Crime and Punishment (34 page)

‘A splendid idea! Perhaps everyone will have a cup. But how about something a touch . . . more substantial, before the tea, I mean?'

‘Get out!'

Porfiry Petrovich went off to order the tea.

Thoughts whirled in Raskolnikov's mind. He was terribly annoyed.

‘The main thing is they're not even concealing it. They're not even going to be polite about it! But what cause did you have, seeing as we've never met, to talk to Nikodim Fomich about me? So they can't even be bothered to conceal the fact that they're hounding me like a pack of dogs! Spitting in my face, that's what they're doing!' He was shaking with fury. ‘Hit me if you have to, but don't play cat-and-mouse. That's bad form, Porfiry Petrovich, and I may not stand for it, sir! . . . I'll get up and I'll blurt out the whole truth right in your faces; then you'll see how much I despise you!' He could barely catch his breath. ‘But what if I'm imagining this? What if this is just a mirage and I've got everything wrong, if I'm angry through lack of experience, too angry to keep up my despicable act? Perhaps there's no intent in any of this. Their words are all ordinary enough, but there's something about them . . . something about these everyday phrases . . . Why did he say “at hers” so bluntly? Why did Zametov add that I was speaking
cunningly
? Why do they take this tone? Yes . . . their tone . . . Razumikhin was sitting right here – why doesn't he sense anything? That harmless dimwit never senses anything! . . . And here's the fever again! . . . Did Porfiry wink at me before or didn't he? What nonsense; why should he wink? Working on my nerves, are they? Or just teasing me? Either this is all a mirage or else
they
know
! . . . Even Zametov's got a nerve . . . Hasn't he? . . . Changed his mind overnight. I had a feeling he would! He's quite at home here, though it's his first time. Porfiry doesn't even think of him as his guest and sits with his back to him. They're in cahoots! And all
because of me
, I'm sure of it! I'm sure they were speaking about me before we got here! . . . Do they know about the apartment, then? The sooner the better! . . . When I said I'd run off to rent a place yesterday he let it go, he didn't react . . .
Very clever of me to slip that in: it'll come in handy later on! . . . Delirious, they say! . . . Ha-ha-ha! He knows all about yesterday evening! And didn't know about Mother's arrival! . . . That witch even put the date, with a pencil! . . . Rubbish, you won't catch me so easily! These aren't facts yet – just a mirage! No, you give me facts, if you have any! The apartment's not a fact, either, it's delirium; I know what to say to them . . . Do they know about the apartment? I won't leave till they tell me! Why have I come here? My being angry now – that's a fact, I suppose! Ugh, how irritable I am! But maybe that's good; the sick man's act . . . He's feeling me out. Hoping to confuse me. Why have I come here?'

All this swept through his mind like lightning.

Porfiry Petrovich was back in a flash. He seemed merrier, somehow.

‘You know, brother, my head's aching from last night at your place . . . I feel a wreck,' he began in a quite different tone, turning to Razumikhin and laughing.

‘You had a good time, then? I left you at the most interesting point, remember? Who won?'

‘No one, of course. We alighted on the sempiternal question, our heads in the heavens.'

‘Can you imagine, Rodya, what it was they alighted on yesterday: does crime exist or does it not? Didn't I say the devil would have blushed to hear them?'

‘What's so surprising about that? Just an ordinary sociological question,' replied Raskolnikov absently.

‘That's not how it was formulated,' remarked Porfiry.

‘Not exactly, that's true,' Razumikhin hurriedly agreed, as excited as ever. ‘Rodion, just listen to this and tell me what you think. I want to know. I was at my wits' end with them yesterday and was just waiting for you. I'd even told them you'd be coming . . . It all began with the socialist position. No surprises there: crime is a protest against the abnormality of the social order – and that's all there is to it! They accept no other causes! Nothing else!'

‘Liar!' cried Porfiry Petrovich. He was becoming increasingly animated and laughed whenever he looked at Razumikhin, which only goaded him on.

‘Nothing else at all!' Razumikhin interrupted him hotly. ‘And I'm not lying! . . . I'll show you the kind of books they write: with them it's always “the environment”
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that's to blame and nothing else! They love
that word! Their conclusion? The proper organization of society would lead to all crime disappearing at once, as there'd be no reason to protest and everyone would become righteous, just like that. Human nature is discounted, banished, surplus to requirements! With them it's not humanity, which, having developed along its historical,
living
path to the end, will eventually turn into a normal society on its own, but rather the social system, which, emerging from some kind of mathematical head, will immediately organize all humanity and make it righteous and sinless, just like that, quicker than any living process, and without the need for any historical, living path! That's why they have such an instinctive dislike of history: “mere chaos and stupidity” – stupidity being the only explanation required. And that's why they have such a dislike of life as a
living
process: a
living soul
is the last thing they want! Living souls demand life; living souls don't obey mechanics; living souls are suspicious; living souls are reactionary! Whereas here – all right, there may be a whiff of carrion about it, and you could make it from rubber if you had to, but at least it's not alive, at least it has no will, at least it's slavish and it won't rebel! So all that's left is to lay bricks for the phalanstery
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and arrange the corridors and rooms! Well, the phalanstery may be ready, but your nature is not: it wants life; it wants to complete its living process; it's a bit too early for the cemetery! You can't leap over nature by logic alone! Logic foresees three eventualities, but there's a million of them! So cut them all off, the whole million, and boil everything down to just one thing: comfort! The easy solution! Seductively simple! No need to think! That's the main thing – no need to think! All life's mystery reduced to two printer's sheets!'

‘Look at him explode! He needs tying down!' laughed Porfiry. ‘Just imagine,' he turned to Raskolnikov, ‘this is exactly how it was yesterday evening, in a single room, six voices all going at once, after he'd served us some punch for good measure – can you picture that? No, brother, you're lying: the “environment” has a lot to do with crime. I can confirm it.'

‘I know that myself, but tell me this: a forty-year-old man abuses a ten-year-old girl – was it the environment, then, that made him do it?'

‘Well, strictly speaking, it probably was the environment,' remarked Porfiry with astonishing solemnity. ‘A crime committed against a young girl may very easily be explained by the “environment” – very easily indeed.'

Razumikhin was almost beside himself.

‘Fine, so allow me to
prove
to you right now,' roared Razumikhin, ‘that the only reason you have white eyelashes is that the Ivan the Great Bell Tower
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is two hundred and forty-five feet high; what's more, I'll prove it clearly, precisely, progressively and even with a touch of liberalism! I'm game! Fancy a bet?'

‘You're on! Let's hear it!'

‘He's always pretending, damn him!' cried Razumikhin, jumping to his feet and waving him away. ‘Is there any point talking to you? He does it all on purpose – you just don't know him yet, Rodion! Yesterday, too, he took their side, with the sole intention of making fools of everyone. The things he was saying – good God! And they loved him for it! . . . He can keep this up for two weeks at a time, believe me. Last year he assured us for some reason that he was set on becoming a monk: he banged on about it for a whole two months! Recently he started assuring us he was getting married, told us everything was already in place. He even had a suit made specially. We were already congratulating him. No bride, nothing: it was all a mirage!'

‘Now that's a lie! I'd had the suit made earlier. It was the suit that gave me the idea of making such asses of you all!'

‘Is it true you're always pretending?' asked Raskolnikov nonchalantly.

‘And you thought it wasn't? Give me a chance and I'll take you in too – ha-ha-ha! No, sir, let me tell you the whole truth. Apropos all these questions, crimes, the environment, young girls, I'm suddenly reminded – though, in fact, it has always intrigued me – of a little article of yours: “On Crime” . . . was that the title? I'm afraid it's slipped my mind. I had the pleasure of reading it two months ago in the
Periodical Review
.'

‘An article of mine? In
Periodical Review
?' asked Raskolnikov with surprise. ‘It's true that a year and a half ago, after leaving university, I did write an article about some book, but at the time I offered it to the
Weekly Review
, not the
Periodical
.'

‘Well, it ended up in the
Periodical
.'

‘But the
Weekly Review
has ceased to exist; that's why they never published it . . .'

‘True enough, sir; but, ceasing to exist, the
Weekly Review
merged with
Periodical Review
,
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which is why, two months ago, that little article of yours appeared in the
Periodical
. You mean you didn't know?'

Raskolnikov did not know.

‘For pity's sake – you should ask to be paid for it! You are a funny
one! You live such an isolated existence that you are ignorant even of things that concern you directly. And that's a fact, sir.'

‘Bravo, Rodka! I didn't know either!' cried Razumikhin. ‘I'll stop by at the reading room today and call up that issue! Two months ago? What was the date? Never mind, I'll track it down! Well, this is a turn-up! Trust him not to mention it!'

‘But how did you know it was mine? It's only signed with an initial.'

‘By chance, just the other day. Via the editor, an acquaintance . . . I was most intrigued.'

‘I was analysing, as I recall, the psychological condition of a criminal during the entire course of a crime.'

‘Exactly, sir, and you insist that the act of carrying out the crime is always accompanied by illness. Very, very original, but . . . speaking for myself, it wasn't this part of your article that intrigued me, but a certain thought which you let slip at the end, but which, unfortunately, is only hinted at and remains rather obscure . . . In short, what is hinted at, as you may recall, is the apparent existence in the world of certain individuals who are able . . . or rather not so much able as fully entitled . . . to commit all manner of outrageous and criminal acts, and that they are, as it were, above the law.'

Raskolnikov sneered at this gross and deliberate distortion of his idea.

‘What's that? Come again? Entitled to commit crimes? Surely not because of the effect of “the environment”?' enquired Razumikhin, who looked almost frightened.

