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Updated: June 17, 2025
Suddenly Raskolnikoff heard the student give the officer the address of Alena Ivanovna, the widow of a professor, as one who lent money on pledges. This alone struck Raskolnikoff as very peculiar. They were talking of the same person he had just been to see.
They rang out near the farm, were heard descending into a hollow; then, as the horses commenced to trot, they jingled briskly into the country, their echoes at last dying away beyond the common. Polunin and his guest, Arkhipov, were playing chess in his study. Vera Lvovna was minding the infant; she talked with Alena for a while; then went into the drawing-room, and rummaged among the books there.
When Raskolnikoff recognized her he seemed struck with the greatest astonishment, although there was nothing strange about such a meeting. "You ought to decide yourself, Elizabeth Ivanovna," said the man. "Come to-morrow at seven o'clock." "To-morrow?" said Elizabeth slowly, as if undecided. "She is frightened of Alena Ivanovna," cried the wife, a brisk little woman.
The murderer laid his hatchet down and at once began to search the corpse, taking the greatest precaution not to get stained with the blood; he remembered seeing Alena Ivanovna, on the occasion of his last visit, take her keys from the right-hand pocket of her dress. He was in full possession of his intellect; he felt neither giddy nor dazed, but his hands continued to shake.
It was Alena Jasaityte, who had been the belle of his wedding feast! Alena Jasaityte, who had looked so beautiful, and danced with such a queenly air, with Juozas Raczius, the teamster! Jurgis had only seen her once or twice afterward, for Juozas had thrown her over for another girl, and Alena had gone away from Packingtown, no one knew where. And now he met her here!
Other men are not able to do that," Polunin told her tenderly. The hurricane raged over the house, but within reigned peace. Polunin went into his study and sat down at his desk; Natasha began to cry; he rose, took a candle, and brought her to Alena, who nursed her. The infant looked so small, fragile, and red that Polunin's heart overflowed with tenderness towards her.
But the rays died away immediately, leaving a blue crepuscular gloom, in which Kseniya Ippolytovna's figure grew dim, forlorn, and decrepit. Alena curtseyed: Kseniya Ippolytovna hesitated a moment, wondering if she should give her hand; then she went up to Alena and kissed her. "Good evening", she cried gaily, "you know I am an old friend of your husband's."
"What is it you want? Who are you?" she commenced. "Pardon me, Alena Ivanovna, your old acquaintance Raskolnikoff. I have brought a pledge, as I promised the other day," and he held out the packet to her. The old woman was about to examine it, when she raised her eyes and looked straight into those of the visitor who had entered so unceremoniously.
A few days later, Raskolnikoff heard from his friend Razoumikhin that those who had borrowed money from Alena Ivanovna were going to the police office to redeem their pledges. He went with Razoumikhin to the office where they were received by Porphyrius Petrovitch, the examining magistrate, who seemed to have expected them. "You have been expecting this visit?
He stopped a moment to think, and then continued the ascent: "No doubt it would be better if they were not there, but fortunately there are two more floors above them." At last he reached the fourth floor, and Alena Ivanovna's door; the lodging facing it was unoccupied. The lodging on the third floor, just beneath the old woman's, was also apparently empty.
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