CHAPTER VI

<h2><a id="link2HCH0037"/>
  CHAPTER VI
</h2>
<p>
  He spent that evening till ten o’clock going from one low haunt to
  another. Katia too turned up and sang another gutter song, how a certain
</p>
<p>
  “villain and tyrant,”
 </p>
<p>
  “began kissing Katia.”
 </p>
<p>
  Svidrigaïlov treated Katia and the organ-grinder and some singers and the
  waiters and two little clerks. He was particularly drawn to these clerks
  by the fact that they both had crooked noses, one bent to the left and the
  other to the right. They took him finally to a pleasure garden, where he
  paid for their entrance. There was one lanky three-year-old pine-tree and
  three bushes in the garden, besides a “Vauxhall,” which was in reality a
  drinking-bar where tea too was served, and there were a few green tables
  and chairs standing round it. A chorus of wretched singers and a drunken
  but exceedingly depressed German clown from Munich with a red nose
  entertained the public. The clerks quarrelled with some other clerks and a
  fight seemed imminent. Svidrigaïlov was chosen to decide the dispute. He
  listened to them for a quarter of an hour, but they shouted so loud that
  there was no possibility of understanding them. The only fact that seemed
  certain was that one of them had stolen something and had even succeeded
  in selling it on the spot to a Jew, but would not share the spoil with his
  companion. Finally it appeared that the stolen object was a teaspoon
  belonging to the Vauxhall. It was missed and the affair began to seem
  troublesome. Svidrigaïlov paid for the spoon, got up, and walked out of
  the garden. It was about six o’clock. He had not drunk a drop of wine all
  this time and had ordered tea more for the sake of appearances than
  anything.
</p>
<p>
  It was a dark and stifling evening. Threatening storm-clouds came over the
  sky about ten o’clock. There was a clap of thunder, and the rain came down
  like a waterfall. The water fell not in drops, but beat on the earth in
  streams. There were flashes of lightning every minute and each flash
  lasted while one could count five.
</p>
<p>
  Drenched to the skin, he went home, locked himself in, opened the bureau,
  took out all his money and tore up two or three papers. Then, putting the
  money in his pocket, he was about to change his clothes, but, looking out
  of the window and listening to the thunder and the rain, he gave up the
  idea, took up his hat and went out of the room without locking the door.
  He went straight to Sonia. She was at home.
</p>
<p>
  She was not alone: the four Kapernaumov children were with her. She was
  giving them tea. She received Svidrigaïlov in respectful silence, looking
  wonderingly at his soaking clothes. The children all ran away at once in
  indescribable terror.
</p>
<p>
  Svidrigaïlov sat down at the table and asked Sonia to sit beside him. She
  timidly prepared to listen.
</p>
<p>
  “I may be going to America, Sofya Semyonovna,” said Svidrigaïlov, “and as
  I am probably seeing you for the last time, I have come to make some
  arrangements. Well, did you see the lady to-day? I know what she said to
  you, you need not tell me.” (Sonia made a movement and blushed.) “Those
  people have their own way of doing things. As to your sisters and your
  brother, they are really provided for and the money assigned to them I’ve
  put into safe keeping and have received acknowledgments. You had better
  take charge of the receipts, in case anything happens. Here, take them!
  Well now, that’s settled. Here are three 5-per-cent bonds to the value of
  three thousand roubles. Take those for yourself, entirely for yourself,
  and let that be strictly between ourselves, so that no one knows of it,
  whatever you hear. You will need the money, for to go on living in the old
  way, Sofya Semyonovna, is bad, and besides there is no need for it now.”
 </p>
<p>
  “I am so much indebted to you, and so are the children and my stepmother,”
   said Sonia hurriedly, “and if I’ve said so little... please don’t
  consider...”
 </p>
<p>
  “That’s enough! that’s enough!”
 </p>
<p>
  “But as for the money, Arkady Ivanovitch, I am very grateful to you, but I
  don’t need it now. I can always earn my own living. Don’t think me
  ungrateful. If you are so charitable, that money....”
