Crime and Punishment (57 page)

‘May the Lord grant her soul rest!’ cried Pulkheria Aleksandrovna. ‘I shall pray for her ceaselessly, ceaselessly! Oh, Dunya, what would we have done without that three thousand roubles? Lord, it's as though it had fallen from heaven! Oh, Rodya, I mean, all we had left this morning was three roubles, and the only thought Dunya and I had in our heads was how we could pawn her watch somewhere as quickly as possible so we wouldn't have to ask that man to lend us money before he'd realized what our situation was.’

For some reason Svidrigailov's proposition had startled Dunya greatly. She stood there, pondering.

‘He's going to do something horrible!’ she said, almost in a whisper to herself, and shuddering slightly.

Raskolnikov noticed this excessive fear.

‘I don't think this is the last I've seen of him,’ he said to her.

‘We'll watch him! I'll spy on him!’ Razumikhin exclaimed, energetically. ‘I won't let him out of my sight! Rodya's given me permission. That's what he told me earlier – “Look after my sister,” he said. Do I have your permission, too, Avdotya Romanovna?’

Dunya smiled, and she extended her hand to him; but the worried look stayed on her features, Pulkheria Aleksandrovna kept giving her timid glances; but the three thousand roubles had obviously put her mind at rest.

A quarter of an hour later they were all deep in lively conversation. Even Raskolnikov, though he was not taking part, had
been listening attentively for some time. Razumikhin was delivering a harangue.

‘Why, why should you leave?’ he was saying in a rapture of expansive enthusiasm. ‘What will you do in that nasty little town? The point is that you're all together here, and you're going to need one another – oh, you're going to need one another, believe me! Well, for a while, anyway… Take me along as a friend, a companion, and I promise you we'll make an excellent business team. Listen! I'll set it all before you in detail – the entire project! It started to occur to me this morning, before any of this had happened… This is what I have in mind: I have an uncle (I'll introduce you; he's a well-built and most respectable old chap!), and this uncle has a capital of a thousand roubles, but he lives on a pension and has no use for the money. For two years now he's been on at me to borrow the thousand from him and pay him an interest of six per cent. I can see what he's trying to do, of course: he simply wants to help me; well, last year I didn't need the money, but this year I decided I'd take up his offer as soon as he arrived in town. Now, if you'll put in another thousand, out of your three, that will be enough to start with, and we'll combine forces. And what do you think we're going to do?’

At this point Razumikhin began to outline his project, talking a great deal about how practically none of Russia's booksellers and publishers knew the first thing about the merchandise in which they traded, and were for that reason bad at their trade, and about how decent editions of books generally paid for themselves and made a profit, sometimes a sizeable one. It was of starting up business as a publisher that Razumikhin had been dreaming; for the past two years he had been working for other publishers, and he possessed quite a reasonable knowledge of three European languages, in spite of the fact that some six days earlier he had told Raskolnikov he was ‘
schwach
’ in German, with the aim of trying to persuade him to take a half of the translation against a three-rouble advance: he had been lying then, and Raskolnikov knew it.

‘Why, why should we miss our opportunity when we have one of the principal means for its realization – our own money?’
Razumikhin said, getting excited. ‘Of course, a lot of work will be necessary, but we shall work, you, Avdotya Romanovna, Rodion and I… There are certain types of edition that yield a handsome profit nowadays! And the rock-solid basis of our enterprise will be that we know just what requires translating. We shall translate, and publish, and study, all at the same time.
¹
I can make myself useful now, because I've got some experience. After all, I'll soon have been hanging around publishers for about two years now, and I know all their most cherished secrets: they're no saints, believe me! Why, why let a tasty morsel like that get away? I mean, I myself can think of two or three books of which I have copies and which I've never told anyone about, which would be worth a hundred roubles each just for the idea of translating and publishing them, and indeed there's one that I wouldn't take less than five hundred for. Yet what do you suppose? Even if I'd told one of those publishers about them, he'd probably still be humming and hawing, the dunderhead! And as far as all the business about typesetting, paper, sales is concerned, you can leave that to me! I know all the ins and outs! We'll start from humble beginnings and attain great things – or at any rate we'll have enough to live on, and whatever happens we'll cover our losses.’

Dunya's eyes were shining. ‘What you say appeals to me very much, Dmitry Prokofich,’ she said.

‘Well, of course, I don't know anything about such things,’ Pulkheria Aleksandrovna responded. ‘It may be a good idea – but then again, God only knows. It sounds new and unfamiliar. It's true that we shall have to remain here, at least for a certain time…’ She looked at Rodya.

‘What do you think, brother?’ Dunya said.

‘I think he has a very good idea,’ he answered. ‘Of course, one shouldn't think about founding a firm this far ahead, but it really would be possible to publish five or six books with unquestionable success. I myself can think of one book that would be certain to do well. And as for the question of whether he'd know how to manage the business, of that I have no doubts either: he knows his way around… Anyway, there'll be time for you to arrange things later…’

‘Hurrah!’ Razumikhin shouted. ‘Now just a moment! There's an apartment here, in this very same building, rented out by the same landlords. It's separate and on its own, and it doesn't connect with these rooms – it's furnished, too, and it's available at a moderate rent, three rooms. I think you ought to take it to begin with. I'll pawn your watch tomorrow and bring you the money, and then everything else will sort itself out later. The main thing is that all three of you can live together, and Rodya needn't be apart… I say, where are you going, Rodya?’

‘What is it Rodya? Are you leaving so soon?’ Pulkheria Aleksandrovna asked with a note of alarm.

‘At a moment like this?’ Razumikhin bawled.

Dunya looked at her brother with suspicious astonishment. He had his cap in his hands; he was preparing to go outside.

‘Somehow it's as if you were burying me or saying farewell to me forever,’ he said in a strange kind of way.

He gave what looked like a smile, though it might not have been anything of the sort.

‘I mean, who knows – perhaps this is the last time we'll ever see one another,’ he added involuntarily.

He had thought this to himself, but it had somehow been spoken aloud.

‘What's got into you?’ his mother exclaimed.

‘Where are you going, Rodya?’ Dunya asked, in a strange voice.

‘Oh, I've really got to go,’ he replied vaguely, as though hesitant as to what he was trying to say. But in his pale features there was a kind of sharp determination.

‘I wanted to tell you… as I was on my way here… I wanted to tell you, mother… and you, Dunya, that I think it would be better if we parted company for a while. I'm not feeling very well, I'm not at ease… I'll come and see you later, I'll come of my own accord, when… I can. I keep you in my thoughts and I love you… Now leave me! Leave me alone! I took this decision some time ago, before you arrived… It's a firm decision… Whatever happens to me, whether I perish or not, I want to be alone. Please forget about me altogether. It will be better that way… Don't try to find out about me. When the time is right,
I'll come and see you myself, or… I'll summon you. Perhaps everything will be all right!… But now, if you love me, say goodbye to me… Otherwise I shall start to hate you, I can feel it… Goodbye!’

‘Merciful Lord!’ Pulkheria Aleksandrovna exclaimed.

Both mother and sister were in a terrible state of fright; so was Razumikhin.

‘Rodya, Rodya! Make it up with us, let's go back to how we were before!’ cried the poor mother.

Slowly he turned towards the door and slowly he left the room. Dunya ran and caught him up.

‘Brother! What are you doing to our mother?’ her gaze whispered, as it burned with indignation.

He looked at her heavily.

‘It's all right, I'll be back, I'll come back and see you!’ he muttered in an undertone, as though he were not completely conscious of what he was trying to say, and went out of the room.

‘He's in-
sane
, not callous! He's mad! Can't you see it? If you can't you're the one who's callous!…’ Razumikhin whispered hotly, right into her ear, and gripping her arm tightly.

‘I'll be back in a moment!’ he shouted, turning to the rigid Pulkheria Aleksandrovna, and ran out of the room.

Raskolnikov was waiting for him at the end of the corridor.

‘I knew you'd come out after me,’ he said. ‘Go back to them and stay with them… Come and see them tomorrow, too… and for ever after. I… may come back… if I can. Goodbye!’

And without offering his hand, he walked away.

‘But where are you off to? What is it? What's got into you? You can't do this!…’ Razumikhin muttered, completely taken aback.

Raskolnikov stopped a second time.

