Crime and Punishment (36 page)

All this was delivered in an extremely fast patter that grew even faster as it continued; suddenly, however, Katerina Ivanovna's eloquence was abruptly cut short by her coughing. At that moment the dying man recovered consciousness and gave a groan, and she ran over to him. He opened his eyes and, still unable to recognize anyone or take in anything, began to peer at Raskolnikov, who was standing over him. The injured man was breathing heavily, deeply and at long intervals; blood was seeping from the corners of his mouth; a sweat had broken out on his forehead. Not recognizing Raskolnikov, he began to stare uneasily about him. Katerina Ivanovna was looking at him with a gaze that was sad but stern, and tears streamed from her eyes.

‘Oh my God! The whole of his chest's been trampled in! Look at the blood, the blood!’ she said in desperation. ‘We must take off all his upper garments! Turn round a bit if you can, Semyon Zakharovich,’ she shouted to him.

Marmeladov recognized her.

‘A priest!’ he said in a hoarse voice.

Katerina Ivanovna walked over to the window, leant her forehead against the windowframe and in despair exclaimed:

‘Oh, curse this existence!’

‘A priest!’ the dying man said again, after a moment's silence.

‘They've
go-one
for one!’ Katerina Ivanovna shouted at him; in obedience to her cry, he fell silent. With a timid, melancholy gaze his eyes searched for her; again she came back to him and stood by the head of the sofa. He grew slightly calmer, but not for long. Soon his gaze came to rest on little Lida (his favourite among the children), who was trembling in a corner as though
in a fit, staring at him fixedly with her astonished child's eyes.

‘But… but…’ he said, pointing at the child with concern. He was trying to say something.

‘What is it now?’ screamed Katerina Ivanovna.

‘There's nothing on her feet! Nothing on her feet!’ he muttered, indicating the little girl's bare feet with a wild look.

‘Be
qui-et
!’ Katerina Ivanovna cried irritably. ‘You know very well why there's nothing on her feet!’

‘Thank God, the doctor!’ Raskolnikov exclaimed in relief.

The doctor came in, a punctilious little old man, a German, looking about him with an air of suspicion; he went over to the patient, took his pulse, carefully felt his head and with Katerina Ivanovna's help unbuttoned his utterly blood-soaked shirt, exposing his chest. The whole of the chest was mutilated, crushed and battered out of shape: several ribs on the right-hand side were broken. On the left-hand side, right on the place of the heart, there was a large, ominous, yellowish-black bruise – a savage kick-mark made by a hoof. The doctor frowned. The policeman told him that the patient had been caught in the wheel and dragged along, turning round with it for some thirty yards along the roadway.

‘It's amazing he's come round at all,’ the doctor whispered to Raskolnikov quietly.

‘What do you think?’ Raskolnikov asked.

‘He's going to die any moment.’

‘Is there really no hope?’

‘Not the slightest! He's at his last gasp… What's more, he has very bad head injuries… Hm. If you like, I can let some blood… but… that won't do any good. In five or ten minutes he'll most certainly be dead.’

‘Do it all the same!…’

‘If you like… But I warn you, it will be quite useless.’

At that moment there was the sound of more footsteps, the crowd in the passage made way, and a priest, a little grey-haired old man, appeared on the threshold bearing the holy gifts. The policeman had gone to get him while they had all still been down on the street. The doctor at once ceded his place to him and they exchanged meaningful glances. Raskolnikov prevailed
upon the doctor to wait just a little longer before going. The doctor shrugged his shoulders and remained.

Everyone drew away. The confession lasted only a very short time. It was doubtful whether the dying man took in much of what was said; he could only articulate jagged, unclear sounds. Katerina Ivanovna picked up little Lida, took the boy down from the chair and, moving away into the corner where the stove was, got down on her knees and made the children kneel in front of her. The little girl could do nothing but tremble; but the boy, poised on his bare little knees, kept raising his hand with a rhythmical motion, crossing himself at all four points of the cross and bowing down to the floor, knocking his forehead against it, something it was evident he particularly enjoyed doing. Katerina Ivanovna was biting her lips and holding back her tears; she was also praying, from time to time straightening the boy's shirt and managing to throw over the too-exposed shoulders of the little girl a triangular headscarf which she took from the chest of drawers while still continuing to kneel and pray. Meanwhile the door that led in from the inner rooms began to be opened once more by the inquisitive crowd. In the passage an ever denser throng of spectators, residents from the whole staircase, was gathering; none of them, however, stepped over the threshold. A single candle-end illumined the entire spectacle.

At that moment, in through the crowd from the passage rushed Polenka, who had run to get her sister. She came in, hardly able to draw her breath from having run so fast, took off the shawl, sent a searching gaze round in quest of her mother, went over to her and said: ‘She's coming! I met her in the street!’ Her mother pushed her down into a kneeling position, and stationed her next to her. Timidly and silently squeezing her way through, a girl emerged from the crowd, and strange was her sudden appearance in that room amidst poverty, rags, death and despair. She was also in rags; her clothes were of the cheapest, but tarted up in the manner of the streets, in accordance with tastes and conventions that have developed in a peculiar world of their own, with a gaudy and shameful purpose that is all too obvious. Sonya stopped out in the passage right on the threshold, but did not cross it, and peered in like one
who is embarrassed, seemingly unaware of everything, oblivious to the fact that she was wearing her coloured silk dress, bought at fourth hand, and quite out of place here, with its ridiculous long train and vast, bulging crinoline that took up practically the whole doorway, her light-coloured boots, her parasol, superfluous at night, but which she had brought with her all the same, and her absurd round straw hat with its bright orange feather. From under the tilted hat there peeped a thin, pale and frightened little face with an open mouth and eyes that were motionless with horror. Sonya was small of stature, about eighteen years old, a thin but rather good-looking blonde, with wonderful blue eyes. She was staring fixedly at the bed, at the priest; she, too, was out of breath from having walked so fast. At last the whispering, some of the things being said by the people in the crowd, must have reached her attention, for she lowered her gaze, took a step over the threshold and stood in the room, though still only right by the doorway.

Confession and communion were over. Katerina Ivanovna again went over to her husband's bed. The priest withdrew and, as he left, began to say a few parting words of consolation to her.

‘And what am I supposed to do with these?’ she said, interrupting him sharply and irritably, pointing at her urchins.

‘God is merciful; trust in the help of the Almighty,’ the priest began.

‘Oh, go away! Merciful He may be, but not to us He isn't!’

‘It's a sin, a sin, to say such things, dear lady,’ the priest said, shaking his head.

‘And what about that – isn't that a sin?’ Katerina Ivanovna shouted, pointing to the dying man.

‘It may be that those who were the involuntary cause of it will agree to compensate you, if only in the matter of lost income…’

‘Oh, you don't know what I'm talking about!’ Katerina Ivanovna cried irritably, with a wave of her arm. ‘Anyway, why would they compensate me? I mean, it was him – he was drunk, he walked under those horses himself! What income? He's never brought in any income, just a lot of trouble. He's a drunkard,
you know, he's drunk everything we owned. He stole our things and took them to that drinking-house, used up their lives and my own in that place, he did. Thank God he's dying! We'll be a bit better off!’

‘One must forgive at the hour of death; it's a sin to talk that way, dear lady, such sentiments are a grievous sin!’

Katerina Ivanovna had been bustling around the dying man, giving him water, wiping the sweat and blood from his head, straightening his pillows, and passing the odd comment to the priest now and then, turning to him each time as she did so, in the midst of her labours. Now, however, she suddenly rushed at him, almost in a frenzy:

‘Oh, father! All that's just words, and nothing but words! Forgive? Look, if he hadn't been run over today he'd have come home drunk as usual, still wearing that one and only shirt of his, all worn to threads and in tatters; he'd have tumbled into bed and slept like a pig, and I'd have had to swill around in water until daybreak washing his rags and the children's, then hang them out to dry outside the window, and then as soon as daybreak came sit mending them – and there'd be my night gone!… So what point is there in talking about forgiveness? I've done enough forgiving already!’

A terrible, deep-seated cough brought her words to a halt. She spat into a handkerchief and demonstratively shoved it under the priest's eyes, with her other hand clutching her bosom in pain. The handkerchief was covered in blood…

The priest lowered his head and said nothing.

