Crime and Punishment (61 page)

‘There's no hurry sir, no hurry at all! I say, do you smoke? Got some of your own? Here, sir, have one of mine…’ he continued, offering his visitor a cigarette. ‘I'm seeing you in here, but you know, my own quarters are just through that partition there… they're provided for me by the government, but I'm living in privately owned accommodation just now, temporarily. They had to do some sort of repairs through there. They're nearly finished now… You know, if you ask me, government quarters are a famous thing – eh? What do you think?’

‘Yes, they are,’ Raskolnikov answered, looking at him almost mockingly.

‘A famous thing, a famous thing…’ Porfiry Petrovich said, as though he had suddenly thought of something quite different. ‘Yes, a famous thing!’ he almost shouted, at last, suddenly hurling his gaze at Raskolnikov and coming to a standstill only two paces from him. This somewhat inane pronouncement, many times repeated, that government quarters were a famous thing, was in its trite vulgarity too much at odds with the serious, calculating and enigmatic look he was now fixing on his visitor.

All this, however, merely set Raskolnikov's rage boiling even more fiercely, and by now he was quite unable to restrain himself from issuing a mocking and somewhat incautious challenge.

‘I know what I want to ask you,’ he said suddenly, looking at Porfiry with near-insolence, and almost taking pleasure in it. ‘Why, there exists, I believe, a certain legal maxim, a kind of legal technique, if you like, which is used by all state investigators, and
consists in starting the inquiry from some remote point, from some trivial matter, or even from a serious one, as long as it's wholly irrelevant, in order, as it were, to give the person being questioned a certain confidence or, rather, to make him feel at his ease, to allay his jumpiness, and then suddenly hit him bang on the head in a thoroughly unexpected way with the most fatal and dangerous question; is that so? I've heard that this technique is mentioned in all the textbooks and manuals to this very day.’

‘Indeed, indeed… so you think that's why I began talking to you about government quarters, do you… eh?’ And, having said this, Porfiry Petrovich narrowed his eyes to slits and gave a wink; a look of cheerful cunning fleeted across his face, the wrinkles on his forehead were smoothed out, his eyes contracted, his features distended, and he suddenly dissolved in a bout of prolonged, nervous laughter, rocking and swaying all over and looking Raskolnikov straight in the eye. Raskolnikov started to laugh, too, though it cost him a certain effort; but when Porfiry, observing that he, too, was laughing, went off into such peals of laughter that he almost turned purple, Raskolnikov's disgust suddenly got the better of all caution: he stopped laughing, frowned, and looked at Porfiry long and loathingly, never once taking his eyes off him throughout the entire duration of his extended and, it seemed, intentionally unceasing bout of mirth. A lack of caution was, however, observable on both sides: the effect of Porfiry Petrovich's outburst was to make it look as though he were laughing in the face of his visitor, who was viewing the whole business with loathing, and as though, moreover, he were very little put out by this circumstance. This latter insight told Raskolnikov a very great deal: he now saw that Porfiry Petrovich had probably not been at all embarrassed at their previous meeting, but that, on the contrary, it was he, Raskolnikov, who had in all likelihood fallen into a trap, that there was something going on here of which he had no knowledge, something with a special purpose; that it had all quite possibly been set up beforehand and in a moment would make its presence felt and come crashing down on top of him…

He came straight to the matter in hand, got to his feet and picked up his cap.

‘Porfiry Petrovich,’ he began resolutely, but rather too irritably. ‘Yesterday you expressed the wish that I should come and see you in order that you might put certain questions to me.’ (He placed special emphasis on the word
questions
.) ‘I have come as you requested, and if there is anything you would like to ask me, then please do so – otherwise you must forgive me if I leave. I don't have much time, there is a matter I must see to… I have to attend the funeral of that civil servant who was run down in the street, about whom you… also know…’ he added, immediately kicking himself for having added this, and then growing even more irritable. ‘I'm sick of all this, do you hear, sir, and have been so for a long time now… It's partly this that made me ill… In fact, to put it bluntly,’ he almost shouted, sensing that the reference to his being ill was even more out of place, ‘to put it bluntly: be so good as either to ask your questions or let me go, this instant… and if you are going to question me, then do it according to the proper form, sir! I shall not cooperate unless you do; and so I shall now say goodbye to you, as there seems to be nothing more for the two of us to discuss together.’

