Crime and Punishment (69 page)

Suddenly, there was Sonya beside him. She'd approached with barely a sound and sat down next to him. It was still very early; the morning chill had not yet softened. She was wearing her wretched, old burnous and the green shawl.
11
Her face – thin, pale, pinched – still bore the signs of her illness. She gave him a warm, joyful smile but, as usual, offered her hand to him timidly.

She always offered her hand to him timidly and sometimes wouldn't offer it at all, as if scared he might reject it. He always took it with a kind of disgust, always greeted her with a kind of annoyance, and sometimes he remained stubbornly silent all the while she was with him. On occasions, she trembled before him and left in deep sorrow. But now their hands did not part; he cast her a quick, fleeting glance, said nothing and lowered his eyes to the ground. They were alone; no one could see them. The guard had turned away.

How it happened he himself did not know, but suddenly something swept him up and hurled him at her feet. He wept, hugging her knees. At first she was terrified and her whole face went numb. She leapt to her feet and looked at him, shaking all over. But there and then, in that same instant, she understood everything. Her eyes lit up with endless happiness; she'd understood, and could no longer doubt, that he loved her, loved her endlessly, and that the moment had finally come . . .

They wanted to talk, but could not. Tears were in their eyes. They were pale and thin; but in these sick, pale faces there already shone
the dawn of a renewed future, of full resurrection into new life. Love had resurrected them, and the heart of each contained inexhaustible springs of life for the heart of the other.

They resolved to wait and be patient. There were seven more years to go. How much unbearable torment still lay ahead of them? How much endless happiness? But he'd been raised to life and he knew it. He felt it fully with his whole renewed being, while she – well, what was her life but his?

That evening, when the barracks had been locked for the night, Raskolnikov lay on his bunk and thought of her. During the day he even had the impression that all the convicts, his former enemies, were already looking at him differently. He even began talking to them himself, and they responded with affection. He recalled this now, but actually, wasn't it all as it should be? Shouldn't everything be different now?

It was her he thought of. He remembered how he'd kept tearing and rending her heart; remembered her pale, thin face; yet now even these memories barely tormented him: he knew with what endless love he would now redeem all her sufferings.

And anyway, what were they, all these torments of the past? Yes,
all
of them! Everything, even his crime, even his sentence and exile, now seemed, in this first surge, somehow alien and strange, as if it were not even him they had happened to. But he was unable, that evening, to think long and hard, to focus his mind on any one thing; besides, he couldn't have resolved anything now by conscious effort; he could only feel. Dialectics had given way to life, and something quite different had to work itself out in his conscious mind.

Under his pillow lay the Gospels.
12
He picked the book up without thinking. It belonged to her, the very same book from which she had read to him about the raising of Lazarus. During his first days in prison he thought she would torture him with religion, keep on about the Gospels and ply him with books. But to his utter astonishment she hadn't once mentioned it, hadn't even offered him the Gospels. It was he who had asked her for the book not long before he fell sick, and she brought it to him without saying a word. He still had not opened it.

He didn't open it now, either, but a thought flashed through him: ‘How can her beliefs not be my beliefs too now? Or at least her feelings, her strivings . . .'

She, too, had felt restless all day and she even fell ill again overnight. But she was so happy she was almost scared. Seven years,
only
seven years! At the beginning of their happiness, at certain moments, both were ready to see these seven years as seven days.
13
He didn't even know that his new life was not being given to him for free, that it would still cost him dear, that it would have to be paid for with a great, future deed . . .

But here a new story begins: the story of a man's gradual renewal and gradual rebirth, of his gradual crossing from one world to another, of his acquaintance with a new, as yet unknown reality. That could be a subject for another tale – our present one has ended.

The following abbreviations are used for the sources cited most often:

All biblical quotations in the Notes are given in the King James
Version.

PART ONE

1
.
S—
—
y Lane . . . K—
—
n Bridge
: The partial or total concealment of place names, characteristic of much Russian nineteenth-century fiction, is employed inconsistently and enigmatically in
Crime and Punishment
. In these notes only the most important (and least ambiguous) of these concealed locations will be deciphered. According to Dostoyevsky's second wife, Anna Grigoryevna, the locations in question here are Stolyarnyi Lane and Kokushkin Bridge in the crowded district of St Petersburg around Haymarket Square (on the topography of
Crime and Punishment
, see Introduction, II). Indeed, it is possible that Dostoyevsky imagined his protagonist living in the same building where he himself rented an apartment while working on the novel, on the corner of Stolyarnyi Lane and what is now Kaznacheiskaya Street. Another strong possibility is the building at the corner of Stolyarnyi and Grazhdanskaya Street. Vistors to St Petersburg will find memorial plaques at both these addresses (
BT
).

