ping to escape them, he advanced boldly to meet
them: "Let happen what will!" said he to himself: "if they stop me,
all is over; if they let me pass, all is over just the same: they will
remember passing me on the stairs." They were about to encounter him,
only one flight separated them--when suddenly he felt himself saved! A
few steps from him, to the right, there was an empty lodging with the
door wide open, it was that same one on the second floor where he had
seen the painters working, but, by a happy chance, they had just left
it. It was they, no doubt, who a few minutes before had gone off,
uttering those shouts. The paint on the floors was quite fresh, the
workmen had left their things in the middle of the room: a small tub,
some paint in an earthenware crock, and a big brush. In the twinkling
of an eye, Raskolnikoff glided into the deserted apartment and hid
himself as best he could up against the wall. It was none too soon:
his pursuers were already on the landing; they did not stop there,
however, but went on up to the fourth floor, talking loudly among
themselves. After waiting till they had got some distance off, he left
the room on tiptoe and hurried down as fast as his legs would carry
him. No one on the stairs! No one either at the street door! He
stepped briskly outside, and, once in the street, turned to the left.

He knew very well, he knew without a doubt, that they who were seeking
him were at that moment in the old woman's lodging, and were amazed to
find that the door, which a little while before had been shut so
securely, was now open. "They're examining the corpses," thought he;
"it won't take them a minute to come to the conclusion that the
murderer managed to hide himself from them as they went up the stairs;
perhaps they may even have a suspicion that he stowed himself away in
the empty lodging on the second floor while they were hurrying to the
upper part of the house." But, in spite of these reflections, he did
not dare to increase his pace, though he still had a hundred steps or
so to go before reaching the first turning. "Suppose I slipped into
some doorway, in some out-of-the-way street, and waited there a few
minutes? No, that would never do! I might throw my hatchet away
somewhere? or take a cab? No good! no good!" At last he reached a
narrow lane; he entered it more dead than alive. There, he was almost
in safety, and he knew it: in such a place, suspicion could hardly be
fixed upon hi