head sank on the pillow instead. Again the unbearable icy
shivering came over him; again he drew his coat over him.

And for a long while, for some hours, he was haunted by the impulse to
"go off somewhere at once, this moment, and fling it all away, so that
it may be out of sight and done with, at once, at once!" Several times
he tried to rise from the sofa, but could not.

He was thoroughly waked up at last by a violent knocking at his door.

"Open, do, are you dead or alive? He keeps sleeping here!" shouted
Nastasya, banging with her fist on the door. "For whole days together
he's snoring here like a dog! A dog he is too. Open I tell you. It's
past ten."

"Maybe he's not at home," said a man's voice.

"Ha! that's the porter's voice.... What does he want?"

He jumped up and sat on the sofa. The beating of his heart was a
positive pain.

"Then who can have latched the door?" retorted Nastasya. "He's taken to
bolting himself in! As if he were worth stealing! Open, you stupid, wake
up!"

"What do they want? Why the porter? All's discovered. Resist or open?
Come what may!..."

He half rose, stooped forward and unlatched the door.

His room was so small that he could undo the latch without leaving the
bed. Yes; the porter and Nastasya were standing there.

Nastasya stared at him in a strange way. He glanced with a defiant and
desperate air at the porter, who without a word held out a grey folded
paper sealed with bottle-wax.

"A notice from the office," he announced, as he gave him the paper.

"From what office?"

"A summons to the police office, of course. You know which office."

"To the police?... What for?..."

"How can I tell? You're sent for, so you go."

The man looked at him attentively, looked round the room and turned to
go away.

"He's downright ill!" observed Nastasya, not taking her eyes off him.
The porter turned his head for a moment. "He's been in a fever since
yesterday," she added.

Raskolnikov made no response and held the paper in his hands, without
opening it. "Don't you get up then," Nastasya went on compassionately,
seeing that he was letting his feet down from the sofa. "You're ill, and
so don't go; there's no such hurry. What have you got there?"

He looked; in his right hand he held the shreds he had cut from his
trousers, the sock, and the rags of the pocket. So he had been asleep
with them in his hand. Afterwards reflecting upon it, he remembered that
half waking up in