Chapter V
‘Of course, I’ve been meaning lately to go to
Razumihin’s to ask for work, to ask him to get me lessons
or something …’ Raskolnikov thought, ‘but what help
can he be to me now? Suppose he gets me lessons,
suppose he shares his last farthing with me, if he has any
farthings, so that I could get some boots and make myself
tidy enough to give lessons … hm … Well and what then?
What shall I do with the few coppers I earn? That’s not
what I want now. It’s really absurd for me to go to
Razumihin….’
The question why he was now going to Razumihin
agitated him even more than he was himself aware; he
kept uneasily seeking for some sinister significance in this
apparently ordinary action.
‘Could I have expected to set it all straight and to find a
way out by means of Razumihin alone?’ he asked himself
in perplexity.
He pondered and rubbed his forehead, and, strange to
say, after long musing, suddenly, as if it were
spontaneously and by chance, a fantastic thought came
into his head.
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‘Hm … to Razumihin’s,’ he said all at once, calmly, as
though he had reached a final determination. ‘I shall go to
Razumihin’s of course, but … not now. I shall go to him
… on the next day after It, when It will be over and
everything will begin afresh….’
And suddenly he realised what he was thinking.
‘After It,’ he shouted, jumping up from the seat, ‘but is
It really going to happen? Is it possible it really will
happen?’ He left the seat, and went off almost at a run; he
meant to turn back, homewards, but the thought of going
home suddenly filled him with intense loathing; in that
hole, in that awful little cupboard of his, all this had for a
month past been growing up in him; and he walked on at
random.
His nervous shudder had passed into a fever that made
him feel shivering; in spite of the heat he felt cold. With a
kind of effort he began almost unconsciously, from some
inner craving, to stare at all the objects before him, as
though looking for something to distract his attention; but
he did not succeed, and kept dropping every moment into
brooding. When with a start he lifted his head again and
looked round, he forgot at once what he had just been
thinking about and even where he was going. In this way
he walked right across Vassilyevsky Ostrov, came out on
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to the Lesser Neva, crossed the bridge and turned towards
the islands. The greenness and freshness were at first restful
to his weary eyes after the dust of the town and the huge
houses that hemmed him in and weighed upon him. Here
there were no taverns, no stifling closeness, no stench. But
soon these new pleasant sensations passed into morbid
irritability. Sometimes he stood still before a brightly
painted summer villa standing among green foliage, he
gazed through the fence, he saw in the distance smartly
dressed women on the verandahs and balconies, and
children running in the gardens. The flowers especially
caught his attention; he gazed at them longer than at
anything. He was met, too, by luxurious carriages and by
men and women on horseback; he watched them with
curious eyes and forgot about them before they had
vanished from his sight. Once he stood still and counted
his money; he found he had thirty copecks. ‘Twenty to
the policeman, three to Nastasya for the letter, so I must
have given forty-seven or fifty to the Marmeladovs
yesterday,’ he thought, reckoning it up for some unknown
reason, but he soon forgot with what object he had taken
the money out of his pocket. He recalled it on passing an
eating-house or tavern, and felt that he was hungry….
Going into the tavern he drank a glass of vodka and ate a
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pie of some sort. He finished eating it as he walked away.
It was a long while since he had taken vodka and it had an
effect upon him at once, though he only drank a
wineglassful. His legs felt suddenly heavy and a great
drowsiness came upon him. He turned homewards, but
reaching Petrovsky Ostrov he stopped completely
exhausted, turned off the road into the bushes, sank down
upon the grass and instantly fell asleep.
In a morbid condition of the brain, dreams often have a
singular actuality, vividness, and extraordinary semblance
of reality. At times monstrous images are created, but the
setting and the whole picture are so truthlike and filled
with details so delicate, so unexpectedly, but so artistically
consistent, that the dreamer, were he an artist like Pushkin
or Turgenev even, could never have invented them in the
waking state. Such sick dreams always remain long in the
memory and make a powerful impression on the
overwrought and deranged nervous system.
Raskolnikov had a fearful dream. He dreamt he was
back in his childhood in the little town of his birth. He
was a child about seven years old, walking into the
country with his father on the evening of a holiday. It was
a grey and heavy day, the country was exactly as he
remembered it; indeed he recalled it far more vividly in
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his dream than he had done in memory. The little town
stood on a level flat as bare as the hand, not even a willow
near it; only in the far distance, a copse lay, a dark blur on
the very edge of the horizon. A few paces beyond the last
market garden stood a tavern, a big tavern, which had
always aroused in him a feeling of aversion, even of fear,
when he walked by it with his father. There was always a
crowd there, always shouting, laughter and abuse, hideous
hoarse singing and often fighting. Drunken and horriblelooking
figures were hanging about the tavern. He used to
cling close to his father, trembling all over when he met
them. Near the tavern the road became a dusty track, the
dust of which was always black. It was a winding road, and
about a hundred paces further on, it turned to the right to
the graveyard. In the middle of the graveyard stood a
stone church with a green cupola where he used to go to
mass two or three times a year with his father and mother,
when a service was held in memory of his grandmother,
who had long been dead, and whom he had never seen.
On these occasions they used to take on a white dish tied
up in a table napkin a special sort of rice pudding with
raisins stuck in it in the shape of a cross. He loved that
church, the old-fashioned, unadorned ikons and the old
priest with the shaking head. Near his grandmother’s
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grave, which was marked by a stone, was the little grave of
his younger brother who had died at six months old. He
did not remember him at all, but he had been told about
his little brother, and whenever he visited the graveyard he
used religiously and reverently to cross himself and to bow
down and kiss the little grave. And now he dreamt that he
was walking with his father past the tavern on the way to
the graveyard; he was holding his father’s hand and
looking with dread at the tavern. A peculiar circumstance
attracted his attention: there seemed to be some kind of
festivity going on, there were crowds of gaily dressed
townspeople, peasant women, their husbands, and riff-raff
of all sorts, all singing and all more or less drunk. Near the
entrance of the tavern stood a cart, but a strange cart. It
was one of those big carts usually drawn by heavy carthorses
and laden with casks of wine or other heavy goods.
He always liked looking at those great cart- horses, with
their long manes, thick legs, and slow even pace, drawing
along a perfect mountain with no appearance of effort, as
though it were easier going with a load than without it.
But now, strange to say, in the shafts of such a cart he saw
a thin little sorrel beast, one of those peasants’ nags which
he had often seen straining their utmost under a heavy
load of wood or hay, especially when the wheels were
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stuck in the mud or in a rut. And the peasants would beat
them so cruelly, sometimes even about the nose and eyes,
and he felt so sorry, so sorry for them that he almost cried,
and his mother always used to take him away from the
window. All of a sudden there was a great uproar of
shouting, singing and the balalaïka, and from the tavern a
number of big and very drunken peasants came out,
wearing red and blue shirts and coats thrown over their
shoulders.
‘Get in, get in!’ shouted one of them, a young thicknecked
peasant with a fleshy face red as a carrot. ‘I’ll take
you all, get in!’
But at once there was an outbreak of laughter and
exclamations in the crowd.
‘Take us all with a beast like that!’
‘Why, Mikolka, are you crazy to put a nag like that in
such a cart?’
‘And this mare is twenty if she is a day, mates!’
‘Get in, I’ll take you all,’ Mikolka shouted again,
leaping first into the cart, seizing the reins and standing
straight up in front. ‘The bay has gone with Matvey,’ he
shouted from the cart—‘and this brute, mates, is just
breaking my heart, I feel as if I could kill her. She’s just
eating her head off. Get in, I tell you! I’ll make her gallop!
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She’ll gallop!’ and he picked up the whip, preparing
himself with relish to flog the little mare.
‘Get in! Come along!’ The crowd laughed. ‘D’you
hear, she’ll gallop!’
‘Gallop indeed! She has not had a gallop in her for the
last ten years!’
‘She’ll jog along!’
‘Don’t you mind her, mates, bring a whip each of you,
get ready!’
‘All right! Give it to her!’
They all clambered into Mikolka’s cart, laughing and
making jokes. Six men got in and there was still room for
more. They hauled in a fat, rosy-cheeked woman. She was
dressed in red cotton, in a pointed, beaded headdress and
thick leather shoes; she was cracking nuts and laughing.
The crowd round them was laughing too and indeed, how
could they help laughing? That wretched nag was to drag
all the cartload of them at a gallop! Two young fellows in
the cart were just getting whips ready to help Mikolka.
With the cry of ‘now,’ the mare tugged with all her
might, but far from galloping, could scarcely move
forward; she struggled with her legs, gasping and shrinking
from the blows of the three whips which were showered
upon her like hail. The laughter in the cart and in the
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crowd was redoubled, but Mikolka flew into a rage and
furiously thrashed the mare, as though he supposed she
really could gallop.
‘Let me get in, too, mates,’ shouted a young man in the
crowd whose appetite was aroused.
‘Get in, all get in,’ cried Mikolka, ‘she will draw you
all. I’ll beat her to death!’ And he thrashed and thrashed at
the mare, beside himself with fury.
‘Father, father,’ he cried, ‘father, what are they doing?
Father, they are beating the poor horse!’
