CHAPTER II

<h2><a id="link2HCH0009"/>
  CHAPTER II
</h2>
<p>
  “And what if there has been a search already? What if I find them in my
  room?”
 </p>
<p>
  But here was his room. Nothing and no one in it. No one had peeped in.
  Even Nastasya had not touched it. But heavens! how could he have left all
  those things in the hole?
</p>
<p>
  He rushed to the corner, slipped his hand under the paper, pulled the
  things out and lined his pockets with them. There were eight articles in
  all: two little boxes with ear-rings or something of the sort, he hardly
  looked to see; then four small leather cases. There was a chain, too,
  merely wrapped in newspaper and something else in newspaper, that looked
  like a decoration.... He put them all in the different pockets of his
  overcoat, and the remaining pocket of his trousers, trying to conceal them
  as much as possible. He took the purse, too. Then he went out of his room,
  leaving the door open. He walked quickly and resolutely, and though he
  felt shattered, he had his senses about him. He was afraid of pursuit, he
  was afraid that in another half-hour, another quarter of an hour perhaps,
  instructions would be issued for his pursuit, and so at all costs, he must
  hide all traces before then. He must clear everything up while he still
  had some strength, some reasoning power left him.... Where was he to go?
</p>
<p>
  That had long been settled: “Fling them into the canal, and all traces
  hidden in the water, the thing would be at an end.” So he had decided in
  the night of his delirium when several times he had had the impulse to get
  up and go away, to make haste, and get rid of it all. But to get rid of
  it, turned out to be a very difficult task. He wandered along the bank of
  the Ekaterininsky Canal for half an hour or more and looked several times
  at the steps running down to the water, but he could not think of carrying
  out his plan; either rafts stood at the steps’ edge, and women were
  washing clothes on them, or boats were moored there, and people were
  swarming everywhere. Moreover he could be seen and noticed from the banks
  on all sides; it would look suspicious for a man to go down on purpose,
  stop, and throw something into the water. And what if the boxes were to
  float instead of sinking? And of course they would. Even as it was,
  everyone he met seemed to stare and look round, as if they had nothing to
  do but to watch him. “Why is it, or can it be my fancy?” he thought.
</p>
<p>
  At last the thought struck him that it might be better to go to the Neva.
  There were not so many people there, he would be less observed, and it
  would be more convenient in every way, above all it was further off. He
  wondered how he could have been wandering for a good half-hour, worried
  and anxious in this dangerous past without thinking of it before. And that
  half-hour he had lost over an irrational plan, simply because he had
  thought of it in delirium! He had become extremely absent and forgetful
  and he was aware of it. He certainly must make haste.
</p>
<p>
  He walked towards the Neva along V—— Prospect, but on the way
  another idea struck him. “Why to the Neva? Would it not be better to go
  somewhere far off, to the Islands again, and there hide the things in some
  solitary place, in a wood or under a bush, and mark the spot perhaps?” And
  though he felt incapable of clear judgment, the idea seemed to him a sound
  one. But he was not destined to go there. For coming out of V——
  Prospect towards the square, he saw on the left a passage leading between
  two blank walls to a courtyard. On the right hand, the blank unwhitewashed
  wall of a four-storied house stretched far into the court; on the left, a
  wooden hoarding ran parallel with it for twenty paces into the court, and
  then turned sharply to the left. Here was a deserted fenced-off place
  where rubbish of different sorts was lying. At the end of the court, the
  corner of a low, smutty, stone shed, apparently part of some workshop,
  peeped from behind the hoarding. It was probably a carriage builder’s or
  carpenter’s shed; the whole place from the entrance was black with coal
  dust. Here would be the place to throw it, he thought. Not seeing anyone
  in the yard, he slipped in, and at once saw near the gate a sink, such as
  is often put in yards where there are many workmen or cab-drivers; and on
  the hoarding above had been scribbled in chalk the time-honoured
  witticism, “Standing here strictly forbidden.” This was all the better,
  for there would be nothing suspicious about his going in. “Here I could
  throw it all in a heap and get away!”
 </p>
<p>
  Looking round once more, with his hand already in his pocket, he noticed
  against the outer wall, between the entrance and the sink, a big unhewn
  stone, weighing perhaps sixty pounds. The other side of the wall was a
  street. He could hear passers-by, always numerous in that part, but he
  could not be seen from the entrance, unless someone came in from the
  street, which might well happen indeed, so there was need of haste.
