"God! Am I to stand beating in her skull with a hatchet or something, wade in warm blood, break open the lock and rob and tremble, blood flowing all around, and hide myself, with the hatchet? O God! is this indeed possible, and must it be?" He trembled like a leaf as he said this.
"What am I thinking of?" he cried in some astonishment. "I know well I could not endure that with which I have been torturing myself. I saw that clearly yesterday when I tried to rehearse it. Perfectly plain. Then what am I questioning? Did I not say yesterday as I went up the stairs how disgusting and mean and low it all was, and did not I run away in terror?"
He stood up and looked all round, wondering how he got there, and moved off toward the T—— bridge. He was pale and his eyes were hot, and feebleness was in all his members, but he seemed to breathe easier. He felt that he had thrown off the old time which had been so oppressive; and in its place had come peace and light. "Lord!" he prayed, "show me my way, that I may renounce these horrid thoughts of mine!"
Going across the bridge, he quietly gazed on the Neva, and the clear red sunset. He did not feel himself tired now, notwithstanding his weakness, and the load which had lain upon his heart seemed to be gone. Liberty! Liberty! he was free from those enchantments and all their vile instigations. In later times when he recalled this period of his existence, and all that happened to him in those days, minute by minute and point by point, he recollected how each circumstance, although in the main not very unusual, constantly appeared to his mind as an evidence of the predetermination of his fate, so superstitious was he. Especially he could never understand why he, weary and harassed as he was, could not have returned home by the shortest route, instead of across the Haymarket, which was quite out of the way. Certainly, a dozen times before, he had reached his lodgings by most circuitous routes, and never known through which streets he had come. But why (he always asked) should such a really fateful meeting have taken place in the market (through which there was no need to go), and happen, too, at exactly such a time and at a moment of his life when his mind was in the state it was, and the event, in these circumstances, could only produce the most definite and decided effect upon his fate? Surely he was the instrument of some purpose!
It was about nine o'clock as he stood in the Haymarket. All the dealers had closed their establishments or cleared away their goods and gone home. About this place, with its tattered population, its dirty and nauseous courtyards and numerous alleys, Raskolnikoff dearly loved to roam in his aimless wanderings. He attracted no notice there. At the corner of K—— Lane were a dealer and his wife, who were engaged in packing up their wares, consisting of tapes, handkerchiefs, cotton, &c., preparatory to going home. They were lingering over their work, and conversing with an acquaintance. This was Elizabeth Ivanovna, or simple Elizabeth, as all called her, the younger sister of the old woman, Alena Ivanovna, to whose rooms Raskolnikoff went the day before for the purpose of pawning his watch to make his rehearsal. He knew all about this Elizabeth, as she knew also a little about him. She was a tall, awkward woman, about thirty-five years of age, timid and quiet, indeed almost an idiot, and was a regular slave to her sister, working for her day and night, trembling before her and enduring even blows. She was evidently hesitating about something, as she stood there with a bundle under her arm, and her friends were pressing some subject rather warmly. When Raskolnikoff recognized her he seemed struck with the greatest astonishment, although there was nothing strange about such a meeting.
"You ought to decide yourself, Elizabeth Ivanovna," said the man.
"Come to-morrow at seven o'clock."
"To-morrow?" said Elizabeth slowly, as if undecided.
"She is frightened of Alena Ivanovna," cried the wife, a brisk little woman. "You are like a little child, Elizabeth Ivanovna, and she's not your own sister, but a stepsister. She has too much her own way."
"You say nothing to Alena Ivanovna," interrupted the man, "and come without asking, that's the way to do it, and your sister can manage herself."
"When shall I come?"