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Fyodor Dostoevsky

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Title: Crime and Punishment

Author: Fyodor Dostoevsky

Translator: Constance Garnett

Release Date: March, 2001 [eBook #2554]

[Most recently updated: August 6, 2021]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

Produced by: John Bickers, Dagny and David Widger

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CRIME AND

PUNISHMENT ***

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 By Fyodor Dostoevsky

Translated By Constance Garnett

CONTENTS

TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

PART I
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII

PART II
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII

PART III
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI

PART IV
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI

PART V
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V

PART VI
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
 CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII

EPILOGUE
 TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE

A few words about Dostoevsky himself may help the English reader
to understand his work.
Dostoevsky was the son of a doctor. His parents were very hard-
working and deeply religious people, but so poor that they lived with
their ive children in only two rooms. The father and mother spent their
evenings in reading aloud to their children, generally from books of a
serious character.
Though always sickly and delicate Dostoevsky came out third in the
inal examination of the Petersburg school of Engineering. There he had
already begun his irst work, “Poor Folk.”
This story was published by the poet Nekrassov in his review and
was received with acclamations. The shy, unknown youth found himself
instantly something of a celebrity. A brilliant and successful career
seemed to open before him, but those hopes were soon dashed. In 1849
he was arrested.
Though neither by temperament nor conviction a revolutionist,
Dostoevsky was one of a little group of young men who met together to
read Fourier and Proudhon. He was accused of “taking part in
conversations against the censorship, of reading a letter from Byelinsky
to Gogol, and of knowing of the intention to set up a printing press.”
Under Nicholas I. (that “stern and just man,” as Maurice Baring calls
him) this was enough, and he was condemned to death. After eight
months’ imprisonment he was with twenty-one others taken out to the
Semyonovsky Square to be shot. Writing to his brother Mihail,
Dostoevsky says: “They snapped words over our heads, and they made
us put on the white shirts worn by persons condemned to death.
Thereupon we were bound in threes to stakes, to suffer execution.
Being the third in the row, I concluded I had only a few minutes of life
before me. I thought of you and your dear ones and I contrived to kiss
Plestcheiev and Dourov, who were next to me, and to bid them farewell.
Suddenly the troops beat a tattoo, we were unbound, brought back
upon the scaffold, and informed that his Majesty had spared us our
lives.” The sentence was commuted to hard labour.
One of the prisoners, Grigoryev, went mad as soon as he was untied,
and never regained his sanity.
The intense suffering of this experience left a lasting stamp on
Dostoevsky’s mind. Though his religious temper led him in the end to
accept every suffering with resignation and to regard it as a blessing in
his own case, he constantly recurs to the subject in his writings. He
describes the awful agony of the condemned man and insists on the
cruelty of in licting such torture. Then followed four years of penal
servitude, spent in the company of common criminals in Siberia, where
he began the “Dead House,” and some years of service in a disciplinary
battalion.
He had shown signs of some obscure nervous disease before his
arrest and this now developed into violent attacks of epilepsy, from
which he suffered for the rest of his life. The its occurred three or four
times a year and were more frequent in periods of great strain. In 1859
he was allowed to return to Russia. He started a journal—“Vremya,”
which was forbidden by the Censorship through a misunderstanding. In
1864 he lost his irst wife and his brother Mihail. He was in terrible
poverty, yet he took upon himself the payment of his brother’s debts.
He started another journal—“The Epoch,” which within a few months
was also prohibited. He was weighed down by debt, his brother’s family
was dependent on him, he was forced to write at heart-breaking speed,
and is said never to have corrected his work. The later years of his life
were much softened by the tenderness and devotion of his second wife.
In June 1880 he made his famous speech at the unveiling of the
monument to Pushkin in Moscow and he was received with
extraordinary demonstrations of love and honour.
A few months later Dostoevsky died. He was followed to the grave by
a vast multitude of mourners, who “gave the hapless man the funeral of
a king.” He is still probably the most widely read writer in Russia.
 In the words of a Russian critic, who seeks to explain the feeling
inspired by Dostoevsky: “He was one of ourselves, a man of our blood
and our bone, but one who has suffered and has seen so much more
deeply than we have his insight impresses us as wisdom... that wisdom
of the heart which we seek that we may learn from it how to live. All his
other gifts came to him from nature, this he won for himself and
through it he became great.”
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
PART I
 CHAPTER I

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, ive-storied house and was
more like a cupboard than a room. The landlady who provided him with
garret, dinners, and attendance, lived on the loor below, and every time
he went out he was obliged to pass her kitchen, the door of which
invariably stood open. And each time he passed, the young man had a
sick, frightened feeling, which made him scowl and feel ashamed. 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. He was crushed by
poverty, but the anxieties of his position had of late ceased to weigh
upon him. He had given up attending to matters of practical
importance; he had lost all desire to do so. Nothing that any landlady
could do had a real terror for him. But to be stopped on the stairs, to be
forced to listen to her trivial, irrelevant gossip, to pestering demands
for payment, threats and complaints, and to rack his brains for excuses,
to prevaricate, to lie—no, rather than that, he would creep down the
stairs like a cat and slip out unseen.
This evening, however, on coming out into the street, he became
acutely aware of his fears.
“I want to attempt a thing like that and am frightened by these
tri les,” he thought, with an odd smile. “Hm... yes, all is in a man’s hands
and he lets it all slip from cowardice, that’s an axiom. It would be
interesting to know what it is men are most afraid of. Taking a new
step, uttering a new word is what they fear most.... But I am talking too
much. It’s because I chatter that I do nothing. Or perhaps it is that I
chatter because I do nothing. I’ve learned to chatter this last month,
lying for days together in my den thinking... of Jack the Giant-killer. Why
am I going there now? Am I capable of that? Is that serious? It is not
serious at all. It’s simply a fantasy to amuse myself; a plaything! Yes,
maybe it is a plaything.”
The heat in the street was terrible: and the airlessness, the bustle and
the plaster, scaffolding, bricks, and dust all about him, and that special
Petersburg stench, so familiar to all who are unable to get out of town
in summer—all worked painfully upon the young man’s already
overwrought nerves. The insufferable stench from the pot-houses,
which are particularly numerous in that part of the town, and the
drunken men whom he met continually, although it was a working day,
completed the revolting misery of the picture. An expression of the
profoundest disgust gleamed for a moment in the young man’s re ined
face. He was, by the way, exceptionally handsome, above the average in
height, slim, well-built, with beautiful dark eyes and dark brown hair.
Soon he sank into deep thought, or more accurately speaking into a
complete blankness of mind; he walked along not observing what was
about him and not caring to observe it. From time to time, he would
mutter something, from the habit of talking to himself, to which he had
just confessed. At these moments he would become conscious that his
ideas were sometimes in a tangle and that he was very weak; for two
days he had scarcely tasted food.
He was so badly dressed that even a man accustomed to shabbiness
would have been ashamed to be seen in the street in such rags. In that
quarter of the town, however, scarcely any shortcoming in dress would
have created surprise. Owing to the proximity of the Hay Market, the
number of establishments of bad character, the preponderance of the
trading and working class population crowded in these streets and
alleys in the heart of Petersburg, types so various were to be seen in the
streets that no igure, however queer, would have caused surprise. But
there was such accumulated bitterness and contempt in the young
man’s heart, that, in spite of all the fastidiousness of youth, he minded
his rags least of all in the street. It was a different matter when he met
with acquaintances or with former fellow students, whom, indeed, he
disliked meeting at any time. And yet when a drunken man who, for
some unknown reason, was being taken somewhere in a huge waggon
dragged by a heavy dray horse, suddenly shouted at him as he drove
past: “Hey there, German hatter” bawling at the top of his voice and
pointing at him—the young man stopped suddenly and clutched
tremulously at his hat. It was a tall round hat from Zimmerman’s, but
completely worn out, rusty with age, all torn and bespattered, brimless
and bent on one side in a most unseemly fashion. Not shame, however,
but quite another feeling akin to terror had overtaken him.
“I knew it,” he muttered in confusion, “I thought so! That’s the worst
of all! Why, a stupid thing like this, the most trivial detail might spoil the
whole plan. Yes, my hat is too noticeable.... It looks absurd and that
makes it noticeable.... With my rags I ought to wear a cap, any sort of
old pancake, but not this grotesque thing. Nobody wears such a hat, it
would be noticed a mile off, it would be remembered.... What matters is
that people would remember it, and that would give them a clue. For
this business one should be as little conspicuous as possible.... Tri les,
tri les are what matter! Why, it’s just such tri les that always ruin
everything....”
He had not far to go; he knew indeed how many steps it was from the
gate of his lodging house: exactly seven hundred and thirty. He had
counted them once when he had been lost in dreams. At the time he
had put no faith in those dreams and was only tantalising himself by
their hideous but daring recklessness. Now, a month later, he had begun
to look upon them differently, and, in spite of the monologues in which
he jeered at his own impotence and indecision, he had involuntarily
come to regard this “hideous” dream as an exploit to be attempted,
although he still did not realise this himself. He was positively going
now for a “rehearsal” of his project, and at every step his excitement
grew more and more violent.
With a sinking heart and a nervous tremor, he went up to a huge
house which on one side looked on to the canal, and on the other into
the street. This house was let out in tiny tenements and was inhabited
by working people of all kinds—tailors, locksmiths, cooks, Germans of
sorts, girls picking up a living as best they could, petty clerks, etc. There
was a continual coming and going through the two gates and in the two
courtyards of the house. Three or four door-keepers were employed on
the building. The young man was very glad to meet none of them, and at
once slipped unnoticed through the door on the right, and up the
staircase. It was a back staircase, dark and narrow, but he was familiar
with it already, and knew his way, and he liked all these surroundings:
in such darkness even the most inquisitive eyes were not to be dreaded.
“If I am so scared now, what would it be if it somehow came to pass
that I were really going to do it?” he could not help asking himself as he
reached the fourth storey. There his progress was barred by some
porters who were engaged in moving furniture out of a lat. He knew
that the lat had been occupied by a German clerk in the civil service,
and his family. This German was moving out then, and so the fourth
loor on this staircase would be untenanted except by the old woman.
“That’s a good thing anyway,” he thought to himself, as he rang the bell
of the old woman’s lat. The bell gave a faint tinkle as though it were
made of tin and not of copper. The little lats in such houses always have
bells that ring like that. He had forgotten the note of that bell, and now
its peculiar tinkle seemed to remind him of something and to bring it
clearly before him.... He started, his nerves were terribly overstrained
by now. In a little while, the door was opened a tiny crack: the old
woman eyed her visitor with evident distrust through the crack, and
nothing could be seen but her little eyes, glittering in the darkness. But,
seeing a number of people on the landing, she grew bolder, and opened
the door wide. The young man stepped into the dark entry, which was
partitioned off from the tiny kitchen. The old woman stood facing him
in silence and looking inquiringly at him. She was a diminutive,
withered up old woman of sixty, with sharp malignant eyes and a sharp
little nose. Her colourless, somewhat grizzled hair was thickly smeared
with oil, and she wore no kerchief over it. Round her thin long neck,
which looked like a hen’s leg, was knotted some sort of lannel rag, and,
in spite of the heat, there hung lapping on her shoulders, a mangy fur
cape, yellow with age. The old woman coughed and groaned at every
instant. The young man must have looked at her with a rather peculiar
expression, for a gleam of mistrust came into her eyes again.
 “Raskolnikov, a student, I came here a month ago,” the young man
made haste to mutter, with a half bow, remembering that he ought to be
more polite.
“I remember, my good sir, I remember quite well your coming here,”
the old woman said distinctly, still keeping her inquiring eyes on his
face.
“And here... I am again on the same errand,” Raskolnikov continued, a
little disconcerted and surprised at the old woman’s mistrust. “Perhaps
she is always like that though, only I did not notice it the other time,” he
thought with an uneasy feeling.
The old woman paused, as though hesitating; then stepped on one
side, and pointing to the door of the room, she said, letting her visitor
pass in front of her:
“Step in, my good sir.”
The little room into which the young man walked, with yellow paper
on the walls, geraniums and muslin curtains in the windows, was
brightly lighted up at that moment by the setting sun.
“So the sun will shine like this then too!” lashed as it were by chance
through Raskolnikov’s mind, and with a rapid glance he scanned
everything in the room, trying as far as possible to notice and
remember its arrangement. But there was nothing special in the room.
The furniture, all very old and of yellow wood, consisted of a sofa with a
huge bent wooden back, an oval table in front of the sofa, a dressing-
table with a looking-glass ixed on it between the windows, chairs along
the walls and two or three half-penny prints in yellow frames,
representing German damsels with birds in their hands—that was all.
In the corner a light was burning before a small ikon. Everything was
very clean; the loor and the furniture were brightly polished;
everything shone.
“Lizaveta’s work,” thought the young man. There was not a speck of
dust to be seen in the whole lat.
“It’s in the houses of spiteful old widows that one inds such
cleanliness,” Raskolnikov thought again, and he stole a curious glance at
the cotton curtain over the door leading into another tiny room, in
which stood the old woman’s bed and chest of drawers and into which
he had never looked before. These two rooms made up the whole lat.
“What do you want?” the old woman said severely, coming into the
room and, as before, standing in front of him so as to look him straight
in the face.
“I’ve brought something to pawn here,” and he drew out of his pocket
an old-fashioned lat silver watch, on the back of which was engraved a
globe; the chain was of steel.
“But the time is up for your last pledge. The month was up the day
before yesterday.”
“I will bring you the interest for another month; wait a little.”
“But that’s for me to do as I please, my good sir, to wait or to sell your
pledge at once.”
“How much will you give me for the watch, Alyona Ivanovna?”
“You come with such tri les, my good sir, it’s scarcely worth anything.
I gave you two roubles last time for your ring and one could buy it quite
new at a jeweler’s for a rouble and a half.”
“Give me four roubles for it, I shall redeem it, it was my father’s. I
shall be getting some money soon.”
“A rouble and a half, and interest in advance, if you like!”
“A rouble and a half!” cried the young man.
“Please yourself”—and the old woman handed him back the watch.
The young man took it, and was so angry that he was on the point of
going away; but checked himself at once, remembering that there was
nowhere else he could go, and that he had had another object also in
coming.
“Hand it over,” he said roughly.
The old woman fumbled in her pocket for her keys, and disappeared
behind the curtain into the other room. The young man, left standing
alone in the middle of the room, listened inquisitively, thinking. He
could hear her unlocking the chest of drawers.
“It must be the top drawer,” he re lected. “So she carries the keys in a
pocket on the right. All in one bunch on a steel ring.... And there’s one
key there, three times as big as all the others, with deep notches; that
can’t be the key of the chest of drawers... then there must be some other
chest or strong-box... that’s worth knowing. Strong-boxes always have
keys like that... but how degrading it all is.”
The old woman came back.
“Here, sir: as we say ten copecks the rouble a month, so I must take
ifteen copecks from a rouble and a half for the month in advance. But
for the two roubles I lent you before, you owe me now twenty copecks
on the same reckoning in advance. That makes thirty- ive copecks
altogether. So I must give you a rouble and ifteen copecks for the
watch. Here it is.”
“What! only a rouble and ifteen copecks now!”
“Just so.”
The young man did not dispute it and took the money. He looked at
the old woman, and was in no hurry to get away, as though there was
still something he wanted to say or to do, but he did not himself quite
know what.
“I may be bringing you something else in a day or two, Alyona
Ivanovna—a valuable thing—silver—a cigarette-box, as soon as I get it
back from a friend...” he broke off in confusion.
“Well, we will talk about it then, sir.”
“Good-bye—are you always at home alone, your sister is not here
with you?” He asked her as casually as possible as he went out into the
passage.
“What business is she of yours, my good sir?”
“Oh, nothing particular, I simply asked. You are too quick.... Good-day,
Alyona Ivanovna.”
Raskolnikov went out in complete confusion. This confusion became
more and more intense. As he went down the stairs, he even stopped
short, two or three times, as though suddenly struck by some thought.
When he was in the street he cried out, “Oh, God, how loathsome it all
is! and can I, can I possibly.... No, it’s nonsense, it’s rubbish!” he added
resolutely. “And how could such an atrocious thing come into my head?
What ilthy things my heart is capable of. Yes, ilthy above all,
disgusting, loathsome, loathsome!—and for a whole month I’ve been....”
But no words, no exclamations, could express his agitation. The feeling
of intense repulsion, which had begun to oppress and torture his heart
while he was on his way to the old woman, had by now reached such a
pitch and had taken such a de inite form that he did not know what to
do with himself to escape from his wretchedness. He walked along the
pavement like a drunken man, regardless of the passers-by, and jostling
against them, and only came to his senses when he was in the next
street. Looking round, he noticed that he was standing close to a tavern
which was entered by steps leading from the pavement to the
basement. At that instant two drunken men came out at the door, and
abusing and supporting one another, they mounted the steps. Without
stopping to think, Raskolnikov went down the steps at once. Till that
moment he had never been into a tavern, but now he felt giddy and was
tormented by a burning thirst. He longed for a drink of cold beer, and
attributed his sudden weakness to the want of food. He sat down at a
sticky little table in a dark and dirty corner; ordered some beer, and
eagerly drank off the irst glassful. At once he felt easier; and his
thoughts became clear.
“All that’s nonsense,” he said hopefully, “and there is nothing in it all
to worry about! It’s simply physical derangement. Just a glass of beer, a
piece of dry bread—and in one moment the brain is stronger, the mind
is clearer and the will is irm! Phew, how utterly petty it all is!”
But in spite of this scornful re lection, he was by now looking
cheerful as though he were suddenly set free from a terrible burden:
and he gazed round in a friendly way at the people in the room. But
even at that moment he had a dim foreboding that this happier frame of
mind was also not normal.
There were few people at the time in the tavern. Besides the two
drunken men he had met on the steps, a group consisting of about ive
men and a girl with a concertina had gone out at the same time. Their
departure left the room quiet and rather empty. The persons still in the
tavern were a man who appeared to be an artisan, drunk, but not
extremely so, sitting before a pot of beer, and his companion, a huge,
stout man with a grey beard, in a short full-skirted coat. He was very
drunk: and had dropped asleep on the bench; every now and then, he
began as though in his sleep, cracking his ingers, with his arms wide
apart and the upper part of his body bounding about on the bench,
while he hummed some meaningless refrain, trying to recall some such
lines as these:
“His wife a year he fondly loved
His wife a—a year he—fondly loved.”

Or suddenly waking up again:

“Walking along the crowded row
He met the one he used to know.”

But no one shared his enjoyment: his silent companion looked with
positive hostility and mistrust at all these manifestations. There was
another man in the room who looked somewhat like a retired
government clerk. He was sitting apart, now and then sipping from his
pot and looking round at the company. He, too, appeared to be in some
agitation.
 CHAPTER II

Raskolnikov was not used to crowds, and, as we said before, he

avoided society of every sort, more especially of late. But now all at
once he felt a desire to be with other people. Something new seemed to
be taking place within him, and with it he felt a sort of thirst for
company. He was so weary after a whole month of concentrated
wretchedness and gloomy excitement that he longed to rest, if only for
a moment, in some other world, whatever it might be; and, in spite of
the ilthiness of the surroundings, he was glad now to stay in the tavern.
The master of the establishment was in another room, but he
frequently came down some steps into the main room, his jaunty, tarred
boots with red turn-over tops coming into view each time before the
rest of his person. He wore a full coat and a horribly greasy black satin
waistcoat, with no cravat, and his whole face seemed smeared with oil
like an iron lock. At the counter stood a boy of about fourteen, and there
was another boy somewhat younger who handed whatever was
wanted. On the counter lay some sliced cucumber, some pieces of dried
black bread, and some ish, chopped up small, all smelling very bad. It
was insufferably close, and so heavy with the fumes of spirits that ive
minutes in such an atmosphere might well make a man drunk.
There are chance meetings with strangers that interest us from the
irst moment, before a word is spoken. Such was the impression made
on Raskolnikov by the person sitting a little distance from him, who
looked like a retired clerk. The young man often recalled this
impression afterwards, and even ascribed it to presentiment. He looked
repeatedly at the clerk, partly no doubt because the latter was staring
persistently at him, obviously anxious to enter into conversation. At the
other persons in the room, including the tavern-keeper, the clerk looked
as though he were used to their company, and weary of it, showing a
shade of condescending contempt for them as persons of station and
culture inferior to his own, with whom it would be useless for him to
converse. He was a man over ifty, bald and grizzled, of medium height,
and stoutly built. His face, bloated from continual drinking, was of a
yellow, even greenish, tinge, with swollen eyelids out of which keen
reddish eyes gleamed like little chinks. But there was something very
strange in him; there was a light in his eyes as though of intense feeling
—perhaps there were even thought and intelligence, but at the same
time there was a gleam of something like madness. He was wearing an
old and hopelessly ragged black dress coat, with all its buttons missing
except one, and that one he had buttoned, evidently clinging to this last
trace of respectability. A crumpled shirt front, covered with spots and
stains, protruded from his canvas waistcoat. Like a clerk, he wore no
beard, nor moustache, but had been so long unshaven that his chin
looked like a stiff greyish brush. And there was something respectable
and like an of icial about his manner too. But he was restless; he ruf led
up his hair and from time to time let his head drop into his hands
dejectedly resting his ragged elbows on the stained and sticky table. At
last he looked straight at Raskolnikov, and said loudly and resolutely:
“May I venture, honoured sir, to engage you in polite conversation?
Forasmuch as, though your exterior would not command respect, my
experience admonishes me that you are a man of education and not
accustomed to drinking. I have always respected education when in
conjunction with genuine sentiments, and I am besides a titular
counsellor in rank. Marmeladov—such is my name; titular counsellor. I
make bold to inquire—have you been in the service?”
“No, I am studying,” answered the young man, somewhat surprised at
the grandiloquent style of the speaker and also at being so directly
addressed. In spite of the momentary desire he had just been feeling for
company of any sort, on being actually spoken to he felt immediately
his habitual irritable and uneasy aversion for any stranger who
approached or attempted to approach him.
“A student then, or formerly a student,” cried the clerk. “Just what I
thought! I’m a man of experience, immense experience, sir,” and he
tapped his forehead with his ingers in self-approval. “You’ve been a
student or have attended some learned institution!... But allow me....”
He got up, staggered, took up his jug and glass, and sat down beside the
young man, facing him a little sideways. He was drunk, but spoke
luently and boldly, only occasionally losing the thread of his sentences
and drawling his words. He pounced upon Raskolnikov as greedily as
though he too had not spoken to a soul for a month.
“Honoured sir,” he began almost with solemnity, “poverty is not a
vice, that’s a true saying. Yet I know too that drunkenness is not a
virtue, and that that’s even truer. But beggary, honoured sir, beggary is a
vice. In poverty you may still retain your innate nobility of soul, but in
beggary—never—no one. For beggary a man is not chased out of
human society with a stick, he is swept out with a broom, so as to make
it as humiliating as possible; and quite right, too, forasmuch as in
beggary I am ready to be the irst to humiliate myself. Hence the pot-
house! Honoured sir, a month ago Mr. Lebeziatnikov gave my wife a
beating, and my wife is a very different matter from me! Do you
understand? Allow me to ask you another question out of simple
curiosity: have you ever spent a night on a hay barge, on the Neva?”
“No, I have not happened to,” answered Raskolnikov. “What do you
mean?”
“Well, I’ve just come from one and it’s the ifth night I’ve slept so....”
He illed his glass, emptied it and paused. Bits of hay were in fact
clinging to his clothes and sticking to his hair. It seemed quite probable
that he had not undressed or washed for the last ive days. His hands,
particularly, were ilthy. They were fat and red, with black nails.
His conversation seemed to excite a general though languid interest.
The boys at the counter fell to sniggering. The innkeeper came down
from the upper room, apparently on purpose to listen to the “funny
fellow” and sat down at a little distance, yawning lazily, but with dignity.
Evidently Marmeladov was a familiar igure here, and he had most
likely acquired his weakness for high- lown speeches from the habit of
frequently entering into conversation with strangers of all sorts in the
tavern. This habit develops into a necessity in some drunkards, and
especially in those who are looked after sharply and kept in order at
home. Hence in the company of other drinkers they try to justify
themselves and even if possible obtain consideration.
“Funny fellow!” pronounced the innkeeper. “And why don’t you work,
why aren’t you at your duty, if you are in the service?”
 “Why am I not at my duty, honoured sir,” Marmeladov went on,
addressing himself exclusively to Raskolnikov, as though it had been he
who put that question to him. “Why am I not at my duty? Does not my
heart ache to think what a useless worm I am? A month ago when Mr.
Lebeziatnikov beat my wife with his own hands, and I lay drunk, didn’t I
suffer? Excuse me, young man, has it ever happened to you... hm... well,
to petition hopelessly for a loan?”
“Yes, it has. But what do you mean by hopelessly?”
“Hopelessly in the fullest sense, when you know beforehand that you
will get nothing by it. You know, for instance, beforehand with positive
certainty that this man, this most reputable and exemplary citizen, will
on no consideration give you money; and indeed I ask you why should
he? For he knows of course that I shan’t pay it back. From compassion?
But Mr. Lebeziatnikov who keeps up with modern ideas explained the
other day that compassion is forbidden nowadays by science itself, and
that that’s what is done now in England, where there is political
economy. Why, I ask you, should he give it to me? And yet though I
know beforehand that he won’t, I set off to him and...”
“Why do you go?” put in Raskolnikov.
“Well, when one has no one, nowhere else one can go! For every man
must have somewhere to go. Since there are times when one absolutely
must go somewhere! When my own daughter irst went out with a
yellow ticket, then I had to go... (for my daughter has a yellow
passport),” he added in parenthesis, looking with a certain uneasiness
at the young man. “No matter, sir, no matter!” he went on hurriedly and
with apparent composure when both the boys at the counter guffawed
and even the innkeeper smiled—“No matter, I am not confounded by
the wagging of their heads; for everyone knows everything about it
already, and all that is secret is made open. And I accept it all, not with
contempt, but with humility. So be it! So be it! ‘Behold the man!’ Excuse
me, young man, can you.... No, to put it more strongly and more
distinctly; not can you but dare you, looking upon me, assert that I am
not a pig?”
The young man did not answer a word.
“Well,” the orator began again stolidly and with even increased
dignity, after waiting for the laughter in the room to subside. “Well, so
be it, I am a pig, but she is a lady! I have the semblance of a beast, but
Katerina Ivanovna, my spouse, is a person of education and an of icer’s
daughter. Granted, granted, I am a scoundrel, but she is a woman of a
noble heart, full of sentiments, re ined by education. And yet... oh, if
only she felt for me! Honoured sir, honoured sir, you know every man
ought to have at least one place where people feel for him! But Katerina
Ivanovna, though she is magnanimous, she is unjust.... And yet, although
I realise that when she pulls my hair she only does it out of pity—for I
repeat without being ashamed, she pulls my hair, young man,” he
declared with redoubled dignity, hearing the sniggering again—“but,
my God, if she would but once.... But no, no! It’s all in vain and it’s no
use talking! No use talking! For more than once, my wish did come true
and more than once she has felt for me but... such is my fate and I am a
beast by nature!”
“Rather!” assented the innkeeper yawning. Marmeladov struck his
ist resolutely on the table.
“Such is my fate! Do you know, sir, do you know, I have sold her very
stockings for drink? Not her shoes—that would be more or less in the
order of things, but her stockings, her stockings I have sold for drink!
Her mohair shawl I sold for drink, a present to her long ago, her own
property, not mine; and we live in a cold room and she caught cold this
winter and has begun coughing and spitting blood too. We have three
little children and Katerina Ivanovna is at work from morning till night;
she is scrubbing and cleaning and washing the children, for she’s been
used to cleanliness from a child. But her chest is weak and she has a
tendency to consumption and I feel it! Do you suppose I don’t feel it?
And the more I drink the more I feel it. That’s why I drink too. I try to
ind sympathy and feeling in drink.... I drink so that I may suffer twice
as much!” And as though in despair he laid his head down on the table.
“Young man,” he went on, raising his head again, “in your face I seem
to read some trouble of mind. When you came in I read it, and that was
why I addressed you at once. For in unfolding to you the story of my life,
I do not wish to make myself a laughing-stock before these idle
listeners, who indeed know all about it already, but I am looking for a
man of feeling and education. Know then that my wife was educated in
a high-class school for the daughters of noblemen, and on leaving she
danced the shawl dance before the governor and other personages for
which she was presented with a gold medal and a certi icate of merit.
The medal... well, the medal of course was sold—long ago, hm... but the
certi icate of merit is in her trunk still and not long ago she showed it to
our landlady. And although she is most continually on bad terms with
the landlady, yet she wanted to tell someone or other of her past
honours and of the happy days that are gone. I don’t condemn her for it,
I don’t blame her, for the one thing left her is recollection of the past,
and all the rest is dust and ashes. Yes, yes, she is a lady of spirit, proud
and determined. She scrubs the loors herself and has nothing but black
bread to eat, but won’t allow herself to be treated with disrespect.
That’s why she would not overlook Mr. Lebeziatnikov’s rudeness to her,
and so when he gave her a beating for it, she took to her bed more from
the hurt to her feelings than from the blows. She was a widow when I
married her, with three children, one smaller than the other. She
married her irst husband, an infantry of icer, for love, and ran away
with him from her father’s house. She was exceedingly fond of her
husband; but he gave way to cards, got into trouble and with that he
died. He used to beat her at the end: and although she paid him back, of
which I have authentic documentary evidence, to this day she speaks of
him with tears and she throws him up to me; and I am glad, I am glad
that, though only in imagination, she should think of herself as having
once been happy.... And she was left at his death with three children in a
wild and remote district where I happened to be at the time; and she
was left in such hopeless poverty that, although I have seen many ups
and downs of all sort, I don’t feel equal to describing it even. Her
relations had all thrown her off. And she was proud, too, excessively
proud.... And then, honoured sir, and then, I, being at the time a
widower, with a daughter of fourteen left me by my irst wife, offered
her my hand, for I could not bear the sight of such suffering. You can
judge the extremity of her calamities, that she, a woman of education
and culture and distinguished family, should have consented to be my
wife. But she did! Weeping and sobbing and wringing her hands, she
married me! For she had nowhere to turn! Do you understand, sir, do
you understand what it means when you have absolutely nowhere to
turn? No, that you don’t understand yet.... And for a whole year, I
performed my duties conscientiously and faithfully, and did not touch
this” (he tapped the jug with his inger), “for I have feelings. But even
so, I could not please her; and then I lost my place too, and that through
no fault of mine but through changes in the of ice; and then I did touch
it!... It will be a year and a half ago soon since we found ourselves at last
after many wanderings and numerous calamities in this magni icent
capital, adorned with innumerable monuments. Here I obtained a
situation.... I obtained it and I lost it again. Do you understand? This
time it was through my own fault I lost it: for my weakness had come
out.... We have now part of a room at Amalia Fyodorovna
Lippevechsel’s; and what we live upon and what we pay our rent with, I
could not say. There are a lot of people living there besides ourselves.
Dirt and disorder, a perfect Bedlam... hm... yes... And meanwhile my
daughter by my irst wife has grown up; and what my daughter has had
to put up with from her step-mother whilst she was growing up, I won’t
speak of. For, though Katerina Ivanovna is full of generous feelings, she
is a spirited lady, irritable and short-tempered.... Yes. But it’s no use
going over that! Sonia, as you may well fancy, has had no education. I
did make an effort four years ago to give her a course of geography and
universal history, but as I was not very well up in those subjects myself
and we had no suitable books, and what books we had... hm, anyway we
have not even those now, so all our instruction came to an end. We
stopped at Cyrus of Persia. Since she has attained years of maturity, she
has read other books of romantic tendency and of late she had read
with great interest a book she got through Mr. Lebeziatnikov, Lewes’
Physiology—do you know it?—and even recounted extracts from it to
us: and that’s the whole of her education. And now may I venture to
address you, honoured sir, on my own account with a private question.
Do you suppose that a respectable poor girl can earn much by honest
work? Not ifteen farthings a day can she earn, if she is respectable and
has no special talent and that without putting her work down for an
instant! And what’s more, Ivan Ivanitch Klopstock the civil counsellor—
have you heard of him?—has not to this day paid her for the half-dozen
linen shirts she made him and drove her roughly away, stamping and
reviling her, on the pretext that the shirt collars were not made like the
pattern and were put in askew. And there are the little ones hungry....
And Katerina Ivanovna walking up and down and wringing her hands,
her cheeks lushed red, as they always are in that disease: ‘Here you live
with us,’ says she, ‘you eat and drink and are kept warm and you do
nothing to help.’ And much she gets to eat and drink when there is not a
crust for the little ones for three days! I was lying at the time... well,
what of it! I was lying drunk and I heard my Sonia speaking (she is a
gentle creature with a soft little voice... fair hair and such a pale, thin
little face). She said: ‘Katerina Ivanovna, am I really to do a thing like
that?’ And Darya Frantsovna, a woman of evil character and very well
known to the police, had two or three times tried to get at her through
the landlady. ‘And why not?’ said Katerina Ivanovna with a jeer, ‘you are
something mighty precious to be so careful of!’ But don’t blame her,
don’t blame her, honoured sir, don’t blame her! She was not herself
when she spoke, but driven to distraction by her illness and the crying
of the hungry children; and it was said more to wound her than
anything else.... For that’s Katerina Ivanovna’s character, and when
children cry, even from hunger, she falls to beating them at once. At six
o’clock I saw Sonia get up, put on her kerchief and her cape, and go out
of the room and about nine o’clock she came back. She walked straight
up to Katerina Ivanovna and she laid thirty roubles on the table before
her in silence. She did not utter a word, she did not even look at her, she
simply picked up our big green drap de dames shawl (we have a shawl,
made of drap de dames), put it over her head and face and lay down on
the bed with her face to the wall; only her little shoulders and her body
kept shuddering.... And I went on lying there, just as before.... And then I
saw, young man, I saw Katerina Ivanovna, in the same silence go up to
Sonia’s little bed; she was on her knees all the evening kissing Sonia’s
feet, and would not get up, and then they both fell asleep in each other’s
arms... together, together... yes... and I... lay drunk.”
Marmeladov stopped short, as though his voice had failed him. Then
he hurriedly illed his glass, drank, and cleared his throat.
“Since then, sir,” he went on after a brief pause—“Since then, owing
to an unfortunate occurrence and through information given by evil-
intentioned persons—in all which Darya Frantsovna took a leading part
on the pretext that she had been treated with want of respect—since
then my daughter Sofya Semyonovna has been forced to take a yellow
ticket, and owing to that she is unable to go on living with us. For our
landlady, Amalia Fyodorovna would not hear of it (though she had
backed up Darya Frantsovna before) and Mr. Lebeziatnikov too... hm....
All the trouble between him and Katerina Ivanovna was on Sonia’s
account. At irst he was for making up to Sonia himself and then all of a
sudden he stood on his dignity: ‘how,’ said he, ‘can a highly educated
man like me live in the same rooms with a girl like that?’ And Katerina
Ivanovna would not let it pass, she stood up for her... and so that’s how
it happened. And Sonia comes to us now, mostly after dark; she
comforts Katerina Ivanovna and gives her all she can.... She has a room
at the Kapernaumovs’ the tailors, she lodges with them; Kapernaumov
is a lame man with a cleft palate and all of his numerous family have
cleft palates too. And his wife, too, has a cleft palate. They all live in one
room, but Sonia has her own, partitioned off.... Hm... yes... very poor
people and all with cleft palates... yes. Then I got up in the morning, and
put on my rags, lifted up my hands to heaven and set off to his
excellency Ivan Afanasyvitch. His excellency Ivan Afanasyvitch, do you
know him? No? Well, then, it’s a man of God you don’t know. He is wax...
wax before the face of the Lord; even as wax melteth!... His eyes were
dim when he heard my story. ‘Marmeladov, once already you have
deceived my expectations... I’ll take you once more on my own
responsibility’—that’s what he said, ‘remember,’ he said, ‘and now you
can go.’ I kissed the dust at his feet—in thought only, for in reality he
would not have allowed me to do it, being a statesman and a man of
modern political and enlightened ideas. I returned home, and when I
announced that I’d been taken back into the service and should receive
a salary, heavens, what a to-do there was!...”
Marmeladov stopped again in violent excitement. At that moment a
whole party of revellers already drunk came in from the street, and the
sounds of a hired concertina and the cracked piping voice of a child of
seven singing “The Hamlet” were heard in the entry. The room was
illed with noise. The tavern-keeper and the boys were busy with the
new-comers. Marmeladov paying no attention to the new arrivals
continued his story. He appeared by now to be extremely weak, but as
he became more and more drunk, he became more and more talkative.
The recollection of his recent success in getting the situation seemed to
revive him, and was positively re lected in a sort of radiance on his face.
Raskolnikov listened attentively.
“That was ive weeks ago, sir. Yes.... As soon as Katerina Ivanovna and
Sonia heard of it, mercy on us, it was as though I stepped into the
kingdom of Heaven. It used to be: you can lie like a beast, nothing but
abuse. Now they were walking on tiptoe, hushing the children. ‘Semyon
Zaharovitch is tired with his work at the of ice, he is resting, shh!’ They
made me coffee before I went to work and boiled cream for me! They
began to get real cream for me, do you hear that? And how they
managed to get together the money for a decent out it—eleven roubles,
ifty copecks, I can’t guess. Boots, cotton shirt-fronts—most
magni icent, a uniform, they got up all in splendid style, for eleven
roubles and a half. The irst morning I came back from the of ice I found
Katerina Ivanovna had cooked two courses for dinner—soup and salt
meat with horse radish—which we had never dreamed of till then. She
had not any dresses... none at all, but she got herself up as though she
were going on a visit; and not that she’d anything to do it with, she
smartened herself up with nothing at all, she’d done her hair nicely, put
on a clean collar of some sort, cuffs, and there she was, quite a different
person, she was younger and better looking. Sonia, my little darling,
had only helped with money ‘for the time,’ she said, ‘it won’t do for me
to come and see you too often. After dark maybe when no one can see.’
Do you hear, do you hear? I lay down for a nap after dinner and what do
you think: though Katerina Ivanovna had quarrelled to the last degree
with our landlady Amalia Fyodorovna only a week before, she could not
resist then asking her in to coffee. For two hours they were sitting,
whispering together. ‘Semyon Zaharovitch is in the service again, now,
and receiving a salary,’ says she, ‘and he went himself to his excellency
and his excellency himself came out to him, made all the others wait
and led Semyon Zaharovitch by the hand before everybody into his
study.’ Do you hear, do you hear? ‘To be sure,’ says he, ‘Semyon
Zaharovitch, remembering your past services,’ says he, ‘and in spite of
your propensity to that foolish weakness, since you promise now and
since moreover we’ve got on badly without you,’ (do you hear, do you
hear;) ‘and so,’ says he, ‘I rely now on your word as a gentleman.’ And all
that, let me tell you, she has simply made up for herself, and not simply
out of wantonness, for the sake of bragging; no, she believes it all
herself, she amuses herself with her own fancies, upon my word she
does! And I don’t blame her for it, no, I don’t blame her!... Six days ago
when I brought her my irst earnings in full—twenty-three roubles
forty copecks altogether—she called me her poppet: ‘poppet,’ said she,
‘my little poppet.’ And when we were by ourselves, you understand?
You would not think me a beauty, you would not think much of me as a
husband, would you?... Well, she pinched my cheek, ‘my little poppet,’
said she.”
Marmeladov broke off, tried to smile, but suddenly his chin began to
twitch. He controlled himself however. The tavern, the degraded
appearance of the man, the ive nights in the hay barge, and the pot of
spirits, and yet this poignant love for his wife and children bewildered
his listener. Raskolnikov listened intently but with a sick sensation. He
felt vexed that he had come here.
“Honoured sir, honoured sir,” cried Marmeladov recovering himself—
“Oh, sir, perhaps all this seems a laughing matter to you, as it does to
others, and perhaps I am only worrying you with the stupidity of all the
trivial details of my home life, but it is not a laughing matter to me. For I
can feel it all.... And the whole of that heavenly day of my life and the
whole of that evening I passed in leeting dreams of how I would
arrange it all, and how I would dress all the children, and how I should
give her rest, and how I should rescue my own daughter from
dishonour and restore her to the bosom of her family.... And a great deal
more.... Quite excusable, sir. Well, then, sir” (Marmeladov suddenly gave
a sort of start, raised his head and gazed intently at his listener) “well,
on the very next day after all those dreams, that is to say, exactly ive
days ago, in the evening, by a cunning trick, like a thief in the night, I
stole from Katerina Ivanovna the key of her box, took out what was left
of my earnings, how much it was I have forgotten, and now look at me,
all of you! It’s the ifth day since I left home, and they are looking for me
there and it’s the end of my employment, and my uniform is lying in a
tavern on the Egyptian bridge. I exchanged it for the garments I have
on... and it’s the end of everything!”
Marmeladov struck his forehead with his ist, clenched his teeth,
closed his eyes and leaned heavily with his elbow on the table. But a
minute later his face suddenly changed and with a certain assumed
slyness and affectation of bravado, he glanced at Raskolnikov, laughed
and said:
“This morning I went to see Sonia, I went to ask her for a pick-me-up!
He-he-he!”
 “You don’t say she gave it to you?” cried one of the new-comers; he
shouted the words and went off into a guffaw.
“This very quart was bought with her money,” Marmeladov declared,
addressing himself exclusively to Raskolnikov. “Thirty copecks she gave
me with her own hands, her last, all she had, as I saw.... She said
nothing, she only looked at me without a word.... Not on earth, but up
yonder... they grieve over men, they weep, but they don’t blame them,
they don’t blame them! But it hurts more, it hurts more when they don’t
blame! Thirty copecks yes! And maybe she needs them now, eh? What
do you think, my dear sir? For now she’s got to keep up her appearance.
It costs money, that smartness, that special smartness, you know? Do
you understand? And there’s pomatum, too, you see, she must have
things; petticoats, starched ones, shoes, too, real jaunty ones to show
off her foot when she has to step over a puddle. Do you understand, sir,
do you understand what all that smartness means? And here I, her own
father, here I took thirty copecks of that money for a drink! And I am
drinking it! And I have already drunk it! Come, who will have pity on a
man like me, eh? Are you sorry for me, sir, or not? Tell me, sir, are you
sorry or not? He-he-he!”
He would have illed his glass, but there was no drink left. The pot
was empty.
“What are you to be pitied for?” shouted the tavern-keeper who was
again near them.
Shouts of laughter and even oaths followed. The laughter and the
oaths came from those who were listening and also from those who had
heard nothing but were simply looking at the igure of the discharged
government clerk.
“To be pitied! Why am I to be pitied?” Marmeladov suddenly
declaimed, standing up with his arm outstretched, as though he had
been only waiting for that question.
“Why am I to be pitied, you say? Yes! there’s nothing to pity me for! I
ought to be cruci ied, cruci ied on a cross, not pitied! Crucify me, oh
judge, crucify me but pity me! And then I will go of myself to be
cruci ied, for it’s not merry-making I seek but tears and tribulation!...
Do you suppose, you that sell, that this pint of yours has been sweet to
me? It was tribulation I sought at the bottom of it, tears and tribulation,
and have found it, and I have tasted it; but He will pity us Who has had
pity on all men, Who has understood all men and all things, He is the
One, He too is the judge. He will come in that day and He will ask:
‘Where is the daughter who gave herself for her cross, consumptive
step-mother and for the little children of another? Where is the
daughter who had pity upon the ilthy drunkard, her earthly father,
undismayed by his beastliness?’ And He will say, ‘Come to me! I have
already forgiven thee once.... I have forgiven thee once.... Thy sins which
are many are forgiven thee for thou hast loved much....’ And he will
forgive my Sonia, He will forgive, I know it... I felt it in my heart when I
was with her just now! And He will judge and will forgive all, the good
and the evil, the wise and the meek.... And when He has done with all of
them, then He will summon us. ‘You too come forth,’ He will say, ‘Come
forth ye drunkards, come forth, ye weak ones, come forth, ye children of
shame!’ And we shall all come forth, without shame and shall stand
before him. And He will say unto us, ‘Ye are swine, made in the Image of
the Beast and with his mark; but come ye also!’ And the wise ones and
those of understanding will say, ‘Oh Lord, why dost Thou receive these
men?’ And He will say, ‘This is why I receive them, oh ye wise, this is
why I receive them, oh ye of understanding, that not one of them
believed himself to be worthy of this.’ And He will hold out His hands to
us and we shall fall down before him... and we shall weep... and we shall
understand all things! Then we shall understand all!... and all will
understand, Katerina Ivanovna even... she will understand.... Lord, Thy
kingdom come!” And he sank down on the bench exhausted, and
helpless, looking at no one, apparently oblivious of his surroundings
and plunged in deep thought. His words had created a certain
impression; there was a moment of silence; but soon laughter and oaths
were heard again.
“That’s his notion!”
“Talked himself silly!”
“A ine clerk he is!”
And so on, and so on.
“Let us go, sir,” said Marmeladov all at once, raising his head and
addressing Raskolnikov—“come along with me... Kozel’s house, looking
into the yard. I’m going to Katerina Ivanovna—time I did.”
 Raskolnikov had for some time been wanting to go and he had meant
to help him. Marmeladov was much unsteadier on his legs than in his
speech and leaned heavily on the young man. They had two or three
hundred paces to go. The drunken man was more and more overcome
by dismay and confusion as they drew nearer the house.
“It’s not Katerina Ivanovna I am afraid of now,” he muttered in
agitation—“and that she will begin pulling my hair. What does my hair
matter! Bother my hair! That’s what I say! Indeed it will be better if she
does begin pulling it, that’s not what I am afraid of... it’s her eyes I am
afraid of... yes, her eyes... the red on her cheeks, too, frightens me... and
her breathing too.... Have you noticed how people in that disease
breathe... when they are excited? I am frightened of the children’s
crying, too.... For if Sonia has not taken them food... I don’t know what’s
happened! I don’t know! But blows I am not afraid of.... Know, sir, that
such blows are not a pain to me, but even an enjoyment. In fact I can’t
get on without it.... It’s better so. Let her strike me, it relieves her heart...
it’s better so... There is the house. The house of Kozel, the cabinet-
maker... a German, well-to-do. Lead the way!”
They went in from the yard and up to the fourth storey. The staircase
got darker and darker as they went up. It was nearly eleven o’clock and
although in summer in Petersburg there is no real night, yet it was quite
dark at the top of the stairs.
A grimy little door at the very top of the stairs stood ajar. A very
poor-looking room about ten paces long was lighted up by a candle-
end; the whole of it was visible from the entrance. It was all in disorder,
littered up with rags of all sorts, especially children’s garments. Across
the furthest corner was stretched a ragged sheet. Behind it probably
was the bed. There was nothing in the room except two chairs and a
sofa covered with American leather, full of holes, before which stood an
old deal kitchen-table, unpainted and uncovered. At the edge of the
table stood a smoldering tallow-candle in an iron candlestick. It
appeared that the family had a room to themselves, not part of a room,
but their room was practically a passage. The door leading to the other
rooms, or rather cupboards, into which Amalia Lippevechsel’s lat was
divided stood half open, and there was shouting, uproar and laughter
within. People seemed to be playing cards and drinking tea there.
Words of the most unceremonious kind lew out from time to time.
Raskolnikov recognised Katerina Ivanovna at once. She was a rather
tall, slim and graceful woman, terribly emaciated, with magni icent
dark brown hair and with a hectic lush in her cheeks. She was pacing
up and down in her little room, pressing her hands against her chest;
her lips were parched and her breathing came in nervous broken gasps.
Her eyes glittered as in fever and looked about with a harsh immovable
stare. And that consumptive and excited face with the last lickering
light of the candle-end playing upon it made a sickening impression.
She seemed to Raskolnikov about thirty years old and was certainly a
strange wife for Marmeladov.... She had not heard them and did not
notice them coming in. She seemed to be lost in thought, hearing and
seeing nothing. The room was close, but she had not opened the
window; a stench rose from the staircase, but the door on to the stairs
was not closed. From the inner rooms clouds of tobacco smoke loated
in, she kept coughing, but did not close the door. The youngest child, a
girl of six, was asleep, sitting curled up on the loor with her head on
the sofa. A boy a year older stood crying and shaking in the corner,
probably he had just had a beating. Beside him stood a girl of nine years
old, tall and thin, wearing a thin and ragged chemise with an ancient
cashmere pelisse lung over her bare shoulders, long outgrown and
barely reaching her knees. Her arm, as thin as a stick, was round her
brother’s neck. She was trying to comfort him, whispering something to
him, and doing all she could to keep him from whimpering again. At the
same time her large dark eyes, which looked larger still from the
thinness of her frightened face, were watching her mother with alarm.
Marmeladov did not enter the door, but dropped on his knees in the
very doorway, pushing Raskolnikov in front of him. The woman seeing a
stranger stopped indifferently facing him, coming to herself for a
moment and apparently wondering what he had come for. But evidently
she decided that he was going into the next room, as he had to pass
through hers to get there. Taking no further notice of him, she walked
towards the outer door to close it and uttered a sudden scream on
seeing her husband on his knees in the doorway.
“Ah!” she cried out in a frenzy, “he has come back! The criminal! the
monster!... And where is the money? What’s in your pocket, show me!
And your clothes are all different! Where are your clothes? Where is the
money! Speak!”
And she fell to searching him. Marmeladov submissively and
obediently held up both arms to facilitate the search. Not a farthing was
there.
“Where is the money?” she cried—“Mercy on us, can he have drunk it
all? There were twelve silver roubles left in the chest!” and in a fury she
seized him by the hair and dragged him into the room. Marmeladov
seconded her efforts by meekly crawling along on his knees.
“And this is a consolation to me! This does not hurt me, but is a
positive con-so-la-tion, ho-nou-red sir,” he called out, shaken to and fro
by his hair and even once striking the ground with his forehead. The
child asleep on the loor woke up, and began to cry. The boy in the
corner losing all control began trembling and screaming and rushed to
his sister in violent terror, almost in a it. The eldest girl was shaking
like a leaf.
“He’s drunk it! he’s drunk it all,” the poor woman screamed in despair
—“and his clothes are gone! And they are hungry, hungry!”—and
wringing her hands she pointed to the children. “Oh, accursed life! And
you, are you not ashamed?”—she pounced all at once upon Raskolnikov
—“from the tavern! Have you been drinking with him? You have been
drinking with him, too! Go away!”
The young man was hastening away without uttering a word. The
inner door was thrown wide open and inquisitive faces were peering in
at it. Coarse laughing faces with pipes and cigarettes and heads wearing
caps thrust themselves in at the doorway. Further in could be seen
igures in dressing gowns lung open, in costumes of unseemly
scantiness, some of them with cards in their hands. They were
particularly diverted, when Marmeladov, dragged about by his hair,
shouted that it was a consolation to him. They even began to come into
the room; at last a sinister shrill outcry was heard: this came from
Amalia Lippevechsel herself pushing her way amongst them and trying
to restore order after her own fashion and for the hundredth time to
frighten the poor woman by ordering her with coarse abuse to clear out
of the room next day. As he went out, Raskolnikov had time to put his
hand into his pocket, to snatch up the coppers he had received in
exchange for his rouble in the tavern and to lay them unnoticed on the
window. Afterwards on the stairs, he changed his mind and would have
gone back.
“What a stupid thing I’ve done,” he thought to himself, “they have
Sonia and I want it myself.” But re lecting that it would be impossible to
take it back now and that in any case he would not have taken it, he
dismissed it with a wave of his hand and went back to his lodging.
“Sonia wants pomatum too,” he said as he walked along the street, and
he laughed malignantly—“such smartness costs money.... Hm! And
maybe Sonia herself will be bankrupt to-day, for there is always a risk,
hunting big game... digging for gold... then they would all be without a
crust to-morrow except for my money. Hurrah for Sonia! What a mine
they’ve dug there! And they’re making the most of it! Yes, they are
making the most of it! They’ve wept over it and grown used to it. Man
grows used to everything, the scoundrel!”
He sank into thought.
“And what if I am wrong,” he cried suddenly after a moment’s
thought. “What if man is not really a scoundrel, man in general, I mean,
the whole race of mankind—then all the rest is prejudice, simply
arti icial terrors and there are no barriers and it’s all as it should be.”
 CHAPTER III

He waked up late next day after a broken sleep. But his sleep had not
refreshed him; he waked up bilious, irritable, ill-tempered, and looked
with hatred at his room. It was a tiny cupboard of a room about six
paces in length. It had a poverty-stricken appearance with its dusty
yellow paper peeling off the walls, and it was so low-pitched that a man
of more than average height was ill at ease in it and felt every moment
that he would knock his head against the ceiling. The furniture was in
keeping with the room: there were three old chairs, rather rickety; a
painted table in the corner on which lay a few manuscripts and books;
the dust that lay thick upon them showed that they had been long
untouched. A big clumsy sofa occupied almost the whole of one wall
and half the loor space of the room; it was once covered with chintz,
but was now in rags and served Raskolnikov as a bed. Often he went to
sleep on it, as he was, without undressing, without sheets, wrapped in
his old student’s overcoat, with his head on one little pillow, under
which he heaped up all the linen he had, clean and dirty, by way of a
bolster. A little table stood in front of the sofa.
It would have been dif icult to sink to a lower ebb of disorder, but to
Raskolnikov in his present state of mind this was positively agreeable.
He had got completely away from everyone, like a tortoise in its shell,
and even the sight of a servant girl who had to wait upon him and
looked sometimes into his room made him writhe with nervous
irritation. He was in the condition that overtakes some monomaniacs
entirely concentrated upon one thing. His landlady had for the last
fortnight given up sending him in meals, and he had not yet thought of
expostulating with her, though he went without his dinner. Nastasya,
the cook and only servant, was rather pleased at the lodger’s mood and
had entirely given up sweeping and doing his room, only once a week or
so she would stray into his room with a broom. She waked him up that
day.
“Get up, why are you asleep?” she called to him. “It’s past nine, I have
brought you some tea; will you have a cup? I should think you’re fairly
starving?”
Raskolnikov opened his eyes, started and recognised Nastasya.
“From the landlady, eh?” he asked, slowly and with a sickly face
sitting up on the sofa.
“From the landlady, indeed!”
She set before him her own cracked teapot full of weak and stale tea
and laid two yellow lumps of sugar by the side of it.
“Here, Nastasya, take it please,” he said, fumbling in his pocket (for he
had slept in his clothes) and taking out a handful of coppers—“run and
buy me a loaf. And get me a little sausage, the cheapest, at the pork-
butcher’s.”
“The loaf I’ll fetch you this very minute, but wouldn’t you rather have
some cabbage soup instead of sausage? It’s capital soup, yesterday’s. I
saved it for you yesterday, but you came in late. It’s ine soup.”
When the soup had been brought, and he had begun upon it,
Nastasya sat down beside him on the sofa and began chatting. She was
a country peasant-woman and a very talkative one.
“Praskovya Pavlovna means to complain to the police about you,” she
said.
He scowled.
“To the police? What does she want?”
“You don’t pay her money and you won’t turn out of the room. That’s
what she wants, to be sure.”
“The devil, that’s the last straw,” he muttered, grinding his teeth, “no,
that would not suit me... just now. She is a fool,” he added aloud. “I’ll go
and talk to her to-day.”
“Fool she is and no mistake, just as I am. But why, if you are so clever,
do you lie here like a sack and have nothing to show for it? One time
you used to go out, you say, to teach children. But why is it you do
nothing now?”
 “I am doing...” Raskolnikov began sullenly and reluctantly.
“What are you doing?”
“Work...”
“What sort of work?”
“I am thinking,” he answered seriously after a pause.
Nastasya was overcome with a it of laughter. She was given to
laughter and when anything amused her, she laughed inaudibly,
quivering and shaking all over till she felt ill.
“And have you made much money by your thinking?” she managed to
articulate at last.
“One can’t go out to give lessons without boots. And I’m sick of it.”
“Don’t quarrel with your bread and butter.”
“They pay so little for lessons. What’s the use of a few coppers?” he
answered, reluctantly, as though replying to his own thought.
“And you want to get a fortune all at once?”
He looked at her strangely.
“Yes, I want a fortune,” he answered irmly, after a brief pause.
“Don’t be in such a hurry, you quite frighten me! Shall I get you the
loaf or not?”
“As you please.”
“Ah, I forgot! A letter came for you yesterday when you were out.”
“A letter? for me! from whom?”
“I can’t say. I gave three copecks of my own to the postman for it. Will
you pay me back?”
“Then bring it to me, for God’s sake, bring it,” cried Raskolnikov
greatly excited—“good God!”
A minute later the letter was brought him. That was it: from his
mother, from the province of R——. He turned pale when he took it. It
was a long while since he had received a letter, but another feeling also
suddenly stabbed his heart.
“Nastasya, leave me alone, for goodness’ sake; here are your three
copecks, but for goodness’ sake, make haste and go!”
 The letter was quivering in his hand; he did not want to open it in her
presence; he wanted to be left alone with this letter. When Nastasya had
gone out, he lifted it quickly to his lips and kissed it; then he gazed
intently at the address, the small, sloping handwriting, so dear and
familiar, of the mother who had once taught him to read and write. He
delayed; he seemed almost afraid of something. At last he opened it; it
was a thick heavy letter, weighing over two ounces, two large sheets of
note paper were covered with very small handwriting.
“My dear Rodya,” wrote his mother—“it’s two months since I last had
a talk with you by letter which has distressed me and even kept me
awake at night, thinking. But I am sure you will not blame me for my
inevitable silence. You know how I love you; you are all we have to look
to, Dounia and I, you are our all, our one hope, our one stay. What a
grief it was to me when I heard that you had given up the university
some months ago, for want of means to keep yourself and that you had
lost your lessons and your other work! How could I help you out of my
hundred and twenty roubles a year pension? The ifteen roubles I sent
you four months ago I borrowed, as you know, on security of my
pension, from Vassily Ivanovitch Vahrushin a merchant of this town. He
is a kind-hearted man and was a friend of your father’s too. But having
given him the right to receive the pension, I had to wait till the debt was
paid off and that is only just done, so that I’ve been unable to send you
anything all this time. But now, thank God, I believe I shall be able to
send you something more and in fact we may congratulate ourselves on
our good fortune now, of which I hasten to inform you. In the irst place,
would you have guessed, dear Rodya, that your sister has been living
with me for the last six weeks and we shall not be separated in the
future. Thank God, her sufferings are over, but I will tell you everything
in order, so that you may know just how everything has happened and
all that we have hitherto concealed from you. When you wrote to me
two months ago that you had heard that Dounia had a great deal to put
up with in the Svidrigaı̈lovs’ house, when you wrote that and asked me
to tell you all about it—what could I write in answer to you? If I had
written the whole truth to you, I dare say you would have thrown up
everything and have come to us, even if you had to walk all the way, for I
know your character and your feelings, and you would not let your
sister be insulted. I was in despair myself, but what could I do? And,
besides, I did not know the whole truth myself then. What made it all so
dif icult was that Dounia received a hundred roubles in advance when
she took the place as governess in their family, on condition of part of
her salary being deducted every month, and so it was impossible to
throw up the situation without repaying the debt. This sum (now I can
explain it all to you, my precious Rodya) she took chie ly in order to
send you sixty roubles, which you needed so terribly then and which
you received from us last year. We deceived you then, writing that this
money came from Dounia’s savings, but that was not so, and now I tell
you all about it, because, thank God, things have suddenly changed for
the better, and that you may know how Dounia loves you and what a
heart she has. At irst indeed Mr. Svidrigaı̈lov treated her very rudely
and used to make disrespectful and jeering remarks at table.... But I
don’t want to go into all those painful details, so as not to worry you for
nothing when it is now all over. In short, in spite of the kind and
generous behaviour of Marfa Petrovna, Mr. Svidrigaı̈lov’s wife, and all
the rest of the household, Dounia had a very hard time, especially when
Mr. Svidrigaı̈lov, relapsing into his old regimental habits, was under the
in luence of Bacchus. And how do you think it was all explained later
on? Would you believe that the crazy fellow had conceived a passion for
Dounia from the beginning, but had concealed it under a show of
rudeness and contempt. Possibly he was ashamed and horri ied himself
at his own lighty hopes, considering his years and his being the father
of a family; and that made him angry with Dounia. And possibly, too, he
hoped by his rude and sneering behaviour to hide the truth from
others. But at last he lost all control and had the face to make Dounia an
open and shameful proposal, promising her all sorts of inducements
and offering, besides, to throw up everything and take her to another
estate of his, or even abroad. You can imagine all she went through! To
leave her situation at once was impossible not only on account of the
money debt, but also to spare the feelings of Marfa Petrovna, whose
suspicions would have been aroused: and then Dounia would have been
the cause of a rupture in the family. And it would have meant a terrible
scandal for Dounia too; that would have been inevitable. There were
various other reasons owing to which Dounia could not hope to escape
from that awful house for another six weeks. You know Dounia, of
course; you know how clever she is and what a strong will she has.
Dounia can endure a great deal and even in the most dif icult cases she
has the fortitude to maintain her irmness. She did not even write to me
about everything for fear of upsetting me, although we were constantly
in communication. It all ended very unexpectedly. Marfa Petrovna
accidentally overheard her husband imploring Dounia in the garden,
and, putting quite a wrong interpretation on the position, threw the
blame upon her, believing her to be the cause of it all. An awful scene
took place between them on the spot in the garden; Marfa Petrovna
went so far as to strike Dounia, refused to hear anything and was
shouting at her for a whole hour and then gave orders that Dounia
should be packed off at once to me in a plain peasant’s cart, into which
they lung all her things, her linen and her clothes, all pell-mell, without
folding it up and packing it. And a heavy shower of rain came on, too,
and Dounia, insulted and put to shame, had to drive with a peasant in
an open cart all the seventeen versts into town. Only think now what
answer could I have sent to the letter I received from you two months
ago and what could I have written? I was in despair; I dared not write to
you the truth because you would have been very unhappy, morti ied
and indignant, and yet what could you do? You could only perhaps ruin
yourself, and, besides, Dounia would not allow it; and ill up my letter
with tri les when my heart was so full of sorrow, I could not. For a
whole month the town was full of gossip about this scandal, and it came
to such a pass that Dounia and I dared not even go to church on account
of the contemptuous looks, whispers, and even remarks made aloud
about us. All our acquaintances avoided us, nobody even bowed to us in
the street, and I learnt that some shopmen and clerks were intending to
insult us in a shameful way, smearing the gates of our house with pitch,
so that the landlord began to tell us we must leave. All this was set
going by Marfa Petrovna who managed to slander Dounia and throw
dirt at her in every family. She knows everyone in the neighbourhood,
and that month she was continually coming into the town, and as she is
rather talkative and fond of gossiping about her family affairs and
particularly of complaining to all and each of her husband—which is
not at all right—so in a short time she had spread her story not only in
the town, but over the whole surrounding district. It made me ill, but
Dounia bore it better than I did, and if only you could have seen how
she endured it all and tried to comfort me and cheer me up! She is an
angel! But by God’s mercy, our sufferings were cut short: Mr.
Svidrigaı̈lov returned to his senses and repented and, probably feeling
sorry for Dounia, he laid before Marfa Petrovna a complete and
unmistakable proof of Dounia’s innocence, in the form of a letter
Dounia had been forced to write and give to him, before Marfa Petrovna
came upon them in the garden. This letter, which remained in Mr.
Svidrigaı̈lov’s hands after her departure, she had written to refuse
personal explanations and secret interviews, for which he was
entreating her. In that letter she reproached him with great heat and
indignation for the baseness of his behaviour in regard to Marfa
Petrovna, reminding him that he was the father and head of a family
and telling him how infamous it was of him to torment and make
unhappy a defenceless girl, unhappy enough already. Indeed, dear
Rodya, the letter was so nobly and touchingly written that I sobbed
when I read it and to this day I cannot read it without tears. Moreover,
the evidence of the servants, too, cleared Dounia’s reputation; they had
seen and known a great deal more than Mr. Svidrigaı̈lov had himself
supposed—as indeed is always the case with servants. Marfa Petrovna
was completely taken aback, and ‘again crushed’ as she said herself to
us, but she was completely convinced of Dounia’s innocence. The very
next day, being Sunday, she went straight to the Cathedral, knelt down
and prayed with tears to Our Lady to give her strength to bear this new
trial and to do her duty. Then she came straight from the Cathedral to
us, told us the whole story, wept bitterly and, fully penitent, she
embraced Dounia and besought her to forgive her. The same morning
without any delay, she went round to all the houses in the town and
everywhere, shedding tears, she asserted in the most lattering terms
Dounia’s innocence and the nobility of her feelings and her behavior.
What was more, she showed and read to everyone the letter in Dounia’s
own handwriting to Mr. Svidrigaı̈lov and even allowed them to take
copies of it—which I must say I think was super luous. In this way she
was busy for several days in driving about the whole town, because
some people had taken offence through precedence having been given
to others. And therefore they had to take turns, so that in every house
she was expected before she arrived, and everyone knew that on such
and such a day Marfa Petrovna would be reading the letter in such and
such a place and people assembled for every reading of it, even many
who had heard it several times already both in their own houses and in
other people’s. In my opinion a great deal, a very great deal of all this
was unnecessary; but that’s Marfa Petrovna’s character. Anyway she
succeeded in completely re-establishing Dounia’s reputation and the
whole ignominy of this affair rested as an indelible disgrace upon her
husband, as the only person to blame, so that I really began to feel sorry
for him; it was really treating the crazy fellow too harshly. Dounia was
at once asked to give lessons in several families, but she refused. All of a
sudden everyone began to treat her with marked respect and all this
did much to bring about the event by which, one may say, our whole
fortunes are now transformed. You must know, dear Rodya, that Dounia
has a suitor and that she has already consented to marry him. I hasten
to tell you all about the matter, and though it has been arranged
without asking your consent, I think you will not be aggrieved with me
or with your sister on that account, for you will see that we could not
wait and put off our decision till we heard from you. And you could not
have judged all the facts without being on the spot. This was how it
happened. He is already of the rank of a counsellor, Pyotr Petrovitch
Luzhin, and is distantly related to Marfa Petrovna, who has been very
active in bringing the match about. It began with his expressing through
her his desire to make our acquaintance. He was properly received,
drank coffee with us and the very next day he sent us a letter in which
he very courteously made an offer and begged for a speedy and decided
answer. He is a very busy man and is in a great hurry to get to
Petersburg, so that every moment is precious to him. At irst, of course,
we were greatly surprised, as it had all happened so quickly and
unexpectedly. We thought and talked it over the whole day. He is a well-
to-do man, to be depended upon, he has two posts in the government
and has already made his fortune. It is true that he is forty- ive years
old, but he is of a fairly prepossessing appearance and might still be
thought attractive by women, and he is altogether a very respectable
and presentable man, only he seems a little morose and somewhat
conceited. But possibly that may only be the impression he makes at
irst sight. And beware, dear Rodya, when he comes to Petersburg, as he
shortly will do, beware of judging him too hastily and severely, as your
way is, if there is anything you do not like in him at irst sight. I give you
this warning, although I feel sure that he will make a favourable
impression upon you. Moreover, in order to understand any man one
must be deliberate and careful to avoid forming prejudices and
mistaken ideas, which are very dif icult to correct and get over
afterwards. And Pyotr Petrovitch, judging by many indications, is a
thoroughly estimable man. At his irst visit, indeed, he told us that he
was a practical man, but still he shares, as he expressed it, many of the
convictions ‘of our most rising generation’ and he is an opponent of all
prejudices. He said a good deal more, for he seems a little conceited and
likes to be listened to, but this is scarcely a vice. I, of course, understood
very little of it, but Dounia explained to me that, though he is not a man
of great education, he is clever and seems to be good-natured. You
know your sister’s character, Rodya. She is a resolute, sensible, patient
and generous girl, but she has a passionate heart, as I know very well.
Of course, there is no great love either on his side, or on hers, but
Dounia is a clever girl and has the heart of an angel, and will make it her
duty to make her husband happy who on his side will make her
happiness his care. Of that we have no good reason to doubt, though it
must be admitted the matter has been arranged in great haste. Besides
he is a man of great prudence and he will see, to be sure, of himself, that
his own happiness will be the more secure, the happier Dounia is with
him. And as for some defects of character, for some habits and even
certain differences of opinion—which indeed are inevitable even in the
happiest marriages—Dounia has said that, as regards all that, she relies
on herself, that there is nothing to be uneasy about, and that she is
ready to put up with a great deal, if only their future relationship can be
an honourable and straightforward one. He struck me, for instance, at
irst, as rather abrupt, but that may well come from his being an
outspoken man, and that is no doubt how it is. For instance, at his
second visit, after he had received Dounia’s consent, in the course of
conversation, he declared that before making Dounia’s acquaintance, he
had made up his mind to marry a girl of good reputation, without
dowry and, above all, one who had experienced poverty, because, as he
explained, a man ought not to be indebted to his wife, but that it is
better for a wife to look upon her husband as her benefactor. I must add
that he expressed it more nicely and politely than I have done, for I have
forgotten his actual phrases and only remember the meaning. And,
besides, it was obviously not said of design, but slipped out in the heat
of conversation, so that he tried afterwards to correct himself and
smooth it over, but all the same it did strike me as somewhat rude, and I
said so afterwards to Dounia. But Dounia was vexed, and answered that
‘words are not deeds,’ and that, of course, is perfectly true. Dounia did
not sleep all night before she made up her mind, and, thinking that I
was asleep, she got out of bed and was walking up and down the room
all night; at last she knelt down before the ikon and prayed long and
fervently and in the morning she told me that she had decided.
“I have mentioned already that Pyotr Petrovitch is just setting off for
Petersburg, where he has a great deal of business, and he wants to open
a legal bureau. He has been occupied for many years in conducting civil
and commercial litigation, and only the other day he won an important
case. He has to be in Petersburg because he has an important case
before the Senate. So, Rodya dear, he may be of the greatest use to you,
in every way indeed, and Dounia and I have agreed that from this very
day you could de initely enter upon your career and might consider
that your future is marked out and assured for you. Oh, if only this
comes to pass! This would be such a bene it that we could only look
upon it as a providential blessing. Dounia is dreaming of nothing else.
We have even ventured already to drop a few words on the subject to
Pyotr Petrovitch. He was cautious in his answer, and said that, of
course, as he could not get on without a secretary, it would be better to
be paying a salary to a relation than to a stranger, if only the former
were itted for the duties (as though there could be doubt of your being
itted!) but then he expressed doubts whether your studies at the
university would leave you time for work at his of ice. The matter
dropped for the time, but Dounia is thinking of nothing else now. She
has been in a sort of fever for the last few days, and has already made a
regular plan for your becoming in the end an associate and even a
partner in Pyotr Petrovitch’s business, which might well be, seeing that
you are a student of law. I am in complete agreement with her, Rodya,
and share all her plans and hopes, and think there is every probability
of realising them. And in spite of Pyotr Petrovitch’s evasiveness, very
natural at present (since he does not know you), Dounia is irmly
persuaded that she will gain everything by her good in luence over her
future husband; this she is reckoning upon. Of course we are careful not
to talk of any of these more remote plans to Pyotr Petrovitch, especially
of your becoming his partner. He is a practical man and might take this
very coldly, it might all seem to him simply a day-dream. Nor has either
Dounia or I breathed a word to him of the great hopes we have of his
helping us to pay for your university studies; we have not spoken of it in
the irst place, because it will come to pass of itself, later on, and he will
no doubt without wasting words offer to do it of himself, (as though he
could refuse Dounia that) the more readily since you may by your own
efforts become his right hand in the of ice, and receive this assistance
not as a charity, but as a salary earned by your own work. Dounia wants
to arrange it all like this and I quite agree with her. And we have not
spoken of our plans for another reason, that is, because I particularly
wanted you to feel on an equal footing when you irst meet him. When
Dounia spoke to him with enthusiasm about you, he answered that one
could never judge of a man without seeing him close, for oneself, and
that he looked forward to forming his own opinion when he makes your
acquaintance. Do you know, my precious Rodya, I think that perhaps for
some reasons (nothing to do with Pyotr Petrovitch though, simply for
my own personal, perhaps old-womanish, fancies) I should do better to
go on living by myself, apart, than with them, after the wedding. I am
convinced that he will be generous and delicate enough to invite me
and to urge me to remain with my daughter for the future, and if he has
said nothing about it hitherto, it is simply because it has been taken for
granted; but I shall refuse. I have noticed more than once in my life that
husbands don’t quite get on with their mothers-in-law, and I don’t want
to be the least bit in anyone’s way, and for my own sake, too, would
rather be quite independent, so long as I have a crust of bread of my
own, and such children as you and Dounia. If possible, I would settle
somewhere near you, for the most joyful piece of news, dear Rodya, I
have kept for the end of my letter: know then, my dear boy, that we may,
perhaps, be all together in a very short time and may embrace one
another again after a separation of almost three years! It is settled for
certain that Dounia and I are to set off for Petersburg, exactly when I
don’t know, but very, very soon, possibly in a week. It all depends on
Pyotr Petrovitch who will let us know when he has had time to look
round him in Petersburg. To suit his own arrangements he is anxious to
have the ceremony as soon as possible, even before the fast of Our Lady,
if it could be managed, or if that is too soon to be ready, immediately
after. Oh, with what happiness I shall press you to my heart! Dounia is
all excitement at the joyful thought of seeing you, she said one day in
joke that she would be ready to marry Pyotr Petrovitch for that alone.
She is an angel! She is not writing anything to you now, and has only
told me to write that she has so much, so much to tell you that she is
not going to take up her pen now, for a few lines would tell you nothing,
and it would only mean upsetting herself; she bids me send you her
love and innumerable kisses. But although we shall be meeting so soon,
perhaps I shall send you as much money as I can in a day or two. Now
that everyone has heard that Dounia is to marry Pyotr Petrovitch, my
credit has suddenly improved and I know that Afanasy Ivanovitch will
trust me now even to seventy- ive roubles on the security of my
pension, so that perhaps I shall be able to send you twenty- ive or even
thirty roubles. I would send you more, but I am uneasy about our
travelling expenses; for though Pyotr Petrovitch has been so kind as to
undertake part of the expenses of the journey, that is to say, he has
taken upon himself the conveyance of our bags and big trunk (which
will be conveyed through some acquaintances of his), we must reckon
upon some expense on our arrival in Petersburg, where we can’t be left
without a halfpenny, at least for the irst few days. But we have
calculated it all, Dounia and I, to the last penny, and we see that the
journey will not cost very much. It is only ninety versts from us to the
railway and we have come to an agreement with a driver we know, so as
to be in readiness; and from there Dounia and I can travel quite
comfortably third class. So that I may very likely be able to send to you
not twenty- ive, but thirty roubles. But enough; I have covered two
sheets already and there is no space left for more; our whole history,
but so many events have happened! And now, my precious Rodya, I
embrace you and send you a mother’s blessing till we meet. Love
Dounia your sister, Rodya; love her as she loves you and understand
that she loves you beyond everything, more than herself. She is an angel
and you, Rodya, you are everything to us—our one hope, our one
consolation. If only you are happy, we shall be happy. Do you still say
your prayers, Rodya, and believe in the mercy of our Creator and our
Redeemer? I am afraid in my heart that you may have been visited by
the new spirit of in idelity that is abroad to-day; If it is so, I pray for you.
Remember, dear boy, how in your childhood, when your father was
living, you used to lisp your prayers at my knee, and how happy we all
were in those days. Good-bye, till we meet then—I embrace you
warmly, warmly, with many kisses.
“Yours till death,
“PULCHERIA RASKOLNIKOV.”
Almost from the irst, while he read the letter, Raskolnikov’s face was
wet with tears; but when he inished it, his face was pale and distorted
and a bitter, wrathful and malignant smile was on his lips. He laid his
head down on his threadbare dirty pillow and pondered, pondered a
long time. His heart was beating violently, and his brain was in a
turmoil. At last he felt cramped and sti led in the little yellow room that
was like a cupboard or a box. His eyes and his mind craved for space. He
took up his hat and went out, this time without dread of meeting
anyone; he had forgotten his dread. He turned in the direction of the
Vassilyevsky Ostrov, walking along Vassilyevsky Prospect, as though
hastening on some business, but he walked, as his habit was, without
noticing his way, muttering and even speaking aloud to himself, to the
astonishment of the passers-by. Many of them took him to be drunk.
 CHAPTER IV

His mother’s letter had been a torture to him, but as regards the chief
fact in it, he had felt not one moment’s hesitation, even whilst he was
reading the letter. The essential question was settled, and irrevocably
settled, in his mind: “Never such a marriage while I am alive and Mr.
Luzhin be damned!” “The thing is perfectly clear,” he muttered to
himself, with a malignant smile anticipating the triumph of his decision.
“No, mother, no, Dounia, you won’t deceive me! and then they apologise
for not asking my advice and for taking the decision without me! I dare
say! They imagine it is arranged now and can’t be broken off; but we
will see whether it can or not! A magni icent excuse: ‘Pyotr Petrovitch is
such a busy man that even his wedding has to be in post-haste, almost
by express.’ No, Dounia, I see it all and I know what you want to say to
me; and I know too what you were thinking about, when you walked up
and down all night, and what your prayers were like before the Holy
Mother of Kazan who stands in mother’s bedroom. Bitter is the ascent
to Golgotha.... Hm... so it is inally settled; you have determined to marry
a sensible business man, Avdotya Romanovna, one who has a fortune
(has already made his fortune, that is so much more solid and
impressive), a man who holds two government posts and who shares
the ideas of our most rising generation, as mother writes, and who
seems to be kind, as Dounia herself observes. That seems beats
everything! And that very Dounia for that very ‘seems’ is marrying him!
Splendid! splendid!
“... But I should like to know why mother has written to me about ‘our
most rising generation’? Simply as a descriptive touch, or with the idea
of prepossessing me in favour of Mr. Luzhin? Oh, the cunning of them! I
should like to know one thing more: how far they were open with one
another that day and night and all this time since? Was it all put into
words, or did both understand that they had the same thing at heart
and in their minds, so that there was no need to speak of it aloud, and
better not to speak of it. Most likely it was partly like that, from
mother’s letter it’s evident: he struck her as rude a little, and mother in
her simplicity took her observations to Dounia. And she was sure to be
vexed and ‘answered her angrily.’ I should think so! Who would not be
angered when it was quite clear without any naı̈ve questions and when
it was understood that it was useless to discuss it. And why does she
write to me, ‘love Dounia, Rodya, and she loves you more than herself’?
Has she a secret conscience-prick at sacri icing her daughter to her
son? ‘You are our one comfort, you are everything to us.’ Oh, mother!”
His bitterness grew more and more intense, and if he had happened
to meet Mr. Luzhin at the moment, he might have murdered him.
“Hm... yes, that’s true,” he continued, pursuing the whirling ideas that
chased each other in his brain, “it is true that ‘it needs time and care to
get to know a man,’ but there is no mistake about Mr. Luzhin. The chief
thing is he is ‘a man of business and seems kind,’ that was something,
wasn’t it, to send the bags and big box for them! A kind man, no doubt
after that! But his bride and her mother are to drive in a peasant’s cart
covered with sacking (I know, I have been driven in it). No matter! It is
only ninety versts and then they can ‘travel very comfortably, third
class,’ for a thousand versts! Quite right, too. One must cut one’s coat
according to one’s cloth, but what about you, Mr. Luzhin? She is your
bride.... And you must be aware that her mother has to raise money on
her pension for the journey. To be sure it’s a matter of business, a
partnership for mutual bene it, with equal shares and expenses;—food
and drink provided, but pay for your tobacco. The business man has got
the better of them, too. The luggage will cost less than their fares and
very likely go for nothing. How is it that they don’t both see all that, or
is it that they don’t want to see? And they are pleased, pleased! And to
think that this is only the irst blossoming, and that the real fruits are to
come! But what really matters is not the stinginess, is not the
meanness, but the tone of the whole thing. For that will be the tone
after marriage, it’s a foretaste of it. And mother too, why should she be
so lavish? What will she have by the time she gets to Petersburg? Three
silver roubles or two ‘paper ones’ as she says.... that old woman... hm.
What does she expect to live upon in Petersburg afterwards? She has
her reasons already for guessing that she could not live with Dounia
after the marriage, even for the irst few months. The good man has no
doubt let slip something on that subject also, though mother would
deny it: ‘I shall refuse,’ says she. On whom is she reckoning then? Is she
counting on what is left of her hundred and twenty roubles of pension
when Afanasy Ivanovitch’s debt is paid? She knits woollen shawls and
embroiders cuffs, ruining her old eyes. And all her shawls don’t add
more than twenty roubles a year to her hundred and twenty, I know
that. So she is building all her hopes all the time on Mr. Luzhin’s
generosity; ‘he will offer it of himself, he will press it on me.’ You may
wait a long time for that! That’s how it always is with these
Schilleresque noble hearts; till the last moment every goose is a swan
with them, till the last moment, they hope for the best and will see
nothing wrong, and although they have an inkling of the other side of
the picture, yet they won’t face the truth till they are forced to; the very
thought of it makes them shiver; they thrust the truth away with both
hands, until the man they deck out in false colours puts a fool’s cap on
them with his own hands. I should like to know whether Mr. Luzhin has
any orders of merit; I bet he has the Anna in his buttonhole and that he
puts it on when he goes to dine with contractors or merchants. He will
be sure to have it for his wedding, too! Enough of him, confound him!
“Well,... mother I don’t wonder at, it’s like her, God bless her, but how
could Dounia? Dounia darling, as though I did not know you! You were
nearly twenty when I saw you last: I understood you then. Mother
writes that ‘Dounia can put up with a great deal.’ I know that very well. I
knew that two years and a half ago, and for the last two and a half years
I have been thinking about it, thinking of just that, that ‘Dounia can put
up with a great deal.’ If she could put up with Mr. Svidrigaı̈lov and all
the rest of it, she certainly can put up with a great deal. And now
mother and she have taken it into their heads that she can put up with
Mr. Luzhin, who propounds the theory of the superiority of wives raised
from destitution and owing everything to their husband’s bounty—who
propounds it, too, almost at the irst interview. Granted that he ‘let it
slip,’ though he is a sensible man, (yet maybe it was not a slip at all, but
he meant to make himself clear as soon as possible) but Dounia,
Dounia? She understands the man, of course, but she will have to live
with the man. Why! she’d live on black bread and water, she would not
sell her soul, she would not barter her moral freedom for comfort; she
would not barter it for all Schleswig-Holstein, much less Mr. Luzhin’s
money. No, Dounia was not that sort when I knew her and... she is still
the same, of course! Yes, there’s no denying, the Svidrigaı̈lovs are a
bitter pill! It’s a bitter thing to spend one’s life a governess in the
provinces for two hundred roubles, but I know she would rather be a
nigger on a plantation or a Lett with a German master than degrade her
soul, and her moral dignity, by binding herself for ever to a man whom
she does not respect and with whom she has nothing in common—for
her own advantage. And if Mr. Luzhin had been of unalloyed gold, or
one huge diamond, she would never have consented to become his legal
concubine. Why is she consenting then? What’s the point of it? What’s
the answer? It’s clear enough: for herself, for her comfort, to save her
life she would not sell herself, but for someone else she is doing it! For
one she loves, for one she adores, she will sell herself! That’s what it all
amounts to; for her brother, for her mother, she will sell herself! She
will sell everything! In such cases, ‘we overcome our moral feeling if
necessary,’ freedom, peace, conscience even, all, all are brought into the
market. Let my life go, if only my dear ones may be happy! More than
that, we become casuists, we learn to be Jesuitical and for a time maybe
we can soothe ourselves, we can persuade ourselves that it is one’s duty
for a good object. That’s just like us, it’s as clear as daylight. It’s clear
that Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov is the central igure in the
business, and no one else. Oh, yes, she can ensure his happiness, keep
him in the university, make him a partner in the of ice, make his whole
future secure; perhaps he may even be a rich man later on, prosperous,
respected, and may even end his life a famous man! But my mother? It’s
all Rodya, precious Rodya, her irst born! For such a son who would not
sacri ice such a daughter! Oh, loving, over-partial hearts! Why, for his
sake we would not shrink even from Sonia’s fate. Sonia, Sonia
Marmeladov, the eternal victim so long as the world lasts. Have you
taken the measure of your sacri ice, both of you? Is it right? Can you
bear it? Is it any use? Is there sense in it? And let me tell you, Dounia,
Sonia’s life is no worse than life with Mr. Luzhin. ‘There can be no
question of love,’ mother writes. And what if there can be no respect
either, if on the contrary there is aversion, contempt, repulsion, what
then? So you will have to ‘keep up your appearance,’ too. Is not that so?
Do you understand what that smartness means? Do you understand
that the Luzhin smartness is just the same thing as Sonia’s and may be
worse, viler, baser, because in your case, Dounia, it’s a bargain for
luxuries, after all, but with Sonia it’s simply a question of starvation. It
has to be paid for, it has to be paid for, Dounia, this smartness. And what
if it’s more than you can bear afterwards, if you regret it? The
bitterness, the misery, the curses, the tears hidden from all the world,
for you are not a Marfa Petrovna. And how will your mother feel then?
Even now she is uneasy, she is worried, but then, when she sees it all
clearly? And I? Yes, indeed, what have you taken me for? I won’t have
your sacri ice, Dounia, I won’t have it, mother! It shall not be, so long as
I am alive, it shall not, it shall not! I won’t accept it!”
He suddenly paused in his re lection and stood still.
“It shall not be? But what are you going to do to prevent it? You’ll
forbid it? And what right have you? What can you promise them on
your side to give you such a right? Your whole life, your whole future,
you will devote to them when you have inished your studies and
obtained a post? Yes, we have heard all that before, and that’s all words,
but now? Now something must be done, now, do you understand that?
And what are you doing now? You are living upon them. They borrow
on their hundred roubles pension. They borrow from the Svidrigaı̈lovs.
How are you going to save them from Svidrigaı̈lovs, from Afanasy
Ivanovitch Vahrushin, oh, future millionaire Zeus who would arrange
their lives for them? In another ten years? In another ten years, mother
will be blind with knitting shawls, maybe with weeping too. She will be
worn to a shadow with fasting; and my sister? Imagine for a moment
what may have become of your sister in ten years? What may happen to
her during those ten years? Can you fancy?”
So he tortured himself, fretting himself with such questions, and
inding a kind of enjoyment in it. And yet all these questions were not
new ones suddenly confronting him, they were old familiar aches. It
was long since they had irst begun to grip and rend his heart. Long,
long ago his present anguish had its irst beginnings; it had waxed and
gathered strength, it had matured and concentrated, until it had taken
the form of a fearful, frenzied and fantastic question, which tortured his
heart and mind, clamouring insistently for an answer. Now his mother’s
letter had burst on him like a thunderclap. It was clear that he must not
now suffer passively, worrying himself over unsolved questions, but
that he must do something, do it at once, and do it quickly. Anyway he
must decide on something, or else...
“Or throw up life altogether!” he cried suddenly, in a frenzy—“accept
one’s lot humbly as it is, once for all and sti le everything in oneself,
giving up all claim to activity, life and love!”
“Do you understand, sir, do you understand what it means when you
have absolutely nowhere to turn?” Marmeladov’s question came
suddenly into his mind, “for every man must have somewhere to turn....”
He gave a sudden start; another thought, that he had had yesterday,
slipped back into his mind. But he did not start at the thought recurring
to him, for he knew, he had felt beforehand, that it must come back, he
was expecting it; besides it was not only yesterday’s thought. The
difference was that a month ago, yesterday even, the thought was a
mere dream: but now... now it appeared not a dream at all, it had taken
a new menacing and quite unfamiliar shape, and he suddenly became
aware of this himself.... He felt a hammering in his head, and there was a
darkness before his eyes.
He looked round hurriedly, he was searching for something. He
wanted to sit down and was looking for a seat; he was walking along
the K—— Boulevard. There was a seat about a hundred paces in front
of him. He walked towards it as fast he could; but on the way he met
with a little adventure which absorbed all his attention. Looking for the
seat, he had noticed a woman walking some twenty paces in front of
him, but at irst he took no more notice of her than of other objects that
crossed his path. It had happened to him many times going home not to
notice the road by which he was going, and he was accustomed to walk
like that. But there was at irst sight something so strange about the
woman in front of him, that gradually his attention was riveted upon
her, at irst reluctantly and, as it were, resentfully, and then more and
more intently. He felt a sudden desire to ind out what it was that was
so strange about the woman. In the irst place, she appeared to be a girl
quite young, and she was walking in the great heat bareheaded and
with no parasol or gloves, waving her arms about in an absurd way. She
had on a dress of some light silky material, but put on strangely awry,
not properly hooked up, and torn open at the top of the skirt, close to
the waist: a great piece was rent and hanging loose. A little kerchief was
lung about her bare throat, but lay slanting on one side. The girl was
walking unsteadily, too, stumbling and staggering from side to side. She
drew Raskolnikov’s whole attention at last. He overtook the girl at the
seat, but, on reaching it, she dropped down on it, in the corner; she let
her head sink on the back of the seat and closed her eyes, apparently in
extreme exhaustion. Looking at her closely, he saw at once that she was
completely drunk. It was a strange and shocking sight. He could hardly
believe that he was not mistaken. He saw before him the face of a quite
young, fair-haired girl—sixteen, perhaps not more than ifteen, years
old, pretty little face, but lushed and heavy looking and, as it were,
swollen. The girl seemed hardly to know what she was doing; she
crossed one leg over the other, lifting it indecorously, and showed every
sign of being unconscious that she was in the street.
Raskolnikov did not sit down, but he felt unwilling to leave her, and
stood facing her in perplexity. This boulevard was never much
frequented; and now, at two o’clock, in the sti ling heat, it was quite
deserted. And yet on the further side of the boulevard, about ifteen
paces away, a gentleman was standing on the edge of the pavement. He,
too, would apparently have liked to approach the girl with some object
of his own. He, too, had probably seen her in the distance and had
followed her, but found Raskolnikov in his way. He looked angrily at
him, though he tried to escape his notice, and stood impatiently biding
his time, till the unwelcome man in rags should have moved away. His
intentions were unmistakable. The gentleman was a plump, thickly-set
man, about thirty, fashionably dressed, with a high colour, red lips and
moustaches. Raskolnikov felt furious; he had a sudden longing to insult
this fat dandy in some way. He left the girl for a moment and walked
towards the gentleman.
“Hey! You Svidrigaı̈lov! What do you want here?” he shouted,
clenching his ists and laughing, spluttering with rage.
“What do you mean?” the gentleman asked sternly, scowling in
haughty astonishment.
“Get away, that’s what I mean.”
“How dare you, you low fellow!”
 He raised his cane. Raskolnikov rushed at him with his ists, without
re lecting that the stout gentleman was a match for two men like
himself. But at that instant someone seized him from behind, and a
police constable stood between them.
“That’s enough, gentlemen, no ighting, please, in a public place. What
do you want? Who are you?” he asked Raskolnikov sternly, noticing his
rags.
Raskolnikov looked at him intently. He had a straight-forward,
sensible, soldierly face, with grey moustaches and whiskers.
“You are just the man I want,” Raskolnikov cried, catching at his arm.
“I am a student, Raskolnikov.... You may as well know that too,” he
added, addressing the gentleman, “come along, I have something to
show you.”
And taking the policeman by the hand he drew him towards the seat.
“Look here, hopelessly drunk, and she has just come down the
boulevard. There is no telling who and what she is, she does not look
like a professional. It’s more likely she has been given drink and
deceived somewhere... for the irst time... you understand? and they’ve
put her out into the street like that. Look at the way her dress is torn,
and the way it has been put on: she has been dressed by somebody, she
has not dressed herself, and dressed by unpractised hands, by a man’s
hands; that’s evident. And now look there: I don’t know that dandy with
whom I was going to ight, I see him for the irst time, but he, too, has
seen her on the road, just now, drunk, not knowing what she is doing,
and now he is very eager to get hold of her, to get her away somewhere
while she is in this state... that’s certain, believe me, I am not wrong. I
saw him myself watching her and following her, but I prevented him,
and he is just waiting for me to go away. Now he has walked away a
little, and is standing still, pretending to make a cigarette.... Think how
can we keep her out of his hands, and how are we to get her home?”
The policeman saw it all in a lash. The stout gentleman was easy to
understand, he turned to consider the girl. The policeman bent over to
examine her more closely, and his face worked with genuine
compassion.
“Ah, what a pity!” he said, shaking his head—“why, she is quite a
child! She has been deceived, you can see that at once. Listen, lady,” he
began addressing her, “where do you live?” The girl opened her weary
and sleepy-looking eyes, gazed blankly at the speaker and waved her
hand.
“Here,” said Raskolnikov feeling in his pocket and inding twenty
copecks, “here, call a cab and tell him to drive her to her address. The
only thing is to ind out her address!”
“Missy, missy!” the policeman began again, taking the money. “I’ll
fetch you a cab and take you home myself. Where shall I take you, eh?
Where do you live?”
“Go away! They won’t let me alone,” the girl muttered, and once more
waved her hand.
“Ach, ach, how shocking! It’s shameful, missy, it’s a shame!” He shook
his head again, shocked, sympathetic and indignant.
“It’s a dif icult job,” the policeman said to Raskolnikov, and as he did
so, he looked him up and down in a rapid glance. He, too, must have
seemed a strange igure to him: dressed in rags and handing him
money!
“Did you meet her far from here?” he asked him.
“I tell you she was walking in front of me, staggering, just here, in the
boulevard. She only just reached the seat and sank down on it.”
“Ah, the shameful things that are done in the world nowadays, God
have mercy on us! An innocent creature like that, drunk already! She
has been deceived, that’s a sure thing. See how her dress has been torn
too.... Ah, the vice one sees nowadays! And as likely as not she belongs
to gentlefolk too, poor ones maybe.... There are many like that
nowadays. She looks re ined, too, as though she were a lady,” and he
bent over her once more.
Perhaps he had daughters growing up like that, “looking like ladies
and re ined” with pretensions to gentility and smartness....
“The chief thing is,” Raskolnikov persisted, “to keep her out of this
scoundrel’s hands! Why should he outrage her! It’s as clear as day what
he is after; ah, the brute, he is not moving off!”
Raskolnikov spoke aloud and pointed to him. The gentleman heard
him, and seemed about to ly into a rage again, but thought better of it,
and con ined himself to a contemptuous look. He then walked slowly
another ten paces away and again halted.
“Keep her out of his hands we can,” said the constable thoughtfully, “if
only she’d tell us where to take her, but as it is.... Missy, hey, missy!” he
bent over her once more.
She opened her eyes fully all of a sudden, looked at him intently, as
though realising something, got up from the seat and walked away in
the direction from which she had come. “Oh shameful wretches, they
won’t let me alone!” she said, waving her hand again. She walked
quickly, though staggering as before. The dandy followed her, but along
another avenue, keeping his eye on her.
“Don’t be anxious, I won’t let him have her,” the policeman said
resolutely, and he set off after them.
“Ah, the vice one sees nowadays!” he repeated aloud, sighing.
At that moment something seemed to sting Raskolnikov; in an instant
a complete revulsion of feeling came over him.
“Hey, here!” he shouted after the policeman.
The latter turned round.
“Let them be! What is it to do with you? Let her go! Let him amuse
himself.” He pointed at the dandy, “What is it to do with you?”
The policeman was bewildered, and stared at him open-eyed.
Raskolnikov laughed.
“Well!” ejaculated the policeman, with a gesture of contempt, and he
walked after the dandy and the girl, probably taking Raskolnikov for a
madman or something even worse.
“He has carried off my twenty copecks,” Raskolnikov murmured
angrily when he was left alone. “Well, let him take as much from the
other fellow to allow him to have the girl and so let it end. And why did
I want to interfere? Is it for me to help? Have I any right to help? Let
them devour each other alive—what is it to me? How did I dare to give
him twenty copecks? Were they mine?”
In spite of those strange words he felt very wretched. He sat down on
the deserted seat. His thoughts strayed aimlessly.... He found it hard to
ix his mind on anything at that moment. He longed to forget himself
altogether, to forget everything, and then to wake up and begin life
anew....
“Poor girl!” he said, looking at the empty corner where she had sat—
“She will come to herself and weep, and then her mother will ind out....
She will give her a beating, a horrible, shameful beating and then
maybe, turn her out of doors.... And even if she does not, the Darya
Frantsovnas will get wind of it, and the girl will soon be slipping out on
the sly here and there. Then there will be the hospital directly (that’s
always the luck of those girls with respectable mothers, who go wrong
on the sly) and then... again the hospital... drink... the taverns... and more
hospital, in two or three years—a wreck, and her life over at eighteen or
nineteen.... Have not I seen cases like that? And how have they been
brought to it? Why, they’ve all come to it like that. Ugh! But what does it
matter? That’s as it should be, they tell us. A certain percentage, they
tell us, must every year go... that way... to the devil, I suppose, so that the
rest may remain chaste, and not be interfered with. A percentage! What
splendid words they have; they are so scienti ic, so consolatory.... Once
you’ve said ‘percentage’ there’s nothing more to worry about. If we had
any other word... maybe we might feel more uneasy.... But what if
Dounia were one of the percentage! Of another one if not that one?
“But where am I going?” he thought suddenly. “Strange, I came out for
something. As soon as I had read the letter I came out.... I was going to
Vassilyevsky Ostrov, to Razumihin. That’s what it was... now I
remember. What for, though? And what put the idea of going to
Razumihin into my head just now? That’s curious.”
He wondered at himself. Razumihin was one of his old comrades at
the university. It was remarkable that Raskolnikov had hardly any
friends at the university; he kept aloof from everyone, went to see no
one, and did not welcome anyone who came to see him, and indeed
everyone soon gave him up. He took no part in the students’ gatherings,
amusements or conversations. He worked with great intensity without
sparing himself, and he was respected for this, but no one liked him. He
was very poor, and there was a sort of haughty pride and reserve about
him, as though he were keeping something to himself. He seemed to
some of his comrades to look down upon them all as children, as
though he were superior in development, knowledge and convictions,
as though their beliefs and interests were beneath him.
With Razumihin he had got on, or, at least, he was more unreserved
and communicative with him. Indeed it was impossible to be on any
other terms with Razumihin. He was an exceptionally good-humoured
and candid youth, good-natured to the point of simplicity, though both
depth and dignity lay concealed under that simplicity. The better of his
comrades understood this, and all were fond of him. He was extremely
intelligent, though he was certainly rather a simpleton at times. He was
of striking appearance—tall, thin, blackhaired and always badly shaved.
He was sometimes uproarious and was reputed to be of great physical
strength. One night, when out in a festive company, he had with one
blow laid a gigantic policeman on his back. There was no limit to his
drinking powers, but he could abstain from drink altogether; he
sometimes went too far in his pranks; but he could do without pranks
altogether. Another thing striking about Razumihin, no failure
distressed him, and it seemed as though no unfavourable circumstances
could crush him. He could lodge anywhere, and bear the extremes of
cold and hunger. He was very poor, and kept himself entirely on what he
could earn by work of one sort or another. He knew of no end of
resources by which to earn money. He spent one whole winter without
lighting his stove, and used to declare that he liked it better, because
one slept more soundly in the cold. For the present he, too, had been
obliged to give up the university, but it was only for a time, and he was
working with all his might to save enough to return to his studies again.
Raskolnikov had not been to see him for the last four months, and
Razumihin did not even know his address. About two months before,
they had met in the street, but Raskolnikov had turned away and even
crossed to the other side that he might not be observed. And though
Razumihin noticed him, he passed him by, as he did not want to annoy
him.
 CHAPTER V

“Of course, I’ve been meaning lately to go to Razumihin’s to ask for

work, to ask him to get me lessons or something...” Raskolnikov
thought, “but what help can he be to me now? Suppose he gets me
lessons, suppose he shares his last farthing with me, if he has any
farthings, so that I could get some boots and make myself tidy enough
to give lessons... hm... Well and what then? What shall I do with the few
coppers I earn? That’s not what I want now. It’s really absurd for me to
go to Razumihin....”
The question why he was now going to Razumihin agitated him even
more than he was himself aware; he kept uneasily seeking for some
sinister signi icance in this apparently ordinary action.
“Could I have expected to set it all straight and to ind a way out by
means of Razumihin alone?” he asked himself in perplexity.
He pondered and rubbed his forehead, and, strange to say, after long
musing, suddenly, as if it were spontaneously and by chance, a fantastic
thought came into his head.
“Hm... to Razumihin’s,” he said all at once, calmly, as though he had
reached a inal determination. “I shall go to Razumihin’s of course, but...
not now. I shall go to him... on the next day after It, when It will be over
and everything will begin afresh....”
And suddenly he realised what he was thinking.
“After It,” he shouted, jumping up from the seat, “but is It really going
to happen? Is it possible it really will happen?” He left the seat, and
went off almost at a run; he meant to turn back, homewards, but the
thought of going home suddenly illed him with intense loathing; in that
hole, in that awful little cupboard of his, all this had for a month past
been growing up in him; and he walked on at random.
 His nervous shudder had passed into a fever that made him feel
shivering; in spite of the heat he felt cold. With a kind of effort he began
almost unconsciously, from some inner craving, to stare at all the
objects before him, as though looking for something to distract his
attention; but he did not succeed, and kept dropping every moment
into brooding. When with a start he lifted his head again and looked
round, he forgot at once what he had just been thinking about and even
where he was going. In this way he walked right across Vassilyevsky
Ostrov, came out on to the Lesser Neva, crossed the bridge and turned
towards the islands. The greenness and freshness were at irst restful to
his weary eyes after the dust of the town and the huge houses that
hemmed him in and weighed upon him. Here there were no taverns, no
sti ling closeness, no stench. But soon these new pleasant sensations
passed into morbid irritability. Sometimes he stood still before a
brightly painted summer villa standing among green foliage, he gazed
through the fence, he saw in the distance smartly dressed women on
the verandahs and balconies, and children running in the gardens. The
lowers especially caught his attention; he gazed at them longer than at
anything. He was met, too, by luxurious carriages and by men and
women on horseback; he watched them with curious eyes and forgot
about them before they had vanished from his sight. Once he stood still
and counted his money; he found he had thirty copecks. “Twenty to the
policeman, three to Nastasya for the letter, so I must have given forty-
seven or ifty to the Marmeladovs yesterday,” he thought, reckoning it
up for some unknown reason, but he soon forgot with what object he
had taken the money out of his pocket. He recalled it on passing an
eating-house or tavern, and felt that he was hungry.... Going into the
tavern he drank a glass of vodka and ate a pie of some sort. He inished
eating it as he walked away. It was a long while since he had taken
vodka and it had an effect upon him at once, though he only drank a
wineglassful. His legs felt suddenly heavy and a great drowsiness came
upon him. He turned homewards, but reaching Petrovsky Ostrov he
stopped completely exhausted, turned off the road into the bushes,
sank down upon the grass and instantly fell asleep.
In a morbid condition of the brain, dreams often have a singular
actuality, vividness, and extraordinary semblance of reality. At times
monstrous images are created, but the setting and the whole picture
are so truth-like and illed with details so delicate, so unexpectedly, but
so artistically consistent, that the dreamer, were he an artist like
Pushkin or Turgenev even, could never have invented them in the
waking state. Such sick dreams always remain long in the memory and
make a powerful impression on the overwrought and deranged nervous
system.
Raskolnikov had a fearful dream. He dreamt he was back in his
childhood in the little town of his birth. He was a child about seven
years old, walking into the country with his father on the evening of a
holiday. It was a grey and heavy day, the country was exactly as he
remembered it; indeed he recalled it far more vividly in his dream than
he had done in memory. The little town stood on a level lat as bare as
the hand, not even a willow near it; only in the far distance, a copse lay,
a dark blur on the very edge of the horizon. A few paces beyond the last
market garden stood a tavern, a big tavern, which had always aroused
in him a feeling of aversion, even of fear, when he walked by it with his
father. There was always a crowd there, always shouting, laughter and
abuse, hideous hoarse singing and often ighting. Drunken and
horrible-looking igures were hanging about the tavern. He used to
cling close to his father, trembling all over when he met them. Near the
tavern the road became a dusty track, the dust of which was always
black. It was a winding road, and about a hundred paces further on, it
turned to the right to the graveyard. In the middle of the graveyard
stood a stone church with a green cupola where he used to go to mass
two or three times a year with his father and mother, when a service
was held in memory of his grandmother, who had long been dead, and
whom he had never seen. On these occasions they used to take on a
white dish tied up in a table napkin a special sort of rice pudding with
raisins stuck in it in the shape of a cross. He loved that church, the old-
fashioned, unadorned ikons and the old priest with the shaking head.
Near his grandmother’s grave, which was marked by a stone, was the
little grave of his younger brother who had died at six months old. He
did not remember him at all, but he had been told about his little
brother, and whenever he visited the graveyard he used religiously and
reverently to cross himself and to bow down and kiss the little grave.
And now he dreamt that he was walking with his father past the tavern
on the way to the graveyard; he was holding his father’s hand and
looking with dread at the tavern. A peculiar circumstance attracted his
attention: there seemed to be some kind of festivity going on, there
were crowds of gaily dressed townspeople, peasant women, their
husbands, and riff-raff of all sorts, all singing and all more or less drunk.
Near the entrance of the tavern stood a cart, but a strange cart. It was
one of those big carts usually drawn by heavy cart-horses and laden
with casks of wine or other heavy goods. He always liked looking at
those great cart-horses, with their long manes, thick legs, and slow even
pace, drawing along a perfect mountain with no appearance of effort, as
though it were easier going with a load than without it. But now,
strange to say, in the shafts of such a cart he saw a thin little sorrel
beast, one of those peasants’ nags which he had often seen straining
their utmost under a heavy load of wood or hay, especially when the
wheels were stuck in the mud or in a rut. And the peasants would beat
them so cruelly, sometimes even about the nose and eyes, and he felt so
sorry, so sorry for them that he almost cried, and his mother always
used to take him away from the window. All of a sudden there was a
great uproar of shouting, singing and the balalaı̈ka, and from the tavern
a number of big and very drunken peasants came out, wearing red and
blue shirts and coats thrown over their shoulders.
“Get in, get in!” shouted one of them, a young thick-necked peasant
with a leshy face red as a carrot. “I’ll take you all, get in!”
But at once there was an outbreak of laughter and exclamations in
the crowd.
“Take us all with a beast like that!”
“Why, Mikolka, are you crazy to put a nag like that in such a cart?”
“And this mare is twenty if she is a day, mates!”
“Get in, I’ll take you all,” Mikolka shouted again, leaping irst into the
cart, seizing the reins and standing straight up in front. “The bay has
gone with Matvey,” he shouted from the cart—“and this brute, mates, is
just breaking my heart, I feel as if I could kill her. She’s just eating her
head off. Get in, I tell you! I’ll make her gallop! She’ll gallop!” and he
picked up the whip, preparing himself with relish to log the little mare.
“Get in! Come along!” The crowd laughed. “D’you hear, she’ll gallop!”
“Gallop indeed! She has not had a gallop in her for the last ten years!”
 “She’ll jog along!”
“Don’t you mind her, mates, bring a whip each of you, get ready!”
“All right! Give it to her!”
They all clambered into Mikolka’s cart, laughing and making jokes.
Six men got in and there was still room for more. They hauled in a fat,
rosy-cheeked woman. She was dressed in red cotton, in a pointed,
beaded headdress and thick leather shoes; she was cracking nuts and
laughing. The crowd round them was laughing too and indeed, how
could they help laughing? That wretched nag was to drag all the
cartload of them at a gallop! Two young fellows in the cart were just
getting whips ready to help Mikolka. With the cry of “now,” the mare
tugged with all her might, but far from galloping, could scarcely move
forward; she struggled with her legs, gasping and shrinking from the
blows of the three whips which were showered upon her like hail. The
laughter in the cart and in the crowd was redoubled, but Mikolka lew
into a rage and furiously thrashed the mare, as though he supposed she
really could gallop.
“Let me get in, too, mates,” shouted a young man in the crowd whose
appetite was aroused.
“Get in, all get in,” cried Mikolka, “she will draw you all. I’ll beat her to
death!” And he thrashed and thrashed at the mare, beside himself with
fury.
“Father, father,” he cried, “father, what are they doing? Father, they are
beating the poor horse!”
“Come along, come along!” said his father. “They are drunken and
foolish, they are in fun; come away, don’t look!” and he tried to draw
him away, but he tore himself away from his hand, and, beside himself
with horror, ran to the horse. The poor beast was in a bad way. She was
gasping, standing still, then tugging again and almost falling.
“Beat her to death,” cried Mikolka, “it’s come to that. I’ll do for her!”
“What are you about, are you a Christian, you devil?” shouted an old
man in the crowd.
“Did anyone ever see the like? A wretched nag like that pulling such a
cartload,” said another.
“You’ll kill her,” shouted the third.
 “Don’t meddle! It’s my property, I’ll do what I choose. Get in, more of
you! Get in, all of you! I will have her go at a gallop!...”
All at once laughter broke into a roar and covered everything: the
mare, roused by the shower of blows, began feebly kicking. Even the old
man could not help smiling. To think of a wretched little beast like that
trying to kick!
Two lads in the crowd snatched up whips and ran to the mare to beat
her about the ribs. One ran each side.
“Hit her in the face, in the eyes, in the eyes,” cried Mikolka.
“Give us a song, mates,” shouted someone in the cart and everyone in
the cart joined in a riotous song, jingling a tambourine and whistling.
The woman went on cracking nuts and laughing.
... He ran beside the mare, ran in front of her, saw her being whipped
across the eyes, right in the eyes! He was crying, he felt choking, his
tears were streaming. One of the men gave him a cut with the whip
across the face, he did not feel it. Wringing his hands and screaming, he
rushed up to the grey-headed old man with the grey beard, who was
shaking his head in disapproval. One woman seized him by the hand
and would have taken him away, but he tore himself from her and ran
back to the mare. She was almost at the last gasp, but began kicking
once more.
“I’ll teach you to kick,” Mikolka shouted ferociously. He threw down
the whip, bent forward and picked up from the bottom of the cart a
long, thick shaft, he took hold of one end with both hands and with an
effort brandished it over the mare.
“He’ll crush her,” was shouted round him. “He’ll kill her!”
“It’s my property,” shouted Mikolka and brought the shaft down with
a swinging blow. There was a sound of a heavy thud.
“Thrash her, thrash her! Why have you stopped?” shouted voices in
the crowd.
And Mikolka swung the shaft a second time and it fell a second time
on the spine of the luckless mare. She sank back on her haunches, but
lurched forward and tugged forward with all her force, tugged irst on
one side and then on the other, trying to move the cart. But the six
whips were attacking her in all directions, and the shaft was raised
again and fell upon her a third time, then a fourth, with heavy measured
blows. Mikolka was in a fury that he could not kill her at one blow.
“She’s a tough one,” was shouted in the crowd.
“She’ll fall in a minute, mates, there will soon be an end of her,” said
an admiring spectator in the crowd.
“Fetch an axe to her! Finish her off,” shouted a third.
“I’ll show you! Stand off,” Mikolka screamed frantically; he threw
down the shaft, stooped down in the cart and picked up an iron
crowbar. “Look out,” he shouted, and with all his might he dealt a
stunning blow at the poor mare. The blow fell; the mare staggered, sank
back, tried to pull, but the bar fell again with a swinging blow on her
back and she fell on the ground like a log.
“Finish her off,” shouted Mikolka and he leapt beside himself, out of
the cart. Several young men, also lushed with drink, seized anything
they could come across—whips, sticks, poles, and ran to the dying
mare. Mikolka stood on one side and began dealing random blows with
the crowbar. The mare stretched out her head, drew a long breath and
died.
“You butchered her,” someone shouted in the crowd.
“Why wouldn’t she gallop then?”
“My property!” shouted Mikolka, with bloodshot eyes, brandishing
the bar in his hands. He stood as though regretting that he had nothing
more to beat.
“No mistake about it, you are not a Christian,” many voices were
shouting in the crowd.
But the poor boy, beside himself, made his way, screaming, through
the crowd to the sorrel nag, put his arms round her bleeding dead head
and kissed it, kissed the eyes and kissed the lips.... Then he jumped up
and lew in a frenzy with his little ists out at Mikolka. At that instant his
father, who had been running after him, snatched him up and carried
him out of the crowd.
“Come along, come! Let us go home,” he said to him.
“Father! Why did they... kill... the poor horse!” he sobbed, but his
voice broke and the words came in shrieks from his panting chest.
 “They are drunk.... They are brutal... it’s not our business!” said his
father. He put his arms round his father but he felt choked, choked. He
tried to draw a breath, to cry out—and woke up.
He waked up, gasping for breath, his hair soaked with perspiration,
and stood up in terror.
“Thank God, that was only a dream,” he said, sitting down under a
tree and drawing deep breaths. “But what is it? Is it some fever coming
on? Such a hideous dream!”
He felt utterly broken: darkness and confusion were in his soul. He
rested his elbows on his knees and leaned his head on his hands.
“Good God!” he cried, “can it be, can it be, that I shall really take an
axe, that I shall strike her on the head, split her skull open... that I shall
tread in the sticky warm blood, break the lock, steal and tremble; hide,
all spattered in the blood... with the axe.... Good God, can it be?”
He was shaking like a leaf as he said this.
“But why am I going on like this?” he continued, sitting up again, as it
were in profound amazement. “I knew that I could never bring myself
to it, so what have I been torturing myself for till now? Yesterday,
yesterday, when I went to make that... experiment, yesterday I realised
completely that I could never bear to do it.... Why am I going over it
again, then? Why am I hesitating? As I came down the stairs yesterday, I
said myself that it was base, loathsome, vile, vile... the very thought of it
made me feel sick and illed me with horror.
“No, I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t do it! Granted, granted that there is no
law in all that reasoning, that all that I have concluded this last month
is clear as day, true as arithmetic.... My God! Anyway I couldn’t bring
myself to it! I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t do it! Why, why then am I still...?”
He rose to his feet, looked round in wonder as though surprised at
inding himself in this place, and went towards the bridge. He was pale,
his eyes glowed, he was exhausted in every limb, but he seemed
suddenly to breathe more easily. He felt he had cast off that fearful
burden that had so long been weighing upon him, and all at once there
was a sense of relief and peace in his soul. “Lord,” he prayed, “show me
my path—I renounce that accursed... dream of mine.”
 Crossing the bridge, he gazed quietly and calmly at the Neva, at the
glowing red sun setting in the glowing sky. In spite of his weakness he
was not conscious of fatigue. It was as though an abscess that had been
forming for a month past in his heart had suddenly broken. Freedom,
freedom! He was free from that spell, that sorcery, that obsession!
Later on, when he recalled that time and all that happened to him
during those days, minute by minute, point by point, he was
superstitiously impressed by one circumstance, which, though in itself
not very exceptional, always seemed to him afterwards the predestined
turning-point of his fate. He could never understand and explain to
himself why, when he was tired and worn out, when it would have been
more convenient for him to go home by the shortest and most direct
way, he had returned by the Hay Market where he had no need to go. It
was obviously and quite unnecessarily out of his way, though not much
so. It is true that it happened to him dozens of times to return home
without noticing what streets he passed through. But why, he was
always asking himself, why had such an important, such a decisive and
at the same time such an absolutely chance meeting happened in the
Hay Market (where he had moreover no reason to go) at the very hour,
the very minute of his life when he was just in the very mood and in the
very circumstances in which that meeting was able to exert the gravest
and most decisive in luence on his whole destiny? As though it had
been lying in wait for him on purpose!
It was about nine o’clock when he crossed the Hay Market. At the
tables and the barrows, at the booths and the shops, all the market
people were closing their establishments or clearing away and packing
up their wares and, like their customers, were going home. Rag pickers
and costermongers of all kinds were crowding round the taverns in the
dirty and stinking courtyards of the Hay Market. Raskolnikov
particularly liked this place and the neighbouring alleys, when he
wandered aimlessly in the streets. Here his rags did not attract
contemptuous attention, and one could walk about in any attire
without scandalising people. At the corner of an alley a huckster and his
wife had two tables set out with tapes, thread, cotton handkerchiefs,
etc. They, too, had got up to go home, but were lingering in conversation
with a friend, who had just come up to them. This friend was Lizaveta
Ivanovna, or, as everyone called her, Lizaveta, the younger sister of the
old pawnbroker, Alyona Ivanovna, whom Raskolnikov had visited the
previous day to pawn his watch and make his experiment.... He already
knew all about Lizaveta and she knew him a little too. She was a single
woman of about thirty- ive, tall, clumsy, timid, submissive and almost
idiotic. She was a complete slave and went in fear and trembling of her
sister, who made her work day and night, and even beat her. She was
standing with a bundle before the huckster and his wife, listening
earnestly and doubtfully. They were talking of something with special
warmth. The moment Raskolnikov caught sight of her, he was overcome
by a strange sensation as it were of intense astonishment, though there
was nothing astonishing about this meeting.
“You could make up your mind for yourself, Lizaveta Ivanovna,” the
huckster was saying aloud. “Come round to-morrow about seven. They
will be here too.”
“To-morrow?” said Lizaveta slowly and thoughtfully, as though
unable to make up her mind.
“Upon my word, what a fright you are in of Alyona Ivanovna,” gabbled
the huckster’s wife, a lively little woman. “I look at you, you are like
some little babe. And she is not your own sister either—nothing but a
step-sister and what a hand she keeps over you!”
“But this time don’t say a word to Alyona Ivanovna,” her husband
interrupted; “that’s my advice, but come round to us without asking. It
will be worth your while. Later on your sister herself may have a
notion.”
“Am I to come?”
“About seven o’clock to-morrow. And they will be here. You will be
able to decide for yourself.”
“And we’ll have a cup of tea,” added his wife.
“All right, I’ll come,” said Lizaveta, still pondering, and she began
slowly moving away.
Raskolnikov had just passed and heard no more. He passed softly,
unnoticed, trying not to miss a word. His irst amazement was followed
by a thrill of horror, like a shiver running down his spine. He had learnt,
he had suddenly quite unexpectedly learnt, that the next day at seven
o’clock Lizaveta, the old woman’s sister and only companion, would be
away from home and that therefore at seven o’clock precisely the old
woman would be left alone.
He was only a few steps from his lodging. He went in like a man
condemned to death. He thought of nothing and was incapable of
thinking; but he felt suddenly in his whole being that he had no more
freedom of thought, no will, and that everything was suddenly and
irrevocably decided.
Certainly, if he had to wait whole years for a suitable opportunity, he
could not reckon on a more certain step towards the success of the plan
than that which had just presented itself. In any case, it would have
been dif icult to ind out beforehand and with certainty, with greater
exactness and less risk, and without dangerous inquiries and
investigations, that next day at a certain time an old woman, on whose
life an attempt was contemplated, would be at home and entirely alone.
 CHAPTER VI

Later on Raskolnikov happened to ind out why the huckster and his
wife had invited Lizaveta. It was a very ordinary matter and there was
nothing exceptional about it. A family who had come to the town and
been reduced to poverty were selling their household goods and
clothes, all women’s things. As the things would have fetched little in
the market, they were looking for a dealer. This was Lizaveta’s business.
She undertook such jobs and was frequently employed, as she was very
honest and always ixed a fair price and stuck to it. She spoke as a rule
little and, as we have said already, she was very submissive and timid.
But Raskolnikov had become superstitious of late. The traces of
superstition remained in him long after, and were almost ineradicable.
And in all this he was always afterwards disposed to see something
strange and mysterious, as it were, the presence of some peculiar
in luences and coincidences. In the previous winter a student he knew
called Pokorev, who had left for Harkov, had chanced in conversation to
give him the address of Alyona Ivanovna, the old pawnbroker, in case he
might want to pawn anything. For a long while he did not go to her, for
he had lessons and managed to get along somehow. Six weeks ago he
had remembered the address; he had two articles that could be
pawned: his father’s old silver watch and a little gold ring with three
red stones, a present from his sister at parting. He decided to take the
ring. When he found the old woman he had felt an insurmountable
repulsion for her at the irst glance, though he knew nothing special
about her. He got two roubles from her and went into a miserable little
tavern on his way home. He asked for tea, sat down and sank into deep
thought. A strange idea was pecking at his brain like a chicken in the
egg, and very, very much absorbed him.
Almost beside him at the next table there was sitting a student,
whom he did not know and had never seen, and with him a young
of icer. They had played a game of billiards and began drinking tea. All
at once he heard the student mention to the of icer the pawnbroker
Alyona Ivanovna and give him her address. This of itself seemed strange
to Raskolnikov; he had just come from her and here at once he heard
her name. Of course it was a chance, but he could not shake off a very
extraordinary impression, and here someone seemed to be speaking
expressly for him; the student began telling his friend various details
about Alyona Ivanovna.
“She is irst-rate,” he said. “You can always get money from her. She is
as rich as a Jew, she can give you ive thousand roubles at a time and
she is not above taking a pledge for a rouble. Lots of our fellows have
had dealings with her. But she is an awful old harpy....”
And he began describing how spiteful and uncertain she was, how if
you were only a day late with your interest the pledge was lost; how she
gave a quarter of the value of an article and took ive and even seven
percent a month on it and so on. The student chattered on, saying that
she had a sister Lizaveta, whom the wretched little creature was
continually beating, and kept in complete bondage like a small child,
though Lizaveta was at least six feet high.
“There’s a phenomenon for you,” cried the student and he laughed.
They began talking about Lizaveta. The student spoke about her with
a peculiar relish and was continually laughing and the of icer listened
with great interest and asked him to send Lizaveta to do some mending
for him. Raskolnikov did not miss a word and learned everything about
her. Lizaveta was younger than the old woman and was her half-sister,
being the child of a different mother. She was thirty- ive. She worked
day and night for her sister, and besides doing the cooking and the
washing, she did sewing and worked as a charwoman and gave her
sister all she earned. She did not dare to accept an order or job of any
kind without her sister’s permission. The old woman had already made
her will, and Lizaveta knew of it, and by this will she would not get a
farthing; nothing but the movables, chairs and so on; all the money was
left to a monastery in the province of N——, that prayers might be said
for her in perpetuity. Lizaveta was of lower rank than her sister,
unmarried and awfully uncouth in appearance, remarkably tall with
long feet that looked as if they were bent outwards. She always wore
battered goatskin shoes, and was clean in her person. What the student
expressed most surprise and amusement about was the fact that
Lizaveta was continually with child.
“But you say she is hideous?” observed the of icer.
“Yes, she is so dark-skinned and looks like a soldier dressed up, but
you know she is not at all hideous. She has such a good-natured face
and eyes. Strikingly so. And the proof of it is that lots of people are
attracted by her. She is such a soft, gentle creature, ready to put up with
anything, always willing, willing to do anything. And her smile is really
very sweet.”
“You seem to ind her attractive yourself,” laughed the of icer.
“From her queerness. No, I’ll tell you what. I could kill that damned
old woman and make off with her money, I assure you, without the
faintest conscience-prick,” the student added with warmth. The of icer
laughed again while Raskolnikov shuddered. How strange it was!
“Listen, I want to ask you a serious question,” the student said hotly.
“I was joking of course, but look here; on one side we have a stupid,
senseless, worthless, spiteful, ailing, horrid old woman, not simply
useless but doing actual mischief, who has not an idea what she is living
for herself, and who will die in a day or two in any case. You
understand? You understand?”
“Yes, yes, I understand,” answered the of icer, watching his excited
companion attentively.
“Well, listen then. On the other side, fresh young lives thrown away
for want of help and by thousands, on every side! A hundred thousand
good deeds could be done and helped, on that old woman’s money
which will be buried in a monastery! Hundreds, thousands perhaps,
might be set on the right path; dozens of families saved from
destitution, from ruin, from vice, from the Lock hospitals—and all with
her money. Kill her, take her money and with the help of it devote
oneself to the service of humanity and the good of all. What do you
think, would not one tiny crime be wiped out by thousands of good
deeds? For one life thousands would be saved from corruption and
decay. One death, and a hundred lives in exchange—it’s simple
arithmetic! Besides, what value has the life of that sickly, stupid, ill-
natured old woman in the balance of existence! No more than the life of
a louse, of a black-beetle, less in fact because the old woman is doing
harm. She is wearing out the lives of others; the other day she bit
Lizaveta’s inger out of spite; it almost had to be amputated.”
“Of course she does not deserve to live,” remarked the of icer, “but
there it is, it’s nature.”
“Oh, well, brother, but we have to correct and direct nature, and, but
for that, we should drown in an ocean of prejudice. But for that, there
would never have been a single great man. They talk of duty, conscience
—I don’t want to say anything against duty and conscience;—but the
point is, what do we mean by them? Stay, I have another question to ask
you. Listen!”
“No, you stay, I’ll ask you a question. Listen!”
“Well?”
“You are talking and speechifying away, but tell me, would you kill the
old woman yourself?”
“Of course not! I was only arguing the justice of it.... It’s nothing to do
with me....”
“But I think, if you would not do it yourself, there’s no justice about
it.... Let us have another game.”
Raskolnikov was violently agitated. Of course, it was all ordinary
youthful talk and thought, such as he had often heard before in different
forms and on different themes. But why had he happened to hear such a
discussion and such ideas at the very moment when his own brain was
just conceiving... the very same ideas? And why, just at the moment
when he had brought away the embryo of his idea from the old woman
had he dropped at once upon a conversation about her? This
coincidence always seemed strange to him. This trivial talk in a tavern
had an immense in luence on him in his later action; as though there
had really been in it something preordained, some guiding hint....

