Текст книги "Crime and Punishment"

Автор книги: Fyodor Dostoevsky

Соавторы: Fyodor Dostoevsky
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Текущая страница: 42 (всего у книги 44 страниц)

VIII

When he came to Sonya's, dusk was already falling. Sonya had been waiting for him all day in terrible anxiety. She had waited together with Dunya, who, remembering Svidrigailov's words of the day before that Sonya “knew about it,” had come to her that morning. We shall not relate the details of the conversation and the tears of the two women, or how close they became to each other. From this meeting Dunya drew at least one consolation, that her brother would not be alone: he had gone first to her, to Sonya, with his confession; in her he had sought a human being when he needed a human being; and she would go with him wherever fate sent him. She had not asked, but she knew it would be so. She looked at Sonya even with a certain reverence, and at first almost embarrassed her by the reverent feeling with which she treated her. Sonya was all but on the verge of tears: she considered herself, on the contrary, unworthy even to glance at Dunya. The beautiful image of Dunya as she had bowed to her with such attention and respect at the time of their first meeting at Raskolnikov's, had since remained forever in her soul as one of the most beautiful and unattainable visions of her life.

Dunechka finally could not stand it and left Sonya to go and wait for her brother in his apartment; she kept thinking he might come there first. Left alone, Sonya immediately began to be tormented by fear at the thought that he might indeed commit suicide. Dunya was afraid of the same thing. But they had competed all day long in reassuring each other by every possible argument that it could not be so, and had felt calmer while they were together. Once they parted, however, they both began thinking only of that. Sonya kept recalling how Svidrigailov had told her the day before that there were two ways open for Raskolnikov—Siberia, or...She knew, besides, his vanity, his presumption, his self-conceit, and his unbelief. “Can it be that he has only faintheartedness and the fear of death to make him live?” she thought at last, in despair. Meanwhile the sun was going down. She stood sadly by the window, gazing out—but from the window only the blank, unpainted wall of the neighboring house could be seen. At last, when she had become completely convinced that the unfortunate man was dead—he walked into her room.

A joyful cry burst from her breast. But, looking closely at his face, she suddenly grew pale.

“Well, so!” Raskolnikov said, grinning, “I've come for your crosses, Sonya. You're the one who was sending me to the crossroads; why turn coward now that it's come to business?”

Sonya looked at him in amazement. His tone seemed strange to her; a cold shiver ran through her body; but a moment later she realized that all of it—both the tone and the words—was put on. He even stared somehow into the corner as he talked to her, as if trying to avoid looking her straight in the face.

“You see, Sonya, I figure that it may be more advantageous this way. There's a certain circumstance...Well, but it's a long tale to tell, and there's no point. Only, you know what makes me mad? It irks me that all those stupid, beastly mugs will immediately surround me, gaping at me with their eyeballs hanging out, asking me their stupid questions, which I will have to answer—pointing their fingers at me...Pah! You know, I'm not going to go to Porfiry; I'm sick of him. Better if I go to my friend Gunpowder—now that will be a surprise, that will make an effect of sorts! And I'd better be more cool-headed; I've gotten too bilious lately. Would you believe it, I all but shook my fist at my sister just now, simply because she turned to look at me a last time. Swinishness, that's the name for it! Eh, see what I've come to! Well, so where are the crosses?”

It was as if he were not himself. He was unable to stay still even for a minute, unable to focus his attention on any one subject; his thoughts leaped over each other; his speech wandered; his hands were trembling slightly.

Sonya silently took two crosses from a drawer, one of cypress, the other of brass; she crossed herself, crossed him, and hung the cypress cross around his neck.

“So this is a symbol of my taking a cross upon myself, heh, heh! That's right, I haven't suffered enough yet! Cypress, for simple folk; the brass one, Lizaveta's, you're keeping for yourself—can I see it? So she was wearing it...at that moment? I also know of two similar crosses, a silver one and a little icon. I let them drop on the old crone's chest that time. It would really be more to the point if I put those on now...It's all nonsense, however; I'm forgetting the real business; I'm somehow distracted! ... You see, Sonya, as a matter of fact I came to forewarn you, so that you'd know . .. Well, that's all... That's the only reason I came. (Hm. I thought I'd have more to say, though.) Anyway, you yourself wanted me to go; well, so I'll be locked up in jail and your wish will be fulfilled; so, why are you crying? You, too? Stop; enough! Oh, how hard this all is for me!”

Feeling came to life in him, however; his heart was wrung as he looked at her. “But this one, why this one?” he thought to himself. “What am I to her? Why is she crying, why is she getting me ready, like mother or Dunya? She'll be my nursemaid!”

“Cross yourself, pray once at least,” Sonya asked in a trembling, timid voice.

“Oh, that, yes, as much as you like! And in all sincerity, Sonya, in all sincerity...”

He wanted, however, to say something else.

He crossed himself several times. Sonya seized her shawl and threw it over her head. It was a green flannel shawl, probably the same one Marmeladov had mentioned, the “family shawl.” Raskolnikov thought fleetingly of it, but he did not ask. Indeed, he now began to feel himself that he was terribly distracted and somehow hideously alarmed. That frightened him. It also suddenly struck him that Sonya wanted to go with him.

“What's this! Where are you going? Stay, stay! I'll go alone,” he cried out in fainthearted vexation, and almost angrily walked to the door. “No need for a whole retinue!” he muttered on his way out.

Sonya was left standing in the middle of the room. He had not even said good-bye to her; he had already forgotten her; a corrosive and rebellious doubt was seething in his soul.

“But is it right, is it all so right?” he thought again, going down the stairs. “Can it be that it's impossible to stop now and revise it all...and not go?”

But still he was going. He sensed all at once that there was finally no point in asking himself questions. Coming out to the street, he remembered that he had not said good-bye to Sonya, that she had stayed in the middle of the room in her green shawl, not daring to stir after his shout, and he stopped for an instant. At that same moment a thought suddenly dawned on him brightly—as though it had been waiting to strike him at the last.

“Then why did I go to her now? What for? I told her it was for business; and what was this business? There wasn't any business at all! To announce that I was going?But what of it? What was the need! Is it that I love her? I don't, do I? Didn't I just chase her away like a dog? Was it really crosses I wanted from her? Oh, how low I've fallen! No—I wanted her tears, I wanted to see her frightened, to look at her heartache and torment! I wanted to cling at least to something, to linger, to look at a human being! And I dared have such hopes for myself, such dreams, abject as I am, worthless—a scoundrel, a scoundrel!”

He was walking along the canal bank and had not much farther to go. But on reaching the bridge he stopped for a moment and suddenly turned aside, crossed it, and went to the Haymarket.

He looked greedily to right and left, peered intently at every object, but could not focus his attention on anything; everything slipped away. “In a week, say, or a month, I'll be taken somewhere in one of those prison vans over this bridge, and how will I look at the canal then? I must try to remember it,” flashed through his head. “This sign, say—how will I read these same letters then? Here they've written 'Compiny,' so I must remember this i,this letter i,and look at it in a month, at this same i;how will I look at it then? What will I be feeling and thinking then?...God, how base it all must be, all these present...cares of mine! Of course, it must all be rather curious...in its own way...(ha, ha, ha! what a thought!). I'm becoming a child, swaggering to myself; why am I shaming myself? Pah, they shove so! This fat one—must be a German—who just shoved me: does he know whom he was shoving? Here's a woman with a child, begging for alms; curious that she should consider me more fortunate than herself. Maybe I'll give her something just for the oddity of it. Hah, a five-kopeck piece managed to survive in my pocket, I wonder how! Yes, yes...take it, mother!”

“God keep you!” came the weepy voice of the beggar-woman.

He walked into the Haymarket. It was unpleasant, very unpleasant, for him to encounter people, yet he was going precisely where he could see the most people. He would have given anything in the world to be left alone, yet he felt himself that he could not have remained alone for a minute. A drunk man was acting up in the crowd; he was trying to dance, but kept losing his balance. People were standing around him. Raskolnikov squeezed through the crowd, watched the drunk man for a few minutes, and suddenly guffawed shortly and abruptly. A moment later he had already forgotten about him and did not even see him, though he went on looking at him. Finally he walked away, not even remembering where he was; but when he came to the middle of the square, a certain movement suddenly occurred with him, a certain sensation seized him all at once, took hold of him entirely– body and mind.

