. She scarcely
uttered a faint cry and collapsed at once all in a heap on the floor;
she was dead.

The murderer laid his hatchet down and at once began to search the
corpse, taking the greatest precaution not to get stained with the
blood; he remembered seeing Alena Ivanovna, on the occasion of his
last visit, take her keys from the right-hand pocket of her dress. He
was in full possession of his intellect; he felt neither giddy nor
dazed, but his hands continued to shake. Later on, he recollected that
he had been very prudent, very attentive, that he had taken every care
not to soil himself. It did not take him long to find the keys; the
same as the other day, they were all together on a steel ring. Having
secured them, Raskolnikoff at once passed into the bedroom. It was a
very small apartment; on one side was a large glass case full of holy
images, on the other a great bed looking very clean with its
quilted-silk patchwork coverlet. The third wall was occupied by a
chest of drawers. Strange to say, the young man had no sooner
attempted to open them, he had no sooner commenced to try the keys,
than a kind of shudder ran through his frame. Again the idea came to
him to give up his task and go away, but this weakness only lasted a
second: it was now too late to draw back.

He was even smiling at having for a moment entertained such a thought,
when he was suddenly seized with a terrible anxiety: suppose the old
woman were still alive, suppose she recovered consciousness. Leaving
at once the keys and the drawers, he hastened to the corpse, seized
the hatchet, and prepared to strike another blow at his victim, but he
found there was no necessity to do so. Alena Ivanovna was dead beyond
all doubt. Leaning over her again to examine her closer, Raskolnikoff
saw that the skull was shattered. He was about to touch her with his
fingers, but drew back, as it was quite unnecessary. There was a pool
of blood upon the floor. Suddenly noticing a bit of cord round the old
woman's neck, the young man gave it a tug, but the gory stuff was
strong, and did not break. The murderer then tried to remove it by
drawing it down the body. But this second attempt was no more
successful than the first, the cord encountered some obstacle and
became fixed. Burning with impatience, Raskolnikoff brandished the
hatchet, ready to strike the corpse and sever the confounded string at
the same blow. However, he could not make up his mind to proceed with