Crime and Punishment (55 page)

‘That, Sonya,' he continued rapturously, ‘was when I realized that power is given only to the man who dares to stoop and grab. One thing, just one: to dare! A certain thought came to me then, for the first time in my life; one which had never come to anyone, ever! Anyone! It suddenly dawned on me like the sun: how come not a single person, walking past all these absurdities, has ever dared, not now, not ever, to grab everything by the tail and shake it to hell? I . . . I felt like trying . . . I killed
for a dare
, Sonya, and that's the whole reason!'

‘Oh, be quiet, be quiet!' cried Sonya, throwing up her arms. ‘You walked away from God and God struck you and gave you away to the devil!'

‘By the way, Sonya – when I was lying in the dark and all this was dawning on me,
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was that the devil playing with my mind? Eh?'

‘Be quiet! Don't you dare laugh, you blasphemous man. You don't understand a thing, not a thing! O Lord! He'll never understand, never!'

‘Hush, Sonya, I'm not laughing at all. I know myself that it was the devil dragging me along. Hush, Sonya, hush!' he repeated dismally and insistently. ‘I know everything. I thought and whispered my way through it all while lying on my own in the dark back then . . . Argued my way through every point, down to the last little mark, the last little jot, and I know everything, everything! How sick and tired I was of all this empty talk! I wanted to forget it all and start again, Sonya, and stop wittering! Surely you don't think I went there like some idiot, without a moment's thought? I went there like a man with brains, and that was my downfall! Can't you see that I must have known that if I'd
already started asking myself the question, “Do I have a right to power?”, then it already meant I didn't. Or that if I asked, “Is a human being a louse?”, then man was certainly no louse
for me
, only for someone to whom the question never occurs, and who sets off without asking questions . . . And if I'd already tormented myself for so many days wondering, “Would Napoleon have gone or wouldn't he?”, then I obviously knew that I was no Napoleon . . . I endured all the agony of this empty talk, Sonya, all of it, and now I just wanted to shake it off. I wanted to kill without casuistry, Sonya, to kill for myself, for myself alone! I didn't want to lie about it, not even to myself! It wasn't to help mother that I killed – nonsense! It wasn't to acquire funds and power that I killed, so as to make myself a benefactor of humanity. Nonsense! I just killed. I killed for myself, for myself alone; and whether I'd become anyone's benefactor or spend my entire life as a spider, catching everyone in my web and sucking out their vital juices, shouldn't have mattered to me one jot at that moment! . . . And it wasn't so much money I needed, Sonya, when I killed; not so much money as something else . . . I know all this now . . . Try to understand: taking that same road again, I might never have repeated the murder. There was something else I needed to find out then, something else was nudging me along: what I needed to find out, and find out quickly, was whether I was a louse, like everyone else, or a human being. Could I take that step or couldn't I? Would I dare to stoop and grab or wouldn't I? Was I a quivering creature or did I have
the right
 . . . ?'

‘To murder? The right to murder?' Sonya threw up her arms.

‘Oh, Sonya!' he cried out in exasperation. He was about to answer back, but lapsed into scornful silence. ‘Don't interrupt me, Sonya! I merely wanted to prove one thing to you: that it was the devil who dragged me along then, and only after did he explain to me that I had no right to go there, because I'm as much of a louse as everyone else! He had a good laugh at me then, so here I am! Make me welcome! Would I have come to you now if I weren't a louse? Listen: when I went to the old woman that time, it was only as a
test
 . . . You'd better know that!'

‘And you killed! You killed!'

‘But just look how I did it! Who kills like that? Who goes off to kill the way I went off to kill? One day I'll tell you what that was like . . . Was it really the hag I killed? It was myself I killed, not her! I murdered myself in one fell blow, for all time! . . . And the hag was killed
by the devil, not me . . . Enough, Sonya. Enough! Enough! Leave me be!' he suddenly cried, convulsed with anguish. ‘Leave me be!'

He rested his elbows on his knees, his head clamped between his palms.

‘Such suffering!' came Sonya's howl of torment.

‘So what's to be done? Tell me!' he asked, suddenly lifting his head and looking at her, his face disfigured by despair.

‘What's to be done?' she exclaimed, leaping from her seat, her tearful eyes suddenly ablaze. ‘Get up!' (She grabbed him by the shoulder and he started getting to his feet, looking at her in near amazement.) ‘Off you go, right now, this minute, stand at the crossroads and bow down; kiss the earth you've polluted,
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then bow down to the whole world, to all four corners, and tell everyone out loud: “I have killed!” Then God will send you life once more. Are you going? Are you going?' she asked him, shaking all over as if in a fit, grabbing both his hands, squeezing them hard in her own and looking at him with fire in her eyes.

He was amazed and even shocked by this sudden ecstasy.

‘Do you mean Siberia, Sonya? What, do I have to turn myself in?' he asked, dismally.

‘Accept suffering and through suffering redeem yourself – that is what you must do.'

‘No! I won't go to them, Sonya.'

‘Then how will you live? How on earth will you keep going?' exclaimed Sonya. ‘How's that even possible now? How will you ever speak to your mother? (And what on earth will they do now?) But what am I saying? You've already abandoned your mother and sister, haven't you? Of course you have. O Lord!' she cried. ‘But he already knows it all himself! How, how can you live your life without a single human being? What will become of you now?'

‘Don't be a child, Sonya,' he said softly. ‘In what way am I guilty before them? Why should I go? What would I say to them? These are all just phantoms . . . They themselves wipe out millions and think it a virtue. They're swindlers and scoundrels, Sonya! . . . I won't go. What would I say? That I killed, but didn't dare take the money and hid it under a stone?' he added with a caustic grin. ‘They'll only laugh at me and say: “You're an idiot for not taking it. A coward and an idiot!” They won't understand anything, Sonya, anything, and they don't deserve to understand. Why should I go? I won't go. Don't be a child, Sonya . . .'

‘The torment will be too much for you,' she said, holding her arms out towards him in a despairing plea.

‘Maybe I'm
still
slandering myself now,' he remarked dismally, in a pensive kind of way. ‘Maybe I'm
still
a human being, not a louse, and I was in too much of a hurry to condemn myself . . . Maybe I can
still
fight.'

A haughty smile was forcing itself to his lips.

‘To bear such torment! And for a whole lifetime, a whole lifetime!'

‘I'll get used to it . . .' he said sullenly, seriously. ‘Listen,' he began a minute later, ‘enough crying, enough talking. I've come to tell you that they're after me, looking for me . . .'

‘Ah!' shrieked Sonya in fright.

‘There's no need to shriek! You yourself want me to go to Siberia and now you're frightened? Only I won't let them have their way. I've still got some fight left in me and they won't get anywhere. They've no proper evidence. Yesterday I was in grave danger and thought I was done for; today things are looking up. All their evidence is double-edged. I can turn all their accusations to my advantage – understand? – and that's precisely what I'll do. Now I know how . . . They'll put me away, though, that's for sure. But for one stroke of fortune, they'd probably have done so already today, and they might
still
do so . . . But that's nothing, Sonya. They'll keep me in a bit, then let me out . . . because they haven't a scrap of solid proof and never will, I give you my word. And what they do have isn't enough to lock anyone up. Well, enough of that . . . I just wanted you to know . . . As for my sister and mother, I'll do what I can to put their minds at rest . . . Anyway, my sister seems to be out of harm's way now . . . so mother is, too . . . Well, that's about it. Be careful, though. Will you visit me, once I'm inside?'

‘Oh yes! Yes!'

They sat side by side, sad and broken, as if they'd been washed up, after a storm, alone on an empty shore. He looked at Sonya and felt all her love upon him. How strange: he suddenly found it hard and painful to be loved so much. Yes, a strange and dreadful feeling! Walking over to Sonya's he'd felt that she was his one hope, his one way out; he'd expected to cast off at least some of his suffering, and now, all of a sudden, when her whole heart was turned towards him, he suddenly felt and realized that he was infinitely unhappier than before.

‘Actually, Sonya,' he said, ‘you'd better not visit when I'm inside.'

Sonya did not reply; she was crying. Several minutes passed.

‘Are you wearing a cross?' she unexpectedly asked, as if suddenly remembering.

At first, he failed to understand the question.

‘You aren't, are you? Here, take this one, a cypress one. I've got another, a copper one, Lizaveta's. Lizaveta and I swapped crosses: she gave me hers, I gave her my little icon. Now I'll start wearing Lizaveta's and you take this one. Take it . . . It's mine! Mine!' she begged him. ‘Together we'll suffer. Together we'll carry the cross!'

‘Give it to me!' said Raskolnikov. He didn't want to upset her. But he immediately withdrew his hand.

‘Not now, Sonya. Better later,' he added, to reassure her.

