Crime and Punishment (13 page)

‘Finish 'er off!' shouts Mikolka and, quite beside himself, jumps down from the cart. Several lads, also red-faced with drink, grab whatever they can – whips, sticks, the shaft – and run over to the dying mare. Mikolka stands on one side and starts hitting her over the back with the crowbar. The nag stretches out her muzzle, sighs heavily and dies.

‘Got there in the end!' comes a voice from the crowd.

‘She should've galloped!'

‘My property!' shouts Mikolka, standing there with the bar in his hands and bloodshot eyes. He seems sorry not to have anyone left to hit.

‘You've no fear of God!' shouts the crowd, in many voices now.

But the poor boy is beside himself. He yells and squeezes his way through the crowd to the sorrel, throws his arms around her dead, bloodied muzzle and kisses her, kisses her on her eyes, her lips . . . Then he suddenly jumps up and charges at Mikolka with his little fists. At that very moment his father, who's been chasing after him in vain, finally grabs him and hauls him out of the crowd.

‘Off we go now! Off we go!' he tells him. ‘Home!'

‘Daddy! The poor little horse . . . They've killed it . . . What for?' he sobs, but he can barely breathe and the words burst from his tightening chest like screams.

‘Just drunks fooling around. Off we go! It's none of our business!' says his father. He hugs his father, but his chest feels tighter and tighter. He wants to catch his breath and scream, then wakes.

He woke in a cold sweat, his hair soaked; gasping for breath, he lifted himself up in terror.

‘Thank God, just a dream!' he said, sitting up under a tree and drawing deep breaths. ‘But what's happening? Hope it's not a fever coming on: what a hideous dream!'

His whole body felt broken, his soul troubled and dark. Resting his elbows on his knees, he propped his head in his hands.

‘My God!' he exclaimed. ‘Will I really – I mean, really – actually take an axe, start bashing her on the head, smash her skull to pieces? . . . Will I really slip in sticky, warm blood, force the lock, steal, tremble, hide, all soaked in blood . . . axe in hand? . . . Lord, will I really?'

He shook as he said this.

‘But what am I saying!' he continued, raising himself up once more, as if in deep astonishment. ‘After all, I knew this would be too much for me, so why have I been tormenting myself all this time? Yesterday, just yesterday, when I went to do that . . .
test
, even then I understood full well that I'd crack . . . So what is all this? How can I still be in any doubt? Only yesterday, coming down the stairs, didn't I say that all this is despicable, foul, vile . . . ? The very thought of it
in
reality
made me sick with horror . . .

‘No, I'll crack! I'll crack! Even supposing that all these calculations are entirely sound, that all the decisions taken during this past month are as clear as day, as sound as arithmetic. Lord! Even then I'll not dare! In the end I'll crack! I'll crack! So what on earth am I still . . . ?'

He got to his feet, looked about in surprise, as if his coming here were also a cause for wonder, and made off towards T—— Bridge. He was pale, his eyes were burning and every limb ached with exhaustion, but suddenly he seemed to be breathing more freely. He felt that he had cast off the terrible weight that had been crushing him for so long, and his soul suddenly felt light and at peace. ‘Lord,' he prayed, ‘show me my path, while I renounce this damned . . . dream of mine!'

Crossing the bridge, he gazed in quiet serenity at the Neva, at the bright setting of the bright red sun. Despite his weakness, he felt no tiredness. As if an abscess that had been developing all month on his heart had suddenly burst. Freedom! Freedom! He was free from this spell, from sorcery and charms, from evil delusion!

Subsequently, when he recalled this time and all that had happened to him during these days, minute by minute, point by point, mark by
mark, he was always struck to a superstitious degree by a certain circumstance which, though in fact not all that extraordinary, had, he later felt, somehow predetermined his fate.

Namely: he was simply incapable of understanding or explaining to himself why he'd returned home via Haymarket Square, a place he had not the slightest reason to visit, when it would have made far more sense for him, tired and worn out as he was, to take the shortest, most direct route home. It wasn't much of a detour, but it was an unmistakable and quite unnecessary one. Of course, there had been dozens of occasions when he'd returned home without remembering the streets along which he'd walked. But why on earth, he would always wonder, should this encounter on Haymarket Square – one so important and so decisive for him and at the same time so very fortuitous (in a place he had no need to go to) – why should it have occurred right then, at such an hour, such a moment of his life, when he found himself in precisely the mood and precisely the circumstances required for this encounter to have the most decisive and most definitive effect on his entire fate? As if it had been lying in wait for him!

It was about nine when he crossed Haymarket. All the traders at the tables and stalls, and in the shops and little stores, were locking up their goods or taking them down and putting them away, and making their way home, as were their customers. In the filthy, stinking courtyards of Haymarket Square, near the eating-houses on the lower floors, and especially outside the drinking dens, thronged traffickers and rag dealers of every kind. Raskolnikov was often drawn to this square, and all the nearby streets, during his aimless wanders. Here his rags attracted no one's disdain and nobody could care less what he looked like. On the corner of K—— Lane a tradesman and his wife were selling goods at two tables: thread, tape, cotton handkerchiefs and so on. They, too, were packing up for the day, but they'd paused to chat to an acquaintance. The acquaintance was Lizaveta Ivanovna, or simply Lizaveta, as everyone called her, the younger sister of that same old woman, Alyona Ivanovna – the collegiate registrar's widow and moneylender whom Raskolnikov had visited the day before to pawn the watch and do his
test . . .
He had long known all there was to know about this Lizaveta, and she even knew him a little. She was a tall, ungainly, timid, meek spinster, thirty-five years old and all but an imbecile; she was completely enslaved to her sister, worked for her day and night, quivered in her presence and even took beatings from her. With a bundle in her
hand, she stood in hesitation before the tradesman and his wife, listening to them attentively. They were heatedly trying to explain something to her. When Raskolnikov suddenly caught sight of her, he was overcome by a strange sensation resembling the deepest astonishment, even though this encounter had nothing astonishing about it.

‘Lizaveta Ivanovna, my dear, why don't you decide for yourself?' the tradesman was saying in a loud voice. ‘Come by tomorrow, between six and seven. That lot will come too.'

‘Tomorrow?' said Lizaveta slowly and pensively, as if in two minds.

‘Alyona Ivanovna's put the wind up you and no mistake!' jabbered the trader's wife, a lively sort. ‘I look at you, lady, and think: a child, a mere child. And your sister's only your half-sister, but look how she's got you under her thumb!'

‘No need to say anything to Alyona Ivanovna this time,' her husband broke in. ‘That's my advice anyway – just come to us without asking. It's a nice bit of business, lady. Your big sister will see for herself later.'

‘Maybe I should?'

‘Between six and seven, tomorrow. Them lot will come too. Decide for yourself, dear.'

‘We'll get the samovar going,' added his wife.

‘All right, I'll come,' said Lizaveta, still thinking it over, then slowly moved off.

Raskolnikov walked past at this point and heard no more. He'd slipped by quietly, trying to catch every word. His initial astonishment had given way, little by little, to horror, like ice down his spine. He'd learned, suddenly and quite unexpectedly, that tomorrow, at precisely seven o'clock in the evening, Lizaveta, the old woman's sister and sole cohabitant, would not be in and that, as a result, the old woman, at precisely seven o'clock in the evening,
would be at home on her own.

His room was only a few steps away. He entered like a man sentenced to death. He wasn't thinking, nor was he capable of thinking; but he suddenly felt in every fibre of his being that he no longer had the freedom of reason or will and that everything had suddenly been decided for good.

Of course, even if he'd waited years on end for a favourable opportunity, even then, with a plan in place, he could scarcely have counted on a surer step towards the successful execution of that plan than the
one that had suddenly presented itself now. In any case it would have been difficult to establish just the day before, with greater precision or smaller risk, without the need for any dangerous enquiries or searches, that the very next day, at such-and-such a time, such-and-such a woman – the object of an intended murder – would be home all alone.

