Crime and Punishment
forgetfulness. At last he returned to complete consciousness.
It happened at ten o’clock in the morning. On fine days the sun shone
into the room at that hour, throwing a streak of light on the right
wall and the corner near the door. Nastasya was standing beside him
with another person, a complete stranger, who was looking at him
very inquisitively. He was a young man with a beard, wearing a full,
short-waisted coat, and looked like a messenger. The landlady was
peeping in at the half-opened door. Raskolnikov sat up.
“Who is this, Nastasya?” he asked, pointing to the young man.
“I say, he’s himself again!” she said.
“He is himself,” echoed the man.
Concluding that he had returned to his senses, the landlady closed the
door and disappeared. She was always shy and dreaded conversations or
discussions. She was a woman of forty, not at all bad-looking, fat
and buxom, with black eyes and eyebrows, good-natured from fatness and
laziness, and absurdly bashful.
“Who... are you?” he went on, addressing the man. But at that moment
the door was flung open, and, stooping a little, as he was so tall,
Razumihin came in.
“What a cabin it is!” he cried. “I am always knocking my head. You call
this a lodging! So you are conscious, brother? I’ve just heard the news
from Pashenka.”
“He has just come to,” said Nastasya.
“Just come to,” echoed the man again, with a smile.
“And who are you?” Razumihin asked, suddenly addressing him. “My name is
Vrazumihin, at your service; not Razumihin, as I am always called, but
Vrazumihin, a student and gentleman; and he is my friend. And who are
you?”
“I am the messenger from our office, from the merchant Shelopaev, and
I’ve come on business.”
“Please sit down.” Razumihin seated himself on the other side of the
table. “It’s a good thing you’ve come to, brother,” he went on to
Raskolnikov. “For the last four days you have scarcely eaten or drunk
anything. We had to give you tea in spoonfuls. I brought Zossimov to see
you twice. You remember Zossimov? He examined you carefully and said at
once it was nothing serious--something seemed to have gone to your head.
Some nervous nonsense, the result of bad feeding, he says you have not
had enough beer and radish, but it’s nothing much, it will pass and you
will be all right. Zossimov is a first-rate fellow! He is making quite a
name. Come, I won’t keep you,” he said, addressing the man again. “Will
you explain what you want? You must know, Rodya, this is the second time
they have sent from the office; but it was another man last time, and I
talked to him. Who was it came before?”
“That was the day before yesterday, I venture to say, if you please,
sir. That was Alexey Semyonovitch; he is in our office, too.”
“He was more intelligent than you, don’t you think so?”
“Yes, indeed, sir, he is of more weight than I am.”
“Quite so; go on.”
“At your mamma’s request, through Afanasy Ivanovitch Vahrushin, of whom
I presume you have heard more than once, a remittance is sent to you
from our office,” the man began, addressing Raskolnikov. “If you are in
an intelligible condition, I’ve thirty-five roubles to remit to you, as
Semyon Semyonovitch has received from Afanasy Ivanovitch at your mamma’s
request instructions to that effect, as on previous occasions. Do you
know him, sir?”
“Yes, I remember... Vahrushin,” Raskolnikov said dreamily.
“You hear, he knows Vahrushin,” cried Razumihin. “He is in ‘an
intelligible condition’! And I see you are an intelligent man too. Well,
it’s always pleasant to hear words of wisdom.”
“That’s the gentleman, Vahrushin, Afanasy Ivanovitch. And at the request
of your mamma, who has sent you a remittance once before in the
same manner through him, he did not refuse this time also, and sent
instructions to Semyon Semyonovitch some days since to hand you
thirty-five roubles in the hope of better to come.”
“That ‘hoping for better to come’ is the best thing you’ve said, though
‘your mamma’ is not bad either. Come then, what do you say? Is he fully
conscious, eh?”
“That’s all right. If only he can sign this little paper.”
“He can scrawl his name. Have you got the book?”
“Yes, here’s the book.”
“Give it to me. Here, Rodya, sit up. I’ll hold you. Take the pen and
scribble ‘Raskolnikov’ for him. For just now, brother, money is sweeter
to us than treacle.”
“I don’t want it,” said Raskolnikov, pushing away the pen.
“Not want it?”
“I won’t sign it.”
“How the devil can you do without signing it?”
“I don’t want... the money.”
“Don’t want the money! Come, brother, that’s nonsense, I bear witness.
Don’t trouble, please, it’s only that he is on his travels again. But
that’s pretty common with him at all times though.... You are a man of
judgment and we will take him in hand, that is, more simply, take his
hand and he will sign it. Here.”
“But I can come another time.”
“No, no. Why should we trouble you? You are a man of judgment.... Now,
Rodya, don’t keep your visitor, you see he is waiting,” and he made
ready to hold Raskolnikov’s hand in earnest.
“Stop, I’ll do it alone,” said the latter, taking the pen and signing
his name.
The messenger took out the money and went away.
“Bravo! And now, brother, are you hungry?”
“Yes,” answered Raskolnikov.
“Is there any soup?”
“Some of yesterday’s,” answered Nastasya, who was still standing there.
“With potatoes and rice in it?”
“Yes.”
“I know it by heart. Bring soup and give us some tea.”
“Very well.”
Raskolnikov looked at all this with profound astonishment and a dull,
unreasoning terror. He made up his mind to keep quiet and see what
would happen. “I believe I am not wandering. I believe it’s reality,” he
thought.
In a couple of minutes Nastasya returned with the soup, and announced
that the tea would be ready directly. With the soup she brought two
spoons, two plates, salt, pepper, mustard for the beef, and so on. The
table was set as it had not been for a long time. The cloth was clean.
“It would not be amiss, Nastasya, if Praskovya Pavlovna were to send us
up a couple of bottles of beer. We could empty them.”
“Well, you are a cool hand,” muttered Nastasya, and she departed to
carry out his orders.
Raskolnikov still gazed wildly with strained attention. Meanwhile
Razumihin sat down on the sofa beside him, as clumsily as a bear put his
left arm round Raskolnikov’s head, although he was able to sit up, and
with his right hand gave him a spoonful of soup, blowing on it that
it might not burn him. But the soup was only just warm. Raskolnikov
swallowed one spoonful greedily, then a second, then a third. But after
giving him a few more spoonfuls of soup, Razumihin suddenly stopped, and
said that he must ask Zossimov whether he ought to have more.
Nastasya came in with two bottles of beer.
“And will you have tea?”
“Yes.”
“Cut along, Nastasya, and bring some tea, for tea we may venture on
without the faculty. But here is the beer!” He moved back to his chair,
pulled the soup and meat in front of him, and began eating as though he
had not touched food for three days.
“I must tell you, Rodya, I dine like this here every day now,” he
mumbled with his mouth full of beef, “and it’s all Pashenka, your dear
little landlady, who sees to that; she loves to do anything for me. I
don’t ask for it, but, of course, I don’t object. And here’s Nastasya
with the tea. She is a quick girl. Nastasya, my dear, won’t you have
some beer?”
“Get along with your nonsense!”
“A cup of tea, then?”
“A cup of tea, maybe.”
“Pour it out. Stay, I’ll pour it out myself. Sit down.”
He poured out two cups, left his dinner, and sat on the sofa again. As
before, he put his left arm round the sick man’s head, raised him up
and gave him tea in spoonfuls, again blowing each spoonful steadily and
earnestly, as though this process was the principal and most effective
means towards his friend’s recovery. Raskolnikov said nothing and made
no resistance, though he felt quite strong enough to sit up on the sofa
without support and could not merely have held a cup or a spoon, but
even perhaps could have walked about. But from some queer, almost
animal, cunning he conceived the idea of hiding his strength and lying
low for a time, pretending if necessary not to be yet in full possession
of his faculties, and meanwhile listening to find out what was going on.
Yet he could not overcome his sense of repugnance. After sipping a dozen
spoonfuls of tea, he suddenly released his head, pushed the spoon away
capriciously, and sank back on the pillow. There were actually real
pillows under his head now, down pillows in clean cases, he observed
that, too, and took note of it.
“Pashenka must give us some raspberry jam to-day to make him some
raspberry tea,” said Razumihin, going back to his chair and attacking
his soup and beer again.
“And where is she to get raspberries for you?” asked Nastasya, balancing
a saucer on her five outspread fingers and sipping tea through a lump of
sugar.
“She’ll get it at the shop, my dear. You see, Rodya, all sorts of things
have been happening while you have been laid up. When you decamped in
that rascally way without leaving your address, I felt so angry that I
resolved to find you out and punish you. I set to work that very day.
How I ran about making inquiries for you! This lodging of yours I had
forgotten, though I never remembered it, indeed, because I did not know
it; and as for your old lodgings, I could only remember it was at the
Five Corners, Harlamov’s house. I kept trying to find that Harlamov’s
house, and afterwards it turned out that it was not Harlamov’s, but
Buch’s. How one muddles up sound sometimes! So I lost my temper, and I
went on the chance to the address bureau next day, and only fancy, in
two minutes they looked you up! Your name is down there.”
“My name!”
“I should think so; and yet a General Kobelev they could not find while
I was there. Well, it’s a long story. But as soon as I did land on this
place, I soon got to know all your affairs--all, all, brother, I know
everything; Nastasya here will tell you. I made the acquaintance of
Nikodim Fomitch and Ilya Petrovitch, and the house-porter and Mr.
Zametov, Alexandr Grigorievitch, the head clerk in the police office,
and, last, but not least, of Pashenka; Nastasya here knows....”
“He’s got round her,” Nastasya murmured, smiling slyly.
“Why don’t you put the sugar in your tea, Nastasya Nikiforovna?”
“You are a one!” Nastasya cried suddenly, going off into a giggle. “I am
not Nikiforovna, but Petrovna,” she added suddenly, recovering from her
mirth.
“I’ll make a note of it. Well, brother, to make a long story short,
I was going in for a regular explosion here to uproot all malignant
influences in the locality, but Pashenka won the day. I had not
expected, brother, to find her so... prepossessing. Eh, what do you
think?”
Raskolnikov did not speak, but he still kept his eyes fixed upon him,
full of alarm.
“And all that could be wished, indeed, in every respect,” Razumihin went
on, not at all embarrassed by his silence.
“Ah, the sly dog!” Nastasya shrieked again. This conversation afforded
her unspeakable delight.
“It’s a pity, brother, that you did not set to work in the right way
at first. You ought to have approached her differently. She is, so
to speak, a most unaccountable character. But we will talk about her
character later.... How could you let things come to such a pass that
she gave up sending you your dinner? And that I O U? You must have been
mad to sign an I O U. And that promise of marriage when her daughter,
Natalya Yegorovna, was alive?... I know all about it! But I see that’s
a delicate matter and I am an ass; forgive me. But, talking of