Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  “Upon my word,” Luzhin cried wrathfully and irritably, crimson with confusion, “to distort my words in this way! Excuse me, allow me to assure you that the report which has reached you, or rather, let me say, has been conveyed to you, has no foundation in truth, and I... suspect who... in a word... this arrow... in a word, your mamma... She seemed to me in other things, with all her excellent qualities, of a somewhat high-flown and romantic way of thinking.... But I was a thousand miles from supposing that she would misunderstand and misrepresent things in so fanciful a way.... And indeed... indeed...”

  “I tell you what,” cried Raskolnikov, raising himself on his pillow and fixing his piercing, glittering eyes upon him, “I tell you what.”

  “What?” Luzhin stood still, waiting with a defiant and offended face. Silence lasted for some seconds.

  “Why, if ever again... you dare to mention a single word... about my mother... I shall send you flying downstairs!”

  “What’s the matter with you?” cried Razumihin.

  “So that’s how it is?” Luzhin turned pale and bit his lip. “Let me tell you, sir,” he began deliberately, doing his utmost to restrain himself but breathing hard, “at the first moment I saw you you were ill-disposed to me, but I remained here on purpose to find out more. I could forgive a great deal in a sick man and a connection, but you... never after this...”

  “I am not ill,” cried Raskolnikov.

  “So much the worse...”

  “Go to hell!”

  But Luzhin was already leaving without finishing his speech, squeezing between the table and the chair; Razumihin got up this time to let him pass. Without glancing at anyone, and not even nodding to Zossimov, who had for some time been making signs to him to let the sick man alone, he went out, lifting his hat to the level of his shoulders to avoid crushing it as he stooped to go out of the door. And even the curve of his spine was expressive of the horrible insult he had received.

  “How could you — how could you!” Razumihin said, shaking his head in perplexity.

  “Let me alone — let me alone all of you!” Raskolnikov cried in a frenzy. “Will you ever leave off tormenting me? I am not afraid of you! I am not afraid of anyone, anyone now! Get away from me! I want to be alone, alone, alone!”

  “Come along,” said Zossimov, nodding to Razumihin.

  “But we can’t leave him like this!”

  “Come along,” Zossimov repeated insistently, and he went out. Razumihin thought a minute and ran to overtake him.

  “It might be worse not to obey him,” said Zossimov on the stairs. “He mustn’t be irritated.”

  “What’s the matter with him?”

  “If only he could get some favourable shock, that’s what would do it! At first he was better.... You know he has got something on his mind! Some fixed idea weighing on him.... I am very much afraid so; he must have!”

  “Perhaps it’s that gentleman, Pyotr Petrovitch. From his conversation I gather he is going to marry his sister, and that he had received a letter about it just before his illness....”

  “Yes, confound the man! he may have upset the case altogether. But have you noticed, he takes no interest in anything, he does not respond to anything except one point on which he seems excited — that’s the murder?”

  “Yes, yes,” Razumihin agreed, “I noticed that, too. He is interested, frightened. It gave him a shock on the day he was ill in the police office; he fainted.”

  “Tell me more about that this evening and I’ll tell you something afterwards. He interests me very much! In half an hour I’ll go and see him again.... There’ll be no inflammation though.”

  “Thanks! And I’ll wait with Pashenka meantime and will keep watch on him through Nastasya....”

  Raskolnikov, left alone, looked with impatience and misery at Nastasya, but she still lingered.

  “Won’t you have some tea now?” she asked.

  “Later! I am sleepy! Leave me.”

  He turned abruptly to the wall; Nastasya went out.

  CHAPTER VI

  But as soon as she went out, he got up, latched the door, undid the parcel which Razumihin had brought in that evening and had tied up again and began dressing. Strange to say, he seemed immediately to have become perfectly calm; not a trace of his recent delirium nor of the panic fear that had haunted him of late. It was the first moment of a strange sudden calm. His movements were precise and definite; a firm purpose was evident in them. “To-day, to-day,” he muttered to himself. He understood that he was still weak, but his intense spiritual concentration gave him strength and self-confidence. He hoped, moreover, that he would not fall down in the street. When he had dressed in entirely new clothes, he looked at the money lying on the table, and after a moment’s thought put it in his pocket. It was twenty-five roubles. He took also all the copper change from the ten roubles spent by Razumihin on the clothes. Then he softly unlatched the door, went out, slipped downstairs and glanced in at the open kitchen door. Nastasya was standing with her back to him, blowing up the landlady’s samovar. She heard nothing. Who would have dreamed of his going out, indeed? A minute later he was in the street.

  It was nearly eight o’clock, the sun was setting. It was as stifling as before, but he eagerly drank in the stinking, dusty town air. His head felt rather dizzy; a sort of savage energy gleamed suddenly in his feverish eyes and his wasted, pale and yellow face. He did not know and did not think where he was going, he had one thought only: “that all this must be ended to-day, once for all, immediately; that he would not return home without it, because he would not go on living like that.” How, with what to make an end? He had not an idea about it, he did not even want to think of it. He drove away thought; thought tortured him. All he knew, all he felt was that everything must be changed “one way or another,” he repeated with desperate and immovable self-confidence and determination.

  From old habit he took his usual walk in the direction of the Hay Market. A dark-haired young man with a barrel organ was standing in the road in front of a little general shop and was grinding out a very sentimental song. He was accompanying a girl of fifteen, who stood on the pavement in front of him. She was dressed up in a crinoline, a mantle and a straw hat with a flame-coloured feather in it, all very old and shabby. In a strong and rather agreeable voice, cracked and coarsened by street singing, she sang in hope of getting a copper from the shop. Raskolnikov joined two or three listeners, took out a five copeck piece and put it in the girl’s hand. She broke off abruptly on a sentimental high note, shouted sharply to the organ grinder “Come on,” and both moved on to the next shop.

  “Do you like street music?” said Raskolnikov, addressing a middle-aged man standing idly by him. The man looked at him, startled and wondering.

  “I love to hear singing to a street organ,” said Raskolnikov, and his manner seemed strangely out of keeping with the subject— “I like it on cold, dark, damp autumn evenings — they must be damp — when all the passers-by have pale green, sickly faces, or better still when wet snow is falling straight down, when there’s no wind — you know what I mean? — and the street lamps shine through it...”

  “I don’t know.... Excuse me..,” muttered the stranger, frightened by the question and Raskolnikov’s strange manner, and he crossed over to the other side of the street.

  Raskolnikov walked straight on and came out at the corner of the Hay Market, where the huckster and his wife had talked with Lizaveta; but they were not there now. Recognising the place, he stopped, looked round and addressed a young fellow in a red shirt who stood gaping before a corn chandler’s shop.

  “Isn’t there a man who keeps a booth with his wife at this corner?”

  “All sorts of people keep booths here,” answered the young man, glancing superciliously at Raskolnikov.

  “What’s his name?”

  “What he was christened.”

  “Aren’t you a Zaraïsky man, too? Which province?”

  The young man looked at Raskol
nikov again.

  “It’s not a province, your excellency, but a district. Graciously forgive me, your excellency!”

  “Is that a tavern at the top there?”

  “Yes, it’s an eating-house and there’s a billiard-room and you’ll find princesses there too.... La-la!”

  Raskolnikov crossed the square. In that corner there was a dense crowd of peasants. He pushed his way into the thickest part of it, looking at the faces. He felt an unaccountable inclination to enter into conversation with people. But the peasants took no notice of him; they were all shouting in groups together. He stood and thought a little and took a turning to the right in the direction of V.

  He had often crossed that little street which turns at an angle, leading from the market-place to Sadovy Street. Of late he had often felt drawn to wander about this district, when he felt depressed, that he might feel more so.

  Now he walked along, thinking of nothing. At that point there is a great block of buildings, entirely let out in dram shops and eating-houses; women were continually running in and out, bare-headed and in their indoor clothes. Here and there they gathered in groups, on the pavement, especially about the entrances to various festive establishments in the lower storeys. From one of these a loud din, sounds of singing, the tinkling of a guitar and shouts of merriment, floated into the street. A crowd of women were thronging round the door; some were sitting on the steps, others on the pavement, others were standing talking. A drunken soldier, smoking a cigarette, was walking near them in the road, swearing; he seemed to be trying to find his way somewhere, but had forgotten where. One beggar was quarrelling with another, and a man dead drunk was lying right across the road. Raskolnikov joined the throng of women, who were talking in husky voices. They were bare-headed and wore cotton dresses and goatskin shoes. There were women of forty and some not more than seventeen; almost all had blackened eyes.

  He felt strangely attracted by the singing and all the noise and uproar in the saloon below.... someone could be heard within dancing frantically, marking time with his heels to the sounds of the guitar and of a thin falsetto voice singing a jaunty air. He listened intently, gloomily and dreamily, bending down at the entrance and peeping inquisitively in from the pavement.

  “Oh, my handsome soldier Don’t beat me for nothing,”

  trilled the thin voice of the singer. Raskolnikov felt a great desire to make out what he was singing, as though everything depended on that.

  “Shall I go in?” he thought. “They are laughing. From drink. Shall I get drunk?”

  “Won’t you come in?” one of the women asked him. Her voice was still musical and less thick than the others, she was young and not repulsive — the only one of the group.

  “Why, she’s pretty,” he said, drawing himself up and looking at her.

  She smiled, much pleased at the compliment.

  “You’re very nice looking yourself,” she said.

  “Isn’t he thin though!” observed another woman in a deep bass. “Have you just come out of a hospital?”

  “They’re all generals’ daughters, it seems, but they have all snub noses,” interposed a tipsy peasant with a sly smile on his face, wearing a loose coat. “See how jolly they are.”

  “Go along with you!”

  “I’ll go, sweetie!”

  And he darted down into the saloon below. Raskolnikov moved on.

  “I say, sir,” the girl shouted after him.

  “What is it?”

  She hesitated.

  “I’ll always be pleased to spend an hour with you, kind gentleman, but now I feel shy. Give me six copecks for a drink, there’s a nice young man!”

  Raskolnikov gave her what came first — fifteen copecks.

  “Ah, what a good-natured gentleman!”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Ask for Duclida.”

  “Well, that’s too much,” one of the women observed, shaking her head at Duclida. “I don’t know how you can ask like that. I believe I should drop with shame....”

  Raskolnikov looked curiously at the speaker. She was a pock-marked wench of thirty, covered with bruises, with her upper lip swollen. She made her criticism quietly and earnestly. “Where is it,” thought Raskolnikov. “Where is it I’ve read that someone condemned to death says or thinks, an hour before his death, that if he had to live on some high rock, on such a narrow ledge that he’d only room to stand, and the ocean, everlasting darkness, everlasting solitude, everlasting tempest around him, if he had to remain standing on a square yard of space all his life, a thousand years, eternity, it were better to live so than to die at once! Only to live, to live and live! Life, whatever it may be!... How true it is! Good God, how true! Man is a vile creature!... And vile is he who calls him vile for that,” he added a moment later.

  He went into another street. “Bah, the Palais de Cristal! Razumihin was just talking of the Palais de Cristal. But what on earth was it I wanted? Yes, the newspapers.... Zossimov said he’d read it in the papers. Have you the papers?” he asked, going into a very spacious and positively clean restaurant, consisting of several rooms, which were, however, rather empty. Two or three people were drinking tea, and in a room further away were sitting four men drinking champagne. Raskolnikov fancied that Zametov was one of them, but he could not be sure at that distance. “What if it is?” he thought.

  “Will you have vodka?” asked the waiter.

  “Give me some tea and bring me the papers, the old ones for the last five days, and I’ll give you something.”

  “Yes, sir, here’s to-day’s. No vodka?”

  The old newspapers and the tea were brought. Raskolnikov sat down and began to look through them.

  “Oh, damn... these are the items of intelligence. An accident on a staircase, spontaneous combustion of a shopkeeper from alcohol, a fire in Peski... a fire in the Petersburg quarter... another fire in the Petersburg quarter... and another fire in the Petersburg quarter.... Ah, here it is!” He found at last what he was seeking and began to read it. The lines danced before his eyes, but he read it all and began eagerly seeking later additions in the following numbers. His hands shook with nervous impatience as he turned the sheets. Suddenly someone sat down beside him at his table. He looked up, it was the head clerk Zametov, looking just the same, with the rings on his fingers and the watch-chain, with the curly, black hair, parted and pomaded, with the smart waistcoat, rather shabby coat and doubtful linen. He was in a good humour, at least he was smiling very gaily and good-humouredly. His dark face was rather flushed from the champagne he had drunk.

  “What, you here?” he began in surprise, speaking as though he’d known him all his life. “Why, Razumihin told me only yesterday you were unconscious. How strange! And do you know I’ve been to see you?”

  Raskolnikov knew he would come up to him. He laid aside the papers and turned to Zametov. There was a smile on his lips, and a new shade of irritable impatience was apparent in that smile.

  “I know you have,” he answered. “I’ve heard it. You looked for my sock.... And you know Razumihin has lost his heart to you? He says you’ve been with him to Luise Ivanovna’s — you know, the woman you tried to befriend, for whom you winked to the Explosive Lieutenant and he would not understand. Do you remember? How could he fail to understand — it was quite clear, wasn’t it?”

  “What a hot head he is!”

  “The explosive one?”

  “No, your friend Razumihin.”

  “You must have a jolly life, Mr. Zametov; entrance free to the most agreeable places. Who’s been pouring champagne into you just now?”

  “We’ve just been... having a drink together.... You talk about pouring it into me!”

  “By way of a fee! You profit by everything!” Raskolnikov laughed, “it’s all right, my dear boy,” he added, slapping Zametov on the shoulder. “I am not speaking from temper, but in a friendly way, for sport, as that workman of yours said when he was scuffling with Dmitri, in the case of the old
woman....”

  “How do you know about it?”

  “Perhaps I know more about it than you do.”

  “How strange you are.... I am sure you are still very unwell. You oughtn’t to have come out.”

  “Oh, do I seem strange to you?”

  “Yes. What are you doing, reading the papers?”

  “Yes.”

  “There’s a lot about the fires.”

  “No, I am not reading about the fires.” Here he looked mysteriously at Zametov; his lips were twisted again in a mocking smile. “No, I am not reading about the fires,” he went on, winking at Zametov. “But confess now, my dear fellow, you’re awfully anxious to know what I am reading about?”

  “I am not in the least. Mayn’t I ask a question? Why do you keep on...?”

  “Listen, you are a man of culture and education?”

  “I was in the sixth class at the gymnasium,” said Zametov with some dignity.

  “Sixth class! Ah, my cock-sparrow! With your parting and your rings — you are a gentleman of fortune. Foo! what a charming boy!” Here Raskolnikov broke into a nervous laugh right in Zametov’s face. The latter drew back, more amazed than offended.

  “Foo! how strange you are!” Zametov repeated very seriously. “I can’t help thinking you are still delirious.”

  “I am delirious? You are fibbing, my cock-sparrow! So I am strange? You find me curious, do you?”

  “Yes, curious.”

  “Shall I tell you what I was reading about, what I was looking for? See what a lot of papers I’ve made them bring me. Suspicious, eh?”

  “Well, what is it?”

  “You prick up your ears?”

  “How do you mean—’prick up my ears’?”

  “I’ll explain that afterwards, but now, my boy, I declare to you... no, better ‘I confess’... No, that’s not right either; ‘I make a deposition and you take it.’ I depose that I was reading, that I was looking and searching...,” he screwed up his eyes and paused. “I was searching — and came here on purpose to do it — for news of the murder of the old pawnbroker woman,” he articulated at last, almost in a whisper, bringing his face exceedingly close to the face of Zametov. Zametov looked at him steadily, without moving or drawing his face away. What struck Zametov afterwards as the strangest part of it all was that silence followed for exactly a minute, and that they gazed at one another all the while.