Crime and Punishment (76 page)

She turned sharply and walked towards the door.

‘Dunya!’ Raskolnikov exclaimed, stopping her. He got up and went over to her. ‘That Razumikhin fellow – Dmitry Prokofich, I mean – is a very good man.’

Dunya blushed the merest shade of pink.

‘Well?’ she said, waiting for a moment.

‘He's a down-to-earth man, hard-working, honest and capable of intense love… Goodbye, Dunya.’

Dunya flushed all over, and then suddenly looked alarmed.

‘But what's this, brother? The way you’re… giving me advice like this… it's as if we were parting for ever!’

‘It doesn't matter… goodbye…’

He turned and walked away from her over to the window. She stood there for a moment, looking at him uneasily, and then left in a state of alarm.

No, he had not been cold towards her. There had been one moment (at the very end) when he had felt a terrible desire to embrace her tightly and
say farewell
to her, even
tell
her, but he had not even been able to bring himself to give her his hand:

‘Later on she might shudder when she recollected that I'd embraced her; she might say that I'd stolen her kiss!

‘But will
that one
be able to hold out or won't she?’ he added to himself a few moments later. ‘No, she won't;
women like her
are never able to hold out…’

And he thought about Sonya.

From the window came a breath of fresh air. The light outside was less intense now. He suddenly took his cap and went out.

It was, of course, impossible that he should take any concern for his morbid condition, and indeed he would have rejected the idea of any such concern, even had it occurred to him. But all the constant anxiety, all the mental horror he had experienced could not but wreak its consequences. Though he was not yet prostrated by a full-blown fever, this was probably due to the
fact that his constant inner anxiety was keeping him on his feet and in full consciousness, but in an artificial way, and only temporarily.

He wandered without aim. The sun was going down. A strange anguish had begun to tell on him of late. In it there was nothing particularly searing or burning; but from it there emanated something constant, eternal, that gave a foretaste of unending years of this cold, numbing anguish, a foretaste of a kind of eternity in ‘one arshin of space’. This sensation generally began to torment him even more fiercely during the hours of evening.

‘It's these really stupid, purely physical ailments, which are linked to the sunset or something, that make a man do stupid things, no matter how hard he tries not to! Never mind Sonya – it'll be Dunya you go and see next!’ he muttered with hatred.

Someone called his name. He looked round; Lebezyatnikov was rushing towards him.

‘Would you believe it? I've been to your place, I've been looking for you. Would you believe it? She's carried out her threat and taken the children with her! Sofya Semyonovna and I had a terrible time finding her! She herself is beating a frying-pan, and she's making the children sing and dance. The children are crying. They stop whenever they come to a crossroads or a row of shops. There's a crowd of stupid people running after them. Come on!’

‘What about Sonya?…’ Raskolnikov asked in anxiety as he hurried off after Lebezyatnikov.

‘Simply in a frenzy. Not Sofya Semyonovna, that is, but Katerina Ivanovna; though actually, Sofya Semyonovna's in a frenzy, too. But Katerina Ivanovna is
really
in a frenzy. I tell you, she's gone quite insane. They'll be hauled in by the police. Imagine what effect that will have… They're along by the Canal just now, at — Bridge, just a stone's throw from where Sofya Semyonovna lives. Very close by.’

Down by the Canal, very near the bridge and only two buildings along from the one in which Sonya lived, a little group of people had gathered. There was a notable concurrence of little street-urchins, boys and girls alike. The hoarse, hysterical
laughter of Katerina Ivanovna could be heard even from the bridge. And indeed, this was a strange spectacle, capable of arousing the interest of a street audience. Katerina Ivanovna, in her old dress, her
drap
-
de
-
dames
shawl and battered straw hat, which had slanted over in an outrageous mass to one side, really was in the last stages of frenzy. She was tired and out of breath. Her exhausted, consumptive features looked even more martyred than ever (this, added to the fact that out in the street, in the sunshine, a consumptive person always looks more ill and deformed than when seen indoors); but her excited state had not grown any the less, and with every moment that passed she was becoming more and more overstimulated. She would rush at her children, shout at them, tell them what to do, instruct them right there in front of all the people in how to dance and what to sing, start explaining to them why it was necessary, then lapse into despair when they did not understand, and start hitting them… Then, without finishing, she would rush at the audience; if she saw anyone who was even slightly well-dressed and had stopped to take a look, she would at once launch into an explanation to the effect that this was what the children ‘of a good, one might even say aristocratic family’ had been reduced to. If she heard laughter in the throng or a cocky remark, she would instantly pounce upon the rude upstarts and start shouting at them. Some people really were laughing, while others shook their heads; everyone found the spectacle of the crazy woman with the frightened children an interesting one. Of the frying-pan Lebezyatnikov had described there was no evidence; instead of banging a frying-pan, however, Katerina Ivanovna had begun to clap out the time with her emaciated palms as she forced Polya to sing, and Lyonya and Kolya to dance; moreover, she herself had begun to sing, but each time she did so she would break off on the second note in fits of terrible coughing, which plunged her back into despair again, as she cursed her cough and wept bitterly. What infuriated her most of all was the weeping and terror of Kolya and Lyonya. She really had made an effort to dress the children up in costumes in the way in which street singers of both sexes dress. The little boy had had a turban made of some red-and-white material set
upon his head to make him look like a Turk. There had not been enough to make a costume for Lyonya, too; on her head she wore the red knitted woollen cap (or rather nightcap) of the deceased Semyon Zakharych through which was run a piece of ostrich-feather that had belonged to Katerina Ivanovna's grandmother and which she still kept in her travelling-box as a family curiosity. Polya was wearing her ordinary dress. She was looking at her mother in timid embarrassment, staying close by her, hiding her tears, realizing that her mother was not in her right mind, and staring around her with an uneasy gaze. The street and the crowd had frightened her horribly. Sonya kept persistently following Katerina Ivanovna around, weeping and imploring her to return home that very moment. But Katerina Ivanovna was not to be placated.

‘Stop it, Sonya, stop it!’ she kept shouting in a quick patter as she hurried to and fro, gasping and coughing. ‘You have no idea what you're asking, like a little child! I've already told you that I won't go back to that drunken German woman's. Let everyone see, let all St Petersburg see them begging for alms, these children of a well-born father, who served justice and the faith all his life, and who, it may be said, died in the execution of his duty.’ (Katerina Ivanovna had already managed to create this fantasy for herself and to believe in it blindly.) ‘Let him see it, let that wretched villain of a general see it. Anyway, you're being stupid, Sonya; what are we going to eat now, tell me that? We've tormented you enough, I won't allow it any more! Ah, Rodion Romanych, it's you!’ she exclaimed, catching sight of Raskolnikov and rushing towards him. ‘Please explain to this silly idiot of a girl that this is the most sensible thing for us to do. Even street performers earn money, and everyone will be able to pick us out at once, will realize that we're an impoverished family of well-born orphans who have been reduced to penury, and then that general will lose his position, you'll see! We'll go and stand under his windows every day, and when the Tsar drives past I'll get down on my knees, push all these children in front of me and point to them, saying: “Protect them, Father!” He is the father of the orphans, he is merciful, he will protect them, and that wretched general… Lyonya!
Tenez-vous droite
! I want
you to dance again in a moment, Kolya. What are you whimpering for? He's whimpering again! Well, what is it – what are you afraid of, you silly little idiot? Merciful Lord! What am I to do with them? Rodion Romanych! If you only knew what a muddle-headed lot they are! Oh, what can one do with children like these?…’

And, very nearly in tears (a circumstance that did not prevent her from keeping up a constant and unceasing patter of speech), she pointed to her whimpering children. Raskolnikov began to try to persuade her to go home, and even said, thinking that it might have an effect on her vanity, that it was not proper for her to wander about the streets like a common busker, as she was preparing to become the directress of a high-class girls’ boarding-school…

‘A boarding-school, ha, ha, ha! Green grows the grass far yonder!’ Katerina Ivanovna exclaimed, bursting into laughter which immediately turned into fits of coughing. ‘No, Rodion Romanovich, that dream has faded! They've all turned their backs on us!… And that wretched general… Do you know, Rodion Romanych, I threw an inkwell at him! There was one right there on the table in the manservants’ room beside the sheet of paper on which people signed their names, and I signed mine, too, threw the inkwell at him and ran away. Oh, the villains, the villains. But to hell with them; now I shall feed these children myself, without bowing to anyone! We've tortured her enough! (She pointed at Sonya.) Polechka, how much have you all collected, show me? What? Only two copecks? Oh, the scoundrels! They don't give us anything, just run after us sticking their tongues out! Now what's that dunce laughing at?’ she said, pointing at a member of the crowd. ‘It's all because Kolya's so slow-witted, he's nothing but trouble! What do you want, Polechka? Speak to me in French,
parlez-moi français
. After all, you do know a phrase or two, I taught you!… Otherwise how will people know that you're from a good family, well-brought-up children, quite different from the usual street per-formers; we're not performing some “Petrushka” out in the streets, we're going to sing an aristocratic romance… Yes, what shall we sing? You keep on interrupting me, but we…
you see, Rodion Romanych, we stopped here in order to decide what to sing – something that even Kolya can dance to… because we're doing all this, as I think you can imagine, without the slightest preparation; we must come to an agreement so we can rehearse it all thoroughly, and then we shall go off to the Nevsky Prospect, where there will be far more people of good society, who will notice us instantly. Lyonya knows “The Little Homestead”… That's the only song she knows, but everyone sings it – no, we must find something much more aristocratic than that… Well, Polya, have you thought of anything? I do wish you'd help your mother! My memory, my memory must have gone, otherwise I'd remember something! No, not “The Hussar Leaned On His Sabre”,
²
for heaven's sake! Oh, let's sing something in French, and then people will see at once that you're children of the gentry, and that will touch their feelings far more deeply… What about “
Marlborough s'en va-t-en guerre
”, since that's a children's song, a real children's song – it's used in all aristocratic families for lulling the children to sleep:

she began to sing… ‘No, wait, “
Cinq sous
”
³
would be better! Now then, Kolya, put your hands to your sides, quickly, and Lyonya, you keep dodging away in the other direction, and Polechka and I will sing and clap out the time!

Cahuh-cahuh-cahuh!’ (And she burst into fits of coughing.) ‘Straighten your dress, Polechka, your shoulders are showing,’ she said through her cough, as she recovered her breath. ‘It's very important that you should behave decorously and with a bit of refinement, so that everyone can see that you're children of the gentry. I told you that your bodice ought to be cut longer and be two widths thick, didn't I? That was you, Sonya, you
and your advice: “Make it shorter, shorter,” you kept saying, and now you've made the child look a complete mess… Oh, there you all go crying again! What's wrong with you, you stupid children? Come along, Kolya, I want you to start now, quick, quick, quick – oh, what a tiresome boy!…

Another soldier! Well, what do you want?’

It was indeed so: a policeman was squeezing his way through the crowd. But at the same time a gentleman in a uniform jacket and overcoat, a sedate civil servant of about fifty with a medal round his neck (this latter feature was especially gratifying to Katerina Ivanovna, and made an impression on the policeman, too), came up to Katerina Ivanovna and silently handed her a green three-rouble note. His face expressed sincere compassion. Katerina Ivanovna took the banknote and bowed to him politely, even ceremoniously.

‘I thank you, my dear sir,’ she began in a haughty manner. The reasons that have prompted us… take the money, Polechka. You see? There
are
well-born and magnanimous people who are instantly ready to help a poor gentlewoman in her misfortune. As you can see, my dear sir, these are well-born orphans, one might even say, with the most aristocratic connections… But this general was sitting eating his hazel-grouse… and he stamped his feet because I'd disturbed him… “Your Excellency,” I said, “please protect these poor orphans, as you knew my deceased Semyon Zakharych very well, and as the most villainous of villains most cruelly slandered his very own daughter on the day of his death…” Here's that soldier again! Protect us!’ she cried to the civil servant. ‘What does this soldier want with me? We came here after running away from one of them on Meshchanskaya Street… Well, what errand brings you hence, fool?’