Part One · IV
His mother’s letter had tormented him. But as to the chief, the cardinal point, he had not had a moment’s doubt, even while he was still reading the letter. The chief essence of the matter was decided in his head, and decided once and for all: “This marriage will not happen while I live, and to the devil with Mr. Luzhin!”
“Because the thing is obvious,” he muttered to himself, grinning and spitefully triumphing in advance at the success of his decision. “No, Mama, no, Dunya, you won’t deceive me!… And they even apologize for not asking my advice and settling the matter without me! I should think so! They imagine it can’t be broken off now; well, we’ll see whether it can or can’t! And what a capital excuse: ‘Pyotr Petrovich is such a man of business, you see, such a man of business, that he can’t even get married except by post-chaise, almost by railroad.’ No, Dunechka, I see it all, and I know what it is you want to talk to me about so much; I know, too, what you were thinking about all night, pacing the room, and what you prayed about before the Kazan Mother of God that stands in Mama’s bedroom. It’s hard climbing up Golgotha. Hm… So it’s finally settled, then: you are pleased to marry a man of business and a rational man, Avdotya Romanovna, a man who has his own capital (who already has his own capital, that’s more solid, more imposing), who serves in two places and shares the convictions of our newest generations (as Mama writes) and ‘seems kind,’ as Dunechka herself remarks. That seems is the most magnificent of all! And this same Dunechka is marrying this same seems!… Magnificent! Magnificent!…
“…But it’s curious, though, why did Mama write to me about the ‘newest generations’? Simply to describe the man, or with a further aim: to win me over in Mr. Luzhin’s favor? Oh, the sly ones! It would be curious to clear up one more circumstance: how frank were they with each other, that day and that night and all the time afterward? Were all the words said straight out between them, or did both understand that each had the same thing in her heart and mind, so there was no point in saying it all aloud and letting things slip for nothing? Probably that is partly how it was; you can see it from the letter: to Mama he seemed abrupt, a little, and naive Mama went to Dunya with her remarks. And Dunya, of course, got angry and ‘answered with annoyance.’ I should think so! Who wouldn’t be infuriated, when the thing is clear without naive questions and when it has been decided that there’s nothing more to say? And why does she write to me: ‘Love Dunya, Rodya, for she loves you more than herself’? Isn’t it pangs of conscience secretly tormenting her, for having agreed to sacrifice her daughter to her son? ‘You are our trust, you are our everything!’ Oh, Mama!…” Spite was boiling up in him stronger and stronger, and if Mr. Luzhin had met him now, he would, it seems, have killed him!
“Hm, it’s true,” he went on, following the whirlwind of thoughts spinning in his head, “it’s true that you must ‘approach a man gradually and carefully, to find him out’; but Mr. Luzhin is clear. The main thing is, ‘a man of business, and seems kind’: no small matter, he’s taken on the luggage, he’s having the big trunk delivered at his own expense! Well, how could he not be kind? And the two of them, the bride and her mother, hire a peasant, in a cart covered with matting (I’ve traveled that way myself)! Never mind! It’s only ninety versts, ‘and from there we will ride very comfortably in third class,’ a thousand versts or so. And very sensible too: cut your coat according to your cloth; but you, Mr. Luzhin, what about you? She is your bride, after all… And you couldn’t have failed to know that the mother is borrowing in advance against her pension for the journey? Of course, what you have here is a joint commercial transaction, an enterprise for mutual profit and in equal shares, so the expenses are halved too; bread and salt together, but each his own tobacco, as the proverb says. And even here the man of business has cheated them a little: the luggage costs less than their fare, and it may well go for nothing. Can it be that the two of them don’t see it, or are they not noticing on purpose? And they’re pleased, pleased! And to think that these are only the blossoms, and the real fruit is still to come! Because what matters here: it isn’t the stinginess, the penny-pinching that matters, but the tone of it all. That is the tone to come after the marriage, a prophecy… And Mama, too, what is she splurging for? What will she arrive in Petersburg with? With three silver roubles, or with two ‘little notes,’ as that… old woman says… hm! What does she hope to live on in Petersburg afterward? For she has already managed to guess, for some reason, that she and Dunya cannot live together after the marriage, not even at first. The dear man must somehow have let it slip, shown himself for what he is, though Mama waves it away with both hands: ‘I will refuse myself,’ she says. So what is she counting on, then: on the hundred and twenty roubles of pension, less the deduction for the debt to Afanasy Ivanovich? She knits winter shawls there, and embroiders cuffs, ruining her old eyes. But the shawls add only twenty roubles a year to the hundred and twenty, I know that. So they’re counting on Mr. Luzhin’s noble feelings after all: ‘He’ll offer it himself, he’ll beg us to take it.’ Fat chance! And that is always how it goes with these beautiful Schilleresque souls: till the last moment they dress a man in peacock feathers, till the last moment they hope for the good and not the bad; and though they have a presentiment of the other side of the medal, nothing will make them say the real word to themselves beforehand; the mere thought makes them squirm; they wave the truth away with both hands, right up until the man they have dressed up makes fools of them with his own hand. It would be curious to know whether Mr. Luzhin has any decorations; I’ll bet he has the Anna in his buttonhole and wears it to dinners with contractors and merchants. Perhaps he’ll wear it to his wedding too! But the devil take him!…
“…Well, let it be Mama, God be with her, that’s just the way she is, but what about Dunya? Dunechka, my dear, I know you! You were already in your twentieth year the last time we saw each other: I understood your character then. Mama writes here that ‘Dunechka can bear a great deal.’ That I knew, ma’am. That I knew two and a half years ago, and for two and a half years since then I have been thinking about it, about precisely that, that ‘Dunechka can bear a great deal.’ If she could bear Mr. Svidrigailov, with all the consequences, then she really can bear a great deal. And now she has imagined, together with Mama, that she can bear Mr. Luzhin too, expounding his theory of the superiority of wives taken from destitution and owing everything to their husbands’ beneficence, and expounding it almost at their first meeting. Well, suppose he ‘let it slip,’ rational man though he is (so that perhaps he didn’t let it slip at all but meant precisely to make things clear as soon as possible), but Dunya, what about Dunya? The man is clear to her, and it’s the man she has to live with. Why, she would eat nothing but black bread and wash it down with water, but she would not sell her soul, she would not give up her moral freedom for comfort; she wouldn’t give it up for all of Schleswig-Holstein, let alone for Mr. Luzhin. No, Dunya was not like that, as far as I knew her, and… well, of course, she hasn’t changed now either!… What’s the use of talking! The Svidrigailovs are hard to bear! It’s hard to drag around the provinces all your life as a governess for two hundred roubles, but all the same I know that my sister would sooner go as a black slave to a planter, or as a Latvian to a Baltic German, than debase her spirit and her moral feeling by a bond with a man she does not respect and has nothing in common with—forever, for her own personal advantage alone! And even if Mr. Luzhin were made all of the purest gold or of one solid diamond, even then she would not agree to become Mr. Luzhin’s lawful concubine! Why is she agreeing now, then? What’s the trick? What’s the answer to the riddle? It’s clear: for herself, for her comfort, even to save herself from death, she will not sell herself, but for someone else she does sell herself! For someone dear, someone adored, she will sell herself! That’s what the whole trick comes to: for her brother, for her mother, she will sell herself! She will sell everything! Oh, in such a case we will even stifle our moral feeling; our freedom, our peace, even our conscience, all, all of it we will carry to the flea market. Let my life go to ruin! If only these beloved beings of ours are happy. More than that, we will invent our own casuistry, we will learn from the Jesuits, and for a while, perhaps, we will even set our own minds at rest, we will convince ourselves that this is necessary, really necessary for a good end. That is just how we are, and it is all as clear as day. It is clear that the one in play here, standing in the foreground, is none other than Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov. Well, of course, sir, his happiness can be secured, he can be kept at the university, made a partner in the office, his whole future provided for; perhaps he’ll be a rich man later on, honored, respected, and perhaps he will even end his life a famous man! And Mother? But this is Rodya, precious Rodya, her