positive con-so-la-tion, ho-nou-red sir," he called out, shaken to and
fro by his hair and even once striking the ground with his forehead.
The child asleep on the floor woke up, and began to cry. The boy in the
corner losing all control began trembling and screaming and rushed
to his sister in violent terror, almost in a fit. The eldest girl was
shaking like a leaf.
"He's drunk it! he's drunk it all," the poor woman screamed in
despair--"and his clothes are gone! And they are hungry, hungry!"--and
wringing her hands she pointed to the children. "Oh, accursed life!
And you, are you not ashamed?"--she pounced all at once upon
Raskolnikov--"from the tavern! Have you been drinking with him? You have
been drinking with him, too! Go away!"
The young man was hastening away without uttering a word. The inner door
was thrown wide open and inquisitive faces were peering in at it. Coarse
laughing faces with pipes and cigarettes and heads wearing caps thrust
themselves in at the doorway. Further in could be seen figures in
dressing gowns flung open, in costumes of unseemly scantiness, some of
them with cards in their hands. They were particularly diverted, when
Marmeladov, dragged about by his hair, shouted that it was a consolation
to him. They even began to come into the room; at last a sinister shrill
outcry was heard: this came from Amalia Lippevechsel herself pushing her
way amongst them and trying to restore order after her own fashion and
for the hundredth time to frighten the poor woman by ordering her
with coarse abuse to clear out of the room next day. As he went out,
Raskolnikov had time to put his hand into his pocket, to snatch up the
coppers he had received in exchange for his rouble in the tavern and to
lay them unnoticed on the window. Afterwards on the stairs, he changed
his mind and would have gone back.
"What a stupid thing I've done," he thought to himself, "they have Sonia
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