He felt instantly relieved, and his brain began to clear: "How absurd I have been!" said he to himself, "there was really nothing to make me uneasy! It was simply physical! A glass of beer and a mouthful of biscuit were all that was necessary to restore my strength of mind and make my thoughts clear and resolution fixed. How paltry all this is!"
The next morning Raskolnikoff awoke late, after disturbed and unrefreshing slumbers. He felt very cross and glanced angrily round his room. It was a tiny place, not more than six feet in length, and its dirty buff paper hung in shreds, giving it a most miserable aspect; besides which, the ceiling was so low that a tall man would have felt in danger of bumping his head. The furniture was quite in harmony with the room, consisting of three old rickety chairs, a painted table in one corner, on which lay books and papers thick with dust (showing how long it was since they had been touched), and, finally, a large and very ugly sofa with ragged covers. This sofa, which filled nearly half the room, served Raskolnikoff as a bed. He often lay down on it in his clothes, without any sheets, covering himself with his old student's coat, and using instead of a pillow a little cushion, which he raised by keeping under it all his clean or dirty linen. Before the sofa stood a small table.
Raskolnikoff's misanthropy did not take offense at the dirty state of his den. Human faces had grown so distasteful to him, that the very sight of the servant whose business it was to clean the rooms produced a feeling of exasperation. To such a condition may monomaniacs come by continually brooding over one idea. For the last fortnight, the landlady had ceased to supply her lodger with provisions, and he had not yet thought of demanding an explanation. Nastasia, who had to cook and clean for the whole house, was not sorry to see the lodger in this state of mind, as it diminished her labors: she had quite given up tidying and dusting his room; the utmost she did was to come and sweep it once a week. She it was who was arousing him at this moment.
"Come, get up, why are you sleeping so late?" she exclaimed. "It is nine o'clock. I have brought up some tea, will you take a cup? How pale you look!"
Raskolnikoff opened his eyes, shook himself, and recognized Nastasia. "Has the landlady sent me this tea?" asked he, making a painful effort to sit up.
"Not much chance of that!" And the servant placed before him her own teapot, in which there was still some tea left, and laid two small lumps of brownish sugar on the table.
"Here, Nastasia, take this, please," said Raskolnikoff, fumbling in his pocket and drawing out a handful of small change (for he had again lain down in his clothes), "and fetch me a white roll. Go to the pork shop as well, and buy me a bit of cheap sausage."
"I will bring you the roll in a minute, but had you not better take some shtchi* instead of the sausage? We make it here, and it is capital. I kept some for you last night, but it was so late before you came in! You will find it very good." She went to fetch the shtchi, and, when Raskolnikoff had begun to eat, she seated herself on the sofa beside him and commenced to chatter, like a true country girl as she was. "Prascovia Paulovna means to report you to the police," said she.
* Cabbage soup.
The young man's brow clouded. "To the police? Why?"