He fell to musing by what process it could come to pass, that he
could be humbled before all of them, indiscriminately- humbled by
conviction. And yet why not? It must be so. Would not twenty years
of continual bondage crush him utterly? Water wears out a stone. And
why, why should he live after that? Why should he go now when he
knew that it would be so? It was the hundredth time perhaps that he
had asked himself that question since the previous evening, but
still he went.

PART_SIX|CHAPTER_EIGHT
                            Chapter Eight
-
  WHEN HE went into Sonia's room, it was already getting dark. All day
Sonia had been waiting for him in terrible anxiety. Dounia had been
waiting with her. She had come to her that morning, remembering
Svidrigailov's words that Sonia knew. We will not describe the
conversation and tears of the two girls, and how friendly they became.
Dounia gained one comfort at least from that interview, that her
brother would not be alone. He had gone to her, Sonia, first with
his confession; he had gone to her for human fellowship when he needed
it; she would go with him wherever fate might send him. Dounia did not
ask, but she knew it was so. She looked at Sonia almost with reverence
and at first almost embarrassed her by it. Sonia was almost on the
point of tears. She felt herself, on the contrary, hardly worthy to
look at Dounia. Dounia's gracious image when she had bowed to her so
attentively and respectfully at their first meeting in Raskolnikov's
room had remained in her mind as one of the fairest visions of her
life.
  Dounia at last became impatient and, leaving Sonia, went to her
brother's room to await him there; she kept thinking that he would
come there first. When she had gone, Sonia began to be tortured by the
dread of his committing suicide, and Dounia too feared it. But they
had spent the day trying to persuade each other that that could not
be, and both were less anxious while they were together. As soon as
they parted, each thought of nothing else. Sonia remembered how
Svidrigailov had said to her the day before that Raskolnikov had two
alternatives- Siberia or... Besides she knew his vanity, his pride and
his lack of faith.
  "Is it possible that he has nothing but cowardice and fear of
death to make him live?" she thought at last in despair.
  Meanwhile the sun was setting. Sonia was standing in dejection,
looking intently out of the window, but from it she could see
nothing but the unwhitewashed blank wall of the next house. At last
when she began to feel sure of his death- he walked into the room.
  She gave a cry of joy, but looking carefully into his face she
turned pale.
  "Yes," said Raskolnikov, smiling. "I have come for your cross,
Sonia. It was you told me to go to the cross roads; why is it you
are frightened now it's come to that?"
  Sonia gazed at him astonished. His tone seemed strange to her; a
cold shiver ran over her, but in a moment she guessed that the tone
and the words were a mask. He spoke to her looking away, as though
to avoid meeting her eyes.
  "You see, Sonia, I've decided that it will be better so. There is
one fact.... But it's a long story and there's no need to discuss
it. But do you know what angers me? It annoys me that all those stupid
brutish faces will be gaping at me directly, pestering me with their
stupid questions, which I shall have to answer- they'll point their
fingers at me.... Tfoo! You know I am not going to Porfiry, I am
sick of him. I'd rather go to my friend, the Explosive Lieutenant; how
I shall surprise him, what a sensation I shall make! But I must be
cooler; I've become too irritable of late. You know I was nearly
shaking my fist at my sister just now, because she turned to take a
last look at me. It's a brutal state to be in! Ah! what am I coming
to! Well, where are the crosses?"
  He seemed hardly to know what he was doing. He could not stay
still or concentrate his attention on anything; his ideas seemed to
gallop after one another, he talked incoherently, his hands trembled
slightly.
  Without a word Sonia took out of the drawer two crosses, one of
cypress wood and one of copper. She made the sign of the cross over
herself and over him, and put the wooden cross on his neck.
  "It's the symbol of my taking up the cross," he laughed. "As
though I had not suffered much till now! The wooden cross, that is the
peasant one; the copper one, that is Lizaveta's- you will wear
yourself, show me! So she had it on... at that moment? I remember
two things like these too, a silver one and a little ikon. I threw
them back on the old woman's neck. Those would be appropriate now,
really, those are what I ought to put on now.... But I am talking
nonsense and forgetting what matters; I'm somehow forgetful.... You
see I have come to warn you, Sonia, so that you might know... that's
all- that's all I came for. But I thought I had more to say. You
wanted me to go yourself. Well, now I am going to prison and you'll
have your wish. Well, what are you crying for? You too? Don't. Leave
off! Oh, how I hate it all!"
