Crime and Punishment (17 page)

‘And what a regiment that was!' exclaimed Ilya Petrovich, delighted at being so agreeably tickled, though still in a huff.

Raskolnikov had a sudden urge to say something exceptionally nice to them all.

‘Have a heart, Captain,' he began very freely, turning all of a sudden to Nikodim Fomich, ‘and put yourself in my shoes for a moment . . . I'm even prepared to offer him an apology, if I've shown a lack of respect. I'm a poor, sick student, dejected' (that was his exact word: ‘dejected') ‘by poverty. I'm a
former
student, because I can't support myself at the moment, but I'm expecting some money . . . My mother and sister live in —— province . . . They're sending me some and I'll . . . pay. My landlady's a kind woman, but she's so angry with me for losing my teaching and not paying four months in a row that she won't even send up meals . . . And as for the promissory note – I haven't a clue what you mean! She's waving that IOU at me, but what can I pay her with? Judge for yourselves!'

‘But that's none of our business . . . ,' the head clerk tried to put in again.

‘Quite so, I couldn't agree more, but kindly allow me to put my side of the story,' Raskolnikov rejoined, still addressing Nikodim Fomich rather than the head clerk, while making every effort to address Ilya Petrovich at the same time, even though the latter kept up a stubborn pretence of rummaging through his papers and contemptuously ignoring him. ‘Allow me to explain, for my part, that I've been living at hers for about three years now, ever since I arrived from the provinces, and before . . . before . . . well, why don't I just admit it? You see, I gave her my word right from the start that I'd marry her daughter, a verbal promise, freely undertaken . . . This girl was . . . well, I even took a fancy to her . . . though I wasn't in love with her . . . youth, in a word . . . What I mean is, my landlady lent me plenty of money at the time and the life I led was, to a certain extent . . . well, I was very frivolous . . .'

‘Nobody's asking you for such intimacies, sir, and there's no time for them anyway,' Ilya Petrovich interrupted, rudely and gloatingly, but Raskolnikov rushed to cut him short, even though he was suddenly finding it terribly difficult to speak.

‘But kindly allow me, if you would, to tell the whole story . . . to explain how it was . . . for my part . . . though it's quite unnecessary, I agree . . . but a year ago this young girl died of typhus, while I stayed on as a lodger, and the landlady, when she'd moved into the apartment she has now, said to me . . . in a friendly way . . . that she had every confidence in me and so on . . . but wouldn't I like to write her a promissory note for one hundred and fifteen roubles, which, according to her sums, was what I owed her? Take note, sir: she specifically said that just as soon as I gave her that document she'd once again lend me as much as I wanted and that never, never, for her part – these were her exact words – would she take advantage of this document, until I paid up myself . . . And now, just when I have lost my teaching and have nothing to eat, she goes and files a recovery claim . . . So what can I say?'

‘All these sentimental details, honourable sir, do not concern us,' Ilya Petrovich insolently broke in. ‘You must supply a statement and an undertaking, and as for being in love and all these tragic particulars, well, we couldn't care less.'

‘Well really . . . that's a bit harsh . . . ,' muttered Nikodim Fomich, sitting down to sign some papers as well. He felt almost ashamed.

‘Go on, write,' the head clerk told Raskolnikov.

‘Write what?' asked the latter in a particularly rude sort of way.

‘I'll dictate.'

It seemed to Raskolnikov that the head clerk had become more casual and scornful towards him after his confession, but, strangely enough, he suddenly felt utterly indifferent to anyone else's opinion, and this change had come about just like that, in a flash. Had he chosen to pause for a moment's thought, then he would of course have been amazed: how could he have spoken to them like that, just a moment ago, and even thrust his feelings upon them? And where had they come from, these feelings? Now, on the contrary, if the room had suddenly filled up not with police officers but with his bosom friends, even then, it seemed, he could have found no human words for them, so empty had his heart suddenly become. A gloomy sensation of excruciating, endless solitude and estrangement suddenly communicated itself consciously to his soul. His abject effusions before Ilya Petrovich, the lieutenant's abject gloating – it was not these that had suddenly turned his heart inside out. Oh, what did any of it matter to him now: his own despicable behaviour, all this vanity, these lieutenants, German ladies, recovery claims, bureaus, etcetera, etcetera? Had he been sentenced to the stake at this moment, even then he would not have stirred, even then he would scarcely have bothered listening to the sentence. Something entirely unfamiliar was happening to him, something new, sudden and completely unprecedented. He did not so much understand as sense, with the full force and clarity of his senses, that he no longer had anything to say to these people in the local police bureau, never mind exhibitions of sentiment, and had they all been his very own brothers and sisters and not district lieutenants, even then there would have been no point talking to them, whatever life threw in his path; never before had he experienced such a strange and dreadful sensation. And the most excruciating thing of all was that this was more a sensation than something conscious, something intellectual; a direct sensation, the most excruciating of all sensations experienced by him hitherto in his life.

