Crime and Punishment - Noyemi

By Fyodor Dostoevsky

another, they mounted the steps. Without stopping to think,
Raskolnikov went down the steps at once. Till that moment he had never
been into a tavern, but now he felt giddy and was tormented by a
burning thirst. He longed for a drink of cold beer, and attributed his
sudden weakness to the want of food. He sat down at a sticky little
table in a dark and dirty corner; ordered some beer, and eagerly drank
off the first glassful. At once he felt easier; and his thoughts
became clear.

"All that's nonsense," he said hopefully, "and there is nothing in it
all to worry about! It's simply physical derangement. Just a glass of
beer, a piece of dry bread--and in one moment the brain is stronger,
the mind is clearer and the will is firm! Phew, how utterly petty it
all is!"

But in spite of this scornful reflection, he was by now looking
cheerful as though he were suddenly set free from a terrible burden:
and he gazed round in a friendly way at the people in the room. But
even at that moment he had a dim foreboding that this happier frame of
mind was also not normal.

There were few people at the time in the tavern. Besides the two
drunken men he had met on the steps, a group consisting of about five
men and a girl with a concertina had gone out at the same time. Their
departure left the room quiet and rather empty. The persons still in
the tavern were a man who appeared to be an artisan, drunk, but not
extremely so, sitting before a pot of beer, and his companion, a huge,
stout man with a grey beard, in a short full-skirted coat. He was very
drunk: and had dropped asleep on the bench; every now and then, he
began as though in his sleep, cracking his fingers, with his arms wide
apart and the upper part of his body bounding about on the bench,
while he hummed some meaningless refrain, trying to recall some such
lines as these:

 "His wife a year he fondly loved
  His wife a--a year he--fondly loved."

Or suddenly waking up again:

 "Walking along the crowded row
  He met the one he used to know."

But no one shared his enjoyment: his silent companion looked with
positive hostility and mistrust at all these manifestations. There was
another man in the room who looked somewhat like a retired government
clerk. He was sitting apart, now and then sipping from his pot and
looking round at the company. He, too, appeared to be in some
agitation.



CHAPTER II

Raskolnikov was not used to crowds, and, as we said before, he avoided
society of every sort, more especially of late. But now all at once he
felt a desire to be with other people. Something new seemed to be
taking place within him, and with it he felt a sort of thirst for
company. He was so weary after a whole month of concentrated
wretchedness and gloomy excitement that he longed to rest, if only for
a moment, in some other world, whatever it might be; and, in spite of
the filthiness of the surroundings, he was glad now to stay in the
tavern.

The master of the establishment was in another room, but he frequently
came down some steps into the main room, his jaunty, tarred boots with
red turn-over tops coming into view each time before the rest of his
person. He wore a full coat and a horribly greasy black satin
waistcoat, with no cravat, and his whole face seemed smeared with oil
like an iron lock. At the counter stood a boy of about fourteen, and
there was another boy somewhat younger who handed whatever was wanted.
On the counter lay some sliced cucumber, some pieces of dried black
bread, and some fish, chopped up small, all smelling very bad. It was
insufferably close, and so heavy with the fumes of spirits that five
minutes in such an atmosphere might well make a man drunk.

There are chance meetings with strangers that interest us from the
first moment, before a word is spoken. Such was the impression made on
Raskolnikov by the person sitting a little distance from him, who
looked like a retired clerk. The young man often recalled this
impression afterwards, and even ascribed it to presentiment. He looked
repeatedly at the clerk, partly no doubt because the latter was
staring persistently at him, obviously anxious to enter into
conversation. At the other persons in the room, including the tavern-
keeper, the clerk looked as though he were used to their company, and
weary of it, showing a shade of condescending contempt for them as
persons of station and culture inferior to his own, with whom it would
be useless for him to converse. He was a man over fifty, bald and
grizzled, of medium height, and stoutly built. His face, bloated from
continual drinking, was of a yellow, even greenish, tinge, with
swollen eyelids out of which keen reddish eyes gleamed like little
chinks. But there was something very strange in him; there was a light
in his eyes as though of intense feeling--perhaps there were even
thought and intelligence, but at the same time there was a gleam of
something like madness. He was wearing an old and hopelessly ragged
black dress coat, with all its buttons missing except one, and that
one he had buttoned, evidently clinging to this last trace of
respectability. A crumpled shirt front, covered with spots and stains,
protruded from his canvas waistcoat. Like a clerk, he wore no beard,
nor moustache, but had been so long unshaven that his chin looked like
a stiff greyish brush. And there was something respectable and like an
-5-
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