Crime and Punishment (49 page)

‘Is that Raskolnikov there? Has he come?' he asked in a whisper.

‘Raskolnikov? Yes. What about him? Yes, yes . . . He arrived just now, I saw . . . What about it?'

‘Well in that case I must ask you to stay here, with us, and not leave me alone with this . . . young girl. It's a trivial matter, but God knows what conclusions people may jump to. I don't want Raskolnikov talking about it
over there
 . . . Do you follow?'

‘Ah yes, yes!' said Lebezyatnikov, suddenly grasping the point. ‘Yes, you have every right . . . Your fears may be rather far-fetched, if you ask me, but still . . . you have every right. Very well, I'll stay. I'll stand here by the window and I won't get in your way . . . In my opinion, you have every right . . .'

Pyotr Petrovich returned to the couch, made himself comfortable opposite Sonya, looked at her closely and suddenly assumed a very imposing, even stern, air, as if to say, ‘Now don't you go thinking anything, young miss.' Sonya's embarrassment was complete.

‘First of all, Sofya Semyonovna, please apologize on my behalf to your much-esteemed mama . . . That's right, isn't it? Katerina Ivanovna is like a mother to you, is she not?' Pyotr Petrovich began imposingly, though not without warmth. It was clear he had the friendliest of intentions.

‘Yes, just so, sir. Like a mother, sir,' came Sonya's hurried and timid reply.

‘Well, miss, please explain to her that, as a result of circumstances
beyond my control, I am obliged to absent myself and shan't be joining you for the pancakes . . . I mean banquet, despite your mama's kind invitation.'

‘Yes, sir. I will, sir. At once, sir.' Sonechka fairly leapt from her chair.

‘But that's not
all
,' Pyotr Petrovich stopped her, smiling at her simple-minded ignorance of social niceties. ‘You clearly don't know me very well, Sofya Semyonovna, if you think that such a trivial matter, concerning no one but me, could be enough to induce me to trouble such a person as you. I have a different purpose.'

Sonya hurriedly sat down. The grey and rainbow-coloured banknotes
14
that had not been cleared from the table flashed before her eyes once more, but she quickly turned her face away and raised it to Pyotr Petrovich: it suddenly struck her as dreadfully unseemly, especially
for
her
, to look at another person's money. She began to fix her gaze on Pyotr Petrovich's gold lorgnette, which he was holding in his left hand, and also at the large, hefty, exceptionally beautiful ring with a yellow stone on the middle finger of this hand – then suddenly looked away from that, too, and, not knowing what to do with herself, ended up staring straight into Pyotr Petrovich's eyes again. After an even more imposing silence than before, the latter continued:

‘It so happened that yesterday, in passing, I exchanged a few words with the unfortunate Katerina Ivanovna. These few words were sufficient to ascertain that her current condition is, if one may use the term, unnatural . . .'

‘Yes, sir . . . unnatural, sir,' Sonya hurriedly echoed.

‘Or, to put it more simply, she's ill.'

‘Yes, sir, to put it . . . Yes, sir, she's ill.'

‘Quite. Well then, from a humane and, as it were, compassionate impulse, so to speak, I would, for my part, like to be of some use, in anticipation of her inevitable fate. It would seem that this poor, destitute family now depends on you and you alone.'

‘May I ask,' said Sonya, suddenly rising, ‘what it was you kindly said to her yesterday about the possibility of a pension? Because she told me yesterday that you have taken it upon yourself to see to a pension for her. Is that true, sir?'

‘Not at all, miss. In fact, that's almost absurd. I merely alluded to temporary assistance for the widows of civil servants who die while still in service – assuming, of course, they have a patron – but it appears
that not only did your late parent not serve his time, but recently he wasn't even serving at all. In short, what hope there was has proved highly ephemeral, because, in essence, no grounds for assistance exist in this case. In fact, just the opposite . . . And she's already thinking about a pension, heh-heh-heh! She's a plucky one!'

‘Yes, sir, a pension . . . She's gullible and good, you see, so good she believes everything and . . . and . . . and . . . what a mind she has . . . Yes, sir . . . sorry, sir,' said Sonya and again got up to leave.

‘That's not all, miss.'

‘No, sir, not all, sir,' muttered Sonya.

‘Well sit down, then.'

Terribly abashed, Sonya sat down once again, for a third time.

‘Seeing the nature of her plight, and her unfortunate infants, I should like – as I have already said – to make myself, insofar as my means permit, useful in some way; as I say, only insofar as my means permit, miss, no more than that. One could, for example, collect contributions for her or, say, organize a lottery . . . or something of the kind – as is always done in such cases by friends and family or by outsiders who simply wish to help. Now that is what I intended to tell you about. It could be done, miss.'

