Crime and Punishment
defence all of a sudden,” Luzhin observed, twisting his lips into
an ambiguous smile, “there’s no doubt that he is an astute man, and
insinuating where ladies are concerned, of which Marfa Petrovna, who has
died so strangely, is a terrible instance. My only desire has been to be
of service to you and your mother with my advice, in view of the renewed
efforts which may certainly be anticipated from him. For my part it’s
my firm conviction, that he will end in a debtor’s prison again.
Marfa Petrovna had not the slightest intention of settling anything
substantial on him, having regard for his children’s interests, and,
if she left him anything, it would only be the merest sufficiency,
something insignificant and ephemeral, which would not last a year for a
man of his habits.”
“Pyotr Petrovitch, I beg you,” said Dounia, “say no more of Mr.
Svidrigaïlov. It makes me miserable.”
“He has just been to see me,” said Raskolnikov, breaking his silence for
the first time.
There were exclamations from all, and they all turned to him. Even Pyotr
Petrovitch was roused.
“An hour and a half ago, he came in when I was asleep, waked me, and
introduced himself,” Raskolnikov continued. “He was fairly cheerful
and at ease, and quite hopes that we shall become friends. He is
particularly anxious, by the way, Dounia, for an interview with you, at
which he asked me to assist. He has a proposition to make to you, and
he told me about it. He told me, too, that a week before her death Marfa
Petrovna left you three thousand roubles in her will, Dounia, and that
you can receive the money very shortly.”
“Thank God!” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna, crossing herself. “Pray for
her soul, Dounia!”
“It’s a fact!” broke from Luzhin.
“Tell us, what more?” Dounia urged Raskolnikov.
“Then he said that he wasn’t rich and all the estate was left to his
children who are now with an aunt, then that he was staying somewhere
not far from me, but where, I don’t know, I didn’t ask....”
“But what, what does he want to propose to Dounia?” cried Pulcheria
Alexandrovna in a fright. “Did he tell you?”
“Yes.”
“What was it?”
“I’ll tell you afterwards.”
Raskolnikov ceased speaking and turned his attention to his tea.
Pyotr Petrovitch looked at his watch.
“I am compelled to keep a business engagement, and so I shall not be in
your way,” he added with an air of some pique and he began getting up.
“Don’t go, Pyotr Petrovitch,” said Dounia, “you intended to spend
the evening. Besides, you wrote yourself that you wanted to have an
explanation with mother.”
“Precisely so, Avdotya Romanovna,” Pyotr Petrovitch answered
impressively, sitting down again, but still holding his hat. “I
certainly desired an explanation with you and your honoured mother upon
a very important point indeed. But as your brother cannot speak openly
in my presence of some proposals of Mr. Svidrigaïlov, I, too, do not
desire and am not able to speak openly... in the presence of others...
of certain matters of the greatest gravity. Moreover, my most weighty
and urgent request has been disregarded....”
Assuming an aggrieved air, Luzhin relapsed into dignified silence.
“Your request that my brother should not be present at our meeting was
disregarded solely at my insistence,” said Dounia. “You wrote that you
had been insulted by my brother; I think that this must be explained at
once, and you must be reconciled. And if Rodya really has insulted you,
then he _should_ and _will_ apologise.”
Pyotr Petrovitch took a stronger line.
“There are insults, Avdotya Romanovna, which no goodwill can make us
forget. There is a line in everything which it is dangerous to overstep;
and when it has been overstepped, there is no return.”
“That wasn’t what I was speaking of exactly, Pyotr Petrovitch,” Dounia
interrupted with some impatience. “Please understand that our whole
future depends now on whether all this is explained and set right as
soon as possible. I tell you frankly at the start that I cannot look at
it in any other light, and if you have the least regard for me, all this
business must be ended to-day, however hard that may be. I repeat that
if my brother is to blame he will ask your forgiveness.”
“I am surprised at your putting the question like that,” said Luzhin,
getting more and more irritated. “Esteeming, and so to say, adoring you,
I may at the same time, very well indeed, be able to dislike some member
of your family. Though I lay claim to the happiness of your hand, I
cannot accept duties incompatible with...”
“Ah, don’t be so ready to take offence, Pyotr Petrovitch,” Dounia
interrupted with feeling, “and be the sensible and generous man I have
always considered, and wish to consider, you to be. I’ve given you a
great promise, I am your betrothed. Trust me in this matter and, believe
me, I shall be capable of judging impartially. My assuming the part of
judge is as much a surprise for my brother as for you. When I insisted
on his coming to our interview to-day after your letter, I told
him nothing of what I meant to do. Understand that, if you are not
reconciled, I must choose between you--it must be either you or he. That
is how the question rests on your side and on his. I don’t want to be
mistaken in my choice, and I must not be. For your sake I must break off
with my brother, for my brother’s sake I must break off with you. I can
find out for certain now whether he is a brother to me, and I want to
know it; and of you, whether I am dear to you, whether you esteem me,
whether you are the husband for me.”
