Kozel’s house was thirty yards away. Raskolnikov
walked behind, carefully holding Marmeladov’s head and
showing the way.
‘This way, this way! We must take him upstairs head
foremost. Turn round! I’ll pay, I’ll make it worth your
while,’ he muttered.
Katerina Ivanovna had just begun, as she always did at
every free moment, walking to and fro in her little room
from window to stove and back again, with her arms
folded across her chest, talking to herself and coughing. Of
late she had begun to talk more than ever to her eldest
girl, Polenka, a child of ten, who, though there was much
she did not understand, understood very well that her
mother needed her, and so always watched her with her
big clever eyes and strove her utmost to appear to
understand. This time Polenka was undressing her little
brother, who had been unwell all day and was going to
bed. The boy was waiting for her to take off his shirt,
which had to be washed at night. He was sitting straight
and motionless on a chair, with a silent, serious face, with
his legs stretched out straight before him —heels together
and toes turned out.
He was listening to what his mother was saying to his
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open eyes, just as all good little boys have to sit when they
are undressed to go to bed. A little girl, still younger,
dressed literally in rags, stood at the screen, waiting for her
turn. The door on to the stairs was open to relieve them a
little from the clouds of tobacco smoke which floated in
from the other rooms and brought on long terrible fits of
coughing in the poor, consumptive woman. Katerina
Ivanovna seemed to have grown even thinner during that
week and the hectic flush on her face was brighter than
ever.
‘You wouldn’t believe, you can’t imagine, Polenka,’
she said, walking about the room, ‘what a happy luxurious
life we had in my papa’s house and how this drunkard has
brought me, and will bring you all, to ruin! Papa was a
civil colonel and only a step from being a governor; so
that everyone who came to see him said, ‘We look upon
you, Ivan Mihailovitch, as our governor!’ When I …
when …’ she coughed violently, ‘oh, cursed life,’ she
cried, clearing her throat and pressing her hands to her
breast, ‘when I … when at the last ball … at the marshal’s
… Princess Bezzemelny saw me—who gave me the
blessing when your father and I were married, Polenka—
she asked at once ‘Isn’t that the pretty girl who danced the
shawl dance at the breaking-up?’ (You must mend that
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tear, you must take your needle and darn it as I showed
you, or to-morrow—cough, cough, cough—he will make
the hole bigger,’ she articulated with effort.) ‘Prince
Schegolskoy, a kammerjunker, had just come from
Petersburg then … he danced the mazurka with me and
wanted to make me an offer next day; but I thanked him
in flattering expressions and told him that my heart had
long been another’s. That other was your father, Polya;
papa was fearfully angry…. Is the water ready? Give me
the shirt, and the stockings! Lida,’ said she to the youngest
one, ‘you must manage without your chemise to-night …
and lay your stockings out with it … I’ll wash them
together…. How is it that drunken vagabond doesn’t
come in? He has worn his shirt till it looks like a dishclout,
he has torn it to rags! I’d do it all together, so as not
to have to work two nights running! Oh, dear! (Cough,
cough, cough, cough!) Again! What’s this?’ she cried,
noticing a crowd in the passage and the men, who were
pushing into her room, carrying a burden. ‘What is it?
What are they bringing? Mercy on us!’
‘Where are we to put him?’ asked the policeman,
looking round when Marmeladov, unconscious and
covered with blood, had been carried in.
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‘On the sofa! Put him straight on the sofa, with his
head this way,’ Raskolnikov showed him.
‘Run over in the road! Drunk!’ someone shouted in
the passage.
Katerina Ivanovna stood, turning white and gasping for
breath. The children were terrified. Little Lida screamed,
rushed to Polenka and clutched at her, trembling all over.
Having laid Marmeladov down, Raskolnikov flew to
Katerina Ivanovna.
‘For God’s sake be calm, don’t be frightened!’ he said,
speaking quickly, ‘he was crossing the road and was run
over by a carriage, don’t be frightened, he will come to, I
told them bring him here … I’ve been here already, you
remember? He will come to; I’ll pay!’
‘He’s done it this time!’ Katerina Ivanovna cried
despairingly and she rushed to her husband.
Raskolnikov noticed at once that she was not one of
those women who swoon easily. She instantly placed
under the luckless man’s head a pillow, which no one had
thought of and began undressing and examining him. She
kept her head, forgetting herself, biting her trembling lips
and stifling the screams which were ready to break from
her.
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Raskolnikov meanwhile induced someone to run for a
doctor. There was a doctor, it appeared, next door but
one.
‘I’ve sent for a doctor,’ he kept assuring Katerina
Ivanovna, ‘don’t be uneasy, I’ll pay. Haven’t you water?
… and give me a napkin or a towel, anything, as quick as
you can…. He is injured, but not killed, believe me….
We shall see what the doctor says!’
Katerina Ivanovna ran to the window; there, on a
broken chair in the corner, a large earthenware basin full
of water had been stood, in readiness for washing her
children’s and husband’s linen that night. This washing
was done by Katerina Ivanovna at night at least twice a
week, if not oftener. For the family had come to such a
pass that they were practically without change of linen,
and Katerina Ivanovna could not endure uncleanliness
and, rather than see dirt in the house, she preferred to
wear herself out at night, working beyond her strength
when the rest were asleep, so as to get the wet linen hung
on a line and dry by the morning. She took up the basin
of water at Raskolnikov’s request, but almost fell down
with her burden. But the latter had already succeeded in
finding a towel, wetted it and began washing the blood off
Marmeladov’s face.
