Crime and Punishment

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  'But sir . . . it's pouring. How can you go anywhere now, sir?'

  'Well that would be a fine thing: leaving for America and being scared of the rain! Heh-heh! Goodbye, Sofya Semyonovna, dear girl! Live and live long. There'll be others who need you. By the way . . . tell Mr Razumikhin I bow to him. Use those exact words: "Arkady Ivanovich Svidrigailov bows to you." Just so.'

  He went out, leaving Sonya astonished, alarmed and filled with obscure, oppressive misgivings.

  It later transpired that on that same evening, not long before midnight, he paid one more highly eccentric and unexpected visit. It was still pouring. At twenty past eleven, drenched to the skin, he entered the cramped apartment of his fiancee's parents, on Maly Prospect, Third Line, Vasilyevsky Island. He had to knock a long time before they opened and at first his appearance caused considerable embarrassment; but Arkady Ivanovich could be very charming when the mood took him, so the initial (and extremely perspicacious) conclusion drawn by his fiancee's prudent parents, that Arkady Ivanovich must have got so drunk somewhere that he could no longer think straight, was instantly dismissed. The invalid father was wheeled out in a chair by the tender-hearted and prudent mother, who began, in her usual fashion, with some very far-fetched questions. (This woman never asked anything directly, preferring to limber up with smiles and much rubbing of hands, after which, if concrete information was urgently required, such as "When would Arkady Ivanovich care to hold the wedding?", she would begin by asking, with the keenest curiosity, about Paris and life at the Parisian court, and only then, if at all, turn to life on the Third Line of Vasilyevsky Island.) On another day, all this would no doubt have inspired the greatest respect, but on this particular occasion Arkady Ivanovich was unusually impatient and adamant that he wanted to see his fiancee at all costs, despite having been informed right away that she was already in bed. Needless to say, the fiancee appeared. Arkady Ivanovich told her straight out that he had to leave Petersburg for a while on a matter of the gravest importance, which was why he'd brought her fifteen thousand roubles in silver, in various denominations, asking her to accept these notes as a gift, seeing as it had long been his intention to give her this trifle before their wedding. A logical connection between the gift, his imminent departure and his urgent need to come visiting in the rain, at midnight, did not thereby emerge, but nonetheless it all went off without a hitch. Even the inevitable oohs and aahs, interrogations and interjections suddenly became unusually moderate and restrained; instead, there followed expressions of the most ardent gratitude, reinforced by the tears of a prudent mother. Arkady Ivanovich got up, laughed, kissed his fiancee, patted her cheek, confirmed he would soon be back and, glimpsing in her eyes a mute, serious question that exceeded purely childish curiosity, thought for a moment, kissed her again and inwardly cursed the fact that his gift would immediately be stowed away under lock and key by this most prudent of mothers. He departed, leaving everyone in a state of extraordinary excitement. But tender-hearted mama, pattering away in a whisper, immediately resolved some of the most pressing uncertainties: 'Arkady Ivanovich, you see, is an important man, much in demand and well connected, a man of means - who's to say what goes through his mind or why he should suddenly up and leave and part with his money? So there's really no cause for wonder. It is rather odd to see him soaking wet, but the English, for example, are even more eccentric, and actually all these sophisticated types are quite indifferent to other people's opinions and they never stand on ceremony. Perhaps he goes about like that on purpose, to show that no one can scare him. But the main thing is, don't breathe a word about this to anyone, because God knows where it'll all end, and do let's put that money away, and thank goodness Feodosya was in the kitchen - isn't that a relief? - and the main thing is, not a word about this, any of it, to that scheming Resslich woman,' and so on and so forth. They sat up whispering until two o'clock. The fiancee, though, went to sleep much earlier, surprised and a little saddened.

  Meanwhile, on the dot of midnight, Svidrigailov was crossing ----kov Bridge30 onto Petersburg Side. The rain had stopped, but the wind was gusting. He started to shiver, and for a minute or so he looked with particular curiosity - almost questioningly - at the black water of the Lesser Neva. But he quickly began to feel very cold standing there above the water; he turned and set off down ----oy Prospect.31 He'd been walking along that dark, endless street for ages, almost half an hour, and had lost his footing more than once on the wooden pavement, but he still carried on looking for something on the right side of street. It was somewhere here, near the end of the street, that he'd recently noticed, while travelling past one day, a wooden, yet very sizeable hotel, and its name, as far as he could remember, was Adrianopolis32 or something of the kind. He wasn't mistaken: in this back of beyond the hotel stood out so prominently that it couldn't be missed, even in the dark. It was a long, blackened building in which, despite the late hour, windows were still lit and there were still signs of life. He went in and asked a ragamuffin he met in the corridor for a room. After a quick glance at Svidrigailov, the ragamuffin perked up and immediately showed him to a distant room, stuffy and cramped, right at the very end of the corridor, in a corner, beneath the stairs. It was the only one still going. The ragamuffin looked at him inquiringly.

  'Any tea?' asked Svidrigailov.

  'That there is, sir.'

  'What else?'

  'Veal, sir. Vodka, sir. Snacks.'

  'Bring me some veal and tea.'

  'Sir won't be wanting anything else, then?' the ragamuffin asked with a kind of bewilderment.

  'No, nothing!'

  The ragamuffin went off, deeply disappointed.

  'A fine place this must be,' thought Svidrigailov. 'Amazed I never knew about it before. I suppose I must also look like a man who's just back from some cafe-chantant or other,33 having had an adventure along the way. Wonder what kind of person spends the night here?'

  He lit a candle and inspected the room more closely. It was a cell so small that Svidrigailov almost had to bow his head, with just one window; a filthy bed, a simple painted table and a chair took up nearly all the space. The walls looked as if they had been knocked together from planks, and the wallpaper was so dusty and frayed that only its colour (yellow) could still be discerned: the pattern was utterly obscured. One part of the wall and ceiling were cut at a slant, as in a loft, to make room for the staircase. Svidrigailov put down the candle, sat on the bed and sank into thought. But the strange, continuous whispers from the adjoining cell - at times, they were more like shouts - eventually captured his attention. The whispering hadn't ceased from the moment he entered. He listened in closely: a man, almost in tears, was cursing and reproaching another, but only one voice could be heard. Svidrigailov got up, shielded the candle with his hand, and immediately saw a glint in the wall; he went over and began looking through the gap. In a room slightly larger than his own were two guests. One, with unusually curly hair and a red, swollen face, had struck a declamatory pose, his frock coat off and his feet wide apart so as to keep his balance. Beating his chest, he was reproaching the other in histrionic fashion for being a beggar with no rank at all; having plucked him from the gutter, he could throw him out at a moment's notice, and the only witness to it all would be the finger of the Almighty. His friend sat in a chair, with the look of a man who desperately wanted to sneeze but couldn't. Every now and then he turned his dull, sheep-like gaze on the orator, but it was clear that he hadn't the faintest idea what he was talking about and probably wasn't even listening. A candle was guttering out on the table, where there was a flask of vodka, now almost empty, shot glasses, bread, tumblers, slices of pickled cucumber, and glasses from which the tea had long been drunk. After giving this scene his careful attention, Svidrigailov stepped back, unmoved, and sat back down on the bed.

  The ragamuffin, returning with the tea and the veal, could not refrain from asking once more, 'You won't be needing anything else?' and, receiving another negative reply, retired for good
. Svidrigailov had a glassful of tea straight away, to warm himself up, but couldn't eat a thing, having lost all appetite. He clearly had a fever coming on. He took off his coat and jacket, wrapped himself in a blanket and lay down on the bed. He was annoyed. 'Now of all times I'd have preferred to be well,' he thought with a grin. The room was stuffy, the candle gave a dim light, the wind was gusting outside and somewhere in the corner a mouse was scratching away; in fact, the whole room smelled of mice and something leathery. He lay there in a kind of daydream: one thought gave way to another. If only, it seemed, he could hold on to a mental picture of something, anything. 'That must be a garden down there, beneath the window,' he thought. 'I can hear the trees in the wind. How I hate the sound trees make at night when it's stormy and dark - such a disgusting feeling!' And he remembered how, walking past Petrovsky Park earlier, he'd been overcome by revulsion just thinking about it. He also remembered ----kov Bridge and the Lesser Neva, and once again he felt almost cold, just like before, as he stood over the water. 'I've never liked water, not even in paintings,' he reflected, before a strange thought suddenly brought another grin to his lips: 'You might have thought I wouldn't care less about aesthetics or comfort now, but just look how fastidious I've suddenly become, like an animal bent on choosing a nice spot for itself . . . on just such an occasion. I should have gone back to the park! It must have seemed too dark in there, too cold - heh-heh! As if pleasant sensations were what I needed! . . . And why haven't I snuffed out the candle?' (He blew it out.) 'The neighbours have turned in,' he thought, seeing no light through the gap. 'Just the time, Marfa Petrovna, just the time for you to pay me a visit: dark, the right kind of setting, a moment like no other. But now, of all times, you won't come . . .'

