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terrors and there are no barriers and it’s all as it should be.”
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CHAPTER III
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He waked up late next day after a broken sleep. But his sleep had not
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refreshed him; he waked up bilious, irritable, ill-tempered, and looked
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with hatred at his room. It was a tiny cupboard of a room about six
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paces in length. It had a poverty-stricken appearance with its dusty
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yellow paper peeling off the walls, and it was so low-pitched that a man
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of more than average height was ill at ease in it and felt every moment
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that he would knock his head against the ceiling. The furniture was in
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keeping with the room: there were three old chairs, rather rickety; a
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painted table in the corner on which lay a few manuscripts and books;
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the dust that lay thick upon them showed that they had been long
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untouched. A big clumsy sofa occupied almost the whole of one wall and
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half the floor space of the room; it was once covered with chintz, but
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was now in rags and served Raskolnikov as a bed. Often he went to sleep
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on it, as he was, without undressing, without sheets, wrapped in his old
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student’s overcoat, with his head on one little pillow, under which he
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heaped up all the linen he had, clean and dirty, by way of a bolster. A
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little table stood in front of the sofa.
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It would have been difficult to sink to a lower ebb of disorder, but to
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Raskolnikov in his present state of mind this was positively agreeable.
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He had got completely away from everyone, like a tortoise in its shell,
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and even the sight of a servant girl who had to wait upon him and looked
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sometimes into his room made him writhe with nervous irritation. He was
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in the condition that overtakes some monomaniacs entirely concentrated
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upon one thing. His landlady had for the last fortnight given up sending
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him in meals, and he had not yet thought of expostulating with her,
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though he went without his dinner. Nastasya, the cook and only servant,
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was rather pleased at the lodger’s mood and had entirely given up
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sweeping and doing his room, only once a week or so she would stray into
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his room with a broom. She waked him up that day.
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“Get up, why are you asleep?” she called to him. “It’s past nine, I have
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brought you some tea; will you have a cup? I should think you’re fairly
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starving?”
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Raskolnikov opened his eyes, started and recognised Nastasya.
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“From the landlady, eh?” he asked, slowly and with a sickly face sitting
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up on the sofa.
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“From the landlady, indeed!”
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She set before him her own cracked teapot full of weak and stale tea and
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laid two yellow lumps of sugar by the side of it.
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“Here, Nastasya, take it please,” he said, fumbling in his pocket (for
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he had slept in his clothes) and taking out a handful of coppers--“run
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and buy me a loaf. And get me a little sausage, the cheapest, at the
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pork-butcher’s.”
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“The loaf I’ll fetch you this very minute, but wouldn’t you rather have
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some cabbage soup instead of sausage? It’s capital soup, yesterday’s. I
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saved it for you yesterday, but you came in late. It’s fine soup.”
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When the soup had been brought, and he had begun upon it, Nastasya
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sat down beside him on the sofa and began chatting. She was a country
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peasant-woman and a very talkative one.
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“Praskovya Pavlovna means to complain to the police about you,” she
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said.
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He scowled.
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“To the police? What does she want?”
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“You don’t pay her money and you won’t turn out of the room. That’s what
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she wants, to be sure.”
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“The devil, that’s the last straw,” he muttered, grinding his teeth,
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“no, that would not suit me... just now. She is a fool,” he added aloud.
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“I’ll go and talk to her to-day.”
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“Fool she is and no mistake, just as I am. But why, if you are so
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clever, do you lie here like a sack and have nothing to show for it? One
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time you used to go out, you say, to teach children. But why is it you
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do nothing now?”
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“I am doing...” Raskolnikov began sullenly and reluctantly.
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“What are you doing?”
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“Work...”
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“What sort of work?”
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“I am thinking,” he answered seriously after a pause.
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Nastasya was overcome with a fit of laughter. She was given to laughter
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and when anything amused her, she laughed inaudibly, quivering and
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shaking all over till she felt ill.
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“And have you made much money by your thinking?” she managed to
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articulate at last.
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