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.“You’ve eaten nothing since yesterday, I bet.You’ve been trudging about all day, and you’re shaking with fever.”“Nastasia.what were they beating the landlady for?”She looked intently at him.“Who beat the landlady?”“Just now.half an hour ago, Ilia Petrovich, the assistant-superintendent, on the stairs.Why was he maltreating her like that, and.why was he here?”Nastasia scrutinized him, silent and frowning, and her scrutiny lasted a long time.He felt uneasy, even frightened at her searching eyes.“Nastasia, why aren’t you saying anything?” he said timidly at last in a weak voice.“It’s the blood,” she answered at last softly, as though speaking to herself.“Blood? What blood?” he muttered, growing white and turning towards the wall.Nastasia still looked at him without speaking.“Nobody has been beating the landlady,” she declared at last in a firm, resolute voice.He gazed at her, hardly able to breathe.“I heard it myself.I was not asleep.I was sitting up,” he said still more timidly.“I listened for a long while.The assistant-superintendent came.Everyone ran out on to the stairs from all the apartments.”“No-one has been here.That’s the blood crying in your ears.When there’s no outlet for it and it gets clotted, you start imagining things.Will you eat something?”He made no answer.Nastasia still stood over him, watching him.“Give me something to drink.Nastasia.”She went downstairs and returned with a white earthenware jug of water.He remembered only swallowing one sip of the cold water and spilling some on his neck.Then he sank into oblivion.CHAPTER THREEHE WAS NOT COMPLETELY unconscious, however, all the time he was ill; he was in a feverish state, sometimes delirious, sometimes half conscious.He remembered a great deal afterwards.Sometimes it seemed as though there were a number of people around him; they wanted to take him away somewhere, there was a great deal of squabbling and discussing about him.Then he would be alone in the room; they had all gone away afraid of him, and only now and then opened the door a crack to look at him; they threatened him, plotted something together, laughed, and mocked him.He remembered Nastasia often at his bedside; he distinguished another person, too, whom he seemed to know very well, though he could not remember who they were, and this upset him, even made him cry.Sometimes he imagined he had been lying there a month; at other times it all seemed part of the same day.But of that—of that he had no recollection, and yet every minute he felt that he had forgotten something he ought to remember.He worried and tormented himself trying to remember, moaned, flew into a rage, or sank into awful, intolerable terror.Then he struggled to get up, would have run away, but someone always prevented him by force, and he sank back into impotence and forgetfulness.At last he returned to complete consciousness.It happened at ten o’clock in the morning.On fine days the sun shone into the room at that hour, throwing a streak of light on the right wall and the corner near the door.Nastasia was standing beside him with another person, a complete stranger, who was looking at him very inquisitively.He was a young man with a beard, wearing a full, short-waisted coat, and looked like a messenger.The landlady was peeping in at the half-opened door.Raskolnikov sat up.“Who is this, Nastasia?” he asked, pointing to the young man.“He’s himself again!” she said.“He’s himself,” echoed the man.Concluding that he had returned to his senses, the landlady closed the door and disappeared.She was always shy and dreaded conversations or discussions.She was a woman of forty, not at all bad-looking, fat and buxom, with black eyes and eyebrows, good-natured from fatness and laziness, and absurdly bashful.“Who.are you?” he went on, addressing the man.But at that moment the door was flung open, and, stooping a little, as he was so tall, Razumikhin came in.“What a cabin it is!” he cried.“I am always knocking my head.You call this an apartment! So you are conscious, my friend? I’ve just heard the news from Pashenka.”“He has just come to,” said Nastasia.“Just come to,” echoed the man again, with a smile.“And who are you?” Razumikhin asked, suddenly addressing him.“My name is Vrazumikhin, at your service; not Razumikhin, as I am always called, but Vrazumikhin, a student and gentleman; and he is my friend.And who are you?”“I am the messenger from our office, from the merchant Shelopaev, and I’ve come on business.”“Please sit down.” Razumikhin seated himself on the other side of the table.“It’s a good thing you’ve come to, my friend,” he went on to Raskolnikov.“For the last four days you have scarcely eaten or drunk anything.We had to give you tea in spoonfuls.I brought Zossimov to see you twice.You remember Zossimov? He examined you carefully and said at once it was nothing serious—something seemed to have gone to your head.Some nervous nonsense, the result of bad feeding, he says you have not had enough beer and radish, but it’s nothing much, it will pass and you will be all right.Zossimov is first-rate! He is making a real name for himself.Come, then, I won’t keep you,” he said, addressing the man again.“Will you explain what you want? You must know, Rodia, this is the second time they have sent from the office; but it was another man last time, and I talked to him [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]