  For some reason he suddenly remembered how, earlier on, an hour before carrying out his designs on Dunechka, he'd advised Raskolnikov to entrust her to Razumikhin's care. 'I suppose I really did say that to taunt myself, as Raskolnikov guessed. What a little rascal he is, that Raskolnikov! What a weight he's carried. He could be a proper rascal with time, once all this silliness is knocked out of him, but for now he still wants to live a bit too much! They're all like that, these scoundrels. But to hell with him - he can do what he likes.'

  He couldn't sleep. Bit by bit the image of Dunechka, from earlier on, started appearing before him and a shiver suddenly ran down his body. 'No, this has to stop,' he thought, coming to his senses. 'I have to find something else to think about. How strange, and ridiculous: I've never felt any great hatred towards anyone, never even had any particular desire for revenge, and that's a bad sign, a bad sign! And I've never liked arguing, never got worked up - another bad sign! But to think of all the things I was promising her just now - good God! Chances are she'd have ground me to dust . . .' He fell silent again and clenched his teeth: once again the image of Dunechka came before him exactly as she was after firing her first shot, when she'd taken a dreadful fright, lowered the revolver and looked at him numbly: he could have grabbed her twice over and she wouldn't have lifted an arm to defend herself, unless he'd told her to. He recalled feeling at that instant a kind of pity for her, as if his heart were being squeezed . . . 'Damn it! Those thoughts again . . . This has to stop, it really does!'

  He was dozing off; the feverish shiver was subsiding. Suddenly, under the blanket, something seemed to run down his arm and his leg. He shuddered: 'Ugh, damn it! Must be a mouse!' he thought. 'Shouldn't have left the veal on the table . . .' The last thing he felt like doing was to uncover himself, get up and freeze, but suddenly something scuttled unpleasantly along his leg again; he threw off the blanket and lit the candle. Shivering with feverish cold, he bent down to inspect the bed - nothing; he gave the blanket a shake and a mouse suddenly fell out onto the sheet. He lunged towards it, but the mouse, instead of running off the bed, darted around from side to side, slipped out from under his fingers, ran up and down his arm and suddenly dived under the pillow; he threw the pillow to the floor, but in the space of an instant felt something jump onto his chest and scuttle round his body, under his shirt. He shuddered and woke. It was dark and he was lying in the bed as before, wrapped in a blanket, the wind howling beneath the window. 'How disgusting!' he thought in annoyance.

  He got up and sat on the edge of the bed, his back to the window. 'Better not to sleep at all,' he decided. But there was a cold, damp draught from the window. Without getting up, he pulled the blanket and wrapped it round him. He didn't light the candle. He wasn't thinking about anything, nor did he want to think; but one dream-vision followed another, and scraps of thought came and went, without beginning or end, without any connection. As if he were falling into a slumber. Whether it was the cold, the gloom, the damp or the wind howling beneath the window and shaking the trees that aroused in him some sort of stubbornly fantastical mood and desire - but all he could think of was flowers. A charming scene came to him; a bright, warm, almost hot day, a holiday, Trinity Day.34 A splendid, sumptuous country cottage in the English style, overgrown with fragrant flowers planted in rows on all sides; a porch wreathed with creepers and crammed with roses; a bright, cool, sumptuously carpeted staircase, decorated with rare flowers in Chinese pots. In particular he noticed, in water-filled pots on the windowsills, bouquets of white and tender narcissus bending on their stout, tall, bright-green stems and exuding a powerful scent. Dragging himself away from them with the greatest reluctance, he went up the stairs and entered a large, high-ceilinged drawing room, and here too - by the windows, near the doors that opened onto the terrace, on the terrace itself - there were flowers everywhere. The floors were strewn with freshly mown, fragrant grass, the windows were open, a fresh, light, cool breeze entered the room, birds chirruped beneath the windows, and in the centre, on tables covered with white satin cloths, was a coffin. The coffin was lined with white gros de Naples and trimmed with thick, white ruche. Garlands of flowers wound around it on all sides. Submerged in flowers, a young girl lay inside, wearing a white tulle dress, her arms folded tight against her chest, as if they were chiselled from marble. But her flowing, light-blond hair was wet, and her head was wreathed in roses. The severe and already rigid profile of her face also seemed cut from marble, but the smile on her pale lips expressed unchildlike, boundless sorrow, a great, great grievance. Svidrigailov knew this girl. There was neither an icon nor a single lighted candle by her coffin, and no prayers could be heard. The girl was a suicide - she'd drowned.35 She was only fourteen, but her heart had already been broken and it destroyed itself, outraged by an insult that appalled and astonished this young child's mind, that flooded her angelically pure soul with unmerited shame and wrung from her one last cry of despair, unheard and even mocked in the dark of the night, in the gloom and the cold, the damp and the thaw, to the howling of the wind . . .

