Crime and Punishment

  Evidently, he'd got so carried away with Mikolai that he'd forgotten all about Raskolnikov. Now he suddenly came to his senses. He was even embarrassed . . .

  'Rodion Romanovich, father! I do apologize,' he said, rushing towards him. 'It's really not on. Please, sir . . . there's no point you . . . I am also . . . So much for surprises! . . . Please, sir . . .'

  And, taking him by the arm, he began showing him out.

  'You weren't expecting this, it seems?' said Raskolnikov, who was still fairly confused by the whole business, of course, but had perked up considerably.

  'You weren't expecting it either, father. My oh my, just look how your hand's shaking! Heh-heh!'

  'You're shaking, too, Porfiry Petrovich.'

  'So I am, sir. Hadn't expected it, sir!'

  They were already at the door. Porfiry was waiting impatiently for Raskolnikov to go through.

  'So you won't be showing me your little surprise?' said Raskolnikov suddenly.

  'His teeth are chattering, but he's still talking. Heh-heh! You are an ironical man! Well, sir, till next we meet!'

  'It's goodbye, if you ask me!'

  'All in God's hands, sir, all in God's hands!' muttered Porfiry with a rather twisted smile.

  Walking through the office, Raskolnikov noticed lots of people staring at him. In the crowded lobby he managed to pick out both of the caretakers from that house, the ones he'd been urging to go to the police bureau that night. They were standing there waiting for something. But no sooner had he set foot on the staircase than he suddenly heard Porfiry Petrovich's voice behind him. He turned round to see Porfiry catching up with him, puffing and panting.

  'Just one tiny thing, Rodion Romanovich. That's all in God's hands, sir, but still, formally speaking, I will have to ask you one or two questions . . . So we'll see each other again, sir, indeed we will.'

  And Porfiry stood still before him, smiling.

  'Yes indeedy,' he added.

  He seemed to want to say something else, but somehow nothing came out.

  'And you forgive me, Porfiry Petrovich, about before . . . I got overexcited,' began Raskolnikov, who'd cheered up so much that he couldn't resist the chance to strike a pose.

  'Don't mention it, sir . . . ,' replied Porfiry almost joyfully. 'I, too, sir . . . I've a quite poisonous character, I must admit! So we'll be seeing each other, sir. God permitting, we'll be seeing each other a whole lot more!'

  'And we'll get to know each other properly?' rejoined Raskolnikov.

  'And we'll get to know each other properly,' echoed Porfiry Petrovich and, screwing up his eyes, gave him an extremely serious look. 'Off to that name-day party, sir?'

  'The funeral, sir.'

  'Oh yes, the funeral! You take care of your health now, sir, your health . . .'

  'I've no idea what I should be wishing you!' Raskolnikov replied, suddenly turning round again once he was already on his way down the stairs. 'I'd like to wish you greater success, but look what a comical job you have!'

  'But why "comical", sir?'

  Porfiry Petrovich, who'd already turned to go back, instantly pricked up his ears.

  'Well, what about this poor Mikolka, for example. You must have given him a terrible going over, psychologically, I mean, and in your own particular fashion, until he finally confessed. Day and night you must have been drumming it into him, "You're the murderer, you're the murderer . . ." - and now he's confessed you're stretching him out on the rack again: "Liar, you're not the murderer! You couldn't have been! These aren't your own words!" What's that if not comical?'

  'Heh-heh-heh! So you noticed me telling Mikolai just now that those weren't his own words?'

  'How could I not?'

  'Heh-heh! You're a wit, sir, you really are. Nothing escapes your notice! Such a playful mind, sir! And such a gift for winkling out comedy . . . heh-heh! They say that Gogol, among the writers, had that knack, do they not?'

  'That's right, Gogol.'

  'Yes, sir, Gogol . . . Well, till next I have the pleasure, sir.'

  'Quite so . . .'

  Raskolnikov went straight home. He was so muddled and confused that, after returning home and collapsing on his couch, he sat there for a good quarter of an hour, just resting and trying as best he could to collect his thoughts. He didn't even try to make sense of Mikolai: he felt that he was beaten; that Mikolai's confession contained something inexplicable, something astonishing, which for now was utterly beyond his comprehension. But Mikolai's confession was an actual fact. The consequences of this fact instantly became clear to him: it was impossible for the lie to remain uncovered, and then they would be after him once more. But until then, at least, he was free, and he simply had to do something, somehow, to help himself, for the danger was imminent.

