Part 2 · Chapter 1

He lay there for what felt like forever. Every so often, he’s like, "Whoa, it’s way late," but totally didn't feel like getting up. Then, he noticed it was starting to get light. He was on his back, still groggy from whatever had just happened.

Fearful, desperate cries were echoing from the street - sounds he heard every night, like clockwork, after two a.m. They jolted him awake now.

"Ugh, the drunk guys are stumbling out of the bars," he thought.

"It’s past two o’clock."

And he instantly shot up, like someone had yanked him off the couch.

"Seriously? Past two?"

He plopped down on the couch - and suddenly, it all came flooding back! Everything hit him at once, like a flash.

For a second, he thought he was losing it. A serious chill ran through him, but it was just from the fever that had been brewing in his sleep. Now, he was suddenly shaking uncontrollably, his teeth chattering, and his whole body trembling.

He opened the door and listened - the whole house was dead silent. He stared at himself, then around the room, totally bewildered, wondering how he’d even gotten in the night before without locking the door, and just flopped onto the couch without even taking off his clothes, or his hat.

It had fallen off and was lying on the floor near his pillow.

"If anyone had walked in, what would they have thought? That I’m wasted, but..."

He bolted to the window. There was enough light to see, and he frantically checked himself from head to toe, all his clothes - were there any clues? But there was no way to do it like that; shivering with cold, he started stripping off everything and checking again.

He turned everything inside out, every thread and scrap, and, not trusting himself, went over the search three times.

But it looked like there was nothing, no trace, except in one spot, where some thick drops of dried blood were clinging to the frayed edge of his pants. He grabbed a big pocketknife and cut off the frayed threads. It seemed like that was it.

Then, bam! He remembered the purse and the stuff he’s taken out of the old woman’s box were still in his pockets! He hadn’t even thought about taking them out and hiding them! He hadn't even thought about them while he was checking his clothes! What next?

He instantly grabbed them and tossed them on the table. When he pulled everything out and turned the pocket inside out to make absolutely sure nothing was left, he carried the whole pile to the corner. The wallpaper had peeled off the bottom of the wall and was hanging in strips.

He started shoving everything into the hole behind the paper: "They’re in! All hidden, and the purse too!" he thought excitedly, getting up and staring blankly at the bulge where the hole stuck out more than ever.

Suddenly, he shuddered with horror; "Oh my God!" he whispered in despair: "What’s wrong with me? Is that how you hide things?"

He hadn’t planned on having jewelry to hide. He’s only been thinking about the money, so he hadn’t even prepared a hiding spot.

"But now, now, what am I relieved about?" he thought.

"Is that hiding things? My brain is totally ditching me - seriously!"

He collapsed onto the couch, completely drained, and was immediately hit by another awful wave of shivering.

He mechanically grabbed his old student’s winter coat from a chair beside him - it was still warm, even though it was practically falling apart - and wrapped himself up in it, sinking back into drowsiness and delirium. He passed out.

Not even five minutes later, he jumped up again and went straight for his clothes, frantic.

"How could I go to sleep again with this stuff still out? Yes, yes; I forgot to take the loop off the armhole! I totally spaced on it, forgot something like that! That’s a huge clue!"

He yanked off the noose, chopped it into pieces, and tossed the bits under his pillow with his laundry.

"Torn-up fabric won’t raise any suspicions, not even a little bit," he muttered, pacing around the room.

He kept repeating it, trying to focus, scanning the floor and everywhere else, making absolutely sure he hadn’t forgotten anything. The feeling that his brain, even his memory and the simplest way of thinking, was failing him was seriously stressing him out.

"Seriously? Is this happening already? Is this my punishment? It is!"

The ripped pieces of his pants were just lying there on the floor, right in the middle of the room, where anyone walking in would totally see them!

"What is wrong with me?!" he cried, sounding totally freaked out.

Then a weird thought popped into his head: what if all his clothes were covered in blood? What if there were tons of stains, but he just couldn’t see them because his senses were going? His mind was totally clouded... Suddenly, he remembered there’s been blood on the purse too.

"Oh no! Then there must be blood on the pocket too, because I shoved the wet purse in my pocket!"

In a flash, he turned the pocket inside out, and yep - there were traces, stains on the lining!

"Okay, so my brain hasn’t completely bailed on me. I still have some sense and memory, since I figured that out myself," he thought, letting out a huge sigh of relief.

"It’s just the fever making me weak, a total brain-fog moment."

He ripped out the entire lining of the pocket. At that moment, sunlight hit his left boot; he thought he saw traces on the sock sticking out. He kicked off his boots; "Seriously! The tip of the sock was soaked with blood! He must’ve accidentally stepped in a pool of it...

"But what am I supposed to do with this now? Where do I hide the sock and rags and pocket?"

He gathered everything in his hands and stood in the middle of the room.

"Toss it in the stove? But they’d search the stove first. Burn it? But what can I burn it with? No matches even. Nope, better go outside and ditch it somewhere. Yeah, better throw it away," he repeated, plopping down on the couch, "and right now, this second, no messing around..."

But his head just sank onto the pillow instead. That awful, icy shivers came back, and he pulled his coat tighter around him.

For a long time, for hours, he was obsessed with the idea of "getting out of here right now, and throwing it all away, so it's out of sight and done with, ASAP!" Several times he tried to get up from the couch, but he couldn’t.

Finally, a loud banging at his door jolted him awake.

"Open up, seriously! Are you even alive? He’s been sleeping here!" Nastasya shouted, pounding on the door. "He’s been snoring here for whole days like a dog! A total dog. Open, I tell you. It’s past ten."

"Maybe he’s not home," a man’s voice said.

"Ha! That’s the porter. What does he want?"

He jumped up and sat on the couch. His heart was pounding so hard it hurt.

"So, who locked the door?" Nastasya retorted.

"He’s started bolting himself in! Like he’s worth stealing! Open, you idiot, wake up!"

"What do they want? Why the porter? Everything’s busted. Resist or open? Bring it on!"

He half-stood up, bent forward, and unlatched the door.

His room was so tiny he could undo the latch without even leaving the bed. Yep; the porter and Nastasya were standing there.

Nastasya stared at him in a weird way. He glanced back at the porter, who without a word handed him a folded grey paper sealed with wax.

"A notice from the office," he announced, giving him the paper.

"From what office?" he asked quickly.

"A summons to the police station, of course. You know which one."

"To the police?... What for?..."

"How am I supposed to know? You’re being called in, so you gotta go."

The man looked at him closely, scanned the room, and turned to leave.

"He’s seriously sick!" Nastasya said, not taking her eyes off him.

The porter glanced back for a second.

"He’s been running a fever since yesterday," she added.

Raskolnikov didn’t respond and held the paper in his hands, unopened. "Don’t get up," Nastasya continued, her voice full of concern, seeing him lower his feet from the couch.

"You’re sick, so stay put; there’s no huge rush. What’s that you’ve got there?"

He looked down. In his right hand, he held the scraps he’d torn from his pants, the sock, and the rags from the pocket. So he’d been asleep with them in his hand. Later, he remembered waking up in a feverish daze, clutching them tightly, and drifting back to sleep.

"Look at the rags he’s collected and is sleeping with, like he’s found a treasure..." And Nastasya burst into a hysterical giggle. Instantly, he shoved them all under his coat and stared at her intently.

Even though he wasn’t in the right headspace to think clearly, he felt like nobody would act like that with someone about to be arrested.

"But... the police?"

"You should have some tea! There’s some left. I’ll get it."

"No... I’m going; I’m leaving now," he mumbled, getting to his feet.

"You’ll never make it downstairs!"

"Yes, I’m going." he said.

"Suit yourself."

She followed the porter out. Immediately, he rushed to the light to examine the sock and the rags.

"There are stains, but not very noticeable; all covered in dirt and rubbed and already faded. Nobody suspicious could spot anything. Nastasya wouldn’t have noticed from a distance, thank God!"

Then, with a tremor, he broke the seal of the notice and started reading; he took a long time to understand. It was an ordinary summons from the local police to appear that day at half-past nine at the district superintendent’s office.

"But when has this ever happened? I never have anything to do with the police! And why today?" he thought, totally freaking out.

"Good Lord, just get it over with!"

He started to kneel to pray, but then he burst out laughing - not at the idea of praying, but at himself. He began, hastily dressing.

"If I’m lost, I’m lost, I don’t care! Should I wear the sock?" he wondered, "it’s just going to get dustier and the marks will disappear."