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Katerina Ivanovna stood by, breathing painfully and
pressing her hands to her breast. She was in need of
attention herself. Raskolnikov began to realise that he
might have made a mistake in having the injured man
brought here. The policeman, too, stood in hesitation.
‘Polenka,’ cried Katerina Ivanovna, ‘run to Sonia, make
haste. If you don’t find her at home, leave word that her
father has been run over and that she is to come here at
once … when she comes in. Run, Polenka! there, put on
the shawl.’
‘Run your fastest!’ cried the little boy on the chair
suddenly, after which he relapsed into the same dumb
rigidity, with round eyes, his heels thrust forward and his
toes spread out.
Meanwhile the room had become so full of people that
you couldn’t have dropped a pin. The policemen left, all
except one, who remained for a time, trying to drive out
the people who came in from the stairs. Almost all
Madame Lippevechsel’s lodgers had streamed in from the
inner rooms of the flat; at first they were squeezed
together in the doorway, but afterwards they overflowed
into the room. Katerina Ivanovna flew into a fury.
‘You might let him die in peace, at least,’ she shouted
at the crowd, ‘is it a spectacle for you to gape at? With
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cigarettes! (Cough, cough, cough!) You might as well
keep your hats on…. And there is one in his hat! … Get
away! You should respect the dead, at least!’
Her cough choked her—but her reproaches were not
without result. They evidently stood in some awe of
Katerina Ivanovna. The lodgers, one after another,
squeezed back into the doorway with that strange inner
feeling of satisfaction which may be observed in the
presence of a sudden accident, even in those nearest and
dearest to the victim, from which no living man is
exempt, even in spite of the sincerest sympathy and
compassion.
Voices outside were heard, however, speaking of the
hospital and saying that they’d no business to make a
disturbance here.
‘No business to die!’ cried Katerina Ivanovna, and she
was rushing to the door to vent her wrath upon them, but
in the doorway came face to face with Madame
Lippevechsel who had only just heard of the accident and
ran in to restore order. She was a particularly quarrelsome
and irresponsible German.
‘Ah, my God!’ she cried, clasping her hands, ‘your
husband drunken horses have trampled! To the hospital
with him! I am the landlady!’
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‘Amalia Ludwigovna, I beg you to recollect what you
are saying,’ Katerina Ivanovna began haughtily (she always
took a haughty tone with the landlady that she might
‘remember her place’ and even now could not deny
herself this satisfaction). ‘Amalia Ludwigovna …’
‘I have you once before told that you to call me Amalia
Ludwigovna may not dare; I am Amalia Ivanovna.’
‘You are not Amalia Ivanovna, but Amalia
Ludwigovna, and as I am not one of your despicable
flatterers like Mr. Lebeziatnikov, who’s laughing behind
the door at this moment (a laugh and a cry of ‘they are at
it again’ was in fact audible at the door) so I shall always
call you Amalia Ludwigovna, though I fail to understand
why you dislike that name. You can see for yourself what
has happened to Semyon Zaharovitch; he is dying. I beg
you to close that door at once and to admit no one. Let
him at least die in peace! Or I warn you the Governor-
General, himself, shall be informed of your conduct tomorrow.
The prince knew me as a girl; he remembers
Semyon Zaharovitch well and has often been a benefactor
to him. Everyone knows that Semyon Zaharovitch had
many friends and protectors, whom he abandoned himself
from an honourable pride, knowing his unhappy
weakness, but now (she pointed to Raskolnikov) a
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generous young man has come to our assistance, who has
wealth and connections and whom Semyon Zaharovitch
has known from a child. You may rest assured, Amalia
Ludwigovna …’
All this was uttered with extreme rapidity, getting
quicker and quicker, but a cough suddenly cut short
Katerina Ivanovna’s eloquence. At that instant the dying
man recovered consciousness and uttered a groan; she ran
to him. The injured man opened his eyes and without
recognition or understanding gazed at Raskolnikov who
was bending over him. He drew deep, slow, painful
breaths; blood oozed at the corners of his mouth and drops
of perspiration came out on his forehead. Not recognising
Raskolnikov, he began looking round uneasily. Katerina
Ivanovna looked at him with a sad but stern face, and tears
trickled from her eyes.
‘My God! His whole chest is crushed! How he is
bleeding,’ she said in despair. ‘We must take off his
clothes. Turn a little, Semyon Zaharovitch, if you can,’
she cried to him.
Marmeladov recognised her.
‘A priest,’ he articulated huskily.
Katerina Ivanovna walked to the window, laid her head
against the window frame and exclaimed in despair:
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‘Oh, cursed life!’
‘A priest,’ the dying man said again after a moment’s
silence.
‘They’ve gone for him,’ Katerina Ivanovna shouted to
him, he obeyed her shout and was silent. With sad and
timid eyes he looked for her; she returned and stood by
his pillow. He seemed a little easier but not for long.
Soon his eyes rested on little Lida, his favourite, who
was shaking in the corner, as though she were in a fit, and
staring at him with her wondering childish eyes.
‘A-ah,’ he signed towards her uneasily. He wanted to
say something.
‘What now?’ cried Katerina Ivanovna.
‘Barefoot, barefoot!’ he muttered, indicating with
frenzied eyes the child’s bare feet.
‘Be silent,’ Katerina Ivanovna cried irritably, ‘you know
why she is barefooted.’
‘Thank God, the doctor,’ exclaimed Raskolnikov,
relieved.
