So he lay a very long while. Now and then he seemed to wake up, and at such moments he noticed that it was far into the night, but it did not occur to him to get up. At last he noticed that it was beginning to get light. He was lying on his back, still dazed from his recent oblivion. Fearful, despairing cries rose shrilly from the street, sounds which he heard every night, indeed, under his window after two o'clock. They woke him up now.
"Ah! the drunken men are coming out of the taverns," he thought, "it's past two o'clock," and at once he leaped up, as though someone had pulled him from the sofa.
"What! Past two o'clock!"
He sat down on the sofa--and instantly recollected everything! All at once, in one flash, he recollected everything.
For the first moment he thought he was going mad. A dreadful chill came over him; but the chill was from the fever that had begun long before in his sleep. Now he was suddenly taken with violent shivering, so that his teeth chattered and all his limbs were shaking. He opened the door and began listening--everything in the house was asleep. With amazement he gazed at himself and everything in the room around him, wondering how he could have come in the night before without fastening the door, and have flung himself on the sofa without undressing, without even taking his hat off. It had fallen off and was lying on the floor near his pillow.
"If anyone had come in, what would he have thought? That I'm drunk but . . ."
He rushed to the window. There was light enough, and he began hurriedly looking himself all over from head to foot, all his clothes; were there no traces? But there was no doing it like that; shivering with cold, he began taking off everything and looking over again. He turned everything over to the last threads and rags, and mistrusting himself, went through his search three times.
But there seemed to be nothing, no trace, except in one place, where some thick drops of congealed blood were clinging to the frayed edge of his trousers. He picked up a big claspknife and cut off the frayed threads. There seemed to be nothing more.
Suddenly he remembered that the purse and the things he had taken out of the old woman's box were still in his pockets! He had not thought till then of taking them out and hiding them! He had not even thought of them while he was examining his clothes! What next? Instantly he rushed to take them out and fling them on the table. When he had pulled out everything, and turned the pocket inside out to be sure there was nothing left, he carried the whole heap to the corner. The paper had come off the bottom of the wall and hung there in tatters. He began stuffing all the things into the hole under the paper: "They're in! All out of sight, and the purse too!" he thought gleefully, getting up and gazing blankly at the hole which bulged out more than ever. Suddenly he shuddered all over with horror; "My God!" he whispered in despair: "what's the matter with me? Is that hidden? Is that the way to hide things?"
He had not reckoned on having trinkets to hide. He had only thought of money, and so had not prepared a hiding-place.
"But now, now, what am I glad of?" he thought, "Is that hiding things? My reason's deserting me--simply!"
He sat down on the sofa in exhaustion and was at once shaken by another unbearable fit of shivering. Mechanically he drew from a chair beside him his old student's winter coat, which was still warm though almost in rags, covered himself up with it and once more sank into drowsiness and delirium. He lost consciousness.
Not more than five minutes had passed when he jumped up a second time, and at once pounced in a frenzy on his clothes again.
"How could I go to sleep again with nothing done? Yes, yes; I have not taken the loop off the armhole! I forgot it, forgot a thing like that! Such a piece of evidence!"
He pulled off the noose, hurriedly cut it to pieces and threw the bits among his linen under the pillow.
"Pieces of torn linen couldn't rouse suspicion, whatever happened; I think not, I think not, any way!" he repeated, standing in the middle of the room, and with painful concentration he fell to gazing about him again, at the floor and everywhere, trying to make sure he had not forgotten anything. The conviction that all his faculties, even memory, and the simplest power of reflection were failing him, began to be an insufferable torture.
"Surely it isn't beginning already! Surely it isn't my punishment coming upon me? It is!"
The frayed rags he had cut off his trousers were actually lying on the floor in the middle of the room, where anyone coming in would see them!
"What is the matter with me!" he cried again, like one distraught.
Then a strange idea entered his head; that, perhaps, all his clothes were covered with blood, that, perhaps, there were a great many stains, but that he did not see them, did not notice them because his perceptions were failing, were going to pieces . . . his reason was clouded. . . . Suddenly he remembered that there had been blood on the purse too. "Ah! Then there must be blood on the pocket too, for I put the wet purse in my pocket!"
In a flash he had turned the pocket inside out and, yes!--there were traces, stains on the lining of the pocket!
"So my reason has not quite deserted me, so I still have some sense and memory, since I guessed it of myself," he thought triumphantly, with a deep sigh of relief; "it's simply the weakness of fever, a moment's delirium," and he tore the whole lining out of the left pocket of his trousers. At that instant the sunlight fell on his left boot; on the sock which poked out from the boot, he fancied there were traces! He flung off his boots; "traces indeed! The tip of the sock was soaked with blood;" he must have unwarily stepped into that pool. . . . "But what am I to do with this now? Where am I to put the sock and rags and pocket?"
He gathered them all up in his hands and stood in the middle of the room.
"In the stove? But they would ransack the stove first of all. Burn them? But what can I burn them with? There are no matches even. No, better go out and throw it all away somewhere. Yes, better throw it away," he repeated, sitting down on the sofa again, "and at once, this minute, without lingering . . ."
But his head sank on the pillow instead. Again the unbearable icy shivering came over him; again he drew his coat over him.
And for a long while, for some hours, he was haunted by the impulse to "go off somewhere at once, this moment, and fling it all away, so that it may be out of sight and done with, at once, at once!" Several times he tried to rise from the sofa, but could not.
He was thoroughly waked up at last by a violent knocking at his door.
"Open, do, are you dead or alive? He keeps sleeping here!" shouted Nastasya, banging with her fist on the door. "For whole days together he's snoring here like a dog! A dog he is too. Open I tell you. It's past ten."
"Maybe he's not at home," said a man's voice.
"Ha! that's the porter's voice. . . . What does he want?"
He jumped up and sat on the sofa. The beating of his heart was a positive pain.
"Then who can have latched the door?" retorted Nastasya. "He's taken to bolting himself in! As if he were worth stealing! Open, you stupid, wake up!"
"What do they want? Why the porter? All's discovered. Resist or open? Come what may! . . ."
He half rose, stooped forward and unlatched the door.
His room was so small that he could undo the latch without leaving the bed. Yes; the porter and Nastasya were standing there.
Nastasya stared at him in a strange way. He glanced with a defiant and desperate air at the porter, who without a word held out a grey folded paper sealed with bottle-wax.
"A notice from the office," he announced, as he gave him the paper.
"From what office?"
"A summons to the police office, of course. You know which office."
"To the police? . . . What for? . . ."
"How can I tell? You're sent for, so you go."
The man looked at him attentively, looked round the room and turned to go away.
"He's downright ill!" observed Nastasya, not taking her eyes off him. The porter turned his head for a moment. "He's been in a fever since yesterday," she added.