‘Yes, sir, very good, sir . . . May God . . . ,' babbled Sonya, staring at Pyotr Petrovich.

‘Could be done, miss . . . but that's for later . . . Actually, why don't we make a start today? We could meet this evening, come to an arrangement and establish, as it were, a foundation. Come and find me here at about seven. Andrei Semyonovich, I hope, will also join us . . . But . . . one particular circumstance needs to be mentioned in advance and in detail. Indeed, Sofya Semyonovna, it is for this reason that I have troubled you now. Specifically, miss, it would be unwise, in my view, to give money to Katerina Ivanovna directly; today's banquet is proof of the fact. Without, as it were, one crust of daily food for tomorrow, without . . . well, shoes and all of that, she goes and purchases Jamaican rum for today and even, if I'm not mistaken, Madeira and coffee. I noticed while walking past. But tomorrow it'll be you picking up the pieces, down to the last crumb of bread. It's just absurd, miss. Which is why the contributions, in my personal view, should be collected in such a way that the unfortunate widow, as it were, would not know about the money, and you, for example, would be the only one who did. Am I right?'

‘I don't know, sir. It's only today she's like that, sir . . . Just once in all her life . . . She so much wanted to do something in his honour, in his memory . . . and she's so clever, sir. But as you wish, sir, and I will be very, very . . . They will all be very, very . . . And may God . . . and the orphans, sir . . .'

Sonya didn't finish and burst into tears.

‘I see. Well, miss, bear that in mind; and now kindly accept, in your relative's interests and as my means permit, this initial sum from me personally. I do most sincerely hope that my name shall not be mentioned in this connection. Here you are, miss . . . Having, as it were, preoccupations of my own, this is as much as I . . .'

With that, Pyotr Petrovich held out a ten-rouble banknote, unfolding it with great care. Sonya took it, flushed, leapt to her feet, muttered something and began hastily taking her leave. Pyotr Petrovich accompanied her solemnly to the door. Eventually she all but ran out of the room, overwhelmed and exhausted, and returned to Katerina Ivanovna in a state of the most extreme confusion.

Andrei Semyonovich spent the duration of the scene either standing by the window or walking around the room, reluctant to interrupt the conversation; but just as soon as Sonya left, he walked up to Pyotr Petrovich and solemnly extended his hand.

‘I heard everything and I
saw
everything,' he said, laying particular emphasis on the penultimate word. ‘How noble . . . I mean to say, how very humane! You wished to avoid being thanked, I saw! And while I admit that I am unable, on principle, to approve of private charity, which not only fails to eradicate evil at its core but actually provides it with further sustenance, nevertheless I am unable not to admit that it was a pleasure to observe your action – yes indeed, a pleasure.'

‘Pah, what nonsense!' muttered Pyotr Petrovich, who was somewhat restless and kept stealing glances at Lebezyatnikov.

‘No it isn't! Here you are, a man insulted and exasperated by yesterday's incident, yet still able to consider the misfortune of others – such a man, sir . . . though he may be committing a social error with his actions . . . is, nevertheless, worthy of respect! In fact, you've surprised me, Pyotr Petrovich, especially since your own ideas – oh! How these ideas of yours still hold you back! How upset you are, for example, by yesterday's setback!' exclaimed Andrei Semyonovich with his customary niceness, feeling another surge of goodwill towards Pyotr Petrovich. ‘And why, why are you so set on this marriage, on this
lawful
marriage, most noble, most courteous Pyotr Petrovich? Why must you have this
lawfulness
in marriage? Well, punch me if you wish, but I'm so glad it didn't come off, that you're free, that you're not yet entirely lost to humanity. Yes, I'm glad . . . There, I've said my piece!'

‘For the simple reason, sir, that I have no wish, in this civil marriage of yours, to wear horns and raise other people's children – that's why I need a lawful marriage,' said Luzhin by way of an answer. He was, for some reason, especially preoccupied and pensive.

