Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
page 35 of 736 (04%)
page 35 of 736 (04%)
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could to keep him from whimpering again. At the same time her large
dark eyes, which looked larger still from the thinness of her frightened face, were watching her mother with alarm. Marmeladov did not enter the door, but dropped on his knees in the very doorway, pushing Raskolnikov in front of him. The woman seeing a stranger stopped indifferently facing him, coming to herself for a moment and apparently wondering what he had come for. But evidently she decided that he was going into the next room, as he had to pass through hers to get there. Taking no further notice of him, she walked towards the outer door to close it and uttered a sudden scream on seeing her husband on his knees in the doorway. "Ah!" she cried out in a frenzy, "he has come back! The criminal! the monster!... And where is the money? What's in your pocket, show me! And your clothes are all different! Where are your clothes? Where is the money! Speak!" And she fell to searching him. Marmeladov submissively and obediently held up both arms to facilitate the search. Not a farthing was there. "Where is the money?" she cried--"Mercy on us, can he have drunk it all? There were twelve silver roubles left in the chest!" and in a fury she seized him by the hair and dragged him into the room. Marmeladov seconded her efforts by meekly crawling along on his knees. "And this is a consolation to me! This does not hurt me, but is a positive con-so-la-tion, ho-nou-red sir," he called out, shaken to and fro by his hair and even once striking the ground with his forehead. The child asleep on the floor woke up, and began to cry. The boy in the corner losing all control began trembling and screaming and rushed |
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