Crime and Punishment (30 page)

‘You might both be mistaken about Rodya,' Pulkheria Alexandrovna intervened, a little piqued. ‘I don't mean now, Dunechka. Pyotr Petrovich may be wrong in what he writes in his letter . . . and you and I may have been wrong in our suppositions, but you can't imagine, Dmitry Prokofich, how fanciful and – how should I put it? – capricious he is. I never had much confidence in his character, even when he was only fifteen. I'm quite sure that even now he is capable of suddenly doing something to himself the like of which no one else would ever even think of . . . To take just one example, did you hear about how, a year and a half ago, he astonished and shocked me with the bright idea of marrying that girl – what's her name again? – the daughter of Zarnitsyna, his landlady? It almost finished me off.'

‘Do you know about that story?' asked Avdotya Romanovna.

‘Do you imagine,' Pulkheria Alexandrovna went on heatedly, ‘that anything would have stopped him then – my tears, my pleas, my illness, my death, perhaps, from grief, our beggary? He'd have stepped right over every obstacle without a second thought. But does he really not love us?'

‘He never said anything to me himself about this story,' replied Razumikhin warily, ‘but I did hear something about it from Mrs Zarnitsyna, who's not exactly a chatterbox herself, and what I heard was, you might say, a little strange . . .'

‘But what, what did you hear?' both women asked at once.

‘Nothing so very extraordinary. I merely learned that this marriage, which was all set up and fell through only because of the death
of the bride, was not to Mrs Zarnitsyna's liking at all . . . Besides, apparently the bride wasn't even pretty; in fact they say she was ugly . . . and very sickly and . . . and strange . . . though not, it seems, without certain qualities. There must have been some qualities or else one can't make head or tail of it . . . No dowry, either, though he wouldn't have been counting on one anyway . . . Well, it's hard to know what to make of a case like that.'

‘I'm sure she was a worthy girl,' remarked Avdotya Romanovna tersely.

‘Forgive me God, but I was glad when she died, though I couldn't say who would have ruined whom,' concluded Pulkheria Alexandrovna; then, hesitating and glancing again and again in the direction of Dunya, to the latter's obvious displeasure, she warily launched into another interrogation about yesterday's scene between Rodya and Luzhin. This event evidently worried her more than anything, even terrified her. Razumikhin went over it all again, in detail, but this time he added his own conclusion: he directly accused Raskolnikov of having set out to insult Pyotr Petrovich in advance, making very few allowances this time round for his sickness.

‘He thought this up while he was still well,' he added.

‘That's what I think, too,' said Pulkheria Alexandrovna, looking devastated. But she was very struck by the fact that Razumikhin had spoken so cautiously on this occasion about Pyotr Petrovich, almost respectfully. Avdotya Romanovna was struck by it, too.

‘So that's what you think of Pyotr Petrovich?' Pulkheria Alexandrovna asked, unable to restrain herself.

‘I can hold no other opinion about your daughter's husband-to-be,' Razumikhin answered firmly and with feeling, ‘and it's not just vulgar courtesy that makes me say so, but because . . . because . . . well, if only because Avdotya Romanovna has herself, of her own free will, seen fit to choose him. And if I was so rude about him yesterday, then only because I was filthy drunk and . . . crazy. Yes, completely crazy, out of my mind . . . and today I'm ashamed of myself!' He reddened and said no more. Avdotya Romanovna flushed, but did not break the silence. She hadn't said a word from the moment the conversation turned to the topic of Luzhin.

Meanwhile her mother, without her support, was evidently in two minds about something. Finally, stammering and glancing again and
again at her daughter, Pulkheria Alexandrovna announced that she was extremely concerned about one particular circumstance.

‘You see, Dmitry Prokofich . . . ,' she began. ‘I'll be completely frank with Dmitry Prokofich, shall I, Dunechka?'

‘Yes, of course, Mama,' Avdotya Romanovna encouraged her.

