Chapter 8 Section VII

Just like last time, the door opened a crack again, and two sharp suspicious eyes shot at him from the darkness.At this moment Raskolnikov panicked and almost made a serious mistake. He was afraid that the old woman would panic because there were only the two of them, and he didn't want his expression to arouse her suspicion, so he held the door and tried to pull it aside to prevent the old woman from closing the door again.Seeing this, the old woman did not pull the door back toward her, but she did not let go of the handle of the lock either, so that he almost dragged her up the stairs with the door and others.Since she stood at the door and would not let him in, he ran straight towards her.The old woman jumped away in astonishment, and tried to speak, but her tongue seemed to be uncontrollable, and she stared at him with round eyes.

"Good morning, Alyona Ivanovna," he began, trying to speak in a casual tone, but his voice, against his will, stammered and trembled. "I brought you...something...we'd better go over here...in the light..." He left her and went into the house without being invited.The old woman hurried in after him; at last she spoke: "My God! What are you doing? . . . Who are you? What is your business?" "What is the matter with you, Alyona Ivanovna . . . I'm your acquaintance . . . Raskolnikov . It's over..." He handed her the pledge. The old woman wanted to take a look at the pledge, but immediately looked into the eyes of the uninvited guest.She watched intently, ferociously and suspiciously.A minute passed, and he even felt that her eyes seemed to be ironic, as if she had guessed his reason for coming.He felt flustered, almost scared, if she kept silent and looked at him like this for half a minute, he would be so scared that he would leave her and run away.

"Why do you look at me like that, as if you don't know me?" He suddenly said angrily. "You can take it if you are willing to mortgage it. If not, I will go to another place. I have no time." He didn't want to say such a thing, but he said it suddenly. The old woman came to her senses, visibly encouraged by the firm tone of her visitor. "Sir, why are you so sudden...what is this?" She looked at the pledge and asked. "A silver cigarette case. I talked about it last time." She held out her hand. "Why are you so pale? Your hands are shaking! Have you ever had a bath, sir?"

"Fever," he said intermittently. "If you don't have food, your face will naturally be ugly..." He managed to say such a sentence to add.He felt weak again.But he answered reasonably, and the old woman took the pledge. "What is this?" she asked, looking intently at Raskolnikov again, weighing the pledge in her hand. "A thing... a cigarette case... silver... just look at it." "This thing doesn't seem to be made of silver...you tied it so firmly." She turned to the bright place in front of the window and kept untying the rope.Although the room was stuffy, all the windows were closed.For a moment she left him altogether and stood with her back to him.He unbuttoned his coat and took the ax out of the ring, but not all the way out, holding it inside the coat with his right hand.His hands were weak; he felt that his hands were growing numb and stiff.He was afraid that the ax would fall from his hand... He suddenly felt dizzy.

"Why did he tie it up like that!" exclaimed the old woman angrily, walking slowly towards him. There is no time to lose.He took out the axe, raised it high with both hands, and almost involuntarily, effortlessly, almost mechanically, he slashed straight at her head with the back of the axe.He seemed to have run out of strength.But as soon as he took the ax and chopped down, his strength came. The old woman did not wear her turban as usual.Her thin, light-colored hair with a few silver strands, still glossy with pomade, was braided into a rat-tail braid and tied into a bun with a battered horn comb.This comb protrudes on the back of the head.Because she was short, the ax fell right on top of her head.She let out a scream, but the sound was very weak, and suddenly sank to the floor, although she quickly raised her hands to cover her head. The "pledge" was still in one hand.So he hit her once or twice on the top of the head with the back of the ax as hard as he could.The blood poured like a fountain from an overturned glass, and she fell on her back.He took a step back, let her fall, and immediately stooped to see her face; she was moaning.The eyes protruded as if they were about to pop out, while the brow and face were wrinkled and convulsed.

