My Ideal Person
Sonia said nothing%2E Raskolnikov pressed her hand and went out%2E He felt very miserable%2E If it had been possible to escape to some solitude, he would have thought himself lucky, even if he had to spend his whole life there%2E But although he had almost always been by himself of late, he had never been able to feel alone%2E Sometimes he walked out of the town on to the high road, once he had even reached a little wood, but the lonelier the place was, the more he seemed to be aware of an uneasy presence near him%2E It did not frighten him, but greatly annoyed him, so that he made haste to return to the town, to mingle with the crowd, to enter restaurants and taverns, to walk in busy thoroughfares%2E There he felt easier and even more solitary%2E One day at dusk he sat for an hour listening to songs in a tavern and he remembered that he positively enjoyed it%2E But at last he had suddenly felt the same uneasiness again, as though his conscience smote him%2E %22Here I sit listening to singing, is that what I ought to be doing%3F%22 he thought%2E Yet he felt at once that that was not the only cause of his uneasiness%3B there was something requiring immediate decision, but it was something he could not clearly understand or put into words%2E It was a hopeless tangle%2E %22No, better the struggle again%21 Better Porfiry again%3A or Svidrigailov%3A%2E Better some challenge again%3A some attack%2E Yes, yes%21%22 he thought%2E He went out of the tavern and rushed away almost at a run%2E The thought of Dounia and his mother suddenly reduced him almost to a panic%2E That night he woke up before morning among some bushes in Krestovsky Island, trembling all over with fever%3B he walked home, and it was early morning when he arrived%2E After some hours%27 sleep the fever left him, but he woke up late, two o%27clock in the afternoon%2E