But as soon as he put it on, he ripped it off in disgust and horror. He took it off, but then realized he didn’t have any other socks, so he picked it up and put it on again - and again he laughed.

"That’s all just a bunch of nonsense, it’s all relative, just a way of looking at it," he thought, only skimming the surface of his thoughts, while his body was shaking, "there, I’ve got it on! I’ve finally gotten it on!"

But his laughter quickly turned to despair.

"No, this is too much..." he thought.

His legs were shaking.

"From fear," he muttered.

His head was spinning and aching with fever.

"It’s a trick! They want to lure me there and mess with me about everything," he mused, as he went out onto the stairs - "the worst part is I’m almost light-headed... I might blurt something stupid out..."

On the stairs, he remembered leaving everything just as it was in the hole in the wall, "and they’re probably going to search when I’m out," he thought, and stopped. But he was so consumed by despair, so cynical about his misery, if you could call it that, that with a wave of his hand, he went on.

"Just get it over with!"

The heat on the street was brutal again; it hadn't rained in days. Dust, bricks, and mortar - the usual smell from the shops and bars hit him hard. Drunk guys, Finnish vendors, and beat-up cabs everywhere.

The sun was blinding, making his eyes ache, and he felt dizzy - like you do when you're sick and stumble out into the sunshine.

When he reached the corner, a wave of anxiety washed over him. He looked down the street... at the house... and quickly looked away.

"If they ask me, maybe I’ll just tell them," he thought as he walked towards the police station.

The station was about a quarter mile away. They'd recently moved it to new offices on the fourth floor of a new building. He's been in the old office once, a long time ago. Turning into the courtyard, he saw a staircase on the right, and a worker was climbing it with a book in his hand.

"Probably a porter; so the office must be up there," and he started climbing, hoping for the best.

He didn't want to bother anyone.

"I’ll just go in, get on my knees, and confess everything..." he thought as he reached the fourth floor.

The staircase was steep, narrow, and slick with dirty water. Kitchens from the apartments opened onto the stairs and stayed open almost all day. It smelled awful and was super hot. The staircase was crowded with porters lugging books, cops, and all sorts of people, both men and women.

The office door was wide open, too. Peasants were waiting inside. The heat was suffocating, and there was a gross smell of fresh paint and old oil from the renovations.

After waiting a bit, he decided to move into the next room. All the rooms were small and low. A feeling of panic pushed him forward. Nobody seemed to notice him. In the second room, some clerks were writing, dressed about as rough as he was, and they looked like a pretty weird bunch.

He went up to one of them.

"Hey, What’s up?" he asked.

He showed him the notice he’s received.

"You’re a student?" the man asked, glancing at the notice.

"Yeah, used to be a student."

The clerk looked at him, but without a shred of interest. He was a seriously unkempt guy with a weird, fixed look in his eyes.

"There’s no way he’s gonna tell us anything, he’s not interested in anything," thought Raskolnikov.

"Go in there to the head clerk," said the clerk, pointing to the room furthest away.

He went into that room - the fourth one; it was small and packed with people, dressed a bit better than in the outer rooms. There were two women there. One, dressed in mourning and looking really sad, was sitting opposite the head clerk, writing something as he dictated.

The other, a really stout, curvy woman with a blotchy, reddish face, dressed in a flashy outfit with a brooch the size of a saucer on her chest, was standing on the side, apparently waiting for something. Raskolnikov handed the notice to the head clerk.

The head clerk glanced at it, said, "Hold on a sec," and went back to helping the woman in mourning.

He breathed a little easier.

"It can’t be!" he thought.

Slowly, he started to feel a little better, urging himself to be brave and stay calm.

"Some stupid mistake, some little slip-up, and I’ll blow it! Ugh... it’s so stuffy here," he added, "it’s suffocating... It’s making my head spin even more... and my mind too..."

He was aware of a huge struggle going on inside him. He was afraid of losing control; he tried to grab onto something, fix his mind on it - something totally random - but he couldn’t do it. Still, the head clerk really fascinated him, he kept hoping to see something in his face and figure him out.

He was a seriously young guy, like twenty-two, with a dark, expressive face that looked older than he was.

He was dressed sharp, a little flashy, with his hair perfectly parted down the middle, slicked back with product, and rocking a bunch of rings on his clean hands and a gold chain around his vest. He tossed out a couple of French phrases to a foreigner in the room, and got them pretty much right.

"Luise Ivanovna, you can sit down," he said casually to the brightly dressed lady, who had a flushed face and was still standing like she was afraid to take a seat, even though there was a chair right next to her.

"Danke," she said, and with a soft rustle of silk, she sank into the chair.

Her light blue dress trimmed with white lace flowed around the table like a balloon and practically filled half the room. She smelled strongly of perfume.

But she was clearly embarrassed by taking up so much space and smelling so much; and even though her smile was sassy and a little fake, it showed she was really nervous.

The lady in mourning had finally finished and gotten up. Suddenly, an officer swaggered in, moving with a confident swagger. He tossed his feathered hat onto the table and plopped down in a comfy armchair.

The tiny lady practically skipped from her seat when she saw him and started curtsying like she was in a dream, but the officer didn't even notice her, and she didn’t dare sit down again while he was around. He was the assistant superintendent.

He had a bright red mustache that stuck out horizontally on either side of his face, and really small features that didn’t show much except for a certain attitude.

He gave Raskolnikov a look, kind of annoyed; his clothes were so bad, and even though he was in a tough spot, he wasn’t dressing the part. Raskolnikov had accidentally held his gaze for too long, so the officer felt totally disrespected.

"What do you want?" he shouted, like he was shocked that someone so ragged wasn’t just wiped out by his stare.

"I was summoned... by a notice..." Raskolnikov mumbled.

"For the recovery of money owed by the student," the head clerk jumped in quickly, pulling himself away from his papers.

"Here!" and he shoved a document at Raskolnikov and pointed to the spot.

"Read that!" the man said.

"Money? What money?" thought Raskolnikov, "but... then... it definitely can’t be that."

And he trembled with relief. He felt a sudden, intense, indescribable feeling of lightness. A weight lifted off his shoulders.

"And pray, what time were you told to appear, sir?" shouted the assistant superintendent, seeming to get more and more upset for some reason. "You were told to come at nine, and now it’s noon!"

"The notice was just brought to me a quarter of an hour ago," Raskolnikov answered loudly over his shoulder.

To his own surprise, he suddenly felt angry and kind of enjoyed it.

"And it’s bad enough that I came here feeling sick with a fever."

"Kindly don’t shout!" said the man.

"I’m not shouting, I’m just talking normally, it’s you who’s shouting. I’m a student, and nobody shouts at me."

The assistant superintendent was so furious that for a minute, he could only sputter incoherently. He jumped up from his chair.

"Be quiet! You’re in a government office. Don’t be rude, sir!"

"You’re in a government office too," cried Raskolnikov, "and you’re smoking a cigarette as well as shouting, so you’re showing disrespect to everyone."

He felt a rush of satisfaction at having said this.

The head clerk looked at him with a smile. The angry assistant superintendent looked totally thrown off.

"That’s none of your business!" he shouted at last, his voice unnaturally loud. "Kindly make the declaration required of you. Show him. Alexandr Grigorievitch. There’s a complaint against you! You don’t pay your debts! You’re a joke!"

But Raskolnikov wasn’t listening. He’s grabbed the paper, totally rushing to figure out what was going on. He read it once, then again, and still didn’t get it.

"What’s this?" he asked the head clerk.

"It’s a bill for money you owe, a legal notice. You have to either pay it, with all the fees and stuff, or give a written promise when you will pay, and agree not to leave the city or sell off your stuff. The person you owe money to can sell your stuff and take legal action against you."

"But... I don’t owe anyone anything!"

"That’s not our problem. Look, we’re here because a bill for a hundred and fifteen rubles - legally signed - needs to be collected. You gave it to the widow of the assessor Zarnitsyn nine months ago, and she passed it on to Mr. Tchebarov. So, we’re officially summoning you."

"But she’s my landlady!"

"So what if she’s your landlady?"

The head clerk looked at him with a condescending, pitying smile, but also with a little bit of smugness - like he was watching a newbie get hit with a curveball for the first time - as if to say, "How are you feeling now? But he didn't even care about the bill, the legal notice!

Was that worth worrying about? Was it even worth his attention? He just stood there, reading, listening, answering, even asking questions himself, but it was all automatic. A total rush of security, of being saved from something really scary, filled his entire soul.