</p>
<p>
  He bent down over the stone, seized the top of it firmly in both hands,
  and using all his strength turned it over. Under the stone was a small
  hollow in the ground, and he immediately emptied his pocket into it. The
  purse lay at the top, and yet the hollow was not filled up. Then he seized
  the stone again and with one twist turned it back, so that it was in the
  same position again, though it stood a very little higher. But he scraped
  the earth about it and pressed it at the edges with his foot. Nothing
  could be noticed.
</p>
<p>
  Then he went out, and turned into the square. Again an intense, almost
  unbearable joy overwhelmed him for an instant, as it had in the
  police-office. “I have buried my tracks! And who, who can think of looking
  under that stone? It has been lying there most likely ever since the house
  was built, and will lie as many years more. And if it were found, who
  would think of me? It is all over! No clue!” And he laughed. Yes, he
  remembered that he began laughing a thin, nervous noiseless laugh, and
  went on laughing all the time he was crossing the square. But when he
  reached the K—— Boulevard where two days before he had come
  upon that girl, his laughter suddenly ceased. Other ideas crept into his
  mind. He felt all at once that it would be loathsome to pass that seat on
  which after the girl was gone, he had sat and pondered, and that it would
  be hateful, too, to meet that whiskered policeman to whom he had given the
  twenty copecks: “Damn him!”
 </p>
<p>
  He walked, looking about him angrily and distractedly. All his ideas now
  seemed to be circling round some single point, and he felt that there
  really was such a point, and that now, now, he was left facing that point—and
  for the first time, indeed, during the last two months.
</p>
<p>
  “Damn it all!” he thought suddenly, in a fit of ungovernable fury. “If it
  has begun, then it has begun. Hang the new life! Good Lord, how stupid it
  is!... And what lies I told to-day! How despicably I fawned upon that
  wretched Ilya Petrovitch! But that is all folly! What do I care for them
  all, and my fawning upon them! It is not that at all! It is not that at
  all!”
 </p>
<p>
  Suddenly he stopped; a new utterly unexpected and exceedingly simple
  question perplexed and bitterly confounded him.
</p>
<p>
  “If it all has really been done deliberately and not idiotically, if I
  really had a certain and definite object, how is it I did not even glance
  into the purse and don’t know what I had there, for which I have undergone
  these agonies, and have deliberately undertaken this base, filthy
  degrading business? And here I wanted at once to throw into the water the
  purse together with all the things which I had not seen either... how’s
  that?”
 </p>
<p>
  Yes, that was so, that was all so. Yet he had known it all before, and it
  was not a new question for him, even when it was decided in the night
  without hesitation and consideration, as though so it must be, as though
  it could not possibly be otherwise.... Yes, he had known it all, and
  understood it all; it surely had all been settled even yesterday at the
  moment when he was bending over the box and pulling the jewel-cases out of
  it.... Yes, so it was.
</p>
<p>
  “It is because I am very ill,” he decided grimly at last, “I have been
  worrying and fretting myself, and I don’t know what I am doing....
  Yesterday and the day before yesterday and all this time I have been
  worrying myself.... I shall get well and I shall not worry.... But what if
  I don’t get well at all? Good God, how sick I am of it all!”
 </p>
<p>
  He walked on without resting. He had a terrible longing for some
  distraction, but he did not know what to do, what to attempt. A new
  overwhelming sensation was gaining more and more mastery over him every
  moment; this was an immeasurable, almost physical, repulsion for
  everything surrounding him, an obstinate, malignant feeling of hatred. All
  who met him were loathsome to him—he loathed their faces, their
  movements, their gestures. If anyone had addressed him, he felt that he
  might have spat at him or bitten him....
</p>
<p>
  He stopped suddenly, on coming out on the bank of the Little Neva, near
  the bridge to Vassilyevsky Ostrov. “Why, he lives here, in that house,” he
  thought, “why, I have not come to Razumihin of my own accord! Here it’s
  the same thing over again.... Very interesting to know, though; have I
  come on purpose or have I simply walked here by chance? Never mind, I said
  the day before yesterday that I would go and see him the day <i>after</i>;
  well, and so I will! Besides I really cannot go further now.”
 </p>
<p>
  He went up to Razumihin’s room on the fifth floor.
</p>
<p>
  The latter was at home in his garret, busily writing at the moment, and he
  opened the door himself. It was four months since they had seen each
  other. Razumihin was sitting in a ragged dressing-gown, with slippers on
  his bare feet, unkempt, unshaven and unwashed. His face showed surprise.