On returning from the Hay Market he lung himself on the sofa and
sat for a whole hour without stirring. Meanwhile it got dark; he had no
candle and, indeed, it did not occur to him to light up. He could never
recollect whether he had been thinking about anything at that time. At
last he was conscious of his former fever and shivering, and he realised
with relief that he could lie down on the sofa. Soon heavy, leaden sleep
came over him, as it were crushing him.
He slept an extraordinarily long time and without dreaming.
Nastasya, coming into his room at ten o’clock the next morning, had
dif iculty in rousing him. She brought him in tea and bread. The tea was
again the second brew and again in her own tea-pot.
“My goodness, how he sleeps!” she cried indignantly. “And he is
always asleep.”
He got up with an effort. His head ached, he stood up, took a turn in
his garret and sank back on the sofa again.
“Going to sleep again,” cried Nastasya. “Are you ill, eh?”
He made no reply.
“Do you want some tea?”
“Afterwards,” he said with an effort, closing his eyes again and
turning to the wall.
Nastasya stood over him.
“Perhaps he really is ill,” she said, turned and went out. She came in
again at two o’clock with soup. He was lying as before. The tea stood
untouched. Nastasya felt positively offended and began wrathfully
rousing him.
“Why are you lying like a log?” she shouted, looking at him with
repulsion.
He got up, and sat down again, but said nothing and stared at the
loor.
“Are you ill or not?” asked Nastasya and again received no answer.
“You’d better go out and get a breath of air,” she said after a pause. “Will
you eat it or not?”
“Afterwards,” he said weakly. “You can go.”
And he motioned her out.
She remained a little longer, looked at him with compassion and went
out.
 A few minutes afterwards, he raised his eyes and looked for a long
while at the tea and the soup. Then he took the bread, took up a spoon
and began to eat.
He ate a little, three or four spoonfuls, without appetite, as it were
mechanically. His head ached less. After his meal he stretched himself
on the sofa again, but now he could not sleep; he lay without stirring,
with his face in the pillow. He was haunted by day-dreams and such
strange day-dreams; in one, that kept recurring, he fancied that he was
in Africa, in Egypt, in some sort of oasis. The caravan was resting, the
camels were peacefully lying down; the palms stood all around in a
complete circle; all the party were at dinner. But he was drinking water
from a spring which lowed gurgling close by. And it was so cool, it was
wonderful, wonderful, blue, cold water running among the parti-
coloured stones and over the clean sand which glistened here and there
like gold.... Suddenly he heard a clock strike. He started, roused himself,
raised his head, looked out of the window, and seeing how late it was,
suddenly jumped up wide awake as though someone had pulled him off
the sofa. He crept on tiptoe to the door, stealthily opened it and began
listening on the staircase. His heart beat terribly. But all was quiet on
the stairs as if everyone was asleep.... It seemed to him strange and
monstrous that he could have slept in such forgetfulness from the
previous day and had done nothing, had prepared nothing yet.... And
meanwhile perhaps it had struck six. And his drowsiness and
stupefaction were followed by an extraordinary, feverish, as it were
distracted haste. But the preparations to be made were few. He
concentrated all his energies on thinking of everything and forgetting
nothing; and his heart kept beating and thumping so that he could
hardly breathe. First he had to make a noose and sew it into his
overcoat—a work of a moment. He rummaged under his pillow and
picked out amongst the linen stuffed away under it, a worn out, old
unwashed shirt. From its rags he tore a long strip, a couple of inches
wide and about sixteen inches long. He folded this strip in two, took off
his wide, strong summer overcoat of some stout cotton material (his
only outer garment) and began sewing the two ends of the rag on the
inside, under the left armhole. His hands shook as he sewed, but he did
it successfully so that nothing showed outside when he put the coat on
again. The needle and thread he had got ready long before and they lay
on his table in a piece of paper. As for the noose, it was a very ingenious
device of his own; the noose was intended for the axe. It was impossible
for him to carry the axe through the street in his hands. And if hidden
under his coat he would still have had to support it with his hand,
which would have been noticeable. Now he had only to put the head of
the axe in the noose, and it would hang quietly under his arm on the
inside. Putting his hand in his coat pocket, he could hold the end of the
handle all the way, so that it did not swing; and as the coat was very full,
a regular sack in fact, it could not be seen from outside that he was
holding something with the hand that was in the pocket. This noose,
too, he had designed a fortnight before.
When he had inished with this, he thrust his hand into a little
opening between his sofa and the loor, fumbled in the left corner and
drew out the pledge, which he had got ready long before and hidden
there. This pledge was, however, only a smoothly planed piece of wood
the size and thickness of a silver cigarette case. He picked up this piece
of wood in one of his wanderings in a courtyard where there was some
sort of a workshop. Afterwards he had added to the wood a thin smooth
piece of iron, which he had also picked up at the same time in the street.
Putting the iron which was a little the smaller on the piece of wood, he
fastened them very irmly, crossing and re-crossing the thread round
them; then wrapped them carefully and daintily in clean white paper
and tied up the parcel so that it would be very dif icult to untie it. This
was in order to divert the attention of the old woman for a time, while
she was trying to undo the knot, and so to gain a moment. The iron
strip was added to give weight, so that the woman might not guess the
irst minute that the “thing” was made of wood. All this had been stored
by him beforehand under the sofa. He had only just got the pledge out
when he heard someone suddenly about in the yard.
“It struck six long ago.”
“Long ago! My God!”
He rushed to the door, listened, caught up his hat and began to
descend his thirteen steps cautiously, noiselessly, like a cat. He had still
the most important thing to do—to steal the axe from the kitchen. That
the deed must be done with an axe he had decided long ago. He had
also a pocket pruning-knife, but he could not rely on the knife and still
less on his own strength, and so resolved inally on the axe. We may
note in passing, one peculiarity in regard to all the inal resolutions
taken by him in the matter; they had one strange characteristic: the
more inal they were, the more hideous and the more absurd they at
once became in his eyes. In spite of all his agonising inward struggle, he
never for a single instant all that time could believe in the carrying out
of his plans.
And, indeed, if it had ever happened that everything to the least point
could have been considered and inally settled, and no uncertainty of
any kind had remained, he would, it seems, have renounced it all as
something absurd, monstrous and impossible. But a whole mass of
unsettled points and uncertainties remained. As for getting the axe, that
tri ling business cost him no anxiety, for nothing could be easier.
Nastasya was continually out of the house, especially in the evenings;
she would run in to the neighbours or to a shop, and always left the
door ajar. It was the one thing the landlady was always scolding her
about. And so, when the time came, he would only have to go quietly
into the kitchen and to take the axe, and an hour later (when everything
was over) go in and put it back again. But these were doubtful points.
Supposing he returned an hour later to put it back, and Nastasya had
come back and was on the spot. He would of course have to go by and
wait till she went out again. But supposing she were in the meantime to
miss the axe, look for it, make an outcry—that would mean suspicion or
at least grounds for suspicion.
But those were all tri les which he had not even begun to consider,
and indeed he had no time. He was thinking of the chief point, and put
off tri ling details, until he could believe in it all. But that seemed utterly
unattainable. So it seemed to himself at least. He could not imagine, for
instance, that he would sometime leave off thinking, get up and simply
go there.... Even his late experiment (i.e. his visit with the object of a
inal survey of the place) was simply an attempt at an experiment, far
from being the real thing, as though one should say “come, let us go and
try it—why dream about it!”—and at once he had broken down and had
run away cursing, in a frenzy with himself. Meanwhile it would seem, as
regards the moral question, that his analysis was complete; his
casuistry had become keen as a razor, and he could not ind rational
objections in himself. But in the last resort he simply ceased to believe
in himself, and doggedly, slavishly sought arguments in all directions,
fumbling for them, as though someone were forcing and drawing him to
it.
At irst—long before indeed—he had been much occupied with one
question; why almost all crimes are so badly concealed and so easily
detected, and why almost all criminals leave such obvious traces? He
had come gradually to many different and curious conclusions, and in
his opinion the chief reason lay not so much in the material
impossibility of concealing the crime, as in the criminal himself. Almost
every criminal is subject to a failure of will and reasoning power by a
childish and phenomenal heedlessness, at the very instant when
prudence and caution are most essential. It was his conviction that this
eclipse of reason and failure of will power attacked a man like a disease,
developed gradually and reached its highest point just before the
perpetration of the crime, continued with equal violence at the moment
of the crime and for longer or shorter time after, according to the
individual case, and then passed off like any other disease. The question
whether the disease gives rise to the crime, or whether the crime from
its own peculiar nature is always accompanied by something of the
nature of disease, he did not yet feel able to decide.
When he reached these conclusions, he decided that in his own case
there could not be such a morbid reaction, that his reason and will
would remain unimpaired at the time of carrying out his design, for the
simple reason that his design was “not a crime....” We will omit all the
process by means of which he arrived at this last conclusion; we have
run too far ahead already.... We may add only that the practical, purely
material dif iculties of the affair occupied a secondary position in his
mind. “One has but to keep all one’s will-power and reason to deal with
them, and they will all be overcome at the time when once one has
familiarised oneself with the minutest details of the business....” But this
preparation had never been begun. His inal decisions were what he
came to trust least, and when the hour struck, it all came to pass quite
differently, as it were accidentally and unexpectedly.
One tri ling circumstance upset his calculations, before he had even
left the staircase. When he reached the landlady’s kitchen, the door of
which was open as usual, he glanced cautiously in to see whether, in
Nastasya’s absence, the landlady herself was there, or if not, whether
the door to her own room was closed, so that she might not peep out
when he went in for the axe. But what was his amazement when he
suddenly saw that Nastasya was not only at home in the kitchen, but
was occupied there, taking linen out of a basket and hanging it on a line.
Seeing him, she left off hanging the clothes, turned to him and stared at
him all the time he was passing. He turned away his eyes, and walked
past as though he noticed nothing. But it was the end of everything; he
had not the axe! He was overwhelmed.
“What made me think,” he re lected, as he went under the gateway,
“what made me think that she would be sure not to be at home at that
moment! Why, why, why did I assume this so certainly?”
He was crushed and even humiliated. He could have laughed at
himself in his anger.... A dull animal rage boiled within him.
He stood hesitating in the gateway. To go into the street, to go a walk
for appearance’ sake was revolting; to go back to his room, even more
revolting. “And what a chance I have lost for ever!” he muttered,
standing aimlessly in the gateway, just opposite the porter’s little dark
room, which was also open. Suddenly he started. From the porter’s
room, two paces away from him, something shining under the bench to
the right caught his eye.... He looked about him—nobody. He
approached the room on tiptoe, went down two steps into it and in a
faint voice called the porter. “Yes, not at home! Somewhere near though,
in the yard, for the door is wide open.” He dashed to the axe (it was an
axe) and pulled it out from under the bench, where it lay between two
chunks of wood; at once, before going out, he made it fast in the noose,
he thrust both hands into his pockets and went out of the room; no one
had noticed him! “When reason fails, the devil helps!” he thought with a
strange grin. This chance raised his spirits extraordinarily.
He walked along quietly and sedately, without hurry, to avoid
awakening suspicion. He scarcely looked at the passers-by, tried to
escape looking at their faces at all, and to be as little noticeable as
possible. Suddenly he thought of his hat. “Good heavens! I had the
money the day before yesterday and did not get a cap to wear instead!”
A curse rose from the bottom of his soul.
 Glancing out of the corner of his eye into a shop, he saw by a clock on
the wall that it was ten minutes past seven. He had to make haste and at
the same time to go someway round, so as to approach the house from
the other side....
When he had happened to imagine all this beforehand, he had
sometimes thought that he would be very much afraid. But he was not
very much afraid now, was not afraid at all, indeed. His mind was even
occupied by irrelevant matters, but by nothing for long. As he passed
the Yusupov garden, he was deeply absorbed in considering the
building of great fountains, and of their refreshing effect on the
atmosphere in all the squares. By degrees he passed to the conviction
that if the summer garden were extended to the ield of Mars, and
perhaps joined to the garden of the Mihailovsky Palace, it would be a
splendid thing and a great bene it to the town. Then he was interested
by the question why in all great towns men are not simply driven by
necessity, but in some peculiar way inclined to live in those parts of the
town where there are no gardens nor fountains; where there is most
dirt and smell and all sorts of nastiness. Then his own walks through
the Hay Market came back to his mind, and for a moment he waked up
to reality. “What nonsense!” he thought, “better think of nothing at all!”
“So probably men led to execution clutch mentally at every object
that meets them on the way,” lashed through his mind, but simply
lashed, like lightning; he made haste to dismiss this thought.... And by
now he was near; here was the house, here was the gate. Suddenly a
clock somewhere struck once. “What! can it be half-past seven?
Impossible, it must be fast!”
Luckily for him, everything went well again at the gates. At that very
moment, as though expressly for his bene it, a huge waggon of hay had
just driven in at the gate, completely screening him as he passed under
the gateway, and the waggon had scarcely had time to drive through
into the yard, before he had slipped in a lash to the right. On the other
side of the waggon he could hear shouting and quarrelling; but no one
noticed him and no one met him. Many windows looking into that huge
quadrangular yard were open at that moment, but he did not raise his
head—he had not the strength to. The staircase leading to the old
woman’s room was close by, just on the right of the gateway. He was
already on the stairs....
Drawing a breath, pressing his hand against his throbbing heart, and
once more feeling for the axe and setting it straight, he began softly and
cautiously ascending the stairs, listening every minute. But the stairs,
too, were quite deserted; all the doors were shut; he met no one. One
lat indeed on the irst loor was wide open and painters were at work
in it, but they did not glance at him. He stood still, thought a minute and
went on. “Of course it would be better if they had not been here, but...
it’s two storeys above them.”
And there was the fourth storey, here was the door, here was the lat
opposite, the empty one. The lat underneath the old woman’s was
apparently empty also; the visiting card nailed on the door had been
torn off—they had gone away!... He was out of breath. For one instant
the thought loated through his mind “Shall I go back?” But he made no
answer and began listening at the old woman’s door, a dead silence.
Then he listened again on the staircase, listened long and intently... then
looked about him for the last time, pulled himself together, drew
himself up, and once more tried the axe in the noose. “Am I very pale?”
he wondered. “Am I not evidently agitated? She is mistrustful.... Had I
better wait a little longer... till my heart leaves off thumping?”
But his heart did not leave off. On the contrary, as though to spite
him, it throbbed more and more violently. He could stand it no longer,
he slowly put out his hand to the bell and rang. Half a minute later he
rang again, more loudly.
No answer. To go on ringing was useless and out of place. The old
woman was, of course, at home, but she was suspicious and alone. He
had some knowledge of her habits... and once more he put his ear to the
door. Either his senses were peculiarly keen (which it is dif icult to
suppose), or the sound was really very distinct. Anyway, he suddenly
heard something like the cautious touch of a hand on the lock and the
rustle of a skirt at the very door. Someone was standing stealthily close
to the lock and just as he was doing on the outside was secretly
listening within, and seemed to have her ear to the door.... He moved a
little on purpose and muttered something aloud that he might not have
the appearance of hiding, then rang a third time, but quietly, soberly,
and without impatience, Recalling it afterwards, that moment stood out
in his mind vividly, distinctly, for ever; he could not make out how he
had had such cunning, for his mind was as it were clouded at moments
and he was almost unconscious of his body.... An instant later he heard
the latch unfastened.
 CHAPTER VII

The door was as before opened a tiny crack, and again two sharp and
suspicious eyes stared at him out of the darkness. Then Raskolnikov
lost his head and nearly made a great mistake.
Fearing the old woman would be frightened by their being alone, and
not hoping that the sight of him would disarm her suspicions, he took
hold of the door and drew it towards him to prevent the old woman
from attempting to shut it again. Seeing this she did not pull the door
back, but she did not let go the handle so that he almost dragged her
out with it on to the stairs. Seeing that she was standing in the doorway
not allowing him to pass, he advanced straight upon her. She stepped
back in alarm, tried to say something, but seemed unable to speak and
stared with open eyes at him.
“Good evening, Alyona Ivanovna,” he began, trying to speak easily, but
his voice would not obey him, it broke and shook. “I have come... I have
brought something... but we’d better come in... to the light....”
And leaving her, he passed straight into the room uninvited. The old
woman ran after him; her tongue was unloosed.
“Good heavens! What it is? Who is it? What do you want?”
“Why, Alyona Ivanovna, you know me... Raskolnikov... here, I brought
you the pledge I promised the other day...” And he held out the pledge.
The old woman glanced for a moment at the pledge, but at once
stared in the eyes of her uninvited visitor. She looked intently,
maliciously and mistrustfully. A minute passed; he even fancied
something like a sneer in her eyes, as though she had already guessed
everything. He felt that he was losing his head, that he was almost
frightened, so frightened that if she were to look like that and not say a
word for another half minute, he thought he would have run away from
her.
 “Why do you look at me as though you did not know me?” he said
suddenly, also with malice. “Take it if you like, if not I’ll go elsewhere, I
am in a hurry.”
He had not even thought of saying this, but it was suddenly said of
itself. The old woman recovered herself, and her visitor’s resolute tone
evidently restored her con idence.
“But why, my good sir, all of a minute.... What is it?” she asked, looking
at the pledge.
“The silver cigarette case; I spoke of it last time, you know.”
She held out her hand.
“But how pale you are, to be sure... and your hands are trembling too?
Have you been bathing, or what?”
“Fever,” he answered abruptly. “You can’t help getting pale... if you’ve
nothing to eat,” he added, with dif iculty articulating the words.
His strength was failing him again. But his answer sounded like the
truth; the old woman took the pledge.
“What is it?” she asked once more, scanning Raskolnikov intently, and
weighing the pledge in her hand.
“A thing... cigarette case.... Silver.... Look at it.”
“It does not seem somehow like silver.... How he has wrapped it up!”
Trying to untie the string and turning to the window, to the light (all
her windows were shut, in spite of the sti ling heat), she left him
altogether for some seconds and stood with her back to him. He
unbuttoned his coat and freed the axe from the noose, but did not yet
take it out altogether, simply holding it in his right hand under the coat.
His hands were fearfully weak, he felt them every moment growing
more numb and more wooden. He was afraid he would let the axe slip
and fall.... A sudden giddiness came over him.
“But what has he tied it up like this for?” the old woman cried with
vexation and moved towards him.
He had not a minute more to lose. He pulled the axe quite out, swung
it with both arms, scarcely conscious of himself, and almost without
effort, almost mechanically, brought the blunt side down on her head.
He seemed not to use his own strength in this. But as soon as he had
once brought the axe down, his strength returned to him.
The old woman was as always bareheaded. Her thin, light hair,
streaked with grey, thickly smeared with grease, was plaited in a rat’s
tail and fastened by a broken horn comb which stood out on the nape of
her neck. As she was so short, the blow fell on the very top of her skull.
She cried out, but very faintly, and suddenly sank all of a heap on the
loor, raising her hands to her head. In one hand she still held “the
pledge.” Then he dealt her another and another blow with the blunt
side and on the same spot. The blood gushed as from an overturned
glass, the body fell back. He stepped back, let it fall, and at once bent
over her face; she was dead. Her eyes seemed to be starting out of their
sockets, the brow and the whole face were drawn and contorted
convulsively.
He laid the axe on the ground near the dead body and felt at once in
her pocket (trying to avoid the streaming body)—the same right-hand
pocket from which she had taken the key on his last visit. He was in full
possession of his faculties, free from confusion or giddiness, but his
hands were still trembling. He remembered afterwards that he had
been particularly collected and careful, trying all the time not to get
smeared with blood.... He pulled out the keys at once, they were all, as
before, in one bunch on a steel ring. He ran at once into the bedroom
with them. It was a very small room with a whole shrine of holy images.
Against the other wall stood a big bed, very clean and covered with a
silk patchwork wadded quilt. Against a third wall was a chest of
drawers. Strange to say, so soon as he began to it the keys into the
chest, so soon as he heard their jingling, a convulsive shudder passed
over him. He suddenly felt tempted again to give it all up and go away.
But that was only for an instant; it was too late to go back. He positively
smiled at himself, when suddenly another terrifying idea occurred to
his mind. He suddenly fancied that the old woman might be still alive
and might recover her senses. Leaving the keys in the chest, he ran back
to the body, snatched up the axe and lifted it once more over the old
woman, but did not bring it down. There was no doubt that she was
dead. Bending down and examining her again more closely, he saw
clearly that the skull was broken and even battered in on one side. He
was about to feel it with his inger, but drew back his hand and indeed it
was evident without that. Meanwhile there was a perfect pool of blood.
All at once he noticed a string on her neck; he tugged at it, but the string
was strong and did not snap and besides, it was soaked with blood. He
tried to pull it out from the front of the dress, but something held it and
prevented its coming. In his impatience he raised the axe again to cut
the string from above on the body, but did not dare, and with dif iculty,
smearing his hand and the axe in the blood, after two minutes’ hurried
effort, he cut the string and took it off without touching the body with
the axe; he was not mistaken—it was a purse. On the string were two
crosses, one of Cyprus wood and one of copper, and an image in silver
iligree, and with them a small greasy chamois leather purse with a
steel rim and ring. The purse was stuffed very full; Raskolnikov thrust it
in his pocket without looking at it, lung the crosses on the old woman’s
body and rushed back into the bedroom, this time taking the axe with
him.
He was in terrible haste, he snatched the keys, and began trying them
again. But he was unsuccessful. They would not it in the locks. It was
not so much that his hands were shaking, but that he kept making
mistakes; though he saw for instance that a key was not the right one
and would not it, still he tried to put it in. Suddenly he remembered
and realised that the big key with the deep notches, which was hanging
there with the small keys could not possibly belong to the chest of
drawers (on his last visit this had struck him), but to some strong box,
and that everything perhaps was hidden in that box. He left the chest of
drawers, and at once felt under the bedstead, knowing that old women
usually keep boxes under their beds. And so it was; there was a good-
sized box under the bed, at least a yard in length, with an arched lid
covered with red leather and studded with steel nails. The notched key
itted at once and unlocked it. At the top, under a white sheet, was a
coat of red brocade lined with hareskin; under it was a silk dress, then a
shawl and it seemed as though there was nothing below but clothes.
The irst thing he did was to wipe his blood-stained hands on the red
brocade. “It’s red, and on red blood will be less noticeable,” the thought
passed through his mind; then he suddenly came to himself. “Good God,
am I going out of my senses?” he thought with terror.
But no sooner did he touch the clothes than a gold watch slipped
from under the fur coat. He made haste to turn them all over. There
turned out to be various articles made of gold among the clothes—
probably all pledges, unredeemed or waiting to be redeemed—
bracelets, chains, ear-rings, pins and such things. Some were in cases,
others simply wrapped in newspaper, carefully and exactly folded, and
tied round with tape. Without any delay, he began illing up the pockets
of his trousers and overcoat without examining or undoing the parcels
and cases; but he had not time to take many....
He suddenly heard steps in the room where the old woman lay. He
stopped short and was still as death. But all was quiet, so it must have
been his fancy. All at once he heard distinctly a faint cry, as though
someone had uttered a low broken moan. Then again dead silence for a
minute or two. He sat squatting on his heels by the box and waited
holding his breath. Suddenly he jumped up, seized the axe and ran out
of the bedroom.
In the middle of the room stood Lizaveta with a big bundle in her
arms. She was gazing in stupefaction at her murdered sister, white as a
sheet and seeming not to have the strength to cry out. Seeing him run
out of the bedroom, she began faintly quivering all over, like a leaf, a
shudder ran down her face; she lifted her hand, opened her mouth, but
still did not scream. She began slowly backing away from him into the
corner, staring intently, persistently at him, but still uttered no sound,
as though she could not get breath to scream. He rushed at her with the
axe; her mouth twitched piteously, as one sees babies’ mouths, when
they begin to be frightened, stare intently at what frightens them and
are on the point of screaming. And this hapless Lizaveta was so simple
and had been so thoroughly crushed and scared that she did not even
raise a hand to guard her face, though that was the most necessary and
natural action at the moment, for the axe was raised over her face. She
only put up her empty left hand, but not to her face, slowly holding it
out before her as though motioning him away. The axe fell with the
sharp edge just on the skull and split at one blow all the top of the head.
She fell heavily at once. Raskolnikov completely lost his head, snatching
up her bundle, dropped it again and ran into the entry.
Fear gained more and more mastery over him, especially after this
second, quite unexpected murder. He longed to run away from the place
as fast as possible. And if at that moment he had been capable of seeing
and reasoning more correctly, if he had been able to realise all the
dif iculties of his position, the hopelessness, the hideousness and the
absurdity of it, if he could have understood how many obstacles and,
perhaps, crimes he had still to overcome or to commit, to get out of that
place and to make his way home, it is very possible that he would have
lung up everything, and would have gone to give himself up, and not
from fear, but from simple horror and loathing of what he had done.
The feeling of loathing especially surged up within him and grew
stronger every minute. He would not now have gone to the box or even
into the room for anything in the world.
But a sort of blankness, even dreaminess, had begun by degrees to
take possession of him; at moments he forgot himself, or rather, forgot
what was of importance, and caught at tri les. Glancing, however, into
the kitchen and seeing a bucket half full of water on a bench, he
bethought him of washing his hands and the axe. His hands were sticky
with blood. He dropped the axe with the blade in the water, snatched a
piece of soap that lay in a broken saucer on the window, and began
washing his hands in the bucket. When they were clean, he took out the
axe, washed the blade and spent a long time, about three minutes,
washing the wood where there were spots of blood rubbing them with
soap. Then he wiped it all with some linen that was hanging to dry on a
line in the kitchen and then he was a long while attentively examining
the axe at the window. There was no trace left on it, only the wood was
still damp. He carefully hung the axe in the noose under his coat. Then
as far as was possible, in the dim light in the kitchen, he looked over his
overcoat, his trousers and his boots. At the irst glance there seemed to
be nothing but stains on the boots. He wetted the rag and rubbed the
boots. But he knew he was not looking thoroughly, that there might be
something quite noticeable that he was overlooking. He stood in the
middle of the room, lost in thought. Dark agonising ideas rose in his
mind—the idea that he was mad and that at that moment he was
incapable of reasoning, of protecting himself, that he ought perhaps to
be doing something utterly different from what he was now doing.
“Good God!” he muttered “I must ly, ly,” and he rushed into the entry.
But here a shock of terror awaited him such as he had never known
before.
 He stood and gazed and could not believe his eyes: the door, the outer
door from the stairs, at which he had not long before waited and rung,
was standing unfastened and at least six inches open. No lock, no bolt,
all the time, all that time! The old woman had not shut it after him
perhaps as a precaution. But, good God! Why, he had seen Lizaveta
afterwards! And how could he, how could he have failed to re lect that
she must have come in somehow! She could not have come through the
wall!
He dashed to the door and fastened the latch.
“But no, the wrong thing again! I must get away, get away....”
He unfastened the latch, opened the door and began listening on the
staircase.
He listened a long time. Somewhere far away, it might be in the
gateway, two voices were loudly and shrilly shouting, quarrelling and
scolding. “What are they about?” He waited patiently. At last all was
still, as though suddenly cut off; they had separated. He was meaning to
go out, but suddenly, on the loor below, a door was noisily opened and
someone began going downstairs humming a tune. “How is it they all
make such a noise?” lashed through his mind. Once more he closed the
door and waited. At last all was still, not a soul stirring. He was just
taking a step towards the stairs when he heard fresh footsteps.
The steps sounded very far off, at the very bottom of the stairs, but he
remembered quite clearly and distinctly that from the irst sound he
began for some reason to suspect that this was someone coming there,
to the fourth loor, to the old woman. Why? Were the sounds somehow
peculiar, signi icant? The steps were heavy, even and unhurried. Now he
had passed the irst loor, now he was mounting higher, it was growing
more and more distinct! He could hear his heavy breathing. And now
the third storey had been reached. Coming here! And it seemed to him
all at once that he was turned to stone, that it was like a dream in which
one is being pursued, nearly caught and will be killed, and is rooted to
the spot and cannot even move one’s arms.
At last when the unknown was mounting to the fourth loor, he
suddenly started, and succeeded in slipping neatly and quickly back
into the lat and closing the door behind him. Then he took the hook
and softly, noiselessly, ixed it in the catch. Instinct helped him. When he
had done this, he crouched holding his breath, by the door. The
unknown visitor was by now also at the door. They were now standing
opposite one another, as he had just before been standing with the old
woman, when the door divided them and he was listening.
The visitor panted several times. “He must be a big, fat man,” thought
Raskolnikov, squeezing the axe in his hand. It seemed like a dream
indeed. The visitor took hold of the bell and rang it loudly.
As soon as the tin bell tinkled, Raskolnikov seemed to be aware of
something moving in the room. For some seconds he listened quite
seriously. The unknown rang again, waited and suddenly tugged
violently and impatiently at the handle of the door. Raskolnikov gazed
in horror at the hook shaking in its fastening, and in blank terror
expected every minute that the fastening would be pulled out. It
certainly did seem possible, so violently was he shaking it. He was
tempted to hold the fastening, but he might be aware of it. A giddiness
came over him again. “I shall fall down!” lashed through his mind, but
the unknown began to speak and he recovered himself at once.
“What’s up? Are they asleep or murdered? D-damn them!” he bawled
in a thick voice, “Hey, Alyona Ivanovna, old witch! Lizaveta Ivanovna,
hey, my beauty! open the door! Oh, damn them! Are they asleep or
what?”
And again, enraged, he tugged with all his might a dozen times at the
bell. He must certainly be a man of authority and an intimate
acquaintance.
At this moment light hurried steps were heard not far off, on the
stairs. Someone else was approaching. Raskolnikov had not heard them
at irst.
“You don’t say there’s no one at home,” the new-comer cried in a
cheerful, ringing voice, addressing the irst visitor, who still went on
pulling the bell. “Good evening, Koch.”
“From his voice he must be quite young,” thought Raskolnikov.
“Who the devil can tell? I’ve almost broken the lock,” answered Koch.
“But how do you come to know me?”
“Why! The day before yesterday I beat you three times running at
billiards at Gambrinus’.”
 “Oh!”
“So they are not at home? That’s queer. It’s awfully stupid though.
Where could the old woman have gone? I’ve come on business.”
“Yes; and I have business with her, too.”
“Well, what can we do? Go back, I suppose, Aie—aie! And I was
hoping to get some money!” cried the young man.
“We must give it up, of course, but what did she ix this time for? The
old witch ixed the time for me to come herself. It’s out of my way. And
where the devil she can have got to, I can’t make out. She sits here from
year’s end to year’s end, the old hag; her legs are bad and yet here all of
a sudden she is out for a walk!”
“Hadn’t we better ask the porter?”
“What?”
“Where she’s gone and when she’ll be back.”
“Hm.... Damn it all!... We might ask.... But you know she never does go
anywhere.”
And he once more tugged at the door-handle.
“Damn it all. There’s nothing to be done, we must go!”
“Stay!” cried the young man suddenly. “Do you see how the door
shakes if you pull it?”
“Well?”
“That shows it’s not locked, but fastened with the hook! Do you hear
how the hook clanks?”
“Well?”
“Why, don’t you see? That proves that one of them is at home. If they
were all out, they would have locked the door from the outside with the
key and not with the hook from inside. There, do you hear how the
hook is clanking? To fasten the hook on the inside they must be at
home, don’t you see. So there they are sitting inside and don’t open the
door!”
“Well! And so they must be!” cried Koch, astonished. “What are they
about in there?” And he began furiously shaking the door.
 “Stay!” cried the young man again. “Don’t pull at it! There must be
something wrong.... Here, you’ve been ringing and pulling at the door
and still they don’t open! So either they’ve both fainted or...”
“What?”
“I tell you what. Let’s go fetch the porter, let him wake them up.”
“All right.”
Both were going down.
“Stay. You stop here while I run down for the porter.”
“What for?”
“Well, you’d better.”
“All right.”
“I’m studying the law you see! It’s evident, e-vi-dent there’s
something wrong here!” the young man cried hotly, and he ran
downstairs.
Koch remained. Once more he softly touched the bell which gave one
tinkle, then gently, as though re lecting and looking about him, began
touching the door-handle pulling it and letting it go to make sure once
more that it was only fastened by the hook. Then puf ing and panting he
bent down and began looking at the keyhole: but the key was in the lock
on the inside and so nothing could be seen.
Raskolnikov stood keeping tight hold of the axe. He was in a sort of
delirium. He was even making ready to ight when they should come in.
While they were knocking and talking together, the idea several times
occurred to him to end it all at once and shout to them through the
door. Now and then he was tempted to swear at them, to jeer at them,
while they could not open the door! “Only make haste!” was the thought
that lashed through his mind.
“But what the devil is he about?...” Time was passing, one minute, and
another—no one came. Koch began to be restless.
“What the devil?” he cried suddenly and in impatience deserting his
sentry duty, he, too, went down, hurrying and thumping with his heavy
boots on the stairs. The steps died away.
“Good heavens! What am I to do?”
 Raskolnikov unfastened the hook, opened the door—there was no
sound. Abruptly, without any thought at all, he went out, closing the
door as thoroughly as he could, and went downstairs.
He had gone down three lights when he suddenly heard a loud voice
below—where could he go! There was nowhere to hide. He was just
going back to the lat.
“Hey there! Catch the brute!”
Somebody dashed out of a lat below, shouting, and rather fell than
ran down the stairs, bawling at the top of his voice.
“Mitka! Mitka! Mitka! Mitka! Mitka! Blast him!”
The shout ended in a shriek; the last sounds came from the yard; all
was still. But at the same instant several men talking loud and fast
began noisily mounting the stairs. There were three or four of them. He
distinguished the ringing voice of the young man. “Hey!”
Filled with despair he went straight to meet them, feeling “come
what must!” If they stopped him—all was lost; if they let him pass—all
was lost too; they would remember him. They were approaching; they
were only a light from him—and suddenly deliverance! A few steps
from him on the right, there was an empty lat with the door wide open,
the lat on the second loor where the painters had been at work, and
which, as though for his bene it, they had just left. It was they, no doubt,
who had just run down, shouting. The loor had only just been painted,
in the middle of the room stood a pail and a broken pot with paint and
brushes. In one instant he had whisked in at the open door and hidden
behind the wall and only in the nick of time; they had already reached
the landing. Then they turned and went on up to the fourth loor,
talking loudly. He waited, went out on tiptoe and ran down the stairs.
No one was on the stairs, nor in the gateway. He passed quickly
through the gateway and turned to the left in the street.
He knew, he knew perfectly well that at that moment they were at the
lat, that they were greatly astonished at inding it unlocked, as the door
had just been fastened, that by now they were looking at the bodies,
that before another minute had passed they would guess and
completely realise that the murderer had just been there, and had
succeeded in hiding somewhere, slipping by them and escaping. They
would guess most likely that he had been in the empty lat, while they
were going upstairs. And meanwhile he dared not quicken his pace
much, though the next turning was still nearly a hundred yards away.
“Should he slip through some gateway and wait somewhere in an
unknown street? No, hopeless! Should he ling away the axe? Should he
take a cab? Hopeless, hopeless!”
At last he reached the turning. He turned down it more dead than
alive. Here he was half way to safety, and he understood it; it was less
risky because there was a great crowd of people, and he was lost in it
like a grain of sand. But all he had suffered had so weakened him that
he could scarcely move. Perspiration ran down him in drops, his neck
was all wet. “My word, he has been going it!” someone shouted at him
when he came out on the canal bank.
He was only dimly conscious of himself now, and the farther he went
the worse it was. He remembered however, that on coming out on to
the canal bank, he was alarmed at inding few people there and so
being more conspicuous, and he had thought of turning back. Though
he was almost falling from fatigue, he went a long way round so as to
get home from quite a different direction.
He was not fully conscious when he passed through the gateway of
his house! He was already on the staircase before he recollected the axe.
And yet he had a very grave problem before him, to put it back and to
escape observation as far as possible in doing so. He was of course
incapable of re lecting that it might perhaps be far better not to restore
the axe at all, but to drop it later on in somebody’s yard. But it all
happened fortunately, the door of the porter’s room was closed but not
locked, so that it seemed most likely that the porter was at home. But
he had so completely lost all power of re lection that he walked straight
to the door and opened it. If the porter had asked him, “What do you
want?” he would perhaps have simply handed him the axe. But again
the porter was not at home, and he succeeded in putting the axe back
under the bench, and even covering it with the chunk of wood as before.
He met no one, not a soul, afterwards on the way to his room; the
landlady’s door was shut. When he was in his room, he lung himself on
the sofa just as he was—he did not sleep, but sank into blank
forgetfulness. If anyone had come into his room then, he would have
jumped up at once and screamed. Scraps and shreds of thoughts were
simply swarming in his brain, but he could not catch at one, he could
not rest on one, in spite of all his efforts....
PART II
 CHAPTER I

So he lay a very long while. Now and then he seemed to wake up, and
at such moments he noticed that it was far into the night, but it did not
occur to him to get up. At last he noticed that it was beginning to get
light. He was lying on his back, still dazed from his recent oblivion.
Fearful, despairing cries rose shrilly from the street, sounds which he
heard every night, indeed, under his window after two o’clock. They
woke him up now.
“Ah! the drunken men are coming out of the taverns,” he thought, “it’s
past two o’clock,” and at once he leaped up, as though someone had
pulled him from the sofa.
“What! Past two o’clock!”
He sat down on the sofa—and instantly recollected everything! All at
once, in one lash, he recollected everything.
For the irst moment he thought he was going mad. A dreadful chill
came over him; but the chill was from the fever that had begun long
before in his sleep. Now he was suddenly taken with violent shivering,
so that his teeth chattered and all his limbs were shaking. He opened
the door and began listening—everything in the house was asleep. With
amazement he gazed at himself and everything in the room around him,
wondering how he could have come in the night before without
fastening the door, and have lung himself on the sofa without
undressing, without even taking his hat off. It had fallen off and was
lying on the loor near his pillow.
“If anyone had come in, what would he have thought? That I’m drunk
but...”
He rushed to the window. There was light enough, and he began
hurriedly looking himself all over from head to foot, all his clothes;
were there no traces? But there was no doing it like that; shivering with
cold, he began taking off everything and looking over again. He turned
everything over to the last threads and rags, and mistrusting himself,
went through his search three times.
But there seemed to be nothing, no trace, except in one place, where
some thick drops of congealed blood were clinging to the frayed edge of
his trousers. He picked up a big claspknife and cut off the frayed
threads. There seemed to be nothing more.
Suddenly he remembered that the purse and the things he had taken
out of the old woman’s box were still in his pockets! He had not thought
till then of taking them out and hiding them! He had not even thought of
them while he was examining his clothes! What next? Instantly he
rushed to take them out and ling them on the table. When he had
pulled out everything, and turned the pocket inside out to be sure there
was nothing left, he carried the whole heap to the corner. The paper
had come off the bottom of the wall and hung there in tatters. He began
stuf ing all the things into the hole under the paper: “They’re in! All out
of sight, and the purse too!” he thought gleefully, getting up and gazing
blankly at the hole which bulged out more than ever. Suddenly he
shuddered all over with horror; “My God!” he whispered in despair:
“what’s the matter with me? Is that hidden? Is that the way to hide
things?”
He had not reckoned on having trinkets to hide. He had only thought
of money, and so had not prepared a hiding-place.
“But now, now, what am I glad of?” he thought, “Is that hiding things?
My reason’s deserting me—simply!”
He sat down on the sofa in exhaustion and was at once shaken by
another unbearable it of shivering. Mechanically he drew from a chair
beside him his old student’s winter coat, which was still warm though
almost in rags, covered himself up with it and once more sank into
drowsiness and delirium. He lost consciousness.
Not more than ive minutes had passed when he jumped up a second
time, and at once pounced in a frenzy on his clothes again.
“How could I go to sleep again with nothing done? Yes, yes; I have not
taken the loop off the armhole! I forgot it, forgot a thing like that! Such a
piece of evidence!”
 He pulled off the noose, hurriedly cut it to pieces and threw the bits
among his linen under the pillow.
“Pieces of torn linen couldn’t rouse suspicion, whatever happened; I
think not, I think not, any way!” he repeated, standing in the middle of
the room, and with painful concentration he fell to gazing about him
again, at the loor and everywhere, trying to make sure he had not
forgotten anything. The conviction that all his faculties, even memory,
and the simplest power of re lection were failing him, began to be an
insufferable torture.
“Surely it isn’t beginning already! Surely it isn’t my punishment
coming upon me? It is!”
The frayed rags he had cut off his trousers were actually lying on the
loor in the middle of the room, where anyone coming in would see
them!
“What is the matter with me!” he cried again, like one distraught.
Then a strange idea entered his head; that, perhaps, all his clothes
were covered with blood, that, perhaps, there were a great many stains,
but that he did not see them, did not notice them because his
perceptions were failing, were going to pieces... his reason was
clouded.... Suddenly he remembered that there had been blood on the
purse too. “Ah! Then there must be blood on the pocket too, for I put the
wet purse in my pocket!”
In a lash he had turned the pocket inside out and, yes!—there were
traces, stains on the lining of the pocket!
“So my reason has not quite deserted me, so I still have some sense
and memory, since I guessed it of myself,” he thought triumphantly,
with a deep sigh of relief; “it’s simply the weakness of fever, a moment’s
delirium,” and he tore the whole lining out of the left pocket of his
trousers. At that instant the sunlight fell on his left boot; on the sock
which poked out from the boot, he fancied there were traces! He lung
off his boots; “traces indeed! The tip of the sock was soaked with
blood;” he must have unwarily stepped into that pool.... “But what am I
to do with this now? Where am I to put the sock and rags and pocket?”
He gathered them all up in his hands and stood in the middle of the
room.
 “In the stove? But they would ransack the stove irst of all. Burn
them? But what can I burn them with? There are no matches even. No,
better go out and throw it all away somewhere. Yes, better throw it
away,” he repeated, sitting down on the sofa again, “and at once, this
minute, without lingering...”
But his head sank on the pillow instead. Again the unbearable icy
shivering came over him; again he drew his coat over him.
And for a long while, for some hours, he was haunted by the impulse
to “go off somewhere at once, this moment, and ling it all away, so that
it may be out of sight and done with, at once, at once!” Several times he
tried to rise from the sofa, but could not.
He was thoroughly waked up at last by a violent knocking at his door.
“Open, do, are you dead or alive? He keeps sleeping here!” shouted
Nastasya, banging with her ist on the door. “For whole days together
he’s snoring here like a dog! A dog he is too. Open I tell you. It’s past
ten.”
“Maybe he’s not at home,” said a man’s voice.
“Ha! that’s the porter’s voice.... What does he want?”
He jumped up and sat on the sofa. The beating of his heart was a
positive pain.
“Then who can have latched the door?” retorted Nastasya. “He’s
taken to bolting himself in! As if he were worth stealing! Open, you
stupid, wake up!”
“What do they want? Why the porter? All’s discovered. Resist or
open? Come what may!...”
He half rose, stooped forward and unlatched the door.
His room was so small that he could undo the latch without leaving
the bed. Yes; the porter and Nastasya were standing there.
Nastasya stared at him in a strange way. He glanced with a de iant
and desperate air at the porter, who without a word held out a grey
folded paper sealed with bottle-wax.
“A notice from the of ice,” he announced, as he gave him the paper.
“From what of ice?”
“A summons to the police of ice, of course. You know which of ice.”
 “To the police?... What for?...”
“How can I tell? You’re sent for, so you go.”
The man looked at him attentively, looked round the room and
turned to go away.
“He’s downright ill!” observed Nastasya, not taking her eyes off him.
The porter turned his head for a moment. “He’s been in a fever since
yesterday,” she added.
Raskolnikov made no response and held the paper in his hands,
without opening it. “Don’t you get up then,” Nastasya went on
compassionately, seeing that he was letting his feet down from the sofa.
“You’re ill, and so don’t go; there’s no such hurry. What have you got
there?”
He looked; in his right hand he held the shreds he had cut from his
trousers, the sock, and the rags of the pocket. So he had been asleep
with them in his hand. Afterwards re lecting upon it, he remembered
that half waking up in his fever, he had grasped all this tightly in his
hand and so fallen asleep again.
“Look at the rags he’s collected and sleeps with them, as though he
has got hold of a treasure...”
And Nastasya went off into her hysterical giggle.
Instantly he thrust them all under his great coat and ixed his eyes
intently upon her. Far as he was from being capable of rational
re lection at that moment, he felt that no one would behave like that
with a person who was going to be arrested. “But... the police?”
“You’d better have some tea! Yes? I’ll bring it, there’s some left.”
“No... I’m going; I’ll go at once,” he muttered, getting on to his feet.
“Why, you’ll never get downstairs!”
“Yes, I’ll go.”
“As you please.”
She followed the porter out.
At once he rushed to the light to examine the sock and the rags.
“There are stains, but not very noticeable; all covered with dirt, and
rubbed and already discoloured. No one who had no suspicion could
distinguish anything. Nastasya from a distance could not have noticed,
thank God!” Then with a tremor he broke the seal of the notice and
began reading; he was a long while reading, before he understood. It
was an ordinary summons from the district police-station to appear
that day at half-past nine at the of ice of the district superintendent.
“But when has such a thing happened? I never have anything to do
with the police! And why just to-day?” he thought in agonising
bewilderment. “Good God, only get it over soon!”
He was linging himself on his knees to pray, but broke into laughter
—not at the idea of prayer, but at himself.
He began, hurriedly dressing. “If I’m lost, I am lost, I don’t care! Shall I
put the sock on?” he suddenly wondered, “it will get dustier still and the
traces will be gone.”
But no sooner had he put it on than he pulled it off again in loathing
and horror. He pulled it off, but re lecting that he had no other socks, he
picked it up and put it on again—and again he laughed.
“That’s all conventional, that’s all relative, merely a way of looking at
it,” he thought in a lash, but only on the top surface of his mind, while
he was shuddering all over, “there, I’ve got it on! I have inished by
getting it on!”
But his laughter was quickly followed by despair.
“No, it’s too much for me...” he thought. His legs shook. “From fear,” he
muttered. His head swam and ached with fever. “It’s a trick! They want
to decoy me there and confound me over everything,” he mused, as he
went out on to the stairs—“the worst of it is I’m almost light-headed... I
may blurt out something stupid...”
On the stairs he remembered that he was leaving all the things just as
they were in the hole in the wall, “and very likely, it’s on purpose to
search when I’m out,” he thought, and stopped short. But he was
possessed by such despair, such cynicism of misery, if one may so call it,
that with a wave of his hand he went on. “Only to get it over!”
In the street the heat was insufferable again; not a drop of rain had
fallen all those days. Again dust, bricks and mortar, again the stench
from the shops and pot-houses, again the drunken men, the Finnish
pedlars and half-broken-down cabs. The sun shone straight in his eyes,
so that it hurt him to look out of them, and he felt his head going round
—as a man in a fever is apt to feel when he comes out into the street on
a bright sunny day.
When he reached the turning into the street, in an agony of
trepidation he looked down it... at the house... and at once averted his
eyes.
“If they question me, perhaps I’ll simply tell,” he thought, as he drew
near the police-station.
The police-station was about a quarter of a mile off. It had lately been
moved to new rooms on the fourth loor of a new house. He had been
once for a moment in the old of ice but long ago. Turning in at the
gateway, he saw on the right a light of stairs which a peasant was
mounting with a book in his hand. “A house-porter, no doubt; so then,
the of ice is here,” and he began ascending the stairs on the chance. He
did not want to ask questions of anyone.
“I’ll go in, fall on my knees, and confess everything...” he thought, as
he reached the fourth loor.
The staircase was steep, narrow and all sloppy with dirty water. The
kitchens of the lats opened on to the stairs and stood open almost the
whole day. So there was a fearful smell and heat. The staircase was
crowded with porters going up and down with their books under their
arms, policemen, and persons of all sorts and both sexes. The door of
the of ice, too, stood wide open. Peasants stood waiting within. There,
too, the heat was sti ling and there was a sickening smell of fresh paint
and stale oil from the newly decorated rooms.
After waiting a little, he decided to move forward into the next room.
All the rooms were small and low-pitched. A fearful impatience drew
him on and on. No one paid attention to him. In the second room some
clerks sat writing, dressed hardly better than he was, and rather a
queer-looking set. He went up to one of them.
“What is it?”
He showed the notice he had received.
“You are a student?” the man asked, glancing at the notice.
“Yes, formerly a student.”
The clerk looked at him, but without the slightest interest. He was a
particularly unkempt person with the look of a ixed idea in his eye.
 “There would be no getting anything out of him, because he has no
interest in anything,” thought Raskolnikov.
“Go in there to the head clerk,” said the clerk, pointing towards the
furthest room.
He went into that room—the fourth in order; it was a small room and
packed full of people, rather better dressed than in the outer rooms.
Among them were two ladies. One, poorly dressed in mourning, sat at
the table opposite the chief clerk, writing something at his dictation.
The other, a very stout, buxom woman with a purplish-red, blotchy face,
excessively smartly dressed with a brooch on her bosom as big as a
saucer, was standing on one side, apparently waiting for something.
Raskolnikov thrust his notice upon the head clerk. The latter glanced at
it, said: “Wait a minute,” and went on attending to the lady in mourning.
He breathed more freely. “It can’t be that!”
By degrees he began to regain con idence, he kept urging himself to
have courage and be calm.
“Some foolishness, some tri ling carelessness, and I may betray
myself! Hm... it’s a pity there’s no air here,” he added, “it’s sti ling.... It
makes one’s head dizzier than ever... and one’s mind too...”
He was conscious of a terrible inner turmoil. He was afraid of losing
his self-control; he tried to catch at something and ix his mind on it,
something quite irrelevant, but he could not succeed in this at all. Yet
the head clerk greatly interested him, he kept hoping to see through
him and guess something from his face.
He was a very young man, about two and twenty, with a dark mobile
face that looked older than his years. He was fashionably dressed and
foppish, with his hair parted in the middle, well combed and pomaded,
and wore a number of rings on his well-scrubbed ingers and a gold
chain on his waistcoat. He said a couple of words in French to a
foreigner who was in the room, and said them fairly correctly.
“Luise Ivanovna, you can sit down,” he said casually to the gaily-
dressed, purple-faced lady, who was still standing as though not
venturing to sit down, though there was a chair beside her.
“Ich danke,” said the latter, and softly, with a rustle of silk she sank
into the chair. Her light blue dress trimmed with white lace loated
about the table like an air-balloon and illed almost half the room. She
smelt of scent. But she was obviously embarrassed at illing half the
room and smelling so strongly of scent; and though her smile was
impudent as well as cringing, it betrayed evident uneasiness.
The lady in mourning had done at last, and got up. All at once, with
some noise, an of icer walked in very jauntily, with a peculiar swing of
his shoulders at each step. He tossed his cockaded cap on the table and
sat down in an easy-chair. The small lady positively skipped from her
seat on seeing him, and fell to curtsying in a sort of ecstasy; but the
of icer took not the smallest notice of her, and she did not venture to sit
down again in his presence. He was the assistant superintendent. He
had a reddish moustache that stood out horizontally on each side of his
face, and extremely small features, expressive of nothing much except a
certain insolence. He looked askance and rather indignantly at
Raskolnikov; he was so very badly dressed, and in spite of his
humiliating position, his bearing was by no means in keeping with his
clothes. Raskolnikov had unwarily ixed a very long and direct look on
him, so that he felt positively affronted.
“What do you want?” he shouted, apparently astonished that such a
ragged fellow was not annihilated by the majesty of his glance.
“I was summoned... by a notice...” Raskolnikov faltered.
“For the recovery of money due, from the student,” the head clerk
interfered hurriedly, tearing himself from his papers. “Here!” and he
lung Raskolnikov a document and pointed out the place. “Read that!”
“Money? What money?” thought Raskolnikov, “but... then... it’s
certainly not that.”
And he trembled with joy. He felt sudden intense indescribable relief.
A load was lifted from his back.
“And pray, what time were you directed to appear, sir?” shouted the
assistant superintendent, seeming for some unknown reason more and
more aggrieved. “You are told to come at nine, and now it’s twelve!”
“The notice was only brought me a quarter of an hour ago,”
Raskolnikov answered loudly over his shoulder. To his own surprise he,
too, grew suddenly angry and found a certain pleasure in it. “And it’s
enough that I have come here ill with fever.”
 “Kindly refrain from shouting!”
“I’m not shouting, I’m speaking very quietly, it’s you who are shouting
at me. I’m a student, and allow no one to shout at me.”
The assistant superintendent was so furious that for the irst minute
he could only splutter inarticulately. He leaped up from his seat.
“Be silent! You are in a government of ice. Don’t be impudent, sir!”
“You’re in a government of ice, too,” cried Raskolnikov, “and you’re
smoking a cigarette as well as shouting, so you are showing disrespect
to all of us.”
He felt an indescribable satisfaction at having said this.
The head clerk looked at him with a smile. The angry assistant
superintendent was obviously disconcerted.
“That’s not your business!” he shouted at last with unnatural
loudness. “Kindly make the declaration demanded of you. Show him.
Alexandr Grigorievitch. There is a complaint against you! You don’t pay
your debts! You’re a ine bird!”
But Raskolnikov was not listening now; he had eagerly clutched at
the paper, in haste to ind an explanation. He read it once, and a second
time, and still did not understand.
“What is this?” he asked the head clerk.
“It is for the recovery of money on an I O U, a writ. You must either
pay it, with all expenses, costs and so on, or give a written declaration
when you can pay it, and at the same time an undertaking not to leave
the capital without payment, and nor to sell or conceal your property.
The creditor is at liberty to sell your property, and proceed against you
according to the law.”
“But I... am not in debt to anyone!”
“That’s not our business. Here, an I O U for a hundred and ifteen
roubles, legally attested, and due for payment, has been brought us for
recovery, given by you to the widow of the assessor Zarnitsyn, nine
months ago, and paid over by the widow Zarnitsyn to one Mr.
Tchebarov. We therefore summon you, hereupon.”
“But she is my landlady!”
“And what if she is your landlady?”
 The head clerk looked at him with a condescending smile of
compassion, and at the same time with a certain triumph, as at a novice
under ire for the irst time—as though he would say: “Well, how do you
feel now?” But what did he care now for an I O U, for a writ of recovery!
Was that worth worrying about now, was it worth attention even! He
stood, he read, he listened, he answered, he even asked questions
himself, but all mechanically. The triumphant sense of security, of
deliverance from overwhelming danger, that was what illed his whole
soul that moment without thought for the future, without analysis,
without suppositions or surmises, without doubts and without
questioning. It was an instant of full, direct, purely instinctive joy. But at
that very moment something like a thunderstorm took place in the
of ice. The assistant superintendent, still shaken by Raskolnikov’s
disrespect, still fuming and obviously anxious to keep up his wounded
dignity, pounced on the unfortunate smart lady, who had been gazing at
him ever since he came in with an exceedingly silly smile.
“You shameful hussy!” he shouted suddenly at the top of his voice.
(The lady in mourning had left the of ice.) “What was going on at your
house last night? Eh! A disgrace again, you’re a scandal to the whole
street. Fighting and drinking again. Do you want the house of
correction? Why, I have warned you ten times over that I would not let
you off the eleventh! And here you are again, again, you... you...!”
The paper fell out of Raskolnikov’s hands, and he looked wildly at the
smart lady who was so unceremoniously treated. But he soon saw what
it meant, and at once began to ind positive amusement in the scandal.
He listened with pleasure, so that he longed to laugh and laugh... all his
nerves were on edge.
“Ilya Petrovitch!” the head clerk was beginning anxiously, but
stopped short, for he knew from experience that the enraged assistant
could not be stopped except by force.
As for the smart lady, at irst she positively trembled before the
storm. But, strange to say, the more numerous and violent the terms of
abuse became, the more amiable she looked, and the more seductive
the smiles she lavished on the terrible assistant. She moved uneasily,
and curtsied incessantly, waiting impatiently for a chance of putting in
her word: and at last she found it.
 “There was no sort of noise or ighting in my house, Mr. Captain,” she
pattered all at once, like peas dropping, speaking Russian con idently,
though with a strong German accent, “and no sort of scandal, and his
honour came drunk, and it’s the whole truth I am telling, Mr. Captain,
and I am not to blame.... Mine is an honourable house, Mr. Captain, and
honourable behaviour, Mr. Captain, and I always, always dislike any
scandal myself. But he came quite tipsy, and asked for three bottles
again, and then he lifted up one leg, and began playing the pianoforte
with one foot, and that is not at all right in an honourable house, and he
ganz broke the piano, and it was very bad manners indeed and I said so.
And he took up a bottle and began hitting everyone with it. And then I
called the porter, and Karl came, and he took Karl and hit him in the
eye; and he hit Henriette in the eye, too, and gave me ive slaps on the
cheek. And it was so ungentlemanly in an honourable house, Mr.
Captain, and I screamed. And he opened the window over the canal, and
stood in the window, squealing like a little pig; it was a disgrace. The
idea of squealing like a little pig at the window into the street! Fie upon
him! And Karl pulled him away from the window by his coat, and it is
true, Mr. Captain, he tore sein rock. And then he shouted that man muss
pay him ifteen roubles damages. And I did pay him, Mr. Captain, ive
roubles for sein rock. And he is an ungentlemanly visitor and caused all
the scandal. ‘I will show you up,’ he said, ‘for I can write to all the papers
about you.’”
“Then he was an author?”
“Yes, Mr. Captain, and what an ungentlemanly visitor in an
honourable house....”
“Now then! Enough! I have told you already...”
“Ilya Petrovitch!” the head clerk repeated signi icantly.
The assistant glanced rapidly at him; the head clerk slightly shook his
head.
“... So I tell you this, most respectable Luise Ivanovna, and I tell it you
for the last time,” the assistant went on. “If there is a scandal in your
honourable house once again, I will put you yourself in the lock-up, as it
is called in polite society. Do you hear? So a literary man, an author took
ive roubles for his coat-tail in an ‘honourable house’? A nice set, these
authors!”
 And he cast a contemptuous glance at Raskolnikov. “There was a
scandal the other day in a restaurant, too. An author had eaten his
dinner and would not pay; ‘I’ll write a satire on you,’ says he. And there
was another of them on a steamer last week used the most disgraceful
language to the respectable family of a civil councillor, his wife and
daughter. And there was one of them turned out of a confectioner’s
shop the other day. They are like that, authors, literary men, students,
town-criers.... Pfoo! You get along! I shall look in upon you myself one
day. Then you had better be careful! Do you hear?”
With hurried deference, Luise Ivanovna fell to curtsying in all
directions, and so curtsied herself to the door. But at the door, she
stumbled backwards against a good-looking of icer with a fresh, open
face and splendid thick fair whiskers. This was the superintendent of
the district himself, Nikodim Fomitch. Luise Ivanovna made haste to
curtsy almost to the ground, and with mincing little steps, she luttered
out of the of ice.
“Again thunder and lightning—a hurricane!” said Nikodim Fomitch to
Ilya Petrovitch in a civil and friendly tone. “You are aroused again, you
are fuming again! I heard it on the stairs!”
“Well, what then!” Ilya Petrovitch drawled with gentlemanly
nonchalance; and he walked with some papers to another table, with a
jaunty swing of his shoulders at each step. “Here, if you will kindly look:
an author, or a student, has been one at least, does not pay his debts,
has given an I O U, won’t clear out of his room, and complaints are
constantly being lodged against him, and here he has been pleased to
make a protest against my smoking in his presence! He behaves like a
cad himself, and just look at him, please. Here’s the gentleman, and very
attractive he is!”
“Poverty is not a vice, my friend, but we know you go off like powder,
you can’t bear a slight, I daresay you took offence at something and
went too far yourself,” continued Nikodim Fomitch, turning affably to
Raskolnikov. “But you were wrong there; he is a capital fellow, I assure
you, but explosive, explosive! He gets hot, ires up, boils over, and no
stopping him! And then it’s all over! And at the bottom he’s a heart of
gold! His nickname in the regiment was the Explosive Lieutenant....”
 “And what a regiment it was, too,” cried Ilya Petrovitch, much
grati ied at this agreeable banter, though still sulky.
Raskolnikov had a sudden desire to say something exceptionally
pleasant to them all. “Excuse me, Captain,” he began easily, suddenly
addressing Nikodim Fomitch, “will you enter into my position?... I am
ready to ask pardon, if I have been ill-mannered. I am a poor student,
sick and shattered (shattered was the word he used) by poverty. I am
not studying, because I cannot keep myself now, but I shall get money....
I have a mother and sister in the province of X. They will send it to me,
and I will pay. My landlady is a good-hearted woman, but she is so
exasperated at my having lost my lessons, and not paying her for the
last four months, that she does not even send up my dinner... and I don’t
understand this I O U at all. She is asking me to pay her on this I O U.
How am I to pay her? Judge for yourselves!...”
“But that is not our business, you know,” the head clerk was
observing.
“Yes, yes. I perfectly agree with you. But allow me to explain...”
Raskolnikov put in again, still addressing Nikodim Fomitch, but trying
his best to address Ilya Petrovitch also, though the latter persistently
appeared to be rummaging among his papers and to be
contemptuously oblivious of him. “Allow me to explain that I have been
living with her for nearly three years and at irst... at irst... for why
should I not confess it, at the very beginning I promised to marry her
daughter, it was a verbal promise, freely given... she was a girl... indeed, I
liked her, though I was not in love with her... a youthful affair in fact...
that is, I mean to say, that my landlady gave me credit freely in those
days, and I led a life of... I was very heedless...”
“Nobody asks you for these personal details, sir, we’ve no time to
waste,” Ilya Petrovitch interposed roughly and with a note of triumph;
but Raskolnikov stopped him hotly, though he suddenly found it
exceedingly dif icult to speak.
“But excuse me, excuse me. It is for me to explain... how it all
happened... In my turn... though I agree with you... it is unnecessary. But
a year ago, the girl died of typhus. I remained lodging there as before,
and when my landlady moved into her present quarters, she said to
me... and in a friendly way... that she had complete trust in me, but still,
would I not give her an I O U for one hundred and ifteen roubles, all the
debt I owed her. She said if only I gave her that, she would trust me
again, as much as I liked, and that she would never, never—those were
her own words—make use of that I O U till I could pay of myself... and
now, when I have lost my lessons and have nothing to eat, she takes
action against me. What am I to say to that?”
“All these affecting details are no business of ours.” Ilya Petrovitch
interrupted rudely. “You must give a written undertaking but as for
your love affairs and all these tragic events, we have nothing to do with
that.”
“Come now... you are harsh,” muttered Nikodim Fomitch, sitting down
at the table and also beginning to write. He looked a little ashamed.
“Write!” said the head clerk to Raskolnikov.
“Write what?” the latter asked, gruf ly.
“I will dictate to you.”
Raskolnikov fancied that the head clerk treated him more casually
and contemptuously after his speech, but strange to say he suddenly
felt completely indifferent to anyone’s opinion, and this revulsion took
place in a lash, in one instant. If he had cared to think a little, he would
have been amazed indeed that he could have talked to them like that a
minute before, forcing his feelings upon them. And where had those
feelings come from? Now if the whole room had been illed, not with
police of icers, but with those nearest and dearest to him, he would not
have found one human word for them, so empty was his heart. A
gloomy sensation of agonising, everlasting solitude and remoteness,
took conscious form in his soul. It was not the meanness of his
sentimental effusions before Ilya Petrovitch, nor the meanness of the
latter’s triumph over him that had caused this sudden revulsion in his
heart. Oh, what had he to do now with his own baseness, with all these
petty vanities, of icers, German women, debts, police-of ices? If he had
been sentenced to be burnt at that moment, he would not have stirred,
would hardly have heard the sentence to the end. Something was
happening to him entirely new, sudden and unknown. It was not that he
understood, but he felt clearly with all the intensity of sensation that he
could never more appeal to these people in the police-of ice with
sentimental effusions like his recent outburst, or with anything
whatever; and that if they had been his own brothers and sisters and
not police-of icers, it would have been utterly out of the question to
appeal to them in any circumstance of life. He had never experienced
such a strange and awful sensation. And what was most agonising—it
was more a sensation than a conception or idea, a direct sensation, the
most agonising of all the sensations he had known in his life.
The head clerk began dictating to him the usual form of declaration,
that he could not pay, that he undertook to do so at a future date, that
he would not leave the town, nor sell his property, and so on.
“But you can’t write, you can hardly hold the pen,” observed the head
clerk, looking with curiosity at Raskolnikov. “Are you ill?”
“Yes, I am giddy. Go on!”
“That’s all. Sign it.”
The head clerk took the paper, and turned to attend to others.
Raskolnikov gave back the pen; but instead of getting up and going
away, he put his elbows on the table and pressed his head in his hands.
He felt as if a nail were being driven into his skull. A strange idea
suddenly occurred to him, to get up at once, to go up to Nikodim
Fomitch, and tell him everything that had happened yesterday, and then
to go with him to his lodgings and to show him the things in the hole in
the corner. The impulse was so strong that he got up from his seat to
carry it out. “Hadn’t I better think a minute?” lashed through his mind.
“No, better cast off the burden without thinking.” But all at once he
stood still, rooted to the spot. Nikodim Fomitch was talking eagerly
with Ilya Petrovitch, and the words reached him:
“It’s impossible, they’ll both be released. To begin with, the whole
story contradicts itself. Why should they have called the porter, if it had
been their doing? To inform against themselves? Or as a blind? No, that
would be too cunning! Besides, Pestryakov, the student, was seen at the
gate by both the porters and a woman as he went in. He was walking
with three friends, who left him only at the gate, and he asked the
porters to direct him, in the presence of the friends. Now, would he
have asked his way if he had been going with such an object? As for
Koch, he spent half an hour at the silversmith’s below, before he went
up to the old woman and he left him at exactly a quarter to eight. Now
just consider...”
 “But excuse me, how do you explain this contradiction? They state
themselves that they knocked and the door was locked; yet three
minutes later when they went up with the porter, it turned out the door
was unfastened.”
“That’s just it; the murderer must have been there and bolted himself
in; and they’d have caught him for a certainty if Koch had not been an
ass and gone to look for the porter too. He must have seized the interval
to get downstairs and slip by them somehow. Koch keeps crossing
himself and saying: ‘If I had been there, he would have jumped out and
killed me with his axe.’ He is going to have a thanksgiving service—ha,
ha!”
“And no one saw the murderer?”
“They might well not see him; the house is a regular Noah’s Ark,” said
the head clerk, who was listening.
“It’s clear, quite clear,” Nikodim Fomitch repeated warmly.
“No, it is anything but clear,” Ilya Petrovitch maintained.
Raskolnikov picked up his hat and walked towards the door, but he
did not reach it....
When he recovered consciousness, he found himself sitting in a chair,
supported by someone on the right side, while someone else was
standing on the left, holding a yellowish glass illed with yellow water,
and Nikodim Fomitch standing before him, looking intently at him. He
got up from the chair.
“What’s this? Are you ill?” Nikodim Fomitch asked, rather sharply.
“He could hardly hold his pen when he was signing,” said the head
clerk, settling back in his place, and taking up his work again.
“Have you been ill long?” cried Ilya Petrovitch from his place, where
he, too, was looking through papers. He had, of course, come to look at
the sick man when he fainted, but retired at once when he recovered.
“Since yesterday,” muttered Raskolnikov in reply.
“Did you go out yesterday?”
“Yes.”
“Though you were ill?”
“Yes.”
 “At what time?”
“About seven.”
“And where did you go, may I ask?”
“Along the street.”
“Short and clear.”
Raskolnikov, white as a handkerchief, had answered sharply, jerkily,
without dropping his black feverish eyes before Ilya Petrovitch’s stare.
“He can scarcely stand upright. And you...” Nikodim Fomitch was
beginning.
“No matter,” Ilya Petrovitch pronounced rather peculiarly.
Nikodim Fomitch would have made some further protest, but
glancing at the head clerk who was looking very hard at him, he did not
speak. There was a sudden silence. It was strange.
“Very well, then,” concluded Ilya Petrovitch, “we will not detain you.”
Raskolnikov went out. He caught the sound of eager conversation on
his departure, and above the rest rose the questioning voice of Nikodim
Fomitch. In the street, his faintness passed off completely.
“A search—there will be a search at once,” he repeated to himself,
hurrying home. “The brutes! they suspect.”
His former terror mastered him completely again.
 CHAPTER II

“And what if there has been a search already? What if I ind them in
my room?”
But here was his room. Nothing and no one in it. No one had peeped
in. Even Nastasya had not touched it. But heavens! how could he have
left all those things in the hole?
He rushed to the corner, slipped his hand under the paper, pulled the
things out and lined his pockets with them. There were eight articles in
all: two little boxes with ear-rings or something of the sort, he hardly
looked to see; then four small leather cases. There was a chain, too,
merely wrapped in newspaper and something else in newspaper, that
looked like a decoration.... He put them all in the different pockets of his
overcoat, and the remaining pocket of his trousers, trying to conceal
them as much as possible. He took the purse, too. Then he went out of
his room, leaving the door open. He walked quickly and resolutely, and
though he felt shattered, he had his senses about him. He was afraid of
pursuit, he was afraid that in another half-hour, another quarter of an
hour perhaps, instructions would be issued for his pursuit, and so at all
costs, he must hide all traces before then. He must clear everything up
while he still had some strength, some reasoning power left him....
Where was he to go?
That had long been settled: “Fling them into the canal, and all traces
hidden in the water, the thing would be at an end.” So he had decided in
the night of his delirium when several times he had had the impulse to
get up and go away, to make haste, and get rid of it all. But to get rid of
it, turned out to be a very dif icult task. He wandered along the bank of
the Ekaterininsky Canal for half an hour or more and looked several
times at the steps running down to the water, but he could not think of
carrying out his plan; either rafts stood at the steps’ edge, and women
were washing clothes on them, or boats were moored there, and people
were swarming everywhere. Moreover he could be seen and noticed
from the banks on all sides; it would look suspicious for a man to go
down on purpose, stop, and throw something into the water. And what
if the boxes were to loat instead of sinking? And of course they would.
Even as it was, everyone he met seemed to stare and look round, as if
they had nothing to do but to watch him. “Why is it, or can it be my
fancy?” he thought.
At last the thought struck him that it might be better to go to the
Neva. There were not so many people there, he would be less observed,
and it would be more convenient in every way, above all it was further
off. He wondered how he could have been wandering for a good half-
hour, worried and anxious in this dangerous past without thinking of it
before. And that half-hour he had lost over an irrational plan, simply
because he had thought of it in delirium! He had become extremely
absent and forgetful and he was aware of it. He certainly must make
haste.
He walked towards the Neva along V—— Prospect, but on the way
another idea struck him. “Why to the Neva? Would it not be better to go
somewhere far off, to the Islands again, and there hide the things in
some solitary place, in a wood or under a bush, and mark the spot
perhaps?” And though he felt incapable of clear judgment, the idea
seemed to him a sound one. But he was not destined to go there. For
coming out of V—— Prospect towards the square, he saw on the left a
passage leading between two blank walls to a courtyard. On the right
hand, the blank unwhitewashed wall of a four-storied house stretched
far into the court; on the left, a wooden hoarding ran parallel with it for
twenty paces into the court, and then turned sharply to the left. Here
was a deserted fenced-off place where rubbish of different sorts was
lying. At the end of the court, the corner of a low, smutty, stone shed,
apparently part of some workshop, peeped from behind the hoarding. It
was probably a carriage builder’s or carpenter’s shed; the whole place
from the entrance was black with coal dust. Here would be the place to
throw it, he thought. Not seeing anyone in the yard, he slipped in, and at
once saw near the gate a sink, such as is often put in yards where there
are many workmen or cab-drivers; and on the hoarding above had been
scribbled in chalk the time-honoured witticism, “Standing here strictly
forbidden.” This was all the better, for there would be nothing
suspicious about his going in. “Here I could throw it all in a heap and
get away!”
Looking round once more, with his hand already in his pocket, he
noticed against the outer wall, between the entrance and the sink, a big
unhewn stone, weighing perhaps sixty pounds. The other side of the
wall was a street. He could hear passers-by, always numerous in that
part, but he could not be seen from the entrance, unless someone came
in from the street, which might well happen indeed, so there was need
of haste.
He bent down over the stone, seized the top of it irmly in both hands,
and using all his strength turned it over. Under the stone was a small
hollow in the ground, and he immediately emptied his pocket into it.
The purse lay at the top, and yet the hollow was not illed up. Then he
seized the stone again and with one twist turned it back, so that it was
in the same position again, though it stood a very little higher. But he
scraped the earth about it and pressed it at the edges with his foot.
Nothing could be noticed.
Then he went out, and turned into the square. Again an intense,
almost unbearable joy overwhelmed him for an instant, as it had in the
police-of ice. “I have buried my tracks! And who, who can think of
looking under that stone? It has been lying there most likely ever since
the house was built, and will lie as many years more. And if it were
found, who would think of me? It is all over! No clue!” And he laughed.
Yes, he remembered that he began laughing a thin, nervous noiseless
laugh, and went on laughing all the time he was crossing the square.
But when he reached the K—— Boulevard where two days before he
had come upon that girl, his laughter suddenly ceased. Other ideas
crept into his mind. He felt all at once that it would be loathsome to
pass that seat on which after the girl was gone, he had sat and
pondered, and that it would be hateful, too, to meet that whiskered
policeman to whom he had given the twenty copecks: “Damn him!”
He walked, looking about him angrily and distractedly. All his ideas
now seemed to be circling round some single point, and he felt that
there really was such a point, and that now, now, he was left facing that
point—and for the irst time, indeed, during the last two months.
 “Damn it all!” he thought suddenly, in a it of ungovernable fury. “If it
has begun, then it has begun. Hang the new life! Good Lord, how stupid
it is!... And what lies I told to-day! How despicably I fawned upon that
wretched Ilya Petrovitch! But that is all folly! What do I care for them
all, and my fawning upon them! It is not that at all! It is not that at all!”
Suddenly he stopped; a new utterly unexpected and exceedingly
simple question perplexed and bitterly confounded him.
“If it all has really been done deliberately and not idiotically, if I really
had a certain and de inite object, how is it I did not even glance into the
purse and don’t know what I had there, for which I have undergone
these agonies, and have deliberately undertaken this base, ilthy
degrading business? And here I wanted at once to throw into the water
the purse together with all the things which I had not seen either...
how’s that?”
Yes, that was so, that was all so. Yet he had known it all before, and it
was not a new question for him, even when it was decided in the night
without hesitation and consideration, as though so it must be, as
though it could not possibly be otherwise.... Yes, he had known it all,
and understood it all; it surely had all been settled even yesterday at the
moment when he was bending over the box and pulling the jewel-cases
out of it.... Yes, so it was.
“It is because I am very ill,” he decided grimly at last, “I have been
worrying and fretting myself, and I don’t know what I am doing....
Yesterday and the day before yesterday and all this time I have been
worrying myself.... I shall get well and I shall not worry.... But what if I
don’t get well at all? Good God, how sick I am of it all!”
He walked on without resting. He had a terrible longing for some
distraction, but he did not know what to do, what to attempt. A new
overwhelming sensation was gaining more and more mastery over him
every moment; this was an immeasurable, almost physical, repulsion
for everything surrounding him, an obstinate, malignant feeling of
hatred. All who met him were loathsome to him—he loathed their
faces, their movements, their gestures. If anyone had addressed him, he
felt that he might have spat at him or bitten him....
He stopped suddenly, on coming out on the bank of the Little Neva,
near the bridge to Vassilyevsky Ostrov. “Why, he lives here, in that
house,” he thought, “why, I have not come to Razumihin of my own
accord! Here it’s the same thing over again.... Very interesting to know,
though; have I come on purpose or have I simply walked here by
chance? Never mind, I said the day before yesterday that I would go and
see him the day after; well, and so I will! Besides I really cannot go
further now.”
He went up to Razumihin’s room on the ifth loor.
The latter was at home in his garret, busily writing at the moment,
and he opened the door himself. It was four months since they had seen
each other. Razumihin was sitting in a ragged dressing-gown, with
slippers on his bare feet, unkempt, unshaven and unwashed. His face
showed surprise.
“Is it you?” he cried. He looked his comrade up and down; then after a
brief pause, he whistled. “As hard up as all that! Why, brother, you’ve cut
me out!” he added, looking at Raskolnikov’s rags. “Come sit down, you
are tired, I’ll be bound.”
And when he had sunk down on the American leather sofa, which
was in even worse condition than his own, Razumihin saw at once that
his visitor was ill.
“Why, you are seriously ill, do you know that?” He began feeling his
pulse. Raskolnikov pulled away his hand.
“Never mind,” he said, “I have come for this: I have no lessons.... I
wanted,... but I don’t really want lessons....”
“But I say! You are delirious, you know!” Razumihin observed,
watching him carefully.
“No, I am not.”
Raskolnikov got up from the sofa. As he had mounted the stairs to
Razumihin’s, he had not realised that he would be meeting his friend
face to face. Now, in a lash, he knew, that what he was least of all
disposed for at that moment was to be face to face with anyone in the
wide world. His spleen rose within him. He almost choked with rage at
himself as soon as he crossed Razumihin’s threshold.
“Good-bye,” he said abruptly, and walked to the door.
“Stop, stop! You queer ish.”
 “I don’t want to,” said the other, again pulling away his hand.
“Then why the devil have you come? Are you mad, or what? Why, this
is... almost insulting! I won’t let you go like that.”
“Well, then, I came to you because I know no one but you who could
help... to begin... because you are kinder than anyone—cleverer, I mean,
and can judge... and now I see that I want nothing. Do you hear?
Nothing at all... no one’s services... no one’s sympathy. I am by myself...
alone. Come, that’s enough. Leave me alone.”
“Stay a minute, you sweep! You are a perfect madman. As you like for
all I care. I have no lessons, do you see, and I don’t care about that, but
there’s a bookseller, Heruvimov—and he takes the place of a lesson. I
would not exchange him for ive lessons. He’s doing publishing of a
kind, and issuing natural science manuals and what a circulation they
have! The very titles are worth the money! You always maintained that I
was a fool, but by Jove, my boy, there are greater fools than I am! Now
he is setting up for being advanced, not that he has an inkling of
anything, but, of course, I encourage him. Here are two signatures of the
German text—in my opinion, the crudest charlatanism; it discusses the
question, ‘Is woman a human being?’ And, of course, triumphantly
proves that she is. Heruvimov is going to bring out this work as a
contribution to the woman question; I am translating it; he will expand
these two and a half signatures into six, we shall make up a gorgeous
title half a page long and bring it out at half a rouble. It will do! He pays
me six roubles the signature, it works out to about ifteen roubles for
the job, and I’ve had six already in advance. When we have inished this,
we are going to begin a translation about whales, and then some of the
dullest scandals out of the second part of Les Confessions we have
marked for translation; somebody has told Heruvimov, that Rousseau
was a kind of Radishchev. You may be sure I don’t contradict him, hang
him! Well, would you like to do the second signature of ‘Is woman a
human being?’ If you would, take the German and pens and paper—all
those are provided, and take three roubles; for as I have had six roubles
in advance on the whole thing, three roubles come to you for your
share. And when you have inished the signature there will be another
three roubles for you. And please don’t think I am doing you a service;
quite the contrary, as soon as you came in, I saw how you could help
me; to begin with, I am weak in spelling, and secondly, I am sometimes
utterly adrift in German, so that I make it up as I go along for the most
part. The only comfort is, that it’s bound to be a change for the better.
Though who can tell, maybe it’s sometimes for the worse. Will you take
it?”
Raskolnikov took the German sheets in silence, took the three
roubles and without a word went out. Razumihin gazed after him in
astonishment. But when Raskolnikov was in the next street, he turned
back, mounted the stairs to Razumihin’s again and laying on the table
the German article and the three roubles, went out again, still without
uttering a word.
“Are you raving, or what?” Razumihin shouted, roused to fury at last.
“What farce is this? You’ll drive me crazy too... what did you come to see
me for, damn you?”
“I don’t want... translation,” muttered Raskolnikov from the stairs.
“Then what the devil do you want?” shouted Razumihin from above.
Raskolnikov continued descending the staircase in silence.
“Hey, there! Where are you living?”
No answer.
“Well, confound you then!”
But Raskolnikov was already stepping into the street. On the
Nikolaevsky Bridge he was roused to full consciousness again by an
unpleasant incident. A coachman, after shouting at him two or three
times, gave him a violent lash on the back with his whip, for having
almost fallen under his horses’ hoofs. The lash so infuriated him that he
dashed away to the railing (for some unknown reason he had been
walking in the very middle of the bridge in the traf ic). He angrily
clenched and ground his teeth. He heard laughter, of course.
“Serves him right!”
“A pickpocket I dare say.”
“Pretending to be drunk, for sure, and getting under the wheels on
purpose; and you have to answer for him.”
“It’s a regular profession, that’s what it is.”
 But while he stood at the railing, still looking angry and bewildered
after the retreating carriage, and rubbing his back, he suddenly felt
someone thrust money into his hand. He looked. It was an elderly
woman in a kerchief and goatskin shoes, with a girl, probably her
daughter, wearing a hat, and carrying a green parasol.
“Take it, my good man, in Christ’s name.”
He took it and they passed on. It was a piece of twenty copecks. From
his dress and appearance they might well have taken him for a beggar
asking alms in the streets, and the gift of the twenty copecks he
doubtless owed to the blow, which made them feel sorry for him.
He closed his hand on the twenty copecks, walked on for ten paces,
and turned facing the Neva, looking towards the palace. The sky was
without a cloud and the water was almost bright blue, which is so rare
in the Neva. The cupola of the cathedral, which is seen at its best from
the bridge about twenty paces from the chapel, glittered in the sunlight,
and in the pure air every ornament on it could be clearly distinguished.
The pain from the lash went off, and Raskolnikov forgot about it; one
uneasy and not quite de inite idea occupied him now completely. He
stood still, and gazed long and intently into the distance; this spot was
especially familiar to him. When he was attending the university, he had
hundreds of times—generally on his way home—stood still on this
spot, gazed at this truly magni icent spectacle and almost always
marvelled at a vague and mysterious emotion it roused in him. It left
him strangely cold; this gorgeous picture was for him blank and lifeless.
He wondered every time at his sombre and enigmatic impression and,
mistrusting himself, put off inding the explanation of it. He vividly
recalled those old doubts and perplexities, and it seemed to him that it
was no mere chance that he recalled them now. It struck him as strange
and grotesque, that he should have stopped at the same spot as before,
as though he actually imagined he could think the same thoughts, be
interested in the same theories and pictures that had interested him...
so short a time ago. He felt it almost amusing, and yet it wrung his
heart. Deep down, hidden far away out of sight all that seemed to him
now—all his old past, his old thoughts, his old problems and theories,
his old impressions and that picture and himself and all, all.... He felt as
though he were lying upwards, and everything were vanishing from his
sight. Making an unconscious movement with his hand, he suddenly
became aware of the piece of money in his ist. He opened his hand,
stared at the coin, and with a sweep of his arm lung it into the water;
then he turned and went home. It seemed to him, he had cut himself off
from everyone and from everything at that moment.
Evening was coming on when he reached home, so that he must have
been walking about six hours. How and where he came back he did not
remember. Undressing, and quivering like an overdriven horse, he lay
down on the sofa, drew his greatcoat over him, and at once sank into
oblivion....
It was dusk when he was waked up by a fearful scream. Good God,
what a scream! Such unnatural sounds, such howling, wailing, grinding,
tears, blows and curses he had never heard.
He could never have imagined such brutality, such frenzy. In terror he
sat up in bed, almost swooning with agony. But the ighting, wailing and
cursing grew louder and louder. And then to his intense amazement he
caught the voice of his landlady. She was howling, shrieking and
wailing, rapidly, hurriedly, incoherently, so that he could not make out
what she was talking about; she was beseeching, no doubt, not to be
beaten, for she was being mercilessly beaten on the stairs. The voice of
her assailant was so horrible from spite and rage that it was almost a
croak; but he, too, was saying something, and just as quickly and
indistinctly, hurrying and spluttering. All at once Raskolnikov trembled;
he recognised the voice—it was the voice of Ilya Petrovitch. Ilya
Petrovitch here and beating the landlady! He is kicking her, banging her
head against the steps—that’s clear, that can be told from the sounds,
from the cries and the thuds. How is it, is the world topsy-turvy? He
could hear people running in crowds from all the storeys and all the
staircases; he heard voices, exclamations, knocking, doors banging. “But
why, why, and how could it be?” he repeated, thinking seriously that he
had gone mad. But no, he heard too distinctly! And they would come to
him then next, “for no doubt... it’s all about that... about yesterday....
Good God!” He would have fastened his door with the latch, but he
could not lift his hand... besides, it would be useless. Terror gripped his
heart like ice, tortured him and numbed him.... But at last all this uproar,
after continuing about ten minutes, began gradually to subside. The
landlady was moaning and groaning; Ilya Petrovitch was still uttering
threats and curses.... But at last he, too, seemed to be silent, and now he
could not be heard. “Can he have gone away? Good Lord!” Yes, and now
the landlady is going too, still weeping and moaning... and then her
door slammed.... Now the crowd was going from the stairs to their
rooms, exclaiming, disputing, calling to one another, raising their voices
to a shout, dropping them to a whisper. There must have been numbers
of them—almost all the inmates of the block. “But, good God, how could
it be! And why, why had he come here!”
Raskolnikov sank worn out on the sofa, but could not close his eyes.
He lay for half an hour in such anguish, such an intolerable sensation of
in inite terror as he had never experienced before. Suddenly a bright
light lashed into his room. Nastasya came in with a candle and a plate
of soup. Looking at him carefully and ascertaining that he was not
asleep, she set the candle on the table and began to lay out what she
had brought—bread, salt, a plate, a spoon.
“You’ve eaten nothing since yesterday, I warrant. You’ve been
trudging about all day, and you’re shaking with fever.”
“Nastasya... what were they beating the landlady for?”
She looked intently at him.
“Who beat the landlady?”
“Just now... half an hour ago, Ilya Petrovitch, the assistant
superintendent, on the stairs.... Why was he ill-treating her like that,
and... why was he here?”
Nastasya scrutinised him, silent and frowning, and her scrutiny
lasted a long time. He felt uneasy, even frightened at her searching eyes.
“Nastasya, why don’t you speak?” he said timidly at last in a weak
voice.
“It’s the blood,” she answered at last softly, as though speaking to
herself.
“Blood? What blood?” he muttered, growing white and turning
towards the wall.
Nastasya still looked at him without speaking.
 “Nobody has been beating the landlady,” she declared at last in a irm,
resolute voice.
He gazed at her, hardly able to breathe.
“I heard it myself.... I was not asleep... I was sitting up,” he said still
more timidly. “I listened a long while. The assistant superintendent
came.... Everyone ran out on to the stairs from all the lats.”
“No one has been here. That’s the blood crying in your ears. When
there’s no outlet for it and it gets clotted, you begin fancying things....
Will you eat something?”
He made no answer. Nastasya still stood over him, watching him.
“Give me something to drink... Nastasya.”
She went downstairs and returned with a white earthenware jug of
water. He remembered only swallowing one sip of the cold water and
spilling some on his neck. Then followed forgetfulness.
 CHAPTER III

He was not completely unconscious, however, all the time he was ill;
he was in a feverish state, sometimes delirious, sometimes half
conscious. He remembered a great deal afterwards. Sometimes it
seemed as though there were a number of people round him; they
wanted to take him away somewhere, there was a great deal of
squabbling and discussing about him. Then he would be alone in the
room; they had all gone away afraid of him, and only now and then
opened the door a crack to look at him; they threatened him, plotted
something together, laughed, and mocked at him. He remembered
Nastasya often at his bedside; he distinguished another person, too,
whom he seemed to know very well, though he could not remember
who he was, and this fretted him, even made him cry. Sometimes he
fancied he had been lying there a month; at other times it all seemed
part of the same day. But of that—of that he had no recollection, and yet
every minute he felt that he had forgotten something he ought to
remember. He worried and tormented himself trying to remember,
moaned, lew into a rage, or sank into awful, intolerable terror. Then he
struggled to get up, would have run away, but someone always
prevented him by force, and he sank back into impotence and
forgetfulness. At last he returned to complete consciousness.
It happened at ten o’clock in the morning. On ine days the sun shone
into the room at that hour, throwing a streak of light on the right wall
and the corner near the door. Nastasya was standing beside him with
another person, a complete stranger, who was looking at him very
inquisitively. He was a young man with a beard, wearing a full, short-
waisted coat, and looked like a messenger. The landlady was peeping in
at the half-opened door. Raskolnikov sat up.
“Who is this, Nastasya?” he asked, pointing to the young man.
“I say, he’s himself again!” she said.
 “He is himself,” echoed the man.
Concluding that he had returned to his senses, the landlady closed
the door and disappeared. She was always shy and dreaded
conversations or discussions. She was a woman of forty, not at all bad-
looking, fat and buxom, with black eyes and eyebrows, good-natured
from fatness and laziness, and absurdly bashful.
“Who... are you?” he went on, addressing the man. But at that
moment the door was lung open, and, stooping a little, as he was so
tall, Razumihin came in.
“What a cabin it is!” he cried. “I am always knocking my head. You call
this a lodging! So you are conscious, brother? I’ve just heard the news
from Pashenka.”
“He has just come to,” said Nastasya.
“Just come to,” echoed the man again, with a smile.
“And who are you?” Razumihin asked, suddenly addressing him. “My
name is Vrazumihin, at your service; not Razumihin, as I am always
called, but Vrazumihin, a student and gentleman; and he is my friend.
And who are you?”
“I am the messenger from our of ice, from the merchant Shelopaev,
and I’ve come on business.”
“Please sit down.” Razumihin seated himself on the other side of the
table. “It’s a good thing you’ve come to, brother,” he went on to
Raskolnikov. “For the last four days you have scarcely eaten or drunk
anything. We had to give you tea in spoonfuls. I brought Zossimov to see
you twice. You remember Zossimov? He examined you carefully and
said at once it was nothing serious—something seemed to have gone to
your head. Some nervous nonsense, the result of bad feeding, he says
you have not had enough beer and radish, but it’s nothing much, it will
pass and you will be all right. Zossimov is a irst-rate fellow! He is
making quite a name. Come, I won’t keep you,” he said, addressing the
man again. “Will you explain what you want? You must know, Rodya,
this is the second time they have sent from the of ice; but it was another
man last time, and I talked to him. Who was it came before?”
“That was the day before yesterday, I venture to say, if you please, sir.
That was Alexey Semyonovitch; he is in our of ice, too.”
 “He was more intelligent than you, don’t you think so?”
“Yes, indeed, sir, he is of more weight than I am.”
“Quite so; go on.”
“At your mamma’s request, through Afanasy Ivanovitch Vahrushin, of
whom I presume you have heard more than once, a remittance is sent
to you from our of ice,” the man began, addressing Raskolnikov. “If you
are in an intelligible condition, I’ve thirty- ive roubles to remit to you, as
Semyon Semyonovitch has received from Afanasy Ivanovitch at your
mamma’s request instructions to that effect, as on previous occasions.
Do you know him, sir?”
“Yes, I remember... Vahrushin,” Raskolnikov said dreamily.
“You hear, he knows Vahrushin,” cried Razumihin. “He is in ‘an
intelligible condition’! And I see you are an intelligent man too. Well, it’s
always pleasant to hear words of wisdom.”
“That’s the gentleman, Vahrushin, Afanasy Ivanovitch. And at the
request of your mamma, who has sent you a remittance once before in
the same manner through him, he did not refuse this time also, and sent
instructions to Semyon Semyonovitch some days since to hand you
thirty- ive roubles in the hope of better to come.”
“That ‘hoping for better to come’ is the best thing you’ve said, though
‘your mamma’ is not bad either. Come then, what do you say? Is he fully
conscious, eh?”
“That’s all right. If only he can sign this little paper.”
“He can scrawl his name. Have you got the book?”
“Yes, here’s the book.”
“Give it to me. Here, Rodya, sit up. I’ll hold you. Take the pen and
scribble ‘Raskolnikov’ for him. For just now, brother, money is sweeter
to us than treacle.”
“I don’t want it,” said Raskolnikov, pushing away the pen.
“Not want it?”
“I won’t sign it.”
“How the devil can you do without signing it?”
“I don’t want... the money.”
 “Don’t want the money! Come, brother, that’s nonsense, I bear
witness. Don’t trouble, please, it’s only that he is on his travels again.
But that’s pretty common with him at all times though.... You are a man
of judgment and we will take him in hand, that is, more simply, take his
hand and he will sign it. Here.”
“But I can come another time.”
“No, no. Why should we trouble you? You are a man of judgment....
Now, Rodya, don’t keep your visitor, you see he is waiting,” and he made
ready to hold Raskolnikov’s hand in earnest.
“Stop, I’ll do it alone,” said the latter, taking the pen and signing his
name.
The messenger took out the money and went away.
“Bravo! And now, brother, are you hungry?”
“Yes,” answered Raskolnikov.
“Is there any soup?”
“Some of yesterday’s,” answered Nastasya, who was still standing
there.
“With potatoes and rice in it?”
“Yes.”
“I know it by heart. Bring soup and give us some tea.”
“Very well.”
Raskolnikov looked at all this with profound astonishment and a dull,
unreasoning terror. He made up his mind to keep quiet and see what
would happen. “I believe I am not wandering. I believe it’s reality,” he
thought.
In a couple of minutes Nastasya returned with the soup, and
announced that the tea would be ready directly. With the soup she
brought two spoons, two plates, salt, pepper, mustard for the beef, and
so on. The table was set as it had not been for a long time. The cloth was
clean.
“It would not be amiss, Nastasya, if Praskovya Pavlovna were to send
us up a couple of bottles of beer. We could empty them.”
“Well, you are a cool hand,” muttered Nastasya, and she departed to
carry out his orders.
 Raskolnikov still gazed wildly with strained attention. Meanwhile
Razumihin sat down on the sofa beside him, as clumsily as a bear put
his left arm round Raskolnikov’s head, although he was able to sit up,
and with his right hand gave him a spoonful of soup, blowing on it that
it might not burn him. But the soup was only just warm. Raskolnikov
swallowed one spoonful greedily, then a second, then a third. But after
giving him a few more spoonfuls of soup, Razumihin suddenly stopped,
and said that he must ask Zossimov whether he ought to have more.
Nastasya came in with two bottles of beer.
“And will you have tea?”
“Yes.”
“Cut along, Nastasya, and bring some tea, for tea we may venture on
without the faculty. But here is the beer!” He moved back to his chair,
pulled the soup and meat in front of him, and began eating as though he
had not touched food for three days.
“I must tell you, Rodya, I dine like this here every day now,” he
mumbled with his mouth full of beef, “and it’s all Pashenka, your dear
little landlady, who sees to that; she loves to do anything for me. I don’t
ask for it, but, of course, I don’t object. And here’s Nastasya with the tea.
She is a quick girl. Nastasya, my dear, won’t you have some beer?”
“Get along with your nonsense!”
“A cup of tea, then?”
“A cup of tea, maybe.”
“Pour it out. Stay, I’ll pour it out myself. Sit down.”
He poured out two cups, left his dinner, and sat on the sofa again. As
before, he put his left arm round the sick man’s head, raised him up and
gave him tea in spoonfuls, again blowing each spoonful steadily and
earnestly, as though this process was the principal and most effective
means towards his friend’s recovery. Raskolnikov said nothing and
made no resistance, though he felt quite strong enough to sit up on the
sofa without support and could not merely have held a cup or a spoon,
but even perhaps could have walked about. But from some queer,
almost animal, cunning he conceived the idea of hiding his strength and
lying low for a time, pretending if necessary not to be yet in full
possession of his faculties, and meanwhile listening to ind out what
was going on. Yet he could not overcome his sense of repugnance. After
sipping a dozen spoonfuls of tea, he suddenly released his head, pushed
the spoon away capriciously, and sank back on the pillow. There were
actually real pillows under his head now, down pillows in clean cases,
he observed that, too, and took note of it.
“Pashenka must give us some raspberry jam to-day to make him
some raspberry tea,” said Razumihin, going back to his chair and
attacking his soup and beer again.
“And where is she to get raspberries for you?” asked Nastasya,
balancing a saucer on her ive outspread ingers and sipping tea
through a lump of sugar.
“She’ll get it at the shop, my dear. You see, Rodya, all sorts of things
have been happening while you have been laid up. When you decamped
in that rascally way without leaving your address, I felt so angry that I
resolved to ind you out and punish you. I set to work that very day.
How I ran about making inquiries for you! This lodging of yours I had
forgotten, though I never remembered it, indeed, because I did not
know it; and as for your old lodgings, I could only remember it was at
the Five Corners, Harlamov’s house. I kept trying to ind that
Harlamov’s house, and afterwards it turned out that it was not
Harlamov’s, but Buch’s. How one muddles up sound sometimes! So I
lost my temper, and I went on the chance to the address bureau next
day, and only fancy, in two minutes they looked you up! Your name is
down there.”
“My name!”
“I should think so; and yet a General Kobelev they could not ind
while I was there. Well, it’s a long story. But as soon as I did land on this
place, I soon got to know all your affairs—all, all, brother, I know
everything; Nastasya here will tell you. I made the acquaintance of
Nikodim Fomitch and Ilya Petrovitch, and the house-porter and Mr.
Zametov, Alexandr Grigorievitch, the head clerk in the police of ice, and,
last, but not least, of Pashenka; Nastasya here knows....”
“He’s got round her,” Nastasya murmured, smiling slyly.
“Why don’t you put the sugar in your tea, Nastasya Nikiforovna?”
 “You are a one!” Nastasya cried suddenly, going off into a giggle. “I am
not Nikiforovna, but Petrovna,” she added suddenly, recovering from
her mirth.
“I’ll make a note of it. Well, brother, to make a long story short, I was
going in for a regular explosion here to uproot all malignant in luences
in the locality, but Pashenka won the day. I had not expected, brother, to
ind her so... prepossessing. Eh, what do you think?”
Raskolnikov did not speak, but he still kept his eyes ixed upon him,
full of alarm.
“And all that could be wished, indeed, in every respect,” Razumihin
went on, not at all embarrassed by his silence.
“Ah, the sly dog!” Nastasya shrieked again. This conversation afforded
her unspeakable delight.
“It’s a pity, brother, that you did not set to work in the right way at
irst. You ought to have approached her differently. She is, so to speak, a
most unaccountable character. But we will talk about her character
later.... How could you let things come to such a pass that she gave up
sending you your dinner? And that I O U? You must have been mad to
sign an I O U. And that promise of marriage when her daughter, Natalya
Yegorovna, was alive?... I know all about it! But I see that’s a delicate
matter and I am an ass; forgive me. But, talking of foolishness, do you
know Praskovya Pavlovna is not nearly so foolish as you would think at
irst sight?”
“No,” mumbled Raskolnikov, looking away, but feeling that it was
better to keep up the conversation.
“She isn’t, is she?” cried Razumihin, delighted to get an answer out of
him. “But she is not very clever either, eh? She is essentially, essentially
an unaccountable character! I am sometimes quite at a loss, I assure
you.... She must be forty; she says she is thirty-six, and of course she has
every right to say so. But I swear I judge her intellectually, simply from
the metaphysical point of view; there is a sort of symbolism sprung up
between us, a sort of algebra or what not! I don’t understand it! Well,
that’s all nonsense. Only, seeing that you are not a student now and
have lost your lessons and your clothes, and that through the young
lady’s death she has no need to treat you as a relation, she suddenly
took fright; and as you hid in your den and dropped all your old
relations with her, she planned to get rid of you. And she’s been
cherishing that design a long time, but was sorry to lose the I O U, for
you assured her yourself that your mother would pay.”
“It was base of me to say that.... My mother herself is almost a
beggar... and I told a lie to keep my lodging... and be fed,” Raskolnikov
said loudly and distinctly.
“Yes, you did very sensibly. But the worst of it is that at that point Mr.
Tchebarov turns up, a business man. Pashenka would never have
thought of doing anything on her own account, she is too retiring; but
the business man is by no means retiring, and irst thing he puts the
question, ‘Is there any hope of realising the I O U?’ Answer: there is,
because he has a mother who would save her Rodya with her hundred
and twenty- ive roubles pension, if she has to starve herself; and a
sister, too, who would go into bondage for his sake. That’s what he was
building upon.... Why do you start? I know all the ins and outs of your
affairs now, my dear boy—it’s not for nothing that you were so open
with Pashenka when you were her prospective son-in-law, and I say all
this as a friend.... But I tell you what it is; an honest and sensitive man is
open; and a business man ‘listens and goes on eating’ you up. Well, then
she gave the I O U by way of payment to this Tchebarov, and without
hesitation he made a formal demand for payment. When I heard of all
this I wanted to blow him up, too, to clear my conscience, but by that
time harmony reigned between me and Pashenka, and I insisted on
stopping the whole affair, engaging that you would pay. I went security
for you, brother. Do you understand? We called Tchebarov, lung him
ten roubles and got the I O U back from him, and here I have the honour
of presenting it to you. She trusts your word now. Here, take it, you see I
have torn it.”
Razumihin put the note on the table. Raskolnikov looked at him and
turned to the wall without uttering a word. Even Razumihin felt a
twinge.
“I see, brother,” he said a moment later, “that I have been playing the
fool again. I thought I should amuse you with my chatter, and I believe I
have only made you cross.”
“Was it you I did not recognise when I was delirious?” Raskolnikov
asked, after a moment’s pause without turning his head.
 “Yes, and you lew into a rage about it, especially when I brought
Zametov one day.”
“Zametov? The head clerk? What for?” Raskolnikov turned round
quickly and ixed his eyes on Razumihin.
“What’s the matter with you?... What are you upset about? He wanted
to make your acquaintance because I talked to him a lot about you....
How could I have found out so much except from him? He is a capital
fellow, brother, irst-rate... in his own way, of course. Now we are friends
—see each other almost every day. I have moved into this part, you
know. I have only just moved. I’ve been with him to Luise Ivanovna once
or twice.... Do you remember Luise, Luise Ivanovna?
“Did I say anything in delirium?”
“I should think so! You were beside yourself.”
“What did I rave about?”
“What next? What did you rave about? What people do rave about....
Well, brother, now I must not lose time. To work.” He got up from the
table and took up his cap.
“What did I rave about?”
“How he keeps on! Are you afraid of having let out some secret? Don’t
worry yourself; you said nothing about a countess. But you said a lot
about a bulldog, and about ear-rings and chains, and about Krestovsky
Island, and some porter, and Nikodim Fomitch and Ilya Petrovitch, the
assistant superintendent. And another thing that was of special interest
to you was your own sock. You whined, ‘Give me my sock.’ Zametov
hunted all about your room for your socks, and with his own scented,
ring-bedecked ingers he gave you the rag. And only then were you
comforted, and for the next twenty-four hours you held the wretched
thing in your hand; we could not get it from you. It is most likely
somewhere under your quilt at this moment. And then you asked so
piteously for fringe for your trousers. We tried to ind out what sort of
fringe, but we could not make it out. Now to business! Here are thirty-
ive roubles; I take ten of them, and shall give you an account of them in
an hour or two. I will let Zossimov know at the same time, though he
ought to have been here long ago, for it is nearly twelve. And you,
Nastasya, look in pretty often while I am away, to see whether he wants
a drink or anything else. And I will tell Pashenka what is wanted myself.
Good-bye!”
“He calls her Pashenka! Ah, he’s a deep one!” said Nastasya as he
went out; then she opened the door and stood listening, but could not
resist running downstairs after him. She was very eager to hear what
he would say to the landlady. She was evidently quite fascinated by
Razumihin.
No sooner had she left the room than the sick man lung off the
bedclothes and leapt out of bed like a madman. With burning, twitching
impatience he had waited for them to be gone so that he might set to
work. But to what work? Now, as though to spite him, it eluded him.
“Good God, only tell me one thing: do they know of it yet or not?
What if they know it and are only pretending, mocking me while I am
laid up, and then they will come in and tell me that it’s been discovered
long ago and that they have only... What am I to do now? That’s what
I’ve forgotten, as though on purpose; forgotten it all at once, I
remembered a minute ago.”
He stood in the middle of the room and gazed in miserable
bewilderment about him; he walked to the door, opened it, listened; but
that was not what he wanted. Suddenly, as though recalling something,
he rushed to the corner where there was a hole under the paper, began
examining it, put his hand into the hole, fumbled—but that was not it.
He went to the stove, opened it and began rummaging in the ashes; the
frayed edges of his trousers and the rags cut off his pocket were lying
there just as he had thrown them. No one had looked, then! Then he
remembered the sock about which Razumihin had just been telling him.
Yes, there it lay on the sofa under the quilt, but it was so covered with
dust and grime that Zametov could not have seen anything on it.
“Bah, Zametov! The police of ice! And why am I sent for to the police
of ice? Where’s the notice? Bah! I am mixing it up; that was then. I
looked at my sock then, too, but now... now I have been ill. But what did
Zametov come for? Why did Razumihin bring him?” he muttered,
helplessly sitting on the sofa again. “What does it mean? Am I still in
delirium, or is it real? I believe it is real.... Ah, I remember; I must
escape! Make haste to escape. Yes, I must, I must escape! Yes... but
where? And where are my clothes? I’ve no boots. They’ve taken them
away! They’ve hidden them! I understand! Ah, here is my coat—they
passed that over! And here is money on the table, thank God! And
here’s the I O U... I’ll take the money and go and take another lodging.
They won’t ind me!... Yes, but the address bureau? They’ll ind me,
Razumihin will ind me. Better escape altogether... far away... to
America, and let them do their worst! And take the I O U... it would be of
use there.... What else shall I take? They think I am ill! They don’t know
that I can walk, ha-ha-ha! I could see by their eyes that they know all
about it! If only I could get downstairs! And what if they have set a
watch there—policemen! What’s this tea? Ah, and here is beer left, half
a bottle, cold!”
He snatched up the bottle, which still contained a glassful of beer, and
gulped it down with relish, as though quenching a lame in his breast.
But in another minute the beer had gone to his head, and a faint and
even pleasant shiver ran down his spine. He lay down and pulled the
quilt over him. His sick and incoherent thoughts grew more and more
disconnected, and soon a light, pleasant drowsiness came upon him.
With a sense of comfort he nestled his head into the pillow, wrapped
more closely about him the soft, wadded quilt which had replaced the
old, ragged greatcoat, sighed softly and sank into a deep, sound,
refreshing sleep.
He woke up, hearing someone come in. He opened his eyes and saw
Razumihin standing in the doorway, uncertain whether to come in or
not. Raskolnikov sat up quickly on the sofa and gazed at him, as though
trying to recall something.
“Ah, you are not asleep! Here I am! Nastasya, bring in the parcel!”
Razumihin shouted down the stairs. “You shall have the account
directly.”
“What time is it?” asked Raskolnikov, looking round uneasily.
“Yes, you had a ine sleep, brother, it’s almost evening, it will be six
o’clock directly. You have slept more than six hours.”
“Good heavens! Have I?”
“And why not? It will do you good. What’s the hurry? A tryst, is it?
We’ve all time before us. I’ve been waiting for the last three hours for
you; I’ve been up twice and found you asleep. I’ve called on Zossimov
twice; not at home, only fancy! But no matter, he will turn up. And I’ve
been out on my own business, too. You know I’ve been moving to-day,
moving with my uncle. I have an uncle living with me now. But that’s no
matter, to business. Give me the parcel, Nastasya. We will open it
directly. And how do you feel now, brother?”
“I am quite well, I am not ill. Razumihin, have you been here long?”
“I tell you I’ve been waiting for the last three hours.”
“No, before.”
“How do you mean?”
“How long have you been coming here?”
“Why I told you all about it this morning. Don’t you remember?”
Raskolnikov pondered. The morning seemed like a dream to him. He
could not remember alone, and looked inquiringly at Razumihin.
“Hm!” said the latter, “he has forgotten. I fancied then that you were
not quite yourself. Now you are better for your sleep.... You really look
much better. First-rate! Well, to business. Look here, my dear boy.”
He began untying the bundle, which evidently interested him.
“Believe me, brother, this is something specially near my heart. For
we must make a man of you. Let’s begin from the top. Do you see this
cap?” he said, taking out of the bundle a fairly good though cheap and
ordinary cap. “Let me try it on.”
“Presently, afterwards,” said Raskolnikov, waving it off pettishly.
“Come, Rodya, my boy, don’t oppose it, afterwards will be too late;
and I shan’t sleep all night, for I bought it by guess, without measure.
Just right!” he cried triumphantly, itting it on, “just your size! A proper
head-covering is the irst thing in dress and a recommendation in its
own way. Tolstyakov, a friend of mine, is always obliged to take off his
pudding basin when he goes into any public place where other people
wear their hats or caps. People think he does it from slavish politeness,
but it’s simply because he is ashamed of his bird’s nest; he is such a
boastful fellow! Look, Nastasya, here are two specimens of headgear:
this Palmerston”—he took from the corner Raskolnikov’s old, battered
hat, which for some unknown reason, he called a Palmerston—“or this
jewel! Guess the price, Rodya, what do you suppose I paid for it,
Nastasya!” he said, turning to her, seeing that Raskolnikov did not
speak.
“Twenty copecks, no more, I dare say,” answered Nastasya.
“Twenty copecks, silly!” he cried, offended. “Why, nowadays you
would cost more than that—eighty copecks! And that only because it
has been worn. And it’s bought on condition that when’s it’s worn out,
they will give you another next year. Yes, on my word! Well, now let us
pass to the United States of America, as they called them at school. I
assure you I am proud of these breeches,” and he exhibited to
Raskolnikov a pair of light, summer trousers of grey woollen material.
“No holes, no spots, and quite respectable, although a little worn; and a
waistcoat to match, quite in the fashion. And its being worn really is an
improvement, it’s softer, smoother.... You see, Rodya, to my thinking, the
great thing for getting on in the world is always to keep to the seasons;
if you don’t insist on having asparagus in January, you keep your money
in your purse; and it’s the same with this purchase. It’s summer now, so
I’ve been buying summer things—warmer materials will be wanted for
autumn, so you will have to throw these away in any case... especially as
they will be done for by then from their own lack of coherence if not
your higher standard of luxury. Come, price them! What do you say?
Two roubles twenty- ive copecks! And remember the condition: if you
wear these out, you will have another suit for nothing! They only do
business on that system at Fedyaev’s; if you’ve bought a thing once, you
are satis ied for life, for you will never go there again of your own free
will. Now for the boots. What do you say? You see that they are a bit
worn, but they’ll last a couple of months, for it’s foreign work and
foreign leather; the secretary of the English Embassy sold them last
week—he had only worn them six days, but he was very short of cash.
Price—a rouble and a half. A bargain?”
“But perhaps they won’t it,” observed Nastasya.
“Not it? Just look!” and he pulled out of his pocket Raskolnikov’s old,
broken boot, stif ly coated with dry mud. “I did not go empty-handed—
they took the size from this monster. We all did our best. And as to your
linen, your landlady has seen to that. Here, to begin with are three
shirts, hempen but with a fashionable front.... Well now then, eighty
copecks the cap, two roubles twenty- ive copecks the suit—together
three roubles ive copecks—a rouble and a half for the boots—for, you
see, they are very good—and that makes four roubles ifty- ive copecks;
ive roubles for the underclothes—they were bought in the lot—which
makes exactly nine roubles ifty- ive copecks. Forty- ive copecks change
in coppers. Will you take it? And so, Rodya, you are set up with a
complete new rig-out, for your overcoat will serve, and even has a style
of its own. That comes from getting one’s clothes from Sharmer’s! As
for your socks and other things, I leave them to you; we’ve twenty- ive
roubles left. And as for Pashenka and paying for your lodging, don’t you
worry. I tell you she’ll trust you for anything. And now, brother, let me
change your linen, for I daresay you will throw off your illness with
your shirt.”
“Let me be! I don’t want to!” Raskolnikov waved him off. He had
listened with disgust to Razumihin’s efforts to be playful about his
purchases.
“Come, brother, don’t tell me I’ve been trudging around for nothing,”
Razumihin insisted. “Nastasya, don’t be bashful, but help me—that’s it,”
and in spite of Raskolnikov’s resistance he changed his linen. The latter
sank back on the pillows and for a minute or two said nothing.
“It will be long before I get rid of them,” he thought. “What money
was all that bought with?” he asked at last, gazing at the wall.
“Money? Why, your own, what the messenger brought from
Vahrushin, your mother sent it. Have you forgotten that, too?”
“I remember now,” said Raskolnikov after a long, sullen silence.
Razumihin looked at him, frowning and uneasy.
The door opened and a tall, stout man whose appearance seemed
familiar to Raskolnikov came in.
 CHAPTER IV

Zossimov was a tall, fat man with a puffy, colourless, clean-shaven

face and straight laxen hair. He wore spectacles, and a big gold ring on
his fat inger. He was twenty-seven. He had on a light grey fashionable
loose coat, light summer trousers, and everything about him loose,
fashionable and spick and span; his linen was irreproachable, his
watch-chain was massive. In manner he was slow and, as it were,
nonchalant, and at the same time studiously free and easy; he made
efforts to conceal his self-importance, but it was apparent at every
instant. All his acquaintances found him tedious, but said he was clever
at his work.
“I’ve been to you twice to-day, brother. You see, he’s come to himself,”
cried Razumihin.
“I see, I see; and how do we feel now, eh?” said Zossimov to
Raskolnikov, watching him carefully and, sitting down at the foot of the
sofa, he settled himself as comfortably as he could.
“He is still depressed,” Razumihin went on. “We’ve just changed his
linen and he almost cried.”
“That’s very natural; you might have put it off if he did not wish it....
His pulse is irst-rate. Is your head still aching, eh?”
“I am well, I am perfectly well!” Raskolnikov declared positively and
irritably. He raised himself on the sofa and looked at them with
glittering eyes, but sank back on to the pillow at once and turned to the
wall. Zossimov watched him intently.
“Very good.... Going on all right,” he said lazily. “Has he eaten
anything?”
They told him, and asked what he might have.
“He may have anything... soup, tea... mushrooms and cucumbers, of
course, you must not give him; he’d better not have meat either, and...
but no need to tell you that!” Razumihin and he looked at each other.
“No more medicine or anything. I’ll look at him again to-morrow.
Perhaps, to-day even... but never mind...”
“To-morrow evening I shall take him for a walk,” said Razumihin. “We
are going to the Yusupov garden and then to the Palais de Cristal.”
“I would not disturb him to-morrow at all, but I don’t know... a little,
maybe... but we’ll see.”
“Ach, what a nuisance! I’ve got a house-warming party to-night; it’s
only a step from here. Couldn’t he come? He could lie on the sofa. You
are coming?” Razumihin said to Zossimov. “Don’t forget, you promised.”
“All right, only rather later. What are you going to do?”
“Oh, nothing—tea, vodka, herrings. There will be a pie... just our
friends.”
“And who?”
“All neighbours here, almost all new friends, except my old uncle, and
he is new too—he only arrived in Petersburg yesterday to see to some
business of his. We meet once in ive years.”
“What is he?”
“He’s been stagnating all his life as a district postmaster; gets a little
pension. He is sixty- ive—not worth talking about.... But I am fond of
him. Por iry Petrovitch, the head of the Investigation Department here...
But you know him.”
“Is he a relation of yours, too?”
“A very distant one. But why are you scowling? Because you
quarrelled once, won’t you come then?”
“I don’t care a damn for him.”
“So much the better. Well, there will be some students, a teacher, a
government clerk, a musician, an of icer and Zametov.”
“Do tell me, please, what you or he”—Zossimov nodded at
Raskolnikov—“can have in common with this Zametov?”
“Oh, you particular gentleman! Principles! You are worked by
principles, as it were by springs; you won’t venture to turn round on
your own account. If a man is a nice fellow, that’s the only principle I go
upon. Zametov is a delightful person.”
 “Though he does take bribes.”
“Well, he does! and what of it? I don’t care if he does take bribes,”
Razumihin cried with unnatural irritability. “I don’t praise him for
taking bribes. I only say he is a nice man in his own way! But if one
looks at men in all ways—are there many good ones left? Why, I am
sure I shouldn’t be worth a baked onion myself... perhaps with you
thrown in.”
“That’s too little; I’d give two for you.”
“And I wouldn’t give more than one for you. No more of your jokes!
Zametov is no more than a boy. I can pull his hair and one must draw
him not repel him. You’ll never improve a man by repelling him,
especially a boy. One has to be twice as careful with a boy. Oh, you
progressive dullards! You don’t understand. You harm yourselves
running another man down.... But if you want to know, we really have
something in common.”
“I should like to know what.”
“Why, it’s all about a house-painter.... We are getting him out of a
mess! Though indeed there’s nothing to fear now. The matter is
absolutely self-evident. We only put on steam.”
“A painter?”
“Why, haven’t I told you about it? I only told you the beginning then
about the murder of the old pawnbroker-woman. Well, the painter is
mixed up in it...”
“Oh, I heard about that murder before and was rather interested in
it... partly... for one reason.... I read about it in the papers, too....”
“Lizaveta was murdered, too,” Nastasya blurted out, suddenly
addressing Raskolnikov. She remained in the room all the time,
standing by the door listening.
“Lizaveta,” murmured Raskolnikov hardly audibly.
“Lizaveta, who sold old clothes. Didn’t you know her? She used to
come here. She mended a shirt for you, too.”
Raskolnikov turned to the wall where in the dirty, yellow paper he
picked out one clumsy, white lower with brown lines on it and began
examining how many petals there were in it, how many scallops in the
petals and how many lines on them. He felt his arms and legs as lifeless
as though they had been cut off. He did not attempt to move, but stared
obstinately at the lower.
“But what about the painter?” Zossimov interrupted Nastasya’s
chatter with marked displeasure. She sighed and was silent.
“Why, he was accused of the murder,” Razumihin went on hotly.
“Was there evidence against him then?”
“Evidence, indeed! Evidence that was no evidence, and that’s what
we have to prove. It was just as they pitched on those fellows, Koch and
Pestryakov, at irst. Foo! how stupidly it’s all done, it makes one sick,
though it’s not one’s business! Pestryakov may be coming to-night.... By
the way, Rodya, you’ve heard about the business already; it happened
before you were ill, the day before you fainted at the police of ice while
they were talking about it.”
Zossimov looked curiously at Raskolnikov. He did not stir.
“But I say, Razumihin, I wonder at you. What a busybody you are!”
Zossimov observed.
“Maybe I am, but we will get him off anyway,” shouted Razumihin,
bringing his ist down on the table. “What’s the most offensive is not
their lying—one can always forgive lying—lying is a delightful thing, for
it leads to truth—what is offensive is that they lie and worship their
own lying.... I respect Por iry, but... What threw them out at irst? The
door was locked, and when they came back with the porter it was open.
So it followed that Koch and Pestryakov were the murderers—that was
their logic!”
“But don’t excite yourself; they simply detained them, they could not
help that.... And, by the way, I’ve met that man Koch. He used to buy
unredeemed pledges from the old woman? Eh?”
“Yes, he is a swindler. He buys up bad debts, too. He makes a
profession of it. But enough of him! Do you know what makes me
angry? It’s their sickening rotten, petri ied routine.... And this case
might be the means of introducing a new method. One can show from
the psychological data alone how to get on the track of the real man.
‘We have facts,’ they say. But facts are not everything—at least half the
business lies in how you interpret them!”
 “Can you interpret them, then?”
“Anyway, one can’t hold one’s tongue when one has a feeling, a
tangible feeling, that one might be a help if only.... Eh! Do you know the
details of the case?”
“I am waiting to hear about the painter.”
“Oh, yes! Well, here’s the story. Early on the third day after the
murder, when they were still dandling Koch and Pestryakov—though
they accounted for every step they took and it was as plain as a
pikestaff—an unexpected fact turned up. A peasant called Dushkin, who
keeps a dram-shop facing the house, brought to the police of ice a
jeweller’s case containing some gold ear-rings, and told a long
rigamarole. ‘The day before yesterday, just after eight o’clock’—mark
the day and the hour!—‘a journeyman house-painter, Nikolay, who had
been in to see me already that day, brought me this box of gold ear-
rings and stones, and asked me to give him two roubles for them. When
I asked him where he got them, he said that he picked them up in the
street. I did not ask him anything more.’ I am telling you Dushkin’s
story. ‘I gave him a note’—a rouble that is—‘for I thought if he did not
pawn it with me he would with another. It would all come to the same
thing—he’d spend it on drink, so the thing had better be with me. The
further you hide it the quicker you will ind it, and if anything turns up,
if I hear any rumours, I’ll take it to the police.’ Of course, that’s all
taradiddle; he lies like a horse, for I know this Dushkin, he is a
pawnbroker and a receiver of stolen goods, and he did not cheat
Nikolay out of a thirty-rouble trinket in order to give it to the police. He
was simply afraid. But no matter, to return to Dushkin’s story. ‘I’ve
known this peasant, Nikolay Dementyev, from a child; he comes from
the same province and district of Zaraı̈sk, we are both Ryazan men. And
though Nikolay is not a drunkard, he drinks, and I knew he had a job in
that house, painting work with Dmitri, who comes from the same
village, too. As soon as he got the rouble he changed it, had a couple of
glasses, took his change and went out. But I did not see Dmitri with him
then. And the next day I heard that someone had murdered Alyona
Ivanovna and her sister, Lizaveta Ivanovna, with an axe. I knew them,
and I felt suspicious about the ear-rings at once, for I knew the
murdered woman lent money on pledges. I went to the house, and
began to make careful inquiries without saying a word to anyone. First
of all I asked, “Is Nikolay here?” Dmitri told me that Nikolay had gone
off on the spree; he had come home at daybreak drunk, stayed in the
house about ten minutes, and went out again. Dmitri didn’t see him
again and is inishing the job alone. And their job is on the same
staircase as the murder, on the second loor. When I heard all that I did
not say a word to anyone’—that’s Dushkin’s tale—‘but I found out what
I could about the murder, and went home feeling as suspicious as ever.
And at eight o’clock this morning’—that was the third day, you
understand—‘I saw Nikolay coming in, not sober, though not to say very
drunk—he could understand what was said to him. He sat down on the
bench and did not speak. There was only one stranger in the bar and a
man I knew asleep on a bench and our two boys. “Have you seen
Dmitri?” said I. “No, I haven’t,” said he. “And you’ve not been here
either?” “Not since the day before yesterday,” said he. “And where did
you sleep last night?” “In Peski, with the Kolomensky men.” “And where
did you get those ear-rings?” I asked. “I found them in the street,” and
the way he said it was a bit queer; he did not look at me. “Did you hear
what happened that very evening, at that very hour, on that same
staircase?” said I. “No,” said he, “I had not heard,” and all the while he
was listening, his eyes were staring out of his head and he turned as
white as chalk. I told him all about it and he took his hat and began
getting up. I wanted to keep him. “Wait a bit, Nikolay,” said I, “won’t you
have a drink?” And I signed to the boy to hold the door, and I came out
from behind the bar; but he darted out and down the street to the
turning at a run. I have not seen him since. Then my doubts were at an
end—it was his doing, as clear as could be....’”
“I should think so,” said Zossimov.
“Wait! Hear the end. Of course they sought high and low for Nikolay;
they detained Dushkin and searched his house; Dmitri, too, was
arrested; the Kolomensky men also were turned inside out. And the day
before yesterday they arrested Nikolay in a tavern at the end of the
town. He had gone there, taken the silver cross off his neck and asked
for a dram for it. They gave it to him. A few minutes afterwards the
woman went to the cowshed, and through a crack in the wall she saw in
the stable adjoining he had made a noose of his sash from the beam,
stood on a block of wood, and was trying to put his neck in the noose.
The woman screeched her hardest; people ran in. ‘So that’s what you
are up to!’ ‘Take me,’ he says, ‘to such-and-such a police of icer; I’ll
confess everything.’ Well, they took him to that police station—that is
here—with a suitable escort. So they asked him this and that, how old
he is, ‘twenty-two,’ and so on. At the question, ‘When you were working
with Dmitri, didn’t you see anyone on the staircase at such-and-such a
time?’—answer: ‘To be sure folks may have gone up and down, but I did
not notice them.’ ‘And didn’t you hear anything, any noise, and so on?’
‘We heard nothing special.’ ‘And did you hear, Nikolay, that on the same
day Widow So-and-so and her sister were murdered and robbed?’ ‘I
never knew a thing about it. The irst I heard of it was from Afanasy
Pavlovitch the day before yesterday.’ ‘And where did you ind the ear-
rings?’ ‘I found them on the pavement.’ ‘Why didn’t you go to work with
Dmitri the other day?’ ‘Because I was drinking.’ ‘And where were you
drinking?’ ‘Oh, in such-and-such a place.’ ‘Why did you run away from
Dushkin’s?’ ‘Because I was awfully frightened.’ ‘What were you
frightened of?’ ‘That I should be accused.’ ‘How could you be frightened,
if you felt free from guilt?’ Now, Zossimov, you may not believe me, that
question was put literally in those words. I know it for a fact, it was
repeated to me exactly! What do you say to that?”
“Well, anyway, there’s the evidence.”
“I am not talking of the evidence now, I am talking about that
question, of their own idea of themselves. Well, so they squeezed and
squeezed him and he confessed: ‘I did not ind it in the street, but in the
lat where I was painting with Dmitri.’ ‘And how was that?’ ‘Why, Dmitri
and I were painting there all day, and we were just getting ready to go,
and Dmitri took a brush and painted my face, and he ran off and I after
him. I ran after him, shouting my hardest, and at the bottom of the
stairs I ran right against the porter and some gentlemen—and how
many gentlemen were there I don’t remember. And the porter swore at
me, and the other porter swore, too, and the porter’s wife came out, and
swore at us, too; and a gentleman came into the entry with a lady, and
he swore at us, too, for Dmitri and I lay right across the way. I got hold
of Dmitri’s hair and knocked him down and began beating him. And
Dmitri, too, caught me by the hair and began beating me. But we did it
all not for temper but in a friendly way, for sport. And then Dmitri
escaped and ran into the street, and I ran after him; but I did not catch
him, and went back to the lat alone; I had to clear up my things. I began
putting them together, expecting Dmitri to come, and there in the
passage, in the corner by the door, I stepped on the box. I saw it lying
there wrapped up in paper. I took off the paper, saw some little hooks,
undid them, and in the box were the ear-rings....’”
“Behind the door? Lying behind the door? Behind the door?”
Raskolnikov cried suddenly, staring with a blank look of terror at
Razumihin, and he slowly sat up on the sofa, leaning on his hand.
“Yes... why? What’s the matter? What’s wrong?” Razumihin, too, got
up from his seat.
“Nothing,” Raskolnikov answered faintly, turning to the wall. All were
silent for a while.
“He must have waked from a dream,” Razumihin said at last, looking
inquiringly at Zossimov. The latter slightly shook his head.
“Well, go on,” said Zossimov. “What next?”
“What next? As soon as he saw the ear-rings, forgetting Dmitri and
everything, he took up his cap and ran to Dushkin and, as we know, got
a rouble from him. He told a lie saying he found them in the street, and
went off drinking. He keeps repeating his old story about the murder: ‘I
know nothing of it, never heard of it till the day before yesterday.’ ‘And
why didn’t you come to the police till now?’ ‘I was frightened.’ ‘And why
did you try to hang yourself?’ ‘From anxiety.’ ‘What anxiety?’ ‘That I
should be accused of it.’ Well, that’s the whole story. And now what do
you suppose they deduced from that?”
“Why, there’s no supposing. There’s a clue, such as it is, a fact. You
wouldn’t have your painter set free?”
“Now they’ve simply taken him for the murderer. They haven’t a
shadow of doubt.”
“That’s nonsense. You are excited. But what about the ear-rings? You
must admit that, if on the very same day and hour ear-rings from the
old woman’s box have come into Nikolay’s hands, they must have come
there somehow. That’s a good deal in such a case.”
“How did they get there? How did they get there?” cried Razumihin.
“How can you, a doctor, whose duty it is to study man and who has
more opportunity than anyone else for studying human nature—how
can you fail to see the character of the man in the whole story? Don’t
you see at once that the answers he has given in the examination are
the holy truth? They came into his hand precisely as he has told us—he
stepped on the box and picked it up.”
“The holy truth! But didn’t he own himself that he told a lie at irst?”
“Listen to me, listen attentively. The porter and Koch and Pestryakov
and the other porter and the wife of the irst porter and the woman
who was sitting in the porter’s lodge and the man Kryukov, who had
just got out of a cab at that minute and went in at the entry with a lady
on his arm, that is eight or ten witnesses, agree that Nikolay had Dmitri
on the ground, was lying on him beating him, while Dmitri hung on to
his hair, beating him, too. They lay right across the way, blocking the
thoroughfare. They were sworn at on all sides while they ‘like children’
(the very words of the witnesses) were falling over one another,
squealing, ighting and laughing with the funniest faces, and, chasing
one another like children, they ran into the street. Now take careful
note. The bodies upstairs were warm, you understand, warm when they
found them! If they, or Nikolay alone, had murdered them and broken
open the boxes, or simply taken part in the robbery, allow me to ask you
one question: do their state of mind, their squeals and giggles and
childish scuf ling at the gate it in with axes, bloodshed, iendish
cunning, robbery? They’d just killed them, not ive or ten minutes
before, for the bodies were still warm, and at once, leaving the lat open,
knowing that people would go there at once, linging away their booty,
they rolled about like children, laughing and attracting general
attention. And there are a dozen witnesses to swear to that!”
“Of course it is strange! It’s impossible, indeed, but...”
“No, brother, no buts. And if the ear-rings being found in Nikolay’s
hands at the very day and hour of the murder constitutes an important
piece of circumstantial evidence against him—although the explanation
given by him accounts for it, and therefore it does not tell seriously
against him—one must take into consideration the facts which prove
him innocent, especially as they are facts that cannot be denied. And do
you suppose, from the character of our legal system, that they will
accept, or that they are in a position to accept, this fact—resting simply
on a psychological impossibility—as irrefutable and conclusively
breaking down the circumstantial evidence for the prosecution? No,
they won’t accept it, they certainly won’t, because they found the jewel-
case and the man tried to hang himself, ‘which he could not have done if
he hadn’t felt guilty.’ That’s the point, that’s what excites me, you must
understand!”
“Oh, I see you are excited! Wait a bit. I forgot to ask you; what proof is
there that the box came from the old woman?”
“That’s been proved,” said Razumihin with apparent reluctance,
frowning. “Koch recognised the jewel-case and gave the name of the
owner, who proved conclusively that it was his.”
“That’s bad. Now another point. Did anyone see Nikolay at the time
that Koch and Pestryakov were going upstairs at irst, and is there no
evidence about that?”
“Nobody did see him,” Razumihin answered with vexation. “That’s
the worst of it. Even Koch and Pestryakov did not notice them on their
way upstairs, though, indeed, their evidence could not have been worth
much. They said they saw the lat was open, and that there must be
work going on in it, but they took no special notice and could not
remember whether there actually were men at work in it.”
“Hm!... So the only evidence for the defence is that they were beating
one another and laughing. That constitutes a strong presumption, but...
How do you explain the facts yourself?”
“How do I explain them? What is there to explain? It’s clear. At any
rate, the direction in which explanation is to be sought is clear, and the
jewel-case points to it. The real murderer dropped those ear-rings. The
murderer was upstairs, locked in, when Koch and Pestryakov knocked
at the door. Koch, like an ass, did not stay at the door; so the murderer
popped out and ran down, too; for he had no other way of escape. He
hid from Koch, Pestryakov and the porter in the lat when Nikolay and
Dmitri had just run out of it. He stopped there while the porter and
others were going upstairs, waited till they were out of hearing, and
then went calmly downstairs at the very minute when Dmitri and
Nikolay ran out into the street and there was no one in the entry;
possibly he was seen, but not noticed. There are lots of people going in
and out. He must have dropped the ear-rings out of his pocket when he
stood behind the door, and did not notice he dropped them, because he
had other things to think of. The jewel-case is a conclusive proof that he
did stand there.... That’s how I explain it.”
“Too clever! No, my boy, you’re too clever. That beats everything.”
“But, why, why?”
“Why, because everything its too well... it’s too melodramatic.”
“A-ach!” Razumihin was exclaiming, but at that moment the door
opened and a personage came in who was a stranger to all present.
 CHAPTER V

This was a gentleman no longer young, of a stiff and portly

appearance, and a cautious and sour countenance. He began by
stopping short in the doorway, staring about him with offensive and
undisguised astonishment, as though asking himself what sort of place
he had come to. Mistrustfully and with an affectation of being alarmed
and almost affronted, he scanned Raskolnikov’s low and narrow
“cabin.” With the same amazement he stared at Raskolnikov, who lay
undressed, dishevelled, unwashed, on his miserable dirty sofa, looking
ixedly at him. Then with the same deliberation he scrutinised the
uncouth, unkempt igure and unshaven face of Razumihin, who looked
him boldly and inquiringly in the face without rising from his seat. A
constrained silence lasted for a couple of minutes, and then, as might be
expected, some scene-shifting took place. Re lecting, probably from
certain fairly unmistakable signs, that he would get nothing in this
“cabin” by attempting to overawe them, the gentleman softened
somewhat, and civilly, though with some severity, emphasising every
syllable of his question, addressed Zossimov:
“Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov, a student, or formerly a student?”
Zossimov made a slight movement, and would have answered, had
not Razumihin anticipated him.
“Here he is lying on the sofa! What do you want?”
This familiar “what do you want” seemed to cut the ground from the
feet of the pompous gentleman. He was turning to Razumihin, but
checked himself in time and turned to Zossimov again.
“This is Raskolnikov,” mumbled Zossimov, nodding towards him.
Then he gave a prolonged yawn, opening his mouth as wide as possible.
Then he lazily put his hand into his waistcoat-pocket, pulled out a huge
gold watch in a round hunter’s case, opened it, looked at it and as
slowly and lazily proceeded to put it back.
Raskolnikov himself lay without speaking, on his back, gazing
persistently, though without understanding, at the stranger. Now that
his face was turned away from the strange lower on the paper, it was
extremely pale and wore a look of anguish, as though he had just
undergone an agonising operation or just been taken from the rack. But
the new-comer gradually began to arouse his attention, then his
wonder, then suspicion and even alarm. When Zossimov said “This is
Raskolnikov” he jumped up quickly, sat on the sofa and with an almost
de iant, but weak and breaking, voice articulated:
“Yes, I am Raskolnikov! What do you want?”
The visitor scrutinised him and pronounced impressively:
“Pyotr Petrovitch Luzhin. I believe I have reason to hope that my
name is not wholly unknown to you?”
But Raskolnikov, who had expected something quite different, gazed
blankly and dreamily at him, making no reply, as though he heard the
name of Pyotr Petrovitch for the irst time.
“Is it possible that you can up to the present have received no
information?” asked Pyotr Petrovitch, somewhat disconcerted.
In reply Raskolnikov sank languidly back on the pillow, put his hands
behind his head and gazed at the ceiling. A look of dismay came into
Luzhin’s face. Zossimov and Razumihin stared at him more inquisitively
than ever, and at last he showed unmistakable signs of embarrassment.
“I had presumed and calculated,” he faltered, “that a letter posted
more than ten days, if not a fortnight ago...”
“I say, why are you standing in the doorway?” Razumihin interrupted
suddenly. “If you’ve something to say, sit down. Nastasya and you are so
crowded. Nastasya, make room. Here’s a chair, thread your way in!”
He moved his chair back from the table, made a little space between
the table and his knees, and waited in a rather cramped position for the
visitor to “thread his way in.” The minute was so chosen that it was
impossible to refuse, and the visitor squeezed his way through,
hurrying and stumbling. Reaching the chair, he sat down, looking
suspiciously at Razumihin.
 “No need to be nervous,” the latter blurted out. “Rodya has been ill for
the last ive days and delirious for three, but now he is recovering and
has got an appetite. This is his doctor, who has just had a look at him. I
am a comrade of Rodya’s, like him, formerly a student, and now I am
nursing him; so don’t you take any notice of us, but go on with your
business.”
“Thank you. But shall I not disturb the invalid by my presence and
conversation?” Pyotr Petrovitch asked of Zossimov.
“N-no,” mumbled Zossimov; “you may amuse him.” He yawned again.
“He has been conscious a long time, since the morning,” went on
Razumihin, whose familiarity seemed so much like unaffected good-
nature that Pyotr Petrovitch began to be more cheerful, partly, perhaps,
because this shabby and impudent person had introduced himself as a
student.
“Your mamma,” began Luzhin.
“Hm!” Razumihin cleared his throat loudly. Luzhin looked at him
inquiringly.
“That’s all right, go on.”
Luzhin shrugged his shoulders.
“Your mamma had commenced a letter to you while I was sojourning
in her neighbourhood. On my arrival here I purposely allowed a few
days to elapse before coming to see you, in order that I might be fully
assured that you were in full possession of the tidings; but now, to my
astonishment...”
“I know, I know!” Raskolnikov cried suddenly with impatient
vexation. “So you are the iancé? I know, and that’s enough!”
There was no doubt about Pyotr Petrovitch’s being offended this
time, but he said nothing. He made a violent effort to understand what
it all meant. There was a moment’s silence.
Meanwhile Raskolnikov, who had turned a little towards him when
he answered, began suddenly staring at him again with marked
curiosity, as though he had not had a good look at him yet, or as though
something new had struck him; he rose from his pillow on purpose to
stare at him. There certainly was something peculiar in Pyotr
Petrovitch’s whole appearance, something which seemed to justify the
title of “ iancé ” so unceremoniously applied to him. In the irst place, it
was evident, far too much so indeed, that Pyotr Petrovitch had made
eager use of his few days in the capital to get himself up and rig himself
out in expectation of his betrothed—a perfectly innocent and
permissible proceeding, indeed. Even his own, perhaps too complacent,
consciousness of the agreeable improvement in his appearance might
have been forgiven in such circumstances, seeing that Pyotr Petrovitch
had taken up the rô le of iancé . All his clothes were fresh from the
tailor’s and were all right, except for being too new and too distinctly
appropriate. Even the stylish new round hat had the same signi icance.
Pyotr Petrovitch treated it too respectfully and held it too carefully in
his hands. The exquisite pair of lavender gloves, real Louvain, told the
same tale, if only from the fact of his not wearing them, but carrying
them in his hand for show. Light and youthful colours predominated in
Pyotr Petrovitch’s attire. He wore a charming summer jacket of a fawn
shade, light thin trousers, a waistcoat of the same, new and ine linen, a
cravat of the lightest cambric with pink stripes on it, and the best of it
was, this all suited Pyotr Petrovitch. His very fresh and even handsome
face looked younger than his forty- ive years at all times. His dark,
mutton-chop whiskers made an agreeable setting on both sides,
growing thickly upon his shining, clean-shaven chin. Even his hair,
touched here and there with grey, though it had been combed and
curled at a hairdresser’s, did not give him a stupid appearance, as
curled hair usually does, by inevitably suggesting a German on his
wedding-day. If there really was something unpleasing and repulsive in
his rather good-looking and imposing countenance, it was due to quite
other causes. After scanning Mr. Luzhin unceremoniously, Raskolnikov
smiled malignantly, sank back on the pillow and stared at the ceiling as
before.
But Mr. Luzhin hardened his heart and seemed to determine to take
no notice of their oddities.
“I feel the greatest regret at inding you in this situation,” he began,
again breaking the silence with an effort. “If I had been aware of your
illness I should have come earlier. But you know what business is. I
have, too, a very important legal affair in the Senate, not to mention
other preoccupations which you may well conjecture. I am expecting
your mamma and sister any minute.”
 Raskolnikov made a movement and seemed about to speak; his face
showed some excitement. Pyotr Petrovitch paused, waited, but as
nothing followed, he went on:
“... Any minute. I have found a lodging for them on their arrival.”
“Where?” asked Raskolnikov weakly.
“Very near here, in Bakaleyev’s house.”
“That’s in Voskresensky,” put in Razumihin. “There are two storeys of
rooms, let by a merchant called Yushin; I’ve been there.”
“Yes, rooms...”
“A disgusting place— ilthy, stinking and, what’s more, of doubtful
character. Things have happened there, and there are all sorts of queer
people living there. And I went there about a scandalous business. It’s
cheap, though...”
“I could not, of course, ind out so much about it, for I am a stranger
in Petersburg myself,” Pyotr Petrovitch replied huf ily. “However, the
two rooms are exceedingly clean, and as it is for so short a time... I have
already taken a permanent, that is, our future lat,” he said, addressing
Raskolnikov, “and I am having it done up. And meanwhile I am myself
cramped for room in a lodging with my friend Andrey Semyonovitch
Lebeziatnikov, in the lat of Madame Lippevechsel; it was he who told
me of Bakaleyev’s house, too...”
“Lebeziatnikov?” said Raskolnikov slowly, as if recalling something.
“Yes, Andrey Semyonovitch Lebeziatnikov, a clerk in the Ministry. Do
you know him?”
“Yes... no,” Raskolnikov answered.
“Excuse me, I fancied so from your inquiry. I was once his guardian....
A very nice young man and advanced. I like to meet young people: one
learns new things from them.” Luzhin looked round hopefully at them
all.
“How do you mean?” asked Razumihin.
“In the most serious and essential matters,” Pyotr Petrovitch replied,
as though delighted at the question. “You see, it’s ten years since I
visited Petersburg. All the novelties, reforms, ideas have reached us in
the provinces, but to see it all more clearly one must be in Petersburg.
And it’s my notion that you observe and learn most by watching the
younger generation. And I confess I am delighted...”
“At what?”
“Your question is a wide one. I may be mistaken, but I fancy I ind
clearer views, more, so to say, criticism, more practicality...”
“That’s true,” Zossimov let drop.
“Nonsense! There’s no practicality.” Razumihin lew at him.
“Practicality is a dif icult thing to ind; it does not drop down from
heaven. And for the last two hundred years we have been divorced from
all practical life. Ideas, if you like, are fermenting,” he said to Pyotr
Petrovitch, “and desire for good exists, though it’s in a childish form,
and honesty you may ind, although there are crowds of brigands.
Anyway, there’s no practicality. Practicality goes well shod.”
“I don’t agree with you,” Pyotr Petrovitch replied, with evident
enjoyment. “Of course, people do get carried away and make mistakes,
but one must have indulgence; those mistakes are merely evidence of
enthusiasm for the cause and of abnormal external environment. If
little has been done, the time has been but short; of means I will not
speak. It’s my personal view, if you care to know, that something has
been accomplished already. New valuable ideas, new valuable works
are circulating in the place of our old dreamy and romantic authors.
Literature is taking a maturer form, many injurious prejudices have
been rooted up and turned into ridicule.... In a word, we have cut
ourselves off irrevocably from the past, and that, to my thinking, is a
great thing...”
“He’s learnt it by heart to show off!” Raskolnikov pronounced
suddenly.
“What?” asked Pyotr Petrovitch, not catching his words; but he
received no reply.
“That’s all true,” Zossimov hastened to interpose.
“Isn’t it so?” Pyotr Petrovitch went on, glancing affably at Zossimov.
“You must admit,” he went on, addressing Razumihin with a shade of
triumph and superciliousness—he almost added “young man”—“that
there is an advance, or, as they say now, progress in the name of science
and economic truth...”
 “A commonplace.”
“No, not a commonplace! Hitherto, for instance, if I were told, ‘love
thy neighbour,’ what came of it?” Pyotr Petrovitch went on, perhaps
with excessive haste. “It came to my tearing my coat in half to share
with my neighbour and we both were left half naked. As a Russian
proverb has it, ‘Catch several hares and you won’t catch one.’ Science
now tells us, love yourself before all men, for everything in the world
rests on self-interest. You love yourself and manage your own affairs
properly and your coat remains whole. Economic truth adds that the
better private affairs are organised in society—the more whole coats,
so to say—the irmer are its foundations and the better is the common
welfare organised too. Therefore, in acquiring wealth solely and
exclusively for myself, I am acquiring, so to speak, for all, and helping to
bring to pass my neighbour’s getting a little more than a torn coat; and
that not from private, personal liberality, but as a consequence of the
general advance. The idea is simple, but unhappily it has been a long
time reaching us, being hindered by idealism and sentimentality. And
yet it would seem to want very little wit to perceive it...”
“Excuse me, I’ve very little wit myself,” Razumihin cut in sharply, “and
so let us drop it. I began this discussion with an object, but I’ve grown
so sick during the last three years of this chattering to amuse oneself, of
this incessant low of commonplaces, always the same, that, by Jove, I
blush even when other people talk like that. You are in a hurry, no
doubt, to exhibit your acquirements; and I don’t blame you, that’s quite
pardonable. I only wanted to ind out what sort of man you are, for so
many unscrupulous people have got hold of the progressive cause of
late and have so distorted in their own interests everything they
touched, that the whole cause has been dragged in the mire. That’s
enough!”
“Excuse me, sir,” said Luzhin, affronted, and speaking with excessive
dignity. “Do you mean to suggest so unceremoniously that I too...”
“Oh, my dear sir... how could I?... Come, that’s enough,” Razumihin
concluded, and he turned abruptly to Zossimov to continue their
previous conversation.
Pyotr Petrovitch had the good sense to accept the disavowal. He
made up his mind to take leave in another minute or two.
 “I trust our acquaintance,” he said, addressing Raskolnikov, “may,
upon your recovery and in view of the circumstances of which you are
aware, become closer... Above all, I hope for your return to health...”
Raskolnikov did not even turn his head. Pyotr Petrovitch began
getting up from his chair.
“One of her customers must have killed her,” Zossimov declared
positively.
“Not a doubt of it,” replied Razumihin. “Por iry doesn’t give his
opinion, but is examining all who have left pledges with her there.”
“Examining them?” Raskolnikov asked aloud.
“Yes. What then?”
“Nothing.”
“How does he get hold of them?” asked Zossimov.
“Koch has given the names of some of them, other names are on the
wrappers of the pledges and some have come forward of themselves.”
“It must have been a cunning and practised ruf ian! The boldness of
it! The coolness!”
“That’s just what it wasn’t!” interposed Razumihin. “That’s what
throws you all off the scent. But I maintain that he is not cunning, not
practised, and probably this was his irst crime! The supposition that it
was a calculated crime and a cunning criminal doesn’t work. Suppose
him to have been inexperienced, and it’s clear that it was only a chance
that saved him—and chance may do anything. Why, he did not foresee
obstacles, perhaps! And how did he set to work? He took jewels worth
ten or twenty roubles, stuf ing his pockets with them, ransacked the old
woman’s trunks, her rags—and they found ifteen hundred roubles,
besides notes, in a box in the top drawer of the chest! He did not know
how to rob; he could only murder. It was his irst crime, I assure you, his
irst crime; he lost his head. And he got off more by luck than good
counsel!”
“You are talking of the murder of the old pawnbroker, I believe?”
Pyotr Petrovitch put in, addressing Zossimov. He was standing, hat and
gloves in hand, but before departing he felt disposed to throw off a few
more intellectual phrases. He was evidently anxious to make a
favourable impression and his vanity overcame his prudence.
 “Yes. You’ve heard of it?”
“Oh, yes, being in the neighbourhood.”
“Do you know the details?”
“I can’t say that; but another circumstance interests me in the case—
the whole question, so to say. Not to speak of the fact that crime has
been greatly on the increase among the lower classes during the last
ive years, not to speak of the cases of robbery and arson everywhere,
what strikes me as the strangest thing is that in the higher classes, too,
crime is increasing proportionately. In one place one hears of a
student’s robbing the mail on the high road; in another place people of
good social position forge false banknotes; in Moscow of late a whole
gang has been captured who used to forge lottery tickets, and one of the
ringleaders was a lecturer in universal history; then our secretary
abroad was murdered from some obscure motive of gain.... And if this
old woman, the pawnbroker, has been murdered by someone of a
higher class in society—for peasants don’t pawn gold trinkets—how
are we to explain this demoralisation of the civilised part of our
society?”
“There are many economic changes,” put in Zossimov.
“How are we to explain it?” Razumihin caught him up. “It might be
explained by our inveterate impracticality.”
“How do you mean?”
“What answer had your lecturer in Moscow to make to the question
why he was forging notes? ‘Everybody is getting rich one way or
another, so I want to make haste to get rich too.’ I don’t remember the
exact words, but the upshot was that he wants money for nothing,
without waiting or working! We’ve grown used to having everything
ready-made, to walking on crutches, to having our food chewed for us.
Then the great hour struck,[*] and every man showed himself in his
true colours.”
[*] The emancipation of the serfs in 1861 is meant.—TRANSLATOR’S NOTE.

“But morality? And so to speak, principles...”

“But why do you worry about it?” Raskolnikov interposed suddenly.
“It’s in accordance with your theory!”
 “In accordance with my theory?”
“Why, carry out logically the theory you were advocating just now,
and it follows that people may be killed...”
“Upon my word!” cried Luzhin.
“No, that’s not so,” put in Zossimov.
Raskolnikov lay with a white face and twitching upper lip, breathing
painfully.
“There’s a measure in all things,” Luzhin went on superciliously.
“Economic ideas are not an incitement to murder, and one has but to
suppose...”
“And is it true,” Raskolnikov interposed once more suddenly, again in
a voice quivering with fury and delight in insulting him, “is it true that
you told your iancée... within an hour of her acceptance, that what
pleased you most... was that she was a beggar... because it was better to
raise a wife from poverty, so that you may have complete control over
her, and reproach her with your being her benefactor?”
“Upon my word,” Luzhin cried wrathfully and irritably, crimson with
confusion, “to distort my words in this way! Excuse me, allow me to
assure you that the report which has reached you, or rather, let me say,
has been conveyed to you, has no foundation in truth, and I... suspect
who... in a word... this arrow... in a word, your mamma... She seemed to
me in other things, with all her excellent qualities, of a somewhat high-
lown and romantic way of thinking.... But I was a thousand miles from
supposing that she would misunderstand and misrepresent things in so
fanciful a way.... And indeed... indeed...”
“I tell you what,” cried Raskolnikov, raising himself on his pillow and
ixing his piercing, glittering eyes upon him, “I tell you what.”
“What?” Luzhin stood still, waiting with a de iant and offended face.
Silence lasted for some seconds.
“Why, if ever again... you dare to mention a single word... about my
mother... I shall send you lying downstairs!”
“What’s the matter with you?” cried Razumihin.
“So that’s how it is?” Luzhin turned pale and bit his lip. “Let me tell
you, sir,” he began deliberately, doing his utmost to restrain himself but
breathing hard, “at the irst moment I saw you you were ill-disposed to
me, but I remained here on purpose to ind out more. I could forgive a
great deal in a sick man and a connection, but you... never after this...”
“I am not ill,” cried Raskolnikov.
“So much the worse...”
“Go to hell!”
But Luzhin was already leaving without inishing his speech,
squeezing between the table and the chair; Razumihin got up this time
to let him pass. Without glancing at anyone, and not even nodding to
Zossimov, who had for some time been making signs to him to let the
sick man alone, he went out, lifting his hat to the level of his shoulders
to avoid crushing it as he stooped to go out of the door. And even the
curve of his spine was expressive of the horrible insult he had received.
“How could you—how could you!” Razumihin said, shaking his head
in perplexity.
“Let me alone—let me alone all of you!” Raskolnikov cried in a frenzy.
“Will you ever leave off tormenting me? I am not afraid of you! I am not
afraid of anyone, anyone now! Get away from me! I want to be alone,
alone, alone!”
“Come along,” said Zossimov, nodding to Razumihin.
“But we can’t leave him like this!”
“Come along,” Zossimov repeated insistently, and he went out.
Razumihin thought a minute and ran to overtake him.
“It might be worse not to obey him,” said Zossimov on the stairs. “He
mustn’t be irritated.”
“What’s the matter with him?”
“If only he could get some favourable shock, that’s what would do it!
At irst he was better.... You know he has got something on his mind!
Some ixed idea weighing on him.... I am very much afraid so; he must
have!”
“Perhaps it’s that gentleman, Pyotr Petrovitch. From his conversation
I gather he is going to marry his sister, and that he had received a letter
about it just before his illness....”
 “Yes, confound the man! he may have upset the case altogether. But
have you noticed, he takes no interest in anything, he does not respond
to anything except one point on which he seems excited—that’s the
murder?”
“Yes, yes,” Razumihin agreed, “I noticed that, too. He is interested,
frightened. It gave him a shock on the day he was ill in the police of ice;
he fainted.”
“Tell me more about that this evening and I’ll tell you something
afterwards. He interests me very much! In half an hour I’ll go and see
him again.... There’ll be no in lammation though.”
“Thanks! And I’ll wait with Pashenka meantime and will keep watch
on him through Nastasya....”
Raskolnikov, left alone, looked with impatience and misery at
Nastasya, but she still lingered.
“Won’t you have some tea now?” she asked.
“Later! I am sleepy! Leave me.”
He turned abruptly to the wall; Nastasya went out.
 CHAPTER VI

But as soon as she went out, he got up, latched the door, undid the
parcel which Razumihin had brought in that evening and had tied up
again and began dressing. Strange to say, he seemed immediately to
have become perfectly calm; not a trace of his recent delirium nor of the
panic fear that had haunted him of late. It was the irst moment of a
strange sudden calm. His movements were precise and de inite; a irm
purpose was evident in them. “To-day, to-day,” he muttered to himself.
He understood that he was still weak, but his intense spiritual
concentration gave him strength and self-con idence. He hoped,
moreover, that he would not fall down in the street. When he had
dressed in entirely new clothes, he looked at the money lying on the
table, and after a moment’s thought put it in his pocket. It was twenty-
ive roubles. He took also all the copper change from the ten roubles
spent by Razumihin on the clothes. Then he softly unlatched the door,
went out, slipped downstairs and glanced in at the open kitchen door.
Nastasya was standing with her back to him, blowing up the landlady’s
samovar. She heard nothing. Who would have dreamed of his going out,
indeed? A minute later he was in the street.
It was nearly eight o’clock, the sun was setting. It was as sti ling as
before, but he eagerly drank in the stinking, dusty town air. His head felt
rather dizzy; a sort of savage energy gleamed suddenly in his feverish
eyes and his wasted, pale and yellow face. He did not know and did not
think where he was going, he had one thought only: “that all this must
be ended to-day, once for all, immediately; that he would not return
home without it, because he would not go on living like that.” How, with
what to make an end? He had not an idea about it, he did not even want
to think of it. He drove away thought; thought tortured him. All he
knew, all he felt was that everything must be changed “one way or
another,” he repeated with desperate and immovable self-con idence
and determination.
From old habit he took his usual walk in the direction of the Hay
Market. A dark-haired young man with a barrel organ was standing in
the road in front of a little general shop and was grinding out a very
sentimental song. He was accompanying a girl of ifteen, who stood on
the pavement in front of him. She was dressed up in a crinoline, a
mantle and a straw hat with a lame-coloured feather in it, all very old
and shabby. In a strong and rather agreeable voice, cracked and
coarsened by street singing, she sang in hope of getting a copper from
the shop. Raskolnikov joined two or three listeners, took out a ive
copeck piece and put it in the girl’s hand. She broke off abruptly on a
sentimental high note, shouted sharply to the organ grinder “Come on,”
and both moved on to the next shop.
“Do you like street music?” said Raskolnikov, addressing a middle-
aged man standing idly by him. The man looked at him, startled and
wondering.
“I love to hear singing to a street organ,” said Raskolnikov, and his
manner seemed strangely out of keeping with the subject—“I like it on
cold, dark, damp autumn evenings—they must be damp—when all the
passers-by have pale green, sickly faces, or better still when wet snow is
falling straight down, when there’s no wind—you know what I mean?—
and the street lamps shine through it...”
“I don’t know.... Excuse me...” muttered the stranger, frightened by the
question and Raskolnikov’s strange manner, and he crossed over to the
other side of the street.
Raskolnikov walked straight on and came out at the corner of the Hay
Market, where the huckster and his wife had talked with Lizaveta; but
they were not there now. Recognising the place, he stopped, looked
round and addressed a young fellow in a red shirt who stood gaping
before a corn chandler’s shop.
“Isn’t there a man who keeps a booth with his wife at this corner?”
“All sorts of people keep booths here,” answered the young man,
glancing superciliously at Raskolnikov.
“What’s his name?”
 “What he was christened.”
“Aren’t you a Zaraı̈sky man, too? Which province?”
The young man looked at Raskolnikov again.
“It’s not a province, your excellency, but a district. Graciously forgive
me, your excellency!”
“Is that a tavern at the top there?”
“Yes, it’s an eating-house and there’s a billiard-room and you’ll ind
princesses there too.... La-la!”
Raskolnikov crossed the square. In that corner there was a dense
crowd of peasants. He pushed his way into the thickest part of it,
looking at the faces. He felt an unaccountable inclination to enter into
conversation with people. But the peasants took no notice of him; they
were all shouting in groups together. He stood and thought a little and
took a turning to the right in the direction of V.
He had often crossed that little street which turns at an angle, leading
from the market-place to Sadovy Street. Of late he had often felt drawn
to wander about this district, when he felt depressed, that he might feel
more so.
Now he walked along, thinking of nothing. At that point there is a
great block of buildings, entirely let out in dram shops and eating-
houses; women were continually running in and out, bare-headed and
in their indoor clothes. Here and there they gathered in groups, on the
pavement, especially about the entrances to various festive
establishments in the lower storeys. From one of these a loud din,
sounds of singing, the tinkling of a guitar and shouts of merriment,
loated into the street. A crowd of women were thronging round the
door; some were sitting on the steps, others on the pavement, others
were standing talking. A drunken soldier, smoking a cigarette, was
walking near them in the road, swearing; he seemed to be trying to ind
his way somewhere, but had forgotten where. One beggar was
quarrelling with another, and a man dead drunk was lying right across
the road. Raskolnikov joined the throng of women, who were talking in
husky voices. They were bare-headed and wore cotton dresses and
goatskin shoes. There were women of forty and some not more than
seventeen; almost all had blackened eyes.
 He felt strangely attracted by the singing and all the noise and uproar
in the saloon below.... someone could be heard within dancing
frantically, marking time with his heels to the sounds of the guitar and
of a thin falsetto voice singing a jaunty air. He listened intently, gloomily
and dreamily, bending down at the entrance and peeping inquisitively
in from the pavement.
“Oh, my handsome soldier
Don’t beat me for nothing,”

trilled the thin voice of the singer. Raskolnikov felt a great desire to
make out what he was singing, as though everything depended on that.
“Shall I go in?” he thought. “They are laughing. From drink. Shall I get
drunk?”
“Won’t you come in?” one of the women asked him. Her voice was
still musical and less thick than the others, she was young and not
repulsive—the only one of the group.
“Why, she’s pretty,” he said, drawing himself up and looking at her.
She smiled, much pleased at the compliment.
“You’re very nice looking yourself,” she said.
“Isn’t he thin though!” observed another woman in a deep bass.
“Have you just come out of a hospital?”
“They’re all generals’ daughters, it seems, but they have all snub
noses,” interposed a tipsy peasant with a sly smile on his face, wearing a
loose coat. “See how jolly they are.”
“Go along with you!”
“I’ll go, sweetie!”
And he darted down into the saloon below. Raskolnikov moved on.
“I say, sir,” the girl shouted after him.
“What is it?”
She hesitated.
“I’ll always be pleased to spend an hour with you, kind gentleman,
but now I feel shy. Give me six copecks for a drink, there’s a nice young
man!”
Raskolnikov gave her what came irst— ifteen copecks.
 “Ah, what a good-natured gentleman!”
“What’s your name?”
“Ask for Duclida.”
“Well, that’s too much,” one of the women observed, shaking her head
at Duclida. “I don’t know how you can ask like that. I believe I should
drop with shame....”
Raskolnikov looked curiously at the speaker. She was a pock-marked
wench of thirty, covered with bruises, with her upper lip swollen. She
made her criticism quietly and earnestly. “Where is it,” thought
Raskolnikov. “Where is it I’ve read that someone condemned to death
says or thinks, an hour before his death, that if he had to live on some
high rock, on such a narrow ledge that he’d only room to stand, and the
ocean, everlasting darkness, everlasting solitude, everlasting tempest
around him, if he had to remain standing on a square yard of space all
his life, a thousand years, eternity, it were better to live so than to die at
once! Only to live, to live and live! Life, whatever it may be!... How true it
is! Good God, how true! Man is a vile creature!... And vile is he who calls
him vile for that,” he added a moment later.
He went into another street. “Bah, the Palais de Cristal! Razumihin
was just talking of the Palais de Cristal. But what on earth was it I
wanted? Yes, the newspapers.... Zossimov said he’d read it in the papers.
Have you the papers?” he asked, going into a very spacious and
positively clean restaurant, consisting of several rooms, which were,
however, rather empty. Two or three people were drinking tea, and in a
room further away were sitting four men drinking champagne.
Raskolnikov fancied that Zametov was one of them, but he could not be
sure at that distance. “What if it is?” he thought.
“Will you have vodka?” asked the waiter.
“Give me some tea and bring me the papers, the old ones for the last
ive days, and I’ll give you something.”
“Yes, sir, here’s to-day’s. No vodka?”
The old newspapers and the tea were brought. Raskolnikov sat down
and began to look through them.
“Oh, damn... these are the items of intelligence. An accident on a
staircase, spontaneous combustion of a shopkeeper from alcohol, a ire
in Peski... a ire in the Petersburg quarter... another ire in the
Petersburg quarter... and another ire in the Petersburg quarter.... Ah,
here it is!” He found at last what he was seeking and began to read it.
The lines danced before his eyes, but he read it all and began eagerly
seeking later additions in the following numbers. His hands shook with
nervous impatience as he turned the sheets. Suddenly someone sat
down beside him at his table. He looked up, it was the head clerk
Zametov, looking just the same, with the rings on his ingers and the
watch-chain, with the curly, black hair, parted and pomaded, with the
smart waistcoat, rather shabby coat and doubtful linen. He was in a
good humour, at least he was smiling very gaily and good-humouredly.
His dark face was rather lushed from the champagne he had drunk.
“What, you here?” he began in surprise, speaking as though he’d
known him all his life. “Why, Razumihin told me only yesterday you
were unconscious. How strange! And do you know I’ve been to see
you?”
Raskolnikov knew he would come up to him. He laid aside the papers
and turned to Zametov. There was a smile on his lips, and a new shade
of irritable impatience was apparent in that smile.
“I know you have,” he answered. “I’ve heard it. You looked for my
sock.... And you know Razumihin has lost his heart to you? He says
you’ve been with him to Luise Ivanovna’s—you know, the woman you
tried to befriend, for whom you winked to the Explosive Lieutenant and
he would not understand. Do you remember? How could he fail to
understand—it was quite clear, wasn’t it?”
“What a hot head he is!”
“The explosive one?”
“No, your friend Razumihin.”
“You must have a jolly life, Mr. Zametov; entrance free to the most
agreeable places. Who’s been pouring champagne into you just now?”
“We’ve just been... having a drink together.... You talk about pouring it
into me!”
“By way of a fee! You pro it by everything!” Raskolnikov laughed, “it’s
all right, my dear boy,” he added, slapping Zametov on the shoulder. “I
am not speaking from temper, but in a friendly way, for sport, as that
workman of yours said when he was scuf ling with Dmitri, in the case of
the old woman....”
“How do you know about it?”
“Perhaps I know more about it than you do.”
“How strange you are.... I am sure you are still very unwell. You
oughtn’t to have come out.”
“Oh, do I seem strange to you?”
“Yes. What are you doing, reading the papers?”
“Yes.”
“There’s a lot about the ires.”
“No, I am not reading about the ires.” Here he looked mysteriously at
Zametov; his lips were twisted again in a mocking smile. “No, I am not
reading about the ires,” he went on, winking at Zametov. “But confess
now, my dear fellow, you’re awfully anxious to know what I am reading
about?”
“I am not in the least. Mayn’t I ask a question? Why do you keep
on...?”
“Listen, you are a man of culture and education?”
“I was in the sixth class at the gymnasium,” said Zametov with some
dignity.
“Sixth class! Ah, my cock-sparrow! With your parting and your rings
—you are a gentleman of fortune. Foo! what a charming boy!” Here
Raskolnikov broke into a nervous laugh right in Zametov’s face. The
latter drew back, more amazed than offended.
“Foo! how strange you are!” Zametov repeated very seriously. “I can’t
help thinking you are still delirious.”
“I am delirious? You are ibbing, my cock-sparrow! So I am strange?
You ind me curious, do you?”
“Yes, curious.”
“Shall I tell you what I was reading about, what I was looking for? See
what a lot of papers I’ve made them bring me. Suspicious, eh?”
“Well, what is it?”
“You prick up your ears?”
 “How do you mean—‘prick up my ears’?”
“I’ll explain that afterwards, but now, my boy, I declare to you... no,
better ‘I confess’... No, that’s not right either; ‘I make a deposition and
you take it.’ I depose that I was reading, that I was looking and
searching....” he screwed up his eyes and paused. “I was searching—and
came here on purpose to do it—for news of the murder of the old
pawnbroker woman,” he articulated at last, almost in a whisper,
bringing his face exceedingly close to the face of Zametov. Zametov
looked at him steadily, without moving or drawing his face away. What
struck Zametov afterwards as the strangest part of it all was that
silence followed for exactly a minute, and that they gazed at one
another all the while.
“What if you have been reading about it?” he cried at last, perplexed
and impatient. “That’s no business of mine! What of it?”
“The same old woman,” Raskolnikov went on in the same whisper,
not heeding Zametov’s explanation, “about whom you were talking in
the police-of ice, you remember, when I fainted. Well, do you
understand now?”
“What do you mean? Understand... what?” Zametov brought out,
almost alarmed.
Raskolnikov’s set and earnest face was suddenly transformed, and he
suddenly went off into the same nervous laugh as before, as though
utterly unable to restrain himself. And in one lash he recalled with
extraordinary vividness of sensation a moment in the recent past, that
moment when he stood with the axe behind the door, while the latch
trembled and the men outside swore and shook it, and he had a sudden
desire to shout at them, to swear at them, to put out his tongue at them,
to mock them, to laugh, and laugh, and laugh!
“You are either mad, or...” began Zametov, and he broke off, as though
stunned by the idea that had suddenly lashed into his mind.
“Or? Or what? What? Come, tell me!”
“Nothing,” said Zametov, getting angry, “it’s all nonsense!”
Both were silent. After his sudden it of laughter Raskolnikov became
suddenly thoughtful and melancholy. He put his elbow on the table and
leaned his head on his hand. He seemed to have completely forgotten
Zametov. The silence lasted for some time.
“Why don’t you drink your tea? It’s getting cold,” said Zametov.
“What! Tea? Oh, yes....” Raskolnikov sipped the glass, put a morsel of
bread in his mouth and, suddenly looking at Zametov, seemed to
remember everything and pulled himself together. At the same moment
his face resumed its original mocking expression. He went on drinking
tea.
“There have been a great many of these crimes lately,” said Zametov.
“Only the other day I read in the Moscow News that a whole gang of
false coiners had been caught in Moscow. It was a regular society. They
used to forge tickets!”
“Oh, but it was a long time ago! I read about it a month ago,”
Raskolnikov answered calmly. “So you consider them criminals?” he
added, smiling.
“Of course they are criminals.”
“They? They are children, simpletons, not criminals! Why, half a
hundred people meeting for such an object—what an idea! Three
would be too many, and then they want to have more faith in one
another than in themselves! One has only to blab in his cups and it all
collapses. Simpletons! They engaged untrustworthy people to change
the notes—what a thing to trust to a casual stranger! Well, let us
suppose that these simpletons succeed and each makes a million, and
what follows for the rest of their lives? Each is dependent on the others
for the rest of his life! Better hang oneself at once! And they did not
know how to change the notes either; the man who changed the notes
took ive thousand roubles, and his hands trembled. He counted the
irst four thousand, but did not count the ifth thousand—he was in
such a hurry to get the money into his pocket and run away. Of course
he roused suspicion. And the whole thing came to a crash through one
fool! Is it possible?”
“That his hands trembled?” observed Zametov, “yes, that’s quite
possible. That, I feel quite sure, is possible. Sometimes one can’t stand
things.”
“Can’t stand that?”
 “Why, could you stand it then? No, I couldn’t. For the sake of a
hundred roubles to face such a terrible experience? To go with false
notes into a bank where it’s their business to spot that sort of thing! No,
I should not have the face to do it. Would you?”
Raskolnikov had an intense desire again “to put his tongue out.”
Shivers kept running down his spine.
“I should do it quite differently,” Raskolnikov began. “This is how I
would change the notes: I’d count the irst thousand three or four times
backwards and forwards, looking at every note and then I’d set to the
second thousand; I’d count that half-way through and then hold some
ifty-rouble note to the light, then turn it, then hold it to the light again
—to see whether it was a good one. ‘I am afraid,’ I would say, ‘a relation
of mine lost twenty- ive roubles the other day through a false note,’ and
then I’d tell them the whole story. And after I began counting the third,
‘No, excuse me,’ I would say, ‘I fancy I made a mistake in the seventh
hundred in that second thousand, I am not sure.’ And so I would give up
the third thousand and go back to the second and so on to the end. And
when I had inished, I’d pick out one from the ifth and one from the
second thousand and take them again to the light and ask again,
‘Change them, please,’ and put the clerk into such a stew that he would
not know how to get rid of me. When I’d inished and had gone out, I’d
come back, ‘No, excuse me,’ and ask for some explanation. That’s how
I’d do it.”
“Foo! what terrible things you say!” said Zametov, laughing. “But all
that is only talk. I dare say when it came to deeds you’d make a slip. I
believe that even a practised, desperate man cannot always reckon on
himself, much less you and I. To take an example near home—that old
woman murdered in our district. The murderer seems to have been a
desperate fellow, he risked everything in open daylight, was saved by a
miracle—but his hands shook, too. He did not succeed in robbing the
place, he couldn’t stand it. That was clear from the...”
Raskolnikov seemed offended.
“Clear? Why don’t you catch him then?” he cried, maliciously gibing
at Zametov.
“Well, they will catch him.”
 “Who? You? Do you suppose you could catch him? You’ve a tough job!
A great point for you is whether a man is spending money or not. If he
had no money and suddenly begins spending, he must be the man. So
that any child can mislead you.”
“The fact is they always do that, though,” answered Zametov. “A man
will commit a clever murder at the risk of his life and then at once he
goes drinking in a tavern. They are caught spending money, they are not
all as cunning as you are. You wouldn’t go to a tavern, of course?”
Raskolnikov frowned and looked steadily at Zametov.
“You seem to enjoy the subject and would like to know how I should
behave in that case, too?” he asked with displeasure.
“I should like to,” Zametov answered irmly and seriously. Somewhat
too much earnestness began to appear in his words and looks.
“Very much?”
“Very much!”
“All right then. This is how I should behave,” Raskolnikov began, again
bringing his face close to Zametov’s, again staring at him and speaking
in a whisper, so that the latter positively shuddered. “This is what I
should have done. I should have taken the money and jewels, I should
have walked out of there and have gone straight to some deserted place
with fences round it and scarcely anyone to be seen, some kitchen
garden or place of that sort. I should have looked out beforehand some
stone weighing a hundredweight or more which had been lying in the
corner from the time the house was built. I would lift that stone—there
would sure to be a hollow under it, and I would put the jewels and
money in that hole. Then I’d roll the stone back so that it would look as
before, would press it down with my foot and walk away. And for a year
or two, three maybe, I would not touch it. And, well, they could search!
There’d be no trace.”
“You are a madman,” said Zametov, and for some reason he too spoke
in a whisper, and moved away from Raskolnikov, whose eyes were
glittering. He had turned fearfully pale and his upper lip was twitching
and quivering. He bent down as close as possible to Zametov, and his
lips began to move without uttering a word. This lasted for half a
minute; he knew what he was doing, but could not restrain himself. The
terrible word trembled on his lips, like the latch on that door; in
another moment it will break out, in another moment he will let it go,
he will speak out.
“And what if it was I who murdered the old woman and Lizaveta?” he
said suddenly and—realised what he had done.
Zametov looked wildly at him and turned white as the tablecloth. His
face wore a contorted smile.
“But is it possible?” he brought out faintly. Raskolnikov looked
wrathfully at him.
“Own up that you believed it, yes, you did?”
“Not a bit of it, I believe it less than ever now,” Zametov cried hastily.
“I’ve caught my cock-sparrow! So you did believe it before, if now you
believe less than ever?”
“Not at all,” cried Zametov, obviously embarrassed. “Have you been
frightening me so as to lead up to this?”
“You don’t believe it then? What were you talking about behind my
back when I went out of the police-of ice? And why did the explosive
lieutenant question me after I fainted? Hey, there,” he shouted to the
waiter, getting up and taking his cap, “how much?”
“Thirty copecks,” the latter replied, running up.
“And there is twenty copecks for vodka. See what a lot of money!” he
held out his shaking hand to Zametov with notes in it. “Red notes and
blue, twenty- ive roubles. Where did I get them? And where did my new
clothes come from? You know I had not a copeck. You’ve cross-
examined my landlady, I’ll be bound.... Well, that’s enough! Assez causé!
Till we meet again!”
He went out, trembling all over from a sort of wild hysterical
sensation, in which there was an element of insufferable rapture. Yet he
was gloomy and terribly tired. His face was twisted as after a it. His
fatigue increased rapidly. Any shock, any irritating sensation stimulated
and revived his energies at once, but his strength failed as quickly when
the stimulus was removed.
Zametov, left alone, sat for a long time in the same place, plunged in
thought. Raskolnikov had unwittingly worked a revolution in his brain
on a certain point and had made up his mind for him conclusively.
“Ilya Petrovitch is a blockhead,” he decided.
Raskolnikov had hardly opened the door of the restaurant when he
stumbled against Razumihin on the steps. They did not see each other
till they almost knocked against each other. For a moment they stood
looking each other up and down. Razumihin was greatly astounded,
then anger, real anger gleamed iercely in his eyes.
“So here you are!” he shouted at the top of his voice—“you ran away
from your bed! And here I’ve been looking for you under the sofa! We
went up to the garret. I almost beat Nastasya on your account. And here
he is after all. Rodya! What is the meaning of it? Tell me the whole truth!
Confess! Do you hear?”
“It means that I’m sick to death of you all and I want to be alone,”
Raskolnikov answered calmly.
“Alone? When you are not able to walk, when your face is as white as
a sheet and you are gasping for breath! Idiot!... What have you been
doing in the Palais de Cristal? Own up at once!”
“Let me go!” said Raskolnikov and tried to pass him. This was too
much for Razumihin; he gripped him irmly by the shoulder.
“Let you go? You dare tell me to let you go? Do you know what I’ll do
with you directly? I’ll pick you up, tie you up in a bundle, carry you
home under my arm and lock you up!”
“Listen, Razumihin,” Raskolnikov began quietly, apparently calm—
“can’t you see that I don’t want your benevolence? A strange desire you
have to shower bene its on a man who... curses them, who feels them a
burden in fact! Why did you seek me out at the beginning of my illness?
Maybe I was very glad to die. Didn’t I tell you plainly enough to-day that
you were torturing me, that I was... sick of you! You seem to want to
torture people! I assure you that all that is seriously hindering my
recovery, because it’s continually irritating me. You saw Zossimov went
away just now to avoid irritating me. You leave me alone too, for
goodness’ sake! What right have you, indeed, to keep me by force? Don’t
you see that I am in possession of all my faculties now? How, how can I
persuade you not to persecute me with your kindness? I may be
ungrateful, I may be mean, only let me be, for God’s sake, let me be! Let
me be, let me be!”
He began calmly, gloating beforehand over the venomous phrases he
was about to utter, but inished, panting for breath, in a frenzy, as he
had been with Luzhin.
Razumihin stood a moment, thought and let his hand drop.
“Well, go to hell then,” he said gently and thoughtfully. “Stay,” he
roared, as Raskolnikov was about to move. “Listen to me. Let me tell
you, that you are all a set of babbling, posing idiots! If you’ve any little
trouble you brood over it like a hen over an egg. And you are plagiarists
even in that! There isn’t a sign of independent life in you! You are made
of spermaceti ointment and you’ve lymph in your veins instead of
blood. I don’t believe in anyone of you! In any circumstances the irst
thing for all of you is to be unlike a human being! Stop!” he cried with
redoubled fury, noticing that Raskolnikov was again making a
movement—“hear me out! You know I’m having a house-warming this
evening, I dare say they’ve arrived by now, but I left my uncle there—I
just ran in—to receive the guests. And if you weren’t a fool, a common
fool, a perfect fool, if you were an original instead of a translation... you
see, Rodya, I recognise you’re a clever fellow, but you’re a fool!—and if
you weren’t a fool you’d come round to me this evening instead of
wearing out your boots in the street! Since you have gone out, there’s
no help for it! I’d give you a snug easy chair, my landlady has one... a cup
of tea, company.... Or you could lie on the sofa—any way you would be
with us.... Zossimov will be there too. Will you come?”
“No.”
“R-rubbish!” Razumihin shouted, out of patience. “How do you know?
You can’t answer for yourself! You don’t know anything about it....
Thousands of times I’ve fought tooth and nail with people and run back
to them afterwards.... One feels ashamed and goes back to a man! So
remember, Potchinkov’s house on the third storey....”
“Why, Mr. Razumihin, I do believe you’d let anybody beat you from
sheer benevolence.”
“Beat? Whom? Me? I’d twist his nose off at the mere idea!
Potchinkov’s house, 47, Babushkin’s lat....”
 “I shall not come, Razumihin.” Raskolnikov turned and walked away.
“I bet you will,” Razumihin shouted after him. “I refuse to know you if
you don’t! Stay, hey, is Zametov in there?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see him?”
“Yes.”
“Talked to him?”
“Yes.”
“What about? Confound you, don’t tell me then. Potchinkov’s house,
47, Babushkin’s lat, remember!”
Raskolnikov walked on and turned the corner into Sadovy Street.
Razumihin looked after him thoughtfully. Then with a wave of his hand
he went into the house but stopped short of the stairs.
“Confound it,” he went on almost aloud. “He talked sensibly but yet... I
am a fool! As if madmen didn’t talk sensibly! And this was just what
Zossimov seemed afraid of.” He struck his inger on his forehead. “What
if... how could I let him go off alone? He may drown himself.... Ach, what
a blunder! I can’t.” And he ran back to overtake Raskolnikov, but there
was no trace of him. With a curse he returned with rapid steps to the
Palais de Cristal to question Zametov.
Raskolnikov walked straight to X—— Bridge, stood in the middle,
and leaning both elbows on the rail stared into the distance. On parting
with Razumihin, he felt so much weaker that he could scarcely reach
this place. He longed to sit or lie down somewhere in the street.
Bending over the water, he gazed mechanically at the last pink lush of
the sunset, at the row of houses growing dark in the gathering twilight,
at one distant attic window on the left bank, lashing as though on ire
in the last rays of the setting sun, at the darkening water of the canal,
and the water seemed to catch his attention. At last red circles lashed
before his eyes, the houses seemed moving, the passers-by, the canal
banks, the carriages, all danced before his eyes. Suddenly he started,
saved again perhaps from swooning by an uncanny and hideous sight.
He became aware of someone standing on the right side of him; he
looked and saw a tall woman with a kerchief on her head, with a long,
yellow, wasted face and red sunken eyes. She was looking straight at
him, but obviously she saw nothing and recognised no one. Suddenly
she leaned her right hand on the parapet, lifted her right leg over the
railing, then her left and threw herself into the canal. The ilthy water
parted and swallowed up its victim for a moment, but an instant later
the drowning woman loated to the surface, moving slowly with the
current, her head and legs in the water, her skirt in lated like a balloon
over her back.
“A woman drowning! A woman drowning!” shouted dozens of voices;
people ran up, both banks were thronged with spectators, on the bridge
people crowded about Raskolnikov, pressing up behind him.
“Mercy on it! it’s our Afrosinya!” a woman cried tearfully close by.
“Mercy! save her! kind people, pull her out!”
“A boat, a boat” was shouted in the crowd. But there was no need of a
boat; a policeman ran down the steps to the canal, threw off his great
coat and his boots and rushed into the water. It was easy to reach her:
she loated within a couple of yards from the steps, he caught hold of
her clothes with his right hand and with his left seized a pole which a
comrade held out to him; the drowning woman was pulled out at once.
They laid her on the granite pavement of the embankment. She soon
recovered consciousness, raised her head, sat up and began sneezing
and coughing, stupidly wiping her wet dress with her hands. She said
nothing.
“She’s drunk herself out of her senses,” the same woman’s voice
wailed at her side. “Out of her senses. The other day she tried to hang
herself, we cut her down. I ran out to the shop just now, left my little
girl to look after her—and here she’s in trouble again! A neighbour,
gentleman, a neighbour, we live close by, the second house from the
end, see yonder....”
The crowd broke up. The police still remained round the woman,
someone mentioned the police station.... Raskolnikov looked on with a
strange sensation of indifference and apathy. He felt disgusted. “No,
that’s loathsome... water... it’s not good enough,” he muttered to himself.
“Nothing will come of it,” he added, “no use to wait. What about the
police of ice...? And why isn’t Zametov at the police of ice? The police
of ice is open till ten o’clock....” He turned his back to the railing and
looked about him.
 “Very well then!” he said resolutely; he moved from the bridge and
walked in the direction of the police of ice. His heart felt hollow and
empty. He did not want to think. Even his depression had passed, there
was not a trace now of the energy with which he had set out “to make
an end of it all.” Complete apathy had succeeded to it.
“Well, it’s a way out of it,” he thought, walking slowly and listlessly
along the canal bank. “Anyway I’ll make an end, for I want to.... But is it a
way out? What does it matter! There’ll be the square yard of space—ha!
But what an end! Is it really the end? Shall I tell them or not? Ah...
damn! How tired I am! If I could ind somewhere to sit or lie down
soon! What I am most ashamed of is its being so stupid. But I don’t care
about that either! What idiotic ideas come into one’s head.”
To reach the police of ice he had to go straight forward and take the
second turning to the left. It was only a few paces away. But at the irst
turning he stopped and, after a minute’s thought, turned into a side
street and went two streets out of his way, possibly without any object,
or possibly to delay a minute and gain time. He walked, looking at the
ground; suddenly someone seemed to whisper in his ear; he lifted his
head and saw that he was standing at the very gate of the house. He had
not passed it, he had not been near it since that evening. An
overwhelming, unaccountable prompting drew him on. He went into
the house, passed through the gateway, then into the irst entrance on
the right, and began mounting the familiar staircase to the fourth
storey. The narrow, steep staircase was very dark. He stopped at each
landing and looked round him with curiosity; on the irst landing the
framework of the window had been taken out. “That wasn’t so then,” he
thought. Here was the lat on the second storey where Nikolay and
Dmitri had been working. “It’s shut up and the door newly painted. So
it’s to let.” Then the third storey and the fourth. “Here!” He was
perplexed to ind the door of the lat wide open. There were men there,
he could hear voices; he had not expected that. After brief hesitation he
mounted the last stairs and went into the lat. It, too, was being done
up; there were workmen in it. This seemed to amaze him; he somehow
fancied that he would ind everything as he left it, even perhaps the
corpses in the same places on the loor. And now, bare walls, no
furniture; it seemed strange. He walked to the window and sat down on
the window-sill. There were two workmen, both young fellows, but one
much younger than the other. They were papering the walls with a new
white paper covered with lilac lowers, instead of the old, dirty, yellow
one. Raskolnikov for some reason felt horribly annoyed by this. He
looked at the new paper with dislike, as though he felt sorry to have it
all so changed. The workmen had obviously stayed beyond their time
and now they were hurriedly rolling up their paper and getting ready to
go home. They took no notice of Raskolnikov’s coming in; they were
talking. Raskolnikov folded his arms and listened.
“She comes to me in the morning,” said the elder to the younger, “very
early, all dressed up. ‘Why are you preening and prinking?’ says I. ‘I am
ready to do anything to please you, Tit Vassilitch!’ That’s a way of going
on! And she dressed up like a regular fashion book!”
“And what is a fashion book?” the younger one asked. He obviously
regarded the other as an authority.
“A fashion book is a lot of pictures, coloured, and they come to the
tailors here every Saturday, by post from abroad, to show folks how to
dress, the male sex as well as the female. They’re pictures. The
gentlemen are generally wearing fur coats and for the ladies’ luf les,
they’re beyond anything you can fancy.”
“There’s nothing you can’t ind in Petersburg,” the younger cried
enthusiastically, “except father and mother, there’s everything!”
“Except them, there’s everything to be found, my boy,” the elder
declared sententiously.
Raskolnikov got up and walked into the other room where the strong
box, the bed, and the chest of drawers had been; the room seemed to
him very tiny without furniture in it. The paper was the same; the
paper in the corner showed where the case of ikons had stood. He
looked at it and went to the window. The elder workman looked at him
askance.
“What do you want?” he asked suddenly.
Instead of answering Raskolnikov went into the passage and pulled
the bell. The same bell, the same cracked note. He rang it a second and a
third time; he listened and remembered. The hideous and agonisingly
fearful sensation he had felt then began to come back more and more
vividly. He shuddered at every ring and it gave him more and more
satisfaction.
“Well, what do you want? Who are you?” the workman shouted, going
out to him. Raskolnikov went inside again.
“I want to take a lat,” he said. “I am looking round.”
“It’s not the time to look at rooms at night! and you ought to come up
with the porter.”
“The loors have been washed, will they be painted?” Raskolnikov
went on. “Is there no blood?”
“What blood?”
“Why, the old woman and her sister were murdered here. There was
a perfect pool there.”
“But who are you?” the workman cried, uneasy.
“Who am I?”
“Yes.”
“You want to know? Come to the police station, I’ll tell you.”
The workmen looked at him in amazement.
“It’s time for us to go, we are late. Come along, Alyoshka. We must
lock up,” said the elder workman.
“Very well, come along,” said Raskolnikov indifferently, and going out
irst, he went slowly downstairs. “Hey, porter,” he cried in the gateway.
At the entrance several people were standing, staring at the passers-
by; the two porters, a peasant woman, a man in a long coat and a few
others. Raskolnikov went straight up to them.
“What do you want?” asked one of the porters.
“Have you been to the police of ice?”
“I’ve just been there. What do you want?”
“Is it open?”
“Of course.”
“Is the assistant there?”
“He was there for a time. What do you want?”
Raskolnikov made no reply, but stood beside them lost in thought.
 “He’s been to look at the lat,” said the elder workman, coming
forward.
“Which lat?”
“Where we are at work. ‘Why have you washed away the blood?’ says
he. ‘There has been a murder here,’ says he, ‘and I’ve come to take it.’
And he began ringing at the bell, all but broke it. ‘Come to the police
station,’ says he. ‘I’ll tell you everything there.’ He wouldn’t leave us.”
The porter looked at Raskolnikov, frowning and perplexed.
“Who are you?” he shouted as impressively as he could.
“I am Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov, formerly a student, I live in
Shil’s house, not far from here, lat Number 14, ask the porter, he knows
me.” Raskolnikov said all this in a lazy, dreamy voice, not turning round,
but looking intently into the darkening street.
“Why have you been to the lat?”
“To look at it.”
“What is there to look at?”
“Take him straight to the police station,” the man in the long coat
jerked in abruptly.
Raskolnikov looked intently at him over his shoulder and said in the
same slow, lazy tones:
“Come along.”
“Yes, take him,” the man went on more con idently. “Why was he
going into that, what’s in his mind, eh?”
“He’s not drunk, but God knows what’s the matter with him,”
muttered the workman.
“But what do you want?” the porter shouted again, beginning to get
angry in earnest—“Why are you hanging about?”
“You funk the police station then?” said Raskolnikov jeeringly.
“How funk it? Why are you hanging about?”
“He’s a rogue!” shouted the peasant woman.
“Why waste time talking to him?” cried the other porter, a huge
peasant in a full open coat and with keys on his belt. “Get along! He is a
rogue and no mistake. Get along!”
 And seizing Raskolnikov by the shoulder he lung him into the street.
He lurched forward, but recovered his footing, looked at the spectators
in silence and walked away.
“Strange man!” observed the workman.
“There are strange folks about nowadays,” said the woman.
“You should have taken him to the police station all the same,” said
the man in the long coat.
“Better have nothing to do with him,” decided the big porter. “A
regular rogue! Just what he wants, you may be sure, but once take him
up, you won’t get rid of him.... We know the sort!”
“Shall I go there or not?” thought Raskolnikov, standing in the middle
of the thoroughfare at the cross-roads, and he looked about him, as
though expecting from someone a decisive word. But no sound came, all
was dead and silent like the stones on which he walked, dead to him, to
him alone.... All at once at the end of the street, two hundred yards
away, in the gathering dusk he saw a crowd and heard talk and shouts.
In the middle of the crowd stood a carriage.... A light gleamed in the
middle of the street. “What is it?” Raskolnikov turned to the right and
went up to the crowd. He seemed to clutch at everything and smiled
coldly when he recognised it, for he had fully made up his mind to go to
the police station and knew that it would all soon be over.
 CHAPTER VII

An elegant carriage stood in the middle of the road with a pair of

spirited grey horses; there was no one in it, and the coachman had got
off his box and stood by; the horses were being held by the bridle.... A
mass of people had gathered round, the police standing in front. One of
them held a lighted lantern which he was turning on something lying
close to the wheels. Everyone was talking, shouting, exclaiming; the
coachman seemed at a loss and kept repeating:
“What a misfortune! Good Lord, what a misfortune!”
Raskolnikov pushed his way in as far as he could, and succeeded at
last in seeing the object of the commotion and interest. On the ground a
man who had been run over lay apparently unconscious, and covered
with blood; he was very badly dressed, but not like a workman. Blood
was lowing from his head and face; his face was crushed, mutilated and
dis igured. He was evidently badly injured.
“Merciful heaven!” wailed the coachman, “what more could I do? If I’d
been driving fast or had not shouted to him, but I was going quietly, not
in a hurry. Everyone could see I was going along just like everybody
else. A drunken man can’t walk straight, we all know.... I saw him
crossing the street, staggering and almost falling. I shouted again and a
second and a third time, then I held the horses in, but he fell straight
under their feet! Either he did it on purpose or he was very tipsy.... The
horses are young and ready to take fright... they started, he screamed...
that made them worse. That’s how it happened!”
“That’s just how it was,” a voice in the crowd con irmed.
“He shouted, that’s true, he shouted three times,” another voice
declared.
“Three times it was, we all heard it,” shouted a third.
 But the coachman was not very much distressed and frightened. It
was evident that the carriage belonged to a rich and important person
who was awaiting it somewhere; the police, of course, were in no little
anxiety to avoid upsetting his arrangements. All they had to do was to
take the injured man to the police station and the hospital. No one
knew his name.
Meanwhile Raskolnikov had squeezed in and stooped closer over
him. The lantern suddenly lighted up the unfortunate man’s face. He
recognised him.
“I know him! I know him!” he shouted, pushing to the front. “It’s a
government clerk retired from the service, Marmeladov. He lives close
by in Kozel’s house.... Make haste for a doctor! I will pay, see?” He pulled
money out of his pocket and showed it to the policeman. He was in
violent agitation.
The police were glad that they had found out who the man was.
Raskolnikov gave his own name and address, and, as earnestly as if it
had been his father, he besought the police to carry the unconscious
Marmeladov to his lodging at once.
“Just here, three houses away,” he said eagerly, “the house belongs to
Kozel, a rich German. He was going home, no doubt drunk. I know him,
he is a drunkard. He has a family there, a wife, children, he has one
daughter.... It will take time to take him to the hospital, and there is sure
to be a doctor in the house. I’ll pay, I’ll pay! At least he will be looked
after at home... they will help him at once. But he’ll die before you get
him to the hospital.” He managed to slip something unseen into the
policeman’s hand. But the thing was straightforward and legitimate,
and in any case help was closer here. They raised the injured man;
people volunteered to help.
Kozel’s house was thirty yards away. Raskolnikov walked behind,
carefully holding Marmeladov’s head and showing the way.
“This way, this way! We must take him upstairs head foremost. Turn
round! I’ll pay, I’ll make it worth your while,” he muttered.
Katerina Ivanovna had just begun, as she always did at every free
moment, walking to and fro in her little room from window to stove and
back again, with her arms folded across her chest, talking to herself and
coughing. Of late she had begun to talk more than ever to her eldest girl,
Polenka, a child of ten, who, though there was much she did not
understand, understood very well that her mother needed her, and so
always watched her with her big clever eyes and strove her utmost to
appear to understand. This time Polenka was undressing her little
brother, who had been unwell all day and was going to bed. The boy
was waiting for her to take off his shirt, which had to be washed at
night. He was sitting straight and motionless on a chair, with a silent,
serious face, with his legs stretched out straight before him—heels
together and toes turned out.
He was listening to what his mother was saying to his sister, sitting
perfectly still with pouting lips and wide-open eyes, just as all good
little boys have to sit when they are undressed to go to bed. A little girl,
still younger, dressed literally in rags, stood at the screen, waiting for
her turn. The door on to the stairs was open to relieve them a little from
the clouds of tobacco smoke which loated in from the other rooms and
brought on long terrible its of coughing in the poor, consumptive
woman. Katerina Ivanovna seemed to have grown even thinner during
that week and the hectic lush on her face was brighter than ever.
“You wouldn’t believe, you can’t imagine, Polenka,” she said, walking
about the room, “what a happy luxurious life we had in my papa’s house
and how this drunkard has brought me, and will bring you all, to ruin!
Papa was a civil colonel and only a step from being a governor; so that
everyone who came to see him said, ‘We look upon you, Ivan
Mihailovitch, as our governor!’ When I... when...” she coughed violently,
“oh, cursed life,” she cried, clearing her throat and pressing her hands to
her breast, “when I... when at the last ball... at the marshal’s... Princess
Bezzemelny saw me—who gave me the blessing when your father and I
were married, Polenka—she asked at once ‘Isn’t that the pretty girl who
danced the shawl dance at the breaking-up?’ (You must mend that tear,
you must take your needle and darn it as I showed you, or to-morrow—
cough, cough, cough—he will make the hole bigger,” she articulated
with effort.) “Prince Schegolskoy, a kammerjunker, had just come from
Petersburg then... he danced the mazurka with me and wanted to make
me an offer next day; but I thanked him in lattering expressions and
told him that my heart had long been another’s. That other was your
father, Polya; papa was fearfully angry.... Is the water ready? Give me the
shirt, and the stockings! Lida,” said she to the youngest one, “you must
manage without your chemise to-night... and lay your stockings out
with it... I’ll wash them together.... How is it that drunken vagabond
doesn’t come in? He has worn his shirt till it looks like a dish-clout, he
has torn it to rags! I’d do it all together, so as not to have to work two
nights running! Oh, dear! (Cough, cough, cough, cough!) Again! What’s
this?” she cried, noticing a crowd in the passage and the men, who were
pushing into her room, carrying a burden. “What is it? What are they
bringing? Mercy on us!”
“Where are we to put him?” asked the policeman, looking round
when Marmeladov, unconscious and covered with blood, had been
carried in.
“On the sofa! Put him straight on the sofa, with his head this way,”
Raskolnikov showed him.
“Run over in the road! Drunk!” someone shouted in the passage.
Katerina Ivanovna stood, turning white and gasping for breath. The
children were terri ied. Little Lida screamed, rushed to Polenka and
clutched at her, trembling all over.
Having laid Marmeladov down, Raskolnikov lew to Katerina
Ivanovna.
“For God’s sake be calm, don’t be frightened!” he said, speaking
quickly, “he was crossing the road and was run over by a carriage, don’t
be frightened, he will come to, I told them bring him here... I’ve been
here already, you remember? He will come to; I’ll pay!”
“He’s done it this time!” Katerina Ivanovna cried despairingly and she
rushed to her husband.
Raskolnikov noticed at once that she was not one of those women
who swoon easily. She instantly placed under the luckless man’s head a
pillow, which no one had thought of and began undressing and
examining him. She kept her head, forgetting herself, biting her
trembling lips and sti ling the screams which were ready to break from
her.
Raskolnikov meanwhile induced someone to run for a doctor. There
was a doctor, it appeared, next door but one.
“I’ve sent for a doctor,” he kept assuring Katerina Ivanovna, “don’t be
uneasy, I’ll pay. Haven’t you water?... and give me a napkin or a towel,
anything, as quick as you can.... He is injured, but not killed, believe
me.... We shall see what the doctor says!”
Katerina Ivanovna ran to the window; there, on a broken chair in the
corner, a large earthenware basin full of water had been stood, in
readiness for washing her children’s and husband’s linen that night.
This washing was done by Katerina Ivanovna at night at least twice a
week, if not oftener. For the family had come to such a pass that they
were practically without change of linen, and Katerina Ivanovna could
not endure uncleanliness and, rather than see dirt in the house, she
preferred to wear herself out at night, working beyond her strength
when the rest were asleep, so as to get the wet linen hung on a line and
dry by the morning. She took up the basin of water at Raskolnikov’s
request, but almost fell down with her burden. But the latter had
already succeeded in inding a towel, wetted it and began washing the
blood off Marmeladov’s face.
Katerina Ivanovna stood by, breathing painfully and pressing her
hands to her breast. She was in need of attention herself. Raskolnikov
began to realise that he might have made a mistake in having the
injured man brought here. The policeman, too, stood in hesitation.
“Polenka,” cried Katerina Ivanovna, “run to Sonia, make haste. If you
don’t ind her at home, leave word that her father has been run over
and that she is to come here at once... when she comes in. Run, Polenka!
there, put on the shawl.”
“Run your fastest!” cried the little boy on the chair suddenly, after
which he relapsed into the same dumb rigidity, with round eyes, his
heels thrust forward and his toes spread out.
Meanwhile the room had become so full of people that you couldn’t
have dropped a pin. The policemen left, all except one, who remained
for a time, trying to drive out the people who came in from the stairs.
Almost all Madame Lippevechsel’s lodgers had streamed in from the
inner rooms of the lat; at irst they were squeezed together in the
doorway, but afterwards they over lowed into the room. Katerina
Ivanovna lew into a fury.
“You might let him die in peace, at least,” she shouted at the crowd, “is
it a spectacle for you to gape at? With cigarettes! (Cough, cough, cough!)
You might as well keep your hats on.... And there is one in his hat!... Get
away! You should respect the dead, at least!”
Her cough choked her—but her reproaches were not without result.
They evidently stood in some awe of Katerina Ivanovna. The lodgers,
one after another, squeezed back into the doorway with that strange
inner feeling of satisfaction which may be observed in the presence of a
sudden accident, even in those nearest and dearest to the victim, from
which no living man is exempt, even in spite of the sincerest sympathy
and compassion.
Voices outside were heard, however, speaking of the hospital and
saying that they’d no business to make a disturbance here.
“No business to die!” cried Katerina Ivanovna, and she was rushing to
the door to vent her wrath upon them, but in the doorway came face to
face with Madame Lippevechsel who had only just heard of the accident
and ran in to restore order. She was a particularly quarrelsome and
irresponsible German.
“Ah, my God!” she cried, clasping her hands, “your husband drunken
horses have trampled! To the hospital with him! I am the landlady!”
“Amalia Ludwigovna, I beg you to recollect what you are saying,”
Katerina Ivanovna began haughtily (she always took a haughty tone
with the landlady that she might “remember her place” and even now
could not deny herself this satisfaction). “Amalia Ludwigovna...”
“I have you once before told that you to call me Amalia Ludwigovna
may not dare; I am Amalia Ivanovna.”
“You are not Amalia Ivanovna, but Amalia Ludwigovna, and as I am
not one of your despicable latterers like Mr. Lebeziatnikov, who’s
laughing behind the door at this moment (a laugh and a cry of ‘they are
at it again’ was in fact audible at the door) so I shall always call you
Amalia Ludwigovna, though I fail to understand why you dislike that
name. You can see for yourself what has happened to Semyon
Zaharovitch; he is dying. I beg you to close that door at once and to
admit no one. Let him at least die in peace! Or I warn you the Governor-
General, himself, shall be informed of your conduct to-morrow. The
prince knew me as a girl; he remembers Semyon Zaharovitch well and
has often been a benefactor to him. Everyone knows that Semyon
Zaharovitch had many friends and protectors, whom he abandoned
himself from an honourable pride, knowing his unhappy weakness, but
now (she pointed to Raskolnikov) a generous young man has come to
our assistance, who has wealth and connections and whom Semyon
Zaharovitch has known from a child. You may rest assured, Amalia
Ludwigovna...”
All this was uttered with extreme rapidity, getting quicker and
quicker, but a cough suddenly cut short Katerina Ivanovna’s eloquence.
At that instant the dying man recovered consciousness and uttered a
groan; she ran to him. The injured man opened his eyes and without
recognition or understanding gazed at Raskolnikov who was bending
over him. He drew deep, slow, painful breaths; blood oozed at the
corners of his mouth and drops of perspiration came out on his
forehead. Not recognising Raskolnikov, he began looking round
uneasily. Katerina Ivanovna looked at him with a sad but stern face, and
tears trickled from her eyes.
“My God! His whole chest is crushed! How he is bleeding,” she said in
despair. “We must take off his clothes. Turn a little, Semyon Zaharovitch,
if you can,” she cried to him.
Marmeladov recognised her.
“A priest,” he articulated huskily.
Katerina Ivanovna walked to the window, laid her head against the
window frame and exclaimed in despair:
“Oh, cursed life!”
“A priest,” the dying man said again after a moment’s silence.
“They’ve gone for him,” Katerina Ivanovna shouted to him, he obeyed
her shout and was silent. With sad and timid eyes he looked for her; she
returned and stood by his pillow. He seemed a little easier but not for
long.
Soon his eyes rested on little Lida, his favourite, who was shaking in
the corner, as though she were in a it, and staring at him with her
wondering childish eyes.
“A-ah,” he signed towards her uneasily. He wanted to say something.
“What now?” cried Katerina Ivanovna.
 “Barefoot, barefoot!” he muttered, indicating with frenzied eyes the
child’s bare feet.
“Be silent,” Katerina Ivanovna cried irritably, “you know why she is
barefooted.”
“Thank God, the doctor,” exclaimed Raskolnikov, relieved.
The doctor came in, a precise little old man, a German, looking about
him mistrustfully; he went up to the sick man, took his pulse, carefully
felt his head and with the help of Katerina Ivanovna he unbuttoned the
blood-stained shirt, and bared the injured man’s chest. It was gashed,
crushed and fractured, several ribs on the right side were broken. On
the left side, just over the heart, was a large, sinister-looking yellowish-
black bruise—a cruel kick from the horse’s hoof. The doctor frowned.
The policeman told him that he was caught in the wheel and turned
round with it for thirty yards on the road.
“It’s wonderful that he has recovered consciousness,” the doctor
whispered softly to Raskolnikov.
“What do you think of him?” he asked.
“He will die immediately.”
“Is there really no hope?”
“Not the faintest! He is at the last gasp.... His head is badly injured,
too... Hm... I could bleed him if you like, but... it would be useless. He is
bound to die within the next ive or ten minutes.”
“Better bleed him then.”
“If you like.... But I warn you it will be perfectly useless.”
At that moment other steps were heard; the crowd in the passage
parted, and the priest, a little, grey old man, appeared in the doorway
bearing the sacrament. A policeman had gone for him at the time of the
accident. The doctor changed places with him, exchanging glances with
him. Raskolnikov begged the doctor to remain a little while. He
shrugged his shoulders and remained.
All stepped back. The confession was soon over. The dying man
probably understood little; he could only utter indistinct broken
sounds. Katerina Ivanovna took little Lida, lifted the boy from the chair,
knelt down in the corner by the stove and made the children kneel in
front of her. The little girl was still trembling; but the boy, kneeling on
his little bare knees, lifted his hand rhythmically, crossing himself with
precision and bowed down, touching the loor with his forehead, which
seemed to afford him especial satisfaction. Katerina Ivanovna bit her
lips and held back her tears; she prayed, too, now and then pulling
straight the boy’s shirt, and managed to cover the girl’s bare shoulders
with a kerchief, which she took from the chest without rising from her
knees or ceasing to pray. Meanwhile the door from the inner rooms was
opened inquisitively again. In the passage the crowd of spectators from
all the lats on the staircase grew denser and denser, but they did not
venture beyond the threshold. A single candle-end lighted up the scene.
At that moment Polenka forced her way through the crowd at the
door. She came in panting from running so fast, took off her kerchief,
looked for her mother, went up to her and said, “She’s coming, I met her
in the street.” Her mother made her kneel beside her.
Timidly and noiselessly a young girl made her way through the
crowd, and strange was her appearance in that room, in the midst of
want, rags, death and despair. She, too, was in rags, her attire was all of
the cheapest, but decked out in gutter inery of a special stamp,
unmistakably betraying its shameful purpose. Sonia stopped short in
the doorway and looked about her bewildered, unconscious of
everything. She forgot her fourth-hand, gaudy silk dress, so unseemly
here with its ridiculous long train, and her immense crinoline that illed
up the whole doorway, and her light-coloured shoes, and the parasol
she brought with her, though it was no use at night, and the absurd
round straw hat with its laring lame-coloured feather. Under this
rakishly-tilted hat was a pale, frightened little face with lips parted and
eyes staring in terror. Sonia was a small thin girl of eighteen with fair
hair, rather pretty, with wonderful blue eyes. She looked intently at the
bed and the priest; she too was out of breath with running. At last
whispers, some words in the crowd probably, reached her. She looked
down and took a step forward into the room, still keeping close to the
door.
The service was over. Katerina Ivanovna went up to her husband
again. The priest stepped back and turned to say a few words of
admonition and consolation to Katerina Ivanovna on leaving.
 “What am I to do with these?” she interrupted sharply and irritably,
pointing to the little ones.
“God is merciful; look to the Most High for succour,” the priest began.
“Ach! He is merciful, but not to us.”
“That’s a sin, a sin, madam,” observed the priest, shaking his head.
“And isn’t that a sin?” cried Katerina Ivanovna, pointing to the dying
man.
“Perhaps those who have involuntarily caused the accident will agree
to compensate you, at least for the loss of his earnings.”
“You don’t understand!” cried Katerina Ivanovna angrily waving her
hand. “And why should they compensate me? Why, he was drunk and
threw himself under the horses! What earnings? He brought us in
nothing but misery. He drank everything away, the drunkard! He
robbed us to get drink, he wasted their lives and mine for drink! And
thank God he’s dying! One less to keep!”
“You must forgive in the hour of death, that’s a sin, madam, such
feelings are a great sin.”
Katerina Ivanovna was busy with the dying man; she was giving him
water, wiping the blood and sweat from his head, setting his pillow
straight, and had only turned now and then for a moment to address
the priest. Now she lew at him almost in a frenzy.
“Ah, father! That’s words and only words! Forgive! If he’d not been
run over, he’d have come home to-day drunk and his only shirt dirty
and in rags and he’d have fallen asleep like a log, and I should have been
sousing and rinsing till daybreak, washing his rags and the children’s
and then drying them by the window and as soon as it was daylight I
should have been darning them. That’s how I spend my nights!... What’s
the use of talking of forgiveness! I have forgiven as it is!”
A terrible hollow cough interrupted her words. She put her
handkerchief to her lips and showed it to the priest, pressing her other
hand to her aching chest. The handkerchief was covered with blood.
The priest bowed his head and said nothing.
Marmeladov was in the last agony; he did not take his eyes off the
face of Katerina Ivanovna, who was bending over him again. He kept
trying to say something to her; he began moving his tongue with
dif iculty and articulating indistinctly, but Katerina Ivanovna,
understanding that he wanted to ask her forgiveness, called
peremptorily to him:
“Be silent! No need! I know what you want to say!” And the sick man
was silent, but at the same instant his wandering eyes strayed to the
doorway and he saw Sonia.
Till then he had not noticed her: she was standing in the shadow in a
corner.
“Who’s that? Who’s that?” he said suddenly in a thick gasping voice,
in agitation, turning his eyes in horror towards the door where his
daughter was standing, and trying to sit up.
“Lie down! Lie do-own!” cried Katerina Ivanovna.
With unnatural strength he had succeeded in propping himself on his
elbow. He looked wildly and ixedly for some time on his daughter, as
though not recognising her. He had never seen her before in such attire.
Suddenly he recognised her, crushed and ashamed in her humiliation
and gaudy inery, meekly awaiting her turn to say good-bye to her dying
father. His face showed intense suffering.
“Sonia! Daughter! Forgive!” he cried, and he tried to hold out his hand
to her, but losing his balance, he fell off the sofa, face downwards on the
loor. They rushed to pick him up, they put him on the sofa; but he was
dying. Sonia with a faint cry ran up, embraced him and remained so
without moving. He died in her arms.
“He’s got what he wanted,” Katerina Ivanovna cried, seeing her
husband’s dead body. “Well, what’s to be done now? How am I to bury
him! What can I give them to-morrow to eat?”
Raskolnikov went up to Katerina Ivanovna.
“Katerina Ivanovna,” he began, “last week your husband told me all
his life and circumstances.... Believe me, he spoke of you with
passionate reverence. From that evening, when I learnt how devoted he
was to you all and how he loved and respected you especially, Katerina
Ivanovna, in spite of his unfortunate weakness, from that evening we
became friends.... Allow me now... to do something... to repay my debt to
my dead friend. Here are twenty roubles, I think—and if that can be of
any assistance to you, then... I... in short, I will come again, I will be sure
to come again... I shall, perhaps, come again to-morrow.... Good-bye!”
And he went quickly out of the room, squeezing his way through the
crowd to the stairs. But in the crowd he suddenly jostled against
Nikodim Fomitch, who had heard of the accident and had come to give
instructions in person. They had not met since the scene at the police
station, but Nikodim Fomitch knew him instantly.
“Ah, is that you?” he asked him.
“He’s dead,” answered Raskolnikov. “The doctor and the priest have
been, all as it should have been. Don’t worry the poor woman too much,
she is in consumption as it is. Try and cheer her up, if possible... you are
a kind-hearted man, I know...” he added with a smile, looking straight in
his face.
“But you are spattered with blood,” observed Nikodim Fomitch,
noticing in the lamplight some fresh stains on Raskolnikov’s waistcoat.
“Yes... I’m covered with blood,” Raskolnikov said with a peculiar air;
then he smiled, nodded and went downstairs.
He walked down slowly and deliberately, feverish but not conscious
of it, entirely absorbed in a new overwhelming sensation of life and
strength that surged up suddenly within him. This sensation might be
compared to that of a man condemned to death who has suddenly been
pardoned. Halfway down the staircase he was overtaken by the priest
on his way home; Raskolnikov let him pass, exchanging a silent greeting
with him. He was just descending the last steps when he heard rapid
footsteps behind him. Someone overtook him; it was Polenka. She was
running after him, calling “Wait! wait!”
He turned round. She was at the bottom of the staircase and stopped
short a step above him. A dim light came in from the yard. Raskolnikov
could distinguish the child’s thin but pretty little face, looking at him
with a bright childish smile. She had run after him with a message
which she was evidently glad to give.
“Tell me, what is your name?... and where do you live?” she said
hurriedly in a breathless voice.
He laid both hands on her shoulders and looked at her with a sort of
rapture. It was such a joy to him to look at her, he could not have said
why.
“Who sent you?”
“Sister Sonia sent me,” answered the girl, smiling still more brightly.
“I knew it was sister Sonia sent you.”
“Mamma sent me, too... when sister Sonia was sending me, mamma
came up, too, and said ‘Run fast, Polenka.’”
“Do you love sister Sonia?”
“I love her more than anyone,” Polenka answered with a peculiar
earnestness, and her smile became graver.
“And will you love me?”
By way of answer he saw the little girl’s face approaching him, her
full lips naı̈vely held out to kiss him. Suddenly her arms as thin as sticks
held him tightly, her head rested on his shoulder and the little girl wept
softly, pressing her face against him.
“I am sorry for father,” she said a moment later, raising her tear-
stained face and brushing away the tears with her hands. “It’s nothing
but misfortunes now,” she added suddenly with that peculiarly sedate
air which children try hard to assume when they want to speak like
grown-up people.
“Did your father love you?”
“He loved Lida most,” she went on very seriously without a smile,
exactly like grown-up people, “he loved her because she is little and
because she is ill, too. And he always used to bring her presents. But he
taught us to read and me grammar and scripture, too,” she added with
dignity. “And mother never used to say anything, but we knew that she
liked it and father knew it, too. And mother wants to teach me French,
for it’s time my education began.”
“And do you know your prayers?”
“Of course, we do! We knew them long ago. I say my prayers to myself
as I am a big girl now, but Kolya and Lida say them aloud with mother.
First they repeat the ‘Ave Maria’ and then another prayer: ‘Lord, forgive
and bless sister Sonia,’ and then another, ‘Lord, forgive and bless our
second father.’ For our elder father is dead and this is another one, but
we do pray for the other as well.”
 “Polenka, my name is Rodion. Pray sometimes for me, too. ‘And Thy
servant Rodion,’ nothing more.”
“I’ll pray for you all the rest of my life,” the little girl declared hotly,
and suddenly smiling again she rushed at him and hugged him warmly
once more.
Raskolnikov told her his name and address and promised to be sure
to come next day. The child went away quite enchanted with him. It was
past ten when he came out into the street. In ive minutes he was
standing on the bridge at the spot where the woman had jumped in.
“Enough,” he pronounced resolutely and triumphantly. “I’ve done
with fancies, imaginary terrors and phantoms! Life is real! haven’t I
lived just now? My life has not yet died with that old woman! The
Kingdom of Heaven to her—and now enough, madam, leave me in
peace! Now for the reign of reason and light... and of will, and of
strength... and now we will see! We will try our strength!” he added
de iantly, as though challenging some power of darkness. “And I was
ready to consent to live in a square of space!
“I am very weak at this moment, but... I believe my illness is all over. I
knew it would be over when I went out. By the way, Potchinkov’s house
is only a few steps away. I certainly must go to Razumihin even if it were
not close by... let him win his bet! Let us give him some satisfaction, too
—no matter! Strength, strength is what one wants, you can get nothing
without it, and strength must be won by strength—that’s what they
don’t know,” he added proudly and self-con idently and he walked with
lagging footsteps from the bridge. Pride and self-con idence grew
continually stronger in him; he was becoming a different man every
moment. What was it had happened to work this revolution in him? He
did not know himself; like a man catching at a straw, he suddenly felt
that he, too, ‘could live, that there was still life for him, that his life had
not died with the old woman.’ Perhaps he was in too great a hurry with
his conclusions, but he did not think of that.
“But I did ask her to remember ‘Thy servant Rodion’ in her prayers,”
the idea struck him. “Well, that was... in case of emergency,” he added
and laughed himself at his boyish sally. He was in the best of spirits.
He easily found Razumihin; the new lodger was already known at
Potchinkov’s and the porter at once showed him the way. Half-way
upstairs he could hear the noise and animated conversation of a big
gathering of people. The door was wide open on the stairs; he could
hear exclamations and discussion. Razumihin’s room was fairly large;
the company consisted of ifteen people. Raskolnikov stopped in the
entry, where two of the landlady’s servants were busy behind a screen
with two samovars, bottles, plates and dishes of pie and savouries,
brought up from the landlady’s kitchen. Raskolnikov sent in for
Razumihin. He ran out delighted. At the irst glance it was apparent that
he had had a great deal to drink and, though no amount of liquor made
Razumihin quite drunk, this time he was perceptibly affected by it.
“Listen,” Raskolnikov hastened to say, “I’ve only just come to tell you
you’ve won your bet and that no one really knows what may not
happen to him. I can’t come in; I am so weak that I shall fall down
directly. And so good evening and good-bye! Come and see me to-
morrow.”
“Do you know what? I’ll see you home. If you say you’re weak
yourself, you must...”
“And your visitors? Who is the curly-headed one who has just peeped
out?”
“He? Goodness only knows! Some friend of uncle’s, I expect, or
perhaps he has come without being invited... I’ll leave uncle with them,
he is an invaluable person, pity I can’t introduce you to him now. But
confound them all now! They won’t notice me, and I need a little fresh
air, for you’ve come just in the nick of time—another two minutes and I
should have come to blows! They are talking such a lot of wild stuff...
you simply can’t imagine what men will say! Though why shouldn’t you
imagine? Don’t we talk nonsense ourselves? And let them... that’s the
way to learn not to!... Wait a minute, I’ll fetch Zossimov.”
Zossimov pounced upon Raskolnikov almost greedily; he showed a
special interest in him; soon his face brightened.
“You must go to bed at once,” he pronounced, examining the patient
as far as he could, “and take something for the night. Will you take it? I
got it ready some time ago... a powder.”
“Two, if you like,” answered Raskolnikov. The powder was taken at
once.
 “It’s a good thing you are taking him home,” observed Zossimov to
Razumihin—“we shall see how he is to-morrow, to-day he’s not at all
amiss—a considerable change since the afternoon. Live and learn...”
“Do you know what Zossimov whispered to me when we were
coming out?” Razumihin blurted out, as soon as they were in the street.
“I won’t tell you everything, brother, because they are such fools.
Zossimov told me to talk freely to you on the way and get you to talk
freely to me, and afterwards I am to tell him about it, for he’s got a
notion in his head that you are... mad or close on it. Only fancy! In the
irst place, you’ve three times the brains he has; in the second, if you are
not mad, you needn’t care a hang that he has got such a wild idea; and
thirdly, that piece of beef whose specialty is surgery has gone mad on
mental diseases, and what’s brought him to this conclusion about you
was your conversation to-day with Zametov.”
“Zametov told you all about it?”
“Yes, and he did well. Now I understand what it all means and so does
Zametov.... Well, the fact is, Rodya... the point is... I am a little drunk
now.... But that’s... no matter... the point is that this idea... you
understand? was just being hatched in their brains... you understand?
That is, no one ventured to say it aloud, because the idea is too absurd
and especially since the arrest of that painter, that bubble’s burst and
gone for ever. But why are they such fools? I gave Zametov a bit of a
thrashing at the time—that’s between ourselves, brother; please don’t
let out a hint that you know of it; I’ve noticed he is a ticklish subject; it
was at Luise Ivanovna’s. But to-day, to-day it’s all cleared up. That Ilya
Petrovitch is at the bottom of it! He took advantage of your fainting at
the police station, but he is ashamed of it himself now; I know that...”
Raskolnikov listened greedily. Razumihin was drunk enough to talk
too freely.
“I fainted then because it was so close and the smell of paint,” said
Raskolnikov.
“No need to explain that! And it wasn’t the paint only: the fever had
been coming on for a month; Zossimov testi ies to that! But how
crushed that boy is now, you wouldn’t believe! ‘I am not worth his little
inger,’ he says. Yours, he means. He has good feelings at times, brother.
But the lesson, the lesson you gave him to-day in the Palais de Cristal,
that was too good for anything! You frightened him at irst, you know,
he nearly went into convulsions! You almost convinced him again of the
truth of all that hideous nonsense, and then you suddenly—put out
your tongue at him: ‘There now, what do you make of it?’ It was perfect!
He is crushed, annihilated now! It was masterly, by Jove, it’s what they
deserve! Ah, that I wasn’t there! He was hoping to see you awfully.
Por iry, too, wants to make your acquaintance...”
“Ah!... he too... but why did they put me down as mad?”
“Oh, not mad. I must have said too much, brother.... What struck him,
you see, was that only that subject seemed to interest you; now it’s
clear why it did interest you; knowing all the circumstances... and how
that irritated you and worked in with your illness... I am a little drunk,
brother, only, confound him, he has some idea of his own... I tell you,
he’s mad on mental diseases. But don’t you mind him...”
For half a minute both were silent.
“Listen, Razumihin,” began Raskolnikov, “I want to tell you plainly:
I’ve just been at a death-bed, a clerk who died... I gave them all my
money... and besides I’ve just been kissed by someone who, if I had
killed anyone, would just the same... in fact I saw someone else there...
with a lame-coloured feather... but I am talking nonsense; I am very
weak, support me... we shall be at the stairs directly...”
“What’s the matter? What’s the matter with you?” Razumihin asked
anxiously.
“I am a little giddy, but that’s not the point, I am so sad, so sad... like a
woman. Look, what’s that? Look, look!”
“What is it?”
“Don’t you see? A light in my room, you see? Through the crack...”
They were already at the foot of the last light of stairs, at the level of
the landlady’s door, and they could, as a fact, see from below that there
was a light in Raskolnikov’s garret.
“Queer! Nastasya, perhaps,” observed Razumihin.
“She is never in my room at this time and she must be in bed long
ago, but... I don’t care! Good-bye!”
“What do you mean? I am coming with you, we’ll come in together!”
 “I know we are going in together, but I want to shake hands here and
say good-bye to you here. So give me your hand, good-bye!”
“What’s the matter with you, Rodya?”
“Nothing... come along... you shall be witness.”
They began mounting the stairs, and the idea struck Razumihin that
perhaps Zossimov might be right after all. “Ah, I’ve upset him with my
chatter!” he muttered to himself.
When they reached the door they heard voices in the room.
“What is it?” cried Razumihin. Raskolnikov was the irst to open the
door; he lung it wide and stood still in the doorway, dumbfoundered.
His mother and sister were sitting on his sofa and had been waiting
an hour and a half for him. Why had he never expected, never thought
of them, though the news that they had started, were on their way and
would arrive immediately, had been repeated to him only that day?
They had spent that hour and a half plying Nastasya with questions. She
was standing before them and had told them everything by now. They
were beside themselves with alarm when they heard of his “running
away” to-day, ill and, as they understood from her story, delirious!
“Good Heavens, what had become of him?” Both had been weeping,
both had been in anguish for that hour and a half.
A cry of joy, of ecstasy, greeted Raskolnikov’s entrance. Both rushed
to him. But he stood like one dead; a sudden intolerable sensation
struck him like a thunderbolt. He did not lift his arms to embrace them,
he could not. His mother and sister clasped him in their arms, kissed
him, laughed and cried. He took a step, tottered and fell to the ground,
fainting.
Anxiety, cries of horror, moans... Razumihin who was standing in the
doorway lew into the room, seized the sick man in his strong arms and
in a moment had him on the sofa.
“It’s nothing, nothing!” he cried to the mother and sister—“it’s only a
faint, a mere tri le! Only just now the doctor said he was much better,
that he is perfectly well! Water! See, he is coming to himself, he is all
right again!”
And seizing Dounia by the arm so that he almost dislocated it, he
made her bend down to see that “he is all right again.” The mother and
sister looked on him with emotion and gratitude, as their Providence.
They had heard already from Nastasya all that had been done for their
Rodya during his illness, by this “very competent young man,” as
Pulcheria Alexandrovna Raskolnikov called him that evening in
conversation with Dounia.
PART III
 CHAPTER I

Raskolnikov got up, and sat down on the sofa. He waved his hand
weakly to Razumihin to cut short the low of warm and incoherent
consolations he was addressing to his mother and sister, took them
both by the hand and for a minute or two gazed from one to the other
without speaking. His mother was alarmed by his expression. It
revealed an emotion agonisingly poignant, and at the same time
something immovable, almost insane. Pulcheria Alexandrovna began to
cry.
Avdotya Romanovna was pale; her hand trembled in her brother’s.
“Go home... with him,” he said in a broken voice, pointing to
Razumihin, “good-bye till to-morrow; to-morrow everything... Is it long
since you arrived?”
“This evening, Rodya,” answered Pulcheria Alexandrovna, “the train
was awfully late. But, Rodya, nothing would induce me to leave you
now! I will spend the night here, near you...”
“Don’t torture me!” he said with a gesture of irritation.
“I will stay with him,” cried Razumihin, “I won’t leave him for a
moment. Bother all my visitors! Let them rage to their hearts’ content!
My uncle is presiding there.”
“How, how can I thank you!” Pulcheria Alexandrovna was beginning,
once more pressing Razumihin’s hands, but Raskolnikov interrupted
her again.
“I can’t have it! I can’t have it!” he repeated irritably, “don’t worry me!
Enough, go away... I can’t stand it!”
“Come, mamma, come out of the room at least for a minute,” Dounia
whispered in dismay; “we are distressing him, that’s evident.”
 “Mayn’t I look at him after three years?” wept Pulcheria
Alexandrovna.
“Stay,” he stopped them again, “you keep interrupting me, and my
ideas get muddled.... Have you seen Luzhin?”
“No, Rodya, but he knows already of our arrival. We have heard,
Rodya, that Pyotr Petrovitch was so kind as to visit you today,” Pulcheria
Alexandrovna added somewhat timidly.
“Yes... he was so kind... Dounia, I promised Luzhin I’d throw him
downstairs and told him to go to hell....”
“Rodya, what are you saying! Surely, you don’t mean to tell us...”
Pulcheria Alexandrovna began in alarm, but she stopped, looking at
Dounia.
Avdotya Romanovna was looking attentively at her brother, waiting
for what would come next. Both of them had heard of the quarrel from
Nastasya, so far as she had succeeded in understanding and reporting
it, and were in painful perplexity and suspense.
“Dounia,” Raskolnikov continued with an effort, “I don’t want that
marriage, so at the irst opportunity to-morrow you must refuse
Luzhin, so that we may never hear his name again.”
“Good Heavens!” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna.
“Brother, think what you are saying!” Avdotya Romanovna began
impetuously, but immediately checked herself. “You are not it to talk
now, perhaps; you are tired,” she added gently.
“You think I am delirious? No... You are marrying Luzhin for my sake.
But I won’t accept the sacri ice. And so write a letter before to-morrow,
to refuse him... Let me read it in the morning and that will be the end of
it!”
“That I can’t do!” the girl cried, offended, “what right have you...”
“Dounia, you are hasty, too, be quiet, to-morrow... Don’t you see...” the
mother interposed in dismay. “Better come away!”
“He is raving,” Razumihin cried tipsily, “or how would he dare! To-
morrow all this nonsense will be over... to-day he certainly did drive
him away. That was so. And Luzhin got angry, too.... He made speeches
here, wanted to show off his learning and he went out crest-fallen....”
 “Then it’s true?” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna.
“Good-bye till to-morrow, brother,” said Dounia compassionately—
“let us go, mother... Good-bye, Rodya.”
“Do you hear, sister,” he repeated after them, making a last effort, “I
am not delirious; this marriage is—an infamy. Let me act like a
scoundrel, but you mustn’t... one is enough... and though I am a
scoundrel, I wouldn’t own such a sister. It’s me or Luzhin! Go now....”
“But you’re out of your mind! Despot!” roared Razumihin; but
Raskolnikov did not and perhaps could not answer. He lay down on the
sofa, and turned to the wall, utterly exhausted. Avdotya Romanovna
looked with interest at Razumihin; her black eyes lashed; Razumihin
positively started at her glance.
Pulcheria Alexandrovna stood overwhelmed.
“Nothing would induce me to go,” she whispered in despair to
Razumihin. “I will stay somewhere here... escort Dounia home.”
“You’ll spoil everything,” Razumihin answered in the same whisper,
losing patience—“come out on to the stairs, anyway. Nastasya, show a
light! I assure you,” he went on in a half whisper on the stairs—“that he
was almost beating the doctor and me this afternoon! Do you
understand? The doctor himself! Even he gave way and left him, so as
not to irritate him. I remained downstairs on guard, but he dressed at
once and slipped off. And he will slip off again if you irritate him, at this
time of night, and will do himself some mischief....”
“What are you saying?”
“And Avdotya Romanovna can’t possibly be left in those lodgings
without you. Just think where you are staying! That blackguard Pyotr
Petrovitch couldn’t ind you better lodgings... But you know I’ve had a
little to drink, and that’s what makes me... swear; don’t mind it....”
“But I’ll go to the landlady here,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna insisted, “I’ll
beseech her to ind some corner for Dounia and me for the night. I can’t
leave him like that, I cannot!”
This conversation took place on the landing just before the landlady’s
door. Nastasya lighted them from a step below. Razumihin was in
extraordinary excitement. Half an hour earlier, while he was bringing
Raskolnikov home, he had indeed talked too freely, but he was aware of
it himself, and his head was clear in spite of the vast quantities he had
imbibed. Now he was in a state bordering on ecstasy, and all that he had
drunk seemed to ly to his head with redoubled effect. He stood with
the two ladies, seizing both by their hands, persuading them, and giving
them reasons with astonishing plainness of speech, and at almost every
word he uttered, probably to emphasise his arguments, he squeezed
their hands painfully as in a vise. He stared at Avdotya Romanovna
without the least regard for good manners. They sometimes pulled
their hands out of his huge bony paws, but far from noticing what was
the matter, he drew them all the closer to him. If they’d told him to
jump head foremost from the staircase, he would have done it without
thought or hesitation in their service. Though Pulcheria Alexandrovna
felt that the young man was really too eccentric and pinched her hand
too much, in her anxiety over her Rodya she looked on his presence as
providential, and was unwilling to notice all his peculiarities. But
though Avdotya Romanovna shared her anxiety, and was not of
timorous disposition, she could not see the glowing light in his eyes
without wonder and almost alarm. It was only the unbounded
con idence inspired by Nastasya’s account of her brother’s queer friend,
which prevented her from trying to run away from him, and to
persuade her mother to do the same. She realised, too, that even
running away was perhaps impossible now. Ten minutes later, however,
she was considerably reassured; it was characteristic of Razumihin that
he showed his true nature at once, whatever mood he might be in, so
that people quickly saw the sort of man they had to deal with.
“You can’t go to the landlady, that’s perfect nonsense!” he cried. “If
you stay, though you are his mother, you’ll drive him to a frenzy, and
then goodness knows what will happen! Listen, I’ll tell you what I’ll do:
Nastasya will stay with him now, and I’ll conduct you both home, you
can’t be in the streets alone; Petersburg is an awful place in that way....
But no matter! Then I’ll run straight back here and a quarter of an hour
later, on my word of honour, I’ll bring you news how he is, whether he is
asleep, and all that. Then, listen! Then I’ll run home in a twinkling—I’ve
a lot of friends there, all drunk—I’ll fetch Zossimov—that’s the doctor
who is looking after him, he is there, too, but he is not drunk; he is not
drunk, he is never drunk! I’ll drag him to Rodya, and then to you, so that
you’ll get two reports in the hour—from the doctor, you understand,
from the doctor himself, that’s a very different thing from my account of
him! If there’s anything wrong, I swear I’ll bring you here myself, but, if
it’s all right, you go to bed. And I’ll spend the night here, in the passage,
he won’t hear me, and I’ll tell Zossimov to sleep at the landlady’s, to be
at hand. Which is better for him: you or the doctor? So come home
then! But the landlady is out of the question; it’s all right for me, but it’s
out of the question for you: she wouldn’t take you, for she’s... for she’s a
fool... She’d be jealous on my account of Avdotya Romanovna and of
you, too, if you want to know... of Avdotya Romanovna certainly. She is
an absolutely, absolutely unaccountable character! But I am a fool, too!...
No matter! Come along! Do you trust me? Come, do you trust me or
not?”
“Let us go, mother,” said Avdotya Romanovna, “he will certainly do
what he has promised. He has saved Rodya already, and if the doctor
really will consent to spend the night here, what could be better?”
“You see, you... you... understand me, because you are an angel!”
Razumihin cried in ecstasy, “let us go! Nastasya! Fly upstairs and sit
with him with a light; I’ll come in a quarter of an hour.”
Though Pulcheria Alexandrovna was not perfectly convinced, she
made no further resistance. Razumihin gave an arm to each and drew
them down the stairs. He still made her uneasy, as though he was
competent and good-natured, was he capable of carrying out his
promise? He seemed in such a condition....
“Ah, I see you think I am in such a condition!” Razumihin broke in
upon her thoughts, guessing them, as he strolled along the pavement
with huge steps, so that the two ladies could hardly keep up with him, a
fact he did not observe, however. “Nonsense! That is... I am drunk like a
fool, but that’s not it; I am not drunk from wine. It’s seeing you has
turned my head... But don’t mind me! Don’t take any notice: I am talking
nonsense, I am not worthy of you.... I am utterly unworthy of you! The
minute I’ve taken you home, I’ll pour a couple of pailfuls of water over
my head in the gutter here, and then I shall be all right.... If only you
knew how I love you both! Don’t laugh, and don’t be angry! You may be
angry with anyone, but not with me! I am his friend, and therefore I am
your friend, too, I want to be... I had a presentiment... Last year there
was a moment... though it wasn’t a presentiment really, for you seem to
have fallen from heaven. And I expect I shan’t sleep all night... Zossimov
was afraid a little time ago that he would go mad... that’s why he
mustn’t be irritated.”
“What do you say?” cried the mother.
“Did the doctor really say that?” asked Avdotya Romanovna, alarmed.
“Yes, but it’s not so, not a bit of it. He gave him some medicine, a
powder, I saw it, and then your coming here.... Ah! It would have been
better if you had come to-morrow. It’s a good thing we went away. And
in an hour Zossimov himself will report to you about everything. He is
not drunk! And I shan’t be drunk.... And what made me get so tight?
Because they got me into an argument, damn them! I’ve sworn never to
argue! They talk such trash! I almost came to blows! I’ve left my uncle
to preside. Would you believe, they insist on complete absence of
individualism and that’s just what they relish! Not to be themselves, to
be as unlike themselves as they can. That’s what they regard as the
highest point of progress. If only their nonsense were their own, but as
it is...”
“Listen!” Pulcheria Alexandrovna interrupted timidly, but it only
added fuel to the lames.
“What do you think?” shouted Razumihin, louder than ever, “you
think I am attacking them for talking nonsense? Not a bit! I like them to
talk nonsense. That’s man’s one privilege over all creation. Through
error you come to the truth! I am a man because I err! You never reach
any truth without making fourteen mistakes and very likely a hundred
and fourteen. And a ine thing, too, in its way; but we can’t even make
mistakes on our own account! Talk nonsense, but talk your own
nonsense, and I’ll kiss you for it. To go wrong in one’s own way is better
than to go right in someone else’s. In the irst case you are a man, in the
second you’re no better than a bird. Truth won’t escape you, but life can
be cramped. There have been examples. And what are we doing now? In
science, development, thought, invention, ideals, aims, liberalism,
judgment, experience and everything, everything, everything, we are
still in the preparatory class at school. We prefer to live on other
people’s ideas, it’s what we are used to! Am I right, am I right?” cried
Razumihin, pressing and shaking the two ladies’ hands.
“Oh, mercy, I do not know,” cried poor Pulcheria Alexandrovna.
 “Yes, yes... though I don’t agree with you in everything,” added
Avdotya Romanovna earnestly and at once uttered a cry, for he
squeezed her hand so painfully.
“Yes, you say yes... well after that you... you...” he cried in a transport,
“you are a fount of goodness, purity, sense... and perfection. Give me
your hand... you give me yours, too! I want to kiss your hands here at
once, on my knees...” and he fell on his knees on the pavement,
fortunately at that time deserted.
“Leave off, I entreat you, what are you doing?” Pulcheria
Alexandrovna cried, greatly distressed.
“Get up, get up!” said Dounia laughing, though she, too, was upset.
“Not for anything till you let me kiss your hands! That’s it! Enough! I
get up and we’ll go on! I am a luckless fool, I am unworthy of you and
drunk... and I am ashamed.... I am not worthy to love you, but to do
homage to you is the duty of every man who is not a perfect beast! And
I’ve done homage.... Here are your lodgings, and for that alone Rodya
was right in driving your Pyotr Petrovitch away.... How dare he! how
dare he put you in such lodgings! It’s a scandal! Do you know the sort of
people they take in here? And you his betrothed! You are his betrothed?
Yes? Well, then, I’ll tell you, your iancé is a scoundrel.”
“Excuse me, Mr. Razumihin, you are forgetting...” Pulcheria
Alexandrovna was beginning.
“Yes, yes, you are right, I did forget myself, I am ashamed of it,”
Razumihin made haste to apologise. “But... but you can’t be angry with
me for speaking so! For I speak sincerely and not because... hm, hm!
That would be disgraceful; in fact not because I’m in... hm! Well, anyway,
I won’t say why, I daren’t.... But we all saw to-day when he came in that
that man is not of our sort. Not because he had his hair curled at the
barber’s, not because he was in such a hurry to show his wit, but
because he is a spy, a speculator, because he is a skin- lint and a
buffoon. That’s evident. Do you think him clever? No, he is a fool, a fool.
And is he a match for you? Good heavens! Do you see, ladies?” he
stopped suddenly on the way upstairs to their rooms, “though all my
friends there are drunk, yet they are all honest, and though we do talk a
lot of trash, and I do, too, yet we shall talk our way to the truth at last,
for we are on the right path, while Pyotr Petrovitch... is not on the right
path. Though I’ve been calling them all sorts of names just now, I do
respect them all... though I don’t respect Zametov, I like him, for he is a
puppy, and that bullock Zossimov, because he is an honest man and
knows his work. But enough, it’s all said and forgiven. Is it forgiven?
Well, then, let’s go on. I know this corridor, I’ve been here, there was a
scandal here at Number 3.... Where are you here? Which number?
eight? Well, lock yourselves in for the night, then. Don’t let anybody in.
In a quarter of an hour I’ll come back with news, and half an hour later
I’ll bring Zossimov, you’ll see! Good-bye, I’ll run.”
“Good heavens, Dounia, what is going to happen?” said Pulcheria
Alexandrovna, addressing her daughter with anxiety and dismay.
“Don’t worry yourself, mother,” said Dounia, taking off her hat and
cape. “God has sent this gentleman to our aid, though he has come from
a drinking party. We can depend on him, I assure you. And all that he
has done for Rodya....”
“Ah. Dounia, goodness knows whether he will come! How could I
bring myself to leave Rodya?... And how different, how different I had
fancied our meeting! How sullen he was, as though not pleased to see
us....”
Tears came into her eyes.
“No, it’s not that, mother. You didn’t see, you were crying all the time.
He is quite unhinged by serious illness—that’s the reason.”
“Ah, that illness! What will happen, what will happen? And how he
talked to you, Dounia!” said the mother, looking timidly at her daughter,
trying to read her thoughts and, already half consoled by Dounia’s
standing up for her brother, which meant that she had already forgiven
him. “I am sure he will think better of it to-morrow,” she added, probing
her further.
“And I am sure that he will say the same to-morrow... about that,”
Avdotya Romanovna said inally. And, of course, there was no going
beyond that, for this was a point which Pulcheria Alexandrovna was
afraid to discuss. Dounia went up and kissed her mother. The latter
warmly embraced her without speaking. Then she sat down to wait
anxiously for Razumihin’s return, timidly watching her daughter who
walked up and down the room with her arms folded, lost in thought.
This walking up and down when she was thinking was a habit of
Avdotya Romanovna’s and the mother was always afraid to break in on
her daughter’s mood at such moments.
Razumihin, of course, was ridiculous in his sudden drunken
infatuation for Avdotya Romanovna. Yet apart from his eccentric
condition, many people would have thought it justi ied if they had seen
Avdotya Romanovna, especially at that moment when she was walking
to and fro with folded arms, pensive and melancholy. Avdotya
Romanovna was remarkably good-looking; she was tall, strikingly well-
proportioned, strong and self-reliant—the latter quality was apparent
in every gesture, though it did not in the least detract from the grace
and softness of her movements. In face she resembled her brother, but
she might be described as really beautiful. Her hair was dark brown, a
little lighter than her brother’s; there was a proud light in her almost
black eyes and yet at times a look of extraordinary kindness. She was
pale, but it was a healthy pallor; her face was radiant with freshness
and vigour. Her mouth was rather small; the full red lower lip projected
a little as did her chin; it was the only irregularity in her beautiful face,
but it gave it a peculiarly individual and almost haughty expression. Her
face was always more serious and thoughtful than gay; but how well
smiles, how well youthful, lighthearted, irresponsible, laughter suited
her face! It was natural enough that a warm, open, simple-hearted,
honest giant like Razumihin, who had never seen anyone like her and
was not quite sober at the time, should lose his head immediately.
Besides, as chance would have it, he saw Dounia for the irst time
trans igured by her love for her brother and her joy at meeting him.
Afterwards he saw her lower lip quiver with indignation at her
brother’s insolent, cruel and ungrateful words—and his fate was sealed.
He had spoken the truth, moreover, when he blurted out in his
drunken talk on the stairs that Praskovya Pavlovna, Raskolnikov’s
eccentric landlady, would be jealous of Pulcheria Alexandrovna as well
as of Avdotya Romanovna on his account. Although Pulcheria
Alexandrovna was forty-three, her face still retained traces of her
former beauty; she looked much younger than her age, indeed, which is
almost always the case with women who retain serenity of spirit,
sensitiveness and pure sincere warmth of heart to old age. We may add
in parenthesis that to preserve all this is the only means of retaining
beauty to old age. Her hair had begun to grow grey and thin, there had
long been little crow’s foot wrinkles round her eyes, her cheeks were
hollow and sunken from anxiety and grief, and yet it was a handsome
face. She was Dounia over again, twenty years older, but without the
projecting underlip. Pulcheria Alexandrovna was emotional, but not
sentimental, timid and yielding, but only to a certain point. She could
give way and accept a great deal even of what was contrary to her
convictions, but there was a certain barrier ixed by honesty, principle
and the deepest convictions which nothing would induce her to cross.
Exactly twenty minutes after Razumihin’s departure, there came two
subdued but hurried knocks at the door: he had come back.
“I won’t come in, I haven’t time,” he hastened to say when the door
was opened. “He sleeps like a top, soundly, quietly, and God grant he
may sleep ten hours. Nastasya’s with him; I told her not to leave till I
came. Now I am fetching Zossimov, he will report to you and then you’d
better turn in; I can see you are too tired to do anything....”
And he ran off down the corridor.
“What a very competent and... devoted young man!” cried Pulcheria
Alexandrovna exceedingly delighted.
“He seems a splendid person!” Avdotya Romanovna replied with
some warmth, resuming her walk up and down the room.
It was nearly an hour later when they heard footsteps in the corridor
and another knock at the door. Both women waited this time
completely relying on Razumihin’s promise; he actually had succeeded
in bringing Zossimov. Zossimov had agreed at once to desert the
drinking party to go to Raskolnikov’s, but he came reluctantly and with
the greatest suspicion to see the ladies, mistrusting Razumihin in his
exhilarated condition. But his vanity was at once reassured and
lattered; he saw that they were really expecting him as an oracle. He
stayed just ten minutes and succeeded in completely convincing and
comforting Pulcheria Alexandrovna. He spoke with marked sympathy,
but with the reserve and extreme seriousness of a young doctor at an
important consultation. He did not utter a word on any other subject
and did not display the slightest desire to enter into more personal
relations with the two ladies. Remarking at his irst entrance the
dazzling beauty of Avdotya Romanovna, he endeavoured not to notice
her at all during his visit and addressed himself solely to Pulcheria
Alexandrovna. All this gave him extraordinary inward satisfaction. He
declared that he thought the invalid at this moment going on very
satisfactorily. According to his observations the patient’s illness was
due partly to his unfortunate material surroundings during the last few
months, but it had partly also a moral origin, “was, so to speak, the
product of several material and moral in luences, anxieties,
apprehensions, troubles, certain ideas... and so on.” Noticing stealthily
that Avdotya Romanovna was following his words with close attention,
Zossimov allowed himself to enlarge on this theme. On Pulcheria
Alexandrovna’s anxiously and timidly inquiring as to “some suspicion of
insanity,” he replied with a composed and candid smile that his words
had been exaggerated; that certainly the patient had some ixed idea,
something approaching a monomania—he, Zossimov, was now
particularly studying this interesting branch of medicine—but that it
must be recollected that until to-day the patient had been in delirium
and... and that no doubt the presence of his family would have a
favourable effect on his recovery and distract his mind, “if only all fresh
shocks can be avoided,” he added signi icantly. Then he got up, took
leave with an impressive and affable bow, while blessings, warm
gratitude, and entreaties were showered upon him, and Avdotya
Romanovna spontaneously offered her hand to him. He went out
exceedingly pleased with his visit and still more so with himself.
“We’ll talk to-morrow; go to bed at once!” Razumihin said in
conclusion, following Zossimov out. “I’ll be with you to-morrow
morning as early as possible with my report.”
“That’s a fetching little girl, Avdotya Romanovna,” remarked
Zossimov, almost licking his lips as they both came out into the street.
“Fetching? You said fetching?” roared Razumihin and he lew at
Zossimov and seized him by the throat. “If you ever dare.... Do you
understand? Do you understand?” he shouted, shaking him by the
collar and squeezing him against the wall. “Do you hear?”
“Let me go, you drunken devil,” said Zossimov, struggling and when
he had let him go, he stared at him and went off into a sudden guffaw.
Razumihin stood facing him in gloomy and earnest re lection.
“Of course, I am an ass,” he observed, sombre as a storm cloud, “but
still... you are another.”
 “No, brother, not at all such another. I am not dreaming of any folly.”
They walked along in silence and only when they were close to
Raskolnikov’s lodgings, Razumihin broke the silence in considerable
anxiety.
“Listen,” he said, “you’re a irst-rate fellow, but among your other
failings, you’re a loose ish, that I know, and a dirty one, too. You are a
feeble, nervous wretch, and a mass of whims, you’re getting fat and lazy
and can’t deny yourself anything—and I call that dirty because it leads
one straight into the dirt. You’ve let yourself get so slack that I don’t
know how it is you are still a good, even a devoted doctor. You—a
doctor—sleep on a feather bed and get up at night to your patients! In
another three or four years you won’t get up for your patients... But
hang it all, that’s not the point!... You are going to spend to-night in the
landlady’s lat here. (Hard work I’ve had to persuade her!) And I’ll be in
the kitchen. So here’s a chance for you to get to know her better.... It’s
not as you think! There’s not a trace of anything of the sort, brother...!”
“But I don’t think!”
“Here you have modesty, brother, silence, bashfulness, a savage
virtue... and yet she’s sighing and melting like wax, simply melting! Save
me from her, by all that’s unholy! She’s most prepossessing... I’ll repay
you, I’ll do anything....”
Zossimov laughed more violently than ever.
“Well, you are smitten! But what am I to do with her?”
“It won’t be much trouble, I assure you. Talk any rot you like to her, as
long as you sit by her and talk. You’re a doctor, too; try curing her of
something. I swear you won’t regret it. She has a piano, and you know, I
strum a little. I have a song there, a genuine Russian one: ‘I shed hot
tears.’ She likes the genuine article—and well, it all began with that
song; Now you’re a regular performer, a maître, a Rubinstein.... I assure
you, you won’t regret it!”
“But have you made her some promise? Something signed? A
promise of marriage, perhaps?”
“Nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of the kind! Besides she is not
that sort at all.... Tchebarov tried that....”
“Well then, drop her!”
 “But I can’t drop her like that!”
“Why can’t you?”
“Well, I can’t, that’s all about it! There’s an element of attraction here,
brother.”
“Then why have you fascinated her?”
“I haven’t fascinated her; perhaps I was fascinated myself in my folly.
But she won’t care a straw whether it’s you or I, so long as somebody
sits beside her, sighing.... I can’t explain the position, brother... look here,
you are good at mathematics, and working at it now... begin teaching
her the integral calculus; upon my soul, I’m not joking, I’m in earnest,
it’ll be just the same to her. She will gaze at you and sigh for a whole
year together. I talked to her once for two days at a time about the
Prussian House of Lords (for one must talk of something)—she just
sighed and perspired! And you mustn’t talk of love—she’s bashful to
hysterics—but just let her see you can’t tear yourself away—that’s
enough. It’s fearfully comfortable; you’re quite at home, you can read,
sit, lie about, write. You may even venture on a kiss, if you’re careful.”
“But what do I want with her?”
“Ach, I can’t make you understand! You see, you are made for each
other! I have often been reminded of you!... You’ll come to it in the end!
So does it matter whether it’s sooner or later? There’s the feather-bed
element here, brother—ach! and not only that! There’s an attraction
here—here you have the end of the world, an anchorage, a quiet haven,
the navel of the earth, the three ishes that are the foundation of the
world, the essence of pancakes, of savoury ish-pies, of the evening
samovar, of soft sighs and warm shawls, and hot stoves to sleep on—as
snug as though you were dead, and yet you’re alive—the advantages of
both at once! Well, hang it, brother, what stuff I’m talking, it’s bedtime!
Listen. I sometimes wake up at night; so I’ll go in and look at him. But
there’s no need, it’s all right. Don’t you worry yourself, yet if you like,
you might just look in once, too. But if you notice anything—delirium or
fever—wake me at once. But there can’t be....”
 CHAPTER II