‘No, no, not exactly,' replied Porfiry. ‘In the gentleman's article, you see, everyone is divided into two categories, the “ordinary” and the “extraordinary”. Ordinary people should live a life of obedience and do not have the right to overstep the law, because, you see, they are ordinary. But extraordinary people have the right to carry out all manner of crimes and to break the law as they please, all because they are extraordinary.
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I think that's the gist, or am I mistaken?'

‘What on earth? Impossible!' muttered Razumikhin in bewilderment.

Raskolnikov sneered once more. He'd grasped at once what this was all about and why he was being provoked; he remembered his article. He decided to accept the challenge.

‘That's not quite it,' he began, simply and unassumingly. ‘Your summary is mostly fair, I'll admit; even, one might say, entirely fair . . .'
(Conceding this seemed to give him a kind of pleasure.) ‘The only difference is that I am far from insisting that extraordinary people have always, without fail, had a duty and obligation to commit all manner of outrageous acts, as you put it. In fact, I'm inclined to think that such an article would never have even seen the light of day. All I did was hint that an “extraordinary” person has the right . . . not an official right, that is, but a personal one, to permit his conscience to step over . . . certain obstacles, but if and only if the fulfilment of his idea (one that may even bring salvation to all humanity) demands it. You observe that my article is obscure; I am ready to elucidate its meaning to you, as best I can. I am not mistaken, it seems, in assuming that to be your wish; very well, sir. In my view, if, owing to a combination of factors, the discoveries of Kepler and Newton could not have become public knowledge without the lives of one, ten, a hundred or however many people who were interfering with these discoveries, or standing in their way, being sacrificed, then Newton would have had the right and would even have been obliged . . . to
remove
these ten or one hundred people, so as to make his discoveries known to all humanity. In no way, however, does it follow from this that Newton had the right to kill whomsoever he wanted, whenever the mood took him, or to steal every day at the market. Subsequently, as I recall, I develop in my article the thought that . . . well, take, for want of a better example, the legislators and founders of humanity, beginning with the most ancient and continuing with the Lycurguses, Solons, Muhammads, Napoleons and so on – they were criminals to a man, if for no other reason than that, by introducing a new law, they violated the ancient law held sacred by society and handed down from the fathers, and it goes without saying that they did not flinch from bloodshed, so long as this blood (sometimes perfectly innocent blood, shed valiantly for the ancient law) could help them. In fact, it's remarkable how terribly bloodthirsty the majority of these benefactors and founders of humanity have been. In short, I infer that actually all those who, never mind being great, diverge even a little from the beaten path, i.e., are even the slightest bit capable of saying something new, must, by their very nature, be criminals – to a greater or lesser degree, needless to say. Otherwise, how would they ever leave the path, which, of course, they cannot agree to keep to, by their very nature – indeed, I think it is their duty not to agree. In short, as you can see, there's nothing particularly new here up to this point. It's all
been published and read a thousand times before. As regards my dividing people into the ordinary and the extraordinary, well this, I agree, is somewhat arbitrary, but I'm hardly insisting on exact numbers. What I believe in is my main idea. It consists precisely in the fact that people, by a law of nature, are divided
in general
into two categories: the lower one (the ordinary), i.e., the material, as it were, that serves solely to generate its own likeness, and actual people, i.e., those with the gift or the talent to utter, within their own environment,
a new word
. Needless to say, the number of subdivisions here is infinite, but the distinctive features of both categories are unmistakable: the first category, i.e., the base material, is made up, generally speaking, of people who are conservative and deferential by nature, who live a life of obedience and enjoy being obedient. In my view, they are simply obliged to be obedient, because that is their purpose, and for them there is absolutely nothing demeaning about it. In the second category, everyone oversteps the law; they are destroyers or they are that way inclined, in accordance with their abilities. The crimes committed by these people are, needless to say, relative and diverse; in the majority of cases they demand, in a great multitude of forms, the destruction of the present in the name of something better. But if such a man needs, for the sake of his idea, to step right over a corpse, over blood, then in my view he may, inside himself, as a matter of conscience, grant himself permission to step over this blood – though this depends, please note, on the idea and its magnitude. Only in this sense do I speak in my article about their right to commit crime.
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(You'll remember, after all, that we began with a question of law.) There's no great cause for alarm, though: the mass of humanity almost never accepts their right, punishes them and hangs them (more or less) and in so doing fulfils its perfectly reasonable conservative purpose, even if, in subsequent generations, these same masses will place those they've punished on a pedestal and bow down before them (more or less). The first category is always master of the present, the second – master of the future. The first preserves the world and multiplies; the second moves the world and leads it towards a goal. The first and the second have exactly the same right to exist. In short, with me everyone has an equal right, and so –
Vive la guerre éternelle
,
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until, needless to say, the New Jerusalem!'
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