Crime and Punishment (22 page)

‘And as for you, Madam this-that-and-the-other,’ he suddenly shouted at the top of his voice (the lady in mourning had gone by this time), ‘what was happening at your place last night? Eh? More shameful goings-on, involving the whole street in your debauchery? More fighting and drunkenness? Got your sights on the house of correction, have you? Look here, I've warned you, I've told you a dozen times this will happen once too often. And now you've gone and done it again – again, Madam this-that-and-the-other!’

The document actually fell out of Raskolnikov's hands, and he stared wildly at the opulent lady who had been given such an unceremonious dressing-down; soon, however, he had fathomed what all this was about, and immediately the whole episode took on a positively appealing aspect. He listened with enjoyment, and even felt like laughing, laughing, laughing… All his nerves were dancing on edge.

‘Ilya Petrovich!’ the clerk began with a note of concern in his voice, but thought the better of it and decided to wait until the storm had passed, as there was no way to restrain the lieutenant when he was in a rage except by force – something he knew from personal experience.

As for the opulent lady, at first the thunder and lightning nearly made her jump out of her skin; but it was a strange thing: the more numerous the oaths became and the greater their violence, the more affectionate and charming was the smile that she turned upon the fierce lieutenant. She minced about on the spot and kept up a ceaseless curtsying, waiting with impatience to be allowed to put her side of the argument, until her chance finally came.

‘There was no trouble or fighting on my premises,
Herr Kapitän
,’ she suddenly rattled out in a voice that was like the scattering of dried peas, in a strong German accent, though her Russian was fluent. ‘And there was no, no scandal, but they were drunk when they arrived, that's all there is to it,
Herr Kapitän
, and I'm not to blame… I keep a decent house,
Herr
Kapitän
, and a decent vay of life, and I have always, always avoided any kind of scandal. But they arrived completely drunk and then they asked for another three bottles, and then one of them put his legs up and started to play the piano vith his foot, and that is not the vay to behave in a decent house, and he ruined the piano –
ganz
– and had completely no, no manners, I told him so. But he picked up a bottle and began poking everyone in the back with it. At that point I called the yardkeeper, quick, and Karl came up, he took hold of Karl and gave him the black eye, and also one to Henriette, and he hit me in the face five times. Oh, that vas so unmannered in a decent house,
Herr Kapitän
, and I shouted. And he opened the vindow on to the Canal and he stood there sqvealing out of it like a little pig, and that was disgraceful. How could he do it, squeal like a little pig out of the vindow for everyone in the street to hear?
Pfui-pfui-pfui!
And Karl pulled him back from the window by his coat-tails, and tore
sein Rock
in
zwei
, that is true,
Herr Kapitän
. And then he shouted,
man muss
fine of fifteen roubles pay. And I,
Herr Kapitän
, paid him five roubles for sein Rock. Oh, what a rude guest he vas,
Herr Kapitän
, and what a scandal he did make! He said “I'll have a big lampoon about you
gedruckt
, for I can write whatever I like about you and get it in all the newspapers.”’
¹

‘He's a writer, then?’

‘Yes,
Herr Kapitän
, and what a rude guest,
Herr Kapitän
, in a decent house to…’

‘All right, all right! That's enough! I've told you and told you, I mean, I've told you…’

‘Ilya Petrovich!’ the clerk said again, meaningfully. The lieutenant gave him a quick glance; the clerk nodded his head slightly.

‘… So that, my most estimable
Laviza
Ivanovna, is the long and the short of my tale, and this is the last time I'm going to tell you it,’ the lieutenant went on. ‘If there's so much as one more scandalous scene in that decent house of yours, I shall give you the
zu Hundert
treatment,
²
as they say in polite circles. Do you hear? So a literary gentleman, one of those writers, got five roubles in a “decent house” for a coat-tail, did he? There's one
of them standing right there!’ he said, throwing a contemptuous glance in Raskolnikov's direction. ‘There was some trouble with another of them in an inn the day before yesterday: the fellow had eaten a meal but didn't want to pay for it. “I'll write a lampoon about you if you try to make me,” he said. And there was yet another on board a steamer last week, who flung the vilest abuse at the distinguished family of a state councillor, wife and daughter. One was kicked out of a pastry shop the other day. That's the sort of fellows they are, those writers, those literary gents, those students, those messengers of doom… Pah! Now you be off! I'll be popping in to see you myself one of these days… then you'd better watch out! Do you hear?’

With hurried good manners Luiza Ivanovna began to curtsy in all directions, backing towards the door as she did so; but in the doorway her posterior collided with a handsome officer who had a fresh, open face and a magnificent pair of the very thickest blond side-whiskers. This was none other than Nikodim Fomich himself,
³
the district superintendent. Luiza Ivanovna made haste to curtsy very nearly to the floor, and then, jumping up and down with her quick little steps, she rushed out of the bureau.

‘More crashing and banging, more thunder and lightning, more tornadoes and hurricanes,’ Nikodim Fomich said to Ilya Petrovich in an amiable, friendly tone of voice. ‘They've upset you again, you've lost your temper again! I could hear it from the stairs.’

‘So what?’ Ilya Petrovich said with well-bred casualness (indeed, it sounded more like ‘suh wut’ than ‘so what’) as he took some documents over to the other desk, waggling his shoulders picturesquely as he did so – one waggle to each step. ‘Here we are, sir, if you'll be so good as to take a look: a certain Mr Writer, alias Student – ex, that is. Doesn't pay his bills, been fobbing people off with promissory notes, won't quit his lodgings, we've had a ceaseless flow of complaints about him, yet he nearly filed a claim against me for lighting a cigarette in front of him! He acts like a mean b-b-bastard and, if you'll be so good as to take a look at him now, sir: here he is being his most attractive self!’

‘Poverty's no crime, old chap; now what was the trouble? I
bet it's that gunpowder temper of yours, you must have taken offence. You must have been insulted by something he said and not been able to restrain yourself,’ Nikodim Fomich went on, turning to Raskolnikov politely. ‘But there was really no need for you to: he's the most extra-ord-inar-ily well-bred chap, but powder, powder! He catches fire, sizzles up and burns away in a flash – and that's it! It's all over! And as a result he has a heart of pure gold! That's what they used to call him in that regiment of his: “Lieutenant Gunpowder”…’

‘And what a r-r-regiment it was!’ Ilya Petrovich exclaimed, thoroughly pleased at having his vanity tickled in such an agreeable manner, but still sulking nevertheless.

Raskolnikov suddenly felt like being very nice to them.

‘Look, for heaven's sake, captain,’ he began in a thoroughly familiar tone of voice, suddenly turning to Nikodim Fomich. ‘Put yourself in my position… I'm even prepared to apologize to him if I've said something wrong. I'm a poor, sick student, oppressed (he actually said: “oppressed”) by poverty. The reason I'm an ex-student is that I can't support myself now, but I'll be getting some money… I have a mother and a sister in the Province of —… They'll be sending me some money, and then I'll… pay up. My landlady's a kindhearted woman, but she got so angry at me for having lost my private teaching and being more than three months behind with the rent that she doesn't even send any meals up to me now… And I really don't know what this promissory note is that you keep talking about! Here she is demanding payment by means of an acknowledgement of debt, and how can I possibly make it, judge for yourselves!…’

‘Well, I'm afraid that's not our business…’ the clerk observed.

‘Quite, quite, I couldn't agree with you more, but please let me explain,’ Raskolnikov said, taking the initiative, and addressing his words not to the clerk but still to Nikodim Fomich, though also endeavouring with all his might to include Ilya Petrovich as well, in spite of the fact that the latter was pretending to rummage about in his papers, scornfully ignoring him. ‘Let me explain my side of the argument: I've been living
in her place for about three years now, ever since I arrived from the provinces, and some time ago… some time ago… oh well, why shouldn't I make a clean breast of it? Right from the time I moved in I promised her that I'd marry her daughter, it was only a promise by word of mouth and I was completely free to change my mind… She was just a girl… I actually found her rather appealing… though I wasn't in love with her… in short, you could put it down to my youth, that is, I mean to say, my landlady let me have a lot of credit and I also led a life that was rather… I was very frivolous…’

‘We're not at all interested in matters of an intimate nature, sir, and anyway we haven't the time,’ Ilya Petrovich said, starting to interrupt him rudely and with triumph, but Raskolnikov heatedly prevented him from going any further, even though he was suddenly finding it very difficult to speak.

