Other.txt

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 short-coming 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 figure, however queer, would have caused surprise. But there was such accumulated bit- terness 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 some- where in a huge wagon dragged by a heavy dray horse, sud- denly 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 remember, my good sir, I remember quite well your coming here,' the old woman said distinctly, still keeping her inquiring eyes on his face.
"Step in, my good sir."
"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.
"But the time is up for your last pledge. The month was up the day before yesterday."
"But that's for me to do as I please, my good sir, to wait or to sell your pledge at once."
"You come with such trifles, 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 jeweller's for a rouble and a half."
"A rouble and a half, and interest in advance, if you like!"
"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,
"Here, sir: as we say ten copecks the rouble a month, so I must take fifteen 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-five copecks altogether. So I must give you a rouble and fifteen copecks for the watch. Here it is."
"Just so."
"Well, we will talk about it then, sir."
"What business is she of yours, my good sir?"
"His wife a year he fondly loved His wife a-a year he-fondly loved."
"Walking along the crowded row He met the one he used to know."
"May I venture, honoured sir, to engage you in polite con- versation? 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 gen- uine 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?"
"Honoured sir,' he began almost with solemnity, "povert is not a vice, that's a true saying. Yet I know too Hat 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 hu- man 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 first to hu- miliate 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 un- derstand? Allow me to ask you another question out of simple curiosity: have you ever spent a night on a hay barge, on the Neva?"
"Well I've just come from one and it's the fifth night I've slept so-' He filled 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 un- dressed or washed for the last five days. His hands, par- ticularly, were filthy. They were fat and red, with black nails.
"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. Le- beziatnikov 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?"
"Well," the orator began again stolidly and with even in- creased 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 officer's daughter Granted, granted, I am a scoundrel, but she is a woman of a noble heart, full of sentiments, refined 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, al- though 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 fist resolutely 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 pre- sented with a gold medal and a certificate of merit. The medal , .. well, the medal of course was sold-long ago, hm ... but the certificate 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 some one 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 recollec- tion 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 floors 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 first husband, an infantry officer, 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 al- though she paid him back, of which I have authentic docu- mentary evidence, to this day she speaks of him with tears and she throws him up at me; and I am glad, I am glad that, though only in imagination, she should think of herself as
"Honoured sir, honoured sir," cried Marmeladov recover- ing 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 fleeting 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. . . . Anda great deal more. . . . Quite excusable, sir. Well, then, sir (Marmeladov suddenly gave a sort of start, raised his head and gazed in- tently at his listener) well, on the very next day after all those dreams, that is to say, exactly five 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 fifth 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!"
"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.
"What are you to be pitied for?" shouted the tavern- keeper, who was again near them.
"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.
"It's not Katerina Ivanovna I am afraid of now," he mut- tered 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 Iam 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 re- lieves 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!" |
"Ah!" she cried out in a frenzy, "he has come back! The criminal! the monster!...And whereisthe money? What's in your pocket, show me! And your clothes are all different! Where are your clothes? Where is the money? speak!"
"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.
"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!"
"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?"
"From the landlady, indeed!"
"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 fine soup."
"Praskovya Pavlovna means to complain to the police about you," she said.
"You don't pay her money and you won't turn out of the room. That's what she wants, to be sure."
"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?"
"What are you doing?"
"Don't quarrel with your bread and butter."
"And you want to get a fortune all at once?"
"Don't be in such a hurry, you quite frighten me! Shall. I get you the loaf or not?"
"Ah, I forgot! <A letter came for you yesterday when you were out."
"T can't say. I gave three copecks of my own to the post- man for it. Will you pay me back?"
"What do you mean?" the gentleman asked sternly, scowl- ing in haughty astonishment.
"How dare you, you low fellow!"
"That's enough, gentlemen, no fighting, please, in a public place. What do you want? Who are you?" he asked Ras- kolnikov sternly, noticing his rags.
"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.
"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 difficult 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 figure to him: dressed in rags and handing him money!
"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 refined, too, as though she were a lady," and he bent over her once more.
"Keep her out of his hands we can," said the constable thoughtfully, "if only she'd tell us where to take her, but
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 police- man said resolutely, and he set off after them.
"Ah, the vice one sees nowadays!" he repeated aloud, sighing.
"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.
"What nonsense he is talking! Why, you are in a senti- mental mood to-day, are you?" shouted Razumihin.
"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?"
"A familiar phenomenon," interposed Zéssimov, "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."
"No, it's not," answered Dounia firmly.
"That's enough, Rodya, I am sure that everything you do is very good," said his mother, delighted.
"Do you know, Rodya, Marfa Petrovna is dead," Pulcheria Alexandrovna suddenly blurted out.
"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."
"That had happened in the morning,' Pulcheria Alexan- drovna 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 olen eg ®
"Thank God!" cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna, crossing herself. "Pray for her soul, Dounia!'
"But what, what does he want to propose to Dounia?" cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna in a fright. "Did he tell you?"
"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. Svidrigailov, I, too, do not desire and am not able to speak openly ...in the presence of others ...of certain matters of the greatest gravity.
"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."
"T 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 con- sider, 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
"Avdotya Romanovna," Luzhin declared huffily, "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 conse- quence I am in your eyes... 1 cannot let this pass con- sidering the relationship and... the obligations existing between us."
"What!" cried Dounia, flushing. "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."
"T 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."
"Pyotr Petrovitch," Pulcheria Alexandrovna declared with dignity, "the proof that Dounia and 1 did not take your words in a very bad sense is the fact that we are here."
"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."
"No, I, I am more to blame than any one!" 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!"
"What did Svidrigailov say to you?" said Dounia, approaching him.
"Yes, yes!" cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna.
"See her! On no account!" cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. "And how dare he offer her money!"
