Crime and Punishment (67 page)

‘And what brings you here, old boy?' exclaimed Ilya Petrovich. (He was evidently in a splendid mood and even a little overexcited.) ‘If it's business, you're a touch on the early side. It's pure chance I'm . . . But anyway, how may I . . . ? I must admit, Mr . . . Mr . . . I beg your pardon . . .'

‘Raskolnikov.'

‘Too right: Raskolnikov! And you thought I'd forgotten! Please don't take me for some . . . Rodion Ro . . . Ro . . . Rodionych, I believe?'

‘Rodion Romanych.'

‘Yes, yes-yes! Rodion Romanych, Rodion Romanych!
That's
what I was after. I even asked around about it. I must admit, ever since that day I've truly mourned the fact that we . . . later I had it all explained to me: a young literary type, a scholar no less . . . The first steps, as it were . . . Good Lord! Hasn't every literary type or scholar begun by taking an original step or two? My wife and I, we both respect literature, but for her it's a passion! . . . Literature and artistry! Be honourable and all the rest can be acquired by talents, learning, reasoning, genius! A hat, say – now what's the meaning of a hat? A hat's a pancake, I can buy it at Zimmerman's;
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but as for what's kept under the hat, what's kept hidden by the hat – well, I can't buy that, sir! . . . I must
admit, I had half a mind to pay you a visit and clear the air, but then I thought, perhaps you . . . But I haven't even asked: is there anything we can actually do for you? I hear your family has come to see you?'

‘Yes, my mother and sister.'

‘I've even had the honour and pleasure of meeting your sister – an educated and delightful young lady. I must admit, I regretted the way you and I got so carried away. Won't happen again! And as for my giving you a funny look on account of you fainting – well, a most brilliant explanation was soon found for all that! Zealotry and fanaticism! I understand your indignation. Perhaps you're changing address on account of your family's arrival?'

‘N-no, I just . . . I came to ask . . . I thought I'd find Zametov here.'

‘Oh yes! The two of you hit it off, I hear. Well, Zametov's not here – you're out of luck. Yes, sir, we've lost Alexander Grigoryevich! Absent since yesterday; moved on . . . and, while moving, fell out with just about everyone . . . Wasn't even civil about it . . . A flighty little boy, no two ways about it. Promising enough at one time; but that's what they're like, our brilliant youth! Seems he wants to take some exam or other, but you don't get a diploma for chatting and bragging. Not a bit like you, say, or your friend Mr Razumikhin! Yours is the career of a scholar, no misfortune will throw you off course! For you, one might say, life's fripperies –
nihil est
; you're an ascetic, a monk, a hermit! . . . A book, a pen behind your ear, scholarly publications – only there does your spirit soar! I myself . . . perhaps you've read Livingstone's journals?'
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‘No.'

‘Well I have. But there's so many nihilists about nowadays. Quite understandable, I suppose; just think of the times we're living in! Although you and I . . . Well, I'm sure you're not a nihilist! Answer me frankly now, frankly!'

‘N-no . . .'

‘Really, be frank with me, don't hold back – talk as if you were the only person in the room! Public service is one thing, quite another is . . . Ha, you thought I was going to say
friendship
! No sir, not friendship, but the sense of being a citizen and a man,
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the sense of one's humanity and love for the Almighty. I may be a state official, I may be at my post, but I am forever obliged to sense the citizen within
me, to stand up and be counted . . . You saw fit to mention Zametov just now. You know, Zametov's just the type to do something disgraceful, something French, in some seedy establishment, over a glass of champagne or Russian wine – that's Zametov for you! Whereas I, so to speak, burn with loyalty and fine feelings; not only that, I am a man of consequence and rank, with a certain position! Married, with children. Fulfilling my duty as citizen and man. And who's he, pray tell? I speak to you as to a man ennobled by education. Or take these new midwives: there's far too many of them about.'

