Pagina 62 di 1294

From the inner rooms clouds of tobacco smoke floated in, she kept

coughing, but did not close the door. The youngest child, a girl

of six, was asleep, sitting curled up on the floor with her head

on the sofa. A boy a year older stood crying and shaking in the

corner, probably he had just had a beating. Beside him stood a

girl of nine years old, tall and thin, wearing a thin and ragged

chemise with an ancient cashmere pelisse flung over her bare

shoulders, long outgrown and barely reaching her knees. Her arm,

as thin as a stick, was round her brother's neck. She was trying

to comfort him, whispering something to him, and doing all she

could to keep him from whimpering again. At the same time her

large dark eyes, which looked larger still from the thinness of

her frightened face, were watching her mother with alarm.

Marmeladov did not enter the door, but dropped on his knees in

the very doorway, pushing Raskolnikov in front of him.