Crime and Punishment
“But as for the money, Arkady Ivanovitch, I am very grateful to you,
but I don’t need it now. I can always earn my own living. Don’t think me
ungrateful. If you are so charitable, that money....”
“It’s for you, for you, Sofya Semyonovna, and please don’t waste words
over it. I haven’t time for it. You will want it. Rodion Romanovitch
has two alternatives: a bullet in the brain or Siberia.” (Sonia looked
wildly at him, and started.) “Don’t be uneasy, I know all about it from
himself and I am not a gossip; I won’t tell anyone. It was good advice
when you told him to give himself up and confess. It would be much
better for him. Well, if it turns out to be Siberia, he will go and
you will follow him. That’s so, isn’t it? And if so, you’ll need money.
You’ll need it for him, do you understand? Giving it to you is the same
as my giving it to him. Besides, you promised Amalia Ivanovna to pay
what’s owing. I heard you. How can you undertake such obligations so
heedlessly, Sofya Semyonovna? It was Katerina Ivanovna’s debt and not
yours, so you ought not to have taken any notice of the German woman.
You can’t get through the world like that. If you are ever questioned
about me--to-morrow or the day after you will be asked--don’t say
anything about my coming to see you now and don’t show the money to
anyone or say a word about it. Well, now good-bye.” (He got up.) “My
greetings to Rodion Romanovitch. By the way, you’d better put the money
for the present in Mr. Razumihin’s keeping. You know Mr. Razumihin? Of
course you do. He’s not a bad fellow. Take it to him to-morrow or...
when the time comes. And till then, hide it carefully.”
Sonia too jumped up from her chair and looked in dismay at Svidrigaïlov.
She longed to speak, to ask a question, but for the first moments she
did not dare and did not know how to begin.
“How can you... how can you be going now, in such rain?”
“Why, be starting for America, and be stopped by rain! Ha, ha! Good-bye,
Sofya Semyonovna, my dear! Live and live long, you will be of use to
others. By the way... tell Mr. Razumihin I send my greetings to him.
Tell him Arkady Ivanovitch Svidrigaïlov sends his greetings. Be sure
to.”
He went out, leaving Sonia in a state of wondering anxiety and vague
apprehension.
It appeared afterwards that on the same evening, at twenty past eleven,
he made another very eccentric and unexpected visit. The rain still
persisted. Drenched to the skin, he walked into the little flat where
the parents of his betrothed lived, in Third Street in Vassilyevsky
Island. He knocked some time before he was admitted, and his visit
at first caused great perturbation; but Svidrigaïlov could be
very fascinating when he liked, so that the first, and indeed very
intelligent surmise of the sensible parents that Svidrigaïlov had
probably had so much to drink that he did not know what he was doing
vanished immediately. The decrepit father was wheeled in to see
Svidrigaïlov by the tender and sensible mother, who as usual began the
conversation with various irrelevant questions. She never asked a direct
question, but began by smiling and rubbing her hands and then, if she
were obliged to ascertain something--for instance, when Svidrigaïlov
would like to have the wedding--she would begin by interested and
almost eager questions about Paris and the court life there, and only
by degrees brought the conversation round to Third Street. On other
occasions this had of course been very impressive, but this time Arkady
Ivanovitch seemed particularly impatient, and insisted on seeing his
betrothed at once, though he had been informed, to begin with, that she
had already gone to bed. The girl of course appeared.
Svidrigaïlov informed her at once that he was obliged by very important
affairs to leave Petersburg for a time, and therefore brought her
fifteen thousand roubles and begged her accept them as a present from
him, as he had long been intending to make her this trifling present
before their wedding. The logical connection of the present with his
immediate departure and the absolute necessity of visiting them for that
purpose in pouring rain at midnight was not made clear. But it all went
off very well; even the inevitable ejaculations of wonder and regret,
the inevitable questions were extraordinarily few and restrained. On the
other hand, the gratitude expressed was most glowing and was reinforced
by tears from the most sensible of mothers. Svidrigaïlov got up,
laughed, kissed his betrothed, patted her cheek, declared he would soon
come back, and noticing in her eyes, together with childish curiosity, a
sort of earnest dumb inquiry, reflected and kissed her again, though
he felt sincere anger inwardly at the thought that his present would be
immediately locked up in the keeping of the most sensible of mothers. He
went away, leaving them all in a state of extraordinary excitement, but
the tender mamma, speaking quietly in a half whisper, settled some of
the most important of their doubts, concluding that Svidrigaïlov was
a great man, a man of great affairs and connections and of great
wealth--there was no knowing what he had in his mind. He would start
off on a journey and give away money just as the fancy took him, so that
there was nothing surprising about it. Of course it was strange that he
was wet through, but Englishmen, for instance, are even more eccentric,
and all these people of high society didn’t think of what was said of
them and didn’t stand on ceremony. Possibly, indeed, he came like that
on purpose to show that he was not afraid of anyone. Above all, not a
word should be said about it, for God knows what might come of it, and
the money must be locked up, and it was most fortunate that Fedosya, the
cook, had not left the kitchen. And above all not a word must be said
to that old cat, Madame Resslich, and so on and so on. They sat up
whispering till two o’clock, but the girl went to bed much earlier,
amazed and rather sorrowful.
