The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations
by Julian Hawthorne (editor)
Hypertext Meanings and Commentaries
from the Encyclopedia of the Self
by Mark Zimmerman

The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations

Edited by Julian Hawthorne

North Europe--Russian--Swedish--Danish--Hungarian

Table of Contents

ALEXANDER SERGEIEVITCH PUSHKIN

The Queen of Spades

VERA JELIHOVSKY

The General's Will

FEODOR MIKHAILOVITCH DOSTOYEVSKY

Crime and Punishment

ANTON CHEKHOFF

The Safety Match

VSEVOLOD VLADIMIROVITCH KRESTOVSKI

Knights of Industry

JORGEN WILHELM BERGSOE

The Amputated Arms

OTTO LARSSEN

The Manuscript

BERNHARD SEVERIN INGEMANN

The Sealed Room

STEEN STEENSEN BLICHER

The Rector of Veilbye

HUNGARIAN MYSTERY STORIES

FERENCZ MOLNAR

The Living Death

MAURUS JOKAI

Thirteen at Table

ETIENNE BARSONY

The Dancing Bear

ARTHUR ELCK

The Tower Room

Russian Mystery Stories

Alexander Sergeievitch Pushkin

The Queen of Spades

I

There was a card party at the rooms of Naroumoff, of the Horse
Guards. The long winter night passed away imperceptibly, and it
was five o'clock in the morning before the company sat down to
supper. Those who had won ate with a good appetite; the others sat
staring absently at their empty plates. When the champagne
appeared, however, the conversation became more animated, and all
took a part in it.

"And how did you fare, Souirin?" asked the host.

"Oh, I lost, as usual. I must confess that I am unlucky. I play
mirandole, I always keep cool, I never allow anything to put me
out, and yet I always lose!"

"And you did not once allow yourself to be tempted to back the red?
Your firmness astonishes me."

"But what do you think of Hermann?" said one of the guests,
pointing to a young engineer. "He has never had a card in his hand
in his life, he has never in his life laid a wager; and yet he sits
here till five o'clock in the morning watching our play."

"Play interests me very much," said Hermann, "but I am not in the
position to sacrifice the necessary in the hope of winning the
superfluous."

"Hermann is a German; he is economical--that is all!" observed
Tomsky. "But if there is one person that I cannot understand, it
is my grandmother, the Countess Anna Fedorovna!"

"How so?" inquired the guests.

"I cannot understand," continued Tomsky, "how it is that my
grandmother does not punt."

"Then you do not know the reason why?"

"No, really; I haven't the faintest idea. But let me tell you the
story. You must know that about sixty years ago my grandmother
went to Paris, where she created quite a sensation. People used to
run after her to catch a glimpse of the 'Muscovite Venus.'
Richelieu made love to her, and my grandmother maintains that he
almost blew out his brains in consequence of her cruelty. At that
time ladies used to play at faro. On one occasion at the Court,
she lost a very considerable sum to the Duke of Orleans. On
returning home, my grandmother removed the patches from her face,
took off her hoops, informed my grandfather of her loss at the
gaming-table, and ordered him to pay the money. My deceased
grandfather, as far as I remember, was a sort of house-steward to
my grandmother. He dreaded her like fire; but, on hearing of such
a heavy loss, he almost went out of his mind. He calculated the
various sums she had lost, and pointed out to her that in six
months she had spent half a million of francs; that neither their
Moscow nor Saratoff estates were in Paris; and, finally, refused
point-blank to pay the debt. My grandmother gave him a box on the
ear and slept by herself as a sign of her displeasure. The next
day she sent for her husband, hoping that this domestic punishment
had produced an effect upon him, but she found him inflexible. For
the first time in her life she entered into reasonings and
explanations with him, thinking to be able to convince him by
pointing out to him that there are debts and debts, and that there
is a great difference between a prince and a coachmaker.

"But it was all in vain, my grandfather still remained obdurate.
But the matter did not rest there. My grandmother did not know
what to do. She had shortly before become acquainted with a very
remarkable man. You have heard of Count St. Germain, about whom so
many marvelous stories are told. You know that he represented
himself as the Wandering Jew, as the discoverer of the elixir of
life, of the philosopher's stone, and so forth. Some laughed at
him as a charlatan; but Casnova, in his memoirs, says that he was a
spy. But be that as it may, St. Germain, in spite of the mystery
surrounding him, was a very fascinating person, and was much sought
after in the best circles of society. Even to this day my
grandmother retains an affectionate recollection of him, and
becomes quite angry if anyone speaks disrespectfully of him. My
grandmother knew that St. Germain had large sums of money at his
disposal. She resolved to have recourse to him, and she wrote a
letter to him asking him to come to her without delay. The queer
old man immediately waited upon her, and found her overwhelmed with
grief. She described to him in the blackest colors the barbarity
of her husband, and ended by declaring that her whole hope depended
upon his friendship and amiability.

"St. Germain reflected.

"'I could advance you the sum you want,' said he, 'but I know that
you would not rest easy until you had paid me back, and I should
not like to bring fresh troubles upon you. But there is another
way of getting out of your difficuity: you can win back your
money.'

"'But, my dear Count,' replied my grandmother, 'I tell you that I
haven't any money left!'

"'Money is not necessary,' replied St. Germain, 'be pleased to
listen to me.'

"Then he revealed to her a secret, for which each of us would give
a good deal."

The young officers listened with increased attention. Tomsky lit
his pipe, puffed away for a moment, and then continued:

"That same evening my grandmother went to Versailles to the jeu de
la reine. The Duke of Orleans kept the bank; my grandmother
excused herself in an offhanded manner for not having yet paid her
debt by inventing some little story, and then began to play against
him. She chose three cards and played them one after the other;
all three won sonika,* and my grandmother recovered every farthing
that she lost."

* Said of a card when it wins or loses in the quickest possible
time.

"Mere chance!" said one of the guests.

"A tale!" observed Hermann.

"Perhaps they were marked cards!" said a third.

"I do not think so," replied Tomsky, gravely.

"What!" said Naroumoff, "you have a grandmother who knows how to
hit upon three lucky cards in succession, and you have never yet
succeeded in getting the secret of it out of her?"

"That's the deuce of it!" replied Tomsky, "she had four sons, one
of whom was my father; all four were determined gamblers, and yet
not to one of them did she ever reveal her secret, although it
would not have been a bad thing either for them or for me. But
this is what I heard from my uncle, Count Ivan Ilitch, and he
assured me, on his honor, that it was true. The late Chaplitsky--
the same who died in poverty after having squandered millions--once
lost, in his youth, about three hundred thousand roubles--to
Zoritch, if I remember rightly. He was in despair. My
grandmother, who was always very severe upon the extravagance of
young men, took pity, however, upon Chaplitsky. She gave him three
cards telling him to play them one after the other, at the same
time exacting from him a solemn promise that he would never play at
cards again as long as he lived. Chaplitsky then went to his
victorious opponent, and they began a fresh game. On the first
card he staked fifty thousand roubles, and won sonika; he doubled
the stake, and won again; till at last, by pursuing the same
tactics, he won back more than he had lost."

"But it is time to go to bed, it is a quarter to six already."
And, indeed, it was already beginning to dawn; the young men
emptied their glasses and then took leave of each other.

II

The old Countess A---- was seated in her dressing-room in front of
her looking-glass. Three waiting maids stood around her. One held
a small pot of rouge, another a box of hairpins, and the third a
tall cap with bright red ribbons. The Countess had no longer the
slightest pretensions to beauty, but she still preserved the habits
of her youth, dressed in strict accordance with the fashion of
seventy years before, and made as long and as careful a toilette as
she would have done sixty years previously. Near the window, at an
embroidery frame, sat a young lady, her ward.

"Good-morning, grandmamma," said a young officer, entering the
room. "Bonjour, Mademoiselle Lise. Grandmamma, I want to ask you
something."

"What is it, Paul?"

"I want you to let me introduce one of my friends to you, and to
allow me to bring him to the ball on Friday."

"Bring him direct to the ball and introduce him to me there. Were
you at B----'s yesterday?"

"Yes; everything went off very pleasantly, and dancing was kept up
until five o'clock. How charming Eletskaia was!"

"But, my dear, what is there charming about her? Isn't she like
her grandmother, the Princess Daria Petrovna? By the way, she must
be very old, the Princess Daria Petrovna?"

"How do you mean, old?" cried Tomsky, thoughtlessly, "she died
seven years ago."

The young lady raised her head, and made a sign to the young
officer. He then remembered that the old Countess was never to be
informed of the death of her contemporaries, and he bit his lips.
But the old Countess heard the news with the greatest indifference.

"Dead!" said she, "and I did not know it. We were appointed maids
of honor at the same time, and when we were presented to the
Empress--"

And the Countess for the hundredth time related to her grandson one
of her anecdotes.

"Come, Paul," said she, when she had finished her story, "help me
to get up. Lizanka,* where is my snuffbox?"

* Diminutive of Lizaveta (Elizabeth).

And the Countess with her three maids went behind a screen to
finish her toilette. Tomsky was left alone with the young lady.

"Who is the gentleman you wish to introduce to the Countess?" asked
Lizaveta Ivanovna in a whisper.

"Naroumoff. Do you know him?"

"No. Is he a soldier or a civilian?"

"A soldier."

"Is he in the Engineers?"

"No, in the Cavalry. What made you think that he was in the
Engineers?"

The young lady smiled, but made no reply.

"Paul," cried the Countess from behind the screen, "send me some
new novel, only pray don't let it be one of the present day style."

"What do you mean, grandmother?"

"That is, a novel, in which the hero strangles neither his father
nor his mother, and in which there are no drowned bodies. I have a
great horror of drowned persons."

"There are no such novels nowadays. Would you like a Russian one?"

"Are there any Russian novels? Send me one, my dear, pray send me
one!"

"Good-by, grandmother. I am in a hurry. . . . Goodby, Lizavetta
Ivanovna. What made you think that Naroumoff was in the
Engineers?"

And Tomsky left the boudoir.

Lizaveta Ivanovna was left alone. She laid aside her work, and
began to look out of the window. A few moments afterwards, at a
corner house on the other side of the street, a young officer
appeared. A deep flush covered her cheeks; she took up her work
again, and bent her head down over the frame. At the same moment
the Countess returned, completely dressed.

"Order the carriage, Lizaveta," said she, "we will go out for a
drive."

Lizaveta rose from the frame, and began to arrange her work.

"What is the matter with you, my child, are you deaf?" cried the
Countess. "Order the carriage to be got ready at once."

"I will do so this moment," replied the young lady, hastening into
the anteroom.

A servant entered and gave the Countess some books from Prince Paul
Alexandrovitch.

"Tell him that I am much obliged to him," said the Countess.
"Lizaveta! Lizaveta! where are you running to?"

"I am going to dress."

"There is plenty of time, my dear. Sit down here. Open the first
volume and read to me aloud."

Her companion took the book and read a few lines.

"Louder," said the Countess. "What is the matter with you, my
child? Have you lost your voice? Wait--Give me that footstool--
a little nearer--that will do!"

Lizaveta read two more pages. The Countess yawned.

"Put the book down," said she, "what a lot of nonsense! Send it
back to Prince Paul with my thanks. . . . But where is the
carriage?"

"The carriage is ready," said Lizaveta, looking out into the
street.

"How is it that you are not dressed?" said the Countess. "I must
always wait for you. It is intolerable, my dear!"

Liza hastened to her room. She had not been there two minutes
before the Countess began to ring with all her might. The three
waiting-maids came running in at one door, and the valet at
another.

"How is it that you cannot hear me when I ring for you?" said the
Countess. "Tell Lizaveta Ivanovna that I am waiting for her."

Lizaveta returned with her hat and cloak on.

"At last you are here!" said the Countess. "But why such an
elaborate toilette? Whom do you intend to captivate? What sort of
weather is it? It seems rather windy."

"No, your Ladyship, it is very calm," replied the valet.

"You never think of what you are talking about. Open the window.
So it is; windy and bitterly cold. Unharness the horses, Lizaveta,
we won't go out--there was no need to deck yourself like that."

"What a life is mine!" thought Lizaveta Ivanovna.

And, in truth, Lizaveta Ivanovna was a very unfortunate creature.
"The bread of the stranger is bitter," says Dante, "and his
staircase hard to climb."  But who can know what the bitterness of
dependence is so well as the poor companion of an old lady of
quality? The Countess A---- had by no means a bad heart, but she
was capricious, like a woman who had been spoiled by the world, as
well as being avaricious and egotistical, like all old people, who
have seen their best days, and whose thoughts are with the past,
and not the present. She participated in all the vanities of the
great world, went to balls, where she sat in a corner, painted and
dressed in old-fashioned style, like a deformed but indispensable
ornament of the ballroom; all the guests on entering approached her
and made a profound bow, as if in accordance with a set ceremony,
but after that nobody took any further notice of her. She received
the whole town at her house, and observed the strictest etiquette,
although she could no longer recognize the faces of people. Her
numerous domestics, growing fat and old in her antechamber and
servants' hall, did just as they liked, and vied with each other in
robbing the aged Countess in the most bare-faced manner. Lizaveta
Ivanovna was the martyr of the household. She made tea, and was
reproached with using too much sugar; she read novels aloud to the
Countess, and the faults of the author were visited upon her head;
she accompanied the Countess in her walks, and was held answerable
for the weather or the state of the pavement. A salary was
attached to the post, but she very rarely received it, although she
was expected to dress like everybody else, that is to say, like
very few indeed. In society she played the most pitiable role.
Everybody knew her, and nobody paid her any attention. At balls
she danced only when a partner was wanted, and ladies would only
take hold of her arm when it was necessary to lead her out of the
room to attend to their dresses. She was very self-conscious, and
felt her position keenly, and she looked about her with impatience
for a deliverer to come to her rescue; but the young men,
calculating in their giddiness, honored her with but very little
attention, although Lizaveta Ivanovna was a hundred times prettier
than the bare-faced, cold-hearted marriageable girls around whom
they hovered. Many a time did she quietly slink away from the
glittering, but wearisome, drawing-room, to go and cry in her own
poor little room, in which stood a screen, a chest of drawers, a
looking-glass, and a painted bedstead, and where a tallow candle
burnt feebly in a copper candle-stick.

One morning--this was about two days after the evening party
described at the beginning of this story, and a week previous to
the scene at which we have just assisted--Lizaveta Ivanovna was
seated near the window at her embroidery frame, when, happening to
look out into the street, she caught sight of a young Engineer
officer, standing motionless with his eyes fixed upon her window.
She lowered her head, and went on again with her work. About five
minutes afterwards she looked out again--the young officer was
still standing in the same place. Not being in the habit of
coquetting with passing officers, she did not continue to gaze out
into the street, but went on sewing for a couple of hours, without
raising her head. Dinner was announced. She rose up and began to
put her embroidery away, but glancing casually out of the window,
she perceived the officer again. This seemed to her very strange.
After dinner she went to the window with a certain feeling of
uneasiness, but the officer was no longer there--and she thought no
more about him.

A couple of days afterwards, just as she was stepping into the
carriage with the Countess, she saw him again. He was standing
close behind the door, with his face half-concealed by his fur
collar, but his dark eyes sparkled beneath his cap. Lizaveta felt
alarmed, though she knew not why, and she trembled as she seated
herself in the carriage.

On returning home, she hastened to the window--the officer was
standing in his accustomed place, with his eyes fixed upon her.
She drew back, a prey to curiosity, and agitated by a feeling which
was quite new to her.

From that time forward not a day passed without the young officer
making his appearance under the window at the customary hour, and
between him and her there was established a sort of mute
acquaintance. Sitting in her place at work, she used to feel his
approach, and, raising her head, she would look at him longer and
longer each day. The young man seemed to be very grateful to her;
she saw with the sharp eye of youth, how a sudden flush covered his
pale cheeks each time that their glances met. After about a week
she commenced to smile at him. . . .

When Tomsky asked permission of his grandmother, the Countess, to
present one of his friends to her, the young girl's heart beat
violently. But hearing that Naroumoff was not an Engineer, she
regretted that by her thoughtless question, she had betrayed her
secret to the volatile Tomsky.

Hermann was the son of a German who had become a naturalized
Russian, and from whom he had inherited a small capital. Being
firmly convinced of the necessity of preserving his independence,
Hermann did not touch his private income, but lived on his pay,
without allowing himself the slightest luxury. Moreover, he was
reserved and ambitious, and his companions rarely had an
opportunity of making merry at the expense of his extreme
parsimony. He had strong passions and an ardent imagination, but
his firmness of disposition preserved him from the ordinary errors
of young men. Thus, though a gamester at heart, he never touched a
card, for he considered his position did not allow him--as he said--
"to risk the necessary in the hope of winning the superfluous,"
yet he would sit for nights together at the card table and follow
with feverish anxiety the different turns of the game.

The story of the three cards had produced a powerful impression
upon his imagination, and all night long he could think of nothing
else. "If," he thought to himself the following evening, as he
walked along the streets of St. Petersburg, "if the old Countess
would not reveal her secret to me! If she would only tell me the
names of the three winning cards. Why should I not try my fortune?
I must get introduced to her and win her favor--become her
lover. . . . But all that will take time, and she is eighty-seven
years old. She might be dead in a week, in a couple of days even.
But the story itself? Can it really be true? No! Economy,
temperance, and industry; those are my three winning cards; by
means of them I shall be able to double my capital--increase it
sevenfold, and procure for myself ease and independence."

Musing in this manner, he walked on until he found himself in one
of the principal streets of St. Petersburg, in front of a house of
antiquated architecture. The street was blocked with equipages;
carriages one after the other drew up in front of the brilliantly
illuminated doorway. At one moment there stepped out onto the
pavement the well-shaped little foot of some young beauty, at
another the heavy boot of a cavalry officer, and then the silk
stockings and shoes of a member of the diplomatic world. Fur and
cloaks passed in rapid succession before the gigantic porter at the
entrance. Hermann stopped. "Whose house is this?" he asked of the
watchman at the corner.

"The Countess A----'s," replied the watchman.

Hermann started. The strange story of the three cards again
presented itself to his imagination. He began walking up and down
before the house, thinking of its owner and her strange secret.
Returning late to his modest lodging, he could not go to sleep for
a long time, and when at last he did doze off, he could dream of
nothing but cards, green tables, piles of banknotes, and heaps of
ducats. He played one card after the other, winning
uninterruptedly, and then he gathered up the gold and filled his
pockets with the notes. When he woke up late the next morning, he
sighed over the loss of his imaginary wealth, and then sallying out
into the town, he found himself once more in front of the
Countess's residence. Some unknown power seemed to have attracted
him thither. He stopped and looked up at the windows. At one of
these he saw a head with luxuriant black hair, which was bent down,
probably over some book or an embroidery frame. The head was
raised. Hermann saw a fresh complexion, and a pair of dark eyes.
That moment decided his fate.

III

Lizaveta Ivanovna had scarcely taken off her hat and cloak, when
the Countess sent for her, and again ordered her to get the
carriage ready. The vehicle drew up before the door, and they
prepared to take their seats. Just at the moment when two footmen
were assisting the old lady to enter the carriage, Lizaveta saw her
Engineer standing close beside the wheel; he grasped her hand;
alarm caused her to lose her presence of mind, and the young man
disappeared--but not before he had left a letter between her
fingers. She concealed it in her glove, and during the whole of
the drive she neither saw nor heard anything. It was the custom of
the Countess, when out for an airing in her carriage, to be
constantly asking such questions as "Who was that person that met
us just now? What is the name of this bridge? What is written on
that sign-board?"  On this occasion, however, Lizaveta returned
such vague and absurd answers, that the Countess became angry with
her.

"What is the matter with you, my dear?" she exclaimed. "Have you
taken leave of your senses, or what is it? Do you not hear me or
understand what I say? Heaven be thanked, I am still in my right
mind and speak plainly enough!"

Lizaveta Ivanovna did not hear her. On returning home she ran to
her room, and drew the letter out of her glove: it was not sealed.
Lizaveta read it. The letter contained a declaration of love; it
was tender, respectful, and copied word for word from a German
novel. But Lizaveta did not know anything of the German language,
and she was quite delighted.

For all that, the letter caused her to feel exceedingly uneasy.
For the first time in her life she was entering into secret and
confidential relations with a young man. His boldness alarmed her.
She reproached herself for her imprudent behavior, and knew not
what to do. Should she cease to sit at the window, and, by
assuming an appearance of indifference towards him, put a check
upon the young officer's desire for further acquaintance with her?
Should she send his letter back to him, or should she answer him in
a cold and decided manner? There was nobody to whom she could turn
in her perplexity, for she had neither female friend nor adviser.
At length she resolved to reply to him.

She sat down at her little writing table, took pen and paper, and
began to think. Several times she began her letter and then tore
it up; the way she had expressed herself seemed to her either too
inviting or too cold and decisive. At last she succeeded in
writing a few lines with which she felt satisfied.

"I am convinced," she wrote, "that your intentions are honorable,
and that you do not wish to offend me by any imprudent behavior,
but our acquaintance must not begin in such a manner. I return you
your letter, and I hope that I shall never have any cause to
complain of this undeserved slight."

The next day, as soon as Hermann made his appearance, Lizaveta rose
from her embroidery, went into the drawing-room, opened the
ventilator, and threw the letter into the street, trusting that the
young officer would have the perception to pick it up.

Hermann hastened forward, picked it up, and then repaired to a
confectioner's shop. Breaking the seal of the envelope, he found
inside it his own letter and Lizaveta's reply. He had expected
this, and he returned home, his mind deeply occupied with his
intrigue.

Three days afterwards a bright-eyed young girl from a milliner's
establishment brought Lizaveta a letter. Lizaveta opened it with
great uneasiness, fearing that it was a demand for money, when,
suddenly, she recognized Hermann's handwriting.

"You have made a mistake, my dear," said she. "This letter is not
for me."

"Oh, yes, it is for you," replied the girl, smiling very knowingly.
"Have the goodness to read it."

Lizaveta glanced at the letter. Hermann requested an interview.

"It cannot be," she cried, alarmed at the audacious request and the
manner in which it was made. "This letter is certainly not for
me," and she tore it into fragments.

"If the letter was not for you, why have you torn it up?" said the
girl. "I should have given it back to the person who sent it."

"Be good enough, my dear," said Lizaveta, disconcerted by this
remark, "not to bring me any more letters for the future, and tell
the person who sent you that he ought to be ashamed."

But Hermann was not the man to be thus put off. Every day Lizaveta
received from him a letter, sent now in this way, now in that.
They were no longer translated from the German. Hermann wrote them
under the inspiration of passion, and spoke in his own language,
and they bore full testimony to the inflexibility of his desire,
and the disordered condition of his uncontrollable imagination.
Lizaveta no longer thought of sending them back to him; she became
intoxicated with them, and began to reply to them, and little by
little her answers became longer and more affectionate. At last
she threw out of the window to him the following letter:

"This evening there is going to be a ball at the Embassy. The
Countess will be there. We shall remain until two o'clock. You
have now an opportunity of seeing me alone. As soon as the
Countess is gone, the servants will very probably go out, and there
will be nobody left but the Swiss, but he usually goes to sleep in
his lodge. Come about half-past eleven. Walk straight upstairs.
If you meet anybody in the anteroom, ask if the Countess is at
home. You will be told 'No,' in which case there will be nothing
left for you to do but to go away again. But it is most probable
that you will meet nobody. The maidservants will all be together
in one room. On leaving the anteroom, turn to the left, and walk
straight on until you reach the Countess's bedroom. In the
bedroom, behind a screen, you will find two doors: the one on the
right leads to a cabinet, which the Countess never enters; the one
on the left leads to a corridor, at the end of which is a little
winding staircase; this leads to my room."

Hermann trembled like a tiger as he waited for the appointed time
to arrive. At ten o'clock in the evening he was already in front
of the Countess's house. The weather was terrible; the wind blew
with great violence, the sleety snow fell in large flakes, the
lamps emitted a feeble light, the streets were deserted; from time
to time a sledge drawn by a sorry-looking hack, passed by on the
lookout for a belated passenger. Hermann was enveloped in a thick
overcoat, and felt neither wind nor snow.

At last the Countess's carriage drew up. Hermann saw two footmen
carry out in their arms the bent form of the old lady, wrapped in
sable fur, and immediately behind her, clad in a warm mantle, and
with her head ornamented with a wreath of fresh flowers, followed
Lizaveta. The door was closed. The carriage rolled heavily away
through the yielding snow. The porter shut the street door, the
windows became dark.

Hermann began walking up and down near the deserted house; at
length he stopped under a lamp, and glanced at his watch: it was
twenty minutes past eleven. He remained standing under the lamp,
his eyes fixed upon the watch impatiently waiting for the remaining
minutes to pass. At half-past eleven precisely Hermann ascended
the steps of the house and made his way into the brightly-
illuminated vestibule. The porter was not there. Hermann hastily
ascended the staircase, opened the door of the anteroom, and saw a
footman sitting asleep in an antique chair by the side of a lamp.
With a light, firm step Hermann passed by him. The drawing-room
and dining-room were in darkness, but a feeble reflection
penetrated thither from the lamp in the anteroom.

Hermann reached the Countess's bedroom. Before a shrine, which was
full of old images, a golden lamp was burning. Faded stuffed
chairs and divans with soft cushions stood in melancholy symmetry
around the room, the walls of which were hung with china silk. On
one side of the room hung two portraits painted in Paris by Madame
Lebrun. One of these represented a stout, red-faced man of about
forty years of age, in a bright green uniform, and with a star upon
his breast; the other--a beautiful young woman, with an aquiline
nose, forehead curls, and a rose in her powdered hair. In the
corner stood porcelain shepherds and shepherdesses, dining-room
clocks from the workshop of the celebrated Lefroy, bandboxes,
roulettes, fans, and the various playthings for the amusement of
ladies that were in vogue at the end of the last century, when
Montgolfier's balloons and Niesber's magnetism were the rage.
Hermann stepped behind the screen. At the back of it stood a
little iron bedstead; on the right was the door which led to the
cabinet; on the left, the other which led to the corridor. He
opened the latter, and saw the little winding staircase which led
to the room of the poor companion. But he retraced his steps and
entered the dark cabinet.

The time passed slowly. All was still. The clock in the drawing-
room struck twelve, the strokes echoed through the room one after
the other, and everything was quiet again. Hermann stood leaning
against the cold stove. He was calm, his heart beat regularly,
like that of a man resolved upon a dangerous but inevitable
undertaking. One o'clock in the morning struck; then two, and he
heard the distant noise of carriage-wheels. An involuntary
agitation took possession of him. The carriage drew near and
stopped. He heard the sound of the carriage steps being let down.
All was bustle within the house. The servants were running hither
and thither, there was a confusion of voices, and the rooms were
lit up. Three antiquated chambermaids entered the bedroom, and
they were shortly afterwards followed by the Countess, who, more
dead than alive, sank into a Voltaire armchair. Hermann peeped
through a chink. Lizaveta Ivanovna passed close by him, and he
heard her hurried steps as she hastened up the little spiral
staircase. For a moment his heart was assailed by something like a
pricking of conscience, but the emotion was only transitory, and
his heart became petrified as before.

The Countess began to undress before her looking-glass. Her rose-
bedecked cap was taken off, and then her powdered wig was removed
from off her white and closely cut hair. Hairpins fell in showers
around her. Her yellow satin dress, brocaded with silver, fell
down at her swollen feet.

Hermann was a witness of the repugnant mysteries of her toilette;
at last the Countess was in her night-cap and dressing-gown, and in
this costume, more suitable to her age, she appeared less hideous
and deformed.

Like all old people, in general, the Countess suffered from
sleeplessness. Having undressed, she seated herself at the window
in a Voltaire armchair, and dismissed her maids. The candles were
taken away, and once more the room was left with only one lamp
burning in it. The Countess sat there looking quite yellow,
mumbling with her flaccid lips and swaying to and fro. Her dull
eyes expressed complete vacancy of mind, and, looking at her, one
would have thought that the rocking of her body was not a voluntary
action of her own, but was produced by the action of some concealed
galvanic mechanism.

Suddenly the death-like face assumed an inexplicable expression.
The lips ceased to tremble, the eyes became animated: before the
Countess stood an unknown man.

"Do not be alarmed, for Heaven's sake, do not be alarmed!" said he
in a low but distinct voice. "I have no intention of doing you any
harm; I have only come to ask a favor of you."

The old woman looked at him in silence, as if she had not heard
what he had said. Hermann thought that she was deaf, and, bending
down towards her ear, he repeated what he had said. The aged
Countess remained silent as before.

"You can insure the happiness of my life," continued Hermann, "and
it will cost you nothing. I know that you can name three cards in
order--"

Hermann stopped. The Countess appeared now to understand what he
wanted; she seemed as if seeking for words to reply.

"It was a joke," she replied at last. "I assure you it was only a
joke."

"There is no joking about the matter," replied Hermann, angrily.
"Remember Chaplitsky, whom you helped to win."

The Countess became visibly uneasy. Her features expressed strong
emotion, but they quickly resumed their former immobility.

"Can you not name me these three winning cards?" continued Hermann.

The Countess remained silent; Hermann continued:

"For whom are you preserving your secret? For your grandsons?
They are rich enough without it, they do not know the worth of
money. Your cards would be of no use to a spendthrift. He who
cannot preserve his paternal inheritance will die in want, even
though he had a demon at his service. I am not a man of that sort.
I know the value of money. Your three cards will not be thrown
away upon me. Come!"

He paused and tremblingly awaited her reply. The Countess remained
silent. Hermann fell upon his knees.

"If your heart has ever known the feeling of love," said be, "if
you remember its rapture, if you have ever smiled at the cry of
your new-born child, if any human feeling has ever entered into
your breast, I entreat you by the feelings of a wife, a lover, a
mother, by all that is most sacred in life, not to reject my
prayer. Reveal to me your secret. Of what use is it to you? May
be it is connected with some terrible sin, with the loss of eternal
salvation, with some bargain with the devil. Reflect, you are old,
you have not long to live--I am ready to take your sins upon my
soul. Only reveal to me your secret. Remember that the happiness
of a man is in your hands, that not only I, but my children and my
grandchildren, will bless your memory and reverence you as a
saint."

The old Countess answered not a word.

Hermann rose to his feet.

"You old hag!" he exclaimed, grinding his teeth, "then I will make
you answer!"  With these words he drew a pistol from his pocket.
At the sight of the pistol, the Countess for the second time
exhibited strong emotions. She shook her head, and raised her
hands as if to protect herself from the shot. Then she fell
backwards, and remained motionless.

"Come, an end to this childish nonsense!" said Hermann, taking hold
of her hand. "I ask you for the last time: will you tell me the
names of your three cards, or will you not?"

The Countess made no reply. Hermann perceived that she was dead!

IV

Lizaveta Ivanovna was sitting in her room, still in her ball dress,
lost in deep thought. On returning home, she had hastily dismissed
the chambermaid, who very reluctantly came forward to assist her,
saying that she would undress herself, and with a trembling heart
had gone up to her own room, expecting to find Hermann there, but
yet hoping not to find him. At the first glance he was not there,
and she thanked her fate for having prevented him keeping the
appointment. She sat down without undressing, and began to call to
mind all the circumstances which in a short time had carried her so
far. It was not three weeks since the time when she had first seen
the young officer from the window--and yet she was already in
correspondence with him, and he had succeeded in inducing her to
grant him a nocturnal interview. She knew his name only through
his having written it at the bottom of some of his letters; she had
never spoken to him, had never heard his voice, and had never heard
him spoken of until that evening. But, strange to say, that very
evening at the ball, Tomsky, being piqued with the young Princess
Pauline N----, who, contrary to her usual custom, did not flirt
with him, wished to revenge himself by assuming an air of
indifference: he therefore engaged Lizaveta Ivanovna, and danced an
endless mazurka with her. During the whole of the time he kept
teasing her about her partiality for Engineer officers, he assured
her that he knew far more than she imagined, and some of his jests
were so happily aimed, that Lizaveta thought several times that her
secret was known to him.

"From whom have you learned all this?" she asked, smiling.

"From a friend of a person very well known to you," replied Tomsky,
"from a very distinguished man."

"And whom is this distinguished man?"

"His name is Hermann."  Lizaveta made no reply, but her hands and
feet lost all sense of feeling.

"This Hermann," continued Tomsky, "is a man of romantic
personality. He has the profile of a Napoleon, and the soul of a
Mephistopheles. I believe that he has at least three crimes upon
his conscience. How pale you have become!"

"I have a headache. But what did this Hermann, or whatever his
name is, tell you?"

"Hermann is very dissatisfied with his friend. He says that in his
place he would act very differently. I even think that Hermann
himself has designs upon you; at least, he listens very attentively
to all that his friend has to say about you."

"And where has he seen me?"

"In church, perhaps; or on the parade. God alone knows where. It
may have been in your room, while you were asleep, for there is
nothing that he--"

Three ladies approaching him with the question: "oubli ou regret?"
interrupted the conversation, which had become so tantalizingly
interesting to Lizaveta.

The lady chosen by Tomsky was the Princess Pauline herself. She
succeeded in effecting a reconciliation with him during the
numerous turns of the dance, after which he conducted her to her
chair. On returning to his place, Tomsky thought no more either of
Hermann or Lizaveta. She longed to renew the interrupted
conversation, but the mazurka came to an end, and shortly
afterwards the old Countess took her departure.

Tomsky's words were nothing more than the customary small talk of
the dance, but they sank deep into the soul of the young dreamer.
The portrait, sketched by Tomsky, coincided with the picture she
had formed within her own mind, and, thanks to the latest romances,
the ordinary countenance of her admirer became invested with
attributes capable of alarming her and fascinating her imagination
at the same time. She was now sitting with her bare arms crossed,
and with her head, still adorned with flowers, sunk upon her
uncovered bosom. Suddenly the door opened and Hermann entered.
She shuddered.

"Where were you?" she asked in a terrified whisper.

"In the old Countess's bedroom," replied Hermann. "I have just
left her. The Countess is dead."

"My God! What do you say?"

"And I am afraid," added Hermann, "that I am the cause of her
death."

Lizaveta looked at him, and Tomsky's words found an echo in her
soul: "This man has at least three crimes upon his conscience!"
Hermann sat down by the window near her, and related all that had
happened.

Lizaveta listened to him in terror. So all those passionate
letters, those ardent desires, this bold, obstinate pursuit--all
this was not love! Money--that was what his soul yearned for! She
could not satisfy his desire and make him happy. The poor girl had
been nothing but the blind tool of a robber, of the murderer of her
aged benefactress! She wept bitter tears of agonized repentance.
Hermann gazed at her in silence; his heart, too, was a prey to
violent emotion, but neither the tears of the poor girl, nor the
wonderful charm of her beauty, enhanced by her grief, could produce
any impression upon his hardened soul. He felt no pricking of
conscience at the thought of the dead old woman. One thing only
grieved him: the irreparable loss of the secret from which he had
expected to obtain great wealth.

"You are a monster!" said Lizaveta at last.

"I did not wish for her death," replied Hermann, "my pistol was not
loaded."  Both remained silent. The day began to dawn. Lizaveta
extinguished her candle, a pale light illumined her room. She
wiped her tear-stained eyes, and raised them towards Hermann. He
was sitting near the window, with his arms crossed, and with a
fierce frown upon his forehead. In this attitude he bore a
striking resemblance to the portrait of Napoleon. This resemblance
struck Lizaveta even.

"How shall I get you out of the house?" said she at last. "I
thought of conducting you down the secret staircase."

"I will go alone," he answered.

Lizaveta arose, took from her drawer a key, handed it to Hermann,
and gave him the necessary instructions. Hermann pressed her cold,
inert hand, kissed her bowed head, and left the room.

He descended the winding staircase, and once more entered the
Countess's bedroom. The dead old lady sat as if petrified, her
face expressed profound tranquillity. Hermann stopped before her,
and gazed long and earnestly at her, as if he wished to convince
himself of the terrible reality. At last he entered the cabinet,
felt behind the tapestry for the door, and then began to descend
the dark staircase, filled with strange emotions. "Down this very
staircase," thought he, "perhaps coming from the very same room,
and at this very same hour sixty years ago, there may have glided,
in an embroidered coat, with his hair dressed a l'oiseau royal, and
pressing to his heart his three-cornered hat, some young gallant
who has long been mouldering in the grave, but the heart of his
aged mistress has only today ceased to beat."

At the bottom of the staircase Hermann found a door, which he
opened with a key, and then traversed a corridor which conducted
him into the street.

V

Three days after the fatal night, at nine o'clock in the morning,
Hermann repaired to the Convent of -----, where the last honors
were to be paid to the mortal remains of the old Countess.
Although feeling no remorse, he could not altogether stifle the
voice of conscience, which said to him: "You are the murderer of
the old woman!"  In spite of his entertaining very little religious
belief, he was exceedingly superstitions; and believing that the
dead Countess might exercise an evil influence on his life, he
resolved to be present at her obsequies in order to implore her
pardon.

