Crime and Punishment
How little did I think yesterday in the train that I could ever be glad
of that.”
“I tell you again, mother, he is still very ill. Don’t you see it?
Perhaps worrying about us upset him. We must be patient, and much, much
can be forgiven.”
“Well, you were not very patient!” Pulcheria Alexandrovna caught her up,
hotly and jealously. “Do you know, Dounia, I was looking at you two. You
are the very portrait of him, and not so much in face as in soul. You
are both melancholy, both morose and hot-tempered, both haughty and both
generous.... Surely he can’t be an egoist, Dounia. Eh? When I think of
what is in store for us this evening, my heart sinks!”
“Don’t be uneasy, mother. What must be, will be.”
“Dounia, only think what a position we are in! What if Pyotr Petrovitch
breaks it off?” poor Pulcheria Alexandrovna blurted out, incautiously.
“He won’t be worth much if he does,” answered Dounia, sharply and
contemptuously.
“We did well to come away,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna hurriedly broke in.
“He was in a hurry about some business or other. If he gets out and has
a breath of air... it is fearfully close in his room.... But where is
one to get a breath of air here? The very streets here feel like shut-up
rooms. Good heavens! what a town!... stay... this side... they will
crush you--carrying something. Why, it is a piano they have got, I
declare... how they push!... I am very much afraid of that young woman,
too.”
“What young woman, mother?”
“Why, that Sofya Semyonovna, who was there just now.”
“Why?”
“I have a presentiment, Dounia. Well, you may believe it or not, but
as soon as she came in, that very minute, I felt that she was the chief
cause of the trouble....”
“Nothing of the sort!” cried Dounia, in vexation. “What nonsense, with
your presentiments, mother! He only made her acquaintance the evening
before, and he did not know her when she came in.”
“Well, you will see.... She worries me; but you will see, you will
see! I was so frightened. She was gazing at me with those eyes. I could
scarcely sit still in my chair when he began introducing her, do you
remember? It seems so strange, but Pyotr Petrovitch writes like that
about her, and he introduces her to us--to you! So he must think a great
deal of her.”
“People will write anything. We were talked about and written about,
too. Have you forgotten? I am sure that she is a good girl, and that it
is all nonsense.”
“God grant it may be!”
“And Pyotr Petrovitch is a contemptible slanderer,” Dounia snapped out,
suddenly.
Pulcheria Alexandrovna was crushed; the conversation was not resumed.
*****
“I will tell you what I want with you,” said Raskolnikov, drawing
Razumihin to the window.
“Then I will tell Katerina Ivanovna that you are coming,” Sonia said
hurriedly, preparing to depart.
“One minute, Sofya Semyonovna. We have no secrets. You are not in our
way. I want to have another word or two with you. Listen!” he turned
suddenly to Razumihin again. “You know that... what’s his name...
Porfiry Petrovitch?”
“I should think so! He is a relation. Why?” added the latter, with
interest.
“Is not he managing that case... you know, about that murder?... You
were speaking about it yesterday.”
“Yes... well?” Razumihin’s eyes opened wide.
“He was inquiring for people who had pawned things, and I have some
pledges there, too--trifles--a ring my sister gave me as a keepsake when
I left home, and my father’s silver watch--they are only worth five or
six roubles altogether... but I value them. So what am I to do now? I
do not want to lose the things, especially the watch. I was quaking just
now, for fear mother would ask to look at it, when we spoke of Dounia’s
watch. It is the only thing of father’s left us. She would be ill if
it were lost. You know what women are. So tell me what to do. I know I
ought to have given notice at the police station, but would it not be
better to go straight to Porfiry? Eh? What do you think? The matter
might be settled more quickly. You see, mother may ask for it before
dinner.”
“Certainly not to the police station. Certainly to Porfiry,” Razumihin
shouted in extraordinary excitement. “Well, how glad I am. Let us go at
once. It is a couple of steps. We shall be sure to find him.”
“Very well, let us go.”
“And he will be very, very glad to make your acquaintance. I have
often talked to him of you at different times. I was speaking of you
yesterday. Let us go. So you knew the old woman? So that’s it! It is all
turning out splendidly.... Oh, yes, Sofya Ivanovna...”
“Sofya Semyonovna,” corrected Raskolnikov. “Sofya Semyonovna, this is my
friend Razumihin, and he is a good man.”
“If you have to go now,” Sonia was beginning, not looking at Razumihin
at all, and still more embarrassed.
“Let us go,” decided Raskolnikov. “I will come to you to-day, Sofya
Semyonovna. Only tell me where you live.”
He was not exactly ill at ease, but seemed hurried, and avoided her
eyes. Sonia gave her address, and flushed as she did so. They all went
out together.
“Don’t you lock up?” asked Razumihin, following him on to the stairs.
“Never,” answered Raskolnikov. “I have been meaning to buy a lock for
these two years. People are happy who have no need of locks,” he said,
laughing, to Sonia. They stood still in the gateway.
“Do you go to the right, Sofya Semyonovna? How did you find me, by the
way?” he added, as though he wanted to say something quite different. He
wanted to look at her soft clear eyes, but this was not easy.
“Why, you gave your address to Polenka yesterday.”
“Polenka? Oh, yes; Polenka, that is the little girl. She is your sister?
Did I give her the address?”
“Why, had you forgotten?”
“No, I remember.”
