- cid
- bafkreieqffhfi6n5u3q66tqvevrxjfb663bkohv5djkbhmpgbpeylk7jby
- content_type
- image/jpeg
- filename
- crimepunishment00dostiala_page_0487.jpg
- key
- pdf-page-1768923071990-va102knshd
- page_number
- 487
- pdf_type
- born_digital
- size
- 216454
- text
- CRIME AND PUNISHMENT A79
carrying the candle, into the passage to look for the ragged
attendant who would be asleep somewhere in the midst of candle
ends and all sorts of rubbish, to pay him for the room and leave
the hotel. "It's the best minute; I couldn't choose a better,"
He walked for some time through a long narrow corridor
without finding any one and was just going to call out, when
suddenly in a dark corner between an old cupboard and the door
he caught sight of a strange object which seemed to be alive.
He bent down with the candle and saw a little girl, not more
than five years old, shivering and crying, with her clothes as
wet as a soaking house-flannel. She did not seem afraid of
Svidrigailov, but looked at him with blank amazement out of
her big black eyes. Now and then she sobbed as children da
when they have been crying a long time, but are beginning to
be comforted. The child's face was pale and tired, she was numb
with cold. "How can she have come here? She must have hidden
here and not slept all night." He began questioning her. The
child suddenly becoming animated, chattered away in her baby
language, something about "mammy" and that "mammy would
beat her," and about some cup that she had "bwoken." The child
chattered on without stopping. He could only guess from what
she said that she was a neglected child, whose mother, probably
a drunken cook, in the service of the hotel, whipped and fright-
ened her; that the child had broken a cup of her mother's and
was so frightened that she had run away the evening before, had
hidden for a long while somewhere outside in the rain, at last
had made her way in here, hidden behind the cupboard and spent
the night there, crying and trembling from the damp, the dark-
ness and the fear that she would be badly beaten for it. He took
her in his arms, went back to his room, sat her on the bed, and
began undressing her. The torn shoes which she had on her
stockingless feet were as wet as if they had been standing in a
puddle all night. When he had undressed her, he put her on the
bed, covered her up and wrapf>ed her in the blanket from her
head downwards. She fell asleep at once. Then he sank intO'
dreary musing again.
"What folly to trouble myself," he decided suddenly with
an oppressive feeling of annoyance. "What idiocy!" In vexation
he took up the candle to go and look for the ragged attendant
again and make haste to go away. "Damn the child!" he thought
- text_extracted_at
- 2026-01-20T15:31:11.990Z
- text_extracted_by
- pdf-processor
- text_has_content
- true
- text_source
- born_digital
- uploaded
- true