Razumihin waked up next morning at eight o’clock, troubled and

serious. He found himself confronted with many new and unlooked-for
perplexities. He had never expected that he would ever wake up feeling
like that. He remembered every detail of the previous day and he knew
that a perfectly novel experience had befallen him, that he had received
an impression unlike anything he had known before. At the same time
he recognised clearly that the dream which had ired his imagination
was hopelessly unattainable—so unattainable that he felt positively
ashamed of it, and he hastened to pass to the other more practical cares
and dif iculties bequeathed him by that “thrice accursed yesterday.”
The most awful recollection of the previous day was the way he had
shown himself “base and mean,” not only because he had been drunk,
but because he had taken advantage of the young girl’s position to
abuse her iancé in his stupid jealousy, knowing nothing of their mutual
relations and obligations and next to nothing of the man himself. And
what right had he to criticise him in that hasty and unguarded manner?
Who had asked for his opinion? Was it thinkable that such a creature as
Avdotya Romanovna would be marrying an unworthy man for money?
So there must be something in him. The lodgings? But after all how
could he know the character of the lodgings? He was furnishing a lat...
Foo! how despicable it all was! And what justi ication was it that he was
drunk? Such a stupid excuse was even more degrading! In wine is truth,
and the truth had all come out, “that is, all the uncleanness of his coarse
and envious heart”! And would such a dream ever be permissible to
him, Razumihin? What was he beside such a girl—he, the drunken
noisy braggart of last night? Was it possible to imagine so absurd and
cynical a juxtaposition? Razumihin blushed desperately at the very idea
and suddenly the recollection forced itself vividly upon him of how he
had said last night on the stairs that the landlady would be jealous of
Avdotya Romanovna... that was simply intolerable. He brought his ist
down heavily on the kitchen stove, hurt his hand and sent one of the
bricks lying.
“Of course,” he muttered to himself a minute later with a feeling of
self-abasement, “of course, all these infamies can never be wiped out or
smoothed over... and so it’s useless even to think of it, and I must go to
them in silence and do my duty... in silence, too... and not ask
forgiveness, and say nothing... for all is lost now!”
And yet as he dressed he examined his attire more carefully than
usual. He hadn’t another suit—if he had had, perhaps he wouldn’t have
put it on. “I would have made a point of not putting it on.” But in any
case he could not remain a cynic and a dirty sloven; he had no right to
offend the feelings of others, especially when they were in need of his
assistance and asking him to see them. He brushed his clothes carefully.
His linen was always decent; in that respect he was especially clean.
He washed that morning scrupulously—he got some soap from
Nastasya—he washed his hair, his neck and especially his hands. When
it came to the question whether to shave his stubbly chin or not
(Praskovya Pavlovna had capital razors that had been left by her late
husband), the question was angrily answered in the negative. “Let it
stay as it is! What if they think that I shaved on purpose to...? They
certainly would think so! Not on any account!”
“And... the worst of it was he was so coarse, so dirty, he had the
manners of a pothouse; and... and even admitting that he knew he had
some of the essentials of a gentleman... what was there in that to be
proud of? Everyone ought to be a gentleman and more than that... and
all the same (he remembered) he, too, had done little things... not
exactly dishonest, and yet.... And what thoughts he sometimes had; hm...
and to set all that beside Avdotya Romanovna! Confound it! So be it!
Well, he’d make a point then of being dirty, greasy, pothouse in his
manners and he wouldn’t care! He’d be worse!”
He was engaged in such monologues when Zossimov, who had spent
the night in Praskovya Pavlovna’s parlour, came in.
He was going home and was in a hurry to look at the invalid irst.
Razumihin informed him that Raskolnikov was sleeping like a
dormouse. Zossimov gave orders that they shouldn’t wake him and
promised to see him again about eleven.
“If he is still at home,” he added. “Damn it all! If one can’t control
one’s patients, how is one to cure them? Do you know whether he will
go to them, or whether they are coming here?”
“They are coming, I think,” said Razumihin, understanding the object
of the question, “and they will discuss their family affairs, no doubt. I’ll
be off. You, as the doctor, have more right to be here than I.”
“But I am not a father confessor; I shall come and go away; I’ve plenty
to do besides looking after them.”
“One thing worries me,” interposed Razumihin, frowning. “On the
way home I talked a lot of drunken nonsense to him... all sorts of
things... and amongst them that you were afraid that he... might become
insane.”
“You told the ladies so, too.”
“I know it was stupid! You may beat me if you like! Did you think so
seriously?”
“That’s nonsense, I tell you, how could I think it seriously? You,
yourself, described him as a monomaniac when you fetched me to him...
and we added fuel to the ire yesterday, you did, that is, with your story
about the painter; it was a nice conversation, when he was, perhaps,
mad on that very point! If only I’d known what happened then at the
police station and that some wretch... had insulted him with this
suspicion! Hm... I would not have allowed that conversation yesterday.
These monomaniacs will make a mountain out of a mole-hill... and see
their fancies as solid realities.... As far as I remember, it was Zametov’s
story that cleared up half the mystery, to my mind. Why, I know one
case in which a hypochondriac, a man of forty, cut the throat of a little
boy of eight, because he couldn’t endure the jokes he made every day at
table! And in this case his rags, the insolent police of icer, the fever and
this suspicion! All that working upon a man half frantic with
hypochondria, and with his morbid exceptional vanity! That may well
have been the starting-point of illness. Well, bother it all!... And, by the
way, that Zametov certainly is a nice fellow, but hm... he shouldn’t have
told all that last night. He is an awful chatterbox!”
 “But whom did he tell it to? You and me?”
“And Por iry.”
“What does that matter?”
“And, by the way, have you any in luence on them, his mother and
sister? Tell them to be more careful with him to-day....”
“They’ll get on all right!” Razumihin answered reluctantly.
“Why is he so set against this Luzhin? A man with money and she
doesn’t seem to dislike him... and they haven’t a farthing, I suppose?
eh?”
“But what business is it of yours?” Razumihin cried with annoyance.
“How can I tell whether they’ve a farthing? Ask them yourself and
perhaps you’ll ind out....”
“Foo! what an ass you are sometimes! Last night’s wine has not gone
off yet.... Good-bye; thank your Praskovya Pavlovna from me for my
night’s lodging. She locked herself in, made no reply to my bonjour
through the door; she was up at seven o’clock, the samovar was taken
into her from the kitchen. I was not vouchsafed a personal interview....”
At nine o’clock precisely Razumihin reached the lodgings at
Bakaleyev’s house. Both ladies were waiting for him with nervous
impatience. They had risen at seven o’clock or earlier. He entered
looking as black as night, bowed awkwardly and was at once furious
with himself for it. He had reckoned without his host: Pulcheria
Alexandrovna fairly rushed at him, seized him by both hands and was
almost kissing them. He glanced timidly at Avdotya Romanovna, but her
proud countenance wore at that moment an expression of such
gratitude and friendliness, such complete and unlooked-for respect (in
place of the sneering looks and ill-disguised contempt he had
expected), that it threw him into greater confusion than if he had been
met with abuse. Fortunately there was a subject for conversation, and
he made haste to snatch at it.
Hearing that everything was going well and that Rodya had not yet
waked, Pulcheria Alexandrovna declared that she was glad to hear it,
because “she had something which it was very, very necessary to talk
over beforehand.” Then followed an inquiry about breakfast and an
invitation to have it with them; they had waited to have it with him.
Avdotya Romanovna rang the bell: it was answered by a ragged dirty
waiter, and they asked him to bring tea which was served at last, but in
such a dirty and disorderly way that the ladies were ashamed.
Razumihin vigorously attacked the lodgings, but, remembering Luzhin,
stopped in embarrassment and was greatly relieved by Pulcheria
Alexandrovna’s questions, which showered in a continual stream upon
him.
He talked for three quarters of an hour, being constantly interrupted
by their questions, and succeeded in describing to them all the most
important facts he knew of the last year of Raskolnikov’s life,
concluding with a circumstantial account of his illness. He omitted,
however, many things, which were better omitted, including the scene
at the police station with all its consequences. They listened eagerly to
his story, and, when he thought he had inished and satis ied his
listeners, he found that they considered he had hardly begun.
“Tell me, tell me! What do you think...? Excuse me, I still don’t know
your name!” Pulcheria Alexandrovna put in hastily.
“Dmitri Proko itch.”
“I should like very, very much to know, Dmitri Proko itch... how he
looks... on things in general now, that is, how can I explain, what are his
likes and dislikes? Is he always so irritable? Tell me, if you can, what are
his hopes and, so to say, his dreams? Under what in luences is he now?
In a word, I should like...”
“Ah, mother, how can he answer all that at once?” observed Dounia.
“Good heavens, I had not expected to ind him in the least like this,
Dmitri Proko itch!”
“Naturally,” answered Razumihin. “I have no mother, but my uncle
comes every year and almost every time he can scarcely recognise me,
even in appearance, though he is a clever man; and your three years’
separation means a great deal. What am I to tell you? I have known
Rodion for a year and a half; he is morose, gloomy, proud and haughty,
and of late—and perhaps for a long time before—he has been
suspicious and fanciful. He has a noble nature and a kind heart. He does
not like showing his feelings and would rather do a cruel thing than
open his heart freely. Sometimes, though, he is not at all morbid, but
simply cold and inhumanly callous; it’s as though he were alternating
between two characters. Sometimes he is fearfully reserved! He says he
is so busy that everything is a hindrance, and yet he lies in bed doing
nothing. He doesn’t jeer at things, not because he hasn’t the wit, but as
though he hadn’t time to waste on such tri les. He never listens to what
is said to him. He is never interested in what interests other people at
any given moment. He thinks very highly of himself and perhaps he is
right. Well, what more? I think your arrival will have a most bene icial
in luence upon him.”
“God grant it may,” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna, distressed by
Razumihin’s account of her Rodya.
And Razumihin ventured to look more boldly at Avdotya Romanovna
at last. He glanced at her often while he was talking, but only for a
moment and looked away again at once. Avdotya Romanovna sat at the
table, listening attentively, then got up again and began walking to and
fro with her arms folded and her lips compressed, occasionally putting
in a question, without stopping her walk. She had the same habit of not
listening to what was said. She was wearing a dress of thin dark stuff
and she had a white transparent scarf round her neck. Razumihin soon
detected signs of extreme poverty in their belongings. Had Avdotya
Romanovna been dressed like a queen, he felt that he would not be
afraid of her, but perhaps just because she was poorly dressed and that
he noticed all the misery of her surroundings, his heart was illed with
dread and he began to be afraid of every word he uttered, every gesture
he made, which was very trying for a man who already felt dif ident.
“You’ve told us a great deal that is interesting about my brother’s
character... and have told it impartially. I am glad. I thought that you
were too uncritically devoted to him,” observed Avdotya Romanovna
with a smile. “I think you are right that he needs a woman’s care,” she
added thoughtfully.
“I didn’t say so; but I daresay you are right, only...”
“What?”
“He loves no one and perhaps he never will,” Razumihin declared
decisively.
“You mean he is not capable of love?”
 “Do you know, Avdotya Romanovna, you are awfully like your
brother, in everything, indeed!” he blurted out suddenly to his own
surprise, but remembering at once what he had just before said of her
brother, he turned as red as a crab and was overcome with confusion.
Avdotya Romanovna couldn’t help laughing when she looked at him.
“You may both be mistaken about Rodya,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna
remarked, slightly piqued. “I am not talking of our present dif iculty,
Dounia. What Pyotr Petrovitch writes in this letter and what you and I
have supposed may be mistaken, but you can’t imagine, Dmitri
Proko itch, how moody and, so to say, capricious he is. I never could
depend on what he would do when he was only ifteen. And I am sure
that he might do something now that nobody else would think of
doing... Well, for instance, do you know how a year and a half ago he
astounded me and gave me a shock that nearly killed me, when he had
the idea of marrying that girl—what was her name—his landlady’s
daughter?”
“Did you hear about that affair?” asked Avdotya Romanovna.
“Do you suppose——” Pulcheria Alexandrovna continued warmly.
“Do you suppose that my tears, my entreaties, my illness, my possible
death from grief, our poverty would have made him pause? No, he
would calmly have disregarded all obstacles. And yet it isn’t that he
doesn’t love us!”
“He has never spoken a word of that affair to me,” Razumihin
answered cautiously. “But I did hear something from Praskovya
Pavlovna herself, though she is by no means a gossip. And what I heard
certainly was rather strange.”
“And what did you hear?” both the ladies asked at once.
“Well, nothing very special. I only learned that the marriage, which
only failed to take place through the girl’s death, was not at all to
Praskovya Pavlovna’s liking. They say, too, the girl was not at all pretty,
in fact I am told positively ugly... and such an invalid... and queer. But
she seems to have had some good qualities. She must have had some
good qualities or it’s quite inexplicable.... She had no money either and
he wouldn’t have considered her money.... But it’s always dif icult to
judge in such matters.”
“I am sure she was a good girl,” Avdotya Romanovna observed brie ly.
 “God forgive me, I simply rejoiced at her death. Though I don’t know
which of them would have caused most misery to the other—he to her
or she to him,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna concluded. Then she began
tentatively questioning him about the scene on the previous day with
Luzhin, hesitating and continually glancing at Dounia, obviously to the
latter’s annoyance. This incident more than all the rest evidently caused
her uneasiness, even consternation. Razumihin described it in detail
again, but this time he added his own conclusions: he openly blamed
Raskolnikov for intentionally insulting Pyotr Petrovitch, not seeking to
excuse him on the score of his illness.
“He had planned it before his illness,” he added.
“I think so, too,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna agreed with a dejected air.
But she was very much surprised at hearing Razumihin express himself
so carefully and even with a certain respect about Pyotr Petrovitch.
Avdotya Romanovna, too, was struck by it.
“So this is your opinion of Pyotr Petrovitch?” Pulcheria Alexandrovna
could not resist asking.
“I can have no other opinion of your daughter’s future husband,”
Razumihin answered irmly and with warmth, “and I don’t say it simply
from vulgar politeness, but because... simply because Avdotya
Romanovna has of her own free will deigned to accept this man. If I
spoke so rudely of him last night, it was because I was disgustingly
drunk and... mad besides; yes, mad, crazy, I lost my head completely...
and this morning I am ashamed of it.”
He crimsoned and ceased speaking. Avdotya Romanovna lushed, but
did not break the silence. She had not uttered a word from the moment
they began to speak of Luzhin.
Without her support Pulcheria Alexandrovna obviously did not know
what to do. At last, faltering and continually glancing at her daughter,
she confessed that she was exceedingly worried by one circumstance.
“You see, Dmitri Proko itch,” she began. “I’ll be perfectly open with
Dmitri Proko itch, Dounia?”
“Of course, mother,” said Avdotya Romanovna emphatically.
“This is what it is,” she began in haste, as though the permission to
speak of her trouble lifted a weight off her mind. “Very early this
morning we got a note from Pyotr Petrovitch in reply to our letter
announcing our arrival. He promised to meet us at the station, you
know; instead of that he sent a servant to bring us the address of these
lodgings and to show us the way; and he sent a message that he would
be here himself this morning. But this morning this note came from
him. You’d better read it yourself; there is one point in it which worries
me very much... you will soon see what that is, and... tell me your candid
opinion, Dmitri Proko itch! You know Rodya’s character better than
anyone and no one can advise us better than you can. Dounia, I must
tell you, made her decision at once, but I still don’t feel sure how to act
and I... I’ve been waiting for your opinion.”
Razumihin opened the note which was dated the previous evening
and read as follows:
“Dear Madam, Pulcheria Alexandrovna, I have the honour to inform
you that owing to unforeseen obstacles I was rendered unable to meet
you at the railway station; I sent a very competent person with the
same object in view. I likewise shall be deprived of the honour of an
interview with you to-morrow morning by business in the Senate that
does not admit of delay, and also that I may not intrude on your family
circle while you are meeting your son, and Avdotya Romanovna her
brother. I shall have the honour of visiting you and paying you my
respects at your lodgings not later than to-morrow evening at eight
o’clock precisely, and herewith I venture to present my earnest and, I
may add, imperative request that Rodion Romanovitch may not be
present at our interview—as he offered me a gross and unprecedented
affront on the occasion of my visit to him in his illness yesterday, and,
moreover, since I desire from you personally an indispensable and
circumstantial explanation upon a certain point, in regard to which I
wish to learn your own interpretation. I have the honour to inform you,
in anticipation, that if, in spite of my request, I meet Rodion
Romanovitch, I shall be compelled to withdraw immediately and then
you have only yourself to blame. I write on the assumption that Rodion
Romanovitch who appeared so ill at my visit, suddenly recovered two
hours later and so, being able to leave the house, may visit you also. I
was con irmed in that belief by the testimony of my own eyes in the
lodging of a drunken man who was run over and has since died, to
whose daughter, a young woman of notorious behaviour, he gave
twenty- ive roubles on the pretext of the funeral, which gravely
surprised me knowing what pains you were at to raise that sum.
Herewith expressing my special respect to your estimable daughter,
Avdotya Romanovna, I beg you to accept the respectful homage of
“Your humble servant,
“P. LUZHIN.”
“What am I to do now, Dmitri Proko itch?” began Pulcheria
Alexandrovna, almost weeping. “How can I ask Rodya not to come?
Yesterday he insisted so earnestly on our refusing Pyotr Petrovitch and
now we are ordered not to receive Rodya! He will come on purpose if he
knows, and... what will happen then?”
“Act on Avdotya Romanovna’s decision,” Razumihin answered calmly
at once.
“Oh, dear me! She says... goodness knows what she says, she doesn’t
explain her object! She says that it would be best, at least, not that it
would be best, but that it’s absolutely necessary that Rodya should
make a point of being here at eight o’clock and that they must meet.... I
didn’t want even to show him the letter, but to prevent him from
coming by some stratagem with your help... because he is so irritable....
Besides I don’t understand about that drunkard who died and that
daughter, and how he could have given the daughter all the money...
which...”
“Which cost you such sacri ice, mother,” put in Avdotya Romanovna.
“He was not himself yesterday,” Razumihin said thoughtfully, “if you
only knew what he was up to in a restaurant yesterday, though there
was sense in it too.... Hm! He did say something, as we were going home
yesterday evening, about a dead man and a girl, but I didn’t understand
a word.... But last night, I myself...”
“The best thing, mother, will be for us to go to him ourselves and
there I assure you we shall see at once what’s to be done. Besides, it’s
getting late—good heavens, it’s past ten,” she cried looking at a
splendid gold enamelled watch which hung round her neck on a thin
Venetian chain, and looked entirely out of keeping with the rest of her
dress. “A present from her iancé,” thought Razumihin.
 “We must start, Dounia, we must start,” her mother cried in a lutter.
“He will be thinking we are still angry after yesterday, from our coming
so late. Merciful heavens!”
While she said this she was hurriedly putting on her hat and mantle;
Dounia, too, put on her things. Her gloves, as Razumihin noticed, were
not merely shabby but had holes in them, and yet this evident poverty
gave the two ladies an air of special dignity, which is always found in
people who know how to wear poor clothes. Razumihin looked
reverently at Dounia and felt proud of escorting her. “The queen who
mended her stockings in prison,” he thought, “must have looked then
every inch a queen and even more a queen than at sumptuous banquets
and levé es.”
“My God!” exclaimed Pulcheria Alexandrovna, “little did I think that I
should ever fear seeing my son, my darling, darling Rodya! I am afraid,
Dmitri Proko itch,” she added, glancing at him timidly.
“Don’t be afraid, mother,” said Dounia, kissing her, “better have faith
in him.”
“Oh, dear, I have faith in him, but I haven’t slept all night,” exclaimed
the poor woman.
They came out into the street.
“Do you know, Dounia, when I dozed a little this morning I dreamed
of Marfa Petrovna... she was all in white... she came up to me, took my
hand, and shook her head at me, but so sternly as though she were
blaming me.... Is that a good omen? Oh, dear me! You don’t know, Dmitri
Proko itch, that Marfa Petrovna’s dead!”
“No, I didn’t know; who is Marfa Petrovna?”
“She died suddenly; and only fancy...”
“Afterwards, mamma,” put in Dounia. “He doesn’t know who Marfa
Petrovna is.”
“Ah, you don’t know? And I was thinking that you knew all about us.
Forgive me, Dmitri Proko itch, I don’t know what I am thinking about
these last few days. I look upon you really as a providence for us, and so
I took it for granted that you knew all about us. I look on you as a
relation.... Don’t be angry with me for saying so. Dear me, what’s the
matter with your right hand? Have you knocked it?”
 “Yes, I bruised it,” muttered Razumihin overjoyed.
“I sometimes speak too much from the heart, so that Dounia inds
fault with me.... But, dear me, what a cupboard he lives in! I wonder
whether he is awake? Does this woman, his landlady, consider it a
room? Listen, you say he does not like to show his feelings, so perhaps I
shall annoy him with my... weaknesses? Do advise me, Dmitri
Proko itch, how am I to treat him? I feel quite distracted, you know.”
“Don’t question him too much about anything if you see him frown;
don’t ask him too much about his health; he doesn’t like that.”
“Ah, Dmitri Proko itch, how hard it is to be a mother! But here are the
stairs.... What an awful staircase!”
“Mother, you are quite pale, don’t distress yourself, darling,” said
Dounia caressing her, then with lashing eyes she added: “He ought to
be happy at seeing you, and you are tormenting yourself so.”
“Wait, I’ll peep in and see whether he has waked up.”
The ladies slowly followed Razumihin, who went on before, and
when they reached the landlady’s door on the fourth storey, they
noticed that her door was a tiny crack open and that two keen black
eyes were watching them from the darkness within. When their eyes
met, the door was suddenly shut with such a slam that Pulcheria
Alexandrovna almost cried out.
 CHAPTER III

“He is well, quite well!” Zossimov cried cheerfully as they entered.

He had come in ten minutes earlier and was sitting in the same place
as before, on the sofa. Raskolnikov was sitting in the opposite corner,
fully dressed and carefully washed and combed, as he had not been for
some time past. The room was immediately crowded, yet Nastasya
managed to follow the visitors in and stayed to listen.
Raskolnikov really was almost well, as compared with his condition
the day before, but he was still pale, listless, and sombre. He looked like
a wounded man or one who has undergone some terrible physical
suffering. His brows were knitted, his lips compressed, his eyes
feverish. He spoke little and reluctantly, as though performing a duty,
and there was a restlessness in his movements.
He only wanted a sling on his arm or a bandage on his inger to
complete the impression of a man with a painful abscess or a broken
arm. The pale, sombre face lighted up for a moment when his mother
and sister entered, but this only gave it a look of more intense suffering,
in place of its listless dejection. The light soon died away, but the look of
suffering remained, and Zossimov, watching and studying his patient
with all the zest of a young doctor beginning to practise, noticed in him
no joy at the arrival of his mother and sister, but a sort of bitter, hidden
determination to bear another hour or two of inevitable torture. He saw
later that almost every word of the following conversation seemed to
touch on some sore place and irritate it. But at the same time he
marvelled at the power of controlling himself and hiding his feelings in
a patient who the previous day had, like a monomaniac, fallen into a
frenzy at the slightest word.
“Yes, I see myself now that I am almost well,” said Raskolnikov, giving
his mother and sister a kiss of welcome which made Pulcheria
Alexandrovna radiant at once. “And I don’t say this as I did yesterday,” he
said, addressing Razumihin, with a friendly pressure of his hand.
“Yes, indeed, I am quite surprised at him to-day,” began Zossimov,
much delighted at the ladies’ entrance, for he had not succeeded in
keeping up a conversation with his patient for ten minutes. “In another
three or four days, if he goes on like this, he will be just as before, that
is, as he was a month ago, or two... or perhaps even three. This has been
coming on for a long while.... eh? Confess, now, that it has been perhaps
your own fault?” he added, with a tentative smile, as though still afraid
of irritating him.
“It is very possible,” answered Raskolnikov coldly.
“I should say, too,” continued Zossimov with zest, “that your complete
recovery depends solely on yourself. Now that one can talk to you, I
should like to impress upon you that it is essential to avoid the
elementary, so to speak, fundamental causes tending to produce your
morbid condition: in that case you will be cured, if not, it will go from
bad to worse. These fundamental causes I don’t know, but they must be
known to you. You are an intelligent man, and must have observed
yourself, of course. I fancy the irst stage of your derangement coincides
with your leaving the university. You must not be left without
occupation, and so, work and a de inite aim set before you might, I
fancy, be very bene icial.”
“Yes, yes; you are perfectly right.... I will make haste and return to the
university: and then everything will go smoothly....”
Zossimov, who had begun his sage advice partly to make an effect
before the ladies, was certainly somewhat mysti ied, when, glancing at
his patient, he observed unmistakable mockery on his face. This lasted
an instant, however. Pulcheria Alexandrovna began at once thanking
Zossimov, especially for his visit to their lodging the previous night.
“What! he saw you last night?” Raskolnikov asked, as though startled.
“Then you have not slept either after your journey.”
“Ach, Rodya, that was only till two o’clock. Dounia and I never go to
bed before two at home.”
“I don’t know how to thank him either,” Raskolnikov went on,
suddenly frowning and looking down. “Setting aside the question of
payment—forgive me for referring to it (he turned to Zossimov)—I
really don’t know what I have done to deserve such special attention
from you! I simply don’t understand it... and... and... it weighs upon me,
indeed, because I don’t understand it. I tell you so candidly.”
“Don’t be irritated.” Zossimov forced himself to laugh. “Assume that
you are my irst patient—well—we fellows just beginning to practise
love our irst patients as if they were our children, and some almost fall
in love with them. And, of course, I am not rich in patients.”
“I say nothing about him,” added Raskolnikov, pointing to Razumihin,
“though he has had nothing from me either but insult and trouble.”
“What nonsense he is talking! Why, you are in a sentimental mood to-
day, are you?” shouted Razumihin.
If he had had more penetration he would have seen that there was no
trace of sentimentality in him, but something indeed quite the opposite.
But Avdotya Romanovna noticed it. She was intently and uneasily
watching her brother.
“As for you, mother, I don’t dare to speak,” he went on, as though
repeating a lesson learned by heart. “It is only to-day that I have been
able to realise a little how distressed you must have been here
yesterday, waiting for me to come back.”
When he had said this, he suddenly held out his hand to his sister,
smiling without a word. But in this smile there was a lash of real
unfeigned feeling. Dounia caught it at once, and warmly pressed his
hand, overjoyed and thankful. It was the irst time he had addressed her
since their dispute the previous day. The mother’s face lighted up with
ecstatic happiness at the sight of this conclusive unspoken
reconciliation. “Yes, that is what I love him for,” Razumihin, exaggerating
it all, muttered to himself, with a vigorous turn in his chair. “He has
these movements.”
“And how well he does it all,” the mother was thinking to herself.
“What generous impulses he has, and how simply, how delicately he put
an end to all the misunderstanding with his sister—simply by holding
out his hand at the right minute and looking at her like that.... And what
ine eyes he has, and how ine his whole face is!... He is even better
looking than Dounia.... But, good heavens, what a suit—how terribly
he’s dressed!... Vasya, the messenger boy in Afanasy Ivanitch’s shop, is
better dressed! I could rush at him and hug him... weep over him—but I
am afraid.... Oh, dear, he’s so strange! He’s talking kindly, but I’m afraid!
Why, what am I afraid of?...”
“Oh, Rodya, you wouldn’t believe,” she began suddenly, in haste to
answer his words to her, “how unhappy Dounia and I were yesterday!
Now that it’s all over and done with and we are quite happy again—I
can tell you. Fancy, we ran here almost straight from the train to
embrace you and that woman—ah, here she is! Good morning,
Nastasya!... She told us at once that you were lying in a high fever and
had just run away from the doctor in delirium, and they were looking
for you in the streets. You can’t imagine how we felt! I couldn’t help
thinking of the tragic end of Lieutenant Potanchikov, a friend of your
father’s—you can’t remember him, Rodya—who ran out in the same
way in a high fever and fell into the well in the court-yard and they
couldn’t pull him out till next day. Of course, we exaggerated things. We
were on the point of rushing to ind Pyotr Petrovitch to ask him to
help.... Because we were alone, utterly alone,” she said plaintively and
stopped short, suddenly, recollecting it was still somewhat dangerous
to speak of Pyotr Petrovitch, although “we are quite happy again.”
“Yes, yes.... Of course it’s very annoying....” Raskolnikov muttered in
reply, but with such a preoccupied and inattentive air that Dounia gazed
at him in perplexity.
“What else was it I wanted to say?” He went on trying to recollect.
“Oh, yes; mother, and you too, Dounia, please don’t think that I didn’t
mean to come and see you to-day and was waiting for you to come
irst.”
“What are you saying, Rodya?” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. She,
too, was surprised.
“Is he answering us as a duty?” Dounia wondered. “Is he being
reconciled and asking forgiveness as though he were performing a rite
or repeating a lesson?”
“I’ve only just waked up, and wanted to go to you, but was delayed
owing to my clothes; I forgot yesterday to ask her... Nastasya... to wash
out the blood... I’ve only just dressed.”
“Blood! What blood?” Pulcheria Alexandrovna asked in alarm.
 “Oh, nothing—don’t be uneasy. It was when I was wandering about
yesterday, rather delirious, I chanced upon a man who had been run
over... a clerk...”
“Delirious? But you remember everything!” Razumihin interrupted.
“That’s true,” Raskolnikov answered with special carefulness. “I
remember everything even to the slightest detail, and yet—why I did
that and went there and said that, I can’t clearly explain now.”
“A familiar phenomenon,” interposed Zossimov, “actions are
sometimes performed in a masterly and most cunning way, while the
direction of the actions is deranged and dependent on various morbid
impressions—it’s like a dream.”
“Perhaps it’s a good thing really that he should think me almost a
madman,” thought Raskolnikov.
“Why, people in perfect health act in the same way too,” observed
Dounia, looking uneasily at Zossimov.
“There is some truth in your observation,” the latter replied. “In that
sense we are certainly all not infrequently like madmen, but with the
slight difference that the deranged are somewhat madder, for we must
draw a line. A normal man, it is true, hardly exists. Among dozens—
perhaps hundreds of thousands—hardly one is to be met with.”
At the word “madman,” carelessly dropped by Zossimov in his chatter
on his favourite subject, everyone frowned.
Raskolnikov sat seeming not to pay attention, plunged in thought
with a strange smile on his pale lips. He was still meditating on
something.
“Well, what about the man who was run over? I interrupted you!”
Razumihin cried hastily.
“What?” Raskolnikov seemed to wake up. “Oh... I got spattered with
blood helping to carry him to his lodging. By the way, mamma, I did an
unpardonable thing yesterday. I was literally out of my mind. I gave
away all the money you sent me... to his wife for the funeral. She’s a
widow now, in consumption, a poor creature... three little children,
starving... nothing in the house... there’s a daughter, too... perhaps you’d
have given it yourself if you’d seen them. But I had no right to do it I
admit, especially as I knew how you needed the money yourself. To
help others one must have the right to do it, or else Crevez, chiens, si
vous n’êtes pas contents.” He laughed, “That’s right, isn’t it, Dounia?”
“No, it’s not,” answered Dounia irmly.
“Bah! you, too, have ideals,” he muttered, looking at her almost with
hatred, and smiling sarcastically. “I ought to have considered that....
Well, that’s praiseworthy, and it’s better for you... and if you reach a line
you won’t overstep, you will be unhappy... and if you overstep it, maybe
you will be still unhappier.... But all that’s nonsense,” he added irritably,
vexed at being carried away. “I only meant to say that I beg your
forgiveness, mother,” he concluded, shortly and abruptly.
“That’s enough, Rodya, I am sure that everything you do is very
good,” said his mother, delighted.
“Don’t be too sure,” he answered, twisting his mouth into a smile.
A silence followed. There was a certain constraint in all this
conversation, and in the silence, and in the reconciliation, and in the
forgiveness, and all were feeling it.
“It is as though they were afraid of me,” Raskolnikov was thinking to
himself, looking askance at his mother and sister. Pulcheria
Alexandrovna was indeed growing more timid the longer she kept
silent.
“Yet in their absence I seemed to love them so much,” lashed through
his mind.
“Do you know, Rodya, Marfa Petrovna is dead,” Pulcheria
Alexandrovna suddenly blurted out.
“What Marfa Petrovna?”
“Oh, mercy on us—Marfa Petrovna Svidrigaı̈lov. I wrote you so much
about her.”
“A-a-h! Yes, I remember.... So she’s dead! Oh, really?” he roused
himself suddenly, as if waking up. “What did she die of?”
“Only imagine, quite suddenly,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna answered
hurriedly, encouraged by his curiosity. “On the very day I was sending
you that letter! Would you believe it, that awful man seems to have
been the cause of her death. They say he beat her dreadfully.”
“Why, were they on such bad terms?” he asked, addressing his sister.
 “Not at all. Quite the contrary indeed. With her, he was always very
patient, considerate even. In fact, all those seven years of their married
life he gave way to her, too much so indeed, in many cases. All of a
sudden he seems to have lost patience.”
“Then he could not have been so awful if he controlled himself for
seven years? You seem to be defending him, Dounia?”
“No, no, he’s an awful man! I can imagine nothing more awful!”
Dounia answered, almost with a shudder, knitting her brows, and
sinking into thought.
“That had happened in the morning,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna went
on hurriedly. “And directly afterwards she ordered the horses to be
harnessed to drive to the town immediately after dinner. She always
used to drive to the town in such cases. She ate a very good dinner, I am
told....”
“After the beating?”
“That was always her... habit; and immediately after dinner, so as not
to be late in starting, she went to the bath-house.... You see, she was
undergoing some treatment with baths. They have a cold spring there,
and she used to bathe in it regularly every day, and no sooner had she
got into the water when she suddenly had a stroke!”
“I should think so,” said Zossimov.
“And did he beat her badly?”
“What does that matter!” put in Dounia.
“H’m! But I don’t know why you want to tell us such gossip, mother,”
said Raskolnikov irritably, as it were in spite of himself.
“Ah, my dear, I don’t know what to talk about,” broke from Pulcheria
Alexandrovna.
“Why, are you all afraid of me?” he asked, with a constrained smile.
“That’s certainly true,” said Dounia, looking directly and sternly at
her brother. “Mother was crossing herself with terror as she came up
the stairs.”
His face worked, as though in convulsion.
“Ach, what are you saying, Dounia! Don’t be angry, please, Rodya....
Why did you say that, Dounia?” Pulcheria Alexandrovna began,
overwhelmed—“You see, coming here, I was dreaming all the way, in
the train, how we should meet, how we should talk over everything
together.... And I was so happy, I did not notice the journey! But what
am I saying? I am happy now.... You should not, Dounia.... I am happy
now—simply in seeing you, Rodya....”
“Hush, mother,” he muttered in confusion, not looking at her, but
pressing her hand. “We shall have time to speak freely of everything!”
As he said this, he was suddenly overwhelmed with confusion and
turned pale. Again that awful sensation he had known of late passed
with deadly chill over his soul. Again it became suddenly plain and
perceptible to him that he had just told a fearful lie—that he would
never now be able to speak freely of everything—that he would never
again be able to speak of anything to anyone. The anguish of this
thought was such that for a moment he almost forgot himself. He got up
from his seat, and not looking at anyone walked towards the door.
“What are you about?” cried Razumihin, clutching him by the arm.
He sat down again, and began looking about him, in silence. They
were all looking at him in perplexity.
“But what are you all so dull for?” he shouted, suddenly and quite
unexpectedly. “Do say something! What’s the use of sitting like this?
Come, do speak. Let us talk.... We meet together and sit in silence....
Come, anything!”
“Thank God; I was afraid the same thing as yesterday was beginning
again,” said Pulcheria Alexandrovna, crossing herself.
“What is the matter, Rodya?” asked Avdotya Romanovna, distrustfully.
“Oh, nothing! I remembered something,” he answered, and suddenly
laughed.
“Well, if you remembered something; that’s all right!... I was
beginning to think...” muttered Zossimov, getting up from the sofa. “It is
time for me to be off. I will look in again perhaps... if I can...” He made
his bows, and went out.
“What an excellent man!” observed Pulcheria Alexandrovna.
“Yes, excellent, splendid, well-educated, intelligent,” Raskolnikov
began, suddenly speaking with surprising rapidity, and a liveliness he
had not shown till then. “I can’t remember where I met him before my
illness.... I believe I have met him somewhere——... And this is a good
man, too,” he nodded at Razumihin. “Do you like him, Dounia?” he asked
her; and suddenly, for some unknown reason, laughed.
“Very much,” answered Dounia.
“Foo!—what a pig you are!” Razumihin protested, blushing in terrible
confusion, and he got up from his chair. Pulcheria Alexandrovna smiled
faintly, but Raskolnikov laughed aloud.
“Where are you off to?”
“I must go.”
“You need not at all. Stay. Zossimov has gone, so you must. Don’t go.
What’s the time? Is it twelve o’clock? What a pretty watch you have got,
Dounia. But why are you all silent again? I do all the talking.”
“It was a present from Marfa Petrovna,” answered Dounia.
“And a very expensive one!” added Pulcheria Alexandrovna.
“A-ah! What a big one! Hardly like a lady’s.”
“I like that sort,” said Dounia.
“So it is not a present from her iancé,” thought Razumihin, and was
unreasonably delighted.
“I thought it was Luzhin’s present,” observed Raskolnikov.
“No, he has not made Dounia any presents yet.”
“A-ah! And do you remember, mother, I was in love and wanted to get
married?” he said suddenly, looking at his mother, who was
disconcerted by the sudden change of subject and the way he spoke of
it.
“Oh, yes, my dear.”
Pulcheria Alexandrovna exchanged glances with Dounia and
Razumihin.
“H’m, yes. What shall I tell you? I don’t remember much indeed. She
was such a sickly girl,” he went on, growing dreamy and looking down
again. “Quite an invalid. She was fond of giving alms to the poor, and
was always dreaming of a nunnery, and once she burst into tears when
she began talking to me about it. Yes, yes, I remember. I remember very
well. She was an ugly little thing. I really don’t know what drew me to
her then—I think it was because she was always ill. If she had been
lame or hunchback, I believe I should have liked her better still,” he
smiled dreamily. “Yes, it was a sort of spring delirium.”
“No, it was not only spring delirium,” said Dounia, with warm feeling.
He ixed a strained intent look on his sister, but did not hear or did
not understand her words. Then, completely lost in thought, he got up,
went up to his mother, kissed her, went back to his place and sat down.
“You love her even now?” said Pulcheria Alexandrovna, touched.
“Her? Now? Oh, yes.... You ask about her? No... that’s all now, as it
were, in another world... and so long ago. And indeed everything
happening here seems somehow far away.” He looked attentively at
them. “You, now... I seem to be looking at you from a thousand miles
away... but, goodness knows why we are talking of that! And what’s the
use of asking about it?” he added with annoyance, and biting his nails,
fell into dreamy silence again.
“What a wretched lodging you have, Rodya! It’s like a tomb,” said
Pulcheria Alexandrovna, suddenly breaking the oppressive silence. “I
am sure it’s quite half through your lodging you have become so
melancholy.”
“My lodging,” he answered, listlessly. “Yes, the lodging had a great
deal to do with it.... I thought that, too.... If only you knew, though, what
a strange thing you said just now, mother,” he said, laughing strangely.
A little more, and their companionship, this mother and this sister,
with him after three years’ absence, this intimate tone of conversation,
in face of the utter impossibility of really speaking about anything,
would have been beyond his power of endurance. But there was one
urgent matter which must be settled one way or the other that day—so
he had decided when he woke. Now he was glad to remember it, as a
means of escape.
“Listen, Dounia,” he began, gravely and drily, “of course I beg your
pardon for yesterday, but I consider it my duty to tell you again that I do
not withdraw from my chief point. It is me or Luzhin. If I am a
scoundrel, you must not be. One is enough. If you marry Luzhin, I cease
at once to look on you as a sister.”
“Rodya, Rodya! It is the same as yesterday again,” Pulcheria
Alexandrovna cried, mournfully. “And why do you call yourself a
scoundrel? I can’t bear it. You said the same yesterday.”
“Brother,” Dounia answered irmly and with the same dryness. “In all
this there is a mistake on your part. I thought it over at night, and found
out the mistake. It is all because you seem to fancy I am sacri icing
myself to someone and for someone. That is not the case at all. I am
simply marrying for my own sake, because things are hard for me.
Though, of course, I shall be glad if I succeed in being useful to my
family. But that is not the chief motive for my decision....”
“She is lying,” he thought to himself, biting his nails vindictively.
“Proud creature! She won’t admit she wants to do it out of charity! Too
haughty! Oh, base characters! They even love as though they hate.... Oh,
how I... hate them all!”
“In fact,” continued Dounia, “I am marrying Pyotr Petrovitch because
of two evils I choose the less. I intend to do honestly all he expects of
me, so I am not deceiving him.... Why did you smile just now?” She, too,
lushed, and there was a gleam of anger in her eyes.
“All?” he asked, with a malignant grin.
“Within certain limits. Both the manner and form of Pyotr
Petrovitch’s courtship showed me at once what he wanted. He may, of
course, think too well of himself, but I hope he esteems me, too.... Why
are you laughing again?”
“And why are you blushing again? You are lying, sister. You are
intentionally lying, simply from feminine obstinacy, simply to hold your
own against me.... You cannot respect Luzhin. I have seen him and
talked with him. So you are selling yourself for money, and so in any
case you are acting basely, and I am glad at least that you can blush for
it.”
“It is not true. I am not lying,” cried Dounia, losing her composure. “I
would not marry him if I were not convinced that he esteems me and
thinks highly of me. I would not marry him if I were not irmly
convinced that I can respect him. Fortunately, I can have convincing
proof of it this very day... and such a marriage is not a vileness, as you
say! And even if you were right, if I really had determined on a vile
action, is it not merciless on your part to speak to me like that? Why do
you demand of me a heroism that perhaps you have not either? It is
despotism; it is tyranny. If I ruin anyone, it is only myself.... I am not
committing a murder. Why do you look at me like that? Why are you so
pale? Rodya, darling, what’s the matter?”
“Good heavens! You have made him faint,” cried Pulcheria
Alexandrovna.
“No, no, nonsense! It’s nothing. A little giddiness—not fainting. You
have fainting on the brain. H’m, yes, what was I saying? Oh, yes. In what
way will you get convincing proof to-day that you can respect him, and
that he... esteems you, as you said. I think you said to-day?”
“Mother, show Rodya Pyotr Petrovitch’s letter,” said Dounia.
With trembling hands, Pulcheria Alexandrovna gave him the letter.
He took it with great interest, but, before opening it, he suddenly
looked with a sort of wonder at Dounia.
“It is strange,” he said, slowly, as though struck by a new idea. “What
am I making such a fuss for? What is it all about? Marry whom you
like!”
He said this as though to himself, but said it aloud, and looked for
some time at his sister, as though puzzled. He opened the letter at last,
still with the same look of strange wonder on his face. Then, slowly and
attentively, he began reading, and read it through twice. Pulcheria
Alexandrovna showed marked anxiety, and all indeed expected
something particular.
“What surprises me,” he began, after a short pause, handing the letter
to his mother, but not addressing anyone in particular, “is that he is a
business man, a lawyer, and his conversation is pretentious indeed, and
yet he writes such an uneducated letter.”
They all started. They had expected something quite different.
“But they all write like that, you know,” Razumihin observed,
abruptly.
“Have you read it?”
“Yes.”
“We showed him, Rodya. We... consulted him just now,” Pulcheria
Alexandrovna began, embarrassed.
“That’s just the jargon of the courts,” Razumihin put in. “Legal
documents are written like that to this day.”
 “Legal? Yes, it’s just legal—business language—not so very
uneducated, and not quite educated—business language!”
“Pyotr Petrovitch makes no secret of the fact that he had a cheap
education, he is proud indeed of having made his own way,” Avdotya
Romanovna observed, somewhat offended by her brother’s tone.
“Well, if he’s proud of it, he has reason, I don’t deny it. You seem to be
offended, sister, at my making only such a frivolous criticism on the
letter, and to think that I speak of such tri ling matters on purpose to
annoy you. It is quite the contrary, an observation apropos of the style
occurred to me that is by no means irrelevant as things stand. There is
one expression, ‘blame yourselves’ put in very signi icantly and plainly,
and there is besides a threat that he will go away at once if I am present.
That threat to go away is equivalent to a threat to abandon you both if
you are disobedient, and to abandon you now after summoning you to
Petersburg. Well, what do you think? Can one resent such an expression
from Luzhin, as we should if he (he pointed to Razumihin) had written
it, or Zossimov, or one of us?”
“N-no,” answered Dounia, with more animation. “I saw clearly that it
was too naı̈vely expressed, and that perhaps he simply has no skill in
writing... that is a true criticism, brother. I did not expect, indeed...”
“It is expressed in legal style, and sounds coarser than perhaps he
intended. But I must disillusion you a little. There is one expression in
the letter, one slander about me, and rather a contemptible one. I gave
the money last night to the widow, a woman in consumption, crushed
with trouble, and not ‘on the pretext of the funeral,’ but simply to pay
for the funeral, and not to the daughter—a young woman, as he writes,
of notorious behaviour (whom I saw last night for the irst time in my
life)—but to the widow. In all this I see a too hasty desire to slander me
and to raise dissension between us. It is expressed again in legal jargon,
that is to say, with a too obvious display of the aim, and with a very
naı̈ve eagerness. He is a man of intelligence, but to act sensibly,
intelligence is not enough. It all shows the man and... I don’t think he
has a great esteem for you. I tell you this simply to warn you, because I
sincerely wish for your good...”
Dounia did not reply. Her resolution had been taken. She was only
awaiting the evening.
 “Then what is your decision, Rodya?” asked Pulcheria Alexandrovna,
who was more uneasy than ever at the sudden, new businesslike tone
of his talk.
“What decision?”
“You see Pyotr Petrovitch writes that you are not to be with us this
evening, and that he will go away if you come. So will you... come?”
“That, of course, is not for me to decide, but for you irst, if you are
not offended by such a request; and secondly, by Dounia, if she, too, is
not offended. I will do what you think best,” he added, drily.
“Dounia has already decided, and I fully agree with her,” Pulcheria
Alexandrovna hastened to declare.
“I decided to ask you, Rodya, to urge you not to fail to be with us at
this interview,” said Dounia. “Will you come?”
“Yes.”
“I will ask you, too, to be with us at eight o’clock,” she said, addressing
Razumihin. “Mother, I am inviting him, too.”
“Quite right, Dounia. Well, since you have decided,” added Pulcheria
Alexandrovna, “so be it. I shall feel easier myself. I do not like
concealment and deception. Better let us have the whole truth.... Pyotr
Petrovitch may be angry or not, now!”
 CHAPTER IV

At that moment the door was softly opened, and a young girl walked
into the room, looking timidly about her. Everyone turned towards her
with surprise and curiosity. At irst sight, Raskolnikov did not recognise
her. It was Sofya Semyonovna Marmeladov. He had seen her yesterday
for the irst time, but at such a moment, in such surroundings and in
such a dress, that his memory retained a very different image of her.
Now she was a modestly and poorly-dressed young girl, very young,
indeed, almost like a child, with a modest and re ined manner, with a
candid but somewhat frightened-looking face. She was wearing a very
plain indoor dress, and had on a shabby old-fashioned hat, but she still
carried a parasol. Unexpectedly inding the room full of people, she was
not so much embarrassed as completely overwhelmed with shyness,
like a little child. She was even about to retreat. “Oh... it’s you!” said
Raskolnikov, extremely astonished, and he, too, was confused. He at
once recollected that his mother and sister knew through Luzhin’s
letter of “some young woman of notorious behaviour.” He had only just
been protesting against Luzhin’s calumny and declaring that he had
seen the girl last night for the irst time, and suddenly she had walked
in. He remembered, too, that he had not protested against the
expression “of notorious behaviour.” All this passed vaguely and
leetingly through his brain, but looking at her more intently, he saw
that the humiliated creature was so humiliated that he felt suddenly
sorry for her. When she made a movement to retreat in terror, it sent a
pang to his heart.
“I did not expect you,” he said, hurriedly, with a look that made her
stop. “Please sit down. You come, no doubt, from Katerina Ivanovna.
Allow me—not there. Sit here....”
At Sonia’s entrance, Razumihin, who had been sitting on one of
Raskolnikov’s three chairs, close to the door, got up to allow her to
enter. Raskolnikov had at irst shown her the place on the sofa where
Zossimov had been sitting, but feeling that the sofa which served him as
a bed, was too familiar a place, he hurriedly motioned her to
Razumihin’s chair.
“You sit here,” he said to Razumihin, putting him on the sofa.
Sonia sat down, almost shaking with terror, and looked timidly at the
two ladies. It was evidently almost inconceivable to herself that she
could sit down beside them. At the thought of it, she was so frightened
that she hurriedly got up again, and in utter confusion addressed
Raskolnikov.
“I... I... have come for one minute. Forgive me for disturbing you,” she
began falteringly. “I come from Katerina Ivanovna, and she had no one
to send. Katerina Ivanovna told me to beg you... to be at the service... in
the morning... at Mitrofanievsky... and then... to us... to her... to do her the
honour... she told me to beg you...” Sonia stammered and ceased
speaking.
“I will try, certainly, most certainly,” answered Raskolnikov. He, too,
stood up, and he, too, faltered and could not inish his sentence. “Please
sit down,” he said, suddenly. “I want to talk to you. You are perhaps in a
hurry, but please, be so kind, spare me two minutes,” and he drew up a
chair for her.
Sonia sat down again, and again timidly she took a hurried,
frightened look at the two ladies, and dropped her eyes. Raskolnikov’s
pale face lushed, a shudder passed over him, his eyes glowed.
“Mother,” he said, irmly and insistently, “this is Sofya Semyonovna
Marmeladov, the daughter of that unfortunate Mr. Marmeladov, who
was run over yesterday before my eyes, and of whom I was just telling
you.”
Pulcheria Alexandrovna glanced at Sonia, and slightly screwed up her
eyes. In spite of her embarrassment before Rodya’s urgent and
challenging look, she could not deny herself that satisfaction. Dounia
gazed gravely and intently into the poor girl’s face, and scrutinised her
with perplexity. Sonia, hearing herself introduced, tried to raise her
eyes again, but was more embarrassed than ever.
 “I wanted to ask you,” said Raskolnikov, hastily, “how things were
arranged yesterday. You were not worried by the police, for instance?”
“No, that was all right... it was too evident, the cause of death... they
did not worry us... only the lodgers are angry.”
“Why?”
“At the body’s remaining so long. You see it is hot now. So that, to-day,
they will carry it to the cemetery, into the chapel, until to-morrow. At
irst Katerina Ivanovna was unwilling, but now she sees herself that it’s
necessary...”
“To-day, then?”
“She begs you to do us the honour to be in the church to-morrow for
the service, and then to be present at the funeral lunch.”
“She is giving a funeral lunch?”
“Yes... just a little.... She told me to thank you very much for helping us
yesterday. But for you, we should have had nothing for the funeral.”
All at once her lips and chin began trembling, but, with an effort, she
controlled herself, looking down again.
During the conversation, Raskolnikov watched her carefully. She had
a thin, very thin, pale little face, rather irregular and angular, with a
sharp little nose and chin. She could not have been called pretty, but her
blue eyes were so clear, and when they lighted up, there was such a
kindliness and simplicity in her expression that one could not help
being attracted. Her face, and her whole igure indeed, had another
peculiar characteristic. In spite of her eighteen years, she looked almost
a little girl—almost a child. And in some of her gestures, this
childishness seemed almost absurd.
“But has Katerina Ivanovna been able to manage with such small
means? Does she even mean to have a funeral lunch?” Raskolnikov
asked, persistently keeping up the conversation.
“The cof in will be plain, of course... and everything will be plain, so it
won’t cost much. Katerina Ivanovna and I have reckoned it all out, so
that there will be enough left... and Katerina Ivanovna was very anxious
it should be so. You know one can’t... it’s a comfort to her... she is like
that, you know....”
 “I understand, I understand... of course... why do you look at my room
like that? My mother has just said it is like a tomb.”
“You gave us everything yesterday,” Sonia said suddenly, in reply, in a
loud rapid whisper; and again she looked down in confusion. Her lips
and chin were trembling once more. She had been struck at once by
Raskolnikov’s poor surroundings, and now these words broke out
spontaneously. A silence followed. There was a light in Dounia’s eyes,
and even Pulcheria Alexandrovna looked kindly at Sonia.
“Rodya,” she said, getting up, “we shall have dinner together, of
course. Come, Dounia.... And you, Rodya, had better go for a little walk,
and then rest and lie down before you come to see us.... I am afraid we
have exhausted you....”
“Yes, yes, I’ll come,” he answered, getting up fussily. “But I have
something to see to.”
“But surely you will have dinner together?” cried Razumihin, looking
in surprise at Raskolnikov. “What do you mean?”
“Yes, yes, I am coming... of course, of course! And you stay a minute.
You do not want him just now, do you, mother? Or perhaps I am taking
him from you?”
“Oh, no, no. And will you, Dmitri Proko itch, do us the favour of dining
with us?”
“Please do,” added Dounia.
Razumihin bowed, positively radiant. For one moment, they were all
strangely embarrassed.
“Good-bye, Rodya, that is till we meet. I do not like saying good-bye.
Good-bye, Nastasya. Ah, I have said good-bye again.”
Pulcheria Alexandrovna meant to greet Sonia, too; but it somehow
failed to come off, and she went in a lutter out of the room.
But Avdotya Romanovna seemed to await her turn, and following her
mother out, gave Sonia an attentive, courteous bow. Sonia, in confusion,
gave a hurried, frightened curtsy. There was a look of poignant
discomfort in her face, as though Avdotya Romanovna’s courtesy and
attention were oppressive and painful to her.
 “Dounia, good-bye,” called Raskolnikov, in the passage. “Give me your
hand.”
“Why, I did give it to you. Have you forgotten?” said Dounia, turning
warmly and awkwardly to him.
“Never mind, give it to me again.” And he squeezed her ingers
warmly.
Dounia smiled, lushed, pulled her hand away, and went off quite
happy.
“Come, that’s capital,” he said to Sonia, going back and looking
brightly at her. “God give peace to the dead, the living have still to live.
That is right, isn’t it?”
Sonia looked surprised at the sudden brightness of his face. He
looked at her for some moments in silence. The whole history of the
dead father loated before his memory in those moments....

“Heavens, Dounia,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna began, as soon as they

were in the street, “I really feel relieved myself at coming away—more
at ease. How little did I think yesterday in the train that I could ever be
glad of that.”
“I tell you again, mother, he is still very ill. Don’t you see it? Perhaps
worrying about us upset him. We must be patient, and much, much can
be forgiven.”
“Well, you were not very patient!” Pulcheria Alexandrovna caught her
up, hotly and jealously. “Do you know, Dounia, I was looking at you two.
You are the very portrait of him, and not so much in face as in soul. You
are both melancholy, both morose and hot-tempered, both haughty and
both generous.... Surely he can’t be an egoist, Dounia. Eh? When I think
of what is in store for us this evening, my heart sinks!”
“Don’t be uneasy, mother. What must be, will be.”
“Dounia, only think what a position we are in! What if Pyotr
Petrovitch breaks it off?” poor Pulcheria Alexandrovna blurted out,
incautiously.
 “He won’t be worth much if he does,” answered Dounia, sharply and
contemptuously.
“We did well to come away,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna hurriedly broke
in. “He was in a hurry about some business or other. If he gets out and
has a breath of air... it is fearfully close in his room.... But where is one to
get a breath of air here? The very streets here feel like shut-up rooms.
Good heavens! what a town!... stay... this side... they will crush you—
carrying something. Why, it is a piano they have got, I declare... how
they push!... I am very much afraid of that young woman, too.”
“What young woman, mother?
“Why, that Sofya Semyonovna, who was there just now.”
“Why?”
“I have a presentiment, Dounia. Well, you may believe it or not, but as
soon as she came in, that very minute, I felt that she was the chief cause
of the trouble....”
“Nothing of the sort!” cried Dounia, in vexation. “What nonsense,
with your presentiments, mother! He only made her acquaintance the
evening before, and he did not know her when she came in.”
“Well, you will see.... She worries me; but you will see, you will see! I
was so frightened. She was gazing at me with those eyes. I could
scarcely sit still in my chair when he began introducing her, do you
remember? It seems so strange, but Pyotr Petrovitch writes like that
about her, and he introduces her to us—to you! So he must think a great
deal of her.”
“People will write anything. We were talked about and written about,
too. Have you forgotten? I am sure that she is a good girl, and that it is
all nonsense.”
“God grant it may be!”
“And Pyotr Petrovitch is a contemptible slanderer,” Dounia snapped
out, suddenly.
Pulcheria Alexandrovna was crushed; the conversation was not
resumed.
 “I will tell you what I want with you,” said Raskolnikov, drawing
Razumihin to the window.
“Then I will tell Katerina Ivanovna that you are coming,” Sonia said
hurriedly, preparing to depart.
“One minute, Sofya Semyonovna. We have no secrets. You are not in
our way. I want to have another word or two with you. Listen!” he
turned suddenly to Razumihin again. “You know that... what’s his
name... Por iry Petrovitch?”
“I should think so! He is a relation. Why?” added the latter, with
interest.
“Is not he managing that case... you know, about that murder?... You
were speaking about it yesterday.”
“Yes... well?” Razumihin’s eyes opened wide.
“He was inquiring for people who had pawned things, and I have
some pledges there, too—tri les—a ring my sister gave me as a
keepsake when I left home, and my father’s silver watch—they are only
worth ive or six roubles altogether... but I value them. So what am I to
do now? I do not want to lose the things, especially the watch. I was
quaking just now, for fear mother would ask to look at it, when we
spoke of Dounia’s watch. It is the only thing of father’s left us. She
would be ill if it were lost. You know what women are. So tell me what
to do. I know I ought to have given notice at the police station, but
would it not be better to go straight to Por iry? Eh? What do you think?
The matter might be settled more quickly. You see, mother may ask for
it before dinner.”
“Certainly not to the police station. Certainly to Por iry,” Razumihin
shouted in extraordinary excitement. “Well, how glad I am. Let us go at
once. It is a couple of steps. We shall be sure to ind him.”
“Very well, let us go.”
“And he will be very, very glad to make your acquaintance. I have
often talked to him of you at different times. I was speaking of you
yesterday. Let us go. So you knew the old woman? So that’s it! It is all
turning out splendidly.... Oh, yes, Sofya Ivanovna...”
“Sofya Semyonovna,” corrected Raskolnikov. “Sofya Semyonovna, this
is my friend Razumihin, and he is a good man.”
 “If you have to go now,” Sonia was beginning, not looking at
Razumihin at all, and still more embarrassed.
“Let us go,” decided Raskolnikov. “I will come to you to-day, Sofya
Semyonovna. Only tell me where you live.”
He was not exactly ill at ease, but seemed hurried, and avoided her
eyes. Sonia gave her address, and lushed as she did so. They all went
out together.
“Don’t you lock up?” asked Razumihin, following him on to the stairs.
“Never,” answered Raskolnikov. “I have been meaning to buy a lock
for these two years. People are happy who have no need of locks,” he
said, laughing, to Sonia. They stood still in the gateway.
“Do you go to the right, Sofya Semyonovna? How did you ind me, by
the way?” he added, as though he wanted to say something quite
different. He wanted to look at her soft clear eyes, but this was not easy.
“Why, you gave your address to Polenka yesterday.”
“Polenka? Oh, yes; Polenka, that is the little girl. She is your sister?
Did I give her the address?”
“Why, had you forgotten?”
“No, I remember.”
“I had heard my father speak of you... only I did not know your name,
and he did not know it. And now I came... and as I had learnt your name,
I asked to-day, ‘Where does Mr. Raskolnikov live?’ I did not know you
had only a room too.... Good-bye, I will tell Katerina Ivanovna.”
She was extremely glad to escape at last; she went away looking
down, hurrying to get out of sight as soon as possible, to walk the
twenty steps to the turning on the right and to be at last alone, and then
moving rapidly along, looking at no one, noticing nothing, to think, to
remember, to meditate on every word, every detail. Never, never had
she felt anything like this. Dimly and unconsciously a whole new world
was opening before her. She remembered suddenly that Raskolnikov
meant to come to her that day, perhaps at once!
“Only not to-day, please, not to-day!” she kept muttering with a
sinking heart, as though entreating someone, like a frightened child.
“Mercy! to me... to that room... he will see... oh, dear!”
 She was not capable at that instant of noticing an unknown
gentleman who was watching her and following at her heels. He had
accompanied her from the gateway. At the moment when Razumihin,
Raskolnikov, and she stood still at parting on the pavement, this
gentleman, who was just passing, started on hearing Sonia’s words:
“and I asked where Mr. Raskolnikov lived?” He turned a rapid but
attentive look upon all three, especially upon Raskolnikov, to whom
Sonia was speaking; then looked back and noted the house. All this was
done in an instant as he passed, and trying not to betray his interest, he
walked on more slowly as though waiting for something. He was
waiting for Sonia; he saw that they were parting, and that Sonia was
going home.
“Home? Where? I’ve seen that face somewhere,” he thought. “I must
ind out.”
At the turning he crossed over, looked round, and saw Sonia coming
the same way, noticing nothing. She turned the corner. He followed her
on the other side. After about ifty paces he crossed over again,
overtook her and kept two or three yards behind her.
He was a man about ifty, rather tall and thickly set, with broad high
shoulders which made him look as though he stooped a little. He wore
good and fashionable clothes, and looked like a gentleman of position.
He carried a handsome cane, which he tapped on the pavement at each
step; his gloves were spotless. He had a broad, rather pleasant face with
high cheek-bones and a fresh colour, not often seen in Petersburg. His
laxen hair was still abundant, and only touched here and there with
grey, and his thick square beard was even lighter than his hair. His eyes
were blue and had a cold and thoughtful look; his lips were crimson. He
was a remarkedly well-preserved man and looked much younger than
his years.
When Sonia came out on the canal bank, they were the only two
persons on the pavement. He observed her dreaminess and
preoccupation. On reaching the house where she lodged, Sonia turned
in at the gate; he followed her, seeming rather surprised. In the
courtyard she turned to the right corner. “Bah!” muttered the unknown
gentleman, and mounted the stairs behind her. Only then Sonia noticed
him. She reached the third storey, turned down the passage, and rang at
No. 9. On the door was inscribed in chalk, “Kapernaumov, Tailor.” “Bah!”
the stranger repeated again, wondering at the strange coincidence, and
he rang next door, at No. 8. The doors were two or three yards apart.
“You lodge at Kapernaumov’s,” he said, looking at Sonia and laughing.
“He altered a waistcoat for me yesterday. I am staying close here at
Madame Resslich’s. How odd!” Sonia looked at him attentively.
“We are neighbours,” he went on gaily. “I only came to town the day
before yesterday. Good-bye for the present.”
Sonia made no reply; the door opened and she slipped in. She felt for
some reason ashamed and uneasy.

On the way to Por iry’s, Razumihin was obviously excited.

“That’s capital, brother,” he repeated several times, “and I am glad! I
am glad!”
“What are you glad about?” Raskolnikov thought to himself.
“I didn’t know that you pledged things at the old woman’s, too. And...
was it long ago? I mean, was it long since you were there?”
“What a simple-hearted fool he is!”
“When was it?” Raskolnikov stopped still to recollect. “Two or three
days before her death it must have been. But I am not going to redeem
the things now,” he put in with a sort of hurried and conspicuous
solicitude about the things. “I’ve not more than a silver rouble left...
after last night’s accursed delirium!”
He laid special emphasis on the delirium.
“Yes, yes,” Razumihin hastened to agree—with what was not clear.
“Then that’s why you... were stuck... partly... you know in your delirium
you were continually mentioning some rings or chains! Yes, yes... that’s
clear, it’s all clear now.”
“Hullo! How that idea must have got about among them. Here this
man will go to the stake for me, and I ind him delighted at having it
cleared up why I spoke of rings in my delirium! What a hold the idea
must have on all of them!”
 “Shall we ind him?” he asked suddenly.
“Oh, yes,” Razumihin answered quickly. “He is a nice fellow, you will
see, brother. Rather clumsy, that is to say, he is a man of polished
manners, but I mean clumsy in a different sense. He is an intelligent
fellow, very much so indeed, but he has his own range of ideas.... He is
incredulous, sceptical, cynical... he likes to impose on people, or rather
to make fun of them. His is the old, circumstantial method.... But he
understands his work... thoroughly.... Last year he cleared up a case of
murder in which the police had hardly a clue. He is very, very anxious to
make your acquaintance!”
“On what grounds is he so anxious?”
“Oh, it’s not exactly... you see, since you’ve been ill I happen to have
mentioned you several times.... So, when he heard about you... about
your being a law student and not able to inish your studies, he said,
‘What a pity!’ And so I concluded... from everything together, not only
that; yesterday Zametov... you know, Rodya, I talked some nonsense on
the way home to you yesterday, when I was drunk... I am afraid, brother,
of your exaggerating it, you see.”
“What? That they think I am a madman? Maybe they are right,” he
said with a constrained smile.
“Yes, yes.... That is, pooh, no!... But all that I said (and there was
something else too) it was all nonsense, drunken nonsense.”
“But why are you apologising? I am so sick of it all!” Raskolnikov
cried with exaggerated irritability. It was partly assumed, however.
“I know, I know, I understand. Believe me, I understand. One’s
ashamed to speak of it.”
“If you are ashamed, then don’t speak of it.”
Both were silent. Razumihin was more than ecstatic and Raskolnikov
perceived it with repulsion. He was alarmed, too, by what Razumihin
had just said about Por iry.
“I shall have to pull a long face with him too,” he thought, with a
beating heart, and he turned white, “and do it naturally, too. But the
most natural thing would be to do nothing at all. Carefully do nothing at
all! No, carefully would not be natural again.... Oh, well, we shall see how
it turns out.... We shall see... directly. Is it a good thing to go or not? The
butter ly lies to the light. My heart is beating, that’s what’s bad!”
“In this grey house,” said Razumihin.
“The most important thing, does Por iry know that I was at the old
hag’s lat yesterday... and asked about the blood? I must ind that out
instantly, as soon as I go in, ind out from his face; otherwise... I’ll ind
out, if it’s my ruin.”
“I say, brother,” he said suddenly, addressing Razumihin, with a sly
smile, “I have been noticing all day that you seem to be curiously
excited. Isn’t it so?”
“Excited? Not a bit of it,” said Razumihin, stung to the quick.
“Yes, brother, I assure you it’s noticeable. Why, you sat on your chair
in a way you never do sit, on the edge somehow, and you seemed to be
writhing all the time. You kept jumping up for nothing. One moment
you were angry, and the next your face looked like a sweetmeat. You
even blushed; especially when you were invited to dinner, you blushed
awfully.”
“Nothing of the sort, nonsense! What do you mean?”
“But why are you wriggling out of it, like a schoolboy? By Jove, there
he’s blushing again.”
“What a pig you are!”
“But why are you so shamefaced about it? Romeo! Stay, I’ll tell of you
to-day. Ha-ha-ha! I’ll make mother laugh, and someone else, too...”
“Listen, listen, listen, this is serious.... What next, you iend!”
Razumihin was utterly overwhelmed, turning cold with horror. “What
will you tell them? Come, brother... foo! what a pig you are!”
“You are like a summer rose. And if only you knew how it suits you; a
Romeo over six foot high! And how you’ve washed to-day—you cleaned
your nails, I declare. Eh? That’s something unheard of! Why, I do believe
you’ve got pomatum on your hair! Bend down.”
“Pig!”
Raskolnikov laughed as though he could not restrain himself. So
laughing, they entered Por iry Petrovitch’s lat. This is what
Raskolnikov wanted: from within they could be heard laughing as they
came in, still guffawing in the passage.
“Not a word here or I’ll... brain you!” Razumihin whispered furiously,
seizing Raskolnikov by the shoulder.
 CHAPTER V

Raskolnikov was already entering the room. He came in looking as

though he had the utmost dif iculty not to burst out laughing again.
Behind him Razumihin strode in gawky and awkward, shamefaced and
red as a peony, with an utterly crestfallen and ferocious expression. His
face and whole igure really were ridiculous at that moment and amply
justi ied Raskolnikov’s laughter. Raskolnikov, not waiting for an
introduction, bowed to Por iry Petrovitch, who stood in the middle of
the room looking inquiringly at them. He held out his hand and shook
hands, still apparently making desperate efforts to subdue his mirth
and utter a few words to introduce himself. But he had no sooner
succeeded in assuming a serious air and muttering something when he
suddenly glanced again as though accidentally at Razumihin, and could
no longer control himself: his sti led laughter broke out the more
irresistibly the more he tried to restrain it. The extraordinary ferocity
with which Razumihin received this “spontaneous” mirth gave the
whole scene the appearance of most genuine fun and naturalness.
Razumihin strengthened this impression as though on purpose.
“Fool! You iend,” he roared, waving his arm which at once struck a
little round table with an empty tea-glass on it. Everything was sent
lying and crashing.
“But why break chairs, gentlemen? You know it’s a loss to the Crown,”
Por iry Petrovitch quoted gaily.
Raskolnikov was still laughing, with his hand in Por iry Petrovitch’s,
but anxious not to overdo it, awaited the right moment to put a natural
end to it. Razumihin, completely put to confusion by upsetting the table
and smashing the glass, gazed gloomily at the fragments, cursed and
turned sharply to the window where he stood looking out with his back
to the company with a iercely scowling countenance, seeing nothing.
Por iry Petrovitch laughed and was ready to go on laughing, but
obviously looked for explanations. Zametov had been sitting in the
corner, but he rose at the visitors’ entrance and was standing in
expectation with a smile on his lips, though he looked with surprise and
even it seemed incredulity at the whole scene and at Raskolnikov with a
certain embarrassment. Zametov’s unexpected presence struck
Raskolnikov unpleasantly.
“I’ve got to think of that,” he thought. “Excuse me, please,” he began,
affecting extreme embarrassment. “Raskolnikov.”
“Not at all, very pleasant to see you... and how pleasantly you’ve come
in.... Why, won’t he even say good-morning?” Por iry Petrovitch nodded
at Razumihin.
“Upon my honour I don’t know why he is in such a rage with me. I
only told him as we came along that he was like Romeo... and proved it.
And that was all, I think!”
“Pig!” ejaculated Razumihin, without turning round.
“There must have been very grave grounds for it, if he is so furious at
the word,” Por iry laughed.
“Oh, you sharp lawyer!... Damn you all!” snapped Razumihin, and
suddenly bursting out laughing himself, he went up to Por iry with a
more cheerful face as though nothing had happened. “That’ll do! We are
all fools. To come to business. This is my friend Rodion Romanovitch
Raskolnikov; in the irst place he has heard of you and wants to make
your acquaintance, and secondly, he has a little matter of business with
you. Bah! Zametov, what brought you here? Have you met before? Have
you known each other long?”
“What does this mean?” thought Raskolnikov uneasily.
Zametov seemed taken aback, but not very much so.
“Why, it was at your rooms we met yesterday,” he said easily.
“Then I have been spared the trouble. All last week he was begging
me to introduce him to you. Por iry and you have sniffed each other out
without me. Where is your tobacco?”
Por iry Petrovitch was wearing a dressing-gown, very clean linen,
and trodden-down slippers. He was a man of about ive and thirty,
short, stout even to corpulence, and clean shaven. He wore his hair cut
short and had a large round head, particularly prominent at the back.
His soft, round, rather snub-nosed face was of a sickly yellowish colour,
but had a vigorous and rather ironical expression. It would have been
good-natured except for a look in the eyes, which shone with a watery,
mawkish light under almost white, blinking eyelashes. The expression
of those eyes was strangely out of keeping with his somewhat
womanish igure, and gave it something far more serious than could be
guessed at irst sight.
As soon as Por iry Petrovitch heard that his visitor had a little matter
of business with him, he begged him to sit down on the sofa and sat
down himself on the other end, waiting for him to explain his business,
with that careful and over-serious attention which is at once oppressive
and embarrassing, especially to a stranger, and especially if what you
are discussing is in your opinion of far too little importance for such
exceptional solemnity. But in brief and coherent phrases Raskolnikov
explained his business clearly and exactly, and was so well satis ied
with himself that he even succeeded in taking a good look at Por iry.
Por iry Petrovitch did not once take his eyes off him. Razumihin, sitting
opposite at the same table, listened warmly and impatiently, looking
from one to the other every moment with rather excessive interest.
“Fool,” Raskolnikov swore to himself.
“You have to give information to the police,” Por iry replied, with a
most businesslike air, “that having learnt of this incident, that is of the
murder, you beg to inform the lawyer in charge of the case that such
and such things belong to you, and that you desire to redeem them... or...
but they will write to you.”
“That’s just the point, that at the present moment,” Raskolnikov tried
his utmost to feign embarrassment, “I am not quite in funds... and even
this tri ling sum is beyond me... I only wanted, you see, for the present
to declare that the things are mine, and that when I have money....”
“That’s no matter,” answered Por iry Petrovitch, receiving his
explanation of his pecuniary position coldly, “but you can, if you prefer,
write straight to me, to say, that having been informed of the matter,
and claiming such and such as your property, you beg...”
“On an ordinary sheet of paper?” Raskolnikov interrupted eagerly,
again interested in the inancial side of the question.
 “Oh, the most ordinary,” and suddenly Por iry Petrovitch looked with
obvious irony at him, screwing up his eyes and, as it were, winking at
him. But perhaps it was Raskolnikov’s fancy, for it all lasted but a
moment. There was certainly something of the sort, Raskolnikov could
have sworn he winked at him, goodness knows why.
“He knows,” lashed through his mind like lightning.
“Forgive my troubling you about such tri les,” he went on, a little
disconcerted, “the things are only worth ive roubles, but I prize them
particularly for the sake of those from whom they came to me, and I
must confess that I was alarmed when I heard...”
“That’s why you were so much struck when I mentioned to Zossimov
that Por iry was inquiring for everyone who had pledges!” Razumihin
put in with obvious intention.
This was really unbearable. Raskolnikov could not help glancing at
him with a lash of vindictive anger in his black eyes, but immediately
recollected himself.
“You seem to be jeering at me, brother?” he said to him, with a well-
feigned irritability. “I dare say I do seem to you absurdly anxious about
such trash; but you mustn’t think me sel ish or grasping for that, and
these two things may be anything but trash in my eyes. I told you just
now that the silver watch, though it’s not worth a cent, is the only thing
left us of my father’s. You may laugh at me, but my mother is here,” he
turned suddenly to Por iry, “and if she knew,” he turned again hurriedly
to Razumihin, carefully making his voice tremble, “that the watch was
lost, she would be in despair! You know what women are!”
“Not a bit of it! I didn’t mean that at all! Quite the contrary!” shouted
Razumihin distressed.
“Was it right? Was it natural? Did I overdo it?” Raskolnikov asked
himself in a tremor. “Why did I say that about women?”
“Oh, your mother is with you?” Por iry Petrovitch inquired.
“Yes.”
“When did she come?”
“Last night.”
Por iry paused as though re lecting.
 “Your things would not in any case be lost,” he went on calmly and
coldly. “I have been expecting you here for some time.”
And as though that was a matter of no importance, he carefully
offered the ash-tray to Razumihin, who was ruthlessly scattering
cigarette ash over the carpet. Raskolnikov shuddered, but Por iry did
not seem to be looking at him, and was still concerned with
Razumihin’s cigarette.
“What? Expecting him? Why, did you know that he had pledges
there?” cried Razumihin.
Por iry Petrovitch addressed himself to Raskolnikov.
“Your things, the ring and the watch, were wrapped up together, and
on the paper your name was legibly written in pencil, together with the
date on which you left them with her...”
“How observant you are!” Raskolnikov smiled awkwardly, doing his
very utmost to look him straight in the face, but he failed, and suddenly
added:
“I say that because I suppose there were a great many pledges... that
it must be dif icult to remember them all.... But you remember them all
so clearly, and... and...”
“Stupid! Feeble!” he thought. “Why did I add that?”
“But we know all who had pledges, and you are the only one who
hasn’t come forward,” Por iry answered with hardly perceptible irony.
“I haven’t been quite well.”
“I heard that too. I heard, indeed, that you were in great distress
about something. You look pale still.”
“I am not pale at all.... No, I am quite well,” Raskolnikov snapped out
rudely and angrily, completely changing his tone. His anger was
mounting, he could not repress it. “And in my anger I shall betray
myself,” lashed through his mind again. “Why are they torturing me?”
“Not quite well!” Razumihin caught him up. “What next! He was
unconscious and delirious all yesterday. Would you believe, Por iry, as
soon as our backs were turned, he dressed, though he could hardly
stand, and gave us the slip and went off on a spree somewhere till
midnight, delirious all the time! Would you believe it! Extraordinary!”
 “Really delirious? You don’t say so!” Por iry shook his head in a
womanish way.
“Nonsense! Don’t you believe it! But you don’t believe it anyway,”
Raskolnikov let slip in his anger. But Por iry Petrovitch did not seem to
catch those strange words.
“But how could you have gone out if you hadn’t been delirious?”
Razumihin got hot suddenly. “What did you go out for? What was the
object of it? And why on the sly? Were you in your senses when you did
it? Now that all danger is over I can speak plainly.”
“I was awfully sick of them yesterday.” Raskolnikov addressed Por iry
suddenly with a smile of insolent de iance, “I ran away from them to
take lodgings where they wouldn’t ind me, and took a lot of money
with me. Mr. Zametov there saw it. I say, Mr. Zametov, was I sensible or
delirious yesterday; settle our dispute.”
He could have strangled Zametov at that moment, so hateful were his
expression and his silence to him.
“In my opinion you talked sensibly and even artfully, but you were
extremely irritable,” Zametov pronounced dryly.
“And Nikodim Fomitch was telling me to-day,” put in Por iry
Petrovitch, “that he met you very late last night in the lodging of a man
who had been run over.”
“And there,” said Razumihin, “weren’t you mad then? You gave your
last penny to the widow for the funeral. If you wanted to help, give
ifteen or twenty even, but keep three roubles for yourself at least, but
he lung away all the twenty- ive at once!”
“Maybe I found a treasure somewhere and you know nothing of it? So
that’s why I was liberal yesterday.... Mr. Zametov knows I’ve found a
treasure! Excuse us, please, for disturbing you for half an hour with
such trivialities,” he said, turning to Por iry Petrovitch, with trembling
lips. “We are boring you, aren’t we?”
“Oh no, quite the contrary, quite the contrary! If only you knew how
you interest me! It’s interesting to look on and listen... and I am really
glad you have come forward at last.”
“But you might give us some tea! My throat’s dry,” cried Razumihin.
 “Capital idea! Perhaps we will all keep you company. Wouldn’t you
like... something more essential before tea?”
“Get along with you!”
Por iry Petrovitch went out to order tea.
Raskolnikov’s thoughts were in a whirl. He was in terrible
exasperation.
“The worst of it is they don’t disguise it; they don’t care to stand on
ceremony! And how if you didn’t know me at all, did you come to talk to
Nikodim Fomitch about me? So they don’t care to hide that they are
tracking me like a pack of dogs. They simply spit in my face.” He was
shaking with rage. “Come, strike me openly, don’t play with me like a cat
with a mouse. It’s hardly civil, Por iry Petrovitch, but perhaps I won’t
allow it! I shall get up and throw the whole truth in your ugly faces, and
you’ll see how I despise you.” He could hardly breathe. “And what if it’s
only my fancy? What if I am mistaken, and through inexperience I get
angry and don’t keep up my nasty part? Perhaps it’s all unintentional.
All their phrases are the usual ones, but there is something about
them.... It all might be said, but there is something. Why did he say
bluntly, ‘With her’? Why did Zametov add that I spoke artfully? Why do
they speak in that tone? Yes, the tone.... Razumihin is sitting here, why
does he see nothing? That innocent blockhead never does see anything!
Feverish again! Did Por iry wink at me just now? Of course it’s
nonsense! What could he wink for? Are they trying to upset my nerves
or are they teasing me? Either it’s ill fancy or they know! Even Zametov
is rude.... Is Zametov rude? Zametov has changed his mind. I foresaw he
would change his mind! He is at home here, while it’s my irst visit.
Por iry does not consider him a visitor; sits with his back to him.
They’re as thick as thieves, no doubt, over me! Not a doubt they were
talking about me before we came. Do they know about the lat? If only
they’d make haste! When I said that I ran away to take a lat he let it
pass.... I put that in cleverly about a lat, it may be of use afterwards....
Delirious, indeed... ha-ha-ha! He knows all about last night! He didn’t
know of my mother’s arrival! The hag had written the date on in pencil!
You are wrong, you won’t catch me! There are no facts... it’s all
supposition! You produce facts! The lat even isn’t a fact but delirium. I
know what to say to them.... Do they know about the lat? I won’t go
without inding out. What did I come for? But my being angry now,
maybe is a fact! Fool, how irritable I am! Perhaps that’s right; to play the
invalid.... He is feeling me. He will try to catch me. Why did I come?”
All this lashed like lightning through his mind.
Por iry Petrovitch returned quickly. He became suddenly more jovial.
“Your party yesterday, brother, has left my head rather.... And I am out
of sorts altogether,” he began in quite a different tone, laughing to
Razumihin.
“Was it interesting? I left you yesterday at the most interesting point.
Who got the best of it?”
“Oh, no one, of course. They got on to everlasting questions, loated
off into space.”
“Only fancy, Rodya, what we got on to yesterday. Whether there is
such a thing as crime. I told you that we talked our heads off.”
“What is there strange? It’s an everyday social question,” Raskolnikov
answered casually.
“The question wasn’t put quite like that,” observed Por iry.
“Not quite, that’s true,” Razumihin agreed at once, getting warm and
hurried as usual. “Listen, Rodion, and tell us your opinion, I want to
hear it. I was ighting tooth and nail with them and wanted you to help
me. I told them you were coming.... It began with the socialist doctrine.
You know their doctrine; crime is a protest against the abnormality of
the social organisation and nothing more, and nothing more; no other
causes admitted!...”
“You are wrong there,” cried Por iry Petrovitch; he was noticeably
animated and kept laughing as he looked at Razumihin, which made
him more excited than ever.
“Nothing is admitted,” Razumihin interrupted with heat.
“I am not wrong. I’ll show you their pamphlets. Everything with them
is ‘the in luence of environment,’ and nothing else. Their favourite
phrase! From which it follows that, if society is normally organised, all
crime will cease at once, since there will be nothing to protest against
and all men will become righteous in one instant. Human nature is not
taken into account, it is excluded, it’s not supposed to exist! They don’t
recognise that humanity, developing by a historical living process, will
become at last a normal society, but they believe that a social system
that has come out of some mathematical brain is going to organise all
humanity at once and make it just and sinless in an instant, quicker
than any living process! That’s why they instinctively dislike history,
‘nothing but ugliness and stupidity in it,’ and they explain it all as
stupidity! That’s why they so dislike the living process of life; they don’t
want a living soul! The living soul demands life, the soul won’t obey the
rules of mechanics, the soul is an object of suspicion, the soul is
retrograde! But what they want though it smells of death and can be
made of India-rubber, at least is not alive, has no will, is servile and
won’t revolt! And it comes in the end to their reducing everything to the
building of walls and the planning of rooms and passages in a
phalanstery! The phalanstery is ready, indeed, but your human nature
is not ready for the phalanstery—it wants life, it hasn’t completed its
vital process, it’s too soon for the graveyard! You can’t skip over nature
by logic. Logic presupposes three possibilities, but there are millions!
Cut away a million, and reduce it all to the question of comfort! That’s
the easiest solution of the problem! It’s seductively clear and you
musn’t think about it. That’s the great thing, you mustn’t think! The
whole secret of life in two pages of print!”
“Now he is off, beating the drum! Catch hold of him, do!” laughed
Por iry. “Can you imagine,” he turned to Raskolnikov, “six people
holding forth like that last night, in one room, with punch as a
preliminary! No, brother, you are wrong, environment accounts for a
great deal in crime; I can assure you of that.”
“Oh, I know it does, but just tell me: a man of forty violates a child of
ten; was it environment drove him to it?”
“Well, strictly speaking, it did,” Por iry observed with noteworthy
gravity; “a crime of that nature may be very well ascribed to the
in luence of environment.”
Razumihin was almost in a frenzy. “Oh, if you like,” he roared. “I’ll
prove to you that your white eyelashes may very well be ascribed to the
Church of Ivan the Great’s being two hundred and ifty feet high, and I
will prove it clearly, exactly, progressively, and even with a Liberal
tendency! I undertake to! Will you bet on it?”
 “Done! Let’s hear, please, how he will prove it!”
“He is always humbugging, confound him,” cried Razumihin, jumping
up and gesticulating. “What’s the use of talking to you? He does all that
on purpose; you don’t know him, Rodion! He took their side yesterday,
simply to make fools of them. And the things he said yesterday! And
they were delighted! He can keep it up for a fortnight together. Last year
he persuaded us that he was going into a monastery: he stuck to it for
two months. Not long ago he took it into his head to declare he was
going to get married, that he had everything ready for the wedding. He
ordered new clothes indeed. We all began to congratulate him. There
was no bride, nothing, all pure fantasy!”
“Ah, you are wrong! I got the clothes before. It was the new clothes in
fact that made me think of taking you in.”
“Are you such a good dissembler?” Raskolnikov asked carelessly.
“You wouldn’t have supposed it, eh? Wait a bit, I shall take you in, too.
Ha-ha-ha! No, I’ll tell you the truth. All these questions about crime,
environment, children, recall to my mind an article of yours which
interested me at the time. ‘On Crime’... or something of the sort, I forget
the title, I read it with pleasure two months ago in the Periodical
Review.”
“My article? In the Periodical Review?” Raskolnikov asked in
astonishment. “I certainly did write an article upon a book six months
ago when I left the university, but I sent it to the Weekly Review.”
“But it came out in the Periodical.”
“And the Weekly Review ceased to exist, so that’s why it wasn’t
printed at the time.”
“That’s true; but when it ceased to exist, the Weekly Review was
amalgamated with the Periodical, and so your article appeared two
months ago in the latter. Didn’t you know?”
Raskolnikov had not known.
“Why, you might get some money out of them for the article! What a
strange person you are! You lead such a solitary life that you know
nothing of matters that concern you directly. It’s a fact, I assure you.”
“Bravo, Rodya! I knew nothing about it either!” cried Razumihin. “I’ll
run to-day to the reading-room and ask for the number. Two months
ago? What was the date? It doesn’t matter though, I will ind it. Think of
not telling us!”
“How did you ind out that the article was mine? It’s only signed with
an initial.”
“I only learnt it by chance, the other day. Through the editor; I know
him.... I was very much interested.”
“I analysed, if I remember, the psychology of a criminal before and
after the crime.”
“Yes, and you maintained that the perpetration of a crime is always
accompanied by illness. Very, very original, but... it was not that part of
your article that interested me so much, but an idea at the end of the
article which I regret to say you merely suggested without working it
out clearly. There is, if you recollect, a suggestion that there are certain
persons who can... that is, not precisely are able to, but have a perfect
right to commit breaches of morality and crimes, and that the law is not
for them.”
Raskolnikov smiled at the exaggerated and intentional distortion of
his idea.
“What? What do you mean? A right to crime? But not because of the
in luence of environment?” Razumihin inquired with some alarm even.
“No, not exactly because of it,” answered Por iry. “In his article all
men are divided into ‘ordinary’ and ‘extraordinary.’ Ordinary men have
to live in submission, have no right to transgress the law, because, don’t
you see, they are ordinary. But extraordinary men have a right to
commit any crime and to transgress the law in any way, just because
they are extraordinary. That was your idea, if I am not mistaken?”
“What do you mean? That can’t be right?” Razumihin muttered in
bewilderment.
Raskolnikov smiled again. He saw the point at once, and knew where
they wanted to drive him. He decided to take up the challenge.
“That wasn’t quite my contention,” he began simply and modestly.
“Yet I admit that you have stated it almost correctly; perhaps, if you like,
perfectly so.” (It almost gave him pleasure to admit this.) “The only
difference is that I don’t contend that extraordinary people are always
bound to commit breaches of morals, as you call it. In fact, I doubt
whether such an argument could be published. I simply hinted that an
‘extraordinary’ man has the right... that is not an of icial right, but an
inner right to decide in his own conscience to overstep... certain
obstacles, and only in case it is essential for the practical ful ilment of
his idea (sometimes, perhaps, of bene it to the whole of humanity). You
say that my article isn’t de inite; I am ready to make it as clear as I can.
Perhaps I am right in thinking you want me to; very well. I maintain
that if the discoveries of Kepler and Newton could not have been made
known except by sacri icing the lives of one, a dozen, a hundred, or
more men, Newton would have had the right, would indeed have been
in duty-bound... to eliminate the dozen or the hundred men for the sake
of making his discoveries known to the whole of humanity. But it does
not follow from that that Newton had a right to murder people right
and left and to steal every day in the market. Then, I remember, I
maintain in my article that all... well, legislators and leaders of men,
such as Lycurgus, Solon, Mahomet, Napoleon, and so on, were all
without exception criminals, from the very fact that, making a new law,
they transgressed the ancient one, handed down from their ancestors
and held sacred by the people, and they did not stop short at bloodshed
either, if that bloodshed—often of innocent persons ighting bravely in
defence of ancient law—were of use to their cause. It’s remarkable, in
fact, that the majority, indeed, of these benefactors and leaders of
humanity were guilty of terrible carnage. In short, I maintain that all
great men or even men a little out of the common, that is to say capable
of giving some new word, must from their very nature be criminals—
more or less, of course. Otherwise it’s hard for them to get out of the
common rut; and to remain in the common rut is what they can’t
submit to, from their very nature again, and to my mind they ought not,
indeed, to submit to it. You see that there is nothing particularly new in
all that. The same thing has been printed and read a thousand times
before. As for my division of people into ordinary and extraordinary, I
acknowledge that it’s somewhat arbitrary, but I don’t insist upon exact
numbers. I only believe in my leading idea that men are in general
divided by a law of nature into two categories, inferior (ordinary), that
is, so to say, material that serves only to reproduce its kind, and men
who have the gift or the talent to utter a new word. There are, of course,
innumerable sub-divisions, but the distinguishing features of both
categories are fairly well marked. The irst category, generally speaking,
are men conservative in temperament and law-abiding; they live under
control and love to be controlled. To my thinking it is their duty to be
controlled, because that’s their vocation, and there is nothing
humiliating in it for them. The second category all transgress the law;
they are destroyers or disposed to destruction according to their
capacities. The crimes of these men are of course relative and varied;
for the most part they seek in very varied ways the destruction of the
present for the sake of the better. But if such a one is forced for the sake
of his idea to step over a corpse or wade through blood, he can, I
maintain, ind within himself, in his conscience, a sanction for wading
through blood—that depends on the idea and its dimensions, note that.
It’s only in that sense I speak of their right to crime in my article (you
remember it began with the legal question). There’s no need for such
anxiety, however; the masses will scarcely ever admit this right, they
punish them or hang them (more or less), and in doing so ful il quite
justly their conservative vocation. But the same masses set these
criminals on a pedestal in the next generation and worship them (more
or less). The irst category is always the man of the present, the second
the man of the future. The irst preserve the world and people it, the
second move the world and lead it to its goal. Each class has an equal
right to exist. In fact, all have equal rights with me—and vive la guerre
éternelle—till the New Jerusalem, of course!”
“Then you believe in the New Jerusalem, do you?”
“I do,” Raskolnikov answered irmly; as he said these words and
during the whole preceding tirade he kept his eyes on one spot on the
carpet.
“And... and do you believe in God? Excuse my curiosity.”
“I do,” repeated Raskolnikov, raising his eyes to Por iry.
“And... do you believe in Lazarus’ rising from the dead?”
“I... I do. Why do you ask all this?”
“You believe it literally?”
“Literally.”
“You don’t say so.... I asked from curiosity. Excuse me. But let us go
back to the question; they are not always executed. Some, on the
contrary...”
“Triumph in their lifetime? Oh, yes, some attain their ends in this life,
and then...”
“They begin executing other people?”
“If it’s necessary; indeed, for the most part they do. Your remark is
very witty.”
“Thank you. But tell me this: how do you distinguish those
extraordinary people from the ordinary ones? Are there signs at their
birth? I feel there ought to be more exactitude, more external de inition.
Excuse the natural anxiety of a practical law-abiding citizen, but
couldn’t they adopt a special uniform, for instance, couldn’t they wear
something, be branded in some way? For you know if confusion arises
and a member of one category imagines that he belongs to the other,
begins to ‘eliminate obstacles’ as you so happily expressed it, then...”
“Oh, that very often happens! That remark is wittier than the other.”
“Thank you.”
“No reason to; but take note that the mistake can only arise in the
irst category, that is among the ordinary people (as I perhaps
unfortunately called them). In spite of their predisposition to obedience
very many of them, through a playfulness of nature, sometimes
vouchsafed even to the cow, like to imagine themselves advanced
people, ‘destroyers,’ and to push themselves into the ‘new movement,’
and this quite sincerely. Meanwhile the really new people are very often
unobserved by them, or even despised as reactionaries of grovelling
tendencies. But I don’t think there is any considerable danger here, and
you really need not be uneasy for they never go very far. Of course, they
might have a thrashing sometimes for letting their fancy run away with
them and to teach them their place, but no more; in fact, even this isn’t
necessary as they castigate themselves, for they are very conscientious:
some perform this service for one another and others chastise
themselves with their own hands.... They will impose various public
acts of penitence upon themselves with a beautiful and edifying effect;
in fact you’ve nothing to be uneasy about.... It’s a law of nature.”
“Well, you have certainly set my mind more at rest on that score; but
there’s another thing worries me. Tell me, please, are there many
people who have the right to kill others, these extraordinary people? I
am ready to bow down to them, of course, but you must admit it’s
alarming if there are a great many of them, eh?”
“Oh, you needn’t worry about that either,” Raskolnikov went on in the
same tone. “People with new ideas, people with the faintest capacity for
saying something new, are extremely few in number, extraordinarily so
in fact. One thing only is clear, that the appearance of all these grades
and sub-divisions of men must follow with unfailing regularity some
law of nature. That law, of course, is unknown at present, but I am
convinced that it exists, and one day may become known. The vast mass
of mankind is mere material, and only exists in order by some great
effort, by some mysterious process, by means of some crossing of races
and stocks, to bring into the world at last perhaps one man out of a
thousand with a spark of independence. One in ten thousand perhaps—
I speak roughly, approximately—is born with some independence, and
with still greater independence one in a hundred thousand. The man of
genius is one of millions, and the great geniuses, the crown of humanity,
appear on earth perhaps one in many thousand millions. In fact I have
not peeped into the retort in which all this takes place. But there
certainly is and must be a de inite law, it cannot be a matter of chance.”
“Why, are you both joking?” Razumihin cried at last. “There you sit,
making fun of one another. Are you serious, Rodya?”
Raskolnikov raised his pale and almost mournful face and made no
reply. And the unconcealed, persistent, nervous, and discourteous
sarcasm of Por iry seemed strange to Razumihin beside that quiet and
mournful face.
“Well, brother, if you are really serious... You are right, of course, in
saying that it’s not new, that it’s like what we’ve read and heard a
thousand times already; but what is really original in all this, and is
exclusively your own, to my horror, is that you sanction bloodshed in
the name of conscience, and, excuse my saying so, with such
fanaticism.... That, I take it, is the point of your article. But that sanction
of bloodshed by conscience is to my mind... more terrible than the
of icial, legal sanction of bloodshed....”
“You are quite right, it is more terrible,” Por iry agreed.
 “Yes, you must have exaggerated! There is some mistake, I shall read
it. You can’t think that! I shall read it.”
“All that is not in the article, there’s only a hint of it,” said Raskolnikov.
“Yes, yes.” Por iry couldn’t sit still. “Your attitude to crime is pretty
clear to me now, but... excuse me for my impertinence (I am really
ashamed to be worrying you like this), you see, you’ve removed my
anxiety as to the two grades getting mixed, but... there are various
practical possibilities that make me uneasy! What if some man or youth
imagines that he is a Lycurgus or Mahomet—a future one of course—
and suppose he begins to remove all obstacles.... He has some great
enterprise before him and needs money for it... and tries to get it... do
you see?”
Zametov gave a sudden guffaw in his corner. Raskolnikov did not
even raise his eyes to him.
“I must admit,” he went on calmly, “that such cases certainly must
arise. The vain and foolish are particularly apt to fall into that snare;
young people especially.”
“Yes, you see. Well then?”
“What then?” Raskolnikov smiled in reply; “that’s not my fault. So it is
and so it always will be. He said just now (he nodded at Razumihin)
that I sanction bloodshed. Society is too well protected by prisons,
banishment, criminal investigators, penal servitude. There’s no need to
be uneasy. You have but to catch the thief.”
“And what if we do catch him?”
“Then he gets what he deserves.”
“You are certainly logical. But what of his conscience?”
“Why do you care about that?”
“Simply from humanity.”
“If he has a conscience he will suffer for his mistake. That will be his
punishment—as well as the prison.”
“But the real geniuses,” asked Razumihin frowning, “those who have
the right to murder? Oughtn’t they to suffer at all even for the blood
they’ve shed?”
 “Why the word ought? It’s not a matter of permission or prohibition.
He will suffer if he is sorry for his victim. Pain and suffering are always
inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men
must, I think, have great sadness on earth,” he added dreamily, not in
the tone of the conversation.
He raised his eyes, looked earnestly at them all, smiled, and took his
cap. He was too quiet by comparison with his manner at his entrance,
and he felt this. Everyone got up.
“Well, you may abuse me, be angry with me if you like,” Por iry
Petrovitch began again, “but I can’t resist. Allow me one little question
(I know I am troubling you). There is just one little notion I want to
express, simply that I may not forget it.”
“Very good, tell me your little notion,” Raskolnikov stood waiting,
pale and grave before him.
“Well, you see... I really don’t know how to express it properly.... It’s a
playful, psychological idea.... When you were writing your article, surely
you couldn’t have helped, he-he! fancying yourself... just a little, an
‘extraordinary’ man, uttering a new word in your sense.... That’s so, isn’t
it?”
“Quite possibly,” Raskolnikov answered contemptuously.
Razumihin made a movement.
“And, if so, could you bring yourself in case of worldly dif iculties and
hardship or for some service to humanity—to overstep obstacles?... For
instance, to rob and murder?”
And again he winked with his left eye, and laughed noiselessly just as
before.
“If I did I certainly should not tell you,” Raskolnikov answered with
de iant and haughty contempt.
“No, I was only interested on account of your article, from a literary
point of view...”
“Foo! how obvious and insolent that is!” Raskolnikov thought with
repulsion.
“Allow me to observe,” he answered dryly, “that I don’t consider
myself a Mahomet or a Napoleon, nor any personage of that kind, and
not being one of them I cannot tell you how I should act.”
“Oh, come, don’t we all think ourselves Napoleons now in Russia?”
Por iry Petrovitch said with alarming familiarity.
Something peculiar betrayed itself in the very intonation of his voice.
“Perhaps it was one of these future Napoleons who did for Alyona
Ivanovna last week?” Zametov blurted out from the corner.
Raskolnikov did not speak, but looked irmly and intently at Por iry.
Razumihin was scowling gloomily. He seemed before this to be noticing
something. He looked angrily around. There was a minute of gloomy
silence. Raskolnikov turned to go.
“Are you going already?” Por iry said amiably, holding out his hand
with excessive politeness. “Very, very glad of your acquaintance. As for
your request, have no uneasiness, write just as I told you, or, better still,
come to me there yourself in a day or two... to-morrow, indeed. I shall
be there at eleven o’clock for certain. We’ll arrange it all; we’ll have a
talk. As one of the last to be there, you might perhaps be able to tell us
something,” he added with a most good-natured expression.
“You want to cross-examine me of icially in due form?” Raskolnikov
asked sharply.
“Oh, why? That’s not necessary for the present. You misunderstand
me. I lose no opportunity, you see, and... I’ve talked with all who had
pledges.... I obtained evidence from some of them, and you are the last....
Yes, by the way,” he cried, seemingly suddenly delighted, “I just
remember, what was I thinking of?” he turned to Razumihin, “you were
talking my ears off about that Nikolay... of course, I know, I know very
well,” he turned to Raskolnikov, “that the fellow is innocent, but what is
one to do? We had to trouble Dmitri too.... This is the point, this is all:
when you went up the stairs it was past seven, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” answered Raskolnikov, with an unpleasant sensation at the
very moment he spoke that he need not have said it.
“Then when you went upstairs between seven and eight, didn’t you
see in a lat that stood open on a second storey, do you remember? two
workmen or at least one of them? They were painting there, didn’t you
notice them? It’s very, very important for them.”
 “Painters? No, I didn’t see them,” Raskolnikov answered slowly, as
though ransacking his memory, while at the same instant he was
racking every nerve, almost swooning with anxiety to conjecture as
quickly as possible where the trap lay and not to overlook anything.
“No, I didn’t see them, and I don’t think I noticed a lat like that open....
But on the fourth storey” (he had mastered the trap now and was
triumphant) “I remember now that someone was moving out of the lat
opposite Alyona Ivanovna’s.... I remember... I remember it clearly. Some
porters were carrying out a sofa and they squeezed me against the wall.
But painters... no, I don’t remember that there were any painters, and I
don’t think that there was a lat open anywhere, no, there wasn’t.”
“What do you mean?” Razumihin shouted suddenly, as though he had
re lected and realised. “Why, it was on the day of the murder the
painters were at work, and he was there three days before? What are
you asking?”
“Foo! I have muddled it!” Por iry slapped himself on the forehead.
“Deuce take it! This business is turning my brain!” he addressed
Raskolnikov somewhat apologetically. “It would be such a great thing
for us to ind out whether anyone had seen them between seven and
eight at the lat, so I fancied you could perhaps have told us
something.... I quite muddled it.”
“Then you should be more careful,” Razumihin observed grimly.
The last words were uttered in the passage. Por iry Petrovitch saw
them to the door with excessive politeness.
They went out into the street gloomy and sullen, and for some steps
they did not say a word. Raskolnikov drew a deep breath.
 CHAPTER VI

“I don’t believe it, I can’t believe it!” repeated Razumihin, trying in

perplexity to refute Raskolnikov’s arguments.
They were by now approaching Bakaleyev’s lodgings, where
Pulcheria Alexandrovna and Dounia had been expecting them a long
while. Razumihin kept stopping on the way in the heat of discussion,
confused and excited by the very fact that they were for the irst time
speaking openly about it.
“Don’t believe it, then!” answered Raskolnikov, with a cold, careless
smile. “You were noticing nothing as usual, but I was weighing every
word.”
“You are suspicious. That is why you weighed their words... h’m...
certainly, I agree, Por iry’s tone was rather strange, and still more that
wretch Zametov!... You are right, there was something about him—but
why? Why?”
“He has changed his mind since last night.”
“Quite the contrary! If they had that brainless idea, they would do
their utmost to hide it, and conceal their cards, so as to catch you
afterwards.... But it was all impudent and careless.”
“If they had had facts—I mean, real facts—or at least grounds for
suspicion, then they would certainly have tried to hide their game, in
the hope of getting more (they would have made a search long ago
besides). But they have no facts, not one. It is all mirage—all
ambiguous. Simply a loating idea. So they try to throw me out by
impudence. And perhaps, he was irritated at having no facts, and
blurted it out in his vexation—or perhaps he has some plan... he seems
an intelligent man. Perhaps he wanted to frighten me by pretending to
know. They have a psychology of their own, brother. But it is loathsome
explaining it all. Stop!”
 “And it’s insulting, insulting! I understand you. But... since we have
spoken openly now (and it is an excellent thing that we have at last—I
am glad) I will own now frankly that I noticed it in them long ago, this
idea. Of course the merest hint only—an insinuation—but why an
insinuation even? How dare they? What foundation have they? If only
you knew how furious I have been. Think only! Simply because a poor
student, unhinged by poverty and hypochondria, on the eve of a severe
delirious illness (note that), suspicious, vain, proud, who has not seen a
soul to speak to for six months, in rags and in boots without soles, has
to face some wretched policemen and put up with their insolence; and
the unexpected debt thrust under his nose, the I.O.U. presented by
Tchebarov, the new paint, thirty degrees Reaumur and a sti ling
atmosphere, a crowd of people, the talk about the murder of a person
where he had been just before, and all that on an empty stomach—he
might well have a fainting it! And that, that is what they found it all on!
Damn them! I understand how annoying it is, but in your place, Rodya, I
would laugh at them, or better still, spit in their ugly faces, and spit a
dozen times in all directions. I’d hit out in all directions, neatly too, and
so I’d put an end to it. Damn them! Don’t be downhearted. It’s a shame!”
“He really has put it well, though,” Raskolnikov thought.
“Damn them? But the cross-examination again, to-morrow?” he said
with bitterness. “Must I really enter into explanations with them? I feel
vexed as it is, that I condescended to speak to Zametov yesterday in the
restaurant....”
“Damn it! I will go myself to Por iry. I will squeeze it out of him, as
one of the family: he must let me know the ins and outs of it all! And as
for Zametov...”
“At last he sees through him!” thought Raskolnikov.
“Stay!” cried Razumihin, seizing him by the shoulder again. “Stay! you
were wrong. I have thought it out. You are wrong! How was that a trap?
You say that the question about the workmen was a trap. But if you had
done that, could you have said you had seen them painting the lat... and
the workmen? On the contrary, you would have seen nothing, even if
you had seen it. Who would own it against himself?”
“If I had done that thing, I should certainly have said that I had seen
the workmen and the lat,” Raskolnikov answered, with reluctance and
obvious disgust.
“But why speak against yourself?”
“Because only peasants, or the most inexperienced novices deny
everything latly at examinations. If a man is ever so little developed
and experienced, he will certainly try to admit all the external facts that
can’t be avoided, but will seek other explanations of them, will
introduce some special, unexpected turn, that will give them another
signi icance and put them in another light. Por iry might well reckon
that I should be sure to answer so, and say I had seen them to give an
air of truth, and then make some explanation.”
“But he would have told you at once that the workmen could not have
been there two days before, and that therefore you must have been
there on the day of the murder at eight o’clock. And so he would have
caught you over a detail.”
“Yes, that is what he was reckoning on, that I should not have time to
re lect, and should be in a hurry to make the most likely answer, and so
would forget that the workmen could not have been there two days
before.”
“But how could you forget it?”
“Nothing easier. It is in just such stupid things clever people are most
easily caught. The more cunning a man is, the less he suspects that he
will be caught in a simple thing. The more cunning a man is, the simpler
the trap he must be caught in. Por iry is not such a fool as you think....”
“He is a knave then, if that is so!”
Raskolnikov could not help laughing. But at the very moment, he was
struck by the strangeness of his own frankness, and the eagerness with
which he had made this explanation, though he had kept up all the
preceding conversation with gloomy repulsion, obviously with a
motive, from necessity.
“I am getting a relish for certain aspects!” he thought to himself. But
almost at the same instant he became suddenly uneasy, as though an
unexpected and alarming idea had occurred to him. His uneasiness kept
on increasing. They had just reached the entrance to Bakaleyev’s.
“Go in alone!” said Raskolnikov suddenly. “I will be back directly.”
“Where are you going? Why, we are just here.”
 “I can’t help it.... I will come in half an hour. Tell them.”
“Say what you like, I will come with you.”
“You, too, want to torture me!” he screamed, with such bitter
irritation, such despair in his eyes that Razumihin’s hands dropped. He
stood for some time on the steps, looking gloomily at Raskolnikov
striding rapidly away in the direction of his lodging. At last, gritting his
teeth and clenching his ist, he swore he would squeeze Por iry like a
lemon that very day, and went up the stairs to reassure Pulcheria
Alexandrovna, who was by now alarmed at their long absence.
When Raskolnikov got home, his hair was soaked with sweat and he
was breathing heavily. He went rapidly up the stairs, walked into his
unlocked room and at once fastened the latch. Then in senseless terror
he rushed to the corner, to that hole under the paper where he had put
the things; put his hand in, and for some minutes felt carefully in the
hole, in every crack and fold of the paper. Finding nothing, he got up
and drew a deep breath. As he was reaching the steps of Bakaleyev’s, he
suddenly fancied that something, a chain, a stud or even a bit of paper
in which they had been wrapped with the old woman’s handwriting on
it, might somehow have slipped out and been lost in some crack, and
then might suddenly turn up as unexpected, conclusive evidence
against him.
He stood as though lost in thought, and a strange, humiliated, half
senseless smile strayed on his lips. He took his cap at last and went
quietly out of the room. His ideas were all tangled. He went dreamily
through the gateway.
“Here he is himself,” shouted a loud voice.
He raised his head.
The porter was standing at the door of his little room and was
pointing him out to a short man who looked like an artisan, wearing a
long coat and a waistcoat, and looking at a distance remarkably like a
woman. He stooped, and his head in a greasy cap hung forward. From
his wrinkled labby face he looked over ifty; his little eyes were lost in
fat and they looked out grimly, sternly and discontentedly.
“What is it?” Raskolnikov asked, going up to the porter.
 The man stole a look at him from under his brows and he looked at
him attentively, deliberately; then he turned slowly and went out of the
gate into the street without saying a word.
“What is it?” cried Raskolnikov.
“Why, he there was asking whether a student lived here, mentioned
your name and whom you lodged with. I saw you coming and pointed
you out and he went away. It’s funny.”
The porter too seemed rather puzzled, but not much so, and after
wondering for a moment he turned and went back to his room.
Raskolnikov ran after the stranger, and at once caught sight of him
walking along the other side of the street with the same even,
deliberate step with his eyes ixed on the ground, as though in
meditation. He soon overtook him, but for some time walked behind
him. At last, moving on to a level with him, he looked at his face. The
man noticed him at once, looked at him quickly, but dropped his eyes
again; and so they walked for a minute side by side without uttering a
word.
“You were inquiring for me... of the porter?” Raskolnikov said at last,
but in a curiously quiet voice.
The man made no answer; he didn’t even look at him. Again they
were both silent.
“Why do you... come and ask for me... and say nothing.... What’s the
meaning of it?”
Raskolnikov’s voice broke and he seemed unable to articulate the
words clearly.
The man raised his eyes this time and turned a gloomy sinister look
at Raskolnikov.
“Murderer!” he said suddenly in a quiet but clear and distinct voice.
Raskolnikov went on walking beside him. His legs felt suddenly weak,
a cold shiver ran down his spine, and his heart seemed to stand still for
a moment, then suddenly began throbbing as though it were set free. So
they walked for about a hundred paces, side by side in silence.
The man did not look at him.
 “What do you mean... what is.... Who is a murderer?” muttered
Raskolnikov hardly audibly.
“You are a murderer,” the man answered still more articulately and
emphatically, with a smile of triumphant hatred, and again he looked
straight into Raskolnikov’s pale face and stricken eyes.
They had just reached the cross-roads. The man turned to the left
without looking behind him. Raskolnikov remained standing, gazing
after him. He saw him turn round ifty paces away and look back at him
still standing there. Raskolnikov could not see clearly, but he fancied
that he was again smiling the same smile of cold hatred and triumph.
With slow faltering steps, with shaking knees, Raskolnikov made his
way back to his little garret, feeling chilled all over. He took off his cap
and put it on the table, and for ten minutes he stood without moving.
Then he sank exhausted on the sofa and with a weak moan of pain he
stretched himself on it. So he lay for half an hour.
He thought of nothing. Some thoughts or fragments of thoughts,
some images without order or coherence loated before his mind—
faces of people he had seen in his childhood or met somewhere once,
whom he would never have recalled, the belfry of the church at V., the
billiard table in a restaurant and some of icers playing billiards, the
smell of cigars in some underground tobacco shop, a tavern room, a
back staircase quite dark, all sloppy with dirty water and strewn with
egg-shells, and the Sunday bells loating in from somewhere.... The
images followed one another, whirling like a hurricane. Some of them
he liked and tried to clutch at, but they faded and all the while there
was an oppression within him, but it was not overwhelming, sometimes
it was even pleasant.... The slight shivering still persisted, but that too
was an almost pleasant sensation.
He heard the hurried footsteps of Razumihin; he closed his eyes and
pretended to be asleep. Razumihin opened the door and stood for some
time in the doorway as though hesitating, then he stepped softly into
the room and went cautiously to the sofa. Raskolnikov heard Nastasya’s
whisper:
“Don’t disturb him! Let him sleep. He can have his dinner later.”
“Quite so,” answered Razumihin. Both withdrew carefully and closed
the door. Another half-hour passed. Raskolnikov opened his eyes,
turned on his back again, clasping his hands behind his head.
“Who is he? Who is that man who sprang out of the earth? Where
was he, what did he see? He has seen it all, that’s clear. Where was he
then? And from where did he see? Why has he only now sprung out of
the earth? And how could he see? Is it possible? Hm...” continued
Raskolnikov, turning cold and shivering, “and the jewel case Nikolay
found behind the door—was that possible? A clue? You miss an
in initesimal line and you can build it into a pyramid of evidence! A ly
lew by and saw it! Is it possible?” He felt with sudden loathing how
weak, how physically weak he had become. “I ought to have known it,”
he thought with a bitter smile. “And how dared I, knowing myself,
knowing how I should be, take up an axe and shed blood! I ought to
have known beforehand.... Ah, but I did know!” he whispered in despair.
At times he came to a standstill at some thought.
“No, those men are not made so. The real Master to whom all is
permitted storms Toulon, makes a massacre in Paris, forgets an army in
Egypt, wastes half a million men in the Moscow expedition and gets off
with a jest at Vilna. And altars are set up to him after his death, and so
all is permitted. No, such people, it seems, are not of lesh but of
bronze!”
One sudden irrelevant idea almost made him laugh. Napoleon, the
pyramids, Waterloo, and a wretched skinny old woman, a pawnbroker
with a red trunk under her bed—it’s a nice hash for Por iry Petrovitch
to digest! How can they digest it! It’s too inartistic. “A Napoleon creep
under an old woman’s bed! Ugh, how loathsome!”
At moments he felt he was raving. He sank into a state of feverish
excitement. “The old woman is of no consequence,” he thought, hotly
and incoherently. “The old woman was a mistake perhaps, but she is
not what matters! The old woman was only an illness.... I was in a hurry
to overstep.... I didn’t kill a human being, but a principle! I killed the
principle, but I didn’t overstep, I stopped on this side.... I was only
capable of killing. And it seems I wasn’t even capable of that... Principle?
Why was that fool Razumihin abusing the socialists? They are
industrious, commercial people; ‘the happiness of all’ is their case. No,
life is only given to me once and I shall never have it again; I don’t want
to wait for ‘the happiness of all.’ I want to live myself, or else better not
live at all. I simply couldn’t pass by my mother starving, keeping my
rouble in my pocket while I waited for the ‘happiness of all.’ I am
putting my little brick into the happiness of all and so my heart is at
peace. Ha-ha! Why have you let me slip? I only live once, I too want....
Ech, I am an æsthetic louse and nothing more,” he added suddenly,
laughing like a madman. “Yes, I am certainly a louse,” he went on,
clutching at the idea, gloating over it and playing with it with vindictive
pleasure. “In the irst place, because I can reason that I am one, and
secondly, because for a month past I have been troubling benevolent
Providence, calling it to witness that not for my own leshly lusts did I
undertake it, but with a grand and noble object—ha-ha! Thirdly,
because I aimed at carrying it out as justly as possible, weighing,
measuring and calculating. Of all the lice I picked out the most useless
one and proposed to take from her only as much as I needed for the
irst step, no more nor less (so the rest would have gone to a monastery,
according to her will, ha-ha!). And what shows that I am utterly a louse,”
he added, grinding his teeth, “is that I am perhaps viler and more
loathsome than the louse I killed, and I felt beforehand that I should tell
myself so after killing her. Can anything be compared with the horror of
that? The vulgarity! The abjectness! I understand the ‘prophet’ with his
sabre, on his steed: Allah commands and ‘trembling’ creation must
obey! The ‘prophet’ is right, he is right when he sets a battery across the
street and blows up the innocent and the guilty without deigning to
explain! It’s for you to obey, trembling creation, and not to have desires,
for that’s not for you!... I shall never, never forgive the old woman!”
His hair was soaked with sweat, his quivering lips were parched, his
eyes were ixed on the ceiling.
“Mother, sister—how I loved them! Why do I hate them now? Yes, I
hate them, I feel a physical hatred for them, I can’t bear them near me....
I went up to my mother and kissed her, I remember.... To embrace her
and think if she only knew... shall I tell her then? That’s just what I
might do.... She must be the same as I am,” he added, straining himself to
think, as it were struggling with delirium. “Ah, how I hate the old
woman now! I feel I should kill her again if she came to life! Poor
Lizaveta! Why did she come in?... It’s strange though, why is it I scarcely
ever think of her, as though I hadn’t killed her? Lizaveta! Sonia! Poor
gentle things, with gentle eyes.... Dear women! Why don’t they weep?
Why don’t they moan? They give up everything... their eyes are soft and
gentle.... Sonia, Sonia! Gentle Sonia!”
He lost consciousness; it seemed strange to him that he didn’t
remember how he got into the street. It was late evening. The twilight
had fallen and the full moon was shining more and more brightly; but
there was a peculiar breathlessness in the air. There were crowds of
people in the street; workmen and business people were making their
way home; other people had come out for a walk; there was a smell of
mortar, dust and stagnant water. Raskolnikov walked along, mournful
and anxious; he was distinctly aware of having come out with a
purpose, of having to do something in a hurry, but what it was he had
forgotten. Suddenly he stood still and saw a man standing on the other
side of the street, beckoning to him. He crossed over to him, but at once
the man turned and walked away with his head hanging, as though he
had made no sign to him. “Stay, did he really beckon?” Raskolnikov
wondered, but he tried to overtake him. When he was within ten paces
he recognised him and was frightened; it was the same man with
stooping shoulders in the long coat. Raskolnikov followed him at a
distance; his heart was beating; they went down a turning; the man still
did not look round. “Does he know I am following him?” thought
Raskolnikov. The man went into the gateway of a big house.
Raskolnikov hastened to the gate and looked in to see whether he
would look round and sign to him. In the court-yard the man did turn
round and again seemed to beckon him. Raskolnikov at once followed
him into the yard, but the man was gone. He must have gone up the irst
staircase. Raskolnikov rushed after him. He heard slow measured steps
two lights above. The staircase seemed strangely familiar. He reached
the window on the irst loor; the moon shone through the panes with a
melancholy and mysterious light; then he reached the second loor. Bah!
this is the lat where the painters were at work... but how was it he did
not recognise it at once? The steps of the man above had died away. “So
he must have stopped or hidden somewhere.” He reached the third
storey, should he go on? There was a stillness that was dreadful.... But
he went on. The sound of his own footsteps scared and frightened him.
How dark it was! The man must be hiding in some corner here. Ah! the
lat was standing wide open, he hesitated and went in. It was very dark
and empty in the passage, as though everything had been removed; he
crept on tiptoe into the parlour which was looded with moonlight.
Everything there was as before, the chairs, the looking-glass, the yellow
sofa and the pictures in the frames. A huge, round, copper-red moon
looked in at the windows. “It’s the moon that makes it so still, weaving
some mystery,” thought Raskolnikov. He stood and waited, waited a long
while, and the more silent the moonlight, the more violently his heart
beat, till it was painful. And still the same hush. Suddenly he heard a
momentary sharp crack like the snapping of a splinter and all was still
again. A ly lew up suddenly and struck the window pane with a
plaintive buzz. At that moment he noticed in the corner between the
window and the little cupboard something like a cloak hanging on the
wall. “Why is that cloak here?” he thought, “it wasn’t there before....” He
went up to it quietly and felt that there was someone hiding behind it.
He cautiously moved the cloak and saw, sitting on a chair in the corner,
the old woman bent double so that he couldn’t see her face; but it was
she. He stood over her. “She is afraid,” he thought. He stealthily took the
axe from the noose and struck her one blow, then another on the skull.
But strange to say she did not stir, as though she were made of wood.
He was frightened, bent down nearer and tried to look at her; but she,
too, bent her head lower. He bent right down to the ground and peeped
up into her face from below, he peeped and turned cold with horror: the
old woman was sitting and laughing, shaking with noiseless laughter,
doing her utmost that he should not hear it. Suddenly he fancied that
the door from the bedroom was opened a little and that there was
laughter and whispering within. He was overcome with frenzy and he
began hitting the old woman on the head with all his force, but at every
blow of the axe the laughter and whispering from the bedroom grew
louder and the old woman was simply shaking with mirth. He was
rushing away, but the passage was full of people, the doors of the lats
stood open and on the landing, on the stairs and everywhere below
there were people, rows of heads, all looking, but huddled together in
silence and expectation. Something gripped his heart, his legs were
rooted to the spot, they would not move.... He tried to scream and woke
up.
He drew a deep breath—but his dream seemed strangely to persist:
his door was lung open and a man whom he had never seen stood in
the doorway watching him intently.
 Raskolnikov had hardly opened his eyes and he instantly closed them
again. He lay on his back without stirring.
“Is it still a dream?” he wondered and again raised his eyelids hardly
perceptibly; the stranger was standing in the same place, still watching
him.
He stepped cautiously into the room, carefully closing the door after
him, went up to the table, paused a moment, still keeping his eyes on
Raskolnikov, and noiselessly seated himself on the chair by the sofa; he
put his hat on the loor beside him and leaned his hands on his cane
and his chin on his hands. It was evident that he was prepared to wait
inde initely. As far as Raskolnikov could make out from his stolen
glances, he was a man no longer young, stout, with a full, fair, almost
whitish beard.
Ten minutes passed. It was still light, but beginning to get dusk.
There was complete stillness in the room. Not a sound came from the
stairs. Only a big ly buzzed and luttered against the window pane. It
was unbearable at last. Raskolnikov suddenly got up and sat on the
sofa.
“Come, tell me what you want.”
“I knew you were not asleep, but only pretending,” the stranger
answered oddly, laughing calmly. “Arkady Ivanovitch Svidrigaı̈lov, allow
me to introduce myself....”
PART IV
 CHAPTER I

“Can this be still a dream?” Raskolnikov thought once more.