firstborn! Well, how could one not sacrifice even such a daughter for such a firstborn! Oh, dear and unjust hearts! What of it: here we may not even refuse Sonechka’s lot! Sonechka, Sonechka Marmeladova, eternal Sonechka, as long as the world stands! The sacrifice, the sacrifice, have you two measured it fully? Have you? Is it within your strength? Will it be of use? Is it reasonable? Do you know, Dunechka, that Sonechka’s lot is no fouler than the lot of living with Mr. Luzhin? ‘There can be no love here,’ Mama writes. And what if, besides love, there can be no respect either, and on the contrary there is already aversion, contempt, loathing, what then? Then it turns out that once again you will have to ‘keep up your cleanliness.’ Isn’t that so? Do you understand, do you understand what that cleanliness means? Do you understand that the Luzhin cleanliness is just the same as Sonechka’s cleanliness, and maybe even worse, fouler, baser, because you, Dunechka, are after all counting on some comfort to spare, while there it is simply a matter of dying of hunger! ‘That cleanliness costs dear, dear, Dunechka!’ Well, and if afterward it’s more than you can bear, will you repent? How much sorrow, grief, cursing, how many tears hidden from everyone, because you are not Marfa Petrovna, after all? And what will become of Mother then? Even now she is uneasy, tormented; and then, when she sees it all clearly? And of me?… What did you really think of me? I don’t want your sacrifice, Dunechka, I don’t want it, Mama! It won’t happen while I live, it won’t, it won’t! I do not accept it!”
He suddenly came to himself and stopped.
“It won’t happen? And what will you do to keep it from happening? Forbid it? And what right have you? What can you promise them in return, to have such a right? To devote your whole fate, your whole future to them, when you finish your course and get a post? We’ve heard that before, but that’s all by and by, and now? Something has to be done now, right now, do you understand that? And what are you doing now? You’re fleecing them. That money of theirs is borrowed against a hundred-rouble pension and pawned against the Svidrigailovs! How will you protect them from the Svidrigailovs, from Afanasy Ivanovich Vakhrushin, you future millionaire, you Zeus disposing of their fate? In ten years? Why, in ten years your mother will have gone blind from the shawls, and very likely from tears too; she will waste away from fasting; and your sister? Well, just imagine what may become of your sister in ten years, or during those ten years? Have you guessed?”
So he tormented and taunted himself with these questions, even with a kind of pleasure. All these questions, however, were not new, not sudden, but old, sore, long-standing. They had begun to torment him long ago and had worn his heart to shreds. Long, long ago all this present anguish of his had been conceived in him, had grown, accumulated, and lately had ripened and concentrated, taking the form of a terrible, wild, and fantastic question that tormented his heart and mind, irresistibly demanding to be resolved. And now his mother’s letter had suddenly struck him like a thunderbolt. Clearly, now he must not brood, not suffer passively, merely reasoning that the questions could not be resolved, but absolutely do something, and right away, and quickly. At all costs he must decide, on something at least, or…
“Or renounce life altogether!” he suddenly cried in a frenzy. “Obediently accept fate as it is, once and for all, and stifle everything in myself, renouncing every right to act, to live, and to love!”
“Do you understand, do you understand, my dear sir, what it means when there is no longer anywhere to go?” Marmeladov’s question of yesterday suddenly came back to him. “For every man must have somewhere at least he can go…”
Suddenly he started: one thought, also from yesterday, flashed through his head again. But he did not start because this thought had flashed through it. He knew, he had had a presentiment, that it would certainly “flash through,” and was already waiting for it; and this thought was not from yesterday at all. But the difference was that a month ago, and even yesterday, it had been only a dream, while now… now it had suddenly appeared not as a dream but in some new, menacing, and quite unfamiliar form, and he himself suddenly realized it… The blood pounded in his head, and everything went dark before his eyes.
He looked around hastily, he was searching for something. He wanted to sit down, and he was looking for a bench; he was walking along K—— Boulevard at the time. A bench could be seen ahead, a hundred paces or so away. He walked as fast as he could; but on the way he had a small adventure that for several minutes drew all his attention.