He wasn’t thinking about the future, analyzing anything, guessing, doubting, or questioning. It was an instant of pure, direct, instinctive joy. But right then, a total chaos broke out in the office.

The assistant superintendent, still mad about Raskolnikov’s disrespect, still fuming and desperate to save face, zeroed in on the unfortunate, stylish lady who had been staring at him with a goofy smile since he walked in.

"You scandalous woman!" he shouted suddenly, his voice booming.

(The lady in mourning had already left.)

"What was going on at your place last night? Seriously! A disgrace to the whole street. Fighting and drinking again. Do you want to go to jail? I’ve warned you ten times that I wouldn’t let you off the eleventh! And here you are again, again, you... you...!"

The paper fell out of Raskolnikov’s hands, and he stared wild-eyed at the stylish lady who was getting roasted like that. But he quickly realized what was happening, and started to find the whole thing hilarious.

He listened with such pleasure he felt like he wanted to burst out laughing... his nerves were totally buzzing.

"Ilya Petrovitch!" the head clerk started, sounding worried, but stopped short.

He knew from experience that you couldn't stop the enraged assistant unless you used force. As for the stylish lady, at first she was totally shaking from the blow.

But, strangely enough, the more insults she got, the friendlier she looked, and the more seductive her smiles became for the terrible assistant. She moved around nervously and curtsied constantly, waiting for a chance to speak up. And finally, she found it.

"There wasnn't any fighting or yelling in my house, Mr. Captain," she blurted out all at once, like dropping a bunch of peas, speaking Russian confidently, though with a strong German accent, "and no drama, and he was totally wasted, and it’s the honest truth I’m telling you, Mr. Captain, and it’s not my fault..."

My family is respectable, Mr. Captain, and we have good manners, Mr. Captain, and I always, always hate any kind of drama myself.

But he was super drunk, and asked for three more bottles, and then he lifted one leg up and started playing the piano with his foot, and that’s just wrong in a respectable house, Mr. Captain, and he totally wrecked the piano, and it was seriously bad manners, and I told him so.

And he grabbed a bottle and started hitting everyone with it. And then I called the doorman, and Karl came, and he took Karl and punched him in the eye; and he punched Henriette in the eye, too, and slapped me five times across the face.

And it was so rude in a respectable house, Mr. Captain, and I screamed. And he opened the window overlooking the canal, and stood there squealing like a little pig; it was embarrassing. Imagine squealing like a little pig at the window for everyone on the street to hear! Ugh!

And Karl pulled him away from the window by his coat, and it’s true, Mr. Captain, he ripped his pants. And then he yelled that he needed to be paid fifteen rubles for the damage. And I paid him, Mr. Captain, five rubles for his pants. And he was a rude visitor and caused all the drama.

"‘I’m gonna expose you,’ he said, ‘I can write about you in all the papers!’"

"So, he was a writer?"

"Yes, Mr. Captain, and what a rude visitor in a respectable house..."

"Okay, that’s enough! I already told you..."

"Ilya Petrovitch!" the head clerk repeated, sounding serious.

The assistant glanced quickly at him; the head clerk shook his head slightly.

"... So I’m telling you this, most respectable Luise Ivanovna, and I’m telling it to you for the last time," the assistant went on.

"If there’s any drama in your respectable house again, I’m putting you in jail, like they call it in polite circles. Do you hear? So a writer, an author took five rubles for a ripped pant-tail in a ‘respectable house’? Seriously, these writers! A crazy bunch."

And he gave Raskolnikov a look of disgust.

"There was a scandal in a restaurant the other day, too. A writer ate his dinner and wouldn’t pay; ‘I’ll write a roast on you,’ he said. And there was another of them on a boat last week used really nasty language to a civil servant’s family, his wife and daughter."

"And there was one of them kicked out of a bakery the other day. They’re like that, writers, literary guys, students, town criers... Pfoo! Get out of here! I’ll swing by your place myself one day. Then you better watch out! Do you hear?"

With hurried politeness, Luise Ivanovna started curtsying in every direction, and curtsied herself right out the door. But at the door, she tripped backwards and bumped into a good-looking officer with a fresh, open face and awesome thick blond whiskers.

This was the district superintendent himself, Nikodim Fomitch. Luise Ivanovna hurried to curtsy almost to the ground, and with tiny little steps, she fluttered out of the office.

"Again, chaos - a total meltdown!" said Nikodim Fomitch to Ilya Petrovitch in a friendly tone. "You’re worked up again, you’re fuming again! I heard it on the stairs!"

"Well, what then!" Ilya Petrovitch drawled, super chill.

He walked over to another table with some papers, swinging his shoulders with every step.

"Seriously, look at this: an author, or maybe a student, hasn’t paid his debts, signed an IOU, won’t move out of his room, and people are constantly complaining about him. And get this, he actually protested my smoking! He’s acting like a total jerk himself, and just look at him, please."

"Being broke isn’t a bad thing, my friend, but we know you get fired up easily, can’t stand a slight, probably took offense and went too far yourself," continued Nikodim Fomitch, turning to Raskolnikov with a friendly vibe.

"But you were wrong there; he’s a good guy, I promise, but seriously explosive! He gets heated, blows up, and there’s no stopping him! And then it's over! But deep down, he’s a sweetheart! His nickname in the regiment was ‘Explosive Lieutenant’..."

"And what a regiment it was, too," cried Ilya Petrovitch, totally into the playful banter, even though he was still a little grumpy.

Raskolnikov suddenly wanted to say something really nice to them all. Excuse me, Captain, he started easily, turning to Nikodim Fomitch, can you see where I’m coming from?... I’m ready to apologize if I was rude. I’m just a broke student, sick and exhausted from poverty.

I’m not even studying because I can’t afford it, but I’ll get money soon... I have a mom and sister back home in X. They’ll send me some, and I’ll pay up.

"My landlady is a good woman, but she's so frustrated that I lost my lessons and haven't paid her for four months, she doesn’t even send up my dinner... and I don’t get this IOU at all. She’s making me pay her using it. How am I supposed to pay her? You guys decide!"

"But that’s not really our problem, you know," the head clerk pointed out.

"Yeah, yeah, I totally get it. But let me explain..."

Raskolnikov chimed in again, still talking to Nikodim Fomitch, but trying to include Ilya Petrovitch, even though the latter seemed to be busy with his papers and totally ignoring him.

"Let me explain that I’ve been living with her for almost three years, and at first... at first... why should I even hide it, I actually promised to marry her daughter at the very beginning. It was a verbal promise, freely given... she was just a girl..."

"I kind of liked her, even though I wasn't head-over-heels... a total youthful crush, really... I mean to say, my landlady gave me a lot of credit back then, and I was living a pretty carefree life... I was pretty reckless."

"Nobody’s asking for all these personal details, sir, we don’t have time for this," Ilya Petrovitch interrupted roughly, with a hint of triumph, but Raskolnikov stopped him, even though he suddenly found it really hard to speak.

"But excuse me, excuse me. It’s my turn to explain... how it all happened... In my own way... even though I agree with you, it’s probably unnecessary. But a year ago, the girl died of typhus."

I kept living there, and when my landlady moved to her current place, she said to me... and in a friendly way... that she totally trusted me, but still, would I sign an IOU for one hundred and fifteen roubles, which was all I owed her.

She said if I just gave her that, she’d trust me again, as much as I liked, and she’d never, ever - those were her exact words - use that IOU until I could pay it off myself... and now, when I’ve lost my lessons and have nothing to eat, she’s taking action against me.

"What am I supposed to say to that?"

"Seriously, those details aren’t our problem," Ilya Petrovitch cut in, sounding totally rude.

"You need to sign a written agreement, but we donn't care about your love life or all this drama, got it?"

"Come on... you’re being harsh," Nikodim Fomitch muttered, pulling up a chair and starting to write.

He looked a little embarrassed.

"Write!" the head clerk told Raskolnikov.

"Write what?" the latter asked, sounding annoyed.

"I’ll tell you what to write."

Raskolnikov felt like the head clerk was being way more casual and dismissive after his speech, but weirdly enough, he suddenly didn’t care what anyone thought. It was like a switch flipped, and this feeling hit him instantly.

If he’s been thinking, he would have been shocked that he's been laying his feelings on them just a minute ago. And where did those feelings even come from?

Right now, if the whole room was full of his family and friends, he wouldn’t be able to say a single word to them, because his heart felt completely empty. A really depressing feeling of being totally alone and disconnected suddenly took shape in his mind.

It wasn’t about how cheesy his earlier feelings toward Ilya Petrovitch were, or how smug the other guy was about it.

