Crime and Punishment Read online

  In a terrible hurry, he grabbed the keys and began fiddling with them again. But he was getting nowhere: they just wouldn't go in. It wasn't so much that his hands were shaking - he just couldn't get it right: he could see, for instance, that he had the wrong key and that it didn't fit, but still he kept jabbing away with it. Suddenly he remembered and realized that the big key with the jagged notches, dangling there with the smaller ones, couldn't have been meant for the chest of drawers at all (this had occurred to him the previous time, too), but for some box or other, which was where everything might very well be hidden. He abandoned the chest of drawers and immediately crawled under the bed, knowing that that is where old women tend to keep their boxes. And there it was: a sizeable box, about three feet long, with a curved lid of red morocco leather studded with small steel nails. The jagged key went straight in and opened it. On top, beneath a white sheet, lay a red silk coat lined with rabbit fur; beneath that was a silk dress, then a shawl, while deeper in there seemed to be nothing but old rags. His first impulse was to wipe his blood-stained hands on the red silk. 'Red - well, blood on red won't show,' he calculated, before suddenly coming to his senses. 'God! Am I losing my mind?' he thought in terror.

  But he'd barely touched the rags when a gold watch suddenly fell out of the fur coat. He hastily ransacked the rest. Yes, there were gold things mixed up with the rags - probably all pledges: bracelets, chains, earrings, pins and so forth. Some were in cases, others just wrapped in newspaper, but neatly and carefully, the paper folded double and tied round with tape. Without a moment's delay he set about stuffing the pockets of his trousers and coat, without sorting through or even opening the packages and boxes; but he soon ran out of time . . .

  He suddenly heard someone moving about in the room where he'd left the old woman. He froze and fell silent, as if dead. But everything was quiet - he must have imagined it. Suddenly, unmistakably, there was a faint cry, or perhaps the sound of a soft, abrupt groan. Then: dead silence again, for a minute or perhaps two. He was squatting by the box, waiting, barely breathing, then he suddenly jumped up, grabbed the axe and ran out of the bedroom.

  There, in the middle of the room, stood Lizaveta, holding a large bundle and gazing rigidly at her murdered sister, white as a sheet and seemingly unable to scream. Seeing him run in, she began quivering all over and her whole face went into spasm; she half-raised a hand and was about to open her mouth, but again she did not scream and slowly backed away from him into the corner, staring straight at him, but still without screaming, as if there was not enough air to scream. He rushed at her with the axe; her lips twisted as pitifully as those of very little children when something begins to scare them and they stare at the thing that's frightening them and prepare to yell. And so very simple was this poor Lizaveta, so browbeaten and eternally intimidated, that she didn't even lift her arms to protect her face, even though there could have been no more instinctive or essential gesture at that moment, for the axe was raised directly over her face. She just lifted her free left arm an inch or two, nowhere near her face, and slowly held it out towards him, as if pushing him away. The blow landed right on the skull, blade first, and smashed through the upper part of the forehead, almost as far as the crown. She collapsed there and then. In complete confusion, Raskolnikov grabbed her bundle, dropped it again, and ran out into the hall.

  Fear was gripping him tighter and tighter, especially after this second, wholly unexpected killing. He wanted to flee, the sooner the better. And had he only been capable at that moment of seeing straight and thinking straight, had he only been able to grasp all the difficulties of his plight, all its hopelessness, hideousness and absurdity, and to understand how many obstacles and perhaps even acts of evil he still had to overcome and commit to get out and get home, then he might very well have dropped everything and immediately gone and given himself up, not out of fear for himself, but from pure horror and disgust at what he had done. This disgust, in particular, was rising and growing inside him minute by minute. Not for anything in the world would he have gone back to the box now or even into the rooms.

