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"Better have nothing to do with him," decided the big porter. "A

regular rogue! Just what he wants, you may be sure, but once take

him up, you won't get rid of him.... We know the sort!"

"Shall I go there or not?" thought Raskolnikov, standing in the

middle of the thoroughfare at the cross-roads, and he looked

about him, as though expecting from someone a decisive word. But

no sound came, all was dead and silent like the stones on which

he walked, dead to him, to him alone.... All at once at the end

of the street, two hundred yards away, in the gathering dusk he

saw a crowd and heard talk and shouts. In the middle of the crowd

stood a carriage.... A light gleamed in the middle of the street.

"What is it?" Raskolnikov turned to the right and went up to the

crowd. He seemed to clutch at everything and smiled coldly when

he recognised it, for he had fully made up his mind to go to the

police station and knew that it would all soon be over.

CHAPTER VII