On an exceptionally hot evening early in July a young man came
out of the garret in which he lodged in S. Place and walked slowly,
as though in hesitation, towards K. bridge.
He had successfully avoided meeting his landlady on the
staircase. His garret was under the roof of a high, five-storied
house and was more like a cupboard than a room. The landlady who
provided him with garret, dinners, and attendance, lived on the
floor below, and every time he went out he was obliged to pass her
kitchen, the door of which invariably stood open. And each time he
passed, the young man had a sick, frightened feeling, which made
him scowl and feel ashamed. He was hopelessly in debt to his
landlady, and was afraid of meeting her.
This was not because he was cowardly and abject, quite the
contrary; but for some time past he had been in an overstrained
irritable condition, verging on hypochondria. He had become so
completely absorbed in himself, and isolated from his fellows that
he dreaded meeting, not only his landlady, but anyone at all. He
was crushed by poverty, but the anxieties of his position had of
late ceased to weigh upon him. He had given up attending to matters
of practical importance; he had lost all desire to do so. Nothing
that any landlady could do had a real terror for him. But to be
stopped on the stairs, to be forced to listen to her trivial,
irrelevant gossip, to pestering demands for payment, threats and
complaints, and to rack his brains for excuses, to prevaricate, to
lie—no, rather than that, he would creep down the stairs like a cat
and slip out unseen.
This evening, however, on coming out into the street, he became
acutely aware of his fears.
"I want to attempt a thing like that and am frightened by these
trifles," he thought, with an odd smile. "Hm … yes, all is in
a man's hands and he lets it all slip from cowardice, that's an
axiom. It would be interesting to know what it is men are most
afraid of. Taking a new step, uttering a new word is what they fear
most… . But I am talking too much. It's because I chatter that I do
nothing. Or perhaps it is that I chatter because I do nothing. I've
learned to chatter this last month, lying for days together in my
den thinking … of Jack the Giant-killer. Why am I going there
now? Am I capable of that? Is that serious? It is not serious at
all. It's simply a fantasy to amuse myself; a plaything! Yes, maybe
it is a plaything."
The heat in the street was terrible: and the airlessness, the
bustle and the plaster, scaffolding, bricks, and dust all about
him, and that special Petersburg stench, so familiar to all who are
unable to get out of town in summer—all worked painfully upon the
young man's already overwrought nerves. The insufferable stench
from the pot- houses, which are particularly numerous in that part
of the town, and the drunken men whom he met continually, although
it was a working day, completed the revolting misery of the
picture. An expression of the profoundest disgust gleamed for a
moment in the young man's refined face. He was, by the way,
exceptionally handsome, above the average in height, slim,
well-built, with beautiful dark eyes and dark brown hair. Soon he
sank into deep thought, or more accurately speaking into a complete
blankness of mind; he walked along not observing what was about him
and not caring to observe it. From time to time, he would mutter
something, from the habit of talking to himself, to which he had
just confessed. At these moments he would become conscious that his
ideas were sometimes in a tangle and that he was very weak; for two
days he had scarcely tasted food.
He was so badly dressed that even a man accustomed to shabbiness
would have been ashamed to be seen in the street in such rags. In
that quarter of the town, however, scarcely any shortcoming in
dress would have created surprise. Owing to the proximity of the
Hay Market, the number of establishments of bad character, the
preponderance of the trading and working class population crowded
in these streets and alleys in the heart of Petersburg, types so
various were to be seen in the streets that no figure, however
queer, would have caused surprise. But there was such accumulated
bitterness and contempt in the young man's heart, that, in spite of
all the fastidiousness of youth, he minded his rags least of all in
the street. It was a different matter when he met with
acquaintances or with former fellow students, whom, indeed, he
disliked meeting at any time. And yet when a drunken man who, for
some unknown reason, was being taken somewhere in a huge waggon
dragged by a heavy dray horse, suddenly shouted at him as he drove
past: "Hey there, German hatter" bawling at the top of his voice
and pointing at him—the young man stopped suddenly and clutched
tremulously at his hat. It was a tall round hat from Zimmerman's,
but completely worn out, rusty with age, all torn and bespattered,
brimless and bent on one side in a most unseemly fashion. Not
shame, however, but quite another feeling akin to terror had
overtaken him.
"I knew it," he muttered in confusion, "I thought so! That's the
worst of all! Why, a stupid thing like this, the most trivial
detail might spoil the whole plan. Yes, my hat is too noticeable… .
It looks absurd and that makes it noticeable… . With my rags I
ought to wear a cap, any sort of old pancake, but not this
grotesque thing. Nobody wears such a hat, it would be noticed a
mile off, it would be remembered… . What matters is that people
would remember it, and that would give them a clue. For this
business one should be as little conspicuous as possible… .
Trifles, trifles are what matter! Why, it's just such trifles that
always ruin everything… ."
He had not far to go; he knew indeed how many steps it was from
the gate of his lodging house: exactly seven hundred and thirty. He
had counted them once when he had been lost in dreams. At the time
he had put no faith in those dreams and was only tantalising
himself by their hideous but daring recklessness. Now, a month
later, he had begun to look upon them differently, and, in spite of
the monologues in which he jeered at his own impotence and
indecision, he had involuntarily come to regard this "hideous"
dream as an exploit to be attempted, although he still did not
realise this himself. He was positively going now for a "rehearsal"
of his project, and at every step his excitement grew more and more
violent.
With a sinking heart and a nervous tremor, he went up to a huge
house which on one side looked on to the canal, and on the other
into the street. This house was let out in tiny tenements and was
inhabited by working people of all kinds—tailors, locksmiths,
cooks, Germans of sorts, girls picking up a living as best they
could, petty clerks, etc. There was a continual coming and going
through the two gates and in the two courtyards of the house. Three
or four door-keepers were employed on the building. The young man
was very glad to meet none of them, and at once slipped unnoticed
through the door on the right, and up the staircase. It was a back
staircase, dark and narrow, but he was familiar with it already,
and knew his way, and he liked all these surroundings: in such
darkness even the most inquisitive eyes were not to be dreaded.
"If I am so scared now, what would it be if it somehow came to
pass that I were really going to do it?" he could not help asking
himself as he reached the fourth storey. There his progress was
barred by some porters who were engaged in moving furniture out of
a flat. He knew that the flat had been occupied by a German clerk
in the civil service, and his family. This German was moving out
then, and so the fourth floor on this staircase would be untenanted
except by the old woman. "That's a good thing anyway," he thought
to himself, as he rang the bell of the old woman's flat. The bell
gave a faint tinkle as though it were made of tin and not of
copper. The little flats in such houses always have bells that ring
like that. He had forgotten the note of that bell, and now its
peculiar tinkle seemed to remind him of something and to bring it
clearly before him… . He started, his nerves were terribly
overstrained by now. In a little while, the door was opened a tiny
crack: the old woman eyed her visitor with evident distrust through
the crack, and nothing could be seen but her little eyes,
glittering in the darkness. But, seeing a number of people on the
landing, she grew bolder, and opened the door wide. The young man
stepped into the dark entry, which was partitioned off from the
tiny kitchen. The old woman stood facing him in silence and looking
inquiringly at him. She was a diminutive, withered up old woman of
sixty, with sharp malignant eyes and a sharp little nose. Her
colourless, somewhat grizzled hair was thickly smeared with oil,
and she wore no kerchief over it. Round her thin long neck, which
looked like a hen's leg, was knotted some sort of flannel rag, and,
in spite of the heat, there hung flapping on her shoulders, a mangy
fur cape, yellow with age. The old woman coughed and groaned at
every instant. The young man must have looked at her with a rather
peculiar expression, for a gleam of mistrust came into her eyes
again.
"Raskolnikov, a student, I came here a month ago," the young man
made haste to mutter, with a half bow, remembering that he ought to
be more polite.
"I remember, my good sir, I remember quite well your coming
here," the old woman said distinctly, still keeping her inquiring
eyes on his face.
"And here … I am again on the same errand," Raskolnikov
continued, a little disconcerted and surprised at the old woman's
mistrust. "Perhaps she is always like that though, only I did not
notice it the other time," he thought with an uneasy feeling.
The old woman paused, as though hesitating; then stepped on one
side, and pointing to the door of the room, she said, letting her
visitor pass in front of her:
"Step in, my good sir."
The little room into which the young man walked, with yellow
paper on the walls, geraniums and muslin curtains in the windows,
was brightly lighted up at that moment by the setting sun.
"So the sun will shine like this then too!" flashed as it were
by chance through Raskolnikov's mind, and with a rapid glance he
scanned everything in the room, trying as far 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, consisted of
a sofa with a huge bent wooden back, an oval table in front of the
sofa, a dressing-table with a looking-glass fixed on it between the
windows, chairs along the walls and two or three half-penny prints
in yellow frames, representing German damsels with birds in their
hands—that was all. In the corner a light was burning before a
small ikon. Everything was very clean; the floor and the furniture
were brightly polished; everything shone.
"Lizaveta's work," thought the young man. There was not a speck
of dust to be seen in the whole flat.
"It's in the houses of spiteful old widows that one finds such
cleanliness," Raskolnikov thought again, and he stole a curious
glance at the cotton curtain over the door leading into another
tiny room, in which stood the old woman's bed and chest of drawers
and into which he had never looked before. These two rooms made up
the whole flat.
"What do you want?" the old woman said severely, coming into the
room and, as before, standing in front of him so as to look him
straight in the face.
"I've brought something to pawn here," and he drew out of his
pocket an old-fashioned flat silver watch, on the back of which was
engraved a globe; the chain was of steel.
"But the time is up for your last pledge. The month was up the
day before yesterday."
"I will bring you the interest 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 pledge at once."
"How much will you give me for the watch, Alyona Ivanovna?"
"You come with such trifles, my good sir, it's scarcely worth
anything. I gave you two roubles last time for your ring and one
could buy it quite new at a jeweler's for a rouble and a half."
