Only then, as she was leaving the room, did Anna Iurievna bethink her of the strange words that had fallen on her ears:  “The will!  In his hands!  Take it!” And repeating them questioningly to herself, she walked slowly back toward the room in which lay her father’s body.

But she was even more occupied with her own thoughts.  She no longer felt in her heart the bitter resentment toward Olga Vseslavovna that had filled it yesterday.  She was conscious of a feeling of sorrow for the helpless woman, of compassion for her empty, shallow life, the fruit of an empty, shallow heart.  And she was wondering why such empty, joyless lives should exist in a world where there was such deep happiness and joy.

She came over to her father’s coffin, close to which the deacon was still droning out his liturgy, and stood beside the dead body, looking down at the strong, quiet face, and vividly recalling her dream of the night before.  Her eyes rested on the many stars and medals on his breast, and on his hands, quietly clasped in death.  Then suddenly, and quite mechanically, Olga Vseslavovna’s cry, as she returned to consciousness, came back into her mind: 

“The will!  In his hands!  Take it!” And bending down, she noted for the first time something white beneath the muslin canopy.  As she scrutinized it wonderingly, she was conscious of an humble, apologetic voice murmuring something at her elbow: 

“Forgive me, Anna Iurievna.  I humbly beg you, forgive me!  It was I ... in the night ... the flowers fell ....  I was putting them back ... fixing the head of your sainted papa ....  It was under his head, the paper ...  I thought he wanted to keep it ....  I put it in his hands, to be safe! ...  Forgive me, Anna Iurievna, if I have done any harm.”

It was the deacon, still oppressed by a feeling of guilt.  Anna.  Iurievna turned to him, and then turned back again, to her father’s body, to the white object shining under the muslin canopy.  And once more Olga Vseslavovna’s words came into her mind: 

“The will!  In his hands!  Take it!”

Gently raising the canopy, she softly drew the paper from beneath the general’s clasped hands, and unfolded it.  She read no more than the opening words, but she had read enough to realize that it was, indeed, her father’s will.

FEODOR MIKHAILOVITCH DOSTOYEVSKY

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT[1]

One sultry evening early in July a young man emerged from the small furnished lodging he occupied in a large five-storied house in the Pereoulok S——­, and turned slowly, with an air of indecision, toward the K——­bridge.  He was fortunate enough not to meet his landlady on the stairs.  She occupied the floor beneath him, and her kitchen, with its usually open door, was entered from the staircase.  Thus, whenever the young man went out, he found himself obliged to pass under the enemy’s fire, which always produced a morbid terror, humiliating him and making him knit his brows.  He owed her some money and felt afraid of encountering her.