March 29, 2011

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky(page 12)

‘What nonsense he is talking! Why, you are in a
sentimental mood to-day, are you?’ shouted Razumihin.
If he had had more penetration he would have seen
that there was no trace of sentimentality in him, but
something indeed quite the opposite. But Avdotya
Romanovna noticed it. She was intently and uneasily
watching her brother.
‘As for you, mother, I don’t dare to speak,’ he went on,
as though repeating a lesson learned by heart. ‘It is only
to-day that I have been able to realise a little how
distressed you must have been here yesterday, waiting for
me to come back.’
When he had said this, he suddenly held out his hand
to his sister, smiling without a word. But in this smile
there was a flash of real unfeigned feeling. Dounia caught
it at once, and warmly pressed his hand, overjoyed and
thankful. It was the first time he had addressed her since
their dispute the previous day. The mother’s face lighted
up with ecstatic happiness at the sight of this conclusive
unspoken reconciliation. ‘Yes, that is what I love him for,’
Razumihin, exaggerating it all, muttered to himself, with a
vigorous turn in his chair. ‘He has these movements.’
‘And how well he does it all,’ the mother was thinking
to herself. ‘What generous impulses he has, and how
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Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky(page 11)


without making fourteen mistakes and very likely a
hundred and fourteen. And a fine thing, too, in its way;
but we can’t even make mistakes on our own account!
Talk nonsense, but talk your own nonsense, and I’ll kiss
you for it. To go wrong in one’s own way is better than
to go right in someone else’s. In the first case you are a
man, in the second you’re no better than a bird. Truth
won’t escape you, but life can be cramped. There have
been examples. And what are we doing now? In science,
development, thought, invention, ideals, aims, liberalism,
judgment, experience and everything, everything,
everything, we are still in the preparatory class at school.
We prefer to live on other people’s ideas, it’s what we are
used to! Am I right, am I right?’ cried Razumihin, pressing
and shaking the two ladies’ hands.
‘Oh, mercy, I do not know,’ cried poor Pulcheria
Alexandrovna.
‘Yes, yes … though I don’t agree with you in
everything,’ added Avdotya Romanovna earnestly and at
once uttered a cry, for he squeezed her hand so painfully.
‘Yes, you say yes … well after that you … you …’ he
cried in a transport, ‘you are a fount of goodness, purity,
sense … and perfection. Give me your hand … you give
me yours, too! I want to kiss your hands here at once, on
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my knees …’ and he fell on his knees on the pavement,
fortunately at that time deserted.
‘Leave off, I entreat you, what are you doing?’
Pulcheria Alexandrovna cried, greatly distressed.
‘Get up, get up!’ said Dounia laughing, though she,

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky(page 10)



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.

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky(page 8)

Though who can tell, maybe it’s sometimes for the worse.
Will you take it?’
Raskolnikov took the German sheets in silence, took
the three roubles and without a word went out.
Razumihin gazed after him in astonishment. But when
Raskolnikov was in the next street, he turned back,
mounted the stairs to Razumihin’s again and laying on the
table the German article and the three roubles, went out
again, still without uttering a word.
‘Are you raving, or what?’ Razumihin shouted, roused
to fury at last. ‘What farce is this? You’ll drive me crazy
too … what did you come to see me for, damn you?’
‘I don’t want … translation,’ muttered Raskolnikov
from the stairs.
‘Then what the devil do you want?’ shouted
Razumihin from above. Raskolnikov continued
descending the staircase in silence.
‘Hey, there! Where are you living?’
No answer.
‘Well, confound you then!’
But Raskolnikov was already stepping into the street.
On the Nikolaevsky Bridge he was roused to full
consciousness again by an unpleasant incident. A
coachman, after shouting at him two or three times, gave
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him a violent lash on the back with his whip, for having

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn