chapter 1

One sultry evening early in a July a young man emerged from the small furnished lodging he occupied in a large five-storied house in the pereoulaks, and turned slowly with an air of indecision, towards the bridge. He was fortunate enough not to meet his landlady on the stairs. She occupied the floor beneath him, and her kitchen, with its usually-happen door, was enter from the staircase. Thus, whenever young man went out, he found himself obliged to pass under the enemy's fire, which always produced a morbid terror, humiliating him and making him knit is brows. He owed her some money and felt afraid of encountering her .

It was not that had been terrified and crushed by mis-fortune, but that for some time he had past he had fallen into a state of nervous depression akin to hypochondria. He had withdrawn from society and shut himself up, till he was ready to shun, not merely his landlady, but everyone human face. Poverty had once weighed him down, though, of late, he had lost his sensitive-ness on that score. He had given up all his daily occupations. In his heart of hearts he laughed scornfully at his landlady and the extremities to which she might proceed. Still to be way-laid on the stairs, to have to listen to all her jargon, hear her demands, threats, and complaints and have to make excuses and subterfuges in return no, he preffered to steal down without attracting notice. On this occasion however, when he had gained the street, he felt surprised himself at this dread of meeting the women to whom he was in debt.

"why should I be alarmed by these trifles when I contemplating such a desperate deed ?" thought he, and he gave a strange smile."Ah well, man holds the remedy in is own hands, and let's everything go its own way, simply through Cowardice that is an axiom. I should like to know what people fear most. whatever is contrary to their usual habits, I imagine. But iam talking too much. I talk and so I do nothing, though I might just as well say, I do nothing and so I talk. I have acquired this habit of chattering during the last month, while I have been lying for days together in a corner, feeding my mind on trifles. Come, why am I taking this walk now? Am I capable of that ? Can that really be serious? Not in the least. These are mere chimeras, idle fancies that flit across my brain!"

The heat in the streets was stifling. The crowd, the sight of lime, bricks, scaffolding, and the peculiar odour so familiar to the nostrils of the inhabitant of St.petersburg who has no means of escaping to the country for the summer, all contributed to irritate the young man's already excited nerves. The reeking fumes of the dram shops, so numerous in this part of the city, and the tipsy men to be seen at every point, although it was no holiday, completed the repulsive character of the scene. Our heroes refined features betrayed, for a moment, an impression of bitter-disgust. We may observe casually that he was not destitute of personal attractions;he was above Middle height, with a slender and well-proportioned figure, and he had dark Auburn hair and fine dark eyes. In a little while he sank into a deep reveire, or rather into a sort of mental tarpor. He walked on without noticing or, trying to notice, his surroundings. Occasionally he muttered a few words to himself; as if, as he himself had just perceived , this had becomes his habit. At this moment it dawned upon him that his ideas were becoming confused and that he was very feeble; he had eaten nothing worth mentioning for the last two days.

His dress was so miserable that anyone else might have scrupled to go out in such rags during the daytime. This quarter of the city , indeed,was not particular as to dress. In the neighbourhood of the cyennaza or Haymarket, in those streets in the heart of st.petersburg, occupied by the artisan classes,no vagaries costume call forth the least surprise. besides the young man fierce disdain had reached such a pitch, that, notwithstanding his extreme sensitiveness, he felt no shame at exhibiting his tattered garments in the street. He would have felt differently had he come across anyone he knew, any of the old friends whom he usually avoided. Yet he stopped short on hearing the attention of passers by directed to him by the thick voice of a tipsy man shouting:"Eh, look at the German hatter!" The exclamation came from individual who, for some unknown reason, was being jolted away in a great waggon. The young man and snatched off his hat and began to examine it. It was a high crowned hat that had been originally bought at zimmersman, but had become worn and rusty with age, all torn and bespattered, brimless and bent on one side in a most unsemely fashion. Not shame, however, but quite another feeling akin to terror had overtaken him.

'I knew it,' he muttered in confusion, I thought so! that's worst of all ! why a stupid thing like this, the most trivial detail might spoil the whole plan. Yes, my hat is too notice-able it looks absurd and that makes noticeable.... With my rags I ought to wear a cap,any sort of old pancake, but not this grotesque thing. Nobody wears such a hat, it would be noticed a mile off, it would be remembered... what matters is that people would remember it, and that give them a clue. For this business one should be as little con-spicious as possible... Trifles, trifles are what matter! why, it's just such trifles that always ruin everything....'

He had not far to go; he knew indeed how many steps it was from the gate of his lodging house : exactly seven hundred and thirty. He had counted them once when he had been lost in dreams. At the time he had put no faith in those dreams and was only tantalising himself by their hideous but daring recklessness. Now, a month later, he had begun to look upon them differently, and, spite of the monologues in which he jeered at is own impotence and

indecision, he had involuntarily come to regard this hideous dream as an exploit to be attempted, although he still did not realise this himself. Is was positively going now for a reahearsel of his project, and it's every step his excitement grew more and more violent.

With a sinking heart and a nervous tremor, he went up to a huge house which one side looked on to the canal, and on the other into the street. This house was let in tiny tenements.