Raskolnikov made no response and held the paper in his hands, without opening it. "Don't you get up then," Nastasya went on compassionately, seeing that he was letting his feet down from the sofa. "You're ill, and so don't go; there's no such hurry. What have you got there?"
He looked; in his right hand he held the shreds he had cut from his trousers, the sock, and the rags of the pocket. So he had been asleep with them in his hand. Afterwards reflecting upon it, he remembered that half waking up in his fever, he had grasped all this tightly in his hand and so fallen asleep again.
"Look at the rags he's collected and sleeps with them, as though he has got hold of a treasure . . ."
And Nastasya went off into her hysterical giggle.
Instantly he thrust them all under his great coat and fixed his eyes intently upon her. Far as he was from being capable of rational reflection at that moment, he felt that no one would behave like that with a person who was going to be arrested. "But . . . the police?"
"You'd better have some tea! Yes? I'll bring it, there's some left."
"No . . . I'm going; I'll go at once," he muttered, getting on to his feet.
"Why, you'll never get downstairs!"
"Yes, I'll go."
"As you please."
She followed the porter out.
At once he rushed to the light to examine the sock and the rags.
"There are stains, but not very noticeable; all covered with dirt, and rubbed and already discoloured. No one who had no suspicion could distinguish anything. Nastasya from a distance could not have noticed, thank God!" Then with a tremor he broke the seal of the notice and began reading; he was a long while reading, before he understood. It was an ordinary summons from the district police-station to appear that day at half-past nine at the office of the district superintendent.
"But when has such a thing happened? I never have anything to do with the police! And why just to-day?" he thought in agonising bewilderment. "Good God, only get it over soon!"
He was flinging himself on his knees to pray, but broke into laughter --not at the idea of prayer, but at himself.
He began, hurriedly dressing. "If I'm lost, I am lost, I don't care! Shall I put the sock on?" he suddenly wondered, "it will get dustier still and the traces will be gone."
But no sooner had he put it on than he pulled it off again in loathing and horror. He pulled it off, but reflecting that he had no other socks, he picked it up and put it on again--and again he laughed.
"That's all conventional, that's all relative, merely a way of looking at it," he thought in a flash, but only on the top surface of his mind, while he was shuddering all over, "there, I've got it on! I have finished by getting it on!"
But his laughter was quickly followed by despair.
"No, it's too much for me . . ." he thought. His legs shook. "From fear," he muttered. His head swam and ached with fever. "It's a trick! They want to decoy me there and confound me over everything," he mused, as he went out on to the stairs--"the worst of it is I'm almost light-headed . . . I may blurt out something stupid . . ."
On the stairs he remembered that he was leaving all the things just as they were in the hole in the wall, "and very likely, it's on purpose to search when I'm out," he thought, and stopped short. But he was possessed by such despair, such cynicism of misery, if one may so call it, that with a wave of his hand he went on. "Only to get it over!"
In the street the heat was insufferable again; not a drop of rain had fallen all those days. Again dust, bricks and mortar, again the stench from the shops and pot-houses, again the drunken men, the Finnish pedlars and half-broken-down cabs. The sun shone straight in his eyes, so that it hurt him to look out of them, and he felt his head going round--as a man in a fever is apt to feel when he comes out into the street on a bright sunny day.
When he reached the turning into /the/ street, in an agony of trepidation he looked down it . . . at /the/ house . . . and at once averted his eyes.
"If they question me, perhaps I'll simply tell," he thought, as he drew near the police-station.
The police-station was about a quarter of a mile off. It had lately been moved to new rooms on the fourth floor of a new house. He had been once for a moment in the old office but long ago. Turning in at the gateway, he saw on the right a flight of stairs which a peasant was mounting with a book in his hand. "A house-porter, no doubt; so then, the office is here," and he began ascending the stairs on the chance. He did not want to ask questions of anyone.
"I'll go in, fall on my knees, and confess everything . . ." he thought, as he reached the fourth floor.
The staircase was steep, narrow and all sloppy with dirty water. The kitchens of the flats opened on to the stairs and stood open almost the whole day. So there was a fearful smell and heat. The staircase was crowded with porters going up and down with their books under their arms, policemen, and persons of all sorts and both sexes. The door of the office, too, stood wide open. Peasants stood waiting within. There, too, the heat was stifling and there was a sickening smell of fresh paint and stale oil from the newly decorated rooms.
After waiting a little, he decided to move forward into the next room. All the rooms were small and low-pitched. A fearful impatience drew him on and on. No one paid attention to him. In the second room some clerks sat writing, dressed hardly better than he was, and rather a queer-looking set. He went up to one of them.
"What is it?"
He showed the notice he had received.
"You are a student?" the man asked, glancing at the notice.
"Yes, formerly a student."
The clerk looked at him, but without the slightest interest. He was a particularly unkempt person with the look of a fixed idea in his eye.
"There would be no getting anything out of him, because he has no interest in anything," thought Raskolnikov.
"Go in there to the head clerk," said the clerk, pointing towards the furthest room.
He went into that room--the fourth in order; it was a small room and packed full of people, rather better dressed than in the outer rooms. Among them were two ladies. One, poorly dressed in mourning, sat at the table opposite the chief clerk, writing something at his dictation. The other, a very stout, buxom woman with a purplish-red, blotchy face, excessively smartly dressed with a brooch on her bosom as big as a saucer, was standing on one side, apparently waiting for something. Raskolnikov thrust his notice upon the head clerk. The latter glanced at it, said: "Wait a minute," and went on attending to the lady in mourning.
He breathed more freely. "It can't be that!"
By degrees he began to regain confidence, he kept urging himself to have courage and be calm.
"Some foolishness, some trifling carelessness, and I may betray myself! Hm . . . it's a pity there's no air here," he added, "it's stifling. . . . It makes one's head dizzier than ever . . . and one's mind too . . ."
He was conscious of a terrible inner turmoil. He was afraid of losing his self-control; he tried to catch at something and fix his mind on it, something quite irrelevant, but he could not succeed in this at all. Yet the head clerk greatly interested him, he kept hoping to see through him and guess something from his face.
He was a very young man, about two and twenty, with a dark mobile face that looked older than his years. He was fashionably dressed and foppish, with his hair parted in the middle, well combed and pomaded, and wore a number of rings on his well-scrubbed fingers and a gold chain on his waistcoat. He said a couple of words in French to a foreigner who was in the room, and said them fairly correctly.
"Luise Ivanovna, you can sit down," he said casually to the gaily- dressed, purple-faced lady, who was still standing as though not venturing to sit down, though there was a chair beside her.
"Ich danke," said the latter, and softly, with a rustle of silk she sank into the chair. Her light blue dress trimmed with white lace floated about the table like an air-balloon and filled almost half the room. She smelt of scent. But she was obviously embarrassed at filling half the room and smelling so strongly of scent; and though her smile was impudent as well as cringing, it betrayed evident uneasiness.
