I
He lay like that for a very long time. Occasionally, he even seemed to wake up, and at such moments he noticed that night had long since fallen, but the thought of getting up did not occur to him. Eventually, he noticed it was already as bright as day. He lay supine on the couch, still dazed after his recent trance. The rasping sounds of terrible, desperate screams from the street reached his ears, the same sounds, in fact, that he listened out for beneath his window every night between two and three. It was this that had woken him up. ‘Ah! The drunks are pouring out of the dens,’ he thought, ‘so it’s gone two,’ and he suddenly jumped to his feet, as though someone had yanked him off the couch. ‘What? Gone two already?’ He sat down on the couch – and everything came back to him! Suddenly, all at once!
For a second or two he thought he’d go mad. He felt freezing cold; but the cold came from the fever as well, which had set in while he was sleeping, some time before.
Now he was suddenly struck by a fit of shivering so violent that his teeth almost leapt from his mouth and his insides were thrown this way and that. He opened the door and listened: the whole house was fast asleep. He looked at himself and everything else in the room in complete astonishment: how on earth could he have just walked in yesterday, left the door off the latch and flung himself on the couch, without even taking off his hat, never mind his clothes: the hat had slid down to the floor, not far from the pillow. ‘If someone had walked in, what would they have thought? That I was drunk, but . . .’ He rushed over to the little window. There was enough light and he hastily set about inspecting himself, all over, from top to toe, every
item of clothing: any traces? But that was no way to do it: shaking uncontrollably, he started taking everything off and inspecting it all over again. He turned everything inside out, down to the last thread and scrap of cloth, and, not trusting himself, repeated the inspection another two or three times. But there didn’t seem to be anything, not a single trace; only where his trousers were frayed at the ends did thick traces of caked blood still remain. He grabbed his big folding knife and cut off the frayed ends.
That seemed to be it. Suddenly he remembered that the purse and the items from the old woman’s box were still in his pockets! It hadn’t even crossed his mind to take them out and hide them! He hadn’t even remembered them now, while inspecting his clothes! Why on earth not? Quick as a flash, he began taking them out and flinging them down on the table. After emptying his pockets and even turning them inside out to check he hadn’t missed anything, he carried the whole pile over to the corner. There, right in the corner, near the floor, the peeling wallpaper was torn in one place: he immediately started stuffing everything into this hole, behind the paper: ‘Done it! Out of sight, out of mind, and the purse too!’ he thought with a sense of joy, half-rising and looking dully at the corner, at the hole bulging even more than before. Suddenly, his whole body shuddered with horror: ‘God,’ he whispered in despair, ‘what’s the matter with me? Call that hidden? Call that hiding?’ True, he hadn’t reckoned on the items. He’d only expected to find money, which was why he hadn’t prepared anywhere in advance. ‘But now what have I got to be so happy about?’ he thought. ‘Call that hiding? My wits really are deserting me!’ He sat down on the couch in complete exhaustion and was immediately shaken by another unbearable fit of shivering. He reached without thinking for the winter coat lying next to him on the chair, his old student one, warm but now almost in shreds, covered
himself with it, and sleep and delirium seized him once more. Oblivion came over him.
Less than five minutes later he was back on his feet and set about his clothes once more in a kind of frenzy. ‘How could I fall asleep again, when nothing’s been done? See, see: I haven’t even taken the loop off the armpit! To forget a thing like that! A clue like that!’ He ripped out the loop and set about hurriedly tearing it to pieces, then stuffing it under the pillow, in amongst the linen. ‘Torn bits of old cloth can’t arouse anyone’s suspicion; surely they can’t, surely they can’t!’ he repeated, standing in the middle of the room. In an agony of concentration, he began looking around again, on the floor and all around – anything else he might have forgotten? The conviction that everything was deserting him – even his memory, even the ability to put two and two together – was becoming an unbearable torment: ‘What, is this it already, my punishment? Yes, that’s it, that’s it!’ The frayed ends he’d cut off from his trousers really did lie strewn across the floor, in the middle of the room, for anyone to see! ‘What on earth’s the matter with me!’ he cried out once more, as if lost.
