Crime and Punishment (89 page)

He got up and sat himself on the edge of the bed with his back to the window. ‘It's better if I don't try to sleep at all,’ he decided. A cold damp stream of air was coming from the window, however; without raising himself from the spot, he drew the blanket over him and swathed himself in it. As for the candle, he did not light it. He was not thinking about anything, nor did he want to think; but waking dreams rose up one after the other,
fragments of thought went flickering past, without beginning, end, or anything to connect them. He seemed to fall into a semi-slumber. It might have been the cold, the gloom, the dampness, the wind that was howling outside the window and making the trees sway, all of these combined, evoking in him an intense predisposition towards the fantastic, and a desire for it – but whatever the reason was, he kept seeing flowers. He imagined a charming landscape; a bright, warm, almost hot day, a feast day, Whit Sunday. A splendid, luxurious rural cottage, in the English style, grown all around with fragrant banks of flowers, planted with flowerbeds that passed right round the whole building; a porch, wound round with climbing creepers and crammed on every side with beds of roses; a bright, cool staircase, covered with a splendid carpet and bedecked with rare flowers in Chinese vases. He took particular notice of the vases in the windows containing water and bunches of white and tender narcissi, inclining on their long, bright-green, succulent stems, giving off a strong aromatic odour. He felt positively reluctant to leave them, but he climbed the staircase and entered a large, high-ceilinged reception room, and here again everywhere – by the windows, near the doors that were opened on to the terrace, on the terrace itself – everywhere there were flowers. The floors had been strewn with freshly scythed fragrant grasses, the windows were open, fresh, cool, light air filtered into the room, birds chirruped outside the windows, and in the middle of the room, on some tables covered with white satin shrouds, stood a coffin. This coffin was wrapped in white gros-de-Naples and trimmed with a thick white ruche. Garlands of flowers entwined it from every side. Covered in flowers, a young girl lay in it, dressed in a white tulle dress, her arms folded together and pressed to her bosom, as though they had been sculpted from marble. But her unbanded hair, the hair of a light blonde, was wet; a wreath of roses entwined her head. The unyielding and already stiffened profile of her face also seemed sculpted from marble, but the smile on her pallid lips was full of an unchildlike and limitless sorrow and a great, complaining lament. Svidrigailov knew what this girl was: there were no icons or lighted candles beside this coffin. This girl was a suicide – she had
drowned herself. She was only fourteen years old, but this was a heart already broken, and it had destroyed itself, insulted by a humiliation that had terrified and astonished this young child's consciousness and had flooded her angelically pure soul with shame, tearing from her a last, final shriek of despair that was not heeded but brazenly cursed on a dark night, in the murk, in the cold, in the damp thaw weather, when the wind was howling…

Svidrigailov recovered his wits, got up from the bed and strode over to the window. He found the bolt by feel and opened the window. The wind lashed violently into his cramped little closet and covered his face and his chest, which was protected by nothing more than his shirt, with something that felt like hoar frost. There must really be something resembling a garden outside the window, and it was probably a pleasure-garden, at that; there too the
pesenniki
sang and tea was served around the tables. Now, however, droplets of rain were being whirled off the trees and bushes, it was as dark as a vault, so dark that one could only make out a few dim patches that denoted objects. Svidrigailov, leaning down and propping his elbows on the windowsill, continued to stare into this gloom for about another five minutes, without interruption. In the midst of the blackness and night a cannon-shot detonated, followed by another.

‘Aha, the flood-warning! The water's rising,’ he thought. ‘By morning it will be rushing through the streets in the lower-lying parts of town, it will wash into basements and cellars, the cellar rats will come floating up, and out in the wind and rain people will start, cursing and wet, to drag what remains of their possessions up to the higher storeys… But what time is it now?’ No sooner had he thought this than somewhere near to hand, ticking and seeming to hurry with all its might, a wall-clock struck three. ‘My God, it will be light in an hour! What's the point in waiting? I'll go now, straight to Petrovsky Park: I'll pick out a large bush somewhere in there, one that's completely saturated in rain, so that one only has to brush it the merest bit with one's shoulder to send a million droplets pouring all over one's head…’ He stepped away from the window, bolted it, lit the candle, pulled on his waistcoat and overcoat, put on his hat
and went out, holding the candle, into the passage in order to track down the ragamuffin, who would be asleep in some little closet somewhere amidst all kinds of old junk and candle-ends, to pay him for the room and to leave the hotel. ‘It's the best moment one could imagine, none better could exist!’

