Crime and Punishment (84 page)

Svidrigailov struck his fist on the table in impatience. He had gone red in the face. Raskolnikov perceived beyond any doubt that the glass or glass and a half of champagne he had drunk, sipping it unnoticeably, in little swallows, had had a malignant effect on him – and he decided to take advantage of the opportunity. He regarded Svidrigailov with great suspicion.

‘Well, after all that I'm quite convinced that you came to St Petersburg with my sister in view,’ he said to Svidrigailov directly and without any attempt at concealment, in order to irritate him even further.

‘I say – that's enough,’ Svidrigailov said quickly, as though he had suddenly gathered his wits. ‘Look, I told you… and in any case, your sister can't stand me.’

‘Oh, I'm convinced of that, too; but that's not the point at issue now.’

‘Convinced, are you? (Svidrigailov narrowed his eyes and smiled a mocking smile.) You're right, she doesn't love me; but never be too sure about the things that go on between a husband and a wife or a lover and his mistress. There will always be one little corner that will remain obscure to the rest of the world and which will only be known to the two of them. Are you so certain that Avdotya Romanovna looked on me with revulsion?’

‘From certain things you've said during the course of our conversation I can see that even now you have your own ends in view, and that you have quite pressing designs on Dunya, which are of course villainous ones.’

‘What? Did I say things like that?’ Svidrigailov asked in utterly
naïve alarm, paying not the slightest attention to the epithet attributed to his designs.

‘Yes, and you're saying them now. Well, what are you so afraid of? Why have you taken fright all of a sudden?’

‘Me? Afraid? Frightened? Frightened of you? It's rather you who ought to be afraid of me,
cher ami
. And in any case, what rubbish… Actually, though, I'm a bit tipsy, I can feel it; I nearly said something I shouldn't have again. To the devil with this wine! Hey, bring me some water!’

He grabbed hold of the bottle and hurled it without ceremony out of the window. Filipp brought some water.

‘That's a lot of nonsense,’ Svidrigailov said, wetting a towel and putting it to his forehead. ‘I can put paid to you with a single word, and reduce all your suspicions to nothing. Are you aware, for example, that I'm about to get married?’

‘You already told me that before.’

‘Told you, did I? I've forgotten. Well, if I did it can't have been very definite, as I hadn't even set eyes on my fiancée then; it was all just plans. However, now I do have a proper fiancee, and the deed is done, and if only I didn't have such urgent business to see to I'd most certainly take you off to see her – because I want to ask your advice. The devil! I've only got ten minutes left! You see, look at the time; but I'll tell you about it anyway, because it's an interesting little knick-knack, my marriage, in its own way – where are you off to? Going again?’

‘No, I'm not going anywhere now.’

