Capítulo 7 de 41

VII

The door, as before, opened just a tiny crack, and again two sharp and distrustful eyes stared at him from the darkness. Here Raskolnikov lost his composure and nearly made a serious mistake.

Fearing that the old woman would be frightened that they were alone, and not hoping that his appearance would reassure her, he took hold of the door and pulled it toward himself, so that the old woman wouldn't think to lock it again. Seeing this, she didn't pull the door back toward herself, but she didn't release the door handle either, so that he nearly pulled her out onto the staircase along with the door. Seeing that she was standing in the doorway blocking his passage, he went straight at her. She jumped back in fright, tried to say something, but seemed unable to and stared at him with wide eyes.

"Good day, Alena Ivanovna," he began as casually as possible, but his voice didn't obey him, it broke and trembled. "I've brought you... something... but we'd better go over here... to the light..." And, leaving her, he went straight into the room without invitation. The old woman ran after him; her tongue loosened.

"Good Lord! What do you want?.. Who are you? What do you need?"

"Have mercy, Alena Ivanovna... I'm an acquaintance of yours... Raskolnikov... here, I've brought the pledge I promised the other day..." And he held out the pledge to her.

The old woman glanced at the pledge, but then immediately fixed her eyes directly on the uninvited guest's eyes. She looked attentively, maliciously, and distrustfully. A minute passed; he even thought he saw something like mockery in her eyes, as if she had already guessed everything. He felt he was losing his composure, that he was almost frightened, so frightened that it seemed if she continued looking at him like that, without saying a word for another half minute, he would run away from her.

"Why are you staring at me like you don't recognize me?" he suddenly said, also with malice. "If you want it, take it, and if not—I'll go to someone else, I don't have time."

He hadn't meant to say this, but it suddenly came out on its own.

The old woman collected herself, and the guest's decisive tone evidently emboldened her.

"Why so sudden, my dear... what is it?" she asked, looking at the pledge.

"A silver cigarette case: I told you last time."

She extended her hand.

"But why are you so pale? Look, your hands are trembling! Have you been bathing, my dear?"

"Fever," he answered abruptly. "You can't help turning pale... when you have nothing to eat," he added, barely articulating the words. His strength was leaving him again. But the answer seemed plausible; the old woman took the pledge.

"What is it?" she asked, once again scrutinizing Raskolnikov and weighing the pledge in her hand.

"The thing... cigarette case... silver... look."

"But it doesn't seem to be silver... My, what he's wrapped it in."

Trying to untie the string and turning to the window, to the light (all her windows were closed, despite the stuffiness), she left him completely for several seconds and stood with her back to him. He unbuttoned his coat and freed the axe from the loop, but didn't pull it out completely, only held it with his right hand under his clothing. His hands were terribly weak; he could hear himself how they grew more numb and wooden with each moment. He was afraid he would drop and let fall the axe... suddenly his head seemed to spin.

"What has he wrapped it in!" the old woman cried with vexation and moved toward him.

There wasn't a moment more to lose. He pulled out the axe completely, swung it with both hands, barely feeling himself, and almost without effort, almost mechanically, brought it down on her head with the blunt side. He seemed to have no strength. But as soon as he brought the axe down once, strength was born in him.

The old woman was bareheaded as always. Her thin graying hair, as usual thickly greased with oil, was plaited into a rat's tail and tucked under a piece of horn comb that stuck out at the back of her head. The blow landed right on the crown, which her small stature facilitated. She cried out, but very weakly, and suddenly sank entirely to the floor, though she still managed to raise both hands to her head. In one hand she continued to hold the "pledge." Then he struck with all his strength once and again, always with the blunt side and always on the crown. Blood gushed as from an overturned glass, and the body fell backward. He stepped back, let it fall, and immediately bent down to her face; she was already dead. Her eyes were bulging as if about to pop out, and her forehead and whole face were wrinkled and distorted by convulsion.

