crime and

punishment
 crime and
punishment

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Introduction by Ellen B. Yoffee

Barnes & Noble World Digital Library

New York
 Introduction Copyright © 2002 by Barnes & Noble
World Digital Library

First Published 1866

All rights reserved under International and

Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

Published in the United States by

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ISBN 1-594-08378-8
 introduction

How could a nineteenth-century Russian novel still

capture the twenty-first century psyche? The mar-
riage between love and hate as well as a grotesque
look into the human psychological condition is pre-
cisely what draws readers to a masterpiece such as
Crime and Punishment. The novel’s timelessness is the
result of its ongoing relevance to society as well as
the enigma of crime itself. Fyodor Dostoevsky takes
pains to show us the inevitability of this cycle of
crime through the beautifully crafted characters and
twisted plots of this work.
Simply titled, Crime and Punishment’s timelessness
is the result of its ongoing prevalence in society as
well as the enigma of crime itself. Those who weigh
testimonials and create laws realize that part of the
problem of understanding and preventing crime is to
understand the nature of the criminal mind and the
forces in society, which perpetuate such a phenome-
non. Ironically, many agree that the social institutions
we set in place to regulate the economy and govern
the masses are the very cause of those crimes that we

iv
 introduction

fear so much — crimes which themselves spawn crime

by the very nature of their enigmatic presence in soci-
ety. Theorist John Kiedrowski notes, “Criminality is
thus the result of an imposed capitalist order of law
(including definitions of crime), western institutions,
and modes of production completely alien to the
developing world. Inequalities of power lead to crim-
inality, and it is institutions, not criminals, that really
matter for understanding crime in developing coun-
tries”. Dostoevsky takes pains to show us the
inevitability of this cycle through the beautifully
crafted characters and twisted plots of his greatest
works. The majority of his major works address psy-
chological and social ills revolving around crime,
such as Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, The Possessed,
The Brothers Karamazov, Notes from the Underground, The
Double, The Insult and Injured, and The Dream of a
Ridiculous Man.
The author himself was no stranger to adversity
and struggle. Born into a family of nine in October
1821, he was the son of an army surgeon. The
author’s mother died when he was sixteen, which
split up the family. After being sent to a military acad-
emy with his brother, their father was murdered by
his own serfs that were treated brutally by him. His
first wife (whose traits, critics say, manifest themselves
in the character of Katerina Ivanovna) had died of
tuberculosis. Though his first book, Poor Folk, earned
him an invitation into the Natural School of Russian

v
 introduction

Literature in the 1840s, he was convicted of subver-

sion against Tsar Nicholas I in 1849 and exiled to
Siberia. This exile, coupled with a subsequent prison
sentence, served to shape the psychological atmos-
phere of his novels. By the time Crime and Punishment
was published in 1866, he had just returned from
exile and had already developed the bleak outlook
that pervades the novel.
Similarly, the tone of the period in 1860s Russia,
much like the novel, was one of agitation. Serfdom
had evolved to a condition closely resembling slavery
to the nobles whom the Russian Tsars had empow-
ered. And although Alexander II abolished serfdom,
conditions remained virtually the same. The lower
classes, pushing for freedom in an increasingly indus-
trialized society, were headed toward revolution.
Simultaneously, traditional religious, social, and cul-
tural ideals were being overturned. Thinkers like Karl
Marx and John Stewart Mill advocated reason over
faith-based Christian principles. Traditional ideas of
morality were called into question, and new views,
such as nihilism and existentialism, were born in a
time when imperialism was nearing its end, and social-
ism fueled the young minds of radicals ready for revo-
lution. It is understandable that instability, anger, and
resentment would fester in the mind of Dostoevsky
and manifest itself in the character of Raskolnikov.
Defined by Dostoevsky himself as the “psychologi-
cal report of a crime”, Crime and Punishment is the

vi
 introduction

story of a university dropout, Raskolnikov, who plots

the murder of Alyona Ivanovna. She is a greedy pawn-
broker, to whom he and many others are indebted.
The plot erupts through the eyes of the misanthropic
young protagonist who has endured a life steeped in
poverty. He plans to use the money and stolen mer-
chandise to rescue his sister from her unconscionable
suitor, secure his mother’s future, and lead a
respectable life with financial freedom.
After the murder, Raskolnikov’s own guilt and
paranoia causes him physical illness and delirium,
resulting in insanity. While planning his crime,
Raskolnikov becomes more and more psychologically
unsteady. He even notes the absurdity of his plans
(chapter 6), and when the crime itself is completed,
he mysteriously takes ill with both a fever and a delir-
ium that only furthers the course of his own self-
loathing and insanity. After having committed the
crime, he goes through a series of fevered incidents
with friends and family, during which his delirium
reveals a schizophrenic man whose various personali-
ties battle one another. Finally, his meeting with the
saintly prostitute Sonia ultimately rescues him from
his own alter ego as she helps him to explore the path
that he must take to redemption.
Perhaps most notable are the novel’s detailed
characters, including the evolution of the psychologi-
cal processes that occur in Raskolnikov’s criminal
mind. While Raskolnikov’s narration is unreliable,

vii
 introduction

the reactions of his friends and family not only help

to elucidate his character, but also the themes of
nihilism and existentialism.
Rooted in the idea that people can develop a
utopia if they live for the purpose of enlightened self-
interest, nihilism is based on scientific fact and rea-
soning. As a nihilist, Raskolnikov acts on the basis of
his own self-interests, yet denies accountability. He
rationalizes the murder on the basis that he wishes
happiness for his sister and his mother, yet he does
not project the consequences of his actions on others
(a Christian principle) or believe in a fate that will
lead out of his unchanging cycle of poverty. He is con-
vinced he can live unscathed by a murder he is psy-
chologically incapable of leaving behind.
Similarly, Dostoevsky demonstrates the existential-
ist notion of the absurdity of human existence and
the idea that humans have the free will to choose
their own fates. In the beginning of the novel,
Raskolnikov foresees the absurdity of his murder plan
yet executes it anyway, perpetuating the criminal
cycle of the poor trying to emerge from their stand-
ing in society. Raskolnikov goes on to commit a
crime, which leads to an inevitable fate spun by his
own devices, repeating the cycle of poverty by his own
choice — a microcosm of the cycle of criminality.
A minor, yet provocative, character that
Raskolnikov is strangely drawn to is Marmeladov, a
drunken buffoon whose plight is a mirror of

viii
 introduction

Raskolnikov’s own reality. He drinks away the money

his daughter gives him, even though he knows his
family is starving and his wife is fatally ill. Katerina
Ivanovna, Marmeladov’s wife, is dying of consump-
tion, and he, like Raskolnikov, welcomes guilt. He
perpetuates these dire circumstances and lives up to
his fate because he knows that the inevitability of
death is near, epitomizing the themes of existential-
ism and nihilism. Like Raskolnikov, he torments him-
self to no end — similar to the existentialist role
model Sisyphus, who eternally rolls a boulder up a
hill, only to see it roll back down so that all his work is
undone, and he must do it all over again.
Another character that acts in the interest of his
own self-enlightenment and benefit is Pyotr
Petrovitch, Dounia’s (Raskolnikov’s sister) fiancée. In
a letter, Raskolnikov’s mother describes Pyotr as
rather abrupt and outspoken. Apparently, he had
made up his mind to “marry a girl of good reputa-
tion, without dowry, and above all, one who had expe-
rienced poverty, because, as he explained, a man
ought not to be indebted to his wife, but that it is bet-
ter for a wife to look upon her husband as her bene-
factor” (chapter 3). This perception angers
Raskolnikov to no end, not only because he is not
consulted, but because Pyotr obviously expects to
reap the most that he can from Dounia, and has little
to return aside from providing her with a husband
and home. Yet, ironically, Raskolnikov does not

ix
 introduction

notice the hypocrisy of his own self-interest and how

it motivates his own life as well.
Just as action films — replete with violence —
attract audiences in modern times, readers are still
drawn to the criminality of Crime and Punishment.
Dostoevsky’s unique use of the omniscient narrator,
though fraught with delirium, remains reliable by
means of the reactions of his friends and family. This
technique, involving the analysis of psychological
processes, influenced successive authors, such as
Henry James and Joseph Conrad. Dostoevsky not
only encourages readers to empathize with the char-
acters, no matter what their intentions, he also forces
us to analyze what motivates the criminal act.
Dostoevsky could see the Raskolnikov in all of us,
which is precisely why we need him to teach us to
make decisions that determine the success of our
fates as well as the fates of others.

x
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 contents

introduction iv
part i
chapter i 2

chapter ii 16

chapter iii 44

chapter iv 65

chapter v 85

chapter vi 102

chapter vii 122

part ii
chapter i 143
chapter ii 171
 contents

chapter iii 188

chapter iv 210

chapter v 227

chapter vi 245

chapter vii 277

part iii

chapter i 307

chapter ii 328

chapter iii 347

chapter iv 369

chapter v 387

chapter vi 417

part iv

chapter i 436

chapter ii 457

xiii
 contents

chapter iii 477

chapter iv 490

chapter v 516

chapter vi 544

part v

chapter i 558

chapter ii 583

chapter iii 604

chapter iv 627

chapter v 654

part vi

chapter i 677

chapter ii 693

chapter iii 715

chapter iv 731

xiv
 contents

chapter v 748

chapter vi 771

chapter vii 793

chapter viii 808

epilogue

chapter i 825

chapter ii 838

about the author 851

suggested reading 853

xv
crime and punishment
pa r t o n e
 chapter i

On an exceptionally hot evening early in July a young

man came out of the garret in which he lodged in S.
Place and walked slowly, as though in hesitation,
towards K. bridge.
He had successfully avoided meeting his land-
lady on the staircase. His garret was under the roof
of a high, five-storied house and was more like a
cupboard than a room. The landlady who provided
him with garret, dinners, and attendance, lived on
the floor below, and every time he went out he was
obliged to pass her kitchen, the door of which
invariably stood open. And each time he passed,
the young man had a sick, frightened feeling,
which made him scowl and feel ashamed. He was
hopelessly in debt to his landlady, and was afraid of
meeting her.
This was not because he was cowardly and abject,
quite the contrary; but for some time past he had been
in an overstrained irritable condition, verging on

2
 crime and punishment

hypochondria. He had become so completely absorbed

in himself, and isolated from his fellows that he dreaded
meeting, not only his landlady, but any one at all. He was
crushed by poverty, but the anxieties of his position had
of late ceased to weigh upon him. He had given up
attending to matters of practical importance; he had
lost all desire to do so. Nothing that any landlady could
do had a real terror for him. But to be stopped on the
stairs, to be forced to listen to her trivial, irrelevant gos-
sip, to pestering demands for payment, threats and
complaints, and to rack his brains for excuses, to prevar-
icate, to lie — no, rather than that, he would creep down
the stairs like a cat and slip out unseen.
This evening, however, on coming out into the
street, he became acutely aware of his fears.
“I want to attempt a thing like that and am fright-
ened by these trifles,” he thought, with an odd smile.
“Hm . . . yes, all is in a man’s hands and he lets it all
slip from cowardice, that’s an axiom. It would be
interesting to know what it is men are most afraid of.
Taking a new step, uttering a new word is what they
fear most . . . But I am talking too much. It’s because I
chatter that I do nothing. Or perhaps it is that I chat-
ter because I do nothing. I’ve learned to chatter this
last month, lying for days together in my den think-
ing . . . of Jack the Giant-killer. Why am I going there
now? Am I capable of that? Is that serious? It is not
serious at all. It’s simply a fantasy to amuse myself; a
plaything! Yes, maybe it is a plaything.”

3
 fyodor dostoevsky

The heat in the street was terrible: and the airless-

ness, the bustle and the plaster, scaffolding, bricks,
and dust all about him, and that special Petersburg
stench, so familiar to all who are unable to get out of
town in summer — all worked painfully upon the
young man’s already overwrought nerves. The insuf-
ferable stench from the pot-houses, which are partic-
ularly numerous in that part of the town, and the
drunken men whom he met continually, although it
was a working day, completed the revolting misery of
the picture. An expression of the profoundest disgust
gleamed for a moment in the young man’s refined
face. He was, by the way, exceptionally handsome,
above the average in height, slim, well-built, with
beautiful dark eyes and dark brown hair. Soon he
sank into deep thought, or more accurately speaking,
into a complete blankness of mind; he walked along
not observing what was about him and not caring to
observe it. From time to time, he would mutter some-
thing, from the habit of talking to himself, to which
he had just confessed. At these moments he would
become conscious that his ideas were sometimes in a
tangle and that he was very weak; for two days he had
scarcely tasted food.
He was so badly dressed that even a man accus-
tomed to shabbiness would have been ashamed to be
seen in the street in such rags. In that quarter of the
town, however, scarcely any shortcoming in dress
would have created surprise. Owing to the proximity

4
 crime and punishment

of the Hay Market, the number of establishments of

bad character, the preponderance of the trading and
working class population crowded in these streets
and alleys in the heart of Petersburg, types so various
were to be seen in the streets that no figure, however
queer, would have caused surprise. But there was
such accumulated bitterness and contempt in the
young man’s heart, that, in spite of all the fastidious-
ness of youth, he minded his rags least of all in the
street. It was a different matter when he met with
acquaintances or with former fellow students, whom,
indeed, he disliked meeting at any time. And yet
when a drunken man who, for some unknown rea-
son, was being taken somewhere in a huge waggon
dragged by a heavy dray horse, suddenly shouted at
him as he drove past: “Hey there, German hatter”
bawling at the top of his voice and pointing at him —
the young man stopped suddenly and clutched
tremulously at his hat. It was a tall round hat from
Zimmerman’s, but completely worn out, rusty with
age, all torn and bespattered, brimless and bent on
one side in a most unseemly fashion. Not shame,
however, but quite another feeling akin to terror had
overtaken him.
“I knew it,” he muttered in confusion, “I thought
so! That’s the worst of all! Why, a stupid thing like
this, the most trivial detail might spoil the whole plan.
Yes, my hat is too noticeable . . . It looks absurd and
that makes it noticeable . . . With my rags I ought to

5
 fyodor dostoevsky

wear a cap, any sort of old pancake, but not this

grotesque thing. Nobody wears such a hat, it would
be noticed a mile off, it would be remembered . . .
What matters is that people would remember it, and
that would give them a clue. For this business one
should be as little conspicuous as possible . . . Trifles,
trifles are what matter! Why, it’s just such trifles that
always ruin everything . . . ”
He had not far to go; he knew indeed how many
steps it was from the gate of his lodging house:
exactly seven hundred and thirty. He had counted
them once when he had been lost in dreams. At the
time he had put no faith in those dreams and was
only tantalising himself by their hideous but daring
recklessness. Now, a month later, he had begun to
look upon them differently, and, in spite of the
monologues in which he jeered at his own impotence
and indecision, he had involuntarily come to regard
this “hideous” dream as an exploit to be attempted,
although he still did not realise this himself. He was
positively going now for a “rehearsal” of his project,
and at every step his excitement grew more and more
violent.
With a sinking heart and a nervous tremor, he
went up to a huge house which on one side looked
on to the canal, and on the other into the street. This
house was let out in tiny tenements and was inhabited
by working people of all kinds — tailors, locksmiths,
cooks, Germans of sorts, girls picking up a living as

6
 crime and punishment

best they could, petty clerks, &c. There was a contin-

ual coming and going through the two gates and in
the two courtyards of the house. Three or four door-
keepers were employed on the building. The young
man was very glad to meet none of them, and at once
slipped unnoticed through the door on the right,
and up the staircase. It was a back staircase, dark and
narrow, but he was familiar with it already, and knew
his way, and he liked all these surroundings: in such
darkness even the most inquisitive eyes were not to be
dreaded.
“If I am so scared now, what would it be if it some-
how came to pass that I were really going to do it?” he
could not help asking himself as he reached the
fourth storey. There his progress was barred by some
porters who were engaged in moving furniture out of
a flat. He knew that the flat had been occupied by a
German clerk in the civil service, and his family. This
German was moving out then, and so the fourth floor
on this staircase would be untenanted except by the
old woman. “That’s a good thing anyway,” he thought
to himself, as he rang the bell of the old woman’s flat.
The bell gave a faint tinkle as though it were made of
tin and not of copper. The little flats in such houses
always have bells that ring like that. He had forgotten
the note of that bell, and now its peculiar tinkle
seemed to remind him of something and to bring it
clearly before him . . . He started, his nerves were ter-
ribly overstrained by now. In a little while, the door

7
 fyodor dostoevsky

was opened a tiny crack: the old woman eyed her visi-
tor with evident distrust through the crack, and noth-
ing could be seen but her little eyes, glittering in the
darkness. But, seeing a number of people on the
landing, she grew bolder, and opened the door wide.
The young man stepped into the dark entry, which
was partitioned off from the tiny kitchen. The old
woman stood facing him in silence and looking
inquiringly at him. She was a diminutive, withered up
old woman of sixty, with sharp malignant eyes and a
sharp little nose. Her colourless, somewhat grizzled
hair was thickly smeared with oil, and she wore no
kerchief over it. Round her thin long neck, which
looked like a hen’s leg, was knotted some sort of flan-
nel rag, and, in spite of the heat, there hung flapping
on her shoulders, a mangy fur cape, yellow with age.
The old woman coughed and groaned at every
instant. The young man must have looked at her with
a rather peculiar expression, for a gleam of mistrust
came into her eyes again.
“Raskolnikov, a student, I came here a month
ago,” the young man made haste to mutter, with a
half bow, remembering that he ought to be more
polite.
“I remember, my good sir, I remember quite well
your coming here,” the old woman said distinctly, still
keeping her inquiring eyes on his face.
“And here . . . I am again on the same errand,”
Raskolnikov continued, a little disconcerted and sur-

8
 crime and punishment

prised at the old woman’s mistrust. “Perhaps she is

always like that though, only I did not notice it the
other time,” he thought with an uneasy feeling.
The old woman paused, as though hesitating; then
stepped on one side, and pointing to the door of the
room, she said, letting her visitor pass in front of her:
“Step in, my good sir.”
The little room into which the young man walked,
with yellow paper on the walls, geraniums and muslin
curtains in the windows, was brightly lighted up at
that moment by the setting sun.
“So the sun will shine like this then too!” flashed
as it were by chance through Raskolnikov’s mind,
and with a rapid glance he scanned everything in
the room, trying as far as possible to notice and
remember its arrangement. But there was nothing
special in the room. The furniture, all very old and
of yellow wood, consisted of a sofa with a huge bent
wooden back, an oval table in front of the sofa, a
dressing-table with a looking-glass fixed on it
between the windows, chairs along the walls and two
or three half-penny prints in yellow frames, repre-
senting German damsels with birds in their hands —
that was all. In the corner a light was burning before
a small ikon. Everything was very clean; the floor
and the furniture were brightly polished; everything
shone.
“Lizaveta’s work,” thought the young man. There
was not a speck of dust to be seen in the whole flat.

9
 fyodor dostoevsky

“It’s in the houses of spiteful old widows that

one finds such cleanliness,” Raskolnikov thought
again, and he stole a curious glance at the cotton
curtain over the door leading into another tiny
room, in which stood the old woman’s bed and
chest of drawers and into which he had never
looked before. These two rooms made up the
whole flat.
“What do you want?” the old woman said severely,
coming into the room and, as before, standing in
front of him so as to look him straight in the face.
“I’ve brought something to pawn here,” and he
drew out of his pocket an old-fashioned flat silver
watch, on the back of which was engraved a globe;
the chain was of steel.
“But the time is up for your last pledge. The
month was up the day before yesterday.”
“I will bring you the interest for another month;
wait a little.”
“But that’s for me to do as I please, my good sir, to
wait or to sell your pledge at once.”
“How much will you give me for the watch, Alyona
Ivanovna?”
“You come with such trifles, my good sir, it’s
scarcely worth anything. I gave you two roubles last
time for your ring and one could buy it quite new at a
jeweller’s for a rouble and a half.”
“Give me four roubles for it, I shall redeem it, it
was my father’s. I shall be getting some money soon.”

10
 crime and punishment

“A rouble and a half, and interest in advance, if

you like!”
“A rouble and a half!” cried the young man.
“Please yourself” — and the old woman handed
him back the watch. The young man took it, and was
so angry that he was on the point of going away; but
checked himself at once, remembering that there was
nowhere else he could go, and that he had had
another object also in coming.
“Hand it over,” he said roughly.
The old woman fumbled in her pocket for her keys,
and disappeared behind the curtain into the other
room. The young man, left standing alone in the mid-
dle of the room, listened inquisitively, thinking. He
could hear her unlocking the chest of drawers.
“It must be the top drawer,” he reflected. “So she
carries the keys in a pocket on the right. All in one
bunch on a steel ring . . . And there’s one key there,
three times as big as all the others, with deep notches;
that can’t be the key of the chest of drawers . . . then
there must be some other chest or strong-box . . .
that’s worth knowing. Strong-boxes always have keys
like that . . . but how degrading it all is.”
The old woman came back.
“Here, sir: as we say ten copecks the rouble a
month, so I must take fifteen copecks from a rouble
and a half for the month in advance. But for the two
roubles I lent you before, you owe me now twenty
copecks on the same reckoning in advance. That

11
 fyodor dostoevsky

makes thirty-five copecks altogether. So I must give

you a rouble and fifteen copecks for the watch. Here
it is.”
“What! only a rouble and fifteen copecks now!”
“Just so.”
The young man did not dispute it and took the
money. He looked at the old woman, and was in no
hurry to get away, as though there was still something
he wanted to say or do, but he did not himself quite
know what.
“I may be bringing you something else in a day or
two, Alyona Ivanovna — a valuable thing — silver — a
cigarette box, as soon as I get it back from a friend . .
.” he broke off in confusion.
“Well, we will talk about it then, sir.”
“Good-bye — are you always at home alone, your
sister is not here with you?” He asked her as casually
as possible as he went out into the passage.
“What business is she of yours, my good sir?”
“Oh, nothing particular, I simply asked. You are
too quick . . . Good-day, Alyona Ivanovna.”
Raskolnikov went out in complete confusion. This
confusion became more and more intense. As he
went down the stairs, he even stopped short, two or
three times, as though suddenly struck by some
thought. When he was in the street he cried out, “Oh,
God, how loathsome it all is! and can I, can I possibly
. . . No, it’s nonsense, it’s rubbish!” he added res-
olutely. “And how could such an atrocious thing

12
 crime and punishment

come into my head? What filthy things my heart is

capable of. Yes, filthy above all, disgusting, loath-
some, loathsome! — and for a whole month I’ve been
. . . ” But no words, no exclamations, could express his
agitation. The feeling of intense repulsion, which
had begun to oppress and torture his heart while he
was on his way to the old woman, had by now reached
such a pitch and had taken such a definite form that
he did not know what to do with himself to escape
from his wretchedness. He walked along the pave-
ment like a drunken man, regardless of the passers-
by, and jostling against them, and only came to his
senses when he was in the next street. Looking
round, he noticed that he was standing close to a tav-
ern which was entered by steps leading from the pave-
ment to the basement. At that instant two drunken
men came out at the door, and abusing and support-
ing one another, they mounted the steps. Without
stopping to think, Raskolnikov went down the steps at
once. Till that moment he had never been into a tav-
ern, but now he felt giddy and was tormented by a
burning thirst. He longed for a drink of cold beer,
and attributed his sudden weakness to the want of
food. He sat down at a sticky little table in a dark and
dirty corner; ordered some beer, and eagerly drank
off the first glassful. At once he felt easier; and his
thoughts became clear.
“All that’s nonsense,” he said hopefully, “and there
is nothing in it all to worry about! It’s simply physical

13
 fyodor dostoevsky

derangement. Just a glass of beer, a piece of dry bread

— and in one moment the brain is stronger, the mind
is clearer and the will is firm! Phew, how utterly petty
it all is!”
But in spite of this scornful reflection, he was by
now looking cheerful as though he were suddenly set
free from a terrible burden: and he gazed round in a
friendly way at the people in the room. But even at
that moment he had a dim foreboding that this hap-
pier frame of mind was also not normal.
There were few people at the time in the tavern.
Besides the two drunken men he had met on the steps,
a group consisting of about five men and a girl with a
concertina had gone out at the same time. Their
departure left the room quiet and rather empty. The
persons still in the tavern were a man who appeared to
be an artisan, drunk, but not extremely so, sitting
before a pot of beer, and his companion, a huge, stout
man with a grey beard, in a short full-skirted coat. He
was very drunk: and had dropped asleep on the bench;
every now and then, he began as though in his sleep,
cracking his fingers, with his arms wide apart and the
upper part of his body bounding about on the bench,
while he hummed some meaningless refrain, trying to
recall some such lines as these:
“His wife a year he fondly loved
His wife a — a year he — fondly loved.”
Or suddenly waking up again:

14
 crime and punishment

“Walking along the crowded row

He met the one he used to know.”
But no one shared his enjoyment: his silent com-
panion looked with positive hostility and mistrust at
all these manifestations. There was another man in
the room who looked somewhat like a retired govern-
ment clerk. He was sitting apart, now and then sip-
ping from his pot and looking round at the company.
He too, appeared to be in some agitation.

15
 chapter ii

Raskolnikov was not used to crowds, and, as we

said before, he avoided society of every sort, more
especially of late. But now all at once he felt a desire
to be with other people. Something new seemed to
be taking place within him, and with it he felt a sort of
thirst for company. He was so weary after a whole
month of concentrated wretchedness and gloomy
excitement that he longed to rest, if only for a
moment, in some other world, whatever it might be;
and, in spite of the filthiness of the surroundings, he
was glad now to stay in the tavern.
The master of the establishment was in another
room, but he frequently came down some steps into
the main room, his jaunty, tarred boots with red turn-
over tops coming into view each time before the rest
of his person. He wore a full coat and a horribly
greasy black satin waistcoat, with no cravat, and his
whole face seemed smeared with oil like an iron lock.
At the counter stood a boy of about fourteen, and

16
 crime and punishment

there was another boy somewhat younger who

handed whatever was wanted. On the counter lay
some sliced cucumber, some pieces of dried black
bread, and some fish, chopped up small, all smelling
very bad. It was insufferably close, and so heavy with
the fumes of spirits that five minutes in such an
atmosphere might well make a man drunk.
There are chance meetings with strangers that
interest us from the first moment, before a word is
spoken. Such was the impression made on
Raskolnikov by the person sitting a little distance
from him, who looked like a retired clerk. The young
man often recalled this impression afterwards, and
even ascribed it to presentiment. He looked repeat-
edly at the clerk, partly no doubt because the latter
was staring persistently at him, obviously anxious to
enter into conversation. At the other persons in the
room, including the tavern-keeper, the clerk looked
as though he were used to their company, and weary
of it, showing a shade of condescending contempt for
them as persons of station and culture inferior to his
own, with whom it would be useless for him to con-
verse. He was a man over fifty, bald and grizzled, of
medium height, and stoutly built. His face, bloated
from continual drinking, was of a yellow, even green-
ish, tinge, with swollen eyelids out of which keen red-
dish eyes gleamed like little chinks. But there was
something very strange in him; there was a light in his
eyes as though of intense feeling — perhaps there

17
 fyodor dostoevsky

were even thought and intelligence, but at the same

time there was a gleam of something like madness.
He was wearing an old and hopelessly ragged black
dress coat, with all its buttons missing except one,
and that one he had buttoned, evidently clinging to
this last trace of respectability. A crumpled shirt front
covered with spots and stains, protruded from his
canvas waistcoat. Like a clerk, he wore no beard, nor
moustache, but had been so long unshaven that his
chin looked like a stiff greyish brush. And there was
something respectable and like an official about his
manner too. But he was restless; he ruffled up his hair
and from time to time let his head drop into his
hands dejectedly resting his ragged elbows on the
stained and sticky table. At last he looked straight at
Raskolnikov, and said loudly and resolutely:
“May I venture, honoured sir, to engage you in
polite conversation? Forasmuch as, though your exte-
rior would not command respect, my experience
admonishes me that you are a man of education and
not accustomed to drinking. I have always respected
education when in conjunction with genuine senti-
ments, and I am besides a titular counsellor in rank.
Marmeladov — such is my name; titular counsellor. I
make bold to inquire — have you been in the service?”
“No, I am studying,” answered the young man
somewhat surprised at the grandiloquent style of the
speaker and also at being so directly addressed. In
spite of the momentary desire he had just been feel-

18
 crime and punishment

ing for company of any sort, on being actually spoken

to he felt immediately his habitual irritable and
uneasy aversion for any stranger who approached or
attempted to approach him.
“A student then, or formerly a student,” cried the
clerk. “Just what I thought! I’m a man of experience,
immense experience, sir,” and he tapped his fore-
head with his fingers in self-approval. “You’ve been a
student or have attended some learned institution! . .
. But allow me . . . ” He got up, staggered, took up his
jug and glass, and sat down beside the young man,
facing him a little sideways. He was drunk, but spoke
fluently and boldly, only occasionally losing the
thread of his sentences and drawling his words. He
pounced upon Raskolnikov as greedily as though he
too had not spoken to a soul for a month.
“Honoured sir,” he began almost with solemnity,
“poverty is not a vice, that’s a true saying. Yet I know
too that drunkenness is not a virtue, and that that’s
even truer. But beggary, honoured sir, beggary is a
vice. In poverty you may still retain your innate nobil-
ity of soul, but in beggary — never — no one. For beg-
gary a man is not chased out of human society with a
stick, he is swept out with a broom, so as to make it as
humiliating as possible; and quite right too, foras-
much as in beggary I am ready to be the first to
humiliate myself. Hence the pot-house! Honoured
sir, a month ago Mr. Lebeziatnikov gave my wife a
beating, and my wife is a very different matter from

19
 fyodor dostoevsky

me! Do you understand? Allow me to ask you another

question out of simple curiosity: have you ever spent
a night on a hay barge, on the Neva?”
“No, I have not happened to,” answered
Raskolnikov. “What do you mean?”
“Well, I’ve just come from one and it’s the fifth
night I’ve slept so . . . ” He filled his glass, emptied it
and paused. Bits of hay were in fact clinging to his
clothes and sticking to his hair. It seemed quite prob-
able that he had not undressed or washed for the last
five days. His hands, particularly, were filthy. They
were fat and red, with black nails.
His conversation seemed to excite a general though
languid interest. The boys at the counter fell to snig-
gering. The innkeeper came down from the upper
room, apparently on purpose to listen to the “funny
fellow” and sat down at a little distance yawning lazily,
but with dignity. Evidently Marmeladov was a familiar
figure here, and he had most likely acquired his weak-
ness for high-flown speeches from the habit of fre-
quently entering into conversation with strangers of all
sorts in the tavern. This habit develops into a necessity
in some drunkards, and especially in those who are
looked after sharply and kept in order at home. Hence
in the company of other drinkers they try to justify
themselves and even if possible obtain consideration.
“Funny fellow!” pronounced the innkeeper. “And
why don’t you work, why aren’t you at your duty, if
you are in the service?”

20
 crime and punishment

“Why am I not at my duty, honoured sir,”

Marmeladov went on, addressing himself exclusively
to Raskolnikov, as though it had been he who put that
question to him. “Why am I not at my duty? Does not
my heart ache to think what a useless worm I am? A
month ago when Mr. Lebeziatnikov beat my wife with
his own hands, and I lay drunk, didn’t I suffer?
Excuse me, young man, has it ever happened to you .
. . hm . . . well, to petition hopelessly for a loan?”
“Yes, it has. But what do you mean by hopelessly?”
“Hopelessly in the fullest sense, when you know
beforehand that you will get nothing by it. You know,
for instance, beforehand with positive certainty that
this man, this most reputable and exemplary citizen,
will on no consideration give you money; and indeed
I ask you why should he? For he knows of course that
I shan’t pay it back. From compassion? But Mr.
Lebeziatnikov who keeps up with modern ideas
explained the other day that compassion is forbidden
nowadays by science itself, and that that’s what is
done now in England, where there is political econ-
omy. Why, I ask you, should he give it to me? And yet
though I know beforehand that he won’t, I set off to
him and . . . ”
“Why do you go?” put in Raskolnikov.
“Well, when one has no one, nowhere else one can
go! For every man must have somewhere to go. Since
there are times when one absolutely must go some-
where! When my own daughter first went out with a

21
 fyodor dostoevsky

yellow ticket, then I had to go . . . (for my daughter

has a yellow passport),” he added in parenthesis,
looking with a certain uneasiness at the young man.
“No matter, sir, no matter!” he went on hurriedly and
with apparent composure when both the boys at the
counter guffawed and even the innkeeper smiled —
“No matter, I am not confounded by the wagging of
their heads; for every one knows everything about it
already, and all that is secret is made open. And I
accept it all, not with contempt, but with humility. So
be it! So be it! ‘Behold the man!’ Excuse me, young
man, can you . . . No, to put it more strongly and more
distinctly; not can you but dare you, looking upon me,
assert that I am not a pig?”
The young man did not answer a word.
“Well,” the orator began again stolidly and with
even increased dignity, after waiting for the laughter
in the room to subside. “Well, so be it, I am a pig, but
she is a lady! I have the semblance of a beast, but
Katerina Ivanovna, my spouse, is a person of educa-
tion and an officer’s daughter. Granted, granted, I
am a scoundrel, but she is a woman of a noble heart,
full of sentiments, refined by education. And yet . . .
oh, if only she felt for me! Honoured sir, honoured
sir, you know every man ought to have at least one
place where people feel for him! But Katerina
Ivanovna, though she is magnanimous, she is unjust .
. . And yet, although I realise that when she pulls my
hair she only does it out of pity — for I repeat without

22
 crime and punishment

being ashamed, she pulls my hair, young man,” he

declared with redoubled dignity, hearing the snigger-
ing again — “but, my God, if she would but once . . .
But no, no! It’s all in vain and it’s no use talking! No
use talking! For more than once, my wish did come
true and more than once she has felt for me but . . .
such is my fate and I am a beast by nature!”
“Rather!” assented the innkeeper yawning.
Marmeladov struck his fist resolutely on the table.
“Such is my fate! Do you know, sir, do you know, I
have sold her very stockings for drink? Not her shoes
— that would be more or less in the order of things,
but her stockings, her stockings I have sold for drink!
Her mohair shawl I sold for drink, a present to her
long ago, her own property, not mine; and we live in
a cold room and she caught cold this winter and has
begun coughing and spitting blood too. We have
three little children and Katerina Ivanovna is at work
from morning till night; she is scrubbing and clean-
ing and washing the children, for she’s been used to
cleanliness from a child. But her chest is weak and
she has a tendency to consumption and I feel it! Do
you suppose I don’t feel it? And the more I drink the
more I feel it. That’s why I drink too. I try to find sym-
pathy and feeling in drink . . . I drink so that I may suf-
fer twice as much!” And as though in despair he laid
his head down on the table.
“Young man,” he went on, raising his head again,
“in your face I seem to read some trouble of mind.

23
 fyodor dostoevsky

When you came in I read it, and that was why I

addressed you at once. For in unfolding to you the
story of my life, I do not wish to make myself a
laughing-stock before these idle listeners, who
indeed know all about it already, but I am looking
for a man of feeling and education. Know then that
my wife was educated in a high-class school for the
daughters of noblemen, and on leaving she danced
the shawl dance before the governor and other per-
sonages for which she was presented with a gold
medal and a certificate of merit. The medal . . . well,
the medal of course was sold — long ago, hm . . . but
the certificate of merit is in her trunk still and not
long ago she showed it to our landlady. And
although she is most continually on bad terms with
the landlady, yet she wanted to tell some one or
other of her past honours and of the happy days that
are gone. I don’t condemn her for it, I don’t blame
her, for the one thing left her is recollection of the
past, and all the rest is dust and ashes. Yes, yes, she is
a lady of spirit, proud and determined. She scrubs
the floors herself and has nothing but black bread
to eat, but won’t allow herself to be treated with dis-
respect. That’s why she would not overlook Mr.
Lebeziatnikov’s rudeness to her, and so when he
gave her a beating for it, she took to her bed more
from the hurt to her feelings than from the blows.
She was a widow when I married her, with three chil-
dren, one smaller than the other. She married her

24
 crime and punishment

first husband, an infantry officer, for love, and ran

away with him from her father’s house. She was
exceedingly fond of her husband; but he gave way to
cards, got into trouble and with that he died. He
used to beat her at the end: and although she paid
him back, of which I have authentic documentary
evidence, to this day she speaks of him with tears
and she throws him up to me; and I am glad, I am
glad that, though only in imagination, she should
think of herself as having once been happy . . . And
she was left at his death with three children in a wild
and remote district where I happened to be at the
time; and she was left in such hopeless poverty that,
although I have seen many ups and downs of all
sort, I don’t feel equal to describing it even. Her
relations had all thrown her off. And she was proud,
too, excessively proud . . . And then, honoured sir,
and then, I, being at the time a widower, with a
daughter of fourteen left me by my first wife, offered
her my hand, for I could not bear the sight of such
suffering. You can judge the extremity of her calami-
ties, that she, a woman of education and culture and
distinguished family, should have consented to be
my wife. But she did! Weeping and sobbing and
wringing her hands, she married me! For she had
nowhere to turn! Do you understand, sir, do you
understand what it means when you have absolutely
nowhere to turn? No, that you don’t understand yet
. . . And for a whole year, I performed my duties con-

25
 fyodor dostoevsky

scientiously and faithfully, and did not touch this”

(he tapped the jug with his finger), “for I have feel-
ings. But even so, I could not please her; and then I
lost my place too, and that through no fault of mine
but through changes in the office; and then I did
touch it! . . . It will be a year and a half ago soon since
we found ourselves at last after many wanderings
and numerous calamities in this magnificent capital,
adorned with innumerable monuments. Here too I
obtained a situation . . . I obtained it and I lost it
again. Do you understand? This time it was through
my own fault I lost it: for my weakness had come out
. . . We have now part of a room at Amalia
Fyodorovna Lippevechsel’s; and what we live upon
and what we pay our rent with, I could not say.
There are a lot of people living there besides our-
selves. Dirt and disorder, a perfect Bedlam . . . hm . . .
yes . . . And meanwhile my daughter by my first wife
has grown up; and what my daughter has had to put
up with from her stepmother whilst she was growing
up, I won’t speak of. For, though Katerina Ivanovna
is full of generous feelings, she is a spirited lady, irri-
table and short-tempered . . . Yes. But it’s no use
going over that! Sonia, as you may well fancy, has
had no education. I did make an effort four years
ago to give her a course of geography and universal
history, but as I was not very well up in those subjects
myself and we had no suitable books, and what
books we had . . . hm, any way we have not even those

26
 crime and punishment

now, so all our instruction came to an end. We

stopped at Cyrus of Persia. Since she has attained
years of maturity, she has read other books of
romantic tendency and of late she had read with
great interest a book she got through Mr.
Lebeziatnikov, Lewes’ Physiology — do you know it?
— and even recounted extracts from it to us: and
that’s the whole of her education. And now may I
venture to address you, honoured sir, on my own
account with a private question. Do you suppose
that a respectable poor girl can earn much by hon-
est work? Not fifteen farthings a day can she earn, if
she is respectable and has no special talent and that
without putting her work down for an instant! And
what’s more, Ivan Ivanitch Klopstock the civil coun-
sellor — have you heard of him? — has not to this day
paid her for the half-dozen linen shirts she made
him and drove her roughly away, stamping and revil-
ing her, on the pretext that the shirt collars were not
made like the pattern and were put in askew. And
there are the little ones hungry . . . And Katerina
Ivanovna walking up and down and wringing her
hands, her cheeks flushed red, as they always are in
that disease: ‘Here you live with us,’ says she, ‘you
eat and drink and are kept warm and you do noth-
ing to help.’ And much she gets to eat and drink
when there is not a crust for the little ones for three
days! I was lying at the time . . . well, what of it! I was
lying drunk and I heard my Sonia speaking (she is a

27
 fyodor dostoevsky

gentle creature with a soft little voice . . . fair hair

and such a pale, thin little face). She said: ‘Katerina
Ivanovna, am I really to do a thing like that?’ And
Darya Frantsovna, a woman of evil character and
very well known to the police, had two or three
times tried to get at her through the landlady. ‘And
why not?’ said Katerina Ivanovna with a jeer ‘you are
something mighty precious to be so careful of!’ But
don’t blame her, don’t blame her, honoured sir,
don’t blame her! She was not herself when she
spoke, but driven to distraction by her illness and
the crying of the hungry children; and it was said
more to wound her than anything else . . . For that’s
Katerina Ivanovna’s character, and when children
cry, even from hunger, she falls to beating them at
once. At six o’clock I saw Sonia get up, put on her
kerchief and her cape, and go out of the room and
about nine o’clock she came back. She walked
straight up to Katerina Ivanovna and she laid thirty
roubles on the table before her in silence. She did
not utter a word, she did not even look at her, she
simply picked up our big green drap de dames shawl
(we have a shawl, made of drap de dames), put it over
her head and face and lay down on the bed with her
face to the wall; only her little shoulders and her
body kept shuddering . . . And I went on lying there,
just as before . . . And then I saw, young man, I saw
Katerina Ivanovna, in the same silence go up to
Sonia’s little bed; she was on her knees all the

28
 crime and punishment

evening kissing Sonia’s feet, and would not get up,

and then they both fell asleep in each other’s arms .
. . together, together . . . yes . . . and I . . . lay drunk.”
Marmeladov stopped short, as though his voice
had failed him. Then he hurriedly filled his glass,
drank, and cleared his throat.
“Since then, sir,” he went on after a brief pause —
“Since then, owing to an unfortunate occurrence and
through information given by evil-intentioned per-
sons — in all which Darya Frantsovna took a leading
part on the pretext that she had been treated with
want of respect — since then my daughter Sofya
Semyonovna has been forced to take a yellow ticket,
and owing to that she is unable to go on living with
us. For our landlady, Amalia Fyodorovna would not
hear of it (though she had backed up Darya
Frantsovna before) and Mr. Lebeziatnikov too . . . hm .
. . All the trouble between him and Katerina Ivanovna
was on Sonia’s account. At first he was for making up
to Sonia himself and then all of a sudden he stood on
his dignity: ‘how,’ said he, ‘can a highly educated
man like me live in the same rooms with a girl like
that?’ And Katerina Ivanovna would not let it pass,
she stood up for her . . . and so that’s how it hap-
pened. And Sonia comes to us now, mostly after dark;
she comforts Katerina Ivanovna and gives her all she
can . . . She has a room at the Kapernaumovs, the tai-
lors, she lodges with them; Kapernaumov is a lame
man with a cleft palate and all of his numerous family

29
 fyodor dostoevsky

have cleft palates too. And his wife, too, has a cleft
palate. They all live in one room, but Sonia has her
own, partitioned off . . . Hm . . . yes . . . very poor people
and all with cleft palates . . . yes. Then I got up in the
morning, and put on my rags, lifted up my hands to
heaven and set off to his excellency Ivan
Afanasyevitch. His excellency Ivan Afanasyevitch, do
you know him? No? Well, then, it’s a man of God you
don’t know. He is wax . . . wax before the face of the
Lord; even as wax melteth! . . . His eyes were dim
when he heard my story. ‘Marmeladov, once already
you have deceived my expectations . . . I’ll take you
once more on my own responsibility’ — that’s what he
said, ‘remember,’ he said, ‘and now you can go.’ I
kissed the dust at his feet — in thought only, for in
reality he would not have allowed me to do it, being a
statesman and a man of modern political and enlight-
ened ideas. I returned home, and when I announced
that I’d been taken back into the service and should
receive a salary, heavens, what a to-do there was . . . !”
Marmeladov stopped again in violent excitement.
At that moment a whole party of revellers already
drunk came in from the street, and the sounds of a
hired concertina and the cracked piping voice of a
child of seven singing “The Hamlet” were heard in
the entry. The room was filled with noise. The tavern-
keeper and the boys were busy with the newcomers.
Marmeladov paying no attention to the new arrivals
continued his story. He appeared by now to be

30
 crime and punishment

extremely weak, but as he became more and more

drunk, he became more and more talkative. The rec-
ollection of his recent success in getting the situation
seemed to revive him, and was positively reflected in a
sort of radiance on his face. Raskolnikov listened
attentively.
“That was five weeks ago, sir. Yes . . . As soon as
Katerina Ivanovna and Sonia heard of it, mercy on us,
it was as though I stepped into the kingdom of
Heaven. It used to be: you can lie like a beast, noth-
ing but abuse. Now they were walking on tiptoe,
hushing the children. ‘Semvon Zaharovitch is tired
with his work at the office, he is resting, shh!’ They
made me coffee before I went to work and boiled
cream for me! They began to get real cream for me,
do you hear that? And how they managed to get
together the money for a decent outfit — eleven rou-
bles, fifty copecks, I can’t guess. Boots, cotton shirt-
fronts — most magnificent, a uniform, they got up all
in splendid style, for eleven roubles and a half. The
first morning I came back from the office I found
Katerina Ivanovna had cooked two courses for dinner
— soup and salt meat with horse radish — which we
had never dreamed of till then. She had not any
dresses . . . none at all, but she got herself up as
though she were going on a visit; and not that she’d
anything to do it with, she smartened herself up with
nothing at all, she’d done her hair nicely, put on a
clean collar of some sort, cuffs, and there she was,

31
 fyodor dostoevsky

quite a different person, she was younger and better

looking. Sonia, my little darling, had only helped
with money ‘for the time,’ she said, ‘it won’t do for
me to come and see you too often. After dark maybe
when no one can see.’ Do you hear, do you hear? I lay
down for a nap after dinner and what do you think:
though Katerina Ivanovna had quarrelled to the last
degree with our landlady Amalia Fyodorovna only a
week before, she could not resist then asking her in
to coffee. For two hours they were sitting, whispering
together. ‘Semyon Zaharovitch is in the service again,
now, and receiving a salary,’ says she, ‘and he went
himself to his excellency and his excellency himself
came out to him, made all the others wait and led
Semyon Zaharovitch by the hand before everybody
into his study.’ Do you hear, do you hear? ‘To be
sure,’ says he, ‘Semyon Zaharovitch, remembering
your past services,’ says he, ‘and in spite of your
propensity to that foolish weakness, since you prom-
ise now and since moreover we’ve got on badly with-
out you,’ (do you hear, do you hear?) ‘and so,’ says
he, ‘I rely now on your word as a gentleman.’ And all
that, let me tell you, she has simply made up for her-
self, and not simply out of wantonness, for the sake of
bragging; no, she believes it all herself, she amuses
herself with her own fancies, upon my word she does!
And I don’t blame her for it, no, I don’t blame her! . .
. Six days ago when I brought her my first earnings in
full — twenty-three roubles forty copecks altogether —

32
 crime and punishment

she called me her poppet: ‘poppet,’ said she, ‘my lit-

tle poppet.’ And when we were by ourselves, you
understand? You would not think me a beauty, you
would not think much of me as a husband, would
you? . . . Well, she pinched my cheek ‘my little pop-
pet,’ said she.”
Marmeladov broke off, tried to smile, but sud-
denly his chin began to twitch. He controlled himself
however. The tavern, the degraded appearance of the
man, the five nights in the hay barge, and the pot of
spirits, and yet this poignant love for his wife and chil-
dren bewildered his listener. Raskolnikov listened
intently but with a sick sensation. He felt vexed that
he had come here.
“Honoured sir, honoured sir,” cried Marmeladov
recovering himself — “Oh, sir, perhaps all this seems a
laughing matter to you, as it does to others, and per-
haps I am only worrying you with the stupidity of all
the trivial details of my home life, but it is not a laugh-
ing matter to me. For I can feel it all . . . And the
whole of that heavenly day of my life and the whole of
that evening I passed in fleeting dreams of how I
would arrange it all, and how I would dress all the
children, and how I should give her rest, and how I
should rescue my own daughter from dishonour and
restore her to the bosom of her family . . . And a great
deal more . . . Quite excusable, sir. Well, then, sir
(Marmeladov suddenly gave a sort of start, raised his
head and gazed intently at his listener), well, on the

33
 fyodor dostoevsky

very next day after all those dreams, that is to say,

exactly five days ago, in the evening, by a cunning
trick, like a thief in the night, I stole from Katerina
Ivanovna the key of her box, took out what was left of
my earnings, how much it was I have forgotten, and
now look at me, all of you! It’s the fifth day since I left
home, and they are looking for me there and it’s the
end of my employment, and my uniform is lying in a
tavern on the Egyptian bridge. I exchanged it for the
garments I have on . . . and it’s the end of everything!”
Marmeladov struck his forehead with his fist,
clenched his teeth, closed his eyes and leaned heavily
with his elbow on the table. But a minute later his
face suddenly changed and with a certain assumed
slyness and affectation of bravado, he glanced at
Raskolnikov, laughed and said:
“This morning I went to see Sonia, I went to ask
her for a pick-me-up! He-he-he!”
“You don’t say she gave it to you?” cried one of the
new-comers; he shouted the words and went off into
a guffaw.
“This very quart was bought with her money,”
Marmeladov declared, addressing himself exclusively
to Raskolnikov. “Thirty copecks she gave me with her
own hands, her last, all she had, as I saw . . . She said
nothing, she only looked at me without a word . . . Not
on earth, but up yonder . . . they grieve over men, they
weep, but they don’t blame them, they don’t blame
them! But it hurts more, it hurts more when they

34
 crime and punishment

don’t blame! Thirty copecks yes! And maybe she

needs them now, eh? What do you think, my dear sir?
For now she’s got to keep up her appearance. It costs
money, that smartness, that special smartness, you
know? Do you understand? And there’s pomatum,
too, you see, she must have things; petticoats, starched
ones, shoes too, real jaunty ones to show off her foot
when she has to step over a puddle. Do you under-
stand, sir, do you understand what all that smartness
means? And here I, her own father, here I took thirty
copecks of that money for a drink! And I am drinking
it! And I have already drunk it! Come, who will have
pity on a man like me, eh? Are you sorry for me, sir, or
not? Tell me, sir, are you sorry or not? He-he-he!”
He would have filled his glass, but there was no
drink left. The pot was empty.
“What are you to be pitied for?” shouted the tav-
ern-keeper who was again near them.
Shouts of laughter and even oaths followed. The
laughter and the oaths came from those who were lis-
tening and also from those who had heard nothing
but were simply looking at the figure of the dis-
charged government clerk.
“To be pitied! Why am I to be pitied?”
Marmeladov suddenly declaimed, standing up with
his arm outstretched, as though he had been only
waiting for that question.
“Why am I to be pitied, you say? Yes! there’s noth-
ing to pity me for! I ought to be crucified, crucified

35
 fyodor dostoevsky

on a cross, not pitied! Crucify me, oh judge, crucify

me but pity me! And then I will go of myself to be cru-
cified, for it’s not merrymaking I seek but tears and
tribulation! . . . Do you suppose, you that sell, that this
pint of yours has been sweet to me? It was tribulation
I sought at the bottom of it, tears and tribulation, and
have found it, and I have tasted it; but He will pity us
Who has had pity on all men, Who has understood all
men and all things, He is the One, He too is the
judge. He will come in that day and He will ask:
‘Where is the daughter who gave herself for her
cross, consumptive step-mother and for the little chil-
dren of another? Where is the daughter who had pity
upon the filthy drunkard, her earthly father, undis-
mayed by his beastliness?’ And He will say, ‘Come to
me! I have already forgiven thee once . . . I have for-
given thee once . . . Thy sins which are many are for-
given thee for thou hast loved much . . .’ And He will
forgive my Sonia, He will forgive, I know it . . . I felt it
in my heart when I was with her just now! And He will
judge and will forgive all, the good and the evil, the
wise and the meek . . . And when He has done with all
of them, then He will summon us. ‘You too come
forth,’ He will say, ‘Come forth ye drunkards, come
forth, ye weak ones, come forth, ye children of
shame!’ And we shall all come forth, without shame
and shall stand before Him. And He will say unto us,
‘Ye are swine, made in the Image of the Beast and
with his mark; but come ye also!’ And the wise ones

36
 crime and punishment

and those of understanding will say, ‘Oh Lord, why

dost Thou receive these men?’ And He will say, ‘This
is why I receive them, oh ye wise, this is why I receive
them, oh ye of understanding, that not one of them
believed himself to be worthy of this.’ And He will
hold out His hands to us and we shall fall down
before Him . . . and we shall weep . . . and we shall
understand all things! . . . Then we shall understand
all! . . . and all will understand, Katerina Ivanovna
even . . . She will understand . . . Lord, Thy kingdom
come!” And he sank on the bench exhausted, and
helpless, looking at no one, apparently oblivious of
his surroundings and plunged in deep thought. His
words had created a certain impression; there was a
moment of silence; but soon laughter and oaths were
heard again.
“That’s his notion!”
“Talked himself silly!”
“A fine clerk he is!”
And so on, and so on.
“Let us go, sir,” said Marmeladov all at once, rais-
ing his head and addressing Raskolnikov — “come
along with me . . . Kozel’s house, looking into the
yard. I’m going to Katerina Ivanovna — time I did.”
Raskolnikov had for some time been wanting to go
and he had meant to help him. Marmeladov was
much unsteadier on his legs than in his speech and
leaned heavily on the young man. They had two or
three hundred paces to go. The drunken man was

37
 fyodor dostoevsky

more and more overcome by dismay and confusion

as they drew nearer the house.
“It’s not Katerina Ivanovna I am afraid of now,” he
muttered in agitation — “and that she will begin
pulling my hair. What does my hair matter! Bother
my hair! That’s what I say! Indeed it will be better if
she does begin pulling it, that’s not what I am afraid
of . . . it’s her eyes I am afraid of . . . yes, her eyes . . . the
red on her cheeks, too, frightens me . . . and her
breathing too . . . Have you noticed how people in
that disease breathe . . . when they are excited? I am
frightened of the children’s crying, too . . . For if
Sonia has not taken them food . . . I don’t know what’s
happened! I don’t know! But blows I am not afraid of
. . . Know, sir, that such blows are not a pain to me, but
even an enjoyment. In fact I can’t get on without it . . .
It’s better so. Let her strike me, it relieves her heart . .
. it’s better so . . . There is the house. The house of
Kozel, the cabinet maker . . . a German, well-to-do.
Lead the way!”
They went in from the yard and up to the fourth
storey. The staircase got darker and darker as they
went up. It was nearly eleven o’clock and although in
summer in Petersburg there is no real night, yet it was
quite dark at the top of the stairs.
A grimy little door at the very top of the stairs
stood ajar. A very poor-looking room about ten
paces long was lighted up by a candle-end; the
whole of it was visible from the entrance. It was all in

38
 crime and punishment

disorder, littered up with rags of all sorts, especially

children’s garments. Across the furthest corner was
stretched a ragged sheet. Behind it probably was the
bed. There was nothing in the room except two
chairs and a sofa covered with American leather, full
of holes, before which stood an old deal kitchen-
table, unpainted and uncovered. At the edge of the
table stood a smouldering tallow-candle in an iron
candlestick. It appeared that the family had a room
to themselves, not part of a room, but their room
was practically a passage. The door leading to the
other rooms, or rather cupboards, into which
Amalia Lippevechsel’s flat was divided stood half
open, and there was shouting, uproar and laughter
within. People seemed to be playing cards and
drinking tea there. Words of the most unceremoni-
ous kind flew out from time to time.
Raskolnikov recognised Katerina Ivanovna at
once. She was a rather tall, slim and graceful woman,
terribly emaciated, with magnificent dark brown hair
and with a hectic flush in her cheeks. She was pacing
up and down in her little room, pressing her hands
against her chest; her lips were parched and her
breathing came in nervous broken gasps. Her eyes
glittered as in fever and looked about with a harsh
immovable stare. And that consumptive and excited
face with the last flickering light of the candle-end
playing upon it made a sickening impression. She
seemed to Raskolnikov about thirty years old and was

39
 fyodor dostoevsky

certainly a strange wife for Marmeladov . . . She had

not heard them and did not notice them coming in.
She seemed to be lost in thought, hearing and seeing
nothing. The room was close, but she had not
opened the window; a stench rose from the staircase,
but the door on to the stairs was not closed. From the
inner rooms clouds of tobacco smoke floated in, she
kept coughing, but did not close the door. The
youngest child, a girl of six, was asleep, sitting curled
up on the floor with her head on the sofa. A boy a
year older stood crying and shaking in the corner,
probably he had just had a beating. Beside him stood
a girl of nine years old, tall and thin, wearing a thin
and ragged chemise with an ancient cashmere pelisse
flung over her bare shoulders, long outgrown and
barely reaching her knees. Her arm, as thin as a stick,
was round her brother’s neck. She was trying to com-
fort him, whispering something to him, and doing all
she could to keep him from whimpering again. At the
same time her large dark eyes, which looked larger
still from the thinness of her frightened face, were
watching her mother with alarm. Marmeladov did
not enter the door, but dropped on his knees in the
very doorway, pushing Raskolnikov in front of him.
The woman seeing a stranger stopped indifferently
facing him, coming to herself for a moment and
apparently wondering what he had come for. But evi-
dently she decided that he was going into the next
room, as he had to pass through hers to get there.

40
 crime and punishment

Taking no further notice of him, she walked towards

the outer door to close it and uttered a sudden
scream on seeing her husband on his knees in the
doorway.
“Ah!” she cried out in a frenzy, “he has come back!
The criminal! the monster! . . . And where is the
money? What’s in your pocket, show me! And your
clothes are all different! Where are your clothes?
Where is the money! speak!”
And she fell to searching him. Marmeladov sub-
missively and obediently held up both arms to facili-
tate the search. Not a farthing was there.
“Where is the money?” she cried — “Mercy on us,
can he have drunk it all? There were twelve silver rou-
bles left in the chest!” and in a fury she seized him by
the hair and dragged him into the room.
Marmeladov seconded her efforts by meekly crawling
along on his knees.
“And this is a consolation to me! This does not
hurt me, but is a positive con-so-la-tion, ho-nou-red
sir,” he called out, shaken to and fro by his hair and
even once striking the ground with his forehead. The
child asleep on the floor woke up, and began to cry.
The boy in the corner losing all control began trem-
bling and screaming and rushed to his sister in vio-
lent terror, almost in a fit. The eldest girl was shaking
like a leaf.
“He’s drunk it! he’s drunk it all,” the poor woman
screamed in despair — “and his clothes are gone! And

41
 fyodor dostoevsky

they are hungry, hungry!” — and wringing her hands

she pointed to the children. “Oh, accursed life! And
you, are you not ashamed?” — she pounced all at once
upon Raskolnikov — “from the tavern! Have you been
drinking with him? You have been drinking with him,
too! Go away!”
The young man was hastening away without
uttering a word. The inner door was thrown wide
open and inquisitive faces were peering in at it.
Coarse laughing faces with pipes and cigarettes and
heads wearing caps thrust themselves in at the
doorway. Further in could be seen figures in dress-
ing gowns flung open, in costumes of unseemly
scantiness, some of them with cards in their hands.
They were particularly diverted, when Marmeladov,
dragged about by his hair, shouted that it was a con-
solation to him. They even began to come into the
room; at last a sinister shrill outcry was heard: this
came from Amalia Lippevechsel herself pushing
her way amongst them and trying to restore order
after her own fashion and for the hundredth time
to frighten the poor woman by ordering her with
coarse abuse to clear out of the room next day. As
he went out, Raskolnikov had time to put his hand
into his pocket, to snatch up the coppers he had
received in exchange for his rouble in the tavern
and to lay them unnoticed on the window.
Afterwards on the stairs, he changed his mind and
would have gone back.

42
 crime and punishment

“What a stupid thing I’ve done,” he thought to

himself. “They have Sonia and I want it myself.” But
reflecting that it would be impossible to take it back
now and that in any case he would not have taken it,
he dismissed it with a wave of his hand and went back
to his lodging. “Sonia wants pomatum too,” he said as
he walked along the street, and he laughed malig-
nantly — “such smartness costs money . . . Hm! And
maybe Sonia herself will be bankrupt to-day, for there
is always a risk, hunting big game . . . digging for gold .
. . then they would all be without a crust to-morrow
except for my money. Hurrah for Sonia! What a mine
they’ve dug there! And they’re making the most of it!
Yes, they are making the most of it! They’ve wept over
it and grown used to it. Man grows used to every-
thing, the scoundrel!”
He sank into thought.
“And what if I am wrong,” he cried suddenly after
a moment’s thought. “What if man is not really a
scoundrel, man in general, I mean, the whole race of
mankind — then all the rest is prejudice, simply artifi-
cial terrors and there are no barriers and it’s all as it
should be.”

43
 chapter iii

He waked up late next day after a broken sleep. But

his sleep had not refreshed him; he waked up bil-
ious, irritable, ill-tempered, and looked with hatred
at his room. It was a tiny cupboard of a room about
six paces in length. It had a poverty-stricken appear-
ance with its dusty yellow paper peeling off the walls,
and it was so low-pitched that a man of more than
average height was ill at ease in it and felt every
moment that he would knock his head against the
ceiling. The furniture was in keeping with the room:
there were three old chairs, rather rickety; a painted
table in the corner on which lay a few manuscripts
and books; the dust that lay thick upon them showed
that they had been long untouched. A big clumsy
sofa occupied almost the whole of one wall and half
the floor space of the room; it was once covered with
chintz, but was now in rags and served Raskolnikov
as a bed. Often he went to sleep on it, as he was, with-
out undressing, without sheets, wrapped in his old

44
 crime and punishment

student’s overcoat, with his head on one little pillow,

under which he heaped up all the linen he had,
clean and dirty, by way of a bolster. A little table
stood in front of the sofa.
It would have been difficult to sink to a lower ebb
of disorder, but to Raskolnikov in his present state of
mind this was positively agreeable. He had got com-
pletely away from every one, like a tortoise in its shell,
and even the sight of the servant girl who had to wait
upon him and looked sometimes into his room made
him writhe with nervous irritation. He was in the con-
dition that overtakes some monomaniacs entirely
concentrated upon one thing. His landlady had for
the last fortnight given up sending him in meals, and
he had not yet thought of expostulating with her,
though he went without his dinner. Nastasya, the
cook and only servant, was rather pleased at the
lodger’s mood and had entirely given up sweeping
and doing his room, only once a week or so she
would stray into his room with a broom. She waked
him up that day.
“Get up, why are you asleep!” she called to him.
“It’s past nine, I have brought you some tea; will you
have a cup? I should think you’re fairly starving?”
Raskolnikov opened his eyes, started and recog-
nised Nastasya.
“From the landlady, eh?” he asked, slowly and with
a sickly face sitting up on the sofa.
“From the landlady, indeed!”

45
 fyodor dostoevsky

She set before him her own cracked teapot full of

weak and stale tea and laid two yellow lumps of sugar
by the side of it.
“Here, Nastasya, take it please,” he said, fumbling
in his pocket (for he had slept in his clothes) and tak-
ing out a handful of coppers — “run and buy me a
loaf. And get me a little sausage, the cheapest, at the
pork-butcher’s.”
“The loaf I’ll fetch you this very minute, but
wouldn’t you rather have some cabbage soup instead
of sausage? It’s capital soup, yesterday’s. I saved it for
you yesterday, but you came in late. It’s fine soup.”
When the soup had been brought, and he had
begun upon it, Nastasya sat down beside him on the
sofa and began chatting. She was a country peasant-
woman, and a very talkative one.
“Praskovya Pavlovna means to complain to the
police about you,” she said.
He scowled.
“To the police? What does she want?”
“You don’t pay her money and you won’t turn out
of the room. That’s what she wants, to be sure.”
“The devil, that’s the last straw,” he muttered,
grinding his teeth, “no, that would not suit me . . . just
now. She is a fool,” he added aloud. “I’ll go and talk
to her to-day.”
“Fool she is and no mistake, just as I am. But why,
if you are so clever, do you lie here like a sack and
have nothing to show for it? One time you used to go

46
 crime and punishment

out, you say, to teach children. But why is it you do

nothing now?”
“I am doing . . . ” Raskolnikov began sullenly and
reluctantly.
“What are you doing?”
“Work . . . ”
“What sort of work?”
“I am thinking,” he answered seriously after a pause.
Nastasya was overcome with a fit of laughter. She
was given to laughter and when anything amused her,
she laughed inaudibly, quivering and shaking all over
till she felt ill.
“And have you made much money by your think-
ing?” she managed to articulate at last.
“One can’t go out to give lessons without boots.
And I’m sick of it.”
“Don’t quarrel with your bread and butter.”
“They pay so little for lessons. What’s the use of a
few coppers?” he answered, reluctantly, as though
replying to his own thought.
“And you want to get a fortune all at once?”
He looked at her strangely.
“Yes, I want a fortune,” he answered firmly, after a
brief pause.
“Don’t be in such a hurry, you quite frighten me!
Shall I get you the loaf or not?”
“As you please.”
“Ah, I forgot. A letter came for you yesterday when
you were out.”

47
 fyodor dostoevsky

“A letter? for me! from whom?”

“I can’t say. I gave three copecks of my own to the
postman for it. Will you pay me back?”
“Then bring it to me, for God’s sake, bring it,”
cried Raskolnikov greatly excited — “good God!”
A minute later the letter was brought him. This
was it: from his mother, from the province of R — . He
turned pale when he took it. It was a long while since
he had received a letter, but another feeling also sud-
denly stabbed his heart.
“Nastasya, leave me alone, for goodness’ sake;
here are your three copecks, but for goodness’ sake,
make haste and go!”
The letter was quivering in his hand; he did not
want to open it in her presence; he wanted to be left
alone with this letter. When Nastasya had gone out, he
lifted it quickly to his lips and kissed it; then he gazed
intently at the address, the small, sloping handwrit-
ing, so dear and familiar, of the mother who had
once taught him to read and write. He delayed; he
seemed almost afraid of something. At last he opened
it; it was a thick heavy letter, weighing over two
ounces, two large sheets of note paper were covered
with very small handwriting.
“My dear Rodya,” wrote his mother — “it’s two
months since I last had a talk with you by letter which
has distressed me and even kept me awake at night,
thinking. But I am sure you will not blame me for my
inevitable silence. You know how I love you; you are

48
 crime and punishment

all we have to look to, Dounia and I, you are our all,
our one hope, our one stay. What a grief it was to me
when I heard that you had given up the university
some months ago, for want of means to keep yourself
and that you had lost your lessons and your other
work! How could I help you out of my hundred and
twenty roubles a year pension? The fifteen roubles I
sent you four months ago I borrowed, as you know,
on security of my pension, from Vassily Ivanovitch
Vahrushin a merchant of this town. He is a kind-
hearted man and was a friend of your father’s too.
But having given him the right to receive the pen-
sion, I had to wait till the debt was paid off and that is
only just done, so that I’ve been unable to send you
anything all this time. But now, thank God, I believe I
shall be able to send you something more and in fact
we may congratulate ourselves on our good fortune
now, of which I hasten to inform you. In the first
place, would you have guessed, dear Rodya, that your
sister has been living with me for the last six weeks
and we shall not be separated in the future. Thank
God, her sufferings are over, but I will tell you every-
thing in order, so that you may know just how every-
thing has happened and all that we have hitherto
concealed from you. When you wrote to me two
months ago that you had heard that Dounia had a
great deal to put up with in the Svidrigaïlovs’ house,
when you wrote that and asked me to tell you all
about it — what could I write in answer to you? If I had

49
 fyodor dostoevsky

written the whole truth to you, I dare say you would

have thrown up everything and have come to us, even
if you had to walk all the way, for I know your charac-
ter and your feelings, and you would not let your sis-
ter be insulted. I was in despair myself, but what
could I do? And, besides, I did not know the whole
truth myself then. What made it all so difficult was
that Dounia received a hundred roubles in advance
when she took the place as governess in their family,
on condition of part of her salary being deducted
every month, and so it was impossible to throw up the
situation without repaying the debt. This sum (now I
can explain it all to you, my precious Rodya) she took
chiefly in order to send you sixty roubles, which you
needed so terribly then and which you received from
us last year. We deceived you then, writing that this
money came from Dounia’s savings, but that was not
so, and now I tell you all about it, because, thank
God, things have suddenly changed for the better,
and that you may know how Dounia loves you and
what a heart she has. At first indeed Mr. Svidrigaïlov
treated her very rudely and used to make disrespect-
ful and jeering remarks at table . . . But I don’t want to
go into all those painful details, so as not to worry you
for nothing when it is now all over. In short, in spite
of the kind and generous behaviour of Marfa
Petrovna, Mr. Svidrigaïlov’s wife, and all the rest of
the household, Dounia had a very hard time, espe-
cially when Mr. Svidrigaïlov, relapsing into his old reg-

50
 crime and punishment

imental habits, was under the influence of Bacchus.

And how do you think it was all explained later on?
Would you believe that the crazy fellow had con-
ceived a passion for Dounia from the beginning, but
had concealed it under a show of rudeness and con-
tempt. Possibly he was ashamed and horrified himself
at his own flighty hopes, considering his years and his
being the father of a family; and that made him angry
with Dounia. And possibly, too, he hoped by his rude
and sneering behaviour to hide the truth from oth-
ers. But at last he lost all control and had the face to
make Dounia an open and shameful proposal, prom-
ising her all sorts of inducements and offering,
besides, to throw up everything and take her to
another estate of his, or even abroad. You can imag-
ine all she went through! To leave her situation at
once was impossible not only on account of the
money debt, but also to spare the feelings of Marfa
Petrovna, whose suspicions would have been aroused;
and then Dounia would have been the cause of a rup-
ture in the family. And it would have meant a terrible
scandal for Dounia too; that would have been
inevitable. There were various other reasons owing to
which Dounia could not hope to escape from that
awful house for another six weeks. You know Dounia,
of course; you know how clever she is and what a
strong will she has. Dounia can endure a great deal
and even in the most difficult cases she has the forti-
tude to maintain her firmness. She did not even write

51
 fyodor dostoevsky

to me about everything for fear of upsetting me,

although we were constantly in communication. It all
ended very unexpectedly. Marfa Petrovna acciden-
tally overheard her husband imploring Dounia in the
garden, and, putting quite a wrong interpretation on
the position, threw the blame upon her, believing her
to be the cause of it all. An awful scene took place
between them on the spot in the garden; Marfa
Petrovna went so far as to strike Dounia, refused to
hear anything and was shouting at her for a whole
hour and then gave orders that Dounia should be
packed off at once to me in a plain peasant’s cart,
into which they flung all her things, her linen and
her clothes, all pell-mell, without folding it up and
packing it. And a heavy shower of rain came on, too,
and Dounia, insulted and put to shame, had to drive
with a peasant in an open cart all the seventeen versts
into town. Only think now what answer could I have
sent to the letter I received from you two months ago
and what could I have written? I was in despair; I
dared not write to you the truth because you would
have been very unhappy, mortified and indignant,
and yet what could you do? You could only perhaps
ruin yourself, and, besides, Dounia would not allow
it; and fill up my letter with trifles when my heart was
so full of sorrow, I could not. For a whole month the
town was full of gossip about this scandal, and it came
to such a pass that Dounia and I dared not even go to
church on account of the contemptuous looks, whis-

52
 crime and punishment

pers, and even remarks made aloud about us. All our
acquaintances avoided us, nobody even bowed to us
in the street, and I learnt that some shopmen and
clerks were intending to insult us in a shameful way,
smearing the gates of our house with pitch, so that
the landlord began to tell us we must leave. All this
was set going by Marfa Petrovna, who managed to
slander Dounia and throw dirt at her in every family.
She knows every one in the neighbourhood, and that
month she was continually coming into the town, and
as she is rather talkative and fond of gossiping about
her family affairs and particularly of complaining to
all and each of her husband — which is not at all right
— so in a short time she had spread her story not only
in the town, but over the whole surrounding district.
It made me ill, but Dounia bore it better than I did,
and if only you could have seen how she endured it
all and tried to comfort me and cheer me up! She is
an angel! But by God’s mercy, our sufferings were cut
short: Mr. Svidrigaïlov returned to his senses and
repented and, probably feeling sorry for Dounia, he
laid before Marfa Petrovna a complete and unmistak-
able proof of Dounia’s innocence, in the form of a
letter Dounia had been forced to write and give to
him, before Marfa Petrovna came upon them in the
garden. This letter, which remained in Mr.
Svidrigaïlov’s hands after her departure, she had writ-
ten to refuse personal explanations and secret inter-
views, for which he was entreating her. In that letter

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 fyodor dostoevsky

she reproached him with great heat and indignation

for the baseness of his behaviour in regard to Marfa
Petrovna, reminding him that he was the father and
head of a family and telling him how infamous it was
of him to torment and make unhappy a defenceless
girl, unhappy enough already. Indeed, dear Rodya,
the letter was so nobly and touchingly written that I
sobbed when I read it and to this day I cannot read it
without tears. Moreover, the evidence of the servants,
too, cleared Dounia’s reputation; they had seen and
known a great deal more than Mr. Svidrigaïlov had
himself supposed — as indeed is always the case with
servants. Marfa Petrovna was completely taken aback,
and ‘again crushed’ as she said herself to us, but she
was completely convinced of Dounia’s innocence.
The very next day, being Sunday, she went straight to
the Cathedral, knelt down and prayed with tears to
Our Lady to give her strength to bear this new trial
and to do her duty. Then she came straight from the
Cathedral to us, told us the whole story, wept bitterly
and, fully penitent, she embraced Dounia and
besought her to forgive her. The same morning, with-
out any delay, she went round to all the houses in the
town and everywhere, shedding tears, she asserted in
the most flattering terms Dounia’s innocence and the
nobility of her feelings and her behaviour. What was
more, she showed and read to every one the letter in
Dounia’s own handwriting to Mr. Svidrigaïlov and
even allowed them to take copies of it — which I must

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say I think was superfluous. In this way she was busy

for several days in driving about the whole town,
because some people had taken offence through
precedence having been given to others. And there-
fore they had to take turns, so that in every house she
was expected before she arrived, and every one knew
that on such and such a day Marfa Petrovna would be
reading the letter in such and such a place and peo-
ple assembled for every reading of it, even many who
had heard it several times already both in their own
houses and in other people’s. In my opinion a great
deal, a very great deal of all this was unnecessary; but
that’s Marfa Petrovna’s character. Anyway she suc-
ceeded in completely re-establishing Dounia’s repu-
tation and the whole ignominy of this affair rested as
an indelible disgrace upon her husband, as the only
person to blame, so that I really began to feel sorry
for him; it was really treating the crazy fellow too
harshly. Dounia was at once asked to give lessons in
several families, but she refused. All of a sudden every
one began to treat her with marked respect and all
this did much to bring about the event by which, one
may say, our whole fortunes are now transformed.
You must know, dear Rodya, that Dounia has a suitor
and that she has already consented to marry him. I
hasten to tell you all about the matter, and though it
has been arranged without asking your consent, I
think you will not be aggrieved with me or with your
sister on that account, for you will see that we could

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 fyodor dostoevsky

not wait and put off our decision till we heard from
you. And you could not have judged all the facts with-
out being on the spot. This was how it happened. He
is already of the rank of a counsellor, Pyotr Petrovitch
Luzhin, and is distantly related to Marfa Petrovna,
who has been very active in bringing the match
about. It began with his expressing through her his
desire to make our acquaintance. He was properly
received, drank coffee with us and the very next day
he sent us a letter in which he very courteously made
an offer and begged for a speedy and decided answer.
He is a very busy man and is in a great hurry to get to
Petersburg, so that every moment is precious to him.
At first, of course, we were greatly surprised, as it had
all happened so quickly and unexpectedly. We
thought and talked it over the whole day. He is a well-
to-do man, to be depended upon, he has two posts in
the government and has already made his fortune. It
is true that he is forty-five years old, but he is of a
fairly prepossessing appearance, and might still be
thought attractive by women, and he is altogether a
very respectable and presentable man, only he seems
a little morose and somewhat conceited. But possibly
that may only be the impression he makes at first
sight. And beware, dear Rodya, when he comes to
Petersburg, as he shortly will do, beware of judging
him too hastily and severely, as your way is, if there is
anything you do not like in him at first sight. I give
you this warning, although I feel sure that he will

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make a favourable impression upon you. Moreover,

in order to understand any man one must be deliber-
ate and careful to avoid forming prejudices and mis-
taken ideas, which are very difficult to correct and get
over afterwards. And Pyotr Petrovitch, judging by
many indications, is a thoroughly estimable man. At
his first visit, indeed, he told us that he was a practical
man, but still he shares, as he expressed it, many of
the convictions ‘of our most rising generation’ and
he is an opponent of all prejudices. He said a good
deal more, for he seems a little conceited and likes to
be listened to, but this is scarcely a vice. I, of course,
understood very little of it, but Dounia explained to
me that, though he is not a man of great education,
he is clever and seems to be good-natured. You know
your sister’s character, Rodya. She is a resolute, sensi-
ble, patient and generous girl, but she has a passion-
ate heart, as I know very well. Of course, there is no
great love either on his side, or on hers, but Dounia is
a clever girl and has the heart of an angel, and will
make it her duty to make her husband happy who on
his side will make her happiness his care. Of that we
have no good reason to doubt, though it must be
admitted the matter has been arranged in great
haste. Besides he is a man of great prudence and he
will see, to be sure, of himself, that his own happiness
will be the more secure, the happier Dounia is with
him. And as for some defects of character, for some
habits and even certain differences of opinion —

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 fyodor dostoevsky

which indeed are inevitable even in the happiest mar-

riages — Dounia has said that, as regards all that, she
relies on herself, that there is nothing to be uneasy
about, and that she is ready to put up with a great
deal, if only their future relationship can be an hon-
ourable and straightforward one. He struck me, for
instance, at first, as rather abrupt, but that may well
come from his being an outspoken man, and that is
no doubt how it is. For instance, at his second visit,
after he had received Dounia’s consent, in the course
of conversation, he declared that before making
Dounia’s acquaintance, he had made up his mind to
marry a girl of good reputation, without dowry and,
above all, one who had experienced poverty, because,
as he explained, a man ought not to be indebted to
his wife, but that it is better for a wife to look upon
her husband as her benefactor. I must add that he
expressed it more nicely and politely than I have
done, for I have forgotten his actual phrases and only
remember the meaning. And, besides, it was obvi-
ously not said of design, but slipped out in the heat of
conversation, so that he tried afterwards to correct
himself and smooth it over, but all the same it did
strike me as somewhat rude, and I said so afterwards
to Dounia. But Dounia was vexed, and answered that
‘words are not deeds,’ and that, of course, is perfectly
true. Dounia did not sleep all night before she made
up her mind, and, thinking that I was asleep, she got
out of bed and was walking up and down the room all

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 crime and punishment

night; at last she knelt down before the ikon and

prayed long and fervently and in the morning she
told me that she had decided.
“I have mentioned already that Pyotr Petrovitch
is just setting off for Petersburg, where he has a
great deal of business, and he wants to open a legal
bureau. He has been occupied for many years in
conducting civil and commercial litigation, and only
the other day he won an important case. He has to
be in Petersburg because he has an important case
before the Senate. So, Rodya dear, he may be of the
greatest use to you, in every way indeed, and Dounia
and I have agreed that from this very day you could
definitely enter upon your career and might con-
sider that your future is marked out and assured for
you. Oh, if only this comes to pass! This would be
such a benefit that we could only look upon it as a
providential blessing. Dounia is dreaming of noth-
ing else. We have even ventured already to drop a
few words on the subject to Pyotr Petrovitch. He was
cautious in his answer, and said that, of course, as he
could not get on without a secretary, it would be bet-
ter to be paying a salary to a relation than to a
stranger, if only the former were fitted for the duties
(as though there could be doubt of your being fit-
ted!) but then he expressed doubts whether your
studies at the university would leave you time for
work at his office. The matter dropped for the time,
but Dounia is thinking of nothing else now. She has

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 fyodor dostoevsky

been in a sort of fever for the last few days, and has
already made a regular plan for your becoming in
the end an associate and even a partner in Pyotr
Petrovitch’s business, which might well be, seeing
that you are a student of law. I am in complete
agreement with her, Rodya, and share all her plans
and hopes, and think there is every probability of
realising them. And in spite of Pyotr Petrovitch’s
evasiveness, very natural at present, (since he does
not know you) Dounia is firmly persuaded that she
will gain everything by her good influence over her
future husband; this she is reckoning upon. Of
course we are careful not to talk of any of these
more remote plans to Pyotr Petrovitch, especially of
your becoming his partner. He is a practical man
and might take this very coldly, it might all seem to
him simply a day-dream. Nor has either Dounia or I
breathed a word to him of the great hopes we have
of his helping us to pay for your university studies;
we have not spoken of it in the first place, because it
will come to pass of itself, later on, and he will no
doubt without wasting words offer to do it of him-
self, (as though he could refuse Dounia that) the
more readily since you may by your own efforts
become his right hand in the office, and receive this
assistance not as a charity, but as a salary earned by
your own work. Dounia wants to arrange it all like
this and I quite agree with her. And we have not spo-
ken of our plans for another reason, that is, because

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 crime and punishment

I particularly wanted you to feel on an equal footing

when you first meet him. When Dounia spoke to
him with enthusiasm about you, he answered that
one could never judge a man without seeing him
close, for oneself, and that he looked forward to
forming his own opinion when he makes your
acquaintance. Do you know, my precious Rodya, I
think that perhaps for some reasons (nothing to do
with Pyotr Petrovitch though, simply for my own
personal, perhaps old-womanish, fancies) I should
do better to go on living by myself, apart, than with
them, after the wedding. I am convinced that he will
be generous and delicate enough to invite me and
to urge me to remain with my daughter for the
future, and if he has said nothing about it hitherto,
it is simply because it has been taken for granted;
but I shall refuse. I have noticed more than once in
my life that husbands don’t quite get on with their
mothers-in-law, and I don’t want to be the least bit in
any one’s way, and for my own sake, too, would
rather be quite independent, so long as I have a
crust of bread of my own, and such children as you
and Dounia. If possible, I would settle somewhere
near you, for the most joyful piece of news, dear
Rodya, I have kept for the end of my letter, know
then, my dear boy, that we may, perhaps, be all
together in a very short time and may embrace one
another again after a separation of almost three
years! It is settled for certain that Dounia and I are to

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 fyodor dostoevsky

set off for Petersburg, exactly when I don’t know,

but very, very soon, possibly in a week. It all depends
on Pyotr Petrovitch who will let us know when he
has had time to look round him in Petersburg. To
suit his own arrangements he is anxious to have the
ceremony as soon as possible, even before the fast of
Our Lady, if it could be managed, or if that is too
soon to be ready, immediately after. Oh, with what
happiness I shall press you to my heart! Dounia is all
excitement at the joyful thought of seeing you, she
said one day in joke that she would be ready to
marry Pyotr Petrovitch for that alone. She is an
angel! She is not writing anything to you now, and
has only told me to write that she has so much, so
much to tell you that she is not going to take up her
pen now, for a few lines would tell you nothing, and
it would only mean upsetting herself; she bids me
send you her love and innumerable kisses. But
although we shall be meeting so soon, perhaps I
shall send you as much money as I can in a day or
two. Now that every one has heard that Dounia is to
marry Pyotr Petrovitch, my credit has suddenly
improved and I know that Afanasy Ivanovitch will
trust me now even to seventy-five roubles on the
security of my pension, so that perhaps I shall be
able to send you twenty-five or even thirty roubles. I
would send you more, but I am uneasy about our
traveling expenses; for though Pyotr Petrovitch has
been so kind as to undertake part of the expenses of

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 crime and punishment

the journey, that is to say, he has taken upon himself

the conveyance of our bags and big trunk (which
will be conveyed through some acquaintances of
his), we must reckon upon some expenses on our
arrival in Petersburg, where we can’t be left without
a half-penny, at least for the first few days. But we
have calculated it all, Dounia and I, to the last
penny, and we see that the journey will not cost very
much. It is only ninety versts from us to the railway
and we have come to an agreement with a driver we
know, so as to be in readiness; and from there
Dounia and I can travel quite comfortably third
class. So that I may very likely be able to send to you
not twenty-five, but thirty roubles. But enough; I
have covered two sheets already and there is no
space left for more; our whole history, but so many
events have happened! And now, my precious
Rodya, I embrace you and send you a mother’s bless-
ing till we meet. Love Dounia your sister, Rodya;
love her as she loves you and understand that she
loves you beyond everything, more than herself. She
is an angel and you, Rodya, you are everything to us
— our one hope, our one consolation. If only you
are happy, we shall be happy. Do you still say your
prayers, Rodya, and believe in the mercy of our
Creator and our Redeemer? I am afraid in my heart
that you may have been visited by the new spirit of
infidelity that is abroad to-day! If it is so, I pray for
you. Remember, dear boy, how in your childhood,

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 fyodor dostoevsky

when your father was living, you used to lisp your

prayers at my knee, and how happy we all were in
those days. Good-bye, till we meet then — I embrace
you warmly, warmly, with many kisses.
“Yours till death
“PULCHERIA RASKOLNIKOV.”

Almost from the first, while he read the letter,

Raskolnikov’s face was wet with tears; but when he fin-
ished it, his face was pale and distorted and a bitter,
wrathful and malignant smile was on his lips. He laid
his head down on his threadbare dirty pillow and
pondered, pondered a long time. His heart was beat-
ing violently, and his brain was in a turmoil. At last he
felt cramped and stifled in the little yellow room that
was like a cupboard or a box. His eyes and his mind
craved for space. He took up his hat and went out,
this time without dread of meeting any one; he had
forgotten his dread. He turned in the direction of the
Vassilyevsky Ostrov, walking along Vassilyevsky
Prospect, as though hastening on some business, but
he walked, as his habit was, without noticing his way,
muttering and even speaking aloud to himself, to the
astonishment of the passers-by. Many of them took
him to be drunk.

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 chapter iv

His mother’s letter had been a torture to him, but as

regards the chief fact in it, he had felt not one
moment’s hesitation, even whilst he was reading the
letter. The essential question was settled, and irrevo-
cably settled, in his mind: “Never such a marriage
while I am alive and Mr. Luzhin be damned!” “The
thing is perfectly clear,” he muttered to himself, with
a malignant smile anticipating the triumph of his
decision. “No, mother, no, Dounia, you won’t deceive
me! and then they apologise for not asking my advice
and for taking the decision without me! I dare say!
They imagine it is arranged now and can’t be broken
off; but we will see whether it can or not! A magnifi-
cent excuse: ‘Pyotr Petrovitch is such a busy man that
even his wedding has to be in post-haste, almost by
express.’ No, Dounia, I see it all and I know what you
want to say to me; and I know too what you were
thinking about, when you walked up and down all
night, and what your prayers were like before the

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 fyodor dostoevsky

Holy Mother of Kazan who stands in mother’s bed-

room. Bitter is the ascent to Golgotha . . . Hm . . . so it
is finally settled; you have determined to marry a sen-
sible business man, Avdotya Romanovna, one who
has a fortune (has already made his fortune, that is so
much more solid and impressive) a man who holds
two government posts and who shares the ideas of
our most rising generation, as mother writes, and
who seems to be kind, as Dounia herself observes.
That seems beats everything! And that very Dounia for
that very ‘seems’ is marrying him! Splendid! splendid!
“ . . . But I should like to know why mother has writ-
ten to me about ‘our most rising generation’? Simply
as a descriptive touch, or with the idea of prepossess-
ing me in favour of Mr. Luzhin? Oh, the cunning of
them! I should like to know one thing more: how far
they were open with one another that day and night
and all this time since? Was it all put into words, or did
both understand that they had the same thing at
heart and in their minds, so that there was no need to
speak of it aloud, and better not to speak of it. Most
likely it was partly like that, from mother’s letter it’s
evident: he struck her as rude a little, and mother in
her simplicity took her observations to Dounia. And
she was sure to be vexed and ‘answered her angrily.’ I
should think so! Who would not be angered when it
was quite clear without any naïve questions and when
it was understood that it was useless to discuss it. And
why does she write to me, ‘love Dounia, Rodya, and

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 crime and punishment

she loves you more than herself’? Has she a secret

conscience-prick at sacrificing her daughter to her
son? ‘You are our one comfort, you are everything to
us.’ Oh, mother!”
His bitterness grew more and more intense, and if
he had happened to meet Mr. Luzhin at the moment,
he might have murdered him.
“Hm . . . yes, that’s true,” he continued, pursuing
the whirling ideas that chased each other in his brain,
“it is true that ‘it needs time and care to get to know a
man,’ but there is no mistake about Mr. Luzhin. The
chief thing is he is ‘a man of business and seems kind,’
that was something, wasn’t it, to send the bags and big
box for them! A kind man, no doubt after that! But
his bride and her mother are to drive in a peasant’s
cart covered with sacking (I know, I have been driven
in it). No matter! It is only ninety versts and then they
can ‘travel very comfortably, third class’ for a thou-
sand versts! Quite right, too. One must cut one’s coat
according to one’s cloth, but what about you, Mr.
Luzhin? She is your bride . . . And you must be aware
that her mother has to raise money on her pension
for the journey. To be sure it’s a matter of business, a
partnership for mutual benefit, with equal shares and
expenses; — food and drink provided, but pay for
your tobacco. The business man has got the better of
them, too. The luggage will cost less than their fares
and very likely go for nothing. How is it that they
don’t both see all that, or is it that they don’t want to

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 fyodor dostoevsky

see? And they are pleased, pleased! And to think that

this is only the first blossoming, and that the real
fruits are to come! But what really matters is not the
stinginess, is not the meanness, but the tone of the
whole thing. For that will be the tone after marriage,
it’s a foretaste of it. And mother too, why should she
be so lavish? What will she have by the time she gets
to Petersburg? Three silver roubles or two ‘paper
ones’ as she says . . . that old woman . . . hm. What does
she expect to live upon in Petersburg afterwards? She
has her reasons already for guessing that she could not
live with Dounia after the marriage, even for the first
few months. The good man has no doubt let slip
something on that subject also, though mother would
deny it: ‘I shall refuse,’ says she. On whom is she reck-
oning then? Is she counting on what is left of her
hundred and twenty roubles of pension when
Afanasy Ivanovitch’s debt is paid? She knits woollen
shawls and embroiders cuffs, ruining her old eyes.
And all her shawls don’t add more than twenty rou-
bles a year to her hundred and twenty, I know that. So
she is building all her hopes all the time on Mr.
Luzhin’s generosity; ‘he will offer it of himself, he will
press it on me.’ You may wait a long time for that!
That’s how it always is with these Schilleresque noble
hearts; till the last moment every goose is a swan with
them, till the last moment, they hope for the best and
will see nothing wrong, and although they have an
inkling of the other side of the picture, yet they won’t

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 crime and punishment

face the truth till they are forced to; the very thought
of it makes them shiver; they thrust the truth away
with both hands, until the man they deck out in false
colours puts a fool’s cap on them with his own hands.
I should like to know whether Mr. Luzhin has any
orders of merit; I bet he has the Anna in his button-
hole and that he puts it on when he goes to dine with
contractors or merchants. He will be sure to have it
for his wedding, too! Enough of him, confound him!
Well, . . . mother I don’t wonder at, it’s like her,
God bless her, but how could Dounia? Dounia, dar-
ling, as though I did not know you! You were nearly
twenty when I saw you last: I understood you then.
Mother writes that ‘Dounia can put up with a great
deal.’ I know that very well. I knew that two years and
a half ago, and for the last two and a half years I have
been thinking about it, thinking of just that, that
‘Dounia can put up with a great deal.’ If she could
put up with Mr. Svidrigaïlov and all the rest of it, she
certainly can put up with a great deal. And now
mother and she have taken it into their heads that
she can put up with Mr. Luzhin, who propounds the
theory of the superiority of wives raised from destitu-
tion and owing everything to their husbands’ bounty
— who propounds it, too, almost at the first interview.
Granted that he ‘let it slip,’ though he is a sensible
man, (yet maybe it was not a slip at all, but he meant
to make himself clear as soon as possible) but
Dounia, Dounia? She understands the man, of

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course, but she will have to live with the man. Why!
she’d live on black bread and water, she would not
sell her soul, she would not barter her moral freedom
for comfort; she would not barter it for all Schleswig-
Holstein, much less Mr. Luzhin’s money. No, Dounia
was not that sort when I knew her and . . . she is still
the same, of course! Yes, there’s no denying, the
Svidrigaïlovs are a bitter pill! It’s a bitter thing to
spend one’s life a governess in the provinces for two
hundred roubles, but I know she would rather be a
nigger on a plantation or a Lett with a German mas-
ter, than degrade her soul, and her moral dignity, by
binding herself for ever to a man whom she does not
respect and with whom she has nothing in common
— for her own advantage. And if Mr. Luzhin had been
of unalloyed gold, or one huge diamond, she would
never have consented to become his legal concubine.
Why is she consenting then? What’s the point of it?
What’s the answer? It’s clear enough: for herself, for
her comfort, to save her life she would not sell her-
self, but for some one else she is doing it! For one she
loves, for one she adores, she will sell herself! That’s
what it all amounts to; for her brother, for her
mother, she will sell herself! She will sell everything!
In such cases, we ‘overcome our moral feeling if nec-
essary,’ freedom, peace, conscience even, all, all are
brought into the market. Let my life go, if only my
dear ones may be happy! More than that, we become
casuists, we learn to be Jesuitical and for a time

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maybe we can soothe ourselves, we can persuade our-

selves that it is one’s duty for a good object. That’s
just like us, it’s as clear as daylight. It’s clear that
Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov is the central fig-
ure in the business, and no one else. Oh, yes, she can
ensure his happiness, keep him in the university,
make him a partner in the office, make his whole
future secure; perhaps he may even be a rich man
later on, prosperous, respected, and may even end
his life a famous man! But my mother? It’s all Rodya,
precious Rodya, her first-born! For such a son who
would not sacrifice such a daughter! Oh, loving, over-
partial hearts! Why, for his sake we would not shrink
even from Sonia’s fate. Sonia, Sonia Marmeladov, the
eternal victim so long as the world lasts. Have you
taken the measure of your sacrifice, both of you? Is it
right? Can you bear it? Is it any use? Is there sense in
it? And let me tell you, Dounia, Sonia’s life is no
worse than life with Mr. Luzhin. ‘There can be no
question of love’ mother writes. And what if there can
be no respect either, if on the contrary there is aver-
sion, contempt, repulsion, what then? So you will
have to ‘keep up your appearance,’ too. Is not that
so? Do you understand what that smartness means?
Do you understand that the Luzhin smartness is just
the same thing as Sonia’s and may be worse, viler,
baser, because in your case, Dounia, it’s a bargain for
luxuries, after all, but with Sonia it’s simply a question
of starvation. It has to be paid for, it has to be paid for,

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 fyodor dostoevsky

Dounia, this smartness. And what if it’s more than

you can bear afterwards if you regret it? The bitter-
ness, the misery, the curses, the tears hidden from all
the world, for you are not a Marfa Petrovna. And how
will your mother feel then? Even now she is uneasy,
she is worried, but then, when she sees it all clearly?
And I? Yes, indeed, what have you taken me for? I
won’t have your sacrifice, Dounia, I won’t have it,
mother! It shall not be, so long as I am alive, it shall
not, it shall not! I won’t accept it!”
He suddenly paused in his reflections and stood
still.
“It shall not be? But what are you going to do to
prevent it? You’ll forbid it? And what right have you?
What can you promise them on your side to give you
such a right? Your whole life, your whole future, you
will devote to them when you have finished your studies
and obtained a post? Yes, we have heard all that before,
and that’s all words, but now? Now something must be
done, now, do you understand that? And what are
you doing now? You are living upon them. They bor-
row on their hundred roubles pension. They borrow
from the Svidrigaïlovs. How are you going to save
them from Svidrigaïlovs, from Afanasy Ivanovitch
Vahrushin, oh, future millionaire Zeus who would
arrange their lives for them? In another ten years? In
another ten years, mother will be blind with knitting
shawls, maybe with weeping too. She will be worn to a
shadow with fasting; and my sister? Imagine for a

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moment what may have become of your sister in ten

years? What may happen to her during those ten
years? Can you fancy?”
So he tortured himself, fretting himself with such
questions, and finding a kind of enjoyment in it. And
yet all these questions were not new ones suddenly
confronting him, they were old familiar aches. It was
long since they had first begun to grip and rend his
heart. Long, long ago his present anguish had its first
beginnings; it had waxed and gathered strength, it
had matured and concentrated, until it had taken the
form of a fearful, frenzied and fantastic question,
which tortured his heart and mind, clamouring insis-
tently for an answer. Now his mother’s letter had
burst on him like a thunderclap. It was clear that he
must not now suffer passively, worrying himself over
unsolved questions, but that he must do something,
do it at once, and do it quickly. Anyway he must
decide on something, or else . . .
“Or throw up life altogether!” he cried suddenly,
in a frenzy — “accept one’s lot humbly as it is, once for
all and stifle everything in oneself, giving up all claim
to activity, life and love!”
“Do you understand, sir, do you understand what
it means when you have absolutely nowhere to turn?”
Marmeladov’s question came suddenly into his mind
“for every man must have somewhere to turn . . .”
He gave a sudden start; another thought, that he
had had yesterday, slipped back into his mind. But he

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 fyodor dostoevsky

did not start at the thought recurring to him, for he

knew, he had felt beforehand, that it must come back,
he was expecting it; besides it was not only yesterday’s
thought. The difference was that a month ago, yester-
day even, the thought was a mere dream: but now . . .
now it appeared not a dream at all, it had taken a new
menacing and quite unfamiliar shape, and he sud-
denly became aware of this himself . . . He felt a ham-
mering in his head, and there was a darkness before
his eyes.
He looked round hurriedly, he was searching for
something. He wanted to sit down and was looking
for a seat; he was walking along the K — Boulevard.
There was a seat about a hundred paces in front of
him. He walked towards it as fast as he could; but on
the way he met with a little adventure which absorbed
all his attention. Looking for the seat, he had noticed
a woman walking some twenty paces in front of him,
but at first he took no more notice of her than of
other objects that crossed his path. It had happened
to him many times going home not to notice the road
by which he was going, and he was accustomed to
walk like that. But there was at first sight something
so strange about the woman in front of him, that
gradually his attention was riveted upon her, at first
reluctantly and, as it were, resentfully, and then more
and more intently. He felt a sudden desire to find out
what it was that was so strange about the woman. In
the first place, she appeared to be a girl quite young,

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and she was walking in the great heat bareheaded

and with no parasol or gloves, waving her arms about
in an absurd way. She had on a dress of some light
silky material, but put on strangely awry, not properly
hooked up, and torn open at the top of the skirt,
close to the waist: a great piece was rent and hanging
loose. A little kerchief was flung about her bare
throat, but lay slanting on one side. The girl was walk-
ing unsteadily, too, stumbling and staggering from
side to side. She drew Raskolnikov’s whole attention
at last. He overtook the girl at the seat but, on reach-
ing it, she dropped down on it, in the comer; she let
her head sink on the back of the seat and closed her
eyes, apparently in extreme exhaustion. Looking at
her closely, he saw at once that she was completely
drunk. It was a strange and shocking sight. He could
hardly believe that he was not mistaken. He saw
before him the face of a quite young, fair-haired girl
— sixteen, perhaps not more than fifteen years old, a
pretty little face, but flushed and heavy looking and,
as it were, swollen. The girl seemed hardly to know
what she was doing; she crossed one leg over the
other, lifting it indecorously, and showed every sign
of being unconscious that she was in the street.
Raskolnikov did not sit down, but he felt unwilling
to leave her, and stood facing her in perplexity. This
boulevard was never much frequented; and now, at
two o’clock, in the stifling heat, it was quite deserted.
And yet on the further side of the boulevard, about fif-

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teen paces away, a gentleman was standing on the

edge of the pavement, he, too, would apparently have
liked to approach the girl with some object of his own.
He, too, had probably seen her in the distance and
had followed her, but found Raskolnikov in his way.
He looked angrily at him, though he tried to escape
his notice, and stood impatiently biding his time, till
the unwelcome man in rags should have moved away.
His intentions were unmistakable. The gentleman was
a plump, thickly-set man, about thirty, fashionably
dressed, with a high colour, red lips and moustaches.
Raskolnikov felt furious; he had a sudden longing to
insult this fat dandy in some way. He left the girl for a
moment and walked towards the gentleman.
“Hey! You Svidrigaïlov! What do you want here?”
he shouted, clenching his fists and laughing, splutter-
ing with rage.
“What do you mean?” the gentleman asked sternly,
scowling in haughty astonishment.
“Get away, that’s what I mean.”
“How dare you, you low fellow!”
He raised his cane. Raskolnikov rushed at him
with his fists, without reflecting that the stout gentle-
man was a match for two men like himself. But at that
instant some one seized him from behind, and a
police constable stood between them.
“That’s enough, gentlemen, no fighting, please, in
a public place. What do you want? Who are you?” he
asked Raskolnikov sternly, noticing his rags.

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Raskolnikov looked at him intently. He had a

straightforward, sensible, soldierly face, with gray
moustaches and whiskers.
“You are just the man I want,” Raskolnikov cried,
catching at his arm. “I am a student, Raskolnikov . . .
You may as well know that too,” he added, addressing
the gentleman, “come along, I have something to
show you.”
And taking the policeman by the hand he drew
him towards the seat.
“Look here, hopelessly drunk, and she has just
come down the boulevard. There is no telling who
and what she is, she does not look like a professional.
It’s more likely she has been given drink and
deceived somewhere . . . for the first time . . . you
understand? and they’ve put her out into the street
like that. Look at the way her dress is torn, and the
way it has been put on: she has been dressed by some-
body, she has not dressed herself, and dressed by
unpractised hands, by a man’s hands; that’s evident.
And now look there: I don’t know that dandy with
whom I was going to fight, I see him for the first time,
but, he, too has seen her on the road, just now,
drunk, not knowing what she is doing, and now he is
very eager to get hold of her, to get her away some-
where while she is in this state . . . that’s certain,
believe me, I am not wrong. I saw him myself watch-
ing her and following her, but I prevented him, and
he is just waiting for me to go away. Now he has

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walked away a little, and is standing still, pretending

to make a cigarette . . . Think how can we keep her
out of his hands, and how are we to get her home?”
The policeman saw it all in a flash. The stout gen-
tleman was easy to understand, he turned to consider
the girl. The policeman bent over to examine her
more closely, and his face worked with genuine com-
passion.
“Ah, what a pity!” he said, shaking his head — “why,
she is quite a child! She has been deceived, you can
see that at once. Listen, lady,” he began addressing
her, “where do you live?” The girl opened her weary
and sleepy-looking eyes, gazed blankly at the speaker
and waved her hand.
“Here,” said Raskolnikov feeling in his pocket and
finding twenty copecks, “here, call a cab and tell him
to drive her to her address. The only thing is to find
out her address!”
“Missy, missy!” the policeman began again, taking
the money. “I’ll fetch you a cab and take you home
myself. Where shall I take you, eh? Where do you live?”
“Go away! They won’t let me alone,” the girl mut-
tered, and once more waved her hand.
“Ach, ach, how shocking! It’s shameful, missy, it’s a
shame!” He shook his head again, shocked, sympa-
thetic and indignant.
“It’s a difficult job,” the policeman said to
Raskolnikov, and as he did so, he looked him up and
down in a rapid glance. He, too, must have seemed a

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strange figure to him: dressed in rags and handing

him money!
“Did you meet her far from here?” he asked him.
“I tell you she was walking in front of me, stagger-
ing, just here, in the boulevard. She only just reached
the seat and sank down on it.”
“Ah, the shameful things that are done in the
world nowadays, God have mercy on us! An innocent
creature like that, drunk already! She has been
deceived, that’s a sure thing. See how her dress has
been torn too . . . Ah, the vice one sees nowadays! And
as likely as not she belongs to gentlefolk too, poor
ones maybe . . . There are many like that nowadays.
She looks refined, too, as though she were a lady,”
and he bent over her once more.
Perhaps he had daughters growing up like that,
“looking like ladies and refined” with pretensions to
gentility and smartness . . .
“The chief thing is,” Raskolnikov persisted, “to
keep her out of this scoundrel’s hands! Why should
he outrage her! It’s as clear as day what he is after; ah,
the brute, he is not moving off!”
Raskolnikov spoke aloud and pointed to him. The
gentleman heard him, and seemed about to fly into a
rage again, but thought better of it, and confined
himself to a contemptuous look. He then walked
slowly another ten paces away and again halted.
“Keep her out of his hands we can,” said the con-
stable thoughtfully, “if only she’d tell us where to take

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her, but as it is . . . Missy, hey, missy!” he bent over her

once more.
She opened her eyes fully all of a sudden, looked
at him intently, as though realising something, got up
from the seat and walked away in the direction from
which she had come. “Oh shameful wretches, they
won’t let me alone!” she said, waving her hand again.
She walked quickly, though staggering as before. The
dandy followed her, but along another avenue, keep-
ing his eye on her.
“Don’t be anxious, I won’t let him have her,” the
policeman said resolutely, and he set off after them.
“Ah, the vice one sees nowadays!” he repeated
aloud, sighing.
At that moment something seemed to sting
Raskolnikov; in an instant a complete revulsion of
feeling came over him.
“Hey, here!” he shouted after the policeman.
The latter turned round.
“Let them be! What is it to do with you? Let her
go! Let him amuse himself.” He pointed at the dandy,
“What is it to do with you?”
The policeman was bewildered, and stared at him
open-eyed. Raskolnikov laughed.
“Well!” ejaculated the policeman, with a gesture of
contempt, and he walked after the dandy and the
girl, probably taking Raskolnikov for a madman or
something even worse.

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 crime and punishment

“He has carried off my twenty copecks,”

Raskolnikov murmured angrily when he was left
alone. “Well, let him take as much from the other fel-
low to allow him to have the girl and so let it end. And
why did I want to interfere? Is it for me to help? Have
I any right to help? Let them devour each other alive
— what is it to me? How did I dare to give him twenty
copecks? Were they mine?”
In spite of those strange words he felt very
wretched. He sat down on the deserted seat. His
thought strayed aimlessly . . . He found it hard to fix
his mind on anything at that moment. He longed to
forget himself altogether, to forget everything, and
then to wake up and begin life anew . . .
“Poor girl!” he said, looking at the empty comer
where she had sat — “She will come to herself and
weep, and then her mother will find out . . . She will
give her a beating, a horrible, shameful beating and
then maybe, turn her out of doors . . . And even if she
does not, the Darya Frantsovnas will get wind of it,
and the girl will soon be slipping out on the sly here
and there. Then there will be the hospital directly
(that’s always the luck of those girls with respectable
mothers, who go wrong on the sly) and then . . . again
the hospital . . . drink . . . the taverns . . . and more hos-
pital, in two or three years — a wreck, and her life over
at eighteen or nineteen . . . Have not I seen cases like
that? And how have they been brought to it? Why,

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 fyodor dostoevsky

they’ve all come to it like that. Ugh! But what does it

matter? That’s as it should be, they tell us. A certain
percentage, they tell us, must every year go . . . that
way . . . to the devil, I suppose, so that the rest may
remain chaste, and not be interfered with. A percent-
age! What splendid words they have; they are so sci-
entific, so consolatory . . . Once you’ve said
‘percentage,’ there’s nothing more to worry about. If
we had any other word . . . maybe we might feel more
uneasy . . . But what if Dounia were one of the per-
centage! Of another one if not that one?
“But where am I going?” he thought suddenly.
“Strange, I came out for something. As soon as I had
read the letter I came out . . . I was going to
Vassilyevsky Ostrov, to Razumihin. That’s what it was .
. . now I remember. What for, though? And what put
the idea of going to Razumihin into my head just
now? That’s curious.”
He wondered at himself. Razumihin was one of his
old comrades at the university. It was remarkable that
Raskolnikov had hardly any friends at the university;
he kept aloof from every one, went to see no one, and
did not welcome any one who came to see him, and
indeed every one soon gave him up. He took no part
in the students’ gatherings, amusements or conversa-
tions. He worked with great intensity without sparing
himself, and he was respected for this, but no one
liked him. He was very poor, and there was a sort of
haughty pride and reserve about him, as though he

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were keeping something to himself. He seemed to

some of his comrades to look down upon them all as
children, as though he were superior in develop-
ment, knowledge and convictions, as though their
beliefs and interests were beneath him.
With Razumihin he had got on, or, at least, he was
more unreserved and communicative with him.
Indeed it was impossible to be on any other terms
with Razumihin. He was an exceptionally good-
humoured and candid youth, good-natured to the
point of simplicity, though both depth and dignity lay
concealed under that simplicity. The better of his
comrades understood this, and all were fond of him.
He was extremely intelligent, though he was certainly
rather a simpleton at times. He was of striking
appearance — tall, thin, blackhaired and always badly
shaved. He was sometimes uproarious and was
reputed to be of great physical strength. One night,
when out in a festive company, he had with one blow
laid a gigantic policeman on his back. There was no
limit to his drinking powers, but he could abstain
from drink altogether; he sometimes went too far in
his pranks; but he could do without pranks alto-
gether. Another thing striking about Razumihin, no
failure distressed him, and it seemed as though no
unfavourable circumstances could crush him. He
could lodge anywhere, and bear the extremes of cold
and hunger. He was very poor, and kept himself
entirely on what he could earn by work of one sort or

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another. He knew of no end of resources by which to

earn money. He spent one whole winter without light-
ing his stove, and used to declare that he liked it bet-
ter, because one slept more soundly in the cold. For
the present he, too, had been obliged to give up the
university, but it was only for a time, and he was work-
ing with all his might to save enough to return to his
studies again. Raskolnikov had not been to see him
for the last four months, and Razumihin did not even
know his address. About two months before, they had
met in the street, but Raskolnikov had turned away
and even crossed to the other side that he might not
be observed. And though Razumihin noticed him, he
passed him by, as he did not want to annoy him.

