chairs, the looking-glass, the yellow sofa and the pictures in the
frames. A huge, round, copper-red moon looked in at the windows.
"It's the moon that makes it so still, weaving some mystery," thought
Raskolnikov. He stood and waited, waited a long while, and the more
silent the moonlight, the more violently his heart beat, till it was
painful. And still the same hush. Suddenly he heard a momentary sharp
crack like the snapping of a splinter and all was still again. A fly
flew up suddenly and struck the window pane with a plaintive buzz. At
that moment he noticed in the corner between the window and the little
cupboard something like a cloak hanging on the wall. "Why is that cloak
here?" he thought, "it wasn't there before...." He went up to it quietly
and felt that there was someone hiding behind it. He cautiously moved
the cloak and saw, sitting on a chair in the corner, the old woman bent
double so that he couldn't see her face; but it was she. He stood over
her. "She is afraid," he thought. He stealthily took the axe from the
noose and struck her one blow, then another on the skull. But strange
to say she did not stir, as though she were made of wood. He was
frightened, bent down nearer and tried to look at her; but she, too,
bent her head lower. He bent right down to the ground and peeped up
into her face from below, he peeped and turned cold with horror: the old
woman was sitting and laughing, shaking with noiseless laughter, doing
her utmost that he should not hear it. Suddenly he fancied that the door
from the bedroom was opened a little and that there was laughter and
whispering within. He was overcome with frenzy and he began hitting the
old woman on the head with all his force, but at every blow of the axe
the laughter and whispering from the bedroom grew louder and the old
woman was simply shaking with mirth. He was rushing away, but the
passage was full of people, the doors of the flats stood open and on the
landing, on the stairs and everywhere below there were people, rows of
heads, all looking, but huddled together in silence and expectation.