Crime and Punishment: Part One скачать в хорошем качестве

Crime and Punishment: Part One

Rodion Raskolnikov was a young student who lived all alone in a tiny attic room in the city of St. Petersburg, Russia. His ceiling was so low he had to duck when he stood up. He had quit the university because he had no money to pay the fees. Most days he ate only a crust of bread and drank warm water from a chipped mug. Hunger made his head feel light, and the hot summer air pressed on him like a heavy blanket. While wagons rattled on the street below, Rodion lay on his hard bed and wondered why some people were rich and others were starving. Because he was so poor, Rodion sometimes went to an old pawnbroker named Alyona Ivanovna. A pawnbroker is a person who gives a little money if you leave an object behind. When you bring the money back, you can get the object again. One day Rodion took his late father’s silver watch to Alyona. She opened her door only a crack and stared at him with sharp, cold eyes. She counted each scratch on the watch and then dropped three tiny coins into his hand—far less than the watch was worth. Standing behind her was Alyona’s half-sister, Lizaveta, a tall, gentle woman with shy eyes. Alyona ordered Lizaveta about as if she were a servant. When Rodion left the flat, anger burned in his chest like fire. A shocking idea flashed through his mind: what if one greedy person went away forever and her money was used to help many poor people? The idea scared him, yet it also glowed like a strange light he could not put out. He tried to shake it off, but it clung to him. That evening he stopped in a cheap tavern to rest. Two workmen at the next table said that tomorrow night at seven o’clock Lizaveta would be out on business, so Alyona would be alone in the flat. The wild idea in Rodion’s head suddenly turned into a plan. In the same tavern Rodion met a sad man named Semyon Marmeladov. Marmeladov had lost his job because he drank too much. He cried while telling how his wife and children were starving. His dear daughter Sonya now did shameful work on the streets at night just to buy bread. Though Rodion had almost no money, he handed his last few coins to Marmeladov. The gift made him feel lighter, yet his worry about the unfair world grew deeper. The next morning a letter arrived from Rodion’s mother. She wrote with trembling joy that his sister, Dunya, had agreed to marry a rich lawyer named Pyotr Luzhin. Luzhin promised to lift the family out of debt. Rodion crushed the letter in his fist. He believed Luzhin only wanted a wife he could boss around. If Rodion had real money, Dunya would never have to marry such a man. The plan inside his head now seemed even more important. That evening Rodion took a small wood-cutting axe from the landlady’s kitchen and tied it under his coat so it would not bang against his leg. He wrapped a cheap brass cross in brown paper to serve as a false pledge. Every few steps his mind screamed, “Turn back!” but his feet kept walking toward the pawnbroker’s street, as if pulled by an invisible rope. Alyona answered the door just as before. Rodion stepped inside the cramped room and placed the paper bundle on her desk. While she bent over her scales to weigh the cross, he drew the axe, lifted it high, and struck the top of her head. The blow was fast and hard. Alyona fell without a sound. For a long second the room was silent except for Rodion’s pounding heart. He felt both frozen and burning at the same time. He searched drawers and boxes, stuffing small purses and rings into his pocket, but he found less money than he had hoped. Suddenly the door opened again. Lizaveta walked in, carrying a bundle of cloth. Her kind eyes grew huge with shock when she saw her sister on the floor and Rodion holding the bloody axe. She did not even scream. Rodion shouted, “Go away!” but panic ruled his arm. The axe came down once more. Lizaveta, who had harmed no one, fell beside her sister. The second blow had never been part of his plan, and its horror hit him like ice water on his face. Footsteps echoed on the stairs—two workmen coming up to see the pawnbroker. Rodion wiped the axe on a rag, locked the inner door, and slipped through a side door he had found while searching. He flattened himself inside an empty apartment on the next floor while the workmen knocked, argued, and finally ran off to fetch the police. When the stairs were quiet, Rodion tiptoed down, crossed the courtyard, and reached a narrow lane. Behind an old shed he pried up a loose paving stone, hid the axe and every stolen trinket in the hole, and pushed the stone back into place. He kept not a single ring or coin. At dawn, Rodion locked his attic door and collapsed, shivering in the heat. Alyona and Lizaveta’s faces spun in his mind. “Did it happen? Will they come?” Fever dragged him into sleep, but the axe’s guilt echoed.