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 chapter v

“Of course, I’ve been meaning lately to go to

Razumihin’s to ask for work, to ask him to get me les-
sons or something . . .” Raskolnikov thought, “but
what help can he be to me now? Suppose he gets me
lessons, suppose he shares his last farthing with me, if
he has any farthings, so that I could get some boots
and make myself tidy enough to give lessons . . . hm . . .
Well and what then? What shall I do with the few cop-
pers I earn? That’s not what I want now. It’s really
absurd for me to go to Razumihin . . .”
The question why he was now going to Razumihin
agitated him even more than he was himself aware;
he kept uneasily seeking for some sinister signifi-
cance in this apparently ordinary action.
“Could I have expected to set it all straight and to
find a way out by means of Razumihin alone?” he
asked himself in perplexity.
He pondered and rubbed his forehead, and,
strange to say, after long musing, suddenly, as if it

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were spontaneously and by chance, a fantastic

thought came into his head.
“Hm . . . to Razumihin’s,” he said all at once, calmly,
as though he had reached a final determination. “I
shall go to Razumihin’s of course, but . . . not now. I
shall go to him . . . on the next day after It, when It will
be over and everything will begin afresh . . . ”
And suddenly he realised what he was thinking.
“After It,” he shouted, jumping up from the seat,
“but is It really going to happen? Is it possible it really
will happen?” He left the seat, and went off almost at
a run; he meant to turn back, homewards, but the
thought of going home suddenly filled him with
intense loathing; in that hole, in that awful little cup-
board of his, all this had for a month past been grow-
ing up in him; and he walked on at random.
His nervous shudder had passed into a fever that
made him feel shivering; in spite of the heat he felt
cold. With a kind of effort he began almost uncon-
sciously, from some inner craving, to stare at all the
objects before him, as though looking for something
to distract his attention; but he did not succeed, and
kept dropping every moment into brooding. When
with a start he lifted his head again and looked
around, he forgot at once what he had just been
thinking about and even where he was going. In this
way he walked right across Vassilyevsky Ostrov, came
out on to the Lesser Neva, crossed the bridge and
turned towards the islands. The greenness and fresh-

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ness were at first restful to his weary eyes after the

dust of the town and the huge houses that hemmed
him in and weighed upon him. Here there were no
taverns, no stifling closeness, no stench. But soon
these new pleasant sensations passed into morbid irri-
tability. Sometimes he stood still before a brightly
painted summer villa standing among green foliage,
he gazed through the fence, he saw in the distance
smartly dressed women on the verandahs and bal-
conies, and children running in the gardens. The
flowers especially caught his attention; he gazed at
them longer than at anything. He was met, too, by
luxurious carriages and by men and women on horse-
back; he watched them with curious eyes and forgot
about them before they had vanished from his sight.
Once he stood still and counted his money; he found
he had thirty copecks. “Twenty to the policeman,
three to Nastasya for the letter, so I must have given
forty-seven or fifty to the Marmeladovs yesterday,” he
thought, reckoning it up for some unknown reason,
but he soon forgot with what object he had taken the
money out of his pocket. He recalled it on passing an
eating-house or tavern, and felt that he was hungry . .
. Going into the tavern he drank a glass of vodka and
ate a pie of some sort. He finished eating it as he
walked away. It was a long while since he had taken
vodka and it had an effect upon him at once, though
he only drank a wine-glassful. His legs felt suddenly
heavy and a great drowsiness came upon him. He

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turned homewards, but reaching Petrovsky Ostrov he

stopped completely exhausted, turned off the road
into the bushes, sank down upon the grass and
instantly fell asleep.
In a morbid condition of the brain, dreams often
have a singular actuality, vividness, and extraordinary
semblance of reality. At times monstrous images are
created, but the setting and the whole picture are so
truthlike and filled with details so delicate, so unex-
pectedly, but so artistically consistent, that the
dreamer, were he an artist like Pushkin or Turgenev
even, could never have invented them in the waking
state. Such sick dreams always remain long in the
memory and make a powerful impression on the
overwrought and deranged nervous system.
Raskolnikov had a fearful dream. He dreamt he
was back in his childhood in the little town of his
birth. He was a child about seven years old, walking
into the country with his father on the evening of a
holiday. It was a grey and heavy day, the country was
exactly as he remembered it; indeed he recalled it
far more vividly in his dream than he had done in
memory. The little town stood on a level flat as bare
as the hand, not even a willow near it; only in the far
distance, a copse lay, a dark blur on the very edge of
the horizon. A few paces beyond the last market gar-
den stood a tavern, a big tavern, which had always
aroused in him a feeling of aversion, even of fear,
when he walked by it with his father. There was

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always a crowd there, always shouting, laughter and

abuse, hideous hoarse singing and often fighting.
Drunken and horrible-looking figures were hanging
about the tavern. He used to cling close to his father,
trembling all over when he met them. Near the tav-
ern the road became a dusty track, the dust of which
was always black. It was a winding road, and about a
hundred paces further on, it turned to the right to
the graveyard. In the middle of the graveyard stood a
stone church with a green cupola where he used to
go to mass two or three times a year with his father
and mother, when a service was held in memory of
his grandmother, who had long been dead, and
whom he had never seen. On these occasions they
used to take on a white dish tied up in a table napkin
a special sort of rice pudding with raisins stuck in it
in the shape of a cross. He loved that church, the
old-fashioned, unadorned ikons and the old priest
with the shaking head. Near his grandmother’s
grave, which was marked by a stone, was the little
grave of his younger brother who had died at six
months old. He did not remember him at all, but he
had been told about his little brother, and whenever
he visited the graveyard he used religiously and rev-
erently to cross himself and to bow down and kiss the
little grave. And now he dreamt that he was walking
with his father past the tavern on the way to the
graveyard; he was holding his father’s hand and look-
ing with dread at the tavern. A peculiar circumstance

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attracted his attention: there seemed to be some

kind of festivity going on, there were crowds of gaily
dressed townspeople, peasant women, their hus-
bands, and riff-raff of all sorts, all singing and all
more or less drunk. Near the entrance of the tavern
stood a cart, but a strange cart. It was one of those
big carts usually drawn by heavy cart-horses and
laden with casks of wine or other heavy goods. He
always liked looking at those great cart-horses, with
their long manes, thick legs, and slow even pace,
drawing along a perfect mountain with no appear-
ance of effort, as though it were easier going with a
load than without it. But now, strange to say, in the
shafts of such a cart he saw a thin little sorrel beast,
one of those peasants’ nags which he had often seen
straining their utmost under a heavy load of wood or
hay, especially when the wheels were stuck in the
mud or in a rut. And the peasants would be at them
so cruelly, sometimes even about the nose and eyes,
and he felt so sorry, so sorry for them that he almost
cried, and his mother always used to take him away
from the window. All of a sudden there was a great
uproar of shouting, singing and the balalaïka, and
from the tavern a number of big and very drunken
peasants came out, wearing red and blue shirts and
coats thrown over their shoulders.
“Get in, get in!” shouted one of them, a young
thick-necked peasant with a fleshy face red as a car-
rot. “I’ll take you all, get in!”

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 crime and punishment

But at once there was an outbreak of laughter and

exclamations in the crowd.
“Take us all with a beast like that!”
“Why, Mikolka, are you crazy to put a nag like that
in such a cart?”
“And this mare is twenty if she is a day, mates!”
“Get in, I’ll take you all,” Mikolka shouted again,
leaping first into the cart, seizing the reins and stand-
ing straight up in front. “The bay has gone with
Marvey,” he shouted from the cart — “and this brute,
mates, is just breaking my heart, I feel as if I could
kill her. She’s just eating her head off. Get in, I tell
you! I’ll make her gallop! She’ll gallop!” and he
picked up the whip, preparing himself with relish to
flog the little mare.
“Get in! Come along!” The crowd laughed. “D’you
hear, she’ll gallop!”
“Gallop indeed! She has not had a gallop in her
for the last ten years!”
“She’ll jog along!”
“Don’t you mind her, mates, bring a whip each of
you, get ready!”
“All right! Give it to her!”
They all clambered into Mikolka’s cart, laughing
and making jokes. Six men got in and there was still
room for more. They hauled in a fat, rosy-cheeked
woman. She was dressed in red cotton, in a pointed,
beaded headdress and thick leather shoes; she was
cracking nuts and laughing. The crowd round them

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was laughing too and indeed, how could they help

laughing? That wretched nag was to drag all the
cartload of them at a gallop! Two young fellows in
the cart were just getting whips ready to help
Mikolka. With the cry of “now,” the mare tugged
with all her might, but far from galloping, could
scarcely move forward; she struggled with her legs,
gasping and shrinking from the blows of the three
whips which were showered upon her like hail. The
laughter in the cart and in the crowd was redoubled,
but Mikolka flew into a rage and furiously thrashed
the mare, as though he supposed she really could
gallop.
“Let me get in, too, mates,” shouted a young man
in the crowd whose appetite was aroused.
“Get in, all get in,” cried Mikolka, “she will draw
you all. I’ll beat her to death!” And he thrashed and
thrashed at the mare, beside himself with fury.
“Father, father,” he cried, “father, what are they
doing? Father, they are beating the poor horse!”
“Come along, come along!” said his father. “They
are drunken and foolish, they are in fun; come away,
don’t look!” and he tried to draw him away, but he
tore himself away from his hand, and, beside himself
with horror, ran to the horse. The poor beast was in a
bad way. She was gasping, standing still, then tugging
again and almost falling.
“Beat her to death,” cried Mikolka, “it’s come to
that. I’ll do for her!”

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“What are you about, are you a Christian, you

devil?” shouted an old man in the crowd.
“Did any one ever see the like? A wretched nag
like that pulling such a cartload,” said another.
“You’ll kill her,” shouted the third.
“Don’t meddle! It’s my property. I’ll do what I
choose. Get in, more of you! Get in, all of you! I will
have her go at a gallop! . . .”
All at once laughter broke into a roar and covered
everything: the mare, roused by the shower of blows,
began feebly kicking. Even the old man could not
help smiling. To think of a wretched little beast like
that trying to kick!
Two lads in the crowd snatched up whips and ran
to the mare to beat her about the ribs. One ran each
side.
“Hit her in the face, in the eyes, in the eyes,” cried
Mikolka.
“Give us a song, mates,” shouted some one in the
cart and every one in the cart joined in a riotous
song, jingling a tambourine and whistling. The
woman went on cracking nuts and laughing.
. . . He ran beside the mare, ran in front of her, saw
her being whipped across the eyes, right in the eyes!
He was crying, he felt choking, his tears were stream-
ing. One of the men gave him a cut with the whip
across the face, he did not feel it. Wringing his hands
and screaming, he rushed up to the grey-headed old
man with the grey beard, who was shaking his head in

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disapproval. One woman seized him by the hand and

would have taken him away, but he tore himself from
her and ran back to the mare. She was almost at the
last gasp, but began kicking once more.
“I’ll teach you to kick,” Mikolka shouted fero-
ciously. He threw down the whip, bent forward and
picked up from the bottom of the cart a long, thick
shaft, he took hold of one end with both hands and
with an effort brandished it over the mare.
“He’ll crush her,” was shouted round him. “He’ll
kill her!”
“It’s my property,” shouted Mikolka and brought
the shaft down with a swinging blow. There was a
sound of a heavy thud.
“Thrash her, thrash her! Why have you stopped?”
shouted voices in the crowd.
And Mikolka swung the shaft a second time and it
fell a second time on the spine of the luckless mare.
She sank back on her haunches, but lurched forward
and tugged forward with all her force, tugged first on
one side and then on the other, trying to move the
cart. But the six whips were attacking her in all direc-
tions, and the shaft was raised again and fell upon her
a third time, then a fourth, with heavy measured
blows. Mikolka was in a fury that he could not kill her
at one blow.
“She’s a tough one,” was shouted in the crowd.
“She’ll fall in a minute, mates, there will soon be an
end of her,” said an admiring spectator in the crowd.

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 crime and punishment

“Fetch an axe to her! Finish her off,” shouted a

third.
“I’ll show you! Stand off,” Mikolka screamed fran-
tically; he threw down the shaft, stooped down in the
cart and picked up an iron crowbar. “Look out,” he
shouted, and with all his might he dealt a stunning
blow at the poor mare. The blow fell; the mare stag-
gered, sank back, tried to pull, but the bar fell again
with a swinging blow on her back and she fell on the
ground like a log.
“Finish her off,” shouted Mikolka and he leapt,
beside himself, out of the cart. Several young men,
also flushed with drink, seized anything they could
come across — whips, sticks, poles, and ran to the
dying mare. Mikolka stood on one side and began
dealing random blows with the crowbar. The mare
stretched out her head, drew a long breath and died.
“You butchered her,” some one shouted in the
crowd.
“Why wouldn’t she gallop then?”
“My property!” shouted Mikolka, with bloodshot
eyes, brandishing the bar in his hands. He stood as
though regretting that he had nothing more to beat.
“No mistake about it, you are not a Christian,”
many voices were shouting in the crowd.
But the poor boy, beside himself, made his way
screaming through the crowd to the sorrel nag, put
his arms round her bleeding dead head and kissed it,
kissed the eyes and kissed the lips . . . Then he jumped

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up and flew in a frenzy with his little fists out at

Mikolka. At that instant his father who had been run-
ning after him, snatched him up and carried him out
of the crowd.
“Come along, come! Let us go home,” he said
to him.
“Father! Why did they . . . kill . . . the poor horse!”
he sobbed, but his voice broke and the words came in
shrieks from his panting chest.
“They are drunk . . . They are brutal . . . it’s not our
business!” said his father. He put his arms round his
father but he felt choked, choked. He tried to draw a
breath, to cry out — and woke up.
He waked up, gasping for breath, his hair soaked
with perspiration, and stood up in terror.
“Thank God, that was only a dream,” he said, sit-
ting down under a tree and drawing deep breaths.
“But what is it? Is it some fever coming on? Such a
hideous dream!”
He felt utterly broken: darkness and confusion
were in his soul. He rested his elbows on his knees
and leaned his head on his hands.
“Good God!” he cried, “can it be, can it be, that I
shall really take an axe, that I shall strike her on the
head, split her skull open . . . that I shall tread in the
sticky warm blood, break the lock, steal and tremble;
hide, all spattered in the blood . . . with the axe . . .
Good God, can it be?”
He was shaking like a leaf as he said this.

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“But why am I going on like this?” he continued,

sitting up again, as it were in profound amazement. “I
knew that I could never bring myself to it, so what
have I been torturing myself for till now? Yesterday,
yesterday, when I went to make that . . . experiment, yes-
terday I realised completely that I could never bear to
do it . . . Why am I going over it again, then? Why am I
hesitating? As I came down the stairs yesterday, I said
myself that it was base, loathsome, vile, vile . . . the very
thought of it made me feel sick and filled me with
horror.
“No, I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t do it! Granted,
granted that there is no flaw in all that reasoning,
that all that I have concluded this last month is clear
as day, true as arithmetic . . . My God! Anyway I could-
n’t bring myself to it! I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t do it!
Why, why then am I still . . . ?”
He rose to his feet, looked round in wonder as
though surprised at finding himself in this place, and
went towards the bridge. He was pale, his eyes
glowed, he was exhausted in every limb, but he
seemed suddenly to breathe more easily. He felt he
had cast off that fearful burden that had so long been
weighing upon him, and all at once there was a sense
of relief and peace in his soul. “Lord,” he prayed,
“show me my path — I renounce that accursed . . .
dream of mine.”
Crossing the bridge, he gazed quietly and calmly
at the Neva, at the glowing red sun setting in the

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 fyodor dostoevsky

glowing sky. In spite of his weakness he was not con-

scious of fatigue. It was as though an abscess that had
been forming for a month past in his heart had sud-
denly broken. Freedom, freedom! He was free from
that spell, that sorcery, that obsession!
Later on, when he recalled that time and all that
happened to him during those days, minute by
minute, point by point, he was superstitiously
impressed by one circumstance, which though in
itself not very exceptional, always seemed to him
afterwards the predestined turning-point of his fate.
He could never understand and explain to himself
why, when he was tired and worn out, when it would
have been more convenient for him to go home by
the shortest and most direct way, he had returned by
the Hay Market where he had no need to go. It was
obviously and quite unnecessarily out of his way,
though not much so. It is true that it happened to
him dozens of times to return home without noticing
what streets he passed through. But why, he was
always asking himself, why had such an important,
such a decisive and at the same time such an
absolutely chance meeting happened in the Hay
Market (where he had moreover no reason to go) at
the very hour, the very minute of his life when he was
just in the very mood and in the very circumstances in
which that meeting was able to exert the gravest and
most decisive influence on his whole destiny? As
though it had been lying in wait for him on purpose!

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It was about nine o’clock when he crossed the Hay

Market. At the tables and the barrows, at the booths
and the shops, all the market people were closing
their establishments or clearing away and packing up
their wares and, like their customers, were going
home. Rag pickers and costermongers of all kinds
were crowding round the taverns in the dirty and
stinking courtyards of the Hay Market. Raskolnikov
particularly liked this place and the neighboring
alleys, when he wandered aimlessly in the streets.
Here his rags did not attract contemptuous attention,
and one could walk about in any attire without scan-
dalising people. At the comer of an alley a huckster
and his wife had two tables set out with tapes, thread,
cotton handkerchiefs, &c.
They, too, had got up to go home, but were linger-
ing in conversation with a friend, who had just come
up to them. This friend was Lizaveta Ivanovna, or, as
every one called her, Lizaveta, the younger sister of
the old pawnbroker, Alyona Ivanovna, whom
Raskolnikov had visited the previous day to pawn his
watch and make his experiment. . . He already knew all
about Lizaveta and she knew him a little too. She was
a single woman of about thirty-five, tall, clumsy, timid,
submissive and almost idiotic. She was a complete
slave and went in fear and trembling of her sister,
who made her work day and night, and even beat her.
She was standing with a bundle before the huckster
and his wife, listening earnestly and doubtfully. They

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were talking of something with special warmth. The

moment Raskolnikov caught sight of her, he was over-
come by a strange sensation as it were of intense
astonishment, though there was nothing astonishing
about this meeting.
“You could make up your mind for yourself,
Lizaveta Ivanovna,” the huckster was saying aloud.
“Come round to-morrow about seven. They will be
here too.”
“To-morrow?” said Lizaveta slowly and thought-
fully, as though unable to make up her mind.
“Upon my word, what a fright you are in of Alyona
Ivanovna,” gabbled the huckster’s wife, a lively little
woman. “I look at you, you are like some little babe.
And she is not your own sister either — nothing but a
stepsister and what a hand she keeps over you!”
“But this time don’t say a word to Alyona
Ivanovna,” her husband interrupted; “that’s my
advice, but come round to us without asking. It will
be worth your while. Later on your sister herself may
have a notion.”
“Am I to come?”
“About seven o’clock to-morrow. And they will be
here. You will be able to decide for yourself.”
“And we’ll have a cup of tea,” added his wife.
“All right, I’ll come,” said Lizaveta, still pondering,
and she began slowly moving away.
Raskolnikov had just passed and heard no more.
He passed softly, unnoticed, trying not to miss a word.

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His first amazement was followed by a thrill of horror,

like a shiver running down his spine. He had learnt,
he had suddenly quite unexpectedly learnt, that the
next day at seven o’clock Lizaveta, the old woman’s
sister and only companion, would be away from
home and that therefore at seven o’clock precisely
the old woman would be left alone.
He was only a few steps from his lodging. He went
in like a man condemned to death. He thought of
nothing and was incapable of thinking; but he felt
suddenly in his whole being that he had no more
freedom of thought, no will, and that everything was
suddenly and irrevocably decided.
Certainly, if he had to wait whole years for a suit-
able opportunity, he could not reckon on a more cer-
tain step towards the success of the plan than that
which had just presented itself. In any case, it would
have been difficult to find out beforehand and with
certainty, with greater exactness and less risk, and
without dangerous inquiries and investigations, that
the next day at a certain time an old woman, on
whose life an attempt was contemplated, would be at
home and entirely alone.

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 chapter vi

Later on Raskolnikov happened to find out why the

huckster and his wife had invited Lizaveta. It was a
very ordinary matter and there was nothing excep-
tional about it. A family who had come to the town
and been reduced to poverty were selling their house-
hold goods and clothes, all women’s things. As the
things would have fetched little in the market, they
were looking for a dealer. This was Lizaveta’s busi-
ness. She undertook such jobs and was frequently
employed, as she was very honest and always fixed a
fair price and stuck to it. She spoke as a rule little
and, as we have said already, she was very submissive
and timid.
But Raskolnikov had become superstitious of late.
The traces of superstition remained in him long after,
and were almost ineradicable. And in all this he was
always afterwards disposed to see something strange
and mysterious, as it were the presence of some pecu-
liar influences and coincidences. In the previous win-

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ter a student he knew called Pokorev, who had left for

Harkov, had chanced in conversation to give him the
address of Alyona Ivanovna, the old pawnbroker, in
case he might want to pawn anything. For a long
while he did not go to her, for he had lessons and
managed to get along somehow. Six weeks ago he
had remembered the address; he had two articles
that could be pawned: his father’s old silver watch
and a little gold ring with three red stones, a present
from his sister at parting. He decided to take the ring.
When he found the old woman he had felt an insur-
mountable repulsion for her at the first glance,
though he knew nothing special about her. He got
two roubles from her and went into a miserable little
tavern on his way home. He asked for tea, sat down
and sank into deep thought. A strange idea was peck-
ing at his brain like a chicken in the egg, and very,
very much absorbed him.
Almost beside him at the next table there was sit-
ting a student, whom he did not know and had never
seen, and with him a young officer. They had played a
game of billiards and began drinking tea. All at once
he heard the student mention to the officer the
pawnbroker Alyona Ivanovna and give him her
address. This of itself seemed strange to Raskolnikov;
he had just come from her and here at once he heard
her name. Of course it was a chance, but he could not
shake off a very extraordinary impression, and here
some one seemed to be speaking expressly for him;

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 fyodor dostoevsky

the student began telling his friend various details

about Alyona Ivanovna.
“She is first rate,” he said. “You can always get
money from her. She is as rich as a Jew, she can give
you five thousand roubles at a time and she is not
above taking a pledge for a rouble. Lots of our fellows
have had dealings with her. But she is an awful old
harpy . . . ”
And he began describing how spiteful and uncer-
tain she was, how if you were only a day late with your
interest the pledge was lost; how she gave a quarter of
the value of an article and took five and even seven
percent. a month on it and so on. The student chat-
tered on, saying that she had a sister Lizaveta, whom
the wretched little creature was continually beating,
and kept in complete bondage like a small child,
though Lizaveta was at least six feet high.
“There’s a phenomenon for you,” cried the stu-
dent and he laughed.
They began talking about Lizaveta. The student
spoke about her with a peculiar relish and was con-
tinually laughing and the officer listened with great
interest and asked him to send Lizaveta to do some
mending for him. Raskolnikov did not miss a word
and learned everything about her. Lizaveta was
younger than the old woman and was her half-sister,
being the child of a different mother. She was thirty-
five. She worked day and night for her sister, and
besides doing the cooking and the washing, she did

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sewing and worked as a charwoman and gave her sis-

ter all she earned. She did not dare to accept an
order or job of any kind without her sister’s permis-
sion. The old woman had already made her will, and
Lizaveta knew of it, and by this will she would not get
a farthing; nothing but the movables, chairs and so
on; all the money was left to a monastery in the
province of N — , that prayers might be said for her in
perpetuity. Lizaveta was of lower rank than her sister,
unmarried and awfully uncouth in appearance,
remarkably tall with long feet that looked as if they
were bent outwards. She always wore battered
goatskin shoes, and was clean in her person. What
the student expressed most surprise and amusement
about was the fact that Lizaveta was continually with
child.
“But you say she is hideous?” observed the officer.
“Yes, she is so dark-skinned and looks like a soldier
dressed up, but you know she is not at all hideous.
She has such a good-natured face and eyes. Strikingly
so. And the proof of it is that lots of people are
attracted by her. She is such a soft, gentle creature,
ready to put up with anything, always willing to do
anything. And her smile is really very sweet.”
“You seem to find her attractive yourself,” laughed
the officer.
“From her queerness. No, I’ll tell you what. I could
kill that damned old woman and make off with her
money, I assure you, without the faintest conscience-

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prick,” the student added with warmth. The officer

laughed again while Raskolnikov shuddered. How
strange it was!
“Listen, I want to ask you a serious question,” the
student said hotly. “I was joking of course, but look
here; on one side we have a stupid, senseless, worth-
less, spiteful, ailing, horrid old woman, not simply
useless but doing actual mischief, who has not an
idea what she is living for herself, and who will die in
a day or two in any case. You understand? You under-
stand?”
“Yes, yes, I understand,” answered the officer,
watching his excited companion attentively.
“Well, listen then. On the other side, fresh young
lives thrown away for want of help and by thousands,
on every side! A hundred thousand good deeds could
be done and helped, on that old woman’s money
which will be buried in a monastery! Hundreds, thou-
sands perhaps, might be set on the right path; dozens
of families saved from destitution, from ruin, from
vice, from the Lock hospitals — and all with her
money. Kill her, take her money and with the help of
it devote oneself to the service of humanity and the
good of all. What do you think, would not one tiny
crime be wiped out by thousands of good deeds? For
one life thousands would be saved from corruption
and decay. One death, and a hundred lives in
exchange — it’s simple arithmetic! Besides, what value
has the life of that sickly, stupid, ill-natured old

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woman in the balance of existence! No more than

the life of a louse, of a black beetle, less in fact
because the old woman is doing harm. She is wearing
out the lives of others; the other day she bit Lizaveta’s
finger out of spite; it almost had to be amputated.”
“Of course she does not deserve to live,” remarked
the officer, “but there it is, it’s nature.”
“Oh, well, brother, but we have to correct and
direct nature and, but for that, we should drown in
an ocean of prejudice. But for that, there would
never have been a single great man. They talk of duty,
conscience — I don’t want to say anything against duty
and conscience; — but the point is what do we mean
by them. Stay, I have another question to ask you.
Listen!”
“No, you stay, I’ll ask you a question. Listen!”
“Well?”
“You are talking and speechifying away, but tell
me, would you kill the old woman yourself?”
“Of course not! I was only arguing the justice of it .
. . It’s nothing to do with me . . .”
“But I think, if you would not do it yourself, there’s
no justice about it . . . Let us have another game.”
Raskolnikov was violently agitated. Of course, it
was all ordinary youthful talk and thought, such as he
had often heard before in different forms and on dif-
ferent themes. But why had he happened to hear
such a discussion and such ideas at the very moment
when his own brain was just conceiving . . . the very

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 fyodor dostoevsky

same ideas? And why, just at the moment when he had

brought away the embryo of his idea from the old
woman had he dropped at once upon a conversation
about her? This coincidence always seemed strange
to him. This trivial talk in a tavern had an immense
influence on him in his later action; as though there
had really been in it something preordained, some
guiding hint . . .
On returning from the Hay Market he flung him-
self on the sofa and sat for a whole hour without stir-
ring. Meanwhile it got dark; he had no candle and,
indeed, it did not occur to him to light up. He could
never recollect whether he had been thinking about
anything at that time. At last he was conscious of his
former fever and shivering, and he realised with
relief that he could lie down on the sofa. Soon heavy,
leaden sleep came over him, as it were crushing him.
He slept an extraordinarily long time and without
dreaming. Nastasya, coming into his room at ten
o’clock the next morning, had difficulty in rousing
him. She brought him in tea and bread. The tea was
again the second brew and again in her own teapot.
“My goodness, how he sleeps!” she cried indig-
nantly. “And he is always asleep.”
He got up with an effort. His head ached, he stood
up, took a turn in his garret and sank back on the
sofa again.
“Going to sleep again,” cried Nastasya. “Are you
ill, eh?”

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He made no reply.
“Do you want some tea?”
“Afterwards,” he said with an effort, closing his
eyes again and turning to the wall.
Nastasya stood over him.
“Perhaps he really is ill,” she said, turned and went
out. She came in again at two o’clock with soup. He
was lying as before. The tea stood untouched.
Nastasya felt positively offended and began wrathfully
rousing him.
“Why are you lying like a log?” she shouted, look-
ing at him with repulsion.
He got up, and sat down again, but said nothing
and stared at the floor.
“Are you ill or not?” asked Nastasya and again
received no answer. “You’d better go out and get a
breath of air,” she said after a pause. “Will you eat it
or not?”
“Afterwards,” he said weakly. “You can go.”
And he motioned her out.
She remained a little longer, looked at him with
compassion and went out.
A few minutes afterwards, he raised his eyes and
looked for a long while at the tea and the soup. Then
he took the bread, took up a spoon and began to eat.
He ate a little, three or four spoonfuls, without
appetite, as it were mechanically. His head ached less.
After his meal he stretched himself on the sofa again,
but now he could not sleep; he lay without stirring,

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with his face in the pillow. He was haunted by day-

dreams and such strange daydreams; in one, that
kept recurring, he fancied that he was in Africa, in
Egypt, in some sort of oasis. The caravan was resting,
the camels were peacefully lying down; the palms
stood all round in a complete circle; all the party
were at dinner. But he was drinking water from a
spring which flowed gurgling close by. And it was so
cool, it was wonderful, wonderful, blue, cold water
running among the parti-coloured stones and over
the clean sand which glistened here and there like
gold . . . Suddenly he heard a clock strike. He started,
roused himself, raised his head, looked out of the
window, and seeing how late it was, suddenly jumped
up wide awake as though some one had pulled him
off the sofa. He crept on tiptoe to the door, stealthily
opened it and began listening on the staircase. His
heart beat terribly. But all was quiet on the stairs as if
every one was asleep . . . It seemed to him strange and
monstrous that he could have slept in such forgetful-
ness from the previous day and had done nothing,
had prepared nothing yet . . . And meanwhile perhaps
it had struck six. And his drowsiness and stupefaction
were followed by an extraordinary, feverish, as it
were, distracted, haste. But the preparations to be
made were few. He concentrated all his energies on
thinking of everything and forgetting nothing; and
his heart kept beating and thumping so that he could
hardly breathe. First he had to make a noose and sew

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it into his overcoat — a work of a moment. He rum-

maged under his pillow and picked out amongst the
linen stuffed away under it, a worn out, old unwashed
shirt. From its rags he tore a long strip, a couple of
inches wide and about sixteen inches long. He folded
this strip in two, took off his wide, strong summer
overcoat of some stout cotton material (his only
outer garment) and began sewing the two ends of the
rag on the inside, under the left armhole. His hands
shook as he sewed, but he did it successfully so that
nothing showed outside when he put the coat on
again. The needle and thread he had got ready long
before and they lay on his table in a piece of paper. As
for the noose, it was a very ingenious device of his
own; the noose was intended for the axe. It was
impossible for him to carry the axe through the street
in his hands. And if hidden under his coat he would
still have had to support it with his hand, which would
have been noticeable. Now he had only to put the
head of the axe in the noose, and it would hang qui-
etly under his arm on the inside. Putting his hand in
his coat pocket, he could hold the end of the handle
all the way, so that it did not swing; and as the coat
was very full, a regular sack in fact, it could not be
seen from outside that he was holding something
with the hand that was in the pocket. This noose, too,
he had designed a fortnight before.
When he had finished with this, he thrust his hand
into a little opening between his sofa and the floor,

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 fyodor dostoevsky

fumbled in the left corner and drew out the pledge,

which he had got ready long before and hidden
there. This pledge was, however, only a smoothly
planed piece of wood the size and thickness of a silver
cigarette case. He picked up this piece of wood in
one of his wanderings in a courtyard where there was
some sort of a workshop. Afterwards he had added to
the wood a thin smooth piece of iron, which he had
also picked up at the same time in the street. Putting
the iron which was a little the smaller on the piece of
wood, he fastened them very firmly, crossing and
recrossing the thread round them; then wrapped
them carefully and daintily in clean white paper and
tied up the parcel so that it would be very difficult to
untie it. This was in order to divert the attention of
the old woman for a time, while she was trying to
undo the knot, and so to gain a moment. The iron
strip was added to give weight, so that the woman
might not guess the first minute that the “thing” was
made of wood. All this had been stored by him
beforehand under the sofa. He had only just got the
pledge out when he heard some one suddenly about
in the yard.
“It struck six long ago.”
“Long ago! My God!”
He rushed to the door, listened, caught up his hat
and began to descend his thirteen steps cautiously,
noiselessly, like a cat. He had still the most important
thing to do — to steal the axe from the kitchen. That

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the deed must be done with an axe he had decided

long ago. He had also a pocket pruning-knife, but he
could not rely on the knife and still less on his own
strength, and so resolved finally on the axe. We may
note in passing, one peculiarity in regard to all the
final resolutions taken by him in the matter; they had
one strange characteristic; the more final they were,
the more hideous and the more absurd they at once
became in his eyes. In spite of all his agonising inward
struggle, he never for a single instant all that time
could believe in the carrying out of his plans.
And, indeed, if it had ever happened that every-
thing to the least point could have been considered
and finally settled, and no uncertainty of any kind
had remained, he would, it seems, have renounced it
all as something absurd, monstrous and impossible.
But a whole mass of unsettled points and uncertain-
ties remained. As for getting the axe, that trifling
business cost him no anxiety, for nothing could be
easier. Nastasya was continually out of the house,
especially in the evenings; she would run in to the
neighbours or to a shop, and always left the door ajar.
It was the one thing the landlady was always scolding
her about. And so when the time came, he would
only have to go quietly into the kitchen and to take
the axe, and an hour later (when everything was
over) go in and put it back again. But these were
doubtful points. Supposing he returned an hour later
to put it back, and Nastasya had come back and was

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 fyodor dostoevsky

on the spot. He would of course have to go by and

wait till she went out again. But supposing she were in
the meantime to miss the axe, look for it, make an
outcry — that would mean suspicion or at least
grounds for suspicion.
But those were all trifles which he had not even
begun to consider, and indeed he had no time. He
was thinking of the chief point, and put off trifling
details, until he could believe in it all. But that seemed
utterly unattainable. So it seemed to himself at least.
He could not imagine, for instance, that he would
sometime leave off thinking, get up and simply go
there . . . Even his late experiment (i.e. his visit with
the object of a final survey of the place) was simply an
attempt at an experiment, far from being the real
thing, as though one should say “come, let us go and
try it — why dream about it!” — and at once he had
broken down and had run away cursing, in a frenzy
with himself. Meanwhile it would seem, as regards the
moral question, that his analysis was complete; his
casuistry had become keen as a razor, and he could
not find rational objections in himself. But in the last
resort he simply ceased to believe in himself, and
doggedly, slavishly sought arguments in all directions,
fumbling for them, as though some one were forcing
and drawing him to it.
At first — long before indeed — he had been much
occupied with one question; why almost all crimes
are so badly concealed and so easily detected, and

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why almost all criminals leave such obvious traces? He

had come gradually to many different and curious
conclusions, and in his opinion the chief reason lay
not so much in the material impossibility of conceal-
ing the crime, as in the criminal himself. Almost
every criminal is subject to a failure of will and rea-
soning power by a childish and phenomenal heed-
lessness, at the very instant when prudence and
caution are most essential. It was his conviction that
this eclipse of reason and failure of will power
attacked a man like a disease, developed gradually
and reached its highest point just before the perpe-
tration of the crime, continued with equal violence at
the moment of the crime and for longer or shorter
time after, according to the individual case, and then
passed off like any other disease. The question
whether the disease gives rise to the crime, or
whether the crime from its own peculiar nature is
always accompanied by something of the nature of
disease, he did not yet feel able to decide.
When he reached these conclusions, he decided
that in his own case there could not be such a mor-
bid reaction, that his reason and will would remain
unimpaired at the time of carrying out his design,
for the simple reason that his design was “not a
crime . . .” We will omit all the process by means of
which he arrived at this last conclusion; we have run
too far ahead already . . . We may add only that the
practical, purely material difficulties of the affair

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 fyodor dostoevsky

occupied a secondary position in his mind. “One has

but to keep all one’s will power and reason to deal
with them, and they will all be overcome at the time
when once one has familiarised oneself with the
minutest details of the business . . . ” But this prepara-
tion had never been begun. His final decisions were
what he came to trust least, and when the hour
struck, it all came to pass quite differently, as it were
accidentally and unexpectedly.
One trifling circumstance upset his calculations,
before he had even left the staircase. When he
reached the landlady’s kitchen, the door of which was
open as usual, he glanced cautiously in to see
whether, in Nastasya’s absence, the landlady herself
was there, or if not, whether the door to her own
room was closed, so that she might not peep out
when he went in for the axe. But what was his amaze-
ment when he suddenly saw that Nastasya was not
only at home in the kitchen, but was occupied there,
taking linen out of a basket and hanging it on a line.
Seeing him, she left off hanging the clothes, turned
to him and stared at him all the time he was passing.
He turned away his eyes, and walked past as though
he noticed nothing. But it was the end of everything;
he had not the axe! He was overwhelmed.
“What made me think,” he reflected, as he went
under the gateway, “what made me think that she
would be sure not to be at home at that moment!
Why, why, why did I assume this so certainly?”

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He was crushed and even humiliated. He could

have laughed at himself in his anger . . . A dull animal
rage boiled within him.
He stood hesitating in the gateway. To go into the
street, to go for a walk for appearance sake was revolt-
ing; to go back to his room, even more revolting.
“And what a chance I have lost for ever!” he mut-
tered, standing aimlessly in the gateway, just opposite
the porter’s little dark room, which was also open.
Suddenly he started. From the porter’s room, two
paces away from him, something shining under the
bench to the right caught his eye . . . He looked about
him — nobody. He approached the room on tiptoe,
went down two steps into it and in a faint voice called
the porter. “Yes, not at home! Somewhere near
though, in the yard, for the door is wide open.” He
dashed to the axe (it was an axe) and pulled it out
from under the bench, where it lay between two
chunks of wood; at once before going out, he made it
fast in the noose, he thrust both hands into his pock-
ets and went out of the room; no one had noticed
him! “When reason fails, the devil helps!” he thought
with a strange grin. This chance raised his spirits
extraordinarily.
He walked along quietly and sedately, without
hurry, to avoid awakening suspicion. He scarcely
looked at the passers-by, tried to escape looking at
their faces at all, and to be as little noticeable as pos-
sible. Suddenly he thought of his hat. “Good heavens!

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 fyodor dostoevsky

I had the money the day before yesterday and did not
get a cap to wear instead!” A curse rose from the bot-
tom of his soul.
Glancing out of the corner of his eye into a shop,
he saw by a clock on the wall that it was ten minutes
past seven. He had to make haste and at the same
time to go someway round, so as to approach the
house from the other side . . .
When he had happened to imagine all this
beforehand, he had sometimes thought that he
would be very much afraid. But he was not very
much afraid now, was not afraid at all, indeed. His
mind was even occupied by irrelevant matters, but
by nothing for long. As he passed the Yusupov gar-
den, he was deeply absorbed in considering the
building of great fountains, and of their refreshing
effect on the atmosphere in all the squares. By
degrees he passed to the conviction that if the sum-
mer garden were extended to the field of Mars, and
perhaps joined to the garden of the Mihailovsky
Palace, it would be a splendid thing and a great ben-
efit to the town. Then he was interested by the ques-
tion why in all great towns men are not simply
driven by necessity, but in some peculiar way
inclined to live in those parts of the town where
there are no gardens nor fountains; where there is
most dirt and smell and all sorts of nastiness. Then
his own walks through the Hay Market came back to
his mind, and for a moment he waked up to reality.

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“What nonsense!” he thought, “better think of noth-

ing at all!”
“So probably men led to execution clutch men-
tally at every object that meets them on the way,”
flashed through his mind, but simply flashed, like
lightning; he made haste to dismiss this thought . . .
And by now he was near; here was the house, here
was the gate. Suddenly a clock somewhere struck one.
“What! Can it be half-past seven? Impossible, it must
be fast!”
Luckily for him, everything went well again at the
gates. At that very moment, as though expressly for
his benefit, a huge waggon of hay had just driven in at
the gate, completely screening him as he passed
under the gateway, and the waggon had scarcely had
time to drive through into the yard, before he had
slipped in a flash to the right. On the other side of
the waggon he could hear shouting and quarrelling;
but no one noticed him and no one met him. Many
windows looking into that huge quadrangular yard
were open at that moment, but he did not raise his
head — he had not the strength to. The staircase lead-
ing to the old woman’s room was close by, just on the
right of the gateway. He was already on the stairs . . .
Drawing a breath, pressing his hand against his
throbbing heart, and once more feeling for the axe
and setting it straight, he began softly and cautiously
ascending the stairs, listening every minute. But the
stairs, too, were quite deserted; all the doors were

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shut; he met no one. One flat indeed on the first

floor was wide open and painters were at work in it,
but they did not glance at him. He stood still, thought
a minute and went on. “Of course it would be better
if they had not been here, but . . . it’s two storeys above
them.”
And here was the fourth storey, here was the door,
here was the flat opposite, the empty one. The flat
underneath the old woman’s was apparently empty
also; the visiting card nailed on the door had been
torn off — they had gone away! . . . He was out of
breath. For one instant the thought floated through
his mind “Shall I go back?” But he made no answer
and began listening at the old woman’s door, a dead
silence. Then he listened again on the staircase, lis-
tened long and intently . . . then looked about him for
the last time, pulled himself together, drew himself
up, and once more tried the axe in the noose. “Am I
very pale?” he wondered. “Am I not evidently agi-
tated? She is mistrustful . . . Had I better wait a little
longer . . . till my heart leaves off thumping?”
But his heart did not leave off. On the contrary, as
though to spite him, it throbbed more and more vio-
lently. He could stand it no longer, he slowly put out
his hand to the bell and rang. Half a minute later he
rang again, more loudly.
No answer. To go on ringing was useless and out of
place. The old woman was, of course, at home, but
she was suspicious and alone. He had some knowl-

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edge of her habits . . . and once more he put his ear to

the door. Either his senses were peculiarly keen
(which it is difficult to suppose), or the sound was
really very distinct. Anyway, he suddenly heard some-
thing like the cautious touch of a hand on the lock
and the rustle of a skirt at the very door. Some one
was standing stealthily close to the lock and just as he
was doing on the outside was secretly listening within,
and seemed to have her ear to the door . . . He moved
a little on purpose and muttered something aloud
that he might not have the appearance of hiding,
then rang a third time, but quietly, soberly and with-
out impatience. Recalling it afterwards, that moment
stood out in his mind vividly, distinctly, for ever; he
could not make out how he had had such cunning,
for his mind was as it were clouded at moments and
he was almost unconscious of his body . . . An instant
later he heard the latch unfasten.

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The door was as before opened a tiny crack, and

again two sharp and suspicious eyes stared at him out
of the darkness. Then Raskolnikov lost his head and
nearly made a great mistake.
Fearing the old woman would be frightened by
their being alone, and not hoping that the sight of
him would disarm her suspicions, he took hold of the
door and drew it towards him to prevent the old
woman from attempting to shut it again. Seeing this
she did not pull the door back, but she did not let go
the handle so that he almost dragged her out with it
on to the stairs. Seeing that she was standing in the
doorway not allowing him to pass, he advanced
straight upon her. She stepped back in alarm, tried to
say something, but seemed unable to speak and
stared with open eyes at him.
“Good evening, Alyona Ivanovna,” he began, try-
ing to speak easily, but his voice would not obey
him, it broke and shook. “I have come . . . I have

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brought something . . . but we’d better come in . . .

to the light . . . ”
And leaving her, he passed straight into the room
uninvited. The old woman ran after him; her tongue
was unloosed.
“Good heavens! What is it? Who is it? What do you
want?”
“Why, Alyona Ivanovna, you know me . . .
Raskolnikov . . . here, I brought you the pledge I prom-
ised the other day . . .” and he held out the pledge.
The old woman glanced for a moment at the
pledge, but at once stared in the eyes of her uninvited
visitor. She looked intently, maliciously and mistrust-
fully. A minute passed; he even fancied something
like a sneer in her eyes, as though she had already
guessed everything. He felt that he was losing his
head, that he was almost frightened, so frightened
that if she were to look like that and not say a word
for another half minute, he thought he would have
run away from her.
“Why do you look at me as though you did not
know me?” he said suddenly, also with malice. “Take it
if you like, if not I’ll go elsewhere, I am in a hurry.”
He had not even thought of saying this, but it was
suddenly said of itself. The old woman recovered her-
self, and her visitor’s resolute tone evidently restored
her confidence.
“But why, my good sir, all of a minute . . . What is
it?” she asked, looking at the pledge.

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“The silver cigarette case; I spoke of it last time,

you know.”
She held out her hand.
“But how pale you are, to be sure . . . and your
hands are trembling too. Have you been bathing, or
what?”
“Fever,” he answered abruptly. “You can’t help get-
ting pale . . . if you’ve nothing to eat,” he added, with
difficulty articulating the words.
His strength was failing him again. But his answer
sounded like the truth; the old woman took the
pledge.
“What is it?” she asked once more, scanning
Raskolnikov intently and weighing the pledge in her
hand.
“A thing . . . cigarette case . . . Silver . . . Look at it.”
“It does not seem somehow like silver . . . How he
has wrapped it up!”
Trying to untie the string and turning to the win-
dow, to the light (all her windows were shut, in spite
of the stifling heat), she left him altogether for some
seconds and stood with her back to him. He unbut-
toned his coat and freed the axe from the noose,
but did not yet take it out altogether, simply holding
it in his right hand under the coat. His hands were
fearfully weak, he felt them every moment growing
more numb and more wooden. He was afraid he
would let the axe slip and fall . . . A sudden giddiness
came over him.

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“But what has he tied it up like this for?” the old

woman cried with vexation and moved towards him.
He had not a minute more to lose. He pulled the
axe quite out, swung it with both arms, scarcely con-
scious of himself, and almost without effort, almost
mechanically, brought the blunt side down on her
head. He seemed not to use his own strength in this.
But as soon as he had once brought the axe down, his
strength returned to him.
The old woman was as always bareheaded. Her
thin, light hair, streaked with grey, thickly smeared
with grease, was plaited in a rat’s tail and fastened by
a broken horn comb which stood out on the nape of
her neck. As she was so short, the blow fell on the very
top of her skull. She cried out, but very faintly, and
suddenly sank all of a heap on the floor, raising her
hands to her head. In one hand she still held “the
pledge.” Then he dealt her another and another
blow with the blunt side and on the same spot. The
blood gushed as from an overturned glass, the body
fell back. He stepped back, let it fall, and at once bent
over her face; she was dead. Her eyes seemed to be
staring out of their sockets, the brow and the whole
face were drawn and contorted convulsively.
He laid the axe on the ground near the dead body
and felt at once in her pocket (trying to avoid the
streaming body) — the same right hand pocket from
which she had taken the key on his last visit. He was in
full possession of his faculties, free from confusion or

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giddiness, but his hands were still trembling. He

remembered afterwards that he had been particu-
larly collected and careful, trying all the time not to
get smeared with blood . . . He pulled out the keys at
once, they were all, as before, in one bunch on a steel
ring. He ran at once into the bedroom with them. It
was a very small room with a whole shrine of holy
images. Against the other wall stood a big bed, very
clean and covered with a silk patchwork wadded
quilt. Against a third wall was a chest of drawers.
Strange to say, so soon as he began to fit the keys into
the chest, so soon as he heard their jingling, a con-
vulsive shudder passed over him. He suddenly felt
tempted again to give it all up and go away. But that
was only for an instant; it was too late to go back. He
positively smiled at himself, when suddenly another
terrifying idea occurred to his mind. He suddenly
fancied that the old woman might be still alive and
might recover her senses. Leaving the keys in the
chest, he ran back to the body, snatched up the axe
and lifted it once more over the old woman, but did
not bring it down. There was no doubt that she was
dead. Bending down and examining her again more
closely, he saw clearly that the skull was broken and
even battered in on one side. He was about to feel it
with his finger, but drew back his hand and indeed it
was evident without that. Meanwhile there was a per-
fect pool of blood. All at once he noticed a string on
her neck; he tugged at it, but the string was strong

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and did not snap and besides, it was soaked with

blood. He tried to pull it out from the front of the
dress, but something held it and prevented its com-
ing. In his impatience he raised the axe again to cut
the string from above on the body, but did not dare,
and with difficulty, smearing his hand and the axe in
the blood, after two minutes’ hurried effort, he cut
the string and took it off without touching the body
with the axe; he was not mistaken — it was a purse. On
the string were two crosses, one of Cyprus wood and
one of copper, and an image in silver filigree, and
with them a small greasy chamois leather purse with a
steel rim and ring. The purse was stuffed very full;
Raskolnikov thrust it in his pocket without looking at
it, flung the crosses on the old woman’s body and
rushed back into the bedroom, this time taking the
axe with him.
He was in terrible haste, he snatched the keys, and
began trying them again. But he was unsuccessful.
They would not fit in the locks. It was not so much
that his hands were shaking, but that he kept making
mistakes; though he saw for instance that a key was
not the right one and would not fit, still he tried to
put it in. Suddenly he remembered and realised that
the big key with the deep notches, which was hanging
there with the small keys, could not possibly belong
to the chest of drawers (on his last visit this had struck
him), but to some strong box, and that everything
perhaps was hidden in that box. He left the chest of

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drawers, and at once felt under the bedstead, know-

ing that old women usually keep boxes under their
beds. And so it was; there was a good-sized box under
the bed, at least a yard in length, with an arched lid
covered with red leather and studded with steel nails.
The notched key fitted at once and unlocked it. At
the top, under a white sheet, was a coat of red bro-
cade lined with hareskin; under it was a silk dress,
then a shawl and it seemed as though there was noth-
ing below but clothes. The first thing he did was to
wipe his blood-stained hands on the red brocade.
“It’s red, and on red blood will be less noticeable,”
the thought passed through his mind; then he sud-
denly came to himself. “Good God, am I going out of
my senses?” he thought with terror.
But no sooner did he touch the clothes than a
gold watch slipped from under the fur coat. He made
haste to turn them all over. There turned out to be
various articles made of gold among the clothes —
probably all pledges, unredeemed or waiting to be
redeemed — bracelets, chains, earrings, pins and such
things. Some were in cases, others simply wrapped in
newspaper, carefully and exactly folded, and tied
round with tape. Without any delay, he began filling
up the pockets of his trousers and overcoat without
examining or undoing the parcels and cases; but he
had not time to take many . . .
He suddenly heard steps in the room where the
old woman lay. He stopped short and was still as

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death. But all was quiet, so it must have been his

fancy. All at once he heard distinctly a faint cry, as
though some one had uttered a low broken moan.
Then again dead silence for a minute or two. He sat
squatting on his heels by the box and waited, holding
his breath. Suddenly he jumped up, seized the axe
and ran out of the bedroom.
In the middle of the room stood Lizaveta with a
big bundle in her arms. She was gazing in stupefac-
tion at her murdered sister, white as a sheet and
seeming not to have the strength to cry out. Seeing
him run out of the bedroom, she began faintly quiv-
ering all over, like a leaf, a shudder ran down her
face; she lifted her hand, opened her mouth, but still
did not scream. She began slowly backing away from
him into the corner, staring intently, persistently at
him, but still uttered no sound, as though she could
not get breath to scream. He rushed at her with the
axe; her mouth twitched piteously, as one sees babies’
mouths, when they begin to be frightened, stare
intently at what frightens them and are on the point
of screaming. And this hapless Lizaveta was so simple
and had been so thoroughly crushed and scared that
she did not even raise a hand to guard her face,
though that was the most necessary and natural
action at the moment, for the axe was raised over her
face. She only put up her empty hand, but not to her
face, slowly holding it out before her as though
motioning him away. The axe fell with the sharp edge

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just on the skull and split at one blow all the top of
the head. She fell heavily at once. Raskolnikov com-
pletely lost his head, snatched up her bundle,
dropped it again and ran into the entry.
Fear gained more and more mastery over him,
especially after this second, quite unexpected mur-
der. He longed to run away from the place as fast as
possible. And if at that moment he had been capa-
ble of seeing and reasoning more correctly, if he
had been able to realise all the difficulties of his
position, the hopelessness, the hideousness and the
absurdity of it, if he could have understood how
many obstacles and, perhaps, crimes he had still to
overcome or to commit, to get out of that place and
to make his way home, it is very possible that he
would have flung up everything, and would have
gone to give himself up, and not from fear, but from
simple horror and loathing of what he had done.
The feeling of loathing especially surged up within
him and grew stronger every minute. He would not
now have gone to the box or even into the room for
anything in the world.
But a sort of blankness, even dreaminess had
begun by degrees to take possession of him; at
moments he forgot himself, or rather forgot what was
of importance, and caught at trifles. Glancing, how-
ever, into the kitchen and seeing a bucket half full of
water on a bench, he bethought him of washing his
hands and the axe. His hands were sticky with blood.

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 crime and punishment

He dropped the axe with the blade in the water,

snatched a piece of soap that lay in a broken saucer
on the window, and began washing his hands in the
bucket. When they were clean, he took out the axe,
washed the blade and spent a long time, about three
minutes, washing the wood where there were spots of
blood, rubbing them with soap. Then he wiped it all
with some linen that was hanging to dry on a line in
the kitchen and then he was a long while attentively
examining the axe at the window. There was no trace
left on it, only the wood was still damp. He carefully
hung the axe in the noose under his coat. Then as far
as was possible, in the dim light in the kitchen, he
looked over his overcoat, his trousers and his boots.
At the first glance there seemed to be nothing but
stains on the boots. He wetted the rag and rubbed the
boots. But he knew he was not looking thoroughly,
that there might be something quite noticeable that
he was overlooking. He stood in the middle of the
room, lost in thought. Dark agonising ideas rose in
his mind — the idea that he was mad and that at that
moment he was incapable of reasoning, of protecting
himself, that he ought perhaps to be doing some-
thing utterly different from what he was now doing.
“Good God!” he muttered “I must fly, fly,” and he
rushed into the entry. But here a shock of terror
awaited him such as he had never known before.
He stood and gazed and could not believe his eyes:
the door, the outer door from the stairs, at which he

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had not long before waited and rung, was standing

unfastened and at least six inches open. No lock, no
bolt, all the time, all that time! The old woman had
not shut it after him, perhaps as a precaution. But,
good God! Why, he had seen Lizaveta afterwards!
And how could he, how could he have failed to
reflect that she must have come in somehow! She
could not have come through the wall!
He dashed to the door and fastened the latch.
“But no, the wrong thing again. I must get away,
get away . . . ”
He unfastened the latch, opened the door and
began listening on the staircase.
He listened a long time. Somewhere far away, it
might be in the gateway, two voices were loudly and
shrilly shouting, quarrelling and scolding. “What are
they about?” He waited patiently. At last all was still, as
though suddenly cut off; they had separated. He was
meaning to go out, but suddenly, on the floor below,
a door was noisily opened and some one began going
downstairs humming a tune. “How is it they all make
such a noise!” flashed through his mind. Once more
he closed the door and waited. At last all was still, not
a soul stirring. He was just taking a step towards the
stairs when he heard fresh footsteps.
The steps sounded very far off, at the very bottom of
the stairs, but he remembered quite clearly and dis-
tinctly that from the first sound he began for some rea-
son to suspect that this was some one coming there, to

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the fourth floor, to the old woman. Why? Were the

sounds somehow peculiar, significant? The steps were
heavy, even and unhurried. Now he had passed the first
floor, now he was mounting higher, it was growing more
and more distinct! He could hear his heavy breathing.
And now the third storey had been reached. Coming
here! And it seemed to him all at once that he was
turned to stone, that it was like a dream in which one is
being pursued, nearly caught and will be killed, and is
rooted to the spot and cannot even move one’s arms.
At last when the unknown was mounting to the
fourth floor, he suddenly started, and succeeded in
slipping neatly and quickly back into the flat and clos-
ing the door behind him. Then he took the hook and
softly, noiselessly, fixed it in the catch. Instinct helped
him. When he had done this, he crouched holding
his breath, by the door. The unknown visitor was by
now also at the door. They were now standing oppo-
site one another, as he had just before been standing
with the old woman, when the door divided them
and he was listening.
The visitor panted several times. “He must be a
big, fat man,” thought Raskolnikov, squeezing the axe
in his hand. It seemed like a dream indeed. The visi-
tor took hold of the bell and rang loudly.
As soon as the tin bell tinkled, Raskolnikov seemed
to be aware of something moving in the room. For
some seconds he listened quite seriously. The
unknown rang again, waited and suddenly tugged vio-

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lently and impatiently at the handle of the door.

Raskolnikov gazed in horror at the hook shaking in its
fastening, and in blank terror expected every minute
that the fastening would be pulled out. It certainly did
seem possible, so violently was he shaking it. He was
tempted to hold the fastening, but he might be aware
of it. A giddiness came over him again. “I shall fall
down!” flashed through his mind, but the unknown
began to speak and he recovered himself at once.
“What’s up? Are they asleep or murdered? D-
damn them!” he bawled in a thick voice, “Hey, Alyona
Ivanovna, old witch! Lizaveta Ivanovna, hey, my
beauty! open the door! Oh, damn them! Are they
asleep or what?”
And again, enraged, he tugged with all his might a
dozen times at the bell. He must certainly be a man of
authority and an intimate acquaintance.
At this moment light hurried steps were heard not
far off, on the stairs. Some one else was approaching.
Raskolnikov had not heard them at first.
“You don’t say there’s no one at home,” the new-
comer cried in a cheerful, ringing voice, addressing
the first visitor, who still went on pulling the bell.
“Good evening, Koch.”
“From his voice he must be quite young,” thought
Raskolnikov.
“Who the devil can tell? I’ve almost broken the
lock,” answered Koch. “But how do you come to
know me?”

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“Why! The day before yesterday I beat you three

times running at billiards at Gambrinus’.”
“Oh!”
“So they are not at home? That’s queer? It’s
awfully stupid though. Where could the old woman
have gone? I’ve come on business.”
“Yes; and I have business with her, too.”
“Well, what can we do? Go back, I suppose, Aie —
aie! And I was hoping to get some money!” cried the
young man.
“We must give it up, of course, but what did she fix
this time for? The old witch fixed the time for me to
come herself. It’s out of my way. And where the devil
she can have got to, I can’t make out. She sits here
from year’s end to year’s end, the old hag; her legs are
bad and yet here all of a sudden she is out for a walk!”
“Hadn’t we better ask the porter?”
“What?”
“Where she’s gone and when she’ll be back.”
“Hm . . . Damn it all! . . . We might ask . . . But you
know she never does go anywhere.”
And he once more tugged at the door-handle.
“Damn it all. There’s nothing to be done, we
must go!”
“Stay!” cried the young man suddenly. “Do you see
how the door shakes if you pull it?”
“Well?”
“That shows it’s not locked, but fastened with the
hook! Do you hear how the hook clanks?”

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“Well?”
“Why, don’t you see? That proves that one of
them is at home. If they were all out, they would
have locked the door from outside with the key and
not with the hook from inside. There, do you hear
how the hook is clanking? To fasten the hook on
the inside they must be at home, don’t you see. So
there they are sitting inside and don’t open the
door!”
“Well! And so they must be!” cried Koch, aston-
ished. “What are they about in there!” And he began
furiously shaking the door.
“Stay!” cried the young man again. “Don’t pull at
it! There must be something wrong . . . Here, you’ve
been ringing and pulling at the door and still they
don’t open! So either they’ve both fainted or . . .”
“What?”
“I tell you what. Let’s go and fetch the porter, let
him wake them up.”
“All right.”
Both were going down.
“Stay. You stop here while I run down for the
porter.”
“What for?”
“Well, you’d better.”
“All right.”
“I’m studying the law you see! It’s evident, e-vi-
dent there’s something wrong here!” the young man
cried hotly, and he ran downstairs.

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 crime and punishment

Koch remained. Once more he softly touched the

bell which gave one tinkle, then gently, as though
reflecting and looking about him, began touching
the door-handle pulling it and letting it go to make
sure once more that it was only fastened by the hook.
Then puffing and panting he bent down and began
looking at the keyhole; but the key was in the lock on
the inside and so nothing could be seen.
Raskolnikov stood keeping tight hold of the axe.
He was in a sort of delirium. He was even making
ready to fight when they should come in. While they
were knocking and talking together, the idea several
times occurred to him to end it all at once and shout
to them through the door. Now and then he was
tempted to swear at them, to jeer at them, while they
could not open the door! “Only make haste!” was the
thought that flashed through his mind.
“But what the devil is he about? . . .” Time was pass-
ing, one minute, and another — no one came. Koch
began to be restless.
“What the devil?” he cried suddenly and in impa-
tience deserting his sentry duty, he, too, went down,
hurrying and thumping with his heavy boots on the
stairs. The steps died away.
“Good heavens! What am I to do?”
Raskolnikov unfastened the hook, opened the
door — there was no sound. Abruptly, without any
thought at all, he went out, closing the door as thor-
oughly as he could, and went downstairs.

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 fyodor dostoevsky

He had gone down three flights when he sud-

denly heard a loud noise below — where could he go!
There was nowhere to hide. He was just going back
to the flat.
“Hey there! Catch the brute!”
Somebody dashed out of a flat below, shouting,
and rather fell than ran down the stairs, bawling at
the top of his voice.
“Mitka! Mitka! Mitka! Mitka! Mitka! Blast him!”
The shout ended in a shriek; the last sounds came
from the yard; all was still. But at the same instant sev-
eral men talking loud and fast began noisily mount-
ing the stairs. There were three or four of them. He
distinguished the ringing voice of the young man.
“They!”
Filled with despair he went straight to meet them,
feeling “come what must!” If they stopped him — all
was lost; if they let him pass — all was lost too; they
would remember him. They were approaching; they
were only a flight from him — and suddenly deliver-
ance! A few steps from him on the right, there was an
empty flat with the door wide open, the flat on the
second floor where the painters had been at work,
and which, as though for his benefit, they had just
left. It was they, no doubt, who had just run down,
shouting. The floor had only just been painted, in the
middle of the room stood a pail and a broken pot
with paint and brushes. In one instant he had
whisked in at the open door and hidden behind the

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wall and only in the nick of time; they had already

reached the landing. Then they turned and went on
up to the fourth floor, talking loudly. He waited, went
out on tiptoe and ran down the stairs.
No one was on the stairs, nor in the gateway. He
passed quickly through the gateway and turned to the
left in the street.
He knew, he knew perfectly well that at that
moment they were at the flat, that they were greatly
astonished at finding it unlocked, as the door had
just been fastened, that by now they were looking at
the bodies, that before another minute had passed
they would guess and completely realise that the mur-
derer had just been there, and had succeeded in hid-
ing somewhere, slipping by them and escaping. They
would guess most likely that he had been in the
empty flat, while they were going upstairs. And mean-
while he dared not quicken his pace much, though
the next turning was still nearly a hundred yards
away. “Should he slip through some gateway and wait
somewhere in an unknown street? No, hopeless!
Should he fling away the axe? Should he take a cab?
Hopeless, hopeless!”
At last he reached the turning. He turned down it
more dead than alive. Here he was half way to safety,
and here understood it; it was less risky because there
was a great crowd of people, and he was lost in it like
a grain of sand. But all he had suffered had so weak-
ened him that he could scarcely move. Perspiration

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 fyodor dostoevsky

ran down him in drops, his neck was all wet. “My
word, he has been going it!” some one shouted at
him when he came out on the canal bank.
He was only dimly conscious of himself now, and
the farther he went the worse it was. He remembered
however, that on coming out on to the canal bank, he
was alarmed at finding few people there and so being
more conspicuous, and he had thought of turning
back. Though he was almost falling from fatigue, he
went a long way round so as to get home from quite a
different direction.
He was not fully conscious when he passed
through the gateway of his house! he was already on
the staircase before he recollected the axe. And yet
he had a very grave problem before him, to put it
back and to escape observation as far as possible in
doing so. He was of course incapable of reflecting
that it might perhaps be far better not to restore the
axe at all, but to drop it later on in somebody’s yard.
But it all happened fortunately, the door of the
porter’s room was closed but not locked, so that it
seemed most likely that the porter was at home. But
he had so completely lost all power of reflection that
he walked straight to the door and opened it. If the
porter had asked him “What do you want?” he would
perhaps have simply handed him the axe. But again
the porter was not at home, and he succeeded in put-
ting the axe back under the bench and even covering
it with the chunk of wood as before. He met no one,

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not a soul, afterwards on the way to his room; the

landlady’s door was shut. When he was in his room,
he flung himself on the sofa just as he was — he did
not sleep, but sank into blank forgetfulness. If any
one had come into his room then, he would have
jumped up at once and screamed. Scraps and shreds
of thoughts were simply swarming in his brain, but he
could not catch at one, he could not rest on one, in
spite of all his efforts . . .

141
pa r t i i
 chapter i

So he lay a very long while. Now and then he seemed

to wake up, and at such moments he noticed that it
was far into the night, but it did not occur to him to
get up. At last he noticed that it was beginning to get
light. He was lying on his back, still dazed from his
recent oblivion. Fearful, despairing cries rose shrilly
from the street, sounds which he heard every night,
indeed, under his window after two o’clock. They
woke him up now.
“Ah! the drunken men are coming out of the tav-
erns,” he thought, “it’s past two o’clock,” and at once
he leaped up, as though some one had pulled him
from the sofa.
“What! Past two o’clock!”
He sat down on the sofa — and instantly recol-
lected everything! All at once, in one flash, he recol-
lected everything.
For the first moment he thought he was going
mad. A dreadful chill came over him; but the chill

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 fyodor dostoevsky

was from the fever that had begun long before in his
sleep. Now he was suddenly taken with violent shiver-
ing, so that his teeth chattered and all his limbs were
shaking. He opened the door and began listening;
everything in the house was asleep. With amazement
he gazed at himself and everything in the room
around him, wondering how he could have come in
the night before without fastening the door, and have
flung himself on the sofa without undressing, without
even taking his hat off. It had fallen off and was lying
on the floor near his pillow.
“If any one had come in, what would he have
thought? That I’m drunk but . . .”
He rushed to the window. There was light enough,
and he began hurriedly looking himself all over from
head to foot, all his clothes; were there no traces? But
there was no doing it like that; shivering with cold, he
began taking off everything and looking over again.
He turned everything over to the last threads and
rags, and mistrusting himself, went through his
search three times.
But there seemed to be nothing, no trace, except
in one place, where some thick drops of congealed
blood were clinging to the frayed edge of his trousers.
He picked up a big claspknife and cut off the frayed
threads. There seemed to be nothing more.
Suddenly he remembered that the purse and the
things he had taken out of the old woman’s box were
still in his pockets! He had not thought till then of

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taking them out and hiding them! He had not even

thought of them while he was examining his clothes!
What next? Instantly he rushed to take them out, and
fling them on the table. When he had pulled out
everything, and turned the pocket inside out to be
sure there was nothing left, he carried the whole
heap to the corner. The paper had come off the bot-
tom of the wall and hung there in tatters. He began
stuffing all the things into the hole under the paper:
“They’re in! All out of sight, and the purse too!” he
thought gleefully, getting up and gazing blankly at
the hole which bulged out more than ever. Suddenly
he shuddered all over with horror; “My God!” he
whispered in despair: “what’s the matter with me? Is
that hidden? Is that the way to hide things?”
He had not reckoned on having trinkets to hide.
He had only thought of money, and so had not pre-
pared a hiding-place.
“But now, now, what am I glad of?” he thought, “Is
that hiding things? My reason’s deserting me — simply!”
He sat down on the sofa in exhaustion and was at
once shaken by another unbearable fit of shivering.
Mechanically he drew from a chair beside him his old
student’s winter coat, which was still warm though almost
in rags, covered himself up with it and once more sank
into drowsiness and delirium. He lost consciousness.
Not more than five minutes had passed when he
jumped up a second time, and at once pounced in a
frenzy on his clothes again.

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“How could I go to sleep again with nothing

done? Yes, yes; I have not taken the loop off the arm-
hole! I forgot it, forgot a thing like that! Such a piece
of evidence!”
He pulled off the noose, hurriedly cut it to pieces
and threw the bits among his linen under the pillow.
“Pieces of torn linen couldn’t rouse suspicion,
whatever happened; I think not, I think not, any
way!” he repeated, standing in the middle of the
room, and with painful concentration he fell to gaz-
ing about him again, at the floor and everywhere, try-
ing to make sure he had not forgotten anything. The
conviction, that all his faculties, even memory, and
the simplest power of reflection were failing him,
began to be an insufferable torture.
“Surely it isn’t beginning already! Surely it isn’t my
punishment coming upon me? It is!”
The frayed rags he had cut off his trousers were
actually lying on the floor in the middle of the room,
where any one coming in would see them!
“What is the matter with me!” he cried again, like
one distraught.
Then a strange idea entered his head; that, per-
haps, all his clothes were covered with blood, that,
perhaps, there were a great many stains, but that he
did not see them, did not notice them because his
perceptions were failing, were going to pieces . . . his
reason was clouded . . . Suddenly he remembered that
there had been blood on the purse too. “Ah! Then

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there must be blood on the pocket too, for I put the

wet purse in my pocket!”
In a flash he had turned the pocket inside out and,
yes! — there were traces, stains on the lining of the
pocket!
“So my reason has not quite deserted me, so I still
have some sense and memory, since I guessed it of
myself,” he thought triumphantly, with a deep sigh of
relief: “It’s simply the weakness of fever, a moment’s
delirium,” and he tore the whole lining out of the
left pocket of his trousers. At that instant the sun-
light fell on his left boot; on the sock which poked
out from the boot, he fancied there were traces! He
flung off his boots: “traces indeed! The tip of the
sock was soaked with blood”; he must have unwarily
stepped into that pool . . . “But what am I to do with
this now? Where am I to put the sock and rags and
pocket?”
He gathered them all up in his hands and stood in
the middle of the room.
“In the stove? But they would ransack the stove
first of all. Burn them? But what can I burn them
with? There are no matches even. No, better go out
and throw it all away somewhere. Yes, better throw it
away,” he repeated, sitting down on the sofa again,
“and at once, this minute, without lingering . . .”
But his head sank on the pillow instead. Again the
unbearable icy shivering came over him; again he
drew his coat over him.

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 fyodor dostoevsky

And for a long while, for some hours, he was

haunted by the impulse to “go off somewhere at once,
this moment, and fling it all away, so that it may be out
of sight and done with, at once, at once!” Several
times he tried to rise from the sofa but could not.
He was thoroughly waked up at last by a violent
knocking at his door.
“Open, do, are you dead or alive? He keeps sleeping
here!” shouted Nastasya, banging with her fist on the
door. “For whole days together he’s snoring here like a
dog! A dog he is too. Open I tell you. It’s past ten.”
“Maybe he’s not at home,” said a man’s voice.
“Ha! that’s the porter’s voice . . . What does he
want?”
He jumped up and sat on the sofa. The beating of
his heart was a positive pain.
“Then who can have latched the door?” retorted
Nastasya.
“He’s taken to bolting himself in! As if he were
worth stealing! Open, you stupid, wake up!”
“What do they want? Why the porter? All’s discov-
ered. Resist or open? Come what may! . . .”
He half rose, stooped forward and unlatched the
door.
His room was so small that he could undo the
latch without leaving the bed. Yes; the porter and
Nastasya were standing there.
Nastasya stared at him in a strange way. He
glanced with a defiant and desperate air at the porter,

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 crime and punishment

who without a word held out a grey folded paper

sealed with bottle-wax.
“A notice from the office,” he announced, as he
gave him the paper.
“From what office?”
“A summons to the police office, of course. You
know which office.”
“To the police? . . . What for? . . .”
“How can I tell? You’re sent for, so you go.”
The man looked at him attentively, looked round
the room and turned to go away.
“He’s downright ill!” observed Nastasya, not taking
her eyes off him. The porter turned his head for a
moment. “He’s been in a fever since yesterday,” she
added.
Raskolnikov made no response and held the
paper in his hands, without opening it. “Don’t you
get up then,” Nastasya went on compassionately, see-
ing that he was letting his feet down from the sofa.
“You’re ill, and so don’t go; there’s no such hurry.
What have you got there?”
He looked; in his right hand he held the shreds he
had cut from his trousers, the sock, and the rags of
the pocket. So he had been asleep with them in his
hand. Afterwards reflecting upon it, he remembered
that half waking up in his fever, he had grasped all
this tightly in his hand and so fallen asleep again.
“Look at the rags he’s collected and sleeps with
them, as though he has got hold of a treasure . . .”

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 fyodor dostoevsky

And Nastasya went off into her hysterical giggle.

Instantly he thrust them all under his great coat
and fixed his eyes intently upon her. Far as he was
from being capable of rational reflection at that
moment, he felt that no one would behave like that
with a person who was going to be arrested. “But . . .
the police?”
“You’d better have some tea! Yes? I’ll bring it,
there’s some left.”
“No . . . I’m going; I’ll go at once,” he muttered,
getting on to his feet. “Why, you’ll never get down-
stairs!”
“Yes, I’ll go.”
“As you please.”
She followed the porter out.
At once he rushed to the light to examine the sock
and the rags.
“There are stains, but not very noticeable; all cov-
ered with dirt, and rubbed and already discoloured.
No one who had no suspicion could distinguish any-
thing. Nastasya from a distance could not have
noticed, thank God!” Then with a tremor he broke
the seal of the notice and began reading; he was a
long while reading, before he understood. It was an
ordinary summons from the district police station to
appear that day at half past nine at the office of the
district superintendent.
“But when has such a thing happened? I never
have anything to do with the police! And why just to-

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day?” he thought in agonising bewilderment. “Good

God, only get it over soon!”
He was flinging himself on his knees to pray, but
broke into laughter — not at the idea of prayer, but at
himself.
He began, hurriedly dressing, “If I’m lost, I am
lost, I don’t care! Shall I put the sock on?” he sud-
denly wondered, “it will get dustier still and the traces
will be gone.”
But no sooner had he put it on than he pulled it
off again in loathing and horror. He pulled it off, but
reflecting that he had no other socks, he picked it up
and put it on again — and again he laughed.
“That’s all conventional, that’s all relative, merely
a way of looking at it,” he thought in a flash, but only
on the top surface of his mind, while he was shudder-
ing all over, “there, I’ve got it on! I have finished by
getting it on!”
But his laughter was quickly followed by despair.
“No, it’s too much for me . . .” he thought. His
legs shook. “From fear,” he muttered. His head swam
and ached with fever. “It’s a trick! They want to decoy
me there and confound me over everything,” he
mused, as he went out on to the stairs — “the worst of
it is I’m almost light-headed . . . I may blurt out some-
thing stupid . . . ”
On the stairs he remembered that he was leaving
all the things just as they were in the hole in the wall,
“and very likely, it’s on purpose to search when I’m

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 fyodor dostoevsky

out,” he thought, and stopped short. But he was pos-

sessed by such despair, such cynicism of misery, if one
may so call it, that with a wave of his hand he went on.
“Only to get it over!”
In the street the heat was insufferable again; not a
drop of rain had fallen all those days. Again dust,
bricks, and mortar, again the stench from the shops
and pot-houses, again the drunken men, the Finnish
pedlars and half-broken-down cabs. The sun shone
straight in his eyes, so that it hurt him to look out of
them, and he felt his head going round — as a man in
a fever is apt to feel when he comes out into the street
on a bright sunny day.
When he reached the turning into the street, in an
agony of trepidation he looked down it . . . at the
house . . . and at once averted his eyes.
“If they question me, perhaps I’ll simply tell,” he
thought, as he drew near the police station.
The police station was about a quarter of a mile
off. It had lately been moved to new rooms on the
fourth floor of a new house. He had been once for a
moment in the old office but long ago. Turning in at
the gateway, he saw on the right a flight of stairs
which a peasant was mounting with a book in his
hand. “A house-porter, no doubt; so then, the office is
here,” and he began ascending the stairs on the
chance. He did not want to ask questions of any one.
“I’ll go in, fall on my knees, and confess everything
. . . ” he thought, as he reached the fourth floor.

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 crime and punishment

The staircase was steep, narrow and all sloppy with

dirty water. The kitchens of the flats opened on to the
stairs and stood open almost the whole day. So there
was a fearful smell and heat. The staircase was
crowded with porters going up and down with their
books under their arms, policemen, and persons of
all sorts and both sexes. The door of the office, too,
stood wide open. Peasants stood waiting within.
There, too, the heat was stifling and there was a sick-
ening smell of fresh paint and stale oil from the newly
decorated rooms.
After waiting a little, he decided to move forward
into the next room. All the rooms were small and low-
pitched. A fearful impatience drew him on and on.
No one paid attention to him. In the second room
some clerks sat writing, dressed hardly better than he
was, and rather a queer-looking set. He went up to
one of them.
“What is it?”
He showed the notice he had received.
“You are a student?” the man asked, glancing at
the notice.
“Yes, formerly a student.”
The clerk looked at him, but without the slightest
interest. He was a particularly unkempt person with
the look of a fixed idea in his eye.
“There would be no getting anything out of him,
because he has no interest in anything,” thought
Raskolnikov.

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“Go in there to the head clerk,” said the clerk,

pointing towards the furthest room.
He went into that room — the fourth in order; it
was a small room and packed full of people, rather
better dressed than in the outer rooms. Among them
were two ladies. One, poorly dressed in mourning,
sat at the table opposite the chief clerk, writing
something at his dictation. The other, a very stout,
buxom woman with a purplish-red, blotchy face,
excessively smartly dressed with a brooch on her
bosom as big as a saucer, was standing on one side,
apparently waiting for something. Raskolnikov
thrust his notice upon the head clerk. The latter
glanced at it, said: “Wait a minute,” and went on
attending to the lady in mourning.
He breathed more freely. “It can’t be that!”
By degrees he began to regain confidence, he kept
urging himself to have courage and be calm.
“Some foolishness, some trifling carelessness, and
I may betray myself! Hm! . . . it’s a pity there’s no air
here,” he added, “it’s stifling . . . It makes one’s head
dizzier than ever . . . and one’s mind too . . .”
He was conscious of a terrible inner turmoil. He
was afraid of losing his self-control; he tried to catch
at something and fix his mind on it, something quite
irrelevant, but he could not succeed in this at all. Yet
the head clerk greatly interested him, he kept hop-
ing to see through him and guess something from
his face.

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 crime and punishment

He was a very young man, about two and twenty,

with a dark mobile face that looked older than his
years. He was fashionably dressed and foppish, with
his hair parted in the middle, well combed and
pomaded, and wore a number of rings on his well-
scrubbed fingers and a gold chain on his waistcoat.
He said a couple of words in French to a foreigner
who was in the room, and said them fairly correctly.
“Luise Ivanovna, you can sit down,” he said casu-
ally to the gaily-dressed, purple-faced lady, who was
still standing as though not venturing to sit down,
though there was a chair beside her.
“Ich danke,” said the latter, and softly, with a rustle
of silk she sank into the chair. Her light blue dress
trimmed with white lace floated about the table like
an air-balloon and filled almost half the room. She
smelt of scent. But she was obviously embarrassed at
filling half the room and smelling so strongly of
scent; and though her smile was impudent as well as
cringing, it betrayed evident uneasiness.
The lady in mourning had done at last, and got
up. All at once, with some noise, an officer walked in
very jauntily, with a peculiar swing of his shoulders at
each step. He tossed his cockaded cap on the table
and sat down in an easy-chair. The smart lady posi-
tively skipped from her seat on seeing him, and fell to
curtsying in a sort of ecstasy; but the officer took not
the smallest notice of her, and she did not venture to
sit down again in his presence. He was the assistant

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 fyodor dostoevsky

superintendent. He had a reddish moustache that

stood out horizontally on each side of his face, and
extremely small features, expressive of nothing much
except a certain insolence. He looked askance and
rather indignantly at Raskolnikov; he was so very
badly dressed, and in spite of his humiliating posi-
tion, his bearing was by no means in keeping with his
clothes. Raskolnikov had unwarily fixed a very long
and direct look on him, so that he felt positively
affronted.
“What do you want?” he shouted, apparently
astonished that such a ragged fellow was not annihi-
lated by the majesty of his glance.
“I was summoned . . . by a notice . . . ” Raskolnikov
faltered.
“For the recovery of money due, from the student,”
the head clerk interfered hurriedly, tearing himself
from his papers. “Here!” and he flung Raskolnikov a
document and pointed out the place. “Read that!”
“Money? What money?” thought Raskolnikov, “but
. . . then . . . it’s certainly not that.”
And he trembled with joy. He felt sudden intense
indescribable relief. A load was lifted from his back.
“And pray, what time were you directed to appear,
sir?” shouted the assistant superintendent, seeming
for some unknown reason more and more aggrieved.
“You are told to come at nine, and now it’s twelve!”
“The notice was only brought me a quarter of an
hour ago,” Raskolnikov answered loudly over his

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shoulder. To his own surprise he, too, grew suddenly

angry and found a certain pleasure in it. “And it’s
enough that I have come here ill with fever.”
“Kindly refrain from shouting!”
“I’m not shouting, I’m speaking very quietly, it’s
you who are shouting at me. I’m a student, and allow
no one to shout at me.”
The assistant superintendent was so furious that
for the first minute he could only splutter inarticu-
lately. He leaped up from his seat.
“Be silent! You are in a government office. Don’t
be impudent, sir!”
“You’re in a government office, too,” cried
Raskolnikov, “and you’re smoking a cigarette as well as
shouting, so you are showing disrespect to all of us.”
He felt an indescribable satisfaction at having
said this.
The head clerk looked at him with a smile. The
angry assistant superintendent was obviously dis-
concerted.
“That’s not your business!” he shouted at last with
unnatural loudness. “Kindly make the declaration
demanded of you. Show him, Alexandr Grigorievitch.
There is a complaint against you! You don’t pay your
debts! You’re a fine bird!”
But Raskolnikov was not listening now; he had
eagerly clutched at the paper, in haste to find an
explanation. He read it once, and a second time, and
still did not understand.

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“What is this?” he asked the head clerk.

“It is for the recovery of money on an I.O.U., a
writ. You must either pay it, with all expenses, costs
and so on, or give a written declaration when you can
pay it, and at the same time an undertaking not to
leave the capital without payment, and not to sell or
conceal your property. The creditor is at liberty to sell
your property, and proceed against you according to
the law.”
“But I . . . am not in debt to any one!”
“That’s not our business. Here, an I.O.U. for a
hundred and fifteen roubles, legally attested, and
due for payment, has been brought us for recovery,
given by you to the widow of the assessor Zarnitsyn,
nine months ago, and paid over by the widow
Zarnitsyn to one Mr. Tchebarov. We therefore sum-
mon you hereupon.”
“But she is my landlady!”
“And what if she is your landlady?”
The head clerk looked at him with a condescend-
ing smile of compassion, and at the same time with a
certain triumph, as at a novice under fire for the first
time — as though he would say: “Well, how do you feel
now?” But what did he care now for an I.O.U., for a
writ of recovery! Was that worth worrying about now,
was it worth attention even! He stood, he read, he lis-
tened, he answered, he even asked questions himself,
but all mechanically. The triumphant sense of secu-
rity, of deliverance from overwhelming danger, that

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was what filled his whole soul that moment without

thought for the future, without analysis, without sup-
positions or surmises, without doubts and without
questioning. It was an instant of full, direct, purely
instinctive joy. But at that very moment something
like a thunderstorm took place in the office. The
assistant superintendent, still shaken by Raskolnikov’s
disrespect, still fuming and obviously anxious to keep
up his wounded dignity, pounced on the unfortunate
smart lady, who had been gazing at him ever since he
came in with an exceedingly silly smile.
“You shameful hussy!” he shouted suddenly at the
top of his voice. (The lady in mourning had left the
office.) “What was going on at your house last night?
Eh! A disgrace again, you’re a scandal to the whole
street. Fighting and drinking again. Do you want the
house of correction? Why, I have warned you ten
times over that I would not let you off the eleventh!
And here you are again, again, you . . . you . . . !”
The paper fell out of Raskolnikov’s hands, and he
looked wildly at the smart lady who was so unceremo-
niously treated. But he soon saw what it meant, and at
once began to find positive amusement in the scan-
dal. He listened with pleasure, so that he longed to
laugh and laugh . . . all his nerves were on edge.
“Ilya Petrovitch!” the head clerk was beginning
anxiously, but stopped short, for he knew from expe-
rience that the enraged assistant could not be
stopped except by force.

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 fyodor dostoevsky

As for the smart lady, at first she positively trem-

bled before the storm. But strange to say, the more
numerous and violent the terms of abuse became,
the more amiable she looked, and the more seductive
the smiles she lavished on the terrible assistant. She
moved uneasily, and curtsied incessantly, waiting
impatiently for a chance of putting in her word; and
at last she found it.
“There was no sort of noise or fighting in my
house, Mr. Captain,” she pattered all at once, like
peas dropping, speaking Russian confidently, though
with a strong German accent, “and no sort of scandal,
and his honour came drunk, and it’s the whole truth
I am telling, Mr. Captain, and I not to blame . . . Mine
is an honourable house, Mr. Captain, and hon-
ourable behaviour, Mr. Captain, and I always, always
dislike any scandal myself. But he came quite tipsy,
and asked for three bottles again, and then he lifted
up one leg, and began playing the pianoforte with
one foot, and that is not at all right in an honourable
house, and he ganz broke the piano, and it was very
bad manners indeed and I said so. And he took up a
bottle and began hitting every one with it. And then I
called the porter, and Karl came, and he took Karl
and hit him in the eye; and he hit Henriette in the
eye, too, and gave me five slaps on the cheek. And it
was so ungentlemanly in an honourable house, Mr.
Captain, and I screamed. And he opened the window
over the canal, and stood in the window, squealing

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like a little pig; it was a disgrace. The idea of squeal-

ing like a little pig at the window into the street! Fie
upon him! And Karl pulled him away from the win-
dow by his coat, and it is true, Mr. Captain, he tore
sein Rock. And then he shouted that man muss pay him
fifteen roubles damages. And I did pay him, Mr.
Captain, five roubles for sein Rock. And he is an
ungentlemanly visitor and caused all the scandal. ‘I
will show you up,’ he said, ‘for I can write to all the
papers about you.’”
“Then he was an author?”
“Yes, Mr. Captain, and what an ungentlemanly visi-
tor in an honourable house . . .”
“Now then! Enough! I have told you already . . .”
“Ilya Petrovitch!” the head clerk repeated signifi-
cantly.
The assistant glanced rapidly at him; the head
clerk slightly shook his head.
“ . . . So I tell you this, most respectable Luise
Ivanovna, and I tell it you for the last time,” the assis-
tant went on. “If there is a scandal in your hon-
ourable house once again, I will put you yourself in
the lock-up, as it is called in polite society. Do you
hear? So a literary man, an author took five roubles
for his coat-tail in an ‘honourable house’? A nice set,
these authors!”
And he cast a contemptuous glance at
Raskolnikov. “There was a scandal the other day in a
restaurant, too. An author had eaten his dinner and

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 fyodor dostoevsky

would not pay; ‘I’ll write a satire on you,’ says he. And
there was another of them on a steamer last week
used the most disgraceful language to the respectable
family of a civil councillor, his wife and daughter. And
there was one of them turned out of a confectioner’s
shop the other day. They are like that, authors, liter-
ary men, students, towncriers . . . Pfoo! You get along!
I shall look in upon you myself one day. Then you
had better be careful! Do you hear?”
With hurried deference, Luise Ivanovna fell to
curtsying in all directions, and so curtsied herself to
the door. But at the door, she stumbled backwards
against a good-looking officer with a fresh, open face
and splendid thick fair whiskers. This was the super-
intendent of the district himself, Nikodim Fomitch.
Luise Ivanovna made haste to curtsy almost to the
ground, and with mincing little steps, she fluttered
out of the office.
“Again thunder and lightning — a hurricane!” said
Nikodim Fomitch to Ilya Petrovitch in a civil and
friendly tone. “You are aroused again, you are fuming
again! I heard it on the stairs!”
“Well, what then!” Ilya Petrovitch drawled, with gen-
tlemanly nonchalance; and he walked with some
papers to another table, with a jaunty swing of his
shoulders at each step. “Here, if you will kindly look:
an author, or a student, has been one at least, does not
pay his debts, has given an I.O.U., won’t clear out of his
room, and complaints are constantly being lodged

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against him, and here he has been pleased to make a

protest against my smoking in his presence! He
behaves like a cad himself, and just look at him, please.
Here’s the gentleman, and very attractive he is!”
“Poverty is not a vice, my friend, but we know you
go off like powder, you can’t bear a slight, I daresay
you took offence at something and went too far your-
self,” continued Nikodim Fomitch, turning affably to
Raskolnikov. “But you were wrong there; he is a capi-
tal fellow, I assure you, but explosive, explosive! He
gets hot, fires up, boils over, and no stopping him!
And then it’s all over! And at the bottom he’s a heart
of gold! His nickname in the regiment was the
Explosive Lieutenant . . . ”
“And what a regiment it was, too,” cried Ilya
Petrovitch, much gratified at this agreeable banter,
though still sulky.
Raskolnikov had a sudden desire to say something
exceptionally pleasant to them all. “Excuse me,
Captain,” he began easily, suddenly addressing
Nikodim Fomitch, “will you enter into my position . . .
I am ready to ask pardon, if I have been ill-mannered.
I am a poor student, sick and shattered (shattered
was the word he used) by poverty. I am not studying,
because I cannot keep myself now, but I shall get
money . . . I have a mother and sister in the province
of X. They will send it to me, and I will pay. My land-
lady is a good-hearted woman, but she is so exasper-
ated at my having lost my lessons, and not paying her

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 fyodor dostoevsky

for the last four months, that she does not even send
up my dinner . . . and I don’t understand this I.O.U. at
all. She is asking me to pay her on this I.O.U. How am
I to pay her? Judge for yourselves! . . . ”
“But that is not our business, you know,” the head
clerk was observing.
“Yes, yes. I perfectly agree with you. But allow me
to explain . . . ” Raskolnikov put in again, still address-
ing Nikodim Fomitch, but trying his best to address
Ilya Petrovitch also, though the latter persistently
appeared to be rummaging among his papers and to
be contemptuously oblivious of him. “Allow me to
explain that I have been living with her for nearly
three years and at first . . . at first . . . for why should I
not confess it, at the very beginning I promised to
marry her daughter, it was a verbal promise, freely
given . . . she was a girl . . . indeed, I liked her, though I
was not in love with her . . . a youthful affair in fact . . .
that is, I mean to say, that my landlady gave me credit
in those days, and I led a life of . . . I was very heedless
...”
“Nobody asks you for these personal details, sir,
we’ve no time to waste,” Ilya Petrovitch interposed
roughly and with a note of triumph; but Raskolnikov
stopped him hotly, though he suddenly found it
exceedingly difficult to speak.
“But excuse me, excuse me. It is for me to explain
. . . how it all happened . . . In my turn . . . though I
agree with you . . . it is unnecessary. But a year ago, the

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girl died of typhus. I remained lodging there as

before, and when my landlady moved into her pres-
ent quarters, she said to me . . . and in a friendly way . .
. that she had complete trust in me, but still, would I
not give her an I.O.U. for one hundred and fifteen
roubles, all the debt I owed her. She said if only I gave
her that, she would trust me again, as much as I liked,
and that she would never, never — those were her own
words — make use of that I.O.U. till I could pay of
myself . . . and now, when I have lost my lessons and
have nothing to eat, she takes action against me.
What am I to say to that?”
“All these affecting details are no business of
ours,” Ilya Petrovitch interrupted rudely. “You must
give a written undertaking, but as for your love affairs
and all these tragic events, we have nothing to do
with that.”
“Come now . . . you are harsh,” muttered Nikodim
Fomitch, sitting down at the table and also beginning
to write. He looked a little ashamed.
“Write!” said the head clerk to Raskolnikov.
“Write what?” the latter asked, gruffly.
“I will dictate to you.”
Raskolnikov fancied that the head clerk treated
him more casually and contemptuously after his
speech, but strange to say he suddenly felt com-
pletely indifferent to any one’s opinion, and this
revulsion took place in a flash, in one instant. If he
had cared to think a little, he would have been

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 fyodor dostoevsky

amazed indeed that he could have talked to them

like that a minute before, forcing his feelings upon
them. And where had those feelings come from?
Now if the whole room had been filled, not with
police officers, but with those nearest and dearest to
him, he would not have found one human word for
them, so empty was his heart. A gloomy sensation of
agonising, everlasting solitude and remoteness, took
conscious form in his soul. It was not the meanness
of his sentimental effusions before Ilya Petrovitch,
nor the meanness of the latter’s triumph over him
that had caused this sudden revulsion in his heart.
Oh, what had he to do now with his own baseness,
with all these petty vanities, officers, German women,
debts, police offices? If he had been sentenced to be
burnt at that moment, he would not have stirred,
would hardly have heard the sentence to the end.
Something was happening to him entirely new, sud-
den and unknown. It was not that he understood,
but he felt clearly with all the intensity of sensation
that he could never more appeal to these people in
the police office with sentimental effusions like his
recent outburst, or with anything whatever; and that
if they had been his own brothers and sisters and not
police officers, it would have been utterly out of the
question to appeal to them in any circumstance of
life. He had never experienced such a strange and
awful sensation. And what was most agonising — it
was more a sensation than a conception or idea, a

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direct sensation, the most agonising of all the sensa-

tions he had known in his life.
The head clerk began dictating to him the usual
form of declaration, that he could not pay, that he
undertook to do so at a future date, that he would not
leave the town, nor sell his property, and so on.
“But you can’t write, you can hardly hold the pen,”
observed the head clerk, looking with curiosity at
Raskolnikov. “Are you ill?”
“Yes, I am giddy. Go on!”
“That’s all. Sign it.”
The head clerk took the paper, and turned to
attend to others.
Raskolnikov gave back the pen; but instead of getting
up and going away, he put his elbows on the table and
pressed his head in his hands. He felt as if a nail were
being driven into his skull. A strange idea suddenly
occurred to him, to get up at once, to go up to Nikodim
Fomitch, and tell him everything that had happened
yesterday, and then to go with him to his lodgings and
to show him the things in the hole in the corner. The
impulse was so strong that he got up from his seat to
carry it out. “Hadn’t I better think a minute?” flashed
through his mind. “No, better cast off the burden
without thinking.” But all at once he stood still, rooted
to the spot. Nikodim Fomitch was talking eagerly with
Ilya Petrovitch, and the words reached him.
“It’s impossible, they’ll both be released. To begin
with, the whole story contradicts itself. Why should

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they have called the porter, if it had been their doing?

To inform against themselves? Or as a blind? No, that
would be too cunning! Besides, Pestryakov, the stu-
dent, was seen at the gate by both the porters and a
woman as he went in. He was walking with three
friends, who left him only at the gate, and he asked
the porters to direct him, in the presence of the
friends. Now, would he have asked his way if he had
been going with such an object? As for Koch, he
spent half an hour at the silversmith’s below, before
he went up to the old woman and he left him at
exactly a quarter to eight. Now just consider . . . ”
“But excuse me, how do you explain this contra-
diction? They state themselves that they knocked and
the door was locked; yet three minutes later when
they went up with the porter, it turned out the door
was unfastened.”
“That’s just it; the murderer must have been there
and bolted himself in; and they’d have caught him
for a certainty if Koch had not been an ass and gone
to look for the porter too. He must have seized the
interval to get downstairs and slip by them somehow.
Koch keeps crossing himself and saying: ‘If I had
been there, he would have jumped out and killed me
with his axe.’ He is going to have a thanksgiving serv-
ice — ha, ha!”
“And no one saw the murderer?”
“They might well not see him; the house is a regular
Noah’s Ark,” said the head clerk, who was listening.

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“It’s clear, quite clear,” Nikodim Fomitch repeated

warmly.
“No, it is anything but clear,” Ilya Petrovitch main-
tained.
Raskolnikov picked up his hat and walked towards
the door, but he did not reach it . . .
When he recovered consciousness, he found him-
self sitting in a chair, supported by some one on the
right side, while some one else was standing on the
left, holding a yellowish glass filled with yellow water,
and Nikodim Fomitch standing before him, looking
intently at him. He got up from the chair.
“What’s this? Are you ill?” Nikodim Fomitch asked,
rather sharply.
“He could hardly hold his pen when he was sign-
ing,” said the head clerk, settling back in his place,
and taking up his work again.
“Have you been ill long?” cried Ilya Petrovitch
from his place, where he, too, was looking through
papers. He had, of course, come to look at the sick
man when he fainted, but retired at once when he
recovered.
“Since yesterday,” muttered Raskolnikov in reply.
“Did you go out yesterday?”
“Yes.”
“Though you were ill?”
“Yes.”
“At what time?”
“About seven.”

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“And where did you go, may I ask?”

“Along the street.”
“Short and clear.”
Raskolnikov, white as a handkerchief, had
answered sharply, jerkily, without dropping his black
feverish eyes before Ilya Petrovitch’s stare.
“He can scarcely stand upright. And you . . . ”
Nikodim Fomitch was beginning.
“No matter,” Ilya Petrovitch pronounced rather
peculiarly.
Nikodim Fomitch would have made some further
protest, but glancing at the head clerk who was look-
ing very hard at him, he did not speak. There was a
sudden silence. It was strange.
“Very well, then,” concluded Ilya Petrovitch, “we
will not detain you.”
Raskolnikov went out. He caught the sound of
eager conversation on his departure, and above the
rest rose the questioning voice of Nikodim Fomitch.
In the street, his faintness passed off completely.
“A search — there will be a search at once,” he
repeated to himself, hurrying home. “The brutes!
they suspect.”
His former terror mastered him completely again.

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 chapter ii

“And what if there has been a search already? What if

I find them in my room?”
But here was his room. Nothing and no one in it.
No one had peeped in. Even Nastasya had not
touched it. But heavens! how could he have left all
those things in the hole?
He rushed to the corner, slipped his hand under
the paper, pulled the things out and filled his pockets
with them. There were eight articles in all: two little
boxes with earrings or something of the sort, he
hardly looked to see; then four small leather cases.
There was a chain, too, merely wrapped in newspaper
and something else in newspaper, that looked like a
decoration . . . He put them all in the different pock-
ets of his overcoat, and the remaining pocket of his
trousers, trying to conceal them as much as possible.
He took the purse, too. Then he went out of his
room, leaving the door open. He walked quickly and
resolutely, and though he felt shattered, he had his

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senses about him. He was afraid of pursuit, he was

afraid that in another half-hour, another quarter of
an hour perhaps, instructions would be issued for his
pursuit, and so at all costs, he must hide all traces
before then. He must clear everything up while he
still had some strength, some reasoning power left
him . . . Where was he to go?
That had long been settled: “Fling them into the
canal, and all traces hidden in the water, the thing
would be at an end.” So he had decided in the night
of his delirium when several times he had had the
impulse to get up and go away, to make haste, and
get rid of it all. But to get rid of it, turned out to be
a very difficult task. He wandered along the bank of
the Ekaterininsky Canal for half an hour or more
and looked several times at the steps running down
to the water, but he could not think of carrying out
his plan; either rafts stood at the steps’ edge, and
women were washing clothes on them, or boats were
moored there, and people were swarming every-
where. Moreover he could be seen and noticed from
the banks on all sides; it would look suspicious for a
man to go down on purpose, stop, and throw some-
thing into the water. And what if the boxes were to
float instead of sinking? And of course they would.
Even as it was, every one he met seemed to stare and
look round, as if they had nothing to do but to
watch him. “Why is it, or can it be my fancy?” he
thought.

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 crime and punishment

At last the thought struck him that it might be bet-

ter to go to the Neva.
There were not so many people there, he would
be less observed, and it would be more convenient in
every way, above all it was further off. He wondered
how he could have been wandering for a good half-
hour, worried and anxious in this dangerous part
without thinking of it before. And that half-hour he
had lost over an irrational plan, simply because he
had thought of it in delirium! He had become
extremely absent and forgetful and he was aware of it.
He certainly must make haste.
He walked towards the Neva along V — Prospect,
but on the way another idea struck him. “Why to the
Neva? Would it not be better to go somewhere far off,
to the Islands again, and there hide the things in
some solitary place, in a wood or under a bush, and
mark the spot perhaps?” And though he felt inca-
pable of clear judgment, the idea seemed to him a
sound one. But he was not destined to go there. For
coming out of V — Prospect towards the square, he
saw on the left a passage leading between two blank
walls to a courtyard. On the right hand, the blank
unwhitewashed wall of a four-storied house stretched
far into the court; on the left, a wooden hoarding ran
parallel with it for twenty paces into the court, and
then turned sharply to the left. Here was a deserted
fenced-off place where rubbish of different sorts was
lying. At the end of the court, the corner of a low,

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smutty, stone shed, apparently part of some work-

shop, peeped from behind the hoarding. It was prob-
ably a carriage builder’s or carpenter’s shed; the
whole place from the entrance was black with coal
dust. Here would be the place to throw it, he thought.
Not seeing any one in the yard, he slipped in, and at
once saw near the gate a sink, such as is often put in
yards where there are many workmen or cabdrivers;
and on the hoarding above had been scribbled in
chalk the time-honoured witticism, “Standing here
strictly forbidden.” This was all the better, for there
would be nothing suspicious about his going in.
“Here I could throw it all in a heap and get away!”
Looking round once more, with his hand already
in his pocket, he noticed against the outer wall,
between the entrance and the sink, a big unhewn
stone, weighing perhaps sixty pounds. The other side
of the wall was a street. He could hear passers-by,
always numerous in that part, but he could not be
seen from the entrance, unless some one came in
from the street, which might well happen indeed, so
there was need of haste.
He bent down over the stone, seized the top of it
firmly in both hands, and using all his strength
turned it over. Under the stone was a small hollow in
the ground, and he immediately emptied his pocket
into it. The purse lay at the top, and yet the hollow
was not filled up. Then he seized the stone again and
with one twist turned it back, so that it was in the

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same position again, though it stood a very little

higher. But he scraped the earth about it and pressed
it at the edges with his foot. Nothing could be
noticed.
Then he went out, and turned into the square.
Again an intense, almost unbearable joy over-
whelmed him for an instant, as it had in the police
office. “I have buried my tracks! And who, who can
think of looking under that stone? It has been lying
there most likely ever since the house was built, and
will lie as many years more. And if it were found, who
would think of me? It is all over! No clue!” And he
laughed. Yes, he remembered that he began laughing
a thin, nervous noiseless laugh, and went on laughing
all the time he was crossing the square. But when he
reached the K — Boulevard where two days before he
had come upon that girl, his laughter suddenly
ceased. Other ideas crept into his mind. He felt all at
once that it would be loathsome to pass that seat on
which after the girl was gone, he had sat and pon-
dered, and that it would be hateful, too, to meet that
whiskered policeman to whom he had given the
twenty copecks: “Damn him!”
He walked, looking about him angrily and dis-
tractedly. All his ideas now seemed to be circling
round some single point, and he felt that there really
was such a point, and that now, now, he was left facing
that point — and for the first time, indeed, during the
last two months.

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“Damn it all!” he thought suddenly, in a fit of

ungovernable fury. “If it has begun, then it has
begun. Hang the new life! Good Lord, how stupid
it is! . . . And what lies I told to-day! How despicably
I fawned upon that wretched Ilya Petrovitch! But
that is all folly! What do I care for them all, and my
fawning upon them! It is not that at all! It is not
that at all!”
Suddenly he stopped; a new utterly unexpected
and exceedingly simple question perplexed and bit-
terly confounded him.
“If it all has really been done deliberately and not
idiotically, if I really had a certain and definite object,
how is it I did not even glance into the purse and
don’t know what I had there, for which I have under-
gone these agonies, and have deliberately under-
taken this base, filthy degrading business? And here I
wanted at once to throw into the water the purse
together with all the things which I had not seen
either . . . how’s that?”
Yes, that was so, that was all so. Yet he had known it
all before, and it was not a new question for him, even
when it was decided in the night without hesitation
and consideration, as though so it must be, as though
it could not possibly be otherwise . . . Yes, he had
known it all, and understood it all; it surely had all
been settled even yesterday at the moment when he
was bending over the box and pulling the jewel-cases
out of it . . . Yes, so it was.

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“It is because I am very ill,” he decided grimly at last,

“I have been worrying and fretting myself, and I don’t
know what I am doing . . . Yesterday and the day before
yesterday and all this time I have been worrying myself .
. . I shall get well and I shall not worry . . . But what if I
don’t get well at all? Good God, how sick I am of it all!”
He walked on without resting. He had a terrible
longing for some distraction, but he did not know
what to do, what to attempt. A new overwhelming
sensation was gaining more and more mastery over
him every moment; this was an immeasurable, almost
physical, repulsion for everything surrounding him,
an obstinate, malignant feeling of hatred. All who
met him were loathsome to him — he loathed their
faces, their movements, their gestures. If any one had
addressed him, he felt that he might have spat at him
or bitten him . . .
He stopped suddenly, on coming out on the bank
of the Little Neva, near the bridge to Vassilyevsky
Ostrov. “Why, he lives here, in that house,” he
thought, “why, I have not come to Razumihin of my
own accord! Here it’s the same thing over again . . .
Very interesting to know, though; have I come on
purpose or have I simply walked here by chance?
Never mind, I said the day before yesterday that I
would go and see him the day after; well, and so I will!
Besides I really cannot go further now.”
He went up to Razumihin’s room on the fifth
floor.

