'Look at him explode! He needs tying down!' laughed Porfiry. 'Just imagine,' he turned to Raskolnikov, 'this is exactly how it was yesterday evening, in a single room, six voices all going at once, after he'd served us some punch for good measure - can you picture that? No, brother, you're lying: the "environment" has a lot to do with crime. I can confirm it.'
'I know that myself, but tell me this: a forty-year-old man abuses a ten-year-old girl - was it the environment, then, that made him do it?'
'Well, strictly speaking, it probably was the environment,' remarked Porfiry with astonishing solemnity. 'A crime committed against a young girl may very easily be explained by the "environment" - very easily indeed.'
Razumikhin was almost beside himself.
'Fine, so allow me to prove to you right now,' roared Razumikhin, 'that the only reason you have white eyelashes is that the Ivan the Great Bell Tower16 is two hundred and forty-five feet high; what's more, I'll prove it clearly, precisely, progressively and even with a touch of liberalism! I'm game! Fancy a bet?'
'You're on! Let's hear it!'
'He's always pretending, damn him!' cried Razumikhin, jumping to his feet and waving him away. 'Is there any point talking to you? He does it all on purpose - you just don't know him yet, Rodion! Yesterday, too, he took their side, with the sole intention of making fools of everyone. The things he was saying - good God! And they loved him for it! . . . He can keep this up for two weeks at a time, believe me. Last year he assured us for some reason that he was set on becoming a monk: he banged on about it for a whole two months! Recently he started assuring us he was getting married, told us everything was already in place. He even had a suit made specially. We were already congratulating him. No bride, nothing: it was all a mirage!'
'Now that's a lie! I'd had the suit made earlier. It was the suit that gave me the idea of making such asses of you all!'
'Is it true you're always pretending?' asked Raskolnikov nonchalantly.
'And you thought it wasn't? Give me a chance and I'll take you in too - ha-ha-ha! No, sir, let me tell you the whole truth. Apropos all these questions, crimes, the environment, young girls, I'm suddenly reminded - though, in fact, it has always intrigued me - of a little article of yours: "On Crime" . . . was that the title? I'm afraid it's slipped my mind. I had the pleasure of reading it two months ago in the Periodical Review.'
'An article of mine? In Periodical Review?' asked Raskolnikov with surprise. 'It's true that a year and a half ago, after leaving university, I did write an article about some book, but at the time I offered it to the Weekly Review, not the Periodical.'
'Well, it ended up in the Periodical.'
'But the Weekly Review has ceased to exist; that's why they never published it . . .'
'True enough, sir; but, ceasing to exist, the Weekly Review merged with Periodical Review,17 which is why, two months ago, that little article of yours appeared in the Periodical. You mean you didn't know?'
Raskolnikov did not know.
'For pity's sake - you should ask to be paid for it! You are a funny one! You live such an isolated existence that you are ignorant even of things that concern you directly. And that's a fact, sir.'
'Bravo, Rodka! I didn't know either!' cried Razumikhin. 'I'll stop by at the reading room today and call up that issue! Two months ago? What was the date? Never mind, I'll track it down! Well, this is a turn-up! Trust him not to mention it!'
'But how did you know it was mine? It's only signed with an initial.'
'By chance, just the other day. Via the editor, an acquaintance . . . I was most intrigued.'
'I was analysing, as I recall, the psychological condition of a criminal during the entire course of a crime.'
'Exactly, sir, and you insist that the act of carrying out the crime is always accompanied by illness. Very, very original, but . . . speaking for myself, it wasn't this part of your article that intrigued me, but a certain thought which you let slip at the end, but which, unfortunately, is only hinted at and remains rather obscure . . . In short, what is hinted at, as you may recall, is the apparent existence in the world of certain individuals who are able . . . or rather not so much able as fully entitled . . . to commit all manner of outrageous and criminal acts, and that they are, as it were, above the law.'
Raskolnikov sneered at this gross and deliberate distortion of his idea.
