'I'm fine, absolutely fine!' Raskolnikov insisted irritably, suddenly propping himself up on the couch, eyes flashing, before immediately falling back onto the pillow and turning to face the wall. Zosimov was observing him intently.
'Very good . . . all as it should be,' he said listlessly. 'Eaten anything?'
He was told, then asked what he would recommend.
'Anything at all . . . Soup, tea . . . No mushrooms or gherkins, of course, nor beef for that matter, nor . . . but enough of this chit-chat!' He exchanged glances with Razumikhin. 'No medicine, nothing, and tomorrow I'll take a look . . . Today would have been fine, too . . . but anyway . . .'
'Tomorrow evening I'm taking him out on the town!' Razumikhin decided. 'The Yusupov Gardens, then the "Palais de Cristal"!'
'Personally, I wouldn't move him an inch tomorrow, although . . . a bit of . . . but anyway, we'll see.'
'What a pain - I'm having my house-warming today of all days, a stone's throw from here; he could have been there. At least he'd have lain near us on the couch! You'll be there, won't you?' Razumikhin suddenly asked Zosimov. 'Mind you don't forget now - you promised.'
'All right, but I might be late. What are you organizing?'
'Nothing special - tea, vodka, herring. There'll be a pie. Good friends only.'
'Who exactly?'
'People from around here, pretty much new faces actually - apart from an old uncle, and he's new too: only arrived in Petersburg yesterday, on some errand or other; we see each other about once every five years.'
'Who's he, then?'
'Vegetated all his life as a district postmaster . . . tiny pension, sixty-five years old, hardly worth mentioning . . . But I love him. Porfiry Petrovich will come: he's the chief investigator at the police station here . . . studied law.18 But you know who I'm . . .'
'Don't tell me he's another relative of yours?'
'As distant as they come. But why are you frowning? What, you fell out with him once, so now you won't come?'
'To hell with him . . .'
'Much the best way. Well, then there's some students, a teacher, a civil servant, a musician, an officer, Zametov . . .'
'Now tell me: what can you or, for that matter, he' - Zosimov nodded in the direction of Raskolnikov - 'possibly have in common with some Zametov or other?'
'There's no pleasing some people! Principles! . . . You stand on your principles as if you're standing on springs. You wouldn't dare turn round of your own free will. But he's a good chap - that's my principle, and that's all I want to know. In fact, Zametov is a quite wonderful chap.'
'With a greasy palm.'
'What do I care? So what if it's greasy!' Razumikhin suddenly shouted, more annoyed than might have seemed natural. 'Did I praise him to you for his palm? I merely said that he's a good chap, in his own way! I mean, if you start looking every which way how many good people will we be left with? In that case I myself, entrails and all, will fetch no more than a baked onion, and only if they throw you into the bargain too!'
'Come come. I'll give two for you . . .'
'And I'll only give one for you! Aren't you the wit? Zametov's just a kid and I can still pull him up by his hair, because, you see, he needs to be kept close. Keep a man at arm's length and you'll never fix him, especially a kid. With kids you have to be twice as careful. Look at you all, you progressive, clueless numbskulls! Respect other people and you respect yourself . . . But if you really want to know - well, it looks like we're joining forces.'
'Do tell.'
'It's that business about the painter - the decorator, I mean . . . We'll save his bacon and no mistake! Though, actually, the danger's already passed. The whole thing could hardly be plainer! We'll just give it a gentle push.'
'Decorator - what decorator?'
'You mean I didn't tell you? No? Too right, I only started telling you . . . It's about the murder of that old pawnbroker, the civil servant's widow . . . Well, now a decorator's got himself mixed up in it all as well . . .'
'I heard about the murder even before you did, and I even became quite curious about it . . . as the result of a certain . . . and I read about it in the papers! But as for . . .'
'Lizaveta was killed, too, by the way!' Nastasya suddenly blurted out, addressing Raskolnikov. She'd been in the room all the while, pressed up against the door, listening.
'Lizaveta?' muttered Raskolnikov in a barely audible voice.
'You know, Lizaveta, the clothes-dealer. Used to come by downstairs. Even mended your shirt.'
Raskolnikov turned to the wall, with its dirty yellow paper and its pattern of little white flowers. He chose an ungainly white flower with little brown marks and started studying it: how many leaves did it have, what kind of notches were there on the leaves, and how many marks? He could feel his arms and legs going numb, as if paralysed, but he didn't even try to move them and stared stubbornly at the flower.
