But Raskolnikov had lately become superstitious. Traces of superstition remained in him for a long time afterwards, almost indelibly. And later on he was always inclined to see a certain strangeness, a mysteriousness, as it were, in this whole affair, the presence as of some peculiar influences and coincidences. The previous winter a student acquaintance of his, Pokorev, before leaving for Kharkov, had told him once in conversation the address of the old woman, Alyona Ivanovna, in case he might want to pawn something. For a long time he did not go to her, because he was giving lessons and getting by somehow. About a month and a half ago he had remembered the address; he had two things suitable for pawning: his father's old silver watch, and a small gold ring with three little red stones of some kind, given him as a keepsake by his sister when they parted. He decided to pawn the ring. Having located the old woman, who, from the very first glance, before he knew anything particular about her, filled him with insurmountable loathing, he took two “little bills” from her, and on his way back stopped at some wretched tavern. He asked for tea, sat down, and fell into deep thought. A strange idea was hatching in his head, like a chicken from an egg, and occupied him very, very much.
Almost next to him, at another table, sat a student he did not know or remember at all and a young officer. They had been playing billiards and were now drinking tea. Suddenly he heard the student talking with the officer about a money-lender, Alyona Ivanovna, widow of a collegiate secretary, and telling him her address. That in itself seemed somehow strange to Raskolnikov: he had just left her, and here they were talking about her. By chance, of course; but just then, when he could not rid himself of a certain quite extraordinary impression, it was as if someone had come to his service: the student suddenly began telling his friend various details about this Alyona Ivanovna.
“She's nice,” he was saying, “you can always get money from her. She's rich as a Jew, she could hand you over five thousand at once, but she's not above taking pledges for a rouble. A lot of us have gone to her. Only she's a terrible harpy . . .”
And he began telling how wicked she was, how capricious; how, if your payment was one day late, your pledge was lost. She gives four times less than the thing is worth, and takes five or even seven percent a month, and so on. The student went on chattering and said, among other things, that the old woman had a sister, Lizaveta, and that the disgusting little hag used to beat her all the time and kept her completely enslaved, like a little child, though Lizaveta was at least six feet tall . . .
“She's quite a phenomenon herself!” the student cried out, and guffawed.
They began talking about Lizaveta. The student spoke of her with some special pleasure and kept laughing, and the officer, who listened with great interest, asked the student to send this Lizaveta to him to mend his linen. Raskolnikov did not miss a word and at once learned everything: Lizaveta was the old woman's younger half sister (they had different mothers) and was thirty-five years old. She worked day and night for her sister, was cook and laundress in the house, and besides that sewed things for sale, and even hired herself out to wash floors, and gave everything to her sister. She did not dare take any orders or any work without the old woman's permission. Meanwhile, the old woman had already made her will, a fact known to Lizaveta, who, apart from moveable property, chairs and so forth, did not stand to get a penny from this will; all the money was to go to a monastery in N------y province, for the eternal remembrance of her soul. Lizaveta was a tradeswoman, not of official rank; she was unmarried and of terribly awkward build, remarkably tall, with long, somehow twisted legs, always wore down-at-heel goatskin shoes, but kept herself neat. Above all the student was surprised and laughed at the fact that Lizaveta was constantly pregnant . . .
“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.