 </p>
<p>
  “It’s for you, for you, Sofya Semyonovna, and please don’t waste words
  over it. I haven’t time for it. You will want it. Rodion Romanovitch has
  two alternatives: a bullet in the brain or Siberia.” (Sonia looked wildly
  at him, and started.) “Don’t be uneasy, I know all about it from himself
  and I am not a gossip; I won’t tell anyone. It was good advice when you
  told him to give himself up and confess. It would be much better for him.
  Well, if it turns out to be Siberia, he will go and you will follow him.
  That’s so, isn’t it? And if so, you’ll need money. You’ll need it for him,
  do you understand? Giving it to you is the same as my giving it to him.
  Besides, you promised Amalia Ivanovna to pay what’s owing. I heard you.
  How can you undertake such obligations so heedlessly, Sofya Semyonovna? It
  was Katerina Ivanovna’s debt and not yours, so you ought not to have taken
  any notice of the German woman. You can’t get through the world like that.
  If you are ever questioned about me—to-morrow or the day after you
  will be asked—don’t say anything about my coming to see you now and
  don’t show the money to anyone or say a word about it. Well, now
  good-bye.” (He got up.) “My greetings to Rodion Romanovitch. By the way,
  you’d better put the money for the present in Mr. Razumihin’s keeping. You
  know Mr. Razumihin? Of course you do. He’s not a bad fellow. Take it to
  him to-morrow or... when the time comes. And till then, hide it
  carefully.”
 </p>
<p>
  Sonia too jumped up from her chair and looked in dismay at Svidrigaïlov.
  She longed to speak, to ask a question, but for the first moments she did
  not dare and did not know how to begin.
</p>
<p>
  “How can you... how can you be going now, in such rain?”
 </p>
<p>
  “Why, be starting for America, and be stopped by rain! Ha, ha! Good-bye,
  Sofya Semyonovna, my dear! Live and live long, you will be of use to
  others. By the way... tell Mr. Razumihin I send my greetings to him. Tell
  him Arkady Ivanovitch Svidrigaïlov sends his greetings. Be sure to.”
 </p>
<p>
  He went out, leaving Sonia in a state of wondering anxiety and vague
  apprehension.
</p>
<p>
  It appeared afterwards that on the same evening, at twenty past eleven, he
  made another very eccentric and unexpected visit. The rain still
  persisted. Drenched to the skin, he walked into the little flat where the
  parents of his betrothed lived, in Third Street in Vassilyevsky Island. He
  knocked some time before he was admitted, and his visit at first caused
  great perturbation; but Svidrigaïlov could be very fascinating when he
  liked, so that the first, and indeed very intelligent surmise of the
  sensible parents that Svidrigaïlov had probably had so much to drink that
  he did not know what he was doing vanished immediately. The decrepit
  father was wheeled in to see Svidrigaïlov by the tender and sensible
  mother, who as usual began the conversation with various irrelevant
  questions. She never asked a direct question, but began by smiling and
  rubbing her hands and then, if she were obliged to ascertain something—for
  instance, when Svidrigaïlov would like to have the wedding—she would
  begin by interested and almost eager questions about Paris and the court
  life there, and only by degrees brought the conversation round to Third
  Street. On other occasions this had of course been very impressive, but
  this time Arkady Ivanovitch seemed particularly impatient, and insisted on
  seeing his betrothed at once, though he had been informed, to begin with,
  that she had already gone to bed. The girl of course appeared.
