Crime and Punishment (47 page)

So here was the solution to yesterday's dreadful riddle! Most dreadful of all was to think how very close he'd come to his own, self-inflicted
ruin, all on account of such a
paltry
circumstance. So aside from the talk of renting an apartment and of blood, this man had nothing to tell. So Porfiry also had nothing, nothing except that
delirium
, no facts except
psychology
, which is
double-edged
, nothing concrete. So if no more facts emerged (and why on earth should they?), then . . . then what could they do with him? How could they expose him definitively, even if they arrested him? So Porfiry had only found out about the apartment now – and had known nothing before.

‘Was it you who told Porfiry today . . . about me showing up that time?' he cried, struck by an unexpected idea.

‘Which Porfiry?'

‘The chief investigator.'

‘Yes, it was me. The caretakers didn't go, so I went instead.'

‘Today?'

‘Barely a minute before you. And I heard everything, heard him torture you.'

‘Where? What? When?'

‘Right there, behind that partition of his. I was sitting there all that time.'

‘What? So
you
were the surprise? How on earth did that happen? Incredible!'

‘When we saw,' the tradesman began, ‘that the caretakers weren't having any of my suggestion, because, they said, it was too late, and anyway he'd probably be angry we hadn't come right away, I was aggrieved and started losing sleep, and began making enquiries. Yesterday I found out and today I went. First time I went he weren't there. Came back an hour later – he couldn't see me; came back a third time – admitted. I started filling him in on everything and he started hopping about the room and beating his chest. “What are you doing to me, you brigands?” he said. “If I'd only known such a thing, I'd have had him brought in under escort!” Then he ran out, called someone and began talking to him in the corner, then back to me again – asking me questions and cursing. He weren't happy with me at all. I told him everything and said that you didn't dare answer me at all yesterday and hadn't recognized me. So he started haring about the room and beating his chest, and getting angry, and running around again, and when you were announced – “All right,” he says, “get yourself behind the partition; sit there for the time being and don't budge, whatever you hear,” and he brought me a chair himself and locked me in. “I
might even ask for you,” he says. But when Mikolai was brought in, well, he showed me out, after you. “I'll need you again,” he says, “I'll have more questions for you . . .”'

‘So were you there when he questioned Mikolai?'

‘First he showed you out, then me straight after, and then he began interrogating Mikolai.'

The tradesman paused and suddenly bowed once again, touching the floor with his finger.

‘Forgive my slander and malice.'

‘God will forgive,' replied Raskolnikov, and no sooner had he said this than the tradesman made another bow, though not to the ground, turned and walked out. ‘Everything is double-edged now; yes, everything is double-edged,' Raskolnikov kept saying and left the room in better spirits than ever.

‘So the fight goes on,' he said with a spiteful smile as he went down the stairs. His spite was directed at himself, and the memory of his ‘petty cowardice' filled him with contempt and
shame.

The morning after his fateful conversation with Dunechka and Pulkheria Alexandrovna had a sobering effect on Pyotr Petrovich as well. He, to his very greatest displeasure, was obliged, little by little, to accept as an accomplished and irrevocable fact an event that only yesterday had seemed to him almost fantastical and, though it had already happened, still somehow impossible. All night long the black serpent of wounded pride had sucked at his heart. Getting out of his bed, Pyotr Petrovich immediately looked in the mirror. Might he have had an attack of bile overnight? No, there were no concerns on that score for the time being, and after a glance at his noble, white and lately somewhat flabby countenance Pyotr Petrovich even cheered up a little, fully determined to find himself a bride somewhere else and, perhaps, a rather better one; but he instantly came to his senses and spat vigorously over his shoulder, thereby eliciting a silent but sarcastic smile from his young friend and room-mate Andrei Semyonovich Lebezyatnikov. Pyotr Petrovich noted the smile and immediately held it against him. He'd been holding a lot of things against his young friend recently. His spite was redoubled when he suddenly realized how unwise it had been of him yesterday to inform Andrei Semyonovich of the outcome of the conversation. That had been his second mistake, made in the heat of the moment, from an excess of candour and irritation . . . And the rest of the morning, as ill luck would have it, was one unpleasantness after another. There was even a setback waiting for him in the Senate, on some case he was working on. Especially irritating was the landlord of the apartment which he'd rented with a view to his imminent marriage and done up at his own expense: nothing could persuade this landlord, some German craftsman flush with money, to rescind their freshly signed contract; in fact, he demanded full payment of the penalty stipulated therein, despite the fact that Pyotr Petrovich was returning to him an almost entirely redecorated apartment. Similarly, the furniture shop refused to return a single rouble of the deposit on the goods that had been bought but not yet
delivered. ‘I can hardly get married just for a few tables and chairs!' thought Pyotr Petrovich, grinding his teeth, and as he did so a desperate hope flashed across his mind once more: ‘Is the situation really so irretrievable? Is it really all over? Surely I can have one more go?' The delicious thought of Dunechka pricked his heart once more. This moment was sheer agony and if he had only been able, by merely desiring it, to kill Raskolnikov there and then, Pyotr Petrovich would surely have voiced that desire without delay.