He looked carefully and suspiciously at the unexpected visitor.
“Svidrigaı̈lov! What nonsense! It can’t be!” he said at last aloud in
bewilderment.
His visitor did not seem at all surprised at this exclamation.
“I’ve come to you for two reasons. In the irst place, I wanted to make
your personal acquaintance, as I have already heard a great deal about
you that is interesting and lattering; secondly, I cherish the hope that
you may not refuse to assist me in a matter directly concerning the
welfare of your sister, Avdotya Romanovna. For without your support
she might not let me come near her now, for she is prejudiced against
me, but with your assistance I reckon on...”
“You reckon wrongly,” interrupted Raskolnikov.
“They only arrived yesterday, may I ask you?”
Raskolnikov made no reply.
“It was yesterday, I know. I only arrived myself the day before. Well,
let me tell you this, Rodion Romanovitch, I don’t consider it necessary
to justify myself, but kindly tell me what was there particularly criminal
on my part in all this business, speaking without prejudice, with
common sense?”
Raskolnikov continued to look at him in silence.
“That in my own house I persecuted a defenceless girl and ‘insulted
her with my infamous proposals’—is that it? (I am anticipating you.)
But you’ve only to assume that I, too, am a man et nihil humanum... in a
word, that I am capable of being attracted and falling in love (which
does not depend on our will), then everything can be explained in the
most natural manner. The question is, am I a monster, or am I myself a
victim? And what if I am a victim? In proposing to the object of my
passion to elope with me to America or Switzerland, I may have
cherished the deepest respect for her and may have thought that I was
promoting our mutual happiness! Reason is the slave of passion, you
know; why, probably, I was doing more harm to myself than anyone!”
“But that’s not the point,” Raskolnikov interrupted with disgust. “It’s
simply that whether you are right or wrong, we dislike you. We don’t
want to have anything to do with you. We show you the door. Go out!”
Svidrigaı̈lov broke into a sudden laugh.
“But you’re... but there’s no getting round you,” he said, laughing in
the frankest way. “I hoped to get round you, but you took up the right
line at once!”
“But you are trying to get round me still!”
“What of it? What of it?” cried Svidrigaı̈lov, laughing openly. “But this
is what the French call bonne guerre, and the most innocent form of
deception!... But still you have interrupted me; one way or another, I
repeat again: there would never have been any unpleasantness except
for what happened in the garden. Marfa Petrovna...”
“You have got rid of Marfa Petrovna, too, so they say?” Raskolnikov
interrupted rudely.
“Oh, you’ve heard that, too, then? You’d be sure to, though.... But as
for your question, I really don’t know what to say, though my own
conscience is quite at rest on that score. Don’t suppose that I am in any
apprehension about it. All was regular and in order; the medical inquiry
diagnosed apoplexy due to bathing immediately after a heavy dinner
and a bottle of wine, and indeed it could have proved nothing else. But
I’ll tell you what I have been thinking to myself of late, on my way here
in the train, especially: didn’t I contribute to all that... calamity, morally,
in a way, by irritation or something of the sort. But I came to the
conclusion that that, too, was quite out of the question.”
Raskolnikov laughed.
“I wonder you trouble yourself about it!”
“But what are you laughing at? Only consider, I struck her just twice
with a switch—there were no marks even... don’t regard me as a cynic,
please; I am perfectly aware how atrocious it was of me and all that; but
I know for certain, too, that Marfa Petrovna was very likely pleased at
my, so to say, warmth. The story of your sister had been wrung out to
the last drop; for the last three days Marfa Petrovna had been forced to
sit at home; she had nothing to show herself with in the town. Besides,
she had bored them so with that letter (you heard about her reading
the letter). And all of a sudden those two switches fell from heaven! Her
irst act was to order the carriage to be got out.... Not to speak of the
fact that there are cases when women are very, very glad to be insulted
in spite of all their show of indignation. There are instances of it with
everyone; human beings in general, indeed, greatly love to be insulted,
have you noticed that? But it’s particularly so with women. One might
even say it’s their only amusement.”
At one time Raskolnikov thought of getting up and walking out and
so inishing the interview. But some curiosity and even a sort of
prudence made him linger for a moment.
“You are fond of ighting?” he asked carelessly.
“No, not very,” Svidrigaı̈lov answered, calmly. “And Marfa Petrovna
and I scarcely ever fought. We lived very harmoniously, and she was
always pleased with me. I only used the whip twice in all our seven
years (not counting a third occasion of a very ambiguous character).
The irst time, two months after our marriage, immediately after we
arrived in the country, and the last time was that of which we are
speaking. Did you suppose I was such a monster, such a reactionary,
such a slave driver? Ha, ha! By the way, do you remember, Rodion
Romanovitch, how a few years ago, in those days of bene icent publicity,
a nobleman, I’ve forgotten his name, was put to shame everywhere, in
all the papers, for having thrashed a German woman in the railway
train. You remember? It was in those days, that very year I believe, the
‘disgraceful action of the Age’ took place (you know, ‘The Egyptian
Nights,’ that public reading, you remember? The dark eyes, you know!
Ah, the golden days of our youth, where are they?). Well, as for the
gentleman who thrashed the German, I feel no sympathy with him,
because after all what need is there for sympathy? But I must say that
there are sometimes such provoking ‘Germans’ that I don’t believe
there is a progressive who could quite answer for himself. No one
looked at the subject from that point of view then, but that’s the truly
humane point of view, I assure you.”
After saying this, Svidrigaı̈lov broke into a sudden laugh again.
Raskolnikov saw clearly that this was a man with a irm purpose in his
mind and able to keep it to himself.
“I expect you’ve not talked to anyone for some days?” he asked.
“Scarcely anyone. I suppose you are wondering at my being such an
adaptable man?”
“No, I am only wondering at your being too adaptable a man.”
“Because I am not offended at the rudeness of your questions? Is that
it? But why take offence? As you asked, so I answered,” he replied, with
a surprising expression of simplicity. “You know, there’s hardly anything
I take interest in,” he went on, as it were dreamily, “especially now, I’ve
nothing to do.... You are quite at liberty to imagine though that I am
making up to you with a motive, particularly as I told you I want to see
your sister about something. But I’ll confess frankly, I am very much
bored. The last three days especially, so I am delighted to see you....
Don’t be angry, Rodion Romanovitch, but you seem to be somehow
awfully strange yourself. Say what you like, there’s something wrong
with you, and now, too... not this very minute, I mean, but now,
generally.... Well, well, I won’t, I won’t, don’t scowl! I am not such a bear,
you know, as you think.”
Raskolnikov looked gloomily at him.
“You are not a bear, perhaps, at all,” he said. “I fancy indeed that you
are a man of very good breeding, or at least know how on occasion to
behave like one.”
“I am not particularly interested in anyone’s opinion,” Svidrigaı̈lov
answered, dryly and even with a shade of haughtiness, “and therefore
why not be vulgar at times when vulgarity is such a convenient cloak
for our climate... and especially if one has a natural propensity that
way,” he added, laughing again.
“But I’ve heard you have many friends here. You are, as they say, ‘not
without connections.’ What can you want with me, then, unless you’ve
some special object?”
 “That’s true that I have friends here,” Svidrigaı̈lov admitted, not
replying to the chief point. “I’ve met some already. I’ve been lounging
about for the last three days, and I’ve seen them, or they’ve seen me.
That’s a matter of course. I am well dressed and reckoned not a poor
man; the emancipation of the serfs hasn’t affected me; my property
consists chie ly of forests and water meadows. The revenue has not
fallen off; but... I am not going to see them, I was sick of them long ago.
I’ve been here three days and have called on no one.... What a town it is!
How has it come into existence among us, tell me that? A town of
of icials and students of all sorts. Yes, there’s a great deal I didn’t notice
when I was here eight years ago, kicking up my heels.... My only hope
now is in anatomy, by Jove, it is!”
“Anatomy?”
“But as for these clubs, Dussauts, parades, or progress, indeed, maybe
—well, all that can go on without me,” he went on, again without
noticing the question. “Besides, who wants to be a card-sharper?”
“Why, have you been a card-sharper then?”
“How could I help being? There was a regular set of us, men of the
best society, eight years ago; we had a ine time. And all men of
breeding, you know, poets, men of property. And indeed as a rule in our
Russian society the best manners are found among those who’ve been
thrashed, have you noticed that? I’ve deteriorated in the country. But I
did get into prison for debt, through a low Greek who came from
Nezhin. Then Marfa Petrovna turned up; she bargained with him and
bought me off for thirty thousand silver pieces (I owed seventy
thousand). We were united in lawful wedlock and she bore me off into
the country like a treasure. You know she was ive years older than I.
She was very fond of me. For seven years I never left the country. And,
take note, that all my life she held a document over me, the IOU for
thirty thousand roubles, so if I were to elect to be restive about
anything I should be trapped at once! And she would have done it!
Women ind nothing incompatible in that.”
“If it hadn’t been for that, would you have given her the slip?”
“I don’t know what to say. It was scarcely the document restrained
me. I didn’t want to go anywhere else. Marfa Petrovna herself invited
me to go abroad, seeing I was bored, but I’ve been abroad before, and
always felt sick there. For no reason, but the sunrise, the bay of Naples,
the sea—you look at them and it makes you sad. What’s most revolting
is that one is really sad! No, it’s better at home. Here at least one blames
others for everything and excuses oneself. I should have gone perhaps
on an expedition to the North Pole, because j’ai le vin mauvais and hate
drinking, and there’s nothing left but wine. I have tried it. But, I say, I’ve
been told Berg is going up in a great balloon next Sunday from the
Yusupov Garden and will take up passengers at a fee. Is it true?”
“Why, would you go up?”
“I... No, oh, no,” muttered Svidrigaı̈lov really seeming to be deep in
thought.
“What does he mean? Is he in earnest?” Raskolnikov wondered.
“No, the document didn’t restrain me,” Svidrigaı̈lov went on,
meditatively. “It was my own doing, not leaving the country, and nearly
a year ago Marfa Petrovna gave me back the document on my name-day
and made me a present of a considerable sum of money, too. She had a
fortune, you know. ‘You see how I trust you, Arkady Ivanovitch’—that
was actually her expression. You don’t believe she used it? But do you
know I managed the estate quite decently, they know me in the
neighbourhood. I ordered books, too. Marfa Petrovna at irst approved,
but afterwards she was afraid of my over-studying.”
“You seem to be missing Marfa Petrovna very much?”
“Missing her? Perhaps. Really, perhaps I am. And, by the way, do you
believe in ghosts?”
“What ghosts?”
“Why, ordinary ghosts.”
“Do you believe in them?”
“Perhaps not, pour vous plaire.... I wouldn’t say no exactly.”
“Do you see them, then?”
Svidrigaı̈lov looked at him rather oddly.
“Marfa Petrovna is pleased to visit me,” he said, twisting his mouth
into a strange smile.
“How do you mean ‘she is pleased to visit you’?”
 “She has been three times. I saw her irst on the very day of the
funeral, an hour after she was buried. It was the day before I left to
come here. The second time was the day before yesterday, at daybreak,
on the journey at the station of Malaya Vishera, and the third time was
two hours ago in the room where I am staying. I was alone.”
“Were you awake?”
“Quite awake. I was wide awake every time. She comes, speaks to me
for a minute and goes out at the door—always at the door. I can almost
hear her.”
“What made me think that something of the sort must be happening
to you?” Raskolnikov said suddenly.
At the same moment he was surprised at having said it. He was much
excited.
“What! Did you think so?” Svidrigaı̈lov asked in astonishment. “Did
you really? Didn’t I say that there was something in common between
us, eh?”
“You never said so!” Raskolnikov cried sharply and with heat.
“Didn’t I?”
“No!”
“I thought I did. When I came in and saw you lying with your eyes
shut, pretending, I said to myself at once, ‘Here’s the man.’”
“What do you mean by ‘the man?’ What are you talking about?” cried
Raskolnikov.
“What do I mean? I really don’t know....” Svidrigaı̈lov muttered
ingenuously, as though he, too, were puzzled.
For a minute they were silent. They stared in each other’s faces.
“That’s all nonsense!” Raskolnikov shouted with vexation. “What
does she say when she comes to you?”
“She! Would you believe it, she talks of the silliest tri les and—man is
a strange creature—it makes me angry. The irst time she came in (I
was tired you know: the funeral service, the funeral ceremony, the
lunch afterwards. At last I was left alone in my study. I lighted a cigar
and began to think), she came in at the door. ‘You’ve been so busy to-
day, Arkady Ivanovitch, you have forgotten to wind the dining-room
clock,’ she said. All those seven years I’ve wound that clock every week,
and if I forgot it she would always remind me. The next day I set off on
my way here. I got out at the station at daybreak; I’d been asleep, tired
out, with my eyes half open, I was drinking some coffee. I looked up and
there was suddenly Marfa Petrovna sitting beside me with a pack of
cards in her hands. ‘Shall I tell your fortune for the journey, Arkady
Ivanovitch?’ She was a great hand at telling fortunes. I shall never
forgive myself for not asking her to. I ran away in a fright, and, besides,
the bell rang. I was sitting to-day, feeling very heavy after a miserable
dinner from a cookshop; I was sitting smoking, all of a sudden Marfa
Petrovna again. She came in very smart in a new green silk dress with a
long train. ‘Good day, Arkady Ivanovitch! How do you like my dress?
Aniska can’t make like this.’ (Aniska was a dressmaker in the country,
one of our former serf girls who had been trained in Moscow, a pretty
wench.) She stood turning round before me. I looked at the dress, and
then I looked carefully, very carefully, at her face. ‘I wonder you trouble
to come to me about such tri les, Marfa Petrovna.’ ‘Good gracious, you
won’t let one disturb you about anything!’ To tease her I said, ‘I want to
get married, Marfa Petrovna.’ ‘That’s just like you, Arkady Ivanovitch; it
does you very little credit to come looking for a bride when you’ve
hardly buried your wife. And if you could make a good choice, at least,
but I know it won’t be for your happiness or hers, you will only be a
laughing-stock to all good people.’ Then she went out and her train
seemed to rustle. Isn’t it nonsense, eh?”
“But perhaps you are telling lies?” Raskolnikov put in.
“I rarely lie,” answered Svidrigaı̈lov thoughtfully, apparently not
noticing the rudeness of the question.
“And in the past, have you ever seen ghosts before?”
“Y-yes, I have seen them, but only once in my life, six years ago. I had
a serf, Filka; just after his burial I called out forgetting ‘Filka, my pipe!’
He came in and went to the cupboard where my pipes were. I sat still
and thought ‘he is doing it out of revenge,’ because we had a violent
quarrel just before his death. ‘How dare you come in with a hole in your
elbow?’ I said. ‘Go away, you scamp!’ He turned and went out, and never
came again. I didn’t tell Marfa Petrovna at the time. I wanted to have a
service sung for him, but I was ashamed.”
 “You should go to a doctor.”
“I know I am not well, without your telling me, though I don’t know
what’s wrong; I believe I am ive times as strong as you are. I didn’t ask
you whether you believe that ghosts are seen, but whether you believe
that they exist.”
“No, I won’t believe it!” Raskolnikov cried, with positive anger.
“What do people generally say?” muttered Svidrigaı̈lov, as though
speaking to himself, looking aside and bowing his head. “They say, ‘You
are ill, so what appears to you is only unreal fantasy.’ But that’s not
strictly logical. I agree that ghosts only appear to the sick, but that only
proves that they are unable to appear except to the sick, not that they
don’t exist.”
“Nothing of the sort,” Raskolnikov insisted irritably.
“No? You don’t think so?” Svidrigaı̈lov went on, looking at him
deliberately. “But what do you say to this argument (help me with it):
ghosts are, as it were, shreds and fragments of other worlds, the
beginning of them. A man in health has, of course, no reason to see
them, because he is above all a man of this earth and is bound for the
sake of completeness and order to live only in this life. But as soon as
one is ill, as soon as the normal earthly order of the organism is broken,
one begins to realise the possibility of another world; and the more
seriously ill one is, the closer becomes one’s contact with that other
world, so that as soon as the man dies he steps straight into that world.
I thought of that long ago. If you believe in a future life, you could
believe in that, too.”
“I don’t believe in a future life,” said Raskolnikov.
Svidrigaı̈lov sat lost in thought.
“And what if there are only spiders there, or something of that sort,”
he said suddenly.
“He is a madman,” thought Raskolnikov.
“We always imagine eternity as something beyond our conception,
something vast, vast! But why must it be vast? Instead of all that, what if
it’s one little room, like a bath house in the country, black and grimy
and spiders in every corner, and that’s all eternity is? I sometimes fancy
it like that.”
 “Can it be you can imagine nothing juster and more comforting than
that?” Raskolnikov cried, with a feeling of anguish.
“Juster? And how can we tell, perhaps that is just, and do you know
it’s what I would certainly have made it,” answered Svidrigaı̈lov, with a
vague smile.
This horrible answer sent a cold chill through Raskolnikov.
Svidrigaı̈lov raised his head, looked at him, and suddenly began
laughing.
“Only think,” he cried, “half an hour ago we had never seen each
other, we regarded each other as enemies; there is a matter unsettled
between us; we’ve thrown it aside, and away we’ve gone into the
abstract! Wasn’t I right in saying that we were birds of a feather?”
“Kindly allow me,” Raskolnikov went on irritably, “to ask you to
explain why you have honoured me with your visit... and... and I am in a
hurry, I have no time to waste. I want to go out.”
“By all means, by all means. Your sister, Avdotya Romanovna, is going
to be married to Mr. Luzhin, Pyotr Petrovitch?”
“Can you refrain from any question about my sister and from
mentioning her name? I can’t understand how you dare utter her name
in my presence, if you really are Svidrigaı̈lov.”
“Why, but I’ve come here to speak about her; how can I avoid
mentioning her?”
“Very good, speak, but make haste.”
“I am sure that you must have formed your own opinion of this Mr.
Luzhin, who is a connection of mine through my wife, if you have only
seen him for half an hour, or heard any facts about him. He is no match
for Avdotya Romanovna. I believe Avdotya Romanovna is sacri icing
herself generously and imprudently for the sake of... for the sake of her
family. I fancied from all I had heard of you that you would be very glad
if the match could be broken off without the sacri ice of worldly
advantages. Now I know you personally, I am convinced of it.”
“All this is very naı̈ve... excuse me, I should have said impudent on
your part,” said Raskolnikov.
“You mean to say that I am seeking my own ends. Don’t be uneasy,
Rodion Romanovitch, if I were working for my own advantage, I would
not have spoken out so directly. I am not quite a fool. I will confess
something psychologically curious about that: just now, defending my
love for Avdotya Romanovna, I said I was myself the victim. Well, let me
tell you that I’ve no feeling of love now, not the slightest, so that I
wonder myself indeed, for I really did feel something...”
“Through idleness and depravity,” Raskolnikov put in.
“I certainly am idle and depraved, but your sister has such qualities
that even I could not help being impressed by them. But that’s all
nonsense, as I see myself now.”
“Have you seen that long?”
“I began to be aware of it before, but was only perfectly sure of it the
day before yesterday, almost at the moment I arrived in Petersburg. I
still fancied in Moscow, though, that I was coming to try to get Avdotya
Romanovna’s hand and to cut out Mr. Luzhin.”
“Excuse me for interrupting you; kindly be brief, and come to the
object of your visit. I am in a hurry, I want to go out...”
“With the greatest pleasure. On arriving here and determining on a
certain... journey, I should like to make some necessary preliminary
arrangements. I left my children with an aunt; they are well provided
for; and they have no need of me personally. And a nice father I should
make, too! I have taken nothing but what Marfa Petrovna gave me a
year ago. That’s enough for me. Excuse me, I am just coming to the
point. Before the journey which may come off, I want to settle Mr.
Luzhin, too. It’s not that I detest him so much, but it was through him I
quarrelled with Marfa Petrovna when I learned that she had dished up
this marriage. I want now to see Avdotya Romanovna through your
mediation, and if you like in your presence, to explain to her that in the
irst place she will never gain anything but harm from Mr. Luzhin. Then,
begging her pardon for all past unpleasantness, to make her a present
of ten thousand roubles and so assist the rupture with Mr. Luzhin, a
rupture to which I believe she is herself not disinclined, if she could see
the way to it.”
“You are certainly mad,” cried Raskolnikov not so much angered as
astonished. “How dare you talk like that!”
 “I knew you would scream at me; but in the irst place, though I am
not rich, this ten thousand roubles is perfectly free; I have absolutely no
need for it. If Avdotya Romanovna does not accept it, I shall waste it in
some more foolish way. That’s the irst thing. Secondly, my conscience is
perfectly easy; I make the offer with no ulterior motive. You may not
believe it, but in the end Avdotya Romanovna and you will know. The
point is, that I did actually cause your sister, whom I greatly respect,
some trouble and unpleasantness, and so, sincerely regretting it, I want
—not to compensate, not to repay her for the unpleasantness, but
simply to do something to her advantage, to show that I am not, after
all, privileged to do nothing but harm. If there were a millionth fraction
of self-interest in my offer, I should not have made it so openly; and I
should not have offered her ten thousand only, when ive weeks ago I
offered her more, Besides, I may, perhaps, very soon marry a young
lady, and that alone ought to prevent suspicion of any design on
Avdotya Romanovna. In conclusion, let me say that in marrying Mr.
Luzhin, she is taking money just the same, only from another man.
Don’t be angry, Rodion Romanovitch, think it over coolly and quietly.”
Svidrigaı̈lov himself was exceedingly cool and quiet as he was saying
this.
“I beg you to say no more,” said Raskolnikov. “In any case this is
unpardonable impertinence.”
“Not in the least. Then a man may do nothing but harm to his
neighbour in this world, and is prevented from doing the tiniest bit of
good by trivial conventional formalities. That’s absurd. If I died, for
instance, and left that sum to your sister in my will, surely she wouldn’t
refuse it?”
“Very likely she would.”
“Oh, no, indeed. However, if you refuse it, so be it, though ten
thousand roubles is a capital thing to have on occasion. In any case I
beg you to repeat what I have said to Avdotya Romanovna.”
“No, I won’t.”
“In that case, Rodion Romanovitch, I shall be obliged to try and see
her myself and worry her by doing so.”
“And if I do tell her, will you not try to see her?”
 “I don’t know really what to say. I should like very much to see her
once more.”
“Don’t hope for it.”
“I’m sorry. But you don’t know me. Perhaps we may become better
friends.”
“You think we may become friends?”
“And why not?” Svidrigaı̈lov said, smiling. He stood up and took his
hat. “I didn’t quite intend to disturb you and I came here without
reckoning on it... though I was very much struck by your face this
morning.”
“Where did you see me this morning?” Raskolnikov asked uneasily.
“I saw you by chance.... I kept fancying there is something about you
like me.... But don’t be uneasy. I am not intrusive; I used to get on all
right with card-sharpers, and I never bored Prince Svirbey, a great
personage who is a distant relation of mine, and I could write about
Raphael’s Madonna in Madam Prilukov’s album, and I never left Marfa
Petrovna’s side for seven years, and I used to stay the night at
Viazemsky’s house in the Hay Market in the old days, and I may go up in
a balloon with Berg, perhaps.”
“Oh, all right. Are you starting soon on your travels, may I ask?”
“What travels?”
“Why, on that ‘journey’; you spoke of it yourself.”
“A journey? Oh, yes. I did speak of a journey. Well, that’s a wide
subject.... if only you knew what you are asking,” he added, and gave a
sudden, loud, short laugh. “Perhaps I’ll get married instead of the
journey. They’re making a match for me.”
“Here?”
“Yes.”
“How have you had time for that?”
“But I am very anxious to see Avdotya Romanovna once. I earnestly
beg it. Well, good-bye for the present. Oh, yes. I have forgotten
something. Tell your sister, Rodion Romanovitch, that Marfa Petrovna
remembered her in her will and left her three thousand roubles. That’s
absolutely certain. Marfa Petrovna arranged it a week before her death,
and it was done in my presence. Avdotya Romanovna will be able to
receive the money in two or three weeks.”
“Are you telling the truth?”
“Yes, tell her. Well, your servant. I am staying very near you.”
As he went out, Svidrigaı̈lov ran up against Razumihin in the
doorway.
 CHAPTER II

It was nearly eight o’clock. The two young men hurried to

Bakaleyev’s, to arrive before Luzhin.
“Why, who was that?” asked Razumihin, as soon as they were in the
street.
“It was Svidrigaı̈lov, that landowner in whose house my sister was
insulted when she was their governess. Through his persecuting her
with his attentions, she was turned out by his wife, Marfa Petrovna.
This Marfa Petrovna begged Dounia’s forgiveness afterwards, and she’s
just died suddenly. It was of her we were talking this morning. I don’t
know why I’m afraid of that man. He came here at once after his wife’s
funeral. He is very strange, and is determined on doing something.... We
must guard Dounia from him... that’s what I wanted to tell you, do you
hear?”
“Guard her! What can he do to harm Avdotya Romanovna? Thank
you, Rodya, for speaking to me like that.... We will, we will guard her.
Where does he live?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why didn’t you ask? What a pity! I’ll ind out, though.”
“Did you see him?” asked Raskolnikov after a pause.
“Yes, I noticed him, I noticed him well.”
“You did really see him? You saw him clearly?” Raskolnikov insisted.
“Yes, I remember him perfectly, I should know him in a thousand; I
have a good memory for faces.”
They were silent again.
“Hm!... that’s all right,” muttered Raskolnikov. “Do you know, I
fancied... I keep thinking that it may have been an hallucination.”
“What do you mean? I don’t understand you.”
 “Well, you all say,” Raskolnikov went on, twisting his mouth into a
smile, “that I am mad. I thought just now that perhaps I really am mad,
and have only seen a phantom.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why, who can tell? Perhaps I am really mad, and perhaps everything
that happened all these days may be only imagination.”
“Ach, Rodya, you have been upset again!... But what did he say, what
did he come for?”
Raskolnikov did not answer. Razumihin thought a minute.
“Now let me tell you my story,” he began, “I came to you, you were
asleep. Then we had dinner and then I went to Por iry’s, Zametov was
still with him. I tried to begin, but it was no use. I couldn’t speak in the
right way. They don’t seem to understand and can’t understand, but are
not a bit ashamed. I drew Por iry to the window, and began talking to
him, but it was still no use. He looked away and I looked away. At last I
shook my ist in his ugly face, and told him as a cousin I’d brain him. He
merely looked at me, I cursed and came away. That was all. It was very
stupid. To Zametov I didn’t say a word. But, you see, I thought I’d made
a mess of it, but as I went downstairs a brilliant idea struck me: why
should we trouble? Of course if you were in any danger or anything, but
why need you care? You needn’t care a hang for them. We shall have a
laugh at them afterwards, and if I were in your place I’d mystify them
more than ever. How ashamed they’ll be afterwards! Hang them! We
can thrash them afterwards, but let’s laugh at them now!”
“To be sure,” answered Raskolnikov. “But what will you say to-
morrow?” he thought to himself. Strange to say, till that moment it had
never occurred to him to wonder what Razumihin would think when he
knew. As he thought it, Raskolnikov looked at him. Razumihin’s account
of his visit to Por iry had very little interest for him, so much had come
and gone since then.
In the corridor they came upon Luzhin; he had arrived punctually at
eight, and was looking for the number, so that all three went in together
without greeting or looking at one another. The young men walked in
irst, while Pyotr Petrovitch, for good manners, lingered a little in the
passage, taking off his coat. Pulcheria Alexandrovna came forward at
once to greet him in the doorway, Dounia was welcoming her brother.
Pyotr Petrovitch walked in and quite amiably, though with redoubled
dignity, bowed to the ladies. He looked, however, as though he were a
little put out and could not yet recover himself. Pulcheria Alexandrovna,
who seemed also a little embarrassed, hastened to make them all sit
down at the round table where a samovar was boiling. Dounia and
Luzhin were facing one another on opposite sides of the table.
Razumihin and Raskolnikov were facing Pulcheria Alexandrovna,
Razumihin was next to Luzhin and Raskolnikov was beside his sister.
A moment’s silence followed. Pyotr Petrovitch deliberately drew out
a cambric handkerchief reeking of scent and blew his nose with an air
of a benevolent man who felt himself slighted, and was irmly resolved
to insist on an explanation. In the passage the idea had occurred to him
to keep on his overcoat and walk away, and so give the two ladies a
sharp and emphatic lesson and make them feel the gravity of the
position. But he could not bring himself to do this. Besides, he could not
endure uncertainty, and he wanted an explanation: if his request had
been so openly disobeyed, there was something behind it, and in that
case it was better to ind it out beforehand; it rested with him to punish
them and there would always be time for that.
“I trust you had a favourable journey,” he inquired of icially of
Pulcheria Alexandrovna.
“Oh, very, Pyotr Petrovitch.”
“I am grati ied to hear it. And Avdotya Romanovna is not over-
fatigued either?”
“I am young and strong, I don’t get tired, but it was a great strain for
mother,” answered Dounia.
“That’s unavoidable! our national railways are of terrible length.
‘Mother Russia,’ as they say, is a vast country.... In spite of all my desire
to do so, I was unable to meet you yesterday. But I trust all passed off
without inconvenience?”
“Oh, no, Pyotr Petrovitch, it was all terribly disheartening,” Pulcheria
Alexandrovna hastened to declare with peculiar intonation, “and if
Dmitri Proko itch had not been sent us, I really believe by God Himself,
we should have been utterly lost. Here, he is! Dmitri Proko itch
Razumihin,” she added, introducing him to Luzhin.
 “I had the pleasure... yesterday,” muttered Pyotr Petrovitch with a
hostile glance sidelong at Razumihin; then he scowled and was silent.
Pyotr Petrovitch belonged to that class of persons, on the surface
very polite in society, who make a great point of punctiliousness, but
who, directly they are crossed in anything, are completely disconcerted,
and become more like sacks of lour than elegant and lively men of
society. Again all was silent; Raskolnikov was obstinately mute, Avdotya
Romanovna was unwilling to open the conversation too soon.
Razumihin had nothing to say, so Pulcheria Alexandrovna was anxious
again.
“Marfa Petrovna is dead, have you heard?” she began having recourse
to her leading item of conversation.
“To be sure, I heard so. I was immediately informed, and I have come
to make you acquainted with the fact that Arkady Ivanovitch
Svidrigaı̈lov set off in haste for Petersburg immediately after his wife’s
funeral. So at least I have excellent authority for believing.”
“To Petersburg? here?” Dounia asked in alarm and looked at her
mother.
“Yes, indeed, and doubtless not without some design, having in view
the rapidity of his departure, and all the circumstances preceding it.”
“Good heavens! won’t he leave Dounia in peace even here?” cried
Pulcheria Alexandrovna.
“I imagine that neither you nor Avdotya Romanovna have any
grounds for uneasiness, unless, of course, you are yourselves desirous
of getting into communication with him. For my part I am on my guard,
and am now discovering where he is lodging.”
“Oh, Pyotr Petrovitch, you would not believe what a fright you have
given me,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna went on: “I’ve only seen him twice,
but I thought him terrible, terrible! I am convinced that he was the
cause of Marfa Petrovna’s death.”
“It’s impossible to be certain about that. I have precise information. I
do not dispute that he may have contributed to accelerate the course of
events by the moral in luence, so to say, of the affront; but as to the
general conduct and moral characteristics of that personage, I am in
agreement with you. I do not know whether he is well off now, and
precisely what Marfa Petrovna left him; this will be known to me within
a very short period; but no doubt here in Petersburg, if he has any
pecuniary resources, he will relapse at once into his old ways. He is the
most depraved, and abjectly vicious specimen of that class of men. I
have considerable reason to believe that Marfa Petrovna, who was so
unfortunate as to fall in love with him and to pay his debts eight years
ago, was of service to him also in another way. Solely by her exertions
and sacri ices, a criminal charge, involving an element of fantastic and
homicidal brutality for which he might well have been sentenced to
Siberia, was hushed up. That’s the sort of man he is, if you care to
know.”
“Good heavens!” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. Raskolnikov listened
attentively.
“Are you speaking the truth when you say that you have good
evidence of this?” Dounia asked sternly and emphatically.
“I only repeat what I was told in secret by Marfa Petrovna. I must
observe that from the legal point of view the case was far from clear.
There was, and I believe still is, living here a woman called Resslich, a
foreigner, who lent small sums of money at interest, and did other
commissions, and with this woman Svidrigaı̈lov had for a long while
close and mysterious relations. She had a relation, a niece I believe,
living with her, a deaf and dumb girl of ifteen, or perhaps not more
than fourteen. Resslich hated this girl, and grudged her every crust; she
used to beat her mercilessly. One day the girl was found hanging in the
garret. At the inquest the verdict was suicide. After the usual
proceedings the matter ended, but, later on, information was given that
the child had been... cruelly outraged by Svidrigaı̈lov. It is true, this was
not clearly established, the information was given by another German
woman of loose character whose word could not be trusted; no
statement was actually made to the police, thanks to Marfa Petrovna’s
money and exertions; it did not get beyond gossip. And yet the story is a
very signi icant one. You heard, no doubt, Avdotya Romanovna, when
you were with them the story of the servant Philip who died of ill
treatment he received six years ago, before the abolition of serfdom.”
“I heard, on the contrary, that this Philip hanged himself.”
 “Quite so, but what drove him, or rather perhaps disposed him, to
suicide was the systematic persecution and severity of Mr. Svidrigaı̈lov.”
“I don’t know that,” answered Dounia, dryly. “I only heard a queer
story that Philip was a sort of hypochondriac, a sort of domestic
philosopher, the servants used to say, ‘he read himself silly,’ and that he
hanged himself partly on account of Mr. Svidrigaı̈lov’s mockery of him
and not his blows. When I was there he behaved well to the servants,
and they were actually fond of him, though they certainly did blame
him for Philip’s death.”
“I perceive, Avdotya Romanovna, that you seem disposed to
undertake his defence all of a sudden,” Luzhin observed, twisting his
lips into an ambiguous smile, “there’s no doubt that he is an astute man,
and insinuating where ladies are concerned, of which Marfa Petrovna,
who has died so strangely, is a terrible instance. My only desire has
been to be of service to you and your mother with my advice, in view of
the renewed efforts which may certainly be anticipated from him. For
my part it’s my irm conviction, that he will end in a debtor’s prison
again. Marfa Petrovna had not the slightest intention of settling
anything substantial on him, having regard for his children’s interests,
and, if she left him anything, it would only be the merest suf iciency,
something insigni icant and ephemeral, which would not last a year for
a man of his habits.”
“Pyotr Petrovitch, I beg you,” said Dounia, “say no more of Mr.
Svidrigaı̈lov. It makes me miserable.”
“He has just been to see me,” said Raskolnikov, breaking his silence
for the irst time.
There were exclamations from all, and they all turned to him. Even
Pyotr Petrovitch was roused.
“An hour and a half ago, he came in when I was asleep, waked me,
and introduced himself,” Raskolnikov continued. “He was fairly cheerful
and at ease, and quite hopes that we shall become friends. He is
particularly anxious, by the way, Dounia, for an interview with you, at
which he asked me to assist. He has a proposition to make to you, and
he told me about it. He told me, too, that a week before her death Marfa
Petrovna left you three thousand roubles in her will, Dounia, and that
you can receive the money very shortly.”
 “Thank God!” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna, crossing herself. “Pray
for her soul, Dounia!”
“It’s a fact!” broke from Luzhin.
“Tell us, what more?” Dounia urged Raskolnikov.
“Then he said that he wasn’t rich and all the estate was left to his
children who are now with an aunt, then that he was staying
somewhere not far from me, but where, I don’t know, I didn’t ask....”
“But what, what does he want to propose to Dounia?” cried Pulcheria
Alexandrovna in a fright. “Did he tell you?”
“Yes.”
“What was it?”
“I’ll tell you afterwards.”
Raskolnikov ceased speaking and turned his attention to his tea.
Pyotr Petrovitch looked at his watch.
“I am compelled to keep a business engagement, and so I shall not be
in your way,” he added with an air of some pique and he began getting
up.
“Don’t go, Pyotr Petrovitch,” said Dounia, “you intended to spend the
evening. Besides, you wrote yourself that you wanted to have an
explanation with mother.”
“Precisely so, Avdotya Romanovna,” Pyotr Petrovitch answered
impressively, sitting down again, but still holding his hat. “I certainly
desired an explanation with you and your honoured mother upon a
very important point indeed. But as your brother cannot speak openly
in my presence of some proposals of Mr. Svidrigaı̈lov, I, too, do not
desire and am not able to speak openly... in the presence of others... of
certain matters of the greatest gravity. Moreover, my most weighty and
urgent request has been disregarded....”
Assuming an aggrieved air, Luzhin relapsed into digni ied silence.
“Your request that my brother should not be present at our meeting
was disregarded solely at my insistance,” said Dounia. “You wrote that
you had been insulted by my brother; I think that this must be
explained at once, and you must be reconciled. And if Rodya really has
insulted you, then he should and will apologise.”
 Pyotr Petrovitch took a stronger line.
“There are insults, Avdotya Romanovna, which no goodwill can make
us forget. There is a line in everything which it is dangerous to
overstep; and when it has been overstepped, there is no return.”
“That wasn’t what I was speaking of exactly, Pyotr Petrovitch,” Dounia
interrupted with some impatience. “Please understand that our whole
future depends now on whether all this is explained and set right as
soon as possible. I tell you frankly at the start that I cannot look at it in
any other light, and if you have the least regard for me, all this business
must be ended to-day, however hard that may be. I repeat that if my
brother is to blame he will ask your forgiveness.”
“I am surprised at your putting the question like that,” said Luzhin,
getting more and more irritated. “Esteeming, and so to say, adoring you,
I may at the same time, very well indeed, be able to dislike some
member of your family. Though I lay claim to the happiness of your
hand, I cannot accept duties incompatible with...”
“Ah, don’t be so ready to take offence, Pyotr Petrovitch,” Dounia
interrupted with feeling, “and be the sensible and generous man I have
always considered, and wish to consider, you to be. I’ve given you a
great promise, I am your betrothed. Trust me in this matter and, believe
me, I shall be capable of judging impartially. My assuming the part of
judge is as much a surprise for my brother as for you. When I insisted
on his coming to our interview to-day after your letter, I told him
nothing of what I meant to do. Understand that, if you are not
reconciled, I must choose between you—it must be either you or he.
That is how the question rests on your side and on his. I don’t want to
be mistaken in my choice, and I must not be. For your sake I must break
off with my brother, for my brother’s sake I must break off with you. I
can ind out for certain now whether he is a brother to me, and I want
to know it; and of you, whether I am dear to you, whether you esteem
me, whether you are the husband for me.”
“Avdotya Romanovna,” Luzhin declared huf ily, “your words are of too
much consequence to me; I will say more, they are offensive in view of
the position I have the honour to occupy in relation to you. To say
nothing of your strange and offensive setting me on a level with an
impertinent boy, you admit the possibility of breaking your promise to
me. You say ‘you or he,’ showing thereby of how little consequence I am
in your eyes... I cannot let this pass considering the relationship and...
the obligations existing between us.”
“What!” cried Dounia, lushing. “I set your interest beside all that has
hitherto been most precious in my life, what has made up the whole of
my life, and here you are offended at my making too little account of
you.”
Raskolnikov smiled sarcastically, Razumihin idgeted, but Pyotr
Petrovitch did not accept the reproof; on the contrary, at every word he
became more persistent and irritable, as though he relished it.
“Love for the future partner of your life, for your husband, ought to
outweigh your love for your brother,” he pronounced sententiously,
“and in any case I cannot be put on the same level.... Although I said so
emphatically that I would not speak openly in your brother’s presence,
nevertheless, I intend now to ask your honoured mother for a
necessary explanation on a point of great importance closely affecting
my dignity. Your son,” he turned to Pulcheria Alexandrovna, “yesterday
in the presence of Mr. Razsudkin (or... I think that’s it? excuse me I have
forgotten your surname,” he bowed politely to Razumihin) “insulted me
by misrepresenting the idea I expressed to you in a private
conversation, drinking coffee, that is, that marriage with a poor girl
who has had experience of trouble is more advantageous from the
conjugal point of view than with one who has lived in luxury, since it is
more pro itable for the moral character. Your son intentionally
exaggerated the signi icance of my words and made them ridiculous,
accusing me of malicious intentions, and, as far as I could see, relied
upon your correspondence with him. I shall consider myself happy,
Pulcheria Alexandrovna, if it is possible for you to convince me of an
opposite conclusion, and thereby considerately reassure me. Kindly let
me know in what terms precisely you repeated my words in your letter
to Rodion Romanovitch.”
“I don’t remember,” faltered Pulcheria Alexandrovna. “I repeated
them as I understood them. I don’t know how Rodya repeated them to
you, perhaps he exaggerated.”
“He could not have exaggerated them, except at your instigation.”
 “Pyotr Petrovitch,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna declared with dignity,
“the proof that Dounia and I did not take your words in a very bad
sense is the fact that we are here.”
“Good, mother,” said Dounia approvingly.
“Then this is my fault again,” said Luzhin, aggrieved.
“Well, Pyotr Petrovitch, you keep blaming Rodion, but you yourself
have just written what was false about him,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna
added, gaining courage.
“I don’t remember writing anything false.”
“You wrote,” Raskolnikov said sharply, not turning to Luzhin, “that I
gave money yesterday not to the widow of the man who was killed, as
was the fact, but to his daughter (whom I had never seen till yesterday).
You wrote this to make dissension between me and my family, and for
that object added coarse expressions about the conduct of a girl whom
you don’t know. All that is mean slander.”
“Excuse me, sir,” said Luzhin, quivering with fury. “I enlarged upon
your qualities and conduct in my letter solely in response to your
sister’s and mother’s inquiries, how I found you, and what impression
you made on me. As for what you’ve alluded to in my letter, be so good
as to point out one word of falsehood, show, that is, that you didn’t
throw away your money, and that there are not worthless persons in
that family, however unfortunate.”
“To my thinking, you, with all your virtues, are not worth the little
inger of that unfortunate girl at whom you throw stones.”
“Would you go so far then as to let her associate with your mother
and sister?”
“I have done so already, if you care to know. I made her sit down to-
day with mother and Dounia.”
“Rodya!” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. Dounia crimsoned,
Razumihin knitted his brows. Luzhin smiled with lofty sarcasm.
“You may see for yourself, Avdotya Romanovna,” he said, “whether it
is possible for us to agree. I hope now that this question is at an end,
once and for all. I will withdraw, that I may not hinder the pleasures of
family intimacy, and the discussion of secrets.” He got up from his chair
and took his hat. “But in withdrawing, I venture to request that for the
future I may be spared similar meetings, and, so to say, compromises. I
appeal particularly to you, honoured Pulcheria Alexandrovna, on this
subject, the more as my letter was addressed to you and to no one else.”
Pulcheria Alexandrovna was a little offended.
“You seem to think we are completely under your authority, Pyotr
Petrovitch. Dounia has told you the reason your desire was disregarded,
she had the best intentions. And indeed you write as though you were
laying commands upon me. Are we to consider every desire of yours as
a command? Let me tell you on the contrary that you ought to show
particular delicacy and consideration for us now, because we have
thrown up everything, and have come here relying on you, and so we
are in any case in a sense in your hands.”
“That is not quite true, Pulcheria Alexandrovna, especially at the
present moment, when the news has come of Marfa Petrovna’s legacy,
which seems indeed very apropos, judging from the new tone you take
to me,” he added sarcastically.
“Judging from that remark, we may certainly presume that you were
reckoning on our helplessness,” Dounia observed irritably.
“But now in any case I cannot reckon on it, and I particularly desire
not to hinder your discussion of the secret proposals of Arkady
Ivanovitch Svidrigaı̈lov, which he has entrusted to your brother and
which have, I perceive, a great and possibly a very agreeable interest for
you.”
“Good heavens!” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna.
Razumihin could not sit still on his chair.
“Aren’t you ashamed now, sister?” asked Raskolnikov.
“I am ashamed, Rodya,” said Dounia. “Pyotr Petrovitch, go away,” she
turned to him, white with anger.
Pyotr Petrovitch had apparently not at all expected such a conclusion.
He had too much con idence in himself, in his power and in the
helplessness of his victims. He could not believe it even now. He turned
pale, and his lips quivered.
“Avdotya Romanovna, if I go out of this door now, after such a
dismissal, then, you may reckon on it, I will never come back. Consider
what you are doing. My word is not to be shaken.”
 “What insolence!” cried Dounia, springing up from her seat. “I don’t
want you to come back again.”
“What! So that’s how it stands!” cried Luzhin, utterly unable to the
last moment to believe in the rupture and so completely thrown out of
his reckoning now. “So that’s how it stands! But do you know, Avdotya
Romanovna, that I might protest?”
“What right have you to speak to her like that?” Pulcheria
Alexandrovna intervened hotly. “And what can you protest about? What
rights have you? Am I to give my Dounia to a man like you? Go away,
leave us altogether! We are to blame for having agreed to a wrong
action, and I above all....”
“But you have bound me, Pulcheria Alexandrovna,” Luzhin stormed in
a frenzy, “by your promise, and now you deny it and... besides... I have
been led on account of that into expenses....”
This last complaint was so characteristic of Pyotr Petrovitch, that
Raskolnikov, pale with anger and with the effort of restraining it, could
not help breaking into laughter. But Pulcheria Alexandrovna was
furious.
“Expenses? What expenses? Are you speaking of our trunk? But the
conductor brought it for nothing for you. Mercy on us, we have bound
you! What are you thinking about, Pyotr Petrovitch, it was you bound
us, hand and foot, not we!”
“Enough, mother, no more please,” Avdotya Romanovna implored.
“Pyotr Petrovitch, do be kind and go!”
“I am going, but one last word,” he said, quite unable to control
himself. “Your mamma seems to have entirely forgotten that I made up
my mind to take you, so to speak, after the gossip of the town had
spread all over the district in regard to your reputation. Disregarding
public opinion for your sake and reinstating your reputation, I certainly
might very well reckon on a itting return, and might indeed look for
gratitude on your part. And my eyes have only now been opened! I see
myself that I may have acted very, very recklessly in disregarding the
universal verdict....”
“Does the fellow want his head smashed?” cried Razumihin, jumping
up.
 “You are a mean and spiteful man!” cried Dounia.
“Not a word! Not a movement!” cried Raskolnikov, holding Razumihin
back; then going close up to Luzhin, “Kindly leave the room!” he said
quietly and distinctly, “and not a word more or...”
Pyotr Petrovitch gazed at him for some seconds with a pale face that
worked with anger, then he turned, went out, and rarely has any man
carried away in his heart such vindictive hatred as he felt against
Raskolnikov. Him, and him alone, he blamed for everything. It is
noteworthy that as he went downstairs he still imagined that his case
was perhaps not utterly lost, and that, so far as the ladies were
concerned, all might “very well indeed” be set right again.
 CHAPTER III

The fact was that up to the last moment he had never expected such
an ending; he had been overbearing to the last degree, never dreaming
that two destitute and defenceless women could escape from his
control. This conviction was strengthened by his vanity and conceit, a
conceit to the point of fatuity. Pyotr Petrovitch, who had made his way
up from insigni icance, was morbidly given to self-admiration, had the
highest opinion of his intelligence and capacities, and sometimes even
gloated in solitude over his image in the glass. But what he loved and
valued above all was the money he had amassed by his labour, and by
all sorts of devices: that money made him the equal of all who had been
his superiors.
When he had bitterly reminded Dounia that he had decided to take
her in spite of evil report, Pyotr Petrovitch had spoken with perfect
sincerity and had, indeed, felt genuinely indignant at such “black
ingratitude.” And yet, when he made Dounia his offer, he was fully
aware of the groundlessness of all the gossip. The story had been
everywhere contradicted by Marfa Petrovna, and was by then
disbelieved by all the townspeople, who were warm in Dounia’a
defence. And he would not have denied that he knew all that at the
time. Yet he still thought highly of his own resolution in lifting Dounia to
his level and regarded it as something heroic. In speaking of it to
Dounia, he had let out the secret feeling he cherished and admired, and
he could not understand that others should fail to admire it too. He had
called on Raskolnikov with the feelings of a benefactor who is about to
reap the fruits of his good deeds and to hear agreeable lattery. And as
he went downstairs now, he considered himself most undeservedly
injured and unrecognised.
Dounia was simply essential to him; to do without her was
unthinkable. For many years he had had voluptuous dreams of
marriage, but he had gone on waiting and amassing money. He brooded
with relish, in profound secret, over the image of a girl—virtuous, poor
(she must be poor), very young, very pretty, of good birth and
education, very timid, one who had suffered much, and was completely
humbled before him, one who would all her life look on him as her
saviour, worship him, admire him and only him. How many scenes, how
many amorous episodes he had imagined on this seductive and playful
theme, when his work was over! And, behold, the dream of so many
years was all but realised; the beauty and education of Avdotya
Romanovna had impressed him; her helpless position had been a great
allurement; in her he had found even more than he dreamed of. Here
was a girl of pride, character, virtue, of education and breeding superior
to his own (he felt that), and this creature would be slavishly grateful all
her life for his heroic condescension, and would humble herself in the
dust before him, and he would have absolute, unbounded power over
her!... Not long before, he had, too, after long re lection and hesitation,
made an important change in his career and was now entering on a
wider circle of business. With this change his cherished dreams of
rising into a higher class of society seemed likely to be realised.... He
was, in fact, determined to try his fortune in Petersburg. He knew that
women could do a very great deal. The fascination of a charming,
virtuous, highly educated woman might make his way easier, might do
wonders in attracting people to him, throwing an aureole round him,
and now everything was in ruins! This sudden horrible rupture affected
him like a clap of thunder; it was like a hideous joke, an absurdity. He
had only been a tiny bit masterful, had not even time to speak out, had
simply made a joke, been carried away—and it had ended so seriously.
And, of course, too, he did love Dounia in his own way; he already
possessed her in his dreams—and all at once! No! The next day, the
very next day, it must all be set right, smoothed over, settled. Above all
he must crush that conceited milksop who was the cause of it all. With a
sick feeling he could not help recalling Razumihin too, but, he soon
reassured himself on that score; as though a fellow like that could be
put on a level with him! The man he really dreaded in earnest was
Svidrigaı̈lov.... He had, in short, a great deal to attend to....
 “No, I, I am more to blame than anyone!” said Dounia, kissing and
embracing her mother. “I was tempted by his money, but on my honour,
brother, I had no idea he was such a base man. If I had seen through him
before, nothing would have tempted me! Don’t blame me, brother!”
“God has delivered us! God has delivered us!” Pulcheria Alexandrovna
muttered, but half consciously, as though scarcely able to realise what
had happened.
They were all relieved, and in ive minutes they were laughing. Only
now and then Dounia turned white and frowned, remembering what
had passed. Pulcheria Alexandrovna was surprised to ind that she, too,
was glad: she had only that morning thought rupture with Luzhin a
terrible misfortune. Razumihin was delighted. He did not yet dare to
express his joy fully, but he was in a fever of excitement as though a ton-
weight had fallen off his heart. Now he had the right to devote his life to
them, to serve them.... Anything might happen now! But he felt afraid to
think of further possibilities and dared not let his imagination range.
But Raskolnikov sat still in the same place, almost sullen and
indifferent. Though he had been the most insistent on getting rid of
Luzhin, he seemed now the least concerned at what had happened.
Dounia could not help thinking that he was still angry with her, and
Pulcheria Alexandrovna watched him timidly.
“What did Svidrigaı̈lov say to you?” said Dounia, approaching him.
“Yes, yes!” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna.
Raskolnikov raised his head.
“He wants to make you a present of ten thousand roubles and he
desires to see you once in my presence.”
“See her! On no account!” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. “And how
dare he offer her money!”
Then Raskolnikov repeated (rather dryly) his conversation with
Svidrigaı̈lov, omitting his account of the ghostly visitations of Marfa
Petrovna, wishing to avoid all unnecessary talk.
“What answer did you give him?” asked Dounia.
“At irst I said I would not take any message to you. Then he said that
he would do his utmost to obtain an interview with you without my
help. He assured me that his passion for you was a passing infatuation,
now he has no feeling for you. He doesn’t want you to marry Luzhin....
His talk was altogether rather muddled.”
“How do you explain him to yourself, Rodya? How did he strike you?”
“I must confess I don’t quite understand him. He offers you ten
thousand, and yet says he is not well off. He says he is going away, and
in ten minutes he forgets he has said it. Then he says he is going to be
married and has already ixed on the girl.... No doubt he has a motive,
and probably a bad one. But it’s odd that he should be so clumsy about
it if he had any designs against you.... Of course, I refused this money on
your account, once for all. Altogether, I thought him very strange.... One
might almost think he was mad. But I may be mistaken; that may only
be the part he assumes. The death of Marfa Petrovna seems to have
made a great impression on him.”
“God rest her soul,” exclaimed Pulcheria Alexandrovna. “I shall
always, always pray for her! Where should we be now, Dounia, without
this three thousand! It’s as though it had fallen from heaven! Why,
Rodya, this morning we had only three roubles in our pocket and
Dounia and I were just planning to pawn her watch, so as to avoid
borrowing from that man until he offered help.”
Dounia seemed strangely impressed by Svidrigaı̈lov’s offer. She still
stood meditating.
“He has got some terrible plan,” she said in a half whisper to herself,
almost shuddering.
Raskolnikov noticed this disproportionate terror.
“I fancy I shall have to see him more than once again,” he said to
Dounia.
“We will watch him! I will track him out!” cried Razumihin,
vigorously. “I won’t lose sight of him. Rodya has given me leave. He said
to me himself just now. ‘Take care of my sister.’ Will you give me leave,
too, Avdotya Romanovna?”
Dounia smiled and held out her hand, but the look of anxiety did not
leave her face. Pulcheria Alexandrovna gazed at her timidly, but the
three thousand roubles had obviously a soothing effect on her.
A quarter of an hour later, they were all engaged in a lively
conversation. Even Raskolnikov listened attentively for some time,
though he did not talk. Razumihin was the speaker.
“And why, why should you go away?” he lowed on ecstatically. “And
what are you to do in a little town? The great thing is, you are all here
together and you need one another—you do need one another, believe
me. For a time, anyway.... Take me into partnership, and I assure you
we’ll plan a capital enterprise. Listen! I’ll explain it all in detail to you,
the whole project! It all lashed into my head this morning, before
anything had happened... I tell you what; I have an uncle, I must
introduce him to you (a most accommodating and respectable old
man). This uncle has got a capital of a thousand roubles, and he lives on
his pension and has no need of that money. For the last two years he
has been bothering me to borrow it from him and pay him six per cent.
interest. I know what that means; he simply wants to help me. Last year
I had no need of it, but this year I resolved to borrow it as soon as he
arrived. Then you lend me another thousand of your three and we have
enough for a start, so we’ll go into partnership, and what are we going
to do?”
Then Razumihin began to unfold his project, and he explained at
length that almost all our publishers and booksellers know nothing at
all of what they are selling, and for that reason they are usually bad
publishers, and that any decent publications pay as a rule and give a
pro it, sometimes a considerable one. Razumihin had, indeed, been
dreaming of setting up as a publisher. For the last two years he had
been working in publishers’ of ices, and knew three European
languages well, though he had told Raskolnikov six days before that he
was “schwach” in German with an object of persuading him to take half
his translation and half the payment for it. He had told a lie then, and
Raskolnikov knew he was lying.
“Why, why should we let our chance slip when we have one of the
chief means of success—money of our own!” cried Razumihin warmly.
“Of course there will be a lot of work, but we will work, you, Avdotya
Romanovna, I, Rodion.... You get a splendid pro it on some books
nowadays! And the great point of the business is that we shall know
just what wants translating, and we shall be translating, publishing,
learning all at once. I can be of use because I have experience. For
nearly two years I’ve been scuttling about among the publishers, and
now I know every detail of their business. You need not be a saint to
make pots, believe me! And why, why should we let our chance slip!
Why, I know—and I kept the secret—two or three books which one
might get a hundred roubles simply for thinking of translating and
publishing. Indeed, and I would not take ive hundred for the very idea
of one of them. And what do you think? If I were to tell a publisher, I
dare say he’d hesitate—they are such blockheads! And as for the
business side, printing, paper, selling, you trust to me, I know my way
about. We’ll begin in a small way and go on to a large. In any case it will
get us our living and we shall get back our capital.”
Dounia’s eyes shone.
“I like what you are saying, Dmitri Proko itch!” she said.
“I know nothing about it, of course,” put in Pulcheria Alexandrovna,
“it may be a good idea, but again God knows. It’s new and untried. Of
course, we must remain here at least for a time.” She looked at Rodya.
“What do you think, brother?” said Dounia.
“I think he’s got a very good idea,” he answered. “Of course, it’s too
soon to dream of a publishing irm, but we certainly might bring out
ive or six books and be sure of success. I know of one book myself
which would be sure to go well. And as for his being able to manage it,
there’s no doubt about that either. He knows the business.... But we can
talk it over later....”
“Hurrah!” cried Razumihin. “Now, stay, there’s a lat here in this
house, belonging to the same owner. It’s a special lat apart, not
communicating with these lodgings. It’s furnished, rent moderate, three
rooms. Suppose you take them to begin with. I’ll pawn your watch to-
morrow and bring you the money, and everything can be arranged then.
You can all three live together, and Rodya will be with you. But where
are you off to, Rodya?”
“What, Rodya, you are going already?” Pulcheria Alexandrovna asked
in dismay.
“At such a minute?” cried Razumihin.
Dounia looked at her brother with incredulous wonder. He held his
cap in his hand, he was preparing to leave them.
 “One would think you were burying me or saying good-bye for ever,”
he said somewhat oddly. He attempted to smile, but it did not turn out a
smile. “But who knows, perhaps it is the last time we shall see each
other...” he let slip accidentally. It was what he was thinking, and it
somehow was uttered aloud.
“What is the matter with you?” cried his mother.
“Where are you going, Rodya?” asked Dounia rather strangely.
“Oh, I’m quite obliged to...” he answered vaguely, as though hesitating
what he would say. But there was a look of sharp determination in his
white face.
“I meant to say... as I was coming here... I meant to tell you, mother,
and you, Dounia, that it would be better for us to part for a time. I feel
ill, I am not at peace.... I will come afterwards, I will come of myself...
when it’s possible. I remember you and love you.... Leave me, leave me
alone. I decided this even before... I’m absolutely resolved on it.
Whatever may come to me, whether I come to ruin or not, I want to be
alone. Forget me altogether, it’s better. Don’t inquire about me. When I
can, I’ll come of myself or... I’ll send for you. Perhaps it will all come
back, but now if you love me, give me up... else I shall begin to hate you,
I feel it.... Good-bye!”
“Good God!” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. Both his mother and his
sister were terribly alarmed. Razumihin was also.
“Rodya, Rodya, be reconciled with us! Let us be as before!” cried his
poor mother.
He turned slowly to the door and slowly went out of the room.
Dounia overtook him.
“Brother, what are you doing to mother?” she whispered, her eyes
lashing with indignation.
He looked dully at her.
“No matter, I shall come.... I’m coming,” he muttered in an undertone,
as though not fully conscious of what he was saying, and he went out of
the room.
“Wicked, heartless egoist!” cried Dounia.
 “He is insane, but not heartless. He is mad! Don’t you see it? You’re
heartless after that!” Razumihin whispered in her ear, squeezing her
hand tightly. “I shall be back directly,” he shouted to the horror-stricken
mother, and he ran out of the room.
Raskolnikov was waiting for him at the end of the passage.
“I knew you would run after me,” he said. “Go back to them—be with
them... be with them to-morrow and always.... I... perhaps I shall come...
if I can. Good-bye.”
And without holding out his hand he walked away.
“But where are you going? What are you doing? What’s the matter
with you? How can you go on like this?” Razumihin muttered, at his
wits’ end.
Raskolnikov stopped once more.
“Once for all, never ask me about anything. I have nothing to tell you.
Don’t come to see me. Maybe I’ll come here.... Leave me, but don’t leave
them. Do you understand me?”
It was dark in the corridor, they were standing near the lamp. For a
minute they were looking at one another in silence. Razumihin
remembered that minute all his life. Raskolnikov’s burning and intent
eyes grew more penetrating every moment, piercing into his soul, into
his consciousness. Suddenly Razumihin started. Something strange, as
it were, passed between them.... Some idea, some hint, as it were,
slipped, something awful, hideous, and suddenly understood on both
sides.... Razumihin turned pale.
“Do you understand now?” said Raskolnikov, his face twitching
nervously. “Go back, go to them,” he said suddenly, and turning quickly,
he went out of the house.
I will not attempt to describe how Razumihin went back to the ladies,
how he soothed them, how he protested that Rodya needed rest in his
illness, protested that Rodya was sure to come, that he would come
every day, that he was very, very much upset, that he must not be
irritated, that he, Razumihin, would watch over him, would get him a
doctor, the best doctor, a consultation.... In fact from that evening
Razumihin took his place with them as a son and a brother.
 CHAPTER IV

Raskolnikov went straight to the house on the canal bank where

Sonia lived. It was an old green house of three storeys. He found the
porter and obtained from him vague directions as to the whereabouts
of Kapernaumov, the tailor. Having found in the corner of the courtyard
the entrance to the dark and narrow staircase, he mounted to the
second loor and came out into a gallery that ran round the whole
second storey over the yard. While he was wandering in the darkness,
uncertain where to turn for Kapernaumov’s door, a door opened three
paces from him; he mechanically took hold of it.
“Who is there?” a woman’s voice asked uneasily.
“It’s I... come to see you,” answered Raskolnikov and he walked into
the tiny entry.
On a broken chair stood a candle in a battered copper candlestick.
“It’s you! Good heavens!” cried Sonia weakly, and she stood rooted to
the spot.
“Which is your room? This way?” and Raskolnikov, trying not to look
at her, hastened in.
A minute later Sonia, too, came in with the candle, set down the
candlestick and, completely disconcerted, stood before him
inexpressibly agitated and apparently frightened by his unexpected
visit. The colour rushed suddenly to her pale face and tears came into
her eyes... She felt sick and ashamed and happy, too.... Raskolnikov
turned away quickly and sat on a chair by the table. He scanned the
room in a rapid glance.
It was a large but exceedingly low-pitched room, the only one let by
the Kapernaumovs, to whose rooms a closed door led in the wall on the
left. In the opposite side on the right hand wall was another door,
always kept locked. That led to the next lat, which formed a separate
lodging. Sonia’s room looked like a barn; it was a very irregular
quadrangle and this gave it a grotesque appearance. A wall with three
windows looking out on to the canal ran aslant so that one corner
formed a very acute angle, and it was dif icult to see in it without very
strong light. The other corner was disproportionately obtuse. There
was scarcely any furniture in the big room: in the corner on the right
was a bedstead, beside it, nearest the door, a chair. A plain, deal table
covered by a blue cloth stood against the same wall, close to the door
into the other lat. Two rush-bottom chairs stood by the table. On the
opposite wall near the acute angle stood a small plain wooden chest of
drawers looking, as it were, lost in a desert. That was all there was in
the room. The yellow, scratched and shabby wall-paper was black in the
corners. It must have been damp and full of fumes in the winter. There
was every sign of poverty; even the bedstead had no curtain.
Sonia looked in silence at her visitor, who was so attentively and
unceremoniously scrutinising her room, and even began at last to
tremble with terror, as though she was standing before her judge and
the arbiter of her destinies.
“I am late.... It’s eleven, isn’t it?” he asked, still not lifting his eyes.
“Yes,” muttered Sonia, “oh yes, it is,” she added, hastily, as though in
that lay her means of escape. “My landlady’s clock has just struck... I
heard it myself....”
“I’ve come to you for the last time,” Raskolnikov went on gloomily,
although this was the irst time. “I may perhaps not see you again...”
“Are you... going away?”
“I don’t know... to-morrow....”
“Then you are not coming to Katerina Ivanovna to-morrow?” Sonia’s
voice shook.
“I don’t know. I shall know to-morrow morning.... Never mind that:
I’ve come to say one word....”
He raised his brooding eyes to her and suddenly noticed that he was
sitting down while she was all the while standing before him.
“Why are you standing? Sit down,” he said in a changed voice, gentle
and friendly.
She sat down. He looked kindly and almost compassionately at her.
 “How thin you are! What a hand! Quite transparent, like a dead hand.”
He took her hand. Sonia smiled faintly.
“I have always been like that,” she said.
“Even when you lived at home?”
“Yes.”
“Of course, you were,” he added abruptly and the expression of his
face and the sound of his voice changed again suddenly.
He looked round him once more.
“You rent this room from the Kapernaumovs?”
“Yes....”
“They live there, through that door?”
“Yes.... They have another room like this.”
“All in one room?”
“Yes.”
“I should be afraid in your room at night,” he observed gloomily.
“They are very good people, very kind,” answered Sonia, who still
seemed bewildered, “and all the furniture, everything... everything is
theirs. And they are very kind and the children, too, often come to see
me.”
“They all stammer, don’t they?”
“Yes.... He stammers and he’s lame. And his wife, too.... It’s not exactly
that she stammers, but she can’t speak plainly. She is a very kind
woman. And he used to be a house serf. And there are seven children...
and it’s only the eldest one that stammers and the others are simply ill...
but they don’t stammer.... But where did you hear about them?” she
added with some surprise.
“Your father told me, then. He told me all about you.... And how you
went out at six o’clock and came back at nine and how Katerina
Ivanovna knelt down by your bed.”
Sonia was confused.
“I fancied I saw him to-day,” she whispered hesitatingly.
“Whom?”
 “Father. I was walking in the street, out there at the corner, about ten
o’clock and he seemed to be walking in front. It looked just like him. I
wanted to go to Katerina Ivanovna....”
“You were walking in the streets?”
“Yes,” Sonia whispered abruptly, again overcome with confusion and
looking down.
“Katerina Ivanovna used to beat you, I dare say?”
“Oh no, what are you saying? No!” Sonia looked at him almost with
dismay.
“You love her, then?”
“Love her? Of course!” said Sonia with plaintive emphasis, and she
clasped her hands in distress. “Ah, you don’t.... If you only knew! You
see, she is quite like a child.... Her mind is quite unhinged, you see...
from sorrow. And how clever she used to be... how generous... how
kind! Ah, you don’t understand, you don’t understand!”
Sonia said this as though in despair, wringing her hands in
excitement and distress. Her pale cheeks lushed, there was a look of
anguish in her eyes. It was clear that she was stirred to the very depths,
that she was longing to speak, to champion, to express something. A
sort of insatiable compassion, if one may so express it, was re lected in
every feature of her face.
“Beat me! how can you? Good heavens, beat me! And if she did beat
me, what then? What of it? You know nothing, nothing about it.... She is
so unhappy... ah, how unhappy! And ill.... She is seeking righteousness,
she is pure. She has such faith that there must be righteousness
everywhere and she expects it.... And if you were to torture her, she
wouldn’t do wrong. She doesn’t see that it’s impossible for people to be
righteous and she is angry at it. Like a child, like a child. She is good!”
“And what will happen to you?”
Sonia looked at him inquiringly.
“They are left on your hands, you see. They were all on your hands
before, though.... And your father came to you to beg for drink. Well,
how will it be now?”
“I don’t know,” Sonia articulated mournfully.
 “Will they stay there?”
“I don’t know.... They are in debt for the lodging, but the landlady, I
hear, said to-day that she wanted to get rid of them, and Katerina
Ivanovna says that she won’t stay another minute.”
“How is it she is so bold? She relies upon you?”
“Oh, no, don’t talk like that.... We are one, we live like one.” Sonia was
agitated again and even angry, as though a canary or some other little
bird were to be angry. “And what could she do? What, what could she
do?” she persisted, getting hot and excited. “And how she cried to-day!
Her mind is unhinged, haven’t you noticed it? At one minute she is
worrying like a child that everything should be right to-morrow, the
lunch and all that.... Then she is wringing her hands, spitting blood,
weeping, and all at once she will begin knocking her head against the
wall, in despair. Then she will be comforted again. She builds all her
hopes on you; she says that you will help her now and that she will
borrow a little money somewhere and go to her native town with me
and set up a boarding school for the daughters of gentlemen and take
me to superintend it, and we will begin a new splendid life. And she
kisses and hugs me, comforts me, and you know she has such faith, such
faith in her fancies! One can’t contradict her. And all the day long she
has been washing, cleaning, mending. She dragged the wash tub into
the room with her feeble hands and sank on the bed, gasping for breath.
We went this morning to the shops to buy shoes for Polenka and Lida
for theirs are quite worn out. Only the money we’d reckoned wasn’t
enough, not nearly enough. And she picked out such dear little boots,
for she has taste, you don’t know. And there in the shop she burst out
crying before the shopmen because she hadn’t enough.... Ah, it was sad
to see her....”
“Well, after that I can understand your living like this,” Raskolnikov
said with a bitter smile.
“And aren’t you sorry for them? Aren’t you sorry?” Sonia lew at him
again. “Why, I know, you gave your last penny yourself, though you’d
seen nothing of it, and if you’d seen everything, oh dear! And how often,
how often I’ve brought her to tears! Only last week! Yes, I! Only a week
before his death. I was cruel! And how often I’ve done it! Ah, I’ve been
wretched at the thought of it all day!”
 Sonia wrung her hands as she spoke at the pain of remembering it.
“You were cruel?”
“Yes, I—I. I went to see them,” she went on, weeping, “and father said,
‘read me something, Sonia, my head aches, read to me, here’s a book.’
He had a book he had got from Andrey Semyonovitch Lebeziatnikov, he
lives there, he always used to get hold of such funny books. And I said, ‘I
can’t stay,’ as I didn’t want to read, and I’d gone in chie ly to show
Katerina Ivanovna some collars. Lizaveta, the pedlar, sold me some
collars and cuffs cheap, pretty, new, embroidered ones. Katerina
Ivanovna liked them very much; she put them on and looked at herself
in the glass and was delighted with them. ‘Make me a present of them,
Sonia,’ she said, ‘please do.’ ‘Please do,’ she said, she wanted them so
much. And when could she wear them? They just reminded her of her
old happy days. She looked at herself in the glass, admired herself, and
she has no clothes at all, no things of her own, hasn’t had all these
years! And she never asks anyone for anything; she is proud, she’d
sooner give away everything. And these she asked for, she liked them so
much. And I was sorry to give them. ‘What use are they to you, Katerina
Ivanovna?’ I said. I spoke like that to her, I ought not to have said that!
She gave me such a look. And she was so grieved, so grieved at my
refusing her. And it was so sad to see.... And she was not grieved for the
collars, but for my refusing, I saw that. Ah, if only I could bring it all
back, change it, take back those words! Ah, if I... but it’s nothing to you!”
“Did you know Lizaveta, the pedlar?”
“Yes.... Did you know her?” Sonia asked with some surprise.
“Katerina Ivanovna is in consumption, rapid consumption; she will
soon die,” said Raskolnikov after a pause, without answering her
question.
“Oh, no, no, no!”
And Sonia unconsciously clutched both his hands, as though
imploring that she should not.
“But it will be better if she does die.”
“No, not better, not at all better!” Sonia unconsciously repeated in
dismay.
 “And the children? What can you do except take them to live with
you?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” cried Sonia, almost in despair, and she put her
hands to her head.
It was evident that that idea had very often occurred to her before
and he had only roused it again.
“And, what, if even now, while Katerina Ivanovna is alive, you get ill
and are taken to the hospital, what will happen then?” he persisted
pitilessly.
“How can you? That cannot be!”
And Sonia’s face worked with awful terror.
“Cannot be?” Raskolnikov went on with a harsh smile. “You are not
insured against it, are you? What will happen to them then? They will
be in the street, all of them, she will cough and beg and knock her head
against some wall, as she did to-day, and the children will cry.... Then
she will fall down, be taken to the police station and to the hospital, she
will die, and the children...”
“Oh, no.... God will not let it be!” broke at last from Sonia’s
overburdened bosom.
She listened, looking imploringly at him, clasping her hands in dumb
entreaty, as though it all depended upon him.
Raskolnikov got up and began to walk about the room. A minute
passed. Sonia was standing with her hands and her head hanging in
terrible dejection.
“And can’t you save? Put by for a rainy day?” he asked, stopping
suddenly before her.
“No,” whispered Sonia.
“Of course not. Have you tried?” he added almost ironically.
“Yes.”
“And it didn’t come off! Of course not! No need to ask.”
And again he paced the room. Another minute passed.
“You don’t get money every day?”
 Sonia was more confused than ever and colour rushed into her face
again.
“No,” she whispered with a painful effort.
“It will be the same with Polenka, no doubt,” he said suddenly.
“No, no! It can’t be, no!” Sonia cried aloud in desperation, as though
she had been stabbed. “God would not allow anything so awful!”
“He lets others come to it.”
“No, no! God will protect her, God!” she repeated beside herself.
“But, perhaps, there is no God at all,” Raskolnikov answered with a
sort of malignance, laughed and looked at her.
Sonia’s face suddenly changed; a tremor passed over it. She looked at
him with unutterable reproach, tried to say something, but could not
speak and broke into bitter, bitter sobs, hiding her face in her hands.
“You say Katerina Ivanovna’s mind is unhinged; your own mind is
unhinged,” he said after a brief silence.
Five minutes passed. He still paced up and down the room in silence,
not looking at her. At last he went up to her; his eyes glittered. He put
his two hands on her shoulders and looked straight into her tearful
face. His eyes were hard, feverish and piercing, his lips were twitching.
All at once he bent down quickly and dropping to the ground, kissed
her foot. Sonia drew back from him as from a madman. And certainly he
looked like a madman.
“What are you doing to me?” she muttered, turning pale, and a
sudden anguish clutched at her heart.
He stood up at once.
“I did not bow down to you, I bowed down to all the suffering of
humanity,” he said wildly and walked away to the window. “Listen,” he
added, turning to her a minute later. “I said just now to an insolent man
that he was not worth your little inger... and that I did my sister honour
making her sit beside you.”
“Ach, you said that to them! And in her presence?” cried Sonia,
frightened. “Sit down with me! An honour! Why, I’m... dishonourable....
Ah, why did you say that?”
 “It was not because of your dishonour and your sin I said that of you,
but because of your great suffering. But you are a great sinner, that’s
true,” he added almost solemnly, “and your worst sin is that you have
destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing. Isn’t that fearful? Isn’t it
fearful that you are living in this ilth which you loathe so, and at the
same time you know yourself (you’ve only to open your eyes) that you
are not helping anyone by it, not saving anyone from anything? Tell me,”
he went on almost in a frenzy, “how this shame and degradation can
exist in you side by side with other, opposite, holy feelings? It would be
better, a thousand times better and wiser to leap into the water and end
it all!”
“But what would become of them?” Sonia asked faintly, gazing at him
with eyes of anguish, but not seeming surprised at his suggestion.
Raskolnikov looked strangely at her. He read it all in her face; so she
must have had that thought already, perhaps many times, and earnestly
she had thought out in her despair how to end it and so earnestly, that
now she scarcely wondered at his suggestion. She had not even noticed
the cruelty of his words. (The signi icance of his reproaches and his
peculiar attitude to her shame she had, of course, not noticed either,
and that, too, was clear to him.) But he saw how monstrously the
thought of her disgraceful, shameful position was torturing her and had
long tortured her. “What, what,” he thought, “could hitherto have
hindered her from putting an end to it?” Only then he realised what
those poor little orphan children and that pitiful half-crazy Katerina
Ivanovna, knocking her head against the wall in her consumption,
meant for Sonia.
But, nevertheless, it was clear to him again that with her character
and the amount of education she had after all received, she could not in
any case remain so. He was still confronted by the question, how could
she have remained so long in that position without going out of her
mind, since she could not bring herself to jump into the water? Of
course he knew that Sonia’s position was an exceptional case, though
unhappily not unique and not infrequent, indeed; but that very
exceptionalness, her tinge of education, her previous life might, one
would have thought, have killed her at the irst step on that revolting
path. What held her up—surely not depravity? All that infamy had
obviously only touched her mechanically, not one drop of real depravity
had penetrated to her heart; he saw that. He saw through her as she
stood before him....
“There are three ways before her,” he thought, “the canal, the
madhouse, or... at last to sink into depravity which obscures the mind
and turns the heart to stone.”
The last idea was the most revolting, but he was a sceptic, he was
young, abstract, and therefore cruel, and so he could not help believing
that the last end was the most likely.
“But can that be true?” he cried to himself. “Can that creature who
has still preserved the purity of her spirit be consciously drawn at last
into that sink of ilth and iniquity? Can the process already have begun?
Can it be that she has only been able to bear it till now, because vice has
begun to be less loathsome to her? No, no, that cannot be!” he cried, as
Sonia had just before. “No, what has kept her from the canal till now is
the idea of sin and they, the children.... And if she has not gone out of
her mind... but who says she has not gone out of her mind? Is she in her
senses? Can one talk, can one reason as she does? How can she sit on
the edge of the abyss of loathsomeness into which she is slipping and
refuse to listen when she is told of danger? Does she expect a miracle?
No doubt she does. Doesn’t that all mean madness?”
He stayed obstinately at that thought. He liked that explanation
indeed better than any other. He began looking more intently at her.
“So you pray to God a great deal, Sonia?” he asked her.
Sonia did not speak; he stood beside her waiting for an answer.
“What should I be without God?” she whispered rapidly, forcibly,
glancing at him with suddenly lashing eyes, and squeezing his hand.
“Ah, so that is it!” he thought.
“And what does God do for you?” he asked, probing her further.
Sonia was silent a long while, as though she could not answer. Her
weak chest kept heaving with emotion.
“Be silent! Don’t ask! You don’t deserve!” she cried suddenly, looking
sternly and wrathfully at him.
“That’s it, that’s it,” he repeated to himself.
 “He does everything,” she whispered quickly, looking down again.
“That’s the way out! That’s the explanation,” he decided, scrutinising
her with eager curiosity, with a new, strange, almost morbid feeling. He
gazed at that pale, thin, irregular, angular little face, those soft blue
eyes, which could lash with such ire, such stern energy, that little body
still shaking with indignation and anger—and it all seemed to him more
and more strange, almost impossible. “She is a religious maniac!” he
repeated to himself.
There was a book lying on the chest of drawers. He had noticed it
every time he paced up and down the room. Now he took it up and
looked at it. It was the New Testament in the Russian translation. It was
bound in leather, old and worn.
“Where did you get that?” he called to her across the room.
She was still standing in the same place, three steps from the table.
“It was brought me,” she answered, as it were unwillingly, not looking
at him.
“Who brought it?”
“Lizaveta, I asked her for it.”
“Lizaveta! strange!” he thought.
Everything about Sonia seemed to him stranger and more wonderful
every moment. He carried the book to the candle and began to turn
over the pages.
“Where is the story of Lazarus?” he asked suddenly.
Sonia looked obstinately at the ground and would not answer. She
was standing sideways to the table.
“Where is the raising of Lazarus? Find it for me, Sonia.”
She stole a glance at him.
“You are not looking in the right place.... It’s in the fourth gospel,” she
whispered sternly, without looking at him.
“Find it and read it to me,” he said. He sat down with his elbow on the
table, leaned his head on his hand and looked away sullenly, prepared
to listen.
“In three weeks’ time they’ll welcome me in the madhouse! I shall be
there if I am not in a worse place,” he muttered to himself.
 Sonia heard Raskolnikov’s request distrustfully and moved
hesitatingly to the table. She took the book however.
“Haven’t you read it?” she asked, looking up at him across the table.
Her voice became sterner and sterner.
“Long ago.... When I was at school. Read!”
“And haven’t you heard it in church?”
“I... haven’t been. Do you often go?”
“N-no,” whispered Sonia.
Raskolnikov smiled.
“I understand.... And you won’t go to your father’s funeral to-
morrow?”
“Yes, I shall. I was at church last week, too... I had a requiem service.”
“For whom?”
“For Lizaveta. She was killed with an axe.”
His nerves were more and more strained. His head began to go
round.
“Were you friends with Lizaveta?”
“Yes.... She was good... she used to come... not often... she couldn’t....
We used to read together and... talk. She will see God.”
The last phrase sounded strange in his ears. And here was something
new again: the mysterious meetings with Lizaveta and both of them—
religious maniacs.
“I shall be a religious maniac myself soon! It’s infectious!”
“Read!” he cried irritably and insistently.
Sonia still hesitated. Her heart was throbbing. She hardly dared to
read to him. He looked almost with exasperation at the “unhappy
lunatic.”
“What for? You don’t believe?...” she whispered softly and as it were
breathlessly.
“Read! I want you to,” he persisted. “You used to read to Lizaveta.”
Sonia opened the book and found the place. Her hands were shaking,
her voice failed her. Twice she tried to begin and could not bring out the
irst syllable.
 “Now a certain man was sick named Lazarus of Bethany...” she forced
herself at last to read, but at the third word her voice broke like an
overstrained string. There was a catch in her breath.
Raskolnikov saw in part why Sonia could not bring herself to read to
him and the more he saw this, the more roughly and irritably he
insisted on her doing so. He understood only too well how painful it
was for her to betray and unveil all that was her own. He understood
that these feelings really were her secret treasure, which she had kept
perhaps for years, perhaps from childhood, while she lived with an
unhappy father and a distracted stepmother crazed by grief, in the
midst of starving children and unseemly abuse and reproaches. But at
the same time he knew now and knew for certain that, although it illed
her with dread and suffering, yet she had a tormenting desire to read
and to read to him that he might hear it, and to read now whatever
might come of it!... He read this in her eyes, he could see it in her
intense emotion. She mastered herself, controlled the spasm in her
throat and went on reading the eleventh chapter of St. John. She went
on to the nineteenth verse:
“And many of the Jews came to Martha and Mary to comfort them
concerning their brother.
“Then Martha as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming went and
met Him: but Mary sat still in the house.
“Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my
brother had not died.
“But I know that even now whatsoever Thou wilt ask of God, God will
give it Thee....”
Then she stopped again with a shamefaced feeling that her voice
would quiver and break again.
“Jesus said unto her, thy brother shall rise again.
“Martha saith unto Him, I know that he shall rise again in the
resurrection, at the last day.
“Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection and the life: he that
believeth in Me though he were dead, yet shall he live.
“And whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die. Believest
thou this?
 “She saith unto Him,”
(And drawing a painful breath, Sonia read distinctly and forcibly as
though she were making a public confession of faith.)
“Yea, Lord: I believe that Thou art the Christ, the Son of God Which
should come into the world.”
She stopped and looked up quickly at him, but controlling herself
went on reading. Raskolnikov sat without moving, his elbows on the
table and his eyes turned away. She read to the thirty-second verse.
“Then when Mary was come where Jesus was and saw Him, she fell
down at His feet, saying unto Him, Lord if Thou hadst been here, my
brother had not died.
“When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping
which came with her, He groaned in the spirit and was troubled,
“And said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto Him, Lord, come
and see.
“Jesus wept.
“Then said the Jews, behold how He loved him!
“And some of them said, could not this Man which opened the eyes of
the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died?”
Raskolnikov turned and looked at her with emotion. Yes, he had
known it! She was trembling in a real physical fever. He had expected it.
She was getting near the story of the greatest miracle and a feeling of
immense triumph came over her. Her voice rang out like a bell; triumph
and joy gave it power. The lines danced before her eyes, but she knew
what she was reading by heart. At the last verse “Could not this Man
which opened the eyes of the blind...” dropping her voice she
passionately reproduced the doubt, the reproach and censure of the
blind disbelieving Jews, who in another moment would fall at His feet
as though struck by thunder, sobbing and believing.... “And he, he—too,
is blinded and unbelieving, he, too, will hear, he, too, will believe, yes,
yes! At once, now,” was what she was dreaming, and she was quivering
with happy anticipation.
“Jesus therefore again groaning in Himself cometh to the grave. It was
a cave, and a stone lay upon it.
 “Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was
dead, saith unto Him, Lord by this time he stinketh: for he hath been
dead four days.”
She laid emphasis on the word four.
“Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee that if thou wouldest
believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?
“Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was
laid. And Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, Father, I thank Thee that
Thou hast heard Me.
“And I knew that Thou hearest Me always; but because of the people
which stand by I said it, that they may believe that Thou hast sent Me.
“And when He thus had spoken, He cried with a loud voice, Lazarus,
come forth.
“And he that was dead came forth.”
(She read loudly, cold and trembling with ecstasy, as though she were
seeing it before her eyes.)
“Bound hand and foot with graveclothes; and his face was bound
about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him and let him go.
“Then many of the Jews which came to Mary and had seen the things
which Jesus did believed on Him.”
She could read no more, closed the book and got up from her chair
quickly.
“That is all about the raising of Lazarus,” she whispered severely and
abruptly, and turning away she stood motionless, not daring to raise
her eyes to him. She still trembled feverishly. The candle-end was
lickering out in the battered candlestick, dimly lighting up in the
poverty-stricken room the murderer and the harlot who had so
strangely been reading together the eternal book. Five minutes or more
passed.
“I came to speak of something,” Raskolnikov said aloud, frowning. He
got up and went to Sonia. She lifted her eyes to him in silence. His face
was particularly stern and there was a sort of savage determination in
it.
 “I have abandoned my family to-day,” he said, “my mother and sister. I
am not going to see them. I’ve broken with them completely.”
“What for?” asked Sonia amazed. Her recent meeting with his mother
and sister had left a great impression which she could not analyse. She
heard his news almost with horror.
“I have only you now,” he added. “Let us go together.... I’ve come to
you, we are both accursed, let us go our way together!”
His eyes glittered “as though he were mad,” Sonia thought, in her
turn.
“Go where?” she asked in alarm and she involuntarily stepped back.
“How do I know? I only know it’s the same road, I know that and
nothing more. It’s the same goal!”
She looked at him and understood nothing. She knew only that he
was terribly, in initely unhappy.
“No one of them will understand, if you tell them, but I have
understood. I need you, that is why I have come to you.”
“I don’t understand,” whispered Sonia.
“You’ll understand later. Haven’t you done the same? You, too, have
transgressed... have had the strength to transgress. You have laid hands
on yourself, you have destroyed a life... your own (it’s all the same!). You
might have lived in spirit and understanding, but you’ll end in the Hay
Market.... But you won’t be able to stand it, and if you remain alone
you’ll go out of your mind like me. You are like a mad creature already.
So we must go together on the same road! Let us go!”
“What for? What’s all this for?” said Sonia, strangely and violently
agitated by his words.
“What for? Because you can’t remain like this, that’s why! You must
look things straight in the face at last, and not weep like a child and cry
that God won’t allow it. What will happen, if you should really be taken
to the hospital to-morrow? She is mad and in consumption, she’ll soon
die and the children? Do you mean to tell me Polenka won’t come to
grief? Haven’t you seen children here at the street corners sent out by
their mothers to beg? I’ve found out where those mothers live and in
what surroundings. Children can’t remain children there! At seven the
child is vicious and a thief. Yet children, you know, are the image of
Christ: ‘theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.’ He bade us honour and love
them, they are the humanity of the future....”
“What’s to be done, what’s to be done?” repeated Sonia, weeping
hysterically and wringing her hands.
“What’s to be done? Break what must be broken, once for all, that’s
all, and take the suffering on oneself. What, you don’t understand?
You’ll understand later.... Freedom and power, and above all, power!
Over all trembling creation and all the ant-heap!... That’s the goal,
remember that! That’s my farewell message. Perhaps it’s the last time I
shall speak to you. If I don’t come to-morrow, you’ll hear of it all, and
then remember these words. And some day later on, in years to come,
you’ll understand perhaps what they meant. If I come to-morrow, I’ll
tell you who killed Lizaveta.... Good-bye.”
Sonia started with terror.
“Why, do you know who killed her?” she asked, chilled with horror,
looking wildly at him.
“I know and will tell... you, only you. I have chosen you out. I’m not
coming to you to ask forgiveness, but simply to tell you. I chose you out
long ago to hear this, when your father talked of you and when Lizaveta
was alive, I thought of it. Good-bye, don’t shake hands. To-morrow!”
He went out. Sonia gazed at him as at a madman. But she herself was
like one insane and felt it. Her head was going round.
“Good heavens, how does he know who killed Lizaveta? What did
those words mean? It’s awful!” But at the same time the idea did not
enter her head, not for a moment! “Oh, he must be terribly unhappy!...
He has abandoned his mother and sister.... What for? What has
happened? And what had he in his mind? What did he say to her? He
had kissed her foot and said... said (yes, he had said it clearly) that he
could not live without her.... Oh, merciful heavens!”
Sonia spent the whole night feverish and delirious. She jumped up
from time to time, wept and wrung her hands, then sank again into
feverish sleep and dreamt of Polenka, Katerina Ivanovna and Lizaveta,
of reading the gospel and him... him with pale face, with burning eyes...
kissing her feet, weeping.
 On the other side of the door on the right, which divided Sonia’s
room from Madame Resslich’s lat, was a room which had long stood
empty. A card was ixed on the gate and a notice stuck in the windows
over the canal advertising it to let. Sonia had long been accustomed to
the room’s being uninhabited. But all that time Mr. Svidrigaı̈lov had
been standing, listening at the door of the empty room. When
Raskolnikov went out he stood still, thought a moment, went on tiptoe
to his own room which adjoined the empty one, brought a chair and
noiselessly carried it to the door that led to Sonia’s room. The
conversation had struck him as interesting and remarkable, and he had
greatly enjoyed it—so much so that he brought a chair that he might
not in the future, to-morrow, for instance, have to endure the
inconvenience of standing a whole hour, but might listen in comfort.
 CHAPTER V

When next morning at eleven o’clock punctually Raskolnikov went

into the department of the investigation of criminal causes and sent his
name in to Por iry Petrovitch, he was surprised at being kept waiting so
long: it was at least ten minutes before he was summoned. He had
expected that they would pounce upon him. But he stood in the
waiting-room, and people, who apparently had nothing to do with him,
were continually passing to and fro before him. In the next room which
looked like an of ice, several clerks were sitting writing and obviously
they had no notion who or what Raskolnikov might be. He looked
uneasily and suspiciously about him to see whether there was not some
guard, some mysterious watch being kept on him to prevent his escape.
But there was nothing of the sort: he saw only the faces of clerks
absorbed in petty details, then other people, no one seemed to have any
concern with him. He might go where he liked for them. The conviction
grew stronger in him that if that enigmatic man of yesterday, that
phantom sprung out of the earth, had seen everything, they would not
have let him stand and wait like that. And would they have waited till he
elected to appear at eleven? Either the man had not yet given
information, or... or simply he knew nothing, had seen nothing (and
how could he have seen anything?) and so all that had happened to him
the day before was again a phantom exaggerated by his sick and
overstrained imagination. This conjecture had begun to grow strong the
day before, in the midst of all his alarm and despair. Thinking it all over
now and preparing for a fresh con lict, he was suddenly aware that he
was trembling—and he felt a rush of indignation at the thought that he
was trembling with fear at facing that hateful Por iry Petrovitch. What
he dreaded above all was meeting that man again; he hated him with an
intense, unmitigated hatred and was afraid his hatred might betray him.
His indignation was such that he ceased trembling at once; he made
ready to go in with a cold and arrogant bearing and vowed to himself to
keep as silent as possible, to watch and listen and for once at least to
control his overstrained nerves. At that moment he was summoned to
Por iry Petrovitch.
He found Por iry Petrovitch alone in his study. His study was a room
neither large nor small, furnished with a large writing-table, that stood
before a sofa, upholstered in checked material, a bureau, a bookcase in
the corner and several chairs—all government furniture, of polished
yellow wood. In the further wall there was a closed door, beyond it
there were no doubt other rooms. On Raskolnikov’s entrance Por iry
Petrovitch had at once closed the door by which he had come in and
they remained alone. He met his visitor with an apparently genial and
good-tempered air, and it was only after a few minutes that Raskolnikov
saw signs of a certain awkwardness in him, as though he had been
thrown out of his reckoning or caught in something very secret.
“Ah, my dear fellow! Here you are... in our domain”... began Por iry,
holding out both hands to him. “Come, sit down, old man... or perhaps
you don’t like to be called ‘my dear fellow’ and ‘old man!’—tout court?
Please don’t think it too familiar.... Here, on the sofa.”
Raskolnikov sat down, keeping his eyes ixed on him. “In our
domain,” the apologies for familiarity, the French phrase tout court,
were all characteristic signs.
“He held out both hands to me, but he did not give me one—he drew
it back in time,” struck him suspiciously. Both were watching each other,
but when their eyes met, quick as lightning they looked away.
“I brought you this paper... about the watch. Here it is. Is it all right or
shall I copy it again?”
“What? A paper? Yes, yes, don’t be uneasy, it’s all right,” Por iry
Petrovitch said as though in haste, and after he had said it he took the
paper and looked at it. “Yes, it’s all right. Nothing more is needed,” he
declared with the same rapidity and he laid the paper on the table.
A minute later when he was talking of something else he took it from
the table and put it on his bureau.
“I believe you said yesterday you would like to question me...
formally... about my acquaintance with the murdered woman?”
Raskolnikov was beginning again. “Why did I put in ‘I believe’” passed
through his mind in a lash. “Why am I so uneasy at having put in that ‘I
believe’?” came in a second lash. And he suddenly felt that his
uneasiness at the mere contact with Por iry, at the irst words, at the
irst looks, had grown in an instant to monstrous proportions, and that
this was fearfully dangerous. His nerves were quivering, his emotion
was increasing. “It’s bad, it’s bad! I shall say too much again.”
“Yes, yes, yes! There’s no hurry, there’s no hurry,” muttered Por iry
Petrovitch, moving to and fro about the table without any apparent aim,
as it were making dashes towards the window, the bureau and the
table, at one moment avoiding Raskolnikov’s suspicious glance, then
again standing still and looking him straight in the face.
His fat round little igure looked very strange, like a ball rolling from
one side to the other and rebounding back.
“We’ve plenty of time. Do you smoke? have you your own? Here, a
cigarette!” he went on, offering his visitor a cigarette. “You know I am
receiving you here, but my own quarters are through there, you know,
my government quarters. But I am living outside for the time, I had to
have some repairs done here. It’s almost inished now.... Government
quarters, you know, are a capital thing. Eh, what do you think?”
“Yes, a capital thing,” answered Raskolnikov, looking at him almost
ironically.
“A capital thing, a capital thing,” repeated Por iry Petrovitch, as
though he had just thought of something quite different. “Yes, a capital
thing,” he almost shouted at last, suddenly staring at Raskolnikov and
stopping short two steps from him.
This stupid repetition was too incongruous in its ineptitude with the
serious, brooding and enigmatic glance he turned upon his visitor.
But this stirred Raskolnikov’s spleen more than ever and he could
not resist an ironical and rather incautious challenge.
“Tell me, please,” he asked suddenly, looking almost insolently at him
and taking a kind of pleasure in his own insolence. “I believe it’s a sort
of legal rule, a sort of legal tradition—for all investigating lawyers—to
begin their attack from afar, with a trivial, or at least an irrelevant
subject, so as to encourage, or rather, to divert the man they are cross-
examining, to disarm his caution and then all at once to give him an
unexpected knock-down blow with some fatal question. Isn’t that so?
It’s a sacred tradition, mentioned, I fancy, in all the manuals of the art?”
“Yes, yes.... Why, do you imagine that was why I spoke about
government quarters... eh?”
And as he said this Por iry Petrovitch screwed up his eyes and
winked; a good-humoured, crafty look passed over his face. The
wrinkles on his forehead were smoothed out, his eyes contracted, his
features broadened and he suddenly went off into a nervous prolonged
laugh, shaking all over and looking Raskolnikov straight in the face. The
latter forced himself to laugh, too, but when Por iry, seeing that he was
laughing, broke into such a guffaw that he turned almost crimson,
Raskolnikov’s repulsion overcame all precaution; he left off laughing,
scowled and stared with hatred at Por iry, keeping his eyes ixed on him
while his intentionally prolonged laughter lasted. There was lack of
precaution on both sides, however, for Por iry Petrovitch seemed to be
laughing in his visitor’s face and to be very little disturbed at the
annoyance with which the visitor received it. The latter fact was very
signi icant in Raskolnikov’s eyes: he saw that Por iry Petrovitch had not
been embarrassed just before either, but that he, Raskolnikov, had
perhaps fallen into a trap; that there must be something, some motive
here unknown to him; that, perhaps, everything was in readiness and in
another moment would break upon him...
He went straight to the point at once, rose from his seat and took his
cap.
“Por iry Petrovitch,” he began resolutely, though with considerable
irritation, “yesterday you expressed a desire that I should come to you
for some inquiries” (he laid special stress on the word “inquiries”). “I
have come and if you have anything to ask me, ask it, and if not, allow
me to withdraw. I have no time to spare.... I have to be at the funeral of
that man who was run over, of whom you... know also,” he added,
feeling angry at once at having made this addition and more irritated at
his anger. “I am sick of it all, do you hear? and have long been. It’s partly
what made me ill. In short,” he shouted, feeling that the phrase about
his illness was still more out of place, “in short, kindly examine me or
let me go, at once. And if you must examine me, do so in the proper
form! I will not allow you to do so otherwise, and so meanwhile, good-
bye, as we have evidently nothing to keep us now.”
“Good heavens! What do you mean? What shall I question you
about?” cackled Por iry Petrovitch with a change of tone, instantly
leaving off laughing. “Please don’t disturb yourself,” he began idgeting
from place to place and fussily making Raskolnikov sit down. “There’s
no hurry, there’s no hurry, it’s all nonsense. Oh, no, I’m very glad you’ve
come to see me at last... I look upon you simply as a visitor. And as for
my confounded laughter, please excuse it, Rodion Romanovitch. Rodion
Romanovitch? That is your name?... It’s my nerves, you tickled me so
with your witty observation; I assure you, sometimes I shake with
laughter like an india-rubber ball for half an hour at a time.... I’m often
afraid of an attack of paralysis. Do sit down. Please do, or I shall think
you are angry...”
Raskolnikov did not speak; he listened, watching him, still frowning
angrily. He did sit down, but still held his cap.
“I must tell you one thing about myself, my dear Rodion
Romanovitch,” Por iry Petrovitch continued, moving about the room
and again avoiding his visitor’s eyes. “You see, I’m a bachelor, a man of
no consequence and not used to society; besides, I have nothing before
me, I’m set, I’m running to seed and... and have you noticed, Rodion
Romanovitch, that in our Petersburg circles, if two clever men meet
who are not intimate, but respect each other, like you and me, it takes
them half an hour before they can ind a subject for conversation—they
are dumb, they sit opposite each other and feel awkward. Everyone has
subjects of conversation, ladies for instance... people in high society
always have their subjects of conversation, c’est de rigueur, but people
of the middle sort like us, thinking people that is, are always tongue-
tied and awkward. What is the reason of it? Whether it is the lack of
public interest, or whether it is we are so honest we don’t want to
deceive one another, I don’t know. What do you think? Do put down
your cap, it looks as if you were just going, it makes me uncomfortable...
I am so delighted...”
Raskolnikov put down his cap and continued listening in silence with
a serious frowning face to the vague and empty chatter of Por iry
Petrovitch. “Does he really want to distract my attention with his silly
babble?”
“I can’t offer you coffee here; but why not spend ive minutes with a
friend?” Por iry pattered on, “and you know all these of icial duties...
please don’t mind my running up and down, excuse it, my dear fellow, I
am very much afraid of offending you, but exercise is absolutely
indispensable for me. I’m always sitting and so glad to be moving about
for ive minutes... I suffer from my sedentary life... I always intend to
join a gymnasium; they say that of icials of all ranks, even Privy
Councillors, may be seen skipping gaily there; there you have it, modern
science... yes, yes.... But as for my duties here, inquiries and all such
formalities... you mentioned inquiries yourself just now... I assure you
these interrogations are sometimes more embarrassing for the
interrogator than for the interrogated.... You made the observation
yourself just now very aptly and wittily.” (Raskolnikov had made no
observation of the kind.) “One gets into a muddle! A regular muddle!
One keeps harping on the same note, like a drum! There is to be a
reform and we shall be called by a different name, at least, he-he-he!
And as for our legal tradition, as you so wittily called it, I thoroughly
agree with you. Every prisoner on trial, even the rudest peasant, knows
that they begin by disarming him with irrelevant questions (as you so
happily put it) and then deal him a knock-down blow, he-he-he!—your
felicitous comparison, he-he! So you really imagined that I meant by
‘government quarters’... he-he! You are an ironical person. Come. I won’t
go on! Ah, by the way, yes! One word leads to another. You spoke of
formality just now, apropos of the inquiry, you know. But what’s the use
of formality? In many cases it’s nonsense. Sometimes one has a friendly
chat and gets a good deal more out of it. One can always fall back on
formality, allow me to assure you. And after all, what does it amount to?
An examining lawyer cannot be bounded by formality at every step. The
work of investigation is, so to speak, a free art in its own way, he-he-he!”
Por iry Petrovitch took breath a moment. He had simply babbled on
uttering empty phrases, letting slip a few enigmatic words and again
reverting to incoherence. He was almost running about the room,
moving his fat little legs quicker and quicker, looking at the ground,
with his right hand behind his back, while with his left making
gesticulations that were extraordinarily incongruous with his words.
Raskolnikov suddenly noticed that as he ran about the room he seemed
twice to stop for a moment near the door, as though he were listening.
“Is he expecting anything?”
“You are certainly quite right about it,” Por iry began gaily, looking
with extraordinary simplicity at Raskolnikov (which startled him and
instantly put him on his guard); “certainly quite right in laughing so
wittily at our legal forms, he-he! Some of these elaborate psychological
methods are exceedingly ridiculous and perhaps useless, if one adheres
too closely to the forms. Yes... I am talking of forms again. Well, if I
recognise, or more strictly speaking, if I suspect someone or other to be
a criminal in any case entrusted to me... you’re reading for the law, of
course, Rodion Romanovitch?”
“Yes, I was...”
“Well, then it is a precedent for you for the future—though don’t
suppose I should venture to instruct you after the articles you publish
about crime! No, I simply make bold to state it by way of fact, if I took
this man or that for a criminal, why, I ask, should I worry him
prematurely, even though I had evidence against him? In one case I may
be bound, for instance, to arrest a man at once, but another may be in
quite a different position, you know, so why shouldn’t I let him walk
about the town a bit? he-he-he! But I see you don’t quite understand, so
I’ll give you a clearer example. If I put him in prison too soon, I may very
likely give him, so to speak, moral support, he-he! You’re laughing?”
Raskolnikov had no idea of laughing. He was sitting with compressed
lips, his feverish eyes ixed on Por iry Petrovitch’s.
“Yet that is the case, with some types especially, for men are so
different. You say ‘evidence’. Well, there may be evidence. But evidence,
you know, can generally be taken two ways. I am an examining lawyer
and a weak man, I confess it. I should like to make a proof, so to say,
mathematically clear. I should like to make a chain of evidence such as
twice two are four, it ought to be a direct, irrefutable proof! And if I shut
him up too soon—even though I might be convinced he was the man, I
should very likely be depriving myself of the means of getting further
evidence against him. And how? By giving him, so to speak, a de inite
position, I shall put him out of suspense and set his mind at rest, so that
he will retreat into his shell. They say that at Sevastopol, soon after
Alma, the clever people were in a terrible fright that the enemy would
attack openly and take Sevastopol at once. But when they saw that the
enemy preferred a regular siege, they were delighted, I am told and
reassured, for the thing would drag on for two months at least. You’re
laughing, you don’t believe me again? Of course, you’re right, too. You’re
right, you’re right. These are special cases, I admit. But you must
observe this, my dear Rodion Romanovitch, the general case, the case
for which all legal forms and rules are intended, for which they are
calculated and laid down in books, does not exist at all, for the reason
that every case, every crime, for instance, so soon as it actually occurs,
at once becomes a thoroughly special case and sometimes a case unlike
any that’s gone before. Very comic cases of that sort sometimes occur. If
I leave one man quite alone, if I don’t touch him and don’t worry him,
but let him know or at least suspect every moment that I know all
about it and am watching him day and night, and if he is in continual
suspicion and terror, he’ll be bound to lose his head. He’ll come of
himself, or maybe do something which will make it as plain as twice
two are four—it’s delightful. It may be so with a simple peasant, but
with one of our sort, an intelligent man cultivated on a certain side, it’s
a dead certainty. For, my dear fellow, it’s a very important matter to
know on what side a man is cultivated. And then there are nerves, there
are nerves, you have overlooked them! Why, they are all sick, nervous
and irritable!... And then how they all suffer from spleen! That I assure
you is a regular gold-mine for us. And it’s no anxiety to me, his running
about the town free! Let him, let him walk about for a bit! I know well
enough that I’ve caught him and that he won’t escape me. Where could
he escape to, he-he? Abroad, perhaps? A Pole will escape abroad, but
not here, especially as I am watching and have taken measures. Will he
escape into the depths of the country perhaps? But you know, peasants
live there, real rude Russian peasants. A modern cultivated man would
prefer prison to living with such strangers as our peasants. He-he! But
that’s all nonsense, and on the surface. It’s not merely that he has
nowhere to run to, he is psychologically unable to escape me, he-he!
What an expression! Through a law of nature he can’t escape me if he
had anywhere to go. Have you seen a butter ly round a candle? That’s
how he will keep circling and circling round me. Freedom will lose its
attractions. He’ll begin to brood, he’ll weave a tangle round himself,
he’ll worry himself to death! What’s more he will provide me with a
mathematical proof—if I only give him long enough interval.... And he’ll
keep circling round me, getting nearer and nearer and then— lop! He’ll
ly straight into my mouth and I’ll swallow him, and that will be very
amusing, he-he-he! You don’t believe me?”
Raskolnikov made no reply; he sat pale and motionless, still gazing
with the same intensity into Por iry’s face.
“It’s a lesson,” he thought, turning cold. “This is beyond the cat
playing with a mouse, like yesterday. He can’t be showing off his power
with no motive... prompting me; he is far too clever for that... he must
have another object. What is it? It’s all nonsense, my friend, you are
pretending, to scare me! You’ve no proofs and the man I saw had no real
existence. You simply want to make me lose my head, to work me up
beforehand and so to crush me. But you are wrong, you won’t do it! But
why give me such a hint? Is he reckoning on my shattered nerves? No,
my friend, you are wrong, you won’t do it even though you have some
trap for me... let us see what you have in store for me.”
And he braced himself to face a terrible and unknown ordeal. At
times he longed to fall on Por iry and strangle him. This anger was what
he dreaded from the beginning. He felt that his parched lips were
lecked with foam, his heart was throbbing. But he was still determined
not to speak till the right moment. He realised that this was the best
policy in his position, because instead of saying too much he would be
irritating his enemy by his silence and provoking him into speaking too
freely. Anyhow, this was what he hoped for.
“No, I see you don’t believe me, you think I am playing a harmless
joke on you,” Por iry began again, getting more and more lively,
chuckling at every instant and again pacing round the room. “And to be
sure you’re right: God has given me a igure that can awaken none but
comic ideas in other people; a buffoon; but let me tell you, and I repeat
it, excuse an old man, my dear Rodion Romanovitch, you are a man still
young, so to say, in your irst youth and so you put intellect above
everything, like all young people. Playful wit and abstract arguments
fascinate you and that’s for all the world like the old Austrian Hof-
kriegsrath, as far as I can judge of military matters, that is: on paper
they’d beaten Napoleon and taken him prisoner, and there in their
study they worked it all out in the cleverest fashion, but look you,
General Mack surrendered with all his army, he-he-he! I see, I see,
Rodion Romanovitch, you are laughing at a civilian like me, taking
examples out of military history! But I can’t help it, it’s my weakness. I
am fond of military science. And I’m ever so fond of reading all military
histories. I’ve certainly missed my proper career. I ought to have been in
the army, upon my word I ought. I shouldn’t have been a Napoleon, but I
might have been a major, he-he! Well, I’ll tell you the whole truth, my
dear fellow, about this special case, I mean: actual fact and a man’s
temperament, my dear sir, are weighty matters and it’s astonishing how
they sometimes deceive the sharpest calculation! I—listen to an old
man—am speaking seriously, Rodion Romanovitch” (as he said this
Por iry Petrovitch, who was scarcely ive-and-thirty, actually seemed to
have grown old; even his voice changed and he seemed to shrink
together) “Moreover, I’m a candid man... am I a candid man or not?
What do you say? I fancy I really am: I tell you these things for nothing
and don’t even expect a reward for it, he-he! Well, to proceed, wit in my
opinion is a splendid thing, it is, so to say, an adornment of nature and a
consolation of life, and what tricks it can play! So that it sometimes is
hard for a poor examining lawyer to know where he is, especially when
he’s liable to be carried away by his own fancy, too, for you know he is a
man after all! But the poor fellow is saved by the criminal’s
temperament, worse luck for him! But young people carried away by
their own wit don’t think of that ‘when they overstep all obstacles,’ as
you wittily and cleverly expressed it yesterday. He will lie—that is, the
man who is a special case, the incognito, and he will lie well, in the
cleverest fashion; you might think he would triumph and enjoy the
fruits of his wit, but at the most interesting, the most lagrant moment
he will faint. Of course there may be illness and a stuffy room as well,
but anyway! Anyway he’s given us the idea! He lied incomparably, but
he didn’t reckon on his temperament. That’s what betrays him! Another
time he will be carried away by his playful wit into making fun of the
man who suspects him, he will turn pale as it were on purpose to
mislead, but his paleness will be too natural, too much like the real
thing, again he has given us an idea! Though his questioner may be
deceived at irst, he will think differently next day if he is not a fool, and,
of course, it is like that at every step! He puts himself forward where he
is not wanted, speaks continually when he ought to keep silent, brings
in all sorts of allegorical allusions, he-he! Comes and asks why didn’t
you take me long ago? he-he-he! And that can happen, you know, with
the cleverest man, the psychologist, the literary man. The temperament
re lects everything like a mirror! Gaze into it and admire what you see!
But why are you so pale, Rodion Romanovitch? Is the room stuffy? Shall
I open the window?”
“Oh, don’t trouble, please,” cried Raskolnikov and he suddenly broke
into a laugh. “Please don’t trouble.”
Por iry stood facing him, paused a moment and suddenly he too
laughed. Raskolnikov got up from the sofa, abruptly checking his
hysterical laughter.
“Por iry Petrovitch,” he began, speaking loudly and distinctly, though
his legs trembled and he could scarcely stand. “I see clearly at last that
you actually suspect me of murdering that old woman and her sister
Lizaveta. Let me tell you for my part that I am sick of this. If you ind
that you have a right to prosecute me legally, to arrest me, then
prosecute me, arrest me. But I will not let myself be jeered at to my face
and worried...”
His lips trembled, his eyes glowed with fury and he could not restrain
his voice.
“I won’t allow it!” he shouted, bringing his ist down on the table. “Do
you hear that, Por iry Petrovitch? I won’t allow it.”
“Good heavens! What does it mean?” cried Por iry Petrovitch,
apparently quite frightened. “Rodion Romanovitch, my dear fellow,
what is the matter with you?”
“I won’t allow it,” Raskolnikov shouted again.
“Hush, my dear man! They’ll hear and come in. Just think, what could
we say to them?” Por iry Petrovitch whispered in horror, bringing his
face close to Raskolnikov’s.
“I won’t allow it, I won’t allow it,” Raskolnikov repeated mechanically,
but he too spoke in a sudden whisper.
Por iry turned quickly and ran to open the window.
“Some fresh air! And you must have some water, my dear fellow.
You’re ill!” and he was running to the door to call for some when he
found a decanter of water in the corner. “Come, drink a little,” he
whispered, rushing up to him with the decanter. “It will be sure to do
you good.”
Por iry Petrovitch’s alarm and sympathy were so natural that
Raskolnikov was silent and began looking at him with wild curiosity. He
did not take the water, however.
“Rodion Romanovitch, my dear fellow, you’ll drive yourself out of
your mind, I assure you, ach, ach! Have some water, do drink a little.”
He forced him to take the glass. Raskolnikov raised it mechanically to
his lips, but set it on the table again with disgust.
“Yes, you’ve had a little attack! You’ll bring back your illness again, my
dear fellow,” Por iry Petrovitch cackled with friendly sympathy, though
he still looked rather disconcerted. “Good heavens, you must take more
care of yourself! Dmitri Proko itch was here, came to see me yesterday
—I know, I know, I’ve a nasty, ironical temper, but what they made of
it!... Good heavens, he came yesterday after you’d been. We dined and
he talked and talked away, and I could only throw up my hands in
despair! Did he come from you? But do sit down, for mercy’s sake, sit
down!”
“No, not from me, but I knew he went to you and why he went,”
Raskolnikov answered sharply.
“You knew?”
“I knew. What of it?”
“Why this, Rodion Romanovitch, that I know more than that about
you; I know about everything. I know how you went to take a lat at
night when it was dark and how you rang the bell and asked about the
blood, so that the workmen and the porter did not know what to make
of it. Yes, I understand your state of mind at that time... but you’ll drive
yourself mad like that, upon my word! You’ll lose your head! You’re full
of generous indignation at the wrongs you’ve received, irst from
destiny, and then from the police of icers, and so you rush from one
thing to another to force them to speak out and make an end of it all,
because you are sick of all this suspicion and foolishness. That’s so, isn’t
it? I have guessed how you feel, haven’t I? Only in that way you’ll lose
your head and Razumihin’s, too; he’s too good a man for such a position,
you must know that. You are ill and he is good and your illness is
infectious for him... I’ll tell you about it when you are more yourself....
But do sit down, for goodness’ sake. Please rest, you look shocking, do
sit down.”
Raskolnikov sat down; he no longer shivered, he was hot all over. In
amazement he listened with strained attention to Por iry Petrovitch
who still seemed frightened as he looked after him with friendly
solicitude. But he did not believe a word he said, though he felt a
strange inclination to believe. Por iry’s unexpected words about the lat
had utterly overwhelmed him. “How can it be, he knows about the lat
then,” he thought suddenly, “and he tells it me himself!”
“Yes, in our legal practice there was a case almost exactly similar, a
case of morbid psychology,” Por iry went on quickly. “A man confessed
to murder and how he kept it up! It was a regular hallucination; he
brought forward facts, he imposed upon everyone and why? He had
been partly, but only partly, unintentionally the cause of a murder and
when he knew that he had given the murderers the opportunity, he
sank into dejection, it got on his mind and turned his brain, he began
imagining things and he persuaded himself that he was the murderer.
But at last the High Court of Appeal went into it and the poor fellow was
acquitted and put under proper care. Thanks to the Court of Appeal!
Tut-tut-tut! Why, my dear fellow, you may drive yourself into delirium if
you have the impulse to work upon your nerves, to go ringing bells at
night and asking about blood! I’ve studied all this morbid psychology in
my practice. A man is sometimes tempted to jump out of a window or
from a belfry. Just the same with bell-ringing.... It’s all illness, Rodion
Romanovitch! You have begun to neglect your illness. You should
consult an experienced doctor, what’s the good of that fat fellow? You
are lightheaded! You were delirious when you did all this!”
For a moment Raskolnikov felt everything going round.
“Is it possible, is it possible,” lashed through his mind, “that he is still
lying? He can’t be, he can’t be.” He rejected that idea, feeling to what a
degree of fury it might drive him, feeling that that fury might drive him
mad.
“I was not delirious. I knew what I was doing,” he cried, straining
every faculty to penetrate Por iry’s game, “I was quite myself, do you
hear?”
“Yes, I hear and understand. You said yesterday you were not
delirious, you were particularly emphatic about it! I understand all you
can tell me! A-ach!... Listen, Rodion Romanovitch, my dear fellow. If you
were actually a criminal, or were somehow mixed up in this damnable
business, would you insist that you were not delirious but in full
possession of your faculties? And so emphatically and persistently?
Would it be possible? Quite impossible, to my thinking. If you had
anything on your conscience, you certainly ought to insist that you were
delirious. That’s so, isn’t it?”
There was a note of slyness in this inquiry. Raskolnikov drew back on
the sofa as Por iry bent over him and stared in silent perplexity at him.
“Another thing about Razumihin—you certainly ought to have said
that he came of his own accord, to have concealed your part in it! But
you don’t conceal it! You lay stress on his coming at your instigation.”
Raskolnikov had not done so. A chill went down his back.
“You keep telling lies,” he said slowly and weakly, twisting his lips
into a sickly smile, “you are trying again to show that you know all my
game, that you know all I shall say beforehand,” he said, conscious
himself that he was not weighing his words as he ought. “You want to
frighten me... or you are simply laughing at me...”
He still stared at him as he said this and again there was a light of
intense hatred in his eyes.
“You keep lying,” he said. “You know perfectly well that the best
policy for the criminal is to tell the truth as nearly as possible... to
conceal as little as possible. I don’t believe you!”
“What a wily person you are!” Por iry tittered, “there’s no catching
you; you’ve a perfect monomania. So you don’t believe me? But still you
do believe me, you believe a quarter; I’ll soon make you believe the
whole, because I have a sincere liking for you and genuinely wish you
good.”
Raskolnikov’s lips trembled.
“Yes, I do,” went on Por iry, touching Raskolnikov’s arm genially, “you
must take care of your illness. Besides, your mother and sister are here
now; you must think of them. You must soothe and comfort them and
you do nothing but frighten them...”
“What has that to do with you? How do you know it? What concern is
it of yours? You are keeping watch on me and want to let me know it?”
“Good heavens! Why, I learnt it all from you yourself! You don’t notice
that in your excitement you tell me and others everything. From
Razumihin, too, I learnt a number of interesting details yesterday. No,
you interrupted me, but I must tell you that, for all your wit, your
suspiciousness makes you lose the common-sense view of things. To
return to bell-ringing, for instance. I, an examining lawyer, have
betrayed a precious thing like that, a real fact (for it is a fact worth
having), and you see nothing in it! Why, if I had the slightest suspicion
of you, should I have acted like that? No, I should irst have disarmed
your suspicions and not let you see I knew of that fact, should have
diverted your attention and suddenly have dealt you a knock-down
blow (your expression) saying: ‘And what were you doing, sir, pray, at
ten or nearly eleven at the murdered woman’s lat and why did you ring
the bell and why did you ask about blood? And why did you invite the
porters to go with you to the police station, to the lieutenant?’ That’s
how I ought to have acted if I had a grain of suspicion of you. I ought to
have taken your evidence in due form, searched your lodging and
perhaps have arrested you, too... so I have no suspicion of you, since I
have not done that! But you can’t look at it normally and you see
nothing, I say again.”
Raskolnikov started so that Por iry Petrovitch could not fail to
perceive it.
“You are lying all the while,” he cried, “I don’t know your object, but
you are lying. You did not speak like that just now and I cannot be
mistaken!”
“I am lying?” Por iry repeated, apparently incensed, but preserving a
good-humoured and ironical face, as though he were not in the least
concerned at Raskolnikov’s opinion of him. “I am lying... but how did I
treat you just now, I, the examining lawyer? Prompting you and giving
you every means for your defence; illness, I said, delirium, injury,
melancholy and the police of icers and all the rest of it? Ah! He-he-he!
Though, indeed, all those psychological means of defence are not very
reliable and cut both ways: illness, delirium, I don’t remember—that’s
all right, but why, my good sir, in your illness and in your delirium were
you haunted by just those delusions and not by any others? There may
have been others, eh? He-he-he!”
Raskolnikov looked haughtily and contemptuously at him.
“Brie ly,” he said loudly and imperiously, rising to his feet and in so
doing pushing Por iry back a little, “brie ly, I want to know, do you
acknowledge me perfectly free from suspicion or not? Tell me, Por iry
Petrovitch, tell me once for all and make haste!”
“What a business I’m having with you!” cried Por iry with a perfectly
good-humoured, sly and composed face. “And why do you want to
know, why do you want to know so much, since they haven’t begun to
worry you? Why, you are like a child asking for matches! And why are
you so uneasy? Why do you force yourself upon us, eh? He-he-he!”
“I repeat,” Raskolnikov cried furiously, “that I can’t put up with it!”
“With what? Uncertainty?” interrupted Por iry.
“Don’t jeer at me! I won’t have it! I tell you I won’t have it. I can’t and I
won’t, do you hear, do you hear?” he shouted, bringing his ist down on
the table again.
“Hush! Hush! They’ll overhear! I warn you seriously, take care of
yourself. I am not joking,” Por iry whispered, but this time there was
not the look of old womanish good nature and alarm in his face. Now he
was peremptory, stern, frowning and for once laying aside all
mysti ication.
But this was only for an instant. Raskolnikov, bewildered, suddenly
fell into actual frenzy, but, strange to say, he again obeyed the command
to speak quietly, though he was in a perfect paroxysm of fury.
“I will not allow myself to be tortured,” he whispered, instantly
recognising with hatred that he could not help obeying the command
and driven to even greater fury by the thought. “Arrest me, search me,
but kindly act in due form and don’t play with me! Don’t dare!”
“Don’t worry about the form,” Por iry interrupted with the same sly
smile, as it were, gloating with enjoyment over Raskolnikov. “I invited
you to see me quite in a friendly way.”
 “I don’t want your friendship and I spit on it! Do you hear? And, here,
I take my cap and go. What will you say now if you mean to arrest me?”
He took up his cap and went to the door.
“And won’t you see my little surprise?” chuckled Por iry, again taking
him by the arm and stopping him at the door.
He seemed to become more playful and good-humoured which
maddened Raskolnikov.
“What surprise?” he asked, standing still and looking at Por iry in
alarm.
“My little surprise, it’s sitting there behind the door, he-he-he!” (He
pointed to the locked door.) “I locked him in that he should not escape.”
“What is it? Where? What?...”
Raskolnikov walked to the door and would have opened it, but it was
locked.
“It’s locked, here is the key!”
And he brought a key out of his pocket.
“You are lying,” roared Raskolnikov without restraint, “you lie, you
damned punchinello!” and he rushed at Por iry who retreated to the
other door, not at all alarmed.
“I understand it all! You are lying and mocking so that I may betray
myself to you...”
“Why, you could not betray yourself any further, my dear Rodion
Romanovitch. You are in a passion. Don’t shout, I shall call the clerks.”
“You are lying! Call the clerks! You knew I was ill and tried to work
me into a frenzy to make me betray myself, that was your object!
Produce your facts! I understand it all. You’ve no evidence, you have
only wretched rubbishly suspicions like Zametov’s! You knew my
character, you wanted to drive me to fury and then to knock me down
with priests and deputies.... Are you waiting for them? eh! What are you
waiting for? Where are they? Produce them?”
“Why deputies, my good man? What things people will imagine! And
to do so would not be acting in form as you say, you don’t know the
business, my dear fellow.... And there’s no escaping form, as you see,”
Por iry muttered, listening at the door through which a noise could be
heard.
“Ah, they’re coming,” cried Raskolnikov. “You’ve sent for them! You
expected them! Well, produce them all: your deputies, your witnesses,
what you like!... I am ready!”
But at this moment a strange incident occurred, something so
unexpected that neither Raskolnikov nor Por iry Petrovitch could have
looked for such a conclusion to their interview.
 CHAPTER VI

