to eat, she goes and files a recovery claim . . . So what can I say?’
‘All these sentimental details, honourable sir, do not concern us,’ Ilya Petrovich insolently broke in. ‘You must supply a statement and an undertaking, and as for being in love and all these tragic particulars, well, we couldn’t care less.’
‘Well really . . . that’s a bit harsh . . . ,’ muttered Nikodim Fomich, sitting down to sign some papers as well. He felt almost ashamed.
‘Go on, write,’ the head clerk told Raskolnikov.
‘Write what?’ asked the latter in a particularly rude sort of way.
‘I’ll dictate.’
It seemed to Raskolnikov that the head clerk had become more casual and scornful towards him after his confession, but, strangely enough, he suddenly felt utterly indifferent to anyone else’s opinion, and this change had come about just like that, in a flash. Had he chosen to pause for a moment’s thought, then he would of course have been amazed: how could he have spoken to them like that, just a moment ago, and even thrust his feelings upon them? And where had they come from, these feelings? Now, on the contrary, if the room had suddenly filled up not with police officers but with his bosom friends, even then, it seemed, he could have found no human words for them, so empty had his heart suddenly become. A gloomy sensation of excruciating, endless solitude and estrangement suddenly communicated itself consciously to his soul. His abject effusions before Ilya Petrovich, the lieutenant’s abject gloating – it was not these that had suddenly turned his heart inside out. Oh, what did any of it matter to him now: his own despicable behaviour, all this vanity, these lieutenants, German ladies, recovery claims, bureaus, etcetera, etcetera? Had he been sentenced to the stake at this moment, even then he would not have stirred, even then he would scarcely have bothered listening to the sentence. Something entirely unfamiliar was happening to him, something new, sudden and completely unprecedented. He did not so much understand as sense, with the full force and clarity of his senses, that he no longer had anything to say to these people in the local police bureau, never mind exhibitions of sentiment, and had they all been his very own brothers and sisters and not district lieutenants, even then there would have been no point talking to them, whatever life threw in his path; never before had he experienced such a strange and dreadful sensation. And the most excruciating thing of all was that this was more a sensation than something conscious, something intellectual; a direct sensation, the most excruciating of all sensations experienced by him hitherto in his life.
The head clerk began dictating the statement, following the usual form in such cases, i.e., unable to pay, promise to do so on such-and-such a date (whenever), shan’t leave town, shan’t sell or give away my property, etcetera.
‘But you can’t even write – you keep dropping the pen,’ the head clerk observed, peering curiously at Raskolnikov. ‘Are you sick?’
‘Yes . . . head’s spinning . . . Carry on!’
‘That’s it. Now sign.’
The head clerk took the document and turned to the other people waiting.
Raskolnikov gave back the pen, but instead of getting up to leave he placed his elbows on the desk and gripped his head in his hands. As if a nail were being knocked into the crown of his head. A strange notion suddenly struck him: to get up right now, walk over to Nikodim Fomich and tell him all about yesterday, down to the very last detail, then go with them to his apartment and show them the items, in the corner, in the hole. The urge was so strong that he was already on his feet to carry it out. ‘Perhaps I should think about it first?’ flashed across his mind. ‘No, best not to think and get it over and done with!’ But he suddenly stopped dead in his tracks: Nikodim Fomich was having a heated exchange with Ilya Petrovich and their words carried over to him:
‘Impossible! They’ll release the pair of them! First off, it makes no sense: why would they call the caretaker if it was their doing? To inform against themselves? Or were they