Crime and Punishment
mind at rest, so that he will retreat into his shell. They say that at
Sevastopol, soon after Alma, the clever people were in a terrible fright
that the enemy would attack openly and take Sevastopol at once. But when
they saw that the enemy preferred a regular siege, they were delighted,
I am told and reassured, for the thing would drag on for two months at
least. You’re laughing, you don’t believe me again? Of course, you’re
right, too. You’re right, you’re right. These are special cases, I
admit. But you must observe this, my dear Rodion Romanovitch, the
general case, the case for which all legal forms and rules are intended,
for which they are calculated and laid down in books, does not exist at
all, for the reason that every case, every crime, for instance, so soon
as it actually occurs, at once becomes a thoroughly special case and
sometimes a case unlike any that’s gone before. Very comic cases of that
sort sometimes occur. If I leave one man quite alone, if I don’t touch
him and don’t worry him, but let him know or at least suspect every
moment that I know all about it and am watching him day and night, and
if he is in continual suspicion and terror, he’ll be bound to lose his
head. He’ll come of himself, or maybe do something which will make it as
plain as twice two are four--it’s delightful. It may be so with a simple
peasant, but with one of our sort, an intelligent man cultivated on a
certain side, it’s a dead certainty. For, my dear fellow, it’s a very
important matter to know on what side a man is cultivated. And then
there are nerves, there are nerves, you have overlooked them! Why, they
are all sick, nervous and irritable!... And then how they all suffer
from spleen! That I assure you is a regular gold-mine for us. And it’s
no anxiety to me, his running about the town free! Let him, let him walk
about for a bit! I know well enough that I’ve caught him and that he
won’t escape me. Where could he escape to, he-he? Abroad, perhaps? A
Pole will escape abroad, but not here, especially as I am watching
and have taken measures. Will he escape into the depths of the country
perhaps? But you know, peasants live there, real rude Russian peasants.
A modern cultivated man would prefer prison to living with such
strangers as our peasants. He-he! But that’s all nonsense, and on
the surface. It’s not merely that he has nowhere to run to, he is
_psychologically_ unable to escape me, he-he! What an expression!
Through a law of nature he can’t escape me if he had anywhere to go.
Have you seen a butterfly round a candle? That’s how he will keep
circling and circling round me. Freedom will lose its attractions. He’ll
begin to brood, he’ll weave a tangle round himself, he’ll worry himself
to death! What’s more, he will provide me with a mathematical proof--if
I only give him long enough interval.... And he’ll keep circling round
me, getting nearer and nearer and then--flop! He’ll fly straight into my
mouth and I’ll swallow him, and that will be very amusing, he-he-he! You
don’t believe me?”
Raskolnikov made no reply; he sat pale and motionless, still gazing with
the same intensity into Porfiry’s face.
“It’s a lesson,” he thought, turning cold. “This is beyond the cat
playing with a mouse, like yesterday. He can’t be showing off his power
with no motive... prompting me; he is far too clever for that... he must
have another object. What is it? It’s all nonsense, my friend, you are
pretending, to scare me! You’ve no proofs and the man I saw had no
real existence. You simply want to make me lose my head, to work me up
beforehand and so to crush me. But you are wrong, you won’t do it! But
why give me such a hint? Is he reckoning on my shattered nerves? No, my
friend, you are wrong, you won’t do it even though you have some trap
for me... let us see what you have in store for me.”
And he braced himself to face a terrible and unknown ordeal. At times
he longed to fall on Porfiry and strangle him. This anger was what he
dreaded from the beginning. He felt that his parched lips were flecked
with foam, his heart was throbbing. But he was still determined not to
speak till the right moment. He realised that this was the best
policy in his position, because instead of saying too much he would be
irritating his enemy by his silence and provoking him into speaking too
freely. Anyhow, this was what he hoped for.
“No, I see you don’t believe me, you think I am playing a harmless joke
on you,” Porfiry began again, getting more and more lively, chuckling
at every instant and again pacing round the room. “And to be sure you’re
right: God has given me a figure that can awaken none but comic ideas in
other people; a buffoon; but let me tell you, and I repeat it, excuse
an old man, my dear Rodion Romanovitch, you are a man still young, so to
say, in your first youth and so you put intellect above everything, like
all young people. Playful wit and abstract arguments fascinate you and
that’s for all the world like the old Austrian _Hof-kriegsrath_, as
far as I can judge of military matters, that is: on paper they’d beaten
Napoleon and taken him prisoner, and there in their study they worked it
all out in the cleverest fashion, but look you, General Mack surrendered
with all his army, he-he-he! I see, I see, Rodion Romanovitch, you are
laughing at a civilian like me, taking examples out of military history!
But I can’t help it, it’s my weakness. I am fond of military science.