Oh, what did he even have to do with his own bad choices, with all this pointless stuff - officers, German girls, debts, police stations? If they’d sentenced him to burn right then, he wouldn’t have even reacted, probably wouldn’t have heard the end of the sentence.

Something was happening to him, totally new, sudden, and unknown.

He didn’t understand it, but he felt with every fiber of his being that he could never again reach out to these police officers with emotional outbursts like his earlier one, or with anything at all; and that even if they were his closest family, it would be completely out of the question to ask them for anything, under any circumstances.

He’s never felt anything like it. And what was the worst part - it was more of a feeling than a thought, a direct sensation, the most agonizing he’s ever experienced.

The head clerk started dictating the usual form of declaration: that he couldn’t pay, that he promised to pay later, that he wouldn’t leave town, or sell his stuff, and so on.

"But you can’t even write, you can barely hold the pen," the head clerk said, looking at Raskolnikov with curiosity. "Are you feeling okay?"

"Yeah, I’m dizzy. Just get it over with."

"That’s it. Sign it."

The head clerk grabbed the paper and turned to deal with other people.

Raskolnikov handed back the pen, but instead of getting up and leaving, he rested his elbows on the table and buried his face in his hands. It felt like someone was hammering a nail into his skull.

A strange thought popped into his head: he should get up right away, go over to Nikodim Fomitch, and tell him everything that had happened yesterday, and then go with him to his apartment and show him the stuff in the hole in the corner. The urge was so strong that he stood up to do it.

"Maybe I should think about this for a sec?" flashed through his mind.

"Nah, better just get rid of the burden without thinking about it."

But all of a sudden, he froze, completely rooted to the spot. Nikodim Fomitch was chatting excitedly with Ilya Petrovitch, and their words reached

"Seriously, how do you explain this contradiction? They say they knocked, but the door was locked. Then, like, three minutes later when they went up with the porter, it was unlocked."

"That’s the thing; the killer had to have been there and locked himself in. They would’ve caught him for sure if Koch wasn’t totally clueless and went looking for the porter too. He must have seized the moment to sneak downstairs and slip by them somehow."

"Koch is freaking out, crossing himself, saying: ‘If I’m there, he’d jump out and chop me with his axe.’ He’s even planning a huge thank-you service - haha!"

"And nobody saw the killer?"

"They probably didn’t," said the head clerk, who was listening. "This house is a total zoo."

"It’s obvious, totally obvious," repeated Nikodim Fomitch warmly.

"No way, it’s anything but clear," Ilya Petrovitch countered.

Raskolnikov grabbed his hat and headed for the door, but didn’t make it...

When he came to, he found himself sitting in a chair, with someone on his right supporting him, and someone else on his left holding a yellowish glass filled with yellow liquid, and Nikodim Fomitch standing in front of him, staring intently. He stood up from the chair.

"What’s going on? Are you sick?" Nikodim Fomitch asked, a little sharply.

"He could barely hold his pen when he was signing," said the head clerk, settling back into his seat and getting back to work.

"Have you been sick for long?" cried Ilya Petrovitch from his place, where he was also looking through papers.

He’d come to check on the sick guy when he fainted, but left as soon as he got better.

"Since yesterday," muttered Raskolnikov in reply.

"Did you go out yesterday?"

"Yeah."

"Even though you were sick?"

"Yeah."

"What time?"

"I think it was around seven."

"And where did you go, if you don’t mind me asking?"

"Just walking around."

"Short and sweet."

Raskolnikov, pale as a ghost, answered quickly, his feverish, dark eyes fixed on Ilya Petrovitch’s gaze.

"He can barely stand up straight. And you..." Nikodim Fomitch was starting to say.

"Doesn’t matter," Ilya Petrovitch said oddly.

Nikodim Fomitch was about to protest, but glancing at the head clerk who was staring hard at him, he stayed silent. There was a sudden silence. It was weird.

"Alright, then," concluded Ilya Petrovitch, "we won’t keep you."

Raskolnikov went out. He heard excited chatter as he left, and above it all, he heard Nikodim Fomitch’s questioning voice. Out on the street, his weakness disappeared completely.

"A search - they’ll search right away," he muttered to himself, hurrying home.

"They suspect me? the jerks!"

His old fear took over completely again.