The doctor came in, a precise little old man, a German,
looking about him mistrustfully; he went up to the sick
man, took his pulse, carefully felt his head and with the
help of Katerina Ivanovna he unbuttoned the bloodstained
shirt, and bared the injured man’s chest. It was
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gashed, crushed and fractured, several ribs on the right side
were broken. On the left side, just over the heart, was a
large, sinister-looking yellowish-black bruise—a cruel kick
from the horse’s hoof. The doctor frowned. The
policeman told him that he was caught in the wheel and
turned round with it for thirty yards on the road.
‘It’s wonderful that he has recovered consciousness,’ the
doctor whispered softly to Raskolnikov.
‘What do you think of him?’ he asked.
‘He will die immediately.’
‘Is there really no hope?’
‘Not the faintest! He is at the last gasp…. His head is
badly injured, too … Hm … I could bleed him if you
like, but … it would be useless. He is bound to die within
the next five or ten minutes.’
‘Better bleed him then.’
‘If you like…. But I warn you it will be perfectly
useless.’
At that moment other steps were heard; the crowd in
the passage parted, and the priest, a little, grey old man,
appeared in the doorway bearing the sacrament. A
policeman had gone for him at the time of the accident.
The doctor changed places with him, exchanging glances
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with him. Raskolnikov begged the doctor to remain a
little while. He shrugged his shoulders and remained.
All stepped back. The confession was soon over. The
dying man probably understood little; he could only utter
indistinct broken sounds. Katerina Ivanovna took little
Lida, lifted the boy from the chair, knelt down in the
corner by the stove and made the children kneel in front
of her. The little girl was still trembling; but the boy,
kneeling on his little bare knees, lifted his hand
rhythmically, crossing himself with precision and bowed
down, touching the floor with his forehead, which seemed
to afford him especial satisfaction. Katerina Ivanovna bit
her lips and held back her tears; she prayed, too, now and
then pulling straight the boy’s shirt, and managed to cover
the girl’s bare shoulders with a kerchief, which she took
from the chest without rising from her knees or ceasing to
pray. Meanwhile the door from the inner rooms was
opened inquisitively again. In the passage the crowd of
spectators from all the flats on the staircase grew denser
and denser, but they did not venture beyond the
threshold. A single candle-end lighted up the scene.
At that moment Polenka forced her way through the
crowd at the door. She came in panting from running so
fast, took off her kerchief, looked for her mother, went up
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to her and said, ‘She’s coming, I met her in the street.’
Her mother made her kneel beside her.
Timidly and noiselessly a young girl made her way
through the crowd, and strange was her appearance in that
room, in the midst of want, rags, death and despair. She,
too, was in rags, her attire was all of the cheapest, but
decked out in gutter finery of a special stamp,
unmistakably betraying its shameful purpose. Sonia
stopped short in the doorway and looked about her
bewildered, unconscious of everything. She forgot her
fourth-hand, gaudy silk dress, so unseemly here with its
ridiculous long train, and her immense crinoline that filled
up the whole doorway, and her light-coloured shoes, and
the parasol she brought with her, though it was no use at
night, and the absurd round straw hat with its flaring
flame-coloured feather. Under this rakishly-tilted hat was a
pale, frightened little face with lips parted and eyes staring
in terror. Sonia was a small thin girl of eighteen with fair
hair, rather pretty, with wonderful blue eyes. She looked
intently at the bed and the priest; she too was out of
breath with running. At last whispers, some words in the
crowd probably, reached her. She looked down and took
a step forward into the room, still keeping close to the
door.
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The service was over. Katerina Ivanovna went up to
her husband again. The priest stepped back and turned to
say a few words of admonition and consolation to Katerina
Ivanovna on leaving.
‘What am I to do with these?’ she interrupted sharply
and irritably, pointing to the little ones.
‘God is merciful; look to the Most High for succour,’
the priest began.
‘Ach! He is merciful, but not to us.’
‘That’s a sin, a sin, madam,’ observed the priest, shaking
his head.
‘And isn’t that a sin?’ cried Katerina Ivanovna, pointing
to the dying man.
‘Perhaps those who have involuntarily caused the
accident will agree to compensate you, at least for the loss
of his earnings.’
‘You don’t understand!’ cried Katerina Ivanovna
angrily waving her hand. ‘And why should they
compensate me? Why, he was drunk and threw himself
under the horses! What earnings? He brought us in
nothing but misery. He drank everything away, the
drunkard! He robbed us to get drink, he wasted their lives
and mine for drink! And thank God he’s dying! One less
to keep!’
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‘You must forgive in the hour of death, that’s a sin,
madam, such feelings are a great sin.’
Katerina Ivanovna was busy with the dying man; she
was giving him water, wiping the blood and sweat from
his head, setting his pillow straight, and had only turned
now and then for a moment to address the priest. Now
she flew at him almost in a frenzy.
‘Ah, father! That’s words and only words! Forgive! If
he’d not been run over, he’d have come home to-day
drunk and his only shirt dirty and in rags and he’d have
fallen asleep like a log, and I should have been sousing and
rinsing till daybreak, washing his rags and the children’s
and then drying them by the window and as soon as it was
daylight I should have been darning them. That’s how I
spend my nights! … What’s the use of talking of
forgiveness! I have forgiven as it is!’
A terrible hollow cough interrupted her words. She put
her handkerchief to her lips and showed it to the priest,
pressing her other hand to her aching chest. The
handkerchief was covered with blood. The priest bowed
his head and said nothing.
Marmeladov was in the last agony; he did not take his
eyes off the face of Katerina Ivanovna, who was bending
over him again. He kept trying to say something to her;
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he began moving his tongue with difficulty and
articulating indistinctly, but Katerina Ivanovna,
understanding that he wanted to ask her forgiveness, called
peremptorily to him:
‘Be silent! No need! I know what you want to say!’
And the sick man was silent, but at the same instant his
wandering eyes strayed to the doorway and he saw Sonia.
Till then he had not noticed her: she was standing in
the shadow in a corner.
‘Who’s that? Who’s that?’ he said suddenly in a thick
gasping voice, in agitation, turning his eyes in horror
towards the door where his daughter was standing, and
trying to sit up.
‘Lie down! Lie do-own!’ cried Katerina Ivanovna.
With unnatural strength he had succeeded in propping
himself on his elbow. He looked wildly and fixedly for
some time on his daughter, as though not recognising her.
He had never seen her before in such attire. Suddenly he
recognised her, crushed and ashamed in her humiliation
and gaudy finery, meekly awaiting her turn to say goodbye
to her dying father. His face showed intense suffering.
‘Sonia! Daughter! Forgive!’ he cried, and he tried to
hold out his hand to her, but losing his balance, he fell off
the sofa, face downwards on the floor. They rushed to
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pick him up, they put him on the sofa; but he was dying.
Sonia with a faint cry ran up, embraced him and remained
so without moving. He died in her arms.
‘He’s got what he wanted,’ Katerina Ivanovna cried,
seeing her husband’s dead body. ‘Well, what’s to be done
now? How am I to bury him! What can I give them tomorrow
to eat?’
Raskolnikov went up to Katerina Ivanovna.
‘Katerina Ivanovna,’ he began, ‘last week your husband
told me all his life and circumstances…. Believe me, he
spoke of you with passionate reverence. From that
evening, when I learnt how devoted he was to you all and
how he loved and respected you especially, Katerina
Ivanovna, in spite of his unfortunate weakness, from that
evening we became friends…. Allow me now … to do
something … to repay my debt to my dead friend. Here
are twenty roubles, I think—and if that can be of any
assistance to you, then … I … in short, I will come again,
I will be sure to come again … I shall, perhaps, come
again to-morrow…. Good-bye!’
And he went quickly out of the room, squeezing his
way through the crowd to the stairs. But in the crowd he
suddenly jostled against Nikodim Fomitch, who had heard
of the accident and had come to give instructions in
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person. They had not met since the scene at the police
station, but Nikodim Fomitch knew him instantly.
‘Ah, is that you?’ he asked him.
‘He’s dead,’ answered Raskolnikov. ‘The doctor and
the priest have been, all as it should have been. Don’t
worry the poor woman too much, she is in consumption
as it is. Try and cheer her up, if possible … you are a
kind-hearted man, I know …’ he added with a smile,
looking straight in his face.
‘But you are spattered with blood,’ observed Nikodim
Fomitch, noticing in the lamplight some fresh stains on
Raskolnikov’s waistcoat.
‘Yes … I’m covered with blood,’ Raskolnikov said
with a peculiar air; then he smiled, nodded and went
downstairs.
He walked down slowly and deliberately, feverish but
not conscious of it, entirely absorbed in a new
overwhelming sensation of life and strength that surged up
suddenly within him. This sensation might be compared
to that of a man condemned to death who has suddenly
been pardoned. Halfway down the staircase he was
overtaken by the priest on his way home; Raskolnikov let
him pass, exchanging a silent greeting with him. He was
just descending the last steps when he heard rapid footsteps
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behind him. someone overtook him; it was Polenka. She
was running after him, calling ‘Wait! wait!’
He turned round. She was at the bottom of the
staircase and stopped short a step above him. A dim light
came in from the yard. Raskolnikov could distinguish the
child’s thin but pretty little face, looking at him with a
bright childish smile. She had run after him with a message
which she was evidently glad to give.
‘Tell me, what is your name? … and where do you
live?’ she said hurriedly in a breathless voice.
He laid both hands on her shoulders and looked at her
with a sort of rapture. It was such a joy to him to look at
her, he could not have said why.
‘Who sent you?’
‘Sister Sonia sent me,’ answered the girl, smiling still
more brightly.
‘I knew it was sister Sonia sent you.’
‘Mamma sent me, too … when sister Sonia was
sending me, mamma came up, too, and said ‘Run fast,
Polenka.’’
‘Do you love sister Sonia?’
‘I love her more than anyone,’ Polenka answered with
a peculiar earnestness, and her smile became graver.
‘And will you love me?’
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By way of answer he saw the little girl’s face
approaching him, her full lips naïvely held out to kiss him.
Suddenly her arms as thin as sticks held him tightly, her
head rested on his shoulder and the little girl wept softly,
pressing her face against him.
‘I am sorry for father,’ she said a moment later, raising
her tear- stained face and brushing away the tears with her
hands. ‘It’s nothing but misfortunes now,’ she added
suddenly with that peculiarly sedate air which children try
hard to assume when they want to speak like grown-up
people.
‘Did your father love you?’
‘He loved Lida most,’ she went on very seriously
without a smile, exactly like grown-up people, ‘he loved
her because she is little and because she is ill, too. And he
always used to bring her presents. But he taught us to read
and me grammar and scripture, too,’ she added with
dignity. ‘And mother never used to say anything, but we
knew that she liked it and father knew it, too. And mother
wants to teach me French, for it’s time my education
began.’
‘And do you know your prayers?’
‘Of course, we do! We knew them long ago. I say my
prayers to myself as I am a big girl now, but Kolya and
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Lida say them aloud with mother. First they repeat the
‘Ave Maria’ and then another prayer: ‘Lord, forgive and
bless sister Sonia,’ and then another, ‘Lord, forgive and
bless our second father.’ For our elder father is dead and
this is another one, but we do pray for the other as well.’