‘Great heavens above! What's all this you're going on about? What would I be doing questioning you?’ Porfiry Petrovich clucked, at once altering his general manner and tone of voice, and ceasing his laughter instantly. ‘Please, don't let me put you to any bother,’ he fussed, now resuming his lurching walk in all directions, now suddenly trying to make Raskolnikov sit down. ‘We've all the time in the world, sir, all the time in the world, and all this is nothing but a lot of nonsense! I'm actually very pleased that you've come to see us at last… I view you as my personal guest. And as for that accursed laughter, dear Rodion Romanovich, you'll have to forgive me. It is Rodion Romanovich, isn't it? I mean, Romanovich is your patronymic, I believe?… I live on my nerves a lot, you see, sir, and you entertained me greatly with the wittiness of your observation; sometimes I really begin to wobble like a piece of india-rubber, and it goes on for half an hour at a stretch… I laugh easily, you see, sir. Being built the way I am, I'm sometimes afraid I shall have an attack of palsy. Oh, do sit down, what's the matter?… Please,
dear fellow, otherwise I shall think you're angry with me…’

Raskolnikov kept silent, listened and observed, still frowning wrathfully. He did, in fact, sit down, but kept a hold of his cap.

‘I will tell you one thing about myself, dear Rodion Romanovich, in explanation of my character, as it were,’ Porfiry Petrovich went on as he fussed about the room, trying as before, it seemed, to avoid meeting his visitor's eyes. ‘I'm not married, you know – an unworldly, unfamiliar sort of fellow, and what's more one who has had his day, one who is set in his customs, sir, gone to seed and… and… and have you noticed, Rodion Romanovich, that among us, and by that I mean among us here in Russia, sir, and in particular among our St Petersburg circles, if two intelligent individuals, not necessarily well-acquainted but who, as it were, have a mutual respect for each other, like you and I just now, sir, come together, entire half-hours can pass without either of them being able to find the most trivial subject of conversation? They seize up on each other, sit there in mutual embarrassment. Everyone has a subject of conversation – ladies, for example… society men, say, men of high fashion – they never lack subjects of conversation,
c
’
est de rigueur
, and yet run-of-the-mill fellows – like us – are always embarrassed and stuck for anything to say… the thinking ones, that is. What's the reason for it, dear chap? Whether it's because we have no interest in what goes on in society, or whether it's just that we're terribly anxious not to deceive one another – I don't know. Eh? What do you think? Oh, I say, do put down that cap of yours, anyone would think you were just about to leave, it really makes me feel uncomfortable just to look at you… As I said, I'm really very pleased you're here…’

Raskolnikov put down his cap, but continued to say nothing, and went on listening, frowning and serious-faced, to Porfiry's empty and inconsistent chatter. ‘What's his game – does he really think he'll distract my attention with this stupid chatter of his?’

