Crime and Punishment (79 page)

He went out.

‘He's mixed up in a political conspiracy, it's the only, only possible explanation!’ Razumikhin said to himself with decisive finality, as he slowly went down the stairs. ‘And he's drawn his sister into it, too; that may very, very easily be in keeping with Avdotya Romanovna's character. They've been having secret meetings… Why, she's hinted as much to me herself. If one pieces together some of the things she's said… and half said… and hinted… it all falls into place quite neatly! How else is one to throw any light on this tangled business? Hm… And yet I thought… Oh, merciful God, what didn't I think? No, that was some kind of a brainstorm, and I'm guilty before him! It was he who brought it on, that brainstorm, when we were standing under the lamp in the corridor that time. Ugh! What a base, vulgar, loathsome thought on my part! Good for you, Mikolka, coming clean like that… It explains so many other things that have happened! His illness that time, that strange behaviour of his, even earlier, when he was still at the university – how gloomy and morose he always was… But what's the meaning of this letter now? It may very well have something to do with the whole business, too. Who is it from? It makes me suspicious… Hm. No, I'm going to find out everything.’

He suddenly remembered all the things he had observed and deduced about Dunya, and his heart sank within him. He dashed out of the building and set off at a run.

No sooner had Razumikhin left than Raskolnikov got up, turned towards the window, slouched over to one corner, then to another, as though he had forgotten how narrow his room was, and… sat down on the sofa again. He seemed an entirely new man; once again, the struggle – that meant there was still a way out!

‘Yes, it means there's still a way out! Everything's been far too closed in and confined, it's getting so I can hardly breathe, as though I were in some kind of a trance.’ Ever since that scene with Mikolka in Porfiry's chambers he had begun to choke without any outlet, in narrow constriction. After his encounter
with Mikolka, that same day, there had been the scene with Sonya; its development and conclusion had been not at all the way he had imagined beforehand… that meant he had lost his strength, momentarily and radically! In a single flash! And yet he had concurred with Sonya that day, concurred with all his heart in her assertion that he would not be able to live alone with a deed like that on his soul! And Svidrigailov? Svidrigailov was a mystery… Svidrigailov caused him anxiety, it was true, but somehow not in that particular connection. He thought there might also be a possibility of a further struggle with Svidrigailov ahead. Svidrigailov might also be a way out; but Porfiry was another matter.

So Porfiry had cleared it all up for Razumikhin, explained it all to him in
psychological
terms! He'd dragged in that accursed psychology of his again! Porfiry? How could Porfiry believe even for one moment that Mikolka was guilty after what had taken place between them that day, after that scene, face to face, before Mikolka had made his confession, and which was only open to
one
possible interpretation? (In these last few days Raskolnikov had several times remembered the whole of that scene with Porfiry in fleeting fragments; he was unable to endure the memory of it as a totality.) The words that had passed between them, the movements and gestures there had been, the looks they had exchanged, the tones of voice they had used, all of that had reached a point where no Mikolka (whom Porfiry had seen through right from his very first word and gesture), no Mikolka could have shaken the bedrock of his conviction.

What was he to think? Even Razumikhin had begun to have his suspicions! The scene under the lamp in the corridor had not taken place without reason. Razumikhin had gone rushing off to Porfiry… But what had the latter's purpose been in pulling the wool over his eyes like this? What did he hope to gain by diverting Razumikhin's attention towards Mikolka? Yes, he must be up to something; there was some plan here, but what was it? It was true that much time had passed since that morning – far too much time, and during all of it there had been no sign of Porfiry whatsoever. And that, of course, could only be for the worse…

Raskolnikov took his cap and, after some reflection, walked out of the room. This was the first day in all that time that he had at least felt in control of his reason. ‘I must have done with Svidrigailov,’ he thought, ‘and at whatever cost, as soon as possible; I think he's also waiting for me to come to him of my own accord.’ And at that moment there was such a burst of sudden hatred from his tired heart that he might very well have killed one of them: either Svidrigailov or Porfiry. At any rate, he felt that even if he was unable to do it now, he would be in the future. ‘We shall see, we shall see,’ he kept saying to himself.

But no sooner had he opened the door on to the stairs than he suddenly collided with Porfiry himself. Porfiry had come to see him. For a single moment Raskolnikov froze, petrified – but only for that single moment. It was strange: he was not particularly surprised to see Porfiry and was not even all that afraid of him. He merely shuddered, but then quickly and instantaneously gathered his wits in preparation. ‘Perhaps this is the dénouement! But why has he crept up on the sly, like a cat, without my being aware of it? Did he overhear what we were saying?’