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 fyodor dostoevsky

The latter was at home in his garret, busily writing

at the moment, and he opened the door himself. It
was four months since they had seen each other.
Razumihin was sitting in a ragged dressing-gown,
with slippers on his bare feet, unkempt, unshaven
and unwashed. His face showed surprise.
“Is it you?” he cried. He looked his comrade up
and down; then after a brief pause, he whistled. “As
hard up as all that! Why, brother, you’ve cut me out!”
he added, looking at Raskolnikov’s rags. “Come sit
down, you are tired, I’ll be bound.”
And when he had sunk down on the American
leather sofa, which was in even worse condition than
his own, Razumihin saw at once that his visitor was ill.
“Why, you are seriously ill, do you know that?” He
began feeling his pulse. Raskolnikov pulled away his
hand.
“Never mind,” he said, “I have come for this; I
have no lessons . . . I wanted . . . but I don’t want les-
sons . . . ”
“But I say! You are delirious, you know!”
Razumihin observed, watching him carefully.
“No, I am not.”
Raskolnikov got up from the sofa. As he had
mounted the stairs to Razumihin’s, he had not
realised that he would be meeting his friend face to
face. Now, in a flash, he knew, that what he was least
of all disposed for at that moment was to be face to
face with any one in the wide world. His spleen rose

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within him. He almost choked with rage at himself as

soon as he crossed Razumihin’s threshold.
“Good-bye,” he said abruptly, and walked to the
door.
“Stop, stop! You queer fish.”
“I don’t want to,” said the other, again pulling
away his hand.
“Then why the devil have you come? Are you mad,
or what? Why, this is . . . almost insulting! I won’t let
you go like that.”
“Well, then, I came to you because I know no one
but you who could help . . . to begin . . . because you
are kinder than any one — clever, I mean, and can
judge . . . and now I see that I want nothing. Do you
hear? Nothing at all . . . no one’s services . . . no one’s
sympathy. I am by myself . . . alone. Come, that’s
enough. Leave me alone.”
“Stay a minute, you sweep! You are a perfect mad-
man. As you like for all I care. I have no lessons, do
you see, and I don’t care about that, but there’s a
bookseller, Heruvimov — and he takes the place of a
lesson. I would not exchange him for five lessons.
He’s doing publishing of a kind, and issuing natural
science manuals and what a circulation they have!
The very titles are worth the money! You always main-
tained that I was a fool, but by Jove, my boy, there are
greater fools than I am! Now he is setting up for
being advanced, not that he has an inkling of any-
thing, but, of course, I encourage him. Here are two

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 fyodor dostoevsky

signatures of the German text — in my opinion, the

crudest charlatanism; it discusses the question, ‘Is
woman a human being?’ And, of course, tri-
umphantly proves that she is. Heruvimov is going to
bring out this work as a contribution to the woman
question; I am translating it; he will expand these two
and a half signatures into six, we shall make up a gor-
geous title half a page long and bring it out at half a
rouble. It will do! He pays me six roubles the signa-
ture, it works out to fifteen roubles for the job, and
I’ve had six already in advance. When we have fin-
ished this, we are going to begin a translation about
whales, and then some of the dullest scandals out of
the second part of Les Confessions we have marked for
translation; somebody has told Heruvimov, that
Rousseau was a kind of Radishchev. You may be sure I
don’t contradict him, hang him! Well, would you like
to do the second signature of ‘Is woman a human
being?’ If you would, take the German and pens and
paper — all those are provided, and take three rou-
bles; for as I have had six roubles in advance on the
whole thing, three roubles come to you for your
share. And when you have finished the signature
there will be another three roubles for you. And
please don’t think I am doing you a service; quite the
contrary, as soon as you came in, I saw how you could
help me; to begin with, I am weak in spelling, and sec-
ondly, I am sometimes utterly adrift in German, so
that I make it up as I go along for the most part. The

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only comfort is, that’s it bound to be a change for the

better. 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 him a violent lash on the back with his whip, for
having almost fallen under his horses’ hoofs. The
lash so infuriated him that he dashed away to the rail-

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ing (for some unknown reason he had been walking

in the very middle of the bridge in the traffic). He
angrily clenched and ground his teeth. He heard
laughter, of course.
“Serves him right!”
“A pickpocket I dare say.”
“Pretending to be drunk, for sure, and getting
under the wheels on purpose; and you have to answer
for him.”
“It’s a regular profession, that’s what it is.”
But while he stood at the railing, still looking
angry and bewildered after the retreating carriage,
and rubbing his back, he suddenly felt some one
thrust money into his hand. He looked. It was an eld-
erly woman in a kerchief and goatskin shoes, with a
girl, probably her daughter, wearing a hat, and carry-
ing a green parasol.
“Take it, my good man, in Christ’s name.”
He took it and they passed on. It was a piece of
twenty copecks. From his dress and appearance they
might well have taken him for a beggar asking alms in
the streets, and the gift of the twenty copecks he
doubtless owed to the blow, which made them feel
sorry for him.
He closed his hand on the twenty copecks, walked
on for ten paces, and turned facing the Neva, looking
towards the palace. The sky was without a cloud and
the water was almost bright blue, which is so rare in
the Neva. The cupola of the cathedral, which is seen

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at its best from the bridge about twenty paces from

the chapel, glittered in the sunlight, and in the pure
air every ornament on it could be clearly distin-
guished. The pain from the lash went off, and
Raskolnikov forgot about it; one uneasy and not quite
definite idea occupied him now completely. He stood
still, and gazed long and intently into the distance;
this spot was especially familiar to him. When he was
attending the university, he had hundreds of times —
generally on his way home — stood still on this spot,
gazed at this truly magnificent spectacle and almost
always marvelled at a vague and mysterious emotion
it roused in him. It left him strangely cold; this gor-
geous picture was for him blank and lifeless. He won-
dered every time at his sombre and enigmatic
impression and, mistrusting himself, put off finding
the explanation of it. He vividly recalled those old
doubts and perplexities, and it seemed to him that it
was no mere chance that he recalled them now. It
struck him as strange and grotesque, that he should
have stopped at the same spot as before, as though he
actually imagined he could think the same thoughts,
be interested in the same theories and pictures that
had interested him . . . so short a time ago. He felt it
almost amusing, and yet it wrung his heart. Deep
down, hidden far away out of sight all that seemed to
him now — all his old past, his old thoughts, his old
problems and theories, his old impressions and that
picture and himself and all, all . . . He felt as though

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he were flying upwards, and everything were vanish-

ing from his sight. Making an unconscious movement
with his hand, he suddenly became aware of the piece
of money in his fist. He opened his hand, stared at
the coin, and with a sweep of his arm flung it into the
water; then he turned and went home. It seemed to
him, he had cut himself off from every one and from
everything at that moment.
Evening was coming on when he reached home,
so that he must have been walking about six hours.
How and where he came back he did not remember.
Undressing, and quivering like an over-driven horse,
he lay down on the sofa, drew his great coat over him,
and at once sank into oblivion . . .
It was dusk when he was waked up by a fearful
scream. Good God, what a scream! Such unnatural
sounds, such howling, wailing, grinding, tears, blows
and curses he had never heard.
He could never have imagined such brutality, such
frenzy. In terror he sat up in bed, almost swooning
with agony. But the fighting, wailing and cursing grew
louder and louder. And then to his intense amaze-
ment he caught the voice of his landlady. She was
howling, shrieking and wailing, rapidly, hurriedly,
incoherently, so that he could not make out what she
was talking about; she was beseeching, no doubt, not
to be beaten, for she was being mercilessly beaten on
the stairs. The voice of her assailant was so horrible
from spite and rage that it was almost a croak; but he,

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too, was saying something, and just as quickly and

indistinctly, hurrying and spluttering. All at once
Raskolnikov trembled; he recognised the voice — it
was the voice of Ilya Petrovitch. Ilya Petrovitch here
and beating the landlady! He is kicking her, banging
her head against the steps — that’s clear, that can be
told from the sounds, from the cries and the thuds.
How is it, is the world topsy-turvy? He could hear peo-
ple running in crowds from all the storeys and all the
staircases; he heard voices, exclamations, knocking,
doors banging. “But why, why, and how could it be?”
he repeated, thinking seriously that he had gone
mad. But no, he heard too distinctly! And they would
come to him then next, “for no doubt . . . it’s all about
that . . . about yesterday . . . Good God!” He would
have fastened his door with the latch, but he could
not lift his hand . . . besides, it would be useless. Terror
gripped his heart like ice, tortured him and numbed
him . . . But at last all this uproar, after continuing
about ten minutes, began gradually to subside. The
landlady was moaning and groaning; Ilya Petrovitch
was still uttering threats and curses . . . But at last he,
too, seemed to be silent, and now he could not be
heard. “Can he have gone away? Good Lord!” Yes,
and now the landlady is going too, still weeping and
moaning . . . and then her door slammed . . . Now the
crowd was going from the stairs to their rooms,
exclaiming, disputing, calling to one another, raising
their voices to a shout, dropping them to a whisper.

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 fyodor dostoevsky

There must have been numbers of them — almost all

the inmates of the block. “But, good God, how could
it be! And why, why had he come here!”
Raskolnikov sank worn out on the sofa, but could
not close his eyes. He lay for half an hour in such
anguish, such an intolerable sensation of infinite ter-
ror as he had never experienced before. Suddenly a
bright light flashed into his room. Nastasya came in
with a candle and a plate of soup. Looking at him
carefully and ascertaining that he was not asleep, she
set the candle on the table and began to lay out what
she had brought — bread, salt, a plate, a spoon.
“You’ve eaten nothing since yesterday, I warrant.
You’ve been trudging about all day, and you’re shak-
ing with fever.”
“Nastasya . . . what were they beating the landlady
for?”
She looked intently at him.
“Who beat the landlady?”
“Just now . . . half an hour ago, Ilya Petrovitch, the
assistant-superintendent, on the stairs . . . Why was he
ill-treating her like that, and . . . why was he here?”
Nastasya scrutinised him, silent and frowning, and
her scrutiny lasted a long time. He felt uneasy, even
frightened at her searching eyes.
“Nastasya, why don’t you speak?” he said timidly at
last in a weak voice.
“It’s the blood,” she answered at last softly, as
though speaking to herself.

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 crime and punishment

“Blood? What blood?” he muttered, growing white

and turning towards the wall.
Nastasya still looked at him without speaking.
“Nobody has been beating the landlady,” she
declared at last in a firm, resolute voice.
He gazed at her, hardly able to breathe.
“I heard it myself . . . I was not asleep . . . I was sitting
up,” he said still more timidly. “I listened a long while.
The assistant-superintendent came . . . Every one ran
out on to the stairs from all the flats.”
“No one has been here. That’s the blood crying in
your ears. When there’s no outlet for it and it gets
clotted, you begin fancying things . . . Will you eat
something?”
He made no answer. Nastasya still stood over him,
watching him.
“Give me something to drink . . . Nastasya.”
She went down stairs and returned with a white
earthenware jug of water. He remembered only swal-
lowing one sip of the cold water and spilling some on
his neck. Then followed forgetfulness.

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 chapter iii

He was not completely unconscious, however, all the

time he was ill; he was in a feverish state, sometimes
delirious, sometimes half conscious. He remembered
a great deal afterwards. Sometimes it seemed as
though there were a number of people round him;
they wanted to take him away somewhere, there was a
great deal of squabbling and discussing about him.
Then he would be alone in the room; they had all
gone away afraid of him, and only now and then
opened the door a crack to look at him; they threat-
ened him, plotted something together, laughed, and
mocked at him. He remembered Nastasya often at his
bedside; he distinguished another person, too, whom
he seemed to know very well, though he could not
remember who he was, and this fretted him, even
made him cry. Sometimes he fancied he had been
lying there a month; at other times it all seemed part
of the same day. But of that — of that he had no recol-
lection, and yet every minute he felt that he had for-

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gotten something he ought to remember. He worried

and tormented himself trying to remember, moaned,
flew into a rage, or sank into awful, intolerable terror.
Then he struggled to get up, would have run away,
but some one always prevented him by force, and he
sank back into impotence and forgetfulness. At last
he returned to complete consciousness.
It happened at ten o’clock in the morning. On
fine days the sun shone into the room at that hour,
throwing a streak of light on the right wall and the
corner near the door. Nastasya was standing beside
him with another person, a complete stranger, who
was looking at him very inquisitively. He was a young
man with a beard, wearing a full, short-waisted coat,
and looked like a messenger. The landlady was peep-
ing in at the half-opened door. Raskolnikov sat up.
“Who is this, Nastasya?” he asked, pointing to the
young man.
“I say, he’s himself again!” she said.
“He is himself,” echoed the man.
Concluding that he had returned to his senses,
the landlady closed the door and disappeared. She
was always shy and dreaded conversations or discus-
sions. She was a woman of forty, not at all bad-look-
ing, fat and buxom, with black eyes and eyebrows,
good-natured from fatness and laziness, and
absurdly bashful.
“Who . . . are you?” he went on, addressing the
man. But at that moment the door was flung open,

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 fyodor dostoevsky

and, stooping a little, as he was so tall, Razumihin

came in.
“What a cabin it is!” he cried. “I am always knock-
ing my head. You call this a lodging! So you are con-
scious, brother? I’ve just heard the news from
Pashenka.”
“He has just come to,” said Nastasya.
“Just come to,” echoed the man again, with a
smile.
“And who are you?” Razumihin asked, suddenly
addressing him. “My name is Vrazumihin, at your
service; not Razumihin, as I am always called, but
Vrazumihin, a student and gentleman; and he is my
friend. And who are you?”
“I am the messenger from our office, from the
merchant Shelopaev, and I’ve come on business.”
“Please sit down.” Razumihin seated himself on
the other side of the table. “It’s a good thing you’ve
come to, brother,” he went on to Raskolnikov. “For
the last four days you have scarcely eaten or drunk
anything. We had to give you tea in spoonfuls. I
brought Zossimov to see you twice. You remember
Zossimov? He examined you carefully and said at
once it was nothing serious — something seemed to
have gone to your head. Some nervous nonsense, the
result of bad feeding, he says you have not had
enough beer and radish, but it’s nothing much, it will
pass and you will be all right. Zossimov is a first-rate
fellow! He is making quite a name. Come, I won’t

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keep you,” he said, addressing the man again. “Will

you explain what you want? You must know, Rodya,
this is the second time they have sent from the office;
but it was another man last time, and I talked to him.
Who was it came before?”
“That was the day before yesterday, I venture to
say, if you please, sir. That was Alexey Semyonovitch;
he is in our office, too.”
“He was more intelligent than you, don’t you
think so?”
“Yes, indeed, sir, he is of more weight than I am.”
“Quite so; go on.”
“At your mamma’s request, through Afanasy
Ivanovitch Vahrushin, of whom I presume you have
heard more than once, a remittance is sent to you
from our office,” the man began, addressing
Raskolnikov. “If you are in an intelligible condition,
I’ve thirty-five roubles to remit to you, as Semyon
Semyonovitch has received from Afanasy Ivanovitch
at your mamma’s request instructions to that effect,
as on previous occasions. Do you know him, sir?”
“Yes, I remember . . . Vahrushin,” Raskolnikov said
dreamily.
“You hear, he knows Vahrushin,” cried Razumihin.
“He is in ‘an intelligible condition’! And I see you are
an intelligent man too. Well, it’s always pleasant to
hear words of wisdom.”
“That’s the gentleman, Vahrushin, Afanasy
Ivanovitch. And at the request of your mamma, who

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 fyodor dostoevsky

has sent you a remittance once before in the same

manner through him, he did not refuse this time
also, and sent instructions to Semyon Semyonovitch
some days since to hand you thirty-five roubles in the
hope of better to come.”
“That ‘hoping for better to come’ is the best
thing you’ve said, though ‘your mamma’ is not bad
either. Come then, what do you say? Is he fully con-
scious, eh?”
“That’s all right. If only he can sign this little
paper.”
“He can scrawl his name. Have you got the book?”
“Yes, here’s the book.”
“Give it to me. Here, Rodya, sit up. I’ll hold you.
Take the pen and scribble ‘Raskolnikov’ for him. For
just now, brother, money is sweeter to us than treacle.”
“I don’t want it,” said Raskolnikov, pushing away
the pen.
“Not want it?”
“I won’t sign it.”
“How the devil can you do without signing it?”
“I don’t want . . . the money.”
“Don’t want the money! Come, brother, that’s
nonsense, I bear witness. Don’t trouble, please, it’s
only that he is on his travels again. But that’s pretty
common with him at all times though . . . You are a
man of judgment and we will take him in hand, that
is, more simply, take his hand and he will sign it.
Here.”

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“But I can come another time.”

“No, no. Why should we trouble you? You are a
man of judgment . . . Now, Rodya, don’t keep your vis-
itor, you see he is waiting,” and he made ready to hold
Raskolnikov’s hand in earnest.
“Stop, I’ll do it alone,” said the latter, taking the
pen and signing his name.
The messenger took out the money and went
away.
“Bravo! And now, brother, are you hungry?”
“Yes,” answered Raskolnikov.
“Is there any soup?”
“Some of yesterday’s,” answered Nastasya, who was
still standing there.
“With potatoes and rice in it?”
“Yes.”
“I know it by heart. Bring soup and give us some tea.”
“Very well.”
Raskolnikov looked at all this with profound aston-
ishment and a dull, unreasoning terror. He made up
his mind to keep quiet and see what would happen. “I
believe I am not wandering. I believe it’s reality,” he
thought.
In a couple of minutes Nastasya returned with the
soup, and announced that the tea would be ready
directly. With the soup she brought two spoons, two
plates, salt, pepper, mustard for the beef, and so on.
The table was set as it had not been for a long time.
The cloth was clean.

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“It would not be amiss, Nastasya, if Praskovya

Pavlovna were to send us up a couple of bottles of
beer. We could empty them.”
“Well, you are a cool hand,” muttered Nastasya,
and she departed to carry out his orders.
Raskolnikov still gazed wildly with strained atten-
tion. Meanwhile Razumihin sat down on the sofa
beside him, as clumsily as a bear put his left arm
round Raskolnikov’s head, although he was able to sit
up, and with his right hand gave him a spoonful of
soup, blowing on it that it might not burn him. But
the soup was only just warm. Raskolnikov swallowed
one spoonful greedily, then a second, then a third.
But after giving him a few more spoonfuls of soup,
Razumihin suddenly stopped, and said that he must
ask Zossimov whether he ought to have more.
Nastasya came in with two bottles of beer.
“And will you have tea?”
“Yes.”
“Cut along, Nastasya, and bring some tea, for tea
we may venture on without the faculty. But here is the
beer!” He moved back to his chair, pulled the soup
and meat in front of him, and began eating as though
he had not touched food for three days.
“I must tell you, Rodya, I dine like this here every
day now,” he mumbled with his mouth full of beef,
“and it’s all Pashenka, your dear little landlady, who
sees to that; she loves to do anything for me. I don’t
ask for it, but, of course, I don’t object. And here’s

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Nastasya with the tea. She is a quick girl. Nastasya, my

dear, won’t you have some beer?”
“Get along with your nonsense!”
“A cup of tea, then?”
“A cup of tea, maybe.”
“Pour it out. Stay, I’ll pour it out myself. Sit down.”
He poured out two cups, left his dinner, and sat on
the sofa again. As before, he put his left arm round
the sick man’s head, raised him up and gave him tea
in spoonfuls, again blowing each spoonful steadily
and earnestly, as though this process was the principal
and most effective means towards his friend’s recov-
ery. Raskolnikov said nothing and made no resistance
though he felt quite strong enough to sit up on the
sofa without support and could not merely have held
a cup or a spoon, but even perhaps could have walked
about. But from some queer, almost animal, cunning
he conceived the idea of hiding his strength and lying
low for a time, pretending if necessary not to be yet in
full possession of his faculties, and meanwhile listen-
ing to find out what was going on. Yet he could not
overcome his sense of repugnance. After sipping a
dozen spoonfuls of tea, he suddenly released his head,
pushed the spoon away capriciously, and sank back on
the pillow. There were actually real pillows under his
head now, down pillows in clean cases, he observed
that, too, and took note of it.
“Pashenka must give us some raspberry jam to-day
to make him some raspberry tea,” said Razumihin,

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 fyodor dostoevsky

going back to his chair and attacking his soup and

beer again.
“And where is she to get raspberries for you?”
asked Nastasya, balancing a saucer on her five out-
spread fingers and sipping tea through a lump of
sugar.
“She’ll get it at the shop, my dear. You see, Rodya,
all sorts of things have been happening while you
have been laid up. When you decamped in that ras-
cally way without leaving your address, I felt so angry
that I resolved to find you out and punish you. I set to
work that very day. How I ran about making inquiries
for you! This lodging of yours I had forgotten,
though I never remembered it, indeed, because I did
not know it; and as for your old lodgings, I could only
remember it was at the Five Corners, Harlamov’s
house. I kept trying to find that Harlamov’s house,
and afterwards it turned out that it was not
Harlamov’s, but Buch’s. How one muddles up sound
sometimes! So I lost my temper, and I went on the
chance to the address bureau next day, and only
fancy, in two minutes they looked you up! Your name
is down there.”
“My name!”
“I should think so; and yet a General Kobelev they
could not find while I was there. Well, it’s a long story.
But as soon as I did land on this place, I soon got to
know all your affairs — all, all, brother, I know every-
thing; Nastasya here will tell you. I made the acquain-

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tance of Nikodim Fomitch and Ilya Petrovitch, and

the house-porter and Mr. Zametov, Alexandr
Grigorievitch, the head clerk in the police office,
and, last, but not least, of Pashenka; Nastasya here
knows . . . ”
“He’s got round her,” Nastasya murmured, smiling
slyly.
“Why don’t you put the sugar in your tea, Nastasya
Nikiforovna?”
“You are a one!” Nastasya cried suddenly, going off
into a giggle. “I am not Nikiforovna, but Petrovna,”
she added suddenly, recovering from her mirth.
“I’ll make a note of it. Well, brother, to make a
long story short, I was going in for a regular explo-
sion here to uproot all malignant influences in the
locality, but Pashenka won the day. I had not
expected, brother, to find her so . . . prepossessing.
Eh, what do you think?”
Raskolnikov did not speak, but he still kept his
eyes fixed upon him, full of alarm.
“And all that could be wished, indeed, in every
respect,” Razumihin went on, not at all embarrassed
by his silence.
“Ah, the sly dog!” Nastasya shrieked again. This
conversation afforded her unspeakable delight.
“It’s a pity, brother, that you did not set to work in
the right way at first. You ought to have approached
her differently. She is, so to speak, a most unaccount-
able character. But we will talk about her character

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later . . . How could you let things come to such a pass

that she gave up sending you your dinner? And that
I.O.U.? You must have been mad to sign an I.O.U. And
that promise of marriage when her daughter, Natalya
Yegorovna, was alive? . . . I know all about it! But I see
that’s a delicate matter and I am an ass; forgive me.
But, talking of foolishness, do you know Praskovya
Pavlovna is not nearly so foolish as you would think at
first sight?”
“No,” mumbled Raskolnikov, looking away, but
feeling that it was better to keep up the conversation.
“She isn’t, is she?” cried Razumihin, delighted to get
an answer out of him. “But she is not very clever either,
eh? She is essentially, essentially an unaccountable
character! I am sometimes quite at a loss, I assure you . .
. She must be forty; she says she is thirty-six, and of
course she has every right to say so. But I swear I judge
her intellectually, simply from the metaphysical point
of view; there is a sort of symbolism spring up between
us, a sort of algebra or what not! I don’t understand it!
Well, that’s all nonsense. Only, seeing that you are not a
student now and have lost your lessons and your
clothes, and that through the young lady’s death she
has no need to treat you as a relation, she suddenly
took fright; and as you hid in your den and dropped all
your old relations with her, she planned to get rid of
you. And she’s been cherishing that design a long time,
but was sorry to lose the I.O.U. for you assured her your-
self that your mother would pay.”

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“It was base of me to say that . . . My mother her-

self is almost a beggar . . . and I told a lie to keep my
lodging . . . and be fed,” Raskolnikov said loudly and
distinctly.
“Yes, you did very sensibly. But the worst of it is
that at that point Mr. Tchebarov turns up, a business
man. Pashenka would never have thought of doing
anything on her own account, she is too retiring; but
the business man is by no means retiring, and first
thing he puts the question, ‘Is there any hope of real-
ising the I.O.U.?’ Answer: there is, because he has a
mother who would save her Rodya with her hundred
and twenty-five roubles pension, if she has to starve
herself; and a sister, too, who would go into bondage
for his sake. That’s what he was building upon . . . Why
do you start? I know all the ins and outs of your affairs
now, my dear boy — it’s not for nothing that you were
so open with Pashenka when you were her prospec-
tive son-in-law, and I say all this as a friend . . . But I tell
you what it is; an honest and sensitive man is open;
and a business man ‘listens and goes on eating’ you
up. Well, then she gave the I.O.U. by way of payment
to this Tchebarov, and without hesitation he made a
formal demand for payment. When I heard of all this
I wanted to blow him up, too, to clear my conscience,
but by that time harmony reigned between me and
Pashenka, and I insisted on stopping the whole affair,
engaging that you would pay. I went security for you,
brother. Do you understand? We called Tchebarov,

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flung him ten roubles and got the I.O.U. back from
him, and here I have the honour of presenting it to
you. She trusts your word now. Here, take it, you see I
have torn it.”
Razumihin put the note on the table. Raskolnikov
looked at him and turned to the wall without uttering
a word. Even Razumihin felt a twinge.
“I see, brother,” he said a moment later, “that I
have been playing the fool again. I thought I should
amuse you with my chatter, and I believe I have only
made you cross.”
“Was it you I did not recognise when I was deliri-
ous?” Raskolnikov asked, after a moment’s pause
without turning his head.
“Yes, and you flew into a rage about it, especially
when I brought Zametov one day.”
“Zametov? The head clerk? What for?”
Raskolnikov turned round quickly and fixed his eyes
on Razumihin.
“What’s the matter with you? . . . What are you
upset about? He wanted to make your acquaintance
because I talked to him a lot about you . . . How could
I have found out so much except from him? He is a
capital fellow, brother, first-rate . . . in his own way, of
course. Now we are friends — see each other almost
every day. I have moved into this part, you know. I
have only just moved. I’ve been with him to Luise
Ivanovna once or twice . . . Do you remember Luise,
Luise Ivanovna?”

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“Did I say anything in delirium?”

“I should think so! You were beside yourself.”
“What did I rave about?”
“What next? What did you rave about? What peo-
ple do rave about . . . Well, brother, now I must not
lose time. To work.” He got up from the table and
took up his cap.
“What did I rave about?”
“How he keeps on! Are you afraid of having let out
some secret? Don’t worry yourself; you said nothing
about a countess. But you said a lot about a bulldog,
and about ear-rings and chains, and about Krestovsky
Island, and some porter, and Nikodim Fomitch and
Ilya Petrovitch, the assistant superintendent. And
another thing that was of special interest to you was
your own sock. You whined, ‘Give me my sock.’
Zametov hunted all about your room for your socks,
and with his own scented, ring-bedecked fingers he
gave you the rag. And only then were you comforted,
and for the next twenty-four hours you held the
wretched thing in your hand; we could not get it from
you. It is most likely somewhere under your quilt at
this moment. And then you asked so piteously for
fringe for your trousers. We tried to find out what sort
of fringe, but we could not make it out. Now to busi-
ness! Here are thirty-five roubles; I take ten of them,
and shall give you an account of them in an hour or
two. I will let Zossimov know at the same time, though
he ought to have been here long ago, for it is nearly

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twelve. And you, Nastasya, look in pretty often while I

am away, to see whether he wants a drink or anything
else. And I will tell Pashenka what is wanted myself.
Good-bye!”
“He calls her Pashenka! Ah, he’s a deep one!” said
Nastasya as he went out; then she opened the door
and stood listening, but could not resist running
downstairs after him. She was very eager to hear what
he would say to the landlady. She was evidently quite
fascinated by Razumihin.
No sooner had she left the room than the sick
man flung off the bedclothes and leapt out of bed
like a madman. With burning, switching impatience
he had waited for them to be gone so that he might
set to work. But to what work? Now, as though to spite
him, it eluded him.
“Good God, only tell me one thing: do they know
of it yet or not? What if they know it and are only pre-
tending, mocking me while I am laid up, and then
they will come in and tell me that it’s been discov-
ered long ago and that they have only . . . What am I
to do now? That’s what I’ve forgotten, as though on
purpose; forgotten it all at once, I remembered a
minute ago.”
He stood in the middle of the room and gazed in
miserable bewilderment about him; he walked to the
door, opened it, listened; but that was not what he
wanted. Suddenly, as though recalling something, he
rushed to the corner where there was a hole under

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the paper, began examining it, put his hand into the
hole, fumbled — but that was not it. He went to the
stove, opened it and began rummaging in the ashes;
the frayed edges of his trousers and the rags cut off
his pocket were lying there just as he had thrown
them. No one had looked, then! Then he remem-
bered, the sock about which Razumihin had just been
telling him. Yes, there it lay on the sofa under the
quilt, but it was so covered with dust and grime that
Zametov could not have seen anything on it.
“Bah, Zametov! The police office! And why am I
sent for to the police office? Where’s the notice? Bah!
I am mixing it up; that was then. I looked at my sock
then, too, but now . . . now I have been ill. But what
did Zametov come for? Why did Razumihin bring
him?” he muttered, helplessly sitting on the sofa
again. “What does it mean? Am I still in delirium, or
is it real? I believe it is real . . . Ah, I remember, I must
escape! Make haste to escape. Yes, I must, I must
escape! Yes . . . but where? And where are my clothes?
I’ve no boots. They’ve taken them away! They’ve hid-
den them! I understand! Ah, here is my coat — they
passed that over! And here is money on the table,
thank God! And here’s the I.O.U.. . . I’ll take the
money and go and take another lodging. They won’t
find me! . . . Yes, but the address bureau? They’ll find
me, Razumihin will find me. Better escape altogether
. . . far away . . . to America, and let them do their
worst! And take the I.O.U.. . . it would be of use there .

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 fyodor dostoevsky

. . What else shall I take? They think I am ill! They

don’t know that I can walk, ha-ha-ha! I could see by
their eyes that they know all about it! If only I could
get downstairs! And what if they have set a watch
there — policemen! What’s this tea? Ah, and here is
beer left, half a bottle, cold!”
He snatched up the bottle, which still contained a
glassful of beer, and gulped it down with relish, as
though quenching a flame in his breast. But in
another minute the beer had gone to his head, and a
faint and even pleasant shiver ran down his spine. He
lay down and pulled the quilt over him. His sick and
incoherent thoughts grew more and more discon-
nected, and soon a light, pleasant drowsiness came
upon him. With a sense of comfort he nestled his
head in the pillow, wrapped more closely about him
the soft, wadded quilt which had replaced the old,
ragged greatcoat, sighed softly and sank into a deep,
sound, refreshing sleep.
He woke up, hearing some one come in. He
opened his eyes and saw Razumihin standing in the
doorway, uncertain whether to come in or not.
Raskolnikov sat up quickly on the sofa and gazed at
him, as though trying to recall something.
“Ah, you are not asleep! Here I am! Nastasya,
bring in the parcel!” Razumihin shouted down the
stairs. “You shall have the account directly.”
“What time is it?” asked Raskolnikov, looking
round uneasily.

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“Yes, you had a fine sleep, brother, it’s almost

evening, it will be six o’clock directly. You have slept
more than six hours.”
“Good heaven! Have I?”
“And why not? It will do you good. What’s the
hurry? A tryst, is it? We’ve all time before us. I’ve been
waiting for the last three hours for you; I’ve been up
twice and found you asleep. I’ve called on Zossimov
twice; not at home, only fancy! But no matter, he will
turn up. And I’ve been out on my own business, too.
You know I’ve been moving to-day, moving with my
uncle. I have an uncle living with me now. But that’s
no matter, to business. Give me the parcel, Nastasya.
We will open it directly. And how do you feel now,
brother?”
“I am quite well, I am not ill. Razumihin, have you
been here long?”
“I tell you I’ve been waiting for the last three
hours.”
“No, before.”
“How do you mean?”
“How long have you been coming here?”
“Why I told you all about it this morning. Don’t
you remember?”
Raskolnikov pondered. The morning seemed like
a dream to him. He could not remember alone, and
looked inquiringly at Razumihin.
“Hm!” said the latter, “he has forgotten. I fancied
then that you were not quite yourself. Now you are

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better for your sleep . . . You really look much better.

First rate! Well, to business. Look here, my dear boy.”
He began untying the bundle, which evidently
interested him.
“Believe me, brother, this is something specially
near my heart. For we must make a man of you. Let’s
begin from the top. Do you see this cap?” he said, tak-
ing out of the bundle a fairly good, though cheap,
and ordinary cap. “Let me try it on.”
“Presently, afterwards,” said Raskolnikov, waving it
off pettishly.
“Come, Rodya, my boy, don’t oppose it, afterwards
will be too late; and I shan’t sleep all night, for I
bought it by guess, without measure. Just right!” he
cried triumphantly, fitting it on, “just your size! A
proper headcovering is the first thing in dress and a
recommendation in its own way. Tolstyakov, a friend
of mine, is always obliged to take off his pudding
basin when he goes into any public place where other
people wear their hats or caps. People think he does
it from slavish politeness, but it’s simply because he is
ashamed of his bird’s nest; he is such a bashful fellow!
Look, Nastasya, here are two specimens of headgear:
this Palmerston” — he took from the corner
Raskolnikov’s old, battered hat, which for some
unknown reason he called a Palmerston — “or this
jewel! Guess the price, Rodya, what do you suppose I
paid for it, Nastasya!” he said, turning to her, seeing
that Raskolnikov did not speak.

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“Twenty copecks, no more, I dare say,” answered

Nastasya.
“Twenty copecks, silly!” he cried, offended. “Why,
nowadays you would cost more than that — eighty
copecks! And that only because it has been worn.
And it’s bought on condition that when it’s worn out,
they will give you another next year. Yes, on my word!
Well, now let us pass to the United States of America,
as they called them at school. I assure you I am proud
of these breeches,” and he exhibited to Raskolnikov a
pair of light, summer trousers of grey woollen mate-
rial. “No holes, no spots, and quite respectable,
although a little worn; and a waistcoat to match, quite
in the fashion. And its being worn really is an
improvement, it’s softer, smoother . . . You see, Rodya,
to my thinking, the great thing for getting on in the
world is always to keep to the seasons; if you don’t
insist on having asparagus in January, you keep your
money in your purse! and it’s the same with this pur-
chase. It’s summer now, so I’ve been buying summer
things — warmer materials will be wanted for autumn,
so you will have to throw these away in any case . . .
especially as they will be done for by then from their
own lack of coherence if not your higher standard of
luxury. Come, price them! What do you say? Two rou-
bles twenty-five copecks! And remember the condi-
tion: if you wear these out, you will have another suit
for nothing! They only do business on that system at
Fedyaev’s; if you’ve bought a thing once, you are sat-

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 fyodor dostoevsky

isfied for life, for you will never go there again of your
own free will. Now for the boots. What do you say?
You see that they are a bit worn, but they’ll last a cou-
ple of months, for it’s foreign work and foreign
leather; the secretary of the English Embassy sold
them last week — he had only worn them six days, but
he was very short on cash. Price — a rouble and a half.
A bargain?”
“But perhaps they won’t fit,” observed Nastasya.
“Not fit? Just look!” and he pulled out of his
pocket Raskolnikov’s old, broken boot, stiffly coated
with dry mud. “I did not go empty-handed — they
took the size from this monster. We all did our best.
And as to your linen, your landlady has seen to that.
Here, to begin with, are three shirts, hempen but
with a fashionable front . . . Well now then, eighty
copecks the cap, two roubles twenty-five copecks the
suit — together three roubles five copecks — a rouble
and a half for the boots — for, you see, they are very
good — and that makes four roubles fifty-five copecks;
five roubles for the underclothes — they were bought
in the lot — which makes exactly nine roubles fifty-five
copecks. Forty-five copecks change in coppers. Will
you take it? And so, Rodya, you are set up with a com-
plete new rig-out, for your overcoat will serve, and
even has a style of its own. That comes from getting
one’s clothes from Sharmer’s! As for your socks and
other things, I leave them to you; we’ve twenty-five
roubles left. And as for Pashenka and paying for your

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lodging, don’t you worry. I tell you she’ll trust you for
anything. And now, brother, let me change your
linen, for I daresay you will throw off your illness with
your shirt.”
“Let me be! I don’t want to!” Raskolnikov waved
him off. He had listened with disgust to Razumihin’s
efforts to be playful about his purchases.
“Come, brother, don’t tell me I’ve been trudging
around for nothing,” Razumihin insisted. “Nastasya,
don’t be bashful, but help me — that’s it,” and in spite
of Raskolnikov’s resistance he changed his linen. The
latter sank back on the pillows and for a minute or
two said nothing.
“It will be long before I get rid of them,” he
thought. “What money was all that bought with?” he
asked at last, gazing at the wall.
“Money? Why, your own, what the messenger
brought from Vahrushin, your mother sent it. Have
you forgotten that, too?”
“I remember now,” said Raskolnikov after a long,
sullen silence. Razumihin looked at him, frowning
and uneasy.
The door opened and a tall, stout man whose
appearance seemed familiar to Raskolnikov came in.
“Zossimov! At last!” cried Razumihin, delighted.

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 chapter iv

Zossimov was a tall, fat man with a puffy, colour-

less, clean-shaven face and straight flaxen hair. He
wore spectacles, and a big gold ring on his fat finger.
He was twenty-seven. He had on a light grey fashion-
able loose coat, light summer trousers, and every-
thing about him loose, fashionable and spick and
span; his linen was irreproachable, his watch-chain
was massive. In manner he was slow and, as it were,
nonchalant, and at the same time studiously free
and easy; he made efforts to conceal his self-impor-
tance, but it was apparent at every instant. All his
acquaintances found him tedious, but said he was
clever at his work.
“I’ve been to you twice to-day, brother. You see,
he’s come to himself,” cried Razumihin.
“I see, I see; and how do we feel now, eh?” said
Zossimov to Raskolnikov, watching him carefully and,
sitting down at the foot of the sofa, he settled himself
as comfortably as he could.

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“He is still depressed,” Razumihin went on. “We’ve

just changed his linen and he almost cried.”
“That’s very natural; you might have put it off if he
did not wish it . . . His pulse is first-rate. Is your head
still aching, eh?”
“I am well, I am perfectly well!” Raskolnikov
declared positively and irritably. He raised himself on
the sofa and looked at them with glittering eyes, but
sank back on to the pillow at once and turned to the
wall. Zossimov watched him intently.
“Very good . . . Going on all right,” he said lazily.
“Has he eaten anything?”
They told him, and asked what he might have.
“He may have anything . . . soup, tea . . . mushrooms
and cucumbers, of course, you must not give him; he’d
better not have meat either, and . . . but no need to tell
you that!” Razumihin and he looked at each other.
“No more medicine or anything. I’ll look at him again
to-morrow. Perhaps, to-day even . . . but never mind . . . ”
“To-morrow evening I shall take him for a walk,”
said Razumihin. “We are going to the Yusupov garden
and then to the Palais de Crystal.”
“I would not disturb him to-morrow at all, but I
don’t know . . . a little, maybe . . . but we’ll see.”
“Ach, what a nuisance! I’ve got a house-warming
party to-night; it’s only a step from here. Couldn’t
he come? He could lie on the sofa. You are com-
ing?” Razumihin said to Zossimov. “Don’t forget,
you promised.”

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“All right, only rather later. What are you going

to do?”
“Oh, nothing — tea, vodka, herrings. There will be
a pie . . . just our friends.”
“And who?”
“All neighbours here, almost all new friends,
except my old uncle, and he is new too — he only
arrived in Petersburg yesterday to see to some busi-
ness of his. We met once in five years.”
“What is he?”
“He’s been stagnating all his life as a district post-
master; gets a little pension. He is sixty-five — not
worth talking about . . . But I am fond of him. Porfiry
Petrovitch, the head of the Investigation Department
here . . . But you know him.”
“Is he a relation of yours, too?”
“A very distant one. But why are you scowling?
Because you quarrelled once, won’t you come then?”
“I don’t care a damn for him.”
“So much the better. Well, there will be some stu-
dents, a teacher, a government clerk, a musician, an
officer and Zametov.”
“Do tell me, please, what you or he” — Zossimov
nodded at Raskolnikov — “can have in common with
this Zametov?”
“Oh, you particular gentleman! Principles! You
are worked by principles, as it were by springs; you
won’t venture to turn round on your own account. If

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a man is a nice fellow, that’s the only principle I go

upon, Zametov is a delightful person.”
“Though he does take bribes.”
“Well, he does! and what of it? I don’t care if he
does take bribes,” Razumihin cried with unnatural
irritability. “I don’t praise him for taking bribes. I only
say he is a nice man in his own way! But if one looks at
men in all ways — are there many good ones left?
Why, I am sure I shouldn’t be worth a baked onion
myself . . . perhaps with you thrown in.”
“That’s too little; I’d give two for you.”
“And I wouldn’t give more than one for you. No
more of your jokes! Zametov is no more than a boy. I
can pull his hair and one must draw him not repel
him. You’ll never improve a man by repelling him,
especially a boy. One has to be twice as careful with a
boy. Oh, you progressive dullards! You don’t under-
stand. You harm yourselves running another man
down . . . But if you want to know, we really have some-
thing in common.”
“I should like to know what.”
“Why, it’s all about a house-painter . . . We are get-
ting him out of a mess! Though indeed there’s noth-
ing to fear now. The matter is absolutely self-evident.
We only put on steam.”
“A painter?”
“Why, haven’t I told you about it? I only told you
the beginning then about the murder of the old

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 fyodor dostoevsky

pawnbroker-woman. Well, the painter is mixed up

in it . . .”
“Oh, I heard about that murder before and was
rather interested in it . . . partly . . . for one reason . . . I
read about it in the papers, too . . .”
“Lizaveta was murdered, too,” Nastasya blurted out,
suddenly addressing Raskolnikov. She remained in the
room all the time, standing by the door listening.
“Lizaveta,” murmured Raskolnikov hardly audibly.
“Lizaveta, who sold old clothes. Didn’t you know
her? She used to come here. She mended a shirt for
you, too.”
Raskolnikov turned to the wall where in the dirty,
yellow paper he picked out one clumsy, white flower
with brown lines on it and began examining how
many petals there were in it, how many scallops in the
petals and how many lines on them. He felt his arms
and legs as lifeless as though they had been cut off.
He did not attempt to move, but stared obstinately at
the flower.
“But what about the painter?” Zossimov inter-
rupted Nastasya’s chatter with marked displeasure.
She sighed and was silent.
“Why, he was accused of the murder,” Razumihin
went on hotly.
“Was there evidence against him then?”
“Evidence, indeed! Evidence that was no evidence,
and that’s what we have to prove. It was just as they
pitched on those fellows, Koch and Pestryakov, at

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first. Foo! how stupidly it’s all done, it makes one sick,
though it’s not one’s business! Pestryakov may be
coming to-night . . . By the way, Rodya, you’ve heard
about the business already; it happened before you
were ill, the day before you fainted at the police office
while they were talking about it.”
Zossimov looked curiously at Raskolnikov. He did
not stir.
“But I say, Razumihin, I wonder at you. What a
busybody you are!” Zossimov observed.
“Maybe I am, but we will get him off anyway,”
shouted Razumihin, bringing his fist down on the
table. “What’s the most offensive is not their lying —
one can always forgive lying — lying is a delightful
thing, for it leads to truth — what is offensive is that
they lie and worship their own lying . . . I respect
Porfiry, but . . . What threw them out at first? The door
was locked, and when they came back with the porter
it was open. So it followed that Koch and Pestryakov
were the murderers — that was their logic!”
“But don’t excite yourself; they simply detained
them, they could not help that . . . And, by the way,
I’ve met that man Koch. He used to buy unredeemed
pledges from the old woman? Eh?”
“Yes, he is a swindler. He buys up bad debts, too.
He makes a profession of it. But enough of him! Do
you know what makes me angry? It’s their sickening,
rotten, petrified routine . . . And this case might be
the means of introducing a new method. One can

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 fyodor dostoevsky

show from the psychological data alone how to get on

the track of the real man. ‘We have facts,’ they say.
But facts are not everything — at least half the busi-
ness lies in how you interpret them!”
“Can you interpret them, then?”
“Anyway, one can’t hold one’s tongue when one has
a feeling, a tangible feeling, that one might be a help if
only . . . Eh? Do you know the details of the case?”
“I am waiting to hear about the painter.”
“Oh, yes! Well, here’s the story. Early on the third
day after the murder, when they were still dandling
Koch and Pestryakov — though they accounted for
every step they took and it was as plain as a pikestaff —
an unexpected fact turned up. A peasant called
Dushkin, who keeps a dramshop facing the house,
brought to the police office a jeweller’s case contain-
ing some gold ear-rings, and told a long rigmarole.
‘The day before yesterday, just after eight o’clock —
mark the day and the hour! — ‘a journeyman house-
painter, Nikolay, who had been in to see me already
that day, brought me this box of gold ear-rings and
stones, and asked me to give him two roubles for
them. When I asked him where he got them, he said
that he picked them up in the street. I did not ask
him anything more.’ I am telling you Dushkin’s story.
‘I gave him a note’ — a rouble that is — ‘for I thought
if he did not pawn it with me he would with another.
It would all come to the same thing — he’d spend it
on drink, so the thing had better be with me. The fur-

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ther you hide it the quicker you will find it, and if any-
thing turns up, if I hear any rumours, I’ll take it to the
police.’ Of course, that’s all tara-diddle; he lies like a
horse, for I know this Dushkin, he is a pawnbroker
and a receiver of stolen goods, and he did not cheat
Nikolay out of a thirty-rouble trinket in order to give
it to the police. He was simply afraid. But no matter,
to return to Dushkin’s story. ‘I’ve known this peasant,
Nikolay Dementyev, from a child; he comes from the
same province and district of Zaraïsk, we are both
Ryazan men. And though Nikolay is not a drunkard,
he drinks, and I knew he had a job in that house,
painting work with Dmitri, who comes from the same
village, too. As soon as he got the rouble he changed
it, had a couple of glasses, took his change and went
out. But I did not see Dmitri with him then. And the
next day I heard that some one had murdered Alyona
Ivanovna and her sister, Lizaveta Ivanovna, with an
axe. I knew them, and I felt suspicious about the ear-
rings at once, for I knew the murdered woman lent
money on pledges. I went to the house, and began to
make careful inquiries without saying a word to any
one. First of all I asked, “Is Nikolay here?” Dmitri told
me that Nikolay had gone off on the spree; he had
come home at daybreak drunk, stayed in the house
about ten minutes, and went out again. Dmitri didn’t
see him again and is finishing the job alone. And
their job is on the same staircase as the murder, on
the second floor. When I heard all that I did not say a

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 fyodor dostoevsky

word to any one’ — that’s Dushkin’s tale — ‘but I

found out what I could about the murder, and went
home feeling as suspicious as ever. And at eight
o’clock this morning’ — that was the third day, you
understand — ‘I saw Nikolay coming in, not sober,
though not so very drunk — he could understand
what was said to him. He sat down on the bench and
did not speak. There was only one stranger in the bar
and a man I knew asleep on a bench and our two
boys. “Have you seen Dmitri?” said I. “No, I haven’t,”
said he. “And you’ve not been here either?” “Not
since the day before yesterday,” said he. “And where
did you sleep last night?” “In Peski, with the
Kolomensky men.” “And where did you get those ear-
rings?” I asked. “I found them in the street,” and the
way he said it was a bit queer; he did not look at me.
“Did you hear what happened that very evening, at
that very hour, on that same staircase?” said I. “No,”
said he, “I had not heard,” and all the while he was lis-
tening, his eyes were staring out of his head and he
turned as white as chalk. I told him all about it and he
took his hat and began getting up. I wanted to keep
him. “Wait a bit, Nikolay,” said I, “won’t you have a
drink?” And I signed to the boy to hold the door, and
I came out from behind the bar; but he darted out
and down the street to the turning at a run. I have not
seen him since. Then my doubts were at an end — it
was his doing, as clear as could be . . . ’”
“I should think so,” said Zossimov.

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 crime and punishment

“Wait! Hear the end. Of course they sought high

and low for Nikolay; they detained Dushkin and
searched his house; Dmitri, too, was arrested; the
Kolomensky men also were turned inside out. And
the day before yesterday they arrested Nikolay in a
tavern at the end of the town. He had gone there,
taken the silver cross off his neck and asked for a
dram for it. They gave it to him. A few minutes after-
wards the woman went to the cowshed, and through a
crack in the wall she saw in the stable adjoining he
had made a noose of his sash from the beam, stood
on a block of wood, and was trying to put his neck in
the noose. The woman screeched her hardest; people
ran in. ‘So that’s what you are up to!’ ‘Take me,’ he
says, ‘to such-and-such a police officer; I’ll confess
everything.’ Well, they took him to that police station
— that is here — with a suitable escort. So they asked
him this and that, how old he is, ‘twenty-two,’ and so
on. At the question, ‘When you were working with
Dmitri, didn’t you see any one on the staircase at
such-and-such a time?’ — answer: ‘To be sure folks
may have gone up and down, but I did not notice
them.’ ‘And didn’t you hear anything, any noise and
so on?’ ‘We heard nothing special.’ ‘And did you
hear, Nikolay, that on the same day Widow So-and-so
and her sister were murdered and robbed?’ ‘I never
knew a thing about it. The first I heard of it was from
Afanasy Pavlovitch the day before yesterday.’ ‘And
where did you find the ear-rings?’ ‘I found them on

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 fyodor dostoevsky

the pavement.’ ‘Why didn’t you go to work with

Dmitri the other day?’ ‘Because I was drinking.’ ‘And
where were you drinking?’ ‘Oh, in such and such a
place.’ ‘Why did you run away from Dushkin’s?’
‘Because I was awfully frightened.’ ‘What were you
frightened of?’ ‘That I should be accused.’ ‘How
could you be frightened, if you felt free from guilt?’
Now, Zossimov, you may not believe me, that question
was put literally in those words. I know it for a fact, it
was repeated to me exactly! What do you say to that?”
“Well, anyway, there’s the evidence.”
“I am not talking of the evidence now, I am talking
about that question, of their own idea of themselves.
Well, so they squeezed and squeezed him and he con-
fessed: ‘I did not find it in the street, but in the flat
where I was painting with Dmitri.’ ‘And how was
that?’ ‘Why, Dmitri and I were painting there all day,
and we were just getting ready to go, and Dmitri took
a brush and painted my face, and he ran off and I
after him. I ran after him, shouting my hardest, and
at the bottom of the stairs I ran right against the
porter and some gentlemen — and how many gentle-
men were there I don’t remember. And the porter
swore at me, and the other porter swore, too, and the
porter’s wife came out, and swore at us, too; and a
gentleman came into the entry with a lady, and he
swore at us, too, for Dmitri and I lay right across the
way. I got hold of Dmitri’s hair and knocked him
down and began beating him. And Dmitri, too,

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 crime and punishment

caught me by the hair and began beating me. But we

did it all not for temper, but in a friendly way, for
sport. And then Dmitri escaped and ran into the
street, and I ran after him; but I did not catch him,
and went back to the flat alone; I had to clear up my
things. I began putting them together, expecting
Dmitri to come, and there in the passage, in the cor-
ner by the door, I stepped on the box. I saw it lying
there wrapped up in paper. I took off the paper, saw
some little hooks, undid them, and in the box were
the ear-rings . . .’”
“Behind the door? Lying behind the door? Behind
the door?” Raskolnikov cried suddenly, staring with a
blank look of terror at Razumihin, and he slowly sat
up on the sofa, leaning on his hand.
“Yes . . . why? What’s the matter? What’s wrong?”
Razumihin, too, got up from his seat.
“Nothing,” Raskolnikov answered faintly, turning
to the wall. All were silent for a while.
“He must have waked from a dream,” Razumihin
said at last, looking inquiringly at Zossimov. The lat-
ter slightly shook his head.
“Well, go on,” said Zossimov. “What next?”
“What next? As soon as he saw the ear-rings, for-
getting Dmitri and everything, he took up his cap and
ran to Dushkin and, as we know, got a rouble from
him. He told a lie saying he found them in the street,
and went off drinking. He keeps repeating his old
story about the murder: ‘I knew nothing of it, never

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 fyodor dostoevsky

heard of it till the day before yesterday.’ ‘And why

didn’t you come to the police till now?’ ‘I was fright-
ened.’ ‘And why did you try to hang yourself?’ ‘From
anxiety.’ ‘What anxiety?’ ‘That I should be accused of
it.’ Well, that’s the whole story. And now what do you
suppose they deduced from that?”
“Why, there’s no supposing. There’s a clue, such as
it is, a fact. You wouldn’t have your painter set free?”
“Now they’ve simply taken him for the murderer.
They haven’t a shadow of doubt.”
“That’s nonsense. You are excited. But what
about the ear-rings? You must admit that, if on the
very same day and hour ear-rings from the old
woman’s box have come into Nikolay’s hands, they
must have come there somehow. That’s a good deal
in such a case.”
“How did they get there? How did they get there?”
cried Razumihin. “How can you, a doctor, whose duty
it is to study man and who has more opportunity than
any one else for studying human nature — how can
you fail to see the character of the man in the whole
story? Don’t you see at once that the answers he has
given in the examination are the holy truth? They
came into his hand precisely as he has told us — he
stepped on the box and picked it up.”
“The holy truth! But didn’t he own himself that he
told a lie at first?”
“Listen to me, listen attentively. The porter and
Koch and Pestryakov and the other porter and the

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wife of the first porter and the woman who was sit-
ting in the porter’s lodge and the man Kryukov, who
had just got out of a cab at that minute and went in
at the entry with a lady on his arm, that is eight or ten
witnesses, agree that Nikolay had Dmitri on the
ground, was lying on him beating him, while Dmitri
hung on to his hair, beating him, too. They lay right
across the way, blocking the thoroughfare. They
were sworn at on all sides while they ‘like children’
(the very words of the witnesses) were falling over
one another, squealing, fighting and laughing with
the funniest faces, and, chasing one another like
children, they ran into the street. Now take careful
note. The bodies upstairs were warm, you under-
stand, warm when they found them! If they, or
Nikolay alone, had murdered them and broken
open the boxes, or simply taken part in the robbery,
allow me to ask you one question: do their state of
mind, their squeals and giggles and childish scuf-
fling at the gate fit in with axes, bloodshed, fiendish
cunning, robbery? They’d just killed them, not five
or ten minutes before, for the bodies were still warm,
and at once, leaving the flat open, knowing that peo-
ple would go there at once, flinging away their booty,
they rolled about like children, laughing and attract-
ing general attention. And there are a dozen wit-
nesses to swear to that!”
“Of course it is strange! It’s impossible, indeed,
but . . . ”

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“No, brother, no buts. And if the ear-rings’ being

found in Nikolay’s hands at the very day and hour of
the murder constitutes an important piece of circum-
stantial evidence against him — although the explana-
tion given by him accounts for it, and therefore it
does not tell seriously against him — one must take
into consideration the facts which prove him inno-
cent, especially as they are facts that cannot be denied.
And do you suppose, from the character of our legal
system, that they will accept, or that they are in a posi-
tion to accept, this fact — resting simply on a psycho-
logical impossibility — as irrefutable and conclusively
breaking down the circumstantial evidence for the
prosecution? No, they won’t accept it, they certainly
won’t, because they found the jewel-case and the man
tried to hang himself, ‘which he could not have done
if he hadn’t felt guilty.’ That’s the point, that’s what
excites me, you must understand!”
“Oh, I see you are excited! Wait a bit. I forgot to
ask you; what proof is there that the box came from
the old woman?”
“That’s been proved,” said Razumihin with appar-
ent reluctance, frowning. “Koch recognised the jewel-
case and gave the name of the owner, who proved
conclusively that it was his.”
“That’s bad. Now another point. Did any one see
Nikolay at the time that Koch and Pestryakov were
going upstairs at first, and is there no evidence
about that?”

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 crime and punishment

“Nobody did see him,” Razumihin answered with

vexation. “That’s the worst of it. Even Koch and
Pestryakov did not notice them on their way upstairs,
though, indeed, their evidence could not have been
worth much. They said they saw the flat was open,
and that there must be work going on in it, but they
took no special notice and could not remember
whether there actually were men at work in it.”
“Hm! . . . So the only evidence for the defence is
that they were beating one another and laughing.
That constitutes a strong presumption, but . . . How
do you explain the facts yourself?”
“How do I explain them? What is there to explain?
It’s clear. At any rate, the direction in which explana-
tion is to be sought is clear, and the jewel-case points
to it. The real murderer dropped those ear-rings. The
murderer was upstairs, locked in, when Koch and
Pestryakov knocked at the door. Koch, like an ass, did
not stay at the door; so the murderer popped out and
ran down, too, for he had no other way of escape. He
hid from Koch, Pestryakov and the porter in the flat
when Nikolay and Dmitri had just run out of it. He
stopped there while the porter and others were going
upstairs, waited till they were out of hearing, and
then went calmly downstairs at the very minute when
Dmitri and Nikolay ran out into the street and there
was no one in the entry; possibly he was seen, but not
noticed. There are lots of people going in and out.
He must have dropped the ear-rings out of his pocket

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 fyodor dostoevsky

when he stood behind the door, and did not notice

he dropped them, because he had other things to
think of. The jewel-case is a conclusive proof that he
did stand there . . . That’s how I explain it.”
“Too clever! No, my boy, you’re too clever. That
beats everything.”
“But, why, why?”
“Why, because everything fits too well . . . it’s too
melodramatic.”
“A-ach!” Razumihin was exclaiming, but at that
moment the door opened and a personage came in
who was a stranger to all present.

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 chapter v

This was a gentleman no longer young, of a stiff and

portly appearance, and a cautious and sour counte-
nance. He began by stopping short in the doorway,
staring about him with offensive and undisguised
astonishment, as though asking himself what sort of
place he had come to. Mistrustfully and with an
affectation of being alarmed and almost affronted,
he scanned Raskolnikov’s low and narrow “cabin.”
With the same amazement he stared at Raskolnikov,
who lay undressed, dishevelled, unwashed, on his
miserable dirty sofa, looking fixedly at him. Then
with the same deliberation he scrutinised the
uncouth, unkempt figure and unshaven face of
Razumihin, who looked him boldly and inquiringly
in the face without rising from his seat. A con-
strained silence lasted for a couple of minutes, and
then, as might be expected, some scene-shifting took
place. Reflecting, probably from certain fairly unmis-
takable signs, that he would get nothing in this

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“cabin” by attempting to overawe them, the gentle-

man softened somewhat, and civilly, though with
some severity, emphasising every syllable of his ques-
tion, addressed Zossimov:
“Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov, a student, or
formerly a student?”
Zossimov made a slight movement, and would
have answered had not Razumihin anticipated him.
“Here he is lying on the sofa! What do you want?”
This familiar “what do you want” seemed to cut
the ground from the feet of the pompous gentleman.
He was turning to Razumihin, but checked himself in
time and turned to Zossimov again.
“This is Raskolnikov,” mumbled Zossimov, nod-
ding towards him. Then he gave a prolonged yawn,
opening his mouth as wide as possible. Then he lazily
put his hand into his waistcoat-pocket, pulled out a
huge gold watch in a round hunter’s case, opened it,
looked at it and as slowly and lazily proceeded to put
it back.
Raskolnikov himself lay without speaking, on his
back, gazing persistently, though without understand-
ing, at the stranger. Now that his face was turned away
from the strange flower on the paper, it was
extremely pale and wore a look of anguish, as though
he had just undergone an agonising operation or just
been taken from the rack. But the new-comer gradu-
ally began to arouse his attention, then his wonder,
then suspicion and even alarm. When Zossimov said

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“This is Raskolnikov” he jumped up quickly, sat on

the sofa and with an almost defiant, but weak and
breaking, voice articulated:
“Yes, I am Raskolnikov! What do you want?”
The visitor scrutinised him and pronounced
impressively:
“Pyotr Petrovitch Luzhin. I believe I have reason
to hope that my name is not wholly unknown to you?”
But Raskolnikov, who had expected something
quite different, gazed blankly and dreamily at him,
making no reply, as though he heard the name of
Pyotr Petrovitch for the first time.
“Is it possible that you can up to the present have
received no information?” asked Pyotr Petrovitch,
somewhat disconcerted.
In reply Raskolnikov sank languidly back on the
pillow, put his hands behind his head and gazed at
the ceiling. A look of dismay came into Luzhin’s face.
Zossimov and Razumihin stared at him more inquisi-
tively than ever, and at last he showed unmistakable
signs of embarrassment.
“I had presumed and calculated,” he faltered,
“that a letter posted more than ten days, if not a fort-
night ago . . . ”
“I say, why are you standing in the doorway?”
Razumihin interrupted suddenly. “If you’ve some-
thing to say, sit down. Nastasya and you are so
crowded. Nastasya, make room. Here’s a chair, thread
your way in!”

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 fyodor dostoevsky

He moved his chair back from the table, made a

little space between the table and his knees, and
waited in a rather cramped position for the visitor to
“thread his way in.” The minute was so chosen that it
was impossible to refuse, and the visitor squeezed his
way through, hurrying and stumbling. Reaching the
chair, he sat down, looking suspiciously at Razumihin.
“No need to be nervous,” the latter blurted out.
“Rodya has been ill for the last five days and delirious
for three, but now he is recovering and has got an
appetite. This is his doctor, who has just had a look at
him. I am a comrade of Rodya’s, like him, formerly a
student, and now I am nursing him; so don’t you take
any notice of us, but go on with your business.”
“Thank you. But shall I not disturb the invalid by
my presence and conversation?” Pyotr Petrovitch
asked of Zossimov.
“N-no,” mumbled Zossimov; “you may amuse
him.” He yawned again.
“He has been conscious a long time, since the
morning,” went on Razumihin, whose familiarity
seemed so much like unaffected good-nature that
Pyotr Petrovitch began to be more cheerful, partly,
perhaps, because this shabby and impudent person
had introduced himself as a student.
“Your mamma,” began Luzhin.
“Hm!” Razumihin cleared his throat loudly.
Luzhin looked at him inquiringly.
“That’s all right, go on.”

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 crime and punishment

Luzhin shrugged his shoulders.

“Your mamma had commenced a letter to you
while I was sojourning in her neighbourhood. On my
arrival here I purposely allowed a few days to elapse
before coming to see you, in order that I might be
fully assured that you were in full possession of the
tidings; but now, to my astonishment . . .”
“I know, I know!” Raskolnikov cried suddenly with
impatient vexation. “So you are the fiancé? I know,
and that’s enough!”
There was no doubt about Pyotr Petrovitch’s being
offended this time, but he said nothing. He made a
violent effort to understand what it all meant. There
was a moment’s silence.
Meanwhile Raskolnikov, who had turned a little
towards him when he answered, began suddenly star-
ing at him again with marked curiosity, as though he
had not had a good look at him yet, or as though
something new had struck him; he rose from his pil-
low on purpose to stare at him. There certainly was
something peculiar in Pyotr Petrovitch’s whole
appearance, something which seemed to justify the
title of “fiancé” so unceremoniously applied to him.
In the first place, it was evident, far too much so
indeed, that Pyotr Petrovitch had made eager use of
his few days in the capital to get himself up and rig
himself out in expectation of his betrothed — a per-
fectly innocent and permissible proceeding, indeed.
Even his own, perhaps too complacent, consciousness

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 fyodor dostoevsky

of the agreeable improvement in his appearance

might have been forgiven in such circumstances, see-
ing that Pyotr Petrovitch had taken up the rôle of
fiancé. All his clothes were fresh from the tailors and
were all right, except for being too new and too dis-
tinctly appropriate. Even the stylish new round hat
had the same significance. Pyotr Petrovitch treated it
too respectfully and held it too carefully in his hands.
The exquisite pair of lavender gloves, real Louvain,
told the same tale, if only from the fact of his not
wearing them, but carrying them in his hand for
show. Light and youthful colours predominated in
Pyotr Petrovitch’s attire. He wore a charming sum-
mer jacket of a fawn shade, light thin trousers, a waist-
coat of the same, new and fine linen, a cravat of the
lightest cambric with pink stripes on it, and the best
of it was, this all suited Pyotr Petrovitch. His very fresh
and even handsome face looked younger than his
forty-five years at all times. His dark, mutton-chop
whiskers made an agreeable setting on both sides,
growing thickly about his shining, clean-shaven chin.
Even his hair, touched here and there with grey,
though it had been combed and curled at a hair-
dresser’s, did not give him a stupid appearance, as
curled hair usually does, by inevitably suggesting a
German on his wedding-day. If there really was some-
thing unpleasing and repulsive in his rather good-
looking and imposing countenance, it was due to
quite other causes. After scanning Mr. Luzhin uncer-

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emoniously, Raskolnikov smiled malignantly, sank

back on the pillow and stared at the ceiling as before.
But Mr. Luzhin hardened his heart and seemed to
determine to take no notice of their oddities.
“I feel the greatest regret at finding you in this sit-
uation,” he began, again breaking the silence with an
effort. “If I had been aware of your illness I should
have come earlier. But you know what business is. I
have, too, a very important legal affair in the Senate,
not to mention other preoccupations which you may
well conjecture. I am expecting your mamma and sis-
ter any minute.”
Raskolnikov made a movement and seemed about
to speak; his face showed some excitement. Pyotr
Petrovitch paused, waited, but as nothing followed,
he went on:
“ . . . Any minute. I have found a lodging for them
on their arrival.”
“Where?” asked Raskolnikov weakly.
“Very near here, in Bakaleyev’s house.”
“That’s in Voskresensky,” put in Razumihin.
“There are two storeys of rooms, let by a merchant
called Yushin; I’ve been there.”
“Yes, rooms . . .”
“A disgusting place — filthy, stinking and, what’s
more, of doubtful character. Things have happened
there, and there are all sorts of queer people living
there. And I went there about a scandalous business.
It’s cheap, though . . . ”

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“I could not, of course, find out so much about it, for

I am a stranger in Petersburg myself,” Pyotr Petrovitch
replied huffily. “However, the two rooms are exceed-
ingly clean, and as it is for so short a time . . . I have
already taken a permanent, that is, our future flat,” he
said, addressing Raskolnikov, “and I am having it done
up. And meanwhile I am myself cramped for room in a
lodging with my friend Andrey Semyonovitch
Lebeziatnikov, in the flat of Madame Lippevechsel; it
was he who told me of Bakaleyev’s house, too . . . ”
“Lebeziatnikov?” said Raskolnikov slowly, as if
recalling something.
“Yes, Andrey Semyonovitch Lebeziatnikov, a clerk
in the Ministry. Do you know him?”
“Yes . . . no,” Raskolnikov answered.
“Excuse me, I fancied so from your inquiry. I was
once his guardian . . . A very nice young man and
advanced. I like to meet young people: one learns
new things from them.” Luzhin looked round hope-
fully at them all.
“How do you mean?” asked Razumihin.
“In the most serious and essential matters,” Pyotr
Petrovich replied, as though delighted at the ques-
tion. “You see, it’s ten years since I visited Petersburg.
All the novelties, reforms, ideas have reached us in
the provinces, but to see it all more clearly one must
be in Petersburg. And it’s my notion that you observe
and learn most by watching the younger generation.
And I confess I am delighted . . . ”

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 crime and punishment

“At what?”
“Your question is a wide one. I may be mistaken,
but I fancy I find clearer views, more, so to say, criti-
cism, more practicality . . .”
“That’s true,” Zossimov let drop.
“Nonsense! There’s no practicality.” Razumihin
flew at him. “Practicality is a difficult thing to find; it
does not drop down from heaven. And for the last
two hundred years we have been divorced from all
practical life. Ideas, if you like, are fermenting,” he
said to Pyotr Petrovitch, “and desire for good exists,
though it’s in a childish form, and honesty you may
find, although there are crowds of brigands. Anyway,
there’s no practicality. Practicality goes well shod.”
“I don’t agree with you,” Pyotr Petrovitch replied,
with evident enjoyment. “Of course, people do get
carried away and make mistakes, but one must have
indulgence; those mistakes are merely evidence of
enthusiasm for the cause and of abnormal external
environment. If little has been done, the time has
been but short; of means I will not speak. It’s my per-
sonal view, if you care to know, that something has
been accomplished already. New valuable ideas, new
valuable works are circulating in the place of our old
dreamy and romantic authors. Literature is taking a
maturer form, many injurious prejudices have been
rooted up and turned into ridicule . . . In a word, we
have cut ourselves off irrevocably from the past, and
that, to my thinking, is a great thing . . . ”

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“He’s learnt it by heart to show off!” Raskolnikov

pronounced suddenly.
“What?” asked Pyotr Petrovitch, not catching his
words; but he received no reply.
“That’s all true,” Zossimov hastened to interpose.
“Isn’t it so?” Pyotr Petrovitch went on, glancing
affably at Zossimov.
“You must admit,” he went on, addressing
Razumihin with a shade of triumph and supercilious-
ness — he almost added “young man” — “that there is
an advance, or, as they say now, progress in the name
of science and economic truth . . .”
“A commonplace.”
“No, not a commonplace! Hitherto, for instance, if I
were told, ‘love thy neighbour,’ what came of it?” Pyotr
Petrovitch went on, perhaps with excessive haste. “It
came to my tearing my coat in half to share with my
neighbour and we both were left half naked. As a
Russian proverb has it, ‘catch several hares and you
won’t catch one.’ Science now tells us, love yourself
before all men, for everything in the world rests on self-
interest. You love yourself and manage your own affairs
properly and your coat remains whole. Economic truth
adds that the better private affairs are organised in soci-
ety — the more whole coats, so to say — the firmer are its
foundations and the better is the common welfare
organised too. Therefore, in acquiring wealth solely
and exclusively for myself, I am acquiring so to speak,
for all, and helping to bring to pass my neighbour’s get-

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ting a little more than a torn coat; and that not from
private, personal liberality, but as a consequence of the
general advance. The idea is simple, but unhappily it
has been a long time reaching us, being hindered by
idealism and sentimentality. And yet it would seem to
want very little wit to perceive it . . . ”
“Excuse me, I’ve very little wit myself,” Razumihin
cut in sharply, “and so let us drop it. I began this dis-
cussion with an object, but I’ve grown so sick during
the last three years of this chattering to amuse one-
self, of this incessant flow of commonplaces, always
the same, that, by Jove, I blush even when other peo-
ple talk like that. You are in a hurry, no doubt, to
exhibit your acquirements; and I don’t blame you,
that’s quite pardonable. I only wanted to find out
what sort of man you are, for so many unscrupulous
people have got hold of the progressive cause of late
and have so distorted in their own interests every-
thing they touched, that the whole cause has been
dragged in the mire. That’s enough!”
“Excuse me, sir,” said Luzhin, affronted, and
speaking with excessive dignity. “Do you mean to sug-
gest so unceremoniously that I too . . .”
“Oh, my dear sir . . . how could I? . . . Come, that’s
enough,” Razumihin concluded, and he turned abruptly
to Zossimov to continue their previous conversation.
Pyotr Petrovitch had the good sense to accept the
disavowal. He made up his mind to take leave in
another minute or two.

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“I trust our acquaintance,” he said, addressing

Raskolnikov, “may, upon your recovery and in view of
the circumstances of which you are aware, become
closer . . . Above all, I hope for your return to health . . . ”
Raskolnikov did not even turn his head. Pyotr
Petrovitch began getting up from his chair.
“One of her customers must have killed her,”
Zossimov declared positively.
“Not a doubt of it,” replied Razumihin. “Porfiry
doesn’t give his opinion, but is examining all who
have left pledges with her there.”
“Examining them?” Raskolnikov asked aloud.
“Yes. What then?”
“Nothing.”
“How does he get hold of them?” asked Zossimov.
“Koch has given the names of some of them, other
names are on the wrappers of the pledges and some
have come forward of themselves.”
“It must have been a cunning and practised ruf-
fian! The boldness of it! The coolness!”
“That’s just what it wasn’t!” interposed Razumihin.
“That’s what throws you all off the scent. But I main-
tain that he is not cunning, nor practised, and proba-
bly this was his first crime! The supposition that it was
a calculated crime and a cunning criminal doesn’t
work. Suppose him to have been inexperienced, and
it’s clear that it was only a chance that saved him —
and chance may do anything. Why, he did not foresee
obstacles, perhaps! And how did he set to work? He

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took jewels worth ten or twenty roubles, stuffing his

pockets with them, ransacked the old woman’s trunk,
her rags — and they found fifteen hundred roubles,
besides notes, in a box in the top drawer of the chest!
He did not know how to rob; he could only murder. It
was his first crime, I assure you, his first crime; he lost
his head. And he got off more by luck than good
counsel!”
“You are talking of the murder of the old pawn-
broker, I believe?” Pyotr Petrovitch put in, addressing
Zossimov. He was standing, hat and gloves in hand,
but before departing he felt disposed to throw off a
few more intellectual phrases. He was evidently anx-
ious to make a favourable impression and his vanity
overcame his prudence.
“Yes. You’ve heard of it?”
“Oh, yes, being in the neighbourhood.”
“Do you know the details?”
“I can’t say that; but another circumstance inter-
ests me in the case — the whole question, so to say.
Not to speak of the fact that crime has been greatly
on the increase among the lower classes during the
last five years, not to speak of the cases of robbery
and arson everywhere, what strikes me as the
strangest thing is that in the higher classes, too,
crime is increasing proportionately. In one place one
hears of a student’s robbing the mail on the high
road; in another place people of good social position
forge false banknotes; in Moscow of late a whole

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 fyodor dostoevsky

gang has been captured who used to forge lottery

tickets, and one of the ringleaders was a lecturer in
universal history; then our secretary abroad was mur-
dered from some obscure motive of gain . . . And if
this old woman, the pawnbroker, has been murdered
by some one of a higher class in society — for peas-
ants don’t pawn gold trinkets — how are we to
explain this demoralisation of the civilised part of
our society?”
“There are many economic changes,” put in
Zossimov.
“How are we to explain it?” Razumihin caught
him up. “It might be explained by our inveterate
impracticality.”
“How do you mean?”
“What answer had your lecturer in Moscow to
make to the question why he was forging notes?
‘Everybody is getting rich one way or another, so I
want to make haste to get rich too.’ I don’t remember
the exact words, but the upshot was that he wants
money for nothing, without waiting or working!
We’ve grown used to having everything ready-made,
to walking on crutches, to having our food chewed
for us. Then the great hour struck,1 and every man
showed himself in his true colours.”
“But morality? And so to speak, principles . . . ”

1
The emancipation of the serfs in 1861 is meant. — TRANSLA-
TOR’S NOTE.

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 crime and punishment

“But why do you worry about it?” Raskolnikov

interposed suddenly. “It’s in accordance with your
theory!”
“In accordance with my theory?”
“Why, carry out logically the theory you were advo-
cating just now, and it follows that people may be
killed . . . ”
“Upon my word!” cried Luzhin.
“No, that’s not so,” put in Zossimov.
Raskolnikov lay with a white face and twitching
upper lip, breathing painfully.
“There’s a measure in all things,” Luzhin went on
superciliously. “Economic ideas are not an incite-
ment to murder, and one has but to suppose . . .”
“And is it true,” Raskolnikov interposed once
more suddenly, again in a voice quivering with fury
and delight in insulting him, “is it true that you
told your fiancée . . . within an hour of her accept-
ance, that what pleased you most . . . was that she
was a beggar . . . because it was better to raise a wife
from poverty, so that you may have complete con-
trol over her, and reproach her with your being her
benefactor?”
“Upon my word,” Luzhin cried wrathfully and irri-
tably, crimson with confusion, “to distort my words in
this way! Excuse me, allow me to assure you that the
report which has reached you, or rather let me say,
has been conveyed to you, has no foundation in
truth, and I . . . suspect who . . . in a word . . . this arrow .

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 fyodor dostoevsky

. . in a word, your mamma . . . She seemed to me in

other things, with all her excellent qualities, of a
somewhat highflown and romantic way of thinking . .
. But I was a thousand miles from supposing that she
would misunderstand and misrepresent things in so
fanciful a way . . . And indeed . . . indeed . . . ”
“I tell you what,” cried Raskolnikov, raising himself
on his pillow and fixing his piercing, glittering eyes
upon him, “I tell you what.”
“What?” Luzhin stood still, waiting with a defiant
and offended face. Silence lasted for some seconds.
“Why, if ever again . . . you dare to mention a single
word . . . about my mother . . . I shall send you flying
downstairs!”
“What’s the matter with you?” cried Razumihin.
“So that’s how it is?” Luzhin turned pale and bit
his lip. “Let me tell you, sir,” he began deliberately,
doing his utmost to restrain himself but breathing
hard, “at the first moment I saw you you were ill-dis-
posed to me, but I remained here on purpose to find
out more. I could forgive a great deal in a sick man
and a connection, but you . . . never after this . . . ”
“I am not ill,” cried Raskolnikov.
“So much the worse . . . ”
“Go to hell!”
But Luzhin was already leaving without finishing
his speech, squeezing between the table and the
chair; Razumihin got up this time to let him pass.
Without glancing at any one, and not even nodding

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to Zossimov, who had for some time been making

signs to him to let the sick man alone, he went out,
lifting his hat to the level of his shoulder to avoid
crushing it as he stooped to go out of the door. And
even the curve of his spine was expressive of the hor-
rible insult he had received.
“How could you — how could you!” Razumihin
said, shaking his head in perplexity.
“Let me alone — let me alone all of you!”
Raskolnikov cried in a frenzy. “Will you ever leave off
tormenting me? I am not afraid of you! I am not
afraid of any one, any one now! Get away from me! I
want to be alone, alone, alone!”
“Come along,” said Zossimov, nodding to
Razumihin.
“But we can’t leave him like this!”
“Come along,” Zossimov repeated insistently, and
he went out. Razumihin thought a minute and ran to
overtake him.
“It might be worse not to obey him,” said Zossimov
on the stairs. “He mustn’t be irritated.”
“What’s the matter with him?”
“If only he could get some favourable shock, that’s
what would do it! At first he was better . . . You know
he has got something on his mind! Some fixed idea
weighing on him . . . I am very much afraid so; he must
have!”
“Perhaps it’s that gentleman, Pyotr Petrovitch.
From his conversation I gather he is going to marry

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 fyodor dostoevsky

his sister, and that he had received a letter about it

just before his illness . . . ”
“Yes, confound the man! he may have upset the
case altogether. But have you noticed, he takes no
interest in anything, he does not respond to anything
except one point on which he seems excited — that’s
the murder?”
“Yes, yes,” Razumihin agreed, “I noticed that, too.
He is interested, frightened. It gave him a shock on
the day he was ill in the police office; he fainted.”
“Tell me more about that this evening and I’ll tell
you something afterwards. He interests me very
much! In half an hour I’ll go and see him again . . .
There’ll be no inflammation though.”
“Thanks! And I’ll wait with Pashenka meantime
and will keep watch on him through Nastasya . . .”
Raskolnikov, left alone, looked with impatience
and misery at Nastasya, but she still lingered.
“Won’t you have some tea now?” she asked.
“Later! I am sleepy! Leave me.”
He turned abruptly to the wall; Nastasya went out

244
 chapter vi

But as soon as she went out, he got up, latched the

door, undid the parcel which Razumihin had
brought in that evening and had tied up again, and
began dressing. Strange to say, he seemed immedi-
ately to have become perfectly calm; not a trace of his
recent delirium nor of the panic fear that had
haunted him of late. It was the first moment of a
strange sudden calm. His movements were precise
and definite; a firm purpose was evident in them. “To-
day, to-day,” he muttered to himself. He understood
that he was still weak, but his intense spiritual con-
centration gave him strength and self-confidence. He
hoped, moreover, that he would not fall down in the
street. When he had dressed in entirely new clothes,
he looked at the money lying on the table, and after a
moment’s thought put it in his pocket. It was twenty-
five roubles. He took also all the copper change from
the ten roubles spent by Razumihin on the clothes.
Then he softly unlatched the door, went out, slipped

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 fyodor dostoevsky

downstairs and glanced in at the open kitchen door.

Nastasya was standing with her back to him, blowing
up the landlady’s samovar. She heard nothing. Who
would have dreamed of his going out, indeed? A
minute later he was in the street.
It was nearly eight o’clock, the sun was setting. It
was as stifling as before, but he eagerly drank in the
stinking, dusty town air. His head felt rather dizzy; a
sort of savage energy gleamed suddenly in his fever-
ish eyes and his wasted, pale and yellow face. He did
not know and did not think where he was going, he
had one thought only “that all this must be ended
to-day, once for all, immediately; that he would not
return home without it, because he would not go on
living like that.” How, with what to make an end? He
had not an idea about it, he did not even want to
think of it. He drove away thought; thought tor-
tured him. All he knew, all he felt was that every-
thing must be changed “one way or another,” he
repeated with desperate and immovable self-confi-
dence and determination.
From old habit he took his usual walk in the direc-
tion of the Hay Market. A dark-haired young man
with a barrel organ was standing in the road in front
of a little general shop and was grinding out a very
sentimental song. He was accompanying a girl of fif-
teen, who stood on the pavement in front of him. She
was dressed up in a crinoline, a mantle and a straw
hat with a flame-coloured feather in it, all very old

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 crime and punishment

and shabby. In a strong and rather agreeable voice,

cracked and coarsened by street singing, she sang in
hope of getting a copper from the shop. Raskolnikov
joined two or three listeners, took out a five copeck
piece and put it in the girl’s hand. She broke off
abruptly on a sentimental high note, shouted sharply
to the organ grinder “Come on,” and both moved on
to the next shop.
“Do you like street music?” said Raskolnikov,
addressing a middle-aged man standing idly by him.
The man looked at him, startled and wondering.
“I love to hear singing to a street organ,” said
Raskolnikov, and his manner seemed strangely out of
keeping with the subject — “I like it on cold, dark,
damp autumn evenings — they must be damp — when
all the passers-by have pale green, sickly faces, or bet-
ter still when wet snow is falling straight down, when
there’s no wind — you know what I mean? and the
street lamps shine through it . . . ”
“I don’t know . . . Excuse me . . . ” muttered the
stranger, frightened by the question and
Raskolnikov’s strange manner, and he crossed over to
the other side of the street.
Raskolnikov walked straight on and came out at
the corner of the Hay Market, where the huckster and
his wife had talked with Lizaveta; but they were not
there now. Recognising the place, he stopped, looked
round and addressed a young fellow in a red shirt who
stood gaping before a corn chandler’s shop.

247
 fyodor dostoevsky

“Isn’t there a man who keeps a booth with his wife

at this corner?”
“All sorts of people keep booths here,” answered
the young man, glancing superciliously at
Raskolnikov.
“What’s his name?”
“What he was christened.”
“Aren’t you a Zaraïsky man, too? Which province?”
The young man looked at Raskolnikov again.
“It’s not a province, your excellency, but a district.
Graciously forgive me, your excellency!”
“Is that a tavern at the top there?”
“Yes, it’s an eating-house and there’s a billiard-
room and you’ll find princesses there too . . . La-la!”
Raskolnikov crossed the square. In that corner
there was a dense crowd of peasants. He pushed his
way into the thickest part of it, looking at the faces.
He felt an unaccountable inclination to enter into
conversation with people. But the peasants took no
notice of him; they were all shouting in groups
together. He stood and thought a little and took a
turning to the right in the direction of V.
He had often crossed that little street which turns
at an angle, leading from the market-place to Sadovy
Street. Of late he had often felt drawn to wander
about this district, when he felt depressed, that he
might feel more so.
Now he walked along, thinking of nothing. At
that point there is a great block of buildings,

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entirely let out in dram shops and eating-houses;

women were continually running in and out, bare-
headed and in their indoor clothes. Here and there
they gathered in groups, on the pavement, espe-
cially about the entrances to various festive estab-
lishments in the lower storeys. From one of these a
loud din, sounds of singing, the tinkling of a guitar
and shouts of merriment, floated into the street. A
crowd of women were thronging round the door;
some were sitting on the steps, others on the pave-
ment, others were standing talking. A drunken sol-
dier, smoking a cigarette, was walking near them in
the road, swearing; he seemed to be trying to find
his way somewhere, but had forgotten where. One
beggar was quarrelling with another, and a man
dead drunk was lying right across the road.
Raskolnikov joined the throng of women, who were
talking in husky voices. They were bare-headed and
wore cotton dresses and goatskin shoes. There were
women of forty and some not more than seventeen;
almost all had blackened eyes.
He felt strangely attracted by the singing and all
the noise and uproar in the saloon below . . . Some
one could be heard within dancing frantically, mark-
ing time with his heels to the sounds of the guitar and
of a thin falsetto voice singing a jaunty air. He lis-
tened intently, gloomily and dreamily, bending down
at the entrance and peeping inquisitively in from the
pavement.

249
 fyodor dostoevsky

“Oh, my handsome soldier

Don’t beat me for nothing,”

trilled the thin voice of the singer. Raskolnikov felt a

great desire to make out what he was singing, as
though everything depended on that.
“Shall I go in?” he thought. “They are laughing.
From drink. Shall I get drunk?”
“Won’t you come in?” one of the women asked
him. Her voice was still musical and less thick than
the others, she was young and not repulsive — the
only one of the group.
“Why, she’s pretty,” he said, drawing himself up
and looking at her.
She smiled, much pleased at the compliment.
“You’re very nice looking yourself,” she said.
“Isn’t he thin though!” observed another woman
in a deep bass. “Have you just come out of a hospital?”
“They’re all generals’ daughters it seems, but they
have all snub noses,” interposed a tipsy peasant with a
sly smile on his face, wearing a loose coat. “See how
jolly they are.”
“Go along with you!”
“I’ll go, sweetie!”
And he darted down into the saloon below.
Raskolnikov moved on.
“I say, sir,” the girl shouted after him.
“What is it?”
She hesitated.

250
 crime and punishment

“I’ll always be pleased to spend an hour with you,

kind gentleman, but now I feel shy. Give me six
copecks for a drink, there’s a nice young man!”
Raskolnikov gave her what came first — fifteen
copecks.
“Ah, what a good-natured gentleman!”
“What’s your name?”
“Ask for Duclida.”
“Well, that’s too much,” one of the women
observed, shaking her head at Duclida. “I don’t know
how you can ask like that. I believe I should drop with
shame . . .”
Raskolnikov looked curiously at the speaker. She
was a pock-marked wench of thirty, covered with
bruises, with her upper lip swollen. She made her
criticism quietly and earnestly. “Where is it,”
thought Raskolnikov. “Where is it I’ve read that
some one condemned to death says or thinks, an
hour before his death, that if he had to live on some
high rock, on such a narrow ledge that he’d only
room to stand, and the ocean, everlasting darkness,
everlasting solitude, everlasting tempest around
him, if he had to remain standing on a square yard
of space all his life, a thousand years, eternity, it
were better to live so than to die at once! Only to
live, to live and live! Life, whatever it may be! . . .
How true it is! Good God, how true! Man is a vile
creature! . . . And vile is he who calls him vile for
that,” he added a moment later.

251
 fyodor dostoevsky

He went into another street. “Bah, the Palais de

Crystal! Razumihin was just talking of the Palais de
Crystal. But what on earth was it I wanted? Yes, the
newspapers . . . Zossimov said he’d read it in the
papers. Have you the papers?” he asked, going into a
very spacious and positively clean restaurant, consist-
ing of several rooms, which were however rather
empty. Two or three people were drinking tea, and in
a room further away were sitting four men drinking
champagne. Raskolnikov fancied that Zametov was
one of them, but he could not be sure at that dis-
tance. “What if it is!” he thought.
“Will you have vodka?” asked the waiter.
“Give me some tea and bring me the papers, the
old ones for the last five days and I’ll give you some-
thing.”
“Yes, sir, here’s to-day’s. No vodka?”
The old newspapers and the tea were brought.
Raskolnikov sat down and began to look through
them.
“Oh, damn . . . these are the items of intelligence.
An accident on a staircase, spontaneous combustion
of a shopkeeper from alcohol, a fire in Peski . . . a fire
in the Petersburg quarter . . . another fire in the
Petersburg quarter . . . and another fire in the
Petersburg quarter . . . Ah, here it is!” He found at last
what he was seeking and began to read it. The lines
danced before his eyes, but he read it all and began
eagerly seeking later additions in the following num-

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 crime and punishment

bers. His hands shook with nervous impatience as he

turned the sheets. Suddenly some one sat down
beside him at his table. He looked up, it was the head
clerk Zametov, looking just the same, with the rings
on his fingers and the watch-chain, with the curly,
black hair, parted and pomaded, with the smart waist-
coat, rather shabby coat and doubtful linen. He was
in a good humour, at least he was smiling very gaily
and good-humouredly. His dark face was rather
flushed from the champagne he had drunk.
“What, you here?” he began in surprise, speaking
as though he’d known him all his life. “Why,
Razumihin told me only yesterday you were uncon-
scious. How strange! And do you know I’ve been to
see you?”
Raskolnikov knew he would come up to him. He
laid aside the papers and turned to Zametov. There
was a smile on his lips, and a new shade of irritable
impatience was apparent in that smile.
“I know you have,” he answered. “I’ve heard it. You
looked for my sock . . . And you know Razumihin has
lost his heart to you? He says you’ve been with him to
Luise Ivanovna’s, you know the woman you tried to
befriend, for whom you winked to the Explosive
Lieutenant and he would not understand. Do you
remember? How could he fail to understand — it was
quite clear, wasn’t it?”
“What a hot head he is!”
“The explosive one?”

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“No, your friend Razumihin.”

“You must have a jolly life, Mr. Zametov; entrance
free to the most agreeable places. Who’s been pour-
ing champagne into you just now?”
“We’ve just been . . . having a drink together . . . You
talk about pouring it into me!”
“By way of a fee! You profit by everything!”
Raskolnikov laughed, “it’s all right, my dear boy,” he
added, slapping Zametov on the shoulder. “I am not
speaking from temper, but in a friendly way, for sport,
as that workman of yours said when he was scuffling
with Dmitri, in the case of the old woman . . .”
“How do you know about it?”
“Perhaps I know more about it than you do.”
“How strange you are . . . I am sure you are still very
unwell. You oughtn’t to have come out.”
“Oh, do I seem strange to you?”
“Yes. What are you doing, reading the papers?”
“Yes.”
“There’s a lot about the fires.”
“No, I am not reading about the fires.” Here he
looked mysteriously at Zametov; his lips were twisted
again in a mocking smile. “No, I am not reading
about the fires,” he went on, winking at Zametov.
“But confess now, my dear fellow, you’re awfully anx-
ious to know what I am reading about?”
“I am not in the least. Mayn’t I ask a question? Why
do you keep on . . . ?”
“Listen, you are a man of culture and education?”

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 crime and punishment

“I was in the sixth class at the gymnasium,” said

Zametov with some dignity.
“Sixth class! Ah, my cocksparrow! With your part-
ing and your ringsyou are a gentleman of fortune.
Foo, what a charming boy!” Here Raskolnikov broke
into a nervous laugh right in Zametov’s face. The lat-
ter drew back, more amazed than offended.
“Foo, how strange you are!” Zametov repeated
very seriously. “I can’t help thinking you are still
delirious.”
“I am delirious? You are fibbing, my cocksparrow!
So I am strange? You find me curious, do you?”
“Yes, curious.”
“Shall I tell you what I was reading about, what I
was looking for? See what a lot of papers I’ve made
them bring me. Suspicious, eh?”
“Well, what is it?”
“You prick up your ears?”
“How do you mean-prick up my ears?”
“I’ll explain that afterwards, but now, my boy, I
declare to you . . . no, better ‘I confess’ . . . No, that’s
not right either; ‘I make a deposition and you take it.’
I depose that I was reading, that I was looking and
searching . . . he screwed up his eyes and paused. “I
was searching — and came here on purpose to do it —
for news of the murder of the old pawnbroker
woman,” he articulated at last, almost in a whisper,
bringing his face exceedingly close to the face of
Zametov. Zametov looked at him steadily, without

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 fyodor dostoevsky

moving or drawing his face away. What struck

Zametov afterwards as the strangest part of it all was
that silence followed for exactly a minute, and that
they gazed at one another all the while.
“What if you have been reading about it?” he cried
at last, perplexed and impatient. “That’s no business
of mine! What of it?”
“The same old woman,” Raskolnikov went on in
the same whisper, not heeding Zametov’s explana-
tion, “about whom you were talking in the police
office, you remember, when I fainted. Well, do you
understand now?”
“What do you mean? Understand . . . what?”
Zametov brought out, almost alarmed.
Raskolnikov’s set and earnest face was suddenly
transformed, and he suddenly went off into the same
nervous laugh as before, as though utterly unable to
restrain himself. And in one flash he recalled with
extraordinary vividness of sensation a moment in the
recent past, that moment when he stood with the axe
behind the door, while the latch trembled and the
men outside swore and shook it, and he had a sudden
desire to shout at them, to swear at them, to put out
his tongue, to mock them, to laugh, and laugh, and
laugh!
“You are either mad, or . . .” began Zametov, and
he broke off, as though stunned by the idea that had
suddenly flashed into his mind.
“Or? Or what? What? Come, tell me!”

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“Nothing,” said Zametov, getting angry, “it’s all

nonsense!”
Both were silent. After his sudden fit of laughter
Raskolnikov became suddenly thoughtful and melan-
choly. He put his elbow on the table and leaned his
head on his hand. He seemed to have completely for-
gotten Zametov. The silence lasted for some time.
“Why don’t you drink your tea? It’s getting cold,”
said Zametov.
“What! Tea? Oh, yes . . . ” Raskolnikov sipped the
glass, put a morsel of bread in his mouth and, sud-
denly looking at Zametov, seemed to remember
everything and pulled himself together. At the same
moment his face resumed its original mocking
expression. He went on drinking tea.
“There have been a great many of these crimes
lately,” said Zametov. “Only the other day I read in
the Moscow News that a whole gang of false coiners
had been caught in Moscow. It was a regular society.
They used to forge tickets!”
“Oh, but it was a long time ago! I read about it a
month ago,” Raskolnikov answered calmly. “So you
consider them criminals?” he added smiling.
“Of course they are criminals.”
“They? They are children, simpletons, not crimi-
nals! Why, half a hundred people meeting for such an
object — what an idea! Three would be too many, and
then they want to have more faith in one other than
in themselves! One has only to blab in his cups and it

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 fyodor dostoevsky

all collapses. Simpletons! They engaged untrustwor-

thy people to change the notes — what a thing to trust
to a casual stranger! Well, let us suppose that these
simpletons succeed and each makes a million, and
what follows for the rest of their lives? Each is
dependent on the others for the rest of his life! Better
hang oneself at once! And they did not know how to
change the notes either; the man who changed the
notes took five thousand roubles, and his hands trem-
bled. He counted the first four thousand, but did not
count the fifth thousand — he was in such a hurry to
get the money into his pocket and run away. Of
course he roused suspicion. And the whole thing
came to a crash through one fool! Is it possible?”
“That his hands trembled?” observed Zametov,
“yes, that’s quite possible. That I feel quite sure is pos-
sible. Sometimes one can’t stand things.”
“Can’t stand that?”
“Why, could you stand it then? No, I couldn’t. For
the sake of a hundred roubles to face such a terrible
experience! To go with false notes into a bank where
it’s their business to spot that sort of thing! No, I
should not have the face to do it. Would you?”
Raskolnikov had an intense desire again “to put
his tongue out.” Shivers kept running down his spine.
“I should do it quite differently,” Raskolnikov
began. “This is how I would change the notes: I’d
count the first thousand three or four times back-
wards and forwards, look at every note and then I’d

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set to the second thousand; I’d count that half way

through and then hold some fifty rouble note to the
light, then turn it, then hold it to the light again — to
see whether it was a good one. ‘I am afraid,’ I would
say. ‘A relation of mine lost twenty-five roubles the
other day through a false note,’ and then I’d tell them
the whole story. And after I began counting the third,
‘no, excuse me,’ I would say, ‘I fancy I made a mistake
in the seventh hundred in that second thousand, I am
not sure.’ And so I would give up the third thousand
and go back to the second and so on to the end. And
when I had finished, I’d pick out one from the fifth
and one from the second thousand and take them
again to the light and ask again ‘change them, please,’
and put the clerk into such a stew that he would not
know how to get rid of me. When I’d finished and had
gone out, I’d come back, ‘No, excuse me,’ and ask for
some explanation. That’s how I’d do it.”
“Foo, what terrible things you say!” said Zametov,
laughing. “But all that is only talk. I dare say when it
came to deeds you’d make a slip. I believe that even a
practised, desperate man cannot always reckon on
himself, much less you and I. To take an example
near home — that old woman murdered in our dis-
trict. The murderer seems to have been a desperate
fellow, he risked everything in open daylight, was
saved by a miracle — but his hands shook, too. He did
not succeed in robbing the place, he couldn’t stand
it. That was clear from the . . . ”

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 fyodor dostoevsky

Raskolnikov seemed offended.

“Clear? Why don’t you catch him then?” he cried,
maliciously gibing at Zametov.
“Well, they will catch him.”
“Who? You? Do you suppose you could catch him?
You’ve a tough job! A great point for you is whether a
man is spending money or not. If he had no money
and suddenly begins spending, he must be the man.
So that any child can mislead you.”
“The fact is they always do that, though,” answered
Zametov. “A man will commit a clever murder at the
risk of his life and then at once he goes drinking in a
tavern. They are caught spending money, they are
not all as cunning as you are. You wouldn’t go to a tav-
ern, of course?”
Raskolnikov frowned and looked steadily at
Zametov.
“You seem to enjoy the subject and would like to
know how I should behave in that case, too?” he
asked with displeasure.
“I should like to,” Zametov answered firmly and
seriously. Somewhat too much earnestness began to
appear in his words and looks.
“Very much?”
“Very much!”
“All right then. This is how I should behave,”
Raskolnikov began, again bringing his face close to
Zametov’s, again staring at him and speaking in a
whisper, so that the latter positively shuddered. “This

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is what I should have done. I should have taken the

money and jewels, I should have walked out of there
and have gone straight to some deserted place with
fences round it and scarcely any one to be seen,
some kitchen garden or place of that sort. I should
have looked out beforehand some stone weighing a
hundredweight or more which had been lying in the
corner from the time the house was built. I would lift
that stone — there would be sure to be a hollow
under it, and I would put the jewels and money in
that hole. Then I’d roll the stone back so that it
would look as before, would press it down with my
foot and walk away. And for a year or two, three
maybe, I would not touch it. And, well, they could
search! There’d be no trace.”
“You are a madman,” said Zametov, and for some
reason he too spoke in a whisper, and moved away
from Raskolnikov, whose eyes were glittering. He had
turned fearfully pale and his upper lip was twitching
and quivering. He bent down as close as possible to
Zametov, and his lips began to move without uttering
a word. This lasted for half a minute; he knew what
he was doing, but could not restrain himself. The ter-
rible word trembled on his lips, like the latch on that
door; in another moment it will break out, in another
moment he will let it go, he will speak out.
“And what if it was I who murdered the old woman
and Lizaveta?” he said suddenly and — realised what
he had done.

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 fyodor dostoevsky

Zametov looked wildly at him and turned white as

the tablecloth. His face wore a contorted smile.
“But is it possible?” he brought out faintly.
Raskolnikov looked wrathfully at him.
“Own up that you believed it, yes, you did?”
“Not a bit of it, I believe it less than ever now,”
Zametov cried hastily.
“I’ve caught my cocksparrow! So you did believe it
before, if now you believe it less than ever?”
“Not at all,” cried Zametov, obviously embarrassed.
“Have you been frightening me so as to lead up to
this?”
“You don’t believe it then? What were you talking
about behind my back when I went out of the police
office? And why did the explosive lieutenant question
me after I fainted? Hey, there,” he shouted to the
waiter, getting up and taking his cap, “how much?”
“Thirty copecks,” the latter replied, running up.
“And here is twenty copecks for vodka. See what a
lot of money!” he held out his shaking hand to
Zametov with notes in it. “Red notes and blue, twenty-
five roubles. Where did I get them? And where did
my new clothes come from? You know I had not a
copeck. You’ve cross-examined my landlady, I’ll be
bound . . . Well, that enough! Assez causé! Till we meet
again!”
He went out, trembling all over from a sort of wild
hysterical sensation, in which there was an element of
insufferable rapture. Yet he was gloomy and terribly

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tired. His face was twisted as after a fit. His fatigue

increased rapidly. Any shock, any irritating sensation
stimulated and revived his energies at once, but his
strength failed as quickly when the stimulus was
removed.
Zametov, left alone, sat for a long time in the
same place, plunged in thought. Raskolnikov had
unwittingly worked a revolution in his brain on a
certain point and had made up his mind for him
conclusively.
“Ilya Petrovitch is a blockhead,” he decided.
Raskolnikov had hardly opened the door of the
restaurant when he stumbled against Razumihin on the
steps. They did not see each other till they almost
knocked against each other. For a moment they stood
looking each other up and down. Razumihin was greatly
astounded, then anger gleamed fiercely in his eyes.
“So here you are!” he shouted at the top of his
voice — “you ran away from your bed! And here I’ve
been looking for you under the sofa! We went up to
the garret. I almost beat Nastasya on your account.
And here he is after all. Rodya! What is the meaning
of it? Tell me the whole truth! Confess! Do you hear?”
“It means that I’m sick to death of you all and I
want to be alone,” Raskolnikov answered calmly.
“Alone? When you are not able to walk, when your
face is as white as a sheet and you are gasping for
breath! Idiot! . . . What have you been doing in the
Palais de Crystal? Own up at once!”

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“Let me go!” said Raskolnikov and tried to pass

him. This was too much for Razumihin; he gripped
him firmly by the shoulder.
“Let you go? You dare tell me to let you go? Do you
know what I’ll do with you directly? I’ll pick you up,
tie you up in a bundle, carry you home under my arm
and lock you up!”
“Listen, Razumihin,” Raskolnikov began quietly,
apparently calm — “can’t you see that I don’t want
your benevolence? A strange desire you have to
shower benefits on a man who . . . curses them, who
feels them a burden in fact! Why did you seek me out
at the beginning of my illness? Maybe I was very glad
to die. Didn’t I tell you plainly enough to-day that you
were torturing me, that I was . . . sick of you! You seem
to want to torture people! I assure you that all that is
seriously hindering my recovery, because it’s continu-
ally irritating me. You saw Zossimov went away just
now to avoid irritating me. You leave me alone too,
for goodness’ sake! What right have you, indeed, to
keep me by force? Don’t you see that I am in posses-
sion of all my faculties now? How, how can I persuade
you not to persecute me with your kindness? I may be
ungrateful, I may be mean, only let me be, for God’s
sake, let me be! Let me be, let me be!”
He began calmly, gloating beforehand over the
venomous phrases he was about to utter, but finished,
panting for breath, in a frenzy, as he had been with
Luzhin.

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Razumihin stood a moment, thought and let his

hand drop.
“Well, go to hell then,” he said gently and thought-
fully. “Stay,” he roared, as Raskolnikov was about to
move. “Listen to me. Let me tell you, that you are all
a set of babbling, posing idiots! If you’ve any little
trouble you brood over it like a hen over an egg. And
you are plagiarists even in that! There isn’t a sign of
independent life in you! You are made of spermaceti
ointment and you’ve lymph in your veins instead of
blood. I don’t believe in any one of you! In any cir-
cumstances the first thing for all of you is to be unlike
a human being! Stop!” he cried with redoubled fury,
noticing that Raskolnikov was again making a move-
ment — “hear me out! You know I’m having a house-
warming this evening, I dare say they’ve arrived by
now, but I left my uncle there — I just ran in — to
receive the guests. And if you weren’t a fool, a com-
mon fool, a perfect fool, if you were an original
instead of a translation . . . you see, Rodya, I recognise
you’re a clever fellow, but you’re a fool! — and if you
weren’t a fool you’d come round to me this evening
instead of wearing out your boots in the street! Since
you have gone out, there’s no help for it! I’d give you
a snug easy chair, my landlady has one . . . a cup of tea,
company . . . Or you could lie on the sofa — any way
you would be with us . . . Zossimov will be there too.
Will you come?”
“No.”

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“R-rubbish!” Razumihin shouted, out of patience.

“How do you know? You can’t answer for yourself!
You don’t know anything about it . . . Thousands of
times I’ve fought tooth and nail with people and run
back to them afterwards . . . One feels ashamed and
goes back to a man! So remember, Potchinkov’s
house on the third storey . . .”
“Why, Mr. Razumihin, I do believe you’d let any-
body beat you from sheer benevolence.”
“Beat? Whom? Me? I’d twist his nose off at the mere
idea! Potchinkov’s house, 47, Babushkin’s flat . . .”
“I shall not come, Razumihin.” Raskolnikov
turned and walked away.
“I bet you will,” Razumihin shouted after him. “I
refuse to know you if you don’t! Stay, hey, is Zametov
in there?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see him?”
“Yes.”
“Talked to him?”
“Yes.”
“What about? Confound you, don’t tell me then.
Potchinkov’s house, 47, Babushkin’s flat, remember!”
Raskolnikov walked on and turned the corner into
Sadovy Street. Razumihin looked after him thought-
fully. Then with a wave of his hand he went into the
house but stopped short of the stairs.
“Confound it,” he went on almost aloud. “He
talked sensibly but yet . . . I am a fool! As if madmen

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didn’t talk sensibly! And this was just what Zossimov

seemed afraid of.” He struck his finger on his fore-
head. “What if . . . how could I let him go off alone?
He may drown himself . . . Ach, what a blunder! I
can’t.” And he ran back to overtake Raskolnikov, but
there was no trace of him. With a curse he returned
with rapid steps to the Palais de Crystal to question
Zametov.
Raskolnikov walked straight to X — Bridge, stood
in the middle, and leaning both elbows on the rail
stared into the distance. On parting with Razumihin,
he felt so much weaker that he could scarcely reach
this place. He longed to sit or lie down somewhere in
the street. Bending over the water, he gazed mechan-
ically at the last pink flush of the sunset, at the row of
houses growing dark in the gathering twilight, at one
distant attic window on the left bank, flashing as
though on fire in the last rays of the setting sun, at
the darkening water of the canal, and the water
seemed to catch his attention. At last red circles
flashed before his eyes, the houses seemed moving,
the passers-by, the canal banks, the carriages, all
danced before his eyes. Suddenly he started, saved
again perhaps from swooning by an uncanny and
hideous sight. He became aware of some one stand-
ing on the right side of him; he looked and saw a tall
woman with a kerchief on her head, with a long, yel-
low, wasted face and red sunken eyes. She was looking
straight at him, but obviously she saw nothing and

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recognised no one. Suddenly she leaned her right

hand on the parapet, lifted her right leg over the rail-
ing, then her left and threw herself into the canal.
The filthy water parted and swallowed up its victim
for a moment, but an instant later the drowning
woman floated to the surface, moving slowly with the
current, her head and legs in the water, her skirt
inflated like a balloon over her back.
“A woman drowning! A woman drowning!”
shouted dozens of voices; people ran up, both banks
were thronged with spectators, on the bridge people
crowded about Raskolnikov, pressing up behind him.
“Mercy on it! it’s our Afrosinya!” a woman cried
tearfully close by. “Mercy! save her! kind people, pull
her out!”
“A boat, a boat!” was shouted in the crowd. But
there was no need of a boat; a policeman ran down the
steps to the canal, threw off his great coat and his boots
and rushed into the water. It was easy to reach her: she
floated within a couple of yards from the steps, he
caught hold of her clothes with his right hand and with
his left seized a pole which a comrade held out to him;
the drowning woman was pulled out at once. They laid
her on the granite pavement of the embankment. She
soon recovered consciousness, raised her head, sat up
and began sneezing and coughing, stupidly wiping her
wet dress with her hands. She said nothing.
“She’s drunk herself out of her senses,” the same
woman’s voice wailed at her side. “Out of her senses.

