It was all like a dream to him.  The visitor gave a violent pull at the bell.  He immediately fancied he heard something move inside.  He listened attentively during a few seconds, then he gave another ring and again waited; suddenly losing patience, he began to shake the door handle with all his might.  Raskolnikoff watched with terror the bolt trembling in the socket, expecting to see it shoot back at any moment, so violent were the jerks given to the door.  It occurred to him to hold the bolt in its place with his hand, but the man might have found it out.  His head was turning quite dizzy again.  “I shall betray myself!” thought he; but he suddenly recovered his presence of mind as the unknown broke the silence.

“Are they both asleep, or has some one strangled them?  The thrice-confounded creatures!” growled the visitor in a guttural voice.  “Hi!  Alena Ivanovna, you old sorceress!  Elizabeth Ivanovna, you indescribable beauty!—­open!  Oh! the witches! can they be asleep?”

In his exasperation he rang ten times running, and as loud as he possibly could.  This man was evidently not a stranger there, and was in the habit of being obeyed.  At the same moment some light and rapid footsteps resounded on the staircase.  It was another person coming to the fourth floor.  Raskolnikoff was not at first aware of the newcomer’s arrival.

“Is it possible that there’s no one at home?” said the latter in a loud and hearty tone of voice, addressing the first visitor who was still tugging at the bell pull.  “Good day, Koch!”

“Judging by his voice, he must be quite a young man,” immediately thought Raskolnikoff.

“The devil only knows!  I’ve almost smashed the lock,” replied Koch.  “But how is it you know me?”

“What a question!  The day before yesterday I played you at billiards, at Gambrinus’s, and won three games right off.”

“Ah!”

“So they’re not at home?  That’s strange.  I might almost say it’s ridiculous.  Where can the old woman have gone?  I want to speak with her.”

“And I too, batuchka, I want to speak with her.”

“Well, what’s to be done?  I suppose we must go back to whence we came.  I wanted to borrow some money of her!” exclaimed the young man.

“Of course we must go back again; but why then did she make an appointment?  She herself, the old witch, told me to come at this hour.  And it’s a long way to where I live.  Where the deuce can she be?  I don’t understand it.  She never stirs from one year’s end to the other, the old witch; she quite rots in the place, her legs have always got something the matter with them, and now all on a sudden she goes gallivanting about!”

“Suppose we question the porter?”

“What for?”

“To find out where she’s gone and when she will be back.”

“Hum!—­the deuce!—­question!—­but she never goes anywhere.”  And he again tugged at the door handle.  “The devil take her! there’s nothing to be done but to go.”