{"product_id":"2940012020024","title":"CRIME AND PUNISHMENT","description":"CHAPTER I\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn an exceptionally hot evening early in July a young man came out of\u003cbr\u003ethe garret in which he lodged in S. Place and walked slowly, as though\u003cbr\u003ein hesitation, towards K. bridge.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe had successfully avoided meeting his landlady on the staircase. His\u003cbr\u003egarret was under the roof of a high, five-storied house and was more\u003cbr\u003elike a cupboard than a room. The landlady who provided him with garret,\u003cbr\u003edinners, and attendance, lived on the floor below, and every time\u003cbr\u003ehe went out he was obliged to pass her kitchen, the door of which\u003cbr\u003einvariably stood open. And each time he passed, the young man had a\u003cbr\u003esick, frightened feeling, which made him scowl and feel ashamed. He was\u003cbr\u003ehopelessly in debt to his landlady, and was afraid of meeting her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis was not because he was cowardly and abject, quite the contrary; but\u003cbr\u003efor some time past he had been in an overstrained irritable condition,\u003cbr\u003everging on hypochondria. He had become so completely absorbed in\u003cbr\u003ehimself, and isolated from his fellows that he dreaded meeting, not\u003cbr\u003eonly his landlady, but anyone at all. He was crushed by poverty, but the\u003cbr\u003eanxieties of his position had of late ceased to weigh upon him. He had\u003cbr\u003egiven up attending to matters of practical importance; he had lost all\u003cbr\u003edesire to do so. Nothing that any landlady could do had a real terror\u003cbr\u003efor him. But to be stopped on the stairs, to be forced to listen to her\u003cbr\u003etrivial, irrelevant gossip, to pestering demands for payment, threats\u003cbr\u003eand complaints, and to rack his brains for excuses, to prevaricate, to\u003cbr\u003elie--no, rather than that, he would creep down the stairs like a cat and\u003cbr\u003eslip out unseen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis evening, however, on coming out into the street, he became acutely\u003cbr\u003eaware of his fears.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I want to attempt a thing _like that_ and am frightened by these\u003cbr\u003etrifles,\" he thought, with an odd smile. \"Hm... yes, all is in a man's\u003cbr\u003ehands and he lets it all slip from cowardice, that's an axiom. It would\u003cbr\u003ebe interesting to know what it is men are most afraid of. Taking a new\u003cbr\u003estep, uttering a new word is what they fear most.... But I am talking\u003cbr\u003etoo much. It's because I chatter that I do nothing. Or perhaps it is\u003cbr\u003ethat I chatter because I do nothing. I've learned to chatter this\u003cbr\u003elast month, lying for days together in my den thinking... of Jack the\u003cbr\u003eGiant-killer. Why am I going there now? Am I capable of _that_? Is\u003cbr\u003e_that_ serious? It is not serious at all. It's simply a fantasy to amuse\u003cbr\u003emyself; a plaything! Yes, maybe it is a plaything.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe heat in the street was terrible: and the airlessness, the bustle\u003cbr\u003eand the plaster, scaffolding, bricks, and dust all about him, and that\u003cbr\u003especial Petersburg stench, so familiar to all who are unable to get out\u003cbr\u003eof town in summer--all worked painfully upon the young man's already\u003cbr\u003eoverwrought nerves. The insufferable stench from the pot-houses, which\u003cbr\u003eare particularly numerous in that part of the town, and the drunken men\u003cbr\u003ewhom he met continually, although it was a working day, completed\u003cbr\u003ethe revolting misery of the picture. An expression of the profoundest\u003cbr\u003edisgust gleamed for a moment in the young man's refined face. He was,\u003cbr\u003eby the way, exceptionally handsome, above the average in height, slim,\u003cbr\u003ewell-built, with beautiful dark eyes and dark brown hair. Soon he sank\u003cbr\u003einto deep thought, or more accurately speaking into a complete blankness\u003cbr\u003eof mind; he walked along not observing what was about him and not caring\u003cbr\u003eto observe it. From time to time, he would mutter something, from the\u003cbr\u003ehabit of talking to himself, to which he had just confessed. At these\u003cbr\u003emoments he would become conscious that his ideas were sometimes in a\u003cbr\u003etangle and that he was very weak; for two days he had scarcely tasted\u003cbr\u003efood.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe was so badly dressed that even a man accustomed to shabbiness would\u003cbr\u003ehave been ashamed to be seen in the street in such rags. In that quarter\u003cbr\u003eof the town, however, scarcely any shortcoming in dress would have\u003cbr\u003ecreated surprise. Owing to the proximity of the Hay Market, the number\u003cbr\u003eof establishments of bad character, the preponderance of the trading\u003cbr\u003eand working class population crowded in these streets and alleys in the\u003cbr\u003eheart of Petersburg, types so various were to be seen in the streets\u003cbr\u003ethat no figure, however queer, would have caused surprise. But there was\u003cbr\u003esuch accumulated bitterness and contempt in the young man's heart, that,\u003cbr\u003ein spite of all the fastidiousness of youth, he minded his rags least\u003cbr\u003eof all in the street. It was a different matter when he met with\u003cbr\u003eacquaintances or with former fellow students, whom, indeed, he disliked\u003cbr\u003emeeting at any time. And yet when a drunken man who, for some unknown\u003cbr\u003ereason, was being taken somewhere in a huge waggon dragged by a heavy\u003cbr\u003edray horse, suddenly shouted at him as he drove past: \"He","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47068570452208,"sku":"2940012020024","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940012020024_p0.jpg?v=1763551950","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940012020024","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}