Pulkheria Alexandrovna exchanged glances with Dunechka and Razumikhin.
'H'm! Yes! But what should I tell you? I don't even remember very much about it. She was always poorly,' he went on, suddenly looking thoughtful again and staring at the floor, 'such a sickly young girl; liked giving alms, always dreaming of the nunnery, and when she started telling me about it once she was in floods of tears. Yes, yes . . . I remember that . . . I remember it very well. She was . . . ugly enough. Heaven knows why I became so fond of her - because she was always ill, I suppose . . . If she'd been lame as well, or a hunchback, I suppose I'd have loved her even more . . .' He smiled pensively. 'The spring must have gone to my head . . .'
'No, it wasn't that,' said Dunechka with feeling.
He looked at his sister closely, intently, but he didn't catch the words, or else he didn't understand them. Then, deep in thought, he got up, went over to his mother, kissed her, returned to his place and sat down.
'You still love her now?' said Pulkheria Alexandrovna, touched.
'Her? Now? Oh, I see . . . you mean her! No. That's a world away now . . . and so long ago. Actually, everything seems to be happening somewhere else . . .'
He looked at them attentively.
'Take you, for example . . . It's as if I were looking at you from a distance of a thousand miles . . . But what the devil are we talking about? And why all these questions?' he snapped, then fell silent, biting his nails and sinking into thought once more.
'What a horrid room you have, Rodya - just like a coffin,' said Pulkheria Alexandrovna suddenly, breaking the awkward silence. 'I'm sure that's half the reason you've become such a melancholic.'8
'The room?' he replied distractedly. 'Yes, the room had a lot to do with it . . . That's occurred to me, too . . . But if you only knew, Mama, what a strange thing you've just said,' he suddenly added with a peculiar grin.
A little more, and this group of people, this family, together again after three years, and this familial way of talking despite there being nothing at all to talk about, would have become utterly unbearable for him. There was, however, one urgent matter that had to be resolved today one way or another - or so he'd decided when he woke up. Now he rejoiced at having something to do, as if it were a way out.
'Now listen, Dunya,' he began seriously and tersely. 'Please forgive me, of course, for what happened yesterday, but I consider it my duty to remind you again that I won't yield an inch on my main point. It's me or Luzhin. I may be a scoundrel, but you shouldn't do it. One or the other. Marry Luzhin and I'll no longer consider you my sister.'
'Rodya, Rodya! But this is just what you were saying yesterday,' cried Pulkheria Alexandrovna bitterly. 'And why do you keep calling yourself a scoundrel? It's more than I can bear! Yesterday was just the same . . .'
'Brother,' Dunya replied firmly, and no less tersely, 'you're making a mistake here. I thought it through overnight and located it. You seem to think that I'm sacrificing myself to someone and for someone. But that's not the case at all. I'm marrying for my own sake, that's all, because life is hard enough for me, too. Naturally, I'll be only too glad if I also manage to be of help to my family, but that's not the main motive for my decision . . .'
'She's lying!' he thought to himself, biting his nails from spite. 'Too proud by half! Can't admit she wants to do good! Oh, vile souls! Even their love is like hatred . . . Oh, how I . . . hate them all!'
'In short, I'm marrying Pyotr Petrovich,' Dunechka continued, 'because it's the lesser of two evils. I intend to be honest in carrying out everything he expects of me, and therefore I am not deceiving him . . . Why did you smile like that just now?'
She also reddened, eyes flashing with anger.
'You'll carry out everything?' he asked, with a poisonous smirk.
'Up to a point. Both the manner and the form of Pyotr Petrovich's proposal showed me right away what it is that he needs. He does not lack self-esteem, of course, and perhaps he has too much of it, but I hope he esteems me, too . . . Now why are you laughing again?'
'And why are you blushing again? You're lying, sister. You're lying on purpose, out of sheer female stubbornness - anything so as not to yield an inch to me . . . You can't respect Luzhin. I've seen him. I've spoken to him. Which means you're selling yourself for money, which means you're behaving despicably and I'm glad that at least you're still capable of blushing!'