Raskolnikov raised his eyebrows. For the most part, the words uttered by Ilya Petrovich, evidently just up from the dinner table, rained down on him like empty sounds. Some of them, though, made a kind of sense. He gave him a questioning glance and wondered where it would all end.

‘I mean those short-haired wenches,' the loquacious Ilya Petrovich went on. ‘Midwives is my own little nickname, and I find the description more than satisfactory. Heh-heh! There they are, sneaking into the medical academy to study anatomy.
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But tell me, when I get sick am I really going to ask a young lady to treat me? Heh-heh!'

Ilya Petrovich guffawed, savouring his wit.

‘An immoderate thirst for enlightenment, I suppose, but one must know when to stop. Why abuse one's privilege? Why insult honourable people, as that scoundrel Zametov likes to do? Why did he insult me, I ask you? Or take all these suicides – you can't imagine how common it's become. Spending their last roubles, then doing themselves in. Young girls, young boys, old men . . . Only this morning a report came in about some gentleman, a recent arrival. Nil Pavlych? Hey, Nil Pavlych! What was his name again, that well-mannered gent who shot himself yesterday on Petersburg Side?'

‘Svidrigailov,' came a hoarse, indifferent voice from the other room.

Raskolnikov shuddered.

‘Svidrigailov! Svidrigailov's shot himself!' he cried.

‘You mean you know Svidrigailov?!'

‘Yes . . . I know him . . . He arrived not long ago.'

‘That's right, arrived not long ago, recently widowed, a rake if ever there was, and suddenly shot himself in the most scandalous way imaginable . . . Left a few lines in his notebook to say he was sound of mind and to ask that no one be blamed for his death. Had money, I hear. But how do you know him?'

‘We're . . . acquainted . . . My sister was their governess . . .'

‘Well, well, well . . . Then there must be things you can tell us about him. And you didn't suspect anything?'

‘I saw him only yesterday . . . He . . . was drinking wine . . . I didn't know.'

Raskolnikov felt as though something had fallen on him, crushed him.

‘You seem to be turning pale again. There's never enough air in here . . .'

‘Yes, sir, time for me to be off,' mumbled Raskolnikov. ‘Sorry for disturbing . . .'

‘Not at all, not at all. Always a pleasure! And I'm glad to declare . . .'

Ilya Petrovich even offered him his hand.

‘I simply wanted . . . It was Zametov I . . .'

‘I understand, I understand. Always a pleasure!'

‘I'm . . . very glad . . . Goodbye, sir,' smiled Raskolnikov.

He walked out, swaying. His head was spinning. He couldn't even feel his legs. He started down the stairs, supporting himself against the wall with his right arm. He had the impression that some caretaker, with a register in his hand, shoved him on his way up to the bureau; that a dog was barking away furiously on a floor below and that a woman had thrown a rolling pin at it and yelled. He reached the bottom and stepped outside. There in the yard, not far from the door, numb and deathly pale, stood Sonya, looking at him wild-eyed. He stopped in front of her. There was something sick and haggard about her expression, something desperate. She threw up her hands. His lips forced out a hideous, bewildered smile. He stood, grinned and went back upstairs, back to the bureau.

Ilya Petrovich had sat down and was rummaging through some papers. Before him stood the same man who'd just shoved Raskolnikov on his way up the stairs.

‘Eh? You again? Left something, did you? Whatever's the matter?'

Raskolnikov, lips white, eyes fixed, advanced slowly towards him, went right up to the desk, leant on it, tried to say something, but couldn't; nothing came out except a few incoherent sounds.

‘You're having a bad turn! A chair! Here, sit down on this chair! Sit! Some water!'

Raskolnikov lowered himself into the chair, without taking his eyes off the face of the very unpleasantly astonished Ilya Petrovich. They looked at each other for a minute or so, waiting. The water arrived.

‘It was me . . . ,' Raskolnikov began.

‘Have some water.'

Raskolnikov moved the water aside and said quietly yet distinctly, with pauses between the words:

‘
It was me who murdered that civil servant's old widow
and her sister Lizaveta with an axe, and robbed them
.'