  But how imminent, exactly? The situation was becoming clearer. Recalling, in rough, in its general contours, the whole scene that had just passed between him and Porfiry, he couldn't help shuddering all over again. Of course, he still did not know all of Porfiry's aims, nor could he grasp all of his calculations. But part of the game had been revealed, and he, of course, understood better than anyone the terrifying significance, for him, of this 'move' on Porfiry's part. A little more and he might have given himself away completely, as an irreversible fact. Knowing the infirmity of his character, having correctly grasped it and pierced it at first glance, Porfiry had taken excessively drastic, but almost unerring steps. There was no denying that Raskolnikov had already managed, just now, to compromise himself far too much, but there were still no facts; everything was still merely relative. On second thoughts, though, perhaps he was missing something? Perhaps he was mistaken? What exactly was Porfiry hoping to achieve today? Had he really prepared anything for him? What exactly? Had he really been waiting for something? How would they have parted today but for the unexpected drama caused by Mikolai?

  Porfiry had shown almost his entire hand. He'd taken a risk, of course, but he'd shown it and (so it seemed to Raskolnikov) if he really had had anything more, he'd have shown that, too. What was his 'surprise'? A joke at his expense? Did it mean anything? Could it have contained anything even faintly resembling a fact, a concrete accusation? The man from yesterday? Where had he got to? Where was he today? If Porfiry really did know anything concrete, then it could only be in connection with the man from yesterday . . .

  He sat on the couch, his head drooping, his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands. Nervous tremors still coursed through his body. Eventually he got up, took his cap, thought for a moment and made for the door.

  Something told him that today, at least, he was almost certainly safe. Suddenly, in his heart, he felt something close to joy: he wanted to get over to Katerina Ivanovna's immediately. It was too late for the funeral, of course, but he'd be in time for the banquet, and there, now, he'd see Sonya.

  He stopped, thought for a moment, and his lips forced out a sickly smile.

  'Today! Today!' he repeated to himself. 'Yes, today! Has to be . . .'

  He was just about to open the door when it suddenly began to open all by itself. He jumped back with a shudder. The door opened slowly and quietly, and there suddenly appeared the figure of yesterday's man from out of the ground.

  The man paused on the threshold, looked at Raskolnikov without saying anything and took a step into the room. He was no different from yesterday, exactly the same figure, the same clothes, but his face and his gaze had undergone a marked change: there was something doleful about him now and, after standing there a while, he heaved a deep sigh. All it needed was for him to put a palm to his cheek while cocking his head to one side and he could have been taken for a woman.

  'What do you want?' asked Raskolnikov, more dead than alive.

  The man said nothing, then suddenly made a very low bow, almost to the ground. At the very least, he touched the ground with a finger of his right hand.

  'Well?' cried Raskolnikov.

  'I'm sorry,' said the man quietly.

&n
bsp; 'What for?'

  'Malicious thoughts.'

  Each was looking at the other.

  'I felt aggrieved. The way you showed up that time, sir, under the influence, maybe, wanting the caretakers to go down the station and enquiring about blood. Well, I felt aggrieved they let you off and marked you down as a drunk. I was so aggrieved I lost sleep. So, recalling the address, we came here yesterday and made enquiries . . .'

  'Who came?' Raskolnikov interrupted, instantly beginning to remember.

  'I did, I mean. I've done you wrong.'

  'So you're from that house?'

  'But I was there that time, standing with them under the arch, or have you forgotten? We've even got our own business there, have had for years. We're furriers, tradesmen, we work from home . . . and what aggrieved me most was . . .'

  Raskolnikov had a sudden, vivid recollection of the whole scene under the arch two days earlier; it occurred to him that apart from the caretakers there were several other people there, even some women. He remembered one voice suggesting that he be taken straight to the police. He couldn't recall the face of the speaker and didn't recognize him even now, but he did remember making some sort of reply to him then, and turning towards him . . .

  So here was the solution to yesterday's dreadful riddle! Most dreadful of all was to think how very close he'd come to his own, self-inflicted ruin, all on account of such a paltry circumstance. So aside from the talk of renting an apartment and of blood, this man had nothing to tell. So Porfiry also had nothing, nothing except that delirium, no facts except psychology, which is double-edged, nothing concrete. So if no more facts emerged (and why on earth should they?), then . . . then what could they do with him? How could they expose him definitively, even if they arrested him? So Porfiry had only found out about the apartment now - and had known nothing before.

