Prev
| Next
| Contents
CHAPTER VI
"I don't believe it, I can't believe it!" repeated Razumihin, trying
in perplexity to refute Raskolnikov's arguments.
They were by now approaching Bakaleyev's lodgings, where Pulcheria
Alexandrovna and Dounia had been expecting them a long while.
Razumihin kept stopping on the way in the heat of discussion, confused
and excited by the very fact that they were for the first time
speaking openly about /it/.
"Don't believe it, then!" answered Raskolnikov, with a cold, careless
smile. "You were noticing nothing as usual, but I was weighing every
word."
"You are suspicious. That is why you weighed their words . . . h'm. . certainly, I agree, Porfiry's tone was rather strange, and still
more that wretch Zametov! . . . You are right, there was something
about him--but why? Why?"
"He has changed his mind since last night."
"Quite the contrary! If they had that brainless idea, they would do
their utmost to hide it, and conceal their cards, so as to catch you
afterwards. . . . But it was all impudent and careless."
"If they had had facts--I mean, real facts--or at least grounds for
suspicion, then they would certainly have tried to hide their game, in
the hope of getting more (they would have made a search long ago
besides). But they have no facts, not one. It is all mirage--all
ambiguous. Simply a floating idea. So they try to throw me out by
impudence. And perhaps, he was irritated at having no facts, and
blurted it out in his vexation--or perhaps he has some plan . . . he
seems an intelligent man. Perhaps he wanted to frighten me by
pretending to know. They have a psychology of their own, brother. But
it is loathsome explaining it all. Stop!"
"And it's insulting, insulting! I understand you. But . . . since we
have spoken openly now (and it is an excellent thing that we have at
last--I am glad) I will own now frankly that I noticed it in them long
ago, this idea. Of course the merest hint only--an insinuation--but
why an insinuation even? How dare they? What foundation have they? If
only you knew how furious I have been. Think only! Simply because a
poor student, unhinged by poverty and hypochondria, on the eve of a
severe delirious illness (note that), suspicious, vain, proud, who has
not seen a soul to speak to for six months, in rags and in boots
without soles, has to face some wretched policemen and put up with
their insolence; and the unexpected debt thrust under his nose, the
I.O.U. presented by Tchebarov, the new paint, thirty degrees Reaumur
and a stifling atmosphere, a crowd of people, the talk about the
murder of a person where he had been just before, and all that on an
empty stomach--he might well have a fainting fit! And that, that is
what they found it all on! Damn them! I understand how annoying it is,
but in your place, Rodya, I would laugh at them, or better still, spit
in their ugly faces, and spit a dozen times in all directions. I'd hit
out in all directions, neatly too, and so I'd put an end to it. Damn
them! Don't be downhearted. It's a shame!"
"He really has put it well, though," Raskolnikov thought.
"Damn them? But the cross-examination again, to-morrow?" he said with
bitterness. "Must I really enter into explanations with them? I feel
vexed as it is, that I condescended to speak to Zametov yesterday in
the restaurant. . . ."
"Damn it! I will go myself to Porfiry. I will squeeze it out of him,
as one of the family: he must let me know the ins and outs of it all!
And as for Zametov . . ."
"At last he sees through him!" thought Raskolnikov.
"Stay!" cried Razumihin, seizing him by the shoulder again. "Stay! you
were wrong. I have thought it out. You are wrong! How was that a trap?
You say that the question about the workmen was a trap. But if you had
done /that/, could you have said you had seen them painting the flat. . and the workmen? On the contrary, you would have seen nothing,
even if you had seen it. Who would own it against himself?"
"If I had done /that thing/, I should certainly have said that I had
seen the workmen and the flat," Raskolnikov answered, with reluctance
and obvious disgust.
"But why speak against yourself?"
"Because only peasants, or the most inexperienced novices deny
everything flatly at examinations. If a man is ever so little
developed and experienced, he will certainly try to admit all the
external facts that can't be avoided, but will seek other explanations
of them, will introduce some special, unexpected turn, that will give
them another significance and put them in another light. Porfiry might
well reckon that I should be sure to answer so, and say I had seen
them to give an air of truth, and then make some explanation."
"But he would have told you at once that the workmen could not have
been there two days before, and that therefore you must have been
there on the day of the murder at eight o'clock. And so he would have
caught you over a detail."
"Yes, that is what he was reckoning on, that I should not have time to
reflect, and should be in a hurry to make the most likely answer, and
so would forget that the workmen could not have been there two days
before."
"But how could you forget it?"
"Nothing easier. It is in just such stupid things clever people are
most easily caught. The more cunning a man is, the less he suspects
that he will be caught in a simple thing. The more cunning a man is,
the simpler the trap he must be caught in. Porfiry is not such a fool
as you think. . . ."
"He is a knave then, if that is so!"
Raskolnikov could not help laughing. But at the very moment, he was
struck by the strangeness of his own frankness, and the eagerness with
which he had made this explanation, though he had kept up all the
preceding conversation with gloomy repulsion, obviously with a motive,
from necessity.
"I am getting a relish for certain aspects!" he thought to himself.
But almost at the same instant he became suddenly uneasy, as though an
unexpected and alarming idea had occurred to him. His uneasiness kept
on increasing. They had just reached the entrance to Bakaleyev's.
"Go in alone!" said Raskolnikov suddenly. "I will be back directly."
"Where are you going? Why, we are just here."
"I can't help it. . . . I will come in half an hour. Tell them."
"Say what you like, I will come with you."
"You, too, want to torture me!" he screamed, with such bitter
irritation, such despair in his eyes that Razumihin's hands dropped.
He stood for some time on the steps, looking gloomily at Raskolnikov
striding rapidly away in the direction of his lodging. At last,
gritting his teeth and clenching his fist, he swore he would squeeze
Porfiry like a lemon that very day, and went up the stairs to reassure
Pulcheria Alexandrovna, who was by now alarmed at their long absence.
When Raskolnikov got home, his hair was soaked with sweat and he was
breathing heavily. He went rapidly up the stairs, walked into his
unlocked room and at once fastened the latch. Then in senseless terror
he rushed to the corner, to that hole under the paper where he had put
the things; put his hand in, and for some minutes felt carefully in
the hole, in every crack and fold of the paper. Finding nothing, he
got up and drew a deep breath. As he was reaching the steps of
Bakaleyev's, he suddenly fancied that something, a chain, a stud or
even a bit of paper in which they had been wrapped with the old
woman's handwriting on it, might somehow have slipped out and been
lost in some crack, and then might suddenly turn up as unexpected,
conclusive evidence against him.
He stood as though lost in thought, and a strange, humiliated, half
senseless smile strayed on his lips. He took his cap at last and went
quietly out of the room. His ideas were all tangled. He went dreamily
through the gateway.
"Here he is himself," shouted a loud voice.
He raised his head.
The porter was standing at the door of his little room and was
pointing him out to a short man who looked like an artisan, wearing
a long coat and a waistcoat, and looking at a distance remarkably like
a woman. He stooped, and his head in a greasy cap hung forward. From
his wrinkled flabby face he looked over fifty; his little eyes were
lost in fat and they looked out grimly, sternly and discontentedly.
"What is it?" Raskolnikov asked, going up to the porter.
The man stole a look at him from under his brows and he looked at him
attentively, deliberately; then he turned slowly and went out of the
gate into the street without saying a word.
"What is it?" cried Raskolnikov.
"Why, he there was asking whether a student lived here, mentioned your
name and whom you lodged with. I saw you coming and pointed you out
and he went away. It's funny."
The porter too seemed rather puzzled, but not much so, and after
wondering for a moment he turned and went back to his room.
Raskolnikov ran after the stranger, and at once caught sight of him
walking along the other side of the street with the same even,
deliberate step with his eyes fixed on the ground, as though in
meditation. He soon overtook him, but for some time walked behind him.
At last, moving on to a level with him, he looked at his face. The man
noticed him at once, looked at him quickly, but dropped his eyes
again; and so they walked for a minute side by side without uttering a
word.
"You were inquiring for me . . . of the porter?" Raskolnikov said at
last, but in a curiously quiet voice.
The man made no answer; he didn't even look at him. Again they were
both silent.
"Why do you . . . come and ask for me . . . and say nothing. . . .
What's the meaning of it?"
Raskolnikov's voice broke and he seemed unable to articulate the words
clearly.
The man raised his eyes this time and turned a gloomy sinister look at
Raskolnikov.
"Murderer!" he said suddenly in a quiet but clear and distinct voice.
Raskolnikov went on walking beside him. His legs felt suddenly weak, a
cold shiver ran down his spine, and his heart seemed to stand still
for a moment, then suddenly began throbbing as though it were set
free. So they walked for about a hundred paces, side by side in
silence.
The man did not look at him.
"What do you mean . . . what is. . . . Who is a murderer?" muttered
Raskolnikov hardly audibly.
"/You/ are a murderer," the man answered still more articulately and
emphatically, with a smile of triumphant hatred, and again he looked
straight into Raskolnikov's pale face and stricken eyes.
They had just reached the cross-roads. The man turned to the left
without looking behind him. Raskolnikov remained standing, gazing
after him. He saw him turn round fifty paces away and look back at him
still standing there. Raskolnikov could not see clearly, but he
fancied that he was again smiling the same smile of cold hatred and
triumph.
With slow faltering steps, with shaking knees, Raskolnikov made his
way back to his little garret, feeling chilled all over. He took off
his cap and put it on the table, and for ten minutes he stood without
moving. Then he sank exhausted on the sofa and with a weak moan of
pain he stretched himself on it. So he lay for half an hour.
He thought of nothing. Some thoughts or fragments of thoughts, some
images without order or coherence floated before his mind--faces of
people he had seen in his childhood or met somewhere once, whom he
would never have recalled, the belfry of the church at V., the
billiard table in a restaurant and some officers playing billiards,
the smell of cigars in some underground tobacco shop, a tavern room, a
back staircase quite dark, all sloppy with dirty water and strewn with
egg-shells, and the Sunday bells floating in from somewhere. . . . The
images followed one another, whirling like a hurricane. Some of them
he liked and tried to clutch at, but they faded and all the while
there was an oppression within him, but it was not overwhelming,
sometimes it was even pleasant. . . . The slight shivering still
persisted, but that too was an almost pleasant sensation.
He heard the hurried footsteps of Razumihin; he closed his eyes and
pretended to be asleep. Razumihin opened the door and stood for some
time in the doorway as though hesitating, then he stepped softly into
the room and went cautiously to the sofa. Raskolnikov heard Nastasya's
whisper:
"Don't disturb him! Let him sleep. He can have his dinner later."
"Quite so," answered Razumihin. Both withdrew carefully and closed the
door. Another half-hour passed. Raskolnikov opened his eyes, turned on
his back again, clasping his hands behind his head.
"Who is he? Who is that man who sprang out of the earth? Where was he,
what did he see? He has seen it all, that's clear. Where was he then?
And from where did he see? Why has he only now sprung out of the
earth? And how could he see? Is it possible? Hm . . ." continued
Raskolnikov, turning cold and shivering, "and the jewel case Nikolay
found behind the door--was that possible? A clue? You miss an
infinitesimal line and you can build it into a pyramid of evidence! A
fly flew by and saw it! Is it possible?" He felt with sudden loathing
how weak, how physically weak he had become. "I ought to have known
it," he thought with a bitter smile. "And how dared I, knowing myself,
knowing how I should be, take up an axe and shed blood! I ought to
have known beforehand. . . . Ah, but I did know!" he whispered in
despair. At times he came to a standstill at some thought.
"No, those men are not made so. The real /Master/ to whom all is
permitted storms Toulon, makes a massacre in Paris, /forgets/ an army
in Egypt, /wastes/ half a million men in the Moscow expedition and
gets off with a jest at Vilna. And altars are set up to him after his
death, and so /all/ is permitted. No, such people, it seems, are not
of flesh but of bronze!"
One sudden irrelevant idea almost made him laugh. Napoleon, the
pyramids, Waterloo, and a wretched skinny old woman, a pawnbroker with
a red trunk under her bed--it's a nice hash for Porfiry Petrovitch to
digest! How can they digest it! It's too inartistic. "A Napoleon creep
under an old woman's bed! Ugh, how loathsome!"
At moments he felt he was raving. He sank into a state of feverish
excitement. "The old woman is of no consequence," he thought, hotly
and incoherently. "The old woman was a mistake perhaps, but she is not
what matters! The old woman was only an illness. . . . I was in a
hurry to overstep. . . . I didn't kill a human being, but a principle!
I killed the principle, but I didn't overstep, I stopped on this side.. . I was only capable of killing. And it seems I wasn't even
capable of that . . . Principle? Why was that fool Razumihin abusing
the socialists? They are industrious, commercial people; 'the
happiness of all' is their case. No, life is only given to me once and
I shall never have it again; I don't want to wait for 'the happiness
of all.' I want to live myself, or else better not live at all. I
simply couldn't pass by my mother starving, keeping my rouble in my
pocket while I waited for the 'happiness of all.' I am putting my
little brick into the happiness of all and so my heart is at peace.
Ha-ha! Why have you let me slip? I only live once, I too want. . . .
Ech, I am an æsthetic louse and nothing more," he added suddenly,
laughing like a madman. "Yes, I am certainly a louse," he went on,
clutching at the idea, gloating over it and playing with it with
vindictive pleasure. "In the first place, because I can reason that I
am one, and secondly, because for a month past I have been troubling
benevolent Providence, calling it to witness that not for my own
fleshly lusts did I undertake it, but with a grand and noble object--
ha-ha! Thirdly, because I aimed at carrying it out as justly as
possible, weighing, measuring and calculating. Of all the lice I
picked out the most useless one and proposed to take from her only as
much as I needed for the first step, no more nor less (so the rest
would have gone to a monastery, according to her will, ha-ha!). And
what shows that I am utterly a louse," he added, grinding his teeth,
"is that I am perhaps viler and more loathsome than the louse I
killed, and /I felt beforehand/ that I should tell myself so /after/
killing her. Can anything be compared with the horror of that? The
vulgarity! The abjectness! I understand the 'prophet' with his sabre,
on his steed: Allah commands and 'trembling' creation must obey! The
'prophet' is right, he is right when he sets a battery across the
street and blows up the innocent and the guilty without deigning to
explain! It's for you to obey, trembling creation, and not /to have
desires/, for that's not for you! . . . I shall never, never forgive
the old woman!"
His hair was soaked with sweat, his quivering lips were parched, his
eyes were fixed on the ceiling.
"Mother, sister--how I loved them! Why do I hate them now? Yes, I hate
them, I feel a physical hatred for them, I can't bear them near me.. . I went up to my mother and kissed her, I remember. . . . To
embrace her and think if she only knew . . . shall I tell her then?
That's just what I might do. . . . /She/ must be the same as I am," he
added, straining himself to think, as it were struggling with
delirium. "Ah, how I hate the old woman now! I feel I should kill her
again if she came to life! Poor Lizaveta! Why did she come in? . . .
It's strange though, why is it I scarcely ever think of her, as though
I hadn't killed her? Lizaveta! Sonia! Poor gentle things, with gentle
eyes. . . . Dear women! Why don't they weep? Why don't they moan? They
give up everything . . . their eyes are soft and gentle. . . . Sonia,
Sonia! Gentle Sonia!"
He lost consciousness; it seemed strange to him that he didn't
remember how he got into the street. It was late evening. The twilight
had fallen and the full moon was shining more and more brightly; but
there was a peculiar breathlessness in the air. There were crowds of
people in the street; workmen and business people were making their
way home; other people had come out for a walk; there was a smell of
mortar, dust and stagnant water. Raskolnikov walked along, mournful
and anxious; he was distinctly aware of having come out with a
purpose, of having to do something in a hurry, but what it was he had
forgotten. Suddenly he stood still and saw a man standing on the other
side of the street, beckoning to him. He crossed over to him, but at
once the man turned and walked away with his head hanging, as though
he had made no sign to him. "Stay, did he really beckon?" Raskolnikov
wondered, but he tried to overtake him. When he was within ten paces
he recognised him and was frightened; it was the same man with
stooping shoulders in the long coat. Raskolnikov followed him at a
distance; his heart was beating; they went down a turning; the man
still did not look round. "Does he know I am following him?" thought
Raskolnikov. The man went into the gateway of a big house. Raskolnikov
hastened to the gate and looked in to see whether he would look round
and sign to him. In the court-yard the man did turn round and again
seemed to beckon him. Raskolnikov at once followed him into the yard,
but the man was gone. He must have gone up the first staircase.
