Crime and Punishment (38 page)

Raskolnikov's appearance was greeted by joyful, ecstatic cries. Both women rushed towards him. But he stood there like
a corpse; a sudden and intolerable realization had struck him like a thunderbolt. His arms would not even leave his sides in order to embrace them: they could not. His mother and sister were hugging him, kissing him, laughing, crying… He took one step, staggered, and collapsed on the floor in a dead faint.

Consternation ensued, cries of horror, moans… Razumikhin, who was standing in the doorway, came bounding into the room, seized Raskolnikov in his powerful arms, and in a flash the sick man found himself on the sofa.

‘It's nothing, nothing!’ Razumikhin cried to Raskolnikov's mother and sister. ‘He's fainted, that's all, it's not serious! The doctor's just said he's much better, that he's completely recovered! Bring some water! Look, he's coming round already, he's all right again now…!’

And, grabbing Dunya's arm so hard that he very nearly wrenched it off, he forced her down in order to make her see that Raskolnikov was ‘all right again now’… Both mother and sister gazed at Razumikhin as at some emanation of Providence, with gratitude and tender emotion; they had already heard from Nastasya what had been done for their Rodya, during his illness, by this ‘prompt young man’ – the expression that had been used about him that very evening in the course of her intimate conversation with Dunya by Pulkheria Aleksandrovna Raskolnikova herself.

Raskolnikov lifted himself on one elbow, and sat up on the sofa.

He made a weak gesture to Razumikhin in order to bring to a stop the veritable deluge of incoherent and impassioned consolation that was being directed upon his mother and sister, took them both by the hand and spent a couple of minutes studying them closely, looking now from the one to the other. His mother was alarmed by his gaze. In that gaze there was visible an emotion that held the intensity of suffering, but at the same time there was something fixed and even reckless about it. Pulkheria Aleksandrovna began to weep.

Avdotya Romanovna was pale; her hand trembled in that of her brother.

‘Go home… with him,’ he said in an unsteady voice, pointing to Razumikhin. ‘Tomorrow… let's leave it all till tomorrow… Have you been in town long?’

‘Since this evening, Rodya,’ Pulkheria Aleksandrovna replied. The train was terribly late. But Rodya, I absolutely refuse to leave you like this. I'm going to spend the night here beside you…’

‘Stop harassing me!’ he said, making an irritable gesture with his hand.

‘I'll stay with him!’ Razumikhin exclaimed. ‘I shan't turn my back on him for a second, and to hell with all those guests of mine, let them climb up and down the walls if they want to! My uncle's in charge of them now.’

‘Oh, how, how can I ever thank you!’ Pulkheria Aleksandrovna began, pressing Razumikhin's hands again, but Raskolnikov cut her short once more:

‘I can't cope with this, I really can't!’ he said irritably. ‘Stop harassing me! That's enough, now, go away… I can't cope with it!’

‘Come on, mother, let's at least get out of the room for a minute,’ Dunya whispered in alarm. ‘We're having a bad effect on him, anyone can see that.’

‘What's the matter, can't I look at him? It's three years since I've seen him, you know!’ Pulkheria Aleksandrovna wept.

‘Wait!’ he cried, stopping them again. ‘You keep interrupting me and my thoughts are getting muddled… Have you met up with Luzhin?’

‘No, Rodya, but he already knows we've arrived. We've heard that Pyotr Petrovich was so kind as to come and see you today,’ Pulkheria Aleksandrovna added with a certain timidity.

‘Yes… he was so kind as to do that… Dunya, I told Luzhin earlier on today that I'd kick him downstairs, and I told him to go to the devil…’

‘Rodya, what's got into you? I suppose you… You don't mean to say that…’ Pulkheria Aleksandrovna began in alarm, but stopped, looking at Dunya.

Avdotya Romanovna was staring fixedly at her brother, waiting for him to go on. Both women had already been forewarned about the quarrel by Nastasya, to the extent that she had been able to comprehend and describe it, and they had worn themselves out with worry, bewilderment and foreboding.

‘Dunya,’ Raskolnikov went on with an effort. ‘I don't want you to go ahead with this marriage, and so first thing tomorrow you must tell Luzhin that you've refused his offer, and that he must never come near us again!’

‘Oh my God!’ Pulkheria Aleksandrovna exclaimed.

‘Think what you're saying, brother!’ Avdotya Romanovna began, hot-temperedly, but at once restrained herself. ‘But I suppose you're in no state to think about it now, you're too tired,’ she said, meekly.

