Crime and Punishment Page #3

								

and, in spite of the heat, there hung flapping on her shoulders, a mangy
fur cape, yellow with age. The old woman coughed and groaned at every
instant. The young man must have looked at her with a rather peculiar
expression, for a gleam of mistrust came into her eyes again.

“Raskolnikov, a student, I came here a month ago,” the young man made
haste to mutter, with a half bow, remembering that he ought to be more
polite.

“I remember, my good sir, I remember quite well your coming here,” the
old woman said distinctly, still keeping her inquiring eyes on his face.

“And here... I am again on the same errand,” Raskolnikov continued, a
little disconcerted and surprised at the old woman’s mistrust. “Perhaps
she is always like that though, only I did not notice it the other
time,” he thought with an uneasy feeling.

The old woman paused, as though hesitating; then stepped on one side,
and pointing to the door of the room, she said, letting her visitor pass
in front of her:

“Step in, my good sir.”

The little room into which the young man walked, with yellow paper on
the walls, geraniums and muslin curtains in the windows, was brightly
lighted up at that moment by the setting sun.

“So the sun will shine like this then too!” flashed as it were by
chance through Raskolnikov’s mind, and with a rapid glance he scanned
everything in the room, trying as far as possible to notice and
remember its arrangement. But there was nothing special in the room. The
furniture, all very old and of yellow wood, consisted of a sofa with
a huge bent wooden back, an oval table in front of the sofa, a
dressing-table with a looking-glass fixed on it between the windows,
chairs along the walls and two or three half-penny prints in yellow
frames, representing German damsels with birds in their hands--that was
all. In the corner a light was burning before a small ikon. Everything
was very clean; the floor and the furniture were brightly polished;
everything shone.

“Lizaveta’s work,” thought the young man. There was not a speck of dust
to be seen in the whole flat.

“It’s in the houses of spiteful old widows that one finds such
cleanliness,” Raskolnikov thought again, and he stole a curious glance
at the cotton curtain over the door leading into another tiny room, in
which stood the old woman’s bed and chest of drawers and into which he
had never looked before. These two rooms made up the whole flat.

“What do you want?” the old woman said severely, coming into the room
and, as before, standing in front of him so as to look him straight in
the face.

“I’ve brought something to pawn here,” and he drew out of his pocket
an old-fashioned flat silver watch, on the back of which was engraved a
globe; the chain was of steel.

“But the time is up for your last pledge. The month was up the day
before yesterday.”

“I will bring you the interest for another month; wait a little.”

“But that’s for me to do as I please, my good sir, to wait or to sell
your pledge at once.”
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