The church was full. It was with difficulty that Hermann made his
way through the crowd of people. The coffin was placed upon a rich
catafalque beneath a velvet baldachin. The deceased Countess lay
within it, with her hands crossed upon her breast, with a lace cap
upon her head, and dressed in a white satin robe. Around the
catafalque stood the members of her household; the servants in
black caftans, with armorial ribbons upon their shoulders and
candles in their hands; the relatives--children, grandchildren, and
great-grandchildren--in deep mourning.

Nobody wept, tears would have been an affectation. The Countess
was so old that her death could have surprised nobody, and her
relatives had long looked upon her as being out of the world. A
famous preacher delivered the funeral sermon. In simple and
touching words he described the peaceful passing away of the
righteous, who had passed long years in calm preparation for a
Christian end. "The angel of death found her," said the orator,
"engaged in pious meditation and waiting for the midnight
bridegroom."

The service concluded amidst profound silence. The relatives went
forward first to take a farewell of the corpse. Then followed the
numerous guests, who had come to render the last homage to her who
for so many years had been a participator in their frivolous
amusements. After these followed the members of the Countess's
household. The last of these an old woman of the same age as the
deceased. Two young women led her forward by the hand. She had
not strength enough to bow down to the ground--she merely shed a
few tears, and kissed the cold hand of the mistress.

Herman now resolved to approach the coffin. He knelt down upon the
cold stones, and remained in that position for some minutes; at
last he arose as pale as the deceased Countess herself; he ascended
the steps of the catafalque and bent over the corpse. . . . At
that moment it seemed to him that the dead woman darted a mocking
look at him and winked with one eye. Hermann started back, took a
false step, and fell to the ground. Several persons hurried
forward and raised him up. At the same moment Lizaveta Ivanovna
was borne fainting into the porch of the church. This episode
disturbed for some minutes the solemnity of the gloomy ceremony.
Among the congregation arose a deep murmur, and a tall, thin
chamberlain, a near relative of the deceased, whispered in the ear
of an Englishman, who was standing near him, that the young officer
was a natural son of the Countess, to which the Englishman coldly
replied "Oh!"

During the whole of that day Hermann was strangely excited.
Repairing to an out of the way restaurant to dine, be drank a great
deal of wine, contrary to his usual custom, in the hope of
deadening his inward agitation. But the wine only served to excite
his imagination still more. On returning home he threw himself
upon his bed without undressing, and fell into a deep sleep.

When he woke up it was already night, and the moon was shining into
the room. He looked at his watch: it was a quarter to three.
Sleep had left him; he sat down upon his bed, and thought of the
funeral of the old Countess.

At that moment somebody in the street looked in at his window and
immediately passed on again. Hermann paid no attention to this
incident. A few moments afterwards he heard the door of his
anteroom open. Hermann thought that it was his orderly, drunk as
usual, returning from some nocturnal expedition, but presently he
heard footsteps that were unknown to him: somebody was walking
softly over the floor in slippers. The door opened, and a woman
dressed in white entered the room. Hermann mistook her for his old
nurse, and wondered what could bring her there at that hour of the
night. But the white woman glided rapidly across the room and
stood before him--and Hermann thought he recognized the Countess.

"I have come to you against my wish," she said in a firm voice,
"but I have been ordered to grant your request. Three, seven, ace,
will win for you if played in succession, but only on these
conditions: that you do not play more than one card in twenty-four-
hours, and that you never play again during the rest of your life.
I forgive you my death, on condition that you marry my companion,
Lizaveta Ivanovna."

With these words she turned round very quietly, walked with a
shuffling gait towards the door, and disappeared. Hermann heard
the street door open and shut, and again he saw someone look in at
him through the window.

For a long time Hermann could not recover himself. He then rose up
and entered the next room. His orderly was lying asleep upon the
floor, and he had much difficulty in waking him. The orderly was
drunk as usual, and no information could be obtained from him. The
street door was locked. Hermann returned to his room, lit his
candle, and wrote down all the details of his vision.

VI

Two fixed ideas can no more exist together in the moral world than
two bodies can occupy one and the same physical world. "Three,
seven, ace" soon drove out of Hermann's mind the thought of the
dead Countess. "Three, seven, ace" were perpetually running
through his head, and continually being repeated by his lips. If
he saw a young girl, he would say: "How slender she is; quite like
the three of hearts."  If anybody asked "What is the time?" he
would reply: "Five minutes to seven."  Every stout man that he saw
reminded him of the ace. "Three, seven, ace" haunted him in his
sleep, and assumed all possible shapes. The threes bloomed before
him in the forms of magnificent flowers, the sevens were
represented by Gothic portals, and the aces became transformed into
gigantic spiders. One thought alone occupied his whole mind--to
make a profitable use of the secret which he had purchased so
dearly. He thought of applying for a furlough so as to travel
abroad. He wanted to go to Paris and tempt fortune in some
gambling houses that abounded there. Chance spared him all this
trouble.

There was in Moscow a society of rich gamesters, presided over by
the celebrated Chekalinsky, who had passed all his life at the card
table, and had amassed millions, accepting bills of exchange for
his winnings, and paying his losses in ready money. His long
experience secured for him the confidence of his companions, and
his open house, his famous cook, and his agreeable and fascinating
manners, gained for him the respect of the public. He came to St.
Petersburg. The young men of the capital flocked to his rooms,
forgetting balls for cards, and preferring the emotions of faro to
the seductions of flirting. Naroumoff conducted Hermann to
Chekalinsky's residence.

They passed through a suite of rooms, filled with attentive
domestics. The place was crowded. Generals and Privy Counsellors
were playing at whist, young men were lolling carelessly upon the
velvet-covered sofas, eating ices and smoking pipes. In the
drawing-room, at the head of a long table, around which were
assembled about a score of players, sat the master of the house
keeping the bank. He was a man of about sixty years of age, of a
very dignified appearance; his head was covered with silvery white
hair; his full, florid countenance expressed good-nature, and his
eyes twinkled with a perpetual smile. Naroumoff introduced Hermann
to him. Chekalinsky shook him by the hand in a friendly manner,
requested him not to stand on ceremony, and then went on dealing.

The game occupied some time. On the table lay more than thirty
cards. Chekalinsky paused after each throw, in order to give the
players time to arrange their cards and note down their losses,
listened politely to their requests, and more politely still,
straightened the corners of cards that some player's hand had
chanced to bend. At last the game was finished. Chekalinsky
shuffled the cards, and prepared to deal again.

"Will you allow me to take a card?" said Hermann, stretching out
his hand from behind a stout gentleman who was punting.

Chekalinsky smiled and bowed silently, as a sign of acquiescence.
Naroumoff laughingly congratulated Hermann on his abjuration of
that abstention from cards which he had practised for so long a
period, and wished him a lucky beginning.

"Stake!" said Hermann, writing some figures with chalk on the back
of his card.

"How much?" asked the banker, contracting the muscles of his eyes,
"excuse me, I cannot see quite clearly."

"Forty-seven thousand roubles," replied Hermann. At these words
every head in the room turned suddenly round, and all eyes were
fixed upon Hermann.

"He has taken leave of his senses!" thought Naroumoff.

"Allow me to inform you," said Chekalinsky, with his eternal smile,
"that you are playing very high; nobody here has ever staked more
than two hundred and seventy-five roubles at once."

"Very well," replied Hermann, "but do you accept my card or not?"

Chekalinsky bowed in token of consent.

"I only wish to observe," said he, "that although I have the
greatest confidence in my friends, I can only play against ready
money. For my own part I am quite convinced that your word is
sufficient, but for the sake of the order of the game, and to
facilitate the reckoning up, I must ask you to put the money on
your card."

Hermann drew from his pocket a bank-note, and handed it to
Chekalinsky, who, after examining it in a cursory manner, placed it
on Hermann's card.

He began to deal. On the right a nine turned up, and on the left a
three.

"I have won!" said Hermann, showing his card.

A murmur of astonishment arose among the players. Chekalinsky
frowned, but the smile quickly returned to his face. "Do you wish
me to settle with you?" he said to Hermann.

"If you please," replied the latter.

Chekalinsky drew from his pocket a number of banknotes and paid at
once. Hermann took up his money and left the table. Naroumoff
could not recover from his astonishment. Hermann drank a glass of
lemonade and returned home.

The next evening he again repaired to Chekalinsky's. The host was
dealing. Hermann walked up to the table; the punters immediately
made room for him. Chekalinsky greeted him with a gracious bow.

Hermann waited for the next deal, took a card and placed upon it
his forty-seven thousand roubles, together with his winnings of the
previous evening.

Chekalinsky began to deal. A knave turned up on the right, a seven
on the left.

Hermann showed his seven.

There was a general exclamation. Chekalinsky was evidently ill at
ease, but he counted out the ninety-four thousand roubles and
handed them over to Hermann, who pocketed them in the coolest
manner possible, and immediately left the house.

The next evening Hermann appeared again at the table. Everyone was
expecting him. The generals and privy counsellors left their whist
in order to watch such extraordinary play. The young officers
quitted their sofas, and even the servants crowded into the room.
All pressed round Hermann. The other players left off punting,
impatient to see how it would end. Hermann stood at the table, and
prepared to play alone against the pale, but still smiling
Chekalinsky. Each opened a pack of cards. Chekalinsky shuffled.
Hermann took a card and covered it with a pile of bank-notes. It
was like a duel. Deep silence reigned around.

Chekalinsky began to deal, his hands trembled. On the right a
queen turned up, and on the left an ace.

"Ace has won!" cried Hermann, showing his card.

"Your queen has lost," said Chekalinsky, politely.

Hermann started; instead of an ace, there lay before him the queen
of spades! He could not believe his eyes, nor could he understand
how he had made such a mistake.

At that moment it seemed to him that the queen of spades smiled
ironically, and winked her eye at him. He was struck by her
remarkable resemblance. . . .

"The old Countess!" he exclaimed, seized with terror. Chekalinsky
gathered up his winnings. For some time Hermann remained perfectly
motionless. When at last he left the table, there was a general
commotion in the room.

"Splendidly punted!" said the players. Chekalinsky shuffled the
cards afresh, and the game went on as usual.

       .         .         .         .         .

Hermann went out of his mind, and is now confined in room number
seventeen of the Oboukhoff Hospital. He never answers any
questions, but he constantly mutters with unusual rapidity: "Three,
seven, ace! Three, seven, queen!"

Lizaveta Ivanovna has married a very amiable young man, a son of
the former steward of the old Countess. He is in the service of
the State somewhere, and is in receipt of a good income. Lizaveta
is also supporting a poor relative.

Tomsky has been promoted to the rank of captain, and has become the
husband of the Princess Pauline.

Vera Jelihovsky

The General's Will

It happened in winter, just before the holidays. Ivan Feodorovitch
Lobnitchenko, the lawyer, whose office is in one of the main
streets of St. Petersburg, was called hurriedly to witness the last
will and testament of one at the point of death. The sick man was
not strictly a client of Ivan Feodorovitch; under other
circumstances, he might have refused to make this late call, after
a day's heavy toil . . . but the dying man was an aristocrat and a
millionaire, and such as he meet no refusals, whether in life, or,
much more, at the moment of death.

Lobnitchenko, taking a secretary and everything necessary, with a
sigh scratched himself behind the ear, and thrusting aside the
thought of the delightful evening at cards that awaited him, set
out to go to the sick man.

General Iuri Pavlovitch Nasimoff was far gone. Even the most
compassionate doctors did not give him many days to live, when he
finally decided to destroy the will which he had made long ago, not
in St. Petersburg, but in the provincial city where he had played
the Tsar for so many years. The general had come to the capital
for a time, and had lain down--to rise no more.

This was the opinion of the physicians, and of most of those about
him; the sick man himself was unwilling to admit it. He was a
stalwart-hearted and until recently a stalwart-bodied old man,
tall, striking, with an energetic face, and a piercing, masterful
glance, hard to forget, even if you saw him only once.

He was lying on the sofa, in a richly furnished hotel suite,
consisting of three of the best rooms. He received the lawyer
gayly enough. He himself explained the circumstances to him,
though every now and then compelled to stop by a paroxysm of pain,
with difficulty repressing the groans which almost escaped him, in
spite of all his efforts. During these heavy moments, Ivan
Feodorovitch raised his eyes buried in fat to the sick man's face,
and his plump little features were convulsed in sympathy with the
sufferer's pain. As soon as the courageous old man, fighting hard
with the paroxysms of pain, had got the better of them, taking his
hands from his contorted face, and drawing a painful breath, he
began anew to explain his will. Lobnitchenko dropped his eyes
again and became all attention.

The general explained in detail to the lawyer. He had been married
twice, and had three children, a son and a daughter from his first
marriage, who had long ago reached adultship, and a nine-year-old
daughter from his second marriage. His second wife and daughter he
expected every day; they were abroad, but would soon return. His
elder daughter would also probably come.

The lawyer was not acquainted with Nazimoff's family; indeed he had
never before seen the general, though, like all Russia, he knew of
him by repute. But judging from the tone of contempt or of pity
with which he spoke of his second wife or her daughter, the lawyer
guessed at once that the general's home life was not happy. The
further explanations of the sick man convinced him of this. A new
will was to be drawn up, directly contrary to the will signed six
years before, which bequeathed to his second wife, Olga
Vseslavovna, unlimited authority over their little daughter, and
her husband's entire property. In the first will he had left
nearly everything, with the exception of the family estate, which
he did not feel justified in taking from his son, to his second
wife and her daughter. Now he wished to restore to his elder
children the rights which he had deprived them of, and especially
to his eldest daughter, Anna Iurievna Borissova, who was not even
mentioned in the first will. In the new will, with the exception
of the seventh part, the widow's share, he divided the whole of his
land and capital between his children equally; and he further
appointed a strict guardianship over the property of his little
daughter, Olga Iurievna.

The will was duly arranged, drawn up and witnessed, and after the
three witnesses had signed it, it was left, by the general's wish,
in his own keeping.

"I will send it to you to take care of," he said to the lawyer.
"It will be safer in your hands than here, in my temporary
quarters. But first I wish to read it to my wife, and . . . to my
eldest daughter . . . if she arrives in time."

The lawyer and the priest, who was one of the witnesses, were
already preparing to take leave of the general, when voices and
steps were heard in the corridor; a footman's head appeared through
the door, calling the doctor hurriedly forth. It appeared that the
general's lady had arrived suddenly, without letting anyone know by
telegram that she was coming.

The doctor hastily slipped out of the room; he feared the result of
emotion on the sick man, and wished to warn the general's wife of
his grave danger, but the sick man noticed the move, and it was
impossible to guard him against disturbance.

"What is going on there?" he asked. "What are you mumbling about,
Edouard Vicentevitch? Tell me what is the matter? Is it my
daughter?"

"Your excellency, I beg of you to take care of yourself!" the
doctor was beginning, evidently quite familiar with the general's
family affairs, and therefore dreading the meeting of husband and
wife. "It is not Anna Iurievna. . . ."

"Aha!" the sick man interrupted him; "she has come? Very well.
Let her come in. Only the little one . . . I don't wish her to
come . . . to-day."

Suffering was visible in his eyes, this time not bodily suffering.

The door opened, with the rustling of a silk dress. A tall, well-
developed, and decidedly handsome woman appeared on the threshhold.
She glanced at the pain-stricken face, which smiled contemptuously
toward her. In a moment she was beside the general, kneeling
beside him on the carpet, bending close to him, and pressing his
hand, as she repeated in a despairing whisper:

"Oh, Georges! Georges! Is it really you, my poor friend?"

It would be hard to define the expression of rapidly changing
emotions which passed over the sick man's face, which made his
breast heave, and his great heart quiver and tremble painfully.
Displeasure and pity, sympathy and contempt, anger and grief, all
were expressed in the short, sharp, bitter laugh, and the few words
which escaped his lips when he saw his little daughter timidly
following her mother into his room.

"Do not teach her to lie!" and he nodded toward the child, and
turned toward the wall, with an expression of pain and pity on his
face. The lawyer and the priest hastened to take their leave and
disappear.

"Ah! Sinners! sinners!" muttered the latter, as he descended the
stairs.

"Things are not in good shape between them?" asked Lobnitchenko.
"They don't get on well together?"

"How should they be in good shape, when he came here to get a
divorce?" whispered the priest, shaping his fur cap. "But God
decided otherwise. Even without a divorce, he will be separated
forever from his wife!"

"I don't believe he is so very far gone. He is a stalwart old man.
Perhaps he will pull through," went on the man of law.

"God's hand is over all," answered the priest, shrugging his
shoulders. And so they went their different ways.

II

"OLGA!" cried the sick man, without turning round, and feeling near
him the swift movement of his wife, he pushed her away with an
impatient movement of his hand, and added, "Not you! my daughter
Olga!"

"Olga! Go, my child, papa is calling you," cried the general's
wife in a soft voice, in French, to the little girl, who was
standing undecidedly in the center of the room.

"Can you not drop your foreign phrases?" angrily interrupted the
general. "This is not a drawing-room! You might drop it, from a
sense of decency."

His voice became shrill, and made the child shudder and begin to
cry. She went to him timidly.

The general looked at her with an expression of pain. He drew her
toward him with his left hand, raising the right to bless her.

"In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit!" he
whispered, making the sign of the cross over her. "God guard you
from evil, from every bad influence. . . . Be kind . . . honest . . .
most of all, be honest! Never tell lies. God guard you from
falsehood, from lying, even more than from sorrow!"

Tears filled the dying man's eyes. Little Olga shuddered from head
to foot; she feared her father, and at the same time was so sorry
for him. But pity got the upper hand. She clung to him, wetting
him with her tears. Her father raised his hand, wishing to make
the sign of the cross once more over the little head which lay on
his breast, but could not complete the gesture. His hand fell
heavily, his face was once more contorted, with pain; he turned to
those who stood near him, evidently avoiding meeting his wife's
eyes, and whispered:

"Take her away. It is enough. Christ be with her!"  And for a
moment he collected strength to place his hand on the child's head.

The doctor took the little girl by the hand, but her mother moved
quickly toward her.

"Kiss him! Kiss papa's hand!" she whispered, "bid him good-by!"

The general's wife sobbed, and covered her face with her
handkerchief, with the grand gesture of a stage queen. The sick
man did not see this. At the sound of her voice he frowned and
closed his eyes tight, evidently trying not to listen. The doctor
led the little girl away to another room and gave her to her
governess.

When he came back to the sick man, the general, lying on the sofa,
still in the same position, and without looking at his wife who
stood beside his pillow, said to her:

"I expect my poor daughter Anna, who has suffered so much injustice
through you. . . . I have asked her to forgive me. I shall pray
her to be a mother to her little sister . . . . I have appointed
her the child's guardian. She is good and honest . . . she will
teach the child no evil. And this will be best for you also. You
are provided for. You will find out from the new will. You could
not have had any profit from being her guardian. If Anna does not
consent to take little Olga to live with her, and to educate her
with her own children, as I have asked her, Olga will be sent to a
school. You will prefer liberty to your daughter; it will be
pleasanter for you. Is it not so?"

Contempt and bitter irony were perceptible in his voice. His wife
did not utter a syllable. She remained so quiet that it might have
been thought she did not even hear him, but for the convulsive
movement of her lips, and of the fingers of her tightly clasped
hands.

The doctor once more made a movement to withdraw discreetly, but
the general's voice stopped him.

"Edouard Vicentevitch? Is he here?"

"I am here, your excellency," answered the doctor, bending over the
sick man. "Would not your excellency prefer to be carried to the
bed? It will be more comfortable lying down."

"More comfortable to die?" sharply interrupted the general. "Why
do you drivel? You know I detest beds and blankets. Drop it!
Here, take this," and he gave him a sheet of crested paper folded
in four, which was lying beside him. "Read it, please. Aloud! so
that she may know."

He turned his eyes toward his wife. The doctor unwillingly began
his unpleasant task. He was a man of fine feeling, and although he
had no very high opinion of the general's wife, still she was a
woman. And a beautiful woman. He would have preferred that she
should learn from someone else how many of the pleasures of life
were slipping away from her, in virtue of the new will. But there
was nothing for it but to do as he was ordered. It was always hard
to oppose Iuri Pavlovitch; now it was quite impossible.

Olga Vseslavovna listened to the reading of the will with complete
composure. She sat motionless, leaning back in an armchair, with
downcast eyes, and only showing her emotion when her husband was no
longer able to stifle a groan. Then she turned toward him her
pale, beautiful face, with evident signs of heartfelt sympathy, and
was even rising to come to his assistance. The sick man
impatiently refused her services, significantly turning his eyes
toward the doctor, who was reading his last will and testament, as
though he would say: "Listen! Listen! It concerns you."

It did concern her, without a doubt. General Nazimoff's wife
learned that, instead of an income of a hundred thousand a year,
which she had had a right to expect, she could count only on a sum
sufficient to keep her from poverty; what in her opinion was a mere
pittance.

The doctor finished reading, coughing to hide his confusion, and
slowly folded the document.

"You have heard?" asked the general, in a faint, convulsive voice.

"I have heard, my friend," quietly answered his wife.

"You have nothing to say?"

"What can I say? You have a right to dispose of what belongs to
you. . . . But . . . still I . . ."

"Still you what?" sharply asked her husband.

"Still, I hope, my friend, that this is not your last will. . . ."

General Nazimoff turned, and even made an effort to raise himself
on his elbow.

"God willing, you will recover. Perhaps you will decide more than
once to make other dispositions of your property," calmly continued
his wife.

The sick man fell back on the pillows.

"You are mistaken. Even if I do not die, you will not be able to
deceive me again. This is my last will!" he replied convulsively.

And with trembling hand he gave the doctor a bunch of keys.

"There is the dispatch box. Please open it, and put the will in."

The doctor obeyed his wish, without looking at Olga Vseslavovna.
She, on her part, did not look at him. Shrugging her shoulders at
her husband's last words, she remained motionless, noticing nothing
except his sufferings. His sufferings, it seemed, tortured her.

Meanwhile the dying man followed the doctor with anxious eyes, and
as soon as the latter closed the large traveling dispatch box he
stretched out his hand to him for the keys.

"So long as I am alive, I will keep them!" he murmured, putting the
bunch of keys away in his pocket. "And when I am dead, I intrust
them to you, Edouard Vicentevitch. Take care of them, as a last
service to me!"  And he turned his face once more to the wall.

"And now, leave me alone! The pain is less. Perhaps I shall go to
sleep. Leave me!"

"My friend! Permit me to remain near you," the general's wife
began, bending tenderly over her husband.

"Go!" he cried sharply. "Leave me in peace, I tell you!"

She rose, trembling. The doctor hastily offered her his arm. She
left the room, leaning heavily on him, and once more covering her
face with her handkerchief, in tragic style.

"Be calm, your excellency!" whispered the doctor sympathetically,
only half conscious of what he was saying. "These rooms have been
prepared for you. You also need to rest, after such a long
journey."

"Oh, I am not thinking about myself. I am so sorry for him. Poor,
poor, senseless creature. How much I have suffered at his hands.
He was always so suspicious, so hard to get on with. And whims and
fantasies without end. You know, doctor, I have sometimes even
thought he was not in full possession of his faculties."

"Hm!" murmured the doctor, coughing in confusion.

"Take this strange change of his will, for instance," the general's
wife continued, not waiting for a clearer expression of sympathy.
"Take his manner toward me. And for what reason?"

"Yes, it is very sad," murmured the doctor.

"Tell me, doctor, does he expect his son and daughter?"

"Only his daughter, Anna Iurievna. She promised to come, with her
oldest children. A telegram came yesterday. We have been
expecting her all day."

"What is the cause of this sudden tenderness? They have not seen
each other for ten years. Does he expect her husband, too? His
son-in-law, the pedagogue?" contemptuously asked the general's
wife.

"No! How could he come? He could not leave his service. And his
son, too, Peter Iurevitch, he cannot come at once. He is on duty,
in Transcaspia. It is a long way."

"Yes, it is a long way!" assented the general's wife, evidently
busy with other thoughts. "But tell me, Edouard Vicentevitch, this
new will, has it been written long?"

"It was drawn up only to-day. The draft was prepared last week,
but the general kept putting it off. But when his pains began this
morning. . . ."

"Is it the end? Is it dangerous?" interrupted Olga Vseslavovna.

"Very--a very bad sign. When they began, Iuri Paylovitch sent at
once for the lawyer. He was still here when you arrived."

"Yes. And the old will, which he made before, has been destroyed?"

"I do not know for certain. But I think not. Oh, no, I forgot.
The general was going to send a telegram."

"Yes? to send a telegram?"

The general's wife shrugged her shoulders, sadly shook her head,
and added:

"He is so changeable! so changeable! But I think it is all the
same. According to law, only the last will is valid?"

"Yes, without doubt; the last."

The general's wife bowed her head.

"What hurts me most," she whispered, with a bitter smile, bending
close to the young doctor, and leaning heavily on his arm, "what
hurts me most, is not the money. I am not avaricious. But why
should he take my child away from me? Why should he pass over her
own mother, and intrust her to her half-sister? A woman whom I do
not know, who has not distinguished herself by any services or good
actions, so far as I know. I shall not submit. I shall contest
the will. The law must support the right of the mother. What do
you think, doctor?"

The doctor hastily assented, though, to tell the truth, he was not
thinking of anything at the moment, except the strange manner in
which the general's wife, while talking, pressed close to her
companion.

At that moment a bell rang, and the general's loud voice was heard:

"Doctor! Edouard Vicentevitch!"

"Coming!" answered the doctor.

And leaving Olga Vseslavovna at the threshold of her room, he ran
quickly to the sick man.

"A vigorous voice--for a dying man! He shouts as he used to at the
manoeuvers!" thought the general's wife.

And her handsome face at once grew dark with the hate which stole
over it. This was only a passing expression, however; it rapidly
gave place to sorrow, when she saw the manservant coming from the
sick man.

"What is the matter with your master, Yakov? Is he worse?"

"No, madam. God has been gracious. He told me to push the box
nearer him, and ordered Edouard Vicentevitch to open it. He wants
to send some telegram or other."

"Thank God, he is not worse. Yakov, I am going to send a telegram
to the station myself, in a few minutes, by my coachman. You can
give him the general's telegram, too."

"Very well, madam."

"And another thing. I shall not go to bed. If there is any change
in your master's condition, Yakov, come and knock at my door at
once. I beg of you, tell me the very moment anything happens.
Here is something for you, Yakov;--you have grown thin, waiting
upon your master!"

"I thank you most humbly, your excellency. We must not grudge our
exertions," the man answered, putting a note of considerable value
in his pocket.

III

Contrary to expectation, the night passed quietly enough. Emotion
and weariness claimed their own; Olga Vseslavovna, in spite of all
her efforts, fell into a sleep toward morning; and when she awoke,
she started in dismay, noticing that the sun had already climbed
high in the sky, and was pouring into her room.

Her maid, a deft Viennese, who had remained with this accommodating
mistress for five years, quieted her by telling her that the master
was better, that he was still asleep, not having slept for the
greater part of the night.

"The doctor and Yakov were busy with him most of the night," she
explained. "They were sorting all sorts of papers; some of them
they tied up, writing something on them; others they tore up, or
threw into the fire. The grate is full of ashes. Yakov told me."

"And there were no more telegrams?"

"No, madam, there were no more. Yakov and our Friedrich would have
let me know at once; I was there in the anteroom; they both kept
coming through on errands. But there were no more telegrams,
except the two that were sent last night."

Olga Vseslavovna dressed, breakfasted, and went to her husband.
But at the threshold of his room she was stopped by the direction
of the sick man to admit no one without special permission except
the doctor, or his eldest daughter, if she should come.

"Tell Edouard Vicentevitch to come out to me," ordered the
general's wife. The doctor was called, and in great confusion
confirmed the general's orders.

"But perhaps he did not think that such an order could apply to
me?" she said, astonished.

The doctor apologized, but had to admit that it was she who was
intended, and that his excellency had sent word to her excellency
that she should not give herself the trouble of visiting him.

"He is out of his mind," declared the general's wife quietly, but
with conviction, shrugging her shoulders. "Why should he hate me
so--for all my love to him, an old man, who might have been my
father?"

And Olga Vseslavovna once more took refuge in her pocket
handkerchief, this time, instead of tears, giving vent to sobs of
vexation.

The doctor, always shy in the presence of women, stood with hanging
head and downcast eyes, as though he were to blame.

"What is it they are saying about you burning papers all night?"
Olga Vseslavovna asked, in a weak voice.

"Oh, not nearly all night. Iuri Pavlovitch remembered that he
ought to destroy some old letters and papers. There were some to
be put in order. There, in the box, there is a packet addressed to
your excellency. I was told to write the address."

"Indeed! Could I not see it?"

"Oh no, on no account. They are all locked up in the box along
with the last will. And the general has the keys."

A bitter smile of humiliation played about the young woman's lips.

"So the new will has not been burned yet?" she asked. And to the
startled negative of the doctor, who repeated that "it was lying on
the top of the papers in the box," she added:

"Well, it will be burned yet. Do not fear. Especially if God in
His mercy prolongs my husband's life. You see, he has always had a
mysterious passion for writing new documents, powers of attorney,
deeds of gift, wills, whatever comes into his mind. He writes new
ones, and burns the old ones. But what can you do? We must submit
to each new fancy. We cannot contradict a sick man."

Olga Vseslavovna went back to her room. She only left her bedroom
for a few minutes that day, to hear the final word of the lights of
the medical profession, who had come together for a general
consultation in the afternoon; all the rest of the day she shut
herself up. The conclusions of the physicians, though they
differed completely in detail, were similar in the main, and far
from comforting; the life and continued suffering of the sick man
could not last more than a few days.

In the evening a telegram came from Anna Iurievna; she informed her
father that she would be with him on the following day, at five in
the afternoon.

"Shall I be able to hold out? Shall I last so long?" sighed the
sick man, all day long. And the more he was disturbed in mind, the
more threatening were his attacks of pain. He passed a bad night.
Toward morning a violent attack, much worse than any that had gone
before, almost carried him away. He could hardly breathe, owing to
the sharp suffering. Hot baths for his hands and steam inhalations
no longer had any beneficial effect, though they had alleviated his
pain hitherto.

The doctor, the Sister of Mercy, and the servant wore themselves
out. But still, as before, his wife alone was not admitted to him.
She raged with anger, trying, and not without success, to convince
everyone that she was going mad with despair. Little Olga had been
taken away on the previous day by a friend of the general's, to
stay there "during this terrible time."  That night Madame Nazimoff
did not go to bed at all; and, as befitted a devoted wife, did not
quit her husband's door. When the violent attack just before dawn
quieted down, she made an attempt to go in to him; but no sooner
did the sick man see her at the head of his couch, on which he had
at last been persuaded to lie, than strong displeasure was
expressed in his face, and, no longer able to speak, he made an
angry motion of his hand toward her, and groaned heavily. The
Sister of Mercy with great firmness asked the general's wife not to
trouble the sick man with her presence.

"And I am to put up with this. I am to submit to all this?"
thought Olga Vseslavovna, writhing with wrath. "To endure all this
from him, and after his death to suffer beggary? No, a thousand
times no! Better death than penury and such insults."  And she
fell into gloomy thought.

That gesture of displeasure at the sight of his wife was the last
conscious act of Iuri Pavlovitch Nazimoff. At eight in the morning
he lost consciousness, in the midst of violent suffering, which
lasted until the end. By the early afternoon he was no more.

During the last hour of his agony his wife knelt beside his couch
without let or hindrance, and wept inconsolably. The formidable
aristocrat and millionaire was dead.

Everything went on along the usual lines. The customary stir and
unceremonious bustle, instead of cautious whispering, rose around
the dead body, in preparation for a fashionable funeral. No near
relatives were present except his wife, and she was confined to her
room, half-fainting, half-hysterical. All responsibility fell on
the humble doctor, and he busied himself indefatigably,
conscientiously, in the sweat of his brow, making every effort to
omit nothing. But, as always happens, he omitted the most
important thing of all. The early twilight was already descending
on St. Petersburg, shrouded in chilly mist, when Edouard
Vicentevitch Polesski struck his brow in despair; he had suddenly
remembered the keys and the box, committed to his care by the dying
man. At that moment, the body, dressed in full uniform, with all
his regalia, was lying in the great, darkened room on a table,
covered with brocade, awaiting the coffin and the customary
wreaths. The doctor rushed into the empty bedroom. Everything in
it was already in order; the bed stood there, without mattress or
pillows. There was nothing on the dressing table, either.

Where were the keys? Where was the box? The box was standing as
before, untouched, locked. His heart at once felt lighter. But
the keys? No doubt the police would come in a few minutes. It was
astonishing that they had not come already. They would seal
everything. Everything must be in order. Where was Yakov?
Probably he had taken them. Or . . . the general's wife?

Polesski rushed to look for the manservant, but could not find him.
There was so much to do; he had gone to buy something, to order
something. "Oh Lord! And the announcement?" he suddenly
remembered. It must be written at once, and sent to the
newspapers. He must ask the general's wife, however, what words he
should use. However much he might wish to avoid her, still she was
now the most important person. And he could ask at the same time
whether she had seen the keys.

The doctor went to the rooms of the general's wife. She was lying
down, suffering severely, but she came out to him. "What words was
he to use? It was all the same to her. 'With deep regret,' 'with
heartfelt sorrow,' what did she care? The keys? What keys? No!
she had not seen any keys, and did not know where they were. But
why should he be disturbed about them? The servants were
trustworthy; nothing would go astray."

"Yes, but we must have them ready for the police. They will come
in a few minutes, to seal up the dead man's papers!"

"To seal up the papers? Why?"

"That is the law. So that everything should be intact, until after
the last will and testament of the deceased has been read,
according to his wishes."

General Nazimoff's wife paled perceptibly. She knew nothing of
such an obstacle, and had not expected it. The doctor was too busy
to notice her pallor.

"Very well; I shall write the announcement at once, and send it to
the newspapers. I suppose 'Novoe Vremya' and 'Novosti' will be
enough?"

"Do as you think best. Write it here, in my room. Here is
everything you require; pens, paper. Write, and then read it to
me. I shall be back in a moment. I want to put a bandage round my
head. It aches so. Wait for me here."  And the general's wife
went from the sitting-room to her bedroom.

"Rita!" she whispered to her faithful maid, who was hurriedly
sewing a mourning gown of crape for her. "Do not let the doctor go
till I return. Do you understand? Do what you please, but do not
let him go."  The general's wife slipped from the bedroom into the
passage through a small side door, and disappeared.

The two rooms between hers and the chamber where the dead man lay
were quite empty and nearly dark; there were no candles in them.
From the chamber came the feeble glimmer of the tiny lamps burning
before the icons.*  The tapers were not lit yet, as the deacon had
not yet arrived. He was to come at the same time as the priest and
the coffin. For the moment there was no one near the dead man; in
the anteroom sat the Sister of Mercy.

* Sacred images.

"You wish to pray?" she asked the general's wife.

"Yes, I shall pray there, in his room."

She slipped past the dead body without looking at it, to the room
that had been the general's bedroom, and closed the door behind
her. She was afraid to lock it, and after all, was it necessary?
It would only take a moment. There it is, the box! She knows it
of old! And she knows its key of old, too; it is not so long since
her husband had no secrets from her.

The key was quickly slipped into the lock, and the lid rose
quickly. The paper? That new, detestable paper, which might
deprive her of everything. Ah! there it is!

To close the lid quickly, and turn the key in the lock; to hide the
keys somewhere; here, between the seat and the back of the sofa, on
which he lay. That's it!

A sigh of relief from fear escaped the beautiful lips of the
handsome woman, lips which were pale through those terrible days.
She could feel secure at last!

She must look at the document, the proof of his cruelty, his
injustice, his stupidity! She must make sure that there was no
mistake! Olga Vseslavovna went up to the window, and taking
advantage of the last ray of the gray day, unfolded the will.

"In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit!" she
read. Yes, that is it, the will.

"How he pronounced those same words, when he was blessing little
Olga," she remembered. "Blessing her! And his hand did not
tremble, when he signed this. To deprive her, to deprive them
both, of everything, all on account of those hated people? But
now--it should never be! On no account! Your down-at-the-heel
pedagogue shall not strut about in peacock's feathers! Olga
and I . . . require the money more!"

And the general's wife was tempted to snap her fingers in triumph
in the direction of the dead man.

Suddenly, quite close to the door, the sound of steps was heard.
Good heavens! And she held the big sheet of crested paper in her
hand! Where could she put it? She had no time to think of folding
it up. There! they are coming in already! Who can it be?

And the will lay on the floor, the general's wife kneeling on it,
as on a prayer carpet, in an attitude of prayer, her clasped hands
on the window sill, her wet eyes fixed on a faintly twinkling star,
as though calling heaven to witness her inconsolable grief and
bereavement.

It was only the Sister of Mercy.

"Madam, the people have come, bringing the coffin; and I think the
police have also come."

"Yes, in a moment. Tell them I am coming immediately."

The Sister of Mercy went out.

"See how she loved her husband. And why was he so unjust to her at
the last?" she involuntarily reproached the dead general.

Meanwhile the general's wife had risen hastily, folded the will as
best she could, in four, in eight folds, and crushing it together
in her hand, went quietly from the room, which now filled her with
dread.

She was so confused that she did not even think of looking for her
pocket; she simply held her packet tight, and let her hand hang
down, hiding it in the folds of her wide dressing-gown. There
seemed to be so many people in the room which a moment before was
empty, that she felt cowed. Her heart beat pitilessly, and the
blood throbbed so violently in her temples that she could not
understand what was said to her. They were asking her if they
might place the body in the coffin, which had already been placed
beside it. Her silence was taken as consent. The skilful
undertakers easily lifted the already rigid body.

Olga Vseslavovna stood at the head of the dead general. Among the
crowd of undertakers and servants, she suddenly saw coming toward
her, with outstretched hand, and with tears of compassion in her
eyes, the Princess Ryadski, the same aristocratic kinswoman who had
already taken little Olga to stay with her.

"I must shake hands with her! And that horrible packet is in my
hand! Where shall I put it? How can I hide it?"  Before her eyes
gleamed the brilliantly lighted, ashen forehead of the dead man,
helplessly bent backward and sideways, as the whole body was
suspended in the hands of the undertakers, over its last abode.

A saving thought!

The general's wife bent gently over the dead body. She gently
supported the head of the corpse, gently laid it on the satin
cushion, straightened the frills which surrounded the hard pillow,
and, unperceived, left under it the twisted roll of paper.

"It will be safer there!"  The thought flashed through her mind.
"He wanted to keep his will himself; well, keep it to eternity,
now! What more can you ask?"

And it even seemed ludicrous to her. She could hardly restrain a
smile of triumph, changing it into a sad smile of grief, in reply
to her kinswoman's condolences. The coffin was already lying in
state on the bier; it was covered with brocade and flowers. The
princess, as kinswoman of the late general, bent low, and first
laid on the dead body the wreath she had brought with her.

"The poor sufferer has entered into rest," she whispered, shaking
her head. "Will the funeral service be soon? Where will it be?
Where is Olga Vseslavovna?"

"She will be here in a moment," the Sister of Mercy whispered,
deeply affected; "she has gone to fix herself. They will begin the
funeral service in a few minutes, and she is all in disorder. She
is in great grief. Will you not take a seat?"

"What? Sit down? Thank you," loftily replied the princess. And
she went toward a dignified personage who was entering, adorned
with many orders and an aristocratic beard.

The general's wife soon came to herself. "Rita! I must wash and
dress as quickly as possible. Ah! pray forgive me, doctor! They
called me away to my husband. They were placing him in the
coffin."  She sighed deeply. "What is this? Oh, yes, the
announcement of his death. Very good. Send it, please. But I
must dress at once. The funeral service will begin immediately."

"Doctor! Is the doctor here?" an anxious voice sounded in the
corridor.

"I am coming! What is it?"

"Please come quick, Edouard Vicentevitch!" Yakov called him. "The
lady is very ill downstairs; Anna Iurievna, the general's daughter!
I was out to order the flowers; I come back, and see the lady lying
in a faint in the entrance. She had just arrived, and asked; and
they answered her that he was dead, without the slightest
preparation! And she could not bear it, and fainted."

Yakov said all this as they went.

"Actress!" angrily thought Olga Vseslavovna. And immediately she
added mentally, "Well, she may stand on her head now, it is all the
same to me!"

IV

Whether it was all the same to her or not, the deep despair of the
daughter, who had not been in time to bid her father farewell, had
not been in time to receive his blessing, after many years of
anger, which had borne heavily on the head of the blameless young
woman, was so evidently sincere, and produced such a deep
impression on everyone, that her stepmother also was moved.

Anna Iurievna resembled her father, as much as a young, graceful,
pretty woman can resemble an elderly man with strongly-marked
features and athletic frame, such as was General Nazimoff. But in
spite of the delicacy of her form, and the gentleness of her eyes,
her glance sometimes flashed fire in a manner very like the
flashing eyes of her father, and in her strong will, firm
character, and inflexible adherence to what she believed to be
necessary and right, Anna was exactly like her father.

For nearly ten years his daughter had obediently borne his anger;
from the day of her marriage to the man she loved, whom evil-minded
people had succeeded in calumniating in the general's mind. Though
writing incessantly to him, begging him to pardon her, to
understand that he had made a mistake, that her husband was a man
of honor, and that she would be fully and perfectly happy, but for
the burden of her father's wrath, and of the separation from him,
she had never until the last few weeks received a reply from him.
But quite recently something mysterious had happened. Not only had
her father written to her that he wished to see her and her
children in St. Petersburg, whither he was just setting out, but a
few days later he had written again, a long, tender letter, in
which he had asked her forgiveness. Without giving any
explanations, he said that he had received indubitable proofs of
the innocence and chivalrous honor of her husband; that he felt
himself deeply guilty toward him, and was miserable on account of
the injustice he had committed. In the following letters, praying
his daughter to hasten her coming, because he was dangerously ill,
and the doctors thought could not last long, he filled her with
astonishment by expressing his intention to make a new will, and
his determination to separate his youngest daughter "from such a
mother," and by his prayers to her and her husband not to refuse to
take upon themselves little Olga's education.

"What had happened? How could that light-minded woman have so
deeply wounded my father?" Anna asked in bewilderment.

"If she was merely light-minded!" her husband answered, shrugging
his shoulders. "But she is so malicious, so crafty, and so daring
that anything may be expected from her."

"But in that case there would be an open scandal. We would know
something for certain. Nowadays they even relate such stories in
the newspapers, and my father is so well known, so noteworthy!"

"That is just why they don't write about him!" answered Borisoff,
her husband, smiling. He himself flatly refused to go to St.
Petersburg. With horror he remembered the first year of his
marriage, before he had succeeded in obtaining a transfer to
another city, and was compelled to meet the woman he detested;
compelled also to meet his father-in-law, a wise and honorable old
man, who had fallen so completely into the toils of this crafty
woman. Anna Iurievna knew that her husband despised her
stepmother; that he detested her as the cause of all the grief
which they had had to endure through her, and most of all, on
account of the injustice she was guilty of toward her brother, the
general's son.

For six years Borisoff had lived with young Peter Nazimoff, as his
tutor and teacher, and loved him sincerely. The boy had already
reached the highest class at school, when his sister, two years
older than he, finished her schooling, and returned to her father's
house, about the time of the general's second marriage. What the
young tutor tried not to notice and to endure, for love of his
pupil, in the first year of the general's second marriage, became
intolerable when the general's daughter returned home, and to all
the burden of his difficult position was added the knowledge of
their mutual love. He proceeded frankly, and the whole matter was
soon settled. But the young man had never uttered a syllable as to
the cause of Madame Nazimoff's hatred for him. For the sake of his
father-in-law's peace of mind, he sincerely hoped that he would
never know. Anna was convinced that the whole cause of her
stepmother's hostility was her prejudice against what was in her
opinion a mesalliance. In part she was right, but the chief reason
of this hostility remained forever a secret to her. Unfortunately,
it was not equally a secret to her father.

Of late years he had gradually been losing faith in his second
wife's character. It went so far that the general felt much more
at ease when she was away. Before the last illness of Iuri
Pavlovitch, which, to tell the truth, was almost his first, Olga
Vseslavovna had gone abroad with her daughter, intending to travel
for a year; but she had hardly been gone two months when the
general unexpectedly determined to go to St. Petersburg to seek a
divorce, to see his elder daughter, and change his will. Perhaps
he would never have determined on such decisive measures had not
something wholly unexpected taken place.

Borisoff was quite mistaken in thinking that he had so carefully
destroyed all the letters which the general's young wife had
written to him, before his marriage to Anna, that no material
evidence of Olga Vseslavovna's early design of treachery remained.
Even before she married the general, she had had a confidential
servant, who carried out many commissions for the beautiful young
woman, whose fame had gone abroad through the three districts along
the Volga, the arena of her early triumphs. Later, the young lady
found a new favorite in foreign lands--the same Rita who was still
with her. Martha, the Russian confidential servant, heartily
detested the German girl, and such strife arose between them that
not only the general's wife, but even the general himself, was
deprived of peace and tranquillity. Martha was no fool; Olga
Vseslavovna had to be careful with her; she did take care, but she
herself did not know to what an extent she was in the woman's
power. Foreseeing a black day of ingratitude, Martha, with
wonderful forethought, had put on one side one or two letters from
each series of her mistress' secret correspondence, which always
passed through her hands. Perhaps she would not have made such a
bad use of them but for her mistress' last, intolerable insult.
Prizing in her servants, next to swift obedience, a knowledge of
languages, her mistress did not make use of her when traveling
abroad; but hitherto she had taken both servants with her. But on
her last journey she was so heartily tired of Martha, and her
perpetual tears and quarrels, that she determined to get on without
her, the more so that her daughter's governess was also traveling
with her. Her company was growing too numerous.

There was no limit to Martha's wrath when she learned that she was
going to be left behind. Her effrontery was so great that she
advised her mistress "for her own sake" not to put such an affront
upon her, since she would not submit to it without seeking revenge.
But her mistress never dreamed of what Martha was planning, and
what a risk she ran.

Hardly had the general's wife departed when Martha asked the
general to let her leave, saying she would find work elsewhere.
The general saw no way of keeping her; and he did not even wish to
do so, thinking her only a quarrelsome, ill-tempered woman. The
confidential servant left the house, and even the city. And
immediately her revenge and torture of the general began, cutting
straight at the root of his happiness, his health, even his life.
He began to receive, almost daily, letters from different parts of
Russia, for Martha had plenty of friends and chums. With
measureless cruelty Martha began by sending the less important
documents, still signed with her mistress' maiden name; then two or
three letters from the series of the most recent times, and finally
there came a whole packet of those sent by the general's wife to
the tutor, in the first year of her marriage with the general,
before Borisoff had met Anna.

The crafty Martha, knowing perfectly the whole state of affairs to
which these letters referred, often copied out their contents, and
kept the letters themselves concealed, saying to herself, "God
knows what may turn up, some day!

"If they are no use, I can burn them. But they may be useful. It
is always a good thing to keep our masters in our power," argued
the sagacious woman, and she was not mistaken in her calculations,
although these letters served not for her profit, but only for a
sanguinary revenge.

These notes and letters, which finally opened his eyes to the true
character of his wife, and his own crying injustice to his elder
children, were now lying in the general's dispatch box, in a neatly
tied packet, directed in the doctor's handwriting to "Her
Excellency Olga Vseslavovna Nazimoff."

As soon as she received her father's first letter Anna began to get
ready to go to St. Petersburg, but unfortunately she was kept back
by the sickness, first of one child, then of another. But for his
last telegrams, she would not have started even now, because she
did not realize the dangerous character of his illness. But now,
finding that she had come too late, the unhappy woman could not
forgive herself.

Everyone was grieved to see her bitter sorrow, after the funeral
service for her father. Princess Ryadski burst into tears, as she
looked at her; and all the acquaintances and relations of the
general were far more disturbed by her despair than by the
general's death. Olga Vseslavovna was secretly scandalized at such
lack of self-control, but outwardly she seemed greatly touched and
troubled by the situation of her poor stepdaughter. But she did
not venture to express her sympathy too openly in the presence of
others, remembering the words of "the crazy creature" when she had
come to herself after her fainting fit, and her stepmother had
hurried up to embrace her.

"Leave me!" Anna had cried, when she saw her. "I cannot bear to
see you! You killed my father!"

It was well that there were only servants in the anteroom. But the
general's wife did not wish to risk another such scene, now that so
many people were present. And besides she was extremely disturbed;
the friends who had come to the funeral service had brought
flowers; and the half-crazy princess, with the aid of two other
ladies, had taken a fancy to decorate the coffin, and especially
the head, with them. It is impossible to describe what Olga
Vseslavovna suffered, as she watched all those hands moving about
among the folds of the muslin, the frills, the covering, almost
under the satin cushion even; a little more and she would have
fainted in earnest.

She had always boasted that she had strong nerves, and this was
quite true; nevertheless, during these days, their strength was
evidently giving way, as she could not get to sleep for a long time
that night, and heaven only knows what fancies passed through her
mind. It was almost morning before Olga Vseslavovna got to sleep,
and even then it was not for long.

She dreamed that she was descending endless stairs and dark
corridors, with a heavy, shapeless burden on her shoulders. A
bright, constantly-changing flame flickered before her; now red,
now yellow, now green, it flitted before her from side to side.
She knew that if she could reach it, the burden would fall from
her. But the light seemed to be taunting her, now appearing, now
disappearing, and suddenly going out altogether. And she found
herself in the darkness, in a damp cellar, seemingly empty, but
filled with something's invisible presence. What was it? She did
not know. But this pervading something frightened her terribly,
smothered her, pressing on her from all sides, depriving her of
air. She was choking! Terror seized her at the thought that
it . . . was Death! Must she die? Was it possible? But that
brightly shining light had just promised her life, gayety,
brilliance! She must hurry to overtake it. And she tried to
run. But her feet would not obey her; she could not move.

"Heaven! Heaven!" she cried, "but what is it? Whence has such a
disaster come? What is holding me? Let me go, or I shall be
smothered in this stench, under this intolerable burden!"

Suddenly Iuri Pavlovitch walked past her. She immediately
recognized him, and joyfully caught at his cloak. "Iuri! Forgive
me! Help me!" she cried.

Her husband stopped, looked sadly at her, and answered: "I would
gladly help you, but you yourself hinder me. Let me go; I must
fulfill your directions."

At that moment she awoke. She was bathed in a cold perspiration,
and clutched wildly at the coverlet with both hands. There was no
one near her, but she clearly felt someone's presence, and was
convinced that she had really seen her husband a moment before. In
her ears resounded his words: "I must fulfill your directions!"
Directions? What directions?

She sprang up, and began to feel about over the carpet with her
bare feet, looking for her slippers. A terrible thought had come
into her mind. She felt that she must settle it at once. She must
take the will, take it away from there! burn it! destroy it! She
feverishly drew on her dressing gown, and threw a shawl over her
shoulders.

"Rita! Get up quick! Quick! Come!"

The frightened maid rose, still half asleep, and rubbed her eyes,
understanding nothing. Her mistress' ice-cold hands clutched her,
and dragged her somewhere.

"Ach lieber Gott . . . Gott in Himmel!" she muttered. "What has
happened? What do you want?"

"Hush! Come quick!"  And Olga Vseslavovna, with a candle in her
trembling hand, went forward, dragging the trembling Rita with her.
She opened the door of her bedroom, and went out. All the doors
were open en suite, and straight in front of her, in the center of
the fourth, shone the coffin of her husband, covered with cloth of
gold and lit up by the tall tapers standing round the bier.

"What does it mean?" whispered the general's wife. "Why have they
opened all the doors?"

"I do not know . . . they were all closed last night," murmured the
maid in reply, her teeth chattering with fear. She longed to ask
her mistress whither they were going, and what for? She wanted to
stop, and not enter the funeral chamber; but she was afraid to
speak.

They passed quickly through the rooms; at the door of the last the
general's wife set her candle down on a chair, and halted for a
moment. The loud snoring of the reader startled them both.

"It is the deacon!" whispered the general's wife reassuringly.
Rita had hardly strength to nod assent. All the same, the healthy
snoring of a living man comforted her. Without moving from where
she stood, the maid tremblingly drew her woolen shawl closer about
her, trying to see the sofa on which the deacon lay.

Knitting her brows, and biting her lips till they were sore, Olga
Vseslavovna went forward determinedly to the bier. She thrust both
hands under the flowers on the pillow. The frill was untouched.
The satin of the cushion was there, but where was . . . ? Her
heart, that had been beating like a hammer, suddenly stopped and
stood still. There was not a trace of the will!

"Perhaps I have forgotten. Perhaps it was on the other side,"
thought Olga Vseslavovna, and went round to the left side of the
coffin.

No! It was not there, either! Where was it? Who could have taken
it? Suddenly her heart failed her utterly, and she clutched at the
edge of the coffin to keep herself from falling. It seemed to her
that under the stiff, pallid, rigidly clasped hands of the dead
general something gleamed white through the transparent muslin of
the covering, something like a piece of paper.

"Nonsense! Self-suggestion! It is impossible! Hallucination!"
The thought flashed through her tortured brain. She forced herself
to be calm, and to look again.

Yes! She had not been mistaken. The white corner of a folded
paper appeared clearly against the general's dark uniform. At the
same moment a cold draught coming from somewhere set the tapers
flickering. Shadows danced around the room, over the bier, across
the dead man's face; and in the quick change of light and shadow it
seemed to her that the rigid features became more living, that a
mournful smile formed itself on the closed lips, that the tightly-
shut eyelids quivered. A wild cry rang through the whole room.
With a desperate shriek: "His eyes! He is looking at me!" the
general's wife staggered forward and fell fainting to the floor,
beside her husband's bier.

V

The deacon sprang from his sofa with a cry, and an answering cry
came from the lips of the shivering Rita, as she fled from the
room. Servants rushed in, rubbing their eyes, still half-asleep,
questioning each other, running this way and that. The deacon,
spurred by a feeling of guilt, was determined to conceal the fact
that he was sleeping. "It was the lady!" he said. "She came in to
pray; she told me to stop reading while she prayed. She knelt
down. Then she prayed for a long time, and suddenly . . . suddenly
she cried out, and fainted. Grief, brothers! It is terrible! To
lose such a husband!" and he set them to work with restoratives,
himself rubbing the fallen woman's chilly hands.

The general's wife opened her eyes after a few minutes. Looking
wildly round in bewilderment, she seemed to be wondering where she
was and how she had come there. Suddenly she remembered.

"The will! In his hands! Take it!" she cried, and fainted again.
By this time the whole household was awake. Anna Iurievna had come
in, full of astonishment at the sudden disturbance, but with the
same feeling of deep quiet and peace still filling her heart and
giving her features an expression of joy and calm. She heard the
cry of the general's wife, and the words were recorded in her mind,
though she did not at first give them any meaning.

She set herself, with all the tenderness of a good woman, to
minister to the other's need, sending her own maid for sal
volatile, chafing the fainting woman's hands, and giving orders
that a bed should be prepared for her in another room, further away
from the bier. As she spoke, quietly, gravely, with authority, the
turmoil gradually subsided. The frightened servants recovered
themselves, and moved about with the orderly obedience they
ordinarily showed; and the deacon, above all anxious to cover his
negligence, began intoning the liturgy, lending an atmosphere of
solemnity to the whole room.

The servants, returning to announce that the bedroom was ready,
were ordered by Anna Iurievna to lift the fainting woman with all
care and gentleness, and she herself went with them to see the
general's wife safely bestowed in her room, and waited while the
doctor did all in his power to make her more comfortable. Olga
Vseslavovna did not at once recover consciousness. She seemed to
pass from a faint into an uneasy slumber, which, however, gradually
became more quiet.

Only then, as she was leaving the room, did Anna Iurievna bethink
her of the strange words that had fallen on her ears: "The will!
In his hands! Take it!"  And repeating them questioningly to
herself, she walked slowly back toward the room in which lay her
father's body.

But she was even more occupied with her own thoughts. She no
longer felt in her heart the bitter resentment toward Olga
Vseslavovna that had filled it yesterday. She was conscious of a
feeling of sorrow for the helpless woman, of compassion for her
empty, shallow life, the fruit of an empty, shallow heart. And she
was wondering why such empty, joyless lives should exist in a world
where there was such deep happiness and joy.

She came over to her father's coffin, close to which the deacon was
still droning out his liturgy, and stood beside the dead body,
looking down at the strong, quiet face, and vividly recalling her
dream of the night before. Her eyes rested on the many stars and
medals on his breast, and on his hands, quietly clasped in death.
Then suddenly, and quite mechanically, Olga Vseslavovna's cry, as
she returned to consciousness, came back into her mind:

"The will! In his hands! Take it!"  And bending down, she noted
for the first time something white beneath the muslin canopy. As
she scrutinized it wonderingly, she was conscious of an humble,
apologetic voice murmuring something at her elbow:

"Forgive me, Anna Iurievna. I humbly beg you, forgive me! It was
I . . . in the night . . . the flowers fell . . . I was putting
them back . . . fixing the head of your sainted papa. . . . It
was under his head, the paper . . . I thought he wanted to keep
it. . . . I put it in his hands, to be safe! . . . Forgive me,
Anna Iurievna, if I have done any harm."

It was the deacon, still oppressed by a feeling of guilt. Anna
Iurievna turned to him, and then turned back again, to her father's
body, to the white object shining under the muslin canopy. And
once more Olga Vseslavovna's words came into her mind:

"The will! In his hands! Take it!"

Gently raising the canopy, she softly drew the paper from beneath
the general's clasped hands, and unfolded it. She read no more
than the opening words, but she had read enough to realize that it
was, indeed, her father's will.

Feodor Mikhailovitch Dostoyevsky

Crime and Punishment*

* (At the risk of shocking the reader, it has been decided that the
real permanent detective stories of the world were ill represented
without Dostoyevsky's terrible tale of what might be called "self-
detection."  If to sensitive readers the story seems so real as to
be hideous, it is well to recall that Dostoyevsky in 1849 underwent
the agony of sentence to death as a revolutionist. Although the
sentence was commuted to hard labor in Siberia, and although six
years later he was freed and again took up his writing, his mind
never rose from beneath the weight of horror and hopelessness that
hangs over offenders against the Great White Czar. Dostoyevsky,
sentenced as a criminal, herded with criminals, really BECAME a
criminal in literary imagination. Add to this a minute
observation, a marvelous memory, ardent political convictions--and
we can understand why the story here, with others of his, is taken
as a scientific text by criminologists.--EDITOR.)

One sultry evening early in July a young man emerged from the small
furnished lodging he occupied in a large five-storied house in the
Pereoulok S----, and turned slowly, with an air of indecision,
toward the K---- bridge. He was fortunate enough not to meet his
landlady on the stairs. She occupied the floor beneath him, and
her kitchen, with its usually open door, was entered from the
staircase. Thus, whenever the young man went out, he found himself
obliged to pass under the enemy's fire, which always produced a
morbid terror, humiliating him and making him knit his brows. He
owed her some money and felt afraid of encountering her.

It was not that he had been terrified or crushed by misfortune, but
that for some time past he had fallen into a state of nervous
depression akin to hypochondria. He had withdrawn from society and
shut himself up, till he was ready to shun, not merely his
landlady, but every human face. Poverty had once weighed him down,
though, of late, he had lost his sensitiveness on that score. He
had given up all his daily occupations. In his heart of hearts he
laughed scornfully at his landlady and the extremities to which she
might proceed. Still, to be waylaid on the stairs, to have to
listen to all her jargon, hear her demands, threats, and
complaints, and have to make excuses and subterfuges in return--no,
he preferred to steal down without attracting notice. On this
occasion, however, when he had gained the street, he felt surprised
himself at this dread of meeting the woman to whom he was in debt.

"Why should I be alarmed by these trifles when I am contemplating
such a desperate deed?" thought he, and he gave a strange smile.
"Ah, well, man holds the remedy in his own hands, and lets
everything go its own way, simply through cowardice--that is an
axiom. I should like to know what people fear most:--whatever is
contrary to their usual habits, I imagine. But I am talking too
much. I talk and so I do nothing, though I might just as well say,
I do nothing and so I talk. I have acquired this habit of
chattering during the last month, while I have been lying for days
together in a corner, feeding my mind on trifles. Come, why am I
taking this walk now? Am I capable of THAT? Can THAT really be
serious? Not in the least. These are mere chimeras, idle fancies
that flit across my brain!

The heat in the streets was stifling. The crowd, the sight of
lime, bricks, scaffolding, and the peculiar odor so familiar to the
nostrils of the inhabitant of St. Petersburg who has no means of
escaping to the country for the summer, all contributed to irritate
the young man's already excited nerves. The reeking fumes of the
dram shops, so numerous in this part of the city, and the tipsy men
to be seen at every point, although it was no holiday, completed
the repulsive character of the scene. Our hero's refined features
betrayed, for a moment, an expression of bitter disgust. We may
observe casually that he was not destitute of personal attractions;
he was above middle height, with a slender and well-proportioned
figure, and he had dark auburn hair and fine dark eyes. In a
little while he sank into a deep reverie, or rather into a sort of
mental torpor. He walked on without noticing, or trying to notice,
his surroundings. Occasionally he muttered a few words to himself;
as if, as he himself had just perceived, this had become his habit.
At this moment it dawned upon him that his ideas were becoming
confused and that he was very feeble; he had eaten nothing worth
mentioning for the last two days.

His dress was so miserable that anyone else might have scrupled to
go out in such rags during the daytime. This quarter of the city,
indeed, was not particular as to dress. In the neighborhood of the
Cyennaza or Haymarket, in those streets in the heart of St.
Petersburg, occupied by the artisan classes, no vagaries in costume
call forth the least surprise. Besides the young man's fierce
disdain had reached such a pitch, that, notwithstanding his extreme
sensitiveness, he felt no shame at exhibiting his tattered garments
in the street. He would have felt differently had he come across
anyone he knew, any of the old friends whom he usually avoided.
Yet he stopped short on hearing the attention of passers-by
directed to him by the thick voice of a tipsy man shouting: "Eh,
look at the German hatter!"  The exclamation came from an
individual who, for some unknown reason, was being jolted away in a
great wagon. The young man snatched off his hat and began to
examine it. It was a high-crowned hat that had been originally
bought at Zimmermann's, but had become worn and rusty, was covered
with dents and stains, slit and short of a brim, a frightful object
in short. Yet its owner, far from feeling his vanity wounded, was
suffering rather from anxiety than humiliation.

"I suspected this," muttered he, uneasily, "I foresaw it. That's
the worst of it! Some wretched trifle like this might spoil it
all. Yes, this hat is certainly too remarkable; it looks so
ridiculous. I must get a cap to suit my rags; any old thing would
be better than this horror. Hats like these are not worn; this one
would be noticeable a verst* off; it would be remembered; people
would think of it again some time after, and it might furnish a
clew. I must attract as little attention as possible just now.
Trifles become important, everything hinges on them."

* 1,000 yards.

He had not far to go; he knew the exact distance between his
lodging and present destination--just seven hundred and thirty
paces. He had counted them when his plan only floated through his
brain like a vague dream. At that time, he himself would not have
believed it capable of realization; he merely dallied in fancy with
a chimera which was both terrible and seductive. But a month had
elapsed, and he had already begun to view it in a different light.
Although he reproached himself throughout his soliloquies with
irresolution and a want of energy, he had accustomed himself,
little by little, and, indeed, in spite of himself, to consider the
realization of his dream a possibility, though he doubted his own
resolution. He was but just now rehearsing his enterprise, and his
agitation was increasing at every step.

His heart sank, and his limbs trembled nervously, as he came to an
immense pile of building facing the canal on one side and the
street on the other. This block was divided into a host of small
tenements, tenanted by all sorts of trades. People were swarming
in and out through the two doors. There were three or four
dvorniks* belonging to the house, but the young man, to his great
satisfaction, came across none of them, and, escaping notice as he
entered, mounted at once the stairs on the right hand. He had
already made acquaintance with this dark and narrow staircase, and
its obscurity was grateful to him; it was gloomy enough to hide him
from prying eyes. "If I feel so timid now, what will it be when I
come to put my plan into execution?" thought he, as he reached the
fourth floor. Here he found the passage blocked; some military
porters were removing the furniture from a tenement recently
occupied, as the young man knew, by a German official and his
family. "Thanks to the departure of this German, for some time to
come there will be no one on this landing but the old woman. It is
as well to know this, at any rate," thought he to himself, as he
rang the old woman's bell. It gave a faint sound, as if it were
made of tin instead of copper. In houses of this sort, the smaller
lodgings generally have such bells.

* Janitors.

He had forgotten this; the peculiar tinkling sound seemed to recall
something to his memory, for he gave a shiver--his nerves were very
weak. In another moment the door was opened part way, and the
occupant of the rooms stood examining her visitor through the
opening with evident suspicion, her small eyes glimmering through
the darkness like luminous points. But when she saw the people on
the landing, she seemed reassured, and flung the door open. The
young man entered a gloomy antechamber, divided by a partition,
behind which was a small kitchen. The old woman stood silently in
front of him, eyeing him keenly. She was a thin little creature of
sixty, with a small sharp nose, and eyes sparkling with malice.
Her head was uncovered, and her grizzled locks shone with grease.
A strip of flannel was wound round her long thin neck, and, in
spite of the heat, she wore a shabby yellow fur tippet on her
shoulders. She coughed incessantly. The young man was probably
eyeing her strangely, for the look of mistrust suddenly reappeared
on her face.

"The Student Raskolnikoff. I called on you a month ago," said the
visitor, hurriedly, with a slight bow. He had suddenly remembered
that he must make himself more agreeable.

"I remember, batuchka, I remember it well," returned the old woman,
still fixing her eyes on him suspiciously.

"Well, then, look here. I have come again on a similar errand,"
continued Raskolnikoff, somewhat surprised and uneasy at being
received with so much distrust. "After all, this may be her usual
manner, though I did not notice it before," thought he,
unpleasantly impressed.

The old woman remained silent a while, and seemed to reflect.
Then, pointing to the door of the inner room, she drew back for her
visitor to pass, and said, "Come in, batuchka."*

* "Little father."

The small room into which the young man was ushered was papered
with yellow; there were geraniums and muslin curtains in the
windows, and the setting sun shed a flood of light on the interior.
"The sun will shine on it just the same THEN!" said Raskolnikoff
all at once to himself, as he glanced rapidly round to take in the
various objects and engrave them on his memory. The room, however,
contained nothing remarkable. The yellow wood furniture was all
very old. A couch with a shelving back, opposite which stood an
oval table, a toilet-table with a pier glass attached, chairs
lining the walls, and two or three poor prints representing German
girls with birds in their hands, completed the inventory. A lamp
was burning in one corner in front of a small image. The floor and
furniture were clean and well polished. "Elizabeth attends to
that," thought the young man. It would have been difficult to find
a speck of dust on anything. "It is only in the houses of these
dreadful old widows that such order is to be seen," continued
Raskolnikoff to himself, looking with curiosity at the chintz
curtain overhanging the door which led into a second small room, in
which he had never set foot; it contained the old woman's bed and
chest of drawers. The apartment consisted of these two rooms.

"What is it you want?" asked the mistress of the house dryly; she
had followed her visitor in, and planted herself in front of him to
examine him more closely.

"I have come to pawn something, that is all!"  With this he drew
from his pocket a flat old silver watch. A globe was engraved
inside the lid, and the chain was of steel.

"But you have not repaid the sum I lent you before. It was due two
days ago."

"I will pay you the interest for another month; have a little
patience."

"I may have patience or I may sell your pledge at once, batuchka,
just whichever I like."

"What will you give me on this watch, Alena Ivanovna?"

"That is a wretched thing, batuchka, worth a mere nothing. Last
time I lent you two small notes on your ring, when I could have
bought a new one at the jeweler's for a ruble and a half."

"Give me four rubles, and I will redeem it; it belonged to my
father. I expect some money soon."

"A ruble and a half! and I shall take the interest in advance."

"A ruble and a half!" protested the young man.

"Please yourself whether you take it or not."  So saying, the old
woman tendered back the watch. Her visitor took it and was about
to depart in vexation, when he reflected that this money lender was
his last resource--and, besides, he had another object in coming.

"Come, fork out!" said he in a rough tone.

The old woman fumbled in her pockets for her keys, and passed on
into the adjoining room. The young man, left standing there alone,
pricked up his ears and began to make various inductions. He heard
this female usurer open her drawer. "It must be the top one," was
his conclusion. "I know now that she carries her keys in her right
pocket--they are all hung on a steel ring--one of them is three
times as large as the rest, and has the wards toothed; that cannot
be the key of her drawer--then she must have some strong box or
safe. It is curious that the keys of strong boxes should be
generally like that--but, after all, how ignoble!"

The old woman reappeared. "See here, batuchka: if I take a ten-
kopeck piece a month on each ruble, I ought to receive fifteen
kopecks on a ruble and a half, the interest being payable in
advance. Then, as you ask me to wait another month for the
repayment of the two rubles I have already lent you, you owe me
twenty kopecks more, which makes a total of five and thirty. What,
therefore, I have to advance upon your watch is one ruble fifteen
kopecks. Here it is."

"What! Is one ruble fifteen kopecks all you mean to give me now?"

"That is all that is due to you."

The young man took the money without further discussion. He looked
at the old woman and was in no haste to depart. He seemed anxious
to say or do something more, but without knowing exactly what.
"Perhaps I may be bringing you some other article soon, Alena
Ivanovna, a very pretty cigar case--a silver one--when I get it
back from the friend to whom I have lent it."  These words were
uttered with much embarrassment.

"Well, we can talk about it then, batuchka."

"Good-by. You are always alone--is your sister never with you?"
asked he with as indifferent an air as he could assume, as he
entered the anteroom.

"What have you to do with my sister, batuchka?"

"Nothing. I had no reason for asking. You will--well, good-by,
Alena Ivanovna."

Raskolnikoff made his exit in a perturbed state of mind. As he
went downstairs, he stopped from time to time, as if overcome by
violent emotion. When he had at length emerged upon the street, he
exclaimed to himself: "How loathsome it all is! Can I, can I
ever?--no, it is absurd, preposterous!" added he mentally. "How
could such a horrible idea ever enter my head? Could I ever be
capable of such infamy? It is odious, ignoble, repulsive! And yet
for a whole month--"

Words and exclamations, however, could not give full vent to his
agitation. The loathing sense of disgust which had begun to
oppress him on his way to the old woman's house had now become so
intense that he longed to find some way of escape from the torture.
He reeled along the pavement like a tipsy man, taking no notice of
those who passed, but bumping against them. On looking round he
saw a dram shop near at hand; steps led down from the footpath to
the basement, and Raskolnikoff saw two drunkards coming out at that
moment, leaning heavily on each other and exchanging abusive
language. The young man barely paused before he descended the
steps. He had never before entered such a place, but he felt dizzy
and was also suffering from intense thirst. He had a craving for
some beer, partly because he attributed his weakness to an empty
stomach. Seating himself in a dark and dirty corner, in front of a
filthy little table, he called for some beer, and eagerly drank off
a glass.

He felt instantly relieved, and his brain began to clear: "How
absurd I have been!" said he to himself, "there was really nothing
to make me uneasy! It was simply physical! A glass of beer and a
mouthful of biscuit were all that was necessary to restore my
strength of mind and make my thoughts clear and resolution fixed.
How paltry all this is!"

The next morning Raskolnikoff awoke late, after disturbed and
unrefreshing slumbers. He felt very cross and glanced angrily
round his room. It was a tiny place, not more than six feet in
length, and its dirty buff paper hung in shreds, giving it a most
miserable aspect; besides which, the ceiling was so low that a tall
man would have felt in danger of bumping his head. The furniture
was quite in harmony with the room, consisting of three old rickety
chairs, a painted table in one corner, on which lay books and
papers thick with dust (showing how long it was since they had been
touched), and, finally, a large and very ugly sofa with ragged
covers. This sofa, which filled nearly half the room, served
Raskolnikoff as a bed. He often lay down on it in his clothes,
without any sheets, covering himself with his old student's coat,
and using instead of a pillow a little cushion, which he raised by
keeping under it all his clean or dirty linen. Before the sofa
stood a small table.

Raskolnikoff's misanthropy did not take offense at the dirty state
of his den. Human faces had grown so distasteful to him, that the
very sight of the servant whose business it was to clean the rooms
produced a feeling of exasperation. To such a condition may
monomaniacs come by continually brooding over one idea. For the
last fortnight, the landlady had ceased to supply her lodger with
provisions, and he had not yet thought of demanding an explanation.
Nastasia, who had to cook and clean for the whole house, was not
sorry to see the lodger in this state of mind, as it diminished her
labors: she had quite given up tidying and dusting his room; the
utmost she did was to come and sweep it once a week. She it was
who was arousing him at this moment.

"Come, get up, why are you sleeping so late?" she exclaimed. "It
is nine o'clock. I have brought up some tea, will you take a cup?
How pale you look!"

Raskolnikoff opened his eyes, shook himself, and recognized
Nastasia. "Has the landlady sent me this tea?" asked he, making a
painful effort to sit up.

"Not much chance of that!"  And the servant placed before him her
own teapot, in which there was still some tea left, and laid two
small lumps of brownish sugar on the table.

"Here, Nastasia, take this, please," said Raskolnikoff, fumbling in
his pocket and drawing out a handful of small change (for he had
again lain down in his clothes), "and fetch me a white roll. Go to
the pork shop as well, and buy me a bit of cheap sausage."

"I will bring you the roll in a minute, but had you not better take
some shtchi* instead of the sausage? We make it here, and it is
capital. I kept some for you last night, but it was so late before
you came in! You will find it very good."  She went to fetch the
shtchi, and, when Raskolnikoff had begun to eat, she seated herself
on the sofa beside him and commenced to chatter, like a true
country girl as she was. "Prascovia Paulovna means to report you
to the police," said she.

* Cabbage soup.

The young man's brow clouded. "To the police? Why?"

"Because you don't pay and won't go. That's why."

"The deuce!" growled be between his teeth, "that is the finishing
stroke; it comes at a most unfortunate juncture. She is a fool,"
added he aloud. "I shall go and talk to her to-morrow."

"She is, of course, just as much of a fool as I am; but why do you,
who are so intelligent, lie here doing nothing? How is it you
never seem to have money for anything now? You used to give
lessons, I hear; how is it you do nothing now?"

"I am engaged on something," returned Raskolnikoff dryly and half
reluctantly.

"On what?"

"Some work--"

"What sort of work?"

"Thinking," replied he gravely, after a short silence.

Nastasia was convulsed. She was of a merry disposition, but her
laughter was always noiseless, an internal convulsion which made
her actually writhe with pain. "And does your thinking bring you
any money?" asked she, as soon as she could manage to speak.

"Well! I can't give lessons when I have no boots to go out in?
Besides, I despise them."

"Take care lest you suffer for it."

"There is so little to be made by giving lessons! What can one do
with a few kopecks?" said he in an irritable tone, rather to
himself than the servant.

"So you wish to make your fortune at one stroke?"

He looked at her rather strangely, and was silent for a moment.
"Yes, my fortune," rejoined he impressively.

"Hush! you frighten me, you look terrible. Shall I go and fetch
you a roll?"

"Just as you like."

Later in the day, Raskolnikoff went out and wandered about the
streets. At last he sat down under a tree to rest, and fell into a
reverie. His limbs felt disjointed, and his mind was in darkness
and confusion. He placed his elbows on his knees and held his head
with his hands.

"God! Am I to stand beating in her skull with a hatchet or
something, wade in warm blood, break open the lock and rob and
tremble, blood flowing all around, and hide myself, with the
hatchet? O God! is this indeed possible, and must it be?"  He
trembled like a leaf as he said this.

"What am I thinking of?" he cried in some astonishment. "I know
well I could not endure that with which I have been torturing
myself. I saw that clearly yesterday when I tried to rehearse it.
Perfectly plain. Then what am I questioning? Did I not say
yesterday as I went up the stairs how disgusting and mean and low
it all was, and did not I run away in terror?"

He stood up and looked all round, wondering how he got there, and
moved off toward the T---- bridge. He was pale and his eyes were
hot, and feebleness was in all his members, but he seemed to
breathe easier. He felt that he had thrown off the old time which
had been so oppressive; and in its place had come peace and light.
"Lord!" he prayed, "show me my way, that I may renounce these
horrid thoughts of mine!"

Going across the bridge, he quietly gazed on the Neva, and the
clear red sunset. He did not feel himself tired now,
notwithstanding his weakness, and the load which had lain upon his
heart seemed to be gone. Liberty! Liberty! he was free from those
enchantments and all their vile instigations. In later times when
he recalled this period of his existence, and all that happened to
him in those days, minute by minute and point by point, he
recollected how each circumstance, although in the main not very
unusual, constantly appeared to his mind as an evidence of the
predetermination of his fate, so superstitious was he. Especially
he could never understand why he, weary and harassed as he was,
could not have returned home by the shortest route, instead of
across the Haymarket, which was quite out of the way. Certainly, a
dozen times before, he had reached his lodgings by most circuitous
routes, and never known through which streets he had come. But why
(he always asked) should such a really fateful meeting have taken
place in the market (through which there was no need to go), and
happen, too, at exactly such a time and at a moment of his life
when his mind was in the state it was, and the event, in these
circumstances, could only produce the most definite and decided
effect upon his fate? Surely he was the instrument of some
purpose!

It was about nine o'clock as he stood in the Haymarket. All the
dealers had closed their establishments or cleared away their goods
and gone home. About this place, with its tattered population, its
dirty and nauseous courtyards and numerous alleys, Raskolnikoff
dearly loved to roam in his aimless wanderings. He attracted no
notice there. At the corner of K---- Lane were a dealer and his
wife, who were engaged in packing up their wares, consisting of
tapes, handkerchiefs, cotton, &c., preparatory to going home. They
were lingering over their work, and conversing with an
acquaintance. This was Elizabeth Ivanovna, or simple Elizabeth, as
all called her, the younger sister of the old woman, Alena
Ivanovna, to whose rooms Raskolnikoff went the day before for the
purpose of pawning his watch to make his REHEARSAL. He knew all
about this Elizabeth, as she knew also a little about him. She was
a tall, awkward woman, about thirty-five years of age, timid and
quiet, indeed almost an idiot, and was a regular slave to her
sister, working for her day and night, trembling before her and
enduring even blows. She was evidently hesitating about something,
as she stood there with a bundle under her arm, and her friends
were pressing some subject rather warmly. When Raskolnikoff
recognized her he seemed struck with the greatest astonishment,
although there was nothing strange about such a meeting.

"You ought to decide yourself, Elizabeth Ivanovna," said the man.
"Come to-morrow at seven o'clock."

"To-morrow?" said Elizabeth slowly, as if undecided.

"She is frightened of Alena Ivanovna," cried the wife, a brisk
little woman. "You are like a little child, Elizabeth Ivanovna,
and she's not your own sister, but a stepsister. She has too much
her own way."

"You say nothing to Alena Ivanovna," interrupted the man, "and come
without asking, that's the way to do it, and your sister can manage
herself."

"When shall I come?"

"At seven o'clock, to-morrow."

"Very well, I will come," said Elizabeth, slowly and reluctantly.
She then quitted them.

Raskolnikoff also went away, and stayed to hear no more. His
original amazement had changed gradually into a feeling of actual
terror; a chill ran down his back. He had learned unexpectedly and
positively, that, at seven o'clock the next evening, Elizabeth, the
old woman's sister, the only person living with her, would not be
at home, and that, therefore, the old woman, at seven o'clock
tomorrow, WOULD BE THERE ALONE. It needed but a few steps to reach
his room. He went along like one sentenced to death, with his
reason clogged and numbed. He felt that now all liberty of action
and free will were gone, and everything was irrevocably decided. A
more convenient occasion than was thus unexpectedly offered to him
now would never arise, and he might never learn again, beforehand,
that, at a certain time on a certain day, she, on whom he was to
make the attempt, would be entirely alone.

Raskolnikoff learned subsequently what induced the man and his wife
to invite Elizabeth to call on them. It was a very simple matter.
A foreign family, finding themselves in straitened circumstances,
were desirous of parting with various things, consisting for the
most part in articles of female attire. They were anxious,
therefore, to meet with a dealer in cast-off clothes, and this was
one of Elizabeth's callings. She had a large connection, because
she was very honest and always stuck to her price: there was no
higgling to be done with her. She was a woman of few words and
very shy and reserved. But Raskolnikoff was very superstitious,
and traces of this remained in him long after. In all the events
of this period of his life he was ever ready to detect something
mysterious, and attribute every circumstance to the presence of
some particular influence upon his destiny.

The previous winter, a fellow student, Pokoreff by name, on leaving
for Charkoff, had happened to communicate to him in conversation
the address of Alena Ivanovna, in case he should ever require to
pawn anything. For a long time he did not use it, as he was giving
lessons, and managed somehow to get along, but six weeks before
this time he had recollected the address. He had two things fit to
pawn--an old silver watch, formerly his father's; and a small gold
ring with three red stones, a souvenir from his sister on leaving
home. He decided on getting rid of the latter, and went to the old
woman's. At the first glance, and knowing nothing whatever of her
personally, she inspired him with an unaccountable loathing. He
took her two notes, and on leaving went into a poor traktir, or
restaurant, and ordered some tea. He sat down musing, and strange
thoughts flitted across his mind and became hatched in his brain.
Close by, at another table, were seated a student, whom he did not
know, and a young officer. They had been playing billiards, and
were now drinking tea. Suddenly Raskolnikoff heard the student
give the officer the address of Alena Ivanovna, the widow of a
professor, as one who lent money on pledges. This alone struck
Raskolnikoff as very peculiar. They were talking of the same
person he had just been to see. No doubt it was pure chance, but,
at the moment he was struggling against an impression he could not
overcome, this stranger's words came and gave extra force to it.
The student went on talking, and began to give his companion some
account of Alena Ivanovna.

"She is well known," he said, "and always good for money. She is
as rich as a Jew, and can advance five thousand rubles at a
moment's notice; yet she will take in pledge objects worth as
little as a ruble. She is quite a providence to many of our
fellows--but such an old hag! I tell you what I would do. I would
kill that damnable old hag, and take all she is possessed of,
without any qualm of conscience," exclaimed the student excitedly.
The officer laughed, but Raskolnikoff shuddered. The words just
uttered so strongly echoed his own thoughts. "Let me put a serious
question to you," resumed the student, more and more excited. "I
have hitherto been joking, but now listen to this. On the one side
here is a silly, flint-hearted, evil-minded, sulky old woman,
necessary to no one--on the contrary, pernicious to all--and who
does not know herself why she lives."

"Well?" said the officer.

"Hear me further. On the other hand, young fresh strength droops
and is lost for want of sustenance; this is the case with thousands
everywhere! A hundred, a thousand good deeds and enterprises could
be carried out and upheld with the money this old woman has
bequeathed to a monastery. A dozen families might be saved from
hunger, want, ruin, crime, and misery, and all with her money!
Kill her, I say, take it from her, and dedicate it to the service
of humanity and the general good! What is your opinion? Shall not
one little crime be effaced and atoned for by a thousand good
deeds? For one useless life a thousand lives saved from decay and
death. One death, and a hundred beings restored to existence!
There's a calculation for you. What in proportion is the life of
this miserable old woman? No more than the life of a flea, a
beetle, nay, not even that, for she is pernicious. She preys on
other lives. She lately bit Elizabeth's finger, in a fit of
passion, and nearly bit it off!"

"Certainly she does not deserve to live," observed the officer,
"but nature--"

"Ah, my friend, nature has to be governed and guided, or we should
be drowned in prejudices. Without it there would never be one
great man. They say 'duty is conscience.'  Now I have nothing to
say against duty and conscience, but let us see, how do we
understand them? Let me put another question to you. Listen."

"Stop a minute, I will give you one."

"Well?"

"After all you have said and declaimed, tell me--are you going to
kill the old woman YOURSELF, or not?"

"Of course not. I only pointed out the inequality of things. As
for the deed--"

"Well, if you won't, it's my opinion that it would not be just to
do so! Come, let's have another game!"

Raskolnikoff was in the greatest agitation. Still, there was
nothing extraordinary in this conversation; it was not the first
time he had heard, only in other forms and on other topics, such
ideas from the lips of the young and hotheaded. But why should he,
of all men, happen to overhear such a conversation and such ideas,
when the very same thoughts were being engendered in himself?--and
why precisely THEN, immediately on his becoming possessed of them
and on leaving the old woman? Strange, indeed, did this
coincidence appear to him. This idle conversation was destined to
have a fearful influence on his destiny, extending to the most
trifling incident and causing him to feel sure he was the
instrument of a fixed purpose.

On his return from the market, he flung himself upon his couch and
sat motionless for a whole hour. It became dark, he had no light,
but sat on. He could never afterwards recollect his thoughts at
the time. At last he felt cold, and a shiver ran through him. He
recognized with delight that he was sitting on his couch and could
lie down, and soon he fell into a deep, heavy sleep. He slept much
longer than usual, and his slumbers were undisturbed by dreams.
Nastasia, who came to his room the next morning at ten o'clock, had
great difficulty in awakening him. The servant brought him some
bread and, the same as the day before, what was left of her tea.

"Not up yet!" exclaimed she indignantly. "How can you sleep so
long?"

Raskolnikoff raised himself with an effort; his head ached; he got
upon his feet, took a few steps, and then dropped down again upon
the couch.

"What, again!" cried Nastasia, "but you must be ill then?"  He did
not answer. "Would you like some tea?"

"By and by," he muttered painfully, after which he closed his eyes
and turned his face to the wall. Nastasia, standing over him,
remained watching him for a while.

"After all, he's perhaps ill," said she, before withdrawing. At
two o'clock she returned with some soup. Raskolnikoff was still
lying on the couch. He had not touched the tea. The servant
became angry and shook the lodger violently. "Whatever makes you
sleep thus?" scolded she, eyeing him contemptuously.

He sat up, but answered not a word, and remained with his eyes
fixed on the floor.

"Are you ill, or are you not?" asked Nastasia. This second
question met with no more answer than the first. "You should go
out," continued she, after a pause, "the fresh air would do you
good. You'll eat something, will you not?"

"By and by," answered he feebly. "Go away!" and he motioned her
off. She remained a moment longer, watching him with an air of
pity, and then left the room.

After a few minutes he raised his eyes, gave a long look at the tea
and soup, and then began to eat. He swallowed three or four
spoonfuls without the least appetite--almost mechanically. His
head felt better. When he had finished his light repast, he again
lay down on the couch, but he could not sleep and remained
motionless, flat on his stomach, his face buried in the pillow.
His reverie kept conjuring up strange scenes. At one time he was
in Africa, in Egypt, on some oasis, where palms were dotted about.
The caravans were at rest, the camels lay quietly, and the
travelers were eating their evening meal. They drank water direct
from the stream which ran murmuring close by. How refreshing was
the marvelously blue water, and how beautifully clear it looked as
it ran over many-colored stones and mingled with the golden
spangles of the sandy bottom! All at once he clearly heard the
hour chiming. He shuddered, raised his head, looked at the window
to calculate the time. He came to himself immediately and jumped
up, and, going on tiptoe, silently opened the door and stood
listening on the landing. His heart beat violently. But not a
sound came from the staircase. It seemed as though the house was
wrapped in sleep. He could not understand how he had been able to
sleep away the time as he had done, while nothing was prepared for
the enterprise. And yet it was, perhaps, six o'clock that had just
struck.

Then, he became excited as he felt what there was to be done, and
he endeavored with all his might to keep his thoughts from
wandering and concentrate his mind on his task. All the time his
heart thumped and beat until he could hardly draw breath. In the
first place it was necessary to make a loop and fasten to his coat.
He went to his pillow and took from among the linen he kept there
an old and dirty shirt and tore part of it into strips. He then
fastened a couple of these together, and, taking off his coat--a
stout cotton summer one--began to sew the loop inside, under the
left arm. His hands shook violently, but he accomplished his task
satisfactorily, and when he again put on his coat nothing was
visible. Needle and thread had been procured long ago, and lay on
the table in a piece of paper. The loop was provided for a
hatchet. It would never have done to have appeared in the streets
carrying a hatchet, and if he placed it under the coat, it would
have been necessary to hold it with his hands; but with the loop
all he had to do was to put the iron in it and it would hang of
itself under the coat, and with his hands in his pockets he could
keep it from shaking, and no one could suspect that he was carrying
anything. He had thought over all this about a fortnight before.

Having finished his task, Raskolnikoff inserted his finger in a
small crevice in the floor under his couch, and brought out the
PLEDGE with which he had been careful to provide himself. This
pledge was, however, only a sham--a thin smooth piece of wood about
the size and thickness of a silver cigarette case, which he had
found in a yard adjoining a carpenter's shop, and a thin piece of
iron of about the same size, which he had picked up in the street.
He fastened the two together firmly with thread, then proceeded to
wrap them up neatly in a piece of clean white paper, and tie the
parcel in such a manner that it would he difficult to undo it
again. This was all done in order to occupy the attention of the
old woman and to seize a favorable opportunity when she would be
busy with the knot. The piece of iron was simply added for weight,
in order that she might not immediately detect the fraud. He had
just finished, and had put the packet in his pocket, when in the
court below resounded the cry:

"Six o'clock struck long ago!"

"Long ago! Good heavens!"

He ran to the door, listened, seized his hat, and went down the
stairs cautiously and stealthily as a cat. He still had the most
important thing to do--to steal the hatchet out of the kitchen.
That a hatchet was the best instrument, he had long since decided.
He had an old garden knife, but on a knife--especially on his own
strength--he could not rely; he finally fixed on the hatchet. A
peculiarity was to be noticed in all these resolutions of his; the
more definitely they were settled, the more absurd and horrible
they immediately appeared to his eyes, and never, for a moment, did
he feel sure of the execution of his project. But even if every
question had been settled, every doubt cleared away, every
difficulty overcome, he would probably have renounced his design on
the instant, as something absurd, monstrous, and impossible. But
there were still a host of matters to arrange, of problems to
solve. As to procuring the hatchet, this trifle did not trouble
Raskolnikoff in the least, for nothing was easier. As a matter of
fact Nastasia was scarcely ever at home, especially of an evening.
She was constantly out gossiping with friends or tradespeople, and
that was the reason of her mistress's constant complaints. When
the time came, all he would have to do would be to quietly enter
the kitchen and take the hatchet, and then to replace it an hour
afterwards when all was over. But perhaps this would not be as
easy as he fancied. "Suppose," said the young man to himself,
"that when, in an hour's time, I come to replace the hatchet,
Nastasia should have come in. Now, in that case, I could naturally
not enter the kitchen until she had gone out again. But supposing
during this time she notices the absence of the hatchet, she will
grumble, perhaps kick up a shindy, and that will serve to denounce
me, or at least might do so!"

Before he had got to the bottom of the staircase, a trifling
circumstance came and upset all his plans. On reaching his
landlady's landing, he found the kitchen door wide open, as usual,
and he peeped in, in order to make sure that, in the absence of
Nastasia, her mistress was not there, and that the doors of the
other rooms were closed. But great was his annoyance to find
Nastasia there herself, engaged in hanging clothes on a line.
Perceiving the young man, she stopped and turned to him
inquiringly. He averted his eyes and went away without remark.
But the affair was done for. There was no hatchet, he was
frustrated entirely. He felt crushed, nay, humiliated, but a
feeling of brutal vindictiveness at his disappointment soon ensued,
and he continued down the stairs, smiling maliciously to himself.
He stood hesitating at the gate. To walk about the streets or to
go back were equally repugnant. "To think that I have missed such
a splendid opportunity!" he murmured as he stood aimlessly at the
entrance, leaning near the open door of the porter's lodge.
Suddenly he started--something in the dark room attracted his eye.
He looked quietly around. No one was near. He descended the two
steps on tiptoe, and called for the porter. There was no reply,
and he rushed headlong to the hatchet (it was a hatchet), secured
it where it lay among some wood, and hurriedly fastened it to the
loop as he made his way out into the street. No one saw him!
"There's more of the devil in this than my design," he said smiling
to himself. The occurrence gave him fresh courage.

He went away quietly in order not to excite any suspicion, and
walked along the street with his eyes studiously fixed on the
ground, avoiding the faces of the passers-by. Suddenly he
recollected his hat. "Good heavens! the day before yesterday I had
money, and not to have thought of that! I could so easily have
bought a cap!" and he began cursing himself. Glancing casually in
a shop, he saw it was ten minutes past seven. He had yet a long
way to go, as he was making a circuit, not wishing to walk direct
to the house. He kept off, as much as he was able, all thought of
his mission, and on the way reflected upon possible improvements of
the public grounds, upon the desirability of fountains, and why
people lived where there were neither parks nor fountains, but only
mud, lime, and bricks, emitting horrid exhalations and every
conceivable foulness. This reminded him of his own walks about the
Cyennaza, and he came to himself.

"How true it is that persons being led to execution interest
themselves in anything that strikes them on the way!" was the
thought that came into his head; but it passed away like lightning
to be succeeded by some other. "Here we are--there is the gate."
It struck half-past seven as he stood near the house.

To his delight, he passed in without observation. As if on
purpose, at the very same moment a load of hay was going in, and it
completely screened him. On the other side of the load, a dispute
or brawl was evidently taking place, and he gained the old woman's
staircase in a second. Recovering his breath and pressing his hand
to his beating heart, he commenced the ascent, though first feeling
for the hatchet and arranging it. Every minute he stopped to
listen. The stairs were quite deserted, and every door was closed.
No one met him. On the second floor, indeed, the door of an empty
lodging was wide open; some painters were working there, but they
did not look up. He stopped a moment to think, and then continued
the ascent: "No doubt it would be better if they were not there,
but fortunately there are two more floors above them."  At last he
reached the fourth floor, and Alena Ivanovna's door; the lodging
facing it was unoccupied. The lodging on the third floor, just
beneath the old woman's, was also apparently empty. The card that
used to be on the door had gone; the lodgers had, no doubt, moved.
Raskolnikoff was stifling. He stood hesitating a moment: "Had I
not better go away?"  But without answering the question, he waited
and listened. Not a sound issued from the old woman's apartments.
The staircase was filled with the same silence. After listening
for a long time, the young man cast a last glance around, and again
felt his hatchet. "Do I not look too pale?" thought he. "Do I not
appear too agitated? She is mistrustful. I should do well to wait
a little, to give my emotion time to calm down."

But instead of becoming quieter, his heart throbbed more violently.
He could stand it no longer, and, raising his hand toward the bell
rope, he pulled it toward him. After waiting half a minute, he
rang again--this time a little louder. No answer. To ring like a
deaf man would have been useless, stupid even. The old woman was
certainly at home; but, suspicious by nature, she was likely to be
so all the more then, as she happened to be alone. Raskolnikoff
knew something of Alena Ivanovna's habits. He therefore placed his
ear to the door. Had the circumstances amid which he was placed
strangely developed his power of hearing, which, in general, is
difficult to admit, or was the sound really easily perceptible?
Anyhow, he suddenly became aware that a hand was being cautiously
placed on the lock, and that a dress rustled against the door.
Some one inside was going through exactly the same movements as he
on the landing. Some one, standing up against the lock, was
listening while trying to hide her presence, and had probably her
ear also against the door.

In order to avoid all idea of mystery, the young man purposely
moved about rather noisily, and muttered something half aloud; then
he rang a third time, but gently and coolly, without allowing the
bell to betray the least sign of impatience. Raskolnikoff never
forgot this moment of his life. When, in after days, he thought
over it, he could never understand how he had been able to display
such cunning, especially at a time when emotion was now and again
depriving him of the free use of his intellectual and physical
faculties. After a short while he heard the bolt withdrawn.

The door, as before, was opened a little, and again the two eyes,
with mistrustful glance, peeped out of the dark. Then Raskolnikoff
lost his presence of mind and made a serious mistake. Fearing that
the old woman would take alarm at finding they were alone, and
knowing that his appearance would not reassure her, he took hold of
the door and pulled it toward him in order to prevent her shutting
it again if she should be thus minded. Seeing this, she held on to
the lock, so that he almost drew her together with the door on to
the staircase. She recovered herself, and stood to prevent his
entrance, speechless with fright.

"Good evening, Alena Ivanovna," he commenced, trying to speak with
unconcern, but his voice did not obey him, and he faltered and
trembled, "Good evening, I have brought you something, but we had
better go into the light."  He pushed past her and entered the room
uninvited. The old woman followed and found her tongue.

"What is it you want? Who are you?" she commenced.

"Pardon me, Alena Ivanovna, your old acquaintance Raskolnikoff. I
have brought a pledge, as I promised the other day," and he held
out the packet to her.

The old woman was about to examine it, when she raised her eyes and
looked straight into those of the visitor who had entered so
unceremoniously. She examined him attentively, distrustfully, for
a minute. Raskolnikoff fancied there was a gleam of mockery in her
look as if she guessed all. He felt he was changing color, and
that if she kept her glance upon him much longer without saying a
word he would be obliged to run away.

"Why are you looking at me thus?" he said at last in anger. "Will
you take it or not? or shall I take it elsewhere? I have no time
to waste."  He did not intend to say this, but the words came out.
The tone seemed to quiet her suspicions.

"Why were you so impatient, batuchka? What is it?" she asked,
glancing at the pledge.

"The silver cigarette case of which I spoke the other day."

She held out her hand. "But why are you so pale, why do your hands
shake? What is the matter with you, batuchka?"

"Fever," replied he abruptly. "You would be pale too if you had
nothing to eat."  He could hardly speak the words and felt his
strength failing. But there was some plausibility in his reply;
and the old woman took the pledge.

"What is it?" she asked once more, weighing it in her hand and
looking straight at her visitor.

"Cigarette case, silver, look at it."

"It doesn't feel as though it were silver. Oh! what a dreadful
knot!"

She began to untie the packet and turned to the light (all the
windows were closed in spite of the heat). Her back was turned
toward Raskolnikoff, and for a few seconds she paid no further
attention to him. He opened his coat, freed the hatchet from the
loop, but did not yet take it from its hiding place; he held it
with his right hand beneath the garment. His limbs were weak, each
moment they grew more numbed and stiff. He feared his fingers
would relax their hold of the hatchet. Then his head turned giddy.

"What is this you bring me?" cried Alena Ivanovna, turning to him
in a rage.

There was not a moment to lose now. He pulled out the hatchet,
raised it with both hands, and let it descend without force, almost
mechanically, on the old woman's head. But directly he had struck
the blow his strength returned. According to her usual habit,
Alena Ivanovna was bareheaded. Her scanty gray locks, greasy with
oil, were gathered in one thin plait, which was fixed to the back
of her neck by means of a piece of horn comb. The hatchet struck
her just on the sinciput, and this was partly owing to her small
stature. She scarcely uttered a faint cry and collapsed at once
all in a heap on the floor; she was dead.

The murderer laid his hatchet down and at once began to search the
corpse, taking the greatest precaution not to get stained with the
blood; he remembered seeing Alena Ivanovna, on the occasion of his
last visit, take her keys from the right-hand pocket of her dress.
He was in full possession of his intellect; he felt neither giddy
nor dazed, but his hands continued to shake. Later on, he
recollected that he had been very prudent, very attentive, that he
had taken every care not to soil himself. It did not take him long
to find the keys; the same as the other day, they were all together
on a steel ring. Having secured. them, Raskolnikoff at once
passed into the bedroom. It was a very small apartment; on one
side was a large glass case full of holy images, on the other a
great bed looking very clean with its quilted-silk patchwork
coverlet. The third wall was occupied by a chest of drawers.
Strange to say, the young man had no sooner attempted to open them,
he had no sooner commenced to try the keys, than a kind of shudder
ran through his frame. Again the idea came to him to give up his
task and go away, but this weakness only lasted a second: it was
now too late to draw back.

He was even smiling at having for a moment entertained such a
thought, when he was suddenly seized with a terrible anxiety:
suppose the old woman were still alive, suppose she recovered
consciousness. Leaving at once the keys and the drawers, he
hastened to the corpse, seized the hatchet, and prepared to strike
another blow at his victim, but he found there was no necessity to
do so. Alena Ivanovna was dead beyond all doubt. Leaning over her
again to examine her closer, Raskolnikoff saw that the skull was
shattered. He was about to touch her with his fingers, but drew
back, as it was quite unnecessary. There was a pool of blood upon
the floor. Suddenly noticing a bit of cord round the old woman's
neck, the young man gave it a tug, but the gory stuff was strong,
and did not break. The murderer then tried to remove it by drawing
it down the body. But this second attempt was no more successful
than the first, the cord encountered some obstacle and became
fixed. Burning with impatience, Raskolnikoff brandished the
hatchet, ready to strike the corpse and sever the confounded string
at the same blow. However, he could not make up his mind to
proceed with such brutality. At last, after trying for two
minutes, and staining his hands with blood, he succeeded in
severing the cord with the blade of the hatchet without further
disfiguring the dead body. As he had imagined, there was a purse
suspended to the old woman's neck. Besides this there was also a
small enameled medal and two crosses, one of cypress wood, the
other of brass. The greasy purse, a little chamois-leather bag,
was as full as it could hold. Raskolnikoff thrust it in his pocket
without examining the contents. He then threw the crosses on his
victim's breast, and hastily returned to the bedroom, taking the
hatchet with him.

His impatience was now intense, he seized the keys, and again set
to work. But all his attempts to open the drawers were unavailing,
and this was not so much owing to the shaking of his hands as to
his continual misconceptions. He could see, for instance, that a
certain key would not fit the lock, and yet he continued to try and
insert it. All on a sudden he recalled a conjecture he had formed
on the occasion of his preceding visit: the big key with the
toothed wards, which was attached to the ring with the smaller
ones, probably belonged, not to the drawers, but to some box in
which the old woman, no doubt, hoarded up her valuables. Without
further troubling about the drawers, he at once looked under the
bed, aware that old women are in the habit of hiding their
treasures in such places. And there indeed was a trunk with
rounded lid, covered with red morocco and studded with steel nails.
Raskolnikoff was able to insert the key in the lock without the
least difficulty. When he opened the box he perceived a hareskin
cloak trimmed with red lying on a white sheet; beneath the fur was
a silk dress, and then a shawl, the rest of the contents appeared
to be nothing but rags. The young man commenced by wiping his
bloodstained hands on the red trimming. "It will not show so much
on red."  Then he suddenly seemed to change his mind: "Heavens! am
I going mad?" thought he with fright.

But scarcely had he touched these clothes than a gold watch rolled
from under the fur. He then overhauled everything in the box.
Among the rags were various gold trinkets, which had all probably
been pledged with the old woman: bracelets, chains, earrings, scarf
pins, &c. Some were in their cases, while the others were tied up
with tape in pieces of newspaper folded in two. Raskolnikoff did
not hesitate, he laid hands on these jewels, and stowed them away
in the pockets of his coat and trousers, without opening the cases
or untying the packets; but he was soon interrupted in his work--

Footsteps resounded in the other room. He stopped short, frozen
with terror. But the noise having ceased, he was already imagining
he had been mistaken, when suddenly he distinctly heard a faint
cry, or rather a kind of feeble interrupted moan. At the end of a
minute or two, everything was again as silent as death.
Raskolnikoff had seated himself on the floor beside the trunk and
was waiting, scarcely daring to breathe; suddenly he bounded up,
caught up the hatchet, and rushed from the bedroom. In the center
of the apartment, Elizabeth, a huge bundle in her hands, stood
gazing in a terror-stricken way at her dead sister; white as a
sheet, she did not seem to have the strength to call out. On the
sudden appearance of the murderer, she began to quake in every
limb, and nervous twitches passed over her face; she tried to raise
her arm, to open her mouth, but she was unable to utter the least
cry, and, slowly retreating, her gaze still riveted on
Raskolnikoff, she sought refuge in a corner. The poor woman drew
back in perfect silence, as though she had no breath left in her
body. The young man rushed upon her, brandishing the hatchet; the
wretched creature's lips assumed the doleful expression peculiar to
quite young children when, beginning to feel frightened of
something, they gaze fixedly at the object which has raised their
alarm, and are on the point of crying out. Terror had so
completely stupefied this unfortunate Elizabeth, that, though
threatened by the hatchet, she did not even think of protecting her
face by holding her hands before her head, with that mechanical
gesture which the instinct of self-preservation prompts on such
occasions. She scarcely raised her left arm, and extended it
slowly in the direction of the murderer, as thought to keep him
off. The hatchet penetrated her skull, laying it open from the
upper part of the forehead to the crown. Elizabeth fell down dead.
No longer aware of what he did, Raskolnikoff took the bundle from
his victim's hand, then dropped it and ran to the anteroom.

He was more and more terrified, especially after this second
murder, entirely unpremeditated by him. He was in a hurry to be
gone; had he then been in a state to see things more clearly, had
he only been able to form an idea of the difficulties besetting his
position, to see how desperate, how hideous, how absurd it was, to
understand how many obstacles there still remained for him to
surmount, perhaps even crimes to commit, to escape from this house
and return home, he would most likely have withdrawn from the
struggle, and have gone at once and given himself up to justice; it
was not cowardice which would have prompted him to do so, but the
horror of what he had done. This last impression became more and
more powerful every minute. Nothing in the world could now have
made him return to the trunk, nor even reenter the room in which it
lay. Little by little his mind became diverted by other thoughts,
and he lapsed into a kind of reverie; at times the murderer seemed
to forget his position, or rather the most important part of it,
and to concentrate his attention on trifles. After a while,
happening to glance in the kitchen, he observed a pail half full of
water, standing on a bench, and that gave him the idea of washing
his hands and the hatchet. The blood had made his hands sticky.
After plunging the blade of the hatchet in the water, he took a
small piece of soap which lay on the window sill, and commenced his
ablutions. When he had washed his hands, he set to cleaning the
iron part of his weapon; then he devoted three minutes to soaping
the wooden handle, which was also stained with blood.

After this he wiped it with a cloth which had been hung up to dry
on a line stretched across the kitchen. This done, he drew near
the window and carefully examined the hatchet for some minutes.
The accusing stains had disappeared, but the handle was still damp.
Raskolnikoff carefully hid the weapon under his coat by replacing
it in the loop; after which, he minutely inspected his clothes,
that is to say so far as the dim light of the kitchen allowed him
to do so. He saw nothing suspicious about the coat and trousers,
but there were bloodstains on the boots. He removed them with the
aid of a damp rag. But these precautions only half reassured him,
for he knew that he could not see properly and that certain stains
had very likely escaped him. He stood irresolute in the middle of
the room, a prey to a somber, agonizing thought, the thought that
he was going mad, that at that moment he was not in a fit state to
come to a determination and to watch over his security, that his
way of going to work was probably not the one the circumstances
demanded. "Good heavens! I ought to go, to go away at once!"
murmured he, and he rushed to the anteroom where the greatest
terror he had yet experienced awaited him.

He stood stock-still, not daring to believe his eyes: the door of
the lodging, the outer door which opened on to the landing, the
same one at which he had rung a little while before and by which he
had entered, was open; up till then it had remained ajar, the old
woman had no doubt omitted to close it by way of precaution; it had
been neither locked nor bolted! But he had seen Elizabeth after
that. How was it that it had not occurred to him that she had come
in by way of the door? She could not have entered the lodging
through the wall. He shut the door and bolted it. "But no, that
is not what I should do? I must go away, go away."  He drew back
the bolt and, after opening the door again, stood listening on the
landing.

He stood thus a long while. Down below, probably at the street
door, two noisy voices were vociferating insults. "Who can those
people be?"  He waited patiently. At last the noise ceased, the
brawlers had taken their departure. The young man was about to do
the same, when a door on the floor immediately below was noisily
opened and some one went downstairs, humming a tune. "Whatever are
they all up to?" wondered Raskolnikoff, and closing the door again
he waited a while. At length all became silent as before; but just
as he was preparing to go down, he suddenly became aware of a fresh
sound, footsteps as yet far off, at the bottom of the staircase;
and he no sooner heard them than he guessed the truth:--some one
was coming THERE, to the old woman's on the fourth floor. Whence
came this presentiment? What was there so particularly significant
in the sound of these footsteps? They were heavy, regular, and
rather slow than hurried. HE has now reached the first floor, he
still continues to ascend. The sound is becoming plainer and
plainer. He pants as though with asthma at each step he takes. He
has commenced the third flight. He will soon be on the fourth!
And Raskolnikoff felt suddenly seized as with a general paralysis,
the same as happens when a person has the nightmare and fancies
himself pursued by enemies; they are on the point of catching him,
they will kill him, and yet he remains spellbound, unable to move a
limb.

The stranger was now ascending the fourth flight. Raskolnikoff,
who until then had been riveted to the landing with fright, was at
length able to shake off his torpor, and hastily reentered the
apartment, closing the door behind him. Then he bolted it, being
careful to make as little noise as possible. Instinct rather than
reason prompted him to do this. When he had finished, he remained
close to the door, listening, scarcely daring to breathe. The
visitor was now on the landing. Only the thickness of the door
separated the two men. The unknown was in the same position toward
Raskolnikoff as the latter had been a little while before toward
the old woman. The visitor stood panting for some little time.
"He must be stout and big," thought the young man as he clasped the
hatchet firmly in his hand. It was all like a dream to him. The
visitor gave a violent pull at the bell. He immediately fancied he
heard something move inside. He listened attentively during a few
seconds, then he gave another ring and again waited; suddenly
losing patience, he began to shake the door handle with all his
might. Raskolnikoff watched with terror the bolt trembling in the
socket, expecting to see it shoot back at any moment, so violent
were the jerks given to the door. It occurred to him to hold the
bolt in its place with his hand, but the MAN might have found it
out. His head was turning quite dizzy again. "I shall betray
myself!" thought he; but he suddenly recovered his presence of mind
as the unknown broke the silence.

"Are they both asleep, or has some one strangled them? The thrice-
confounded creatures!" growled the visitor in a guttural voice.
"Hi! Alena Ivanovna, you old sorceress! Elizabeth Ivanovna, you
indescribable beauty!--open! Oh! the witches! can they be asleep?"

In his exasperation he rang ten times running, and as loud as he
possibly could. This man was evidently not a stranger there, and
was in the habit of being obeyed. At the same moment some light
and rapid footsteps resounded on the staircase. It was another
person coming to the fourth floor. Raskolnikoff was not at first
aware of the newcomer's arrival.

"Is it possible that there's no one at home?" said the latter in a
loud and hearty tone of voice, addressing the first visitor who was
still tugging at the bell pull. "Good day, Koch!"

"Judging by his voice, he must be quite a young man," immediately
thought Raskolnikoff.

"The devil only knows! I've almost smashed the lock," replied
Koch. "But how is it you know me?"

"What a question! The day before yesterday I played you at
billiards, at Gambrinus's, and won three games right off."

"Ah!"

"So they're not at home? That's strange. I might almost say it's
ridiculous. Where can the old woman have gone? I want to speak
with her."

"And I too, batuchka, I want to speak with her."

"Well, what's to be done? I suppose we must go back to whence we
came. I wanted to borrow some money of her!" exclaimed the young
man.

"Of course we must go back again; but why then did she make an
appointment? She herself, the old witch, told me to come at this
hour. And it's a long way to where I live. Where the deuce can
she be? I don't understand it. She never stirs from one year's
end to the other, the old witch; she quite rots in the place, her
legs have always got something the matter with them, and now all on
a sudden she goes gallivanting about!"

"Suppose we question the porter?"

"What for?"

"To find out where she's gone and when she will be back."

"Hum!--the deuce!--question!--but she never goes anywhere."  And he
again tugged at the door handle. "The devil take her! there's
nothing to be done but to go."

"Wait!" suddenly exclaimed the young man, "look!--do you notice how
the door resists when we pull it?"

"Well, what then?"

"Why, that shows that it's not locked, but bolted! Hark how it
clinks!"

"Well?"

"Don't you understand? That shows that one of them must be at
home. If both were out, they would have locked the door after
them, and not have bolted it inside. Listen, don't you hear the
noise it makes? Well, to bolt one's door, one must be at home, you
understand. Therefore it follows that they are at home, only for
some reason or other they don't open the door!"

"Why, yes, you're right!" exclaimed the astonished Koch. "So
they're there, are they?"  And he again shook the door violently.

"Stay!" resumed the young man, "don't pull like that. There's
something peculiar about this. You've rung, you've pulled at the
door with all your might, and they haven't answered you; therefore,
they've either both fainted away, or--"

"What?"

"This is what we had better do: have the porter up, so that he may
find out what's the matter."

"That's not a bad idea!"

They both started downstairs.

"Stop! you stay here; I'll fetch the porter."

"Why stay here?"

"Well, one never knows what might happen--"

"All right."

"You see, I might also pass for an examining magistrate! There's
something very peculiar about all this, that's evident, e-vi-dent!"
said the young man excitedly, and he hastily made his way down the
stairs.

Left alone, Koch rang again, but gently this time; then, with a
thoughtful air, he began to play with the door handle, turning it
first one way, then the other, so as to make sure the door was only
bolted. After this, with a great deal of puffing and blowing, he
stooped down to look through the keyhole, but the key was in the
lock, and turned in such a way that one could not see through.
Standing up on the other side of the door, Raskolnikoff still held
the hatchet in his hands. He was almost in a state of delirium and
was preparing to attack the two men the moment they forced an
entrance. More than once, on hearing them knocking and planning
together, he had felt inclined to put an end to the matter there
and then by calling out to them. At times he experienced a desire
to abuse and defy them, while awaiting their irruption. "The
sooner it's over the better!" he kept thinking.

"The devil take them!"  The time passed; still no one came. Koch
was beginning to lose patience. "The devil take them!" he muttered
again, and, tired of waiting, he relinquished his watch to go and
find the young man. By degrees the sound of his heavy boots
echoing on the stairs ceased to be heard.

"Heavens! What shall I do?"

Raskolnikoff drew back the bolt and opened the door a few inches.
Reassured by the silence which reigned in the house, and, moreover,
scarcely in a fit state at the time to reflect on what he did, he
went out on to the landing, shut the door behind him as securely as
he could and turned to go downstairs. He had already descended
several steps when suddenly a great uproar arose from one of the
floors below. Where could he hide? Concealment was impossible, so
he hastened upstairs again.

"Hi there! hang it! stop!"

He who uttered these cries had just burst out of one of the
lodgings, and was rushing down the stairs as fast as his legs would
carry him, yelling the while: "Dmitri! Dmitri! Dmitri! May the
devil take the fool!"

The rest died away in the distance; the man who was uttering these
cries had already left the house far behind. All was once more
silent; but scarcely was this alarm over than a fresh one succeeded
it: several individuals talking together in a loud tone of voice
were noisily coming up the stairs. There were three or four of
them. Raskolnikoff recognized the young man's sonorous accents.
"It is they!"  No longer hoping to escape them, he advanced boldly
to meet them: "Let happen what will!" said he to himself: "if they
stop me, all is over; if they let me pass, all is over just the
same: they will remember passing me on the stairs."  They were
about to encounter him, only one flight separated them--when
suddenly he felt himself saved! A few steps from him, to the
right, there was an empty lodging with the door wide open, it was
that same one on the second floor where he had seen the painters
working, but, by a happy chance, they had just left it. It was
they, no doubt, who a few minutes before had gone off, uttering
those shouts. The paint on the floors was quite fresh, the workmen
had left their things in the middle of the room: a small tub, some
paint in an earthenware crock, and a big brush. In the twinkling
of an eye, Raskolnikoff glided into the deserted apartment and hid
himself as best he could up against the wall. It was none too
soon: his pursuers were already on the landing; they did not stop
there, however, but went on up to the fourth floor, talking loudly
among themselves. After waiting till they had got some distance
off, he left the room on tiptoe and hurried down as fast as his
legs would carry him. No one on the stairs! No one either at the
street door! He stepped briskly outside, and, once in the street,
turned to the left.

He knew very well, he knew without a doubt, that they who were
seeking him were at that moment in the old woman's lodging, and
were amazed to find that the door, which a little while before had
been shut so securely, was now open. 'They're examining the
corpses," thought he; "it won't take them a minute to come to the
conclusion that the murderer managed to hide himself from them as
they went up the stairs; perhaps they may even have a suspicion
that he stowed himself away in the empty lodging on the second
floor while they were hurrying to the upper part of the house."
But, in spite of these reflections, he did not dare to increase his
pace, though he still had a hundred steps or so to go before
reaching the first turning. "Suppose I slipped into some doorway,
in some out-of-the-way street, and waited there a few minutes? No,
that would never do! I might throw my hatchet away somewhere? or
take a cab? No good! no good!"  At last he reached a narrow lane;
he entered it more dead than alive. There, he was almost in
safety, and he knew it: in such a place, suspicion could hardly be
fixed upon him; while, on the other hand, it was easier for him to
avoid notice by mingling with the crowd. But all these agonizing
events had so enfeebled him that he could scarcely keep on his
legs. Great drops of perspiration streamed down his face; his neck
was quite wet. "I think you've had your fill!" shouted some one
who took him for a drunken man as he reached the canal bank.

He no longer knew what he was doing; the farther he went, the more
obscure became his ideas. However, when he found himself on the
quay, he became frightened at seeing so few people there, and,
fearing that he might be noticed on so deserted a spot, he returned
to the lane. Though he had hardly the strength to put one leg
before the other, he nevertheless took the longest way to reach his
home. He had scarcely recovered his presence of mind even when he
crossed the threshold; at least the thought of the hatchet never
came to him until he was on the stairs. Yet the question he had to
solve was a most serious one: it consisted in returning the hatchet
to the place he had taken it from, and in doing so without
attracting the least attention. Had he been more capable of
considering his position, he would certainly have understood that,
instead of replacing the hatchet, it would be far safer to get rid
of it by throwing it into the yard of some other house.

Nevertheless he met with no mishap. The door of the porter's lodge
was closed, though not locked; to all appearance, therefore, the
porter was at home. But Raskolnikoff had so thoroughly lost all
faculty of preparing any kind of plan, that he walked straight to
the door and opened it. If the porter had asked him: "What do you
want?" perhaps he would simply have handed him the hatchet. But,
the same as on the previous occasion, the porter was absent, and
this gave the young man every facility to replace the hatchet under
the bench, exactly where he had found it. Then he went upstairs
and reached his room without meeting a soul; the door of his
landlady's apartments was shut. Once home again, he threw himself
on his couch just as he was. He did not sleep, but lay in a sort
of semiconsciousness. If anybody had then appeared before him, he
would have sprung up and cried out. His head was swimming with a
host of vague thoughts: do what he could, he was unable to follow
the thread of one of them.

Raskolnikoff lay on the couch a very long while. At times he
seemed to rouse from this half sleep, and then he noticed that the
night was very far advanced, but still it never entered his head to
rise. Soon it began to brighten into day, and the dawn found him
in a state of stupefaction, lying motionless on his back. A
desperate clamor, and sounds of brawls from the streets below, rose
to his ears. These awakened him thoroughly, although he heard them
every morning early at the same hour. "Ah! two o'clock, drinking
is over," and he started up as though some one had pulled him off
the couch. "What! two o'clock already?"  He sat on the edge of the
couch and then recollected everything, in an instant it all came
back! At first he thought he was going out of his mind, a strange
chill pervaded his frame, but the cold arose from the fever which
had seized upon him during his sleep. He shivered until his teeth
chattered, and all his limbs fairly shook. He went to the door,
opened it, and listened; all was silent in the house. With
astonishment he turned and looked round the room. How could he
have come home the night before, not bolted the door, and thrown
himself on the couch just as he was, not only not undressed, but
with his hat on? There it lay in the middle of the floor where it
had rolled. "If anyone came in, what would he think? That I am
drunk, of course."

He went to the window--it was pretty light--and looked himself all
over from head to foot, to see if there were any stains on his
clothes. But he could not rely upon that sort of inspection; so,
still shivering, he undressed and examined his clothes again,
looking everywhere with the greatest care. To make quite sure, he
went over them three times. He discovered nothing but a few drops
of clotted blood on the ends of his trousers which were very much
frayed. He took a big clasp-knife and cut off the frayed edges.
Suddenly he remembered that the purse and the things he had
abstracted from the old woman's chest, were still in his pockets!
He had never thought of taking them out and hiding them! indeed, it
had never crossed his mind that they were in his pockets while
examining his clothes! Was it possible? In a second he emptied
all out on to the table in a heap. Then, turning his pockets
inside out to make sure there was nothing left in them, he carried
the things to a corner of the room. Just there, the paper was
hanging loose from the wall; he bent down and commenced to stuff
all the things into a hole behind the paper. "There, it's all out
of sight!" thought he gleefully, as he stood gazing stupidly at the
spot where the paper bulged out more than ever. Suddenly he began
to shudder from terror. "Good heavens!" murmured he in despair,
"what is the matter with me? Is that hidden? Is that the way to
hide anything?"

Indeed, he had not reckoned on such spoil, he had only thought of
taking the old woman's money; so he was not prepared with a hiding
place for the jewels. "I have no cause to rejoice now," thought
he. "Is that the way to hide anything? I must really be losing my
senses!"  He sunk on the couch again exhausted; another fit of
intolerable shivering seized him, and he mechanically pulled his
old student's cloak over him for warmth, as he fell into a
delirious sleep. He lost all consciousness of himself. Not more
than five minutes had elapsed before he woke up in intense
excitement, and bent over his clothes in the deepest anguish. "How
could I go to sleep again when nothing is done! For I have done
nothing, the loop is still where I sewed it. I forgot all about
that! What a convincing proof it would have been."  He ripped it
off and tore it into shreds which he placed among his underlinen
under the pillow. "These rags cannot awaken any suspicions, I
fancy; at least, so it seems to me," repeated he, standing up in
the middle of the room, and, with an attempt rendered all the more
painful by the effort it cost him, he looked all round, trying to
make sure he had forgotten nothing. He suffered cruelly from this
conviction, that everything, even memory, even the most elementary
prudence, was abandoning him.

"Can this be the punishment already beginning? Indeed! indeed! it
is!"

And indeed the frayed edges he had cut from the bottom of his
trousers were lying on the floor, in the middle of the room,
exposed to the view of the first comer. "But what can I be
thinking of?" exclaimed he in utter bewilderment. Then a strange
idea came into his head; he thought that perhaps all his clothes
were saturated in blood, and that he could not see this because his
senses were gone and his perception of things lost. Then he
recollected that there would be traces on the purse, and his
pockets would be wet with blood. It was so. "I am bereft of my
reason, I know not what I am doing. Bah! not at all!--it is only
weakness, delirium. I shall soon be better."  He tore at the
lining. At this moment the rays of the morning streamed in and
shone on his left boot. There were plain traces, and all the point
was covered. "I must have stepped in that pool. What shall I do
now? Boot, lining, rags, where shall they go?"  He rolled them up
and stood thinking in the middle of the room. "Ah, the stove.
Yes, burn them. No, I cannot, I have no match. Better throw them
away. Yes, yes, that is the thing," said he, again sitting on the
couch. "At once, and without delay too, quick."  But, instead, his
head fell back upon the pillow, and chilly shiverings again came
over him. He covered himself with his cloak and slept again. It
appeared hours to him, and many a time in his sleep he tried to
rise to hasten to throw away his bundle, but he could not, he
seemed chained to the bed. At last he awoke, as he heard a loud
knock at his door.

"Eh, open, will you?" cried Nastasia. "Don't lie there like a dog.
It's eleven o'clock."

"Perhaps he is not in," said a man's voice.

"The porter's voice. What does he want?"  Raskolnikoff rose, and
sat on the couch listening. His heart throbbed violently.

"Who has bolted the door then?" exclaimed the servant. "Open, will
you?"

"All must be discovered?"  He rose a little and undid the bolt, and
fell back again on his bed. There stood the porter and Nastasia.
The servant looked strangely at Raskolnikoff, while he fixed a
despairing glance upon the porter.

"Here is a notice for you from the office," said the latter.

"What office?"

"The police office."

"What for?"

"I don't know. You are summoned there, go."  The porter looked
anxiously at the lodger, and turned to leave. Raskolnikoff made no
observation, and held the paper unopened in his hand.

"There, stay where you are," said Nastasia, seeing him fall back on
the couch. "If you are ill, do not go. What is that in your
hand?"

He looked down; in his right hand were clutched the pieces of
frayed cloth, his boot, and the lining of his pocket. He had
evidently fallen asleep with them as they were; indeed he
recollected how, thinking deeply about them, he had dozed away.

"The idea of taking a lot of rags to bed and hugging them to you
like a treasure!" laughed the servant in her sickly manner.

In a second he hid all under his coat and looked at her
attentively. Although little was capable of passing in his mind,
he felt she would not talk thus to a man under arrest for a crime.
But then, the police?

"Is there anything you want? You stay here, I will bring it."

"No, I will go. I am going at once," murmured he, rising to his
feet.

"Very well."

She went out after the porter. As soon as she had disappeared, he
rushed to the light to look at his boot. Yes, there were spots,
but not very plain, all covered with mud. But who would
distinguish them? Nastasia could know nothing, thank heavens!
Then with trembling hand he tore open the notice, and began to
read. At last he understood; it was simply the usual notice to
report himself at the office of the district that day at half-past
nine o'clock.

"But why to-day?" cried he. "Lord, let it be over soon."  He was
about to fall down on his knees to pray, when a fit of laughter
seized him. "I must trust to myself, not to prayers."  He quickly
dressed himself. "Shall I put the boot on?" he thought, "better
throw it away, and hide all traces of it."  Nevertheless he put it
on, only, however, to throw it off again with an expression of
horror. As, however, he recollected he had no other, a smile came
to his face, and he drew it on once more. Again his face changed
into deep despair, his limbs shook more and more. "This is not
from exertion," thought he, "it is fear."  His head spun round and
round and his temples throbbed visibly.

On the stairs he recollected that all the things were in the hole
in the wall, and then where was his certificate of birth? He
stopped to think. But such despair, and, if it may be so called,
cynicism, took hold of him, that he simply shook his head and went
out. The sooner over, the better. Once again in the open air, he
encountered the same insufferable heat, the dust, and the people in
drink rolling about the streets. The sun caught him full in the
eyes and almost blinded him, while his head spun round and round,
as is usual in fever. On reaching the turning into the street he
had taken the day before, he glanced in great agitation in the
direction of the house, but immediately averted his eyes again.
"If they ask me, I should confess, perhaps," said he to himself, as
he turned away and made for the office. This was not far distant,
in a new house, on the fourth floor. As he entered the court, he
saw to the right of him a staircase, ascending which was a man
carrying some books. "It was evidently there."  He did not think
of asking.

"I will go and fall on my knees and confess all," he murmured, and
began to ascend the narrow and very steep stairs. On every floor
the doors of the kitchens of the several apartments stood open to
the staircase, and emitted a suffocating, sickening odor. The
entrance to the office he was in search of was also wide open, and
he walked in. A number of persons were waiting in the anteroom.
The stench was simply intolerable, and was intensified by the smell
of fresh paint. Pausing a little, he decided to advance farther
into the small low room. He became impatient when he found no one
took any notice of him. In an inner room were seated a number of
clerks engaged in writing. He went up to one of these.

"What do you want?"  Raskolnikoff showed him the notice.

"You are a student?" asked a clerk, glancing at the notice.

"Yes;--that is, I used to be."

The clerk glanced at him--without, however, any particular
curiosity. He was a man with unkempt hair and an expressionless
face.

"There is nothing to be learned from him, evidently," thought
Raskolnikoff.

"Step in there to the head clerk," said the man, pointing to a
farther room, which was quite full of people, among whom were two
ladies.

The assistant district officer, a man adorned with red whiskers
standing out on either side of his face, and with extremely small
features, looked up impatiently at Raskolnikoff, whose filthy
attire was by no means prepossessing. The latter returned his
glance calmly and straight in the face, and in such a manner as to
give the officer offense.

"What do you want here?" he cried, apparently surprised that such a
ragged beggar was not knocked down by his thunder-bearing glance.

"I am here because I was summoned," stammered Raskolnikoff.

"It is for the recovery of money lent," said the head clerk.
"Here!" and he threw a paper to Raskolnikoff, "Read!"

"Money? What money? It cannot be that," thought the young man,
and he trembled with joy. Everything became clear, and the load
fell off his shoulders.

"At what hour did you receive this, sir?" cried the lieutenant;
"you were told to come at nine o'clock, and now it is nearly
twelve!"

"I received it a quarter of an hour ago," loudly replied
Raskolnikoff, over his shoulder, suddenly angered, "and it is
sufficient to say that I am ill with a fever."

"Please not to bawl!"

"I did not bawl, but spoke plainly; it is you that bawl. I am a
student, and am not going to have you speak to me in that fashion."

The officer became enraged, and fumed so that only splutters flew
out of his mouth. He jumped up from his place. "Please keep
silence. You are in court. Don't be insolent."

"And so are you in court; and, besides bawling, you are smoking, so
you are wanting in politeness to the whole company."  As he said
this, Raskolnikoff felt an inexpressible delight at his
maliciousness. The clerk looked up with a smile. The choleric
officer was clearly nonplused.

"That is not your business, sir," he cried at last, unnaturally
loud. "Make the necessary declaration. Show him, Alexander
Gregorivitch. Complaints have been made about you! You don't pay
your debts! You know how to fly the kite evidently!"

Raskolnikoff did not listen, but greedily seized the paper. He
read it through more than once, and could make nothing of it.
"What is this?" he asked of the clerk.

"It is a writ for recovery on a note of hand of yours. Please
write," said the clerk.

"Write what?" asked he rudely.

"As I dictate."

The clerk stood near and dictated to him the usual form of
declaration: that he was unable to pay, that he would not quit the
capital, dispose of his goods in any way, etc., etc.

"You cannot write, your pen is falling from your fingers," said the
clerk, and he looked him in the face. "Are you ill?"

"Yes, my head swims. Go on."

"That is all. Now sign it."

Raskolnikoff let fall the pen, and seemed as if about to rise and
go; but, instead of doing so, he laid both elbows on the table and
supported his head with his hands. A new idea formed in his mind:
to rise immediately, go straight to Nicodemus Thomich the ward
officer and tell him all that had occurred; then to accompany him
to his room, and show him all the things hidden away in the wall
behind the paper. His desire to do all this was of such strength
that he got up from the table to carry his design into execution.
"Reflect, reflect a moment!" ran in his head. "No, better not
think, get it off my shoulders."  Suddenly he stood still as if
shot. Nicodemus Thomich was at this moment hotly discussing
something with Elia Petrovitch, the inspector of police, and the
words caught Raskolnikoff's anxious attention. He listened.

"It cannot be, they will both be released. In the first place, all
is contradictory. Consider. Why did they call the porter if it
were their work? To denounce themselves? Or out of cunning? Not
at all, that would be too much! Besides, did not the porter see
the student Pestriakoff at the very gate just as he came in, and he
stood there some time with three friends who had accompanied him.
And Koch: was he not below in the silversmith's for half an hour
before he went up to the old woman's? Now, consider."

"But see what contradictions arise! They say they knocked and
found the door closed; yet three minutes after, when they went back
with the porter, it was open."

"That's true. The murderer was inside, and had bolted the door,
and certainly he would have been captured had not Koch foolishly
run off to the porter. In the interval HE, no doubt, had time to
escape downstairs. Koch explains that, if he had remained, the man
would have leaped out and killed him. He wanted to have a Te Deum
sung. Ha, ha!"

"Did nobody see the murderer?"

"How could they? The house is a perfect Noah's ark," put in the
clerk, who had been listening.

"The thing is clear, very clear," said Nicodemus Thomich
decisively.

"Not at all! Not at all!" cried Elia Petrovitch, in reply.
Raskolnikoff took up his hat and made for the door, but he never
reached it. When he came to himself he found he was sitting on a
chair, supported on the right by some unknown man, while to his
left stood another, holding some yellow water in a yellow glass.
Nicodemus Thomich, standing before him, was looking at him fixedly.
Raskolnikoff rose.

"What is it? Are you ill?" asked the officer sharply.

"He could hardly hold the pen to sign his name," the clerk
explained, at the same time going back to his books.

"Have you been ill very long?" cried Elia Petrovitch from his
table; he had run to see the swoon and returned to his place.

"Since yesterday," murmured Raskolnikoff in reply.

"You went out yesterday?"

"I did."

"Ill?"

"Ill!"

"At what time?"

"Eight o'clock in the evening."

"Where did you go, allow me to ask?"

"In the streets."

"Concise and clear."

Raskolnikoff had replied sharply, in a broken voice, his face as
pale as a handkerchief, and with his black swollen eyes averted
from Elia Petrovitch's scrutinizing glance.

"He can hardly stand on his legs. Do you want to ask anything
more?" said Nicodemus Thomich.

"Nothing," replied Elia Petrovitch.

Nicodemus Thomich evidently wished to say more, but, turning to the
clerk, who in turn glanced expressively at him, the latter became
silent, all suddenly stopped speaking. It was strange.

Raskolnikoff went out. As he descended the stairs he could hear an
animated discussion had broken out, and above all, the
interrogative voice of Nicodemus Thomich. In the street he came to
himself.

"Search, search! they are going to search!" he cried. "The
scoundrels, they suspect me!"  The old dread seized him again, from
head to foot.

Here was the room. All was quiet, and no one had, apparently,
disturbed it--not even Nastasia. But, heavens! how could he have
left all those things where they were? He rushed to the corner,
pushed his hands behind the paper, took out the things, and thrust
them in his pockets. There were eight articles in all: two little
boxes with earrings or something of that description, then four
little morocco cases; a chain wrapped up in paper, and something
else done up in a common piece of newspaper--possibly a decoration.
Raskolnikoff distributed these, together with the purse, about his
person, in order to make them less noticeable, and quitted the room
again. All the time he had left the door wide open. He went away
hurriedly, fearing pursuit. Perhaps in a few minutes orders would
be issued to hunt him down, so he must hide all traces of his theft
at once; and he would do so while he had strength and reason left
him. But where should he go?

This had been long decided. Throw the lot in the canal and the
matter would be at an end! So he had resolved in that night of
delirium, when he cried out, "Quick, quick! throw all away!"  But
this was not so easy. He wandered to the quays of the Catherine
Canal, and lingered there for half an hour. Here a washing raft
lay where he had thought of sinking his spoil, or there boats were
moored, and everywhere people swarmed. Then, again, would the
cases sink? Would they not rather float? No, this would not do.
He would go to the Neva; there would be fewer people there and more
room, and it would be more convenient. He recognized that he had
been wandering about for fully half an hour, and in dangerous
places. He must make haste. He made his way to the river, but
soon came to another standstill. Why in the Neva? Why in the
water at all? Better some solitary place in a wood, or under some
bushes. Dig a hole and bury them! He felt he was not in a
condition to deliberate clearly and soundly, but this idea appeared
the best.

This idea also, however, was not destined to be realized, and
another took its place. As he passed the V---- Prospect, he
suddenly noticed on the left an entrance into a court, which was
surrounded entirely by high walls. On the right, a long way up the
court, rose the side of a huge four-storied building. To the left,
parallel with the walls of the house, and commencing immediately at
the gate, there ran a wooden hoarding of about twenty paces down
the court. Then came a space where a lot of rubbish was deposited;
while farther down, at the bottom of the court, was a shed,
apparently part of some workshop, possibly that of a carpenter or
coach builder. Everything appeared as black as coal dust. Here
was the very place, he thought; and, after looking round, went up
the court. Behind the door he espied a large unworked stone,
weighing about fifty pounds, which lay close up against the
hoarding. No one could see him where he stood; he was entirely
free from observation. He bent down to the stone, managed to turn
it over after considerable effort, and found underneath a small
cavity. He threw in the cases, and then the purse on the top of
all. The stone was not perceptibly higher when he had replaced it,
and little traces of its having been moved could be noticed. So he
pressed some earth against the edges with his foot, and made off.

He laughed for joy when again in the street. All traces were gone,
and who would think of looking there? And if they were found who
would suspect him? All proofs were gone, and he laughed again.
Yes, he recollected afterwards how he laughed--a long, nervous,
lingering laugh, lasting all the time he was in that street.

He reached home toward evening, perhaps at about eight o'clock--
how, and by what particular way he never recollected--but, speedily
undressing, he lay down on the couch, trembling like a beaten
horse, and, drawing his overcoat over him, he fell immediately into
a deep sleep. He awoke in a high fever and delirious. Some days
later he came to himself, rose and went out. It was eight o'clock,
and the sun had disappeared. The heat was as intolerable as
before, but he inhaled the dusty, fetid, infected town air with
greediness. And now his head began to spin round, and a wild
expression of energy crept into his inflamed eyes and pale, meager,
wan face. He did not know, did not even think, what he was going
to do; he only knew that all was to be finished "to-day," at one
blow, immediately, or he would never return home, because he had no
desire to live thus. How to finish? By what means? No matter
how, and he did not want to think. He drove away any thoughts
which disturbed him, and only clung to the necessity of ending all,
"no matter how," said he, with desperate self-confidence and
decision. By force of habit he took his old walk, and set out in
the direction of the Haymarket. Farther on, he came on a young man
who was grinding some very feeling ballads upon a barrel organ.
Near the man, on the footpath, was a young girl of about fifteen
years of age, fashionably dressed, with crinoline, mantle, and
gloves, and a straw hat trimmed with gaudy feathers, but all old
and terribly worn out, who, in a loud and cracked though not
altogether unpleasing voice, was singing before a shop in
expectation of a couple of kopecks. Raskolnikoff stopped and
joined one or two listeners, took out a five-kopeck piece, and gave
it to the girl. The latter at once stopped on a very high note
which she had just reached, and cried to the man, "Come along," and
both immediately moved on to another place.

"Do you like street music?" said Raskolnikoff to a middle-aged man
standing near him. The latter looked at him in surprise, but
smiled. "I love it," continued Raskolnikoff, "especially when they
sing to the organ on a cold, dark, gray winter's evening, when all
the passers-by seem to have pale, green, sickly-looking faces--when
the snow is falling like a sleet, straight down and with no wind,
you know, and while the lamps shine on it all."

"I don't know. Excuse me," said the man, frightened at the
question and Raskolnikoff's strange appearance, and hastily
withdrawing to the other side of the street.

Raskolnikoff went on, and came to the place in the Hay-market where
he had met the trader and his wife and Elizabeth. No one was there
at the moment. He stopped, and turned to a young fellow, in a red
shirt, who was gaping at the entrance to a flour shop.

"A man trades here at this corner, with his wife, eh?"

"Everyone trades here," replied the lad, scanning his questioner
from head to foot.

"What is he called?"

"What he was christened."

"But you belong to Zaraisk, don't you? To what Government?"

The boy stared at Raskolnikoff. "We have no governor, your
highness, but districts. I stay at home, and know nothing about
it, but my brother does; so pardon me, your most mighty highness."

"Is that an eating house there?"

"That's a dram shop; they have a billiard table."

"There are newspapers here?" asked he, as he entered a room--one of
a suite--rather empty. Two or three persons sat with tea before
them, while in a farther room a group of men were seated, drinking
champagne. Raskolnikoff thought he recognized Zametoff among them,
but be could not be sure. "Never mind, if it is!" he muttered.

"Brandy, sir?" asked the waiter.

"No, tea; and bring me some newspapers--for about the last five
days. I'll give you a drink."

The papers and the tea appeared. Raskolnikoff sat and searched,
and, at last, found what he wanted. "Ah, here it is!" he cried, as
he began to read. The words danced before his eyes, but he read
greedily to the end, and turned to others for later intelligence.
His hands trembled with impatience, and the sheets shook again.
Suddenly some one sat down near him. He looked up, and there was
Zametoff--that same Zametoff, with his rings and chain, his oiled
locks and fancy waistcoat and unclean linen. He seemed pleased,
and his tanned face, a little inflamed by the champagne, wore a
smile.

"Ah! you here?" he commenced, in a tone as if he had known
Raskolnikoff for an age. "Why Razoumikhin told me yesterday that
you were lying unconscious. How strange! Then I was at your
place--"

Raskolnikoff laid down the paper and turned to Zametoff. On his
lips was a slight provoking smile. "I know you were," he replied,
"I heard so. You searched for my boot. To what agreeable places
you resort. Who gives you champagne to drink?"

"We were drinking together. What do you mean?"

"Nothing, dear boy, nothing," said Raskolnikoff, with a smile and
slapping Zametoff on the shoulders. "I am not in earnest, but
simply in fun, as your workman said, when he wrestled with Dmitri,
you know, in that murder case."

"Do you know about that?"

"Yes, and perhaps more than you do."

"You are very peculiar. It is a pity you came out. You are ill."

"Do I seem strange?"

"Yes; what are you reading?"

"The paper."

"There are a number of fires."

"I am not reading about them."  He looked curiously at Zametoff,
and a malicious smile distorted his lips. "No, fires are not in my
line," he added, winking at Zametoff. "Now, I should like to know,
sweet youth, what it signifies to you what I read?"

"Nothing at all. I only asked. Perhaps I--"

"Listen. You are a cultivated man--a literary man, are you not?"

"I was in the sixth class at college," Zametoff answered, with a
certain amount of dignity.

"The sixth! Oh, my fine fellow! With rings and a chain--a rich
man! You are a dear boy," and Raskolnikoff gave a short, nervous
laugh, right in the face of Zametoff. The latter was very much
taken aback, and, if not offended, seemed a good deal surprised.

"How strange you are!" said Zametoff seriously. "You have the
fever still on you; you are raving!"

"Am I, my fine fellow--am I strange? Yes, but I am very
interesting to you, am I not?"

"Interesting?"

"Yes. You ask me what I am reading, what I am looking for; then I
am looking through a number of papers. Suspicious, isn't it?
Well, I will explain to you, or rather confess--no, not that
exactly. I will give testimony, and you shall take it down--that's
it. So then, I swear that I was reading, and came here on
purpose"--Raskolnikoff blinked his eyes and paused--"to read an
account of the murder of the old woman."  He finished almost in a
whisper, eagerly watching Zametoff's face. The latter returned his
glances without flinching. And it appeared strange to Zametoff
that a full minute seemed to pass as they kept fixedly staring at
each other in this manner.

"Oh, so that's what you have been reading?" Zametoff at last cried
impatiently. "What is there in that?"

"She is the same woman," continued Raskolnikoff, still in a
whisper, and taking no notice of Zametoff's remark, "the very same
woman you were talking about when I swooned in your office. You
recollect--you surely recollect?"

"Recollect what?" said Zametoff, almost alarmed.

The serious expression on Raskolnikoff's face altered in an
instant, and he again commenced his nervous laugh, and laughed as
if he were quite unable to contain himself. There had recurred to
his mind, with fearful clearness, the moment when he stood at the
door with the hatchet in his hand. There he was, holding the bolt,
and they were tugging and thumping away at the door. Oh, how he
itched to shriek at them, open the door, thrust out his tongue at
them, and frighten them away, and then laugh, "Ah, ah, ah, ah!"

"You are insane, or else--" said Zametoff, and then paused as if a
new thought had suddenly struck him.

"Or what, or what? Now what? Tell me!"

"Nonsense!" said Zametoff to himself, "it can't be."  Both became
silent. After this unexpected and fitful outburst of laughter,
Raskolnikoff had become lost in thought and looked very sad. He
leaned on the table with his elbows, buried his head in his hands,
and seemed to have quite forgotten Zametoff. The silence continued
a long time. "You do not drink your tea; it is getting cold," said
the latter, at last.

"What? Tea? Yes!"  Raskolnikoff snatched at his glass, put a
piece of bread in his mouth, and then, after looking at Zametoff,
seemingly recollected and roused himself. His face at once resumed
its previous smile, and he continued to sip his tea.

"What a number of rogues there are about," Zametoff said. "I read
not long ago, in the Moscow papers, that they had captured a whole
gang of forgers in that city. Quite a colony."

"That's old news. I read it a month ago," replied Raskolnikoff in
a careless manner. "And you call such as these rogues?" he added,
smiling.

"Why not?"

"Rogues indeed! Why, they are only children and babies. Fifty
banded together for such purposes! Is it possible? Three would be
quite sufficient, and then they should be sure of one another--not
babble over their cups. The babies! Then to hire unreliable
people to change the notes at the money changers', persons whose
hands tremble as they receive the rubles. On such their lives
depend! Far better to strangle yourself! The man goes in,
receives the change, counts some over, the last portion he takes on
faith, stuffs all in his pocket, rushes away and the murder is out.
All is lost by one foolish man. Is it not ridiculous?"

"That his hands should shake?" replied Zametoff. "No; that is
quite likely. Yours would not, I suppose? I could not endure it,
though. For a paltry reward of a hundred rubles to go on such a
mission! And where? Into a banker's office with forged notes! I
should certainly lose my head. Would not you?"

Raskolnikoff felt again a strong impulse to make a face at him. A
shiver ran down his back. "You would not catch me acting so
foolishly," he commenced. "This is how I should do. I should
count over the first thousand very carefully, perhaps four times,
right to the end, carefully examine each note, and then only pass
to the second thousand, count these as far as the middle of the
bundle, take out a note, hold it to the light, turn it over, then
hold it to the light again, and say, 'I fear this is a bad note,'
and then begin to relate some story about a lost note. Then there
would be a third thousand to count. Not yet, please, there is a
mistake in the second thousand. No, it is correct. And so I
should proceed until I had received all. At last I should turn to
go, open the door, but, no, pardon me! I should return, ask some
question, receive some explanation, and there it is all done."

"What funny things you do say!" said Zametoff with a smile. "You
are all very well theoretically, but try it and see. Look, for
example, at the murder of the money lender, a case in point. There
was a desperate villain who in broad daylight stopped at nothing,
and yet his hand shook, did it not?--and he could not finish, and
left all the spoil behind him. The deed evidently robbed him of
his presence of mind."

This language nettled Raskolnikoff. "You think so? Then lay your
hand upon him," said he, maliciously delighted to tease him.

"Never fear but we shall!"

"You? Go to, you know nothing about it. All you think of
inquiring is whether a man is flinging money about; he is--then,
ergo he is guilty."

"That is exactly what they do," replied Zametoff, "they murder,
risk their lives, and then rush to the public house and are caught.
Their lavishness betrays them. You see they are not all so crafty
as you are. You would not run there, I suppose?"

Raskolnikoff frowned and looked steadily at Zametoff. "You seem
anxious to know how I should act," he said with some displeasure.

"I should very much like to know," replied Zametoff in a serious
tone. He seemed, indeed, very anxious.

"Very much?"

"Very much."

"Good. This would be my plan," Raskolnikoff said, as he again bent
near to the face of his listener, and speaking in such a tragic
whisper as almost to make the latter shudder. "I should take the
money and all I could find, and make off, going, however, in no
particular direction, but on and on until I came to some obscure
and inclosed place, where no one was about--a market garden, or any
such-like spot. I should then look about me for a stone, perhaps a
pound and a half in weight, lying, it may be, in a corner against a
partition, say a stone used for building purposes; this I should
lift up and under it there would be a hole. In that hole I should
deposit all the things I had got, roll back the stone, stamp it
down with my feet, and be off. For a year I should let them lie--
for two years, three years. Now then, search for them! Where are
they?"

"You are indeed mad," said Zametoff, also in a low tone, but
turning away from Raskolnikoff. The latter's eyes glistened, he
became paler than ever, while his upper lip trembled violently. He
placed his face closer, if possible, to that of Zametoff, his lips
moving as if he wished to speak, but no words escaped them--several
moments elapsed--Raskolnikoff knew what he was doing, but felt
utterly unable to control himself, that strange impulse was upon
him as when he stood at the bolted door, to come forth and let all
be known.

"What if I killed the old woman and Elizabeth?" he asked suddenly,
and then--came to himself.

Zametoff turned quite pale; then his face changed to a smile. "Can
it be so?" he muttered to himself.

Raskolnikoff eyed him savagely. "Speak out. What do you think?
Yes? Is it so?"

"Of course not. I believe it now less than ever," replied Zametoff
hastily.

"Caught at last! caught, my fine fellow! What people believe less
than ever, they must have believed once, eh?"

"Not at all. You frightened me into the supposition," said
Zametoff, visibly confused.

"So you do not think this? Then why those questions in the office?
Why did the lieutenant question me after my swoon? Waiter," he
cried, seizing his cap, "here, how much?"

"Thirty kopecks, sir," replied the man.

"There you are, and twenty for yourself. Look, what a lot of
money!" turning to Zametoff and thrusting forth his shaking hand
filled with the twenty-five rubles, red and blue notes. "Whence
comes all this? Where did I obtain these new clothes from? You
know I had none. You have asked the landlady, I suppose? Well, no
matter!--Enough! Adieu, most affectionately."

He went out, shaking from some savage hysterical emotion, a mixture
of delight, gloom, and weariness. His face was drawn as if he had
just recovered from a fit; and, as his agitation of mind increased,
so did his weakness.

Meanwhile, Zametoff remained in the restaurant where Raskolnikoff
had left him, deeply buried in thought, considering the different
points Raskolnikoff had placed before him.

His heart was empty and depressed, and he strove again to drive off
thought. No feeling of anguish came, neither was there any trace
of that fierce energy which moved him when he left the house to
"put an end to it all."

"What will be the end of it? The result lies in my own will. What
kind of end? Ah, we are all alike, and accept the bit of ground
for our feet and live. Must this be the end? Shall I say the word
or not? Oh, how weary I feel! Oh, to lie down or sit anywhere!
How foolish it is to strive against my illness! Bah! What
thoughts run through my brain!"  Thus he meditated as he went
drowsily along the banks of the canal, until, turning to the right
and then to the left, he reached the office building. He stopped
short, however, and, turning down a lane, went on past two other
streets, with no fixed purpose, simply, no doubt, to give himself a
few moments longer for reflection. He went on, his eyes fixed on
the ground, until all of a sudden he started, as if some one had
whispered in his ear. Raising his eyes he saw that he stood before
THE HOUSE, at its very gates.

Quick as lightning, an idea rushed into his head, and he marched
through the yard and made his way up the well-known staircase to
the fourth story. It was, as usual, very dark, and as he reached
each landing he peered almost with caution. There was the room
newly painted, where Dmitri and Mikola had worked. He reached the
fourth landing and he paused before the murdered woman's room in
doubt. The door was wide open and he could hear voices within;
this he had not anticipated. However, after wavering a little, he
went straight in. The room was being done up, and in it were some
workmen. This astonished him--indeed, it would seem he had
expected to find everything as he had left it, even to the dead
bodies lying on the floor. But to see the place with bare walls
and bereft of furniture was very strange! He walked up to the
windows and sat on the sill. One of the workmen now saw him and
cried:

"What do you want here?"

Instead of replying, Raskolnikoff walked to the outer door and,
standing outside, began to pull at the bell. Yes, that was the
bell, with its harsh sound. He pulled again and again three times,
and remained there listening and thinking.

"What is it you want?" again cried the workman as he went out to
Raskolnikoff.

"I wish to hire some rooms. I came to look at these."

"People don't take lodgings in the night. Why don't you apply to
the porter?"

"The floor has been washed. Are you going to paint it?" remarked
Raskolnikoff. "Where is the blood?"

"What blood?"

"The old woman's and her sister's. There was quite a pool."

"Who are you?" cried the workman uneasily.

"I am Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikoff, ex-student. I live at the
house Schilla, in a lane not far from here, No. 14. Ask the porter
there--he knows me," Raskolnikoff replied indifferently, without
turning to his questioner.

"What were you doing in those rooms?"

"Looking at them."

"What for? Come, out you go then, if you won't explain yourself,"
suddenly shouted the porter, a huge fellow in a smock frock, with a
large bunch of keys round his waist; and he caught Raskolnikoff by
the shoulder and pitched him into the street. The latter lurched
forward, but recovered himself, and, giving one look at the
spectators, went quietly away.

"What shall I do now?" thought Raskolnikoff. He was standing on
the bridge, near a crossing, and was looking around him as if
expecting some one to speak. But no one spoke, and all was dark
and dull, and dead--at least to him, and him alone.

A few days later, Raskolnikoff heard from his friend Razoumikhin
that those who had borrowed money from Alena Ivanovna were going to
the police office to redeem their pledges. He went with
Razoumikhin to the office where they were received by Porphyrius
Petrovitch, the examining magistrate, who seemed to have expected
them.

"You have been expecting this visit? But how did you know that he
had pledged anything with Alena Ivanovna?" cried Razoumikhin.

Porphyrius Petrovitch, without any further reply, said to
Raskolnikoff: "Your things, a ring and a watch, were at her place,
wrapped up in a piece of paper, and on this paper your name was
legibly written in pencil, with the date of the day she had
received these things from you."

"What a memory you must have got!" said Raskolnikoff, with a forced
smile, doing his best to look the magistrate unflinchingly in the
face. However, he could not help adding: "I say so, because, as
the owners of the pledged articles are no doubt very numerous, you
must, I should fancy, have some difficulty in remembering them all;
but I see, on the contrary, that you do nothing of the kind. (Oh!
fool! why add that?)"

"But they have nearly all of them come here; you alone had not done
so," answered Porphyrius, with an almost imperceptible sneer.

"I happened to be rather unwell."

"So I heard. I have been told that you have been in great pain.
Even now you are pale."

"Not at all. I am not pale. On the contrary, I am very well!"
answered Raskolnikoff in a tone of voice which had all at once
become brutal and violent. He felt rising within him
uncontrollable anger. "Anger will make me say some foolish thing,"
he thought. "But why do they exasperate me?"

"He was rather unwell! A pretty expression, to be sure!" exclaimed
Razoumikhin. "The fact is that up to yesterday he has been almost
unconscious. Would you believe it, Porphyrius? Yesterday, when he
could hardly stand upright, he seized the moment when we had just
left him, to dress, to be off by stealth, and to go loafing about,
Heaven only knows where, till midnight, being, all the time, in a
completely raving condition. Can you imagine such a thing? It is
a most remarkable case!"

"Indeed! In a completely raving state?" remarked Porphyrius, with
the toss of the head peculiar to Russian rustics.

"Absurd! Don't you believe a word of it! Besides, I need not urge
you to that effect--of course you are convinced," observed
Raskolnikoff, beside himself with passion. But Porphyrius
Petrovitch did not seem to hear these singular words.

"How could you have gone out if you had not been delirious?" asked
Razoumikhin, getting angry in his turn. "Why have gone out at all?
What was the object of it? And, above all, to go in that secret
manner? Come, now, make a clean breast of it--you know you were
out of your mind, were you not? Now that danger is gone by, I tell
you so to your face."

"I had been very much annoyed yesterday," said Raskolnikoff,
addressing the magistrate, with more or less of insolence in his
smile, "and, wishing to get rid of them, I went out to hire
lodgings where I could be sure of privacy, to effect which I had
taken a certain amount of money. Mr. Zametoff saw what I had by
me, and perhaps he can say whether I was in my right senses
yesterday or whether I was delirious? Perhaps he will judge as to
our quarrel."  Nothing would have pleased him better than there and
then to have strangled that gentleman, whose taciturnity and
equivocal facial expression irritated him.

"In my opinion, you were talking very sensibly and even with
considerable shrewdness; only I thought you too irritable,"
observed Zametoff off-handedly.

"Do let us have some tea! We are as dry as fishes!" exclaimed
Razoumikhin.

"Good idea! But perhaps you would like something more substantial
before tea, would you?"

"Look alive, then!"

Porphyrius Petrovitch went out to order tea. All kinds of thoughts
were at work in Raskolnikoff's brain. He was excited. "They don't
even take pains to dissemble; they certainly don't mince matters as
far as I am concerned: that is something, at all events! Since
Porphyrius knew next to nothing about me, why on earth should he
have spoken with Nicodemus Thomich Zametoff at all? They even
scorn to deny that they are on my track, almost like a pack of
hounds! They certainly speak out plainly enough!" he said,
trembling with rage. "Well, do so, as bluntly as you like, but
don't play with me as the cat would with the mouse! That's not
quite civil, Porphyrius Petrovitch; I won't quite allow that yet!
I'll make a stand and tell you some plain truths to your faces, and
then you shall find out my real opinion about you!"  He had some
difficulty in breathing. "But supposing that all this is pure
fancy?--a kind of mirage? Suppose I had misunderstood? Let me try
and keep up my nasty part, and not commit myself, like the fool, by
blind anger! Ought I to give them credit for intentions they have
not? Their words are, in themselves, not very extraordinary ones--
so much must be allowed; but a double meaning may lurk beneath
them. Why did Porphyrius, in speaking of the old woman, simply say
'At her place?'  Why did Zametoff observe that I had spoken very
sensibly? Why their peculiar manner?--yes, it is this manner of
theirs. How is it possible that all this cannot have struck
Razoumikhin? The booby never notices anything! But I seem to be
feverish again! Did Porphyrius give me a kind of wink just now, or
was I deceived in some way? The idea is absurd! Why should he
wink at me? Perhaps they intend to upset my nervous organization,
and, by so doing, drive me to extremes! Either the whole thing is
a phantasmagoria, or--they know!"

These thoughts flashed through his mind with the rapidity of
lightning. Porphyrius Petrovitch came back a moment afterwards.
He seemed in a very good temper. "When I left your place
yesterday, old fellow, I was really not well," he commenced,
addressing Razoumikhin with a cheeriness which was only just
becoming apparent, "but that is all gone now."

"Did you find the evening a pleasant one? I left you in the thick
of the fun; who came off best?"

"Nobody, of course. They caviled to their heart's content over
their old arguments."

"Fancy, Rodia, the discussion last evening turned on the question:
'Does crime exist? Yes, or No.'  And the nonsense they talked on
the subject!"

"What is there extraordinary in the query? It is the social
question without the charm of novelty," answered Raskolnikoff
abruptly.

"Talking of crime," said Porphyrius Petrovitch, speaking to
Raskolnikoff, "I remember a production of yours which greatly
interested me. I am speaking about your article ON CRIME. I don't
very well remember the title. I was delighted in reading it two
months ago in the Periodical Word."

"But how do you know the article was mine? I only signed it with
an initial."

"I discovered it lately, quite by chance. The chief editor is a
friend of mine; it was he who let out the secret of your
authorship. The article has greatly interested me."

"I was analyzing, if I remember rightly, the psychological
condition of a criminal at the moment of his deed."

"Yes, and you strove to prove that a criminal, at such a moment, is
always, mentally, more or less unhinged. That point of view is a
very original one, but it was not this part of your article which
most interested me. I was particularly struck by an idea at the
end of the article, and which, unfortunately, you have touched upon
too cursorily. In a word, if you remember, you maintained that
there are men in existence who can, or more accurately, who have an
absolute right to commit all kinds of wicked, and criminal acts--
men for whom, to a certain extent, laws do not exist."

"Is it not very likely that some coming Napoleon did for Alena
Ivanovna last week?" suddenly blustered Zametoff from his corner.

Without saying a word, Raskolnikoff fixed on Porphyrius a firm and
penetrating glance. Raskolnikoff was beginning to look sullen. He
seemed to have been suspecting something for some time past. He
looked round him with an irritable air. For a moment there was an
ominous silence. Raskolnikoff was getting ready to go.

"What, are you off already?" asked Porphyrius, kindly offering the
young man his hand with extreme affability. "I am delighted to
have made your acquaintance. And as for your application, don't be
uneasy about it. Write in the way I suggested. Or, perhaps, you
had better do this. Come and see me before long--to-morrow, if you
like. I shall be here without fail at eleven o'clock. We can make
everything right--we'll have a chat--and as you were one of the
last that went THERE, you might be able to give some further
particulars?" he added, with his friendly smile.

"Do you wish to examine me formally?" Raskolnikoff inquired, in an
uncomfortable tone.

"Why should I? Such a thing is out of the question. You have
misunderstood me. I ought to tell you that I manage to make the
most of every opportunity. I have already had a chat with every
single person that has been in the habit of pledging things with
the old woman--several have given me very useful information--and
as you happen to be the last one--  By the by," he exclaimed with
sudden pleasure, "how lucky I am thinking about it, I was really
going to forget it!"  (Saying which he turned to Razoumikhin.)
"You were almost stunning my ears, the other day, talking about
Mikolka. Well, I am certain, quite certain, as to his innocence,"
he went on, once more addressing himself to Raskolnikoff. "But
what was to be done? It has been necessary to disturb Dmitri.
Now, what I wanted to ask was: On going upstairs--was it not
between seven and eight you entered the house?"

"Yes," replied Raskolnikoff and he immediately regretted an answer
he ought to have avoided.

"Well, in going upstairs, between seven and eight, did you not see
on the second floor, in one of the rooms, when the door was wide
open--you remember, I dare say?--did you not see two painters or,
at all events, one of the two? They were whitewashing the room, I
believe; you must have seen them! The matter is of the utmost
importance to them!"

"Painters, you say? I saw none," replied Raskolnikoff slowly,
trying to sound his memory: for a moment he violently strained it
to discover, as quickly as he could, the trap concealed by the
magistrate's question. "No, I did not see a single one; I did not
even see any room standing open," he went on, delighted at having
discovered the trap, "but on the fourth floor I remember noticing
that the man lodging on the same landing as Alena Ivanovna was in
the act of moving. I remember that very well, as I met a few
soldiers carrying a sofa, and I was obliged to back against the
wall; but, as for painters, I don't remember seeing a single one--I
don't even remember a room that had its door open. No, I saw
nothing."

"But what are you talking about?" all at once exclaimed
Razoumikhin, who, till that moment, had attentively listened; "it
was on the very day of the murder that painters were busy in that
room, while he came there two days previously! Why are you asking
that question?"

"Right! I have confused the dates!" cried Porphyrius, tapping his
forehead. "Deuce take me! That job makes me lose my head!" he
added by way of excuse, and speaking to Raskolnikoff. "It is very
important that we should know if anybody saw them in that room
between seven and eight. I thought I might have got that
information from you without thinking any more about it. I had
positively confused the days!"

"You ought to be more attentive!" grumbled Razoumikhin.

These last words were uttered in the anteroom, as Porhyrius very
civilly led his visitors to the door. They were gloomy and morose
on leaving the house, and had gone some distance before speaking.
Raskolnikoff breathed like a man who had just been subjected to a
severe trial.

When, on the following day, precisely at eleven o'clock,
Raskolnikoff called on the examining magistrate, he was astonished
to have to dance attendance for a considerable time. According to
his idea, he ought to have been admitted immediately; ten minutes,
however, elapsed before he could see Porphyrius Petrovitch. In the
outer room where he had been waiting, people came and went without
heeding him in the least. In the next room, which was a kind of
office, a few clerks were at work, and it was evident that not one
of them had even an idea who Raskolnikoff might be. The young man
cast a mistrustful look about him. "Was there not," thought he,
"some spy, some mysterious myrmidon of the law, ordered to watch
him, and, if necessary, to prevent his escape?"  But he noticed
nothing of the kind; the clerks were all hard at work, and the
other people paid him no kind of attention. The visitor began to
become reassured. "If," thought he, "this mysterious personage of
yesterday, this specter which had risen from the bowels of the
earth, knew all, and had seen all, would they, I should like to
know, let me stand about like this? Would they not rather have
arrested me, instead of waiting till I should come of my own
accord? Hence this man has either made no kind of revelation as
yet about me, or, more probably, he knows nothing, and has seen
nothing (besides how could he have seen anything?): consequently I
have misjudged, and all that happened yesterday was nothing but an
illusion of my diseased imagination."  This explanation, which had
offered itself the day before to his mind, at the time he felt most
fearful, he considered a more likely one.

Whilst thinking about all this and getting ready for a new
struggle, Raskolnikoff suddenly perceived that he was trembling; he
became indignant at the very thought that it was fear of an
interview with the hateful Porphyrius Petrovitch which led him to
do so. The most terrible thing to him was to find himself once
again in presence of this man. He hated him beyond all expression,
and what he dreaded was lest he might show this hatred. His
indignation was so great that it suddenly stopped this trembling;
he therefore prepared himself to enter with a calm and self-
possessed air, promised himself to speak as little as possible, to
be very carefully on the watch in order to check, above all things,
his irascible disposition. In the midst of these reflections, he
was introduced to Porphyrius Petrovitch. The latter was alone in
his office, a room of medium dimensions, containing a large table,
facing a sofa covered with shiny leather, a bureau, a cupboard
standing in a corner, and a few chairs: all this furniture,
provided by the State, was of yellow wood. In the wall, or rather
in the wainscoting of the other end, there was a closed door, which
led one to think that there were other rooms behind it. As soon as
Porphyrius Petrovitch had seen Raskolnikoff enter his office, he
went to close the door which had given him admission, and both
stood facing one another. The magistrate received his visitor to
all appearances in a pleasant and affable manner, and it was only
at the expiration of a few moments that the latter observed the
magistrate's somewhat embarrassed manner--he seemed to have been
disturbed in a more or less clandestine occupation.

"Good! my respectable friend! Here you are then--in our
latitudes!" commenced Porphyrius, holding out both hands. "Pray,
be seated, batuchka! But, perhaps, you don't like being called
respectable? Therefore, batuchka, for short! Pray, don't think me
familiar. Sit down here on the sofa."

Raskolnikoff did so without taking his eyes off the judge. "These
words 'in our latitudes,' these excuses for his familiarity, this
expression 'for short,' what could be the meaning of all this? He
held out his hands to me without shaking mine, withdrawing them
before I could do so, thought Raskolnikoff mistrustfully. Both
watched each other, but no sooner did their eyes meet than they
both turned them aside with the rapidity of a flash of lightning.

"I have called with this paper--about the--  If you please. Is it
correct, or must another form be drawn up?"

"What, what paper? Oh, yes! Do not put yourself out. It is
perfectly correct," answered Porphyrius somewhat hurriedly, before
he had even examined it; then, after having cast a glance on it, he
said, speaking very rapidly: "Quite right, that is all that is
required," and placed the sheet on the table. A moment later he
locked it up in his bureau, chattering about other things.

"Yesterday," observed Raskolnikoff, "you had, I fancy, a wish to
examine me formally--with reference to my dealings with--the
victim? At least so it seemed to me!"

"Why did I say, 'So it seemed?'" reflected the young man all of a
sudden. "After all, what can be the harm of it? Why should I
distress myself about that!" he added, mentally, a moment
afterwards. The very fact of his proximity to Porphyrius, with
whom he had scarcely as yet interchanged a word, had immeasurably
increased his mistrust; he marked this in a moment, and concluded
that such a mood was an exceedingly dangerous one, inasmuch as his
agitation, his nervous irritation, would only increase. "That is
bad! very bad! I shall be saying something thoughtless!"

"Quite right. But do not put yourself out of the way, there is
time, plenty of time," murmured Petrovitch, who, without apparent
design, kept going to and fro, now approaching the window, now his
bureau, to return a moment afterwards to the table. At times he
would avoid Raskolnikoff's suspicious look, at times again he drew
up sharp whilst looking his visitor straight in the face. The
sight of this short chubby man, whose movements recalled those of a
ball rebounding from wall to wall, was an extremely odd one. "No
hurry, no hurry, I assure you! But you smoke, do you not! Have
you any tobacco? Here is a cigarette!" he went on, offering his
visitor a paquitos. "You notice that I am receiving you here, but
my quarters are there behind the wainscoting. The State provides
me with that. I am here as it were on the wing, because certain
alterations are being made in my rooms. Everything is almost
straight now. Do you know that quarters provided by the State are
by no means to be despised?"

"I believe you," answered Raskolnikoff, looking at him almost
derisively.

"Not to be despised, by any means," repeated Porphyrius Petrovitch,
whose mind seemed to be preoccupied with something else--"not to be
despised!" he continued in a very loud tone of voice, and drawing
himself up close to Raskolnikoff, whom he stared out of
countenance. The incessant repetition of the statement that
quarters provided by the State were by no means to be despised
contrasted singularly, by its platitude, with the serious,
profound, enigmatical look he now cast on his visitor.

Raskolnikoff's anger grew in consequence; he could hardly help
returning the magistrate's look with an imprudently scornful
glance. "Is it true?" the latter commenced, with a complacently
insolent air, "is it true that it is a judicial maxim, a maxim
resorted to by all magistrates, to begin an interview about
trifling things, or even, occasionally, about more serious matter,
foreign to the main question however, with a view to embolden, to
distract, or even to lull the suspicion of a person under
examination, and then all of a sudden to crush him with the main
question, just as you strike a man a blow straight between the
eyes?"

"Such a custom, I believe, is religiously observed in your
profession, is it not?

"Then you are of opinion that when I spoke to you about quarters
provided by the State, I did so--"  Saying which, Porphyrius
Petrovitch blinked, his face assumed for a moment an expression of
roguish gayety, the wrinkles on his brow became smoothed, his small
eyes grew smaller still, his features expanded, and, looking
Raskolnikoff straight in the face, he burst out into a prolonged
fit of nervous laughter, which shook him from head to foot. The
young man, on his part, laughed likewise, with more or less of an
effort, however, at sight of which Porphyrius's hilarity increased
to such an extent that his face grew nearly crimson. At this
Raskolnikoff experienced more or less aversion, which led him to
forget all caution; he ceased laughing, knitting his brows, and,
whilst Porphyrius gave way to his hilarity, which seemed a somewhat
feigned one, he fixed on him a look of hatred. In truth, they were
both off their guard. Porphyrius had, in fact, laughed at his
visitor, who had taken this in bad part; whereas the former seemed
to care but little about Raskolnikoff's displeasure. This
circumstance gave the young man much matter for thought. He
fancied that his visit had in no kind of way discomposed the
magistrate; on the contrary, it was Raskolnikoff who had been
caught in a trap, a snare, an ambush of some kind or other. The
mine was, perhaps, already charged, and might burst at any moment.

Anxious to get straight to the point, Raskolnikoff rose and took up
his cap. "Porphyrius Petrovitch," he cried, in a resolute tone of
voice, betraying more or less irritation, "yesterday you expressed
the desire to subject me to a judicial examination."  (He laid
special stress on this last word.)  "I have called at your bidding;
if you have questions to put, do so: if not, allow me to withdraw.
I can't afford to waste my time here, as I have other things to
attend to. In a word, I must go to the funeral of the official who
has been run over, and of whom you have heard speak," he added,
regretting, however, the last part of his sentence. Then, with
increasing anger, he went on: "Let me tell you that all this
worries me! The thing is hanging over much too long. It is that
mainly that has made me ill. In one word,"--he continued, his
voice seeming more and more irritable, for he felt that the remark
about his illness was yet more out of place than the previous one--
"in one word, either be good enough to cross-examine me, or let me
go this very moment. If you do question me, do so in the usual
formal way; otherwise, I shall object. In the meanwhile, adieu,
since we have nothing more to do with one another."

"Good gracious! What can you be talking about? Question you about
what?" replied the magistrate, immediately ceasing his laugh.
"Don't, I beg, disturb yourself."  He requested Raskolnikoff to sit
down once more, continuing, nevertheless, his tramp about the room.
"There is time, plenty of time. The matter is not of such
importance after all. On the contrary, I am delighted at your
visit--for as such do I take your call. As for my horrid way of
laughing, batuchka, Rodion Romanovitch, I must apologize. I am a
nervous man, and the shrewdness of your observations has tickled
me. There are times when I go up and down like an elastic ball,
and that for half an hour at a time. I am fond of laughter. My
temperament leads me to dread apoplexy. But, pray, do sit down--
why remain standing? Do, I must request you, batuchka; otherwise I
shall fancy that you are cross."

His brows still knit, Raskolnikoff held his tongue, listened, and
watched. In the meanwhile he sat down.

"As far as I am concerned, batuchka, Rodion Romanovitch, I will
tell you something which shall reveal to you my disposition,"
answered Porphyrius Petrovitch, continuing to fidget about the
room, and, as before, avoiding his visitor's gaze. "I live alone,
you must know, never go into society, and am, therefore, unknown;
add to which, that I am a man on the shady side of forty, somewhat
played out. You may have noticed, Rodion Romanovitch, that here--I
mean in Russia, of course, and especially in St. Petersburg
circles--that when two intelligent men happen to meet who, as yet,
are not familiar, but who, however, have mutual esteem--as, for
instance, you and I have at this moment--don't know what to talk
about for half an hour at a time. They seem, both of them, as if
petrified. Everyone else has a subject for conversation--ladies,
for instance, people in society, the upper ten--all these sets have
some topic or other. It is the thing, but somehow people of the
middle-class, like you and I, seem constrained and taciturn. How
does that come about, batuchka? Have we no social interests? Or
is it, rather, owing to our being too straightforward to mislead
one another? I don't know. What is your opinion, pray? But do, I
beg, remove your cap; one would really fancy that you wanted to be
off, and that pains me. I, you must know, am so contented."

Raskolnikoff laid his cap down. He did not, however, become more
loquacious; and, with knit brows, listened to Porphyrius's idle
chatter. "I suppose," thought he, "he only doles out his small
talk to distract my attention."

"I don't offer you any coffee," went on the inexhaustible
Porphyrius, "because this is not the place for it, but can you not
spend a few minutes with a friend, by way of causing him some
little distraction? You must know that all these professional
obligations--don't be vexed, batuchka, if you see me walking about
like this, I am sure you will excuse me, if I tell you how anxious
I am not to do so, but movement is so indispensable to me! I am
always seated--and, to me, it is quite a luxury to be able to move
about for a minute or two. I purpose, in fact, to go through a
course of calisthenics. The trapeze is said to stand in high favor
amongst State counselors--counselors in office, even amongst privy
counselors. Nowadays, in fact, gymnastics have become a positive
science. As for these duties of our office, these examinations,
all this formality--you yourself, you will remember, touched upon
the topic just now, batuchka--these examinations, and so forth,
sometimes perplex the magistrate much more than the man under
suspicion. You said as much just now with as much sense as
accuracy."  (Raskolnikoff had made no statement of the kind.)  "One
gets confused, one loses the thread of the investigation. Yet, as
far as our judicial customs go, I agree with you fully. Where, for
instance, is there a man under suspicion of some kind or other,
were it even the most thick-headed moujik, who does not know that
the magistrate will commence by putting all sorts of out-of-the-way
questions to take him off the scent (if I may be allowed to use
your happy simile), and that then he suddenly gives him one between
the eyes? A blow of the ax on his sinciput (if again I may be
permitted to use your ingenious metaphor)? Hah, hah! And do you
mean to say that when I spoke to you about quarters provided by the
State, that--hah, hah! You are very caustic. But I won't revert
to that again. By-and-by!--one remark produces another, one
thought attracts another--but you were talking just now of the
practice or form in vogue with the examining magistrate. But what
is this form? You know as I do that in many cases the form means
nothing at all. Occasionally a simple conversation, a friendly
interview, brings about a more certain result. The practice or
form will never die out--I can vouch for that; but what, after all,
is the form, I ask once more? You can't compel an examining
magistrate to be hampered or bound by it everlastingly. His duty
or method is in its way, one of the liberal professions or
something very much like it."

Porphyrius Petrovitch stopped a moment to take breath. He kept on
talking, now uttering pure nonsense, now again introducing, in
spite of this trash, an occasional enigmatical remark, after which
he went on with his insipidities. His tramp about the room was
more like a race--he moved his stout legs more and more quickly,
without looking up; his right hand was thrust deep in the pocket of
his coat, whilst with the left he unceasingly gesticulated in a way
unconnected with his observations. Raskolnikoff noticed, or
fancied he noticed, that, whilst running round and round the room,
he had twice stopped near the door, seeming to listen. "Does he
expect something?" he asked himself.

"You're perfectly right," resumed Porphyrius cheerily, whilst
looking at the young man with a kindliness which immediately awoke
the latter's distrust. "Our judicial customs deserve your satire.
Our proceedings, which are supposed to be inspired by a profound
knowledge of psychology, are very ridiculous ones, and very often
useless. Now, to return to our method or form: Suppose for a
moment that I am deputed to investigate something or other, and
that I know the guilty person to be a certain gentleman. Are you
not yourself reading for the law, Rodion Romanovitch?"

"I was some time ago."

"Well, here is a kind of example which may be of use to you later
on. Don't run away with the idea that I am setting up as your
instructor--God forbid that I should presume to teach anything to a
man who treats criminal questions in the public press! Oh, no!--
all I am doing is to quote to you, by way of example, a trifling
fact. Suppose that I fancy I am convinced of the guilt of a
certain man, why, I ask you, should I frighten him prematurely,
assuming me to have every evidence against him? Of course, in the
case of another man of a different disposition, him I would have
arrested forthwith; but, as to the former, why should I not permit
him to hang about a little longer? I see you do not quite take me.
I will, therefore, endeavor to explain myself more clearly! If,
for instance, I should be too quick in issuing a writ, I provide
him in doing so with a species of moral support or mainstay--I see
you are laughing?"  (Raskolnikoff, on the contrary, had no such
desire; his lips were set, and his glaring look was not removed
from Porphyrius's eyes.)  "I assure you that in actual practice
such is really the case; men vary much, although, unfortunately,
our methods are the same for all. But you will ask me: Supposing
you are certain of your proofs? Goodness me, batuchka! you know,
perhaps as well as I do, what proofs are--half one's time, proofs
may be taken either way; and I, a magistrate, am, after all, only a
man liable to error.

"Now, what I want is to give to my investigation the precision of a
mathematical demonstration--I want my conclusions to be as plain,
as indisputable, as that twice two are four. Now, supposing I have
this gentleman arrested prematurely, though I may be positively
certain that he is THE MAN, yet I deprive myself of all future
means of proving his guilt. How is that? Because, so to say, I
give him, to a certain extent, a definite status; for, by putting
him in prison, I pacify him. I give him the chance of
investigating his actual state of mind--he will escape me, for he
will reflect. In a word, he knows that he is a prisoner, and
nothing more. If, on the contrary, I take no kind of notice of the
man I fancy guilty, if I do not have him arrested, if I in no way
set him on his guard--but if the unfortunate creature is hourly,
momentarily, possessed by the suspicion that I know all, that I do
not lose sight of him either by night or by day, that he is the
object of my indefatigable vigilance--what do you ask will take
place under these circumstances? He will lose his self-possession,
he will come of his own accord to me, he will provide me with ample
evidence against himself, and will enable me to give to the
conclusion of my inquiry the accuracy of mathematical proofs, which
is not without its charm.

"If such a course succeeds with an uncultured moujik, it is equally
efficacious when it concerns an enlightened, intelligent, or even
distinguished man. For the main thing, my dear friend, is to
determine in what sense a man is developed. The man, I mean, is
intelligent, but he has nerves which are OVER-strung. And as for
bile--the bile you are forgetting, that plays no small part with
similar folk! Believe me, here we have a very mine of information!
And what is it to me whether such a man walk about the place in
perfect liberty? Let him be at ease--I know him to be my prey, and
that he won't escape me! Where, I ask you, could he go to? You
may say abroad. A Pole may do so--but my man, never! especially as
I watch him, and have taken steps in consquence. Is he likely to
escape into the very heart of our country? Not he! for there dwell
coarse moujiks, and primitive Russians, without any kind of
civilization. My educated friend would prefer going to prison,
rather than be in the midst of such surroundings. Besides, what I
have been saying up to the present is not the main point--it is the
exterior and accessory aspect of the question. He won't escape--
not only because he won't know where to go to, but especially, and
above all, because he is mine from the PSYCHOLOGICAL point of view.
What do you think of this explanation? In virtue of a natural law,
he will not escape, even if he could do so! Have you ever seen a
butterfly close to the candle? My man will hover incessantly round
me in the same way as the butterfly gyrates round the candle-light.
Liberty will have no longer charms for him; he will grow more and
more restless, more and more amazed--let me but give him plenty of
time, and he will demean himself in a way to prove his guilt as
plainly as that twice two our four! Yes, he will keep hovering
about me, describing circles, smaller and smaller, till at last--
bang! He has flown into my clutches, and I have got him. That is
very nice. You don't think so, perhaps?"

Raskolnikoff kept silent. Pale and immovable, he continued to
watch Porphyrius's face with a labored effort of attention. "The
lesson is a good one!" he reflected. "But it is not, as yesterday,
a case of the cat playing with the mouse. Of course, he does not
talk to me in this way for the mere pleasure of showing me his
hand; he is much too intelligent for that. He must have something
else in view--what can it be? Come, friend, what you do say is
only to frighten me. You have no kind of evidence, and the man of
yesterday does not exist! All you wish is to perplex me--to enrage
me, so as to enable you to make your last move, should you catch me
in such a mood, but you will not; all your pains will be in vain!
But why should he speak in such covert terms? I presume he must be
speculating on the excitability of my nervous system. But, dear
friend, that won't go down, in spite of your machinations. We will
try and find out what you really have been driving at."

And he prepared to brave boldly the terrible catastrophe he
anticipated. Occasionally the desire came upon him to rush on
Porphyrius, and to strangle him there and then. From the first
moment of having entered the magistrate's office what he had
dreaded most was, lest he might lose his temper. He felt his heart
beating violently, his lips become parched, his spittle congealed.
He resolved, however, to hold his tongue, knowing that, under the
circumstances, such would be the best tactics. By similar means,
he felt sure that he would not only not become compromised, but
that he might succeed in exasperating his enemy, in order to let
him drop some imprudent observation. This, at all events, was
Raskolnikoff's hope.

"I see you don't believe, you think I am jesting," continued
Porphyrius, more and more at his ease, without ceasing to indulge
in his little laugh, whilst continuing his perambulation about the
room. "You may be right. God has given me a face which only
arouses comical thoughts in others. I'm a buffoon. But excuse an
old man's cackle. You, Rodion Romanovitch, you are in your prime,
and, like all young people, you appreciate, above all things, human
intelligence. Intellectual smartness and abstract rational
deductions entice you. But, to return to the SPECIAL CASE we were
talking about just now. I must tell you that we have to deal with
reality, with nature. This is a very important thing, and how
admirably does she often foil the highest skill! Listen to an old
man; I am speaking quite seriously. Rodion"--(on saying which
Porphyrius Petrovitch, who was hardly thirty-five years of age,
seemed all of a sudden to have aged, a sudden metamorphosis had
taken place in the whole of his person, nay, in his very voice)--
"to an old man who, however, is not wanting in candor. Am I or am
I not candid? What do you think? It seems to me that a man could
hardly be more so--for do I not reveal confidence, and that without
the prospect of reward? But, to continue, acuteness of mind is, in
my opinion, a very fine thing; it is to all intents and purposes an
ornament of nature, one of the consolations of life by means of
which it would appear a poor magistrate can be easily gulled, who,
after all, is often misled by his own imagination, for he is only
human. But nature comes to the aid of this human magistrate!
There's the rub! And youth, so confident in its own intelligence,
youth which tramples under foot every obstacle, forgets this!