Svidrigaïlov meanwhile, exactly at midnight, crossed the bridge on the
way back to the mainland. The rain had ceased and there was a roaring
wind. He began shivering, and for one moment he gazed at the black
waters of the Little Neva with a look of special interest, even inquiry.
But he soon felt it very cold, standing by the water; he turned and
went towards Y. Prospect. He walked along that endless street for a long
time, almost half an hour, more than once stumbling in the dark on the
wooden pavement, but continually looking for something on the right side
of the street. He had noticed passing through this street lately that
there was a hotel somewhere towards the end, built of wood, but fairly
large, and its name he remembered was something like Adrianople. He was
not mistaken: the hotel was so conspicuous in that God-forsaken place
that he could not fail to see it even in the dark. It was a long,
blackened wooden building, and in spite of the late hour there were
lights in the windows and signs of life within. He went in and asked
a ragged fellow who met him in the corridor for a room. The latter,
scanning Svidrigaïlov, pulled himself together and led him at once to a
close and tiny room in the distance, at the end of the corridor, under
the stairs. There was no other, all were occupied. The ragged fellow
looked inquiringly.
“Is there tea?” asked Svidrigaïlov.
“Yes, sir.”
“What else is there?”
“Veal, vodka, savouries.”
“Bring me tea and veal.”
“And you want nothing else?” he asked with apparent surprise.
“Nothing, nothing.”
The ragged man went away, completely disillusioned.
“It must be a nice place,” thought Svidrigaïlov. “How was it I didn’t
know it? I expect I look as if I came from a café chantant and have
had some adventure on the way. It would be interesting to know who stayed
here?”
He lighted the candle and looked at the room more carefully. It was a
room so low-pitched that Svidrigaïlov could only just stand up in it;
it had one window; the bed, which was very dirty, and the plain-stained
chair and table almost filled it up. The walls looked as though they
were made of planks, covered with shabby paper, so torn and dusty
that the pattern was indistinguishable, though the general
colour--yellow--could still be made out. One of the walls was cut short
by the sloping ceiling, though the room was not an attic but just under
the stairs.
Svidrigaïlov set down the candle, sat down on the bed and sank into
thought. But a strange persistent murmur which sometimes rose to a shout
in the next room attracted his attention. The murmur had not ceased from
the moment he entered the room. He listened: someone was upbraiding and
almost tearfully scolding, but he heard only one voice.
Svidrigaïlov got up, shaded the light with his hand and at once he saw
light through a crack in the wall; he went up and peeped through. The
room, which was somewhat larger than his, had two occupants. One of
them, a very curly-headed man with a red inflamed face, was standing
in the pose of an orator, without his coat, with his legs wide apart to
preserve his balance, and smiting himself on the breast. He reproached
the other with being a beggar, with having no standing whatever. He
declared that he had taken the other out of the gutter and he could turn
him out when he liked, and that only the finger of Providence sees it
all. The object of his reproaches was sitting in a chair, and had the
air of a man who wants dreadfully to sneeze, but can’t. He sometimes
turned sheepish and befogged eyes on the speaker, but obviously had not
the slightest idea what he was talking about and scarcely heard it. A
candle was burning down on the table; there were wine-glasses, a nearly
empty bottle of vodka, bread and cucumber, and glasses with the dregs
of stale tea. After gazing attentively at this, Svidrigaïlov turned away
indifferently and sat down on the bed.
The ragged attendant, returning with the tea, could not resist asking
him again whether he didn’t want anything more, and again receiving a
negative reply, finally withdrew. Svidrigaïlov made haste to drink a
glass of tea to warm himself, but could not eat anything. He began
to feel feverish. He took off his coat and, wrapping himself in the
blanket, lay down on the bed. He was annoyed. “It would have been better
to be well for the occasion,” he thought with a smile. The room was
close, the candle burnt dimly, the wind was roaring outside, he heard
a mouse scratching in the corner and the room smelt of mice and of
leather. He lay in a sort of reverie: one thought followed another. He
felt a longing to fix his imagination on something. “It must be a garden
under the window,” he thought. “There’s a sound of trees. How I dislike
the sound of trees on a stormy night, in the dark! They give one a
horrid feeling.” He remembered how he had disliked it when he passed
Petrovsky Park just now. This reminded him of the bridge over the Little
Neva and he felt cold again as he had when standing there. “I never have
liked water,” he thought, “even in a landscape,” and he suddenly smiled
again at a strange idea: “Surely now all these questions of taste and
comfort ought not to matter, but I’ve become more particular, like an
animal that picks out a special place... for such an occasion. I ought
to have gone into the Petrovsky Park! I suppose it seemed dark, cold,
ha-ha! As though I were seeking pleasant sensations!... By the way, why
haven’t I put out the candle?” he blew it out. “They’ve gone to bed next
door,” he thought, not seeing the light at the crack. “Well, now, Marfa
Petrovna, now is the time for you to turn up; it’s dark, and the very
time and place for you. But now you won’t come!”
He suddenly recalled how, an hour before carrying out his design on