When he remembered the scene afterwards, this is how Raskolnikov

saw it.
The noise behind the door increased, and suddenly the door was
opened a little.
“What is it?” cried Por iry Petrovitch, annoyed. “Why, I gave orders...”
For an instant there was no answer, but it was evident that there
were several persons at the door, and that they were apparently
pushing somebody back.
“What is it?” Por iry Petrovitch repeated, uneasily.
“The prisoner Nikolay has been brought,” someone answered.
“He is not wanted! Take him away! Let him wait! What’s he doing
here? How irregular!” cried Por iry, 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 irst 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?” Por iry Petrovitch muttered, extremely annoyed,
and as it were thrown out of his reckoning.
But Nikolay suddenly knelt down.
“What’s the matter?” cried Por iry, 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 Por iry Petrovitch, recovering from his momentary
stupefaction.
“I... am the murderer,” repeated Nikolay, after a brief pause.
“What... you... what... whom did you kill?” Por iry 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. Por iry 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 Por iry, 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.
He was apparently so taken up with Nikolay that for a moment he
had forgotten Raskolnikov. He was a little taken aback.
“My dear Rodion Romanovitch, excuse me!” he lew up to him, “this
won’t do; I’m afraid you must go... it’s no good your staying... I will... you
see, what a surprise!... Good-bye!”
And taking him by the arm, he showed him to the door.
“I suppose you didn’t expect it?” said Raskolnikov who, though he
had not yet fully grasped the situation, had regained his courage.
“You did not expect it either, my friend. See how your hand is
trembling! He-he!”
“You’re trembling, too, Por iry Petrovitch!”
“Yes, I am; I didn’t expect it.”
They were already at the door; Por iry was impatient for Raskolnikov
to be gone.
“And your little surprise, aren’t you going to show it to me?”
Raskolnikov said, sarcastically.
“Why, his teeth are chattering as he asks, he-he! You are an ironical
person! Come, till we meet!”
“I believe we can say good-bye!”
“That’s in God’s hands,” muttered Por iry, with an unnatural smile.
As he walked through the of ice, Raskolnikov noticed that many
people were looking at him. Among them he saw the two porters from
the house, whom he had invited that night to the police station. They
stood there waiting. But he was no sooner on the stairs than he heard
the voice of Por iry Petrovitch behind him. Turning round, he saw the
latter running after him, out of breath.
“One word, Rodion Romanovitch; as to all the rest, it’s in God’s hands,
but as a matter of form there are some questions I shall have to ask
you... so we shall meet again, shan’t we?”
And Por iry stood still, facing him with a smile.
“Shan’t we?” he added again.
He seemed to want to say something more, but could not speak out.
“You must forgive me, Por iry Petrovitch, for what has just passed... I
lost my temper,” began Raskolnikov, who had so far regained his
courage that he felt irresistibly inclined to display his coolness.
“Don’t mention it, don’t mention it,” Por iry replied, almost gleefully.
“I myself, too... I have a wicked temper, I admit it! But we shall meet
again. If it’s God’s will, we may see a great deal of one another.”
“And will get to know each other through and through?” added
Raskolnikov.
“Yes; know each other through and through,” assented Por iry
Petrovitch, and he screwed up his eyes, looking earnestly at
Raskolnikov. “Now you’re going to a birthday party?”
“To a funeral.”
“Of course, the funeral! Take care of yourself, and get well.”
“I don’t know what to wish you,” said Raskolnikov, who had begun to
descend the stairs, but looked back again. “I should like to wish you
success, but your of ice is such a comical one.”
“Why comical?” Por iry Petrovitch had turned to go, but he seemed to
prick up his ears at this.
“Why, how you must have been torturing and harassing that poor
Nikolay psychologically, after your fashion, till he confessed! You must
have been at him day and night, proving to him that he was the
murderer, and now that he has confessed, you’ll begin vivisecting him
again. ‘You are lying,’ you’ll say. ‘You are not the murderer! You can’t be!
It’s not your own tale you are telling!’ You must admit it’s a comical
business!”
 “He-he-he! You noticed then that I said to Nikolay just now that it was
not his own tale he was telling?”
“How could I help noticing it!”
“He-he! You are quick-witted. You notice everything! You’ve really a
playful mind! And you always fasten on the comic side... he-he! They say
that was the marked characteristic of Gogol, among the writers.”
“Yes, of Gogol.”
“Yes, of Gogol.... I shall look forward to meeting you.”
“So shall I.”
Raskolnikov walked straight home. He was so muddled and
bewildered that on getting home he sat for a quarter of an hour on the
sofa, trying to collect his thoughts. He did not attempt to think about
Nikolay; he was stupe ied; he felt that his confession was something
inexplicable, amazing—something beyond his understanding. But
Nikolay’s confession was an actual fact. The consequences of this fact
were clear to him at once, its falsehood could not fail to be discovered,
and then they would be after him again. Till then, at least, he was free
and must do something for himself, for the danger was imminent.
But how imminent? His position gradually became clear to him.
Remembering, sketchily, the main outlines of his recent scene with
Por iry, he could not help shuddering again with horror. Of course, he
did not yet know all Por iry’s aims, he could not see into all his
calculations. But he had already partly shown his hand, and no one
knew better than Raskolnikov how terrible Por iry’s “lead” had been for
him. A little more and he might have given himself away completely,
circumstantially. Knowing his nervous temperament and from the irst
glance seeing through him, Por iry, though playing a bold game, was
bound to win. There’s no denying that Raskolnikov had compromised
himself seriously, but no facts had come to light as yet; there was
nothing positive. But was he taking a true view of the position? Wasn’t
he mistaken? What had Por iry been trying to get at? Had he really
some surprise prepared for him? And what was it? Had he really been
expecting something or not? How would they have parted if it had not
been for the unexpected appearance of Nikolay?
 Por iry had shown almost all his cards—of course, he had risked
something in showing them—and if he had really had anything up his
sleeve (Raskolnikov re lected), he would have shown that, too. What
was that “surprise”? Was it a joke? Had it meant anything? Could it have
concealed anything like a fact, a piece of positive evidence? His
yesterday’s visitor? What had become of him? Where was he to-day? If
Por iry really had any evidence, it must be connected with him....
He sat on the sofa with his elbows on his knees and his face hidden in
his hands. He was still shivering nervously. At last he got up, took his
cap, thought a minute, and went to the door.
He had a sort of presentiment that for to-day, at least, he might
consider himself out of danger. He had a sudden sense almost of joy; he
wanted to make haste to Katerina Ivanovna’s. He would be too late for
the funeral, of course, but he would be in time for the memorial dinner,
and there at once he would see Sonia.
He stood still, thought a moment, and a suffering smile came for a
moment on to his lips.
“To-day! To-day,” he repeated to himself. “Yes, to-day! So it must be....”
But as he was about to open the door, it began opening of itself. He
started and moved back. The door opened gently and slowly, and there
suddenly appeared a igure—yesterday’s visitor from underground.
The man stood in the doorway, looked at Raskolnikov without
speaking, and took a step forward into the room. He was exactly the
same as yesterday; the same igure, the same dress, but there was a
great change in his face; he looked dejected and sighed deeply. If he had
only put his hand up to his cheek and leaned his head on one side he
would have looked exactly like a peasant woman.
“What do you want?” asked Raskolnikov, numb with terror. The man
was still silent, but suddenly he bowed down almost to the ground,
touching it with his inger.
“What is it?” cried Raskolnikov.
“I have sinned,” the man articulated softly.
“How?”
“By evil thoughts.”
 They looked at one another.
“I was vexed. When you came, perhaps in drink, and bade the porters
go to the police station and asked about the blood, I was vexed that they
let you go and took you for drunken. I was so vexed that I lost my sleep.
And remembering the address we came here yesterday and asked for
you....”
“Who came?” Raskolnikov interrupted, instantly beginning to
recollect.
“I did, I’ve wronged you.”
“Then you come from that house?”
“I was standing at the gate with them... don’t you remember? We have
carried on our trade in that house for years past. We cure and prepare
hides, we take work home... most of all I was vexed....”
And the whole scene of the day before yesterday in the gateway came
clearly before Raskolnikov’s mind; he recollected that there had been
several people there besides the porters, women among them. He
remembered one voice had suggested taking him straight to the police-
station. He could not recall the face of the speaker, and even now he did
not recognise it, but he remembered that he had turned round and
made him some answer....
So this was the solution of yesterday’s horror. The most awful
thought was that he had been actually almost lost, had almost done for
himself on account of such a trivial circumstance. So this man could tell
nothing except his asking about the lat and the blood stains. So Por iry,
too, had nothing but that delirium, no facts but this psychology which
cuts both ways, nothing positive. So if no more facts come to light (and
they must not, they must not!) then... then what can they do to him?
How can they convict him, even if they arrest him? And Por iry then had
only just heard about the lat and had not known about it before.
“Was it you who told Por iry... that I’d been there?” he cried, struck by
a sudden idea.
“What Por iry?”
“The head of the detective department?”
“Yes. The porters did not go there, but I went.”
 “To-day?”
“I got there two minutes before you. And I heard, I heard it all, how
he worried you.”
“Where? What? When?”
“Why, in the next room. I was sitting there all the time.”
“What? Why, then you were the surprise? But how could it happen?
Upon my word!”
“I saw that the porters did not want to do what I said,” began the
man; “for it’s too late, said they, and maybe he’ll be angry that we did
not come at the time. I was vexed and I lost my sleep, and I began
making inquiries. And inding out yesterday where to go, I went to-day.
The irst time I went he wasn’t there, when I came an hour later he
couldn’t see me. I went the third time, and they showed me in. I
informed him of everything, just as it happened, and he began skipping
about the room and punching himself on the chest. ‘What do you
scoundrels mean by it? If I’d known about it I should have arrested
him!’ Then he ran out, called somebody and began talking to him in the
corner, then he turned to me, scolding and questioning me. He scolded
me a great deal; and I told him everything, and I told him that you didn’t
dare to say a word in answer to me yesterday and that you didn’t
recognise me. And he fell to running about again and kept hitting
himself on the chest, and getting angry and running about, and when
you were announced he told me to go into the next room. ‘Sit there a
bit,’ he said. ‘Don’t move, whatever you may hear.’ And he set a chair
there for me and locked me in. ‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘I may call you.’ And
when Nikolay’d been brought he let me out as soon as you were gone. ‘I
shall send for you again and question you,’ he said.”
“And did he question Nikolay while you were there?”
“He got rid of me as he did of you, before he spoke to Nikolay.”
The man stood still, and again suddenly bowed down, touching the
ground with his inger.
“Forgive me for my evil thoughts, and my slander.”
“May God forgive you,” answered Raskolnikov.
And as he said this, the man bowed down again, but not to the
ground, turned slowly and went out of the room.
 “It all cuts both ways, now it all cuts both ways,” repeated
Raskolnikov, and he went out more con ident than ever.
“Now we’ll make a ight for it,” he said, with a malicious smile, as he
went down the stairs. His malice was aimed at himself; with shame and
contempt he recollected his “cowardice.”
PART V
 CHAPTER I

The morning that followed the fateful interview with Dounia and her
mother brought sobering in luences to bear on Pyotr Petrovitch.
Intensely unpleasant as it was, he was forced little by little to accept as
a fact beyond recall what had seemed to him only the day before
fantastic and incredible. The black snake of wounded vanity had been
gnawing at his heart all night. When he got out of bed, Pyotr Petrovitch
immediately looked in the looking-glass. He was afraid that he had
jaundice. However his health seemed unimpaired so far, and looking at
his noble, clear-skinned countenance which had grown fattish of late,
Pyotr Petrovitch for an instant was positively comforted in the
conviction that he would ind another bride and, perhaps, even a better
one. But coming back to the sense of his present position, he turned
aside and spat vigorously, which excited a sarcastic smile in Andrey
Semyonovitch Lebeziatnikov, the young friend with whom he was
staying. That smile Pyotr Petrovitch noticed, and at once set it down
against his young friend’s account. He had set down a good many points
against him of late. His anger was redoubled when he re lected that he
ought not to have told Andrey Semyonovitch about the result of
yesterday’s interview. That was the second mistake he had made in
temper, through impulsiveness and irritability.... Moreover, all that
morning one unpleasantness followed another. He even found a hitch
awaiting him in his legal case in the senate. He was particularly
irritated by the owner of the lat which had been taken in view of his
approaching marriage and was being redecorated at his own expense;
the owner, a rich German tradesman, would not entertain the idea of
breaking the contract which had just been signed and insisted on the
full forfeit money, though Pyotr Petrovitch would be giving him back
the lat practically redecorated. In the same way the upholsterers
refused to return a single rouble of the instalment paid for the furniture
purchased but not yet removed to the lat.
“Am I to get married simply for the sake of the furniture?” Pyotr
Petrovitch ground his teeth and at the same time once more he had a
gleam of desperate hope. “Can all that be really so irrevocably over? Is it
no use to make another effort?” The thought of Dounia sent a
voluptuous pang through his heart. He endured anguish at that
moment, and if it had been possible to slay Raskolnikov instantly by
wishing it, Pyotr Petrovitch would promptly have uttered the wish.
“It was my mistake, too, not to have given them money,” he thought,
as he returned dejectedly to Lebeziatnikov’s room, “and why on earth
was I such a Jew? It was false economy! I meant to keep them without a
penny so that they should turn to me as their providence, and look at
them! foo! If I’d spent some ifteen hundred roubles on them for the
trousseau and presents, on knick-knacks, dressing-cases, jewellery,
materials, and all that sort of trash from Knopp’s and the English shop,
my position would have been better and... stronger! They could not
have refused me so easily! They are the sort of people that would feel
bound to return money and presents if they broke it off; and they would
ind it hard to do it! And their conscience would prick them: how can
we dismiss a man who has hitherto been so generous and delicate?....
H’m! I’ve made a blunder.”
And grinding his teeth again, Pyotr Petrovitch called himself a fool—
but not aloud, of course.
He returned home, twice as irritated and angry as before. The
preparations for the funeral dinner at Katerina Ivanovna’s excited his
curiosity as he passed. He had heard about it the day before; he fancied,
indeed, that he had been invited, but absorbed in his own cares he had
paid no attention. Inquiring of Madame Lippevechsel who was busy
laying the table while Katerina Ivanovna was away at the cemetery, he
heard that the entertainment was to be a great affair, that all the
lodgers had been invited, among them some who had not known the
dead man, that even Andrey Semyonovitch Lebeziatnikov was invited in
spite of his previous quarrel with Katerina Ivanovna, that he, Pyotr
Petrovitch, was not only invited, but was eagerly expected as he was the
most important of the lodgers. Amalia Ivanovna herself had been
invited with great ceremony in spite of the recent unpleasantness, and
so she was very busy with preparations and was taking a positive
pleasure in them; she was moreover dressed up to the nines, all in new
black silk, and she was proud of it. All this suggested an idea to Pyotr
Petrovitch and he went into his room, or rather Lebeziatnikov’s,
somewhat thoughtful. He had learnt that Raskolnikov was to be one of
the guests.
Andrey Semyonovitch had been at home all the morning. The attitude
of Pyotr Petrovitch to this gentleman was strange, though perhaps
natural. Pyotr Petrovitch had despised and hated him from the day he
came to stay with him and at the same time he seemed somewhat
afraid of him. He had not come to stay with him on his arrival in
Petersburg simply from parsimony, though that had been perhaps his
chief object. He had heard of Andrey Semyonovitch, who had once been
his ward, as a leading young progressive who was taking an important
part in certain interesting circles, the doings of which were a legend in
the provinces. It had impressed Pyotr Petrovitch. These powerful
omniscient circles who despised everyone and showed everyone up
had long inspired in him a peculiar but quite vague alarm. He had not,
of course, been able to form even an approximate notion of what they
meant. He, like everyone, had heard that there were, especially in
Petersburg, progressives of some sort, nihilists and so on, and, like
many people, he exaggerated and distorted the signi icance of those
words to an absurd degree. What for many years past he had feared
more than anything was being shown up and this was the chief ground
for his continual uneasiness at the thought of transferring his business
to Petersburg. He was afraid of this as little children are sometimes
panic-stricken. Some years before, when he was just entering on his
own career, he had come upon two cases in which rather important
personages in the province, patrons of his, had been cruelly shown up.
One instance had ended in great scandal for the person attacked and
the other had very nearly ended in serious trouble. For this reason
Pyotr Petrovitch intended to go into the subject as soon as he reached
Petersburg and, if necessary, to anticipate contingencies by seeking the
favour of “our younger generation.” He relied on Andrey Semyonovitch
for this and before his visit to Raskolnikov he had succeeded in picking
up some current phrases. He soon discovered that Andrey
Semyonovitch was a commonplace simpleton, but that by no means
reassured Pyotr Petrovitch. Even if he had been certain that all the
progressives were fools like him, it would not have allayed his
uneasiness. All the doctrines, the ideas, the systems, with which Andrey
Semyonovitch pestered him had no interest for him. He had his own
object—he simply wanted to ind out at once what was happening here.
Had these people any power or not? Had he anything to fear from
them? Would they expose any enterprise of his? And what precisely
was now the object of their attacks? Could he somehow make up to
them and get round them if they really were powerful? Was this the
thing to do or not? Couldn’t he gain something through them? In fact
hundreds of questions presented themselves.
Andrey Semyonovitch was an anæmic, scrofulous little man, with
strangely laxen mutton-chop whiskers of which he was very proud. He
was a clerk and had almost always something wrong with his eyes. He
was rather soft-hearted, but self-con ident and sometimes extremely
conceited in speech, which had an absurd effect, incongruous with his
little igure. He was one of the lodgers most respected by Amalia
Ivanovna, for he did not get drunk and paid regularly for his lodgings.
Andrey Semyonovitch really was rather stupid; he attached himself to
the cause of progress and “our younger generation” from enthusiasm.
He was one of the numerous and varied legion of dullards, of half-
animate abortions, conceited, half-educated coxcombs, who attach
themselves to the idea most in fashion only to vulgarise it and who
caricature every cause they serve, however sincerely.
Though Lebeziatnikov was so good-natured, he, too, was beginning to
dislike Pyotr Petrovitch. This happened on both sides unconsciously.
However simple Andrey Semyonovitch might be, he began to see that
Pyotr Petrovitch was duping him and secretly despising him, and that
“he was not the right sort of man.” He had tried expounding to him the
system of Fourier and the Darwinian theory, but of late Pyotr Petrovitch
began to listen too sarcastically and even to be rude. The fact was he
had begun instinctively to guess that Lebeziatnikov was not merely a
commonplace simpleton, but, perhaps, a liar, too, and that he had no
connections of any consequence even in his own circle, but had simply
picked things up third-hand; and that very likely he did not even know
much about his own work of propaganda, for he was in too great a
muddle. A ine person he would be to show anyone up! It must be
noted, by the way, that Pyotr Petrovitch had during those ten days
eagerly accepted the strangest praise from Andrey Semyonovitch; he
had not protested, for instance, when Andrey Semyonovitch belauded
him for being ready to contribute to the establishment of the new
“commune,” or to abstain from christening his future children, or to
acquiesce if Dounia were to take a lover a month after marriage, and so
on. Pyotr Petrovitch so enjoyed hearing his own praises that he did not
disdain even such virtues when they were attributed to him.
Pyotr Petrovitch had had occasion that morning to realise some ive-
per-cent bonds and now he sat down to the table and counted over
bundles of notes. Andrey Semyonovitch who hardly ever had any
money walked about the room pretending to himself to look at all those
bank notes with indifference and even contempt. Nothing would have
convinced Pyotr Petrovitch that Andrey Semyonovitch could really look
on the money unmoved, and the latter, on his side, kept thinking
bitterly that Pyotr Petrovitch was capable of entertaining such an idea
about him and was, perhaps, glad of the opportunity of teasing his
young friend by reminding him of his inferiority and the great
difference between them.
He found him incredibly inattentive and irritable, though he, Andrey
Semyonovitch, began enlarging on his favourite subject, the foundation
of a new special “commune.” The brief remarks that dropped from
Pyotr Petrovitch between the clicking of the beads on the reckoning
frame betrayed unmistakable and discourteous irony. But the “humane”
Andrey Semyonovitch ascribed Pyotr Petrovitch’s ill-humour to his
recent breach with Dounia and he was burning with impatience to
discourse on that theme. He had something progressive to say on the
subject which might console his worthy friend and “could not fail” to
promote his development.
“There is some sort of festivity being prepared at that... at the
widow’s, isn’t there?” Pyotr Petrovitch asked suddenly, interrupting
Andrey Semyonovitch at the most interesting passage.
“Why, don’t you know? Why, I was telling you last night what I think
about all such ceremonies. And she invited you too, I heard. You were
talking to her yesterday...”
 “I should never have expected that beggarly fool would have spent on
this feast all the money she got from that other fool, Raskolnikov. I was
surprised just now as I came through at the preparations there, the
wines! Several people are invited. It’s beyond everything!” continued
Pyotr Petrovitch, who seemed to have some object in pursuing the
conversation. “What? You say I am asked too? When was that? I don’t
remember. But I shan’t go. Why should I? I only said a word to her in
passing yesterday of the possibility of her obtaining a year’s salary as a
destitute widow of a government clerk. I suppose she has invited me on
that account, hasn’t she? He-he-he!”
“I don’t intend to go either,” said Lebeziatnikov.
“I should think not, after giving her a thrashing! You might well
hesitate, he-he!”
“Who thrashed? Whom?” cried Lebeziatnikov, lustered and blushing.
“Why, you thrashed Katerina Ivanovna a month ago. I heard so
yesterday... so that’s what your convictions amount to... and the woman
question, too, wasn’t quite sound, he-he-he!” and Pyotr Petrovitch, as
though comforted, went back to clicking his beads.
“It’s all slander and nonsense!” cried Lebeziatnikov, who was always
afraid of allusions to the subject. “It was not like that at all, it was quite
different. You’ve heard it wrong; it’s a libel. I was simply defending
myself. She rushed at me irst with her nails, she pulled out all my
whiskers.... It’s permissable for anyone, I should hope, to defend himself
and I never allow anyone to use violence to me on principle, for it’s an
act of despotism. What was I to do? I simply pushed her back.”
“He-he-he!” Luzhin went on laughing maliciously.
“You keep on like that because you are out of humour yourself.... But
that’s nonsense and it has nothing, nothing whatever to do with the
woman question! You don’t understand; I used to think, indeed, that if
women are equal to men in all respects, even in strength (as is
maintained now) there ought to be equality in that, too. Of course, I
re lected afterwards that such a question ought not really to arise, for
there ought not to be ighting and in the future society ighting is
unthinkable... and that it would be a queer thing to seek for equality in
ighting. I am not so stupid... though, of course, there is ighting... there
won’t be later, but at present there is... confound it! How muddled one
gets with you! It’s not on that account that I am not going. I am not
going on principle, not to take part in the revolting convention of
memorial dinners, that’s why! Though, of course, one might go to laugh
at it.... I am sorry there won’t be any priests at it. I should certainly go if
there were.”
“Then you would sit down at another man’s table and insult it and
those who invited you. Eh?”
“Certainly not insult, but protest. I should do it with a good object. I
might indirectly assist the cause of enlightenment and propaganda. It’s
a duty of every man to work for enlightenment and propaganda and the
more harshly, perhaps, the better. I might drop a seed, an idea.... And
something might grow up from that seed. How should I be insulting
them? They might be offended at irst, but afterwards they’d see I’d
done them a service. You know, Terebyeva (who is in the community
now) was blamed because when she left her family and... devoted...
herself, she wrote to her father and mother that she wouldn’t go on
living conventionally and was entering on a free marriage and it was
said that that was too harsh, that she might have spared them and have
written more kindly. I think that’s all nonsense and there’s no need of
softness; on the contrary, what’s wanted is protest. Varents had been
married seven years, she abandoned her two children, she told her
husband straight out in a letter: ‘I have realised that I cannot be happy
with you. I can never forgive you that you have deceived me by
concealing from me that there is another organisation of society by
means of the communities. I have only lately learned it from a great-
hearted man to whom I have given myself and with whom I am
establishing a community. I speak plainly because I consider it
dishonest to deceive you. Do as you think best. Do not hope to get me
back, you are too late. I hope you will be happy.’ That’s how letters like
that ought to be written!”
“Is that Terebyeva the one you said had made a third free marriage?”
“No, it’s only the second, really! But what if it were the fourth, what if
it were the ifteenth, that’s all nonsense! And if ever I regretted the
death of my father and mother, it is now, and I sometimes think if my
parents were living what a protest I would have aimed at them! I would
have done something on purpose... I would have shown them! I would
have astonished them! I am really sorry there is no one!”
“To surprise! He-he! Well, be that as you will,” Pyotr Petrovitch
interrupted, “but tell me this; do you know the dead man’s daughter, the
delicate-looking little thing? It’s true what they say about her, isn’t it?”
“What of it? I think, that is, it is my own personal conviction that this
is the normal condition of women. Why not? I mean, distinguons. In our
present society it is not altogether normal, because it is compulsory, but
in the future society it will be perfectly normal, because it will be
voluntary. Even as it is, she was quite right: she was suffering and that
was her asset, so to speak, her capital which she had a perfect right to
dispose of. Of course, in the future society there will be no need of
assets, but her part will have another signi icance, rational and in
harmony with her environment. As to Sofya Semyonovna personally, I
regard her action as a vigorous protest against the organisation of
society, and I respect her deeply for it; I rejoice indeed when I look at
her!”
“I was told that you got her turned out of these lodgings.”
Lebeziatnikov was enraged.
“That’s another slander,” he yelled. “It was not so at all! That was all
Katerina Ivanovna’s invention, for she did not understand! And I never
made love to Sofya Semyonovna! I was simply developing her, entirely
disinterestedly, trying to rouse her to protest.... All I wanted was her
protest and Sofya Semyonovna could not have remained here anyway!”
“Have you asked her to join your community?”
“You keep on laughing and very inappropriately, allow me to tell you.
You don’t understand! There is no such rô le in a community. The
community is established that there should be no such rô les. In a
community, such a rô le is essentially transformed and what is stupid
here is sensible there, what, under present conditions, is unnatural
becomes perfectly natural in the community. It all depends on the
environment. It’s all the environment and man himself is nothing. And I
am on good terms with Sofya Semyonovna to this day, which is a proof
that she never regarded me as having wronged her. I am trying now to
attract her to the community, but on quite, quite a different footing.
What are you laughing at? We are trying to establish a community of
our own, a special one, on a broader basis. We have gone further in our
convictions. We reject more! And meanwhile I’m still developing Sofya
Semyonovna. She has a beautiful, beautiful character!”
“And you take advantage of her ine character, eh? He-he!”
“No, no! Oh, no! On the contrary.”
“Oh, on the contrary! He-he-he! A queer thing to say!”
“Believe me! Why should I disguise it? In fact, I feel it strange myself
how timid, chaste and modern she is with me!”
“And you, of course, are developing her... he-he! trying to prove to her
that all that modesty is nonsense?”
“Not at all, not at all! How coarsely, how stupidly—excuse me saying
so—you misunderstand the word development! Good heavens, how...
crude you still are! We are striving for the freedom of women and you
have only one idea in your head.... Setting aside the general question of
chastity and feminine modesty as useless in themselves and indeed
prejudices, I fully accept her chastity with me, because that’s for her to
decide. Of course if she were to tell me herself that she wanted me, I
should think myself very lucky, because I like the girl very much; but as
it is, no one has ever treated her more courteously than I, with more
respect for her dignity... I wait in hopes, that’s all!”
“You had much better make her a present of something. I bet you
never thought of that.”
“You don’t understand, as I’ve told you already! Of course, she is in
such a position, but it’s another question. Quite another question! You
simply despise her. Seeing a fact which you mistakenly consider
deserving of contempt, you refuse to take a humane view of a fellow
creature. You don’t know what a character she is! I am only sorry that of
late she has quite given up reading and borrowing books. I used to lend
them to her. I am sorry, too, that with all the energy and resolution in
protesting—which she has already shown once—she has little self-
reliance, little, so to say, independence, so as to break free from certain
prejudices and certain foolish ideas. Yet she thoroughly understands
some questions, for instance about kissing of hands, that is, that it’s an
insult to a woman for a man to kiss her hand, because it’s a sign of
inequality. We had a debate about it and I described it to her. She
listened attentively to an account of the workmen’s associations in
France, too. Now I am explaining the question of coming into the room
in the future society.”
“And what’s that, pray?”
“We had a debate lately on the question: Has a member of the
community the right to enter another member’s room, whether man or
woman, at any time... and we decided that he has!”
“It might be at an inconvenient moment, he-he!”
Lebeziatnikov was really angry.
“You are always thinking of something unpleasant,” he cried with
aversion. “Tfoo! How vexed I am that when I was expounding our
system, I referred prematurely to the question of personal privacy! It’s
always a stumbling-block to people like you, they turn it into ridicule
before they understand it. And how proud they are of it, too! Tfoo! I’ve
often maintained that that question should not be approached by a
novice till he has a irm faith in the system. And tell me, please, what do
you ind so shameful even in cesspools? I should be the irst to be ready
to clean out any cesspool you like. And it’s not a question of self-
sacri ice, it’s simply work, honourable, useful work which is as good as
any other and much better than the work of a Raphael and a Pushkin,
because it is more useful.”
“And more honourable, more honourable, he-he-he!”
“What do you mean by ‘more honourable’? I don’t understand such
expressions to describe human activity. ‘More honourable,’ ‘nobler’—all
those are old-fashioned prejudices which I reject. Everything which is
of use to mankind is honourable. I only understand one word: useful!
You can snigger as much as you like, but that’s so!”
Pyotr Petrovitch laughed heartily. He had inished counting the
money and was putting it away. But some of the notes he left on the
table. The “cesspool question” had already been a subject of dispute
between them. What was absurd was that it made Lebeziatnikov really
angry, while it amused Luzhin and at that moment he particularly
wanted to anger his young friend.
“It’s your ill-luck yesterday that makes you so ill-humoured and
annoying,” blurted out Lebeziatnikov, who in spite of his
“independence” and his “protests” did not venture to oppose Pyotr
Petrovitch and still behaved to him with some of the respect habitual in
earlier years.
“You’d better tell me this,” Pyotr Petrovitch interrupted with haughty
displeasure, “can you... or rather are you really friendly enough with
that young person to ask her to step in here for a minute? I think
they’ve all come back from the cemetery... I heard the sound of steps... I
want to see her, that young person.”
“What for?” Lebeziatnikov asked with surprise.
“Oh, I want to. I am leaving here to-day or to-morrow and therefore I
wanted to speak to her about... However, you may be present during the
interview. It’s better you should be, indeed. For there’s no knowing
what you might imagine.”
“I shan’t imagine anything. I only asked and, if you’ve anything to say
to her, nothing is easier than to call her in. I’ll go directly and you may
be sure I won’t be in your way.”
Five minutes later Lebeziatnikov came in with Sonia. She came in
very much surprised and overcome with shyness as usual. She was
always shy in such circumstances and was always afraid of new people,
she had been as a child and was even more so now.... Pyotr Petrovitch
met her “politely and affably,” but with a certain shade of bantering
familiarity which in his opinion was suitable for a man of his
respectability and weight in dealing with a creature so young and so
interesting as she. He hastened to “reassure” her and made her sit down
facing him at the table. Sonia sat down, looked about her—at
Lebeziatnikov, at the notes lying on the table and then again at Pyotr
Petrovitch and her eyes remained riveted on him. Lebeziatnikov was
moving to the door. Pyotr Petrovitch signed to Sonia to remain seated
and stopped Lebeziatnikov.
“Is Raskolnikov in there? Has he come?” he asked him in a whisper.
“Raskolnikov? Yes. Why? Yes, he is there. I saw him just come in....
Why?”
“Well, I particularly beg you to remain here with us and not to leave
me alone with this... young woman. I only want a few words with her,
but God knows what they may make of it. I shouldn’t like Raskolnikov to
repeat anything.... You understand what I mean?”
“I understand!” Lebeziatnikov saw the point. “Yes, you are right.... Of
course, I am convinced personally that you have no reason to be uneasy,
but... still, you are right. Certainly I’ll stay. I’ll stand here at the window
and not be in your way... I think you are right...”
Pyotr Petrovitch returned to the sofa, sat down opposite Sonia,
looked attentively at her and assumed an extremely digni ied, even
severe expression, as much as to say, “don’t you make any mistake,
madam.” Sonia was overwhelmed with embarrassment.
“In the irst place, Sofya Semyonovna, will you make my excuses to
your respected mamma.... That’s right, isn’t it? Katerina Ivanovna
stands in the place of a mother to you?” Pyotr Petrovitch began with
great dignity, though affably.
It was evident that his intentions were friendly.
“Quite so, yes; the place of a mother,” Sonia answered, timidly and
hurriedly.
“Then will you make my apologies to her? Through inevitable
circumstances I am forced to be absent and shall not be at the dinner in
spite of your mamma’s kind invitation.”
“Yes... I’ll tell her... at once.”
And Sonia hastily jumped up from her seat.
“Wait, that’s not all,” Pyotr Petrovitch detained her, smiling at her
simplicity and ignorance of good manners, “and you know me little, my
dear Sofya Semyonovna, if you suppose I would have ventured to
trouble a person like you for a matter of so little consequence affecting
myself only. I have another object.”
Sonia sat down hurriedly. Her eyes rested again for an instant on the
grey-and-rainbow-coloured notes that remained on the table, but she
quickly looked away and ixed her eyes on Pyotr Petrovitch. She felt it
horribly indecorous, especially for her, to look at another person’s
money. She stared at the gold eye-glass which Pyotr Petrovitch held in
his left hand and at the massive and extremely handsome ring with a
yellow stone on his middle inger. But suddenly she looked away and,
not knowing where to turn, ended by staring Pyotr Petrovitch again
straight in the face. After a pause of still greater dignity he continued.
“I chanced yesterday in passing to exchange a couple of words with
Katerina Ivanovna, poor woman. That was suf icient to enable me to
ascertain that she is in a position—preternatural, if one may so express
it.”
“Yes... preternatural...” Sonia hurriedly assented.
“Or it would be simpler and more comprehensible to say, ill.”
“Yes, simpler and more comprehen... yes, ill.”
“Quite so. So then from a feeling of humanity and so to speak
compassion, I should be glad to be of service to her in any way,
foreseeing her unfortunate position. I believe the whole of this poverty-
stricken family depends now entirely on you?”
“Allow me to ask,” Sonia rose to her feet, “did you say something to
her yesterday of the possibility of a pension? Because she told me you
had undertaken to get her one. Was that true?”
“Not in the slightest, and indeed it’s an absurdity! I merely hinted at
her obtaining temporary assistance as the widow of an of icial who had
died in the service—if only she has patronage... but apparently your late
parent had not served his full term and had not indeed been in the
service at all of late. In fact, if there could be any hope, it would be very
ephemeral, because there would be no claim for assistance in that case,
far from it.... And she is dreaming of a pension already, he-he-he!... A go-
ahead lady!”
“Yes, she is. For she is credulous and good-hearted, and she believes
everything from the goodness of her heart and... and... and she is like
that... yes... You must excuse her,” said Sonia, and again she got up to go.
“But you haven’t heard what I have to say.”
“No, I haven’t heard,” muttered Sonia.
“Then sit down.” She was terribly confused; she sat down again a
third time.
“Seeing her position with her unfortunate little ones, I should be glad,
as I have said before, so far as lies in my power, to be of service, that is,
so far as is in my power, not more. One might for instance get up a
subscription for her, or a lottery, something of the sort, such as is
always arranged in such cases by friends or even outsiders desirous of
assisting people. It was of that I intended to speak to you; it might be
done.”
“Yes, yes... God will repay you for it,” faltered Sonia, gazing intently at
Pyotr Petrovitch.
“It might be, but we will talk of it later. We might begin it to-day, we
will talk it over this evening and lay the foundation so to speak. Come to
me at seven o’clock. Mr. Lebeziatnikov, I hope, will assist us. But there is
one circumstance of which I ought to warn you beforehand and for
which I venture to trouble you, Sofya Semyonovna, to come here. In my
opinion money cannot be, indeed it’s unsafe to put it into Katerina
Ivanovna’s own hands. The dinner to-day is a proof of that. Though she
has not, so to speak, a crust of bread for to-morrow and... well, boots or
shoes, or anything; she has bought to-day Jamaica rum, and even, I
believe, Madeira and... and coffee. I saw it as I passed through. To-
morrow it will all fall upon you again, they won’t have a crust of bread.
It’s absurd, really, and so, to my thinking, a subscription ought to be
raised so that the unhappy widow should not know of the money, but
only you, for instance. Am I right?”
“I don’t know... this is only to-day, once in her life.... She was so
anxious to do honour, to celebrate the memory.... And she is very
sensible... but just as you think and I shall be very, very... they will all
be... and God will reward... and the orphans...”
Sonia burst into tears.
“Very well, then, keep it in mind; and now will you accept for the
bene it of your relation the small sum that I am able to spare, from me
personally. I am very anxious that my name should not be mentioned in
connection with it. Here... having so to speak anxieties of my own, I
cannot do more...”
And Pyotr Petrovitch held out to Sonia a ten-rouble note carefully
unfolded. Sonia took it, lushed crimson, jumped up, muttered
something and began taking leave. Pyotr Petrovitch accompanied her
ceremoniously to the door. She got out of the room at last, agitated and
distressed, and returned to Katerina Ivanovna, overwhelmed with
confusion.
 All this time Lebeziatnikov had stood at the window or walked about
the room, anxious not to interrupt the conversation; when Sonia had
gone he walked up to Pyotr Petrovitch and solemnly held out his hand.
“I heard and saw everything,” he said, laying stress on the last verb.
“That is honourable, I mean to say, it’s humane! You wanted to avoid
gratitude, I saw! And although I cannot, I confess, in principle
sympathise with private charity, for it not only fails to eradicate the evil
but even promotes it, yet I must admit that I saw your action with
pleasure—yes, yes, I like it.”
“That’s all nonsense,” muttered Pyotr Petrovitch, somewhat
disconcerted, looking carefully at Lebeziatnikov.
“No, it’s not nonsense! A man who has suffered distress and
annoyance as you did yesterday and who yet can sympathise with the
misery of others, such a man... even though he is making a social
mistake—is still deserving of respect! I did not expect it indeed of you,
Pyotr Petrovitch, especially as according to your ideas... oh, what a
drawback your ideas are to you! How distressed you are for instance by
your ill-luck yesterday,” cried the simple-hearted Lebeziatnikov, who
felt a return of affection for Pyotr Petrovitch. “And, what do you want
with marriage, with legal marriage, my dear, noble Pyotr Petrovitch?
Why do you cling to this legality of marriage? Well, you may beat me if
you like, but I am glad, positively glad it hasn’t come off, that you are
free, that you are not quite lost for humanity.... you see, I’ve spoken my
mind!”
“Because I don’t want in your free marriage to be made a fool of and
to bring up another man’s children, that’s why I want legal marriage,”
Luzhin replied in order to make some answer.
He seemed preoccupied by something.
“Children? You referred to children,” Lebeziatnikov started off like a
warhorse at the trumpet call. “Children are a social question and a
question of irst importance, I agree; but the question of children has
another solution. Some refuse to have children altogether, because they
suggest the institution of the family. We’ll speak of children later, but
now as to the question of honour, I confess that’s my weak point. That
horrid, military, Pushkin expression is unthinkable in the dictionary of
the future. What does it mean indeed? It’s nonsense, there will be no
deception in a free marriage! That is only the natural consequence of a
legal marriage, so to say, its corrective, a protest. So that indeed it’s not
humiliating... and if I ever, to suppose an absurdity, were to be legally
married, I should be positively glad of it. I should say to my wife: ‘My
dear, hitherto I have loved you, now I respect you, for you’ve shown you
can protest!’ You laugh! That’s because you are incapable of getting
away from prejudices. Confound it all! I understand now where the
unpleasantness is of being deceived in a legal marriage, but it’s simply a
despicable consequence of a despicable position in which both are
humiliated. When the deception is open, as in a free marriage, then it
does not exist, it’s unthinkable. Your wife will only prove how she
respects you by considering you incapable of opposing her happiness
and avenging yourself on her for her new husband. Damn it all! I
sometimes dream if I were to be married, pfoo! I mean if I were to
marry, legally or not, it’s just the same, I should present my wife with a
lover if she had not found one for herself. ‘My dear,’ I should say, ‘I love
you, but even more than that I desire you to respect me. See!’ Am I not
right?”
Pyotr Petrovitch sniggered as he listened, but without much
merriment. He hardly heard it indeed. He was preoccupied with
something else and even Lebeziatnikov at last noticed it. Pyotr
Petrovitch seemed excited and rubbed his hands. Lebeziatnikov
remembered all this and re lected upon it afterwards.
 CHAPTER II

It would be dif icult to explain exactly what could have originated the
idea of that senseless dinner in Katerina Ivanovna’s disordered brain.
Nearly ten of the twenty roubles, given by Raskolnikov for
Marmeladov’s funeral, were wasted upon it. Possibly Katerina Ivanovna
felt obliged to honour the memory of the deceased “suitably,” that all
the lodgers, and still more Amalia Ivanovna, might know “that he was in
no way their inferior, and perhaps very much their superior,” and that
no one had the right “to turn up his nose at him.” Perhaps the chief
element was that peculiar “poor man’s pride,” which compels many
poor people to spend their last savings on some traditional social
ceremony, simply in order to do “like other people,” and not to “be
looked down upon.” It is very probable, too, that Katerina Ivanovna
longed on this occasion, at the moment when she seemed to be
abandoned by everyone, to show those “wretched contemptible
lodgers” that she knew “how to do things, how to entertain” and that
she had been brought up “in a genteel, she might almost say aristocratic
colonel’s family” and had not been meant for sweeping loors and
washing the children’s rags at night. Even the poorest and most broken-
spirited people are sometimes liable to these paroxysms of pride and
vanity which take the form of an irresistible nervous craving. And
Katerina Ivanovna was not broken-spirited; she might have been killed
by circumstance, but her spirit could not have been broken, that is, she
could not have been intimidated, her will could not be crushed.
Moreover Sonia had said with good reason that her mind was unhinged.
She could not be said to be insane, but for a year past she had been so
harassed that her mind might well be overstrained. The later stages of
consumption are apt, doctors tell us, to affect the intellect.
There was no great variety of wines, nor was there Madeira; but wine
there was. There was vodka, rum and Lisbon wine, all of the poorest
quality but in suf icient quantity. Besides the traditional rice and honey,
there were three or four dishes, one of which consisted of pancakes, all
prepared in Amalia Ivanovna’s kitchen. Two samovars were boiling,
that tea and punch might be offered after dinner. Katerina Ivanovna had
herself seen to purchasing the provisions, with the help of one of the
lodgers, an unfortunate little Pole who had somehow been stranded at
Madame Lippevechsel’s. He promptly put himself at Katerina
Ivanovna’s disposal and had been all that morning and all the day
before running about as fast as his legs could carry him, and very
anxious that everyone should be aware of it. For every tri le he ran to
Katerina Ivanovna, even hunting her out at the bazaar, at every instant
called her “Pani.” She was heartily sick of him before the end, though
she had declared at irst that she could not have got on without this
“serviceable and magnanimous man.” It was one of Katerina Ivanovna’s
characteristics to paint everyone she met in the most glowing colours.
Her praises were so exaggerated as sometimes to be embarrassing; she
would invent various circumstances to the credit of her new
acquaintance and quite genuinely believe in their reality. Then all of a
sudden she would be disillusioned and would rudely and
contemptuously repulse the person she had only a few hours before
been literally adoring. She was naturally of a gay, lively and peace-
loving disposition, but from continual failures and misfortunes she had
come to desire so keenly that all should live in peace and joy and should
not dare to break the peace, that the slightest jar, the smallest disaster
reduced her almost to frenzy, and she would pass in an instant from the
brightest hopes and fancies to cursing her fate and raving, and knocking
her head against the wall.
Amalia Ivanovna, too, suddenly acquired extraordinary importance
in Katerina Ivanovna’s eyes and was treated by her with extraordinary
respect, probably only because Amalia Ivanovna had thrown herself
heart and soul into the preparations. She had undertaken to lay the
table, to provide the linen, crockery, etc., and to cook the dishes in her
kitchen, and Katerina Ivanovna had left it all in her hands and gone
herself to the cemetery. Everything had been well done. Even the table-
cloth was nearly clean; the crockery, knives, forks and glasses were, of
course, of all shapes and patterns, lent by different lodgers, but the
table was properly laid at the time ixed, and Amalia Ivanovna, feeling
she had done her work well, had put on a black silk dress and a cap
with new mourning ribbons and met the returning party with some
pride. This pride, though justi iable, displeased Katerina Ivanovna for
some reason: “as though the table could not have been laid except by
Amalia Ivanovna!” She disliked the cap with new ribbons, too. “Could
she be stuck up, the stupid German, because she was mistress of the
house, and had consented as a favour to help her poor lodgers! As a
favour! Fancy that! Katerina Ivanovna’s father who had been a colonel
and almost a governor had sometimes had the table set for forty
persons, and then anyone like Amalia Ivanovna, or rather Ludwigovna,
would not have been allowed into the kitchen.”
Katerina Ivanovna, however, put off expressing her feelings for the
time and contented herself with treating her coldly, though she decided
inwardly that she would certainly have to put Amalia Ivanovna down
and set her in her proper place, for goodness only knew what she was
fancying herself. Katerina Ivanovna was irritated too by the fact that
hardly any of the lodgers invited had come to the funeral, except the
Pole who had just managed to run into the cemetery, while to the
memorial dinner the poorest and most insigni icant of them had turned
up, the wretched creatures, many of them not quite sober. The older
and more respectable of them all, as if by common consent, stayed
away. Pyotr Petrovitch Luzhin, for instance, who might be said to be the
most respectable of all the lodgers, did not appear, though Katerina
Ivanovna had the evening before told all the world, that is Amalia
Ivanovna, Polenka, Sonia and the Pole, that he was the most generous,
noble-hearted man with a large property and vast connections, who
had been a friend of her irst husband’s, and a guest in her father’s
house, and that he had promised to use all his in luence to secure her a
considerable pension. It must be noted that when Katerina Ivanovna
exalted anyone’s connections and fortune, it was without any ulterior
motive, quite disinterestedly, for the mere pleasure of adding to the
consequence of the person praised. Probably “taking his cue” from
Luzhin, “that contemptible wretch Lebeziatnikov had not turned up
either. What did he fancy himself? He was only asked out of kindness
and because he was sharing the same room with Pyotr Petrovitch and
was a friend of his, so that it would have been awkward not to invite
him.”
 Among those who failed to appear were “the genteel lady and her
old-maidish daughter,” who had only been lodgers in the house for the
last fortnight, but had several times complained of the noise and uproar
in Katerina Ivanovna’s room, especially when Marmeladov had come
back drunk. Katerina Ivanovna heard this from Amalia Ivanovna who,
quarrelling with Katerina Ivanovna, and threatening to turn the whole
family out of doors, had shouted at her that they “were not worth the
foot” of the honourable lodgers whom they were disturbing. Katerina
Ivanovna determined now to invite this lady and her daughter, “whose
foot she was not worth,” and who had turned away haughtily when she
casually met them, so that they might know that “she was more noble in
her thoughts and feelings and did not harbour malice,” and might see
that she was not accustomed to her way of living. She had proposed to
make this clear to them at dinner with allusions to her late father’s
governorship, and also at the same time to hint that it was exceedingly
stupid of them to turn away on meeting her. The fat colonel-major (he
was really a discharged of icer of low rank) was also absent, but it
appeared that he had been “not himself” for the last two days. The
party consisted of the Pole, a wretched looking clerk with a spotty face
and a greasy coat, who had not a word to say for himself, and smelt
abominably, a deaf and almost blind old man who had once been in the
post of ice and who had been from immemorial ages maintained by
someone at Amalia Ivanovna’s.
A retired clerk of the commissariat department came, too; he was
drunk, had a loud and most unseemly laugh and only fancy—was
without a waistcoat! One of the visitors sat straight down to the table
without even greeting Katerina Ivanovna. Finally one person having no
suit appeared in his dressing-gown, but this was too much, and the
efforts of Amalia Ivanovna and the Pole succeeded in removing him.
The Pole brought with him, however, two other Poles who did not live
at Amalia Ivanovna’s and whom no one had seen here before. All this
irritated Katerina Ivanovna intensely. “For whom had they made all
these preparations then?” To make room for the visitors the children
had not even been laid for at the table; but the two little ones were
sitting on a bench in the furthest corner with their dinner laid on a box,
while Polenka as a big girl had to look after them, feed them, and keep
their noses wiped like well-bred children’s.
 Katerina Ivanovna, in fact, could hardly help meeting her guests with
increased dignity, and even haughtiness. She stared at some of them
with special severity, and loftily invited them to take their seats.
Rushing to the conclusion that Amalia Ivanovna must be responsible for
those who were absent, she began treating her with extreme
nonchalance, which the latter promptly observed and resented. Such a
beginning was no good omen for the end. All were seated at last.
Raskolnikov came in almost at the moment of their return from the
cemetery. Katerina Ivanovna was greatly delighted to see him, in the
irst place, because he was the one “educated visitor, and, as everyone
knew, was in two years to take a professorship in the university,” and
secondly because he immediately and respectfully apologised for
having been unable to be at the funeral. She positively pounced upon
him, and made him sit on her left hand (Amalia Ivanovna was on her
right). In spite of her continual anxiety that the dishes should be passed
round correctly and that everyone should taste them, in spite of the
agonising cough which interrupted her every minute and seemed to
have grown worse during the last few days, she hastened to pour out in
a half whisper to Raskolnikov all her suppressed feelings and her just
indignation at the failure of the dinner, interspersing her remarks with
lively and uncontrollable laughter at the expense of her visitors and
especially of her landlady.
“It’s all that cuckoo’s fault! You know whom I mean? Her, her!”
Katerina Ivanovna nodded towards the landlady. “Look at her, she’s
making round eyes, she feels that we are talking about her and can’t
understand. Pfoo, the owl! Ha-ha! (Cough-cough-cough.) And what does
she put on that cap for? (Cough-cough-cough.) Have you noticed that
she wants everyone to consider that she is patronising me and doing
me an honour by being here? I asked her like a sensible woman to
invite people, especially those who knew my late husband, and look at
the set of fools she has brought! The sweeps! Look at that one with the
spotty face. And those wretched Poles, ha-ha-ha! (Cough-cough-cough.)
Not one of them has ever poked his nose in here, I’ve never set eyes on
them. What have they come here for, I ask you? There they sit in a row.
Hey, pan!” she cried suddenly to one of them, “have you tasted the
pancakes? Take some more! Have some beer! Won’t you have some
vodka? Look, he’s jumped up and is making his bows, they must be
quite starved, poor things. Never mind, let them eat! They don’t make a
noise, anyway, though I’m really afraid for our landlady’s silver spoons...
Amalia Ivanovna!” she addressed her suddenly, almost aloud, “if your
spoons should happen to be stolen, I won’t be responsible, I warn you!
Ha-ha-ha!” She laughed turning to Raskolnikov, and again nodding
towards the landlady, in high glee at her sally. “She didn’t understand,
she didn’t understand again! Look how she sits with her mouth open!
An owl, a real owl! An owl in new ribbons, ha-ha-ha!”
Here her laugh turned again to an insufferable it of coughing that
lasted ive minutes. Drops of perspiration stood out on her forehead
and her handkerchief was stained with blood. She showed Raskolnikov
the blood in silence, and as soon as she could get her breath began
whispering to him again with extreme animation and a hectic lush on
her cheeks.
“Do you know, I gave her the most delicate instructions, so to speak,
for inviting that lady and her daughter, you understand of whom I am
speaking? It needed the utmost delicacy, the greatest nicety, but she has
managed things so that that fool, that conceited baggage, that provincial
nonentity, simply because she is the widow of a major, and has come to
try and get a pension and to fray out her skirts in the government
of ices, because at ifty she paints her face (everybody knows it)... a
creature like that did not think it to come, and has not even answered
the invitation, which the most ordinary good manners required! I can’t
understand why Pyotr Petrovitch has not come? But where’s Sonia?
Where has she gone? Ah, there she is at last! what is it, Sonia, where
have you been? It’s odd that even at your father’s funeral you should be
so unpunctual. Rodion Romanovitch, make room for her beside you.
That’s your place, Sonia... take what you like. Have some of the cold
entré e with jelly, that’s the best. They’ll bring the pancakes directly.
Have they given the children some? Polenka, have you got everything?
(Cough-cough-cough.) That’s all right. Be a good girl, Lida, and, Kolya,
don’t idget with your feet; sit like a little gentleman. What are you
saying, Sonia?”
Sonia hastened to give her Pyotr Petrovitch’s apologies, trying to
speak loud enough for everyone to hear and carefully choosing the
most respectful phrases which she attributed to Pyotr Petrovitch. She
added that Pyotr Petrovitch had particularly told her to say that, as
soon as he possibly could, he would come immediately to discuss
business alone with her and to consider what could be done for her, etc.,
etc.
Sonia knew that this would comfort Katerina Ivanovna, would latter
her and gratify her pride. She sat down beside Raskolnikov; she made
him a hurried bow, glancing curiously at him. But for the rest of the
time she seemed to avoid looking at him or speaking to him. She
seemed absent-minded, though she kept looking at Katerina Ivanovna,
trying to please her. Neither she nor Katerina Ivanovna had been able to
get mourning; Sonia was wearing dark brown, and Katerina Ivanovna
had on her only dress, a dark striped cotton one.
The message from Pyotr Petrovitch was very successful. Listening to
Sonia with dignity, Katerina Ivanovna inquired with equal dignity how
Pyotr Petrovitch was, then at once whispered almost aloud to
Raskolnikov that it certainly would have been strange for a man of
Pyotr Petrovitch’s position and standing to ind himself in such
“extraordinary company,” in spite of his devotion to her family and his
old friendship with her father.
“That’s why I am so grateful to you, Rodion Romanovitch, that you
have not disdained my hospitality, even in such surroundings,” she
added almost aloud. “But I am sure that it was only your special
affection for my poor husband that has made you keep your promise.”
Then once more with pride and dignity she scanned her visitors, and
suddenly inquired aloud across the table of the deaf man: “Wouldn’t he
have some more meat, and had he been given some wine?” The old man
made no answer and for a long while could not understand what he
was asked, though his neighbours amused themselves by poking and
shaking him. He simply gazed about him with his mouth open, which
only increased the general mirth.
“What an imbecile! Look, look! Why was he brought? But as to Pyotr
Petrovitch, I always had con idence in him,” Katerina Ivanovna
continued, “and, of course, he is not like...” with an extremely stern face
she addressed Amalia Ivanovna so sharply and loudly that the latter
was quite disconcerted, “not like your dressed up draggletails whom
my father would not have taken as cooks into his kitchen, and my late
husband would have done them honour if he had invited them in the
goodness of his heart.”
“Yes, he was fond of drink, he was fond of it, he did drink!” cried the
commissariat clerk, gulping down his twelfth glass of vodka.
“My late husband certainly had that weakness, and everyone knows
it,” Katerina Ivanovna attacked him at once, “but he was a kind and
honourable man, who loved and respected his family. The worst of it
was his good nature made him trust all sorts of disreputable people,
and he drank with fellows who were not worth the sole of his shoe.
Would you believe it, Rodion Romanovitch, they found a gingerbread
cock in his pocket; he was dead drunk, but he did not forget the
children!”
“A cock? Did you say a cock?” shouted the commissariat clerk.
Katerina Ivanovna did not vouchsafe a reply. She sighed, lost in
thought.
“No doubt you think, like everyone, that I was too severe with him,”
she went on, addressing Raskolnikov. “But that’s not so! He respected
me, he respected me very much! He was a kind-hearted man! And how
sorry I was for him sometimes! He would sit in a corner and look at me,
I used to feel so sorry for him, I used to want to be kind to him and then
would think to myself: ‘Be kind to him and he will drink again,’ it was
only by severity that you could keep him within bounds.”
“Yes, he used to get his hair pulled pretty often,” roared the
commissariat clerk again, swallowing another glass of vodka.
“Some fools would be the better for a good drubbing, as well as
having their hair pulled. I am not talking of my late husband now!”
Katerina Ivanovna snapped at him.
The lush on her cheeks grew more and more marked, her chest
heaved. In another minute she would have been ready to make a scene.
Many of the visitors were sniggering, evidently delighted. They began
poking the commissariat clerk and whispering something to him. They
were evidently trying to egg him on.
“Allow me to ask what are you alluding to,” began the clerk, “that is to
say, whose... about whom... did you say just now... But I don’t care!
That’s nonsense! Widow! I forgive you.... Pass!”
 And he took another drink of vodka.
Raskolnikov sat in silence, listening with disgust. He only ate from
politeness, just tasting the food that Katerina Ivanovna was continually
putting on his plate, to avoid hurting her feelings. He watched Sonia
intently. But Sonia became more and more anxious and distressed; she,
too, foresaw that the dinner would not end peaceably, and saw with
terror Katerina Ivanovna’s growing irritation. She knew that she, Sonia,
was the chief reason for the ‘genteel’ ladies’ contemptuous treatment of
Katerina Ivanovna’s invitation. She had heard from Amalia Ivanovna
that the mother was positively offended at the invitation and had asked
the question: “How could she let her daughter sit down beside that
young person?” Sonia had a feeling that Katerina Ivanovna had already
heard this and an insult to Sonia meant more to Katerina Ivanovna than
an insult to herself, her children, or her father, Sonia knew that Katerina
Ivanovna would not be satis ied now, “till she had shown those
draggletails that they were both...” To make matters worse someone
passed Sonia, from the other end of the table, a plate with two hearts
pierced with an arrow, cut out of black bread. Katerina Ivanovna
lushed crimson and at once said aloud across the table that the man
who sent it was “a drunken ass!”
Amalia Ivanovna was foreseeing something amiss, and at the same
time deeply wounded by Katerina Ivanovna’s haughtiness, and to
restore the good-humour of the company and raise herself in their
esteem she began, apropos of nothing, telling a story about an
acquaintance of hers “Karl from the chemist’s,” who was driving one
night in a cab, and that “the cabman wanted him to kill, and Karl very
much begged him not to kill, and wept and clasped hands, and
frightened and from fear pierced his heart.” Though Katerina Ivanovna
smiled, she observed at once that Amalia Ivanovna ought not to tell
anecdotes in Russian; the latter was still more offended, and she
retorted that her “Vater aus Berlin was a very important man, and
always went with his hands in pockets.” Katerina Ivanovna could not
restrain herself and laughed so much that Amalia Ivanovna lost
patience and could scarcely control herself.
“Listen to the owl!” Katerina Ivanovna whispered at once, her good-
humour almost restored, “she meant to say he kept his hands in his
pockets, but she said he put his hands in people’s pockets. (Cough-
cough.) And have you noticed, Rodion Romanovitch, that all these
Petersburg foreigners, the Germans especially, are all stupider than we!
Can you fancy anyone of us telling how ‘Karl from the chemist’s’
‘pierced his heart from fear’ and that the idiot, instead of punishing the
cabman, ‘clasped his hands and wept, and much begged.’ Ah, the fool!
And you know she fancies it’s very touching and does not suspect how
stupid she is! To my thinking that drunken commissariat clerk is a great
deal cleverer, anyway one can see that he has addled his brains with
drink, but you know, these foreigners are always so well behaved and
serious.... Look how she sits glaring! She is angry, ha-ha! (Cough-cough-
cough.)”
Regaining her good-humour, Katerina Ivanovna began at once telling
Raskolnikov that when she had obtained her pension, she intended to
open a school for the daughters of gentlemen in her native town T——.
This was the irst time she had spoken to him of the project, and she
launched out into the most alluring details. It suddenly appeared that
Katerina Ivanovna had in her hands the very certi icate of honour of
which Marmeladov had spoken to Raskolnikov in the tavern, when he
told him that Katerina Ivanovna, his wife, had danced the shawl dance
before the governor and other great personages on leaving school. This
certi icate of honour was obviously intended now to prove Katerina
Ivanovna’s right to open a boarding-school; but she had armed herself
with it chie ly with the object of overwhelming “those two stuck-up
draggletails” if they came to the dinner, and proving incontestably that
Katerina Ivanovna was of the most noble, “she might even say
aristocratic family, a colonel’s daughter and was far superior to certain
adventuresses who have been so much to the fore of late.” The
certi icate of honour immediately passed into the hands of the drunken
guests, and Katerina Ivanovna did not try to retain it, for it actually
contained the statement en toutes lettres, that her father was of the rank
of a major, and also a companion of an order, so that she really was
almost the daughter of a colonel.
Warming up, Katerina Ivanovna proceeded to enlarge on the peaceful
and happy life they would lead in T——, on the gymnasium teachers
whom she would engage to give lessons in her boarding-school, one a
most respectable old Frenchman, one Mangot, who had taught Katerina
Ivanovna herself in old days and was still living in T——, and would no
doubt teach in her school on moderate terms. Next she spoke of Sonia
who would go with her to T—— and help her in all her plans. At this
someone at the further end of the table gave a sudden guffaw.
Though Katerina Ivanovna tried to appear to be disdainfully unaware
of it, she raised her voice and began at once speaking with conviction of
Sonia’s undoubted ability to assist her, of “her gentleness, patience,
devotion, generosity and good education,” tapping Sonia on the cheek
and kissing her warmly twice. Sonia lushed crimson, and Katerina
Ivanovna suddenly burst into tears, immediately observing that she
was “nervous and silly, that she was too much upset, that it was time to
inish, and as the dinner was over, it was time to hand round the tea.”
At that moment, Amalia Ivanovna, deeply aggrieved at taking no part
in the conversation, and not being listened to, made one last effort, and
with secret misgivings ventured on an exceedingly deep and weighty
observation, that “in the future boarding-school she would have to pay
particular attention to die Wäsche, and that there certainly must be a
good dame to look after the linen, and secondly that the young ladies
must not novels at night read.”
Katerina Ivanovna, who certainly was upset and very tired, as well as
heartily sick of the dinner, at once cut short Amalia Ivanovna, saying
“she knew nothing about it and was talking nonsense, that it was the
business of the laundry maid, and not of the directress of a high-class
boarding-school to look after die Wäsche, and as for novel-reading, that
was simply rudeness, and she begged her to be silent.” Amalia Ivanovna
ired up and getting angry observed that she only “meant her good,” and
that “she had meant her very good,” and that “it was long since she had
paid her gold for the lodgings.”
Katerina Ivanovna at once “set her down,” saying that it was a lie to
say she wished her good, because only yesterday when her dead
husband was lying on the table, she had worried her about the lodgings.
To this Amalia Ivanovna very appropriately observed that she had
invited those ladies, but “those ladies had not come, because those
ladies are ladies and cannot come to a lady who is not a lady.” Katerina
Ivanovna at once pointed out to her, that as she was a slut she could not
judge what made one really a lady. Amalia Ivanovna at once declared
that her “Vater aus Berlin was a very, very important man, and both
hands in pockets went, and always used to say: ‘Poof! poof!’” and she
leapt up from the table to represent her father, sticking her hands in her
pockets, puf ing her cheeks, and uttering vague sounds resembling
“poof! poof!” amid loud laughter from all the lodgers, who purposely
encouraged Amalia Ivanovna, hoping for a ight.
But this was too much for Katerina Ivanovna, and she at once
declared, so that all could hear, that Amalia Ivanovna probably never
had a father, but was simply a drunken Petersburg Finn, and had
certainly once been a cook and probably something worse. Amalia
Ivanovna turned as red as a lobster and squealed that perhaps Katerina
Ivanovna never had a father, “but she had a Vater aus Berlin and that he
wore a long coat and always said poof-poof-poof!”
Katerina Ivanovna observed contemptuously that all knew what her
family was and that on that very certi icate of honour it was stated in
print that her father was a colonel, while Amalia Ivanovna’s father—if
she really had one—was probably some Finnish milkman, but that
probably she never had a father at all, since it was still uncertain
whether her name was Amalia Ivanovna or Amalia Ludwigovna.
At this Amalia Ivanovna, lashed to fury, struck the table with her ist,
and shrieked that she was Amalia Ivanovna, and not Ludwigovna, “that
her Vater was named Johann and that he was a burgomeister, and that
Katerina Ivanovna’s Vater was quite never a burgomeister.” Katerina
Ivanovna rose from her chair, and with a stern and apparently calm
voice (though she was pale and her chest was heaving) observed that “if
she dared for one moment to set her contemptible wretch of a father on
a level with her papa, she, Katerina Ivanovna, would tear her cap off her
head and trample it under foot.” Amalia Ivanovna ran about the room,
shouting at the top of her voice, that she was mistress of the house and
that Katerina Ivanovna should leave the lodgings that minute; then she
rushed for some reason to collect the silver spoons from the table.
There was a great outcry and uproar, the children began crying. Sonia
ran to restrain Katerina Ivanovna, but when Amalia Ivanovna shouted
something about “the yellow ticket,” Katerina Ivanovna pushed Sonia
away, and rushed at the landlady to carry out her threat.
 At that minute the door opened, and Pyotr Petrovitch Luzhin
appeared on the threshold. He stood scanning the party with severe
and vigilant eyes. Katerina Ivanovna rushed to him.
 CHAPTER III

“Pyotr Petrovitch,” she cried, “protect me... you at least! Make this
foolish woman understand that she can’t behave like this to a lady in
misfortune... that there is a law for such things.... I’ll go to the governor-
general himself.... She shall answer for it.... Remembering my father’s
hospitality protect these orphans.”
“Allow me, madam.... Allow me.” Pyotr Petrovitch waved her off. “Your
papa as you are well aware I had not the honour of knowing” (someone
laughed aloud) “and I do not intend to take part in your everlasting
squabbles with Amalia Ivanovna.... I have come here to speak of my own
affairs... and I want to have a word with your stepdaughter, Sofya...
Ivanovna, I think it is? Allow me to pass.”
Pyotr Petrovitch, edging by her, went to the opposite corner where
Sonia was.
Katerina Ivanovna remained standing where she was, as though
thunderstruck. She could not understand how Pyotr Petrovitch could
deny having enjoyed her father’s hospitality. Though she had invented it
herself, she believed in it irmly by this time. She was struck too by the
businesslike, dry and even contemptuous menacing tone of Pyotr
Petrovitch. All the clamour gradually died away at his entrance. Not
only was this “serious business man” strikingly incongruous with the
rest of the party, but it was evident, too, that he had come upon some
matter of consequence, that some exceptional cause must have brought
him and that therefore something was going to happen. Raskolnikov,
standing beside Sonia, moved aside to let him pass; Pyotr Petrovitch did
not seem to notice him. A minute later Lebeziatnikov, too, appeared in
the doorway; he did not come in, but stood still, listening with marked
interest, almost wonder, and seemed for a time perplexed.
 “Excuse me for possibly interrupting you, but it’s a matter of some
importance,” Pyotr Petrovitch observed, addressing the company
generally. “I am glad indeed to ind other persons present. Amalia
Ivanovna, I humbly beg you as mistress of the house to pay careful
attention to what I have to say to Sofya Ivanovna. Sofya Ivanovna,” he
went on, addressing Sonia, who was very much surprised and already
alarmed, “immediately after your visit I found that a hundred-rouble
note was missing from my table, in the room of my friend Mr.
Lebeziatnikov. If in any way whatever you know and will tell us where it
is now, I assure you on my word of honour and call all present to
witness that the matter shall end there. In the opposite case I shall be
compelled to have recourse to very serious measures and then... you
must blame yourself.”
Complete silence reigned in the room. Even the crying children were
still. Sonia stood deadly pale, staring at Luzhin and unable to say a
word. She seemed not to understand. Some seconds passed.
“Well, how is it to be then?” asked Luzhin, looking intently at her.
“I don’t know.... I know nothing about it,” Sonia articulated faintly at
last.
“No, you know nothing?” Luzhin repeated and again he paused for
some seconds. “Think a moment, mademoiselle,” he began severely, but
still, as it were, admonishing her. “Re lect, I am prepared to give you
time for consideration. Kindly observe this: if I were not so entirely
convinced I should not, you may be sure, with my experience venture to
accuse you so directly. Seeing that for such direct accusation before
witnesses, if false or even mistaken, I should myself in a certain sense
be made responsible, I am aware of that. This morning I changed for my
own purposes several ive-per-cent securities for the sum of
approximately three thousand roubles. The account is noted down in
my pocket-book. On my return home I proceeded to count the money—
as Mr. Lebeziatnikov will bear witness—and after counting two
thousand three hundred roubles I put the rest in my pocket-book in my
coat pocket. About ive hundred roubles remained on the table and
among them three notes of a hundred roubles each. At that moment
you entered (at my invitation)—and all the time you were present you
were exceedingly embarrassed; so that three times you jumped up in
the middle of the conversation and tried to make off. Mr. Lebeziatnikov
can bear witness to this. You yourself, mademoiselle, probably will not
refuse to con irm my statement that I invited you through Mr.
Lebeziatnikov, solely in order to discuss with you the hopeless and
destitute position of your relative, Katerina Ivanovna (whose dinner I
was unable to attend), and the advisability of getting up something of
the nature of a subscription, lottery or the like, for her bene it. You
thanked me and even shed tears. I describe all this as it took place,
primarily to recall it to your mind and secondly to show you that not
the slightest detail has escaped my recollection. Then I took a ten-
rouble note from the table and handed it to you by way of irst
instalment on my part for the bene it of your relative. Mr. Lebeziatnikov
saw all this. Then I accompanied you to the door—you being still in the
same state of embarrassment—after which, being left alone with Mr.
Lebeziatnikov I talked to him for ten minutes—then Mr. Lebeziatnikov
went out and I returned to the table with the money lying on it,
intending to count it and to put it aside, as I proposed doing before. To
my surprise one hundred-rouble note had disappeared. Kindly consider
the position. Mr. Lebeziatnikov I cannot suspect. I am ashamed to allude
to such a supposition. I cannot have made a mistake in my reckoning,
for the minute before your entrance I had inished my accounts and
found the total correct. You will admit that recollecting your
embarrassment, your eagerness to get away and the fact that you kept
your hands for some time on the table, and taking into consideration
your social position and the habits associated with it, I was, so to say,
with horror and positively against my will, compelled to entertain a
suspicion—a cruel, but justi iable suspicion! I will add further and
repeat that in spite of my positive conviction, I realise that I run a
certain risk in making this accusation, but as you see, I could not let it
pass. I have taken action and I will tell you why: solely, madam, solely,
owing to your black ingratitude! Why! I invite you for the bene it of
your destitute relative, I present you with my donation of ten roubles
and you, on the spot, repay me for all that with such an action. It is too
bad! You need a lesson. Re lect! Moreover, like a true friend I beg you—
and you could have no better friend at this moment—think what you
are doing, otherwise I shall be immovable! Well, what do you say?”
 “I have taken nothing,” Sonia whispered in terror, “you gave me ten
roubles, here it is, take it.”
Sonia pulled her handkerchief out of her pocket, untied a corner of it,
took out the ten-rouble note and gave it to Luzhin.
“And the hundred roubles you do not confess to taking?” he insisted
reproachfully, not taking the note.
Sonia looked about her. All were looking at her with such awful,
stern, ironical, hostile eyes. She looked at Raskolnikov... he stood against
the wall, with his arms crossed, looking at her with glowing eyes.
“Good God!” broke from Sonia.
“Amalia Ivanovna, we shall have to send word to the police and
therefore I humbly beg you meanwhile to send for the house porter,”
Luzhin said softly and even kindly.
“Gott der Barmherzige! I knew she was the thief,” cried Amalia
Ivanovna, throwing up her hands.
“You knew it?” Luzhin caught her up, “then I suppose you had some
reason before this for thinking so. I beg you, worthy Amalia Ivanovna, to
remember your words which have been uttered before witnesses.”
There was a buzz of loud conversation on all sides. All were in
movement.
“What!” cried Katerina Ivanovna, suddenly realising the position, and
she rushed at Luzhin. “What! You accuse her of stealing? Sonia? Ah, the
wretches, the wretches!”
And running to Sonia she lung her wasted arms round her and held
her as in a vise.
“Sonia! how dared you take ten roubles from him? Foolish girl! Give it
to me! Give me the ten roubles at once—here!”
And snatching the note from Sonia, Katerina Ivanovna crumpled it up
and lung it straight into Luzhin’s face. It hit him in the eye and fell on
the ground. Amalia Ivanovna hastened to pick it up. Pyotr Petrovitch
lost his temper.
“Hold that mad woman!” he shouted.
At that moment several other persons, besides Lebeziatnikov,
appeared in the doorway, among them the two ladies.
 “What! Mad? Am I mad? Idiot!” shrieked Katerina Ivanovna. “You are
an idiot yourself, pettifogging lawyer, base man! Sonia, Sonia take his
money! Sonia a thief! Why, she’d give away her last penny!” and
Katerina Ivanovna broke into hysterical laughter. “Did you ever see such
an idiot?” she turned from side to side. “And you too?” she suddenly saw
the landlady, “and you too, sausage eater, you declare that she is a thief,
you trashy Prussian hen’s leg in a crinoline! She hasn’t been out of this
room: she came straight from you, you wretch, and sat down beside me,
everyone saw her. She sat here, by Rodion Romanovitch. Search her!
Since she’s not left the room, the money would have to be on her!
Search her, search her! But if you don’t ind it, then excuse me, my dear
fellow, you’ll answer for it! I’ll go to our Sovereign, to our Sovereign, to
our gracious Tsar himself, and throw myself at his feet, to-day, this
minute! I am alone in the world! They would let me in! Do you think
they wouldn’t? You’re wrong, I will get in! I will get in! You reckoned on
her meekness! You relied upon that! But I am not so submissive, let me
tell you! You’ve gone too far yourself. Search her, search her!”
And Katerina Ivanovna in a frenzy shook Luzhin and dragged him
towards Sonia.
“I am ready, I’ll be responsible... but calm yourself, madam, calm
yourself. I see that you are not so submissive!... Well, well, but as to
that...” Luzhin muttered, “that ought to be before the police... though
indeed there are witnesses enough as it is.... I am ready.... But in any
case it’s dif icult for a man... on account of her sex.... But with the help of
Amalia Ivanovna... though, of course, it’s not the way to do things.... How
is it to be done?”
“As you will! Let anyone who likes search her!” cried Katerina
Ivanovna. “Sonia, turn out your pockets! See! Look, monster, the pocket
is empty, here was her handkerchief! Here is the other pocket, look!
D’you see, d’you see?”
And Katerina Ivanovna turned—or rather snatched—both pockets
inside out. But from the right pocket a piece of paper lew out and
describing a parabola in the air fell at Luzhin’s feet. Everyone saw it,
several cried out. Pyotr Petrovitch stooped down, picked up the paper
in two ingers, lifted it where all could see it and opened it. It was a
hundred-rouble note folded in eight. Pyotr Petrovitch held up the note
showing it to everyone.
“Thief! Out of my lodging. Police, police!” yelled Amalia Ivanovna.
“They must to Siberia be sent! Away!”
Exclamations arose on all sides. Raskolnikov was silent, keeping his
eyes ixed on Sonia, except for an occasional rapid glance at Luzhin.
Sonia stood still, as though unconscious. She was hardly able to feel
surprise. Suddenly the colour rushed to her cheeks; she uttered a cry
and hid her face in her hands.
“No, it wasn’t I! I didn’t take it! I know nothing about it,” she cried
with a heartrending wail, and she ran to Katerina Ivanovna, who
clasped her tightly in her arms, as though she would shelter her from
all the world.
“Sonia! Sonia! I don’t believe it! You see, I don’t believe it!” she cried
in the face of the obvious fact, swaying her to and fro in her arms like a
baby, kissing her face continually, then snatching at her hands and
kissing them, too, “you took it! How stupid these people are! Oh dear!
You are fools, fools,” she cried, addressing the whole room, “you don’t
know, you don’t know what a heart she has, what a girl she is! She take
it, she? She’d sell her last rag, she’d go barefoot to help you if you
needed it, that’s what she is! She has the yellow passport because my
children were starving, she sold herself for us! Ah, husband, husband!
Do you see? Do you see? What a memorial dinner for you! Merciful
heavens! Defend her, why are you all standing still? Rodion
Romanovitch, why don’t you stand up for her? Do you believe it, too?
You are not worth her little inger, all of you together! Good God! Defend
her now, at least!”
The wail of the poor, consumptive, helpless woman seemed to
produce a great effect on her audience. The agonised, wasted,
consumptive face, the parched blood-stained lips, the hoarse voice, the
tears unrestrained as a child’s, the trustful, childish and yet despairing
prayer for help were so piteous that everyone seemed to feel for her.
Pyotr Petrovitch at any rate was at once moved to compassion.
“Madam, madam, this incident does not re lect upon you!” he cried
impressively, “no one would take upon himself to accuse you of being
an instigator or even an accomplice in it, especially as you have proved
her guilt by turning out her pockets, showing that you had no previous
idea of it. I am most ready, most ready to show compassion, if poverty,
so to speak, drove Sofya Semyonovna to it, but why did you refuse to
confess, mademoiselle? Were you afraid of the disgrace? The irst step?
You lost your head, perhaps? One can quite understand it.... But how
could you have lowered yourself to such an action? Gentlemen,” he
addressed the whole company, “gentlemen! Compassionate and, so to
say, commiserating these people, I am ready to overlook it even now in
spite of the personal insult lavished upon me! And may this disgrace be
a lesson to you for the future,” he said, addressing Sonia, “and I will
carry the matter no further. Enough!”
Pyotr Petrovitch stole a glance at Raskolnikov. Their eyes met, and
the ire in Raskolnikov’s seemed ready to reduce him to ashes.
Meanwhile Katerina Ivanovna apparently heard nothing. She was
kissing and hugging Sonia like a madwoman. The children, too, were
embracing Sonia on all sides, and Polenka—though she did not fully
understand what was wrong—was drowned in tears and shaking with
sobs, as she hid her pretty little face, swollen with weeping, on Sonia’s
shoulder.
“How vile!” a loud voice cried suddenly in the doorway.
Pyotr Petrovitch looked round quickly.
“What vileness!” Lebeziatnikov repeated, staring him straight in the
face.
Pyotr Petrovitch gave a positive start—all noticed it and recalled it
afterwards. Lebeziatnikov strode into the room.
“And you dared to call me as witness?” he said, going up to Pyotr
Petrovitch.
“What do you mean? What are you talking about?” muttered Luzhin.
“I mean that you... are a slanderer, that’s what my words mean!”
Lebeziatnikov said hotly, looking sternly at him with his short-sighted
eyes.
He was extremely angry. Raskolnikov gazed intently at him, as though
seizing and weighing each word. Again there was a silence. Pyotr
Petrovitch indeed seemed almost dumbfounded for the irst moment.
 “If you mean that for me,...” he began, stammering. “But what’s the
matter with you? Are you out of your mind?”
“I’m in my mind, but you are a scoundrel! Ah, how vile! I have heard
everything. I kept waiting on purpose to understand it, for I must own
even now it is not quite logical.... What you have done it all for I can’t
understand.”
“Why, what have I done then? Give over talking in your nonsensical
riddles! Or maybe you are drunk!”
“You may be a drunkard, perhaps, vile man, but I am not! I never
touch vodka, for it’s against my convictions. Would you believe it, he, he
himself, with his own hands gave Sofya Semyonovna that hundred-
rouble note—I saw it, I was a witness, I’ll take my oath! He did it, he!”
repeated Lebeziatnikov, addressing all.
“Are you crazy, milksop?” squealed Luzhin. “She is herself before you
—she herself here declared just now before everyone that I gave her
only ten roubles. How could I have given it to her?”
“I saw it, I saw it,” Lebeziatnikov repeated, “and though it is against
my principles, I am ready this very minute to take any oath you like
before the court, for I saw how you slipped it in her pocket. Only like a
fool I thought you did it out of kindness! When you were saying good-
bye to her at the door, while you held her hand in one hand, with the
other, the left, you slipped the note into her pocket. I saw it, I saw it!”
Luzhin turned pale.
“What lies!” he cried impudently, “why, how could you, standing by
the window, see the note? You fancied it with your short-sighted eyes.
You are raving!”
“No, I didn’t fancy it. And though I was standing some way off, I saw it
all. And though it certainly would be hard to distinguish a note from the
window—that’s true—I knew for certain that it was a hundred-rouble
note, because, when you were going to give Sofya Semyonovna ten
roubles, you took up from the table a hundred-rouble note (I saw it
because I was standing near then, and an idea struck me at once, so that
I did not forget you had it in your hand). You folded it and kept it in
your hand all the time. I didn’t think of it again until, when you were
getting up, you changed it from your right hand to your left and nearly
dropped it! I noticed it because the same idea struck me again, that you
meant to do her a kindness without my seeing. You can fancy how I
watched you and I saw how you succeeded in slipping it into her
pocket. I saw it, I saw it, I’ll take my oath.”
Lebeziatnikov was almost breathless. Exclamations arose on all
hands chie ly expressive of wonder, but some were menacing in tone.
They all crowded round Pyotr Petrovitch. Katerina Ivanovna lew to
Lebeziatnikov.
“I was mistaken in you! Protect her! You are the only one to take her
part! She is an orphan. God has sent you!”
Katerina Ivanovna, hardly knowing what she was doing, sank on her
knees before him.
“A pack of nonsense!” yelled Luzhin, roused to fury, “it’s all nonsense
you’ve been talking! ‘An idea struck you, you didn’t think, you
noticed’—what does it amount to? So I gave it to her on the sly on
purpose? What for? With what object? What have I to do with this...?”
“What for? That’s what I can’t understand, but that what I am telling
you is the fact, that’s certain! So far from my being mistaken, you
infamous criminal man, I remember how, on account of it, a question
occurred to me at once, just when I was thanking you and pressing your
hand. What made you put it secretly in her pocket? Why you did it
secretly, I mean? Could it be simply to conceal it from me, knowing that
my convictions are opposed to yours and that I do not approve of
private benevolence, which effects no radical cure? Well, I decided that
you really were ashamed of giving such a large sum before me. Perhaps,
too, I thought, he wants to give her a surprise, when she inds a whole
hundred-rouble note in her pocket. (For I know, some benevolent
people are very fond of decking out their charitable actions in that
way.) Then the idea struck me, too, that you wanted to test her, to see
whether, when she found it, she would come to thank you. Then, too,
that you wanted to avoid thanks and that, as the saying is, your right
hand should not know... something of that sort, in fact. I thought of so
many possibilities that I put off considering it, but still thought it
indelicate to show you that I knew your secret. But another idea struck
me again that Sofya Semyonovna might easily lose the money before
she noticed it, that was why I decided to come in here to call her out of
the room and to tell her that you put a hundred roubles in her pocket.
But on my way I went irst to Madame Kobilatnikov’s to take them the
‘General Treatise on the Positive Method’ and especially to recommend
Piderit’s article (and also Wagner’s); then I come on here and what a
state of things I ind! Now could I, could I, have all these ideas and
re lections if I had not seen you put the hundred-rouble note in her
pocket?”
When Lebeziatnikov inished his long-winded harangue with the
logical deduction at the end, he was quite tired, and the perspiration
streamed from his face. He could not, alas, even express himself
correctly in Russian, though he knew no other language, so that he was
quite exhausted, almost emaciated after this heroic exploit. But his
speech produced a powerful effect. He had spoken with such
vehemence, with such conviction that everyone obviously believed him.
Pyotr Petrovitch felt that things were going badly with him.
“What is it to do with me if silly ideas did occur to you?” he shouted,
“that’s no evidence. You may have dreamt it, that’s all! And I tell you,
you are lying, sir. You are lying and slandering from some spite against
me, simply from pique, because I did not agree with your free-thinking,
godless, social propositions!”
But this retort did not bene it Pyotr Petrovitch. Murmurs of
disapproval were heard on all sides.
“Ah, that’s your line now, is it!” cried Lebeziatnikov, “that’s nonsense!
Call the police and I’ll take my oath! There’s only one thing I can’t
understand: what made him risk such a contemptible action. Oh, pitiful,
despicable man!”
“I can explain why he risked such an action, and if necessary, I, too,
will swear to it,” Raskolnikov said at last in a irm voice, and he stepped
forward.
He appeared to be irm and composed. Everyone felt clearly, from the
very look of him that he really knew about it and that the mystery
would be solved.
“Now I can explain it all to myself,” said Raskolnikov, addressing
Lebeziatnikov. “From the very beginning of the business, I suspected
that there was some scoundrelly intrigue at the bottom of it. I began to
suspect it from some special circumstances known to me only, which I
will explain at once to everyone: they account for everything. Your
valuable evidence has inally made everything clear to me. I beg all, all
to listen. This gentleman (he pointed to Luzhin) was recently engaged
to be married to a young lady—my sister, Avdotya Romanovna
Raskolnikov. But coming to Petersburg he quarrelled with me, the day
before yesterday, at our irst meeting and I drove him out of my room—
I have two witnesses to prove it. He is a very spiteful man.... The day
before yesterday I did not know that he was staying here, in your room,
and that consequently on the very day we quarrelled—the day before
yesterday—he saw me give Katerina Ivanovna some money for the
funeral, as a friend of the late Mr. Marmeladov. He at once wrote a note
to my mother and informed her that I had given away all my money, not
to Katerina Ivanovna but to Sofya Semyonovna, and referred in a most
contemptible way to the... character of Sofya Semyonovna, that is,
hinted at the character of my attitude to Sofya Semyonovna. All this you
understand was with the object of dividing me from my mother and
sister, by insinuating that I was squandering on unworthy objects the
money which they had sent me and which was all they had. Yesterday
evening, before my mother and sister and in his presence, I declared
that I had given the money to Katerina Ivanovna for the funeral and not
to Sofya Semyonovna and that I had no acquaintance with Sofya
Semyonovna and had never seen her before, indeed. At the same time I
added that he, Pyotr Petrovitch Luzhin, with all his virtues, was not
worth Sofya Semyonovna’s little inger, though he spoke so ill of her. To
his question—would I let Sofya Semyonovna sit down beside my sister,
I answered that I had already done so that day. Irritated that my mother
and sister were unwilling to quarrel with me at his insinuations, he
gradually began being unpardonably rude to them. A inal rupture took
place and he was turned out of the house. All this happened yesterday
evening. Now I beg your special attention: consider: if he had now
succeeded in proving that Sofya Semyonovna was a thief, he would have
shown to my mother and sister that he was almost right in his
suspicions, that he had reason to be angry at my putting my sister on a
level with Sofya Semyonovna, that, in attacking me, he was protecting
and preserving the honour of my sister, his betrothed. In fact he might
even, through all this, have been able to estrange me from my family,
and no doubt he hoped to be restored to favour with them; to say
nothing of revenging himself on me personally, for he has grounds for
supposing that the honour and happiness of Sofya Semyonovna are
very precious to me. That was what he was working for! That’s how I
understand it. That’s the whole reason for it and there can be no other!”
It was like this, or somewhat like this, that Raskolnikov wound up his
speech which was followed very attentively, though often interrupted
by exclamations from his audience. But in spite of interruptions he
spoke clearly, calmly, exactly, irmly. His decisive voice, his tone of
conviction and his stern face made a great impression on everyone.
“Yes, yes, that’s it,” Lebeziatnikov assented gleefully, “that must be it,
for he asked me, as soon as Sofya Semyonovna came into our room,
whether you were here, whether I had seen you among Katerina
Ivanovna’s guests. He called me aside to the window and asked me in
secret. It was essential for him that you should be here! That’s it, that’s
it!”
Luzhin smiled contemptuously and did not speak. But he was very
pale. He seemed to be deliberating on some means of escape. Perhaps
he would have been glad to give up everything and get away, but at the
moment this was scarcely possible. It would have implied admitting the
truth of the accusations brought against him. Moreover, the company,
which had already been excited by drink, was now too much stirred to
allow it. The commissariat clerk, though indeed he had not grasped the
whole position, was shouting louder than anyone and was making some
suggestions very unpleasant to Luzhin. But not all those present were
drunk; lodgers came in from all the rooms. The three Poles were
tremendously excited and were continually shouting at him: “The pan is
a lajdak!” and muttering threats in Polish. Sonia had been listening with
strained attention, though she too seemed unable to grasp it all; she
seemed as though she had just returned to consciousness. She did not
take her eyes off Raskolnikov, feeling that all her safety lay in him.
Katerina Ivanovna breathed hard and painfully and seemed fearfully
exhausted. Amalia Ivanovna stood looking more stupid than anyone,
with her mouth wide open, unable to make out what had happened. She
only saw that Pyotr Petrovitch had somehow come to grief.
Raskolnikov was attempting to speak again, but they did not let him.
Everyone was crowding round Luzhin with threats and shouts of abuse.
But Pyotr Petrovitch was not intimidated. Seeing that his accusation of
Sonia had completely failed, he had recourse to insolence:
“Allow me, gentlemen, allow me! Don’t squeeze, let me pass!” he said,
making his way through the crowd. “And no threats, if you please! I
assure you it will be useless, you will gain nothing by it. On the contrary,
you’ll have to answer, gentlemen, for violently obstructing the course of
justice. The thief has been more than unmasked, and I shall prosecute.
Our judges are not so blind and... not so drunk, and will not believe the
testimony of two notorious in idels, agitators, and atheists, who accuse
me from motives of personal revenge which they are foolish enough to
admit.... Yes, allow me to pass!”
“Don’t let me ind a trace of you in my room! Kindly leave at once, and
everything is at an end between us! When I think of the trouble I’ve
been taking, the way I’ve been expounding... all this fortnight!”
“I told you myself to-day that I was going, when you tried to keep me;
now I will simply add that you are a fool. I advise you to see a doctor for
your brains and your short sight. Let me pass, gentlemen!”
He forced his way through. But the commissariat clerk was unwilling
to let him off so easily: he picked up a glass from the table, brandished it
in the air and lung it at Pyotr Petrovitch; but the glass lew straight at
Amalia Ivanovna. She screamed, and the clerk, overbalancing, fell
heavily under the table. Pyotr Petrovitch made his way to his room and
half an hour later had left the house. Sonia, timid by nature, had felt
before that day that she could be ill-treated more easily than anyone,
and that she could be wronged with impunity. Yet till that moment she
had fancied that she might escape misfortune by care, gentleness and
submissiveness before everyone. Her disappointment was too great.
She could, of course, bear with patience and almost without murmur
anything, even this. But for the irst minute she felt it too bitter. In spite
of her triumph and her justi ication—when her irst terror and
stupefaction had passed and she could understand it all clearly—the
feeling of her helplessness and of the wrong done to her made her heart
throb with anguish and she was overcome with hysterical weeping. At
last, unable to bear any more, she rushed out of the room and ran
home, almost immediately after Luzhin’s departure. When amidst loud
laughter the glass lew at Amalia Ivanovna, it was more than the
landlady could endure. With a shriek she rushed like a fury at Katerina
Ivanovna, considering her to blame for everything.
“Out of my lodgings! At once! Quick march!”
And with these words she began snatching up everything she could
lay her hands on that belonged to Katerina Ivanovna, and throwing it
on the loor. Katerina Ivanovna, pale, almost fainting, and gasping for
breath, jumped up from the bed where she had sunk in exhaustion and
darted at Amalia Ivanovna. But the battle was too unequal: the landlady
waved her away like a feather.
“What! As though that godless calumny was not enough—this vile
creature attacks me! What! On the day of my husband’s funeral I am
turned out of my lodging! After eating my bread and salt she turns me
into the street, with my orphans! Where am I to go?” wailed the poor
woman, sobbing and gasping. “Good God!” she cried with lashing eyes,
“is there no justice upon earth? Whom should you protect if not us
orphans? We shall see! There is law and justice on earth, there is, I will
ind it! Wait a bit, godless creature! Polenka, stay with the children, I’ll
come back. Wait for me, if you have to wait in the street. We will see
whether there is justice on earth!”
And throwing over her head that green shawl which Marmeladov had
mentioned to Raskolnikov, Katerina Ivanovna squeezed her way
through the disorderly and drunken crowd of lodgers who still illed the
room, and, wailing and tearful, she ran into the street—with a vague
intention of going at once somewhere to ind justice. Polenka with the
two little ones in her arms crouched, terri ied, on the trunk in the
corner of the room, where she waited trembling for her mother to come
back. Amalia Ivanovna raged about the room, shrieking, lamenting and
throwing everything she came across on the loor. The lodgers talked
incoherently, some commented to the best of their ability on what had
happened, others quarrelled and swore at one another, while others
struck up a song....
“Now it’s time for me to go,” thought Raskolnikov. “Well, Sofya
Semyonovna, we shall see what you’ll say now!”
And he set off in the direction of Sonia’s lodgings.
 CHAPTER IV

