Crime and Punishment (91 page)

Large tears were flowing down her cheeks.

‘You're crying, sister, but will you give me your hand?’

‘Did you doubt that I would?’

She embraced him tightly.

‘After all, by going to take your suffering you're wiping out half of your crime, aren't you?’ she cried, squeezing him in her arms and kissing him.

‘Crime? What crime?’ he exclaimed in a sudden fit of fury. ‘My killing a loathsome, harmful louse, a filthy old moneylender woman who brought no good to anyone, to murder whom would pardon forty sins, who sucked the lifeblood of the poor, and you call that a crime? I don't think about it and I have no plans to wipe it out. And why do they keep poking me from all sides with their “Crime, crime!”? Only now do I see clearly the whole absurdity of my cowardice, now, when I've already taken the resolve to go to this needless shame! It's merely because of my own baseness and mediocrity that I'm taking this step, and possibly also because it may do me some good, as he suggested, that… Porfiry!…’

‘Brother, brother, what are you saying? I mean, you have blood on your hands!’ Dunya cried in despair.

‘The blood that's on everyone's hands,’ he caught her up, almost in a frenzy now, ‘that flows and has always flowed through the world like a waterfall, that is poured like champagne and for the sake of which men are crowned in the Capitol and then called the benefactors of mankind. Well, just take a closer look and see what's really what! I wanted to do good to people and I'd have done hundreds, thousands of good deeds instead of this one stupid action, which wasn't even stupid, really, but just clumsy, as the whole idea wasn't nearly as stupid as it appears now, in the light of failure… (In the light of failure everything appears stupid!) By means of that stupid action I hoped to put myself in a position of independence, to take the first step, to obtain funds, and then the whole thing would have been wiped out by the measureless benefits (relatively speaking) that would have been achieved… But look at me, I couldn't even manage the first step, because I'm a – bastard! That's the long and the short of it! But even so I won't see it the way you do: if I hadn't failed, they'd have crowned me, but as it is, it's into the can with me!’

‘But that's wrong, that's utterly wrong! Brother, what are you saying?’

‘Aha! so I've put it in the wrong form, have I, not in the correct aesthetic form! Well, I must say I don't understand: why is it considered more respectable to hurl bombs at people in a regular siege? The fear of aesthetics is the first symptom of powerlessness!… Never, never have I seen that so clearly as now, and I understand my crime even less than ever! Never, never have I been stronger and more full of conviction than I am now!…’

The colour had fairly leapt to his pale, exhausted features. But, as he uttered this last exclamation, he chanced to meet the eyes of Dunya, and such, such was the agony for his sake he met in that gaze that he snapped out of his trance in spite of himself. He sensed that whatever else he had done, he had made these two poor women unhappy. There was no denying that he was the cause of their woes…

‘Dunya, dear one! If I'm guilty of a crime, then please forgive me (though if I'm guilty, it's out of the question for me to be
forgiven). Farewell! Don't let's argue! It's time, and more than time. Don't try to follow me, I beg you, I've another call to make… Just go now and sit with mother. I beg you to do that! It's the last and greatest request I shall make of you. You must stay beside her all the time; I left her in such a state of anxiety that she may not be able to endure it: she may either die or go mad. So stay with her! Razumikhin will be with you; I've told him… Don't shed any tears for me: I shall try to be brave, and honest, all the rest of my life, even though I am a murderer. Perhaps some day you'll hear my name. I won't bring shame on you, you'll see; I'll show you yet… but for now goodbye, until we meet again,’ he concluded hurriedly, again noticing the strange look that had appeared in Dunya's eyes at these last words and promises of his. ‘What are you crying like that for? Don't cry, don't cry; I mean, we're not parting for ever!… Oh yes! Wait, I forgot!…’

He went over to the table, picked up a fat, dusty volume, opened it and took out a small portrait, a watercolour on ivory that had been tucked away between its leaves. It was a portrait of his landlady's daughter, his one-time fiancée, the girl who had died of a fever, the strange one who had wanted to go and join a nunnery. For a moment he scrutinized her expressive and delicate little face, kissed the portrait and handed it to Dunya.

‘You know, I also used to talk a lot
about that
to her, and only to her,’ he said reflectively. ‘It was to her heart that I confided much of what subsequently came to pass in such an ugly manner. You needn't worry,’ he said, turning to Dunya. ‘She no more agreed with me than you do, and I'm glad she's no longer alive. The main thing, the main thing is that now everything is going to take a new turn, is going to be broken in two,’ he cried suddenly, falling back into his leaden anguish again. ‘Everything, everything, and am I ready for it? Do I even really want it? They say it's necessary for me as a trial by ordeal! But what purpose, what purpose do all these senseless ordeals serve? What purpose do they serve, and will I be any nearer the answer to that question later on, when I've been crushed by sufferings, by idiocy, in senile helplessness, after twenty years’ hard labour, than I am now, and what purpose will there be in
my continuing to live? Why am I giving my assent to that kind of life for myself now? Oh, as I stood above the Neva this morning at dawn I knew I was a villain.’

At last they both stepped outside. Dunya found it hard, but she loved him! She went on her way, but, having gone some fifty paces, turned round again to look at him. He was still visible. But, when he reached the corner, he also turned round; for the last time their gazes met; but, having observed that she was looking at him, he made an impatient and even annoyed gesture with his hand, telling her to go, and abruptly turned the corner.

‘That was a nasty thing for me to do, I realize that,’ he thought to himself, feeling shame a moment later at the gesture of annoyance he had made to Dunya. ‘But why do they love me so much, if I don't deserve it? Oh, if I were alone and no one loved me and I had never loved anyone!
All this would never have taken place!
But the interesting thing to know is whether in the course of the next fifteen to twenty years my soul will acquire such humility that I shall whimper in reverence before other people, ready to call myself a brigand at the first opportunity! Yes, that's it, that's it! That's why they're sending me into exile now, it's that that they want… There they all are, scurrying back and forth along the street, and I mean, every one of them is a brigand and a bastard at heart; worse than that – an idiot! But just try to get me out of my exile, and they'd all start foaming at the mouth with righteous indignation! Oh, how I hate them all!’

He began to think deeply about the process by which it might happen that he would finally, beyond all dispute, submit to them with the humility born of conviction. ‘All right, why not? Of course, that's how it's got to be. Twenty years of incessant hardship ought to be enough to finish me off, oughtn't they? Constant dripping wears away the stone. And what's the point, what's the point of living after this, why am I going there now when I know perfectly well that it's all going to go according to the book, and not otherwise?’

This must have been the hundredth time he had asked himself that question since the night before, but even so he went.

When he went in to see Sonya dusk was beginning to fall. All day Sonya had been waiting for him in a state of terrible excitement. She and Dunya had waited together. Dunya had come to her that morning, having remembered Svidrigailov's remark of the day before that Sonya ‘knew about it’. We shall not convey to the reader the details of the conversation, or the tears of both women, or how intimate they became. From that rendezvous Dunya had carried away at least one consolation, and that was that her brother would not be alone: it was to her, Sonya, he had gone first with his confession; it was in her that he had sought a human being, when he had needed one; as for Sonya she would follow him wherever fate might send him. Dunya had not asked, but had known that was how it would be. She had even looked at Sonya with a kind of reverence, at first almost embarrassing her with this feeling of reverence with which she approached her. Sonya had been almost on the point of tears: she considered herself unworthy even to glance at Dunya. Dunya's fair image, as she had bowed to her with such courtesy and respect at the time of their first meeting in Raskolnikov's lodgings, had remained in her soul forever as one of the most beautiful and ineffable visions of her life.

At last Dunya had run out of patience and had left Sonya in order to await her brother in his lodgings; she kept thinking that that was where he would make for first. Left alone, Sonya at once began to torment herself with fear at the thought that perhaps he might really commit suicide. The same fear haunted Dunya. All day long, however, they had used all kinds of arguments to reassure each other that that could not possibly be, and for the time they had spent together had been calmer. But now, no sooner had they parted than both the one and the other had begun to think only of that. Sonya kept remembering how Svidrigailov had told her the day before that there were two roads open to Raskolnikov – Vladimirka or… She was also familiar with his vanity, his arrogance, his self-pride and unbelief. ‘Is it really only cowardice and the fear of death that are
keeping him alive?’ she thought at last, in despair. Meanwhile the sun was going down. She stood sadly at the window, staring out of it fixedly – but from this window all that was visible was the brown main wall of the neighbouring building. At last, when she had arrived at a complete conviction that the unhappy man was dead – he walked into her room.

A cry of joy burst from within her. Taking a close look at his face, however, she suddenly went pale.

‘Yes, that's right,’ Raskolnikov said with an ironic smile. ‘I've come for your crosses, Sonya. After all, it was you who told me to go to the crossroads; what's the matter? Now that it's come to the point, have you got cold feet?’

Sonya was staring at him in consternation. This tone of voice seemed strange to her; a cold shiver passed throughout her body, but a moment later she realized that both tone and words were something he was affecting. There was also the way he was talking to her: looking away at an angle, as though he were trying to avoid gazing her straight in the eye.

‘You see, Sonya, I've decided that it may be for my own good to do it this way. There's a certain circumstance involved in all this… Oh, it would take me too long to tell you about it, and in any case there's no point. Do you know the only thing that makes me angry? It's that all those stupid brutes will immediately surround me with their ugly mugs, gawp right at me, ask me their stupid questions, which I'll have to answer – they'll point their fingers at me… Pah! But you know, I shan't go to Porfiry; I'm fed up with him. No, I'd rather go and see my friend Gunpowder, I'll give him a real surprise, make a bit of a stir in my own way. But I must have some
sang froid
; I've grown far too acrimonious of late. Would you believe it: I nearly took my fist to my sister just now for turning round to look at me one last time. This state of mind's enough to make a swine of one! Ah, what's become of me? Well, then, where are they, your crosses?’

It was as if he were not his own man. He was not even able to stay in the same place for a single moment, nor could he concentrate his attention on a single object; his thoughts kept leaping ahead, one after the other, his speech wandered, and his hands were trembling slightly.

Without saying anything, Sonya produced two crucifixes from a drawer, a cypress one and a copper one, crossed herself, crossed him, and hung the cypress crucifix around his neck.

‘I see, this is meant to symbolize my taking up the cross, hee, hee! As though I hadn't done enough suffering already! I get the cypress one, as befits a member of the common people; you get the copper one – it's Lizaveta's, isn't it? Let's see it – is that the one she was wearing… at the moment in question? I know of another two crosses, a silver one and one with an icon. I threw them on to the old woman's corpse that day. They're really the ones I ought to have now, they're the ones I ought to put on… But actually, I'm talking a lot of nonsense, I'm forgetting the matter in hand; for some reason my mind's grown distracted… You see, Sonya – I really came in order to warn you, so you'd know… Well, that's all… Yes, that's the only reason I came. (Hm, though actually I thought I'd say more.) After all, you yourself wanted me to go and give myself up, so now I shall, I'll go to jail, and your desire will be fulfilled; so why are you crying? You as well? Stop it, that's enough; oh, how tedious all this is!’

An emotion had, however, taken root in him; he felt a pang at his heart as he looked at her. ‘Why this girl? Why is she crying?’ he wondered. ‘What am I to her? What's she crying for, why is she getting me ready for the journey, like mother, or Dunya? She wants to be my nanny!’

‘Please make the sign of the cross over yourself, please say at least one prayer,’ Sonya asked him in a trembling, timid voice.

‘Oh, very well, certainly, as you please! And it comes straight from the heart, Sonya, straight from the heart…’

Though really he wanted to say something quite different.

He crossed himself several times. Sonya caught up her shawl and slipped it over her head. It was a green
drap-de-dames
shawl, probably the one Marmeladov had mentioned that time, the ‘family’ one. The thought occurred to Raskolnikov for a moment, but he did not ask about it. He really had begun to feel that his mind was growing alarmingly distracted and almost indecently anxious. This frightened him. He also suddenly found shocking the realization that Sonya intended to go with him.

‘What are you doing? What business do you have going there? Stay here, stay! I'll go alone!’ he snapped, irritable with apprehension; almost wild with anger, he strode towards the door. ‘We can't have a whole retinue down there!’ he muttered as he went out.