Under the Stone — Crime and Punishment

Raskolnikov rushes home expecting a search, but the room is untouched and the loot still bulges from the wall. He pockets every trinket and the purse, then tries to dispose of them in the canal, only to find rafts, washerwomen, and witnesses everywhere. Paranoia makes every passerby seem to stare. He slips into a deserted courtyard, lifts a heavy stone, and buries the evidence in the hollow beneath. For an instant he feels the same joy he felt at the police office: I have buried my tracks!

Crossing the square he laughs thinly until memory stops him at the boulevard bench where he met the drunk girl. Fury and self-disgust follow. He suddenly asks why he never even glanced into the purse if the crime was deliberate, then decides he is too ill to think straight. Hatred of every face on the street drives him, almost against his will, to Razumihin's garret. He accepts three roubles for a translation job, walks out, then returns the money and papers without a word, telling his friend from the stairs that he does not want translation.

On Nikolaevsky Bridge a coachman lashes him for stumbling into traffic; bystanders call him a pickpocket. An elderly woman presses twenty copecks into his hand in Christ's name. He stares at the Neva, flings the coin into the water, and wanders for hours before collapsing at home. At dusk a scream wakes him: he hears Ilya Petrovitch beating the landlady on the stairs. Terror grips him until Nastasya brings soup and says calmly that nobody has been beating anyone. That's the blood crying in your ears, she tells him. When guilt has no outlet, you begin fancying things.