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Re: Достоевский Ф. М. - Преступление и наказание в переводе на английский

"I meant to say... as I was coming here... I meant to tell you,
mother, and you, Dounia, that it would be better for us to part for
a time. I feel ill, I am not at peace.... I will come afterwards, I
will come of myself... when it's possible, I remember you and love
you.... Leave me, leave me alone. I decided this even before... I'm
absolutely resolved on it. Whatever may come to me, whether I come
to ruin or not, I want to be alone. Forget me altogether, it's better.
Don't inquire about me. When I can, I'll come of myself or... I'll
send for you. Perhaps it will all come back, but now if you love me,
give me up... else I shall begin to hate you, I feel it.... Good-bye!"
  "Good God!" cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. Both his mother and his
sister were terribly alarmed. Razumihin was also.
  "Rodya, Rodya, be reconciled with us! Let us be as before!" cried
his poor mother.
  He turned slowly to the door and slowly went out of the room. Dounia
overtook him.
  "Brother, what are you doing to mother?" she whispered, her eyes
flashing with indignation.
  He looked dully at her.
  "No matter, I shall come.... I'm coming," he muttered in an
undertone, as though not fully conscious of what he was saying, and he
went out of the room.
  "Wicked, heartless egoist!" cried Dounia.
  "He is insane, but not heartless. He is mad! Don't you see it?
You're heartless after that!" Razumihin whispered in her ear,
squeezing her hand tightly. "I shall be back directly," he shouted
to the horror-stricken mother, and he ran out of the room.
  Raskolnikov was waiting for him at the end of the passage.
  "I knew you would run after me," he said. "Go back to them- be
with them... be with them to-morrow and always.... I... perhaps I
shall come... if I can. Good-bye."
  And without holding out his hand he walked away.
  "But where are you going? What are you doing? What's the matter with
you? How can you go on like this?" Razumihin muttered, at his wits'
end.
  Raskolnikov stopped once more.
  "Once for all, never ask me about anything. I have nothing to tell
you. Don't come to see me. Maybe I'll come here.... Leave me, but
don't leave them. Do you understand me?"
  It was dark in the corridor, they were standing near the lamp. For a
minute they were looking at one another in silence. Razumihin
remembered that minute all his life. Raskolnikov's burning and
intent eyes grew more penetrating every moment, piercing into his
soul, into his consciousness. Suddenly Razumihin started. Something
strange, as it were, passed between them.... Some idea, some hint as
it were, slipped, something awful, hideous, and suddenly understood on
both sides.... Razumihin turned pale.
  "Do you understand now?" said Raskolnikov, his face twitching
nervously. "Go back, go to them," he said suddenly, and turning
quickly, he went out of the house.
  I will not attempt to describe how Razumihin went back to the
ladies, how he soothed them, how he protested that Rodya needed rest
in his illness, protested that Rodya was sure to come, that he would
come every day, that he was very, very much upset, that he must not be
irritated, that he, Razumihin, would watch over him, would get him a
doctor, the best doctor, a consultation.... In fact from that
evening Razumihin took his place with them as a son and a brother.

CHAPTER_FOUR
                             Chapter Four
-
  RASKOLNIKOV WENT straight to the house on the canal bank where Sonia
lived. It was an old green house of three storeys. He found the porter
and obtained from him vague directions as to the whereabouts of
Kapernaumov, the tailor. Having found in the corner of the courtyard
the entrance to the dark and narrow staircase, he mounted to the
second floor and came out into a gallery that ran round the whole
second storey over the yard. While he was wandering in the darkness,
uncertain where to turn for Kapernaumov's door, a door opened three
paces from him; he mechanically took hold of it.
  "Who is there?" a woman's voice asked uneasily.
  "It's I... come to see you," answered Raskolnikov and he walked into
the tiny entry.
  On a broken chair stood a candle in a battered copper candlestick.
  "It's you! Good heavens!" cried Sonia weakly and she stood rooted to
the spot.
  "Which is your room? This way?" and Raskolnikov, trying not to
look at her, hastened in.
  A minute later Sonia, too, came in with the candle, set down the
candlestick and, completely disconcerted, stood before him
inexpressibly agitated and apparently frightened by his unexpected
visit. The colour rushed suddenly to her pale face and tears came into
her eyes... She felt sick and ashamed and happy, too.... Raskolnikov
turned away quickly and sat on a chair by the table. He scanned the
room in a rapid glance.
  It was a large but exceeding low-pitched room, the only one let by
the Kapernaumovs, to whose rooms a closed door led in the wall on
the left. In the opposite side on the right hand wall was another
door, always kept locked. That led to the next flat, which formed a
separate lodging. Sonia's room looked like a barn; it was a very
irregular quadrangle and this gave it a grotesque appearance. A wall
with three windows looking out on to the canal ran aslant so that
one corner formed a very acute angle, and it was difficult to see in
it without very strong light. The other corner was
disproportionately obtuse. There was scarcely any furniture in the big
room: in the corner on the right was a bedstead, beside it, nearest
the door, a chair. A plain, deal table covered by a blue cloth stood
against the same wall, close to the door into the other flat. Two
rush-bottom chairs stood by the table. On the opposite wall near the
acute angle stood a small plain wooden chest of drawers looking, as it
were, lost in a desert. That was all there was in the room. The
yellow, scratched and shabby wall-paper was black in the corners. It
must have been damp and full of fumes in the winter. There was every
sign of poverty; even the bedstead had no curtain.
  Sonia looked in silence at her visitor, who was so attentively and
unceremoniously scrutinising her room, and even began at last to
tremble with terror, as though she was standing before her judge and
the arbiter of her destinies.
  "I am late.... eleven, isn't it?" he asked, still not lifting his
eyes.
  "Yes," muttered Sonia, "oh, yes, it is," she added, hastily, as
though in that lay her means of escape. "My landlady's clock has
just struck... I heard it myself...."
  "I've come to you for the last time," Raskolnikov went on
gloomily, although this was the first time. "I may perhaps not see you
again..."
  "Are you... going away?"
  "I don't know... to-morrow...."
  "Then you are not coming to Katerina Ivanovna to-morrow?" Sonia's
voice shook.
  "I don't know. I shall know to-morrow morning.... Never mind that:
I've come to say one word...."
  He raised his brooding eyes to her and suddenly noticed that he
was sitting down while she was all the while standing before him.
  "Why are you standing? Sit down," he said in a changed voice, gentle
and friendly.
  She sat down. He looked kindly and almost compassionately at her.
  "How thin you are! What a hand! Quite transparent, like a dead
hand."
  He took her hand. Sonia smiled faintly.
  "I have always been like that," she said.
  "Even when you lived at home?"
  "Yes."
  "Of course, you were," he added abruptly and the expression of his
face and the sound of his voice changed again suddenly.
  He looked round him once more.
  "You rent this room from the Kapernaumovs?"
  "Yes...."
  "They live there, through that door?"
  "Yes.... They have another room like this."
  "All in one room?"
  "Yes."
  "I should be afraid in your room at night," he observed gloomily.
  "They are very good people, very kind," answered Sonia, who still
seemed bewildered, "and all the furniture, everything... everything is
theirs. And they are very kind and the children, too, often come to
see me."
  "They all stammer, don't they?"
  "Yes.... He stammers and he's lame. And his wife, too.... It's not
exactly that she stammers, but she can't speak plainly. She is a
very kind woman. And he used to be a house serf. And there are seven
children... and it's only the eldest one that stammers and the
others are simply ill... but they don't stammer.... But where did
you hear about them?" she added with some surprise.
  "Your father told me, then. He told me all about you.... And how you
went out at six o'clock and came back at nine and how Katerina
Ivanovna knelt down by your bed."
  Sonia was confused.
  "I fancied I saw him to-day," she whispered hesitatingly.
  "Whom?"
  "Father. I was walking in the street, out there at the corner, about
ten o'clock and he seemed to be walking in front. It looked just
like him. I wanted to go to Katerina Ivanovna...."
  "You were walking in the streets?"
  "Yes," Sonia whispered abruptly, again overcome with confusion and
looking down.
  "Katerina Ivanovna used to beat you, I daresay?"
  "Oh no, what are you saying? No!" Sonia looked at him almost with
dismay.
  "You love her, then?"
  "Love her? Of course!" said Sonia with plaintive emphasis, and she
clasped her hands in distress. "Ah, you don't.... If you only knew!
You see, she is quite like a child.... Her mind is quite unhinged, you
see... from sorrow. And how clever she used to be... how generous...
how kind! Ah, you don't understand, you don't understand!"
  Sonia said this as though in despair, wringing her hands in
excitement and distress. Her pale cheeks flushed, there was a look
of anguish in her eyes. It was clear that she was stirred to the
very depths, that she was longing to speak, to champion, to express
something. A sort of insatiable compassion, if one may so express
it, was reflected in every feature of her face.
  "Beat me! how can you? Good heavens, beat me! And if she did beat
me, what then? What of it? You know nothing, nothing about it....
She is so unhappy... ah, how unhappy! And ill.... She is seeking
righteousness, she is pure. She has such faith that there must be
righteousness everywhere and she expects it.... And if you were to
torture her, she wouldn't do wrong. She doesn't see that it's
impossible for people to be righteous and she is angry at it. Like a
child, like a child. She is good!"
  "And what will happen to you?"
  Sonia looked at him inquiringly.
  "They are left on your hands, you see. They were all on your hands
before, though.... And your father came to you to beg for drink. Well,
how will it be now?"
  "I don't know," Sonia articulated mournfully.
  "Will they stay there?"
  "I don't know.... They are in debt for the lodging, but the
landlady, I hear, said to-day that she wanted to get rid of them,
and Katerina Ivanovna says that she won't stay another minute."
  "How is it she is so bold? She relies upon you?"
  "Oh, no, don't talk like that.... We are one, we live like one."
Sonia was agitated again and even angry, as though a canary or some
other little bird were to be angry. "And what could she do? What, what
could she do?" she persisted, getting hot and excited. "And how she
cried to-day! Her mind is unhinged, haven't you noticed it? At one
minute she is worrying like a child that everything should be right
to-morrow, the lunch and all that.... Then she is wringing her
hands, spitting blood, weeping, and all at once she will begin
knocking her head against the wall, in despair. Then she will be
comforted again. She builds all her hopes on you; she says that you
will help her now and that she will borrow a little money somewhere
and go to her native town with me and set up a boarding school for the
daughters of gentlemen and take me to superintend it, and we will
begin a new splendid life. And she kisses and hugs me, comforts me,
and you know she has such faith, such faith in her fancies! One
can't contradict her. And all the day long she has been washing,
cleaning, mending. She dragged the wash tub into the room with her
feeble hands and sank on the bed, gasping for breath. We went this
morning to the shops to buy shoes for Polenka and Lida for theirs
are quite worn out. Only the money we'd reckoned wasn't enough, not
nearly enough. And she picked out such dear little boots, for she
has taste, you don't know. And there in the shop she burst out
crying before the shopmen because she hadn't enough.... Ah, it was sad
to see her...."
  "Well, after that I can understand your living like this,"
Raskolnikov said with a bitter smile.
  "And aren't you sorry for them? Aren't you sorry?" Sonia flew at him
again. "Why, I know, you gave your last penny yourself, though you'd
seen nothing of it, and if you'd seen everything, oh dear! And how
often, how often I've brought her to tears! Only last week! Yes, I!
Only a week before his death. I was cruel! And how often I've done it!
Ah, I've been wretched at the thought of it all day!"
  Sonia wrung her hands as she spoke at the pain of remembering it.
  "You were cruel?"
  "Yes, I- I. I went to see them," she went on, weeping, "and father
said, 'read me something, Sonia, my head aches, read to me, here's a
book.' He had a book he had got from Andrey Semyonovitch
Lebeziatnikov, he lives there, he always used to get hold of such
funny books. And I said, 'I can't stay,' as I didn't want to read, and
I'd gone in chiefly to show Katerina Ivanovna some collars.
Lizaveta, the pedlar, sold me some collars and cuffs cheap, pretty,
new, embroidered ones. Katerina Ivanovna liked them very much; she put
them on and looked at herself in the glass and was delighted with
them. 'Make me a present of them, Sonia,' she said, 'please do.'
'Please do,' she said, she wanted them so much. And when could she
wear them? They just reminded her of her old happy days. She looked at
herself in the glass, admired herself, and she has no clothes at
all, no things of her own, hasn't had all these years! And she never
asks any one for anything; she is proud, she'd sooner give away
everything. And these she asked for, she liked them so much. And I was
sorry to give them. 'What use are they to you, Katerina Ivanovna?' I
said. I spoke like that to her, I ought not to have said that! She
gave me such a look. And she was so grieved, so grieved at my refusing
her. And it was so sad to see.... And she was not grieved for the
collars, but for my refusing, I saw that. Ah, if only I could bring it
all back, change it, take back those words! Ah, if I... but it's
nothing to you!"
  "Did you know Lizaveta, the pedlar?"
  "Yes.... Did you know her?" Sonia asked with some surprise.
  "Katerina Ivanovna is in consumption, rapid consumption; she will
soon die," said Raskolnikov after a pause, without answering her
question.
  "Oh, no, no, no!"
  And Sonia unconsciously clutched both his hands, as though imploring
that she should not.
  "But it will be better if she does die."
  "No, not better, not at all better!" Sonia unconsciously repeated in
dismay.
  "And the children? What can you do except take them to live with
you?"
  "Oh, I don't know," cried Sonia, almost in despair, and she put
her hands to her head.
  It was evident that that idea had very often occurred to her
before and he had only roused it again.
  "And, what, if even now, while Katerina Ivanovna is alive, you get
ill and are taken to the hospital, what will happen then?" he
persisted pitilessly.
  "How can you? That cannot be!"
  And Sonia's face worked with awful terror.
  "Cannot be?" Raskolnikov went on with a harsh smile. "You are not
insured against it, are you? What will happen to them then? They
will be in the street, all of them, she will cough and beg and knock
her head against some wall, as she did to-day, and the children will
cry.... Then she will fall down, be taken to the police station and to
the hospital, she will die, and the children..."
  "Oh, no.... God will not let it be!" broke at last from Sonia's
overburdened bosom.
  She listened, looking imploringly at him, clasping her hands in dumb
entreaty, as though it all depended upon him.
  Raskolnikov got up and began to walk about the room. A minute
passed. Sonia was standing with her hands and her head hanging in
terrible dejection.
  "And can't you save? Put by for a rainy day?" he asked, stopping
suddenly before her.
  "No," whispered Sonia.
  "Of course not. Have you tried?" he added almost ironically.
  "Yes."
  "And it didn't come off! Of course not! No need to ask."
  And again he paced the room. Another minute passed.
  "You don't get money every day?"
  Sonia was more confused than ever and colour rushed into her face
again.
  "No," she whispered with a painful effort.
  "It will be the same with Polenka, no doubt," he said suddenly.
  "No, no! It can't be, no!" Sonia cried aloud in desperation, as
though she had been stabbed. "God would not allow anything so awful!"
  "He lets others come to it."
  "No, no! God will protect her, God!" she repeated beside herself.
  "But, perhaps, there is no God at all," Raskolnikov answered with
a sort of malignance, laughed and looked at her.
  Sonia's face suddenly changed; a tremor passed over it. She looked
at him with unutterable reproach, tried to say something, but could
not speak and broke into bitter, bitter sobs, hiding her face in her
hands.
  "You say Katerina Ivanovna's mind is unhinged; your own mind is
unhinged," he said after a brief silence.
  Five minutes passed. He still paced up and down the room in silence,
not looking at her. At last he went up to her; his eyes glittered.
He put his two hands on her shoulders and looked straight into her
tearful face. His eyes were hard, feverish and piercing, his lips were
twitching. All at once he bent down quickly and dropping to the
ground, kissed her foot. Sonia drew back from him as from a madman.
And certainly he looked like a madman.
  "What are you doing to me?" she muttered, turning pale, and a sudden
anguish clutched at her heart.
  He stood up at once.
  "I did not bow down to you, I bowed down to all the suffering of
humanity," he said wildly and walked away to the window. "Listen,"
he added, turning to her a minute later. "I said just now to an
insolent man that he was not worth your little finger... and that I
did my sister honour making her sit beside you."
  "Ach, you said that to them! And in her presence?" cried Sonia,
frightened. "Sit down with me! An honour! Why, I'm...
dishonourable.... Ah, why did you say that?"
  "It was not because of your dishonour and your sin I said that of
you, but because of your great suffering. But you are a great
sinner, that's true," he added almost solemnly, "and your worst sin is
that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing. Isn't
that fearful? Isn't it fearful that you are living in this filth which
you loathe so, and at the same time you know yourself (you've only
to open your eyes) that you are not helping any one by it, not
saving any one from anything! Tell me," he went on almost in a frenzy,
"how this shame and degradation can exist in you side by side with
other, opposite, holy feelings? It would be better, a thousand times
better and wiser to leap into the water and end it all!"
  "But what would become of them?" Sonia asked faintly, gazing at
him with eyes of anguish, but not seeming surprised at his suggestion.
  Raskolnikov looked strangely at her. He read it all in her face;
so she must have had that thought already, perhaps many times, and
earnestly she had thought out in her despair how to end it and so
earnestly, that now she scarcely wondered at his suggestion. She had
not even noticed the cruelty of his words. (The significance of his
reproaches and his peculiar attitude to her shame she had, of
course, not noticed either, and that, too, was clear to him.) But he
saw how monstrously the thought of her disgraceful, shameful
position was torturing her and had long tortured her. "What, what," he
thought, "could hitherto have hindered her from putting an end to it?"
