(16) C, P. (Part Two) Chapter I Conclusion

WELL NOW, RASKOLNIKOV HAS GONE FROM ALMOST CONFESSING AT THE POLICE STATION TO BEING ARUMENTATIVE WITH THE POLICE ASSISTANT SUPERINTENDENT!

   Raskolnikov's is served a writ for money owed to his landlady. It did not concern him, not worth worrying over, he found himself mechanical in asking and answering questionns about this trifling matter. An instant of triumphant joy settles on him from being saved from overwhelming danger.

   The assistant superintendent shaken by Raskolnikov showing of disrespect to him, turns his anger to a Madam of a house for prostitutes referred to as a smart lady, where a man, an author, caused trouble, last night. This smart lady trembled while taking the assistant superintendent's abuse, curtsied incessantly, giving seductive smiles. (CAN'T YOU IMAGINE THIS?)

   A literary man, came to her honourable house drunk, causing trouble. (FUN LITTLE TID-BIT ABOUT AUTHORS!)

   The smart lady was continually curtsying on her way out, she stumbles against Nikodim Fomitch, the superintendent of the district.

   "Again thunder and lightning--a hurricane!" said Nikodim Fomitch to Ilya Petrovitch the assistant superintendent in a civil and friendly tone. "You are fuming again, I heard it on the stairs!"

   Ilya Petrovitch speaks to Nikodim Fomitch, "here, if you will kindly look: an author, or a student, does not pay his debts, won't clear out of his room, protesting against my smoking in his presence! He behaves like a cad himself, and just look at him, here's the gentlemen, and very attractive he is!"

   "Poverty is not a vice my friend, but we know you go off like powder, you can't bear a slight. I daresay you took offence at something and went too far yourself!" continued Nikodim Fomitch, turning affably to Raskolnikov.

   His nickname in the regiment was The Explosive Lieutenant . . ."

   "And what a regiment it was, too," cried Ilya Petrovitch.

   "Excuse me, Captain,"  addressing Nikodim Fomitch, "will you please let me explain? I ask pardon if I have been ill mannered. I am a poor student, sick and shattered, by poverty. How can I pay her?"

   "But that's not our business, you know," the head clerk said.

   Raskolnikov explains "I have been living there for three years, in the beginning I promised to marry her daughter, a youthful affair, the landlady gave me credit freely."

   "Nobody asks you for these personal details, sir." Ilya Pertrovich said sternly, triumphantly.

   Raskolnikov stopped him suddenly, upset, finding it difficult to speak.

   "But excuse me. It is for me to explain . . . how it all happened. A year ago, the girl died of  typhus. I remain lodging there, my landlady said to me, that she had complete trust in me, but still, would I give her an I O U, the debt I owed her."

(AFTER READING THE BOOK THE FIRST TIME I BELIEVE THERE IS MUCH, MUCH, MORE BEHIND THE LANDLADY'S DAUGHTER THAT IS NOT BEING SAID AT THIS POINT. I HOPE TO CLEAR THIS THOUGHT UP AS THE BOOK GOES ON. VERY LITTLE ABOUT THIS GIRL IS MENTIONED BUT BIT'S AND PIECES TELL ME SO MUCH MORE! MY QUESTION WAS SHE THE BEGINNING OF THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL OF RASKOLNIKOV???)

  "These details are no business of ours," Ilya Petrovitch interrupted rudely. "You must give a written understanding, but as for your love affairs and all these tragic events, we have nothing to do with that."

   "Come now you are too harsh," muttered Nikodim Fomitch.

   Raskolnikov felt the head clerk sees him differently after his detailed explaination. Then in a flash he was indifferent to what they thought after talking so freely a moment earlier. Where did those feelings come from?

   A gloomy sensation of agonising, everlasting solitude and remoteness, took conscious form in his soul. (WHAT A LINE!) He felt he could never again appeal to these people in the police office with sentiment. He had never experienced such a strange and awful sensation, the most agonising sensation of all the sensations of his life.

   He was supposed to write a declaration, of unable to pay, but would do so in the future, the head clerk noticed Raskolnikov could barely hold the pen, ask him "are you ill?"

   He put his elbows on the table and pressed his head into his hands. He felt as if a nail was being driven into his skull. A strange idea suddenly occurred to him to tell Nikodim Formitch everything and take him to his room and show him the things he had hidden.

   He then overheard Nikodim Fomitch talking eagerly to Ilya Petrovich about the student and Koch, the two men who were at the pawnbrokers door yesterday whom he slipped by, as they went after the porter.

   Raskolnikov picked up his hat and walked towards the door, but he did not reach it . . .

   He fainted, when he came to he was as white as a handkerchief.

   Ilya Petrovitch asked, "how long have you been ill, did you go out yesterday?"

  Raskolnikov answered sharply, jerkily, without dropping his black feverish eyes before Ilya Petrovitch's stare.

   "He can scarcely stand upright. And you . . . " Nikodim Fomitch was beginning.

   There was sudden silence. It was strange.

   "Very well, we will not detain you," said Ilya Petrovich.

   Raskolnikov left, hearing eager conversation, above the rest was the questioning voice of Nikodim Fomitch. In the street he faintness was gone completely.

   " A search--there will be a search at once," he repeated to himself, hurrying home.

   His former terror took hold again!
  
END OF PART TWO, CHAPTER ONE, PLENTY MORE TO COME! DON'T LEAVE ME NOW! Glen