How irregular!" cried Porfiry, rushing to the door.
"But he..." began the same voice, and suddenly ceased.
Two seconds, not more, were spent in actual struggle, then someone gave a violent shove, and then a man, very pale, strode into the room. This man's appearance was at first sight very strange.
He stared straight before him, as though seeing nothing.
There was a determined gleam in his eyes; at the same time there was a deathly pallor in his face, as though he were being led to the scaffold.
His white lips were faintly twitching.
He was dressed like a workman and was of medium height, very young, slim, his hair cut in round crop, with thin spare features.
The man whom he had thrust back followed him into the room and succeeded in seizing him by the shoulder; he was a warder; but Nikolay pulled his arm away.
Several persons crowded inquisitively into the doorway.
Some of them tried to get in.
All this took place almost instantaneously.
"Go away, it's too soon!
Wait till you are sent for!...
Why have you brought him so soon?" Porfiry Petrovitch muttered, extremely annoyed, and as it were thrown out of his reckoning.
But Nikolay suddenly knelt down.
"What's the matter?" cried Porfiry, surprised.
"I am guilty!
Mine is the sin!
I am the murderer," Nikolay articulated suddenly, rather breathless, but speaking fairly loudly.
For ten seconds there was silence as though all had been struck dumb; even the warder stepped back, mechanically retreated to the door, and stood immovable.
"What is it?" cried Porfiry Petrovitch, recovering from his momentary stupefaction.
"I... am the murderer," repeated Nikolay, after a brief pause.
"What... you... what... whom did you kill?"
Porfiry Petrovitch was obviously bewildered.
Nikolay again was silent for a moment.
"Alyona Ivanovna and her sister Lizaveta Ivanovna, I... killed... with an axe.
Darkness came over me," he added suddenly, and was again silent.
He still remained on his knees.
Porfiry Petrovitch stood for some moments as though meditating, but suddenly roused himself and waved back the uninvited spectators.
They instantly vanished and closed the door.
Then he looked towards Raskolnikov, who was standing in the corner, staring wildly at Nikolay and moved towards him, but stopped short, looked from Nikolay to Raskolnikov and then again at Nikolay, and seeming unable to restrain himself darted at the latter.
"You're in too great a hurry," he shouted at him, almost angrily.
"I didn't ask you what came over you.... Speak, did you kill them?"
"I am the murderer.... I want to give evidence," Nikolay pronounced.
"Ach!
What did you kill them with?"
"An axe.
I had it ready."
"Ach, he is in a hurry!
Alone?"
Nikolay did not understand the question.
"Did you do it alone?"
"Yes, alone.
And Mitka is not guilty and had no share in it."
"Don't be in a hurry about Mitka!
A-ach!
How was it you ran downstairs like that at the time?
The porters met you both!"
"It was to put them off the scent... I ran after Mitka," Nikolay replied hurriedly, as though he had prepared the answer.
"I knew it!" cried Porfiry, with vexation. "It's not his own tale he is telling," he muttered as though to himself, and suddenly his eyes rested on Raskolnikov again.