‘Come along, come along!’ said his father. ‘They are
drunken and foolish, they are in fun; come away, don’t
look!’ and he tried to draw him away, but he tore himself
away from his hand, and, beside himself with horror, ran
to the horse. The poor beast was in a bad way. She was
gasping, standing still, then tugging again and almost
falling.
‘Beat her to death,’ cried Mikolka, ‘it’s come to that.
I’ll do for her!’
‘What are you about, are you a Christian, you devil?’
shouted an old man in the crowd.
‘Did anyone ever see the like? A wretched nag like that
pulling such a cartload,’ said another.
‘You’ll kill her,’ shouted the third.
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‘Don’t meddle! It’s my property, I’ll do what I choose.
Get in, more of you! Get in, all of you! I will have her go
at a gallop! …’
All at once laughter broke into a roar and covered
everything: the mare, roused by the shower of blows,
began feebly kicking. Even the old man could not help
smiling. To think of a wretched little beast like that trying
to kick!
Two lads in the crowd snatched up whips and ran to
the mare to beat her about the ribs. One ran each side.
‘Hit her in the face, in the eyes, in the eyes,’ cried
Mikolka.
‘Give us a song, mates,’ shouted someone in the cart
and everyone in the cart joined in a riotous song, jingling
a tambourine and whistling. The woman went on
cracking nuts and laughing.
… He ran beside the mare, ran in front of her, saw her
being whipped across the eyes, right in the eyes! He was
crying, he felt choking, his tears were streaming. One of
the men gave him a cut with the whip across the face, he
did not feel it. Wringing his hands and screaming, he
rushed up to the grey-headed old man with the grey
beard, who was shaking his head in disapproval. One
woman seized him by the hand and would have taken him
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away, but he tore himself from her and ran back to the
mare. She was almost at the last gasp, but began kicking
once more.
‘I’ll teach you to kick,’ Mikolka shouted ferociously.
He threw down the whip, bent forward and picked up
from the bottom of the cart a long, thick shaft, he took
hold of one end with both hands and with an effort
brandished it over the mare.
‘He’ll crush her,’ was shouted round him. ‘He’ll kill
her!’
‘It’s my property,’ shouted Mikolka and brought the
shaft down with a swinging blow. There was a sound of a
heavy thud.
‘Thrash her, thrash her! Why have you stopped?’
shouted voices in the crowd.
And Mikolka swung the shaft a second time and it fell a
second time on the spine of the luckless mare. She sank
back on her haunches, but lurched forward and tugged
forward with all her force, tugged first on one side and
then on the other, trying to move the cart. But the six
whips were attacking her in all directions, and the shaft
was raised again and fell upon her a third time, then a
fourth, with heavy measured blows. Mikolka was in a fury
that he could not kill her at one blow.
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‘She’s a tough one,’ was shouted in the crowd.
‘She’ll fall in a minute, mates, there will soon be an end
of her,’ said an admiring spectator in the crowd.
‘Fetch an axe to her! Finish her off,’ shouted a third.
‘I’ll show you! Stand off,’ Mikolka screamed frantically;
he threw down the shaft, stooped down in the cart and
picked up an iron crowbar. ‘Look out,’ he shouted, and
with all his might he dealt a stunning blow at the poor
mare. The blow fell; the mare staggered, sank back, tried
to pull, but the bar fell again with a swinging blow on her
back and she fell on the ground like a log.
‘Finish her off,’ shouted Mikolka and he leapt beside
himself, out of the cart. Several young men, also flushed
with drink, seized anything they could come across—
whips, sticks, poles, and ran to the dying mare. Mikolka
stood on one side and began dealing random blows with
the crowbar. The mare stretched out her head, drew a
long breath and died.
‘You butchered her,’ someone shouted in the crowd.
‘Why wouldn’t she gallop then?’
‘My property!’ shouted Mikolka, with bloodshot eyes,
brandishing the bar in his hands. He stood as though
regretting that he had nothing more to beat.
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‘No mistake about it, you are not a Christian,’ many
voices were shouting in the crowd.
But the poor boy, beside himself, made his way,
screaming, through the crowd to the sorrel nag, put his
arms round her bleeding dead head and kissed it, kissed
the eyes and kissed the lips…. Then he jumped up and
flew in a frenzy with his little fists out at Mikolka. At that
instant his father, who had been running after him,
snatched him up and carried him out of the crowd.
‘Come along, come! Let us go home,’ he said to him.
‘Father! Why did they … kill … the poor horse!’ he
sobbed, but his voice broke and the words came in shrieks
from his panting chest.
‘They are drunk…. They are brutal … it’s not our
business!’ said his father. He put his arms round his father
but he felt choked, choked. He tried to draw a breath, to
cry out—and woke up.
