t to go, to go away at
once!" murmured he, and he rushed to the anteroom where the greatest
terror he had yet experienced awaited him.

He stood stock-still, not daring to believe his eyes: the door of the
lodging, the outer door which opened on to the landing, the same one
at which he had rung a little while before and by which he had
entered, was open; up till then it had remained ajar, the old woman
had no doubt omitted to close it by way of precaution; it had been
neither locked nor bolted! But he had seen Elizabeth after that. How
was it that it had not occurred to him that she had come in by way of
the door? She could not have entered the lodging through the wall. He
shut the door and bolted it. "But no, that is not what I should do? I
must go away, go away." He drew back the bolt and, after opening the
door again, stood listening on the landing.

He stood thus a long while. Down below, probably at the street door,
two noisy voices were vociferating insults. "Who can those people be?"
He waited patiently. At last the noise ceased, the brawlers had taken
their departure. The young man was about to do the same, when a door
on the floor immediately below was noisily opened and some one went
downstairs, humming a tune. "Whatever are they all up to?" wondered
Raskolnikoff, and closing the door again he waited a while. At length
all became silent as before; but just as he was preparing to go down,
he suddenly became aware of a fresh sound, footsteps as yet far off,
at the bottom of the staircase; and he no sooner heard them than he
guessed the truth:--some one was coming _there_, to the old woman's on
the fourth floor. Whence came this presentiment? What was there so
particularly significant in the sound of these footsteps? They were
heavy, regular, and rather slow than hurried. _He_ has now reached the
first floor, he still continues to ascend. The sound is becoming
plainer and plainer. He pants as though with asthma at each step he
takes. He has commenced the third flight. He will soon be on the
fourth! And Raskolnikoff felt suddenly seized as with a general
paralysis, the same as happens when a person has the nightmare and
fancies himself pursued by enemies; they are on the point of catching
him, they will kill him, and yet he remains spellbound, unable to move
a limb.

The stranger was now ascending the fourth flight. Raskolnikoff, who
until then had been riveted to the landing with fright, was at length
able to