Ilya Petrovich opened his mouth. People ran in from all sides.

Raskolnikov repeated his
statement.

Siberia. On the bank of a broad, deserted river there stands a town, one of Russia's administrative centres; in the town, a fortress; in the fortress, a prison.
1
In the prison, having already served nine months of his sentence, is the exiled convict of the second category
2
Rodion Raskolnikov. Since the date of his crime almost eighteen months have passed.

His trial went smoothly enough. The criminal backed up his statement firmly, precisely and clearly, without muddling the circumstances, without mitigating them to his own advantage, without distorting the facts, without forgetting the slightest detail. He described the entire process of the murder, to the very end: explained the mystery of the
pledge
(the small bit of wood with a metal strip), which was found in the hands of the murdered old woman; gave a detailed account of how he took the victim's keys, described those keys, described the box and what was in it; even enumerated some of the objects it contained; explained the mystery of Lizaveta's murder; described how Kokh, and then the student, came and knocked, and repeated everything they said to each other; how he, the criminal, then ran downstairs and heard Mikolka's and Mitka's squeals; how he hid in an empty apartment and got back home; and in conclusion identified the stone in the yard, on Voznesensky Prospect, by the gates, beneath which the items and the purse were found. The case, in short, could hardly have been clearer. The investigators and the judges were very surprised, though, to learn that he had hidden the purse and items beneath the stone without availing himself of them and, even more so, that not only could he not recall in any detail all the items he himself had stolen, but even misremembered how many there were. The simple fact that he had never once opened the purse and did not even know how much money there was inside seemed improbable (the purse was found to contain three hundred and seventeen roubles in silver and three twenty-copeck pieces; after being kept so long beneath the stone, some of the largest notes at the top were severely
damaged). They struggled long and hard to find out why exactly the accused was lying about this one particular circumstance, while voluntarily and truthfully pleading guilty to everything else. In the end, some (especially the psychologists among them) went so far as to admit the possibility that he really had not looked inside the purse, which was why he did not know what was in it, and, in his ignorance, had gone and buried it beneath a stone; but this immediately led them to conclude that the crime itself could only have been committed in a state of temporary insanity, as a result, so to speak, of a monomaniacal obsession with murder and robbery, with no further aims in mind or expectation of profit. Here, incidentally, they were helped by the latest fashionable theory of temporary insanity,
3
which is so frequently cited nowadays to explain certain crimes. What was more, the long history of Raskolnikov's hypochondriac condition was attested in meticulous detail by numerous witnesses, by Doctor Zosimov, his former friends, his landlady, his maid. All this greatly facilitated the conclusion that Raskolnikov did not really resemble an ordinary murderer, felon and robber: this was something else. To the intense irritation of all who defended this point of view, the criminal made almost no attempt to defend himself; to the crucial questions ‘What exactly could have induced him to commit homicide?' and ‘What prompted him to carry out the robbery?' he gave the very lucid reply, positively rude in its precision, that the cause of it all had been the squalor of his circumstances; his beggary and helplessness; his desire to secure the first steps in his career with the help of the three thousand roubles, if not more, that he had expected to find at the victim's home. He had managed to go through with the murder thanks to his frivolous and craven character, which, moreover, had been irritated by hardship and failure. In reply to the question of what exactly had prompted him to turn himself in, he answered frankly: heartfelt remorse. There was something almost rude about it all . . .

The sentence, however, proved more lenient than might have been expected, given the nature of the crime, perhaps precisely because the criminal not only did not wish to justify himself, but even evinced a desire to incriminate himself further. All the strange and specific circumstances of the case were taken into account. Not a single doubt was cast on the criminal's sick and desperate condition before the perpetration of the crime. The fact that he had not availed himself of the stolen goods was partly ascribed to the effect of awakened remorse, partly to
the imperfect state of his mental faculties during the perpetration of the crime. The unplanned murder of Lizaveta only served to reinforce the latter hypothesis: a man commits two murders while leaving the door open! Lastly, the timing of the confession, just when the case had become exceptionally muddled as a result of the false self-accusations of a disheartened zealot (Mikolai) and when, moreover, there was a near total absence not only of clear evidence concerning the actual offender, but even of any suspicion (Porfiry Petrovich had been as good as his word) – all this did much to ease the lot of the accused.