‘This is how it is,' she hurried, as if suddenly liberated by this permission to share her grief. ‘Today, very early this morning, we received a note from Pyotr Petrovich in reply to our notification yesterday of our arrival. Yesterday, you see, he was supposed to meet us, as he'd promised, at the station. Instead, some servant or other was dispatched there to meet us and show us the way to this address, and a message was conveyed from Pyotr Petrovich informing us that he would visit us here this morning. Instead, this morning we received this note from him . . . It would be better if you read it yourself. There is one point that worries me greatly . . . You'll see for yourself which point I mean, and . . . please be completely frank, Dmitry Prokofich! You know Rodya's character better than anyone and are best placed to advise us. I should warn you that Dunechka has already decided everything, straight away, but I, well, I'm still not sure what to do and . . . and was waiting for you.'

Razumikhin unfolded the note, which bore the previous day's date, and read the following:

Dear Madam, Pulkheria Alexandrovna,

I have the honour of informing you that owing to the occurrence of unforeseen delays I was unable to greet you off the train, having dispatched to that end a highly competent person. Equally I must forgo the honour of meeting you tomorrow morning, owing to pressing business in the Senate and so as not to disturb your family reunion with your son and Avdotya Romanovna's with her brother. I shall have the honour of visiting you and paying you my respects in your apartment on the morrow, at
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p.m. sharp, moreover I take the liberty of adducing an earnest and, let me add, very firm request that Rodion Romanovich not be present at our general meeting, in light of the unprecedented and discourteous offence which he caused me yesterday during my visit to his sickbed, and, aside from that, having an urgent need to discuss a certain point with you personally in depth, regarding which I desire to know your personal interpretation. I
have the honour of giving prior notification that if, contrary to my request, I should meet Rodion Romanovich, I shall be obliged to take my leave without delay – and then you'll have no one to blame but yourselves. For I write in the supposition that Rodion Romanovich, having appeared so very sick during my visit, suddenly recovered two hours later, and therefore, on leaving his premises, may present himself at yours. I have received confirmation of this with my own eyes, in the apartment of a drunk who was run over by horses and died as a result, to whose daughter, a girl of notorious conduct, he gave as much as twenty-five roubles yesterday, on the pretext of a funeral, which fact greatly astonished me, knowing how much of a struggle it was for you to assemble this sum. By these presents, with an expression of my especial respect to the esteemed Avdotya Romanovna, I ask you to accept the respectful devotion of

your humble servant

P. Luzhin

‘So what should I do, Dmitry Prokofich?' began Pulkheria Alexandrovna, on the verge of tears. ‘How on earth can I suggest to Rodya not to come? He was so insistent yesterday that we reject Pyotr Petrovich, and here he is under instructions not to be accepted himself! He'll come on purpose when he finds out . . . and then what?'

‘Do as Avdotya Romanovna has decided,' Razumikhin answered calmly and without hesitation.

‘Good grief! She says . . . she says God knows what and she doesn't explain the point of it! She says it is better, or rather not better but for some reason absolutely essential for Rodya also to come specially today at eight o'clock and for them to meet without fail . . . But I didn't even want to show him the letter – I wanted to find some cunning way, through you, of stopping him coming . . . because he's so very irritable . . . And I don't understand any of this anyway – what drunkard, what daughter, and how did he manage to give away to this daughter all the remaining money . . . which . . . ?'

‘Which was obtained at such cost to yourself, Mama,' added Avdotya Romanovna.

‘He wasn't himself yesterday,' said Razumikhin pensively. ‘If you'd heard some of the things he was saying in the tavern yesterday, clever as they were . . . h'm! He did say something to me when we were walking home about some chap who'd died and some girl or other,
but I didn't understand a word of it . . . But then I wasn't up to much yesterday, either . . .'

‘We're best off going to see him ourselves, Mama. I'm sure we'll know what to do as soon as we get there. And just look at the time – goodness me! Gone ten already!' she cried, after glancing at her splendid gold, enamelled timepiece, which hung from her neck on a fine Venetian chain and was utterly out of keeping with the rest of her outfit. ‘Present from the fiancé,' thought Razumikhin.

‘Oh, we must go! . . . Time to go, Dunechka, time to go!' fussed Pulkheria Alexandrovna. ‘He'll think we're still angry from yesterday, if it's taken us so long. Good grief!'

Saying this, she hurriedly threw on a cape and put on her hat. Dunechka also got herself ready. Her gloves were not only worn, they were in shreds, as Razumikhin noticed, yet the patent poverty of their attire gave both women an air of particular dignity, as is always the way with those who know how to dress in pauper's clothes. Razumikhin looked with reverence at Dunechka and felt proud to be accompanying her. ‘The queen,' he thought to himself, ‘who darned her own stockings
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in prison must have looked every inch the part at that moment, even more so than during her most lavish public ceremonies.'

‘Good grief!' exclaimed Pulkheria Alexandrovna. ‘Could I ever have imagined fearing a meeting with my son, my sweet Rodya, as I fear it now? . . . I'm scared, Dmitry Prokofich!' she added, with a timid glance.

‘Don't be scared, dear Mama,' said Dunya, kissing her, ‘you should have faith in him. I do.'

‘Good grief! I do have faith in him, but I didn't sleep a wink last night!' cried the poor woman.

They went outside.

‘You know, Dunechka, just as soon as I snatched a little sleep this morning, I suddenly dreamt of Marfa Petrovna, God rest her soul . . . dressed all in white . . . She came up to me and took my hand while shaking her head at me, so very seriously, as if in disapproval . . . What am I to make of it? Good grief, Dmitry Prokofich, you still don't know: Marfa Petrovna has died!'

‘No, I didn't know. Which Marfa Petrovna?'

‘Quite suddenly! And just imagine . . .'

‘Later, Mama,' Dunya broke in. ‘After all, the gentleman still doesn't know who Marfa Petrovna is.'

‘Oh, you don't? There was I thinking you already knew everything. Please forgive me, Dmitry Prokofich, I'm at my wits' end. Truly, I think of you as our Providence, and that's why I was so sure you already knew everything. I think of you as one of the family . . . Don't be angry with me for speaking like this. Good grief, what's happened to your right hand? Have you hurt it?'

‘Yes, I hurt it,' muttered Razumikhin, suddenly happy.

‘Sometimes I speak rather too openly and Dunya has to prod me . . . But how on earth can he live in such a tiny cell? Has he woken up, though? And that woman, his landlady, calls that a room? Listen, you say he doesn't like to display his feelings, so perhaps I'll only annoy him with my . . . foibles? . . . Can't you teach me, Dmitry Prokofich? How should I act with him? I'm all at sea.'

‘Don't keep asking him about anything if you see him frowning, and in particular don't ask him too much about his health. He doesn't like it.'

‘Oh, Dmitry Prokofich, how hard it is to be a mother! But here's that stairwell . . . Such a horrid stairwell!'

‘Mama, you've even gone pale. Calm yourself, my dearest,' said Dunya, stroking her. ‘He ought to be happy to see you, and here you are tormenting yourself,' she added, with a flash of her eyes.

‘Wait, I'll go ahead to see if he's woken up yet.'

The ladies set off slowly up the stairs after Razumikhin, and when they drew level with the landlady's door on the fourth floor they noticed that it was just slightly ajar and that two quick black eyes were examining them both from the dark. When their eyes met, the door suddenly slammed shut with such a bang that Pulkheria Alexandrovna nearly screamed with fright.

‘Better, better!' Zosimov shouted to them cheerfully as they entered. He'd arrived some ten minutes earlier and was sitting at the same end of the couch as the day before. Raskolnikov was sitting at the opposite end, all dressed up and even thoroughly scrubbed and combed, for the first time in a very long while. The room filled up at once, but Nastasya still managed to follow the visitors in and started listening.

Raskolnikov really was almost better, especially when compared to the previous day, but he was very pale, distracted and sullen. He
might have been taken for a man who'd been wounded or who was in acute physical pain: his brows were knitted, his lips clenched, his eyes swollen. He spoke little and unwillingly, as though he were forcing himself or discharging a duty, and every now and again his gestures betrayed a certain anxiety.

The only thing lacking was a sling on his arm or gauze round his finger to complete his resemblance to a man with an excruciating abscess or an injured hand or something of that kind.

Still, even this pale and sullen face seemed to light up momentarily when his mother and sister walked in, though this merely lent to his features a greater intensity of torment, in place of the anguished distraction of before. The light faded quickly, but the torment remained, and Zosimov, observing and studying his patient with all the youthful enthusiasm of a doctor who has only just begun to practise, was surprised to see him react to his family's arrival not with joy but with a kind of grim, hidden resolve to endure an hour or two of torture that could be put off no longer. Later, he noticed how almost every word in the ensuing conversation seemed to touch a nerve in his patient or irritate a wound; but at the same time he was amazed by his self-control, by the new-found ability of yesterday's monomaniac to conceal his feelings, when only the day before the slightest word had been enough to drive him to the edge of fury.

‘Yes, I can see myself I'm almost better,' said Raskolnikov, kissing his mother and sister warmly, which instantly made Pulkheria Alexandrovna beam, ‘and that's not the me of yesterday speaking,' he added, turning to Razumikhin and offering him a friendly handshake.

‘I've been quite amazed by him today, I must say,' Zosimov began, greatly relieved by their arrival: keeping up a conversation with his patient for a whole ten minutes had proved beyond him. ‘In three or four days' time, if he keeps on like this, he'll be just as he was before; I mean, just as he was a month ago, or two . . . or perhaps even three? After all, this didn't just begin now . . . it's been brewing for a while, eh? Perhaps you'll admit now that you were to blame, too?' he added with a wary smile, as if still afraid of irritating him in some way.

‘Quite possibly,' Raskolnikov answered coldly.

‘The reason I say that,' Zosimov continued, warming to his theme, ‘is that your full recovery now depends mainly and solely on you. Now that you are capable of proper conversation, I should like to impress upon you how essential it is for you to eliminate the primary
and, as it were, deep-rooted causes that helped bring about your illness; only then will you be cured, while the alternative may be even worse. I don't know what these primary causes are, but you should. You're an intelligent man, after all, and you must have studied your own symptoms. It seems to me that the onset of your condition coincided at least in part with your leaving university. You need to keep yourself occupied, which is why work and a clearly defined aim could, it seems to me, help you greatly.'

‘Yes, yes, how right you are . . . I'll resume my studies just as soon as I can and then everything will be . . . just dandy . . .'

Zosimov, who had delivered these pearls of wisdom partly to impress the ladies, was, of course, rather taken aback when, after finishing his speech and glancing at his listener, he noticed a look of unmistakable derision on his face. But it lasted no more than an instant. Pulkheria Alexandrovna immediately set about thanking Zosimov, especially for his visit to their rooms the night before.

‘You mean he was with you last night too?' asked Raskolnikov, as if in alarm. ‘So you didn't get any sleep after the journey either?'

‘Oh, Rodya, that was all over by two. Even at home Dunya and I never went to bed before two.'

‘I don't know how to thank him either,' Raskolnikov went on, frowning and staring at the floor. ‘Setting aside the question of money – and do forgive me for mentioning it' (he remarked to Zosimov) ‘I just can't imagine what I've done to deserve such special attention from you. I simply don't understand it . . . and . . . and actually, I find it rather difficult, for that same reason. I'm being frank with you.'

‘Now don't get worked up,' said Zosimov with a forced laugh. ‘Just imagine that you're my first patient and, well, anyone who's just started practising loves his first cases like his own children; some almost fall in love with them. As for me, I'm hardly overrun with patients.'

‘And I haven't even mentioned him,' added Raskolnikov, pointing to Razumikhin. ‘He's had nothing from me except insults and bother.'