</p>
<p>
  “Is it you?” he cried. He looked his comrade up and down; then after a
  brief pause, he whistled. “As hard up as all that! Why, brother, you’ve
  cut me out!” he added, looking at Raskolnikov’s rags. “Come sit down, you
  are tired, I’ll be bound.”
 </p>
<p>
  And when he had sunk down on the American leather sofa, which was in even
  worse condition than his own, Razumihin saw at once that his visitor was
  ill.
</p>
<p>
  “Why, you are seriously ill, do you know that?” He began feeling his
  pulse. Raskolnikov pulled away his hand.
</p>
<p>
  “Never mind,” he said, “I have come for this: I have no lessons.... I
  wanted,... but I don’t really want lessons....”
 </p>
<p>
  “But I say! You are delirious, you know!” Razumihin observed, watching him
  carefully.
</p>
<p>
  “No, I am not.”
 </p>
<p>
  Raskolnikov got up from the sofa. As he had mounted the stairs to
  Razumihin’s, he had not realised that he would be meeting his friend face
  to face. Now, in a flash, he knew, that what he was least of all disposed
  for at that moment was to be face to face with anyone in the wide world.
  His spleen rose within him. He almost choked with rage at himself as soon
  as he crossed Razumihin’s threshold.
</p>
<p>
  “Good-bye,” he said abruptly, and walked to the door.
</p>
<p>
  “Stop, stop! You queer fish.”
 </p>
<p>
  “I don’t want to,” said the other, again pulling away his hand.
</p>
<p>
  “Then why the devil have you come? Are you mad, or what? Why, this is...
  almost insulting! I won’t let you go like that.”
 </p>
<p>
  “Well, then, I came to you because I know no one but you who could help...
  to begin... because you are kinder than anyone—cleverer, I mean, and
  can judge... and now I see that I want nothing. Do you hear? Nothing at
  all... no one’s services... no one’s sympathy. I am by myself... alone.
  Come, that’s enough. Leave me alone.”
 </p>
<p>
  “Stay a minute, you sweep! You are a perfect madman. As you like for all I
  care. I have no lessons, do you see, and I don’t care about that, but
  there’s a bookseller, Heruvimov—and he takes the place of a lesson.
  I would not exchange him for five lessons. He’s doing publishing of a
  kind, and issuing natural science manuals and what a circulation they
  have! The very titles are worth the money! You always maintained that I
  was a fool, but by Jove, my boy, there are greater fools than I am! Now he
  is setting up for being advanced, not that he has an inkling of anything,
  but, of course, I encourage him. Here are two signatures of the German
  text—in my opinion, the crudest charlatanism; it discusses the
  question, ‘Is woman a human being?’ And, of course, triumphantly proves
  that she is. Heruvimov is going to bring out this work as a contribution
  to the woman question; I am translating it; he will expand these two and a
  half signatures into six, we shall make up a gorgeous title half a page
  long and bring it out at half a rouble. It will do! He pays me six roubles
  the signature, it works out to about fifteen roubles for the job, and I’ve
  had six already in advance. When we have finished this, we are going to
  begin a translation about whales, and then some of the dullest scandals
  out of the second part of <i>Les Confessions</i> we have marked for
  translation; somebody has told Heruvimov, that Rousseau was a kind of
  Radishchev. You may be sure I don’t contradict him, hang him! Well, would
  you like to do the second signature of ‘<i>Is woman a human being?</i>’ If
  you would, take the German and pens and paper—all those are
  provided, and take three roubles; for as I have had six roubles in advance
  on the whole thing, three roubles come to you for your share. And when you
  have finished the signature there will be another three roubles for you.
  And please don’t think I am doing you a service; quite the contrary, as
  soon as you came in, I saw how you could help me; to begin with, I am weak
  in spelling, and secondly, I am sometimes utterly adrift in German, so
  that I make it up as I go along for the most part. The only comfort is,
  that it’s bound to be a change for the better. Though who can tell, maybe
  it’s sometimes for the worse. Will you take it?”
 </p>
<p>
  Raskolnikov took the German sheets in silence, took the three roubles and
  without a word went out. Razumihin gazed after him in astonishment. But
  when Raskolnikov was in the next street, he turned back, mounted the
  stairs to Razumihin’s again and laying on the table the German article and
  the three roubles, went out again, still without uttering a word.
</p>
<p>
  “Are you raving, or what?” Razumihin shouted, roused to fury at last.
  “What farce is this? You’ll drive me crazy too... what did you come to see
  me for, damn you?”
 </p>
<p>
  “I don’t want... translation,” muttered Raskolnikov from the stairs.
</p>
<p>
  “Then what the devil do you want?” shouted Razumihin from above.
  Raskolnikov continued descending the staircase in silence.
</p>
<p>
  “Hey, there! Where are you living?”
 </p>
<p>
  No answer.
</p>
<p>
  “Well, confound you then!”
 </p>
<p>
  But Raskolnikov was already stepping into the street. On the Nikolaevsky
  Bridge he was roused to full consciousness again by an unpleasant
  incident. A coachman, after shouting at him two or three times, gave him a
  violent lash on the back with his whip, for having almost fallen under his
  horses’ hoofs. The lash so infuriated him that he dashed away to the
  railing (for some unknown reason he had been walking in the very middle of
  the bridge in the traffic). He angrily clenched and ground his teeth. He
  heard laughter, of course.
</p>
<p>
  “Serves him right!”
 </p>
<p>
  “A pickpocket I dare say.”
 </p>
<p>
  “Pretending to be drunk, for sure, and getting under the wheels on
  purpose; and you have to answer for him.”
 </p>
<p>
  “It’s a regular profession, that’s what it is.”
 </p>
<p>
  But while he stood at the railing, still looking angry and bewildered
  after the retreating carriage, and rubbing his back, he suddenly felt
  someone thrust money into his hand. He looked. It was an elderly woman in
  a kerchief and goatskin shoes, with a girl, probably her daughter, wearing
  a hat, and carrying a green parasol.
</p>
<p>
  “Take it, my good man, in Christ’s name.”
 </p>
<p>
  He took it and they passed on. It was a piece of twenty copecks. From his
  dress and appearance they might well have taken him for a beggar asking
  alms in the streets, and the gift of the twenty copecks he doubtless owed
  to the blow, which made them feel sorry for him.
</p>
<p>
  He closed his hand on the twenty copecks, walked on for ten paces, and
  turned facing the Neva, looking towards the palace. The sky was without a
  cloud and the water was almost bright blue, which is so rare in the Neva.
  The cupola of the cathedral, which is seen at its best from the bridge
  about twenty paces from the chapel, glittered in the sunlight, and in the
  pure air every ornament on it could be clearly distinguished. The pain
  from the lash went off, and Raskolnikov forgot about it; one uneasy and
  not quite definite idea occupied him now completely. He stood still, and
  gazed long and intently into the distance; this spot was especially
  familiar to him. When he was attending the university, he had hundreds of
  times—generally on his way home—stood still on this spot,
  gazed at this truly magnificent spectacle and almost always marvelled at a
  vague and mysterious emotion it roused in him. It left him strangely cold;
  this gorgeous picture was for him blank and lifeless. He wondered every
  time at his sombre and enigmatic impression and, mistrusting himself, put
  off finding the explanation of it. He vividly recalled those old doubts
  and perplexities, and it seemed to him that it was no mere chance that he
  recalled them now. It struck him as strange and grotesque, that he should
  have stopped at the same spot as before, as though he actually imagined he
  could think the same thoughts, be interested in the same theories and
  pictures that had interested him... so short a time ago. He felt it almost
  amusing, and yet it wrung his heart. Deep down, hidden far away out of
  sight all that seemed to him now—all his old past, his old thoughts,
  his old problems and theories, his old impressions and that picture and
  himself and all, all.... He felt as though he were flying upwards, and
  everything were vanishing from his sight. Making an unconscious movement
  with his hand, he suddenly became aware of the piece of money in his fist.
  He opened his hand, stared at the coin, and with a sweep of his arm flung
  it into the water; then he turned and went home. It seemed to him, he had
  cut himself off from everyone and from everything at that moment.
</p>
<p>
  Evening was coming on when he reached home, so that he must have been
  walking about six hours. How and where he came back he did not remember.
  Undressing, and quivering like an overdriven horse, he lay down on the
  sofa, drew his greatcoat over him, and at once sank into oblivion....
</p>
<p>
  It was dusk when he was waked up by a fearful scream. Good God, what a
  scream! Such unnatural sounds, such howling, wailing, grinding, tears,
  blows and curses he had never heard.
