Crime and Punishment (26 page)

All this was said at extraordinary, ever-increasing speed, but a fit of coughing instantly put paid to Katerina Ivanovna's oratory. That same moment, the dying man came to and groaned, and she ran over towards him. He opened his eyes and, still not recognizing or understanding, began to stare at the man standing over him – Raskolnikov. He was breathing heavily, deeply and sporadically; the edges of his lips were marked with blood; his forehead was beaded with sweat. Failing to recognize Raskolnikov, he began anxiously looking round. Katerina Ivanovna fixed him with a sad but severe gaze, and tears ran down her face.

‘Dear God! His whole chest has been crushed! The blood, the blood!' she despaired. ‘His outer clothing has to come off, all of it! Turn a little, Semyon Zakharovich, if you can!' she shouted at him.

Marmeladov recognized her.

‘A priest!' he croaked.

Katerina Ivanovna stepped back towards the window, rested her forehead on the frame and cried despairingly:

‘Damn this life!'

‘A priest!' the dying man repeated after a moment's silence.

‘They've already gone!' Katerina Ivanovna yelled back. He obeyed and fell silent. He sought her out with timid, sorrowful eyes; she returned to him and stood by his bedside. He calmed down a little, but not for long. Soon his eyes came to rest on little Lidochka (his favourite), who was shaking in the corner as if she were having a fit and looking at him with her surprised, childish stare.

‘Ah . . . ah . . . ,' he stammered anxiously in her direction. He wanted to say something.

‘Now what?' shouted Katerina Ivanovna.

‘No shoes! No shoes!' he muttered, staring wild-eyed at the little girl's bare feet.

‘Just shut up!' Katerina Ivanovna shouted with irritation. ‘You know damned well why!'

‘Thank God, the doctor!' Raskolnikov rejoiced.

In came the doctor, a little, neatly dressed old German, looking around with a mistrustful air. He walked over to the patient, took his pulse, carefully felt his head and, with Katerina Ivanovna's help, undid all the buttons on the blood-soaked shirt, baring the patient's chest. It was thoroughly mangled, crumpled and mutilated; several ribs on the right side were broken. On the left, right over the heart, was a sinister, large, yellow-black mark, where a hoof had struck him hard. The doctor frowned. The police officer told him that the trampled man had got caught in the wheel and was dragged, spinning, some thirty paces along the road.

‘Incredible he came round after that,' the doctor whispered softly to Raskolnikov.

‘So what's your verdict?' the latter asked.

‘He'll die any moment.'

‘There's no hope at all?'

‘None! His last gasp . . . Not to mention the terrible injury to his head . . . H'm. I suppose we could let some blood . . . but . . . it won't help. In five or ten minutes he'll be dead, I'm certain.'

‘Well let some blood, then!'

‘All right . . . But I warn you: it won't help.'

At that moment there came the sound of more footsteps, the crowd around the door parted and a priest, a grey old man, appeared on the threshold with the last sacraments. A police officer, one of those from before, followed him in. The doctor immediately yielded his place and gave the priest a meaningful look. Raskolnikov begged the doctor to wait a bit longer. The doctor shrugged his shoulders and stayed.

Everyone took a step back. The confession was very brief. The dying man could scarcely have taken much in; he was capable only of broken, indistinct sounds. Katerina Ivanovna grabbed Lidochka, picked the boy up off the chair, took them over towards the stove in the corner and kneeled, making the children kneel down in front of her. The girl merely shook, but the boy, kneeling on his bare little knees, steadily raised his hand, made the full sign of the cross and bowed down to the ground until he knocked his forehead, which evidently gave him particular pleasure. Katerina Ivanovna bit her lip and fought back tears; she too was praying, adjusting the boy's shirt every now and again and covering the girl's exposed shoulders with a shawl, which she'd taken from the chest of drawers while still praying on her knees. In the meantime the doors to the inner rooms were being opened again by curious
residents, while by the entrance the crush of spectators – tenants from every floor – swelled and swelled, though without crossing the threshold. Just one candle stub illuminated the entire scene.