'So what about that decorator, then?' Zosimov broke in, extremely put out by Nastasya's nattering. She sighed and fell silent.
'He's a suspect, too!' Razumikhin went on excitedly.
'So there's evidence?'
'Evidence, my foot! Though you're right: evidence, but evidence which isn't evidence, that's what needs to be proved! Just like at the beginning when they dragged in those two as suspects - what were their names again . . . ? Oh yes, Kokh and Pestryakov. Ugh! The way they go about it is so stupid it's disgusting - even if you've got nothing to do with it! Actually, Pestryakov might come round to see me later . . . None of this is news to you, Rodya. It happened before you fell sick, the day before you fainted in the office, when they were talking about it there . . .'
Zosimov looked curiously at Raskolnikov; he didn't stir.
'Know what, Razumikhin? I look at you and think: what a busybody you are,' Zosimov remarked.
'Fine, but we'll still save his bacon,' cried Razumikhin, banging his fist on the table. 'I mean, what's the worst thing about all this? It's not that they're fibbing; fibs can always be forgiven; in fact, there's something nice about fibs - they lead to the truth. No, what's really infuriating is that they bow down to their own fibs. Porfiry's a man I respect, but . . . Just think: what was it that threw them off from the very start? The door's locked, back they come with the caretaker, and look, it's open: so it's Kokh and Pestryakov what done it! That's about the sum of their logic.'
'No need to get so worked up. They were simply detained. You can't . . . By the way: I've met this Kokh before. Turns out he used to buy up the old woman's overdue items - right?'
'Yes, the man's a swindler! Buys up promissory notes, too. A regular operator. To hell with him! You know what really makes me mad? Their routine, their senile, crass, ossified routine . . . Whereas here, just in this one case, there's a whole new approach waiting to be discovered. The psychological data alone are enough to point to the real trail. "We've got facts!" they say. But facts aren't everything; knowing how to deal with the facts is at least half the battle!'
'And do you know how to deal with them?'
'But you can't just keep silent when you feel - feel in your bones - that you could be of some help, if only . . . Ah! . . . Do you know all the details?'
'I'm still waiting to hear about the decorator.'
'So you are! Well, listen to this, then. Precisely two days after the murder, in the morning, when they were all still fussing around with Kokh and Pestryakov - even though they could account for their every step: it was blindingly obvious! - the most unexpected fact was suddenly announced. Some peasant, name of Dushkin - he runs the pothouse opposite that very same building - showed up at the bureau with a jewellery case containing some gold earrings and launched into a long story: "Evening-time, day before yesterday, eight o'clock or thereabouts" - date and time, see! - "this decorator comes running in - Mikolai's the name, he's already come to see me earlier that day - well, he runs in and brings us this 'ere box with gold earrings and stones, and wants to pawn it for two roubles, and when I a
sk him, 'Where d'you find 'em?' he says, 'Lying on the pavement.' I don't ask him no more about that" - this is Dushkin speaking - "and bring him a nice little note" - a rouble, that is - "thinking that if he don't pawn it with me he'll only find someone else, and it'll all go on booze anyway, so it were better off with me: hide and you will find, as they say, and if something comes out or people start talking, I'll bring it out and present it to 'em." Well, this is all just an old woman's dream, of course, and he's fibbing like a horse. I know this Dushkin: he's in the pawning business himself and hides stolen goods, and he didn't filch a thirty-rouble pledge from Mikolai in order to "present it". He got cold feet, simple as that. Anyway, listen to what Dushkin said next: "I've known this 'ere peasant, Mikolai Dementyev, since we were kids, same province, Ryazan,19 same district, Zaraisk. And Mikolai ain't what you'd call a drunkard, but he likes a drink, and I knew for a fact he was working in that there house, decorating, him and Mitrei, the two of 'em being from the same parts. That rouble burned a hole in his pocket soon enough - he poured two vodkas down the hatch, one after the other, took the change and walked off, and there was no Mitrei with him then. Come the next day, what do I hear? Alyona Ivanovna and her sister, Lizaveta Ivanovna, murdered with an axe, and I knew 'em both, sir, and I fell to wond'ring about them earrings - seeing as I knew the deceased lent money for suchlike. So I goes to their home to learn what I can, without giving myself away, and the first thing I ask is: 'Where's Mikolai?' 