Crime and Punishment
“He seems a splendid person!” Avdotya Romanovna replied with some
warmth, resuming her walk up and down the room.
It was nearly an hour later when they heard footsteps in the corridor
and another knock at the door. Both women waited this time completely
relying on Razumihin’s promise; he actually had succeeded in bringing
Zossimov. Zossimov had agreed at once to desert the drinking party to
go to Raskolnikov’s, but he came reluctantly and with the greatest
suspicion to see the ladies, mistrusting Razumihin in his exhilarated
condition. But his vanity was at once reassured and flattered; he saw
that they were really expecting him as an oracle. He stayed just ten
minutes and succeeded in completely convincing and comforting Pulcheria
Alexandrovna. He spoke with marked sympathy, but with the reserve and
extreme seriousness of a young doctor at an important consultation.
He did not utter a word on any other subject and did not display the
slightest desire to enter into more personal relations with the two
ladies. Remarking at his first entrance the dazzling beauty of Avdotya
Romanovna, he endeavoured not to notice her at all during his visit and
addressed himself solely to Pulcheria Alexandrovna. All this gave him
extraordinary inward satisfaction. He declared that he thought the
invalid at this moment going on very satisfactorily. According to his
observations the patient’s illness was due partly to his unfortunate
material surroundings during the last few months, but it had partly also
a moral origin, “was, so to speak, the product of several material and
moral influences, anxieties, apprehensions, troubles, certain ideas...
and so on.” Noticing stealthily that Avdotya Romanovna was following his
words with close attention, Zossimov allowed himself to enlarge on this
theme. On Pulcheria Alexandrovna’s anxiously and timidly inquiring as
to “some suspicion of insanity,” he replied with a composed and candid
smile that his words had been exaggerated; that certainly the patient
had some fixed idea, something approaching a monomania--he, Zossimov,
was now particularly studying this interesting branch of medicine--but
that it must be recollected that until to-day the patient had been in
delirium and... and that no doubt the presence of his family would have
a favourable effect on his recovery and distract his mind, “if only all
fresh shocks can be avoided,” he added significantly. Then he got up,
took leave with an impressive and affable bow, while blessings, warm
gratitude, and entreaties were showered upon him, and Avdotya Romanovna
spontaneously offered her hand to him. He went out exceedingly pleased
with his visit and still more so with himself.
“We’ll talk to-morrow; go to bed at once!” Razumihin said in conclusion,
following Zossimov out. “I’ll be with you to-morrow morning as early as
possible with my report.”
“That’s a fetching little girl, Avdotya Romanovna,” remarked Zossimov,
almost licking his lips as they both came out into the street.
“Fetching? You said fetching?” roared Razumihin and he flew at Zossimov
and seized him by the throat. “If you ever dare.... Do you understand?
Do you understand?” he shouted, shaking him by the collar and squeezing
him against the wall. “Do you hear?”
“Let me go, you drunken devil,” said Zossimov, struggling and when he
had let him go, he stared at him and went off into a sudden guffaw.
Razumihin stood facing him in gloomy and earnest reflection.
“Of course, I am an ass,” he observed, sombre as a storm cloud, “but
still... you are another.”
“No, brother, not at all such another. I am not dreaming of any folly.”
They walked along in silence and only when they were close to
Raskolnikov’s lodgings, Razumihin broke the silence in considerable
anxiety.
“Listen,” he said, “you’re a first-rate fellow, but among your other
failings, you’re a loose fish, that I know, and a dirty one, too. You
are a feeble, nervous wretch, and a mass of whims, you’re getting fat
and lazy and can’t deny yourself anything--and I call that dirty because
it leads one straight into the dirt. You’ve let yourself get so slack
that I don’t know how it is you are still a good, even a devoted doctor.
You--a doctor--sleep on a feather bed and get up at night to your
patients! In another three or four years you won’t get up for your
patients... But hang it all, that’s not the point!... You are going
to spend to-night in the landlady’s flat here. (Hard work I’ve had to
persuade her!) And I’ll be in the kitchen. So here’s a chance for you to
get to know her better.... It’s not as you think! There’s not a trace of
anything of the sort, brother...!”
“But I don’t think!”
“Here you have modesty, brother, silence, bashfulness, a savage
virtue... and yet she’s sighing and melting like wax, simply melting!
Save me from her, by all that’s unholy! She’s most prepossessing... I’ll
repay you, I’ll do anything....”
Zossimov laughed more violently than ever.
“Well, you are smitten! But what am I to do with her?”
“It won’t be much trouble, I assure you. Talk any rot you like to her,
as long as you sit by her and talk. You’re a doctor, too; try curing
her of something. I swear you won’t regret it. She has a piano, and you
know, I strum a little. I have a song there, a genuine Russian one: ‘I
shed hot tears.’ She likes the genuine article--and well, it all
began with that song; Now you’re a regular performer, a _maître_, a
Rubinstein.... I assure you, you won’t regret it!”
“But have you made her some promise? Something signed? A promise of
marriage, perhaps?”
“Nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of the kind! Besides she is not
that sort at all.... Tchebarov tried that....”
“Well then, drop her!”
“But I can’t drop her like that!”
“Why can’t you?”