  But his feeling was stirred; his heart ached, as he looked at her.
"Why is she grieving too?" he thought to himself. "What am I to her?
Why does she weep? Why is she looking after me, like my mother or
Dounia? She'll be my nurse."
  "Cross yourself, say at least one prayer," Sonia begged in a timid
broken voice.
  "Oh certainly, as much as you like! And sincerely, Sonia,
sincerely...."
  But he wanted to say something quite different.
  He crossed himself several times. Sonia took up her shawl and put it
over her head. It was the green drap de dames shawl of which
Marmeladov had spoken, "the family shawl." Raskolnikov thought of that
looking at it, but he did not ask. He began to feel himself that he
was certainly forgetting things and was disgustingly agitated. He
was frightened at this. He was suddenly struck too by the thought that
Sonia meant to go with him.
  "What are you doing? Where are you going? Stay here, stay! I'll go
alone," he cried in cowardly vexation, and almost resentful, he
moved towards the door. "What's the use of going in procession!" he
muttered going out.
  Sonia remained standing in the middle of the room. He had not even
said good-bye to her; he had forgotten her. A poignant and
rebellious doubt surged in his heart.
  "Was it right, was it right, all this?" he thought again as he
went down the stairs. "Couldn't he stop and retract it all... and
not go?"
  But still he went. He felt suddenly once for all that he mustn't ask
himself questions. As he turned into the street he remembered that
he had not said good-bye to Sonia, that he had left her in the
middle of the room in her green shawl, not daring to stir after he had
shouted at her, and he stopped short for a moment. At the same
instant, another thought dawned upon him, as though it had been
lying in wait to strike him then.
  "Why, with what object did I go to her just now? I told her- on
business; on what business? I had no sort of business! To tell her I
was going; but where was the need? Do I love her? No, no, I drove
her away just now like a dog. Did I want her crosses? Oh, how low I've
sunk! No, I wanted her tears, I wanted to see her terror, to see how
her heart ached! I had to have something to cling to, something to
delay me, some friendly face to see! And I dared to believe in myself,
to dream of what I would do! I am a beggarly contemptible wretch,
contemptible!"
  He walked along the canal bank, and he had not much further to go.
But on reaching the bridge he stopped and turning out of his way along
it went to the Hay Market.
  He looked eagerly to right and left, gazed intently at every
object and could not fix his attention on anything; everything slipped
away. "In another week, another month I shall be driven in a prison
van over this bridge, how shall I look at the canal then? I should
like to remember this!" slipped into his mind. "Look at this sign! How
shall I read those letters then? It's written here 'Campany,' that's a
thing to remember, that letter a, and to look at it again in a
month- how shall I look at it then? What shall I be feeling and
thinking then?... How trivial it all must be, what I am fretting about
now! Of course it must all be interesting... in its way...
(Ha-ha-ha! What am I thinking about?) I am becoming a baby, I am
showing off to myself; why am I ashamed? Foo, how people shove! that
fat man- a German he must be- who pushed against me, does he know whom
he pushed? There's a peasant woman with a baby, begging. It's
curious that she thinks me happier than she is. I might give her
something, for the incongruity of it. Here's a five copeck piece
left in my pocket, where did I get it? Here, here... take it, my
good woman!"
  "God bless you," the beggar chanted in a lachrymose voice.
  He went into the Hay Market. It was distasteful, very distasteful to
be in a crowd, but he walked just where he saw most people. He would
have given anything in the world to be alone; but he knew himself that
he would not have remained alone for a moment. There was a man drunk
and disorderly in the crowd; he kept trying to dance and falling down.
There was a ring round him. Raskolnikov squeezed his way through the
crowd, stared for some minutes at the drunken man and suddenly gave
a short jerky laugh. A minute later he had forgotten him and did not
see him, though he still stared. He moved away at last, not
remembering where he was; but when he got into the middle of the
square an emotion suddenly came over him, overwhelming him body and
mind.