He suddenly remembered Sonya's words: “Go to the crossroads, bow down to people, kiss the earth, because you have sinned before it as well, and say aloud to the whole world: 'I am a murderer!' “ He trembled all over as he remembered it. And so crushed was he by the hopeless anguish and anxiety of this whole time, and especially of the last few hours, that he simply threw himself into the possibility of this wholesome, new, full sensation. It came to him suddenly in a sort of fit, caught fire in his soul from a single spark, and suddenly, like a flame, engulfed him. Everything softened in him all at once, and the tears flowed. He simply fell to the earth where he stood . . .

He knelt in the middle of the square, bowed to the earth, and kissed that filthy earth with delight and happiness. He stood up and then bowed once more.

“This one's plastered all right!” a fellow near him observed.

There was laughter.

“It's that he's going to Jerusalem, brothers, and he's saying good-bye to his children and his motherland and bowing to the whole world, giving a kiss to the metropolitan city of Saint Petersburg and its soil,” some drunken little tradesman added.

“Still a young lad!” a third one put in.

“From gentlefolk!” someone observed in an imposing voice.

“You can't tell nowadays who's gentlefolk and who isn't.”

All this talk and commentary held Raskolnikov back, and the words “I killed,” which were perhaps on the tip of his tongue, froze in him. However, he calmly endured all these exclamations, and without looking back went straight down the side street in the direction of the police station. On the way an apparition flashed before him, but he was not surprised by it; he had already anticipated that it must be so. As he bowed down the second time in the Haymarket, turning to the left, he had seen Sonya standing about fifty steps away. She was hiding from him behind one of the wooden stalls in the square, which meant that she had accompanied him throughout his sorrowful procession! Raskolnikov felt and understood in that moment, once and for all, that Sonya was now with him forever and would follow him even to the ends of the earth, wherever his fate took him. His whole heart turned over inside him...but—here he was at the fatal place . . .

He walked quite briskly into the courtyard. He had to go up to the third floor. “So far so good,” he thought. Generally, it seemed to him that the fatal moment was still far off, that there was still much time left, that he could still think many things over.

Again the same trash, the same eggshells on the winding stairs, again the wide-open doors to the apartments, again the same kitchens emitting fumes and stench. Raskolnikov had not been back here since that time. His legs were going numb and giving way under him, but went on walking. He stopped for a moment to catch his breath and straighten himself up, so as to enter like a human being.“But why? What for?” he suddenly thought, having caught his own movement. “If I am indeed to drink this cup, what difference does it make? The fouler the better.” At that moment the picture of Ilya Petrovich Gunpowder flashed in his imagination. “Must I really go to him? Why not to someone else? Why not to Nikodim Fomich? Turn around and go to the police chief himself, to his place? At least things could be arranged in a homelike fashion...No, no! To Gunpowder, to Gunpowder! If I'm to drink, I'll drink it all at once . . .”

Turning cold and barely conscious of himself, he opened the door to the office. This time very few people were there, some caretaker and some other simple fellow. The guard did not even peek out from behind his partition. Raskolnikov went into the next room. “Maybe it's still possible not to tell them,” flashed in him. Here some person from among the scribes, dressed in a civilian jacket, was settling down to write something at a desk. In the corner another scrivener was about to take his seat. Zamyotov was not there. Nikodim Fomich was, of course, not there either.

“No one's here?” Raskolnikov asked, addressing the person at the desk.

“Who do you want?”

“Aha-a-a! Fee, fi, fo, fum, I smell the smell of a Russian man...or how does the tale go...I forget! Gr-r-reetings!” a familiar voice cried out suddenly.

Raskolnikov shook. There stood Gunpowder; he walked out suddenly from the third room. “This is fate itself,” Raskolnikov thought. “Why is he here?”

“Come to see us? What's the occasion? . . .” Ilya Petrovich exclaimed. (He was apparently in a most excellent and even somewhat excited state of mind.) “If it's on business, you've come too early. I myself just happen to be...However, anything I can do. I must confess...what's your, your...Excuse me...”

“Raskolnikov.”

“There you are—Raskolnikov! You don't suppose I really forgot! No, please, you mustn't regard me as such a...Rodion Ro...Ro...Rodionych, isn't it?”

“Rodion Romanych.”

