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 Rh charging the cartridge with which he had long been loaded. One old woman was killed, another stood before him, the axe was in his hand.

Raskólnikof lived his true life, not when he met the old woman's sister, but at the time when he had not yet killed any old woman, nor entered a stranger's lodging with intent to kill, nor held the axe in his hand, nor had the loop in his overcoat by which the axe hung—at the time when he was lying on the sofa in his room, deliberating not at all about the old woman, nor even as to whether it is, or is not, permissible at the will of one man to wipe from the face of the earth another, unnecessary and harmful, man, but was deliberating whether he ought to live in Petersburg or not, whether he ought to accept money from his mother or not, and on other questions not at all relating to the old woman. And then—in that region quite independent of animal activities—the question whether he would or would not kill the old woman was decided. That question was decided—not when he, having killed one old woman, stood before another, axe in hand—but when he was doing nothing and was only thinking: when only his consciousness was active, and in that consciousness tiny, tiny alterations were taking place. It is at such times that one needs the greatest clearness to decide correctly the questions that have arisen, and it is just then that one glass of beer, or one cigarette, may prevent the solution of the question, may postpone the decision, stifle the voice of conscience, prompt a decision of the question in favour of one's lower, animal nature—as was the case with Raskólnikof.

Tiny, tiny alterations—but on them depend the most immense, the most terrible consequences. From what happens when a man has taken a decision and begun to act, many material changes may result: houses, riches, and people's bodies may perish, but nothing more important can happen than what was hidden in the man's consciousness. The limits of what can happen are set by consciousness.

But from most minute alterations occurring in the