2
.
hypochondria:
Closely allied with melancholia in the medical discourse of the time; indeed, Dostoyevsky diagnosed himself as having been ‘melancholic and hypochondriac' as a young man. ‘The two basic symptoms of melancholia were exaggeration of simple events into singular and ominous occurrences, and episodes of unfounded fear', while ‘hypochondria was generally based on real physical complaints, with effects greatly exaggerated by the patient', wrote the late James L. Rice. ‘Today Dostoevsky's hypochondria and melancholia might be diagnosed as different degrees of depression', Rice,
Dostoevsky and the Healing Art
(Ann Arbor, Michigan: Ardis,
1985
), pp.
114–15
.

3
.
a new word
: The Russian expression
skazat' novoe slovo
, meaning ‘to say something new' (in, for example, a branch of science), is more
idiomatic than its literal English equivalent (‘to utter a new word'), which has been retained here and throughout the text for its various connotations, especially as regards the prevalent contrast between ‘words' and ‘deeds'. Dostoyevsky himself was of the view that Russia had produced three indisputable geniuses who had said ‘a new word': Mikhail Lomonosov (
1711–65
), Alexander Pushkin (
1799–1837
) and, ‘in part', Nikolai Gogol (
1809–52
); see the entry on Pushkin in
KL
.

4
.
King Pea
: Tsar Gorokh (literally, ‘Tsar Pea') has his wife's head chopped off in a famous folktale, though he is also remembered as the ‘Good Tsar Gorokh' who reigned over an idealized Russia. A striking oxymoron, ‘Tsar Pea' eventually came to stand for something silly or nonsensical (
SB
); yet, as often in Dostoyevsky, the use of a familiar image or phrase hides depths of meaning and allusion. In an article of
1981
J. L. Rice noted that the very name ‘Tsar Gorokh' is ‘a perfect, ironic representation of Raskolnikov's grandiosely unbalanced Napoleonic ambition'; the essay is collected in Rice,
Who Was Dostoevsky?
(Oakland, California: Berkeley Slavic Specialties,
2011
).

5
.
a top hat, a Zimmerman
: The merchant Karl Zimmerman owned a hat factory as well as a shop on the fashionable Nevsky Prospect (
BT
). This episode introduces for the first time the voice of the ‘common people' (
narod
), whose interventions will offer a chorus-like commentary on Raskolnikov's actions and fate.

6
.
the Ditch . . .
——
a Street
: On all but one occasion throughout the novel the Yekaterinsky (Catherine) Canal, known since
1923
as the Griboyedov Canal, is referred to not by the impressive, foreign-sounding word
kanal
, but by the pejorative
kanava
(ditch). A filthy, sewer-like waterway at the time of the novel's composition, the Ditch is at the heart of its topography; ——a Street is probably Srednyaya Podyacheskaya Street. Here and throughout I follow Boris Tikhomirov's decoding of the novel's topography.

7
.
courtyards
: The easily accessible, communicating courtyards characteristic of St Petersburg have arch-like gateways at both ends – well-suited for criminal purposes. Raskolnikov's own courtyard, by contrast, appears to be an example of the high, self-enclosed yard commonly compared by Petersburgers to a ‘well'.

8
.
caretakers
: In Tsarist Russia the
dvornik
(literally, ‘yard-man') was responsible not just for keeping courtyards swept and tidy, but for maintaining order in the buildings themselves and reporting any malfeasance to the police.

9
.
father
: The word
batyushka
, a now old-fashioned term of address that is both respectful and familiar, literally means ‘little father' and has a broad scope of reference that includes priests and tsars. In view of the centrality of the theme of paternity (and family ties in general) to
Crime and Punishment
, the literal meaning has been retained, here and subsequently.

1
0
.
two nice little notes
: Two one-rouble banknotes, yellow in colour.

1
1
.
ten copecks a rouble each month
: Until
1864
a strict limit was imposed on the interest that could be charged on loans, but from
1865
, when Dostoyevsky began work on the novel, this no longer applied, and the writer was quick to seize on this further symptom of a new capitalist order. ‘The usurer Alyona Ivanovna [...] was an essentially new phenomenon of Petersburg life' (
BT
).

1
2
.
tradesman
: The ‘tradesmen' – also sometimes translated, with etymological accuracy, as ‘townsmen' (
meshchane
) – were the lowest urban estate, later famous as the ‘petty bourgeoisie'.

1
3
.
All year long . . . love of old
: A variation of a popular song about the adventures of a village lad in the capital, transposed from Nevsky Prospect to the less glamorous district in which
Crime and Punishment
unfolds (
BT
).

1
4
.
titular counsellor
: A lowly position in the civil service, ninth in the fourteen-grade ‘Table of Ranks' instituted by Peter the Great.

1
5
.
former student
: This phrase, unusual in English, defined the bearer's official status until he found employment.

1
6
.
political economy
: A reference to the theories of Adam Smith (
1723–90
), Thomas Malthus (
1766–1834
) and others. Protracted polemics were waged on this issue in the Russian literary journals in
1862
, not least in
Time
, the journal run by Dostoyevsky and his brother (
BT
). In his
Letters from France and Italy
(
1855
) the exile Alexander Herzen (
1812–70
) described political economy as an ‘abstract science of wealth' that treated people as ‘organic machines' and society as a ‘factory'. Dostoyevsky would have agreed, though here, as often, he appears to be criticizing not just foreign ideas themselves but their caricatured reception on Russian soil.

1
7
.
yellow ticket
: The medical certificate given to prostitutes in exchange for their passport was commonly referred to as the ‘yellow ticket', owing to its colour. This certificate gave prostitutes the right to work, while also enabling the state to track their changes of address and state of health. (
BT
)

1
8
.
Behold the Man!
: The words of Pontius Pilate when Jesus came before him wearing a crown of thorns (John
19
:
5
). In addition to direct quotation, Marmeladov's speech throughout this chapter is littered with
biblical allusions, sometimes couched in the high style of Old Church Slavonic. The ‘wagging of heads', for example, occurs in both the Psalms and Matthew's Gospel, while the phrase ‘all that was hidden is made manifest' is closely modelled on verses in Mark (
4
:
22
) and Luke (
8
:
17
).

1
9
.
chilly little corner
: The letting of ‘corners' rather than entire rooms to impecunious tenants was a characteristic feature of mid-nineteenth-century St Petersburg. It was also the subject of a memorable sketch by the celebrated poet Nikolai Nekrasov (
1821–78
) entitled ‘The Petersburg Corners' and included in Nekrasov's anthology
The Physiology of St Petersburg
(
1845
, in two volumes), recently translated by Thomas Gaiton Marullo. The sketch begins with a notice pinned to the gate of a house: ‘
FER [
sic
] RENT: KORNER
[
sic
]
TO LET, SECOND YARD, CELLAR
'. The narrator goes in to find a cellar room crowded with colourful tenants, including new arrivals from the villages looking for work and a disgraced former teacher in a green coat, dismissed from his job for excessive drinking. The teacher bears a striking resemblance in biography, appearance and gestures to Dostoyevsky's Marmeladov: ‘the green man presented a sharp picture to the eye. He was not unlike an actor who has carried some favourite and well-learned role into life. His movements were comic to the point of caricature, inevitable for a man unsteady on his legs. There was also something staid about them, though, akin to a feeling of personal dignity and worth. [...] There was a certain incoherence in the green man that made him extremely funny'; quoted from
Petersburg: The Physiology of a City
, trans. Thomas Gaiton Marullo (Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press,
2009
), pp. 131, 145.

2
0
.
the pas de châle
: According to R. M. Kirsanova, a historian of dress, the ‘dance with the shawl became popular in Russian schools for young ladies at the beginning of the nineteenth century, coinciding with the fashion for Persian shawls; its popularity, as a demonstration of grace and elegance, continued for some time thereafter' (
BT
).

2
1
.
Cyrus the Great
: King of Persia in the sixth century
BC.
Cyrus's conquests included the Median, Lydian and Neo-Babylonian empires.

2
2
.
Lewes's Physiology
: George Henry Lewes's
Physiology of Common Life
(
1859
) appeared in Russian translation in
1861–
2
and rapidly gained popularity among young readers of a materialist bent and young female nihilists in particular (
PSS
). This reference was found provocative by one
nigilistka
, who saw in it an attempt on the author's part to blame ‘liberal ideas and the natural sciences' for Sonya's descent into
prostitution. Dostoyevsky had Lewes's book in his library in the early
1860
s and later bought a second copy after he lost the first (
BT
).

2
3
.
drap de dames
: ‘A very fine type of fabric, which is only half-milled', according to the
Bibliothèque universelle des sciences, belles-lettres et arts
(Volume
11
,
1826
, p.
30
).

2
4
.
as wax melteth
: A compliment that becomes decidedly equivocal when set against its biblical origin (Psalm
68
:
2
): ‘As smoke is driven away, so drive them away: as wax melteth before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God' (
BT
).

2
5
.
‘Little Farm'
: Based on a poem (
1839
) by Alexei Koltsov (
1809–42
), this song became especially popular in the
1860
s (
SB
). Performed here by a child, the poem treats, in a seemingly naive way, the bawdy theme of a young widow being visited by three admirers: a fisherman, a merchant and a dashing young gallant, who, it seems, burns down the farm in a fit of jealousy.

2
6
.
like a thief in the night
: Another double-edged biblical allusion: ‘But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up' (
2
Peter
3
:
10
).

2
7
.
immaculate
: Prostitutes on the ‘yellow ticket' had to present themselves for weekly medical check-ups (
BT
).