Crime and Punishment (43 page)

‘Yes, yes… of course, that's all a great shame…’ Raskolnikov muttered in reply, but with such a distracted, inattentive air that Dunya looked at him in amazement.

‘Now what was the other thing I wanted to say?’ he continued, making an effort to remember. ‘Yes: please, mother – and you, too, Dunechka – don't get the idea that I didn't want to come and see you today, but was waiting for you to come to me.’

‘What
are
you talking about, Rodya?’ Pulkheria Aleksandrovna exclaimed, also in surprise.

‘What's he doing, talking to us out of duty?’ Dunya wondered. ‘He's making it up and asking to be forgiven as though he were performing a ritual or reciting some lesson or other.’

‘I'd just woken up and I was going to come and see you, but my clothes held me up; I forgot to tell her… Nastasya… to clean that blood off yesterday… It was only a moment ago that I managed to get dressed.’

‘Blood? What blood?’ Pulkheria Aleksandrovna said, in alarm.

‘Yes… don't be upset. It was blood I got on myself yesterday when I was roaming around in a bit of a delirium – I stumbled across a man who'd been run down in the street… a civil servant…’

‘In a delirium? But I mean, you can remember it all,’ Razumikhin said, interrupting.

‘That's true,’ Raskolnikov replied to this, with a kind of especial thoughtfulness. ‘I can remember it all, right down to the very last detail, and yet if you were to ask me why I did it, where I was going, or what I said, I wouldn't be able to explain it now.’

‘That's a very common phenomenon,’ Zosimov chipped in. ‘The execution of the deed is sometimes masterfully done, in the most ingenious fashion, yet the control of the individual actions that comprise it, the origin of those actions, is diffuse and is associated with various morbid sensations. Rather like a dream.’

‘I must say, it's probably just as well he thinks I'm practically a madman,’ Raskolnikov thought.

‘But surely that's true of normal people as well,’ Dunya commented, looking at Zosimov with unease.

‘An observation not far off the mark,’ Zosimov replied. ‘It is perfectly true that in that sense we all of us, very often, conduct ourselves like mad folk, with the slight distinction that the “mentally ill” are a little crazier than we are, and so there it is necessary to draw a line. The harmonious individual, it needs to be said, hardly exists at all; out of many tens, even hundreds of thousands perhaps one or two at most are encountered, and even then in rather feeble versions…’

At the word ‘crazy’, which had carelessly escaped Zosimov's lips as he became immersed in chattering on about his favourite subject, everyone winced. Raskolnikov seemed to pay no attention; he sat brooding, a strange smile on his pale lips. He continued to weigh something over.

‘Well, what about this man who was run down in the street? I interrupted you!’ Razumikhin asked, quickly.

‘What?’ said Raskolnikov, seeming to wake up. ‘Yes… well, I got some of his blood on myself when I was helping to carry him up to his apartment… Incidentally, mother, I did an unforgivable thing yesterday; I must have been quite out of my mind. I gave all that money you sent me… to his wife… for the funeral. She's a widow now, a pitiful, consumptive woman… she has three little fatherless children who are hungry… there's no food in the house… and there's another daughter, too… I think you yourself might have given them that money if you'd seen them… Of course, I realize that I had no right to part with it, especially since I knew how you'd got hold of it. In order to help anyone, one must first have a right to do so, for if one hasn't: “
Crevez chiens
,
si vous n'êtes pas contents!
”’ He burst out laughing. ‘Isn't that so, Dunya?’

‘No, it isn't!’ Dunya replied, firmly.

‘Aha! So you, too, have… good intentions!…’ he muttered, giving her a look almost of hatred, and smiling with derision. ‘I might have guessed… Well, it does you credit, I suppose; good for you… if you reach a point where you can't go on, you'll be
miserable, yet if you do manage to go on you'll be even more miserable… But that's all nonsense!’ he added irritably, annoyed at having got carried away without meaning to. ‘All I wanted to say was that of you, mother, I ask forgiveness,’ he concluded sharply and abruptly.

‘Enough, Rodya. I'm sure that everything you do is wonderful,’ his mother said in relief.

‘Don't be,’ he replied, twisting his mouth into a smile. A silence ensued. Running through the whole of this conversation there had been a strained tenseness; it had affected silence, reconciliation and absolution in equal measure, and they had all felt it.

‘Why, it's as if they were afraid of me,’ Raskolnikov thought to himself as he gave his mother and sister a suspicious look. And it really was the case that the longer Pulkheria Aleksandrovna kept silent, the more frightened she felt.

‘I seemed to love them so much when they weren't here,’ flashed through his head.

‘You know, Rodya, Marfa Petrovna has died,’ Pulkheria Aleksandrovna suddenly twittered out.

‘Which Marfa Petrovna is that?’

‘Oh, good heavens, Marfa Petrovna – Svidrigailov's wife! I wrote so much to you about her.’

‘Yes, yes, yes, I remember… so she's died? Oh, she hasn't really, has she?’ he said suddenly, starting as though he had woken up. ‘Died? What of?’

‘Can you imagine? It was so sudden!’ Pulkheria Aleksandrovna got in quickly, encouraged by his curiosity. ‘It happened just at the time I posted that letter to you, that very same day! Imagine, that horrible man was apparently the cause of her death. They say he gave her a terrible beating!’

‘Did they really live that kind of a life together?’ he asked, turning to his sister.

‘No, quite the reverse, actually. He was always very patient with her – polite, even. There were a lot of times when he made too many concessions to the kind of woman she was, throughout all the seven years they were married… In the end he must simply have lost patience.’

‘You mean he can't have been all that bad, if he lasted out for seven years? You seem to be trying to find an excuse for him, Dunya!’

‘No, no, he's a horrible man! I can't imagine anyone or anything more horrible,’ Dunya replied with something approaching a shudder, knitting her brows and beginning to reflect.

‘That took place in the morning,’ Pulkheria Aleksandrovna went on, hurriedly. ‘Afterwards, she immediately ordered the horses to be harnessed, so she could drive straight to town after dinner, as that was what she always did in such situations; they say she ate her dinner with a good appetite…’

‘After she'd been beaten?’

‘… Well, you see, that was always one of her… customs, and no sooner had she finished than, so as not to be late in setting off, she went straight off to the bath-house… You see, she was apparently taking baths as part of some treatment; they have a cold spring there and she used to bathe in it regularly every day, and no sooner had she entered the water than she suddenly had a stroke!’

‘I bet she did!’ Zosimov said.

‘And had he beat her badly?’

‘Oh come, that's neither here nor there,’ Dunya retorted.

‘Hm! Actually, mother, I don't know why you're bothering to tell me all this nonsense,’ Raskolnikov said suddenly in an irritable tone, almost as if without meaning to.

‘Well, my dear, I didn't know what to talk about,’ burst from Pulkheria Aleksandrovna.

‘What is it – are you all afraid of me, or something?’ he said with a distorted smile.

‘It really is true,’ said Dunya, looking sternly and directly at her brother. ‘When we were coming up the staircase, mother was actually crossing herself from fear.’

His face was wrenched by a kind of convulsion.

‘Oh, what's got into you, Dunya? Please don't be angry, Rodya… Why did you say that, Dunya?’ Pulkheria Aleksandrovna said in embarrassment. ‘It's true that all the way here in the train I kept dreaming of how we were going to see each
other again, how we would tell each other everything… and I was so happy that I didn't notice anything of the journey! But what am I going on about? I'm happy now… You really shouldn't say such things, Dunya! I'm happy just to see you, Rodya…’

‘Yes, yes, mother,’ he muttered, embarrassed, avoiding her with his eyes and giving her hand a squeeze. ‘There'll be time for us to have a good talk!’

Having said this, he suddenly grew confused and turned pale: again a certain recent sensation traversed his soul with a deadly chill; again it suddenly became quite clear and self-evident to him that he had just told a horrible lie, that not only now would there not be time for him to have a good talk – it was now out of the question for him to
speak
to anyone about anything ever again. The effect on him of this tormenting thought was so powerful that for a split second he almost lost consciousness altogether; he got up from his seat and, without looking at anyone, began to march out of the room.

‘What's up with you?’ Razumikhin exclaimed, catching him by the arm.

He sat down again and began to look around him in silence; they were all looking at him in bewilderment.

‘Why are you all looking so glum?’ he cried suddenly, without any warning. ‘Come on, say something! You can't go on sitting like that! Well, let's hear you talk! Let's have a conversation… Here we are, all gathered together, yet we haven't a word to say for ourselves… Come on, there must be something!’

‘Oh, thank God! For a moment I thought he was going to start behaving like yesterday,’ Pulkheria Aleksandrovna said, crossing herself.

‘What's wrong, Rodya?’ Avdotya Romanovna asked, suspiciously.

