With slow faltering steps, with shaking knees, Raskolnikov made his way
back to his little garret, feeling chilled all over. He took off his cap
and put it on the table, and for ten minutes he stood without moving.
Then he sank exhausted on the sofa and with a weak moan of pain he
stretched himself on it. So he lay for half an hour.

He thought of nothing. Some thoughts or fragments of thoughts, some
images without order or coherence floated before his mind--faces of
people he had seen in his childhood or met somewhere once, whom he would
never have recalled, the belfry of the church at V., the billiard table
in a restaurant and some officers playing billiards, the smell of cigars
in some underground tobacco shop, a tavern room, a back staircase quite
dark, all sloppy with dirty water and strewn with egg-shells, and the
Sunday bells floating in from somewhere.... The images followed one
another, whirling like a hurricane. Some of them he liked and tried
to clutch at, but they faded and all the while there was an oppression
within him, but it was not overwhelming, sometimes it was even
pleasant.... The slight shivering still persisted, but that too
was an almost pleasant sensation.

He heard the hurried footsteps of Razumihin; he closed his eyes and
pretended to be asleep. Razumihin opened the door and stood for some
time in the doorway as though hesitating, then he stepped softly into
the room and went cautiously to the sofa. Raskolnikov heard Nastasya's
whisper:

"Don't disturb him! Let him sleep. He can have his dinner later."

"Quite so," answered Razumihin. Both withdrew carefully and closed the