‘Quite, quite, but just let me tell you… what happened… even though I agree with you that it's not really relevant – but a year ago this girl died of typhus, I remained as a lodger as before, and when my landlady moved into her present apartment she told me… and told me quite cordially… that she had every confidence in me… but please would I give her an acknowledgement of debt, the one you see before you now, in the sum of a hundred and fifteen roubles, this being all she considered I owed her. I must point out, sirs, that she specifically said that as long as I gave her that document she would let me have as much credit as I liked and that as far as she was concerned never, never – those were her very own words – would she turn that document to account until I was able to pay her… And yet now, when I've lost my private teaching and have nothing to eat, she serves me with an exaction note… What more can I say?’

‘All these sentimental details are no concern of ours, my dear sir,’ said Ilya Petrovich, brazenly cutting him short. ‘You must file a statement and sign a treaty of obligation, but as for the fact of your falling in love and all the rest of these tragic episodes, they are quite simply no business of ours.’

‘Now you're being a bit… hard…’ muttered Nikodim Fomich, sitting down at his desk and also beginning to do some signing. He was feeling a little embarrassed.

‘Well, get on with it,’ the clerk said to Raskolnikov.

‘What do you want me to write?’ the latter asked, somehow especially coarsely.

‘I'll dictate it to you.’

Raskolnikov had a feeling that the clerk had started to treat him with even less respect and even greater contempt since he had made his confession. But it was a strange thing – he suddenly felt he really did not give a damn about what anyone thought, and this change took place in the interval of a single flash, a single moment. If he had taken the trouble to do a little thinking, he would doubtless have been astonished that he could have spoken to these men the way he had just done, even bothering them with his emotions, wherever those emotions had come from. On the other hand, if now the room were suddenly to have filled up not with policemen but with his dearest and most cherished friends, he would not have had a single kind word to say to them, so desolate had his heart become. His soul had suddenly and consciously been affected by a gloomy sense of alienation, compounded with one of an agonizing, infinite solitariness. It was not the cheapness of his emotional outpourings to Ilya Petrovich, nor the cheapness of the lieutenant's triumph at his expense that had suddenly capsized his mood. Oh, what did he care now about his own baseness, about all these sensitive
amours-propres
, these lieutenants, German ladies, exaction notes, bureaux, and so on and so forth? Even if he had been sentenced to be burned alive just then, he would not have moved a muscle, nor for that matter paid much attention.

Something was happening to him that was completely unfamiliar to him, something new, unannounced and unprecedented. Less did he understand than clearly sense with all the power of sensation that not only was it impossible for him to address these people in the superintendent's bureau with the sentimental expansiveness he had lately employed – he could address them on no other terms, either, and even if they had all been his very own brothers and sisters, and not police lieutenants at all, even then he would have had absolutely no reason to address them about any circumstances of his life that he could possibly imagine; never until that moment had he experienced
such a strange and terrible sensation. And what made it all the more tormentingly painful was that it was more a sensation than a perception, an idea; a direct, unmediated, sensation, the most tormenting of all the sensations he had ever experienced in the whole of his life.

The clerk began to dictate a statement to him in the form that was usually adopted in such cases, which said that he was unable to pay, that he would pay by such-and-such a date, that he would not leave town, or sell any property he owned or give it to anyone, etc., etc.

‘But, I say, you can't write properly, the pen's falling out of your hand,’ the clerk observed with curiosity, peering at Raskolnikov. ‘Are you all right?’

‘No… I feel dizzy… continue!’

‘There isn't any more, that's it. Please sign it.’

The clerk took the document away and busied himself with some others.

Raskolnikov handed back the pen, but instead of getting up and leaving, he put both elbows on the desk and clutched his head with his hands. He felt as though a nail were being driven through its crown. A strange idea suddenly came to him: that of standing up right now, going over to Nikodim Fomich and telling him everything that had happened the day before, down to the last detail, and then taking him to his lodgings and showing him the gold objects in the corner, inside the hole. The urge was so strong that he actually stood up in order to put in into action. ‘Shouldn't I think about it for a moment?’ flashed through his head. ‘No, it's better to do it without thinking, and get it off my chest!’ But suddenly he stood still like one thunderstruck: Nikodim Fomich was talking heatedly to Ilya Petrovich, and he could hear what they were saying: