Crime And Punishment Page-91

Crime And Punishment

“What is the matter with me!” he cried again, like one distraught. Then a strange idea entered his head; that, perhaps, all his clothes were covered with blood, that, perhaps, there were a great many stains, but that he did not see them, did not notice them because his perceptions were failing, were going to pieces... his reason was clouded.... Suddenly he remembered that there had been blood on the purse too. “Ah! Then there must be blood on the pocket too, for I put the wet purse in my pocket!” In a flash he had turned the pocket inside out and, yes!—there were traces, stains on the lining of the pocket! “So my reason has not quite deserted me, so I still have some sense and memory, since I guessed it of myself,” he thought triumphantly, with a deep sigh of relief; “it’s simply the weakness of fever, a moment’s delirium,” and he tore the whole lining out of the left pocket of his trousers. At that instant the sunlight fell on his left boot; on the sock which poked out from the boot, he fancied there were traces! He flung off his boots; “traces indeed! The tip of the sock was soaked with blood;” he must have unwarily stepped into that pool.... “But what am I to do with this now? Where am I to put the sock and rags and pocket?” He gathered them all up in his hands and stood in the middle of the room. “In the stove? But they would ransack the stove first of all. Burn them? But what can I burn them with? There are no matches even. No, better go out and throw it all away somewhere. Yes, better throw it away,” he repeated, sitting down on the sofa again, “and at once, this minute, without lingering...” But his head sank on the pillow instead. Again the unbearable icy shivering came over him; again he drew his coat over him. And for a long while, for some hours, he was haunted by the impulse to “go off somewhere at once, this moment, and fling it all away, so that it may be out of sight and done with, at once, at once!” Several times he tried to rise from the sofa, but could not. He was thoroughly waked up at last by a violent knocking at his door. “Open, do, are you dead or alive? He keeps sleeping here!” shouted Nastasya, banging with her fist on the door. “For whole days together he’s snoring here like a dog! A dog he is too. Open I tell you. It’s past ten.” “Maybe he’s not at home,” said a man’s voice. “Ha! that’s the porter’s voice.... What does he want?” He jumped up and sat on the sofa. The beating of his heart was a positive pain. “Then who can have latched the door?” retorted Nastasya. “He’s taken to