VI
But no sooner had she gone out than he got up, hooked the door, untied the bundle of clothes which Razumikhin had brought round earlier and then tied it up again, and started getting dressed. Strange: he seemed, all of a sudden, to have become perfectly calm; gone was the demented raving of before and the panicky terror of this whole recent time.
This was the first instant of some strange, sudden tranquillity. His movements were precise and well-defined; a firm intention showed through them. ‘Today, yes, today!’ he muttered to himself. He understood, however, that he was still weak, but the most intense mental strain, having reached the point of tranquillity, of obsession, now gave him strength and confidence; even so, he hoped he wouldn’t collapse in the street. All dressed up in his new things, he glanced at the money lying on the table, thought for a moment and pocketed it. Twenty-five roubles in total.
He also took all the five-copeck pieces – the change from the ten roubles Razumikhin had spent on the clothes. Next, he quietly lifted the hook, left the room, went down the stairs and peeked through the wide-open door of the kitchen: Nastasya, standing with her back to him, was bending over and fanning the landlady’s samovar. She didn’t hear a thing. Anyway, who could have imagined that he might go out? A minute later he was already in the street.
It was about eight o’clock. The sun was going down. It was as stifling as before, but he hungrily breathed in this stinking, dusty, town-poisoned air. He felt his head begin to spin. His inflamed eyes and wasted, pallid-yellow face suddenly shone with some wild energy. He didn’t know where he was going, and hadn’t even given it a thought. He
knew one thing only: ‘All this has to end today, in one go, right now.’ He wouldn’t go home otherwise, becausehe didn’t want to live like this. End how? By what means? He had no idea, no wish even to think about it. He chased away thought: thought tormented him. He merely felt and knew that everything had to change, one way or another. ‘Any way will do,’ he kept repeating, with desperate, immovable confidence and resolve.
By old habit, following the route he usually took on his walks, he made straight for Haymarket. Just before Haymarket, standing in the road in front of a general shop, was a young, raven-haired organ-grinder, turning out a heartfelt song. He was accompanying a girl standing before him on the pavement, aged fifteen or so and dressed up like a lady, wearing a crinoline, a cape, gloves and a straw hat with a feather the colour of fire, all old and worn. Her voice was cracked – the voice of a street singer – but pleasant and strong, and she was hoping for a copeck or two from the shop. Raskolnikov stopped for a moment to listen with a few others, took out a five-copeck piece and placed it in the girl’s hand. She suddenly cut off her singing, as if with a knife, on the most heartfelt and high-pitched note, snapped ‘Enough!’ to the organ-grinder, and they shuffled off to the next shop. ‘Do you like street singing?’ Raskolnikov suddenly asked a passer-by, no longer young, who was standing next to him near the barrel organ and had the look of a flâneur. The latter stared at him in wild astonishment. ‘I do,’ Raskolnikov went on, but it was as if he were talking about something else entirely. ‘I like songs sung to a barrel organ on cold, dark, damp autumn evenings – dampness is a must – when the faces of all the passers-by are pale, green and sick; or, even better, when wet snow is falling down in a straight line, with no wind at all (you know?) and the gas lamps shine through it . . .’
‘I’m afraid I don’t know, sir . . . ,’ muttered the gentleman, frightened both by the question and by Raskolnikov’s strange appearance, and crossed to the other side of the street.
Raskolnikov continued on his way and reached the corner of Haymarket, where the tradesman and his wife, who had been talking to Lizaveta that time, sold their goods; but they weren’t there now. Recognizing the spot, he stopped, looked around and turned to a young lad in a red shirt who was yawning by the entrance to a flour shop. ‘There’s a tradesman selling here on the corner, isn’t there, with his missus, his wife?’ ‘There’s all sorts selling,’ the lad replied, disdainfully
looking him up and down.
‘What’s his name?’ ‘The one he was christened with.’ ‘Don’t tell me you’re from Zaraisk, too? Your province?’ The lad took another look at Raskolnikov. ‘Ours is a district, Your Excellency, not a province, and anyway I’m far too provincial to know, sir . . . Do forgive
me, Your Excellency, most graciously.’ ‘Is that an eating-house, up there?’ 25‘That’s a tavern, with billiards, too, and princesses, come to that . . . Ding dong!’ Raskolnikov crossed the square. There, in the corner, stood a throng of people, all of them peasants. He made straight for the thick of it, peering into faces. He had a strange urge to talk to everyone he met. But the peasants paid him no attention, keeping up a constant hubbub in their little groups. He stood for a while, pondered, and set off to the right, along the pavement, in the direction of V 26 ——y.Leaving the square behind, he found himself in a lane . . .
27Previously, too, he had often taken this short little lane, which made a dog-leg from the square to Sadovaya Street.
Recently he’d even felt the urge, whenever he felt sick, to wander around this part of town, ‘so as to feel even sicker’.
