'But why . . . ? Why do you keep talking like this, now of all times?' Raskolnikov eventually mumbled, not even sure what he was asking. 'What's he going on about?' he thought to himself in bewilderment. 'Surely he can't really think I'm innocent?'
'Why am I talking like this? I came to explain myself, sir. I consider it, so to speak, my sacred duty. I want to tell you everything, the whole story of that blackout, so to speak. I've put you through a lot, Rodion Romanych. I'm no monster, sir. After all, even I can see what a burden all this must be for a man who's dejected but proud, masterful and impatient - especially the last! At any rate, I consider you the noblest of men and not without signs of magnanimity, though I cannot go along with all your convictions and feel obliged to say so in advance, frankly and quite sincerely, for the last thing I wish to do is deceive you. I developed a fondness for you after we met. Perhaps you find all this rather hilarious? You have every right, sir. I know you disliked me the moment you saw me - and indeed, there's really nothing to like me for. Think what you will, but I want to do all I can to make up for this first impression and prove that even I have a heart and a conscience. I'm being sincere, sir.'
There was a dignified pause. Raskolnikov felt a surge of a new kind of fear. The thought that Porfiry considered him innocent had suddenly begun to frighten him.
'Going through it all from A to Z and describing how it suddenly began back then seems hardly necessary,' Porfiry Petrovich continued. 'In fact, it would be quite redundant. And anyway, I'm probably not up to it, sir. After all, how can this be properly explained? First there were rumours. What kind of rumours, who started them and when . . . and why, to put it bluntly, your name came up - this too, I think, is redundant. For me personally, it began quite fortuitously, from a completely fortuitous fortuity that might very easily have never happened - which? H'm, nothing to be said here either, I think. At the time, all these rumours and fortuities merged in my mind into a single thought. If you're going to confess, you should confess everything, so I'll be frank and say I was the first to pounce on you. The labels the old woman had scribbled on her items, say, and all the rest of it - well, it's neither here nor there, sir. You could find a hundred things like that. I also happened to learn in detail, then, of the scene in the district police bureau, also quite fortuitously, sir, and not merely in passing, but from a special, first-rate storyteller, who, without knowing it himself, had really mastered this scene. You see, it all adds up, Rodion Romanych, my dear chap, it all adds up! How could I not be swayed in a particular direction? A hundred rabbits never make a horse, and a hundred suspicions never make a proof, as a certain English proverb has it,3 but that's just the voice of reason. What's one to do about the passions? That's the real question, because even an investigator is human. I was also reminded of that little article of yours in that journal, remember? You spoke about it in some detail during your very first visit. I scoffed at you then, but that was just to provoke you. You are, I repeat, terribly impatient and terribly sick, Rodion Romanych. As for your being daring, arrogant, serious and . . . a man of feeling, a man who's already felt a great deal - well, I've known that all along, sir. All these sensations are not unknown to me and your little article struck a chord when I read it. It was hatched during sleepless nights, at white heat, with a heaving, thumping heart, with suppressed enthusiasm. But it's dangerous, this suppressed, proud enthusiasm of youth! I scoffed at you at the time, but now I can tell you how much I adore - speaking purely as an amateur - these youthful, hot-blooded tests of the pen. Smoke, mist, and in the mist, the plucking of a string.4 Your article is absurd and fantastical, but contains flashes of pure sincerity, not to mention the incorruptible pride of youth and the audacity of despair; it's a gloomy little article, sir, and a very good thing too. I read it through, put it aside and thought: "I fear for this man!" Now tell me: after a precedent like that, how could I be indifferent about what followed? Heavens above! But what am I actually saying here? Am I really asserting anything? At the time, I merely made a mental note. What have we got here, I wondered? Nothing, precisely nothing, nothing to the nth degree, perhaps. And anyway, it's positively unseemly for an investigator like me to get so