‘Children? Did I hear you say children?' asked Andrei Semyonovich with a start, like a warhorse hearing the battle trumpet. ‘Children are a social question and a question of prime importance, I agree, but this question will have a different solution. Some go so far as to reject children entirely, together with any allusion to family life. We'll talk about children later, but first let's deal with the horns! It's my weak point, I'll admit. This vile, hussarish Pushkinism
15
is inconceivable in the lexicon of the future. What are horns anyway? Oh, what a fallacy! Which horns? Why horns? What nonsense! On the contrary, in a civil marriage there won't be any horns! Horns are merely the natural consequence of any lawful marriage, its corrective, a protest, so in this sense they aren't even remotely demeaning . . . And if I ever – to take an absurd example – find myself in a lawful marriage, I'll be only too glad to wear your sodding horns, and I'll tell my wife: “My dear, before I merely loved you, but now I respect you,
16
because you've managed to protest!” You're laughing? Only because you're unable to abandon your preconceptions! I understand perfectly well how unpleasant it is to be cuckolded in a lawful marriage, dammit; but this is merely the lousy consequence of a lousy fact, whereby both parties are demeaned. When horns are on open display, as they are in a civil marriage, they no longer exist, they're inconceivable and can no longer even be described as horns. On the contrary, your wife will simply be showing you how much she respects you by deeming you incapable of standing in the way of her happiness and enlightened enough not to seek revenge for her new husband. Dammit, I sometimes dream of how, were I to be married off – sorry, I mean were I ever to marry (be it a civil or a lawful marriage) – I'd bring my wife a lover myself, if she were slow to take one. “My dear,” I would say to her, “I love you, but on top of that I would like you to respect me – so here you go!” I'm right, am I not?'

Pyotr Petrovich tittered as he listened, but without any great enthusiasm. He wasn't even really listening. He had something else on his mind and even Lebezyatnikov eventually noticed. In fact, Pyotr Petrovich was quite excited about something, rubbing his hands and lost in thought. Only later did Andrei Semyonovich remember this and piece it all together . . .

It would be hard to identify with any precision the reasons that gave rise, in the distressed mind of Katerina Ivanovna, to the notion of this idiotic banquet. Nearly half of the twenty-odd roubles received from Raskolnikov and intended for the funeral itself had been thrown at it. Perhaps Katerina Ivanovna felt that she owed it to the deceased to honour his memory by ‘doing things properly', in order that all the tenants, and especially Amalia Ivanovna Lippewechsel, understood that not only was Marmeladov ‘not one whit worse' than them, but very possibly ‘a cut above them', and that none of them had any right to ‘turn their nose up' at him. Perhaps the most influential factor here was that particular
pauper's pride
, whereby certain social rituals, deemed obligatory for all and sundry in our country, lead many to stretch their resources to the limit and spend what few copecks they've saved merely in order to be ‘no worse than the others' and to prevent any of these others somehow ‘finding fault' with them. It also seems more than likely that Katerina Ivanovna, on precisely this occasion, at precisely this moment, when the whole world seemed to have forsaken her, felt like showing all these ‘worthless and poxy tenants' that not only did she know ‘how to live and how to receive', but also that this was nothing compared to the life she was raised for ‘in the noble, one might even say aristocratic house of a colonel', and that the last thing she of all people was brought up to do was sweep floors and wash children's rags by night. Such paroxysms of pride and vanity do sometimes visit the poorest and most browbeaten people, in whom, on occasion, they are transformed into a nervous, irrepressible need. Katerina Ivanovna, moreover, was not the browbeaten sort: she could be beaten to death by circumstances, but for her to be morally beaten, through intimidation and the subordination of her will – that was simply impossible. Sonechka, moreover, had every reason to say that Katerina Ivanovna was unhinged. True, it was still too early to assert this
definitively, but there was no doubt that over the past year her poor mind had been through far too much not to have been at least partly affected. The later stages of consumption, the medics say, also lead to the impairment of the mental faculties.

