Fyodor Dostoevsky: Crime and Punishment

PART II 6. CHAPTER VI (continued)

"She's drunk herself out of her senses," the same woman's voice wailed at her side. "Out of her senses. The other day she tried to hang herself, we cut her down. I ran out to the shop just now, left my little girl to look after her--and here she's in trouble again! A neighbour, gentleman, a neighbour, we live close by, the second house from the end, see yonder. . . ."

The crowd broke up. The police still remained round the woman, someone mentioned the police station. . . . Raskolnikov looked on with a strange sensation of indifference and apathy. He felt disgusted. "No, that's loathsome . . . water . . . it's not good enough," he muttered to himself. "Nothing will come of it," he added, "no use to wait. What about the police office . . . ? And why isn't Zametov at the police office? The police office is open till ten o'clock. . . ." He turned his back to the railing and looked about him.

"Very well then!" he said resolutely; he moved from the bridge and walked in the direction of the police office. His heart felt hollow and empty. He did not want to think. Even his depression had passed, there was not a trace now of the energy with which he had set out "to make an end of it all." Complete apathy had succeeded to it.

"Well, it's a way out of it," he thought, walking slowly and listlessly along the canal bank. "Anyway I'll make an end, for I want to. . . . But is it a way out? What does it matter! There'll be the square yard of space--ha! But what an end! Is it really the end? Shall I tell them or not? Ah . . . damn! How tired I am! If I could find somewhere to sit or lie down soon! What I am most ashamed of is its being so stupid. But I don't care about that either! What idiotic ideas come into one's head."