Only then he realised what those poor little orphan children and
that pitiful half-crazy Katerina Ivanovna, knocking her head against
the wall in her consumption, meant for Sonia.
  But, nevertheless, it was clear to him again that with her character
and the amount of education she had after all received, she could
not in any case remain so. He was still confronted by the question how
could she have remained so long in that position without going out
of her mind, since she could not bring herself to jump into the water?
Of course he knew that Sonia's position was an exceptional case,
though unhappily not unique and not infrequent, indeed; but that
very exceptionalness, her tinge of education, her previous life might,
one would have thought, have killed her at the first step on that
revolting path. What held her up- surely not depravity? All that
infamy had obviously only touched her mechanically, not one drop of
real depravity had penetrated to her heart; he saw that. He saw
through her as she stood before him....
  "There are three ways before her," he thought, "the canal, the
madhouse, or... at last to sink into depravity which obscures the mind
and turns the heart to stone."
  The last idea was the most revolting, but he was a sceptic, he was
young, abstract, and therefore cruel, and so he could not help
believing that the last end was the most likely.
  "But can that be true?" he cried to himself. "Can that creature
who has still preserved the purity of her spirit be consciously
drawn at last into that sink of filth and iniquity? Can the process
already have begun? Can it be that she has only been able to bear it
till now, because vice has begun to be less loathsome to her? No,
no, that cannot be!" he cried, as Sonia had just before. "No, what has
kept her from the canal till now is the idea of sin and they, the
children.... And if she has not gone out of her mind... but who says
she has not gone out of her mind? Is she in her senses? Can one
talk, can one reason as she does? How can she sit on the edge of the
abyss of loathsomeness into which she is slipping and refuse to listen
when she is told of danger? Does she expect a miracle? No doubt she
does. Doesn't that all mean madness?"
  He stayed obstinately at that thought. He liked that explanation
indeed better than any other. He began looking more intently at her.
  "So you pray to God a great deal, Sonia?" he asked her.
  Sonia did not speak; he stood beside her waiting for an answer.
  "What should I be without God?" she whispered rapidly, forcibly,
glancing at him with suddenly flashing eyes, and squeezing his hand.
  "Ah, so that is it!" he thought.
  "And what does God do for you?" he asked, probing her further.
  Sonia was silent a long while, as though she could not answer. Her
weak chest kept heaving with emotion.
  "Be silent! Don't ask! You don't deserve!" she cried suddenly,
looking sternly and wrathfully at him.
  "That's it, that's it," he repeated to himself.
  "He does everything," she whispered quickly, looking down again.
  "That's the way out! That's the explanation," he decided,
scrutinising her with eager curiosity, with a new, strange, almost
morbid feeling. He gazed at that pale, thin, irregular, angular little
face, those soft blue eyes, which could flash with such fire, such
stern energy, that little body still shaking with indignation and
anger- and it all seemed to him more and more strange, almost
impossible. "She is a religious maniac!" he repeated to himself.
  There was a book lying on the chest of drawers. He had noticed it
every time he paced up and down the room. Now he took it up and looked
at it. It was the New Testament in the Russian translation. It was
bound in leather, old and worn.
  "Where did you get that?" he called to her across the room.
  She was still standing in the same place, three steps from the
table.
  "It was brought me," she answered, as it were unwillingly, not
looking at him.
  "Who brought it?"
  "Lizaveta, I asked her for it."
  "Lizaveta! strange!" he thought.
  Everything about Sonia seemed to him stranger and more wonderful
every moment. He carried the book to the candle and began to turn over
the pages.
  "Where is the story of Lazarus?" he asked suddenly.
  Sonia looked obstinately at the ground and would not answer. She was
standing sideways to the table.
  "Where is the raising of Lazarus? Find it for me, Sonia."
  She stole a glance at him.
  "You are not looking in the right place.... It's in the fourth
gospel," she whispered sternly, without looking at him.
  "Find it and read it to me," he said. He sat down with his elbow
on the table, leaned his head on his hand and looked away sullenly,
prepared to listen.
  "In three weeks' time they'll welcome me in the madhouse! I shall be
there if I am not in a worse place," he muttered to himself.
  Sonia heard Raskolnikov's request distrustfully and moved
hesitatingly to the table. She took the book however.
  "Haven't you read it?" she asked, looking up at him across the
table.
  Her voice became sterner and sterner.
  "Long ago.... When I was at school. Read!"
  "And haven't you heard it in church?"
  "I... haven't been. Do you often go?"
  "N-no," whispered Sonia.
  Raskolnikov smiled.
  "I understand.... And you won't go to your father's funeral
to-morrow?"
  "Yes, I shall. I was at church last week, too... I had a requiem
service."
  "For whom?"
  "For Lizaveta. She was killed with an axe."
  His nerves were more and more strained. His head began to go round.
  "Were you friends with Lizaveta?"
  "Yes.... She was good... she used to come... not often... she
couldn't.... We used to read together and... talk. She will see God."
  The last phrase sounded strange in his ears. And here was
something new again: the mysterious meetings with Lizaveta and both of
them- religious maniacs.
  "I shall be a religious maniac myself soon! It's infectious!"
  "Read!" he cried irritably and insistently.
  Sonia still hesitated. Her heart was throbbing. She hardly dared
to read to him. He looked almost with exasperation at the "unhappy
lunatic."
  "What for? You don't believe?..." she whispered softly and as it
were breathlessly.
  "Read! I want you to," he persisted. "You used to read to Lizaveta."
  Sonia opened the book and found the place. Her hands were shaking,
her voice failed her. Twice she tried to begin and could not bring out
the first syllable.
  "Now a certain man was sick named Lazarus of Bethany..." she
forced herself at last to read, but at the third word her voice
broke like an overstrained string. There was a catch in her breath.
  Raskolnikov saw in part why Sonia could not bring herself to read to
him and the more he saw this, the more roughly and irritably he
insisted on her doing so. He understood only too well how painful it
was for her to betray and unveil all that was her own. He understood
that these feelings really were her secret treasure, which she had
kept perhaps for years, perhaps from childhood, while she lived with
an unhappy father and a distracted stepmother crazed by grief, in
the midst of starving children and unseemly abuse and reproaches.
But at the same time he knew now and knew for certain that, although
it filled her with dread and suffering, yet she had a tormenting
desire to read and to read to him that he might hear it, and to read
now whatever might come of it!... He read this in her eyes, he could
see it in her intense emotion. She mastered herself, controlled the
spasm in her throat and went on reading the eleventh chapter of St.
John. She went on to the nineteenth verse:
  "And many of the Jews came to Martha and Mary to comfort them
concerning their brother.
  Then Martha as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming went and
met Him: but Mary sat still in the house.
  Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my
brother had not died.
  But I know that even now whatsoever Thou wilt ask of God, God will
give it Thee...."
  Then she stopped again with a shamefaced feeling that her voice
would quiver and break again.
  "Jesus said unto her, thy brother shall rise again.
  Martha saith unto Him, I know that he shall rise again in the
resurrection, at the last day.
  Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection and the life: he that
believeth in Me though he were dead, yet shall he live.
  And whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die.
Believest thou this?
  She saith unto Him,"
  (And drawing a painful breath, Sonia read distinctly and forcibly as
though she were making a public confession of faith.)
  "Yea, Lord: I believe that Thou art the Christ, the Son of God Which
should come into the world."
  She stopped and looked up quickly at him, but controlling herself
went on reading. Raskolnikov sat without moving, his elbows on the
table and his eyes turned away. She read to the thirty-second verse.
  "Then when Mary was come where Jesus was and saw Him, she fell
down at His feet, saying unto Him, Lord if Thou hadst been here, my
brother had not died.
  When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping
which came with her, He groaned in the spirit and was troubled,
  And said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto Him, Lord, come and
see.
  Jesus wept.
  Then said the Jews, behold how He loved him!
  And some of them said, could not this Man which opened the eyes of
the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died?"
  Raskolnikov turned and looked at her with emotion. Yes, he had known
it! She was trembling in a real physical fever. He had expected it.
She was getting near the story of the greatest miracle and a feeling
of immense triumph came over her. Her voice rang out like a bell;
triumph and joy gave it power. The lines danced before her eyes, but
she knew what she was reading by heart. At the last verse "Could not
this Man which opened the eyes of the blind..." dropping her voice she
passionately reproduced the doubt, the reproach and censure of the
blind disbelieving Jews, who in another moment would fall at His
feet as though struck by thunder, sobbing and believing.... "And he,
he- too, is blinded and unbelieving, he, too, will hear, he, too, will
believe, yes, yes! At once, now," was what she was dreaming, and she
was quivering with happy anticipation.
  "Jesus therefore again groaning in Himself cometh to the grave. It
was a cave, and a stone lay upon it.
  Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that
was dead, saith unto Him, Lord by this time he stinketh: for he hath
been dead four days."
  She laid emphasis on the word four.
  "Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee that if thou wouldest
believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?
  Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was
laid. And Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, Father, I thank Thee that
Thou hast heard Me.
  And I knew that Thou hearest Me always; but because of the people
which stand by I said it, that they may believe that Thou hast sent
Me.
  And when He thus had spoken, He cried with a loud voice, Lazarus,
come forth.
  And he that was dead came forth."
  (She read loudly, cold and trembling with ecstasy, as though she
were seeing it before her eyes.)
  "Bound hand and foot with graveclothes; and his face was bound about
with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him and let him go.
  Then many of the Jews which came to Mary and had seen the things
which Jesus did believed on Him."
  She could read no more, closed the book and got up from her chair
quickly.
  "That is all about the raising of Lazarus," she whispered severely
and abruptly, and turning away she stood motionless, not daring to
raise her eyes to him. She still trembled feverishly. The candle-end
was flickering out in the battered candlestick, dimly lighting up in
the poverty-stricken room the murderer and the harlot who had so
strangely been reading together the eternal book. Five minutes or more
passed.
  "I came to speak of something," Raskolnikov said aloud, frowning. He
got up and went to Sonia. She lifted her eyes to him in silence. His
face was particularly stern and there was a sort of savage
determination in it.
  "I have abandoned my family to-day," he said, "my mother and sister.
I am not going to see them. I've broken with them completely."
  "What for?" asked Sonia amazed. Her recent meeting with his mother
and sister had left a great impression which she could not analyse.
She heard his news almost with horror.
  "I have only you now," he added. "Let us go together.... I've come
to you, we are both accursed, let us go our way together!"
  His eyes glittered "as though he were mad," Sonia thought, in her
turn.
  "Go where?" she asked in alarm and she involuntarily stepped back.
  "How do I know? I only know it's the same road, I know that and
nothing more. It's the same goal!"
  She looked at him and understood nothing. She knew only that he
was terribly, infinitely unhappy.
  "No one of them will understand, if you tell them, but I have
understood. I need you, that is why I have come to you."
  "I don't understand," whispered Sonia.
  "You'll understand later. Haven't you done the same? You, too,
have transgressed... have had the strength to transgress. You have
laid hands on yourself, you have destroyed a life... your own (it's
all the same!). You might have lived in spirit and understanding,
but you'll end in the Hay Market.... But you won't be able to stand
it, and if you remain alone you'll go out of your mind like me. You
are like a mad creature already. So we must go together on the same
road! Let us go!"
  "What for? What's all this for?" said Sonia, strangely and violently
agitated by his words.
  "What for? Because you can't remain like this, that's why! You
must look things straight in the face at last, and not weep like a
child and cry that God won't allow it. What will happen, if you should
really be taken to the hospital to-morrow? She is mad and in
consumption, she'll soon die, and the children? Do you mean to tell me
Polenka won't come to grief? Haven't you seen children here at the
street corners sent out by their mothers to beg? I've found out
where those mothers live and in what surroundings. Children can't
remain children there! At seven the child is vicious and a thief.
Yet children, you know, are the image of Christ: 'theirs is the
kingdom of Heaven.' He bade us honour and love them, they are the
humanity of the future...."
  "What's to be done, what's to be done?" repeated Sonia, weeping
hysterically and wringing her hands.
  "What's to be done? Break what must be broken, once for all,
that's all, and take the suffering on oneself. What, you don't
understand? You'll understand later.... Freedom and power, and above
all, power! Over all trembling creation and all the antheap!... That's
the goal, remember that! That's my farewell message. Perhaps it's
the last time I shall speak to you. If I don't come to-morrow,
you'll hear of it all, and then remember these words. And some day
later on, in years to come, you'll understand perhaps what they meant.
If I come to-morrow, I'll tell you who killed Lizaveta.... Good-bye."
  Sonia started with terror.
  "Why, do you know who killed her?" she asked, chilled with horror,
looking wildly at him.
  "I know and will tell... you, only you. I have chosen you out. I'm
not coming to you to ask forgiveness, but simply to tell you. I
chose you out long ago to hear this, when your father talked of you
and when Lizaveta was alive, I thought of it. Good-bye, don't shake
hands. To-morrow!"
  He went out. Sonia gazed at him as at a madman. But she herself
was like one insane and felt it. Her head was going round.
  "Good heavens, how does he know who killed Lizaveta? What did
those words mean? It's awful!" But at the same time the idea did not
enter her head, not for a moment! "Oh, he must be terribly unhappy!...
He has abandoned his mother and sister.... What for? What has
happened? And what had he in his mind? What did he say to her? He
had kissed her foot and said... said (yes, he had said it clearly)
that he could not live without her.... Oh, merciful heavens!"
  Sonia spent the whole night feverish and delirious. She jumped up
from time to time, wept and wrung her hands, then sank again into
feverish sleep and dreamt of Polenka, Katerina Ivanovna and
Lizaveta, of reading the gospel and him... him with pale face, with
burning eyes... kissing her feet, weeping.
  On the other side of the door on the right, which divided Sonia's
room from Madame Resslich's flat, was a room which long stood empty. A
card was fixed on the gate and a notice stuck in the windows over
the canal advertising it to let. Sonia had long been accustomed to the
room's being uninhabited. But all that time Mr. Svidrigailov had
been standing, listening at the door of the empty room. When
Raskolnikov went out he stood still, thought a moment, went on
tiptoe to his own room which adjoined the empty one, brought a chair
and noiselessly carried it to the door that led to Sonia's room. The
conversation had struck him as interesting and remarkable, and he
had greatly enjoyed it- so much so that he brought a chair that he
might not in the future, to-morrow, for instance, have to endure the
inconvenience of standing a whole hour, but might listen in comfort.

CHAPTER_FIVE
                             Chapter Five
-
  WHEN NEXT morning at eleven o'clock punctually Raskolnikov went into
the department of the investigation of criminal causes and sent his
name in to Porfiry Petrovitch, he was surprised at being kept
waiting so long: it was at least ten minutes before he was summoned.
He had expected that they would pounce upon him. But he stood in the
waiting-room, and people, who apparently had nothing to do with him,
were continually passing to and fro before him. In the next room which
looked like an office, several clerks were sitting writing and
obviously they had no notion who or what Raskolnikov might be. He
looked uneasily and suspiciously about him to see whether there was
not some guard, some mysterious watch being kept on him to prevent his
escape. But there was nothing of the sort: he saw only the faces of
clerks absorbed in petty details, then other people, no one seemed
to have any concern with him. He might go where he liked for them. The
conviction grew stronger in him that if that enigmatic man of
yesterday, that phantom sprung out of the earth, had seen
everything, they would not have let him stand and wait like that.
And would they have waited till he elected to appear at eleven? Either
the man had not yet given information, or... or simply he knew
nothing, had seen nothing (and how could he have seen anything?) and
so all that had happened to him the day before was again a phantom
exaggerated by his sick and overstrained imagination. This
conjecture had begun to grow strong the day before, in the midst of
all his alarm and despair. Thinking it all over now and preparing
for a fresh conflict, he was suddenly aware that he was trembling- and
he felt a rush of indignation at the thought that he was trembling
with fear at facing that hateful Porfiry Petrovitch. What he dreaded
above all was meeting that man again; he hated him with an intense,
unmitigated hatred and was afraid his hatred might betray him. His
indignation was such that he ceased trembling at once; he made ready
to go in with a cold and arrogant bearing and vowed to himself to keep
as silent as possible, to watch and listen and for once at least to
control his overstrained nerves. At that moment he was summoned to
Porfiry Petrovitch.
  He found Porfiry Petrovitch alone in his study. His study was a room
neither large nor small, furnished with a large writing-table, that
stood before a sofa, upholstered in checked material, a bureau, a
bookcase in the corner and several chairs- all government furniture,
of polished yellow wood. In the further wall there was a closed
door, beyond it there were, no doubt, other rooms. On Raskolnikov's
entrance Porfiry Petrovitch had at once closed the door by which he
had come in and they remained alone. He met his visitor with an
apparently genial and good-tempered air, and it was only after a few
minutes that Raskolnikov saw signs of a certain awkwardness in him, as
though he had been thrown out of his reckoning or caught in
something very secret.
  "Ah, my dear fellow! Here you are... in our domain"... began
Porfiry, holding out both hands to him. "Come, sit down, old man... or
perhaps you don't like to be called 'my dear fellow' and 'old
man!'-tout court? Please don't think it too familiar.... Here, on
the sofa."
  Raskolnikov sat down, keeping his eyes fixed on him. "In our
domain," the apologies for familiarity, the French phrase tout
court, were all characteristic signs.
  "He held out both hands to me, but he did not give me one- he drew
it back in time," struck him suspiciously. Both were watching each
other, but when their eyes met, quick as lightning they looked away.
  "I brought you this paper... about the watch. Here it is. Is it
all right or shall I copy it again?"
  "What? A paper? Yes, yes, don't be uneasy, it's all right,"
Porfiry Petrovitch said as though in haste, and after he had said it
he took the paper and looked at it. "Yes, it's all right. Nothing more
is needed," he declared with the same rapidity and he laid the paper
on the table.
