n you out. I'm not
coming to you to ask forgiveness, but simply to tell you. I chose you
out long ago to hear this, when your father talked of you and when
Lizaveta was alive, I thought of it. Good-bye, don't shake hands.
To-morrow!"

He went out. Sonia gazed at him as at a madman. But she herself was like
one insane and felt it. Her head was going round.

"Good heavens, how does he know who killed Lizaveta? What did those
words mean? It's awful!" But at the same time _the idea_ did not enter
her head, not for a moment! "Oh, he must be terribly unhappy!... He has
abandoned his mother and sister.... What for? What has happened? And
what had he in his mind? What did he say to her? He had kissed her foot
and said... said (yes, he had said it clearly) that he could not live
without her.... Oh, merciful heavens!"

Sonia spent the whole night feverish and delirious. She jumped up from
time to time, wept and wrung her hands, then sank again into feverish
sleep and dreamt of Polenka, Katerina Ivanovna and Lizaveta, of reading
the gospel and him... him with pale face, with burning eyes... kissing
her feet, weeping.

On the other side of the door on the right, which divided Sonia's room
from Madame Resslich's flat, was a room which had long stood empty. A
card was fixed on the gate and a notice stuck in the windows over the
canal advertising it to let. Sonia had long been accustomed to the
room's being uninhabited. But all that time Mr. Svidrigailov had been
standing, listening at the door of the empty room. When Raskolnikov went
out he stood still, thought a moment, went on tiptoe to his own room
which adjoined the empty one, brought a chair and noiselessly carried it
to the door that led to Sonia's room. The conversation had struck him
as interesting and remarkable, and he had greatly enjoyed it--so much so
that he brought a chair that he might not in the future, to-morrow, for
instance, have to endure the inconvenience of standing a whole hour, but
might listen in comfort.

CHAPTER V

When next morning at eleven o'clock punctually Raskolnikov went into the
department of the investigation of criminal causes and sent his name in
to Porfiry Petrovitch, he was surprised at being kept waiting so long:
it was at least ten minutes before he was summoned. He had expected
that they would pounce upon him. But he stood in the waiting-room, and
people, who apparently had nothing to do with him, were continually
passing to and