'What's that? Come again? Entitled to commit crimes? Surely not because of the effect of "the environment"?' enquired Razumikhin, who looked almost frightened.
'No, no, not exactly,' replied Porfiry. 'In the gentleman's article, you see, everyone is divided into two categories, the "ordinary" and the "extraordinary". Ordinary people should live a life of obedience and do not have the right to overstep the law, because, you see, they are ordinary. But extraordinary people have the right to carry out all manner of crimes and to break the law as they please, all because they are extraordinary.18 I think that's the gist, or am I mistaken?'
'What on earth? Impossible!' muttered Razumikhin in bewilderment.
Raskolnikov sneered once more. He'd grasped at once what this was all about and why he was being provoked; he remembered his article. He decided to accept the challenge.
'That's not quite it,' he began, simply and unassumingly. 'Your summary is mostly fair, I'll admit; even, one might say, entirely fair . . .' (Conceding this seemed to give him a kind of pleasure.) 'The only difference is that I am far from insisting that extraordinary people have always, without fail, had a duty and obligation to commit all manner of outrageous acts, as you put it. In fact, I'm inclined to think that such an article would never have even seen the light of day. All I did was hint that an "extraordinary" person has the right . . . not an official right, that is, but a personal one, to permit his conscience to step over . . . certain obstacles, but if and only if the fulfilment of his idea (one that may even bring salvation to all humanity) demands it. You observe that my article is obscure; I am ready to elucidate its meaning to you, as best I can. I am not mistaken, it seems, in assuming that to be your wish; very well, sir. In my view, if, owing to a combination of factors, the discoveries of Kepler and Newton could not have become public knowledge without the lives of one, ten, a hundred or however many people who were interfering with these discoveries, or standing in their way, being sacrificed, then Newton would have had the right and would even have been obliged . . . to remove these ten or one hundred people, so as to make his discoveries known to all humanity. In no way, however, does it follow from this that Newton had the right to kill whomsoever he wanted, whenever the mood took him, or to steal every day at the market. Subsequently, as I recall, I develop in my article the thought that . . . well, take, for want of a better example, the legislators and founders of humanity, beginning with the most ancient and continuing with the Lycurguses, Solons, Muhammads, Napoleons and so on - they were criminals to a man, if for no other reason than that, by introducing a new law, they violated the ancient law held sacred by society and handed down from the fathers, and it goes without saying that they did not flinch from bloodshed, so long as this blood (sometimes perfectly innocent blood, shed valiantly for the ancient law) could help them. In fact, it's remarkable how terribly bloodthirsty the majority of these benefactors and founders of humanity have been. In short, I infer that actually all those who, never mind being great, diverge even a little from the beaten path, i.e., are even the slightest bit capable of saying something new, must, by their very nature, be criminals - to a greater or lesser degree, needless to say. Otherwise, how would they ever leave the path, which, of course, they cannot agree to keep to, by their very nature - indeed, I think it is their duty not to agree. In short, as you can see, there's nothing particularly new here up to this point. It's all been published and read a thousand times before. As regards my dividing people into the ordinary and the extraordinary, well this, I agree, is somewhat arbitrary, but I'm hardly insisting on exact numbers. What I believe in is my main idea. It consists precisely
in the fact that people, by a law of nature, are divided in general into two categories: the lower one (the ordinary), i.e., the material, as it were, that serves solely to generate its own likeness, and actual people, i.e., those with the gift or the talent to utter, within their own environment, a new word. Needless to say, the number of subdivisions here is infinite, but the distinctive features of both categories are unmistakable: the first category, i.e., the base material, is made up, generally speaking, of people who are conservative and deferential by nature, who live a life of obedience and enjoy being obedient. In my view, they are simply obliged to be obedient, because that is their purpose, and for them there is absolutely nothing demeaning about it. In the second category, everyone oversteps the law; they are destroyers or they are that way inclined, in accordance with their abilities. The crimes committed by these people are, needless to say, relative and diverse; in the majority of cases they demand, in a great multitude of forms, the destruction of the present in the name of something better. But if such a man needs, for the sake of his idea, to step right over a corpse, over blood, then in my view he may, inside himself, as a matter of conscience, grant himself permission to step over this blood - though this depends, please note, on the idea and its magnitude. Only in this sense do I speak in my article about their right to commit crime.19 (You'll remember, after all, that we began with a question of law.) There's no great cause for alarm, though: the mass of humanity almost never accepts their right, punishes them and hangs them (more or less) and in so doing fulfils its perfectly reasonable conservative purpose, even if, in subsequent generations, these same masses will place those they've punished on a pedestal and bow down before them (more or less). The first category is always master of the present, the second - master of the future. The first preserves the world and multiplies; the second moves the world and leads it towards a goal. The first and the second have exactly the same right to exist. In short, with me everyone has an equal right, and so - Vive la guerre eternelle,20 until, needless to say, the New Jerusalem!'21
'So you do believe in the New Jerusalem?'