Here, a strange thought occurred to him: what if there was blood all over his clothes, what if there were lots of stains, only he couldn’t see them, didn’t notice them, because his ability to think had been shot to pieces? . . . His mind had gone dark . . . Suddenly, he remembered: there was blood on the purse as well. ‘Ha! So there must be blood in the pocket, too – the purse was still wet when I put it there!’ In a flash, he turned out the pocket and there they were – traces and stains on the lining! ‘So my wits haven’t deserted me completely yet, nor my memory, and I can still put two and two together, if I caught myself in time!’ he exulted, breathing a deep and joyful sigh. ‘This is just weakness brought on by fever, a moment’s delirium’ – and he ripped out the entire lining from his left trouser pocket.
At that moment a ray of sunlight fell on his left boot: the
sock poking out of it seemed to have some kind of marks on it. He kicked off the boot: ‘Yes, marks! Look, the toe’s all soaked in blood’; he must have stepped in that puddle of blood by mistake . . . ‘Now what? What do I do with this sock, the trouser ends, the pocket?’ He gathered it all up in one hand and stood in the middle of the room. ‘Bung it all in the stove? But that’s the first place they’ll look! Burn it? What with? I haven’t even got matches. No, I’m better off going out and getting rid of the whole lot somewhere. Yes! Get rid of it!’ he repeated, sitting down on the couch again. ‘And do it now, this very minute, without delay!’ But no: once again, his head sank back onto the pillow; once again an unbearable fit of shivering turned him to ice; once again he reached for his greatcoat. And for a long time, for several hours, the words kept coming back to him in waves: ‘Just go somewhere, right now, don’t put it off, get rid of it all, out of sight, the sooner the better!’ Several times he made as if to get up from the couch, but he was no longer able to. Not until there was a loud knock on the door did he wake up fully. ‘Open up if you’re still alive! Won’t he ever stop snoozing?’ shouted Nastasya, banging on the door with her fist. ‘Snoozes all day long, like a dog! A dog – that’s what he
is! Open up. It’s gone ten.’ ‘What if he’s out?’ came a man’s voice. (‘Ha! The caretaker . . . What does he want?’) He sat up with a jerk. His heart was thumping so hard it even hurt. ‘Who put the door on the hook, then?’ Nastasya objected. ‘So he’s locking himself in now, eh? Scared of being stolen, I s’pose. Open up, egghead, wakey, wakey!’ (‘What do they want? Why’s the caretaker come? The story’s out. Resist or open? Ah, to hell with it . . .’) He leant forward and lifted the hook.
The dimensions of his room were such that he could lift the hook without getting up from his bed.
Just as he thought: the caretaker and Nastasya.
There was something strange about the way Nastasya looked him up and down. He threw a defiant and desperate glance at the caretaker. The latter silently handed over a grey piece of paper folded in two and sealed with bottle wax. ‘A summons, from the bureau,’ he said, giving him the
piece of paper. ‘What bureau . . . ?’ 1‘The police want to see you, that’s what, in the bureau.
You know which bureau.’ ‘The police? . . . What for?’ ‘How should I know? They’re asking, so you’d better go.’ He looked at him closely, glanced around the room and turned to leave. ‘Sick as a parrot, aren’t you?’ Nastasya remarked, never taking her eyes off him. The caretaker also glanced back before leaving. ‘Running a fever since yesterday,’ she added.
He made no reply and held the piece of paper, still sealed, in his hands. ‘You’d best stay in bed,’ Nastasya went on, taking pity as she watched him lower his feet to the floor. ‘Stay put if you’re sick: that can wait. What’s that in your hand?’ He looked down: his right hand held the snipped-off trouser ends, the sock and the shreds of the ripped-out pocket. He’d slept with them like that. Later on, turning all this over in his mind, he recalled how, half-waking with fever, he’d clench it all fiercely in his hand and fall asleep again. ‘A regular scrap collector – he even sleeps with ’em, like hidden treasure . . .’ And Nastasya went into fits of her unhealthy, nervous laughter. Quick as a flash, he stuffed everything under his greatcoat and fastened his eyes on her. Though he could barely think straight, he sensed that
this was not how a man being taken away would be treated. ‘But . . . the police?’ ‘What about that tea, then? I can bring what’s left . . .’ ‘No . . . I’m going. I’ll go right now,’ he muttered, getting
to his feet.
‘You’ll not even get down the stairs.’
