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- CRIME AND PUNISHMENT 67
could hold the end of the handle all the way, so that it did not
swing; and as the coat was very full, a regular sack in fact, it
could not be seen from outside that he was holding something
with the hand that was in the pocket. This noose, too, he had
designed a fortnight before.
"When he had finished with this, he thrust his hand into a
little opening between his sofa and the floor, fumbled in the
left corner and drew out the pledge, which he had got ready
long before and hidden there. This pledge was, however, only
a smoothly planed piece of wood the size and thickness of a
silver cigarette case. He picked up this piece of wood in one of
his wanderings in a courtyard where there was some sort of a
workshop. Afterwards he had added to the wood a thin smooth
piece of iron, which he had also picked up at the same time in
the street. Putting the iron which was a little the smaller on
the piece of wood, he fastened them very firmly, crossing and
recrossing the thread round them; then wrapped them carefully
and daintily in clean white paper and tied up the parcel so that
it would be very difficult to untie it. This was in order to divert
the attention of the old woman for a time, while she was trying
to undo the knot, and so to gain a moment. The iron strip was^
added to give weight, so that the woman might not guess the
first minute that the "thing" was made of wood. All this had
been stored by him beforehand under the sofa. He had only just
got the pledge out when he heard some one suddenly about iu
the yard.
"It struck six long ago."
"Long ago! My God!"
He rushed to the door, listened, caught up his hat and begar.
to descend his thirteen steps cautiously, noiselessly, like a cat.
He had still the most important thing to do^to steal the axe
from the kitchen. That the deed must be done with an axe he
had decided long ago. He had also a pocket pruning-knife, but
he could not rely on the knife and still less on his own strength,
and so resolved finally on the axe. We may note in passing, one
peculiarity in regard to all the final resolutions taken by him
in the matter; they had one strange characteristic; the more
final they were, the more hideous and the more absurd they at
once became in his eyes. In spite of all his agonising inward
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