  A minute later when he was talking of something else he took it from
the table and put it on his bureau.
  "I believe you said yesterday you would like to question me...
formally... about my acquaintance with the murdered woman?"
Raskolnikov was beginning again. "Why did I put in 'I believe'" passed
through his mind in a flash. "Why am I so uneasy at having put in that
'I believe'?" came in a second flash. And he suddenly felt that his
uneasiness at the mere contact with Porfiry, at the first words, at
the first looks, had grown in an instant to monstrous proportions, and
that this was fearfully dangerous. His nerves were quivering, his
emotion was increasing. "It's bad, it's bad! I shall say too much
again."
  "Yes, yes, yes! There's no hurry, there's no hurry," muttered
Porfiry Petrovitch, moving to and fro about the table without any
apparent aim, as it were making dashes towards the window, the
bureau and the table, at one moment avoiding Raskolnikov's
suspicious glance, then again standing still and looking him
straight in the face.
  His fat round little figure looked very strange, like a ball rolling
from one side to the other and rebounding back.
  "We've plenty of time. Do you smoke? have you your own? Here, a
cigarette!" he went on, offering his visitor a cigarette. "You know
I am receiving you here, but my own quarters are through there, you
know, my government quarters. But I am living outside for the time,
I had to have some repairs done here. It's almost finished now....
Government quarters, you know, are a capital thing. Eh, what do you
think?"
  "Yes, a capital thing," answered Raskolnikov, looking at him
almost ironically.
  "A capital thing, a capital thing," repeated Porfiry Petrovitch,
as though he had just thought of something quite different. "Yes, a
capital thing," he almost shouted at last, suddenly staring at
Raskolnikov and stopping short two steps from him.
  This stupid repetition was too incongruous in its ineptitude with
the serious, brooding and enigmatic glance he turned upon his visitor.
  But this stirred Raskolnikov's spleen more than ever and he could
not resist an ironical and rather incautious challenge.
  "Tell me, please," he asked suddenly, looking almost insolently at
him and taking a kind of pleasure in his own insolence. "I believe
it's a sort of legal rule, a sort of legal tradition- for all
investigating lawyers- to begin their attack from afar, with a
trivial, or at least an irrelevant subject, so as to encourage, or
rather, to divert the man they are cross-examining, to disarm his
caution and then all at once to give him an unexpected knockdown
blow with some fatal question. Isn't that so? It's a sacred tradition,
mentioned, I fancy, in all the manuals of the art?"
  "Yes, yes.... Why, do you imagine that was why I spoke about
government quarters... eh?"
  And as he said this Porfiry Petrovitch screwed up his eyes and
winked; a good-humoured, crafty look passed over his face. The
wrinkles on his forehead were smoothed out, his eyes contracted, his
features broadened and he suddenly went off into a nervous prolonged
laugh, shaking all over and looking Raskolnikov straight in the
face. The latter forced himself to laugh, too, but when Porfiry,
seeing that he was laughing, broke into such a guffaw that he turned
almost crimson, Raskolnikov's repulsion overcame all precaution; he
left off laughing, scowled and stared with hatred at Porfiry,
keeping his eyes fixed on him while his intentionally prolonged
laughter lasted. There was lack of precaution on both sides,
however, for Porfiry Petrovitch seemed to be laughing in his visitor's
face and to be very little disturbed at the annoyance with which the
visitor received it. The latter fact was very significant in
Raskolnikov's eyes: he saw that Porfiry Petrovitch had not been
embarrassed just before either, but that he, Raskolnikov, had
perhaps fallen into a trap; that there must be something, some
motive here unknown to him; that, perhaps, everything was in readiness
and in another moment would break upon him...
  He went straight to the point at once, rose from his seat and took
his cap.
  "Porfiry Petrovitch," he began resolutely, though with
considerable irritation, "yesterday you expressed a desire that I
should come to you for some inquiries (he laid special stress on the
word 'inquiries'). I have come and, if you have anything to ask me,
ask it, and if not, allow me to withdraw. I have no time to
spare.... I have to be at the funeral of that man who was run over, of
whom you... know also," he added, feeling angry at once at having made
this addition and more irritated at his anger, "I am sick of it all,
do you hear, and have long been. It's partly what made me ill. In
short," he shouted, feeling that the phrase about his illness was
still more out of place, "in short, kindly examine me or let me go, at
once. And if you must examine me, do so in the proper form! I will not
allow you to do so otherwise, and so meanwhile, good-bye, as we have
evidently nothing to keep us now."
  "Good heavens! What do you mean? What shall I question you about?"
cackled Porfiry Petrovitch with a change of tone, instantly leaving
off laughing. "Please don't disturb yourself," he began fidgeting from
place to place and fussily making Raskolnikov sit down. "There's no
hurry, there's no hurry, it's all nonsense. Oh, no, I'm very glad
you've come to see me at last... I look upon you simply as a
visitor. And as for my confounded laughter, please excuse it, Rodion
Romanovitch. Rodion Romanovitch? That is your name?... It's my nerves,
you tickled me so with your witty observation; I assure you, sometimes
I shake with laughter like an India-rubber ball for half an hour at
a time.... I'm often afraid of an attack of paralysis. Do sit down.
Please do, or I shall think you are angry..."
  Raskolnikov did not speak; he listened, watching him, still frowning
angrily. He did sit down, but still held his cap.
  "I must tell you one thing about myself, my dear Rodion
Romanovitch," Porfiry Petrovitch continued, moving about the room
and again avoiding his visitor's eyes. "You see, I'm a bachelor, a man
of no consequence and not used to society; besides, I have nothing
before me, I'm set, I'm running to seed and... and have you noticed,
Rodion Romanovitch, that in our Petersburg circles, if two clever
men meet who are not intimate, but respect each other, like you and
me, it takes them half an hour before they can find a subject for
conversation- they are dumb, they sit opposite each other and feel
awkward. Every one has subjects of conversation, ladies for
instance... people in high society always have their subjects of
conversation, c'est de rigueur, but people of the middle sort like us,
thinking people that is, are always tongue-tied and awkward. What is
the reason of it? Whether it is the lack of public interest, or
whether it is we are so honest we don't want to deceive one another, I
don't know. What do you think? Do put down your cap, it looks as if
you were just going, it makes me uncomfortable... I am so
delighted..."
  Raskolnikov put down his cap and continued listening in silence with
a serious frowning face to the vague and empty chatter of Porfiry
Petrovitch. "Does he really want to distract my attention with his
silly babble?"
  "I can't offer you coffee here; but why not spend five minutes
with a friend," Porfiry pattered on, "and you know all these
official duties... please don't mind my running up and down, excuse
it, my dear fellow, I am very much afraid of offending you, but
exercise is absolutely indispensable for me. I'm always sitting and so
glad to be moving about for five minutes... I suffer from my sedentary
life... I always intend to join a gymnasium; they say that officials
of all ranks, even Privy Councillors may be seen skipping gaily there;
there you have it, modern science... yes, yes.... But as for my duties
here, inquiries and all such formalities... you mentioned inquiries
yourself just now... I assure you these interrogations are sometimes
more embarrassing for the interrogator than for the interrogated....
You made the observation yourself just now very aptly and wittily.
(Raskolnikov had made no observation of the kind.) One gets into a
muddle! A regular muddle! One keeps harping on the same note, like a
drum! There is to be a reform and we shall be called by a different
name, at least, he-he-he! And as for our legal tradition, as you so
wittily called it, I thoroughly agree with you. Every prisoner on
trial, even the rudest peasant knows, that they begin by disarming him
with irrelevant questions (as you so happily put it) and then deal him
a knock-down blow, he-he-he!- your felicitous compacts son, he-he!
So you really imagined that I meant by government quarters... he-he!
You are an ironical person. Come. I won't go on! Ah, by the way,
yes! One word leads to another. You spoke of formality just now,
apropos of the inquiry, you know. But what's the use of formality?
In many cases it's nonsense. Sometimes one has a friendly chat and
gets a good deal more out of it. One can always fall back on
formality, allow me to assure you. And after all, what does it
amount to? An examining lawyer cannot be bounded by formality at every
step. The work of investigation is, so to speak, a free art in its own
way, he-he-he!"
  Porfiry Petrovitch took breath a moment. He had simply babbled on
uttering empty phrases, letting slip a few enigmatic words and again
reverting to incoherence. He was almost running about the room, moving
his fat little legs quicker and quicker, looking at the ground, with
his right hand behind his back, while with his left making
gesticulations that were extraordinarily incongruous with his words.
Raskolnikov suddenly noticed that as he ran about the room he seemed
twice to stop for a moment near the door, as though he were listening.
  "Is he expecting anything?"
  "You are certainly quite right about it," Porfiry began gaily,
looking with extraordinary simplicity at Raskolnikov (which startled
him and instantly put him on his guard), "certainly quite right in
laughing so wittily at our legal forms, he-he! Some of these elaborate
psychological methods are exceedingly ridiculous and perhaps
useless, if one adheres too closely to the forms. Yes... I am
talking of forms again. Well, if I recognise, or more strictly
speaking, if I suspect some one or other to be a criminal in any
case entrusted to me... you're reading for the law, of course,
Rodion Romanovitch?"
  "Yes, I was..."
  "Well, then it is a precedent for you for the future- though don't
suppose I should venture to instruct you after the articles you
publish about crime! No, I simply make bold to state it by way of
fact, if I took this man or that for a criminal, why, I ask, should
I worry him prematurely, even though I had evidence against him? In
one case I may be bound, for instance, to arrest a man at once, but
another may be in quite a different position, you know, so why
shouldn't I let him walk about the town a bit, he-he-he! But I see you
don't quite understand, so I'll give you a clearer example. If I put
him in prison too soon, I may very likely give him, so to speak, moral
support, he-he! You're laughing?"
  Raskolnikov had no idea of laughing. He was sitting with
compressed lips, his feverish eyes fixed on Porfiry Petrovitch's.
  "Yes that is the case, with some types especially, for men are so
different. You say evidence. Well, there may be evidence. But
evidence, you know, can generally be taken two ways. I am an examining
lawyer and a weak man, I confess it. I should like to make a proof, so
to say, mathematically clear, I should like to make a chain of
evidence such as twice two are four, it ought to be a direct,
irrefutable proof! And if I shut him up too soon- even though I
might be convinced he was the man, I should very likely be depriving
myself of the means of getting further evidence against him. And
how? By giving him, so to speak, a definite position, I shall put
him out of suspense and set his mind at rest, so that he will
retreat into his shell. They say that at Sevastopol, soon after
Alma, the clever people were in a terrible fright that the enemy would
attack openly and take Sevastopol at once. But when they saw that
the enemy preferred a regular siege, they were delighted, I am told
and reassured, for the thing would drag on for two months at least.
You're laughing, you don't believe me again? Of course, you're
right, too. You're right, you're right. These are an special cases,
I admit. But you must observe this, my dear Rodion Romanovitch, the
general case, the case for which all legal forms and rules are
intended, for which they are calculated and laid down in books, does
not exist at all, for the reason that every case, every crime for
instance, so soon as it actually occurs, at once becomes a
thoroughly special case and sometimes a case unlike any that's gone
before. Very comic cases of that sort sometimes occur. If I leave
one man quite alone, if I don't touch him and don't worry him, but let
him know or at least suspect every moment that I know all about it and
am watching him day and night, and if he is in continual suspicion and
terror, he'll be bound to lose his head. He'll come of himself, or
maybe do something which will make it as plain as twice two are
four- it's delightful. It may be so with a simple peasant, but with
one of our sort, an intelligent man cultivated on a certain side, it's
a dead certainty. For, my dear fellow, it's a very important matter to
know on what side a man is cultivated. And then there are nerves,
there are nerves, you have overlooked them! Why, they are all sick,
nervous and irritable!... And then how they all suffer from spleen!
That I assure you is a regular gold mine for us. And it's no anxiety
to me, his running about the town free! Let him, let him walk about
for a bit! I know well enough that I've caught him and that he won't
escape me. Where could he escape to, he-he? Abroad, perhaps? A Pole
will escape abroad, but not here, especially as I am watching and have
taken measures. Will he escape into the depths of the country perhaps?
But you know, peasants live there, real rude Russian peasants. A
modern cultivated man would prefer prison to living with such
strangers as our peasants. He-he! But that's all nonsense, and on
the surface. It's not merely that he has nowhere to run to, he is
psychologically unable to escape me, he-he! What an expression!
Through a law of nature he can't escape me if he had anywhere to go.
Have you seen a butterfly round a candle? That's how he will keep
circling and circling round me. Freedom will lose its attractions.
He'll begin to brood, hell weave a tangle round himself, he'll worry
himself to death! What's more he will provide me with a mathematical
proof- if I only give him long enough interval.... And he'll keep
circling round me, getting nearer and nearer and then- flop! He'll fly
straight into my mouth and I'll swallow him, and that will be very
amusing, he-he-he! You don't believe me?"
  Raskolnikov made no reply; he sat pale and motionless, still
gazing with the same intensity into Porfiry's face.
  "It's a lesson," he thought, turning cold. "This is beyond the cat
playing with a mouse, like yesterday. He can't be showing off his
power with no motive... prompting me; he is far too clever for that...
he must have another object. What is it? It's all nonsense, my friend,
you are pretending, to scare me! You've no proofs and the man I saw
had no real existence. You simply want to make me lose my head, to
work me up beforehand and so to crush me. But you are wrong, you won't
do it! But why give me such a hint? Is he reckoning on my shattered
nerves? No, my friend, you are wrong, you won't do it even though
you have some trap for me... let us see what you have in store for
me."
  And he braced himself to face a terrible and unknown ordeal. At
times he longed to fall on Porfiry and strangle him. This anger was
what he dreaded from the beginning. He felt that his parched lips were
flecked with foam, his heart was throbbing. But he was still
determined not to speak till the right moment. He realised that this
was the best policy in his position, because instead of saying too
much he would be irritating his enemy by his silence and provoking him
into speaking too freely. Anyhow, this was what he hoped for.
  "No, I see you don't believe me, you think I am playing a harmless
joke on you," Porfiry began again, getting more and more lively,
chuckling at every instant and again pacing round the room. "And, to
be sure, you're right: God has given me a figure that can awaken
none but comic ideas in other people; a buffoon; but let me tell you
and I repeat it, excuse an old man, my dear Rodion Romanovitch, you
are a man still young, so to say, in your first youth and so you put
intellect above everything, like all young people. Playful wit and
abstract arguments fascinate you and that's for all the world like the
old Austrian Hofkriegsrath, as far as I can judge of military
matters that is: on paper they'd beaten Napoleon and taken him
prisoner, and there in their study they worked it all out in the
cleverest fashion, but look you, General Mack surrendered with all his
army, he-he-he! I see, I see, Rodion Romanovitch, you are laughing
at a civilian like me, taking examples out of military history! But
I can't help it, it's my weakness. I am fond of military science.
And I'm ever so fond of reading all military histories. I've certainly
missed my proper career. I ought to have been in the army, upon my
word I ought. I shouldn't have been a Napoleon, but I might have
been a major, he-he-he! Well, I'll tell you the whole truth, my dear
fellow, about this special case, I mean: actual fact and a man's
temperament, my dear sir, are weighty matters and it's astonishing how
they sometimes deceive the sharpest calculation! I- listen to an old
man- am speaking seriously, Rodion Romanovitch (as he said this
Porfiry Petrovitch who was scarcely five and thirty actually seemed to
have grown old; even his voice changed and he seemed to shrink
together) moreover, I'm a candid man... am I a candid man or not? What
do you say? I fancy I really am: I tell you these things for nothing
and don't even expect a reward for it, he-he! Well, to proceed, wit in
my opinion is a splendid thing, it is, so to say, an adornment of
nature and a consolation of life, and what tricks it can play! So that
it sometimes is hard for a poor examining lawyer to know where he
is, especially when he's liable to be carried away by his own fancy,
too, for you know he is a man after all. But the poor fellow is
saved by the criminal's temperament, worse luck for him! But young
people carried away by their own wit don't think of that 'when they
overstep all obstacles' as you wittily and cleverly expressed it
yesterday. He will lie- that is, the man who is a special case, the
incognito, and he will lie well, in the cleverest fashion; you might
think he would triumph and enjoy the fruits of his wit, but at the
most interesting, the most flagrant moment he will faint. Of course
there may be illness and a stuffy room as well, but anyway! Anyway
he's given us the idea! He lied incomparably, but he didn't reckon
on his temperament. That's what betrays him! Another time he will be
carried away by his playful wit into making fun of the man who
suspects him, he will turn pale as it were on purpose to mislead,
but his paleness will be too natural, too much like the real thing,
again he has given us an idea! Though his questioner may be deceived
at first, he will think differently next day if he is not a fool, and,
of course, it is like that at every step! He puts himself forward
where he is not wanted, speaks continually when he ought to keep
silent, brings in all sorts of allegorical allusions, he-he! Comes and
asks why didn't you take me long ago, he-he-he! And that can happen,
you know, with the cleverest man, the psychologist, the literary
man. The temperament reflects everything like a mirror! Gaze into it
and admire what you see! But why are you so pale, Rodion
Romanovitch? Is the room stuffy? Shall I open the window?"
  "Oh, don't trouble, please," cried Raskolnikov and he suddenly broke
into a laugh. "Please don't trouble."
  Porfiry stood facing him, paused a moment and suddenly he too
laughed. Raskolnikov got up from the sofa, abruptly checking his
hysterical laughter.