‘I’ll go . . .’ ‘Please yourself.’ She followed the caretaker out. He rushed over to the window to inspect the sock and trouser ends. ‘There are stains, but not very noticeable ones; it’s all mixed up with dirt, all rubbed and faded. You’d never spot anything unless you knew. So Nastasya, thank God, couldn’t have seen anything from where she was!’ Then, in trepidation, he unsealed the summons and began reading; he read for a long time before he could understand what he was reading.
It was an ordinary summons from the local police bureau to present himself that very same day, at half past nine, to the district superintendent. ‘It’s unheard of! What business have I ever had with the police? And why today of all days?’ he thought, racked with confusion. ‘Lord, the sooner the better!’ He was about to fall to his knees in prayer, only to burst out laughing – at himself, not the prayer. He began hurriedly getting dressed. ‘If I’m done for, I’m done for – so be it! The sock!
Put it on!’ suddenly occurred to him. ‘It’ll get even dustier and dirtier, and the traces will vanish.’ But no sooner had he put it on than he immediately pulled it off in disgust and horror. He pulled it off and then, realizing it was the only one he had, put it back on again – and again burst out laughing. ‘This is all mere convention, merely relative, mere form,’ came a passing thought, glimpsed at the very edge of his mind, while his whole body shook. ‘Look, I still put it on! In the end, I still put it on!’ But laughter instantly gave way to despair. ‘No, I’m not up to it . . .’ His legs were shaking. ‘With fear,’ he muttered to himself. His head was
spinning and aching from the fever. ‘It’s a trick! They want to lure me in, then trip me up,’ he went on to himself, walking out onto the landing. ‘Too bad I’m almost raving . . . I might come out with something stupid . . .’ On the stairs he remembered he’d left all the items where they were, in the hole in the wallpaper – ‘Now, when I’m out, would be just the time for a search’ – remembered and stopped. But he was suddenly overwhelmed by such despair, by what one can only call the cynicism of doom, that he dismissed the thought and carried on. ‘The sooner the better!’ Outside, it was unbearably hot again; all these days and not a drop of rain. Again the dust, bricks and mortar, again the stink from the shops and drinking dens, again the drunks at every corner, the Finnish pedlars, the decrepit cabs. The sun shone brightly into his eyes, to the point that it became painful to look and his head spun round and round – as usually happens when you suddenly step outside with a fever on a bright sunny day.
Reaching the turn toyesterday’s street, he glanced down it atthat house with excruciating anxiety . . . and immediately looked away. ‘If they ask, I might just tell them,’ he thought, approaching the bureau.
It was a few hundred yards from where he lived to the bureau. It had just moved to new premises, a new building, the fourth floor. He’d passed by the old premises once, but a long time ago now. Going under the arch, he noticed stairs on his right and a man walking down with a book in his hands: ‘Must be the caretaker; so the bureau must be here,’ and he started climbing up, following his nose. He was in no mood to ask anyone about anything. ‘I’ll go in, fall to my knees and tell them everything,’ he thought, on reaching the fourth floor.
It was a tight, steep staircase, covered in slops. All the kitchens of all the apartments on all four floors opened on
to these stairs and stayed open nearly all day long. That was why it was so terribly stuffy. Up and down the stairs went caretakers with registers tucked under their arms, police errand boys, and assorted men and women – the visitors. The door to the bureau itself was also wide open.
He went in and stopped in the anteroom. Some peasant types were standing around waiting. It was exceptionally stuffy here, too, not to mention the nauseatingly strong smell from the freshly coated walls: damp paint made with rancid oil. After waiting a short while, he decided to press on to the next room. They were all so tiny and low. A terrible impatience drew him on. No one noticed him. Some clerks – a strange-looking lot, dressed only marginally better than he was – were sat writing in the second room.
He turned to one of them. ‘Well?’ He presented the summons from the bureau. ‘You’re a student?’ the man asked, glancing at the
summons. ‘Yes, a former student.’ The clerk looked him over, though without the faintest curiosity. He was a particularly unkempt individual, with something obsessive in his gaze. ‘You won’t learn anything from him: he doesn’t give a damn,’ thought Raskolnikov. ‘Go and see the head clerk,’ said the unkempt man, jabbing his finger in the direction of the very last room.
He entered this room (the fourth), which was cramped and filled to bursting with a somewhat smarter crowd than the others. Among the visitors were two ladies. One, dressed in humble mourning clothes, was sitting at a table opposite the head clerk, who was dictating something to her. The other lady – a very plump, crimson, blotchy, striking woman, dressed rather too lavishly with a brooch on her chest the size of a saucer – was standing to one side, waiting for something. Raskolnikov thrust his summons at
the head clerk, who took one glance at it, told him to wait and turned back to the lady in mourning.