He waked up, gasping for breath, his hair soaked with
perspiration, and stood up in terror.
‘Thank God, that was only a dream,’ he said, sitting
down under a tree and drawing deep breaths. ‘But what is
it? Is it some fever coming on? Such a hideous dream!’
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He felt utterly broken: darkness and confusion were in
his soul. He rested his elbows on his knees and leaned his
head on his hands.
‘Good God!’ he cried, ‘can it be, can it be, that I shall
really take an axe, that I shall strike her on the head, split
her skull open … that I shall tread in the sticky warm
blood, break the lock, steal and tremble; hide, all spattered
in the blood … with the axe…. Good God, can it be?’
He was shaking like a leaf as he said this.
‘But why am I going on like this?’ he continued, sitting
up again, as it were in profound amazement. ‘I knew that
I could never bring myself to it, so what have I been
torturing myself for till now? Yesterday, yesterday, when I
went to make that … experiment yesterday I realised
completely that I could never bear to do it…. Why am I
going over it again, then? Why am I hesitating? As I came
down the stairs yesterday, I said myself that it was base,
loathsome, vile, vile … the very thought of it made me
feel sick and filled me with horror.
‘No, I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t do it! Granted, granted
that there is no flaw in all that reasoning, that all that I
have concluded this last month is clear as day, true as
arithmetic…. My God! Anyway I couldn’t bring myself to
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it! I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t do it! Why, why then am I
still … ?’
He rose to his feet, looked round in wonder as though
surprised at finding himself in this place, and went towards
the bridge. He was pale, his eyes glowed, he was
exhausted in every limb, but he seemed suddenly to
breathe more easily. He felt he had cast off that fearful
burden that had so long been weighing upon him, and all
at once there was a sense of relief and peace in his soul.
‘Lord,’ he prayed, ‘show me my path—I renounce that
accursed … dream of mine.’
Crossing the bridge, he gazed quietly and calmly at the
Neva, at the glowing red sun setting in the glowing sky.
In spite of his weakness he was not conscious of fatigue. It
was as though an abscess that had been forming for a
month past in his heart had suddenly broken. Freedom,
freedom! He was free from that spell, that sorcery, that
obsession!
Later on, when he recalled that time and all that
happened to him during those days, minute by minute,
point by point, he was superstitiously impressed by one
circumstance, which, though in itself not very exceptional,
always seemed to him afterwards the predestined turningpoint
of his fate. He could never understand and explain
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to himself why, when he was tired and worn out, when it
would have been more convenient for him to go home by
the shortest and most direct way, he had returned by the
Hay Market where he had no need to go. It was obviously
and quite unnecessarily out of his way, though not much
so. It is true that it happened to him dozens of times to
return home without noticing what streets he passed
through. But why, he was always asking himself, why had
such an important, such a decisive and at the same time
such an absolutely chance meeting happened in the Hay
Market (where he had moreover no reason to go) at the
very hour, the very minute of his life when he was just in
the very mood and in the very circumstances in which
that meeting was able to exert the gravest and most
decisive influence on his whole destiny? As though it had
been lying in wait for him on purpose!
It was about nine o’clock when he crossed the Hay
Market. At the tables and the barrows, at the booths and
the shops, all the market people were closing their
establishments or clearing away and packing up their wares
and, like their customers, were going home. Rag pickers
and costermongers of all kinds were crowding round the
taverns in the dirty and stinking courtyards of the Hay
Market. Raskolnikov particularly liked this place and the
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neighbouring alleys, when he wandered aimlessly in the
streets. Here his rags did not attract contemptuous
attention, and one could walk about in any attire without
scandalising people. At the corner of an alley a huckster
and his wife had two tables set out with tapes, thread,
cotton handkerchiefs, etc. They, too, had got up to go
home, but were lingering in conversation with a friend,
who had just come up to them. This friend was Lizaveta
Ivanovna, or, as everyone called her, Lizaveta, the younger
sister of the old pawnbroker, Alyona Ivanovna, whom
Raskolnikov had visited the previous day to pawn his
watch and make his experiment…. He already knew all
about Lizaveta and she knew him a little too. She was a
single woman of about thirty-five, tall, clumsy, timid,
submissive and almost idiotic. She was a complete slave
and went in fear and trembling of her sister, who made
her work day and night, and even beat her. She was
standing with a bundle before the huckster and his wife,
listening earnestly and doubtfully. They were talking of
something with special warmth. The moment
Raskolnikov caught sight of her, he was overcome by a
strange sensation as it were of intense astonishment,
though there was nothing astonishing about this meeting.
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‘You could make up your mind for yourself, Lizaveta
Ivanovna,’ the huckster was saying aloud. ‘Come round
to-morrow about seven. They will be here too.’
‘To-morrow?’ said Lizaveta slowly and thoughtfully, as
though unable to make up her mind.
‘Upon my word, what a fright you are in of Alyona
Ivanovna,’ gabbled the huckster’s wife, a lively little
woman. ‘I look at you, you are like some little babe. And
she is not your own sister either-nothing but a step-sister
and what a hand she keeps over you!’
‘But this time don’t say a word to Alyona Ivanovna,’
her husband interrupted; ‘that’s my advice, but come
round to us without asking. It will be worth your while.
Later on your sister herself may have a notion.’
‘Am I to come?’
‘About seven o’clock to-morrow. And they will be
here. You will be able to decide for yourself.’
‘And we’ll have a cup of tea,’ added his wife.
‘All right, I’ll come,’ said Lizaveta, still pondering, and
she began slowly moving away.
Raskolnikov had just passed and heard no more. He
passed softly, unnoticed, trying not to miss a word. His
first amazement was followed by a thrill of horror, like a
shiver running down his spine. He had learnt, he had
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suddenly quite unexpectedly learnt, that the next day at
seven o’clock Lizaveta, the old woman’s sister and only
companion, would be away from home and that therefore
at seven o’clock precisely the old woman would be left
alone.
He was only a few steps from his lodging. He went in
like a man condemned to death. He thought of nothing
and was incapable of thinking; but he felt suddenly in his
whole being that he had no more freedom of thought, no
will, and that everything was suddenly and irrevocably
decided.
Certainly, if he had to wait whole years for a suitable
opportunity, he could not reckon on a more certain step
towards the success of the plan than that which had just
presented itself. In any case, it would have been difficult to
find out beforehand and with certainty, with greater
exactness and less risk, and without dangerous inquiries
and investigations, that next day at a certain time an old
woman, on whose life an attempt was contemplated,
would be at home and entirely alone.
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Chapter VI
Later on Raskolnikov happened to find out why the
huckster and his wife had invited Lizaveta. It was a very
ordinary matter and there was nothing exceptional about
it. A family who had come to the town and been reduced
to poverty were selling their household goods and clothes,
all women’s things. As the things would have fetched little
in the market, they were looking for a dealer. This was
Lizaveta’s business. She undertook such jobs and was
frequently employed, as she was very honest and always
fixed a fair price and stuck to it. She spoke as a rule little
and, as we have said already, she was very submissive and
timid.
But Raskolnikov had become superstitious of late. The
traces of superstition remained in him long after, and were
almost ineradicable. And in all this he was always
afterwards disposed to see something strange and
mysterious, as it were, the presence of some peculiar
influences and coincidences. In the previous winter a
student he knew called Pokorev, who had left for Harkov,
had chanced in conversation to give him the address of
Alyona Ivanovna, the old pawnbroker, in case he might
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want to pawn anything. For a long while he did not go to
her, for he had lessons and managed to get along
somehow. Six weeks ago he had remembered the address;
he had two articles that could be pawned: his father’s old
silver watch and a little gold ring with three red stones, a
present from his sister at parting. He decided to take the
ring. When he found the old woman he had felt an
insurmountable repulsion for her at the first glance,
though he knew nothing special about her. He got two
roubles from her and went into a miserable little tavern on
his way home. He asked for tea, sat down and sank into
deep thought. A strange idea was pecking at his brain like
a chicken in the egg, and very, very much absorbed him.
Almost beside him at the next table there was sitting a
student, whom he did not know and had never seen, and
with him a young officer. They had played a game of
billiards and began drinking tea. All at once he heard the
student mention to the officer the pawnbroker Alyona
Ivanovna and give him her address. This of itself seemed
strange to Raskolnikov; he had just come from her and
here at once he heard her name. Of course it was a
chance, but he could not shake off a very extraordinary
impression, and here someone seemed to be speaking
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expressly for him; the student began telling his friend
various details about Alyona Ivanovna.
‘She is first-rate,’ he said. ‘You can always get money
from her. She is as rich as a Jew, she can give you five
thousand roubles at a time and she is not above taking a
pledge for a rouble. Lots of our fellows have had dealings
with her. But she is an awful old harpy….’
And he began describing how spiteful and uncertain
she was, how if you were only a day late with your
interest the pledge was lost; how she gave a quarter of the
value of an article and took five and even seven percent a
month on it and so on. The student chattered on, saying
that she had a sister Lizaveta, whom the wretched little
creature was continually beating, and kept in complete
bondage like a small child, though Lizaveta was at least six
feet high.
‘There’s a phenomenon for you,’ cried the student and
he laughed.