</p>
<p>
  He could never have imagined such brutality, such frenzy. In terror he sat
  up in bed, almost swooning with agony. But the fighting, wailing and
  cursing grew louder and louder. And then to his intense amazement he
  caught the voice of his landlady. She was howling, shrieking and wailing,
  rapidly, hurriedly, incoherently, so that he could not make out what she
  was talking about; she was beseeching, no doubt, not to be beaten, for she
  was being mercilessly beaten on the stairs. The voice of her assailant was
  so horrible from spite and rage that it was almost a croak; but he, too,
  was saying something, and just as quickly and indistinctly, hurrying and
  spluttering. All at once Raskolnikov trembled; he recognised the voice—it
  was the voice of Ilya Petrovitch. Ilya Petrovitch here and beating the
  landlady! He is kicking her, banging her head against the steps—that’s
  clear, that can be told from the sounds, from the cries and the thuds. How
  is it, is the world topsy-turvy? He could hear people running in crowds
  from all the storeys and all the staircases; he heard voices,
  exclamations, knocking, doors banging. “But why, why, and how could it
  be?” he repeated, thinking seriously that he had gone mad. But no, he
  heard too distinctly! And they would come to him then next, “for no
  doubt... it’s all about that... about yesterday.... Good God!” He would
  have fastened his door with the latch, but he could not lift his hand...
  besides, it would be useless. Terror gripped his heart like ice, tortured
  him and numbed him.... But at last all this uproar, after continuing about
  ten minutes, began gradually to subside. The landlady was moaning and
  groaning; Ilya Petrovitch was still uttering threats and curses.... But at
  last he, too, seemed to be silent, and now he could not be heard. “Can he
  have gone away? Good Lord!” Yes, and now the landlady is going too, still
  weeping and moaning... and then her door slammed.... Now the crowd was
  going from the stairs to their rooms, exclaiming, disputing, calling to
  one another, raising their voices to a shout, dropping them to a whisper.
  There must have been numbers of them—almost all the inmates of the
  block. “But, good God, how could it be! And why, why had he come here!”
 </p>
<p>
  Raskolnikov sank worn out on the sofa, but could not close his eyes. He
  lay for half an hour in such anguish, such an intolerable sensation of
  infinite terror as he had never experienced before. Suddenly a bright
  light flashed into his room. Nastasya came in with a candle and a plate of
  soup. Looking at him carefully and ascertaining that he was not asleep,
  she set the candle on the table and began to lay out what she had brought—bread,
  salt, a plate, a spoon.
</p>
<p>
  “You’ve eaten nothing since yesterday, I warrant. You’ve been trudging
  about all day, and you’re shaking with fever.”
 </p>
<p>
  “Nastasya... what were they beating the landlady for?”
 </p>
<p>
  She looked intently at him.
</p>
<p>
  “Who beat the landlady?”
 </p>
<p>
  “Just now... half an hour ago, Ilya Petrovitch, the assistant
  superintendent, on the stairs.... Why was he ill-treating her like that,
  and... why was he here?”
 </p>
<p>
  Nastasya scrutinised him, silent and frowning, and her scrutiny lasted a
  long time. He felt uneasy, even frightened at her searching eyes.
</p>
<p>
  “Nastasya, why don’t you speak?” he said timidly at last in a weak voice.
</p>
<p>
  “It’s the blood,” she answered at last softly, as though speaking to
  herself.
</p>
<p>
  “Blood? What blood?” he muttered, growing white and turning towards the
  wall.
</p>
<p>
  Nastasya still looked at him without speaking.
</p>
<p>
  “Nobody has been beating the landlady,” she declared at last in a firm,
  resolute voice.
</p>
<p>
  He gazed at her, hardly able to breathe.
</p>
<p>
  “I heard it myself.... I was not asleep... I was sitting up,” he said
  still more timidly. “I listened a long while. The assistant superintendent
  came.... Everyone ran out on to the stairs from all the flats.”
 </p>
<p>
  “No one has been here. That’s the blood crying in your ears. When there’s
  no outlet for it and it gets clotted, you begin fancying things.... Will
  you eat something?”
 </p>
<p>
  He made no answer. Nastasya still stood over him, watching him.
</p>
<p>
  “Give me something to drink... Nastasya.”
 </p>
<p>
  She went downstairs and returned with a white earthenware jug of water. He
  remembered only swallowing one sip of the cold water and spilling some on
  his neck. Then followed forgetfulness.
</p>