Crime and Punishment
sickening rotten, petrified routine.... And this case might be the means
of introducing a new method. One can show from the psychological data
alone how to get on the track of the real man. ‘We have facts,’ they
say. But facts are not everything--at least half the business lies in
how you interpret them!”
“Can you interpret them, then?”
“Anyway, one can’t hold one’s tongue when one has a feeling, a tangible
feeling, that one might be a help if only.... Eh! Do you know the
details of the case?”
“I am waiting to hear about the painter.”
“Oh, yes! Well, here’s the story. Early on the third day after the
murder, when they were still dandling Koch and Pestryakov--though they
accounted for every step they took and it was as plain as a pikestaff--an
unexpected fact turned up. A peasant called Dushkin, who keeps a
dram-shop facing the house, brought to the police office a jeweller’s
case containing some gold ear-rings, and told a long rigamarole. ‘The
day before yesterday, just after eight o’clock’--mark the day and the
hour!--‘a journeyman house-painter, Nikolay, who had been in to see me
already that day, brought me this box of gold ear-rings and stones, and
asked me to give him two roubles for them. When I asked him where he got
them, he said that he picked them up in the street. I did not ask him
anything more.’ I am telling you Dushkin’s story. ‘I gave him a note’--a
rouble that is--‘for I thought if he did not pawn it with me he would
with another. It would all come to the same thing--he’d spend it on
drink, so the thing had better be with me. The further you hide it
the quicker you will find it, and if anything turns up, if I hear any
rumours, I’ll take it to the police.’ Of course, that’s all taradiddle;
he lies like a horse, for I know this Dushkin, he is a pawnbroker and
a receiver of stolen goods, and he did not cheat Nikolay out of a
thirty-rouble trinket in order to give it to the police. He was simply
afraid. But no matter, to return to Dushkin’s story. ‘I’ve known
this peasant, Nikolay Dementyev, from a child; he comes from the same
province and district of Zaraïsk, we are both Ryazan men. And though
Nikolay is not a drunkard, he drinks, and I knew he had a job in that
house, painting work with Dmitri, who comes from the same village, too.
As soon as he got the rouble he changed it, had a couple of glasses,
took his change and went out. But I did not see Dmitri with him then.
And the next day I heard that someone had murdered Alyona Ivanovna and
her sister, Lizaveta Ivanovna, with an axe. I knew them, and I felt
suspicious about the ear-rings at once, for I knew the murdered woman
lent money on pledges. I went to the house, and began to make careful
inquiries without saying a word to anyone. First of all I asked, “Is
Nikolay here?” Dmitri told me that Nikolay had gone off on the spree; he
had come home at daybreak drunk, stayed in the house about ten minutes,
and went out again. Dmitri didn’t see him again and is finishing the
job alone. And their job is on the same staircase as the murder, on
the second floor. When I heard all that I did not say a word to
anyone’--that’s Dushkin’s tale--‘but I found out what I could about
the murder, and went home feeling as suspicious as ever. And at eight
o’clock this morning’--that was the third day, you understand--‘I saw
Nikolay coming in, not sober, though not to say very drunk--he could
understand what was said to him. He sat down on the bench and did not
speak. There was only one stranger in the bar and a man I knew asleep
on a bench and our two boys. “Have you seen Dmitri?” said I. “No, I
haven’t,” said he. “And you’ve not been here either?” “Not since the day
before yesterday,” said he. “And where did you sleep last night?”
“In Peski, with the Kolomensky men.” “And where did you get those
ear-rings?” I asked. “I found them in the street,” and the way he said
it was a bit queer; he did not look at me. “Did you hear what happened
that very evening, at that very hour, on that same staircase?” said I.
“No,” said he, “I had not heard,” and all the while he was listening,
his eyes were staring out of his head and he turned as white as chalk. I
told him all about it and he took his hat and began getting up. I wanted
to keep him. “Wait a bit, Nikolay,” said I, “won’t you have a drink?”
And I signed to the boy to hold the door, and I came out from behind the
bar; but he darted out and down the street to the turning at a run.
I have not seen him since. Then my doubts were at an end--it was his
doing, as clear as could be....’”
“I should think so,” said Zossimov.
“Wait! Hear the end. Of course they sought high and low for Nikolay;
they detained Dushkin and searched his house; Dmitri, too, was arrested;
the Kolomensky men also were turned inside out. And the day before
yesterday they arrested Nikolay in a tavern at the end of the town. He
had gone there, taken the silver cross off his neck and asked for a dram
for it. They gave it to him. A few minutes afterwards the woman went
to the cowshed, and through a crack in the wall she saw in the stable
adjoining he had made a noose of his sash from the beam, stood on a
block of wood, and was trying to put his neck in the noose. The woman
screeched her hardest; people ran in. ‘So that’s what you are up to!’
‘Take me,’ he says, ‘to such-and-such a police officer; I’ll confess
everything.’ Well, they took him to that police station--that is
here--with a suitable escort. So they asked him this and that, how old
he is, ‘twenty-two,’ and so on. At the question, ‘When you were working
with Dmitri, didn’t you see anyone on the staircase at such-and-such a
time?’--answer: ‘To be sure folks may have gone up and down, but I did
not notice them.’ ‘And didn’t you hear anything, any noise, and so on?’
‘We heard nothing special.’ ‘And did you hear, Nikolay, that on the same
day Widow So-and-so and her sister were murdered and robbed?’ ‘I
never knew a thing about it. The first I heard of it was from Afanasy
Pavlovitch the day before yesterday.’ ‘And where did you find the
ear-rings?’ ‘I found them on the pavement.’ ‘Why didn’t you go to work
with Dmitri the other day?’ ‘Because I was drinking.’ ‘And where were
you drinking?’ ‘Oh, in such-and-such a place.’ ‘Why did you run away
from Dushkin’s?’ ‘Because I was awfully frightened.’ ‘What were
you frightened of?’ ‘That I should be accused.’ ‘How could you be
frightened, if you felt free from guilt?’ Now, Zossimov, you may not
believe me, that question was put literally in those words. I know it
for a fact, it was repeated to me exactly! What do you say to that?”
“Well, anyway, there’s the evidence.”
“I am not talking of the evidence now, I am talking about that question,
of their own idea of themselves. Well, so they squeezed and squeezed
him and he confessed: ‘I did not find it in the street, but in the flat
where I was painting with Dmitri.’ ‘And how was that?’ ‘Why, Dmitri and
I were painting there all day, and we were just getting ready to go, and
Dmitri took a brush and painted my face, and he ran off and I after him.
I ran after him, shouting my hardest, and at the bottom of the stairs I
ran right against the porter and some gentlemen--and how many gentlemen
were there I don’t remember. And the porter swore at me, and the other
porter swore, too, and the porter’s wife came out, and swore at us, too;
and a gentleman came into the entry with a lady, and he swore at us,
too, for Dmitri and I lay right across the way. I got hold of Dmitri’s
hair and knocked him down and began beating him. And Dmitri, too, caught
me by the hair and began beating me. But we did it all not for temper
but in a friendly way, for sport. And then Dmitri escaped and ran into
the street, and I ran after him; but I did not catch him, and went back
to the flat alone; I had to clear up my things. I began putting them
together, expecting Dmitri to come, and there in the passage, in the
corner by the door, I stepped on the box. I saw it lying there wrapped
up in paper. I took off the paper, saw some little hooks, undid them,
and in the box were the ear-rings....’”
“Behind the door? Lying behind the door? Behind the door?” Raskolnikov
cried suddenly, staring with a blank look of terror at Razumihin, and he
slowly sat up on the sofa, leaning on his hand.
“Yes... why? What’s the matter? What’s wrong?” Razumihin, too, got up
from his seat.
“Nothing,” Raskolnikov answered faintly, turning to the wall. All were
silent for a while.
“He must have waked from a dream,” Razumihin said at last, looking
inquiringly at Zossimov. The latter slightly shook his head.
“Well, go on,” said Zossimov. “What next?”
“What next? As soon as he saw the ear-rings, forgetting Dmitri and
everything, he took up his cap and ran to Dushkin and, as we know, got
a rouble from him. He told a lie saying he found them in the street, and
went off drinking. He keeps repeating his old story about the murder:
‘I know nothing of it, never heard of it till the day before yesterday.’
‘And why didn’t you come to the police till now?’ ‘I was frightened.’
‘And why did you try to hang yourself?’ ‘From anxiety.’ ‘What anxiety?’
‘That I should be accused of it.’ Well, that’s the whole story. And now
what do you suppose they deduced from that?”
“Why, there’s no supposing. There’s a clue, such as it is, a fact. You
wouldn’t have your painter set free?”
“Now they’ve simply taken him for the murderer. They haven’t a shadow of
doubt.”
“That’s nonsense. You are excited. But what about the ear-rings? You
must admit that, if on the very same day and hour ear-rings from the old
woman’s box have come into Nikolay’s hands, they must have come there
somehow. That’s a good deal in such a case.”
“How did they get there? How did they get there?” cried Razumihin.
“How can you, a doctor, whose duty it is to study man and who has more
opportunity than anyone else for studying human nature--how can you fail
to see the character of the man in the whole story? Don’t you see at
once that the answers he has given in the examination are the holy
truth? They came into his hand precisely as he has told us--he stepped
on the box and picked it up.”
“The holy truth! But didn’t he own himself that he told a lie at first?”
“Listen to me, listen attentively. The porter and Koch and Pestryakov
and the other porter and the wife of the first porter and the woman who
was sitting in the porter’s lodge and the man Kryukov, who had just got
out of a cab at that minute and went in at the entry with a lady on his
arm, that is eight or ten witnesses, agree that Nikolay had Dmitri on
the ground, was lying on him beating him, while Dmitri hung on to his
hair, beating him, too. They lay right across the way, blocking the
thoroughfare. They were sworn at on all sides while they ‘like children’
(the very words of the witnesses) were falling over one another,
squealing, fighting and laughing with the funniest faces, and, chasing
one another like children, they ran into the street. Now take careful
note. The bodies upstairs were warm, you understand, warm when they
found them! If they, or Nikolay alone, had murdered them and broken open
the boxes, or simply taken part in the robbery, allow me to ask you one
question: do their state of mind, their squeals and giggles and childish
scuffling at the gate fit in with axes, bloodshed, fiendish cunning,
robbery? They’d just killed them, not five or ten minutes before, for
the bodies were still warm, and at once, leaving the flat open, knowing
that people would go there at once, flinging away their booty, they
rolled about like children, laughing and attracting general attention.
And there are a dozen witnesses to swear to that!”
“Of course it is strange! It’s impossible, indeed, but...”