  "Porfiry Petrovitch," he began, speaking loudly and distinctly,
though his legs trembled and he could scarcely stand. "I see clearly
at last that you actually suspect me of murdering that old woman and
her sister Lizaveta. Let me tell you for my part that I am sick of
this. If you find that you have a right to prosecute me legally, to
arrest me, then prosecute me, arrest me. But I will not let myself
be jeered at to my face and worried..."
  His lips trembled, his eyes glowed with fury and he could not
restrain his voice.
  "I won't allow it!" he shouted, bringing his fist down on the table.
"Do you hear that, Porfiry Petrovitch? I won't allow it."
  "Good heavens! What does it mean?" cried Porfiry Petrovitch,
apparently quite frightened. "Rodion Romanovitch, my dear fellow, what
is the matter with you?"
  "I won't allow it," Raskolnikov shouted again.
  "Hush, my dear man! They'll hear and come in. Just think, what could
we say to them?" Porfiry Petrovitch whispered in horror, bringing
his face close to Raskolnikov's.
  "I won't allow it, I won't allow it," Raskolnikov repeated
mechanically, but he too spoke in a sudden whisper.
  Porfiry turned quickly and ran to open the window.
  "Some fresh air! And you must have some water, my dear fellow.
You're ill!" and he was running to the door to call for some when he
found a decanter of water in the corner. "Come, drink a little," he
whispered, rushing up to him with the decanter. "It will be sure to do
you good."

17

Re: Достоевский Ф. М. - Преступление и наказание в переводе на английский

Porfiry Petrovitch's alarm and sympathy were so natural that
Raskolnikov was silent and began looking at him with wild curiosity.
He did not take the water, however.
  "Rodion Romanovitch, my dear fellow, you'll drive yourself out of
your mind, I assure you, ach, ach! Have some water, do drink a
little."
  He forced him to take the glass. Raskolnikov raised it
mechanically to his lips, but set it on the table again with disgust.
  "Yes, you've had a little attack! You'll bring back your illness
again, my dear fellow," Porfiry Petrovitch cackled with friendly
sympathy, though he still looked rather disconcerted. "Good heavens,
you must take more care of yourself! Dmitri Prokofitch was here,
came to see me yesterday- I know, I know, I've a nasty, ironical
temper, but what they made of it!... Good heavens, he came yesterday
after you'd been. We dined and he talked and talked away, and I
could only throw up my hands in despair! Did he come from you? But
do sit down, for mercy's sake, sit down!"
  "No, not from me, but I knew he went to you and why he went,"
Raskolnikov answered sharply.
  "You knew?"
  "I knew. What of it?"
  "Why this, Rodion Romanovitch, that I know more than that about you;
I know about everything. I know how you went to take a flat at night
when it was dark and how you rang the bell and asked about the
blood, so that the workmen and the porter did not know what to make of
it. Yes, I understand your state of mind at that time... but you'll
drive yourself mad like that, upon my word! You'll lose your head!
You're full of generous indignation at the wrongs you've received,
first from destiny, and then from the police officers, and so you rush
from one thing to another to force them to speak out and make an end
of it all, because you are sick of all this suspicion and foolishness.
That's so, isn't it? I have guessed how you feel, haven't I? Only in
that way you'll lose your head and Razumihin's, too; he's too good a
man for such a position, you must know that. You are ill and he is
good and your illness is infectious for him... I'll tell you about
it when you are more yourself.... But do sit down, for goodness' sake.
Please rest, you look shocking, do sit down."
  Raskolnikov sat down; he no longer shivered, he was hot all over. In
amazement he listened with strained attention to Porfiry Petrovitch
who still seemed frightened as he looked after him with friendly
solicitude. But he did not believe a word he said, though he felt a
strange inclination to believe. Porfiry's unexpected words about the
flat had utterly overwhelmed him. "How can it be, he knows about the
flat then," he thought suddenly, "and he tells it me himself!"
  "Yes, in our legal practice there was a case almost exactly similar,
a case of morbid psychology," Porfiry went on quickly. "A man
confessed to murder and how he kept it up! It was a regular
hallucination; he brought forward facts, he imposed upon every one and
why? He had been partly, but only partly, unintentionally the cause of
a murder and when he knew that he had given the murderers the
opportunity, he sank into dejection, it got on his mind and turned his
brain, he began imagining things and he persuaded himself that he
was the murderer. But at last the High Court of Appeals went into it
and the poor fellow was acquitted and put under proper care. Thanks to
the Court of Appeals! Tut-tut-tut! Why, my dear fellow, you may
drive yourself into delirium if you have the impulse to work upon your
nerves, to go ringing bells at night and asking about blood! I've
studied all this morbid psychology in my practice. A man is
sometimes tempted to jump out of a window or from a belfry. Just the
same with bell-ringing.... It's all illness, Rodion Romanovitch! You
have begun to neglect your illness. You should consult an
experienced doctor, what's the good of that fat fellow? You are
lightheaded! You were delirious when you did all this!"
  For a moment Raskolnikov felt everything going round.
  "Is it possible, is it possible," flashed through his mind, "that he
is still lying? He can't be, he can't be." He rejected that idea,
feeling to what a degree of fury it might drive him, feeling that that
fury might drive him mad.
  "I was not delirious. I knew what I was doing," he cried,
straining every faculty to penetrate Porfiry's game, "I was quite
myself, do you hear?"
  "Yes, I hear and understand. You said yesterday you were not
delirious, you were particularly emphatic about it! I understand all
you can tell me! A-ach!... Listen, Rodion Romanovitch, my dear fellow.
If you were actually a criminal, or were somehow mixed up in this
damnable business, would you insist that you were not delirious but in
full possession of your faculties? And so emphatically and
persistently? Would it be possible? Quite impossible, to my
thinking. If you had anything on your conscience, you certainly
ought to insist that you were delirious. That's so, isn't it?"
  There was a note of slyness in this inquiry. Raskolnikov drew back
on the sofa as Porfiry bent over him and stared in silent perplexity
at him.
  "Another thing about Razumihin- you certainly ought to have said
that he came of his own accord, to have concealed your part in it! But
you don't conceal it! You lay stress on his coming at your
instigation."
  Raskolnikov had not done so. A chill went down his back.
  "You keep telling lies," he said slowly and weakly, twisting his
lips into a sickly smile, "you are trying again to show that you
know all my game, that you know all I shall say beforehand," he
said, conscious himself that he was not weighing his words as he
ought. "You want to frighten me... or you are simply laughing at
me..."
  He still stared at him as he said this and again there was a light
of intense hatred in his eyes.
  "You keep lying," he said. "You know perfectly well that the best
policy for the criminal is to tell the truth as nearly as
possible... to conceal as little as possible. I don't believe you!"
  "What a wily person you are!" Porfiry tittered, "there's no catching
you; you've a perfect monomania. So you don't believe me? But still
you do believe me, you believe a quarter; I'll soon make you believe
the whole, because I have a sincere liking for you and genuinely
wish you good."
  Raskolnikov's lips trembled.
  "Yes, I do," went on Porfiry, touching Raskolnikov's arm genially,
"you must take care of your illness. Besides, your mother and sister
are here now; you must think of them. You must soothe and comfort them
and you do nothing but frighten them..."
  "What has that to do with you? How do you know it? What concern is
it of yours? You are keeping watch on me and want to let me know it?"
  "Good heavens! Why, I learnt it all from you yourself! You don't
notice that in your excitement you tell me and others everything. From
Razumihin, too, I learnt a number of interesting details yesterday.
No, you interrupted me, but I must tell you that, for all your wit,
your suspiciousness makes you lose the common-sense view of things. To
return to bell-ringing, for instance. I, an examining lawyer, have
betrayed a precious thing like that, a real fact (for it is a fact
worth having), and you see nothing in it! Why, if I had the
slightest suspicion of you, should I have acted like that? No, I
should first have disarmed your suspicions and not let you see I
knew of that fact, should have diverted your attention and suddenly
have dealt you a knock-down blow (your expression) saying: 'And what
were you doing, sir, pray, at ten or nearly eleven at the murdered
woman's flat and why did you ring the bell and why did you ask about
blood? And why did you invite the porters to go with you to the police
station, to the lieutenant?' That's how I ought to have acted if I had
a grain of suspicion of you. I ought to have taken your evidence in
due form, searched your lodging and perhaps have arrested you,
too... so I have no suspicion of you, since I have not done that!
But you can't look at it normally and you see nothing, I say again."
  Raskolnikov started so that Porfiry Petrovitch could not fail to
perceive it.
  "You are lying all the while," he cried, "I don't know your
object, but you are lying. You did not speak like that just now and
I cannot be mistaken!"
  "I am lying?" Porfiry repeated, apparently incensed, but
preserving a good-humoured and ironical face, as though he were not in
the least concerned at Raskolnikov's opinion of him. "I am lying...
but how did I treat you just now, I, the examining lawyer? Prompting
you and giving you every means for your defence; illness, I said,
delirium, injury, melancholy and the police officers and all the
rest of it? Ah! He-he-he! Though, indeed, all those psychological
means of defence are not very reliable and cut both ways: illness,
delirium, I don't remember- that's all right, but why, my good sir, in
your illness and in your delirium were you haunted by just those
delusions and not by any others? There may have been others, eh?
He-he-he!"
  Raskolnikov looked haughtily and contemptuously at him.
  "Briefly," he said loudly and imperiously, rising to his feet and in
so doing pushing Porfiry back a little, "briefly, I want to know, do
you acknowledge me perfectly free from suspicion or not? Tell me,
Porfiry Petrovitch, tell me once for all and make haste!"
  "What a business I'm having with you!" cried Porfiry with a
perfectly good-humoured, sly and composed face. "And why do you want
to know, why do you want to know so much, since they haven't begun
to worry you? Why, you are like a child asking for matches! And why
are you so uneasy? Why do you force yourself upon us, eh? He-he-he!"
  "I repeat," Raskolnikov cried furiously, "that I can't put up with
it!"
  "With what? Uncertainty?" interrupted Porfiry.
  "Don't jeer at me! I won't have it! I tell you I won't have it. I
can't and I won't, do you hear, do you hear?" he shouted, bringing his
fist down on the table again.
  "Hush! Hush! They'll overhear! I warn you seriously, take care of
yourself. I am not joking," Porfiry whispered, but this time there was
not the look of old womanish good-nature and alarm in his face. Now he
was peremptory, stern, frowning and for once laying aside all
mystification.
  But this was only for an instant. Raskolnikov, bewildered,
suddenly fell into actual frenzy, but, strange to say, he again obeyed
the command to speak quietly, though he was in a perfect paroxysm of
fury.
  "I will not allow myself to be tortured," he whispered, instantly
recognising with hatred that he could not help obeying the command and
driven to even greater fury by the thought. "Arrest me, search me, but
kindly act in due form and don't play with me! Don't dare!"
  "Don't worry about the form," Porfiry interrupted with the same
sly smile, as it were, gloating with enjoyment over Raskolnikov. "I
invited you to see me quite in a friendly way."
  "I don't want your friendship and I spit on it! Do you hear? And,
here, I take my cap and go. What will you say now if you mean to
arrest me?"
  He took up his cap and went to the door.
  "And won't you see my little surprise?" chuckled Porfiry, again
taking him by the arm and stopping him at the door.
  He seemed to become more playful and good-humoured which maddened
Raskolnikov.
  "What surprise?" he asked, standing still and looking at Porfiry
in alarm.
  "My little surprise, it's sitting there behind the door, he-he-he!
(He pointed to the locked door.) I locked him in that he should not
escape."
  "What is it? Where? What?..."
  Raskolnikov walked to the door and would have opened it, but it
was locked.
  "It's locked, here is the key!"
  And he brought a key out of his pocket.
  "You are lying," roared Raskolnikov without restraint, "you lie, you
damned punchinello!" and he rushed at Porfiry who retreated to the
other door, not at all alarmed.
  "I understand it all! You are lying and mocking so that I may betray
myself to you..."
  "Why, you could not betray yourself any further, my dear Rodion
Romanovitch. You are in a passion. Don't shout, I shall call the
clerks."
  "You are lying! Call the clerks! You knew I was ill and tried to
work me into a frenzy to make me betray myself, that was your
object! Produce your facts! I understand it all. You've no evidence,
you have only wretched rubbishly suspicions like Zametov's! You knew
my character, you wanted to drive me to fury and then to knock me down
with priests and deputies.... Are you waiting for them? eh! What are
you waiting for? Where are they? Produce them?"
  "Why deputies, my good man? What things people will imagine! And
to do so would not be acting in form as you say, you don't know the
business, my dear fellow.... And there's no escaping form, as you
see," Porfiry muttered, listening at the door through which a noise
could be heard.
  "Ah, they're coming," cried Raskolnikov. "You've sent for them!
You expected them! Well, produce them all: your deputies, your
witnesses, what you like!... I am ready!"
  But at this moment a strange incident occurred, something so
unexpected that neither Raskolnikov nor Porfiry Petrovitch could
have looked for such a conclusion to their interview.

CHAPTER_SIX
                             Chapter Six
-
  WHEN HE remembered the scene afterwards, this is how Raskolnikov saw
it.
  The noise behind the door increased, and suddenly the door was
opened a little.
  "What is it?" cried Porfiry Petrovitch, annoyed. "Why, I gave
orders..."
  For an instant there was no answer, but it was evident that there
were several persons at the door, and that they were apparently
pushing somebody back.
  "What is it?" Porfiry Petrovitch repeated, uneasily.
  "The prisoner Nikolay has been brought," some one answered.
  "He is not wanted! Take him away! Let him wait! What's he doing
here? How irregular!" cried Porfiry, rushing to the door.
  "But he..." began the same voice, and suddenly ceased.
  Two seconds, not more, were spent in actual struggle, then some
one gave a violent shove, and then a man, very pale, strode into the
room.
  This man's appearance was at first sight very strange. He stared
straight before him, as though seeing nothing. There was a
determined gleam in his eyes; at the same time there was a deathly
pallor in his face, as though he were being led to the scaffold. His
white lips were faintly twitching.
  He was dressed like a workman and was of medium height, very
young, slim, his hair cut in round crop, with thin spare features. The
man whom he had thrust back followed him into the room and succeeded
in seizing him by the shoulder; he was a warder; but Nikolay pulled
his arm away.
  Several persons crowded inquisitively into the doorway. Some of them
tried to get in. All this took place almost instantaneously.
  "Go away, it's too soon! Wait till you are sent for!... Why have you
brought him so soon?" Porfiry Petrovitch muttered, extremely
annoyed, and as it were thrown out of his reckoning.
  But Nikolay suddenly knelt down.
  "What's the matter?" cried Porfiry, surprised.
  "I am guilty! Mine is the sin! I am the murderer," Nikolay
articulated suddenly, rather breathless, but speaking fairly loudly.
  For ten seconds there was silence as though all had been struck
dumb; even the warder stepped back, mechanically retreated to the
door, and stood immovable.
  "What is it?" cried Porfiry Petrovitch, recovering from his
momentary stupefaction.
  "I am the murderer," repeated Nikolay, after a brief pause.
  "What... you... what... whom did you kill?" Porfiry Petrovitch was
obviously bewildered.
  Nikolay again was silent for a moment.
  "Alyona Ivanovna and her sister Lizaveta Ivanovna, I... killed...
with an axe. Darkness came over me," he added suddenly, and was
again silent.
  He still remained on his knees. Porfiry Petrovitch stood for some
moments as though meditating, but suddenly roused himself and waved
back the uninvited spectators. They instantly vanished and closed
the door. Then he looked towards Raskolnikov, who was standing in
the corner, staring wildly at Nikolay, and moved towards him, but
stopped short, looked from Nikolay to Raskolnikov and then again at
Nikolay, and seeming unable to restrain himself darted at the latter.
  "You're in too great a hurry," he shouted at him, almost angrily. "I
didn't ask you what came over you.... Speak, did you kill them?"
  "I am the murderer.... I want to give evidence," Nikolay pronounced.
  "Ach! What did you kill them with?"
  "An axe. I had it ready."
  "Ach, he is in a hurry! Alone?"
  Nikolay did not understand the question.
  "Did you do it alone?"
  "Yes, alone. And Mitka is not guilty and had no share in it."
  "Don't be in a hurry about Mitka! A-ach! How was it you ran
downstairs like that at the time? The porters met you both!"
  "It was to put them off the scent... I ran after Mitka," Nikolay
replied hurriedly, as though he had prepared the answer.
  "I knew it!" cried Porfiry, with vexation. "It's not his own tale he
is telling," he muttered as though to himself, and suddenly his eyes
rested on Raskolnikov again.
  He was apparently so taken up with Nikolay that for a moment he
had forgotten Raskolnikov. He was a little taken aback.
  "My dear Rodion Romanovitch, excuse me!" he flew up to him, "this
won't do; I'm afraid you must go... it's no good your staying... I
will...  you see, what a surprise!... Good-bye!"
  And taking him by the arm, he showed him to the door.
  "I suppose you didn't expect it?" said Raskolnikov who, though he
had not yet fully grasped the situation, had regained his courage.
  "You did not expect it either, my friend. See how your hand is
trembling! He-he!"
  "You're trembling, too, Porfiry Petrovitch!"
  "Yes, I am; I didn't expect it."
  They were already at the door; Porfiry was impatient for Raskolnikov
to be gone.
  "And your little surprise, aren't you going to show it to me?"
Raskolnikov said, sarcastically.
  "Why, his teeth are chattering as he asks, he-he! You are an
ironical person! Come, till we meet!"
  "I believe we can say good-bye!"
  "That's in God's hands," muttered Porfiry, with an unnatural smile.