'That's not true! I'm not lying!' cried Dunechka, losing all composure. 'I'll only marry him if I'm convinced that he values and prizes me; and I'll only marry him if I am quite convinced that I'm capable of respecting him. Fortunately, I have the opportunity to make absolutely certain of this no later than today. Such a marriage is not shameful. You're wrong! And even if you were right, even if I really had decided to do something shameful - then wouldn't it be heartless of you to speak to me like this? Why demand of me a degree of heroism you may not even possess yourself? That's tyranny, coercion! The only person I run the risk of ruining is myself . . . I haven't killed anyone! Now why are you looking at me like that? Why have you gone so pale? Rodya, what's wrong? Rodya, my dearest! . . .'
'Good grief! You've made him faint!' cried Pulkheria Alexandrovna.
'No, no . . . nonsense . . . It was nothing! . . . Just a bit of dizziness. I certainly didn't faint . . . You've got a thing about fainting! . . . H'm! . . . Now what was I saying? Oh yes: how will you make certain no later than today that you are capable of respecting him and that he . . . esteems you - is that how you put it? It was today, wasn't it? Or did I mishear you?'
'Mama, show Rodya the letter from Pyotr Petrovich,' said Dunechka.
Pulkheria Alexandrovna passed him the letter in her trembling hands. He took it with the greatest curiosity. But before unfolding it he suddenly glanced with a sort of astonishment at Dunechka.
'How strange,' he said slowly, as though suddenly struck by a new thought. 'Why am I getting so involved? Why all this fuss? Marry whoever you like!'
He seemed to be speaking to himself, but he said the words out loud and looked for some time at his sister, as if puzzled by something.
He eventually unfolded the letter, still retaining a look of strange astonishment; then he began reading it through, slowly and attentively, and read it again. Pulkheria Alexandrovna was unusually tense; in fact, everyone was expecting something unusual.
'I'm amazed,' he began after a few moments' reflection, passing the letter back to his mother, but addressing no one in particular. 'I mean, he's a man of business, a lawyer, even speaks with a certain . . . swagger - but look, he's barely literate.'
Everyone stirred. This was the last thing they were expecting.
'But they all write like that,' came Razumikhin's curt comment.
'You mean you've read it, too?'
'Yes.'
'We showed it to him, Rodya. We . . . talked it over together earlier,' Pulkheria Alexandrovna began.
'It's lawyer-speak, that's all,' Razumikhin interrupted. 'That's the way legal documents have always been written.'
'Legal? Yes, that's right - legal, business-like . . . Not exactly illiterate or exactly literary: business-like!'
'Pyotr Petrovich doesn't conceal the fact that he was educated on a shoestring, and even boasts about having made his own way in life,' remarked Avdotya Romanovna, rather offended by her brother's new tone.
'Well, if he's boasting, then he must have something to boast about - I won't argue. You seem to be offended, sister, that the only thing I had to say about the whole letter was this frivolous observation, and you think I deliberately picked up on such petty things because I was annoyed and wanted to show off a bit. On the contrary, as regards style, a very pertinent point occurred to me. There's a certain expression he uses: "You'll have no one to blame but yourselves", very prominently placed; and besides, there's the threat that he'll leave immediately if I come. This threat actually amounts to a threat to abandon you both if you fail to do as he says, and to abandon you now, after he's already su
mmoned you to Petersburg. What do you think? Can such an expression be as offensive coming from Luzhin as if it had been written by, say, him,' (he pointed at Razumikhin) 'or Zosimov or any one of us?'
'N-no,' replied Dunechka, livening up a bit. 'I could see perfectly well that this was very artlessly put and that perhaps he is simply no great writer . . . You put that very well, brother. I wasn't expecting it . . .'
'It's said like a lawyer, and in legal-speak there's no other way of putting it, so it came out sounding more vulgar than perhaps he intended. But I have to disappoint you a little: in this letter there's one other expression, an aspersion cast on me, and a fairly shabby one at that. The money I gave away yesterday went to a widow, a consumptive, devastated widow, and not "on the pretext of the funeral", but for the funeral itself, and I gave it not to the daughter - a girl, as he writes, "of notorious conduct" (whom, by the way, I had never seen before) - but to the widow herself. In all this I see a great haste to sully me and set us against each other. Once again, it's said like a lawyer: the purpose is far too blatant and the haste is artless in the extreme. He's an intelligent man, but to act intelligently you need more than that. It all goes to show what he's like . . . and I doubt he esteems you all that much. I'm telling you this simply for your own edification, because I sincerely want what's best for you . . .'
Dunechka made no reply. She'd already taken her decision earlier, and now she was just waiting for the evening.
'So what have you decided, Rodya?' asked Pulkheria Alexandrovna, even more worried than before by his sudden, new, business-like tone.
'What do you mean - "decided"?'
'Well, here's Pyotr Petrovich writing that you mustn't be at ours this evening and that he'll leave . . . if you are. So what have you . . . will you come?'
'That, of course, is not for me to decide, but, firstly, for you, if Pyotr Petrovich's demand does not offend you, and secondly, for Dunya, if she, too, is not offended. And I'll do whatever suits you best,' he added tersely.
'Dunechka has already decided, and I fully agree with her,' Pulkheria Alexandrovna hastened to say.
'I've decided to ask you, Rodya, in the most forceful terms, to be present at our meeting at all costs,' said Dunya. 'Will you come?'
'I will.'
'I'm asking you, too, to be at ours at eight,' she turned to Razumikhin. 'I am inviting the gentleman as well, Mama.'
'Marvellous, Dunechka. Well then, if you've all decided,' said Pulkheria Alexandrovna, 'then that's how it will be. It's a relief for me, too. I don't like pretending and lying. We're better off telling the whole truth . . . Be angry all you like, Pyotr Petrovich!'
IV
At that moment the door opened softly. Looking timidly about her, a girl entered the room. Everyone turned to her in surprise and curiosity. At first, Raskolnikov didn't recognize her. It was Sofya Semyonovna Marmeladova. He'd seen Sonya yesterday for the first time, but at such a moment, in such circumstances and in such an outfit, that the image imprinted on his memory was of a quite different person. Before him now was a modestly, even poorly dressed girl, still very young, much like a child, with a modest and decorous manner and a clear yet somewhat frightened-looking face. She was wearing a very simple little house dress and a worn, old-fashioned little hat; only the parasol in her hands was the same. Seeing the room so unexpectedly full of people, she was not so much disconcerted as utterly lost and girlishly shy; she even made as if to go back out.
'Ah . . . it's you?' said Raskolnikov in the greatest astonishment, and suddenly became embarrassed himself.
It had immediately occurred to him that his mother and sister already knew in passing, from Luzhin's letter, about a certain girl of 'notorious' conduct. Just now he'd objected to Luzhin's slander and mentioned having seen this girl for the first time, when suddenly here she was. He also recalled making no objection at all to the expression 'notorious conduct'. All this passed through his mind in a flash and a blur. But, after a closer look, he saw just how low this lowly creature had been brought, and felt a sudden pity. And when she made as if to run away in terror, something seemed to turn over inside him.
'I wasn't expecting you at all,' he hurried, stopping her with his look. 'Please, kindly take a seat. Katerina Ivanovna sent you, I suppose. Not there, if you don't mind - why not here . . . ?'
When Sonya came in, Razumikhin, who had been sitting on one of Raskolnikov's three chairs right next to the door, had got up to let her pass. At first, Raskolnikov had wanted to seat her on the corner of the couch where Zosimov was sitting, but remembering that this was too familiar a place and served as his bed, he rushed to point her towards Razumikhin's chair.
'And you sit here,' he told Razumikhin, seating him in the corner where Zosimov had been sitting.
Sonya sat down, almost trembling with fear, and glanced timidly at both ladies. It was obvious that she herself did not understand how she could ever sit next to them. Realizing this, she had such a fright that she suddenly got up again and turned in complete embarrassment to Raskolnikov.
'I . . . I . . . won't stay long, and I'm very sorry to disturb,' she stammered. 'Katerina Ivanovna sent me. There was no one else . . . Katerina Ivanovna told me to ask you most kindly to attend the funeral service tomorrow, in the morning . . . during the liturgy . . . at Mitrofanievsky Cemetery,9 and then come to us . . . to her . . . to eat . . . To do her the honour . . . She told me to ask.'
Sonya broke off and fell silent.
'I'll certainly try . . . certainly . . . ,' replied Raskolnikov, also getting up and also stuttering and not finishing his sentence. 'Kindly take a seat,' he said suddenly, 'I need to have a word with you. Please - I expect you're in a hurry - be so kind, give me two minutes . . .'