“Avdotya Romanovna,” Luzhin declared huffily, “your words are of too
much consequence to me; I will say more, they are offensive in view
of the position I have the honour to occupy in relation to you. To say
nothing of your strange and offensive setting me on a level with an
impertinent boy, you admit the possibility of breaking your promise to
me. You say ‘you or he,’ showing thereby of how little consequence I
am in your eyes... I cannot let this pass considering the relationship
and... the obligations existing between us.”
“What!” cried Dounia, flushing. “I set your interest beside all that has
hitherto been most precious in my life, what has made up the _whole_ of
my life, and here you are offended at my making too _little_ account of
you.”
Raskolnikov smiled sarcastically, Razumihin fidgeted, but Pyotr
Petrovitch did not accept the reproof; on the contrary, at every word he
became more persistent and irritable, as though he relished it.
“Love for the future partner of your life, for your husband, ought to
outweigh your love for your brother,” he pronounced sententiously, “and
in any case I cannot be put on the same level.... Although I said so
emphatically that I would not speak openly in your brother’s presence,
nevertheless, I intend now to ask your honoured mother for a necessary
explanation on a point of great importance closely affecting my dignity.
Your son,” he turned to Pulcheria Alexandrovna, “yesterday in the
presence of Mr. Razsudkin (or... I think that’s it? excuse me, I have
forgotten your surname”) (he bowed politely to Razumihin), “insulted me
by misrepresenting the idea I expressed to you in a private
conversation, drinking coffee, that is, that marriage with a poor girl
who has had experience of trouble is more advantageous from the conjugal
point of view than with one who has lived in luxury, since it is more
profitable for the moral character. Your son intentionally exaggerated
the significance of my words and made them ridiculous, accusing me of
malicious intentions, and, as far as I could see, relied upon your
correspondence with him. I shall consider myself happy, Pulcheria
Alexandrovna, if it is possible for you to convince me of an opposite
conclusion, and thereby considerately reassure me. Kindly let me know
in what terms precisely you repeated my words in your letter to Rodion
Romanovitch.”
“I don’t remember,” faltered Pulcheria Alexandrovna. “I repeated them as
I understood them. I don’t know how Rodya repeated them to you, perhaps
he exaggerated.”
“He could not have exaggerated them, except at your instigation.”
“Pyotr Petrovitch,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna declared with dignity, “the
proof that Dounia and I did not take your words in a very bad sense is
the fact that we are here.”
“Good, mother,” said Dounia approvingly.
“Then this is my fault again,” said Luzhin, aggrieved.
“Well, Pyotr Petrovitch, you keep blaming Rodion, but you yourself have
just written what was false about him,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna added,
gaining courage.
“I don’t remember writing anything false.”
“You wrote,” Raskolnikov said sharply, not turning to Luzhin, “that I
gave money yesterday not to the widow of the man who was killed, as was
the fact, but to his daughter (whom I had never seen till yesterday).
You wrote this to make dissension between me and my family, and for that
object added coarse expressions about the conduct of a girl whom you
don’t know. All that is mean slander.”
“Excuse me, sir,” said Luzhin, quivering with fury. “I enlarged upon
your qualities and conduct in my letter solely in response to your
sister’s and mother’s inquiries, how I found you, and what impression
you made on me. As for what you’ve alluded to in my letter, be so good
as to point out one word of falsehood, show, that is, that you didn’t
throw away your money, and that there are not worthless persons in that
family, however unfortunate.”
“To my thinking, you, with all your virtues, are not worth the little
finger of that unfortunate girl at whom you throw stones.”
“Would you go so far then as to let her associate with your mother and
sister?”
“I have done so already, if you care to know. I made her sit down to-day
with mother and Dounia.”
“Rodya!” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. Dounia crimsoned, Razumihin
knitted his brows. Luzhin smiled with lofty sarcasm.
“You may see for yourself, Avdotya Romanovna,” he said, “whether it is
possible for us to agree. I hope now that this question is at an end,
once and for all. I will withdraw, that I may not hinder the pleasures
of family intimacy, and the discussion of secrets.” He got up from his
chair and took his hat. “But in withdrawing, I venture to request
that for the future I may be spared similar meetings, and, so to
say, compromises. I appeal particularly to you, honoured Pulcheria
Alexandrovna, on this subject, the more as my letter was addressed to
you and to no one else.”
Pulcheria Alexandrovna was a little offended.
“You seem to think we are completely under your authority, Pyotr
Petrovitch. Dounia has told you the reason your desire was disregarded,
she had the best intentions. And indeed you write as though you were
laying commands upon me. Are we to consider every desire of yours as
a command? Let me tell you on the contrary that you ought to show
particular delicacy and consideration for us now, because we have thrown
up everything, and have come here relying on you, and so we are in any
case in a sense in your hands.”
“That is not quite true, Pulcheria Alexandrovna, especially at the
present moment, when the news has come of Marfa Petrovna’s legacy, which
seems indeed very apropos, judging from the new tone you take to me,” he
added sarcastically.
“Judging from that remark, we may certainly presume that you were
reckoning on our helplessness,” Dounia observed irritably.
“But now in any case I cannot reckon on it, and I particularly desire
not to hinder your discussion of the secret proposals of Arkady
Ivanovitch Svidrigaïlov, which he has entrusted to your brother and
which have, I perceive, a great and possibly a very agreeable interest
for you.”
“Good heavens!” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna.