ith all his
might to save enough to return to his studies again. Raskolnikov had
not been to see him for the last four months, and Razumihin did not even
know his address. About two months before, they had met in the street,
but Raskolnikov had turned away and even crossed to the other side that
he might not be observed. And though Razumihin noticed him, he passed
him by, as he did not want to annoy him.
CHAPTER V
"Of course, I've been meaning lately to go to Razumihin's to ask for
work, to ask him to get me lessons or something..." Raskolnikov thought,
"but what help can he be to me now? Suppose he gets me lessons, suppose
he shares his last farthing with me, if he has any farthings, so that
I could get some boots and make myself tidy enough to give lessons...
hm... Well and what then? What shall I do with the few coppers I
earn? That's not what I want now. It's really absurd for me to go to
Razumihin...."
The question why he was now going to Razumihin agitated him even more
than he was himself aware; he kept uneasily seeking for some sinister
significance in this apparently ordinary action.
"Could I have expected to set it all straight and to find a way out by
means of Razumihin alone?" he asked himself in perplexity.
He pondered and rubbed his forehead, and, strange to say, after long
musing, suddenly, as if it were spontaneously and by chance, a fantastic
thought came into his head.
"Hm... to Razumihin's," he said all at once, calmly, as though he had
reached a final determination. "I shall go to Razumihin's of course,
but... not now. I shall go to him... on the next day after It, when It
will be over and everything will begin afresh...."
And suddenly he realised what he was thinking.
"After It," he shouted, jumping up from the seat, "but is It really
going to happen? Is it possible it really will happen?" He left the
seat, and went off almost at a run; he meant to turn back, homewards,
but the thought of going home suddenly filled him with intense loathing;
in that hole, in that awful little cupboard of his, all _this_ had for a
month past been growing up in him; and he walked on at random.
His nervous shudder had passed into a fever that made him feel
shivering; in spite of the heat he felt cold. With a kind of effort he
began almost unconsciously, from some inner craving, to stare at all
the objects before him, as though looking for something to distract his
attention; but he did not succe
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