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The other day she tried to hang herself, we cut her

down. I ran out to the shop just now, left my little girl
to look after her — and here she’s in trouble again! A
neighbour, gentleman, a neighbour, we live close by,
the second house from the end, see yonder . . .”
The crowd broke up. The police still remained
round the woman, some one mentioned the police
station . . . Raskolnikov looked on with a strange sensa-
tion of indifference and apathy. He felt disgusted. “No,
that’s loathsome . . . water . . . it’s not good enough,” he
muttered to himself. “Nothing will come of it,” he
added, “no use to wait. What about the police office. . . ?
And why isn’t Zametov at the police office? The police
office is open till ten o’clock . . .” He turned his back to
the railing and looked about him.
“Very well then!” he said resolutely; he moved
from the bridge and walked in the direction of the
police office. His heart felt hollow and empty. He did
not want to think. Even his depression had passed,
there was not a trace now of the energy with which he
had set out “to make an end of it all.” Complete apa-
thy had succeeded to it.
“Well, it’s a way out of it,” he thought, walking
slowly and listlessly along the canal bank. “Anyway I’ll
make an end, for I want to . . . But is it a way out? What
does it matter! There’ll be the square yard of space —
ha! But what an end! Is it really the end? Shall I tell
them or not? Ah . . . damn! How tired I am! If I could
find somewhere to sit or lie down soon! What I am

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 fyodor dostoevsky

most ashamed of is its being so stupid. But I don’t

care about that either! What idiotic ideas come into
one’s head.”
To reach the police office he had to go straight
forward and take the second turning to the left. It was
only a few paces away. But at the first turning he
stopped and, after a minute’s thought, turned into a
side street and went two streets out of his way, possibly
without any object, or possibly to delay a minute and
gain time. He walked, looking at the ground; sud-
denly some one seemed to whisper in his ear; he
lifted his head and saw that he was standing at the
very gate of the house. He had not passed it, he had
not been near it since that evening. An overwhelm-
ing, unaccountable prompting drew him on. He went
into the house, passed through the gateway, then into
the first entrance on the right, and began mounting
the familiar staircase to the fourth storey. The narrow,
steep staircase was very dark. He stopped at each
landing and looked round him with curiosity; on the
first landing the framework of the window had been
taken out. “That wasn’t so then,” he thought. Here
was the flat on the second storey where Nikolay and
Dmitri had been working. “It’s shut up and the door
newly painted. So it’s to let.” Then the third storey
and the fourth. “Here!” He was perplexed to find the
door of the flat wide open. There were men there, he
could hear voices; he had not expected that. After
brief hesitation he mounted the last stairs and went

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into the flat. It, too, was being done up; there were
workmen in it. This seemed to amaze him; he some-
how fancied that he would find everything as he left
it, even perhaps the corpses in the same places on the
floor. And now, bare walls, no furniture; it seemed
strange. He walked to the window and sat down on
the window sill. There were two workmen, both
young fellows, but one much younger than the other.
They were papering the walls with a new white paper
covered with lilac flowers, instead of the old, dirty, yel-
low one. Raskolnikov for some reason felt horribly
annoyed by this. He looked at the new paper with dis-
like, as though he felt sorry to have it all so changed.
The workmen had obviously stayed beyond their time
and now they were hurriedly rolling up their paper
and getting ready to go home. They took no notice of
Raskolnikov’s coming in; they were talking.
Raskolnikov folded his arms and listened.
“She comes to me in the morning,” said the elder to
the younger, “very early, all dressed up. ‘Why are you
preening and prinking?’ says I. ‘I am ready to do any-
thing to please you, Tit Vassilitch!’ That’s a way of going
on! And she dressed up like a regular fashion book!”
“And what is a fashion book?” the younger one
asked. He obviously regarded the other as an authority.
“A fashion book is a lot of pictures, coloured, and
they come to the tailors here every Saturday, by post
from abroad, to show folks how to dress, the male sex
as well as the female. They’re pictures. The gentle-

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men are generally wearing fur coats and as for the

ladies’ fluffles, they’re beyond anything you can
fancy.”
“There’s nothing you can’t find in Petersburg,”
the younger cried enthusiastically, “except father and
mother, there’s everything!”
“Except them, there’s everything to be found, my
boy,” the elder declared sententiously.
Raskolnikov got up and walked into the other
room where the strong box, the bed, and the chest of
drawers had been; the room seemed to him very tiny
without furniture in it. The paper was the same; the
paper in the corner showed where the case of ikons
had stood. He looked at it and went to the window.
The elder workman looked at him askance.
“What do you want?” he asked suddenly.
Instead of answering Raskolnikov went into the
passage and pulled the bell. The same bell, the
same cracked note. He rang it a second and a third
time; he listened and remembered. The hideous
and agonisingly fearful sensation he had felt then
began to come back more and more vividly. He
shuddered at every ring and it gave him more and
more satisfaction.
“Well, what do you want? Who are you?” the work-
man shouted, going out to him. Raskolnikov went
inside again.
“I want to take a flat,” he said. “I am looking
round.”

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 crime and punishment

“It’s not the time to look at rooms at night; and

you ought to come up with the porter.”
“The floors have been washed, will they be
painted?” Raskolnikov went on. “Is there no blood?”
“What blood?”
“Why, the old woman and her sister were mur-
dered here. There was a perfect pool there.”
“But who are you?” the workman cried, uneasy.
“Who am I?”
“Yes.”
“You want to know? Come to the police station, I’ll
tell you.”
The workmen looked at him in amazement.
“It’s time for us to go, we are late. Come along,
Alyoshka. We must lock up,” said the elder workman.
“Very well, come along,” said Raskolnikov indiffer-
ently, and going out first, he went slowly downstairs.
“Hey, porter,” he cried in the gateway.
At the entrance several people were standing, star-
ing at the passers-by; the two porters, a peasant
woman, a man in a long coat and a few others.
Raskolnikov went straight up to them.
“What do you want?” asked one of the porters.
“Have you been to the police office?”
“I’ve just been there. What do you want?”
“Is it open?”
“Of course.”
“Is the assistant there?”
“He was there for a time. What do you want?”

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 fyodor dostoevsky

Raskolnikov made no reply, but stood beside them

lost in thought.
“He’s been to look at the flat,” said the elder work-
man, coming forward.
“Which flat?”
“Where we are at work. ‘Why have you washed
away the blood?’ says he. ‘There has been a murder
here,’ says he, ‘and I’ve come to take it.’ And he
began ringing at the bell, all but broke it. ‘Come to
the police station,’ says he. ‘I’ll tell you everything
there.’ He wouldn’t leave us.”
The porter looked at Raskolnikov, frowning and
perplexed.
“Who are you?” he shouted as impressively as he
could.
“I am Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov, formerly
a student, I live in Shil’s house, not far from here, flat
Number 14, ask the porter, he knows me.”
Raskolnikov said all this in a lazy, dreamy voice, not
turning round, but looking intently into the darken-
ing street.
“Why have you been to the flat?”
“To look at it.”
“What is there to look at?”
“Take him straight to the police station,” the man
in the long coat jerked in abruptly.
Raskolnikov looked intently at him over his shoul-
der and said in the same slow, lazy tone:
“Come along.”

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 crime and punishment

“Yes, take him,” the man went on more confi-

dently. “Why was he going into that, what’s in his
mind, eh?”
“He’s not drunk, but God knows what’s the matter
with him,” muttered the workman.
“But what do you want?” the porter shouted again,
beginning to get angry in earnest — “Why are you
hanging about?”
“You funk the police station then?” said
Raskolnikov jeeringly.
“How funk it? Why are you hanging about?”
“He’s a rogue!” shouted the peasant woman.
“Why waste time talking to him?” cried the other
porter, a huge peasant in a full open coat and with
keys on his belt. “Get along! He is a rogue and no mis-
take. Get along!”
And seizing Raskolnikov by the shoulder he flung
him into the street. He lurched forward, but recov-
ered his footing, looked at the spectators in silence
and walked away.
“Strange man!” observed the workman.
“There are strange folks about nowadays,” said the
woman.
“You should have taken him to the police station
all the same,” said the man in the long coat.
“Better have nothing to do with him,” decided the
big porter. “A regular rogue! Just what he wants, you
may be sure, but once take him up, you won’t get rid
of him . . . We know the sort!”

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“Shall I go there or not?” thought Raskolnikov,

standing in the middle of the thoroughfare at the
cross roads, and he looked about him, as though
expecting from some one a decisive word. But no
sound came, all was dead and silent like the stones on
which he walked, dead to him, to him alone . . . All at
once at the end of the street, two hundred yards away,
in the gathering dusk he saw a crowd and heard talk
and shouts. In the middle of the crowd stood a car-
riage . . . A light gleamed in the middle of the street.
“What is it?” Raskolnikov turned to the right and
went up to the crowd. He seemed to clutch at every-
thing and smiled coldly when he recognised it, for he
had fully made up his mind to go to the police station
and knew that it would all soon be over.

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 chapter vii

An elegant carriage stood in the middle of the road

with a pair of spirited grey horses; there was no one in
it, and the coachman had got off his box and stood
by; the horses were being held by the bridle . . . A mass
of people had gathered round, the police standing in
front. One of them held a lighted lantern which he
was turning on something lying close to the wheels.
Every one was talking, shouting, exclaiming; the
coachman seemed at a loss and kept repeating:
“What a misfortune! Good Lord, what a misfor-
tune!”
Raskolnikov pushed his way in as far as he could,
and succeeded at last in seeing the object of the com-
motion and interest. On the ground a man who had
been run over lay apparently unconscious, and cov-
ered with blood; he was very badly dressed, but not
like a workman. Blood was flowing from his head and
face; his face was crushed, mutilated and disfigured.
He was evidently badly injured.

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“Merciful heaven!” wailed the coachman, “what

more could I do? If I’d been driving fast or had not
shouted to him, but I was going quietly, not in a
hurry. Every one could see I was going along just
like everybody else. A drunken man can’t walk
straight, we all know . . . I saw him crossing the street,
staggering and almost falling. I shouted again and a
second and a third time, then I held the horses in,
but he fell straight under their feet! Either he did it
on purpose or he was very tipsy . . . The horses are
young and ready to take fright . . . they started, he
screamed . . . that made them worse. That’s how it
happened!”
“That’s just how it was,” a voice in the crowd
confirmed.
“He shouted, that’s true, he shouted three times,”
another voice declared.
“Three times it was, we all heard it,” shouted a
third.
But the coachman was not very much distressed
and frightened. It was evident that the carriage
belonged to a rich and important person who was
awaiting it somewhere; the police, of course, were in
no little anxiety to avoid upsetting his arrangements.
All they had to do was to take the injured man to the
police station and the hospital. No one knew his
name.
Meanwhile Raskolnikov had squeezed in and
stooped closer over him. The lantern suddenly

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lighted up the unfortunate man’s face. He recog-

nised him.
“I know him! I know him!” he shouted, pushing to
the front. “It’s a government clerk retired from the
service, Marmeladov. He lives close by in Kozel’s
house . . . Make haste for a doctor! I will pay, see.” He
pulled money out of his pocket and showed it to the
policeman. He was in violent agitation.
The police were glad that they had found out who
the man was. Raskolnikov gave his own name and
address, and, as earnestly as if it had been his father,
he besought the police to carry the unconscious
Marmeladov to his lodging at once.
“Just here, three houses away,” he said eagerly,
“the house belongs to Kozel, a rich German. He was
going home, no doubt drunk. I know him, he is a
drunkard. He has a family there, a wife, children, he
has one daughter . . . It will take time to take him to
the hospital, and there is sure to be a doctor in the
house. I’ll pay, I’ll pay! At least he will be looked after
at home . . . they will help him at once. But he’ll die
before you get him to the hospital.” He managed to
slip something unseen into the policeman’s hand.
But the thing was straightforward and legitimate, and
in any case help was closer here. They raised the
injured man; people volunteered to help.
Kozel’s house was thirty yards away. Raskolnikov
walked behind, carefully holding Marmeladov’s head
and showing the way.

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“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 sister, sitting perfectly still with pouting lips and
wide-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

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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 every one 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 mar-
shal’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 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 kam-
merjunker, 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

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me the shirt, and the stockings! Lida,” said she to the

youngest one, “you must manage without your che-
mise 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.
“On the sofa! Put him straight on the sofa, with his
head this way,” Raskolnikov showed him.
“Run over in the road! Drunk!” some one shouted
in the passage.
Katerina Ivanovna stood, turning white and gasp-
ing 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 to bring him here . . . I’ve

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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 her-
self, biting her trembling lips and stifling the screams
which were ready to break from her.
Raskolnikov meanwhile induced some one 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,

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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 find-
ing a towel, wetted it and begun washing the blood
off Marmeladov’s face.
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 for-
ward 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

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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 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 liv-
ing man is exempt, even in spite of the sincerest sym-
pathy 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 partic-
ularly 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 to-morrow. The
prince knew me as a girl; he remembers Semyon
Zaharovitch well and has often been a benefactor to
him. Every one 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 generous young man has come to our
assistance, who has wealth and connections and

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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 com-
ers 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:
“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.

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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 sighed 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 unbut-
toned the blood-stained shirt, and bared the injured
man’s chest. It was 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 conscious-
ness,” the doctor whispered softly to Raskolnikov.

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“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 sacra-
ment. A policeman had gone for him at the time of
the accident. The doctor changed places with him,
exchanging glances 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 espe-
cial satisfaction. Katerina Ivanovna bit her lips and

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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 stair-
case grew denser and denser, but they did not ven-
ture 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 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 for-
got 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

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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 eight-
een 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 whis-
pers, 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.
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 consola-
tion 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 suc-
cour,” 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 com-
pensate me? Why, he was drunk and threw himself

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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!”
“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 for-
given 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

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bending over him again. He kept trying to say some-

thing to her; he began moving his tongue with diffi-
culty 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 good-bye 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 bal-
ance, he fell off the sofa, face downwards on the
floor. They rushed to pick him up, they put him on
the sofa; but he was dying. Sonia with a faint cry ran

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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 to-morrow to eat?”
Raskolnikov went up to Katerina Ivanovna.
“Katerina Ivanovna,” he began, “last week your hus-
band 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 weak-
ness, 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 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.

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Don’t worry the poor woman too much, she is in con-

sumption 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 behind him.
Some one overtook him; it was Polenka. She was run-
ning 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 dis-
tinguish the child’s thin but pretty little face, look-
ing at him with a bright childish smile. She had run
after him with a message which she was evidently
glad to give.

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“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 any one,” Polenka answered
with a peculiar earnestness, and her smile became
graver.
“And will you love me?”
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?”

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“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 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.

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“Enough,” he pronounced resolutely and tri-

umphantly. “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 rea-
son and light . . . and of will, and of strength . . . and now
we will see! We will try our strength!” he added defi-
antly, as though challenging some 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 with-
out 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 self-confidence grew con-
tinually 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 him-
self; 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 conclu-
sion, but he did not think of that.

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“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.
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 gather-
ing of people. The door was wide open on the stairs;
he could hear exclamations and discussion.
Razumihin’s room was fairly large; the company con-
sisted 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 land-
lady’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 to-morrow.”
“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 in
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 pow-
der was taken at once.
“It’s a good thing you are taking him home,”
observed Zossimov to Razumihin — “we shall see
how he is to-morrow, to-day he’s not at all amiss: a
considerable change since the afternoon. Live and
learn . . . ”

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“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 sec-
ond, 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 men-
tal diseases, and what’s brought him to this conclu-
sion 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 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 sub-
ject; it was at Luise Ivanovna’s. But to-day, to-day it’s

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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 feel-
ings at times, brother. But the lesson, the lesson you
gave him to-day in the Palais de Crystal, 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 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 sub-
ject seemed to interest you; now it’s clear why it did

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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 some one who, if I had
killed any one, would just the same . . . in fact I saw
some one 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 . . .”
“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!”

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“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. “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, dumb-
founded.
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 still 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

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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 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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 chapter i

Raskolnikov got up, and sat down on the sofa. He

waved his hand weakly at 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 some-
thing 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; to-
morrow 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 . . . ”

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“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 pre-
siding there.”
“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 irrita-
bly, “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 dis-
tressing him, that’s evident.”
“Mayn’t I look at him after three years?” wept
Pulcheria Alexandrovna.
“Stay,” he stopped them again, “you keep inter-
rupting 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.

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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 succeeded in understanding and report-
ing 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
to-morrow 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! Tomorrow all this nonsense will be
over . . . to-day he certainly did drive him away. That
was so. And Luzhin got angry, too . . . He made
speeches here, wanted to show off his learning and
he went out crest-fallen . . . ”

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“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, mak-
ing a last effort, “I am not delirious; this marriage is —
an infamy. Let me act like a scoundrel, but you must-
n’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 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

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at once and slipped off. And he will slip off again if

you irritate him, at this time of night, and will do him-
self 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, “I’ll 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 bring-
ing 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 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, seiz-
ing 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 vice. He stared at Avdotya

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Romanovna without the least regard for good man-

ners. 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 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 non-
sense!” he cried. “If you stay, though you are his
mother, you’ll drive him to a frenzy, and then good-
ness knows what will happen! Listen, I’ll tell you what
I’ll do: Nastasya will stay with him now, and I’ll con-

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duct 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, 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 doc-
tor? 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

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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 still made her uneasy, and though he was compe-
tent 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 any one,
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

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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.
“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 indi-
vidualism 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

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error you come to the truth! I am a man because I

err! You never reach any truth without making four-
teen mistakes and very likely a hundred and four-
teen. And a fine thing, too, in its way; but we can’t
even make mistakes on our own account! Talk non-
sense, 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 some one 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 every-
thing,” 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 my knees . . . ” and he fell on his

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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, too, was upset.
“Not for anything till you let me kiss your hands!
That’s it! Enough! I get up and we’ll go on! I am a
luckless fool, I am unworthy of you and drunk . . . and
I am ashamed . . . I am not worthy to love you, but to
do homage to you is the duty of every man who is not
a perfect beast! And I’ve done homage . . . Here are
your lodgings, and for that alone Rodya was right in
driving your Pyotr Petrovitch away . . . How dare he!
how dare he put you in such lodgings! It’s a scandal!
Do you know the sort of people they take in here?
And you his betrothed! You are his betrothed? Yes.
Well, then, I’ll tell you, your fiancé is a scoundrel.”
“Excuse me, Mr. Razumihin, you are forgetting . .
.” Pulcheria Alexandrovna was beginning.
“Yes, yes, you are right, I did forget myself, I am
ashamed of it,” Razumihin made haste to apologise.
“But . . . but you can’t be angry with me for speaking
so! For I speak sincerely and not because . . . hm, hm!
That would be disgraceful; in fact not because I’m in
. . . hm! Well, anyway I won’t say why, I daren’t . . . But
we all saw to-day when he came in that that man is not
of our sort. Not because he had his hair curled at the
barber’s, not because he was in such a hurry to show

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his wit, but because he is a spy, a speculator, because

he is a skinflint and a buffoon. That’s evident. Do you
think him clever? No, he is a fool, a fool. And is he a
match for you? Good heavens! Do you see, ladies?” he
stopped suddenly on the way upstairs to their rooms,
“though all my friends there are drunk, yet they are
all honest, and though we do talk a lot of trash, and I
do, too, yet we shall talk our way to the truth at last,
for we are on the right path, while Pyotr Petrovitch . .
. is not on the right path. Though I’ve been calling
them all sorts of names just now, I do respect them all
. . . though I don’t respect Zametov, I like him, for he
is a puppy, and that bullock Zossimov, because he is
an honest man and knows his work. But enough, it’s
all said and forgiven. Is it forgiven? Well, then, let’s go
on. I know this corridor, I’ve been here, there was a
scandal here at Number 3 . . . Where are you here?
Which number? eight? Well, lock yourselves in for the
night, then. Don’t let anybody in. In a quarter of an
hour I’ll come back with news, and half an hour later
I’ll bring Zossimov, you’ll see! Good-bye, I’ll run.”
“Good heavens, Dounia, what is going to hap-
pen?” said Pulcheria Alexandrovna, addressing her
daughter with anxiety and dismay.
“Don’t worry yourself, mother,” said Dounia, tak-
ing off her hat and cape. “God has sent this gentle-
man to our aid, though he has come from a drinking
party. We can depend on him, I assure you. And all
that he has done for Rodya . . . ”

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“Ah. Dounia, goodness knows whether he will

come! How could I bring myself to leave Rodya? . . .
And how different, how different I had fancied our
meeting! How sullen he was, as though not pleased to
see us . . . ”
Tears came into her eyes.
“No, it’s not that, mother. You didn’t see, you were
crying all the time. He is quite unhinged by serious
illness — that’s the reason.”
“Ah, that illness! What will happen, what will hap-
pen? And how he talked to you, Dounia!” said the
mother, looking timidly at her daughter, trying to read
her thoughts and, already half consoled by Dounia’s
standing up for her brother, which meant that she had
already forgiven him. “I am sure he will think better of
it to-morrow,” she added, probing her further.
“And I am sure that he will say the same to-morrow
. . . about that,” Avdotya Romanovna said finally. And,
of course, there was no going beyond that, for this
was a point which Pulcheria Alexandrovna was afraid
to discuss. Dounia went up and kissed her mother.
The latter warmly embraced her without speaking.
Then she sat down to wait anxiously for Razumihin’s
return, timidly watching her daughter who walked up
and down the room with her arms folded, lost in
thought. This walking up and down when she was
thinking was a habit of Avdotya Romanovna’s and the
mother was always afraid to break in on her daugh-
ter’s mood at such moments.

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 fyodor dostoevsky

Razumihin, of course, was ridiculous in his sudden

drunken infatuation for Avdotya Romanovna. Yet
apart from his eccentric condition, many people
would have thought it justified if they had seen
Avdotya Romanovna, especially at that moment when
she was walking to and fro with folded arms, pensive
and melancholy. Avdotya Romanovna was remarkably
good looking; she was tall, strikingly well-propor-
tioned, strong and self-reliant — the latter quality was
apparent in every gesture, though it did not in the
least detract from the grace and softness of her move-
ments. In face she resembled her brother, but she
might be described as really beautiful. Her hair was
dark brown, a little lighter than her brother’s; there
was a proud light in her almost black eyes and yet at
times a look of extraordinary kindness. She was pale,
but it was a healthy pallor; her face was radiant with
freshness and vigour. Her mouth was rather small;
the full red lower lip projected a little as did her chin;
it was the only irregularity in her beautiful face, but it
gave it a peculiarly individual and almost haughty
expression. Her face was always more serious and
thoughtful than gay; but how well smiles, how well
youthful, lighthearted, irresponsible, laughter suited
her face! It was natural enough that a warm, open,
simple-hearted, honest giant like Razumihin, who
had never seen any one like her and was not quite
sober at the time, should lose his head immediately.
Besides, as chance would have it, he saw Dounia for

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the first time transfigured by her love for her brother

and her joy at meeting him. Afterwards he saw her
lower lip quiver with indignation at her brother’s
insolent, cruel and ungrateful words — and his fate
was sealed.
He had spoken the truth, moreover, when he
blurted out in his drunken talk on the stairs that
Praskovya Pavlovna, Raskolnikov’s eccentric landlady,
would be jealous of Pulcheria Alexandrovna as well as
of Avdotya Romanovna on his account. Although
Pulcheria Alexandrovna was forty-three, her face still
retained traces of her former beauty; she looked
much younger than her age, indeed, which is almost
always the case with women who retain serenity of
spirit, sensitiveness and pure sincere warmth of heart
to old age. We may add in parenthesis that to pre-
serve all this is the only means of retaining beauty to
old age. Her hair had begun to grow grey and thin,
there had long been little crow’s foot wrinkles round
her eyes, her cheeks were hollow and sunken from
anxiety and grief, and yet it was a handsome face. She
was Dounia over again, twenty years older, but with-
out the projecting underlip. Pulcheria Alexandrovna
was emotional, but not sentimental, timid and yield-
ing, but only to a certain point. She could give way
and accept a great deal even of what was contrary to
her convictions, but there was a certain barrier fixed
by honesty, principle and the deepest convictions
which nothing would induce her to cross.

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 fyodor dostoevsky

Exactly twenty minutes after Razumihin’s depar-

ture, there came two subdued but hurried knocks at
the door: he had come back.
“I won’t come in, I haven’t time,” he hastened to
say when the door was opened. “He sleeps like a top,
soundly, quietly, and God grant he may sleep ten
hours. Nastasya’s with him; I told her not to leave till I
came. Now I am fetching Zossimov, he will report to
you and then you’d better turn in; I can see you are
too tired to do anything . . . ”
And he ran off down the corridor.
“What a very competent and . . . devoted young
man!” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna exceedingly
delighted.
“He seems a splendid person!” Avdotya Romanovna
replied with some warmth, resuming her walk up and
down the room.
It was nearly an hour later when they heard foot-
steps in the corridor and another knock at the door.
Both women waited this time completely relying on
Razumihin’s promise; he actually had succeeded in
bringing Zossimov. Zossimov had agreed at once to
desert the drinking party to go to Raskolnikov’s, but
he came reluctantly and with the greatest suspicion to
see the ladies, mistrusting Razumihin in his exhila-
rated condition. But his vanity was at once reassured
and flattered; he saw that they were really expecting
him as an oracle. He stayed just ten minutes and suc-
ceeded in completely convincing and comforting

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 crime and punishment

Pulcheria Alexandrovna. He spoke with marked sym-

pathy, but with the reserve and extreme seriousness of
a young doctor at an important consultation. He did
not utter a word on any other subject and did not dis-
play the slightest desire to enter into more personal
relations with the two ladies. Remarking at his first
entrance the dazzling beauty of Avdotya Romanovna, he
endeavoured not to notice her at all during his visit and
addressed himself solely to Pulcheria Alexandrovna. All
this gave him extraordinary inward satisfaction. He
declared that he thought the invalid at this moment
going on very satisfactorily. According to his observa-
tions the patient’s illness was due partly to his unfortu-
nate material surroundings during the last few
months but it had partly also a moral origin, “was to
speak the product of several material and moral influ-
ences, anxieties, apprehensions, troubles, certain
ideas . . . and so on.” Noticing stealthily that Avdotya
Romanovna was following his words with close atten-
tion, Zossimov allowed himself to enlarge on this
theme. On Pulcheria Alexandrovna’s anxiously and
timidly inquiring as to “some suspicion of insanity,” he
replied with a composed and candid smile that his
words had been exaggerated; that certainly the
patient had some fixed idea, something approaching
a monomania — he, Zossimov, was now particularly
studying this interesting branch of medicine — but
that it must be recollected that until to-day the patient
had been in delirium and . . . and that no doubt the

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presence of his family would have a favourable effect

on his recovery and distract his mind, “if only all fresh
shocks can be avoided,” he added significantly. Then
he got up, took leave with an impressive and affable
bow, while blessings, warm gratitude, and entreaties
were showered upon him, and Avdotya Romanovna
spontaneously offered her hand to him. He went out
exceedingly pleased with his visit and still more so
with himself.
“We’ll talk to-morrow; go to bed at once!”
Razumihin said in conclusion, following Zossimov
out. “I’ll be with you to-morrow morning as early as
possible with my report.”
“That’s a fetching little girl, Avdotya Romanovna,”
remarked Zossimov, almost licking his lips as they
both came out into the street.
“Fetching? You said fetching?” roared Razumihin
and he flew at Zossimov and seized him by the throat.
“If you ever dare . . . Do you understand? Do you
understand?” he shouted, shaking him by the collar
and squeezing him against the wall. “Do you hear?”
“Let me go, you drunken devil,” said Zossimov,
struggling and when he had let him go, he stared at
him and went off into a sudden guffaw. Razumihin
stood facing him in gloomy and earnest reflection.
“Of course, I am an ass,” he observed, sombre as a
storm cloud, “but still . . . you are another.”
“No, brother, not at all such another. I am not
dreaming of any folly.”

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 crime and punishment

They walked along in silence and only when they

were close to Raskolnikov’s lodgings, Razumihin
broke the silence in considerable anxiety.
“Listen,” he said, “you’re a first-rate fellow, but
among your other failings, you’re a loose fish, that I
know, and a dirty one, too. You are a feeble, nervous
wretch, and a mass of whims, you’re getting fat and
lazy and can’t deny yourself anything — and I call that
dirty because it leads on straight into the dirt. You’ve
let yourself get so slack that I don’t know how it is you
are still a good, even a devoted doctor. You — a doctor
— sleep on a feather bed and get up at night to your
patients! In another three or four years you won’t get
up for your patients . . . But hang it all, that’s not the
point! . . . You are going to spend to-night in the land-
lady’s flat here. (Hard work I’ve had to persuade
her!) And I’ll be in the kitchen. So here’s a chance
for you to get to know her better . . . It’s not as you
think! There’s not a trace of anything of the sort,
brother . . . !”
“But I don’t think!”
“Here you have modesty, brother, silence, bashful-
ness, a savage virtue . . . and yet she’s sighing and melt-
ing like wax, simply melting! Save me from her, by all
that’s unholy! She’s most prepossessing . . . I’ll repay
you, I’ll do anything . . . ”
Zossimov laughed more violently than ever.
“Well, you are smitten! But what am I to do
with her?”

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“It won’t be much trouble, I assure you. Talk any

rot you like to her, as long as you sit by her and talk.
You’re a doctor, too; try curing her of something. I
swear you won’t regret it. She has a piano, and you
know, I strum a little. I have a song there, a genuine
Russian one: ‘I shed hot tears.’ She likes the genuine
article — and well, it all began with that song; Now
you’re a regular performer, a maître, a Rubinstein . . . I
assure you, you won’t regret it!”
“But have you made her some promise?
Something signed? A promise of marriage, perhaps?”
“Nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of the
kind! Besides she is not that sort at all . . . Tchebarov
tried that . . . ”
“Well, then, drop her!”
“But I can’t drop her like that!”
“Why can’t you?”
“Well, I can’t, that’s all about it! There’s an ele-
ment of attraction here, brother.”
“Then why have you fascinated her?”
“I haven’t fascinated her; perhaps, I was fascinated
myself in my folly. But she won’t care a straw whether
it’s you or I, so long as somebody sits beside her, sigh-
ing . . . I can’t explain the position, brother . . . look
here, you are good at mathematics, and working at it
now . . . begin teaching her the integral calculus;
upon my soul, I’m not joking. I’m in earnest, it’ll be
just the same to her. She will gaze at you and sigh for
a whole year together. I talked to her once for two

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days at a time about the Prussian House of Lords (for

one must talk of something) — she just sighed and
perspired! And you mustn’t talk of love — she’s bash-
ful to hysterics — but just let her see you can’t tear
yourself away — that’s enough. It’s fearfully comfort-
able; you’re quite at home, you can read, sit, lie
about, write. You may even venture on a kiss, if you’re
careful.”
“But what do I want with her?”
“Ach, I can’t make you understand! You see, you
are made for each other! I have often been reminded
of you! . . . You’ll come to it in the end! So does it mat-
ter whether it’s sooner or later? There’s the feather-
bed element here, brother, — ach! and not only that!
There’s an attraction here — here you have the end of
the world, an anchorage, a quiet haven, the navel of
the earth, the three fishes that are the foundation of
the world, the essence of pancakes, of savoury fish-
pies, of the evening samovar, of soft sighs and warm
shawls, and hot stoves to sleep on — as snug as though
you were dead, and yet you’re alive — the advantages
of both at once! Well, hang it, brother, what stuff I’m
talking, it’s bedtime! Listen. I sometimes wake up at
night; so I’ll go in and look at him. But there’s no
need, it’s all right. Don’t you worry yourself, yet if you
like, you might just look in once, too. But if you
notice anything, delirium or fever — wake me at once.
But there can’t be . . . ”

327
 chapter ii

Razumihin waked up next morning at eight

o’clock, troubled and serious. He found himself con-
fronted with many new and unlooked-for perplexi-
ties. He had never expected that he would ever wake
up feeling like that. He remembered every detail of
the previous day and he knew that a perfectly novel
experience had befallen him, that he had received an
impression unlike anything he had known before. At
the same time he recognised clearly that the dream
which had fired his imagination was hopelessly unat-
tainable — so unattainable that he felt positively
ashamed of it, and he hastened to pass to the other
more practical cares and difficulties bequeathed him
by that “thrice accursed yesterday.”
The most awful recollection of the previous day
was the way he had shown himself “base and mean,”
not only because he had been drunk, but because he
had taken advantage of the young girl’s position to
abuse her fiancé in his stupid jealousy, knowing noth-

328
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ing of their mutual relations and obligations and

next to nothing of the man himself. And what right
had he to criticise him in that hasty and unguarded
manner? Who had asked for his opinion! Was it
thinkable that such a creature as Avdotya Romanovna
would be marrying an unworthy man for money? So
there must be something in him. The lodgings? But
after all how could he know the character of the lodg-
ings? He was furnishing a flat . . . Foo, how despicable
it all was! And what justification was it that he was
drunk? Such a stupid excuse was even more degrad-
ing! In wine is truth, and the truth had all come out,
“that is, all the uncleanness of his coarse and envious
heart!” And would such a dream ever be permissible
to him, Razumihin? What was he beside such a girl —
he, the drunken, noisy braggart of last night? “Was it
possible to imagine so absurd and cynical a juxtaposi-
tion?” Razumihin blushed desperately at the very idea
and suddenly the recollection forced itself vividly
upon him of how he had said last night on the stairs
that the landlady would be jealous of Avdotya
Romanovna . . . that was simply intolerable. He
brought his fist down heavily on the kitchen stove,
hurt his hand and sent one of the bricks flying.
“Of course,” he muttered to himself a minute later
with a feeling of self-abasement, “of course, all these
infamies can never be wiped out or smoothed over . . .
and so it’s useless even to think of it, and I must go to
them in silence and do my duty . . . in silence, too . . .

329
 fyodor dostoevsky

and not ask forgiveness, and say nothing . . . for all is

lost now!”
And yet as he dressed he examined his attire more
carefully than usual. He hadn’t another suit — if he
had had, perhaps he wouldn’t have put it on. “I would
have made a point of not putting it on.” But in any
case he could not remain a cynic and a dirty sloven;
he had no right to offend the feelings of others, espe-
cially when they were in need of his assistance and
asking him to see them. He brushed his clothes care-
fully. His linen was always decent; in that respect he
was especially clean.
He washed that morning scrupulously — he got
some soap from Nastasya — he washed his hair, his
neck and especially his hands. When it came to the
question whether to shave his stubbly chin or not
(Praskovya Pavlovna had capital razors that had been
left by her late husband), the question was angrily
answered in the negative. “Let it stay as it is! What if
they think that I shaved on purpose to . . . ? They cer-
tainly would think so! Not on any account!”
“And . . . the worst of it was he was so coarse, so
dirty, he had the manners of a pothouse; and . . . and
even admitting that he knew he had some of the
essentials of a gentleman . . . what was there in that to
be proud of? Every one ought to be a gentleman and
more than that . . . and all the same (he remembered)
he, too, had done little things . . . not exactly dishon-
est, and yet . . . and what thoughts he sometimes had;

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hm . . . and to set all that beside Avdotya Romanovna!

Confound it! So be it! Well, he’d make a point then
of being dirty, greasy, pothouse in his manners and
he wouldn’t care! He’d be worse!”
He was engaged in such monologues when
Zossimov, who had spent the night in Praskovya
Pavlovna’s parlour, came in.
He was going home and was in a hurry to look at
the invalid first. Razumihin informed him that
Raskolnikov was sleeping like a dormouse. Zossimov
gave orders that they shouldn’t wake him and prom-
ised to see him again about eleven.
“If he is still at home,” he added. “Damn it all! If
one can’t control one’s patients, how is one to cure
them! Do you know whether he will go to them, or
whether they are coming here?”
“They are coming, I think,” said Razumihin,
understanding the object of the question, “and
they will discuss their family affairs, no doubt. I’ll
be off. You, as the doctor, have more right to be
here than I.”
“But I am not a father confessor; I shall come and
go away; I’ve plenty to do besides looking after them.”
“One thing worries me,” interposed Razumihin,
frowning. “On the way home I talked a lot of drunken
nonsense to him . . . all sort of things . . . and amongst
them that you were afraid that he . . . might become
insane.”
“You told the ladies so, too.”

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“I know it was stupid! You may beat me if you like!

Did you think so seriously?”
“That’s nonsense, I tell you, how could I think it
seriously! You, yourself, described him as a monoma-
niac when you fetched me to him . . . and we added
fuel to the fire yesterday, you did, that is, with your
story about the painter; it was a nice conversation,
when he was, perhaps, mad on that very point! If only
I’d known what happened then at the police station
and that some wretch . . . had insulted him with this
suspicion! Hm . . . I would not have allowed that con-
versation yesterday. These monomaniacs will make a
mountain out of a molehill . . . and see their fancies as
solid realities . . . As far as I remember, it was
Zametov’s story that cleared up half the mystery to my
mind. Why, I know one case in which a hypochon-
driac, a man of forty, cut the throat of a little boy of
eight, because he couldn’t endure the jokes he made
every day at table! And in this case his rags, the inso-
lent police officer, the fever and this suspicion! All
that working upon a man half frantic with hypochon-
dria, and with his morbid exceptional vanity! That
may well have been the starting-point of illness. Well,
bother it all! . . . And, by the way, that Zametov cer-
tainly is a nice fellow, but hm . . . he shouldn’t have
told all that last night. He is an awful chatterbox!”
“But whom did he tell it to? You and me?”
“And Porfiry.”
“What does that matter?”

332
 crime and punishment

“And, by the way, have you any influence on them,

his mother and sister? Tell them to be more careful
with him to-day . . . ”
“They’ll get on all right!” Razumihin answered
reluctantly.
“Why is he so set against this Luzhin? A man with
money and she doesn’t seem to dislike him . . . and
they haven’t a farthing I suppose? eh?”
“But what business is it of yours?” Razumihin
cried with annoyance. “How can I tell whether
they’ve a farthing? Ask them yourself and perhaps
you’ll find out . . . ”
“Foo, what an ass you are sometimes! Last night’s
wine has not gone off yet . . . Good-bye; thank your
Praskovya Pavlovna from me for my night’s lodging.
She locked herself in, made no reply to my bonjour
through the door; she was up at seven o’clock, the
samovar was taken in to her from the kitchen. I was
not vouchsafed a personal interview . . . ”
At nine o’clock precisely Razumihin reached the
lodgings at Bakaleyev’s house. Both ladies were wait-
ing for him with nervous impatience. They had risen
at seven o’clock or earlier. He entered looking as
black as night, bowed awkwardly and was at once furi-
ous with himself for it. He had reckoned without his
host: Pulcheria Alexandrovna fairly rushed at him,
seized him by both hands and was almost kissing
them. He glanced timidly at Avdotya Romanovna, but
her proud countenance wore at that moment an

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expression of such gratitude and friendliness, such

complete and unlooked-for respect (in place of the
sneering looks and ill-disguised contempt he had
expected), that it threw him into greater confusion
than if he had been met with abuse. Fortunately
there was a subject for conversation, and he made
haste to snatch at it.
Hearing that everything was going well and that
Rodya had not yet waked, Pulcheria Alexandrovna
declared that she was glad to hear it, because “she
had something which it was very, very necessary to
talk over beforehand.” Then followed an inquiry
about breakfast and an invitation to have it with
them; they had waited to have it with him. Avdotya
Romanovna rang the bell: it was answered by a
ragged dirty waiter, and they asked him to bring tea
which was served at last, but in such a dirty and disor-
derly way, that the ladies were ashamed. Razumihin
vigorously attacked the lodgings, but, remembering
Luzhin, stopped in embarrassment and was greatly
relieved by Pulcheria Alexandrovna’s questions,
which showered in a continual stream upon him.
He talked for three quarters of an hour, being
constantly interrupted by their questions, and suc-
ceeded in describing to them all the most important
facts he knew of the last year of Raskolnikov’s life,
concluding with a circumstantial account of his ill-
ness. He omitted, however, many things, which were
better omitted, including the scene at the police sta-

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tion with all its consequences. They listened eagerly

to his story, and, when he thought he had finished
and satisfied his listeners, he found that they consid-
ered he had hardly begun.
“Tell me, tell me! What do you think . . . ? Excuse
me, I still don’t know your name!” Pulcheria
Alexandrovna put in hastily.
“Dmitri Prokofitch.”
“I should like very, very much to know, Dmitri
Prokofitch . . . how he looks . . . on things in general
now, that is, how can I explain, what are his likes and
dislikes? Is he always so irritable? Tell me, if you can,
what are his hopes and so to say his dreams? Under
what influence is he now? In a word, I should like . . .”
“Ah, mother, how can he answer all that at once?”
observed Dounia.
“Good heavens, I had not expected to find him in
the least like this, Dmitri Prokofitch!”
“Naturally,” answered Razumihin. “I have no
mother, but my uncle comes every year and almost
every time he can scarcely recognise me, even in
appearance, though he is a clever man; and your
three years’ separation means a great deal. What am I
to tell you? I have known Rodion for a year and a half;
he is morose, gloomy, proud and haughty, and of late
— and perhaps for a long time before — he has been
suspicious and fanciful. He has a noble nature and a
kind heart. He does not like showing his feelings and
would rather do a cruel thing than open his heart

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 fyodor dostoevsky

freely. Sometimes, though, he is not at all morbid, but

simply cold and inhumanly callous; it’s as though he
were alternating between two characters. Sometimes
he is fearfully reserved! He says he is so busy that
everything is a hindrance, and yet he lies in bed
doing nothing. He doesn’t jeer at things, not because
he hasn’t the wit, but as though he hadn’t time to
waste on such trifles. He never listens to what is said
to him. He is never interested in what interests other
people at any given moment. He thinks very highly of
himself and perhaps he is right. Well, what more? I
think your arrival will have a most beneficial influ-
ence upon him.”
“God grant it may,” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna,
distressed by Razumihin’s account of her Rodya.
And Razumihin ventured to look more boldly at
Avdotya Romanovna at last. He glanced at her often
while he was talking, but only for a moment and
looked away again at once. Avdotya Romanovna sat at
the table, listening attentively, then got up again and
began walking to and fro with her arms folded and
her lips compressed, occasionally putting in a ques-
tion, without stopping her walk. She had the same
habit of not listening to what was said. She was wear-
ing a dress of thin dark stuff and she had a white trans-
parent scarf round her neck. Razumihin soon
detected signs of extreme poverty in their belongings.
Had Avdotya Romanovna been dressed like a queen,
he felt that he would not be afraid of her, but perhaps

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just because she was poorly dressed and that he

noticed all the misery of her surroundings, his heart
was filled with dread and he began to be afraid of
every word he uttered, every gesture he made, which
was very trying for a man who already felt diffident.
“You’ve told us a great deal that is interesting
about my brother’s character . . . and have told it
impartially. I am glad. I thought that you were too
uncritically devoted to him,” observed Avdotya
Romanovna with a smile. “I think you are right that
he needs a woman’s care,” she added thoughtfully.
“I didn’t say so; but I daresay you are right, only . . .”
“What?”
“He loves no one and perhaps he never will,”
Razumihin declared decisively.
“You mean he is not capable of love?”
“Do you know, Avdotya Romanovna, you are
awfully like your brother, in everything, indeed!” he
blurted out suddenly to his own surprise, but remem-
bering at once what he had just before said of her
brother, he turned as red as a crab and was overcome
with confusion. Avdotya Romanovna couldn’t help
laughing when she looked at him.
“You may both be mistaken about Rodya,”
Pulcheria Alexandrovna remarked, slightly piqued. “I
am not talking of our present difficulty, Dounia.
What Pyotr Petrovitch writes in this letter and what
you and I have supposed may be mistaken, but you
can’t imagine, Dmitri Prokofitch, how moody and, so

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 fyodor dostoevsky

to say, capricious he is. I never could depend on what

he would do when he was only fifteen. And I am sure
that he might do something now that nobody else
would think of doing . . . Well, for instance, do you
know how a year and a half ago he astounded me and
gave me a shock that nearly killed me, when he had
the idea of marrying that girl — what was her name —
his landlady’s daughter?”
“Did you hear about that affair?” asked Avdotya
Romanovna.
“Do you suppose — ” Pulcheria Alexandrovna con-
tinued warmly. “Do you suppose that my tears, my
entreaties, my illness, my possible death from grief,
our poverty would have made him pause? No, he
would calmly have disregarded all obstacles. And yet
it isn’t that he doesn’t love us!”
“He has never spoken a word of that affair to me,”
Razumihin answered cautiously. “But I did hear
something from Praskovya Pavlovna herself, though
she is by no means a gossip. And what I heard cer-
tainly was rather strange.”
“And what did you hear?” both the ladies asked at
once.
“Well, nothing very special. I only learned that the
marriage, which only failed to take place through the
girl’s death, was not at all to Praskovya Pavlovna’s lik-
ing. They say, too, the girl was not at all pretty, in fact
I am told positively ugly . . . and such an invalid . . . and
queer. But she seems to have had some good quali-

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ties. She must have had some good qualities or it’s

quite inexplicable . . . She had no money either and
he wouldn’t have considered her money . . . But it’s
always difficult to judge in such matters.”
“I am sure she was a good girl,” Avdotya Romanovna
observed briefly.
“God forgive me, I simply rejoiced at her death.
Though I don’t know which of them would have
caused most misery to the other — he to her or she to
him,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna concluded. Then she
began tentatively questioning him about the scene on
the previous day with Luzhin, hesitating and continu-
ally glancing at Dounia, obviously to the latter’s
annoyance. This incident more than all the rest evi-
dently caused her uneasiness, even consternation.
Razumihin described it in detail again, but this time
he added his own conclusions: he openly blamed
Raskolnikov for intentionally insulting Pyotr
Petrovitch, not seeking to excuse him on the score of
his illness.
“He had planned it before his illness,” he added.
“I think so, too,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna
agreed with a dejected air. But she was very much
surprised at hearing Razumihin express himself so
carefully and even with a certain respect about
Pyotr Petrovitch. Avdotya Romanovna, too, was
struck by it.
“So this is your opinion of Pyotr Petrovitch?”
Pulcheria Alexandrovna could not resist asking.

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“I can have no other opinion of your daughter’s

future husband,” Razumihin answered firmly and
with warmth, “and I don’t say it simply from vulgar
politeness, but because . . . simply because Avdotya
Romanovna has of her own free will deigned to
accept this man. If I spoke so rudely of him last night,
it was because I was disgustingly drunk and . . . mad
besides; yes, mad, crazy, I lost my head completely . . .
and this morning I am ashamed of it.”
He crimsoned and ceased speaking. Avdotya
Romanovna flushed, but did not break the silence.
She had not uttered a word from the moment they
began to speak of Luzhin.
Without her support Pulcheria Alexandrovna
obviously did not know what to do. At last, faltering
and continually glancing at her daughter, she con-
fessed that she was exceedingly worried by one cir-
cumstance.
“You see, Dmitri Prokofitch,” she began. “I’ll be
perfectly open with Dmitri Prokofitch, Dounia?”
“Of course, mother,” said Avdotya Romanovna
emphatically.
“This is what it is,” she began in haste, as though
the permission to speak of her trouble lifted a weight
off her mind. “Very early this morning we got a note
from Pyotr Petrovitch in reply to our letter announc-
ing our arrival. He promised to meet us at the station,
you know; instead of that he sent a servant to bring us
the address of these lodgings and to show us the way;

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 crime and punishment

and he sent a message that he would be here himself

this morning. But this morning this note came from
him. You’d better read it yourself; there is one point
in it which worries me very much . . . you will soon see
what that is, and . . . tell me your candid opinion,
Dmitri Prokofitch! You know Rodya’s character better
than any one and no one can advise us better than
you can. Dounia, I must tell you, made her decision
at once, but I still don’t feel sure how to act and I . . .
I’ve been waiting for your opinion.”
Razumihin opened the note which was dated the
previous evening and read as follows:

“DEAR MADAM, Pulcheria Alexandrovna, I have

the honour to inform you that owing to unfore-
seen obstacles I was rendered unable to meet you
at the railway station; I sent a very competent per-
son with the same object in view. I likewise shall
be deprived of the honour of an interview with
you to-morrow morning by business in the Senate
that does not admit of delay, and also that I may
not intrude on your family circle while you are
meeting your son, and Avdotya Romanovna her
brother. I shall have the honour of visiting you
and paying you my respects at your lodgings not
later than to-morrow evening at eight o’clock pre-
cisely, and herewith I venture to present my
earnest and, I may add, imperative request that
Rodion Romanovitch may not be present at our

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 fyodor dostoevsky

interview — as he offered me a gross and unprece-

dented affront on the occasion of my visit to him
in his illness yesterday, and, moreover, since I
desire from you personally an indispensable and
circumstantial explanation upon a certain point,
in regard to which I wish to learn your own inter-
pretation. I have the honour to inform you, in
anticipation, that if, in spite of my request, I meet
Rodion Romanovitch, I shall be compelled to
withdraw immediately and then you have only
yourself to blame. I write on the assumption that
Rodion Romanovitch who appeared so ill at my
visit, suddenly recovered two hours later and so,
being able to leave the house, may visit you also. I
was confirmed in that belief by the testimony of
my own eyes in the lodging of a drunken man
who was run over and has since died, to whose
daughter, a young woman of notorious behaviour,
he gave twenty-five roubles on the pretext of the
funeral, which gravely surprised me knowing what
pains you were at to raise that sum. Herewith
expressing my special respect to your estimable
daughter, Avdotya Romanovna, I beg you to
accept the respectful homage of
“Your humble servant,
“P. LUZHIN.”

“What am I to do now, Dmitri Prokofitch?” began

Pulcheria Alexandrovna, almost weeping. “How can I

342
 crime and punishment

ask Rodya not to come? Yesterday he insisted so

earnestly on our refusing Pyotr Petrovitch and now
we are ordered not to receive Rodya! He will come on
purpose if he knows, and . . . what will happen then?”
“Act on Avdotya Romanovna’s decision,” Razumihin
answered calmly at once.
“Oh, dear me! She says . . . goodness knows what
she says, she doesn’t explain her object! She says that
it would be best, at least, not that it would be best, but
that it’s absolutely necessary that Rodya should make
a point of being here at eight o’clock and that they
must meet . . . I didn’t want even to show him the let-
ter, but to prevent him from coming by some strata-
gem with your help . . . because he is so irritable . . .
Besides I don’t understand about that drunkard who
died and that daughter, and how he could have given
the daughter all the money . . . which . . . ”
“Which cost you such sacrifice, mother,” put in
Avdotya Romanovna.
“He was not himself yesterday,” Razumihin said
thoughtfully, “if you only knew what he was up to in a
restaurant yesterday, though there was sense in it too
. . . Hm! He did say something, as we were going
home yesterday evening, about a dead man and a
girl, but I didn’t understand a word . . . But last night,
I myself . . . ”
“The best thing, mother, will be for us to go to him
ourselves and there I assure you we shall see at once
what’s to be done. Besides, it’s getting late — good

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 fyodor dostoevsky

heavens, it’s past ten,” she cried looking at a splendid

gold enamelled watch which hung round her neck
on a thin Venetian chain, and looked entirely out of
keeping with the rest of her dress. “A present from
her fiancé,” thought Razumihin.
“We must start, Dounia, we must start,” her
mother cried in a flutter. “He will be thinking we are
still angry after yesterday, from our coming so late.
Merciful heavens!”
While she said this she was hurriedly putting on her
hat and mantle; Dounia, too, put on her things. Her
gloves, as Razumihin noticed, were not merely shabby
but had holes in them, and yet this evident poverty
gave the two ladies an air of special dignity, which is
always found in people who know how to wear poor
clothes. Razumihin looked reverently at Dounia and
felt proud of escorting her. “The queen who mended
her stockings in prison,” he thought, “must have
looked then every inch a queen and even more a
queen than at sumptuous banquets and levées.”
“My God,” exclaimed Pulcheria Alexandrovna,
“little did I think that I should ever fear seeing my
son, my darling, darling Rodya! I am afraid, Dmitri
Prokofitch,” she added, glancing at him timidly.
“Don’t be afraid, mother,” said Dounia, kissing
her, “better have faith in him.”
“Oh, dear, I have faith in him, but I haven’t slept
all night,” exclaimed the poor woman.
They came out into the street.

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 crime and punishment

“Do you know, Dounia, when I dozed a little this

morning I dreamed of Marfa Petrovna . . . she was all
in white . . . she came up to me, took my hand, and
shook her head at me, but so sternly as though she
were blaming me . . . Is that a good omen? Oh, dear
me! You don’t know, Dmitri Prokofitch, that Marfa
Petrovna’s dead!”
“No, I didn’t know; who is Marfa Petrovna?”
“She died suddenly; and only fancy . . .”
“Afterwards, mamma,” put in Dounia. “He doesn’t
know who Marfa Petrovna is.”
“Ah, you don’t know? And I was thinking that you
knew all about us. Forgive me, Dmitri Prokofitch, I
don’t know what I am thinking about these last few
days. I look upon you really as a providence for us,
and so I took it for granted that you knew all about
us. I look on you as a relation . . . Don’t be angry with
me for saying so. Dear me, what’s the matter with
your right hand? Have you knocked it?”
“Yes, I bruised it,” muttered Razumihin overjoyed.
“I sometimes speak too much from the heart, so
that Dounia finds fault with me . . . But, dear me,
what a cupboard he lives in! I wonder whether he is
awake? Does this woman, his landlady, consider it a
room? Listen, you say he does not like to show his
feelings, so perhaps I shall annoy him with my . . .
weaknesses? Do advise me, Dmitri Prokofitch, how
am I to treat him? I feel quite distracted, you
know.”

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“Don’t question him too much about anything if

you see him frown! don’t ask him too much about his
health; he doesn’t like that.”
“Ah, Dmitri Prokofitch, how hard it is to be a
mother! But here are the stairs . . . What an awful
staircase!”
“Mother, you are quite pale, don’t distress your-
self, darling,” said Dounia caressing her, then with
flashing eyes she added: “He ought to be happy at
seeing you, and you are tormenting yourself so.”
“Wait, I’ll peep in and see whether he has waked up.”
The ladies slowly followed Razumihin, who went
on before, and when they reached the landlady’s
door on the fourth storey, they noticed that her door
was a tiny crack open and that two keen black eyes
were watching them from the darkness within. When
their eyes met, the door was suddenly shut with such
a slam that Pulcheria Alexandrovna almost cried out.

346
 chapter iii

“He is well, quite well!” Zossimov cried cheerfully as

they entered.
He had come in ten minutes earlier and was sit-
ting in the same place as before, on the sofa.
Raskolnikov was sitting in the opposite corner, fully
dressed and carefully washed and combed, as he had
not been for some time past. The room was immedi-
ately crowded, yet Nastasya managed to follow the vis-
itors in and stayed to listen.
Raskolnikov really was almost well, as compared
with his condition the day before, but he was still
pale, listless, and sombre. He looked like a wounded
man or one who has undergone some terrible physi-
cal suffering. His brows were knitted, his lips com-
pressed, his eyes feverish. He spoke little and
reluctantly, as though performing a duty, and there
was a restlessness in his movements.
He only wanted a sling on his arm or a bandage
on his finger to complete the impression of a man

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 fyodor dostoevsky

with a painful abscess or a broken arm. The pale,

sombre face lighted up for a moment when his
mother and sister entered, but this only gave it a look
of more intense suffering, in place of its listless dejec-
tion. The light soon died away, but the look of suffer-
ing remained, and Zossimov, watching and studying
his patient with all the zest of a young doctor begin-
ning to practise, noticed in him no joy at the arrival
of his mother and sister, but a sort of bitter, hidden
determination to bear another hour or two of
inevitable torture. He saw later that almost every
word of the following conversation seemed to touch
on some sore place and irritate it. But at the same
time he marvelled at the power of controlling him-
self and hiding his feelings in a patient who the pre-
vious day had, like a monomaniac, fallen into a
frenzy at the slightest word.
“Yes, I see myself now that I am almost well,” said
Raskolnikov, giving his mother and sister a kiss of
welcome which made Pulcheria Alexandrovna radi-
ant at once. “And I don’t say this as I did yesterday,” he
said addressing Razumihin, with a friendly pressure
of his hand.
“Yes, indeed, I am quite surprised at him to-day,”
began Zossimov, much delighted at the ladies’
entrance, for he had not succeeded in keeping up a
conversation with his patient for ten minutes. “In
another three or four days, if he goes on like this, he
will be just as before, that is, as he was a month ago,

348
 crime and punishment

or two . . . or perhaps even three. This has been com-

ing on for a long while . . . eh? Confess, now, that it
has been perhaps your own fault?” he added, with a
tentative smile, as though still afraid of irritating him.
“It is very possible,” answered Raskolnikov coldly.
“I should say, too,” continued Zossimov with zest,
“that your complete recovery depends solely on your-
self. Now that one can talk to you, I should like to
impress upon you that it is essential to avoid the ele-
mentary, so to speak, fundamental causes tending to
produce your morbid condition: in that case you will
be cured, if not, it will go from bad to worse. These
fundamental causes I don’t know, but they must be
known to you. You are an intelligent man, and must
have observed yourself, of course. I fancy the first
stage of your derangement coincides with your leav-
ing the university. You must not be left without occu-
pation, and so, work and a definite aim set before you
might, I fancy, be very beneficial.”
“Yes, yes; you are perfectly right . . . I will make
haste and return to the university: and then every-
thing will go smoothly . . . ”
Zossimov, who had begun his sage advice partly to
make an effect before the ladies, was certainly some-
what mystified, when, glancing at his patient, he
observed unmistakable mockery on his face. This
lasted an instant, however. Pulcheria Alexandrovna
began at once thanking Zossimov, especially for his
visit to their lodging the previous night.

349
 fyodor dostoevsky

“What! he saw you last night?” Raskolnikov asked,

as though startled. “Then you have not slept either
after your journey.”
“Ach, Rodya, that was only till two o’clock. Dounia
and I never go to bed before two at home.”
“I don’t know how to thank him either,”
Raskolnikov went on suddenly frowning and look-
ing down. “Setting aside the question of payment —
forgive me for referring to it (he turned to
Zossimov) — I really don’t know what I have done to
deserve such special attention from you! I simply
don’t understand it . . . and . . . and . . . it weighs upon
me, indeed, because I don’t understand it. I tell you
so candidly.”
“Don’t be irritated.” Zossimov forced himself to
laugh. “Assume that you are my first patient — well —
we fellows just beginning to practise love our first
patients as if they were our children, and some almost
fall in love with them. And, of course, I am not rich in
patients.”
“I say nothing about him,” added Raskolnikov,
pointing to Razumihin, “though he has had nothing
from me either but insult and trouble.”
“What nonsense he is talking! Why, you are in a
sentimental mood today, 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

350
 crime and punishment

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 yes-
terday, 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 happi-
ness at the sight of this conclusive unspoken reconcil-
iation. “Yes, that is what I love him for,” Razumihin,
exaggerating it all, muttered to himself, with a vigor-
ous 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 simply, how delicately he put an end to all
the misunderstanding with his sister — simply by hold-
ing out his hand at the right minute and looking at
her like that . . . And what fine eyes he has, and how
fine his whole face is! . . . He is even better looking
than Dounia . . . But, good heavens, what a suit — how
terribly he’s dressed! . . . Vasya, the messenger boy in
Afanasy Ivanitch’s shop, is better dressed! I could
rush at him and hug him . . . weep over him — but I

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 fyodor dostoevsky

am afraid . . . Oh, dear, he’s so strange! He’s talking

kindly, but I’m afraid! Why, what am I afraid of? . . .”
“Oh, Rodya, you wouldn’t believe,” she began sud-
denly, in haste to answer his words to her, “how
unhappy Dounia and I were yesterday! Now that it’s
all over and done with and we are quite happy again —
I can tell you. Fancy, we ran here almost straight from
the train to embrace you and that woman — ah, here
she is! Good morning, Nastasya! . . . She told us at once
that you were lying in a high fever and had just run
away from the doctor in delirium, and they were look-
ing for you in the streets. You can’t imagine how we
felt! I couldn’t help thinking of the tragic end of
Lieutenant Potanchikov, a friend of your father’s —
you can’t remember him, Rodya — who ran out in the
same way in a high fever and fell into the well in the
courtyard and they couldn’t pull him out till next day.
Of course, we exaggerated things. We were on the
point of rushing to find Pyotr Petrovitch to ask him to
help . . . Because we were alone, utterly alone,” she said
plaintively and stopped short, suddenly, recollecting it
was still somewhat dangerous to speak of Pyotr
Petrovitch, although “we are quite happy again.”
“Yes, yes . . . Of course it’s very annoying . . . ”
Raskolnikov muttered in reply, but with such a preoc-
cupied and inattentive air that Dounia gazed at him
in perplexity.
“What else was it I wanted to say,” he went on trying
to recollect. “Oh, yes; mother, and you too, Dounia,

352
 crime and punishment

please don’t think that I didn’t mean to come and see

you to-day and was waiting for you to come first.”
“What are you saying, Rodya?” cried Pulcheria
Alexandrovna. She, too, was surprised.
“Is he answering us as a duty?” Dounia won-
dered. “Is he being reconciled and asking forgive-
ness as though he were performing a rite or
repeating a lesson?”
“I’ve only just waked up, and wanted to go to you,
but was delayed owing to my clothes; I forgot yester-
day to ask her . . . Nastasya . . . to wash out the blood . . .
I’ve only just got dressed.”
“Blood! What blood?” Pulcheria Alexandrovna
asked in alarm.
“Oh, nothing — don’t be uneasy. It was when I was
wandering about yesterday, rather delirious, I
chanced upon a man who had been run over . . . a
clerk . . . ”
“Delirious? But you remember everything!”
Razumihin interrupted.
“That’s true,” Raskolnikov answered with special
carefulness. “I remember everything even to the
slightest detail, and yet — why I did that and went
there and said that, I can’t clearly explain now.”
“A familiar phenomenon,” interposed Zossimov,
“actions are sometimes performed in a masterly and
most cunning way, while the direction of the actions
is deranged and dependent on various morbid
impressions — it’s like a dream.”

353
 fyodor dostoevsky

“Perhaps it’s a good thing really that he should

think me almost a madman,” thought Raskolnikov.
“Why, people in perfect health act in the same way
too,” observed Dounia, looking uneasily at Zossimov.
“There is some truth in your observation,” the lat-
ter replied. “In that sense we are certainly all not
infrequently like madmen, but with the slight differ-
ence that the deranged are somewhat madder, for we
must draw a line. A normal man, it is true, hardly
exists. Among dozens — perhaps hundreds of thou-
sands — hardly one is to be met with.”
At the word “madman,” carelessly dropped by
Zossimov in his chatter on his favourite subject, every
one frowned.
Raskolnikov sat seeming not to pay attention,
plunged in thought with a strange smile on his pale
lips. He was still meditating on something.
“Well, what about the man who was run over? I
interrupted you!” Razumihin cried hastily.
“What?” Raskolnikov seemed to wake up. “Oh . . . I
got spattered with blood helping to carry him to his
lodging. By the way, mamma, I did an unpardonable
thing yesterday. I was literally out of my mind. I gave
away all the money you sent me . . . to his wife for the
funeral. She’s a widow now, in consumption, a poor
creature . . . three little children, starving . . . nothing
in the house . . . there’s a daughter, too . . . perhaps
you’d have given it yourself if you’d seen them. But I
had no right to do it I admit, especially as I knew how

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you needed the money yourself. To help others one

must have the right to do it, or else Crevez, chiens, si
vous n’êtes pas contents.” He laughed, “That’s right,
isn’t it, Dounia?”
“No, it’s not,” answered Dounia firmly.
“Bah! you, too, have ideals,” he muttered, looking
at her almost with hatred, and smiling sarcastically. “I
ought to have considered that . . . Well, that’s praise-
worthy, and it’s better for you . . . and if you reach a
line you won’t overstep, you will be unhappy . . . and if
you overstep it, maybe you will be still unhappier . . .
But all that’s nonsense,” he added irritably, vexed at
being carried away. “I only meant to say that I beg
your forgiveness, mother,” he concluded, shortly and
abruptly.
“That’s enough, Rodya, I am sure that everything
you do is very good,” said his mother, delighted.
“Don’t be too sure,” he answered, twisting his
mouth into a smile.
A silence followed. There was a certain constraint
in all this conversation, and in the silence, and in the
reconciliation, and in the forgiveness, and all were
feeling it.
“It is as though they were afraid of me,”
Raskolnikov was thinking to himself, looking askance
at his mother and sister. Pulcheria Alexandrovna was
indeed growing more timid the longer she kept silent.
“Yet in their absence I seemed to love them so
much,” flashed through his mind.

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“Do you know, Rodya, Marfa Petrovna is dead,”

Pulcheria Alexandrovna suddenly blurted out.
“What Marfa Petrovna?”
“Oh, mercy on us — Marfa Petrovna Svidrigaïlov. I
wrote you so much about her.”
“A-a-h! Yes, I remember . . . So she’s dead! Oh,
really?” he roused himself suddenly, as if waking up.
“What did she die of?”
“Only imagine, quite suddenly,” Pulcheria
Alexandrovna answered hurriedly, encouraged by his
curiosity. “On the very day I was sending you that let-
ter! Would you believe it, that awful man seems to
have been the cause of her death. They say he beat
her dreadfully.”
“Why, were they on such bad terms?” he asked,
addressing his sister.
“Not at all. Quite the contrary indeed. With her,
he was always very patient, considerate even. In fact,
all those seven years of their married life he gave way
to her, too much so indeed, in many cases. All of a
sudden he seems to have lost patience.”
“Then he could not have been so awful if he con-
trolled himself for seven years? You seem to be
defending him, Dounia?”
“No, no, he’s an awful man! I can imagine nothing
more awful!” Dounia answered, almost with a shud-
der, knitting her brows, and sinking into thought.
“That had happened in the morning,” Pulcheria
Alexandrovna went on hurriedly. “And directly after-

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wards she ordered the horses to be harnessed to drive

to the town immediately after dinner. She always used
to drive to the town in such cases. She ate a very good
dinner, I am told . . . ”
“After the beating?”
“That was always her . . . habit; and immediately
after dinner, so as not to be late in starting, she went
to the bath-house . . . You see, she was undergoing
some treatment with baths. They have a cold spring
there, and she used to bathe in it regularly every day,
and no sooner had she got into the water when she
suddenly had a stroke!”
“I should think so,” said Zossimov.
“And did he beat her badly?”
“What does that matter!” put in Dounia.
“H’m! But I don’t know why you want to tell us
such gossip, mother,” said Raskolnikov irritably, as it
were in spite of himself.
“Ah, my dear, I don’t know what to talk about,”
broke from Pulcheria Alexandrovna.
“Why, are you all afraid of me?” he asked, with a
constrained smile.
“That’s certainly true,” said Dounia, looking
directly and sternly at her brother. “Mother was cross-
ing herself with terror as she came up the stairs.”
His face worked, as though in convulsion.
“Ach, what are you saying, Dounia! Don’t be angry,
please, Rodya . . . Why did you say that, Dounia?”
Pulcheria Alexandrovna began, overwhelmed — “You

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see, coming here, I was dreaming all the way, in the

train, how we should meet, how we should talk over
everything together . . . And I was so happy, I did not
notice the journey! But what am I saying? I am happy
now . . . You should not, Dounia . . . I am happy now —
simply in seeing you, Rodya . . .”
“Hush, mother,” he muttered in confusion, not
looking at her, but pressing her hand. “We shall have
time to speak freely of everything!”
As he said this, he was suddenly overwhelmed with
confusion and turned pale. Again that awful sensa-
tion he had known of late passed with deadly chill
over his soul. Again it became suddenly plain and
perceptible to him that he had just told a fearful lie —
that he would never now be able to speak freely of
everything — that he would never again be able to
speak of anything to any one. The anguish of this
thought was such that for a moment he almost forgot
himself. He got up from his seat, and not looking at
any one walked towards the door.
“What are you about?” cried Razumihin, clutching
him by the arm.
He sat down again, and began looking about him,
in silence. They were all looking at him in perplexity.
“But what are you so dull for?” he shouted, sud-
denly and quite unexpectedly. “Do say something!
What’s the use of sitting like this? Come, do speak.
Let us talk . . . We meet together and sit in silence . . .
Come, anything!”

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“Thank God, I was afraid the same thing as yesterday

was beginning again,” said Pulcheria Alexandrovna,
crossing herself.
“What is the matter, Rodya?” asked Avdotya
Romanovna, distrustfully.
“Oh, nothing! I remembered something,” he
answered, and suddenly laughed.
“Well, if you remembered something; that’s all
right! . . . I was beginning to think . . . ” muttered
Zossimov, getting up from the sofa. “It is time for me
to be off. I will look in again perhaps . . . if I can . . . ”
He made his bows, and went out.
“What an excellent man!” observed Pulcheria
Alexandrovna.
“Yes, excellent, splendid, well-educated, intelli-
gent,” Raskolnikov began, suddenly speaking with
surprising rapidity, and a liveliness he had not shown
till then. “I can’t remember where I met him before
my illness . . . I believe I have met him somewhere — . .
. And this is a good man, too,” he nodded at
Razumihin. “Do you like him, Dounia?” he asked her;
and suddenly, for some unknown reason, laughed.
“Very much,” answered Dounia.
“Foo — what a pig you are,” Razumihin protested,
blushing in terrible confusion, and he got up from
his chair. Pulcheria Alexandrovna smiled faintly, but
Raskolnikov laughed aloud.
“Where are you off to?”
“I must go.”

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“You need not at all. Stay. Zossimov has gone, so

you must. Don’t go. What’s the time? Is it twelve
o’clock? What a pretty watch you have got, Dounia.
But why are you all silent again? I do all the talking.”
“It was a present from Marfa Petrovna,” answered
Dounia.
“And a very expensive one!” added Pulcheria
Alexandrovna.
“A-ah! What a big one! Hardly like a lady’s.”
“I like that sort,” said Dounia.
“So it is not a present from her fiancé!” thought
Razumihin, and was unreasonably delighted.
“I thought it was Luzhin’s present,” observed
Raskolnikov.
“No, he has not made Dounia any present yet.”
“A-ah! And do you remember, mother, I was in
love and wanted to get married?” he said suddenly,
looking at his mother, who was disconcerted by the
sudden change of subject and the way he spoke of it.
“Oh, yes, my dear.”
Pulcheria Alexandrovna exchanged glances with
Dounia and Razumihin.
“H’m, yes. What shall I tell you? I don’t remember
much indeed. She was such a sickly girl,” he went on,
growing dreamy and looking down again. “Quite an
invalid. She was fond of giving alms to the poor, and
was always dreaming of a nunnery, and once she burst
into tears when she began talking to me about it. Yes,
yes, I remember. I remember very well. She was an

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ugly little thing. I really don’t know what drew me to

her then — I think it was because she was always ill. If
she had been lame or hunchback, I believe I should
have liked her better still,” he smiled dreamily. “Yes, it
was a sort of spring delirium.”
“No, it was not only spring delirium,” said Dounia,
with warm feeling.
He fixed a strained intent look on his sister, but did
not hear or did not understand her words. Then, com-
pletely lost in thought, he got up, went up to his
mother, kissed her, went back to his place and sat down.
“You love her even now?” said Pulcheria
Alexandrovna, touched.
“Her? Now? Oh, yes . . . You ask about her? No . . .
that’s all now as it were, in another world . . . and so
long ago. And indeed everything happening here
seems somehow far away.” He looked attentively at
them. “You now . . . I seem to be looking at you from a
thousand miles away . . . but, goodness knows why we
are talking of that! And what’s the use of asking about
it,” he added with annoyance, and biting his nails, he
fell into dreamy silence again.
“What a wretched lodging you have, Rodya! It’s
like a tomb,” said Pulcheria Alexandrovna, suddenly
breaking the oppressive silence. “I am sure it’s quite
half through your lodging you have become so
melancholy.”
“My lodging,” he answered, listlessly. “Yes, the
lodging had a great deal to do with it . . . I thought

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that, too . . . if only you knew, though, what a strange

thing you said just now, mother,” he said, laughing
strangely.
A little more, and their companionship, this
mother and this sister, with him after three years’
absence, this intimate tone of conversation, in face of
the utter impossibility of really speaking about any-
thing, would have been beyond his power of
endurance. But there was one urgent matter which
must be settled one way or the other that day — so he
had decided when he woke. Now he was glad to
remember it, as a means of escape.
“Listen, Dounia,” he began, gravely and drily, “of
course I beg your pardon for yesterday, but I consider
it my duty to tell you again that I do not withdraw from
my chief point. It is me or Luzhin. If I am a scoundrel,
you must not be. One is enough. If you marry Luzhin,
I cease at once to look on you as a sister.”
“Rodya, Rodya! It is the same as yesterday again,”
Pulcheria Alexandrovna cried, mournfully. “And why
do you call yourself a scoundrel? I can’t bear it. You
said the same yesterday.”
“Brother,” Dounia answered firmly and with the
same dryness. “In all this there is a mistake on your
part. I thought it over at night, and found out the
mistake. It is all because you seem to fancy I am sacri-
ficing myself to some one and for some one. That is
not the case at all. I am simply marrying for my own
sake, because things are hard for me. Though, of

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course, I shall be glad if I succeed in being useful to

my family. But that is not the chief motive for my
decision . . . ”
“She is lying,” he thought to himself, biting his
nails vindictively. “Proud creature! She won’t admit
she wants to do it out of charity! Too haughty! Oh,
base characters! They even love as though they hate .
. . Oh, how I . . . hate them all!”
“In fact,” continued Dounia, “I am marrying Pyotr
Petrovitch because of two evils I choose the less. I
intend to do honestly all he expects of me, so I am
not deceiving him . . . Why did you smile just now?”
She, too, flushed, and there was a gleam of anger in
her eyes.
“All?” he asked, with a malignant grin.
“Within certain limits. Both the manner and form
of Pyotr Petrovitch’s courtship showed me at once
what he wanted. He may, of course, think too well of
himself, but I hope he esteems me, too . . . Why are
you laughing again?”
“And why are you blushing again? You are lying,
sister. You are intentionally lying, simply from femi-
nine obstinacy, simply to hold your own against me . .
. You cannot respect Luzhin. I have seen him and
talked with him. So you are selling yourself for
money, and so in any case you are acting basely, and I
am glad that you can blush for it.”
“It is not true. I am not lying,” cried Dounia, losing
her composure. “I would not marry him if I were not

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convinced that he esteems me and thinks highly of

me. I would not marry him if I were not firmly con-
vinced that I can respect him. Fortunately, I can have
convincing proof of it this very day . . . and such a mar-
riage is not a vileness, as you say! And even if you were
right, if I really had determined on a vile action, is it
not merciless on your part to speak to me like that?
Why do you demand of me a heroism that perhaps
you have not either? It is despotism; it is tyranny. If I
ruin any one, it is only myself . . . I am not committing
a murder. Why do you look at me like that? Why are
you so pale? Rodya, darling, what’s the matter?”
“Good heavens! You have made him faint,” cried
Pulcheria Alexandrovna.
“No, no, nonsense! It’s nothing. A little giddiness
— not fainting. You have fainting on the brain. H’m,
yes, what was I saying? Oh, yes. In what way will you
get convincing proof to-day that you can respect him,
and that he . . . esteems you, as you said. I think you
said to-day?”
“Mother, show Rodya Pyotr Petrovitch’s letter,”
said Dounia.
With trembling hands, Pulcheria Alexandrovna
gave him the letter. He took it with great interest, but,
before opening it, he suddenly looked with a sort of
wonder at Dounia.
“It is strange,” he said, slowly, as though struck by a
new idea. “What am I making such a fuss for? What is
it all about? Marry whom you like!”

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 crime and punishment

He said this as though to himself, but said it aloud,

and looked for some time at his sister, as though puz-
zled. He opened the letter at last, still with the same
look of strange wonder on his face. Then, slowly and
attentively, he began reading, and read it through
twice. Pulcheria Alexandrovna showed marked anxi-
ety, and all indeed expected something particular.
“What surprises me,” he began, after a short
pause, handing the letter to his mother, but not
addressing any one in particular, “is that he is a busi-
ness man, a lawyer, and his conversation is preten-
tious indeed, and yet he writes such an uneducated
letter.”
They all started. They had expected something
quite different.
“But they all write like that, you know,” Razumihin
observed, abruptly.
“Have you read it?”
“Yes.”
“We showed him, Rodya. We . . . consulted him just
now,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna began, embarrassed.
“That’s just the jargon of the courts,” Razumihin
put in. “Legal documents are written like that to
this day.”
“Legal? Yes, it’s just legal — business language —
not so very uneducated, and not quite educated —
business language!”
“Pyotr Petrovitch makes no secret of the fact that
he had a cheap education, he is proud indeed of hav-

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ing made his own way,” Avdotya Romanovna

observed, somewhat offended by her brother’s tone.
“Well, if he’s proud of it, he has reason, I don’t
deny it. You seem to be offended, sister, at my making
only such a frivolous criticism on the letter, and to
think that I speak of such trifling matters on purpose
to annoy you. It is quite the contrary, an observation
apropos of the style occurred to me that is by no
means irrelevant as things stand. There is one expres-
sion, ‘blame yourselves’ put in very significantly and
plainly, and there is besides a threat that he will go
away at once if I am present. That threat to go away is
equivalent to a threat to abandon you both if you are
disobedient, and to abandon you now after summon-
ing you to Petersburg. Well, what do you think? Can
one resent such an expression from Luzhin, as we
should if he (he pointed to Razumihin) had written
it, or Zossimov, or one of us?”
“N-no,” answered Dounia, with more animation. “I
saw clearly that it was too naïvely expressed, and that
perhaps he simply has no skill in writing . . . that is a
true criticism, brother. I did not expect, indeed . . . ”
“It is expressed in legal style, and sounds coarser
than perhaps he intended. But I must disillusion you
a little. There is one expression in the letter, one slan-
der about me, and rather a contemptible one. I gave
the money last night to the widow, a woman in con-
sumption, crushed with trouble, and not ‘on the pre-
text of the funeral,’ but simply to pay for the funeral,

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 crime and punishment

and not to the daughter — a young woman, as he

writes, of notorious behaviour (whom I saw last night
for the first time in my life) — but to the widow. In all
this I see a too hasty desire to slander me and to raise
dissension between us. It is expressed again in legal
jargon, that is to say, with a too obvious display of the
aim, and with a very naïve eagerness. He is a man of
intelligence, but to act sensibly, intelligence is not
enough. It all shows the man and . . . I don’t think he
has a great esteem for you. I tell you this simply to
warn you, because I sincerely wish for your good . . . ”
Dounia did not reply. Her resolution had been
taken. She was only awaiting the evening.
“Then what is your decision, Rodya?” asked
Pulcheria Alexandrovna, who was more uneasy than
ever at the sudden, new businesslike tone of his talk.
“What decision?”
“You see Pyotr Petrovitch writes that you are not to
be with us this evening, and that he will go away if you
come. So will you . . . come?”
“That, of course, is not for me to decide, but for
you first, if you are not offended by such a request;
and secondly, by Dounia, if she, too, is not offended. I
will do what you think best,” he added drily.
“Dounia has already decided, and I fully agree with
her,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna hastened to declare.
“I decided to ask you, Rodya, to urge you not to
fail to be with us at this interview,” said Dounia. “Will
you come?”

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“Yes.”
“I will ask you, too, to be with us at eight o’clock,”
she said, addressing Razumihin. “Mother, I am invit-
ing him, too.”
“Quite right, Dounia. Well, since you have
decided,” added Pulcheria Alexandrovna, “so be it. I
shall feel easier myself. I do not like concealment and
deception. Better let us have the whole truth . . . Pyotr
Petrovitch may be angry or not, now!”

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 chapter iv

At that moment the door was softly opened, and a

young girl walked into the room, looking timidly
about her. Every one turned towards her with sur-
prise and curiosity. At first sight, Raskolnikov did not
recognise her. It was Sofya Semyonovna Marmeladov.
He had seen her yesterday for the first time, but at
such a moment, in such surroundings and in such a
dress, that his memory retained a very different
image of her. Now she was a modestly and poorly-
dressed young girl, very young, indeed almost like a
child, with a modest and refined manner, with a can-
did but somewhat frightened-looking face. She was
wearing a very plain indoor dress, and had on a
shabby old-fashioned hat, but she still carried a para-
sol. Unexpectedly finding the room full of people,
she was not so much embarrassed as completely over-
whelmed with shyness, like a little child. She was even
about to retreat. “Oh . . . it’s you!” said Raskolnikov,
extremely astonished, and he, too, was confused. He

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at once recollected that his mother and sister knew

through Luzhin’s letter of “some young woman of
notorious behaviour.” He had only just been protest-
ing against Luzhin’s calumny and declaring that he
had seen the girl last night for the first time, and sud-
denly she had walked in. He remembered, too, that
he had not protested against the expression “of noto-
rious behaviour.” All this passed vaguely and fleet-
ingly through his brain, but looking at her more
intently, he saw that the humiliated creature was so
humiliated that he felt suddenly sorry for her. When
she made a movement to retreat in terror, it sent a
pang to his heart.
“I did not expect you,” he said, hurriedly, with a
look that made her stop. “Please sit down. You come,
no doubt, from Katerina Ivanovna. Allow me — not
there. Sit here . . . ”
At Sonia’s entrance, Razumihin, who had been sit-
ting on one of Raskolnikov’s three chairs, close to the
door, got up to allow her to enter. Raskolnikov had at
first shown her the place on the sofa where Zossimov
had been sitting, but feeling that the sofa which
served as a bed, was too familiar a place, he hurriedly
motioned her to Razumihin’s chair.
“You sit here,” he said to Razumihin, putting him
on the sofa.
Sonia sat down, almost shaking with terror, and
looked timidly at the two ladies. It was evidently
almost inconceivable to herself that she could sit

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down beside them. At the thought of it, she was so

frightened that she hurriedly got up again, and in
utter confusion addressed Raskolnikov.
“I . . . I . . . have come for one minute. Forgive me for
disturbing you,” she began falteringly. “I come from
Katerina Ivanovna, and she had no one to send. Katerina
Ivanovna told me to beg you . . . to be at the service . . . in
the morning . . . at the Mitrofanievsky . . . and then . . . to us
. . . to her . . . to do her the honour . . . she told me to beg
you . . . ” Sonia stammered and ceased speaking.
“I will try, certainly, most certainly,” answered
Raskolnikov. He, too, stood up, and he, too, faltered
and could not finish his sentence. “Please sit down,”
he said, suddenly. “I want to talk to you. You are per-
haps in a hurry, but please, be so kind, spare me two
minutes,” and he drew up a chair for her.
Sonia sat down again, and again timidly she took a
hurried, frightened look at the two ladies, and
dropped her eyes. Raskolnikov’s pale face flushed, a
shudder passed over him, his eyes glowed.
“Mother,” he said, firmly and insistently, “this is
Sofya Semyonovna Marmeladov, the daughter of
that unfortunate Mr. Marmeladov, who was run over
yesterday before my eyes, and of whom I was just
telling you.”
Pulcheria Alexandrovna glanced at Sonia, and
slightly screwed up her eyes. In spite of her embar-
rassment before Rodya’s urgent and challenging
look, she could not deny herself that satisfaction.

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Dounia gazed gravely and intently into the poor girl’s

face, and scrutinised her with perplexity. Sonia, hear-
ing herself introduced, tried to raise her eyes again,
but was more embarrassed than ever.
“I wanted to ask you,” said Raskolnikov hastily,
“how things were arranged yesterday. You were not
worried by the police, for instance?”
“No, that was all right . . . it was too evident, the
cause of death . . . they did not worry us . . . only the
lodgers are angry.”
“Why?”
“At the body’s remaining so long. You see it is hot
now. So that, today, they will carry it to the cemetery,
into the chapel, until to-morrow. At first Katerina
Ivanovna was unwilling, but now she sees herself that
it’s necessary . . . ”
“To-day, then?”
“She begs you to do us the honour to be in the
church to-morrow for the service, and then to be
present at the funeral lunch.”
“She is giving a funeral lunch?”
“Yes . . . just a little . . . She told me to thank you very
much for helping us yesterday. But for you, we should
have had nothing for the funeral.”
All at once her lips and chin began trembling,
but, with an effort, she controlled herself, looking
down again.
During the conversation, Raskolnikov watched
her carefully. She had a thin, very thin, pale little

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face, rather irregular and angular, with a sharp little

nose and chin. She could not have been called
pretty, but her blue eyes were so clear, and when they
lighted up, there was such a kindliness and simplicity
in her expression that one could not help being
attracted. Her face, and her whole figure indeed,
had another peculiar characteristic. In spite of her
eighteen years, she looked almost a little girl —
almost a child. And in some of her gestures, this
childishness seemed almost absurd.
“But has Katerina Ivanovna been able to manage
with such small means? Does she even mean to have a
funeral lunch?” Raskolnikov asked, persistently keep-
ing up the conversation.
“The coffin will be plain, of course . . . and every-
thing will be plain, so it won’t cost much. Katerina
Ivanovna and I have reckoned it all out, so that there
will be enough left . . . and Katerina Ivanovna was very
anxious it should be so. You know one can’t . . . it’s a
comfort to her . . . she is like that, you know . . . ”
“I understand, I understand . . . of course . . . why
do you look at my room like that? My mother has just
said it is like a tomb.”
“You gave us everything yesterday,” Sonia said sud-
denly, in reply, in a loud rapid whisper; and again she
looked down in confusion. Her lips and chin were
trembling once more. She had been struck at once by
Raskolnikov’s poor surroundings, and now these
words broke out spontaneously. A silence followed.

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 fyodor dostoevsky

There was a light in Dounia’s eyes, and even

Pulcheria Alexandrovna looked kindly at Sonia.
“Rodya,” she said, getting up, “we shall have din-
ner together, of course. Come, Dounia . . . And you,
Rodya, had better go for a little walk, and then rest
and lie down before you come to see us . . . I am afraid
we have exhausted you . . . ”
“Yes, yes, I’ll come,” he answered, getting up fuss-
ily. “But I have something to see to.”
“But surely you will have dinner together?” cried
Razumihin, looking in surprise at Raskolnikov. “What
do you mean?”
“Yes, yes, I am coming . . . of course, of course! And
you stay a minute. You do not want him just now, do
you, mother? Or perhaps I am taking him from you?”
“Oh, no, no. And will you, Dmitri Prokofitch, do
us the favour of dining with us?”
“Please do,” added Dounia.
Razumihin bowed, positively radiant. For one
moment, they were all strangely embarrassed.
“Good-bye, Rodya, that is till we meet. I do not like
saying good-bye. Good-bye, Nastasya. Ah, I have said
good-bye again.”
Pulcheria Alexandrovna meant to greet Sonia,
too; but it somehow failed to come off, and she went
in a flutter out of the room.
But Avdotya Romanovna seemed to await her turn,
and following her mother out, gave Sonia an atten-
tive, courteous bow. Sonia, in confusion, gave a hur-

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 crime and punishment

ried, frightened curtsy. There was a look of poignant

discomfort in her face, as though Avdotya
Romanovna’s courtesy and attention were oppressive
and painful to her.
“Dounia, good-bye,” called Raskolnikov, in the
passage. “Give me your hand.”
“Why, I did give it to you. Have you forgotten?”
said Dounia, turning warmly and awkwardly to him.
“Never mind, give it to me again.” And he
squeezed her fingers warmly.
Dounia smiled, flushed, pulled her hand away,
and went off quite happy.
“Come, that’s capital,” he said to Sonia, going back
and looking brightly at her. “God give peace to the
dead, the living have still to live. That is right, isn’t it?”
Sonia looked surprised at the sudden brightness
of his face. He looked at her for some moments in
silence. The whole history of the dead father floated
before his memory in those moments . . .
“Heavens, Dounia,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna
began, as soon as they were in the street, “I really feel
relieved myself at coming away-more at ease. How lit-
tle did I think yesterday in the train that I could ever
be glad of that.”
“I tell you again, mother, he is still very ill. Don’t
you see it? Perhaps worrying about us upset him. We
must be patient, and much, much can be forgiven.”
“Well, you were not very patient!” Pulcheria
Alexandrovna caught her up, hotly and jealously.

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“Do you know, Dounia, I was looking at you two.

You are the very portrait of him, and not so much in
face as in soul. You are both melancholy, both
morose and hot tempered, both haughty and both
generous . . . Surely he can’t be an egoist, Dounia.
Eh? When I think of what is in store for us this
evening, my heart sinks!”
“Don’t be uneasy, mother. What must be, will be.”
“Dounia, only think what a position we are in!
What if Pyotr Petrovitch breaks it off?” Poor Pulcheria
Alexandrovna blurted out, incautiously.
“He won’t be worth much if he does,” answered
Dounia, sharply and contemptuously.
“We did well to come away,” Pulcheria
Alexandrovna hurriedly broke in. “He was in a hurry
about some business or other. If he gets out and has a
breath of air . . . it is fearfully close in his room . . . But
where is one to get a breath of air here. The very
streets here feel like shut-up rooms. Good heavens!
what a town! . . . stay . . . this side . . . they will crush you
— carrying something. Why, it is a piano they have
got, I declare . . . how they push . . . I am very much
afraid of that young woman, too.”
“What young woman, mother?”
“Why, that Sofya Semyonovna, who was there just
now.”
“Why?”
“I have a presentiment, Dounia. Well, you may
believe it or not, but as soon as she came in, that very

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minute, I felt that she was the chief cause of the

trouble . . . ”
“Nothing of the sort!” cried Dounia, in vexation.
“What nonsense, with your presentiments, mother!
He only made her acquaintance the evening before,
and he did not know her when she came in.”
“Well, you will see . . . She worries me; but you will
see, you will see! I was so frightened. She was gazing
at me with those eyes. I could scarcely sit still in my
chair when he began introducing her, do you remem-
ber? It seems so strange, but Pyotr Petrovitch writes
like that about her, and he introduces her to us — to
you! So he must think a great deal of her.”
“People will write anything. We were talked about
and written about, too. Have you forgotten? I am sure
that she is a good girl, and that it is all nonsense.”
“God grant it may be!”
“And Pyotr Petrovitch is a contemptible slan-
derer,” Dounia snapped out, suddenly.
Pulcheria Alexandrovna was crushed; the conver-
sation was not resumed.
“I will tell you what I want with you,” said
Raskolnikov, drawing Razumihin to the window.
“Then I will tell Katerina Ivanovna that you are
coming,” Sonia said hurriedly, preparing to
depart.
“One minute, Sofya Semyonovna. We have no
secrets. You are not in our way. I want to have another
word or two with you. Listen!” he turned suddenly to

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Razumihin again. “You know that . . . what’s his name .

. . Porfiry Petrovitch?”
“I should think so! He is a relation. Why?” added
the latter, with interest.
“Is not he managing that case . . . you know about
that murder? . . . You were speaking about it yesterday.”
“Yes . . . well?” Razumihin’s eyes opened wide.
“He was inquiring for people who had pawned
things, and I have some pledges there, too — trifles — a
ring my sister gave me as a keepsake when I left home,
and my father’s silver watch — they are only worth five
or six roubles altogether . . . but I value them. So what
am I to do now? I do not want to lose the things, espe-
cially the watch. I was quaking just now, for fear
mother would ask to look at it, when we spoke of
Dounia’s watch. It is the only thing of father’s left us.
She would be ill if it were lost. You know what women
are. So tell me what to do. I know I ought to have
given notice at the police station, but would it not be
better to go straight to Porfiry? Eh? What do you
think? The matter might be settled more quickly. You
see mother may ask for it before dinner.”
“Certainly not to the police station. Certainly to
Porfiry,” Razumihin shouted in extraordinary excite-
ment. “Well, how glad I am. Let us go at once. It is a
couple of steps. We shall be sure to find him.”
“Very well, let us go.”
“And he will be very, very glad to make your
acquaintance. I have often talked to him of you at dif-

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ferent times. I was speaking of you yesterday. Let us

go. So you knew the old woman? So that’s it! It is all
turning out splendidly . . . Oh, yes, Sofya Ivanovna . . .”
“Sofya Semyonovna,” corrected Raskolnikov,
“Sofya Semyonovna, this is my friend Razumihin, and
he is a good man.”
“If you have to go now,” Sonia was beginning,
not looking at Razumihin at all, and still more
embarrassed.
“Let us go,” decided Raskolnikov. “I will come to
you to-day, Sofya Semyonovna. Only tell me where
you live.”
He was not exactly ill at ease, but seemed hurried,
and avoided her eyes. Sonia gave her address, and
flushed as she did so. They all went out together.
“Don’t you lock up?” asked Razumihin, following
him on to the stairs.
“Never,” answered Raskolnikov. “I have been
meaning to buy a lock for these two years. People are
happy who have no need of locks,” he said, laughing,
to Sonia. They stood still in the gateway.
“Do you go to the right, Sofya Semyonovna? How
did you find me, by the way?” he added, as though he
wanted to say something quite different. He wanted
to look at her soft clear eyes, but this was not easy.
“Why, you gave your address to Polenka yesterday.”
“Polenka? Oh, yes; Polenka, that is the little girl.
She is your sister? Did I give her the address?”
“Why, had you forgotten?”

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“No, I remember.”
“I had heard my father speak of you . . . only I did
not know your name, and he did not know it. And
now I came . . . and as I had learnt your name, I asked
to-day, ‘Where does Mr. Raskolnikov live?’ I did not
know you had only a room too . . . Good-bye, I will tell
Katerina Ivanovna.”
She was extremely glad to escape at last; she went
away looking down, hurrying to get out of sight as
soon as possible, to walk the twenty steps to the turn-
ing on the right and to be at last alone, and then mov-
ing rapidly along, looking at no one, noticing
nothing, to think, to remember, to meditate on every
word, every detail. Never, never had she felt anything
like this. Dimly and unconsciously a whole new world
was opening before her. She remembered suddenly
that Raskolnikov meant to come to her that day, per-
haps that morning, perhaps at once!
“Only not to-day, please, not to-day!” she kept mut-
tering with a sinking heart, as though entreating
some one, like a frightened child. “Mercy! to me . . . to
that room . . . he will see . . . oh, dear!”
She was not capable at that instant of noticing an
unknown gentleman who was watching her and fol-
lowing at her heels. He had accompanied her from
the gateway. At the moment when Razumihin,
Raskolnikov, and she stood still at parting on the
pavement, this gentleman, who was just passing,
started on hearing Sonia’s words: “and I asked where

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Mr. Raskolnikov lived?” He turned a rapid but atten-

tive look upon all three, especially upon Raskolnikov,
to whom Sonia was speaking; then looked back and
noted the house. All this was done in an instant as he
passed, and trying not to betray his interest, he
walked on more slowly as though waiting for some-
thing. He was waiting for Sonia; he saw that they were
parting, and that Sonia was going home.
“Home? Where? I’ve seen that face somewhere,”
he thought. “I must find out.”
At the turning he crossed over, looked round, and
saw Sonia coming the same way, noticing nothing.
She turned the corner. He followed her on the other
side. After about fifty paces he crossed over again,
overtook her and kept two or three yards behind her.
He was a man about fifty, rather tall and thickly
set, with broad high shoulders which made him look
as though he stooped a little. He wore good and fash-
ionable clothes, and looked like a gentleman of posi-
tion. He carried a handsome cane, which he tapped
on the pavement at each step; his gloves were spot-
less. He had a broad, rather pleasant face with high
cheek-bones and a fresh colour, not often seen in
Petersburg. His flaxen hair was still abundant, and
only touched here and there with grey, and his thick
square beard was even lighter than his hair. His eyes
were blue and had a cold and thoughtful look; his
lips were crimson. He was a remarkedly well-pre-
served man and looked much younger than his years.

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 fyodor dostoevsky

When Sonia came out on the canal bank, they

were the only two persons on the pavement. He
observed her dreaminess and preoccupation. On
reaching the house where she lodged, Sonia turned
in at the gate; he followed her, seeming rather sur-
prised. In the courtyard she turned to the right cor-
ner. “Bah!” muttered the unknown gentleman, and
mounted the stairs behind her. Only then Sonia
noticed him. She reached the third storey, turned
down the passage, and rang at No. 9. On the door was
inscribed in chalk, “Kapernaumov, Tailor.” “Bah!” the
stranger repeated again, wondering at the strange
coincidence, and he rang next door, at No. 8. The
doors were two or three yards apart.
“You lodge at Kapernaumov’s,” he said, looking at
Sonia and laughing. “He altered a waistcoat for me
yesterday. I am staying close here at Madame
Resslich’s. How odd!” Sonia looked at him attentively.
“We are neighbours,” he went on gaily. “I only
came to town the day before yesterday. Good-bye for
the present.”
Sonia made no reply; the door opened and she
slipped in. She felt for some reason ashamed and uneasy.
On the way to Porfiry’s, Razumihin was obviously
excited.
“That’s capital, brother,” he repeated several
times, “and I am glad! I am glad!”
“What are you glad about?” Raskolnikov thought
to himself.

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 crime and punishment

“I didn’t know that you pledged things at that old

woman’s, too. And . . . was it long ago? I mean, was it
long since you were there?”
“What a simple-hearted fool he is!”
“When was it?” Raskolnikov stopped still to recol-
lect. “Two or three days before her death it must have
been. But I am not going to redeem the things now,”
he put in with a sort of hurried and conspicuous solic-
itude about the things. “I’ve not more than a silver
rouble left . . . after last night’s accursed delirium!”
He laid special emphasis on the delirium.
“Yes, yes,” Razumihin hastened to agree — with
what was not clear. “Then that’s why you . . . were
struck . . . partly . . . you know in your delirium you
were continually mentioning some rings or chains!
Yes, yes . . . that’s clear, it’s all clear now.”
“Hullo! How that idea must have got about among
them. Here this man will go to the stake for me, and I
find him delighted at having it cleared up why I spoke
of rings in my delirium! What a hold the idea must
have on all of them!”
“Shall we find him?” he asked suddenly.
“Oh, yes,” Razumihin answered quickly. “He is a
nice fellow, you will see, brother. Rather clumsy, that
is to say, he is a man of polished manners, but I mean
clumsy in a different sense. He is an intelligent fellow,
very much so indeed, but he has his own range of
ideas . . . He is incredulous, sceptical, cynical . . . he
likes to impose on people, or rather to make fun of

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 fyodor dostoevsky

them. His is the old, circumstantial method . . . But he

understands his work . . . thoroughly . . . Last year he
cleared up a case of murder in which the police had
hardly a clue. He is very, very anxious to make your
acquaintance.”
“On what grounds is he so anxious?”
“Oh, it’s not exactly . . . you see, since you’ve been
ill I happen to have mentioned you several times . . .
So, when he heard about you . . . about your being a
law student and not able to finish your studies, he
said, ‘What a pity!’ And so I concluded . . . from
everything together, not only that; yesterday,
Zametov . . . you know, Rodya, I talked some non-
sense on the way home to you yesterday, when I was
drunk . . . I am afraid, brother, of your exaggerating
it, you see.”
“What? That they think I am a madman? Maybe
they are right,” he said with a constrained smile.
“Yes, yes . . . That is, pooh, no! . . . But all that I said
(and there was something else too) it was all non-
sense, drunken nonsense.”
“But why are you apologising? I am so sick of it
all!” Raskolnikov cried with exaggerated irritability. It
was partly assumed, however.
“I know, I know, I understand. Believe me, I under-
stand. One’s ashamed to speak of it.”
“If you are ashamed, then don’t speak of it.”
Both were silent. Razumihin was more than
ecstatic and Raskolnikov perceived it with repulsion.

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 crime and punishment

He was alarmed, too, by what Razumihin had just said

about Porfiry.
“I shall have to pull a long face with him too,” he
thought, with a beating heart, and he turned white,
“and do it naturally, too. But the most natural thing
would be to do nothing at all. Carefully do nothing
at all! No, carefully would not be natural again . . .
Oh, well, we shall see how it turns out . . . We shall
see . . . directly. Is it a good thing to go or not? The
butterfly flies to the light. My heart is beating, that’s
what’s bad!”
“In this grey house,” said Razumihin.
“The most important thing, does Porfiry know
that I was at the old hag’s flat yesterday . . . and asked
about the blood? I must find that out instantly, as
soon as I go in, find out from his face; otherwise . . .
I’ll find out, if it’s my ruin.”
“I say, brother,” he said suddenly, addressing
Razumihin, with a sly smile, “I have been noticing all
day that you seem to be curiously excited. Isn’t it so?”
“Excited? Not a bit of it,” said Razumihin, stung to
the quick.
“Yes, brother, I assure you it’s noticeable. Why, you
sat on your chair in a way you never do sit, on the
edge somehow, and you seemed to be writhing all the
time. You kept jumping up for nothing. One moment
you were angry, and the next your face looked like a
sweetmeat. You even blushed; especially when you
were invited to dinner, you blushed awfully.”

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“Nothing of the sort, nonsense! What do you

mean?”
“But why are you wriggling out of it, like a school-
boy? By Jove, there he’s blushing again.”
“What a pig you are!”
“But why are you so shamefaced about it? Romeo!
Stay, I’ll tell of you to-day. Ha-ha-ha! I’ll make mother
laugh, and some one else, too . . .”
“Listen, listen, listen, this is serious . . . What next,
you fiend!” Razumihin was utterly overwhelmed,
turning cold with horror. “What will you tell them?
Come, brother . . . foo, what a pig you are!”
“You are like a summer rose. And if only you knew
how it suits you; a Romeo over six foot high! And how
you’ve washed to-day-you cleaned your nails, I declare.
Eh? That’s something unheard of! Why, I do believe
you’ve got pomatum on your hair! Bend down.”
“Pig!”
Raskolnikov laughed as though he could not
restrain himself. So laughing, they entered Porfiry
Petrovitch’s flat. This is what Raskolnikov wanted:
from within they could be heard laughing as they
came in, still guffawing in the passage.
“Not a word here or I’ll . . . brain you!” Razumihin
whispered furiously, seizing Raskolnikov by the
shoulder.

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 chapter v

Raskolnikov was already entering the room. He

came in looking as though he had the utmost diffi-
culty not to burst out laughing again. Behind him
Razumihin strode in, gawky and awkward, shame-
faced and red as a peony, with an utterly crestfallen
and ferocious expression. His face and whole figure
really were ridiculous at that moment and amply jus-
tified Raskolnikov’s laughter. Raskolnikov, not wait-
ing for an introduction, bowed to Porfiry Petrovitch,
who stood in the middle of the room looking inquir-
ingly at them. He held out his hand and shook hands,
still apparently making desperate efforts to subdue
his mirth and utter a few words to introduce himself.
But he had no sooner succeeded in assuming a seri-
ous air and muttering something when he suddenly
glanced again as though accidentally at Razumihin,
and could no longer control himself: his stifled
laughter broke out the more irresistibly the more he
tried to restrain it. The extraordinary ferocity with

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 fyodor dostoevsky

which Razumihin received this “spontaneous” mirth

gave the whole scene the appearance of most gen-
uine fun and naturalness. Razumihin strengthened
this impression as though on purpose.
“Fool! You fiend,” he roared, waving his arm which
at once struck a little round table with an empty tea-
glass on it. Everything was sent flying and crashing.
“But why break chairs, gentlemen? You know it’s a
loss to the Crown,” Porfiry Petrovitch quoted gaily.
Raskolnikov was still laughing, with his hand in
Porfiry Petrovitch’s, but anxious not to overdo it,
awaited the right moment to put a natural end to it.
Razumihin, completely put to confusion by upsetting
the table and smashing the glass, gazed gloomily at
the fragments, cursed and turned sharply to the win-
dow where he stood looking out with his back to the
company with a fiercely scowling countenance, see-
ing nothing. Porfiry Petrovitch laughed and was
ready to go on laughing, but obviously looked for
explanations. Zametov had been sitting in the comer,
but he rose at the visitors’ entrance and was standing
in expectation with a smile on his lips, though he
looked with surprise and even it seemed incredulity
at the whole scene and at Raskolnikov with a certain
embarrassment. Zametov’s unexpected presence
struck Raskolnikov unpleasantly.
“I’ve got to think of that,” he thought. “Excuse me,
please,” he began, affecting extreme embarrassment.
“Raskolnikov.”

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“Not at all, very pleasant to see you . . . and how

pleasantly you’ve come in . . . Why, won’t he even say
good-morning?” Porfiry Petrovitch nodded at
Razumihin.
“Upon my honour I don’t know why he is in such a
rage with me. I only told him as we came along that
he was like Romeo . . . and proved it. And that was all,
I think!”
“Pig!” ejaculated Razumihin, without turning
round.
“There must have been very grave grounds for it, if
he is so furious at the word,” Porfiry laughed.
“Oh, you sharp lawyer! . . . Damn you all!” snapped
Razumihin, and suddenly bursting out laughing him-
self, he went up to Porfiry with a more cheerful face as
though nothing had happened. “That’ll do! We are all
fools. To come to business. This is my friend Rodion
Romanovitch Raskolnikov; in the first place he has
heard of you and wants to make your acquaintance,
and secondly, he has a little matter of business with
you. Bah! Zametov, what brought you here? Have you
met before? Have you known each other long?”
“What does this mean?” thought Raskolnikov
uneasily.
Zametov seemed taken aback, but not very
much so.
“Why, it was at your rooms we met yesterday,” he
said easily. “Then I have been spared the trouble. All
last week he was begging me to introduce him to you.

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 fyodor dostoevsky

Porfiry and you have sniffed each other out without

me. Where is your tobacco?”
Porfiry Petrovitch was wearing a dressing-gown,
very clean linen, and trodden-down slippers. He was a
man of about five and thirty, short, stout even to cor-
pulence, and clean shaven. He wore his hair cut short
and had a large round head, particularly prominent
at the back. His soft, round, rather snub-nosed face
was of a sickly yellowish colour, but had a vigorous
and rather ironical expression. It would have been
good-natured, except for a look in the eyes, which
shone with a watery, mawkish light under almost
white, blinking eyelashes. The expression of those
eyes was strangely out of keeping with his somewhat
womanish figure, and gave it something far more
serious than could be guessed at first sight.
As soon as Porfiry Petrovitch heard that his visitor
had a little matter of business with him, he begged
him to sit down on the sofa and sat down himself on
the other end, waiting for him to explain his busi-
ness, with that careful and over-serious attention
which is at once oppressive and embarrassing, espe-
cially to a stranger, and especially if what you are dis-
cussing is in your own opinion of far too little
importance for such exceptional solemnity. But in
brief and coherent phrases Raskolnikov explained his
business clearly and exactly, and was so well satisfied
with himself that he even succeeded in taking a good
look at Porfiry. Porfiry Petrovitch did not once take

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his eyes off him. Razumihin, sitting opposite at the

same table, listened warmly and impatiently, looking
from one to the other every moment with rather
excessive interest.
“Fool,” Raskolnikov swore to himself.
“You have to give information to the police,” Porfiry
replied, with a most businesslike air, “that having
learnt of this incident, that is of the murder, you beg to
inform the lawyer in charge of the case that such and
such things belong to you, and that you desire to
redeem them . . . or . . . but they will write to you.”
“That’s just the point, that at the present
moment,” Raskolnikov tried his utmost to feign
embarrassment, “I am not quite in funds . . . and even
this trifling sum is beyond me . . . I only wanted, you
see, for the present to declare that the things are
mine, and that when I have money . . . ”
“That’s no matter,” answered Porfiry Petrovitch,
receiving his explanation of his pecuniary position
coldly, “but you can, if you prefer, write straight to me,
to say, that having been informed of the matter, and
claiming such and such as your property, you beg . . . ”
“On an ordinary sheet of paper?” Raskolnikov
interrupted eagerly, again interested in the financial
side of the question.
“Oh, the most ordinary,” and suddenly Porfiry
Petrovitch looked with obvious irony at him, screwing
up his eyes and as it were winking at him. But perhaps
it was Raskolnikov’s fancy, for it all lasted but a

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 fyodor dostoevsky

moment. There was certainly something of the sort,

Raskolnikov could have sworn he winked at him,
goodness knows why.
“He knows,” flashed through his mind like lightning.
“Forgive my troubling you about such trifles,” he
went on, a little disconcerted, “the things are only
worth five roubles, but I prize them particularly for
the sake of those from whom they came to me, and I
must confess that I was alarmed when I heard . . .”
“That’s why you were so much struck when I men-
tioned to Zossimov that Porfiry was inquiring for
every one who had pledges!” Razumihin put in with
obvious intention.
This was really unbearable. Raskolnikov could not
help glancing at him with a flash of vindictive anger in
his black eyes, but immediately recollected himself.
“You seem to be jeering at me, brother?” he said
to him, with a well-feigned irritability. “I dare say I do
seem to you absurdly anxious about such trash; but
you mustn’t think me selfish or grasping for that,
and these two things may be anything but trash in my
eyes. I told you just now that the silver watch, though
it’s not worth a cent, is the only thing left us of my
father’s. You may laugh at me, but my mother is
here,” he turned suddenly to Porfiry, “and if she
knew,” he turned again hurriedly to Razumihin,
carefully making his voice tremble, “that the watch
was lost, she would be in despair! You know what
women are!”