Marmeladov was in his final death agony; his eyes were fixed on the face of Katerina Ivanovna, who was now leaning over him again. There was still something he wanted to say to her; and indeed he began to speak, moving his tongue with difficulty and getting the words out unclearly. But Katerina Ivanovna, realizing that he was trying to beg her forgiveness, at once shouted at him in a commanding tone:

‘Be
quiet
! I don't want to hear it!… I know what you're trying to say!…’ And the injured man fell silent; at that same moment, however, his wandering gaze alighted on the doorway, and he saw Sonya.

Until now he had not noticed her: she was standing in the corner, in the shadow.

‘Who's this? Who's this?’ he suddenly articulated in a hoarse, gasping voice that was filled with consternation, motioning in horror with his eyes towards the doorway where his daughter stood, and making an effort to sit up.

‘Lie down! Lie
down
!’ Katerina Ivanovna began to shout.

But with a superhuman effort he managed to support himself on one arm. Wildly and fixedly he stared for a time at his daughter as though he did not know who she was. And indeed, this was the first time he had ever seen her dressed in clothes like these. Suddenly he recognized her – humiliated, in total despair, dressed up to the nines and covered in shame and embarrassment, meekly awaiting her turn to say farewell to her dying father. Infinite suffering showed itself in his features.

‘Sonya! Daughter! Forgive me!’ he cried, and made to reach out his hand to her, but, losing his support, came crashing down from the sofa, face to the floor; they rushed to lift him up, put him back, but he was already breathing his last. Sonya uttered a faint scream, ran over to him, embraced him and froze hard in that embrace. He died in her arms.

‘Got what he wanted!’ Katerina Ivanovna cried, at the sight of her husband's dead body. ‘Well, what am I going to do now? Where am I going to get the money to bury him? And what about them, what am I going to feed them on tomorrow?’

Raskolnikov went up to Katerina Ivanovna.

‘Katerina Ivanovna,’ he said to her. ‘Last week your deceased husband told me all about your life and its attendant circumstances. Please let me assure you that he spoke of you with rapturous esteem. From the very evening on which I learned how devoted he was to you all, and what especial love and respect he nurtured towards you, Katerina Ivanovna, in spite of his unfortunate weakness – from that evening we became friends… Please permit me now… to effect… the repayment of my debt to my deceased friend. Look, here are… twenty roubles, I think – if they will be of any assistance to you, then… I… in short, I shall be back again – I shall most certainly be back… I may even be back tomorrow… Goodbye!’

And he quickly walked out of the room, hurriedly squeezing his way through the crowd onto the staircase; in the mêlée, however, he suddenly collided with Nikodim Fomich, who had heard about the accident and wished to take a personal hand in dealing with the situation. They had not seen each other since the time of the scene at the bureau, but Nikodim Fomich recognized him instantly.

‘Ah, what are you doing here?’ he inquired.

‘He's dead,’ Raskolnikov answered. The doctor was here, the priest has been, everything's in order. Please don't go bothering the destitute wife, she's got consumption as it is. Try to give her some courage, if you can… I mean, you're a good man, I know you are…’ he added with an ironic smile, looking him straight in the eye.

‘I say, you're fairly covered in blood, aren't you?’ Nikodim Fomich commented, having discerned by the light of his lantern several fresh bloodstains on Raskolnikov's waistcoat.

‘Yes, I am… I'm covered in blood all over!’ Raskolnikov said with a peculiar look, then smiled, gave a nod of his head, and walked off down the staircase.

He made his descent slowly, not hurrying, in a state of total fever, and, without being aware of it, charged with a certain new and boundless sensation of full and powerful life that had suddenly swept in upon him. This sensation might be compared to that experienced by a man who has been sentenced to death and is suddenly and unexpectedly told he has been reprieved. Halfway down, he was overtaken by the priest, who was on his way home; Raskolnikov silently let him pass, exchanging a wordless bow with him. As he was treading the last few steps, however, he suddenly heard some hurried footsteps behind him. Someone was trying to catch him up. It was Polenka; she was running after him, calling: ‘Listen! Listen!’

He turned round to face her. She ran down the last flight of stairs and stopped right in front of him, one step above. A dim light was filtering up from the courtyard. Raskolnikov could make out the thin but pleasant face of the little girl, who was smiling to him and looking at him in a lively, childish way. She
had been sent to him with a message, something which she was evidently very pleased about.