He laid the ax on the floor beside the dead man, and immediately felt in her pocket, trying not to smear himself with the gushing blood—it was the right pocket from which she had taken the key last time.He was very clear-headed, his confusion and dizziness had disappeared, but his hands were still shaking.Then he remembered, even being very careful not to get blood on everything... and he took out the keys at once; they were, as then, on a steel ring.He took the bunch of keys and ran to the bedroom immediately.It was a small room with a large iconostasis on one wall.Against the other wall is a large bed, which is neatly made and covered with a silk quilt made of scraps of cloth.Against the third wall stood a chest of drawers.Strangely, he had just taken the key to open the chest of drawers, and when he heard the click of the key, he seemed to have a convulsion all over his body.He wanted to drop everything and run away.But immediately dismissed this idea, it was too late to leave.He even felt absurd when another panicked thought broke into his mind, and he suddenly felt as if the old woman was still alive and would wake up again.Leaving the key and the chest of drawers aside, he ran back to the body, took the axe, and raised it again towards the old woman, but did not strike.There is no doubt that she is dead.He stooped to get a closer look at her.He could clearly see that the skull had been cracked and even tilted slightly to the other side.He wanted to touch it with his finger, but he withdrew his hand; there was no need to touch it, it was already clearly visible.A lot of blood has been shed.He suddenly noticed a sash hanging around her neck, and he tore the sash, but it was strong, could not be torn, and was soaked with blood.He tried to pull it out of his arms, but was caught by something and couldn't pull it out.Impatiently, he raised the ax again to cut off the tape on the body, but his courage was not enough. He kept busy for two minutes without letting the ax touch the body, and finally cut the tape and took it off. His hands and ax were covered with blood.He guessed right—it was a purse.On the belt hung two crosses: one of cypress, the other of brass, and besides these two crosses there was an enamelled icon; The oil-stained modest suede bag.The purse was so full that Raskolnikov stuffed it without looking at it, threw the cross on the old woman's breast, and now he ran back to the bedroom with the axe. up.

In a great panic, he grabbed the key and tried to open the chest of drawers again.But somehow it didn't work: the keys didn't fit in the keyhole.It's not because his hands are shaking badly, but because he's doing something wrong: for example, he finds that the key is wrong and doesn't fit, but he puts it in the lock anyway.He suddenly remembered, and he realized that this large toothed key, which was strung together with some small keys, must not be used to open a chest of drawers (he thought the same way last time), but a small chest of some kind. The key, probably all the belongings are hidden in this box.Leaving the chest of drawers aside, he crawled under the bed at once, for he knew that little trunks are usually kept under old women's beds.It was really good: there was a rather large box, more than a foot long, with an arched lid, wrapped in red goat leather, and nailed with steel nails.The toothed key fit just right, and the case opened.There was a white quilt on top, and a rabbit fur coat underneath, covered with a piece of red brocade; under the fur coat was a silk dress, and under that was a scarf, and there seemed to be a pile of old clothes in the bottom of the box.He first wiped his bloody hands on the red brocade. "It's red brocade, and blood won't show much on it," he concluded, suddenly realizing: "My God! Am I crazy?" he thought in horror.

But as soon as he flipped through the pile of old clothes, a shining gold watch suddenly slipped out from under the leather jacket.He hastily turned everything over.Sure enough, there were gold ornaments hidden in the pile of old clothes: beads, watch chains, earrings and brooches, etc., probably all these things were pledged, redeemed or not redeemed.Some were in boxes, others were only wrapped in newspaper, but carefully wrapped in two layers and tied with tape.He hurriedly stuffed these things into his trouser pockets and coat pockets. He didn't look at the bags and boxes carefully, and he didn't open them, and there were so many things, he didn't have time to take them...

Suddenly there was the sound of footsteps in the room where the old woman lay.He stopped immediately, and remained as motionless as a dead man.But there is no movement, so this is his hallucination.Suddenly there was a faint shout clearly, or it seemed that someone was humming softly and intermittently, and there was silence again.Then there was a deathly silence again.There was silence for a minute or two.He crouched beside the box, waiting, and with great relief; but he rose abruptly, took the axe, and went straight out of the bedroom again. Lizaveta stood in the middle of the room, holding a large package in both hands, staring blankly at her murdered sister, her face was as pale as a piece of linen, as if she had no strength left to cry out.Seeing him running out, she trembled, trembling slightly like a leaf, her face convulsed; she raised one hand, opened her mouth wide, but still could not cry out.She began to avoid him, and retreated slowly into the corner, looking fixedly at him, but still could not cry out, as if out of breath.He came straight at her with the axe: her lips moved mournfully, like frightened children gazing at something that frightens them and trying to cry out.The poor Lizaveta was so honest that she was so petrified, so completely stupefied, that she did not even raise her hands to cover her face, which was most necessary and natural at such a moment. position, because the ax was aimed straight at her face.She only slightly raised her free left hand, not to cover her face, but slowly stretched it towards him, as if to push him away.The point of the ax hit her head straight, and the upper part of her forehead was split in two, almost reaching the top of her head.She collapsed suddenly.In a panic, Raskolnikov snatched her parcel, dropped it again, and ran into the antechamber.

