Crime and Punishment (36 page)

‘What are you playing at?' Razumikhin yelled, as if suddenly coming to his senses. ‘The decorators were painting on the day of the murder, but he was there three days earlier. So what are you on about?'

‘Well I never! I got everything mixed up!' cried Porfiry, slapping himself on the forehead. ‘This whole business is playing havoc with my mind!' he said to Raskolnikov, almost as if he were apologizing. ‘It's so terribly important for us to find out whether anyone saw them, between seven and eight, in that apartment, that I had a sudden fancy just now that you might also be able to tell us something . . . I got it all mixed up!'

‘Be a bit more careful next time,' Razumikhin sullenly remarked.

These last words were spoken in the entrance hall. Porfiry Petrovich showed them right to the door, with the utmost courtesy. Both stepped outside with gloomy, scowling expressions, and for a while neither said a word. Raskolnikov slowly caught his breath . . .

VI

‘... I don't believe it! I can't believe it!' a bewildered Razumikhin kept saying, desperately trying to refute Raskolnikov's arguments. They were already approaching Bakaleyev's rooms, where Pulkheria Alexandrovna and Dunya had long been expecting them. Razumikhin kept stopping on the way, embarrassed and excited by the mere fact that they were talking about
that
openly for the first time.

‘Well don't, then!' Raskolnikov replied with a cold and nonchalant sneer. ‘You, as usual, didn't notice a thing, but I was weighing up every word.'

‘You're suspicious, that's why . . . H'm . . . Porfiry's tone really was rather strange, I agree, and especially that scoundrel Zametov! . . . You're right, there was something about him – but why? Why?'

‘Changed his mind overnight.'

‘No – just the opposite! If they really did have such a brainless idea, they'd be doing all they could to conceal it, keeping their cards close to their chest before pouncing later . . . But
now
 – that would be insolent and reckless!'

‘If they had any facts, I mean real facts, or at least serious grounds for suspicion, then yes, they would try to hide their cards, in the hope of doubling their winnings (but in that case they'd have done a search ages ago!). But they have no facts, not a single one – it's all a mirage, all double-edged, an idea plucked from the air – so they're trying to trip me up with their insolence. Or perhaps he himself was angry at the lack of facts and his irritation boiled over. Or perhaps he's got something up his sleeve . . . He looks a clever sort . . . Or perhaps he meant to frighten me with what he knows . . . There's a whole psychology at work here . . . But it disgusts me to explain it. Just leave it!'

‘And it's positively insulting! How well I understand you! But . . . seeing as we're talking openly at last (and what a fine thing that is – I'm so pleased!), I'll come straight out with it and admit that I've noticed it all along, this idea of theirs; no more than a sniff of an idea, of course, a worm of an idea, but why even a worm? How dare they? Where are the roots of all this hidden – where? If only you knew how furious I've been! What? All because a poor student, crippled by beggary and hypochondria, on the verge of succumbing to a vicious illness and delirium that (note!) may have been lying dormant in him
already, a man who's suspicious, proud, who knows his own worth, who hasn't had anyone visit him in his corner for the last six months and is dressed like a tramp, in boots without soles, has to stand there before a bunch of local coppers and endure their mockery; not to mention a debt that comes out of the blue, an overdue promissory note from court counsellor Chebarov, rotten paint, thirty degrees Réaumur,
26
not a breath of fresh air, a throng of people, a story about the murder of someone he'd visited the day before – and all this on an empty belly! Try not fainting after that! And they base everything on this! Damn it all! I understand what a pain this is, but in your shoes, Rodka, I'd laugh in their faces, or even better I'd spit on them all, gob at them, the thicker the better, dish out several slaps on each cheek – intelligently, of course, that's the only way to do it – then leave it at that. Just spit on them! Pull yourself together! The shame of it!'

‘He actually put that rather well!' thought Raskolnikov.

‘Spit on them? Then face another grilling tomorrow!' he said bitterly. ‘Do I really have to explain myself to them? It's bad enough that I stooped to Zametov's level in the tavern yesterday . . .'

‘Damn it all! I'll go and see Porfiry myself! I'll pin him down,
in the family spirit
. I'll drag it out of him, all of it! And as for Zametov . . .'

‘The penny's finally dropped!' thought Raskolnikov.

‘Wait a minute!' shouted Razumikhin, grabbing him suddenly by the shoulder. ‘Wait! You've got it wrong! I've had a think and you've got it all wrong! I mean, how could it be a trick? You say the question about the workmen was a trick? Try this for size: if you had done
that
, would you really have blurted out that you saw the apartment being painted . . . and the workmen? Just the opposite: you'd have seen nothing, even if you had! Who'd ever admit to something so damaging?'

‘If I had done
that
, then I'd have been sure to say I saw both the workmen and the apartment,' Raskolnikov replied, with reluctance and obvious disgust.

‘But why admit something so damaging?'

‘Because only a peasant or the most inexperienced novice simply clams up under questioning. Any man with a bit of brains and experience would have been sure to admit, wherever possible, to every objective and undeniable fact; only he'd find different reasons for them and put his own, unexpected mark on them, thereby lending them an entirely different meaning and showing them in a quite different light. Porfiry could have counted on me replying like that and saying I'd
seen everything, so as to make it sound more convincing, while adding something by way of an explanation . . .'

‘But he'd have shot back that the workers couldn't have been there two days earlier, so you must have been present on the day of the murder, between seven and eight. He'd have caught you out on a petty detail!'

‘That's precisely what he was counting on – that I wouldn't manage to think it through in time, that I'd hurry to say something convincing and forget that the workers couldn't have been there two days before.'

‘But how could anyone forget that?'

‘Quite easily! It's always the silly things that catch sly people out. The slyer a man is, the less he suspects he'll be caught out by something simple. It's the simplest things that catch out the slyest. Porfiry is far less stupid than you think . . .'

‘A scoundrel's what he is now!'

Raskolnikov couldn't help laughing. But as he did so he felt there was something strange about his own animation and the enthusiasm with which he'd just offered this last explanation, when until then he'd kept the conversation going with sullen disgust, for reasons of his own, out of sheer necessity.

‘I'm getting a taste for some of this!' he thought to himself.

But almost as he did so he suddenly became anxious, as if struck by an unexpected and alarming thought. His anxiety grew. They'd already reached the entrance to Bakaleyev's rooms.

‘You go in,' Raskolnikov suddenly said. ‘I'll be right back.'

‘Where are you off to? We're here now!'

‘There's something I have to do . . . I'll be back in half an hour . . . You tell them.'

‘As you wish, but I'm coming with you!'

‘So you want to torment me, too, do you?' he cried, with such bitter vexation, such despair in his gaze, that Razumikhin gave up. For a while he remained standing on the porch, watching sullenly as Raskolnikov strode off briskly in the direction of the lane in which he lived. Eventually, clenching his teeth and his fists, swearing there and then that he would squeeze Porfiry dry, like a lemon, that very same day, he went up to reassure Pulkheria Alexandrovna, who was already alarmed by their lengthy absence.

When Raskolnikov got home, his temples were damp with sweat and he was breathing heavily. He hurriedly climbed the stairs, entered
his room, which he'd left unlocked, and immediately put the door on the hook. Next, he rushed over in crazed terror to the corner, to that same hole in the wallpaper where he'd kept the items back then, stuck a hand inside and spent several minutes rummaging about, running his fingers over every nook and cranny, every crease in the wallpaper. Finding nothing, he got to his feet and took long, deep breaths. Walking up to Bakaleyev's porch, he'd had a sudden fancy that one or other of the items, a little chain or cufflink, or even one of the scraps of paper in which they'd been wrapped, with a label in the old woman's hand, might have slipped into some crack or other, only to confront him later as unexpected, irrefutable evidence.

He stood as if lost in thought and a strange, abject, almost senseless smile played on his lips. Eventually he picked up his cap and quietly left the room. His thoughts were all tangled. Still pensive, he came out by the arch.