excited: I've got Mikolka right here, with facts to boot. Say what you like, but facts are facts! He's at it, too, bringing his own psychology into it. He'll keep me busy, don't you worry. It's a matter of life and death, after all. And why am I explaining all this to you now? Because I want you to know; because I don't want you to blame me, in your heart and mind, for my malicious behaviour back then. There was no malice, sir, honest - heh-heh! What? Do you think I didn't have this room searched? Of course I did, sir, heh-heh, of course I did, while you were laid up sick right here in your bed. Not officially and not in person, but I did. Every last hair in your lodgings was inspected, the trail as fresh as could be; but - umsonst!5 I thought, "He'll come himself, this man. He'll come all by himself, and soon, very soon; he's bound to, if he's guilty. Others wouldn't, but this one will." Remember how Mr Razumikhin became so indiscreet with you all of a sudden? We arranged that to get you worried; we started the rumour deliberately, counting on his indiscretion; after all, Mr Razumikhin is the kind of man who can't endure his own indignation. It was your fury and your brazen audacity that leapt out at Mr Zametov most of all: fancy blurting out in the tavern, "I'm the murderer!" Too daring, too bold. "If he's guilty," I thought, "what a fighter he must be!" Yes, that's what I thought. I was waiting, sir. I was on tenterhooks. You'd simply crushed Zametov and . . . well, that's precisely the problem: this damned psychology cuts both ways! I was waiting for you to come, when suddenly - like a gift from God - there you were! My heart just leapt. Good grief! What made you come just then? And that laughter of yours when you came in - remember? It was as if I could see everything through a pane of glass, though if I hadn't been waiting for you like that I wouldn't have noticed a thing, not a thing. Goes to show how everything depends on our state of mind! And when I think of Mr Razumikhin then . . . oh yes! The stone, the stone - remember? - the stone under which the items were hidden? I can almost see it there, in some vegetable patch - you did say vegetable patch, didn't you? To Zametov, I mean, and then again in my office? And then, when we started analysing that article of yours, when you started setting out your argument - well, your every word seemed to have a double meaning, as if there were another word just beneath it! And that, Rodion Romanych, is how I reached the final pillars,6 banged my head on them and came to my senses. Stop there, I said to myself! After all, you could explain all this, from start to finish, in a completely different way if you wanted to, and it might even come out sounding more natural. Sheer torture, sir! "No," I thought, "I'm better off with some little mark or other!" And then, when I heard about those little bells, I almost froze on the spot. I even got the shivers. "Well," I thought, "there's the mark I'm after! Right there!" Not that I really thought it through at the time - I didn't want to. I'd have given a thousand roubles of my own money at that moment simply to look at you with my own eyes: to watch you walking a hundred paces side by side with that tradesman after he said "murderer" straight to your face, not daring to ask him anything, for the entire one hundred paces! And that chill in your spine? Those bells, when you were sick, half-delirious? So you see, Rodion Romanych, can you really be surprised at my playing games with you then? And why did you have to come right then, at that very moment? It was as if you, too, were being nudged by someone, and if Mikolka hadn't come between us, well . . . Remember him, Mikolka? Did he stick in your mind? What a thunderbolt! Out of a great black cloud! A veritable crash of thunder! So how did I greet him? Well, I didn't fall for it, not for a moment, as you saw yourself! As if I would! Later on, once you'd left, he started giving me extremely polished answers on certain points, which astonished even me, and after that I didn't believe a thing he said! Adamant is the word for it, I believe. "No way," I thought. "Mikolka? Mikolka Schmikolka!"'
'Razumikhin was telling me just now that you still hold Mikolka responsi
ble and that you assured Razumikhin of the fact yourself . . .'
He was struggling for breath and couldn't finish. He listened with indescribable agitation as the man who'd seen right through him disavowed himself. He was scared to believe it, and didn't believe it. In these still-ambiguous words he hungrily sought something more precise and definitive.