  He suddenly recalled Sonia's words, "Go to the cross roads, bow down
to the people, kiss the earth, for you have sinned against it too, and
say aloud to the whole world, 'I am a murderer.'" He trembled,
remembering that. And the hopeless misery and anxiety of all that
time, especially of the last hours, had weighed so heavily upon him
that he positively clutched at the chance of this new unmixed,
complete sensation. It came over him like a fit; it was like a
single spark kindled in his soul and spreading fire through him.
Everything in him softened at once and the tears started into his
eyes. He fell to the earth on the spot....
  He knelt down in the middle of the square, bowed down to the
earth, and kissed that filthy earth with bliss and rapture. He got
up and bowed down a second time.
  "He's boozed," a youth near him observed.
  There was a roar of laughter.
  "He's going to Jerusalem, brothers, and saying good-bye to his
children and his country. He's bowing down to all the world and
kissing the great city of St. Petersburg and its pavement," added a
workman who was a little drunk.
  "Quite a young man, too!" observed a third.
  "And a gentleman," some one observed soberly.
  "There's no knowing who's a gentleman and who isn't nowadays."
  These exclamations and remarks checked Raskolnikov, and the words,
"I am a murderer," which were perhaps on the point of dropping from
his lips, died away. He bore these remarks quietly, however, and
without looking round, he turned down a street leading to the police
office. He had a glimpse of something on the way which did not
surprise him; he had felt that it must be so. The second time he bowed
down in the Hay Market, he saw standing fifty paces from him on the
left Sonia. She was hiding from him behind one of the wooden
shanties in the market-place. She had followed him then on his painful
way! Raskolnikov at that moment felt and knew once for all that
Sonia was with him for ever and would follow him to the ends of the
earth, wherever fate might take him. It wrung his heart... but he
was just reaching the fatal place.
  He went into the yard fairly resolutely. He had to mount to the
third storey. "I shall be some time going up," he thought. He felt
as though the fateful moment was still far off, as though he had
plenty of time left for consideration.
  Again the same rubbish, the same eggshells lying about on the spiral
stairs, again the open doors of the flats, again the same kitchens and
the same fumes and stench coming from them. Raskolnikov had not been
here since that day. His legs were numb and gave way under him, but
still they moved forward. He stopped for a moment to take breath, to
collect himself, so as to enter like a man. "But why? what for?" he
wondered, reflecting. "If I must drink the cup what difference does it
make? The more revolting the better." He imagined for an instant the
figure of the "explosive lieutenant," Ilya Petrovitch. Was he actually
going to him? Couldn't he go to some one else? To Nikodim Fomitch?
Couldn't he turn back and go straight to Nikodim Fomitch's lodgings?
At least then it would be done privately.... No, no! To the "explosive
lieutenant"! If he must drink it, drink it off at once.
  Turning cold and hardly conscious, he opened the door of the office.
There were very few people in it this time- only a house porter and
a peasant. The doorkeeper did not even peep out from behind his
screen. Raskolnikov walked into the next room. "Perhaps I still need
not speak," passed through his mind. Some sort of clerk not wearing
a uniform was settling himself at a bureau to write. In a corner
another clerk was seating himself. Zametov was not there, nor, of
course, Nikodim Fomitch.
  "No one in?" Raskolnikov asked, addressing the person at the bureau.
  "Whom do you want?"
  "A-ah! Not a sound was heard, not a sight was seen, but I scent
the Russian... how does it go on in the fairy tale... I've
forgotten! At your service!" a familiar voice cried suddenly.
  Raskolnikov shuddered. The Explosive Lieutenant stood before him. He
had just come in from the third room. "It is the hand of fate,"
thought Raskolnikov. "Why is he here?"
  "You've come to see us? What about?" cried Ilya Petrovitch. He was
obviously in an exceedingly good humour and perhaps a trifle
exhilarated. "If it's on business you are rather early.* It's only a
chance that I am here... however I'll do what I can. I must admit,
I... what is it, what is it? Excuse me...."
-
  * Dostoevsky appears to have forgotten that it is after sunset,
and that the last time Raskolnikov visited the police office at two in
the afternoon, he was reproached for coming too late.
-
  "Raskolnikov."
  "Of course, Raskolnikov. You didn't imagine I'd forgotten? Don't
think I am like that... Rodion Ro--Ro--Rodionovitch, that's it,
isn't it?"
  "Rodion Romanovitch."