The head clerk began dictating the statement, following the usual form in such cases, i.e., unable to pay, promise to do so on such-and-such a date (whenever), shan't leave town, shan't sell or give away my property, etcetera.

‘But you can't even write – you keep dropping the pen,' the head clerk observed, peering curiously at Raskolnikov. ‘Are you sick?'

‘Yes . . . head's spinning . . . Carry on!'

‘That's it. Now sign.'

The head clerk took the document and turned to the other people waiting.

Raskolnikov gave back the pen, but instead of getting up to leave he placed his elbows on the desk and gripped his head in his hands. As if a nail were being knocked into the crown of his head. A strange notion suddenly struck him: to get up right now, walk over to Nikodim Fomich and tell him all about yesterday, down to the very last detail, then go with them to his apartment and show them the items, in the corner, in the hole. The urge was so strong that he was already on his feet to carry it out. ‘Perhaps I should think about it first?' flashed across his mind. ‘No, best not to think and get it over and done with!' But he suddenly stopped dead in his tracks: Nikodim Fomich was having a heated exchange with Ilya Petrovich and their words carried over to him:

‘Impossible! They'll release the pair of them! First off, it makes no sense: why would they call the caretaker if it was their doing? To inform against themselves? Or were they just being clever? No, that would be too clever by half! And anyway, Pestryakov, the student, was seen right at the gates by both caretakers and the tradeswoman at the very moment he walked in: he had three friends with him and he left them at the gates and asked the caretakers about accommodation while his friends were still there. You tell me: would he have started asking about accommodation if those were his intentions? And as for Kokh, before calling on the old woman he kept the silversmith company for half an hour downstairs, then went up to see her at a quarter to eight sharp. Think about it . . .'

‘But wait, isn't there a glaring contradiction here: they say they knocked and the door was locked, then three minutes later, when they came back with the caretaker, it turns out to be open?'

‘That's just it: the killer was inside, no doubt about it, and had locked himself in; and they would have caught him, no doubt about it, if Kokh hadn't stupidly run off to get the caretaker. And it was precisely then, during that brief interval, that
he
managed to go down the stairs and somehow slip past them. Kokh crosses himself with one hand then the other, and says, “If I'd stayed put, he'd have leapt out and killed me with the axe.” Now he wants to hold a thanksgiving service in the Russian fashion, heh-heh!'

‘So no one saw the killer?'

‘How could they? It's like Noah's Ark, that house,' the head clerk observed, listening in from his desk.

‘It's all clear as day, clear as day!' Nikodim Fomich excitedly repeated.

‘Clear as mud!' snapped Ilya Petrovich.

Raskolnikov picked up his hat and made for the door, but he didn't reach it . . .

When he came to his senses, he saw that he was sitting on a chair, that there was someone supporting him to his right and someone else standing to his left, holding a yellow glass filled with yellow water, while Nikodim Fomich stood before him, staring at him. He got up from the chair.

‘What is it? Are you sick?' asked Nikodim Fomich rather abruptly.

‘Even when he was signing his name, he could barely hold the pen,' observed the head clerk, returning to his seat and busying himself with his papers again.

‘Been sick long?' Ilya Petrovich shouted from his desk, as he, too, sorted through his papers. He, of course, had also been studying him after he fainted, but immediately moved off when he came round.

‘Since yesterday . . . ,' Raskolnikov muttered in reply.

‘And did you go outside yesterday?'

‘Yes.'

‘Sick?'

‘Yes.'

‘What time?'

‘Evening, after seven.'

‘And where to, may I ask?'

‘Down the street.'

‘Clear and to the point.'

Raskolnikov, pale as a handkerchief, replied abruptly and curtly, meeting Ilya Petrovich's gaze with his black, swollen eyes.