  'Was it you who told Porfiry today . . . about me showing up that time?' he cried, struck by an unexpected idea.

  'Which Porfiry?'

  'The chief investigator.'

  'Yes, it was me. The caretakers didn't go, so I went instead.'

  'Today?'

  'Barely a minute before you. And I heard everything, heard him torture you.'

  'Where? What? When?'

  'Right there, behind that partition of his. I was sitting there all that time.'

  'What? So you were the surprise? How on earth did that happen? Incredible!'

  'When we saw,' the tradesman began, 'that the caretakers weren't having any of my suggestion, because, they said, it was too late, and anyway he'd probably be angry we hadn't come right away, I was aggrieved and started losing sleep, and began making enquiries. Yesterday I found out and today I went. First time I went he weren't there. Came back an hour later - he couldn't see me; came back a third time - admitted. I started filling him in on everything and he started hopping about the room and beating his chest. "What are you doing to me, you brigands?" he said. "If I'd only known such a thing, I'd have had him brought in under escort!" Then he ran out, called someone and began talking to him in the corner, then back to me again - asking me questions and cursing. He weren't happy with me at all. I told him everything and said that you didn't dare answer me at all yesterday and hadn't recognized me. So he started haring about the room and beating his chest, and getting angry, and running around again, and when you were announced - "All right," he says, "get yourself behind the partition; sit there for the time being and don't budge, whatever you hear," and he brought me a chair himself and locked me in. "I might even ask for you," he says. But when Mikolai was brought in, well, he showed me out, after you. "I'll need you again," he says, "I'll have more questions for you . . ."'

  'So were you there when he questioned Mikolai?'

  'First he showed you out, then me straight after, and then he began interrogating Mikolai.'

  The tradesman paused and suddenly bowed once again, touching the floor with his finger.

  'Forgive my slander and malice.'

  'God will forgive,' replied Raskolnikov, and no sooner had he said this than the tradesman made another bow, though not to the ground, turned and walked out. 'Everything is double-edged now; yes, everything is double-edged,' Raskolnikov kept saying and left the room in better spirits than ever.

  'So the fight goes on,' he said with a spiteful smile as he went down the stairs. His spite was directed at himself, and the memory of his 'petty cowardice' filled him with contempt and shame.

  PART FIVE

  I

  The morning after his fateful conversation with Dunechka and Pulkheria Alexandrovna had a sobering effect on Pyotr Petrovich as well. He, to his very greatest displeasure, was obliged, little by little, to accept as an accomplished and irrevocable fact an event that only yesterday had seemed to him almost fantastical and, though it had already happened, still somehow impossible. All night long the black serpent of wounded pride had sucked at his heart. Getting out of his bed, Pyotr Petrovich immediately looked in the mirror. Might he have had an attack of bile overnight? No, there were no concerns on that score for the time being, and after a glance at his noble, white and lately somewhat flabby countenance Pyotr Petrovich even cheered up a little, fully determined to find himself a bride somewhere else and, perhaps, a rather better one; but he instantly came to his senses and spat vigorously over his shoulder, thereby eliciting a silent but sarcastic smile from his young friend and room-mate Andrei Semyonovich Lebezyatnikov. Pyotr Petrovich noted the smile and immediately held it against him. He'd been holding a lot of things against his young friend recently. His spite was redoubled when he suddenly realized how unwise it had been of him yesterday to inform Andrei Semyonovich of the outcome of the conversation. That had been his second mistake, made in the heat of the moment, from an excess of candour and irritation . . . And the rest of the morning, as ill luck would have it, was one unpleasantness after another. There was even a setback waiting for him in the Senate, on some case he was working on. Especially irritating was the landlord of the apartment which he'd rented with a view to his imminent marriage and done up at his own expense: nothing could persuade this landlord, some German craftsman flush with money, to rescind their freshly signed contract; in fact, he demanded full payment of the penalty stipulated therein, despite the fact that Pyotr Petrovich was returning to him an almost entirely redecorated apartment. Similarly, the furniture shop refused to return a single rouble of the deposit on the goods that had been bought but not yet delivered. 'I can hardly get married just for a few tables and chairs!' thought Pyotr Petrovich, grinding his teeth, and as he did so a desperate hope flashed across his mind once more: 'Is the situation really so irretrievable? Is it really all over? Surely I can have one more go?' The delicious thought of Dunechka pricked his heart once more. This moment was sheer agony and if he had only been able, by merely desiring it, to kill Raskolnikov there and then, Pyotr Petrovich would surely have voiced that desire without delay.

  'Another mistake was never giving them any money,' he thought, returning sadly to Lebezyatnikov's tiny room. 'Why did I have to make such a Jew of myself? It didn't even make any sense! I thought if I treated them meanly enough they'd end up viewing me as Providence itself - so much for that! . . . Pah! . . . No, if only I'd given them fifteen hundred, say, to tide them over, to spend on the trousseau and on gifts, on nice little boxes, toilet cases, cornelians, fabrics and all that tat from Knop's and the English Shop,1 everything would have worked out a whole lot better . . . and with far less uncertainty! They wouldn't have found it so easy to refuse me, then! They're just the kind of people who always consider it their duty, in the event of a refusal, to return both the gifts and the money; but they'd have been too sorry to part with them! Plus, their conscience would have bothered them: how can we suddenly turn out a man who's been so generous till now and actually rather considerate? . . . H'm! What a blunder!' Grinding his teeth again, Pyotr Petrovich promptly called himself an idiot - under his breath, needless to say.

  Reaching this conclu
sion, he returned home twice as cross and irritated as when he'd left. The preparations for the funeral banquet in Katerina Ivanovna's room offered some distraction. He'd already heard a little about this banquet yesterday; he even seemed to recall being invited along himself; but with so many worries of his own, he hadn't paid the slightest attention. Now he lost no time in asking Mrs Lippewechsel - she was fussing around the dining table, making preparations in the absence of Katerina Ivanovna (who was at the cemetery) - and learned that the banquet would be a grand affair, that nearly all the tenants were invited, among them some who had never even met the deceased, that even Andrei Semyonovich Lebezyatnikov had been invited, despite his previous row with Katerina Ivanovna, and, finally, that he, Pyotr Petrovich, was not only invited but eagerly awaited, as virtually the most important guest of all the tenants. Mrs Lippewechsel had also been invited with great fanfare, despite all the unpleasant things that had happened, which was why she was now giving orders, fussing about and almost enjoying herself; and though dressed for mourning, she wore brand-new silk from top to toe and wore it proudly. All this information put a thought in Pyotr Petrovich's mind and he went through to his room - which is to say Andrei Semyonovich Lebezyatnikov's room - in a rather pensive mood: for he'd learned that Raskolnikov, too, was invited.

  For some reason, Andrei Semyonovich had spent the whole morning at home. The relationship Pyotr Petrovich had established with this gentleman was somewhat strange, though in some ways also quite natural: Pyotr Petrovich despised and loathed him beyond measure, almost from the day he'd moved in, yet at the same time he felt a kind of wariness towards him. A tight wallet wasn't the only reason he'd decided to stay with Andrei Semyonovich on arriving in Petersburg, though it was more or less the main one; there was another reason, too. Even back in the provinces he'd heard Andrei Semyonovich, his former charge, being spoken of as a leading young progressive, even as a major player in certain intriguing and legendary circles. This had come as a shock to Pyotr Petrovich. It was just these circles - powerful, all-knowing, all-despising, all-unmasking - that had long filled Pyotr Petrovich with some special, though utterly obscure, terror. Of course, there was no way that he - in the provinces, to boot - could have formed an accurate notion, even approximately, about anything of this sort. Like everyone else he'd heard of the existence, especially in Petersburg, of progressivists, nihilists and so on, but, like many, he'd exaggerated and distorted the meaning and significance of these words to the point of absurdity. What had scared him most, for several years now, was to be shown up, and this was the chief cause of his constant, disproportionate anxiety, especially when dreaming of his professional relocation to Petersburg. In this respect he was, as they say, frightened to bits, in the way that little children are sometimes frightened to bits. Several years earlier, in the country, when his career was only just getting started, he'd encountered two incidents in which fairly important local individuals, to whose patronage he'd clung, were cruelly shown up. One ended in a manner that was quite unusually scandalous for the person in question, while the other almost proved very troublesome indeed. So Pyotr Petrovich had resolved, on arriving in Petersburg, to find out right away what was behind it all and, if necessary, to get ahead of the game just in case by currying favour with 'our young generations'. For this, he relied on Andrei Semyonovich, and by the time he visited Raskolnikov, he'd already learned to get his tongue around a few well-worn, borrowed phrases . . .