Pagina 406 de 1294

He became aware of someone standing on the right side of him; he

looked and saw a tall woman with a kerchief on her head, with a

long, yellow, wasted face and red sunken eyes. She was looking

straight at him, but obviously she saw nothing and recognised no

one. Suddenly she leaned her right hand on the parapet, lifted

her right leg over the railing, then her left and threw herself

into the canal. The filthy water parted and swallowed up its

victim for a moment, but an instant later the drowning woman

floated to the surface, moving slowly with the current, her head

and legs in the water, her skirt inflated like a balloon over her

back.

"A woman drowning! A woman drowning!" shouted dozens of voices;

people ran up, both banks were thronged with spectators, on the

bridge people crowded about Raskolnikov, pressing up behind him.

"Mercy on it! it's our Afrosinya!" a woman cried tearfully close

by. "Mercy! save her! kind people, pull her out!"