'Mr Razumikhin - ha!' cried Porfiry Petrovich, apparently delighted to be asked this question by Raskolnikov, silent for so long. 'Heh-heh-heh! I misled Mr Razumikhin on purpose, and just as well: two's company, three's a crowd. Mr Razumikhin's got nothing to do with it. Fancy running over to me like that, pale as a sheet . . . Well, God bless him - why mix him up in all this? But perhaps you'd like to know more about Mikolka? About the sort of sujet we've got here - as I understand it, that is? First and foremost, he's still a child,7 still wet behind the ears; not exactly a coward, more like an artist of one kind or another. You mustn't laugh, sir, at my explaining him like this. Innocent and highly impressionable. With a heart and a lively imagination. He can sing, he can dance and when he tells stories people come to listen from all over, apparently. He can go to school, laugh till he drops just from someone holding up a finger, or drink himself senseless, not from debauchery, more like a child, in spurts, whenever someone offers. He stole that time without even realizing it. "It's finders keepers, ain't it?" And do you know he's a "Raskolnik", a schismatic; actually, not so much a schismatic as simply a sectarian; there were "Runners" among his ancestors, and not so long ago, out in the country, he spent two whole years under the wing of a certain Elder.8 I learned all this from Mikolka himself and from his Zaraisk chums. He even wanted to run off into the wilderness! A zealous sort - prayed to God all night, kept reading the old, "true" books9 and read himself silly. Petersburg had a powerful effect on him, especially the fairer sex, and the drink, of course. Impressionable, sir - forgot all about his Elder and everything else. A certain artist here took a liking to him, I'm told, and started visiting him, then this came along! Well, he got scared. "Find me a noose! Where can I run?" So much for the common folk's opinion of our legal process! The very word "trial" is enough to put the wind up some of them. Who's to blame? The new courts10 will have something to say about it. Or at least, I hope they will! Anyway, sir, while in jail he must have remembered about his good old Elder; the Bible's made a reappearance, too. Do you have any idea, Rodion Romanych, what the word "suffering" means to some people? Not suffering for anyone's sake, but simply because "I must suffer"? Because one must accept one's suffering, and if it comes from the authorities so much the better. In my time, there was a convict, meek as a lamb, who spent a whole year in prison, sat on the stove all night reading the Bible, and really did read himself silly, to the point that one day, out of the blue, he picked up a brick and hurled it at the warden, without the slightest provocation. You should have seen how he threw it: he missed by a yard so as not to hurt him! We all know what happens to a convict who attacks an officer with a weapon: well then, he "accepted his suffering". So my suspicion now is that Mikolka wants to "accept his suffering" or something of the kind. I'm sure of it, sir - I've even got the facts to prove it. It's just that he doesn't know that I know. Why, do you really find it so inconceivable that such fantastical people should emerge from the common folk? They're two a penny! Now the Elder's back on the scene, especially after that business with the noose. Anyway, he'll come and tell me everything himself. You think he'll hold out? Just you wait: he'll change his tune! I'm waiting for him to come any moment and go back on his testimony. I've taken a shine to this Mikolka. I'm making a thorough study of him. And guess what? Heh-heh! On certain points his answers were very polished indeed - he was clearly well informed and well prepared - but on others he was utterly clueless and completely unaware of his own ignorance! No, Rodion Romanych, Mikolka's not our man! What we've got here, sir, is a fantastical, dark deed, a modern deed, a deed of our time, when the heart of man has clouded over; when there's talk of "renewal" through bloodshed;11 when people preach about anything and everything from a position of comfort. What we have here are bookish dreams, sir, a heart stirred up by theories, a visible determination to take the first step, but determination of a particular kind - as if he were throwing himself off a cliff or a bell tower, and when he did get to the scene of the crime he hadn't a clue how he'd got there. Forgot to close the door behind him, but still did it, still murdered two people, in accordance with the theory. Murdered, but didn't manage to take the money, and what he did grab he hid beneath a stone. The torment of sitting inside the old woman's apartment while the door was being forced and the bell was ringing wasn't enough for him - no, later on back he came to the empty apartment, half-delirious, to remind himself of that little bell, desperate to experience once again the chill down his spine . . . He was sick, you might say, but how about this: he murdered, but thinks himself honest, holds others in contempt, wanders around like a pale-faced angel - no, Rodion Romanych, my dear chap, Mikolka's not our man - not a chance!'
