"Do you like street music?" said Raskolnikoff to a middle-aged man standing near him. The latter looked at him in surprise, but smiled. "I love it," continued Raskolnikoff, "especially when they sing to the organ on a cold, dark, gray winter's evening, when all the passers-by seem to have pale, green, sickly-looking faces—when the snow is falling like a sleet, straight down and with no wind, you know, and while the lamps shine on it all."
"I don't know. Excuse me," said the man, frightened at the question and Raskolnikoff's strange appearance, and hastily withdrawing to the other side of the street.
Raskolnikoff went on, and came to the place in the Haymarket where he had met the trader and his wife and Elizabeth. No one was there at the moment. He stopped, and turned to a young fellow, in a red shirt, who was gaping at the entrance to a flour shop.
"A man trades here at this corner, with his wife, eh?"
"Everyone trades here," replied the lad, scanning his questioner from head to foot.
"What is he called?"
"What he was christened."
"But you belong to Zaraisk, don't you? To what Government?"
The boy stared at Raskolnikoff. "We have no governor, your highness, but districts. I stay at home, and know nothing about it, but my brother does; so pardon me, your most mighty highness."
"Is that an eating house there?"