his clothes in the deepest anguish.  “How could I go to sleep again when nothing is done!  For I have done nothing, the loop is still where I sewed it.  I forgot all about that!  What a convincing proof it would have been.”  He ripped it off and tore it into shreds which he placed among his underlinen under the pillow.  “These rags cannot awaken any suspicions, I fancy; at least, so it seems to me,” repeated he, standing up in the middle of the room, and, with an attempt rendered all the more painful by the effort it cost him, he looked all round, trying to make sure he had forgotten nothing.  He suffered cruelly from this conviction, that everything, even memory, even the most elementary prudence, was abandoning him.

“Can this be the punishment already beginning?  Indeed! indeed! it is!”

And indeed the frayed edges he had cut from the bottom of his trousers were lying on the floor, in the middle of the room, exposed to the view of the first comer.  “But what can I be thinking of?” exclaimed he in utter bewilderment.  Then a strange idea came into his head; he thought that perhaps all his clothes were saturated in blood, and that he could not see this because his senses were gone and his perception of things lost.  Then he recollected that there would be traces on the purse, and his pockets would be wet with blood.  It was so.  “I am bereft of my reason, I know not what I am doing.  Bah! not at all!—­it is only weakness, delirium.  I shall soon be better.”  He tore at the lining.  At this moment the rays of the morning streamed in and shone on his left boot.  There were plain traces, and all the point was covered.  “I must have stepped in that pool.  What shall I do now?  Boot, lining, rags, where shall they go?” He rolled them up and stood thinking in the middle of the room.  “Ah, the stove.  Yes, burn them.  No, I cannot, I have no match.  Better throw them away.  Yes, yes, that is the thing,” said he, again sitting on the couch.  “At once, and without delay too, quick.”  But, instead, his head fell back upon the pillow, and chilly shiverings again came over him.  He covered himself with his cloak and slept again.  It appeared hours to him, and many a time in his sleep he tried to rise to hasten to throw away his bundle, but he could not, he seemed chained to the bed.  At last he awoke, as he heard a loud knock at his door.

“Eh, open, will you?” cried Nastasia.  “Don’t lie there like a dog.  It’s eleven o’clock.”

“Perhaps he is not in,” said a man’s voice.

“The porter’s voice.  What does he want?” Raskolnikoff rose, and sat on the couch listening.  His heart throbbed violently.  “Who has bolted the door then?” exclaimed the servant.  “Open, will you?”

“All must be discovered?” He rose a little and undid the bolt, and fell back again on his bed.  There stood the porter and Nastasia.  The servant looked strangely at Raskolnikoff, while he fixed a despairing glance upon the porter.