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 crime and punishment

“Not a bit of it! I didn’t mean that at all! Quite the

contrary!” shouted Razumihin distressed.
“Was it right? Was it natural? Did I overdo it?”
Raskolnikov asked himself in a tremor. “Why did I say
that about women?”
“Oh, your mother is with you?” Porfiry Petrovitch
inquired.
“Yes.”
“When did she come?”
“Last night.”
Porfiry paused as though reflecting.
“Your things would not in any case be lost,” he
went on calmly and coldly. “I have been expecting
you here for some time.”
And as though that was a matter of no importance,
he carefully offered the ash-tray to Razumihin, who
was ruthlessly scattering cigarette ash over the carpet.
Raskolnikov shuddered, but Porfirv did not seem to
be looking at him, and was still concerned with
Razumihin’s cigarette.
“What? Expecting him? Why, did you know that he
had pledges there?” cried Razumihin.
Porfiry Petrovitch addressed himself to Raskolnikov.
“Your things, the ring and the watch, were
wrapped up together, and on the paper your name
was legibly written in pencil, together with the date
on which you left them with her . . . ”
“How observant you are!” Raskolnikov smiled
awkwardly, doing his very utmost to look him

393
 fyodor dostoevsky

straight in the face, but he failed, and suddenly

added:
“I say that because I suppose there were a great
many pledges . . . so that it must be difficult to remem-
ber them all . . . But you remember them all so clearly,
and . . . and . . . ”
“Stupid! Feeble!” he thought. “Why did I add
that?”
“But we know all who had pledges, and you are the
only one who hasn’t come forward,” Porfiry answered
with hardly perceptible irony.
“I haven’t been quite well.”
“I heard that too. I heard, indeed, that you were in
great distress about something. You look pale still.”
“I am not pale at all . . . No, I am quite well,”
Raskolnikov snapped out rudely and angrily, com-
pletely changing his tone. His anger was mounting,
he could not repress it. “And in my anger I shall
betray myself,” flashed through his mind again. “Why
are they torturing me?”
“Not quite well!” Razumihin caught him up.
“What next! He was unconscious and delirious till
yesterday. Would you believe, Porfiry, as soon as our
backs were turned, he dressed, though he could
hardly stand, and gave us the slip and went off on a
spree somewhere till midnight, delirious all the time!
Would you believe it! Extraordinary!”
“Really delirious? You don’t say so!” Porfiry shook
his head in a womanish way.

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“Nonsense! Don’t you believe it! But you don’t

believe it anyway,” Raskolnikov let slip in his anger.
But Porfiry Petrovitch did not seem to catch those
strange words.
“But how could you have gone out if you hadn’t
been delirious?” Razumihin got hot suddenly. “What
did you go out for? What was the object of it? And
why on the sly? Were you in your senses when you did
it? Now that all danger is over I can speak plainly.”
“I was awfully sick of them yesterday.” Raskolnikov
addressed Porfiry suddenly with a smile of insolent
defiance, “I ran away from them to take lodgings where
they wouldn’t find me, and took a lot of money with
me. Mr. Zametov there saw it. I say, Mr. Zametov, was I
sensible or delirious yesterday; settle our dispute.”
He could have strangled Zametov at that moment,
so hateful were his expression and his silence to him.
“In my opinion you talked sensibly and even art-
fully, but you were extremely irritable,” Zametov pro-
nounced drily.
“And Nikodim Fomitch was telling me to-day,”
put in Porfiry Petrovitch, “that he met you very late
last night in the lodging of a man who had been
run over.”
“And there,” said Razumihin, “weren’t you mad
then? You gave your last penny to the widow for the
funeral. If you wanted to help, give fifteen or twenty
even, but keep three roubles for yourself at least, but
he flung away all the twenty-five at once!”

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“Maybe I found a treasure somewhere and you

know nothing of it? So that’s why I was liberal yester-
day . . . Mr. Zametov knows I’ve found a treasure!
Excuse us, please, for disturbing you for half an hour
with such trivialities,” he said turning to Porfiry
Petrovitch, with trembling lips. “We are boring you,
aren’t we?”
“Oh no, quite the contrary, quite the contrary! If
only you knew how you interest me! It’s interesting to
look on and listen . . . and I am really glad you have
come forward at last.”
“But you might give us some tea! My throat’s dry,”
cried Razumihin.
“Capital idea! Perhaps we will all keep you com-
pany. Wouldn’t you like . . . something more essential
before tea?”
“Get along with you!”
Porfiry Petrovitch went to order tea.
Raskolnikov’s thoughts were in a whirl. He was in
terrible exasperation.
“The worst of it is they don’t disguise it; they don’t
care to stand on ceremony! And how if you didn’t
know me at all, did you come to talk to Nikodim
Fomitch about me? So they didn’t care to hide that
they are tracking me like a pack of dogs. They simply
spit in my face.” He was shaking with rage. “Come,
strike me openly, don’t play with me like a cat with a
mouse. It’s hardly civil, Porfiry Petrovitch, but per-
haps I won’t allow it! I shall get up and throw the

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whole truth in your ugly faces, and you’ll see how I

despise you.” He could hardly breathe. “And what if
it’s only my fancy? What if I am mistaken, and
through inexperience I get angry and don’t keep up
my nasty part? Perhaps it’s all unintentional. All their
phrases are the usual ones, but there is something
about them . . . It all might be said, but there is some-
thing. Why did he say bluntly, ‘With her’? Why did
Zametov add that I spoke artfully? Why do they speak
in that tone? Yes, the tone . . . Razumihin is sitting
here, why does he see nothing? That innocent block-
head never does see anything! Feverish again! Did
Porfiry wink at me just now? Of course it’s nonsense!
What could he wink for? Are they trying to upset my
nerves or are they teasing me? Either it’s all fancy or
they know! Even Zametov is rude . . . Is Zametov rude?
Zametov has changed his mind. I foresaw he would
change his mind! He is at home here, while it’s my
first visit. Porfiry does not consider him a visitor; sits
with his back to him. They’re as thick as thieves, no
doubt, over me! Not a doubt they were talking about
me before we came. Do they know about the flat? If
only they’d make haste! When I said that I ran away to
take a flat he let it pass . . . I put that in cleverly about
a flat, it may be of use afterwards . . . Delirious, indeed
. . . ha-ha-ha! He knows all about last night! He didn’t
know of my mother’s arrival! The hag had written the
date on in pencil! You are wrong, you won’t catch me!
There are no facts . . . it’s all supposition! You produce

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facts! The flat even isn’t a fact but delirium. I know

what to say to them . . . Do they know about the flat? I
won’t go without finding out. What did I come for?
But my being angry now, maybe is a fact! Fool, how
irritable I am! Perhaps that’s right; to play the invalid
. . . He is feeling me. He will try to catch me. Why did
I come?”
All this flashed like lightning through his mind.
Porfiry Petrovitch returned quickly. He became
suddenly more jovial.
“Your party yesterday, brother, has left my head
rather . . . And I am out of sorts altogether,” he began
in quite a different tone, laughing to Razumihin.
“Was it interesting? I left you yesterday at the most
interesting point. Who got the best of it?”
“Oh, no one, of course. They got on to everlasting
questions, floated off into space.”
“Only fancy, Rodya, what we got on to yesterday.
Whether there is such a thing as crime. I told you that
we talked our heads off.”
“What is there strange? It’s an everyday social
question,” Raskolnikov answered casually.
“The question wasn’t put quite like that,” observed
Porfiry.
“Not quite, that’s true,” Razumihin agreed at
once, getting warm and hurried as usual. “Listen,
Rodion, and tell us your opinion, I want to hear it. I
was fighting tooth and nail with them and wanted you
to help me. I told them you were coming . . . It began

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with the socialist doctrine. You know their doctrine;

crime is a protest against the abnormality of the social
organization and nothing more; no other causes
admitted! . . . ”
“You are wrong there,” cried Porfiry Petrovitch; he
was noticeably animated and kept laughing as he
looked at Razumihin which made him more excited
than ever.
“Nothing is admitted,” Razumihin interrupted
with heat.
“I am not wrong. I’ll show you their pamphlets.
Everything with them is ‘the influence of environ-
ment,’ and nothing else. Their favourite phrase! From
which it follows that, if society is normally organised,
all crime will cease at once, since there will be nothing
to protest against and all men will become righteous in
one instant. Human nature is not taken into account,
it is excluded, it’s not supposed to exist! They don’t
recognise that humanity, developing by a historical liv-
ing process, will become at last a normal society, but
they believe that a social system that has come out of
some mathematical brain is going to organise all
humanity at once and make it just and sinless in an
instant, quicker than any living process! That’s why
they instinctively dislike history, ‘nothing but ugliness
and stupidity in it,’ and they explain it all as stupidity!
That’s why they so dislike the living process of life; they
don’t want a living soul! The living soul demands life,
the soul won’t obey the rules of mechanics, the soul is

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an object of suspicion, the soul is retrograde! But what

they want though it smells of death and can be made
of India-rubber, at least is not alive, has no will, is
servile and won’t revolt! And it comes in the end to
their reducing everything to the building of walls and
the planning of rooms and passages in a phalanstery!
The phalanstery is ready, indeed, but your human
nature is not ready for the phalanstery — it wants life, it
hasn’t completed its vital process, it’s too soon for the
graveyard! You can’t skip over nature by logic. Logic
presupposes three possibilities, but there are millions!
Cut away a million, and reduce it all to the question of
comfort! That’s the easiest solution of the problem!
It’s seductively dear and you mustn’t think about it.
That’s the great thing, you mustn’t think! The whole
secret of life in two pages of print!”
“Now he is off, beating the drum! Catch hold of
him, do!” laughed Porfiry. “Can you imagine,” he
turned to Raskolnikov, “six people holding forth
like that last night, in one room, with punch as a
preliminary! No, brother, you are wrong, environ-
ment accounts for a great deal in crime; I can assure
you of that.”
“Oh, I know it does, but just tell me: a man of forty
violates a child of ten; was it environment drove him
to it?”
“Well, strictly speaking, it did,” Porfiry observed
with noteworthy gravity; “a crime of that nature may be
very well ascribed to the influence of environment.”

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 crime and punishment

Razumihin was almost in a frenzy. “Oh, if you

like,” he roared. “I’ll prove to you that your white eye-
lashes may very well be ascribed to the Church of Ivan
the Great’s being two hundred and fifty feet high,
and I will prove it clearly, exactly, progressively, and
even with a Liberal tendency! I undertake to! Will
you bet on it?”
“Done! Let’s hear, please, how he will prove it!”
“He is always humbugging, confound him,” cried
Razumihin, jumping up and gesticulating. “What’s the
use of talking to you! He does all that on purpose; you
don’t know him, Rodion! He took their side yesterday,
simply to make fools of them. And the things he said
yesterday! And they were delighted! He can keep it up
for a fortnight together. Last year he persuaded us
that he was going into a monastery: he stuck to it for
two months. Not long ago he took it into his head to
declare he was going to get married, that he had
everything ready for the wedding. He ordered new
clothes indeed. We all began to congratulate him.
There was no bride, nothing, all pure fantasy!”
“Ah, you are wrong! I got the clothes before. It was
the new clothes in fact that made me think of taking
you in.”
“Are you such a good dissembler?” Raskolnikov
asked carelessly.
“You wouldn’t have supposed it, eh? Wait a bit, I
shall take you in, too. Ha-ha-ha! No, I’ll tell you the
truth. All these questions about crime, environment,

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 fyodor dostoevsky

children, recall to my mind an article of yours which

interested me at the time. ‘On Crime’ . . . or some-
thing of the sort, I forget the title, I read it with pleas-
ure two months ago in the Periodical Review.”
“My article? In the Periodical Review?” Raskolnikov
asked in astonishment. “I certainly did write an article
upon a book six months ago when I left the univer-
sity, but I sent it to the Weekly Review.”
“But it came out in the Periodical.”
“And the Weekly Review ceased to exist, so that’s
why it wasn’t printed at the time.”
“That’s true; but when it ceased to exist, the Weekly
Review was amalgamated with the Periodical, and so
your article appeared two months ago in the latter.
Didn’t you know?”
Raskolnikov had not known.
“Why, you might get some money out of them for
the article! What a strange person you are! You lead
such a solitary life that you know nothing of matters
that concern you directly. It’s a fact, I assure you.”
“Bravo, Rodya! I knew nothing about it either!”
cried Razumihin. “I’ll run to-day to the reading-room
and ask for the number. Two months ago? What was
the date? It doesn’t matter though, I will find it.
Think of not telling us!”
“How did you find out that the article was mine?
It’s only signed with an initial.”
“I only learnt it by chance, the other day. Through
the editor; I know him . . . I was very much interested.”

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 crime and punishment

“It analysed, if I remember, the psychology of a

criminal before and after the crime.”
“Yes, and you maintained that the perpetration
of a crime is always accompanied by illness. Very,
very original, but . . . it was not that part of your arti-
cle that interested me so much, but an idea at the
end of the article which I regret to say you merely
suggested without working it out clearly. There is, if
you recollect, a suggestion that there are certain
persons who can . . . that is, not precisely are able to,
but have a perfect right to commit breaches of
morality and crimes, and that the law is not for
them.”
Raskolnikov smiled at the exaggerated and inten-
tional distortion of his idea.
“What? What do you mean? A right to crime? But
not because of the influence of environment?”
Razumihin inquired with some alarm even.
“No, not exactly because of it,” answered Porfiry.
“In his article all men are divided into ‘ordinary’
and ‘extraordinary.’ Ordinary men have to live in
submission, have no right to transgress the law,
because, don’t you see, they are ordinary. But
extraordinary men have a right to commit any crime
and to transgress the law in any way, just because
they are extraordinary. That was your idea, if I am
not mistaken?”
“What do you mean? That can’t be right?”
Razumihin muttered in bewilderment.

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 fyodor dostoevsky

Raskolnikov smiled again. He saw the point at

once, and knew where they wanted to drive him. He
decided to take up the challenge.
“That wasn’t quite my contention,” he began sim-
ply and modestly. “Yet I admit that you have stated it
almost correctly; perhaps, if you like, perfectly so.” (It
almost gave him pleasure to admit this.) “The only
difference is that I don’t contend that extraordinary
people are always bound to commit breaches of
morals, as you call it. In fact, I doubt whether such an
argument could be published. I simply hinted that an
‘extraordinary’ man has the right . . . that is not an
official right, but an inner right to decide in his own
conscience to overstep . . . certain obstacles, and only
in case it is essential for the practical fulfilment of his
idea (sometimes, perhaps, of benefit to the whole of
humanity). You say that my article isn’t definite; I am
ready to make it as clear as I can. Perhaps I am right
in thinking you want me to; very well. I maintain that
if the discoveries of Kepler and Newton could not
have been made known except by sacrificing the lives
of one, a dozen, a hundred, or more men, Newton
would have had the right, would indeed have been in
duty bound . . . to eliminate the dozen or the hundred
men for the sake of making his discoveries known to
the whole of humanity. But it does not follow from
that that Newton had a right to murder people right
and left and to steal every day in the market. Then, I
remember, I maintain in my article that all . . . well,

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legislators and leaders of men, such as Lycurgus,

Solon, Mahomet, Napoleon, and so on, were all with-
out exception criminals, from the very fact that, mak-
ing a new law, they transgressed the ancient one,
handed down from their ancestors and held sacred
by the people, and they did not stop short at blood-
shed either, if that bloodshed — often of innocent
persons fighting bravely in defence of ancient law —
were of use to their cause. It’s remarkable, in fact,
that the majority, indeed, of these benefactors and
leaders of humanity were guilty of terrible carnage.
In short, I maintain that all great men or even men a
little out of the common, that is to say capable of giv-
ing some new word, must from their very nature be
criminals — more or less, of course. Otherwise it’s
hard for them to get out of the common rut; and to
remain in the common rut is what they can’t submit
to, from their very nature again, and to my mind they
ought not, indeed, to submit to it. You see that there
is nothing particularly new in all that. The same thing
has been printed and read a thousand times before.
As for my division of people into ordinary and
extraordinary, I acknowledge that it’s somewhat arbi-
trary, but I don’t insist upon exact numbers. I only
believe in my leading idea that men are in general
divided by a law of nature into two categories, infe-
rior (ordinary), that is, so to say, material that serves
only to reproduce its kind, and men who have the gift
or the talent to utter a new word. There are, of course,

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 fyodor dostoevsky

innumerable sub-divisions, but the distinguishing fea-

tures of both categories are fairly well marked. The
first category, generally speaking, are men conserva-
tive in temperament and law-abiding; they live under
control and love to be controlled. To my thinking it is
their duty to be controlled, because that’s their voca-
tion, and there is nothing humiliating in it for them.
The second category all transgress the law; they are
destroyers or disposed to destruction according to
their capacities. The crimes of these men are of
course relative and varied; for the most part they seek
in very varied ways the destruction of the present for
the sake of the better. But if such a one is forced for
the sake of his idea to step over a corpse or wade
through blood, he can, I maintain, find within him-
self, in his conscience, a sanction for wading through
blood — that depends on the idea and its dimensions,
note that. It’s only in that sense I speak of their right
to crime in my article (you remember it began with
the legal question). There’s no need for such anxiety,
however; the masses will scarcely ever admit this
right, they punish them or hang them (more or less),
and in doing so fulfil quite justly their conservative
vocation. But the same masses set these criminals on
a pedestal in the next generation and worship them
(more or less). The first category is always the man of
the present, the second the man of the future. The
first preserve the world and people it, the second
move the world and lead it to its goal. Each class has

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an equal right to exist. In fact, all have equal rights

with me — and vive la guerre éternelle — till the New
Jerusalem, of course!”
“Then you believe in the New Jerusalem, do you?”
“I do,” Raskolnikov answered firmly; as he said
these words and during the whole preceding tirade
he kept his eyes on one spot on the carpet.
“And . . . and do you believe in God? Excuse my
curiosity.”
“I do,” repeated Raskolnikov, raising his eyes to
Porfiry.
“And . . . do you believe in Lazarus’ rising from the
dead?”
“I . . . I do. Why do you ask all this?”
“You believe it literally?”
“Literally.”
“You don’t say so . . . I asked from curiosity. Excuse
me. But let us go back to the question; they are not
always executed. Some, on the contrary . . . ”
“Triumph in their lifetime? Oh, yes, some attain
their ends in this life, and then . . . ”
“They begin executing other people?”
“If it’s necessary; indeed, for the most part they do.
Your remark is very witty.”
“Thank you. But tell me this: how do you distin-
guish those extraordinary people from the ordinary
ones? Are there signs at their birth? I feel there ought
to be more exactitude, more external definition.
Excuse the natural anxiety of a practical law-abiding

407
 fyodor dostoevsky

citizen, but couldn’t they adopt a special uniform, for

instance, couldn’t they wear something, be branded
in some way? For you know if confusion arises and a
member of one category imagines that he belongs to
the other, begins to ‘eliminate’ obstacles, as you so
happily expressed it, then . . .”
“Oh, that very often happens! That remark is wit-
tier than the other.”
“Thank you.”
“No reason to; but take note that the mistake can
only arise in the first category, that is among the ordi-
nary people (as I perhaps unfortunately called
them). In spite of their predisposition to obedience
very many of them, through a playfulness of nature,
sometimes vouchsafed even to the cow, like to imag-
ine themselves advanced people, ‘destroyers,’ and to
push themselves into the ‘new movement,’ and this
quite sincerely. Meanwhile the really new people are
very often unobserved by them, or even despised as
reactionaries of grovelling tendencies. But I don’t
think there is any considerable danger here, and you
really need not be uneasy for they never go very far.
Of course, they might have a thrashing sometimes for
letting their fancy run away with them and to teach
them their place, but no more; in fact, even this isn’t
necessary as they castigate themselves, for they are
very conscientious: some perform this service for one
another and others chastise themselves with their
own hands . . . They will impose various public acts of

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penitence upon themselves with a beautiful and edi-

fying effect; in fact you’ve nothing to be uneasy about
. . . It’s a law of nature.”
“Well, you have certainly set my mind more at rest on
that score; but there’s another thing worries me. Tell
me, please, are there many people who have the right to
kill others, these extraordinary people? I am ready to
bow down to them, of course, but you must admit it’s
alarming if there are a great many of them, eh?”
“Oh, you needn’t worry about that either,”
Raskolnikov went on in the same tone. “People with
new ideas, people with the faintest capacity for saying
something new, are extremely few in number, extraor-
dinarily so in fact. One thing only is clear, that the
appearance of all these grades and sub-divisions of
men must follow with unfailing regularity some law of
nature. That law, of course, is unknown at present,
but I am convinced that it exists, and one day may
become known. The vast mass of mankind is mere
material, and only exists in order by some great
effort, by some mysterious process, by means of some
crossing of races and stocks, to bring into the world at
last perhaps one man out of a thousand with a spark
of independence. One in ten thousand perhaps — I
speak roughly, approximately — is born with some
independence, and with still greater independence
one in a hundred thousand. The man of genius is
one of millions, and the great geniuses, the crown of
humanity, appear on earth perhaps one in many

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 fyodor dostoevsky

thousand millions. In fact I have not peeped into the

retort in which all this takes place. But there certainly
is and must be a definite law, it cannot be a matter of
chance.”
“Why, are you both joking?” Razumihin cried at
last. “There you sit, making fun of one another. Are
you serious, Rodya?”
Raskolnikov raised his pale and almost mournful
face and made no reply. And the unconcealed, per-
sistent, nervous, and discourteous sarcasm of Porfiry
seemed strange to Razumihin beside that quiet and
mournful face.
“Well, brother, if you are really serious . . . You are
right, of course, in saying that it’s not new, that it’s
like what we’ve read and heard a thousand times
already; but what is really original in all this, and is
exclusively your own, to my horror, is that you sanc-
tion bloodshed in the name of conscience, and, excuse
my saying so, with such fanaticism . . . That, I take it, is
the point of your article. But that sanction of blood-
shed by conscience is to my mind . . . more terrible than
the official, legal sanction of bloodshed . . . ”
“You are quite right, it is more terrible,” Porfiry
agreed.
“Yes, you must have exaggerated! There is some
mistake, I shall read it. You can’t think that! I shall
read it.”
“All that is not in the article, there’s only a hint of
it,” said Raskolnikov.

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 crime and punishment

“Yes, yes.” Porfiry couldn’t sit still. “Your attitude to

crime is pretty clear to me now, but . . . excuse me for
my impertinence (I am really ashamed to be worrying
you like this), you see, you’ve removed my anxiety as
to the two grades’ getting mixed, but . . . there are var-
ious practical possibilities that make me uneasy! What
if some man or youth imagines that he is a Lycurgus
or Mahomet — a future one of course — and suppose
he begins to remove all obstacles . . . He has some
great enterprise before him and needs money for it . .
. and tries to get it . . . do you see?”
Zametov gave a sudden guffaw in his corner.
Raskolnikov did not even raise his eyes to him.
“I must admit,” he went on calmly, “that such cases
certainly must arise. The vain and foolish are particu-
larly apt to fall into that snare; young people especially.”
“Yes, you see. Well then?”
“What then?” Raskolnikov smiled in reply; “that’s
not my fault. So it is and so it always will be. He said
just now (he nodded at Razumihin) that I sanction
bloodshed. Society is too well protected by prisons,
banishment, criminal investigators, penal servitude.
There’s no need to be uneasy. You have but to catch
the thief.”
“And what if we do catch him?”
“Then he gets what he deserves.”
“You are certainly logical. But what of his con-
science?”
“Why do you care about that?”

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“Simply from humanity.”

“If he has a conscience he will suffer for his mistake.
That will be his punishment — as well as the prison.”
“But the real geniuses,” asked Razumihin frown-
ing, “those who have the right to murder? Oughtn’t
they to suffer at all even for the blood they’ve shed?”
“Why the word ought? It’s not a matter of permis-
sion or prohibition. He will suffer if he is sorry for his
victim. Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a
large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great
men must, I think, have great sadness on earth,” he
added dreamily, not in the tone of the conversation.
He raised his eyes, looked earnestly at them all,
smiled, and took his cap. He was too quiet by com-
parison with his manner at his entrance, and he felt
this. Every one got up.
“Well, you may abuse me, be angry with me if you
like,” Porfiry Petrovitch began again, “but I can’t
resist. Allow me one little question (I know I am trou-
bling you). There is just one little notion I want to
express, simply that I may not forget it.”
“Very good, tell me your little notion,” Raskolnikov
stood waiting, pale and grave before him.
“Well, you see . . . I really don’t know how to
express it properly . . . It’s a playful, psychological idea
. . . When you were writing your article, surely you
couldn’t have helped, he-he, fancying yourself . . . just
a little, an ‘extraordinary’ man, uttering a new word in
your sense . . . That’s so, isn’t it?”

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 crime and punishment

“Quite possibly,” Raskolnikov answered con-

temptuously.
Razumihin made a movement.
“And, if so, could you bring yourself in case of
worldly difficulties and hardship or for some service
to humanity — to overstep obstacles? . . . For instance,
to rob and murder?”
And again he winked with his left eye, and
laughed noiselessly just as before.
“If I did I certainly should not tell you,” Raskolnikov
answered with defiant and haughty contempt.
“No, I was only interested on account of your arti-
cle, from a literary point of view . . .”
“Foo, how obvious and insolent that is,”
Raskolnikov thought with repulsion.
“Allow me to observe,” he answered drily, “that I
don’t consider myself a Mahomet or a Napoleon, nor
any personage of that kind, and not being one of
them I cannot tell you how I should act.”
“Oh, come, don’t we all think ourselves Napoleons
now in Russia?” Porfiry Petrovitch said with alarming
familiarity.
Something peculiar betrayed itself in the very into-
nation of his voice.
“Perhaps it was one of these future Napoleons who
did for Alyona Ivanovna last week?” Zametov blurted
out from the corner.
Raskolnikov did not speak, but looked firmly and
intently at Porfiry. Razumihin was scowling gloomily.

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 fyodor dostoevsky

He seemed before this to be noticing something. He

looked angrily around. There was a minute of gloomy
silence. Raskolnikov turned to go.
“Are you going already?” Porfiry said amiably, hold-
ing out his hand with excessive politeness. “Very, very
glad of your acquaintance. As for your request, have no
uneasiness, write just as I told you, or, better still, come
to me there yourself in a day or two . . . to-morrow,
indeed. I shall be there at eleven o’clock for certain.
We’ll arrange it all; we’ll have a talk. As one of the last to
be there, you might perhaps be able to tell us some-
thing,” he added with a most good-natured expression.
“You want to cross-examine me officially in due
form?” Raskolnikov asked sharply.
“Oh, why? That’s not necessary for the present. You
misunderstand me. I lose no opportunity, you see, and
. . . I’ve talked with all who had pledges . . . I obtained
evidence from some of them, and you are the last . . .
Yes, by the way,” he cried, seemingly suddenly
delighted, “I just remember, what was I thinking of?”
he turned to Razumihin, “you were talking my ears off
about that Nikolay . . . of course, I know, I know very
well,” he turned to Raskolnikov, “that the fellow is
innocent, but what is one to do? We had to trouble
Dmitri too . . . This is the point, this is all: when you
went up the stairs it was past seven, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” answered Raskolnikov, with an unpleasant
sensation at the very moment he spoke that he need
not have said it.

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“Then when you went upstairs between seven and

eight, didn’t you see in a flat that stood open on a sec-
ond storey, do you remember, two workmen or at
least one of them? They were painting there, didn’t
you notice them? It’s very, very important for them.”
“Painters? No, I didn’t see them,” Raskolnikov
answered slowly, as though ransacking his memory,
while at the same instant he was racking every nerve,
almost swooning with anxiety to conjecture as quickly
as possible where the trap lay and not to overlook any-
thing. “No, I didn’t see them, and I don’t think I
noticed a flat like that open . . . But on the fourth
storey” (he had mastered the trap now and was tri-
umphant) “I remember now that some one was mov-
ing out of the flat opposite Alyona Ivanovna’s . . . I
remember . . . I remember it clearly. Some porters
were carrying out a sofa and they squeezed me against
the wall. But painters . . . no, I don’t remember that
there were any painters, and I don’t think that there
was a flat open anywhere, no, there wasn’t.”
“What do you mean?” Razumihin shouted sud-
denly, as though he had reflected and realised. “Why,
it was on the day of the murder the painters were at
work, and he was there three days before? What are
you asking?”
“Foo! I have muddled it!” Porfiry slapped himself
on the forehead. “Deuce take it! This business is turn-
ing my brain!” he addressed Raskolnikov somewhat
apologetically. “It would be such a great thing for us

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to find out whether any one had seen them between

seven and eight at the flat, so I fancied you could per-
haps have told us something . . . I quite muddled it.”
“Then you should be more careful,” Razumihin
observed grimly.
The last words were uttered in the passage.
Porfiry Petrovitch saw them to the door with exces-
sive politeness.
They went out into the street gloomy and sullen,
and for some steps they did not say a word.
Raskolnikov drew a deep breath.

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“I don’t believe it, I can’t believe it!” repeated

Razumihin, trying in perplexity to refute Raskolnikov’s
arguments.
They were by now approaching Bakaleyev’s
lodgings, where Pulcheria Alexandrovna and
Dounia had been expecting them a long while.
Razumihin kept stopping on the way in the heat of
discussion, confused and excited by the very fact
that they were for the first time speaking openly
about it.
“Don’t believe it, then!” answered Raskolnikov,
with a cold, careless smile. “You were noticing noth-
ing as usual, but I was weighing every word.”
“You are suspicious. That is why you weighed their
words . . . h’m . . . certainly, I agree, Porfiry’s tone was
rather strange, and still more that wretch Zametov! . .
. You are right, there was something about him — but
why? Why?”
“He has changed his mind since last night.”

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“Quite the contrary! If they had that brainless

idea, they would do their utmost to hide it, and con-
ceal their cards, so as to catch you afterwards . . . But it
was all impudent and careless.”
“If they had had facts — I mean, real facts — or at
least grounds for suspicion, then they would certainly
have tried to hide their game, in the hope of getting
more (they would have made a search long ago
besides). But they have no facts, not one. It is all
mirage — all ambiguous. Simply a floating idea. So
they try to throw me out by impudence. And perhaps,
he was irritated at having no facts, and blurted it out
in his vexation — or perhaps he has some plan . . . he
seems an intelligent man. Perhaps he wanted to
frighten me by pretending to know. They have a psy-
chology of their own, brother. But it is loathsome
explaining it all. Stop!”
“And it’s insulting, insulting! I understand you.
But . . . since we have spoken openly now (and it is an
excellent thing that we have at last — I am glad) I will
own now frankly that I noticed it in them long ago,
this idea. Of course the merest hint only — an insinu-
ation — but why an insinuation even? How dare they!
What foundation have they? If only you knew how
furious I have been. Think only! Simply because a
poor student, unhinged by poverty and hypochon-
dria, on the eve of a severe delirious illness (note
that), suspicious, vain, proud, who has not seen a soul
to speak to for six months, in rags and in boots with-

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out soles, has to face some wretched policemen and

put up with their insolence; and the unexpected debt
thrust under his nose, the I.O.U. presented by
Tchebarov, the new paint, thirty degrees Reaumur
and a stifling atmosphere, a crowd of people, the talk
about the murder of a person where he had been just
before, and all that on an empty stomach — he might
well have a fainting fit! And that, that is what they
found it all on! Damn them! I understand how
annoying it is, but in your place, Rodya, I would laugh
at them, or better still, spit in their ugly faces, and spit
a dozen times in all directions. I’d hit out in all direc-
tions, neatly too, and so I’d put an end to it. Damn
them! Don’t be downhearted. It’s a shame!”
“He really has put it well, though,” Raskolnikov
thought.
“Damn them? But the cross-examination again, to-
morrow?” he said with bitterness. “Must I really enter
into explanations with them? I feel vexed as it is that I
condescended to speak to Zametov yesterday in the
restaurant . . . ”
“Damn it! I will go myself to Porfiry. I will squeeze it
out of him, as one of the family: he must let me know
the ins and outs of it all! And as for Zametov . . . ”
“At last he sees through him!” thought
Raskolnikov.
“Stay!” cried Razumihin, seizing him by the
shoulder again. “Stay! you were wrong. I have
thought it out. You are wrong! How was that a trap?

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 fyodor dostoevsky

You say that the question about the workmen was a

trap. But if you had done that, could you have said
you had seen them painting the flat . . . and the
workmen? On the contrary, you would have seen
nothing, even if you had seen it. Who would own it
against himself?”
“If I had done that thing, I should certainly have
said that I had seen the workmen and the flat,”
Raskolnikov answered, with reluctance and obvious
disgust.
“But why speak against yourself?”
“Because only peasants, or the most inexperi-
enced novices deny everything flatly at examina-
tions. If a man is ever so little developed and
experienced, he will certainly try to admit all the
external facts that can’t be avoided, but will seek
other explanations of them, will introduce some spe-
cial, unexpected turn, that will give them another
significance and put them in another light. Porfiry
might well reckon that I should be sure to answer so,
and say I had seen them to give an air of truth, and
then make some explanation.”
“But he would have told you at once, that the
workmen could not have been there two days before,
and that therefore you must have been there in the
day of the murder at eight o’clock. And so he would
have caught you over a detail.”
“Yes, that is what he was reckoning on, that I
should not have time to reflect, and should be in a

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hurry to make the most likely answer, and so would

forget that the workmen could not have been there
two days before.”
“But how could you forget it?”
“Nothing easier. It is in just such stupid things
clever people are most easily caught. The more cun-
ning a man is, the less he suspects that he will be
caught in a simple thing. The more cunning a man is,
the simpler the trap he must be caught in. Porfiry is
not such a fool as you think . . . ”
“He is a knave then, if that is so!”
Raskolnikov could not help laughing. But at the
very moment, he was struck by the strangeness of his
own frankness, and the eagerness with which he had
made this explanation, though he had kept up all the
preceding conversation with gloomy repulsion, obvi-
ously with a motive, from necessity.
“I am getting a relish for certain aspects!” he
thought to himself. But almost at the same instant, he
became suddenly uneasy, as though an unexpected
and alarming idea had occurred to him. His uneasi-
ness kept on increasing. They had just reached the
entrance to Bakaleyev’s.
“Go in alone!” said Raskolnikov suddenly. “I will
be back directly.”
“Where are you going? Why, we are just here.”
“I can’t help it . . . I will come in half an hour. Tell
them.”
“Say what you like, I will come with you.”

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“You, too, want to torture me!” he screamed, with

such bitter irritation, such despair in his eyes that
Razumihin’s hands dropped. He stood for some time
on the steps, looking gloomily at Raskolnikov strid-
ing rapidly away in the direction of his lodging. At
last, gritting his teeth and clenching his fist, he swore
he would squeeze Porfiry like a lemon that very day,
and went up the stairs to reassure Pulcheria
Alexandrovna, who was by now alarmed at their long
absence.
When Raskolnikov got home, his hair was soaked
with sweat and he was breathing heavily. He went
rapidly up the stairs, walked into his unlocked room
and at once fastened the latch. Then in senseless ter-
ror he rushed to the comer, to that hole under the
paper where he had put the thing; put his hand in,
and for some minutes felt carefully in the hole, in
every crack and fold of the paper. Finding nothing,
he got up and drew a deep breath. As he was reach-
ing the steps of Bakaleyev’s, he suddenly fancied that
something, a chain, a stud or even a bit of paper in
which they had been wrapped with the old woman’s
handwriting on it, might somehow have slipped out
and been lost in some crack, and then might sud-
denly turn up as unexpected, conclusive evidence
against him.
He stood as though lost in thought, and a strange,
humiliated, half senseless smile strayed on his lips.
He took his cap at last and went quietly out of the

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room. His ideas were all tangled. He went dreamily

through the gateway.
“Here he is himself,” shouted a loud voice.
He raised his head.
The porter was standing at the door of his little
room and was pointing him out to a short man who
looked like an artisan, wearing a long coat and a
waistcoat, and looking at a distance remarkably like a
woman. He stooped, and his head in a greasy cap
hung forward. From his wrinkled flabby face he
looked over fifty; his little eyes were lost in fat and
they looked out grimly, sternly and discontentedly.
“What is it?” Raskolnikov asked, going up to the
porter.
The man stole a look at him from under his brows
and he looked at him attentively, deliberately; then
he turned slowly and went out of the gate into the
street without saying a word.
“What is it?” cried Raskolnikov.
“Why, he there was asking whether a student lived
here, mentioned your name and whom you lodged
with. I saw you coming and pointed you out and he
went away. It’s funny.”
The porter too seemed rather puzzled, but not
much so, and after wondering for a moment he
turned and went back to his room.
Raskolnikov ran after the stranger, and at once
caught sight of him walking along the other side of the
street with the same even, deliberate step with his eyes

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fixed on the ground, as though in meditation. He soon

overtook him, but for some time walked behind him.
At last, moving on to a level with him, he looked at his
face. The man noticed him at once, looked at him
quickly, but dropped his eyes again; and so they walked
for a minute side by side without uttering a word.
“You were inquiring for me . . . of the porter?”
Raskolnikov said at last, but in a curiously quiet voice.
The man made no answer; he didn’t even look at
him. Again they were both silent.
“Why do you . . . come and ask for me . . . and say
nothing . . . What’s the meaning of it?”
Raskolnikov’s voice broke and he seemed unable
to articulate the words clearly.
The man raised his eyes this time and turned a
gloomy sinister look at Raskolnikov.
“Murderer!” he said suddenly in a quiet but clear
and distinct voice.
Raskolnikov went on walking beside him. His legs
felt suddenly weak, a cold shiver ran down his spine,
and his heart seemed to stand still for a moment,
then suddenly began throbbing as though it were set
free. So they walked for about a hundred paces, side
by side in silence.
The man did not look at him.
“What do you mean . . . what is . . . Who is a mur-
derer?” muttered Raskolnikov hardly audibly.
“You are a murderer,” the man answered still more
articulately and emphatically, with a smile of tri-

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umphant hatred, and again he looked straight into

Raskolnikov’s pale face and stricken eyes.
They had just reached the cross roads. The man
turned to the left without looking behind him.
Raskolnikov remained standing, gazing after him. He
saw him turn round fifty paces away and look back at
him still standing there. Raskolnikov could not see
clearly, but he fancied that he was again smiling the
same smile of cold hatred and triumph.
With slow faltering steps, with shaking knees,
Raskolnikov made his way back to his little garret,
feeling chilled all over. He took off his cap and put it
on the table, and for ten minutes he stood without
moving. Then he sank exhausted on the sofa and
with a weak moan of pain he stretched himself on it.
So he lay for half an hour.
He thought of nothing. Some thoughts or frag-
ments of thoughts, some images without order or
coherence floated before his mind — faces of people
he had seen in his childhood or met somewhere
once, whom he would never have recalled, the belfry
of the church at V., the billiard table in a restaurant
and some officers playing billiards, the smell of cigars
in some underground tobacco shop, a tavern room, a
back staircase quite dark, all sloppy with dirty water
and strewn with egg shells, and the Sunday bells float-
ing in from somewhere . . . The images followed one
another, whirling like a hurricane. Some of them he
liked and tried to clutch at, but they faded and all the

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while there was an oppression within him, but it was

not overwhelming, sometimes it was even pleasant . . .
The slight shivering still persisted, but that too was an
almost pleasant sensation.
He heard the hurried footsteps of Razumihin; he
closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep.
Razumihin opened the door and stood for some time
in the doorway as though hesitating, then he stepped
softly into the room and went cautiously to the sofa.
Raskolnikov heard Nastasya’s whisper:
“Don’t disturb him! Let him sleep. He can have his
dinner later.”
“Quite so,” answered Razumihin. Both withdrew
carefully and closed the door. Another half-hour
passed. Raskolnikov opened his eyes, turned on his
back again, clasping his hands behind his head.
“Who is he? Who is that man who sprang out of
the earth? Where was he, what did he see? He has
seen it all, that’s clear. Where was he then? And from
where did he see? Why has he only now sprung out of
the earth? And how could he see? Is it possible? Hm .
. .” continued Raskolnikov, turning cold and shiver-
ing, “and the jewel case Nikolay found behind the
door — was that possible? A clue? You miss an infini-
tesimal line and you can build it into a pyramid of evi-
dence! A fly flew by and saw it! Is it possible?” He felt
with sudden loathing how weak, how physically weak
he had become. “I ought to have known it,” he
thought with a bitter smile. “And how dared I, know-

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ing myself, knowing how I should be, take up an axe

and shed blood! I ought to have known beforehand .
. . Ah, but I did know!” he whispered in despair. At
times he came to a standstill at some thought.
“No, those men are not made so. The real Master
to whom all is permitted storms Toulon, makes a mas-
sacre in Paris, forgets an army in Egypt, wastes half a
million men in the Moscow expedition and gets off
with a jest at Vilna. And altars are set up to him after
his death, and so all is permitted. No, such people it
seems are not of flesh but of bronze!”
One sudden irrelevant idea almost made him
laugh. Napoleon, the pyramids, Waterloo, and a
wretched skinny old woman, a pawnbroker with a red
trunk under her bed — it’s a nice hash for Porfiry
Petrovitch to digest! How can they digest it! It’s too
inartistic. “A Napoleon crept under an old woman’s
bed! Ugh, how loathsome!”
At moments he felt he was raving. He sank into a
state of feverish excitement. “The old woman is of no
consequence,” he thought, hotly and incoherently.
“The old woman was a mistake perhaps, but she is not
what matters! The old woman was only an illness . . . I
was in a hurry to overstep . . . I didn’t kill a human
being, but a principle! I killed the principle, but I
didn’t overstep, I stopped on this side . . . I was only
capable of killing. And it seems I wasn’t even capable
of that . . . Principle? Why was that fool Razumihin
abusing the socialists? They are industrious, commer-

427
 fyodor dostoevsky

cial people; ‘the happiness of all’ is their case. No, life

is only given to me once and I shall never have it
again; I don’t want to wait for ‘the happiness of all.’ I
want to live myself, or else better not live at all. I sim-
ply couldn’t pass by my mother starving, keeping my
trouble in my pocket while I waited for the ‘happi-
ness of all.’ I am putting my little brick into the hap-
piness of all and so my heart is at peace. Ha-ha! Why
have you let me slip? I only live once, I too want . . .
Ech, I am an aesthetic louse and nothing more,” he
added suddenly, laughing like a madman. “Yes, I am
certainly a louse,” he went on, clutching at the idea,
gloating over it and playing with it with vindictive
pleasure. “In the first place, because I can reason that
I am one, and secondly, because for a month past I
have been troubling benevolent Providence, calling it
to witness that not for my own fleshly lusts did I
undertake it, but with a grand and noble object — ha-
ha! Thirdly, because I aimed at carrying it out as justly
as possible, weighing, measuring and calculating. Of
all the lice I picked out the most useless one and pro-
posed to take from her only as much as I needed for
the first step, no more nor less (so the rest would
have gone to a monastery, according to her will, ha-
ha!). And what shows that I am utterly a louse,” he
added, grinding his teeth, “is that I am perhaps viler
and more loathsome than the louse I killed, and I felt
beforehand that I should tell myself so after killing her.
Can anything be compared with the horror of that!

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 crime and punishment

The vulgarity! The abjectness! I understand the

‘prophet’ with his sabre, on his steed: Allah com-
mands and ‘trembling’ creation must obey! The
‘prophet’ is right, he is right when he sets a battery
across the street and blows up the innocent and the
guilty without deigning to explain! It’s for you to
obey, trembling creation, and not to have desires, for
that’s not for you! . . . I shall never, never forgive the
old woman!”
His hair was soaked with sweat, his quivering lips
were parched, his eyes were fixed on the ceiling.
“Mother, sister — how I loved them! Why do I hate
them now? Yes, I hate them, I feel a physical hatred
for them, I can’t bear them near me . . . I went up to
my mother and kissed her, I remember . . . To
embrace her and think if she only knew . . . shall I tell
her then? That’s just what I might do . . . H’m. She
must be the same as I am,” he added, straining him-
self to think, as it were struggling with delirium. “Ah,
how I hate the old woman now! I feel I should kill her
again if she came to life! Poor Lizaveta! Why did she
come in? . . . It’s strange though, why is it I scarcely
ever think of her, as though I hadn’t killed her!
Lizaveta! Sonia! Poor gentle things, with gentle eyes .
. . Dear women! Why don’t they weep? Why don’t they
moan? They give up everything . . . their eyes are soft
and gentle . . . Sonia, Sonia! Gentle Sonia!”
He lost consciousness; it seemed strange to him
that he didn’t remember how he got into the street. It

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was late evening. The twilight had fallen and the full
moon was shining more and more brightly; but there
was a peculiar breathlessness in the air. There were
crowds of people in the street; workmen and business
people were making their way home; other people
had come out for a walk; there was a smell of mortar,
dust and stagnant water. Raskolnikov walked along,
mournful and anxious; he was distinctly aware of hav-
ing come out with a purpose, of having to do some-
thing in a hurry, but what it was he had forgotten.
Suddenly he stood still and saw a man standing on
the other side of the street, beckoning to him. He
crossed over to him, but at once the man turned and
walked away with his head hanging, as though he had
made no sign to him. “Stay, did he really beckon?”
Raskolnikov wondered, but he tried to overtake him.
When he was within ten paces he recognised him and
was frightened; it was the same man with stooping
shoulders in the long coat. Raskolnikov followed him
at a distance; his heart was beating; they went down a
turning; the man still did not look round. “Does he
know I am following him?” thought Raskolnikov. The
man went into the gateway of a big house. Raskolnikov
hastened to the gate and looked in to see whether he
would look round and sign to him. In the courtyard
the man did turn round and again seemed to beckon
him. Raskolnikov at once followed him into the yard,
but the man was gone. He must have gone up the first
staircase. Raskolnikov rushed after him. He heard

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slow measured steps two flights above. The staircase

seemed strangely familiar. He reached the window on
the first floor; the moon shone through the panes
with a melancholy and mysterious light; then he
reached the second floor. Bah! this is the flat where
the painters were at work . . . but how was it he did not
recognise it at once? The steps of the man above had
died away. “So he must have stopped or hidden some-
where.” He reached the third storey, should he go
on? There was a stillness that was dreadful . . . But he
went on. The sound of his own footsteps scared and
frightened him. How dark it was! The man must be
hiding in some corner here. Ah! the flat was standing
wide open, he hesitated and went in. It was very dark
and empty in the passage, as though everything had
been removed; he crept on tiptoe into the parlour
which was flooded with moonlight. Everything there
was as before, the chairs, the looking-glass, the yellow
sofa and the pictures in the frames. A huge, round,
copper-red moon looked in at the windows. “It’s the
moon that makes it so still, weaving some mystery,”
thought Raskolnikov. He stood and waited, waited a
long while, and the more silent the moonlight, the
more violently his heart beat, till it was painful. And
still the same hush. Suddenly he heard a momentary
sharp crack like the snapping of a splinter and all was
still again. A fly flew up suddenly and struck the win-
dow pane with a plaintive buzz. At that moment he
noticed in the corner between the window and the lit-

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 fyodor dostoevsky

tle cupboard something like a cloak hanging on the

wall. “Why is that cloak here?” he thought, “it wasn’t
there before . . .” He went up to it quietly and felt that
there was some one hiding behind it. He cautiously
moved the cloak and saw, sitting on a chair in the cor-
ner, the old woman bent double so that he couldn’t
see her face; but it was she. He stood over her. “She is
afraid,” he thought. He stealthily took the axe from
the noose and struck her one blow, then another on
the skull. But strange to say she did not stir, as though
she were made of wood. He was frightened, bent
down nearer and tried to look at her; but she, too,
bent her head lower. He bent right down to the
ground and peeped up into her face from below, he
peeped and turned cold with horror: the old woman
was sitting and laughing, shaking with noiseless
laughter, doing her utmost that he should not hear it.
Suddenly he fancied that the door from the bedroom
was opened a little and that there was laughter and
whispering within. He was overcome with frenzy and
he began hitting the old woman on the head with all
his force, but at every blow of the axe the laughter
and whispering from the bedroom grew louder and
the old woman was simply shaking with mirth. He was
rushing away, but the passage was full of people, the
doors of the flats stood open and on the landing, on
the stairs and everywhere below there were people,
rows of heads, all looking, but huddled together in
silence and expectation. Something gripped his

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heart, his legs were rooted to the spot, they would not
move . . . He tried to scream and woke up.
He drew a deep breath — but his dream seemed
strangely to persist: his door was flung open and a
man whom he had never seen stood in the doorway
watching him intently.
Raskolnikov had hardly opened his eyes and he
instantly closed them again. He lay on his back with-
out stirring.
“Is it still a dream?” he wondered and again raised
his eyelids hardly perceptibly; the stranger was stand-
ing in the same place, still watching him.
He stepped cautiously into the room, carefully
closing the door after him, went up to the table,
paused a moment, still keeping his eyes on
Raskolnikov and noiselessly seated himself on the
chair by the sofa; he put his hat on the floor beside
him and leaned his hands on his cane and his chin
on his hands. It was evident that he was prepared
to wait indefinitely. As far as Raskolnikov could
make out from his stolen glances, he was a man no
longer young, stout, with a full, fair, almost whitish
beard.
Ten minutes passed. It was still light, but begin-
ning to get dusk. There was complete stillness in the
room. Not a sound came from the stairs. Only a big
fly buzzed and fluttered against the window pane. It
was unbearable at last. Raskolnikov suddenly got up
and sat on the sofa.

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“Come, tell me what you want.”

“I knew you were not asleep, but only pretending,”
the stranger answered oddly, laughing calmly.
“Arkady Ivanovitch Svidrigaïlov, allow me to intro-
duce myself . . . ”

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 chapter i

“Can this be still a dream?” Raskolnikov thought

once more.
He looked carefully and suspiciously at the unex-
pected visitor.
“Svidrigaïlov! What nonsense! It can’t be!” he said
at last aloud in bewilderment.
His visitor did not seem at all surprised at this
exclamation.
“I’ve come to you for two reasons. In the first
place, I wanted to make your personal acquaintance,
as I have already heard a great deal about you that is
interesting and flattering; secondly, I cherish the
hope that you may not refuse to assist me in a matter
directly concerning the welfare of your sister, Avdotya
Romanovna. For without your support she might not
let me come near her now, for she is prejudiced
against me, but with your assistance I reckon on . . .”
“You reckon wrongly,” interrupted Raskolnikov.
“They only arrived yesterday, may I ask you?”

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Raskolnikov made no reply.

“It was yesterday, I know. I only arrived myself the
day before. Well, let me tell you this, Rodion
Romanovitch, I don’t consider it necessary to justify
myself, but kindly tell me what was there particularly
criminal on my part in all this business, speaking
without prejudice, with common sense?”
Raskolnikov continued to look at him in silence.
“That in my own house I persecuted a defenceless
girl and ‘insulted her with my infamous proposals’ —
is that it? (I am anticipating you.) But you’ve only to
assume that I, too, am a man et nihil humanum. . . in a
word, that I am capable of being attracted and falling
in love (which does not depend on our will), then
everything can be explained in the most natural man-
ner. The question is, am I a monster, or am I myself a
victim? And what if I am a victim? In proposing to the
object of my passion to elope with me to America or
Switzerland, I may have cherished the deepest
respect for her, and may have thought that I was pro-
moting our mutual happiness! Reason is the slave of
passion, you know; why, probably, I was doing more
harm to myself than any one!”
“But that’s not the point,” Raskolnikov inter-
rupted with disgust. “It’s simply that whether you are
right or wrong, we dislike you. We don’t want to
have anything to do with you. We show you the door.
Go out!”
Svidrigaïlov broke into a sudden laugh.

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“But you’re . . . but there’s no getting round you,”

he said, laughing in the frankest way. “I hoped to get
round you, but you took up the right line at once!”
“But you are trying to get round me still!”
“What of it? What of it?” cried Svidrigaïlov, laugh-
ing openly. “But this is what the French call bonne
guerre, and the most innocent form of deception! . . .
But still you have interrupted me; one way or
another, I repeat again: there would never have been
any unpleasantness except for what happened in the
garden. Marfa Petrovna . . . ”
“You have got rid of Marfa Petrovna, too, so they
say?” Raskolnikov interrupted rudely.
“Oh, you’ve heard that, too, then? You’d be sure
to, though . . . But as for your question, I really don’t
know what to say, though my own conscience is quite
at rest on that score. Don’t suppose that I am in any
apprehension about it. All was regular and in order;
the medical inquiry diagnosed apoplexy due to
bathing immediately after a heavy dinner and a bottle
of wine, and indeed it could have proved nothing
else. But I’ll tell you what I have been thinking to
myself of late, on my way here in the train, especially:
didn’t I contribute to all that . . . calamity, morally, in a
way, by irritation or something of the sort. But I came
to the conclusion that that, too, was quite out of the
question.”
Raskolnikov laughed.
“I wonder you trouble yourself about it!”

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“But what are you laughing at? Only consider, I

struck her just twice with a switch — there were no
marks even . . . don’t regard me as a cynic, please; I am
perfectly aware how atrocious it was of me and all
that; but I know for certain, too, that Marfa Petrovna
was very likely pleased at my, so to say, warmth. The
story of your sister had been wrung out to the last
drop; for the last three days Marfa Petrovna had been
forced to sit at home; she had nothing to show herself
with in the town. Besides, she had bored them so with
that letter (you heard about her reading the letter).
And all of a sudden those two switches fell from
heaven! Her first act was to order the carriage to be
got out . . . Not to speak of the fact that there are cases
when women are very, very glad to be insulted in spite
of all their show of indignation. There are instances
of it with every one; human beings in general,
indeed, greatly love to be insulted, have you noticed
that? But it’s particularly so with women. One might
even say it’s their only amusement.”
At one time Raskolnikov thought of getting up
and walking out and so finishing the interview. But
some curiosity and even a sort of prudence made him
linger for a moment.
“You are fond of fighting?” he asked carelessly.
“No, not very,” Svidrigaïlov answered, calmly. “And
Marfa Petrovna and I scarcely ever fought. We lived
very harmoniously, and she was always pleased with
me. I only used the whip twice in all our seven years

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(not counting a third occasion of a very ambiguous

character). The first time, two months after our mar-
riage, immediately after we arrived in the country, and
the last time was that of which we are speaking. Did
you suppose I was such a monster, such a reactionary,
such a slave driver? Ha, ha! By the way, do you remem-
ber, Rodion Romanovitch, how a few years ago, in
those days of beneficent publicity, a nobleman, I’ve
forgotten his name, was put to shame everywhere, in
all the papers, for having thrashed a German woman
in the railway train. You remember? It was in those
days, that very year I believe, the ‘disgraceful action of
the Age’ took place (you know, ‘The Egyptian Nights,’
that public reading, you remember? The dark eyes,
you know! Ah, the golden days of our youth, where
are they?). Well, as for the gentleman who thrashed
the German, I feel no sympathy with him, because
after all what need is there for sympathy? But I must
say that there are sometimes such provoking
‘Germans’ that I don’t believe there is a progressive
who could quite answer for himself. No one looked at
the subject from that point of view then, but that’s the
truly humane point of view, I assure you.”
After saying this, Svidrigaïlov broke into a sudden
laugh again. Raskolnikov saw clearly that this was a
man with a firm purpose in his mind and able to keep
it to himself.
“I expect you’ve not talked to any one for some
days?” he asked.

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“Scarcely any one. I suppose you are wondering at

my being such an adaptable man?”
“No, I am only wondering at your being too adapt-
able a man.”
“Because I am not offended at the rudeness of
your questions? Is that it? But why take offence? As
you asked, so I answered,” he replied, with a surpris-
ing expression of simplicity. “You know, there’s hardly
anything I take interest in,” he went on, as it were
dreamily, “especially now, I’ve nothing to do . . . You
are quite at liberty to imagine though that I am mak-
ing up to you with a motive, particularly as I told you
I want to see your sister about something. But I’ll con-
fess frankly, I am very much bored. The last three
days especially, so I am delighted to see you . . . Don’t
be angry, Rodion Romanovitch, but you seem to be
somehow awfully strange yourself. Say what you like,
there’s something wrong with you, and now, too . . .
not this very minute, I mean, but now, generally . . .
Well, well, I won’t, I won’t, don’t scowl! I am not such
a bear, you know, as you think.”
Raskolnikov looked gloomily at him.
“You are not a bear, perhaps, at all,” he said. “I
fancy indeed that you are a man of very good
breeding, or at least know how on occasion to
behave like one.”
“I am not particularly interested in any one’s opin-
ion,” Svidrigaïlov answered, drily and even with a
shade of haughtiness, “and therefore why not be vul-

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gar at times when vulgarity is such a convenient cloak

for our climate . . . and especially if one has a natural
propensity that way,” he added, laughing again.
“But I’ve heard you have many friends here. You
are, as they say, ‘not without connections.’ What can
you want with me, then, unless you’ve some special
object?”
“That’s true that I have friends here,” Svidrigaïlov
admitted, not replying to the chief point. “I’ve met
some already. I’ve been lounging about for the last
three days, and I’ve seen them, or they’ve seen me.
That’s a matter of course. I am well dressed and reck-
oned not a poor man; the emancipation of the serfs
hasn’t affected me; my property consists chiefly of
forests and water meadows. The revenue has not
fallen off; but . . . I am not going to see them, I was sick
of them long ago. I’ve been here three days and have
called on no one . . . What a town it is! How has it come
into existence among us, tell me that? A town of offi-
cials and students of all sorts. Yes, there’s a great deal I
didn’t notice when I was here eight years ago, kicking
up my heels . . . My only hope now is in anatomy, by
Jove, it is!”
“Anatomy?”
“But as for these clubs, Dussauts, parades, or
progress, indeed, may be — well, all that can go on
without me,” he went on, again without noticing the
question. “Besides, who wants to be a card-sharper?”
“Why, have you been a card-sharper then?”

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“How could I help being? There was a regular set

of us, men of the best society, eight years ago; we had
a fine time. And all men of breeding, you know,
poets, men of property. And indeed as a rule in our
Russian society, the best manners are found among
those who’ve been thrashed, have you noticed that?
I’ve deteriorated in the country. But I did get into
prison for debt, through a low Greek who came from
Nezhin. Then Marfa Petrovna turned up; she bar-
gained with him and bought me off for thirty thou-
sand silver pieces (I owed seventy thousand). We were
united in lawful wedlock and she bore me off into the
country like a treasure. You know she was five years
older than I. She was very fond of me. For seven years
I never left the country. And, take note, that all my
life she held a document over me, the I.O.U. for
thirty thousand roubles, so if I were to elect to be
restive about anything I should be trapped at once!
And she would have done it! Women find nothing
incompatible in that.”
“If it hadn’t been for that, would you have given
her the slip?”
“I don’t know what to say. It was scarcely the docu-
ment restrained me. I didn’t want to go anywhere
else. Marfa Petrovna herself invited me to go abroad,
seeing I was bored, but I’ve been abroad before, and
always felt sick there. For no reason, but the sunrise,
the bay of Naples, the sea — you look at them and it
makes you sad. What’s most revolting is that one is

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really sad! No, it’s better at home. Here at least one

blames others for everything and excuses oneself. I
should have gone perhaps on an expedition to the
North Pole, because j’ai le vin mauvais and hate drink-
ing, and there’s nothing left but wine. I have tried it.
But, I say, I’ve been told Berg is going up in a great
balloon next Sunday from the Yusupov Garden and
will take up passengers at a fee. Is it true?”
“Why, would you go up?”
“I . . . No, oh, no,” muttered Svidrigaïlov really
seeming to be deep in thought.
“What does he mean? Is he in earnest?”
Raskolnikov wondered.
“No, the document didn’t restrain me,”
Svidrigaïlov went on, meditatively. “It was my own
doing, not leaving the country, and nearly a year ago
Marfa Petrovna gave me back the document on my
name day and made me a present of a considerable
sum of money, too. She had a fortune, you know. ‘You
see how I trust you, Arkady Ivanovitch’ — that was
actually her expression. You don’t believe she used it?
But do you know I managed the estate quite decently,
they know me in the neighbourhood. I ordered
books, too. Marfa Petrovna at first approved, but
afterwards she was afraid of my over-studying.”
“You seem to be missing Marfa Petrovna very
much?”
“Missing her? Perhaps. Really, perhaps I am. And,
by the way, do you believe in ghosts?”

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“What ghosts?”
“Why, ordinary ghosts.”
“Do you believe in them?”
“Perhaps not, pour vous plaire. . . I wouldn’t say no
exactly.”
“Do you see them, then?”
Svidrigaïlov looked at him rather oddly.
“Marfa Petrovna is pleased to visit me,” he said,
twisting his mouth into a strange smile.
“How do you mean ‘she is pleased to visit you’?”
“She has been three times. I saw her first on the
very day of the funeral, an hour after she was buried.
It was the day before I left to come here. The second
time was the day before yesterday, at daybreak, on the
journey at the station of Malaya Vishera, and the
third time was two hours ago in the room where I am
staying. I was alone.”
“Were you awake?”
“Quite awake. I was wide awake every time. She
comes, speaks to me for a minute and goes out at the
door — always at the door. I can almost hear her.”
“What made me think that something of the
sort must be happening to you?” Raskolnikov said
suddenly.
At the same moment he was surprised at having
said it. He was much excited.
“What! Did you think so?” Svidrigaïlov asked in
astonishment. “Did you really? Didn’t I say that there
was something in common between us, eh?”

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“You never said so!” Raskolnikov cried sharply and

with heat.
“Didn’t I?”
“No!”
“I thought I did. When I came in and saw you lying
with your eyes shut, pretending, I said to myself at
once ‘here’s the man’.”
“What do you mean by ‘the man’? What are you
talking about?” cried Raskolnikov.
“What do I mean? I really don’t know . . .”
Svidrigaïlov muttered ingenuously, as though he, too,
were puzzled.
For a minute they were silent. They stared in each
other’s faces.
“That’s all nonsense!” Raskolnikov shouted with
vexation. “What does she say when she comes to you?”
“She! Would you believe it, she talks of the silliest
trifles and — man is a strange creature — it makes me
angry. The first time she came in (I was tired you
know: the funeral service, the funeral ceremony, the
lunch afterwards. At last I was left alone in my study.
I lighted a cigar and began to think), she came in at
the door. ‘You’ve been so busy to-day, Arkady
Ivanovitch, you have forgotten to wind the dining
room clock,’ she said. All those seven years I’ve
wound that clock every week, and if I forgot it she
would always remind me. The next day I set off on
my way here. I got out at the station at daybreak; I’d
been asleep, tired out, with my eyes half open, I was

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drinking some coffee. I looked up and there was

suddenly Marfa Petrovna sitting beside me with a
pack of cards in her hands. ‘Shall I tell your fortune
for the journey, Arkady Ivanovitch?’ She was a great
hand at telling fortunes. I shall never forgive myself
for not asking her to. I ran away in a fright, and,
besides, the bell rang. I was sitting to-day, feeling
very heavy after a miserable dinner from a cook-
shop; I was sitting smoking, all of a sudden Marfa
Petrovna again. She came in very smart in a new
green silk dress with a long train. ‘Good day, Arkady
Ivanovitch! How do you like my dress? Aniska can’t
make like this.’ (Aniska was a dressmaker in the
country, one of our former serf girls who had been
trained in Moscow, a pretty wench.) She stood turn-
ing round before me. I looked at the dress, and then
I looked carefully, very carefully, at her face. ‘I won-
der you trouble to come to me about such trifles,
Marfa Petrovna.’ ‘Good gracious, you won’t let one
disturb you about anything!’ To tease her I said, ‘I
want to get married, Marfa Petrovna.’ ‘That’s just
like you. Arkady Ivanovitch; it does you very little
credit to come looking for a bride when you’ve
hardly buried your wife. And if you could make a
good choice, at least, but I know it won’t be for your
happiness or hers, you will only be a laughing-stock
to all good people.’ Then she went out and her train
seemed to rustle. Isn’t it nonsense, eh?”
“But perhaps you are telling lies?” Raskolnikov put in.

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“I rarely lie,” answered Svidrigaïlov thoughtfully,

apparently not noticing the rudeness of the question.
“And in the past, have you ever seen ghosts
before?”
“Y-yes, I have seen them, but only once in my life,
six years ago. I had a serf, Filka; just after his burial I
called out forgetting ‘Filka, my pipe!’ He came in and
went to the cupboard where my pipes were. I sat still
and thought ‘he is doing it out of revenge,’ because
we had a violent quarrel just before his death. ‘How
dare you come in with a hole in your elbow,’ I said.
‘Go away, you scamp!’ He turned and went out, and
never came again. I didn’t tell Marfa Petrovna at the
time. I wanted to have a service sung for him, but I was
ashamed.”
“You should go to a doctor.”
“I know I am not well, without your telling me,
though I don’t know what’s wrong; I believe I am five
times as strong as you are. I didn’t ask you whether
you believe that ghosts are seen, but whether you
believe that they exist.”
“No, I won’t believe it!” Raskolnikov cried, with
positive anger.
“What do people generally say?” muttered
Svidrigaïlov, as though speaking to himself, looking
aside and bowing his head: “They say, ‘You are ill, so
what appears to you is only unreal fantasy.’ But
that’s not strictly logical. I agree that ghosts only
appear to the sick, but that only proves that they are

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unable to appear except to the sick, not that they

don’t exist.”
“Nothing of the sort,” Raskolnikov insisted irritably.
“No? You don’t think so?” Svidrigaïlov went on,
looking at him deliberately. “But what do you say to
this argument (help me with it): ghosts are as it were
shreds and fragments of other worlds, the beginning
of them. A man in health has, of course, no reason to
see them, because he is above all a man of this earth
and is bound for the sake of completeness and order
to live only in this life. But as soon as one is ill, as
soon as the normal earthly order of the organism is
broken, one begins to realise the possibility of
another world; and the more seriously ill one is, the
closer becomes one’s contact with that other world,
so that as soon as the man dies he steps straight into
that world. I thought of that long ago. If you believe
in a future life, you could believe in that, too.”
“I don’t believe in a future life,” said Raskolnikov.
Svidrigaïlov sat lost in thought.
“And what if there are only spiders there, or some-
thing of that sort,” he said suddenly.
“He is a madman,” thought Raskolnikov.
“We always imagine eternity as something beyond
our conception, something vast, vast! But why must it
be vast? Instead of all that, what if it’s one little room,
like a bath-house in the country, black and grimy and
spiders in every corner, and that’s all eternity is? I
sometimes fancy it like that.”

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“Can it be you can imagine nothing juster and

more comforting than that?” Raskolnikov cried, with
a feeling of anguish.
“Juster? And how can we tell, perhaps that is just,
and do you know it’s what I would certainly have
made it,” answered Svidrigaïlov, with a vague smile.
This horrible answer sent a cold chill through
Raskolnikov. Svidrigaïlov raised his head, looked at
him, and suddenly began laughing.
“Only think,” he cried, “half an hour ago we had
never seen each other, we regarded each other as
enemies; there is a matter unsettled between us;
we’ve thrown it aside, and away we’ve gone into the
abstract! Wasn’t I right in saying that we were birds of
a feather?”
“Kindly allow me,” Raskolnikov went on irritably,
“to ask you to explain why you have honoured me
with your visit . . . and . . . and I am in a hurry, I have no
time to waste. I want to go out.”
“By all means, by all means. Your sister, Avdotya
Romanovna, is going to be married to Mr. Luzhin,
Pyotr Petrovitch?”
“Can you refrain from any question about my sis-
ter and from mentioning her name? I can’t under-
stand how you dare utter her name in my presence, if
you really are Svidrigaïlov.”
“Why, but I’ve come here to speak about her; how
can I avoid mentioning her?”
“Very good, speak, but make haste.”

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“I am sure that you must have formed your own

opinion of this Mr. Luzhin, who is a connection of
mine through my wife, if you have only seen him for
half an hour, or heard any facts about him. He is no
match for Avdotya Romanovna. I believe Avdotya
Romanovna is sacrificing herself generously and
imprudently for the sake of . . . for the sake of her fam-
ily. I fancied from all I had heard of you that you
would be very glad if the match could be broken off
without the sacrifice of worldly advantages. Now I
know you personally, I am convinced of it.”
“All this is very naïve . . . excuse me. I should have
said impudent on your part,” said Raskolnikov.
“You mean to say that I am seeking my own ends.
Don’t be uneasy, Rodion Romanovitch, if I were work-
ing for my own advantage, I would not have spoken
out so directly. I am not quite a fool. I will confess
something psychologically curious about that: just
now, defending my love for Avdotya Romanovna, I said
I was myself the victim. Well, let me tell you that I’ve no
feeling of love now, not the slightest, so that I wonder
myself indeed, for I really did feel something . . . ”
“Through idleness and depravity,” Raskolnikov
put in.
“I certainly am idle and depraved, but your sister
has such qualities that even I could not help being
impressed by them. But that’s all nonsense, as I see
myself now.”
“Have you seen that long?”

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“I began to be aware of it before, but was only per-

fectly sure of it the day before yesterday, almost at the
moment I arrived in Petersburg. I still fancied in
Moscow, though, that I was coming to try to get
Avdotya Romanovna’s hand and to cut out Mr.
Luzhin.”
“Excuse me for interrupting you; kindly be brief,
and come to the object of your visit. I am in a hurry, I
want to go out . . . ”
“With the greatest pleasure. On arriving here and
determining on a certain . . . journey, I should like to
make some necessary preliminary arrangements. I left
my children with an aunt; they are well provided for;
and they have no need of me personally. And a nice
father I should make, too! I have taken nothing but
what Marfa Petrovna gave me a year ago. That’s enough
for me. Excuse me, I am just coming to the point.
Before the journey which may come off, I want to settle
Mr. Luzhin, too. It’s not that I detest him so much, but it
was through him I quarrelled with Marfa Petrovna when
I learned that she had dished up this marriage. I want
now to see Avdotya Romanovna through your medita-
tion, and if you like in your presence, to explain to her
that in the first place she will never gain anything but
harm from Mr. Luzhin. Then begging her pardon for all
past unpleasantness, to make her a present of ten thou-
sand roubles and so assist the rupture with Mr. Luzhin, a
rupture to which I believe she is herself not disinclined,
if she could see the way to it.”

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“You are certainly mad,” cried Raskolnikov not so

much angered as astonished. “How dare you talk
like that!”
“I knew you would scream at me; but in the first
place, though I am not rich, this ten thousand roubles
is perfectly free; I have absolutely no need for it. If
Avdotya Romanovna does not accept it, I shall waste it
in some more foolish way. That’s the first thing.
Secondly, my conscience is perfectly easy; I make the
offer with no ulterior motive. You may not believe it,
but in the end Avdotya Romanovna and you will know.
The point is, that I did actually cause your sister,
whom I greatly respect, some trouble and unpleasant-
ness, and so, sincerely regretting it, I want — not to
compensate, not to repay her for the unpleasantness,
but simply to do something to her advantage, to show
that I am not, after all, privileged to do nothing but
harm. If there were a millionth fraction of self interest
in my offer, I should not have made it so openly; and I
should not have offered her ten thousand only, when
five weeks ago I offered her more. Besides, I may, per-
haps, very soon marry a young lady, and that alone
ought to prevent suspicion of any design on Avdotya
Romanovna. In conclusion, let me say that in marry-
ing Mr. Luzhin, she is taking money just the same,
only from another man. Don’t be angry, Rodion
Romanovitch, think it over coolly and quietly.”
Svidrigaïlov himself was exceedingly cool and
quiet as he was saying this.

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“I beg you to say no more,” said Raskolnikov. “In

any case this is unpardonable impertinence.”
“Not in the least. Then a man may do nothing but
harm to his neighbour in this world, and is prevented
from doing the tiniest bit of good by trivial conven-
tional formalities. That’s absurd. If I died, for
instance, and left that sum to your sister in my will,
surely she wouldn’t refuse it?”
“Very likely she would.”
“Oh, no, indeed. However, if you refuse it, so be it,
though ten thousand roubles is a capital thing to
have on occasion. In any case I beg you to repeat what
I have said to Avdotya Romanovna.”
“No, I won’t.”
“In that case, Rodion Romanovitch, I shall be
obliged to try and see her myself and worry her by
doing so.”
“And if I do tell her, will you not try to see her?”
“I don’t know really what to say. I should like very
much to see her once more.”
“Don’t hope for it.”
“I’m sorry. But you don’t know me. Perhaps we
may become better friends.”
“You think we may become friends?”
“And why not?” Svidrigaïlov said, smiling. He
stood up and took his hat. “I didn’t quite intend to
disturb you and I came here without reckoning on it .
. . though I was very much struck by your face this
morning.”

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“Where did you see me this morning?”

Raskolnikov asked uneasily.
“I saw you by chance . . . I kept fancying there is
something about you like me . . . But don’t be uneasy.
I am not intrusive; I used to get on all right with card-
sharpers, and I never bored Prince Svirbey, a great
personage who is a distant relation of mine, and I
could write about Raphael’s Madonna in Madam
Prilukov’s album, and I never left Marfa Petrovna’s
side for seven years, and I used to stay the night at
Viazemsky’s house in the Hay Market in the old days,
and I may go up in a balloon with Berg, perhaps.”
“Oh, all right. Are you starting soon on your trav-
els, may I ask?”
“What travels?”
“Why, on that ‘journey’; you spoke of it yourself.”
“A journey? Oh, yes. I did speak of a journey. Well,
that’s a wide subject . . . If only you knew what you are
asking,” he added, and gave a sudden, loud, short
laugh. “Perhaps I’ll get married instead of the jour-
ney. They’re making a match for me.”
“Here?”
“Yes.”
“How have you had time for that?”
“But I am very anxious to see Avdotya Romanovna
once. I earnestly beg it. Well, good-bye for the pres-
ent. Oh, yes, I have forgotten something. Tell your sis-
ter, Rodion Romanovitch, that Marfa Petrovna
remembered her in her will and left her three thou-

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 fyodor dostoevsky

sand roubles. That’s absolutely certain. Marfa

Petrovna arranged it a week before her death, and it
was done in my presence. Avdotya Romanovna will be
able to receive the money in two or three weeks.”
“Are you telling the truth?”
“Yes, tell her. Well, your servant. I am staying very
near you.”
As he went out, Svidrigaïlov ran up against
Razumihin in the doorway.

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 chapter ii

It was nearly eight o’clock. The two young men hur-

ried to Bakaleyev’s, to arrive before Luzhin.
“Why, who was that?” asked Razumihin, as soon as
they were in the street.
“It was Svidrigaïlov, that landowner in whose
house my sister was insulted when she was their gov-
erness. Through his persecuting her with his atten-
tions, she was turned out by his wife, Marfa Petrovna.
This Marfa Petrovna begged Dounia’s forgiveness
afterwards, and she’s just died suddenly. It was of her
we were talking this morning. I don’t know why I’m
afraid of that man. He came here at once after his
wife’s funeral. He is very strange, and is determined
on doing something . . . We must guard Dounia from
him . . . that’s what I wanted to tell you, do you hear?”
“Guard her! What can he do to harm Avdotya
Romanovna? Thank you, Rodya, for speaking to me
like that . . . We will, we will guard her. Where does
he live?”

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“I don’t know.”
“Why didn’t you ask? What a pity! I’ll find out,
though.”
“Did you see him?” asked Raskolnikov after a
pause.
“Yes, I noticed him. I noticed him well.”
“You did really see him? You saw him clearly?”
Raskolnikov insisted.
“Yes, I remember him perfectly, I should know
him in a thousand; I have a good memory for faces.”
They were silent again.
“Hm! . . . that’s all right,” muttered Raskolnikov.
“Do you know, I fancied . . . I keep thinking that it may
have been an hallucination.”
“What do you mean? I don’t understand you.”
“Well, you all say,” Raskolnikov went on, twisting
his mouth into a smile, “that I am mad. I thought just
now that perhaps I really am mad, and have only seen
a phantom.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why, who can tell? Perhaps I am really mad, and
perhaps everything that happened all these days may
be only imagination.”
“Ach, Rodya, you have been upset again! . . . But
what did he say, what did he come for?”
Raskolnikov did not answer. Razumihin thought a
minute.
“Now let me tell you my story,” he began, “I came
to you, you were asleep. Then we had dinner and

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 crime and punishment

then I went to Porfiry’s, Zametov was still with him. I

tried to begin, but it was no use. I couldn’t speak in
the right way. They don’t seem to understand and
can’t understand, but are not a bit ashamed. I drew
Porfiry to the window, and began talking to him, but
it was still no use. He looked away and I looked away.
At last I shook my fist in his ugly face, and told him as
a cousin I’d brain him. He merely looked at me, I
cursed and came away. That was all. It was very stupid.
To Zametov I didn’t say a word. But, you see, I
thought I’d made a mess of it, but as I went down-
stairs a brilliant idea struck me: why should we trou-
ble? Of course if you were in any danger or anything,
but why need you care? You needn’t care a hang for
them. We shall have a laugh at them afterwards, and
if I were in your place I’d mystify them more than
ever. How ashamed they’ll be afterwards! Hang them!
We can thrash them afterwards, but let’s laugh at
them now!”
“To be sure,” answered Raskolnikov. “But what will
you say tomorrow?” he thought to himself. Strange to
say, till that moment it had never occurred to him to
wonder what Razumihin would think when he knew.
As he thought it, Raskolnikov looked at him.
Razumihin’s account of his visit to Porfiry had very lit-
tle interest for him, so much had come and gone
since then.
In the corridor they came upon Luzhin; he had
arrived punctually at eight, and was looking for the

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 fyodor dostoevsky

number, so that all three went in together without

greeting or looking at one another. The young men
walked in first, while Pyotr Petrovitch, for good man-
ners, lingered a little in the passage, taking off his
coat. Pulcheria Alexandrovna came forward at once
to greet him in the doorway, Dounia was welcoming
her brother. Pyotr Petrovitch walked in and quite
amiably, though with redoubled dignity, bowed to the
ladies. He looked, however, as though he were a little
put out and could not yet recover himself. Pulcheria
Alexandrovna, who seemed also a little embarrassed,
hastened to make them all sit down at the round
table where a samovar was boiling. Dounia and
Luzhin were facing one another on opposite sides of
the table. Razumihin and Raskolnikov were facing
Pulcheria Alexandrovna, Razumihin was next to
Luzhin and Raskolnikov was beside his sister.
A moment’s silence followed. Pyotr Petrovitch
deliberately drew out a cambric handkerchief reek-
ing of scent and blew his nose with an air of a benev-
olent man who felt himself slighted, and was firmly
resolved to insist on an explanation. In the passage
the idea had occurred to him to keep on his overcoat
and walk away, and so give the two ladies a sharp and
emphatic lesson and make them feel the gravity of
the position. But he could not bring himself to do
this. Besides, he could not endure uncertainty and he
wanted an explanation: if his request had been so
openly disobeyed, there was something behind it,

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 crime and punishment

and in that case it was better to find it out before-

hand; it rested with him to punish them and there
would always be time for that.
“I trust you had a favourable journey,” he inquired
officially of Pulcheria Alexandrovna.
“Oh, very, Pyotr Petrovitch.”
“I am gratified to hear it. And Avdotya Romanovna
is not over fatigued either?”
“I am young and strong, I don’t get tired, but it
was a great strain for mother,” answered Dounia.
“That’s unavoidable; our national railways are of
terrible length. ‘Mother Russia,’ as they say, is a vast
country . . . In spite of all my desire to do so, I was
unable to meet you yesterday. But I trust all passed off
without inconvenience?”
“Oh, no, Pyotr Petrovitch, it was all terribly dis-
heartening,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna hastened to
declare with peculiar intonation, “and if Dmitri
Prokofitch had not been sent us, I really believe by
God Himself, we should have been utterly lost. Here
he is! Dmitri Prokofitch Razumihin,” she added,
introducing him to Luzhin.
“I had the pleasure . . . yesterday,” muttered Pyotr
Petrovitch with a hostile glance sidelong at
Razumihin; then he scowled and was silent.
Pyotr Petrovitch belonged to that class of persons,
on the surface very polite in society, who make a great
point of punctiliousness, but who, directly they are
crossed in anything, are completely disconcerted,

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 fyodor dostoevsky

and become more like sacks of flour than elegant and

lively men of society. Again all was silent; Raskolnikov
was obstinately mute, Avdotya Romanovna was unwill-
ing to open the conversation too soon. Razumihin
had nothing to say, so Pulcheria Alexandrovna was
anxious again.
“Marfa Petrovna is dead, have you heard?” she began
having recourse to her leading item of conversation.
“To be sure, I heard so. I was immediately
informed, and I have come to make you acquainted
with the fact that Arkady Ivanovitch Svidrigaïlov set
off in haste for Petersburg immediately after his
wife’s funeral. So at least I have excellent authority
for believing.”
“To Petersburg? here?” Dounia asked in alarm and
looked at her mother.
“Yes, indeed, and doubtless not without some
design, having in view the rapidity of his departure,
and all the circumstances preceding it.”
“Good heavens! won’t he leave Dounia in peace
even here?” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna.
“I imagine that neither you nor Avdotya
Romanovna have any grounds for uneasiness, unless,
of course, you are yourselves desirous of getting into
communication with him. For my part I am on my
guard, and am now discovering where he is lodging.”
“Oh, Pyotr Petrovitch, you would not believe what
a fright you have given me,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna
went on. “I’ve only seen him twice, but I thought him

462
 crime and punishment

terrible, terrible! I am convinced that he was the

cause of Marfa Petrovna’s death.”
“It’s impossible to be certain about that. I have pre-
cise information. I do not dispute that he may have
contributed to accelerate the course of events by the
moral influence, so to say, of the affront; but as to the
general conduct and moral characteristics of that per-
sonage, I am in agreement with you. I do not know
whether he is well off now, and precisely what Marfa
Petrovna left him; this will be known to me within a
very short period; but no doubt here in Petersburg, if
he has any pecuniary resources, he will relapse at once
into his old ways. He is the most depraved, and
abjectly vicious specimen of that class of men. I have
considerable reason to believe that Marfa Petrovna
who was so unfortunate as to fall in love with him and
to pay his debts eight years ago, was of service to him
also in another way. Solely by her exertions and sacri-
fices, a criminal charge, involving an element of fan-
tastic and homicidal brutality for which he might well
have been sentenced to Siberia, was hushed up. That’s
the sort of man he is, if you care to know.”
“Good heavens!” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna.
Raskolnikov listened attentively.
“Are you speaking the truth when you say that you
have good evidence of this?” Dounia asked sternly
and emphatically.
“I only repeat what I was told in secret by Marfa
Petrovna. I must observe that from the legal point of

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 fyodor dostoevsky

view the case was far from clear. There was, and I
believe still is, living here a woman called Resslich, a
foreigner, who lent small sums of money at interest,
and did other commissions, and with this woman
Svidrigaïlov had for a long while close and mysterious
relations. She had a relation, a niece I believe, living
with her, a deaf and dumb girl of fifteen, or perhaps
not more than fourteen. Resslich hated this girl, and
grudged her every crust; she used to beat her merci-
lessly. One day the girl was found hanging in the gar-
ret. At the inquest the verdict was suicide. After the
usual proceedings the matter ended, but, later on,
information was given that the child had been . . . cru-
elly outraged by Svidrigaïlov. It is true, this was not
clearly established, the information was given by
another German woman of loose character whose
word could not be trusted; no statement was actually
made to the police, thanks to Marfa Petrovna’s
money and exertions; it did not get beyond gossip.
And yet the story is a very significant one. You heard,
no doubt, Avdotya Romanovna, when you were with
them the story of the servant Philip who died of ill
treatment he received six years ago, before the aboli-
tion of serfdom.”
“I heard on the contrary that this Philip hanged
himself.”
“Quite so, but what drove him, or rather perhaps
disposed him, to suicide, was the systematic persecu-
tion and severity of Mr. Svidrigaïlov.”

464
 crime and punishment

“I don’t know that,” answered Dounia, drily. “I

only heard a queer story that Philip was a sort of
hypochondriac, a sort of domestic philosopher, the
servants used to say, ‘he read himself silly,’ and that
he hanged himself partly on account of Mr.
Svidrigaïlov’s mockery of him and not his blows.
When I was there he behaved well to the servants,
and they were actually fond of him, though they cer-
tainly did blame him for Philip’s death.”
“I perceive, Avdotya Romanovna, that you seem dis-
posed to undertake his defence all of a sudden,”
Luzhin observed, twisting his lips into an ambiguous
smile, “there’s no doubt that he is an astute man, and
insinuating where ladies are concerned, of which
Marfa Petrovna, who has died so strangely, is a terrible
instance. My only desire has been to be of service to you
and your mother with my advice, in view of the renewed
efforts which may certainly be anticipated from him.
For my part it’s my firm conviction, that he will end in a
debtor’s prison again. Marfa Petrovna had not the
slightest intention of settling anything substantial on
him, having regard for his children’s interests, and, if
she left him anything, it would only be the merest suffi-
ciency, something insignificant and ephemeral, which
would not last a year for a man of his habits.”
“Pyotr Petrovitch, I beg you,” said Dounia, “say no
more of Mr. Svidrigaïlov. It makes me miserable.”
“He has just been to see me,” said Raskolnikov,
breaking his silence for the first time.

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 fyodor dostoevsky

There were exclamations from all, and they all

turned to him. Even Pyotr Petrovitch was roused.
“An hour and a half ago, he came in when I was
asleep, waked me, and introduced himself,”
Raskolnikov continued. “He was fairly cheerful and at
ease, and quite hopes that we shall become friends.
He is particularly anxious by the way, Dounia, for an
interview with you, at which he asked me to assist. He
has a proposition to make to you, and he told me
about it. He told me, too, that a week before her
death Marfa Petrovna left you three thousand rou-
bles in her will, Dounia, and that you can receive the
money very shortly.”
“Thank God!” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna,
crossing herself. “Pray for her soul, Dounia!”
“It’s a fact!” broke from Luzhin.
“Tell us, what more?” Dounia urged Raskolnikov.
“Then he said that he wasn’t rich and all the estate
was left to his children who are now with an aunt,
then that he was staying somewhere not far from me,
but where, I don’t know, I didn’t ask . . .”
“But what, what does he want to propose to
Dounia?” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna in a fright.
“Did he tell you?”
“Yes.”
“What was it?”
“I’ll tell you afterwards.”
Raskolnikov ceased speaking and turned his atten-
tion to his tea.

466
 crime and punishment

Pyotr Petrovitch looked at his watch.

“I am compelled to keep a business engagement,
and so I shall not be in your way,” he added with an
air of some pique and he began getting up.
“Don’t go, Pyotr Petrovitch,” said Dounia, “you
intended to spend the evening. Besides, you wrote
yourself that you wanted to have an explanation with
mother.”
“Precisely so, Avdotya Romanovna,” Pyotr
Petrovitch answered impressively, sitting down again,
but still holding his hat. “I certainly desired an expla-
nation with you and your honoured mother upon a
very important point indeed. But as your brother
cannot speak openly in my presence to some propos-
als of Mr. Svidrigaïlov, I, too, do not desire and am
not able to speak openly . . . in the presence of others
. . . of certain matters of the greatest gravity.
Moreover, my most weighty and urgent request has
been disregarded . . . ”
Assuming an aggrieved air, Luzhin relapsed into
dignified silence.
“Your request that my brother should not be pres-
ent at our meeting was disregarded solely at my insis-
tence,” said Dounia. “You wrote that you had been
insulted by my brother; I think that this must be
explained at once, and you must be reconciled. And
if Rodya really has insulted you, then he should and
will apologise.”
Pyotr Petrovitch took a stronger line.

467
 fyodor dostoevsky

“There are insults, Avdotya Romanovna, which no

goodwill can make us forget. There is a line in every-
thing which it is dangerous to overstep; and when it
has been overstepped, there is no return.”
“That wasn’t what I was speaking of exactly, Pyotr
Petrovitch,” Dounia interrupted with some impa-
tience. “Please understand that our whole future
depends now on whether all this is explained and set
right as soon as possible. I tell you frankly at the start
that I cannot look at it in any other light, and if you
have the least regard for me, all this business must be
ended to-day, however hard that may be. I repeat that
if my brother is to blame he will ask your forgiveness.”
“I am surprised at your putting the question like
that,” said Luzhin, getting more and more irritated.
“Esteeming, and so to say, adoring you, I may at the
same time, very well indeed, be able to dislike some
member of your family. Though I lay claim to the
happiness of your hand, I cannot accept duties
incompatible with . . . ”
“Ah, don’t be so ready to take offence, Pyotr
Petrovitch,” Dounia interrupted with feeling, “and be
the sensible and generous man I have always consid-
ered, and wish to consider, you to be. I’ve given you a
great promise, I am your betrothed. Trust me in this
matter and, believe me, I shall be capable of judging
impartially. My assuming the part of judge is as much
a surprise for my brother as for you. When I insisted
on his coming to our interview to-day after your let-

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 crime and punishment

ter, I told him nothing of what I meant to do.

Understand that, if you are not reconciled, I must
choose between you — it must be either you or he.
That is how the question rests on your side and on
his. I don’t want to be mistaken in my choice, and I
must not be. For your sake I must break off with my
brother, for my brother’s sake I must break off with
you. I can find out for certain now whether he is a
brother to me, and I want to know it; and of you,
whether I am dear to you, whether you esteem me,
whether you are the husband for me.”
“Avdotya Romanovna,” Luzhin declared huffily,
“your words are of too much consequence to me; I
will say more, they are offensive in view of the posi-
tion I have the honour to occupy in relation to you.
To say nothing of your strange and offensive setting
me on a level with an impertinent boy, you admit the
possibility of breaking your promise to me. You say
‘you or he,’ showing thereby of how little conse-
quence I am in your eyes . . . I cannot let this pass con-
sidering the relationship and . . . the obligations
existing between us.”
“What!” cried Dounia, flushing. “I set your inter-
est beside all that has hitherto been most precious in
my life, what has made up the whole of my life, and
here you are offended at my making too little
account of you.”
Raskolnikov smiled sarcastically, Razumihin fid-
geted, but Pyotr Petrovitch did not accept the reproof;

469
 fyodor dostoevsky

on the contrary, at every word he became more per-

sistent and irritable, as though he relished it.
“Love for the future partner of your life, for your
husband, ought to outweigh your love for your
brother,” he pronounced sententiously, “and in any
case I cannot be put on the same level . . . Although I
said so emphatically that I would not speak openly in
your brother’s presence, nevertheless, I intend now to
ask your honoured mother for a necessary explanation
on a point of great importance closely affecting my dig-
nity. Your son,” he turned to Pulcheria Alexandrovna,
“yesterday in the presence of Mr. Razsudkin (or . . . I
think that’s it? Excuse me I have forgotten your sur-
name,” he bowed politely to Razumihin) “insulted me
by misrepresenting the idea I expressed to you in a pri-
vate conversation, drinking coffee, that is, that mar-
riage with a poor girl who has had experience of
trouble is more advantageous from the conjugal point
of view than with one who has lived in luxury, since it is
more profitable for the moral character. Your son
intentionally exaggerated the significance of my words
and made them ridiculous, accusing me of malicious
intentions, and, as far as I could see, relied upon your
correspondence with him. I shall consider myself
happy, Pulcheria Alexandrovna, if it is possible for you
to convince me of an opposite conclusion, and thereby
considerately reassure me. Kindly let me know in what
terms precisely you repeated my words in your letter to
Rodion Romanovitch.”

470
 crime and punishment

“I don’t remember,” faltered Pulcheria

Alexandrovna. “I repeated them as I understood
them. I don’t know how Rodya repeated them to you,
perhaps he exaggerated.”
“He could not have exaggerated them, except at
your instigation.”
“Pyotr Petrovitch,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna
declared with dignity, “the proof that Dounia and I
did not take your words in a very bad sense is the fact
that we are here.”
“Good, mother,” said Dounia approvingly.
“Then this is my fault again,” said Luzhin,
aggrieved.
“Well, Pyotr Petrovitch, you keep blaming Rodion,
but you yourself have just written what was false about
him,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna added, gaining
courage.
“I don’t remember writing anything false.”
“You wrote,” Raskolnikov said sharply, not turning
to Luzhin, “that I gave money yesterday not to the
widow of the man who was killed, as was the fact, but
to his daughter (whom I had never seen till yester-
day). You wrote this to make dissension between me
and my family, and for that object added coarse
expressions about the conduct of a girl whom you
don’t know. All that is mean slander.”
“Excuse me, sir,” said Luzhin, quivering with fury.
“I enlarged upon your qualities and conduct in my
letter solely in response to your sister’s and mother’s

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 fyodor dostoevsky

inquiries how I found you and what impression you

made on me. As for what you’ve alluded to in my let-
ter, be so good as to point out one word of falsehood,
show, that is, that you didn’t throw away your money,
and that there are not worthless persons in that fam-
ily, however unfortunate.”
“To my thinking, you with all your virtues are not
worth the little finger of that unfortunate girl at
whom you throw stones.”
“Would you go so far then as to let her associate
with your mother and sister?”
“I have done so already, if you care to know. I
made her sit down to-day with mother and Dounia.”
“Rodya!” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. Dounia
crimsoned, Razumihin knitted his brows. Luzhin
smiled with lofty sarcasm.
“You may see for yourself, Avdotya Romanovna,”
he said, “whether it is possible for us to agree. I
hope now that this question is at an end, once and
for all. I will withdraw, that I may not hinder the
pleasures of family intimacy, and the discussion of
secrets.” He got up from his chair and took his hat.
“But in withdrawing, I venture to request that for
the future I may be spared similar meetings, and, so
to say, compromises. I appeal particularly to you,
honoured Pulcheria Alexandrovna, on this subject,
the more as my letter was addressed to you and to
no one else.”
Pulcheria Alexandrovna was a little offended.

472
 crime and punishment

“You seem to think we are completely under your

authority, Pyotr Petrovitch. Dounia has told you the
reason your desire was disregarded, she had the best
intentions. And indeed you write as though you were
laying commands upon me. Are we to consider every
desire of yours as a command? Let me tell you on the
contrary that you ought to show particular delicacy
and consideration for us now, because we have
thrown up everything, and have come here relying
on you, and so we are in any case in a sense in your
hands.”
“That is not quite true, Pulcheria Alexandrovna,
especially at the present moment, when the news has
come of Marfa Petrovna’s legacy, which seems indeed
very apropos, judging from the new tone you take to
me,” he added sarcastically.
“Judging from that remark, we may certainly pre-
sume that you were reckoning on our helplessness,”
Dounia observed irritably.
“But now in any case I cannot reckon on it, and I
particularly desire not to hinder your discussion of
the secret proposals of Arkady Ivanovitch
Svidrigaïlov, which he has entrusted to your brother
and which have, I perceive, a great and possibly a very
agreeable interest for you.”
“Good heavens!” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna.
Razumihin could not sit still on his chair.
“Aren’t you ashamed now, sister?” asked
Raskolnikov.

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“I am ashamed, Rodya,” said Dounia. “Pyotr

Petrovitch, go away,” she turned to him, white with
anger.
Pyotr Petrovitch had apparently not at all
expected such a conclusion. He had too much confi-
dence in himself, in his power and in the helplessness
of his victims. He could not believe it even now. He
turned pale, and his lips quivered.
“Avdotya Romanovna, if I go out of this door now,
after such a dismissal, then, you may reckon on it, I
will never come back. Consider what you are doing.
My word is not to be shaken.”
“What insolence!” cried Dounia, springing up
from her seat. “I don’t want you to come back again.”
“What! So that’s how it stands!” cried Luzhin,
utterly unable to the last moment to believe in the
rupture and so completely thrown out of his reckon-
ing now. “So that’s how it stands! But do you know,
Avdotya Romanovna, that I might protest?”
“What right have you to speak to her like that?”
Pulcheria Alexandrovna intervened hotly. “And what
can you protest about? What rights have you? Am I to
give my Dounia to a man like you? Go away, leave us
altogether! We are to blame for having agreed to a
wrong action, and I above all . . .”
“But you have bound me, Pulcheria Alexandrovna,”
Luzhin stormed in a frenzy, “by your promise, and now
you deny it and . . . besides . . . I have been led on
account of that into expenses . . . ”

474
 crime and punishment

This last complaint was so characteristic of Pyotr

Petrovitch, that Raskolnikov, pale with anger and with
the effort of restraining it, could not help breaking
into laughter. But Pulcheria Alexandrovna was furious.
“Expenses? What expenses? Are you speaking of
our trunk? But the conductor brought it for nothing
for you. Mercy on us, we have bound you! What are
you thinking about, Pyotr Petrovitch, it was you
bound us, hand and foot, not we!”
“Enough, mother, no more please,” Avdotya
Romanovna implored. “Pyotr Petrovitch, do be kind
and go!”
“I am going, but one last word,” he said, quite
unable to control himself. “Your mamma seems to
have entirely forgotten that I made up my mind to
take you, so to speak, after the gossip of the town had
spread all over the district in regard to your reputa-
tion. Disregarding public opinion for your sake and
reinstating your reputation, I certainly might very
well reckon on a fitting return, and might indeed
look for gratitude on your part. And my eyes have
only now been opened! I see myself that I may have
acted very, very recklessly in disregarding the univer-
sal verdict . . . ”
“Does the fellow want his head smashed?” cried
Razumihin, jumping up.
“You are a mean and spiteful man!” cried Dounia.
“Not a word! Not a movement!” cried Raskolnikov,
holding Razumihin back; then going close up to

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 fyodor dostoevsky

Luzhin, “Kindly leave the room!” he said quietly and

distinctly, “and not a word more or . . . ”
Pyotr Petrovitch gazed at him for some seconds
with a pale face that worked with anger, then he
turned, went out, and rarely has any man carried
away in his heart such vindictive hatred as he felt
against Raskolnikov. Him, and him alone, he
blamed for everything. It is noteworthy that as he
went downstairs he still imagined that his case was
perhaps not utterly lost, and that, so far as the ladies
were concerned, all might “very well indeed” be set
right again.

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 chapter iii

The fact was that up to the last moment he had never

expected such an ending; he had been overbearing
to the last degree, never dreaming that two destitute
and defenceless women could escape from his con-
trol. This conviction was strengthened by his vanity
and conceit, a conceit to the point of fatuity. Pyotr
Petrovitch, who had made his way up from insignifi-
cance, was morbidly given to self-admiration, had the
highest opinion of his intelligence and capacities,
and sometimes even gloated in solitude over his
image in the glass. But what he loved and valued
above all was the money he had amassed by his
labour, and by all sorts of devices: that money made
him the equal of all who had been his superiors.
When he had bitterly reminded Dounia that he
had decided to take her in spite of evil report, Pyotr
Petrovitch had spoken with perfect sincerity and had,
indeed, felt genuinely indignant at such “black
ingratitude.” And yet, when he made Dounia his

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offer, he was fully aware of the groundlessness of all

the gossip. The story had been everywhere contra-
dicted by Marfa Petrovna, and was by then disbe-
lieved by all the townspeople, who were warm in
Dounia’s defence. And he would not have denied
that he knew all that at the time. Yet he still thought
highly of his own resolution in lifting Dounia to his
level and regarded it as something heroic. In speak-
ing of it to Dounia, he had let out the secret feeling
he cherished and admired, and he could not under-
stand that others should fail to admire it too. He had
called on Raskolnikov with the feeling of a benefactor
who is about to reap the fruits of his good deeds and
to hear agreeable flattery. And as he went downstairs
now, he considered himself most undeservedly
injured and unrecognised.
Dounia was simply essential to him; to do without
her was unthinkable. For many years he had volup-
tuous dreams of marriage, but he had gone on wait-
ing and amassing money. He brooded with relish, in
profound secret, over the image of a girl — virtuous,
poor (she must be poor), very young, very pretty, of
good birth and education, very timid, one who had
suffered much, and was completely humbled before
him, one who would all her life look on him as her
saviour, worship him, admire him and only him. How
many scenes, how many amorous episodes he had
imagined on his seductive and playful theme, when
his work was over! And, behold, the dream of so

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many years was all but realised; the beauty and educa-
tion of Avdotya Romanovna had impressed him; her
helpless position had been a great allurement; in her
he had found even more than he dreamed of. Here
was a girl of pride, character, virtue, of education and
breeding superior to his own (he felt that), and this
creature would be slavishly grateful all her life for his
heroic condescension, and would humble herself in
the dust before him, and he would have absolute,
unbounded power over her! . . . Not long before, he
had, too, after long reflection and hesitation, made
an important change in his career and was now enter-
ing on a wider circle of business. With this change his
cherished dreams of rising into a higher class of soci-
ety seemed likely to be realised . . . He was, in fact,
determined to try his fortune in Petersburg. He knew
that women could do a very great deal. The fascina-
tion of a charming, virtuous, highly educated woman
might make his way easier, might do wonders in
attracting people to him, throwing an aureole round
him, and now everything was in ruins! This sudden
horrible rupture affected him like a clap of thunder;
it was like a hideous joke, an absurdity. He had only
been a tiny bit masterful, had not even time to speak
out, had simply made a joke, been carried away — and
it had ended so seriously. And, of course, too, he did
love Dounia in his own way; he already possessed her
in his dreams — and all at once! No! The next day, the
very next day, it must all be set right, smoothed over,

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settled. Above all he must crush that conceited milk-

sop who was the cause of it all. With a sick feeling he
could not help recalling Razumihin too, but, he soon
reassured himself on that score; as though a fellow
like that could be put on a level with him! The man
he really dreaded in earnest was Svidrigaïlov . . . He
had, in short, a great deal to attend to . . .
“No, I, I am more to blame than any one!” said
Dounia, kissing and embracing her mother. “I was
tempted by his money, but on my honour, brother, I
had no idea he was such a base man. If I had seen
through him before, nothing would have tempted
me! Don’t blame me, brother!”
“God has delivered us! God has delivered us!”
Pulcheria Alexandrovna muttered, but half con-
sciously, as though scarcely able to realise what had
happened.
They were all relieved, and in five minutes they
were laughing. Only now and then Dounia turned
white and frowned, remembering what had passed.
Pulcheria Alexandrovna was surprised to find that
she, too, was glad: she had only that morning thought
rupture with Luzhin a terrible misfortune.
Razumihin was delighted. He did not yet dare to
express his joy fully, but he was in a fever of excite-
ment as though a ton-weight had fallen off his heart.
Now he had the right to devote his life to them, to
serve them . . . Anything might happen now! But he
felt afraid to think of further possibilities and dared

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not let his imagination range. But Raskolnikov sat still

in the same place, almost sullen and indifferent.
Though he had been the most insistent on getting rid
of Luzhin, he seemed now the least concerned at
what had happened. Dounia could not help thinking
that he was still angry with her, and Pulcheria
Alexandrovna watched him timidly.
“What did Svidrigaïlov say to you?” said Dounia,
approaching him.
“Yes, yes!” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna.
Raskolnikov raised his head.
“He wants to make you a present of ten thousand
roubles and he desires to see you once in my presence.”
“See her! On no account!” cried Pulcheria
Alexandrovna. “And how dare he offer her money!”
Then Raskolnikov repeated (rather drily) his con-
versation with Svidrigaïlov, omitting his account of
the ghostly visitations of Marfa Petrovna, wishing to
avoid all unnecessary talk.
“What answer did you give him?” asked Dounia.
“At first I said I would not take any message to
you. Then he said that he would do his utmost to
obtain an interview with you without my help. He
assured me that his passion for you was a passing
infatuation, now he has no feeling for you. He does-
n’t want you to marry Luzhin . . . His talk was alto-
gether rather muddled.”
“How do you explain him to yourself, Rodya? How
did he strike you?”

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“I must confess I don’t quite understand him. He

offers you ten thousand, and yet says he is not well
off. He says he is going away, and in ten minutes he
forgets he has said it. Then he says he is going to be
married and has already fixed on the girl . . . No
doubt he has a motive, and probably a bad one. But
it’s odd that he should be so clumsy about it if he
had any designs against you . . . Of course, I refused
this money on your account, once for all.
Altogether, I thought him very strange . . . One
might almost think he was mad. But I may be mis-
taken; that may only be the part he assumes. The
death of Marfa Petrovna seems to have made a great
impression on him.”
“God rest her soul,” exclaimed Pulcheria
Alexandrovna. “I shall always, always pray for her!
Where should we be now, Dounia, without this three
thousand! It’s as though it had fallen from heaven!
Why, Rodya, this morning we had only three roubles
in our pocket and Dounia and I were just planning to
pawn her watch, so as to avoid borrowing from that
man until he offered help.”
Dounia seemed strangely impressed by Svidrigaïlov’s
offer. She still stood meditating.
“He has got some terrible plan,” she said in a half
whisper to herself, almost shuddering.
Raskolnikov noticed this disproportionate terror.
“I fancy I shall have to see him more than once
again,” he said to Dounia.

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 crime and punishment

“We will watch him! I will track him out!” cried

Razumihin, vigorously. “I won’t lose sight of him.
Rodya has given me leave. He said to me himself just
now, ‘Take care of my sister.’ Will you give me leave,
too, Avdotya Romanovna?”
Dounia smiled and held out her hand, but the look
of anxiety did not leave her face. Pulcheria
Alexandrovna gazed at her timidly, but the three thou-
sand roubles had obviously a soothing effect on her.
A quarter of an hour later, they were all engaged
in a lively conversation. Even Raskolnikov listened
attentively for some time, though he did not talk.
Razumihin was the speaker.
“And why, why should you go away?” he flowed on
ecstatically. “And what are you to do in a little town?
The great thing is, you are all here together and you
need one another — you do need one another,
believe me. For a time, anyway . . . Take me into part-
nership and I assure you we’ll plan a capital enter-
prise. Listen! I’ll explain it all in detail to you, the
whole project! It all flashed into my head this morn-
ing, before anything had happened . . . I tell you what;
I have an uncle, I must introduce him to you (a most
accommodating and respectable old man). This
uncle has got a capital of a thousand roubles, and he
lives on his pension and has no need of that money.
For the last two years he has been bothering me to
borrow it from him and pay him six per cent. interest.
I know what that means; he simply wants to help me.

