Crime & Punishment
Chapter VII
The door was as before opened a tiny crack, and again two
sharp and suspicious eyes stared at him out of the darkness.
Then Raskolnikov lost his head and nearly made a great
mistake. Fearing the old woman would be frightened by their
being alone, and not hoping that the sight of him would
disarm her suspicions, he took hold of the door and drew it
towards him to prevent the old woman from attempting to
shut it again. Seeing this she did not pull the door back, but
she did not let go the handle so that he almost dragged her
out with it on to the stairs. Seeing that she was standing in
the doorway not allowing him to pass, he advanced straight
upon her. She stepped back in alarm, tried to say something,
but seemed unable to speak and stared with open eyes at
him.
‘Good evening, Alyona Ivanovna,’ he began, trying to
speak easily, but his voice would not obey him, it broke and
shook. ‘I have come … I have brought something … but
we’d better come in … to the light….’
And leaving her, he passed straight into the room uninvited.
The old woman ran after him; her tongue was unloosed.
‘Good heavens! What it is? Who is it? What do you want?’
‘Why, Alyona Ivanovna, you know me … Raskolnikov …
here, I brought you the pledge I promised the other day …’
And he held out the pledge.
The old woman glanced for a moment at the pledge, but at
once stared in the eyes of her uninvited visitor. She looked
intently, maliciously and mistrustfully. A minute passed; he
even fancied something like a sneer in her eyes, as though
she had already guessed everything. He felt that he was
losing his head, that he was almost frightened, so frightened
that if she were to look like that and not say a word for
another half minute, he thought he would have run away
from her.
‘Why do you look at me as though you did not know me?’
he said suddenly, also with malice. ‘Take it if you like, if not
I’ll go elsewhere, I am in a hurry.’
He had not even thought of saying this, but it was suddenly
said of itself. The old woman recovered herself, and her visitor’s
resolute tone evidently restored her confidence.
‘But why, my good sir, all of a minute…. What is it?’ she asked,
looking at the pledge.
‘The silver cigarette case; I spoke of it last time, you know.’
She held out her hand.
‘But how pale you are, to be sure … and your hands are
trembling too? Have you been bathing, or what?’
‘Fever,’ he answered abruptly. ‘You can’t help getting pale
… if you’ve nothing to eat,’ he added, with difficulty
articulating the words.
His strength was failing him again. But his answer
sounded like the truth; the old woman took the pledge.
‘What is it?’ she asked once more, scanning Raskolnikov
intently, and weighing the pledge in her hand.
‘A thing … cigarette case…. Silver…. Look at it.’
‘It does not seem somehow like silver…. How he has
wrapped it up!’
Trying to untie the string and turning to the window,
to the light (all her windows were shut, in spite of the
stifling heat), she left him altogether for some seconds and
stood with her back to him. He unbuttoned his coat and
freed the axe from the noose, but did not yet take it out
altogether, simply holding it in his right hand under the coat.
His hands were fearfully weak, he felt them every moment
growing more numb and more wooden. He was afraid he
would let the axe slip and fall…. A sudden giddiness came
over him.
‘But what has he tied it up like this for?’ the old woman
cried with vexation and moved towards him.
He had not a minute more to lose. He pulled the axe
quite out, swung it with both arms, scarcely conscious of
himself, and almost without effort, almost mechanically,
brought the blunt side down on her head. He seemed not
to use his own strength in this. But as soon as he had once
brought the axe down, his strength returned to him.
The old woman was as always bareheaded. Her thin, light
hair, streaked with grey, thickly smeared with grease, was
plaited in a rat’s tail and fastened by a broken horn comb
which stood out on the nape of her neck. As she was so short,
the blow fell on the very top of her skull. She cried out, but
very faintly, and suddenly sank all of a heap on the floor,
raising her hands to her head. In one hand she still held ‘the
pledge.’ Then he dealt her another and another blow with
the blunt side and on the same spot. The blood gushed as
from an overturned glass, the body fell back. He stepped
back, let it fall, and at once bent over her face; she was dead.
Her eyes seemed to be starting out of their sockets, the brow
and the whole face were drawn and contorted convulsively...
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