Crime and Punishment
dear fellow, and pray to God. It’s more in your interest, believe me.”
“And what if I run away?” asked Raskolnikov with a strange smile.
“No, you won’t run away. A peasant would run away, a fashionable
dissenter would run away, the flunkey of another man’s thought, for
you’ve only to show him the end of your little finger and he’ll be ready
to believe in anything for the rest of his life. But you’ve ceased to
believe in your theory already, what will you run away with? And what
would you do in hiding? It would be hateful and difficult for you, and
what you need more than anything in life is a definite position, an
atmosphere to suit you. And what sort of atmosphere would you have? If
you ran away, you’d come back of yourself. _You can’t get on without
us._ And if I put you in prison--say you’ve been there a month, or two,
or three--remember my word, you’ll confess of yourself and perhaps to
your own surprise. You won’t know an hour beforehand that you are coming
with a confession. I am convinced that you will decide, ‘to take your
suffering.’ You don’t believe my words now, but you’ll come to it of
yourself. For suffering, Rodion Romanovitch, is a great thing. Never
mind my having grown fat, I know all the same. Don’t laugh at it,
there’s an idea in suffering, Nikolay is right. No, you won’t run away,
Rodion Romanovitch.”
Raskolnikov got up and took his cap. Porfiry Petrovitch also rose.
“Are you going for a walk? The evening will be fine, if only we don’t
have a storm. Though it would be a good thing to freshen the air.”
He, too, took his cap.
“Porfiry Petrovitch, please don’t take up the notion that I have
confessed to you to-day,” Raskolnikov pronounced with sullen insistence.
“You’re a strange man and I have listened to you from simple curiosity.
But I have admitted nothing, remember that!”
“Oh, I know that, I’ll remember. Look at him, he’s trembling! Don’t
be uneasy, my dear fellow, have it your own way. Walk about a bit, you
won’t be able to walk too far. If anything happens, I have one request
to make of you,” he added, dropping his voice. “It’s an awkward one, but
important. If anything were to happen (though indeed I don’t believe
in it and think you quite incapable of it), yet in case you were taken
during these forty or fifty hours with the notion of putting an end to
the business in some other way, in some fantastic fashion--laying hands
on yourself--(it’s an absurd proposition, but you must forgive me for
it) do leave a brief but precise note, only two lines, and mention the
stone. It will be more generous. Come, till we meet! Good thoughts and
sound decisions to you!”
Porfiry went out, stooping and avoiding looking at Raskolnikov. The
latter went to the window and waited with irritable impatience till he
calculated that Porfiry had reached the street and moved away. Then he
too went hurriedly out of the room.
CHAPTER III
He hurried to Svidrigaïlov’s. What he had to hope from that man he
did not know. But that man had some hidden power over him. Having once
recognised this, he could not rest, and now the time had come.
On the way, one question particularly worried him: had Svidrigaïlov been
to Porfiry’s?
As far as he could judge, he would swear to it, that he had not. He
pondered again and again, went over Porfiry’s visit; no, he hadn’t been,
of course he hadn’t.
But if he had not been yet, would he go? Meanwhile, for the present he
fancied he couldn’t. Why? He could not have explained, but if he could,
he would not have wasted much thought over it at the moment. It all
worried him and at the same time he could not attend to it. Strange to
say, none would have believed it perhaps, but he only felt a faint vague
anxiety about his immediate future. Another, much more important anxiety
tormented him--it concerned himself, but in a different, more vital way.
Moreover, he was conscious of immense moral fatigue, though his mind was
working better that morning than it had done of late.
And was it worth while, after all that had happened, to contend with
these new trivial difficulties? Was it worth while, for instance, to
manoeuvre that Svidrigaïlov should not go to Porfiry’s? Was it worth
while to investigate, to ascertain the facts, to waste time over anyone
like Svidrigaïlov?
Oh, how sick he was of it all!
And yet he was hastening to Svidrigaïlov; could he be expecting
something _new_ from him, information, or means of escape? Men will
catch at straws! Was it destiny or some instinct bringing them together?
Perhaps it was only fatigue, despair; perhaps it was not Svidrigaïlov
but some other whom he needed, and Svidrigaïlov had simply presented
himself by chance. Sonia? But what should he go to Sonia for now? To beg
her tears again? He was afraid of Sonia, too. Sonia stood before him as
an irrevocable sentence. He must go his own way or hers. At that moment
especially he did not feel equal to seeing her. No, would it not be
better to try Svidrigaïlov? And he could not help inwardly owning that
he had long felt that he must see him for some reason.
But what could they have in common? Their very evil-doing could not
be of the same kind. The man, moreover, was very unpleasant, evidently
depraved, undoubtedly cunning and deceitful, possibly malignant. Such
stories were told about him. It is true he was befriending Katerina
Ivanovna’s children, but who could tell with what motive and what it
meant? The man always had some design, some project.
There was another thought which had been continually hovering of late
about Raskolnikov’s mind, and causing him great uneasiness. It was so
painful that he made distinct efforts to get rid of it. He sometimes
thought that Svidrigaïlov was dogging his footsteps. Svidrigaïlov had
found out his secret and had had designs on Dounia. What if he had them
still? Wasn’t it practically certain that he had? And what if, having
learnt his secret and so having gained power over him, he were to use it
as a weapon against Dounia?
This idea sometimes even tormented his dreams, but it had never
presented itself so vividly to him as on his way to Svidrigaïlov.
The very thought moved him to gloomy rage. To begin with, this would
transform everything, even his own position; he would have at once to
confess his secret to Dounia. Would he have to give himself up perhaps
to prevent Dounia from taking some rash step? The letter? This morning
Dounia had received a letter. From whom could she get letters in
Petersburg? Luzhin, perhaps? It’s true Razumihin was there to protect
her, but Razumihin knew nothing of the position. Perhaps it was his duty
to tell Razumihin? He thought of it with repugnance.
In any case he must see Svidrigaïlov as soon as possible, he decided
finally. Thank God, the details of the interview were of little
consequence, if only he could get at the root of the matter; but
if Svidrigaïlov were capable... if he were intriguing against
Dounia--then...
Raskolnikov was so exhausted by what he had passed through that month
that he could only decide such questions in one way; “then I shall kill
him,” he thought in cold despair.
A sudden anguish oppressed his heart, he stood still in the middle of
the street and began looking about to see where he was and which way he
was going. He found himself in X. Prospect, thirty or forty paces from
the Hay Market, through which he had come. The whole second storey of
the house on the left was used as a tavern. All the windows were wide
open; judging from the figures moving at the windows, the rooms were
full to overflowing. There were sounds of singing, of clarionet and
violin, and the boom of a Turkish drum. He could hear women shrieking.
He was about to turn back wondering why he had come to the X. Prospect,
when suddenly at one of the end windows he saw Svidrigaïlov, sitting
at a tea-table right in the open window with a pipe in his mouth.
Raskolnikov was dreadfully taken aback, almost terrified. Svidrigaïlov
was silently watching and scrutinising him and, what struck Raskolnikov
at once, seemed to be meaning to get up and slip away unobserved.
Raskolnikov at once pretended not to have seen him, but to be looking
absent-mindedly away, while he watched him out of the corner of his eye.
His heart was beating violently. Yet, it was evident that Svidrigaïlov
did not want to be seen. He took the pipe out of his mouth and was on
the point of concealing himself, but as he got up and moved back his
chair, he seemed to have become suddenly aware that Raskolnikov had seen
him, and was watching him. What had passed between them was much the
same as what happened at their first meeting in Raskolnikov’s room. A
sly smile came into Svidrigaïlov’s face and grew broader and
broader. Each knew that he was seen and watched by the other. At last
Svidrigaïlov broke into a loud laugh.
“Well, well, come in if you want me; I am here!” he shouted from the
window.
Raskolnikov went up into the tavern. He found Svidrigaïlov in a tiny
back room, adjoining the saloon in which merchants, clerks and numbers
of people of all sorts were drinking tea at twenty little tables to the
desperate bawling of a chorus of singers. The click of billiard balls
could be heard in the distance. On the table before Svidrigaïlov stood
an open bottle and a glass half full of champagne. In the room he found
also a boy with a little hand organ, a healthy-looking red-cheeked girl
of eighteen, wearing a tucked-up striped skirt, and a Tyrolese hat with
ribbons. In spite of the chorus in the other room, she was singing some
servants’ hall song in a rather husky contralto, to the accompaniment of
the organ.
“Come, that’s enough,” Svidrigaïlov stopped her at Raskolnikov’s
entrance. The girl at once broke off and stood waiting respectfully.
She had sung her guttural rhymes, too, with a serious and respectful
expression in her face.
“Hey, Philip, a glass!” shouted Svidrigaïlov.
“I won’t drink anything,” said Raskolnikov.
“As you like, I didn’t mean it for you. Drink, Katia! I don’t want
anything more to-day, you can go.” He poured her out a full glass, and
laid down a yellow note.
Katia drank off her glass of wine, as women do, without putting it down,
in twenty gulps, took the note and kissed Svidrigaïlov’s hand, which he
allowed quite seriously. She went out of the room and the boy trailed
after her with the organ. Both had been brought in from the street.
Svidrigaïlov had not been a week in Petersburg, but everything about him
was already, so to speak, on a patriarchal footing; the waiter, Philip,
was by now an old friend and very obsequious.
The door leading to the saloon had a lock on it. Svidrigaïlov was at
home in this room and perhaps spent whole days in it. The tavern was
dirty and wretched, not even second-rate.
“I was going to see you and looking for you,” Raskolnikov began, “but
I don’t know what made me turn from the Hay Market into the X. Prospect
just now. I never take this turning. I turn to the right from the Hay
Market. And this isn’t the way to you. I simply turned and here you are.
It is strange!”
“Why don’t you say at once ‘it’s a miracle’?”
“Because it may be only chance.”
“Oh, that’s the way with all you folk,” laughed Svidrigaïlov. “You won’t
admit it, even if you do inwardly believe it a miracle! Here you say
that it may be only chance. And what cowards they all are here, about
having an opinion of their own, you can’t fancy, Rodion Romanovitch. I
don’t mean you, you have an opinion of your own and are not afraid to
have it. That’s how it was you attracted my curiosity.”
“Nothing else?”
“Well, that’s enough, you know,” Svidrigaïlov was obviously exhilarated,
but only slightly so, he had not had more than half a glass of wine.