Raskolnikov stood up and walked into the other room, where the trunk, the bed, and the chest used to be; the room seemed terribly small to him without the furniture. The wallpaper was still the same; the place where the icon-stand had been was sharply outlined on the wallpaper in the corner. He looked around and returned to his window. The older workman was watching him out of the corner of his eye.

“What do you want, sir?” he asked, suddenly addressing him.

Instead of answering, Raskolnikov stood up, walked out to the landing, took hold of the bell-pull, and rang. The same bell, the same tinny sound! He rang a second, a third time; he listened and remembered. The former painfully horrible, hideous sensation began to come back to him more clearly, more vividly; he shuddered with each ring, and enjoyed the feeling more and more.

“What do you want? Who are you?” cried the workman, coming out to him. Raskolnikov walked back in the door.

“I want to rent this apartment,” he said. “I'm looking it over.”

“Nobody rents places at night; and besides, you should have come with the caretaker.”

“The floor has been washed; are they going to paint it?” Raskolnikov went on. “Is there any blood?”

“What blood?”

“That old woman and her sister were murdered here. There was a whole pool of blood.”

“What sort of man are you?” the workman cried worriedly.

“Me?”

“Yes, you.”

“You want to know?...Let's go to the police, I'll tell you there.”

The workman looked at him in perplexity.

“It's time we left, sir, we're late. Let's go, Alyoshka. We'll have to lock up,” the older workman said.

“Let's go, then!” Raskolnikov replied indifferently, and he walked out first and went slowly down the stairs. “Hey, caretaker!” he cried as he passed under the gateway.

Several people were standing just at the street entrance, gazing at the passers-by: the two caretakers, a woman, a tradesman in a smock, and some others. Raskolnikov went straight up to them.

“What do you want?” one of the caretakers responded.

“Have you been to the police?”

“Just came back. So, what do you want?”

“They're all there?”

“They are.”

“The assistant's there?”

“He was for a while. What do you want?”

Raskolnikov did not answer, but stood beside them, pondering.

“He came to look at the place,” the older workman said, coming up.

“What place?”

“Where we're working. 'Why have you washed the blood up?' he said. 'There was a murder here, and I've come to rent the place.' And he started ringing the bell, all but tore it out. 'Let's go to the police,' he says, 'I'll prove it all there.' Just wouldn't leave off.”

The caretaker scrutinized Raskolnikov, perplexed and frowning.

“But who are you?” he cried, a bit more menacingly.

“I am Rodion Romanych Raskolnikov, a former student, and I live at Shil's house, here in the lane, not far away, apartment number fourteen. Ask the caretaker... he knows me.” Raskolnikov said all this somehow lazily and pensively, not turning, but gazing fixedly at the darkened street.

“Why did you go up there?”

“To look.”

“What's there to look at?”

“Why not just take him to the police?” the tradesman suddenly mixed in, and then fell silent.

Raskolnikov cast a sidelong glance at him over his shoulder, looked at him attentively, and said, as slowly and lazily as before:

“Let's go.”

“Just take him, then!” the encouraged tradesman picked up. “Why did he come about that? What's on his mind, eh?”

“God knows, maybe he's drunk, maybe he's not,” the workman muttered.

“But what do you want?” the caretaker shouted again, beginning to get seriously angry. “Quit pestering us!”

“Scared to go to the police?” Raskolnikov said to him mockingly.

“Why scared? Quit pestering us!”

“Scofflaw!” cried the woman.

“Why go on talking to him?” shouted the other caretaker, a huge man in an unbuttoned coat and with keys on his belt. “Clear out! ... Yes, he's a scofflaw! ... Clear out!”

And seizing Raskolnikov by the shoulder, he threw him into the street. Raskolnikov nearly went head over heels, but did not fall. He straightened himself up, looked silently at all the spectators, and walked away.

“A weird man,” the workman let fall.

“People turned weird lately,” the woman said.

“We still should've taken him to the police,” the tradesman added.

“No point getting involved,” the big caretaker decided. “He's a scofflaw for sure! You could see he was foisting himself on us, but once you get involved, there's no getting out...Don't we know it!”

“Well now, shall I go or not?” thought Raskolnikov, stopping in the middle of the street, at an intersection, and looking around as if he were waiting for the final word from someone. But no reply came from anywhere; everything was blank and dead, like the stones he was walking on, dead for him, for him alone...Suddenly, in the distance, about two hundred paces away, at the end of the street, in the thickening darkness, he made out a crowd, voices, shouts...In the midst of the crowd stood some carriage...A small light started flickering in the middle of the street. “What's going on?” Raskolnikov turned to the right and went towards the crowd. It was as if he were snatching at anything, and he grinned coldly as he thought of it, because he had firmly decided about the police and knew for certain that now it was all going to end.

VII

In the middle of the street stood a jaunty, high-class carriage, harnessed to a pair of fiery gray horses; there were no passengers, and the coachman, having climbed down from his box, was standing by; the horses were being held by their bridles. A great many people were crowding around, the police in front of them all. One of them was holding a lantern and bending down, directing the light at something on the pavement, just by the wheels. Everyone was talking, shouting, gasping; the coachman looked bewildered and kept repeating every so often:

“What a shame! Lord, what a shame!”

Raskolnikov pushed his way through as well as he could and finally glimpsed the object of all this bustle and curiosity. A man just run over by the horses was lying on the ground, apparently unconscious, very poorly dressed, but in “gentleman's” clothes, and all covered with blood. Blood was flowing from his face, from his head. His face was all battered, scraped, and mangled. One could see that he had been run over in earnest.

“Saints alive!” wailed the coachman, “how could I help it! If I'd been racing, or if I hadn't hollered to him...but I was driving at a slow, steady pace. Everybody saw it, as true as I'm standing here. A drunk can't see straight, who doesn't know that! ... I saw him crossing the street, reeling, nearly falling over—I shouted once, then again, then a third time, and then I reined in the horses; but he fell right under their feet! Maybe on purpose, or else he was really so drunk...The horses are young, skittish; they reared up, he gave a shout, they took off again...and so we came to grief.”

“That's exactly how it was!” some witness responded from the crowd.

“He did shout, it's true, he shouted three times to him,” another voice responded.

“Three times exactly, everybody heard it!” cried a third.

The coachman, however, was not very distressed or frightened. One could see that the carriage belonged to a wealthy and important owner, who was awaiting its arrival somewhere; how to see to this last circumstance was no small part of the policemen's concern. The trampled man had to be removed to the police station and then to the hospital. No one knew his name.

Meanwhile Raskolnikov pushed ahead and bent down closer. Suddenly the lantern shone brightly on the unfortunate man's face. He recognized him.