"What answer did you give him?" asked Dounia.
"God rest her soul," exclaimed Pulcheria Alexandrovna. "T 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."
"And why, why should you go away?" he flowed on Sestatically. "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. ... lake 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 flashed 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?"
"Brother, what are you doing to mother?" she whispered, her eyes flashing with indignation.
"Who is there?" a woman's voice asked uneasily.
"Are you... going away?"
"Then you. are not coming to Katerina Ivanovna to- morrow?" Sonia's voice shook.
"They are very good people, very kind,' answered Sonia, who still seemed bewildered, "and all the furniture, every- thing . . . everything is theirs. And they are very kind and the children, too, often come to see me."
"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.
"Whom ?"
"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 chiefly 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 any one 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!"
"Be silent! Don't ask! You don't deserve!" she cried suddenly, looking sternly and wrathfully at him.
"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 fever- ishly. The candie-end was flickering 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.
"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 fora 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, merci- ful heavens!"
"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 finished now... . Government quarters, you know, are a capital thing. Eh, what do you think?"
"A capital thing, a capital thing," repeated Porfiry Petro- vitch, 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.
"Yes, yes... . Why, do you imagine that was why I spoke about government quarters ... eh?"
"Good heavens! What do you mean? What shall I ques- tion you about?" cackled Porfiry Petrovitch with a charige of tone, instantly leaving off laughing. "Please don't dis- turb yourself,' he began fidgeting from place to place and fussily making Raskolnikov sit down. "There's no hurry, there's no hurry, it's all nonsense. Oh, no, '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..."
"You are certainly quite right about it," Porfiry 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 meth- ods 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 some one or other to be a criminal in any case entrusted to me... you're reading for the law, of course, Rodion Romanovitch ?"
"Yes, you've had a little attack! You'll bring back your illness again, my dear fellow," Porfiry Petrovitch cackled with friendly sympathy, though he still looked rather dis- concerted. "Good heavens, you must take more care of yourself! Dmitri Prokofitch was here, came to see me yes- terday-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 !"
"Yes, in our legal practice there was a case almost exactly similar, a case of morbid psychology,' Porfiry 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 every one 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 ac- quitted 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 win- dow 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 ex- perienced doctor, what's the good of that fat fellow? You are light-headed! You were delirious when you did all this !"
"What a business I'm having with you!" cried Porfiry 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 !"
"Hush! Hush! They'll overhear! I warn you seriously, take care of yourself. I am not joking,' Porfiry 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 mystification.
"No it was you, you, Rodion Romanovitch, and no one else," Porfiry whispered sternly, with conviction.
"Who am I? I ama 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 flattery. Well, perhaps I am, he-he-he! Perhaps you'd better not believe my word, perhaps you'd bet- ter 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."
"No, you won't run away. A peasant would run away, a fashionable dissenter would run away, the flunkey of an- other man's thought, for you've only to show him the end of your little finger 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 difficult for you, and what you need more than anything in life is a definite position, an atmosphere to suit you. And what sort of atmosphere would you have. If you ran away, you'd come back of 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 your- self 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 gre 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."
He had successfully avoided meeting his landlady on the staircase. His garret was under the roof of a high, five- storied house, and was more like a cupboard than a room. The landlady, who provided him with garret, dinners, and attendance, lived on the floor 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 land- lady, 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 over- strained, 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 land- lady, but any one 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 im- portance; 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,
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 par- ticularly 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 refined face. He was, by the way, ex- ceptionally 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 speak- ing 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.
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, &c. 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 inquisi- tive eyes were not to be dreaded.
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 land- ing, 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 diminu: tive, 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 flannel rag, and, in spite of the heat, there hung flapping 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.
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:
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.
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.
The old woman came back.
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.
But in spite of this scornful reflection, he was by now look- ing cheerful as though he were suddenly set free from a ter- rible 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 con- sisting of about five 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 ex- tremely 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 fingers, 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:
Or suddenly waking up again:
But no one shared his enjoyment: his silent companion looked with positive hostility and mistrust at all these mani- festations. 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,
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 what- ever was wanted. On the counter lay some sliced cucumber, some pieces of dried black bread, and some fish, chopped up small, all smelling very bad. It was insufferably close, and so heavy with the fumes of spirits that five minutes in such an atmosphere might well make a man drunk.
There are chance meetings with strangers that interest us from the first 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 his impression afterwards, and even ascribed it to presentiment. He looked repeatedly at the clerk, partly no doubt because the latter was staring per- sistently 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
Marmeladov struck his forehead with his fist, 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:
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 hac 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.
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 Peters- burg there is no real night, yet it was quite dark at the top of the stairs. .
And she fell to searching him. Marmeladov submissively and obediently held up both arms to facilitate the search. Not a farthing was there.
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.
He looked at her strangely.
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 re- ceived a letter, but another feeling also suddenly stabbed his heart. 2
His bitterness grew more and more intense, and if he had happened to meet Mr. Luzhin at the moment, he might have murdered him.
So he tortured himself, fretting himself with such ques- tions, and finding 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 first begun to grip and rend his heart. Long, long ago his present anguish had its first 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 his 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 ¢ise:')/'.".
He raised his cane. Raskolnikov rushed at him with his fists, without reflecting that the stout gentleman was a match for two men like himself. But at that instant some one seized him from behind, and a police constable stood between them.
_ Raskolnikov looked at him intently. He had a straight- forward, sensible, soldierly face, with grey moustaches and whiskers.
Raskolnikov spoke aloud and pointed to him. The gentle- man heard him, and seemed about to fly into a rage again, but thought better of it, and confined himself to a con- temptuous look. He then walked slowly another ten paces away and again halted.
At that moment something seemed to sting Raskolnikov; in an instant a complete revulsion of feeling came over him.