Crime and Punishment (25 page)

Bewildered, the caretaker scrutinized Raskolnikov and frowned.

‘So who are you?' he shouted more threateningly.

‘I'm Rodion Romanych Raskolnikov, a former student, and I live in Shil's house in one of the lanes around here, apartment Number
14
. Ask the caretaker . . . he knows me.' Raskolnikov said all this in a lazy and pensive kind of way, without turning round, his eyes fixed on the darkened street.

‘So why did you go up to the digs?'

‘To have a look.'

‘A look at what?'

‘Why don't we take him down to the bureau?' the tradesman suddenly butted in, and fell silent.

Raskolnikov glanced at him over his shoulder, gave him an attentive look and said just as quietly and lazily:

‘Let's go!'

‘Too right!' replied the tradesman, livening up. ‘What did he bring
that
up for? What's on his mind, eh?'

‘He don't look drunk, but God only knows,' muttered the worker.

‘What do you want?' the caretaker shouted again, becoming seriously angry. ‘You're a damned nuisance!'

‘Too scared to go to the bureau, then?' scoffed Raskolnikov.

‘Scared of what? You're a damned nuisance!'

‘Con man!' shouted the woman.

‘You're wasting your breath with the likes of him!' shouted the other caretaker, an enormous peasant with a wide-open coat and keys under his belt. ‘Scram! . . . Con man's about right for you . . . Scram!'

Grabbing Raskolnikov by the shoulder, he hurled him into the street. Raskolnikov almost tumbled head over heels, but managed to straighten himself up just in time, cast a silent glance over all the spectators and went on his way.

‘A queer fish,' said the worker.

‘Like lots of folk nowadays,' said the woman.

‘I'd still've taken him down to the bureau,' added the tradesman.

‘Best stay out of it,' the big caretaker decided. ‘Con man and no mistake! That's his game – pulls you in and you'll never pull yourself out . . . I know the score!'

‘So, am I going or aren't I?' thought Raskolnikov, stopping in the middle of the crossroads and looking about him, as if he were expecting someone to utter the last word one way or another. But there was no response from anywhere; everything was desolate and dead, like the stones on which he trod, dead for him, for him alone . . . Suddenly, far off, some two hundred yards away, at the end of the street, in the thickening gloom, he made out a crowd, voices, cries . . . Amidst the crowd stood some kind of carriage . . . A light flickered in the middle of the street. ‘What's this?' Raskolnikov turned right and made for the crowd. He seemed to be clutching at everything, and a cold smile crossed his face as he thought this: he'd made up his mind about the bureau now, and he was quite certain that all this was just about to end.

In the middle of the street stood a fancy, grand carriage drawn by a pair of steaming grey horses; the carriage was empty and the coachman had got down from the box and was standing beside it; the horses were being held by the bridle. There was a large throng of people, with police officers at the front. One was holding a lantern with which, bending down, he was illuminating something on the road, right next to the wheels. Everyone was speaking, shouting, gasping; the coachman seemed bewildered and every so often would say:

‘A terrible sin! Lord, what a sin!'

Raskolnikov squeezed his way through as best he could, and finally caught sight of the object of all this fuss and curiosity. On the ground lay a man, to all appearances unconscious, who'd just been trampled by horses; he was very shabbily – but ‘nobly' – dressed and covered in blood, which streamed from his face and his head. His face was all battered, flayed, mangled. He'd been trampled badly and no mistake.

‘Fathers!' the coachman wailed. ‘What's a man to do? If I'd been tearing along or I hadn't yelled at him, fair enough, but I was going
along nice and steady. Everyone saw: with me, what you see is what you get. A drunk can't hold a candle
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 – we all know that! I can see him crossing the street, wobbling along, nearly toppling over – I yell at him once, yell at him twice, and again, and pull up the horses; and he goes and falls right under them! Either he meant it or he's properly tight . . . The horses are only young, they scare easy; they tugged, he screamed, they tugged harder . . . and look!'

‘He's telling it like it was!' came the voice of some witness in the crowd.

‘He yelled at him all right – three times,' echoed another.

‘Three, three – we all heard!' shouted a third.

The coachman, though, was not really so very despondent or frightened. The carriage evidently had a wealthy and important owner waiting for it somewhere – a problem which the police officers, needless to say, had not neglected. The trampled man would need to be taken to the police station and the hospital. No one knew his name.

Meanwhile Raskolnikov had squeezed through and leant forward even closer. All of a sudden the lantern lit up the face of the unfortunate man: he recognized him.

‘I know him! I know him!' he shouted, pushing right through to the front. ‘He's a civil servant, retired, a titular counsellor, Marmeladov! He lives around here, very close, Kozel's house . . . A doctor, quick! I'll pay, look!' He took the money out of his pocket and showed it to a policeman. He was extraordinarily agitated.

The police officers were pleased to learn who the trampled man was. Raskolnikov named himself, too, gave his address and did everything in his power – as if this were his own father – to persuade them to move the unconscious Marmeladov to the latter's apartment.