At that moment Polenka, who had run off to fetch her sister, quickly squeezed back through to the room. She was completely out of breath from sprinting, took off her shawl, sought out her mother, walked up to her and said: ‘She's coming! I found her in the street.' Her mother got her to kneel down next to her. Soundlessly and timidly, a girl squeezed through the crowd, and strange was her sudden appearance in this room, amidst the beggary, rags, death and despair. She too wore rags; her get-up was cheap, but it came with all the adornments of the street, as the rules and etiquette of that special world demanded, with its shamingly flagrant purpose. Sonya stopped on the threshold; she didn't cross it and looked quite lost, as if her mind had gone blank. She'd quite forgotten about her fourth-hand, colourful silk dress, utterly out of place here with its ridiculously long train, and about her enormous crinoline obstructing the doorway, and her bright shoes and her parasol, which she'd taken with her even though it was night, and the ridiculous round straw hat with a feather the colour of fire.
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From beneath its boyish tilt there peered a thin, pale, frightened little face with a wide-open mouth and eyes frozen in horror. Sonya, a shortish girl of eighteen or so, was a skinny but pretty enough blonde, with marvellous blue eyes. She stared at the bed, at the priest; she too was out of breath. Eventually, a whispered word or two from the crowd must have reached her ears. Eyes lowered, she took one step over the threshold and stood in the room, though still in the doorway.

Confession and communion were over. Katerina Ivanovna returned to her husband's bed. The priest stepped back and tried, as he was leaving, to offer a few words of counsel and consolation to Katerina Ivanovna.

‘And what'll I do with this lot?' she broke in sharply, pointing at the little ones.

‘God is kind. Trust in the help of the Almighty,' the priest began.

‘Ha! Kind, just not to us!'

‘That's a sin, ma'am, a sin,' the priest remarked, shaking his head.

‘And this isn't a sin?' shouted Katerina Ivanovna, pointing at the dying man.

‘Perhaps those who were the unwitting cause will agree to recompense you, at least for the lost income . . .'

‘That's not what I mean!' Katerina Ivanovna shouted irritably with a flap of her hand. ‘Recompense for what? He got himself run over when he was drunk! What income? There was no income from him, only pain. He spent whatever there was on booze. Robbed us, then straight to the pothouse, wasting their life and mine on drink! Thank God he's dying! We can cut our losses!'

‘Forgiveness is called for in the hour of death, but this is a sin, ma'am; such feelings as these are truly a sin!'

Katerina Ivanovna was fussing around the patient, giving him water, wiping the sweat and blood from his head and adjusting the pillows, while talking to the priest and occasionally managing to turn in his direction. Now she suddenly pounced on him in a kind of frenzy.

‘Father! These are nothing but words! “Forgive!” Take today – he'd have come home drunk if he hadn't been trampled, wearing the only shirt he's got, all tattered and worn, and he'd be sound asleep two minutes later, while I'd be slopping about till dawn, washing his rags and the children's, then drying them out by the window, and at first light I'd be sitting down to mend them – so much for my night! . . . What's forgiveness got to do with it? Haven't I forgiven him enough?'

A terrible cough from deep in her chest cut her short. She spat everything into her handkerchief and held it out for the priest to see, clutching her chest with her other hand. The handkerchief was all red with blood . . .

The priest hung his head and said nothing.

Marmeladov was in the final throes. He kept his eyes fixed on Katerina Ivanovna's face as she bent over him once more. He was trying to tell her something. He made a start, working his tongue with difficulty and mumbling a word or two, but Katerina Ivanovna, realizing he was about to ask her forgiveness, instantly shouted him down:

‘Shut up! Just don't! . . . I know what you want to say!' – and he fell silent; but at that same moment his wandering gaze fell on the doorway and he saw Sonya . . .

He hadn't noticed her before; she was standing in a corner, in the shadows.

‘Who's that? Who's that?' he suddenly said in a hoarse gasp, panicking and indicating with horror-filled eyes the doorway where his daughter was standing, and straining to lift himself up.

‘Lie down! Lie down, I say!' shouted Katerina Ivanovna.

But somehow, making an unnatural effort, he managed to prop
himself up on one arm. For a while he looked wildly and fixedly at his daughter, as if unsure who she was. This was the first time, after all, that he'd seen her in such an outfit. Then suddenly he recognized her: abject, crushed, dressed up and ashamed, meekly waiting her turn to say farewell to her dying father. His face expressed infinite suffering.