‘Because I'm delirious? No… You're marrying Luzhin
for
my sake
. And I won't accept your sacrifice. That's why you must write a letter that will reach him tomorrow… refusing his offer… You must show it to me in the morning, and then that will be the end of the matter!’

‘I can't do that!’ the offended girl exclaimed. ‘By what right…’

‘Dunechka, you're too worked up, stop it now, tomorrow… Can't you see?…’ her mother said in a frightened tone of voice, rushing to her side. ‘Oh, we'd better go away!’

‘He's raving!’ cried Razumikhin, who was still feeling the effects of the drink he had consumed. ‘He must be, otherwise he'd never dare! All this nonsense will have popped out of his head by tomorrow… But he really did throw that fellow out earlier today. It really did happen that way. Well, and the fellow got angry… Started making speeches here, showing off his knowledge, and then went away with his tail between his legs…’

‘So it's true, then?’ Pulkheria Aleksandrovna exclaimed.

‘Until tomorrow, brother,’ Dunya said with compassion. ‘Come on, mother… Goodbye, Rodya!’

‘Look here, sister,’ he said as they went out, gathering the last of his energies. ‘I'm not delirious; this marriage you're planning is a vile business. I may be a villain, but you mustn't… some jumped-up nobody… and although I'm a villain, I refuse to accept any sister who does such a thing as a sister of mine! It's either Luzhin or me! Now go…’

‘Hey, you're out of your mind! Despot!’ bawled Razumikhin, but Raskolnikov made no reply, nor, in all likelihood, would he have been able to. He lay down on the sofa and turned to the wall in complete exhaustion. Avdotya Romanovna gave Razumikhin an inquisitive look; her black eyes flashed: Razumikhin actually shuddered beneath their gaze. Pulkheria Aleksandrovna stood as though stricken.

‘I cannot possibly go!’ she whispered to Razumikhin, practically in despair. ‘I shall find somewhere to stay here… please take Dunya home.’

‘And you'll ruin everything!’ Razumikhin said, also in a whisper, beside himself. ‘Let's at least go out to the staircase.
Nastasya, bring us some light! I swear to you,’ he went on in a semi-whisper, out on the staircase now, ‘that earlier on he very nearly gave the doctor and me a thrashing! Do you understand? The doctor himself! And the doctor let him have his own way, so as not to irritate him, and left; I stayed downstairs on guard, meanwhile, but he put his clothes on and sneaked out. He'll do it again if you get him all worked up like that, and it'll be at night this time, and he may go and do something silly to himself…’

‘Oh, what are you saying!’

‘And in any case it's quite out of the question for Avdotya Romanovna to be left alone in those rooms without you! Just think where it is you're staying! I mean, surely that villain Pyotr Petrovich could have found you some better accommodation… But you know, I'm a bit drunk and that's why I'm… shouting; don't pay any…’

‘Oh, but I shall go and see the landlady here,’ Pulkheria Aleksandrovna insisted. ‘I shall implore her to give Dunya and myself a room for the night. I can't leave him like this, I can't!’

All this was said on the staircase, on the landing right outside the landlady's door. Nastasya was shining a lantern on them from the bottom step. Razumikhin was in a state of excitement unusual even for him. Half an hour earlier, escorting Raskolnikov home, he might have been somewhat too talkative – something he himself admitted – but completely bright and cheerful and almost fresh, in spite of the terrible quantity of vodka he had drunk that evening. Now, however, his condition resembled some trancelike state, and at the same time it was as if all the vodka he had drunk, instantly and with redoubled strength, had rushed back up to his head. He stood with both ladies, holding them both by the hands, talking them round and presenting his arguments with astonishing frankness; doubtless for the sake of added persuasion, with practically each word he uttered, hard as hard, as in a vice, he squeezed their hands until they hurt, appearing to devour Avdotya Romanovna with his eyes as he did so, without the slightest inhibition. Because of the pain he was causing them they would from time to time pull their hands out of his enormous, bony paw, but not only did he
fail to observe what was going on – he drew them even more tightly towards him. If just then, as a favour, they had requested him to throw himself down the stairs head first, he would have done it instantly, without a moment's hesitation or reflection. Pulkheria Aleksandrovna felt that the young man was very eccentric and was squeezing her hand far too hard; because of the state of utter anxiety she was in concerning her Rodya, however, she none the less tended to view him as having been sent by Providence, and tried not to notice all these eccentric details. But, in spite of sharing this anxiety, Avdotya Romanovna, though by nature not easily frightened, encountered the wildfire-glittering stares of her brother's friend with astonishment and even alarm, and it was only the limitless confidence inspired by Nastasya's stories about this strange man that held her back from the temptation of running away from him and hauling her mother off with her. She had also, perhaps, realized that it was now impossible for them to run away from him. For all that, after some ten minutes had elapsed she grew considerably calmer: Razumikhin had a way of saying all he had to say on any particular subject in a single flash, no matter what his frame of mind, so that it was very easy for people to discover whom they were dealing with.