‘Complete drivel! Feeling sentimental, are we?' Razumikhin shouted.

He would have seen, had he been a little more perceptive, that there was nothing sentimental about Raskolnikov's mood; if anything, just the opposite. But Avdotya Romanovna had noticed. Her anxious gaze never left her brother.

‘I daren't even mention you, Mama,' he went on, as though he'd memorized these lines in the morning. ‘Only today could I begin to
understand what you must have been through here, yesterday, waiting for me to return.' Having said this, he suddenly stretched out a hand to his sister with a wordless smile. But this time real, unfeigned emotion could be glimpsed in his smile. Dunya immediately grabbed the hand extended towards her and squeezed it tight, gladdened and grateful. It was the first time he'd spoken to her since yesterday's disagreement. His mother's face lit up with ecstatic happiness at the sight of this definitive, silent reconciliation between brother and sister.

‘And that's why I love him!' whispered Razumikhin, exaggerating as always and turning round energetically in his chair. ‘He has these sudden gusts!'

‘And how well he carries it all off,' Pulkheria Alexandrovna thought to herself. ‘What noble impulses he has, and how simply, how tactfully he put an end to yesterday's misunderstanding with his sister – merely by stretching out a hand and looking at her nicely . . . And what beautiful eyes he has, what a beautiful face in general! . . . He's even better looking than Dunechka . . . But good grief, just look at the state of his suit! Even Vasya, the errand boy in Afanasy Ivanovich's shop, is better dressed than he is! . . . If only I could run over to him and hug him and . . . cry – but I'm afraid, afraid . . . dear God, there's something about him! . . . Even when he's tender I'm afraid! What on earth am I afraid of?'

‘Oh, Rodya,' she said suddenly, hurrying to reply to his comment, ‘you wouldn't believe how . . . miserable Dunechka and I were yesterday! Now it's all over and we're all happy again, I can tell you more. Just imagine, we were rushing over here to embrace you, almost straight off the train, and this woman – ah, here she is! Hello, Nastasya! . . . She suddenly told us that you'd been in bed, raving deliriously, and that you'd just given your doctor the slip and gone out, still delirious, and people had run off to look for you. Can you imagine the state we were in? I couldn't help thinking of the tragic death of Lieutenant Potanchikov, an acquaintance of ours, a friend of your father's – you won't remember him, Rodya. He was delirious, too, and ran off just like you did and fell down the well in the yard – he wasn't pulled out till the next day. And, of course, that wasn't the worst we imagined. We were about to rush off to look for Pyotr Petrovich, maybe he could do something . . . because we were alone here, quite alone,' she went on plaintively, then suddenly cut herself short, remembering that it wasn't yet safe to bring up Pyotr Petrovich, despite the fact that everyone was ‘already entirely happy again'.

‘Yes, yes . . . all very vexing, of course . . . ,' Raskolnikov mumbled in reply, but with such a distracted, almost inattentive air that Dunechka looked at him in astonishment.

‘What was the other thing?' he continued, trying hard to remember. ‘Oh yes. Please, Mama, and you, Dunechka, please don't think I didn't want to come to you first today and was just waiting for you here.'

‘Whatever next, Rodya?' cried Pulkheria Alexandrovna, also surprised.

‘Why's he replying like this – from a sense of duty?' Dunechka wondered. ‘Making peace, asking forgiveness, as if he were going through the motions or had learned it all by rote.'

‘I'd just woken up and was all ready to go, but my clothes kept me back. I forgot yesterday to tell her . . . Nastasya . . . to wash off that blood . . . I've only just managed to get dressed now.'

‘Blood! What blood?' panicked Pulkheria Alexandrovna.

‘It's nothing . . . don't worry. There was blood because yesterday, when I was knocking about, slightly delirious, I came across a man who'd been run over and trampled . . . a civil servant . . .'

‘Delirious? But you remember everything,' Razumikhin broke in.

