“Hi there! hang it! stop!”

He who uttered these cries had just burst out of one of the lodgings, and was rushing down the stairs as fast as his legs would carry him, yelling the while:  “Dmitri!  Dmitri!  Dmitri!  May the devil take the fool!”

The rest died away in the distance; the man who was uttering these cries had already left the house far behind.  All was once more silent; but scarcely was this alarm over than a fresh one succeeded it:  several individuals talking together in a loud tone of voice were noisily coming up the stairs.  There were three or four of them.  Raskolnikoff recognized the young man’s sonorous accents.  “It is they!” No longer hoping to escape them, he advanced boldly to meet them:  “Let happen what will!” said he to himself:  “if they stop me, all is over; if they let me pass, all is over just the same:  they will remember passing me on the stairs.”  They were about to encounter him, only one flight separated them—­when suddenly he felt himself saved!  A few steps from him, to the right, there was an empty lodging with the door wide open, it was that same one on the second floor where he had seen the painters working, but, by a happy chance, they had just left it.  It was they, no doubt, who a few minutes before had gone off, uttering those shouts.  The paint on the floors was quite fresh, the workmen had left their things in the middle of the room:  a small tub, some paint in an earthenware crock, and a big brush.  In the twinkling of an eye, Raskolnikoff glided into the deserted apartment and hid himself as best he could up against the wall.  It was none too soon:  his pursuers were already on the landing; they did not stop there, however, but went on up to the fourth floor, talking loudly among themselves.  After waiting till they had got some distance off, he left the room on tiptoe and hurried down as fast as his legs would carry him.  No one on the stairs!  No one either at the street door!  He stepped briskly outside, and, once in the street, turned to the left.

He knew very well, he knew without a doubt, that they who were seeking him were at that moment in the old woman’s lodging, and were amazed to find that the door, which a little while before had been shut so securely, was now open.  “They’re examining the corpses,” thought he; “it won’t take them a minute to come to the conclusion that the murderer managed to hide himself from them as they went up the stairs; perhaps they may even have a suspicion that he stowed himself away in the empty lodging on the second floor while they were hurrying to the upper part of the house.”  But, in spite of these reflections, he did not dare to increase his pace, though he still had a hundred steps or so to go before reaching the first turning.  “Suppose I slipped into some doorway, in some out-of-the-way street, and waited there a few minutes?  No, that would never do!  I might throw my hatchet away somewhere? or take a cab?  No good! no good!”