Part 8

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.