(15) C. P. Part Two (Chapter I) Police Station

   He awakes from oblivion. He remembered everything, a flash. A chill swept over him; but the fever, begun long before, in his sleep.
  He was violently shivering, all his limbs were shaking and his teeth chattered. Everyone in the house was still asleep. He was wondering how he could  of come home without fastening the door, and flung himself on the sofa, without undressing or without taking his hat off.
  He takes off his clothes searching for blood stains, doing so three times. Suddenly he remembered the purse and the other things still in his pockets, hiding them in a hole underneath the wall paper in the corner.
  He sat down on the sofa in exhaustion, shivering, placing his winter's coat over him, and once more sank into delirium. He lost consciousness.
  Not more than five minutes had passed when he jumps up a second time, and pounced in a frenzy on his clothes again. He cuts the loop off the armhole where he had hid the axe. He was standing in the middle of the room gazing about making sure he had not forgotten anything. Seems the simplest power of reflection were failing him becoming insufferable torture.
   "Is my punishment beginning already" It is!"
   Perhaps all his clothes are covered in blood, he thinks, his perceptions were failing. He remembered there was blood on the purse, so his pocket had blood on it. Yes, there were stains on the lining!
   "So my reasoning has not quite deserted me, he thought triumphantly with relief; it's the weakness of the fever." There was blood on the sock that poked out from his boot. He gathers up the blood stained clothing undecided what to do with them.
   "In the stove, no better go out and throw them away somewhere." He sit down on the sofa, again the unbearable icy shivering came over him; again he threw his winter coat over him.
   For several hours he was haunted by the impulse to "go off somewhere at once and fling them away, and be done with it!" He tried to rise from the sofa, but could not.
   Violent knocks at his door wakes him.
   Nastasya "open are you dead or alive? He keeps sleeping here! For whole days, he's snoring like a dog! A dog he is too. Open it's past ten."
   The porter is with Nastasya, he jumps up when he heard a man's voice.
"What do they want? All's discovered. Resist or open? Come what may! . . ."
   The porter hands him a paper, "a notice from the police office," he announces.
   "He's ill" observed Nastasya, not taking her eyes off him. "He's been in fever since yesterday." The porter turned his head for a minute and continued walking away.
   "Don't you get up, you're ill, don't go; what have you got there?"
   He still held the shreds he cut from his clothing in his right hand while asleep.
   Nastasya went off into a hysterical giggle at the rags he held like treasure.
   "But the police?" He thinks.
   He broke the seal of the paper, a summons requesting him to appear at half-past nine. "Why has such a thing happened? I never have anything to do with the police! And why, just today?" he thought in agonising bewilderment. "Good God, only get it over soon!"
   He was flinging himself on his knees to pray, but broke into laughter--not at the idea of prayer, but at himself.
   "If I'm lost, I am lost, I don't care!"
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I'M ATTEMPTING TO SHORTEN AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. SO MUCH IS PIVOTAL TO THE REST OF THE BOOK AND SEEING THE WORKINGS INSIDE RASKOLNIKOV'S MIND IS ESSENTIAL. I SEE MANY THINGS THAT I OVERLOOKED THE FIRST TIME I READ THE BOOK, I HOPE TO ADD THEM AT THE PROPER TIME. WELL THEY'LL BE MY OPINIONS AND NEWLY DISCOVERED EVALUATIONS. PLEASE HANG TOUGH WITH ME? IF IT'S THE LAST THING I ACCOMPLISH IN MY LIFE, I'LL GET THERE! It may be Christmas!!!
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He puts on his bloody sock where blood had gotten on it, then took it off again laughing, because he has no other socks. His laughter was quickly followed with despair.
   "No, it's too much for me . . ." he thought. His legs shook. "From fear," he muttered. He was dizzy and ached with fever. "It's a trick! They want to decoy me there and confound me over everything," he mused , as he went out--"the worst of it is I'm light-headed. . . . I may blurt out something stupid . . .
   He remembers he's leaving everything behind the tattered paper in the corner for them to find. But he was possessed with such cynicism of misery, best to get it over with!"
   In the heat the stench was insufferable, making his head spin even more with the bright sunlight. When reaching the turning point in the street, with agony he looks at the house where the murders were last night, and at once averted his eyes.
   The police station was about a quarter of a mile off. "I'll go in, fall on my knees, and confess everything . . . "he thought upon reaching the fourth floor. A fearful impatience drew him on, no one was paying attention to him. Showing a clerk the note. "Go in there to the head clerk." It was a small room packed full of people, better dressed than in the outer rooms, some of the clerks in the other rooms were dressed no better than he was. He gives his notice to the head clerk. Glancing at it, said: "wait a minute," finishing up with what appeared to be a lady in mourning.
   "He breathed easier. "It can't be what I thought!" He now began to have confidence, urging himself to have courage and be calm.
   "Some foolishness, some trifling carelessness, and I may betray myself, it's so hot, no air,. It makes one's head dizzier than, than ever . . . and one's mind too . . ."
   He was conscious of a terrible inner turmoil, afraid of losing his self-control.
   The head clerk greatly interested him, he kept hoping to see through him and guess something through his face.
   He was young, about twenty-two, fashionably dressed with a number of rings on his well-scrubbed fingers and a gold chain on his waistcoat. Hair well combed and pomaded.
   All at once an officer walked in with a peculiar swing of his shoulders at each step and sat down in an easy chair. He was the assistant superintendent. He looked rather indignantly at Raskolnikov; he was very badly dressed, his position was in no means in keeping with his clothes. Raskolnikov took a long look at him and the assistant superintendent was offended by the stare.
   "What do you want?" he shouted.
   "I was summoned . . . by a notice . . . " Raskolnikov stammered.
   "For the recovery of money due, from the student," the head clerk added.
   Money? What money?' thought Raskolnikov, "but  . . . then . . . it's certainly not THAT." He trembled with joy. He felt indescribable relief. A load had been lifted.
   "What time were you directed to appear, sir?" shouted the assistant superintendent, becoming more aggravated. "You are told to come at nine, and now it's twelve!"
   "The notice was brought to me only a quarter hour ago," Raskolnikov answered loudly.
   The assistant superintendent was furious at Raskolnikov for speaking up to him. He leaps up from his seat.
   "Be silent! You are in a government office, sir!"
   "You're in a government office, too." cried Raskolnikov, "and you're smoking a cigarette as well as shouting, so you are showing disrespect to all of us." He felt an indescribable satisfaction at having said this.
   The head clerk looked at him with a smile. The angry assistant superintendent was obviously embarrassed.
                                                                                                                         TOO CONTINUE