They began talking about Lizaveta. The student spoke
about her with a peculiar relish and was continually
laughing and the officer listened with great interest and
asked him to send Lizaveta to do some mending for him.
Raskolnikov did not miss a word and learned everything
about her. Lizaveta was younger than the old woman and
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was her half-sister, being the child of a different mother.
She was thirty-five. She worked day and night for her
sister, and besides doing the cooking and the washing, she
did sewing and worked as a charwoman and gave her sister
all she earned. She did not dare to accept an order or job
of any kind without her sister’s permission. The old
woman had already made her will, and Lizaveta knew of
it, and by this will she would not get a farthing; nothing
but the movables, chairs and so on; all the money was left
to a monastery in the province of N——, that prayers
might be said for her in perpetuity. Lizaveta was of lower
rank than her sister, unmarried and awfully uncouth in
appearance, remarkably tall with long feet that looked as if
they were bent outwards. She always wore battered
goatskin shoes, and was clean in her person. What the
student expressed most surprise and amusement about was
the fact that Lizaveta was continually with child.
‘But you say she is hideous?’ observed the officer.
‘Yes, she is so dark-skinned and looks like a soldier
dressed up, but you know she is not at all hideous. She has
such a good-natured face and eyes. Strikingly so. And the
proof of it is that lots of people are attracted by her. She is
such a soft, gentle creature, ready to put up with anything,
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always willing, willing to do anything. And her smile is
really very sweet.’
‘You seem to find her attractive yourself,’ laughed the
officer.
‘From her queerness. No, I’ll tell you what. I could kill
that damned old woman and make off with her money, I
assure you, without the faintest conscience-prick,’ the
student added with warmth. The officer laughed again
while Raskolnikov shuddered. How strange it was!
‘Listen, I want to ask you a serious question,’ the
student said hotly. ‘I was joking of course, but look here;
on one side we have a stupid, senseless, worthless, spiteful,
ailing, horrid old woman, not simply useless but doing
actual mischief, who has not an idea what she is living for
herself, and who will die in a day or two in any case. You
understand? You understand?’
‘Yes, yes, I understand,’ answered the officer, watching
his excited companion attentively.
‘Well, listen then. On the other side, fresh young lives
thrown away for want of help and by thousands, on every
side! A hundred thousand good deeds could be done and
helped, on that old woman’s money which will be buried
in a monastery! Hundreds, thousands perhaps, might be set
on the right path; dozens of families saved from
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destitution, from ruin, from vice, from the Lock
hospitals—and all with her money. Kill her, take her
money and with the help of it devote oneself to the
service of humanity and the good of all. What do you
think, would not one tiny crime be wiped out by
thousands of good deeds? For one life thousands would be
saved from corruption and decay. One death, and a
hundred lives in exchange—it’s simple arithmetic! Besides,
what value has the life of that sickly, stupid, ill-natured old
woman in the balance of existence! No more than the life
of a louse, of a black-beetle, less in fact because the old
woman is doing harm. She is wearing out the lives of
others; the other day she bit Lizaveta’s finger out of spite;
it almost had to be amputated.’
‘Of course she does not deserve to live,’ remarked the
officer, ‘but there it is, it’s nature.’
‘Oh, well, brother, but we have to correct and direct
nature, and, but for that, we should drown in an ocean of
prejudice. But for that, there would never have been a
single great man. They talk of duty, conscience—I don’t
want to say anything against duty and conscience; —but
the point is, what do we mean by them. Stay, I have
another question to ask you. Listen!’
‘No, you stay, I’ll ask you a question. Listen!’
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‘Well?’
‘You are talking and speechifying away, but tell me,
would you kill the old woman yourself?’
‘Of course not! I was only arguing the justice of it….
It’s nothing to do with me….’
‘But I think, if you would not do it yourself, there’s no
justice about it…. Let us have another game.’
Raskolnikov was violently agitated. Of course, it was
all ordinary youthful talk and thought, such as he had
often heard before in different forms and on different
themes. But why had he happened to hear such a
discussion and such ideas at the very moment when his
own brain was just conceiving … the very same ideas? And
why, just at the moment when he had brought away the
embryo of his idea from the old woman had he dropped at
once upon a conversation about her? This coincidence
always seemed strange to him. This trivial talk in a tavern
had an immense influence on him in his later action; as
though there had really been in it something preordained,
some guiding hint….
*****
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On returning from the Hay Market he flung himself on
the sofa and sat for a whole hour without stirring.
Meanwhile it got dark; he had no candle and, indeed, it
did not occur to him to light up. He could never recollect
whether he had been thinking about anything at that time.