  "Yes, yes, of course, Rodion Romanovitch! I was just getting at
it. I made many inquiries about you. I assure you I've been
genuinely grieved since that... since I behaved like that... it was
explained to me afterwards that you were a literary man... and a
learned one too... and so to say the first steps... Mercy on us!
What literary or  scientific man does not begin by some originality of
conduct! My wife and I have the greatest respect for literature, in my
wife it's a genuine passion! Literature and art! If only a man is a
gentleman, all the rest can be gained by talents, learning, good
sense, genius. As for a hat- well, what does a hat matter? I can buy a
hat as easily as I can a bun; but what's under the hat, what the hat
covers, I can't buy that! I was even meaning to come and apologise
to you, but thought maybe you'd... But I am forgetting to ask you,
is there anything you want really? I hear your family have come?"
  "Yes, my mother and sister."
  "I've even had the honour and happiness of meeting your sister- a
highly cultivated and charming person. I confess I was sorry I got
so hot with you. There it is! But as for my looking suspiciously at
your fainting fit,- that affair has been cleared up splendidly!
Bigotry and fanaticism! I understand your indignation. Perhaps you are
changing your lodging on account of your family's arriving?"
  "No, I only looked in... I came to ask... I thought that I should
find Zametov here."
  "Oh, yes! Of course, you've made friends, I heard. Well, no, Zametov
is not here. Yes, we've lost Zametov. He's not been here since
yesterday... he quarrelled with every one on leaving... in the
rudest way. He is a feather-headed youngster, that's all; one might
have expected something from him, but there, you know what they are,
our brilliant young men. He wanted to go in for some examination,
but it's only to talk and boast about it, it will go no further than
that. Of course it's a very different matter with you or Mr. Razumihin
there, your friend. Your career is an intellectual one and you won't
be deterred by failure. For you, one may say, all the attractions of
life nihil est- you are an ascetic, a monk, a hermit!... A book, a pen
behind your ear, a learned research- that's where your spirit soars! I
am the same way myself.... Have you read Livingstone's Travels?"
  "No."
  "Oh, I have. There are a great many Nihilists about nowadays, you
know, and indeed it is not to be wondered at. What sort of days are
they? I ask you. But we thought... you are not a Nihilist of course?
Answer me openly, openly!"
  "N-no..."
  "Believe me, you can speak openly to me as you would to yourself!
Official duty is one thing but... you are thinking I meant to say
friendship is quite another? No, you're wrong! It's not friendship,
but the feeling of a man and a citizen, the feeling of humanity and of
love for the Almighty. I may be an official, but I am always bound
to feel myself a man and a citizen.... You were asking about
Zametov. Zametov will make a scandal in the French style in a house of
bad reputation, over a glass of champagne... that's all your Zametov
is good for! While I'm perhaps, so to speak, burning with devotion and
lofty feelings, and besides I have rank, consequence, a post! I am
married and have children, I fulfil the duties of a man and a citizen,
but who is he, may I ask? I appeal to you as a man ennobled by
education... Then these midwives, too, have become extraordinarily
numerous."
  Raskolnikov raised his eyebrows inquiringly. The words of Ilya
Petrovitch, who had obviously been dining, were for the most part a
stream of empty sounds for him. But some of them he understood. He
looked at him inquiringly, not knowing how it would end.
  "I mean those crop-headed wenches," the talkative Ilya Petrovitch
continued. "Midwives is my name for them. I think it a very
satisfactory one, ha-ha! They go to the Academy, study anatomy. If I
fall ill, am I to send for a young lady to treat me? What do you
say? Ha-ha!" Ilya Petrovitch laughed, quite pleased with his own
wit. "It's an immoderate zeal for education, but once you're educated,
that's enough. Why abuse it? Why insult honourable people, as that
scoundrel Zametov does? Why did he insult me, I ask you? Look at these
suicides, too, how common they are, you can't fancy! People spend
their last halfpenny and kill themselves, boys and girls and old
people. Only this morning we heard about a gentleman who had just come
to town. Nil Pavlitch, I say, what was the name of that gentleman
who shot himself?"
  "Svidrigailov," some one answered from the other room with drowsy
listlessness.
  Raskolnikov started.
  "Svidrigailov! Svidrigailov has shot himself!" he cried.
