Crime and Punishment (41 page)

‘Where are you going, Rodya?' asked Dunya, rather strangely.

‘I just have to,' came his vague reply, as if he were hesitating about what he wanted to say. But his pale face betrayed a keen resolve. ‘I wanted to say . . . coming over here . . . I wanted to tell you, Mama . . . and you, Dunya, that it would be best for us to be apart for a while. I don't feel well, I'm not calm . . . I'll come later, I'll come myself, when . . . I can. You're in my thoughts and I love you . . . Now leave me! Leave me alone! That's what I decided, even before . . . I was quite sure about it . . . Whatever happens to me, whether I sink or swim, I want to be alone. Forget about me. It's for the best . . . Don't ask around about me. When the moment's right, I'll come myself or . . . I'll call for you. Perhaps everything will rise again! . . . But now, if you
love me, give me up . . . Or else I'll start hating you, I can feel it . . . Goodbye!'

‘Lord!' shrieked Pulkheria Alexandrovna.

Mother and sister were horrified; Razumikhin, too.

‘Rodya! Rodya! Make peace with us, we'll go back to how we were!' his poor mother exclaimed.

He turned slowly towards the door and walked slowly out of the room. Dunya caught up with him.

‘Brother! What are you doing to your mother?' she whispered, eyes burning with indignation.

He gave her a heavy look.

‘It's all right. I'll come. I'll visit!' he mumbled under his breath, as if not fully aware of what he wanted to say, and left the room.

‘Callous, spiteful egoist!' shrieked Dunya.

‘He's mad, m-a-d, not callous! He's insane! Can't you see that? Then you're the callous one!' Razumikhin whispered hotly into her ear, squeezing her hand. ‘I'll be right back!' he shouted, turning to Pulkheria Alexandrovna, who was frozen to the spot, and ran out of the room.

Raskolnikov was waiting for him at the end of the corridor.

‘I knew you'd come running out,' he said. ‘Go back to them and be with them . . . Be with them tomorrow, too . . . and always. I . . . might come . . . if I can. Goodbye!'

And, without offering his hand, he walked away.

‘But where are you going? Why? What's wrong? How can you?' muttered Razumikhin, utterly lost.

Raskolnikov stopped once more.

‘For the last time: never ask me about anything. I've no answers to give you . . . Don't come to see me. Perhaps I really will come back here . . . Leave me and . . .
don't leave them
. Understood?'

It was dark in the corridor; they were standing by a lamp. For a minute or so they looked at each other without speaking. Razumikhin remembered this minute for the rest of his life. Raskolnikov's burning stare seemed to grow more intense by the second, burrowing into his soul, his mind. Suddenly, Razumikhin shuddered. Something strange seemed to pass between them . . . An idea slipped out, almost a hint; something horrible, something hideous, suddenly grasped on both sides . . . Razumikhin turned white as a corpse.

‘Understand now?' said Raskolnikov suddenly, his features painfully
twisted. ‘Off you go, back to them,' he added and, with a swift turn, walked out of the building . . .

I won't start describing what happened that evening in Pulkheria Alexandrovna's room: how Razumikhin came back, how he calmed them down, how he swore that Rodya was sick and needed rest, swore that Rodya was certain to come, would come every day, that he was very, very distressed, that it wouldn't do to aggravate him; how he, Razumikhin, would keep an eye on him, find him a good doctor, the very best, an entire council . . . In short, from that evening on Razumikhin became their son and their brother.

As for Raskolnikov, he made straight for the house on the Ditch where Sonya lived. It was an old three-storey building painted green. He managed to find the caretaker, who gave him vague directions to Kapernaumov, the tailor. Having eventually located, in a corner of the yard, an entrance to a narrow and dark stairwell, he went up to the second floor, coming out on the gallery that skirted it on the yard-facing side. As he groped about in the dark – he couldn't see an entrance to the Kapernaumovs' anywhere – a door suddenly opened three paces away. He automatically grabbed it.

‘Who's there?' asked an anxious female voice.

‘It's me . . . come to see you,' Raskolnikov replied, stepping into the tiny entrance hall. There, on a sunken chair, in a twisted copper holder, stood a candle.

‘It's you! Goodness!' cried Sonya weakly, rooted to the spot.

‘Which way to your place? This way?'

Trying not to look at her, Raskolnikov hurried on through to her room.

A minute later Sonya came in with the candle, set it down and stood before him in utter confusion, lost for words and visibly frightened by his unexpected visit. The colour suddenly rushed to her pale face and tears even appeared in her eyes . . . She felt sick and ashamed, and happy . . . Raskolnikov turned away sharply and sat down on a chair facing the table. With a quick glance he took in the entire room.

The room was large, but exceptionally low, the only one let by the Kapernaumovs, the locked door to whom lay along the left-hand wall. On the opposite side, along the right-hand wall, was yet another door, permanently sealed. That connected with a completely separate
apartment, which had a different number. There was something shed-like about Sonya's room, something grotesque about its highly irregular oblong shape. A wall with three windows faced the Ditch and cut across the room at a slant, meaning that one horribly sharp corner tapered off into the distance, barely even visible in the weak light, while the angle of the other corner was monstrously obtuse. This large room was almost entirely unfurnished. In the corner, on the right, was a bed; next to it, nearer the door, a chair. Along the same wall where the bed was, right by the door to the neighbouring apartment, stood a simple plank table covered with a blue cloth; around the table, two wicker chairs. Next, by the opposite wall, not far from the sharp corner, was a small chest of drawers made of ordinary wood, seemingly lost in space. And that was all. The yellowish, glossy, frayed wallpaper had turned black at every corner; it must have been damp and smoky in here during the winter. The poverty was unmistakable; there were no curtains even by the bed.

Sonya looked silently at her guest, who was examining her room so attentively and unceremoniously; in the end, she even began to shake with fear, as though she were standing before the judge who would decide her fate.

‘It's late, I know . . . Is it eleven yet?' he asked, still not lifting his eyes to her.

‘Yes,' mumbled Sonya. ‘Oh yes, it is!' she suddenly rushed, as though for her everything depended on it. ‘The landlord's clock struck just now . . . I heard it myself . . . Yes, it is.'

‘I've come to you for the last time,' Raskolnikov went on sullenly, though this was only his first. ‘I may not see you again . . .'

‘You're . . . going somewhere?'

‘Don't know . . . tomorrow it'll all . . .'

‘So you won't be coming to Katerina Ivanovna's tomorrow?' asked Sonya in a quavering voice.

‘Don't know. Tomorrow morning it'll all . . . But that's not why I'm here: I came to say something . . .'

He lifted his pensive gaze to her face and suddenly noticed that he was seated while she was still standing before him.

‘But why are you standing? Have a seat,' he said suddenly in a changed voice that was soft and warm.

She sat down. He looked at her for a minute or so with a friendly, almost pitying gaze.

‘How skinny you are! Just look at your hand! You can see right through it. A dead woman's fingers.'

He took her hand. Sonya smiled weakly.

‘But I've always been like that.'

‘Even when you were still at home?'

‘Yes.'

‘But of course!' he said curtly, and his facial expression and tone of voice suddenly changed again. He took another look round the room.

‘So you're renting from Kapernaumov?'

‘Yes, sir . . .'

‘They're there, behind the door?'

‘Yes . . . Their room's just the same.'

‘All in one room?'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘I'd be afraid in your room at night,' he sullenly remarked.

‘The landlord's very kind, very warm,' replied Sonya, as if she were still coming to her senses and unable to think straight, ‘and all the furniture and everything else . . . it's all theirs. And they're very kind and their children often come round to see me . . .'

‘The tongue-tied ones?'

‘Yes, sir . . . He's got a stammer and he's lame. And his wife, too . . . Though she doesn't stammer exactly, she just can't seem to get her words out. She's kind, very kind. He used to be a house-serf. Seven children . . . only the eldest stammers, the rest are just sick . . . and don't stammer . . . But how do you know about them?' she added with a certain astonishment.

‘Your father told me everything then. He told me everything about you . . . Told me how you went off at six o'clock and were back before nine, told me about Katerina Ivanovna kneeling by your bed.'

Sonya was embarrassed.

‘I was sure I saw him today,' she whispered indecisively.

‘Who?'

‘Father. I was out walking, around there, on the corner of the street, between nine and ten, and thought I saw him walking ahead of me. Looked just like him. I was even about to call on Katerina Ivanovna.'

‘You were walking the streets, then?'

‘Yes,' Sonya hurriedly whispered, embarrassed again and looking down at the floor.

‘Katerina Ivanovna used to beat you, didn't she, at your father's place?'

‘No, no! What are you saying? Not at all!'

Sonya glanced up at him with a kind of terror.

‘You love her, then?'

‘Her? Of course I do!' wailed Sonya, suddenly clasping her hands in pain. ‘Oh! You . . . If you only knew. She's just like a child . . . She's almost lost her mind . . . from grief. To think how clever she was . . . how generous . . . how kind! You don't know anything, anything . . . oh!'

Sonya said this in a kind of despair, in turmoil and pain, wringing her hands. Again, her pale cheeks flushed; torment was in her eyes. One could see how deeply everything had affected her, how unbearable was her desire to express something, to speak, to intercede. Some kind of
insatiable
compassion, if one can put it like that, was suddenly etched in every feature of her face.

‘Beat me? What are you saying? Beat me, indeed! And even if she did, so what? Well, what? You don't know anything about it, not a thing . . . She's so unhappy, oh, so unhappy! And sick . . . Justice, that's what she seeks . . . She is pure. She really believes there should always be justice. She demands it . . . Torture her if you like, but she won't do anything that's not just. She can't see that it's simply not possible, that there will never be justice among people, so she gets annoyed . . . Like a child, a child! She is just!'

‘And what will happen to you?'

Sonya looked mystified.

‘They've only got you now. Though it was the same before, of course, and it was you the deceased used to visit for his hair of the dog. So what'll happen now?'

‘I don't know,' said Sonya sadly.

‘They'll stay there?'

‘I don't know, they're behind with their rent. Apparently, the landlady told her today that she wants her out, and Katerina Ivanovna is saying she won't stay a minute longer either.'

‘Why such bravado? Is she counting on you?'

‘Oh, no, don't talk like that! . . . We're one, we live as one,' replied Sonya, getting suddenly worked up again and even annoyed, like an angry canary or some other little bird. ‘What's she supposed to do? Well, what? What?' she asked, agitated and upset. ‘How she cried
today! How she cried! She's unhinged, or haven't you noticed? Yes, she is. One minute she's fretting like a little girl about getting everything right for tomorrow, the food and all the rest . . . the next she's wringing her hands, coughing up blood, crying, suddenly banging her head against the wall, in complete despair. Then she calms down again and it's you she always counts on: she says you're her helper now and she'll borrow some money somewhere and go off to her town, with me, and set up a boarding school for girls of noble birth and put me in charge, and we'll begin a completely new and beautiful life; and she kisses me, hugs me and comforts me; and she truly believes in these fantasies of hers – yes she does! And how could anyone contradict her? And what did she do today except scrub, clean, mend, drag the washing tub into the room with her feeble arms, puff and pant and collapse on her bed? Never mind that we went to the market in the morning to buy shoes for Polechka and Lenya,
11
because theirs have fallen apart, only we didn't have enough money for them, nowhere near enough, and she'd chosen such a sweet pair of boots – you've no idea what good taste she has . . . She started crying there and then, in the shop, right in front of the merchants . . . How pitiful she looked!'

‘Well, now it makes sense why you . . . live like this,' said Raskolnikov with a sour grin.

‘But don't you pity her, too? Don't you?' Sonya flung back at him. ‘After all, you gave away all you had, I know you did, without having even seen anything. But if you had seen it all – O Lord! And how many times I've made her cry! How many! Even only last week! Shame on me! Only a week before his death. How cruel that was! And how many times have I done that? So many! And how painful it's been to spend all day remembering!'

Sonya even wrung her hands as she spoke, from the pain of the recollection.

‘You – cruel?'

‘Me, me! I'd just come in,' she continued, crying, ‘and Father said: “Read to me, Sonya, I've got a bit of a headache, read to me . . . There's the book,” – he had some book or other, he'd got it from Andrei Semyonych, from Lebezyatnikov, who lives right here and was always getting these funny little books. And I said, “I have to go” – I just didn't want to read and I'd come by mainly to show Katerina Ivanovna some collars; Lizaveta, the clothes-dealer, had brought me
some collars and cuffs on the cheap, nice, new embroidered ones. Katerina Ivanovna took a fancy to them, tried them on and looked at herself in the mirror, and liked them even more: “Give them to me, Sonya,” she said. “Please.”
Please
, she said, that's how much she wanted them. But what would she do with them? She'd remembered happier days, that's all! There she was looking at herself in the mirror and admiring herself, but she's not had one dress to call her own, not a single thing, for how many years now? And you won't catch her asking anyone for anything. She's proud. She'd sooner give away the last thing she has, but here she was asking – that's how much she liked them! But I was sorry to give them away. “What good are they to you, Katerina Ivanovna?” That's what I said: “What good?” That was the last thing I should ever have said to her! What a look she gave me; how miserable she was when I refused her and how pitiful it was to see her like that! Miserable not because of the collars, but because I'd refused. I could see. Oh, what I'd do to take all those words back . . . Shame on me . . . But anyway . . . it's all the same to you!'

‘You knew this Lizaveta?'

‘Yes . . . Why, did you?' Sonya asked in return, with some surprise.

‘Katerina Ivanovna's consumptive – a bad case; she'll be dead soon,' said Raskolnikov after a pause, ignoring the question.

‘Oh, no, no, no!' And Sonya, making an unconscious movement, grabbed him by both hands, as if pleading that it be no.

‘But it's better if she does die.'

‘No, not better, not better, not better at all!' she mechanically repeated in horror.

‘And what about the children? What will you do with them, unless you take them in yourself?'

‘Oh, how do I know?' cried Sonya in near despair and clutched her head. Evidently, the thought had already crossed her mind, too, many a time, and all he'd done was startle it back to life.

‘And what if now, while Katerina Ivanovna's still alive, you get sick and are taken off to hospital, what then?' he persisted mercilessly.

‘But what are you saying? That's just not possible!' – and Sonya's face twisted with terror.

‘Why's it not possible?' Raskolnikov went on with a harsh grin. ‘You're not insured, are you? So what'll become of them? They'll end up on the streets together, the whole lot of them; she'll be coughing and begging and banging her head against a wall somewhere, like today,
and the children will be crying . . . Then she'll collapse, be taken off to the police station, then the hospital, and die, while the children . . .'

‘Oh, no! . . . God won't allow it!' was all that escaped Sonya's constricted chest. She listened, looking at him beseechingly and folding her arms in dumb entreaty, as if everything depended on him.

Raskolnikov got up and began pacing the room. A minute or so passed. Sonya stood there with her arms and head hanging down, in terrible anguish.

‘Can't you save a bit? Put something aside for a rainy day?' he asked, suddenly halting in front of her.

‘No,' whispered Sonya.

‘Of course not! But have you tried?' he added, almost mockingly.