'I do,' answered Raskolnikov firmly. While saying this, and throughout the course of his long tirade, he'd been staring at the floor, having chosen for himself a particular spot on the rug.
'And . . . you believe in God? Please forgive my curiosity.'
'I do,' repeated Raskolnikov, lifting his eyes towards Porfiry.
'And . . . you believe in the raising of Lazarus?'22
'I . . . do. But why are you asking?'
'You believe in it literally?'
'Literally.'
'I see, sir . . . Well, I was just being curious. Do forgive me. But with respect - I refer to your earlier remark - they are not always punished; in fact, some . . .'
'Are victorious during their lifetime? Oh yes, some get their way even during their lifetime, and then . . .'
'They begin handing out punishments themselves?'
'If necessary, and actually, you know, more often than not. Rather witty of you, I must say.'
'My humble thanks. But tell me, if you would: how exactly are the extraordinary to be distinguished from the ordinary? Should we look out for birthmarks of some kind? The reason I ask is that we could do with some accuracy here, some objective certainty, as it were: please forgive the natural anxiety of a practical and well-intentioned man, but couldn't one introduce some special type of clothing, for example; couldn't they be, I don't know, branded in some way?23 Because wouldn't you agree that if things got muddled and one person from one category fancied that he belonged to the other, and began to "remove all obstacles", as you so felicitously put it, then . . .'
'Oh, that happens all the time! This observation is even wittier than your previous one . . .'
'My humble thanks . . .'
'Don't mention it, sir. But please bear in mind that such a mistake is possible only on the part of the first category, i.e., "ordinary" people (a rather unfortunate phrase, I'll admit). For despite their innate predisposition towards obedience, a very great number of them, by virtue of a certain natural playfulness, such as even a cow possesses, like to fancy themselves as the vanguard, as "destroyers", to claim their slice of the "new word", and they couldn't be more sincere, sir. And very often they don't even notice those who really are new,24 and even look down on them as people with outmoded and demeaning ways of thinking. But, in my view, there can be no significant danger here, and you really have nothing to worry about, because if they take one step forward they take two steps back. Of course, you could flog them a little every now and again for getting carried away, so as to put them in their place, but no more than that; you don't even need to find someone to do it: being so well-behaved, they'll do it themselves. Some will render this service to their peers, others will even flog themselves . . . They'll also submit themselves to various forms of public penance - it's all rather beautiful and edifying, and there's nothing, in short, for you to worry about . . . There's a law at work here.'
'Well, on this point, at least, you've reassured me a little. But there's something else that worries me, sir. Tell me, please, are there many such people, "extraordinary ones", I mean, who have the right to butcher others? I don't mind bowing down, of course, but wouldn't you agree that having a lot of them would be rather frightful, sir?'