And I’m ever so fond of reading all military histories. I’ve certainly
missed my proper career. I ought to have been in the army, upon my
word I ought. I shouldn’t have been a Napoleon, but I might have been a
major, he-he! Well, I’ll tell you the whole truth, my dear fellow, about
this _special case_, I mean: actual fact and a man’s temperament, my
dear sir, are weighty matters and it’s astonishing how they sometimes
deceive the sharpest calculation! I--listen to an old man--am speaking
seriously, Rodion Romanovitch” (as he said this Porfiry Petrovitch, who
was scarcely five-and-thirty, actually seemed to have grown old; even
his voice changed and he seemed to shrink together) “Moreover, I’m
a candid man... am I a candid man or not? What do you say? I fancy I
really am: I tell you these things for nothing and don’t even expect a
reward for it, he-he! Well, to proceed, wit in my opinion is a splendid
thing, it is, so to say, an adornment of nature and a consolation of
life, and what tricks it can play! So that it sometimes is hard for a
poor examining lawyer to know where he is, especially when he’s liable
to be carried away by his own fancy, too, for you know he is a man after
all! But the poor fellow is saved by the criminal’s temperament, worse
luck for him! But young people carried away by their own wit don’t think
of that ‘when they overstep all obstacles,’ as you wittily and cleverly
expressed it yesterday. He will lie--that is, the man who is a _special
case_, the incognito, and he will lie well, in the cleverest fashion;
you might think he would triumph and enjoy the fruits of his wit, but at
the most interesting, the most flagrant moment he will faint. Of course
there may be illness and a stuffy room as well, but anyway! Anyway he’s
given us the idea! He lied incomparably, but he didn’t reckon on his
temperament. That’s what betrays him! Another time he will be carried
away by his playful wit into making fun of the man who suspects him, he
will turn pale as it were on purpose to mislead, but his paleness will
be _too natural_, too much like the real thing, again he has given us
an idea! Though his questioner may be deceived at first, he will think
differently next day if he is not a fool, and, of course, it is like
that at every step! He puts himself forward where he is not wanted,
speaks continually when he ought to keep silent, brings in all sorts of
allegorical allusions, he-he! Comes and asks why didn’t you take me long
ago? he-he-he! And that can happen, you know, with the cleverest man,
the psychologist, the literary man. The temperament reflects everything
like a mirror! Gaze into it and admire what you see! But why are you so
pale, Rodion Romanovitch? Is the room stuffy? Shall I open the window?”
“Oh, don’t trouble, please,” cried Raskolnikov and he suddenly broke
into a laugh. “Please don’t trouble.”
Porfiry stood facing him, paused a moment and suddenly he too laughed.
Raskolnikov got up from the sofa, abruptly checking his hysterical
laughter.
“Porfiry Petrovitch,” he began, speaking loudly and distinctly, though
his legs trembled and he could scarcely stand. “I see clearly at last
that you actually suspect me of murdering that old woman and her sister
Lizaveta. Let me tell you for my part that I am sick of this. If you
find that you have a right to prosecute me legally, to arrest me, then
prosecute me, arrest me. But I will not let myself be jeered at to my
face and worried...”
His lips trembled, his eyes glowed with fury and he could not restrain
his voice.
“I won’t allow it!” he shouted, bringing his fist down on the table. “Do
you hear that, Porfiry Petrovitch? I won’t allow it.”
“Good heavens! What does it mean?” cried Porfiry Petrovitch, apparently
quite frightened. “Rodion Romanovitch, my dear fellow, what is the
matter with you?”
“I won’t allow it,” Raskolnikov shouted again.
“Hush, my dear man! They’ll hear and come in. Just think, what could we
say to them?” Porfiry Petrovitch whispered in horror, bringing his face
close to Raskolnikov’s.
“I won’t allow it, I won’t allow it,” Raskolnikov repeated mechanically,
but he too spoke in a sudden whisper.
Porfiry turned quickly and ran to open the window.
“Some fresh air! And you must have some water, my dear fellow. You’re
ill!” and he was running to the door to call for some when he found a
decanter of water in the corner. “Come, drink a little,” he whispered,
rushing up to him with the decanter. “It will be sure to do you good.”
Porfiry Petrovitch’s alarm and sympathy were so natural that Raskolnikov
was silent and began looking at him with wild curiosity. He did not take
the water, however.
“Rodion Romanovitch, my dear fellow, you’ll drive yourself out of your
mind, I assure you, ach, ach! Have some water, do drink a little.”
He forced him to take the glass. Raskolnikov raised it mechanically to
his lips, but set it on the table again with disgust.
“Yes, you’ve had a little attack! You’ll bring back your illness again,
my dear fellow,” Porfiry Petrovitch cackled with friendly sympathy,
though he still looked rather disconcerted. “Good heavens, you must
take more care of yourself! Dmitri Prokofitch was here, came to see me
yesterday--I know, I know, I’ve a nasty, ironical temper, but what they
made of it!... Good heavens, he came yesterday after you’d been. We
dined and he talked and talked away, and I could only throw up my hands
in despair! Did he come from you? But do sit down, for mercy’s sake, sit
down!”
“No, not from me, but I knew he went to you and why he went,”
Raskolnikov answered sharply.
“You knew?”
“I knew. What of it?”
“Why this, Rodion Romanovitch, that I know more than that about you;
I know about everything. I know how you went _to take a flat_ at night
when it was dark and how you rang the bell and asked about the blood, so
that the workmen and the porter did not know what to make of it. Yes, I
understand your state of mind at that time... but you’ll drive yourself
mad like that, upon my word! You’ll lose your head! You’re full of
generous indignation at the wrongs you’ve received, first from destiny,
and then from the police officers, and so you rush from one thing to
another to force them to speak out and make an end of it all, because
you are sick of all this suspicion and foolishness. That’s so, isn’t