IV
The letter from his mother had wrung him dry. But he had not a moment’s doubt regarding the crucial, fundamental point, even while he was still reading it. The crux of the matter had been resolved in his mind and resolved for good: ‘They’ll get married over my dead body, and to hell with Mr Luzhin! ‘For it’s all perfectly obvious,’ he muttered to himself with a sneer, relishing in advance the successful outcome of his decision. ‘No, Mama, no, Dunya, you won’t fool me! . . .
They even apologize for not seeking my opinion and for arranging it all without me! I’ll say! They think it can’t be undone; we’ll see about that! What a splendid excuse: “Pyotr Petrovich is such a business-like man,” they say – so terribly business-like, in fact, that he can only get married in a post-chaise or even – why not? – in a railway carriage.
No, Dunechka, nothing escapes me and I know what it is you have to talk to me aboutso very much; I also know what it was you thought about all night long as you paced the room, and what you prayed for before the Virgin of Kazan by Mama’s bed. Climbing Golgotha is no joke. H’m . . . So, then, it’s been definitively decided: you, Avdotya 39 Romanovna,are pleased to accept the hand of a business- like and rational man with capital of his own (already with capital of his own: that’s so much more respectable, so much more impressive), who has two positions, shares the convictions of our newest generations (as Mama writes) and “seems kind”, as Dunechka herself observes. That seems tops everything! For thisseems this Dunechka is to be wed! . . . Marvellous! Simply marvellous! . . . ‘... I wonder, though, why Mama wrote to me about those “newest generations”? Was it simply to give me an idea of
the man or was there an ulterior motive: to soften me up for the benefit of Mr Luzhin? Oh, sly ones! And there’s another thing I’d like to get to the bottom of: to what extent were they open with one another, in the course of that day, that night, and all the days that followed? Was everything expressedin so many words or did each of them realize that they both had the same thing in their hearts and minds, so there was no point saying it all out loud and saying too much. The second, I expect. It’s clear from the letter that he struck Mama asa touch abrupt, and Mama in her naivety decided to share her observations with Dunya.
Naturally, Dunechka got cross and “replied a little peevishly”. I’ll say! Who wouldn’t get mad when it’s all plain as day, without any need for naive questions, and when it’s already been decided that there’s nothing more to be said. What is it she writes to me: “Rodya, love Dunya, who loves you more than she loves herself”; mightn’t this be her conscience secretly gnawing away at her for agreeing to sacrifice her daughter for her son? “You are our comfort, our everything!” Oh, Mama!’ He was positively seething with spite, and had he met Mr Luzhin now he might very well have killed him! ‘H’m, it’s true,’ he continued, following the swarm of thoughts in his head, ‘it’s true that “one must take a measured and cautious approach to get to know a person well”; but Mr Luzhin is transparent. Above all, “he is business-like andseems kind”: now we mustn’t laugh – he’s taking care of the luggage and paying for the trunk! Who’s to say he isn’t kind? And as for those two,the bride and the mother, they’re hiring some peasant, in a cart with bast matting (that’s how I used to travel, after all)! They’ll manage! A mere sixty miles, “then we’ll have ourselves a jolly time in third class” for some six hundred more. Makes perfect sense: cut your coat to suit your cloth; but how about you, Mr Luzhin? This is your betrothed, after all . . .
Surely you must have known that Mother was borrowing
for the journey against her pension? Of course, this is a joint commercial venture, with split profits and equal shares, so the outlay is also half-and-half; friendship is one thing, business another. Still, here too the business-like man has sold them short: the luggage is cheaper than their fare and it might even travel for free. Do they really not see this or don’t they want to see it? Yet they’re content, quite content! And that’s only the start of it – the best is still to come! After all, the main point here is not the stinginess, not the avarice, but thetone of it all. This is the tone of their future marriage, a sign of things to come . . . But what’s Mama doing living the fast life anyway? What will she show up in Petersburg with? Three roubles or two “nice little notes”, as that woman likes to say . . . the old one . . .
H’m! What on earth does she expect to live on in Petersburg? After all, she’s already managed to work out, for whatever reason, that it will beimpossible for her and Dunya to live together after the wedding, even only at the beginning. I expect that our nice chapsaid too much on this score and gave himself away, though Mama rushes to deny it: “I shan’t accept,” she says. What is she thinking, and who or what is she counting on: her 120-rouble pension, minus her debt to Afanasy Ivanovich? There she is knitting winter shawls, sewing cuffs, ruining her rheumy eyes. But I know for a fact that the shawls only bring in another twenty roubles a year. So they must be counting on Mr Luzhin’s noble feelings after all: “He’ll make the offer himself, he’ll insist.” Don’t hold your breath! That’s always 40the way with these beautiful souls steeped in Schiller: until the very last moment they dress man up in peacock feathers, until the very last moment they count on good, not ill, and despite their creeping suspicions they won’t admit anything to themselves in advance; the very thought disagrees with them and they’ll rush to deny the truth until their noses are rubbed in it by the man they’ve so richly
adorned. H’m, I wonder whether Mr Luzhin’s been 41 decorated. I bet he’s got St Anna in his buttonholeand that he wears it to merchants’ dinners. He’ll probably wear it to his own wedding! But to hell with him! ‘... I suppose that’s just how Mama is, God bless her, but what about Dunya? Dunechka, dearest, I know you! You’d already turned nineteen when we saw each other last: your character was already clear to me. Here’s Mama writing that “Dunechka can put up with a lot.” I was well aware of the fact. I was aware of it two and a half years ago and I’ve been thinking about it ever since, about the very fact that “Dunechka can put up with a lot.” I mean, if she can put up with Mr Svidrigailov and all the consequences, then she really can put up with a lot. And now, with Mama’s help, she’s conceived the notion that she can also put up with Mr Luzhin, who likes to hold forth about the superiority of wives rescued from beggary, with benefactors for husbands, and who does so virtually on first acquaintance.
Let’s suppose that he did “say too much”, despite his being a rational man (so perhaps, far from saying too much, he was actually in a hurry to spell everything out), but what about Dunya for heaven’s sake? The man’s transparent, but she’ll still have to live with him. I mean, she would sooner live on black bread and water than sell her soul, let alone give up her moral freedom for a life of comfort; she 42 wouldn’t give it up for all Schleswig-Holstein,never mind Mr Luzhin. No, that wasn’t the Dunya I knew, and . . . well, that’s not Dunya now! . . . Who can deny it? It’s a hard life with the likes of Svidrigailov! A hard life traipsing from one province to another, year in, year out, in search of governess jobs paying two hundred roubles, but still, I know that my sister would sooner join Negroes on a 43 plantation, or Latviansin the pay of a Baltic German, than corrupt her spirit and her moral sense through a liaison with a man she doesn’t respect and has nothing in
common with – for evermore, and for no other reason than personal gain! And even if Mr Luzhin were made of the purest gold or of solid diamond, even then she would not agree to be Mr Luzhin’s lawful concubine. So why does she agree now? What’s it all about? Where’s the key to the mystery? It’s clear enough: she won’t sell herself for her own interests, her own comfort, or even to save her skin, but she’ll sell herself for someone else! For someone dear to her, someone she adores! That’s what it’s all about: her brother, her mother – that’s what she’ll sell herself for! Sell all she’s got! Oh yes, we won’t stop at anything here, we’ll even stifle our sense of right and wrong; freedom, peace of mind, conscience – we’ll barter them all! Life be hanged, so long as our precious loved ones are happy! We’ll even indulge in some casuistry of our own, take lessons from the 44 Jesuits,and for a while we might even set our minds at rest, convince ourselves that it’s all in a good cause and there’s no other way. That’s what we’re like, and it’s all clear as day. It’s clear who’s centre stage here: Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov and no one else. Just think: what a chance to make him happy, to keep him in university, to make him a partner at the office, to secure his entire future; one day he might even become wealthy and respected, and end his life a famous man! And Mother? But this is Rodya, priceless Rodya, firstborn! No sacrifice is too great for such a son – not even that of a daughter like Dunya! Oh, sweet and unjust hearts! Even Sonechka’s fate is not to be scorned here! Sonechka, Sonechka Marmeladova, eternal Sonechka, for as long as the world stands! But have you both weighed it carefully, this sacrifice of yours? Yes? Is it bearable? Profitable?
Reasonable? Do you know, Dunechka, that Sonechka’s fate is no more sordid than the fate of being with Mr Luzhin?
“Love is out of the question here,” writes Mama. But what if it’s not just love that’s out of the question, but respect as
well, and what if instead of that there’s disgust, contempt, loathing – what then? Well, once again it will be a case of being “immaculate”. Wouldn’t you say? Do you understand what it means to be immaculate in this way – do you? Do you understand that being immaculate the Luzhin way is just the same as the Sonya way, but perhaps even worse, even more vile and despicable, because after all, Dunechka, you’re counting on a life of comfort, while there it’s simply a matter of survival or starvation! “It costs a lot to be immaculate, Dunechka, a lot!” And what if later it should all prove too much and you repent? How much sorrow and sadness, how much cursing and secret weeping, because you’re no Marfa Petrovna, are you? And what will happen to Mother then? She’s unsettled and anxious even now; but what then, when the scales fall from her eyes? And me? . . .
Whatever must you have thought of me? I don’t want your sacrifice, Dunechka, I don’t want it, Mama! Over my dead body! I don’t accept it! I won’t accept it!’ He suddenly came to his senses and broke off. ‘Over your dead body? And what will you do to stop it happening? Forbid it? What right do you have? What can you promise them in return, so as to have such a right?
That you will dedicate your entire fate to them, your entire future,when you complete your studies and receive a position? We’ve heard all that, it’s all ifs and buts; what about now? Something has to be done here and now, do you understand? And what are you doing now? Fleecing them.
You know the money comes from a hundred-rouble pension and from the Svidrigailovs’ advance! How will you protect them from the Svidrigailovs, or from Afanasy Ivanovich Vakhrushin, you millionaire of the future, you Zeus, you master of their fate? In ten years’ time? But ten years will be more than enough for your mother to go blind knitting shawls, if tears alone are not enough; she’ll wither away on bread and water. And your sister? Just think what may come of her in ten years or less? Worked it out yet?’
He taunted and tortured himself with such questions, and even found some pleasure in doing so. These questions were not new, though, and they didn’t come from nowhere; they were old, ancient sources of pain. They had begun tearing at his heart long before and had torn it to pieces.
All his current anguish had taken root in him in the far distant past, grown and accreted, until now it had ripened and distilled into the form of a dreadful, wild, fantastical question which had worn out his heart and mind, demanding to be solved. His mother’s letter struck him with the sudden force of thunder. Clearly, now was not the time for agonizing and passive suffering, for mere deliberation about the fact that the questions permitted no solution; something had to be done, the sooner the better.
He had to decide at all costs on something, anything, or else . . . ‘Or else renounce life completely!’ he suddenly cried in sheer frenzy. ‘Meekly accept fate as it is, once and for all, and stifle everything inside me, renouncing any right to act, to live, to love!’ ‘Do you really understand, good sir, what it means to have nowhere left to go?’ The question put to him yesterday by Marmeladov suddenly came to mind. ‘For every man must have at least somewhere he can go . . .’ He gave a sudden start: one of yesterday’s thoughts had shot through his mind once again. But it was not the speed of it that made him start. After all, he had known, he had sensed, that the thought would, without fail, come ‘shooting through’, and he was already expecting it; and this thought had hardly been born yesterday. The difference was this: a month ago, and even just yesterday, it was no more than a dream, while now . . . now it suddenly presented itself to him not as a dream, but in a new, threatening and quite unfamiliar form, and he’d suddenly realized this himself . . . It was like a blow to the head, and his eyes went dark.
He glanced about him in haste, looking for something.
He felt like sitting down and looked for a bench; he was 45 walking down K——Boulevardat the time. A bench appeared some hundred paces away. He quickened his step as best he could; but one small incident occurred along the way, absorbing all his attention for several minutes.
While looking for the bench, he noticed a woman walking twenty steps ahead of him, but at first he paid her no more heed than any of the other objects flitting before his eyes. It had occurred to him many times already to walk home, say, and have not the faintest memory of the route he had taken, and he was already used to walking like this. But there was something so very strange about the woman, something which immediately leapt out at him, that little by little she began to compel his attention – against his will at first, almost as a nuisance, but then with increasing force.
He was seized by a sudden urge to understand what it was about her that was so very strange. For one thing, there she was – to all appearances, a very young girl – walking bare-headed in the sultry heat, without a parasol or gloves, waving her arms about in a somehow comical manner. She wore an airy silk dress and this, too, looked very odd, being barely fastened and with a rip by the waist at the back, at the very top of the skirt; a large scrap hung down, dangling behind her. A small shawl had been thrown round her bare neck, but it stuck out crookedly to one side. To top it all, the girl was unsteady on her feet, stumbling – even staggering – this way and that. This encounter eventually claimed Raskolnikov’s full attention. He drew up with the girl right by the bench, but she collapsed at one end of it as soon as she got there, rested her head on the back of the bench and shut her eyes, as if she were utterly exhausted.
On closer inspection, he immediately realized that she was dead drunk. To observe such a scene felt strange, bizarre.
He even wondered if he were mistaken. Before him was the
extremely young face of a girl of sixteen or perhaps only fifteen – a small, blonde, pretty enough face, but all flushed and swollen-looking. The girl no longer seemed capable of understanding much; she had one leg crossed over the other, baring far more than was proper, and clearly had very little idea that she was out in the street.
Raskolnikov didn’t sit down and didn’t wish to leave, so he stood before her in bewilderment. This boulevard is rarely busy, but now, between one and two o’clock on such a sultry day, there was almost no one. And yet over there, a dozen paces away, on the far side of the boulevard, a man had stopped and everything about him indicated that he, too, was very keen to approach the girl for reasons of his own. He, too, must have spotted her from a distance and wanted to catch up with her, but Raskolnikov had got in his way. He kept throwing him angry glances, while trying not to let him notice, and was impatiently waiting for this annoying tramp to clear off. The situation was perfectly clear. The gentleman was about thirty years old, thick-set, fat, a picture of health, with pink lips and a moustache, and very foppishly dressed. Raskolnikov saw red: he had a sudden urge to insult this fat dandy in any way he could.
He left the girl for a moment and walked up to the gentleman.
46 ‘Hey you, Svidrigailov!What’re you after?’ he shouted, clenching his fists and laughing through lips foaming with anger. ‘What is the meaning of this?’ the gentleman asked sternly, knitting his brows in supercilious surprise.
‘Clear off, that’s what I mean!’ ‘How dare you, you little wretch!’ With this, he flashed his whip. Raskolnikov threw himself on him, fists flailing, without even considering that the thick-set gentleman might respond with two fists of his own. But at that very moment somebody grabbed him
firmly from behind: a police officer had come between them. ‘That’ll do, gentlemen. Have the good manners not to fight in public. What are you after? Who are you anyway?’ he asked Raskolnikov sternly, after noticing the state of his clothes.
Raskolnikov looked at him attentively. Before him was a gallant soldier’s face with a grey moustache, grey whiskers and an intelligent gaze. ‘It’s you I’m after!’ he exclaimed, grabbing him by the hand. ‘I’m a former student, Raskolnikov . . . You may as well know that, too,’ he added, turning to the gentleman, ‘and you, come along with me, I’ve something to show you . . .’ He dragged the policeman over to the bench. ‘Just look at her – dead drunk. Just now she was walking down the boulevard: who knows what kind of family she’s from, but it doesn’t look like she’s on the game. Much more likely that she was plied with drink somewhere and tricked . . . her first time . . . understand? And then just thrown out on the street. Look at the rip in her dress and look how it hangs on her: she can’t have dressed herself. She was dressed, and clumsily so – a man’s work. That’s obvious.
And now look over here: this dandy, who I was picking a fight with just now, is a complete stranger to me – I’ve never seen him before; but he also spotted her, drunk and insensible, as he was passing just now, and now he desperately wants to go up and grab her – seeing as she’s in such a state – and take her off somewhere . . . I’m sure of it. Trust me. I could see myself that he was observing and following her, but I got in his way and now he’s just waiting for me to leave. He’s moved off a little; look at him standing there, pretending to roll a papirosa . . . How can we stop him? How can we get her home? Think of something!’ The policeman grasped the situation at once. The fat gentleman was no mystery, of course, but the girl? The
officer leant over to take a better look, and sincere compassion was etched on his face. ‘A crying shame!’ he said, shaking his head. ‘All but a child. Tricked, and no two ways about it. Listen, miss,’ he addressed her, ‘may I ask where you live?’ The girl opened her tired, dazed eyes, looked dully at her interrogators and waved them away. ‘Here,’ said Raskolnikov, rummaging about in his pocket and eventually fishing out twenty copecks. ‘Here, hail a cab, and give the driver her address. The address, that’s all we need to know!’ ‘Well, miss?’ the policeman began again, taking the money. ‘I’m going to hail you a cab and I’ll accompany you myself. Where should we take you? Eh? Where do you reside?’ ‘Push off! . . . Pests!’ the girl muttered, waving them away again. ‘Dear oh dear! A shameful business, miss, a shameful business!’ He shook his head again, in shame, pity and indignation. ‘A fine pickle!’ he added, turning to Raskolnikov, before looking him up and down once more.
He, too, must have looked odd to him: in rags like those and handing out money! ‘Did you find the young lady far from here?’ he asked him. ‘As I said: she was walking ahead of me, staggering, right here on the boulevard. She collapsed just as soon as she reached the bench.’ ‘Lord, what a world we’re living in! An ordinary lass like her and already drunk! Tricked, and no two ways about it!
Look, even her dress is ripped . . . Depravity, wherever you look! . . . Wouldn’t surprise me if she’s of gentry blood, the poorer kind . . . They’re ten to a dozen nowadays. Looks a delicate sort, just like a gentry girl,’ and he leant over her once more.
Perhaps he had daughters of his own who were also growing up ‘just like gentry girls, delicate sorts’, with all the airs of good breeding and second-hand fashion . . . ‘The main thing,’ Raskolnikov fussed, ‘is to stop this scoundrel having his way with her! Are we going to let him abuse her as well? It’s blindingly obvious what he’s after; and look, he’s still there!’ Raskolnikov was speaking loudly and pointing straight at him. The other man heard him and was on the point of losing his temper again, but thought better of it and restricted himself to a contemptuous glance. Then he slowly retreated a further ten paces or so and halted once more. ‘We can stop him all right, sir,’ replied the officer, thinking it over. ‘If only the young lady can tell us where to take her . . . Eh, miss? Miss?’ Again he leant over.
She suddenly opened her eyes wide, took a good hard look, as though she had finally understood something, got up from the bench and headed off in the direction from which she’d come. ‘Shameless . . . pests!’ she said with another flap of her arms. She walked off briskly, though staggering just as much as before. The dandy followed her, but along another alley, never taking his eyes off her. ‘I’ll stop him, don’t you worry,’ said the policeman decisively, and set off after them. ‘Dear, dear – depravity, wherever you look!’ he repeated with a sigh.
At that very moment Raskolnikov felt as if he’d been stung; as if, in a flash, he’d been turned inside out. ‘Hey, listen!’ he shouted to the man with the moustache.
The policeman turned around. ‘Forget about it! What’s it to you? Just drop it! Let him have his fun.’ (He pointed at the dandy.) ‘What’s it to you, I say?’ The policeman failed to understand and stared at him wide-eyed. Raskolnikov burst out laughing.
‘Good grief!’ the policeman uttered with a dismissive wave of the hand, then headed off after the dandy and the girl, probably taking Raskolnikov for a madman or worse. ‘He’s taken my twenty copecks,’ Raskolnikov, left on his own, muttered angrily. ‘Well, he can take some off that man as well, leave him the girl and end of story . . . What on earth was I doing, offering to help? Me – helping? Do I even have the right? They can eat each other alive – what’s it to me? And how dare I give those twenty copecks away? Were they really mine?’ Despite these strange words, he felt quite wretched. He sat down on the abandoned bench. His thoughts were in disarray . . . In fact, at that moment it was hard for him to think about anything at all. Total oblivion was what he wanted: to forget everything, then wake up and begin afresh . . . ‘Poor girl!’ he said, glancing at the empty corner of the bench. ‘She’ll come round, have a cry, then her mother will find out . . . First she’ll beat her a bit, then she’ll whip her, hurting her and shaming her, then she might even throw her out . . . And even if she doesn’t, some Darya Frantsevna or other will sniff her out, and my girl will start doing the rounds . . . Then it’s straight off to hospital (that’s always the way with girls who live with very honest mothers and misbehave on the quiet) and then . . . well . . . back to hospital . . . booze . . . the pothouse . . . the hospital again . . . and within two or three years you’ve got yourself a cripple, her whole life over at the age of nineteen or less . . . Haven’t I seen girls like that? And how did they get there?
That’s how they got there, all of them . . . Pah! So be it!
That’s how it should be, they say. A certain percentage, they say, must go that way every year . . . Which way? . . .
To the devil, I suppose, so as to freshen up the rest and not 47 get in their way. Percentage!What lovely words they use: so soothing, so scholarly. You hear a word like that and
wonder what on earth you were worrying about. Now if it were a different word, you might feel a little less comfortable . . . But what if Dunechka also ended up in that percentage . . . and if not that one, then another? ‘But where am I going?’ he suddenly wondered. ‘How strange. After all, I must have gone out for a reason. I read the letter and set off right away . . . To Vasilyevsky Island, to see Razumikhin, that’s where I was going . . . I remember now. But still, what was the reason? And why on earth did the thought of visiting Razumikhin enter my head now of all times? Quite astonishing.’ He marvelled at himself. Razumikhin was one of his old university friends. It was a remarkable fact that Raskolnikov had hardly made any friends at university; he kept his distance, never called on anyone and was a reluctant host. People soon gave up on him. Meetings, conversations, amusements – somehow, he avoided them all. He never spared himself in his studies, and for this he was respected; but nobody liked him. He was very poor and somehow haughty in his pride and unsociability, almost as if he were hiding something. Some of his peers had the impression that he looked down on them all as if they were children, as if he had outstripped them all in his development, knowledge and convictions, and that he viewed their convictions and interests as simply beneath him.
For some reason, though, he got along well with Razumikhin, or rather, he was more sociable, more open with him. In truth, there was no other way of responding to Razumikhin. He was an unusually cheerful and sociable lad, kind to the point of simplicity. This simplicity concealed both depth and virtue. The best of his friends understood this, and everybody liked him. He was far from stupid, if occasionally dim. His appearance was very striking – tall, thin, ill-shaven, raven-haired. He could be rowdy and was known for his strength. One night, among friends, he felled
a seven-foot reactionary with a single blow. He could drink like a fish, but he could also not drink at all; he could lark about and go too far, and he could rein himself in.
Razumikhin was remarkable in yet another way: no failure could ever ruffle him, just as no circumstance was ever bad enough, it seemed, to bring him down. He could pitch his tent on a roof if he had to, endure hellish hunger and the bitterest cold. He was dirt poor yet persisted in supporting himself all on his own, taking odd jobs to get by. He knew any number of sources from which he could draw (by working, of course). Once, he survived a whole winter without heating his room and claimed that he even preferred it that way, because you sleep better in the cold.
Now he, too, had been forced to leave university, but not for long, and he was straining every sinew to put things right and continue his studies. Raskolnikov hadn’t been to see him for a good four months, while Razumikhin didn’t even know where his old friend lived. There was one occasion, some two months previously, when they had almost met in the street, but Raskolnikov turned away, even crossing to the other side to avoid being noticed.
Razumikhin noticed him, but walked past, not wishing to trouble hisfriend.