‘Polenka, my name is Rodion. Pray sometimes for me,
too. ‘And Thy servant Rodion,’ nothing more.’
‘I’ll pray for you all the rest of my life,’ the little girl
declared hotly, and suddenly smiling again she rushed at
him and hugged him warmly once more.
Raskolnikov told her his name and address and
promised to be sure to come next day. The child went
away quite enchanted with him. It was past ten when he
came out into the street. In five minutes he was standing
on the bridge at the spot where the woman had jumped
in.
‘Enough,’ he pronounced resolutely and triumphantly.
‘I’ve done with fancies, imaginary terrors and phantoms!
Life is real! haven’t I lived just now? My life has not yet
died with that old woman! The Kingdom of Heaven to
her—and now enough, madam, leave me in peace! Now
for the reign of reason and light … and of will, and of
strength … and now we will see! We will try our
strength!’ he added defiantly, as though challenging some
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power of darkness. ‘And I was ready to consent to live in a
square of space!
‘I am very weak at this moment, but … I believe my
illness is all over. I knew it would be over when I went
out. By the way, Potchinkov’s house is only a few steps
away. I certainly must go to Razumihin even if it were
not close by … let him win his bet! Let us give him some
satisfaction, too—no matter! Strength, strength is what one
wants, you can get nothing without it, and strength must
be won by strength—that’s what they don’t know,’ he
added proudly and self-confidently and he walked with
flagging footsteps from the bridge. Pride and selfconfidence
grew continually stronger in him; he was
becoming a different man every moment. What was it had
happened to work this revolution in him? He did not
know himself; like a man catching at a straw, he suddenly
felt that he, too, ‘could live, that there was still life for
him, that his life had not died with the old woman.’
Perhaps he was in too great a hurry with his conclusions,
but he did not think of that.
‘But I did ask her to remember ‘Thy servant Rodion’
in her prayers,’ the idea struck him. ‘Well, that was … in
case of emergency,’ he added and laughed himself at his
boyish sally. He was in the best of spirits.
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He easily found Razumihin; the new lodger was
already known at Potchinkov’s and the porter at once
showed him the way. Half-way upstairs he could hear the
noise and animated conversation of a big gathering of
people. The door was wide open on the stairs; he could
hear exclamations and discussion. Razumihin’s room was
fairly large; the company consisted of fifteen people.
Raskolnikov stopped in the entry, where two of the
landlady’s servants were busy behind a screen with two
samovars, bottles, plates and dishes of pie and savouries,
brought up from the landlady’s kitchen. Raskolnikov sent
in for Razumihin. He ran out delighted. At the first glance
it was apparent that he had had a great deal to drink and,
though no amount of liquor made Razumihin quite
drunk, this time he was perceptibly affected by it.
‘Listen,’ Raskolnikov hastened to say, ‘I’ve only just
come to tell you you’ve won your bet and that no one
really knows what may not happen to him. I can’t come
in; I am so weak that I shall fall down directly. And so
good evening and good-bye! Come and see me tomorrow.’
‘Do you know what? I’ll see you home. If you say
you’re weak yourself, you must …’
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‘And your visitors? Who is the curly-headed one who
has just peeped out?’
‘He? Goodness only knows! Some friend of uncle’s, I
expect, or perhaps he has come without being invited …
I’ll leave uncle with them, he is an invaluable person, pity
I can’t introduce you to him now. But confound them all
now! They won’t notice me, and I need a little fresh air,
for you’ve come just in the nick of time—another two
minutes and I should have come to blows! They are
talking such a lot of wild stuff … you simply can’t imagine
what men will say! Though why shouldn’t you imagine?
Don’t we talk nonsense ourselves? And let them … that’s
the way to learn not to! … Wait a minute, I’ll fetch
Zossimov.’
Zossimov pounced upon Raskolnikov almost greedily;
he showed a special interest in him; soon his face
brightened.
‘You must go to bed at once,’ he pronounced,
examining the patient as far as he could, ‘and take
something for the night. Will you take it? I got it ready
some time ago … a powder.’
‘Two, if you like,’ answered Raskolnikov. The powder
was taken at once.
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‘It’s a good thing you are taking him home,’ observed
Zossimov to Razumihin—‘we shall see how he is tomorrow,
to-day he’s not at all amiss—a considerable
change since the afternoon. Live and learn …’
‘Do you know what Zossimov whispered to me when
we were coming out?’ Razumihin blurted out, as soon as
they were in the street. ‘I won’t tell you everything,
brother, because they are such fools. Zossimov told me to
talk freely to you on the way and get you to talk freely to
me, and afterwards I am to tell him about it, for he’s got a
notion in his head that you are … mad or close on it.
Only fancy! In the first place, you’ve three times the brains
he has; in the second, if you are not mad, you needn’t care
a hang that he has got such a wild idea; and thirdly, that
piece of beef whose specialty is surgery has gone mad on
mental diseases, and what’s brought him to this conclusion
about you was your conversation to-day with Zametov.’
‘Zametov told you all about it?’
‘Yes, and he did well. Now I understand what it all
means and so does Zametov…. Well, the fact is, Rodya
… the point is … I am a little drunk now…. But that’s …
no matter … the point is that this idea … you understand?
was just being hatched in their brains … you understand?
That is, no one ventured to say it aloud, because the idea
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is too absurd and especially since the arrest of that painter,
that bubble’s burst and gone for ever. But why are they
such fools? I gave Zametov a bit of a thrashing at the
time— that’s between ourselves, brother; please don’t let
out a hint that you know of it; I’ve noticed he is a ticklish
subject; it was at Luise Ivanovna’s. But to-day, to-day it’s
all cleared up. That Ilya Petrovitch is at the bottom of it!