  As he walked through the office, Raskolnikov noticed that many
people were looking at him. Among them he saw the two porters from the
house, whom he had invited that night to the police station. They
stood there waiting. But he was no sooner on the stairs than he
heard the voice of Porfiry Petrovitch behind him. Turning round, he
saw the latter running after him, out of breath.
  "One word, Rodion Romanovitch; as to all the rest, it's in God's
hands, but as a matter of form there are some questions I shall have
to ask you... so we shall meet again, shan't we?"
  And Porfiry stood still, facing him with a smile.
  "Shan't we?" he added again.
  He seemed to want to say something more, but could not speak out.
  "You must forgive me, Porfiry Petrovitch, for what has just
passed... I lost my temper," began Raskolnikov, who had so far
regained his courage that he felt irresistibly inclined to display his
coolness.
  "Don't mention it, don't mention it," Porfiry replied, almost
gleefully. "I myself, too... I have a wicked temper, I admit it! But
we shall meet again. If it's God's will, we may see a great deal of
one another."
  "And will get to know each other through and through?" added
Raskolnikov.
  "Yes; know each other through and through," assented Porfiry
Petrovitch, and he screwed up his eyes, looking earnestly at
Raskolnikov. "Now you're going to a birthday party?"
  "To a funeral."
  "Of course, the funeral! Take care of yourself, and get well."
  "I don't know what to wish you," said Raskolnikov, who had begun
to descend the stairs, but looked back again. "I should like to wish
you success, but your office is such a comical one."
  "Why comical?" Porfiry Petrovitch had turned to go, but he seemed to
prick up his ears at this.
  "Why, how you must have been torturing and harassing that poor
Nikolay psychologically, after your fashion, till he confessed! You
must have been at him day and night, proving to him that he was the
murderer, and now that he has confessed, you'll begin vivisecting
him again. 'You are lying,' you'll say. 'You are not the murderer! You
can't be! It's not your own tale you are telling!' You must admit it's
a comical business!"
  "He-he-he! You noticed then that I said to Nikolay just now that
it was not his own tale he was telling?"
  "How could I help noticing it!"
  "He-he! You are quick-witted. You notice everything! You've really a
playful mind! And you always fasten on the comic side... he-he! They
say that was the marked characteristic of Gogol, among the writers."
  "Yes, of Gogol."
  "Yes, of Gogol.... I shall look forward to meeting you."
  "So shall I."
  Raskolnikov walked straight home. He was so muddled and bewildered
that on getting home he sat for a quarter of an hour on the sofa,
trying to collect his thoughts. He did not attempt to think about
Nikolay; he was stupefied; he felt that his confession was something
inexplicable, amazing- something beyond his understanding. But
Nikolay's confession was an actual fact. The consequences of this fact
were clear to him at once, its falsehood could not fail to be
discovered, and then they would be after him again. Till then, at
least, he was free and must do something for himself, for the danger
was imminent.
  But how imminent? His position gradually became clear to him.
Remembering, sketchily, the main outlines of his recent scene with
Porfiry, he could not help shuddering again with horror. Of course, he
did not yet know all Porfiry's aims, he could not see into all his
calculations. But he had already partly shown his hand, and no one
knew better than Raskolnikov how terrible Porfiry's "lead" had been
for him. A little more and he might have given himself away
completely, circumstantially. Knowing his nervous temperament and from
the first glance seeing through him, Porfiry, though playing a bold
game, was bound to win. There's no denying that Raskolnikov had
compromised himself seriously, but no facts had come to light as
yet; there was nothing positive. But was he taking a true view of
the position? Wasn't he mistaken? What had Porfiry been trying to
get at? Had he really some surprise prepared for him? And what was it?
Had he really been expecting something or not? How would they have
parted if it had not been for the unexpected appearance of Nikolay?
  Porfiry had shown almost all his cards- of course, he had risked
something in showing them- and if he had really had anything up his
sleeve (Raskolnikov reflected), he would have shown that, too. What
was that "surprise"? Was it a joke? Had it meant anything? Could it
have concealed anything like a fact, a piece of positive evidence? His
yesterday's visitor? What had become of him? Where was he to-day? If
Porfiry really had any evidence, it must be connected with him....
  He sat on the sofa with his elbows on his knees and his face
hidden in his hands. He was still shivering nervously. At last he
got up, took his cap, thought a minute, and went to the door.
  He had a sort of presentiment that for to-day, at least, he might
consider himself out of danger. He had a sudden sense almost of joy;
he wanted to make haste to Katerina Ivanovna's. He would be too late
for the funeral, of course, but he would be in time for the memorial
dinner, and there at once he would see Sonia.
  He stood still, thought a moment, and a suffering smile came for a
moment on to his lips.
  "To-day! To-day," he repeated to himself. "Yes, to-day! So it must
be...."
  But as he was about to open the door, it began opening of itself. He
started and moved back. The door opened gently and slowly, and there
suddenly appeared a figure- yesterday's visitor from underground.
  The man stood in the doorway, looked at Raskolnikov without
speaking, and took a step forward into the room. He was exactly the
same as yesterday; the same figure, the same dress, but there was a
great change in his face; he looked dejected and sighed deeply. If
he had only put his hand up to his cheek and leaned his head on one
side he would have looked exactly like a peasant woman.
  "What do you want?" asked Raskolnikov, numb with terror. The man was
still silent, but suddenly he bowed down almost to the ground,
touching it with his finger.
  "What is it?" cried Raskolnikov.
  "I have sinned," the man articulated softly.
  "By evil thoughts."
  They looked at one another.
  "I was vexed. When you came, perhaps in drink, and bade the
porters go to the police station and asked about the blood, I was
vexed that they let you go and took you for drunken. I was so vexed
that I lost my sleep. And remembering the address we came here
yesterday and asked for you...."
  "Who came?" Raskolnikov interrupted, instantly beginning to
recollect.
  "I did, I've wronged you."
  "Then you came from that house?"
  "I was standing at the gate with them... don't you remember? We have
carried on our trade in that house for years past. We cure and prepare
hides, we take work home... most of all I was vexed...."
  And the whole scene of the day before yesterday in the gateway
came clearly before Raskolnikov's mind; he recollected that there
had been several people there besides the porters, women among them.
He remembered one voice had suggested taking him straight to the
police station. He could not recall the face of the speaker, and
even now he did not recognise it, but he remembered that he had turned
round and made him some answer....
  So this was the solution of yesterday's horror. The most awful
thought was that he had been actually almost lost, had almost done for
himself on account of such a trivial circumstance. So this man could
tell nothing except his asking about the flat and the blood stains. So
Porfiry, too, had nothing but that delirium, no facts but this
psychology which cuts both ways, nothing positive. So if no more facts
come to light (and they must not, they must not!) then... then what
can they do to him? How can they convict him, even if they arrest him?
And Porfiry then had only just heard about the flat and had not
known about it before.
  "Was it you who told Porfiry... that I'd been there?" he cried,
struck by a sudden idea.
  "What Porfiry?"
  "The head of the detective department?"
  "Yes. The porters did not go there, but I went."
  "To-day?"
  "I got there two minutes before you. And I heard, I heard it all,
how he worried you."
  "Where? What? When?"
  "Why, in the next room. I was sitting there all the time."

CHAPTER_ONE
                              PART FIVE
                             Chapter One
-
  THE MORNING that followed the fateful interview with Dounia and
her mother brought sobering influences to bear on Pyotr Petrovitch.
Intensely unpleasant as it was, he was forced little by little to
accept as a fact beyond recall what had seemed to him only the day
before fantastic and incredible. The black snake of wounded vanity had
been gnawing at his heart all night. When he got out of bed, Pyotr
Petrovitch immediately looked in the looking-glass. He was afraid that
he had jaundice. However his health seemed unimpaired so far, and
looking at his noble, clear-skinned countenance which had grown
fattish of late, Pyotr Petrovitch for an instant was positively
comforted in the conviction that he would find another bride and,
perhaps, even a better one. But coming back to the sense of his
present position, he turned aside and spat vigorously, which excited a
sarcastic smile in Andrey Semyonovitch Lebeziatnikov, the young friend
with whom he was staying. That smile Pyotr Petrovitch noticed, and
at once set it down against his young friend's account. He had set
down a good many points against him of late. His anger was redoubled
when he reflected that he ought not to have told Andrey Semyonovitch
about the result of yesterday's interview. That was the second mistake
he had made in temper, through impulsiveness and irritability....
Moreover, all that morning one unpleasantness followed another. He
even found a hitch awaiting him in his legal case in the Senate. He
was particularly irritated by the owner of the flat which had been
taken in view of his approaching marriage and was being redecorated at
his own expense; the owner, a rich German tradesman, would not
entertain the idea of breaking the contract which had just been signed
and insisted on the full forfeit money, though Pyotr Petrovitch
would be giving him back the flat practically redecorated. In the same
way the upholsterers refused to return a single rouble of the
instalment paid for the furniture purchased but not yet removed to the
flat.
  "Am I to get married simply for the sake of the furniture?" Pyotr
Petrovitch ground his teeth and at the same time once more he had a
gleam of desperate hope. "Can all that be really so irrevocably
over? Is it no use to make another effort?" The thought of Dounia sent
a voluptuous pang through his heart. He endured anguish at that
moment, and if it had been possible to slay Raskolnikov instantly by
wishing it, Pyotr Petrovitch would promptly have uttered the wish.
  "It was my mistake, too, not to have given them money," he
thought, as he returned dejectedly to Lebeziatnikov's room, "and why
on earth was I such a Jew? It was false economy! I meant to keep
them without a penny so that they should turn to me as their
providence, and look at them! Foo! If I'd spent some fifteen hundred
roubles on them for the trousseau and presents, on knick-knacks,
dressing-cases, jewellery, materials, and all that sort of trash
from Knopp's and the English shop, my position would have been
better and... stronger! They could not have refused me so easily! They
are the sort of people that would feel bound to return money and
presents if they broke it off; and they would find it hard to do it!
And their consciences would prick them: how can we dismiss a man who
has hitherto been so generous and delicate?.... H'm! I've made a
blunder."
  And grinding his teeth again, Pyotr Petrovitch called himself a
fool- but not aloud, of course.
  He returned home, twice as irritated and angry as before. The
preparations for the funeral dinner at Katerina Ivanovna's excited his
curiosity as he passed. He had heard about it the day before; he
fancied, indeed, that he had been invited, but absorbed in his own
cares he had paid no attention. Inquiring of Madame Lippevechsel who
was busy laying the table while Katerina Ivanovna was away at the
cemetery, he heard that the entertainment was to be a great affair,
that all the lodgers had been invited, among them some who had not
known the dead man, that even Andrey Semyonovitch Lebeziatnikov was
invited in spite of his previous quarrel with Katerina Ivanovna,
that he, Pyotr Petrovitch, was not only invited, but was eagerly
expected as he was the most important of the lodgers. Amalia
Ivanovna herself had been invited with great ceremony in spite of
the recent unpleasantness, and so she was very busy with
preparations and was taking a positive pleasure in them; she was
moreover dressed up to the nines, all in new black silk, and she was
proud of it. All this suggested an idea to Pyotr Petrovitch and he
went into his room, or rather Lebeziatnikov's, somewhat thoughtful. He
had learnt that Raskolnikov was to be one of the guests.
  Andrey Semyonovitch had been at home all the morning. The attitude
of Pyotr Petrovitch to this gentleman was strange, though perhaps
natural. Pyotr Petrovitch had despised and hated him from the day he
came to stay with him and at the same time he seemed somewhat afraid
of him. He had not come to stay with him on his arrival in
Petersburg simply from parsimony, though that had been perhaps his
chief object. He had heard of Andrey Semyonovitch, who had once been
his ward, as a leading young progressive who was taking an important
part in certain interesting circles, the doings of which were a legend
in the provinces. It had impressed Pyotr Petrovitch. These powerful
omniscient circles who despised every one and showed every one up
had long inspired in him a peculiar but quite vague alarm. He had not,
of course, been able to form even an approximate notion of what they
meant. He, like every one, had heard that there were, especially in
Petersburg, progressives of some sort, nihilists and so on, and,
like many people, he exaggerated and distorted the significance of
those words to an absurd degree. What for many years past he had
feared more than anything was being shown up and this was the chief
ground for his continual uneasiness at the thought of transferring his
business to Petersburg. He was afraid of this as little children are
sometimes panic-stricken. Some years before, when he was just entering
on his own career, he had come upon two cases in which rather
important personages in the province, patrons of his, had been cruelly
shown up. One instance had ended in great scandal for the person
attacked and the other had very nearly ended in serious trouble. For
this reason Pyotr Petrovitch intended to go into the subject as soon
as he reached Petersburg and, if necessary, to anticipate
contingencies by seeking the favour of "our younger generation." He
relied on Andrey Semyonovitch for this and before his visit to
Raskolnikov he had succeeded in picking up some current phrases. He
soon discovered that Andrey Semyonovitch was a commonplace
simpleton, but that by no means reassured Pyotr Petrovitch. Even if he
had been certain that all the progressives were fools like him, it
would not have allayed his uneasiness. All the doctrines, the ideas,
the systems with which Andrey Semyonovitch pestered him had no
interest for him. He had his own object- he simply wanted to find
out at once what was happening here. Had these people any power or
not? Had he anything to fear from them? Would they expose any
enterprise of his? And what precisely was now the object of their
attacks? Could he somehow make up to them and get round them if they
really were powerful? Was this the thing to do or not? Couldn't he
gain something through them? In fact hundreds of questions presented
themselves.
  Andrey Semyonovitch was an anaemic, scrofulous little man, with
strangely flaxen mutton-chop whiskers of which he was very proud. He
was a clerk and had almost always something wrong with his eyes. He
was rather soft-hearted, but self-confident and sometimes extremely
conceited in speech which had an absurd effect, incongruous with his
little figure. He was one of the lodgers most respected by Amalia
Ivanovna, for he did not get drunk and paid regularly for his
lodgings. Andrey Semyonovitch really was rather stupid; he attached
himself to the cause of progress and "our younger generation" from
enthusiasm. He was one of the numerous and varied legion of
dullards, of half-animate abortions, conceited, half-educated
coxcombs, who attach themselves to the idea most in fashion only to
vulgarise it and who caricature every cause they serve, however
sincerely.
  Though Lebeziatnikov was so good-natured, he, too, was beginning
to dislike Pyotr Petrovitch. This happened on both sides
unconsciously. However simple Andrey Semyonovitch might be, he began
to see that Pyotr Petrovitch was duping him and secretly despising
him, and that "he was not the right sort of man." He had tried
expounding to him the system of Fourier and the Darwinian theory,
but of late Pyotr Petrovitch began to listen too sarcastically and
even to be rude. The fact was he had begun instinctively to guess that
Lebeziatnikov was not merely a commonplace simpleton, but, perhaps,
a liar, too, and that he had no connections of any consequence even in
his own circle, but had simply picked things up third-hand; and that
very likely he did not even know much about his own work of
propaganda, for he was in too great a muddle. A fine person he would
be to show any one up! It must be noted, by the way, that Pyotr
Petrovitch had during those ten days eagerly accepted the strangest
praise from Andrey Semyonovitch; he had not protested, for instance,
when Andrey Semyonovitch belauded him for being ready to contribute to
the establishment of the new "commune," or to abstain from christening
his future children, or to acquiesce if Dounia were to take a lover
a month after marriage, and so on. Pyotr Petrovitch so enjoyed hearing
his own praises that he did not disdain even such virtues when they
were attributed to him.
  Pyotr Petrovitch had had occasion that morning to realise some
five per cent. bonds and now he sat down to the table and counted over
bundles of notes. Andrey Semyonovitch who hardly ever had any money
walked about the room pretending to himself to look at all those
bank notes with indifference and even contempt. Nothing would have
convinced Pyotr Petrovitch that Andrey Semyonovitch could really
look on the money unmoved, and the latter, on his side, kept
thinking bitterly that Pyotr Petrovitch was capable of entertaining
such an idea about him and was, perhaps, glad of the opportunity of
teasing his young friend by reminding him of his inferiority and the
great difference between them.
  He found him incredibly inattentive and irritable, though he, Andrey
Semyonovitch, began enlarging on his favourite subject, the foundation
of a new special "commune." The brief remarks that dropped from
Pyotr Petrovitch between the clicking of the beads on the reckoning
frame betrayed unmistakable and discourteous irony. But the "humane"
Andrey Semyonovitch ascribed Pyotr Petrovitch's ill-humour to his
recent breach with Dounia and he was burning with impatience to
discourse on that theme. He had something progressive to say on the
subject which might console his worthy friend and "could not fail"
to promote his development.
  "There is some sort of festivity being prepared at that... at the
widow's, isn't there?" Pyotr Petrovitch asked suddenly, interrupting
Andrey Semyonovitch at the most interesting passage.
  "Why, don't you know? Why, I was telling you last night what I think
about all such ceremonies. And she invited you too, I heard. You
were talking to her yesterday..."
  "I should never have expected that beggarly fool would have spent on
this feast all the money she got from that other fool, Raskolnikov.
I was surprised just now as I came through at the preparations
there, the wines! Several people are invited. It's beyond everything!"
continued Pyotr Petrovitch, who seemed to have some object in pursuing
the conversation. "What? You say I am asked too? When was that? I
don't remember. But I shan't go. Why should I? I only said a word to
her in passing yesterday of the possibility of her obtaining a
year's salary as a destitute widow of a government clerk. I suppose
she has invited me on that account, hasn't she? He-he-he!"
  "I don't intend to go either," said Lebeziatnikov.
  "I should think not, after giving her a thrashing! You might well
hesitate, he-he!"
  "Who thrashed? Whom?" cried Lebeziatnikov, flustered and blushing.