Now he entered it without a thought in his head. There’s a large house here, entirely given over to drinking dens and cheap restaurants; women run in and out, dressed as if ‘to go next door’ – bare-headed, in simple frocks. They gather in bunches on the pavement, usually wherever a couple of steps lead down to various, very cheerful establishments on the lower floor. The racket coming from one of these at that moment could be heard from one end of the street to the other – a guitar was being strummed, songs were being sung and it was all very jolly. The entrance was thronged with a large group of women; some sat on the steps or the pavement, others stood and chatted. Nearby, on the road, a drunken soldier was sauntering along, smoking a papirosa and swearing loudly; he looked like he wanted to go in somewhere, only he’d forgotten where. Two tramps were having a row and someone else was sprawled, dead drunk, across the street. Raskolnikov stopped near the gaggle of women. They were chatting away in croaky voices; all wore cotton-print dresses and goatskin shoes, their heads uncovered. Some were over forty, others only seventeen or so; almost all had black eyes.
He was intrigued for some reason by the singing down below, and all that noise . . . He could hear, amid the laughter and the shrieks, someone dancing for dear life to the rollicking strains of a thin falsetto and to the strumming of a guitar, beating out the rhythm with his heels. He listened intently, dismally, pensively, stooping by the entrance and peering in.
Please, my ’ansome bobby T’ain’t no need to beat me!
sang the thin little voice. Raskolnikov was desperate to make out the words, as if they really were the key to it all.
‘Perhaps I should go in?’ he wondered. ‘Listen to them laugh! Must be the drink. Well, why don’t I get drunk too?’ ‘Won’t you come in, kind master?’ asked one of the women in a voice that still carried and was not yet completely hoarse. She was young and not even repulsive – unlike the rest of the group. ‘Well you’re a nice one!’ he replied, straightening up to look at her.
She smiled, delighted by the compliment. ‘You’re very nice yourself, sir,’ she said. ‘He’s skin and bones!’ remarked another in a deep voice. ‘Straight out of hospital, I suppose?’ ‘Generals’ daughters and all sorts, but they’ve all got snub noses!’ interrupted a peasant who’d suddenly approached, three sheets to the wind, his thick coat open and his mug wrinkled up with sly laughter. ‘Well this is
fun!’
‘Go in, since you’ve come!’
‘Try stopping me!’
And he tumbled in.
Raskolnikov went on his way. ‘Listen, master!’ the girl shouted after him.
‘What?’ She became embarrassed. ‘Kind master, I’ll always be glad to pass some time with you, but here I am before you and I’m simply burning with shame. Won’t you spare me six copecks for a drink, my lovely?’ Raskolnikov fished out all he had: fifteen copecks.
‘Oh, what a nice sweet master!’
‘What’s your name?’ ‘Just ask for Duklida.’ ‘Well, that’s really something,’ someone in the group suddenly remarked, shaking her head at Duklida. ‘Search me how you can ask like that! I’d die from the shame of it . . .’
Raskolnikov looked curiously at the speaker. She was a pockmarked girl of about thirty, covered in bruises, with a fat lip. She made her criticisms calmly and seriously. ‘Where was it?’ thought Raskolnikov, walking on. ‘Where was it I read how a man sentenced to death, an hour before he was due to die, said or thought that if he were obliged to live somewhere very high up, on a cliff, on a ledge with room for a pair of feet and nothing more, while all around him were chasms, the ocean, eternal gloom, eternal solitude and eternal tempest, and he had to stay like that, standing on one square yard, for the rest of his life, for a thousand years, for eternity – then he’d rather live like that than die there and then? To live, to live, to live! No matter 28 how – just live!There’s truth in that! Lord, what truth!
Man is a scoundrel! And a scoundrel is he who calls him a scoundrel,’ he added a minute later.
He entered another street: ‘Ha! The “Crystal Palace”!
29 Razumikhin was talking about the “Crystal Palace”just earlier. Only, what was it I wanted? Oh yes, to read! . . .
Zosimov was saying that he’d read in the papers . . . ‘Any papers?’ he asked, entering an extremely spacious, even salubrious tavern, which had several rooms and few customers. Two or three were drinking tea, while in one of the far rooms there was a group of about four sitting around a table drinking champagne. Raskolnikov thought he saw Zametov among them. From a distance, though, it
was hard to be sure. ‘Well, so what?’ he thought. ‘Some vodka for you, sir?’ asked a waiter. ‘I’ll have tea. Bring me some newspapers, too, old ones, for the last five days or so, and you’ll get some drink money.’ ‘Yes, sir. Here are today’s, sir. Some vodka with that, sir?’ The old papers arrived with the tea. Raskolnikov made himself comfortable and started searching: ‘Izler – Izler –
r30Aztecs – Aztecs – Izler – Bartola – Massimo – Aztecs – Izle . . . damn it all! Ah, the titbits: woman falls from a landing – tradesman drinks himself to death – fire in Peski – fire on Petersburg Side – another fire on Petersburg Side – another fire on Petersburg Side – Izler – Izler – Izler – Izler – Massimo . . . Ah, here we are . . .’ He’d finally found what he was after and started reading; the lines seemed to jump about as he read, but he got to the end of the ‘report’ all the same and hungrily set about searching in subsequent issues for further additions.