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 fyodor dostoevsky

Last year I had no need of it, but this year I resolved

to borrow it as soon as he arrived. Then you lend me
another thousand of your three and we have enough
for a start, so we’ll go into partnership, and what are
we going to do?”
Then Razumihin began to unfold his project, and
he explained at length that almost all our publishers
and booksellers know nothing at all of what they are
selling, and for that reason they are usually bad pub-
lishers, and that any decent publications pay as a rule
and give a profit, sometimes a considerable one.
Razumihin had, indeed, been dreaming of setting up
as a publisher. For the last two years he had been
working in publishers’ offices, and knew three
European languages well, though he had told
Raskolnikov six days before that he was “schwach” in
German with an object of persuading him to take half
his translation and half the payment for it. He had
told a lie, then, and Raskolnikov knew he was lying.
“Why, why should we let our chance slip when we
have one of the chief means of success — money of
our own!” cried Razumihin warmly. “Of course there
will be a lot of work, but we will work, you, Avdotya
Romanovna, I, Rodion . . . You get a splendid profit
on some books nowadays! And the great point of the
business is that we shall know just what wants translat-
ing, and we shall be translating, publishing, learning
all at once. I can be of use because I have experience.
For nearly two years I’ve been scuttling about among

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the publishers, and now I know every detail of their

business. You need not be a saint to make pots,
believe me! And why, why should we let our chance
slip! Why, I know — and I kept the secret — two or
three books which one might get a hundred roubles
simply for thinking of translating and publishing.
Indeed, and I would not take five hundred for the
very idea of one of them. And what do you think? If I
were to tell a publisher, I dare say he’d hesitate — they
are such blockheads! And as for the business side,
printing, paper, selling, you trust to me, I know my
way about. We’ll begin in a small way and go on to a
large. In any case it will get us our living and we shall
get back our capital.”
Dounia’s eyes shone.
“I like what you are saying, Dmitri Prokofitch!”
she said.
“I know nothing about it, of course,” put in
Pulcheria Alexandrovna, “it may be a good idea, but
again God knows. It’s new and untried. Of course, we
must remain here at least for a time.” She looked at
Rodya.
“What do you think, brother?” said Dounia.
“I think he’s got a very good idea,” he answered.
“Of course, it’s too soon to dream of a publishing
firm, but we certainly might bring out five or six
books and be sure of success. I know of one book
myself which would be sure to go well. And as for his
being able to manage it, there’s no doubt about that

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either. He knows the business . . . But we can talk it

over later . . . ”
“Hurrah!” cried Razumihin. “Now, stay, there’s a
flat here in this house, belonging to the same owner.
It’s a special flat apart, not communicating with these
lodgings. It’s furnished, rent moderate, three rooms.
Suppose you take them to begin with. I’ll pawn your
watch to-morrow and bring you the money, and
everything can be arranged then. You can all three
live together, and Rodya will be with you. But where
are you off to, Rodya?”
“What, Rodya, you are going already?” Pulcheria
Alexandrovna asked in dismay.
“At such a minute?” cried Razumihin.
Dounia looked at her brother with incredulous
wonder. He held his cap in his hand, he was prepar-
ing to leave them.
“One would think you were burying me or saying
good-bye for ever,” he said somewhat oddly. He
attempted to smile, but it did not turn out a smile.
“But who knows, perhaps it is the last time we shall
see each other . . .” he let slip accidentally. It was
what he was thinking, and it somehow was uttered
aloud.
“What is the matter with you?” cried his mother.
“Where are you going, Rodya?” asked Dounia
rather strangely.
“Oh, I’m quite obliged to . . . ” he answered
vaguely, as though hesitating what he would say.

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 crime and punishment

But there was a look of sharp determination in his

white face.
“I meant to say . . . as I was coming here . . . I meant
to tell you, mother, and you, Dounia, that it would be
better for us to part for a time. I feel ill, I am not at
peace . . . I will come afterwards, I will come of myself .
. . when it’s possible, I remember you and love you . . .
Leave me, leave me alone. I decided this even before
. . . I’m absolutely resolved on it. Whatever may come
to me, whether I come to ruin or not, I want to be
alone. Forget me altogether, it’s better. Don’t inquire
about me. When I can, I’ll come of myself or . . . I’ll
send for you. Perhaps it will all come back, but now if
you love me, give me up . . . else I shall begin to hate
you, I feel it . . . Good-bye!”
“Good God!” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. Both
his mother and his sister were terribly alarmed.
Razumihin was also.
“Rodya, Rodya, be reconciled with us! Let us be as
before!” cried his poor mother.
He turned slowly to the door and slowly went out
of the room. Dounia overtook him.
“Brother, what are you doing to mother?” she
whispered, her eyes flashing with indignation.
He looked dully at her.
“No matter, I shall come . . . I’m coming,” he mut-
tered in an undertone, as though not fully conscious
of what he was saying, and he went out of the room.
“Wicked, heartless egoist!” cried Dounia.

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“He is insane, but not heartless. He is mad! Don’t

you see it? You’re heartless after that!” Razumihin
whispered in her ear, squeezing her hand tightly. “I
shall be back directly,” he shouted to the horror-
stricken mother, and he ran out of the room.
Raskolnikov was waiting for him at the end of the
passage.
“I knew you would run after me,” he said. “Go
back to them — be with them . . . be with them to-mor-
row and always . . . I . . . perhaps I shall come . . . if I can.
Good-bye.”
And without holding out his hand he walked away.
“But where are you going? What are you doing?
What’s the matter with you? How can you go on like
this?” Razumihin muttered, at his wits’ end.
Raskolnikov stopped once more.
“Once for all, never ask me about anything. I have
nothing to tell you. Don’t come to see me. Maybe I’ll
come here . . . Leave me, but don’t leave them. Do you
understand me?”
It was dark in the corridor, they were standing
near the lamp. For a minute they were looking at
one another in silence. Razumihin remembered that
minute all his life. Raskolnikov’s burning and intent
eyes grew more penetrating every moment, piercing
into his soul, into his consciousness. Suddenly
Razumihin started. Something strange, as it were,
passed between them . . . Some idea, some hint as it
were, slipped, something awful, hideous, and sud-

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denly understood on both sides . . . Razumihin

turned pale.
“Do you understand now?” said Raskolnikov, his
face twitching nervously. “Go back, go to them,” he
said suddenly, and turning quickly, he went out of the
house.
I will not attempt to describe how Razumihin went
back to the ladies, how he soothed them, how he
protested that Rodya needed rest in his illness,
protested that Rodya was sure to come, that he would
come every day, that he was very, very much upset,
that he must not be irritated, that he, Razumihin,
would watch over him, would get him a doctor, the
best doctor, a consultation . . . In fact from that
evening Razumihin took his place with them as a son
and a brother.

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Raskolnikov went straight to the house on the

canal bank where Sonia lived. It was an old green
house of three storeys. He found the porter and
obtained from him vague directions as to the where-
abouts of Kapernaumov, the tailor. Having found in
the corner of the courtyard the entrance to the dark
and narrow staircase, he mounted to the second floor
and came out into a gallery that ran round the whole
second storey over the yard. While he was wandering
in the darkness, uncertain where to turn for
Kapernaumov’s door, a door opened three paces
from him; he mechanically took hold of it.
“Who is there?” a woman’s voice asked uneasily.
“It’s I . . . come to see you,” answered Raskolnikov
and he walked into the tiny entry.
On a broken chair stood a candle in a battered
copper candlestick.
“It’s you! Good heavens!” cried Sonia weakly and
she stood rooted to the spot.

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“Which is your room? This way?” and Raskolnikov,

trying not to look at her, hastened in.
A minute later Sonia, too, came in with the candle,
set down the candlestick and, completely discon-
certed, stood before him inexpressibly agitated and
apparently frightened by his unexpected visit. The
colour rushed suddenly to her pale face and tears
came into her eyes . . . She felt sick and ashamed and
happy, too . . . Raskolnikov turned away quickly and
sat on a chair by the table. He scanned the room in a
rapid glance.
It was a large but exceedingly low-pitched room,
the only one let by the Kapernaumovs, to whose
rooms a closed door led in the wall on the left. In the
opposite side on the right hand wall was another
door, always kept locked. That led to the next flat,
which formed a separate lodging. Sonia’s room
looked like a barn; it was a very irregular quadrangle
and this gave it a grotesque appearance. A wall with
three windows looking out on to the canal ran aslant
so that one corner formed a very acute angle, and it
was difficult to see in it without very strong light. The
other corner was disproportionately obtuse. There
was scarcely any furniture in the big room: in the cor-
ner on the right was a bedstead, beside it, nearest the
door, a chair. A plain, deal table covered by a blue
cloth stood against the same wall, close to the door
into the other flat. Two rush-bottomed chairs stood
by the table. On the opposite wall near the acute

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angle stood a small plain wooden chest of drawers

looking, as it were, lost in a desert. That was all there
was in the room. The yellow, scratched and shabby
wall-paper was black in the corners. It must have
been damp and full of fumes in the winter. There
was every sign of poverty; even the bedstead had no
curtain.
Sonia looked in silence at her visitor, who was so
attentively and unceremoniously scrutinising her
room, and even began at last to tremble with terror,
as though she was standing before her judge and the
arbiter of her destinies.
“I am late . . . It’s eleven, isn’t it?” he asked, still not
lifting his eyes.
“Yes,” muttered Sonia, “Oh, yes, it is,” she added,
hastily, as though in that lay her means of escape. “My
landlady’s clock has just struck . . . I heard it myself . . .”
“I’ve come to you for the last time,” Raskolnikov
went on gloomily, although this was the first time. “I
may perhaps not see you again . . .”
“Are you . . . going away?”
“I don’t know . . . to-morrow . . .”
“Then you are not coming to Katerina Ivanovna
to-morrow?” Sonia’s voice shook.
“I don’t know. I shall know to-morrow morning . . .
Never mind that: I’ve come to say one word . . .”
He raised his brooding eyes to her and suddenly
noticed that he was sitting down while she was all the
while standing before him.

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“Why are you standing? Sit down,” he said in a

changed voice, gentle and friendly.
She sat down. He looked kindly and almost com-
passionately at her.
“How thin you are. What a hand! Quite transpar-
ent, like a dead hand.”
He took her hand. Sonia smiled faintly.
“I have always been like that,” she said.
“Even when you lived at home?”
“Yes.”
“Of course, you were,” he added abruptly and the
expression of his face and the sound of his voice
changed again suddenly.
He looked round him once more.
“You rent this room from the Kapernaumovs?”
“Yes . . . ”
“They live there, through that door?”
“Yes . . . They have another room like this.”
“All in one room?”
“Yes.”
“I should be afraid in your room at night,” he
observed gloomily.
“They are very good people, very kind,” answered
Sonia, who still seemed bewildered, “and all the furni-
ture, everything . . . everything is theirs. And they are
very kind and the children, too, often come to see me.”
“They all stammer, don’t they?”
“Yes . . . He stammers and he’s lame. And his wife,
too . . . It’s not exactly that she stammers, but she can’t

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speak plainly. She is a very kind woman. And he used

to be a house serf. And there are seven children . . .
and it’s only the eldest one that stammers and the
others are simply ill . . . but they don’t stammer . . . But
where did you hear about them?” she added with
some surprise.
“Your father told me, then. He told me all about
you . . . And how you went out at six o’clock and came
back at nine and how Katerina Ivanovna knelt down
by your bed.”
Sonia was confused.
“I fancied I saw him to-day,” she whispered hesitat-
ingly.
“Whom?”
“Father. I was walking in the street, out there at the
corner, about ten o’clock and he seemed to be walk-
ing in front. It looked just like him. I wanted to go to
Katerina Ivanovna . . .”
“You were walking in the streets?”
“Yes,” Sonia whispered abruptly, again overcome
with confusion and looking down.
“Katerina Ivanovna used to beat you, I daresay?”
“Oh no, what are you saying? No!” Sonia looked at
him almost with dismay.
“You love her, then?”
“Love her? Of course!” said Sonia with plaintive
emphasis, and she clasped her hands in distress. “Ah,
you don’t . . . If you only knew! You see, she is quite
like a child . . . Her mind is quite unhinged, you see . .

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. from sorrow. And how clever she used to be . . . how

generous . . . how kind! Ah, you don’t understand, you
don’t understand!”
Sonia said this as though in despair, wringing her
hands in excitement and distress. Her pale cheeks
flushed, there was a look of anguish in her eyes. It was
clear that she was stirred to the very depths, that she
was longing to speak, to champion, to express some-
thing. A sort of insatiable compassion, if one may so
express it, was reflected in every feature of her face.
“Beat me! how can you? Good heavens, beat me!
And if she did beat me, what then? What of it? You
know nothing, nothing about it . . . She is so unhappy
. . . ah, how unhappy! And ill . . . She is seeking right-
eousness, she is pure. She has such faith that there
must be righteousness everywhere and she expects it .
. . And if you were to torture her, she wouldn’t do
wrong. She doesn’t see that it’s impossible for people
to be righteous and she is angry at it. Like a child, like
a child. She is good!”
“And what will happen to you?”
Sonia looked at him inquiringly.
“They are left on your hands, you see. They were all
on your hands before, though . . . And your father
came to you to beg for drink. Well, how will it be now?”
“I don’t know,” Sonia articulated mournfully.
“Will they stay there?”
“I don’t know . . . They are in debt for the lodging,
but the landlady, I hear, said to-day that she wanted to

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get rid of them, and Katerina Ivanovna says that she

won’t stay another minute.”
“How is it she is so bold? She relies upon you?”
“Oh, no, don’t talk like that . . . We are one, we live
like one.” Sonia was agitated again and even angry, as
though a canary or some other little bird were to be
angry. “And what could she do? What, what could she
do?” she persisted, getting hot and excited. “And how
she cried to-day! Her mind is unhinged, haven’t you
noticed it? At one minute she is worrying like a child
that everything should be right to-morrow, the lunch
and all that . . . Then she is wringing her hands, spit-
ting blood, weeping, and all at once she will begin
knocking her head against the wall, in despair. Then
she will be comforted again. She builds all her hopes
on you; she says that you will help her now and that
she will borrow a little money somewhere and go to
her native town with me and set up a boarding school
for the daughters of gentlemen and take me to super-
intend it, and we will begin a new splendid life. And
she kisses and hugs me, comforts me, and you know
she has such faith, such faith in her fancies! One
can’t contradict her. And all the day long she has
been washing, cleaning, mending. She dragged the
wash tub into the room with her feeble hands and
sank on the bed, gasping for breath. We went this
morning to the shops to buy shoes for Polenka and
Lida for theirs are quite worn out. Only the money
we’d reckoned wasn’t enough, not nearly enough.

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And she picked out such dear little boots, for she has
taste, you don’t know. And there in the shop she
burst out crying before the shopmen because she
hadn’t enough . . . Ah, it was sad to see her . . . ”
“Well, after that I can understand your living like
this,” Raskolnikov said with a bitter smile.
“And aren’t you sorry for them? Aren’t you sorry?”
Sonia flew at him again. “Why, I know, you gave your
last penny yourself, though you’d seen nothing of it,
and if you’d seen everything, oh dear! And how
often, how often I’ve brought her to tears! Only last
week! Yes, I! Only a week before his death. I was
cruel! And how often I’ve done it! Ah, I’ve been
wretched at the thought of it all day!”
Sonia wrung her hands as she spoke at the pain of
remembering it.
“You were cruel?”
“Yes, I — I. I went to see them,” she went on, weep-
ing, “and father said, ‘read me something, Sonia, my
head aches, read to me, here’s a book.’ He had a
book he had got from Andrey Semyonovitch
Lebeziatnikov, he lives there, he always used to get
hold of such funny books. And I said, ‘I can’t stay,’ as
I didn’t want to read, and I’d gone in chiefly to show
Katerina Ivanovna some collars. Lizaveta, the pedlar,
sold me some collars and cuffs cheap, pretty, new,
embroidered ones. Katerina Ivanovna liked them
very much; she put them on and looked at herself in
the glass and was delighted with them. ‘Make me a

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present of them, Sonia,’ she said, ‘please do.’ ‘Please

do,’ she said, she wanted them so much. And when
could she wear them? They just reminded her of her
old happy days. She looked at herself in the glass,
admired herself, and she has no clothes at all, no
things of her own, hasn’t had all these years! And she
never asks any one for anything; she is proud, she’d
sooner give away everything. And these she asked for,
she liked them so much. And I was sorry to give them.
‘What use are they to you, Katerina Ivanovna?’ I said.
I spoke like that to her, I ought not to have said that!
She gave me such a look. And she was so grieved, so
grieved at my refusing her. And it was so sad to see . . .
And she was not grieved for the collars, but for my
refusing, I saw that. Ah, if only I could bring it all
back, change it, take back those words! Ah, if I . . . but
it’s nothing to you!”
“Did you know Lizaveta, the pedlar?”
“Yes . . . Did you know her?” Sonia asked with some
surprise.
“Katerina Ivanovna is in consumption, rapid con-
sumption; she will soon die,” said Raskolnikov after a
pause, without answering her question.
“Oh, no, no, no!”
And Sonia unconsciously clutched both his hands,
as though imploring that she should not.
“But it will be better if she does die.”
“No, not better, not at all better!” Sonia uncon-
sciously repeated in dismay.

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“And the children? What can you do except take

them to live with you?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” cried Sonia, almost in despair,
and she put her hands to her head.
It was evident that that idea had very often occurred
to her before and he had only roused it again.
“And, what, if even now, while Katerina Ivanovna is
alive you get ill and are taken to the hospital, what
will happen then?” he persisted pitilessly.
“How can you? That cannot be!”
And Sonia’s face worked with awful terror.
“Cannot be?” Raskolnikov went on with a harsh
smile. “You are not insured against it, are you? What
will happen to them then? They will be in the street,
all of them, she will cough and beg and knock her
head against some wall, as she did to-day, and the
children will cry . . . Then she will fall down, be taken
to the police station and to the hospital, she will die,
and the children . . .”
“Oh, no . . . God will not let it be!” broke at last
from Sonia’s overburdened bosom.
She listened, looking imploringly at him, clasping
her hands in dumb entreaty, as though it all
depended upon him.
Raskolnikov got up and began to walk about the
room. A minute passed. Sonia was standing with her
hands and her head hanging in terrible dejection.
“And can’t you save? Put by for a rainy day?” he
asked, stopping suddenly before her.

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“No,” whispered Sonia.

“Of course not. Have you tried?” he added almost
ironically.
“Yes.”
“And it didn’t come off! Of course not! No need
to ask.”
And again he paced the room. Another minute
passed.
“You don’t get money every day?”
Sonia was more confused than ever and colour
rushed into her face again.
“No,” she whispered with a painful effort.
“It will be the same with Polenka, no doubt,” he
said suddenly.
“No, no! It can’t be, no!” Sonia cried aloud in des-
peration, as though she had been stabbed. “God
would not allow anything so awful!”
“He lets others come to it.”
“No, no! God will protect her, God!” she repeated
beside herself.
“But, perhaps, there is no God at all,” Raskolnikov
answered with a sort of malignance, laughed and
looked at her.
Sonia’s face suddenly changed; a tremor passed
over it. She looked at him with unutterable reproach,
tried to say something, but could not speak and broke
into bitter, bitter sobs, hiding her face in her hands.
“You say Katerina Ivanovna’s mind is unhinged; your
own mind is unhinged,” he said after a brief silence.

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Five minutes passed. He still paced up and down

the room in silence, not looking at her. At last he
went up to her; his eyes glittered. He put his two
hands on her shoulders and looked straight into her
tearful face. His eyes were hard, feverish and pierc-
ing, his lips were twitching. All at once he bent down
quickly and dropping to the ground, kissed her foot.
Sonia drew back from him as from a madman. And
certainly he looked like a madman.
“What are you doing to me?” she muttered, turn-
ing pale, and a sudden anguish clutched at her heart.
He stood up at once.
“I did not bow down to you, I bowed down to all
the suffering of humanity,” he said wildly and walked
away to the window. “Listen,” he added, turning to
her a minute later. “I said just now to an insolent man
that he was not worth your little finger . . . and that I
did my sister honour making her sit beside you.”
“Ach, you said that to them! And in her presence?”
cried Sonia, frightened. “Sit down with me! An hon-
our! Why, I’m . . . dishonourable . . . Ah, why did you
say that?”
“It was not because of your dishonour and your sin
I said that of you, but because of your great suffering.
But you are a great sinner, that’s true,” he added
almost solemnly, “and your worst sin is that you have
destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing. Isn’t that
fearful? Isn’t it fearful that you are living in this filth
which you loathe so, and at the same time you know

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yourself (you’ve only to open your eyes) that you are

not helping any one by it, not saving any one from
anything! Tell me,” he went on almost in a frenzy,
“how this shame and degradation can exist in you
side by side with other, opposite, holy feelings? It
would be better, a thousand times better and wiser to
leap into the water and end it all!”
“But what would become of them?” Sonia asked
faintly, gazing at him with eyes of anguish, but not
seeming surprised at his suggestion.
Raskolnikov looked strangely at her. He read it all
in her face; so she must have had that thought
already, perhaps many times, and earnestly she had
thought out in her despair how to end it and so
earnestly, that now she scarcely wondered at his sug-
gestion. She had not even noticed the cruelty of his
words. (The significance of his reproaches and his
peculiar attitude to her shame she had, of course, not
noticed either, and that, too, was clear to him.) But
he saw how monstrously the thought of her disgrace-
ful, shameful position was torturing her and had long
tortured her. “What, what,” he thought, “could hith-
erto have hindered her from putting an end to it?”
Only then he realised what those poor little orphan
children and that pitiful half-crazy Katerina Ivanovna,
knocking her head against the wall in her consump-
tion, meant for Sonia.
But, nevertheless, it was clear to him again that
with her character and the amount of education she

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had after all received, she could not in any case

remain so. He was still confronted by the question
how could she have remained so long in that position
without going out of her mind, since she could not
bring herself to jump into the water? Of course he
knew that Sonia’s position was an exceptional case,
though unhappily not unique and not infrequent,
indeed; but that very exceptionalness, her tinge of
education, her previous life might, one would have
thought, have killed her at the first step on that
revolting path. What held her up — surely not deprav-
ity? All that infamy had obviously only touched her
mechanically, not one drop of real depravity had pen-
etrated to her heart; he saw that. He saw through her
as she stood before him . . .
“There are three ways before her,” he thought,
“the canal, the madhouse, or . . . at last to sink into
depravity which obscures the mind and turns the
heart to stone.”
The last idea was the most revolting, but he was a
sceptic, he was young, abstract, and therefore cruel,
and so he could not help believing that the last end
was the most likely.
“But can that be true?” he cried to himself. “Can
that creature who has still preserved the purity of her
spirit be consciously drawn at last into that sink of
filth and iniquity? Can the process already have
begun? Can it be that she has only been able to bear
it till now, because vice has begun to be less loath-

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some to her? No, no, that cannot be!” he cried, as

Sonia had just before. “No, what has kept her from
the canal till now is the idea of sin and they, the chil-
dren . . . And if she has not gone out of her mind . . .
but who says she has not gone out of her mind? Is she
in her senses? Can one talk, can one reason as she
does? How can she sit on the edge of the abyss of
loathsomeness into which she is slipping and refuse
to listen when she is told of danger? Does she expect
a miracle? No doubt she does. Doesn’t that all mean
madness?”
He stayed obstinately at that thought. He liked
that explanation indeed better than any other. He
began looking more intently at her.
“So you pray to God a great deal, Sonia?” he
asked her.
Sonia did not speak; he stood beside her waiting
for an answer.
“What should I be without God?” she whispered
rapidly, forcibly, glancing at him with suddenly flash-
ing eyes, and squeezing his hand.
“Ah, so that is it!” he thought.
“And what does God do for you?” he asked, prob-
ing her further.
Sonia was silent a long while, as though she
could not answer. Her weak chest kept heaving with
emotion.
“Be silent! Don’t ask! You don’t deserve!” she cried
suddenly, looking sternly and wrathfully at him.

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“That’s it, that’s it,” he repeated to himself.

“He does everything,” she whispered quickly, look-
ing down again.
“That’s the way out! That’s the explanation,” he
decided, scrutinising her with eager curiosity, with a
new, strange, almost morbid feeling. He gazed at that
pale, thin, irregular, angular little face, those soft
blue eyes, which could flash with such fire, such stern
energy, that little body still shaking with indignation
and anger — and it all seemed to him more and more
strange, almost impossible. “She is a religious
maniac!” he repeated to himself.
There was a book lying on the chest of drawers. He
had noticed it every time he paced up and down the
room. Now he took it up and looked at it. It was the
New Testament in the Russian translation. It was
bound in leather, old and worn.
“Where did you get that?” he called to her across
the room.
She was still standing in the same place, three
steps from the table.
“It was brought me,” she answered, as it were
unwillingly, not looking at him.
“Who brought it?”
“Lizaveta, I asked her for it.”
“Lizaveta! strange!” he thought.
Everything about Sonia seemed to him stranger
and more wonderful every moment. He carried the
book to the candle and began to turn over the pages.

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“Where is the story of Lazarus?” he asked suddenly.

Sonia looked obstinately at the ground and
would not answer. She was standing sideways to the
table.
“Where is the raising of Lazarus? Find it for me,
Sonia.”
She stole a glance at him.
“You are not looking in the right place . . . It’s in
the fourth gospel,” she whispered sternly, without
looking at him.
“Find it and read it to me,” he said. He sat down
with his elbow on the table, leaned his head on his
hand and looked away sullenly, prepared to listen.
“In three weeks’ time they’ll welcome me in the
madhouse! I shall be there if I am not in a worse
place,” he muttered to himself.
Sonia heard Raskolnikov’s request distrustfully
and moved hesitatingly to the table. She took the
book however.
“Haven’t you read it?” she asked, looking up at
him across the table.
Her voice became sterner and sterner.
“Long ago . . . When I was at school. Read!”
“And haven’t you heard it in church?”
“I . . . haven’t been. Do you often go?”
“N-no,” whispered Sonia.
Raskolnikov smiled.
“I understand . . . And you won’t go to your father’s
funeral tomorrow?”

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“Yes, I shall. I was at church last week, too . . . I had

a requiem service.”
“For whom?”
“For Lizaveta. She was killed with an axe.”
His nerves were more and more strained. His head
began to go round.
“Were you friends with Lizaveta?”
“Yes . . . She was good . . . she used to come . . . not
often . . . she couldn’t . . . We used to read together
and . . . talk. She will see God.”
The last phrase sounded strange in his ears. And
here was something new again: the mysterious meetings
with Lizaveta and both of them—religious maniacs.
“I shall be a religious maniac myself soon! It’s
infectious!”
“Read!” he cried irritably and insistently.
Sonia still hesitated. Her heart was throbbing. She
hardly dared to read to him. He looked almost with
exasperation at the “unhappy lunatic.”
“What for? You don’t believe? . . .” she whispered
softly and as it were breathlessly.
“Read! I want you to,” he persisted. “You used to
read to Lizaveta.”
Sonia opened the book and found the place.
Her hands were shaking, her voice failed her. Twice
she tried to begin and could not bring out the first
syllable.
“Now a certain man was sick named Lazarus of
Bethany . . . ” she forced herself at last to read, but at

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the third word her voice broke like an overstrained

string. There was a catch in her breath.
Raskolnikov saw in part why Sonia could not
bring herself to read to him and the more he saw
this, the more roughly and irritably he insisted on
her doing so. He understood only too well how
painful it was for her to betray and unveil all that was
her own. He understood that these feelings were her
secret treasure, which she had kept perhaps for years,
perhaps from childhood, while she lived with an
unhappy father and a distracted stepmother crazed
by grief, in the midst of starving children and
unseemly abuse and reproaches. But at the same
time he knew now and knew for certain that,
although it filled her with dread and suffering, yet
she had a tormenting desire to read and to read to
him that he might hear it, and to read now whatever
might come of it! . . . He read this in her eyes, he
could see it in her intense emotion. She mastered
herself, controlled the spasm in her throat and went
on reading the eleventh chapter of St. John. She
went on to the nineteenth verse:
“And many of the Jews came to Martha and Mary
to comfort them concerning their brother.
Then Martha as soon as she heard that Jesus was
coming went and met Him: but Mary sat still in the
house.
Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if Thou hadst
been here, my brother had not died.

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But I know that even now whatsoever Thou wilt

ask of God, God will give it Thee . . . ”
Then she stopped again with a shamefaced feeling
that her voice would quiver and break again.
“Jesus said unto her, thy brother shall rise again.
Martha saith unto Him, I know that he shall rise
again in the resurrection, at the last day.
Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection and the
life: he that believeth in Me though he were dead, yet
shall he live.
And whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall
never die. Believest thou this?
She saith unto Him,”
(And drawing a painful breath, Sonia read dis-
tinctly and forcibly as though she were making a pub-
lic confession of faith.)
“Yea, Lord: I believe that Thou art the Christ, the
Son of God Which should come into the world.”
She stopped and looked up quickly at him, but
controlling herself went on reading. Raskolnikov sat
without moving, his elbows on the table and his eyes
turned away. She read to the thirty-second verse.
“Then when Mary was come where Jesus was and
saw Him, she fell down at His feet, saying unto
Him, Lord if Thou hadst been here, my brother
had not died.
When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the
Jews also weeping which came with her, He groaned
in the spirit and was troubled.

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 fyodor dostoevsky

And said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto

Him, Lord, come and see.
Jesus wept.
Then said the Jews, behold how He loved him!
And some of them said, could not this Man which
opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even
this man should not have died?”
Raskolnikov turned and looked at her with emo-
tion. Yes, he had known it! She was trembling in a
real physical fever. He had expected it. She was get-
ting near the story of the greatest miracle and a feel-
ing of immense triumph came over her. Her voice
rang out like a bell; triumph and joy gave it power.
The lines danced before her eyes, but she knew what
she was reading by heart. At the last verse “Could not
this Man which opened the eyes of the blind . . .”
dropping her voice she passionately reproduced the
doubt, the reproach and censure of the blind disbe-
lieving Jews, who in another moment would fall at
His feet as though struck by thunder, sobbing and
believing . . . “And he, he — too, is blinded and unbe-
lieving, he, too, will hear, he, too, will believe, yes,
yes! At once, now,” was what she was dreaming, and
she was quivering with happy anticipation.
“Jesus therefore again groaning in Himself
cometh to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay
upon it.
Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the
sister of him that was dead, saith unto Him, Lord by

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this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four

days.”
She laid emphasis on the word four.
“Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee that if thou
wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?
Then they took away the stone from the place where
the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up His eyes and said,
Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast heard Me.
And I knew that Thou hearest Me always; but
because of the people which stand by I said it, that
they may believe that Thou hast sent Me.
And when He thus had spoken, He cried with a
loud voice, Lazarus, come forth.
And he that was dead came forth.”
(She read loudly, cold and trembling with ecstasy,
as though she were seeing it before her eyes.)
“Bound hand and foot with graveclothes; and his
face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto
them, Loose him and let him go.
Then many of the Jews which came to Mary and
had seen the things which Jesus did believed on
Him.”
She could read no more, closed the book and got
up from her chair quickly.
“That is all about the raising of Lazarus,” she whis-
pered severely and abruptly, and turning away she
stood motionless, not daring to raise her eyes to him.
She still trembled feverishly. The candle-end was
flickering out in the battered candlestick, dimly light-

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ing up in the poverty-stricken room the murderer

and the harlot who had so strangely been reading
together the eternal book. Five minutes or more
passed.
“I came to speak of something,” Raskolnikov said
aloud, frowning. He got up and went to Sonia. She
lifted her eyes to him in silence. His face was particu-
larly stern and there was a sort of savage determina-
tion in it. “I have abandoned my family to-day,” he
said, “my mother and sister. I am not going to see
them. I’ve broken with them completely.”
“What for?” asked Sonia amazed. Her recent meet-
ing with his mother and sister had left a great impres-
sion which she could not analyse. She heard his news
almost with horror.
“I have only you now,” he added. “Let us go
together . . . I’ve come to you, we are both accursed,
let us go our way together!”
His eyes glittered “as though he were mad,” Sonia
thought, in her turn.
“Go where?” she asked in alarm and she involun-
tarily stepped back.
“How do I know? I only know it’s the same road, I
know that and nothing more. It’s the same goal!”
She looked at him and understood nothing. She
knew only that he was terribly, infinitely unhappy.
“No one of them will understand, if you tell them,
but I have understood. I need you, that is why I have
come to you.”

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“I don’t understand,” whispered Sonia.

“You’ll understand later. Haven’t you done the
same? You, too, have transgressed . . . have had the
strength to transgress. You have laid hands on yourself,
you have destroyed a life . . . your own (it’s all the same!).
You might have lived in spirit and understanding, but
you’ll end in the Hay Market . . . But you won’t be able
to stand it, and if you remain alone you’ll go out of
your mind like me. You are like a mad creature already.
So we must go together on the same road! Let us go!”
“What for? What’s all this for?” said Sonia,
strangely and violently agitated by his words.
“What for? Because you can’t remain like this,
that’s why! You must look things straight in the face at
last, and not weep like a child and cry that God won’t
allow it. What will happen, if you should really be
taken to the hospital to-morrow? She is mad and in
consumption, she’ll soon die, and the children? Do
you mean to tell me Polenka won’t come to grief?
Haven’t you seen children here at the street corners
sent out by their mothers to beg? I’ve found out
where those mothers live and in what surroundings.
Children can’t remain children there! At seven the
child is vicious and a thief. Yet children, you know,
are the image of Christ: ‘theirs is the kingdom of
Heaven.’ He bade us honour and love them, they are
the humanity of the future . . . ”
“What’s to be done, what’s to be done?” repeated
Sonia, weeping hysterically and wringing her hands.

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“What’s to be done? Break what must be broken,

once for all, that’s all, and take the suffering on one-
self. What, you don’t understand? You’ll understand
later . . . Freedom and power, and above all, power!
Over all trembling creation and all the antheap! . . .
That’s the goal, remember that! That’s my farewell
message. Perhaps it’s the last time I shall speak to you.
If I don’t come to-morrow, you’ll hear of it all, and
then remember these words. And some day later on,
in years to come, you’ll understand perhaps what
they meant. If I come to-morrow, I’ll tell you who
killed Lizaveta . . . Good-bye.”
Sonia started with terror.
“Why, do you know who killed her?” she asked,
chilled with horror, looking wildly at him.
“I know and will tell . . . you, only you. I have cho-
sen you out. I’m not coming to you to ask forgiveness,
but simply to tell you. I chose you out long ago to
hear this, when your father talked of you and when
Lizaveta was alive, I thought of it. Good-bye, don’t
shake hands. To-morrow!”
He went out. Sonia gazed at him as at a madman.
But she herself was like one insane and felt it. Her
head was going round.
“Good heavens, how does he know who killed
Lizaveta? What did those words mean? It’s awful!” But
at the same time the idea did not enter her head, not
for a moment! “Oh, he must be terribly unhappy! . . .
He has abandoned his mother and sister . . . What for?

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What has happened? And what had he in his mind?

What did he say to her? He had kissed her foot and
said . . . said (yes, he had said it clearly) that he could
not live without her . . . Oh, merciful heavens!”
Sonia spent the whole night feverish and delirious.
She jumped up from time to time, wept and wrung
her hands, then sank again into feverish sleep and
dreamt of Polenka, Katerina Ivanovna and Lizaveta, of
reading the gospel and him . . . him with pale face,
with burning eyes . . . kissing her feet, weeping.
On the other side of the door on the right, which
divided Sonia’s room from Madame Resslich’s flat,
was a room which had long stood empty. A card was
fixed on the gate and a notice stuck in the windows
over the canal advertising it to let. Sonia had long
been accustomed to the room’s being uninhabited.
But all that time Mr. Svidrigaïlov had been standing,
listening at the door of the empty room. When
Raskolnikov went out he stood still, thought a
moment, went on tiptoe to his own room which
adjoined the empty one, brought a chair and noise-
lessly carried it to the door that led to Sonia’s room.
The conversation had struck him as interesting and
remarkable, and he had greatly enjoyed it — so much
so that he brought a chair that he might not in the
future, to-morrow, for instance, have to endure the
inconvenience of standing a whole hour, but might
listen in comfort.

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 chapter v

When next morning at eleven o’clock punctually

Raskolnikov went into the department of the investi-
gation of criminal causes and sent his name in to
Porfiry Petrovitch, he was surprised at being kept
waiting so long: it was at least ten minutes before he
was summoned. He had expected that they would
pounce upon him. But he stood in the waiting-room,
and people, who apparently had nothing to do with
him, were continually passing to and fro before him.
In the next room which looked like an office, several
clerks were sitting writing and obviously they had no
notion who or what Raskolnikov might be. He looked
uneasily and suspiciously about him to see whether
there was not some guard, some mysterious watch
being kept on him to prevent his escape. But there
was nothing of the sort: he saw only the faces of clerks
absorbed in petty details, then other people, no one
seemed to have any concern with him. He might go
where he liked for them. The conviction grew

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stronger in him that if that enigmatic man of yester-

day, that phantom sprung out of the earth, had seen
everything, they would not have let him stand and
wait like that. And would they have waited till he
elected to appear at eleven? Either the man had not
yet given information, or . . . or simply he knew noth-
ing, had seen nothing (and how could he have seen
anything?) and so all that had happened to him the
day before was again a phantom exaggerated by his
sick and overstrained imagination. This conjecture
had begun to grow strong the day before, in the
midst of all his alarm and despair. Thinking it all over
now and preparing for a fresh conflict, he was sud-
denly aware that he was trembling — and he felt a
rush of indignation at the thought that he was trem-
bling with fear at facing that hateful Porfiry
Petrovitch. What he dreaded above all was meeting
that man again; he hated him with an intense, unmit-
igated hatred and was afraid his hatred might betray
him. His indignation was such that he ceased trem-
bling at once; he made ready to go in with a cold and
arrogant bearing and vowed to himself to keep as
silent as possible, to watch and listen and for once at
least to control his overstrained nerves. At that
moment he was summoned to Porfiry Petrovitch.
He found Porfiry Petrovitch alone in his study. His
study was a room neither large nor small, furnished
with a large writing-table, that stood before a sofa,
upholstered in checked material, a bureau, a book-

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case in the corner and several chairs — all govern-

ment furniture, of polished yellow wood. In the fur-
ther wall there was a closed door, beyond it there
were, no doubt, other rooms. On Raskolnikov’s
entrance Porfiry Petrovitch had at once closed the
door by which he had come in and they remained
alone. He met his visitor with an apparently genial
and good-tempered air, and it was only after a few
minutes that Raskolnikov saw signs of a certain awk-
wardness in him, as though he had been thrown out
of his reckoning or caught in something very secret.
“Ah, my dear fellow! Here you are . . . in our
domain” . . . began Porfiry, holding out both hands to
him. “Come, sit down, old man . . . or perhaps you
don’t like to be called ‘my dear fellow’ and ‘old man’
— tout court? Please don’t think it too familiar . . .
Here, on the sofa.”
Raskolnikov sat down, keeping his eyes fixed on
him. “In our domain,” the apologies for familiarity,
the French phrase tout court, were all characteristic
signs.
“He held out both hands to me, but he did not give
me one — he drew it back in time,” struck him suspi-
ciously. Both were watching each other, but when
their eyes met, quick as lightning they looked away.
“I brought you this paper . . . about the watch.
Here it is. Is it all right or shall I copy it again?”
“What? A paper? Yes, yes, don’t be uneasy, it’s all
right,” Porfiry Petrovitch said as though in haste, and

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after he had said it he took the paper and looked at it.

“Yes, it’s all right. Nothing more is needed,” he
declared with the same rapidity and he laid the paper
on the table.
A minute later when he was talking of something
else he took it from the table and put it on his
bureau.
“I believe you said yesterday you would like to
question me . . . formally . . . about my acquaintance
with the murdered woman?” Raskolnikov was begin-
ning again. “Why did I put in ‘I believe’” passed
through his mind in a flash. “Why am I so uneasy at
having put in that ‘I believe’?” came in a second flash.
And he suddenly felt that his uneasiness at the mere
contact with Porfiry, at the first words, at the first
looks, had grown in an instant to monstrous propor-
tions, and that this was fearfully dangerous. His
nerves were quivering, his emotion was increasing.
“It’s bad, it’s bad! I shall say too much again.”
“Yes, yes, yes! There’s no hurry, there’s no hurry,”
muttered Porfiry Petrovitch, moving to and fro about
the table without any apparent aim, as it were making
dashes towards the window, the bureau and the table,
at one moment avoiding Raskolnikov’s suspicious
glance, then again standing still and looking him
straight in the face.
His fat round little figure looked very strange, like
a ball rolling from one side to the other and
rebounding back.

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“We’ve plenty of time. Do you smoke? have you

your own? Here, a cigarette!” he went on, offering his
visitor a cigarette. “You know I am receiving you here,
but my own quarters are through there, you know, my
government quarters. But I am living outside for the
time, I had to have some repairs done here. It’s
almost finished now . . . Government quarters, you
know, are a capital thing. Eh, what do you think?”
“Yes, a capital thing,” answered Raskolnikov, look-
ing at him almost ironically.
“A capital thing, a capital thing,” repeated Porfiry
Petrovitch, as though he had just thought of some-
thing quite different. “Yes, a capital thing,” he almost
shouted at last, suddenly staring at Raskolnikov and
stopping short two steps from him.
This stupid repetition was too incongruous in its
ineptitude with the serious, brooding and enigmatic
glance he turned upon his visitor.
But this stirred Raskolnikov’s spleen more than
ever and he could not resist an ironical and rather
incautious challenge.
“Tell me, please,” he asked suddenly, looking
almost insolently at him and taking a kind of pleasure
in his own insolence. “I believe it’s a sort of legal rule,
a sort of legal tradition — for all investigating lawyers
— to begin their attack from afar, with a trivial, or at
least an irrelevant subject, so as to encourage, or
rather, to divert the man they are cross-examining, to
disarm his caution and then all at once to give him an

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unexpected knock-down blow with some fatal ques-

tion. Isn’t that so? It’s a sacred tradition, mentioned, I
fancy, in all the manuals of the art?”
“Yes, yes . . . Why, do you imagine that was why I
spoke about government quarters . . . eh?”
And as he said this Porfiry Petrovitch screwed up
his eyes and winked; a good-humoured, crafty look
passed over his face. The wrinkles on his forehead
were smoothed out, his eyes contracted, his features
broadened and he suddenly went off into a nervous
prolonged laugh, shaking all over and looking
Raskolnikov straight in the face. The latter forced
himself to laugh, too, but when Porfiry, seeing that he
was laughing, broke into such a guffaw that he turned
almost crimson, Raskolnikov’s repulsion overcame all
precaution; he left off laughing, scowled and stared
with hatred at Porfiry, keeping his eyes fixed on him
while his intentionally prolonged laughter lasted.
There was lack of precaution on both sides, however,
for Porfiry Petrovitch seemed to be laughing in his
visitor’s face and to be very little disturbed at the
annoyance with which the visitor received it. The lat-
ter fact was very significant in Raskolnikov’s eyes: he
saw that Porfiry Petrovitch had not been embarrassed
just before either, but that he, Raskolnikov, had per-
haps fallen into a trap; that there must be something,
some motive here unknown to him; that, perhaps,
everything was in readiness and in another moment
would break upon him . . .

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 fyodor dostoevsky

He went straight to the point at once, rose from

his seat and took his cap.
“Porfiry Petrovitch,” he began resolutely, though
with considerable irritation, “yesterday you
expressed a desire that I should come to you for
some inquiries (he laid special stress on the word
‘inquiries’). I have come and, if you have anything to
ask me, ask it, and if not, allow me to withdraw. I
have no time to spare . . . I have to be at the funeral of
that man who was run over, of whom you . . . know
also,” he added, feeling angry at once at having
made this addition and more irritated at his anger, “I
am sick of it all, do you hear, and have long been. It’s
partly what made me ill. In short,” he shouted, feel-
ing that the phrase about his illness was still more
out of place, “in short, kindly examine me or let me
go, at once. And if you must examine me, do so in
the proper form! I will not allow you to do so other-
wise, and so meanwhile, good-bye, as we have evi-
dently nothing to keep us now.”
“Good heavens! What do you mean? What shall I
question you about?” cackled Porfiry Petrovitch with
a change of tone, instantly leaving off laughing.
“Please don’t disturb yourself,” he began fidgeting
from place to place and fussily making Raskolnikov
sit down. “There’s no hurry, there’s no hurry, it’s all
nonsense. Oh, no, I’m very glad you’ve come to see
me at last . . . I look upon you simply as a visitor. And
as for my confounded laughter, please excuse it,

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Rodion Romanovitch. Rodion Romanovitch? That is

your name? . . . It’s my nerves, you tickled me so with
your witty observation; I assure you, sometimes I
shake with laughter like an India-rubber ball for half
an hour at a time . . . I’m often afraid of an attack of
paralysis. Do sit down. Please do, or I shall think you
are angry . . . ”
Raskolnikov did not speak; he listened, watching
him, still frowning angrily. He did sit down, but still
held his cap.
“I must tell you one thing about myself, my dear
Rodion Romanovitch,” Porfiry Petrovitch continued,
moving about the room and again avoiding his visi-
tor’s eyes. “You see, I’m a bachelor, a man of no con-
sequence and not used to society; besides, I have
nothing before me, I’m set, I’m running to seed and .
. . and have you noticed, Rodion Romanovitch, that in
our Petersburg circles, if two clever men meet who
are not intimate, but respect each other, like you and
me, it takes them half an hour before they can find a
subject for conversation — they are dumb, they sit
opposite each other and feel awkward. Every one has
subjects of conversation, ladies for instance . . . people
in high society always have their subjects of conversa-
tion, c’est de rigueur, but people of the middle sort like
us, thinking people that is, are always tongue-tied and
awkward. What is the reason of it? Whether it is the
lack of public interest, or whether it is we are so hon-
est we don’t want to deceive one another, I don’t

523
 fyodor dostoevsky

know. What do you think? Do put down your cap, it

looks as if you were just going, it makes me uncom-
fortable . . . I am so delighted . . . ”
Raskolnikov put down his cap and continued lis-
tening in silence with a serious frowning face to the
vague and empty chatter of Porfiry Petrovitch. “Does
he really want to distract my attention with his silly
babble?”
“I can’t offer you coffee here; but why not spend five
minutes with a friend,” Porfiry pattered on, “and you
know all these official duties . . . please don’t mind my
running up and down, excuse it, my dear fellow, I am
very much afraid of offending you, but exercise is
absolutely indispensable for me. I’m always sitting and
so glad to be moving about for five minutes . . . I suffer
from my sedentary life . . . I always intend to join a gym-
nasium; they say that officials of all ranks, even Privy
Councillors may be seen skipping gaily there; there you
have it, modern science . . . yes, yes . . . But as for my
duties here, inquiries and all such formalities . . . you
mentioned inquiries yourself just now . . . I assure you
these interrogations are sometimes more embarrassing
for the interrogator than for the interrogated . . . You
made the observation yourself just now very aptly and
wittily. (Raskolnikov had made no observation of the
kind.) One gets into a muddle! A regular muddle! One
keeps harping on the same note, like a drum! There is
to be a reform and we shall be called by a different
name, at least, he-he-he! And as for our legal tradition,

524
 crime and punishment

as you so wittily called it, I thoroughly agree with you.

Every prisoner on trial, even the rudest peasant knows,
that they begin by disarming him with irrelevant ques-
tions (as you so happily put it) and then deal him a
knock-down blow, he-he-he! — your felicitous compari-
son, he-he! So you really imagined that I meant by gov-
ernment quarters . . . he-he! You are an ironical person.
Come, I won’t go on! Ah, by the way, yes! One word
leads to another. You spoke of formality just now, apro-
pos of the inquiry, you know. But what’s the use of for-
mality? In many cases it’s nonsense. Sometimes one has
a friendly chat and gets a good deal more out of it. One
can always fall back on formality, allow me to assure
you. And after all, what does it amount to? An examin-
ing lawyer cannot be bounded by formality at every
step. The work of investigation is, so to speak, a free art
in its own way, he-he-he!”
Porfiry Petrovitch took breath a moment. He had
simply babbled on uttering empty phrases, letting slip
a few enigmatic words and again reverting to inco-
herence. He was almost running about the room,
moving his fat little legs quicker and quicker, looking
at the ground, with his right hand behind his back,
while with his left making gesticulations that were
extraordinarily incongruous with his words.
Raskolnikov suddenly noticed that as he ran about
the room he seemed twice to stop for a moment near
the door, as though he were listening.
“Is he expecting anything?”

525
 fyodor dostoevsky

“You are certainly quite right about it,” Porfiry

began gaily, looking with extraordinary simplicity at
Raskolnikov (which startled him and instantly put him
on his guard), “certainly quite right in laughing so wit-
tily at our legal forms, he-he! Some of these elaborate
psychological methods are exceedingly ridiculous and
perhaps useless, if one adheres too closely to the forms.
Yes . . . I am talking of forms again. Well, if I recognise,
or more strictly speaking, if I suspect some one or other
to be a criminal in any case entrusted to me . . . you’re
reading for the law, of course, Rodion Romanovitch?”
“Yes, I was . . . ”
“Well, then it is a precedent for you for the future
— though don’t suppose I should venture to instruct
you after the articles you publish about crime! No, I
simply make bold to state it by way of fact, if I took
this man or that for a criminal, why, I ask, should I
worry him prematurely, even though I had evidence
against him? In one case I may be bound, for
instance, to arrest a man at once, but another may be
in quite a different position, you know, so why should-
n’t I let him walk about the town a bit, he-he-he! But I
see you don’t quite understand, so I’ll give you a
clearer example. If I put him in prison too soon, I
may very likely give him, so to speak, moral support,
he-he! You’re laughing?”
Raskolnikov had no idea of laughing. He was sit-
ting with compressed lips, his feverish eyes fixed on
Porfiry Petrovitch’s.

526
 crime and punishment

“Yet that is the case, with some types especially, for

men are so different. You say evidence. Well, there
may be evidence. But evidence, you know, can gener-
ally be taken two ways. I am an examining lawyer and
a weak man, I confess it. I should like to make a
proof, so to say, mathematically clear, I should like to
make a chain of evidence such as twice two are four,
it ought to be a direct, irrefutable proof! And if I
shut him up too soon — even though I might be con-
vinced he was the man, I should very likely be depriv-
ing myself of the means of getting further evidence
against him. And how? By giving him, so to speak, a
definite position, I shall put him out of suspense and
set his mind at rest, so that he will retreat into his
shell. They say that at Sevastopol, soon after Alma,
the clever people were in a terrible fright that the
enemy would attack openly and take Sevastopol at
once. But when they saw that the enemy preferred a
regular siege, they were delighted, I am told and
reassured, for the thing would drag on for two
months at least. You’re laughing, you don’t believe
me again? Of course, you’re right, too. You’re right,
you’re right. These are all special cases, I admit. But
you must observe this, my dear Rodion
Romanovitch, the general case, the case for which all
legal forms and rules are intended, for which they
are calculated and laid down in books, does not exist
at all, for the reason that every case, every crime for
instance, so soon as it actually occurs, at once

527
 fyodor dostoevsky

becomes a thoroughly special case and sometimes a

case unlike any that’s gone before. Very comic cases
of that sort sometimes occur. If I leave one man quite
alone, if I don’t touch him and don’t worry him, but
let him know or at least suspect every moment that I
know all about it and am watching him day and
night, and if he is in continual suspicion and terror,
he’ll be bound to lose his head. He’ll come of him-
self, or maybe do something which will make it as
plain as twice two are four — it’s delightful. It may be
so with a simple peasant, but with one of our sort, an
intelligent man cultivated on a certain side, it’s a
dead certainty. For, my dear fellow, it’s a very impor-
tant matter to know on what side a man is cultivated.
And then there are nerves, there are nerves, you
have overlooked them! Why, they are all sick, nerv-
ous and irritable! . . . And then how they all suffer
from spleen! That I assure you is a regular gold mine
for us. And it’s no anxiety to me, his running about
the town free! Let him, let him walk about for a bit! I
know well enough that I’ve caught him and that he
won’t escape me. Where could he escape to, he-he?
Abroad, perhaps? A Pole will escape abroad, but not
here, especially as I am watching and have taken
measures. Will he escape into the depths of the
country perhaps? But you know, peasants live there,
real rude Russian peasants. A modern cultivated
man would prefer prison to living with such
strangers as our peasants. He-he! But that’s all non-

528
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sense, and on the surface. It’s not merely that he has

nowhere to run to, he is psychologically unable to
escape me, he-he! What an expression! Through a
law of nature he can’t escape me if he had anywhere
to go. Have you seen a butterfly round a candle?
That’s how he will keep circling and circling round
me. Freedom will lose its attractions. He’ll begin to
brood, he’ll weave a tangle round himself, he’ll
worry himself to death! What’s more he will provide
me with a mathematical proof — if I only give him
long enough interval . . . And he’ll keep circling
round me, getting nearer and nearer and then —
flop! He’ll fly straight into my mouth and I’ll swallow
him, and that will be very amusing, he-he-he! You
don’t believe me?”
Raskolnikov made no reply; he sat pale and
motionless, still gazing with the same intensity into
Porfiry’s face.
“It’s a lesson,” he thought, turning cold. “This is
beyond the cat playing with a mouse, like yesterday.
He can’t be showing off his power with no motive . . .
prompting me; he is far too clever for that . . . he must
have another object. What is it? It’s all nonsense, my
friend, you are pretending, to scare me! You’ve no
proofs and the man I saw had no real existence. You
simply want to make me lose my head, to work me up
beforehand and so to crush me. But you are wrong,
you won’t do it! But why give me such a hint? Is he
reckoning on my shattered nerves? No, my friend,

529
 fyodor dostoevsky

you are wrong, you won’t do it even though you have

some trap for me . . . let us see what you have in store
for me.”
And he braced himself to face a terrible and
unknown ordeal. At times he longed to fall on Porfiry
and strangle him. This anger was what he dreaded
from the beginning. He felt that his parched lips
were flecked with foam, his heart was throbbing. But
he was still determined not to speak till the right
moment. He realised that this was the best policy in
his position, because instead of saying too much he
would be irritating his enemy by his silence and pro-
voking him into speaking too freely. Anyhow, this was
what he hoped for.
“No, I see you don’t believe me, you think I am
playing a harmless joke on you,” Porfiry began again,
getting more and more lively, chuckling at every
instant and again pacing round the room. “And, to
be sure, you’re right: God has given me a figure that
can awaken none but comic ideas in other people; a
buffoon; but let me tell you and I repeat it, excuse an
old man, my dear Rodion Romanovitch, you are a
man still young, so to say, in your first youth and so
you put intellect above everything, like all young peo-
ple. Playful wit and abstract arguments fascinate you
and that’s for all the world like the old Austrian
Hofkriegsrath, as far as I can judge of military matters
that is: on paper they’d beaten Napoleon and taken
him prisoner, and there in their study they worked it

530
 crime and punishment

all out in the cleverest fashion, but look you, General

Mack surrendered with all his army, he-he-he! I see, I
see, Rodion Romanovitch, you are laughing at a civil-
ian like me, taking examples out of military history!
But I can’t help it, it’s my weakness. I am fond of mil-
itary science. And I’m ever so fond of reading all mil-
itary histories. I’ve certainly missed my proper career.
I ought to have been in the army, upon my word I
ought. I shouldn’t have been a Napoleon, but I might
have been a major, he-he-he! Well, I’ll tell you the
whole truth, my dear fellow, about this special case, I
mean: actual fact and a man’s temperament, my dear
sir, are weighty matters and it’s astonishing how they
sometimes deceive the sharpest calculation! I — listen
to an old man — am speaking seriously, Rodion
Romanovitch (as he said this Porfiry Petrovitch who
was scarcely five and thirty actually seemed to have
grown old; even his voice changed and he seemed to
shrink together) moreover, I’m a candid man . . . am I
a candid man or not? What do you say? I fancy I really
am: I tell you these things for nothing and don’t even
expect a reward for it, he-he! Well, to proceed, wit in
my opinion is a splendid thing, it is, so to say, an
adornment of nature and a consolation of life, and
what tricks it can play! So that it sometimes is hard for
a poor examining lawyer to know where he is, espe-
cially when he’s liable to be carried away by his own
fancy, too, for you know he is a man after all. But the
poor fellow is saved by the criminal’s temperament,

531
 fyodor dostoevsky

worse luck for him! But young people carried away by

their own wit don’t think of that ‘when they overstep
all obstacles’ as you wittily and cleverly expressed it
yesterday. He will lie — that is, the man who is a special
case, the incognito, and he will lie well, in the clever-
est fashion; you might think he would triumph and
enjoy the fruits of his wit, but at the most interesting,
the most flagrant moment he will faint. Of course
there may be illness and a stuffy room as well, but any-
way! Anyway he’s given us the idea! He lied incompa-
rably, but he didn’t reckon on his temperament.
That’s what betrays him! Another time he will be car-
ried away by his playful wit into making fun of the
man who suspects him, he will turn pale as it were on
purpose to mislead, but his paleness will be too natu-
ral, too much like the real thing, again he has given
us an idea! Though his questioner may be deceived at
first, he will think differently next day if he is not a
fool, and, of course, it is like that at every step! He
puts himself forward where he is not wanted, speaks
continually when he ought to keep silent, brings in
all sorts of allegorical allusions, he-he! Comes and
asks why didn’t you take me long ago, he-he-he! And
that can happen, you know, with the cleverest man,
the psychologist, the literary man. The temperament
reflects everything like a mirror! Gaze into it and
admire what you see! But why are you so pale, Rodion
Romanovitch? Is the room stuffy? Shall I open the
window?”

532
 crime and punishment

“Oh, don’t trouble, please,” cried Raskolnikov

and he suddenly broke into a laugh. “Please don’t
trouble.”
Porfiry stood facing him, paused a moment and
suddenly he too laughed. Raskolnikov got up from
the sofa, abruptly checking his hysterical laughter.
“Porfiry Petrovitch,” he began, speaking loudly
and distinctly, though his legs trembled and he could
scarcely stand. “I see clearly at last that you actually
suspect me of murdering that old woman and her sis-
ter Lizaveta. Let me tell you for my part that I am sick
of this. If you find that you have a right to prosecute
me legally, to arrest me, then prosecute me, arrest
me. But I will not let myself be jeered at to my face
and worried . . .”
His lips trembled, his eyes glowed with fury and he
could not restrain his voice.
“I won’t allow it!” he shouted, bringing his fist
down on the table. “Do you hear that, Porfiry
Petrovitch? I won’t allow it.”
“Good heavens! What does it mean?” cried
Porfiry Petrovitch, apparently quite frightened.
“Rodion Romanovitch, my dear fellow, what is the
matter with you?”
“I won’t allow it,” Raskolnikov shouted again.
“Hush, my dear man! They’ll hear and come in.
Just think, what could we say to them?” Porfiry
Petrovitch whispered in horror, bringing his face
close to Raskolnikov’s.

533
 fyodor dostoevsky

“I won’t allow it, I won’t allow it,” Raskolnikov

repeated mechanically, but he too spoke in a sudden
whisper.
Porfiry turned quickly and ran to open the window.
“Some fresh air! And you must have some water,
my dear fellow. You’re ill!” and he was running to the
door to call for some when he found a decanter of
water in the corner. “Come, drink a little,” he whis-
pered, rushing up to him with the decanter. “It will be
sure to do you good.”
Porfiry Petrovitch’s alarm and sympathy were so
natural that Raskolnikov was silent and began look-
ing at him with wild curiosity. He did not take the
water, however.
“Rodion Romanovitch, my dear fellow, you’ll drive
yourself out of your mind, I assure you, ach, ach!
Have some water, do drink a little.”
He forced him to take the glass. Raskolnikov
raised it mechanically to his lips, but set it on the
table again with disgust.
“Yes, you’ve had a little attack! You’ll bring back
your illness again, my dear fellow,” Porfiry
Petrovitch cackled with friendly sympathy, though
he still looked rather disconcerted. “Good heavens,
you must take more care of yourself! Dmitri
Prokofitch was here, came to see me yesterday — I
know, I know, I’ve a nasty, ironical temper, but what
they made of it! . . . Good heavens, he came yester-
day after you’d been. We dined and he talked and

534
 crime and punishment

talked away, and I could only throw up my hands in

despair! Did he come from you? But do sit down, for
mercy’s sake, sit down!”
“No, not from me, but I knew he went to you and
why he went,” Raskolnikov answered sharply.
“You knew?”
“I knew. What of it?”
“Why this, Rodion Romanovitch, that I know more
than that about you; I know about everything. I know
how you went to take a flat at night when it was dark and
how you rang the bell and asked about the blood, so
that the workmen and the porter did not know what to
make of it. Yes, I understand your state of mind at that
time . . . but you’ll drive yourself mad like that, upon
my word! You’ll lose your head! You’re full of generous
indignation at the wrongs you’ve received, first from
destiny, and then from the police officers, and so you
rush from one thing to another to force them to speak
out and make an end of it all, because you are sick of
all this suspicion and foolishness. That’s so, isn’t it? I
have guessed how you feel, haven’t I? Only in that way
you’ll lose your head and Razumihin’s, too; he’s too
good a man for such a position, you must know that.
You are ill and he is good and your illness is infectious
for him . . . I’ll tell you about it when you are more your-
self . . . But do sit down, for goodness’ sake. Please rest,
you look shocking, do sit down.”
Raskolnikov sat down; he no longer shivered, he
was hot all over. In amazement he listened with

535
 fyodor dostoevsky

strained attention to Porfiry Petrovitch who still

seemed frightened as he looked after him with
friendly solicitude. But he did not believe a word he
said, though he felt a strange inclination to believe.
Porfiry’s unexpected words about the flat had utterly
overwhelmed him. “How can it be, he knows about
the flat then,” he thought suddenly, “and he tells it
me himself!”
“Yes, in our legal practice there was a case almost
exactly similar, a case of morbid psychology,” Porfiry
went on quickly. “A man confessed to murder and
how he kept it up! It was a regular hallucination; he
brought forward facts, he imposed upon every one
and why? He had been partly, but only partly, unin-
tentionally the cause of a murder and when he knew
that he had given the murderers the opportunity, he
sank into dejection, it got on his mind and turned his
brain, he began imagining things and he persuaded
himself that he was the murderer. But at last the High
Court of Appeals went into it and the poor fellow was
acquitted and put under proper care. Thanks to the
Court of Appeals! Tut-tut-tut! Why, my dear fellow,
you may drive yourself into delirium if you have the
impulse to work upon your nerves, to go ringing bells
at night and asking about blood! I’ve studied all this
morbid psychology in my practice. A man is some-
times tempted to jump out of a window or from a bel-
fry. Just the same with bell-ringing . . . It’s all illness,
Rodion Romanovitch! You have begun to neglect

536
 crime and punishment

your illness. You should consult an experienced doc-

tor, what’s the good of that fat fellow? You are light-
headed! You were delirious when you did all this!”
For a moment Raskolnikov felt everything going
round.
“Is it possible, is it possible,” flashed through his
mind, “that he is still lying? He can’t be, he can’t be.”
He rejected that idea, feeling to what a degree of fury
it might drive him, feeling that that fury might drive
him mad.
“I was not delirious. I knew what I was doing,” he
cried, straining every faculty to penetrate Porfiry’s
game, “I was quite myself, do you hear?”
“Yes, I hear and understand. You said yesterday you
were not delirious, you were particularly emphatic
about it! I understand all you can tell me! A-ach! . . .
Listen, Rodion Romanovitch, my dear fellow. If you
were actually a criminal, or were somehow mixed up
in this damnable business, would you insist that you
were not delirious but in full possession of your facul-
ties? And so emphatically and persistently? Would it
be possible? Quite impossible, to my thinking. If you
had anything on your conscience, you certainly ought
to insist that you were delirious. That’s so, isn’t it?”
There was a note of slyness in this inquiry.
Raskolnikov drew back on the sofa as Porfiry bent
over him and stared in silent perplexity at him.
“Another thing about Razumihin — you certainly
ought to have said that he came of his own accord, to

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 fyodor dostoevsky

have concealed your part in it! But you don’t conceal

it! You lay stress on his coming at your instigation.”
Raskolnikov had not done so. A chill went down
his back.
“You keep telling lies,” he said slowly and weakly,
twisting his lips into a sickly smile, “you are trying
again to show that you know all my game, that you
know all I shall say beforehand,” he said, conscious
himself that he was not weighing his words as he
ought. “You want to frighten me . . . or you are simply
laughing at me . . . ”
He still stared at him as he said this and again
there was a light of intense hatred in his eyes.
“You keep lying,” he said. “You know perfectly well
that the best policy for the criminal is to tell the truth
as nearly as possible . . . to conceal as little as possible.
I don’t believe you!”
“What a wily person you are!” Porfiry tittered,
“there’s no catching you; you’ve a perfect monoma-
nia. So you don’t believe me? But still you do believe
me, you believe a quarter; I’ll soon make you believe
the whole, because I have a sincere liking for you and
genuinely wish you good.”
Raskolnikov’s lips trembled.
“Yes, I do,” went on Porfiry, touching Raskolnikov’s
arm genially, “you must take care of your illness.
Besides, your mother and sister are here now; you
must think of them. You must soothe and comfort
them and you do nothing but frighten them . . . ”

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 crime and punishment

“What has that to do with you? How do you know

it? What concern is it of yours? You are keeping watch
on me and want to let me know it?”
“Good heavens! Why, I learnt it all from you your-
self! You don’t notice that in your excitement you tell
me and others everything. From Razumihin, too, I
learnt a number of interesting details yesterday. No,
you interrupted me, but I must tell you that, for all
your wit, your suspiciousness makes you lose the com-
mon-sense view of things. To return to bell-ringing,
for instance. I, an examining lawyer, have betrayed a
precious thing like that, a real fact (for it is a fact
worth having), and you see nothing in it! Why, if I
had the slightest suspicion of you, should I have acted
like that? No, I should first have disarmed your suspi-
cions and not let you see I knew of that fact, should
have diverted your attention and suddenly have dealt
you a knock-down blow (your expression) saying:
‘And what were you doing, sir, pray, at ten or nearly
eleven at the murdered woman’s flat and why did you
ring the bell and why did you ask about blood? And
why did you invite the porters to go with you to the
police station, to the lieutenant?’ That’s how I ought
to have acted if I had a grain of suspicion of you. I
ought to have taken your evidence in due form,
searched your lodging and perhaps have arrested
you, too . . . so I have no suspicion of you, since I have
not done that! But you can’t look at it normally and
you see nothing, I say again.”

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 fyodor dostoevsky

Raskolnikov started so that Porfiry Petrovitch

could not fail to perceive it.
“You are lying all the while,” he cried, “I don’t
know your object, but you are lying. You did not
speak like that just now and I cannot be mistaken!”
“I am lying?” Porfiry repeated, apparently
incensed, but preserving a good-humoured and iron-
ical face, as though he were not in the least con-
cerned at Raskolnikov’s opinion of him. “I am lying . .
. but how did I treat you just now, I, the examining
lawyer? Prompting you and giving you every means
for your defence; illness, I said, delirium, injury,
melancholy and the police officers and all the rest of
it? Ah! He-he-he! Though, indeed, all those psycho-
logical means of defence are not very reliable and cut
both ways: illness, delirium, I don’t remember —
that’s all right, but why, my good sir, in your illness
and in your delirium were you haunted by just those
delusions and not by any others? There may have
been others, eh? He-he-he!”
Raskolnikov looked haughtily and contemptu-
ously at him.
“Briefly,” he said loudly and imperiously, rising to
his feet and in so doing pushing Porfiry back a little,
“briefly, I want to know, do you acknowledge me per-
fectly free from suspicion or not? Tell me, Porfiry
Petrovitch, tell me once for all and make haste!”
“What a business I’m having with you!” cried
Porfiry with a perfectly good-humoured, sly and com-

540
 crime and punishment

posed face. “And why do you want to know, why do

you want to know so much, since they haven’t begun
to worry you? Why, you are like a child asking for
matches! And why are you so uneasy? Why do you
force yourself upon us, eh? He-he-he!”
“I repeat,” Raskolnikov cried furiously, “that I can’t
put up with it!”
“With what? Uncertainty?” interrupted Porfiry.
“Don’t jeer at me! I won’t have it! I tell you I won’t
have it. I can’t and I won’t, do you hear, do you
hear?” he shouted, bringing his fist down on the
table again.
“Hush! Hush! They’ll overhear! I warn you seri-
ously, take care of yourself. I am not joking,” Porfiry
whispered, but this time there was not the look of old
womanish good-nature and alarm in his face. Now he
was peremptory, stern, frowning and for once laying
aside all mystification.
But this was only for an instant. Raskolnikov,
bewildered, suddenly fell into actual frenzy, but,
strange to say, he again obeyed the command to
speak quietly, though he was in a perfect paroxysm
of fury.
“I will not allow myself to be tortured,” he whis-
pered, instantly recognising with hatred that he
could not help obeying the command and driven to
even greater fury by the thought. “Arrest me, search
me, but kindly act in due form and don’t play with
me! Don’t dare!”

541
 fyodor dostoevsky

“Don’t worry about the form,” Porfiry interrupted

with the same sly smile, as it were, gloating with enjoy-
ment over Raskolnikov. “I invited you to see me quite
in a friendly way.”
“I don’t want your friendship and I spit on it! Do
you hear? And, here, I take my cap and go. What will
you say now if you mean to arrest me?”
He took up his cap and went to the door.
“And won’t you see my little surprise?” chuckled
Porfiry, again taking him by the arm and stopping
him at the door.
He seemed to become more playful and good-
humoured which maddened Raskolnikov.
“What surprise?” he asked, standing still and look-
ing at Porfiry in alarm.
“My little surprise, it’s sitting there behind the
door, he-he-he! (He pointed to the locked door.) I
locked him in that he should not escape.”
“What is it? Where? What? . . .”
Raskolnikov walked to the door and would have
opened it, but it was locked.
“It’s locked, here is the key!”
And he brought a key out of his pocket.
“You are lying,” roared Raskolnikov without
restraint, “you lie, you damned punchinello!” and he
rushed at Porfiry who retreated to the other door, not
at all alarmed.
“I understand it all! You are lying and mocking so
that I may betray myself to you . . . ”

542
 crime and punishment

“Why, you could not betray yourself any further,

my dear Rodion Romanovitch. You are in a passion.
Don’t shout, I shall call the clerks.”
“You are lying! Call the clerks! You knew I was ill
and tried to work me into a frenzy to make me betray
myself, that was your object! Produce your facts! I
understand it all. You’ve no evidence, you have only
wretched rubbishly suspicions like Zametov’s! You
knew my character, you wanted to drive me to fury
and then to knock me down with priests and deputies
. . . Are you waiting for them? eh! What are you wait-
ing for? Where are they? Produce them!”
“Why deputies, my good man? What things people
will imagine! And to do so would not be acting in
form as you say, you don’t know the business, my dear
fellow . . . And there’s no escaping form, as you see,”
Porfiry muttered, listening at the door through
which a noise could be heard.
“Ah, they’re coming,” cried Raskolnikov. “You’ve
sent for them! You expected them! Well, produce
them all: your deputies, your witnesses, what you like!
. . . I am ready!”
But at this moment a strange incident occurred,
something so unexpected that neither Raskolnikov
nor Porfiry Petrovitch could have looked for such a
conclusion to their interview.

543
 chapter vi

When he remembered the scene afterwards, this is

how Raskolnikov saw it.
The noise behind the door increased, and sud-
denly the door was opened a little.
“What is it?” cried Porfiry Petrovitch, annoyed.
“Why, I gave orders . . .”
For an instant there was no answer, but it was evi-
dent that there were several persons at the door,
and that they were apparently pushing somebody
back.
“What is it?” Porfiry Petrovitch repeated, uneasily.
“The prisoner Nikolay has been brought,” some
one answered.
“He is not wanted! Take him away! Let him wait!
What’s he doing here? How irregular!” cried Porfiry,
rushing to the door.
“But he . . . ” began the same voice, and suddenly
ceased.

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 crime and punishment

Two seconds, not more, were spent in actual strug-

gle, then some one gave a violent shove, and then a
man, very pale, strode into the room.
This man’s appearance was at first sight very
strange. He stared straight before him, as though see-
ing nothing. There was a determined gleam in his
eyes; at the same time there was a deathly pallor in his
face, as though he were being led to the scaffold. His
white lips were faintly twitching.
He was dressed like a workman and was of
medium height, very young, slim, his hair cut in a
round crop, with thin spare features. The man
whom he had thrust back followed him into the
room and succeeded in seizing him by the shoul-
der; he was a warder; but Nikolay pulled his arm
away.
Several persons crowded inquisitively into the
doorway. Some of them tried to get in. All this took
place almost instantaneously.
“Go away, it’s too soon! Wait till you are sent for! . .
. Why have you brought him so soon?” Porfiry
Petrovitch muttered, extremely annoyed, and as it
were thrown out of his reckoning.
But Nikolay suddenly knelt down.
“What’s the matter?” cried Porfiry, surprised.
“I am guilty! Mine is the sin! I am the murderer,”
Nikolay articulated suddenly, rather breathless, but
speaking fairly loudly.

545
 fyodor dostoevsky

For ten seconds there was silence as though all

had been struck dumb; even the warder stepped
back, mechanically retreated to the door, and stood
immovable.
“What is it?” cried Porfiry Petrovitch, recovering
from his momentary stupefaction.
“I . . . am the murderer,” repeated Nikolay, after a
brief pause.
“What . . . you . . . what . . . whom did you kill?”
Porfiry Petrovitch was obviously bewildered.
Nikolay again was silent for a moment.
“Alyona Ivanovna and her sister Lizaveta Ivanovna,
I . . . killed . . . with an axe. Darkness came over me,”
he added suddenly, and was again silent.
He still remained on his knees. Porfiry Petrovitch
stood for some moments as though meditating, but
suddenly roused himself and waved back the unin-
vited spectators. They instantly vanished and closed
the door. Then he looked towards Raskolnikov, who
was standing in the corner, staring wildly at Nikolay,
and moved towards him, but stopped short, looked
from Nikolay to Raskolnikov and then again at
Nikolay, and seeming unable to restrain himself
darted at the latter.
“You’re in too great a hurry,” he shouted at him,
almost angrily. “I didn’t ask you what came over you . .
. Speak, did you kill them?”
“I am the murderer . . . I want to give evidence,”
Nikolay pronounced.

546
 crime and punishment

“Ach! What did you kill them with?”

“An axe. I had it ready.”
“Ach, he is in a hurry! Alone?”
Nikolay did not understand the question.
“Did you do it alone?”
“Yes, alone. And Mitka is not guilty and had no
share in it.”
“Don’t be in a hurry about Mitka! A-ach! How was
it you ran downstairs like that at the time? The
porters met you both!”
“It was to put them off the scent . . . I ran after
Mitka,” Nikolay replied hurriedly, as though he had
prepared the answer.
“I knew it!” cried Porfiry, with vexation. “It’s not
his own tale he is telling,” he muttered as though to
himself, and suddenly his eyes rested on Raskolnikov
again.
He was apparently so taken up with Nikolay that
for a moment he had forgotten Raskolnikov. He was a
little taken aback.
“My dear Rodion Romanovitch, excuse me!” he
flew up to him, “this won’t do; I’m afraid you must go
. . . it’s no good your staying . . . I will . . . you see, what a
surprise! . . . Good-bye!”
And taking him by the arm, he showed him to the
door.
“I suppose you didn’t expect it?” said Raskolnikov
who, though he had not yet fully grasped the situa-
tion, had regained his courage.

547
 fyodor dostoevsky

“You did not expect it either, my friend. See how

your hand is trembling! He-he!”
“You’re trembling, too, Porfiry Petrovitch!”
“Yes, I am; I didn’t expect it.”
They were already at the door; Porfiry was impa-
tient for Raskolnikov to be gone.
“And your little surprise, aren’t you going to show
it to me?” Raskolnikov said, sarcastically.
“Why, his teeth are chattering as he asks, he-he!
You are an ironical person! Come, till we meet!”
“I believe we can say good-bye!”
“That’s in God’s hands,” muttered Porfiry, with an
unnatural smile.
As he walked through the office, Raskolnikov
noticed that many people were looking at him.
Among them he saw the two porters from the house,
whom he had invited that night to the police station.
They stood there waiting. But he was no sooner on
the stairs than he heard the voice of Porfiry Petrovitch
behind him. Turning round, he saw the latter run-
ning after him, out of breath.
“One word, Rodion Romanovitch; as to all the
rest, it’s in God’s hands, but as a matter of form there
are some questions I shall have to ask you . . . so we
shall meet again, shan’t we?”
And Porfiry stood still, facing him with a smile.
“Shan’t we?” he added again.
He seemed to want to say something more, but
could not speak out.

548
 crime and punishment

“You must forgive me, Porfiry Petrovitch, for what

has just passed . . . I lost my temper,” began
Raskolnikov, who had so far regained his courage
that he felt irresistibly inclined to display his coolness.
“Don’t mention it, don’t mention it,” Porfiry
replied, almost gleefully. “I myself, too . . . I have a
wicked temper, I admit it! But we shall meet again. If
it’s God’s will, we may see a great deal of one
another.”
“And will get to know each other through and
through?” added Raskolnikov.
“Yes; know each other through and through,”
assented Porfiry Petrovitch, and he screwed up his
eyes, looking earnestly at Raskolnikov. “Now you’re
going to a birthday party?”
“To a funeral.”
“Of course, the funeral! Take care of yourself, and
get well.”
“I don’t know what to wish you,” said Raskolnikov,
who had begun to descend the stairs, but looked back
again. “I should like to wish you success, but your
office is such a comical one.”
“Why comical?” Porfiry Petrovitch had turned to
go, but he seemed to prick up his ears at this.
“Why, how you must have been torturing and
harassing that poor Nikolay psychologically, after
your fashion, till he confessed! You must have been at
him day and night, proving to him that he was the
murderer, and now that he has confessed, you’ll

549
 fyodor dostoevsky

begin vivisecting him again. ‘You are lying,’ you’ll say.

‘You are not the murderer! You can’t be! It’s not your
own tale you are telling!’ You must admit it’s a comi-
cal business!”
“He-he-he! You noticed then that I said to Nikolay
just now that it was not his own tale he was telling?”
“How could I help noticing it!”
“He-he! You are quick-witted. You notice every-
thing! You’ve really a playful mind! And you always fas-
ten on the comic side . . . he-he! They say that was the
marked characteristic of Gogol, among the writers.”
“Yes, of Gogol.”
“Yes, of Gogol . . . I shall look forward to meeting
you.”
“So shall I.”
Raskolnikov walked straight home. He was so
muddled and bewildered that on getting home he sat
for a quarter of an hour on the sofa, trying to collect
his thoughts. He did not attempt to think about
Nikolay; he was stupefied; he felt that his confession
was something inexplicable, amazing — something
beyond his understanding. But Nikolay’s confession
was an actual fact. The consequences of this fact were
clear to him at once, its falsehood could not fail to be
discovered, and then they would be after him again.
Till then, at least, he was free and must do something
for himself, for the danger was imminent.
But how imminent? His position gradually became
clear to him. Remembering, sketchily, the main out-

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 crime and punishment

lines of his recent scene with Porfiry, he could not

help shuddering again with horror. Of course, he did
not yet know all Porfiry’s aims, he could not see into
all his calculations. But he had already partly shown
his hand, and no one knew better than Raskolnikov
how terrible Porfiry’s “lead” had been for him. A little
more and he might have given himself away com-
pletely, circumstantially. Knowing his nervous tem-
perament and from the first glance seeing through
him, Porfiry, though playing a bold game, was bound
to win. There’s no denying that Raskolnikov had
compromised himself seriously, but no facts had
come to light as yet; there was nothing positive. But
was he taking a true view of the position? Wasn’t he
mistaken? What had Porfiry been trying to get at?
Had he really some surprise prepared for him? And
what was it? Had he really been expecting something
or not? How would they have parted if it had not
been for the unexpected appearance of Nikolay?
Porfiry had shown almost all his cards — of course,
he had risked something in showing them — and if
he had really had anything up his sleeve
(Raskolnikov reflected), he would have shown that,
too. What was that “surprise”? Was it a joke? Had it
meant anything? Could it have concealed anything
like a fact, a piece of positive evidence? His yester-
day’s visitor? What had become of him? Where was
he to-day? If Porfiry really had any evidence, it must
be connected with him . . .

551
 fyodor dostoevsky

He sat on the sofa with his elbows on his knees and

his face hidden in his hands. He was still shivering
nervously. At last he got up, took his cap, thought a
minute, and went to the door.
He had a sort of presentiment that for to-day, at least,
he might consider himself out of danger. He had a sud-
den sense almost of joy; he wanted to make haste to
Katerina Ivanovna’s. He would be too late for the
funeral, of course, but he would be in time for the
memorial dinner, and there at once he would see Sonia.
He stood still, thought a moment, and a suffering
smile came for a moment on to his lips.
“To-day! To-day,” he repeated to himself. “Yes, to-
day! So it must be . . .”
But as he was about to open the door, it began
opening of itself. He started and moved back. The
door opened gently and slowly, and there suddenly
appeared a figure — yesterday’s visitor from under-
ground.
The man stood in the doorway, looked at
Raskolnikov without speaking, and took a step for-
ward into the room. He was exactly the same as yes-
terday; the same figure, the same dress, but there was
a great change in his face; he looked dejected and
sighed deeply. If he had only put his hand up to his
cheek and leaned his head on one side he would have
looked exactly like a peasant woman.
“What do you want?” asked Raskolnikov, numb
with terror.

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 crime and punishment

The man was still silent, but suddenly he bowed

down almost to the ground, touching it with his
finger.
“What is it?” cried Raskolnikov.
“I have sinned,” the man articulated softly.
“How?”
“By evil thoughts.”
They looked at one another.
“I was vexed. When you came, perhaps in drink,
and bade the porters go to the police station and ask
about the blood, I was vexed that they let you go and
took you for drunken. I was so vexed that I lost my
sleep. And remembering the address we came here
yesterday and asked for you . . .”
“Who came?” Raskolnikov interrupted, instantly
beginning to recollect.
“I did, I’ve wronged you.”
“Then you came from that house?”
“I was standing at the gate with them . . . don’t you
remember? We have carried on our trade in that
house for years past. We cure and prepare hides, we
take work home . . . most of all I was vexed . . . ”
And the whole scene of the day before yesterday in
the gateway came clearly before Raskolnikov’s mind;
he recollected that there had been several people
there besides the porters, women among them. He
remembered one voice had suggested taking him
straight to the police station. He could not recall the
face of the speaker, and even now he did not recog-

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 fyodor dostoevsky

nise it, but he remembered that he had turned round

and made him some answer . . .
So this was the solution of yesterday’s horror. The
most awful thought was that he had been actually
almost lost, had almost done for himself on account
of such a trivial circumstance. So this man could tell
nothing except his asking about the flat and the blood
stains. So Porfiry, too, had nothing but that delirium,
no facts but this psychology which cuts both ways, noth-
ing positive. So if no more facts come to light (and
they must not, they must not!) then . . . then what can
they do to him? How can they convict him, even if
they arrest him? And Porfiry then had only just heard
about the flat and had not known about it before.
“Was it you who told Porfiry . . . that I’d been
there?” he cried, struck by a sudden idea.
“What Porfiry?”
“The head of the detective department.”
“Yes. The porters did not go there, but I went.”
“To-day?”
“I got there two minutes before you. And I heard,
I heard it all, how he worried you.”
“Where? What? When?”
“Why, in the next room. I was sitting there all
the time.”
“What? Why then, you were the surprise? But how
could it happen? Upon my word!”
“I saw that the porters did not want to do what I
said,” began the man; “for it’s too late, said they, and

554
 crime and punishment

maybe he’ll be angry that we did not come at the

time. I was vexed and I lost my sleep, and I began
making inquiries. And finding out yesterday where to
go, I went to-day. The first time I went he wasn’t
there, when I came an hour later he couldn’t see me.
I went the third time, and they showed me in. I
informed him of everything, just as it happened, and
he began skipping about the room and punching
himself on the chest. ‘What do you scoundrels mean
by it? If I’d known about it I should have arrested
him!’ Then he ran out, called somebody and began
talking to him in the corner, then he turned to me,
scolding and questioning me. He scolded me a great
deal; and I told him everything, and I told him that
you didn’t dare to say a word in answer to me yester-
day and that you didn’t recognise me. And he fell to
running about again and kept hitting himself on the
chest, and getting angry and running about, and
when you were announced he told me to go into the
next room, ‘sit there a bit,’ he said.‘don’t move, what-
ever you may hear.’ And he set a chair there for me
and locked me in. ‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘I may call you.’
And when Nikolay’d been brought he let me out as
soon as you were gone. ‘I shall send for you again and
question you,’ he said.”
“And did he question Nikolay while you were
there?”
“He got rid of me as he did of you, before he
spoke to Nikolay.”

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 fyodor dostoevsky

The man stood still, and again suddenly bowed

down, touching the ground with his finger.
“Forgive me for my evil thoughts, and my slander.”
“May God forgive you,” answered Raskolnikov.
And as he said this, the man bowed down again,
but not to the ground, turned slowly and went out of
the room.
“It all cuts both ways, now it all cuts both ways,”
repeated Raskolnikov, and he went out more confi-
dent than ever.
“Now we’ll make a fight for it,” he said, with a mali-
cious smile, as he went down the stairs. His malice was
aimed at himself; with shame and contempt he recol-
lected his “cowardice.”

556
pa r t v
 chapter i

The morning that followed the fateful interview with

Dounia and her mother brought sobering influences
to bear on Pyotr Petrovitch. Intensely unpleasant as it
was, he was forced little by little to accept as a fact
beyond recall what had seemed to him only the day
before fantastic and incredible. The black snake of
wounded vanity had been gnawing at his heart all
night. When he got out of bed, Pyotr Petrovitch
immediately looked in the looking-glass. He was
afraid that he had jaundice. However his health
seemed unimpaired so far, and looking at his noble,
clear-skinned countenance which had grown fattish
of late, Pyotr Petrovitch for an instant was positively
comforted in the conviction that he would find
another bride and, perhaps, even a better one. But
coming back to the sense of his present position, he
turned aside and spat vigorously, which excited a sar-
castic smile in Andrey Semyonovitch Lebeziatnikov,
the young friend with whom he was staying. That

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 crime and punishment

smile Pyotr Petrovitch noticed, and at once set it

down against his young friend’s account. He had set
down a good many points against him of late. His
anger was redoubled when he reflected that he ought
not have told Andrey Semyonovitch about the result
of yesterday’s interview. That was the second mistake
he had made in temper, through impulsiveness and
irritability . . . Moreover, all that morning one unpleas-
antness followed another. He even found a hitch
awaiting him in his legal case in the Senate. He was
particularly irritated by the owner of the flat which
had been taken in view of his approaching marriage
and was being redecorated at his own expense; the
owner, a rich German tradesman, would not enter-
tain the idea of breaking the contract which had just
been signed and insisted on the full forfeit money,
though Pyotr Petrovitch would be giving him back
the flat practically redecorated. In the same way the
upholsterers refused to return a single rouble of the
instalment paid for the furniture purchased but not
yet removed to the flat.
“Am I to get married simply for the sake of the
furniture?” Pyotr Petrovitch ground his teeth and at
the same time once more he had a gleam of desper-
ate hope. “Can all that be really so irrevocably over?
Is it no use to make another effort?” The thought of
Dounia sent a voluptuous pang through his heart.
He endured anguish at that moment, and if it had
been possible to slay Raskolnikov instantly by wish-

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ing it, Pyotr Petrovitch would promptly have uttered

the wish.
“It was my mistake, too, not to have given them
money,” he thought, as he returned dejectedly to
Lebeziatnikov’s room, “and why on earth was I such a
Jew? It was false economy! I meant to keep them with-
out a penny so that they should turn to me as their
providence, and look at them! Foo! If I’d spent some
fifteen hundred roubles on them for the trousseau
and presents, on knick-knacks, dressing-cases, jew-
ellery, materials, and all that sort of trash from
Knopp’s and the English shop, my position would
have been better and . . . stronger! They could not
have refused me so easily! They are the sort of people
that would feel bound to return money and presents
if they broke it off; and they would find it hard to do
it! And their consciences would prick them: how can
we dismiss a man who has hitherto been so generous
and delicate? . . . Hm! I’ve made a blunder.”
And grinding his teeth again, Pyotr Petrovitch
called himself a fool — but not aloud, of course.
He returned home, twice as irritated and angry as
before. The preparations for the funeral dinner at
Katerina Ivanovna’s excited his curiosity as he passed.
He had heard about it the day before; he fancied,
indeed, that he had been invited, but absorbed in his
own cares he had paid no attention. Inquiring of
Madame Lippevechsel who was busy laying the table
while Katerina Ivanovna was away at the cemetery, he

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heard that the entertainment was to be a great affair,

that all the lodgers had been invited, among them
some who had not known the dead man, that even
Andrey Semyonovitch Lebeziatnikov was invited in
spite of his previous quarrel with Katerina Ivanovna,
that he, Pyotr Petrovitch, was not only invited, but was
eagerly expected as he was the most important of the
lodgers. Amalia Ivanovna herself had been invited
with great ceremony in spite of the recent unpleas-
antness, and so she was very busy with preparations
and was taking a positive pleasure in them; she was
moreover dressed up to the nines, all in new black
silk, and she was proud of it. All this suggested an
idea to Pyotr Petrovitch and he went into his room, or
rather Lebeziatnikov’s, somewhat thoughtful. He had
learnt that Raskolnikov was to be one of the guests.
Andrey Semyonovitch had been at home all the
morning. The attitude of Pyotr Petrovitch to this gen-
tleman was strange, though perhaps natural. Pyotr
Petrovitch had despised and hated him from the day
he came to stay with him and at the same time he
seemed somewhat afraid of him. He had not come to
stay with him on his arrival in Petersburg simply from
parsimony, though that had been perhaps his chief
object. He had heard of Andrey Semyonovitch, who
had once been his ward, as a leading young progres-
sive who was taking an important part in certain
interesting circles, the doings of which were a legend
in the provinces. It had impressed Pyotr Petrovitch.

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These powerful omniscient circles who despised

every one and showed every one up had long
inspired in him a peculiar but quite vague alarm. He
had not, of course, been able to form even an approx-
imate notion of what they meant. He, like every one,
had heard that there were, especially in Petersburg,
progressives of some sort, nihilists and so on, and,
like many people, he exaggerated and distorted the
significance of those words to an absurd degree.
What for many years past he had feared more than
anything was being shown up and this was the chief
ground for his continual uneasiness at the thought of
transferring his business to Petersburg. He was afraid
of this as little children are sometimes panic-stricken.
Some years before, when he was just entering on his
own career, he had come upon two cases in which
rather important personages in the province, patrons
of his, had been cruelly shown up. One instance had
ended in great scandal for the person attacked and
the other had very nearly ended in serious trouble.
For this reason Pyotr Petrovitch intended to go into
the subject as soon as he reached Petersburg and, if
necessary, to anticipate contingencies by seeking the
favour of “our younger generation.” He relied on
Andrey Semyonovitch for this and before his visit to
Raskolnikov he had succeeded in picking up some
current phrases. He soon discovered that Andrey
Semyonovitch was a commonplace simpleton, but
that by no means reassured Pyotr Petrovitch. Even if

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he had been certain that all the progressives were

fools like him, it would not have allayed his uneasi-
ness. All the doctrines, the ideas, the systems with
which Andrey Semyonovitch pestered him had no
interest for him. He had his own object — he simply
wanted to find out at once what was happening here.
Had these people any power or not? Had he anything
to fear from them? Would they expose any enterprise
of his? And what precisely was now the object of their
attacks? Could he somehow make up to them and get
round them if they really were powerful? Was this the
thing to do or not? Couldn’t he gain something
through them? In fact hundreds of questions pre-
sented themselves.
Andrey Semyonovitch was an anæmic, scrofulous
little man, with strangely flaxen mutton-chop
whiskers of which he was very proud. He was a clerk
and had almost always something wrong with his eyes.
He was rather soft-hearted, but self-confident and
sometimes extremely conceited in speech which had
an absurd effect, incongruous with his little figure.
He was one of the lodgers most respected by Amalia
Ivanovna, for he did not get drunk and paid regularly
for his lodgings. Andrey Semyonovitch really was
rather stupid; he attached himself to the cause of
progress and “our younger generation” from enthusi-
asm. He was one of the numerous and varied legion
of dullards, of half-animate abortions, conceited,
half-educated coxcombs, who attach themselves to

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the idea most in fashion only to vulgarise it and who

caricature every cause they serve, however sincerely.
Though Lebeziatnikov was so good-natured, he,
too, was beginning to dislike Pyotr Petrovitch. This
happened on both sides unconsciously. However sim-
ple Andrey Semyonovitch might be, he began to see
that Pyotr Petrovitch was duping him and secretly
despising him, and that “he was not the right sort of
man.” He had tried expounding to him the system of
Fourier and the Darwinian theory, but of late Pyotr
Petrovitch began to listen too sarcastically and even
to be rude. The fact was he had begun instinctively to
guess that Lebeziatnikov was not merely a common-
place simpleton, but, perhaps, a liar, too, and that he
had no connections of any consequence even in his
own circle, but had simply picked things up third-
hand; and that very likely he did not even know much
about his own work of propaganda, for he was in too
great a muddle. A fine person he would be to show
any one up! It must be noted, by the way, that Pyotr
Petrovitch had during those ten days eagerly
accepted the strangest praise from Andrey
Semyonovitch; he had not protested, for instance,
when Andrey Semyonovitch belauded him for being
ready to contribute to the establishment of the new
“commune,” or to abstain from christening his future
children, or to acquiesce if Dounia were to take a
lover a month after marriage, and so on. Pyotr
Petrovitch so enjoyed hearing his own praises that he

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did not disdain even such virtues when they were

attributed to him.
Pyotr Petrovitch had had occasion that morning to
realise some five per cent. bonds and now he sat
down to the table and counted over bundles of notes.
Andrey Semyonovitch who hardly ever had any
money walked about the room pretending to himself
to look at all those bank notes with indifference and
even contempt. Nothing would have convinced Pyotr
Petrovitch that Andrey Semyonovitch could really
look on the money unmoved, and the latter, on his
side, kept thinking bitterly that Pyotr Petrovitch was
capable of entertaining such an idea about him and
was, perhaps, glad of the opportunity of teasing his
young friend by reminding him of his inferiority and
the great difference between them.
He found him incredibly inattentive and irritable,
though he, Andrey Semyonovitch, began enlarging
on his favourite subject, the foundation of a new spe-
cial “commune.” The brief remarks that dropped
from Pyotr Petrovitch between the clicking of the
beads on the reckoning frame betrayed unmistakable
and discourteous irony. But the “humane” Andrey
Semyonovitch ascribed Pyotr Petrovitch’s ill-humour
to his recent breach with Dounia and he was burning
with impatience to discourse on that theme. He had
something progressive to say on the subject which
might console his worthy friend and “could not fail”
to promote his development.

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“There is some sort of festivity being prepared at

that . . . at the widow’s, isn’t there?” Pyotr Petrovitch
asked suddenly, interrupting Andrey Semyonovitch at
the most interesting passage.
“Why, don’t you know? Why, I was telling you last
night what I think about all such ceremonies. And
she invited you too, I heard. You were talking to her
yesterday . . . ”
“I should never have expected that beggarly fool
would have spent on this feast all the money she got
from that other fool, Raskolnikov. I was surprised just
now as I came through at the preparations there, the
wines! Several people are invited. It’s beyond every-
thing!” continued Pyotr Petrovitch, who seemed to
have some object in pursuing the conversation.
“What? You say I am asked too? When was that? I
don’t remember. But I shan’t go. Why should I? I only
said a word to her in passing yesterday of the possibil-
ity of her obtaining a year’s salary as a destitute widow
of a government clerk. I suppose she has invited me
on that account, hasn’t she? He-he-he!”
“I don’t intend to go either,” said Lebeziatnikov.
“I should think not, after giving her a thrashing!
You might well hesitate, he-he!”
“Who thrashed? Whom?” cried Lebeziatnikov,
flustered and blushing.
“Why, you thrashed Katerina Ivanovna a month
ago. I heard so yesterday . . . so that’s what your con-
victions amount to . . . and the woman question, too,

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 crime and punishment

wasn’t quite sound, he-he-he!” and Pyotr Petrovitch,

as though comforted, went back to clicking his beads.
“It’s all slander and nonsense!” cried Lebeziatnikov,
who was always afraid of allusions to the subject. “It was
not like that at all, it was quite different. You’ve heard it
wrong; it’s a libel. I was simply defending myself. She
rushed at me first with her nails, she pulled out all my
whiskers . . . It’s permissible for any one I should hope
to defend himself and I never allow any one to use vio-
lence to me on principle, for it’s an act of despotism.
What was I to do? I simply pushed her back.”
“He-he-he!” Luzhin went on laughing maliciously.
“You keep on like that because you are out of
humour yourself . . . But that’s nonsense and it has
nothing, nothing whatever to do with the woman
question! You don’t understand; I used to think,
indeed, that if women are equal to men in all
respects even in strength (as is maintained now)
there ought to be equality in that, too. Of course, I
reflected afterwards that such a question ought not
really to arise, for there ought not to be fighting and
in the future society, fighting is unthinkable . . . and
that it would be a queer thing to seek for equality in
fighting. I am not so stupid . . . though, of course,
there is fighting . . . there won’t be later, but at pres-
ent there is . . . confound it! How muddled one gets
with you! It’s not on that account that I am not
going. I am not going on principle, not to take part
in the revolting convention of memorial dinners,

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 fyodor dostoevsky

that’s why! Though, of course, one might go to laugh

at it . . . I am sorry there won’t be any priests at it. I
should certainly go if there were.”
“Then you would sit down at another man’s table
and insult it and those who invited you. Eh?”
“Certainly not insult, but protest. I should do it with
a good object. I might indirectly assist the cause of
enlightenment and propaganda. It’s a duty of every
man to work for enlightenment and propaganda and
the more harshly, perhaps, the better. I might drop a
seed, an idea . . . And something might grow up from
that seed. How should I be insulting them? They might
be offended at first, but afterwards they’d see I’d done
them a service. You know, Terebyeva (who is in the
community now) was blamed because when she left her
family and . . . devoted . . . herself, she wrote to her father
and mother that she wouldn’t go on living convention-
ally and was entering on a free marriage and it was said
that that was too harsh, that she might have spared
them and have written more kindly. I think that’s all
nonsense and there’s no need of softness, on the con-
trary, what’s wanted is protest. Varents had been mar-
ried seven years, she abandoned her two children, she
told her husband straight out in a letter: ‘I have realised
that I cannot be happy with you. I can never forgive you
that you have deceived me by concealing from me that
there is another organisation of society by means of the
communities. I have only lately learned it from a great-
hearted man to whom I have given myself and with

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 crime and punishment

whom I am establishing a community. I speak plainly

because I consider it dishonest to deceive you. Do as
you think best. Do not hope to get me back, you are too
late. I hope you will be happy.’ That’s how letters like
that ought to be written!”
“Is that Terebyeva the one you said had made a
third free marriage?”
“No, it’s only the second, really! But what if it were
the fourth, what if it were the fifteenth, that’s all non-
sense! And if ever I regretted the death of my father
and mother, it is now, and I sometimes think if my
parents were living what a protest I would have aimed
at them! I would have done something on purpose . . .
I would have shown them! I would have astonished
them! I am really sorry there is no one!”
“To surprise! He-he! Well, be that as you will,”
Pyotr Petrovitch interrupted, “but tell me this: do you
know the dead man’s daughter, the delicate-looking
little thing? It’s true what they say about her, isn’t it?”
“What of it? I think, that is, it is my own personal
conviction, that this is the normal condition of
women. Why not? I mean, distinguons. In our present
society, it is not altogether normal, because it is com-
pulsory, but in the future society, it will be perfectly
normal, because it will be voluntary. Even as it is, she
was quite right: she was suffering and that was her
asset, so to speak, her capital which she had a perfect
right to dispose of. Of course, in the future society,
there will be no need of assets, but her part will have

569
 fyodor dostoevsky

another significance, rational and in harmony with

her environment. As to Sofya Semyonovna person-
ally, I regard her action as a vigorous protest against
the organisation of society, and I respect her deeply
for it; I rejoice indeed when I look at her!”
“I was told that you got her turned out of these
lodgings.”
Lebeziatnikov was enraged.
“That’s another slander,” he yelled. “It was not so
at all! That was all Katerina Ivanovna’s invention, for
she did not understand! And I never made love to
Sofya Semyonovna! I was simply developing her,
entirely disinterestedly, trying to rouse her to protest .
. . All I wanted was her protest and Sofya Semyonovna
could not have remained here anyway!”
“Have you asked her to join your community?”
“You keep on laughing and very inappropriately,
allow me to tell you. You don’t understand! There is
no such rôle in a community. The community is
established that there should be no such rôles. In a
community, such a rôle is essentially transformed and
what is stupid here is sensible there, what, under pres-
ent conditions, is unnatural becomes perfectly natu-
ral in the community. It all depends on the
environment. It’s all the environment and man him-
self is nothing. And I am on good terms with Sofya
Semyonovna to this day, which is a proof that she
never regarded me as having wronged her. I am try-
ing now to attract her to the community, but on

570
 crime and punishment

quite, quite a different footing. What are you laugh-

ing at? We are trying to establish a community of our
own, a special one, on a broader basis. We have gone
further in our convictions. We reject more! And
meanwhile I’m still developing Sofya Semyonovna.
She has a beautiful, beautiful character!”
“And you take advantage of her fine character, eh?
He-he!”
“No, no! Oh, no! On the contrary.”
“Oh, on the contrary! He-he-he! A queer thing
to say!”
“Believe me! Why should I disguise it? In fact, I
feel it strange myself how timid, chaste and modern
she is with me!”
“And you, of course, are developing her . . . he-
he! trying to prove to her that all that modesty is
nonsense?”
“Not at all, not at all! How coarsely, how stupidly
— excuse me saying so — you misunderstand the
word development! Good heavens, how . . . crude you
still are! We are striving for the freedom of women
and you have only one idea in your head . . . Setting
aside the general question of chastity and feminine
modesty as useless in themselves and indeed preju-
dices, I fully accept her chastity with me, because
that’s for her to decide. Of course if she were to tell
me herself that she wanted me, I should think myself
very lucky, because I like the girl very much; but as it
is, no one has ever treated her more courteously

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 fyodor dostoevsky

than I, with more respect for her dignity . . . I wait in

hopes, that’s all!”
“You had much better make her a present of some-
thing. I bet you never thought of that.”
“You don’t understand, as I’ve told you already! Of
course, she is in such a position, but it’s another ques-
tion. Quite another question! You simply despise her.
Seeing a fact which you mistakenly consider deserving
of contempt, you refuse to take a humane view of a fel-
low creature. You don’t know what a character she is! I
am only sorry that of late she has quite given up read-
ing and borrowing books. I used to lend them to her. I
am sorry, too, that with all the energy and resolution
in protesting — which she has already shown once —
she has little self-reliance, little, so to say, independ-
ence, so as to break free from certain prejudices and
certain foolish ideas. Yet she thoroughly understands
some questions, for instance about kissing of hands,
that is, that it’s an insult to a woman for a man to kiss
her hand, because it’s a sign of inequality. We had a
debate about it and I described it to her. She listened
attentively to an account of the workmen’s associa-
tions in France, too. Now I am explaining the ques-
tion of coming into the room in the future society.”
“And what’s that, pray?”
“We had a debate lately on the question: Has a
member of the community the right to enter another
member’s room, whether man or woman, at any time
. . . and we decided that he has!”

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 crime and punishment

“It might be at an inconvenient moment, he-he!”

Lebeziatnikov was really angry.
“You are always thinking of something unpleas-
ant,” he cried with aversion. “Tfoo! How vexed I am
that when I was expounding our system, I referred
prematurely to the question of personal privacy! It’s
always a stumbling-block to people like you, they turn
it into ridicule before they understand it. And how
proud they are of it, too! Tfoo! I’ve often maintained
that that question should not be approached by a
novice till he has a firm faith in the system. And tell
me, please, what do you find so shameful even in
cesspools? I should be the first to be ready to clean
out any cesspool you like. And it’s not a question of
self-sacrifice, it’s simply work, honourable, useful
work which is as good as any other and much better
than the work of a Raphael and a Pushkin, because it
is more useful.”
“And more honourable, more honourable, he-
he-he!”
“What do you mean by ‘more honourable’? I don’t
understand such expressions to describe human
activity. ‘More honourable,’ ‘nobler’ — all those are
old-fashioned prejudices which I reject. Everything
which is of use to mankind is honourable. I only
understand one word: useful! You can snigger as
much as you like, but that’s so!”
Pyotr Petrovitch laughed heartily. He had finished
counting the money and was putting it away. But

573
 fyodor dostoevsky

some of the notes he left on the table. The “cesspool

question” had already been a subject of dispute
between them. What was absurd was that it made
Lebeziatnikov really angry, while it amused Luzhin
and at that moment he particularly wanted to anger
his young friend.
“It’s your ill-luck yesterday that makes you so ill-
humoured and annoying,” blurted out Lebeziatnikov,
who in spite of his “independence” and his “protests”
did not venture to oppose Pyotr Petrovitch and still
behaved to him with some of the respect habitual in
earlier years.
“You’d better tell me this,” Pyotr Petrovitch inter-
rupted with haughty displeasure, “can you . . . or
rather are you really friendly enough with that young
person to ask her to step in here for a minute? I
think they’ve all come back from the cemetery . . . I
hear the sound of steps . . . I want to see her, that
young person.”
“What for?” Lebeziatnikov asked with surprise.
“Oh, I want to. I am leaving here to-day or to-mor-
row and therefore I wanted to speak to her about . . .
However, you may be present during the interview.
It’s better you should be, indeed. For there’s no
knowing what you might imagine.”
“I shan’t imagine anything. I only asked and, if
you’ve anything to say to her, nothing is easier than to
call her in. I’ll go directly and you may be sure I won’t
be in your way.”

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 crime and punishment

Five minutes later Lebeziatnikov came in with

Sonia. She came in very much surprised and over-
come with shyness as usual. She was always shy in such
circumstances and was always afraid of new people,
she had been as a child and was even more so now . . .
Pyotr Petrovitch met her “politely and affably,” but
with a certain shade of bantering familiarity which in
his opinion was suitable for a man of his respectabil-
ity and weight in dealing with a creature so young
and so interesting as she. He hastened to “reassure”
her and made her sit down facing him at the table.
Sonia sat down, looked about her — at Lebeziatnikov,
at the notes lying on the table and then again at Pyotr
Petrovitch and her eyes remained riveted on him.
Lebeziatnikov was moving to the door. Pyotr
Petrovitch signed to Sonia to remain seated and
stopped Lebeziatnikov.
“Is Raskolnikov in there? Has he come?” he asked
him in a whisper.
“Raskolnikov? Yes. Why? Yes, he is there. I saw him
just come in . . . why?”
“Well, I particularly beg you to remain here with
us and not to leave me alone with this . . . young
woman. I only want a few words with her, but God
knows what they may make of it. I shouldn’t like
Raskolnikov to repeat anything . . . You understand
what I mean?”
“I understand!” Lebeziatnikov saw the point. “Yes,
you are right . . . Of course, I am convinced personally

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 fyodor dostoevsky

that you have no reason to be uneasy, but . . . still, you

are right. Certainly I’ll stay. I’ll stand here at the win-
dow and not be in your way . . . I think you are right . . .”
Pyotr Petrovitch returned to the sofa, sat down
opposite Sonia, looked attentively at her and assumed
an extremely dignified, even severe expression, as
much as to say, “don’t you make any mistake, madam.”
Sonia was overwhelmed with embarrassment.
“In the first place, Sofya Semyonovna, will you
make my excuses to your respected mamma . . . That’s
right, isn’t it? Katerina Ivanovna stands in the place of
a mother to you?” Pyotr Petrovitch began with great
dignity, though affably.
It was evident that his intentions were friendly.
“Quite so, yes; the place of a mother,” Sonia
answered, timidly and hurriedly.
“Then will you make my apologies to her?
Through inevitable circumstances I am forced to be
absent and shall not be at the dinner in spite of your
mamma’s kind invitation.”
“Yes . . . I’ll tell her . . . at once.”
And Sonia hastily jumped up from her seat.
“Wait, that’s not all,” Pyotr Petrovitch detained
her, smiling at her simplicity and ignorance of good
manners, “and you know me little, my dear Sofya
Semyonovna, if you suppose I would have ventured to
trouble a person like you for a matter of so little con-
sequence affecting myself only. I have another
object.”

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 crime and punishment

Sonia sat down hurriedly. Her eyes rested again for

an instant on the grey and rainbow-coloured notes
that remained on the table, but she quickly looked
away and fixed her eyes on Pyotr Petrovitch. She felt it
horribly indecorous, especially for her, to look at
another person’s money. She stared at the gold eye-
glass which Pyotr Petrovitch held in his left hand and
at the massive and extremely handsome ring with a
yellow stone on his middle finger. But suddenly she
looked away and, not knowing where to turn, ended
by staring Pyotr Petrovitch again straight in the face.
After a pause of still greater dignity he continued.
“I chanced yesterday in passing to exchange a cou-
ple of words with Katerina Ivanovna, poor woman.
That was sufficient to enable me to ascertain that she is
in a position — preternatural, if one may so express it.”
“Yes . . . preternatural . . . ” Sonia hurriedly assented.
“Or it would be simpler and more comprehensible
to say, ill.”
“Yes, simpler and more comprehen . . . yes, ill.”
“Quite so. So then from a feeling of humanity and
so to speak compassion, I should be glad to be of serv-
ice to her in any way, foreseeing her unfortunate posi-
tion. I believe the whole of this poverty-stricken
family depends now entirely on you?”
“Allow me to ask,” Sonia rose to her feet, “did you
say something to her yesterday of the possibility of a
pension? Because she told me you had undertaken to
get her one. Was that true?”