He could breathe more freely. ‘Must be something else!’ Little by little he began to cheer up, exhorting himself as best he could to pull himself together. ‘Say something stupid or even just a tiny bit careless and you’ll give yourself away completely! H’m . . . Shame there’s no air in here,’ he added. ‘So stuffy . . . My head’s spinning even more . . . and my mind, too . . .’ Everything inside him was at sixes and sevens. He feared losing control. He tried to find something to hold on to, something to think about – something totally irrelevant – but without any success. The head clerk intrigued him greatly, though: he kept scanning his face for signs, for clues to his character. He was very young, twenty-two or so, with swarthy, mobile features that made him look older than his years, foppishly dressed, his hair parted at the back, combed and pomaded, with a great number of jewels and rings on white, brush-scrubbed fingers, and gold chains on his waistcoat. He even exchanged a few words in French – very competently, too – with a foreigner who happened to be in the room. ‘Luiza Ivanovna, won’t you sit down?’ he said in passing to the overdressed, crimson lady, who was still standing as if she dared not sit, though there was a chair right beside her. ‘Ich danke,’ she said and, with a rustle of silk, lowered herself quietly into the chair. Her light-blue dress with white lace trimmings spread out around the chair like an air balloon, taking up nearly half the room. There was a whiff of perfume. But the lady was clearly embarrassed to be taking up half the room and to be filling it with her scent, though she was smiling, too, timidly and insolently at one and the same time, albeit with evident anxiety.
The lady in mourning finally finished and started getting up. Suddenly, somewhat noisily, rolling his shoulders at
each step in a very dashing, rather emphatic way, an officer walked in, flung his service cap down on the table and sat down in an armchair. The lavish lady all but leapt from her seat on seeing him and set about curtseying with particular enthusiasm; but the officer didn’t pay her the slightest attention and she dared not sit down again in his presence.
He was a lieutenant, assistant to the superintendent, with a ginger moustache that stuck out horizontally on both sides and exceptionally small features that failed to express anything much other than a certain insolence. He looked askance and with some indignation at Raskolnikov: his clothes were too shabby for words, but his bearing was somehow at odds with them, for all his abjection; Raskolnikov, in his recklessness, had stared at the lieutenant so long and so hard he’d even managed to offend him. ‘Well then?’ shouted the lieutenant, probably amazed that this tramp had no intention of vaporizing beneath his fiery gaze. ‘An order . . . a summons . . . .,’ Raskolnikov half-replied. ‘It’s about that claim for some money, fromthe student, I mean,’ the head clerk threw out, lifting his head from his papers. ‘There you go, sir!’ He tossed Raskolnikov a notebook, after pointing to the right place. ‘Read it!’ ‘Money? What money?’ thought Raskolnikov. ‘But that means . . . it definitely can’t bethat!’ And he shuddered with joy. He suddenly felt dreadfully, inexpressibly relieved.
Everything simply fell from his shoulders. ‘And when were you told to come, gracious sir?’ shouted the lieutenant, who for some reason was taking ever greater offence. ‘Nine o’clock is what’s written and now it’s gone eleven!’ ‘It was only delivered a quarter of an hour ago,’ Raskolnikov replied loudly over his shoulder, suddenly getting angry as well, to his own surprise, and even taking
a certain pleasure in the fact. ‘It’s enough that I’m here at
all, with a fever like mine.’ ‘No need to shout!’ ‘I’m not shouting, I’m speaking perfectly calmly. You’re the one shouting; but I am a student and I will not allow myself to be shouted at.’ The assistant was so incensed that at first he couldn’t even speak and merely sputtered and spat. He leapt from his seat. ‘Kindly hold your tongue, sir! You’re on state premises.
Watch your step, I say!’ ‘You, too, are on state premises,’ shrieked Raskolnikov, ‘and not only are you shouting, you are also smoking, thereby showing us all a distinct lack of respect!’ Saying this, Raskolnikov experienced inexpressible pleasure.
The head clerk smiled at them. The fiery lieutenant was visibly flustered. ‘None of your business, sir!’ he yelled at last, more loudly than was natural. ‘Now kindly supply the statement demanded of you. Show him, Alexander Grigoryevich.
We’ve received a complaint about you! For not paying up!
You’ve got some pluck, I’ll give you that!’ But Raskolnikov was no longer listening and greedily snatched the document, desperate to see what it was all about. He read it once, twice, and still didn’t understand. ‘What is it?’ he asked the head clerk. ‘A demand for payment on a promissory note, a recovery claim. Either you pay up, including all the costs, fines and so on, or you submit a statement in writing, saying when you will be able to pay and undertaking not to leave the capital until that time and not to sell or conceal your property. The creditor, meanwhile, is free to sell your property and to deal with you in accordance with the law.’ ‘But I . . . don’t owe anyone!’ ‘That’s none of our business. What concerns us is the legitimate claim we have received for overdue payment on
a promissory note made out for one hundred and fifteen roubles, issued by yourself to the collegiate assessor’s widow Zarnitsyna nine months ago and transferred as payment to court counsellor Chebarov. Hence, we are
inviting you to make a statement.’
‘But she’s my landlady!’ ‘And what if she is?’ The head clerk looked at him with a patronizing smile of pity mixed with a note of triumph, as if Raskolnikov were a raw recruit coming under fire for the first time: ‘Now how do you feel?’ he seemed to be saying. But how could any of this – promissory notes, recovery claims – matter to him now? Did it really warrant the faintest anxiety or even a moment’s attention? He stood, read, listened, replied, even asked questions himself, but he did so mechanically. The triumph of survival, of deliverance from oppressive danger – this was what filled his entire being at that moment; no predictions or analysis, no speculations or deductions, no doubts or questions. It was a moment of complete, spontaneous, purely animal joy. But at this very same moment something like thunder and lightning erupted in the bureau. The lieutenant, still badly shaken by such shocking familiarity, ablaze with indignation and clearly desperate to avenge his wounded vanity, was now directing all his thunderbolts at the unfortunate ‘lavish lady’, who’d been looking at him, ever since he walked in, with a perfectly stupid smile. ‘And you, Mrs Whatnot,’ he suddenly yelled at the top of his voice (the lady in mourning had already left), ‘what was all that about over at yours last night? Eh? Bringing shame on the whole street again! More debauchery, more fights, more drunkenness. Suppose you fancy a stint in a house of correction! Ten times I’ve told you, Mrs Whatnot, ten times I’ve warned you that the eleventh will be one too many!
And here you are, all over again!’
The document fell from Raskolnikov’s hands and he stared wildly at the lavish lady who was being told off so unceremoniously; but he soon grasped what it was all about and immediately began to find the whole business most entertaining. He listened with such pleasure that he wanted to roar and roar with laughter . . . His nerves were all tingling inside him. ‘Ilya Petrovich!’ the head clerk began solicitously, before deciding to bide his time: there was no way of restraining the lieutenant once his blood was up other than by force, as he knew from his own experience.
As for the lavish lady, at first she simply quivered from the force of the thunder and lightning; but, strangely enough, the more frequent and the more abusive the insults became, the more courteous she seemed and the more charmingly she smiled at the menacing lieutenant.
She danced from foot to foot, dropping one curtsey after another and impatiently waiting for the moment when she, too, would be allowed to have her say; it finally came. ‘Zer vas no noise und no fighting in my haus, Herr Kapitän,’ she suddenly rapped out, scattering her words like peas, in boisterous Russian, albeit with a heavy German accent, ‘und zer vas no scandal, und he come back to haus drunken, und I tell you everysing, Herr Kapitän, und I not guilty . . . I haff honourable haus, Herr Kapitän, and honourable behaviour, Herr Kapitän, and alvays, alvays no scandal vant. Und he come back very drunken, und he three more pottles ask for, und zen he lifted one leg and begin play piano with foot, und zis very bad in honourable haus, und he break piano, und zis very, very vulgar, und I say so. Zen he pottle take and begin pushing everyone behind mit pottle. Und I begin call ze caretaker, und Karl come. He take Karl und black eye give him, und Genriet too, und my cheek hit five times. Zis is so rude in honourable haus, Herr Kapitän, und I begin shout. Zen he open window to Ditch and begin sqveal in vindow like small
pig; vat disgrace, Herr Kapitän. Sqveal, sqveal, sqveal, like little pig! Vat disgrace! Foo-foo-foo! Und Karl grab him behind mit tails und take him from vindow, und zen – zis is true, Herr Kapitän – he tear sein tailcoat. Und zen he shout zat Karl muss fifteen roubles fine pay. Und I myself, Herr Kapitän, him five roubles for sein tailcoat pay. Und he dishonourable guest, Herr Kapitän, und great scandal making! I will have big satire in all ze papers about you
gedruckt, he say.’ ‘A scribbler, I suppose?’ ‘Yes, Herr Kapitän, und such dishonourable guest, Herr Kapitän, in such honourable haus . . .’ ‘All right, all right! Enough! If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you . . .’ ‘Ilya Petrovich!’ said the head clerk again with meaning.
The lieutenant glanced in his direction and the head clerk gave the faintest of nods. ‘... So here’s what I’ll say to you, most esteemedLaviza 2 Ivanovna,and I’m saying it for the very last time,’ the lieutenant went on. ‘One more scandal in your honourable house and I’ll have your guts for garters, as ze poets say.
Got it? So, you say, a scribbler, a writer, earned five roubles in an “honourable house” for a coat-tail. A fine lot, these writers!’ he exclaimed, with a contemptuous glance at Raskolnikov. ‘There was another scene in a tavern a couple of days ago: he’d eaten, but didn’t want to pay. “I’ll write you up in a satire instead,” he said. Then there was that chap on a steamer last week who heaped the vilest abuse on the respected family of a state counsellor, his wife and daughter. And another who recently got himself chucked out of a pastry shop. That’s what they’re like, these writers, scribblers, students, town criers . . . Ugh! Well, clear off then! I’ll be paying you a visit myself . . . so watch your step! Got it?’
With precipitate civility, Luiza Ivanovna set about curtseying in all directions and curtsied her way back to the door; but in the doorway, still walking backwards, she bumped into a rather striking officer with a fresh, open face and quite magnificent thick blond whiskers. This was Nikodim Fomich himself, the district superintendent. Luiza Ivanovna hastily curtsied almost to the floor and flew out of the bureau with quick, mincing, bouncing steps. ‘Making a racket again, more thunder and lightning, a tornado, a hurricane!’ remarked Nikodim Fomich to Ilya Petrovich in an amiable, friendly way. ‘I see they’ve got you all worked up again, boiling over again! I could hear you from the stairs.’ ‘Come off it!’ said Ilya Petrovich with well-bred nonchalance (and not so much ‘off it’ as ‘orf it’), taking some documents or other over to another table and lifting his shoulders theatrically with each step. ‘Please judge for yourself: Mr Writer here, or should I say Mr Student or rather former student, won’t pay, having written out one promissory note after another, won’t vacate the apartment, is the subject of endless complaints, yet still has the temerity to rebuke me for lighting a papirosa in his presence! His behaviour is simply disgraceful, and anyway, just take a look at him: a fine specimen!’ ‘Poverty is no sin, my friend, but why all the fuss? You’re a powder keg, as everyone knows, and you can’t take an insult. I expect he insulted you first, so you lashed out,’ Nikodim Fomich went on, courteously addressing Raskolnikov, ‘but you really shouldn’t have done: he’s the noblest of men, let me assure you, the noblest, but he’s gunpowder! Flares up, sizzles away, burns out – and that’s that! Finished! And all that’s left is the gold in his heart!
Lieutenant Powder Keg, that’s what they called him in the regiment . . .’ ‘And what a regiment that was!’ exclaimed Ilya Petrovich, delighted at being so agreeably tickled, though still in a
huff.
Raskolnikov had a sudden urge to say something exceptionally nice to them all. ‘Have a heart, Captain,’ he began very freely, turning all of a sudden to Nikodim Fomich, ‘and put yourself in my shoes for a moment . . . I’m even prepared to offer him an apology, if I’ve shown a lack of respect. I’m a poor, sick student, dejected’ (that was his exact word: ‘dejected’) ‘by poverty. I’m aformer student, because I can’t support myself at the moment, but I’m expecting some money . . .
My mother and sister live in —— province . . . They’re sending me some and I’ll . . . pay. My landlady’s a kind woman, but she’s so angry with me for losing my teaching and not paying four months in a row that she won’t even send up meals . . . And as for the promissory note – I haven’t a clue what you mean! She’s waving that IOU at me, but what can I pay her with? Judge for yourselves!’ ‘But that’s none of our business . . . ,’ the head clerk tried to put in again. ‘Quite so, I couldn’t agree more, but kindly allow me to put my side of the story,’ Raskolnikov rejoined, still addressing Nikodim Fomich rather than the head clerk, while making every effort to address Ilya Petrovich at the same time, even though the latter kept up a stubborn pretence of rummaging through his papers and contemptuously ignoring him. ‘Allow me to explain, for my part, that I’ve been living at hers for about three years now, ever since I arrived from the provinces, and before . . . before . . . well, why don’t I just admit it? You see, I gave her my word right from the start that I’d marry her daughter, a verbal promise, freely undertaken . . . This girl was . . . well, I even took a fancy to her . . . though I wasn’t in love with her . . . youth, in a word . . . What I mean is, my landlady lent me plenty of money at the time and the life I led was, to a certain extent . . . well, I was very frivolous . . .’
‘Nobody’s asking you for such intimacies, sir, and there’s no time for them anyway,’ Ilya Petrovich interrupted, rudely and gloatingly, but Raskolnikov rushed to cut him short, even though he was suddenly finding it terribly difficult to speak. ‘But kindly allow me, if you would, to tell the whole story . . . to explain how it was . . . for my part . . . though it’s quite unnecessary, I agree . . . but a year ago this young girl died of typhus, while I stayed on as a lodger, and the landlady, when she’d moved into the apartment she has now, said to me . . . in a friendly way . . . that she had every confidence in me and so on . . . but wouldn’t I like to write her a promissory note for one hundred and fifteen roubles, which, according to her sums, was what I owed her? Take note, sir: she specifically said that just as soon as I gave her that document she’d once again lend me as much as I wanted and that never, never, for her part – these were her exact words – would she take advantage of this document, until I paid up myself . . . And now, just when I have lost my teaching and have nothing to eat, she goes and files a recovery claim . . . So what can I say?’ ‘All these sentimental details, honourable sir, do not concern us,’ Ilya Petrovich insolently broke in. ‘You must supply a statement and an undertaking, and as for being in love and all these tragic particulars, well, we couldn’t care less.’ ‘Well really . . . that’s a bit harsh . . . ,’ muttered Nikodim Fomich, sitting down to sign some papers as well. He felt almost ashamed. ‘Go on, write,’ the head clerk told Raskolnikov. ‘Write what?’ asked the latter in a particularly rude sort
of way. ‘I’ll dictate.’ It seemed to Raskolnikov that the head clerk had become more casual and scornful towards him after his confession, but, strangely enough, he suddenly felt utterly indifferent
to anyone else’s opinion, and this change had come about just like that, in a flash. Had he chosen to pause for a moment’s thought, then he would of course have been amazed: how could he have spoken to them like that, just a moment ago, and even thrust his feelings upon them? And where had they come from, these feelings? Now, on the contrary, if the room had suddenly filled up not with police officers but with his bosom friends, even then, it seemed, he could have found no human words for them, so empty had his heart suddenly become. A gloomy sensation of excruciating, endless solitude and estrangement suddenly communicated itself consciously to his soul. His abject effusions before Ilya Petrovich, the lieutenant’s abject gloating – it was not these that had suddenly turned his heart inside out. Oh, what did any of it matter to him now: his own despicable behaviour, all this vanity, these lieutenants, German ladies, recovery claims, bureaus, etcetera, etcetera? Had he been sentenced to the stake at this moment, even then he would not have stirred, even then he would scarcely have bothered listening to the sentence. Something entirely unfamiliar was happening to him, something new, sudden and completely unprecedented. He did not so much understand as sense, with the full force and clarity of his senses, that he no longer had anything to say to these people in the local police bureau, never mind exhibitions of sentiment, and had they all been his very own brothers and sisters and not district lieutenants, even then there would have been no point talking to them, whatever life threw in his path; never before had he experienced such a strange and dreadful sensation. And the most excruciating thing of all was that this was more a sensation than something conscious, something intellectual; a direct sensation, the most excruciating of all sensations experienced by him hitherto in his life.