‘He can barely stand, and you . . . ,' Nikodim Fomich began.

‘Don't mind me!' said Ilya Petrovich in a very particular tone. Nikodim Fomich was about to say something else but, taking one glance at the head clerk, who was also staring hard at him, he fell silent. Everyone suddenly fell silent. It was strange.

‘Very well, sir,' Ilya Petrovich concluded. ‘We aren't keeping you.'

Raskolnikov left. But he could hear an animated conversation starting up once he'd gone, with the quizzical voice of Nikodim Fomich most audible of all . . . Outside, he came round fully.

‘A search, a search – now, now!' he repeated to himself as he
hurried along. ‘They suspect me, the rascals!' His old terror seized him once more, from top to toe.

‘But what if the search has already happened? What if I find them in my room right now?'

But here was his room. Nothing. No one. And no one had looked in. Even Nastasya hadn't touched it. Lord! How could he have gone and left all the items in that hole?

He rushed to the corner, thrust his hand behind the wallpaper and started fishing the things out and cramming his pockets with them. There were eight items in all: two little boxes containing earrings or similar – he didn't look closely – and four small morocco leather cases. One chain was simply wrapped in newspaper. As was something else, a medal by the look of it . . .

He stowed it all away in his various pockets – in his coat and in the remaining right pocket of his trousers – making sure that nothing stuck out too much. He took the purse as well, while he was at it. Then he went out, this time leaving the door wide open.

He walked at a fast, decisive clip, and though he felt utterly broken, he remained alert and aware. He feared pursuit, he feared that in just half an hour's time, a quarter of an hour's time, the instruction would be given to have him followed; he had to cover his tracks at all costs, before it was too late. And he had to do so while he could still call on at least some of his strength, at least some of his wits . . . But where should he go?

This had been decided long before: ‘Throw everything in the Ditch, in the water. End of story.' He'd made up his mind about it the previous night, while raving, during those moments – he remembered them now – when he kept trying to get up and go: ‘Quick, quick, get rid of it all!' But getting rid of everything proved extremely difficult.

He'd been wandering along the Catherine Canal for about half an hour already, perhaps even longer, and he'd glanced more than once at the steps leading down to the Ditch,
3
whenever he passed them. But there could be no question of him carrying out his intention: either there were rafts right by the steps, with washerwomen at work on them, or there were boats moored to the bank, and there were people everywhere; from anywhere on the embankments, from every side, people
might see, might notice, the suspicious figure of a man purposely going down the steps, stopping and throwing something in the water. And if the cases floated instead of sinking? You could count on it. Everyone would see. He was getting strange looks as it was from everyone he passed, as if they had no care in the world but him. ‘Why is that? Or am I just imagining it?' he wondered.

Finally, the thought struck him: wouldn't the Neva be a better idea? Fewer people, less chance of being noticed, easier in every way, and above all – far away from here. How astonishing that he could wander about for a whole half hour in anguish and alarm, and in such a dangerous place, and not think of this sooner! And the only reason he'd wasted a whole half hour so senselessly was a decision taken while dreaming, while raving! He was becoming extraordinarily distracted and forgetful, and he knew it. He had to get a move on!

He made for the Neva along V—— Prospect; but on the way another thought suddenly struck him: ‘Why the Neva? Why water? Wouldn't it be better to go somewhere far, far away, maybe even back to the Islands again, and find some remote spot, in the woods, under a bush – to bury all this and perhaps mark a tree?' And though he could feel that he was in no fit state to weigh everything up clearly and soberly at this moment, the plan seemed flawless.

But he wasn't fated to make it to the Islands either: coming out onto a square from V—— Prospect, he suddenly spotted an entrance on his left to a courtyard framed by completely blind walls. On the right, immediately after the gates, the unwhitewashed blind wall of the adjoining four-storey house extended deep into the yard. On the left, parallel to this blind wall and also just after the gates, a wooden fence stretched some twenty yards into the yard before veering abruptly to the left. This was a desolate, cut-off spot, strewn with what looked like building materials. Further on, in the depths of the courtyard, from behind the fence, the corner of a low, sooty stone shed poked out – evidently part of some workshop or other, probably a carriage-maker's or locksmith's or some such trade; the whole yard was black with coal dust stretching almost to the gates. ‘Just the place to dump everything and walk away!' he suddenly thought. Finding the yard deserted, he stepped inside and immediately spotted, very close to the gates, a gutter fixed to the fence (the usual arrangement in such courtyards, home to many factory hands, craftsmen, cabbies and the like), and above the gutter, right there on the fence, someone had scrawled the obligatory witticism in
chalk: ‘No toiletering.' Good: no one would suspect him for coming in and loitering there. ‘Just chuck it all in a heap somewhere and leave!'

He looked around one more time and had already thrust a hand into his pocket when suddenly, right by the outer wall, between the gates and the gutter, which were separated by less than a yard, he noticed a big unhewn stone, weighing as much as fifty pounds and resting directly against the stone wall. On the other side of this wall were the street and the pavement, and he could hear the to and fro of passers-by, always plentiful hereabouts; but no one could see him this side of the gates, not unless someone came in off the street, which in fact was perfectly possible – so he had to hurry.

He stooped, grabbed the top of the stone firmly with both hands, mustered all his strength and overturned it. A small hollow had formed beneath the stone, into which he immediately began tipping the contents of his pockets. The purse ended up on the very top, but there was still some space left. Then he grabbed the stone once more and turned it back over in one go; it rested snugly in its former position, if slightly raised. He raked up some earth and packed it in round the edges with his foot. No one would notice.

He left the yard and made for the square. Once again he was overwhelmed momentarily by powerful, almost unbearable joy, as before in the bureau. ‘My tracks are covered! Who would ever think of looking under there? I expect that stone's been lying there since the house was built and will remain there just as long. And even if the things were found, who would suspect me? It's over! No evidence!' – and he burst out laughing. Yes, he remembered this laughter later, nervous, shallow, inaudible laughter, and how long it had lasted – for as long as it took to cross the square. But when he set foot on K—— Boulevard, where he'd come across that girl two days before, his laughter suddenly ceased. Different thoughts crept into his mind. He also felt a terrible, sudden disgust at the prospect of walking past that bench now, the same one on which he'd sat and mused once the girl had gone, and thought how awful it would be to meet that man with the moustache again, the one he'd given a twenty-copeck coin to that time: ‘To hell with him!'

He walked along, looking around him in a distracted, spiteful way. All his thoughts now circled around a certain crucial point, and he himself could feel that this really was the crucial point, and that now, precisely now, he'd been left one on one with it – for the very first time, in fact, in these whole two months.

‘To hell with it all!' he suddenly thought in a spasm of unquenchable spite. ‘It's started, so it's started – to hell with it, to hell with new life! God, how stupid this is! How I tricked and lied today! How sickeningly I fawned and flirted with that appalling Ilya Petrovich just now! But that's all rubbish, too! What do I care about any of them, or about my fawning and flirting! That's all neither here nor there!'

Suddenly, he stopped; a new, quite unexpected and extraordinarily simple question had knocked him off course and filled him with bitter astonishment:

‘If this whole thing really was done consciously and not stupidly, if you really did have a definite, fixed aim, then how is it you still haven't taken one look inside the purse and don't even know what you've got, the very reason you accepted all this agony and consciously set out on something so despicable, so vile, so low? Just now you even wanted to throw the purse in the water, along with all the items you haven't seen yet either . . . How come?'

Yes, exactly. But he'd known that already and there was nothing new about this question; and when he'd decided, the previous night, to throw the stuff in the water, he'd done so without a moment's hesitation or a single reservation, as if that was exactly how it should be, as if there could be no other way . . . Yes, he knew all this already, remembered it all; and what was to say it hadn't been decided yesterday, at that very moment when he was sitting over the box and taking out the cases? . . . Exactly!

‘It's because I'm so ill,' he decided at last, sullenly. ‘I've tormented myself, torn myself to pieces, and don't even know what I'm doing . . . Yesterday, the day before, all these days – one torment after another . . . I'll get better and . . . I won't torment myself . . . And if I don't get any better? God! I'm just so sick of it all!' He walked without stopping. He desperately wanted to distract himself, but he didn't know what to do, what to undertake. A new, overwhelming sensation was taking possession of him, growing stronger almost by the minute: some sort of infinite, almost physical disgust – stubborn, spiteful, hate-filled – towards everything that surrounded him. Everyone he met disgusted him – their faces, their gait, their gestures. Had anyone tried to talk to him, he'd probably have spat in his face, or bitten him . . .