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“Not in the slightest, and indeed it’s an absurdity!

I merely hinted at her obtaining temporary assistance
as the widow of an official who had died in the service
— if only she has patronage . . . but apparently your
late parent had not served his full term and had not
indeed been in the service at all of late. In fact, if
there could be any hope, it would be very ephemeral,
because there would be no claim for assistance in that
case, far from it . . . And she is dreaming of a pension
already, he-he-he! . . . A go-ahead lady!”
“Yes, she is. For she is credulous and good-
hearted, and she believes everything from the good-
ness of her heart and . . . and . . . and she is like that . .
. yes . . . You must excuse her,” said Sonia, and again
she got up to go.
“But you haven’t heard what I have to say.”
“No, I haven’t heard,” muttered Sonia.
“Then sit down.” She was terribly confused; she sat
down again a third time.
“Seeing her position with her unfortunate little
ones, I should be glad, as I have said before, so far as
lies in my power, to be of service, that is, so far as in my
power, not more. One might for instance get up a sub-
scription for her, or a lottery, something of the sort,
such as is always arranged in such cases by friends or
even outsiders desirous of assisting people. It was of
that I intended to speak to you; it might be done.”
“Yes, yes . . . God will repay you for it,” faltered
Sonia, gazing intently at Pyotr Petrovitch.

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“It might be, but we will talk of it later. We might

begin it to-day, we will talk it over this evening and lay
the foundation so to speak. Come to me at seven
o’clock. Mr. Lebeziatnikov, I hope, will assist us. But
there is one circumstance of which I ought to warn
you beforehand and for which I venture to trouble
you, Sofya Semyonovna, to come here. In my opinion
money cannot be, indeed it’s unsafe to put it into
Katerina Ivanovna’s own hands. The dinner to-day is
a proof of that. Though she has not, so to speak, a
crust of bread for to-morrow and . . . well, boots or
shoes, or anything; she has bought to-day Jamaica
rum, and even, I believe, Madeira and . . . and coffee. I
saw it as I passed through. Tomorrow it will all fall
upon you again, they won’t have a crust of bread. It’s
absurd, really, and so, to my thinking, a subscription
ought to be raised so that the unhappy widow should
not know of the money, but only you, for instance.
Am I right?”
“I don’t know . . . this is only to-day, once in her life
. . . She was so anxious to do honour, to celebrate the
memory . . . And she is very sensible . . . but just as you
think and I shall be very, very . . . they will all be . . . and
God will reward . . . and the orphans . . . ”
Sonia burst into tears.
“Very well, then, keep it in mind; and now will you
accept for the benefit of your relation the small sum
that I am able to spare, from me personally. I am very
anxious that my name should not be mentioned in

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 fyodor dostoevsky

connection with it. Here . . . having so to speak anxi-

eties of my own, I cannot do more . . .”
And Pyotr Petrovitch held out to Sonia a ten-rou-
ble note carefully unfolded. Sonia took it, flushed
crimson, jumped up, muttered something and began
taking leave. Pyotr Petrovitch accompanied her cere-
moniously to the door. She got out of the room at
last, agitated and distressed, and returned to Katerina
Ivanovna, overwhelmed with confusion.
All this time Lebeziatnikov had stood at the win-
dow or walked about the room, anxious not to inter-
rupt the conversation; when Sonia had gone he
walked up to Pyotr Petrovitch and solemnly held out
his hand.
“I heard and saw everything,” he said, laying stress
on the last verb. “That is honourable, I mean to say,
it’s humane! You wanted to avoid gratitude, I saw!
And although I cannot, I confess, in principle sym-
pathise with private charity, for it not only fails to
eradicate the evil but even promotes it, yet I must
admit that I saw your action with pleasure — yes, yes,
I like it.”
“That’s all nonsense,” muttered Pyotr Petrovitch,
somewhat disconcerted, looking carefully at
Lebeziatnikov.
“No, it’s not nonsense! A man who has suffered
distress and annoyance as you did yesterday and who
yet can sympathise with the misery of others, such a
man . . . even though he is making a social mistake — is

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still deserving of respect! I did not expect it indeed of

you, Pyotr Petrovitch, especially as according to your
ideas . . . oh, what a drawback your ideas are to you!
How distressed you are for instance by your ill luck
yesterday,” cried the simple-hearted Lebeziatnikov,
who felt a return of affection for Pyotr Petrovitch.
“And what do you want with marriage, with legal mar-
riage, my dear, noble Pyotr Petrovitch? Why do you
cling to this legality of marriage? Well, you may beat
me if you like, but I am glad, positively glad it hasn’t
come off, that you are free, that you are not quite lost
for humanity . . . you see, I’ve spoken my mind!”
“Because I don’t want in your free marriage to be
made a fool of and to bring up another man’s chil-
dren, that’s why I want legal marriage,” Luzhin
replied in order to make some answer.
He seemed preoccupied by something.
“Children? You referred to children,” Lebeziatnikov
started off like a warhorse at the trumpet call.
“Children are a social question and a question of first
importance, I agree; but the question of children has
another solution. Some refuse to have children alto-
gether, because they suggest the institution of the
family. We’ll speak of children later, but now as to the
question of honour, I confess that’s my weak point.
That horrid, military, Pushkin expression is unthink-
able in the dictionary of the future. What does it
mean indeed? It’s nonsense, there will be no decep-
tion in a free marriage! That is only the natural con-

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 fyodor dostoevsky

sequence of a legal marriage, so to say, it’s corrective,

a protest. So that indeed it’s not humiliating . . . and if
I ever, to suppose an absurdity, were to be legally mar-
ried, I should be positively glad of it. I should say to
my wife: ‘My dear, hitherto I have loved you, now I
respect you, for you’ve shown you can protest!’ You
laugh! That’s because you are incapable of getting
away from prejudices. Confound it all! I understand
now where the unpleasantness is of being deceived in
a legal marriage, but it’s simply a despicable conse-
quence of a despicable position in which both are
humiliated. When the deception is open, as in a free
marriage, then it does not exist, it’s unthinkable.
Your wife will only prove how she respects you by con-
sidering you incapable of opposing her happiness
and avenging yourself on her for her new husband.
Damn it all! I sometimes dream if I were to be mar-
ried, foo! I mean if I were to marry, legally or not, it’s
just the same, I should present my wife with a lover if
she had not found one for herself. ‘My dear,’ I should
say, ‘I love you, but even more than that I desire you
to respect me. See!’ Am I not right?”
Pyotr Petrovitch sniggered as he listened, but with-
out much merriment. He hardly heard it indeed. He
was preoccupied with something else and even
Lebeziatnikov at last noticed it. Pyotr Petrovitch
seemed excited and rubbed his hands. Lebeziatnikov
remembered all this and reflected upon it afterwards.

582
 chapter ii

It would be difficult to explain exactly what could

have originated the idea of that senseless dinner in
Katerina Ivanovna’s disordered brain. Nearly ten of
the twenty roubles, given by Raskolnikov for
Marmeladov’s funeral, were wasted upon it. Possibly
Katerina Ivanovna felt obliged to honour the mem-
ory of the deceased “suitably,” that all the lodgers,
and still more Amalia Ivanovna, might know “that he
was in no way their inferior, and perhaps very much
their superior,” and that no one had the right “to
turn up his nose at him.” Perhaps the chief element
was that peculiar “poor man’s pride,” which compels
many poor people to spend their last savings on some
traditional social ceremony, simply in order to do
“like other people,” and not to “be looked down
upon.” It is very probable, too, that Katerina Ivanovna
longed on this occasion, at the moment when she
seemed to be abandoned by every one, to show those
“wretched contemptible lodgers” that she knew “how

583
 fyodor dostoevsky

to do things, how to entertain” and that she had been

brought up “in a genteel, she might almost say aristo-
cratic colonel’s family” and had not been meant for
sweeping floors and washing the children’s rags at
night. Even the poorest and most broken-spirited
people are sometimes liable to these paroxysms of
pride and vanity which take the form of an irresistible
nervous craving. And Katerina Ivanovna was not bro-
ken-spirited; she might have been killed by circum-
stance, but her spirit could not have been broken,
that is, she could not have been intimidated, her will
could not be crushed. Moreover Sonia had said with
good reason that her mind was unhinged. She could
not be said to be insane, but for a year past she had
been so harassed that her mind might well be over-
strained. The later stages of consumption are apt,
doctors tell us, to affect the intellect.
There was no great variety of wines, nor was there
Madeira; but wine there was. There was vodka, rum
and Lisbon wine, all of the poorest quality but in suffi-
cient quantity. Besides the traditional rice and honey,
there were three or four dishes, one of which con-
sisted of pancakes, all prepared in Amalia Ivanovna’s
kitchen. Two samovars were boiling, that tea and
punch might be offered after dinner. Katerina
Ivanovna had herself seen to purchasing the provi-
sions, with the help of one of the lodgers, an unfortu-
nate little Pole who had somehow been stranded at
Madame Lippevechsel’s. He promptly put himself at

584
 crime and punishment

Katerina Ivanovna’s disposal and had been all that

morning and all the day before running about as fast
as his legs could carry him, and very anxious that every
one should be aware of it. For every trifle he ran to
Katerina Ivanovna, even hunting her out at the
bazaar, at every instant called her “Pani.” She was
heartily sick of him before the end, though she had
declared at first that she could not have got on with-
out this “serviceable and magnanimous man.” It was
one of Katerina Ivanovna’s characteristics to paint
every one she met in the most glowing colours. Her
praises were so exaggerated as sometimes to be
embarrassing; she would invent various circumstances
to the credit of her new acquaintance and quite gen-
uinely believe in their reality. Then all of a sudden she
would be disillusioned and would rudely and con-
temptuously repulse the person she had only a few
hours before been literally adoring. She was naturally
of a gay, lively and peace-loving disposition, but from
continual failures and misfortunes she had come to
desire so keenly that all should live in peace and joy
and should not dare to break the peace, that the slight-
est jar, the smallest disaster reduced her almost to
frenzy, and she would pass in an instant from the
brightest hopes and fancies to cursing her fate and
raving, and knocking her head against the wall.
Amalia Ivanovna, too, suddenly acquired extraor-
dinary importance in Katerina Ivanovna’s eyes and
was treated by her with extraordinary respect, proba-

585
 fyodor dostoevsky

bly only because Amalia Ivanovna had thrown herself

heart and soul into the preparations. She had under-
taken to lay the table, to provide the linen, crockery
&c., and to cook the dishes in her kitchen, and
Katerina Ivanovna had left it all in her hands and
gone herself to the cemetery. Everything had been
well done. Even the tablecloth was nearly clean; the
crockery, knives, forks and glasses were, of course, of
all shapes and patterns, lent by different lodgers, but
the table was properly laid at the time fixed, and
Amalia Ivanovna, feeling she had done her work well,
had put on a black silk dress and a cap with new
mourning ribbons and met the returning party with
some pride. This pride, though justifiable, displeased
Katerina Ivanovna for some reason: “as though the
table could not have been laid except by Amalia
Ivanovna!” She disliked the cap with new ribbons,
too. “Could she be stuck up, the stupid German,
because she was mistress of the house, and had con-
sented as a favour to help her poor lodgers! As a
favour! Fancy that! Katerina Ivanovna’s father who
had been a colonel and almost a governor had some-
times had the table set for forty persons, and then any
one like Amalia Ivanovna, or rather Ludwigovna,
would not have been allowed into the kitchen.”
Katerina Ivanovna, however, put off expressing
her feelings for the time and contented herself with
treating her coldly, though she decided inwardly
that she would certainly have to put Amalia

586
 crime and punishment

Ivanovna down and set her in her proper place, for

goodness only knew what she was fancying herself.
Katerina Ivanovna was irritated too by the fact that
hardly any of the lodgers invited had come to the
funeral, except the Pole who had just managed to
run into the cemetery, while to the memorial dinner
the poorest and most insignificant of them had
turned up, the wretched creatures, many of them
not quite sober. The older and more respectable of
them all, as if by common consent, stayed away.
Pyotr Petrovitch Luzhin, for instance, who might be
said to be the most respectable of all the lodgers,
did not appear, though Katerina Ivanovna had the
evening before told all the world, that is Amalia
Ivanovna, Polenka, Sonia and the Pole, that he was
the most generous, noble-hearted man with a large
property and vast connections, who had been a
friend of her first husband’s, and a guest in her
father’s house, and that he had promised to use all
his influence to secure her a considerable pension.
It must be noted that when Katerina Ivanovna
exalted any one’s connections and fortune, it was
without any ulterior motive, quite disinterestedly,
for the mere pleasure of adding to the consequence
of the person praised. Probably “taking his cue”
from Luzhin, “that contemptible wretch
Lebeziatnikov had not turned up either. What did
he fancy himself? He was only asked out of kindness
and because he was sharing the same room with

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 fyodor dostoevsky

Pyotr Petrovitch and was a friend of his, so that it

would have been awkward not to invite him.”
Among those who failed to appear were “the gen-
teel lady and her old-maidish daughter,” who had
only been lodgers in the house for the last fortnight,
but had several times complained of the noise and
uproar in Katerina Ivanovna’s room, especially when
Marmeladov had come back drunk. Katerina
Ivanovna heard this from Amalia Ivanovna who, quar-
relling with Katerina Ivanovna, and threatening to
turn the whole family out of doors, had shouted at
her that they “were not worth the foot” of the hon-
ourable lodgers whom they were disturbing. Katerina
Ivanovna determined now to invite this lady and her
daughter, “whose foot she was not worth,” and who
had turned away haughtily when she casually met
them, so that they might know that “she was more
noble in her thoughts and feelings and did not har-
bour malice,” and might see that she was not accus-
tomed to her way of living. She had proposed to
make this clear to them at dinner with allusions to
her late father’s governorship, and also at the same
time to hint that it was exceedingly stupid of them to
turn away on meeting her. The fat colonel-major (he
was really a discharged officer of low rank) was also
absent, but it appeared that he had been “not him-
self” for the last two days. The party consisted of the
Pole, a wretched looking clerk with a spotty face and
a greasy coat, who had not a word to say for himself,

588
 crime and punishment

and smelt abominably, a deaf and almost blind old

man who had once been in the post office and who
had been from immemorial ages maintained by some
one at Amalia Ivanovna’s.
A retired clerk of the commissariat department
came, too; he was drunk, had a loud and most
unseemly laugh and only fancy — was without a waist-
coat! One of the visitors sat straight down to the table
without even greeting Katerina Ivanovna. Finally one
person having no suit appeared in his dressing gown,
but this was too much, and the efforts of Amalia
Ivanovna and the Pole succeeded in removing him.
The Pole brought with him, however, two other Poles
who did not live at Amalia Ivanovna’s and whom no
one had seen here before. All this irritated Katerina
Ivanovna intensely. “For whom had they made all
these preparations then?” To make room for the visi-
tors the children had not even been laid for at the
table; but the two little ones were sitting on a bench
in the furthest corner with their dinner laid on a box,
while Polenka as a big girl had to look after them,
feed them, and keep their noses wiped like well-bred
children’s.
Katerina Ivanovna, in fact, could hardly help meet-
ing her guests with increased dignity, and even
haughtiness. She stared at some of them with special
severity, and loftily invited them to take their seats.
Rushing to the conclusion that Amalia Ivanovna must
be responsible for those who were absent, she began

589
 fyodor dostoevsky

treating her with extreme nonchalance, which the

latter promptly observed and resented. Such a begin-
ning was no good omen for the end. All were seated
at last.
Raskolnikov came in almost at the moment of
their return from the cemetery. Katerina Ivanovna
was greatly delighted to see him, in the first place,
because he was the one “educated visitor, and, as
every one knew, was in two years to take a professor-
ship in the university,” and secondly because he
immediately and respectfully apologised for having
been unable to be at the funeral. She positively
pounced upon him, and made him sit on her left
hand (Amalia Ivanovna was on her right). In spite of
her continual anxiety that the dishes should be
passed round correctly and that every one should
taste them, in spite of the agonising cough which
interrupted her every minute and seemed to have
grown worse during the last few days she hastened to
pour out in a half whisper to Raskolnikov all her sup-
pressed feelings and her just indignation at the fail-
ure of the dinner, interspersing her remarks with
lively and uncontrollable laughter at the expense of
her visitors and especially of her landlady.
“It’s all that cuckoo’s fault! You know whom I
mean? Her, her!” Katerina Ivanovna nodded towards
the landlady. “Look at her, she’s making round eyes,
she feels that we are talking about her and can’t
understand. Pfoo, the owl! Ha-ha! (Cough-cough-

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 crime and punishment

cough.) And what does she put on that cap for?

(Cough-cough-cough.) Have you noticed that she
wants every one to consider that she is patronising
me and doing me an honour by being here? I asked
her like a sensible woman to invite people, especially
those who knew my late husband, and look at the set
of fools she has brought! The sweeps! Look at that
one with the spotty face. And those wretched Poles,
ha-ha-ha! (Cough-cough-cough.) Not one of them
has ever poked his nose in here, I’ve never set eyes on
them. What have they come here for, I ask you? There
they sit in a row. Hey, Pan!” she cried suddenly to one
of them, “have you tasted the pancakes? Take some
more! Have some beer! Won’t you have some vodka?
Look, he’s jumped up and is making his bows, they
must be quite starved, poor things. Never mind, let
them eat! They don’t make a noise, anyway, though
I’m really afraid for our landlady’s silver spoons . . .
Amalia Ivanovna!” she addressed her suddenly,
almost aloud, “if your spoons should happen to be
stolen, I won’t be responsible, I warn you! Ha-ha-ha!”
She laughed, turning to Raskolnikov, and again nod-
ding towards the landlady, in high glee at her sally.
“She didn’t understand, she didn’t understand again!
Look how she sits with her mouth open! An owl, a
real owl! An owl in new ribbons, ha-ha-ha!”
Here her laugh turned again to an insufferable fit
of coughing that lasted five minutes. Drops of perspi-
ration stood out on her forehead and her handker-

591
 fyodor dostoevsky

chief was stained with blood. She showed Raskolnikov

the blood in silence, and as soon as she could get her
breath began whispering to him again with extreme
animation and a hectic flush on her cheeks.
“Do you know, I gave her the most delicate
instructions, so to speak, for inviting that lady and
her daughter, you understand of whom I am speak-
ing? It needed the utmost delicacy, the greatest
nicety, but she has managed things so that that fool,
that conceited baggage, that provincial nonentity,
simply because she is the widow of a major, and has
come to try and get a pension and to fray out her
skirts in the government offices, because at fifty she
paints her face (everybody knows it) . . . a creature like
that did not think fit to come, and has not even
answered the invitation, which the most ordinary
good manners required! I can’t understand why
Pyotr Petrovitch has not come! But where’s Sonia?
Where has she gone? Ah, there she is at last! what is it,
Sonia, where have you been? It’s odd that even at
your father’s funeral you should be so unpunctual.
Rodion Romanovitch, make room for her beside you.
That’s your place, Sonia . . . take what you like. Have
some of the cold entrée with jelly, that’s the best.
They’ll bring the pancakes directly. Have they given
the children some? Polenka, have you got everything?
(Cough-cough-cough.) That’s all right. Be a good
girl, Lida, and, Kolya, don’t fidget with your feet; sit
like a little gentleman. What are you saying, Sonia?”

592
 crime and punishment

Sonia hastened to give her Pyotr Petrovitch’s

apologies, trying to speak loud enough for every
one to hear and carefully choosing the most respect-
ful phrases which she attributed to Pyotr Petrovitch.
She added that Pyotr Petrovitch had particularly
told her to say that, as soon as he possibly could, he
would come immediately to discuss business alone
with her and to consider what could be done for
her, &c., &c.
Sonia knew that this would comfort Katerina
Ivanovna, would flatter her and gratify her pride. She
sat down beside Raskolnikov; she made him a hurried
bow, glancing curiously at him. But for the rest of the
time she seemed to avoid looking at him or speaking
to him. She seemed absent-minded, though she kept
looking at Katerina Ivanovna, trying to please her.
Neither she nor Katerina Ivanovna had been able to
get mourning; Sonia was wearing dark brown, and
Katerina Ivanovna had on her only dress, a dark
striped cotton one.
The message from Pyotr Petrovitch was very suc-
cessful. Listening to Sonia with dignity, Katerina
Ivanovna inquired with equal dignity how Pyotr
Petrovitch was, then at once whispered almost aloud
to Raskolnikov that it certainly would have been
strange for a man of Pyotr Petrovitch’s position and
standing to find himself in such “extraordinary com-
pany,” in spite of his devotion to her family and his
old friendship with her father.

593
 fyodor dostoevsky

“That’s why I am so grateful to you, Rodion

Romanovitch, that you have not disdained my hospi-
tality, even in such surroundings,” she added almost
aloud. “But I am sure that it was only your special
affection for my poor husband that has made you
keep your promise.”
Then once more with pride and dignity she
scanned her visitors, and suddenly inquired aloud
across the table of the deaf man: “wouldn’t he have
some more meat, and had he been given some wine?”
The old man made no answer and for a long while
could not understand what he was asked, though his
neighbours amused themselves by poking and shak-
ing him. He simply gazed about him with his mouth
open, which only increased the general mirth.
“What an imbecile! Look, look! Why was he
brought? But as to Pyotr Petrovitch, I always had
confidence in him,” Katerina Ivanovna continued,
“and, of course, he is not like . . .” with an extremely
stern face she addressed Amalia Ivanovna so sharply
and loudly that the latter was quite disconcerted,
“not like your dressed up draggletails whom my
father would not have taken as cooks into his
kitchen, and my late husband would have done
them honour if he had invited them in the goodness
of his heart.”
“Yes, he was fond of drink, he was fond of it, he did
drink!” cried the commissariat clerk, gulping down
his twelfth glass of vodka.

594
 crime and punishment

“My late husband certainly had that weakness, and

every one knows it,” Katerina Ivanovna attacked him
at once, “but he was a kind and honourable man, who
loved and respected his family. The worst of it was his
good nature made him trust all sorts of disreputable
people, and he drank with fellows who were not
worth the sole of his shoe. Would you believe it,
Rodion Romanovitch, they found a gingerbread cock
in his pocket; he was dead drunk, but he did not for-
get the children!”
“A cock? Did you say a cock?” shouted the com-
missariat clerk.
Katerina Ivanovna did not vouchsafe a reply. She
sighed, lost in thought.
“No doubt you think, like every one, that I was too
severe with him,” she went on, addressing
Raskolnikov. “But that’s not so! He respected me, he
respected me very much! He was a kind-hearted man!
And how sorry I was for him sometimes! He would sit
in a corner and look at me, I used to feel so sorry for
him, I used to want to be kind to him and then would
think to myself: ‘be kind to him and he will drink
again,’ it was only by severity that you could keep him
within bounds.”
“Yes, he used to get his hair pulled pretty often,”
roared the commissariat clerk again, swallowing
another glass of vodka.
“Some fools would be the better for a good drub-
bing, as well as having their hair pulled. I am not talk-

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 fyodor dostoevsky

ing of my late husband now!” Katerina Ivanovna

snapped at him.
The flush on her cheeks grew more and more
marked, her chest heaved. In another minute she
would have been ready to make a scene. Many of the
visitors were sniggering, evidently delighted. They
began poking the commissariat clerk and whispering
something to him. They were evidently trying to egg
him on.
“Allow me to ask what are you alluding to,” began
the clerk, “that is to say, whose . . . about whom . . . did
you say just now . . . But I don’t care! That’s nonsense!
Widow! I forgive you . . . Pass!”
And he took another drink of vodka.
Raskolnikov sat in silence, listening with disgust.
He only ate from politeness, just tasting the food that
Katerina Ivanovna was continually putting on his
plate, to avoid hurting her feelings. He watched Sonia
intently. But Sonia became more and more anxious
and distressed; she, too, foresaw that the dinner would
not end peaceably, and saw with terror Katerina
Ivanovna’s growing irritation. She knew that she,
Sonia, was the chief reason for the “genteel” ladies’
contemptuous treatment of Katerina Ivanovna’s invi-
tation. She had heard from Amalia Ivanovna that the
mother was positively offended at the invitation and
had asked the question: “how could she let her daugh-
ter sit down beside that young person?” Sonia had a feel-
ing that Katerina Ivanovna had already heard this and

596
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an insult to Sonia meant more to Katerina Ivanovna

than an insult to herself, her children, or her father,
Sonia knew that Katerina Ivanovna would not be satis-
fied now, “till she had shown those draggletails that
they were both . . .” To make matters worse some one
passed Sonia, from the other end of the table, a plate
with two hearts pierced with an arrow, cut out of black
bread. Katerina Ivanovna flushed crimson and at once
said aloud across the table that the man who sent it
was “a drunken ass!”
Amalia Ivanovna was foreseeing something amiss,
and at the same time deeply wounded by Katerina
Ivanovna’s haughtiness, and to restore the good-
humour of the company and raise herself in their
esteem she began, apropos of nothing, telling a
story about an acquaintance of hers “Karl from the
chemist’s,” who was driving one night in a cab, and
that “the cabman wanted him to kill, and Karl very
much begged him not to kill, and wept and clasped
hands, and frightened and from fear pierced his
heart.” Though Katerina Ivanovna smiled, she
observed at once that Amalia Ivanovna ought not to
tell anecdotes in Russian; the latter was still more
offended, and she retorted that her “Vater aus
Berlin was a very important man, and always went
with his hands in pockets.” Katerina Ivanovna could
not restrain herself and laughed so much that
Amalia Ivanovna lost patience and could scarcely
control herself.

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“Listen to the owl!” Katerina Ivanovna whispered

at once, her good-humour almost restored, “she
meant to say he kept his hands in his pockets, but she
said he put his hands in people’s pockets. (Cough-
cough.) And have you noticed, Rodion Romanovitch,
that all these Petersburg foreigners, the Germans
especially, are all stupider than we! Can you fancy any
one of us telling how ‘Karl from the chemist’s pierced
his heart from fear’ and that the idiot instead of pun-
ishing the cabman, ‘clasped his hands and wept, and
much begged.’ Ah, the fool! And you know she fan-
cies it’s very touching and does not suspect how stu-
pid she is! To my thinking that drunken commissariat
clerk is a great deal cleverer, anyway one can see that
he has addled his brains with drink, but you know,
these foreigners are always so well behaved and seri-
ous . . . Look how she sits glaring! She is angry, ha-ha!
(Cough-cough-cough.)”
Regaining her good-humour, Katerina Ivanovna
began at once telling Raskolnikov that when she had
obtained her pension, she intended to open a school
for the daughters of gentlemen in her native town T —
. This was the first time she had spoken to him of the
project, and she launched out into the most alluring
details. It suddenly appeared that Katerina Ivanovna
had in her hands the very certificate of honour of
which Marmeladov had spoken to Raskolnikov in the
tavern, when he told him that Katerina Ivanovna, his
wife, had danced the shawl dance before the governor

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and other great personages on leaving school. This

certificate of honour was obviously intended now to
prove Katerina Ivanovna’s right to open a boarding-
school; but she had armed herself with it chiefly with
the object of overwhelming “those two stuck-up drag-
gletails” if they came to the dinner, and proving incon-
testably that Katerina Ivanovna was of the most noble,
“she might even say aristocratic family, a colonel’s
daughter and was far superior to certain adven-
turesses who have been so much to the fore of late.”
The certificate of honour immediately passed into the
hands of the drunken guests, and Katerina Ivanovna
did not try to retain it, for it actually contained the
statement en toutes lettres, that her father was of the
rank of a major, and also a companion of an order, so
that she really was almost the daughter of a colonel.
Warming up, Katerina Ivanovna proceeded to
enlarge on the peaceful and happy life they would
lead in T — , on the gymnasium teachers whom she
would engage to give lessons in her boarding-school,
one a most respectable old Frenchman, one Mangot,
who had taught Katerina Ivanovna herself in old days
and was still living in T — , and would no doubt teach
in her school on moderate terms. Next she spoke of
Sonia who would go with her to T — and help her in
all her plans. At this some one at the further end of
the table gave a sudden guffaw.
Though Katerina Ivanovna tried to appear to be
disdainfully unaware of it, she raised her voice and

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 fyodor dostoevsky

began at once speaking with conviction of Sonia’s

undoubted ability to assist her, of “her gentleness,
patience, devotion, generosity and good educa-
tion,” tapping Sonia on the cheek and kissing her
warmly twice. Sonia flushed crimson, and Katerina
Ivanovna suddenly burst into tears, immediately
observing that she was “nervous and silly, that she
was too much upset, that it was time to finish, and
as the dinner was over, it was time to hand round
the tea.”
At that moment, Amalia Ivanovna, deeply
aggrieved at taking no part in the conversation, and
not being listened to, made one last effort, and with
secret misgivings ventured on an exceedingly deep
and weighty observation, that “in the future board-
ing-school she would have to pay particular attention
to die Wäsche, and that there certainly must be a good
Dame to look after the linen, and secondly that the
young ladies must not novels at night read.”
Katerina Ivanovna, who certainly was upset and
very tired, as well as heartily sick of the dinner, at
once cut short Amalia Ivanovna, saying “she knew
nothing about it and was talking nonsense, that it was
the business of the laundry maid, and not of the
directress of a high-class boarding-school to look
after die Wäsche, and as for novel reading, that was
simply rudeness, and she begged her to be silent.”
Amalia Ivanovna fired up and getting angry observed
that she only “meant her good,” and that “she had

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meant her very good,” and that “it was long since she
had paid her Gold for the lodgings.”
Katerina Ivanovna at once “set her down,” saying
that it was a lie to say she wished her good, because
only yesterday when her dead husband was lying on
the table, she had worried her about the lodgings. To
this Amalia Ivanovna very appropriately observed that
she had invited those ladies, but “those ladies had not
come, because those ladies are ladies and cannot come
to a lady who is not a lady.” Katerina Ivanovna at once
pointed out to her, that as she was a slut she could not
judge what made one really a lady. Amalia Ivanovna at
once declared that her “Vater aus Berlin was a very,
very important man, and both hands in pockets went,
and always used to say: poof! poof!” and she leapt up
from the table to represent her father, sticking her
hands in her pockets, puffing her cheeks, and uttering
vague sounds resembling “poof! poof!” amid loud
laughter from all the lodgers, who purposely encour-
aged Amalia Ivanovna, hoping for a fight.
But this was too much for Katerina Ivanovna, and
she at once declared, so that all could hear, that
Amalia Ivanovna probably never had a father, but was
simply a drunken Petersburg Finn, and had certainly
once been a cook and probably something worse.
Amalia Ivanovna turned as red as a lobster and
squealed that perhaps Katerina Ivanovna never had a
father, “but she had a vater aus Berlin and that he
wore a long coat and always said poof-poof-poof!”

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Katerina Ivanovna observed contemptuously that

all knew what her family was and that on that very
certificate of honour it was stated in print that her
father was a colonel, while Amalia Ivanovna’s father
— if she really had one — was probably some Finnish
milkman, but that probably she never had a father at
all, since it was still uncertain whether her name was
Amalia Ivanovna or Amalia Ludwigovna.
At this Amalia Ivanovna, lashed to fury, struck
the table with her fist, and shrieked that she was
Amalia Ivanovna, and not Ludwigovna, “that her
Vater was named Johann and that he was a bur-
gomeister, and that Katerina Ivanovna’s Vater was
quite never a burgomeister.” Katerina Ivanovna
rose from her chair, and with a stern and appar-
ently calm voice (though she was pale and her chest
was heaving) observed that “if she dared for one
moment to set her contemptible wretch of a father
on a level with her papa, she, Katerina Ivanovna,
would tear her cap off her head and trample it
under foot.” Amalia Ivanovna ran about the room,
shouting at the top of her voice, that she was mis-
tress of the house and that Katerina Ivanovna
should leave the lodgings that minute; then she
rushed for some reason to collect the silver spoons
from the table. There was a great outcry and
uproar, the children began crying. Sonia ran to
restrain Katerina Ivanovna, but when Amalia
Ivanovna shouted something about “the yellow

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ticket,” Katerina Ivanovna pushed Sonia away, and

rushed at the landlady to carry out her threat.
At that minute the door opened, and Pyotr
Petrovitch Luzhin appeared on the threshold. He
stood scanning the party with severe and vigilant eyes.
Katerina Ivanovna rushed to him.

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 chapter iii

“Pyotr Petrovitch,” she cried, “protect me . . . you at

least! Make this foolish woman understand that she
can’t behave like this to a lady in misfortune . . . that
there is a law for such things . . . I’ll go to the gover-
nor-general himself . . . She shall answer for it . . .
Remembering my father’s hospitality protect these
orphans.”
“Allow me, madam . . . Allow me.” Pyotr Petrovitch
waved her off. “Your papa, as you are well aware, I had
not the honour of knowing” (some one laughed
aloud) “and I do not intend to take part in your ever-
lasting squabbles with Amalia Ivanovna . . . I have
come here to speak of my own affairs . . . and I want to
have a word with your stepdaughter, Sofya . . .
Ivanovna, I think it is? Allow me to pass.”
Pyotr Petrovitch, edging by her, went to the oppo-
site corner where Sonia was.
Katerina Ivanovna remained standing where she
was, as though thunderstruck. She could not under-

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stand how Pyotr Petrovitch could deny having

enjoyed her father’s hospitality. Though she had
invented it herself, she believed in it firmly by this
time. She was struck too by the businesslike, dry and
even contemptuously menacing tone of Pyotr
Petrovitch. All the clamour gradually died away at this
entrance. Not only was this “serious business man”
strikingly incongruous with the rest of the party, but it
was evident, too, that he had come upon some matter
of consequence, that some exceptional cause must
have brought him and that therefore something was
going to happen. Raskolnikov, standing beside Sonia,
moved aside to let him pass; Pyotr Petrovitch did not
seem to notice him. A minute later Lebeziatnikov,
too, appeared in the doorway; he did not come in,
but stood still, listening with marked interest, almost
wonder, and seemed for a time perplexed.
“Excuse me for possibly interrupting you, but it’s a
matter of some importance,” Pyotr Petrovitch
observed, addressing the company generally. “I am
glad indeed to find other persons present. Amalia
Ivanovna, I humbly beg you as mistress of the house
to pay careful attention to what I have to say to Sofya
Ivanovna. Sofya Ivanovna,” he went on, addressing
Sonia, who was very much surprised and already
alarmed, “immediately after your visit I found that a
hundred-rouble note was missing from my table, in
the room of my friend Mr. Lebeziatnikov. If in any
way whatever you know and will tell us where it is now,

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 fyodor dostoevsky

I assure you on my word of honour and call all pres-

ent to witness that the matter shall end there. In the
opposite case I shall be compelled to have recourse to
very serious measures and then . . . you must blame
yourself.”
Complete silence reigned in the room. Even the
crying children were still. Sonia stood deadly pale,
staring at Luzhin and unable to say a word. She
seemed not to understand. Some seconds passed.
“Well, how is it to be then?” asked Luzhin, looking
intently at her.
“I don’t know . . . I know nothing about it,” Sonia
articulated faintly at last.
“No, you know nothing?” Luzhin repeated and
again he paused for some seconds. “Think a moment,
mademoiselle,” he began severely, but still, as it were,
admonishing her. “Reflect, I am prepared to give you
time for consideration. Kindly observe this: if I were
not so entirely convinced I should not, you may be
sure, with my experience venture to accuse you so
directly. Seeing that for such direct accusation before
witnesses, if false or even mistaken, I should myself in a
certain sense be made responsible, I am aware of that.
This morning I changed for my own purposes several
five per cent. securities for the sum of approximately
three thousand roubles. The account is noted down in
my pocket-book. On my return home I proceeded to
count the money, — as Mr. Lebeziatnikov will bear wit-
ness — and after counting two thousand three hun-

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dred roubles I put the rest in my pocket-book in my

coat pocket. About five hundred roubles remained on
the table and among them three notes of a hundred
roubles each. At that moment you entered (at my invi-
tation) — and all the time you were present you were
exceedingly embarrassed; so that three times you
jumped up in the middle of the conversation and tried
to make off. Mr. Lebeziatnikov can bear witness to this.
You yourself, mademoiselle, probably will not refuse to
confirm my statement that I invited you through Mr.
Lebeziatnikov, solely in order to discuss with you the
hopeless and destitute position of your relative,
Katerina Ivanovna (whose dinner I was unable to
attend), and the advisability of getting up something
of the nature of a subscription, lottery or the like, for
her benefit. You thanked me and even shed tears. I
describe all this as it took place, primarily to recall it to
your mind and secondly to show you that not the
slightest detail has escaped my recollection. Then I
took a ten-rouble note from the table and handed it to
you by way of first instalment on my part for the bene-
fit of your relative. Mr. Lebeziatnikov saw all this. Then
I accompanied you to the door, — you being still in the
same state of embarrassment — after which, being left
alone with Mr. Lebeziatnikov I talked to him for ten
minutes, — then Mr. Lebeziatnikov went out and I
returned to the table with the money lying on it,
intending to count it and to put it aside, as I proposed
doing before. To my surprise one hundred-rouble

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note had disappeared. Kindly consider the position.

Mr. Lebeziatnikov I cannot suspect. I am ashamed to
allude to such a supposition. I cannot have made a mis-
take in my reckoning, for the minute before your
entrance I had finished my accounts and found the
total correct. You will admit that recollecting your
embarrassment, your eagerness to get away and the
fact that you kept your hands for some time on the
table, and taking into consideration your social posi-
tion and the habits associated with it, I was, so to say,
with horror and positively against my will, compelled to
entertain a suspicion — a cruel, but justifiable suspi-
cion! I will add further and repeat that in spite of my
positive conviction, I realise that I run a certain risk in
making this accusation, but as you see, I could not let it
pass. I have taken action and I will tell you why: solely,
madam, solely, owing to your black ingratitude! Why! I
invite you for the benefit of your destitute relative, I
present you with my donation of ten roubles and you,
on the spot, repay me for all that with such an action. It
is too bad! You need a lesson. Reflect! Moreover, like a
true friend I beg you — and you could have no better
friend at this moment — think what you are doing, oth-
erwise I shall be immovable! Well, what do you say?”
“I have taken nothing,” Sonia whispered in terror,
“you gave me ten roubles, here it is, take it.”
Sonia pulled her handkerchief out of her pocket,
untied a corner of it, took out the ten-rouble note
and gave it to Luzhin.

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 crime and punishment

“And the hundred roubles you do not confess to

taking?” he insisted reproachfully, not taking the note.
Sonia looked about her. All were looking at her
with such awful, stern, ironical, hostile eyes. She
looked at Raskolnikov . . . he stood against the wall,
with his arms crossed, looking at her with glowing eyes.
“Good God!” broke from Sonia.
“Amalia Ivanovna, we shall have to send word to
the police and therefore I humbly beg you mean-
while to send for the house porter,” Luzhin said softly
and even kindly.
“Gott der barmherzige! I knew she was the thief,”
cried Amalia Ivanovna, throwing up her hands.
“You knew it?” Luzhin caught her up, “then I
suppose you had some reason before this for think-
ing so. I beg you, worthy Amalia Ivanovna, to
remember your words which have been uttered
before witnesses.”
There was a buzz of loud conversation on all sides.
All were in movement.
“What!” cried Katerina Ivanovna, suddenly realis-
ing the position, and she rushed at Luzhin. “What!
You accuse her of stealing? Sonia? Ah, the wretches,
the wretches!”
And running to Sonia she flung her wasted arms
round her and held her as in a vise.
“Sonia! how dared you take ten roubles from him?
Foolish girl! Give it to me! Give me the ten roubles at
once — here!”

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 fyodor dostoevsky

And snatching the note from Sonia, Katerina

Ivanovna crumpled it up and flung it straight into
Luzhin’s face. It hit him in the eye and fell on the
ground. Amalia Ivanovna hastened to pick it up.
Pyotr Petrovitch lost his temper.
“Hold that mad woman!” he shouted.
At that moment several other persons, besides
Lebeziatnikov, appeared in the doorway, among
them the two ladies.
“What! Mad? Am I mad? Idiot!” shrieked Katerina
Ivanovna. “You are an idiot yourself, pettifogging
lawyer, base man! Sonia, Sonia take his money! Sonia
a thief! Why, she’d give away her last penny!” and
Katerina Ivanovna broke into hysterical laughter.
“Did you ever see such an idiot?” she turned from
side to side. “And you too?” she suddenly saw the
landlady, “and you too, sausage eater, you declare
that she is a thief, you trashy Prussian hen’s leg in a
crinoline! She hasn’t been out of this room: she came
straight from you, you wretch, and sat down beside
me, every one saw her. She sat here, by Rodion
Romanovitch. Search her! Since she’s not left the
room, the money would have to be on her! Search
her, search her! But if you don’t find it, then excuse
me, my dear fellow, you’ll answer for it! I’ll go to our
Sovereign, to our Sovereign, to our gracious Tsar
himself, and throw myself at his feet, to-day, this
minute! I am alone in the world! They would let me
in! Do you think they wouldn’t? You’re wrong, I will

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get in! I will get in! You reckoned on her meekness!

You relied upon that! But I am not so submissive, let
me tell you! You’ve gone too far yourself. Search her,
search her!”
And Katerina Ivanovna in a frenzy shook Luzhin
and dragged him towards Sonia.
“I am ready, I’ll be responsible . . . but calm your-
self, madam, calm yourself. I see that you are not so
submissive! . . . Well, well, but as to that . . .” Luzhin
muttered, “that ought to be before the police . . .
though indeed there are witnesses enough as it is . . . I
am ready . . . But in any case it’s difficult for a man . . .
on account of her sex . . . But with the help of Amalia
Ivanovna . . . though, of course, it’s not the way to do
things . . . How is it to be done?”
“As you will! Let any one who likes search her!”
cried Katerina Ivanovna. “Sonia, turn out your pock-
ets! See. Look, monster, the pocket is empty, here was
her handkerchief! Here is the other pocket, look!
D’you see, d’you see?”
And Katerina Ivanovna turned — or rather
snatched — both pockets inside out. But from the
right pocket a piece of paper flew out and describing
a parabola in the air fell at Luzhin’s feet. Every one
saw it, several cried out. Pyotr Petrovitch stooped
down, picked up the paper in two fingers, lifted it
where all could see it and opened it. It was a hun-
dred-rouble note folded in eight. Pyotr Petrovitch
held up the note showing it to every one.

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“Thief! Out of my lodging. Police, police!” yelled

Amalia Ivanovna. “They must to Siberia be sent!
Away!”
Exclamations arose on all sides. Raskolnikov was
silent, keeping his eyes fixed on Sonia, except for an
occasional rapid glance at Luzhin. Sonia stood still, as
though unconscious. She was hardly able to feel sur-
prise. Suddenly the colour rushed to her cheeks; she
uttered a cry and hid her face in her hands.
“No, it wasn’t I! I didn’t take it! I know nothing
about it,” she cried with a heartrending wail, and she
ran to Katerina Ivanovna, who clasped her tightly in
her arms, as though she would shelter her from all
the world.
“Sonia! Sonia! I don’t believe it! You see, I don’t
believe it!” she cried in the face of the obvious fact,
swaying her to and fro in her arms like a baby, kissing
her face continually, then snatching at her hands and
kissing them, too. “You took it! How stupid these peo-
ple are! Oh dear! You are fools, fools,” she cried,
addressing the whole room, “you don’t know, you
don’t know what a heart she has, what a girl she is!
She take it, she? She’d sell her last rag, she’d go bare-
foot to help you if you needed it, that’s what she is!
She has the yellow passport because my children were
starving, she sold herself for us! Ah, husband, hus-
band! Do you see? Do you see? What a memorial din-
ner for you! Merciful heavens! Defend her, why are
you all standing still? Rodion Romanovitch, why

612
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don’t you stand up for her? Do you believe it, too?

You are not worth her little finger, all of you together!
Good God! Defend her now, at least!”
The wail of the poor, consumptive, helpless woman
seemed to produce a great effect on her audience.
The agonised, wasted, consumptive face, the parched
blood-stained lips, the hoarse voice, the tears unre-
strained as a child’s, the trustful, childish and yet
despairing prayer for help were so piteous that every
one seemed to feel for her. Pyotr Petrovitch at any rate
was at once moved to compassion.
“Madam, madam, this incident does not reflect
upon you!” he cried impressively, “no one would take
upon himself to accuse you of being an instigator or
even an accomplice in it, especially as you have proved
her guilt by turning out her pockets, showing that you
had no previous idea of it. I am most ready, most ready
to show compassion, if poverty, so to speak, drove Sofya
Semyonovna to it, but why did you refuse to confess,
mademoiselle? Were you afraid of the disgrace? The
first step? You lost your head, perhaps? One can quite
understand it . . . But how could you have lowered your-
self to such an action? Gentlemen,” he addressed the
whole company, “gentlemen! Compassionate and so to
say commiserating these people, I am ready to over-
look it even now in spite of the personal insult lavished
upon me! And may this disgrace be a lesson to you for
the future,” he said, addressing Sonia, “and I will carry
the matter no further. Enough!”

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 fyodor dostoevsky

Pyotr Petrovitch stole a glance at Raskolnikov.

Their eyes met, and the fire in Raskolnikov’s seemed
ready to reduce him to ashes. Meanwhile Katerina
Ivanovna apparently heard nothing. She was kissing
and hugging Sonia like a madwoman. The children,
too, were embracing Sonia on all sides, and Polenka,
— though she did not fully understand what was
wrong, — was drowned in tears and shaking with sobs,
as she hid her pretty little face, swollen with weeping,
on Sonia’s shoulder.
“How vile!” a loud voice cried suddenly in the
doorway.
Pyotr Petrovitch looked round quickly.
“What vileness!” Lebeziatnikov repeated, staring
him straight in the face.
Pyotr Petrovitch gave a positive start — all noticed
it and recalled it afterwards. Lebeziatnikov strode
into the room.
“And you dared to call me as witness?” he said,
going up to Pyotr Petrovitch.
“What do you mean? What are you talking about?”
muttered Luzhin.
“I mean that you . . . are a slanderer, that’s what my
words mean!” Lebeziatnikov said hotly, looking
sternly at him with his shortsighted eyes.
He was extremely angry. Raskolnikov gazed intently
at him, as though seizing and weighing each word.
Again there was a silence. Pyotr Petrovitch indeed
seemed almost dumbfounded for the first moment.

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 crime and punishment

“If you mean that for me . . .” he began, stammer-

ing. “But what’s the matter with you? Are you out of
your mind?”
“I’m in my mind, but you are a scoundrel! Ah, how
vile! I have heard everything. I kept waiting on pur-
pose to understand it, for I must own even now it is
not quite logical . . . What you have done it all for I
can’t understand.”
“Why, what have I done then? Give over talking in
your nonsensical riddles! Or maybe you are drunk!”
“You may be a drunkard, perhaps, vile man, but I
am not! I never touch vodka, for it’s against my con-
victions. Would you believe it, he, he himself, with his
own hands gave Sofya Semyonovna that hundred-rou-
ble note — I saw it, I was a witness, I’ll take my oath!
He did it, he!” repeated Lebeziatnikov, addressing all.
“Are you crazy, milksop?” squealed Luzhin. “She is
herself before you, — she herself here declared just
now before every one that I gave her only ten roubles.
How could I have given it to her?”
“I saw it, I saw it,” Lebeziatnikov repeated, “and
although it is against my principles, I am ready this
very minute to take any oath you like before the
court, for I saw how you slipped it in her pocket.
Only like a fool I thought you did it out of kindness!
When you were saying good-bye to her at the door,
while you held her hand in one hand, with the other,
the left, you slipped the note into her pocket. I saw
it, I saw it!”

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 fyodor dostoevsky

Luzhin turned pale.

“What lies!” he cried impudently, “why, how could
you, standing by the window, see the note! You fan-
cied it with your shortsighted eyes. You are raving!”
“No, I didn’t fancy it. And though I was standing
some way off, I saw it all. And though it certainly
would be hard to distinguish a note from the window,
— that’s true — I knew for certain that was a hundred-
rouble note, because, when you were going to give
Sofya Semyonovna ten roubles, you took up from the
table a hundred-rouble note (I saw it because I was
standing near then, and an idea struck me at once, so
that I did not forget you had it in your hand). You
folded it and kept it in your hand all the time. I didn’t
think of it again until, when you were getting up, you
changed it from your right hand to your left and
nearly dropped it! I noticed it because the same idea
struck me again, that you meant to do her a kindness
without my seeing. You can fancy how I watched you
and I saw how you succeeded in slipping it into her
pocket. I saw it, I saw it, I’ll take my oath.”
Lebeziatnikov was almost breathless. Exclamations
arose on all hands chiefly expressive of wonder, but
some were menacing in tone. They all crowded
round Pyotr Petrovitch. Katerina Ivanovna flew to
Lebeziatnikov.
“I was mistaken in you! Protect her! You are the
only one to take her part! She is an orphan. God has
sent you!”

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 crime and punishment

Katerina Ivanovna, hardly knowing what she was

doing, sank on her knees before him.
“A pack of nonsense!” yelled Luzhin, roused to
fury, “it’s all nonsense you’ve been talking! ‘An idea
struck you, you didn’t think, you noticed’ — what does
it amount to? So I gave it to her on the sly on pur-
pose? What for? With what object? What have I to do
with this . . . ?”
“What for? That’s what I can’t understand, but
that what I am telling you is the fact, that’s certain! So
far from my being mistaken, you infamous, criminal
man, I remember how, on account of it, a question
occurred to me at once, just when I was thanking you
and pressing your hand. What made you put it
secretly in her pocket? Why you did it secretly, I
mean? Could it be simply to conceal it from me,
knowing that my convictions are opposed to yours
and that I do not approve of private benevolence,
which effects no radical cure? Well, I decided that
you really were ashamed of giving such a large sum
before me. Perhaps, too, I thought, he wants to give
her a surprise, when she finds a whole hundred-rou-
ble note in her pocket. (For I know some benevolent
people are very fond of decking out their charitable
actions in that way.) Then the idea struck me, too,
that you wanted to test her, to see whether, when she
found it, she would come to thank you. Then, too,
that you wanted to avoid thanks and that, as the say-
ing is, your right hand should not know . . . something

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 fyodor dostoevsky

of that sort, in fact. I thought of so many possibilities

that I put off considering it, but still thought it indeli-
cate to show you I knew your secret. But another idea
struck me again that Sofya Semyonovna might easily
lose the money before she noticed it, that was why I
decided to come in here to call her out of the room
and to tell her that you put a hundred roubles in her
pocket. But on my way I went first to Madame
Kobilatnikov’s to take them the ‘General Treatise on
the Positive Method’ and especially to recommend
Piderit’s article (and also Wagner’s); then I come on
here and what a state of things I find! Now could I,
could I, have all these ideas and reflections, if I had
not seen you put the hundred-rouble note in her
pocket?”
When Lebeziatnikov finished his long-winded
harangue with the logical deduction at the end, he
was quite tired, and the perspiration streamed from
his face. He could not, alas, even express himself cor-
rectly in Russian, though he knew no other language,
so that he was quite exhausted, almost emaciated
after this heroic exploit. But his speech produced a
powerful effect. He had spoken with such vehe-
mence, with such conviction that every one obviously
believed him. Pyotr Petrovitch felt that things were
going badly with him.
“What is it to do with me if silly ideas did occur to
you?” he shouted, “that’s no evidence. You may have
dreamt it, that’s all! And I tell you, you are lying, sir.

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 crime and punishment

You are lying and slandering from some spite against

me, simply from pique, because I did not agree with
your freethinking, godless, social propositions!”
But this retort did not benefit Pyotr Petrovitch.
Murmurs of disapproval were heard on all sides.
“Ah, that’s your line now, is it!” cried Lebeziatnikov,
“that’s nonsense! Call the police and I’ll take my oath!
There’s only one thing I can’t understand: what made
him risk such a contemptible action. Oh, pitiful, despi-
cable man!”
“I can explain why he risked such an action, and if
necessary, I, too, will swear to it,” Raskolnikov said at
last in a firm voice, and he stepped forward.
He appeared to be firm and composed. Every one
felt clearly, from the very look of him that he really
knew about it and that the mystery would be solved.
“Now I can explain it all to myself,” said
Raskolnikov, addressing Lebeziatnikov. “From the
very beginning of the business, I suspected that there
was some scoundrelly intrigue at the bottom of it. I
began to suspect it from some special circumstances
known to me only, which I will explain at once to
every one: they account for everything. Your valuable
evidence has finally made everything clear to me. I
beg all, all to listen. This gentleman (he pointed to
Luzhin) was recently engaged to be married to a
young lady — my sister, Avdotya Romanovna
Raskolnikov. But coming to Petersburg he quarrelled
with me, the day before yesterday, at our first meeting

619
 fyodor dostoevsky

and I drove him out of my room — I have two wit-

nesses to prove it. He is a very spiteful man . . . The
day before yesterday I did not know that he was stay-
ing here, in your room, and that consequently on the
very day we quarrelled — the day before yesterday —
he saw me give Katerina Ivanovna some money for
the funeral, as a friend of the late Mr. Marmeladov.
He at once wrote a note to my mother and informed
her that I had given away all my money, not to
Katerina Ivanovna, but to Sofya Semyonovna, and
referred in a most contemptible way to the . . . charac-
ter of Sofya Semyonovna, that is, hinted at the char-
acter of my attitude to Sofya Semyonovna. All this you
understand was with the object of dividing me from
my mother and sister, by insinuating that I was squan-
dering on unworthy objects the money which they
had sent me and which was all they had. Yesterday
evening, before my mother and sister and in his pres-
ence, I declared that I had given the money to
Katerina Ivanovna for the funeral and not to Sofya
Semyonovna and that I had no acquaintance with
Sofya Semyonovna and had never seen her before,
indeed. At the same time I added that he, Pyotr
Petrovitch Luzhin, with all his virtues was not worth
Sofya Semyonovna’s little finger, though he spoke so
ill of her. To his question — would I let Sofya
Semyonovna sit down beside my sister, I asnwered
that I had already done so that day. Irritated that my
mother and sister were unwilling to quarrel with me

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 crime and punishment

at his insinuations, he gradually began being unpar-

donably rude to them. A final rupture took place and
he was turned out of the house. All this happened
yesterday evening. Now I beg your special attention:
consider: if he had now succeeded in proving that
Sofya Semyonovna was a thief, he would have shown
to my mother and sister that he was almost right in
his suspicions, that he had reason to be angry at my
putting my sister on a level with Sofya Semyonovna,
that, in attacking me, he was protecting and preserv-
ing the honour of my sister, his betrothed. In fact he
might even, through all this, have been able to
estrange me from my family, and no doubt he hoped
to be restored to favour with them; to say nothing of
revenging himself on me personally, for he has
grounds for supposing that the honour and happi-
ness of Sofya Semyonovna are very precious to me.
That was what he was working for! That’s how I
understand it. That’s the whole reason for it and
there can be no other!”
It was like this, or somewhat like this, that
Raskolnikov wound up his speech which was followed
very attentively, though often interrupted by exclama-
tions from his audience. But in spite of interruptions
he spoke clearly, calmly, exactly, firmly. His decisive
voice, his tone of conviction and his stern face made a
great impression on every one.
“Yes, yes, that’s it,” Lebeziatnikov assented glee-
fully, “that must be it, for he asked me, as soon as

621
 fyodor dostoevsky

Sofya Semyonovna came into our room, whether you

were here, whether I had seen you among Katerina
Ivanovna’s guests. He called me aside to the window
and asked me in secret. It was essential for him that
you should be here! That’s it, that’s it!”
Luzhin smiled contemptuously and did not speak.
But he was very pale. He seemed to be deliberating
on some means of escape. Perhaps he would have
been glad to give up everything and get away, but at
the moment this was scarcely possible. It would have
implied admitting the truth of the accusations
brought against him. Moreover, the company, which
had already been excited by drink, was now too much
stirred to allow it. The commissariat clerk, though
indeed he had not grasped the whole position, was
shouting louder than any one and was making some
suggestions very unpleasant to Luzhin. But not all
those present were drunk; lodgers came in from all
the rooms. The three Poles were tremendously
excited and were continually shouting at him: “The
Pan is a lajdak!” and muttering threats in Polish.
Sonia had been listening with strained attention,
though she too seemed unable to grasp it all; she
seemed as though she had just returned to conscious-
ness. She did not take her eyes off Raskolnikov, feel-
ing that all her safety lay in him. Katerina Ivanovna
breathed hard and painfully and seemed fearfully
exhausted. Amalia Ivanovna stood looking more stu-
pid than any one, with her mouth wide open, unable

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 crime and punishment

to make out what had happened. She only saw that

Pyotr Petrovitch had somehow come to grief.
Raskolnikov was attempting to speak again, but
they did not let him. Every one was crowding round
Luzhin with threats and shouts of abuse. But Pyotr
Petrovitch was not intimidated. Seeing that his accu-
sation of Sonia had completely failed, he had
recourse to insolence:
“Allow me, gentlemen, allow me! Don’t squeeze,
let me pass!” he said, making his way through the
crowd. “And no threats if you please! I assure you it
will be useless, you will gain nothing by it. On the
contrary, you’ll have to answer, gentlemen, for vio-
lently obstructing the course of justice. The thief has
been more than unmasked, and I shall prosecute.
Our judges are not so blind and . . . not so drunk, and
will not believe the testimony of two notorious infi-
dels, agitators, and atheists, who accuse me from
motives of personal revenge which they are foolish
enough to admit . . . Yes, allow me to pass!”
“Don’t let me find a trace of you in my room!
Kindly leave at once, and everything is at an end
between us! When I think of the trouble I’ve been
taking, the way I’ve been expounding . . . all this fort-
night!”
“I told you myself to-day that I was going, when
you tried to keep me; now I will simply add that you
are a fool. I advise you to see a doctor for your brains
and your short sight. Let me pass, gentlemen!”

623
 fyodor dostoevsky

He forced his way through. But the commissariat

clerk was unwilling to let him off so easily: he picked
up a glass from the table, brandished it in the air and
flung it at Pyotr Petrovitch; but the glass flew straight
at Amalia Ivanovna. She screamed, and the clerk,
overbalancing, fell heavily under the table. Pyotr
Petrovitch made his way to his room and half an hour
later had left the house. Sonia, timid by nature, had
felt before that day that she could be ill-treated more
easily than any one, and that she could be wronged
with impunity. Yet till that moment she had fancied
she might escape misfortune by care, gentleness and
submissiveness before every one. Her disappoint-
ment was too great. She could, of course, bear with
patience and almost without murmur anything, even
this. But for the first minute she felt it too bitter. In
spite of her triumph and her justification — when her
first terror and stupefaction had passed and she
could understand it all clearly — the feeling of her
helplessness and of the wrong done to her made her
heart throb with anguish and she was overcome with
hysterical weeping. At last, unable to bear any more,
she rushed out of the room and ran home, almost
immediately after Luzhin’s departure. When amidst
loud laughter the glass flew at Amalia Ivanovna, it was
more than the landlady could endure. With a shriek
she rushed like a fury at Katerina Ivanovna, consider-
ing her to blame for everything.
“Out of my lodgings! At once! Quick march!”

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 crime and punishment

And with these words she began snatching up

everything she could lay her hands on that belonged
to Katerina Ivanovna, and throwing it on the floor.
Katerina Ivanovna, pale, almost fainting, and gasping
for breath, jumped up from the bed where she had
sunk in exhaustion and darted at Amalia Ivanovna.
But the battle was too unequal: the landlady waved
her away like a feather.
“What! As though that godless calumny was not
enough — this vile creature attacks me! What! On the
day of my husband’s funeral I am turned out of my
lodgings! After eating my bread and salt she turns me
into the street, with my orphans! Where am I to go?”
wailed the poor woman, sobbing and gasping. “Good
God!” she cried with flashing eyes, “is there no justice
upon earth? Whom should you protect if not us
orphans? We shall see! There is law and justice on
earth, there is, I will find it! Wait a bit, godless crea-
ture! Polenka, stay with the children, I’ll come back.
Wait for me, if you have to wait in the street. We will
see whether there is justice on earth!”
And throwing over her head that green shawl which
Marmeladov had mentioned to Raskolnikov, Katerina
Ivanovna squeezed her way through the disorderly and
drunken crowd of lodgers who still filled the room,
and, wailing and tearful, she ran into the street — with
a vague intention of going at once somewhere to find
justice. Polenka with the two little ones in her arms
crouched, terrified, on the trunk in the corner of the

625
 fyodor dostoevsky

room, where she waited trembling for her mother to

come back. Amalia Ivanovna raged about the room,
shrieking, lamenting and throwing everything she
came across on the floor. The lodgers talked incoher-
ently, some commented to the best of their ability on
what had happened, others quarreled and swore at
one another, while others struck up a song . . .
“Now it’s time for me to go,” thought Raskolnikov.
“Well, Sofya Semyonovna, we shall see what you’ll
say now!”
And he set off in the direction of Sonia’s lodgings.

626
 chapter iv

Raskolnikov had been a vigorous and active

champion of Sonia against Luzhin, although he had
such a load of horror and anguish in his own heart.
But having gone through so much in the morning,
he found a sort of relief in a change of sensations,
apart from the strong personal feeling which
impelled him to defend Sonia. He was agitated too,
especially at some moments, by the thought of his
approaching interview with Sonia: he had to tell her
who had killed Lizaveta. He knew the terrible suffer-
ing it would be to him and, as it were, brushed away
the thought of it. So when he cried as he left
Katerina Ivanovna’s, “Well, Sofya Semyonovna, we
shall see what you’ll say now!” he was still superfi-
cially excited, still vigorous and defiant from his tri-
umph over Luzhin. But, strange to say, by the time
he reached Sonia’s lodging, he felt a sudden impo-
tence and fear. He stood still in hesitation at the
door, asking himself the strange question: “Must I

627
 fyodor dostoevsky

tell her who killed Lizaveta?” It was a strange ques-

tion because he felt at the very time not only that he
could not help telling her, but also that he could not
put off the telling. He did not yet know why it must
be so, he only felt it, and the agonising sense of his
impotence before the inevitable almost crushed him.
To cut short his hesitation and suffering, he quickly
opened the door and looked at Sonia from the door-
way. She was sitting with her elbows on the table and
her face in her hands, but seeing Raskolnikov she
got up at once and came to meet him as though she
were expecting him.
“What would have become of me but for you!”
she said quickly, meeting him in the middle of the
room.
Evidently she was in haste to say this to him. It was
what she had been waiting for.
Raskolnikov went to the table and sat down on the
chair from which she had only just risen. She stood
facing him, two steps away, just as she had done the
day before.
“Well, Sonia?” he said, and felt that his voice was
trembling, “it was all due to ‘your social position and
the habits associated with it.’ Did you understand that
just now?”
Her face showed her distress.
“Only don’t talk to me as you did yesterday,” she
interrupted him. “Please don’t begin it. There is mis-
ery enough without that.”

628
 crime and punishment

She made haste to smile, afraid that he might not

like the reproach.
“I was silly to come away from there. What is hap-
pening there now? I wanted to go back directly, but I
kept thinking that . . . you would come.”
He told her that Amalia Ivanovna was turning
them out of their lodging and that Katerina Ivanovna
had run off somewhere “to seek justice.”
“My God!” cried Sonia, “let’s go at once . . . ”
And she snatched up her cape.
“It’s everlastingly the same thing!” said Raskolnikov,
irritably. “You’ve no thought except for them! Stay a
little with me.”
“But . . . Katerina Ivanovna?”
“You won’t lose Katerina Ivanovna, you may be
sure, she’ll come to you herself since she has run
out,” he added peevishly. “If she doesn’t find you
here, you’ll be blamed for it . . . ”
Sonia sat down in painful suspense. Raskolnikov
was silent, gazing at the floor and deliberating.
“This time Luzhin did not want to prosecute you,” he
began, not looking at Sonia, “but if he had wanted to, if
it had suited his plans, he would have sent you to prison
if it had not been for Lebeziatnikov and me. Ah?”
“Yes,” she assented in a faint voice. “Yes,” she
repeated, preoccupied and distressed.
“But I might easily not have been there. And it was
quite an accident Lebeziatnikov’s turning up.”
Sonia was silent.

629
 fyodor dostoevsky

“And if you’d gone to prison, what then? Do you

remember what I said yesterday?”
Again she did not answer. He waited.
“I thought you would cry out again ‘don’t speak of
it, leave off.’” Raskolnikov gave a laugh, but rather a
forced one. “What, silence again?” he asked a minute
later. “We must talk about something, you know. It
would be interesting for me to know how you would
decide a certain ‘problem’ as Lebeziatnikov would
say.” (He was beginning to lose the thread.) “No,
really, I am serious. Imagine, Sonia, that you had
known all Luzhin’s intentions beforehand. Known,
that is, for a fact, that they would be the ruin of
Katerina Ivanovna and the children and yourself
thrown in — since you don’t count yourself for any-
thing — Polenka too . . . for she’ll go the same way.
Well, if suddenly it all depended on your decision
whether he or they should go on living, that is
whether Luzhin should go on living and doing wicked
things, or Katerina Ivanovna should die? How would
you decide which of them was to die? I ask you?”
Sonia looked uneasily at him. There was some-
thing peculiar in this hesitating question, which
seemed approaching something in a roundabout way.
“I felt that you were going to ask some question
like that,” she said, looking inquisitively at him.
“I dare say you did. But how is it to be answered?”
“Why do you ask about what could not happen?”
said Sonia reluctantly.

630
 crime and punishment

“Then it would be better for Luzhin to go on living

and doing wicked things? You haven’t dared to
decide even that!”
“But I can’t know the Divine Providence . . . And
why do you ask what can’t be answered? What’s the
use of such foolish questions? How could it happen
that it should depend on my decision — who has
made me a judge to decide who is to live and who is
not to live?”
“Oh, if the Divine Providence is to be mixed up in
it, there is no doing anything,” Raskolnikov grumbled
morosely.
“You’d better say straight out what you want!” Sonia
cried in distress. “You are leading up to something
again . . . Can you have come simply to torture me?”
She could not control herself and began crying
bitterly. He looked at her in gloomy misery. Five min-
utes passed.
“Of course you’re right, Sonia,” he said softly at
last. He was suddenly changed. His tone of assumed
arrogance and helpless defiance was gone. Even his
voice was suddenly weak. “I told you yesterday that I
was not coming to ask forgiveness and almost the first
thing I’ve said is to ask forgiveness . . . I said that about
Luzhin and Providence for my own sake. I was asking
forgiveness, Sonia . . . ”
He tried to smile, but there was something help-
less and incomplete in his pale smile. He bowed his
head and hid his face in his hands.

631
 fyodor dostoevsky

And suddenly a strange, surprising sensation of a

sort of bitter hatred for Sonia passed through his
heart. As it were wondering and frightened of this
sensation, he raised his head and looked intently at
her; but he met her uneasy and painfully anxious eyes
fixed on him; there was love in them; his hatred van-
ished like a phantom. It was not the real feeling; he
had taken the one feeling for the other. It only meant
that that minute had come.
He hid his face in his hands again and bowed his
head. Suddenly he turned pale, got up from his chair,
looked at Sonia, and without uttering a word sat
down mechanically on her bed.
His sensations that moment were terribly like the
moment when he had stood over the old woman with
the axe in his hand and felt that “he must not lose
another minute.”
“What’s the matter?” asked Sonia, dreadfully
frightened.
He could not utter a word. This was not at all,
not at all the way he had intended to “tell” and he
did not understand what was happening to him
now. She went up to him, softly, sat down on the
bed beside him and waited, not taking her eyes off
him. Her heart throbbed and sank. It was unen-
durable; he turned his deadly pale face to her. His
lips worked, helplessly struggling to utter some-
thing. A pang of terror passed through Sonia’s
heart.

632
 crime and punishment

“What’s the matter?” she repeated, drawing a little

away from him.
“Nothing, Sonia, don’t be frightened . . . It’s non-
sense. It really is nonsense, if you think of it,” he mut-
tered, like a man in delirium. “Why have I come to
torture you?” he added suddenly, looking at her.
“Why, really? I keep asking myself that question,
Sonia . . . ”
He had perhaps been asking himself that question
a quarter of an hour before, but now he spoke help-
lessly, hardly knowing what he said and feeling a con-
tinual tremor all over.
“Oh, how you are suffering!” she muttered in dis-
tress, looking intently at him.
“It’s all nonsense . . . Listen, Sonia.” He suddenly
smiled, a pale helpless smile for two seconds. “You
remember what I meant to tell you yesterday?”
Sonia waited uneasily.
“I said as I went away that perhaps I was saying
good-bye for ever, but that if I came to-day I would tell
you who . . . who killed Lizaveta.”
She began trembling all over.
“Well, here I’ve come to tell you.”
“Then you really meant it yesterday?” she whis-
pered with difficulty. “How do you know?” she asked
quickly, as though suddenly regaining her reason.
Sonia’s face grew paler and paler, and she
breathed painfully.
“I know.”

633
 fyodor dostoevsky

She paused a minute.

“Have they found him?” she asked timidly.
“No.”
“Then how do you know about it?” she asked again,
hardly audibly and again after a minute’s pause.
He turned to her and looked very intently at her.
“Guess,” he said, with the same distorted helpless
smile.
A shudder passed over her.
“But you . . . why do you frighten me like this?” she
said, smiling like a child.
“I must be a great friend of his. . . since I know,”
Raskolnikov went on, still gazing into her face, as
though he could not turn his eyes away. “He . . . did
not mean to kill Lizaveta . . . he . . . killed her acciden-
tally . . . He meant to kill the old woman when she was
alone and he went there . . . and then Lizaveta came
in . . . he killed her too.”
Another awful moment passed. Both still gazed at
one another.
“You can’t guess, then?” he asked suddenly, feeling
as though he were flinging himself down from a
steeple.
“N-no . . . ” whispered Sonia.
“Take a good look.”
As soon as he had said this again, the same famil-
iar sensation froze his heart. He looked at her and all
at once seemed to see in her face the face of Lizaveta.
He remembered clearly the expression in Lizaveta’s

634
 crime and punishment

face, when he approached her with the axe and she

stepped back to the wall, putting out her hand, with
childish terror in her face, looking as little children
do when they begin to be frightened of something,
looking intently and uneasily at what frightens them,
shrinking back and holding out their little hands on
the point of crying. Almost the same thing happened
now to Sonia. With the same helplessness and the
same terror, she looked at him for a while and, sud-
denly putting out her left hand, pressed her fingers
faintly against his breast and slowly began to get up
from the bed, moving further from him and keeping
her eyes fixed even more immovably on him. Her ter-
ror infected him. The same fear showed itself on his
face. In the same way he stared at her and almost with
the same childish smile.
“Have you guessed?” he whispered at last.
“Good God!” broke in an awful wail from her bosom.
She sank helplessly on the bed with her face in the
pillows, but a moment later she got up, moved
quickly to him, seized both his hands and, gripping
them tight in her thin fingers, began looking into his
face again with the same intent stare. In this last des-
perate look she tried to look into him and catch some
last hope. But there was no hope; there was no doubt
remaining; it was all true! Later on, indeed, when she
recalled that moment, she thought it strange and
wondered why she had seen at once that there was no
doubt. She could not have said, for instance, that she

635
 fyodor dostoevsky

had foreseen something of the sort — and yet now, as

soon as he told her, she suddenly fancied that she had
really foreseen this very thing.
“Stop, Sonia, enough! don’t torture me,” he
begged her miserably.
It was not at all, not at all like this he had thought
of telling her, but this is how it happened.
She jumped up, seeming not to know what she was
doing, and, wringing her hands, walked into the mid-
dle of the room; but, quickly went back and sat down
again beside him, her shoulder almost touching his.
All of a sudden she started as though she had been
stabbed, uttered a cry and fell on her knees before
him, she did not know why.
“What have you done — what have you done to
yourself!” she said in despair, and, jumping up, she
flung herself on his neck, threw her arms round him,
and held him tight.
Raskolnikov drew back and looked at her with a
mournful smile.
“You are a strange girl, Sonia — you kiss me and
hug me when I tell you about that . . . You don’t think
what you are doing.”
“There is no one — no one in the whole world now
so unhappy as you!” she cried in a frenzy, not hearing
what he said, and she suddenly broke into violent hys-
terical weeping.
A feeling long unfamiliar to him flooded his heart
and softened it at once. He did not struggle against

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it. Two tears started into his eyes and hung on his
eyelashes.
“Then you won’t leave me, Sonia?” he said, look-
ing at her almost with hope.
“No, no, never, nowhere!” cried Sonia. “I will fol-
low you, I will follow you everywhere. Oh, my God!
Oh, how miserable I am! . . . Why, why didn’t I know
you before! Why didn’t you come before? Oh, dear!”
“Here I have come.”
“Yes, now! What’s to be done now! . . . Together,
together!” she repeated as it were unconsciously, and
she hugged him again. “I’ll follow you to Siberia!”
He recoiled at this, and the same hostile, almost
haughty smile came to his lips.
“Perhaps I don’t want to go to Siberia yet, Sonia,”
he said.
Sonia looked at him quickly.
Again after her first passionate, agonising sympa-
thy for the unhappy man the terrible idea of the mur-
der overwhelmed her. In his changed tone she
seemed to hear the murderer speaking. She looked
at him bewildered. She knew nothing as yet, why,
how, with what object it had been. Now all these ques-
tions rushed at once into her mind. And again she
could not believe it: “He, he is a murderer! Could it
be true?”
“What’s the meaning of it? Where am I?” she said
in complete bewilderment, as though still unable to
recover herself. “How could you, you, a man like you

637
 fyodor dostoevsky

. . . How could you bring yourself to it? . . . What does it

mean?”
“Oh, well — to plunder. Leave off, Sonia,” he
answered wearily, almost with vexation.
Sonia stood as though struck dumb, but suddenly
she cried:
“You were hungry! It was . . . to help your mother?
Yes?”
“No, Sonia, no,” he muttered, turning away and
hanging his head. “I was not so hungry . . . I certainly
did want to help my mother, but . . . that’s not the real
thing either . . . Don’t torture me, Sonia.”
Sonia clasped her hands.
“Could it, could it all be true? Good God, what a
truth! Who could believe it? And how could you give
away your last farthing and yet rob and murder! Ah,”
she cried suddenly, “that money you gave Katerina
Ivanovna . . . that money . . . Can that money . . .”
“No, Sonia,” he broke in hurriedly, “that money
was not it. Don’t worry yourself! That money my
mother sent me and it came when I was ill, the day I
gave it to you . . . Razumihin saw it . . . received it for
me . . . That money was mine — my own.”
Sonia listened to him in bewilderment and did her
utmost to comprehend.
“And that money . . . I don’t even know really
whether there was any money,” he added softly, as
though reflecting. “I took a purse off her neck, made
of chamois leather . . . a purse stuffed full of some-

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thing . . . but I didn’t look in it; I suppose I hadn’t time

. . . And the things — chains and trinkets — I buried
under a stone with the purse next morning in a yard
off the V — Prospect. They are all there now . . .”
Sonia strained every nerve to listen.
“Then why . . . why, you said you did it to rob, but you
took nothing?” she asked quickly, catching at a straw.
“I don’t know . . . I haven’t yet decided whether to
take that money or not,” he said, musing again; and,
seeming to wake up with a start, he gave a brief ironi-
cal smile. “Ach, what silly stuff I am talking, eh?”
The thought flashed through Sonia’s mind, wasn’t
he mad? But she dismissed it at once. “No, it was some-
thing else.” She could make nothing of it, nothing.
“Do you know, Sonia,” he said suddenly with con-
viction, “let me tell you: if I’d simply killed because I
was hungry,” laying stress on every word and looking
enigmatically but sincerely at her, “I should be happy
now. You must believe that! What would it matter to
you,” he cried a moment later with a sort of despair,
“what would it matter to you if I were to confess that I
did wrong! What do you gain by such a stupid tri-
umph over me? Ah, Sonia, was it for that I’ve come to
you to-day?”
Again Sonia tried to say something, but did not
speak.
“I asked you to go with me yesterday because you
are all I have left.”
“Go where?” asked Sonia timidly.

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“Not to steal and not to murder, don’t be anx-

ious,” he smiled bitterly. “We are so different . . . And
you know, Sonia, it’s only now, only this moment that
I understand where I asked you to go with me yester-
day! Yesterday when I said it I did not know where. I
asked you for one thing, I came to you for one thing
— not to leave me. You won’t leave me, Sonia?”
She squeezed his hand.
“And why, why did I tell her? Why did I let her
know?” he cried a minute later in despair, looking
with infinite anguish at her. “Here you expect an
explanation from me, Sonia; you are sitting and wait-
ing for it, I see that. But what can I tell you? You won’t
understand and will only suffer misery . . . on my
account! Well, you are crying and embracing me
again. Why do you do it? Because I couldn’t bear my
burden and have come to throw it on another: you
suffer too, and I shall feel better! And can you love
such a mean wretch?”
“But aren’t you suffering, too?” cried Sonia.
Again a wave of the same feeling surged into his
heart, and again for an instant softened it.
“Sonia, I have a bad heart, take note of that. It may
explain a great deal. I have come because I am bad.
There are men who wouldn’t have come. But I am a
coward and . . . a mean wretch. But . . . never mind!
That’s not the point. I must speak now, but I don’t
know how to begin.”
He paused and sank into thought.

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“Ach, we are so different,” he cried again, “we are

not alike. And why, why did I come? I shall never for-
give myself that.”
“No, no, it was a good thing you came,” cried
Sonia. “It’s better I should know, far better!”
He looked at her with anguish.
“What if it were really that?” he said, as though
reaching a conclusion. “Yes, that’s what it was! I
wanted to become a Napoleon, that is why I killed her
. . . Do you understand now?”
“N-no,” Sonia whispered naïvely and timidly.
“Only speak, speak, I shall understand, I shall under-
stand in myself!” she kept begging him.
“You’ll understand? Very well, we shall see!” He
paused and was for some time lost in meditation.
“It was like this: I asked myself one day this ques-
tion — what if Napoleon, for instance, had happened
to be in my place, and if he had not had Toulon nor
Egypt nor the passage of Mont Blanc to begin his
career with, but instead of all those picturesque and
monumental things, there had simply been some
ridiculous old hag, a pawnbroker, who had to be mur-
dered too to get money from her trunk (for his
career, you understand). Well, would he have
brought himself to that, if there had been no other
means? Would he have felt a pang at its being so far
from monumental and . . . and sinful, too? Well, I
must tell you that I worried myself fearfully over that
‘question’ so that I was awfully ashamed when I

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 fyodor dostoevsky

guessed at last (all of a sudden, somehow) that it

would not have given him the least pang, that it
would not even have struck him that it was not monu-
mental . . . that he would not have seen that there was
anything in it to pause over, and that, if he had had
no other way, he would have strangled her in a
minute without thinking about it! Well, I too . . . left
off thinking about it . . . Murdered her, following his
example. And that’s exactly how it was! Do you think
it funny? Yes, Sonia, the funniest thing of all is that
perhaps that’s just how it was.”
Sonia did not think it at all funny.
“You had better tell me straight out . . . without
examples,” she begged, still more timidly and scarcely
audibly.
He turned to her, looked sadly at her and took her
hands.
“You are right again, Sonia. Of course that’s all
nonsense, it’s almost all talk! You see, you know of
course that my mother has scarcely anything, my sis-
ter happened to have a good education and was con-
demned to drudge as a governess. All their hopes
were centered on me. I was a student, but I couldn’t
keep myself at the university and was forced for a
time to leave it. Even if I had lingered on like that, in
ten or twelve years I might (with luck) hope to be
some sort of teacher or clerk with a salary of a thou-
sand roubles” (he repeated it as though it were a les-
son) “and by that time my mother would be worn out

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with grief and anxiety and I could not succeed in

keeping her in comfort while my sister . . . well, my sis-
ter might well have fared worse! And it’s a hard thing
to pass everything by all one’s life, to turn one’s back
upon everything, to forget one’s mother and deco-
rously accept the insults inflicted on one’s sister. Why
should one? When one has buried them to burden
oneself with others — wife and children — and to leave
them again without a farthing? So I resolved to gain
possession of the old woman’s money and to use it for
my first years without worrying my mother, to keep
myself at the university and for a little while after leav-
ing it — and to do this all on a broad, thorough scale,
so as to build up a completely new career and enter
upon a new life of independence . . . Well . . . that’s all .
. . Well, of course in killing the old woman I did wrong
. . . Well, that’s enough.”
He struggled to the end of his speech in exhaus-
tion and let his head sink.
“Oh, that’s not it, that’s not it,” Sonia cried in dis-
tress. “How could one . . . no, that’s not right, not right.”
“You see yourself that it’s not right. But I’ve spo-
ken truly, it’s the truth.”
“As though that could be the truth! Good God!”
“I’ve only killed a louse, Sonia, a useless, loath-
some, harmful creature.”
“A human being — a louse!”
“I too know it wasn’t a louse,” he answered, look-
ing strangely at her. “But I am talking nonsense,

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 fyodor dostoevsky

Sonia,” he added. “I’ve been talking nonsense a long

time . . . That’s not it, you are right there. There were
quite, quite other causes for it! I haven’t talked to
any one for so long, Sonia . . . My head aches dread-
fully now.”
His eyes shone with feverish brilliance. He was
almost delirious; an uneasy smile strayed on his lips. His
terrible exhaustion could be seen through his excite-
ment. Sonia saw how he was suffering. She too was
growing dizzy. And he talked so strangely; it seemed
somehow comprehensible, but yet . . . “But how, how!
Good God!” And she wrung her hands in despair.
“No, Sonia, that’s not it,” he began again suddenly,
raising his head, as though a new and sudden train of
thought had struck and as it were roused him — “that’s
not it! Better . . . imagine — yes, it’s certainly better —
imagine that I am vain, envious, malicious, base, vin-
dictive and . . . well, perhaps with a tendency to insan-
ity. (Let’s have it all out at once! They’ve talked of
madness already, I noticed.) I told you just now I
could not keep myself at the university. But do you
know that perhaps I might have done? My mother
would have sent me what I needed for the fees and I
could have earned enough for clothes, boots and
food, no doubt. Lessons had turned up at half a rou-
ble. Razumihin works! But I turned sulky and would-
n’t. (Yes, sulkiness, that’s the right word for it!) I sat in
my room like a spider. You’ve been in my den, you’ve
seen it . . . And do you know, Sonia, that low ceilings

644
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and tiny rooms cramp the soul and the mind? Ah, how
I hated that garret! And yet I wouldn’t go out of it! I
wouldn’t on purpose! I didn’t go out for days
together, and I wouldn’t work, I wouldn’t even eat, I
just lay there doing nothing. If Nastasya brought me
anything, I ate it, if she didn’t, I went all day without; I
wouldn’t ask, on purpose, from sulkiness! At night I
had no light, I lay in the dark and I wouldn’t earn
money for candles. I ought to have studied, but I sold
my books; and the dust lies an inch thick on the note-
books on my table. I preferred lying still and thinking.
And I kept thinking . . . And I had dreams all the time,
strange dreams of all sorts, no need to describe! Only
then I began to fancy that . . . No, that’s not it! Again I
am telling you wrong! You see I kept asking myself
then: why am I so stupid that if others are stupid —
and I know they are — yet I won’t be wiser? Then I saw,
Sonia, that if one waits for every one to get wiser it will
take too long . . . Afterwards I understood that that
would never come to pass, that men won’t change and
that nobody can alter it and that it’s not worth wasting
effort over it. Yes, that’s so. That’s the law of their
nature, Sonia . . . that’s so! . . . And I know now, Sonia,
that whoever is strong in mind and spirit will have
power over them. Anyone who is greatly daring is
right in their eyes. He who despises most things will be
a lawgiver among them and he who dares most of all
will be most in the right! So it has been till now and so
it will always be. A man must be blind not to see it!”

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 fyodor dostoevsky

Though Raskolnikov looked at Sonia as he said

this, he no longer cared whether she understood or
not. The fever had complete hold of him; he was in a
sort of gloomy ecstasy (he certainly had been too
long without talking to anyone). Sonia felt that his
gloomy creed had become his faith and code.
“I divined then, Sonia,” he went on eagerly, “that
power is only vouchsafed to the man who dares stoop
and pick it up. There is only one thing, one thing
needful: one has only to dare! Then for the first time
in my life an idea took shape in my mind which no
one had ever thought of before me, no one! I saw
clear as daylight how strange it is that not a single per-
son living in this mad world has had the daring to go
straight for it all and send it flying to the devil! I . . . I
wanted to have the daring. . . and I killed her. I only
wanted to have the daring, Sonia! That was the whole
cause of it!”
“Oh hush, hush,” cried Sonia, clasping her hands.
“You turned away from God and God has smitten you,
has given you over to the devil!”
“Then, Sonia, when I used to lie there in the dark
and all this became clear to me, was it a temptation of
the devil, eh?”
“Hush, don’t laugh, blasphemer! You don’t under-
stand, you don’t understand! Oh God! He won’t
understand!”
“Hush, Sonia! I am not laughing. I know myself
that it was the devil leading me. Hush, Sonia, hush!”

646
 crime and punishment

he repeated with gloomy insistence. “I know it all, I

have thought it all over and over and whispered it all
over to myself, lying there in the dark . . . I’ve argued
it all over with myself, every point of it, and I know it
all, all! And how sick, how sick I was then of going
over it all! I have kept wanting to forget it and make a
new beginning, Sonia, and leave off thinking. And
you don’t suppose that I went into it headlong like a
fool? I went into it like a wise man, and that was just
my destruction. And you mustn’t suppose that I did-
n’t know, for instance, that if I began to question
myself whether I had the right to gain power — I cer-
tainly hadn’t the right — or that if I asked myself
whether a human being is a louse it proved that it
wasn’t so for me, though it might be for a man who
would go straight to his goal without asking questions
. . . If I worried myself all those days, wondering
whether Napoleon would have done it or not, I felt
clearly of course that I wasn’t Napoleon. I had to
endure all the agony of that battle of ideas, Sonia,
and I longed to throw it off: I wanted to murder with-
out casuistry, to murder for my own sake, for myself
alone! I didn’t want to lie about it even to myself. It
wasn’t to help my mother I did the murder — that’s
nonsense — I didn’t do the murder to gain wealth and
power and to become a benefactor of mankind.
Nonsense! I simply did it; I did the murder for myself,
for myself alone, and whether I became a benefactor
to others, or spent my life like a spider catching men

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in my web and sucking the life out of men, I couldn’t

have cared at that moment . . . And it was not the
money I wanted, Sonia, when I did it. It was not so
much the money I wanted, but something else . . . I
know it all now . . . Understand me! Perhaps I should
never have committed a murder again. I wanted to
find out something else; it was something else led me
on. I wanted to find out then and quickly whether I
was a louse like everybody else or a man. Whether I
can step over barriers or not, whether I dare stoop to
pick up or not, whether I am a trembling creature or
whether I have the right. . .”
“To kill? Have the right to kill?” Sonia clasped her
hands.
“Ach, Sonia!” he cried irritably and seemed
about to make some retort, but was contemptuously
silent. “Don’t interrupt me, Sonia. I want to prove
one thing only, that the devil led me on then and he
has shown me since that I had not the right to take
that path, because I am just such a louse as all the
rest. He was mocking me and here I’ve come to you
now! Welcome your guest! If I were not a louse,
should I have come to you? Listen: when I went then
to the old woman’s I only went to try. . . You may be
sure of that!”
“And you murdered her!”
“But how did I murder her? Is that how men do
murders? Do men go to commit a murder as I went
then? I will tell you some day how I went! Did I mur-

648
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der the old woman? I murdered myself, not her! I

crushed myself once for all, for ever . . . But it was the
devil that killed that old woman, not I. Enough,
enough, Sonia, enough! Let me be!” he cried in a
sudden spasm of agony, “let me be!”
He leaned his elbows on his knees and squeezed
his head in his hands as in a vise.
“What suffering!” A wail of anguish broke from Sonia.
“Well, what am I to do now?” he asked, suddenly
raising his head and looking at her with a face
hideously distorted by despair.
“What are you to do?” she cried, jumping up, and
her eyes that had been full of tears suddenly began
to shine. “Stand up!” (She seized him by the shoul-
der, he got up, looking at her almost bewildered.)
“Go at once, this very minute, stand at the cross-
roads, bow down, first kiss the earth which you have
defiled and then bow down to all the world and say
to all men aloud, ‘I am a murderer!’ Then God will
send you life again. Will you go, will you go?” she
asked him, trembling all over, snatching his two
hands, squeezing them tight in hers and gazing at
him with eyes full of fire.
He was amazed at her sudden ecstasy.
“You mean Siberia, Sonia? I must give myself up?”
he asked gloomily.
“Suffer and expiate your sin by it, that’s what you
must do.”
“No! I am not going to them, Sonia!”

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“But how will you go on living? What will you live

for?” cried Sonia, “how is it possible now? Why, how
can you talk to your mother? (Oh, what will become
of them now!) But what am I saying? You have aban-
doned your mother and your sister already. He has
abandoned them already! Oh God!” she cried, “why,
he knows it all himself. How, how can he live by him-
self! What will become of you now?”
“Don’t be a child, Sonia,” he said softly. “What
wrong have I done them? Why should I go to them?
What should I say to them? That’s only a phantom . . .
They destroy men by millions themselves and look on
it as a virtue. They are knaves and scoundrels, Sonia!
I am not going to them. And what should I say to
them — that I murdered her, but did not dare to take
the money and hid it under a stone?” he added with a
bitter smile. “Why, they would laugh at me, and would
call me a fool for not getting it. A coward and a fool!
They wouldn’t understand and they don’t deserve to
understand. Why should I go to them? I won’t. Don’t
be a child, Sonia . . . ”
“It will be too much for you to bear, too much!”
she repeated, holding out her hands in despairing
supplication.
“Perhaps I’ve been unfair to myself,” he observed
gloomily, pondering, “perhaps after all I am a man
and not a louse and I’ve been in too great a hurry to
condemn myself. I’ll make another fight for it.”
A haughty smile appeared on his lips.

650
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“What a burden to bear! And your whole life, your

whole life!”
“I shall get used to it,” he said grimly and thought-
fully. “Listen,” he began a minute later, “stop crying,
it’s time to talk of the facts: I’ve come to tell you that
the police are after me, on my track . . .”
“Ach!” Sonia cried in terror.
“Well, why do you cry out? You want me to go to
Siberia and now you are frightened? But let me tell you:
I shall not give myself up. I shall make a struggle for it
and they won’t do anything to me. They’ve no real evi-
dence. Yesterday I was in great danger and believed I
was lost; but to-day things are going better. All the facts
they know can be explained two ways, that’s to say I can
turn their accusations to my credit, do you understand?
And I shall, for I’ve learnt my lesson. But they will cer-
tainly arrest me. If it had not been for something that
happened, they would have done so to-day for certain;
perhaps even now they will arrest me to-day . . . But
that’s no matter, Sonia; they’ll let me out again . . . for
there isn’t any real proof against me, and there won’t
be, I give you my word for it. And they can’t convict a
man on what they have against me. Enough . . . I only
tell you that you may know . . . I will try to manage some-
how to put it to my mother and sister so that they won’t
be frightened . . . My sister’s future is secure, however,
now, I believe . . . and my mother’s must be too . . . Well,
that’s all. Be careful, though. Will you come and see me
in prison when I am there?”

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“Oh, I will, I will.”

They sat side by side, both mournful and dejected,
as though they had been cast up by the tempest alone
on some deserted shore. He looked at Sonia and felt
how great was her love for him, and strange to say he
felt it suddenly burdensome and painful to be so
loved. Yes, it was a strange and awful sensation! On
his way to see Sonia he had felt that all his hopes
rested on her; he expected to be rid of at least part of
his suffering, and now, when all her heart turned
towards him, he suddenly felt that he was immeasur-
ably unhappier than before.
“Sonia,” he said, “you’d better not come and see
me when I am in prison.”
Sonia did not answer, she was crying. Several min-
utes passed.
“Have you a cross on you?” she asked, as though
suddenly thinking of it.
He did not at first understand the question.
“No, of course not. Here, take this one, of cypress
wood. I have another, a copper one that belonged to
Lizaveta. I changed with Lizaveta: she gave me her
cross and I gave her my little ikon. I will wear
Lizaveta’s now and give you this. Take it . . . it’s mine!
It’s mine, you know,” she begged him. “We will go to
suffer together, and together we will bear our cross!”
“Give it me,” said Raskolnikov.
He did not want to hurt her feelings. But immedi-
ately he drew back the hand he held out for the cross.

652
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“Not now, Sonia. Better later,” he added to com-

fort her.
“Yes, yes, better,” she repeated with conviction,
“when you go to meet your suffering, then put it on.
You will come to me, I’ll put it on you, we will pray
and go together.”
At that moment some one knocked three times at
the door.
“Sofya Semyonovna, may I come in?” they heard in
a very familiar and polite voice.
Sonia rushed to the door in a fright. The flaxen
head of Mr. Lebeziatnikov appeared at the door.

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 chapter v

Lebeziatnikov looked perturbed.

“I’ve come to you, Sofya Semyonovna,” he began.
“Excuse me . . . I thought I should find you,” he said,
addressing Raskolnikov suddenly, “that is, I didn’t
mean anything . . . of that sort . . . But I just thought . . .
Katerina Ivanovna has gone out of her mind,” he
blurted out suddenly, turning from Raskolnikov to
Sonia.
Sonia screamed.
“At least it seems so. But . . . we don’t know what to
do, you see! She came back — she seems to have been
turned out somewhere, perhaps beaten . . . So it seems
at least, . . . She had run to your father’s former chief,
she didn’t find him at home: he was dining at some
other general’s . . . Only fancy, she rushed off there, to
the other general’s, and, imagine, she was so persist-
ent that she managed to get the chief to see her, had
him fetched out from dinner, it seems. You can imag-
ine what happened. She was turned out, of course;

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but, according to her own story, she abused him and

threw something at him. One may well believe it . . .
How it is she wasn’t taken up, I can’t understand!
Now she is telling every one, including Amalia
Ivanovna; but it’s difficult to understand her, she is
screaming and flinging herself about . . . Oh yes, she
shouts that since every one has abandoned her, she
will take the children and go into the street with a
barrel-organ, and the children will sing and dance,
and she too, and collect money, and will go every day
under the general’s window . . . ‘to let every one see
well-born children, whose father was an official, beg-
ging in the street.’ She keeps beating the children
and they are all crying. She is teaching Lida to sing
‘My Village,’ the boy to dance, Polenka the same. She
is tearing up all the clothes, and making them little
caps like actors; she means to carry a tin basin and
make it tinkle, instead of music . . . She won’t listen to
anything . . . Imagine the state of things! It’s beyond
anything!”
Lebeziatnikov would have gone on, but Sonia,
who had heard him almost breathless, snatched up
her cloak and hat, and ran out of the room, putting
on her things as she went. Raskolnikov followed her
and Lebeziatnikov came after him.
“She has certainly gone mad!” he said to
Raskolnikov, as they went out into the street. “I didn’t
want to frighten Sofya Semyonovna, so I said ‘it
seemed like it,’ but there isn’t a doubt of it. They say

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 fyodor dostoevsky

that in consumption, the tubercles sometimes occur

in the brain; it’s a pity I know nothing of medicine. I
did try to persuade her, but she wouldn’t listen.”
“Did you talk to her about the tubercles?”
“Not precisely of the tubercles. Besides, she would-
n’t have understood! But what I say is, that if you con-
vince a person logically that he has nothing to cry
about, he’ll stop crying. That’s clear. Is it your convic-
tion that he won’t?”
“Life would be too easy if it were so,” answered
Raskolnikov.
“Excuse me, excuse me; of course it would be
rather difficult for Katerina Ivanovna to under-
stand, but do you know that in Paris they have been
conducting serious experiments as to the possibility
of curing the insane, simply by logical argument?
One professor there, a scientific man of standing,
lately dead, believed in the possibility of such treat-
ment. His idea was that there’s nothing really
wrong with the physical organism of the insane,
and that insanity is, so to say, a logical mistake, an
error of judgment, an incorrect view of things. He
gradually showed the madman his error and, would
you believe it, they say he was successful? But as he
made use of douches too, how far success was due
to that treatment remains uncertain . . . So it seems
at least.”
Raskolnikov had long ceased to listen. Reaching
the house where he lived, he nodded to Lebeziatnikov

656
 crime and punishment

and went in at the gate. Lebeziatnikov woke up with a

start, looked about him and hurried on.
Raskolnikov went into his little room and stood
still in the middle of it. Why had he come back
here? He looked at the yellow and tattered paper, at
the dust, at his sofa . . . From the yard came a loud
continuous knocking; some one seemed to be ham-
mering . . . He went to the window, rose on tiptoe
and looked out into the yard for a long time with an
air of absorbed attention. But the yard was empty
and he could not see who was hammering. In the
house on the left he saw some open windows; on
the window-sills were pots of sickly-looking gerani-
ums. Linen was hung out of the windows . . . He
knew it all by heart. He turned away and sat down
on the sofa.
Never, never had he felt himself so fearfully alone!
Yes, he felt once more that he would perhaps
come to hate Sonia, now that he had made her more
miserable.
“Why had he gone to her to beg for her tears?
What need had he to poison her life? Oh, the mean-
ness of it!”
“I will remain alone,” he said resolutely, “and she
shall not come to the prison!”
Five minutes later he raised his head with a
strange smile. That was a strange thought.
“Perhaps it really would be better in Siberia,” he
thought suddenly.

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 fyodor dostoevsky

He could not have said how long he sat there with

vague thoughts surging through his mind. All at once
the door opened and Dounia came in. At first she
stood still and looked at him from the doorway, just as
he had done at Sonia; then she came in and sat down
in the same place as yesterday, on the chair facing
him. He looked silently and almost vacantly at her.
“Don’t be angry, brother; I’ve only come for one
minute,” said Dounia.
Her face looked thoughtful but not stern. Her
eyes were bright and soft. He saw that she too had
come to him with love.
“Brother, now I know all, all. Dmitri Prokofitch has
explained and told me everything. They are worrying
and persecuting you through a stupid and con-
temptible suspicion . . . Dmitri Prokofitch told me that
there is no danger, and that you are wrong in looking
upon it with such horror. I don’t think so, and I fully
understand how indignant you must be, and that that
indignation may have a permanent effect on you.
That’s what I am afraid of. As for your cutting yourself
off from us, I don’t judge you, I don’t venture to
judge you, and forgive me for having blamed you for
it. I feel that I too, if I had so great a trouble, should
keep away from every one. I shall tell mother nothing
of this, but I shall talk about you continually and shall
tell her from you that you will come very soon. Don’t
worry about her; I will set her mind at rest; but don’t
you try her too much — come once at least; remem-

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ber that she is your mother. And now I have come

simply to say” (Dounia began to get up) “that if you
should need me or should need . . . all my life or any-
thing . . . call me, and I’ll come. Good-bye!”
She turned abruptly and went towards the door.
“Dounia!” Raskolnikov stopped her and went
towards her. “That Razumihin, Dmitri Prokofitch, is a
very good fellow.”
Dounia flushed slightly.
“Well?” she asked, waiting a moment.
“He is competent, hardworking, honest and capa-
ble of real love . . . Good-bye, Dounia.”
Dounia flushed crimson, then suddenly she took
alarm.
“But what does it mean, brother? Are we really part-
ing for ever that you . . . give me such a parting message?”
“Never mind . . . Good-bye.”
He turned away, and walked to the window. She
stood a moment, and looked at him uneasily, and
went out troubled.
No, he was not cold to her. There was an instant
(the very last one) when he had longed to take her in
his arms and say good-bye to her, and even to tell her,
but he had not dared even to touch her hand.
“Afterwards she may shudder when she remembers
that I embraced her, and will feel that I stole her kiss.”
“And would she stand that test?” he went on a few
minutes later to himself. “No, she wouldn’t; girls like
that can’t stand things! They never do.”

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 fyodor dostoevsky

And he thought of Sonia.

There was a breath of fresh air from the window. The
daylight was fading. He took up his cap and went out.
He could not, of course, and would not consider
how ill he was. But all this continual anxiety and
agony of mind could not but affect him. And if he
were not lying in high fever it was perhaps just
because this continual inner strain helped to keep
him on his legs and in possession of his faculties. But
this artificial excitement could not last long.
He wandered aimlessly. The sun was setting. A spe-
cial form of misery had begun to oppress him of late.
There was nothing poignant, nothing acute about it;
but there was a feeling of permanence, of eternity
about it; it brought a foretaste of hopeless years of
this cold leaden misery, a foretaste of an eternity “on
a square yard of space.” Towards evening this sensa-
tion usually began to weigh on him more heavily.
“With this idiotic, purely physical weakness,
depending on the sunset or something, one can’t
help doing something stupid! You’ll go to Dounia, as
well as to Sonia,” he muttered bitterly.
He heard his name called. He looked round.
Lebeziatnikov rushed up to him.
“Only fancy, I’ve been to your room looking for
you. Only fancy, she’s carried out her plan, and taken
away the children. Sofya Semyonovna and I have had
a job to find them. She is rapping on a frying-pan and
making the children dance. The children are crying.

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 crime and punishment

They keep stopping at the cross-roads and in front of

shops; there’s a crowd of fools running after them.
Come along!”
“And Sonia?” Raskolnikov asked anxiously, hurry-
ing after Lebeziatnikov.
“Simply frantic. That is, it’s not Sofya Semyonovna’s
frantic, but Katerina Ivanovna, though Sofya
Semyonovna’s frantic too. But Katerina Ivanovna is
absolutely frantic. I tell you she is quite mad. They’ll be
taken to the police. You can fancy what an effect that
will have . . . They are on the canal bank, near the bridge
now, not far from Sofya Semyonovna’s, quite close.”
On the canal bank near the bridge and not two
houses away from the one where Sonia lodged, there
was a crowd of people, consisting principally of gutter
children. The hoarse broken voice of Katerina
Ivanovna could be heard from the bridge, and it cer-
tainly was a strange spectacle likely to attract a street
crowd. Katerina Ivanovna in her old dress with the
green shawl, wearing a torn straw hat, crushed in a
hideous way on one side, was really frantic. She was
exhausted and breathless. Her wasted consumptive
face looked more suffering than ever, and indeed out
of doors in the sunshine a consumptive always looks
worse than at home. But her excitement did not flag,
and every moment her irritation grew more intense.
She rushed at the children, shouted at them, coaxed
them, told them before the crowd how to dance and
what to sing, began explaining to them why it was

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necessary, and driven to desperation by their not

understanding, beat them . . . Then she would make a
rush at the crowd; if she noticed any decently dressed
person stopping to look, she immediately appealed
to him to see what these children “from a genteel,
one may say aristocratic, house” had been brought to.
If she heard laughter or jeering in the crowd, she
would rush at once at the scoffers and begin squab-
bling with them. Some people laughed, others shook
their heads, but every one felt curious at the sight of
the madwoman with the frightened children. The fry-
ing-pan of which Lebeziatnikov had spoken was not
there, at least Raskolnikov did not see it. But instead
of rapping on the pan, Katerina Ivanovna began clap-
ping her wasted hands, when she made Lida and
Kolya dance and Polenka sing. She too joined in the
singing, but broke down at the second note with a
fearful cough, which made her curse in despair and
even shed tears. What made her most furious was the
weeping and terror of Kolya and Lida. Some effort
had been made to dress the children up as street
singers are dressed. The boy had on a turban made of
something red and white to look like a Turk. There
had been no costume for Lida; she simply had a red
knitted cap, or rather a night cap that had belonged
to Marmeladov, decorated with a broken piece of
white ostrich feather, which had been Katerina
Ivanovna’s grandmother’s and had been preserved as
a family possession. Polenka was in her everyday

662
 crime and punishment

dress; she looked in timid perplexity at her mother,

and kept at her side, hiding her tears. She dimly
realised her mother’s condition, and looked uneasily
about her. She was terribly frightened of the street
and the crowd. Sonia followed Katerina Ivanovna,
weeping and beseeching her to return home, but
Katerina Ivanovna was not to be persuaded.
“Leave off, Sonia, leave off,” she shouted, speaking
fast, panting and coughing. “You don’t know what
you ask; you are like a child! I’ve told you before that
I am not coming back to that drunken German. Let
every one, let all Petersburg see the children begging
in the streets, though their father was an honourable
man who served all his life in truth and fidelity, and
one may say died in the service.” (Katerina Ivanovna
had by now invented this fantastic story and thor-
oughly believed it.) “Let that wretch of a general see
it! And you are silly, Sonia: what have we to eat? Tell
me that. We have worried you enough, I won’t go on
so! Ah, Rodion Romanovitch, is that you?” she cried,
seeing Raskolnikov and rushing up to him. “Explain
to this silly girl, please, that nothing better could be
done! Even organ-grinders earn their living, and
every one will see at once that we are different, that
we are an honourable and bereaved family reduced
to beggary. And that general will lose his post, you’ll
see! We shall perform under his windows every day,
and if the Tsar drives by, I’ll fall on my knees, put the
children before me, show them to him, and say

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 fyodor dostoevsky

‘defend us, father.’ He is the father of the fatherless,

he is merciful, he’ll protect us, you’ll see, and that
wretch of a general . . . Lida, tenez vous droite! Kolya,
you’ll dance again. Why are you whimpering?
Whimpering again! What are you afraid of, stupid?
Goodness, what am I to do with them, Rodion
Romanovitch? If you only knew how stupid they are!
What’s one to do with such children?”
And she, almost crying herself — which did not
stop her uninterrupted, rapid flow of talk — pointed
to the crying children. Raskolnikov tried to per-
suade her to go home, and even said, hoping to
work on her vanity, that it was unseemly for her to
be wandering about the streets like an organ-
grinder, as she was intending to become the princi-
pal of a boarding-school.
“A boarding-school, ha-ha-ha! A castle in the air,”
cried Katerina Ivanovna, her laugh ending in a
cough. “No, Rodion Romanovitch, that dream is
over! All have forsaken us! . . . And that general . . . You
know, Rodion Romanovitch, I threw an inkpot at him
— it happened to be standing in the waiting-room by
the paper where you sign your name. I wrote my
name, threw it at him and ran away. Oh the
scoundrels, the scoundrels! But enough of them, now
I’ll provide for the children myself, I won’t bow down
to anybody! She has had to bear enough for us!” she
pointed to Sonia. “Polenka, how much have you got?
Show me! What, only two farthings! Oh, the mean

664
 crime and punishment

wretches! They give us nothing, only run after us,

putting their tongues out. There, what is that block-
head laughing at?” (She pointed to a man in the
crowd.) “It’s all because Kolya here is so stupid; I have
such a bother with him. What do you want, Polenka?
Tell me in French, parlez moi français. Why, I’ve taught
you, you know some phrases. Else how are you to
show that you are of good family, well brought-up
children, and not at all like other organ-grinders? We
aren’t going to have a Punch and Judy show in the
street, but to sing a genteel song . . . Ah, yes . . . What
are we to sing? You keep putting me out, but we . . .
you see, we are standing here, Rodion Romanovitch,
to find something to sing and get money, something
Kolya can dance to . . . For, as you can fancy, our per-
formance is all impromptu . . . We must talk it over
and rehearse it all thoroughly, and then we shall go to
Nevsky, where there are far more people of good soci-
ety, and we shall be noticed at once. Lida knows ‘My
Village’ only, nothing but ‘My Village,’ and every one
sings that. We must sing something far more genteel .
. . Well, have you thought of anything, Polenka? If
only you’d help your mother! My memory’s quite
gone, or I should have thought of something. We
really can’t sing ‘An Hussar.’ Ah, let us sing in French,
‘Cinq sous,’ I have taught it you, I have taught it you.
And as it is in French, people will see at once that you
are children of good family, and that will be much
more touching . . . You might sing ‘Marlborough s’en va-

665
 fyodor dostoevsky

t-en guerre,’ for that’s quite a child’s song and is sung

as a lullaby in all the aristocratic houses.
Marlborough s’en va-t-en guerre
Ne sait quand reviendra . . .”
she began singing. “But no, better sing ‘Cinq sous.’
Now, Kolya, your hands on your hips, make haste,
and you, Lida, keep turning the other way, and
Polenka and I will sing and clap our hands!
Cinq sous, cinq sous
Pour monter notre ménage.
(Cough-cough-cough!) Set your dress straight,
Polenka, it’s slipped down on your shoulders,” she
observed, panting from coughing. “Now it’s particu-
larly necessary to behave nicely and genteelly, that all
may see that you are well-born children. I said at the
time that the bodice should be cut longer, and made
of two widths. It was your fault, Sonia, with your
advice to make it shorter, and now you see the child is
quite deformed by it . . . Why, you’re all crying again!
What’s the matter, stupids? Come, Kolya, begin. Make
haste, make haste! Oh, what an unbearable child!
Cinq sous, cinq sous.
A policeman again! What do you want?”
A policeman was indeed forcing his way through
the crowd. But at that moment a gentleman in civil-
ian uniform and an overcoat — a solid-looking official

666
 crime and punishment

of about fifty with a decoration on his neck (which

delighted Katerina Ivanovna and had its effect on the
policeman) — approached and without a word
handed her a green three-rouble note. His face wore
a look of genuine sympathy. Katerina Ivanovna took it
and gave him a polite, even ceremonious, bow.
“I thank you, honoured sir,” she began loftily.
“The causes that have induced us (take the money,
Polenka: you see there are generous and honourable
people who are ready to help a poor gentlewoman in
distress). You see, honoured sir, these orphans of
good family — I might even say of aristocratic connec-
tions — and that wretch of a general sat eating grouse
. . . and stamped at my disturbing him. ‘Your excel-
lency,’ I said, ‘protect the orphans, for you knew my
late husband, Semyon Zaharovitch, and on the very
day of his death the basest of scoundrels slandered
his only daughter.’ . . . That policeman again! Protect
me,” she cried to the official. “Why is that policeman
edging up to me? We have only just run away from
one of them. What do you want, fool?”
“It’s forbidden in the streets. You mustn’t make a
disturbance.”
“It’s you’re making a disturbance. It’s just the
same as if I were grinding an organ. What business is
it of yours?”
“You have to get a licence for an organ, and you
haven’t got one, and in that way you collect a crowd.
Where do you lodge?”