‘Not going anywhere? We'll see about that! Oh, it's true that I'll take you over there and show you my fiancee, only not just now, as now it will soon be time for you to go. You to the right and I to the left. Do you know that Resslich woman? The Resslich woman whose apartment I'm staying in just now – eh? Are you listening? Come on, you know, the one they say was involved in the drowning of that slip of a girl, in winter; come on, are you listening? Are you listening? Well, it was she who cooked all this together for me; you look sort of dreary, she said, it's time you had some fun. Well, I mean, it's true: I'm a gloomy, dreary sort of fellow. Perhaps you think I'm the cheerful type? Not a bit of it, I'm a gloomy chap: I don't bother anyone,
just stay in my room all the time; sometimes I don't talk to anyone for three days. But that Resslich woman is a rogue, I don't mind telling you, I mean, God knows the things she's got in her head: she thinks I'll get bored with my wife, desert her and go off somewhere, and she'll be able to get her hands on her, put her into circulation; in our social set, that is to say, only a bit higher. She says the father's some kind of enfeebled civil servant who's retired now, spends all his days in an armchair and hasn't used his legs for three years. She says there's a mother, too, the kind of woman who knows which side her bread's buttered on, the mother is. There's a son who's working in the service out in the provinces somewhere, doesn't lift a finger to help them. One daughter's married and doesn't go to visit them, they have two little nephews to look after (as though their own kids weren't enough), and they've taken their younger daughter out of high school – she'll be just sixteen in a month's time, and that means they can marry her off to someone. That someone is me. We went to see them; what a comical set-up they have! I introduce myself: a landowner, a widower from a well-known family, with certain connections, with capital – well, so what if I
am
fifty, and she's only sixteen? Who's going to take any notice? I mean, it's tempting, eh? Ha-ha! It's tempting! You ought to have seen me talking to her Mama and Papa! It would have been worth paying just to watch me. She came in, dropped a curtsy, I mean, can you imagine it, she was still in short skirts, an unopened budlet, blushing and blazing like a sunrise (they had told her, of course). I don't know what your preferences are concerning the female physiognomy, but if you ask me, those sixteen years, those still-childish eyes, that shyness and those tears of embarrassment – if you ask me, those are preferable to any beauty, and she's a picture even as it is. She has this flaxen head of hair frizzed up into little lamblike curls, scarlet, bee-stung lips, legs that are really something!… Well, we introduced ourselves, I said I was in a hurry because of family business, and the following day – the day before yesterday, that is – we took the blessing. With that out of the way, whenever I go there now I immediately set her on my knee and won't let her down… Up she blushes like a sunrise again, and I cover
her in kisses; her mother naturally tells her this is the man you're going to marry and that's what you're required to do, in a word, it's a real pot of honey! Quite honestly, the status of fiancÉ I occupy at the moment may even be preferable to that of husband. It involves what they call
la nature et la verité
! Ha-ha! I've exchanged intimacies with her a couple of times – the little thing's not at all unintelligent; sometimes she gives me a secret glance – God, it burns right through me. You know, she has a little face like Raphael's Madonna. The Sistine Madonna has a fantastic face, the face of a sorrowful holy fool, didn't that leap to your eyes the first time you saw it? Well, it's something in that genre. The very next day after we'd taken the blessing I brought her about one and a half thousand roubles’ worth of stuff: a diamond gew-gaw and a pearl one, and a silver ladies’ toilet-box – about this size, full of all kinds of things, so that the little madonna's face fairly coloured up. I put her on my knee yesterday, and I must have done it with too little ceremony, for she blushed up all over and the tears came flooding, though she didn't want me to see them, and she was all on fire. Everyone had gone out for a moment, she and I were left there alone, and she suddenly flung herself on my neck (the first time she'd done it without prompting), embraced me with both her little arms, kissed me and swore she would be an obedient, faithful and loving wife, that she'd make me happy, that she'd throw her whole life into it, every single minute of her life, that she'd sacrifice everything, everything, and that all she wanted to possess in return for all this was
my respect
, and “other than that”, she said, “I want nothing, no presents, nothing at all!” I think you'll agree that to hear a confession like that alone with a little sixteen-year-old angel like that, in a little tulle dress, with her frizzed-up curls, a blush of maidenly modesty on her cheeks and the tears of enthusiasm in her eyes – I think you'll agree that all that is just ever so slightly tempting. Don't you think so? I mean, it's worth something, eh? Come on, it is, isn't it? Well… well, listen… we shall go and see my fiancee… only not right now!’

‘In a word, what you're saying is that this monstrous difference in years and development also arouses your lust! And yet you're still going ahead with this marriage?’

‘What? But of course! Everyone must look out for himself, and the best time is had by those who're best able to deceive themselves. Ha-ha! I say, you've really plunged into virtue up to your neck all of a sudden, haven't you? Have a heart, old chap, I'm a sinful man. Hee-hee-hee!’

‘You don't say so! Though you did find a home for Katerina Ivanovna's children. But… but you had your own reasons for doing that… I understand it all now.’

‘On the whole I'm fond of children, I'm very fond of children,’ Svidrigailov chortled. ‘On that account I can even relate to you a certain very curious episode that is actually still taking place. On the first day after my arrival here I called in at one or two of those dives, well, after seven years away from the town I fairly pounced on them. You've probably observed that I'm not in any hurry to get together with my cronies, my former friends and acquaintances. Indeed, I'm trying to hold out for as long as possible without seeing them. You know, all the time I was living out there on Marfa Petrovna's country estate I kept being tormented by memories of all those mysterious locales and little snuggeries where a man who knows his way around can find a great many things. The devil take it! The common folk are drunk all the time, the educated youth is burning itself out in vain dreams and fantasies, crippling itself on theories; Jews have come flocking in from somewhere, hiding money away, and everyone else is indulging in sexual licence. Within hours of my arrival I'd fairly got the reek of this city, the old, familiar reek. I ended up at a certain
soirée dansante
, so-called – a terrible dive (I like my dives with a bit of filth in them), well, and of course, there was a cancan, of a kind there never was in my time. Yes, sir, there's been some progress in such matters. Suddenly I looked, and saw a little girl of about thirteen, dressed in the most charming way, dancing with a certain virtuoso; there was another right in front of her,
vis-à-vis
. On a chair over by the wall sat her mother. Well, it was quite some cancan! The girl got embarrassed, turned red in the face, finally took offence and began to cry. The virtuoso plucked her off her feet, began whirling her round and showing off in front of her, everyone roared with laughter and – I'm rather fond of our Russian
audiences, even cancan ones, at such moments – they all cackled and shouted: “Now you're talking, that's the way! And don't give us children next time!” Well, I didn't give a spit, and anyway it was no business of mine whether they were entertaining themselves in a logical or illogical manner! I at once saw my opening, sat down beside the mother and began by telling her I was also from out of town, that these people were ignoramuses, that they were incapable of discerning true merit and treating it with the respect it deserved; I let her know that I had a lot of money; offered to take them home in my carriage; did so, made their acquaintance (they're living in some little closet of a room that they rent from tenants, they've only just arrived). She told me that she and her daughter could not view my acquaintance as other than an honour; I learned that they were absolutely destitute, and had come to press their case in some government office or other; I offered them my services, money; I learned that they had gone to the
soirée
by mistake, thinking that it was some kind of dancing-school; I offered to assist in the young lady's education, and give her lessons in French and dancing. They accepted with rapture, considered it an honour, and I'm still friendly with them… If you like, we can go there – only not right now.’

‘Enough, enough of your vile, base anecdotes, you lecherous, base, lustful man!’

‘A Schiller, a Russian Schiller, a Schiller, no less!
Où va-t-elle la vertu se nicher?
²
You know, I shall continue to tell you things like that on purpose, just in order to hear your screams. It's a real pleasure!’

‘I bet it is; don't you think I feel absurd at this moment?’ Raskolnikov muttered in rage.

Svidrigailov roared at the top of his voice with laughter; at last he summoned Filipp, settled his bill and began to get up.

‘Well, I'm drunk, and
assez causé
!’ he said. ‘A real pleasure!’

‘I don't wonder that you feel pleasure,’ Raskolnikov screamed, also getting up. ‘Of course it's a pleasure for a shabby old lecher to narrate his exploits – with another monstrous design of the same type in view – particularly in circumstances like these and to a person like me… It gets you aroused!’

‘Well, if that's how you see it,’ Svidrigailov replied, with a certain astonishment now, studying Raskolnikov, ‘if that's how you see it, then you yourself are a cynic to be reckoned with. At least, you've got the material for one inside you in abundance. You're able to perceive a lot of things… well, and that means you can do a lot of things, too. But anyway, that's enough. I sincerely regret not having had longer to talk to you, and you're not going to get away from me… Just wait a little, that's all…’

Svidrigailov walked out of the inn. Raskolnikov followed him. Svidrigailov was not really very drunk; the wine had gone to his head momentarily, but the intoxication was growing less every moment. He was very preoccupied with something, something intensely important, and he was frowning. It was evident that some kind of anticipation was agitating and worrying him. During the last few moments his attitude towards Raskolnikov had undergone a change and with each moment that passed was becoming coarser and more mocking. Raskolnikov had taken note of all this and was also in a state of anxiety. Svidrigailov had become highly suspicious to him; he decided to follow him.

They emerged on to the pavement.

‘You to the right, and I to the left, or, if you like, let's make it the other way round, only –
adieu
,
mon plaisir
,
au rendez
-
vous joyeux!
’ And he set off rightwards, in the direction of the Haymarket.