‘It's no good your going to see the landlady – it's the most terrible, nonsensical idea!’ he exclaimed, trying to make Pulkheria Aleksandrovna see reason. ‘Even though you are his mother, if you stay you'll drive him into a frenzy, and then the devil knows what may happen! Look here, this is what I'll do: Nastasya will sit with him now, and I'll take you both back to your lodgings, because you simply can't go out in the streets alone; here in St Petersburg on that score we… Oh, to hell with it!… Then, when I've seen you safely home, I'll return here at the double and a quarter of an hour later, so cross my heart, I'll bring you a report on how he is, on whether he's asleep or not, and all the rest of it. Then – no, listen! – then from your place I'll set off like a flash to my own quarters – I've guests there, they're all drunk – I'll go in and get Zosimov – he's the doctor who's looking after him, he's at my place now, he's not drunk;
he
'
ll
not be drunk, he's never drunk! I'll haul him off to see
Rodya and then come back to you immediately, that way you'll get two reports on him – and this one will be from the doctor, you understand, from the doctor himself; that's a bit different from getting one from me! If he's in a bad way, I swear to you I'll bring you here myself, but if he's all right you can go to bed. I'll spend the night out here in the passage, he won't know I'm there, and I'll tell Zosimov to spend the night in the landlady's apartment, so he'll be near at hand. Think about it: who does he need more just now – yourselves or the doctor? The doctor, of course – the doctor's of far more use to him. Well, so off you go home! But it's no good your going to see the landlady; I can get somewhere with her, but you couldn't – she won't let you stay there, because… oh, because she's an idiot! If you really must know, she'd be jealous of Avdotya Romanovna, and of my knowing you, too… She's a most, most peculiar character! But I'm an idiot, too… But to hell with it! Come on! Do you trust me? Well, do you, or don't you?’

‘Come on, mother,’ said Avdotya Romanovna. ‘I expect he'll do as he says. He's already revived my brother, and if it's true that the doctor will agree to spend the night here, what could be better?’

‘There! You… you… you understand me, because you're an – angel!’ Razumikhin exclaimed in ecstasy. ‘Let us be on our way! Nastasya! Go up there this instant and sit there with him, take your lantern; I'll be back in quarter of an hour…’

Even though Pulkheria Aleksandrovna was not really quite convinced, she offered no further resistance. Razumikhin took them both by the arm and drew them down the stairs. But he, too, made her uneasy: ‘even though he's prompt and kind, is he really in a condition to carry out what he's promising to do? I mean, he's in a certain state!…’

‘Ah, I've got it: you think I'm in a certain state!’ Razumikhin said, intercepting her thoughts, having guessed them as he loped along the pavement with the most enormous strides, so that the ladies were scarcely able to keep up with him – something he failed, however, to notice. ‘Nonsense! That's to say… I'm as drunk as a village oaf, but not that way; I'm drunk, but not from drinking alcohol. When I first caught sight of you, everything
rushed to my head… But to hell with me! Don't pay any attention: I'm talking nonsense; I'm unworthy of you… I'm in the highest degree unworthy!… And as soon as I've taken you home, I'm going to go straight down to the Canal and empty two pails of water over my head, and be done with it… If only you knew how I love you both!… Don't laugh, and don't be angry… You can be angry with anyone else, but not with me! I'm his friend, so that means I'm your friend, too. I so much want… I had a premonition of this… last year, there was a moment like this… But it wasn't really a premonition at all, because the two of you have quite simply fallen from heaven. Oh, I probably shan't be able to sleep all night… Old Zosimov was afraid earlier on that he might go mad… That's why he mustn't be excited…’

‘What are you telling me?’ Raskolnikov's mother exclaimed.