  "Why, you thrashed Katerina Ivanovna a month ago. I heard so
yesterday... so that's what your convictions amount to... and the
woman question, too, wasn't quite sound, he-he-he!" and Pyotr
Petrovitch, as though comforted, went back to clicking his beads.
  "It's all slander and nonsense!" cried Lebeziatnikov, who was always
afraid of allusions to the subject. "It was not like that at all, it
was quite different. You've heard it wrong; it's a libel. I was simply
defending myself. She rushed at me first with her nails, she pulled
out all my whiskers.... It's permissable for any one I should hope
to defend himself and I never allow any one to use violence to me on
principle, for it's an act of despotism. What was I to do? I simply
pushed her back."
  "He-he-he!" Luzhin went on laughing maliciously.
  "You keep on like that because you are out of humour yourself....
But that's nonsense and it has nothing, nothing whatever to do with
the woman question! You don't understand; I used to think, indeed,
that if women are equal to men in all respects even in strength (as is
maintained now) there ought to be equality in that, too. Of course,
I reflected afterwards that such a question ought not really to arise,
for there ought not to be fighting and in the future society, fighting
is unthinkable... and that it would be a queer thing to seek for
equality in fighting. I am not so stupid... though, of course, there
is fighting... there won't be later, but at present there is...
confound it! How muddled one gets with you! It's not on that account
that I am not going. I am not going on principle, not to take part
in the revolting convention of memorial dinners, that's why! Though,
of course, one might go to laugh at it.... I am sorry there won't be
any priests at it. I should certainly go if there were."
  "Then you would sit down at another man's table and insult it and
those who invited you. Eh?"
  "Certainly not insult, but protest. I should do it with a good
object. I might indirectly assist the cause of enlightenment and
propaganda. It's a duty of every man to work for enlightenment and
propaganda and the more harshly, perhaps, the better. I might drop a
seed, an idea.... And something might grow up from that seed. How
should I be insulting them? They might be offended at first, but
afterwards they'd see I'd done them a service. You know, Terebyeva
(who is in the community now) was blamed because when she left her
family and... devoted... herself, she wrote to her father and mother
that she wouldn't go on living conventionally and was entering on a
free marriage and it was said that that was too harsh, that she
might have spared them and have written more kindly. I think that's
all nonsense and there's no need of softness, on the contrary,
what's wanted is protest. Varents had been married seven years, she
abandoned her two children, she told her husband straight out in a
letter: 'I have realised that I cannot be happy with you. I can
never forgive you that you have deceived me by concealing from me that
there is another organisation of society by means of the
communities. I have only lately learned it from a great-hearted man to
whom I have given myself and with whom I am establishing a
community. I speak plainly because I consider it dishonest to
deceive you. Do as you think best. Do not hope to get me back, you are
too late. I hope you will be happy.' That's how letters like that
ought to be written!"
  "Is that Terebyeva the one you said had made a third free marriage?"
  "No, it's only the second, really! But what if it were the fourth,
what if it were the fifteenth, that's all nonsense! And if ever I
regretted the death of my father and mother, it is now, and I
sometimes think if my parents were living what a protest I would
have aimed at them! I would have done something on purpose... I
would have shown them! I would have astonished them! I am really sorry
there is no one!"
  "To surprise! He-he! Well, be that as you will," Pyotr Petrovitch
interrupted, "but tell me this; do you know the dead man's daughter,
the delicate-looking little thing? It's true what they say about
her, isn't it?"
  "What of it? I think, that is, it is my own personal conviction,
that this is the normal condition of women. Why not? I mean,
distinguons. In our present society, it is not altogether normal,
because it is compulsory, but in the future society, it will be
perfectly normal, because it will be voluntary. Even as it is, she was
quite right: she was suffering and that was her asset, so to speak,
her capital which she had a perfect right to dispose of. Of course, in
the future society, there will be no need of assets, but her part will
have another significance, rational and in harmony with her
environment. As to Sofya Semyonovna personally, I regard her action as
a vigorous protest against the organization of society, and I
respect her deeply for it; I rejoice indeed when I look at her!"
  "I was told that you got her turned out of these lodgings."
  Lebeziatnikov was enraged.
  "That's another slander," he yelled. "It was not so at all! That was
all Katerina Ivanovna's invention, for she did not understand! And I
never made love to Sofya Semyonovna! I was simply developing her,
entirely disinterestedly, trying to rouse her to protest.... All I
wanted was her protest and Sofya Semyonovna could not have remained
here anyway!"
  "Have you asked her to join your community?"
  "You keep on laughing and very inappropriately, allow me to tell
you. You don't understand! There is no such role in a community. The
community is established that there should be no such roles. In a
community, such a role is essentially transformed and what is stupid
here is sensible there, what, under present conditions, is unnatural
becomes perfectly natural in the community. It all depends on the
environment. It's all the environment and man himself is nothing.
And I am on good terms with Sofya Semyonovna to this day, which is a
proof that she never regarded me as having wronged her. I am trying
now to attract her to the community, but on quite, quite a different
footing. What are you laughing at? We are trying to establish a
community of our own, a special one, on a broader basis. We have
gone further in our convictions. We reject more! And meanwhile I'm
still developing Sofya Semyonovna. She has a beautiful, beautiful
character!"
  "And you take advantage of her fine character, eh? He-he!"
  "No, no! Oh, no! On the contrary."
  "Oh, on the contrary! He-he-he! A queer thing to say!"
  "Believe me! Why should I disguise it? In fact, I feel it strange
myself how timid, chaste and modern she is with me!"
  "And you, of course, are developing her... he-he! trying to prove to
her that all that modesty is nonsense?"
  "Not at all, not at all! How coarsely, how stupidly- excuse me
saying so- you misunderstand the word development! Good heavens,
how... crude you still are! We are striving for the freedom of women
and you have only one idea in your head.... Setting aside the
general question of chastity and feminine modesty as useless in
themselves and indeed prejudices, I fully accept her chastity with me,
because that's for her to decide. Of course if she were to tell me
herself that she wanted me, I should think myself very lucky,
because I like the girl very much; but as it is, no one has ever
treated her more courteously than I, with more respect for her
dignity... I wait in hopes, that's all!"
  "You had much better make her a present of something. I bet you
never thought of that."
  "You don't understand, as I've told you already! Of course, she is
in such a position, but it's another question. Quite another question!
You simply despise her. Seeing a fact which you mistakenly consider
deserving of contempt, you refuse to take a humane view of a fellow
creature. You don't know what a character she is! I am only sorry that
of late she has quite given up reading and borrowing books. I used
to lend them to her. I am sorry, too, that with all the energy and
resolution in protesting- which she has already shown once- she has
little self-reliance, little, so to say, independence, so as to
break free from certain prejudices and certain foolish ideas. Yet
she thoroughly understands some questions, for instance about
kissing of hands, that is, that it's an insult to a woman for a man to
kiss her hand, because it's a sign of inequality. We had a debate
about it and I described it to her. She listened attentively to an
account of the workmen's associations in France, too. Now I am
explaining the question of coming into the room in the future
society."
  "And what's that, pray?"
  "We had a debate lately on the question: Has a member of the
community the right to enter another member's room, whether man or
woman at any time... and we decided that he has!"
  "It might be at an inconvenient moment, he-he!"
  Lebeziatnikov was really angry.
  "You are always thinking of something unpleasant," he cried with
aversion. "Tfoo! How vexed I am that when I was expounding our system,
I referred prematurely to the question of personal privacy! It's
always a stumbling-block to people like you, they turn into ridicule
before they understand it. And how proud they are of it, too! Tfoo!
I've often maintained that that question should not be approached by a
novice till he has a firm faith in the system. And tell me, please,
what do you find so shameful even in cesspools? I should be the
first to be ready to clean out any cesspool you like. And it's not a
question of self-sacrifice, it's simply work, honourable, useful
work which is as good as any other and much better than the work of
a Raphael and a Pushkin, because it is more useful."
  "And more honourable, more honourable, he-he-he!"
  "What do you mean by 'more honourable'? I don't understand such
expressions to describe human activity. 'More honourable,' 'nobler'-
all those are old-fashioned prejudices which I reject. Everything
which is of use to mankind is honourable. I only understand one
word: useful! You can snigger as much as you like, but that's so!"
  Pyotr Petrovitch laughed heartily. He had finished counting the
money and was putting it away. But some of the notes he left on the
table. The "cesspool question" had already been a subject of dispute
between them. What was absurd was that it made Lebeziatnikov really
angry, while it amused Luzhin and at that moment he particularly
wanted to anger his young friend.
  "It's your ill-luck yesterday that makes you so ill-humoured and
annoying," blurted out Lebeziatnikov, who in spite of his
"independence" and his "protests" did not venture to oppose Pyotr
Petrovitch and still behaved to him with some of the respect
habitual in earlier years.
  "You'd better tell me this," Pyotr Petrovitch interrupted with
haughty displeasure, "can you... or rather are you really friendly
enough with that young person to ask her to step in here for a minute?
I think they've all come back from the cemetery... I hear the sound of
steps... I want to see her, that young person."
  "What for?" Lebeziatnikov asked with surprise.
  "Oh, I want to. I am leaving here to-day or to-morrow and
therefore I wanted to speak to her about... However, you may be
present during the interview. It's better you should be, indeed. For
there's no knowing what you might imagine."
  "I shan't imagine anything. I only asked and, if you've anything
to say to her, nothing is easier than to call her in. I'll go directly
and you may be sure I won't be in your way."

18

Re: Достоевский Ф. М. - Преступление и наказание в переводе на английский

Five minutes later Lebeziatnikov came in with Sonia. She came in
very much surprised and overcome with shyness as usual. She was always
shy in such circumstances and was always afraid of new people, she had
been as a child and was even more so now.... Pyotr Petrovitch met
her "politely and affably," but with a certain shade of bantering
familiarity which in his opinion was suitable for a man of his
respectability and weight in dealing with a creature so young and so
interesting as she. He hastened to "reassure" her and made her sit
down facing him at the table. Sonia sat down, looked about her- at
Lebeziatnikov, at the notes lying on the table and then again at Pyotr
Petrovitch and her eyes remained riveted on him. Lebeziatnikov was
moving to the door. Pyotr Petrovitch signed to Sonia to remain
seated and stopped Lebeziatnikov.
  "Is Raskolnikov in there? Has he come?" he asked him in a whisper.
  "Raskolnikov? Yes. Why? Yes, he is there. I saw him just come in....
Why?"
  "Well, I particularly beg you to remain here with us and not to
leave me alone with this... young woman. I only want a few words
with her, but God knows what they may make of it. I shouldn't like
Raskolnikov to repeat anything.... You understand what I mean?"
  "I understand!" Lebeziatnikov saw the point. "Yes, you are right....
Of course, I am convinced personally that you have no reason to be
uneasy, but... still, you are right. Certainly I'll stay. I'll stand
here at the window and not be in your way...  I think you are
right..."
  Pyotr Petrovitch returned to the sofa, sat down opposite Sonia,
looked attentively at her and assumed an extremely dignified, even
severe expression, as much as to say, "don't you make any mistake,
madam." Sonia was overwhelmed with embarrassment.
  "In the first place, Sofya Semyonovna, will you make my excuses to
your respected mamma.... That's right, isn't it? Katerina Ivanovna
stands in the place of a mother to you?" Pyotr Petrovitch began with
great dignity, though affably.
  It was evident that his intentions were friendly.
  "Quite so, yes; the place of a mother," Sonia answered, timidly
and hurriedly.
  "Then will you make my apologies to her? Through inevitable
circumstances I am forced to be absent and shall not be at the
dinner in spite of your mamma's kind invitation."
  "Yes... I'll tell her... at once."
  And Sonia hastily jumped up from her seat.
  "Wait, that's not all," Pyotr Petrovitch detained her, smiling at
her simplicity and ignorance of good manners, "and you know me little,
my dear Sofya Semyonovna, if you suppose I would have ventured to
trouble a person like you for a matter of so little consequence
affecting myself only. I have another object."
  Sonia sat down hurriedly. Her eyes rested again for an instant on
the grey and rainbow-coloured notes that remained on the table, but
she quickly looked away and fixed her eyes on Pyotr Petrovitch. She
felt it horribly indecorous, especially for her, to look at another
person's money. She stared at the gold eyeglass which Pyotr Petrovitch
held in his left hand and at the massive and extremely handsome ring
with a yellow stone on his middle finger. But suddenly she looked away
and, not knowing where to turn, ended by staring Pyotr Petrovitch
again straight in the face. After a pause of still greater dignity
he continued.
  "I chanced yesterday in passing to exchange a couple of words with
Katerina Ivanovna, poor woman. That was sufficient to enable me to
ascertain that she is in a position- preternatural, if one may so
express it."
  "Yes... preternatural..." Sonia hurriedly assented.
  "Or it would be simpler and more comprehensible to say, ill."
  "Yes, simpler and more comprehen... yes, ill."
  "Quite so. So then from a feeling of humanity and so to speak
compassion, I should be glad to be of service to her in any way,
foreseeing her unfortunate position. I believe the whole of this
poverty-stricken family depends now entirely on you?"
  "Allow me to ask," Sonia rose to her feet, "did you say something to
her yesterday of the possibility of a pension? Because she told me you
had undertaken to get her one. Was that true?"
  "Not in the slightest, and indeed it's an absurdity! I merely hinted
at her obtaining temporary assistance as the widow of an official
who had died in the service- if only she has patronage... but
apparently your late parent had not served his full term and had not
indeed been in the service at all of late. In fact, if there could
be any hope, it would be very ephemeral, because there would be no
claim for assistance in that case, far from it.... And she is dreaming
of a pension already, he-he-he!... A go-ahead lady!"
  "Yes, she is. For she is credulous and good-hearted, and she
believes everything from the goodness of her heart and... and... and
she is like that... yes... You must excuse her," said Sonia, and again
she got up to go.
  "But you haven't heard what I have to say."
  "No, I haven't heard," muttered Sonia.
  "Then sit down." She was terribly confused; she sat down again a
third time.
  "Seeing her position with her unfortunate little ones, I should be
glad, as I have said before, so far as lies in my power, to be of
service, that is, so far as is in my power, not more. One might for
instance get up a subscription for her, or a lottery, something of the
sort, such as is always arranged in such cases by friends or even
outsiders desirous of assisting people. It was of that I intended to
speak to you; it might be done."
  "Yes, yes... God will repay you for it," faltered Sonia, gazing
intently at Pyotr Petrovitch.
  "It might be, but we will talk of it later. We might begin it
to-day, we will talk it over this evening and lay the foundation so to
speak. Come to me at seven o'clock. Mr. Lebeziatnikov, I hope, will
assist us. But there is one circumstance of which I ought to warn
you beforehand and for which I venture to trouble you, Sofya
Semyonovna, to come here. In my opinion money cannot be, indeed it's
unsafe to put it into Katerina Ivanovna's own hands. The dinner to-day
is a proof of that. Though she has not, so to speak, a crust of
bread for to-morrow and... well, boots or shoes, or anything; she
has bought to-day Jamaica rum, and even, I believe, Madeira and... and
coffee. I saw it as I passed through. To-morrow it will all fall
upon you again, they won't have a crust of bread. It's absurd, really,
and so, to my thinking, a subscription ought to be raised so that
the unhappy widow should not know of the money, but only you, for
instance. Am I right?"
  "I don't know... this is only to-day, once in her life.... She was
so anxious to do honour, to celebrate the memory.... And she is very
sensible... but just as you think and I shall be very, very... they
will all be... and God will reward... and the orphans..."
  Sonia burst into tears.
  "Very well, then, keep it in mind; and now will you accept for the
benefit of your relation the small sum that I am able to spare, from
me personally. I am very anxious that my name should not be
mentioned in connection with it. Here... having so to speak
anxieties of my own, I cannot do more..."
  And Pyotr Petrovitch held out to Sonia a ten-rouble note carefully
unfolded. Sonia took it, flushed crimson, jumped up, muttered
something and began taking leave. Pyotr Petrovitch accompanied her
ceremoniously to the door. She got out of the room at last, agitated
and distressed, and returned to Katerina Ivanovna, overwhelmed with
confusion.
  All this time Lebeziatnikov had stood at the window or walked
about the room, anxious not to interrupt the conversation; when
Sonia had gone he walked up to Pyotr Petrovitch and solemnly held
out his hand.
  "I heard and saw everything," he said, laying stress on the last
verb. "That is honourable, I mean to say, it's humane! You wanted to
avoid gratitude, I saw! And although I cannot, I confess, in principle
sympathise with private charity, for it not only fails to eradicate
the evil but even promotes it, yet I must admit that I saw your action
with pleasure- yes, yes, I like it."
  "That's all nonsense," muttered Pyotr Petrovitch, somewhat
disconcerted, looking carefully at Lebeziatnikov.
  "No, it's not nonsense! A man who has suffered distress and
annoyance as you did yesterday and who yet can sympathise with the
misery of others, such a man... even though he is making a social
mistake- is still deserving of respect! I did not expect it indeed
of you, Pyotr Petrovitch, especially as according to your ideas... oh,
what a drawback your ideas are to you! How distressed you are for
instance by your ill luck yesterday," cried the simple-hearted
Lebeziatnikov, who felt a return of affection for Pyotr Petrovitch.
"And, what do you want with marriage, with legal marriage, my dear,
noble Pyotr Petrovitch? Why do you cling to this legality of marriage?
Well, you may beat me if you like, but I am glad, positively glad it
hasn't come off, that you are free, that you are not quite lost for
humanity.... you see, I've spoken my mind!"
  "Because I don't want in your free marriage to be made a fool of and
to bring up another man's children, that's why I want legal marriage,"
Luzhin replied in order to make some answer.
  He seemed preoccupied by something.
  "Children? You referred to children," Lebeziatnikov started off like
a warhorse at the trumpet call. "Children are a social question and
a question of first importance, I agree; but the question of
children has another solution. Some refuse to have children
altogether, because they suggest the institution of the family.
We'll speak of children later, but now as to the question of honour, I
confess that's my weak point. That horrid, military, Pushkin
expression is unthinkable in the dictionary of the future. What does
it mean indeed? It's nonsense, there will be no deception in a free
marriage! That is only the natural consequence of a legal marriage, so
to say, its corrective, a protest. So that indeed it's not
humiliating... and if I ever, to suppose an absurdity, were to be
legally married, I should be positively glad of it. I should say to my
wife: 'My dear, hitherto I have loved you, now I respect you, for
you've shown you can protest!' You laugh! That's because you are of
incapable of getting away from prejudices. Confound it all! I
understand now where the unpleasantness is of being deceived in a
legal marriage, but it's simply a despicable consequence of a
despicable position in which both are humiliated. When the deception
is open, as in a free marriage, then it does not exist, it's
unthinkable. Your wife will only prove how she respects you by
considering you incapable of opposing her happiness and avenging
yourself on her for her new husband. Damn it all! I sometimes dream if
I were to be married, foo! I mean if I were to marry, legally or
not, it's just the same, I should present my wife with a lover if
she had not found one for herself. 'My dear,' I should say, 'I love
you, but even more than that I desire you to respect me. See!' Am I
not right?"
  Pyotr Petrovitch sniggered as he listened, but without much
merriment. He hardly heard it indeed. He was preoccupied with
something else and even Lebeziatnikov at last noticed it. Pyotr
Petrovitch seemed excited and rubbed his hands. Lebeziatnikov
remembered all this and reflected upon it afterwards.

CHAPTER_TWO
                             Chapter Two
-
  IT WOULD be difficult to explain exactly what could have
originated the idea of that senseless dinner in Katerina Ivanovna's
disordered brain. Nearly ten of the twenty roubles, given by
Raskolnikov for Marmeladov's funeral, were wasted upon it. Possibly
Katerina Ivanovna felt obliged to honour the memory of the deceased
"suitably," that all the lodgers, and still more Amalia Ivanovna,
might know "that he was in no way their inferior, and perhaps very
much their superior," and that no one had the right "to turn up his
nose at him." Perhaps the chief element was that peculiar "poor
man's pride," which compels many poor people to spend their last
savings on some traditional social ceremony, simply in order to do
"like other people," and not to "be looked down upon." It is very
probable, too, that Katerina Ivanovna longed on this occasion, at
the moment when she seemed to be abandoned by every one, to show those
"wretched contemptible lodgers" that she knew "how to do things, how
to entertain" and that she had been brought up "in a genteel, she
might almost say aristocratic colonel's family" and had not been meant
for sweeping floors and washing the children's rags at night. Even the
poorest and most broken-spirited people are sometimes liable to
these paroxysms of pride and vanity which take the form of an
irresistible nervous craving. And Katerina Ivanovna was not
broken-spirited; she might have been killed by circumstance, but her
spirit could not have been broken, that is, she could not have been
intimidated, her will could not be crushed. Moreover Sonia had said
with good reason that her mind was unhinged. She could not be said
to be insane, but for a year past she had been so harassed that her
mind might well be overstrained. The later stages of consumption are
apt, doctors tell us, to affect the intellect.
  There was no great variety of wines, nor was there Madeira; but wine
there was. There was vodka, rum and Lisbon wine, all of the poorest
quality but in sufficient quantity. Besides the traditional rice and
honey, there were three or four dishes, one of which consisted of
pancakes, all prepared in Amalia Ivanovna's kitchen. Two samovars were
boiling, that tea and punch might be offered after dinner. Katerina
Ivanovna had herself seen to purchasing the provisions, with the
help of one of the lodgers, an unfortunate little Pole who had somehow
been stranded at Madame Lippevechsel's. He promptly put himself at
Katerina Ivanovna's disposal and had been all that morning and all the
day before running about as fast as his legs could carry him, and very
anxious that every one should be aware of it. For every trifle he
ran to Katerina Ivanovna, even hunting her out at the bazaar, at every
instant called her "Pani." She was heartily sick of him before the
end, though she had declared at first that she could not have got on
without this "serviceable and magnanimous man." It was one of Katerina
Ivanovna's characteristics to paint every one she met in the most
glowing colours. Her praises were so exaggerated as sometimes to be
embarrassing; she would invent various circumstances to the credit
of her new acquaintance and quite genuinely believe in their
reality. Then all of a sudden she would be disillusioned and would
rudely and contemptuously repulse the person she had only a few
hours before been literally adoring. She was naturally of a gay,
lively and peace-loving disposition, but from continual failures and
misfortunes she had come to desire so keenly that all should live in
peace and joy and should not dare to break the peace, that the
slightest jar, the smallest disaster reduced her almost to frenzy, and
she would pass in an instant from the brightest hopes and fancies to
cursing her fate and raving, and knocking her head against the wall.
  Amalia Ivanovna, too, suddenly acquired extraordinary importance
in Katerina Ivanovna's eyes and was treated by her with
extraordinary respect, probably only because Amalia Ivanovna had
thrown herself heart and soul into the preparations. She had
undertaken to lay the table, to provide the linen, crockery, &c.,
and to cook the dishes in her kitchen, and Katerina Ivanovna had
left it all in her hands and gone herself to the cemetery.
Everything had been well done. Even the tablecloth was nearly clean;
the crockery, knives, forks and glasses were, of course, of all shapes
and patterns, lent by different lodgers, but the table was properly
laid at the time fixed, and Amalia Ivanovna, feeling she had done
her work well, had put on a black silk dress and a cap with new
mourning ribbons and met the returning party with some pride. This
pride, though justifiable, displeased Katerina Ivanovna for some
reason: "as though the table could not have been laid except by Amalia
Ivanovna!" She disliked the cap with new ribbons, too. "Could she be
stuck up, the stupid German, because she was mistress of the house,
and had consented as a favour to help her poor lodgers! As a favour!
Fancy that! Katerina Ivanovna's father who had been a colonel and
almost a governor had sometimes had the table set for forty persons,
and then any one like Amalia Ivanovna, or rather Ludwigovna, would not
have been allowed into the kitchen."
  Katerina Ivanovna, however, put off expressing her feelings for
the time and contented herself with treating her coldly, though she
decided inwardly that she would certainly have to put Amalia
Ivanovna down and set her in her proper place, for goodness only
knew what she was fancying herself. Katerina Ivanovna was irritated
too by the fact that hardly any of the lodgers invited had come to the
funeral, except the Pole who had just managed to run into the
cemetery, while to the memorial dinner the poorest and most
insignificant of them had turned up, the wretched creatures, many of
them not quite sober. The older and more respectable of them all, as
if by common consent, stayed away. Pyotr Petrovitch Luzhin, for
instance, who might be said to be the most respectable of all the
lodgers, did not appear, though Katerina Ivanovna had the evening
before told all the world, that is Amalia Ivanovna, Polenka, Sonia and
the Pole, that he was the most generous, noble-hearted man with a
large property and vast connections, who had been a friend of her
first husband's, and a guest in her father's house, and that he had
promised to use all his influence to secure her a considerable
pension. It must be noted that when Katerina Ivanovna exalted any
one's connections and fortune, it was without any ulterior motive,
quite disinterestedly, for the mere pleasure of adding to the
consequence of the person praised. Probably "taking his cue" from
Luzhin, "that contemptible wretch Lebeziatnikov had not turned up
either. What did he fancy himself? He was only asked out of kindness
and because he was sharing the same room with Pyotr Petrovitch and was
a friend of his, so that it would have been awkward not to invite
him."
  Among those who failed to appear were "the genteel lady and her
old-maidish daughter," who had only been lodgers in the house for
the last fortnight, but had several times complained of the noise
and uproar in Katerina Ivanovna's room, especially when Marmeladov had
come back drunk. Katerina Ivanovna heard this from Amalia Ivanovna
who, quarrelling with Katerina Ivanovna, and threatening to turn the
whole family out of doors, had shouted at her that they "were not
worth the foot" of the honourable lodgers whom they were disturbing.
Katerina Ivanovna determined now to invite this lady and her daughter,
"whose foot she was not worth," and who had turned away haughtily when
she casually met them, so that they might know that "she was more
noble in her thoughts and feelings and did not harbour malice," and
might see that she was not accustomed to her way of living. She had
proposed to make this clear to them at dinner with allusions to her
late father's governorship, and also at the same time to hint that
it was exceedingly stupid of them to turn away on meeting her. The fat
colonel-major (he was really a discharged officer of low rank) was
also absent, but it appeared that he had been "not himself" for the
last two days. The party consisted of the Pole, a wretched looking
clerk with a spotty face and a greasy coat, who had not a word to
say for himself, and smelt abominably, a deaf and almost blind old man
who had once been in the post office and who had been from
immemorial ages maintained by some one at Amalia Ivanovna's.
  A retired clerk of the commissariat department came, too; he was
drunk, had a loud and most unseemly laugh and only fancy- was
without a waistcoat! One of the visitors sat straight down to the
table without even greeting Katerina Ivanovna. Finally one person
having no suit appeared in his dressing gown, but this was too much,
and the efforts of Amalia Ivanovna and the Pole succeeded in
removing him. The Pole brought with him, however, two other Poles
who did not live at Amalia Ivanovna's and whom no one had seen here
before. All this irritated Katerina Ivanovna intensely. "For whom
had they made all these preparations then?" To make room for the
visitors the children had not even been laid for at the table; but the
two little ones were sitting on a bench in the furthest corner with
their dinner laid on a box, while Polenka as a big girl had to look
after them, feed them, and keep their noses wiped like well-bred
children's.
  Katerina Ivanovna, in fact, could hardly help meeting her guests
with increased dignity, and even haughtiness. She stared at some of
them with special severity, and loftily invited them to take their
seats. Rushing to the conclusion that Amalia Ivanovna must be
responsible for those who were absent, she began treating her with
extreme nonchalance, which the latter promptly observed and
resented. Such a beginning was no good omen for the end. All were
seated at last.
  Raskolnikov came in almost at the moment of their return from the
cemetery. Katerina Ivanovna was greatly delighted to see him, in the
first place, because he was the one "educated visitor, and, as every
one knew, was in two years to take a professorship in the university,"
and secondly because he immediately and respectfully apologised for
having been unable to be at the funeral. She positively pounced upon
him, and made him sit on her left hand (Amalia Ivanovna was on her
right). In spite of her continual anxiety that the dishes should be
passed round correctly and that every one should taste them, in
spite of the agonising cough which interrupted her every minute and
seemed to have grown worse during the last few days she hastened to
pour out in a half whisper to Raskolnikov all her suppressed
feelings and her just indignation at the failure of the dinner,
interspersing her remarks with lively and uncontrollable laughter at
the expense of her visitors and especially of her landlady.
  "It's all that cuckoo's fault! You know whom I mean? Her, her!"
Katerina Ivanovna nodded towards the landlady. "Look at her, she's
making round eyes, she feels that we are talking about her and can't
understand. Pfoo, the owl! Ha-ha! (Cough-cough-cough.) And what does
she put on that cap for? (Cough-cough-cough.) Have you noticed that
she wants every one to consider that she is patronising me and doing
me an honour by being here? I asked her like a sensible woman to
invite people, especially those who knew my late husband, and look
at the set of fools she has brought! The sweeps! Look at that one with
the spotty face. And those wretched Poles, ha-ha-ha!
(Cough-cough-cough.) Not one of them has ever poked his nose in
here, I've never set eyes on them. What have they come here for, I ask
you? There they sit in a row. Hey, Pan!" she cried suddenly to one
of them, "have you tasted the pancakes? Take some more! Have some
beer! Won't you have some vodka? Look, he's jumped up and is making
his bows, they must be quite starved, poor things. Never mind, let
them eat! They don't make a noise, anyway, though I'm really afraid
for our landlady's silver spoons... Amalia Ivanovna!" she addressed
her suddenly, almost aloud, "if your spoons should happen to be
stolen, I won't be responsible, I warn you! Ha-ha-ha!" She laughed
turning to Raskolnikov, and again nodding towards the landlady, in
high glee at her sally. "She didn't understand, she didn't
understand again! Look how she sits with her mouth open! An owl, a
real owl! An owl in new ribbons, ha-ha-ha!"
  Here her laugh turned again to an insufferable fit of coughing
that lasted five minutes. Drops of perspiration stood out on her
forehead and her handkerchief was stained with blood. She showed
Raskolnikov the blood in silence, and as soon as she could get her
breath began whispering to him again with extreme animation and a
hectic flush on her cheeks.
  "Do you know, I gave her the most delicate instructions, so to
speak, for inviting that lady and her daughter, you understand of whom
I am speaking? It needed the utmost delicacy, the greatest nicety, but
she has managed things so that that fool, that conceited baggage, that
provincial nonentity, simply because she is the widow of a major,
and has come to try and get a pension and to fray out her skirts in
the government offices, because at fifty she paints her face
(everybody knows it)... a creature like that did not think fit to
come, and has not even answered the invitation, which the most
ordinary good manners required! I can't understand why Pyotr
Petrovitch has not come! But where's Sonia? Where has she gone? Ah,
there she is at last! what is it, Sonia, where have you been? It's odd
that even at your father's funeral you should be so unpunctual. Rodion
Romanovitch, make room for her beside you. That's your place, Sonia...
take what you like. Have some of the cold entree with jelly, that's
the best. They'll bring the pancakes directly. Have they given the
children some? Polenka, have you got everything?
(Cough-cough-cough.) That's all right. Be a good girl, Lida, and,
Kolya, don't fidget with your feet; sit like a little gentleman.
What are you saying, Sonia?"
  Sonia hastened to give her Pyotr Petrovitch's apologies, trying to
speak loud enough for every one to hear and carefully choosing the
most respectful phrases which she attributed to Pyotr Petrovitch.
She added that Pyotr Petrovitch had particularly told her to say that,
as soon as he possibly could, he would come immediately to discuss
business alone with her and to consider what could be done for her,
&c., &c.
  Sonia knew that this would comfort Katerina Ivanovna, would
flatter her and gratify her pride. She sat down beside Raskolnikov;
she made him a hurried bow, glancing curiously at him. But for the
rest of the time she seemed to avoid looking at him or speaking to
him. She seemed absent-minded, though she kept looking at Katerina
Ivanovna, trying to please her. Neither she nor Katerina Ivanovna
had been able to get mourning; Sonia was wearing dark brown, and
Katerina Ivanovna had on her only dress, a dark striped cotton one.
  The message from Pyotr Petrovitch was very successful. Listening
to Sonia with dignity, Katerina Ivanovna inquired with equal dignity
how Pyotr Petrovitch was, then at once whispered almost aloud to
Raskolnikov that it certainly would have been strange for a man of
Pyotr Petrovitch's position and standing to find himself in such
"extraordinary company," in spite of his devotion to her family and
his old friendship with her father.
  "That's why I am so grateful to you, Rodion Romanovitch, that you
have not disdained my hospitality, even in such surroundings," she
added almost aloud. "But I am sure that it was only your special
affection for my poor husband that has made you keep your promise."
  Then once more with pride and dignity she scanned her visitors,
and suddenly inquired aloud across the table of the deaf man:
"wouldn't he have some more meat, and had he been given some wine?"
The old man made no answer and for a long while could not understand
what he was asked, though his neighbours amused themselves by poking
and shaking him. He simply gazed about him with his mouth open,
which only increased the general mirth.
  "What an imbecile! Look, look! Why was he brought? But as to Pyotr
Petrovitch, I always had confidence in him," Katerina Ivanovna
continued, "and, of course, he is not like..." with an extremely stern
face she addressed Amalia Ivanovna so sharply and loudly that the
latter was quite disconcerted, "not like your dressed up
draggletails whom my father would not have taken as cooks into his
kitchen, and my late husband would have done them honour if he had
invited them in the goodness of his heart."
  "Yes, he was fond of drink, he was fond of it, he did drink!"
cried the commissariat clerk, gulping down his twelfth glass of vodka.
  "My late husband certainly had that weakness, and every one knows
it," Katerina Ivanovna attacked him at once, "but he was a kind and
honourable man, who loved and respected his family. The worst of it
was his good nature made him trust all sorts of disreputable people,
and he drank with fellows who were not worth the sole of his shoe.
Would you believe it, Rodion Romanovitch, they found a gingerbread
cock in his pocket; he was dead drunk, but he did not forget the
children!"
  "A cock? Did you say a cock?" shouted the commissariat clerk.
  Katerina Ivanovna did not vouchsafe a reply. She sighed, lost in
thought.
  "No doubt you think, like every one, that I was too severe with
him," she went on, addressing Raskolnikov. "But that's not so! He
respected me, he respected me very much! He was a kind-hearted man!
And how sorry I was for him sometimes! He would sit in a corner and
look at me, I used to feel so sorry for him, I used to want to be kind
to him and then would think to myself: 'be kind to him and he will
drink again,' it was only by severity that you could keep him within
bounds."
  "Yes, he used to get his hair pulled pretty often," roared the
commissariat clerk again, swallowing another glass of vodka.
  "Some fools would be the better for a good drubbing, as well as
having their hair pulled. I am not talking of my late husband now!"
Katerina Ivanovna snapped at him.
  The flush on her cheeks grew more and more marked, her chest heaved.