Later, Raskolnikov happened to find out why exactly the tradesman and his wife had invited Lizaveta round. It was a perfectly run-of-the-mill affair. A newly arrived, impoverished family was selling off various things – clothing and so on, all women's stuff. It was hard to make anything much at the market, so they were looking for a dealer – Lizaveta's line: she took a commission, got around and had plenty of experience, being very honest and always naming her lowest price: there was no shifting her after that. She didn't talk much in any case and, as has already been said, she was as meek and shy as they come . . .

Recently, though, Raskolnikov had become superstitious. Traces of superstition would remain in him for a long time yet, almost indelibly. In fact, he would always be prone to find something rather strange about this whole business, something mysterious, the presence, as it were, of some special influences and coincidences. Back in winter a student he knew, Pokoryov, who was leaving for Kharkov, mentioned in passing the address of old Alyona Ivanovna, should he ever need to pawn anything. For a long time he stayed away: he had some teaching and could just about make ends meet. He'd remembered about the address six weeks or so ago; he had two things fit for pawning: his father's old silver watch and a small gold ring with three red stones, a farewell gift from his sister, to remember her by. He'd decided on the ring; and the moment he found and clapped eyes on the old woman, not yet knowing anything much about her, he felt overcome by disgust, took two ‘nice little notes' off her and on his way back stopped off in a shabby little tavern. He ordered tea, took a seat and plunged deep in thought. A strange idea was tapping away in his head, like a chick in its egg, occupying him body and soul.

At another small table, very close to his, sat a student he neither knew nor remembered, and a young officer. They were drinking tea after a game of billiards. Suddenly he'd overheard the student telling
the officer about the moneylender, Alyona Ivanovna, a collegiate secretary's widow, and giving him her address. This in itself had struck Raskolnikov as strange: he'd only just come from seeing her. Sheer chance, of course, but there he was unable to rid himself of one highly unusual impression only to see someone bend over backwards (or so it seemed) to oblige him: the student suddenly started telling his friend all manner of details about this Alyona Ivanovna.

‘A splendid woman,' he said. ‘You can always get money from her. Rich as a Yid. She can hand over five thousand just like that, and she won't turn her nose up at trifles either. Plenty of our lot have called on her. She's a right bitch, mind . . .'

He set about describing what a nasty and capricious woman she was, how you only had to be a day late paying and your item would disappear. She gave four times less than the thing was worth, charged five or even seven per cent interest a month, etcetera. Letting his tongue run away with him, the student also mentioned that the old woman had a sister, Lizaveta, whom she, so little and so horrid, never stopped beating and kept in utter servitude, like a little child, when in fact Lizaveta was a whole foot taller, at the very least . . .

‘Just try explaining that!' the student exclaimed and roared with laughter.

The conversation turned to Lizaveta. The student took particular pleasure in talking about her and couldn't stop laughing, while the officer listened with the keenest interest and asked the student to send him this Lizaveta to mend his linen. Raskolnikov caught every word, and learned everything there and then: Lizaveta was the old woman's younger half-sister (by a different mother), and she was already thirty-five years old. She worked for her sister day and night, doing all the cooking and the laundry; on top of that, she sewed to order and even washed other people's floors, handing over all the earnings to her sister. She didn't dare accept a single order or a single job without the old woman's say-so. The latter, meanwhile, had already made her own will, which was known to Lizaveta herself, who stood to receive not a penny, apart from chattels, chairs and so on; the money was to go to a certain monastery in N—— province, for the eternal remembrance of the old woman's soul. Lizaveta, who was born into trade, not the civil service, was a spinster and frightful to look at: she was remarkably tall with long, twisted-looking feet and a single pair of down-at-heel goatskin shoes, and she always kept herself clean. But
the main thing that surprised the student and made him laugh was the fact that Lizaveta was forever pregnant . . .

‘But you said she was hideous?' the officer observed.

‘Well, she's swarthy-looking, like a soldier in drag, but actually far from hideous. Her face and eyes are ever so nice. Really very nice. There's proof – plenty of people like her. So quiet and meek, so tame and agreeable – she'll agree to anything. And she's got a lovely smile on her.'

‘Sounds like you like her, too?' the officer laughed.

‘For her strangeness. But what I really want to tell you is this: I could murder and rob this hag, and without the faintest pang of conscience, I assure you,' the student added with fervour.

The officer guffawed once more and Raskolnikov shuddered. How very strange this was!

‘Let me ask you a serious question,' the student continued. ‘I was joking just now, of course, but look: on the one hand a stupid, pointless, worthless, nasty, sick old hag who nobody needs and who is positively vicious to all and sundry, who doesn't know herself why she's alive and who in any case will drop dead tomorrow or the day after. Catch my drift?'

‘Yes, I suppose,' answered the officer, fixing an attentive gaze on his excited friend.

‘There's more. On the other hand, fresh-faced youths going to waste for lack of support – thousands of them, everywhere! A hundred, a thousand good deeds and initiatives could be arranged and assisted with the money doomed for the monastery! Hundreds, possibly thousands of lives could be set on the right path; dozens of families saved from beggary, disintegration, ruin, depravity, the venereal hospital – and all this on her money. Kill her and take her money, so as to devote yourself afterwards to the service of all humanity and the common cause. What do you reckon? Won't thousands of good deeds iron out one tiny little crime? For one life – thousands of lives saved from decay and ruin. One death and a hundred lives in return – it's basic arithmetic! And anyway, what does the life of this consumptive, stupid, nasty hag weigh on the scales of the world? No more than the life of a louse, a cockroach, and it's not even worth that, because the hag is vicious. She'll eat you alive: just the other day she bit Lizaveta's finger out of pure spite. They nearly had to cut it off!'

‘Of course she doesn't deserve to live,' remarked the officer, ‘but there's nature to think about.'

‘Nature, my dear chap, is forever being corrected and directed, otherwise by now we'd all have drowned in our preconceptions. Otherwise, no great man would ever have been born. People talk about “duty”, “conscience”, and I've nothing against duty and conscience, but what do we understand by them, that's the thing? Hang on, I've another question for you. Now listen!'

‘No, you hang on. I've a question for you. Now you listen!'

‘Well?'

‘Here you are speaking and speechifying, but tell me: are you going to kill the old woman
yourself
or aren't you?'

‘Of course not! I'm talking about justice . . . It's not about me . . .'

‘Well, as I see it, if you don't dare do it yourself, there's no justice to speak of! Let's have another game!'

Raskolnikov was in a state of extreme agitation. Of course, these were just the usual, everyday conversations and ideas of the young, such as he had heard many times before; only the form and topic varied. But why had it fallen to him, precisely then, to hear precisely this conversation and precisely these thoughts . . . at a time when
those very same thoughts
had just been conceived in his own mind? And why precisely then – just when he had carried away from the old woman the embryo of his idea – had he chanced on a conversation about her and no one else? The coincidence would always strike him as strange. This trivial conversation in a tavern exerted the most radical influence on him in the subsequent course of events: as if there really were something preordained in it all, some sign . . .

 • • • 

Getting back from Haymarket, he collapsed on his couch and sat there without moving for a whole hour. Meanwhile it grew dark. He had no candles and in any case it didn't cross his mind to light one. He could never remember: was he thinking about anything during all that time? Eventually he began to feel feverish and shivery, just like before, and realized with pleasure that the couch might also be used for lying on. A deep, leaden sleep soon descended, like some crushing weight.

He slept for an unusually long time, dreamlessly. Nastasya came into his room at ten the next morning and had to give him a forceful shake. She'd brought tea and bread. Once again she'd used old leaves, and once again it came in her own pot.

‘What a sleepyhead!' she cried indignantly. ‘Sleeping, sleeping, sleeping!'

He forced himself to sit up. His head ached. He tried to stand and turn around, but fell back down on the couch.

‘Back to sleep, I suppose!' Nastasya cried. ‘Are you sick?'

He said nothing.

‘Fancy some tea?'

‘Later,' he said, forcing out a reply before closing his eyes again and turning towards the wall. Nastasya stood over him a while.

‘Maybe he really is sick,' she said, then turned and walked out.

She came back at two with some soup. He hadn't moved. The tea hadn't been touched. Nastasya took offence and set about shaking him furiously.

‘Enough snoozing!' she cried, looking at him in disgust. He sat himself up, but said nothing and gazed at the floor.

‘Are you sick or ain't you?' Nastasya asked and again received no reply.

‘Get yourself out a bit,' she said after a pause. ‘Blow away them cobwebs. Are you or ain't you eating?'

‘Later,' he said weakly, then, ‘Off you go now!' – and waved her out.

She stood where she was a short while longer, looked at him with pity and went out.

A few minutes later he lifted up his eyes and stared for a long time at the tea and the soup. Then he took the bread, took the spoon and started eating.

He reluctantly, almost mechanically, ate three or four spoonfuls, no more. His headache eased a little. After his meal, he stretched out again on the couch, but he could no longer fall asleep, so he lay without moving, face down, his head buried in the pillow. One daydream followed another, all of them strange. In most of them he found himself somewhere in Africa, in Egypt, at some oasis or other. The caravan is at rest, the camels lie peaceably; palm trees grow around in a circle; everyone's eating. As for him, he drinks and drinks from a stream which flows and bubbles right there beside him. How cool it is and how wonderfully blue the water, and how cold, racing over the many-coloured stones, over the bright clean sand sparkling like gold . . . Suddenly he heard a clock strike loud and clear. He came round with a start, raised his head, looked out of the window, worked out the time and suddenly leapt to his feet, wide awake now, as though someone had yanked him off the couch. He walked up to the door on tiptoe, gently opened it a fraction and listened for noises on the stairs
below. His heart was thumping uncontrollably. But only silence came from the stairs, as if everyone was asleep . . . How bizarre to think that he could have slept through since the previous evening in such a trance and still hadn't done anything, hadn't prepared anything . . . Meanwhile, that clock was probably striking six . . . His sleepiness and torpor suddenly gave way to an unusually feverish and confused burst of activity. There wasn't much to prepare, though. He was doing his utmost to think of everything and forget nothing, but his heart thumped so hard that it became difficult to breathe. First, he had to make a loop and sew it to his coat – a moment's work. He rummaged beneath the pillow, where he'd stuffed his linen, and retrieved an old unwashed shirt that had all but fallen to pieces. From it he tore a strip about two inches wide and a good foot long. He folded this strip in two, took off his broad, sturdy, coarse-cotton summer coat (his only outer garment) and started sewing both ends of the strip to the inside, just below the left armpit. His hands shook, but he still managed to do it well enough that nothing was visible from the outside when he put his coat back on. He'd had needle and thread to hand for a while, inside a scrap of paper in the little table. As for the loop, that was a crafty invention of his own: it was intended for the axe. After all, he could hardly walk along the street brandishing an axe. Hiding it under his coat wouldn't do either – he'd have to hold it in place, which would be conspicuous. But now that he had the loop, all he needed to do was place the blade in it and the axe would hang nicely, under his armpit inside the coat, all the way there. What was more, by thrusting a hand into the side pocket of his coat he was able to hold the end of the axe handle and stop it moving about; and since the coat was very broad – a real sack – there was no way of noticing from the outside that he was holding it through the pocket. The loop was another thing he'd thought up a couple of weeks before.

Having done this, he slid his fingers through the small gap between his ‘Turkish' couch and the floor, fumbled around near the left-hand corner and extracted something he'd prepared and hidden there long before – a
pledge.
Pledge was hardly the word for it, though: it was a smoothly planed bit of wood, no bigger in size or thickness than a silver cigarette case. He'd found it by chance on one of his strolls, in a yard containing some kind of workshop housed in an outbuilding. Then he'd added to it a thin, smooth iron strip – a fragment of something, presumably – which he'd found in the street at the same time.
Putting together the two pieces, of which the iron strip was the smaller, he tied them tightly with thread, making a cross; then he wrapped them neatly and daintily in clean white paper, tied a thin ribbon around it, also in a cross, and fixed the knot in such a way as to make it hard to untie. The point of it all was to distract the old woman as she fussed with the knot, and thus, to seize his chance. As for the iron strip, it had been added for weight, to keep the old woman from guessing right away that the ‘item' was made of wood. He'd kept it all under the couch until the time came. No sooner had he retrieved the pledge than there was a sudden yell from somewhere outside: