Crime and Punishment (28 page)

‘Yes, yes . . . although I can't agree with you on every point,' Avdotya Romanovna added seriously, before immediately letting out a shriek, so hard was he gripping her hand.

‘Yes? Yes, you say? Well, after this you're . . . you're . . . ,' he cried in ecstasy, ‘you're the fount of goodness, purity, reason and . . . perfection! Give me your hand, your hand . . . and you give me yours as well. I want to kiss your hands, here, now, on my knees!'

With that, he fell to his knees in the middle of the pavement, which, thank goodness, was deserted.

‘Stop, I beg you! What are you doing?' cried Pulkheria Alexandrovna, deeply alarmed.

‘Up you get!' laughed Dunya, also somewhat concerned.

‘Not on your life. Not until you give me your hands! There, that'll do. Now I'm up and we can go! I'm a miserable oaf, I'm unworthy of you, and drunk, and ashamed . . . I'm unworthy of loving you, but bowing down before you is the duty of any man unless he is an utter brute! So now I have bowed down before you . . . And here are the rooms, and they alone justify Rodion for throwing out that Pyotr Petrovich of yours! How dare he put you up in such a place? What a scandal! Do you know what kind of people they allow in here? And you, a bride! You are a bride, aren't you? Well then, let me tell you – your groom is a scoundrel!'

‘Mr Razumikhin, you've quite forgotten yourself,' Pulkheria Alexandrovna began.

‘Yes, yes, you're right, I've forgotten myself, and I'm ashamed of myself!' said Razumikhin, catching himself. ‘But . . . but . . . you can't be angry with me for speaking like this! It's because I'm speaking my mind, and not because . . . H'm! That would be vile. In a word, not because I'm in love with . . . H'm! . . . Well, let's leave it there. I'd better not. I won't say why, I don't dare! . . . Well, we all understood the moment he walked in that he wasn't our sort of chap. Not because he walked in straight from the barber shop, not because he was in such a hurry to flaunt his intelligence, but because he's a snitch and an operator, a niggard and a charlatan – anyone can see it. You think he's clever? No, he's an idiot! An idiot! I mean, is he really any match for you? Good Lord! You see, ladies,' he suddenly stopped, when they were already climbing the stairs to the rooms, ‘they may all be drunk at mine, but at least they're honest, and we may all lie, me as much as the next man, but we'll end up with the truth sooner or later, because our path is noble, while Pyotr Petrovich's path . . . is not. I may have cursed them just now with every name in the book, but actually I respect them all, even Zametov – all right, I don't respect him, but I love him because he's such a puppy! Even that beast Zosimov, because he's honest and knows his job . . . But enough: all is said and all is forgiven. Forgiven? Yes? So let's go. I know this corridor. I've been here before. There was a scandal right here, room Number
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 . . . Which is yours? Which number? Eight? Well, lock up for the night and don't let anyone in. I'll be back in a quarter of an hour bearing news, and then half an hour later with Zosimov. You'll see! Goodbye! Must dash!'

‘Good grief, Dunechka, where will this end?' said Pulkheria Alexandrovna, turning to her daughter in alarm.

‘Calm yourself, Mama,' replied Dunya, taking off her hat and cape. ‘God Himself sent us this gentleman, even if he is fresh from some party or other. He can be relied upon, I'm sure of it. Just think of everything he's already done for Rodya . . .'

‘Oh, Dunechka, God knows whether he'll come or not! And what on earth made me decide to leave Rodya? . . . And how very different he was from how I'd imagined! How severe! As if he wasn't even happy to see us . . .'

Tears appeared in her eyes.

‘No, that's not true, dear Mama. You didn't look closely enough; you were always crying. He's very disturbed by his serious illness – that's the reason behind it all.'

‘Oh, this illness! There's trouble ahead! The way he talked to you, Dunya!' she said, looking timidly into her daughter's eyes so as to read all her thoughts, and already half-consoled by the fact that Dunya was actually defending Rodya, so she must have forgiven him. ‘I'm convinced he'll have a change of heart tomorrow,' she added, as a final test.