Quite unexpectedly, other circumstances also emerged that greatly favoured the defendant. The former student Razumikhin managed to exhume some information enabling him to prove that the criminal Raskolnikov, during his time at university, spent all he had on helping a poor, consumptive fellow student and supported him almost single-handedly for half a year. When his friend died, Raskolnikov took care of his old invalid father (whom his friend had supported and fed, by his own labour, ever since his early teens), eventually placed the old man in a hospital and, when he died too, arranged his burial. All this had a favourable influence on how Raskolnikov's fate was decided. Meanwhile, the widow Zarnitsyna, Raskolnikov's former landlady and the mother of his dead fiancée, testified that when they were still living at the previous address, at the Five Corners, Raskolnikov had pulled two small children out of a burning apartment, at night, and was himself burned in the process. This fact was thoroughly investigated and reasonably well attested by numerous witnesses. In short, it all ended with the criminal being sentenced to only eight years hard labour, second category, in view of his voluntary confession and other mitigating circumstances.

Raskolnikov's mother fell ill at the very beginning of the trial. Dunya and Razumikhin deemed it appropriate to take her away from Petersburg until it was over. Razumikhin chose a town on the railway line, a short distance away, in order to keep a close eye on all the developments at the trial, while seeing Avdotya Romanovna as often as possible. Pulkheria Alexandrovna was suffering from a rather strange, nervous sickness, accompanied by something resembling insanity, at least in part. When Dunya returned from seeing her brother for the last time, she found her mother very ill indeed, feverish and delirious. That same evening she and Razumikhin agreed what they would say to her when she asked about Raskolnikov, and even concocted a long
story about how Raskolnikov had left for some far-flung place, near the Russian border, on a private mission that would finally bring him both fame and fortune. But they were shocked that Pulkheria Alexandrovna never asked about any of this, neither then nor later. On the contrary, she herself came out with a long story about her son's sudden departure, tearfully describing how he had come to say goodbye to her and hinting as she did so that she alone was privy to many very important and mysterious circumstances and that Rodya had many very powerful enemies, to the point that he had been forced into hiding. As for his future career, she was certain it would prove quite brilliant, once certain hostile circumstances had passed; she assured Razumikhin that with time her son would even become a statesman, as his article and brilliant literary gifts indicated so clearly. She could barely put the article down; she even read it out loud and all but slept with it. Yet the question ‘Where's Rodya?' hardly ever escaped her lips, though it was perfectly obvious that everyone was avoiding the subject in her presence – which in itself should have aroused her suspicions. Eventually, Pulkheria Alexandrovna's peculiar silence on certain points began to frighten the others. For example, she wouldn't even complain that he hadn't sent a single letter, whereas before, in her little town, it was the hope that a letter from darling Rodya might be on its way that kept her going. This last circumstance was simply inexplicable and worried Dunya deeply; her mother, it occurred to her, probably had some dreadful foreboding about Rodya's fate and feared to ask too many questions, lest she learn something even more dreadful. In any case, Dunya could see quite clearly that Pulkheria Alexandrovna was not in her right mind.

Once or twice, though, she herself broached topics that made it impossible, when replying, not to mention Rodya's exact whereabouts; and when these replies inevitably proved unsatisfactory and suspicious, she would suddenly become extraordinarily sad, sullen and silent, and would remain in that state for a very long time. Dunya finally realized how hard it was to keep lying and making things up, and decided it would be better simply to say nothing at all on certain points; but it was becoming ever more obvious that her poor mother suspected something dreadful. Dunya remembered her brother saying that Mother had heard her raving the night before that last, fateful day, after her row with Svidrigailov: might she have caught something? Often, sometimes after several days and even weeks of sullen, gloomy
silence and wordless tears, the ailing woman would become almost hysterically animated and suddenly start talking, with barely a pause, about her son, her hopes, the future . . . Her fantasies could be very strange indeed. They humoured her and encouraged her, and she herself, perhaps, could see very well that she was being encouraged and merely humoured, but still she went on talking . . .

The sentence followed five months after the criminal's confession. Razumikhin went to see him in prison whenever he could. Sonya did the same. Then, finally, came the hour of parting. Dunya swore to her brother that it was not forever; Razumikhin did the same. A plan had lodged itself firmly in Razumikhin's hot, young head: to try, over the next three to four years, to lay at least the foundations of their future income, to put at least a certain amount of money aside and move to Siberia, where the soil was rich in every sense of the word, and where workers, people and capital were in short supply; to set up home there, in the very same town where Rodya would be, and . . . to begin a new life all together. Saying goodbye, they were all in tears. During the last few days Raskolnikov had been very pensive, kept asking about his mother and worried about her constantly. In fact, he tormented himself so much about her that Dunya became alarmed. Learning in detail about his mother's morbid mood, he became very gloomy. For some reason he was always especially untalkative with Sonya. With the help of the money left to her by Svidrigailov, Sonya had been ready and waiting, for some time now, to follow the party of convicts with which he would be sent. Not a word had been said about this between herself and Raskolnikov; but both knew that this was how it would be. At the final leave-taking he smiled strangely at the passionate assurances given by his sister and Razumikhin about the happy life ahead of them after his release, and predicted that his mother's illness would soon end in disaster. Finally, he and Sonya left.

Two months later, Dunechka and Razumikhin were married. The wedding was a sad, quiet affair. Among the guests were Porfiry Petrovich and Zosimov. Throughout this period Razumikhin bore a look of unshakeable resolve. Dunya was unquestioning in her faith that he would carry out all his intentions, and how could she not be? There was no mistaking his iron will. He also began attending university lectures again, so as to complete his studies. Both were constantly hatching plans for the future, and both were set on moving to Siberia in five years' time. Until then, they were counting on Sonya . . .

Pulkheria Alexandrovna gladly gave her blessing to her daughter's marriage; but after the wedding she seemed to become even sadder and more preoccupied. To offer her at least a moment's relief, Razumikhin told her, among other things, about the student and his decrepit father, about how Rodya was burned and even fell ill after rescuing two infants the previous year. Both these facts brought Pulkheria Alexandrovna's already unsettled mind to a pitch of near ecstasy. She couldn't stop talking about them, even with strangers in the street (though Dunya accompanied her everywhere). On the omnibus, in shops, wherever she could grab anyone's attention, she would steer the conversation to her son, to his article, to how he helped a student, was burned in a fire, etcetera. Dunechka couldn't think how to restrain her. Leaving aside all the dangers of such an ecstatic, morbid state of mind, there was the disastrous possibility of someone mentioning the name Raskolnikov in connection with the trial and talking about it. Pulkheria Alexandrovna even found out the address of the mother of the two infants rescued in the fire and was determined to go and see her. Eventually, her anxiety reached extreme proportions. Sometimes she would suddenly start crying, often she would fall ill and start raving. One morning she announced that, according to her calculations, Rodya should soon be arriving; that she remembered how, when saying goodbye to her, he himself mentioned that they should expect him back in precisely nine months' time. She began tidying up the apartment and preparing for the reunion, decorating the room set aside for him (her own), dusting off the furniture, washing and hanging new curtains, etcetera. Dunya was alarmed, but said nothing and even helped her prepare the room for her brother. After a restless day of ceaseless fantasies, joyous daydreams and tears, she fell ill overnight; the next morning she was already running a fever and raving, began shaking and shivering. Two weeks later she died. In her delirium, words slipped out to suggest that she suspected far more about her son's dreadful fate than they had even thought possible.