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She only put up her empty left hand, but not to her face, slowly

holding it out before her as though motioning him away. The axe

fell with the sharp edge just on the skull and split at one blow

all the top of the head. She fell heavily at once. Raskolnikov

completely lost his head, snatching up her bundle, dropped it

again and ran into the entry.

Fear gained more and more mastery over him, especially after this

second, quite unexpected murder. He longed to run away from the

place as fast as possible. And if at that moment he had been

capable of seeing and reasoning more correctly, if he had been

able to realise all the difficulties of his position, the

hopelessness, the hideousness and the absurdity of it, if he

could have understood how many obstacles and, perhaps, crimes he

had still to overcome or to commit, to get out of that place and

to make his way home, it is very possible that he would have

flung up everything, and would have gone to give himself up, and

not from fear, but from simple horror and loathing of what he had

done. The feeling of loathing especially surged up within him and

grew stronger every minute. He would not now have gone to the box

or even into the room for anything in the world.