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Where was he to go?

That had long been settled: "Fling them into the canal, and all

traces hidden in the water, the thing would be at an end." So he

had decided in the night of his delirium when several times he

had had the impulse to get up and go away, to make haste, and get

rid of it all. But to get rid of it, turned out to be a very

difficult task. He wandered along the bank of the Ekaterininsky

Canal for half an hour or more and looked several times at the

steps running down to the water, but he could not think of

carrying out his plan; either rafts stood at the steps' edge, and

women were washing clothes on them, or boats were moored there,

and people were swarming everywhere. Moreover he could be seen

and noticed from the banks on all sides; it would look suspicious

for a man to go down on purpose, stop, and throw something into

the water. And what if the boxes were to float instead of

sinking? And of course they would.