“Well, I can’t, that’s all about it! There’s an element of attraction
here, brother.”
“Then why have you fascinated her?”
“I haven’t fascinated her; perhaps I was fascinated myself in my folly.
But she won’t care a straw whether it’s you or I, so long as somebody
sits beside her, sighing.... I can’t explain the position, brother...
look here, you are good at mathematics, and working at it now... begin
teaching her the integral calculus; upon my soul, I’m not joking, I’m
in earnest, it’ll be just the same to her. She will gaze at you and sigh
for a whole year together. I talked to her once for two days at a time
about the Prussian House of Lords (for one must talk of something)--she
just sighed and perspired! And you mustn’t talk of love--she’s bashful
to hysterics--but just let her see you can’t tear yourself away--that’s
enough. It’s fearfully comfortable; you’re quite at home, you can
read, sit, lie about, write. You may even venture on a kiss, if you’re
careful.”
“But what do I want with her?”
“Ach, I can’t make you understand! You see, you are made for each other!
I have often been reminded of you!... You’ll come to it in the end! So
does it matter whether it’s sooner or later? There’s the feather-bed
element here, brother--ach! and not only that! There’s an attraction
here--here you have the end of the world, an anchorage, a quiet haven,
the navel of the earth, the three fishes that are the foundation of the
world, the essence of pancakes, of savoury fish-pies, of the evening
samovar, of soft sighs and warm shawls, and hot stoves to sleep on--as
snug as though you were dead, and yet you’re alive--the advantages
of both at once! Well, hang it, brother, what stuff I’m talking, it’s
bedtime! Listen. I sometimes wake up at night; so I’ll go in and look at
him. But there’s no need, it’s all right. Don’t you worry yourself,
yet if you like, you might just look in once, too. But if you notice
anything--delirium or fever--wake me at once. But there can’t be....”
CHAPTER II
Razumihin waked up next morning at eight o’clock, troubled and serious.
He found himself confronted with many new and unlooked-for perplexities.
He had never expected that he would ever wake up feeling like that. He
remembered every detail of the previous day and he knew that a perfectly
novel experience had befallen him, that he had received an impression
unlike anything he had known before. At the same time he recognised
clearly that the dream which had fired his imagination was hopelessly
unattainable--so unattainable that he felt positively ashamed of it, and
he hastened to pass to the other more practical cares and difficulties
bequeathed him by that “thrice accursed yesterday.”
The most awful recollection of the previous day was the way he had shown
himself “base and mean,” not only because he had been drunk, but
because he had taken advantage of the young girl’s position to abuse
her _fiancé_ in his stupid jealousy, knowing nothing of their mutual
relations and obligations and next to nothing of the man himself. And
what right had he to criticise him in that hasty and unguarded manner?
Who had asked for his opinion? Was it thinkable that such a creature as
Avdotya Romanovna would be marrying an unworthy man for money? So there
must be something in him. The lodgings? But after all how could he know
the character of the lodgings? He was furnishing a flat... Foo! how
despicable it all was! And what justification was it that he was drunk?
Such a stupid excuse was even more degrading! In wine is truth, and the
truth had all come out, “that is, all the uncleanness of his coarse
and envious heart”! And would such a dream ever be permissible to
him, Razumihin? What was he beside such a girl--he, the drunken noisy
braggart of last night? Was it possible to imagine so absurd and cynical
a juxtaposition? Razumihin blushed desperately at the very idea and
suddenly the recollection forced itself vividly upon him of how he had
said last night on the stairs that the landlady would be jealous of
Avdotya Romanovna... that was simply intolerable. He brought his fist
down heavily on the kitchen stove, hurt his hand and sent one of the
bricks flying.
“Of course,” he muttered to himself a minute later with a feeling of
self-abasement, “of course, all these infamies can never be wiped out or
smoothed over... and so it’s useless even to think of it, and I must
go to them in silence and do my duty... in silence, too... and not ask
forgiveness, and say nothing... for all is lost now!”
And yet as he dressed he examined his attire more carefully than usual.
He hadn’t another suit--if he had had, perhaps he wouldn’t have put it
on. “I would have made a point of not putting it on.” But in any case he
could not remain a cynic and a dirty sloven; he had no right to offend
the feelings of others, especially when they were in need of his
assistance and asking him to see them. He brushed his clothes carefully.
His linen was always decent; in that respect he was especially clean.
He washed that morning scrupulously--he got some soap from Nastasya--he
washed his hair, his neck and especially his hands. When it came to the
question whether to shave his stubbly chin or not (Praskovya Pavlovna
had capital razors that had been left by her late husband), the question
was angrily answered in the negative. “Let it stay as it is! What if
they think that I shaved on purpose to...? They certainly would think
so! Not on any account!”
“And... the worst of it was he was so coarse, so dirty, he had the
manners of a pothouse; and... and even admitting that he knew he had
some of the essentials of a gentleman... what was there in that to be
proud of? Everyone ought to be a gentleman and more than that... and all
the same (he remembered) he, too, had done little things... not exactly
dishonest, and yet.... And what thoughts he sometimes had; hm... and to
set all that beside Avdotya Romanovna! Confound it! So be it! Well, he’d