'Gone on a bender,' says Mitrei. 'Got home at dawn, drunk as you like, stayed ten minutes and then he was off again,' and Mitrei ain't seen him since and he's finishing the job on his own. And that job of theirs is on the same staircase as the murdered women, second floor. When I heard all that, I didn't spill the beans to no one" - that's Dushkin speaking - "but found out all I could about the murder and came home still wond'ring. Then this morning, about eight o'clock" - that's two days after, understand? - "there's Mikolai coming through my door, not sober, nor blind-drunk neither, and capable of being spoken to. Sits down on a bench, says nothing. Hardly anyone else in the pothouse at that time - one stranger, one regular, sleeping on a bench, and our two boys. 'Seen Mitrei?' I ask. 'No,' he says. 'And you ain't been back here?' 'Not for two days,' he says. 'So where've you been sleeping?' 'Over at The Sands,'20 he says, 'with our lot from Zaraisk.' 'And where d'you get the earrings, then?' I say. 'Found 'em on the pavement,' he says, as if that weren't bloody likely, and keeping his eyes down. 'Ain't you heard,' I say, 'that such-and-such a thing happened that same evening, that same time, that same staircase?' 'No,' he says, and he listens with eyes all a-goggle and pale as chalk. So I'm telling him all this when I see him take his cap and start getting up. I try to keep him, of course. 'Hang about, Mikolai,' I say, 'have one on me.' Meanwhile, I'm winking at the boy to watch the door and I'm coming out from behind the bar when he makes a bolt for it and vanishes down a lane, and that's the last I see of him. Well, that soon put an end to my wond'ring - his sin and no mistake . . ."'
'You don't say!' Zosimov put in.
'Wait! You haven't heard how it ended! Everyone goes tearing off to look for Mikolai, of course. Dushkin is detained and a search is made, and Mitrei, too. The Zaraisk lads get raked over the coals as well - and then suddenly, two days ago, Mikolai himself is brought in: he was detained near ----aya Gate, at the coaching inn. He'd showed up there, taken off his cross, a silver one, and asked for a double in exchange. Deal. A few minutes later a peasant woman went into the cowshed and, peering through a crack, saw him in the barn next door: he'd fixed his belt to a beam and made a noose. He got up on a block of wood and was just about to put his head through the noose, when the woman let out an almighty curse and everyone came running: "So that's what you're about!" "Just take me to police station X," he said. "I'll confess everything." Well, he was presented with great pomp at police station X - here, that is. The usual rigmarole: who, what, how old? - "twenty-two" - etcetera, etcetera. Question: "While you and Mitrei were working, didn't you see anyone on the stairs at such-and-such a time?" Answer: "There was some coming and going, true enough, but we paid no mind." "But didn't you hear anything, noises and so on?" "Nothing special." "And did you know, Mikolai, on that same day, that such-and-such a widow was murdered and robbed along with her sister on such-and-such a day, at such-and-such a time?" "Hadn't a clue. First I heard was from Dushkin two days later, in the pothouse." "And the earrings, where d'you get them?" "Found 'em on the pavement." "Why didn't you show up at work the next day with Mitrei?" "'Cause I went drinking." "And where were you drinking?" "Here and there." "Why d'you run away from Dushkin?" "'Cause I was dead scared." "What were you scared of?" "Getting done." "But how could you be scared of that, if you feel you've done nothing wrong?" Believe it or not, Zosimov, that was the question they put to him, in those same words. I know this for a fact, from a good source! Just incredible!'
'Come on now - there's evidence, after all.'
'It's not evidence I'm talking about, it's the question that bothers me, their understanding of what they're about! Well, to hell with it! . . . So they put the squeeze on him until he finally came out with it: "It weren't on the pavement I found 'em - it were in the digs me and Mitrei were painting." "How so?" "How so that me and Mitrei painted all day long, till eight o'clock, and we're about to leave when Mitrei takes a brush and smears my face with paint, smears it and scarpers, and I give chase. So there am I running after him, shouting and yelling, and between the stairs and the arch I run smack into the caretaker and some gentlemen, and how many gentlemen he had with 'im I don't recall, and the caretaker curses me, and t'other caretaker curses me, and the caretaker's missus comes out and she curses us, and some gentleman comes in under the arch, with a lady, and he curses us too, 'cause me and Mitka are in the way. I've got Mitka by the hair, on the deck, and start clobbering him, and from under me Mitka grabs my hair, too, and starts clobbering me, and we're not doing this nasty-like, but loving-like, playful-like. Then Mitka shakes me off and runs out onto the street and I give chase, but I don't catch him, and go back to the digs alone - to clear up. I start tidying and waiting for Mitrei in case he shows up, and that's when I step on the little box by the front door, behind the wall, in the corner. It were lying there just wrapped in paper. I took off the paper, saw some teeny-tiny hooks, took 'em off - and there were the earrings inside the case . . ."'
'Behind the door? Lying behind the door? Behind the door?' Raskolnikov suddenly cried, looking at Razumikhin with clouded, frightened eyes and slowly lifting himself up on the couch, leaning on one arm.
'Yes . . . and? What's wrong with you? What is it?' Razumikhin also half-rose from his seat.
'Nothing!' Raskolnikov replied barely audibly, sinking onto his pillow again and again turning to face the wall. For a while nobody spoke.
'He's dozed off - must have been half-asleep,' Razumikhin eventually remarked, looking inquiringly at Zosimov, who gave a faint shake of his head.
'Well, carry on then,' said Zosimov. 'What next?'
'What next, you ask? As soon as he clapped eyes on the earrings, he forgot all about the apartment, all about Mitka, grabbed his cap and ran off to Dushkin, took a rouble off him, as we know, made up a story about finding the things on the pavement, and immediately went off boozing. As for the murder, he repeats what he said before: "Don't ask me, I only heard about it two days later." "So why's it taken you all this time to come forward?" "I was scared." "And why did you want to hang yourself?" "To stop thinking." "About what?" "Getting done." And that's the long and short of it. Now tell me, what do you think they made of that?'
'No need to think: there's a trail, not much of one, but a trail all the same. A fact's a fact. They can hardly let this decorator run free, can they?'
'But they've got him down as the murderer, for crying out loud! They don't even have any doubts about it any more . . .'
'Nonsense. You're overexcited. But what about the earrings? Falling out of the old woman's box into Mikolai's hands on that same day, at
that same time - they must have got there somehow, don't you think? And that must mean something in an investigation like this.'
'Must have got there somehow?' cried Razumikhin. 'Can you not see - you, a doctor, whose duty first and foremost is to study man and who has more opportunities than anyone else to study human nature - can you not see, from all these facts, what kind of nature we have here, in this Mikolai of ours? Isn't it blindingly obvious that all the evidence he gave under interrogation was the sacred truth? The earrings got there just as he said they did. He stepped on a box and he picked it up!'
'The sacred truth! But you admitted yourself that he lied the first time round.'
'Listen to me and listen to me carefully: the caretaker, Kokh, Pestryakov, the other caretaker, the wife of the first caretaker, the tradeswoman who was sitting with her in the caretaker's lodge, the court counsellor Kryukov, who'd just got out of a cab and was walking under the arch arm in arm with a lady - all of them, all eight or ten witnesses, unanimously testify that Mikolai had pinned Mitrei to the ground, was lying on him and clobbering him, then Mitrei got hold of Mikolai's hair and started doing the same. They were lying across the path, blocking the way; they were being shouted at from all sides, but they, "like little boys" (the witnesses' precise words), were lying on top of one another, shrieking, fighting, the pair of them roaring with laughter and pulling the most hilarious faces and, just like children, chased each other out into the street. Got it? Now take note: the bodies upstairs were still warm when they found them - still warm, I'm telling you! If they were the ones who did it, or just Mikolai on his own, and they were the ones who forced and plundered the box as well, or took any part at all in the robbery, then let me ask you this: how does such a state of mind - squeals, belly laughter, play-fighting under the arch - tally with axes, blood, villainous cunning, wariness, robbery? Here they are, fresh from a murder all of five or ten minutes before - can't be otherwise if the bodies are still warm - and suddenly, abandoning both the bodies and the open apartment, and knowing that people had just gone up there, and abandoning the loot, they roll around like little boys on the path, roar with laughter and draw everyone's attention, with ten unanimous witnesses to confirm it!'