The lady in mourning had done at last, and got up. All at once, with some noise, an officer walked in very jauntily, with a peculiar swing of his shoulders at each step. He tossed his cockaded cap on the table and sat down in an easy-chair. The small lady positively skipped from her seat on seeing him, and fell to curtsying in a sort of ecstasy; but the officer took not the smallest notice of her, and she did not venture to sit down again in his presence. He was the assistant superintendent. He had a reddish moustache that stood out horizontally on each side of his face, and extremely small features, expressive of nothing much except a certain insolence. He looked askance and rather indignantly at Raskolnikov; he was so very badly dressed, and in spite of his humiliating position, his bearing was by no means in keeping with his clothes. Raskolnikov had unwarily fixed a very long and direct look on him, so that he felt positively affronted.
"What do you want?" he shouted, apparently astonished that such a ragged fellow was not annihilated by the majesty of his glance.
"I was summoned . . . by a notice . . ." Raskolnikov faltered.
"For the recovery of money due, from /the student/," the head clerk interfered hurriedly, tearing himself from his papers. "Here!" and he flung Raskolnikov a document and pointed out the place. "Read that!"
"Money? What money?" thought Raskolnikov, "but . . . then . . . it's certainly not /that/."
And he trembled with joy. He felt sudden intense indescribable relief. A load was lifted from his back.
"And pray, what time were you directed to appear, sir?" shouted the assistant superintendent, seeming for some unknown reason more and more aggrieved. "You are told to come at nine, and now it's twelve!"
"The notice was only brought me a quarter of an hour ago," Raskolnikov answered loudly over his shoulder. To his own surprise he, too, grew suddenly angry and found a certain pleasure in it. "And it's enough that I have come here ill with fever."
"Kindly refrain from shouting!"
"I'm not shouting, I'm speaking very quietly, it's you who are shouting at me. I'm a student, and allow no one to shout at me."
The assistant superintendent was so furious that for the first minute he could only splutter inarticulately. He leaped up from his seat.
"Be silent! You are in a government office. Don't be impudent, sir!"
"You're in a government office, too," cried Raskolnikov, "and you're smoking a cigarette as well as shouting, so you are showing disrespect to all of us."
He felt an indescribable satisfaction at having said this.
The head clerk looked at him with a smile. The angry assistant superintendent was obviously disconcerted.
"That's not your business!" he shouted at last with unnatural loudness. "Kindly make the declaration demanded of you. Show him. Alexandr Grigorievitch. There is a complaint against you! You don't pay your debts! You're a fine bird!"
But Raskolnikov was not listening now; he had eagerly clutched at the paper, in haste to find an explanation. He read it once, and a second time, and still did not understand.
"What is this?" he asked the head clerk.
"It is for the recovery of money on an I O U, a writ. You must either pay it, with all expenses, costs and so on, or give a written declaration when you can pay it, and at the same time an undertaking not to leave the capital without payment, and nor to sell or conceal your property. The creditor is at liberty to sell your property, and proceed against you according to the law."
"But I . . . am not in debt to anyone!"
"That's not our business. Here, an I O U for a hundred and fifteen roubles, legally attested, and due for payment, has been brought us for recovery, given by you to the widow of the assessor Zarnitsyn, nine months ago, and paid over by the widow Zarnitsyn to one Mr. Tchebarov. We therefore summon you, hereupon."
"But she is my landlady!"
"And what if she is your landlady?"
The head clerk looked at him with a condescending smile of compassion, and at the same time with a certain triumph, as at a novice under fire for the first time--as though he would say: "Well, how do you feel now?" But what did he care now for an I O U, for a writ of recovery! Was that worth worrying about now, was it worth attention even! He stood, he read, he listened, he answered, he even asked questions himself, but all mechanically. The triumphant sense of security, of deliverance from overwhelming danger, that was what filled his whole soul that moment without thought for the future, without analysis, without suppositions or surmises, without doubts and without questioning. It was an instant of full, direct, purely instinctive joy. But at that very moment something like a thunderstorm took place in the office. The assistant superintendent, still shaken by Raskolnikov's disrespect, still fuming and obviously anxious to keep up his wounded dignity, pounced on the unfortunate smart lady, who had been gazing at him ever since he came in with an exceedingly silly smile.
"You shameful hussy!" he shouted suddenly at the top of his voice. (The lady in mourning had left the office.) "What was going on at your house last night? Eh! A disgrace again, you're a scandal to the whole street. Fighting and drinking again. Do you want the house of correction? Why, I have warned you ten times over that I would not let you off the eleventh! And here you are again, again, you . . . you . . . !"
The paper fell out of Raskolnikov's hands, and he looked wildly at the smart lady who was so unceremoniously treated. But he soon saw what it meant, and at once began to find positive amusement in the scandal. He listened with pleasure, so that he longed to laugh and laugh . . . all his nerves were on edge.
"Ilya Petrovitch!" the head clerk was beginning anxiously, but stopped short, for he knew from experience that the enraged assistant could not be stopped except by force.
As for the smart lady, at first she positively trembled before the storm. But, strange to say, the more numerous and violent the terms of abuse became, the more amiable she looked, and the more seductive the smiles she lavished on the terrible assistant. She moved uneasily, and curtsied incessantly, waiting impatiently for a chance of putting in her word: and at last she found it.
"There was no sort of noise or fighting in my house, Mr. Captain," she pattered all at once, like peas dropping, speaking Russian confidently, though with a strong German accent, "and no sort of scandal, and his honour came drunk, and it's the whole truth I am telling, Mr. Captain, and I am not to blame. . . . Mine is an honourable house, Mr. Captain, and honourable behaviour, Mr. Captain, and I always, always dislike any scandal myself. But he came quite tipsy, and asked for three bottles again, and then he lifted up one leg, and began playing the pianoforte with one foot, and that is not at all right in an honourable house, and he /ganz/ broke the piano, and it was very bad manners indeed and I said so. And he took up a bottle and began hitting everyone with it. And then I called the porter, and Karl came, and he took Karl and hit him in the eye; and he hit Henriette in the eye, too, and gave me five slaps on the cheek. And it was so ungentlemanly in an honourable house, Mr. Captain, and I screamed. And he opened the window over the canal, and stood in the window, squealing like a little pig; it was a disgrace. The idea of squealing like a little pig at the window into the street! Fie upon him! And Karl pulled him away from the window by his coat, and it is true, Mr. Captain, he tore /sein rock/. And then he shouted that /man muss/ pay him fifteen roubles damages. And I did pay him, Mr. Captain, five roubles for /sein rock/. And he is an ungentlemanly visitor and caused all the scandal. 'I will show you up,' he said, 'for I can write to all the papers about you.'"
"Then he was an author?"
"Yes, Mr. Captain, and what an ungentlemanly visitor in an honourable house. . . ."
"Now then! Enough! I have told you already . . ."
"Ilya Petrovitch!" the head clerk repeated significantly.
The assistant glanced rapidly at him; the head clerk slightly shook his head.
". . . So I tell you this, most respectable Luise Ivanovna, and I tell it you for the last time," the assistant went on. "If there is a scandal in your honourable house once again, I will put you yourself in the lock-up, as it is called in polite society. Do you hear? So a literary man, an author took five roubles for his coat-tail in an 'honourable house'? A nice set, these authors!"
And he cast a contemptuous glance at Raskolnikov. "There was a scandal the other day in a restaurant, too. An author had eaten his dinner and would not pay; 'I'll write a satire on you,' says he. And there was another of them on a steamer last week used the most disgraceful language to the respectable family of a civil councillor, his wife and daughter. And there was one of them turned out of a confectioner's shop the other day. They are like that, authors, literary men, students, town-criers. . . . Pfoo! You get along! I shall look in upon you myself one day. Then you had better be careful! Do you hear?"
With hurried deference, Luise Ivanovna fell to curtsying in all directions, and so curtsied herself to the door. But at the door, she stumbled backwards against a good-looking officer with a fresh, open face and splendid thick fair whiskers. This was the superintendent of the district himself, Nikodim Fomitch. Luise Ivanovna made haste to curtsy almost to the ground, and with mincing little steps, she fluttered out of the office.
"Again thunder and lightning--a hurricane!" said Nikodim Fomitch to Ilya Petrovitch in a civil and friendly tone. "You are aroused again, you are fuming again! I heard it on the stairs!"
"Well, what then!" Ilya Petrovitch drawled with gentlemanly nonchalance; and he walked with some papers to another table, with a jaunty swing of his shoulders at each step. "Here, if you will kindly look: an author, or a student, has been one at least, does not pay his debts, has given an I O U, won't clear out of his room, and complaints are constantly being lodged against him, and here he has been pleased to make a protest against my smoking in his presence! He behaves like a cad himself, and just look at him, please. Here's the gentleman, and very attractive he is!"
"Poverty is not a vice, my friend, but we know you go off like powder, you can't bear a slight, I daresay you took offence at something and went too far yourself," continued Nikodim Fomitch, turning affably to Raskolnikov. "But you were wrong there; he is a capital fellow, I assure you, but explosive, explosive! He gets hot, fires up, boils over, and no stopping him! And then it's all over! And at the bottom he's a heart of gold! His nickname in the regiment was the Explosive Lieutenant. . . ."
"And what a regiment it was, too," cried Ilya Petrovitch, much gratified at this agreeable banter, though still sulky.
Raskolnikov had a sudden desire to say something exceptionally pleasant to them all. "Excuse me, Captain," he began easily, suddenly addressing Nikodim Fomitch, "will you enter into my position? . . . I am ready to ask pardon, if I have been ill-mannered. I am a poor student, sick and shattered (shattered was the word he used) by poverty. I am not studying, because I cannot keep myself now, but I shall get money. . . . I have a mother and sister in the province of X. They will send it to me, and I will pay. My landlady is a good- hearted woman, but she is so exasperated at my having lost my lessons, and not paying her for the last four months, that she does not even send up my dinner . . . and I don't understand this I O U at all. She is asking me to pay her on this I O U. How am I to pay her? Judge for yourselves! . . ."
"But that is not our business, you know," the head clerk was observing.
"Yes, yes. I perfectly agree with you. But allow me to explain . . ." Raskolnikov put in again, still addressing Nikodim Fomitch, but trying his best to address Ilya Petrovitch also, though the latter persistently appeared to be rummaging among his papers and to be contemptuously oblivious of him. "Allow me to explain that I have been living with her for nearly three years and at first . . . at first . . . for why should I not confess it, at the very beginning I promised to marry her daughter, it was a verbal promise, freely given . . . she was a girl . . . indeed, I liked her, though I was not in love with her . . . a youthful affair in fact . . . that is, I mean to say, that my landlady gave me credit freely in those days, and I led a life of . . . I was very heedless . . ."
"Nobody asks you for these personal details, sir, we've no time to waste," Ilya Petrovitch interposed roughly and with a note of triumph; but Raskolnikov stopped him hotly, though he suddenly found it exceedingly difficult to speak.
"But excuse me, excuse me. It is for me to explain . . . how it all happened . . . In my turn . . . though I agree with you . . . it is unnecessary. But a year ago, the girl died of typhus. I remained lodging there as before, and when my landlady moved into her present quarters, she said to me . . . and in a friendly way . . . that she had complete trust in me, but still, would I not give her an I O U for one hundred and fifteen roubles, all the debt I owed her. She said if only I gave her that, she would trust me again, as much as I liked, and that she would never, never--those were her own words--make use of that I O U till I could pay of myself . . . and now, when I have lost my lessons and have nothing to eat, she takes action against me. What am I to say to that?"
"All these affecting details are no business of ours." Ilya Petrovitch interrupted rudely. "You must give a written undertaking but as for your love affairs and all these tragic events, we have nothing to do with that."
"Come now . . . you are harsh," muttered Nikodim Fomitch, sitting down at the table and also beginning to write. He looked a little ashamed.
"Write!" said the head clerk to Raskolnikov.
"Write what?" the latter asked, gruffly.
"I will dictate to you."
Raskolnikov fancied that the head clerk treated him more casually and contemptuously after his speech, but strange to say he suddenly felt completely indifferent to anyone's opinion, and this revulsion took place in a flash, in one instant. If he had cared to think a little, he would have been amazed indeed that he could have talked to them like that a minute before, forcing his feelings upon them. And where had those feelings come from? Now if the whole room had been filled, not with police officers, but with those nearest and dearest to him, he would not have found one human word for them, so empty was his heart. A gloomy sensation of agonising, everlasting solitude and remoteness, took conscious form in his soul. It was not the meanness of his sentimental effusions before Ilya Petrovitch, nor the meanness of the latter's triumph over him that had caused this sudden revulsion in his heart. Oh, what had he to do now with his own baseness, with all these petty vanities, officers, German women, debts, police- offices? If he had been sentenced to be burnt at that moment, he would not have stirred, would hardly have heard the sentence to the end. Something was happening to him entirely new, sudden and unknown. It was not that he understood, but he felt clearly with all the intensity of sensation that he could never more appeal to these people in the police-office with sentimental effusions like his recent outburst, or with anything whatever; and that if they had been his own brothers and sisters and not police-officers, it would have been utterly out of the question to appeal to them in any circumstance of life. He had never experienced such a strange and awful sensation. And what was most agonising--it was more a sensation than a conception or idea, a direct sensation, the most agonising of all the sensations he had known in his life.
The head clerk began dictating to him the usual form of declaration, that he could not pay, that he undertook to do so at a future date, that he would not leave the town, nor sell his property, and so on.
"But you can't write, you can hardly hold the pen," observed the head clerk, looking with curiosity at Raskolnikov. "Are you ill?"
"Yes, I am giddy. Go on!"
"That's all. Sign it."
The head clerk took the paper, and turned to attend to others.
Raskolnikov gave back the pen; but instead of getting up and going away, he put his elbows on the table and pressed his head in his hands. He felt as if a nail were being driven into his skull. A strange idea suddenly occurred to him, to get up at once, to go up to Nikodim Fomitch, and tell him everything that had happened yesterday, and then to go with him to his lodgings and to show him the things in the hole in the corner. The impulse was so strong that he got up from his seat to carry it out. "Hadn't I better think a minute?" flashed through his mind. "No, better cast off the burden without thinking." But all at once he stood still, rooted to the spot. Nikodim Fomitch was talking eagerly with Ilya Petrovitch, and the words reached him:
"It's impossible, they'll both be released. To begin with, the whole story contradicts itself. Why should they have called the porter, if it had been their doing? To inform against themselves? Or as a blind? No, that would be too cunning! Besides, Pestryakov, the student, was seen at the gate by both the porters and a woman as he went in. He was walking with three friends, who left him only at the gate, and he asked the porters to direct him, in the presence of the friends. Now, would he have asked his way if he had been going with such an object? As for Koch, he spent half an hour at the silversmith's below, before he went up to the old woman and he left him at exactly a quarter to eight. Now just consider . . ."
"But excuse me, how do you explain this contradiction? They state themselves that they knocked and the door was locked; yet three minutes later when they went up with the porter, it turned out the door was unfastened."
"That's just it; the murderer must have been there and bolted himself in; and they'd have caught him for a certainty if Koch had not been an ass and gone to look for the porter too. /He/ must have seized the interval to get downstairs and slip by them somehow. Koch keeps crossing himself and saying: 'If I had been there, he would have jumped out and killed me with his axe.' He is going to have a thanksgiving service--ha, ha!"
"And no one saw the murderer?"
"They might well not see him; the house is a regular Noah's Ark," said the head clerk, who was listening.
"It's clear, quite clear," Nikodim Fomitch repeated warmly.
"No, it is anything but clear," Ilya Petrovitch maintained.
Raskolnikov picked up his hat and walked towards the door, but he did not reach it. . . .
When he recovered consciousness, he found himself sitting in a chair, supported by someone on the right side, while someone else was standing on the left, holding a yellowish glass filled with yellow water, and Nikodim Fomitch standing before him, looking intently at him. He got up from the chair.
"What's this? Are you ill?" Nikodim Fomitch asked, rather sharply.
"He could hardly hold his pen when he was signing," said the head clerk, settling back in his place, and taking up his work again.
"Have you been ill long?" cried Ilya Petrovitch from his place, where he, too, was looking through papers. He had, of course, come to look at the sick man when he fainted, but retired at once when he recovered.
"Since yesterday," muttered Raskolnikov in reply.
"Did you go out yesterday?"
"Yes."
"Though you were ill?"
"Yes."
"At what time?"
"About seven."
"And where did you go, my I ask?"
"Along the street."
"Short and clear."
Raskolnikov, white as a handkerchief, had answered sharply, jerkily, without dropping his black feverish eyes before Ilya Petrovitch's stare.
"He can scarcely stand upright. And you . . ." Nikodim Fomitch was beginning.
"No matter," Ilya Petrovitch pronounced rather peculiarly.
Nikodim Fomitch would have made some further protest, but glancing at the head clerk who was looking very hard at him, he did not speak. There was a sudden silence. It was strange.
"Very well, then," concluded Ilya Petrovitch, "we will not detain you."
Raskolnikov went out. He caught the sound of eager conversation on his departure, and above the rest rose the questioning voice of Nikodim Fomitch. In the street, his faintness passed off completely.
"A search--there will be a search at once," he repeated to himself, hurrying home. "The brutes! they suspect."
His former terror mastered him completely again.
他就这样躺了很久。有时他似乎醒了，于是发觉早已是夜里了，可是他根本不想起来。最后他发觉，天已经明亮起来。他仰面躺在沙发上，由于不久前昏迷不醒，这时还在呆呆地出神。一阵阵可怕而绝望的哀号从街上传到他的耳中，听起来十分刺耳，不过每天夜里两点多钟他都听到自己窗下有这样的号哭声。现在正是这号哭声吵醒了他。“啊！那些醉鬼已经从小酒馆里出来了，”他想，“两点多了，”想到这里，他突然一跃而起，仿佛有人把他从沙发上猛一下子拉了起来。
“怎么，已经两点多了！”他坐到沙发上，——这时他想起了一切！突然，霎时间一切都想起来了！
最初一瞬间，他想，他准会发疯。一阵可怕的寒颤传遍他的全身；不过寒颤是由于发烧，他还在睡着的时候，身上早就开始发烧了。现在突然一阵发冷，冷得牙齿捉对儿厮打，浑身猛烈地颤抖起来。他打开房门，听听外面有什么动静：整幢房子里全都完全进入梦乡。他惊奇地打量了一下自己，环顾屋内的一切，他不明白：昨天他进来以后怎么能不扣上门钩，不仅没脱衣服，竟连帽子也戴着，就倒到沙发上了呢？帽子掉了，滚到了枕头旁边的地板上。“如果有人进来过，他会怎么想呢？认为我喝醉了，不过……”他冲到窗前。天已经相当亮了，他赶快从头到脚，上上下下把自己身上的一切全都仔细检查了一遍，还仔细察看了大衣：有没有什么痕迹？不过这样看还不行：他打着寒颤，动手脱下所有衣服，又仔仔细细检查了一遍。他把衣服都翻过来，连一根线、一块布也不放过，但是还不相信自己，反复检查了三遍。可是什么都没发现，看来没留下任何痕迹；只是在裤腿角上磨破了的地方耷拉着的毛边上留有几块很浓的、已经凝结起来的干血。他拿起一把大折刀，把毛边割了下来。好像再没有什么了。突然他想起来了，他从老太婆身上和箱子里拿来的钱袋和那些东西，到现在还都分别装在他的几个口袋里！到现在他还没想到要把它们拿出来，藏起来！就连现在，他察看衣服的时候，竟还没有想到它们！这是怎么搞的？他立刻急急忙忙把它们掏出来，丢在桌子上。他把这些东西全都拿了出来，连口袋都翻过来看了看，看是不是还有什么留在里面，然后把这堆东西都拿到墙角落里。那个角落里，墙脚下有个地方从墙上脱落下来的墙纸给撕掉了，他立刻动手把这一切塞进那儿的一个窟窿里，塞到墙纸下面，“塞进去了！所有东西都看不见了，钱袋也藏起来了！” 他高兴地想，欠起身来，神情木然地望着那个角落，望着那个塞得凸起来的窟窿。突然他惊恐地全身颤栗了一下：“我的天哪，”他绝望地喃喃地说：“我怎么啦？难道这就叫藏起来了吗？难道是这样藏的吗？”
不错，他本不打算拿东西；他想只拿钱，因此没有事先准备好藏东西的地方，“不过现在，现在我有什么好高兴的呢？”他想，“难道是这样藏东西？我真是失去理智了！”他疲惫不堪地坐到长沙发上，立刻，一阵让人受不了的寒颤又使他浑身颤抖起来。他无意识地把放在旁边椅子上他上大学时穿的一件冬大衣拉了过来，大衣是暖和的，不过已经差不多全都破了，他把大衣盖在身上，睡梦立刻袭来，他又说起胡话来了。他昏昏沉沉地睡着了。
没过五分钟，他又一跃而起，立刻发狂似地又扑向自己那件夏季大衣。“我怎么能又睡着了，可是还什么都没做呢！真的，真的：腋下的那个环扣到现在还没拆下来呢！忘了，这样的事都忘了！这样一件罪证！”他把环扣扯下来，赶快把它撕碎，塞到枕头底下那堆内衣里。“撕碎的粗麻布片无论如何也不会引起怀疑；好像是这样，好像是这样！”他站在房屋中间一再重复说，并且集中注意力，又开始细心察看四周，察看地板，到处都仔细看看，看是不是还遗漏了什么东西，由于过分紧张，他感到十分痛苦。他深信自己丧失了一切能力，连记忆，连简单的思考能力都已丧失殆尽，这想法在折磨他，使他无法忍受。“怎么，莫非已经开始了，莫非惩罚已经到来了吗？就是的，就是的，就是如此！”真的，他从裤子上割下来的一条条毛边就这样乱扔在房屋中间的地板上，有人一进来就会看见！“唉，我这是怎么了？”他又高声叫嚷，好像六神无主，不知所措。
这时他脑子里出现了一个奇怪的想法：说不定他的所有衣服上都沾满了血，也许有许多血迹，只不过他没看见，没有发觉，因为他的思考力衰退了，思想不能集中……丧失了理智……他突然想起，钱袋上也有血迹。“哎呀！这么说，口袋里面想必也有血迹了，因为钱袋上的血还没干，我就把它塞进了口袋里！”他立刻把口袋翻过来，——果然不错——口袋的里子上血迹斑斑点点！“可见我还没有完全丧失理智，可见我还有思考力和记忆力，既然我自己忽然想了起来，想到了这一点！”他得意洋洋地想，高兴地深深呼了口气，“只不过是因为发烧，身体虚弱，瞬息间处于谵妄状态，”于是他把左面裤袋上的衬里全都撕了下来。这时阳光照到了他左脚的靴子上：从破靴了里露出的袜子上好像也有血迹。他甩掉靴子：“真的是血迹！袜子尖上全让血浸透了”；大概当时他不小心踩到了那摊血上……“不过现在该怎么办？这只袜子，那些毛边，还有口袋衬里，都藏到哪里去呢？”
他把这些东西归拢到一起，抓在手里，站在房屋中间。
“扔到炉子里吗？可是首先就会搜查炉子。烧掉吗？可是用什么来烧呢？连火柴都没有。不，最好是到什么地方去，把这些东西全都扔掉。“对了！最好扔掉！”他反复说，又坐到长沙发上，“而且马上就去，毫不迟延，立刻就走！……”可是非但没走，他的头却又倒到了枕头上；一阵难以忍受的寒颤又使他一动也不能动了；他又把那件大衣拉到自己身上。好长时间，一连好几个钟头，他好像一直还在隐隐约约、断断续续地想：“对，马上，毫不迟延，随便去哪里，把这些东西全都扔掉，别再看到它们，快，快点儿！”有好几次他试图挣扎着从沙发上起来，可是已经站不起来了。把他彻底惊醒的是一阵猛烈的敲门声。
“喂，开开呀，你还活着没有？他一直在睡！”娜斯塔西娅用拳头敲着门，大声叫喊，“整天整天地睡，像狗一样！就是条狗！开开呀，还是不开呢。都十点多了。”
“也许，不在家！”一个男人的声音说。
“啊！这是管院子的人的声音……他要干什么？”
他一跃而起，坐在沙发上。心跳得厉害，甚至觉得心痛。
“那门钩是谁扣上的？”娜斯塔西娅反驳说，“瞧，锁起来了呢！怎么，怕把他偷走吗？开门，聪明人，醒醒吧！”
“他们要干什么？管院子的干吗要来？一切都清楚了。是拒捕，还是开门？完了……”
他欠起身来，弯腰向前，拿掉门钩。
他这间小屋整个儿就只有这么大，不用从床上起来，就可以拿掉门钩。
果然不错：门口站着管院子的和娜斯塔西娅。
娜斯塔西娅有点儿奇怪地打量了他一下。他带着挑衅和绝望的神情朝管院子的瞅了一眼。管院子的默默地递给他一张用深绿色火漆封住的、对折着的灰纸。
“通知，办公室送来的，”他一面把那张纸递过去，一面说。
“什么办公室？……”
“就是说，叫你去警察局，去办公室。谁都知道，是什么办公室。”
“去警察局！……去干什么？……”
“我怎么知道呢。要你去，你就去。”他仔细看了看他，又往四下里望望，转身走了出去。
“你好像病得很厉害？”娜斯塔西娅目不转睛地瞅着他，说，有一瞬间，管院子的也回过头来。“从昨儿个起你就在发烧，”她加上一句。
他没回答，手里拿着那张纸，没有拆开它。
“那你就别起来了，”娜斯塔西娅可怜起他来，看到他从沙发上把脚伸下来，于是接下去说。“病了，就别去：又不急。
你手里拿的是什么？”
他一看：右手里拿着割下来的几条毛边，一只袜子，还有几块从口袋上撕下来的衬里。他就这样拿着它们睡着了。后来他想了一阵，想起来了，原来他发烧的时候半睡半醒，把这些东西紧紧攥在手里，就这样又睡着了。
“瞧，他弄来了些什么破烂儿，攥着它们睡觉，就好像攥着什么宝贝儿似的……”娜斯塔西娅病态地、神经质地大笑起来。他立刻把这些东西塞到大衣底下，并且拿眼睛死死地盯着她。虽然那时候他不大可能完全有条有理地进行思考，可是他感觉到，如果来逮捕他，是不会像这样对待他的。“可是……警察局？”
“喝茶吗？要，还是不要？我给你拿来；茶还有呢……”
“不要……我要出去：我这就出去，”他站起来，含糊不清地说。
“去吧，恐怕连楼梯都下不去呢？”
“我要出去……”
“随你的便。”
她跟在管院子的人后面走了。他立刻冲到亮处，仔细察看袜子和毛边：“有血迹，不过不十分明显；血迹都弄脏了，有些给蹭掉了，而且已经褪了色。事先不知道的人什么也看不出来。那么娜斯塔西娅从远处什么也不会发现，谢天谢地！”于是他心惊胆战地拆开通知书，看了起来；他看了很久，终于明白了。这是警察分局送来的一张普通通知书，叫他今天九点半到分局局长办公室去。
“什么时候有过这种事？就我本身而言，我和警察局从来不发生任何关系！而且为什么恰好是今天？”他痛苦地困惑不解地思索着。“上帝啊，但愿快点儿吧！”他本想跪下来祈祷，可是连他自己也笑了起来，——不是笑祈祷，而是笑自己。他急忙穿上衣服。“完蛋就完蛋吧，反正一样！把袜子也穿上！”他突然想，“踩在尘土里会弄得更脏，血迹就看不出来了”。但是他刚刚穿上，立刻又怀着厌恶和恐惧的心情猛一下子把它拉了下来。脱下来了，可是想到没有别的袜子，于是拿过来又穿上，—— 而且又大笑起来。“这一切都是有条件的，一切都是相对的，这一切都只不过是形式而已，”他匆匆地想，并没完全意识到自己在想什么，可是他浑身都在发抖， “瞧，这不是穿上了！结果是穿上了！”然而笑立刻变成了悲观绝望。
“不，我受不了……”他不由得想。他的腿在发抖。“由于恐惧，”他含糊不清地自言自语。由于发烧，头又痛又晕。“这是耍花招！这是他们想耍个花招引诱我，突然迫使我中他们的圈套”，他走到楼梯上，还在继续暗自思忖。“糟糕的是，我几乎是在呓语……我可能说漏嘴，说出些蠢话来……”
在楼梯上他想起，所有东西还都藏在墙纸后面的窟窿里，“大概是故意要等他不在家里的时候来这儿搜查，”想起这件事来，他站住了。但是悲观绝望和对死亡的犬儒主义态度——如果可以这样说的话——突然控制了他，因此他挥了挥手，又往前走去。
“不过但愿会快一点儿！……”
街上又热得让人无法忍受；这些天里哪怕能下一滴雨也好哇。又是灰尘，砖头，石灰，又是小铺里和小酒馆里冒出的臭气，又是随时都会碰到的醉鬼，芬兰小贩和几乎快散架的破旧出租马车。太阳明晃晃地照射到他的眼睛上，照得他头昏目眩，——一个正在发烧的人在阳光强烈的日子里突然来到街上，通常都会有这样的感觉。
走到昨天去过的那条街道的转弯处，他怀着痛苦而又十分担心的心情望了望它，望了望那幢房子……立刻就把目光挪开了。
“如果问我，说不定我就会说出来”，他走近办公室时，心里想。
办公室离他住的地方大约有四分之一俄里。办公室刚刚搬进这幢新房子、四楼上的一套新住房里。那套旧房子里，他曾经偶尔去过一下，不过那是很久以前了。走进大门，他看到右边有一道楼梯，有个好像庄稼汉模样的人，手拿户口簿，正从楼梯上下来：“这么说，是个管院子的；这么说，这儿就是办公室了”，他猜想是这样，于是就上楼了。他不想问人，什么也不想问。
“我进去，跪下，把什么都说出来……”走上四层楼时，他这样想。
楼梯又窄又陡，上面尽是污水。四层楼上所有住房的厨房都冲着这道楼梯大敞着门，几乎整天都这么敞着，因此极其闷热。腋下挟着户口簿的管院子的人、警察局里送信的信差、以及有事上警察局来的形形色色的男男女女，有的上来，有的下去。办公室的门也大敞着。他走了进去，在前室里站住了。有些庄稼汉模样的人都站在这儿等着。这里也闷热得让人无法忍受，除此而外，这些新油漆过的房间里，用带臭味的干性油调和的油漆还没完全干透，那股新油漆味直冲鼻子，让人感到恶心，稍等了一会儿，他考虑，还得再往前走，到前面一间屋里去。所有房间都又小又矮。强烈的急不可耐的心情促使他越来越往前走。谁也没注意他。第二间房间里有几个司书正在抄写，他们穿的衣服也许只比他的衣服稍好一点儿，看样子都是些古里古怪的人，他去找其中的一个。