"Give me four roubles for it, I shall redeem it, it was my
father's. I shall be getting some money soon."
"A rouble and a half, and interest in advance, if you like!"
"A rouble and a half!" cried the young man.
"Please yourself"—and the old woman handed him back the watch.
The young man took it, and was so angry that he was on the point of
going away; but checked himself at once, remembering that there was
nowhere else he could go, and that he had had another object also
in coming.
"Hand it over," he said roughly.
The old woman fumbled in her pocket for her keys, and
disappeared behind the curtain into the other room. The young man,
left standing alone in the middle of the room, listened
inquisitively, thinking. He could hear her unlocking the chest of
drawers.
"It must be the top drawer," he reflected. "So she carries the
keys in a pocket on the right. All in one bunch on a steel ring… .
And there's one key there, three times as big as all the others,
with deep notches; that can't be the key of the chest of
drawers … then there must be some other chest or
strong-box … that's worth knowing. Strong-boxes always have
keys like that … but how degrading it all is."
The old woman came back.
"Here, sir: as we say ten copecks the rouble a month, so I must
take fifteen copecks from a rouble and a half for the month in
advance. But for the two roubles I lent you before, you owe me now
twenty copecks on the same reckoning in advance. That makes
thirty-five copecks altogether. So I must give you a rouble and
fifteen copecks for the watch. Here it is."
"What! only a rouble and fifteen copecks now!"
"Just so."
The young man did not dispute it and took the money. He looked
at the old woman, and was in no hurry to get away, as though there
was still something he wanted to say or to do, but he did not
himself quite know what.
"I may be bringing you something else in a day or two, Alyona
Ivanovna —a valuable thing—silver—a cigarette-box, as soon as I get
it back from a friend … " he broke 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 casually as possible as he went out into
the passage.
"What business is she of yours, my good sir?"
"Oh, nothing particular, I simply asked. You are too quick… .
Good-day, Alyona Ivanovna."
Raskolnikov went out in complete confusion. This confusion
became more and more intense. As he went down the stairs, he even
stopped short, two or three times, as though suddenly struck by
some thought. When he was in the street he cried out, "Oh, God, how
loathsome it all is! and can I, can I possibly… . No, it's
nonsense, it's rubbish!" he added resolutely. "And how could such
an atrocious thing come into my head? What filthy things my heart
is capable of. Yes, filthy above all, disgusting, loathsome,
loathsome!—and for a whole month I've been… ." But no words, no
exclamations, could express his agitation. The feeling of intense
repulsion, which had begun to oppress and torture his heart while
he was on his way to the old woman, had by now reached such a pitch
and had taken such a definite form that he did not know what to do
with himself to escape from his wretchedness. He walked along the
pavement like a drunken man, regardless of the passers-by, and
jostling against them, and only came to his senses when he was in
the next street. Looking round, he noticed that he was standing
close to a tavern which was entered by steps leading from the
pavement to the basement. At that instant two drunken men came out
at the door, and abusing and supporting one another, they mounted
the steps. Without stopping to think, Raskolnikov went down the
steps at once. Till that moment he had never been into a tavern,
but now he felt giddy and was tormented by a burning thirst. He
longed for a drink of cold beer, and attributed his sudden weakness
to the want of food. He sat down at a sticky little table in a dark
and dirty corner; ordered some beer, and eagerly drank off the
first glassful. At once he felt easier; and his thoughts became
clear.
"All that's nonsense," he said hopefully, "and there is nothing
in it all to worry about! It's simply physical derangement. Just a
glass of beer, a piece of dry bread—and in one moment the brain is
stronger, the mind is clearer and the will is firm! Phew, how
utterly petty it all is!"
But in spite of this scornful reflection, he was by now looking
cheerful as though he were suddenly set free from a terrible
burden: and he gazed round in a friendly way at the people in the
room. But even at that moment he had a dim foreboding that this
happier frame of mind was also not normal.
There were few people at the time in the tavern. Besides the two
drunken men he had met on the steps, a group consisting of about
five men and a girl with a concertina had gone out at the same
time. Their departure left the room quiet and rather empty. The
persons still in the tavern were a man who appeared to be an
artisan, drunk, but not extremely so, sitting before a pot of beer,
and his companion, a huge, stout man with a grey beard, in a short
full-skirted coat. He was very drunk: and had dropped asleep on the
bench; every now and then, he began as though in his sleep,
cracking his fingers, with his arms wide apart and the upper part
of his body bounding about on the bench, while he hummed some
meaningless refrain, trying to recall some such lines as these:
"His wife a year he fondly loved
His wife a—a year he—fondly loved."
Or suddenly waking up again:
"Walking along the crowded row
He met the one he used to know."
But no one shared his enjoyment: his silent companion looked
with positive hostility and mistrust at all these manifestations.
There was another man in the room who looked somewhat like a
retired government clerk. He was sitting apart, now and then
sipping from his pot and looking round at the company. He, too,
appeared to be in some agitation.