Crime and Punishment (71 page)

The weeping of the poor, consumptive, lonely Katerina Ivanovna had, it appeared, had a powerful effect on the audience. Such wretchedness, such suffering was there in this face distorted by pain, withered and consumptive, in these parched, blood-clotted lips, in this hoarsely shouting voice, in this violent weeping that was like the weeping of a child, in this trusting, childish and at the same time despairing plea for someone to come to the defence, that everyone seemed to take pity on the unhappy woman. At any rate, Pyotr Petrovich at once ‘took pity’.

‘Madam! Madam!’ he exclaimed in an imposing voice. ‘The fact of this evidence has nothing to do with you! No one would venture to accuse you of complicity or prior intent, not least in view of the fact that it was you who brought it to light when you turned out her pockets: that means you did not surmise anything. I am most, most ready to take compassion if, as it were, destitution prompted Sofya Semyonovna to do what she did, but then why, why, mademoiselle, were you unwilling to own up? Were you afraid of the disgrace? Of taking the first step? Did you lose your nerve, perchance? An understandable reaction, mademoiselle, a very understandable reaction… But then why did you embark upon such misdeeds? Ladies and gentlemen!’ he cried, addressing all who were present. ‘Ladies and gentlemen! Out of a sense of compassion and, as it were, condolence, I am even now, in spite of the personal insults I have received, prepared to grant forgiveness. But may your present shame serve you as a lesson for the future, mademoiselle,’ he said, turning to Sonya. ‘That being said, I shall take the matter no further and, so be it, will drop the case. Enough!’

Pyotr Petrovich took a surreptitious glance at Raskolnikov. Their gazes met. Raskolnikov's burning stare was ready to incinerate him. Katerina Ivanovna, meanwhile, seemed no longer to be aware of anything: she was embracing and kissing Sonya like a woman who had lost her mind. The children had also put their little arms around Sonya from all sides, and Polya
– who did not really quite understand what it was all about – seemed to have drowned in tears altogether, shaking with strained sobs and hiding her pretty little face, swollen with weeping, on Sonya's shoulder.

‘How despicable this is!’ a loud voice suddenly rang out in the doorway.

Pyotr Petrovich quickly looked round.

‘What a despicable thing to do!’ Lebezyatnikov said again, looking him fixedly in the eye.

Pyotr Petrovich actually jumped. Everyone noticed this. (They remembered it later on.) Lebezyatnikov strode into the room.

‘And you dared to put me there as a witness?’ he said, going up to Pyotr Petrovich.

‘What is the meaning of this, Andrei Semyonovich? What are you talking about?’ Luzhin muttered.

‘The meaning of it is that you're… a slanderer, that's what I'm talking about!’ Lebezyatnikov said heatedly, looking at him sternly with his weak-sighted eyes. He was horribly angry. Raskolnikov fairly glued his eyes to him, as if he were waiting to catch and weigh his every word. Once again silence reigned. Pyotr Petrovich almost seemed to lose his nerve, especially at that initial moment.

‘If you are talking to me…’ he began, with a hesitation in his speech. ‘But what has got into you? Have you your wits about you?’

‘Yes, I have, and the fact is you're a… twister! Oh, how despicable this is! I've listened to it all, I've waited on purpose in order to understand it all, though I must confess that even now it doesn't seem quite logical… But what I can't understand is – why you've done this.’

‘But what have I done? Stop talking in these rubbishy riddles of yours! Or have you been drinking, possibly?’

‘It's you, you despicable man, who drink, for all I know – not I! I never touch the stuff, because it's against my convictions! Can you imagine it, he himself gave that hundred-rouble note to Sofya Semyonovna with his own hands – I saw him, I'm a witness, I'm willing to take the oath! It was him, him!’ Lebezyatnikov said, turning to each and every person in the room.

‘Have you taken leave of your senses, you namby-pamby weakling?’ Luzhin howled. ‘She herself here, in your presence… she herself here, just now, in front of all these people stated that apart from those ten roubles she received nothing from me. In view of that fact, how could I possibly have given it to her?’

‘I saw it, I saw it!’ Lebezyatnikov shouted, in confirmation of his claim. ‘And even though it's against my convictions, I would be prepared to swear to it on oath in any court of law you'd care to name, because I saw how you slipped it into her pocket on the sly! Only I, like the fool I was, thought you'd done it as a good deed! When you were saying goodbye to her in the doorway, as she was turning away and you were pressing her arm in one hand, with your other, your left one, you put that banknote into her pocket on the sly. I saw it! I saw it!’

Luzhin turned pale.

‘You're talking rubbish!’ he exclaimed, insolently. ‘And in any case, how could you possibly have been able to see the banknote from where you were standing, over there by the window? You simply imagined it… with your weak-sighted eyes. You're raving!’

‘No, I didn't imagine it! Even though I was standing far away I saw it all, all of it, and even though you're right, and it was difficult to see the banknote from over by the window, I knew because of the peculiar circumstances, knew for certain that it was a hundred-rouble note, because as you were giving Sofya Semyonovna the ten-rouble note – I saw it myself – you picked up a hundred-rouble note from the table. (I saw that because I was standing close to you at the time, and as a certain thought immediately occurred to me, I didn't forget about you holding that note.) You folded it and held it clutched in your hand throughout the whole conversation. After a while I forgot about it again, but when you got up you transferred it from your right hand into your left, and almost dropped it; at that point I remembered about it again, because the same thought came back to me, namely that you were trying to do a good deed for her without my noticing it. You may imagine how closely I began to follow your movements – well, and I saw you manage
to slip the banknote into her pocket. I saw it, I saw it, and I would swear to it on oath!’

Lebezyanikov was very nearly choking. From all sides various assorted exclamations began to resound, most of which denoted astonishment; one or two, however, assumed a threatening nature. Everyone came crowding over to Pyotr Petrovich. Katerina Ivanovna flung herself at Lebezyatnikov.

‘Andrei Semyonovich! I have been mistaken in you! Defend her! You are the only one who is not against her! She's an orphan, and God has sent you to her! Andrei Semyonovich, my darling man, my dear, dear fellow!’

And Katerina Ivanovna, almost unaware of what she was doing, threw herself on her knees in front of him.

‘Poppycock!’ Luzhin howled, enraged to a pitch of fury. ‘You talk nothing but poppycock, sir! “Forgot, remembered, remembered, forgot” – what sort of language is that? So I slipped it to her on purpose, did I? Why, I'd like to know? For what purpose? What could I possibly have in common with that…’

‘For what purpose? That's what I myself would like to know, but if one thing is certain, it's that what I am describing is a true fact! I am so far from being mistaken, you loathsome, criminal man, that I even remember the question that occurred to me in this connection at the very time I was thanking you and shaking your hand. It was: why had you put your hand in her pocket on the sly? Or, to be more precise: why had it been on the sly? Was it really only because you wanted to conceal it from me, knowing that I hold convictions of an opposite nature and reject all forms of private philanthropy as bringing about no radical cure? Well, I decided that you really were ashamed to be giving away such a mint of wealth in front of me and also, perhaps, I thought, he wants to make it a surprise for her, give her a bit of a shock when she discovers a whole hundred-rouble note in her pocket. (Because some practitioners of philanthropy are very fond of spinning out their good deeds as much as they possibly can; I know from experience.) Then I also had the idea that your intention was to put her to the test, that is to say, wait and see if she'd come and thank you for the money when she discovered it! After that I had the notion that you wanted to avoid effusions
of gratitude and, well, as the saying is, that the right hand should not know… something like that, to put it briefly… Yes, well, all sorts of ideas came into my head, and so I decided to think about it all properly later on, but even so I thought it untactful to let on to you that I knew your secret. But then another question came into my head all of a sudden, involving the possibility that Sofya Semyonovna might quite easily lose the money before she noticed she had it; that was why I decided to come here, to ask her to come outside and tell her that she'd had a hundred roubles put in her pocket. Well, on my way I looked in at the room of the Misses Kobylyatnikov, in order to give them a copy of
A General Treatise on the Positive Method
²
and particularly in order to introduce them to Piederit's article
³
(and also the one by Wagner); after that I came here, and what a to-do I found in progress! I mean, how could I possibly have all these thoughts and ideas if I hadn't seen you put the hundred roubles in her pocket?’

As Andrei Semyonovich brought his wordy arguments to an end with this most logical of conclusions he grew horribly fatigued, and the sweat even rolled down his face. Alas, he was unable to express himself properly in Russian (having no knowledge of any other language), with the result that he became completely drained of energy and even seemed to grow thinner after his feat of lawmanship. All this notwithstanding, his oration produced an extremely marked effect. He had spoken with such heated conviction that everyone apparently believed him. Pyotr Petrovich sensed that things were not going well for him.

‘What business is it of mine if you have some stupid questions stuck in your head?’ he exclaimed. ‘That is no proof, sir! You could have dreamt it all in your sleep, and that's the truth of it! Well I tell you that you're lying, sir! You're lying and defaming my character in public because of some malicious grudge you've got against me, and especially because you're annoyed that I wouldn't concur with your godless, free-thinking ideas about society, that's what!’

This eccentric flight was, however, of no benefit to Pyotr Petrovich. Indeed, a ripple of disapproval was heard on every side.

‘Ah, so that's your tack now, is it?’ Lebezyatnikov shouted. ‘You're spouting rubbish! Go on, call the police, and I'll take the oath! There's just one thing I don't understand: why he risked his neck by doing something so despicable! Oh, base and wretched man!’

‘I can explain why he did it, and if necessary I'll take the oath myself!’ Raskolnikov said at last in a firm voice, and he strode forward.

He was, to all appearances, firm and composed. It was quite plain to everyone simply from one glance that he really did know what this was all about, and that the dénouement was at hand.

‘It's all quite clear to me now,’ Raskolnikov went on, addressing Lebezyatnikov directly. ‘Right from the start of this episode I had my suspicions that there was some vile, dirty trick involved in all this; my suspicions were formed as a result of certain particular circumstances, known to me alone, which I shall explain to everyone in a moment: they are what all this is about. It is you, Andrei Semyonovich, who with your invaluable testimony have finally clarified the situation to me. I ask everyone, everyone to listen. This gentleman’ (he pointed at Luzhin) ‘was recently seeking to marry a certain young lady – my sister, in fact – Avdotya Romanovna Raskolnikova. Having arrived in St Petersburg, however, he quarrelled with me the day before yesterday, during our first interview, and I threw him out of my lodgings, as two people who were there will corroborate. This man is feeling very sorry for himself… I did not as yet know the day before yesterday that he was staying at these apartments, in your room, Andrei Semyonovich, and that consequently on the very day of our quarrel, the day before yesterday, that is, he was a witness to my giving Katerina Ivanovna, the widow of the deceased, some money to help with the funeral expenses. He immediately wrote a letter to my mother informing her that I had given all my money not to Katerina Ivanovna but to Sofya Semyonovna, and expressing himself in the most ignoble terms about… about Sofya Semyonovna's character, making veiled allusions about my relationship with her. All this, you understand, was done with the aim of stirring up trouble between
myself and my mother and sister, in order to give them the idea that I had squandered their last remaining money, which they had sent me to help me, for dishonourable ends. Yesterday evening, in the presence of my mother and sister, and when he was also there, I re-established the truth, proving that I had given the funeral money to Katerina Ivanovna and not to Sofya Semyonovna, and that when I met Sofya Semyonovna the day before yesterday I was not personally acquainted with her, nor had I ever even seen her before. To this I added that he, Pyotr Petrovich Luzhin, in spite of all his virtues, was not worth the little finger of Sofya Semyonovna, on whom he had cast such evil aspersions. In response to his question as to whether I would allow Sofya Semyonovna to sit next to my sister, I replied that I had already done so, that very day. Filled with spite because my mother and sister would not fall out with me on account of his slanderous remarks, he began, one by one, to say the most outrageously insulting things to them. A decisive rift took place, and he was dismissed from the premises. All this happened yesterday evening. Now, I request your particular attention: I think you will see that if he could prove that Sofya Semyonovna was a thief, he would also achieve his principal aim of demonstrating to my mother and sister that he had been more or less correct in his suspicions; that he had been right to lose his temper when I had put Sofya Semyonovna and my sister on the same level; that, consequently, by attacking me, he had been defending and preserving the honour of my sister and his wife-to-be. In short, by means of all this he could once again stir up trouble between me and my family, once again, of course, in the hope of entering their good graces. All this is quite apart from the fact that he was taking his personal revenge on me, as he had reason to suppose that the honour and happiness of Sofya Semyonovna are very valuable to me. That's all he was after! That's my understanding of this business. That was the only reason for it, and there can have been no other!’