As he was looking out for the bench, he noticed a woman walking about twenty paces ahead of him, but at first he paid no more attention to her than to all the other objects that had flickered before him until then. It had happened to him many times already, for instance, to walk home and not remember at all the way he had gone, and he had grown used to walking like that. But there was something so strange about the woman walking ahead, and something that struck the eye from the very first glance, that little by little his attention began to fasten on her—at first reluctantly and almost with annoyance, and then more and more firmly. He suddenly wanted to understand what exactly was so strange about this woman. In the first place, she must be a very young girl, and she was walking in such heat bareheaded, without a parasol and without gloves, swinging her arms in a funny sort of way. She wore a silk dress, of some light stuff (“material,” as they say), but it too was somehow very oddly put on, barely fastened, and torn at the back at the waist, at the very top of the skirt; a whole strip had come away and was hanging and dangling. A small kerchief had been thrown around her bare neck, but it stuck out somehow crookedly and to one side. To crown it all, the girl walked unsteadily, stumbling and even reeling from side to side. This encounter finally aroused all Raskolnikov’s attention. He came up with the girl right by the bench, but on reaching it she simply dropped onto it, into the corner, threw her head back against the back of the bench, and closed her eyes, evidently from extreme exhaustion. Looking closely at her, he guessed at once that she was completely drunk. It was strange and wild to see such a thing. He even wondered whether he was mistaken. Before him was an extremely young little face, of sixteen, perhaps even only fifteen—small, fair, pretty, but all flushed and as if swollen. The girl seemed to understand very little by now; she had crossed one leg over the other, showing much more of it than she should, and by every sign was very poorly aware that she was in the street.
Raskolnikov did not sit down and did not want to leave, but stood before her in perplexity. This boulevard is always deserted, and now, after one o’clock and in such heat, there was almost no one there. And yet off to one side, about fifteen paces away, at the edge of the boulevard, a gentleman had stopped who, by every sign, would very much have liked to go up to the girl as well, with certain aims. He too had probably seen her from a distance and been catching up with her, but Raskolnikov had got in his way. He kept casting spiteful looks at him, trying, though, not to let him notice them, and was waiting impatiently for his turn, when the annoying ragamuffin would go away. The matter was plain. This gentleman was about thirty, thickset, fat, the picture of ruddy health, with pink lips and a little mustache, and very foppishly dressed. Raskolnikov grew terribly angry; he suddenly wanted to insult this fat dandy somehow. He left the girl for a moment and went up to the gentleman.
“Hey, you, Svidrigailov! What do you want here?” he shouted, clenching his fists and laughing with lips foaming with spite.
“What is the meaning of this?” the gentleman asked sternly, frowning and haughtily surprised.
“Clear off, that’s what!”
“How dare you, you scoundrel!…”
And he raised his riding crop. Raskolnikov rushed at him with his fists, without even reckoning that the thickset gentleman could have handled two like him. But at that moment someone seized him firmly from behind; a policeman stood between them.
“That’ll do, gentlemen, no fighting in public places, if you please. What do you want? Who are you?” he addressed Raskolnikov sternly, taking in his rags. Raskolnikov looked at him attentively. It was a gallant soldier’s face, with gray mustaches and side-whiskers, and with a sensible look.
“You’re just the man I need,” he cried, seizing him by the arm. “I’m a former student, Raskolnikov… You may as well know it too,” he turned to the gentleman. “And you come along, I’ll show you something…”
And, seizing the policeman by the arm, he dragged him toward the bench.
“Here, look, she’s completely drunk, she was walking along the boulevard just now: who knows what sort she is, but she doesn’t look like one who does it for a living. Most likely somebody got her drunk somewhere and took advantage of her… for the first time… you understand? and then just turned her out into the street like that. Look how her dress is torn, look how it’s been put on: somebody dressed her, she didn’t dress herself, and unskilled hands dressed her, a man’s. You can see that. And now look over here: that dandy I was about to fight just now, I don’t know him, I’ve never seen him before; but he too spotted her on the way, just now, drunk, not knowing what she’s doing, and now he is terribly eager to go up and get hold of her—since she’s in such a state—and take her off somewhere… And that’s surely how it is; believe me, I’m not mistaken. I saw myself how he was watching her and following her, only I got in his way, and now he’s just waiting for me to leave. There, he’s moved off a little now, he’s standing there as if he were rolling a cigarette… How can we keep her from him? How can we get her home—just think!”
The policeman understood and took it all in at once. The fat gentleman was clear enough, of course; there remained the girl. The old soldier bent over her to look at her more closely, and sincere compassion showed in his features.
“Ah, what a pity!” he said, shaking his head. “Still just like a child. Somebody took advantage of her, that’s just it. Listen, miss,” he began calling to her, “where do you live, if you please?” The girl opened her tired, bleary eyes, looked dully at her questioners, and waved them away.
“Listen,” said Raskolnikov, “here” (he rummaged in his pocket and pulled out twenty kopecks; he had them), “here, take a cab and tell him to deliver her to her address. If only we can find out the address!”
“Miss, eh, miss?” the policeman began again, having taken the money. “I’ll get you a cab right away and see you home myself. Where would you like to go? Eh? Where is it you live, if you please?”
“G’way!… pestering!…” the girl muttered and waved him away again.
“Ah, ah, that’s bad! Ah, the shame of it, miss, what a shame!” He shook his head again, reproachful, pitying, and indignant. “Now there’s a problem!” he turned to Raskolnikov, and at the same time, in passing, looked him over again from head to foot. He must have seemed strange to him too: in such rags, and handing out money himself!
“Was it far from here you found her?” he asked him.
“I told you: she was walking ahead of me, reeling, right here on the boulevard. As soon as she got to the bench, she just dropped down.”
“Ah, what shameful things there are in the world nowadays, Lord! Such a simple little thing, and drunk already! Somebody took advantage of her, that’s how it is! And look, the young lady’s little dress is torn… Ah, how vice has spread these days!… And perhaps she’s from a gentle family, some poor one… There are a lot of them like that nowadays. To look at, she seems delicately raised, just like a young lady,” and he bent over her again.
Perhaps he too had daughters growing up just like her—“just like young ladies, and delicately raised,” with the airs of well-bred girls and with all sorts of fashionable ways already picked up…
“The main thing,” Raskolnikov fussed, “is to keep her from that scoundrel! He’ll only abuse her some more! It’s plain as day what he wants; look at the scoundrel, he won’t go away!”
Raskolnikov spoke loudly and pointed straight at him. The man heard and was about to get angry again, but thought better of it and confined himself to a contemptuous glance. Then he slowly moved off another ten paces or so and stopped again. “Keeping her from him, that can be done, sir,” the noncommissioned officer answered thoughtfully. “Now if she’d only say where to take her, but as it is… Miss, eh, miss!” he bent over her again.
She suddenly opened her eyes wide, looked attentively, as if she had understood something, got up from the bench, and walked back the way she had come. “Pah, you shameless things, pestering!” she said, waving them away once more. She walked quickly, but still reeling badly. The dandy went after her, but along another path, never taking his eyes off her. “Don’t you worry, I won’t let him, sir,” the mustached man said resolutely, and set off after them. “Eh, how vice has spread these days!” he repeated aloud, sighing.
At that moment something seemed to sting Raskolnikov; in an instant he seemed to be turned completely around. “Listen, hey!” he shouted after the mustached man.
The man turned around.
“Leave it! What’s it to you? Drop it! Let him have his fun” (he pointed at the dandy). “What’s it to you?”
The policeman did not understand and stared at him wide-eyed. Raskolnikov laughed.
“Eh-eh!” said the old soldier, waving his hand, and went off after the dandy and the girl, probably taking Raskolnikov either for a madman or for something even worse.
“He’s carried off my twenty kopecks,” Raskolnikov said spitefully when he was left alone. “Well, let him take something from the other one too and let the girl go with him, and that will be the end of it… And why did I get mixed up in this, helping! Am I one to help? Have I any right to help? Let them swallow each other alive—what’s it to me? And how did I dare give away those twenty kopecks? Are they mine?”