In another minute she would have been ready to make a scene. Many of
the visitors were sniggering, evidently delighted. They began poking
the commissariat clerk and whispering something to him. They were
evidently trying to egg him on.
  "Allow me to ask what are you alluding to," began the clerk, "that
is to say, whose... about whom... did you say just now... But I
don't care! That's nonsense! Widow! I forgive you.... Pass!"
  And he took another drink of vodka.
  Raskolnikov sat in silence, listening with disgust. He only ate from
politeness, just tasting the food that Katerina Ivanovna was
continually putting on his plate, to avoid hurting her feelings. He
watched Sonia intently. But Sonia became more and more anxious and
distressed; she, too, foresaw that the dinner would not end peaceably,
and saw with terror Katerina Ivanovna's growing irritation. She knew
that she, Sonia, was the chief reason for the 'genteel' ladies'
contemptuous treatment of Katerina Ivanovna's invitation. She had
heard from Amalia Ivanovna that the mother was positively offended
at the invitation and had asked the question: "how could she let her
daughter sit down beside that young person?" Sonia had a feeling
that Katerina Ivanovna had already heard this and an insult to Sonia
meant more to Katerina Ivanovna than an insult to herself, her
children, or her father, Sonia knew that Katerina Ivanovna would not
be satisfied now, "till she had shown those draggletails that they
were both..." To make matters worse some one passed Sonia, from the
other end of the table, a plate with two hearts pierced with an arrow,
cut out of black bread. Katerina Ivanovna flushed crimson and at
once said aloud across the table that the man who sent it was "a
drunken ass!"
  Amalia Ivanovna was foreseeing something amiss, and at the same time
deeply wounded by Katerina Ivanovna's haughtiness, and to restore
the good-humour of the company and raise herself in their esteem she
began, apropos of nothing, telling a story about an acquaintance of
hers "Karl from the chemist's," who was driving one night in a cab,
and that "the cabman wanted him to kill, and Karl very much begged him
not to kill, and wept and clasped hands, and frightened and from
fear pierced his heart." Though Katerina Ivanovna smiled, she observed
at once that Amalia Ivanovna ought not to tell anecdotes in Russian;
the latter was still more offended, and she retorted that her "Vater
aus Berlin was a very important man, and always went with his hands in
pockets." Katerina Ivanovna could not restrain herself and laughed
so much that Amalia Ivanovna lost patience and could scarcely
control herself.
  "Listen to the owl!" Katerina Ivanovna whispered at once, her
good-humour almost restored, "she meant to say he kept his hands in
his pockets, but she said he put his hands in people's pockets.
(Cough-cough.) And have you noticed, Rodion Romanovitch, that all
these Petersburg foreigners, the Germans especially, are all
stupider than we! Can you fancy any one of us telling how 'Karl from
the chemist's pierced his heart from fear' and that the idiot
instead of punishing the cabman, 'clasped his hands and wept, and much
begged.' Ah, the fool! And you know she fancies it's very touching and
does not suspect how stupid she is! To my thinking that drunken
commissariat clerk is a great deal cleverer, anyway one can see that
he has addled his brains with drink, but you know, these foreigners
are always so well behaved and serious.... Look how she sits
glaring! She is angry, ha-ha! (Cough-cough-cough.)"
  Regaining her good-humour, Katerina Ivanovna began at once telling
Raskolnikov that when she had obtained her pension, she intended to
open a school for the daughters of gentlemen in her native town
T___. This was the first time she had spoken to him of the project,
and she launched out into the most alluring details. It suddenly
appeared that Katerina Ivanovna had in her hands the very
certificate of honour of which Marmeladov had spoken to Raskolnikov in
the tavern, when he told him that Katerina Ivanovna, his wife, had
danced the shawl dance before the governor and other great
personages on leaving school. This certificate of honour was obviously
intended now to prove Katerina Ivanovna's right to open a
boarding-school; but she had armed herself with it chiefly with the
object of overwhelming "those two stuck-up draggletails" if they
came to the dinner, and proving incontestably that Katerina Ivanovna
was of the most noble, "she might even say aristocratic family, a
colonel's daughter and was far superior to certain adventuresses who
have been so much to the fore of late." The certificate of honour
immediately passed into the hands of the drunken guests, and
Katerina Ivanovna did not try to retain it, for it actually
contained the statement en toutes lettres, that her father was of
the rank of a major, and also a companion of an order, so that she
really was almost the daughter of a colonel.
  Warming up, Katerina Ivanovna proceeded to enlarge on the peaceful
and happy life they would lead in T___, on the gymnasium teachers whom
she would engage to give lessons in her boarding-school, one a most
respectable old Frenchman, one Mangot, who had taught Katerina
Ivanovna herself in old days and was still living in T___, and would
no doubt teach in her school on moderate terms. Next she spoke of
Sonia who would go with her to T___ and help her in all her plans.
At this some one at the further end of the table gave a sudden guffaw.
  Though Katerina Ivanovna tried to appear to be disdainfully
unaware of it, she raised her voice and began at once speaking with
conviction of Sonia's undoubted ability to assist her, of "her
gentleness, patience, devotion, generosity and good education,"
tapping Sonia on the cheek and kissing her warmly twice. Sonia flushed
crimson, and Katerina Ivanovna suddenly burst into tears,
immediately observing that she was "nervous and silly, that she was
too much upset, that it was time to finish, and as the dinner was
over, it was time to hand round the tea."
  At that moment, Amalia Ivanovna, deeply aggrieved at taking no
part in the conversation, and not being listened to, made one last
effort, and with secret misgivings ventured on an exceedingly deep and
weighty observation, that "in the future boarding-school she would
have to pay particular attention to die Wasche, and that there
certainly must be a good Dame to look after the linen, and secondly
that the young ladies must not novels at night read."
  Katerina Ivanovna, who certainly was upset and very tired, as well
as heartily sick of the dinner, at once cut short Amalia Ivanovna,
saying "she knew nothing about it and was talking nonsense, that it
was the business of the laundry maid, and not of the directress of a
high-class boarding-school to look after die Wasche, and as for
novel reading, that was simply rudeness, and she begged her to be
silent." Amalia Ivanovna fired up and getting angry observed that
she only "meant her good," and that "she had meant her very good," and
that "it was long since she had paid her Gold for the lodgings."
  Katerina Ivanovna at once "set her down," saying that it was a lie
to say she wished her good, because only yesterday when her dead
husband was lying on the table, she had worried her about the
lodgings. To this Amalia Ivanovna very appropriately observed that she
had invited those ladies, but "those ladies had not come, because
those ladies are ladies and cannot come to a lady who is not a
lady." Katerina Ivanovna at once pointed out to her, that as she was a
slut she could not judge what made one really a lady. Amalia
Ivanovna at once declared that her "Vater aus Berlin was a very,
very important man, and both hands in pockets went, and always used to
say: poof! poof!" and she leapt up from the table to represent her
father, sticking her hands in her pockets, puffing her cheeks, and
uttering vague sounds resembling "poof! poof!" amid loud laughter from
all the lodgers, who purposely encouraged Amalia Ivanovna, hoping
for a fight.
  But this was too much for Katerina Ivanovna, and she at once
declared, so that all could hear, that Amalia Ivanovna probably
never had a father, but was simply a drunken Petersburg Finn, and
had certainly once been a cook and probably something worse. Amalia
Ivanovna turned as red as a lobster and squealed that perhaps Katerina
Ivanovna never had a father, "but she had a vater aus Berlin and
that he wore a long coat and always said poof-poof-poof!"
  Katerina Ivanovna observed contemptuously that all knew what her
family was and that on that very certificate of honour it was stated
in print that her father was a colonel, while Amalia Ivanovna's
father- if she really had one- was probably some Finnish milkman,
but that probably she never had a father at all, since it was still
uncertain whether her name was Amalia Ivanovna or Amalia Ludwigovna.
  At this Amalia Ivanovna, lashed to fury, struck the table with her
fist, and shrieked that she was Amalia Ivanovna, and not Ludwigovna,
"that her Vater was named Johann and that he was a burgomeister, and
that Katerina Ivanovna's Vater was quite never a burgomeister."
Katerina Ivanovna rose from her chair, and with a stern and apparently
calm voice (though she was pale and her chest was heaving) observed
that "if she dared for one moment to set her contemptible wretch of
a father on a level with her papa, she, Katerina Ivanovna, would
tear her cap off her head and trample it under foot." Amalia
Ivanovna ran about the room, shouting at the top of her voice, that
she was mistress of the house and that Katerina Ivanovna should
leave the lodgings that minute; then she rushed for some reason to
collect the silver spoons from the table. There was a great outcry and
uproar, the children began crying. Sonia ran to restrain Katerina
Ivanovna, but when Amalia Ivanovna shouted something about "the yellow
ticket," Katerina Ivanovna pushed Sonia away, and rushed at the
landlady to carry out her threat.
  At that minute the door opened, and Pyotr Petrovitch Luzhin appeared
on the threshold. He stood scanning the party with severe and vigilant
eyes. Katerina Ivanovna rushed to him.

CHAPTER_THREE
                            Chapter Three
-
  "PYOTR PETROVITCH," she cried, "protect me... you at least! Make
this foolish woman understand that she can't behave like this to a
lady in misfortune... that there is a law for such things.... I'll
go to the governor-general himself.... She shall answer for it....
Remembering my father's hospitality protect these orphans."
  "Allow me, madam.... Allow me." Pyotr Petrovitch waved her off.
"Your papa, as you are well aware, I had not the honour of knowing"
(some one laughed aloud) "and I do not intend to take part in your
everlasting squabbles with Amalia Ivanovna.... I have come here to
speak of my own affairs... and I want to have a word with your
stepdaughter, Sofya... Ivanovna, I think it is? Allow me to pass."
  Pyotr Petrovitch, edging by her, went to the opposite corner where
Sonia was.
  Katerina Ivanovna remained standing where she was, as though
thunderstruck. She could not understand how Pyotr Petrovitch could
deny having enjoyed her father's hospitility. Though she had
invented it herself, she believed in it firmly by this time. She was
struck too by the businesslike, dry and even contemptuously menacing
tone of Pyotr Petrovitch. All the clamour gradually died away at his
entrance. Not only was this "serious business man" strikingly
incongruous with the rest of the party, but it was evident, too,
that he had come upon some matter of consequence, that some
exceptional cause must have brought him and that therefore something
was going to happen. Raskolnikov, standing beside Sonia, moved aside
to let him pass; Pyotr Petrovitch did not seem to notice him. A minute
later Lebeziatnikov, too, appeared in the doorway; he did not come in,
but stood still, listening with marked interest, almost wonder, and
seemed for a time perplexed.
  "Excuse me for possibly interrupting you, but it's a matter of
some importance," Pyotr Petrovitch observed, addressing the company
generally. "I am glad indeed to find other persons present. Amalia
Ivanovna, I humbly beg you as mistress of the house to pay careful
attention to what I have to say to Sofya Ivanovna. Sofya Ivanovna," he
went on, addressing Sonia, who was very much surprised and already
alarmed, "immediately after your visit I found that a hundred-rouble
note was missing from my table, in the room of my friend Mr.
Lebeziatnikov. If in any way whatever you know and will tell us
where it is now, I assure you on my word of honour and call all
present to witness that the matter shall end there. In the opposite
case I shall be compelled to have recourse to very serious measures
and then... you must blame yourself."
  Complete silence reigned in the room. Even the crying children
were still. Sonia stood deadly pale, staring at Luzhin and unable to
say a word. She seemed not to understand. Some seconds passed.
  "Well, how is it to be then?" asked Luzhin, looking intently at her.
  "I don't know.... I know nothing about it," Sonia articulated
faintly at last.
  "No, you know nothing?" Luzhin repeated and again he paused for some
seconds. "Think a moment, mademoiselle," he began severely, but still,
as it were, admonishing her. "Reflect, I am prepared to give you
time for consideration. Kindly observe this: if I were not so entirely
convinced I should not, you may be sure, with my experience venture to
accuse you so directly. Seeing that for such direct accusation
before witnesses, if false or even mistaken, I should myself in a
certain sense be made responsible, I am aware of that. This morning
I changed for my own purposes several five per cent. securities for
the sum of approximately three thousand roubles. The account is
noted down in my pocket-book. On my return home I proceeded to count
the money,- as Mr. Lebeziatnikov will bear witness- and after counting
two thousand three hundred roubles I put the rest in my pocket-book in
my coat pocket. About five hundred roubles remained on the table and
among them three notes of a hundred roubles each. At that moment you
entered (at my invitation)- and all the time you were present you were
exceedingly embarrassed; so that three times you jumped up in the
middle of the conversation and tried to make off. Mr. Lebeziatnikov
can bear witness to this. You yourself, mademoiselle, probably will
not refuse to confirm my statement that I invited you through Mr.
Lebeziatnikov, solely in order to discuss with you the hopeless and
destitute position of your relative, Katerina Ivanovna (whose dinner I
was unable to attend), and the advisability of getting up something of
the nature of a subscription, lottery or the like, for her benefit.
You thanked me and even shed tears. I describe all this as it took
place, primarily to recall it to your mind and secondly to show you
that not the slightest detail has escaped my recollection. Then I took
a ten-rouble note from the table and handed it to you by way of
first instalment on my part for the benefit of your relative. Mr.
Lebeziatnikov saw all this. Then I accompanied you to the door,- you
being still in the same state of embarrassment- after which, being
left alone with Mr. Lebeziatnikov I talked to him for ten minutes,-
then Mr. Lebeziatnikov went out and I returned to the table with the
money lying on it, intending to count it and to put it aside, as I
proposed doing before. To my surprise one hundred-rouble note had
disappeared. Kindly consider the position. Mr. Lebeziatnikov I
cannot suspect. I am ashamed to allude to such a supposition. I cannot
have made a mistake in my reckoning, for the minute before your
entrance I had finished my accounts and found the total correct. You
will admit that recollecting your embarrassment, your eagerness to get
away and the fact that you kept your hands for some time on the table,
and taking into consideration your social position and the habits
associated with it, I was, so to say, with horror and positively
against my will, compelled to entertain a suspicion- a cruel, but
justifiable suspicion! I will add further and repeat that in spite
of my positive conviction, I realise that I run a certain risk in
making this accusation, but as you see, I could not let it pass. I
have taken action and I will tell you why: solely, madam, solely,
owing to your black ingratitude! Why! I invite you for the benefit
of your destitute relative, I present you with my donation of ten
roubles and you, on the spot, repay me for all that with such an
action. It is too bad! You need a lesson. Reflect! Moreover, like a
true friend I beg you- and you could have no better friend at this
moment- think what you are doing, otherwise I shall be immovable!
Well, what do you say?"
  "I have taken nothing," Sonia whispered in terror, "you gave me
ten roubles, here it is, take it."
  Sonia pulled her handkerchief out of her pocket, untied a corner
of it, took out the ten rouble note and gave it to Luzhin.
  "And the hundred roubles you do not confess to taking?" he
insisted reproachfully, not taking the note.
  Sonia looked about her. All were looking at her with such awful,
stern, ironical, hostile eyes. She looked at Raskolnikov... he stood
against the wall, with his arms crossed, looking at her with glowing
eyes.
  "Good God!" broke from Sonia.
  "Amalia Ivanovna, we shall have to send word to the police and
therefore I humbly beg you meanwhile to send for the house porter,"
Luzhin said softly and even kindly.
  "Gott der barmherzige! I knew she was the thief," cried Amalia
Ivanovna, throwing up her hands.
  "You knew it?" Luzhin caught her up, "then I suppose you had some
reason before this for thinking so. I beg you, worthy Amalia Ivanovna,
to remember your words which have been uttered before witnesses."
  There was a buzz of loud conversation on all sides. All were in
movement.
  "What!" cried Katerina Ivanovna, suddenly realising the position,
and she rushed at Luzhin. "What! You accuse her of stealing? Sonia?
Ah, the wretches, the wretches!"
  And running to Sonia she flung her wasted arms round her and held
her as in a vise.
  "Sonia! how dared you take ten roubles from him? Foolish girl!
Give it to me! Give me the ten roubles at once- here!
  And snatching the note from Sonia, Katerina Ivanovna crumpled it
up and flung it straight into Luzhin's face. It hit him in the eye and
fell on the ground. Amalia Ivanovna hastened to pick it up. Pyotr
Petrovitch lost his temper.
  "Hold that mad woman!" he shouted.
  At that moment several other persons, besides Lebeziatnikov,
appeared in the doorway, among them the two ladies.
  "What! Mad? Am I mad? Idiot!" shrieked Katerina Ivanovna. "You are
an idiot yourself, pettifogging lawyer, base man! Sonia, Sonia take
his money! Sonia a thief! Why, she'd give away her last penny!" and
Katerina Ivanovna broke into hysterical laughter. "Did you ever see
such an idiot?" she turned from side to side. "And you too?" she
suddenly saw the landlady, "and you too, sausage eater, you declare
that she is a thief, you trashy Prussian hen's leg in a crinoline! She
hasn't been out of this room: she came straight from you, you
wretch, and sat down beside me, every one saw her. She sat here, by
Rodion Romanovitch. Search her! Since she's not left the room, the
money would have to be on her! Search her, search her! But if you
don't find it, then excuse me, my dear fellow, you'll answer for it!
I'll go to our Sovereign, to our Sovereign, to our gracious Tsar
himself, and throw myself at his feet, to-day, this minute! I am alone
in the world! They would let me in! Do you think they wouldn't? You're
wrong, I will get in! I will get in! You reckoned on her meekness! You
relied upon that! But I am not so submissive, let me tell you!
You've gone too far yourself. Search her, search her!"
  And Katerina Ivanovna in a frenzy shook Luzhin and dragged him
towards Sonia.