At last he was conscious of his former fever and shivering,
and he realised with relief that he could lie down on the
sofa. Soon heavy, leaden sleep came over him, as it were
crushing him.
He slept an extraordinarily long time and without
dreaming. Nastasya, coming into his room at ten o’clock
the next morning, had difficulty in rousing him. She
brought him in tea and bread. The tea was again the
second brew and again in her own tea-pot.
‘My goodness, how he sleeps!’ she cried indignantly.
‘And he is always asleep.’
He got up with an effort. His head ached, he stood up,
took a turn in his garret and sank back on the sofa again.
‘Going to sleep again,’ cried Nastasya. ‘Are you ill, eh?’
He made no reply.
‘Do you want some tea?’
‘Afterwards,’ he said with an effort, closing his eyes
again and turning to the wall.
Nastasya stood over him.
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‘Perhaps he really is ill,’ she said, turned and went out.
She came in again at two o’clock with soup. He was lying
as before. The tea stood untouched. Nastasya felt
positively offended and began wrathfully rousing him.
‘Why are you lying like a log?’ she shouted, looking at
him with repulsion.
He got up, and sat down again, but said nothing and
stared at the floor.
‘Are you ill or not?’ asked Nastasya and again received
no answer. ‘You’d better go out and get a breath of air,’
she said after a pause. ‘Will you eat it or not?’
‘Afterwards,’ he said weakly. ‘You can go.’
And he motioned her out.
She remained a little longer, looked at him with
compassion and went out.
A few minutes afterwards, he raised his eyes and looked
for a long while at the tea and the soup. Then he took the
bread, took up a spoon and began to eat.
He ate a little, three or four spoonfuls, without
appetite, as it were mechanically. His head ached less.
After his meal he stretched himself on the sofa again, but
now he could not sleep; he lay without stirring, with his
face in the pillow. He was haunted by day-dreams and
such strange day-dreams; in one, that kept recurring, he
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fancied that he was in Africa, in Egypt, in some sort of
oasis. The caravan was resting, the camels were peacefully
lying down; the palms stood all around in a complete
circle; all the party were at dinner. But he was drinking
water from a spring which flowed gurgling close by. And
it was so cool, it was wonderful, wonderful, blue, cold
water running among the parti-coloured stones and over
the clean sand which glistened here and there like gold….
Suddenly he heard a clock strike. He started, roused
himself, raised his head, looked out of the window, and
seeing how late it was, suddenly jumped up wide awake as
though someone had pulled him off the sofa. He crept on
tiptoe to the door, stealthily opened it and began listening
on the staircase. His heart beat terribly. But all was quiet
on the stairs as if everyone was asleep…. It seemed to him
strange and monstrous that he could have slept in such
forgetfulness from the previous day and had done nothing,
had prepared nothing yet…. And meanwhile perhaps it
had struck six. And his drowsiness and stupefaction were
followed by an extraordinary, feverish, as it were distracted
haste. But the preparations to be made were few. He
concentrated all his energies on thinking of everything and
forgetting nothing; and his heart kept beating and
thumping so that he could hardly breathe. First he had to
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make a noose and sew it into his overcoat—a work of a
moment. He rummaged under his pillow and picked out
amongst the linen stuffed away under it, a worn out, old
unwashed shirt. From its rags he tore a long strip, a couple
of inches wide and about sixteen inches long. He folded
this strip in two, took off his wide, strong summer
overcoat of some stout cotton material (his only outer
garment) and began sewing the two ends of the rag on the
inside, under the left armhole. His hands shook as he
sewed, but he did it successfully so that nothing showed
outside when he put the coat on again. The needle and
thread he had got ready long before and they lay on his
table in a piece of paper. As for the noose, it was a very
ingenious device of his own; the noose was intended for
the axe. It was impossible for him to carry the axe through
the street in his hands. And if hidden under his coat he
would still have had to support it with his hand, which
would have been noticeable. Now he had only to put the
head of the axe in the noose, and it would hang quietly
under his arm on the inside. Putting his hand in his coat
pocket, he could hold the end of the handle all the way,
so that it did not swing; and as the coat was very full, a
regular sack in fact, it could not be seen from outside that
he was holding something with the hand that was in the
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pocket. This noose, too, he had designed a fortnight
before.
When he had finished with this, he thrust his hand into
a little opening between his sofa and the floor, fumbled in
the left corner and drew out the pledge which he had got
ready long before and hidden there. This pledge was,
however, only a smoothly planed piece of wood the size
and thickness of a silver cigarette case. He picked up this
piece of wood in one of his wanderings in a courtyard
where there was some sort of a workshop. Afterwards he
had added to the wood a thin smooth piece of iron, which
he had also picked up at the same time in the street.