He suddenly stopped when he came out on the embankment of the Little Neva, on Vasilyevsky Island, by a bridge. ‘This is where he lives, this is the house,' he thought. ‘Don't tell me I've come to Razumikhin's again! Just like then . . . Fascinating, though: did I mean to come
here or was I just walking by? Makes no odds; I did say . . . a couple of days ago . . . that I'd drop in the day after
that
, so that's what I'll do! What's to stop me . . . ?'

He went up to the fifth floor.

Razumikhin was at home, in his own little cell; he was busy working – writing – and opened the door himself. They hadn't seen each other for four months or so. Razumikhin was wearing a tattered dressing gown, and shoes on bare feet; he was unkempt, unshaven and unwashed. His face expressed surprise.

‘What's happened?' he cried, inspecting his friend from top to toe; then he fell silent and whistled.

‘That bad, eh? Just look at you! I feel positively underdressed,' – he added, staring at Raskolnikov's rags – ‘but sit down, for heaven's sake, you look exhausted!' – and when Raskolnikov collapsed on the ‘Turkish' oilcloth-covered couch, which was even shabbier than his own, Razumikhin suddenly saw that his guest was sick.

‘You're seriously ill, do you know that?' He started feeling his pulse. Raskolnikov tore his hand away.

‘Don't!' he said. ‘I've come . . . here's what: I've no teaching at all . . . I was going to . . . though actually, I don't need any . . .'

‘Know what? You're raving!' remarked Razumikhin, observing him closely.

‘No I'm not . . . ,' said Raskolnikov, getting up from the couch. While climbing the stairs it hadn't occurred to him that he would, of course, end up face to face with Razumikhin. But now, in a flash, he had seen for himself that the very last thing he felt like doing, at this moment, was to come face to face with anyone at all in the whole world. He was turning yellow with bile. He'd all but choked with self-loathing the second he crossed Razumikhin's threshold.

‘See you!' he suddenly said, and made for the door.

‘Wait there, you mad dog!'

‘Don't!' the other repeated, tearing his hand away again.

‘So why the hell did you come in the first place? Are you off your head? I mean it's . . . almost insulting. I won't let you off so easily.'

‘All right. I came to you because I didn't know anyone else who could help me . . . start . . . because you're kinder than all of them, I mean cleverer, and you talk sense . . . But now I see that I don't need a thing, not a thing, do you hear? . . . No one's favours, no one's concern . . . Me . . . on my own . . . That'll do! Just leave me in peace!'

‘Now wait a minute, you chimneysweep! You're insane! You can do as you like, for all I care. You see, I'm not giving any lessons either, and so what? There's this bookseller at the flea market, Cherubimov by name, who's a lesson in himself. I wouldn't swap him for five merchant students. You should see the sort of books he puts out, tomes on natural science
4
and what have you – all selling like hotcakes! The titles alone are priceless! You've always said I'm stupid. I tell you, my friend, I'm nothing compared to some! Now he's decided to go with the tide. It's all Greek to him and I egg him on, of course. Look, here's two and a bit printer's sheets of German text – low-grade quackery, if you ask me. And here's the topic in a nutshell: is a woman a human being
5
or isn't she? No prizes for guessing: it's solemnly proven that she is. Cherubimov wants it for the debate on the Woman Question, and I'm translating it. He'll stretch two and a half printer's sheets to six, we'll think up some pompous title over half a page and flog it for half a rouble. All in a day's work! I'm paid six roubles a sheet, so I'll get fifteen for the lot, and I took six in advance. Once that's done, we'll start translating something on whales, then there's some ultra-tedious tittle-tattle we've marked up in the second part of the
Confessions
 – we'll translate that too. Someone's told Cherubimov that Rousseau was the Radishchev of Geneva.
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I didn't tell him otherwise, of course – he can think what he likes! So, fancy translating the second sheet of “Are Women Human?”? If so, take the text now, take some pens and paper – I get given it all anyway – and take three roubles; my advance was for the whole translation, the first and second sheet combined, so your share is three roubles. Finish the thing and you'll get three more. By the way, please don't think I'm doing you a favour: I'd already worked out what you could do for me the moment you walked in. For one thing, my spelling's poor, and for another, my German's diabolical. I'm making up more and more as I go along and my only consolation is that it comes out better this way. Who knows, though? Perhaps it comes out worse . . . Well, what d'you say?'