Raskolnikov had been a vigorous and active champion of Sonia

against Luzhin, although he had such a load of horror and anguish in his
own heart. But having gone through so much in the morning, he found a
sort of relief in a change of sensations, apart from the strong personal
feeling which impelled him to defend Sonia. He was agitated too,
especially at some moments, by the thought of his approaching
interview with Sonia: he had to tell her who had killed Lizaveta. He
knew the terrible suffering it would be to him and, as it were, brushed
away the thought of it. So when he cried as he left Katerina Ivanovna’s,
“Well, Sofya Semyonovna, we shall see what you’ll say now!” he was still
super icially excited, still vigorous and de iant from his triumph over
Luzhin. But, strange to say, by the time he reached Sonia’s lodging, he
felt a sudden impotence and fear. He stood still in hesitation at the door,
asking himself the strange question: “Must he tell her who killed
Lizaveta?” It was a strange question because he felt at the very time not
only that he could not help telling her, but also that he could not put off
the telling. He did not yet know why it must be so, he only felt it, and the
agonising sense of his impotence before the inevitable almost crushed
him. To cut short his hesitation and suffering, he quickly opened the
door and looked at Sonia from the doorway. She was sitting with her
elbows on the table and her face in her hands, but seeing Raskolnikov
she got up at once and came to meet him as though she were expecting
him.
“What would have become of me but for you?” she said quickly,
meeting him in the middle of the room.
Evidently she was in haste to say this to him. It was what she had
been waiting for.
Raskolnikov went to the table and sat down on the chair from which
she had only just risen. She stood facing him, two steps away, just as she
had done the day before.
“Well, Sonia?” he said, and felt that his voice was trembling, “it was all
due to ‘your social position and the habits associated with it.’ Did you
understand that just now?”
Her face showed her distress.
“Only don’t talk to me as you did yesterday,” she interrupted him.
“Please don’t begin it. There is misery enough without that.”
She made haste to smile, afraid that he might not like the reproach.
“I was silly to come away from there. What is happening there now? I
wanted to go back directly, but I kept thinking that... you would come.”
He told her that Amalia Ivanovna was turning them out of their
lodging and that Katerina Ivanovna had run off somewhere “to seek
justice.”
“My God!” cried Sonia, “let’s go at once....”
And she snatched up her cape.
“It’s everlastingly the same thing!” said Raskolnikov, irritably. “You’ve
no thought except for them! Stay a little with me.”
“But... Katerina Ivanovna?”
“You won’t lose Katerina Ivanovna, you may be sure, she’ll come to
you herself since she has run out,” he added peevishly. “If she doesn’t
ind you here, you’ll be blamed for it....”
Sonia sat down in painful suspense. Raskolnikov was silent, gazing at
the loor and deliberating.
“This time Luzhin did not want to prosecute you,” he began, not
looking at Sonia, “but if he had wanted to, if it had suited his plans, he
would have sent you to prison if it had not been for Lebeziatnikov and
me. Ah?”
“Yes,” she assented in a faint voice. “Yes,” she repeated, preoccupied
and distressed.
“But I might easily not have been there. And it was quite an accident
Lebeziatnikov’s turning up.”
Sonia was silent.
 “And if you’d gone to prison, what then? Do you remember what I
said yesterday?”
Again she did not answer. He waited.
“I thought you would cry out again ‘don’t speak of it, leave off.’”
Raskolnikov gave a laugh, but rather a forced one. “What, silence
again?” he asked a minute later. “We must talk about something, you
know. It would be interesting for me to know how you would decide a
certain ‘problem’ as Lebeziatnikov would say.” (He was beginning to
lose the thread.) “No, really, I am serious. Imagine, Sonia, that you had
known all Luzhin’s intentions beforehand. Known, that is, for a fact, that
they would be the ruin of Katerina Ivanovna and the children and
yourself thrown in—since you don’t count yourself for anything—
Polenka too... for she’ll go the same way. Well, if suddenly it all
depended on your decision whether he or they should go on living, that
is whether Luzhin should go on living and doing wicked things, or
Katerina Ivanovna should die? How would you decide which of them
was to die? I ask you?”
Sonia looked uneasily at him. There was something peculiar in this
hesitating question, which seemed approaching something in a
roundabout way.
“I felt that you were going to ask some question like that,” she said,
looking inquisitively at him.
“I dare say you did. But how is it to be answered?”
“Why do you ask about what could not happen?” said Sonia
reluctantly.
“Then it would be better for Luzhin to go on living and doing wicked
things? You haven’t dared to decide even that!”
“But I can’t know the Divine Providence.... And why do you ask what
can’t be answered? What’s the use of such foolish questions? How could
it happen that it should depend on my decision—who has made me a
judge to decide who is to live and who is not to live?”
“Oh, if the Divine Providence is to be mixed up in it, there is no doing
anything,” Raskolnikov grumbled morosely.
“You’d better say straight out what you want!” Sonia cried in distress.
“You are leading up to something again.... Can you have come simply to
torture me?”
She could not control herself and began crying bitterly. He looked at
her in gloomy misery. Five minutes passed.
“Of course you’re right, Sonia,” he said softly at last. He was suddenly
changed. His tone of assumed arrogance and helpless de iance was
gone. Even his voice was suddenly weak. “I told you yesterday that I
was not coming to ask forgiveness and almost the irst thing I’ve said is
to ask forgiveness.... I said that about Luzhin and Providence for my
own sake. I was asking forgiveness, Sonia....”
He tried to smile, but there was something helpless and incomplete
in his pale smile. He bowed his head and hid his face in his hands.
And suddenly a strange, surprising sensation of a sort of bitter hatred
for Sonia passed through his heart. As it were wondering and
frightened of this sensation, he raised his head and looked intently at
her; but he met her uneasy and painfully anxious eyes ixed on him;
there was love in them; his hatred vanished like a phantom. It was not
the real feeling; he had taken the one feeling for the other. It only meant
that that minute had come.
He hid his face in his hands again and bowed his head. Suddenly he
turned pale, got up from his chair, looked at Sonia, and without uttering
a word sat down mechanically on her bed.
His sensations that moment were terribly like the moment when he
had stood over the old woman with the axe in his hand and felt that “he
must not lose another minute.”
“What’s the matter?” asked Sonia, dreadfully frightened.
He could not utter a word. This was not at all, not at all the way he
had intended to “tell” and he did not understand what was happening
to him now. She went up to him, softly, sat down on the bed beside him
and waited, not taking her eyes off him. Her heart throbbed and sank. It
was unendurable; he turned his deadly pale face to her. His lips worked,
helplessly struggling to utter something. A pang of terror passed
through Sonia’s heart.
“What’s the matter?” she repeated, drawing a little away from him.
“Nothing, Sonia, don’t be frightened.... It’s nonsense. It really is
nonsense, if you think of it,” he muttered, like a man in delirium. “Why
have I come to torture you?” he added suddenly, looking at her. “Why,
really? I keep asking myself that question, Sonia....”
He had perhaps been asking himself that question a quarter of an
hour before, but now he spoke helplessly, hardly knowing what he said
and feeling a continual tremor all over.
“Oh, how you are suffering!” she muttered in distress, looking
intently at him.
“It’s all nonsense.... Listen, Sonia.” He suddenly smiled, a pale helpless
smile for two seconds. “You remember what I meant to tell you
yesterday?”
Sonia waited uneasily.
“I said as I went away that perhaps I was saying good-bye for ever,
but that if I came to-day I would tell you who... who killed Lizaveta.”
She began trembling all over.
“Well, here I’ve come to tell you.”
“Then you really meant it yesterday?” she whispered with dif iculty.
“How do you know?” she asked quickly, as though suddenly regaining
her reason.
Sonia’s face grew paler and paler, and she breathed painfully.
“I know.”
She paused a minute.
“Have they found him?” she asked timidly.
“No.”
“Then how do you know about it?” she asked again, hardly audibly
and again after a minute’s pause.
He turned to her and looked very intently at her.
“Guess,” he said, with the same distorted helpless smile.
A shudder passed over her.
“But you... why do you frighten me like this?” she said, smiling like a
child.
“I must be a great friend of his... since I know,” Raskolnikov went on,
still gazing into her face, as though he could not turn his eyes away.
“He... did not mean to kill that Lizaveta... he... killed her accidentally....
He meant to kill the old woman when she was alone and he went
there... and then Lizaveta came in... he killed her too.”
Another awful moment passed. Both still gazed at one another.
“You can’t guess, then?” he asked suddenly, feeling as though he were
linging himself down from a steeple.
“N-no...” whispered Sonia.
“Take a good look.”
As soon as he had said this again, the same familiar sensation froze
his heart. He looked at her and all at once seemed to see in her face the
face of Lizaveta. He remembered clearly the expression in Lizaveta’s
face, when he approached her with the axe and she stepped back to the
wall, putting out her hand, with childish terror in her face, looking as
little children do when they begin to be frightened of something,
looking intently and uneasily at what frightens them, shrinking back
and holding out their little hands on the point of crying. Almost the
same thing happened now to Sonia. With the same helplessness and the
same terror, she looked at him for a while and, suddenly putting out her
left hand, pressed her ingers faintly against his breast and slowly
began to get up from the bed, moving further from him and keeping her
eyes ixed even more immovably on him. Her terror infected him. The
same fear showed itself on his face. In the same way he stared at her
and almost with the same childish smile.
“Have you guessed?” he whispered at last.
“Good God!” broke in an awful wail from her bosom.
She sank helplessly on the bed with her face in the pillows, but a
moment later she got up, moved quickly to him, seized both his hands
and, gripping them tight in her thin ingers, began looking into his face
again with the same intent stare. In this last desperate look she tried to
look into him and catch some last hope. But there was no hope; there
was no doubt remaining; it was all true! Later on, indeed, when she
recalled that moment, she thought it strange and wondered why she
had seen at once that there was no doubt. She could not have said, for
instance, that she had foreseen something of the sort—and yet now, as
soon as he told her, she suddenly fancied that she had really foreseen
this very thing.
 “Stop, Sonia, enough! don’t torture me,” he begged her miserably.
It was not at all, not at all like this he had thought of telling her, but
this is how it happened.
She jumped up, seeming not to know what she was doing, and,
wringing her hands, walked into the middle of the room; but quickly
went back and sat down again beside him, her shoulder almost
touching his. All of a sudden she started as though she had been
stabbed, uttered a cry and fell on her knees before him, she did not
know why.
“What have you done—what have you done to yourself?” she said in
despair, and, jumping up, she lung herself on his neck, threw her arms
round him, and held him tightly.
Raskolnikov drew back and looked at her with a mournful smile.
“You are a strange girl, Sonia—you kiss me and hug me when I tell
you about that.... You don’t think what you are doing.”
“There is no one—no one in the whole world now so unhappy as
you!” she cried in a frenzy, not hearing what he said, and she suddenly
broke into violent hysterical weeping.
A feeling long unfamiliar to him looded his heart and softened it at
once. He did not struggle against it. Two tears started into his eyes and
hung on his eyelashes.
“Then you won’t leave me, Sonia?” he said, looking at her almost with
hope.
“No, no, never, nowhere!” cried Sonia. “I will follow you, I will follow
you everywhere. Oh, my God! Oh, how miserable I am!... Why, why
didn’t I know you before! Why didn’t you come before? Oh, dear!”
“Here I have come.”
“Yes, now! What’s to be done now?... Together, together!” she
repeated as it were unconsciously, and she hugged him again. “I’ll
follow you to Siberia!”
He recoiled at this, and the same hostile, almost haughty smile came
to his lips.
“Perhaps I don’t want to go to Siberia yet, Sonia,” he said.
Sonia looked at him quickly.
 Again after her irst passionate, agonising sympathy for the unhappy
man the terrible idea of the murder overwhelmed her. In his changed
tone she seemed to hear the murderer speaking. She looked at him
bewildered. She knew nothing as yet, why, how, with what object it had
been. Now all these questions rushed at once into her mind. And again
she could not believe it: “He, he is a murderer! Could it be true?”
“What’s the meaning of it? Where am I?” she said in complete
bewilderment, as though still unable to recover herself. “How could
you, you, a man like you.... How could you bring yourself to it?... What
does it mean?”
“Oh, well—to plunder. Leave off, Sonia,” he answered wearily, almost
with vexation.
Sonia stood as though struck dumb, but suddenly she cried:
“You were hungry! It was... to help your mother? Yes?”
“No, Sonia, no,” he muttered, turning away and hanging his head. “I
was not so hungry.... I certainly did want to help my mother, but... that’s
not the real thing either.... Don’t torture me, Sonia.”
Sonia clasped her hands.
“Could it, could it all be true? Good God, what a truth! Who could
believe it? And how could you give away your last farthing and yet rob
and murder! Ah,” she cried suddenly, “that money you gave Katerina
Ivanovna... that money.... Can that money...”
“No, Sonia,” he broke in hurriedly, “that money was not it. Don’t
worry yourself! That money my mother sent me and it came when I
was ill, the day I gave it to you.... Razumihin saw it... he received it for
me.... That money was mine—my own.”
Sonia listened to him in bewilderment and did her utmost to
comprehend.
“And that money.... I don’t even know really whether there was any
money,” he added softly, as though re lecting. “I took a purse off her
neck, made of chamois leather... a purse stuffed full of something... but I
didn’t look in it; I suppose I hadn’t time.... And the things—chains and
trinkets—I buried under a stone with the purse next morning in a yard
off the V—— Prospect. They are all there now....”
Sonia strained every nerve to listen.
 “Then why... why, you said you did it to rob, but you took nothing?”
she asked quickly, catching at a straw.
“I don’t know.... I haven’t yet decided whether to take that money or
not,” he said, musing again; and, seeming to wake up with a start, he
gave a brief ironical smile. “Ach, what silly stuff I am talking, eh?”
The thought lashed through Sonia’s mind, wasn’t he mad? But she
dismissed it at once. “No, it was something else.” She could make
nothing of it, nothing.
“Do you know, Sonia,” he said suddenly with conviction, “let me tell
you: if I’d simply killed because I was hungry,” laying stress on every
word and looking enigmatically but sincerely at her, “I should be happy
now. You must believe that! What would it matter to you,” he cried a
moment later with a sort of despair, “what would it matter to you if I
were to confess that I did wrong? What do you gain by such a stupid
triumph over me? Ah, Sonia, was it for that I’ve come to you to-day?”
Again Sonia tried to say something, but did not speak.
“I asked you to go with me yesterday because you are all I have left.”
“Go where?” asked Sonia timidly.
“Not to steal and not to murder, don’t be anxious,” he smiled bitterly.
“We are so different.... And you know, Sonia, it’s only now, only this
moment that I understand where I asked you to go with me yesterday!
Yesterday when I said it I did not know where. I asked you for one thing,
I came to you for one thing—not to leave me. You won’t leave me,
Sonia?”
She squeezed his hand.
“And why, why did I tell her? Why did I let her know?” he cried a
minute later in despair, looking with in inite anguish at her. “Here you
expect an explanation from me, Sonia; you are sitting and waiting for it,
I see that. But what can I tell you? You won’t understand and will only
suffer misery... on my account! Well, you are crying and embracing me
again. Why do you do it? Because I couldn’t bear my burden and have
come to throw it on another: you suffer too, and I shall feel better! And
can you love such a mean wretch?”
“But aren’t you suffering, too?” cried Sonia.
 Again a wave of the same feeling surged into his heart, and again for
an instant softened it.
“Sonia, I have a bad heart, take note of that. It may explain a great
deal. I have come because I am bad. There are men who wouldn’t have
come. But I am a coward and... a mean wretch. But... never mind! That’s
not the point. I must speak now, but I don’t know how to begin.”
He paused and sank into thought.
“Ach, we are so different,” he cried again, “we are not alike. And why,
why did I come? I shall never forgive myself that.”
“No, no, it was a good thing you came,” cried Sonia. “It’s better I
should know, far better!”
He looked at her with anguish.
“What if it were really that?” he said, as though reaching a conclusion.
“Yes, that’s what it was! I wanted to become a Napoleon, that is why I
killed her.... Do you understand now?”
“N-no,” Sonia whispered naı̈vely and timidly. “Only speak, speak, I
shall understand, I shall understand in myself!” she kept begging him.
“You’ll understand? Very well, we shall see!” He paused and was for
some time lost in meditation.
“It was like this: I asked myself one day this question—what if
Napoleon, for instance, had happened to be in my place, and if he had
not had Toulon nor Egypt nor the passage of Mont Blanc to begin his
career with, but instead of all those picturesque and monumental
things, there had simply been some ridiculous old hag, a pawnbroker,
who had to be murdered too to get money from her trunk (for his
career, you understand). Well, would he have brought himself to that if
there had been no other means? Wouldn’t he have felt a pang at its
being so far from monumental and... and sinful, too? Well, I must tell
you that I worried myself fearfully over that ‘question’ so that I was
awfully ashamed when I guessed at last (all of a sudden, somehow) that
it would not have given him the least pang, that it would not even have
struck him that it was not monumental... that he would not have seen
that there was anything in it to pause over, and that, if he had had no
other way, he would have strangled her in a minute without thinking
about it! Well, I too... left off thinking about it... murdered her, following
his example. And that’s exactly how it was! Do you think it funny? Yes,
Sonia, the funniest thing of all is that perhaps that’s just how it was.”
Sonia did not think it at all funny.
“You had better tell me straight out... without examples,” she begged,
still more timidly and scarcely audibly.
He turned to her, looked sadly at her and took her hands.
“You are right again, Sonia. Of course that’s all nonsense, it’s almost
all talk! You see, you know of course that my mother has scarcely
anything, my sister happened to have a good education and was
condemned to drudge as a governess. All their hopes were centered on
me. I was a student, but I couldn’t keep myself at the university and was
forced for a time to leave it. Even if I had lingered on like that, in ten or
twelve years I might (with luck) hope to be some sort of teacher or
clerk with a salary of a thousand roubles” (he repeated it as though it
were a lesson) “and by that time my mother would be worn out with
grief and anxiety and I could not succeed in keeping her in comfort
while my sister... well, my sister might well have fared worse! And it’s a
hard thing to pass everything by all one’s life, to turn one’s back upon
everything, to forget one’s mother and decorously accept the insults
in licted on one’s sister. Why should one? When one has buried them to
burden oneself with others—wife and children—and to leave them
again without a farthing? So I resolved to gain possession of the old
woman’s money and to use it for my irst years without worrying my
mother, to keep myself at the university and for a little while after
leaving it—and to do this all on a broad, thorough scale, so as to build
up a completely new career and enter upon a new life of
independence.... Well... that’s all.... Well, of course in killing the old
woman I did wrong.... Well, that’s enough.”
He struggled to the end of his speech in exhaustion and let his head
sink.
“Oh, that’s not it, that’s not it,” Sonia cried in distress. “How could
one... no, that’s not right, not right.”
“You see yourself that it’s not right. But I’ve spoken truly, it’s the
truth.”
“As though that could be the truth! Good God!”
 “I’ve only killed a louse, Sonia, a useless, loathsome, harmful
creature.”
“A human being—a louse!”
“I too know it wasn’t a louse,” he answered, looking strangely at her.
“But I am talking nonsense, Sonia,” he added. “I’ve been talking
nonsense a long time.... That’s not it, you are right there. There were
quite, quite other causes for it! I haven’t talked to anyone for so long,
Sonia.... My head aches dreadfully now.”
His eyes shone with feverish brilliance. He was almost delirious; an
uneasy smile strayed on his lips. His terrible exhaustion could be seen
through his excitement. Sonia saw how he was suffering. She too was
growing dizzy. And he talked so strangely; it seemed somehow
comprehensible, but yet... “But how, how! Good God!” And she wrung
her hands in despair.
“No, Sonia, that’s not it,” he began again suddenly, raising his head, as
though a new and sudden train of thought had struck and as it were
roused him—“that’s not it! Better... imagine—yes, it’s certainly better—
imagine that I am vain, envious, malicious, base, vindictive and... well,
perhaps with a tendency to insanity. (Let’s have it all out at once!
They’ve talked of madness already, I noticed.) I told you just now I
could not keep myself at the university. But do you know that perhaps I
might have done? My mother would have sent me what I needed for the
fees and I could have earned enough for clothes, boots and food, no
doubt. Lessons had turned up at half a rouble. Razumihin works! But I
turned sulky and wouldn’t. (Yes, sulkiness, that’s the right word for it!) I
sat in my room like a spider. You’ve been in my den, you’ve seen it....
And do you know, Sonia, that low ceilings and tiny rooms cramp the
soul and the mind? Ah, how I hated that garret! And yet I wouldn’t go
out of it! I wouldn’t on purpose! I didn’t go out for days together, and I
wouldn’t work, I wouldn’t even eat, I just lay there doing nothing. If
Nastasya brought me anything, I ate it, if she didn’t, I went all day
without; I wouldn’t ask, on purpose, from sulkiness! At night I had no
light, I lay in the dark and I wouldn’t earn money for candles. I ought to
have studied, but I sold my books; and the dust lies an inch thick on the
notebooks on my table. I preferred lying still and thinking. And I kept
thinking.... And I had dreams all the time, strange dreams of all sorts, no
need to describe! Only then I began to fancy that... No, that’s not it!
Again I am telling you wrong! You see I kept asking myself then: why am
I so stupid that if others are stupid—and I know they are—yet I won’t
be wiser? Then I saw, Sonia, that if one waits for everyone to get wiser it
will take too long.... Afterwards I understood that that would never
come to pass, that men won’t change and that nobody can alter it and
that it’s not worth wasting effort over it. Yes, that’s so. That’s the law of
their nature, Sonia,... that’s so!... And I know now, Sonia, that whoever is
strong in mind and spirit will have power over them. Anyone who is
greatly daring is right in their eyes. He who despises most things will be
a lawgiver among them and he who dares most of all will be most in the
right! So it has been till now and so it will always be. A man must be
blind not to see it!”
Though Raskolnikov looked at Sonia as he said this, he no longer
cared whether she understood or not. The fever had complete hold of
him; he was in a sort of gloomy ecstasy (he certainly had been too long
without talking to anyone). Sonia felt that his gloomy creed had become
his faith and code.
“I divined then, Sonia,” he went on eagerly, “that power is only
vouchsafed to the man who dares to stoop and pick it up. There is only
one thing, one thing needful: one has only to dare! Then for the irst
time in my life an idea took shape in my mind which no one had ever
thought of before me, no one! I saw clear as daylight how strange it is
that not a single person living in this mad world has had the daring to
go straight for it all and send it lying to the devil! I... I wanted to have
the daring... and I killed her. I only wanted to have the daring, Sonia!
That was the whole cause of it!”
“Oh hush, hush,” cried Sonia, clasping her hands. “You turned away
from God and God has smitten you, has given you over to the devil!”
“Then Sonia, when I used to lie there in the dark and all this became
clear to me, was it a temptation of the devil, eh?”
“Hush, don’t laugh, blasphemer! You don’t understand, you don’t
understand! Oh God! He won’t understand!”
“Hush, Sonia! I am not laughing. I know myself that it was the devil
leading me. Hush, Sonia, hush!” he repeated with gloomy insistence. “I
know it all, I have thought it all over and over and whispered it all over
to myself, lying there in the dark.... I’ve argued it all over with myself,
every point of it, and I know it all, all! And how sick, how sick I was then
of going over it all! I have kept wanting to forget it and make a new
beginning, Sonia, and leave off thinking. And you don’t suppose that I
went into it headlong like a fool? I went into it like a wise man, and that
was just my destruction. And you mustn’t suppose that I didn’t know,
for instance, that if I began to question myself whether I had the right to
gain power—I certainly hadn’t the right—or that if I asked myself
whether a human being is a louse it proved that it wasn’t so for me,
though it might be for a man who would go straight to his goal without
asking questions.... If I worried myself all those days, wondering
whether Napoleon would have done it or not, I felt clearly of course that
I wasn’t Napoleon. I had to endure all the agony of that battle of ideas,
Sonia, and I longed to throw it off: I wanted to murder without
casuistry, to murder for my own sake, for myself alone! I didn’t want to
lie about it even to myself. It wasn’t to help my mother I did the murder
—that’s nonsense—I didn’t do the murder to gain wealth and power
and to become a benefactor of mankind. Nonsense! I simply did it; I did
the murder for myself, for myself alone, and whether I became a
benefactor to others, or spent my life like a spider catching men in my
web and sucking the life out of men, I couldn’t have cared at that
moment.... And it was not the money I wanted, Sonia, when I did it. It
was not so much the money I wanted, but something else.... I know it all
now.... Understand me! Perhaps I should never have committed a
murder again. I wanted to ind out something else; it was something
else led me on. I wanted to ind out then and quickly whether I was a
louse like everybody else or a man. Whether I can step over barriers or
not, whether I dare stoop to pick up or not, whether I am a trembling
creature or whether I have the right...”
“To kill? Have the right to kill?” Sonia clasped her hands.
“Ach, Sonia!” he cried irritably and seemed about to make some
retort, but was contemptuously silent. “Don’t interrupt me, Sonia. I
want to prove one thing only, that the devil led me on then and he has
shown me since that I had not the right to take that path, because I am
just such a louse as all the rest. He was mocking me and here I’ve come
to you now! Welcome your guest! If I were not a louse, should I have
come to you? Listen: when I went then to the old woman’s I only went
to try.... You may be sure of that!”
“And you murdered her!”
“But how did I murder her? Is that how men do murders? Do men go
to commit a murder as I went then? I will tell you some day how I went!
Did I murder the old woman? I murdered myself, not her! I crushed
myself once for all, for ever.... But it was the devil that killed that old
woman, not I. Enough, enough, Sonia, enough! Let me be!” he cried in a
sudden spasm of agony, “let me be!”
He leaned his elbows on his knees and squeezed his head in his
hands as in a vise.
“What suffering!” A wail of anguish broke from Sonia.
“Well, what am I to do now?” he asked, suddenly raising his head and
looking at her with a face hideously distorted by despair.
“What are you to do?” she cried, jumping up, and her eyes that had
been full of tears suddenly began to shine. “Stand up!” (She seized him
by the shoulder, he got up, looking at her almost bewildered.) “Go at
once, this very minute, stand at the cross-roads, bow down, irst kiss
the earth which you have de iled and then bow down to all the world
and say to all men aloud, ‘I am a murderer!’ Then God will send you life
again. Will you go, will you go?” she asked him, trembling all over,
snatching his two hands, squeezing them tight in hers and gazing at him
with eyes full of ire.
He was amazed at her sudden ecstasy.
“You mean Siberia, Sonia? I must give myself up?” he asked gloomily.
“Suffer and expiate your sin by it, that’s what you must do.”
“No! I am not going to them, Sonia!”
“But how will you go on living? What will you live for?” cried Sonia,
“how is it possible now? Why, how can you talk to your mother? (Oh,
what will become of them now?) But what am I saying? You have
abandoned your mother and your sister already. He has abandoned
them already! Oh, God!” she cried, “why, he knows it all himself. How,
how can he live by himself! What will become of you now?”
 “Don’t be a child, Sonia,” he said softly. “What wrong have I done
them? Why should I go to them? What should I say to them? That’s only
a phantom.... They destroy men by millions themselves and look on it as
a virtue. They are knaves and scoundrels, Sonia! I am not going to them.
And what should I say to them—that I murdered her, but did not dare
to take the money and hid it under a stone?” he added with a bitter
smile. “Why, they would laugh at me, and would call me a fool for not
getting it. A coward and a fool! They wouldn’t understand and they
don’t deserve to understand. Why should I go to them? I won’t. Don’t be
a child, Sonia....”
“It will be too much for you to bear, too much!” she repeated, holding
out her hands in despairing supplication.
“Perhaps I’ve been unfair to myself,” he observed gloomily,
pondering, “perhaps after all I am a man and not a louse and I’ve been
in too great a hurry to condemn myself. I’ll make another ight for it.”
A haughty smile appeared on his lips.
“What a burden to bear! And your whole life, your whole life!”
“I shall get used to it,” he said grimly and thoughtfully. “Listen,” he
began a minute later, “stop crying, it’s time to talk of the facts: I’ve come
to tell you that the police are after me, on my track....”
“Ach!” Sonia cried in terror.
“Well, why do you cry out? You want me to go to Siberia and now you
are frightened? But let me tell you: I shall not give myself up. I shall
make a struggle for it and they won’t do anything to me. They’ve no real
evidence. Yesterday I was in great danger and believed I was lost; but
to-day things are going better. All the facts they know can be explained
two ways, that’s to say I can turn their accusations to my credit, do you
understand? And I shall, for I’ve learnt my lesson. But they will
certainly arrest me. If it had not been for something that happened,
they would have done so to-day for certain; perhaps even now they will
arrest me to-day.... But that’s no matter, Sonia; they’ll let me out again...
for there isn’t any real proof against me, and there won’t be, I give you
my word for it. And they can’t convict a man on what they have against
me. Enough.... I only tell you that you may know.... I will try to manage
somehow to put it to my mother and sister so that they won’t be
frightened.... My sister’s future is secure, however, now, I believe... and
my mother’s must be too.... Well, that’s all. Be careful, though. Will you
come and see me in prison when I am there?”
“Oh, I will, I will.”
They sat side by side, both mournful and dejected, as though they
had been cast up by the tempest alone on some deserted shore. He
looked at Sonia and felt how great was her love for him, and strange to
say he felt it suddenly burdensome and painful to be so loved. Yes, it
was a strange and awful sensation! On his way to see Sonia he had felt
that all his hopes rested on her; he expected to be rid of at least part of
his suffering, and now, when all her heart turned towards him, he
suddenly felt that he was immeasurably unhappier than before.
“Sonia,” he said, “you’d better not come and see me when I am in
prison.”
Sonia did not answer, she was crying. Several minutes passed.
“Have you a cross on you?” she asked, as though suddenly thinking of
it.
He did not at irst understand the question.
“No, of course not. Here, take this one, of cypress wood. I have
another, a copper one that belonged to Lizaveta. I changed with
Lizaveta: she gave me her cross and I gave her my little ikon. I will wear
Lizaveta’s now and give you this. Take it... it’s mine! It’s mine, you
know,” she begged him. “We will go to suffer together, and together we
will bear our cross!”
“Give it me,” said Raskolnikov.
He did not want to hurt her feelings. But immediately he drew back
the hand he held out for the cross.
“Not now, Sonia. Better later,” he added to comfort her.
“Yes, yes, better,” she repeated with conviction, “when you go to meet
your suffering, then put it on. You will come to me, I’ll put it on you, we
will pray and go together.”
At that moment someone knocked three times at the door.
“Sofya Semyonovna, may I come in?” they heard in a very familiar and
polite voice.
 Sonia rushed to the door in a fright. The laxen head of Mr.
Lebeziatnikov appeared at the door.
 CHAPTER V

Lebeziatnikov looked perturbed.

“I’ve come to you, Sofya Semyonovna,” he began. “Excuse me... I
thought I should ind you,” he said, addressing Raskolnikov suddenly,
“that is, I didn’t mean anything... of that sort... But I just thought...
Katerina Ivanovna has gone out of her mind,” he blurted out suddenly,
turning from Raskolnikov to Sonia.
Sonia screamed.
“At least it seems so. But... we don’t know what to do, you see! She
came back—she seems to have been turned out somewhere, perhaps
beaten.... So it seems at least,... She had run to your father’s former chief,
she didn’t ind him at home: he was dining at some other general’s....
Only fancy, she rushed off there, to the other general’s, and, imagine,
she was so persistent that she managed to get the chief to see her, had
him fetched out from dinner, it seems. You can imagine what happened.
She was turned out, of course; but, according to her own story, she
abused him and threw something at him. One may well believe it.... How
it is she wasn’t taken up, I can’t understand! Now she is telling
everyone, including Amalia Ivanovna; but it’s dif icult to understand
her, she is screaming and linging herself about.... Oh yes, she shouts
that since everyone has abandoned her, she will take the children and
go into the street with a barrel-organ, and the children will sing and
dance, and she too, and collect money, and will go every day under the
general’s window... ‘to let everyone see well-born children, whose
father was an of icial, begging in the street.’ She keeps beating the
children and they are all crying. She is teaching Lida to sing ‘My Village,’
the boy to dance, Polenka the same. She is tearing up all the clothes, and
making them little caps like actors; she means to carry a tin basin and
make it tinkle, instead of music.... She won’t listen to anything.... Imagine
the state of things! It’s beyond anything!”
 Lebeziatnikov would have gone on, but Sonia, who had heard him
almost breathless, snatched up her cloak and hat, and ran out of the
room, putting on her things as she went. Raskolnikov followed her and
Lebeziatnikov came after him.
“She has certainly gone mad!” he said to Raskolnikov, as they went
out into the street. “I didn’t want to frighten Sofya Semyonovna, so I
said ‘it seemed like it,’ but there isn’t a doubt of it. They say that in
consumption the tubercles sometimes occur in the brain; it’s a pity I
know nothing of medicine. I did try to persuade her, but she wouldn’t
listen.”
“Did you talk to her about the tubercles?”
“Not precisely of the tubercles. Besides, she wouldn’t have
understood! But what I say is, that if you convince a person logically
that he has nothing to cry about, he’ll stop crying. That’s clear. Is it your
conviction that he won’t?”
“Life would be too easy if it were so,” answered Raskolnikov.
“Excuse me, excuse me; of course it would be rather dif icult for
Katerina Ivanovna to understand, but do you know that in Paris they
have been conducting serious experiments as to the possibility of
curing the insane, simply by logical argument? One professor there, a
scienti ic man of standing, lately dead, believed in the possibility of
such treatment. His idea was that there’s nothing really wrong with the
physical organism of the insane, and that insanity is, so to say, a logical
mistake, an error of judgment, an incorrect view of things. He gradually
showed the madman his error and, would you believe it, they say he
was successful? But as he made use of douches too, how far success was
due to that treatment remains uncertain.... So it seems at least.”
Raskolnikov had long ceased to listen. Reaching the house where he
lived, he nodded to Lebeziatnikov and went in at the gate.
Lebeziatnikov woke up with a start, looked about him and hurried on.
Raskolnikov went into his little room and stood still in the middle of
it. Why had he come back here? He looked at the yellow and tattered
paper, at the dust, at his sofa.... From the yard came a loud continuous
knocking; someone seemed to be hammering... He went to the window,
rose on tiptoe and looked out into the yard for a long time with an air of
absorbed attention. But the yard was empty and he could not see who
was hammering. In the house on the left he saw some open windows;
on the window-sills were pots of sickly-looking geraniums. Linen was
hung out of the windows... He knew it all by heart. He turned away and
sat down on the sofa.
Never, never had he felt himself so fearfully alone!
Yes, he felt once more that he would perhaps come to hate Sonia, now
that he had made her more miserable.
“Why had he gone to her to beg for her tears? What need had he to
poison her life? Oh, the meanness of it!”
“I will remain alone,” he said resolutely, “and she shall not come to
the prison!”
Five minutes later he raised his head with a strange smile. That was a
strange thought.
“Perhaps it really would be better in Siberia,” he thought suddenly.
He could not have said how long he sat there with vague thoughts
surging through his mind. All at once the door opened and Dounia came
in. At irst she stood still and looked at him from the doorway, just as he
had done at Sonia; then she came in and sat down in the same place as
yesterday, on the chair facing him. He looked silently and almost
vacantly at her.
“Don’t be angry, brother; I’ve only come for one minute,” said Dounia.
Her face looked thoughtful but not stern. Her eyes were bright and
soft. He saw that she too had come to him with love.
“Brother, now I know all, all. Dmitri Proko itch has explained and told
me everything. They are worrying and persecuting you through a
stupid and contemptible suspicion.... Dmitri Proko itch told me that
there is no danger, and that you are wrong in looking upon it with such
horror. I don’t think so, and I fully understand how indignant you must
be, and that that indignation may have a permanent effect on you.
That’s what I am afraid of. As for your cutting yourself off from us, I
don’t judge you, I don’t venture to judge you, and forgive me for having
blamed you for it. I feel that I too, if I had so great a trouble, should keep
away from everyone. I shall tell mother nothing of this, but I shall talk
about you continually and shall tell her from you that you will come
very soon. Don’t worry about her; I will set her mind at rest; but don’t
you try her too much—come once at least; remember that she is your
mother. And now I have come simply to say” (Dounia began to get up)
“that if you should need me or should need... all my life or anything...
call me, and I’ll come. Good-bye!”
She turned abruptly and went towards the door.
“Dounia!” Raskolnikov stopped her and went towards her. “That
Razumihin, Dmitri Proko itch, is a very good fellow.”
Dounia lushed slightly.
“Well?” she asked, waiting a moment.
“He is competent, hardworking, honest and capable of real love....
Good-bye, Dounia.”
Dounia lushed crimson, then suddenly she took alarm.
“But what does it mean, brother? Are we really parting for ever that
you... give me such a parting message?”
“Never mind.... Good-bye.”
He turned away, and walked to the window. She stood a moment,
looked at him uneasily, and went out troubled.
No, he was not cold to her. There was an instant (the very last one)
when he had longed to take her in his arms and say good-bye to her, and
even to tell her, but he had not dared even to touch her hand.
“Afterwards she may shudder when she remembers that I embraced
her, and will feel that I stole her kiss.”
“And would she stand that test?” he went on a few minutes later to
himself. “No, she wouldn’t; girls like that can’t stand things! They never
do.”
And he thought of Sonia.
There was a breath of fresh air from the window. The daylight was
fading. He took up his cap and went out.
He could not, of course, and would not consider how ill he was. But
all this continual anxiety and agony of mind could not but affect him.
And if he were not lying in high fever it was perhaps just because this
continual inner strain helped to keep him on his legs and in possession
of his faculties. But this arti icial excitement could not last long.
 He wandered aimlessly. The sun was setting. A special form of misery
had begun to oppress him of late. There was nothing poignant, nothing
acute about it; but there was a feeling of permanence, of eternity about
it; it brought a foretaste of hopeless years of this cold leaden misery, a
foretaste of an eternity “on a square yard of space.” Towards evening
this sensation usually began to weigh on him more heavily.
“With this idiotic, purely physical weakness, depending on the sunset
or something, one can’t help doing something stupid! You’ll go to
Dounia, as well as to Sonia,” he muttered bitterly.
He heard his name called. He looked round. Lebeziatnikov rushed up
to him.
“Only fancy, I’ve been to your room looking for you. Only fancy, she’s
carried out her plan, and taken away the children. Sofya Semyonovna
and I have had a job to ind them. She is rapping on a frying-pan and
making the children dance. The children are crying. They keep stopping
at the cross-roads and in front of shops; there’s a crowd of fools
running after them. Come along!”
“And Sonia?” Raskolnikov asked anxiously, hurrying after
Lebeziatnikov.
“Simply frantic. That is, it’s not Sofya Semyonovna’s frantic, but
Katerina Ivanovna, though Sofya Semyonova’s frantic too. But Katerina
Ivanovna is absolutely frantic. I tell you she is quite mad. They’ll be
taken to the police. You can fancy what an effect that will have.... They
are on the canal bank, near the bridge now, not far from Sofya
Semyonovna’s, quite close.”
On the canal bank near the bridge and not two houses away from the
one where Sonia lodged, there was a crowd of people, consisting
principally of gutter children. The hoarse broken voice of Katerina
Ivanovna could be heard from the bridge, and it certainly was a strange
spectacle likely to attract a street crowd. Katerina Ivanovna in her old
dress with the green shawl, wearing a torn straw hat, crushed in a
hideous way on one side, was really frantic. She was exhausted and
breathless. Her wasted consumptive face looked more suffering than
ever, and indeed out of doors in the sunshine a consumptive always
looks worse than at home. But her excitement did not lag, and every
moment her irritation grew more intense. She rushed at the children,
shouted at them, coaxed them, told them before the crowd how to
dance and what to sing, began explaining to them why it was necessary,
and driven to desperation by their not understanding, beat them....
Then she would make a rush at the crowd; if she noticed any decently
dressed person stopping to look, she immediately appealed to him to
see what these children “from a genteel, one may say aristocratic,
house” had been brought to. If she heard laughter or jeering in the
crowd, she would rush at once at the scoffers and begin squabbling
with them. Some people laughed, others shook their heads, but
everyone felt curious at the sight of the madwoman with the frightened
children. The frying-pan of which Lebeziatnikov had spoken was not
there, at least Raskolnikov did not see it. But instead of rapping on the
pan, Katerina Ivanovna began clapping her wasted hands, when she
made Lida and Kolya dance and Polenka sing. She too joined in the
singing, but broke down at the second note with a fearful cough, which
made her curse in despair and even shed tears. What made her most
furious was the weeping and terror of Kolya and Lida. Some effort had
been made to dress the children up as street singers are dressed. The
boy had on a turban made of something red and white to look like a
Turk. There had been no costume for Lida; she simply had a red knitted
cap, or rather a night cap that had belonged to Marmeladov, decorated
with a broken piece of white ostrich feather, which had been Katerina
Ivanovna’s grandmother’s and had been preserved as a family
possession. Polenka was in her everyday dress; she looked in timid
perplexity at her mother, and kept at her side, hiding her tears. She
dimly realised her mother’s condition, and looked uneasily about her.
She was terribly frightened of the street and the crowd. Sonia followed
Katerina Ivanovna, weeping and beseeching her to return home, but
Katerina Ivanovna was not to be persuaded.
“Leave off, Sonia, leave off,” she shouted, speaking fast, panting and
coughing. “You don’t know what you ask; you are like a child! I’ve told
you before that I am not coming back to that drunken German. Let
everyone, let all Petersburg see the children begging in the streets,
though their father was an honourable man who served all his life in
truth and idelity, and one may say died in the service.” (Katerina
Ivanovna had by now invented this fantastic story and thoroughly
believed it.) “Let that wretch of a general see it! And you are silly, Sonia:
what have we to eat? Tell me that. We have worried you enough, I won’t
go on so! Ah, Rodion Romanovitch, is that you?” she cried, seeing
Raskolnikov and rushing up to him. “Explain to this silly girl, please,
that nothing better could be done! Even organ-grinders earn their
living, and everyone will see at once that we are different, that we are
an honourable and bereaved family reduced to beggary. And that
general will lose his post, you’ll see! We shall perform under his
windows every day, and if the Tsar drives by, I’ll fall on my knees, put
the children before me, show them to him, and say ‘Defend us father.’ He
is the father of the fatherless, he is merciful, he’ll protect us, you’ll see,
and that wretch of a general.... Lida, tenez vous droite! Kolya, you’ll
dance again. Why are you whimpering? Whimpering again! What are
you afraid of, stupid? Goodness, what am I to do with them, Rodion
Romanovitch? If you only knew how stupid they are! What’s one to do
with such children?”
And she, almost crying herself—which did not stop her
uninterrupted, rapid low of talk—pointed to the crying children.
Raskolnikov tried to persuade her to go home, and even said, hoping to
work on her vanity, that it was unseemly for her to be wandering about
the streets like an organ-grinder, as she was intending to become the
principal of a boarding-school.
“A boarding-school, ha-ha-ha! A castle in the air,” cried Katerina
Ivanovna, her laugh ending in a cough. “No, Rodion Romanovitch, that
dream is over! All have forsaken us!... And that general.... You know,
Rodion Romanovitch, I threw an inkpot at him—it happened to be
standing in the waiting-room by the paper where you sign your name. I
wrote my name, threw it at him and ran away. Oh, the scoundrels, the
scoundrels! But enough of them, now I’ll provide for the children
myself, I won’t bow down to anybody! She has had to bear enough for
us!” she pointed to Sonia. “Polenka, how much have you got? Show me!
What, only two farthings! Oh, the mean wretches! They give us nothing,
only run after us, putting their tongues out. There, what is that
blockhead laughing at?” (She pointed to a man in the crowd.) “It’s all
because Kolya here is so stupid; I have such a bother with him. What do
you want, Polenka? Tell me in French, parlez-moi français. Why, I’ve
taught you, you know some phrases. Else how are you to show that you
are of good family, well brought-up children, and not at all like other
organ-grinders? We aren’t going to have a Punch and Judy show in the
street, but to sing a genteel song.... Ah, yes,... What are we to sing? You
keep putting me out, but we... you see, we are standing here, Rodion
Romanovitch, to ind something to sing and get money, something Kolya
can dance to.... For, as you can fancy, our performance is all
impromptu.... We must talk it over and rehearse it all thoroughly, and
then we shall go to Nevsky, where there are far more people of good
society, and we shall be noticed at once. Lida knows ‘My Village’ only,
nothing but ‘My Village,’ and everyone sings that. We must sing
something far more genteel.... Well, have you thought of anything,
Polenka? If only you’d help your mother! My memory’s quite gone, or I
should have thought of something. We really can’t sing ‘An Hussar.’ Ah,
let us sing in French, ‘Cinq sous,’ I have taught it you, I have taught it
you. And as it is in French, people will see at once that you are children
of good family, and that will be much more touching.... You might sing
‘Marlborough s’en va-t-en guerre,’ for that’s quite a child’s song and is
sung as a lullaby in all the aristocratic houses.
“Marlborough s’en va-t-en guerre Ne sait quand reviendra...” she began
singing. “But no, better sing ‘Cinq sous.’ Now, Kolya, your hands on your
hips, make haste, and you, Lida, keep turning the other way, and
Polenka and I will sing and clap our hands!
“Cinq sous, cinq sous Pour monter notre menage.”
(Cough-cough-cough!) “Set your dress straight, Polenka, it’s slipped
down on your shoulders,” she observed, panting from coughing. “Now
it’s particularly necessary to behave nicely and genteelly, that all may
see that you are well-born children. I said at the time that the bodice
should be cut longer, and made of two widths. It was your fault, Sonia,
with your advice to make it shorter, and now you see the child is quite
deformed by it.... Why, you’re all crying again! What’s the matter,
stupids? Come, Kolya, begin. Make haste, make haste! Oh, what an
unbearable child!
“Cinq sous, cinq sous.
“A policeman again! What do you want?”
A policeman was indeed forcing his way through the crowd. But at
that moment a gentleman in civilian uniform and an overcoat—a solid-
looking of icial of about ifty with a decoration on his neck (which
delighted Katerina Ivanovna and had its effect on the policeman)—
approached and without a word handed her a green three-rouble note.
His face wore a look of genuine sympathy. Katerina Ivanovna took it
and gave him a polite, even ceremonious, bow.
“I thank you, honoured sir,” she began loftily. “The causes that have
induced us (take the money, Polenka: you see there are generous and
honourable people who are ready to help a poor gentlewoman in
distress). You see, honoured sir, these orphans of good family—I might
even say of aristocratic connections—and that wretch of a general sat
eating grouse... and stamped at my disturbing him. ‘Your excellency,’ I
said, ‘protect the orphans, for you knew my late husband, Semyon
Zaharovitch, and on the very day of his death the basest of scoundrels
slandered his only daughter.’... That policeman again! Protect me,” she
cried to the of icial. “Why is that policeman edging up to me? We have
only just run away from one of them. What do you want, fool?”
“It’s forbidden in the streets. You mustn’t make a disturbance.”
“It’s you’re making a disturbance. It’s just the same as if I were
grinding an organ. What business is it of yours?”
“You have to get a licence for an organ, and you haven’t got one, and
in that way you collect a crowd. Where do you lodge?”
“What, a license?” wailed Katerina Ivanovna. “I buried my husband
to-day. What need of a license?”
“Calm yourself, madam, calm yourself,” began the of icial. “Come
along; I will escort you.... This is no place for you in the crowd. You are
ill.”
“Honoured sir, honoured sir, you don’t know,” screamed Katerina
Ivanovna. “We are going to the Nevsky.... Sonia, Sonia! Where is she? She
is crying too! What’s the matter with you all? Kolya, Lida, where are you
going?” she cried suddenly in alarm. “Oh, silly children! Kolya, Lida,
where are they off to?...”
Kolya and Lida, scared out of their wits by the crowd, and their
mother’s mad pranks, suddenly seized each other by the hand, and ran
off at the sight of the policeman who wanted to take them away
somewhere. Weeping and wailing, poor Katerina Ivanovna ran after
them. She was a piteous and unseemly spectacle, as she ran, weeping
and panting for breath. Sonia and Polenka rushed after them.
“Bring them back, bring them back, Sonia! Oh stupid, ungrateful
children!... Polenka! catch them.... It’s for your sakes I...”
She stumbled as she ran and fell down.
“She’s cut herself, she’s bleeding! Oh, dear!” cried Sonia, bending over
her.
All ran up and crowded around. Raskolnikov and Lebeziatnikov were
the irst at her side, the of icial too hastened up, and behind him the
policeman who muttered, “Bother!” with a gesture of impatience,
feeling that the job was going to be a troublesome one.
“Pass on! Pass on!” he said to the crowd that pressed forward.
“She’s dying,” someone shouted.
“She’s gone out of her mind,” said another.
“Lord have mercy upon us,” said a woman, crossing herself. “Have
they caught the little girl and the boy? They’re being brought back, the
elder one’s got them.... Ah, the naughty imps!”
When they examined Katerina Ivanovna carefully, they saw that she
had not cut herself against a stone, as Sonia thought, but that the blood
that stained the pavement red was from her chest.
“I’ve seen that before,” muttered the of icial to Raskolnikov and
Lebeziatnikov; “that’s consumption; the blood lows and chokes the
patient. I saw the same thing with a relative of my own not long ago...
nearly a pint of blood, all in a minute.... What’s to be done though? She
is dying.”
“This way, this way, to my room!” Sonia implored. “I live here!... See,
that house, the second from here.... Come to me, make haste,” she
turned from one to the other. “Send for the doctor! Oh, dear!”
Thanks to the of icial’s efforts, this plan was adopted, the policeman
even helping to carry Katerina Ivanovna. She was carried to Sonia’s
room, almost unconscious, and laid on the bed. The blood was still
lowing, but she seemed to be coming to herself. Raskolnikov,
Lebeziatnikov, and the of icial accompanied Sonia into the room and
were followed by the policeman, who irst drove back the crowd which
followed to the very door. Polenka came in holding Kolya and Lida, who
were trembling and weeping. Several persons came in too from the
Kapernaumovs’ room; the landlord, a lame one-eyed man of strange
appearance with whiskers and hair that stood up like a brush, his wife,
a woman with an everlastingly scared expression, and several open-
mouthed children with wonder-struck faces. Among these, Svidrigaı̈lov
suddenly made his appearance. Raskolnikov looked at him with
surprise, not understanding where he had come from and not having
noticed him in the crowd. A doctor and priest wore spoken of. The
of icial whispered to Raskolnikov that he thought it was too late now
for the doctor, but he ordered him to be sent for. Kapernaumov ran
himself.
Meanwhile Katerina Ivanovna had regained her breath. The bleeding
ceased for a time. She looked with sick but intent and penetrating eyes
at Sonia, who stood pale and trembling, wiping the sweat from her
brow with a handkerchief. At last she asked to be raised. They sat her
up on the bed, supporting her on both sides.
“Where are the children?” she said in a faint voice. “You’ve brought
them, Polenka? Oh the sillies! Why did you run away.... Och!”
Once more her parched lips were covered with blood. She moved her
eyes, looking about her.
“So that’s how you live, Sonia! Never once have I been in your room.”
She looked at her with a face of suffering.
“We have been your ruin, Sonia. Polenka, Lida, Kolya, come here!
Well, here they are, Sonia, take them all! I hand them over to you, I’ve
had enough! The ball is over.” (Cough!) “Lay me down, let me die in
peace.”
They laid her back on the pillow.
“What, the priest? I don’t want him. You haven’t got a rouble to spare.
I have no sins. God must forgive me without that. He knows how I have
suffered.... And if He won’t forgive me, I don’t care!”
She sank more and more into uneasy delirium. At times she
shuddered, turned her eyes from side to side, recognised everyone for a
minute, but at once sank into delirium again. Her breathing was hoarse
and dif icult, there was a sort of rattle in her throat.
 “I said to him, your excellency,” she ejaculated, gasping after each
word. “That Amalia Ludwigovna, ah! Lida, Kolya, hands on your hips,
make haste! Glissez, glissez! pas de basque! Tap with your heels, be a
graceful child!
“Du hast Diamanten und Perlen
“What next? That’s the thing to sing.
“Du hast die schönsten Augen Mädchen, was willst du mehr?
“What an idea! Was willst du mehr? What things the fool invents! Ah,
yes!
“In the heat of midday in the vale of Dagestan.
“Ah, how I loved it! I loved that song to distraction, Polenka! Your
father, you know, used to sing it when we were engaged.... Oh those
days! Oh that’s the thing for us to sing! How does it go? I’ve forgotten.
Remind me! How was it?”
She was violently excited and tried to sit up. At last, in a horribly
hoarse, broken voice, she began, shrieking and gasping at every word,
with a look of growing terror.
“In the heat of midday!... in the vale!... of Dagestan!... With lead in my
breast!...”
“Your excellency!” she wailed suddenly with a heart-rending scream
and a lood of tears, “protect the orphans! You have been their father’s
guest... one may say aristocratic....” She started, regaining
consciousness, and gazed at all with a sort of terror, but at once
recognised Sonia.
“Sonia, Sonia!” she articulated softly and caressingly, as though
surprised to ind her there. “Sonia darling, are you here, too?”
They lifted her up again.
“Enough! It’s over! Farewell, poor thing! I am done for! I am broken!”
she cried with vindictive despair, and her head fell heavily back on the
pillow.
She sank into unconsciousness again, but this time it did not last
long. Her pale, yellow, wasted face dropped back, her mouth fell open,
her leg moved convulsively, she gave a deep, deep sigh and died.
 Sonia fell upon her, lung her arms about her, and remained
motionless with her head pressed to the dead woman’s wasted bosom.
Polenka threw herself at her mother’s feet, kissing them and weeping
violently. Though Kolya and Lida did not understand what had
happened, they had a feeling that it was something terrible; they put
their hands on each other’s little shoulders, stared straight at one
another and both at once opened their mouths and began screaming.
They were both still in their fancy dress; one in a turban, the other in
the cap with the ostrich feather.
And how did “the certi icate of merit” come to be on the bed beside
Katerina Ivanovna? It lay there by the pillow; Raskolnikov saw it.
He walked away to the window. Lebeziatnikov skipped up to him.
“She is dead,” he said.
“Rodion Romanovitch, I must have two words with you,” said
Svidrigaı̈lov, coming up to them.
Lebeziatnikov at once made room for him and delicately withdrew.
Svidrigaı̈lov drew Raskolnikov further away.
“I will undertake all the arrangements, the funeral and that. You
know it’s a question of money and, as I told you, I have plenty to spare. I
will put those two little ones and Polenka into some good orphan
asylum, and I will settle ifteen hundred roubles to be paid to each on
coming of age, so that Sofya Semyonovna need have no anxiety about
them. And I will pull her out of the mud too, for she is a good girl, isn’t
she? So tell Avdotya Romanovna that that is how I am spending her ten
thousand.”
“What is your motive for such benevolence?” asked Raskolnikov.
“Ah! you sceptical person!” laughed Svidrigaı̈lov. “I told you I had no
need of that money. Won’t you admit that it’s simply done from
humanity? She wasn’t ‘a louse,’ you know” (he pointed to the corner
where the dead woman lay), “was she, like some old pawnbroker
woman? Come, you’ll agree, is Luzhin to go on living, and doing wicked
things or is she to die? And if I didn’t help them, Polenka would go the
same way.”
He said this with an air of a sort of gay winking slyness, keeping his
eyes ixed on Raskolnikov, who turned white and cold, hearing his own
phrases, spoken to Sonia. He quickly stepped back and looked wildly at
Svidrigaı̈lov.
“How do you know?” he whispered, hardly able to breathe.
“Why, I lodge here at Madame Resslich’s, the other side of the wall.
Here is Kapernaumov, and there lives Madame Resslich, an old and
devoted friend of mine. I am a neighbour.”
“You?”
“Yes,” continued Svidrigaı̈lov, shaking with laughter. “I assure you on
my honour, dear Rodion Romanovitch, that you have interested me
enormously. I told you we should become friends, I foretold it. Well,
here we have. And you will see what an accommodating person I am.
You’ll see that you can get on with me!”
PART VI
 CHAPTER I

A strange period began for Raskolnikov: it was as though a fog had

fallen upon him and wrapped him in a dreary solitude from which there
was no escape. Recalling that period long after, he believed that his
mind had been clouded at times, and that it had continued so, with
intervals, till the inal catastrophe. He was convinced that he had been
mistaken about many things at that time, for instance as to the date of
certain events. Anyway, when he tried later on to piece his recollections
together, he learnt a great deal about himself from what other people
told him. He had mixed up incidents and had explained events as due to
circumstances which existed only in his imagination. At times he was a
prey to agonies of morbid uneasiness, amounting sometimes to panic.
But he remembered, too, moments, hours, perhaps whole days, of
complete apathy, which came upon him as a reaction from his previous
terror and might be compared with the abnormal insensibility,
sometimes seen in the dying. He seemed to be trying in that latter stage
to escape from a full and clear understanding of his position. Certain
essential facts which required immediate consideration were
particularly irksome to him. How glad he would have been to be free
from some cares, the neglect of which would have threatened him with
complete, inevitable ruin.
He was particularly worried about Svidrigaı̈lov, he might be said to
be permanently thinking of Svidrigaı̈lov. From the time of Svidrigaı̈lov’s
too menacing and unmistakable words in Sonia’s room at the moment
of Katerina Ivanovna’s death, the normal working of his mind seemed
to break down. But although this new fact caused him extreme
uneasiness, Raskolnikov was in no hurry for an explanation of it. At
times, inding himself in a solitary and remote part of the town, in some
wretched eating-house, sitting alone lost in thought, hardly knowing
how he had come there, he suddenly thought of Svidrigaı̈lov. He
recognised suddenly, clearly, and with dismay that he ought at once to
come to an understanding with that man and to make what terms he
could. Walking outside the city gates one day, he positively fancied that
they had ixed a meeting there, that he was waiting for Svidrigaı̈lov.
Another time he woke up before daybreak lying on the ground under
some bushes and could not at irst understand how he had come there.
But during the two or three days after Katerina Ivanovna’s death, he
had two or three times met Svidrigaı̈lov at Sonia’s lodging, where he
had gone aimlessly for a moment. They exchanged a few words and
made no reference to the vital subject, as though they were tacitly
agreed not to speak of it for a time.
Katerina Ivanovna’s body was still lying in the cof in, Svidrigaı̈lov was
busy making arrangements for the funeral. Sonia too was very busy. At
their last meeting Svidrigaı̈lov informed Raskolnikov that he had made
an arrangement, and a very satisfactory one, for Katerina Ivanovna’s
children; that he had, through certain connections, succeeded in getting
hold of certain personages by whose help the three orphans could be at
once placed in very suitable institutions; that the money he had settled
on them had been of great assistance, as it is much easier to place
orphans with some property than destitute ones. He said something too
about Sonia and promised to come himself in a day or two to see
Raskolnikov, mentioning that “he would like to consult with him, that
there were things they must talk over....”
This conversation took place in the passage on the stairs. Svidrigaı̈lov
looked intently at Raskolnikov and suddenly, after a brief pause,
dropping his voice, asked: “But how is it, Rodion Romanovitch; you
don’t seem yourself? You look and you listen, but you don’t seem to
understand. Cheer up! We’ll talk things over; I am only sorry, I’ve so
much to do of my own business and other people’s. Ah, Rodion
Romanovitch,” he added suddenly, “what all men need is fresh air, fresh
air... more than anything!”
He moved to one side to make way for the priest and server, who
were coming up the stairs. They had come for the requiem service. By
Svidrigaı̈lov’s orders it was sung twice a day punctually. Svidrigaı̈lov
went his way. Raskolnikov stood still a moment, thought, and followed
the priest into Sonia’s room. He stood at the door. They began quietly,
slowly and mournfully singing the service. From his childhood the
thought of death and the presence of death had something oppressive
and mysteriously awful; and it was long since he had heard the requiem
service. And there was something else here as well, too awful and
disturbing. He looked at the children: they were all kneeling by the
cof in; Polenka was weeping. Behind them Sonia prayed, softly and, as it
were, timidly weeping.
“These last two days she hasn’t said a word to me, she hasn’t glanced
at me,” Raskolnikov thought suddenly. The sunlight was bright in the
room; the incense rose in clouds; the priest read, “Give rest, oh Lord....”
Raskolnikov stayed all through the service. As he blessed them and took
his leave, the priest looked round strangely. After the service,
Raskolnikov went up to Sonia. She took both his hands and let her head
sink on his shoulder. This slight friendly gesture bewildered
Raskolnikov. It seemed strange to him that there was no trace of
repugnance, no trace of disgust, no tremor in her hand. It was the
furthest limit of self-abnegation, at least so he interpreted it.
Sonia said nothing. Raskolnikov pressed her hand and went out. He
felt very miserable. 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. But although he had almost always been by himself of late, he
had never been able to feel alone. 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. 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. There he
felt easier and even more solitary. One day at dusk he sat for an hour
listening to songs in a tavern and he remembered that he positively
enjoyed it. But at last he had suddenly felt the same uneasiness again,
as though his conscience smote him. “Here I sit listening to singing, is
that what I ought to be doing?” he thought. Yet he felt at once that that
was not the only cause of his uneasiness; there was something
requiring immediate decision, but it was something he could not clearly
understand or put into words. It was a hopeless tangle. “No, better the
struggle again! Better Por iry again... or Svidrigaı̈lov.... Better some
challenge again... some attack. Yes, yes!” he thought. He went out of the
tavern and rushed away almost at a run. The thought of Dounia and his
mother suddenly reduced him almost to a panic. That night he woke up
before morning among some bushes in Krestovsky Island, trembling all
over with fever; he walked home, and it was early morning when he
arrived. After some hours’ sleep the fever left him, but he woke up late,
two o’clock in the afternoon.
He remembered that Katerina Ivanovna’s funeral had been ixed for
that day, and was glad that he was not present at it. Nastasya brought
him some food; he ate and drank with appetite, almost with greediness.
His head was fresher and he was calmer than he had been for the last
three days. He even felt a passing wonder at his previous attacks of
panic.
The door opened and Razumihin came in.
“Ah, he’s eating, then he’s not ill,” said Razumihin. He took a chair and
sat down at the table opposite Raskolnikov.
He was troubled and did not attempt to conceal it. He spoke with
evident annoyance, but without hurry or raising his voice. He looked as
though he had some special ixed determination.
“Listen,” he began resolutely. “As far as I am concerned, you may all go
to hell, but from what I see, it’s clear to me that I can’t make head or tail
of it; please don’t think I’ve come to ask you questions. I don’t want to
know, hang it! If you begin telling me your secrets, I dare say I shouldn’t
stay to listen, I should go away cursing. I have only come to ind out
once for all whether it’s a fact that you are mad? There is a conviction in
the air that you are mad or very nearly so. I admit I’ve been disposed to
that opinion myself, judging from your stupid, repulsive and quite
inexplicable actions, and from your recent behavior to your mother and
sister. Only a monster or a madman could treat them as you have; so
you must be mad.”
“When did you see them last?”
“Just now. Haven’t you seen them since then? What have you been
doing with yourself? Tell me, please. I’ve been to you three times
already. Your mother has been seriously ill since yesterday. She had
made up her mind to come to you; Avdotya Romanovna tried to prevent
her; she wouldn’t hear a word. ‘If he is ill, if his mind is giving way, who
can look after him like his mother?’ she said. We all came here together,
we couldn’t let her come alone all the way. We kept begging her to be
calm. We came in, you weren’t here; she sat down, and stayed ten
minutes, while we stood waiting in silence. She got up and said: ‘If he’s
gone out, that is, if he is well, and has forgotten his mother, it’s
humiliating and unseemly for his mother to stand at his door begging
for kindness.’ She returned home and took to her bed; now she is in a
fever. ‘I see,’ she said, ‘that he has time for his girl.’ She means by your
girl Sofya Semyonovna, your betrothed or your mistress, I don’t know. I
went at once to Sofya Semyonovna’s, for I wanted to know what was
going on. I looked round, I saw the cof in, the children crying, and Sofya
Semyonovna trying them on mourning dresses. No sign of you. I
apologised, came away, and reported to Avdotya Romanovna. So that’s
all nonsense and you haven’t got a girl; the most likely thing is that you
are mad. But here you sit, guzzling boiled beef as though you’d not had
a bite for three days. Though as far as that goes, madmen eat too, but
though you have not said a word to me yet... you are not mad! That I’d
swear! Above all, you are not mad! So you may go to hell, all of you, for
there’s some mystery, some secret about it, and I don’t intend to worry
my brains over your secrets. So I’ve simply come to swear at you,” he
inished, getting up, “to relieve my mind. And I know what to do now.”
“What do you mean to do now?”
“What business is it of yours what I mean to do?”
“You are going in for a drinking bout.”
“How... how did you know?”
“Why, it’s pretty plain.”
Razumihin paused for a minute.
“You always have been a very rational person and you’ve never been
mad, never,” he observed suddenly with warmth. “You’re right: I shall
drink. Good-bye!”
And he moved to go out.
“I was talking with my sister—the day before yesterday, I think it was
—about you, Razumihin.”
“About me! But... where can you have seen her the day before
yesterday?” Razumihin stopped short and even turned a little pale.
One could see that his heart was throbbing slowly and violently.
 “She came here by herself, sat there and talked to me.”
“She did!”
“Yes.”
“What did you say to her... I mean, about me?”
“I told her you were a very good, honest, and industrious man. I
didn’t tell her you love her, because she knows that herself.”
“She knows that herself?”
“Well, it’s pretty plain. Wherever I might go, whatever happened to
me, you would remain to look after them. I, so to speak, give them into
your keeping, Razumihin. I say this because I know quite well how you
love her, and am convinced of the purity of your heart. I know that she
too may love you and perhaps does love you already. Now decide for
yourself, as you know best, whether you need go in for a drinking bout
or not.”
“Rodya! You see... well.... Ach, damn it! But where do you mean to go?
Of course, if it’s all a secret, never mind.... But I... I shall ind out the
secret... and I am sure that it must be some ridiculous nonsense and
that you’ve made it all up. Anyway you are a capital fellow, a capital
fellow!...”
“That was just what I wanted to add, only you interrupted, that that
was a very good decision of yours not to ind out these secrets. Leave it
to time, don’t worry about it. You’ll know it all in time when it must be.
Yesterday a man said to me that what a man needs is fresh air, fresh air,
fresh air. I mean to go to him directly to ind out what he meant by that.”
Razumihin stood lost in thought and excitement, making a silent
conclusion.
“He’s a political conspirator! He must be. And he’s on the eve of some
desperate step, that’s certain. It can only be that! And... and Dounia
knows,” he thought suddenly.
“So Avdotya Romanovna comes to see you,” he said, weighing each
syllable, “and you’re going to see a man who says we need more air, and
so of course that letter... that too must have something to do with it,” he
concluded to himself.
“What letter?”
 “She got a letter to-day. It upset her very much—very much indeed.
Too much so. I began speaking of you, she begged me not to. Then...
then she said that perhaps we should very soon have to part... then she
began warmly thanking me for something; then she went to her room
and locked herself in.”
“She got a letter?” Raskolnikov asked thoughtfully.
“Yes, and you didn’t know? hm...”
They were both silent.
“Good-bye, Rodion. There was a time, brother, when I.... Never mind,
good-bye. You see, there was a time.... Well, good-bye! I must be off too. I
am not going to drink. There’s no need now.... That’s all stuff!”
He hurried out; but when he had almost closed the door behind him,
he suddenly opened it again, and said, looking away:
“Oh, by the way, do you remember that murder, you know Por iry’s,
that old woman? Do you know the murderer has been found, he has
confessed and given the proofs. It’s one of those very workmen, the
painter, only fancy! Do you remember I defended them here? Would you
believe it, all that scene of ighting and laughing with his companions
on the stairs while the porter and the two witnesses were going up, he
got up on purpose to disarm suspicion. The cunning, the presence of
mind of the young dog! One can hardly credit it; but it’s his own
explanation, he has confessed it all. And what a fool I was about it! Well,
he’s simply a genius of hypocrisy and resourcefulness in disarming the
suspicions of the lawyers—so there’s nothing much to wonder at, I
suppose! Of course people like that are always possible. And the fact
that he couldn’t keep up the character, but confessed, makes him easier
to believe in. But what a fool I was! I was frantic on their side!”
“Tell me, please, from whom did you hear that, and why does it
interest you so?” Raskolnikov asked with unmistakable agitation.
“What next? You ask me why it interests me!... Well, I heard it from
Por iry, among others... It was from him I heard almost all about it.”
“From Por iry?”
“From Por iry.”
“What... what did he say?” Raskolnikov asked in dismay.
 “He gave me a capital explanation of it. Psychologically, after his
fashion.”
“He explained it? Explained it himself?”
“Yes, yes; good-bye. I’ll tell you all about it another time, but now I’m
busy. There was a time when I fancied... But no matter, another time!...
What need is there for me to drink now? You have made me drunk
without wine. I am drunk, Rodya! Good-bye, I’m going. I’ll come again
very soon.”
He went out.
“He’s a political conspirator, there’s not a doubt about it,” Razumihin
decided, as he slowly descended the stairs. “And he’s drawn his sister
in; that’s quite, quite in keeping with Avdotya Romanovna’s character.
There are interviews between them!... She hinted at it too... So many of
her words.... and hints... bear that meaning! And how else can all this
tangle be explained? Hm! And I was almost thinking... Good heavens,
what I thought! Yes, I took leave of my senses and I wronged him! It was
his doing, under the lamp in the corridor that day. Pfoo! What a crude,
nasty, vile idea on my part! Nikolay is a brick, for confessing.... And how
clear it all is now! His illness then, all his strange actions... before this, in
the university, how morose he used to be, how gloomy.... But what’s the
meaning now of that letter? There’s something in that, too, perhaps.
Whom was it from? I suspect...! No, I must ind out!”
He thought of Dounia, realising all he had heard and his heart
throbbed, and he suddenly broke into a run.
As soon as Razumihin went out, Raskolnikov got up, turned to the
window, walked into one corner and then into another, as though
forgetting the smallness of his room, and sat down again on the sofa. He
felt, so to speak, renewed; again the struggle, so a means of escape had
come.
“Yes, a means of escape had come! It had been too sti ling, too
cramping, the burden had been too agonising. A lethargy had come
upon him at times. From the moment of the scene with Nikolay at
Por iry’s he had been suffocating, penned in without hope of escape.
After Nikolay’s confession, on that very day had come the scene with
Sonia; his behaviour and his last words had been utterly unlike
anything he could have imagined beforehand; he had grown feebler,
instantly and fundamentally! And he had agreed at the time with Sonia,
he had agreed in his heart he could not go on living alone with such a
thing on his mind!
“And Svidrigaı̈lov was a riddle... He worried him, that was true, but
somehow not on the same point. He might still have a struggle to come
with Svidrigaı̈lov. Svidrigaı̈lov, too, might be a means of escape; but
Por iry was a different matter.
“And so Por iry himself had explained it to Razumihin, had explained
it psychologically. He had begun bringing in his damned psychology
again! Por iry? But to think that Por iry should for one moment believe
that Nikolay was guilty, after what had passed between them before
Nikolay’s appearance, after that tê te-à -tê te interview, which could have
only one explanation? (During those days Raskolnikov had often
recalled passages in that scene with Por iry; he could not bear to let his
mind rest on it.) Such words, such gestures had passed between them,
they had exchanged such glances, things had been said in such a tone
and had reached such a pass, that Nikolay, whom Por iry had seen
through at the irst word, at the irst gesture, could not have shaken his
conviction.
“And to think that even Razumihin had begun to suspect! The scene
in the corridor under the lamp had produced its effect then. He had
rushed to Por iry.... But what had induced the latter to receive him like
that? What had been his object in putting Razumihin off with Nikolay?
He must have some plan; there was some design, but what was it? It
was true that a long time had passed since that morning—too long a
time—and no sight nor sound of Por iry. Well, that was a bad sign....”
Raskolnikov took his cap and went out of the room, still pondering. It
was the irst time for a long while that he had felt clear in his mind, at
least. “I must settle Svidrigaı̈lov,” he thought, “and as soon as possible;
he, too, seems to be waiting for me to come to him of my own accord.”
And at that moment there was such a rush of hate in his weary heart
that he might have killed either of those two—Por iry or Svidrigaı̈lov. At
least he felt that he would be capable of doing it later, if not now.
“We shall see, we shall see,” he repeated to himself.
But no sooner had he opened the door than he stumbled upon
Por iry himself in the passage. He was coming in to see him.
Raskolnikov was dumbfounded for a minute, but only for one minute.
Strange to say, he was not very much astonished at seeing Por iry and
scarcely afraid of him. He was simply startled, but was quickly, instantly,
on his guard. “Perhaps this will mean the end? But how could Por iry
have approached so quietly, like a cat, so that he had heard nothing?
Could he have been listening at the door?”
“You didn’t expect a visitor, Rodion Romanovitch,” Por iry explained,
laughing. “I’ve been meaning to look in a long time; I was passing by
and thought why not go in for ive minutes. Are you going out? I won’t
keep you long. Just let me have one cigarette.”
“Sit down, Por iry Petrovitch, sit down.” Raskolnikov gave his visitor a
seat with so pleased and friendly an expression that he would have
marvelled at himself, if he could have seen it.
The last moment had come, the last drops had to be drained! So a
man will sometimes go through half an hour of mortal terror with a
brigand, yet when the knife is at his throat at last, he feels no fear.
Raskolnikov seated himself directly facing Por iry, and looked at him
without linching. Por iry screwed up his eyes and began lighting a
cigarette.
“Speak, speak,” seemed as though it would burst from Raskolnikov’s
heart. “Come, why don’t you speak?”
 CHAPTER II

“Ah these cigarettes!” Por iry Petrovitch ejaculated at last, having

lighted one. “They are pernicious, positively pernicious, and yet I can’t
give them up! I cough, I begin to have tickling in my throat and a
dif iculty in breathing. You know I am a coward, I went lately to Dr. B
——n; he always gives at least half an hour to each patient. He
positively laughed looking at me; he sounded me: ‘Tobacco’s bad for
you,’ he said, ‘your lungs are affected.’ But how am I to give it up? What
is there to take its place? I don’t drink, that’s the mischief, he-he-he, that
I don’t. Everything is relative, Rodion Romanovitch, everything is
relative!”
“Why, he’s playing his professional tricks again,” Raskolnikov thought
with disgust. All the circumstances of their last interview suddenly
came back to him, and he felt a rush of the feeling that had come upon
him then.
“I came to see you the day before yesterday, in the evening; you didn’t
know?” Por iry Petrovitch went on, looking round the room. “I came
into this very room. I was passing by, just as I did to-day, and I thought
I’d return your call. I walked in as your door was wide open, I looked
round, waited and went out without leaving my name with your
servant. Don’t you lock your door?”
Raskolnikov’s face grew more and more gloomy. Por iry seemed to
guess his state of mind.
“I’ve come to have it out with you, Rodion Romanovitch, my dear
fellow! I owe you an explanation and must give it to you,” he continued
with a slight smile, just patting Raskolnikov’s knee.
But almost at the same instant a serious and careworn look came
into his face; to his surprise Raskolnikov saw a touch of sadness in it. He
had never seen and never suspected such an expression in his face.
 “A strange scene passed between us last time we met, Rodion
Romanovitch. Our irst interview, too, was a strange one; but then... and
one thing after another! This is the point: I have perhaps acted unfairly
to you; I feel it. Do you remember how we parted? Your nerves were
unhinged and your knees were shaking and so were mine. And, you
know, our behaviour was unseemly, even ungentlemanly. And yet we
are gentlemen, above all, in any case, gentlemen; that must be
understood. Do you remember what we came to?... and it was quite
indecorous.”
“What is he up to, what does he take me for?” Raskolnikov asked
himself in amazement, raising his head and looking with open eyes on
Por iry.
“I’ve decided openness is better between us,” Por iry Petrovitch went
on, turning his head away and dropping his eyes, as though unwilling to
disconcert his former victim and as though disdaining his former wiles.
“Yes, such suspicions and such scenes cannot continue for long. Nikolay
put a stop to it, or I don’t know what we might not have come to. That
damned workman was sitting at the time in the next room—can you
realise that? You know that, of course; and I am aware that he came to
you afterwards. But what you supposed then was not true: I had not
sent for anyone, I had made no kind of arrangements. You ask why I
hadn’t? What shall I say to you? it had all come upon me so suddenly. I
had scarcely sent for the porters (you noticed them as you went out, I
dare say). An idea lashed upon me; I was irmly convinced at the time,
you see, Rodion Romanovitch. Come, I thought—even if I let one thing
slip for a time, I shall get hold of something else—I shan’t lose what I
want, anyway. You are nervously irritable, Rodion Romanovitch, by
temperament; it’s out of proportion with other qualities of your heart
and character, which I latter myself I have to some extent divined. Of
course I did re lect even then that it does not always happen that a man
gets up and blurts out his whole story. It does happen sometimes, if you
make a man lose all patience, though even then it’s rare. I was capable
of realising that. If I only had a fact, I thought, the least little fact to go
upon, something I could lay hold of, something tangible, not merely
psychological. For if a man is guilty, you must be able to get something
substantial out of him; one may reckon upon most surprising results
indeed. I was reckoning on your temperament, Rodion Romanovitch, on
your temperament above all things! I had great hopes of you at that
time.”
“But what are you driving at now?” Raskolnikov muttered at last,
asking the question without thinking.
“What is he talking about?” he wondered distractedly, “does he really
take me to be innocent?”
“What am I driving at? I’ve come to explain myself, I consider it my
duty, so to speak. I want to make clear to you how the whole business,
the whole misunderstanding arose. I’ve caused you a great deal of
suffering, Rodion Romanovitch. I am not a monster. I understand what
it must mean for a man who has been unfortunate, but who is proud,
imperious and above all, impatient, to have to bear such treatment! I
regard you in any case as a man of noble character and not without
elements of magnanimity, though I don’t agree with all your
convictions. I wanted to tell you this irst, frankly and quite sincerely,
for above all I don’t want to deceive you. When I made your
acquaintance, I felt attracted by you. Perhaps you will laugh at my
saying so. You have a right to. I know you disliked me from the irst and
indeed you’ve no reason to like me. You may think what you like, but I
desire now to do all I can to efface that impression and to show that I
am a man of heart and conscience. I speak sincerely.”
Por iry Petrovitch made a digni ied pause. Raskolnikov felt a rush of
renewed alarm. The thought that Por iry believed him to be innocent
began to make him uneasy.
“It’s scarcely necessary to go over everything in detail,” Por iry
Petrovitch went on. “Indeed, I could scarcely attempt it. To begin with
there were rumours. Through whom, how, and when those rumours
came to me... and how they affected you, I need not go into. My
suspicions were aroused by a complete accident, which might just as
easily not have happened. What was it? Hm! I believe there is no need
to go into that either. Those rumours and that accident led to one idea
in my mind. I admit it openly—for one may as well make a clean breast
of it—I was the irst to pitch on you. The old woman’s notes on the
pledges and the rest of it—that all came to nothing. Yours was one of a
hundred. I happened, too, to hear of the scene at the of ice, from a man
who described it capitally, unconsciously reproducing the scene with
great vividness. It was just one thing after another, Rodion
Romanovitch, my dear fellow! How could I avoid being brought to
certain ideas? From a hundred rabbits you can’t make a horse, a
hundred suspicions don’t make a proof, as the English proverb says, but
that’s only from the rational point of view—you can’t help being partial,
for after all a lawyer is only human. I thought, too, of your article in that
journal, do you remember, on your irst visit we talked of it? I jeered at
you at the time, but that was only to lead you on. I repeat, Rodion
Romanovitch, you are ill and impatient. That you were bold,
headstrong, in earnest and... had felt a great deal I recognised long
before. I, too, have felt the same, so that your article seemed familiar to
me. It was conceived on sleepless nights, with a throbbing heart, in
ecstasy and suppressed enthusiasm. And that proud suppressed
enthusiasm in young people is dangerous! I jeered at you then, but let
me tell you that, as a literary amateur, I am awfully fond of such irst
essays, full of the heat of youth. There is a mistiness and a chord
vibrating in the mist. Your article is absurd and fantastic, but there’s a
transparent sincerity, a youthful incorruptible pride and the daring of
despair in it. It’s a gloomy article, but that’s what’s ine in it. I read your
article and put it aside, thinking as I did so ‘that man won’t go the
common way.’ Well, I ask you, after that as a preliminary, how could I
help being carried away by what followed? Oh, dear, I am not saying
anything, I am not making any statement now. I simply noted it at the
time. What is there in it? I re lected. There’s nothing in it, that is really
nothing and perhaps absolutely nothing. And it’s not at all the thing for
the prosecutor to let himself be carried away by notions: here I have
Nikolay on my hands with actual evidence against him—you may think
what you like of it, but it’s evidence. He brings in his psychology, too;
one has to consider him, too, for it’s a matter of life and death. Why am I
explaining this to you? That you may understand, and not blame my
malicious behaviour on that occasion. It was not malicious, I assure you,
he-he! Do you suppose I didn’t come to search your room at the time? I
did, I did, he-he! I was here when you were lying ill in bed, not of icially,
not in my own person, but I was here. Your room was searched to the
last thread at the irst suspicion; but umsonst! I thought to myself, now
that man will come, will come of himself and quickly, too; if he’s guilty,
he’s sure to come. Another man wouldn’t, but he will. And you
remember how Mr. Razumihin began discussing the subject with you?
We arranged that to excite you, so we purposely spread rumours, that
he might discuss the case with you, and Razumihin is not a man to
restrain his indignation. Mr. Zametov was tremendously struck by your
anger and your open daring. Think of blurting out in a restaurant ‘I
killed her.’ It was too daring, too reckless. I thought so myself, if he is
guilty he will be a formidable opponent. That was what I thought at the
time. I was expecting you. But you simply bowled Zametov over and...
well, you see, it all lies in this—that this damnable psychology can be
taken two ways! Well, I kept expecting you, and so it was, you came! My
heart was fairly throbbing. Ach!
“Now, why need you have come? Your laughter, too, as you came in,
do you remember? I saw it all plain as daylight, but if I hadn’t expected
you so specially, I should not have noticed anything in your laughter.
You see what in luence a mood has! Mr. Razumihin then—ah, that
stone, that stone under which the things were hidden! I seem to see it
somewhere in a kitchen garden. It was in a kitchen garden, you told
Zametov and afterwards you repeated that in my of ice? And when we
began picking your article to pieces, how you explained it! One could
take every word of yours in two senses, as though there were another
meaning hidden.
“So in this way, Rodion Romanovitch, I reached the furthest limit, and
knocking my head against a post, I pulled myself up, asking myself what
I was about. After all, I said, you can take it all in another sense if you
like, and it’s more natural so, indeed. I couldn’t help admitting it was
more natural. I was bothered! ‘No, I’d better get hold of some little fact’
I said. So when I heard of the bell-ringing, I held my breath and was all
in a tremor. ‘Here is my little fact,’ thought I, and I didn’t think it over, I
simply wouldn’t. I would have given a thousand roubles at that minute
to have seen you with my own eyes, when you walked a hundred paces
beside that workman, after he had called you murderer to your face,
and you did not dare to ask him a question all the way. And then what
about your trembling, what about your bell-ringing in your illness, in
semi-delirium?
“And so, Rodion Romanovitch, can you wonder that I played such
pranks on you? And what made you come at that very minute?
Someone seemed to have sent you, by Jove! And if Nikolay had not
parted us... and do you remember Nikolay at the time? Do you
remember him clearly? It was a thunderbolt, a regular thunderbolt!
And how I met him! I didn’t believe in the thunderbolt, not for a minute.
You could see it for yourself; and how could I? Even afterwards, when
you had gone and he began making very, very plausible answers on
certain points, so that I was surprised at him myself, even then I didn’t
believe his story! You see what it is to be as irm as a rock! No, thought I,
Morgenfrüh. What has Nikolay got to do with it!”
“Razumihin told me just now that you think Nikolay guilty and had
yourself assured him of it....”
His voice failed him, and he broke off. He had been listening in
indescribable agitation, as this man who had seen through and through
him, went back upon himself. He was afraid of believing it and did not
believe it. In those still ambiguous words he kept eagerly looking for
something more de inite and conclusive.
“Mr. Razumihin!” cried Por iry Petrovitch, seeming glad of a question
from Raskolnikov, who had till then been silent. “He-he-he! But I had to
put Mr. Razumihin off; two is company, three is none. Mr. Razumihin is
not the right man, besides he is an outsider. He came running to me
with a pale face.... But never mind him, why bring him in? To return to
Nikolay, would you like to know what sort of a type he is, how I
understand him, that is? To begin with, he is still a child and not exactly
a coward, but something by way of an artist. Really, don’t laugh at my
describing him so. He is innocent and responsive to in luence. He has a
heart, and is a fantastic fellow. He sings and dances, he tells stories, they
say, so that people come from other villages to hear him. He attends
school too, and laughs till he cries if you hold up a inger to him; he will
drink himself senseless—not as a regular vice, but at times, when
people treat him, like a child. And he stole, too, then, without knowing it
himself, for ‘How can it be stealing, if one picks it up?’ And do you know
he is an Old Believer, or rather a dissenter? There have been
Wanderers[*] in his family, and he was for two years in his village under
the spiritual guidance of a certain elder. I learnt all this from Nikolay
and from his fellow villagers. And what’s more, he wanted to run into
the wilderness! He was full of fervour, prayed at night, read the old
books, ‘the true’ ones, and read himself crazy.
[*] A religious sect.—TRANSLATOR’S NOTE.

“Petersburg had a great effect upon him, especially the women and
the wine. He responds to everything and he forgot the elder and all that.
I learnt that an artist here took a fancy to him, and used to go and see
him, and now this business came upon him.
“Well, he was frightened, he tried to hang himself! He ran away! How
can one get over the idea the people have of Russian legal proceedings?
The very word ‘trial’ frightens some of them. Whose fault is it? We shall
see what the new juries will do. God grant they do good! Well, in prison,
it seems, he remembered the venerable elder; the Bible, too, made its
appearance again. Do you know, Rodion Romanovitch, the force of the
word ‘suffering’ among some of these people! It’s not a question of
suffering for someone’s bene it, but simply, ‘one must suffer.’ If they
suffer at the hands of the authorities, so much the better. In my time
there was a very meek and mild prisoner who spent a whole year in
prison always reading his Bible on the stove at night and he read
himself crazy, and so crazy, do you know, that one day, apropos of
nothing, he seized a brick and lung it at the governor; though he had
done him no harm. And the way he threw it too: aimed it a yard on one
side on purpose, for fear of hurting him. Well, we know what happens
to a prisoner who assaults an of icer with a weapon. So ‘he took his
suffering.’
“So I suspect now that Nikolay wants to take his suffering or
something of the sort. I know it for certain from facts, indeed. Only he
doesn’t know that I know. What, you don’t admit that there are such
fantastic people among the peasants? Lots of them. The elder now has
begun in luencing him, especially since he tried to hang himself. But
he’ll come and tell me all himself. You think he’ll hold out? Wait a bit,
he’ll take his words back. I am waiting from hour to hour for him to
come and abjure his evidence. I have come to like that Nikolay and am
studying him in detail. And what do you think? He-he! He answered me
very plausibly on some points, he obviously had collected some
evidence and prepared himself cleverly. But on other points he is
simply at sea, knows nothing and doesn’t even suspect that he doesn’t
know!
“No, Rodion Romanovitch, Nikolay doesn’t come in! This is a fantastic,
gloomy business, a modern case, an incident of to-day when the heart
of man is troubled, when the phrase is quoted that blood ‘renews,’ when
comfort is preached as the aim of life. Here we have bookish dreams, a
heart unhinged by theories. Here we see resolution in the irst stage,
but resolution of a special kind: he resolved to do it like jumping over a
precipice or from a bell tower and his legs shook as he went to the
crime. He forgot to shut the door after him, and murdered two people
for a theory. He committed the murder and couldn’t take the money,
and what he did manage to snatch up he hid under a stone. It wasn’t
enough for him to suffer agony behind the door while they battered at
the door and rung the bell, no, he had to go to the empty lodging, half
delirious, to recall the bell-ringing, he wanted to feel the cold shiver
over again.... Well, that we grant, was through illness, but consider this:
he is a murderer, but looks upon himself as an honest man, despises
others, poses as injured innocence. No, that’s not the work of a Nikolay,
my dear Rodion Romanovitch!”
All that had been said before had sounded so like a recantation that
these words were too great a shock. Raskolnikov shuddered as though
he had been stabbed.
“Then... who then... is the murderer?” he asked in a breathless voice,
unable to restrain himself.
Por iry Petrovitch sank back in his chair, as though he were amazed
at the question.
“Who is the murderer?” he repeated, as though unable to believe his
ears. “Why, you, Rodion Romanovitch! You are the murderer,” he added,
almost in a whisper, in a voice of genuine conviction.
Raskolnikov leapt from the sofa, stood up for a few seconds and sat
down again without uttering a word. His face twitched convulsively.
“Your lip is twitching just as it did before,” Por iry Petrovitch
observed almost sympathetically. “You’ve been misunderstanding me, I
think, Rodion Romanovitch,” he added after a brief pause, “that’s why
you are so surprised. I came on purpose to tell you everything and deal
openly with you.”
 “It was not I murdered her,” Raskolnikov whispered like a frightened
child caught in the act.
“No, it was you, you Rodion Romanovitch, and no one else,” Por iry
whispered sternly, with conviction.
They were both silent and the silence lasted strangely long, about ten
minutes. Raskolnikov put his elbow on the table and passed his ingers
through his hair. Por iry Petrovitch sat quietly waiting. Suddenly
Raskolnikov looked scornfully at Por iry.
“You are at your old tricks again, Por iry Petrovitch! Your old method
again. I wonder you don’t get sick of it!”
“Oh, stop that, what does that matter now? It would be a different
matter if there were witnesses present, but we are whispering alone.
You see yourself that I have not come to chase and capture you like a
hare. Whether you confess it or not is nothing to me now; for myself, I
am convinced without it.”
“If so, what did you come for?” Raskolnikov asked irritably. “I ask you
the same question again: if you consider me guilty, why don’t you take
me to prison?”
“Oh, that’s your question! I will answer you, point for point. In the
irst place, to arrest you so directly is not to my interest.”
“How so? If you are convinced you ought....”
“Ach, what if I am convinced? That’s only my dream for the time. Why
should I put you in safety? You know that’s it, since you ask me to do it.
If I confront you with that workman for instance and you say to him
‘were you drunk or not? Who saw me with you? I simply took you to be
drunk, and you were drunk, too.’ Well, what could I answer, especially
as your story is a more likely one than his? for there’s nothing but
psychology to support his evidence—that’s almost unseemly with his
ugly mug, while you hit the mark exactly, for the rascal is an inveterate
drunkard and notoriously so. And I have myself admitted candidly
several times already that that psychology can be taken in two ways
and that the second way is stronger and looks far more probable, and
that apart from that I have as yet nothing against you. And though I
shall put you in prison and indeed have come—quite contrary to
etiquette—to inform you of it beforehand, yet I tell you frankly, also
contrary to etiquette, that it won’t be to my advantage. Well, secondly,
I’ve come to you because...”
“Yes, yes, secondly?” Raskolnikov was listening breathless.
“Because, as I told you just now, I consider I owe you an explanation. I
don’t want you to look upon me as a monster, as I have a genuine liking
for you, you may believe me or not. And in the third place I’ve come to
you with a direct and open proposition—that you should surrender and
confess. It will be in initely more to your advantage and to my
advantage too, for my task will be done. Well, is this open on my part or
not?”
Raskolnikov thought a minute.
“Listen, Por iry Petrovitch. You said just now you have nothing but
psychology to go on, yet now you’ve gone on mathematics. Well, what if
you are mistaken yourself, now?”
“No, Rodion Romanovitch, I am not mistaken. I have a little fact even
then, Providence sent it me.”
“What little fact?”
“I won’t tell you what, Rodion Romanovitch. And in any case, I haven’t
the right to put it off any longer, I must arrest you. So think it over: it
makes no difference to me now and so I speak only for your sake.
Believe me, it will be better, Rodion Romanovitch.”
Raskolnikov smiled malignantly.
“That’s not simply ridiculous, it’s positively shameless. Why, even if I
were guilty, which I don’t admit, what reason should I have to confess,
when you tell me yourself that I shall be in greater safety in prison?”
“Ah, Rodion Romanovitch, don’t put too much faith in words, perhaps
prison will not be altogether a restful place. That’s only theory and my
theory, and what authority am I for you? Perhaps, too, even now I am
hiding something from you? I can’t lay bare everything, he-he! And how
can you ask what advantage? Don’t you know how it would lessen your
sentence? You would be confessing at a moment when another man has
taken the crime on himself and so has muddled the whole case.
Consider that! I swear before God that I will so arrange that your
confession shall come as a complete surprise. We will make a clean
sweep of all these psychological points, of a suspicion against you, so
that your crime will appear to have been something like an aberration,
for in truth it was an aberration. I am an honest man, Rodion
Romanovitch, and will keep my word.”
Raskolnikov maintained a mournful silence and let his head sink
dejectedly. He pondered a long while and at last smiled again, but his
smile was sad and gentle.
“No!” he said, apparently abandoning all attempt to keep up
appearances with Por iry, “it’s not worth it, I don’t care about lessening
the sentence!”
“That’s just what I was afraid of!” Por iry cried warmly and, as it
seemed, involuntarily. “That’s just what I feared, that you wouldn’t care
about the mitigation of sentence.”
Raskolnikov looked sadly and expressively at him.
“Ah, don’t disdain life!” Por iry went on. “You have a great deal of it
still before you. How can you say you don’t want a mitigation of
sentence? You are an impatient fellow!”
“A great deal of what lies before me?”
“Of life. What sort of prophet are you, do you know much about it?
Seek and ye shall ind. This may be God’s means for bringing you to
Him. And it’s not for ever, the bondage....”
“The time will be shortened,” laughed Raskolnikov.
“Why, is it the bourgeois disgrace you are afraid of? It may be that
you are afraid of it without knowing it, because you are young! But
anyway you shouldn’t be afraid of giving yourself up and confessing.”
“Ach, hang it!” Raskolnikov whispered with loathing and contempt, as
though he did not want to speak aloud.
He got up again as though he meant to go away, but sat down again in
evident despair.
“Hang it, if you like! You’ve lost faith and you think that I am grossly
lattering you; but how long has your life been? How much do you
understand? You made up a theory and then were ashamed that it
broke down and turned out to be not at all original! It turned out
something base, that’s true, but you are not hopelessly base. By no
means so base! At least you didn’t deceive yourself for long, you went
straight to the furthest point at one bound. How do I regard you? I
regard you as one of those men who would stand and smile at their
torturer while he cuts their entrails out, if only they have found faith or
God. Find it and you will live. You have long needed a change of air.
Suffering, too, is a good thing. Suffer! Maybe Nikolay is right in wanting
to suffer. I know you don’t believe in it—but don’t be over-wise; ling
yourself straight into life, without deliberation; don’t be afraid—the
lood will bear you to the bank and set you safe on your feet again.
What bank? How can I tell? I only believe that you have long life before
you. I know that you take all my words now for a set speech prepared
beforehand, but maybe you will remember them after. They may be of
use some time. That’s why I speak. It’s as well that you only killed the
old woman. If you’d invented another theory you might perhaps have
done something a thousand times more hideous. You ought to thank
God, perhaps. How do you know? Perhaps God is saving you for
something. But keep a good heart and have less fear! Are you afraid of
the great expiation before you? No, it would be shameful to be afraid of
it. Since you have taken such a step, you must harden your heart. There
is justice in it. You must ful il the demands of justice. I know that you
don’t believe it, but indeed, life will bring you through. You will live it
down in time. What you need now is fresh air, fresh air, fresh air!”
Raskolnikov positively started.
“But who are you? what prophet are you? From the height of what
majestic calm do you proclaim these words of wisdom?”
“Who am I? I am a man with nothing to hope for, that’s all. A man
perhaps of feeling and sympathy, maybe of some knowledge too, but my
day is over. But you are a different matter, there is life waiting for you.
Though, who knows? maybe your life, too, will pass off in smoke and
come to nothing. Come, what does it matter, that you will pass into
another class of men? It’s not comfort you regret, with your heart! What
of it that perhaps no one will see you for so long? It’s not time, but
yourself that will decide that. Be the sun and all will see you. The sun
has before all to be the sun. Why are you smiling again? At my being
such a Schiller? I bet you’re imagining that I am trying to get round you
by lattery. Well, perhaps I am, he-he-he! Perhaps you’d better not
believe my word, perhaps you’d better never believe it altogether—I’m
made that way, I confess it. But let me add, you can judge for yourself, I
think, how far I am a base sort of man and how far I am honest.”
“When do you mean to arrest me?”
“Well, I can let you walk about another day or two. Think it over, my
dear fellow, and pray to God. It’s more in your interest, believe me.”
“And what if I run away?” asked Raskolnikov with a strange smile.
“No, you won’t run away. A peasant would run away, a fashionable
dissenter would run away, the lunkey of another man’s thought, for
you’ve only to show him the end of your little inger and he’ll be ready
to believe in anything for the rest of his life. But you’ve ceased to believe
in your theory already, what will you run away with? And what would
you do in hiding? It would be hateful and dif icult for you, and what you
need more than anything in life is a de inite position, an atmosphere to
suit you. And what sort of atmosphere would you have? If you ran away,
you’d come back to yourself. You can’t get on without us. And if I put you
in prison—say you’ve been there a month, or two, or three—remember
my word, you’ll confess of yourself and perhaps to your own surprise.
You won’t know an hour beforehand that you are coming with a
confession. I am convinced that you will decide, ‘to take your suffering.’
You don’t believe my words now, but you’ll come to it of yourself. For
suffering, Rodion Romanovitch, is a great thing. Never mind my having
grown fat, I know all the same. Don’t laugh at it, there’s an idea in
suffering, Nikolay is right. No, you won’t run away, Rodion
Romanovitch.”
Raskolnikov got up and took his cap. Por iry Petrovitch also rose.
“Are you going for a walk? The evening will be ine, if only we don’t
have a storm. Though it would be a good thing to freshen the air.”
He, too, took his cap.
“Por iry Petrovitch, please don’t take up the notion that I have
confessed to you to-day,” Raskolnikov pronounced with sullen
insistence. “You’re a strange man and I have listened to you from simple
curiosity. But I have admitted nothing, remember that!”
“Oh, I know that, I’ll remember. Look at him, he’s trembling! Don’t be
uneasy, my dear fellow, have it your own way. Walk about a bit, you
won’t be able to walk too far. If anything happens, I have one request to
make of you,” he added, dropping his voice. “It’s an awkward one, but
important. If anything were to happen (though indeed I don’t believe in
it and think you quite incapable of it), yet in case you were taken during
these forty or ifty hours with the notion of putting an end to the
business in some other way, in some fantastic fashion—laying hands on
yourself—(it’s an absurd proposition, but you must forgive me for it) do
leave a brief but precise note, only two lines, and mention the stone. It
will be more generous. Come, till we meet! Good thoughts and sound
decisions to you!”
Por iry went out, stooping and avoiding looking at Raskolnikov. The
latter went to the window and waited with irritable impatience till he
calculated that Por iry had reached the street and moved away. Then he
too went hurriedly out of the room.
 CHAPTER III

He hurried to Svidrigaı̈lov’s. What he had to hope from that man he

did not know. But that man had some hidden power over him. Having
once recognised this, he could not rest, and now the time had come.
On the way, one question particularly worried him: had Svidrigaı̈lov
been to Por iry’s?
As far as he could judge, he would swear to it, that he had not. He
pondered again and again, went over Por iry’s visit; no, he hadn’t been,
of course he hadn’t.
But if he had not been yet, would he go? Meanwhile, for the present
he fancied he couldn’t. Why? He could not have explained, but if he
could, he would not have wasted much thought over it at the moment. It
all worried him and at the same time he could not attend to it. Strange
to say, none would have believed it perhaps, but he only felt a faint
vague anxiety about his immediate future. Another, much more
important anxiety tormented him—it concerned himself, but in a
different, more vital way. Moreover, he was conscious of immense moral
fatigue, though his mind was working better that morning than it had
done of late.
And was it worth while, after all that had happened, to contend with
these new trivial dif iculties? Was it worth while, for instance, to
manoeuvre that Svidrigaı̈lov should not go to Por iry’s? Was it worth
while to investigate, to ascertain the facts, to waste time over anyone
like Svidrigaı̈lov?
Oh, how sick he was of it all!
And yet he was hastening to Svidrigaı̈lov; could he be expecting
something new from him, information, or means of escape? Men will
catch at straws! Was it destiny or some instinct bringing them together?
Perhaps it was only fatigue, despair; perhaps it was not Svidrigaı̈lov but
some other whom he needed, and Svidrigaı̈lov had simply presented
himself by chance. Sonia? But what should he go to Sonia for now? To
beg her tears again? He was afraid of Sonia, too. Sonia stood before him
as an irrevocable sentence. He must go his own way or hers. At that
moment especially he did not feel equal to seeing her. No, would it not
be better to try Svidrigaı̈lov? And he could not help inwardly owning
that he had long felt that he must see him for some reason.
But what could they have in common? Their very evil-doing could not
be of the same kind. The man, moreover, was very unpleasant, evidently
depraved, undoubtedly cunning and deceitful, possibly malignant. Such
stories were told about him. It is true he was befriending Katerina
Ivanovna’s children, but who could tell with what motive and what it
meant? The man always had some design, some project.
There was another thought which had been continually hovering of
late about Raskolnikov’s mind, and causing him great uneasiness. It was
so painful that he made distinct efforts to get rid of it. He sometimes
thought that Svidrigaı̈lov was dogging his footsteps. Svidrigaı̈lov had
found out his secret and had had designs on Dounia. What if he had
them still? Wasn’t it practically certain that he had? And what if, having
learnt his secret and so having gained power over him, he were to use it
as a weapon against Dounia?
This idea sometimes even tormented his dreams, but it had never
presented itself so vividly to him as on his way to Svidrigaı̈lov. The very
thought moved him to gloomy rage. To begin with, this would transform
everything, even his own position; he would have at once to confess his
secret to Dounia. Would he have to give himself up perhaps to prevent
Dounia from taking some rash step? The letter? This morning Dounia
had received a letter. From whom could she get letters in Petersburg?
Luzhin, perhaps? It’s true Razumihin was there to protect her, but
Razumihin knew nothing of the position. Perhaps it was his duty to tell
Razumihin? He thought of it with repugnance.
In any case he must see Svidrigaı̈lov as soon as possible, he decided
inally. Thank God, the details of the interview were of little
consequence, if only he could get at the root of the matter; but if
Svidrigaı̈lov were capable... if he were intriguing against Dounia—then...
 Raskolnikov was so exhausted by what he had passed through that
month that he could only decide such questions in one way; “then I
shall kill him,” he thought in cold despair.
A sudden anguish oppressed his heart, he stood still in the middle of
the street and began looking about to see where he was and which way
he was going. He found himself in X. Prospect, thirty or forty paces from
the Hay Market, through which he had come. The whole second storey
of the house on the left was used as a tavern. All the windows were
wide open; judging from the igures moving at the windows, the rooms
were full to over lowing. There were sounds of singing, of clarionet and
violin, and the boom of a Turkish drum. He could hear women
shrieking. He was about to turn back wondering why he had come to
the X. Prospect, when suddenly at one of the end windows he saw
Svidrigaı̈lov, sitting at a tea-table right in the open window with a pipe
in his mouth. Raskolnikov was dreadfully taken aback, almost terri ied.
Svidrigaı̈lov was silently watching and scrutinising him and, what
struck Raskolnikov at once, seemed to be meaning to get up and slip
away unobserved. Raskolnikov at once pretended not to have seen him,
but to be looking absent-mindedly away, while he watched him out of
the corner of his eye. His heart was beating violently. Yet, it was evident
that Svidrigaı̈lov did not want to be seen. He took the pipe out of his
mouth and was on the point of concealing himself, but as he got up and
moved back his chair, he seemed to have become suddenly aware that
Raskolnikov had seen him, and was watching him. What had passed
between them was much the same as what happened at their irst
meeting in Raskolnikov’s room. A sly smile came into Svidrigaı̈lov’s face
and grew broader and broader. Each knew that he was seen and
watched by the other. At last Svidrigaı̈lov broke into a loud laugh.
“Well, well, come in if you want me; I am here!” he shouted from the
window.
Raskolnikov went up into the tavern. He found Svidrigaı̈lov in a tiny
back room, adjoining the saloon in which merchants, clerks and
numbers of people of all sorts were drinking tea at twenty little tables
to the desperate bawling of a chorus of singers. The click of billiard
balls could be heard in the distance. On the table before Svidrigaı̈lov
stood an open bottle and a glass half full of champagne. In the room he
found also a boy with a little hand organ, a healthy-looking red-cheeked
girl of eighteen, wearing a tucked-up striped skirt, and a Tyrolese hat
with ribbons. In spite of the chorus in the other room, she was singing
some servants’ hall song in a rather husky contralto, to the
accompaniment of the organ.
“Come, that’s enough,” Svidrigaı̈lov stopped her at Raskolnikov’s
entrance. The girl at once broke off and stood waiting respectfully. She
had sung her guttural rhymes, too, with a serious and respectful
expression in her face.
“Hey, Philip, a glass!” shouted Svidrigaı̈lov.
“I won’t drink anything,” said Raskolnikov.
“As you like, I didn’t mean it for you. Drink, Katia! I don’t want
anything more to-day, you can go.” He poured her out a full glass, and
laid down a yellow note.
Katia drank off her glass of wine, as women do, without putting it
down, in twenty gulps, took the note and kissed Svidrigaı̈lov’s hand,
which he allowed quite seriously. She went out of the room and the boy
trailed after her with the organ. Both had been brought in from the
street. Svidrigaı̈lov had not been a week in Petersburg, but everything
about him was already, so to speak, on a patriarchal footing; the waiter,
Philip, was by now an old friend and very obsequious.
The door leading to the saloon had a lock on it. Svidrigaı̈lov was at
home in this room and perhaps spent whole days in it. The tavern was
dirty and wretched, not even second-rate.
“I was going to see you and looking for you,” Raskolnikov began, “but
I don’t know what made me turn from the Hay Market into the X.
Prospect just now. I never take this turning. I turn to the right from the
Hay Market. And this isn’t the way to you. I simply turned and here you
are. It is strange!”
“Why don’t you say at once ‘it’s a miracle’?”
“Because it may be only chance.”
“Oh, that’s the way with all you folk,” laughed Svidrigaı̈lov. “You won’t
admit it, even if you do inwardly believe it a miracle! Here you say that
it may be only chance. And what cowards they all are here, about having
an opinion of their own, you can’t fancy, Rodion Romanovitch. I don’t
mean you, you have an opinion of your own and are not afraid to have
it. That’s how it was you attracted my curiosity.”
“Nothing else?”
“Well, that’s enough, you know,” Svidrigaı̈lov was obviously
exhilarated, but only slightly so, he had not had more than half a glass
of wine.
“I fancy you came to see me before you knew that I was capable of
having what you call an opinion of my own,” observed Raskolnikov.
“Oh, well, it was a different matter. Everyone has his own plans. And
apropos of the miracle let me tell you that I think you have been asleep
for the last two or three days. I told you of this tavern myself, there is no
miracle in your coming straight here. I explained the way myself, told
you where it was, and the hours you could ind me here. Do you
remember?”
“I don’t remember,” answered Raskolnikov with surprise.
“I believe you. I told you twice. The address has been stamped
mechanically on your memory. You turned this way mechanically and
yet precisely according to the direction, though you are not aware of it.
When I told you then, I hardly hoped you understood me. You give
yourself away too much, Rodion Romanovitch. And another thing, I’m
convinced there are lots of people in Petersburg who talk to themselves
as they walk. This is a town of crazy people. If only we had scienti ic
men, doctors, lawyers and philosophers might make most valuable
investigations in Petersburg each in his own line. There are few places
where there are so many gloomy, strong and queer in luences on the
soul of man as in Petersburg. The mere in luences of climate mean so
much. And it’s the administrative centre of all Russia and its character
must be re lected on the whole country. But that is neither here nor
there now. The point is that I have several times watched you. You walk
out of your house—holding your head high—twenty paces from home
you let it sink, and fold your hands behind your back. You look and
evidently see nothing before nor beside you. At last you begin moving
your lips and talking to yourself, and sometimes you wave one hand
and declaim, and at last stand still in the middle of the road. That’s not
at all the thing. Someone may be watching you besides me, and it won’t
do you any good. It’s nothing really to do with me and I can’t cure you,
but, of course, you understand me.”
“Do you know that I am being followed?” asked Raskolnikov, looking
inquisitively at him.
“No, I know nothing about it,” said Svidrigaı̈lov, seeming surprised.
“Well, then, let us leave me alone,” Raskolnikov muttered, frowning.
“Very good, let us leave you alone.”
“You had better tell me, if you come here to drink, and directed me
twice to come here to you, why did you hide, and try to get away just
now when I looked at the window from the street? I saw it.”
“He-he! And why was it you lay on your sofa with closed eyes and
pretended to be asleep, though you were wide awake while I stood in
your doorway? I saw it.”
“I may have had... reasons. You know that yourself.”
“And I may have had my reasons, though you don’t know them.”
Raskolnikov dropped his right elbow on the table, leaned his chin in
the ingers of his right hand, and stared intently at Svidrigaı̈lov. For a
full minute he scrutinised his face, which had impressed him before. It
was a strange face, like a mask; white and red, with bright red lips, with
a laxen beard, and still thick laxen hair. His eyes were somehow too
blue and their expression somehow too heavy and ixed. There was
something awfully unpleasant in that handsome face, which looked so
wonderfully young for his age. Svidrigaı̈lov was smartly dressed in light
summer clothes and was particularly dainty in his linen. He wore a
huge ring with a precious stone in it.
“Have I got to bother myself about you, too, now?” said Raskolnikov
suddenly, coming with nervous impatience straight to the point. “Even
though perhaps you are the most dangerous man if you care to injure
me, I don’t want to put myself out any more. I will show you at once that
I don’t prize myself as you probably think I do. I’ve come to tell you at
once that if you keep to your former intentions with regard to my sister
and if you think to derive any bene it in that direction from what has
been discovered of late, I will kill you before you get me locked up. You
can reckon on my word. You know that I can keep it. And in the second
place if you want to tell me anything—for I keep fancying all this time
that you have something to tell me—make haste and tell it, for time is
precious and very likely it will soon be too late.”
“Why in such haste?” asked Svidrigaı̈lov, looking at him curiously.
“Everyone has his plans,” Raskolnikov answered gloomily and
impatiently.
“You urged me yourself to frankness just now, and at the irst
question you refuse to answer,” Svidrigaı̈lov observed with a smile. “You
keep fancying that I have aims of my own and so you look at me with
suspicion. Of course it’s perfectly natural in your position. But though I
should like to be friends with you, I shan’t trouble myself to convince
you of the contrary. The game isn’t worth the candle and I wasn’t
intending to talk to you about anything special.”
“What did you want me, for, then? It was you who came hanging
about me.”
“Why, simply as an interesting subject for observation. I liked the
fantastic nature of your position—that’s what it was! Besides you are
the brother of a person who greatly interested me, and from that
person I had in the past heard a very great deal about you, from which I
gathered that you had a great in luence over her; isn’t that enough? Ha-
ha-ha! Still I must admit that your question is rather complex, and is
dif icult for me to answer. Here, you, for instance, have come to me not
only for a de inite object, but for the sake of hearing something new.
Isn’t that so? Isn’t that so?” persisted Svidrigaı̈lov with a sly smile. “Well,
can’t you fancy then that I, too, on my way here in the train was
reckoning on you, on your telling me something new, and on my making
some pro it out of you! You see what rich men we are!”
“What pro it could you make?”
“How can I tell you? How do I know? You see in what a tavern I spend
all my time and it’s my enjoyment, that’s to say it’s no great enjoyment,
but one must sit somewhere; that poor Katia now—you saw her?... If
only I had been a glutton now, a club gourmand, but you see I can eat
this.”
He pointed to a little table in the corner where the remnants of a
terrible-looking beef-steak and potatoes lay on a tin dish.
 “Have you dined, by the way? I’ve had something and want nothing
more. I don’t drink, for instance, at all. Except for champagne I never
touch anything, and not more than a glass of that all the evening, and
even that is enough to make my head ache. I ordered it just now to wind
myself up, for I am just going off somewhere and you see me in a
peculiar state of mind. That was why I hid myself just now like a
schoolboy, for I was afraid you would hinder me. But I believe,” he
pulled out his watch, “I can spend an hour with you. It’s half-past four
now. If only I’d been something, a landowner, a father, a cavalry of icer, a
photographer, a journalist... I am nothing, no specialty, and sometimes I
am positively bored. I really thought you would tell me something new.”
“But what are you, and why have you come here?”
“What am I? You know, a gentleman, I served for two years in the
cavalry, then I knocked about here in Petersburg, then I married Marfa
Petrovna and lived in the country. There you have my biography!”
“You are a gambler, I believe?”
“No, a poor sort of gambler. A card-sharper—not a gambler.”
“You have been a card-sharper then?”
“Yes, I’ve been a card-sharper too.”
“Didn’t you get thrashed sometimes?”
“It did happen. Why?”
“Why, you might have challenged them... altogether it must have been
lively.”
“I won’t contradict you, and besides I am no hand at philosophy. I
confess that I hastened here for the sake of the women.”
“As soon as you buried Marfa Petrovna?”
“Quite so,” Svidrigaı̈lov smiled with engaging candour. “What of it?
You seem to ind something wrong in my speaking like that about
women?”
“You ask whether I ind anything wrong in vice?”
“Vice! Oh, that’s what you are after! But I’ll answer you in order, irst
about women in general; you know I am fond of talking. Tell me, what
should I restrain myself for? Why should I give up women, since I have a
passion for them? It’s an occupation, anyway.”
 “So you hope for nothing here but vice?”
“Oh, very well, for vice then. You insist on its being vice. But anyway I
like a direct question. In this vice at least there is something
permanent, founded indeed upon nature and not dependent on fantasy,
something present in the blood like an ever-burning ember, for ever
setting one on ire and, maybe, not to be quickly extinguished, even
with years. You’ll agree it’s an occupation of a sort.”
“That’s nothing to rejoice at, it’s a disease and a dangerous one.”
“Oh, that’s what you think, is it! I agree, that it is a disease like
everything that exceeds moderation. And, of course, in this one must
exceed moderation. But in the irst place, everybody does so in one way
or another, and in the second place, of course, one ought to be moderate
and prudent, however mean it may be, but what am I to do? If I hadn’t
this, I might have to shoot myself. I am ready to admit that a decent man
ought to put up with being bored, but yet...”
“And could you shoot yourself?”
“Oh, come!” Svidrigaı̈lov parried with disgust. “Please don’t speak of
it,” he added hurriedly and with none of the bragging tone he had
shown in all the previous conversation. His face quite changed. “I admit
it’s an unpardonable weakness, but I can’t help it. I am afraid of death
and I dislike its being talked of. Do you know that I am to a certain
extent a mystic?”
“Ah, the apparitions of Marfa Petrovna! Do they still go on visiting
you?”
“Oh, don’t talk of them; there have been no more in Petersburg,
confound them!” he cried with an air of irritation. “Let’s rather talk of
that... though... H’m! I have not much time, and can’t stay long with you,
it’s a pity! I should have found plenty to tell you.”
“What’s your engagement, a woman?”
“Yes, a woman, a casual incident.... No, that’s not what I want to talk
of.”
“And the hideousness, the ilthiness of all your surroundings, doesn’t
that affect you? Have you lost the strength to stop yourself?”
“And do you pretend to strength, too? He-he-he! You surprised me
just now, Rodion Romanovitch, though I knew beforehand it would be
so. You preach to me about vice and æsthetics! You—a Schiller, you—an
idealist! Of course that’s all as it should be and it would be surprising if
it were not so, yet it is strange in reality.... Ah, what a pity I have no time,
for you’re a most interesting type! And, by-the-way, are you fond of
Schiller? I am awfully fond of him.”
“But what a braggart you are,” Raskolnikov said with some disgust.
“Upon my word, I am not,” answered Svidrigaı̈lov laughing. “However,
I won’t dispute it, let me be a braggart, why not brag, if it hurts no one?
I spent seven years in the country with Marfa Petrovna, so now when I
come across an intelligent person like you—intelligent and highly
interesting—I am simply glad to talk and, besides, I’ve drunk that half-
glass of champagne and it’s gone to my head a little. And besides,
there’s a certain fact that has wound me up tremendously, but about
that I... will keep quiet. Where are you off to?” he asked in alarm.
Raskolnikov had begun getting up. He felt oppressed and sti led and,
as it were, ill at ease at having come here. He felt convinced that
Svidrigaı̈lov was the most worthless scoundrel on the face of the earth.
“A-ach! Sit down, stay a little!” Svidrigaı̈lov begged. “Let them bring
you some tea, anyway. Stay a little, I won’t talk nonsense, about myself, I
mean. I’ll tell you something. If you like I’ll tell you how a woman tried
‘to save’ me, as you would call it? It will be an answer to your irst
question indeed, for the woman was your sister. May I tell you? It will
help to spend the time.”
“Tell me, but I trust that you...”
“Oh, don’t be uneasy. Besides, even in a worthless low fellow like me,
Avdotya Romanovna can only excite the deepest respect.”
 CHAPTER IV

“You know perhaps—yes, I told you myself,” began Svidrigaı̈lov, “that

I was in the debtors’ prison here, for an immense sum, and had not any
expectation of being able to pay it. There’s no need to go into
particulars how Marfa Petrovna bought me out; do you know to what a
point of insanity a woman can sometimes love? She was an honest
woman, and very sensible, although completely uneducated. Would you
believe that this honest and jealous woman, after many scenes of
hysterics and reproaches, condescended to enter into a kind of contract
with me which she kept throughout our married life? She was
considerably older than I, and besides, she always kept a clove or
something in her mouth. There was so much swinishness in my soul
and honesty too, of a sort, as to tell her straight out that I couldn’t be
absolutely faithful to her. This confession drove her to frenzy, but yet
she seems in a way to have liked my brutal frankness. She thought it
showed I was unwilling to deceive her if I warned her like this
beforehand and for a jealous woman, you know, that’s the irst
consideration. After many tears an unwritten contract was drawn up
between us: irst, that I would never leave Marfa Petrovna and would
always be her husband; secondly, that I would never absent myself
without her permission; thirdly, that I would never set up a permanent
mistress; fourthly, in return for this, Marfa Petrovna gave me a free
hand with the maidservants, but only with her secret knowledge; ifthly,
God forbid my falling in love with a woman of our class; sixthly, in case I
—which God forbid—should be visited by a great serious passion I was
bound to reveal it to Marfa Petrovna. On this last score, however, Marfa
Petrovna was fairly at ease. She was a sensible woman and so she could
not help looking upon me as a dissolute pro ligate incapable of real
love. But a sensible woman and a jealous woman are two very different
things, and that’s where the trouble came in. But to judge some people
impartially we must renounce certain preconceived opinions and our
habitual attitude to the ordinary people about us. I have reason to have
faith in your judgment rather than in anyone’s. Perhaps you have
already heard a great deal that was ridiculous and absurd about Marfa
Petrovna. She certainly had some very ridiculous ways, but I tell you
frankly that I feel really sorry for the innumerable woes of which I was
the cause. Well, and that’s enough, I think, by way of a decorous oraison
funèbre for the most tender wife of a most tender husband. When we
quarrelled, I usually held my tongue and did not irritate her and that
gentlemanly conduct rarely failed to attain its object, it in luenced her, it
pleased her, indeed. These were times when she was positively proud of
me. But your sister she couldn’t put up with, anyway. And however she
came to risk taking such a beautiful creature into her house as a
governess. My explanation is that Marfa Petrovna was an ardent and
impressionable woman and simply fell in love herself—literally fell in
love—with your sister. Well, little wonder—look at Avdotya
Romanovna! I saw the danger at the irst glance and what do you think,
I resolved not to look at her even. But Avdotya Romanovna herself
made the irst step, would you believe it? Would you believe it too that
Marfa Petrovna was positively angry with me at irst for my persistent
silence about your sister, for my careless reception of her continual
adoring praises of Avdotya Romanovna. I don’t know what it was she
wanted! Well, of course, Marfa Petrovna told Avdotya Romanovna every
detail about me. She had the unfortunate habit of telling literally
everyone all our family secrets and continually complaining of me; how
could she fail to con ide in such a delightful new friend? I expect they
talked of nothing else but me and no doubt Avdotya Romanovna heard
all those dark mysterious rumours that were current about me.... I don’t
mind betting that you too have heard something of the sort already?”
“I have. Luzhin charged you with having caused the death of a child.
Is that true?”
“Don’t refer to those vulgar tales, I beg,” said Svidrigaı̈lov with disgust
and annoyance. “If you insist on wanting to know about all that idiocy, I
will tell you one day, but now...”
“I was told too about some footman of yours in the country whom
you treated badly.”
 “I beg you to drop the subject,” Svidrigaı̈lov interrupted again with
obvious impatience.
“Was that the footman who came to you after death to ill your
pipe?... you told me about it yourself.” Raskolnikov felt more and more
irritated.
Svidrigaı̈lov looked at him attentively and Raskolnikov fancied he
caught a lash of spiteful mockery in that look. But Svidrigaı̈lov
restrained himself and answered very civilly:
“Yes, it was. I see that you, too, are extremely interested and shall feel
it my duty to satisfy your curiosity at the irst opportunity. Upon my
soul! I see that I really might pass for a romantic igure with some
people. Judge how grateful I must be to Marfa Petrovna for having
repeated to Avdotya Romanovna such mysterious and interesting
gossip about me. I dare not guess what impression it made on her, but
in any case it worked in my interests. With all Avdotya Romanovna’s
natural aversion and in spite of my invariably gloomy and repellent
aspect—she did at least feel pity for me, pity for a lost soul. And if once
a girl’s heart is moved to pity, it’s more dangerous than anything. She is
bound to want to ‘save him,’ to bring him to his senses, and lift him up
and draw him to nobler aims, and restore him to new life and
usefulness—well, we all know how far such dreams can go. I saw at
once that the bird was lying into the cage of herself. And I too made
ready. I think you are frowning, Rodion Romanovitch? There’s no need.
As you know, it all ended in smoke. (Hang it all, what a lot I am
drinking!) Do you know, I always, from the very beginning, regretted
that it wasn’t your sister’s fate to be born in the second or third century
A.D., as the daughter of a reigning prince or some governor or pro-
consul in Asia Minor. She would undoubtedly have been one of those
who would endure martyrdom and would have smiled when they
branded her bosom with hot pincers. And she would have gone to it of
herself. And in the fourth or ifth century she would have walked away
into the Egyptian desert and would have stayed there thirty years living
on roots and ecstasies and visions. She is simply thirsting to face some
torture for someone, and if she can’t get her torture, she’ll throw herself
out of a window. I’ve heard something of a Mr. Razumihin—he’s said to
be a sensible fellow; his surname suggests it, indeed. He’s probably a
divinity student. Well, he’d better look after your sister! I believe I
understand her, and I am proud of it. But at the beginning of an
acquaintance, as you know, one is apt to be more heedless and stupid.
One doesn’t see clearly. Hang it all, why is she so handsome? It’s not my
fault. In fact, it began on my side with a most irresistible physical
desire. Avdotya Romanovna is awfully chaste, incredibly and
phenomenally so. Take note, I tell you this about your sister as a fact.
She is almost morbidly chaste, in spite of her broad intelligence, and it
will stand in her way. There happened to be a girl in the house then,
Parasha, a black-eyed wench, whom I had never seen before—she had
just come from another village—very pretty, but incredibly stupid: she
burst into tears, wailed so that she could be heard all over the place and
caused scandal. One day after dinner Avdotya Romanovna followed me
into an avenue in the garden and with lashing eyes insisted on my
leaving poor Parasha alone. It was almost our irst conversation by
ourselves. I, of course, was only too pleased to obey her wishes, tried to
appear disconcerted, embarrassed, in fact played my part not badly.
Then came interviews, mysterious conversations, exhortations,
entreaties, supplications, even tears—would you believe it, even tears?
Think what the passion for propaganda will bring some girls to! I, of
course, threw it all on my destiny, posed as hungering and thirsting for
light, and inally resorted to the most powerful weapon in the
subjection of the female heart, a weapon which never fails one. It’s the
well-known resource— lattery. Nothing in the world is harder than
speaking the truth and nothing easier than lattery. If there’s the
hundredth part of a false note in speaking the truth, it leads to a
discord, and that leads to trouble. But if all, to the last note, is false in
lattery, it is just as agreeable, and is heard not without satisfaction. It
may be a coarse satisfaction, but still a satisfaction. And however coarse
the lattery, at least half will be sure to seem true. That’s so for all stages
of development and classes of society. A vestal virgin might be seduced
by lattery. I can never remember without laughter how I once seduced
a lady who was devoted to her husband, her children, and her
principles. What fun it was and how little trouble! And the lady really
had principles—of her own, anyway. All my tactics lay in simply being
utterly annihilated and prostrate before her purity. I lattered her
shamelessly, and as soon as I succeeded in getting a pressure of the
hand, even a glance from her, I would reproach myself for having
snatched it by force, and would declare that she had resisted, so that I
could never have gained anything but for my being so unprincipled. I
maintained that she was so innocent that she could not foresee my
treachery, and yielded to me unconsciously, unawares, and so on. In
fact, I triumphed, while my lady remained irmly convinced that she
was innocent, chaste, and faithful to all her duties and obligations and
had succumbed quite by accident. And how angry she was with me
when I explained to her at last that it was my sincere conviction that
she was just as eager as I. Poor Marfa Petrovna was awfully weak on the
side of lattery, and if I had only cared to, I might have had all her
property settled on me during her lifetime. (I am drinking an awful lot
of wine now and talking too much.) I hope you won’t be angry if I
mention now that I was beginning to produce the same effect on
Avdotya Romanovna. But I was stupid and impatient and spoiled it all.
Avdotya Romanovna had several times—and one time in particular—
been greatly displeased by the expression of my eyes, would you
believe it? There was sometimes a light in them which frightened her
and grew stronger and stronger and more unguarded till it was hateful
to her. No need to go into detail, but we parted. There I acted stupidly
again. I fell to jeering in the coarsest way at all such propaganda and
efforts to convert me; Parasha came on to the scene again, and not she
alone; in fact there was a tremendous to-do. Ah, Rodion Romanovitch, if
you could only see how your sister’s eyes can lash sometimes! Never
mind my being drunk at this moment and having had a whole glass of
wine. I am speaking the truth. I assure you that this glance has haunted
my dreams; the very rustle of her dress was more than I could stand at
last. I really began to think that I might become epileptic. I could never
have believed that I could be moved to such a frenzy. It was essential,
indeed, to be reconciled, but by then it was impossible. And imagine
what I did then! To what a pitch of stupidity a man can be brought by
frenzy! Never undertake anything in a frenzy, Rodion Romanovitch. I
re lected that Avdotya Romanovna was after all a beggar (ach, excuse
me, that’s not the word... but does it matter if it expresses the
meaning?), that she lived by her work, that she had her mother and you
to keep (ach, hang it, you are frowning again), and I resolved to offer
her all my money—thirty thousand roubles I could have realised then
—if she would run away with me here, to Petersburg. Of course I should
have vowed eternal love, rapture, and so on. Do you know, I was so wild
about her at that time that if she had told me to poison Marfa Petrovna
or to cut her throat and to marry herself, it would have been done at
once! But it ended in the catastrophe of which you know already. You
can fancy how frantic I was when I heard that Marfa Petrovna had got
hold of that scoundrelly attorney, Luzhin, and had almost made a match
between them—which would really have been just the same thing as I
was proposing. Wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t it? I notice that you’ve begun to
be very attentive... you interesting young man....”
Svidrigaı̈lov struck the table with his ist impatiently. He was lushed.
Raskolnikov saw clearly that the glass or glass and a half of champagne
that he had sipped almost unconsciously was affecting him—and he
resolved to take advantage of the opportunity. He felt very suspicious of
Svidrigaı̈lov.
“Well, after what you have said, I am fully convinced that you have
come to Petersburg with designs on my sister,” he said directly to
Svidrigaı̈lov, in order to irritate him further.
“Oh, nonsense,” said Svidrigaı̈lov, seeming to rouse himself. “Why, I
told you... besides your sister can’t endure me.”
“Yes, I am certain that she can’t, but that’s not the point.”
“Are you so sure that she can’t?” Svidrigaı̈lov screwed up his eyes and
smiled mockingly. “You are right, she doesn’t love me, but you can never
be sure of what has passed between husband and wife or lover and
mistress. There’s always a little corner which remains a secret to the
world and is only known to those two. Will you answer for it that
Avdotya Romanovna regarded me with aversion?”
“From some words you’ve dropped, I notice that you still have
designs—and of course evil ones—on Dounia and mean to carry them
out promptly.”
“What, have I dropped words like that?” Svidrigaı̈lov asked in naı̈ve
dismay, taking not the slightest notice of the epithet bestowed on his
designs.
“Why, you are dropping them even now. Why are you so frightened?
What are you so afraid of now?”
 “Me—afraid? Afraid of you? You have rather to be afraid of me, cher
ami. But what nonsense.... I’ve drunk too much though, I see that. I was
almost saying too much again. Damn the wine! Hi! there, water!”
He snatched up the champagne bottle and lung it without ceremony
out of the window. Philip brought the water.
“That’s all nonsense!” said Svidrigaı̈lov, wetting a towel and putting it
to his head. “But I can answer you in one word and annihilate all your
suspicions. Do you know that I am going to get married?”
“You told me so before.”
“Did I? I’ve forgotten. But I couldn’t have told you so for certain for I
had not even seen my betrothed; I only meant to. But now I really have
a betrothed and it’s a settled thing, and if it weren’t that I have business
that can’t be put off, I would have taken you to see them at once, for I
should like to ask your advice. Ach, hang it, only ten minutes left! See,
look at the watch. But I must tell you, for it’s an interesting story, my
marriage, in its own way. Where are you off to? Going again?”
“No, I’m not going away now.”
“Not at all? We shall see. I’ll take you there, I’ll show you my
betrothed, only not now. For you’ll soon have to be off. You have to go to
the right and I to the left. Do you know that Madame Resslich, the
woman I am lodging with now, eh? I know what you’re thinking, that
she’s the woman whose girl they say drowned herself in the winter.
Come, are you listening? She arranged it all for me. You’re bored, she
said, you want something to ill up your time. For, you know, I am a
gloomy, depressed person. Do you think I’m light-hearted? No, I’m
gloomy. I do no harm, but sit in a corner without speaking a word for
three days at a time. And that Resslich is a sly hussy, I tell you. I know
what she has got in her mind; she thinks I shall get sick of it, abandon
my wife and depart, and she’ll get hold of her and make a pro it out of
her—in our class, of course, or higher. She told me the father was a
broken-down retired of icial, who has been sitting in a chair for the last
three years with his legs paralysed. The mamma, she said, was a
sensible woman. There is a son serving in the provinces, but he doesn’t
help; there is a daughter, who is married, but she doesn’t visit them.
And they’ve two little nephews on their hands, as though their own
children were not enough, and they’ve taken from school their youngest
daughter, a girl who’ll be sixteen in another month, so that then she can
be married. She was for me. We went there. How funny it was! I present
myself—a landowner, a widower, of a well-known name, with
connections, with a fortune. What if I am ifty and she is not sixteen?
Who thinks of that? But it’s fascinating, isn’t it? It is fascinating, ha-ha!
You should have seen how I talked to the papa and mamma. It was
worth paying to have seen me at that moment. She comes in, curtseys,
you can fancy, still in a short frock—an unopened bud! Flushing like a
sunset—she had been told, no doubt. I don’t know how you feel about
female faces, but to my mind these sixteen years, these childish eyes,
shyness and tears of bashfulness are better than beauty; and she is a
perfect little picture, too. Fair hair in little curls, like a lamb’s, full little
rosy lips, tiny feet, a charmer!... Well, we made friends. I told them I was
in a hurry owing to domestic circumstances, and the next day, that is
the day before yesterday, we were betrothed. When I go now I take her
on my knee at once and keep her there.... Well, she lushes like a sunset
and I kiss her every minute. Her mamma of course impresses on her
that this is her husband and that this must be so. It’s simply delicious!
The present betrothed condition is perhaps better than marriage. Here
you have what is called la nature et la vérité, ha-ha! I’ve talked to her
twice, she is far from a fool. Sometimes she steals a look at me that
positively scorches me. Her face is like Raphael’s Madonna. You know,
the Sistine Madonna’s face has something fantastic in it, the face of
mournful religious ecstasy. Haven’t you noticed it? Well, she’s
something in that line. The day after we’d been betrothed, I bought her
presents to the value of ifteen hundred roubles—a set of diamonds and
another of pearls and a silver dressing-case as large as this, with all
sorts of things in it, so that even my Madonna’s face glowed. I sat her on
my knee, yesterday, and I suppose rather too unceremoniously—she
lushed crimson and the tears started, but she didn’t want to show it.
We were left alone, she suddenly lung herself on my neck (for the irst
time of her own accord), put her little arms round me, kissed me, and
vowed that she would be an obedient, faithful, and good wife, would
make me happy, would devote all her life, every minute of her life,
would sacri ice everything, everything, and that all she asks in return is
my respect, and that she wants ‘nothing, nothing more from me, no
presents.’ You’ll admit that to hear such a confession, alone, from an
angel of sixteen in a muslin frock, with little curls, with a lush of
maiden shyness in her cheeks and tears of enthusiasm in her eyes is
rather fascinating! Isn’t it fascinating? It’s worth paying for, isn’t it?
Well... listen, we’ll go to see my betrothed, only not just now!”
“The fact is this monstrous difference in age and development excites
your sensuality! Will you really make such a marriage?”
“Why, of course. Everyone thinks of himself, and he lives most gaily
who knows best how to deceive himself. Ha-ha! But why are you so
keen about virtue? Have mercy on me, my good friend. I am a sinful
man. Ha-ha-ha!”
“But you have provided for the children of Katerina Ivanovna.
Though... though you had your own reasons.... I understand it all now.”
“I am always fond of children, very fond of them,” laughed
Svidrigaı̈lov. “I can tell you one curious instance of it. The irst day I
came here I visited various haunts, after seven years I simply rushed at
them. You probably notice that I am not in a hurry to renew
acquaintance with my old friends. I shall do without them as long as I
can. Do you know, when I was with Marfa Petrovna in the country, I was
haunted by the thought of these places where anyone who knows his
way about can ind a great deal. Yes, upon my soul! The peasants have
vodka, the educated young people, shut out from activity, waste
themselves in impossible dreams and visions and are crippled by
theories; Jews have sprung up and are amassing money, and all the rest
give themselves up to debauchery. From the irst hour the town reeked
of its familiar odours. I chanced to be in a frightful den—I like my dens
dirty—it was a dance, so called, and there was a cancan such as I never
saw in my day. Yes, there you have progress. All of a sudden I saw a little
girl of thirteen, nicely dressed, dancing with a specialist in that line,
with another one vis-à-vis. Her mother was sitting on a chair by the
wall. You can’t fancy what a cancan that was! The girl was ashamed,
blushed, at last felt insulted, and began to cry. Her partner seized her
and began whirling her round and performing before her; everyone
laughed and—I like your public, even the cancan public—they laughed
and shouted, ‘Serves her right—serves her right! Shouldn’t bring
children!’ Well, it’s not my business whether that consoling re lection
was logical or not. I at once ixed on my plan, sat down by the mother,
and began by saying that I too was a stranger and that people here were
ill-bred and that they couldn’t distinguish decent folks and treat them
with respect, gave her to understand that I had plenty of money, offered
to take them home in my carriage. I took them home and got to know
them. They were lodging in a miserable little hole and had only just
arrived from the country. She told me that she and her daughter could
only regard my acquaintance as an honour. I found out that they had
nothing of their own and had come to town upon some legal business. I
proffered my services and money. I learnt that they had gone to the
dancing saloon by mistake, believing that it was a genuine dancing
class. I offered to assist in the young girl’s education in French and
dancing. My offer was accepted with enthusiasm as an honour—and we
are still friendly.... If you like, we’ll go and see them, only not just now.”
“Stop! Enough of your vile, nasty anecdotes, depraved vile, sensual
man!”
“Schiller, you are a regular Schiller! O la vertu va-t-elle se nicher? But
you know I shall tell you these things on purpose, for the pleasure of
hearing your outcries!”
“I dare say. I can see I am ridiculous myself,” muttered Raskolnikov
angrily.
Svidrigaı̈lov laughed heartily; inally he called Philip, paid his bill, and
began getting up.
“I say, but I am drunk, assez causé,” he said. “It’s been a pleasure.”
“I should rather think it must be a pleasure!” cried Raskolnikov,
getting up. “No doubt it is a pleasure for a worn-out pro ligate to
describe such adventures with a monstrous project of the same sort in
his mind—especially under such circumstances and to such a man as
me.... It’s stimulating!”
“Well, if you come to that,” Svidrigaı̈lov answered, scrutinising
Raskolnikov with some surprise, “if you come to that, you are a
thorough cynic yourself. You’ve plenty to make you so, anyway. You can
understand a great deal... and you can do a great deal too. But enough. I
sincerely regret not having had more talk with you, but I shan’t lose
sight of you.... Only wait a bit.”
 Svidrigaı̈lov walked out of the restaurant. Raskolnikov walked out
after him. Svidrigaı̈lov was not however very drunk, the wine had
affected him for a moment, but it was passing off every minute. He was
preoccupied with something of importance and was frowning. He was
apparently excited and uneasy in anticipation of something. His manner
to Raskolnikov had changed during the last few minutes, and he was
ruder and more sneering every moment. Raskolnikov noticed all this,
and he too was uneasy. He became very suspicious of Svidrigaı̈lov and
resolved to follow him.
They came out on to the pavement.
“You go to the right, and I to the left, or if you like, the other way. Only
adieu, mon plaisir, may we meet again.”
And he walked to the right towards the Hay Market.
 CHAPTER V

Raskolnikov walked after him.

“What’s this?” cried Svidrigaı̈lov turning round, “I thought I said...”
“It means that I am not going to lose sight of you now.”
“What?”
Both stood still and gazed at one another, as though measuring their
strength.
“From all your half tipsy stories,” Raskolnikov observed harshly, “I am
positive that you have not given up your designs on my sister, but are
pursuing them more actively than ever. I have learnt that my sister
received a letter this morning. You have hardly been able to sit still all
this time.... You may have unearthed a wife on the way, but that means
nothing. I should like to make certain myself.”
Raskolnikov could hardly have said himself what he wanted and of
what he wished to make certain.
“Upon my word! I’ll call the police!”
“Call away!”
Again they stood for a minute facing each other. At last Svidrigaı̈lov’s
face changed. Having satis ied himself that Raskolnikov was not
frightened at his threat, he assumed a mirthful and friendly air.
“What a fellow! I purposely refrained from referring to your affair,
though I am devoured by curiosity. It’s a fantastic affair. I’ve put it off till
another time, but you’re enough to rouse the dead.... Well, let us go, only
I warn you beforehand I am only going home for a moment, to get some
money; then I shall lock up the lat, take a cab and go to spend the
evening at the Islands. Now, now are you going to follow me?”
“I’m coming to your lodgings, not to see you but Sofya Semyonovna,
to say I’m sorry not to have been at the funeral.”
 “That’s as you like, but Sofya Semyonovna is not at home. She has
taken the three children to an old lady of high rank, the patroness of
some orphan asylums, whom I used to know years ago. I charmed the
old lady by depositing a sum of money with her to provide for the three
children of Katerina Ivanovna and subscribing to the institution as well.
I told her too the story of Sofya Semyonovna in full detail, suppressing
nothing. It produced an indescribable effect on her. That’s why Sofya
Semyonovna has been invited to call to-day at the X. Hotel where the
lady is staying for the time.”
“No matter, I’ll come all the same.”
“As you like, it’s nothing to me, but I won’t come with you; here we
are at home. By the way, I am convinced that you regard me with
suspicion just because I have shown such delicacy and have not so far
troubled you with questions... you understand? It struck you as
extraordinary; I don’t mind betting it’s that. Well, it teaches one to show
delicacy!”
“And to listen at doors!”
“Ah, that’s it, is it?” laughed Svidrigaı̈lov. “Yes, I should have been
surprised if you had let that pass after all that has happened. Ha-ha!
Though I did understand something of the pranks you had been up to
and were telling Sofya Semyonovna about, what was the meaning of it?
Perhaps I am quite behind the times and can’t understand. For
goodness’ sake, explain it, my dear boy. Expound the latest theories!”
“You couldn’t have heard anything. You’re making it all up!”
“But I’m not talking about that (though I did hear something). No, I’m
talking of the way you keep sighing and groaning now. The Schiller in
you is in revolt every moment, and now you tell me not to listen at
doors. If that’s how you feel, go and inform the police that you had this
mischance: you made a little mistake in your theory. But if you are
convinced that one mustn’t listen at doors, but one may murder old
women at one’s pleasure, you’d better be off to America and make
haste. Run, young man! There may still be time. I’m speaking sincerely.
Haven’t you the money? I’ll give you the fare.”
“I’m not thinking of that at all,” Raskolnikov interrupted with disgust.
 “I understand (but don’t put yourself out, don’t discuss it if you don’t
want to). I understand the questions you are worrying over—moral
ones, aren’t they? Duties of citizen and man? Lay them all aside. They
are nothing to you now, ha-ha! You’ll say you are still a man and a
citizen. If so you ought not to have got into this coil. It’s no use taking up
a job you are not it for. Well, you’d better shoot yourself, or don’t you
want to?”
“You seem trying to enrage me, to make me leave you.”
“What a queer fellow! But here we are. Welcome to the staircase. You
see, that’s the way to Sofya Semyonovna. Look, there is no one at home.
Don’t you believe me? Ask Kapernaumov. She leaves the key with him.
Here is Madame de Kapernaumov herself. Hey, what? She is rather deaf.
Has she gone out? Where? Did you hear? She is not in and won’t be till
late in the evening probably. Well, come to my room; you wanted to
come and see me, didn’t you? Here we are. Madame Resslich’s not at
home. She is a woman who is always busy, an excellent woman I assure
you.... She might have been of use to you if you had been a little more
sensible. Now, see! I take this ive-per-cent bond out of the bureau—see
what a lot I’ve got of them still—this one will be turned into cash to-day.
I mustn’t waste any more time. The bureau is locked, the lat is locked,
and here we are again on the stairs. Shall we take a cab? I’m going to the
Islands. Would you like a lift? I’ll take this carriage. Ah, you refuse? You
are tired of it! Come for a drive! I believe it will come on to rain. Never
mind, we’ll put down the hood....”
Svidrigaı̈lov was already in the carriage. Raskolnikov decided that his
suspicions were at least for that moment unjust. Without answering a
word he turned and walked back towards the Hay Market. If he had
only turned round on his way he might have seen Svidrigaı̈lov get out
not a hundred paces off, dismiss the cab and walk along the pavement.
But he had turned the corner and could see nothing. Intense disgust
drew him away from Svidrigaı̈lov.
“To think that I could for one instant have looked for help from that
coarse brute, that depraved sensualist and blackguard!” he cried.
Raskolnikov’s judgment was uttered too lightly and hastily: there was
something about Svidrigaı̈lov which gave him a certain original, even a
mysterious character. As concerned his sister, Raskolnikov was
convinced that Svidrigaı̈lov would not leave her in peace. But it was too
tiresome and unbearable to go on thinking and thinking about this.
When he was alone, he had not gone twenty paces before he sank, as
usual, into deep thought. On the bridge he stood by the railing and
began gazing at the water. And his sister was standing close by him.
He met her at the entrance to the bridge, but passed by without
seeing her. Dounia had never met him like this in the street before and
was struck with dismay. She stood still and did not know whether to
call to him or not. Suddenly she saw Svidrigaı̈lov coming quickly from
the direction of the Hay Market.
He seemed to be approaching cautiously. He did not go on to the
bridge, but stood aside on the pavement, doing all he could to avoid
Raskolnikov’s seeing him. He had observed Dounia for some time and
had been making signs to her. She fancied he was signalling to beg her
not to speak to her brother, but to come to him.
That was what Dounia did. She stole by her brother and went up to
Svidrigaı̈lov.
“Let us make haste away,” Svidrigaı̈lov whispered to her, “I don’t want
Rodion Romanovitch to know of our meeting. I must tell you I’ve been
sitting with him in the restaurant close by, where he looked me up and I
had great dif iculty in getting rid of him. He has somehow heard of my
letter to you and suspects something. It wasn’t you who told him, of
course, but if not you, who then?”
“Well, we’ve turned the corner now,” Dounia interrupted, “and my
brother won’t see us. I have to tell you that I am going no further with
you. Speak to me here. You can tell it all in the street.”
“In the irst place, I can’t say it in the street; secondly, you must hear
Sofya Semyonovna too; and, thirdly, I will show you some papers.... Oh
well, if you won’t agree to come with me, I shall refuse to give any
explanation and go away at once. But I beg you not to forget that a very
curious secret of your beloved brother’s is entirely in my keeping.”
Dounia stood still, hesitating, and looked at Svidrigaı̈lov with
searching eyes.
“What are you afraid of?” he observed quietly. “The town is not the
country. And even in the country you did me more harm than I did you.”
 “Have you prepared Sofya Semyonovna?”
“No, I have not said a word to her and am not quite certain whether
she is at home now. But most likely she is. She has buried her
stepmother to-day: she is not likely to go visiting on such a day. For the
time I don’t want to speak to anyone about it and I half regret having
spoken to you. The slightest indiscretion is as bad as betrayal in a thing
like this. I live there in that house, we are coming to it. That’s the porter
of our house—he knows me very well; you see, he’s bowing; he sees I’m
coming with a lady and no doubt he has noticed your face already and
you will be glad of that if you are afraid of me and suspicious. Excuse
my putting things so coarsely. I haven’t a lat to myself; Sofya
Semyonovna’s room is next to mine—she lodges in the next lat. The
whole loor is let out in lodgings. Why are you frightened like a child?
Am I really so terrible?”
Svidrigaı̈lov’s lips were twisted in a condescending smile; but he was
in no smiling mood. His heart was throbbing and he could scarcely
breathe. He spoke rather loud to cover his growing excitement. But
Dounia did not notice this peculiar excitement, she was so irritated by
his remark that she was frightened of him like a child and that he was
so terrible to her.
“Though I know that you are not a man... of honour, I am not in the
least afraid of you. Lead the way,” she said with apparent composure,
but her face was very pale.
Svidrigaı̈lov stopped at Sonia’s room.
“Allow me to inquire whether she is at home.... She is not. How
unfortunate! But I know she may come quite soon. If she’s gone out, it
can only be to see a lady about the orphans. Their mother is dead.... I’ve
been meddling and making arrangements for them. If Sofya
Semyonovna does not come back in ten minutes, I will send her to you,
to-day if you like. This is my lat. These are my two rooms. Madame
Resslich, my landlady, has the next room. Now, look this way. I will show
you my chief piece of evidence: this door from my bedroom leads into
two perfectly empty rooms, which are to let. Here they are... You must
look into them with some attention.”
Svidrigaı̈lov occupied two fairly large furnished rooms. Dounia was
looking about her mistrustfully, but saw nothing special in the furniture
or position of the rooms. Yet there was something to observe, for
instance, that Svidrigaı̈lov’s lat was exactly between two sets of almost
uninhabited apartments. His rooms were not entered directly from the
passage, but through the landlady’s two almost empty rooms.
Unlocking a door leading out of his bedroom, Svidrigaı̈lov showed
Dounia the two empty rooms that were to let. Dounia stopped in the
doorway, not knowing what she was called to look upon, but
Svidrigaı̈lov hastened to explain.
“Look here, at this second large room. Notice that door, it’s locked. By
the door stands a chair, the only one in the two rooms. I brought it from
my rooms so as to listen more conveniently. Just the other side of the
door is Sofya Semyonovna’s table; she sat there talking to Rodion
Romanovitch. And I sat here listening on two successive evenings, for
two hours each time—and of course I was able to learn something,
what do you think?”
“You listened?”
“Yes, I did. Now come back to my room; we can’t sit down here.”
He brought Avdotya Romanovna back into his sitting-room and
offered her a chair. He sat down at the opposite side of the table, at least
seven feet from her, but probably there was the same glow in his eyes
which had once frightened Dounia so much. She shuddered and once
more looked about her distrustfully. It was an involuntary gesture; she
evidently did not wish to betray her uneasiness. But the secluded
position of Svidrigaı̈lov’s lodging had suddenly struck her. She wanted
to ask whether his landlady at least were at home, but pride kept her
from asking. Moreover, she had another trouble in her heart
incomparably greater than fear for herself. She was in great distress.
“Here is your letter,” she said, laying it on the table. “Can it be true
what you write? You hint at a crime committed, you say, by my brother.
You hint at it too clearly; you daren’t deny it now. I must tell you that I’d
heard of this stupid story before you wrote and don’t believe a word of
it. It’s a disgusting and ridiculous suspicion. I know the story and why
and how it was invented. You can have no proofs. You promised to
prove it. Speak! But let me warn you that I don’t believe you! I don’t
believe you!”
 Dounia said this, speaking hurriedly, and for an instant the colour
rushed to her face.
“If you didn’t believe it, how could you risk coming alone to my
rooms? Why have you come? Simply from curiosity?”
“Don’t torment me. Speak, speak!”
“There’s no denying that you are a brave girl. Upon my word, I
thought you would have asked Mr. Razumihin to escort you here. But he
was not with you nor anywhere near. I was on the look-out. It’s spirited
of you, it proves you wanted to spare Rodion Romanovitch. But
everything is divine in you.... About your brother, what am I to say to
you? You’ve just seen him yourself. What did you think of him?”
“Surely that’s not the only thing you are building on?”
“No, not on that, but on his own words. He came here on two
successive evenings to see Sofya Semyonovna. I’ve shown you where
they sat. He made a full confession to her. He is a murderer. He killed an
old woman, a pawnbroker, with whom he had pawned things himself.
He killed her sister too, a pedlar woman called Lizaveta, who happened
to come in while he was murdering her sister. He killed them with an
axe he brought with him. He murdered them to rob them and he did rob
them. He took money and various things.... He told all this, word for
word, to Sofya Semyonovna, the only person who knows his secret. But
she has had no share by word or deed in the murder; she was as
horri ied at it as you are now. Don’t be anxious, she won’t betray him.”
“It cannot be,” muttered Dounia, with white lips. She gasped for
breath. “It cannot be. There was not the slightest cause, no sort of
ground.... It’s a lie, a lie!”
“He robbed her, that was the cause, he took money and things. It’s
true that by his own admission he made no use of the money or things,
but hid them under a stone, where they are now. But that was because
he dared not make use of them.”
“But how could he steal, rob? How could he dream of it?” cried
Dounia, and she jumped up from the chair. “Why, you know him, and
you’ve seen him, can he be a thief?”
She seemed to be imploring Svidrigaı̈lov; she had entirely forgotten
her fear.
 “There are thousands and millions of combinations and possibilities,
Avdotya Romanovna. A thief steals and knows he is a scoundrel, but I’ve
heard of a gentleman who broke open the mail. Who knows, very likely
he thought he was doing a gentlemanly thing! Of course I should not
have believed it myself if I’d been told of it as you have, but I believe my
own ears. He explained all the causes of it to Sofya Semyonovna too, but
she did not believe her ears at irst, yet she believed her own eyes at
last.”
“What... were the causes?”
“It’s a long story, Avdotya Romanovna. Here’s... how shall I tell you?—
A theory of a sort, the same one by which I for instance consider that a
single misdeed is permissible if the principal aim is right, a solitary
wrongdoing and hundreds of good deeds! It’s galling too, of course, for
a young man of gifts and overweening pride to know that if he had, for
instance, a paltry three thousand, his whole career, his whole future
would be differently shaped and yet not to have that three thousand.
Add to that, nervous irritability from hunger, from lodging in a hole,
from rags, from a vivid sense of the charm of his social position and his
sister’s and mother’s position too. Above all, vanity, pride and vanity,
though goodness knows he may have good qualities too.... I am not
blaming him, please don’t think it; besides, it’s not my business. A
special little theory came in too—a theory of a sort—dividing mankind,
you see, into material and superior persons, that is persons to whom
the law does not apply owing to their superiority, who make laws for
the rest of mankind, the material, that is. It’s all right as a theory, une
théorie comme une autre. Napoleon attracted him tremendously, that is,
what affected him was that a great many men of genius have not
hesitated at wrongdoing, but have overstepped the law without
thinking about it. He seems to have fancied that he was a genius too—
that is, he was convinced of it for a time. He has suffered a great deal
and is still suffering from the idea that he could make a theory, but was
incapable of boldly overstepping the law, and so he is not a man of
genius. And that’s humiliating for a young man of any pride, in our day
especially....”
“But remorse? You deny him any moral feeling then? Is he like that?”
 “Ah, Avdotya Romanovna, everything is in a muddle now; not that it
was ever in very good order. Russians in general are broad in their
ideas, Avdotya Romanovna, broad like their land and exceedingly
disposed to the fantastic, the chaotic. But it’s a misfortune to be broad
without a special genius. Do you remember what a lot of talk we had
together on this subject, sitting in the evenings on the terrace after
supper? Why, you used to reproach me with breadth! Who knows,
perhaps we were talking at the very time when he was lying here
thinking over his plan. There are no sacred traditions amongst us,
especially in the educated class, Avdotya Romanovna. At the best
someone will make them up somehow for himself out of books or from
some old chronicle. But those are for the most part the learned and all
old fogeys, so that it would be almost ill-bred in a man of society. You
know my opinions in general, though. I never blame anyone. I do
nothing at all, I persevere in that. But we’ve talked of this more than
once before. I was so happy indeed as to interest you in my opinions....
You are very pale, Avdotya Romanovna.”
“I know his theory. I read that article of his about men to whom all is
permitted. Razumihin brought it to me.”
“Mr. Razumihin? Your brother’s article? In a magazine? Is there such
an article? I didn’t know. It must be interesting. But where are you
going, Avdotya Romanovna?”
“I want to see Sofya Semyonovna,” Dounia articulated faintly. “How
do I go to her? She has come in, perhaps. I must see her at once.
Perhaps she...”
Avdotya Romanovna could not inish. Her breath literally failed her.
“Sofya Semyonovna will not be back till night, at least I believe not.
She was to have been back at once, but if not, then she will not be in till
quite late.”
“Ah, then you are lying! I see... you were lying... lying all the time.... I
don’t believe you! I don’t believe you!” cried Dounia, completely losing
her head.
Almost fainting, she sank on to a chair which Svidrigaı̈lov made haste
to give her.
 “Avdotya Romanovna, what is it? Control yourself! Here is some
water. Drink a little....”
He sprinkled some water over her. Dounia shuddered and came to
herself.
“It has acted violently,” Svidrigaı̈lov muttered to himself, frowning.
“Avdotya Romanovna, calm yourself! Believe me, he has friends. We will
save him. Would you like me to take him abroad? I have money, I can get
a ticket in three days. And as for the murder, he will do all sorts of good
deeds yet, to atone for it. Calm yourself. He may become a great man
yet. Well, how are you? How do you feel?”
“Cruel man! To be able to jeer at it! Let me go...”
“Where are you going?”
“To him. Where is he? Do you know? Why is this door locked? We
came in at that door and now it is locked. When did you manage to lock
it?”
“We couldn’t be shouting all over the lat on such a subject. I am far
from jeering; it’s simply that I’m sick of talking like this. But how can
you go in such a state? Do you want to betray him? You will drive him to
fury, and he will give himself up. Let me tell you, he is already being
watched; they are already on his track. You will simply be giving him
away. Wait a little: I saw him and was talking to him just now. He can
still be saved. Wait a bit, sit down; let us think it over together. I asked
you to come in order to discuss it alone with you and to consider it
thoroughly. But do sit down!”
“How can you save him? Can he really be saved?”
Dounia sat down. Svidrigaı̈lov sat down beside her.
“It all depends on you, on you, on you alone,” he began with glowing
eyes, almost in a whisper and hardly able to utter the words for
emotion.
Dounia drew back from him in alarm. He too was trembling all over.
“You... one word from you, and he is saved. I... I’ll save him. I have
money and friends. I’ll send him away at once. I’ll get a passport, two
passports, one for him and one for me. I have friends... capable people....
If you like, I’ll take a passport for you... for your mother.... What do you
want with Razumihin? I love you too.... I love you beyond everything....
Let me kiss the hem of your dress, let me, let me.... The very rustle of it
is too much for me. Tell me, ‘do that,’ and I’ll do it. I’ll do everything. I
will do the impossible. What you believe, I will believe. I’ll do anything
—anything! Don’t, don’t look at me like that. Do you know that you are
killing me?...”
He was almost beginning to rave.... Something seemed suddenly to go
to his head. Dounia jumped up and rushed to the door.
“Open it! Open it!” she called, shaking the door. “Open it! Is there no
one there?”
Svidrigaı̈lov got up and came to himself. His still trembling lips slowly
broke into an angry mocking smile.
“There is no one at home,” he said quietly and emphatically. “The
landlady has gone out, and it’s waste of time to shout like that. You are
only exciting yourself uselessly.”
“Where is the key? Open the door at once, at once, base man!”
“I have lost the key and cannot ind it.”
“This is an outrage,” cried Dounia, turning pale as death. She rushed
to the furthest corner, where she made haste to barricade herself with a
little table.
She did not scream, but she ixed her eyes on her tormentor and
watched every movement he made.
Svidrigaı̈lov remained standing at the other end of the room facing
her. He was positively composed, at least in appearance, but his face
was pale as before. The mocking smile did not leave his face.
“You spoke of outrage just now, Avdotya Romanovna. In that case you
may be sure I’ve taken measures. Sofya Semyonovna is not at home. The
Kapernaumovs are far away—there are ive locked rooms between. I
am at least twice as strong as you are and I have nothing to fear,
besides. For you could not complain afterwards. You surely would not
be willing actually to betray your brother? Besides, no one would
believe you. How should a girl have come alone to visit a solitary man in
his lodgings? So that even if you do sacri ice your brother, you could
prove nothing. It is very dif icult to prove an assault, Avdotya
Romanovna.”
“Scoundrel!” whispered Dounia indignantly.
 “As you like, but observe I was only speaking by way of a general
proposition. It’s my personal conviction that you are perfectly right—
violence is hateful. I only spoke to show you that you need have no
remorse even if... you were willing to save your brother of your own
accord, as I suggest to you. You would be simply submitting to
circumstances, to violence, in fact, if we must use that word. Think
about it. Your brother’s and your mother’s fate are in your hands. I will
be your slave... all my life... I will wait here.”
Svidrigaı̈lov sat down on the sofa about eight steps from Dounia. She
had not the slightest doubt now of his unbending determination.
Besides, she knew him. Suddenly she pulled out of her pocket a
revolver, cocked it and laid it in her hand on the table. Svidrigaı̈lov
jumped up.
“Aha! So that’s it, is it?” he cried, surprised but smiling maliciously.
“Well, that completely alters the aspect of affairs. You’ve made things
wonderfully easier for me, Avdotya Romanovna. But where did you get
the revolver? Was it Mr. Razumihin? Why, it’s my revolver, an old friend!
And how I’ve hunted for it! The shooting lessons I’ve given you in the
country have not been thrown away.”
“It’s not your revolver, it belonged to Marfa Petrovna, whom you
killed, wretch! There was nothing of yours in her house. I took it when I
began to suspect what you were capable of. If you dare to advance one
step, I swear I’ll kill you.” She was frantic.
“But your brother? I ask from curiosity,” said Svidrigaı̈lov, still
standing where he was.
“Inform, if you want to! Don’t stir! Don’t come nearer! I’ll shoot! You
poisoned your wife, I know; you are a murderer yourself!” She held the
revolver ready.
“Are you so positive I poisoned Marfa Petrovna?”
“You did! You hinted it yourself; you talked to me of poison.... I know
you went to get it... you had it in readiness.... It was your doing.... It must
have been your doing.... Scoundrel!”
“Even if that were true, it would have been for your sake... you would
have been the cause.”
“You are lying! I hated you always, always....”
 “Oho, Avdotya Romanovna! You seem to have forgotten how you
softened to me in the heat of propaganda. I saw it in your eyes. Do you
remember that moonlight night, when the nightingale was singing?”
“That’s a lie,” there was a lash of fury in Dounia’s eyes, “that’s a lie
and a libel!”
“A lie? Well, if you like, it’s a lie. I made it up. Women ought not to be
reminded of such things,” he smiled. “I know you will shoot, you pretty
wild creature. Well, shoot away!”
Dounia raised the revolver, and deadly pale, gazed at him, measuring
the distance and awaiting the irst movement on his part. Her lower lip
was white and quivering and her big black eyes lashed like ire. He had
never seen her so handsome. The ire glowing in her eyes at the
moment she raised the revolver seemed to kindle him and there was a
pang of anguish in his heart. He took a step forward and a shot rang out.
The bullet grazed his hair and lew into the wall behind. He stood still
and laughed softly.
“The wasp has stung me. She aimed straight at my head. What’s this?
Blood?” he pulled out his handkerchief to wipe the blood, which lowed
in a thin stream down his right temple. The bullet seemed to have just
grazed the skin.
Dounia lowered the revolver and looked at Svidrigaı̈lov not so much
in terror as in a sort of wild amazement. She seemed not to understand
what she was doing and what was going on.
“Well, you missed! Fire again, I’ll wait,” said Svidrigaı̈lov softly, still
smiling, but gloomily. “If you go on like that, I shall have time to seize
you before you cock again.”
Dounia started, quickly cocked the pistol and again raised it.
“Let me be,” she cried in despair. “I swear I’ll shoot again. I... I’ll kill
you.”
“Well... at three paces you can hardly help it. But if you don’t... then.”
His eyes lashed and he took two steps forward. Dounia shot again: it
missed ire.
“You haven’t loaded it properly. Never mind, you have another charge
there. Get it ready, I’ll wait.”
 He stood facing her, two paces away, waiting and gazing at her with
wild determination, with feverishly passionate, stubborn, set eyes.
Dounia saw that he would sooner die than let her go. “And... now, of
course she would kill him, at two paces!” Suddenly she lung away the
revolver.
“She’s dropped it!” said Svidrigaı̈lov with surprise, and he drew a
deep breath. A weight seemed to have rolled from his heart—perhaps
not only the fear of death; indeed he may scarcely have felt it at that
moment. It was the deliverance from another feeling, darker and more
bitter, which he could not himself have de ined.
He went to Dounia and gently put his arm round her waist. She did
not resist, but, trembling like a leaf, looked at him with suppliant eyes.
He tried to say something, but his lips moved without being able to
utter a sound.
“Let me go,” Dounia implored. Svidrigaı̈lov shuddered. Her voice now
was quite different.
“Then you don’t love me?” he asked softly. Dounia shook her head.
“And... and you can’t? Never?” he whispered in despair.
“Never!”
There followed a moment of terrible, dumb struggle in the heart of
Svidrigaı̈lov. He looked at her with an indescribable gaze. Suddenly he
withdrew his arm, turned quickly to the window and stood facing it.
Another moment passed.
“Here’s the key.”
He took it out of the left pocket of his coat and laid it on the table
behind him, without turning or looking at Dounia.
“Take it! Make haste!”
He looked stubbornly out of the window. Dounia went up to the table
to take the key.
“Make haste! Make haste!” repeated Svidrigaı̈lov, still without turning
or moving. But there seemed a terrible signi icance in the tone of that
“make haste.”
Dounia understood it, snatched up the key, lew to the door, unlocked
it quickly and rushed out of the room. A minute later, beside herself, she
ran out on to the canal bank in the direction of X. Bridge.
Svidrigaı̈lov remained three minutes standing at the window. At last
he slowly turned, looked about him and passed his hand over his
forehead. A strange smile contorted his face, a pitiful, sad, weak smile, a
smile of despair. The blood, which was already getting dry, smeared his
hand. He looked angrily at it, then wetted a towel and washed his
temple. The revolver which Dounia had lung away lay near the door
and suddenly caught his eye. He picked it up and examined it. It was a
little pocket three-barrel revolver of old-fashioned construction. There
were still two charges and one capsule left in it. It could be ired again.
He thought a little, put the revolver in his pocket, took his hat and went
out.
 CHAPTER VI

He spent that evening till ten o’clock going from one low haunt to
another. Katia too turned up and sang another gutter song, how a
certain
“villain and tyrant,”
“began kissing Katia.”
Svidrigaı̈lov treated Katia and the organ-grinder and some singers
and the waiters and two little clerks. He was particularly drawn to
these clerks by the fact that they both had crooked noses, one bent to
the left and the other to the right. They took him inally to a pleasure
garden, where he paid for their entrance. There was one lanky three-
year-old pine-tree and three bushes in the garden, besides a “Vauxhall,”
which was in reality a drinking-bar where tea too was served, and there
were a few green tables and chairs standing round it. A chorus of
wretched singers and a drunken but exceedingly depressed German
clown from Munich with a red nose entertained the public. The clerks
quarrelled with some other clerks and a ight seemed imminent.
Svidrigaı̈lov was chosen to decide the dispute. He listened to them for a
quarter of an hour, but they shouted so loud that there was no
possibility of understanding them. The only fact that seemed certain
was that one of them had stolen something and had even succeeded in
selling it on the spot to a Jew, but would not share the spoil with his
companion. Finally it appeared that the stolen object was a teaspoon
belonging to the Vauxhall. It was missed and the affair began to seem
troublesome. Svidrigaı̈lov paid for the spoon, got up, and walked out of
the garden. It was about six o’clock. He had not drunk a drop of wine all
this time and had ordered tea more for the sake of appearances than
anything.
 It was a dark and sti ling evening. Threatening storm-clouds came
over the sky about ten o’clock. There was a clap of thunder, and the rain
came down like a waterfall. The water fell not in drops, but beat on the
earth in streams. There were lashes of lightning every minute and each
lash lasted while one could count ive.
Drenched to the skin, he went home, locked himself in, opened the
bureau, took out all his money and tore up two or three papers. Then,
putting the money in his pocket, he was about to change his clothes,
but, looking out of the window and listening to the thunder and the
rain, he gave up the idea, took up his hat and went out of the room
without locking the door. He went straight to Sonia. She was at home.
She was not alone: the four Kapernaumov children were with her.
She was giving them tea. She received Svidrigaı̈lov in respectful silence,
looking wonderingly at his soaking clothes. The children all ran away at
once in indescribable terror.
Svidrigaı̈lov sat down at the table and asked Sonia to sit beside him.
She timidly prepared to listen.
“I may be going to America, Sofya Semyonovna,” said Svidrigaı̈lov,
“and as I am probably seeing you for the last time, I have come to make
some arrangements. Well, did you see the lady to-day? I know what she
said to you, you need not tell me.” (Sonia made a movement and
blushed.) “Those people have their own way of doing things. As to your
sisters and your brother, they are really provided for and the money
assigned to them I’ve put into safe keeping and have received
acknowledgments. You had better take charge of the receipts, in case
anything happens. Here, take them! Well now, that’s settled. Here are
three 5-per-cent bonds to the value of three thousand roubles. Take
those for yourself, entirely for yourself, and let that be strictly between
ourselves, so that no one knows of it, whatever you hear. You will need
the money, for to go on living in the old way, Sofya Semyonovna, is bad,
and besides there is no need for it now.”
“I am so much indebted to you, and so are the children and my
stepmother,” said Sonia hurriedly, “and if I’ve said so little... please don’t
consider...”
“That’s enough! that’s enough!”
 “But as for the money, Arkady Ivanovitch, I am very grateful to you,
but I don’t need it now. I can always earn my own living. Don’t think me
ungrateful. If you are so charitable, that money....”
“It’s for you, for you, Sofya Semyonovna, and please don’t waste
words over it. I haven’t time for it. You will want it. Rodion Romanovitch
has two alternatives: a bullet in the brain or Siberia.” (Sonia looked
wildly at him, and started.) “Don’t be uneasy, I know all about it from
himself and I am not a gossip; I won’t tell anyone. It was good advice
when you told him to give himself up and confess. It would be much
better for him. Well, if it turns out to be Siberia, he will go and you will
follow him. That’s so, isn’t it? And if so, you’ll need money. You’ll need it
for him, do you understand? Giving it to you is the same as my giving it
to him. Besides, you promised Amalia Ivanovna to pay what’s owing. I
heard you. How can you undertake such obligations so heedlessly, Sofya
Semyonovna? It was Katerina Ivanovna’s debt and not yours, so you
ought not to have taken any notice of the German woman. You can’t get
through the world like that. If you are ever questioned about me—to-
morrow or the day after you will be asked—don’t say anything about
my coming to see you now and don’t show the money to anyone or say
a word about it. Well, now good-bye.” (He got up.) “My greetings to
Rodion Romanovitch. By the way, you’d better put the money for the
present in Mr. Razumihin’s keeping. You know Mr. Razumihin? Of
course you do. He’s not a bad fellow. Take it to him to-morrow or... when
the time comes. And till then, hide it carefully.”
Sonia too jumped up from her chair and looked in dismay at
Svidrigaı̈lov. She longed to speak, to ask a question, but for the irst
moments she did not dare and did not know how to begin.
“How can you... how can you be going now, in such rain?”
“Why, be starting for America, and be stopped by rain! Ha, ha! Good-
bye, Sofya Semyonovna, my dear! Live and live long, you will be of use
to others. By the way... tell Mr. Razumihin I send my greetings to him.
Tell him Arkady Ivanovitch Svidrigaı̈lov sends his greetings. Be sure to.”
He went out, leaving Sonia in a state of wondering anxiety and vague
apprehension.
It appeared afterwards that on the same evening, at twenty past
eleven, he made another very eccentric and unexpected visit. The rain
still persisted. Drenched to the skin, he walked into the little lat where
the parents of his betrothed lived, in Third Street in Vassilyevsky Island.
He knocked some time before he was admitted, and his visit at irst
caused great perturbation; but Svidrigaı̈lov could be very fascinating
when he liked, so that the irst, and indeed very intelligent surmise of
the sensible parents that Svidrigaı̈lov had probably had so much to
drink that he did not know what he was doing vanished immediately.
The decrepit father was wheeled in to see Svidrigaı̈lov by the tender
and sensible mother, who as usual began the conversation with various
irrelevant questions. She never asked a direct question, but began by
smiling and rubbing her hands and then, if she were obliged to
ascertain something—for instance, when Svidrigaı̈lov would like to
have the wedding—she would begin by interested and almost eager
questions about Paris and the court life there, and only by degrees
brought the conversation round to Third Street. On other occasions this
had of course been very impressive, but this time Arkady Ivanovitch
seemed particularly impatient, and insisted on seeing his betrothed at
once, though he had been informed, to begin with, that she had already
gone to bed. The girl of course appeared.
Svidrigaı̈lov informed her at once that he was obliged by very
important affairs to leave Petersburg for a time, and therefore brought
her ifteen thousand roubles and begged her accept them as a present
from him, as he had long been intending to make her this tri ling
present before their wedding. The logical connection of the present
with his immediate departure and the absolute necessity of visiting
them for that purpose in pouring rain at midnight was not made clear.
But it all went off very well; even the inevitable ejaculations of wonder
and regret, the inevitable questions were extraordinarily few and
restrained. On the other hand, the gratitude expressed was most
glowing and was reinforced by tears from the most sensible of mothers.
Svidrigaı̈lov got up, laughed, kissed his betrothed, patted her cheek,
declared he would soon come back, and noticing in her eyes, together
with childish curiosity, a sort of earnest dumb inquiry, re lected and
kissed her again, though he felt sincere anger inwardly at the thought
that his present would be immediately locked up in the keeping of the
most sensible of mothers. He went away, leaving them all in a state of
extraordinary excitement, but the tender mamma, speaking quietly in a
half whisper, settled some of the most important of their doubts,
concluding that Svidrigaı̈lov was a great man, a man of great affairs and
connections and of great wealth—there was no knowing what he had in
his mind. He would start off on a journey and give away money just as
the fancy took him, so that there was nothing surprising about it. Of
course it was strange that he was wet through, but Englishmen, for
instance, are even more eccentric, and all these people of high society
didn’t think of what was said of them and didn’t stand on ceremony.
Possibly, indeed, he came like that on purpose to show that he was not
afraid of anyone. Above all, not a word should be said about it, for God
knows what might come of it, and the money must be locked up, and it
was most fortunate that Fedosya, the cook, had not left the kitchen. And
above all not a word must be said to that old cat, Madame Resslich, and
so on and so on. They sat up whispering till two o’clock, but the girl
went to bed much earlier, amazed and rather sorrowful.
Svidrigaı̈lov meanwhile, exactly at midnight, crossed the bridge on
the way back to the mainland. The rain had ceased and there was a
roaring wind. He began shivering, and for one moment he gazed at the
black waters of the Little Neva with a look of special interest, even
inquiry. But he soon felt it very cold, standing by the water; he turned
and went towards Y. Prospect. He walked along that endless street for a
long time, almost half an hour, more than once stumbling in the dark on
the wooden pavement, but continually looking for something on the
right side of the street. He had noticed passing through this street lately
that there was a hotel somewhere towards the end, built of wood, but
fairly large, and its name he remembered was something like
Adrianople. He was not mistaken: the hotel was so conspicuous in that
God-forsaken place that he could not fail to see it even in the dark. It
was a long, blackened wooden building, and in spite of the late hour
there were lights in the windows and signs of life within. He went in
and asked a ragged fellow who met him in the corridor for a room. The
latter, scanning Svidrigaı̈lov, pulled himself together and led him at once
to a close and tiny room in the distance, at the end of the corridor,
under the stairs. There was no other, all were occupied. The ragged
fellow looked inquiringly.
“Is there tea?” asked Svidrigaı̈lov.
 “Yes, sir.”
“What else is there?”
“Veal, vodka, savouries.”
“Bring me tea and veal.”
“And you want nothing else?” he asked with apparent surprise.
“Nothing, nothing.”
The ragged man went away, completely disillusioned.
“It must be a nice place,” thought Svidrigaı̈lov. “How was it I didn’t
know it? I expect I look as if I came from a café chantant and have had
some adventure on the way. It would be interesting to know who stayed
here?”
He lighted the candle and looked at the room more carefully. It was a
room so low-pitched that Svidrigaı̈lov could only just stand up in it; it
had one window; the bed, which was very dirty, and the plain-stained
chair and table almost illed it up. The walls looked as though they were
made of planks, covered with shabby paper, so torn and dusty that the
pattern was indistinguishable, though the general colour—yellow—
could still be made out. One of the walls was cut short by the sloping
ceiling, though the room was not an attic but just under the stairs.
Svidrigaı̈lov set down the candle, sat down on the bed and sank into
thought. But a strange persistent murmur which sometimes rose to a
shout in the next room attracted his attention. The murmur had not
ceased from the moment he entered the room. He listened: someone
was upbraiding and almost tearfully scolding, but he heard only one
voice.
Svidrigaı̈lov got up, shaded the light with his hand and at once he saw
light through a crack in the wall; he went up and peeped through. The
room, which was somewhat larger than his, had two occupants. One of
them, a very curly-headed man with a red in lamed face, was standing
in the pose of an orator, without his coat, with his legs wide apart to
preserve his balance, and smiting himself on the breast. He reproached
the other with being a beggar, with having no standing whatever. He
declared that he had taken the other out of the gutter and he could turn
him out when he liked, and that only the inger of Providence sees it all.
The object of his reproaches was sitting in a chair, and had the air of a
man who wants dreadfully to sneeze, but can’t. He sometimes turned
sheepish and befogged eyes on the speaker, but obviously had not the
slightest idea what he was talking about and scarcely heard it. A candle
was burning down on the table; there were wine-glasses, a nearly
empty bottle of vodka, bread and cucumber, and glasses with the dregs
of stale tea. After gazing attentively at this, Svidrigaı̈lov turned away
indifferently and sat down on the bed.
The ragged attendant, returning with the tea, could not resist asking
him again whether he didn’t want anything more, and again receiving a
negative reply, inally withdrew. Svidrigaı̈lov made haste to drink a
glass of tea to warm himself, but could not eat anything. He began to
feel feverish. He took off his coat and, wrapping himself in the blanket,
lay down on the bed. He was annoyed. “It would have been better to be
well for the occasion,” he thought with a smile. The room was close, the
candle burnt dimly, the wind was roaring outside, he heard a mouse
scratching in the corner and the room smelt of mice and of leather. He
lay in a sort of reverie: one thought followed another. He felt a longing
to ix his imagination on something. “It must be a garden under the
window,” he thought. “There’s a sound of trees. How I dislike the sound
of trees on a stormy night, in the dark! They give one a horrid feeling.”
He remembered how he had disliked it when he passed Petrovsky Park
just now. This reminded him of the bridge over the Little Neva and he
felt cold again as he had when standing there. “I never have liked water,”
he thought, “even in a landscape,” and he suddenly smiled again at a
strange idea: “Surely now all these questions of taste and comfort ought
not to matter, but I’ve become more particular, like an animal that picks
out a special place... for such an occasion. I ought to have gone into the
Petrovsky Park! I suppose it seemed dark, cold, ha-ha! As though I were
seeking pleasant sensations!... By the way, why haven’t I put out the
candle?” he blew it out. “They’ve gone to bed next door,” he thought, not
seeing the light at the crack. “Well, now, Marfa Petrovna, now is the time
for you to turn up; it’s dark, and the very time and place for you. But
now you won’t come!”
He suddenly recalled how, an hour before carrying out his design on
Dounia, he had recommended Raskolnikov to trust her to Razumihin’s
keeping. “I suppose I really did say it, as Raskolnikov guessed, to tease
myself. But what a rogue that Raskolnikov is! He’s gone through a good
deal. He may be a successful rogue in time when he’s got over his
nonsense. But now he’s too eager for life. These young men are
contemptible on that point. But, hang the fellow! Let him please
himself, it’s nothing to do with me.”
He could not get to sleep. By degrees Dounia’s image rose before him,
and a shudder ran over him. “No, I must give up all that now,” he
thought, rousing himself. “I must think of something else. It’s queer and
funny. I never had a great hatred for anyone, I never particularly desired
to avenge myself even, and that’s a bad sign, a bad sign, a bad sign. I
never liked quarrelling either, and never lost my temper—that’s a bad
sign too. And the promises I made her just now, too—Damnation! But—
who knows?—perhaps she would have made a new man of me
somehow....”
He ground his teeth and sank into silence again. Again Dounia’s
image rose before him, just as she was when, after shooting the irst
time, she had lowered the revolver in terror and gazed blankly at him,
so that he might have seized her twice over and she would not have
lifted a hand to defend herself if he had not reminded her. He recalled
how at that instant he felt almost sorry for her, how he had felt a pang
at his heart...
“Aı̈e! Damnation, these thoughts again! I must put it away!”
He was dozing off; the feverish shiver had ceased, when suddenly
something seemed to run over his arm and leg under the bedclothes. He
started. “Ugh! hang it! I believe it’s a mouse,” he thought, “that’s the veal
I left on the table.” He felt fearfully disinclined to pull off the blanket, get
up, get cold, but all at once something unpleasant ran over his leg again.
He pulled off the blanket and lighted the candle. Shaking with feverish
chill he bent down to examine the bed: there was nothing. He shook the
blanket and suddenly a mouse jumped out on the sheet. He tried to
catch it, but the mouse ran to and fro in zigzags without leaving the bed,
slipped between his ingers, ran over his hand and suddenly darted
under the pillow. He threw down the pillow, but in one instant felt
something leap on his chest and dart over his body and down his back
under his shirt. He trembled nervously and woke up.
The room was dark. He was lying on the bed and wrapped up in the
blanket as before. The wind was howling under the window. “How
disgusting,” he thought with annoyance.
He got up and sat on the edge of the bedstead with his back to the
window. “It’s better not to sleep at all,” he decided. There was a cold
damp draught from the window, however; without getting up he drew
the blanket over him and wrapped himself in it. He was not thinking of
anything and did not want to think. But one image rose after another,
incoherent scraps of thought without beginning or end passed through
his mind. He sank into drowsiness. Perhaps the cold, or the dampness,
or the dark, or the wind that howled under the window and tossed the
trees roused a sort of persistent craving for the fantastic. He kept
dwelling on images of lowers, he fancied a charming lower garden, a
bright, warm, almost hot day, a holiday—Trinity day. A ine, sumptuous
country cottage in the English taste overgrown with fragrant lowers,
with lower beds going round the house; the porch, wreathed in
climbers, was surrounded with beds of roses. A light, cool staircase,
carpeted with rich rugs, was decorated with rare plants in china pots.
He noticed particularly in the windows nosegays of tender, white,
heavily fragrant narcissus bending over their bright, green, thick long
stalks. He was reluctant to move away from them, but he went up the
stairs and came into a large, high drawing-room and again everywhere
—at the windows, the doors on to the balcony, and on the balcony itself
—were lowers. The loors were strewn with freshly-cut fragrant hay,
the windows were open, a fresh, cool, light air came into the room. The
birds were chirruping under the window, and in the middle of the
room, on a table covered with a white satin shroud, stood a cof in. The
cof in was covered with white silk and edged with a thick white frill;
wreaths of lowers surrounded it on all sides. Among the lowers lay a
girl in a white muslin dress, with her arms crossed and pressed on her
bosom, as though carved out of marble. But her loose fair hair was wet;
there was a wreath of roses on her head. The stern and already rigid
pro ile of her face looked as though chiselled of marble too, and the
smile on her pale lips was full of an immense unchildish misery and
sorrowful appeal. Svidrigaı̈lov knew that girl; there was no holy image,
no burning candle beside the cof in; no sound of prayers: the girl had
drowned herself. She was only fourteen, but her heart was broken. And
she had destroyed herself, crushed by an insult that had appalled and
amazed that childish soul, had smirched that angel purity with
unmerited disgrace and torn from her a last scream of despair,
unheeded and brutally disregarded, on a dark night in the cold and wet
while the wind howled....
Svidrigaı̈lov came to himself, got up from the bed and went to the
window. He felt for the latch and opened it. The wind lashed furiously
into the little room and stung his face and his chest, only covered with
his shirt, as though with frost. Under the window there must have been
something like a garden, and apparently a pleasure garden. There, too,
probably there were tea-tables and singing in the daytime. Now drops
of rain lew in at the window from the trees and bushes; it was dark as
in a cellar, so that he could only just make out some dark blurs of
objects. Svidrigaı̈lov, bending down with elbows on the window-sill,
gazed for ive minutes into the darkness; the boom of a cannon,
followed by a second one, resounded in the darkness of the night. “Ah,
the signal! The river is over lowing,” he thought. “By morning it will be
swirling down the street in the lower parts, looding the basements and
cellars. The cellar rats will swim out, and men will curse in the rain and
wind as they drag their rubbish to their upper storeys. What time is it
now?” And he had hardly thought it when, somewhere near, a clock on
the wall, ticking away hurriedly, struck three.
“Aha! It will be light in an hour! Why wait? I’ll go out at once straight
to the park. I’ll choose a great bush there drenched with rain, so that as
soon as one’s shoulder touches it, millions of drops drip on one’s head.”
He moved away from the window, shut it, lighted the candle, put on
his waistcoat, his overcoat and his hat and went out, carrying the
candle, into the passage to look for the ragged attendant who would be
asleep somewhere in the midst of candle-ends and all sorts of rubbish,
to pay him for the room and leave the hotel. “It’s the best minute; I
couldn’t choose a better.”
He walked for some time through a long narrow corridor without
inding anyone and was just going to call out, when suddenly in a dark
corner between an old cupboard and the door he caught sight of a
strange object which seemed to be alive. He bent down with the candle
and saw a little girl, not more than ive years old, shivering and crying,
with her clothes as wet as a soaking house- lannel. She did not seem
afraid of Svidrigaı̈lov, but looked at him with blank amazement out of
her big black eyes. Now and then she sobbed as children do when they
have been crying a long time, but are beginning to be comforted. The
child’s face was pale and tired, she was numb with cold. “How can she
have come here? She must have hidden here and not slept all night.” He
began questioning her. The child suddenly becoming animated,
chattered away in her baby language, something about “mammy” and
that “mammy would beat her,” and about some cup that she had
“bwoken.” The child chattered on without stopping. He could only guess
from what she said that she was a neglected child, whose mother,
probably a drunken cook, in the service of the hotel, whipped and
frightened her; that the child had broken a cup of her mother’s and was
so frightened that she had run away the evening before, had hidden for
a long while somewhere outside in the rain, at last had made her way in
here, hidden behind the cupboard and spent the night there, crying and
trembling from the damp, the darkness and the fear that she would be
badly beaten for it. He took her in his arms, went back to his room, sat
her on the bed, and began undressing her. The torn shoes which she
had on her stockingless feet were as wet as if they had been standing in
a puddle all night. When he had undressed her, he put her on the bed,
covered her up and wrapped her in the blanket from her head
downwards. She fell asleep at once. Then he sank into dreary musing
again.
“What folly to trouble myself,” he decided suddenly with an
oppressive feeling of annoyance. “What idiocy!” In vexation he took up
the candle to go and look for the ragged attendant again and make
haste to go away. “Damn the child!” he thought as he opened the door,
but he turned again to see whether the child was asleep. He raised the
blanket carefully. The child was sleeping soundly, she had got warm
under the blanket, and her pale cheeks were lushed. But strange to say
that lush seemed brighter and coarser than the rosy cheeks of
childhood. “It’s a lush of fever,” thought Svidrigaı̈lov. It was like the
lush from drinking, as though she had been given a full glass to drink.
Her crimson lips were hot and glowing; but what was this? He suddenly
fancied that her long black eyelashes were quivering, as though the lids
were opening and a sly crafty eye peeped out with an unchildlike wink,
as though the little girl were not asleep, but pretending. Yes, it was so.
Her lips parted in a smile. The corners of her mouth quivered, as
though she were trying to control them. But now she quite gave up all
effort, now it was a grin, a broad grin; there was something shameless,
provocative in that quite unchildish face; it was depravity, it was the
face of a harlot, the shameless face of a French harlot. Now both eyes
opened wide; they turned a glowing, shameless glance upon him; they
laughed, invited him.... There was something in initely hideous and
shocking in that laugh, in those eyes, in such nastiness in the face of a
child. “What, at ive years old?” Svidrigaı̈lov muttered in genuine horror.
“What does it mean?” And now she turned to him, her little face all
aglow, holding out her arms.... “Accursed child!” Svidrigaı̈lov cried,
raising his hand to strike her, but at that moment he woke up.
He was in the same bed, still wrapped in the blanket. The candle had
not been lighted, and daylight was streaming in at the windows.
“I’ve had nightmare all night!” He got up angrily, feeling utterly
shattered; his bones ached. There was a thick mist outside and he could
see nothing. It was nearly ive. He had overslept himself! He got up, put
on his still damp jacket and overcoat. Feeling the revolver in his pocket,
he took it out and then he sat down, took a notebook out of his pocket
and in the most conspicuous place on the title page wrote a few lines in
large letters. Reading them over, he sank into thought with his elbows
on the table. The revolver and the notebook lay beside him. Some lies
woke up and settled on the untouched veal, which was still on the table.
He stared at them and at last with his free right hand began trying to
catch one. He tried till he was tired, but could not catch it. At last,
realising that he was engaged in this interesting pursuit, he started, got
up and walked resolutely out of the room. A minute later he was in the
street.
A thick milky mist hung over the town. Svidrigaı̈lov walked along the
slippery dirty wooden pavement towards the Little Neva. He was
picturing the waters of the Little Neva swollen in the night, Petrovsky
Island, the wet paths, the wet grass, the wet trees and bushes and at last
the bush.... He began ill-humouredly staring at the houses, trying to
think of something else. There was not a cabman or a passer-by in the
street. The bright yellow, wooden, little houses looked dirty and
dejected with their closed shutters. The cold and damp penetrated his
whole body and he began to shiver. From time to time he came across
shop signs and read each carefully. At last he reached the end of the
wooden pavement and came to a big stone house. A dirty, shivering dog
crossed his path with its tail between its legs. A man in a greatcoat lay
face downwards; dead drunk, across the pavement. He looked at him
and went on. A high tower stood up on the left. “Bah!” he shouted, “here
is a place. Why should it be Petrovsky? It will be in the presence of an
of icial witness anyway....”
He almost smiled at this new thought and turned into the street
where there was the big house with the tower. At the great closed gates
of the house, a little man stood with his shoulder leaning against them,
wrapped in a grey soldier’s coat, with a copper Achilles helmet on his
head. He cast a drowsy and indifferent glance at Svidrigaı̈lov. His face
wore that perpetual look of peevish dejection, which is so sourly
printed on all faces of Jewish race without exception. They both,
Svidrigaı̈lov and Achilles, stared at each other for a few minutes
without speaking. At last it struck Achilles as irregular for a man not
drunk to be standing three steps from him, staring and not saying a
word.
“What do you want here?” he said, without moving or changing his
position.
“Nothing, brother, good morning,” answered Svidrigaı̈lov.
“This isn’t the place.”
“I am going to foreign parts, brother.”
“To foreign parts?”
“To America.”
“America.”
Svidrigaı̈lov took out the revolver and cocked it. Achilles raised his
eyebrows.
“I say, this is not the place for such jokes!”
“Why shouldn’t it be the place?”
“Because it isn’t.”
“Well, brother, I don’t mind that. It’s a good place. When you are
asked, you just say he was going, he said, to America.”
He put the revolver to his right temple.
 “You can’t do it here, it’s not the place,” cried Achilles, rousing
himself, his eyes growing bigger and bigger.
Svidrigaı̈lov pulled the trigger.
 CHAPTER VII

The same day, about seven o’clock in the evening, Raskolnikov was on
his way to his mother’s and sister’s lodging—the lodging in Bakaleyev’s
house which Razumihin had found for them. The stairs went up from
the street. Raskolnikov walked with lagging steps, as though still
hesitating whether to go or not. But nothing would have turned him
back: his decision was taken.
“Besides, it doesn’t matter, they still know nothing,” he thought, “and
they are used to thinking of me as eccentric.”
He was appallingly dressed: his clothes torn and dirty, soaked with a
night’s rain. His face was almost distorted from fatigue, exposure, the
inward con lict that had lasted for twenty-four hours. He had spent all
the previous night alone, God knows where. But anyway he had reached
a decision.
He knocked at the door which was opened by his mother. Dounia was
not at home. Even the servant happened to be out. At irst Pulcheria
Alexandrovna was speechless with joy and surprise; then she took him
by the hand and drew him into the room.
“Here you are!” she began, faltering with joy. “Don’t be angry with me,
Rodya, for welcoming you so foolishly with tears: I am laughing not
crying. Did you think I was crying? No, I am delighted, but I’ve got into
such a stupid habit of shedding tears. I’ve been like that ever since your
father’s death. I cry for anything. Sit down, dear boy, you must be tired;
I see you are. Ah, how muddy you are.”
“I was in the rain yesterday, mother....” Raskolnikov began.
“No, no,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna hurriedly interrupted, “you thought
I was going to cross-question you in the womanish way I used to; don’t
be anxious, I understand, I understand it all: now I’ve learned the ways
here and truly I see for myself that they are better. I’ve made up my
mind once for all: how could I understand your plans and expect you to
give an account of them? God knows what concerns and plans you may
have, or what ideas you are hatching; so it’s not for me to keep nudging
your elbow, asking you what you are thinking about? But, my goodness!
why am I running to and fro as though I were crazy...? I am reading your
article in the magazine for the third time, Rodya. Dmitri Proko itch
brought it to me. Directly I saw it I cried out to myself: ‘There, foolish
one,’ I thought, ‘that’s what he is busy about; that’s the solution of the
mystery! Learned people are always like that. He may have some new
ideas in his head just now; he is thinking them over and I worry him
and upset him.’ I read it, my dear, and of course there was a great deal I
did not understand; but that’s only natural—how should I?”
“Show me, mother.”
Raskolnikov took the magazine and glanced at his article.
Incongruous as it was with his mood and his circumstances, he felt that
strange and bitter sweet sensation that every author experiences the
irst time he sees himself in print; besides, he was only twenty-three. It
lasted only a moment. After reading a few lines he frowned and his
heart throbbed with anguish. He recalled all the inward con lict of the
preceding months. He lung the article on the table with disgust and
anger.
“But, however foolish I may be, Rodya, I can see for myself that you
will very soon be one of the leading—if not the leading man—in the
world of Russian thought. And they dared to think you were mad! You
don’t know, but they really thought that. Ah, the despicable creatures,
how could they understand genius! And Dounia, Dounia was all but
believing it—what do you say to that? Your father sent twice to
magazines—the irst time poems (I’ve got the manuscript and will
show you) and the second time a whole novel (I begged him to let me
copy it out) and how we prayed that they should be taken—they
weren’t! I was breaking my heart, Rodya, six or seven days ago over
your food and your clothes and the way you are living. But now I see
again how foolish I was, for you can attain any position you like by your
intellect and talent. No doubt you don’t care about that for the present
and you are occupied with much more important matters....”
“Dounia’s not at home, mother?”
 “No, Rodya. I often don’t see her; she leaves me alone. Dmitri
Proko itch comes to see me, it’s so good of him, and he always talks
about you. He loves you and respects you, my dear. I don’t say that
Dounia is very wanting in consideration. I am not complaining. She has
her ways and I have mine; she seems to have got some secrets of late
and I never have any secrets from you two. Of course, I am sure that
Dounia has far too much sense, and besides she loves you and me... but I
don’t know what it will all lead to. You’ve made me so happy by coming
now, Rodya, but she has missed you by going out; when she comes in I’ll
tell her: ‘Your brother came in while you were out. Where have you
been all this time?’ You mustn’t spoil me, Rodya, you know; come when
you can, but if you can’t, it doesn’t matter, I can wait. I shall know,
anyway, that you are fond of me, that will be enough for me. I shall read
what you write, I shall hear about you from everyone, and sometimes
you’ll come yourself to see me. What could be better? Here you’ve come
now to comfort your mother, I see that.”
Here Pulcheria Alexandrovna began to cry.
“Here I am again! Don’t mind my foolishness. My goodness, why am I
sitting here?” she cried, jumping up. “There is coffee and I don’t offer
you any. Ah, that’s the sel ishness of old age. I’ll get it at once!”
“Mother, don’t trouble, I am going at once. I haven’t come for that.
Please listen to me.”
Pulcheria Alexandrovna went up to him timidly.
“Mother, whatever happens, whatever you hear about me, whatever
you are told about me, will you always love me as you do now?” he
asked suddenly from the fullness of his heart, as though not thinking of
his words and not weighing them.
“Rodya, Rodya, what is the matter? How can you ask me such a
question? Why, who will tell me anything about you? Besides, I
shouldn’t believe anyone, I should refuse to listen.”
“I’ve come to assure you that I’ve always loved you and I am glad that
we are alone, even glad Dounia is out,” he went on with the same
impulse. “I have come to tell you that though you will be unhappy, you
must believe that your son loves you now more than himself, and that
all you thought about me, that I was cruel and didn’t care about you,
was all a mistake. I shall never cease to love you.... Well, that’s enough: I
thought I must do this and begin with this....”
Pulcheria Alexandrovna embraced him in silence, pressing him to her
bosom and weeping gently.
“I don’t know what is wrong with you, Rodya,” she said at last. “I’ve
been thinking all this time that we were simply boring you and now I
see that there is a great sorrow in store for you, and that’s why you are
miserable. I’ve foreseen it a long time, Rodya. Forgive me for speaking
about it. I keep thinking about it and lie awake at nights. Your sister lay
talking in her sleep all last night, talking of nothing but you. I caught
something, but I couldn’t make it out. I felt all the morning as though I
were going to be hanged, waiting for something, expecting something,
and now it has come! Rodya, Rodya, where are you going? You are going
away somewhere?”
“Yes.”
“That’s what I thought! I can come with you, you know, if you need
me. And Dounia, too; she loves you, she loves you dearly—and Sofya
Semyonovna may come with us if you like. You see, I am glad to look
upon her as a daughter even... Dmitri Proko itch will help us to go
together. But... where... are you going?”
“Good-bye, mother.”
“What, to-day?” she cried, as though losing him for ever.
“I can’t stay, I must go now....”
“And can’t I come with you?”
“No, but kneel down and pray to God for me. Your prayer perhaps
will reach Him.”
“Let me bless you and sign you with the cross. That’s right, that’s
right. Oh, God, what are we doing?”
Yes, he was glad, he was very glad that there was no one there, that
he was alone with his mother. For the irst time after all those awful
months his heart was softened. He fell down before her, he kissed her
feet and both wept, embracing. And she was not surprised and did not
question him this time. For some days she had realised that something
awful was happening to her son and that now some terrible minute had
come for him.
 “Rodya, my darling, my irst born,” she said sobbing, “now you are
just as when you were little. You would run like this to me and hug me
and kiss me. When your father was living and we were poor, you
comforted us simply by being with us and when I buried your father,
how often we wept together at his grave and embraced, as now. And if
I’ve been crying lately, it’s that my mother’s heart had a foreboding of
trouble. The irst time I saw you, that evening, you remember, as soon
as we arrived here, I guessed simply from your eyes. My heart sank at
once, and to-day when I opened the door and looked at you, I thought
the fatal hour had come. Rodya, Rodya, you are not going away to-day?”
“No!”
“You’ll come again?”
“Yes... I’ll come.”
“Rodya, don’t be angry, I don’t dare to question you. I know I mustn’t.
Only say two words to me—is it far where you are going?”
“Very far.”
“What is awaiting you there? Some post or career for you?”
“What God sends... only pray for me.” Raskolnikov went to the door,
but she clutched him and gazed despairingly into his eyes. Her face
worked with terror.
“Enough, mother,” said Raskolnikov, deeply regretting that he had
come.
“Not for ever, it’s not yet for ever? You’ll come, you’ll come to-
morrow?”
“I will, I will, good-bye.” He tore himself away at last.
It was a warm, fresh, bright evening; it had cleared up in the morning.
Raskolnikov went to his lodgings; he made haste. He wanted to inish all
before sunset. He did not want to meet anyone till then. Going up the
stairs he noticed that Nastasya rushed from the samovar to watch him
intently. “Can anyone have come to see me?” he wondered. He had a
disgusted vision of Por iry. But opening his door he saw Dounia. She
was sitting alone, plunged in deep thought, and looked as though she
had been waiting a long time. He stopped short in the doorway. She
rose from the sofa in dismay and stood up facing him. Her eyes, ixed
upon him, betrayed horror and in inite grief. And from those eyes alone
he saw at once that she knew.
“Am I to come in or go away?” he asked uncertainly.
“I’ve been all day with Sofya Semyonovna. We were both waiting for
you. We thought that you would be sure to come there.”
Raskolnikov went into the room and sank exhausted on a chair.
“I feel weak, Dounia, I am very tired; and I should have liked at this
moment to be able to control myself.”
He glanced at her mistrustfully.
“Where were you all night?”
“I don’t remember clearly. You see, sister, I wanted to make up my
mind once for all, and several times I walked by the Neva, I remember
that I wanted to end it all there, but... I couldn’t make up my mind,” he
whispered, looking at her mistrustfully again.
“Thank God! That was just what we were afraid of, Sofya
Semyonovna and I. Then you still have faith in life? Thank God, thank
God!”
Raskolnikov smiled bitterly.
“I haven’t faith, but I have just been weeping in mother’s arms; I
haven’t faith, but I have just asked her to pray for me. I don’t know how
it is, Dounia, I don’t understand it.”
“Have you been at mother’s? Have you told her?” cried Dounia,
horror-stricken. “Surely you haven’t done that?”
“No, I didn’t tell her... in words; but she understood a great deal. She
heard you talking in your sleep. I am sure she half understands it
already. Perhaps I did wrong in going to see her. I don’t know why I did
go. I am a contemptible person, Dounia.”
“A contemptible person, but ready to face suffering! You are, aren’t
you?”
“Yes, I am going. At once. Yes, to escape the disgrace I thought of
drowning myself, Dounia, but as I looked into the water, I thought that if
I had considered myself strong till now I’d better not be afraid of
disgrace,” he said, hurrying on. “It’s pride, Dounia.”
“Pride, Rodya.”
 There was a gleam of ire in his lustreless eyes; he seemed to be glad
to think that he was still proud.
“You don’t think, sister, that I was simply afraid of the water?” he
asked, looking into her face with a sinister smile.
“Oh, Rodya, hush!” cried Dounia bitterly. Silence lasted for two
minutes. He sat with his eyes ixed on the loor; Dounia stood at the
other end of the table and looked at him with anguish. Suddenly he got
up.
“It’s late, it’s time to go! I am going at once to give myself up. But I
don’t know why I am going to give myself up.”
Big tears fell down her cheeks.
“You are crying, sister, but can you hold out your hand to me?”
“You doubted it?”
She threw her arms round him.
“Aren’t you half expiating your crime by facing the suffering?” she
cried, holding him close and kissing him.
“Crime? What crime?” he cried in sudden fury. “That I killed a vile
noxious insect, an old pawnbroker woman, of use to no one!... Killing
her was atonement for forty sins. She was sucking the life out of poor
people. Was that a crime? I am not thinking of it and I am not thinking
of expiating it, and why are you all rubbing it in on all sides? ‘A crime! a
crime!’ Only now I see clearly the imbecility of my cowardice, now that I
have decided to face this super luous disgrace. It’s simply because I am
contemptible and have nothing in me that I have decided to, perhaps
too for my advantage, as that... Por iry... suggested!”
“Brother, brother, what are you saying? Why, you have shed blood?”
cried Dounia in despair.
“Which all men shed,” he put in almost frantically, “which lows and
has always lowed in streams, which is spilt like champagne, and for
which men are crowned in the Capitol and are called afterwards
benefactors of mankind. Look into it more carefully and understand it! I
too wanted to do good to men and would have done hundreds,
thousands of good deeds to make up for that one piece of stupidity, not
stupidity even, simply clumsiness, for the idea was by no means so
stupid as it seems now that it has failed.... (Everything seems stupid
when it fails.) By that stupidity I only wanted to put myself into an
independent position, to take the irst step, to obtain means, and then
everything would have been smoothed over by bene its immeasurable
in comparison.... But I... I couldn’t carry out even the irst step, because I
am contemptible, that’s what’s the matter! And yet I won’t look at it as
you do. If I had succeeded I should have been crowned with glory, but
now I’m trapped.”
“But that’s not so, not so! Brother, what are you saying?”
“Ah, it’s not picturesque, not æsthetically attractive! I fail to
understand why bombarding people by regular siege is more
honourable. The fear of appearances is the irst symptom of impotence.
I’ve never, never recognised this more clearly than now, and I am
further than ever from seeing that what I did was a crime. I’ve never,
never been stronger and more convinced than now.”
The colour had rushed into his pale exhausted face, but as he uttered
his last explanation, he happened to meet Dounia’s eyes and he saw
such anguish in them that he could not help being checked. He felt that
he had, anyway, made these two poor women miserable, that he was,
anyway, the cause...
“Dounia darling, if I am guilty forgive me (though I cannot be forgiven
if I am guilty). Good-bye! We won’t dispute. It’s time, high time to go.
Don’t follow me, I beseech you, I have somewhere else to go.... But you
go at once and sit with mother. I entreat you to! It’s my last request of
you. Don’t leave her at all; I left her in a state of anxiety, that she is not
it to bear; she will die or go out of her mind. Be with her! Razumihin
will be with you. I’ve been talking to him.... Don’t cry about me: I’ll try to
be honest and manly all my life, even if I am a murderer. Perhaps I shall
some day make a name. I won’t disgrace you, you will see; I’ll still
show.... Now good-bye for the present,” he concluded hurriedly, noticing
again a strange expression in Dounia’s eyes at his last words and
promises. “Why are you crying? Don’t cry, don’t cry: we are not parting
for ever! Ah, yes! Wait a minute, I’d forgotten!”
He went to the table, took up a thick dusty book, opened it and took
from between the pages a little water-colour portrait on ivory. It was
the portrait of his landlady’s daughter, who had died of fever, that
strange girl who had wanted to be a nun. For a minute he gazed at the
delicate expressive face of his betrothed, kissed the portrait and gave it
to Dounia.
“I used to talk a great deal about it to her, only to her,” he said
thoughtfully. “To her heart I con ided much of what has since been so
hideously realised. Don’t be uneasy,” he returned to Dounia, “she was as
much opposed to it as you, and I am glad that she is gone. The great
point is that everything now is going to be different, is going to be
broken in two,” he cried, suddenly returning to his dejection.
“Everything, everything, and am I prepared for it? Do I want it myself?
They say it is necessary for me to suffer! What’s the object of these
senseless sufferings? shall I know any better what they are for, when I
am crushed by hardships and idiocy, and weak as an old man after
twenty years’ penal servitude? And what shall I have to live for then?
Why am I consenting to that life now? Oh, I knew I was contemptible
when I stood looking at the Neva at daybreak to-day!”
At last they both went out. It was hard for Dounia, but she loved him.
She walked away, but after going ifty paces she turned round to look at
him again. He was still in sight. At the corner he too turned and for the
last time their eyes met; but noticing that she was looking at him, he
motioned her away with impatience and even vexation, and turned the
corner abruptly.
“I am wicked, I see that,” he thought to himself, feeling ashamed a
moment later of his angry gesture to Dounia. “But why are they so fond
of me if I don’t deserve it? Oh, if only I were alone and no one loved me
and I too had never loved anyone! Nothing of all this would have
happened. But I wonder shall I in those ifteen or twenty years grow so
meek that I shall humble myself before people and whimper at every
word that I am a criminal? Yes, that’s it, that’s it, that’s what they are
sending me there for, that’s what they want. Look at them running to
and fro about the streets, every one of them a scoundrel and a criminal
at heart and, worse still, an idiot. But try to get me off and they’d be
wild with righteous indignation. Oh, how I hate them all!”
He fell to musing by what process it could come to pass, that he could
be humbled before all of them, indiscriminately—humbled by
conviction. And yet why not? It must be so. Would not twenty years of
continual bondage crush him utterly? Water wears out a stone. And
why, why should he live after that? Why should he go now when he
knew that it would be so? It was the hundredth time perhaps that he
had asked himself that question since the previous evening, but still he
went.
 CHAPTER VIII

When he went into Sonia’s room, it was already getting dark. All day
Sonia had been waiting for him in terrible anxiety. Dounia had been
waiting with her. She had come to her that morning, remembering
Svidrigaı̈lov’s words that Sonia knew. We will not describe the
conversation and tears of the two girls, and how friendly they became.
Dounia gained one comfort at least from that interview, that her
brother would not be alone. He had gone to her, Sonia, irst with his
confession; he had gone to her for human fellowship when he needed it;
she would go with him wherever fate might send him. Dounia did not
ask, but she knew it was so. She looked at Sonia almost with reverence
and at irst almost embarrassed her by it. Sonia was almost on the point
of tears. She felt herself, on the contrary, hardly worthy to look at
Dounia. Dounia’s gracious image when she had bowed to her so
attentively and respectfully at their irst meeting in Raskolnikov’s room
had remained in her mind as one of the fairest visions of her life.
Dounia at last became impatient and, leaving Sonia, went to her
brother’s room to await him there; she kept thinking that he would
come there irst. When she had gone, Sonia began to be tortured by the
dread of his committing suicide, and Dounia too feared it. But they had
spent the day trying to persuade each other that that could not be, and
both were less anxious while they were together. As soon as they
parted, each thought of nothing else. Sonia remembered how
Svidrigaı̈lov had said to her the day before that Raskolnikov had two
alternatives—Siberia or... Besides she knew his vanity, his pride and his
lack of faith.
“Is it possible that he has nothing but cowardice and fear of death to
make him live?” she thought at last in despair.
Meanwhile the sun was setting. Sonia was standing in dejection,
looking intently out of the window, but from it she could see nothing
but the unwhitewashed blank wall of the next house. At last when she
began to feel sure of his death—he walked into the room.
She gave a cry of joy, but looking carefully into his face she turned
pale.
“Yes,” said Raskolnikov, smiling. “I have come for your cross, Sonia. It
was you told me to go to the cross-roads; why is it you are frightened
now it’s come to that?”
Sonia gazed at him astonished. His tone seemed strange to her; a cold
shiver ran over her, but in a moment she guessed that the tone and the
words were a mask. He spoke to her looking away, as though to avoid
meeting her eyes.
“You see, Sonia, I’ve decided that it will be better so. There is one
fact.... But it’s a long story and there’s no need to discuss it. But do you
know what angers me? It annoys me that all those stupid brutish faces
will be gaping at me directly, pestering me with their stupid questions,
which I shall have to answer—they’ll point their ingers at me.... Tfoo!
You know I am not going to Por iry, I am sick of him. I’d rather go to my
friend, the Explosive Lieutenant; how I shall surprise him, what a
sensation I shall make! But I must be cooler; I’ve become too irritable of
late. You know I was nearly shaking my ist at my sister just now,
because she turned to take a last look at me. It’s a brutal state to be in!
Ah! what am I coming to! Well, where are the crosses?”
He seemed hardly to know what he was doing. He could not stay still
or concentrate his attention on anything; his ideas seemed to gallop
after one another, he talked incoherently, his hands trembled slightly.
Without a word Sonia took out of the drawer two crosses, one of
cypress wood and one of copper. She made the sign of the cross over
herself and over him, and put the wooden cross on his neck.
“It’s the symbol of my taking up the cross,” he laughed. “As though I
had not suffered much till now! The wooden cross, that is the peasant
one; the copper one, that is Lizaveta’s—you will wear yourself, show
me! So she had it on... at that moment? I remember two things like
these too, a silver one and a little ikon. I threw them back on the old
woman’s neck. Those would be appropriate now, really, those are what I
ought to put on now.... But I am talking nonsense and forgetting what
matters; I’m somehow forgetful.... You see I have come to warn you,
Sonia, so that you might know... that’s all—that’s all I came for. But I
thought I had more to say. You wanted me to go yourself. Well, now I am
going to prison and you’ll have your wish. Well, what are you crying for?
You too? Don’t. Leave off! Oh, how I hate it all!”
But his feeling was stirred; his heart ached, as he looked at her. “Why
is she grieving too?” he thought to himself. “What am I to her? Why
does she weep? Why is she looking after me, like my mother or Dounia?
She’ll be my nurse.”
“Cross yourself, say at least one prayer,” Sonia begged in a timid
broken voice.
“Oh certainly, as much as you like! And sincerely, Sonia, sincerely....”
But he wanted to say something quite different.
He crossed himself several times. Sonia took up her shawl and put it
over her head. It was the green drap de dames shawl of which
Marmeladov had spoken, “the family shawl.” Raskolnikov thought of
that looking at it, but he did not ask. He began to feel himself that he
was certainly forgetting things and was disgustingly agitated. He was
frightened at this. He was suddenly struck too by the thought that Sonia
meant to go with him.
“What are you doing? Where are you going? Stay here, stay! I’ll go
alone,” he cried in cowardly vexation, and almost resentful, he moved
towards the door. “What’s the use of going in procession?” he muttered
going out.
Sonia remained standing in the middle of the room. He had not even
said good-bye to her; he had forgotten her. A poignant and rebellious
doubt surged in his heart.
“Was it right, was it right, all this?” he thought again as he went down
the stairs. “Couldn’t he stop and retract it all... and not go?”
But still he went. He felt suddenly once for all that he mustn’t ask
himself questions. As he turned into the street he remembered that he
had not said good-bye to Sonia, that he had left her in the middle of the
room in her green shawl, not daring to stir after he had shouted at her,
and he stopped short for a moment. At the same instant, another
thought dawned upon him, as though it had been lying in wait to strike
him then.
 “Why, with what object did I go to her just now? I told her—on
business; on what business? I had no sort of business! To tell her I was
going; but where was the need? Do I love her? No, no, I drove her away
just now like a dog. Did I want her crosses? Oh, how low I’ve sunk! No, I
wanted her tears, I wanted to see her terror, to see how her heart
ached! I had to have something to cling to, something to delay me, some
friendly face to see! And I dared to believe in myself, to dream of what I
would do! I am a beggarly contemptible wretch, contemptible!”
He walked along the canal bank, and he had not much further to go.
But on reaching the bridge he stopped and turning out of his way along
it went to the Hay Market.
He looked eagerly to right and left, gazed intently at every object and
could not ix his attention on anything; everything slipped away. “In
another week, another month I shall be driven in a prison van over this
bridge, how shall I look at the canal then? I should like to remember
this!” slipped into his mind. “Look at this sign! How shall I read those
letters then? It’s written here ‘Campany,’ that’s a thing to remember,
that letter a, and to look at it again in a month—how shall I look at it
then? What shall I be feeling and thinking then?... How trivial it all must
be, what I am fretting about now! Of course it must all be interesting...
in its way... (Ha-ha-ha! What am I thinking about?) I am becoming a
baby, I am showing off to myself; why am I ashamed? Foo! how people
shove! that fat man—a German he must be—who pushed against me,
does he know whom he pushed? There’s a peasant woman with a baby,
begging. It’s curious that she thinks me happier than she is. I might give
her something, for the incongruity of it. Here’s a ive copeck piece left in
my pocket, where did I get it? Here, here... take it, my good woman!”
“God bless you,” the beggar chanted in a lachrymose voice.
He went into the Hay Market. It was distasteful, very distasteful to be
in a crowd, but he walked just where he saw most people. He would
have given anything in the world to be alone; but he knew himself that
he would not have remained alone for a moment. There was a man
drunk and disorderly in the crowd; he kept trying to dance and falling
down. There was a ring round him. Raskolnikov squeezed his way
through the crowd, stared for some minutes at the drunken man and
suddenly gave a short jerky laugh. A minute later he had forgotten him
and did not see him, though he still stared. He moved away at last, not
remembering where he was; but when he got into the middle of the
square an emotion suddenly came over him, overwhelming him body
and mind.
He suddenly recalled Sonia’s words, “Go to the cross-roads, bow
down to the people, kiss the earth, for you have sinned against it too,
and say aloud to the whole world, ‘I am a murderer.’” He trembled,
remembering that. And the hopeless misery and anxiety of all that time,
especially of the last hours, had weighed so heavily upon him that he
positively clutched at the chance of this new unmixed, complete
sensation. It came over him like a it; it was like a single spark kindled
in his soul and spreading ire through him. Everything in him softened
at once and the tears started into his eyes. He fell to the earth on the
spot....
He knelt down in the middle of the square, bowed down to the earth,
and kissed that ilthy earth with bliss and rapture. He got up and bowed
down a second time.
“He’s boozed,” a youth near him observed.
There was a roar of laughter.
“He’s going to Jerusalem, brothers, and saying good-bye to his
children and his country. He’s bowing down to all the world and kissing
the great city of St. Petersburg and its pavement,” added a workman
who was a little drunk.
“Quite a young man, too!” observed a third.
“And a gentleman,” someone observed soberly.
“There’s no knowing who’s a gentleman and who isn’t nowadays.”
These exclamations and remarks checked Raskolnikov, and the
words, “I am a murderer,” which were perhaps on the point of dropping
from his lips, died away. He bore these remarks quietly, however, and,
without looking round, he turned down a street leading to the police
of ice. He had a glimpse of something on the way which did not surprise
him; he had felt that it must be so. The second time he bowed down in
the Hay Market he saw, standing ifty paces from him on the left, Sonia.
She was hiding from him behind one of the wooden shanties in the
market-place. She had followed him then on his painful way!
Raskolnikov at that moment felt and knew once for all that Sonia was
with him for ever and would follow him to the ends of the earth,
wherever fate might take him. It wrung his heart... but he was just
reaching the fatal place.
He went into the yard fairly resolutely. He had to mount to the third
storey. “I shall be some time going up,” he thought. He felt as though the
fateful moment was still far off, as though he had plenty of time left for
consideration.
Again the same rubbish, the same eggshells lying about on the spiral
stairs, again the open doors of the lats, again the same kitchens and the
same fumes and stench coming from them. Raskolnikov had not been
here since that day. His legs were numb and gave way under him, but
still they moved forward. He stopped for a moment to take breath, to
collect himself, so as to enter like a man. “But why? what for?” he
wondered, re lecting. “If I must drink the cup what difference does it
make? The more revolting the better.” He imagined for an instant the
igure of the “explosive lieutenant,” Ilya Petrovitch. Was he actually
going to him? Couldn’t he go to someone else? To Nikodim Fomitch?
Couldn’t he turn back and go 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 of ice.
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.
“Whom do you want?”
“A-ah! Not a sound was heard, not a sight was seen, but I scent the
Russian... how does it go on in the fairy tale... I’ve forgotten! ‘At your
service!’” a familiar voice cried suddenly.
Raskolnikov shuddered. The Explosive Lieutenant stood before him.
He had just come in from the third room. “It is the hand of fate,” thought
Raskolnikov. “Why is he here?”
“You’ve come to see us? What about?” cried Ilya Petrovitch. He was
obviously in an exceedingly good humour and perhaps a tri le
exhilarated. “If it’s on business you are rather early.[*] It’s only a chance
that I am here... however I’ll do what I can. I must admit, I... what is it,
what is it? Excuse me....”
[*] Dostoevsky appears to have forgotten that it is after sunset, and that the last
time Raskolnikov visited the police of ice at two in the afternoon he was
reproached for coming too late.—TRANSLATOR.

“Raskolnikov.”
“Of course, Raskolnikov. You didn’t imagine I’d forgotten? Don’t think
I am like that... Rodion Ro—Ro—Rodionovitch, that’s it, isn’t it?”
“Rodion Romanovitch.”
“Yes, yes, of course, Rodion Romanovitch! I was just getting at it. I
made many inquiries about you. I assure you I’ve been genuinely
grieved since that... since I behaved like that... it was explained to me
afterwards that you were a literary man... and a learned one too... and
so to say the irst steps... Mercy on us! What literary or scienti ic man
does not begin by some originality of conduct! My wife and I have the
greatest respect for literature, in my wife it’s a genuine passion!
Literature and art! If only a man is a gentleman, all the rest can be
gained by talents, learning, good sense, genius. As for a hat—well, what
does a hat matter? I can buy a hat as easily as I can a bun; but what’s
under the hat, what the hat covers, I can’t buy that! I was even meaning
to come and apologise to you, but thought maybe you’d... But I am
forgetting to ask you, is there anything you want really? I hear your
family have come?”
“Yes, my mother and sister.”
“I’ve even had the honour and happiness of meeting your sister—a
highly cultivated and charming person. I confess I was sorry I got so hot
with you. There it is! But as for my looking suspiciously at your fainting
it—that affair has been cleared up splendidly! Bigotry and fanaticism! I
understand your indignation. Perhaps you are changing your lodging
on account of your family’s arriving?”
 “No, I only looked in... I came to ask... I thought that I should ind
Zametov here.”
“Oh, yes! Of course, you’ve made friends, I heard. Well, no, Zametov is
not here. Yes, we’ve lost Zametov. He’s not been here since yesterday...
he quarrelled with everyone on leaving... in the rudest way. He is a
feather-headed youngster, that’s all; one might have expected
something from him, but there, you know what they are, our brilliant
young men. He wanted to go in for some examination, but it’s only to
talk and boast about it, it will go no further than that. Of course it’s a
very different matter with you or Mr. Razumihin there, your friend. Your
career is an intellectual one and you won’t be deterred by failure. For
you, one may say, all the attractions of life nihil est—you are an ascetic,
a monk, a hermit!... A book, a pen behind your ear, a learned research—
that’s where your spirit soars! I am the same way myself.... Have you
read Livingstone’s Travels?”
“No.”
“Oh, I have. There are a great many Nihilists about nowadays, you
know, and indeed it is not to be wondered at. What sort of days are
they? I ask you. But we thought... you are not a Nihilist of course?
Answer me openly, openly!”
“N-no...”
“Believe me, you can speak openly to me as you would to yourself!
Of icial duty is one thing but... you are thinking I meant to say friendship
is quite another? No, you’re wrong! It’s not friendship, but the feeling of
a man and a citizen, the feeling of humanity and of love for the
Almighty. I may be an of icial, but I am always bound to feel myself a
man and a citizen.... You were asking about Zametov. Zametov will make
a scandal in the French style in a house of bad reputation, over a glass
of champagne... that’s all your Zametov is good for! While I’m perhaps,
so to speak, burning with devotion and lofty feelings, and besides I have
rank, consequence, a post! I am married and have children, I ful il the
duties of a man and a citizen, but who is he, may I ask? I appeal to you
as a man ennobled by education... Then these midwives, too, have
become extraordinarily numerous.”
Raskolnikov raised his eyebrows inquiringly. The words of Ilya
Petrovitch, who had obviously been dining, were for the most part a
stream of empty sounds for him. But some of them he understood. He
looked at him inquiringly, not knowing how it would end.
“I mean those crop-headed wenches,” the talkative Ilya Petrovitch
continued. “Midwives is my name for them. I think it a very satisfactory
one, ha-ha! They go to the Academy, study anatomy. If I fall ill, am I to
send for a young lady to treat me? What do you say? Ha-ha!” Ilya
Petrovitch laughed, quite pleased with his own wit. “It’s an immoderate
zeal for education, but once you’re educated, that’s enough. Why abuse
it? Why insult honourable people, as that scoundrel Zametov does?
Why did he insult me, I ask you? Look at these suicides, too, how
common they are, you can’t fancy! People spend their last halfpenny
and kill themselves, boys and girls and old people. Only this morning
we heard about a gentleman who had just come to town. Nil Pavlitch, I
say, what was the name of that gentleman who shot himself?”
“Svidrigaı̈lov,” someone answered from the other room with drowsy
listlessness.
Raskolnikov started.
“Svidrigaı̈lov! Svidrigaı̈lov has shot himself!” he cried.
“What, do you know Svidrigaı̈lov?”
“Yes... I knew him.... He hadn’t been here long.”
“Yes, that’s so. He had lost his wife, was a man of reckless habits and
all of a sudden shot himself, and in such a shocking way.... He left in his
notebook a few words: that he dies in full possession of his faculties
and that no one is to blame for his death. He had money, they say. How
did you come to know him?”
“I... was acquainted... my sister was governess in his family.”
“Bah-bah-bah! Then no doubt you can tell us something about him.
You had no suspicion?”
“I saw him yesterday... he... was drinking wine; I knew nothing.”
Raskolnikov felt as though something had fallen on him and was
sti ling him.
“You’ve turned pale again. It’s so stuffy here...”
“Yes, I must go,” muttered Raskolnikov. “Excuse my troubling you....”
 “Oh, not at all, as often as you like. It’s a pleasure to see you and I am
glad to say so.”
Ilya Petrovitch held out his hand.
“I only wanted... I came to see Zametov.”
“I understand, I understand, and it’s a pleasure to see you.”
“I... am very glad... good-bye,” Raskolnikov smiled.
He went out; he reeled, he was overtaken with giddiness and did not
know what he was doing. He began going down the stairs, supporting
himself with his right hand against the wall. He fancied that a porter
pushed past him on his way upstairs to the police of ice, that a dog in
the lower storey kept up a shrill barking and that a woman lung a
rolling-pin at it and shouted. He went down and out into the yard.
There, not far from the entrance, stood Sonia, pale and horror-stricken.
She looked wildly at him. He stood still before her. There was a look of
poignant agony, of despair, in her face. She clasped her hands. His lips
worked in an ugly, meaningless smile. He stood still a minute, grinned
and went back to the police of ice.
Ilya Petrovitch had sat down and was rummaging among some
papers. Before him stood the same peasant who had pushed by on the
stairs.
“Hulloa! Back again! have you left something behind? What’s the
matter?”
Raskolnikov, with white lips and staring eyes, came slowly nearer. He
walked right to the table, leaned his hand on it, tried to say something,
but could not; only incoherent sounds were audible.
“You are feeling ill, a chair! Here, sit down! Some water!”
Raskolnikov dropped on to a chair, but he kept his eyes ixed on the
face of Ilya Petrovitch, which expressed unpleasant surprise. Both
looked at one another for a minute and waited. Water was brought.
“It was I...” began Raskolnikov.
“Drink some water.”
Raskolnikov refused the water with his hand, and softly and brokenly,
but distinctly said:
 “It was I killed the old pawnbroker woman and her sister Lizaveta with
an axe and robbed them.”
Ilya Petrovitch opened his mouth. People ran up on all sides.
Raskolnikov repeated his statement.
 EPILOGUE

I
Siberia. On the banks of a broad solitary river stands a town, one of
the administrative centres of Russia; in the town there is a fortress, in
the fortress there is a prison. In the prison the second-class convict
Rodion Raskolnikov has been con ined for nine months. Almost a year
and a half has passed since his crime.
There had been little dif iculty about his trial. The criminal adhered
exactly, irmly, and clearly to his statement. He did not confuse nor
misrepresent the facts, nor soften them in his own interest, nor omit
the smallest detail. He explained every incident of the murder, the
secret of the pledge (the piece of wood with a strip of metal) which was
found in the murdered woman’s hand. He described minutely how he
had taken her keys, what they were like, as well as the chest and its
contents; he explained the mystery of Lizaveta’s murder; described how
Koch and, after him, the student knocked, and repeated all they had
said to one another; how he afterwards had run downstairs and heard
Nikolay and Dmitri shouting; how he had hidden in the empty lat and
afterwards gone home. He ended by indicating the stone in the yard off
the Voznesensky Prospect under which the purse and the trinkets were
found. The whole thing, in fact, was perfectly clear. The lawyers and the
judges were very much struck, among other things, by the fact that he
had hidden the trinkets and the purse under a stone, without making
use of them, and that, what was more, he did not now remember what
the trinkets were like, or even how many there were. The fact that he
had never opened the purse and did not even know how much was in it
seemed incredible. There turned out to be in the purse three hundred
and seventeen roubles and sixty copecks. From being so long under the
stone, some of the most valuable notes lying uppermost had suffered
from the damp. They were a long while trying to discover why the
accused man should tell a lie about this, when about everything else he
had made a truthful and straightforward confession. Finally some of the
lawyers more versed in psychology admitted that it was possible he had
really not looked into the purse, and so didn’t know what was in it
when he hid it under the stone. But they immediately drew the
deduction that the crime could only have been committed through
temporary mental derangement, through homicidal mania, without
object or the pursuit of gain. This fell in with the most recent
fashionable theory of temporary insanity, so often applied in our days
in criminal cases. Moreover Raskolnikov’s hypochondriacal condition
was proved by many witnesses, by Dr. Zossimov, his former fellow
students, his landlady and her servant. All this pointed strongly to the
conclusion that Raskolnikov was not quite like an ordinary murderer
and robber, but that there was another element in the case.
To the intense annoyance of those who maintained this opinion, the
criminal scarcely attempted to defend himself. To the decisive question
as to what motive impelled him to the murder and the robbery, he
answered very clearly with the coarsest frankness that the cause was
his miserable position, his poverty and helplessness, and his desire to
provide for his irst steps in life by the help of the three thousand
roubles he had reckoned on inding. He had been led to the murder
through his shallow and cowardly nature, exasperated moreover by
privation and failure. To the question what led him to confess, he
answered that it was his heartfelt repentance. All this was almost
coarse....
The sentence however was more merciful than could have been
expected, perhaps partly because the criminal had not tried to justify
himself, but had rather shown a desire to exaggerate his guilt. All the
strange and peculiar circumstances of the crime were taken into
consideration. There could be no doubt of the abnormal and poverty-
stricken condition of the criminal at the time. The fact that he had made
no use of what he had stolen was put down partly to the effect of
remorse, partly to his abnormal mental condition at the time of the
crime. Incidentally the murder of Lizaveta served indeed to con irm the
last hypothesis: a man commits two murders and forgets that the door
is open! Finally, the confession, at the very moment when the case was
hopelessly muddled by the false evidence given by Nikolay through
melancholy and fanaticism, and when, moreover, there were no proofs
against the real criminal, no suspicions even (Por iry Petrovitch fully
kept his word)—all this did much to soften the sentence. Other
circumstances, too, in the prisoner’s favour came out quite
unexpectedly. Razumihin somehow discovered and proved that while
Raskolnikov was at the university he had helped a poor consumptive
fellow student and had spent his last penny on supporting him for six
months, and when this student died, leaving a decrepit old father whom
he had maintained almost from his thirteenth year, Raskolnikov had got
the old man into a hospital and paid for his funeral when he died.
Raskolnikov’s landlady bore witness, too, that when they had lived in
another house at Five Corners, Raskolnikov had rescued two little
children from a house on ire and was burnt in doing so. This was
investigated and fairly well con irmed by many witnesses. These facts
made an impression in his favour.
And in the end the criminal was, in consideration of extenuating
circumstances, condemned to penal servitude in the second class for a
term of eight years only.
At the very beginning of the trial Raskolnikov’s mother fell ill. Dounia
and Razumihin found it possible to get her out of Petersburg during the
trial. Razumihin chose a town on the railway not far from Petersburg, so
as to be able to follow every step of the trial and at the same time to see
Avdotya Romanovna as often as possible. Pulcheria Alexandrovna’s
illness was a strange nervous one and was accompanied by a partial
derangement of her intellect.
When Dounia returned from her last interview with her brother, she
had found her mother already ill, in feverish delirium. That evening
Razumihin and she agreed what answers they must make to her
mother’s questions about Raskolnikov and made up a complete story
for her mother’s bene it of his having to go away to a distant part of
Russia on a business commission, which would bring him in the end
money and reputation.
But they were struck by the fact that Pulcheria Alexandrovna never
asked them anything on the subject, neither then nor thereafter. On the
contrary, she had her own version of her son’s sudden departure; she
told them with tears how he had come to say good-bye to her, hinting
that she alone knew many mysterious and important facts, and that
Rodya had many very powerful enemies, so that it was necessary for
him to be in hiding. As for his future career, she had no doubt that it
would be brilliant when certain sinister in luences could be removed.
She assured Razumihin that her son would be one day a great
statesman, that his article and brilliant literary talent proved it. This
article she was continually reading, she even read it aloud, almost took
it to bed with her, but scarcely asked where Rodya was, though the
subject was obviously avoided by the others, which might have been
enough to awaken her suspicions.
They began to be frightened at last at Pulcheria Alexandrovna’s
strange silence on certain subjects. She did not, for instance, complain
of getting no letters from him, though in previous years she had only
lived on the hope of letters from her beloved Rodya. This was the cause
of great uneasiness to Dounia; the idea occurred to her that her mother
suspected that there was something terrible in her son’s fate and was
afraid to ask, for fear of hearing something still more awful. In any case,
Dounia saw clearly that her mother was not in full possession of her
faculties.
It happened once or twice, however, that Pulcheria Alexandrovna
gave such a turn to the conversation that it was impossible to answer
her without mentioning where Rodya was, and on receiving
unsatisfactory and suspicious answers she became at once gloomy and
silent, and this mood lasted for a long time. Dounia saw at last that it
was hard to deceive her and came to the conclusion that it was better to
be absolutely silent on certain points; but it became more and more
evident that the poor mother suspected something terrible. Dounia
remembered her brother’s telling her that her mother had overheard
her talking in her sleep on the night after her interview with
Svidrigaı̈lov and before the fatal day of the confession: had not she
made out something from that? Sometimes days and even weeks of
gloomy silence and tears would be succeeded by a period of hysterical
animation, and the invalid would begin to talk almost incessantly of her
son, of her hopes of his future.... Her fancies were sometimes very
strange. They humoured her, pretended to agree with her (she saw
perhaps that they were pretending), but she still went on talking.
 Five months after Raskolnikov’s confession, he was sentenced.
Razumihin and Sonia saw him in prison as often as it was possible. At
last the moment of separation came. Dounia swore to her brother that
the separation should not be for ever, Razumihin did the same.
Razumihin, in his youthful ardour, had irmly resolved to lay the
foundations at least of a secure livelihood during the next three or four
years, and saving up a certain sum, to emigrate to Siberia, a country
rich in every natural resource and in need of workers, active men and
capital. There they would settle in the town where Rodya was and all
together would begin a new life. They all wept at parting.
Raskolnikov had been very dreamy for a few days before. He asked a
great deal about his mother and was constantly anxious about her. He
worried so much about her that it alarmed Dounia. When he heard
about his mother’s illness he became very gloomy. With Sonia he was
particularly reserved all the time. With the help of the money left to her
by Svidrigaı̈lov, Sonia had long ago made her preparations to follow the
party of convicts in which he was despatched to Siberia. Not a word
passed between Raskolnikov and her on the subject, but both knew it
would be so. At the inal leave-taking he smiled strangely at his sister’s
and Razumihin’s fervent anticipations of their happy future together
when he should come out of prison. He predicted that their mother’s
illness would soon have a fatal ending. Sonia and he at last set off.
Two months later Dounia was married to Razumihin. It was a quiet
and sorrowful wedding; Por iry Petrovitch and Zossimov were invited
however. During all this period Razumihin wore an air of resolute
determination. Dounia put implicit faith in his carrying out his plans
and indeed she could not but believe in him. He displayed a rare
strength of will. Among other things he began attending university
lectures again in order to take his degree. They were continually
making plans for the future; both counted on settling in Siberia within
ive years at least. Till then they rested their hopes on Sonia.
Pulcheria Alexandrovna was delighted to give her blessing to
Dounia’s marriage with Razumihin; but after the marriage she became
even more melancholy and anxious. To give her pleasure Razumihin
told her how Raskolnikov had looked after the poor student and his
decrepit father and how a year ago he had been burnt and injured in
rescuing two little children from a ire. These two pieces of news
excited Pulcheria Alexandrovna’s disordered imagination almost to
ecstasy. She was continually talking about them, even entering into
conversation with strangers in the street, though Dounia always
accompanied her. In public conveyances and shops, wherever she could
capture a listener, she would begin the discourse about her son, his
article, how he had helped the student, how he had been burnt at the
ire, and so on! Dounia did not know how to restrain her. Apart from the
danger of her morbid excitement, there was the risk of someone’s
recalling Raskolnikov’s name and speaking of the recent trial. Pulcheria
Alexandrovna found out the address of the mother of the two children
her son had saved and insisted on going to see her.
At last her restlessness reached an extreme point. She would
sometimes begin to cry suddenly and was often ill and feverishly
delirious. One morning she declared that by her reckoning Rodya ought
soon to be home, that she remembered when he said good-bye to her
he said that they must expect him back in nine months. She began to
prepare for his coming, began to do up her room for him, to clean the
furniture, to wash and put up new hangings and so on. Dounia was
anxious, but said nothing and helped her to arrange the room. After a
fatiguing day spent in continual fancies, in joyful day-dreams and tears,
Pulcheria Alexandrovna was taken ill in the night and by morning she
was feverish and delirious. It was brain fever. She died within a
fortnight. In her delirium she dropped words which showed that she
knew a great deal more about her son’s terrible fate than they had
supposed.
For a long time Raskolnikov did not know of his mother’s death,
though a regular correspondence had been maintained from the time
he reached Siberia. It was carried on by means of Sonia, who wrote
every month to the Razumihins and received an answer with unfailing
regularity. At irst they found Sonia’s letters dry and unsatisfactory, but
later on they came to the conclusion that the letters could not be better,
for from these letters they received a complete picture of their
unfortunate brother’s life. Sonia’s letters were full of the most matter-
of-fact detail, the simplest and clearest description of all Raskolnikov’s
surroundings as a convict. There was no word of her own hopes, no
conjecture as to the future, no description of her feelings. Instead of any
attempt to interpret his state of mind and inner life, she gave the simple
facts—that is, his own words, an exact account of his health, what he
asked for at their interviews, what commission he gave her and so on.
All these facts she gave with extraordinary minuteness. The picture of
their unhappy brother stood out at last with great clearness and
precision. There could be no mistake, because nothing was given but
facts.
But Dounia and her husband could get little comfort out of the news,
especially at irst. Sonia wrote that he was constantly sullen and not
ready to talk, that he scarcely seemed interested in the news she gave
him from their letters, that he sometimes asked after his mother and
that when, seeing that he had guessed the truth, she told him at last of
her death, she was surprised to ind that he did not seem greatly
affected by it, not externally at any rate. She told them that, although he
seemed so wrapped up in himself and, as it were, shut himself off from
everyone—he took a very direct and simple view of his new life; that he
understood his position, expected nothing better for the time, had no
ill-founded hopes (as is so common in his position) and scarcely
seemed surprised at anything in his surroundings, so unlike anything
he had known before. She wrote that his health was satisfactory; he did
his work without shirking or seeking to do more; he was almost
indifferent about food, but except on Sundays and holidays the food was
so bad that at last he had been glad to accept some money from her,
Sonia, to have his own tea every day. He begged her not to trouble about
anything else, declaring that all this fuss about him only annoyed him.
Sonia wrote further that in prison he shared the same room with the
rest, that she had not seen the inside of their barracks, but concluded
that they were crowded, miserable and unhealthy; that he slept on a
plank bed with a rug under him and was unwilling to make any other
arrangement. But that he lived so poorly and roughly, not from any plan
or design, but simply from inattention and indifference.
Sonia wrote simply that he had at irst shown no interest in her visits,
had almost been vexed with her indeed for coming, unwilling to talk
and rude to her. But that in the end these visits had become a habit and
almost a necessity for him, so that he was positively distressed when
she was ill for some days and could not visit him. She used to see him
on holidays at the prison gates or in the guard-room, to which he was
brought for a few minutes to see her. On working days she would go to
see him at work either at the workshops or at the brick kilns, or at the
sheds on the banks of the Irtish.
About herself, Sonia wrote that she had succeeded in making some
acquaintances in the town, that she did sewing, and, as there was
scarcely a dressmaker in the town, she was looked upon as an
indispensable person in many houses. But she did not mention that the
authorities were, through her, interested in Raskolnikov; that his task
was lightened and so on.
At last the news came (Dounia had indeed noticed signs of alarm and
uneasiness in the preceding letters) that he held aloof from everyone,
that his fellow prisoners did not like him, that he kept silent for days at
a time and was becoming very pale. In the last letter Sonia wrote that
he had been taken very seriously ill and was in the convict ward of the
hospital.

II
He was ill a long time. But it was not the horrors of prison life, not the
hard labour, the bad food, the shaven head, or the patched clothes that
crushed him. What did he care for all those trials and hardships! he was
even glad of the hard work. Physically exhausted, he could at least
reckon on a few hours of quiet sleep. And what was the food to him—
the thin cabbage soup with beetles loating in it? In the past as a
student he had often not had even that. His clothes were warm and
suited to his manner of life. He did not even feel the fetters. Was he
ashamed of his shaven head and parti-coloured coat? Before whom?
Before Sonia? Sonia was afraid of him, how could he be ashamed before
her? And yet he was ashamed even before Sonia, whom he tortured
because of it with his contemptuous rough manner. But it was not his
shaven head and his fetters he was ashamed of: his pride had been
stung to the quick. It was wounded pride that made him ill. Oh, how
happy he would have been if he could have blamed himself! He could
have borne anything then, even shame and disgrace. But he judged
himself severely, and his exasperated conscience found no particularly
terrible fault in his past, except a simple blunder which might happen to
anyone. He was ashamed just because he, Raskolnikov, had so
hopelessly, stupidly come to grief through some decree of blind fate,
and must humble himself and submit to “the idiocy” of a sentence, if he
were anyhow to be at peace.
Vague and objectless anxiety in the present, and in the future a
continual sacri ice leading to nothing—that was all that lay before him.
And what comfort was it to him that at the end of eight years he would
only be thirty-two and able to begin a new life! What had he to live for?
What had he to look forward to? Why should he strive? To live in order
to exist? Why, he had been ready a thousand times before to give up
existence for the sake of an idea, for a hope, even for a fancy. Mere
existence had always been too little for him; he had always wanted
more. Perhaps it was just because of the strength of his desires that he
had thought himself a man to whom more was permissible than to
others.
And if only fate would have sent him repentance—burning
repentance that would have torn his heart and robbed him of sleep, that
repentance, the awful agony of which brings visions of hanging or
drowning! Oh, he would have been glad of it! Tears and agonies would
at least have been life. But he did not repent of his crime.
At least he might have found relief in raging at his stupidity, as he had
raged at the grotesque blunders that had brought him to prison. But
now in prison, in freedom, he thought over and criticised all his actions
again and by no means found them so blundering and so grotesque as
they had seemed at the fatal time.
“In what way,” he asked himself, “was my theory stupider than others
that have swarmed and clashed from the beginning of the world? One
has only to look at the thing quite independently, broadly, and
unin luenced by commonplace ideas, and my idea will by no means
seem so... strange. Oh, sceptics and halfpenny philosophers, why do you
halt half-way!
“Why does my action strike them as so horrible?” he said to himself.
“Is it because it was a crime? What is meant by crime? My conscience is
at rest. Of course, it was a legal crime, of course, the letter of the law
was broken and blood was shed. Well, punish me for the letter of the
law... and that’s enough. Of course, in that case many of the benefactors
of mankind who snatched power for themselves instead of inheriting it
ought to have been punished at their irst steps. But those men
succeeded and so they were right, and I didn’t, and so I had no right to
have taken that step.”
It was only in that that he recognised his criminality, only in the fact
that he had been unsuccessful and had confessed it.
He suffered too from the question: why had he not killed himself?
Why had he stood looking at the river and preferred to confess? Was
the desire to live so strong and was it so hard to overcome it? Had not
Svidrigaı̈lov overcome it, although he was afraid of death?
In misery he asked himself this question, and could not understand
that, at the very time he had been standing looking into the river, he had
perhaps been dimly conscious of the fundamental falsity in himself and
his convictions. He didn’t understand that that consciousness might be
the promise of a future crisis, of a new view of life and of his future
resurrection.
He preferred to attribute it to the dead weight of instinct which he
could not step over, again through weakness and meanness. He looked
at his fellow prisoners and was amazed to see how they all loved life
and prized it. It seemed to him that they loved and valued life more in
prison than in freedom. What terrible agonies and privations some of
them, the tramps for instance, had endured! Could they care so much
for a ray of sunshine, for the primeval forest, the cold spring hidden
away in some unseen spot, which the tramp had marked three years
before, and longed to see again, as he might to see his sweetheart,
dreaming of the green grass round it and the bird singing in the bush?
As he went on he saw still more inexplicable examples.
In prison, of course, there was a great deal he did not see and did not
want to see; he lived as it were with downcast eyes. It was loathsome
and unbearable for him to look. But in the end there was much that
surprised him and he began, as it were involuntarily, to notice much
that he had not suspected before. What surprised him most of all was
the terrible impossible gulf that lay between him and all the rest. They
seemed to be a different species, and he looked at them and they at him
with distrust and hostility. He felt and knew the reasons of his isolation,
but he would never have admitted till then that those reasons were so
deep and strong. There were some Polish exiles, political prisoners,
among them. They simply looked down upon all the rest as ignorant
churls; but Raskolnikov could not look upon them like that. He saw that
these ignorant men were in many respects far wiser than the Poles.
There were some Russians who were just as contemptuous, a former
of icer and two seminarists. Raskolnikov saw their mistake as clearly.
He was disliked and avoided by everyone; they even began to hate him
at last—why, he could not tell. Men who had been far more guilty
despised and laughed at his crime.
“You’re a gentleman,” they used to say. “You shouldn’t hack about
with an axe; that’s not a gentleman’s work.”
The second week in Lent, his turn came to take the sacrament with
his gang. He went to church and prayed with the others. A quarrel
broke out one day, he did not know how. All fell on him at once in a fury.
“You’re an in idel! You don’t believe in God,” they shouted. “You ought
to be killed.”
He had never talked to them about God nor his belief, but they
wanted to kill him as an in idel. He said nothing. One of the prisoners
rushed at him in a perfect frenzy. Raskolnikov awaited him calmly and
silently; his eyebrows did not quiver, his face did not linch. The guard
succeeded in intervening between him and his assailant, or there would
have been bloodshed.
There was another question he could not decide: why were they all
so fond of Sonia? She did not try to win their favour; she rarely met
them, sometimes only she came to see him at work for a moment. And
yet everybody knew her, they knew that she had come out to follow
him, knew how and where she lived. She never gave them money, did
them no particular services. Only once at Christmas she sent them all
presents of pies and rolls. But by degrees closer relations sprang up
between them and Sonia. She would write and post letters for them to
their relations. Relations of the prisoners who visited the town, at their
instructions, left with Sonia presents and money for them. Their wives
and sweethearts knew her and used to visit her. And when she visited
Raskolnikov at work, or met a party of the prisoners on the road, they
all took off their hats to her. “Little mother Sofya Semyonovna, you are
our dear, good little mother,” coarse branded criminals said to that frail
little creature. She would smile and bow to them and everyone was
delighted when she smiled. They even admired her gait and turned
round to watch her walking; they admired her too for being so little,
and, in fact, did not know what to admire her most for. They even came
to her for help in their illnesses.
He was in the hospital from the middle of Lent till after Easter. When
he was better, he remembered the dreams he had had while he was
feverish and delirious. He dreamt that the whole world was condemned
to a terrible new strange plague that had come to Europe from the
depths of Asia. All were to be destroyed except a very few chosen. Some
new sorts of microbes were attacking the bodies of men, but these
microbes were endowed with intelligence and will. Men attacked by
them became at once mad and furious. But never had men considered
themselves so intellectual and so completely in possession of the truth
as these sufferers, never had they considered their decisions, their
scienti ic conclusions, their moral convictions so infallible. Whole
villages, whole towns and peoples went mad from the infection. All
were excited and did not understand one another. Each thought that he
alone had the truth and was wretched looking at the others, beat
himself on the breast, wept, and wrung his hands. They did not know
how to judge and could not agree what to consider evil and what good;
they did not know whom to blame, whom to justify. Men killed each
other in a sort of senseless spite. They gathered together in armies
against one another, but even on the march the armies would begin
attacking each other, the ranks would be broken and the soldiers would
fall on each other, stabbing and cutting, biting and devouring each
other. The alarm bell was ringing all day long in the towns; men rushed
together, but why they were summoned and who was summoning them
no one knew. The most ordinary trades were abandoned, because
everyone proposed his own ideas, his own improvements, and they
could not agree. The land too was abandoned. Men met in groups,
agreed on something, swore to keep together, but at once began on
something quite different from what they had proposed. They accused
one another, fought and killed each other. There were con lagrations
and famine. All men and all things were involved in destruction. The
plague spread and moved further and further. Only a few men could be
saved in the whole world. They were a pure chosen people, destined to
found a new race and a new life, to renew and purify the earth, but no
one had seen these men, no one had heard their words and their voices.
Raskolnikov was worried that this senseless dream haunted his
memory so miserably, the impression of this feverish delirium persisted
so long. The second week after Easter had come. There were warm
bright spring days; in the prison ward the grating windows under
which the sentinel paced were opened. Sonia had only been able to visit
him twice during his illness; each time she had to obtain permission,
and it was dif icult. But she often used to come to the hospital yard,
especially in the evening, sometimes only to stand a minute and look up
at the windows of the ward.
One evening, when he was almost well again, Raskolnikov fell asleep.
On waking up he chanced to go to the window, and at once saw Sonia in
the distance at the hospital gate. She seemed to be waiting for someone.
Something stabbed him to the heart at that minute. He shuddered and
moved away from the window. Next day Sonia did not come, nor the
day after; he noticed that he was expecting her uneasily. At last he was
discharged. On reaching the prison he learnt from the convicts that
Sofya Semyonovna was lying ill at home and was unable to go out.
He was very uneasy and sent to inquire after her; he soon learnt that
her illness was not dangerous. Hearing that he was anxious about her,
Sonia sent him a pencilled note, telling him that she was much better,
that she had a slight cold and that she would soon, very soon come and
see him at his work. His heart throbbed painfully as he read it.
Again it was a warm bright day. Early in the morning, at six o’clock,
he went off to work on the river bank, where they used to pound
alabaster and where there was a kiln for baking it in a shed. There were
only three of them sent. One of the convicts went with the guard to the
fortress to fetch a tool; the other began getting the wood ready and
laying it in the kiln. Raskolnikov came out of the shed on to the river
bank, sat down on a heap of logs by the shed and began gazing at the
wide deserted river. From the high bank a broad landscape opened
before him, the sound of singing loated faintly audible from the other
bank. In the vast steppe, bathed in sunshine, he could just see, like black
specks, the nomads’ tents. There there was freedom, there other men
were living, utterly unlike those here; there time itself seemed to stand
still, as though the age of Abraham and his locks had not passed.
Raskolnikov sat gazing, his thoughts passed into day-dreams, into
contemplation; he thought of nothing, but a vague restlessness excited
and troubled him. Suddenly he found Sonia beside him; she had come
up noiselessly and sat down at his side. It was still quite early; the
morning chill was still keen. She wore her poor old burnous and the
green shawl; her face still showed signs of illness, it was thinner and
paler. She gave him a joyful smile of welcome, but held out her hand
with her usual timidity. She was always timid of holding out her hand to
him and sometimes did not offer it at all, as though afraid he would
repel it. He always took her hand as though with repugnance, always
seemed vexed to meet her and was sometimes obstinately silent
throughout her visit. Sometimes she trembled before him and went
away deeply grieved. But now their hands did not part. He stole a rapid
glance at her and dropped his eyes on the ground without speaking.
They were alone, no one had seen them. The guard had turned away for
the time.
How it happened he did not know. But all at once something seemed
to seize him and ling him at her feet. He wept and threw his arms
round her knees. For the irst instant she was terribly frightened and
she turned pale. She jumped up and looked at him trembling. But at the
same moment she understood, and a light of in inite happiness came
into her eyes. She knew and had no doubt that he loved her beyond
everything and that at last the moment had come....
They wanted to speak, but could not; tears stood in their eyes. They
were both pale and thin; but those sick pale faces were bright with the
dawn of a new future, of a full resurrection into a new life. They were
renewed by love; the heart of each held in inite sources of life for the
heart of the other.
They resolved to wait and be patient. They had another seven years
to wait, and what terrible suffering and what in inite happiness before
them! But he had risen again and he knew it and felt it in all his being,
while she—she only lived in his life.
On the evening of the same day, when the barracks were locked,
Raskolnikov lay on his plank bed and thought of her. He had even
fancied that day that all the convicts who had been his enemies looked
at him differently; he had even entered into talk with them and they
answered him in a friendly way. He remembered that now, and thought
it was bound to be so. Wasn’t everything now bound to be changed?
He thought of her. He remembered how continually he had
tormented her and wounded her heart. He remembered her pale and
thin little face. But these recollections scarcely troubled him now; he
knew with what in inite love he would now repay all her sufferings.
And what were all, all the agonies of the past! Everything, even his
crime, his sentence and imprisonment, seemed to him now in the irst
rush of feeling an external, strange fact with which he had no concern.
But he could not think for long together of anything that evening, and
he could not have analysed anything consciously; he was simply feeling.
Life had stepped into the place of theory and something quite different
would work itself out in his mind.
Under his pillow lay the New Testament. He took it up mechanically.
The book belonged to Sonia; it was the one from which she had read the
raising of Lazarus to him. At irst he was afraid that she would worry
him about religion, would talk about the gospel and pester him with
books. But to his great surprise she had not once approached the
subject and had not even offered him the Testament. He had asked her
for it himself not long before his illness and she brought him the book
without a word. Till now he had not opened it.
He did not open it now, but one thought passed through his mind:
“Can her convictions not be mine now? Her feelings, her aspirations at
least....”
She too had been greatly agitated that day, and at night she was taken
ill again. But she was so happy—and so unexpectedly happy—that she
was almost frightened of her happiness. Seven years, only seven years!
At the beginning of their happiness at some moments they were both
ready to look on those seven years as though they were seven days. He
did not know that the new life would not be given him for nothing, that
he would have to pay dearly for it, that it would cost him great striving,
great suffering.
But that is the beginning of a new story—the story of the gradual
renewal of a man, the story of his gradual regeneration, of his passing
from one world into another, of his initiation into a new unknown life.
That might be the subject of a new story, but our present story is ended.

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