  "What, do you know Svidrigailov?"
  "Yes... I knew him.... He hadn't been here long."
  "Yes, that's so. He had lost his wife, was a man of reckless
habits and all of a sudden shot himself, and in such a shocking
way.... He left in his notebook a few words; that he dies in full
possession of his faculties and that no one is to blame for his death.
He had money, they say. How did you come to know him?"
  "I... was acquainted... my sister was governess in his family."
  "Bah-bah-bah! Then no doubt you can tell us something about him. You
had no suspicion?"
  "I saw him yesterday... he... was drinking wine; I knew nothing."
  Raskolnikov felt as though something had fallen on him and was
stifling him.
  "You've turned pale again. It's so stuffy here..."
  "Yes, I must go," muttered Raskolnikov. "Excuse my troubling
you...."
  "Oh, not at all, as often as you like. It's a pleasure to see you
and I am glad to say so."
  Ilya Petrovitch held out his hand.
  "I only wanted... I came to see Zametov."
  "I understand, I understand, and it's a pleasure to see you."
  "I... am very glad... good-bye," Raskolnikov smiled.
  He went out; he reeled, he was overtaken with giddiness and did
not know what he was doing. He began going down the stairs, supporting
himself with his right hand against the wall. He fancied that a porter
pushed past him on his way upstairs to the police office, that a dog
in the lower storey kept up a shrill barking and that a woman flung
a rolling-pin at it and shouted. He went down and out into the yard.
There, not far from the entrance, stood Sonia, pale and
horror-stricken. She looked wildly at him. He stood still before
her. There was a look of poignant agony, of despair, in her face.
She clasped her hands. His lips worked in an ugly, meaningless
smile. He stood still a minute, grinned and went back to the police
office.
  Ilya Petrovitch had sat down and was rummaging among some papers.
Before him stood the same peasant who had pushed by on the stairs.
  "Hulloa! Back again! have you left something behind? What's the
matter?"
  Raskolnikov, with white lips and staring eyes, came slowly nearer.
He walked right to the table, leaned his hand on it, tried to say
something, but could not; only incoherent sounds were audible.
  "You are feeling ill, a chair! Here, sit down! Some water!"
  Raskolnikov dropped on to a chair, but he kept his eyes fixed on the
face of Ilya Petrovitch which expressed unpleasant surprise. Both
looked at one another for a minute and waited. Water was brought.
  "It was I..." began Raskolnikov.
  "Drink some water."
  Raskolnikov refused the water with his hand, and softly and
brokenly, but distinctly said:
  "It was I killed the old pawnbroker woman and her sister Lizaveta
with an axe and robbed them."
  Ilya Petrovitch opened his mouth. People ran up on all sides.
  Raskolnikov repeated his statement.

CHAPTER_ONE
                               EPILOGUE
                             Chapter One
-
  SIBERIA. On the banks of a broad solitary river stands a town, one
of the administrative centres of Russia; in the town there is a
fortress, in the fortress there is a prison. In the prison the
second-class convict Rodion Raskolnikov has been confined for nine
months. Almost a year and a half has passed since his crime.
  There had been little difficulty about his trial. The criminal
adhered exactly, firmly, and clearly to his statement. He did not
confuse nor misrepresent the facts, nor soften them in his own
interest, nor omit the smallest detail. He explained every incident of
the murder, the secret of the pledge (the piece of wood with a strip
of metal) which was found in the murdered woman's hand. He described
minutely how he had taken her keys, what they were like, as well as
the chest and its contents; he explained the mystery of Lizaveta's
murder; described how Koch and, after him, the student knocked, and
repeated all they had said to one another; how he afterwards had run
downstairs and heard Nikolay and Dmitri shouting; how he had hidden in
the empty flat and afterwards gone home. He ended by indicating the
stone in the yard off the Voznesensky Prospect under which the purse
and the trinkets were found. The whole thing, in fact, was perfectly
clear. The lawyers and the judges were very much struck, among other
things, by the fact that he had hidden the trinkets and the purse
under a stone, without making use of them, and that, what was more, he
did not now remember what the trinkets were like, or even how many
there were. The fact that he had never opened the purse and did not
even know how much was in it seemed incredible. There turned out to be
in the purse three hundred and seventeen roubles and sixty copecks.
From being so long under the stone, some of the most valuable notes
lying uppermost had suffered from the damp. They were a long while
trying to discover why the accused man should tell a lie about this,
when about everything else he had made a truthful and
straightforward confession. Finally some of the lawyers more versed in
psychology admitted that it was possible he had really not looked into
the purse, and so didn't know what was in it when he hid it under
the stone. But they immediately drew the deduction that the crime
could only have been committed through temporary mental derangement,
through homicidal mania, without object or the pursuit of gain. This
fell in with the most recent fashionable theory of temporary insanity,
so often applied in our days in criminal cases. Moreover Raskolnikov's
hypochondriacal condition was proved by many witnesses, by Dr.
Zossimov, his former fellow students, his landlady and her servant.
All this pointed strongly to the conclusion that Raskolnikov was not
quite like an ordinary murderer and robber, but that there was another
element in the case.
  To the intense annoyance of those who maintained this opinion, the
criminal scarcely attempted to defend himself. To the decisive
question as to what motive impelled him to the murder and the robbery,
he answered very clearly with the coarsest frankness that the cause
was his miserable position, his poverty and helplessness, and his
desire to provide for his first steps in life by the help of the three
thousand roubles he had reckoned on finding. He had been led to the
murder through his shallow and cowardly nature, exasperated moreover
by privation and failure. To the question what led him to confess,
he answered that it was his heartfelt repentance. All this was
almost coarse....
  The sentence however was more merciful than could have been
expected, perhaps partly because the criminal had not tried to justify
himself, but had rather shown a desire to exaggerate his guilt. All
the strange and peculiar circumstances of the crime were taken into
consideration. There could be no doubt of the abnormal and
poverty-stricken condition of the criminal at the time. The fact
that he had made no use of what he had stolen was put down partly to
the effect of remorse, partly to his abnormal mental condition at
the time of the crime. Incidentally the murder of Lizaveta served
indeed to confirm the last hypothesis: a man commits two murders and
forgets that the door is open! Finally, the confession, at the very
moment when the case was hopelessly muddled by the false evidence
given by Nikolay through melancholy and fanaticism, and when,
moreover, there were no proofs against the real criminal, no
suspicions even (Porfiry Petrovitch fully kept his word)- all this did
much to soften the sentence. Other circumstances, too, in the
prisoner's favour came out quite unexpectedly. Razumihin somehow
discovered and proved that while Raskolnikov was at the university
he had helped a poor consumptive fellow student and had spent his last
penny on supporting him for six months, and when this student died,
leaving a decrepit old father whom he had maintained almost from his
thirteenth year, Raskolnikov had got the old man into a hospital and
paid for his funeral when he died. Raskolnikov's landlady bore
witness, too, that when they had lived in another house at Five
Corners, Raskolnikov had rescued two little children from a house on
fire and was burnt in doing so. This was investigated and fairly
well confirmed by many witnesses. These facts made an impression in
his favour.
  And in the end the criminal was in consideration of extenuating
circumstances condemned to penal servitude in the second class for a
term of eight years only.
  At the very beginning of the trial Raskolnikov's mother fell ill.
Dounia and Razumihin found it possible to get her out of Petersburg
during the trial. Razumihin chose a town on the railway not far from
Petersburg, so as to be able to follow every step of the trial and
at the same time to see Avdotya Romanovna as often as possible.
Pulcheria Alexandrovna's illness was a strange nervous one and was
accompanied by a partial derangement of her intellect.
  When Dounia returned from her last interview with her brother, she
had found her mother already ill, in feverish delirium. That evening
Razumihin and she agreed what answers they must make to her mother's
questions about Raskolnikov add made up a complete story for her
mother's benefit of his having to go away to a distant part of
Russia on a business commission, which would bring him in the end
money and reputation.
  But they were struck by the fact that Pulcheria Alexandrovna never
asked them anything on the subject, neither then nor thereafter. On
the contrary, she had her own version of her son's sudden departure;
she told them with tears how he had come to say good-bye to her,
hinting that she alone knew many mysterious and important facts, and
that Rodya had many very powerful enemies, so that it was necessary
for him to be in hiding. As for his future career, she had no doubt
that it would be brilliant when certain sinister influences could be
removed. She assured Razumihin that her son would be one day a great
statesman, that his article and brilliant literary talent proved it.