‘An unexpected visitor for you, Rodion Romanovich!’ Porfiry Petrovich shouted, laughing. ‘I've long been meaning to drop in on you, and as I was passing this way I thought – why not look in for five minutes and pay you a visit? Are you off somewhere? I shan't detain you. I'll just have one cigarette, if you'll be so good.’

‘Very well, Porfiry Petrovich – sit down, sit down,’ Raskolnikov said, finding his visitor a chair with such an obviously pleased and friendly look that he would have been struck with wonder had he been able to see himself. The leavings, the dregs were being scraped out! Sometimes, in similar fashion, a man will endure half an hour of mortal terror at the hands of a brigand, yet when the knife is finally put to his throat, even his terror passes. He sat right down in front of Porfiry and, without so much as a blink, gazed at him. Porfiry narrowed his eyes and began to light his cigarette.

‘Well, go on then, go on.’ The words seemed to be on the
point of leaping out of Raskolnikov's heart. ‘Go on, why don't you tell me what it is you've got to say?’

‘I mean, look at these cigarettes,’ Porfiry Petrovich said at last, having lit one, his breath recovered. ‘They do me harm, nothing but harm, yet I can't give them up! I cough, sir, I've begun to get a tickling in my throat, and I'm short of breath. I'm a coward, you know; I went to see B—
¹
for a consultation the other day – he spends half an hour at an absolute
minimum
examining each patient; he actually burst out laughing just at the sight of me: tapped my chest and auscultated me. “By the way,” he said, “you ought to avoid tobacco; your lungs are dilated.” But I mean, how can I give it up? What am I going to use as a substitute? I don't drink, sir, and that's what's really wrong with me, hee-hee-hee, my not drinking's the real trouble I suffer from! All is relative, Rodion Romanych, all is relative!’

‘What's he up to now?’ Raskolnikov thought with distaste. ‘Is he starting his old routine again?’ The whole of the recent scene that had taken place at their last meeting suddenly came back to him, and the feeling he had had then surged towards his heart in a wave.

‘You know, I came to see you a couple of evenings ago; perhaps you weren't aware of it?’ Porfiry Petrovich went on, studying the room. ‘I came into this very room. I happened to be passing, just as I was today – “Why don't I pay him a little visit?” I thought. I came up here, and the door to your room was wide open; I took a look round, waited for a bit, didn't bother reporting my presence to your serving-maid – and left. Don't you have a lock on your door?’

Raskolnikov's face was growing darker and darker. It was as if Porfiry had guessed what he was thinking.

‘I've come to explain myself to you, dear Rodion Romanovich, to explain myself to you, sir! I owe you an explanation, and am indeed obliged to offer you one!’ he continued with a little smile, even patting Raskolnikov on the knee with the palm of
his hand. At almost the same instant, however, his face suddenly assumed a serious and troubled expression; to Raskolnikov's surprise, it even seemed to twitch with sadness. He had never so far seen such an expression on Porfiry's face, and had not suspected him to be capable of it. ‘That was a strange scene that occurred between us last time, Rodion Romanych. I suppose a strange scene also occurred between us at our first meeting; but at the time… Well, but that's now just one thing among others. What I want to say to you, sir, is this: it may very well be that I am very guilty in your regard; I feel that to be the case, sir. I mean, just remember the way we parted: your nerves were screaming and your knees were trembling, and so were mine. And you know, the way the situation between us developed, it really wasn't decent – certainly not the way two gentlemen ought to behave. For we are, after all, gentlemen, are we not? That is to say, in all situations we are first and foremost gentlemen; that needs to be borne in mind, sir. I mean, remember the point it came to… simply quite indecent, sir.’

‘What game is he playing, what does he take me for?’ Raskolnikov wondered in amazement, raising his head and staring at Porfiry for all he was worth.

‘After some thought I have reached the conclusion that it is better for us to be candid with each other,’ Porfiry Petrovich went on, throwing his head back slightly and lowering his eyes, as though not wishing to embarrass his former victim any more and as though he were looking askance at his earlier tricks and ploys. ‘No sir, suspicions and scenes of that kind cannot continue for long. Mikolka put us out of our misery that time, otherwise I really don't know what might have transpired between us. That wretched little weasel of an artisan was sitting behind the partition of my chambers – can you imagine it? Of course, you know that already; and I, for my part, know that he went to see you later on; but the things you supposed at the time weren't true: I hadn't sent for anyone, and I hadn't yet given any kind of instructions. I expect you're wondering why? What can I say: you see, the whole thing had fairly flabbergasted me, too. I only just managed to have the yardkeepers sent for. (I expect you noticed them on your way out.) A certain thought
passed through my mind at the time, swiftly, with the speed of lightning; you see, Rodion Romanych, I was rather sure of what I thought I knew. All right, I thought, even if I let this one go, I'll catch the next one by the tail – and I shan't let go of that, at least, because it'll be mine, all mine. You know, Rodion Romanych, sir, you have a very irritable nature; I would even venture to say that it's excessively so, when viewed against the other basic features of your character and heart, which I flatter myself in the hope of having partially understood. Well, but of course, even then I should have realized that it doesn't always happen that a man will get up and blurt out his most cherished secrets to you. Even though it does happen, especially if one drives a man beyond the limit of his endurance, it is, I must admit, a rare occurrence. That I should have realized. No, I thought, just give me one little detail! Just the smallest detail, just one, as long as it's something I can take in my hands, as long as it's something concrete, and not this psychology stuff. Because, I thought, if a man is guilty, then one should at least expect to get something tangible out of him; and it's even permissible to look for the most unexpected result. At the time I was relying on your character, Rodion Romanych, on your character more than anything else, sir! I really had the highest hopes of you!’

‘But you… why are you talking like this now?’ Raskolnikov muttered at last, without even giving the question any proper thought. ‘What's he talking about?’ he mused to himself. ‘Does he really think I'm innocent?’

‘Why am I talking like this? Why, I've come to explain myself to you, sir, considering it, as it were, my sacred duty to do so. I want to put it all before you with perfect completeness, exactly as it happened, the whole episode of that brainstorm of mine. I've made you put up with an awful lot, Rodion Romanych. I'm not a monster, sir. I mean, I understand how hard it must be for a man to carry all this on his shoulders when he's depressed, but also proud, masterful and impatient, above all impatient! I, at any rate, consider you as a man of the most noble character, sir, with even the beginnings of true greatness of soul, though I don't agree with you in all your convictions, something I view
it as my duty to declare to you in advance, openly and with complete sincerity, for above all I do not wish to deceive. When I made your acquaintance, I felt an attachment to you. Perhaps my way of putting it makes you want to laugh? You have a right to, sir. I know that you didn't like me from the very first sight of me, and there's really no reason at all why you should. Consider me how you will, but what I want to do now is employ every means at my disposal to wipe out the impression I made, and prove to you that I, too, am a man with a heart and a conscience. I speak sincerely, sir.’

Porfiry Petrovich observed a dignified silence. Raskolnikov felt an onrush of some new fear. The thought that Porfiry believed him to be innocent had suddenly begun to frighten him.

‘I don't really think it's necessary for me to tell it all in sequence, the way it suddenly began,’ Porfiry Petrovich went on. ‘Indeed, I think that would be superfluous. And in any case, I doubt whether I'd be able to, sir. Because how is it to be properly explained? First of all, there were rumours going about. Now, as to what kind of rumours they were, from whom I heard them and when… and in what connection they came to concern yourself – all that is also, I believe, superfluous. For me personally it began by chance, an event of pure chance of which one could say in the highest degree that it might or might not have happened. What was it? Hm, I don't think we need go into that, either. All those things, those rumours and chance events, formed themselves into a single thought inside my head. I will confess to you openly, because if one is to confess, then it must be to everything – I was the first to pounce on you at the time. All that business about the markings the old woman made on her pledges and so on, and so forth – all that was a lot of rubbish, sir. One could count hundreds of such instances. I also had occasion to learn about the scene at the local police bureau, also by chance, sir, and not simply in passing but from the lips of a remarkable and capital storyteller who, without really being aware of it, gave a masterly account of the whole thing. It was all just one thing among so many others, Rodion Romanych, my dear chap! I mean, how could I have failed to start looking in a certain direction? A hundred rabbits will never make a
horse, a hundred suspicions will never make a case, as a certain English proverb says, and I mean that's only common wisdom, sir, but you see one also has to deal with the passions, the passions, sir, for an investigator is only human. At that point, too, I recalled your article, the one in that old journal, you remember, you talked about it in some detail during your first visit. I poured a bit of scorn on it at the time, but that was in order to stir you up for later on. I shall say it again: you're a very impatient and over-sensitive fellow, Rodion Romanych. That you're bold, pushing, serious and… have felt, have felt a great deal, all that I've known for a long time, sir. I am familiar with all those sensations of yours, and I read your article as though it had been written by someone I knew. It had been thought up in a state of frenzy, during sleepless nights, with much surging and beating of the heart, with frustrated enthusiasm! Oh, that proud, frustrated, enthusiasm is a dangerous thing in youth! At the time I poured scorn on it, but now I will tell you that I'm really terribly fond – in an amateur capacity – of those first, youthful, impassioned essays of the pen. “Smoke, mist, a string vibrating in the mist.”
²
Your article is absurd and fantastic, but it contains a gleam of sincerity, a youthful, uncorrupted pride, the boldness of despair; it's a gloomy piece of work, sir, but that's the good thing about it. I read your article through, and then put it aside, and… as I was doing so, I thought: “Well, that chap's going to have some problems!” So, I ask you, after an introduction like that, how could I fail to be engrossed by the sequel? Oh, good heavens, was I going to say anything? Was I going to put my finger on anything in particular? All I did at the time was observe. “What's going on here?” I thought. But nothing was going on, absolutely nothing, and even perhaps the highest degree of nothing. And in any case, for me, an investigator, to get so engrossed like that was actually quite improper: I had Mikolka on my hands, and there was evidence, too – whatever you say, it was evidence! And he, too, dragged in a psychological angle of his own; it was necessary to spend some time on him because, after all, this was a matter of life and death. Why am I telling you all this? So that you know, and so that, possessing the mind and the heart that you
do, you won't blame me for my aggressive behaviour that time. It wasn't really aggressive, sir, I tell you that in all sincerity, hee-hee! What do you suppose: that I didn't search your room that time? Oh but I did, sir, I did, hee-hee, I did, while you were lying here in bed. Unofficially and incognito, but I did conduct a search. Your room was examined right down to the last stray hair, when the clues we had were fresh; but –
umsonst
!
³
I thought: this fellow's going to show up, he's going to show his face, and pretty quick, too; if he's guilty, he'll show his face. Another man might not, but this one will. And do you remember the way Mr Razumikhin began spilling the beans to you? We arranged that in order to get you worried, and so we let that rumour out on purpose, so he'd spill the beans to you, and Mr Razumikhin is not the kind of man who restrains his indignation. Mr Zamyotov was the one who first noticed your anger and your undisguised boldness: I mean, what kind of behaviour was that to go blurting out in an inn: “I killed her!” Such boldness, such daring, sir! “If he is guilty, he's a real fighter,” I thought. So then I had a bit of a think, sir. I would wait! Wait for you with all my might, but meanwhile you'd quite simply wiped the floor with Zamyotov and… well, actually, the trouble with all that accursed psychology stuff is that it cuts two ways! Well, so I waited for you, I looked, and God gave you to me – you showed your face! My heart was fairly thumping, I can tell you. Ha! I mean, why did you come to see me that morning? The way you laughed, the way you laughed as you came in that time, do you remember? I mean, I saw through it all as though through a pane of glass, and if I hadn't been waiting for you in such a peculiar fashion I'd never have even have noticed anything in your laughter. That's what it means to “be in the right mood”. And Mr Razumikhin that day – oh, the stone, the stone, do you remember, the one under which certain objects were hidden? Well, it was just as if I could see it, in a kitchen garden somewhere – that's what you told Zamyotov, and you said the same thing when you came to see me the second time? And the way you began to go over your article that time, the way you started to expound the ideas in it – so that one construed your each and every word in a double sense, as
though there were another sitting under it! Well you see, Rodion Romanych, it was in that manner that I reached the pillars of Hercules, and as soon as I knocked my forehead against them, I came to. “No,” I said to myself, “what am I doing? I mean, all this can quite easily be explained in a different way, that will make it seem even more natural.” Torment, sir! “No,” I thought, “I'd do better getting hold of a little detail!…” And when I heard you talking about those doorbells, I fairly froze – I even got the shakes. “Well,” I thought, “there it is, my little detail! The very one!” I wasn't even thinking any more, I simply couldn't bring myself to. I'd have given a thousand roubles of my own money at that moment just to have seen you
with my own eyes
: seen you walking that hundred yards side by side with that wretched little artisan, after he'd called you a murderer to your face, and not daring to ask him a single question the whole way!… Well, and the chill in your spinal cord? Those doorbells, when you were ill and half-delirious? After that, is it any wonder, Rodion Romanych, that I played such jokes on you? And why did you show your face just at that very moment? I mean, it was just as if someone had pushed you in, I swear to God it was, and if Mikolka hadn't pulled us apart, then… but do you remember Mikolka? Have you got him well in your memory? I mean, that was thunder, sir! It was thunder booming from a thundercloud, an arrow from the gods! Well, and how did I greet it? I didn't believe it, not one little word of it, you yourself saw how I was! But that's not all. Later, after you'd gone, when he began to give the most, most coherent replies to certain points I raised, so that I was struck with wonder, even then I didn't believe one brass copeck's worth of it! That's what they mean when they say a man's made himself as hard as a diamond. No, I thought, never! What's Mikolka got to do with it?’