“How true it is that persons being led to execution interest themselves in anything that strikes them on the way!” was the thought that came into his head, but it passed away like lightning to be succeeded by some other.  “Here we are—­there is the gate.”  It struck half-past seven as he stood near the house.

To his delight, he passed in without observation.  As if on purpose, at the very same moment a load of hay was going in, and it completely screened him.  On the other side of the load, a dispute or brawl was evidently taking place, and he gained the old woman’s staircase in a second.  Recovering his breath and pressing his hand to his beating heart, he commenced the ascent, though first feeling for the hatchet and arranging it.  Every minute he stopped to listen.  The stairs were quite deserted, and every door was closed.  No one met him.  On the second floor, indeed, the door of an empty lodging was wide open; some painters were working there, but they did not look up.  He stopped a moment to think, and then continued the ascent:  “No doubt it would be better if they were not there, but fortunately there are two more floors above them.”  At last he reached the fourth floor, and Alena Ivanovna’s door; the lodging facing it was unoccupied.  The lodging on the third floor, just beneath the old woman’s, was also apparently empty.  The card that used to be on the door had gone; the lodgers had, no doubt, moved.  Raskolnikoff was stifling.  He stood hesitating a moment:  “Had I not better go away?” But without answering the question, he waited and listened.  Not a sound issued from the old woman’s apartments.  The staircase was filled with the same silence.  After listening for a long time, the young man cast a last glance around, and again felt his hatchet.  “Do I not look too pale?” thought he.  “Do I not appear too agitated?  She is mistrustful.  I should do well to wait a little, to give my emotion time to calm down.”

But instead of becoming quieter, his heart throbbed more violently.  He could stand it no longer, and, raising his hand toward the bell rope, he pulled it toward him.  After waiting half a minute, he rang again—­this time a little louder.  No answer.  To ring like a deaf man would have been useless, stupid even.  The old woman was certainly at home; but, suspicious by nature, she was likely to be so all the more then, as she happened to be alone.  Raskolnikoff knew something of Alena Ivanovna’s habits.  He therefore placed his ear to the door.  Had the circumstances amid which he was placed strangely developed his power of hearing, which, in general, is difficult to admit, or was the sound really easily perceptible?  Anyhow, he suddenly became aware that a hand was being cautiously placed on the lock, and that a dress rustled against the door.  Some one inside was going through exactly the same movements as he on the landing.  Some one, standing up against the lock, was listening while trying to hide her presence, and had probably her ear also against the door.