</p>
<p>
  Svidrigaïlov informed her at once that he was obliged by very important
  affairs to leave Petersburg for a time, and therefore brought her fifteen
  thousand roubles and begged her accept them as a present from him, as he
  had long been intending to make her this trifling present before their
  wedding. The logical connection of the present with his immediate
  departure and the absolute necessity of visiting them for that purpose in
  pouring rain at midnight was not made clear. But it all went off very
  well; even the inevitable ejaculations of wonder and regret, the
  inevitable questions were extraordinarily few and restrained. On the other
  hand, the gratitude expressed was most glowing and was reinforced by tears
  from the most sensible of mothers. Svidrigaïlov got up, laughed, kissed
  his betrothed, patted her cheek, declared he would soon come back, and
  noticing in her eyes, together with childish curiosity, a sort of earnest
  dumb inquiry, reflected and kissed her again, though he felt sincere anger
  inwardly at the thought that his present would be immediately locked up in
  the keeping of the most sensible of mothers. He went away, leaving them
  all in a state of extraordinary excitement, but the tender mamma, speaking
  quietly in a half whisper, settled some of the most important of their
  doubts, concluding that Svidrigaïlov was a great man, a man of great
  affairs and connections and of great wealth—there was no knowing
  what he had in his mind. He would start off on a journey and give away
  money just as the fancy took him, so that there was nothing surprising
  about it. Of course it was strange that he was wet through, but
  Englishmen, for instance, are even more eccentric, and all these people of
  high society didn’t think of what was said of them and didn’t stand on
  ceremony. Possibly, indeed, he came like that on purpose to show that he
  was not afraid of anyone. Above all, not a word should be said about it,
  for God knows what might come of it, and the money must be locked up, and
  it was most fortunate that Fedosya, the cook, had not left the kitchen.
  And above all not a word must be said to that old cat, Madame Resslich,
  and so on and so on. They sat up whispering till two o’clock, but the girl
  went to bed much earlier, amazed and rather sorrowful.
</p>
<p>
  Svidrigaïlov meanwhile, exactly at midnight, crossed the bridge on the way
  back to the mainland. The rain had ceased and there was a roaring wind. He
  began shivering, and for one moment he gazed at the black waters of the
  Little Neva with a look of special interest, even inquiry. But he soon
  felt it very cold, standing by the water; he turned and went towards Y.
  Prospect. He walked along that endless street for a long time, almost half
  an hour, more than once stumbling in the dark on the wooden pavement, but
  continually looking for something on the right side of the street. He had
  noticed passing through this street lately that there was a hotel
  somewhere towards the end, built of wood, but fairly large, and its name
  he remembered was something like Adrianople. He was not mistaken: the
  hotel was so conspicuous in that God-forsaken place that he could not fail
  to see it even in the dark. It was a long, blackened wooden building, and
  in spite of the late hour there were lights in the windows and signs of
  life within. He went in and asked a ragged fellow who met him in the
  corridor for a room. The latter, scanning Svidrigaïlov, pulled himself
  together and led him at once to a close and tiny room in the distance, at
  the end of the corridor, under the stairs. There was no other, all were
  occupied. The ragged fellow looked inquiringly.
</p>
<p>
  “Is there tea?” asked Svidrigaïlov.
</p>
<p>
  “Yes, sir.”
 </p>
<p>
  “What else is there?”
 </p>
<p>
  “Veal, vodka, savouries.”
 </p>
<p>
  “Bring me tea and veal.”
 </p>
<p>
  “And you want nothing else?” he asked with apparent surprise.
</p>
<p>
  “Nothing, nothing.”
 </p>
<p>
  The ragged man went away, completely disillusioned.
</p>
<p>
  “It must be a nice place,” thought Svidrigaïlov. “How was it I didn’t know
  it? I expect I look as if I came from a café chantant and have had some
  adventure on the way. It would be interesting to know who stayed here?”
 </p>
<p>
  He lighted the candle and looked at the room more carefully. It was a room
  so low-pitched that Svidrigaïlov could only just stand up in it; it had
  one window; the bed, which was very dirty, and the plain-stained chair and
  table almost filled it up. The walls looked as though they were made of
  planks, covered with shabby paper, so torn and dusty that the pattern was
  indistinguishable, though the general colour—yellow—could
  still be made out. One of the walls was cut short by the sloping ceiling,
  though the room was not an attic but just under the stairs.
</p>
<p>
  Svidrigaïlov set down the candle, sat down on the bed and sank into
  thought. But a strange persistent murmur which sometimes rose to a shout
  in the next room attracted his attention. The murmur had not ceased from
  the moment he entered the room. He listened: someone was upbraiding and
  almost tearfully scolding, but he heard only one voice.