For what seemed an age he made his way through the long, narrow passage without finding anyone, and was on the point of giving a loud shout when suddenly in a dark corner, between an old cupboard and a door, he made out a strange object that appeared to be alive. He stooped down with the candle and saw a child – a little girl of about five, no more, in a little dress that was sopping wet as a floor-rag, shivering and weeping. She did not appear to be afraid of Svidrigailov, but was looking at him with dull astonishment in her large, black eyes, uttering a sob now and then the way children do when they have been crying for a long time, but have now stopped and are almost consoled, though the slightest little thing will suddenly make them sob again. The girl's little face was pale and exhausted; she was stiff with cold – how had she got here? She must have been hiding here, and had not been to bed all night. He began to ask her questions. The little girl suddenly livened up and babbled something to him very fast in her child's language. There was something about ‘mumsie’ and that ‘mumsie come and smack me’, about some cup that had been ‘sashed’ (‘smashed’). The little girl went on talking incessantly; little by little it was possible to deduce from all her stories that this was an unloved child whose mother, doubtless some perpetually drunken cook from this very same hotel, had given a drubbing and frightened out of her wits; that the little girl had broken a cup of her mother's and been so frightened that she had run away the previous evening; she had probably hidden out in the yard, in the pouring rain, and finally found her way in here, concealed herself behind the cupboard and remained sitting in this corner all night, weeping, shivering with damp, darkness, and the fear that she would now be sorely beaten for all this. He picked her up, carried her back to his room, put her on the bed and began to take her clothes off. Her tattered shoes, which she was wearing on bare feet, were as wet as though they had lain all night in a
puddle. Having undressed her, he put her inside the sheets, covered her and tucked her up in the blanket so that not even her head was visible. She fell asleep instantly. This accomplished, he again fell into gloomy thought.

‘What on earth am I getting myself mixed up in?’ he decided suddenly with a leaden sense of rancour. ‘Just a lot of nonsense!’ Irritably he picked up the candle in order to go out and this time track down the ragamuffin no matter what and get out of this place as soon as possible. ‘Ah, but the kid!’ he thought with an oath, as he was opening the door, and went back to look at the little girl again and see whether she was asleep and if so how soundly. Cautiously he raised the blanket a small way. The little girl was soundly and blissfully asleep. The blanket had made her warm, and the colour had spread across her pale cheeks. But there was something strange: this colour was more livid and more powerful than any ordinary child's flush. ‘It must be a feverish flush,’ Svidrigailov thought. ‘It's like the way they look when they've been given a whole glass of wine to drink. Her little scarlet lips seem to be burning, blazing – but what's this?’ He suddenly fancied that the long, black lashes of one of her eyes were quivering and blinking, that they were being raised and that from under them a sly, sharp little eye was peeping out, winking in a most unchildlike fashion, as though the little girl were not asleep but only pretending. Yes, he was right: her lips were parting in a smile; the corners of them were twitching, as though she were trying to restrain herself. But now she had abandoned all restraint; this was laughter, open laughter; something insolent and provocative shone in that not-at-all childlike face; this was lust, this was the face of a
dame
, the insolent face of a
dame aux camélias
. There – without any attempt at concealment now, both eyes had opened: they were studying him up and down with a burning and shameless gaze, they were inviting him, laughing… There was something infinitely monstrous and outrageous in that laughter, in those eyes, in all this filth in the countenance of a child. ‘What? A five-year-old?’ Svidrigailov whispered in genuine horror. ‘What… what on earth is this?’ But there she was, turning her scarlet-burning gaze full on him now, stretching her arms out… ‘Hah! Cursed one!’
Svidrigailov exclaimed in horror, raising his hand above her… But at that very same moment he woke up.

He was still in the same bed, still swathed in the blanket; the candle was out, and full daylight showed white in the window.

‘Nightmares all night!’ He sat up with resentment, feeling totally shattered; his limbs ached. Outside there was a very thick mist, and nothing could be seen. It was about six o'clock; he had slept too long! He got up and put on his jacket and overcoat, which were still damp. Feeling in his pocket for the revolver, he took it out and adjusted the remaining cap; then he sat down, took a notebook from his pocket and on its first page, where they would be most noticeable, wrote a few lines in large characters. When he had read them over, he began to ponder, leaning his elbow on the table. The revolver and the notebook lay there, by his elbow. The flies, disturbed from their slumber, crawled slowly over the untouched portion of veal that also lay on the table. For a long time he gazed at them and then finally began the attempt to catch one of them with his right hand. Again for a long time, he exhausted himself in these efforts, but could not catch it for the life of him. At last, catching himself at this interesting occupation, he recovered his wits, shuddered, stood up and walked decisively out of the room. A moment later he was out in the street.

A thick, milky fog lay over the city. Svidrigailov made his way along the dirty, slippery wooden pavement in the direction of the Little Neva. In his mind he saw the waters of the Little Neva, swollen overnight, Petrovsky Island, the wet pathways, wet grass, wet trees and bushes and, at last, the very bush… In his irritation he began to study the buildings in order to have something else to think about. As he walked along the Prospect he encountered neither pedestrians nor cabs. Dirty and forlorn, the bright-yellow wooden houses stared with their closed shutters. The cold and damp had chilled his body, and he began to feel feverish. Every so often he would come across the signs of small stores and greengrocers’ shops and he would read each one attentively. Now he had come to the end of the wooden pavement. He was drawing level with a large stone building. A
dirty little dog, trembling with cold, its tail between its legs, ran across his tracks. Some man in an overcoat, dead-drunk, lay face down across the pavement. Svidrigailov gave him a glance and walked on. A tall watchtower
⁵
caught his gaze on the left. ‘Hah!’ he thought. ‘This place will do, why go to Petrovsky Park? At least I'll have an official witness…’ He nearly smiled an ironic smile at this new thought and took the turning into — skaya Street. Here was the large building with the watchtower. Outside the building's large gateway, leaning his shoulder against it, stood a short little man who was muffled up in a grey fireman's overcoat and a brass ‘Achilles’ helmet.
⁶
Dozily he cast a cold and disapproving glance at the approaching Svidrigailov. Manifest on his features was that age-old look of querulous sorrow that is so acerbicly imprinted on the faces of each member of the Hebrew tribe without exception. For a while the two of them, Svidrigailov and Achilles, studied each other in silence. At last Achilles decided that there was something not quite right about a man who although not drunk was standing three paces from him, looking steadily at him, and saying nothing at all.

‘Vy you here, vat-z you va-a-ant?’ he said, still without moving a limb or altering his position.

‘Oh, nothing, thanks, old chap,’ Svidrigailov replied.

‘Here is not ze place.’

‘Actually, old chap, I'm off to foreign parts.’

‘Foreign parts?’

‘America.’

‘America?’

Svidrigailov took out the revolver and set the trigger. Achilles raised his eyebrows.

‘Vy you here, vat-z you doing, here is not ze place for zese chokes [jokes].’

‘Why is it not the place?’

‘Because z-is not ze place.’

‘Well, brother, this is all the same. The place is a good one; if they ask questions, reply that I said I was going to America.’

He put the revolver to his right temple.

‘Vat-z-you doing, here is impossible, here is not ze place!’
Achilles said, rousing himself and dilating his pupils wider and wider.

Svidrigailov pulled the trigger.

That same day, but in the evening now, at around seven o'clock, Raskolnikov approached the lodgings of his mother and sister – those same lodgings in Bakaleyev's Tenements that Razumikhin had arranged for them. The entrance to the staircase led in from the street. Raskolnikov slowed his step as he approached, as though he were unsure whether to go inside or not. Not for any reason would he have gone back, however; his decision had been made. ‘In any case it doesn't matter, they don't know anything as yet,’ he thought, ‘and they're accustomed to thinking me a bit strange…’ His clothes were in a terrible state: covered in dirt, having spent all night out in the rain, they were ripped and torn to rags. His face was almost disfigured with weariness, the effects of the weather, physical exhaustion and his almost round-the-clock struggle with himself. All that night he had spent alone, God only knew where. But at least he had made his decision.