He drew up a chair for her. Again Sonya sat down and again, as if lost, shot a timid, hasty glance at the two ladies and suddenly looked down.
Raskolnikov's pale face suddenly flushed; his whole body seemed to convulse; his eyes caught fire.
'Mama,' he said firmly and insistently, 'this is Sofya Semyonovna Marmeladova, the daughter of that same unfortunate Mr Marmeladov, who yesterday was trampled by horses before my very eyes. I've already told you about her . . .'
Pulkheria Alexandrovna glanced at Sonya and narrowed her eyes a little. For all her discomfort beneath Rodya's insistent and defiant gaze, she was simply unable to deny herself this satisfaction. Dunechka stared straight into the poor girl's face, seriously and intently, examining her in bewilderment. On hearing this introduction, Sonya briefly looked up again, but became even more embarrassed than before.
'I wanted to ask you,' Raskolnikov quickly addressed her, 'how it all went today. Did anyone bother you? . . . The police, for example?'
'No sir, everything was fine . . . The cause of death was very clear, and no one bothered us. The tenants are cross, that's all.'
'What about?'
'About the body lying there so long . . . in this heat, smelling . . . So today, before Vespers, they'll move it to the cemetery, until tomorrow, in the chapel. Katerina Ivanovna didn't want to at first, but now she can see for herself it's not . . .'
'Today, then?'
'She asks you to do us the honour of attending the service tomorrow, in the church, and then invites you to her, for the funeral banquet.'10
'She's putting on a funeral banquet?'
'Yes, sir, a small one. She gave strict instructions to thank you for helping us yesterday . . . If it wasn't for you we'd have nothing at all for the funeral.' Her lips and chin suddenly began to twitch, but she steeled herself and held firm, quickly lowering her eyes again to the floor.
While they were talking, Raskolnikov studied her closely. She had a terribly thin, terribly pale little face, quite irregular and somehow sharp, with a sharp little nose and chin. You couldn't even call her pretty, but her light-blue eyes were so clear, and her whole expression became so kind and guileless when they lit up, that it was impossible not to be drawn towards her. In addition, her face, and i
ndeed her whole figure, had one special, characteristic trait: despite her eighteen years, she still looked like a little girl, all but a child, and at times there was even something comical about the way her gestures betrayed this.
'But how could Katerina Ivanovna make do with such a small sum - and there'll even be a bite to eat, you say?' asked Raskolnikov, determined to keep the conversation going.
'But the coffin will be simple enough, sir . . . and everything will be simple, so it won't cost much . . . Katerina Ivanovna and I worked it all out yesterday, and there'll be enough left over for the banquet . . . and Katerina Ivanovna badly wants there to be one. After all, sir, one can't just . . . She'll feel better for it . . . You know how she is . . .'
'Yes, I understand . . . of course . . . Why are you studying my room like that? And there's Mama saying it looks like a coffin.'
'But yesterday you gave us all you had!' Sonechka shot back in a loud and rapid whisper, suddenly looking down at the floor again. And again her lips and chin began to twitch. She'd been struck straight away by the poverty of Raskolnikov's circumstances, and now these words suddenly burst from her lips. Silence followed. Dunechka's eyes became somehow brighter, while Pulkheria Alexandrovna looked at Sonya almost with warmth.
'Rodya,' she said, getting up, 'we'll have lunch together, of course. Off we go now, Dunechka . . . And you go out, too, Rodya, have a little walk, then a rest and a lie-down, and come as soon as you can . . . I fear we've tired you out . . .'
'Yes, yes, I'll come,' he replied, getting up in a hurry . . . 'Though actually, there's something I have to do . . .'
'Don't tell me you're not even going to eat together?' yelled Razumikhin, looking at Raskolnikov in astonishment. 'What are you saying?'
'Yes, yes, I'll come, of course I will . . . And you stay here for a minute. After all, you don't need him now, do you, Mama? Or perhaps you do?'
'Oh, no, no! But do come and have lunch, Dmitry Prokofich, won't you?'
'Yes, do come,' asked Dunya.
Razumikhin bowed, beaming all over. For a second, everyone became strangely embarrassed.
'Goodbye, Rodya, till soon, I mean. I don't like the word "goodbye". Goodbye, Nastasya . . . Dearie me, I said it again!'
Crime and Punishment Page 31
