Fyodor Dostoevsky: Crime and Punishment

PART II 2. CHAPTER II (continued)

Raskolnikov sank worn out on the sofa, but could not close his eyes. He lay for half an hour in such anguish, such an intolerable sensation of infinite terror as he had never experienced before. Suddenly a bright light flashed into his room. Nastasya came in with a candle and a plate of soup. Looking at him carefully and ascertaining that he was not asleep, she set the candle on the table and began to lay out what she had brought--bread, salt, a plate, a spoon.

"You've eaten nothing since yesterday, I warrant. You've been trudging about all day, and you're shaking with fever."

"Nastasya . . . what were they beating the landlady for?"

She looked intently at him.

"Who beat the landlady?"

"Just now . . . half an hour ago, Ilya Petrovitch, the assistant superintendent, on the stairs. . . . Why was he ill-treating her like that, and . . . why was he here?"

Nastasya scrutinised him, silent and frowning, and her scrutiny lasted a long time. He felt uneasy, even frightened at her searching eyes.

"Nastasya, why don't you speak?" he said timidly at last in a weak voice.

"It's the blood," she answered at last softly, as though speaking to herself.

"Blood? What blood?" he muttered, growing white and turning towards the wall.

Nastasya still looked at him without speaking.

"Nobody has been beating the landlady," she declared at last in a firm, resolute voice.

He gazed at her, hardly able to breathe.

"I heard it myself. . . . I was not asleep . . . I was sitting up," he said still more timidly. "I listened a long while. The assistant superintendent came. . . . Everyone ran out on to the stairs from all the flats."