‘Look, once and for all: don't ask me about any of this, ever. There's nothing I can tell you… Don't come to see me. I may come back here… Now abandon me… but
don
'
t abandon them
. Do you understand?’

In the corridor it was dark; they were standing beside a lamp. For a moment they looked at each other without saying anything. Razumikhin was to remember that moment for the
rest of his life. Raskolnikov's fixed and burning gaze seemed to gather in strength at each instant, penetrating Razumikhin's soul, his awareness. Razumikhin gave a shudder. Something strange seemed to have taken place between them… Some kind of idea had slipped out, a kind of hint; something horrible, monstrous and suddenly comprehensible to them both… Razumikhin turned as white as a corpse.

‘Now do you understand?’ Raskolnikov said suddenly, his features painfully twisted. ‘Go on, get back in there with them,’ he added and, turning quickly, walked out of the building…

I shall not attempt now to describe what took place that evening in the lodgings of Pulkheria Aleksandrovna, how Razumikhin went back to the two women, how he calmed them down, how he tried to impress upon them that Rodya's illness demanded that he have rest, tried to reassure them that Rodya would quite certainly come and see them every day, that he was very, very upset, that he must not be over-excited; how he, Razumikhin, was going to watch over him, get him a good doctor, the best, a whole council of doctors… In short, from that evening on Razumikhin became to them a son and a brother.

But Raskolnikov had gone straight to the house on the Canal where Sonya lived.
¹
It was a three-storey building, old and green-coloured. He tracked the yardkeeper down and received from him some imprecise directions as to where Kapernaumov the tailor lived. Having discovered in one corner of the courtyard the entrance to a dark, narrow flight of stairs, he went up to the second floor and came out on to a gallery that ran right round the building, overlooking the courtyard. While he was wandering about in the darkness, puzzled as to where the entrance to Kapernaumov's apartment might be, only two or three paces away from him a door suddenly opened; without thinking, he seized at it.

‘Who is it?’ a female voice asked, uneasily.

‘It's me… I… came to see you,’ Raskolnikov answered, and he entered the tiny hallway. There, on a chair with a broken seat, in a crooked brass candlestick, stood a candle.

‘It's you! Oh, merciful Lord!’ Sonya said with a faint scream, and she froze, petrified.

‘Which way's your room? In here?’

And Raskolnikov, trying to avoid her eyes, quickly went into her room.

A moment later Sonya herself came in, set up the candle and stood facing him, completely taken aback, in a state of inexpressible agitation and all too plainly alarmed by his unexpected visit. The colour suddenly rushed to her pale features, and tears fairly flooded to her eyes… She felt sick, embarrassed and gratified… Raskolnikov quickly turned away and sat down on a chair at the table. He managed to take in the room with a cursory glance.

It was a large room, but very low-ceilinged, the only one rented out by the Kapernaumovs, the locked door to whose apartment was situated in the wall on the left. On the other side of the room, in the wall on the right, there was another door, which was always kept tightly bolted. This led to another apartment, the one next door, which had a different number. Sonya's room resembled some sort of barn, possessing the form of a highly irregular rectangle, and this gave it a misshapen appearance. A wall with three windows that looked out onto the Canal somehow cut the room transversely, so that one of its corners, forming a horribly acute angle, ran off into the depths somewhere, and in the faint light one could not even make it out properly; the angle of the other corner was, on the other hand, quite hideously obtuse. The whole of this large room contained hardly any furniture. In the right-hand corner was the bed; beside it, closer to the door, was a chair. Against the same wall where the bed was, right by the door into the next-door apartment, stood a plain, wooden table that was covered with a blue tablecloth; at the table stood two wicker chairs. Finally, against the other wall, near the acute-angled corner, was a small chest of drawers made of simple timber, practically lost in the emptiness. That was all there was in the room. The yellowish,
shabby, peeling wallpaper had turned black in all the corners; the air must have been damp and fume-ridden here in the winter. The signs of poverty were everywhere; there were not even any curtains over the bed.

Without saying anything, Sonya looked at this guest of hers who had studied her room so closely and with so little ceremony, and at last she began to tremble with fear, as though she were standing before the judge and arbiter of her destiny.