookplace in a flash, in one instant. If he had cared to think a little,he would have been amazed indeed that he could have talked to them likethat a minute before, forcing his feelings upon them. And where hadthose feelings come from? Now if the whole room had been filled, notwith police officers, but with those nearest and dearest to him, hewould not have found one human word for them, so empty was his heart. Agloomy sensation of agonising, everlasting solitude and remoteness, tookconscious form in his soul. It was not the meanness of his sentimentaleffusions before Ilya Petrovitch, nor the meanness of the latter'striumph over him that had caused this sudden revulsion in his heart.Oh, what had he to do now with his own baseness, with all these pettyvanities, officers, German women, debts, police-offices? If he had beensentenced to be burnt at that moment, he would not have stirred, wouldhardly have heard the sentence to the end. Something was happening tohim entirely new, sudden and unknown. It was not that he understood, buthe felt clearly with all the intensity of sensation that he couldnever more appeal to these people in the police-office with sentimentaleffusions like his recent outburst, or with anything whatever; and thatif they had been his own brothers and sisters and not police-officers,it would have been utterly out of the question to appeal to them in anycircumstance of life. He had never experienced such a strange and awfulsensation. And what was most agonising--it was more a sensation than aconception or idea, a direct sensation, the most agonising of all thesensations he had known in his life.
The head clerk began dictating to him the usual form of declaration,that he could not pay, that he undertook to do so at a future date, thathe would not leave the town, nor sell his property, and so on.
"But you can't write, you can hardly hold the pen," observed the headclerk, looking with curiosity at Raskolnikov. "Are you ill?"
"Yes, I am giddy. Go on!"
"That's all. Sign it."
The head clerk took the paper, and turned to attend to others.
Raskolnikov gave back the pen; but instead of getting up and going away,he put his elbows on the table and pressed his head in his hands. Hefelt as if a nail were being driven into his skull. A strange ideasuddenly occurred to him, to get up at once, to go up to NikodimFomitch, and tell him everything that had happened yesterday, and thento go with him to his lodgings and to show him the things in the holein the corner. The impulse was so strong that he got up from his seatto carry it out. "Hadn't I better think a minute?" flashed through hismind. "No, better cast off the burden without thinking." But all at oncehe stood still, rooted to the spot. Nikodim Fomitch was talking eagerlywith Ilya Petrovitch, and the words reached
him:
"It's impossible, they'll both be released. To begin with, the wholestory contradicts itself. Why should they have called the porter, if ithad been their doing? To inform against themselves? Or as a blind? No,that would be too cunning! Besides, Pestryakov, the student, was seen atthe gate by both the porters and a woman as he went in. He was walkingwith three friends, who left him only at the gate, and he asked theporters to direct him, in the presence of the friends. Now, would hehave asked his way if he had been going with such an object? As forKoch, he spent half an hour at the silversmith's below, before he wentup to the old woman and he left him at exactly a quarter to eight. Nowjust consider..."
"But excuse me, how do you explain this contradiction? They statethemselves that they knocked and the door was locked; yet three minuteslater when they went up with the porter, it turned out the door wasunfastened."
"That's just it; the murderer must have been there and bolted himselfin; and they'd have caught him for a certainty if Koch had not beenan ass and gone to look for the porter too. _He_ must have seized theinterval to get downstairs and slip by them somehow. Koch keeps crossinghimself and saying: 'If I had been there, he would have jumped out andkilled me with his axe.' He is going to have a thanksgiving service--ha,ha!"
"And no one saw the murderer?"
"They might well not see him; the house is a regular Noah's Ark," saidthe head clerk, who was listening.
"It's clear, quite clear," Nikodim Fomitch repeated warmly.
"No, it is anything but clear," Ilya Petrovitch maintained.
Raskolnikov picked up his hat and walked towards the door, but he didnot reach it....
When he recovered consciousness, he found himself sitting in a chair,supported by someone on the right side, while someone else was standingon the left, holding a yellowish glass filled with yellow water, andNikodim Fomitch standing before him, looking intently at him. He got upfrom the chair.
"What's this? Are you ill?" Nikodim Fomitch asked, rather sharply.
"He could hardly hold his pen when he was signing," said the head clerk,settling back in his place, and taking up his work again.
"Have you been ill long?" cried Ilya Petrovitch from his place, wherehe, too, was looking through papers. He had, of course, come to look atthe sick man when he fainted, but retired at once when he recovered.
"Since yesterday," muttered Raskolnikov in reply.
"Did you go out yesterday?"
"Yes."
"Though you were ill?"
"Yes."
"At what time?"
"About seven."
"And where did you go, may I ask?"
"Along the street."
"Short and clear."
Raskolnikov, white as a handkerchief, had answered sharply, jerkily,without dropping his black feverish eyes before Ilya Petrovitch's stare.
"He can scarcely stand upright. And you..." Nikodim Fomitch wasbeginning.
"No matter," Ilya Petrovitch pronounced rather peculiarly.
Nikodim Fomitch would have made some further protest, but glancing atthe head clerk who was looking very hard at him, he did not speak. Therewas a sudden silence. It was strange.
"Very well, then," concluded Ilya Petrovitch, "we will not detain you."
Raskolnikov went out. He caught the sound of eager conversation on hisdeparture, and above the rest rose the questioning voice of NikodimFomitch. In the street, his faintness passed off completely.
"A search--there will be a search at once," he repeated to himself,hurrying home. "The brutes! they suspect."
His former terror mastered him completely again.