He grew more and more frightened, especially after killing the second man completely by accident.He wants to get out of here quickly.If only at that moment he had been able to observe and judge more accurately, if he had been able to understand the difficulty of his situation, his own helplessness, absurdity, and stupidity, and the difficulties he had to overcome in order to escape from here and return home, Maybe he has to kill someone, then he is likely to throw everything away and surrender himself immediately.It wasn't even that he was afraid, it was just that what he had done himself was horrible and repulsive.His revulsion was peculiarly strong, and was growing every moment.Now he never went to the box, not even to the room.

But gradually he became distracted, and even seemed lost in thought: for a while he seemed to forget everything, or rather to forget the main things and to dwell on trifles.But he looked into the kitchen, saw a bucket half full of water on the bench, and wanted to wash his hands and the axe.His hands were sticky with blood.He dipped the ax-blade in the water, fetched a bar of soap from the broken saucer on the little windowsill, and washed his hands in the bucket.He washed his hands, took out the axe, and washed the iron part of it for a long time, about three minutes, and then washed the wooden handle, which was stained with blood, and he even tried to use soap to see if the blood could be washed away. .Then he dried it with the underwear hanging on the line in the kitchen, and stood at the window for a long time to examine the ax carefully.Not a trace left.Only the wooden handle was still damp.He carefully hung the ax in the loop on the inside of his coat.Then, in the dim light of the kitchen, the coat, trousers and boots were examined.From the outside, at first glance, there seemed to be no traces; only a little stain on the boot.He dampened a rag and wiped his boots.But he knew that the inspection was not careful enough, and there might be something eye-catching, but he didn't see it.He stood in the middle of the room hesitating.A painful and disturbing thought came to him--the thought that he was mad, that at this moment he had lost his powers of thought, powerless to defend himself, and perhaps he should never have done what he was doing..." My God! It's time to run, it's time to run!" He muttered, and ran to the front room.But here he suffered a fright such as he had never experienced before, needless to say. He stopped and looked, disbelieving his eyes: the door, the outer door, the door leading to the stairs from the front room, the door through which he had just rang the bell to come in, was open, even wide enough to put a hand in: it turned out that here The door hadn't been locked or hooked for some time!Perhaps the old woman, out of prudence, did not bar the door when he came in, but, dear!Didn't he see Lizaveta afterwards!How could he, how could he not have thought of where she came in from!She's not going to get in through the wall. He hurried to the door and locked it. "No, it's wrong again! It's time to go, it's time to go..." He pulled out the hook, opened the door, and listened to the movement on the stairs. He listened for a long time.Somewhere far below, probably at the gate, two voices shouted loudly and harshly, arguing and arguing. "What are they doing?..." He waited patiently.At last, there was a sudden silence, which seemed to stop abruptly; they separated.He was already about to leave, when suddenly the door leading to the stairs on the next floor opened with a clang, and someone went downstairs, humming a tune. "Why are they making so much noise!" he thought to himself.He closed the door behind him again and waited.In the end, there was silence and no one was there.He had already stepped on the stairs, and suddenly there was someone's footsteps again. The sound of footsteps sounded far away, just coming upstairs, but he clearly remembered that when he heard the sound, he didn't know why he became suspicious: they must have come here, to the old woman's house on the fourth floor.Why?The sound of footsteps is special, isn't it worth noting?The step is heavy, even and unhurried.He has reached the first floor and is still going up; the voice is getting clearer and clearer!There was the heavy panting of those who had come upstairs.He's already started on the third floor—here it is!He suddenly felt as if his body was stiff, as if he was dreaming that someone was chasing after him, approaching him, trying to kill him, but he seemed to be rooted in that place, and he could not move his hands. The visitor finally came up to the fourth floor. He was startled suddenly, and alertly slipped back into the room through the corridor and closed the door behind him.So he took the door hook and snapped it into the iron ring lightly and soundlessly.Instinct helped him.After buckling the door hook, he held his breath and hid. At this moment, he was standing behind the door.The uninvited guest stood outside the door.They confronted each other now as he had confronted the old woman not so long ago; then the door separated them, and he listened. The visitor gasped heavily several times. "Probably a fat man," Raskolnikov thought to himself, gripping the ax tightly.Really, like dreaming.The guest rang the bell, loudly. The tin doorbell jingled, and he suddenly felt as though everything in the room were shaking.He even listened carefully for a while.The stranger rang the bell again, waited again, and suddenly, with all his impatience, tugged at the handle with all his life.Raskolnikov watched in horror at the hook dancing in the ring, and waited in bewilderment and fear: the hook was about to jump out.It really is possible: what a pull.He tried to put his hand on the latch, but the man would have noticed.He felt dizzy again. "I'm going to pass out!" A thought flashed through his mind.But a stranger spoke, and he awoke instantly. "What are they doing, are they asleep, or has someone strangled them? Damn it!" he cried, as if in a barrel, "Hey, Alyona Ivanovna, old monster! Lizaveta Ivanovna, my fairest beauty! Open the door! Oh, damn it, are they sleeping?" He flew into a rage again, and rang the bell a dozen times in succession, with great force.Needless to say, this was a powerful man with close ties to the family. At this moment, there was a sudden sound of quick footsteps from the stairs not far away.Another person came.Raskolnikov did not hear clearly at first. "Why is there no one?" The visitor asked the first guest happily in a loud voice, and the latter rang the doorbell again. "Hello, Koch!" "From the voice, he must be a very young man," Raskolnikov thought suddenly. "Who knew them, I almost broke the lock," Koch replied. "Do you know me?" "Ah, yes! The day before yesterday I beat you three games in a row at Gambrinus." "Ah-ah-ah..." "Aren't they at home, then? Strange. But it's terribly annoying. Where's the old woman going? I've got something to do." "Dude, I have something to do too!" "Hey! What should we do? Then, go back. Hey! I want to get some money!" The young man suddenly said loudly. "Of course I had to go back. Why did she ask me to come? This old monster, she asked me to come at this time herself. I came here on purpose. Damn, I don't understand. Where did she go? This old monster stays here all year round. At home, I was depressed and my feet hurt, but now I suddenly went out for a stroll!" "Aren't you going to ask the porter?" "what?" "Where has she been, and when will she be back?" "Hmm... hell... go ask... she's not going anywhere..." He pulled the doorknob again. "Damn, there is no way, let's go!" "Wait a minute!" the young man suddenly shouted. "Pay attention: when you close the door, can you see the door moving?" "Really?" "So the door is not locked, but the catch! Do you hear the catch?" "Really?" "Why don't you understand? So one of them is at home. If they were all out, they would lock the door on the outside instead of buckling the latch on the inside. You can hear the latch rattle. Noise? Only when people are at home can they buckle the door hook inside, do you understand? From this point of view, they are all at home, but they do not open the door!" "That's right! That's true!" Koch exclaimed in surprise. "What are they doing in there!" He frantically closed the door again. "Wait a minute!" the young man yelled again. "Stop! I'm afraid something is wrong... You have already rang the bell and the door—they won't open; so the sisters have either fainted, or..." "what?" "Well: let's call the porter, and let him wake them up." "Yes!" Both of them went downstairs. "Don't worry! You stay here, and I'll run down to the porter." "Why am I here?" "What does it matter? . . . " "Ok……" "I'm going to be an investigator in the future! Obviously, it's obvious—and—easy to see that something is wrong here!" The young man shouted anxiously and ran downstairs. Koch stayed, and he pulled the doorbell lightly again, and the doorbell rang for a while.Then, as if pondering and examining, he gave the doorknob a slight twist, pulled it, and let it go again, to reassure himself that the door was not closed by the hook alone.Then, panting, he stooped and looked into the keyhole; but the key was in the inner lockhole, so he could see nothing. Raskolnikov stood clutching the ax as if in a dream.When they got in, he was even going to fight them.While they were knocking on the door and discussing, several times he suddenly wanted to call them from the door to end the matter immediately.Sometimes he wanted to scold them and tease them until the door opened. "I wish it was sooner!" The thought flashed through his mind. "But he, hell..." Time passed by minute by minute, and no one came.Koch became