These last words, after all that had gone before, so similar to a recantation, caught him completely by surprise. Raskolnikov started shaking all over, as if he'd been stabbed.
'So . . . who did it?' he asked, unable to resist, gasping for air. Porfiry Petrovich all but threw himself back in his chair, as if utterly astounded by the question.
'What do you mean - who did it?' he repeated, as if he couldn't believe his ears. 'Why, you did, Rodion Romanych! With respect, sir, the murderer is you . . . ,' he almost whispered, in a voice of total conviction.
Raskolnikov leapt from the couch, stayed on his feet for a few seconds, then sat back down, not saying a word. Faint convulsions suddenly rippled across his face.
'Your lip's trembling again, just like then,' muttered Porfiry Petrovich, almost with sympathy. 'You seem to have misunderstood me, Rodion Romanych,' he added, after a pause, 'hence your amazement. This is the whole reason I've come here: to leave nothing unsaid and bring everything out into the open.'
'It wasn't me,' Raskolnikov began in a whisper, just like a frightened little child who's been caught red-handed.
'Yes it was, Rodion Romanych. Yes it was, sir - can't be anyone else,' Porfiry whispered, with stern conviction.
They both fell silent and the silence lasted a strangely long time, ten minutes or so. Raskolnikov leant his elbows on the table and silently ruffled his hair with his fingers. Porfiry Petrovich meekly sat and waited. Then, with a sudden, contemptuous glance, Raskolnikov said:
'Up to your old tricks again, Porfiry Petrovich? The same old ruses? Aren't you tired of it all, I wonder?'
'Oh please - what good are tricks to me now? If there were any witnesses here, that would be another matter; but it's just the two of us. You can see for yourself that I haven't come here to chase you around like a hare and trap you. Whether or not you confess means nothing to me at this moment in time. I don't need you to convince me.'
'So why have you come?' asked Raskolnikov irritably. 'I'll ask you again: if you consider me guilty, why not put me inside?'
'Now there's a question! I'll take each point in turn: firstly, arresting you just like that is no use to me.'
'What do you mean, no use? If you're convinced, you should . . .'
'And what if I am convinced? For now, these are mere dreams of mine, sir. What would be the point of my putting you away to rest in peace? You must know that yourself if you're encouraging me. Say I bring that tradesman in to prove your guilt. You'll just tell him, "Are you drunk or what? Who saw me with you? I just took you for a drunk, and quite right, too" - well, what will I say to you then? Especially as your story's more likely than his, seeing as his testimony is mere psychology, which hardly suits a mug like his, while you get straight to the point, because he's an old soak, that man, as everyone knows. And haven't I admitted to you openly, more than once, that all this psychology is double-edged and that the second edge cuts deeper than the first and is a whole lot more likely? And I still haven't go
t anything else on you anyway. And even though I will still arrest you and even though I've come here myself (not the done thing) to tell you about everything in advance, all the same I'm telling you straight (which is not the done thing, either) that this will be no use to me. And secondly, I've come here because . . .'
'Oh yes - and secondly?' (Raskolnikov was still gasping.)
'Because, as I told you before, I think I owe you an explanation. I don't want you to think me a monster, especially when I'm sincerely fond of you, believe it or not. As a result of which, thirdly, I've come here with an open and frank suggestion: that you turn yourself in. You'll be infinitely better off, and so will I - one less thing to worry about. Very frank of me, don't you think?'
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