ot walk any farther. He stepped
down into the gutter and remained lying there the rest of the night, and
the next day and the next night.

PART SECOND

I

THE whole time he was lying in the gutter Stepan saw continually before
his eyes the thin, kindly, and frightened face of Maria Semenovna,
and seemed to hear her voice. "How can you?" she went on saying in his
imagination, with her peculiar lisping voice. Stepan saw over again
and over again before him all he had done to her. In horror he shut
his eyes, and shook his hairy head, to drive away these thoughts and
recollections. For a moment he would get rid of them, but in their
place horrid black faces with red eyes appeared and frightened him
continuously. They grinned at him, and kept repeating, "Now you have
done away with her you must do away with yourself, or we will not leave
you alone." He opened his eyes, and again he saw HER and heard her
voice; and felt an immense pity for her and a deep horror and
disgust with himself. Once more he shut his eyes, and the black faces
reappeared. Towards the evening of the next day he rose and went, with
hardly any strength left, to a public-house. There he ordered a drink,
and repeated his demands over and over again, but no quantity of liquor
could make him intoxicated. He was sitting at a table, and swallowed
silently one glass after another.

A police officer came in. "Who are you?" he asked Stepan.

"I am the man who murdered all the Dobrotvorov people last night," he
answered.

He was arrested, bound with ropes, and brought to the nearest
police-station; the next day he was transferred to the prison in the
town. The inspector of the prison recognised him as an old inmate, and a
very turbulent one; and, hearing that he had now become a real criminal,
accosted him very harshly.

"You had better be quiet here," he said in a hoarse voice, frowning, and
protruding his lower jaw. "The moment you don't behave, I'll flog you to
death! Don't try to escape--I will see to that!"

"I have no desire to escape," said Stepan, dropping his eyes. "I
surrendered of my own free will."

"Shut up! You must look straight into your superior's eyes when you talk
to him," cried the inspector, and struck Stepan with his fist under the
jaw.

At that moment Stepan again saw the murdered woman before him, and
heard her voice; he did not pay attention, therefore, to the inspector's
words.

"What?" he asked, coming to his sense