‘Sonya! Daughter! Forgive!' he cried and was about to stretch out his hand towards her but, losing his balance, tumbled from the couch face down onto the floor: he was quickly picked up and put back, but he was already slipping away. Sonya gave a weak cry, ran up, embraced him and froze in that embrace. He died in her arms.

‘Well, he's done it this time!' shouted Katerina Ivanovna, seeing her husband's corpse. ‘Now what? How will I bury him? And how will I feed this lot tomorrow?'

Raskolnikov walked over to her.

‘Katerina Ivanovna,' he began, ‘last week the deceased, your husband, told me the story of his whole life, in every detail . . . Rest assured that he spoke of you with the most exalted respect. Ever since that evening, when I learned how devoted he was to you all, and, in particular, how much he respected and loved you, Katerina Ivanovna, despite his unfortunate weakness, ever since then we've been friends . . . So permit me now . . . to assist . . . as a way of returning my debt to my late friend. Here . . . twenty roubles, I believe – and if this can be of any help to you, then . . . I . . . in a word, I'll be back – for sure . . . perhaps I'll come by tomorrow . . . Goodbye!'

With that he hurried out of the room, squeezing through the crowd to the stairs; but in the crowd he suddenly came face to face with Nikodim Fomich, who'd heard about the misfortune and wanted to take charge of the situation in person. They hadn't met since the scene at the bureau, but the district superintendent recognized him at once.

‘Ah, it's you?' he asked.

‘Dead,' replied Raskolnikov. ‘The doctor came, the priest came, everything's fine. Don't trouble this poor, poor woman, she's consumptive as it is. Cheer her up, if you can . . . You're a kind sort, after all . . . ,' he added with a smirk, looking straight into his eyes.

‘But look at you – you're soaked in blood,' Nikodim Fomich observed, noticing in the light of the lantern several fresh stains on Raskolnikov's waistcoat.

‘Yes, I'm soaked . . . all red with blood!' Raskolnikov said with a peculiar air, then smiled, nodded and set off down the stairs.

He went down in no great hurry, feeling feverish all over and, though unaware of it, filled by a new, boundless sensation of life surging over him suddenly in all its strength. This sensation might have been compared to that of a man sentenced to death who's been granted a sudden and unexpected pardon. The priest, who was on his way home, caught up with him halfway down the stairs. Raskolnikov let him pass, exchanging a silent bow. But then, having almost reached the bottom, he suddenly heard rapid footsteps behind him. Someone was hurrying after him. It was Polenka. She was running and calling out to him, ‘Wait! Wait!'

He turned round. She was running down the last flight and stopped right in front of him, one step above him. A dull light seeped in from outside. Raskolnikov made out the girl's thin sweet face smiling at him, looking at him with childish cheerfulness. She was clearly delighted to have been entrusted with this task.

‘Wait, what's your name? . . . Oh yes, and where do you live?' she asked in a breathless little voice.

He laid both hands on her shoulders and gazed at her with a kind of happiness. It felt so nice to look at her – he himself didn't know why.

‘So who sent you?'

‘Sister Sonya sent me,' the girl replied, smiling even more cheerfully.

‘I thought it must have been sister Sonya.'

‘Mama sent me, too. When sister Sonya was telling me, Mama also came and said, “Quick as you can, Polenka!”'

‘Do you love sister Sonya?'

‘I love her more than anyone!' said Polenka with particular certainty, and her smile suddenly became more serious.

‘And will you love me?'

Instead of a reply he saw the girl's little face coming towards him and her chubby little lips guilelessly puckering out to kiss him. Suddenly she hugged him tight in her matchstick arms, rested her head on his shoulder and sobbed softly, pressing her face tighter and tighter against him.

‘I feel sorry for Daddy!' she said a minute later, lifting her wet face and wiping away the tears with her hands. ‘It's one bad thing after another at the moment,' she added unexpectedly, with that particular air of gravity which children always try to assume when they suddenly want to speak ‘like grown-ups'.

‘And did Daddy love you?'

‘He loved Lidochka best of all,' she continued, very seriously and unsmilingly, just like grown-ups speak, ‘because she's little and because she's sick, and he always used to give her sweets, and he taught us to read, and taught me grammar and scripture,' she added with pride, ‘and Mummy didn't say anything, but we could tell she liked it, and Daddy could, too, and Mummy wants to teach me French, because it's time for me now to receive my education.'