straight to Nikodim Fomitch’s lodgings? At least then it would be done privately... No, no! To the “explosive lieutenant”! If he must drink it, drink it off at once.

Turning cold and hardly conscious, he opened the door of the office. There were very few people in it this time — only a house porter and a peasant. The doorkeeper did not even peep out from behind his screen. Raskolnikov walked into the next room. “Perhaps I still need not speak,” passed through his mind. Some sort of clerk not wearing a uniform was settling himself at a bureau to write. In a corner another clerk was seating himself. Zametov was not there, nor, of course, Nikodim Fomitch.

“No one in?” Raskolnikov asked, addressing the person at the bureau.