  Svidrigailov snapped awake, rose from the bed and went over to the window. He felt for the catch and opened it. The wind burst violently into his cramped cell and something like rime soon formed on his face and chest, covered only by a shirt. There really did seem to be some kind of garden beneath the window, another pleasure garden by the look of it; during the day there were probably choruses singing there, too, with tea brought out to the tables. But now drops of water sprayed in through the window from the trees and the bushes and it was as dark as a cellar; the most that could be made out was an occasional dark smudge representing one object or another. Svidrigailov, leaning out and resting his elbows on the windowsill, had been staring fixedly into this murk for five minutes or more. Suddenly, from the gloom and the night, a cannon fired once, then twice.

  'Ah, a warning! The water's rising,'36 he thought. 'By morning it'll have surged onto the streets down there, on lower ground, and flooded the basements and cellars; the cellar rats will swim up, and in the wind and the rain, dripping and cursing, people will start lugging their worthless stuff up the stairs . . . But what time is it now?' No sooner had he thought this than, somewhere close by, ticking away in a kind of frantic hurry, a cloc
k struck three. 'Ha, it'll be light in an hour! What am I waiting for? I'll leave right now and walk straight over to Petrovsky Park. I'll choose some big bush or other, all drenched in rain - one brush of my shoulder and a million drops will spray my head . . .' He moved away from the window, closed it, lit a candle, put on his waistcoat, coat and hat, and went out into the corridor with the candle, hoping to find the ragamuffin asleep in some box room filled with junk and candle stubs, pay him for the room and leave. 'The best moment for it - couldn't have chosen a better one!'

  He walked up and down the endless, narrow corridor for a long time without finding anyone, and he was about to call out when suddenly, in a dark corner between an old cupboard and a door, he spotted a strange object, seemingly alive. He bent over with the candle and saw a child - a girl of about five, at most, wearing a little dress as wet as a floor mop, shivering and crying. Svidrigailov didn't even seem to frighten her. She looked at him in dull astonishment with her big black eyes and let out an occasional sob, like children who, after a good long cry, are finally beginning to cheer up, but could easily start sobbing again at a moment's notice. The girl's little face was pale and exhausted; she was rigid with cold. 'But how did she get here? She must have been hiding here. Can't have slept a wink.' He started interrogating her. The girl suddenly came alive and began babbling something in her childish tongue. Something about 'Mumsie' and 'Mumsie thmacking me', about some cup she'd 'breaked'. The girl barely paused for breath, and it wasn't too hard to work out from all her stories that here was an unloved child who'd been thrashed and terrorized by her mother, some cook never seen sober, probably from this same hotel; that the girl had broken Mummy's cup and taken such a fright she'd run away earlier that evening; that she'd probably been keeping out of sight somewhere outside, in the rain, before eventually making her way here, hiding behind the cupboard and spending the whole night in the corner, crying, shivering from the damp and the dark and the fear that she was due another painful beating. He picked her up, took her to his room, sat her on the bed and began undressing her. Her little shoes, full of holes and worn on bare feet, were so wet they might have been lying all night in a puddle. After undressing her, he laid her on the bed and covered her, wrapping her up from head to toe in the blanket. She fell asleep at once. Having done all this, he sank once more into sullen thought.