‘Another mistake was never giving them any money,' he thought, returning sadly to Lebezyatnikov's tiny room. ‘Why did I have to make such a Jew of myself? It didn't even make any sense! I thought if I treated them meanly enough they'd end up viewing me as Providence itself – so much for that! . . . Pah! . . . No, if only I'd given them fifteen hundred, say, to tide them over, to spend on the trousseau and on gifts, on nice little boxes, toilet cases
,
cornelians, fabrics and all that tat from Knop's and the English Shop,
1
everything would have worked out a whole lot better . . . and with far less uncertainty! They wouldn't have found it so easy to refuse me, then! They're just the kind of people who always consider it their duty, in the event of a refusal, to return both the gifts and the money; but they'd have been too sorry to part with them! Plus, their conscience would have bothered them: how can we suddenly turn out a man who's been so generous till now and actually rather considerate? . . . H'm! What a blunder!' Grinding his teeth again, Pyotr Petrovich promptly called himself an idiot – under his breath, needless to say.

Reaching this conclusion, he returned home twice as cross and irritated as when he'd left. The preparations for the funeral banquet in Katerina Ivanovna's room offered some distraction. He'd already heard a little about this banquet yesterday; he even seemed to recall being invited along himself; but with so many worries of his own, he hadn't paid the slightest attention. Now he lost no time in asking Mrs Lippewechsel – she was fussing around the dining table, making preparations in the absence of Katerina Ivanovna (who was at the cemetery) – and learned that the banquet would be a grand affair, that nearly all the tenants were invited, among them some who had never even met the deceased, that even Andrei Semyonovich Lebezyatnikov had been invited, despite his previous row with Katerina Ivanovna, and, finally, that he, Pyotr Petrovich, was not only invited but eagerly awaited, as virtually the most important guest of all the
tenants. Mrs Lippewechsel had also been invited with great fanfare, despite all the unpleasant things that had happened, which was why she was now giving orders, fussing about and almost enjoying herself; and though dressed for mourning, she wore brand-new silk from top to toe and wore it proudly. All this information put a thought in Pyotr Petrovich's mind and he went through to his room – which is to say Andrei Semyonovich Lebezyatnikov's room – in a rather pensive mood: for he'd learned that Raskolnikov, too, was invited.

For some reason, Andrei Semyonovich had spent the whole morning at home. The relationship Pyotr Petrovich had established with this gentleman was somewhat strange, though in some ways also quite natural: Pyotr Petrovich despised and loathed him beyond measure, almost from the day he'd moved in, yet at the same time he felt a kind of wariness towards him. A tight wallet wasn't the only reason he'd decided to stay with Andrei Semyonovich on arriving in Petersburg, though it was more or less the main one; there was another reason, too. Even back in the provinces he'd heard Andrei Semyonovich, his former charge, being spoken of as a leading young progressive, even as a major player in certain intriguing and legendary circles. This had come as a shock to Pyotr Petrovich. It was just these circles – powerful, all-knowing, all-despising, all-unmasking – that had long filled Pyotr Petrovich with some special, though utterly obscure, terror. Of course, there was no way that he – in the provinces, to boot – could have formed an accurate notion, even approximately, about anything
of this sort
. Like everyone else he'd heard of the existence, especially in Petersburg, of progressivists, nihilists and so on, but, like many, he'd exaggerated and distorted the meaning and significance of these words to the point of absurdity. What had scared him most, for several years now, was
to be shown up
, and this was the chief cause of his constant, disproportionate anxiety, especially when dreaming of his professional relocation to Petersburg. In this respect he was, as they say,
frightened to bits
, in the way that little children are sometimes
frightened to bits
. Several years earlier, in the country, when his career was only just getting started, he'd encountered two incidents in which fairly important local individuals, to whose patronage he'd clung, were cruelly shown up. One ended in a manner that was quite unusually scandalous for the person in question, while the other almost proved very troublesome indeed. So Pyotr Petrovich had resolved, on arriving in Petersburg, to find out right away what was behind it all and, if necessary, to get ahead of the
game just in case by currying favour with ‘our young generations'. For this, he relied on Andrei Semyonovich, and by the time he visited Raskolnikov, he'd already learned to get his tongue around a few well-worn, borrowed phrases . . .

Of course, it didn't take him long to identify Andrei Semyonovich as an exceptionally crass and simple-minded individual. But this did nothing to reassure or hearten Pyotr Petrovich. Even if he had managed to convince himself that all progressivists were equally stupid, it would have done nothing to relieve his anxiety. Frankly, he couldn't care less about all the doctrines, philosophies and systems which Andrei Semyonovich was in such a hurry to share with him. He had his own goal in mind. The only thing that mattered to him was to find out right away: what had happened
here
and how had it come about? Were
these
people
in the ascendant or were they not? Did he himself have anything to fear or did he not? Would he be shown up if he undertook this or that, or would he not? If yes, then what for exactly? What
were
people shown up for nowadays? And another thing: couldn't he butter them up somehow and then trick them, if they really were in the ascendant? Or maybe he shouldn't? Mightn't he even use them to make some headway in his own career? In short, hundreds of questions confronted him.

This Andrei Semyonovich was an under-nourished, scrofulous little man with a job in some department, peculiarly blond hair and mutton-chop whiskers of which he was very proud. On top of that his eyes were almost always sore. He was soft-hearted enough, but he spoke with great confidence and sometimes exceptional arrogance – the effect of which, given his stature, was almost always comical. Still, Mrs Lippewechsel numbered him among her more distinguished tenants – i.e., he didn't get drunk and he paid on time. For all these qualities Andrei Semyonovich really was rather dense. He'd signed up to progress, together with ‘our young generations', out of mere enthusiasm. He was one of that numberless and motley legion of crass, wilting halfwits – half-educated, pig-headed fools – who are always the first to jump on the latest intellectual bandwagon, so as to cheapen every idea right away and reduce to ridicule whatever they venerate, however sincerely.

But Lebezyatnikov, for all his niceness, was also beginning to find his room-mate and former guardian, Pyotr Petrovich, a touch unbearable. On both sides this process had somehow just happened of its own
accord. Andrei Semyonovich may have been somewhat simple, but even he had begun, little by little, to see that Pyotr Petrovich was playing him for a fool and secretly despised him; that ‘this man is not what he seems'. He'd wanted to introduce him to Fourier's system and Darwin's theory,
2
but Pyotr Petrovich, especially recently, had started listening with a little too much sarcasm, and more recently still, had actually become quite abusive. By instinct more than anything, it was beginning to get through to him that Lebezyatnikov was not just a crass and rather stupid little man but possibly a fibber to boot, and that he had no connections worth talking about at all, not even in his own circle, but merely heard this or that at third hand; not only that: he didn't even seem to be much good at this
propaganda
of his, to judge by all the muddles he kept getting himself into; as if he could show anyone up! We should note in passing that, in the course of these ten days, Pyotr Petrovich had (especially at the beginning) gladly accepted all manner of strange compliments from Andrei Semyonovich, never correcting him or objecting if, say, Andrei Semyonovich ascribed to him a willingness to facilitate the imminent construction of a new
commune
somewhere on Meshchanskaya Street,
3
or a refusal to stand in Dunechka's way if she, in the very first month of marriage, felt like taking a lover, and to have his future children baptized, and so on and so forth – all in the same vein. Pyotr Petrovich, as was his habit, did not object to such qualities being ascribed to him and found even this sort of praise acceptable – indeed, any compliment at all was music to his ears.

Having cashed several five per cent bonds that morning for some purpose or other, Pyotr Petrovich was sitting at the table and counting bundles of banknotes and Treasury notes. Andrei Semyonovich, almost always penniless, was walking around the room pretending (to himself) that he was observing all these bundles with indifference and even disdain. Nothing, of course, would ever have persuaded Pyotr Petrovich that Andrei Semyonovich could observe so much money with indifference; and Andrei Semyonovich, for his part, was reflecting bitterly on the fact that Pyotr Petrovich was more than capable of entertaining such thoughts about him and was probably only too glad to have the chance to tickle and taunt his young friend with this display of banknotes, the better to put him in his place and remind him of the gulf that was meant to lie between them.

On this occasion he found him quite exceptionally irritable and inattentive, despite the fact that he, Andrei Semyonovich, had launched
into his favourite topic: the founding of a new and special ‘commune'. The terse objections and remarks that escaped Pyotr Petrovich in the intervals between the clinking of abacus beads exuded the most blatant and deliberately discourteous scorn. But Andrei Semyonovich, being so very ‘humane', put Pyotr Petrovich's mood down to the effects of yesterday's rift with Dunechka, and had a burning desire to broach this subject as quickly as possible: he had something progressivist and propagandicist to say about it, something that would console his esteemed friend and ‘undoubtedly' advance his subsequent development.

‘What's all this about some funeral banquet over at that . . . widow's?' Pyotr Petrovich suddenly asked, interrupting Andrei Semyonovich at the most interesting point.

‘As if you don't know. Only yesterday I was discussing this very subject with you and gave you my opinion of all these rites and rituals . . . Anyway, she's invited you along, too. I heard as much. You spoke with her yesterday yourself . . .'

‘I could never have imagined that this fool of a beggar would go and fritter away all the money she got from that other fool, Raskolnikov, on a banquet. I was quite amazed as I walked past just now: so many preparations, so much wine! Several people have been invited – whatever next?' continued Pyotr Petrovich, who seemed to be driving at something with all his comments and questions. ‘What? She's invited me along too, you say?' he suddenly added, lifting his head. ‘When was that? Can't say I remember. Anyway, I won't go. Me, there? Yesterday, in passing, I merely mentioned to her the possibility of her receiving, as the destitute widow of a civil servant, a year's salary as a lump-sum payment. Surely that's not why she's inviting me, is it? Heh-heh!'