something else in a day or two, Alyona Ivanovna… an item of silver… good quality… a cigarette-case… as soon as I get it back from a friend of mine…’ He grew confused, and fell silent.
‘Right you are then, dearie. We'll talk about it when you come again.’
‘Goodbye, then… I say, do you spend all the time alone here? Isn't your sister around?’ he asked as casually as he could, going out into the hallway.
‘And what would you be wanting with her, dearie?’
‘Oh, nothing in particular. I was simply asking. I mean, just now, you… Goodbye, Alyona Ivanovna!’
Raskolnikov went out feeling decidedly confused. The confusion got worse and worse. As he descended the stairs he even stopped several times, as though he had been struck by some sudden thought. And, at last, when he was out on the street, he exclaimed:
‘Oh God! How loathsome all this is! And could I really, could I really… No, it's nonsensical, it's absurd!’ he added, firmly. ‘Could I really ever have contemplated such a monstrous act? Itshows what filth my heart is capable of, though! Yes, that's what it is: filthy, mean, vile, vile!… And for a whole month I've been…’
But he could find neither words nor exclamations with which to give voice to his disturbed state of mind. The sense of infinite loathing that had begun to crush and sicken his heart even while he had only been on his way to the old woman had now attained such dimensions and become so vividly conscious that he was quite simply overwhelmed by his depression. He moved along the pavement like a drunkard, not noticing the passers-by and knocking into them, and only recovered himself when he reached the next street. Looking round, he observed that he was standing beside a drinking den, the entrance to which lay down from the pavement, at the foot of some steps, in the basement. Just at that moment two drunks emerged from the doorway and began to clamber their way up to street-level, supporting each other and cursing. Without so much as a thought, Raskolnikov went down the steps. Never before had he been a visitor to the drinking dens, but now his head was spinning and, what was more, he was parched by a burning thirst. He wanted some cold beer, all the more so since he attributed his sudden state of debility to the fact that he had nothing in his stomach. In a dark and dirty corner he found himself a seat at a sticky little table, asked for some beer and drank his first glass of it with avid greed. The relief he experienced was total and immediate, and his thoughts brightened up. ‘This is all a lot of nonsense,’ he said to himself with hope. ‘There was no need for me to get into such a flap. It was just physical exhaustion! One glass of beer, a sukhar ’ 6 – and in a single moment the mind gains strength, one's thoughts grow lucid and one's intentions firm! Pah! What trivial rubbish all of this is!…’ But, this contemptuous spit notwithstanding, he already looked cheerful, as if he had suddenly freed himself from some terrible burden, and cast his eyes round at the other people there in a friendly manner. But even as he did so he had a distant sense that all this optimism was also morbid.
At that time there were only a few people left in the drinking den. The two drunk men he had encountered on the steps had been followed out almost immediately by a whole crowd ofabout five, with one tart and a concertina. After their departure the place seemed quiet and empty. There remained one fellow, a tradesman by the look of him, who was intoxicated, but only slightly, sitting with his beer, and his companion, an enormous, fat, grey-bearded man in a Siberian caftan, thoroughly intoxicated, who had fallen asleep on a bench and who every so often, suddenly, as though in his sleep, snapping his fingers and throwing his arms apart, would begin to make the upper part of his body jerk up and down and, without getting up from the bench, croon some nonsense or other, making an
‘Right you are then, dearie. We'll talk about it when you come again.’
‘Goodbye, then… I say, do you spend all the time alone here? Isn't your sister around?’ he asked as casually as he could, going out into the hallway.
‘And what would you be wanting with her, dearie?’
‘Oh, nothing in particular. I was simply asking. I mean, just now, you… Goodbye, Alyona Ivanovna!’
Raskolnikov went out feeling decidedly confused. The confusion got worse and worse. As he descended the stairs he even stopped several times, as though he had been struck by some sudden thought. And, at last, when he was out on the street, he exclaimed:
‘Oh God! How loathsome all this is! And could I really, could I really… No, it's nonsensical, it's absurd!’ he added, firmly. ‘Could I really ever have contemplated such a monstrous act? Itshows what filth my heart is capable of, though! Yes, that's what it is: filthy, mean, vile, vile!… And for a whole month I've been…’
But he could find neither words nor exclamations with which to give voice to his disturbed state of mind. The sense of infinite loathing that had begun to crush and sicken his heart even while he had only been on his way to the old woman had now attained such dimensions and become so vividly conscious that he was quite simply overwhelmed by his depression. He moved along the pavement like a drunkard, not noticing the passers-by and knocking into them, and only recovered himself when he reached the next street. Looking round, he observed that he was standing beside a drinking den, the entrance to which lay down from the pavement, at the foot of some steps, in the basement. Just at that moment two drunks emerged from the doorway and began to clamber their way up to street-level, supporting each other and cursing. Without so much as a thought, Raskolnikov went down the steps. Never before had he been a visitor to the drinking dens, but now his head was spinning and, what was more, he was parched by a burning thirst. He wanted some cold beer, all the more so since he attributed his sudden state of debility to the fact that he had nothing in his stomach. In a dark and dirty corner he found himself a seat at a sticky little table, asked for some beer and drank his first glass of it with avid greed. The relief he experienced was total and immediate, and his thoughts brightened up. ‘This is all a lot of nonsense,’ he said to himself with hope. ‘There was no need for me to get into such a flap. It was just physical exhaustion! One glass of beer, a sukhar ’ 6 – and in a single moment the mind gains strength, one's thoughts grow lucid and one's intentions firm! Pah! What trivial rubbish all of this is!…’ But, this contemptuous spit notwithstanding, he already looked cheerful, as if he had suddenly freed himself from some terrible burden, and cast his eyes round at the other people there in a friendly manner. But even as he did so he had a distant sense that all this optimism was also morbid.
At that time there were only a few people left in the drinking den. The two drunk men he had encountered on the steps had been followed out almost immediately by a whole crowd ofabout five, with one tart and a concertina. After their departure the place seemed quiet and empty. There remained one fellow, a tradesman by the look of him, who was intoxicated, but only slightly, sitting with his beer, and his companion, an enormous, fat, grey-bearded man in a Siberian caftan, thoroughly intoxicated, who had fallen asleep on a bench and who every so often, suddenly, as though in his sleep, snapping his fingers and throwing his arms apart, would begin to make the upper part of his body jerk up and down and, without getting up from the bench, croon some nonsense or other, making an
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