“I had heard my father speak of you... only I did not know your name,
and he did not know it. And now I came... and as I had learnt your name,
I asked to-day, ‘Where does Mr. Raskolnikov live?’ I did not know you
had only a room too.... Good-bye, I will tell Katerina Ivanovna.”
She was extremely glad to escape at last; she went away looking down,
hurrying to get out of sight as soon as possible, to walk the twenty
steps to the turning on the right and to be at last alone, and then
moving rapidly along, looking at no one, noticing nothing, to think, to
remember, to meditate on every word, every detail. Never, never had she
felt anything like this. Dimly and unconsciously a whole new world was
opening before her. She remembered suddenly that Raskolnikov meant to
come to her that day, perhaps at once!
“Only not to-day, please, not to-day!” she kept muttering with a sinking
heart, as though entreating someone, like a frightened child. “Mercy! to
me... to that room... he will see... oh, dear!”
She was not capable at that instant of noticing an unknown gentleman who
was watching her and following at her heels. He had accompanied her from
the gateway. At the moment when Razumihin, Raskolnikov, and she stood
still at parting on the pavement, this gentleman, who was just passing,
started on hearing Sonia’s words: “and I asked where Mr. Raskolnikov
lived?” He turned a rapid but attentive look upon all three, especially
upon Raskolnikov, to whom Sonia was speaking; then looked back and noted
the house. All this was done in an instant as he passed, and trying not
to betray his interest, he walked on more slowly as though waiting for
something. He was waiting for Sonia; he saw that they were parting, and
that Sonia was going home.
“Home? Where? I’ve seen that face somewhere,” he thought. “I must find
out.”
At the turning he crossed over, looked round, and saw Sonia coming the
same way, noticing nothing. She turned the corner. He followed her on
the other side. After about fifty paces he crossed over again, overtook
her and kept two or three yards behind her.
He was a man about fifty, rather tall and thickly set, with broad high
shoulders which made him look as though he stooped a little. He wore
good and fashionable clothes, and looked like a gentleman of position.
He carried a handsome cane, which he tapped on the pavement at each
step; his gloves were spotless. He had a broad, rather pleasant face
with high cheek-bones and a fresh colour, not often seen in Petersburg.
His flaxen hair was still abundant, and only touched here and there with
grey, and his thick square beard was even lighter than his hair.
His eyes were blue and had a cold and thoughtful look; his lips were
crimson. He was a remarkedly well-preserved man and looked much younger
than his years.
When Sonia came out on the canal bank, they were the only two persons on
the pavement. He observed her dreaminess and preoccupation. On reaching
the house where she lodged, Sonia turned in at the gate; he followed
her, seeming rather surprised. In the courtyard she turned to the right
corner. “Bah!” muttered the unknown gentleman, and mounted the stairs
behind her. Only then Sonia noticed him. She reached the third storey,
turned down the passage, and rang at No. 9. On the door was inscribed
in chalk, “Kapernaumov, Tailor.” “Bah!” the stranger repeated again,
wondering at the strange coincidence, and he rang next door, at No. 8.
The doors were two or three yards apart.
“You lodge at Kapernaumov’s,” he said, looking at Sonia and laughing.
“He altered a waistcoat for me yesterday. I am staying close here at
Madame Resslich’s. How odd!” Sonia looked at him attentively.
“We are neighbours,” he went on gaily. “I only came to town the day
before yesterday. Good-bye for the present.”
Sonia made no reply; the door opened and she slipped in. She felt for
some reason ashamed and uneasy.
*****
On the way to Porfiry’s, Razumihin was obviously excited.
“That’s capital, brother,” he repeated several times, “and I am glad! I
am glad!”
“What are you glad about?” Raskolnikov thought to himself.
“I didn’t know that you pledged things at the old woman’s, too. And...
was it long ago? I mean, was it long since you were there?”
“What a simple-hearted fool he is!”
“When was it?” Raskolnikov stopped still to recollect. “Two or three
days before her death it must have been. But I am not going to redeem
the things now,” he put in with a sort of hurried and conspicuous
solicitude about the things. “I’ve not more than a silver rouble
left... after last night’s accursed delirium!”
He laid special emphasis on the delirium.
“Yes, yes,” Razumihin hastened to agree--with what was not clear. “Then
that’s why you... were stuck... partly... you know in your delirium you
were continually mentioning some rings or chains! Yes, yes... that’s
clear, it’s all clear now.”
“Hullo! How that idea must have got about among them. Here this man will
go to the stake for me, and I find him delighted at having it _cleared
up_ why I spoke of rings in my delirium! What a hold the idea must have
on all of them!”
“Shall we find him?” he asked suddenly.
“Oh, yes,” Razumihin answered quickly. “He is a nice fellow, you will
see, brother. Rather clumsy, that is to say, he is a man of polished
manners, but I mean clumsy in a different sense. He is an intelligent
fellow, very much so indeed, but he has his own range of ideas.... He
is incredulous, sceptical, cynical... he likes to impose on people, or
rather to make fun of them. His is the old, circumstantial method....
But he understands his work... thoroughly.... Last year he cleared up a
case of murder in which the police had hardly a clue. He is very, very
anxious to make your acquaintance!”
“On what grounds is he so anxious?”
“Oh, it’s not exactly... you see, since you’ve been ill I happen to have
mentioned you several times.... So, when he heard about you... about
your being a law student and not able to finish your studies, he said,