"Now, in the SPECIAL CASE under consideration, the guilty man, I
will assume, lies hard and fast, but, when he fancies that all that
is left him will be to reap the reward of his mendacity, behold, he
will succumb in the very place where such an accident is likely to
be most closely analyzed. Assuming even that he may be in a
position to account for his syncope by illness or the stifling
atmosphere of the locality, he has none the less given rise to
suspicion! He has lied incomparably, but he has counted without
nature. Here is the pitfall! Again, a man off his guard, from an
unwary disposition, may delight in mystifying another who suspects
him, and may wantonly pretend to be the very criminal wanted by the
authorities; in such a case, he will represent the person in
question a little too closely, he will place his foot a little too
naturally. Here we have another token. For the nonce his
interlocutor may be duped; but, being no fool, he will on the
morrow have seen through the subterfuge. Then will our friend
become compromised more and more! He will come of his own accord
when he is not even called, he will use all kinds of impudent
words, remarks, allegories, the meaning of which will be clear to
everybody; he will even go so far as to come and ask why he has not
been arrested as yet--hah! hah! And such a line of conduct may
occur to a person of keen intellect, yes, even to a man of
psychologic mind! Nature, my friend, is the most transparent of
mirrors. To contemplate her is sufficient. But why do you grow
pale, Rodion Romanovitch? Perhaps you are too hot; shall I open
the window?"

"By no means, I beg!" cried Raskolnikoff, bursting out laughing.
"Don't heed me, pray!"  Porphyrius stopped short, waited a moment,
and burst out laughing himself. Raskolnikoff, whose hilarity had
suddenly died out, rose. "Porphyrius Petrovitch," he shouted in a
clear and loud voice, although he could scarcely stand on his
trembling legs, "I can no longer doubt that you suspect me of
having assassinated this old woman as well as her sister,
Elizabeth. Let me tell you that for some time I have had enough of
this. If you think you have the right to hunt me down, to have me
arrested, hunt me down, have me arrested. But you shall not trifle
with me, you shall not torture me."  Suddenly his lips quivered,
his eyes gleamed, and his voice, which up to that moment had been
self-possessed, reached its highest diapason. "I will not permit
it," he yelled hoarsely, whilst striking a violent blow on the
table. "Do you hear me, Porphyrius Petrovitch, I shall not permit
this!"

"But, goodness gracious! what on earth is wrong with you?" asked
the magistrate, disturbed to all appearances. "Batuchka! Rodion
Romanovitch! My good friend! What on earth is the matter with
you?"

"I will not permit it!" repeated Raskolnikoff once again.

"Batuchka! not so loud, I must request! Someone will hear you,
someone may come; and then, what shall we say? Just reflect one
moment!" murmured Porphyrius Petrovitch, whose face had approached
that of his visitor.

"I will not permit it, I will not permit it!" mechanically pursued
Raskolnikoff, but in a minor key, so as to be heard by Porphyrius
only.

The latter moved away to open the window. "Let us air the room!
Supposing you were to drink some water, dear friend? You have had
a slight fit!"  He was on the point of going to the door to give
his orders to a servant, when he saw a water bottle in a corner.
"Drink, batuchka!" he murmured, whilst approaching the young man
with the bottle, "that may do you some good."

Porphyrius's fright seemed so natural that Raskolnikoff remained
silent whilst examining him with curiosity. He refused, however,
the proffered water.

"Rodion Romanovitch! My dear friend! If you go on in this way,
you will go mad, I am positive! Drink, pray, if only a few drops!"
He almost forced the glass of water into his hand. Raskolnikoff
raised it mechanically to his lips, when suddenly he thought better
of it, and replaced it on the table with disgust. "Yes, yes, you
have had a slight fit. One or two more, my friend, and you will
have another attack of your malady," observed the magistrate in the
kindest tone of voice, appearing greatly agitated. "Is it possible
that people can take so little care of themselves? It was the same
with Dmitri Prokofitch, who called here yesterday. I admit mine to
be a caustic temperament, that mine is a horrid disposition, but
that such a meaning could possibly be attributed to harmless
remarks. He called here yesterday, when you had gone, and in the
course of dinner he talked, talked. You had sent him, had you not?
But do sit down, batuchka! do sit down, for heaven's sake!"

"I did not indeed!--although I knew that he had called, and his
object in doing so!" replied Raskolnikoff dryly.

"Did you really know why?"

"I did. And what did you gather from it?"

"I gathered from it, batuchka! Rodion Romanovitch, the knowledge of
a good many of your doings--in fact, I know all! I know that you
went, towards nightfall, TO HIRE THE LODGINGS. I know that you
pulled the bell, and that a question of yours in connection with
bloodstains, as well as your manner, frightened both journeymen and
dvorniks. I know what was your mood at the time. Excitement of
such a kind will drive you out of your mind, be assured. A
praiseworthy indignation is at work within you, complaining now as
to destiny, now on the subject of police agents. You keep going
here and there to induce people as far as possible to formulate
their accusations. This stupid kind of tittle-tattle is hateful to
you, and you are anxious to put a stop to it as soon as possible.
Am I right? Have I laid finger on the sentiments which actuate
you? But you are not satisfied by turning your own brain, you want
to do, or rather do, the same thing to my good Razoumikhin.
Really, it is a pity to upset so good a fellow! His kindness
exposes him more than anyone else to suffer contagion from your own
malady. But you shall know all as soon as you shall be calmer.
Pray, therefore, once again sit down, batuchka! Try and recover
your spirits--you seem quite unhinged."

Raskolnikoff rose while looking at him with an air full of
contempt. "Tell me once for all," asked the latter, "tell me one
way or other, whether I am in your opinion an object for suspicion?
Speak up, Porphyrius Petrovitch, and explain yourself without any
more beating about the bush, and that forthwith!"

"Just one word, Rodion Romanovitch. This affair will end as God
knows best; but still, by way of form, I may have to ask you a few
more questions. Hence we are certain to meet again!"  And with a
smile Porphyrius stopped before the young man. "Certain!" he
repeated. One might have fancied that he wished to say something
more. But he did not do so.

"Forgive my strange manner just now, Porphyrius Petrovitch, I was
hasty," began Raskolnikoff, who had regained all his self-
possession, and who even experienced an irresistible wish to chaff
the magistrate.

"Don't say any more, it was nothing," replied Porphyrius in almost
joyful tone. "Till we meet again!"

"Till we meet again!"

The young man forthwith went home. Having got there, he threw
himself on his couch, and for a quarter of an hour he tried to
arrange his ideas somewhat, inasmuch as they were very confused.

Within a few days Raskolnikoff convinced himself that Porphyrius
Petrovitch had no real proofs. Deciding to go out, in search of
fresh air, he took up his cap and made for the door, deep in
thought. For the first time he felt in the best of health, really
well. He opened the door, and encountered Porphyrius face to face.
The latter entered. Raskolnikoff staggered for a moment, but
quickly recovered. The visit did not dismay him. "Perhaps this is
the finale, but why does he come upon me like a cat, with muffled
tread? Can he have been listening?"

"I have been thinking for a long time of calling on you, and, as I
was passing, I thought I might drop in for a few minutes. Where
are you off to? I won't detain you long, only the time to smoke a
cigarette, if you will allow me?"

"Be seated, Porphyrius Petrovitch, be seated," said Raskolnikoff to
his guest, assuming such an air of friendship that he himself could
have been astonished at his own affability. Thus the victim, in
fear and trembling for his life, at last does not feel the knife at
his throat. He seated himself in front of Porphyrius, and gazed
upon him without flinching. Porphyrius blinked a little, and
commenced rolling his cigarette.

"Speak! speak!" Raskolnikoff mutely cried in his heart. "What are
you going to say?"

"Oh, these cigarettes!" Porphyrius Petrovitch commenced at last,
"they'll be the death of me, and yet I can't give them up! I am
always coughing--a tickling in the throat is setting in, and I am
asthmatical. I have been to consult Botkine of late; he examines
every one of his patients at least half an hour at a time. After
having thumped and bumped me about for ever so long, he told me,
amongst other things: 'Tobacco is a bad thing for you--your lungs
are affected.'  That's all very well, but how am I to go without my
tobacco? What am I to use as a substitute? Unfortunately, I can't
drink, hah! hah! Everything is relative, I suppose, Rodion
Romanovitch?"

"There, he is beginning with some more of his silly palaver!"
Raskolnikoff growled to himself. His late interview with the
magistrate suddenly occurred to him, at which anger affected his
mind.

"Did you know, by-the-by, that I called on you the night before
last?" continued Porphyrius, looking about. "I was in this very
room. I happened to be coming this way, just as I am going to-day,
and the idea struck me to drop in. Your door was open--I entered,
hoping to see you in a few minutes, but went away again without
leaving my name with your servant. Do you never shut your place?"

Raskolnikoff's face grew gloomier and gloomier. Porphyrius
Petrovitch evidently guessed what the latter was thinking about.

"You did not expect visitors, Rodion Romanovitch?" said Porphyrius,
smiling graciously.

"I have called just to clear things up a bit. I owe you an
explanation," he went on, smiling and gently slapping the young man
on the knee; but almost at the self-same moment his face assumed a
serious and even sad expression, to Raskolnikoff's great
astonishment, to whom the magistrate appeared in quite a different
light. "At our last interview, an unusual scene took place between
us, Rodion. I somehow feel that I did not behave very well to you.
You remember, I dare say, how we parted; we were both more or less
excited. I fear we were wanting in the most common courtesy, and
yet we are both of us gentlemen."

"What can he be driving at now?" Raskolnikoff asked himself,
looking inquiringly at Porphyrius.

"I have come to the conclusion that it would be much better for us
to be more candid to one another," continued the magistrate,
turning his head gently aside and looking on the ground, as if he
feared to annoy his former victim by his survey. "We must not have
scenes of that kind again. If Mikolka had not turned up on that
occasion, I really do not know how things would have ended. You
are naturally, my dear Rodion, very irritable, and I must own that
I had taken that into consideration, for, when driven in a corner,
many a man lets out his secrets. 'If,' I said to myself, 'I could
only squeeze some kind of evidence out of him, however trivial,
provided it were real, tangible, and palpable, different from all
my psychological inferences!'  That was my idea. Sometimes we
succeed by some such proceeding, but unfortunately that does not
happen every day, as I conclusively discovered on the occasion in
question. I had relied too much on your character."

"But why tell me all this now?" stammered Raskolnikoff, without in
any way understanding the object of his interlocutor's question.
"Does he, perhaps, think me really innocent?"

"You wish to know why I tell you this? Because I look upon it as a
sacred duty to explain my line of action. Because I subjected you,
as I now fully acknowledge, to cruel torture. I do not wish, my
dear Rodion, that you should take me for an ogre. Hence, by way of
justification, I purpose explaining to you what led up to it. I
think it needless to account for the nature and origin of the
reports which circulated originally, as also why you were connected
with them. There was, however, one circumstance, a purely
fortuitous one, and which need not now be mentioned, which aroused
my suspicions. From these reports and accidental circumstances,
the same conclusion became evolved for me. I make this statement
in all sincerity, for it was I who first implicated you with the
matter. I do not in any way notice, the particulars notified on
the articles found at the old woman's. That, and several others of
a similar nature, are of no kind of importance. At the same time,
I was aware of the incident which had happened at the police
office. What occurred there has been told me with the utmost
accuracy by some one who had been closely connected with it, and
who, most unwittingly, had brought things to a head. Very well,
then, how, under such circumstances, could a man help becoming
biased? 'One swallow does not make a summer,' as the English
proverb says: a hundred suppositions do not constitute one single
proof. Reason speaks in that way, I admit, but let a man try to
subject prejudice to reason. An examining magistrate, after all,
is only a man--hence given to prejudice.

"I also remembered, on the occasion in question, the article you
had published in some review. That virgin effort of yours, I
assure you, I greatly enjoyed--as an amateur, however, be it
understood. It was redolent of sincere conviction, of genuine
enthusiasm. The article was evidently written some sleepless night
under feverish conditions. That author, I said to myself, while
reading it, will do better things than that. How now, I ask you,
could I avoid connecting that with what followed upon it? Such a
tendency was but a natural one. Am I saying anything I should not?
Am I at this moment committing myself to any definite statement? I
do no more than give utterance to a thought which struck me at the
time. What may I be thinking about now? Nothing--or, at all
events, what is tantamount to it. For the time being, I have to
deal with Mikolka; there are facts which implicate him--what are
facts, after all? If I tell you all this now, as I am doing, I do
so, I assure you, most emphatically, so that your mind and
conscience may absolve me from my behavior on the day of our
interview. 'Why,' you will ask, 'did you not come on that occasion
and have my place searched?'  I did so, hah! hah! I went when you
were ill in bed--but, let me tell you, not officially, not in my
magisterial capacity; but go I did. We had your rooms turned
topsy-turvy at our very first suspicions, but umsonst! Then I said
to myself: 'That man will make me a call, he will come of his own
accord, and that before very long! If he is guilty, he will be
bound to come. Other kinds of men would not do so, but this one
will.'

"And you remember, of course, Mr. Razoumikhin's chattering? We had
purposely informed him of some of our suspicions, hoping that he
might make you uneasy, for we knew perfectly well that Razoumikhin
would not be able to contain his indignation. Zametoff, in
particular, had been struck by your boldness, and it certainly was
a bold thing for a person to exclaim all of a sudden in an open
traktir: 'I am an assassin!'  That was really too much of a good
thing. Well, I waited for you with trusting patience, and, lo and
behold, Providence sends you! How my heart did beat when I saw you
coming! Now, I ask you, where was the need of your coming at that
time at all? If you remember, you came in laughing immoderately.
That laughter gave me food for thought, but, had I not been very
prejudiced at the time, I should have taken no notice of it. And
as for Mr. Razoumikhin on that occasion--ah! the stone, the stone,
you will remember, under which the stolen things are hidden? I
fancy I can see it from here; it is somewhere in a kitchen garden--
it was a kitchen garden you mentioned to Zametoff, was it not? And
then, when your article was broached, we fancied we discovered a
latent thought beneath every word you uttered. That was the way,
Rodion Romanovitch, that my conviction grew little by little. 'And
yet,' said I to myself, 'all that may be explained in quite a
different way, and perhaps more rationally. After all, a real
proof, however slight, would be far more valuable.'  But, when I
heard all about the bell-ringing, my doubts vanished; I fancied I
had the indispensable proof, and did not seem to care for further
investigation.

"We are face to face with a weird and gloomy case--a case of a
contemporary character, if I may say so--a case possessing, in the
fullest sense of the word, the hallmark of time, and circumstances
pointing to a person and life of different surroundings. The real
culprit is a theorist, a bookworm, who, in a tentative kind of way,
has done a more than bold thing; but this boldness of his is of
quite a peculiar and one-sided stamp; it is, after a fashion, like
that of a man who hurls himself from the top of a mountain or
church steeple. The man in question has forgotten to cut off
evidence, and, in order to work out a theory, has killed two
persons. He has committed a murder, and yet has not known how to
take possession of the pelf; what he has taken he has hidden under
a stone. The anguish he experienced while hearing knocking at the
door and the continued ringing of the bell, was not enough for him:
no, yielding to an irresistible desire of experiencing the same
horror, he has positively revisited the empty place and once more
pulled the bell. Let us, if you like, attribute the whole of this
to disease--to a semidelirious condition--by all means; but there
is another point to be considered: he has committed a murder, and
yet continues to look upon himself as a righteous man!"

Raskolnikoff trembled in every limb. "Then, who--who is it--that
has committed the murder?" he stammered forth, in jerky accents.

The examining magistrate sank back in his chair as though
astonished at such a question. "Who committed the murder?" he
retorted, as if he could not believe his own ears. "Why, you--you
did, Rodion Romanovitch! You!--" he added, almost in a whisper,
and in a tone of profound conviction.

Raskolnikoff suddenly rose, waited for a few moments, and sat down
again, without uttering a single word. All the muscles of his face
were slightly convulsed.

"Why, I see your lips tremble just as they did the other day,"
observed Porphyrius Petrovitch, with an air of interest. "You have
not, I think, thoroughly realized the object of my visit, Rodion
Romanovitch," he pursued, after a moment's silence, "hence your
great astonishment. I have called with the express intention of
plain speaking, and to reveal the truth."

"It was not I who committed the murder," stammered the young man,
defending himself very much like a child caught in the act of doing
wrong.

"Yes, yes, it was you, Rodion Romanovitch, it was you, and you
alone," replied the magistrate with severity. "Confess or not, as
you think best; for the time being, that is nothing to me. In
either case, my conviction is arrived at."

"If that is so, why have you called?" asked Raskolnikoff angrily.
"I once more repeat the question I have put you: If you think me
guilty, why not issue a warrant against me?"

"What a question! But I will answer you categorically. To begin
with, your arrest would not benefit me!"

"It would not benefit you? How can that be? From the moment of
being convinced, you ought to--"

"What is the use of my conviction, after all? For the time being,
it is only built on sand. And why should I have you placed AT
REST? Of course, I purpose having you arrested--I have called to
give you a hint to that effect--and yet I do not hesitate to tell
you that I shall gain nothing by it. Considering, therefore, the
interest I feel for you, I earnestly urge you to go and acknowledge
your crime. I called before to give the same advice. It is by far
the wisest thing you can do--for you as well as for myself, who
will then wash my hands of the affair. Now, am I candid enough?"

Raskolnikoff considered a moment. "Listen to me, Porphyrius
Petrovitch! To use your own statement, you have against me nothing
but psychological sentiments, and yet you aspire to mathematical
evidence. Who has told you that you are absolutely right?"

"Yes, Rodion Romanovitch, I am absolutely right. I hold a proof!
And this proof I came in possession of the other day: God has sent
it me!"

"What is it?"

"I shall not tell you, Rodion Romanovitch. But I have no right to
procrastinate. I am going to have you arrested! Judge, therefore:
whatever you purpose doing is not of much importance to me just
now; all I say and have said has been solely done for your
interest. The best alternative is the one I suggest, you may
depend on it, Rodion Romanovitch! When I shall have had you
arrested--at the expiration of a month or two, or even three, if
you like--you will remember my words, and you will confess. You
will be led to do so insensibly, almost without being conscious of
it. I am even of opinion that, after careful consideration, you
will make up your mind to make atonement. You do not believe me at
this moment, but wait and see. In truth, Rodion Romanovitch,
suffering is a grand thing. In the mouth of a coarse man, who
deprives himself of nothing, such a statement might afford food for
laughter. Never mind, however, but there lies a theory in
suffering. Mikolka is right. You won't escape, Rodion
Romanovitch."

Raskolnikoff rose and took his cap. Porphyrius Petrovitch did the
same. "Are you going for a walk? The night will be a fine one, as
long as we get no storm. That would be all the better though, as
it would clear the air."

"Porphyrius Petrovitch," said the young man, in curt and hurried
accents, "do not run away with the idea that I have been making a
confession to-day. You are a strange man, and I have listened to
you from pure curiosity. But remember, I have confessed to
nothing. Pray do not forget that."

"I shall not forget it, you may depend--  How he is trembling!
Don't be uneasy, my friend--I shall not forget your advice. Take a
little stroll, only do not go beyond certain limits. I must,
however, at all costs," he added with lowered voice, "ask a small
favor of you; it is a delicate one, but has an importance of its
own; assuming, although I would view such a contingency as an
improbable one--assuming, during the next forty-eight hours, the
fancy were to come upon you to put an end to your life (excuse me
my foolish supposition), would you mind leaving behind you
something in the shape of a note--a line or so--pointing to the
spot where the stone is?--that would be very considerate. Well, au
revoir! May God send you good thoughts!"

Porphyrius withdrew, avoiding Raskolnikoff's eye. The latter
approached the window, and impatiently waited till, according to
his calculation, the magistrate should be some distance from the
house. He then passed out himself in great haste.

A few days later, the prophecy of Porphyrius Petrovitch was
fulfilled. Driven by the torment of uncertainty and doubt,
Raskolnikoff made up his mind to confess his crime. Hastening
through the streets, and stumbling up the narrow stairway, he
presented himself at the police office.

With pale lips and fixed gaze, Raskolnikoff slowly advanced toward
Elia Petrovitch. Resting his head upon the table behind which the
lieutenant was seated, he wished to speak, but could only give vent
to a few unintelligible sounds.

"You are in pain, a chair! Pray sit down! Some water"

Raskolnikoff allowed himself to sink on the chair that was offered
him, but he could not take his eyes off Elia Petrovitch, whose face
expressed a very unpleasant surprise. For a moment both men looked
at one another in silence. Water was brought!

"It was I--" commenced Raskolnikoff.

"Drink."

With a movement of his hand the young man pushed aside the glass
which was offered him; then, in a low-toned but distinct voice he
made, with several interruptions, the following statement:--

"It was I who killed, with a hatchet, the old moneylender and her
sister, Elizabeth, and robbery was my motive."

Elia Petrovitch called for assistance. People rushed in from
various directions. Raskolnikoff repeated his confession.

Anton Chekhoff

The Safety Match

On the morning of October 6, 1885, in the office of the Inspector
of Police of the second division of S---- District, there appeared
a respectably dressed young man, who announced that his master,
Marcus Ivanovitch Klausoff, a retired officer of the Horse Guards,
separated from his wife, had been murdered. While making this
announcement the young man was white and terribly agitated. His
hands trembled and his eyes were full of terror.

"Whom have I the honor of addressing?" asked the inspector.

"Psyekoff, Lieutenant Klausoff's agent; agriculturist and
mechanician!"

The inspector and his deputy, on visiting the scene of the
occurrence in company with Psyekoff, found the following: Near the
wing in which Klausoff had lived was gathered a dense crowd. The
news of the murder had sped swift as lightning through the
neighborhood, and the peasantry, thanks to the fact that the day
was a holiday, had hurried together from all the neighboring
villages. There was much commotion and talk. Here and there,
pale, tear-stained faces were seen. The door of Klausoff's bedroom
was found locked. The key was inside.

"It is quite clear that the scoundrels got in by the window!" said
Psyekoff as they examined the door.

They went to the garden, into which the bedroom window opened. The
window looked dark and ominous. It was covered by a faded green
curtain. One corner of the curtain was slightly turned up, which
made it possible to look into the bedroom.

"Did any of you look into the window?" asked the inspector.

"Certainly not, your worship!" answered Ephraim, the gardener, a
little gray-haired old man, who looked like a retired sergeant.
"Who's going to look in, if all their bones are shaking?"

"Ah, Marcus Ivanovitch, Marcus Ivanovitch!" sighed the inspector,
looking at the window, "I told you you would come to a bad end! I
told the dear man, but he wouldn't listen! Dissipation doesn't
bring any good!"

"Thanks to Ephraim," said Psyekoff; "but for him, we would never
have guessed. He was the first to guess that something was wrong.
He comes to me this morning, and says: 'Why is the master so long
getting up? He hasn't left his bedroom for a whole week!'  The
moment he said that, it was just as if some one had hit me with an
ax. The thought flashed through my mind, 'We haven't had a sight
of him since last Saturday, and to-day is Sunday'! Seven whole
days--not a doubt of it!"

"Ay, poor fellow!" again sighed the inspector. "He was a clever
fellow, finely educated, and kind-hearted at that! And in society,
nobody could touch him! But he was a waster, God rest his soul! I
was prepared for anything since he refused to live with Olga
Petrovna. Poor thing, a good wife, but a sharp tongue! Stephen!"
the inspector called to one of his deputies, "go over to my house
this minute, and send Andrew to the captain to lodge an information
with him! Tell him that Marcus Ivanovitch has been murdered. And
run over to the orderly; why should he sit there, kicking his
heels? Let him come here! And go as fast as you can to the
examining magistrate, Nicholas Yermolaiyevitch. Tell him to come
over here! Wait; I'll write him a note!"

The inspector posted sentinels around the wing, wrote a letter to
the examining magistrate, and then went over to the director's for
a glass of tea. Ten minutes later he was sitting on a stool,
carefully nibbling a lump of sugar, and swallowing the scalding
tea.

"There you are!" he was saying to Psyekoff; "there you are! A
noble by birth! a rich man--a favorite of the gods, you may say, as
Pushkin has it, and what did he come to? He drank and dissipated
and--there you are--he's murdered."

After a couple of hours the examining magistrate drove up.
Nicholas Yermolaiyevitch Chubikoff--for that was the magistrate's
name--was a tall, fleshy old man of sixty, who had been wrestling
with the duties of his office for a quarter of a century.
Everybody in the district knew him as an honest man, wise,
energetic, and in love with his work. He was accompanied to the
scene of the murder by his inveterate companion, fellow worker, and
secretary, Dukovski, a tall young fellow of twenty-six.

"Is it possible, gentlemen?" cried Chubikoff, entering Psyekoff's
room, and quickly shaking hands with everyone. Is it possible?
Marcus Ivanovitch? Murdered? No! It is impossible! Im-poss-i-
ble!

"Go in there!" sighed the inspector.

"Lord, have mercy on us! Only last Friday I saw him at the fair in
Farabankoff. I had a drink of vodka with him, save the mark!"

"Go in there!" again sighed the inspector.

They sighed, uttered exclamations of horror, drank a glass of tea
each, and went to the wing.

"Get back!" the orderly cried to the peasants.

Going to the wing, the examining magistrate began his work by
examining the bedroom door. The door proved to be of pine, painted
yellow, and was uninjured. Nothing was found which could serve as
a clew. They had to break in the door.

"Everyone not here on business is requested to keep away!" said the
magistrate, when, after much hammering and shaking, the door
yielded to ax and chisel. "I request this, in the interest of the
investigation. Orderly, don't let anyone in!"

Chubikoff, his assistant, and the inspector opened the door, and
hesitatingly, one after the other, entered the room. Their eyes
met the following sight: Beside the single window stood the big
wooden bed with a huge feather mattress. On the crumpled feather
bed lay a tumbled, crumpled quilt. The pillow, in a cotton pillow-
case, also much crumpled, was dragging on the floor. On the table
beside the bed lay a silver watch and a silver twenty-kopeck piece.
Beside them lay some sulphur matches. Beside the bed, the little
table, and the single chair, there was no furniture in the room.
Looking under the bed, the inspector saw a couple of dozen empty
bottles, an old straw hat, and a quart of vodka. Under the table
lay one top boot, covered with dust. Casting a glance around the
room, the magistrate frowned and grew red in the face.

"Scoundrels!" he muttered, clenching his fists.

"And where is Marcus Ivanovitch?" asked Dukovski in a low voice.

"Mind your own business!" Chubikoff answered roughly. "Be good
enough to examine the floor! This is not the first case of the
kind I have had to deal with! Eugraph Kuzmitch," he said, turning
to the inspector, and lowering his voice, "in 1870 I had another
case like this. But you must remember it--the murder of the
merchant Portraitoff. It was just the same there. The scoundrels
murdered him, and dragged the corpse out through the window--"

Chubikoff went up to the window, pulled the curtain to one side,
and carefully pushed the window. The window opened.

"It opens, you see! It wasn't fastened. Hm! There are tracks
under the window. Look! There is the track of a knee! Somebody
got in there. We must examine the window thoroughly."

"There is nothing special to be found on the floor," said Dukovski.
"No stains or scratches. The only thing I found was a struck
safety match. Here it is! So far as I remember, Marcus Ivanovitch
did not smoke. And he always used sulphur matches, never safety
matches. Perhaps this safety match may serve as a clew!"

"Oh, do shut up!" cried the magistrate deprecatingly. "You go on
about your match! I can't abide these dreamers! Instead of
chasing matches, you had better examine the bed!"

After a thorough examination of the bed, Dukovski reported:

"There are no spots, either of blood or of anything else. There
are likewise no new torn places. On the pillow there are signs of
teeth. The quilt is stained with something which looks like beer
and smells like beer. The general aspect of the bed gives grounds
for thinking that a struggle took place on it."

"I know there was a struggle, without your telling me! You are not
being asked about a struggle. Instead of looking for struggles,
you had better--"

"Here is one top boot, but there is no sign of the other."

"Well, and what of that?"

"It proves that they strangled him, while he was taking his boots
off. He hadn't time to take the second boot off when--"

"There you go!--and how do you know they strangled him?"

"There are marks of teeth on the pillow. The pillow itself is
badly crumpled, and thrown a couple of yards from the bed."

"Listen to his foolishness! Better come into the garden. You
would be better employed examining the garden than digging around
here. I can do that without you!"

When they reached the garden they began by examining the grass.
The grass under the window was crushed and trampled. A bushy
burdock growing under the window close to the wall was also
trampled. Dukovski succeeded in finding on it some broken twigs
and a piece of cotton wool. On the upper branches were found some
fine hairs of dark blue wool.

"What color was his last suit?" Dukovski asked Psyekoff.

Yellow crash."

"Excellent! You see they wore blue!"

A few twigs of the burdock were cut off, and carefully wrapped in
paper by the investigators. At this point Police Captain
Artsuybasheff Svistakovski and Dr. Tyutyeff arrived. The captain
bade them "Good day!" and immediately began to satisfy his
curiosity. The doctor, a tall, very lean man, with dull eyes; a
long nose, and a pointed chin, without greeting anyone or asking
about anything, sat down on a log, sighed, and began:

"The Servians are at war again! What in heaven's name can they
want now? Austria, it's all your doing!"

The examination of the window from the outside did not supply any
conclusive data. The examination of the grass and the bushes
nearest to the window yielded a series of useful clews. For
example, Dukovski succeeded in discovering a long, dark streak,
made up of spots, on the grass, which led some distance into the
center of the garden. The streak ended under one of the lilac
bushes in a dark brown stain. Under this same lilac bush was found
a top boot, which turned out to be the fellow of the boot already
found in the bedroom.

"That is a blood stain made some time ago," said Dukovski,
examining the spot.

At the word "blood" the doctor rose, and going over lazily, looked
at the spot.

"Yes, it is blood!" he muttered.

"That shows he wasn't strangled, if there was blood," said
Chubikoff, looking sarcastically at Dukovski.

"They strangled him in the bedroom; and here, fearing he might come
round again, they struck him a blow with some sharp-pointed
instrument. The stain under the bush proves that he lay there a
considerable time, while they were looking about for some way of
carrying him out of the garden.

"Well, and how about the boot?"

"The boot confirms completely my idea that they murdered him while
he was taking his boots off before going to bed. He had already
taken off one boot, and the other, this one here, he had only had
time to take half off. The half-off boot came off of itself, while
the body was dragged over, and fell--"

"There's a lively imagination for you!" laughed Chubikoff. "He
goes on and on like that! When will you learn enough to drop your
deductions? Instead of arguing and deducing, it would be much
better if you took some of the blood-stained grass for analysis!"

When they had finished their examination, and drawn a plan of the
locality, the investigators went to the director's office to write
their report and have breakfast. While they were breakfasting they
went on talking:

"The watch, the money, and so on--all untouched--" Chubikoff began,
leading off the talk, "show as clearly as that two and two are four
that the murder was not committed for the purpose of robbery."

"The murder was committed by an educated man!" insisted Dukovski.

"What evidence have you of that?"

"The safety match proves that to me, for the peasants hereabouts
are not yet acquainted with safety matches. Only the landowners
use them, and by no means all of them. And it is evident that
there was not one murderer, but at least three."  Two held him,
while one killed him. Klausoff was strong, and the murderers must
have known it!

"What good would his strength be, supposing he was asleep?"

"The murderers came on him while he was taking off his boots. If
he was taking off his boots, that proves that he wasn't asleep!"

"Stop inventing your deductions! Better eat!"

"In my opinion, your worship," said the gardener Ephraim, setting
the samovar on the table, "it was nobody but Nicholas who did this
dirty trick!"

"Quite possible," said Psyekoff.

"And who is Nicholas?"

"The master's valet, your worship," answered Ephraim. "Who else
could it be? He's a rascal, your worship! He's a drunkard and a
blackguard, the like of which Heaven should not permit! He always
took the master his vodka and put the master to bed. Who else
could it be? And I also venture to point out to your worship, he
once boasted at the public house that he would kill the master! It
happened on account of Aquilina, the woman, you know. He was
making up to a soldier's widow. She pleased the master; the master
made friends with her himself, and Nicholas--naturally, he was mad!
He is rolling about drunk in the kitchen now. He is crying, and
telling lies, saying he is sorry for the master--"

The examining magistrate ordered Nicholas to be brought. Nicholas,
a lanky young fellow, with a long, freckled nose, narrow-chested,
and wearing an old jacket of his master's, entered Psyekoff's room,
and bowed low before the magistrate. His face was sleepy and tear-
stained. He was tipsy and could hardly keep his feet.

"Where is your master?" Chubikoff asked him.

"Murdered! your worship!"

As he said this, Nicholas blinked and began to weep.

"We know he was murdered. But where is he now? Where is his
body?"

"They say he was dragged out of the window and buried in the
garden!"

"Hum! The results of the investigation are known in the kitchen
already!--That's bad! Where were you, my good fellow, the night
the master was murdered? Saturday night, that is."

Nicholas raised his head, stretched his neck, and began to think.

"I don't know, your worship," he said. "I was drunk and don't
remember."

"An alibi!" whispered Dukovski, smiling, and rubbing his hands.

"So-o! And why is there blood under the master's window?"

Nicholas jerked his head up and considered.

"Hurry up!" said the Captain of Police.

"Right away! That blood doesn't amount to anything, your worship!
I was cutting a chicken's throat. I was doing it quite simply, in
the usual way, when all of a sudden it broke away and started to
run. That is where the blood came from."

Ephraim declared that Nicholas did kill a chicken every evening,
and always in some new place, but that nobody ever heard of a half-
killed chicken running about the garden, though of course it wasn't
impossible.

"An alibi," sneered Dukovski; "and what an asinine alibi!"

"Did you know Aquilina?"

"Yes, your worship, I know her."

"And the master cut you out with her?"

"Not at all. HE cut me out--Mr. Psyekoff there, Ivan
Mikhailovitch; and the master cut Ivan Mikhailovitch out. That is
how it was."

Psyekoff grew confused and began to scratch his left eye. Dukovski
looked at him attentively, noted his confusion, and started. He
noticed that the director had dark blue trousers, which he had not
observed before. The trousers reminded him of the dark blue
threads found on the burdock. Chubikoff in his turn glanced
suspiciously at Psyekoff.

"Go!" he said to Nicholas. "And now permit me to put a question to
you, Mr. Psyekoff. Of course you were here last Saturday evening?"

"Yes! I had supper with Marcus Ivanovitch about ten o'clock."

"And afterwards?"

"Afterwards--afterwards--Really, I do not remember," stammered
Psyekoff. "I had a good deal to drink at supper. I don't remember
when or where I went to sleep. Why are you all looking at me like
that, as if I was the murderer?"

"Where were you when you woke up?"

"I was in the servants' kitchen, lying behind the stove! They can
all confirm it. How I got behind the stove I don't know

"Do not get agitated. Did you know Aquilina?"

"There's nothing extraordinary about that--"

"She first liked you and then preferred Klausoff?"

"Yes. Ephraim, give us some more mushrooms! Do you want some more
tea, Eugraph Kuzmitch?"

A heavy, oppressive silence began and lasted fully five minutes.
Dukovski silently kept his piercing eyes fixed on Psyekoff's pale
face. The silence was finally broken by the examining magistrate:

"We must go to the house and talk with Maria Ivanovna, the sister
of the deceased. Perhaps she may be able to supply some clews."

Chubikoff and his assistant expressed their thanks for the
breakfast, and went toward the house. They found Klausoff's
sister, Maria Ivanovna, an old maid of forty-five, at prayer before
the big case of family icons. When she saw the portfolios in her
guests' hands, and their official caps, she grew pale.

"Let me begin by apologizing for disturbing, so to speak, your
devotions," began the gallant Chubikoff, bowing and scraping. "We
have come to you with a request. Of course, you have heard
already. There is a suspicion that your dear brother, in some way
or other, has been murdered. The will of God, you know. No one
can escape death, neither czar nor plowman. Could you not help us
with some clew, some explanation--?"

"Oh, don't ask me!" said Maria Ivanovna, growing still paler, and
covering her face with her hands. "I can tell you nothing.
Nothing! I beg you! I know nothing--What can I do? Oh, no! no!--
not a word about my brother! If I die, I won't say anything!"

Maria Ivanovna began to weep, and left the room. The investigators
looked at each other, shrugged their shoulders, and beat a retreat.

"Confound the woman!" scolded Dukovski, going out of the house.
"It is clear she knows something, and is concealing it! And the
chambermaid has a queer expression too! Wait, you wretches! We'll
ferret it all out!"

In the evening Chubikoff and his deputy, lit on their road by the
pale moon, wended their way homeward. They sat in their carriage
and thought over the results of the day. Both were tired and kept
silent. Chubikoff was always unwilling to talk while traveling,
and the talkative Dukovski remained silent, to fall in with the
elder man's humor. But at the end of their journey the deputy
could hold in no longer, and said:

"It is quite certain," he said, "that Nicholas had something to do
with the matter. Non dubitandum est! You can see by his face what
sort of a case he is! His alibi betrays him, body and bones. But
it is also certain that he did not set the thing going. He was
only the stupid hired tool. You agree? And the humble Psyekoff
was not without some slight share in the matter. His dark blue
breeches, his agitation, his lying behind the stove in terror after
the murder, his alibi and--Aquilina--"

"'Grind away, Emilian; it's your week!'  So, according to you,
whoever knew Aquilina is the murderer! Hothead! You ought to be
sucking a bottle, and not handling affairs! You were one of
Aquilina's admirers yourself--does it follow that you are
implicated too?"

"Aquilina was cook in your house for a month. I am saying nothing
about that! The night before that Saturday I was playing cards
with you, and saw you, otherwise I should be after you too! It
isn't the woman that matters, old chap! It is the mean, nasty, low
spirit of jealousy that matters. The retiring young man was not
pleased when they got the better of him, you see! His vanity,
don't you see? He wanted revenge. Then, those thick lips of his
suggest passion. So there you have it: wounded self-love and
passion. That is quite enough motive for a murder. We have two of
them in our hands; but who is the third? Nicholas and Psyekoff
held him, but who smothered him? Psyekoff is shy, timid, an all-
round coward. And Nicholas would not know how to smother with a
pillow. His sort use an ax or a club. Some third person did the
smothering; but who was it?"

Dukovski crammed his hat down over his eyes and pondered. He
remained silent until the carriage rolled up to the magistrate's
door.

"Eureka!" he said, entering the little house and throwing off his
overcoat. "Eureka, Nicholas Yermolaiyevitch! The only thing I
can't understand is, how it did not occur to me sooner! Do you
know who the third person was?"

"Oh, for goodness sake, shut up! There is supper! Sit down to
your evening meal!"

The magistrate and Dukovski sat down to supper. Dukovski poured
himself out a glass of vodka, rose, drew himself up, and said, with
sparkling eyes:

"Well, learn that the third person, who acted in concert with that
scoundrel Psyekoff, and did the smothering, was a woman! Yes-s! I
mean--the murdered man's sister, Maria Ivanovna!"

Chubikoff choked over his vodka, and fixed his eyes on Dukovski.

"You aren't--what's-its-name? Your head isn't what-do-you-call-it?
You haven't a pain in it?"

"I am perfectly well! Very well, let us say that I am crazy; but
how do you explain her confusion when we appeared? How do you
explain her unwillingness to give us any information? Let us admit
that these are trifles. Very well! All right! But remember their
relations. She detested her brother. She never forgave him for
living apart from his wife. She is of the Old Faith, while in her
eyes he is a godless profligate. There is where the germ of her
hate was hatched. They say he succeeded in making her believe that
he was an angel of Satan. He even went in for spiritualism in her
presence!

"Well, what of that?"

"You don't understand? She, as a member of the Old Faith, murdered
him through fanaticism. It was not only that she was putting to
death a weed, a profligate--she was freeing the world of an
antichrist!--and there, in her opinion, was her service, her
religious achievement! Oh, you don't know those old maids of the
Old Faith. Read Dostoyevsky! And what does Lyeskoff say about
them, or Petcherski? It was she, and nobody else, even if you cut
me open. She smothered him! O treacherous woman! wasn't that the
reason why she was kneeling before the icons, when we came in, just
to take our attention away? 'Let me kneel down and pray,' she said
to herself, 'and they will think I am tranquil and did not expect
them!'  That is the plan of all novices in crime, Nicholas
Yermolaiyevitch, old pal! My dear old man, won't you intrust this
business to me? Let me personally bring it through! Friend, I
began it and I will finish it!"

Chubikoff shook his head and frowned.

"We know how to manage difficult matters ourselves," he said; "and
your business is not to push yourself in where you don't belong.
Write from dictation when you are dictated to; that is your job!"

Dukovski flared up, banged the door, and disappeared.

"Clever rascal!" muttered Chubikoff, glancing after him. "Awfully
clever! But too much of a hothead. I must buy him a cigar case at
the fair as a present."

The next day, early in the morning, a young man with a big head and
a pursed-up mouth, who came from Klausoff's place, was introduced
to the magistrate's office. He said he was the shepherd Daniel,
and brought a very interesting piece of information.

"I was a bit drunk," he said. "I was with my pal till midnight.
On my way home, as I was drunk, I went into the river for a bath.
I was taking a bath, when I looked up. Two men were walking along
the dam, carrying something black. 'Shoo!' I cried at them. They
got scared, and went off like the wind toward Makareff's cabbage
garden. Strike me dead, if they weren't carrying away the master!"

That same day, toward evening, Psyekoff and Nicholas were arrested
and brought under guard to the district town. In the town they
were committed to the cells of the prison.

II

A fortnight passed.

It was morning. The magistrate Nicholas Yermolaiyevitch was
sitting in his office before a green table, turning over the papers
of the "Klausoff case"; Dukovski was striding restlessly up and
down, like a wolf in a cage.

"You are convinced of the guilt of Nicholas and Psyekoff," he said,
nervously plucking at his young beard. "Why will you not believe
in the guilt of Maria Ivanovna? Are there not proofs enough for
you?"

"I don't say I am not convinced. I am convinced, but somehow I
don't believe it! There are no real proofs, but just a kind of
philosophizing--fanaticism, this and that--"

"You can't do without an ax and bloodstained sheets. Those
jurists! Very well, I'll prove it to you! You will stop sneering
at the psychological side of the affair! To Siberia with your
Maria Ivanovna! I will prove it! If philosophy is not enough for
you, I have something substantial for you. It will show you how
correct my philosophy is. Just give me permission--"

"What are you going on about?"

"About the safety match! Have you forgotten it? I haven't! I am
going to find out who struck it in the murdered man's room. It was
not Nicholas that struck it; it was not Psyekoff, for neither of
them had any matches when they were examined; it was the third
person, Maria Ivanovna. I will prove it to you. Just give me
permission to go through the district to find out."

"That's enough! Sit down. Let us go on with the examination."

Dukovski sat down at a little table, and plunged his long nose in a
bundle of papers.

"Bring in Nicholas Tetekhoff!" cried the examining magistrate.

They brought Nicholas in. Nicholas was pale and thin as a rail.
He was trembling.

"Tetekhoff!" began Chubikoff. "In 1879 you were tried in the Court
of the First Division, convicted of theft, and sentenced to
imprisonment. In 1882 you were tried a second time for theft, and
were again imprisoned. We know all--"

Astonishment was depicted on Nicholas's face. The examining
magistrate's omniscience startled him. But soon his expression of
astonishment changed to extreme indignation. He began to cry and
requested permission to go and wash his face and quiet down. They
led him away.

"Brink in Psyekoff!" ordered the examining magistrate. They
brought in Psyekoff. The young man had changed greatly during the
last few days. He had grown thin and pale, and looked haggard.
His eyes had an apathetic expression.

"Sit down, Psyekoff," said Chubikoff. "I hope that today you are
going to be reasonable, and will not tell lies, as you did before.
All these days you have denied that you had anything to do with the
murder of Klausoff, in spite of all the proofs that testify against
you. That is foolish. Confession will lighten your guilt. This
is the last time I am going to talk to you. If you do not confess
to-day, to-morrow it will be too late. Come, tell me all--"

"I know nothing about it. I know nothing about your proofs,"
answered Psyekoff, almost inaudibly.

"It's no use! Well, let me relate to you how the matter took
place. On Saturday evening you were sitting in Klausoff's sleeping
room, and drinking vodka and beer with him."  (Dukovski fixed his
eyes on Psyekoff's face, and kept them there all through the
examination.)  "Nicholas was waiting on you. At one o'clock,
Marcus Ivanovitch announced his intention of going to bed. He
always went to bed at one o'clock. When he was taking off his
boots, and was giving you directions about details of management,
you and Nicholas, at a given signal, seized your drunken master and
threw him on the bed. One of you sat on his legs, the other on his
head. Then a third person came in from the passage--a woman in a
black dress, whom you know well, and who had previously arranged
with you as to her share in your criminal deed. She seized a
pillow and began to smother him. While the struggle was going on
the candle went out. The woman took a box of safety matches from
her pocket, and lit the candle. Was it not so? I see by your face
that I am speaking the truth. But to go on. After you had
smothered him, and saw that he had ceased breathing, you and
Nicholas pulled him out through the window and laid him down near
the burdock. Fearing that he might come round again, you struck
him with something sharp. Then you carried him away, and laid him
down under a lilac bush for a short time. After resting awhile and
considering, you carried him across the fence. Then you entered
the road. After that comes the dam. Near the dam, a peasant
frightened you. Well, what is the matter with you?"

"I am suffocating!" replied Psyekoff. "Very well--have it so.
Only let me go out, please!"

They led Psyekoff away.

"At last! He has confessed!" cried Chubikoff, stretching himself
luxuriously. "He has betrayed himself! And didn't I get round him
cleverly! Regularly caught him flapping--"

"And he doesn't deny the woman in the black dress!" exulted
Dukovski. "But all the same, that safety match is tormenting me
frightfully. I can't stand it any longer. Good-by! I am off!"

Dukovski put on his cap and drove off. Chubikoff began to examine
Aquilina. Aquilina declared that she knew nothing whatever about
it.

At six that evening Dukovski returned. He was more agitated than
he had ever been before. His hands trembled so that he could not
even unbutton his greatcoat. His cheeks glowed. It was clear that
he did not come empty-handed.

"Veni, vidi, vici!" he cried, rushing into Chubikoff's room, and
falling into an armchair. "I swear to you on my honor, I begin to
believe that I am a genius! Listen, devil take us all! It is
funny, and it is sad. We have caught three already--isn't that so?
Well, I have found the fourth, and a woman at that. You will never
believe who it is! But listen. I went to Klausoff's village, and
began to make a spiral round it. I visited all the little shops,
public houses, dram shops on the road, everywhere asking for safety
matches. Everywhere they said they hadn't any. I made a wide
round. Twenty times I lost faith, and twenty times I got it back
again. I knocked about the whole day, and only an hour ago I got
on the track. Three versts from here. They gave me a packet of
ten boxes. One box was missing. Immediately: 'Who bought the
other box?' 'Such-a-one! She was pleased with them!'  Old man!
Nicholas Yermolaiyevitch! See what a fellow who was expelled from
the seminary and who has read Gaboriau can do! From to-day on I
begin to respect myself! Oof! Well, come!"

"Come where?"

"To her, to number four! We must hurry, otherwise--otherwise I'll
burst with impatience! Do you know who she is? You'll never
guess! Olga Petrovna, Marcus Ivanovitch's wife--his own wife--
that's who it is! She is the person who bought the matchbox!"

"You--you--you are out of your mind!"

"It's quite simple! To begin with, she smokes. Secondly, she was
head and ears in love with Klausoff, even after he refused to live
in the same house with her, because she was always scolding his
head off. Why, they say she used to beat him because she loved him
so much. And then he positively refused to stay in the same house.
Love turned sour. 'Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.'  But
come along! Quick, or it will be dark. Come!"

"I am not yet sufficiently crazy to go and disturb a respectable
honorable woman in the middle of the night for a crazy boy!"

"Respectable, honorable! Do honorable women murder their husbands?
After that you are a rag, and not an examining magistrate! I never
ventured to call you names before, but now you compel me to. Rag!
Dressing-gown!--Dear Nicholas Yermolaiyevitch, do come, I beg of
you--!"

The magistrate made a deprecating motion with his hand.

"I beg of you! I ask, not for myself, but in the interests of
justice. I beg you! I implore you! Do what I ask you to, just
this once!"

Dukovski went down on his knees.

"Nicholas Yermolaiyevitch! Be kind! Call me a blackguard, a
ne'er-do-weel, if I am mistaken about this woman. You see what an
affair it is. What a case it is. A romance! A woman murdering
her own husband for love! The fame of it will go all over Russia.
They will make you investigator in all important cases.
Understand, O foolish old man!"

The magistrate frowned, and undecidedly stretched his hand toward
his cap.

"Oh, the devil take you!" he said. "Let us go!"

It was dark when the magistrate's carriage rolled up to the porch
of the old country house in which Olga Petrovna had taken refuge
with her brother.

"What pigs we are," said Chubikoff, taking hold of the bell, "to
disturb a poor woman like this!"

"It's all right! It's all right! Don't get frightened! We can
say that we have broken a spring."

Chubikoff and Dukovski were met at the threshold by a tall buxom
woman of three and twenty, with pitch-black brows and juicy red
lips. It was Olga Petrovna herself, apparently not the least
distressed by the recent tragedy.

"Oh, what a pleasant surprise!" she said, smiling broadly. "You
are just in time for supper. Kuzma Petrovitch is not at home. He
is visiting the priest, and has stayed late. But we'll get on
without him! Be seated. You have come from the examination?"

"Yes. We broke a spring, you know," began Chubikoff, entering the
sitting room and sinking into an armchair.

"Take her unawares--at once!" whispered Dukovski; "take her
unawares!"

"A spring--hum--yes--so we came in."

"Take her unawares, I tell you! She will guess what the matter is
if you drag things out like that."

"Well, do it yourself as you want. But let me get out of it,"
muttered Chubikoff, rising and going to the window.

"Yes, a spring," began Dukovski, going close to Olga Petrovna and
wrinkling his long nose. "We did not drive over here--to take
supper with you or--to see Kuzma Petrovitch. We came here to ask
you, respected madam, where Marcus Ivanovitch is, whom you
murdered!"

"What? Marcus Ivanovitch murdered?" stammered Olga Petrovna, and
her broad face suddenly and instantaneously flushed bright scarlet.
"I don't--understand!"

"I ask you in the name of the law! Where is Klausoff? We know
all!"

"Who told you?" Olga Petrovna asked in a low voice, unable to
endure Dukovski's glance.

"Be so good as to show us where he is!"

"But how did you find out? Who told you?"

"We know all! I demand it in the name of the law!"

The examining magistrate, emboldened by her confusion, came forward
and said:

"Show us, and we will go away. Otherwise, we--"

"What do you want with him?"

"Madam, what is the use of these questions? We ask you to show us!
You tremble, you are agitated. Yes, he has been murdered, and, if
you must have it, murdered by you! Your accomplices have betrayed
you!"

Olga Petrovna grew pale.

"Come!" she said in a low voice, wringing her hands. "I have him--
hid--in the bath house! Only for heaven's sake, do not tell Kuzma
Petrovitch. I beg and implore you! He will never forgive me!"

Olga Petrovna took down a big key from the wall, and led her guests
through the kitchen and passage to the courtyard. The courtyard
was in darkness. Fine rain was falling. Olga Petrovna walked in
advance of them. Chubikoff and Dukovski strode behind her through
the long grass, as the odor of wild hemp and dishwater splashing
under their feet reached them. The courtyard was wide. Soon the
dishwater ceased, and they felt freshly broken earth under their
feet. In the darkness appeared the shadowy outlines of trees, and
among the trees a little house with a crooked chimney.

"That is the bath house," said Olga Petrovna. "But I implore you,
do not tell my brother! If you do, I'll never hear the end of it!"

Going up to the bath house, Chubikoff and Dukovski saw a huge
padlock on the door.

"Get your candle and matches ready," whispered the examining
magistrate to his deputy.

Olga Petrovna unfastened the padlock, and let her guests into the
bath house. Dukovski struck a match and lit up the anteroom. In
the middle of the anteroom stood a table. On the table, beside a
sturdy little samovar, stood a soup tureen with cold cabbage soup
and a plate with the remnants of some sauce.

"Forward!"

They went into the next room, where the bath was. There was a
table there also. On the table was a dish with some ham, a bottle
of vodka, plates, knives, forks.

"But where is it--where is the murdered man?" asked the examining
magistrate.

"On the top tier," whispered Olga Petrovna, still pale and
trembling.

Dukovski took the candle in his hand and climbed up to the top tier
of the sweating frame. There he saw a long human body lying
motionless on a large feather bed. A slight snore came from the
body.

"You are making fun of us, devil take it!" cried Dukovski. "That
is not the murdered man! Some live fool is lying here. Here,
whoever you are, the devil take you!"

The body drew in a quick breath and stirred. Dukovski stuck his
elbow into it. It raised a hand, stretched itself, and lifted its
head.

"Who is sneaking in here?" asked a hoarse, heavy bass. "What do
you want?"

Dukovski raised the candle to the face of the unknown, and cried
out. In the red nose, disheveled, unkempt hair, the pitch-black
mustaches, one of which was jauntily twisted and pointed insolently
toward the ceiling, he recognized the gallant cavalryman Klausoff.

"You--Marcus--Ivanovitch? Is it possible?"

The examining magistrate glanced sharply up at him, and stood
spellbound.

"Yes, it is I. That's you, Dukovski? What the devil do you want
here? And who's that other mug down there? Great snakes! It is
the examining magistrate! What fate has brought him here?"

Klausoff rushed down and threw his arms round Chubikoff in a
cordial embrace. Olga Petrovna slipped through the door.

"How did you come here? Let's have a drink, devil take it! Tra-
ta-ti-to-tum--let us drink! But who brought you here? How did you
find out that I was here? But it doesn't matter! Let's have a
drink!"

Klausoff lit the lamp and poured out three glasses of vodka.

"That is--I don't understand you," said the examining magistrate,
running his hands over him. "Is this you or not you!"

"Oh, shut up! You want to preach me a sermon? Don't trouble
yourself! Young Dukovski, empty your glass! Friends, let us bring
this--What are you looking at? Drink!"

"All the same, I do not understand!" said the examining magistrate,
mechanically drinking off the vodka. "What are you here for?"

"Why shouldn't I be here, if I am all right here?"

Klausoff drained his glass and took a bite of ham.

"I am in captivity here, as you see. In solitude, in a cavern,
like a ghost or a bogey. Drink! She carried me off and locked me
up, and--well, I am living here, in the deserted bath house, like a
hermit. I am fed. Next week I think I'll try to get out. I'm
tired of it here!"

"Incomprehensible!" said Dukovski.

"What is incomprehensible about it?"

"Incomprehensible! For Heaven's sake, how did your boot get into
the garden?"

"What boot?"

"We found one boot in the sleeping room and the other in the
garden."

"And what do you want to know that for? It's none of your
business! Why don't you drink, devil take you? If you wakened me,
then drink with me! It is an interesting tale, brother, that of
the boot! I didn't want to go with Olga. I don't like to be
bossed. She came under the window and began to abuse me. She
always was a termagant. You know what women are like, all of them.
I was a bit drunk, so I took a boot and heaved it at her. Ha-ha-
ha! Teach her not to scold another time! But it didn't! Not a
bit of it! She climbed in at the window, lit the lamp, and began
to hammer poor tipsy me. She thrashed me, dragged me over here,
and locked me in. She feeds me now--on love, vodka, and ham! But
where are you off to, Chubikoff? Where are you going?"

The examining magistrate swore, and left the bath house. Dukovski
followed him, crestfallen. They silently took their seats in the
carriage and drove off. The road never seemed to them so long and
disagreeable as it did that time. Both remained silent. Chubikoff
trembled with rage all the way. Dukovski hid his nose in the
collar of his overcoat, as if he was afraid that the darkness and
the drizzling rain might read the shame in his face.

When they reached home, the examining magistrate found Dr. Tyutyeff
awaiting him. The doctor was sitting at the table, and, sighing
deeply, was turning over the pages of the Neva.

"Such goings-on there are in the world!" he said, meeting the
examining magistrate with a sad smile. "Austria is at it again!
And Gladstone also to some extent--"

Chubikoff threw his cap under the table, and shook himself.

"Devils' skeletons! Don't plague me! A thousand times I have told
you not to bother me with your politics! This is no question of
politics! And you," said Chubikoff, turning to Dukovski and
shaking his fist, "I won't forget this in a thousand years!"

"But the safety match? How could I know?"

"Choke yourself with your safety match! Get out of my way! Don't
make me mad, or the devil only knows what I'll do to you! Don't
let me see a trace of you!"

Dukovski sighed, took his hat, and went out.

"I'll go and get drunk," he decided, going through the door, and
gloomily wending his way to the public house.

Vsevolod Vladimirovitch Krestovski

Knights of Industry

I

THE LAST WILL OF THE PRINCESS

Princess Anna Chechevinski for the last time looked at the home of
her girlhood, over which the St. Petersburg twilight was
descending. Defying the commands of her mother, the traditions of
her family, she had decided to elope with the man of her choice.
With a last word of farewell to her maid, she wrapped her cloak
round her and disappeared into the darkness.

The maid's fate had been a strange one. In one of the districts
beyond the Volga lived a noble, a bachelor, luxuriously, caring
only for his own amusement. He fished, hunted, and petted the
pretty little daughter of his housekeeper, one of his serfs, whom
he vaguely intended to set free. He passed hours playing with the
pretty child, and even had an old French governess come to give her
lessons. She taught little Natasha to dance, to play the piano, to
put on the airs and graces of a little lady. So the years passed,
and the old nobleman obeyed the girl's every whim, and his serfs
bowed before her and kissed her hands. Gracefully and willfully
she queened it over the whole household.

Then one fine day the old noble took thought and died. He had
forgotten to liberate his housekeeper and her daughter, and, as he
was a bachelor, his estate went to his next of kin, the elder
Princess Chechevinski. Between the brother and sister a cordial
hatred had existed, and they had not seen one another for years.

Coming to take possession of the estate, Princess Chechevinski
carried things with a high hand. She ordered the housekeeper to
the cow house, and carried off the girl Natasha, as her daughter's
maid, to St. Petersburg, from the first hour letting her feel the
lash of her bitter tongue and despotic will. Natasha had tried in
vain to dry her mother's tears. With growing anger and sorrow she
watched the old house as they drove away, and looking at the old
princess she said to herself, "I hate her! I hate her! I will
never forgive her!"

Princess Anna, bidding her maid good-by, disappeared into the
night. The next morning the old princess learned of the flight.
Already ill, she fell fainting to the floor, and for a long time
her condition was critical. She regained consciousness, tried to
find words to express her anger, and again swooned away. Day and
night, three women watched over her, her son's old nurse, her maid,
and Natasha, who took turns in waiting on her. Things continued
thus for forty-eight hours. Finally, on the night of the third day
she came to herself. It was Natasha's watch.

"And you knew? You knew she was going?" the old princess asked her
fiercely.

The girl started, unable at first to collect her thoughts, and
looked up frightened. The dim flicker of the night light lit her
pale face and golden hair, and fell also on the grim, emaciated
face of the old princess, whose eyes glittered feverishly under her
thick brows.

"You knew my daughter was going to run away?" repeated the old
woman, fixing her keen eyes on Natasha's face, trying to raise
herself from among the lace-fringed pillows.

"I knew," the girl answered in a half whisper, lowering her eyes in
confusion, and trying to throw off her first impression of terror.

"Why did you not tell me before?" the old woman continued, even
more fiercely.

Natasha had now recovered her composure, and raising her eyes with
an expression of innocent distress, she answered:

"Princess Anna hid everything from me also, until the very last.
How dare I tell you? Would you have believed me? It was not my
business, your excellency!"

The old princess shook her head, smiling bitterly and
incredulously.

"Snake!" she hissed fiercely, looking at the girl; and then she
added quickly:

"Did any of the others know?"

"No one but myself!" answered Natasha.

"Never dare to speak of her again! Never dare!" cried the old
princess, and once more she sank back unconscious on the pillows.

About noon the next day she again came to herself, and ordered her
son to be called. He came in quietly, and affectionately
approached his mother.

The princess dismissed her maid, and remained alone with her son.

"You have no longer a sister!" she cried, turning to her son, with
the nervous spasm which returned each time she spoke of her
daughter. "She is dead for us! She has disgraced us! I curse
her! You, you alone are my heir!"

At these words the young prince pricked up his ears and bent even
more attentively toward his mother. The news of his sole heirship
was so pleasant and unexpected that he did not even think of asking
how his sister had disgraced them, and only said with a deep sigh:

"Oh, mamma, she was always opposed to you. She never loved you!"

"I shall make a will in your favor," continued the princess,
telling him as briefly as possible of Princess Anna's flight.
"Yes, in your favor--only on one condition: that you will never
recognize your sister. That is my last wish!

"Your wish is sacred to me," murmured her son, tenderly kissing her
hand. He had always been jealous and envious of his sister, and
was besides in immediate need of money.

The princess signed her will that same day, to the no small
satisfaction of her dear son, who, in his heart, was wondering how
soon his beloved parent would pass away, so that he might get his
eyes on her long-hoarded wealth.

II

THE LITHOGRAPHER'S APPRENTICE

Later on the same day, in a little narrow chamber of one of the
huge, dirty tenements on Vosnesenski Prospekt, sat a young man of
ruddy complexion. He was sitting at a table, bending toward the
one dusty window, and attentively examining a white twenty-five
ruble note.

The room, dusty and dark, was wretched enough. Two rickety chairs,
a torn haircloth sofa, with a greasy pillow, and the bare table at
the window, were its entire furniture. Several scattered
lithographs, two or three engravings, two slabs of lithographer's
stone on the table, and engraver's tools sufficiently showed the
occupation of the young man. He was florid, with red hair; of
Polish descent, and his name was Kasimir Bodlevski. On the wall,
over the sofa, between the overcoat and the cloak hanging on the
wall, was a pencil drawing of a young girl. It was the portrait of
Natasha.

The young man was so absorbed in his examination of the twenty-five
ruble note that when a gentle knock sounded on the door he started
nervously, as if coming back to himself, and even grew pale, and
hurriedly crushed the banknote into his pocket.

The knock was repeated--and this time Bodlevski's face lit up. It
was evidently a well-known and expected knock, for he sprang up and
opened the door with a welcoming smile.

Natasha entered the room.

"What were you dreaming about that you didn't open the door for
me?" she asked caressingly, throwing aside her hat and cloak, and
taking a seat on the tumble-down sofa. "What were you busy at?"

"You know, yourself."

And instead of explaining further, he drew the banknote from his
pocket and showed it to Natasha.

"This morning the master paid me, and I am keeping the money," he
continued in a low voice, tilting back his chair. "I pay neither
for my rooms nor my shop, but sit here and study all the time."

"It's so well worth while, isn't it?" smiled Natasha with a
contemptuous grimace.

"You don't think it is worth while?" said the young man. "Wait!
I'll learn. We'll be rich!

"Yes, if we aren't sent to Siberia!" the girl laughed. "What kind
of wealth is that?" she went on. "The game is not worth the
candle. I'll be rich before you are."

"All right, go ahead!"

"Go ahead? I didn't come to talk nonsense, I came on business.
You help me, and, on my word of honor, we'll be in clover!"

Bodlevski looked at his companion in astonishment.

"I told you my Princess Anna was going to run away. She's gone!
And her mother has cut her off from the inheritance," Natasha
continued with an exultant smile. "I looked through the scrap
basket, and have brought some papers with me."

"What sort of papers?"

"Oh, letters and notes. They are all in Princess Anna's
handwriting. Shall I give them to you?" jested Natasha. "Have a
good look at them, examine them, learn her handwriting, so that you
can imitate every letter. That kind of thing is just in your line;
you are a first-class copyist, so this is just the job for you."

The engraver listened, and only shrugged his shoulders.

"No, joking aside," she continued seriously, drawing nearer
Bodlevski, "I have thought of something out of the common; you will
be grateful. I have no time to explain it all now. You will know
later on. The main thing is--learn her handwriting."

"But what is it all for?" said Bodlevski wonderingly.

"So that you may be able to write a few words in the handwriting of
Princess Anna; what you have to write I'll dictate to you."

"And then?"

"Then hurry up and get me a passport in some one else's name, and
have your own ready. But learn her handwriting. Everything
depends on that!"

"It won't be easy. I'll hardly be able to!" muttered Bodlevski,
scratching his head.

Natasha flared up.

"You say you love me?" she cried energetically, with a glance of
anger. "Well, then, do it. Unless you are telling lies, you can
learn to do banknotes."

The young man strode up and down his den, perplexed.

"How soon do you want it?" he asked, after a minute's thought. "In
a couple of days?"

"Yes, in about two days, not longer, or the whole thing is done
for!" the girl replied decisively. "In two days I'll come for the
writing, and be sure my passport is ready!"

"Very well. I'll do it," consented Bodlevski. And Natasha began
to dictate to him the wording of the letter.

As soon as she was gone the engraver got to work. All the evening
and a great part of the night he bent over the papers she had
brought, examining the handwriting, studying the letters, and
practicing every stroke with the utmost care, copying and repeating
it a hundred times, until at last he had reached the required
clearness. At last he mastered the writing. It only remained to
give it the needed lightness and naturalness. His head rang from
the concentration of blood in his temples, but he still worked on.

Finally, when it was almost morning, the note was written, and the
name of Princess Anna was signed to it. The work was a
masterpiece, and even exceeded Bodlevski's expectations. Its
lightness and clearness were remarkable. The engraver, examining
the writing of Princess Anna, compared it with his own work, and
was astonished, so perfect was the resemblance.

And long he admired his handiwork, with the parental pride known to
every creator, and as he looked at this note he for the first time
fully realized that he was an artist.

III

THE CAVE

"Half the work is done!" he cried, jumping from the tumble-down
sofa. "But the passport? There's where the shoe pinches,"
continued the engraver, remembering the second half of Natasha's
commission. "The passport--yes--that's where the shoe pinches!" he
muttered to himself in perplexity, resting his head on his hands
and his elbows on his knees. Thinking over all kinds of possible
and impossible plans, he suddenly remembered a fellow countryman of
his, a shoemaker named Yuzitch, who had once confessed in a moment
of intoxication that "he would rather hook a watch than patch a
shoe."  Bodlevski remembered that three months before he had met
Yuzitch in the street, and they had gone together to a wine shop,
where, over a bottle generously ordered by Yuzitch, Bodlevski had
lamented over the hardships of mankind in general, and his own in
particular. He had not taken advantage of Yuzitch's offer to
introduce him to "the gang," only because he had already determined
to take up one of the higher branches of the "profession," namely,
to metamorphose white paper into, banknotes. When they were
parting, Yuzitch had warmly wrung his hand, saying:

"Whenever you want anything, dear friend, or if you just want to
see me, come to the Cave; come to Razyeziy Street and ask for the
Cave, and at the Cave anyone will show you where to find Yuzitch.
If the barkeeper makes difficulties just whisper to him that
'Secret' sent you, and he'll show you at once."

As this memory suddenly flashed into his mind, Bodlevski caught up
his hat and coat and hurried downstairs into the street. Making
his way through the narrow, dirty streets to the Five Points, he
stopped perplexed. Happily he noticed a sleepy watchman leaning
leisurely against a wall, and going up to him he said:

"Tell me, where is the Cave?"

"The what?" asked the watchman impatiently.

"The Cave."

"The Cave? There is no such place!" he replied, looking
suspiciously at Bodlevski.

Bodlevski put his hand in his pocket and pulled out some small
change: "If you tell me--"

The watchman brightened up. "Why didn't you say so before?" he
asked, grinning. "You see that house, the second from the corner?
The wooden one? That's the Cave."

Bodlevski crossed the street in the direction indicated, and looked
for the sign over the door. To his astonishment he did not find it
and only later he knew that the name was strictly "unofficial,"
only used by members of "the gang."

Opening the door cautiously, Bodlevski made his way into the low,
dirty barroom. Behind the bar stood a tall, handsome man with an
open countenance and a bald head. Politely bowing to Bodlevski,
with his eyes rather than his head, he invited him to enter the
inner room. But Bodlevski explained that he wanted, not the inner
room, but his friend Yuzitch.

"Yuzitch?" said the barkeeper thoughtfully. "We don't know anyone
of that name."

"Why, he's here all the time," cried Bodlevski, in astonishment.

"Don't know him," retorted the barkeeper imperturbably.

"'Secret' sent me!" Bodlevski suddenly exclaimed, without lowering
his voice.

The barkeeper looked at him sharply and suspiciously, and then
asked, with a smile:

"Who did you say?"

"'Secret,'" repeated Bodlevski.

After a while the barkeeper said, "And did your--friend make an
appointment?"

"Yes, an appointment!" Bodlevski replied, beginning to lose
patience.

"Well, take a seat in the inner room," again said the barkeeper
slyly. "Perhaps your friend will come in, or perhaps he is there
already."

Bodlevski made his way into a roomy saloon, with five windows with
faded red curtains. The ceiling was black from the smoke of
hanging lamps; little square tables were dotted about the floor;
their covers were coarse and not above reproach on the score of
cleanliness. The air was pungent with the odor of cheap tobacco
and cheaper cigars. On the walls were faded oleographs of generals
and archbishops, flyblown and stained.

Bodlevski, little as he was used to refined surroundings, found his
gorge rising. At some of the little tables furtive, impudent,
tattered, sleek men were drinking.

Presently Yuzitch made his appearance from a low door at the other
end of the room. The meeting of the two friends was cordial,
especially on Bodlevski's side. Presently they were seated at a
table, with a flask of wine between them, and Bodlevski began to
explain what he wanted to his friend.

As soon as he heard what was wanted, Yuzitch took on an air of
importance, knit his brows, hemmed, and hawed.

"I can manage it," he said finally. "Yes, we can manage it. I
must see one of my friends about it. But it's difficult. It will
cost money."

Bodlevski immediately assented. Yuzitch at once rose and went over
to a red-nosed individual in undress uniform, who was poring over
the Police News.

"Friend Borisovitch," said Yuzitch, holding out his hand to him,
"something doing!"

"Fair or foul?" asked the man with the red nose.

"Hang your cheek!" laughed Yuzitch; "if I say it, of course it's
fair."  After a whispered conference, Yuzitch returned to Bodlevski
and told him that it was all right; that the passport for Natasha
would be ready by the next evening. Bodlevski paid him something
in advance and went home triumphantly.

At eleven o'clock the next evening Bodlevski once more entered the
large room at the Cave, now all lit up and full of an animated
crowd of men and women, all with the same furtive, predatory faces.
Bodlevski felt nervous. He had no fears while turning white paper
into banknotes in the seclusion of his own workshop, but he was
full of apprehensions concerning his present guest, because several
people had to be let into the secret.

Yuzitch presently appeared through the same low door and, coming up
to Bodlevski, explained that the passport would cost twenty rubles.
Bodlevski paid the money over in advance, and Yuzitch led him into
a back room. On the table burned a tallow candle, which hardly lit
up the faces of seven people who were grouped round it, one of them
being the red-nosed man who was reading the Police News. The seven
men were all from the districts of Vilna and Vitebsk, and were
specialists in the art of fabricating passports.

The red-nosed man approached Bodlevski: "We must get acquainted
with each other," he said amiably. "I have the honor to present
myself!" and he bowed low; "Former District Secretary Pacomius
Borisovitch Prakkin. Let me request you first of all to order some
vodka; my hand shakes, you know," he added apologetically. "I
don't want it so much for myself as for my hand--to steady it."

Bodlevski gave him some change, which the red-nosed man put in his
pocket and at once went to the sideboard for a flask of vodka which
he had already bought. "Let us give thanks! And now to business!"
he said, smacking his lips after a glass of vodka.

A big, red-haired man, one of the group of seven, drew from his
pocket two vials. In one was a sticky black fluid; in the other,
something as clear as water.

"We are chemists, you see," the red-nosed man explained to
Bodlevski with a grin, and then added:

"Finch! on guard!"

A young man, who had been lolling on a couch in the corner, rose
and took up a position outside the door.

"Now, brothers, close up!" cried the red-nosed man, and all stood
in close order, elbow to elbow, round the table. "And now we take
a newspaper and have it handy on the table! That is in case," he
explained to Bodlevski, "any outsider happened in on us--which
Heaven prevent! We aren't up to anything at all; simply reading
the political news! You catch on?"

"How could I help catching on?"

"Very well. And now let us make everything as clear as in a
looking-glass. What class do you wish to make the person belong
to? The commercial or the nobility?"

"I think the nobility would be best," said Bodlevski.

"Certainly! At least that will give the right of free passage
through all the towns and districts of the Russian Empire. Let us
see. Have we not something that will suit?"

And Pacomius Borisovitch, opening his portfolio, filled with all
kinds of passports, certificates, and papers of identification,
began to turn them over, but without taking any out of the
portfolio. All with the same thought--that some stranger might
come in.

"Ha! here's a new one! Where did it come from?" he cried.

"I got it out of a new arrival," muttered the red-headed man.

"Well done! Just what we want! And a noble's passport, too! It
is evident that Heaven is helping us. See what a blessing brings!

"'This passport is issued by the District of Yaroslav,'" he
continued reading, "'to the college assessor's widow, Maria
Solontseva, with permission to travel,'" and so on in due form.
"Did you get it here?" he added, turning to the red-headed man.

"Came from Moscow!"

"Pinched?"

"Knocked on the head!" briefly replied the red-headed man.