Crime and Punishment
much so. I began speaking of you, she begged me not to. Then... then
she said that perhaps we should very soon have to part... then she began
warmly thanking me for something; then she went to her room and locked
herself in.”
“She got a letter?” Raskolnikov asked thoughtfully.
“Yes, and you didn’t know? hm...”
They were both silent.
“Good-bye, Rodion. There was a time, brother, when I.... Never mind,
good-bye. You see, there was a time.... Well, good-bye! I must be off
too. I am not going to drink. There’s no need now.... That’s all stuff!”
He hurried out; but when he had almost closed the door behind him, he
suddenly opened it again, and said, looking away:
“Oh, by the way, do you remember that murder, you know Porfiry’s, that
old woman? Do you know the murderer has been found, he has confessed
and given the proofs. It’s one of those very workmen, the painter, only
fancy! Do you remember I defended them here? Would you believe it, all
that scene of fighting and laughing with his companions on the stairs
while the porter and the two witnesses were going up, he got up on
purpose to disarm suspicion. The cunning, the presence of mind of the
young dog! One can hardly credit it; but it’s his own explanation, he
has confessed it all. And what a fool I was about it! Well, he’s simply
a genius of hypocrisy and resourcefulness in disarming the suspicions of
the lawyers--so there’s nothing much to wonder at, I suppose! Of course
people like that are always possible. And the fact that he couldn’t keep
up the character, but confessed, makes him easier to believe in. But
what a fool I was! I was frantic on their side!”
“Tell me, please, from whom did you hear that, and why does it interest
you so?” Raskolnikov asked with unmistakable agitation.
“What next? You ask me why it interests me!... Well, I heard it from
Porfiry, among others... It was from him I heard almost all about it.”
“From Porfiry?”
“From Porfiry.”
“What... what did he say?” Raskolnikov asked in dismay.
“He gave me a capital explanation of it. Psychologically, after his
fashion.”
“He explained it? Explained it himself?”
“Yes, yes; good-bye. I’ll tell you all about it another time, but now
I’m busy. There was a time when I fancied... But no matter, another
time!... What need is there for me to drink now? You have made me drunk
without wine. I am drunk, Rodya! Good-bye, I’m going. I’ll come again
very soon.”
He went out.
“He’s a political conspirator, there’s not a doubt about it,” Razumihin
decided, as he slowly descended the stairs. “And he’s drawn his sister
in; that’s quite, quite in keeping with Avdotya Romanovna’s character.
There are interviews between them!... She hinted at it too... So many of
her words.... and hints... bear that meaning! And how else can all this
tangle be explained? Hm! And I was almost thinking... Good heavens,
what I thought! Yes, I took leave of my senses and I wronged him! It was
his doing, under the lamp in the corridor that day. Pfoo! What a crude,
nasty, vile idea on my part! Nikolay is a brick, for confessing.... And
how clear it all is now! His illness then, all his strange actions...
before this, in the university, how morose he used to be, how gloomy....
But what’s the meaning now of that letter? There’s something in that,
too, perhaps. Whom was it from? I suspect...! No, I must find out!”
He thought of Dounia, realising all he had heard and his heart throbbed,
and he suddenly broke into a run.
As soon as Razumihin went out, Raskolnikov got up, turned to the window,
walked into one corner and then into another, as though forgetting the
smallness of his room, and sat down again on the sofa. He felt, so to
speak, renewed; again the struggle, so a means of escape had come.
“Yes, a means of escape had come! It had been too stifling, too
cramping, the burden had been too agonising. A lethargy had come upon
him at times. From the moment of the scene with Nikolay at Porfiry’s he
had been suffocating, penned in without hope of escape. After Nikolay’s
confession, on that very day had come the scene with Sonia; his
behaviour and his last words had been utterly unlike anything he
could have imagined beforehand; he had grown feebler, instantly and
fundamentally! And he had agreed at the time with Sonia, he had agreed
in his heart he could not go on living alone with such a thing on his
mind!
“And Svidrigaïlov was a riddle... He worried him, that was true, but
somehow not on the same point. He might still have a struggle to come
with Svidrigaïlov. Svidrigaïlov, too, might be a means of escape; but
Porfiry was a different matter.
“And so Porfiry himself had explained it to Razumihin, had explained it
_psychologically_. He had begun bringing in his damned psychology again!
Porfiry? But to think that Porfiry should for one moment believe that
Nikolay was guilty, after what had passed between them before Nikolay’s
appearance, after that tête-à-tête interview, which could have only
_one_ explanation? (During those days Raskolnikov had often recalled
passages in that scene with Porfiry; he could not bear to let his mind
rest on it.) Such words, such gestures had passed between them, they
had exchanged such glances, things had been said in such a tone and had
reached such a pass, that Nikolay, whom Porfiry had seen through at the
first word, at the first gesture, could not have shaken his conviction.
“And to think that even Razumihin had begun to suspect! The scene in the
corridor under the lamp had produced its effect then. He had rushed to
Porfiry.... But what had induced the latter to receive him like that?
What had been his object in putting Razumihin off with Nikolay? He must
have some plan; there was some design, but what was it? It was true that
a long time had passed since that morning--too long a time--and no sight
nor sound of Porfiry. Well, that was a bad sign....”