In spite of these strange words, he felt very heavy at heart. He sat down on the abandoned bench. His thoughts were scattered… And in general it was hard for him to think about anything at all at that moment. He would have liked to sink into complete oblivion, forget everything, then wake up and begin all over again… “Poor girl!…” he said, looking at the empty corner of the bench. “She’ll come to, she’ll cry, then her mother will find out… First she’ll hit her, then she’ll whip her, painfully and shamefully, and maybe turn her out of the house… And if she doesn’t turn her out, the Darya Frantsevnas will sniff her out all the same, and my girl will start darting here and there… Then the hospital right away (that always happens to the ones who live with very respectable mothers and get up to mischief on the quiet), well, and then… then the hospital again… wine… taverns… and the hospital again… in two or three years, a wreck, and all told she’ll have lived only nineteen or eighteen years, sir… Haven’t I seen ones like that? And how did they get that way? Why, that’s just how they all got that way… Pah! Let it be! That’s how it should be, they say. A certain percentage, they say, has to go off every year… somewhere… to the devil, I suppose, to keep the rest fresh and not get in their way. A percentage! Splendid little words they have, really: so soothing, so scientific. Once you’ve said ‘a percentage,’ there’s nothing to worry about. Now if it were another word, well, then… it might be more disturbing… And what if Dunechka somehow falls into the percentage too!… If not this percentage, then another?…”
“But where am I going?” he suddenly thought. “Strange. I set out for some reason. As soon as I read the letter, I set out… To Vasilyevsky Island, to Razumikhin’s, that’s where I was going, now… I remember. But what for, though? And how did the idea of going to Razumikhin fly into my head just now? That’s remarkable.”
He marveled at himself. Razumikhin was one of his former comrades at the university. It was remarkable that Raskolnikov, while at the university, had had almost no friends, had kept aloof from everyone, visited no one, and received visitors with reluctance. Soon, however, everyone turned away from him too. In the general gatherings, in conversations, in amusements, in everything, he somehow took no part. He studied intensely, without sparing himself, and for this he was respected, but no one liked him. He was very poor and somehow haughtily proud and uncommunicative, as if he were hiding something. To some of his fellow students it seemed that he looked on all of them as children, from above, as if he had outstripped them all in development, in knowledge, and in convictions, and that he regarded their convictions and interests as something inferior.
With Razumikhin, though, for some reason he got along, that is, not exactly got along, but was more communicative with him, more open. With Razumikhin, however, it was impossible to be on any other terms. He was an unusually cheerful and sociable fellow, kind to the point of simplicity. Beneath this simplicity, however, there was depth and dignity as well. The best of his fellow students understood this, and they all loved him. He was far from stupid, though at times indeed a bit of a simpleton. His appearance was striking: tall, thin, always badly shaved, black-haired. Sometimes he made a row and was reputed to be very strong. Once, at night, in company, he knocked down with a single blow a guardian of the law twelve vershoks tall.1 He could drink endlessly, but he could also go without drinking at all; sometimes his pranks were downright impermissible, but he could also do without pranks altogether. Razumikhin was remarkable too in that no failures ever discouraged him and no bad circumstances, it seemed, could ever crush him. He could lodge on a rooftop if need be, endure hellish hunger and extraordinary cold. He was very poor and supported himself absolutely on his own, earning money by odd jobs of one kind or another. He knew no end of sources from which he could draw, by earning, of course. Once he did not heat his room at all for a whole winter and maintained that it was even more pleasant, because one sleeps better in the cold. At present he too had been obliged to leave the university, but not for long, and he was hurrying with all his might to set his affairs right so as to be able to go on. Raskolnikov had not been to see him for about four months, and Razumikhin did not even know where he lived. Once, about two months before, they had nearly met in the street, but Raskolnikov turned away and even crossed to the other side so that the other would not notice him. And Razumikhin, though he did notice him, walked past, not wishing to trouble his friend.
Notes
1. Russian heights were given in vershoks (1¾ inches) above a base of two arshins (4 feet 8 inches); twelve vershoks meant a man of about six foot four.