Crime and Punishment (23 page)

‘Not in the least. I merely asked. What's wrong with asking? Why are you so . . . ?'

‘Listen, you're an educated, literary type, are you not?'

‘Six years at the gymnasium,' Zametov replied with a certain pride.

‘Six years! Ah, my dear little dicky bird! With his hair parted and jewels on his fingers – a man of means! Such a sweet young boy!' Here Raskolnikov broke into peals of nervous laughter right in Zametov's face. Zametov shrank back, not so much offended as deeply astonished.

‘My, you're acting strange!' Zametov repeated very seriously. ‘Seems to me you're still raving.'

‘Raving? You're lying, my little dicky bird! . . . So I'm strange? All right, but I intrigue you, don't I? Don't I?'

‘Yes, you do.'

‘I mean, what was I reading about, what was I hunting for, eh? Just look how many back issues I made the waiter lug over! Suspicious, eh?'

‘Tell me, then.'

‘Hanging on my lips, eh?'

‘Hanging where?'

‘I'll explain later, but now, my dearest, I declare to you . . . no, better: “I confess” . . . No, still not right: “I testify and you record” – that's it! I testify, then, that I read, showed interest in . . . searched for . . . hunted for . . .' – Raskolnikov screwed up his eyes and paused – ‘hunted for anything at all – which is why I've come here – relating to the murder of the civil servant's old widow,' he uttered finally, almost in a whisper, bringing his face exceptionally close to Zametov's. Zametov stared straight back at him, neither twitching nor flinching. Strangest of all, Zametov later thought, was the fact that the silence between them should have lasted for precisely one minute, and that they should have looked at one another like that for precisely one minute.

‘So you were reading, so what?' he suddenly cried, in impatient bewilderment. ‘Why should I care?'

‘It's that same old woman,' Raskolnikov went on in the same whisper, without a twitch, ‘the very same one, remember, who you started talking about in the bureau when I fainted. Understand now?'

‘What are you on about? Understand what?' asked Zametov, in near panic.

Raskolnikov's motionless, serious face was transformed in a flash and he suddenly broke into the same nervous guffaws as before, as if quite incapable of restraining himself. And in a twinkling there came back to him with exceptional clarity of sensation one recent moment, when he was standing behind the door, with the axe, and the latch was twitching about, and people were swearing and trying to force their way in, and he had a sudden urge to yell at them, to argue with them, stick his tongue out at them, tease them, laugh, roar, roar, roar with laughter!

‘You're either mad or . . . ,' said Zametov – and stopped, as if suddenly struck by a thought that had just flashed across his mind.

‘Or? Or what? Well? Go on, out with it!'

‘Nothing!' Zametov replied in a huff. ‘What utter nonsense!'

Both fell silent. After his sudden, convulsive burst of laughter Raskolnikov had suddenly become pensive and sad. He rested his elbow on the table and propped his head in his hand. He seemed to have entirely forgotten about Zametov. The silence lasted quite some time.

‘Why aren't you drinking your tea? It'll get cold,' said Zametov.

‘Eh? What? Tea? . . . Why not . . . ?' Raskolnikov took a swig, put
a piece of bread in his mouth and suddenly, after a glance at Zametov, seemed to recall everything and even pull himself together: his face instantly regained its initial, derisive expression. He carried on drinking his tea.

‘There are so many swindlers about just now,' said Zametov. ‘Just recently I read in the
Moscow Gazette
that a gang of counterfeiters has been caught in Moscow. An entire band of them. Forging lottery tickets.'

‘Oh, that's old news! I read that a month ago,' Raskolnikov calmly replied. ‘So you call them swindlers, do you?' he added with a grin.

‘What else can you call them?'

‘Them? They're children, fledglings, not swindlers! Fifty people getting together for something like that! How's that possible? Three would already be plenty, and that's only if they trust one another more than they trust themselves! It just needs one of them to get drunk and spill the beans and that's that! Callow fledglings! Hiring unreliables to cash the tickets in at the bank: fancy trusting perfect strangers with a thing like that! Well, suppose the fledglings did pull it off, suppose each of them cashed a million, what then? Until death do us part? Tied to one another for the rest of their lives? You'd be better off hanging yourself! Even cashing in the tickets was beyond them: that chap went to the bank,
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exchanged five thousand, then his hands started shaking. He counted out four, but took the fifth on trust – anything to make a quick getaway. Well, suspicions were raised. Everything ruined by one idiot! I mean, how's that possible?'