This article she was continually reading, she even read it aloud,
almost took it to bed with her, but scarcely asked where Rodya was,
though the subject was obviously avoided by the others, which might
have been enough to awaken her suspicions.
  They began to be frightened at last at Pulcheria Alexandrovna's
strange silence on certain subjects. She did not, for instance,
complain of getting no letters from him, though in previous years
she had only lived on the hope of letters from her beloved Rodya. This
was the cause of great uneasiness to Dounia; the idea occurred to
her that her mother suspected that there was something terrible in her
son's fate and was afraid to ask, for fear of hearing something
still more awful. In any case, Dounia saw clearly that her mother
was not in full possession of her faculties.
  It happened once or twice, however, that Pulcheria Alexandrovna gave
such a turn to the conversation that it was impossible to answer her
without mentioning where Rodya was, and on receiving unsatisfactory
and suspicious answers she became at once gloomy and silent, and
this mood lasted for a long time. Dounia saw at last that it was
hard to deceive her and came to the conclusion that it was better to
be absolutely silent on certain points; but it became more and more
evident that the poor mother suspected something terrible. Dounia
remembered her brother's telling her that her mother had overheard her
talking in her sleep on the night after her interview with
Svidrigailov and before the fatal day of the confession: had not she
made out something from that? Sometimes days and even weeks of
gloomy silence and tears would be succeeded by a period of
hysterical animation, and the invalid would begin to talk almost
incessantly of her son, of her hopes of his future.... Her fancies
were sometimes very strange. They humoured her, pretended to agree
with her (she saw perhaps that they were pretending), but she still
went on talking.
  Five months after Raskolnikov's confession, he was sentenced.
Razumihin and Sonia saw him in prison as often as it was possible.
At last the moment of separation came. Dounia swore to her brother
that the separation should not be for ever, Razumihin did the same.
Razumihin, in his youthful ardour, had firmly resolved to lay the
foundations at least of a secure livelihood during the next three or
four years, and saving up a certain sum, to emigrate to Siberia, a
country rich in every natural resource and in need of workers,
active men and capital. There they would settle in the town where
Rodya was and all together would begin a new life. They all wept at
parting.
  Raskolnikov had been very dreamy for a few days before. He asked a
great deal about his mother and was constantly anxious about her. He
worried so much about her that it alarmed Dounia. When he heard
about his mother's illness he became very gloomy. With Sonia he was
particularly reserved all the time. With the help of the money left to
her by Svidrigailov, Sonia had long ago made her preparations to
follow the party of convicts in which he was despatched to Siberia.
Not a word passed between Raskolnikov and her on the subject, but both
knew it would be so. At the final leave-taking he smiled strangely
at his sister's and Razumihin's fervent anticipations of their happy
future together when he should come out of prison. He predicted that
their mother's illness would soon have a fatal ending. Sonia and he at
last set off.
  Two months later Dounia was married to Razumihin. It was a quiet and
sorrowful wedding; Porfiry Petrovitch and Zossimov were invited
however. During all this period Razumihin wore an air of resolute
determination. Dounia put implicit faith in his carrying out his plans
and indeed she could not but believe in him. He displayed a rare
strength of will. Among other things he began attending university
lectures again in order to take his degree. They were continually
making plans for the future; both counted on settling in Siberia
within five years at least. Till then they rested their hopes on
Sonia.
  Pulcheria Alexandrovna was delighted to give her blessing to
Dounia's marriage with Razumihin; but after the marriage she became
even more melancholy and anxious. To give her pleasure Razumihin
told her how Raskolnikov had looked after the poor student and his
decrepit father and how a year ago he had been burnt and injured in
rescuing two little children from a fire. These two pieces of news
excited Pulcheria Alexandrovna's disordered imagination almost to
ecstasy. She was continually talking about them, even entering into
conversation with strangers in the street, though Dounia always
accompanied her. In public conveyances and shops, wherever she could
capture a listener, she would begin the discourse about her son, his
article, how he had helped the student, how he had been burnt at the
fire, and so on! Dounia did not know how to restrain her. Apart from
the danger of her morbid excitement, there was the risk of some
one's recalling Raskolnikov's name and speaking of the recent trial.
