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Raskolnikov.txt
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"T want to attempt a thing like that and am frightened by these trifles,'" he thought, with an odd smile. "Hm... yes, all is in a man's hands and he lets it all slip from coward- ice, 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 per- haps 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."
"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 remem- ber it, and that would give them a clue. For this business one should be as little conspicuous as possible. . . . Trifles, trifles are what matter! Why, it's just such trifles that always ruin everything. .. ."
"Tf 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 flat. He knew that the flat had been occupied by a German clerk in the civil service, and his family. This German was moving out then, and so the fourth floor 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 flat. The bell gave a faint tinkle as though it were made of tin and not of copper. The little flats 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. ...
"Raskolnikov, a student, I came here a month ago," the young man made haste to mutter, with a half bow, remem- bering that he ought to be more polite.
"And here ... I am again on the same errand," Raskolni- kov 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.
"Lizaveta's work," thought the young man. There was not a speck of dust to be seen in the whole flat.
"It's in the houses of spiteful old widows that one finds 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 flat.
"I've brought something to pawn here," and he drew out of his pocket an old-fashioned flat silver watch, on the back of which was engraved a globe; the chain was of steel.
"I will bring you the interest for another month; wait a little."
"How much will you give me for the watch, Alyona Iva- novna ?"
"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!" cried the young man.
"Hand it over,' he said roughly.
"It must be the top drawer," he reflected. "So she carried 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 de- grading it all is."
"What! only a rouble and fifteen copecks now!"
"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. |
"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.
"Oh, nothing particular, I simply asked. You are too quick. . . . Good-day, Alyona Ivanovna."
Raskolnikov went out in complete confusion. This con- fusion 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 rub- bish!"' he added resolutely. "And how could such an atro- cious thing come into my head? What filthy things my heart is capable of. Yes, filthy above all, disgusting, loath- some, loathsome !-and for a whole month I've been... ." But no words, no exciamations, 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 see the old woman, had by now reached such a pitch and had taken such a definite form that he did not know what to do with him- self 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 first glassful. At once he felt easier; and his thoughts became clear.
"All that's nonsense," he said hopefully, "and there is noth- ing in it all to worry about! It's simply physical derange- ment. Just a glass of beer, a piece of dry bread-and in
"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 de- sire he had just been feeling for company of any sort, on being actually spoken to he felt immediately his habitual irri- table and uneasy aversion for any stranger who approached or attempted to approach him.
"No, I have not happened to,' answered Raskolnikov. "What do you mean?"
"Why do you go?" put in Raskolnikov.
"From the landlady, eh?" he asked, slowly and with a sickly face sitting up on the sofa.
"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 mea little sausage, the cheapest, at the pork-butcher's."
"To the police? What does she want?"
"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. "T'll go and talk to her to-day."
"I am doing..." Raskolnikov began sullenly and re- luctantly.
"I am thinking," he answered seriously after a pause.
"One can't go out to give lessons without boots. And I'm sick of it."
"They pay so little for lessons. What's the use of a few coppers?" he answered, reluctantly, as though replying to his own thought.
"Yes, I want a fortune," he answered firmly, after a brief pause.
- "As you please."
"A letter? for me! from whom?"
"Then bring it to me, for God's sake, bring it,' cried Raskolnikov greatly excited-"good God!"
"Nastasya, leave me alone, for goodness' sake; here are your three copecks, but for goodness' sake, make haste and go 1"?
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 an- ticipating 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 magnificent 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 finally 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 naive questions and when it was under- stood 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- ficing her daughter to her son? ‘You are our one comfort, you are everything to us.' Oh, mother!"
"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 some- thing, 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 sack- ing (I know, I have been driven in it). No matter! It is only ninety versts and then they can ‘travel very comfort- ably, 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 busi- ness, a partnership for mutual benefit, 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 first 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 first 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 understand 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. Svidrigailov 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 first 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 Svidrigailovs are a bitter pill! It's bitter thing to spend one's life a gover- ness 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 com- mon-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 com- fort, to save her life she would not sell herself, but for some one 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 Ras- kolnikov is the central figure 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 office, 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, pre- cious Rodya, her firstborn! For such a son who would not sacrifice 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 sacrifice, 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 re- gret it? The bitterness, the misery, the curses, the tears hidden from all the world, for you are not a Marfa Pe- trovna. 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 sacrifice, Dounia, I won't have it, mother! It shall not be, so long as I am alive, it shail not, it shall not! I won't accept it!"
"It shall not be? But what are you going to do to pre- vent 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 de- vote to them when you have finished your studies and ob-
tained 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 Svidrigailovs. How are you going to save them from Svidrigailovs, 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 t6 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?" .
"Or throw up life altogether!" he cried suddenly, in a frenzy- "accept one's lot humbly as it is, once for all and stifle everything in oneself, giving up all claim to activity, life and love!"
"Hey! You Svidrigailov! What do you want here?" he shouted, clenching his fists and laughing, spluttering with rage.
"Get away, that's what I mean."
"You are just the man I want," Raskolnikov cried, catch- ing at his arm. "I am a student, Raskolnikov.... You may as well know that too," he added, addressing the gen- tleman, "come along, I have something to show you."
"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 first 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 some- body, she has not dressed herself, and dressed by un- practised 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 fight, I see him for the first 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 my- self 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?"
"Here," said Raskolnikov feeling in his pocket and find- ing twenty copecks, "here, call a cab and tell him to drive
"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!"
"Hey, here!' he shouted after the policeman.
"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?"
"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?"
"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 find 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 scientific, 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 J 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."
* F 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. .. ."
"Could I have expected to set it all straight and to find a way out by means of Razumihin alone?" he asked himself in perplexity.
"Hm... to Razumihin's,' he said all at once, calmly, as though he had reached a final 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... ."