Raskolnikov rushed after him. He heard slow measured steps two flights
above. The staircase seemed strangely familiar. He reached the window
on the first floor; the moon shone through the panes with a melancholy
and mysterious light; then he reached the second floor. Bah! this is
the flat where the painters were at work . . . but how was it he did
not recognise it at once? The steps of the man above had died away.
"So he must have stopped or hidden somewhere." He reached the third
storey, should he go on? There was a stillness that was dreadful.. . But he went on. The sound of his own footsteps scared and
frightened him. How dark it was! The man must be hiding in some corner
here. Ah! the flat was standing wide open, he hesitated and went in.
It was very dark and empty in the passage, as though everything had
been removed; he crept on tiptoe into the parlour which was flooded
with moonlight. Everything there was as before, the chairs, the
looking-glass, the yellow sofa and the pictures in the frames. A huge,
round, copper-red moon looked in at the windows. "It's the moon that
makes it so still, weaving some mystery," thought Raskolnikov. He
stood and waited, waited a long while, and the more silent the
moonlight, the more violently his heart beat, till it was painful. And
still the same hush. Suddenly he heard a momentary sharp crack like
the snapping of a splinter and all was still again. A fly flew up
suddenly and struck the window pane with a plaintive buzz. At that
moment he noticed in the corner between the window and the little
cupboard something like a cloak hanging on the wall. "Why is that
cloak here?" he thought, "it wasn't there before. . . ." He went up to
it quietly and felt that there was someone hiding behind it. He
cautiously moved the cloak and saw, sitting on a chair in the corner,
the old woman bent double so that he couldn't see her face; but it was
she. He stood over her. "She is afraid," he thought. He stealthily
took the axe from the noose and struck her one blow, then another on
the skull. But strange to say she did not stir, as though she were
made of wood. He was frightened, bent down nearer and tried to look at
her; but she, too, bent her head lower. He bent right down to the
ground and peeped up into her face from below, he peeped and turned
cold with horror: the old woman was sitting and laughing, shaking with
noiseless laughter, doing her utmost that he should not hear it.
Suddenly he fancied that the door from the bedroom was opened a little
and that there was laughter and whispering within. He was overcome
with frenzy and he began hitting the old woman on the head with all
his force, but at every blow of the axe the laughter and whispering
from the bedroom grew louder and the old woman was simply shaking with
mirth. He was rushing away, but the passage was full of people, the
doors of the flats stood open and on the landing, on the stairs and
everywhere below there were people, rows of heads, all looking, but
huddled together in silence and expectation. Something gripped his
heart, his legs were rooted to the spot, they would not move. . . . He
tried to scream and woke up.
He drew a deep breath--but his dream seemed strangely to persist: his
door was flung open and a man whom he had never seen stood in the
doorway watching him intently.
Raskolnikov had hardly opened his eyes and he instantly closed them
again. He lay on his back without stirring.
"Is it still a dream?" he wondered and again raised his eyelids hardly
perceptibly; the stranger was standing in the same place, still
watching him.
He stepped cautiously into the room, carefully closing the door after
him, went up to the table, paused a moment, still keeping his eyes on
Raskolnikov, and noiselessly seated himself on the chair by the sofa;
he put his hat on the floor beside him and leaned his hands on his
cane and his chin on his hands. It was evident that he was prepared to
wait indefinitely. As far as Raskolnikov could make out from his
stolen glances, he was a man no longer young, stout, with a full,
fair, almost whitish beard.
Ten minutes passed. It was still light, but beginning to get dusk.
There was complete stillness in the room. Not a sound came from the
stairs. Only a big fly buzzed and fluttered against the window pane.
It was unbearable at last. Raskolnikov suddenly got up and sat on the
sofa.
"Come, tell me what you want."
"I knew you were not asleep, but only pretending," the stranger
answered oddly, laughing calmly. "Arkady Ivanovitch Svidrigaïlov,
allow me to introduce myself. . . ."
Prev
| Next
| Contents
|