“Yes, yes, of course! Rodion Romanych, Rodion Romanych! Just what I was getting at. I even made a number of inquiries. I—shall I confess to you?—I have been genuinely grieved that you and I were so...it was later explained to me, I learned that the young writer– scholar, even...the first steps, so to speak...Oh, Lord! And who among writers and scholars did not make some original steps to begin with! My wife and I, we both respect literature—my wife even to the point of passion! ... Literature and artistry! One need only be a gentleman, and the rest can all be acquired by talent, knowledge, reason, genius! A hat—now what, for instance, is a hat? A hat is a pancake, I can buy one at Zimmerman's; but that which is kept under the hat, and is covered by the hat, that I cannot buy, sir! ... I'll confess I even wanted to go and explain myself to you, but I thought perhaps you...However, I haven't even asked: do you in fact need anything? I hear your family has come?”

“Yes, my mother and sister.”

“I've even had the honor and happiness of meeting your sister—an educated and charming person. I'll confess I regretted that you and I got so worked up that time. A mishap! And that I gave you a certain kind of look then, on the occasion of your fainting—that was explained afterwards in a most brilliant manner! Overzealousness and fanaticism! I understand your indignation. Perhaps you're changing apartments on the occasion of your family's arrival?”

“N-no, I just... I came to ask... I thought I'd find Zamyotov here.”

“Ah, yes! You became friends; I heard, sir. Well, Zamyotov is no longer with us—you've missed him. Yes, sir, we've lost Alexander Grigorievich! He's been unavailable since yesterday; he's moved on...and as he was moving on he quarreled with everybody...even quite discourteously...A flighty youngster, nothing more; he might even give one hopes; but what can be done with them, these brilliant young men of ours! He wants to take some examination or other, but with us that's all just talk and swagger, and so much for the examination. It's quite another matter with you, for example, or let's say your friend, Mr. Razumikhin! Your career is a scholarly one, and you won't be put off by any setbacks! For you, all these beauties of life, one might say, nihil est <sup>[157]157
  Nihil est:"it is nothing" or "nothing is" (Latin).


[Закрыть]</sup> —ascetic, monk, hermit that you are! ... For you, it's a book, a pen behind the ear, scholarly research—there's where your spirit soars! I myself am somewhat...have you read Livingstone's diaries, <sup>[158]158
  David Livingstone (1813-73), famous Scottish explorer of central and southern Africa, published a book on his travels along the Zambezi River in 1865; it was soon translated into Russian.


[Закрыть]</sup> may I ask?”

“No.”

“But I have. Nowadays, by the way, there are a great many nihilists spreading around; well, it's quite understandable; what sort of times are these, I ask you! But I'm being too...by the way, you're surely not a nihilist! <sup>[159]159
  "Nihilism" was a new movement among the radical Russian youth, emerging just around the time that Dostoevsky was writing C&P,the mentality and consequences of which he partly explores in the novel. The aims of the nihilists, as the name suggests, were essentially negative—the destruction of the existing social order, without stipulating what should replace it. In this they "stepped beyond" the earlier Utopian socialists; they "negated more," as Lebezyatnikov puts it. Their ideology was anti-idealist, concerned with immediate action and practical results.


[Закрыть]</sup> Tell me frankly, frankly!”

“N-no.”

“No, you see, you can be frank with me, don't be embarrassed, just as if you were alone with yourself! Duty is one thing, and...what is another?... You thought I was going to say pleasure—no, sir, you've guessed wrong! Not pleasure, but the feeling of a citizen and a human being, the feeling of humaneness and love for the Almighty. I may be an official person and acting in the line of duty, but I must always feel the citizen and human being in myself, and be accountable for it...Now, you were so good as to bring up Zamyotov. Zamyotov! He'd go and cause a French-style scandal in some disreputable establishment, over a glass of champagne or Don wine—that's what your Zamyotov is! While I, perhaps, so to speak, am consumed with devotion and lofty feelings, and furthermore I have significance, rank, I occupy a position! I'm a married man, I have children. I fulfill the duties of a citizen and a human being, and who is he, may I ask? I advert to you as a man ennobled by education. And there are also these midwives spreading around in extraordinary numbers.”

Raskolnikov raised his eyebrows questioningly. The words of Ilya Petrovich, who had obviously just gotten up from the table, came clattering and spilling out at him for the most part as empty sounds. But even so he somehow understood part of them; he looked on questioningly, not knowing where it would end.

“I'm talking about these crop-haired wenches,” the garrulous Ilya Petrovich went on. “I've nicknamed them midwives, and personally I find the nickname completely satisfactory. Heh, heh! They force their way into the Academy, study anatomy; now tell me, if I get sick, am I going to call a girl to treat me? Heh, heh!” <sup>[160]160
  Ilya Petrovich's words reflect common attacks on women who sought higher education. In the 1860s women were allowed education only as teachers or midwives. The Academy he refers to is the medical school.


[Закрыть]</sup>

Ilya Petrovich guffawed, thoroughly pleased with his witticisms.

“Well, let's say it's an immoderate thirst for enlightenment; but once enlightened, it's enough. Why abuse it? Why insult noble persons the way that scoundrel Zamyotov does? Why did he insult me, I ask you? And then, too, there are so many suicides spreading around—you can't even imagine. They spend their last money and then kill themselves. Girls, boys, old folk...Only this morning there was a report about some recently arrived gentleman. Nil Pavlych, hey, Nil Pavlych! What's the name of that gentleman, the one we just had the report about, who shot himself on the Petersburg side?”

“Svidrigailov,” someone responded huskily and indifferently from the other room.

Raskolnikov gave a start.

“Svidrigailov! Svidrigailov shot himself!” he cried out.

“What, you know Svidrigailov?”

“Yes...I do...he came recently . . .”

“Right, he came recently, lost his wife, a man of wanton behavior, and all of a sudden he shot himself, and so scandalously, you can't even imagine...left a few words in his notebook, that he was dying in his right mind and asked that no one be blamed for his death. The man had money, they say. And how do you happen to know him?”

“I...was acquainted...my sister lived with them as a governess . . .”

“Aha, aha, aha...But you can tell us about him, then. You didn't even suspect?”

“I saw him yesterday...he...was drinking wine...I knew nothing.”

Raskolnikov felt as if something had fallen on him and crushed him.

“You seem to have turned pale again. This is a stuffy place . . .”

“Yes, it's time I was going, sir,” Raskolnikov muttered. “Excuse me for having troubled...”

“Oh, heavens, as much as you like! It's my pleasure, and I'm glad to say . . .”

Ilya Petrovich even offered him his hand.

“I just wanted...to see Zamyotov . . .”

“I understand, I understand, and it's been my pleasure.”

“I'm...very glad...good-bye, sir . . .” Raskolnikov smiled.

He walked out; he was reeling. His head was spinning. He could not feel his legs under him. He started down the stairs, propping himself against the wall with his right arm. It seemed to him that some caretaker with a book in his hands pushed him as he climbed past on his way up to the office, that some little mutt was barking its head off somewhere on a lower floor, and that some woman threw a rolling pin at it and shouted. He went on down the stairs and came out into the courtyard. There in the courtyard, not far from the entrance, stood Sonya, pale, numb all over, and she gave him a wild, wild look. He stopped before her. Something pained and tormented, something desperate, showed in her face. She clasped her hands. A hideous, lost smile forced itself to his lips. He stood a while, grinned, and turned back upstairs to the office.

Ilya Petrovich was sitting down, rummaging through some papers. Before him stood the same peasant who had just pushed Raskolnikov on his way up the stairs.

“A-a-ah? You again! Did you leave something behind?...But what's the matter?”

Raskolnikov, his lips pale, a fixed look in his eyes, went straight up to the desk, leaned on it with his hand, tried to say something, but could not; only incoherent sounds came out.

“You're not well! A chair! Here, sit down on the chair, sit down! Water!”

Raskolnikov sank down on the chair, but would not take his eyes from the quite unpleasantly surprised face of Ilya Petrovich. For a minute or so they went on looking at each other and waiting. Water was brought.

“It was I . . .” Raskolnikov tried to begin.

“Drink some water.”

Raskolnikov pushed the water aside with his hand and said softly, with some pauses, but distinctly:

“ It was I who killed the official's old widow and her sister Lizaveta with an axe and robbed them.“

Ilya Petrovich opened his mouth. People came running from all sides.

Raskolnikov repeated his statement.....................