‘That's true,' Raskolnikov replied with unusual solicitude, ‘I remember everything down to the very last detail, but try asking me why I did this or that, went here or there, said this or that, and I'd be hard put to tell you.'

‘An all too familiar phenomenon,' Zosimov intervened. ‘A deed can be carried out in a consummate, highly resourceful fashion, but the subject's control over his actions, the basis of his actions, is disturbed and depends on various morbid impressions. As if he were dreaming.'

‘Well, it's probably no bad thing that he thinks me half-mad,' thought Raskolnikov.

‘But you could probably say exactly the same about the healthy,' observed Dunechka, looking anxiously at Zosimov.

‘A quite accurate observation,' the latter replied. ‘In this sense all of us are, often enough, pretty much crazy, with the one small distinction that “the sick” are that little bit crazier – one must draw a line. It's true, though, that there's almost no such thing as a well-balanced person. You might find one in a hundred, or one in several hundred thousand, and even then only a fairly weak specimen . . .'

At the word ‘crazy', which Zosimov, getting carried away by his favourite topic, had carelessly let slip, everyone frowned. Raskolnikov
sat there as if he hadn't noticed, deep in thought and with a strange smile on his pale lips. He was still trying to work something out.

‘Well, what about that man who got trampled? I interrupted you!' shouted Razumikhin in a hurry.

‘What?' said Raskolnikov, as if waking up. ‘Oh yes . . . well, I stained myself with blood when I helped carry him into the apartment . . . By the way, Mama, I did one unforgivable thing yesterday. I really must have been out of my mind. Yesterday I gave away all the money you sent me . . . to his wife . . . for the funeral! She's a widow now, consumptive, a pitiful woman . . . Three little orphans, all hungry . . . nothing in the house . . . and another daughter as well . . . You might have done the same if you'd seen . . . Though I had no right at all, I admit, especially knowing how you got this money in the first place. To help, one must first have the right to help, otherwise it's “
Crevez, chiens, si vous n'êtes pas contents
!
”'
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He laughed. ‘Isn't that right, Dunya?'

‘No, it's not,' Dunya replied firmly.

‘Ha! Now you, too . . . with your own intentions!' he muttered with a mocking smile, looking at her almost with hatred. ‘I should have expected that . . . Well, I suppose it's commendable . . . and at some point you'll reach a mark: stop there and you'll be miserable; step over it and you might be more miserable still . . . But anyway, how stupid this is!' he added, annoyed that he'd let himself get carried away. ‘All I wanted to say, Mama, is that I'm asking your forgiveness,' he concluded tersely and abruptly.

‘That'll do, Rodya, I'm sure that everything you do is quite wonderful!' said his gladdened mother.

‘Don't be so sure,' he replied, twisting his mouth into a smile. Silence followed. There was something strained about the whole conversation – the silence, the reconciliation, the forgiveness – and everyone could feel it.

‘Maybe they really are afraid of me,' Raskolnikov thought to himself, with a mistrustful glance at his mother and sister. And indeed, the longer Pulkheria Alexandrovna was silent, the more timid she became.

‘I seemed to love them so much from a distance,' flashed through his mind.

‘You know, Rodya, Marfa Petrovna has died!' Pulkheria Alexandrovna suddenly ventured.

‘Who's Marfa Petrovna?'

‘Good grief . . . You know, Marfa Petrovna, Svidrigailova! How many times have I written to you about her?'

‘Ah yes, I remember . . . So she's died, has she? Has she really?' he asked, as if suddenly rousing himself. ‘Of what?'

‘Just like that. Can you imagine?' Pulkheria Alexandrovna rattled on, encouraged by his curiosity. ‘And just after I sent off that letter to you, on that very same day! The cause of her death seems to have been that dreadful man – can you imagine? He gave her an awful beating by all accounts.'

‘Was that really how they lived?' he asked, turning to his sister.

‘No, quite the opposite. He was always very patient with her, even courteous. In fact, he was probably much too indulgent, for seven years running . . . His patience must have suddenly snapped.'