Crime and Punishment (1886)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: after-days, he thought over it, he could never understand how he had been able to display such cunning, especially at a time when emotion was now and again depriving him of the free use of his intellectual and physical faculties. After short while he heard the bolt withdrawn. CHAPTER VII. THE door, as before, was opened a little, and again the two eyes, with mistrustful glance, peeped out of the dark. Then Raskolnikoff lost his presence of mind and made a serious mistake. Fearing that the old woman would take alarm at finding they were alone, and knowing that his appearance would not reassure her, he took hold of the door and pulled it towards him in order to prevent her shutting it again if she should be thus minded. Seeing this, she held on to the lock, so that he almost drew her together with the door on to the staircase. She recovered herself, and stood to prevent his entrance, speechless with fright. "Good evening, Alena Ivanovna," he commenced, trying to speak with unconcern, but his voice did not obey him, and he faltered and trembled, " Good evening, I have brought you something, but we had better go into the light." He pushed past her and entered the room uninvited. The old woman followed and found her tongue. " What is it you want ? Who are you ? " she commenced. " Pardon me, Alena Ivanovna, your old acquaintance Raskolnikoff. I have brought a pledge, as I promised the other day," and he held out the packet to her. The old woman was about to examine it, when she raised her eyes and looked straight into those of the visitor who had entered so unceremoniously. She examined him attentively, distrustfully, for a minute. Raskolnikoff fancied there was a gleam of mockery in her look as it she guessed all. He felt he was changing colour, and that if she kept h...