what the doctor says!’
Katerina Ivanovna rushed over to the window; there, on a battered chair in the corner, stood a large earthenware basin filled with water, all ready for the nocturnal scrubbing of her children’s and husband’s clothes. Katerina Ivanovna performed this task herself twice a week, and sometimes even more often than that, for they’d got to the point of having almost no change of linen at all, with only one item of each type per family member, and Katerina Ivanovna couldn’t stand dirt and would sooner slave away, in pain and exhaustion, when everyone was asleep, so that by morning the washing would have dried on a cord stretched across the room, than see filth in her home. At Raskolnikov’s request she picked up the bowl and was about to bring it over, but nearly fell under her burden. But he’d already found a towel, dipped it in water and begun cleaning Marmeladov’s blood-soaked face. Katerina Ivanovna stood beside them, drawing painful breaths and clutching her chest. She herself was in need of help. It began to dawn on Raskolnikov that having the trampled man brought here may have been a mistake. The policeman was also bewildered.
‘Polya!’ shouted Katerina Ivanovna. ‘Run to Sonya, quick. If she’s not in, tell them anyway that Father’s been trampled by horses and she should come over immediately . . . when she returns. Quick, Polya! Here, cover yourself with a shawl!’
‘Run for your life, thithter!’ the boy suddenly shouted from the chair and, having done so, relapsed into silence, sitting straight-backed, eyes wide open, his heels thrust forward and his toes apart.
By now, the room had filled to bursting. The police officers had all left apart from one, who’d stayed behind for a while and was trying to drive the spectators who’d come in from the stairs back out again. At the same time, nearly all Mrs Lippewechsel’s tenants were spilling out from the inner rooms. At first they seemed content merely to crowd the doorway, then they poured into the room itself. Katerina Ivanovna was beside herself.
‘At least let him die in peace!’ she yelled at the mob. ‘A nice spectacle you’ve found for yourselves! While you smoke! Cuh-cuh-cuh! Where are your hats, I wonder? . . . Look, there’s one! . . . Out! A dead body deserves some respect!’
Her cough was choking her, but the warning did its job. The tenants were clearly a little scared of Katerina Ivanovna. One by one they shuffled back towards the door with that strange inner sense of satisfaction that may always be observed at moments of sudden misfortune, even among people who are as close as can be, and there is not one person, without exception, who is free of it, notwithstanding even the sincerest feelings of pity and sympathy.
From the other side of the door, though, came talk of the hospital and what a pain it was to be disturbed for no reason.
‘It’s death that’s a pain!’ shouted Katerina Ivanovna, and she’d already rushed over to fling open the door and let them have it when she collided in the doorway with Mrs Lippewechsel herself, who’d only just heard about the misfortune and was hurrying over to restore order. A more cantankerous and disorderly German would be hard to imagine.
‘Oh my God!’ she cried, clasping her hands. ‘Your husband drunken trampled by horse. To ze hospital! I – landlady!’
‘Amalia Ludwigovna! Please think before you speak,’ Katerina Ivanovna began haughtily (speaking to the landlady, she always took a haughty tone, so that the latter would ‘know her place’, and even now she could not deny herself this pleasure). ‘Amalia Ludwigovna . . .’
‘I told you for-once-and-for-twice: don’t dare you call me Amal Ludwigovna; it’s Amal-Ivan!’
‘Your name is not Amal-Ivan, but Amalia Ludwigovna, and since I am not one of your vile flatterers, like Mr Lebezyatnikov, who is laughing as we speak on the other side of the door,’ – laughter rang out from there as if on cue, along with the cry, ‘They’re at it again!’ – ‘I shall always call you Amalia Ludwigovna, although why you should dislike this name so much is quite beyond me. You can see what’s happened to Semyon Zakharovich: he is dying. Be so kind as to close this door