Demons

Towards evening I again felt fear, but this time it was incomparably stronger. Of course, I could deny it, but they could also expose me. I kept imagining hard labor. I had never felt any fear, and, apart from this occasion in my life, was never afraid of anything either before or since. Especially not of Siberia, though I could have been sent there more than once. But this time I was frightened and really felt fear, I do not know why, for the first time in my life—a very tormenting sensation. Besides that, in the evening, in my rooms, I came to hate her so much that I decided to kill her. My chief hatred was at the remembrance of her smile. Contempt together with boundless revulsion would spring up in me for the way she had rushed into the corner after it all and covered herself with her hands; I was seized by an inexplicable rage; then came a chill, and when fever began to set in towards morning, I was again overcome by fear, but so strong this time that I have never known a stronger torment. But I no longer hated the girl; at least it did not reach such a paroxysm as the evening before. I observed that strong fear utterly drives out hatred and vengeful feeling.

I woke up around noon, healthy and even surprised at some of yesterday's feelings. I was nonetheless in a bad humor, and again felt compelled to go to Gorokhovy Street, despite all my revulsion. I remember wanting terribly at that moment to have a quarrel with someone, only a real one. But on coming to Gorokhovy Street, I suddenly found Nina Savelyevna in my room, the maid, who had already been waiting for me for about an hour. I was not at all in love with the girl, so that she had come a bit afraid that I might be angry at the uninvited visit. But I was suddenly very glad to see her. She was not bad-looking, but modest and with the sort of ma

I decided to finish it all, to give up the apartment and leave Petersburg. But when I came to give up the apartment, I found the landlady worried and distressed: for three days Matryosha had been sick, lying every night in a fever and raving all night. Of course, I asked what she was raving about (we were talking in a whisper in my room). She whispered to me that she was raving "something terrible," saying "I killed God." I offered to bring a doctor at my own expense, but she did not want to: "God willing, it'll just go away, she doesn't lie down all the time, she goes out during the day, she just ran to the store." I decided to find Matryosha when she was alone, and since the landlady had let on that she had to go to the Petersburg side by five o'clock,[220]I decided to come back in the evening.

I had di

A minute later I looked at my watch and made note of the time. Evening was coming. A fly was buzzing over me and kept landing on my face. I caught it, held it in my fingers, and let it go out the window. Very loudly a cart rolled into the courtyard below. Very loudly (and for long now) an artisan, a tailor, had been singing a song in the corner of the yard, in his window. He was sitting over his work, and I could see him. It occurred to me that since no one had met me when I came through the gateway and went upstairs, so no one had better meet me going downstairs now, and I moved the chair away from the window. Then I picked up a book, threw it down again, began watching a tiny red spider on a geranium leaf, and became oblivious. I remember everything to the last moment.

I suddenly snatched out my watch. It was twenty minutes since she went out. My guess was assuming the shape of a probability. But I decided to wait another quarter of an hour. It also occurred to me that she might have come back and that I perhaps had not heard; but that could not be: there was dead silence and I could hear the whine of every little fly. Suddenly my heart began to pound. I took out my watch: three minutes to go; I sat them out, though my heart was pounding so that it hurt. Then I got up, covered myself with my hat, buttoned my coat, and glanced around the room to make sure everything was in place and there were no signs that I had come. I moved the chair closer to the window, as it had stood before. Finally, I quietly opened the door, locked it with my key, and went to the shed. The door was closed, but not locked; I knew it could not be locked, yet I did not want to open it, but got up on tiptoe and began looking through the crack. At that very moment, as I was getting up on tiptoe, I recalled that when I was sitting by the window looking at the little red spider and became oblivious, I was thinking of how I would get up on tiptoe and reach that crack with my eyes. By putting in this trifle here, I want to prove with certainty to what degree of clarity I was in possession of my mental faculties. I looked through that crack for a long time, it was dark inside, but not totally. At last I made out what I needed ... I wanted to be totally sure.