Raskolnikov took his cap and went out of the room, still pondering. It
was the first time for a long while that he had felt clear in his mind,
at least. “I must settle Svidrigaïlov,” he thought, “and as soon as
possible; he, too, seems to be waiting for me to come to him of my own
accord.” And at that moment there was such a rush of hate in his
weary heart that he might have killed either of those two--Porfiry or
Svidrigaïlov. At least he felt that he would be capable of doing it
later, if not now.
“We shall see, we shall see,” he repeated to himself.
But no sooner had he opened the door than he stumbled upon Porfiry
himself in the passage. He was coming in to see him. Raskolnikov was
dumbfounded for a minute, but only for one minute. Strange to say, he
was not very much astonished at seeing Porfiry and scarcely afraid of
him. He was simply startled, but was quickly, instantly, on his guard.
“Perhaps this will mean the end? But how could Porfiry have approached
so quietly, like a cat, so that he had heard nothing? Could he have been
listening at the door?”
“You didn’t expect a visitor, Rodion Romanovitch,” Porfiry explained,
laughing. “I’ve been meaning to look in a long time; I was passing by
and thought why not go in for five minutes. Are you going out? I won’t
keep you long. Just let me have one cigarette.”
“Sit down, Porfiry Petrovitch, sit down.” Raskolnikov gave his visitor
a seat with so pleased and friendly an expression that he would have
marvelled at himself, if he could have seen it.
The last moment had come, the last drops had to be drained! So a man
will sometimes go through half an hour of mortal terror with a brigand,
yet when the knife is at his throat at last, he feels no fear.
Raskolnikov seated himself directly facing Porfiry, and looked at him
without flinching. Porfiry screwed up his eyes and began lighting a
cigarette.
“Speak, speak,” seemed as though it would burst from Raskolnikov’s
heart. “Come, why don’t you speak?”
CHAPTER II
“Ah these cigarettes!” Porfiry Petrovitch ejaculated at last, having
lighted one. “They are pernicious, positively pernicious, and yet I
can’t give them up! I cough, I begin to have tickling in my throat and
a difficulty in breathing. You know I am a coward, I went lately to
Dr. B----n; he always gives at least half an hour to each patient. He
positively laughed looking at me; he sounded me: ‘Tobacco’s bad for
you,’ he said, ‘your lungs are affected.’ But how am I to give it up?
What is there to take its place? I don’t drink, that’s the mischief,
he-he-he, that I don’t. Everything is relative, Rodion Romanovitch,
everything is relative!”
“Why, he’s playing his professional tricks again,” Raskolnikov thought
with disgust. All the circumstances of their last interview suddenly
came back to him, and he felt a rush of the feeling that had come upon
him then.
“I came to see you the day before yesterday, in the evening; you didn’t
know?” Porfiry Petrovitch went on, looking round the room. “I came into
this very room. I was passing by, just as I did to-day, and I thought
I’d return your call. I walked in as your door was wide open, I looked
round, waited and went out without leaving my name with your servant.
Don’t you lock your door?”
Raskolnikov’s face grew more and more gloomy. Porfiry seemed to guess
his state of mind.
“I’ve come to have it out with you, Rodion Romanovitch, my dear fellow!
I owe you an explanation and must give it to you,” he continued with a
slight smile, just patting Raskolnikov’s knee.
But almost at the same instant a serious and careworn look came into his
face; to his surprise Raskolnikov saw a touch of sadness in it. He had
never seen and never suspected such an expression in his face.
“A strange scene passed between us last time we met, Rodion Romanovitch.
Our first interview, too, was a strange one; but then... and one thing
after another! This is the point: I have perhaps acted unfairly to you;
I feel it. Do you remember how we parted? Your nerves were unhinged and
your knees were shaking and so were mine. And, you know, our behaviour
was unseemly, even ungentlemanly. And yet we are gentlemen, above all,
in any case, gentlemen; that must be understood. Do you remember what we
came to?... and it was quite indecorous.”
“What is he up to, what does he take me for?” Raskolnikov asked himself
in amazement, raising his head and looking with open eyes on Porfiry.
“I’ve decided openness is better between us,” Porfiry Petrovitch went
on, turning his head away and dropping his eyes, as though unwilling to
disconcert his former victim and as though disdaining his former wiles.
“Yes, such suspicions and such scenes cannot continue for long. Nikolay
put a stop to it, or I don’t know what we might not have come to. That
damned workman was sitting at the time in the next room--can you realise
that? You know that, of course; and I am aware that he came to you
afterwards. But what you supposed then was not true: I had not sent for
anyone, I had made no kind of arrangements. You ask why I hadn’t? What
shall I say to you? it had all come upon me so suddenly. I had scarcely
sent for the porters (you noticed them as you went out, I dare say).
An idea flashed upon me; I was firmly convinced at the time, you see,
Rodion Romanovitch. Come, I thought--even if I let one thing slip for
a time, I shall get hold of something else--I shan’t lose what I want,
anyway. You are nervously irritable, Rodion Romanovitch, by temperament;
it’s out of proportion with other qualities of your heart and character,
which I flatter myself I have to some extent divined. Of course I did
reflect even then that it does not always happen that a man gets up and
blurts out his whole story. It does happen sometimes, if you make a
man lose all patience, though even then it’s rare. I was capable of