“你有什么事？”
他把办公室送去的通知书拿给他看。
“您是大学生？”那人看了看通知书，问。
“是的，以前是大学生。”
司书把他打量了一下，不过毫无好奇的样子。这是个头发特别蓬乱的人，看他眼里的神情，好像他有个固定不变的想法。
“从这一个这儿什么也打听不出来，因为对他来说，什么全都一样，”拉斯科利尼科夫想。
“往那边去，找办事员去，”司书说，用手指往前指了指最后那间房间。
他走进这间屋子（按顺序是第四间），房间狭小，里面挤满了人，——这些人都比那些房间里的人穿得稍干净些。来访者中有两位女士。一个服丧，穿得差一些，坐在办事员对面，正在听他口授，写着什么。另一位太太很胖，脸色红得发紫，脸上还有些斑点，是个惹人注意的女人，她衣著十分华丽，胸前佩戴着茶碟那么大的一枚胸针，站在一旁等着。拉斯科利尼科夫把自己的通知书递给办事员。他匆匆看了一眼，说：“请等一等，”于是继续给那位穿孝服的太太口授。
他较为畅快地舒了口气。“大概不是那件事！”他精神渐渐振作起来，为不久前自己的那些胡思乱想感到惭愧，竭力鼓起勇气，镇定下来。
“只要说出一句蠢话，只要稍有点儿不小心，我就会出卖自己！嗯哼……可惜这儿空气不流通，”他又补上一句，“闷得慌……头晕得更厉害……神智也……”
他感到心烦意乱，思绪混乱极了。他担心不能控制自己。他竭力想用什么别的事来分散自己的注意力，随便想点儿什么旁的、完全不相干的事，但是他做不到。不过，那个办事员却引起他很大的兴趣：他总想根据办事员脸上的神情猜出什么来，弄清找他有什么事。这是个很年轻的人，二十一、二岁，生着一张黝黑的、机警善变的脸，看上去比他的实际年龄要大一些，衣著入时，像个绔绔子弟，头发在后脑勺上平分开，梳得整整齐齐，厚厚地搽了一层油，那些用刷子刷得干干净净的白皙的手指上戴着好几个戒指，有镶宝石的，也有不镶宝石的，坎肩上挂着金链。他甚至还和来这儿的一个外国人说了两句法语，说得还算过得去。
“露意扎·伊万诺芙娜，您坐下啊，”他对那个衣著华丽、脸色红得发紫的太太说，她一直站着，好像不敢自己坐下，尽管她身旁就有把椅子。
“Ich danke①！”她说，于是轻轻地坐下了，身上的绸衣发出一阵窸窸窣窣的响声。她那件饰有白色花边的浅蓝色连衫裙，像个大气球样在椅子周围扩散开来，几乎占据了半间屋子。闻到了一股香水味。不过那位太太显然感到不好意思了，因为她占了半个房间，身上还散发出一阵阵浓郁的香水味，虽然她羞答答地、同时又涎皮赖脸地微笑着，可是明显地感到局促不安。
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①德语，谢谢。
那位服丧的太太终于办完手续，站了起来。突然，随着一阵橐橐的脚步声，雄赳赳地走进一个军官来，他走路的姿势很特别，不知怎的，每走一步，肩膀就扭动一下，进来后，他把缀有帽徽的制帽往桌子上一扔，随即坐到了扶手椅上。那位胖太太一看到他，立刻从座位上霍地站起身来，脸上带着特别高兴的神情向他行了个屈膝礼；但是军官一点儿也不注意她，她却已经不敢当着他的面再坐下去了。这是分局的副局长，两撇浅红褐色的小胡子平平地伸往左右两边，五官小得出奇，不过除了有点儿傲慢无礼，脸上并没什么特殊表情。他有点儿怒气冲冲地斜着眼睛瞅了瞅拉斯科利尼科夫：他穿的那身衣服实在是太破太脏了，而且尽管他的样子让人瞧不起，他的神情气派却与他的衣著并不相称；拉斯科利尼科夫由于不够谨慎，竟毫不客气地直瞅着那个军官，而且瞅的时间太久了，后者甚至觉得受了侮辱。
“你有什么事？”他大喊一声，这样一个衣衫褴褛的人在他闪电似的目光下竟然不会惊慌失措，这使他感到惊讶。
“你们叫我来的……有通知书……”拉斯科利尼科夫很随便地回答。
“这是件追索欠款的案件，向这个大学生”，办事员放下手头的公文，慌忙说。“这就是的！”他把一本本子丢给拉斯科利尼科夫，把一个地方指给他看，“您看看吧！”
“欠款？什么欠款？”拉斯科利尼科夫想，“不过……看来大概不是那件事！”他由于喜悦而颤栗了。他突然感到心里说不出的轻松，轻松极了。真是如释重负。
“先生，通知是让您几点钟来？”中尉大声叫喊，不知为什么他越来越感到自己受了侮辱，“让您九点来，可现在已经十一点多了！”
“一刻钟前才把通知书交给我，”拉斯科利尼科夫扭过头来，高声回答，他也突然出乎自己意外地大发脾气，甚至对此感到有点儿满意。“而且我有病，发着烧就来了，这还不够吗！”
“请不要大声嚷嚷！”
“我并没大声嚷嚷，而是平心静气地说话，您却对我大喊大叫；可我是个大学生，不允许别人对我高声叫嚷。”
副局长气得暴跳如雷，最初一刹那甚至什么话也说不出来，从他嘴里只是飞出一些唾沫。他从座位上跳了起来。
“请您住——嘴！您是在政府机关里。不要出——出——
言不逊，先生！”
“您也是在政府机关里，”拉斯科利尼科夫高声大喊，“您不但大喊大叫，还在抽烟，可见您不尊重我们大家。”拉斯科利尼科夫说完这些，心里感到说不出来的快乐。
办事员面带微笑瞅着他们两个。性情暴躁的中尉显然无言以对。
“这不关您的事！”最后他高声叫嚷，声音高得有点儿不自然，“现在请提出向您要求的书面答复。让他看看，亚历山大·格里戈里耶维奇。有告您的状子！您不还钱！瞧，好一头雄鹰，好神气啊！”
但拉斯科利尼科夫已经不再听了，急忙一把拿过诉状，赶紧寻找谜底。他看了一遍，又一遍，还是没看懂。
“这是什么？”他问那个办事员。
“这是凭借据向您追索欠款。您必须或者付清全部欠款，连同诉讼费、逾期不还的罚款以及其他费用，或者提出书面答复，说明什么时候可以还清欠款，同时承担义务：在还清债务之前不离开首都，也不得变卖和隐藏自己的财产。债权人却可以变卖您的财产，并依法控告您。”
“可我……没欠任何人的钱啊！”
“这可不关我们的事了。我们收到一张逾期未还而且拒付的、一百十五卢布的借据，要求追索这笔欠款；这张借据是您于九个月前交给八等文官的太太、扎尔尼岑娜寡妇的，后来又从扎尔尼岑娜寡妇手里转让给了七等文官切巴罗夫，我们就是为了这件事请您来作答复的。”
“可她不就是我的女房东吗？”
“是女房东，那又怎么呢？”
办事员面带同情和宽容的微笑看着他，同时又有点儿洋洋得意的样子，仿佛是在看着一个涉世未深，刚刚经受锻炼的雏儿，问：“现在你自我感觉如何？”但是现在什么借据啦，什么追索欠款啦，这些与他有什么相干，关他什么事呢！现在这也值得担心，甚至值得注意吗！他站在那儿，在看，在听，在回答，甚至自己提出问题，但是做这一切都是无意识地。保全自己，获得了胜利，摆脱了千钧一发的危险而得救，——这就是他此时此刻的感受，他以全身心感觉到了这一胜利，既用不到有什么预见，也不必作什么分析，无须对未来进行猜测，也无须寻找什么谜底，不再怀疑什么，再没有任何问题。这是充满欢乐的时刻，这欢乐是直觉的，纯属动物本能的欢乐。但是就在这一瞬间，办公室里发生了一件犹如电闪雷鸣的事情。那个因为有人胆敢不尊敬他而感到震惊的中尉，余怒未消，气得面红耳赤，显然，他想维护自己受到伤害的尊严，竟对那个倒楣的 “胖太太”破口大骂，而她，从他一进来，就面带极其愚蠢的微笑，一直在瞅着他。
“你这个不三不四的下流货！”他突然扯着嗓子大喊大叫（那位穿孝服的太太已经出去了），“昨天夜里你那里出了什么事？啊？又是丢人的丑事，吵吵闹闹，都闹到大街上去了。又是打架，酗酒。想进感化院吗！我不是已经跟你说过，我不是已经警告过你十次了，第十一次我可决不宽恕！可你又，又，