Pulcheria Alexandrovna found out the address of the mother of the
two children her son had saved and insisted on going to see her.
  At last her restlessness reached an extreme point. She would
sometimes begin to cry suddenly and was often ill and feverishly
delirious. One morning she declared that by her reckoning Rodya
ought soon to be home, that she remembered when he said good-bye to
her he said that they must expect him back in nine months. She began
to prepare for his coming, began to do up her room for him, to clean
the furniture, to wash and put up new hangings and so on. Dounia was
anxious, but said nothing and helped her to arrange the room. After
a fatiguing day spent in continual fancies, in joyful day dreams and
tears, Pulcheria Alexandrovna was taken ill in the night and by
morning she was feverish and delirious. It was brain fever. She died
within a fortnight. In her delirium she dropped words which showed
that she knew a great deal more about her son's terrible fate than
they had supposed.
  For a long time Raskolnikov did not know of his mother's death,
though a regular correspondence had been maintained from the time he
reached Siberia. It was carried on by means of Sonia, who wrote
every month to the Razumihins and received an answer with unfailing
regularity. At first they found Sonia's letters dry and
unsatisfactory, but later on they came to the conclusion that the
letters could not be better, for from these letters they received a
complete picture of their unfortunate brother's life. Sonia's
letters were full of the most matter of fact detail, the simplest
and clearest description of all Raskolnikov's surroundings as a
convict. There was no word of her own hopes, no conjecture as to the
future, no description of her feelings. Instead of any attempt to
interpret his state of mind and inner life, she gave the simple facts-
that is, his own words, an exact account of his health, what he
asked for at their interviews, what commission he gave her and so
on. All these facts she gave with extraordinary minuteness. The
picture of their unhappy brother stood out at last with great
clearness and precision.  There could be no mistake, because nothing
was given but facts.
  But Dounia and husband could get little comfort out of the news,
especially at first. Sonia wrote that he was constantly sullen and not
ready to talk, that he scarcely seemed interested in the news she gave
him from their letters, that he sometimes asked after his mother and
that when, seeing that he had guessed the truth, she told him at
last of her death, she was surprised to find that he did not seem
greatly affected by it, not externally at any rate. She told them
that, although he seemed so wrapped up in himself and, as it were,
shut himself off from every one- he took a very direct and simple view
of his new life; that he understood his position, expected nothing
better for the time, had no ill-founded hopes (as is so common in
his position) and scarcely seemed surprised at anything in his
surroundings, so unlike anything he had known before. She wrote that
his health was satisfactory; he did his work without shirking or
seeking to do more; he was almost indifferent about food, but except
on Sundays and holidays the food was so bad that at last he had been
glad to accept some money from her, Sonia, to have his own tea every
day. He begged her not to trouble about anything else, declaring
that all this fuss about him only annoyed him. Sonia wrote further
that in prison he shared the same room with the rest, that she had not
seen the inside of their barracks, but concluded that they were
crowded, miserable and unhealthy; that he slept on a plank bed with
a rug under him and was unwilling to make any other arrangement. But
that he lived so poorly and roughly, not from any plan or design,
but simply from inattention and indifference.
  Sonia wrote simply that he had at first shown no interest in her
visits, had almost been vexed with her indeed for coming, unwilling to
talk and rude to her. But that in the end these visits had become a
habit and almost a necessity for him, so that he was positively
distressed when she was ill for some days and could not visit him. She
used to see him on holidays at the prison gates or in the
guard-room, to which he was brought for a few minutes to see her. On
working days she would go to see him at work either at the workshops
or at the brick kilns, or at the sheds on the banks of the Irtish.
  About herself, Sonia wrote that she had succeeded in making some
acquaintances in the town, that she did sewing, and, as there was
scarcely a dressmaker in the town, she was looked upon as an
indispensable person in many houses. But she did not mention that
the authorities were, through her, interested in Raskolnikov; that his
task was lightened and so on.
  At last the news came (Dounia had indeed noticed signs of alarm
and uneasiness in the preceding letters) that he held aloof from every
one, that his fellow prisoners did not like him, that he kept silent
for days at a time and was becoming very pale. In the last letter
Sonia wrote that he had been taken very seriously ill and was in the
convict ward of the hospital.