  But, little by little, he felt himself become distracted, almost pensive: for minutes at a time he seemed to forget what he was doing, or rather, he would forget about the main thing and cling to trifles. Still, glancing into the kitchen and spotting a bucket half-filled with water on a bench, he had the presence of mind to wash his hands and the axe. His hands were bloody and sticky. He lowered the axe straight into the water, blade first, grabbed a sliver of soap from a cracked saucer on the windowsill, and set about washing his hands right there in the bucket. After washing them clean, he took the axe out as well, cleaned the metal and spent a good three minutes cleaning the wood where it was stained, even trying the soap on the blood. Then he wiped everything with the laundry drying right there on a clothes-line stretched across the kitchen, before making a lengthy and meticulous inspection of the axe by the window. No traces remained, though the wood was still damp. He carefully secured the axe in the loop under his coat. Then, as best he could in the dim light of the kitchen, he inspected his coat, trousers and boots. They seemed fine at first glance; only the boots were stained. He moistened a rag and wiped them. But he knew he couldn't see well and might have missed something obvious. He stood thinking in the middle of the room. An excruciating, dark thought was welling up inside him - the thought that he was out of his mind, that at this moment he was capable neither of reasoning nor of defending himself, that perhaps he was going about things in entirely the wrong way . . . 'God! I must run! Run!' he muttered, rushing out into the hall. But there a horror awaited him the like of which, needless to say, he had never known.

  He stood, stared and could not believe his eyes: the door, the outer door, leading from the hall to the stairs, the same one through which he had entered, after ringing, just a short while before, stood ajar by as much as a hand's breadth: neither locked nor on the latch, all this time, all of it! The old woman hadn't closed the door behind him, perhaps as a precaution. God Almighty! He'd since seen Lizaveta, after all! How on earth had he failed to realize that she must have got in somehow! She couldn't have walked in through the wall.

  He rushed to the door and fastened the latch.

  'But no, that's wrong too! I must go. Go . . .'

  He lifted the latch, opened the door on to the stairs and began listening.

  He listened long and hard. Somewhere far away, down below, probably at the gates, two voices were shouting loud and shrill, arguing and swearing. 'What're they up to?' He waited patiently. Then, eventually, just like that, silence: they'd gone their separate ways. He was about to leave when suddenly a door opened with a great racket on to the stairs on the floor below and someone started going down, humming a tune. 'How noisy they all are!' flashed through his mind. He shut the door again and waited. Finally, everything went quiet - not a soul. He was just about to step onto the stairs when once again he suddenly heard footsteps; different ones.

  These footsteps came from far away, right from the bottom of the stairwell, but he remembered very vividly and distinctly that somehow, from the very first sound, he suspected that their destination was here and nowhere else, the fourth floor, the old woman. Why? Were the sounds so very special, so very meaningful? The footsteps were heavy, even, unhurried. There: he had already reached the first floor and was carrying on up - louder and louder! Now came the sound of heavy breathing. Climbing up to the third . . . Coming here! He felt his whole body suddenly go rigid, as if this were a dream, the kind of dream where someone is chasing you, breathing down your neck, about to kill you, while you yourself seem rooted to the spot and can't even move your hands.

  Only when the visitor was already on his way up to the fourth floor did he suddenly rouse himself and somehow manage to slip quickly and nimbly back into the apartment and close the door behind him. Then he grabbed the latch and quietly, soundlessly placed the hook in the eye. Instinct was coming to his aid. Then, he crouched right there by the
door, holding his breath. The unbidden guest was also already at the door. They were standing opposite one another now, just like before with the old woman, when they were separated by the door and he was the one listening in.

  The visitor drew several heaving breaths. 'Must be big and fat,' thought Raskolnikov, his hand gripping the axe. Yes, all this really was like a dream. The visitor grabbed the bell and gave it a good ring.

  No sooner did he hear the bell's tinny sound than he had a sudden fancy that someone had stirred in the room. For a few seconds he even cocked an ear in earnest. The stranger rang once again, waited a bit more, then suddenly lost patience and began tugging on the door handle with all his strength. Horrified, Raskolnikov watched with dull terror as the hook of the latch twitched in the eye, and half-expected it to snap out at any moment. The way the handle was being tugged, it seemed more than likely. He thought of holding the latch in place, but then he might realize. Once again he felt his head begin to spin. 'I'll fall any moment!' - but no sooner had he thought this than the stranger began speaking, and he immediately came to his senses.

