The Opening of Crime and Punishment — Fyodor Dostoyevski

On an exceptionally hot evening early in July a young man came out of the garret in which he lodged in S— Place and walked slowly, as though in hesitation, towards K— bridge. He had successfully avoided meeting his landlady on the staircase. His garret was under the roof of a high, five-storied house, and was more like a cupboard than a room. He was hopelessly in debt to his landlady, and was afraid of meeting her. This was not because he was cowardly and abject, quite the contrary; but for some time past he had been in an overstrained, irritable condition, verging on hypochondria. He had become so completely absorbed in himself, and isolated from his fellows, that he dreaded meeting, not only his landlady, but anyone at all.