'Oh, don't you worry about that, either,' Raskolnikov continued in the same tone. 'In general, the number of people born with new ideas, with the ability to say something, anything, even the slightest bit new, is extraordinarily small, strangely so, in fact. Only one thing is clear: the pattern according to which these people are born, of these categories and subdivisions, must be very reliably and precisely determined by some law of nature. This law, needless to say, is not currently known, but I believe it exists and that it might become known in due course. The great mass of humanity, the base material, exists only for that reason - so that, in the end, by some special effort, via some hitherto mysterious process, through some intersection of blood and breed, it can make one last push and finally bring into the world that one person in, let's say, a thousand, born with at least some measure of independence. Even broader will be the independence of the one in, say, ten thousand (these are approximate figures, of course). Still broader - the one in a hundred thousand. Geniuses take millions, while the great geniuses who crown human history may require the passing of many thousands of millions of people on this earth. I've not peeked into the retort where all this takes place. But there simply must be a definite law. It can't be chance.'
'Are the pair of you joking?' cried Razumikhin at last. 'Are you pulling each other's legs? Look at them sitting there, laughing at the other's expense! Are you being serious, Rodya?'
Raskolnikov silently lifted towards him his pale, almost sad face and made no reply. And to Razumikhin there seemed something strange, next to this quiet, sad face, about Porfiry's unconcealed, importunate, petulant and discourteous sarcasm.
'Well, brother, if you really are serious, then . . . Of course, you're right to say that this isn't new and resembles everything we've read and heard a thousand times before; but what is truly original about it all - and truly belongs to you alone, to my horror - is that, in the end, you permit bloodshed as a matter of conscience, and, if you'll excuse me, you're actually quite fanatical about it . . . This, then, must be the main idea of your article. But the permission to shed blood as a matter of conscience, well . . . it's more terrifying, to my mind, than any official permission, any legal permission . . .'
'Spot on, sir, it is more terrifying,' Porfiry chimed in.
'No, you must have got carried away somehow! There's some mistake here. I'll read it . . . You just got carried away! You can't really think that . . . I'll read it.'
'None of that's in the article, only hints,' said Raskolnikov.
'Yes indeedy,' - Porfiry just couldn't sit still - 'and your views on the subject of crime are by now almost clear to me, sir, but . . . do please forgive my persistenc
e (what a nuisance I'm being - I'm quite ashamed of myself!), but you see, sir, you did so much to reassure me before about those erroneous cases in which the two categories are confused, but . . . I'm still rather bothered about how it all works in practice! I mean, what if some man or youth were to fancy himself a Muhammad or Lycurgus - of the future, needless to say - and went around removing all the obstacles in his way . . . ? He's making preparations for some big crusade, say . . . and needs to rustle up some funds . . . understand?'
Zametov gave a sudden snort from his corner. Raskolnikov didn't even look round.
'I have to agree with you,' he calmly replied, 'that such cases must indeed occur. Those who are a bit stupid or a bit vain are particularly susceptible; the young, especially.'
'You see, sir. So what about it, sir?'
'What about it?' Raskolnikov sneered. 'It's hardly my fault. That's how it is and always will be. He was saying just now,' (he nodded towards Razumikhin) 'that I permit bloodshed. Well, so what? Society, after all, has more safeguards than it needs - exile, prisons, investigators, penal servitude - so why worry? Catch him if you can!'
'And if we do?'
'Serves him right.'
'You're logical, I'll grant you that. But what about his conscience, sir?'
'Why should you care about that?'
'You know, simply on grounds of humanity.'
'Well, he can suffer if he's got one and if he acknowledges his mistake. That'll be his punishment - besides hard labour.'
'So what about those who really are geniuses,' asked Razumikhin, frowning, 'the ones who've actually been given the right to butcher others - are you saying they shouldn't suffer at all, not even for the blood they've shed?'
'What does the word should have to do with it? It's not a matter of permitting something or forbidding something. Let him suffer, if he's sorry for his victim . . . Suffering and pain are always mandatory for broad minds and deep hearts. Truly great people, it seems to me, should feel great sadness on this earth,' he added with sudden pensiveness, in a tone that jarred with the conversation.