‘Just here, three buildings along,' he chivvied them. ‘The house belongs to Kozel, a German, a rich one . . . He must be drunk, expect he was trying to get home. I know him . . . He's a drunkard . . . He's got a family there, wife, children, a daughter. Why drag him all the way to the hospital – there's bound to be a doctor right here in his building! I'll pay for it! . . . At least he'll have his family looking after him and he'll get help straight away – he'd die before he ever got to the hospital . . .'

He even managed to slip one of them a note; but it was a perfectly straightforward and lawful business, and anyway, help was closer at hand here. The trampled man was lifted up and carried off; volunteers were quickly found. Kozel's house was some thirty yards away.
Raskolnikov walked behind, carefully supporting the head and pointing the way.

‘Over here! Over here! We have to carry him up the stairs head first; turn round . . . that's it! I'll pay for it, I'll thank you,' he muttered.

Katerina Ivanovna was pacing her little room, as she always did whenever she had a free moment, from the window to the stove and back again, her arms tightly folded over her chest, talking to herself and coughing. Recently she'd taken to speaking more and more often with her elder girl, ten-year-old Polenka, who, ignorant though she still was of many things, understood perfectly well that her mother needed her, so she always followed her with her big clever eyes and did all she could to seem all-comprehending. Polenka was undressing her little brother, who'd been poorly since the morning, before putting him to bed. While waiting for her to change his shirt, which was to be washed that same night, the boy sat on the chair, all serious and silent, straight-backed and stock-still, extending his little legs with his heels thrust forward and his toes apart. He listened with pouted lips and bulging eyes to what Mummy was telling his sister and didn't move a muscle, just as clever little boys are supposed to sit when being prepared for bed. A girl even smaller than him, wearing the shabbiest rags, was standing by the screen and waiting her turn. The door to the stairs was open, so as to offer at least some relief from the waves of tobacco smoke that blew in from the other rooms and kept provoking long and excruciating coughing fits in the poor consumptive. Katerina Ivanovna seemed even thinner than a week ago and the red blotches on her cheeks burned even brighter than before.

‘Polenka, you just wouldn't believe, you can't even imagine,' she was saying as she walked up and down the room, ‘how fun and grand life was in Daddy's house and how this drunkard ruined me and will ruin you all! Papa was a state counsellor and very nearly governor; one more step and he was there, so everyone paid him visits, saying: “We already think of you like that, Ivan Mikhailych, as our governor!” When I . . . cuh . . . when I . . . cuh-cuh-cuh . . . oh, damn this life!' she shrieked, coughing up phlegm and clutching her chest. ‘When I . . . ach, when at the last ball . . . at the house of the marshal of the nobility . . . when I was spotted by Princess Bezzemelnaya – who later gave me her blessing when I was about to marry your papa, Polya – she immediately asked: “Isn't that the nice girl who danced the
pas de châle
at the leaving ball?” . . . (That rip needs sewing; you'd
better find a needle and darn it right now, the way I taught you, otherwise tomorrow . . . cuh! tomorrow . . . cuh-cuh-cuh! . . . it'll be even bigger!)' she shouted, her voice breaking. ‘At the time, Prince Shchegolskoy, a
kammerjunker
,
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had only just arrived from Petersburg . . . he danced a mazurka with me and wanted to visit me the very next day to propose; but I thanked him myself in the most flattering terms and said that my heart had long belonged to another. That other was your father, Polya. Daddy was terribly angry . . . Is the water ready? Well, give me the shirt, then. What about the stockings? . . . Lida,' she turned to her little daughter, ‘you sleep as you are for tonight, without a shirt; you'll manage . . . and lay your stockings out . . . I'll wash them, too . . . What's keeping that tramp, that drunkard? He's worn his shirt to shreds, like some old cloth . . . If I wash it all now I won't have to break my back two nights running! Dear God! Cuh-cuh-cuh-cuh! Again! What's this?' she shrieked, looking over towards the crowd on the landing and the people forcing their way into her room, bearing some kind of burden. ‘What's this? What are they carrying? Dear God!'

‘Where should we put him?' asked a police officer, looking around once Marmeladov, blood-stained and unconscious, had been lugged into the room.

‘The couch! Straight on the couch, head this way,' Raskolnikov pointed.

‘Trampled in the street! Drunk!' someone yelled from the landing.

Katerina Ivanovna stood white-faced, struggling to breathe. The children were petrified. Little Lidochka shrieked, ran over to Polenka, hugged her and began shaking all over.

After laying out Marmeladov, Raskolnikov rushed over to Katerina Ivanovna:

‘Calm down, for the love of God, and don't be scared!' he said in a rush. ‘He was crossing the street, got trampled by a carriage. Don't worry, he'll come to . . . I told them to bring him here . . . I've been here before, remember . . . He'll come to. I'll pay!'

‘Now he's done it!' Katerina Ivanovna shrieked in despair, rushing over to her husband.

Raskolnikov soon realized that this was not the type of woman to faint on the spot. In a flash a pillow appeared beneath the head of the unfortunate man, something which no one had even thought of till then. Katerina Ivanovna set about undressing him and examining
him, kept busy and kept her head, forgetting about herself, biting her quivering lips and suppressing the cries ready to burst from her chest.

Meanwhile Raskolnikov had persuaded someone to run off for the doctor. The doctor, as it happened, lived in the next house but one.

‘I've sent for the doctor,' he kept saying to Katerina Ivanovna. ‘Don't worry, I'll pay. Got any water? . . . And bring a napkin, a towel, something, quick. Who knows how bad his injuries are? . . . He's injured, not killed, rest assured of that . . . Let's see what the doctor says!'

Katerina Ivanovna rushed over to the window; there, on a battered chair in the corner, stood a large earthenware basin filled with water, all ready for the nocturnal scrubbing of her children's and husband's clothes. Katerina Ivanovna performed this task herself twice a week, and sometimes even more often than that, for they'd got to the point of having almost no change of linen at all, with only one item of each type per family member, and Katerina Ivanovna couldn't stand dirt and would sooner slave away, in pain and exhaustion, when everyone was asleep, so that by morning the washing would have dried on a cord stretched across the room, than see filth in her home. At Raskolnikov's request she picked up the bowl and was about to bring it over, but nearly fell under her burden. But he'd already found a towel, dipped it in water and begun cleaning Marmeladov's blood-soaked face. Katerina Ivanovna stood beside them, drawing painful breaths and clutching her chest. She herself was in need of help. It began to dawn on Raskolnikov that having the trampled man brought here may have been a mistake. The policeman was also bewildered.

‘Polya!' shouted Katerina Ivanovna. ‘Run to Sonya, quick. If she's not in, tell them anyway that Father's been trampled by horses and she should come over immediately . . . when she returns. Quick, Polya! Here, cover yourself with a shawl!'

‘Run for your life, thithter!' the boy suddenly shouted from the chair and, having done so, relapsed into silence, sitting straight-backed, eyes wide open, his heels thrust forward and his toes apart.

By now, the room had filled to bursting. The police officers had all left apart from one, who'd stayed behind for a while and was trying to drive the spectators who'd come in from the stairs back out again. At the same time, nearly all Mrs Lippewechsel's tenants were spilling out from the inner rooms. At first they seemed content merely to crowd the doorway, then they poured into the room itself. Katerina Ivanovna was beside herself.

‘At least let him die in peace!' she yelled at the mob. ‘A nice spectacle you've found for yourselves! While you smoke! Cuh-cuh-cuh! Where are your hats, I wonder? . . . Look, there's one! . . . Out! A dead body deserves some respect!'

Her cough was choking her, but the warning did its job. The tenants were clearly a little scared of Katerina Ivanovna. One by one they shuffled back towards the door with that strange inner sense of satisfaction that may always be observed at moments of sudden misfortune, even among people who are as close as can be, and there is not one person, without exception, who is free of it, notwithstanding even the sincerest feelings of pity and sympathy.

From the other side of the door, though, came talk of the hospital and what a pain it was to be disturbed for no reason.

‘It's death that's a pain!' shouted Katerina Ivanovna, and she'd already rushed over to fling open the door and let them have it when she collided in the doorway with Mrs Lippewechsel herself, who'd only just heard about the misfortune and was hurrying over to restore order. A more cantankerous and disorderly German would be hard to imagine.

‘Oh my God!' she cried, clasping her hands. ‘Your husband drunken trampled by horse. To ze hospital! I – landlady!'

‘Amalia Ludwigovna! Please think before you speak,' Katerina Ivanovna began haughtily (speaking to the landlady, she always took a haughty tone, so that the latter would ‘know her place', and even now she could not deny herself this pleasure). ‘Amalia Ludwigovna . . .'

‘I told you for-once-and-for-twice: don't dare you call me Amal Ludwigovna; it's Amal-Ivan!'

‘Your name is not Amal-Ivan, but Amalia Ludwigovna, and since I am not one of your vile flatterers, like Mr Lebezyatnikov, who is laughing as we speak on the other side of the door,' – laughter rang out from there as if on cue, along with the cry, ‘They're at it again!' – ‘I shall always call you Amalia Ludwigovna, although why you should dislike this name so much is quite beyond me. You can see what's happened to Semyon Zakharovich: he is dying. Be so kind as to close this door immediately and not let anyone in. Let him die in peace, at least! I assure you that otherwise the Governor General will be informed of your behaviour by tomorrow at the latest. The prince
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has known me from even before my marriage and remembers Semyon Zakharovich very well, having bestowed his kindness on him on many occasions. It is widely known that
Semyon Zakharovich had many friends and patrons, whom he, in his noble pride, forsook of his own accord, conscious of his unfortunate weakness, but now' – she pointed to Raskolnikov – ‘we are being helped by a young and generous soul, well-off and well-connected, whom Semyon Zakharovich has known since childhood, and rest assured, Amalia Ludwigovna . . .'