  'What are they doing in there - dozing? Or has someone done them in? Damned women!' he roared, as if from a barrel. 'Oi! Alyona Ivanovna, my old witch! Lizaveta Ivanovna, my beauty! Open up! Fast asleep, are they?'

  Working himself up into a frenzy, he tugged the little bell another ten times or so, as hard as he could. Evidently, he was used to getting his way around here.

  At that very moment the sound of short, hurried steps suddenly carried up from close by on the stairs. Someone else was coming too. Raskolnikov hadn't even heard at first.

  'Is there really no one in?' shouted the new man, loudly and cheerfully addressing the first visitor, who was still tugging the bell. 'Hello there, Kokh!'

  'Very young, going by his voice,' Raskolnikov suddenly thought.

  'Hell knows, but I almost broke the lock,' replied Kokh. 'And how do you know me, may I ask?'

  'You having me on? Just the other day, playing billiards in "Gambrinus", I took three games off you in a row!'

  'Ah . . .'

  'So they're out? How strange. And how stupid. Where on earth could the old woman've got to? I've business with her.'

  'And I've business too, my friend!'

  'Well, what's to be done? Back down, I suppose. And there was I expecting some cash!' cried the young man.

  'Down we go, then, but why fix a time? She's the one who told me to come at this time. Plus it was out of my way. And where the devil has she wandered off to? That's what I don't understand! The old witch spends the whole year stewing at home, nursing her gammy legs, and now look - out and about all of a sudden!'

  'How about asking the caretaker?'

  'Asking him what?'

  'Where she went and when she's back.'

  'H'm . . . what's the use? . . . I mean, she never goes anywhere . . .' He gave the door handle another tug. 'There's nothing for it - I'm off!'

  'Wait!' the young man suddenly cried. 'Look: see the gap when you pull the door?'

  'Well?'

  'So it's not locked, it's latched - on the hook, I mean! Hear how it rattles?'

  'Well?'

  'But don't you see? It means one of them must be in. If they were both out, they'd have locked it with a key from the outside, not latched it from inside, like now. Hear it rattling? To latch it from the inside, you have to be in, don't you see? So they must be in - they're just not opening!'

  'Ha - you're right!' Kokh exclaimed in astonishment. 'So what can they be doing in there?' And he began furiously tugging the handle.

  'Wait!' cried the young man once again. 'Stop pulling! There's something amiss here . . . After all, you've been ringing, tugging - and they're not opening; so either they've both fainted, or . . .'

  'What?'

  'Here's what: we'll fetch the caretaker. Let him wake them up.'

  'Agreed!'

  They set off down together.

  'Wait! You stay put, I'll run and get the caretaker.'

  'Why should I stay?'

  'Well, you never know . . .'

  'I suppose . . .'

  'I'm training to be an examining magistrate,52 as it happens! And it's quite obvious - blindingly obvious - that something's amiss here!' the young man cried out enthusiastically, before tearing off down the stairs.

  Kokh remained where he was and gently fiddled a bit more with the bell, which tinkled once; then, in a studious, thoughtful kind of way, he began fiddling softly with the door handle, pulling it and letting it go, so as to make doubly certain that the door was only on the hook. Puffing and panting, he bent down and began looking through the keyhole; but the key was in the lock on the other side, so there was nothing to see.

  Raskolnikov stood gripping the axe. He was in a kind of delirium. He was even ready to fight when they came in. While they were knocking and conferring, the idea occurred to him more than once to have done with it all and shout something out to them from behind the door. At times he suddenly felt like arguing with them, teasing them, until they finally got it open. 'The sooner the better!' flashed through his mind.

  'Where's he got to, damn it . . . ?'

  Time passed, whole minutes passed - no one came. Kokh became restless.

  'Damn it all!' he suddenly yelled, quitting his post in a fit of impatience and setting off down the stairs in a hurry, boots clattering. Silence.

  'God, now what?'

  Raskolnikov lifted the latch, opened the door a little - he couldn't hear a thing - and suddenly, without a thought in his head, stepped out, shut the door behind him as firmly as he could, and set off down the stairs.

  He was already three flights down when he suddenly heard a loud noise below. Now what? There was simply nowhere to hide. He was even about to run back into the apartment.

  'Oi! Wait there, you devil! Wait there!'

  With a cry someone came tearing out of one of the apartments, not so much running as plummeting down the stairs and yelling at the top of his voice:

  'Mitka! Mitka! Mitka! Mitka! Mitka! I'll have you, you devil!'

  The cry ended in a squeal, a few last noises came in from outside, and everything went quiet. But at that very instant several men, speaking loud and fast, began tramping up the stairs. There were three or four of them. He recognized the young lad's booming voice. 'It's them!'

  In total despair he made straight for them: 'What will be, will be! I'm ruined if they stop me, ruined if they let me pass: they'll remember.' They were about to meet; just one flight of stairs between them - when suddenly, salvation! A few steps away from him, to the right, an apartment stood empty and open, that same second-floor apartment which the workmen had been painting and which, as if on purpose, they'd now vacated. So that was them running out just now with such a hue and cry. The floors had just been painted; in the middle of the room stood a vat and a pot with paint and a brush. He darted through the open door in a flash and hid on the other side of the wall, in the very nick of time: they were already on the landing. Then they turned to carry on up to the fourth floor, talking loudly. He waited for them to go past, walked out on tiptoe and ran off down.

  No one on the stairs! Or at the gates. He passed quickly under the arch and turned left down the street.

  He knew full well that they were already in the apartment, right now, that they were astonished to find it open when it had just been closed, that they were already looking at the bodies, and that it would take no more than a minute for them to work out beyond any shadow of a doubt that the murderer had been there just moments before and had managed to hide somewhere, slip past them, run off; and they might also work out that he'd been waiting in the empty apartment as they climbed up. Still, for the life of him he dared not quicken his stride more than a little, even though it was another hundred paces or so to the next turning. 'Perhaps I should duck under one of these arches and wait it out in some stairwell? No, no good! Or chuck away the axe somewhere? Or hail a cab? No good! No good!'

&
nbsp; At last, the lane. He turned into it more dead than alive. He was already halfway to safety and he understood this: there'd be less reason for suspicion, not to mention a bustling crowd in which to lose himself like a grain of sand. But all these agonies had left him so feeble he could barely move. Sweat was dripping off him; his neck was all wet. 'Drunk as a lord!' someone yelled out to him when he came out by the Ditch.

  He was in a state of near-oblivion, and it was only getting worse. But he did remember how frightened he was when he came out by the Ditch and saw how few people there were and how conspicuous he was, and he almost turned back into the lane. But even though he could barely stay on his feet, he still made a detour and returned home from a completely different direction.

  He still hadn't recovered his wits when he passed through the gates to his building; at any rate, he was already on the stairs by the time he remembered the axe. Yet the task facing him was of the utmost importance: to put it back, and as discreetly as possible. Of course, he was in no fit state by now to realize that he might have been far better off not returning the axe to its former place at all, but sneaking it into some other courtyard, later if need be, and leaving it there.

  But everything turned out well. The door of the lodge was shut but not locked, so the caretaker was probably in. Incapable by now of thinking straight about anything, he walked right up to the lodge and opened the door. Had the caretaker asked him, 'What do you want?', he might very well have simply handed over the axe. But the caretaker was out again, and he managed to put the axe back in its former place beneath the bench; he even covered it with a log, as before. He met no one, not a single soul, all the way back to his room; the landlady's door was shut. Entering his room, he threw himself on the couch, just as he was. He wasn't asleep, he was in a trance. If someone had come into his room just then, he'd have leapt to his feet at once and screamed. His mind was aswarm with shreds and scraps of thought; but try as he might, he couldn't catch hold of any of them, nor focus on a single one . . .