Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky Page B

slowly lifting himself up with a pained expression.
    â€˜As if!’
    She set before him her own cracked pot, with tea made from old leaves, and dropped in two yellow lumps of sugar.
    â€˜Here, Nastasya, take this please,’ he said, fumbling in his pocket for a handful of copper coins (he’d slept in his clothes), ‘and go and buy me a roll. Get me a bit of sausage, too, while you’re at it, the cheaper kind.’
    â€˜I’ll bring you the roll right now, but how about some cabbage soup instead of sausage? Decent soup, made it yesterday. I put some aside, but you got in late. Decent soup it is.’
    When the soup arrived and he set about eating, Nastasya sat down next to him on the couch and began nattering. She was a village girl and liked a good natter.
    â€˜Praskovya Pavlovna wants to complain to the p’lice about you,’ she said.
    He furrowed his brow.
    â€˜The police? What does she want?’
    â€˜You never pay and you never leave your digs. Clear enough what she wants.’
    â€˜That’s all I need,’ he muttered, gritting his teeth. ‘Talk about bad timing . . . She’s a fool,’ he added loudly. ‘I’ll drop by today and have a word with her.’
    â€˜â€™Course she’s a fool, just like me, and I s’pose you’re the brainy one, lying there like a sack of spuds and never showing your face? You says you used to teach children – so why ain’t you doing nothing now?’
    â€˜I am doing things . . . ,’ replied Raskolnikov, reluctantly and sternly.
    â€˜Like what?’
    â€˜Work . . .’
    â€˜What work?’
    â€˜Thinking,’ he said seriously, after a pause.
    Nastasya went into fits of laughter. She was the laughing sort, and when someone amused her she laughed inaudibly, her whole body swaying and shaking until she even began to feel sick.
    â€˜S’pose it pays handsome, then, thinking?’ she finally managed to say.
    â€˜You can’t teach children if you don’t have shoes. Anyway, I’ve spat on the whole idea.’
    â€˜Mind you don’t spit in the well.’
    â€˜Teaching kids pays copecks. What good are copecks?’ he continued unwillingly, as though answering his own thoughts.
    â€˜S’pose you want your fortune right now, then?’
    He threw her a strange look.
    â€˜I suppose I do,’ he replied firmly, after a pause.
    â€˜Easy does it or you’ll give me the creeps. What about that roll, then?’
    â€˜Up to you.’
    â€˜I nearly forgot! A letter came when you was out yesterday.’
    â€˜A letter! For me? Who from?’
    â€˜Don’t ask me. I had to give the postman three copecks. Will I get ’em back?’
    â€˜Just bring it. For God’s sake, bring it!’ Raskolnikov shouted in great agitation.
    The letter appeared a minute later. Just as he thought: from Mother, in R—— province. 31 Taking it, he even turned pale. It was a long time since he’d last received a letter; but now there was also something else suddenly squeezing his heart.
    â€˜Leave, Nastasya, for the love of God; take your three copecks and please, just go!’
    The letter shook in his hands; he didn’t want to open it in her presence: he felt like being
alone
with this letter. When Nastasya went out, he brought it quickly to his lips and kissed it; then he stared for a good long while at the address, at the small, sloping handwriting, so familiar and so dear, of his mother, who’d once taught him how to read and write. He delayed; he almost seemed scared. At last, he opened it: the letter was large and thick, double the standard weight; two large sheets were covered in a minuscule script.
    â€˜My dearest Rodya,’ wrote his mother, ‘two months and more have already passed since I last conversed with you in writing, on accountof which I have suffered and even lain awake at night,