‘That his hands shook?' Zametov rejoined. ‘No, sir, that's possible. I'm quite sure. What if you can't take the strain?'

‘What strain?'

‘So you could, I suppose? I couldn't, not a chance! A hundred roubles reward to go and face a horror like that! To take a forged note to a bank of all places, where they've seen them a thousand times before – no, I'd become all flustered. Wouldn't you?'

Once again, Raskolnikov suddenly felt a violent urge to ‘stick out his tongue'. Shivers kept running down his spine.

‘I'd go about it differently,' he began in a roundabout way. ‘Here's how I'd exchange the money: I'd count out the first thousand, four times or so, front to back and back to front, scrutinizing each note, then start on the next thousand; I'd start counting, get halfway, pull out a fifty-rouble note, hold it up to the light, turn it over, hold it up
again – H'm, what if it's a fake? “I fear the worst,” I'd say. “There's this relative of mine, well, she lost twenty-five roubles doing this the other day,” and I'd tell the story. Then, once I'd made a start on the third thousand: “Very sorry, but I think I may have miscounted the seventh hundred in the second thousand, I'm really not sure” – so I'd put down the third and pick up the second again, and so on for all five. And when I'd finished, I'd pull one note from the fifth and another from the second, hold it up again, look all doubtful again, ask him to change it and so on – until I'd driven the clerk to complete distraction and he no longer knew how to get rid of me! I'd get to the end eventually, head off, open the door – “Ah, very sorry” – and go back again, ask about something, request an explanation. That's how I'd go about it!'

‘My, what terrible things you're saying!' said Zametov with a laugh. ‘But talk's cheap – I expect you'd trip up if it came to actually doing it. It's not just the likes of you and me, even a hardened daredevil couldn't vouch for himself here, I assure you. Just take the case of the old woman murdered in our district. A daredevil's work and no mistake: he went for broke in broad daylight and got away with it by pure miracle – but he still couldn't stop his hands shaking: he couldn't go through with the robbery, couldn't take it, it's obvious . . .'

Raskolnikov seemed almost offended.

‘Obvious? See if you can catch him now then!' he shrieked, goading Zametov with malicious delight.

‘Don't worry, he'll be caught.'

‘Who by? You? You'll catch him, will you? You'll drop dead trying! All you care about is whether or not he's spending any money. He barely had a copeck before and now he's started spending – so it must be him! A child could dupe you if he wanted to!'

‘But that's what they all do,' replied Zametov. ‘They can kill cleverly enough, risking their lives in the process, only to get nabbed in the pothouse five minutes later. Spending's their downfall. They're not as clever as you are, you see. You'd steer well clear of the pothouse, needless to say.'

Raskolnikov knitted his brow and looked intently at Zametov.

‘You've started enjoying this, I see, and want to know how I'd act here as well?' he asked with distaste.

‘I would,' replied the other firmly and seriously. It was all a bit too serious, the way he was speaking and looking.

‘Very much?'

‘Very much.'

‘All right. Here's how I'd act,' Raskolnikov began, suddenly bringing his face close to Zametov again, staring at him again and whispering again, but this time, Zametov couldn't help shuddering. ‘Here's what I'd do: I'd take the money and the items and immediately, without stopping off anywhere, I'd make straight for some out-of-the-way spot where there was nothing but fences and barely anyone about – a vegetable garden or something of the sort. I'd have searched the place beforehand for a forty-or fifty-pound stone, somewhere in a corner, by a fence, where it had probably lain ever since the house was built; I'd lift the stone up a little – there should be a hollow underneath – and that's where I'd put all the items and the money. Put them there and cover them with the stone, back to how it was before, pack the earth round it with my foot and clear off. I wouldn't touch any of it for a year, two years, three years. Catch me if you can!'

‘You're mad,' said Zametov, almost whispering as well for some reason and, for some reason, suddenly drawing back from Raskolnikov. The latter's eyes flashed; he went terribly pale; his upper lip quivered and began to twitch. He leant over to Zametov as close as he could and began moving his lips without uttering a word. This lasted half a minute or so. He realized what he was doing, but couldn't help himself. A terrible word twitched on his lips, like the latch on the door that time: it was on the verge of breaking loose, being released, being uttered!

‘What if it was me who killed the old woman and Lizaveta?' he said suddenly – and came to his senses.

Zametov gave him a wild look and turned pale as a tablecloth. A smile disfigured his face.

‘But how's that possible?' he said, barely audibly.

Raskolnikov threw him an angry glance.

‘Admit it – you believed me. Didn't you?'

‘Not for a second! And now I believe it less than ever!' said Zametov hastily.

‘Got you at last! The dicky bird's been caught. So you must have believed it before, if now you “believe it less than ever”?'

‘Not for one second, I say!' exclaimed Zametov, visibly flustered. ‘Is that why you were frightening me – to lead up to this?'

‘So you don't believe it? Then what were you all talking about after
I left the bureau that time? And why did Powder Keg grill me after my fainting fit? Hey you!' he shouted at the servant, getting to his feet and picking up his cap. ‘How much?'

‘Thirty copecks all told, sir,' the servant replied, running up.

‘There, have another twenty for vodka. Just look at all this money!' He stretched out a trembling hand full of notes to Zametov. ‘Red ones, blue ones, twenty-five roubles. Where have they come from? And what about my new clothes? You know full well I hadn't a copeck! The landlady's already been questioned, I suppose . . . Well, enough of this!
Assez causé
!
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Goodbye . . . and
bon appétit
!
'

He left, shaking all over with a kind of wild hysteria mixed with unbearable delight – yet he was gloomy and terribly tired. His face was disfigured, as if after a fit. His weariness was rapidly growing. Now the merest jolt, the merest irritation, was enough to arouse and revive his strength, which weakened just as fast, together with the sensation.

Zametov, left on his own, remained in his seat for a good while longer, pondering. Raskolnikov, without meaning to, had turned all his thoughts on this familiar topic upside down and definitively made up his mind for him.

‘Ilya Petrovich is a fool!' he decided, definitively.

Raskolnikov had barely opened the door onto the street when suddenly, right on the porch, he bumped into Razumikhin going the other way. Neither noticed the other until they very nearly bumped heads. They stood there for a while, looking each other up and down. Razumikhin was utterly astonished, but suddenly rage, real rage, flashed menacingly in his eyes.

‘So this is where you are!' he shouted at the top of his voice. ‘Running from his sick bed! And I was looking for him under the couch! We even checked the loft! I almost gave Nastasya a thrashing thanks to you . . . And look where he is! Rodya! What's the meaning of this? Tell me the whole truth! Confess! Do you hear?'

‘The meaning is that I'm sick to death of all of you and I want to be alone,' Raskolnikov calmly replied.

‘Alone? When you still can't walk, when you're still white as a sheet and you're gasping for breath! Idiot! What were you up to in the “Crystal Palace”? Confess immediately!'

‘Let me go!' said Raskolnikov, trying to walk past. This was the last straw and Razumikhin grabbed him firmly by the shoulder.

‘Let me go? What cheek! Know what I'll do with you now? I'll
gather you up, tie a knot around you, carry you off home under my arm and lock you up!'

‘Listen, Razumikhin,' Raskolnikov began quietly, with a semblance of perfect calm, ‘why can't you see that I don't want your good deeds? And why this urge to bestow your kindness on people who . . . spit in reply? For whom this is more than they can bear? I mean, why did you have to look me up when I fell ill? What if I were only too happy to die? Didn't I make it clear enough to you today that you're tormenting me, that I'm . . . sick and tired of you? Why this urge to torment people? It doesn't help my recovery at all, I assure you. In fact, it's a constant irritation. Didn't Zosimov leave earlier so as not to irritate me? Now you should do the same, for the love of God! Anyway, what right do you have to keep me here by force? Can't you see that I've got all my wits about me? What do I need to say to you – please, tell me – for you to stop pestering me and bestowing your goodness on me? Call me ungrateful, call me scum, but for the love of God just leave me alone, all of you! Just leave me!'