“But you say she's ugly?” the officer remarked.
“Well, yes, she's dark-skinned, looks like a soldier in disguise, but, you know, she's not ugly at all. She has such a kind face and eyes. Very much so. A lot of men like her—there's the proof. She's so quiet, meek, uncomplaining, agreeable—she agrees to everything. And she does have a very nice smile.”
“Ah, so you like her, too!” the officer laughed.
“For the strangeness of it. No, but I'll tell you one thing: I could kill and rob that cursed old woman, and that, I assure you, without any remorse,” the student added hotly.
The officer guffawed again, and Raskolnikov gave a start. How strange it was!
“Excuse me, I want to ask you a serious question,” the student began ardently. “I was joking just now, but look: on the one hand you have a stupid, meaningless, worthless, wicked, sick old crone, no good to anyone and, on the contrary, harmful to everyone, who doesn't know herself why she's alive, and who will die on her own tomorrow. Understand? Understand?'
“So, I understand,” the officer replied, looking fixedly at his ardent friend.
“Listen, now. On the other hand, you have fresh, young faces that are being wasted for lack of support, and that by the thousands, and that everywhere! A hundred, a thousand good deeds and undertakings that could be arranged and set going by the money that old woman has doomed to the monastery! Hundreds, maybe thousands of lives put right; dozens of families saved from destitution, from decay, from ruin, from depravity, from the venereal hospitals—all on her money. Kill her and take her money, so that afterwards with its help you can devote yourself to the service of all mankind and the common cause: what do you think, wouldn't thousands of good deeds make up for one tiny little crime? For one life, thousands of lives saved from decay and corruption. One death for hundreds of lives—it's simple arithmetic! And what does the life of this stupid, consumptive, and wicked old crone mean in the general balance? No more than the life of a louse, a cockroach, and not even that much, because the old crone is harmful. She's eating up someone else's life: the other day she got so angry that she bit Lizaveta's finger; they almost had to cut it off!”
“Of course, she doesn't deserve to be alive,” the officer remarked, “but that's nature.”
“Eh, brother, but nature has to be corrected and guided, otherwise we'd all drown in prejudices. Without that there wouldn't be even a single great man. 'Duty, conscience,' they say—I'm not going to speak against duty and conscience, but how do we really understand them? Wait, I'll ask you one more question. Listen!”
“No, you wait. I'll ask you a question. Listen!”
“Well?”
“You're talking and making speeches now, but tell me: would you yourself kill the old woman, or not?”
“Of course not! It's for the sake of justice that I... I'm not the point here . . .”
“Well, in my opinion, if you yourself don't dare, then there's no justice in it at all! Let's shoot another round!”
Raskolnikov was greatly agitated. Of course, it was all the most common and ordinary youthful talk and thinking, he had heard it many times before, only in different forms and on different subjects. But why precisely now did he have to hear precisely such talk and thinking, when...exactly the same thoughts had just been conceived in his own head? And why precisely now, as he was coming from the old woman's bearing the germ of his thought, should he chance upon a conversation about the same old woman?...This coincidence always seemed strange to him. This negligible tavern conversation had an extreme influence on him in the further development of the affair; as though there were indeed some predestination, some indication in it . . .
Having returned from the Haymarket, he threw himself on the sofa and sat there for a whole hour without moving. Meanwhile it grew dark; he had no candle, and besides it did not occur to him to make a light. He was never able to recall whether he thought about anything during that time. In the end he became aware that he was still feverish, chilled, and realized with delight that it was also possible to lie down on the sofa. Soon a deep, leaden sleep, like a heavy weight, came over him.
He slept unusually long and without dreaming. Nastasya, who came into his room at ten o'clock the next morning, had difficulty shaking him out of it. She brought him tea and bread. It was re-used tea again, and again in her own teapot.
“Look at him sleeping there!” she cried indignantly. “All he does is sleep!”
He raised himself with an effort. His head ached; he got to his feet, took a turn around his closet, and dropped back on the sofa.
“hailing asleep again!” Nastasya cried. “Are you sick, or what?”
He made no reply.
“Want some tea?”
“Later,” he said with an effort, closing his eyes again and turning to the wall. Nastasya stood over him for a while.
“Maybe he really is sick,” she said, turned, and went out.
She came in again at two o'clock with soup. He lay as before. The tea remained untouched. Nastasya even got offended and began shaking him angrily.
“You're still snoring away!” she cried, looking at him with disgust. He raised himself slightly and sat up, but said nothing and stared at the ground.
“Are you sick or aren't you?” Nastasya asked, and again got no reply.
“You'd better go out at least,” she said, after a pause, “you'd at least have some wind blowing on you. Are you going to eat, or what?”
“Later,” he uttered faintly. “Go!” And he waved his hand.
She stood there a while longer, looking at him with compassion, and went out.
After a few minutes he raised his eyes and stared for a long time at the tea and soup. Then he took the bread, took the spoon, and began to eat.
He ate a little, three or four spoonfuls, without appetite, as if mechanically. His head ached less. Having finished his dinner, he stretched out on the sofa again, but could not sleep now: he lay motionless, on his stomach, his face buried in the pillow. He kept daydreaming, and his dreams were all quite strange: most often he imagined he was somewhere in Africa, in Egypt, in some oasis. The caravan is resting, the camels are peacefully lying down; palm trees stand in a full circle around; everyone is having dinner. And he keeps drinking water right from the stream, which is there just beside him, flowing and bubbling. And the air is so fresh, and the wonderful, wonderful water is so blue, cold, running over the many-colored stones and over such clean sand sparkling with gold...All at once he clearly heard the clock strike. He gave a start, came to, raised his head, looked at the window, realized what time it was, and suddenly jumped up, pulling himself together, as if someone had torn him from the sofa. He tiptoed to the door, quietly opened it a little, and began listening down the stairs. His heart was pounding terribly. It was all quiet on the stairs, as if everyone were asleep...It seemed wild and strange to him that he could have slept so obliviously since the day before and still have done nothing, prepared nothing...And meanwhile it might just have struck six o'clock...In place of sleep and torpor, an extraordinary, feverish, and somehow confused bustle came over him. The preparations, incidentally, were not many. He strained all his energies to figure everything out and not forget anything, and his heart kept beating, pounding, so that it was even hard for him to breathe. First he had to make a loop and sew it into his coat—a moment's work. He felt beneath his pillow and found one of his shirts among the linen stuffed under it, old, unwashed, completely fallen to pieces. From its tatters he tore a strip about two inches wide and fifteen inches long. He folded the strip in two, took off his sturdy, loose-fitting summer coat, made from some heavy cotton material (the only outer garment he owned), and began sewing the two ends inside it, under the left armhole. His hands trembled as he sewed, but he managed it so that nothing could be seen when he put the coat on again. The needle and thread had been made ready long ago and lay in the table drawer wrapped in a piece of paper. As for the loop itself, this was a very clever invention of his own: the loop was to hold the axe. He could not go through the streets carrying an axe in his hands. And if he were to hide it under his coat, he would still have to keep it in place with his hand, which would be noticeable. But now, with the loop, he had only to slip the axe-head into it, and the axe would hang quietly under his arm all the way. And with his hand in the side pocket of his coat, he could also hold the end of the axe handle to keep it from swinging; and since the coat was very loose, a real bag, it could not be noticed from the outside that he was holding something through the pocket with his hand. This loop he had also thought up two weeks ago.