"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 filled 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
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 first 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 stifling close- ness, 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 flowers 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 fifty 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 finished eating it as he walked away. It was a !ong while since he had taken vodka and it had an effect upon him at once, though he only drank a wine-glassful. His legs felt suddenly heavy and a great drowsiness came upon him. He turned homewards, but reaching Petrovsky Ostrov he stopped com-
"Yes, Isee myself now that I am almost well," said Raskol- nikov, 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.
"I say nothing about him," added Raskolnikov, pointing to Razumihin, "though he has had nothing from me either but insult and trouble."
"Yes, yes... . Of course it's very annoying. . . ." Raskol- nikov muttered in reply, but with such a preoccupied and in- attentive air that Dounia gazed at him in perplexity.
"That's true," Raskolnikov answered with special careful- ness. "I remember everything even to the slightest detail, and yet-why I did that and went there and said that, I can i clearly explain now.'
"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 chil-
dren, starving . . . nothing in the house .. . there's a daugh- ter, 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'étes pas contents.' He laughed. "That's right, isn't it Dounia?"
"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 over- step, you will be unhappy ... and if you overstep it, may be 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 con- cluded, shortly and abruptly.
"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.
"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 ?"
"He has just been to see me," said Raskolnikov, breaking his silence for the first time.
"An hour and 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."
"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. . . ."
"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 daugh- ter (whom I had never seen fill 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."
"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?"
"Do you understand now?" said Raskolnikov, his face twitching nervously. "Go back, go to them," he said sud- denly, and turning quickly, he went out of the house.
"It's I... . come to see you," answered Raskolnikov and he walked into the tiny entry.
"I've come to you for the last time,' Raskolnikov went on gloomily, although this was the first time. "I may per- haps not see you again . . ."
"IT don't know ... to-morrow. .. ."
"I don't know. I shall know to-morrow morning... . Never mind that: ve come to say one word. .. ."
"Why are you standing? Sit down," he said in a changed voice, gentle and friendly.
"Even when you lived at home?"
"Of course, you were," he added abruptly and the expres- sion of his face and the sound of his voice changed again suddenly.
"T should be afraid in your room at night," he observed gloomily.
"They all stammer, don't they?"
"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."
"Well, after that I can understand your living like this," Raskolnikov said with a bitter smile.
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 won- dered at his suggestion. She had not even noticed the cruelty of his words. (The significance of his reproaches and his pe- culiar 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 realized what those poor little orphan children and that pitiful half-crazy Katerina Ivan- ovna, knocking her head against the wall in her consumption, meant for Sonia.
"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."
"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 filth 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 ?"
"So you pray to God a great deal, Sonia?" he asked her.
"And what does God do for you?" he asked, probing her further.
"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 flash with such fire, 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.
"Where did you get that?" he called to her across the room.
"I believe you said yesterday you would like to question me... formally ... about my acquaintance with the mur- dered woman?" Raskolnikov was beginning again. "Why did I put in ‘I believe'" passed through his mind in a flash. "Why am I so uneasy at having put in that ‘J believe'?" came in a second flash. And he suddenly felt that his uneasiness at the mere contact with Porfiry, at the first words, at the first looks, had grown in an instant to monstrous proportions, and that this was fearfully dangerous. His nerves were quiver- ing, his emotion was increasing. "It's bad, it's bad! I shall say too much again."
"Yes, a capital thing," answered Raskolnikov, looking at him almost ironically.
"Tell me, please," he asked suddenly, looking almost inso- lently at him and taking a kind of pleasure in his own inso- lence. "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?"
"Porfiry 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 evi- dently nothing to keep us now."
Raskolnikov put down his cap and continued listening in silence with a serious frowning face to the vague and empty chatter of Porfiry Petrovitch. "Does he really want to dis- tract my attention with his silly babble?"
"Oh, don't trouble, please," cried Raskolnikov and he sud- denly broke into a laugh. "Please don't trouble."
looked after him with friendly solicitude. But he did not believe a word he said, though he felt a strange inclination to believe. Porfiry's unexpected words about the flat had utterly overwhelmed him. "How can it be, he knows about the flat then," he thought suddenly, "and he tells it me himself !"
"Is it possible, is it possible," flashed through his mind, "that he is still lying? He can't be, he can't be." He re- jected 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 Porfiry's game, "I was quite myself, do you hear?"
"Briefly," he said loudly and imperiously, rising to his feet and in so doing pushing Porfiry back a little, "briefly, I want to know, do you acknowledge me perfectly free from suspi- cion or not? Tell me, Porfiry Petrovitch, tell me once for all and make haste!"
"T repeat," Raskolnikov cried furiously, "that I can't put up with it!"
"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 fist down on the table again.
"T will not allow myself to be tortured," he whispered, in- stantly 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!"
Raskolnikov. "I invited you to see me quite in a friendly way."
"You are lying,' roared Raskolnikov without restraint, "you lie, you damned punchinello!" and he rushed at Porfiry who retreated to the other door, not at all alarmed.
"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 rubbishy 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 ?"
"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 !"
"You must forgive me, Porfiry Petrovitch, for what has just passed ... I lost my temper," began Raskolnikov, who had so far regained his courage that he felt irresistibly in- clizied to display his coolness.
"And will get to know each other through and through?" added Raskolnikov.
"T 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 office is such a comical one."
"What is it?" cried Raskolnikov.
"Tt was not I murdered her,' Raskolnikov whispered like a frightened child caught in the act.
"No!" he said, apparently abandoning all attempt to keep up appearances with Porfiry, "it's not worth it, I don't care about lessening the sentence!'
"Ach, hang it!" Raskolnikov whispered with loathing and contempt, as though he did not want to speak aloud. /
"Porfiry 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!"
"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!"