Most Interesting Stories of All Nations Part 13

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

"How true it is that persons being led to execution interest themselves in anything that strikes them on the way!" was the thought that came into his head; but it pa.s.sed away like lightning to be succeeded by some other. "Here we are--there is the gate."

It struck half-past seven as he stood near the house.

To his delight, he pa.s.sed in without observation. As if on purpose, at the very same moment a load of hay was going in, and it completely screened him. On the other side of the load, a dispute or brawl was evidently taking place, and he gained the old woman's staircase in a second. Recovering his breath and pressing his hand to his beating heart, he commenced the ascent, though first feeling for the hatchet and arranging it. Every minute he stopped to listen. The stairs were quite deserted, and every door was closed.

No one met him. On the second floor, indeed, the door of an empty lodging was wide open; some painters were working there, but they did not look up. He stopped a moment to think, and then continued the ascent: "No doubt it would be better if they were not there, but fortunately there are two more floors above them." At last he reached the fourth floor, and Alena Ivanovna's door; the lodging facing it was unoccupied. The lodging on the third floor, just beneath the old woman's, was also apparently empty. The card that used to be on the door had gone; the lodgers had, no doubt, moved.

Raskolnikoff was stifling. He stood hesitating a moment: "Had I not better go away?" But without answering the question, he waited and listened. Not a sound issued from the old woman's apartments.

The staircase was filled with the same silence. After listening for a long time, the young man cast a last glance around, and again felt his hatchet. "Do I not look too pale?" thought he. "Do I not appear too agitated? She is mistrustful. I should do well to wait a little, to give my emotion time to calm down."

But instead of becoming quieter, his heart throbbed more violently.

He could stand it no longer, and, raising his hand toward the bell rope, he pulled it toward him. After waiting half a minute, he rang again--this time a little louder. No answer. To ring like a deaf man would have been useless, stupid even. The old woman was certainly at home; but, suspicious by nature, she was likely to be so all the more then, as she happened to be alone. Raskolnikoff knew something of Alena Ivanovna's habits. He therefore placed his ear to the door. Had the circ.u.mstances amid which he was placed strangely developed his power of hearing, which, in general, is difficult to admit, or was the sound really easily perceptible?

Anyhow, he suddenly became aware that a hand was being cautiously placed on the lock, and that a dress rustled against the door.

Some one inside was going through exactly the same movements as he on the landing. Some one, standing up against the lock, was listening while trying to hide her presence, and had probably her ear also against the door.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The tone seemed to quiet her suspicions.

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

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

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

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

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

"Cigarette case, silver, look at it."

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

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

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

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

The murderer laid his hatchet down and at once began to search the corpse, taking the greatest precaution not to get stained with the blood; he remembered seeing Alena Ivanovna, on the occasion of his last visit, take her keys from the right-hand pocket of her dress.

He was in full possession of his intellect; he felt neither giddy nor dazed, but his hands continued to shake. Later on, he recollected that he had been very prudent, very attentive, that he had taken every care not to soil himself. It did not take him long to find the keys; the same as the other day, they were all together on a steel ring. Having secured. them, Raskolnikoff at once pa.s.sed into the bedroom. It was a very small apartment; on one side was a large gla.s.s 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 bra.s.s. 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, h.o.a.rded 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 tr.i.m.m.i.n.g. "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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sumed 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 rea.s.sured 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 circ.u.mstances 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."