</p>
<p>
  Svidrigaïlov got up, shaded the light with his hand and at once he saw
  light through a crack in the wall; he went up and peeped through. The
  room, which was somewhat larger than his, had two occupants. One of them,
  a very curly-headed man with a red inflamed face, was standing in the pose
  of an orator, without his coat, with his legs wide apart to preserve his
  balance, and smiting himself on the breast. He reproached the other with
  being a beggar, with having no standing whatever. He declared that he had
  taken the other out of the gutter and he could turn him out when he liked,
  and that only the finger of Providence sees it all. The object of his
  reproaches was sitting in a chair, and had the air of a man who wants
  dreadfully to sneeze, but can’t. He sometimes turned sheepish and befogged
  eyes on the speaker, but obviously had not the slightest idea what he was
  talking about and scarcely heard it. A candle was burning down on the
  table; there were wine-glasses, a nearly empty bottle of vodka, bread and
  cucumber, and glasses with the dregs of stale tea. After gazing
  attentively at this, Svidrigaïlov turned away indifferently and sat down
  on the bed.
</p>
<p>
  The ragged attendant, returning with the tea, could not resist asking him
  again whether he didn’t want anything more, and again receiving a negative
  reply, finally withdrew. Svidrigaïlov made haste to drink a glass of tea
  to warm himself, but could not eat anything. He began to feel feverish. He
  took off his coat and, wrapping himself in the blanket, lay down on the
  bed. He was annoyed. “It would have been better to be well for the
  occasion,” he thought with a smile. The room was close, the candle burnt
  dimly, the wind was roaring outside, he heard a mouse scratching in the
  corner and the room smelt of mice and of leather. He lay in a sort of
  reverie: one thought followed another. He felt a longing to fix his
  imagination on something. “It must be a garden under the window,” he
  thought. “There’s a sound of trees. How I dislike the sound of trees on a
  stormy night, in the dark! They give one a horrid feeling.” He remembered
  how he had disliked it when he passed Petrovsky Park just now. This
  reminded him of the bridge over the Little Neva and he felt cold again as
  he had when standing there. “I never have liked water,” he thought, “even
  in a landscape,” and he suddenly smiled again at a strange idea: “Surely
  now all these questions of taste and comfort ought not to matter, but I’ve
  become more particular, like an animal that picks out a special place...
  for such an occasion. I ought to have gone into the Petrovsky Park! I
  suppose it seemed dark, cold, ha-ha! As though I were seeking pleasant
  sensations!... By the way, why haven’t I put out the candle?” he blew it
  out. “They’ve gone to bed next door,” he thought, not seeing the light at
  the crack. “Well, now, Marfa Petrovna, now is the time for you to turn up;
  it’s dark, and the very time and place for you. But now you won’t come!”
 </p>
<p>
  He suddenly recalled how, an hour before carrying out his design on
  Dounia, he had recommended Raskolnikov to trust her to Razumihin’s
  keeping. “I suppose I really did say it, as Raskolnikov guessed, to tease
  myself. But what a rogue that Raskolnikov is! He’s gone through a good
  deal. He may be a successful rogue in time when he’s got over his
  nonsense. But now he’s <i>too</i> eager for life. These young men are
  contemptible on that point. But, hang the fellow! Let him please himself,
  it’s nothing to do with me.”
 </p>
<p>
  He could not get to sleep. By degrees Dounia’s image rose before him, and
  a shudder ran over him. “No, I must give up all that now,” he thought,
  rousing himself. “I must think of something else. It’s queer and funny. I
  never had a great hatred for anyone, I never particularly desired to
  avenge myself even, and that’s a bad sign, a bad sign, a bad sign. I never
  liked quarrelling either, and never lost my temper—that’s a bad sign
  too. And the promises I made her just now, too—Damnation! But—who
  knows?—perhaps she would have made a new man of me somehow....”
 </p>
<p>
  He ground his teeth and sank into silence again. Again Dounia’s image rose
  before him, just as she was when, after shooting the first time, she had
  lowered the revolver in terror and gazed blankly at him, so that he might
  have seized her twice over and she would not have lifted a hand to defend
  herself if he had not reminded her. He recalled how at that instant he
  felt almost sorry for her, how he had felt a pang at his heart...
</p>
<p>
  “Aïe! Damnation, these thoughts again! I must put it away!”
 </p>
<p>
  He was dozing off; the feverish shiver had ceased, when suddenly something
  seemed to run over his arm and leg under the bedclothes. He started. “Ugh!
  hang it! I believe it’s a mouse,” he thought, “that’s the veal I left on
  the table.” He felt fearfully disinclined to pull off the blanket, get up,
  get cold, but all at once something unpleasant ran over his leg again. He
  pulled off the blanket and lighted the candle. Shaking with feverish chill
  he bent down to examine the bed: there was nothing. He shook the blanket
  and suddenly a mouse jumped out on the sheet. He tried to catch it, but
  the mouse ran to and fro in zigzags without leaving the bed, slipped
  between his fingers, ran over his hand and suddenly darted under the
  pillow. He threw down the pillow, but in one instant felt something leap
  on his chest and dart over his body and down his back under his shirt. He
  trembled nervously and woke up.
</p>
<p>
  The room was dark. He was lying on the bed and wrapped up in the blanket
  as before. The wind was howling under the window. “How disgusting,” he
  thought with annoyance.
</p>
<p>
  He got up and sat on the edge of the bedstead with his back to the window.
  “It’s better not to sleep at all,” he decided. There was a cold damp
  draught from the window, however; without getting up he drew the blanket
  over him and wrapped himself in it. He was not thinking of anything and
  did not want to think. But one image rose after another, incoherent scraps
  of thought without beginning or end passed through his mind. He sank into
  drowsiness. Perhaps the cold, or the dampness, or the dark, or the wind
  that howled under the window and tossed the trees roused a sort of
  persistent craving for the fantastic. He kept dwelling on images of
  flowers, he fancied a charming flower garden, a bright, warm, almost hot
  day, a holiday—Trinity day. A fine, sumptuous country cottage in the
  English taste overgrown with fragrant flowers, with flower beds going
  round the house; the porch, wreathed in climbers, was surrounded with beds
  of roses. A light, cool staircase, carpeted with rich rugs, was decorated
  with rare plants in china pots. He noticed particularly in the windows
  nosegays of tender, white, heavily fragrant narcissus bending over their
  bright, green, thick long stalks. He was reluctant to move away from them,
  but he went up the stairs and came into a large, high drawing-room and
  again everywhere—at the windows, the doors on to the balcony, and on
  the balcony itself—were flowers. The floors were strewn with
  freshly-cut fragrant hay, the windows were open, a fresh, cool, light air
  came into the room. The birds were chirruping under the window, and in the
  middle of the room, on a table covered with a white satin shroud, stood a
  coffin. The coffin was covered with white silk and edged with a thick
  white frill; wreaths of flowers surrounded it on all sides. Among the
  flowers lay a girl in a white muslin dress, with her arms crossed and
  pressed on her bosom, as though carved out of marble. But her loose fair
  hair was wet; there was a wreath of roses on her head. The stern and
  already rigid profile of her face looked as though chiselled of marble
  too, and the smile on her pale lips was full of an immense unchildish
  misery and sorrowful appeal. Svidrigaïlov knew that girl; there was no
  holy image, no burning candle beside the coffin; no sound of prayers: the
  girl had drowned herself. She was only fourteen, but her heart was broken.
  And she had destroyed herself, crushed by an insult that had appalled and
  amazed that childish soul, had smirched that angel purity with unmerited
  disgrace and torn from her a last scream of despair, unheeded and brutally
  disregarded, on a dark night in the cold and wet while the wind howled....
</p>
<p>
  Svidrigaïlov came to himself, got up from the bed and went to the window.
  He felt for the latch and opened it. The wind lashed furiously into the
  little room and stung his face and his chest, only covered with his shirt,
  as though with frost. Under the window there must have been something like
  a garden, and apparently a pleasure garden. There, too, probably there
  were tea-tables and singing in the daytime. Now drops of rain flew in at
  the window from the trees and bushes; it was dark as in a cellar, so that
  he could only just make out some dark blurs of objects. Svidrigaïlov,
  bending down with elbows on the window-sill, gazed for five minutes into
  the darkness; the boom of a cannon, followed by a second one, resounded in
  the darkness of the night. “Ah, the signal! The river is overflowing,” he
  thought. “By morning it will be swirling down the street in the lower
  parts, flooding the basements and cellars. The cellar rats will swim out,
  and men will curse in the rain and wind as they drag their rubbish to
  their upper storeys. What time is it now?” And he had hardly thought it
  when, somewhere near, a clock on the wall, ticking away hurriedly, struck
  three.
</p>
<p>
  “Aha! It will be light in an hour! Why wait? I’ll go out at once straight
  to the park. I’ll choose a great bush there drenched with rain, so that as
  soon as one’s shoulder touches it, millions of drops drip on one’s head.”
 </p>
<p>
  He moved away from the window, shut it, lighted the candle, put on his
  waistcoat, his overcoat and his hat and went out, carrying the candle,
  into the passage to look for the ragged attendant who would be asleep
  somewhere in the midst of candle-ends and all sorts of rubbish, to pay him
  for the room and leave the hotel. “It’s the best minute; I couldn’t choose
  a better.”
 </p>
<p>
  He walked for some time through a long narrow corridor without finding
  anyone and was just going to call out, when suddenly in a dark corner
  between an old cupboard and the door he caught sight of a strange object
  which seemed to be alive. He bent down with the candle and saw a little
  girl, not more than five years old, shivering and crying, with her clothes
  as wet as a soaking house-flannel. She did not seem afraid of
  Svidrigaïlov, but looked at him with blank amazement out of her big black
  eyes. Now and then she sobbed as children do when they have been crying a
  long time, but are beginning to be comforted. The child’s face was pale
  and tired, she was numb with cold. “How can she have come here? She must
  have hidden here and not slept all night.” He began questioning her. The
  child suddenly becoming animated, chattered away in her baby language,
  something about “mammy” and that “mammy would beat her,” and about some
  cup that she had “bwoken.” The child chattered on without stopping. He
  could only guess from what she said that she was a neglected child, whose
  mother, probably a drunken cook, in the service of the hotel, whipped and
  frightened her; that the child had broken a cup of her mother’s and was so
  frightened that she had run away the evening before, had hidden for a long
  while somewhere outside in the rain, at last had made her way in here,
  hidden behind the cupboard and spent the night there, crying and trembling
  from the damp, the darkness and the fear that she would be badly beaten
  for it. He took her in his arms, went back to his room, sat her on the
  bed, and began undressing her. The torn shoes which she had on her
  stockingless feet were as wet as if they had been standing in a puddle all
  night. When he had undressed her, he put her on the bed, covered her up
  and wrapped her in the blanket from her head downwards. She fell asleep at
  once. Then he sank into dreary musing again.
</p>
<p>
  “What folly to trouble myself,” he decided suddenly with an oppressive
  feeling of annoyance. “What idiocy!” In vexation he took up the candle to
  go and look for the ragged attendant again and make haste to go away.
  “Damn the child!” he thought as he opened the door, but he turned again to
  see whether the child was asleep. He raised the blanket carefully. The
  child was sleeping soundly, she had got warm under the blanket, and her
  pale cheeks were flushed. But strange to say that flush seemed brighter
  and coarser than the rosy cheeks of childhood. “It’s a flush of fever,”
   thought Svidrigaïlov. It was like the flush from drinking, as though she
  had been given a full glass to drink. Her crimson lips were hot and
  glowing; but what was this? He suddenly fancied that her long black
  eyelashes were quivering, as though the lids were opening and a sly crafty
  eye peeped out with an unchildlike wink, as though the little girl were
  not asleep, but pretending. Yes, it was so. Her lips parted in a smile.
  The corners of her mouth quivered, as though she were trying to control
  them. But now she quite gave up all effort, now it was a grin, a broad
  grin; there was something shameless, provocative in that quite unchildish
  face; it was depravity, it was the face of a harlot, the shameless face of
  a French harlot. Now both eyes opened wide; they turned a glowing,
  shameless glance upon him; they laughed, invited him.... There was
  something infinitely hideous and shocking in that laugh, in those eyes, in
  such nastiness in the face of a child. “What, at five years old?”
   Svidrigaïlov muttered in genuine horror. “What does it mean?” And now she
  turned to him, her little face all aglow, holding out her arms....
  “Accursed child!” Svidrigaïlov cried, raising his hand to strike her, but
  at that moment he woke up.
</p>
<p>
  He was in the same bed, still wrapped in the blanket. The candle had not
  been lighted, and daylight was streaming in at the windows.
</p>
<p>
  “I’ve had nightmare all night!” He got up angrily, feeling utterly
  shattered; his bones ached. There was a thick mist outside and he could
  see nothing. It was nearly five. He had overslept himself! He got up, put
  on his still damp jacket and overcoat. Feeling the revolver in his pocket,
  he took it out and then he sat down, took a notebook out of his pocket and
  in the most conspicuous place on the title page wrote a few lines in large
  letters. Reading them over, he sank into thought with his elbows on the
  table. The revolver and the notebook lay beside him. Some flies woke up
  and settled on the untouched veal, which was still on the table. He stared
  at them and at last with his free right hand began trying to catch one. He
  tried till he was tired, but could not catch it. At last, realising that
  he was engaged in this interesting pursuit, he started, got up and walked
  resolutely out of the room. A minute later he was in the street.
</p>
<p>
  A thick milky mist hung over the town. Svidrigaïlov walked along the
  slippery dirty wooden pavement towards the Little Neva. He was picturing
  the waters of the Little Neva swollen in the night, Petrovsky Island, the
  wet paths, the wet grass, the wet trees and bushes and at last the
  bush.... He began ill-humouredly staring at the houses, trying to think of
  something else. There was not a cabman or a passer-by in the street. The
  bright yellow, wooden, little houses looked dirty and dejected with their
  closed shutters. The cold and damp penetrated his whole body and he began
  to shiver. From time to time he came across shop signs and read each
  carefully. At last he reached the end of the wooden pavement and came to a
  big stone house. A dirty, shivering dog crossed his path with its tail
  between its legs. A man in a greatcoat lay face downwards; dead drunk,
  across the pavement. He looked at him and went on. A high tower stood up
  on the left. “Bah!” he shouted, “here is a place. Why should it be
  Petrovsky? It will be in the presence of an official witness anyway....”
 </p>
<p>
  He almost smiled at this new thought and turned into the street where
  there was the big house with the tower. At the great closed gates of the
  house, a little man stood with his shoulder leaning against them, wrapped
  in a grey soldier’s coat, with a copper Achilles helmet on his head. He
  cast a drowsy and indifferent glance at Svidrigaïlov. His face wore that
  perpetual look of peevish dejection, which is so sourly printed on all
  faces of Jewish race without exception. They both, Svidrigaïlov and
  Achilles, stared at each other for a few minutes without speaking. At last
  it struck Achilles as irregular for a man not drunk to be standing three
  steps from him, staring and not saying a word.
</p>
<p>
  “What do you want here?” he said, without moving or changing his position.
</p>
<p>
  “Nothing, brother, good morning,” answered Svidrigaïlov.
</p>
<p>
  “This isn’t the place.”
 </p>
<p>
  “I am going to foreign parts, brother.”
 </p>
<p>
  “To foreign parts?”
 </p>
<p>
  “To America.”
 </p>
<p>
  “America.”
 </p>
<p>
  Svidrigaïlov took out the revolver and cocked it. Achilles raised his
  eyebrows.
</p>
<p>
  “I say, this is not the place for such jokes!”
 </p>
<p>
  “Why shouldn’t it be the place?”
 </p>
<p>
  “Because it isn’t.”
 </p>
<p>
  “Well, brother, I don’t mind that. It’s a good place. When you are asked,
  you just say he was going, he said, to America.”
 </p>
<p>
  He put the revolver to his right temple.
</p>
<p>
  “You can’t do it here, it’s not the place,” cried Achilles, rousing
  himself, his eyes growing bigger and bigger.
</p>
<p>
  Svidrigaïlov pulled the trigger.
</p>