The head clerk began dictating the statement, following the usual form in such cases, i.e., unable to pay, promise to do so on such-and-such a date (whenever), shan’t leave town, shan’t sell or give away my property, etcetera. ‘But you can’t even write – you keep dropping the pen,’ the head clerk observed, peering curiously at Raskolnikov. ‘Are you sick?’ ‘Yes . . . head’s spinning . . . Carry on!’ ‘That’s it. Now sign.’ The head clerk took the document and turned to the other people waiting.
Raskolnikov gave back the pen, but instead of getting up to leave he placed his elbows on the desk and gripped his head in his hands. As if a nail were being knocked into the crown of his head. A strange notion suddenly struck him: to get up right now, walk over to Nikodim Fomich and tell him all about yesterday, down to the very last detail, then go with them to his apartment and show them the items, in the corner, in the hole. The urge was so strong that he was already on his feet to carry it out. ‘Perhaps I should think about it first?’ flashed across his mind. ‘No, best not to think and get it over and done with!’ But he suddenly stopped dead in his tracks: Nikodim Fomich was having a heated exchange with Ilya Petrovich and their words carried over to him: ‘Impossible! They’ll release the pair of them! First off, it makes no sense: why would they call the caretaker if it was their doing? To inform against themselves? Or were they just being clever? No, that would be too clever by half! And anyway, Pestryakov, the student, was seen right at the gates by both caretakers and the tradeswoman at the very moment he walked in: he had three friends with him and he left them at the gates and asked the caretakers about accommodation while his friends were still there. You tell me: would he have started asking about accommodation if those were his intentions? And as for Kokh, before calling
on the old woman he kept the silversmith company for half an hour downstairs, then went up to see her at a quarter to eight sharp. Think about it . . .’ ‘But wait, isn’t there a glaring contradiction here: they say they knocked and the door was locked, then three minutes later, when they came back with the caretaker, it turns out to be open?’ ‘That’s just it: the killer was inside, no doubt about it, and had locked himself in; and they would have caught him, no doubt about it, if Kokh hadn’t stupidly run off to get the caretaker. And it was precisely then, during that brief interval, thathe managed to go down the stairs and somehow slip past them. Kokh crosses himself with one hand then the other, and says, “If I’d stayed put, he’d have leapt out and killed me with the axe.” Now he wants to hold a thanksgiving service in the Russian fashion, heh-heh!’ ‘So no one saw the killer?’ ‘How could they? It’s like Noah’s Ark, that house,’ the head clerk observed, listening in from his desk. ‘It’s all clear as day, clear as day!’ Nikodim Fomich
excitedly repeated. ‘Clear as mud!’ snapped Ilya Petrovich.
Raskolnikov picked up his hat and made for the door, but he didn’t reach it . . .
When he came to his senses, he saw that he was sitting on a chair, that there was someone supporting him to his right and someone else standing to his left, holding a yellow glass filled with yellow water, while Nikodim Fomich stood before him, staring at him. He got up from the chair. ‘What is it? Are you sick?’ asked Nikodim Fomich rather abruptly. ‘Even when he was signing his name, he could barely hold the pen,’ observed the head clerk, returning to his seat and busying himself with his papers again. ‘Been sick long?’ Ilya Petrovich shouted from his desk, as he, too, sorted through his papers. He, of course, had also
been studying him after he fainted, but immediately moved off when he came round. ‘Since yesterday . . . ,’ Raskolnikov muttered in reply.
‘And did you go outside yesterday?’
‘Yes.’
‘Sick?’
‘Yes.’
‘What time?’
‘Evening, after seven.’
‘And where to, may I ask?’
‘Down the street.’ ‘Clear and to the point.’ Raskolnikov, pale as a handkerchief, replied abruptly and curtly, meeting Ilya Petrovich’s gaze with his black, swollen eyes. ‘He can barely stand, and you . . . ,’ Nikodim Fomich began. ‘Don’t mind me!’ said Ilya Petrovich in a very particular tone. Nikodim Fomich was about to say something else but, taking one glance at the head clerk, who was also staring hard at him, he fell silent. Everyone suddenly fell silent. It was strange. ‘Very well, sir,’ Ilya Petrovich concluded. ‘We aren’t keeping you.’ Raskolnikov left. But he could hear an animated conversation starting up once he’d gone, with the quizzical voice of Nikodim Fomich most audible of all . . . Outside, he came round fully. ‘A search, a search – now, now!’ he repeated to himself as he hurried along. ‘They suspect me, the rascals!’ His old terror seized him once more, from top to toe.