‘Yes, yes, better, better,' she echoed enthusiastically. ‘When you go away to suffer, that's when you'll wear it. You'll come to me, I'll put it on you, we'll pray and we'll go.'

There and then someone knocked three times on the door.

‘Sofya Semyonovna, may I?' came a very familiar, courteous voice.

Sonya rushed to the door in alarm. Mr Lebezyatnikov's blond head poked round it.

Lebezyatnikov looked worried.

‘I'm here to see you, Sofya Semyonovna. Do forgive me . . . I thought I'd find you here,' he suddenly addressed Raskolnikov. ‘Now don't get me wrong . . . I didn't think anything . . . of that kind . . . But I did think . . . Katerina Ivanovna has gone mad,' he suddenly informed Sonya, abandoning Raskolnikov.

Sonya shrieked.

‘Or so, at least, it would appear. Although . . . Well, we don't know what to do about it, that's the problem, miss! She's back now . . . She was thrown out by someone somewhere, and maybe beaten a bit as well . . . or so it would appear . . . She'd gone tearing over to see Semyon Zakharych's head of department, but he wasn't at home; some other general had invited him over for lunch . . . So – can you imagine? – off she ran . . . to this other general and – can you imagine? – simply insisted on being seen by the head, and even, it would appear, while he was still eating. You can guess what happened next. They threw her out, of course; though she says she called him names and even threw something at him. Perfectly plausible, I suppose . . . How she got away scot-free I'll
never know! Now she's busy telling everyone about it – Amalia Ivanovna, too – only it's hard to understand her when she's shouting and flailing about . . . Oh yes, she's yelling about how – now that everyone's abandoned her – she'll take to the streets with her children and drag a barrel-organ around, and the children will sing and dance – her, too – and collect money and go and stand under the general's window every day . . . “Let them see the noble children of a state official walk the streets like beggars!” she says. She keeps beating the children – they cry. She's teaching Lenya to sing “Little Farm” and the little boy to dance, and Polina Mikhailovna, too; she's ripping up all their clothes and making little hats for them, like actors wear; she wants to carry a basin around with her and bang on it, instead of a musical instrument . . . Won't listen to a word you say . . . Can you imagine? I mean, really!'

Lebezyatnikov would have gone on and on, but Sonya, who scarcely drew breath as she listened, suddenly grabbed her cape and hat and ran out of the room, putting them on as she went. Raskolnikov went out after her; Lebezyatnikov followed.

‘She's definitely gone crazy!' he said to Raskolnikov as they stepped outside. ‘I just didn't want to scare Sofya Semyonovna, so I said, “It would appear”, but there's no doubt about it. Consumptives get these tubercles on the brain,
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I'm told. Shame I know so little about medicine. I tried persuading her of it, but she just won't listen.'

‘You told her about the tubercles?'

‘Not exactly. She'd never have understood anyway. What I'm saying is: if you persuade a man through logic that, in essence, he has nothing to cry about, he'll soon stop crying. That much is clear. Why? Is it your belief that he won't?'

‘Life would be too easy then,' replied Raskolnikov.

‘I disagree, sir. It's a difficult business understanding Katerina Ivanovna, of course, but are you aware that in Paris serious experiments have already been conducted with regard to the possibility of curing the mad through logical persuasion? One professor there, a serious scholar, recently deceased, came up with this notion. His main idea was that the mad do not suffer from any particular disturbance of the organism, but that madness is, as it were, a logical error, an error of judgement, an incorrect view of things. He gradually refuted his patient's arguments and, I'm told, achieved certain results. Can you imagine? But since he also used shower-baths the results of this treatment may, of course, be questioned . . . Or so it would appear . . .'

Raskolnikov had long ceased listening. Drawing level with his building, he nodded to Lebezyatnikov and turned in through the arch. Lebezyatnikov came to, looked about him and hurried on.

Raskolnikov entered his garret and stood in the middle of the room. Why had he come back here? He ran his eye over this yellowish, frayed wallpaper, this dust, his couch . . . From the yard there came a loud, constant banging, as if something somewhere were being knocked in, some nail or other . . . He went over to the window, stood on tiptoe and, with an exceptionally attentive air, scanned the courtyard for a good long while. But the yard was empty and he couldn't see anyone banging away. To the left, in the side wing, a few windows were open; on the sills were pots with straggly geraniums. Washing hung outside the windows . . . He knew it all by heart. He turned away and sat down on the couch.

Never in all his life had he felt so dreadfully alone!

Yes, he felt once again that perhaps he really could come to hate Sonya, and precisely now, after making her more miserable. Why had he gone to beg her tears? Why was it so necessary for him to prey on her? The shame of it!

‘I'll stay on my own!' he said with sudden decisiveness. ‘And she won't visit me in prison!'

Five minutes later he lifted his head and smiled strangely. A strange thought – ‘Perhaps I'll be better off in Siberia' – had suddenly occurred to him.

He couldn't remember how long he sat in his room, his mind crowded with uncertain thoughts. Suddenly the door opened and Avdotya Romanovna walked in. She stopped and looked at him from the threshold, as he had at Sonya before; and only then did she come through and sit down opposite him, on the chair she'd sat in yesterday. He looked at her in silence, as if he weren't even thinking.

‘Don't be cross, brother, I'll only stay a minute,' said Dunya. The expression on her face was pensive, but not stern. Her gaze was clear and soft. He saw that this one, too, had come to him with love.

‘Brother, I know everything now,
everything
. Dmitry Prokofich explained everything to me. You're being hounded and tormented, all because of some stupid, vile suspicion . . . Dmitry Prokofich told me there's no danger whatsoever and you needn't be so horrified by it all. That's not what I think and I
completely understand
that you must be seething inside, and that this indignation may leave a permanent scar.
This is what scares me. I do not and dare not judge you for abandoning us, and forgive me for reproaching you before. I can fully imagine how I would feel if such a terrible misfortune were to befall me: I, too, would turn away from everyone. I won't tell Mother anything
about that
, but I will talk about you constantly and say on your behalf that you will come very soon. Don't torture yourself about her.
I'll
reassure her; but don't torture her, either – come round once, at least. She's your mother, remember that! But the only reason I've come now' (Dunya started getting up) ‘is to say that if, by any chance, you should need me for anything or you should need . . . my entire life, or anything . . . just call for me and I'll come. Goodbye!'

She turned round sharply and made towards the door.

‘Dunya!' Raskolnikov stopped her, getting up and walking towards her. ‘This Razumikhin, Dmitry Prokofich, is a very good man.'

Dunya coloured slightly.

‘And?' she asked after waiting a minute or so.

‘He's a business-like, hard-working, honest man, capable of great love . . . Goodbye, Dunya.'

She flushed all over, then suddenly panicked:

‘Brother, what are you saying? Surely we're not parting for good? Why all these . . . instructions?'

‘Never mind . . . Goodbye . . .'

He turned and walked away from her towards the window. She waited a moment, looked at him anxiously and left in great alarm.

No, he hadn't been cold towards her. There'd been a moment (the very last) when he was seized by the urge to hug her close and
take his leave
of her, and even
tell
her, but he couldn't bring himself even to give her his hand.

‘She'll only shudder when she remembers how I hugged her just now – she'll say her kiss was stolen!

‘Will
this one
be able to cope or won't she?' he added a few minutes later, still thinking to himself. ‘No, she won't cope. Not
people like her
! They never can . . .'

And he thought of Sonya.

A fresh breeze came in through the window. Outside it was no longer quite so bright. He grabbed his cap and went out.

He, of course, could not and would not pay any heed to his sick condition. But this continuous anxiety and all this dread in his soul could not pass without consequence. And if he was not yet laid up
with a high fever, then perhaps it was only because this inner, continuous anxiety was keeping him on his feet and in his senses, albeit in a somewhat artificial, temporary way.

He wandered aimlessly. The sun was setting. Some particular anguish had begun to communicate itself to him lately. There was nothing particularly caustic or scalding about it; instead, it was somehow constant and eternal, presaging year on year of this cold, deadening anguish, some kind of eternity on ‘one square yard'. In the evening this sensation usually began to torment him even more.

‘With such idiotic, purely physical ailments that all depend on some sunset or other, how can you avoid doing something stupid? Never mind Sonya, you'll end up going to Dunya!' he muttered with loathing.

Someone called his name. He looked round. Lebezyatnikov rushed towards him.

‘I was at your place just now. I've been looking for you. Can you imagine? She's done what she said she'd do and taken the children off with her! Sofya Semyonovna and I had a real job finding them. She's banging away on a frying pan, forcing the children to sing and dance. They're crying. They stop at crossroads and outside shops. Silly commoners run after them. Let's go.'

‘And Sonya?' asked Raskolnikov anxiously, hurrying after Lebezyatnikov.