Putting the iron which was a little the smaller on the piece
of wood, he fastened them very firmly, crossing and recrossing
the thread round them; then wrapped them
carefully and daintily in clean white paper and tied up the
parcel so that it would be very difficult to untie it. This
was in order to divert the attention of the old woman for a
time, while she was trying to undo the knot, and so to
gain a moment. The iron strip was added to give weight,
so that the woman might not guess the first minute that
the ‘thing’ was made of wood. All this had been stored by
him beforehand under the sofa. He had only just got the
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pledge out when he heard someone suddenly about in the
yard.
‘It struck six long ago.’
‘Long ago! My God!’
He rushed to the door, listened, caught up his hat and
began to descend his thirteen steps cautiously, noiselessly,
like a cat. He had still the most important thing to do—to
steal the axe from the kitchen. That the deed must be
done with an axe he had decided long ago. He had also a
pocket pruning-knife, but he could not rely on the knife
and still less on his own strength, and so resolved finally on
the axe. We may note in passing, one peculiarity in regard
to all the final resolutions taken by him in the matter; they
had one strange characteristic: the more final they were,
the more hideous and the more absurd they at once
became in his eyes. In spite of all his agonising inward
struggle, he never for a single instant all that time could
believe in the carrying out of his plans.
And, indeed, if it had ever happened that everything to
the least point could have been considered and finally
settled, and no uncertainty of any kind had remained, he
would, it seems, have renounced it all as something
absurd, monstrous and impossible. But a whole mass of
unsettled points and uncertainties remained. As for getting
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the axe, that trifling business cost him no anxiety, for
nothing could be easier. Nastasya was continually out of
the house, especially in the evenings; she would run in to
the neighbours or to a shop, and always left the door ajar.
It was the one thing the landlady was always scolding her
about. And so, when the time came, he would only have
to go quietly into the kitchen and to take the axe, and an
hour later (when everything was over) go in and put it
back again. But these were doubtful points. Supposing he
returned an hour later to put it back, and Nastasya had
come back and was on the spot. He would of course have
to go by and wait till she went out again. But supposing
she were in the meantime to miss the axe, look for it,
make an outcry —that would mean suspicion or at least
grounds for suspicion.
But those were all trifles which he had not even begun
to consider, and indeed he had no time. He was thinking
of the chief point, and put off trifling details, until he could
believe in it all. But that seemed utterly unattainable. So it
seemed to himself at least. He could not imagine, for
instance, that he would sometime leave off thinking, get
up and simply go there…. Even his late experiment (i.e.
his visit with the object of a final survey of the place) was
simply an attempt at an experiment, far from being the real
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thing, as though one should say ‘come, let us go and try
it—why dream about it!’—and at once he had broken
down and had run away cursing, in a frenzy with himself.
Meanwhile it would seem, as regards the moral question,
that his analysis was complete; his casuistry had become
keen as a razor, and he could not find rational objections
in himself. But in the last resort he simply ceased to
believe in himself, and doggedly, slavishly sought
arguments in all directions, fumbling for them, as though
someone were forcing and drawing him to it.
At first—long before indeed—he had been much
occupied with one question; why almost all crimes are so
badly concealed and so easily detected, and why almost all
criminals leave such obvious traces? He had come
gradually to many different and curious conclusions, and
in his opinion the chief reason lay not so much in the
material impossibility of concealing the crime, as in the
criminal himself. Almost every criminal is subject to a
failure of will and reasoning power by a childish and
phenomenal heedlessness, at the very instant when
prudence and caution are most essential. It was his
conviction that this eclipse of reason and failure of will
power attacked a man like a disease, developed gradually
and reached its highest point just before the perpetration
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of the crime, continued with equal violence at the
moment of the crime and for longer or shorter time after,
according to the individual case, and then passed off like
any other disease. The question whether the disease gives
rise to the crime, or whether the crime from its own
peculiar nature is always accompanied by something of the
nature of disease, he did not yet feel able to decide.
When he reached these conclusions, he decided that in
his own case there could not be such a morbid reaction,
that his reason and will would remain unimpaired at the
time of carrying out his design, for the simple reason that
his design was ‘not a crime….’ We will omit all the
process by means of which he arrived at this last
conclusion; we have run too far ahead already…. We may
add only that the practical, purely material difficulties of
the affair occupied a secondary position in his mind. ‘One
has but to keep all one’s will-power and reason to deal
with them, and they will all be overcome at the time
when once one has familiarised oneself with the minutest
details of the business….’ But this preparation had never
been begun. His final decisions were what he came to
trust least, and when the hour struck, it all came to pass
quite differently, as it were accidentally and unexpectedly.
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