He took advantage of your fainting at the police station,
but he is ashamed of it himself now; I know that …’
Raskolnikov listened greedily. Razumihin was drunk
enough to talk too freely.
‘I fainted then because it was so close and the smell of
paint,’ said Raskolnikov.
‘No need to explain that! And it wasn’t the paint only:
the fever had been coming on for a month; Zossimov
testifies to that! But how crushed that boy is now, you
wouldn’t believe! ‘I am not worth his little finger,’ he says.
Yours, he means. He has good feelings at times, brother.
But the lesson, the lesson you gave him to-day in the
Palais de Cristal, that was too good for anything! You
frightened him at first, you know, he nearly went into
convulsions! You almost convinced him again of the truth
of all that hideous nonsense, and then you suddenly—put
out your tongue at him: ‘There now, what do you make
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of it?’ It was perfect! He is crushed, annihilated now! It
was masterly, by Jove, it’s what they deserve! Ah, that I
wasn’t there! He was hoping to see you awfully. Porfiry,
too, wants to make your acquaintance …’
‘Ah! … he too … but why did they put me down as
mad?’
‘Oh, not mad. I must have said too much, brother….
What struck him, you see, was that only that subject
seemed to interest you; now it’s clear why it did interest
you; knowing all the circumstances … and how that
irritated you and worked in with your illness … I am a
little drunk, brother, only, confound him, he has some
idea of his own … I tell you, he’s mad on mental diseases.
But don’t you mind him …’
For half a minute both were silent.
‘Listen, Razumihin,’ began Raskolnikov, ‘I want to tell
you plainly: I’ve just been at a death-bed, a clerk who died
… I gave them all my money … and besides I’ve just been
kissed by someone who, if I had killed anyone, would just
the same … in fact I saw someone else there … with a
flame-coloured feather … but I am talking nonsense; I am
very weak, support me … we shall be at the stairs directly
…’
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‘What’s the matter? What’s the matter with you?’
Razumihin asked anxiously.
‘I am a little giddy, but that’s not the point, I am so sad,
so sad … like a woman. Look, what’s that? Look, look!’
‘What is it?’
‘Don’t you see? A light in my room, you see? Through
the crack …’
They were already at the foot of the last flight of stairs,
at the level of the landlady’s door, and they could, as a
fact, see from below that there was a light in
Raskolnikov’s garret.
‘Queer! Nastasya, perhaps,’ observed Razumihin.
‘She is never in my room at this time and she must be
in bed long ago, but … I don’t care! Good-bye!’
‘What do you mean? I am coming with you, we’ll
come in together!’
‘I know we are going in together, but I want to shake
hands here and say good-bye to you here. So give me
your hand, good-bye!’
‘What’s the matter with you, Rodya?’
‘Nothing … come along … you shall be witness.’
They began mounting the stairs, and the idea struck
Razumihin that perhaps Zossimov might be right after all.
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‘Ah, I’ve upset him with my chatter!’ he muttered to
himself.
When they reached the door they heard voices in the
room.
‘What is it?’ cried Razumihin. Raskolnikov was the
first to open the door; he flung it wide and stood still in
the doorway, dumbfoundered.
His mother and sister were sitting on his sofa and had
been waiting an hour and a half for him. Why had he
never expected, never thought of them, though the news
that they had started, were on their way and would arrive
immediately, had been repeated to him only that day?
They had spent that hour and a half plying Nastasya with
questions. She was standing before them and had told
them everything by now. They were beside themselves
with alarm when they heard of his ‘running away’ to-day,
ill and, as they understood from her story, delirious! ‘Good
Heavens, what had become of him?’ Both had been
weeping, both had been in anguish for that hour and a
half.
A cry of joy, of ecstasy, greeted Raskolnikov’s
entrance. Both rushed to him. But he stood like one dead;
a sudden intolerable sensation struck him like a
thunderbolt. He did not lift his arms to embrace them, he
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could not. His mother and sister clasped him in their arms,
kissed him, laughed and cried. He took a step, tottered
and fell to the ground, fainting.
Anxiety, cries of horror, moans … Razumihin who
was standing in the doorway flew into the room, seized
the sick man in his strong arms and in a moment had him
on the sofa.
‘It’s nothing, nothing!’ he cried to the mother and
sister—‘it’s only a faint, a mere trifle! Only just now the
doctor said he was much better, that he is perfectly well!
Water! See, he is coming to himself, he is all right again!’
And seizing Dounia by the arm so that he almost
dislocated it, he made her bend down to see that ‘he is all
right again.’ The mother and sister looked on him with
emotion and gratitude, as their Providence. They had
heard already from Nastasya all that had been done for
their Rodya during his illness, by this ‘very competent
young man,’ as Pulcheria Alexandrovna Raskolnikov
called him that evening in conversation with Dounia.
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PART III
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Chapter I
Raskolnikov got up, and sat down on the sofa. He
waved his hand weakly to Razumihin to cut short the
flow of warm and incoherent consolations he was
addressing to his mother and sister, took them both by the
hand and for a minute or two gazed from one to the other
without speaking. His mother was alarmed by his
expression. It revealed an emotion agonisingly poignant,
and at the same time something immovable, almost insane.
Pulcheria Alexandrovna began to cry.
Avdotya Romanovna was pale; her hand trembled in
her brother’s.
‘Go home … with him,’ he said in a broken voice,
pointing to Razumihin, ‘good-bye till to-morrow; tomorrow
everything … Is it long since you arrived?’
‘This evening, Rodya,’ answered Pulcheria
Alexandrovna, ‘the train was awfully late. But, Rodya,
nothing would induce me to leave you now! I will spend
the night here, near you …’
‘Don’t torture me!’ he said with a gesture of irritation.
‘I will stay with him,’ cried Razumihin, ‘I won’t leave
him for a moment. Bother all my visitors! Let them rage
to their hearts’ content! My uncle is presiding there.’
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‘How, how can I thank you!’ Pulcheria Alexandrovna
was beginning, once more pressing Razumihin’s hands,
but Raskolnikov interrupted her again.
‘I can’t have it! I can’t have it!’ he repeated irritably,
‘don’t worry me! Enough, go away … I can’t stand it!’
‘Come, mamma, come out of the room at least for a
minute,’ Dounia whispered in dismay; ‘we are distressing
him, that’s evident.’
‘Mayn’t I look at him after three years?’ wept Pulcheria
Alexandrovna.
‘Stay,’ he stopped them again, ‘you keep interrupting
me, and my ideas get muddled…. Have you seen Luzhin?’
‘No, Rodya, but he knows already of our arrival. We
have heard, Rodya, that Pyotr Petrovitch was so kind as to
visit you today,’ Pulcheria Alexandrovna added somewhat
timidly.
‘Yes … he was so kind … Dounia, I promised Luzhin
I’d throw him downstairs and told him to go to hell….’
‘Rodya, what are you saying! Surely, you don’t mean
to tell us …’ Pulcheria Alexandrovna began in alarm, but
she stopped, looking at Dounia.
Avdotya Romanovna was looking attentively at her
brother, waiting for what would come next. Both of them
had heard of the quarrel from Nastasya, so far as she had
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succeeded in understanding and reporting it, and were in
painful perplexity and suspense.
‘Dounia,’ Raskolnikov continued with an effort, ‘I
don’t want that marriage, so at the first opportunity tomorrow
you must refuse Luzhin, so that we may never
hear his name again.’
‘Good Heavens!’ cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna.
‘Brother, think what you are saying!’ Avdotya
Romanovna began impetuously, but immediately checked
herself. ‘You are not fit to talk now, perhaps; you are
tired,’ she added gently.
‘You think I am delirious? No … You are marrying
Luzhin for my sake. But I won’t accept the sacrifice. And
so write a letter before to-morrow, to refuse him … Let
me read it in the morning and that will be the end of it!’
‘That I can’t do!’ the girl cried, offended, ‘what right
have you …’
‘Dounia, you are hasty, too, be quiet, to-morrow …
Don’t you see …’ the mother interposed in dismay.
‘Better come away!’
‘He is raving,’ Razumihin cried tipsily, ‘or how would
he dare! To-morrow all this nonsense will be over … today
he certainly did drive him away. That was so. And
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Luzhin got angry, too…. He made speeches here, wanted
to show off his learning and he went out crest- fallen….’
‘Then it’s true?’ cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna.
‘Good-bye till to-morrow, brother,’ said Dounia
compassionately—‘let us go, mother … Good-bye,
Rodya.’
‘Do you hear, sister,’ he repeated after them, making a
last effort, ‘I am not delirious; this marriage is—an infamy.
Let me act like a scoundrel, but you mustn’t … one is
enough … and though I am a scoundrel, I wouldn’t own
such a sister. It’s me or Luzhin! Go now….’
‘But you’re out of your mind! Despot!’ roared
Razumihin; but Raskolnikov did not and perhaps could
not answer. He lay down on the sofa, and turned to the
wall, utterly exhausted. Avdotya Romanovna looked with
interest at Razumihin; her black eyes flashed; Razumihin
positively started at her glance.
Pulcheria Alexandrovna stood overwhelmed.
‘Nothing would induce me to go,’ she whispered in
despair to Razumihin. ‘I will stay somewhere here …
escort Dounia home.’
‘You’ll spoil everything,’ Razumihin answered in the
same whisper, losing patience—‘come out on to the stairs,
anyway. Nastasya, show a light! I assure you,’ he went on
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in a half whisper on the stairs- ‘that he was almost beating
the doctor and me this afternoon! Do you understand?
The doctor himself! Even he gave way and left him, so as
not to irritate him. I remained downstairs on guard, but he
dressed at once and slipped off. And he will slip off again if
you irritate him, at this time of night, and will do himself
some mischief….’
‘What are you saying?’
‘And Avdotya Romanovna can’t possibly be left in
those lodgings without you. Just think where you are
staying! That blackguard Pyotr Petrovitch couldn’t find
you better lodgings … But you know I’ve had a little to
drink, and that’s what makes me … swear; don’t mind
it….’
‘But I’ll go to the landlady here,’ Pulcheria
Alexandrovna insisted, ‘Ill beseech her to find some corner
for Dounia and me for the night. I can’t leave him like
that, I cannot!’
