- cid
- bafkreidosusldyik3yclf5mwhg2jce7ccxcgiaoxskn3qwgjb3hf6jc2tq
- content_type
- image/jpeg
- filename
- crimepunishment00dostiala_page_0486.jpg
- key
- pdf-page-1768923071989-x12vycrc1rl
- page_number
- 486
- pdf_type
- born_digital
- size
- 213675
- text
- 478 CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
rounded it on all sides. Among the flowers lay a girt in a white
muslin dress, with her arms crossed and pressed on her bosom, as
though carved out of marble. But her loose fair hair was wet;
there was a wreath of roses on her head. The stern and already
rigid profile of her face looked as though chiselled of marble too,
and the smile on her pale lips was full of an immense unchildish
misery and sorrowful appeal. Svidrigailov knew that girl ; there
was no holy image, no burning candle beside the coffin; no
sound of prayers: the girl had drowned herself. She was only
fourteen, but her heart was broken. And she had destroyed
herself, crushed by an insult that had appalled and amazed that
childish soul, had smirched that angel purity with unmerited
disgrace and torn from her a last scream of despair, unheeded
and brutally disregarded, on a dark night in the cold and wet
while the wind howled. . . .
Svidrigailov came to himself, got up from the bed and went
to the window. He felt for the latch and opened it. The wind
lashed furiously into the little room and stung his face and his
chest, only covered with his shirt, as though with frost. Under
the window there must have been something like a garden, and
apparently a pleasure garden. There, too, probably there were
tea tables and singing in the daytime. Now drops of rain flew
in at the window from the trees and bushes; it was d'ark as in
a cellar, so that he could only just make out some dark blurs of
objects. Svidrigailov, bending down with elbows on the win-
dow-sill, gazed for five minutes into the darkness; the boom of
a cannon, followed by a second one, resounded in the darkness of
the night. "Ah, the signal! The river is overflowing," he
thought. "By morning it will be swirling down the street in the
lower parts, flooding the basements and cellars. The cellar rats
will swim out, and men will curse in the rain and wind as they
drag their rubbish to their upper storeys. What time is it now?"
And he had hardly thought it when, somewhere near, a clock on
the wall, ticking away hurriedly, struck three.
"Aha! It will be light in an hour! Why wait? I'll go out at
once straight to the park. I'll choose a great bush there drenched
with rain, so that as soon as one's shoulder touches it, millions
of drops drip on one's head."
He moved away from the window, shut it, lighted the candle,
put on his waistcoat, his overcoat and his hat and went out.
- text_extracted_at
- 2026-01-20T15:31:11.989Z
- text_extracted_by
- pdf-processor
- text_has_content
- true
- text_source
- born_digital
- uploaded
- true