‘I can't give you coffee, there aren't the facilities for it here; but why not just sit with a friend for five minutes or so, to pass the time?’ Porfiry babbled on, incessantly. ‘And you know, all these judicial responsibilities of mine… and look, my dear
fellow, don't take offence at my walking up and down like this; you'll have to forgive me, I'm really terribly afraid of offending you, but you see I simply must have physical exercise. I spend all my time sitting down, and it's such a relief to be able to walk about for five or ten minutes or so… I've got piles, you see… Actually, I'm thinking of taking up gymnastics; I'm told there's a place where real state councillors, no less, enjoy the use of skipping-ropes – there are even privy councillors among them; you see where science is taking us, in this century of ours?… Yes, sir… And as regards these responsibilities of mine here, these questionings and all the rest of that formal business… Why, you yourself were talking about being questioned just now, my dear fellow… Well, if you really want to know, dear Rodion Romanovich, these questionings sometimes confuse the questioner more than they do the person being questioned… as you yourself so wittily and correctly observed just now, my dear fellow.’ (Raskolnikov had observed nothing of the kind.) ‘One gets so mixed up! So mixed up! And it's always the same thing, over and over again, like someone beating a drum! Oh well, the reforms
¹
are in progress now, and at least our official title is to be changed, hee-hee-hee! And as for our questioning techniques – as you so wittily called them I'm in complete agreement with you, sir. I mean, I'd like to meet a defendant, even the most homespun of muzhiks, who didn't know that they're going to start off by showering him with irrelevant questions (to use your happy turn of phrase), and then suddenly hit him bang on the head, with the butt of the metal, tee-hee-hee! Bang on the head, to employ your happy expression! Ha, ha! So you really thought that I began talking about my quarters in order to make you… tee-hee! An ironical fellow, aren't you? Oh well, I shan't go on! Yes, actually, you know, one little word leads to another, one thought suggests another – I mean, you were talking about formal methods earlier, in connection with, you know, questioning procedures, sir… But what good are formal methods? You know, in many cases, formal methods are just rubbish. Sometimes one gains more from simply having a friendly chat. Oh, the formal methods will always be with us, sir, you may be assured of that; but what good are they, in the
last analysis, I ask you? It's pointless trying to tie an investigator's hands with formal methods at every turn. The work of an investigator is, in its own way, one of the liberal arts, as it were, or something very near it… tee-hee-hee!’

Porfiry Petrovich stopped for a moment in order to get his breath back. He had been babbling on persistently, in a stream of empty and meaningless phrases into which he would suddenly insert a few enigmatic words, only to slip back at once into meaningless verbiage again. He had almost been running about the room, moving his fat little legs ever more swiftly, looking constantly at the floor, his right arm behind his back, while he waved his left arm ceaselessly in the air, performing various gestures which were invariably quite out of keeping with what he was saying. Raskolnikov suddenly noticed that, on a couple of occasions, as he raced about the room, he had seemed to pause beside the door for a moment, as though he were listening… ‘What's he doing – waiting for something?’

‘Why, you really are absolutely right, sir,’ Porfiry said, cheerfully resuming his flow of talk and looking at Raskolnikov with extraordinary bonhomie (making the latter nearly jump out of his skin and prepare himself for the worst) – ‘really absolutely right, sir, in poking fun at our legal formalities with such sharp-wittedness, hee-hee! These deep, psychological techniques of ours (well, some of them, at any rate) are thoroughly ridiculous, sir, yes, and even possibly futile, sir, especially when they're hemmed in by formalities. Yes, sir… there I am going on about formalities again: I mean, suppose I think, or suspect, rather, that this, that or the other person who is involved in some case that has been entrusted to me is guilty of having committed a crime… You're studying law, aren't you, Rodion Romanovich?’

‘Yes, or rather I was…’

‘Well, then, here's a little example for you, one that you might like to keep in mind for the future – oh, please don't think that I'd dream of trying to teach you anything: why, not in view of all these articles on crime you've been publishing! No, sir, but let me make so bold as to put before you just one small example, in the form of a case-study, as it were. For example, suppose I
consider this, that or the other person to be guilty of having committed a crime, well, why, I ask, should I inconvenience the fellow before I need to, even though I've got evidence against him, sir? There are some chaps, of course, whom I have to arrest at once, but, I mean, there are others who are quite different in character, I do assure you, sir – so why shouldn't I let him run around town for a while, tee-hee! No, but I see you don't quite understand, so let me illustrate it for you a little more clearly: if, for example, I were to haul him in too soon, why, in so doing I might easily be giving him a certain moral support, as it were, tee-hee! That makes you laugh, does it, eh?’ (Nothing could have been further from Raskolnikov's mind than laughter; he sat with his lips clamped together, never once removing his inflamed gaze from Porfiry Petrovich's eyes.) ‘And yet, you see, that's the way it is with certain types, because people vary so much, yet we only have one practical method to apply to them all. You talked just now about evidence; but well, yes, one may very well have evidence, but you know, evidence is for the most part a matter of conjecture, my dear fellow, and I mean, after all, I'm only an investigator, and therefore as prone to weakness as the next man, and I swear to you: what I want is a case that can be presented with mathematical clarity, I want the kind of evidence that looks as straightforward as two times two! I want it to look like direct and irrefutable proof! And you see, if I haul him in before time – even though I'm convinced that
he
's the one – well, you see, I may very well be depriving myself of the means of getting him to give the game away even further – why? Because I'll have given him a definite place in the whole business, I'll have, as it were, given him a sense of psychological security and put his fears at rest, and he'll go cold on me and withdraw into his shell: what he'll have realized is that he's a convict. They say that down there in Sebastopol, just after the Battle of the Alma,
²
the people in intelligence were very worried that the enemy was just about to launch an open attack and take the town in one go; but when they saw that the enemy preferred a straightforward siege and was digging his first line of trenches, it's said that those same people in intelligence were much relieved and felt their minds had been put at rest: it meant,
you see, that the thing would drag on for at least two months, because that was how long a straightforward siege would take! I expect you're laughing again, you don't believe me, eh? Well, and of course you're right. You're right, sir, you're right! Those are all rather special cases, I agree with you, the one I've just cited is a very special case indeed! But you see, my dear, good Rodion Romanovich, what you need to observe in them is this: the general case, the one all our legal rules and formalities are designed for and the one on the basis of which they're all worked out and written into the legal textbooks, simply doesn't exist, for the very good reason that every case, every crime, if you like, as soon as it takes place in reality, turns into a thoroughly special case; I mean, sometimes it's even something that's never happened before. One sometimes encounters the most comical instances of this kind, sir. Say I leave a certain gentleman completely alone: I don't arrest him and I don't trouble him, but I make damn sure that every hour and every minute he knows, or at least suspects, that I know everything, the whole seamy story, and that I'm keeping an eye on him night and day, watching him unremittingly, and if he's conscious of the never-ending suspicion and terror in which I'm keeping him, I tell you, sir, he'll go off into a whirl, he'll come running of his own accord, and he may even do something that will look like two times two, and will, as it were, have a mathematical appearance – that's always most gratifying, sir. It may happen in the case of a clodhopping muzhik, or it may happen in the case of people such as ourselves, intelligent men of the contemporary world whose development has taken a certain direction – all the more so because of that! Because, my dear fellow, it's always very important to know the direction a person's development has taken. And what about nerves – nerves, sir? You've forgotten about them! I mean, all those thin, ill, nervous characters one sees around nowadays!… And all that spleen, all that spleen they've got inside them! Why, I tell you, sir, there are times when a fellow like that can be a kind of walking gold mine! And it's no skin off my nose if he goes walking about the town without any handcuffs on! Leave him alone, let him go gadding around for the time being if he wants to; I mean, I know that
he's already on my plate and won't abscond! Where would he abscond to, hee-hee! Abroad? A Pole might run abroad, but
he
won't, especially since I've been keeping an eye on him and have taken certain precautions. Will he run into the depths of our fatherland, perhaps? But I mean, there are only muzhiks there, real, Russian, homespun ones; why, a man of contemporary education and development would sooner go to jail than live among such foreigners as those muzhiks of ours, tee-hee! But that's all nonsense, mere circumstantial stuff. What, abscond? That's just a formal term we use; no, the main thing is something else; it's not just that he won't abscond because he has nowhere to run to: he won't abscond
psychologically
, hee-hee! How do you like that as a way of expressing it? A law of nature will prevent him from getting away from me, even though he has somewhere to run to. Have you ever watched a moth near a candle-flame? Well, that's the way he'll be with me, hovering, circling around me like a moth at a lighted candle; he'll lose his taste for freedom, he'll start to think, get tangled in his thoughts, ensnare himself all round as though in some net or other, worry himself to death!… And that's not all: he himself will serve me up a nice, mathematical formula like two times two – if only I give him enough latitude… And on he'll go, performing a circular orbit around me, narrowing the radius further and further, until – pop! He'll fly straight into my mouth and I'll swallow him whole! Most gratifying, sir, tee-hee-hee! Do you believe me?’