He laid the axe on the floor beside the dead woman and immediately felt in her pocket, trying not to get soiled with the flowing blood—in that same right pocket from which she had taken the keys last time. He was in full possession of his faculties, there were no more blackouts or dizziness, but his hands still trembled. He remembered later that he had been very attentive, cautious, trying not to get stained... He pulled out the keys at once; all of them, as before, were on one ring, on a single steel hoop. He immediately ran with them into the bedroom. This was a very small room with an enormous icon case. Against another wall stood a large bed, very clean, with a silk patchwork quilted coverlet. Against the third wall was a chest of drawers. Strange thing: as soon as he began fitting the keys to the chest of drawers, as soon as he heard their jingling, a convulsion seemed to pass through him. He suddenly wanted again to abandon everything and leave. But this was only a moment; it was too late to leave. He even smiled at himself when suddenly another alarming thought struck him. It suddenly seemed to him that the old woman might still be alive and might yet regain consciousness. Abandoning the keys and the chest of drawers, he ran back to the body, seized the axe, and raised it again over the old woman, but didn't bring it down. There was no doubt she was dead. Bending down and examining her again more closely, he saw clearly that the skull was shattered and even knocked slightly to one side. He wanted to touch it with his finger, but pulled his hand back; it was obvious even without that. Meanwhile a whole puddle of blood had collected. Suddenly he noticed a cord around her neck and tugged at it, but the cord was strong and wouldn't break; moreover, it was soaked with blood. He tried to pull it out from her bosom, but something was in the way, it was stuck. In impatience he raised the axe again to cut through the cord right there on the body, from above, but didn't dare, and with difficulty, soiling his hands and the axe, after two minutes of struggling, he cut the cord without touching the body with the axe, and removed it; he wasn't mistaken—it was a purse. On the cord were two crosses, one of cypress wood and one of copper, and in addition an enameled icon; and there with them hung a small chamois leather purse, greasy and worn, with a steel rim and ring. The purse was very tightly stuffed; Raskolnikov shoved it into his pocket without examining it, threw the crosses onto the old woman's chest, and this time taking the axe as well, rushed back into the bedroom.

He was in terrible haste, grabbed the keys and began struggling with them again. But somehow nothing worked: they wouldn't fit into the locks. It wasn't so much that his hands were trembling, but he kept making mistakes: he would see, for instance, that a key was wrong, didn't fit, but still keep trying it. Suddenly he remembered and realized that this large key with the toothed bit, which was hanging there with the other small ones, must certainly not be for the chest of drawers at all (as had occurred to him last time), but for some trunk, and that in this trunk, perhaps, everything was hidden. He abandoned the chest of drawers and immediately crawled under the bed, knowing that old women usually keep their trunks under the bed. So it was: there stood a substantial trunk, more than a yard in length, with a curved lid, upholstered in red morocco leather studded with steel nails. The toothed key fit exactly and unlocked it. On top, under a white sheet, lay a hareskin coat lined with red calico; under it was a silk dress, then a shawl, and deeper down, it seemed, lay only rags. First of all he began wiping his blood-stained hands on the red calico. "It's red, so blood won't show on red," he reasoned, and suddenly came to his senses: "Good Lord! Am I going mad?" he thought in fright.

But as soon as he stirred these rags, a gold watch suddenly slipped out from under the coat. He began turning everything over. Indeed, among the rags were mixed gold items—probably all pledges, redeemed and unredeemed—bracelets, chains, earrings, pins, and so forth. Some were in cases, others simply wrapped in newspaper, but carefully and neatly, in double sheets, and tied round with ribbon. Without delay he began stuffing his pockets and coat with them, without sorting or opening the packets and cases; but he didn't manage to take much...

Suddenly he heard someone walking in the room where the old woman was. He stopped and froze like a corpse. But all was quiet, so he must have imagined it. Suddenly he distinctly heard a faint cry, or as if someone quietly and abruptly groaned and fell silent. Then dead silence again, for a minute or two. He sat on his haunches by the trunk and waited, barely breathing, but suddenly jumped up, seized the axe, and ran out of the bedroom.

In the middle of the room stood Lizaveta, with a large bundle in her hands, staring in stupefaction at her murdered sister, white as a sheet and as if unable to cry out. Seeing him run out, she trembled like a leaf with a fine tremor, and spasms ran across her whole face; she raised her hand, opened her mouth, but still didn't cry out and began slowly backing away from him into the corner, staring fixedly, intently at him, but still not crying, as if she had no air to cry out with. He rushed at her with the axe; her lips twisted pitifully, like those of very small children when they begin to be frightened of something, stare intently at the frightening object and are about to scream. And this unfortunate Lizaveta was so simple, so downtrodden and frightened once and for all that she didn't even raise her hands to protect her face, though this was the most necessary and natural gesture at that moment, because the axe was raised directly over her face. She only raised her free left hand slightly, not nearly to her face, and slowly extended it forward toward him, as if pushing him away. The blow landed directly on the skull, with the sharp edge, and immediately split the whole upper part of the forehead, almost to the crown. She collapsed at once. Raskolnikov completely lost his composure, grabbed her bundle, threw it down again, and ran into the entry hall.

Fear seized him more and more, especially after this second, completely unexpected murder. He wanted to run away from there as quickly as possible. And if at that moment he had been in a condition to see and reason more correctly, if only he could have comprehended all the difficulties of his situation, all the desperation, all the hideousness and all the absurdity of it, and understood at the same time how many difficulties and perhaps even villainies still remained for him to overcome and commit in order to get out of there and reach home, it's very possible that he would have abandoned everything and immediately gone to turn himself in, and not even from fear for himself, but from horror and revulsion alone at what he had done. Revulsion especially rose and grew in him with each minute. Not for anything in the world would he have gone now to the trunk or even into the rooms.

But a kind of absent-mindedness, even as if pensiveness, gradually began to possess him: at moments he seemed to forget himself or, rather, to forget the main thing and cling to trifles. However, glancing into the kitchen and seeing a bucket on the bench half full of water, he thought to wash his hands and the axe. His hands were bloody and sticky. He lowered the axe blade-first straight into the water, grabbed a piece of soap lying on the windowsill on a broken saucer, and began washing his hands right in the bucket. Having washed them, he pulled out the axe too, washed the iron, and spent a long time, about three minutes, washing the wood where it was bloodied, even trying soap on the blood. Then he wiped everything with laundry that was drying right there on a line strung across the kitchen, and then for a long time, attentively, examined the axe at the window. No traces remained, only the handle was still damp. He carefully put the axe in the loop under his coat. Then, as far as the light in the dim kitchen allowed, he examined his coat, trousers, boots. From the outside, at first glance, there seemed to be nothing; only on the boots were stains. He dampened the rag and wiped the boots. He knew, however, that he wasn't looking properly, that there might be something conspicuous that he wasn't noticing. He stood in the middle of the room, lost in thought. A tormenting, dark thought rose in him—the thought that he was going mad and that at this moment he was unable either to reason or to defend himself, that perhaps he shouldn't be doing at all what he was doing now... "My God! I must run, run!" he muttered and rushed into the entry hall. But here such horror awaited him as he had certainly never yet experienced.

He stood, looked, and couldn't believe his eyes: the door, the outer door from the entry hall to the staircase, the very one at which he had rung and entered not long ago, stood unlocked, even standing open a whole hand's width: no lock, no bolt, all this time, this whole time! The old woman hadn't locked it after him, perhaps out of caution. But good God! He had seen Lizaveta afterward! And how could he, how could he have failed to realize that she had come in from somewhere! Not through the wall, after all.

He rushed to the door and threw the bolt.

"But no, that's wrong again! I must go, go..."

He removed the bolt, opened the door, and began listening on the staircase.

He listened for a long time. Somewhere far below, probably under the gates, two voices were shouting loudly and shrilly, arguing and quarreling. "What's with them?..." He waited patiently. At last everything suddenly quieted, as if cut off; they had dispersed. He was about to go out when suddenly a door one floor below opened noisily onto the staircase, and someone began going downstairs, humming some tune. "Why are they all making so much noise!" flashed through his head. He closed the door again behind him and waited. Finally all fell silent, not a soul. He had already stepped onto the staircase when suddenly he heard new footsteps again.

These footsteps sounded very far away, still at the very beginning of the staircase, but he remembered very well and distinctly that from the first sound he began suspecting for some reason that this person was certainly coming here, to the fourth floor, to the old woman's. Why? Were the sounds somehow special, significant? The steps were heavy, even, unhurried. Now he had passed the first floor, now he was climbing higher; more and more audible! The heavy breathing of the person entering could be heard. Now he had started on the third... Coming here! And suddenly it seemed to him that he had turned to stone, that it was just like in a dream, when you dream that someone is chasing you, close by, wanting to kill you, and you're as if rooted to the spot and can't even move your arms.

And finally, when the visitor had already begun ascending to the fourth floor, only then did he suddenly start and manage quickly and deftly to slip back from the entry hall into the apartment and close the door behind him. Then he grabbed the bolt and quietly, noiselessly, fitted it onto the hook. Instinct helped. Having finished, he held his breath and froze right there by the door. The uninvited guest was now also at the door. They now stood facing each other, as earlier he and the old woman, when the door divided them and he was listening.

The visitor took several heavy breaths. "Fat and big, must be," thought Raskolnikov, gripping the axe in his hand. Indeed, it all seemed like a dream. The visitor grabbed the bell and rang hard.

As soon as the tinny sound of the bell rang out, it suddenly seemed to him that something stirred in the room. For several seconds he even listened seriously. The stranger rang again, waited some more, and suddenly, in impatience, began tugging the door handle with all his might. In horror Raskolnikov watched the bolt hook jumping in its fastening and with dull fear expected that any moment now the bolt would pop out. Indeed, this seemed possible: he was tugging so hard. He thought of holding the bolt with his hand, but the man might guess. His head seemed to be starting to spin again. "I'm going to faint!" flashed through him, but the stranger spoke, and he immediately came to his senses.

"What are they doing in there, sleeping or has someone strangled them? Currrrsed!" he roared as if from a barrel. "Hey, Alena Ivanovna, old witch! Lizaveta Ivanovna, beauty beyond description! Open up! Ugh, are they asleep or what?"

And again, in a fury, he tugged the bell about ten times in a row, with all his might. He was certainly a man of authority and at home in the house.

At that very moment light, hurried footsteps suddenly sounded not far away on the staircase. Someone else was approaching. Raskolnikov hadn't heard at first.

"Is there really no one?" a resonant and cheerful voice called out, addressing the first visitor directly, who was still continuing to pull the bell. "Hello, Koch!"

"Judging by the voice, must be very young," Raskolnikov suddenly thought.

"The devil knows, I nearly broke the lock," Koch answered. "And how do you happen to know me?"

"What do you mean! The day before yesterday, at the Gambrinus, I beat you three games in a row at billiards!"

"Ah-h-h..."

"So they're not here? Strange. Stupid, though, terribly so. Where would the old woman go? I have business."

"And I have business too, my friend!"

"Well, what's to be done? It means going back. E-eh! And I was hoping to get some money!" cried the young man.

"Of course, going back, but why make an appointment? She appointed the time herself, the witch. It's out of my way. And where the devil would she be gadding about, I don't understand! She sits all year round, the witch, moldering away, her legs hurt, and now suddenly she's out for a stroll!"

"Shouldn't we ask the porter?"

"What?"

"Where she went and when she'll be back?"

"Hm... the devil... ask... But she never goes anywhere..." and he tugged the door handle once more. "The devil, nothing to be done, let's go!"

"Wait!" the young man suddenly cried, "look: do you see how the door gives when you pull?"

"So?"

"That means it's not on the lock, but on the bolt, on the hook, that is! Do you hear how the bolt rattles?"

"So?"

"Don't you understand? That means someone's home. If they had all left, they would have locked it from outside with the key, not on the bolt from inside. And here—hear how the bolt rattles? And to fasten the bolt from inside, you have to be home, understand? So they're sitting at home and not opening!"

"Ba! Why, that's true!" cried the astonished Koch. "So what are they doing in there!" And he began furiously pulling the door.

"Wait!" the young man cried again, "don't pull! There's something wrong here... you rang, pulled—they don't open; so either they've both fainted, or..."

"What?"

"I'll tell you what: let's go get the porter; let him wake them up himself."

"Right!" They both started down.

"Wait! You stay here, and I'll run down for the porter."

"Why should I stay?"

"You never know what might happen..."

"All right..."

"You see, I'm preparing for the examining magistracy! It's obvious here, ob-vi-ous that something's wrong!" the young man cried heatedly and ran downstairs at a dash.

Koch remained, touched the bell once more softly, and it gave one ring; then quietly, as if thinking and examining, began moving the door handle, pulling and releasing it, to make sure once more that it was only on the bolt. Then puffing, he bent down and began looking through the keyhole; but the key was stuck in it from inside and consequently nothing could be seen.

Raskolnikov stood gripping the axe. He was as if delirious. He was even preparing to fight with them when they entered. While they were knocking and talking, the thought came to him several times to end it all at once and call out to them from behind the door. At times he wanted to start swearing at them, taunting them, until they opened the door. "The sooner the better!" flashed through his head.

"But what the devil..."

Time passed, a minute, another—no one came. Koch began stirring.

"But what the devil!..." he suddenly cried and, in impatience, abandoning his post, set off downstairs too, hurrying and clattering down the stairs in his boots. The footsteps died away.

"Lord, what should I do!"

Raskolnikov removed the bolt, opened the door slightly—heard nothing, and suddenly, without thinking at all now, went out, closed the door as tightly as he could behind him, and started downstairs.

He had already gone down three flights when suddenly a great commotion sounded below—where could he go! There was nowhere to hide. He was about to run back up to the apartment.

"Hey, devil, demon! Stop!"

With a shout someone burst out below from an apartment and didn't so much run as seem to fall downstairs, shouting at the top of his lungs:

"Mitka! Mitka! Mitka! Mitka! Mitka! Blast you-u-u!"

The shout ended in a shriek; the last sounds were already heard in the courtyard; everything fell silent. But at that same instant several people talking loudly and rapidly began noisily climbing the stairs. There were three or four of them. He made out the resonant voice of the young man. "Them!"

In complete despair he went straight toward them: come what may! If they stopped him, all was lost, if they let him pass, all was also lost: they would remember. They were already converging; only one flight of stairs remained between them—and suddenly salvation! A few steps to his right, empty and wide open, stood an apartment, that very apartment on the second floor where the workmen had been painting, and now, as if on purpose, they had left. They were the ones, probably, who had just run out with such shouting. The floors had just been painted, in the middle of the room stood a tub and a crock with paint and a brush. In one instant he slipped through the open door and hid behind the wall, and it was just in time: they were already standing on the landing itself. Then they turned upward and passed by, to the fourth floor, talking loudly. He waited, went out on tiptoe, and ran downstairs.

No one on the staircase! Under the gates too. He quickly passed through the gateway and turned left down the street.

He knew very well, he knew perfectly well that at this moment they were already in the apartment, that they were very surprised to find it unlocked when it had just been locked, that they were already looking at the bodies, and that not more than a minute would pass before they would guess and fully realize that the murderer had just been there and had managed to hide somewhere, slip past them, escape; they would guess, perhaps, that he had been sitting in the empty apartment while they were going upstairs. And meanwhile he dared not quicken his pace in any way, though a hundred steps remained to the first turning. "Shouldn't I slip into some gateway and wait somewhere on an unfamiliar staircase? No, that's bad! Shouldn't I throw the axe away somewhere? Take a cab? Bad! Bad!"

At last here was the side street; he turned into it half-dead; here he was already half saved and understood it: there was less suspicion, besides, there was a heavy stream of people here, and he dissolved in it like a grain of sand. But all these torments had weakened him so much that he could barely move. Sweat poured from him in drops; his neck was completely soaked. "My, you're soused!" someone shouted at him when he came out at the canal.

He remembered himself poorly now; the farther he went, the worse it got. He remembered, however, how suddenly, coming out at the canal, he was frightened that there were few people and that he would be more conspicuous there, and wanted to turn back to the side street. Despite nearly falling, he nevertheless made a detour and came home from a completely different direction.

He passed through the gates of his own house not in full possession of his memory; at least he had already reached the staircase before he remembered about the axe. And meanwhile a very important task lay before him: to put it back and as inconspicuously as possible. Of course, he was no longer capable of realizing that perhaps it would be much better for him not to put the axe back in its former place at all, but to throw it away later, somewhere in someone else's yard.

But everything worked out well. The door to the porter's lodge was closed but not locked, which meant it was most likely that the porter was home. But he had already lost the ability to think things through to such a degree that he went straight to the porter's lodge and opened it. If the porter had asked him "what do you want?"—he might perhaps have simply handed him the axe. But the porter was again not there, and he managed to put the axe back in its former place under the bench; he even covered it with a log as before. He met no one, not a single soul, afterward all the way to his room; the landlady's door was locked. Entering his room, he threw himself on the sofa just as he was. He didn't sleep, but was in oblivion. If anyone had entered his room then, he would have immediately jumped up and screamed. Scraps and fragments of thoughts swarmed in his head; but he couldn't catch a single one, couldn't dwell on a single one, despite all his efforts...

PART TWO