anxious. "Ah, hell! . . . " he cried out, impatiently waiting.He left his post and went downstairs, his boots rattling on the stairs as he hurried down.The footsteps fell silent. "My God, what should I do?" Raskolnikov drew the latch, opened the door a little, and suddenly, without thinking, he came out in silence, closed the door behind him as tightly as he could, and went downstairs. He had already descended three flights of stairs, when there was a sudden commotion below—where to hide!There is nowhere to hide.He was about to run back and hide in the room again. "Oh, monster, wretch! Get him!" Someone yelled and ran out of the room and down the stairs.He was not running, but he seemed to be rolling down the stairs, and he let go of his throat and cried out: "Mitka! Mitka! Mitka! Mitka! Fuck you!" The shouting ended with a scream; the last sound came from the yard; there was silence.But at that moment, a few people came up the stairs noisily talking to each other one by one.There are three or four of them.He heard the young man's loud voice. "They are coming!" He walked towards them helplessly: resign yourself to fate!They stopped him, and that was over; they let him pass, and that was over: they would remember him.They were close; there was only one staircase between them, and suddenly there was a savior!On the right, just a few steps away from him, was an empty room with an open door. This was the room on the second floor where some workmen were painting, but now they all walked away as if on purpose.They must have just shouted and went downstairs.The floor had just been painted, and in the middle of the room stood a bucket and a tile with paint in it and a brush.He slipped through the open door, and hid behind the wall, just as they were on the landing.They turned a corner and ran up again, passed the door, talked loudly, and went up to the fourth floor.He waited for a while, tiptoed out, and ran down. No one was on the stairs!There was no one at the gate either.He hastily crossed the threshold, turned left, and came to the street. He knew very well, very well, that they would be surprised to see the door open when they had entered the room by this time.For the door was closed just now; they were already looking at the body, and they immediately guessed and realized that the murderer had been here just in time, hid somewhere in time, slipped past them, and fled; they probably He would have guessed, too, that he was in the spare room when they came upstairs.But he did not dare to walk very fast anyway, even though it was only a hundred steps away from the first turning. "Shall I slip through a gate, and hang on that unfamiliar staircase? No, that's bad! Throw away the ax? Shall I call a cab? Bad! Bad!" he said at last. He came to the mouth of an alley; he turned into the alley, half-dead with fright; he was half-saved here, and he knew that.Because here he is not likely to arouse suspicion, and there are many people coming and going here, and he is like a grain of sand among them.But these troubles had exhausted him, and he walked reluctantly, sweating profusely, and his neck was wet with sweat. "Look, this man is drunk!" someone shouted to him as he walked towards the river. He is delirious now; the further he goes, the more delirious he becomes.But he remembered that when he was walking towards the river, he suddenly became afraid; there were fewer pedestrians here, which was more noticeable, and he wanted to retreat into the alley.Although he was about to collapse, he made a detour and walked home in the other direction. Bewildered, he entered the gate of the house in which he lived; he had already climbed the stairs before he remembered the axe.He had one more important thing to do: get the ax back where it belonged, and draw as little attention as possible.Needless to say, he had lost his powers of thought, and it might have been much better if he hadn't put the ax back in its place and thrown it into someone's yard later. But everything went well.The door of the porter's room was closed but not locked, so that the porter was probably in the house.But he lost his powers of thinking, and went straight to the gatekeeper's house, and opened the door.If the porter asked him, "What's the matter?" he might have just handed him the axe.But the porter was not in the house, and hastily put the ax in its place under the bench, and even covered it with wood as it had been.After that, he went all the way to his own house, but he met no one; the landlady's door was closed.He went into his room, and fell down on the sofa with his clothes on.He couldn't sleep, but his head was groggy.If someone had come into his room at that time, he would have jumped up and cried out.Some incoherent fragments of thought were churning in his mind; but he did not know what he was thinking, and could not even bring it together, however hard he tried. . . .