PART I
1. CHAPTER I
(continued)
"If I am so scared now, what would it be if it somehow came to pass
that I were really going to do it?" he could not help asking himself
as he reached the fourth storey. There his progress was barred by some
porters who were engaged in moving furniture out of a flat. He knew
that the flat had been occupied by a German clerk in the civil
service, and his family. This German was moving out then, and so the
fourth floor on this staircase would be untenanted except by the old
woman. "That's a good thing anyway," he thought to himself, as he rang
the bell of the old woman's flat. The bell gave a faint tinkle as
though it were made of tin and not of copper. The little flats in such
houses always have bells that ring like that. He had forgotten the
note of that bell, and now its peculiar tinkle seemed to remind him of
something and to bring it clearly before him. . . . He started, his
nerves were terribly overstrained by now. In a little while, the door
was opened a tiny crack: the old woman eyed her visitor with evident
distrust through the crack, and nothing could be seen but her little
eyes, glittering in the darkness. But, seeing a number of people on
the landing, she grew bolder, and opened the door wide. The young man
stepped into the dark entry, which was partitioned off from the tiny
kitchen. The old woman stood facing him in silence and looking
inquiringly at him. She was a diminutive, withered up old woman of
sixty, with sharp malignant eyes and a sharp little nose. Her
colourless, somewhat grizzled hair was thickly smeared with oil, and
she wore no kerchief over it. Round her thin long neck, which looked
like a hen's leg, was knotted some sort of flannel rag, and, in spite
of the heat, there hung flapping on her shoulders, a mangy fur cape,
yellow with age. The old woman coughed and groaned at every instant.
The young man must have looked at her with a rather peculiar
expression, for a gleam of mistrust came into her eyes again.
"Raskolnikov, a student, I came here a month ago," the young man made
haste to mutter, with a half bow, remembering that he ought to be more
polite.
"I remember, my good sir, I remember quite well your coming here," the
old woman said distinctly, still keeping her inquiring eyes on his
face.
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