‘Oh, it's nothing – I just remembered something silly, that's all,’ he replied, and at once gave a laugh.

‘Oh well, if it was something silly, that's all right! Just for a moment there I also began to think…’ Zosimov muttered, getting up from the sofa. ‘But it's time I was going; I may look in again… if I find you at home…’

He bowed to each of them in farewell and went out.

‘What a wonderful man!’ Pulkheria Aleksandrovna observed.

‘Yes, he's wonderful, first-rate, educated, intelligent…’ Raskolnikov suddenly said in an astonishing patter of words, and with an animation hitherto almost unprecedented. ‘I can't remember where I first met him… it was some time before I fell ill… I think I met him somewhere… This is a fine chap, too!’ he said, nodding at Razumikhin. ‘How do you like him, Dunya?’ he asked her, and suddenly, for no apparent reason, burst out laughing.

‘Very much,’ Dunya answered.

‘Oh, really, Rodya, what an old… swine you are!’ a terribly embarrassed and blushing Razumikhin managed to articulate, getting up from his chair. Pulkheria Aleksandrovna gave a slight smile, and Raskolnikov crowed with loud laughter.

‘Where are you going?’

‘I've also got… things to do.’

‘No, you haven't. You stay here! Just because Zosimov's gone, it doesn't mean you have to go, too… What time is it? Is it twelve yet? What a pretty watch that is, Dunya! But why have you gone quiet again? I'm doing all the talking…’

‘It was a present from Marfa Petrovna,’ Dunya replied.

‘And a very expensive one, too,’ Pulkheria Aleksandrovna added.

‘I say! It's so big, it's almost not like a ladies’ watch at all.’

‘I like watches like this,’ said Dunya.

‘So it's not a present from the bridegroom,’ Razumikhin thought, and for some unknown reason felt relieved.

‘I thought it was from Luzhin,’ Raskolnikov observed.

‘No, he hasn't given Dunechka any presents yet.’

‘Oh, I say! I expect you remember, mother, the time when I, too, was in love and was going to get married,’ he said suddenly, looking at his mother, who was struck by the strange manner and tone of voice in which he had begun to talk about this.

‘Yes, yes, dear, I remember.’ Pulkheria Aleksandrovna exchanged looks with Dunya and Razumikhin.

‘Hm. Yes. What else is there to say? I can't even remember much about it now. She was a sickly sort of girl,’ he went on,
suddenly seeming to reflect, and lowering his eyes. ‘Really not at all well: she was fond of giving to the poor, and she was always dreaming about joining a nunnery – she once actually burst into tears when she started to tell me about it; yes, yes… I remember… I remember very well. She was such a… plain little thing. I don't really know why I got so attached to her at the time, I think it must have been because she was always ill… If she'd been lame or a hunchback I'd have probably have fallen in love with her even more… (He smiled, reflectively.) Yes… It was a sort of spring fever…’

‘No, it wasn't just spring fever,’ Dunya said, animatedly.

He gave his sister a hard, intent look, but seemed not to catch what she had said, or possibly not to understand it. Then, in deep reflection, he got up, went over to his mother, gave her a kiss, returned to his place and sat down.

‘You love her even now,’ Pulkheria Aleksandrovna said, touched.

‘Her? Now? Oh yes… you're talking about her! No. Now it's as if it had all happened in another world… and so long ago. And it's as if everything around me were happening somewhere else…’

He gave them a considering look.

‘There you are, too… it's as if I were looking at you from a thousand miles away… But the devil knows why we're talking about this! Why ask me about it, in any case?’ he added with annoyance, and fell silent, biting his fingernails and lapsing into reflection once more.

‘What a horrible room you've got, Rodya – it's like a coffin,’ Pulkheria Aleksandrovna said suddenly, breaking her painful silence. ‘I'm convinced it's half because of this room that you've become such a melancholic.’

‘This room?…’ he replied, absent-mindedly. ‘Yes, this room is responsible for quite a lot of things… I've also thought that… Oh, but if you only knew what a strange thing you said just now, mother,’ he added suddenly, with a peculiar, ironic grin.

If this had gone on much longer, the company he was now in, with these members of his family whom he had not seen for
three years, the family tone of the conversation coupled with the utter impossibility of actually discussing anything would have ended by becoming quite intolerable to him. There was, however, one urgent practical matter that he must decide today, one way or the other – so he had determined earlier, on awakening. Now he felt relief in the
practical
, as a way out of the situation.