‘There he is!' shouted a booming voice. He lifted his head.

The caretaker was standing by the door to his lodge and was pointing him out to a shortish man, a tradesman in appearance, who was wearing some kind of dressing gown over his waistcoat, and from a distance looked a lot like a woman. His head hung down beneath a soiled cap and there was something hunched about his entire appearance. To judge by his flabby, wrinkled face he was over fifty and his puffy little eyes had a sullen, stern and dissatisfied look.

‘What's all this about?' asked Raskolnikov, walking up to the caretaker.

The tradesman looked askance at him from under his brows and measured him with an attentive, unhurried stare; then he slowly turned around and, without saying a word, walked out of the arch into the street.

‘What's all this?' cried Raskolnikov.

‘Some man asking if this is where the student's living – he gave your name – and who you're renting from. Then you come down, I point you out and he wanders off. Fancy that.'

The caretaker was also a little bewildered, though no more than a little, and after scratching his head about it for another second or two, turned round and went back to his lodge.

Raskolnikov rushed after the tradesman and spotted him immediately, walking on the opposite side of the street with the same steady, unhurried gait, his eyes glued to the ground, as if he were turning
something over in his mind. He soon caught up with him, but for a while he kept a few steps behind; eventually he drew level with him and stole a glance at his face. The man immediately noticed him, looked him over and lowered his gaze again, and they walked on like that for a minute or so, one beside the other and not a word between them.

‘You asked the caretaker for me?' Raskolnikov eventually said, but his voice was strangely hushed.

The tradesman made no reply and didn't even look up. Silence again.

‘What . . . ? You come and ask for me . . . and say nothing . . . I mean, what is this?' Raskolnikov's voice kept breaking off and the words refused to come out clearly.

This time the tradesman lifted his eyes and gave Raskolnikov an ominous, dismal look.

‘Killer!' he suddenly said in a soft, but clear and distinct voice . . .

Raskolnikov was walking beside him. His legs suddenly became dreadfully weak, his back felt cold and, for an instant, his heart seemed to stop; then it began pounding again, as if suddenly unhooked. They walked about a hundred paces like that, side by side and again in total silence.

The tradesman did not look at him.

‘What is this . . . ? What are you . . . ? Who is a murderer?' mumbled Raskolnikov in a barely audible voice.

‘
You're
the killer,'
27
uttered the other, articulating each syllable ever more imposingly and half-smiling with triumph and loathing; then, once again, he looked straight into Raskolnikov's pale face and deadened eyes. By now they'd reached the crossroads. The tradesman turned left along the street, without glancing back. Raskolnikov remained where he was, following him with his eyes. He saw how the other turned round after fifty paces or so and looked at him, still rooted to the spot. It was hard to be sure, but Raskolnikov thought that now, too, the tradesman had smiled at him with his cold, hateful, triumphant smile.

With slow, weak steps, knees trembling, chilled to the bone, Raskolnikov went back to his building and up to his cell. He took off his cap, put it on the table and stood motionless beside it for a good ten minutes. Then he sank feebly on to the couch and stretched out in pain, groaning weakly; his eyes were closed. He lay like that for about half an hour.

He wasn't thinking about anything. There was just the odd random thought or scrap of thought, or the odd image without rhyme or reason: faces seen by him back in his childhood or people he'd met only once and would never have recalled again; the bell tower of V—— Church;
28
a billiard table in a tavern and some officer standing next to it; the smell of cigars in some basement tobacco shop; a drinking den; a back staircase, pitch dark, soaked in slops and spattered with eggshells; and from somewhere or other the ringing of Sunday bells . . . One object replaced another in a constant whirl. There were even some that he liked and he tried to cling on to them, but they faded, and something was pressing on him inside, but only a little. Sometimes it even felt nice . . . The shiveriness did not pass, and that, too, felt almost nice.

He heard Razumikhin's hurried steps and voice, closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep. Razumikhin opened the door and stood for a while on the threshold, as if he were hesitating. Then he stepped softly into the room and tiptoed over to the couch. Nastasya's whisper carried over.