‘And I'm equally convinced that tomorrow he'll say exactly the same . . . about that,' snapped Avdotya Romanovna, which, of course, killed the conversation dead, for this was a subject that Pulkheria Alexandrovna was now too frightened to touch. Dunya went up to her mother and kissed her. Pulkheria Alexandrovna hugged her tight, without a word. Then she sat down to wait anxiously for Razumikhin's return and began timidly observing her daughter, who, also waiting, began pensively pacing the room, arms folded. Walking like this from corner to corner, lost in thought, was a common habit of hers, and at such moments her mother was always scared to disturb her.

Razumikhin was ridiculous, of course, in his sudden, drunken infatuation with Avdotya Romanovna; but one look at Avdotya Romanovna – especially now as she was pacing the room with her arms folded, sad and pensive – and many might have forgiven him, to say nothing of his eccentric state of mind. Avdotya Romanovna was remarkably good-looking: tall, astonishingly elegant, strong, with a confidence expressed in her every gesture, while taking nothing away from the softness and gracefulness of her movements. Her face resembled her brother's, but it would have been no exaggeration to call her a beauty. Her hair was brown and slightly lighter than her brother's; her eyes almost black, flashing, proud, yet occasionally, for minutes at
a time, uncommonly kind. She was pale, but not sickly pale; her face shone with freshness and health. Her mouth was a little small, and her lower lip, fresh and crimson, protruded ever so slightly, together with her chin – the only imperfection on this beautiful face, but one which gave it its particular character and, incidentally, a kind of haughtiness. Her expression was always more serious than cheerful, always thoughtful; but how well her face was set off by a smile, by laughter, by cheerful, young, carefree laughter! Was it any wonder that ardent, candid, foolish, honest, mighty, drunken Razumikhin, having never seen anything of the kind, lost his head at first sight? What was more, chance – as if on purpose – had given him his first sight of Dunya at this sublime moment of love and joy on seeing her brother. Later, he saw her lower lip quiver indignantly in response to her brother's impudent and ungratefully cruel orders – and could resist no longer.

Still, he was telling the truth earlier on the stairs, when he let slip that drunken comment about Raskolnikov's eccentric landlady, Praskovya Pavlovna, being jealous not only of Avdotya Romanovna but, as likely as not, of Pulkheria Alexandrovna as well. Pulkheria Alexandrovna was already forty-three, but her face still retained traces of her former beauty, and, what was more, she looked far younger than her years, as is almost always the case with women who retain their lucidity of spirit, freshness of impressions and pure, honest ardour of heart into old age. Let us add in parenthesis that retaining all this is, in fact, the only way of keeping one's beauty, at whatever age. Her hair had already begun to turn grey and thin out; small wrinkles had long ago spread out around her eyes; her cheeks were sunken and dry from worry and grief; yet still this face was beautiful. It was the image of Dunechka's face, only twenty years on and without the expression given to Dunya's by her protruding lower lip. Pulkheria Alexandrovna was sensitive but not mawkish, timid and accommodating, but only up to a point: she could concede a lot, agree to a lot, even to things that went against her beliefs, but there was always a limit set by her honesty, her principles and her deepest beliefs, which no circumstances could ever force her to cross.

Precisely twenty minutes after Razumikhin's departure there were two restrained but hurried knocks at the door: he was back.

‘Can't stay, must dash!' he rattled off when they opened the door. ‘He's snoring away like a trooper, and God willing he'll sleep another
ten hours. Nastasya's with him; I told her to stay put till I get back. Now I'll bring Zosimov over. He'll give you his full report and then you should turn in, too. You're dead on your feet, I can see.'

With that, he set off down the corridor.

‘What a competent and . . . devoted young man!' exclaimed Pulkheria Alexandrovna, having completely recovered her spirits.

‘Seems a very nice chap!' replied Avdotya Romanovna with feeling, beginning to pace the room once more.

Almost an hour later there were footsteps in the corridor and another knock at the door. This time both women had waited with complete confidence in Razumikhin; and, indeed, here he was already with Zosimov. Zosimov had agreed without a moment's hesitation to leave the party and take a look at Raskolnikov, but he'd come to see the ladies with great reluctance and suspicion, mistrusting Razumikhin in his drunken state. His vanity, though, was instantly assuaged and even tickled: he saw that they really had been waiting for him, as if for an oracle. He stayed for precisely ten minutes, and wholly succeeded in persuading and reassuring Pulkheria Alexandrovna. He spoke with unusual sympathy, but also with a degree of restraint and with a pronounced seriousness, just as a twenty-seven-year-old doctor ought to speak during an important consultation, and not once did he digress from the subject in hand or show the slightest desire to put his relations with both ladies on a more personal and private footing. Having noted Avdotya Romanovna's dazzling beauty the moment he walked in, he immediately set his mind to ignoring her entirely for the duration of his visit, and addressed himself solely to Pulkheria Alexandrovna. All this afforded him the profoundest inner satisfaction. Regarding the patient, he declared that he found his current condition wholly satisfactory. His own observations, meanwhile, suggested that the patient's sickness, quite apart from the wretched material circumstances of his life in recent months, also had certain moral causes, ‘being the product, so to speak, of many complex moral and material influences, of anxieties, fears, cares, of certain ideas . . . and so on'. Noting in passing that Avdotya Romanovna had become especially attentive, Zosimov decided to elaborate a little on this subject. To Pulkheria Alexandrovna's anxious and timid query regarding ‘certain suspicions, as it were, of insanity', he replied with a calm and candid smile that his words had been greatly exaggerated; that yes, of course, one could observe in the patient some sort of obsession,
something betraying monomania
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 – after all, he, Zosimov, was following this exceptionally interesting branch of medicine particularly closely at present – but one had to bear in mind that the patient had been delirious almost until today and . . . and, of course, the arrival of his family would make him stronger, distract him and have a salutary effect, ‘so long as fresh shocks to the system can be avoided' – he added meaningfully. Then he got up, took his leave in an impressive, cordial manner, accompanied by blessings, fervent gratitude, entreaties and even, without his prompting, the outstretched hand of Avdotya Romanovna, and walked out, exceptionally pleased with his visit and, even more so, with himself.

‘We'll talk tomorrow. Now off to bed and no dawdling!' Razumikhin said through gritted teeth as he and Zosimov were leaving. ‘Tomorrow I'll be back as early as I can with the latest.'

‘Now there's a delicious creature, that Avdotya Romanovna!' Zosimov observed, almost licking his lips, once the two of them were outside.

‘Delicious? Delicious, you said?' Razumikhin roared, before suddenly hurling himself at Zosimov and seizing him by the throat. ‘Just you try . . . Got it?' he shouted, shaking him by the collar and pressing him to the wall. ‘Got it?'

‘Let me go, you mad drunk!' said Zosimov, fighting him off; then, once Razumikhin had released him, he stared at him and suddenly burst out laughing. Razumikhin stood drooped before him, lost in gloomy, grave deliberation.

‘All right, I'm an idiot,' he said, dark as a thunder cloud, ‘but then . . . so are you.'

‘No, brother, just you. I'm not the one dreaming.'

They walked on without speaking, and only as they were approaching Raskolnikov's house did Razumikhin, deep in worry, break the silence.

‘Listen,' he began, ‘you're a good chap, but, aside from all your other lousy qualities, you're a letch, I know you are, and a filthy one to boot. You're highly strung and weak-kneed and half-crazy; you've run to fat and can't deny yourself anything, which is what I call filth, because only filth can come of it. You've cosseted yourself so much that I simply fail to comprehend how you also manage to be a good, even selfless physician. A doctor who sleeps on a bed of feathers and gets up at night to tend the sick! Give it three years and you'll stop
getting up at night . . . But that's not the point, dammit. The point is this: you sleep in the landlady's apartment tonight (I had a job convincing her!) and I'll sleep in the kitchen: it's your chance to get to know each other better! It's not what you think! There's not even a hint of that here, brother . . .'

‘I wasn't thinking anything.'

‘What we have here, brother, is prudery, taciturnity, bashfulness, chastity of the fiercest kind, and yet – she sighs and she melts, she melts like wax! Save me from her, for the love of every devil on earth! She's simply too
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! . . . I'll be forever in your debt!'

Zosimov guffawed even louder than before.

‘What on earth's got into you? And what do I want with her?'

‘She's not much trouble, I assure you. Just say whatever comes into your head. Just sit with her and talk. Besides, you're a doctor: find something and start curing it. I swear you won't regret it. She's got a clavichord; I like a little tinkle, as you know. I've got a piece there, a real, Russian song: “Burning tears will I shed . . .” She loves the real ones – actually, it was the song that started it all; and you're a virtuoso on the piano, a maestro, a Rubinstein
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 . . . You won't regret it, I assure you!'