Wines
, as such, were not on offer, nor was Madeira: that was an exaggeration. Still, there was Lisbon wine, and there was vodka, and there was rum, making up in quantity what they lacked in quality. In terms of food, apart from the
kutya
,
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there were three or four dishes (pancakes among them), all from Amalia Ivanovna's kitchen, as well as two samovars on the go for the tea, and punch to follow the meal. Katerina Ivanovna had seen to the purchases herself with the help of a tenant, some sorry little Pole living at Mrs Lippewechsel's for reasons best known to himself, who was immediately recruited as Katerina Ivanovna's errand boy and spent the whole of the previous day and the whole of that morning tearing about at breakneck speed with his tongue hanging out – something he seemed particularly keen to draw attention to. He came running up to Katerina Ivanovna on the merest trifle, even went looking for her in the shops of Gostiny Dvor,
18
and was forever calling her
Pani chorazyna
,
19
until she was heartily sick of the sight of him, although to start with she'd been saying how lost she would have been without this ‘obliging and high-minded' man. It was a feature of Katerina Ivanovna's character to paint every random acquaintance in the best and brightest colours, making some of them feel quite uneasy, and, to this end, to invent all manner of circumstances with not the slightest foundation in reality, but which she believed in with complete, open-hearted sincerity, and then, all of sudden, to be disappointed, to cut off, insult and forcibly drive out the same person whom, only a few hours earlier, she had been literally worshipping. By nature she was of a giggly, cheerful and peaceable disposition, but an endless succession of misfortunes and setbacks had made her so very
fierce
in desiring and demanding that everyone live in peace and joy and
dare not
live otherwise that the slightest discordant note, the smallest setback, instantly drove her to a virtual frenzy, and in the blink of an eye, after the brightest possible hopes and fantasies, she began cursing fate, ripping up whatever came to hand, hurling it across the room and bashing her head against the wall. Amalia Ivanovna had also suddenly gained extraordinary significance and respect in Katerina Ivanovna's eyes, for no other reason, perhaps, than the fact that there was a funeral banquet to arrange and
Amalia Ivanovna was putting her heart and soul into preparing it: she'd taken it upon herself to set the table, provide the linen, the crockery and so on, and cook the food in her kitchen. Setting out for the cemetery, Katerina Ivanovna had left her in sole command. And the results were truly impressive: the table was set and looked almost clean; the crockery, forks, knives, cups and glasses for wine and vodka were a jumble of different styles and qualities, gathered from various tenants, but everything was in place on time, and Amalia Ivanovna, sensing that she had excelled at her task, greeted the returning group with a certain pride, all dressed up in a bonnet with new mourning ribbons and a black gown. This pride, however well-earned, was not to Katerina Ivanovna's liking: ‘You'd have thought we couldn't set a table without her!' Nor did she like the bonnet with new ribbons: ‘I wouldn't put it past this stupid German to take pride in the fact that she's the landlady here and has agreed to help some poor tenants out of the goodness of her heart. I mean, really! There were times when Papa, who was a colonel and very nearly a governor, had the table set for forty and no Amalia Ivanovnas – or perhaps I should say Ludwigovnas – were allowed anywhere near it, nor even the kitchen . . .' Still, Katerina Ivanovna resolved to keep her feelings to herself for the time being, though in her heart she'd decided that today was the day to take Amalia Ivanovna down a peg or two and remind her of her proper place, or else God only knows what airs she might start giving herself, but for now she contented herself with being merely unfriendly. Katerina Ivanovna's irritation was further exacerbated by the fact that almost none of the tenants invited to the funeral showed up at the cemetery, except for the Pole, who seemed to turn up everywhere; the banquet, meanwhile, had drawn only the poorest and most inconsequential lodgers, many looking quite out of sorts – the dregs of society, if ever there were. Those who were a bit older and a bit more respectable had all made themselves scarce, as if by prior agreement. Pyotr Petrovich Luzhin, for example, the most respectable of all the tenants, was nowhere to be seen, yet only the previous evening Katerina Ivanovna had been telling anyone who would listen – namely, Amalia Ivanovna, Polechka, Sonya and the Pole – that he was the noblest and most high-minded of men, that he had vast connections and great wealth, that he'd been a friend of her first husband and was received by her father at home, and that he was promising to do all he could to arrange a sizeable pension for her. We should note at this
point that if Katerina Ivanovna boasted of someone else's connections and means, she did so without any personal interest or design, entirely selflessly, from the warmth of her heart, as it were, and for no other reason than the pleasure of ascribing even greater merit to the object of her praise. ‘That toad Lebezyatnikov' hadn't shown up either – he must have ‘taken his cue' from Luzhin. ‘Who does he think he is? We only invited him out of the goodness of our hearts and because he shares a room with Pyotr Petrovich, his acquaintance. It would have been awkward not to.' Also absent were a lady of fashion and her ‘overripe wench of a daughter' – they'd only been lodging at Amalia Ivanovna's for two weeks, but they'd already made several complaints about the hue and cry emanating from the Marmeladovs' room, especially when the deceased came home drunk, and these, needless to say, had been conveyed to Katerina Ivanovna by Amalia Ivanovna herself when she, quarrelling with Katerina Ivanovna and threatening to throw out the entire family, yelled at the top of her voice that they were disturbing ‘noble tenants whose toes they were not worth'. So Katerina Ivanovna had made a point of inviting this lady and her daughter, ‘whose toes they were not worth', especially as the lady was in the habit of turning away from her in disdain whenever they chanced to meet – well, now was the time for her to find out that around here ‘people have a nobler way of thinking and feeling, and issue invitations without bearing grudges', and for them to see that this was the least Katerina Ivanovna was accustomed to. Her plan was to explain this to them during the meal, and to tell them about the governorship of her late papa, while giving them to understand that there was no need for them to turn away on meeting her and that nothing could be more silly. Absent, too, was the fat lieutenant colonel (actually, a retired junior captain), who, it turned out, had been ‘the worse for wear' since the previous morning. In short, the only people present were: the Pole; a shabby, tongue-tied paper-pusher, wearing a soiled tailcoat, ridden with acne and smelling disgusting; and a deaf and almost completely blind old man, who'd once worked in some post office and whom someone, since time immemorial and for reasons unknown, had been maintaining at Amalia Ivanovna's. There was also a drunk retired lieutenant – actually, a quartermaster – who had the loudest and most indecent laugh imaginable and who appeared (‘Fancy that!') without a waistcoat! Some other chap just sat down at the table without even a bow in Katerina Ivanovna's direction;
and, lastly, one character, lacking the appropriate attire, turned up in his house-gown, but this was simply too indecent and he was shown out through the joint efforts of Amalia Ivanovna and the Pole. The Pole, though, had brought along two more compatriots, who had never once stayed at Amalia Ivanovna's and whom no one had ever seen in her rooms before. Katerina Ivanovna found it all extremely disagreeable and extremely annoying. ‘So who have we gone to all this bother for?' To make space, the children were not even at the table, which already took up the whole of the room, but on a trunk in the far corner, where both the little ones were sat on a bench, while Polechka, being the eldest, was charged with watching over them, feeding them and keeping their noses clean, ‘like all noble children'. In short, Katerina Ivanovna found herself greeting everyone with redoubled self-importance, even haughtiness. She ran a particularly fierce eye over some of the guests, before condescendingly inviting them to sit down. Convinced for whatever reason that Amalia Ivanovna should be held responsible for all the absentees, she suddenly became exceptionally short with her, which Amalia Ivanovna immediately noticed, becoming exceptionally offended. Such beginnings did not augur well. Eventually, everyone took their places.

Raskolnikov walked in almost at the very moment they got back from the cemetery. Katerina Ivanovna was terribly pleased to see him. Firstly, because he was the only ‘educated guest' present and, as everyone knew, was ‘in line for a chair at the university here in two years' time', and secondly, because he made an instant and courteous apology to her for having had to miss the funeral, much to his regret. She all but threw herself on him, offered him the seat to her left (Amalia Ivanovna was on her right) and, despite her endless fussing and worrying about how the food was being served and whether everyone had their share, despite the excruciating cough which kept interrupting her and choking her and which seemed to have got a great deal worse during these past two days, constantly engaged him in conversation and, in a half-whisper, poured out to him all her pent-up feelings and all her righteous indignation about the failed banquet; moreover, her indignation frequently gave way to the gayest, most irrepressible ridicule of the assembled company, and of the landlady in particular.

‘It's all the fault of that cuckoo over there. You know who I mean. Her! Her!' she told Raskolnikov, nodding in the direction of the landlady. ‘Just look at her with those eyes popping out of her head. She
senses we're talking about her, but can't understand a thing. A real owl! Ha-ha-ha! . . . Cuh-cuh-cuh! And what's she trying to say with that bonnet of hers? Cuh-cuh-cuh! Have you noticed how desperate she is for everyone to think she's bestowing her favour on me and honouring me with her presence? I asked her nicely enough to invite the right sort of people, by which I mean acquaintances of the dear departed, and look who she's dragged in: clowns and slatterns! Take that one with the filthy face: a real snot-rag! And as for these Polskees . . . Ha-ha-ha! Cuh-cuh-cuh! Nobody, and I mean nobody, has ever seen them here before, and I've never seen them. So why have they come? Tell me that! So solemn, the lot of them. Hey,
Panie
!
'
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she suddenly yelled at one of them. ‘Had your pancakes yet? Have some seconds! And have some beer! Or perhaps some vodka? Just look at him leaping to his feet and bowing to the floor. They must be starving, poor chaps! Well, let them eat. At least they're not rowdy, although . . . although I fear for the landlady's silver spoons! . . . Amalia Ivanovna!' she suddenly said to her, for almost everyone to hear. ‘If they do steal your spoons don't expect me to answer for it! Ha-ha-ha!' she continued, in stitches, before turning to Raskolnikov again and nodding towards the landlady, delighted with her sally. ‘She didn't understand. Once again she didn't understand! Look at her sitting there, gawping: an owl, a proper owl, a screech owl in new ribbons – ha-ha-ha!'

Here her laughter turned once more into a violent fit of coughing that lasted a good five minutes. It left blood on her handkerchief and beads of sweat on her forehead. She showed the blood to Raskolnikov in silence and, scarcely pausing to catch her breath, started whispering to him again in the most animated tones, with red blotches all over her cheeks: