“Once for all, never ask me about anything. I have nothing to tell you. Don’t come to see me. Maybe I’ll come here.... Leave me, but don’t leave them. Do you understand me?”
It was dark in the corridor, they were standing near the lamp. For a minute they were looking at one another in silence. Razumihin remembered that minute all his life. Raskolnikov’s burning and intent eyes grew more penetrating every moment, piercing into his soul, into his consciousness. Suddenly Razumihin started. Something strange, as it were, passed between them.... Some idea, some hint, as it were, slipped, something awful, hideous, and suddenly understood on both sides.... Razumihin turned pale.
“Do you understand now?” said Raskolnikov, his face twitching nervously. “Go back, go to them,” he said suddenly, and turning quickly, he went out of the house.
I will not attempt to describe how Razumihin went back to the ladies, how he soothed them, how he protested that Rodya needed rest in his illness, protested that Rodya was sure to come, that he would come every day, that he was very, very much upset, that he must not be irritated, that he, Razumihin, would watch over him, would get him a doctor, the best doctor, a consultation.... In fact from that evening Razumihin took his place with them as a son and a brother.
CHAPTER IV
Raskolnikov went straight to the house on the canal bank where Sonia lived. It was an old green house of three storeys. He found the porter and obtained from him vague directions as to the whereabouts of Kapernaumov, the tailor. Having found in the corner of the courtyard the entrance to the dark and narrow staircase, he mounted to the second floor and came out into a gallery that ran round the whole second storey over the yard. While he was wandering in the darkness, uncertain where to turn for Kapernaumov’s door, a door opened three paces from him; he mechanically took hold of it.
“Who is there?” a woman’s voice asked uneasily.
“It’s I... come to see you,” answered Raskolnikov and he walked into the tiny entry.
On a broken chair stood a candle in a battered copper candlestick.
“It’s you! Good heavens!” cried Sonia weakly, and she stood rooted to the spot.