‘In a complete frenzy. Not Sofya Semyonovna, I mean, but Katerina Ivanovna; although Sofya Semyonovna is in a frenzy, too. But Katerina Ivanovna is in a perfect frenzy. I'm telling you, she's completely mad. They'll end up at the police station. You can imagine the effect that will have on . . . They're by the Ditch now, near ——sky Bridge, not far at all from Sofya Semyonovna's place. Close by.'

By the Ditch, not far from the bridge and only two buildings before Sonya's, a small throng had gathered – mainly little boys and girls. Katerina Ivanonvna's hoarse, frayed voice was audible even from the bridge. It was indeed a strange spectacle, more than capable of grabbing the interest of the street. Katerina Ivanovna, wearing her old dress, the
drap de dames
shawl and a ruined straw hat scrunched up horribly on one side, really was in a frenzy. She was tired and gasping for breath. Never had her worn-out, consumptive face expressed more suffering (not to mention the fact that outside, in the sun, a consumptive always looks more sickly and disfigured than at home); but her excitement did not abate and she grew more irritable by the minute.
She kept rushing over to the children, shouting at them, urging them on, teaching them right there, in front of everyone, how to dance and what to sing, trying to make them understand why all this was necessary, despairing at their dimness, hitting them . . . Then, suddenly abandoning them, she would rush over to the crowd. If she noticed anyone watching who was even remotely well-dressed, she would immediately set about explaining to that person what these children ‘from a noble, one might even say aristocratic household' had been driven to. If she heard laughter in the crowd or some pointed remark, she'd immediately pounce on the impudent offenders and give them a piece of her mind. Some really were laughing, others were shaking their heads, and all were curious to have a good look at the crazy woman with the terrified children. The frying pan which Lebezyatnikov had mentioned was nowhere to be seen – Raskolnikov, at least, had not seen it – but instead of banging a pan, Katerina Ivanovna was marking time with her dry palms as she made Polechka sing and Lenya and Kolya dance. Not only that, she even started singing along herself, but every time she did so an excruciating coughing fit would cut her short on the second note and she would plunge into despair once more, cursing her cough and even crying. But nothing infuriated her more than the tears and terror of Kolya and Lenya. Efforts really had been made to dress the children up as street singers. The boy's head was wrapped in a turban of red and white material, to make him resemble a Turk. No such outfit was found for Lenya; all she had was the late Semyon Zakharych's red worsted cap (or rather, nightcap), pierced with a fragment of the white ostrich feather that once belonged to Katerina Ivanovna's grandmother and had been kept until now in the trunk, as a family curiosity. Polechka was wearing her usual little dress. She was looking at her mother timidly, in bewilderment, never leaving her side, gulping back tears, suspecting her mother's derangement and nervously looking about her. The street and the crowd had given her a dreadful fright. Sonya walked after Katerina Ivanovna everywhere, crying and pleading with her again and again to go back home. But Katerina Ivanovna was implacable.

‘Stop it, Sonya! Stop it!' she shouted in great haste, gasping and coughing. ‘You don't even know what you're asking – just like a child! I've already told you I won't be going back to that woman, that German drunk. Let everyone – all Petersburg – watch the children of a noble father go begging, a father who was a loyal and faithful servant
all his life and who, one might say, died at his post.' (Katerina Ivanovna had already managed to concoct this fantasy for herself and believe in it blindly.) ‘All the better if that useless general sees us. Anyway, you're being silly, Sonya. What will we eat now, tell me that? We've tortured you enough – I won't stand for any more! Oh, Rodion Romanych, it's you!' she shrieked, catching sight of Raskolnikov and rushing towards him. ‘Please make this fool of a girl understand that this is the cleverest thing we can do! Even organ-grinders make a living, and as for us, we'll be singled out straight away – everyone will see we're a poor noble family of orphans reduced to beggary, and that poxy general will lose his position, you'll see! We'll stand under the general's window each day, and when the Tsar goes by in his carriage I'll fall to my knees, push this lot out in front of me, point at them and cry: “Protect us, Father!” He is the father of all orphans, he is merciful, he will protect us, you'll see; and as for this lousy general . . . Lenya!
Tenez-vous droite
!
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And you, Kolya, you'll be dancing again in a minute. What are you whimpering about? There, he's whimpering again! What are you so scared of, you stupid little boy? Lord! What am I to do with them, Rodion Romanych? If only you knew how dim they are! What on earth is one to do with them?'