Flicking through them, his hands shook with convulsive impatience. Suddenly, someone sat down beside him at his table. He glanced up – Zametov, the very same, and looking just the same, with his jewels, his chains, the parting in his curly and pomaded black hair, wearing a foppish waistcoat, a somewhat shabby frock coat and somewhat grimy linen.
He was in a jolly mood, or at least he was smiling in a very jolly and good-natured way. His swarthy face was a little flushed from champagne. ‘What! You – here?’ he began in bewilderment and in a tone that suggested a lifetime’s acquaintance. ‘But Razumikhin told me only yesterday that you still hadn’t come to. How strange! I visited you only . . .’ Raskolnikov knew he’d walk over. He set the newspapers aside and turned towards him. A grin played on his lips, betraying some kind of new, irritable impatience. ‘I know you did, sir,’ he replied. ‘You were searching for my sock, I hear . . . Razumikhin’s mad about you, says the two of you went to see Laviza Ivanovna, the one you were putting yourself out for that time and winking to Powder Keg about, but he didn’t catch your drift, remember? Quite incredible, really – it was all plain as day, eh?’ ‘Now there’s a loose cannon, if ever there was!’
‘Who, the lieutenant?’ ‘No, your friend Razumikhin . . .’
‘Some life you have, Mr Zametov. A free pass to all the nicest places! So who’s been treating you to champagne?’ ‘We were just . . . having a drink . . . Treating me indeed!’ ‘Your fee, then! It’s all grist to your mill!’ Raskolnikov laughed. ‘That’s all right, my dear sweet boy, that’s all right!’ he added, giving Zametov a light punch on the shoulder. ‘I didn’t mean it unkindly, “but loving-like, playful- like”, just like that worker of yours said when he was clobbering Mitka – you know, that business with the old
crone.’
‘And why should you know about that?’ ‘I may know more than you do.’ ‘You’re acting rather strange . . . You must still be very
sick. Should have stayed at home . . .’ ‘So I seem strange to you?’ ‘Yes. Are those newspapers you’re reading?’
‘Yes, newspapers.’ ‘There’s been a lot about fires . . .’ ‘No, I’m not reading about fires.’ He gave Zametov an enigmatic look; a derisive smile twisted his lips once more. ‘No, I’m not reading about fires,’ he went on with a wink. ‘Just admit it, my nice young man – you’re desperate to know what I was reading about, aren’t you?’ ‘Not in the least. I merely asked. What’s wrong with asking? Why are you so . . . ?’ ‘Listen, you’re an educated, literary type, are you not?’ ‘Six years at the gymnasium,’ Zametov replied with a certain pride. ‘Six years! Ah, my dear little dicky bird! With his hair parted and jewels on his fingers – a man of means! Such a sweet young boy!’ Here Raskolnikov broke into peals of nervous laughter right in Zametov’s face. Zametov shrank back, not so much offended as deeply astonished. ‘My, you’re acting strange!’ Zametov repeated very seriously. ‘Seems to me you’re still raving.’
‘Raving? You’re lying, my little dicky bird! . . . So I’m strange? All right, but I intrigue you, don’t I? Don’t I?’ ‘Yes, you do.’ ‘I mean, what was I reading about, what was I hunting for, eh? Just look how many back issues I made the waiter
lug over! Suspicious, eh?’
‘Tell me, then.’
‘Hanging on my lips, eh?’ ‘Hanging where?’ ‘I’ll explain later, but now, my dearest, I declare to you . . . no, better: “I confess” . . . No, still not right: “I testify and you record” – that’s it! I testify, then, that I read, showed interest in . . . searched for . . . hunted for . . .’ – Raskolnikov screwed up his eyes and paused – ‘hunted for anything at all – which is why I’ve come here – relating to the murder of the civil servant’s old widow,’ he uttered finally, almost in a whisper, bringing his face exceptionally close to Zametov’s. Zametov stared straight back at him, neither twitching nor flinching. Strangest of all, Zametov later thought, was the fact that the silence between them should have lasted for precisely one minute, and that they should have looked at one another like that for precisely one minute. ‘So you were reading, so what?’ he suddenly cried, in impatient bewilderment. ‘Why should I care?’ ‘It’s that same old woman,’ Raskolnikov went on in the same whisper, without a twitch, ‘the very same one, remember, who you started talking about in the bureau when I fainted. Understand now?’ ‘What are you on about? Understand what?’ asked Zametov, in near panic.
Raskolnikov’s motionless, serious face was transformed in a flash and he suddenly broke into the same nervous guffaws as before, as if quite incapable of restraining himself. And in a twinkling there came back to him with exceptional clarity of sensation one recent moment, when
he was standing behind the door, with the axe, and the latch was twitching about, and people were swearing and trying to force their way in, and he had a sudden urge to yell at them, to argue with them, stick his tongue out at them, tease them, laugh, roar, roar, roar with laughter! ‘You’re either mad or . . . ,’ said Zametov – and stopped, as if suddenly struck by a thought that had just flashed across his mind. ‘Or? Or what? Well? Go on, out with it!’ ‘Nothing!’ Zametov replied in a huff. ‘What utter nonsense!’ Both fell silent. After his sudden, convulsive burst of laughter Raskolnikov had suddenly become pensive and sad. He rested his elbow on the table and propped his head in his hand. He seemed to have entirely forgotten about Zametov. The silence lasted quite some time. ‘Why aren’t you drinking your tea? It’ll get cold,’ said Zametov. ‘Eh? What? Tea? . . . Why not . . . ?’ Raskolnikov took a swig, put a piece of bread in his mouth and suddenly, after a glance at Zametov, seemed to recall everything and even pull himself together: his face instantly regained its initial, derisive expression. He carried on drinking his tea. ‘There are so many swindlers about just now,’ said Zametov. ‘Just recently I read in theMoscow Gazette that a gang of counterfeiters has been caught in Moscow. An entire band of them. Forging lottery tickets.’ ‘Oh, that’s old news! I read that a month ago,’ Raskolnikov calmly replied. ‘So you call them swindlers, do
you?’ he added with a grin. ‘What else can you call them?’ ‘Them? They’re children, fledglings, not swindlers! Fifty people getting together for something like that! How’s that possible? Three would already be plenty, and that’s only if they trust one another more than they trust themselves! It just needs one of them to get drunk and spill the beans and
that’s that! Callow fledglings! Hiring unreliables to cash the tickets in at the bank: fancy trusting perfect strangers with a thing like that! Well, suppose the fledglings did pull it off, suppose each of them cashed a million, what then?
Until death do us part? Tied to one another for the rest of their lives? You’d be better off hanging yourself! Even cashing in the tickets was beyond them: that chap went to 31 the bank,exchanged five thousand, then his hands started shaking. He counted out four, but took the fifth on trust – anything to make a quick getaway. Well, suspicions were raised. Everything ruined by one idiot! I mean, how’s that possible?’ ‘That his hands shook?’ Zametov rejoined. ‘No, sir, that’s possible. I’m quite sure. What if you can’t take the strain?’ ‘What strain?’ ‘So you could, I suppose? I couldn’t, not a chance! A hundred roubles reward to go and face a horror like that!
To take a forged note to a bank of all places, where they’ve seen them a thousand times before – no, I’d become all flustered. Wouldn’t you?’ Once again, Raskolnikov suddenly felt a violent urge to ‘stick out his tongue’. Shivers kept running down his spine. ‘I’d go about it differently,’ he began in a roundabout way. ‘Here’s how I’d exchange the money: I’d count out the first thousand, four times or so, front to back and back to front, scrutinizing each note, then start on the next thousand; I’d start counting, get halfway, pull out a fifty- rouble note, hold it up to the light, turn it over, hold it up again – H’m, what if it’s a fake? “I fear the worst,” I’d say.
“There’s this relative of mine, well, she lost twenty-five roubles doing this the other day,” and I’d tell the story.
Then, once I’d made a start on the third thousand: “Very sorry, but I think I may have miscounted the seventh hundred in the second thousand, I’m really not sure” – so I’d put down the third and pick up the second again, and so
on for all five. And when I’d finished, I’d pull one note from the fifth and another from the second, hold it up again, look all doubtful again, ask him to change it and so on – until I’d driven the clerk to complete distraction and he no longer knew how to get rid of me! I’d get to the end eventually, head off, open the door – “Ah, very sorry” – and go back again, ask about something, request an explanation. That’s how I’d go about it!’ ‘My, what terrible things you’re saying!’ said Zametov with a laugh. ‘But talk’s cheap – I expect you’d trip up if it came to actually doing it. It’s not just the likes of you and me, even a hardened daredevil couldn’t vouch for himself here, I assure you. Just take the case of the old woman murdered in our district. A daredevil’s work and no mistake: he went for broke in broad daylight and got away with it by pure miracle – but he still couldn’t stop his hands shaking: he couldn’t go through with the robbery, couldn’t
take it, it’s obvious . . .’ Raskolnikov seemed almost offended. ‘Obvious? See if you can catch him now then!’ he shrieked, goading Zametov with malicious delight. ‘Don’t worry, he’ll be caught.’ ‘Who by? You? You’ll catch him, will you? You’ll drop dead trying! All you care about is whether or not he’s spending any money. He barely had a copeck before and now he’s started spending – so it must be him! A child could dupe you if he wanted to!’ ‘But that’s what they all do,’ replied Zametov. ‘They can kill cleverly enough, risking their lives in the process, only to get nabbed in the pothouse five minutes later.
Spending’s their downfall. They’re not as clever as you are, you see. You’d steer well clear of the pothouse, needless to say.’ Raskolnikov knitted his brow and looked intently at Zametov.
‘You’ve started enjoying this, I see, and want to know how I’d act here as well?’ he asked with distaste. ‘I would,’ replied the other firmly and seriously. It was all a bit too serious, the way he was speaking and looking.
‘Very much?’ ‘Very much.’ ‘All right. Here’s how I’d act,’ Raskolnikov began, suddenly bringing his face close to Zametov again, staring at him again and whispering again, but this time, Zametov couldn’t help shuddering. ‘Here’s what I’d do: I’d take the money and the items and immediately, without stopping off anywhere, I’d make straight for some out-of-the-way spot where there was nothing but fences and barely anyone about – a vegetable garden or something of the sort. I’d have searched the place beforehand for a forty-or fifty- pound stone, somewhere in a corner, by a fence, where it had probably lain ever since the house was built; I’d lift the stone up a little – there should be a hollow underneath – and that’s where I’d put all the items and the money. Put them there and cover them with the stone, back to how it was before, pack the earth round it with my foot and clear off. I wouldn’t touch any of it for a year, two years, three years. Catch me if you can!’ ‘You’re mad,’ said Zametov, almost whispering as well for some reason and, for some reason, suddenly drawing back from Raskolnikov. The latter’s eyes flashed; he went terribly pale; his upper lip quivered and began to twitch.
He leant over to Zametov as close as he could and began moving his lips without uttering a word. This lasted half a minute or so. He realized what he was doing, but couldn’t help himself. A terrible word twitched on his lips, like the latch on the door that time: it was on the verge of breaking loose, being released, being uttered! ‘What if it was me who killed the old woman and Lizaveta?’ he said suddenly – and came to his senses.
Zametov gave him a wild look and turned pale as a tablecloth. A smile disfigured his face. ‘But how’s that possible?’ he said, barely audibly.
Raskolnikov threw him an angry glance. ‘Admit it – you believed me. Didn’t you?’ ‘Not for a second! And now I believe it less than ever!’ said Zametov hastily. ‘Got you at last! The dicky bird’s been caught. So you must have believed it before, if now you “believe it less than ever”?’ ‘Not for one second, I say!’ exclaimed Zametov, visibly flustered. ‘Is that why you were frightening me – to lead up to this?’ ‘So you don’t believe it? Then what were you all talking about after I left the bureau that time? And why did Powder Keg grill me after my fainting fit? Hey you!’ he shouted at the servant, getting to his feet and picking up his cap. ‘How much?’ ‘Thirty copecks all told, sir,’ the servant replied, running up. ‘There, have another twenty for vodka. Just look at all this money!’ He stretched out a trembling hand full of notes to Zametov. ‘Red ones, blue ones, twenty-five roubles.
Where have they come from? And what about my new clothes? You know full well I hadn’t a copeck! The landlady’s already been questioned, I suppose . . . Well, 32 enough of this!Assez causé!Goodbye . . . andbon appétit!’ He left, shaking all over with a kind of wild hysteria mixed with unbearable delight – yet he was gloomy and terribly tired. His face was disfigured, as if after a fit. His weariness was rapidly growing. Now the merest jolt, the merest irritation, was enough to arouse and revive his strength, which weakened just as fast, together with the sensation.
Zametov, left on his own, remained in his seat for a good while longer, pondering. Raskolnikov, without meaning to, had turned all his thoughts on this familiar topic upside down and definitively made up his mind for him. ‘Ilya Petrovich is a fool!’ he decided, definitively.
Raskolnikov had barely opened the door onto the street when suddenly, right on the porch, he bumped into Razumikhin going the other way. Neither noticed the other until they very nearly bumped heads. They stood there for a while, looking each other up and down. Razumikhin was utterly astonished, but suddenly rage, real rage, flashed menacingly in his eyes. ‘So this is where you are!’ he shouted at the top of his voice. ‘Running from his sick bed! And I was looking for him under the couch! We even checked the loft! I almost gave Nastasya a thrashing thanks to you . . . And look where he is! Rodya! What’s the meaning of this? Tell me the whole truth! Confess! Do you hear?’ ‘The meaning is that I’m sick to death of all of you and I want to be alone,’ Raskolnikov calmly replied. ‘Alone? When you still can’t walk, when you’re still white as a sheet and you’re gasping for breath! Idiot! What were you up to in the “Crystal Palace”? Confess immediately!’ ‘Let me go!’ said Raskolnikov, trying to walk past. This was the last straw and Razumikhin grabbed him firmly by the shoulder. ‘Let me go? What cheek! Know what I’ll do with you now? I’ll gather you up, tie a knot around you, carry you off home under my arm and lock you up!’ ‘Listen, Razumikhin,’ Raskolnikov began quietly, with a semblance of perfect calm, ‘why can’t you see that I don’t want your good deeds? And why this urge to bestow your kindness on people who . . . spit in reply? For whom this is more than they can bear? I mean, why did you have to look me up when I fell ill? What if I were only too happy to die?
Didn’t I make it clear enough to you today that you’re
tormenting me, that I’m . . . sick and tired of you? Why this urge to torment people? It doesn’t help my recovery at all, I assure you. In fact, it’s a constant irritation. Didn’t Zosimov leave earlier so as not to irritate me? Now you should do the same, for the love of God! Anyway, what right do you have to keep me here by force? Can’t you see that I’ve got all my wits about me? What do I need to say to you – please, tell me – for you to stop pestering me and bestowing your goodness on me? Call me ungrateful, call me scum, but for the love of God just leave me alone, all of you! Just leave me!’ He’d begun calmly enough, relishing the prospect of pouring out so much venom, but he ended in a breathless frenzy, as earlier with Luzhin.
Razumikhin stood and thought for a minute, and let go of his hand. ‘Clear off, damn you!’ he said quietly and almost pensively. ‘Wait!’ he roared all of a sudden when Raskolnikov was already walking off, ‘and listen to me. I declare that you are all, to a man, blabberers and blusterers! The first prick of pain and you’ll be fussing over it like a hen over an egg! Even here you can’t help stealing from foreign authors. There’s not a spark of independent 33 life in you! Spermacetiis what you’re made of, with whey instead of blood! I don’t believe a single one of you! Your first priority, whatever the situation, is to avoid seeming human! Wait there, I say!’ he shouted with redoubled fury, noticing that Raskolnikov was on the verge of leaving again. ‘Hear me out! As you know, today’s my house- warming, the guests might have already arrived, and I left my uncle – I was just over there now – to greet them. Now if you weren’t such a fool, a second-hand fool, a triple fool, a walking translation – you see, Rodya, you’re a bright spark, I’ll give you that, but you’re a fool! – now if you weren’t such a fool, you’d come over to mine for the
evening instead of wearing out your boots for no reason.
You might as well, seeing as you can’t stay in bed! I’ll wheel in the landlord’s lovely soft armchair for you . . . A nice brew, a bit of company . . . If you’re not up to it, I’ll make up the couch – at least you can lie amongst us . . . Zosimov
will be there too. So, are you coming?’ ‘No.’ ‘Rubbish!’ Razumikhin cried impatiently. ‘How can you know? You can’t answer for yourself! And you don’t understand the first thing about this anyway . . . A thousand times I’ve fallen out with someone just like this, only to come running back . . . You’ll feel ashamed and you’ll be back! Just remember, Pochinkov’s house, third floor . . .’ ‘Carry on like this and you’ll end up begging to be beaten, Mr Razumikhin, just for the satisfaction of bestowing your goodness.’ ‘Who – me? I’ll twist their nose off just for thinking it!
Pochinkov’s house, Number 47; the apartment of civil servant Babushkin . . .’ ‘I won’t come, Razumikhin!’ Raskolnikov turned and walked off. ‘I bet you will!’ shouted Razumikhin after him. ‘Or else you . . . or else I don’t want to know you! Hey, wait! Is
Zametov in there?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’ve seen him?’
‘Yes.’
‘And spoken to him?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘What about? Ah, to hell with you – don’t bother.
Pochinkov’s house, forty-seven, Babushkin’s apartment.
Don’t forget!’ Raskolnikov reached Sadovaya Street and turned the corner. Razumikhin, deep in thought, watched him go.
Finally, with a flap of his hand, he went inside, but stopped halfway up the stairs. ‘Damn it!’ he continued, almost out loud. ‘What he says makes sense, but it’s as if . . . But then, I’m a fool too!
Who’s to say madmen can’t talk sense? Isn’t this precisely what Zosimov fears?’ He tapped his forehead with his finger. ‘Well, in that case . . . but how could I let him go off on his own? What if he goes and drowns himself? . . . What a blunder! No way!’ And he ran back to catch Raskolnikov, but the trail had gone cold. He spat and hurried back with quick steps to the “Crystal Palace”, to quiz Zametov right away.
Raskolnikov went straight on to ——sky Bridge, stopped halfway across, by the railings, rested both elbows on them and gazed out. Since leaving Razumikhin, he’d become so weak that even getting this far had been a struggle. He’d felt like sitting or lying down somewhere, in the street.
Leaning over the water, he gazed without thinking at the sunset’s last, pink gleam, at the row of houses darkening in the thickening dusk, at one distant little window, in an attic on the left bank, shining, as if on fire, with a last, momentary ray of sunlight, at the Ditch’s darkening water, which, it seemed, he was attentively examining. In the end, red circles began spinning before his eyes, buildings swayed, and everything started spinning and dancing – passers-by, embankments, carriages. He suddenly shuddered, saved from another fainting fit, perhaps, by a wild and hideous vision. He sensed someone standing close by, to his right; he glanced round – and saw a tall woman in a shawl, with a long, yellow, drink-ravaged face and reddish, sunken eyes. She was looking straight at him, but it was obvious she wasn’t seeing anything or anybody.
Suddenly she leant her right arm on the railing, lifted her right leg and swung it over the bars, then the left leg, and threw herself into the Ditch. The dirty water parted and swallowed up its offering, but a minute later the drowning
woman floated to the surface and was carried gently downstream by the current, her head and legs in the water, her back to the sky and her skirt puffed up to one side, like a pillow. ‘Drowned herself! Drowned herself!’ yelled dozens of voices. People came running, both embankments were strewn with spectators, and a crowd gathered on the bridge all around Raskolnikov, pushing him and pressing against him from behind. ‘That’s our Afrosinyushka, that is!’ a woman wailed somewhere close by. ‘Save her! Pull her out, good fathers!’ ‘Boat! Boat!’ the crowd shouted.
But a boat was no longer required. A policeman ran down the steps to the Ditch, threw off his greatcoat and boots and dived into the water. He had an easy job of it: the woman had been carried to within a few feet of the steps.
He grabbed hold of her clothing with his right hand and with his left managed to seize a pole held out to him by a colleague; the woman was pulled out there and then. She was laid on the granite-slabbed steps. She came round quickly, lifted her head, sat up and started sneezing and snorting, senselessly wiping her wet dress with her hands.
She said nothing. ‘Drank herself blind, fathers,’ wailed that same woman’s voice, next to Afrosinyushka now. ‘Only t’other day she tried to do herself in, and we had to take the noose off her.
I was only going to the shop just now, left my wee girl to keep an eye on ’er – and look! She’s trading class, fathers – we’re neighbours, second house from the end, over there . . .’ The crowd was breaking up, the policemen were still attending to the rescued woman, someone shouted something about the bureau . . . Raskolnikov watched it all with a strange mixture of indifference and detachment. It began to disgust him. ‘No, it’s too vile . . . water . . . not worth it,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Nothing’s going to
happen,’ he added. ‘No use waiting. What was that about the bureau? . . . So why’s Zametov not there? It’s open till ten . . .’ He turned his back to the railing and looked around him. ‘So what’s it to be? Well, why not?’ he said decisively, left the bridge and set off in the direction of the bureau. His heart felt hollow, desolate. He’d no wish to think. Even his anguish had passed, with not a trace of the energy he’d felt before when he left his room ‘to put an end to it all!’ Total apathy had taken its place. ‘Well, it’s one way out!’ he thought, walking at a gentle, sluggish pace along the bank of the Ditch. ‘I really will end it, because I want to . . . But is it actually a way out? Never mind! I’ll have my one square yard – heh-heh! Still, a funny sort of end! And is it the end? Will I tell them or won’t I? Oh . . . damn this! I’m tired. If only I could lie down or sit down somewhere! It’s all so stupid, that’s the most shameful thing. But so what? Ugh, such stupid thoughts . . .’ The bureau was straight ahead, second left: a stone’s throw away. But on reaching the first turning he stopped, thought for a moment, turned into the lane and went the long way round, along two streets – aimlessly, perhaps, or perhaps in order to buy himself some more time, even if it was only a minute. He walked with his eyes fixed to the ground. Suddenly it was as if somebody whispered something into his ear. He raised his head and saw that he was standing bythat house, right next to the gates. Since 34 that evening,he’d never been here or even walked past.
An irresistible, inexplicable urge was drawing him on. He turned in, went straight under the arch, took the first entrance on the right and started climbing the familiar stairs to the fourth floor. The narrow, steep stairwell was very dark. He paused on each landing and looked around curiously. On the first-floor landing the window frame had been removed entirely. ‘It wasn’t like that before,’ he
thought to himself. And here was the second-floor apartment where Mikolai and Mitka had been working. ‘Locked, and the door’s freshly painted; so now it’s being let.’ Now the third floor . . . and the fourth . . . ‘Here!’ Bewilderment seized him: the door to this apartment was wide open; there were people inside; he could hear voices.
It was the last thing he’d expected. After a moment’s hesitation he climbed the last steps and entered the apartment.
It, too, was being done up; there were workmen inside; he felt almost shocked. For some reason he’d imagined finding everything just as he’d left it, with even the corpses, perhaps, still lying in their same positions on the floor. Instead: bare walls, no furniture. Strange! He went over to the window and sat on the sill.
There were only two workmen, both young lads, one far younger than the other. They were hanging up new wallpaper – white, with lilac flowers, in place of the yellow, frayed and worn paper that had been there before. For some reason, Raskolnikov was terribly put out by this; he looked at the new wallpaper with hostility, as though sorry to find everything so changed.
The lads must have dawdled after work and were now hurriedly rolling up their paper and preparing to go home.
They barely noticed Raskolnikov’s appearance. They were talking about something. Raskolnikov folded his arms and began to listen. ‘So she comes to see me one morning,’ the older lad was saying to the younger one, ‘bright and early, all tarted up.
“And what d’you think you’re doing,” I say, “meloning and 35 lemoningabout in front of me?” “What I want, Tit Vasilych,” she says, “is to be at your beck and call from this day on.” Well, blow me down! And my, how she was dressed: a magazine, if ever there was!’
‘What’s a magazine, ol’ man?’ asked the young lad.
Evidently, he was the ‘ol’ man’s’ pupil. ‘A magazine, sonny, is lots of pictures, all coloured in, that get to our tailors every Saturday in the post, from abroad, to tell people how to dress – the male sex no less than the females. Drawings, if you like. The male sex is nearly always shown in them fur-collar frock coats, but in the female department – blimey, gorgeous tarts like you wouldn’t believe!’ ‘This city of Peter’s got it all!’ shouted the younger one enthusiastically. ‘Excepting Mum and Dad, of course!’ ‘Everything, sonny, ’cept that,’ decreed the other sententiously.
Raskolnikov got up and went to the other room, where the box, the bed and the chest of drawers had been before; now the room seemed horribly small without furniture. The wallpaper was still the same, but the space in the corner where the icon-case had once stood was clearly marked on it. He had a look and went back to his little window. The older workman was studying him out of the corner of his eye. ‘What are you wanting, sir?’ he suddenly asked.
Instead of replying Raskolnikov stood up, went out to the landing, grabbed hold of the little bell and tugged. The same bell, the same tinny sound! He tugged it a second time, and a third; he listened hard, remembering. The excruciatingly awful, hideous sensation of before was coming back to him ever more clearly and vividly; he shuddered with each ring, and found it ever more pleasurable. ‘So what are you after? Who are you?’ the workman shouted, coming out towards him. Raskolnikov went back inside. ‘I want to rent an apartment,’ he said. ‘I’m having a look round.’
‘Digs aren’t rented out at night. Anyway, you should’ve come with the caretaker.’ ‘The floor’s been washed. Will it be painted?’ continued
Raskolnikov. ‘So there’s no blood?’ ‘What blood?’ ‘An old woman was murdered here, with her sister. There was a big puddle right here.’ ‘What sort of man are you?’ shouted the workman
uneasily.
‘Me?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘You’d like to know, would you? . . . Let’s go to the bureau, then I’ll say.’ The workmen looked at him in bewilderment. ‘It’s late, sir, we should be gone by now. Come on, Alyoshka, time to lock up,’ said the older workman. ‘All right, let’s go!’ Raskolnikov replied indifferently and went out first, walking slowly down the stairs. ‘Hey, caretaker!’ he shouted when he came out under the arch.
Several people were standing right by the building’s main entrance, gawking at passers-by: both caretakers, a woman, a tradesman in a dressing gown and someone else.
Raskolnikov went straight up to them. ‘What d’you want?’ one of the caretakers asked.
‘Been to the bureau?’
‘Just now. What d’you want?’
‘Are they at their desks?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And the assistant was there?’ ‘For a bit. Well, what d’you want?’ Raskolnikov didn’t reply and stood alongside them, deep in thought. ‘Came to look at the digs,’ said the older workman,
walking up. ‘What digs?’
‘Where we’re working now. “Why’s the blood been washed off?” he says. “There was a murder here,” he says, “and I’ve come to rent the place.” Then he starts ringing the bell, nearly tears the thing off. “Let’s go to the bureau,” he says. “I’ll prove it all there.” A right pest.’ Bewildered, the caretaker scrutinized Raskolnikov and frowned. ‘So who are you?’ he shouted more threateningly. ‘I’m Rodion Romanych Raskolnikov, a former student, and I live in Shil’s house in one of the lanes around here, apartment Number 14. Ask the caretaker . . . he knows me.’ Raskolnikov said all this in a lazy and pensive kind of way, without turning round, his eyes fixed on the darkened
street.
‘So why did you go up to the digs?’
‘To have a look.’ ‘A look at what?’ ‘Why don’t we take him down to the bureau?’ the tradesman suddenly butted in, and fell silent.
Raskolnikov glanced at him over his shoulder, gave him an attentive look and said just as quietly and lazily: ‘Let’s go!’ ‘Too right!’ replied the tradesman, livening up. ‘What did he bringthat up for? What’s on his mind, eh?’ ‘He don’t look drunk, but God only knows,’ muttered the worker. ‘What do you want?’ the caretaker shouted again, becoming seriously angry. ‘You’re a damned nuisance!’ ‘Too scared to go to the bureau, then?’ scoffed Raskolnikov. ‘Scared of what? You’re a damned nuisance!’ ‘Con man!’ shouted the woman. ‘You’re wasting your breath with the likes of him!’ shouted the other caretaker, an enormous peasant with a wide-open coat and keys under his belt. ‘Scram! . . . Con man’s about right for you . . . Scram!’
Grabbing Raskolnikov by the shoulder, he hurled him into the street. Raskolnikov almost tumbled head over heels, but managed to straighten himself up just in time, cast a silent glance over all the spectators and went on his
way. ‘A queer fish,’ said the worker. ‘Like lots of folk nowadays,’ said the woman. ‘I’d still’ve taken him down to the bureau,’ added the tradesman. ‘Best stay out of it,’ the big caretaker decided. ‘Con man and no mistake! That’s his game – pulls you in and you’ll never pull yourself out . . . I know the score!’ ‘So, am I going or aren’t I?’ thought Raskolnikov, stopping in the middle of the crossroads and looking about him, as if he were expecting someone to utter the last word one way or another. But there was no response from anywhere; everything was desolate and dead, like the stones on which he trod, dead for him, for him alone . . .
Suddenly, far off, some two hundred yards away, at the end of the street, in the thickening gloom, he made out a crowd, voices, cries . . . Amidst the crowd stood some kind of carriage . . . A light flickered in the middle of the street. ‘What’s this?’ Raskolnikov turned right and made for the crowd. He seemed to be clutching at everything, and a cold smile crossed his face as he thought this: he’d made up his mind about the bureau now, and he was quite certain that all this was just about to end.