This conversation took place on the landing just before
the landlady’s door. Nastasya lighted them from a step
below. Razumihin was in extraordinary excitement. Half
an hour earlier, while he was bringing Raskolnikov home,
he had indeed talked too freely, but he was aware of it
himself, and his head was clear in spite of the vast
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quantities he had imbibed. Now he was in a state
bordering on ecstasy, and all that he had drunk seemed to
fly to his head with redoubled effect. He stood with the
two ladies, seizing both by their hands, persuading them,
and giving them reasons with astonishing plainness of
speech, and at almost every word he uttered, probably to
emphasise his arguments, he squeezed their hands painfully
as in a vise. He stared at Avdotya Romanovna without the
least regard for good manners. They sometimes pulled
their hands out of his huge bony paws, but far from
noticing what was the matter, he drew them all the closer
to him. If they’d told him to jump head foremost from the
staircase, he would have done it without thought or
hesitation in their service. Though Pulcheria
Alexandrovna felt that the young man was really too
eccentric and pinched her hand too much, in her anxiety
over her Rodya she looked on his presence as
providential, and was unwilling to notice all his
peculiarities. But though Avdotya Romanovna shared her
anxiety, and was not of timorous disposition, she could
not see the glowing light in his eyes without wonder and
almost alarm. It was only the unbounded confidence
inspired by Nastasya’s account of her brother’s queer
friend, which prevented her from trying to run away from
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him, and to persuade her mother to do the same. She
realised, too, that even running away was perhaps
impossible now. Ten minutes later, however, she was
considerably reassured; it was characteristic of Razumihin
that he showed his true nature at once, whatever mood he
might be in, so that people quickly saw the sort of man
they had to deal with.
‘You can’t go to the landlady, that’s perfect nonsense!’
he cried. ‘If you stay, though you are his mother, you’ll
drive him to a frenzy, and then goodness knows what will
happen! Listen, I’ll tell you what I’ll do: Nastasya will stay
with him now, and I’ll conduct you both home, you can’t
be in the streets alone; Petersburg is an awful place in that
way…. But no matter! Then I’ll run straight back here and
a quarter of an hour later, on my word of honour, I’ll
bring you news how he is, whether he is asleep, and all
that. Then, listen! Then I’ll run home in a twinkling—I’ve
a lot of friends there, all drunk—I’ll fetch Zossimov—
that’s the doctor who is looking after him, he is there, too,
but he is not drunk; he is not drunk, he is never drunk! I’ll
drag him to Rodya, and then to you, so that you’ll get
two reports in the hour—from the doctor, you
understand, from the doctor himself, that’s a very different
thing from my account of him! If there’s anything wrong,
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I swear I’ll bring you here myself, but, if it’s all right, you
go to bed. And I’ll spend the night here, in the passage, he
won’t hear me, and I’ll tell Zossimov to sleep at the
landlady’s, to be at hand. Which is better for him: you or
the doctor? So come home then! But the landlady is out of
the question; it’s all right for me, but it’s out of the
question for you: she wouldn’t take you, for she’s … for
she’s a fool … She’d be jealous on my account of Avdotya
Romanovna and of you, too, if you want to know … of
Avdotya Romanovna certainly. She is an absolutely,
absolutely unaccountable character! But I am a fool, too!
… No matter! Come along! Do you trust me? Come, do
you trust me or not?’
‘Let us go, mother,’ said Avdotya Romanovna, ‘he will
certainly do what he has promised. He has saved Rodya
already, and if the doctor really will consent to spend the
night here, what could be better?’
‘You see, you … you … understand me, because you
are an angel!’ Razumihin cried in ecstasy, ‘let us go!
Nastasya! Fly upstairs and sit with him with a light; I’ll
come in a quarter of an hour.’
Though Pulcheria Alexandrovna was not perfectly
convinced, she made no further resistance. Razumihin
gave an arm to each and drew them down the stairs. He
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still made her uneasy, as though he was competent and
good-natured, was he capable of carrying out his promise?
He seemed in such a condition….
‘Ah, I see you think I am in such a condition!’
Razumihin broke in upon her thoughts, guessing them, as
he strolled along the pavement with huge steps, so that the
two ladies could hardly keep up with him, a fact he did
not observe, however. ‘Nonsense! That is … I am drunk
like a fool, but that’s not it; I am not drunk from wine. It’s
seeing you has turned my head … But don’t mind me!
Don’t take any notice: I am talking nonsense, I am not
worthy of you…. I am utterly unworthy of you! The
minute I’ve taken you home, I’ll pour a couple of pailfuls
of water over my head in the gutter here, and then I shall
be all right…. If only you knew how I love you both!
Don’t laugh, and don’t be angry! You may be angry with
anyone, but not with me! I am his friend, and therefore I
am your friend, too, I want to be … I had a presentiment
… Last year there was a moment … though it wasn’t a
presentiment really, for you seem to have fallen from
heaven. And I expect I shan’t sleep all night … Zossimov
was afraid a little time ago that he would go mad … that’s
why he mustn’t be irritated.’
‘What do you say?’ cried the mother.
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‘Did the doctor really say that?’ asked Avdotya
Romanovna, alarmed.
‘Yes, but it’s not so, not a bit of it. He gave him some
medicine, a powder, I saw it, and then your coming
here…. Ah! It would have been better if you had come
to-morrow. It’s a good thing we went away. And in an
hour Zossimov himself will report to you about
everything. He is not drunk! And I shan’t be drunk….
And what made me get so tight? Because they got me into
an argument, damn them! I’ve sworn never to argue!
They talk such trash! I almost came to blows! I’ve left my
uncle to preside. Would you believe, they insist on
complete absence of individualism and that’s just what
they relish! Not to be themselves, to be as unlike
themselves as they can. That’s what they regard as the
highest point of progress. If only their nonsense were their
own, but as it is …’
‘Listen!’ Pulcheria Alexandrovna interrupted timidly,
but it only added fuel to the flames.
‘What do you think?’ shouted Razumihin, louder than
ever, ‘you think I am attacking them for talking nonsense?
Not a bit! I like them to talk nonsense. That’s man’s one
privilege over all creation. Through error you come to the
truth! I am a man because I err! You never reach any truth
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