Crime and Punishment (50 page)

‘See for yourself: I gave her the extremely delicate task of inviting that lady and her daughter – you know who I mean, don't you? The task called for the greatest subtlety, the greatest refinement, but she went about it in such a way that this silly parvenue, this stuck-up so-and-so, this provincial nobody, simply because she's the widow of some major or other and has come to Petersburg to wear out her skirts begging for a pension in government offices, because, at fifty-five years of age, she slaps on powder and rouge and dyes her hair (everyone knows) . . . well, not only did this so-and-so not deign to show up, she didn't even ask anyone to convey her apologies, as even the most elementary rules of etiquette demand! And why on earth hasn't Pyotr
Petrovich come either? And where's Sonya? Where's she got to? Ah, here she is at last! Well, Sonya, where have you been? Strange that you can't even arrive at your father's funeral on time. Rodion Romanovich, she can sit next to you. There's your place, Sonechka . . . Take whatever you want. Try the aspic – that's the best. Pancakes are on their way. What about the children? Polechka, got everything you need down that end? Cuh-cuh-cuh! Good. Lenya, be a good little girl, and you Kolya, stop swinging your legs; sit like all noble children should sit. What were you saying, Sonechka?'

Sonya breathlessly conveyed to her Pyotr Petrovich's apologies, trying to raise her voice so that everyone might hear and using only the most respectful turns of phrase, specially chosen, in fact, to imitate Pyotr Petrovich, and further embellished by her. She added that Pyotr Petrovich had specifically instructed her to convey that, at the first possible opportunity, he would pay her a visit in order to discuss
some
business
in private and agree about what could be done and undertaken in future, and so on and so forth.

Sonya knew that this would appease and assuage Katerina Ivanovna, flatter her, and above all be a sop to her pride. After a hasty bow to Raskolnikov, she sat down next to him and threw him a curious glance. For the rest of the time, though, she managed to avoid both looking at him and talking to him. She even seemed rather distracted, though she barely took her eyes off Katerina Ivanovna's face, the better to please her. Neither she nor Katerina Ivanovna were in mourning, for want of appropriate clothing; Sonya was wearing a sort of darkish brown, while Katerina Ivanovna was in the only dress she had, a dark cotton one with stripes. The news about Pyotr Petrovich went down very well. Gravely hearing Sonya out, Katerina Ivanovna enquired with the same air of importance: how's Pyotr Petrovich's health? Then, instantly and for almost everyone to hear, she
whispered
to Raskolnikov that it really would have been rather strange for such an esteemed and respectable man as Pyotr Petrovich to find himself in such an ‘unusual crowd', notwithstanding all his devotion to their family and his old friendship with her papa.

‘That is why I am especially grateful to you, Rodion Romanovich, for not shunning my bread and salt,
21
even in such a setting as this,' she added, for almost everyone to hear, ‘though I dare say that it is only on account of your special friendship towards my poor late husband that you have kept your word.'

Next, she once again ran a proud and dignified gaze over her guests and, with particular solicitude, loudly asked the deaf old man sitting across the table whether he might like some seconds and whether he'd been served any Lisbon. The man made no reply and struggled for a long time to grasp the meaning of the question, although his neighbours even started shaking him, just for fun. But he merely looked around with his mouth hanging open, which only increased the general merriment.

‘What a dolt! Just look at him! What's he doing here? But as for Pyotr Petrovich, I've always had complete confidence in him,' Katerina Ivanovna went on to Raskolnikov, ‘and, of course, he has nothing in common . . . ,' she snapped at Amalia Ivanovna, who positively wilted from the exceptional ferocity of her look, ‘nothing in common with those overdressed tail-slappers of yours whom Papa wouldn't even have taken on as his cooks, and whom my late husband, needless to say, would have accorded a great honour by receiving, and even then only on account of his inexhaustible kindness.'

‘Yes, ma'am, he liked a drink. That he did, ma'am!' the ex-quartermaster suddenly shouted, draining his twelfth vodka.

‘My late husband did indeed possess that weakness, as everyone knows,' Katerina Ivanovna suddenly pounced on him, ‘but he was a kind and noble man, who loved and respected his family. More's the pity that in his kindness he was far too trusting of all manner of debauchees, and drank with God knows who – people who weren't even worth the sole of his shoe! You know, Rodion Romanovich, they found a gingerbread cockerel in his pocket: he may have been dead drunk, but he hadn't forgotten his children.'

‘Cock-er-el? Did I hear you say cock-er-el?' yelled the quartermaster.

Katerina Ivanovna did not dignify him with a reply. She was thinking about something and sighed.

‘I expect that you, like everyone else, think I was much too strict with him,' she continued, turning to Raskolnikov. ‘But I wasn't! He respected me. He truly, truly respected me! He had a kind soul, that man! And sometimes you couldn't help but pity him! He'd be sitting in the corner looking at me and I'd feel so sorry for him I'd want to be nice to him, but then I'd think: “Be nice to him and he'll only get drunk again.” Being strict was the only way of restraining him even a little.'

‘Yes, ma'am, there was much tugging of forelocks; more than once, ma'am,' roared the quartermaster again, then sank another vodka.

‘Never mind forelocks: a broom would do well enough for dealing with certain idiots. And I don't mean my late husband!' Katerina Ivanovna fired back.

The red blotches on her cheeks burned brighter and brighter; her chest heaved. Another minute of this and she'd be making a scene. There was much tittering among the guests, who were evidently enjoying the show. They started nudging the quartermaster and whispering something to him. They were clearly hoping for a fight.

‘Per-permission to ask, ma'am, what you mean,' the quartermaster began. ‘I mean which . . . noble . . . individual . . . did you see fit, just now . . . ? Actually, forget it! Rubbish! Widow! Widowed! I forgive . . . I'm out!' – and he dispatched another vodka.

Raskolnikov sat and listened in disgusted silence. Out of courtesy he nibbled at the food which Katerina Ivanovna kept putting on his plate, simply so as not to offend her. He studied Sonya closely. But Sonya was becoming more and more anxious and preoccupied; she, too, had a feeling that the banquet would end badly, and observed Katerina Ivanovna's mounting irritation with dread. She happened to know that the main reason the two ladies from the provinces had given such short shrift to Katerina Ivanovna's invitation was her, Sonya. She'd heard from Amalia Ivanovna herself that the mother had even been offended by the invitation and had posed the question: ‘How could she even think of sitting our daughter at the same table as
that girl
?' Sonya sensed that Katerina Ivanovna somehow knew about this already, and an insult directed at her, Sonya, meant more to Katerina Ivanovna than any insult directed at herself, her children, her father; in short, it was a mortal insult, and Sonya knew that nothing could appease Katerina Ivanovna now, not until ‘she shows these tail-slappers that they are both' etcetera, etcetera. As if on cue, someone sent a plate down to Sonya from the other end of the table; on it two hearts had been sculpted out of black bread, both pierced by an arrow. Katerina Ivanovna flared up and immediately shouted down the table that whoever had sent it was a ‘drunken ass'. Amalia Ivanovna, who also sensed trouble, while being wounded to the depths of her soul by Katerina Ivanovna's disdain, suddenly, in the hope of improving the general mood and, at one and the same time, her own reputation, launched
into a story, apropos of nothing, about how some acquaintance of hers, ‘Karl of the chemist's', had taken a cab one night and ‘the cabbie vanted him to kill und Karl begged und begged him not kill him, und cried, und folded his arms, und frightened, und from terror his heart vas pierced.' Katerina Ivanovna smiled before immediately remarking that Amalia Ivanovna would be well advised not to tell stories in Russian. The landlady took even greater offence at this and objected that her ‘
Vater aus Berlin
22
vas ferry important man and vent about hands in pockets putting.' This was too much for giggly Katerina Ivanovna and she guffawed outrageously. By now, Amalia Ivanovna was at the very end of her tether and could barely contain herself.

‘A real screech-owl!' Katerina Ivanovna whispered to Raskolnikov again, cheering up considerably. ‘She meant to say “with his hands in his pockets”, but instead made him out to be a pickpocket, cuh-cuh! And wouldn't you agree, Rodion Romanovich, once and for all, that these Petersburg foreigners, mainly Germans, who come here from God knows where, are all so much more stupid than we are? I mean, what a way to tell a story: “Karl of the chemist's with terror heart pierced” and (what a baby!) instead of tying up the cabbie “folded his arms, und cried, und ferry begged”. What a birdbrain! And she thinks this is so very touching, and has no idea how stupid she is! If you ask me this sozzled quartermaster is far cleverer than her; at least with him it's obvious he's a soak, that he's drunk himself stupid, but the rest of them are so very solemn and serious . . . Just look at her, with those eyes popping out. She's angry! She's angry! Ha-ha-ha! Cuh-cuh-cuh!'

Brightening up, Katerina Ivanovna got carried away and suddenly started talking about how she would be sure to use the hard-won pension to found a boarding school for noble girls in T——, the town of her birth.
23
Katerina Ivanovna had never spoken to Raskolnikov about this before and she immediately plunged into the most beguiling details. As if from nowhere, there suddenly appeared in her hands that same ‘certificate of distinction' which Raskolnikov had first heard about from Marmeladov, the late departed, who had explained to him in the drinking den that Katerina Ivanovna, his spouse, had danced the
pas de châle
‘in the presence of the governor and other persons' at the school leaving ball. Evidently, this certificate of distinction was now meant to serve as evidence of Katerina Ivanovna's right to found a boarding school herself; above all, though, she was keeping it up her sleeve in order to take ‘those overdressed tail-slappers' down a peg or
two once and for all, should they appear at the banquet, and prove to them that Katerina Ivanovna was ‘from the noblest, one might even say most aristocratic, home, a colonel's daughter and a cut above the adventure-seekers who are two a penny nowadays'. The certificate of distinction immediately did the rounds of the drunken guests, something which Katerina Ivanovna did nothing to prevent, for it did indeed spell out,
en toutes lettres
,
24
that she was the daughter of a court counsellor, one decorated by the state, and that she really was, thereby, almost a colonel's daughter. Afire with inspiration, Katerina Ivanovna lost no time in enlarging on every detail of her beautiful and tranquil future life in T——; about the teachers she would invite to her boarding school from the gymnasium; about a certain estimable old Frenchman, Mangot, who had taught French to Katerina Ivanovna herself at her boarding school, was living out his days in T——, and would almost certainly agree to join her for a very reasonable fee. She eventually got on to Sonya as well, who would accompany her to T—— ‘and help out with everything'. But at this point there was a sudden snort from the other end of the table. Though Katerina Ivanovna made every effort to appear oblivious to the laughter, she immediately raised her voice and began enthusing about Sofya Semyonovna's undoubted abilities to serve as her helper, about ‘her meekness, patience, self-sacrifice, nobility and education'; not only that, she patted Sonya on the cheek and, half-rising, kissed her twice with great warmth. Sonya blushed, while Katerina Ivanovna burst into tears, noting to herself as she did so that she was a ‘silly fool who's lost her nerve and gets upset over nothing, and anyway, this has gone on long enough – they've finished eating, so let's have tea'. At that very moment Amalia Ivanovna, now utterly offended by having taken no part at all in the entire conversation and by the fact that nobody had even listened to her, suddenly made one final sally and, concealing her pain, ventured an eminently sensible and profound observation to Katerina Ivanovna about how, at the boarding school, she would need to pay particular attention to the cleanness of the girls' linen (
die Wäsche
) and that ‘there better be one gut lady keeping eyes on the linen', and secondly that ‘all the young girls better no noffels read under cover'. Katerina Ivanovna, who really was upset and exhausted and had had quite enough of this banquet, immediately snapped back that Amalia Ivanovna was ‘talking rubbish' and didn't have a clue; that
die Wäsche
was a matter for the linen-keeper and not the director of a boarding school for the
nobility; and as for novel-reading, well, that was simply indecent of her and could she please shut up. Amalia Ivanovna turned red and spitefully remarked that she ‘only vanted to help', that she ‘ferry much only vanted to help', and that she was owed ‘rent
Geld
25
for ferry long time'. Katerina Ivanovna immediately ‘put her in her place' by telling her that she was lying about ‘vanting to help', because even yesterday, with the late departed still laid out on the table, she'd been bothering her about the unpaid rent. To this, Amalia Ivanovna made the entirely logical riposte that she ‘invited those ladies, but those ladies not come because those ladies noble and not come to not-noble ladies'. Katerina Ivanovna ‘reminded' her that, as a slattern, she was hardly in a position to know about true nobility. This was too much for Amalia Ivanovna, who declared that her ‘
Vater aus Berlin
vas ferry, ferry important man and vent about hands in pockets putting and everything did
Pouf
!
Pouf
!' and, the better to impersonate her
Vater
, Amalia Ivanovna leapt from her chair, thrust both hands into her pockets, puffed out her cheeks and started making vague sounds with her mouth resembling
pouf-
pouf
, to the loud guffaws of all the tenants, who purposely egged Amalia Ivanovna on with their approval, sensing a fight. But this was more than Katerina Ivanovna could bear and thereupon, for all to hear, she shot back that perhaps Amalia Ivanovna never had a
Vater
at all – she was simply a drunken Balt who probably used to work in a kitchen, if not worse. Amalia Ivanovna turned red as a lobster and screeched that perhaps it was Katerina Ivanovna who ‘no
Vater
had', but she, Amalia Ivanovna, had a ‘
Vater
aus Berlin
, and he such long frock coats had and everything did
pouf
,
pouf
,
pouf
!' Katerina Ivanovna noted contemptuously that her own origins were well known and that the certificate of distinction spelled out in black and white that her father was a colonel;
26
and that Amalia Ivanovna's father (assuming she even had one) was probably some milk-selling Balt, though in all likelihood there really was no father, because even now no one knew what her patronymic was: Ivanovna or Ludwigovna? At this Amalia Ivanovna, positively livid, banged her fist on the table and set about screeching that she was Ivanovna, not Ludwigovna, that her
Vater
was called Johann and ‘a
Bürgermeister
27
vas', while Katerina Ivanovna's
Vater
‘never
Bürgermeister
vas'. Katerina Ivanovna got up from her chair and in a stern, seemingly calm voice (despite her pallor and heaving chest) remarked that should she dare ever again, even once, put her ‘lousy
Vater
on a level with Papa',
then she, Katerina Ivanovna, would ‘rip off that bonnet and stamp all over it'. On hearing this, Amalia Ivanovna started tearing around the room and yelling at the top of her voice that she was the landlady and that Katerina Ivanovna should ‘vacate the apartment this ferry minute', after which, for some reason, she set about clearing the silver spoons from the table. Uproar ensued; the children began crying. Sonya rushed to restrain Katerina Ivanovna, but when Amalia Ivanovna suddenly shouted something about a yellow ticket, Katerina Ivanovna pushed Sonya aside and made straight for Amalia Ivanovna, to bring her warning about the bonnet into immediate effect. At that moment the door opened and a man suddenly appeared on the threshold: Pyotr Petrovich Luzhin. He stood there casting a stern, attentive gaze over the assembled company. Katerina Ivanovna rushed towards him.