even raise a hand to guard her face, though that was the most necessary
and natural action at the moment, for the axe was raised over her face.
She only put up her empty left hand, but not to her face, slowly holding
it out before her as though motioning him away. The axe fell with the
sharp edge just on the skull and split at one blow all the top of the
head. She fell heavily at once. Raskolnikov completely lost his head,
snatching up her bundle, dropped it again and ran into the entry.
Fear gained more and more mastery over him, especially after this
second, quite unexpected murder. He longed to run away from the place
as fast as possible. And if at that moment he had been capable of seeing
and reasoning more correctly, if he had been able to realise all the
difficulties of his position, the hopelessness, the hideousness and the
absurdity of it, if he could have understood how many obstacles and,
perhaps, crimes he had still to overcome or to commit, to get out of
that place and to make his way home, it is very possible that he would
have flung up everything, and would have gone to give himself up, and
not from fear, but from simple horror and loathing of what he had
done. The feeling of loathing especially surged up within him and grew
stronger every minute. He would not now have gone to the box or even
into the room for anything in the world.
But a sort of blankness, even dreaminess, had begun by degrees to take
possession of him; at moments he forgot himself, or rather, forgot what
was of importance, and caught at trifles. Glancing, however, into the
kitchen and seeing a bucket half full of water on a bench, he bethought
him of washing his hands and the axe. His hands were sticky with blood.
He dropped the axe with the blade in the water, snatched a piece of soap
that lay in a broken saucer on the window, and began washing his hands
in the bucket. When they were clean, he took out the axe, washed the
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