| F.M. Dostoyevsky - Crime and Punishment |
| 1 | I In early July, in exceptional heat, towards evening, a young man left the garret he was renting in S——y Lane, stepped outside, and slowly, as if in two minds, set off towards K——n Bridge. He'd successfully avoided meeting his landlady on the stairs. His garret was right beneath the eaves of a tall, five-storey building and resembled a cupboard more than it did a room. His landlady – a tenant herself, who also provided him with dinner and a maid – occupied separate rooms on the floor below, and every time he went down he had no choice but to pass her kitchen, the door of which was nearly always wide open. |
| 2 | And every time he passed it, the young man experienced a sickening, craven sensation that made him wince with shame. He owed his landlady a small fortune and he was scared of meeting her. Not that he was really so very craven or browbeaten – far from it; but for some time now he'd been in an irritable, tense state of mind not unlike hypochondria. He'd become so self-absorbed and so isolated that he feared meeting anyone, not just his landlady. |
| 3 | He was being suffocated by poverty; yet lately even this had ceased to bother him. He'd entirely abandoned – and had no wish to resume – his most pressing tasks. And he couldn't really be scared of a mere landlady, whatever she might be plotting. But to stop on the stairs, to listen to her prattle on about everyday trivia that meant nothing to him, and pester him about payments, threaten and whine, while he had to squirm, apologize and lie – no, better to slink past like a cat and slip out unnoticed. |
| 4 | Still, as he stepped out into the street, even he was astonished by the terror that had overcome him just now at the thought of meeting his creditor. Here I am planning to do a thing like that and I'm scared of the merest trifle!' he thought with a strange smile. H'm... yes... man has the world in his hands, but he's such a coward that he can't even grab what's under his nose... an axiom if ever there was... |
| 5 | Here's a question: what do people fear most? A new step, a new word of their own – that's what they fear most. But I'm talking too much. That's why I never do anything. Or maybe it's because I never do anything that I'm always talking. It's only this past month that I've learned to witter away like this, lying in my corner for days on end and thinking... about King Pea. So why am I going there now? |
| 6 | Am I really capable of that? Can that be serious? It's not serious at all. It's just a way of keeping myself amused, a flight of fancy, a toy! That's right, a toy!' It was dreadfully hot, not to mention the closeness of the air, the crush of people, the mortar, scaffolding, bricks, dust, and that specific summer stench so familiar to any Petersburger too poor to rent a dacha – all this gave a nasty jolt to the young man's already rattled nerves. |
| 7 | The unbearable stink from the drinking dens, of which there are so many in this part of town, and the drunks who kept crossing his path even though it was only a weekday, added the final touches to this sad and revolting scene. A feeling of deepest disgust flickered briefly across the young man's delicate features. He was, by the way, remarkably good- looking, with beautiful dark eyes and dark brown hair, taller than average, with a slim and elegant figure. |
| 8 | But soon he seemed to sink deep in thought, or even, to be more precise, into a kind of trance, and he walked on without noticing his surroundings, nor indeed wishing to notice them. He merely muttered something to himself every now and then, a sign of the habit to which he'd just confessed. At such moments even he could see that his thoughts were prone to confusion and that he was extremely weak: he'd barely eaten a thing for the better part of two days. |
| 9 | He was so badly dressed that many a man, even one used to the life, would have been ashamed to be seen in such rags in the daytime. But then, this wasn't the sort of district where people were easily shocked. The proximity of the Haymarket, the profusion of notorious establishments, and the local residents, mainly craftsmen and workers, all crammed into these streets and lanes in the middle of town, often furnished the scene with such colourful characters that it would have been strange to be shocked, whoever you met. |
| 10 | Anyway, the young man's soul had already stored up so much spite and scorn that, for all his sometimes childish touchiness, his rags were the last thing he was ashamed of in public. Running into certain acquaintances or former friends was a different matter – these were people he disliked meeting on principle... Yet when a drunk, who was being carried down the street heaven knows why or where, in an enormous empty cart pulled by an enormous dray horse, suddenly shouted as he went by Oi, you in the German hat!' and started yelling at the top of his voice and pointing at him, the young man stopped in his tracks and his hand leapt to his head. |
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