667
 fyodor dostoevsky

“What, a licence?” wailed Katerina Ivanovna. “I

buried my husband to-day. What need of a licence?”
“Calm yourself, madam, calm yourself,” began the
official. “Come along; I will escort you . . . This is no
place for you in the crowd. You are ill.”
“Honoured sir, honoured sir, you don’t know,”
screamed Katerina Ivanovna. “We are going to the
Nevsky . . . Sonia, Sonia! Where is she? She is crying
too! What’s the matter with you all? Kolya, Lida, where
are you going?” she cried suddenly in alarm. “Oh, silly
children! Kolya, Lida, where are they off to? . . . ”
Kolya and Lida, scared out of their wits by the
crowd, and their mother’s mad pranks, suddenly
seized each other by the hand, and ran off at the sight
of the policeman who wanted to take them away
somewhere. Weeping and wailing, poor Katerina
Ivanovna ran after them. She was a piteous and
unseemly spectacle, as she ran, weeping and panting
for breath. Sonia and Polenka rushed after them.
“Bring them back, bring them back, Sonia! Oh stu-
pid, ungrateful children! . . . Polenka! catch them . . .
It’s for your sakes I . . . ”
She stumbled as she ran and fell down.
“She’s cut herself, she’s bleeding! Oh, dear!” cried
Sonia, bending over her.
All ran up and crowded round. Raskolnikov and
Lebeziatnikov were the first at her side, the official
too hastened up, and behind him the policeman
who muttered, “Bother!” with a gesture of impa-

668
 crime and punishment

tience, feeling that the job was going to be a trouble-

some one.
“Pass on! Pass on!” he said to the crowd that
pressed forward.
“She’s dying,” some one shouted.
“She’s gone out of her mind,” said another.
“Lord have mercy upon us,” said a woman, cross-
ing herself. “Have they caught the little girl and the
boy? They’re being brought back, the elder one’s got
them . . . Ah, the naughty imps!”
When they examined Katerina Ivanovna carefully,
they saw that she had not cut herself against a stone,
as Sonia thought, but that the blood that stained the
pavement red was from her chest.
“I’ve seen that before,” muttered the official to
Raskolnikov and Lebeziatnikov; “that’s consumption;
the blood flows and chokes the patient. I saw the
same thing with a relative of my own not long ago . . .
nearly a pint of blood, all in a minute . . . What’s to be
done though? She is dying.”
“This way, this way, to my room!” Sonia implored.
“I live here! . . . See, that house, the second from here
. . . Come to me, make haste,” she turned from one to
the other. “Send for the doctor! Oh, dear!”
Thanks to the official’s efforts, this plan was
adopted, the policeman even helping to carry
Katerina Ivanovna. She was carried to Sonia’s room,
almost unconscious, and laid on the bed. The blood
was still flowing, but she seemed to be coming to her-

669
 fyodor dostoevsky

self. Raskolnikov, Lebeziatnikov, and the official

accompanied Sonia into the room and were followed
by the policeman, who first drove back the crowd
which followed to the very door. Polenka came in
holding Kolya and Lida, who were trembling and
weeping. Several persons came in too from the
Kapernaumovs’ room; the landlord, a lame one-eyed
man of strange appearance with whiskers and hair
that stood up like a brush, his wife, a woman with an
everlastingly scared expression, and several open-
mouthed children with wonder-struck faces. Among
these, Svidrigaïlov suddenly made his appearance.
Raskolnikov looked at him with surprise, not under-
standing where he had come from and not having
noticed him in the crowd. A doctor and priest were
spoken of. The official whispered to Raskolnikov
that he thought it was too late now for the doctor,
but he ordered him to be sent for. Kapernaumov ran
himself.
Meanwhile Katerina Ivanovna had regained her
breath. The bleeding ceased for a time. She looked
with sick but intent and penetrating eyes at Sonia,
who stood pale and trembling, wiping the sweat from
her brow with a handkerchief. At last she asked to be
raised. They sat her up on the bed, supporting her on
both sides.
“Where are the children?” she said in a faint voice.
“You’ve brought them, Polenka? Oh the sillies! Why
did you run away . . . Och!”

670
 crime and punishment

Once more her parched lips were covered with

blood. She moved her eyes, looking about her.
“So that’s how you live, Sonia! Never once have I
been in your room.”
She looked at her with a face of suffering.
“We have been your ruin, Sonia. Polenka, Lida,
Kolya, come here! Well, here they are, Sonia, take
them all! I hand them over to you, I’ve had enough!
The ball is over. (Cough!) Lay me down, let me die in
peace.”
They laid her back on the pillow.
“What, the priest? I don’t want him. You haven’t
got a rouble to spare. I have no sins. God must forgive
me without that. He knows how I have suffered . . .
And if He won’t forgive me, I don’t care!”
She sank more and more into uneasy delirium.
At times she shuddered, turned her eyes from side
to side, recognised every one for a minute, but at
once sank into delirium again. Her breathing was
hoarse and difficult, there was a sort of rattle in her
throat.
“I said to him, your excellency,” she ejaculated,
gasping after each word. “That Amalia Ludwigovna,
ah! Lida, Kolya, hands on your hips, make haste!
Glissez, glissez! pas de basque! Tap with your heels, be a
graceful child!
Du hast Diamanten und Perlen
What next? That’s the thing to sing.

671
 fyodor dostoevsky

Du hast die schönsten Augen

Mädchen, was willst du mehr?
“What an idea! Was willst du mehr. What things the
fool invents! Ah, yes!

In the heat of midday in the vale of Dagestan.

“Ah, how I loved it! I loved that song to distrac-

tion, Polenka! Your father, you know, used to sing it
when we were engaged . . . Oh those days! Oh that’s
the thing for us to sing! How does it go? I’ve forgot-
ten. Remind me! How was it?”
She was violently excited and tried to sit up. At
last, in a horribly hoarse, broken voice, she began,
shrieking and gasping at every word, with a look of
growing terror.

“In the heat of midday! . . . in the vale! . . . of Dagestan! . . .

With lead in my breast! . . . ”

“Your excellency!” she wailed suddenly with a

heartrending scream and a flood of tears, “protect
the orphans! You have been their father’s guest . . .
one may say aristocratic . . .” She started, regaining
consciousness, and gazed at all with a sort of terror,
but at once recognised Sonia.
“Sonia, Sonia!” she articulated softly and caress-
ingly, as though surprised to find her there. “Sonia
darling, are you here, too?”
They lifted her up again.

672
 crime and punishment

“Enough! It’s over! Farewell, poor thing! I am

done for! I am broken!” she cried with vindictive
despair, and her head fell heavily back on the pillow.
She sank into unconsciousness again, but this time
it did not last long. Her pale, yellow, wasted face
dropped back, her mouth fell open, her leg moved
convulsively, she gave a deep, deep sigh and died.
Sonia fell upon her, flung her arms about her, and
remained motionless with her head pressed to the
dead woman’s wasted bosom. Polenka threw herself at
her mother’s feet, kissing them and weeping violently.
Though Kolya and Lida did not understand what had
happened, they had a feeling that it was something
terrible; they put their hands on each other’s little
shoulders, stared straight at one another and both at
once opened their mouths and began screaming.
They were both still in their fancy dress; one in a tur-
ban, the other in the cap with the ostrich feather.
And how did “the certificate of merit” come to be
on the bed beside Katerina Ivanovna? It lay there by
the pillow: Raskolnikov saw it.
He walked away to the window. Lebeziatnikov
skipped up to him.
“She is dead,” he said.
“Rodion Romanovitch, I must have two words with
you,” said Svidrigaïlov, coming up to them.
Lebeziatnikov at once made room for him and
delicately withdrew. Svidrigaïlov drew Raskolnikov
further away.

673
 fyodor dostoevsky

“I will undertake all the arrangements, the funeral

and that. You know it’s a question of money and, as I
told you, I have plenty to spare. I will put those two lit-
tle ones and Polenka into some good orphan asylum,
and I will settle fifteen hundred roubles to be paid to
each on coming of age, so that Sofya Semyonovna
need have no anxiety about them. And I will pull her
out of the mud too, for she is a good girl, isn’t she? So
tell Avdotya Romanovna that that is how I am spend-
ing her ten thousand.”
“What is your motive for such benevolence?”
asked Raskolnikov.
“Ah! you sceptical person!” laughed Svidrigaïlov. “I
told you I had no need of that money. Won’t you
admit that it’s simply done from humanity? She wasn’t
‘a louse,’ you know” (he pointed to the corner where
the dead woman lay), “was she, like some old pawn-
broker woman? Come, you’ll agree, is Luzhin to go on
living, and doing wicked things or is she to die? And if
I didn’t help them, Polenka would go the same way.”
He said this with an air of a sort of gay winking sly-
ness, keeping his eyes fixed on Raskolnikov, who
turned white and cold, hearing his own phrases, spo-
ken to Sonia. He quickly stepped back and looked
wildly at Svidrigaïlov.
“How do you know?” he whispered, hardly able to
breathe.
“Why, I lodge here at Madame Resslich’s, the
other side of the wall. Here is Kapernaumov, and

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 crime and punishment

there lives Madame Resslich, an old and devoted

friend of mine. I am a neighbour.”
“You?”
“Yes,” continued Svidrigalïov, shaking with laugh-
ter. “I assure you on my honour, dear Rodion
Romanovitch, that you have interested me enor-
mously. I told you we should become friends, I fore-
told it. Well, here we have. And you will see what an
accommodating person I am. You’ll see that you can
get on with me!”

675
pa r t v i
 chapter i

A strange period began for Raskolnikov: it was as

though a fog had fallen upon him and wrapped him
in a dreary solitude from which there was no escape.
Recalling that period long after, he believed that his
mind had been clouded at times, and that it had con-
tinued so, with intervals, till the final catastrophe. He
was convinced that he had been mistaken about
many things at that time, for instance as to the date
of certain events. Anyway, when he tried later on to
piece his recollections together, he learnt a great
deal about himself from what other people told him.
He had mixed up incidents and had explained
events as due to circumstances which existed only in
his imagination. At times he was a prey to agonies of
morbid uneasiness, amounting sometimes to panic.
But he remembered, too, moments, hours, perhaps
whole days, of complete apathy, which came upon
him as a reaction from his previous terror and might
be compared with the abnormal insensibility, some-

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 fyodor dostoevsky

times seen in the dying. He seemed to be trying in

that latter stage to escape from a full and clear
understanding of his position. Certain essential facts
which required immediate consideration were par-
ticularly irksome to him. How glad he would have
been to be free from some cares, the neglect of
which would have threatened him with complete,
inevitable ruin.
He was particularly worried about Svidrigaïlov, he
might be said to be permanently thinking of
Svidrigaïlov. From the time of Svidrigaïlov’s too men-
acing and unmistakable words in Sonia’s room at the
moment of Katerina Ivanovna’s death, the normal
working of his mind seemed to break down. But
although this new fact caused him extreme uneasi-
ness, Raskolnikov was in no hurry for an explanation
of it. At times, finding himself in a solitary and
remote part of the town, in some wretched eating-
house, sitting alone lost in thought, hardly knowing
how he had come there, he suddenly thought of
Svidrigaïlov. He recognised suddenly, clearly, and
with dismay that he ought at once to come to an
understanding with that man and to make what terms
he could. Walking outside the city gates one day, he
positively fancied that they had fixed a meeting there,
that he was waiting for Svidrigaïlov. Another time he
woke up before daybreak lying on the ground under
some bushes and could not at first understand how
he had come there.

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But during the two or three days after Katerina

Ivanovna’s death, he had two or three times met
Svidrigaïlov at Sonia’s lodging, where he had gone
aimlessly for a moment. They exchanged a few words
and made no reference to the vital subject, as though
they were tacitly agreed not to speak of it for a time.
Katerina Ivanovna’s body was still lying in the cof-
fin, Svidrigaïlov was busy making arrangements for
the funeral. Sonia too was very busy. At their last
meeting Svidrigaïlov informed Raskolnikov that he
had made an arrangement, and a very satisfactory
one, for Katerina Ivanovna’s children; that he had,
through certain connections, succeeded in getting
hold of certain personages by whose help the three
orphans could be at once placed in very suitable insti-
tutions; that the money he had settled on them had
been of great assistance, as it is much easier to place
orphans with some property than destitute ones. He
said something too about Sonia and promised to
come himself in a day or two to see Raskolnikov, men-
tioning that “he would like to consult with him, that
there were things they must talk over . . . ”
This conversation took place in the passage on the
stairs. Svidrigaïlov looked intently at Raskolnikov and
suddenly, after a brief pause, dropping his voice,
asked: “But how is it, Rodion Romanovitch; you don’t
seem yourself? You look and you listen, but you don’t
seem to understand. Cheer up! We’ll talk things over;
I am only sorry, I’ve so much to do of my own busi-

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ness and other people’s. Ah, Rodion Romanovitch,”

he added suddenly, “what all men need is fresh air,
fresh air . . . more than anything!”
He moved to one side to make way for the priest
and server, who were coming up the stairs. They had
come for the requiem service. By Svidrigaïlov’s orders
it was sung twice a day punctually. Svidrigaïlov went
his way. Raskolnikov stood still a moment, thought,
and followed the priest into Sonia’s room. He stood
at the door. They began quietly, slowly and mourn-
fully singing the service. From his childhood the
thought of death and the presence of death had
something oppressive and mysteriously awful; and it
was long since he had heard the requiem service.
And there was something else here as well, too awful
and disturbing. He looked at the children: they were
all kneeling by the coffin; Polenka was weeping.
Behind them Sonia prayed, softly, and, as it were,
timidly weeping.
“These last two days she hasn’t said a word to me,
she hasn’t glanced at me,” Raskolnikov thought sud-
denly. The sunlight was bright in the room; the
incense rose in clouds; the priest read, “Give rest, oh
Lord . . . ” Raskolnikov stayed all through the service.
As he blessed them and took his leave, the priest
looked round strangely. After the service, Raskolnikov
went up to Sonia. She took both his hands and let her
head sink on his shoulder. This slight friendly gesture
bewildered Raskolnikov. It seemed strange to him that

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there was no trace of repugnance, no trace of disgust,

no tremor in her hand. It was the furthest limit of self-
abnegation, at least so he interpreted it.
Sonia said nothing. Raskolnikov pressed her hand
and went out. He felt very miserable. If it had been
possible to escape to some solitude, he would have
thought himself lucky, even if he had to spend his
whole life there. But although he had almost always
been by himself of late, he had never been able to
feel alone. Sometimes he walked out of the town on
to the high road, once he had even reached a little
wood, but the lonelier the place was, the more he
seemed to be aware of an uneasy presence near him.
It did not frighten him, but greatly annoyed him, so
that he made haste to return to the town, to mingle
with the crowd, to enter restaurants and taverns, to
walk in busy thoroughfares. There he felt easier and
even more solitary. One day at dusk he sat for an hour
listening to songs in a tavern and he remembered
that he positively enjoyed it. But at last he had sud-
denly felt the same uneasiness again, as though his
conscience smote him. “Here I sit listening to
singing, is that what I ought to be doing?” he
thought. Yet he felt at once that that was not the only
cause of his uneasiness; there was something requir-
ing immediate decision, but it was something he
could not clearly understand or put into words. It was
a hopeless tangle. “No, better the struggle again!
Better Porfiry again . . . or Svidrigaïlov . . . Better some

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challenge again . . . some attack. Yes, yes!” he thought.

He went out of the tavern and rushed away almost at
a run. The thought of Dounia and his mother sud-
denly reduced him almost to a panic. That night he
woke up before morning among some bushes in
Krestovsky Island, trembling all over with fever; he
walked home, and it was early morning when he
arrived. After some hours’ sleep the fever left him,
but he woke up late, two o’clock in the afternoon.
He remembered that Katerina Ivanovna’s funeral
had been fixed for that day, and was glad that he was
not present at it. Nastasya brought him some food; he
ate and drank with appetite, almost with greediness.
His head was fresher and he was calmer than he had
been for the last three days. He even felt a passing
wonder at his previous attacks of panic.
The door opened and Razumihin came in.
“Ah, he’s eating, then he’s not ill,” said
Razumihin. He took a chair and sat down at the table
opposite Raskolnikov.
He was troubled and did not attempt to conceal it.
He spoke with evident annoyance, but without hurry
or raising his voice. He looked as though he had
some special fixed determination.
“Listen,” he began resolutely. “As far as I am con-
cerned, you may all go to hell, but from what I see, it’s
clear to me that I can’t make head or tail of it; please
don’t think I’ve come to ask you questions. I don’t
want to know, hang it! If you begin telling me your

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secrets, I dare say I shouldn’t stay to listen, I should

go away cursing. I have only come to find out once
for all whether it’s a fact that you are mad? There is a
conviction in the air that you are mad or very nearly
so. I admit I’ve been disposed to that opinion myself,
judging from your stupid, repulsive and quite inexpli-
cable actions, and from your recent behaviour to
your mother and sister. Only a monster or a madman
could treat them as you have; so you must be mad.”
“When did you see them last?”
“Just now. Haven’t you seen them since then?
What have you been doing with yourself? Tell me,
please. I’ve been to you three times already. Your
mother has been seriously ill since yesterday. She had
made up her mind to come to you; Avdotya
Romanovna tried to prevent her; she wouldn’t hear a
word. ‘If he is ill, if his mind is giving way, who can
look after him like his mother?’ she said. We all came
here together, we couldn’t let her come alone all the
way. We kept begging her to be calm. We came in, you
weren’t here; she sat down, and stayed ten minutes,
while we stood waiting in silence. She got up and said:
‘If he’s gone out, that is, if he is well, and has forgot-
ten his mother, it’s humiliating and unseemly for his
mother to stand at his door begging for kindness.’
She returned home and took to her bed; now she is
in a fever. ‘I see,’ she said, ‘that he has time for his
girl.’ She means by your girl Sofya Semyonovna, your
betrothed or your mistress, I don’t know. I went at

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once to Sofya Semyonovna’s, for I wanted to know

what was going on. I looked round, I saw the coffin,
the children crying, and Sofya Semyonovna trying
them on mourning dresses. No sign of you. I apolo-
gised, came away, and reported to Avdotya
Romanovna. So that’s all nonsense and you haven’t
got a girl; the most likely thing is that you are mad.
But here you sit, guzzling boiled beef as though you’d
not had a bite for three days. Though as far as that
goes, madmen eat too, but though you have not said
a word to me yet . . . you are not mad! That I’d swear!
Above all, you are not mad. So you may go to hell, all
of you, for there’s some mystery, some secret about it,
and I don’t intend to worry my brains over your
secrets. So I’ve simply come to swear at you,” he fin-
ished, getting up, “to relieve my mind. And I know
what to do now.”
“What do you mean to do now?”
“What business is it of yours what I mean to do?”
“You are going in for a drinking bout.”
“How . . . how did you know?”
“Why, it’s pretty plain.”
Razumihin paused for a minute.
“You always have been a very rational person and
you’ve never been mad, never,” he observed suddenly
with warmth. “You’re right: I shall drink. Good-bye!”
And he moved to go out.
“I was talking with my sister — the day before yes-
terday I think it was — about you, Razumihin.”

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“About me! But . . . where can you have seen her

the day before yesterday?” Razumihin stopped short
and even turned a little pale.
One could see that his heart was throbbing slowly
and violently.
“She came here by herself, sat there and talked
to me.”
“She did!”
“Yes.”
“What did you say to her . . . I mean, about me?”
“I told her you were a very good, honest, and
industrious man. I didn’t tell her you love her,
because she knows that herself.”
“She knows that herself?”
“Well, it’s pretty plain. Wherever I might go, what-
ever happened to me, you would remain to look after
them. I, so to speak, give them into your keeping,
Razumihin. I say this because I know quite well how
you love her, and am convinced of the purity of your
heart. I know that she too may love you and perhaps
does love you already. Now decide for yourself, as you
know best, whether you need go in for a drinking
bout or not.”
“Rodya! You see . . . well . . . Ach, damn it! But
where do you mean to go? Of course, if it’s all a
secret, never mind . . . But I . . . I shall find out the
secret . . . and I am sure that it must be some ridicu-
lous nonsense and that you’ve made it all up. Anyway
you are a capital fellow, a capital fellow! . . . ”

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“That was just what I wanted to add, only you

interrupted, that that was a very good decision of
yours not to find out these secrets. Leave it to time,
don’t worry about it. You’ll know it all in time when
it must be. Yesterday a man said to me that what a
man needs is fresh air, fresh air, fresh air. I mean to
go to him directly to find out what he meant by
that.”
Razumihin stood lost in thought and excitement,
making a silent conclusion.
“He’s a political conspirator! He must be. And he’s
on the eve of some desperate step, that’s certain. It
can only be that! And . . . and Dounia knows,” he
thought suddenly.
“So Avdotya Romanovna comes to see you,” he
said, weighing each syllable, “and you’re going to see
a man who says we need more air, and so of course
that letter . . . that too must have something to do with
it,” he concluded to himself.
“What letter?”
“She got a letter to-day. It upset her very much —
very much indeed. Too much so. I began speaking of
you, she begged me not to. Then . . . then she said
that perhaps we should very soon have to part . . . then
she began warmly thanking me for something; then
she went to her room and locked herself in.”
“She got a letter?” Raskolnikov asked thoughtfully.
“Yes, and you didn’t know? hm . . . ”
They were both silent.

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 crime and punishment

“Good-bye, Rodion. There was a time, brother,

when I . . . Never mind, good-bye. You see, there was a
time . . . Well, good-bye! I must be off too. I am not
going to drink. There’s no need now . . . That’s all stuff!”
He hurried out; but when he had almost closed
the door behind him, he suddenly opened it again,
and said, looking away:
“Oh, by the way, do you remember that murder,
you know Porfiry’s, that old woman? Do you know the
murderer has been found, he has confessed and
given the proofs. It’s one of those very workmen, the
painter, only fancy! Do you remember I defended
them here? Would you believe it, all that scene of
fighting and laughing with his companion on the
stairs while the porter and the two witnesses were
going up, he got up on purpose to disarm suspicion.
The cunning, the presence of mind of the young
dog! One can hardly credit it; but it’s his own expla-
nation, he has confessed it all. And what a fool I was
about it! Well, he’s simply a genius of hypocrisy and
resourcefulness in disarming the suspicions of the
lawyers — so there’s nothing much to wonder at, I
suppose! Of course people like that are always possi-
ble. And the fact that he couldn’t keep up the charac-
ter, but confessed, makes him easier to believe in. But
what a fool I was! I was frantic on their side!”
“Tell me please from whom did you hear that, and
why does it interest you so?” Raskolnikov asked with
unmistakable agitation.

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“What next? You ask me why it interests me! . . .

Well, I heard it from Porfiry, among others . . . It was
from him I heard almost all about it.”
“From Porfiry?”
“From Porfiry.”
“What . . . what did he say?” Raskolnikov asked in
dismay.
“He gave me a capital explanation of it.
Psychologically, after his fashion.”
“He explained it? Explained it himself?”
“Yes, yes; good-bye. I’ll tell you all about it another
time, but now I’m busy. There was a time when I fan-
cied . . . But no matter, another time! . . . What need is
there for me to drink now? You have made me drunk
without wine. I am drunk, Rodya! Good-bye, I’m
going. I’ll come again very soon.”
He went out.
“He’s a political conspirator, there’s not a doubt
about it,” Razumihin decided, as he slowly descended
the stairs. “And he’s drawn his sister in; that’s quite,
quite in keeping with Avdotya Romanovna’s charac-
ter. There are interviews between them! . . . She
hinted at it too . . . So many of her words . . . and hints .
. . bear that meaning! And how else can all this tangle
be explained? Hm! And I was almost thinking . . .
Good heavens, what I thought! Yes, I took leave of my
senses and I wronged him! It was his doing, under the
lamp in the corridor that day. Pfoo! What a crude,
nasty, vile idea on my part! Nikolay is a brick, for con-

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fessing . . . And how clear it all is now! His illness then,

all his strange actions . . . before this, in the university,
how morose he used to be, how gloomy . . . But what’s
the meaning now of that letter? There’s something in
that, too, perhaps. Whom was it from? I suspect . . . !
No, I must find out!”
He thought of Dounia, realising all he had heard
and his heart throbbed, and he suddenly broke into
a run.
As soon as Razumihin went out, Raskolnikov got
up, turned to the window, walked into one corner
and then into another, as though forgetting the
smallness of his room, and sat down again on the
sofa. He felt, so to speak, renewed; again the struggle,
so a means of escape had come.
“Yes, a means of escape had come! It had been too
stifling, too cramping, the burden had been too ago-
nising. A lethargy had come upon him at times. From
the moment of the scene with Nikolay at Porfiry’s he
had been suffocating, penned in without hope of
escape. After Nikolay’s confession, on that very day
had come the scene with Sonia; his behaviour and his
last words had been utterly unlike anything he could
have imagined beforehand; he had grown feebler,
instantly and fundamentally! And he had agreed at the
time with Sonia, he had agreed in his heart he could
not go on living alone with such a thing on his mind!
“And Svidrigaïlov was a riddle . . . He worried him,
that was true, but somehow not on the same point.

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 fyodor dostoevsky

He might still have a struggle to come with

Svidrigaïlov. Svidrigaïlov, too, might be a means of
escape; but Porfiry was a different matter.
“And so Porfiry himself had explained it to
Razumihin, had explained it psychologically. He had
begun bringing in his damned psychology again!
Porfiry? But to think that Porfiry should for one
moment believe that Nikolay was guilty, after what
had passed between them before Nikolay’s appear-
ance, after that tête-à-tête interview, which could have
only one explanation? (During those days
Raskolnikov had often recalled passages in that scene
with Porfiry; he could not bear to let his mind rest on
it.) Such words, such gestures had passed between
them, they had exchanged such glances, things had
been said in such a tone and had reached such a pass,
that Nikolay, whom Porfiry had seen through at the
first word, at the first gesture, could not have shaken
his conviction.
“And to think that even Razumihin had begun to
suspect! The scene in the corridor under the lamp
had produced its effect then. He had rushed to
Porfiry . . . But what had induced the latter to receive
him like that? What had been his object in putting
Razumihin off with Nikolay? He must have some
plan; there was some design, but what was it? It was
true that a long time had passed since that morning
— too long a time — and no sight nor sound of
Porfiry. Well, that was a bad sign . . . ”

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 crime and punishment

Raskolnikov took his cap and went out of the

room, still pondering. It was the first time for a long
while that he had felt clear in his mind, at least. “I
must settle Svidrigaïlov,” he thought, “and as soon as
possible; he, too, seems to be waiting for me to come
to him of my own accord.” And at that moment there
was such a rush of hate in his weary heart that he
might have killed either of those two — Porfiry or
Svidrigaïlov. At least he felt that he would be capable
of doing it later, if not now.
“We shall see, we shall see,” he repeated to himself.
But no sooner had he opened the door than he
stumbled upon Porfiry himself in the passage. He was
coming in to see him. Raskolnikov was dumbfounded
for a minute, but only for one minute. Strange to say,
he was not very much astonished at seeing Porfiry
and scarcely afraid of him. He was simply startled, but
was quickly, instantly, on his guard. “Perhaps this will
mean the end? But how could Porfiry have
approached so quietly, like a cat, so that he had heard
nothing? Could he have been listening at the door?”
“You didn’t expect a visitor, Rodion
Romanovitch,” Porfiry explained, laughing. “I’ve
been meaning to look in a long time; I was passing by
and thought why not go in for five minutes. Are you
going out? I won’t keep you long. Just let me have
one cigarette.”
“Sit down, Porfiry Petrovitch, sit down.”
Raskolnikov gave his visitor a seat with so pleased and

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 fyodor dostoevsky

friendly an expression that he would have marvelled

at himself, if he could have seen it.
The last moment had come, the last drops had to
be drained! So a man will sometimes go through half
an hour of mortal terror with a brigand, yet when the
knife is at his throat at last, he feels no fear.
Raskolnikov seated himself directly facing Porfiry,
and looked at him without flinching. Porfiry screwed
up his eyes and began lighting a cigarette.
“Speak, speak,” seemed as though it would burst
from Raskolnikov’s heart. “Come, why don’t you
speak?”

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 chapter ii

“Ah, these cigarettes!” Porfiry Petrovitch ejaculated

at last, having lighted one. “They are pernicious, pos-
itively pernicious, and yet I can’t give them up! I
cough, I begin to have tickling in my throat and a dif-
ficulty in breathing. You know I am a coward, I went
lately to Dr. B — n; he always gives at least half an hour
to each patient. He positively laughed looking at me;
he sounded me: ‘Tobacco’s bad for you,’ he said,
‘your lungs are affected.’ But how am I to give it up?
What is there to take its place? I don’t drink, that’s
the mischief, he-he-he, that I don’t. Everything is rel-
ative, Rodion Romanovitch, everything is relative!”
“Why, he’s playing his professional tricks again,”
Raskolnikov thought with disgust. All the circum-
stances of their last interview suddenly came back to
him, and he felt a rush of the feeling that had come
upon him then.
“I came to see you the day before yesterday, in the
evening; you didn’t know?” Porfiry Petrovitch went on,

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 fyodor dostoevsky

looking round the room. “I came into this very room. I

was passing by, just as I did to-day, and I thought I’d
return your call. I walked in as your door was wide open,
I looked round, waited and went out without leaving my
name with your servant. Don’t you lock your door?”
Raskolnikov’s face grew more and more gloomy.
Porfiry seemed to guess his state of mind.
“I’ve come to have it out with you, Rodion
Romanovitch, my dear fellow! I owe you an explana-
tion and must give it to you,” he continued with a
slight smile, just patting Raskolnikov’s knee.
But almost at the same instant a serious and care-
worn look came into his face; to his surprise Raskolnikov
saw a touch of sadness in it. He had never seen and
never suspected such an expression in his face.
“A strange scene passed between us last time we
met, Rodion Romanovitch. Our first interview, too,
was a strange one; but then . . . and one thing after
another! This is the point: I have perhaps acted
unfairly to you; I feel it. Do you remember how we
parted? Your nerves were unhinged and your knees
were shaking and so were mine. And, you know, our
behaviour was unseemly, even ungentlemanly. And
yet we are gentlemen, above all, in any case, gentle-
men; that must be understood. Do you remember
what we came to? . . . it was quite indecorous.”
“What is he up to, what does he take me for?”
Raskolnikov asked himself in amazement, raising his
head and looking with open eyes on Porfiry.

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 crime and punishment

“I’ve decided openness is better between us,”

Porfiry Petrovitch went on, turning his head away
and dropping his eyes, as though unwilling to discon-
cert his former victim and as though disdaining his
former wiles. “Yes, such suspicions and such scenes
cannot continue for long. Nikolay put a stop to it, or
I don’t know what we might not have come to. That
damned workman was sitting at the time in the next
room — can you realise that? You know that, of
course; and I am aware that he came to you after-
wards. But what you supposed then was not true: I
had not sent for any one, I had made no kind of
arrangements. You ask why I hadn’t? What shall I say
to you: it had all come upon me so suddenly. I had
scarcely sent for the porters (you noticed them as you
went out, I dare say). An idea flashed upon me; I was
firmly convinced at the time, you see, Rodion
Romanovitch. Come, I thought — even if I let one
thing slip for a time, I shall get hold of something else
— I shan’t lose what I want, anyway. You are nervously
irritable, Rodion Romanovitch, by temperament; it’s
out of proportion with other qualities of your heart
and character, which I flatter myself I have to some
extent divined. Of course I did reflect even then that
it does not always happen that a man gets up and
blurts out his whole story. It does happen sometimes,
if you make a man lose all patience, though even
then it’s rare. I was capable of realising that. If I only
had a fact, I thought, the least little fact to go upon,

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 fyodor dostoevsky

something I could lay hold of, something tangible,

not merely psychological. For if a man is guilty, you
must be able to get something substantial out of him;
one may reckon upon most surprising results indeed.
I was reckoning on your temperament, Rodion
Romanovitch, on your temperament above all things!
I had great hopes of you at that time.”
“But what are you driving at now?” Raskolnikov
muttered at last, asking the question without thinking.
“What is he talking about?” he wondered distract-
edly, “does he really take me to be innocent?”
“What am I driving at? I’ve come to explain myself,
I consider it my duty, so to speak. I want to make clear
to you how the whole business, the whole misunder-
standing arose. I’ve caused you a great deal of suffer-
ing, Rodion Romanovitch. I am not a monster. I
understand what it must mean for a man who has
been unfortunate, but who is proud, imperious and
above all, impatient, to have to bear such treatment! I
regard you in any case as a man of noble character
and not without elements of magnanimity, though I
don’t agree with all your convictions. I wanted to tell
you this first, frankly and quite sincerely, for above all
I don’t want to deceive you. When I made your
acquaintance, I felt attracted by you. Perhaps you will
laugh at my saying so. You have a right to. I know you
disliked me from the first and indeed you’ve no rea-
son to like me. You may think what you like, but I
desire now to do all I can to efface that impression

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and to show that I am a man of heart and conscience.

I speak sincerely.”
Porfiry Petrovitch made a dignified pause.
Raskolnikov felt a rush of renewed alarm. The
thought that Porfiry believed him to be innocent
began to make him uneasy.
“It’s scarcely necessary to go over everything in
detail,” Porfiry Petrovitch went on. “Indeed I could
scarcely attempt it. To begin with there were
rumours. Through whom, how, and when those
rumours came to me . . . and how they affected you, I
need not go into. My suspicions were aroused by a
complete accident, which might just as easily not
have happened. What was it? Hm! I believe there is
no need to go into that either. Those rumours and
that accident led to one idea in my mind. I admit it
openly — for one may as well make a clean breast of it
— I was the first to pitch on you. The old woman’s
notes on the pledges and the rest of it — that all came
to nothing. Yours was one of a hundred. I happened,
too, to hear of the scene at the office, from a man
who described it capitally, unconsciously reproduc-
ing the scene with great vividness. It was just one
thing after another, Rodion Romanovitch, my dear
fellow! How could I avoid being brought to certain
ideas? From a hundred rabbits you can’t make a
horse, a hundred suspicions don’t make a proof, as
the English proverb says, but that’s only from the
rational point of view — you can’t help being partial,

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 fyodor dostoevsky

for after all a lawyer is only human. I thought, too, of

your article in that journal, do you remember, on
your first visit we talked of it? I jeered at you at the
time, but that was only to lead you on. I repeat,
Rodion Romanovitch, you are ill and impatient.
That you were bold, headstrong, in earnest and . . .
had felt a great deal I recognised long before. I, too,
have felt the same, so that your article seemed famil-
iar to me. It was conceived on sleepless nights, with a
throbbing heart, in ecstasy and suppressed enthusi-
asm. And that proud suppressed enthusiasm in
young people is dangerous! I jeered at you then, but
let me tell you that, as a literary amateur, I am awfully
fond of such first essays, full of the heat of youth.
There is a mistiness and a chord vibrating in the
mist. Your article is absurd and fantastic, but there’s
a transparent sincerity, a youthful incorruptible
pride and the daring of despair in it. It’s a gloomy
article, but that’s what’s fine in it. I read your article
and put it aside, thinking as I did so ‘that man won’t
go the common way.’ Well, I ask you, after that as a
preliminary, how could I help being carried away by
what followed? Oh, dear, I am not saying anything, I
am not making any statement now. I simply noted it
at the time. What is there in it? I reflected. There’s
nothing in it, that is really nothing and perhaps
absolutely nothing. And it’s not at all the thing for
the prosecutor to let himself be carried away by
notions: here I have Nikolay on my hands with actual

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evidence against him — you may think what you like

of it, but it’s evidence. He brings in his psychology,
too; one has to consider him, too, for it’s a matter of
life and death. Why am I explaining this to you? That
you may understand, and not blame my malicious
behaviour on that occasion. It was not malicious, I
assure you, he-he! Do you suppose I didn’t come to
search your room at the time? I did, I did, he-he! I
was here when you were lying ill in bed, not officially,
not in my own person, but I was here. Your room was
searched to the last thread at the first suspicion; but
umsonst! I thought to myself, now that man will
come, will come of himself and quickly, too; if he’s
guilty, he’s sure to come. Another man wouldn’t but
he will. And you remember how Mr. Razumihin
began discussing the subject with you? We arranged
that to excite you, so we purposely spread rumours,
that he might discuss the case with you, and
Razumihin is not a man to restrain his indignation.
Mr. Zametov was tremendously struck by your anger
and your open daring. Think of blurting out in a
restaurant ‘I killed her.’ It was too daring, too reck-
less. I thought so myself, if he is guilty he will be a
formidable opponent. That was what I thought at the
time. I was expecting you. But you simply bowled
Zametov over and . . . well, you see, it all lies in this —
that this damnable psychology can be taken two
ways! Well, I kept expecting you, and so it was, you
came! My heart was fairly throbbing. Ach!

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“Now, why need you have come? Your laughter, too,

as you came in, do you remember? I saw it all plain as
daylight, but if I hadn’t expected you so specially, I
should not have noticed anything in your laughter. You
see what influence a mood has! Mr. Razumihin then —
ah, that stone, that stone under which the things were
hidden! I seem to see it somewhere in a kitchen gar-
den. It was in a kitchen garden, you told Zametov and
afterwards you repeated that in my office? And when
we began picking your article to pieces, how you
explained it! One could take every word of yours in two
senses, as though there were another meaning hidden.
“So in this way, Rodion Romanovitch, I reached
the furthest limit, and knocking my head against a
post, I pulled myself up, asking myself what I was
about. After all, I said, you can take it all in another
sense if you like, and it’s more natural so, indeed. I
couldn’t help admitting it was more natural. I was
bothered! ‘No, I’d better get hold of some little fact,’
I said. So when I heard of the bell-ringing, I held my
breath and was all in a tremor. ‘Here is my little fact,’
thought I, and I didn’t think it over, I simply would-
n’t. I would have given a thousand roubles at that
minute to have seen you with my own eyes, when you
walked a hundred paces beside that workman, after
he had called you murderer to your face, and you did
not dare to ask him a question all the way. And then
what about your trembling, what about your bell-ring-
ing in your illness, in semi-delirium?

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“And so, Rodion Romanovitch, can you wonder

that I played such pranks on you? And what made you
come at that very minute? Some one seemed to have
sent you, by Jove! And if Nikolay had not parted us . . .
and do you remember Nikolay at the time? Do you
remember him clearly? It was a thunderbolt, a regu-
lar thunderbolt! And how I met him! I didn’t believe
in the thunderbolt, not for a minute. You could see it
for yourself; and how could I? Even afterwards, when
you had gone and he began making very, very plausi-
ble answers on certain points, so that I was surprised
at him myself, even then I didn’t believe his story! You
see what it is to be as firm as a rock! No, thought I,
morgen früh. What has Nikolay got to do with it!”
“Razumihin told me just now that you think
Nikolay guilty and had yourself assured him of it . . .”
His voice failed him, and he broke off. He had
been listening in indescribable agitation, as this man
who had seen through and through him went back
upon himself. He was afraid of believing it and did
not believe it. In those still ambiguous words he kept
eagerly looking for something more definite and
conclusive.
“Mr. Razumihin!” cried Porfiry Petrovitch, seem-
ing glad of a question from Raskolnikov, who had till
then been silent. “He-he-he! But I had to put Mr.
Razumihin off; two is company, three is none. Mr.
Razumihin is not the right man, besides he is an out-
sider. He came running to me with a pale face . . . But

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 fyodor dostoevsky

never mind him, why bring him in! To return to

Nikolay, would you like to know what sort of a type he
is, how I understand him, that is? To begin with, he is
still a child and not exactly a coward, but something
by way of an artist. Really, don’t laugh at my describ-
ing him so. He is innocent and responsive to influ-
ence. He has a heart, and is a fantastic fellow. He
sings and dances, he tells stories, they say, so that peo-
ple come from other villages to hear him. He attends
school too, and laughs till he cries if you hold up a
finger to him; he will drink himself senseless — not as
a regular vice, but at times, when people treat him,
like a child. And he stole, too, then, without knowing
it himself, for ‘How can it be stealing, if one picks it
up?’ And do you know he is an Old Believer, or rather
a dissenter? There have been Wanderers1 in his fam-
ily, and he was for two years in his village under the
spiritual guidance of a certain elder. I learnt all this
from Nikolay and from his fellow villagers. And
what’s more, he wanted to run into the wilderness!
He was full of fervour, prayed at night, read the old
books, ‘the true’ ones, and read himself crazy.
“Petersburg had a great effect upon him, espe-
cially the women and the wine. He responds to every-
thing and he forgot the elder and all that. I learnt
that an artist here took a fancy to him, and used to go
and see him, and now this business came upon him.

1
A religious sect. —TRANSLATOR’S NOTE.

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 crime and punishment

“Well, he was frightened, he tried to hang himself!

He ran away! How can one get over the idea the peo-
ple have of Russian legal proceedings! The very word
‘trial’ frightens some of them. Whose fault is it? We
shall see what the new juries will do. God grant they
do good! Well, in prison, it seems, he remembered
the venerable elder, the Bible, too, made its appear-
ance again. Do you know, Rodion Romanovitch, the
force of the word ‘suffering’ among some of these
people! It’s not a question of suffering for some one’s
benefit, but simply, ‘one must suffer.’ If they suffer at
the hands of the authorities, so much the better. In
my time there was a very meek and mild prisoner who
spent a whole year in prison always reading his Bible
on the stove at night and he read himself crazy, and
so crazy, do you know, that one day, apropos of noth-
ing, he seized a brick and flung it at the governor,
though he had done him no harm. And the way he
threw it too: aimed it a yard on one side on purpose,
for fear of hurting him. Well, we know what happens
to a prisoner who assaults an officer with a weapon.
So ‘he took his suffering.’
“So I suspect now that Nikolay wants to take his
suffering or something of the sort. I know it for cer-
tain from facts, indeed. Only he doesn’t know that I
know. What, you don’t admit that there are such fan-
tastic people among the peasants? Lots of them. The
elder now has begun influencing him, especially
since he tried to hang himself. But he’ll come and

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 fyodor dostoevsky

tell me all himself. You think he’ll hold out? Wait a

bit, he’ll take his words back. I am waiting from hour
to hour for him to come and abjure his evidence. I
have come to like that Nikolay and am studying him
in detail. And what do you think? He-he! He
answered me very plausibly on some points, he obvi-
ously had collected some evidence and prepared
himself cleverly. But on other points he is simply at
sea, knows nothing and doesn’t even suspect that he
doesn’t know!
“No, Rodion Romanovitch, Nikolay doesn’t come
in! This is a fantastic, gloomy business, a modern
case, an incident of to-day when the heart of man is
troubled, when the phrase is quoted that blood
‘renews,’ when comfort is preached as the aim of life.
Here we have bookish dreams, a heart unhinged by
theories. Here we see resolution in the first stage, but
resolution of a special kind: he resolved to do it like
jumping over a precipice or from a bell tower and his
legs shook as he went to the crime. He forgot to shut
the door after him, and murdered two people for a
theory. He committed the murder and couldn’t take
the money, and what he did manage to snatch up he
hid under a stone. It wasn’t enough for him to suffer
agony behind the door while they battered at the
door and rung the bell, no, he had to go to the empty
lodging, half delirious, to recall the bell-ringing, he
wanted to feel the cold shiver over again . . . Well, that
we grant, was through illness, but consider this: he is

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a murderer, but looks upon himself as an honest

man, despises others, poses as injured innocence. No,
that’s not the work of a Nikolay, my dear Rodion
Romanovitch!”
All that had been said before had sounded so like
a recantation that these words were too great a shock.
Raskolnikov shuddered as though he had been
stabbed.
“Then . . . who then . . . is the murderer?” he asked
in a breathless voice, unable to restrain himself.
Porfiry Petrovitch sank back in his chair, as though
he were amazed at the question.
“Who is the murderer?” he repeated, as though
unable to believe his ears. “Why you, Rodion
Romanovitch! You are the murderer,” he added in a
whisper in a voice of genuine conviction.
Raskolnikov leapt from the sofa, stood up for a few
seconds and sat down again without uttering a word.
His face twitched convulsively.
“Your lip is twitching just as it did before,” Porfiry
Petrovitch observed almost sympathetically. “You’ve
been misunderstanding me, I think, Rodion
Romanovitch,” he added after a brief pause, “that’s
why you are so surprised. I came on purpose to tell
you everything and deal openly with you.”
“It was not I murdered her,” Raskolnikov whis-
pered like a frightened child caught in the act.
“No, it was you, you Rodion Romanovitch, and no
one else,” Porfiry whispered sternly, with conviction.

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 fyodor dostoevsky

They were both silent and the silence lasted

strangely long, about ten minutes. Raskolnikov put
his elbow on the table and passed his fingers through
his hair. Porfiry Petrovitch sat quietly waiting.
Suddenly Raskolnikov looked scornfully at Porfiry.
“You are at your old tricks again, Porfiry
Petrovitch! Your old method again. I wonder you
don’t get sick of it!”
“Oh, stop that, what does that matter now? It
would be a different matter if there were witnesses
present, but we are whispering alone. You see your-
self that I have not come to chase and capture you
like a hare. Whether you confess it or not is nothing
to me now; for myself, I am convinced without it.”
“If so, what did you come for?” Raskolnikov asked
irritably. “I ask you the same question again: if you
consider me guilty, why don’t you take me to prison?”
“Oh, that’s your question! I will answer you, point
for point. In the first place, to arrest you so directly is
not to my interest.”
“How so? If you are convinced you ought . . .”
“Ach, what if I am convinced? That’s only my
dream for the time. Why should I put you in safety?
You know that’s it, since you ask me to do it. If I con-
front you with that workman for instance and you say
to him ‘were you drunk or not? Who saw me with
you? I simply took you to be drunk, and you were
drunk, too.’ Well, what could I answer, especially as
your story is a more likely one than his, for there’s

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nothing but psychology to support his evidence —

that’s almost unseemly with his ugly mug, while you
hit the mark exactly, for the rascal is an inveterate
drunkard and notoriously so. And I have myself
admitted candidly several times already that that psy-
chology can be taken in two ways and that the second
way is stronger and looks far more probable, and that
apart from that I have as yet nothing against you. And
though I shall put you in prison and indeed have
come — quite contrary to etiquette — to inform you of
it beforehand, yet I tell you frankly, also contrary to
etiquette, that it won’t be to my advantage. Well, sec-
ondly, I’ve come to you because . . .”
“Yes, yes, secondly?” Raskolnikov was listening
breathless.
“Because, as I told you just now, I consider I owe
you an explanation. I don’t want you to look upon me
as a monster, as I have a genuine liking for you, you
may believe me or not. And in the third place I’ve
come to you with a direct and open proposition —
that you should surrender and confess. It will be infi-
nitely more to your advantage and to my advantage
too, for my task will be done. Well, is this open on my
part or not?”
Raskolnikov thought a minute.
“Listen, Porfiry Petrovitch. You said just now you
have nothing but psychology to go on, yet now you’ve
gone on to mathematics. Well, what if you are mis-
taken yourself, now?”

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“No, Rodion Romanovitch, I am not mistaken. I

have a little fact even then, providence sent it me.”
“What little fact?”
“I won’t tell you what, Rodion Romanovitch. And
in any case, I haven’t the right to put it off any longer,
I must arrest you. So think it over: it makes no differ-
ence to me now and so I speak only for your sake.
Believe me, it will be better, Rodion Romanovitch.”
Raskolnikov smiled malignantly.
“That’s not simply ridiculous, it’s positively shame-
less. Why, even if I were guilty, which I don’t admit,
what reason should I have to confess, when you tell
me yourself that I shall be in greater safety in prison?”
“Ah, Rodion Romanovitch, don’t put too much
faith in words, perhaps prison will not be altogether
a restful place. That’s only theory and my theory, and
what authority am I for you? Perhaps, too, even now
I am hiding something from you? I can’t lay bare
everything, he-he! And how can you ask what advan-
tage? Don’t you know how it would lessen your sen-
tence? You would be confessing at a moment when
another man has taken the crime on himself and so
has muddled the whole case. Consider that! I swear
before God that I will so arrange that your confes-
sion shall come as a complete surprise. We will make
a clean sweep of all these psychological points, of all
suspicion against you, so that your crime will appear
to have been something like an aberration, for in

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truth it was an aberration. I am an honest man,

Rodion Romanovitch, and will keep my word.”
Raskolnikov maintained a mournful silence and
let his head sink dejectedly. He pondered a long
while and at last smiled again, but his smile was sad
and gentle.
“No!” he said, apparently abandoning all attempt
to keep up appearances with Porfiry, “it’s not worth it,
I don’t care about lessening the sentence!”
“That’s just what I was afraid of!” Porfiry cried
warmly and, as it seemed, involuntarily. “That’s just
what I feared, that you wouldn’t care about the miti-
gation of sentence.”
Raskolnikov looked sadly and expressively at him.
“Ah, don’t disdain life!” Porfiry went on. “You
have a great deal of it still before you. How can you
say you don’t want a mitigation of sentence? You are
an impatient fellow!”
“A great deal of what lies before me?”
“Of life. What sort of prophet are you, do you
know much about it? Seek and ye shall find. This may
be God’s means for bringing you to Him. And it’s not
for ever, the bondage . . . ”
“The time will be shortened,” laughed Raskolnikov.
“Why, is it the bourgeois disgrace you are afraid
of? It may be that you are afraid of it without knowing
it, because you are young! But anyway you shouldn’t
be afraid of giving yourself up and confessing.”

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“Ach, hang it!” Raskolnikov whispered with

loathing and contempt, as though he did not want to
speak aloud.
He got up again as though he meant to go away,
but sat down again in evident despair.
“Hang it, if you like! You’ve lost faith and you
think that I am grossly flattering you; but how long
has your life been? How much do you understand?
You made up a theory and then were ashamed that it
broke down and turned out to be not at all original!
It turned out something base, that’s true, but you are
not hopelessly base. By no means so base! At least you
didn’t deceive yourself for long, you went straight to
the furthest point at one bound. How do I regard
you? I regard you as one of those men who would
stand and smile at their torturer while he cuts their
entrails out, if only they have found faith or God.
Find it and you will live. You have long needed a
change of air. Suffering, too, is a good thing. Suffer!
Maybe Nikolay is right in wanting to suffer. I know
you don’t believe in it — but don’t be over-wise; fling
yourself straight into life, without deliberation; don’t
be afraid — the flood will bear you to the bank and set
you safe on your feet again. What bank? How can I
tell? I only believe that you have long life before you.
I know that you take all my words now for a set speech
prepared beforehand, but maybe you will remember
them after. They may be of use some time. That’s why
I speak. It’s as well that you only killed the old

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woman. If you’d invented another theory you might

perhaps have done something a thousand times more
hideous. You ought to thank God, perhaps. How do
you know? Perhaps God is saving you for something.
But keep a good heart and have less fear! Are you
afraid of the great expiation before you? No, it would
be shameful to be afraid of it. Since you have taken
such a step, you must harden your heart. There is jus-
tice in it. You must fulfil the demands of justice. I
know that you don’t believe it, but indeed, life will
bring you through. You will live it down in time. What
you need now is fresh air, fresh air, fresh air!”
Raskolnikov positively started.
“But who are you? what prophet are you? From the
height of what majestic calm do you proclaim these
words of wisdom?”
“Who am I? I am a man with nothing to hope for,
that’s all. A man perhaps of feeling and sympathy,
maybe of some knowledge too, but my day is over. But
you are a different matter, there is life waiting for you.
Though who knows, maybe your life, too, will pass off
in smoke and come to nothing. Come, what does it
matter, that you will pass into another class of men?
It’s not comfort you regret, with your heart! What of
it that perhaps no one will see you for so long? It’s not
time, but yourself that will decide that. Be the sun
and all will see you. The sun has before all to be the
sun. Why are you smiling again? At my being such a
Schiller? I bet you’re imagining that I am trying to get

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 fyodor dostoevsky

round you by flattery. Well, perhaps I am, he-he-he!

Perhaps you’d better not believe my word, perhaps
you’d better never believe it altogether, — I’m made
that way, I confess it. But let me add, you can judge
for yourself, I think, how far I am a base sort of man
and how far I am honest.”
“When do you mean to arrest me?”
“Well, I can let you walk about another day or two.
Think it over, my dear fellow, and pray to God. It’s
more in your interest, believe me.”
“And what if I run away?” asked Raskolnikov with a
strange smile.
“No, you won’t run away. A peasant would run away,
a fashionable dissenter would run away, the flunkey of
another man’s thought, for you’ve only to show him
the end of your little finger and he’ll be ready to
believe in anything for the rest of his life. But you’ve
ceased to believe in your theory already, what will you
run away with? And what would you do in hiding? It
would be hateful and difficult for you, and what you
need more than anything in life is a definite position,
an atmosphere to suit you. And what sort of atmos-
phere would you have? If you ran away, you’d come
back to yourself. You can’t get on without us. And if I put
you in prison, — say you’ve been there a month, or two,
or three — remember my word, you’ll confess of your-
self and perhaps to your own surprise. You won’t know
an hour beforehand that you are coming with a con-
fession. I am convinced that you will decide, ‘to take

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your suffering.’ You don’t believe my words now, but

you’ll come to it of yourself. For suffering, Rodion
Romanovitch, is a great thing. Never mind my having
grown fat, I know all the same. Don’t laugh at it, there’s
an idea in suffering, Nikolay is right. No, you won’t run
away, Rodion Romanovitch.”
Raskolnikov got up and took his cap. Porfiry
Petrovitch also rose.
“Are you going for a walk? The evening will be
fine, if only we don’t have a storm. Though it would
be a good thing to freshen the air.”
He too took his cap.
“Porfiry Petrovitch, please don’t take up the
notion that I have confessed to you to-day,”
Raskolnikov pronounced with sullen insistence.
“You’re a strange man and I have listened to you from
simple curiosity. But I have admitted nothing,
remember that!”
“Oh, I know that, I’ll remember. Look at him, he’s
trembling! Don’t be uneasy, my dear fellow, have it
your own way. Walk about a bit, you won’t be able to
walk too far. If anything happens, I have one request
to make of you,” he added, dropping his voice. “It’s
an awkward one, but important. If anything were to
happen (though indeed I don’t believe in it and
think you quite incapable of it), yet in case you were
taken during these forty or fifty hours with the notion
of putting an end to the business in some other way,
in some fantastic fashion — laying hands on yourself

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 fyodor dostoevsky

— (it’s an absurd proposition, but you must forgive

me for it) do leave a brief but precise note, only two
lines and mention the stone. It will be more gener-
ous. Come, till we meet! Good thoughts and sound
decisions to you!”
Porfiry went out, stooping and avoiding looking at
Raskolnikov. The latter went to the window and
waited with irritable impatience till he calculated that
Porfiry had reached the street and moved away. Then
he too went hurriedly out of the room.

714
 chapter iii

He hurried to Svidrigaïlov’s. What he had to hope

from that man he did not know. But that man had
some hidden power over him. Having once recognised
this, he could not rest, and now the time had come.
On the way, one question particularly worried
him: had Svidrigaïlov been to Porfiry’s?
As far as he could judge, he would swear to it, that
he had not. He pondered again and again, went over
Porfiry’s visit; no, he hadn’t been, of course he hadn’t.
But if he had not been yet, would he go?
Meanwhile, for the present he fancied he couldn’t.
Why? He could not have explained, but if he could,
he would not have wasted much thought over it at the
moment. It all worried him and at the same time he
could not attend to it. Strange to say, none would
have believed it perhaps, but he only felt a faint vague
anxiety about his immediate future. Another, much
more important anxiety tormented him — it con-
cerned himself, but in a different, more vital way.

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Moreover, he was conscious of immense moral

fatigue, though his mind was working better that
morning than it had done of late.
And was it worth while, after all that had hap-
pened, to contend with these new trivial difficulties?
Was it worth while, for instance, to manœuvre that
Svidrigaïlov should not go to Porfiry’s? Was it worth
while to investigate, to ascertain the facts, to waste
time over any one like Svidrigaïlov?
Oh how sick he was of it all!
And yet he was hastening to Svidrigaïlov; could he
be expecting something new from him, information,
or means of escape? Men will catch at straws! Was it
destiny or some instinct bringing them together?
Perhaps it was only fatigue, despair; perhaps it was
not Svidrigaïlov but some other whom he needed,
and Svidrigaïlov had simply presented himself by
chance. Sonia? But what should he go to Sonia for
now? To beg her tears again? He was afraid of Sonia,
too. Sonia stood before him as an irrevocable sen-
tence. He must go his own way or hers. At that
moment especially he did not feel equal to seeing
her. No, would it not be better to try Svidrigaïlov?
And he could not help inwardly owning that he had
long felt that he must see him for some reason.
But what could they have in common? Their very
evil-doing could not be of the same kind. The man,
moreover, was very unpleasant, evidently depraved,
undoubtedly cunning and deceitful, possibly malig-

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nant. Such stories were told about him. It is true he

was befriending Katerina Ivanovna’s children, but
who could tell with what motive and what it meant?
The man always had some design, some project.
There was another thought which had been con-
tinually hovering of late about Raskolnikov’s mind,
and causing him great uneasiness. It was so painful
that he made distinct efforts to get rid of it. He some-
times thought that Svidrigaïlov was dogging his foot-
steps. Svidrigaïlov had found out his secret and had
had designs on Dounia. What if he had them still?
Wasn’t it practically certain that he had? And what if,
having learnt his secret and so having gained power
over him, he were to use it as a weapon against
Dounia?
This idea sometimes even tormented his dreams,
but it had never presented itself so vividly to him as
on his way to Svidrigaïlov. The very thought moved
him to gloomy rage. To begin with, this would trans-
form everything, even his own position; he would
have at once to confess his secret to Dounia. Would
he have to give himself up perhaps to prevent Dounia
from taking some rash step? The letter? This morn-
ing Dounia had received a letter. From whom could
she get letters in Petersburg? Luzhin, perhaps? It’s
true Razumihin was there to protect her; but
Razumihin knew nothing of the position. Perhaps it
was his duty to tell Razumihin? He thought of it with
repugnance.

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 fyodor dostoevsky

In any case he must see Svidrigaïlov as soon as pos-

sible, he decided finally. Thank God, the details of
the interview were of little consequence, if only he
could get at the root of the matter; but if Svidrigaïlov
were capable . . . if he were intriguing against Dounia,
— then . . .
Raskolnikov was so exhausted by what he had
passed through that month that he could only decide
such questions in one way; “then I shall kill him,” he
thought in cold despair.
A sudden anguish oppressed his heart, he stood
still in the middle of the street and began looking
about to see where he was and which way he was
going. He found himself in X. Prospect, thirty or
forty paces from the Hay Market, through which he
had come. The whole second storey of the house on
the left was used as a tavern. All the windows were
wide open; judging from the figures moving at the
windows, the rooms were full to overflowing. There
were sounds of singing, of clarionet and violin, and
the boom of a Turkish drum. He could hear women
shrieking. He was about to turn back wondering why
he had come to the X. Prospect, when suddenly at
one of the end windows he saw Svidrigaïlov, sitting at
a tea-table right in the open window with a pipe in his
mouth. Raskolnikov was dreadfully taken aback,
almost terrified. Svidrigaïlov was silently watching
and scrutinising him and, what struck Raskolnikov at
once, seemed to be meaning to get up and slip away

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unobserved. Raskolnikov at once pretended not to

have seen him, but to be looking absentmindedly
away, while he watched him out of the corner of his
eye. His heart was beating violently. Yet, it was evident
that Svidrigaïlov did not want to be seen. He took the
pipe out of his mouth and was on the point of con-
cealing himself, but as he got up and moved back his
chair, he seemed to have become suddenly aware that
Raskolnikov had seen him, and was watching him.
What had passed between them was much the same as
what happened at their first meeting in Raskolnikov’s
room. A sly smile came into Svidrigaïlov’s face and
grew broader and broader. Each knew that he was
seen and watched by the other. At last Svidrigaïlov
broke into a loud laugh.
“Well, well, come in if you want me; I am here!” he
shouted from the window.
Raskolnikov went up into the tavern. He found
Svidrigaïlov in a tiny back room, adjoining the saloon
in which merchants, clerks and numbers of people of
all sorts were drinking tea at twenty little tables to the
desperate bawling of a chorus of singers. The click of
billiard balls could be heard in the distance. On the
table before Svidrigaïlov stood an open bottle, and a
glass half full of champagne. In the room he found
also a boy with a little hand organ, a healthy-looking
red-cheeked girl of eighteen, wearing a tucked-up
striped skirt, and a Tyrolese hat with ribbons. In spite
of the chorus in the other room, she was singing

719
 fyodor dostoevsky

some servants’ hall song in a rather husky contralto,

to the accompaniment of the organ.
“Come, that’s enough,” Svidrigaïlov stopped her at
Raskolnikov’s entrance. The girl at once broke off
and stood waiting respectfully. She had sung her gut-
tural rhymes, too, with a serious and respectful
expression in her face.
“Hey, Philip, a glass!” shouted Svidrigaïlov.
“I won’t drink anything,” said Raskolnikov.
“As you like, I didn’t mean it for you. Drink, Katia! I
don’t want anything more to-day, you can go.” He
poured her out a full glass, and laid down a yellow note.
Katia drank off her glass of wine, as women do,
without putting it down, in twenty gulps, took the
note and kissed Svidrigaïlov’s hand, which he
allowed quite seriously. She went out of the room
and the boy trailed after her with the organ. Both
had been brought in from the street. Svidrigaïlov
had not been a week in Petersburg, but everything
about him was already, so to speak, on a patriarchal
footing; the waiter, Philip, was by now an old friend
and very obsequious.
The door leading to the saloon had a lock on it.
Svidrigaïlov was at home in this room and perhaps
spent whole days in it. The tavern was dirty and
wretched, not even second rate.
“I was going to see you and looking for you,”
Raskolnikov began, “but I don’t know what made me
turn from the Hay Market into the X. Prospect just

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now. I never take this turning. I turn to the right from

the Hay Market. And this isn’t the way to you. I simply
turned and here you are. It is strange!”
“Why don’t you say at once ‘it’s a miracle’?”
“Because it may be only chance.”
“Oh, that’s the way with all you folk,” laughed
Svidrigaïlov. “You won’t admit it, even if you do
inwardly believe it a miracle! Here you say that it may
be only chance. And what cowards they all are here,
about having an opinion of their own, you can’t
fancy, Rodion Romanovitch. I don’t mean you, you
have an opinion of your own and are not afraid to
have it. That’s how it was you attracted my curiosity.”
“Nothing else?”
“Well, that’s enough, you know,” Svidrigaïlov was
obviously exhilarated, but only slightly so, he had not
had more than half a glass of wine.
“I fancy you came to see me before you knew that I
was capable of having what you call an opinion of my
own,” observed Raskolnikov.
“Oh, well, it was a different matter. Every one has
his own plans. And apropos of the miracle let me tell
you that I think you have been asleep for the last two
or three days. I told you of this tavern myself, there is
no miracle in your coming straight here. I explained
the way myself, told you where it was, and the hours
you could find me here. Do you remember?”
“I don’t remember,” answered Raskolnikov with
surprise.

721
 fyodor dostoevsky

“I believe you. I told you twice. The address has

been stamped mechanically on your memory. You
turned this way mechanically and yet precisely accord-
ing to the direction, though you are not aware of it.
When I told you then, I hardly hoped you understood
me. You give yourself away too much, Rodion
Romanovitch. And another thing, I’m convinced
there are lots of people in Petersburg who talk to
themselves as they walk. This is a town of crazy people.
If only we had scientific men, doctors, lawyers and
philosophers might make most valuable investigations
in Petersburg each in his own line. There are few
places where there are so many gloomy, strong and
queer influences on the soul of man as in Petersburg.
The mere influences of climate mean so much. And
it’s the administrative centre of all Russia and its char-
acter must be reflected on the whole country. But that
is neither here nor there now. The point is that I have
several times watched you. You walk out of your house
— holding your head high — twenty paces from home
you let it sink, and fold your hands behind your back.
You look and evidently see nothing before nor beside
you. At last you begin moving your lips and talking to
yourself, and sometimes you wave one hand and
declaim, and at last stand still in the middle of the
road. That’s not at all the thing. Some one may be
watching you besides me, and it won’t do you any
good. It’s nothing really to do with me and I can’t cure
you, but, of course, you understand me.”

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 crime and punishment

“Do you know that I am being followed?” asked

Raskolnikov, looking inquisitively at him.
“No, I know nothing about it,” said Svidrigaïlov,
seeming surprised.
“Well, then, let us leave me alone,” Raskolnikov
muttered, frowning.
“Very good, let us leave you alone.”
“You had better tell me, if you come here to drink,
and directed me twice to come here to you, why did
you hide, and try to get away just now when I looked
at the window from the street? I saw it.”
“He-he! And why was it you lay on your sofa with
closed eyes and pretended to be asleep, though you
were wide awake while I stood in your doorway? I saw it.”
“I may have had . . . reasons. You know that yourself.”
“And I may have had my reasons, though you
don’t know them.”
Raskolnikov dropped his right elbow on the
table, leaned his chin in the fingers of his right
hand, and stared intently at Svidrigaïlov. For a full
minute he scrutinised his face, which had impressed
him before. It was a strange face, like a mask; white
and red, with bright red lips, with a flaxen beard,
and still thick flaxen hair. His eyes were somehow
too blue and their expression somehow too heavy
and fixed. There was something awfully unpleasant
in that handsome face, which looked so wonderfully
young for his age. Svidrigaïlov was smartly dressed in
light summer clothes and was particularly dainty in

723
 fyodor dostoevsky

his linen. He wore a huge ring with a precious stone

in it.
“Have I got to bother myself about you too now?”
said Raskolnikov suddenly, coming with nervous
impatience straight to the point. “Even though per-
haps you are the most dangerous man if you care to
injure me, I don’t want to put myself out any more. I
will show you at once that I don’t prize myself as you
probably think I do. I’ve come to tell you at once that
if you keep to your former intentions with regard to
my sister and if you think to derive any benefit in that
direction from what has been discovered of late, I will
kill you before you get me locked up. You can reckon
on my word. You know that I can keep it. And in the
second place if you want to tell me anything — for I
keep fancying all this time that you have something
to tell me — make haste and tell it, for time is precious
and very likely it will soon be too late.”
“Why in such haste?” asked Svidrigaïlov, looking at
him curiously.
“Every one has his plans,” Raskolnikov answered
gloomily and impatiently.
“You urged me yourself to frankness just now,
and at the first question you refuse to answer,”
Svidrigaïlov observed with a smile. “You keep fancy-
ing that I have aims of my own and so you look at
me with suspicion. Of course it’s perfectly natural
in your position. But though I should like to be
friends with you, I shan’t trouble myself to convince

724
 crime and punishment

you of the contrary. The game isn’t worth the can-

dle and I wasn’t intending to talk to you about any-
thing special.”
“What did you want me for, then? It was you who
came hanging about me.”
“Why, simply as an interesting subject for obser-
vation. I liked the fantastic nature of your position —
that’s what it was! Besides you are the brother of a
person who greatly interested me, and from that
person I had in the past heard a very great deal
about you, from which I gathered that you had a
great influence over her; isn’t that enough? Ha-ha-
ha! Still I must admit that your question is rather
complex, and is difficult for me to answer. Here,
you, for instance, have come to me not only for a
definite object, but for the sake of hearing some-
thing new. Isn’t that so? Isn’t that so?” persisted
Svidrigaïlov with a sly smile. “Well, can’t you fancy
then that I, too, on my way here in the train was
reckoning on you, on your telling me something
new, and on making some profit out of you! You see
what rich men we are!”
“What profit could you make?”
“How can I tell you? How do I know? You see in
what a tavern I spend all my time and it’s my enjoy-
ment, that’s to say it’s no great enjoyment, but one
must sit somewhere; that poor Katia now — you saw
her? . . . If only I had been a glutton now, a club gour-
mand, but you see I can eat this.”

725
 fyodor dostoevsky

He pointed to a little table in the corner where the

remnants of a terrible looking beef-steak and pota-
toes lay on a tin dish.
“Have you dined, by the way? I’ve had something
and want nothing more. I don’t drink, for instance, at
all. Except for champagne I never touch anything,
and not more than a glass of that all the evening, and
even that is enough to make my head ache. I ordered
it just now to wind myself up, for I am just going off
somewhere and you see me in a peculiar state of
mind. That was why I hid myself just now like a
schoolboy, for I was afraid you would hinder me. But
I believe,” he pulled out his watch, “I can spend an
hour with you. It’s half-past four now. If only I’d been
something, a landowner, a father, a cavalry officer, a
photographer, a journalist . . . I am nothing, no spe-
cialty, and sometimes I am positively bored. I really
thought you would tell me something new.”
“But what are you, and why have you come here?”
“What am I? You know, a gentleman, I served for
two years in the cavalry, then I knocked about here in
Petersburg, then I married Marfa Petrovna and lived
in the country. There you have my biography!”
“You are a gambler, I believe?”
“No, a poor sort of gambler. A card-sharper — not
a gambler.”
“You have been a card-sharper then?”
“Yes, I’ve been a card-sharper too.”
“Didn’t you get thrashed sometimes?”

726
 crime and punishment

“It did happen. Why?”

“Why, you might have challenged them . . . alto-
gether it must have been lively.”
“I won’t contradict you and besides I am no hand
at philosophy. I confess that I hastened here for the
sake of the women.”
“As soon as you buried Marfa Petrovna?”
“Quite so,” Svidrigaïlov smiled with engaging can-
dour. “What of it? You seem to find something wrong
in my speaking like that about women?”
“You ask whether I find anything wrong in vice?”
“Vice! Oh, that’s what you are after! But I’ll answer
you in order, first about women in general; you know
I am fond of talking. Tell me, what should I restrain
myself for? Why should I give up women, since I have
a passion for them? It’s an occupation, anyway.”
“So you hope for nothing here but vice?”
“Oh, very well, for vice then. You insist on its being
vice. But anyway I like a direct question. In this vice at
least there is something permanent, founded indeed
upon nature and not dependent on fantasy, some-
thing present in the blood like an ever-burning
ember, for ever setting one on fire and maybe, not to
be quickly extinguished, even with years. You’ll agree
it’s an occupation of a sort.”
“That’s nothing to rejoice at, it’s a disease and a
dangerous one.”
“Oh, that’s what you think, is it? I agree, that it is a
disease like everything that exceeds moderation. And,

727
 fyodor dostoevsky

of course, in this one must exceed moderation. But in

the first place, everybody does so in one way or
another, and in the second place, of course, one
ought to be moderate and prudent, however mean it
may be, but what am I to do? If I hadn’t this, I might
have to shoot myself. I am ready to admit that a decent
man ought to put up with being bored, but yet . . . ”
“And could you shoot yourself?”
“Oh, come!” Svidrigaïlov parried with disgust.
“Please don’t speak of it,” he added hurriedly and
with none of the bragging tone he had shown in all
the previous conversation. His face quite changed. “I
admit it’s an unpardonable weakness, but I can’t
help it: I am afraid of death and I dislike its being
talked of. Do you know that I am to a certain extent a
mystic?”
“Ah, the apparitions of Marfa Petrovna! Do they
still go on visiting you?”
“Oh, don’t talk of them; there have been no more
in Petersburg, confound them!” he cried with an air
of irritation. “Let’s rather talk of that . . . though . . .
H’m! I have not much time, and can’t stay long with
you, it’s a pity! I should have found plenty to tell you.”
“What’s your engagement, a woman?”
“Yes, a woman, a casual incident . . . No, that’s not
what I want to talk of.”
“And the hideousness, the filthiness of all your sur-
roundings, doesn’t that affect you? Have you lost the
strength to stop yourself?”

728
 crime and punishment

“And do you pretend to strength, too? He-he-he!

You surprised me just now, Rodion Romanovitch,
though I knew beforehand it would be so. You preach
to me about vice and æsthetics! You — a Schiller, you
— an idealist! Of course that’s all as it should be and it
would be surprising if it were not so, yet it is strange
in reality . . . Ah, what a pity I have no time, for you’re
a most interesting type! And by-the-way, are you fond
of Schiller? I am awfully fond of him.”
“But what a braggart you are,” Raskolnikov said
with some disgust.
“Upon my word, I am not,” answered Svidrigaïlov
laughing. “However, I won’t dispute it, let me be a
braggart, why not brag, if it hurts no one? I spent
seven years in the country with Marfa Petrovna, so
now when I come across an intelligent person like
you — intelligent and highly interesting — I am simply
glad to talk and besides, I’ve drunk that half-glass of
champagne and it’s gone to my head a little. And
besides, there’s a certain fact that has wound me up
tremendously, but about that I . . . will keep quiet.
Where are you off to?” he asked in alarm.
Raskolnikov had begun getting up. He felt
oppressed and stifled and, as it were, ill at ease at hav-
ing come here. He felt convinced that Svidrigaïlov was
the most worthless scoundrel on the face of the earth.
“A-ach! Sit down, stay a little!” Svidrigaïlov begged.
“Let them bring you some tea, anyway. Stay a little, I
won’t talk nonsense, about myself, I mean. I’ll tell you

729
 fyodor dostoevsky

something. If you like I’ll tell you how a woman tried

‘to save’ me, as you would call it? It will be an answer
to your first question indeed, for the woman was your
sister. May I tell you? It will help to spend the time.”
“Tell me, but I trust that you . . . ”
“Oh, don’t be uneasy. Besides, even in a worthless
low fellow like me, Avdotya Romanovna can only
excite the deepest respect.”

730
 chapter iv

“You know perhaps — yes, I told you myself,” began

Svidrigaïlov, “that I was in the debtors’ prison here,
for an immense sum, and had not any expectation of
being able to pay it. There’s no need to go into par-
ticulars of how Marfa Petrovna bought me out; do
you know to what a point of insanity a woman can
sometimes love? She was an honest woman, and very
sensible, although completely uneducated. Would
you believe that this honest and jealous woman, after
many scenes of hysterics and reproaches, conde-
scended to enter into a kind of contract with me
which she kept throughout our married life? She was
considerably older than I, and besides, she always
kept a clove or something in her mouth. There was so
much swinishness in my soul and honesty too, of a
sort, as to tell her straight out that I couldn’t be
absolutely faithful to her. This confession drove her
to frenzy, but yet she seems in a way to have liked my
brutal frankness. She thought it showed I was unwill-

731
 fyodor dostoevsky

ing to deceive her if I warned her like this before-

hand and for a jealous woman, you know, that’s the
first consideration. After many tears an unwritten
contract was drawn up between us: first, that I would
never leave Marfa Petrovna and would always be her
husband; secondly, that I would never absent myself
without her permission; thirdly, that I would never set
up a permanent mistress; fourthly, in return for this,
Marfa Petrovna gave me a free hand with the maid
servants, but only with her secret knowledge; fifthly,
God forbid my falling in love with a woman of our
class; sixthly, in case I — which God forbid — should
be visited by a great serious passion I was bound to
reveal it to Marfa Petrovna. On this last score, how-
ever, Marfa Petrovna was fairly at ease. She was a sen-
sible woman and so she could not help looking upon
me as a dissolute profligate incapable of real love. But
a sensible woman and a jealous woman are two very
different things, and that’s where the trouble came
in. But to judge some people impartially we must
renounce certain preconceived opinions and our
habitual attitude to the ordinary people about us. I
have reason to have faith in your judgment rather
than in any one’s. Perhaps you have already heard a
great deal that was ridiculous and absurd about
Marfa Petrovna. She certainly had some very ridicu-
lous ways, but I tell you frankly that I feel really sorry
for the innumerable woes of which I was the cause.
Well, and that’s enough, I think, by way of a decorous

732
 crime and punishment

oraison funèbre for the most tender wife of a most ten-

der husband. When we quarrelled, I usually held my
tongue and did not irritate her and that gentlemanly
conduct rarely failed to attain its object, it influenced
her, it pleased her, indeed. There were times when
she was positively proud of me. But your sister she
couldn’t put up with, anyway. And however she came
to risk taking such a beautiful creature into her house
as a governess! My explanation is that Marfa Petrovna
was an ardent and impressionable woman and simply
fell in love herself — literally fell in love — with your
sister. Well, little wonder — look at Avdotya
Romanovna! I saw the danger at the first glance and
what do you think, I resolved not to look at her even.
But Avdotya Romanovna herself made the first step,
would you believe it? Would you believe it too that
Marfa Petrovna was positively angry with me at first
for my persistent silence about your sister, for my
careless reception of her continual adoring praises of
Avdotya Romanovna. I don’t know what it was she
wanted! Well, of course, Marfa Petrovna told Avdotya
Romanovna every detail about me. She had the
unfortunate habit of telling literally every one all our
family secrets and continually complaining of me;
how could she fail to confide in such a delightful new
friend? I expect they talked of nothing else but me
and no doubt Avdotya Romanovna heard all those
dark mysterious rumours that were current about me

733
 fyodor dostoevsky

. . . I don’t mind betting that you too have heard

something of the sort already?”
“I have. Luzhin charged you with having caused
the death of a child. Is that true?”
“Don’t refer to those vulgar tales, I beg,” said
Svidrigaïlov with disgust and annoyance. “If you insist
on wanting to know about all that idiocy, I will tell you
one day, but now . . . ”
“I was told too about some footman of yours in the
country whom you treated badly.”
“I beg you to drop the subject,” Svidrigaïlov inter-
rupted again with obvious impatience.
“Was that the footman who came to you after
death to fill your pipe? . . . you told me about it your-
self,” Raskolnikov felt more and more irritated.
Svidrigaïlov looked at him attentively and
Raskolnikov fancied he caught a flash of spiteful
mockery in that look. But Svidrigaïlov restrained him-
self and answered very civilly.
“Yes, it was. I see that you, too, are extremely
interested and shall feel it my duty to satisfy your
curiosity at the first opportunity. Upon my soul! I see
that I really might pass for a romantic figure with
some people. Judge how grateful I must be to Marfa
Petrovna for having repeated to Avdotya Romanovna
such mysterious and interesting gossip about me. I
dare not guess what impression it made on her, but
in any case it worked in my interests. With all
Avdotya Romanovna’s natural aversion and in spite

734
 crime and punishment

of my invariably gloomy and repellent aspect — she

did at last feel pity for me, pity for a lost soul. And if
once a girl’s heart is moved to pity, it’s more danger-
ous than anything. She is bound to want to ‘save
him,’ to bring him to his senses, and lift him up and
draw him to nobler aims, and restore him to new life
and usefulness, — well, we all know how far such
dreams can go. I saw at once that the bird was flying
into the cage of herself. And I too made ready. I
think you are frowning, Rodion Romanovitch?
There’s no need. As you know, it all ended in smoke.
(Hang it all, what a lot I am drinking!) Do you know,
I always, from the very beginning, regretted that it
wasn’t your sister’s fate to be born in the second or
third century A.D., as the daughter of a reigning
prince or some governor or proconsul in Asia Minor.
She would undoubtedly have been one of those who
would endure martyrdom and would have smiled
when they branded her bosom with hot pincers. And
she would have gone to it of herself. And in the
fourth or fifth century she would have walked away
into the Egyptian desert and would have stayed there
thirty years living on roots and ecstasies and visions.
She is simply thirsting to face some torture for some-
one, and if she can’t get her torture, she’ll throw her-
self out of a window. I’ve heard something of a Mr.
Razumihin — he’s said to be a sensible fellow; his sur-
name suggests it, indeed. He’s probably a divinity
student. Well, he’d better look after your sister! I

735
 fyodor dostoevsky

believe I understand her, and I am proud of it. But at

the beginning of an acquaintance, as you know, one
is apt to be more heedless and stupid. One doesn’t
see clearly. Hang it all, why is she so handsome? It’s
not my fault. In fact, it began on my side with a most
irresistible physical desire. Avdotya Romanovna is
awfully chaste, incredibly and phenomenally so.
Take note, I tell you this about your sister as a fact.
She is almost morbidly chaste, in spite of her broad
intelligence and it will stand in her way. There hap-
pened to be a girl in the house then, Parasha, a
black-eyed wench, whom I had never seen before —
she had just come from another village — very pretty,
but incredibly stupid: she burst into tears, wailed so
that she could be heard all over the place and caused
scandal. One day after dinner Avdotya Romanovna
followed me into an avenue in the garden and with
flashing eyes insisted on my leaving poor Parasha
alone. It was almost our first conversation by our-
selves. I, of course, was only too pleased to obey her
wishes, tried to appear disconcerted, embarrassed, in
fact played my part not badly. Then came interviews,
mysterious conversations, exhortations, entreaties,
supplications, even tears — would you believe it, even
tears? Think what the passion for propaganda will
bring some girls to! I, of course, threw it all on my
destiny, posed as hungering and thirsting for light,
and finally resorted to the most powerful weapon in
the subjection of the female heart, a weapon which

736
 crime and punishment

never fails one. It’s the well-known resource — flat-

tery. Nothing in the world is harder than speaking
the truth and nothing easier than flattery. If there’s
the hundredth part of a false note in speaking the
truth, it leads to a discord, and that leads to trouble.
But if all, to the last note, is false in flattery, it is just
as agreeable, and is heard not without satisfaction. It
may be a coarse satisfaction, but still a satisfaction.
And however coarse the flattery, at least half will be
sure to seem true. That’s so for all stages of develop-
ment and classes of society. A vestal virgin might be
seduced by flattery. I can never remember without
laughter how I once seduced a lady who was devoted
to her husband, her children, and her principles.
What fun it was and how little trouble! And the lady
really had principles, of her own, anyway. All my tac-
tics lay in simply being utterly annihilated and pros-
trate before her purity. I flattered her shamelessly,
and as soon as I succeeded in getting a pressure of
the hand, even a glance from her, I would reproach
myself for having snatched it by force, and would
declare that she had resisted, so that I could never
have gained anything but for my being so unprinci-
pled. I maintained that she was so innocent that she
could not foresee my treachery, and yielded to me
unconsciously, unawares, and so on. In fact, I tri-
umphed, while my lady remained firmly convinced
that she was innocent, chaste, and faithful to all her
duties and obligations and had succumbed quite by

737
 fyodor dostoevsky

accident. And how angry she was with me when I

explained to her at last that it was my sincere convic-
tion that she was just as eager as I. Poor Marfa
Petrovna was awfully weak on the side of flattery, and
if I only cared to, I might have had all her property
settled on me during her lifetime. (I am drinking an
awful lot of wine now and talking too much.) I hope
you won’t be angry if I mention now that I was begin-
ning to produce the same effect on Avdotya
Romanovna. But I was stupid and impatient and
spoiled it all. Avdotya Romanovna had several times
— and one time in particular — been greatly dis-
pleased by the expression of my eyes, would you
believe it? There was sometimes a light in them
which frightened her and grew stronger and
stronger and more unguarded till it was hateful to
her. No need to go into detail, but we parted. There
I acted stupidly again. I fell to jeering in the coarsest
way at all such propaganda and efforts to convert
me; Parasha came on to the scene again, and not she
alone; in fact there was a tremendous to-do. Ah,
Rodion Romanovitch, if you could only see how your
sister’s eyes can flash sometimes! Never mind my
being drunk at this moment and having had a whole
glass of wine. I am speaking the truth. I assure you
that this glance has haunted my dreams; the very rus-
tle of her dress was more than I could stand at last. I
really began to think that I might become epileptic. I
could never have believed that I could be moved to

738
 crime and punishment

such a frenzy. It was essential, indeed, to be recon-

ciled, but by then it was impossible. And imagine
what I did then! To what a pitch of stupidity a man
can be brought by frenzy! Never undertake anything
in a frenzy, Rodion Romanovitch. I reflected that
Avdotya Romanovna was after all a beggar (ach,
excuse me, that’s not the word . . . but does it matter
if it expresses the meaning?), that she lived by her
work, that she had her mother and you to keep (ach,
hang it, you are frowning again), and I resolved to
offer her all my money — thirty thousand roubles I
could have realised then — if she would run away
with me here, to Petersburg. Of course I should have
vowed eternal love, rapture, and so on. Do you know,
I was so wild about her at that time that if she had
told me to poison Marfa Petrovna or to cut her
throat and to marry herself, it would have been done
at once! But it ended in the catastrophe of which you
know already. You can fancy how frantic I was when I
heard that Marfa Petrovna had got hold of that
scoundrelly attorney, Luzhin, and had almost made a
match between them — which would really have been
just the same thing as I was proposing. Wouldn’t it?
Wouldn’t it? I notice that you’ve begun to be very
attentive . . . you interesting young man . . . ”
Svidrigaïlov struck the table with his fist impa-
tiently. He was flushed. Raskolnikov saw clearly that
the glass or glass and a half of champagne that he had
sipped almost unconsciously was affecting him — and

739
 fyodor dostoevsky

he resolved to take advantage of the opportunity. He

felt very suspicious of Svidrigaïlov.
“Well, after what you have said I am fully con-
vinced that you have come to Petersburg with designs
on my sister,” he said directly to Svidrigaïlov, in order
to irritate him further.
“Oh, nonsense,” said Svidrigaïlov, seeming to
rouse himself. “Why, I told you . . . besides your sister
can’t endure me.”
“Yes, I am certain that she can’t, but that’s not the
point.”
“Are you so sure that she can’t?” Svidrigaïlov
screwed up his eyes and smiled mockingly. “You are
right, she doesn’t love me, but you can never be sure
of what has passed between husband and wife or
lover and mistress. There’s always a little corner
which remains a secret to the world and is only
known to those two. Will you answer for it that
Avdotya Romanovna regarded me with aversion?”
“From some words you’ve dropped, I notice that
you still have designs — and of course evil ones — on
Dounia and mean to carry them out promptly.”
“What, have I dropped words like that?” Svidrigaïlov
asked in naïve dismay, taking not the slightest notice
of the epithet bestowed on his designs.
“Why, you are dropping them even now. Why are
you so frightened? What are you so afraid of now?”
“Me — afraid? Afraid of you? You have rather to be
afraid of me, cher ami. But what nonsense . . . I’ve

740
 crime and punishment

drunk too much though, I see that. I was almost say-

ing too much again. Damn the wine! Hi! there,
water!”
He snatched up the champagne bottle and flung it
without ceremony out of the window. Philip brought
the water.
“That’s all nonsense!” said Svidrigaïlov, wetting a
towel and putting it to his head. “But I can answer
you in one word and annihilate all your suspicions.
Do you know that I am going to get married?”
“You told me so before.”
“Did I? I’ve forgotten. But I couldn’t have told you
so for certain for I had not even seen my betrothed; I
only meant to. But now I really have a betrothed and
it’s a settled thing, and if it weren’t that I have busi-
ness that can’t be put off, I would have taken you to
see them at once, for I should like to ask your advice.
Ach, hang it, only ten minutes left! See, look at the
watch. But I must tell you, for it’s an interesting story,
my marriage, in its own way. Where are you off to?
Going again?”
“No, I’m not going away now.”
“Not at all? We shall see. I’ll take you there, I’ll show
you my betrothed, only not now. For you’ll soon have to
be off. You have to go to the right and I to the left. Do
you know that Madame Resslich, the woman I am lodg-
ing with now, eh? I know what you’re thinking, that she’s
the woman whose girl they say drowned herself in the
winter. Come, are you listening? She arranged it all for

741
 fyodor dostoevsky

me. You’re bored, she said, you want something to fill

up your time. For, you know, I am a gloomy, depressed
person. Do you think I’m light-hearted? No, I’m
gloomy. I do no harm, but sit in a corner without speak-
ing a word for three days at a time. And that Resslich is a
sly hussy, I tell you. I know what she has got in her mind;
she thinks I shall get sick of it, abandon my wife and
depart, and she’ll get hold of her and make a profit out
of her— in our class, of course, or higher. She told me
the father was a broken-down retired official, who has
been sitting in a chair for the last three years with his
legs paralysed. The mamma, she said, was a sensible
woman. There is a son serving in the provinces, but he
doesn’t help; there is a daughter, who is married, but
she doesn’t visit them. And they’ve two little nephews on
their hands, as though their own children were not
enough, and they’ve taken from school their youngest
daughter, a girl who’ll be sixteen in another month so
that then she can be married. She was for me. We went
there. How funny it was! I present myself—a landowner,
a widower, of a well-known name, with connections, with
a fortune. What if I am fifty and she is not sixteen? Who
thinks of that? But it’s fascinating, isn’t it? It is fascinat-
ing, ha-ha! You should have seen how I talked to the
papa and mamma. It was worth paying to have seen me
at that moment. She comes in, curtseys, you can fancy,
still in a short frock—an unopened bud! Flushing like a
sunset—she had been told, no doubt. I don’t know how
you feel about female faces, but to my mind these six-

742
 crime and punishment

teen years, these childish eyes, shyness and tears of bash-

fulness are better than beauty; and she is a perfect little
picture, too. Fair hair in little curls, like a lamb’s, full lit-
tle rosy lips, tiny feet, a charmer! . . . Well, we made
friends. I told them I was in a hurry owing to domestic
circumstances and the next day, that is the day before
yesterday, we were betrothed. When I go now I take her
on my knee at once and keep her there . . . Well, she
flushes like a sunset and I kiss her every minute. Her
mamma of course impresses on her that this is her hus-
band and that this must be so. It’s simply delicious! The
present betrothed condition is perhaps better than mar-
riage. Here you have what is called la nature et la vérité,
ha-ha! I’ve talked to her twice, she is far from a fool.
Sometimes she steals a look at me that positively
scorches me. Her face is like Raphael’s Madonna. You
know, the Sistine Madonna’s face has something fantas-
tic in it, the face of mournful religious ecstasy. Haven’t
you noticed it? Well, she’s something in that line. The
day after we’d been betrothed, I bought her presents to
the value of fifteen hundred roubles — a set of dia-
monds and another of pearls and a silver dressing-case
as large as this, with all sorts of things in it, so that even
my Madonna’s face glowed. I sat her on my knee, yester-
day, and I suppose rather too unceremoniously — she
flushed crimson and the tears started, but she didn’t
want to show it. We were left alone, she suddenly flung
herself on my neck (for the first time of her own
accord), put her little arms round me, kissed me, and

743
 fyodor dostoevsky

vowed that she would be an obedient, faithful, and good

wife, would make me happy, would devote all her life,
every minute of her life, would sacrifice everything,
everything, and that all she asks in return is my respect,
and that she wants ‘nothing, nothing more from me, no
presents.’ You’ll admit that to hear such a confession,
alone, from an angel of sixteen in a muslin frock, with
little curls, with a flush of maiden shyness in her cheeks
and tears of enthusiasm in her eyes is rather fascinating!
Isn’t it fascinating? It’s worth paying for, isn’t it? Well . . .
listen, we’ll go to see my betrothed, only not just now!”
“The fact is this monstrous difference in age and
development excites your sensuality! Will you really
make such a marriage?”
“Why, of course. Every one thinks of himself, and
he lives most gaily who knows best how to deceive
himself. Ha-ha! But why are you so keen about virtue?
Have mercy on me, my good friend. I am a sinful
man. Ha-ha-ha!”
“But you have provided for the children of
Katerina Ivanovna. Though . . . though you had your
own reasons . . . I understand it all now.”
“I am always fond of children, very fond of them,”
laughed Svidrigaïlov. “I can tell you one curious
instance of it. The first day I came here I visited various
haunts, after seven years I simply rushed at them. You
probably noticed that I am not in a hurry to renew
acquaintance with my old friends. I shall do without
them as long as I can. Do you know, when I was with

744
 crime and punishment

Marfa Petrovna in the country, I was haunted by the

thought of these places where any one who knows his
way about can find a great deal. Yes, upon my soul! The
peasants have vodka, the educated young people, shut
out from activity, waste themselves in impossible
dreams and visions and are crippled by theories; Jews
have sprung up and are amassing money, and all the
rest give themselves up to debauchery. From the first
hour the town reeked of its familiar odours. I chanced
to be in a frightful den — I like my dens dirty — it was a
dance, so called, and there was a cancan such as I never
saw in my day. Yes, there you have progress. All of a
sudden I saw a little girl of thirteen, nicely dressed,
dancing with a specialist in that line, with another one
vis-à-vis. Her mother was sitting on a chair by the wall.
You can’t fancy what a cancan that was! The girl was
ashamed, blushed, at last felt insulted, and began to
cry. Her partner seized her and began whirling her
round and performing before her; every one laughed
and — I like your public, even the cancan public — they
laughed and shouted, ‘Serves her right — serves her
right! Shouldn’t bring children!’ Well, it’s not my busi-
ness whether that consoling reflection was logical or
not. I at once fixed on my plan, sat down by the
mother, and began by saying that I too was a stranger
and that people here were ill-bred and that they could-
n’t distinguish decent folks and treat them with
respect; gave her to understand that I had plenty of
money, offered to take them home in my carriage. I

745
 fyodor dostoevsky

took them home and got to know them. They were

lodging in a miserable little hole and had only just
arrived from the country. She told me that she and her
daughter could only regard my acquaintance as an
honour. I found out that they had nothing of their own
and had come to town upon some legal business. I
proffered my services and money. I learnt that they
had gone to the dancing saloon by mistake, believing
that it was a genuine dancing class. I offered to assist in
the young girl’s education in French and dancing. My
offer was accepted with enthusiasm as an honour —
and we are still friendly . . . If you like, we’ll go and see
them, only not just now.”
“Stop! Enough of your vile, nasty anecdotes,
depraved, vile, sensual man!”
“Schiller, you are a regular Schiller! O la vertu va-t-
elle se nicher? But you know I shall tell you these
things on purpose, for the pleasure of hearing your
outcries!”
“I dare say. I can see I am ridiculous myself,” mut-
tered Raskolnikov angrily.
Svidrigaïlov laughed heartily; finally he called
Philip, paid his bill, and began getting up.
“I say, but I am drunk, assez causé,” he said. “It’s
been a pleasure!”
“I should rather think it must be a pleasure!” cried
Raskolnikov, getting up. “No doubt it is a pleasure for
a worn-out profligate to describe such adventures
with a monstrous project of the same sort in his mind

746
 crime and punishment

— especially under such circumstances and to such a

man as me . . . It’s stimulating!”
“Well, if you come to that,” Svidrigaïlov answered,
scrutinising Raskolnikov with some surprise, “if you
come to that, you are a thorough cynic yourself. You’ve
plenty to make you so, anyway. You can understand a
great deal . . . and you can do a great deal too. But
enough. I sincerely regret not having had more talk with
you, but I shan’t lose sight of you . . . Only wait a bit.”
Svidrigaïlov walked out of the restaurant.
Raskolnikov walked out after him. Svidrigaïlov was
not however very drunk, the wine had affected him
for a moment, but it was passing off every minute. He
was preoccupied with something of importance and
was frowning. He was apparently excited and uneasy
in anticipation of something. His manner to
Raskolnikov had changed during the last few min-
utes, and he was ruder and more sneering every
moment. Raskolnikov noticed all this, and he too was
uneasy. He became very suspicious of Svidrigaïlov
and resolved to follow him.
They came out on to the pavement.
“You go to the right, and I to the left, or if you
like, the other way. Only adieu, mon plaisir, may we
meet again.”
And he walked to the right toward the Hay
Market.

747
 chapter v

Raskolnikov walked after him.

“What’s this?” cried Svidrigaïlov turning round, “I
thought I said . . . ”
“It means that I am not going to lose sight of
you now.”
“What?”
Both stood still and gazed at one another, as
though measuring their strength.
“From all your half tipsy stories,” Raskolnikov
observed harshly, “I am positive that you have not
given up your designs on my sister, but are pursuing
them more actively than ever. I have learnt that my
sister received a letter this morning. You have hardly
been able to sit still all this time . . . You may have
unearthed a wife on the way, but that means nothing.
I should like to make certain myself.”
Raskolnikov could hardly have said himself what
he wanted and of what he wished to make certain.
“Upon my word! I’ll call the police!”

748
 crime and punishment

“Call away!”
Again they stood for a minute facing each other.
At last Svidrigaïlov’s face changed. Having satisfied
himself that Raskolnikov was not frightened at his
threat, he assumed a mirthful and friendly air.
“What a fellow! I purposely refrained from refer-
ring to your affair, though I am devoured by curios-
ity. It’s a fantastic affair. I’ve put it off till another
time, but you’re enough to rouse the dead . . . Well,
let us go, only I warn you beforehand I am only
going home for a moment, to get some money; then
I shall lock up the flat, take a cab and go to spend
the evening at the Islands. Now, now are you going
to follow me?”
“I’m coming to your lodgings, not to see you but
Sofya Semyonovna, to say I’m sorry not to have been
at the funeral.”
“That’s as you like, but Sofya Semyonovna is not at
home. She has taken the three children to an old lady
of high rank, the patroness of some orphan asylums,
whom I used to know years ago. I charmed the old
lady by depositing a sum of money with her to pro-
vide for the three children of Katerina Ivanovna and
subscribing to the institution as well. I told her too
the story of Sofya Semyonovna in full detail, suppress-
ing nothing. It produced an indescribable effect on
her. That’s why Sofya Semyonovna has been invited to
call to-day at the X. Hotel where the lady is staying for
the time.”

749
 fyodor dostoevsky

“No matter, I’ll come all the same.”

“As you like, it’s nothing to me, but I won’t come
with you; here we are at home. By the way, I am con-
vinced that you regard me with suspicion just because
I have shown such delicacy and have not so far trou-
bled you with questions . . . you understand? It struck
you as extraordinary; I don’t mind betting it’s that.
Well, it teaches one to show delicacy!”
“And to listen at doors!”
“Ah, that’s it, is it?” laughed Svidrigaïlov. “Yes, I
should have been surprised if you had let that pass
after all that has happened. Ha-ha! Though I did
understand something of the pranks you had been
up to and were telling Sofya Semyonovna about, what
was the meaning of it? Perhaps I am quite behind the
times and can’t understand. For goodness’ sake,
explain it, my dear boy. Expound the latest theories!”
“You couldn’t have heard anything. You’re making
it all up!”
“But I’m not talking about that (though I did hear
something). No, I’m talking of the way you keep sigh-
ing and groaning now. The Schiller in you is in revolt
every moment, and now you tell me not to listen at
doors. If that’s how you feel, go and inform the police
that you had this mischance; you made a little mis-
take in your theory. But if you are convinced that one
mustn’t listen at doors, but one may murder old
women at one’s pleasure, you’d better be off to
America and make haste. Run, young man! There

750
 crime and punishment

may still be time. I’m speaking sincerely. Haven’t you

the money? I’ll give you the fare.”
“I’m not thinking of that at all,” Raskolnikov inter-
rupted with disgust.
“I understand (but don’t put yourself out, don’t
discuss it if you don’t want to). I understand the ques-
tions you are worrying over — moral ones, aren’t
they? Duties of citizen and man? Lay them all aside.
They are nothing to you now, ha-ha! You’ll say you are
still a man and a citizen. If so you ought not to have
got into this coil. It’s no use taking up a job you are
not fit for. Well, you’d better shoot yourself, or don’t
you want to?”
“You seem trying to enrage me, to make me
leave you.”
“What a queer fellow! But here we are. Welcome
to the staircase. You see, that’s the way to Sofya
Semyonovna. Look, there is no one at home. Don’t
you believe me? Ask Kapernaumov. She leaves the
key with him. Here is Madame de Kapernaumov her-
self. Hey, what? She is rather deaf. Has she gone out?
Where? Did you hear? She is not in and won’t be till
late in the evening probably. Well, come to my room;
you wanted to come and see me, didn’t you? Here we
are. Madame Resslich’s not at home. She is a woman
who is always busy, an excellent woman I assure you .
. . She might have been of use to you if you had been
a little more sensible. Now, see! I take this five per
cent. bond out of the bureau — see what a lot I’ve got

751
 fyodor dostoevsky

of them still — this one will be turned into cash to-

day. I mustn’t waste any more time. The bureau is
locked, the flat is locked, and here we are again on
the stairs. Shall we take a cab? I’m going to the
Islands. Would you like a lift? I’ll take this carriage.
Ah, you refuse? You are tired of it! Come for a drive!
I believe it will come on to rain. Never mind, we’ll
put down the hood . . . ”
Svidrigaïlov was already in the carriage.
Raskolnikov decided that his suspicions were at least
for that moment unjust. Without answering a word
he turned and walked back towards the Hay Market.
If he had only turned round on his way he might have
seen Svidrigaïlov get out not a hundred paces off, dis-
miss the cab and walk along the pavement. But he
had turned the corner and could see nothing.
Intense disgust drew him away from Svidrigaïlov.
“To think that I could for one instant have looked
for help from that coarse brute, that depraved sensu-
alist and blackguard!” he cried.
Raskolnikov’s judgment was uttered too lightly
and hastily: there was something about Svidrigaïlov
which gave him a certain original, even a mysterious
character. As concerned his sister, Raskolnikov was
convinced that Svidrigaïlov would not leave her in
peace. But it was too tiresome and unbearable to go
on thinking and thinking about this.
When he was alone, he had not gone twenty paces
before he sank, as usual, into deep thought. On the

752
 crime and punishment

bridge he stood by the railing and began gazing at

the water. And his sister was standing close by him.
He met her at the entrance to the bridge, but
passed by without seeing her. Dounia had never met
him like this in the street before and was struck with
dismay. She stood still and did not know whether to
call to him or not. Suddenly she saw Svidrigaïlov com-
ing quickly from the direction of the Hay Market.
He seemed to be approaching cautiously. He did
not go on to the bridge, but stood aside on the pave-
ment, doing all he could to avoid Raskolnikov’s see-
ing him. He had observed Dounia for some time and
had been making signs to her. She fancied he was sig-
nalling to beg her not to speak to her brother, but to
come to him.
That was what Dounia did. She stole by her
brother and went up to Svidrigaïlov.
“Let us make haste away,” Svidrigaïlov whispered
to her, “I don’t want Rodion Romanovitch to know of
our meeting. I must tell you I’ve been sitting with him
in the restaurant close by, where he looked me up
and I had great difficulty in getting rid of him. He has
somehow heard of my letter to you and suspects
something. It wasn’t you who told him, of course, but
if not you, who then?”
“Well, we’ve turned the corner now,” Dounia inter-
rupted, “and my brother won’t see us. I have to tell
you that I am going no further with you. Speak to me
here. You can tell it all in the street.”

753
 fyodor dostoevsky

“In the first place, I can’t say it in the street; sec-

ondly, you must hear Sofya Semyonovna too; and,
thirdly, I will show you some papers . . . Oh well, if you
won’t agree to come with me, I shall refuse to give any
explanation and go away at once. But I beg you not to
forget that a very curious secret of your beloved
brother’s is entirely in my keeping.”
Dounia stood still, hesitating, and looking at
Svidrigaïlov with searching eyes.
“What are you afraid of?” he observed quietly.
“The town is not the country. And even in the coun-
try you did me more harm than I did you.”
“Have you prepared Sofya Semyonovna?”
“No, I have not said a word to her and am not quite
certain whether she is at home now. But most likely she
is. She has buried her stepmother to-day: she is not
likely to go visiting on such a day. For the time I don’t
want to speak to any one about it and I half regret hav-
ing spoken to you. The slightest indiscretion is as bad as
betrayal in a thing like this. I live there in that house, we
are coming to it. That’s the porter of our house — he
knows me very well; you see, he’s bowing; he sees I’m
coming with a lady and no doubt he has noticed your
face already and you will be glad of that if you are afraid
of me and suspicious. Excuse my putting things so
coarsely. I haven’t a flat to myself; Sofya Semyonovna’s
room is next to mine — she lodges in the next flat. The
whole floor is let out in lodgings. Why are you fright-
ened like a child? Am I really so terrible?”

754
 crime and punishment

Svidrigaïlov’s lips were twisted in a condescending

smile; but he was in no smiling mood. His heart was
throbbing and he could scarcely breathe. He spoke
rather loud to cover his growing excitement. But
Dounia did not notice this peculiar excitement, she
was so irritated by his remark that she was frightened
of him like a child and that he was so terrible to her.
“Though I know that you are not a man . . . of hon-
our, I am not in the least afraid of you. Lead the way,”
she said with apparent composure, but her face was
very pale.
Svidrigaïlov stopped at Sonia’s room.
“Allow me to inquire whether she is at home . . .
She is not. How unfortunate! But I know she may
come quite soon. If she’s gone out, it can only be to
see a lady about the orphans. Their mother is dead . .
. I’ve been meddling and making arrangements for
them. If Sofya Semyonovna does not come back in
ten minutes, I will send her to you, to-day if you like.
This is my flat. These are my two rooms. Madame
Resslich, my landlady, has the next room. Now, look
this way. I will show you my chief piece of evidence:
this door from my bedroom leads into two perfectly
empty rooms, which are to let. Here they are . . . you
must look into them with some attention.”
Svidrigaïlov occupied two fairly large furnished
rooms. Dounia was looking about her mistrustfully,
but saw nothing special in the furniture or position of
the rooms. Yet there was something to observe, for

755
 fyodor dostoevsky

instance, that Svidrigaïlov’s flat was exactly between

two sets of almost uninhabited apartments. His
rooms were not entered directly from the passage,
but through the landlady’s two almost empty rooms.
Unlocking a door leading out of his bedroom,
Svidrigaïlov showed Dounia the two empty rooms
that were to let. Dounia stopped in the doorway, not
knowing what she was called to look upon, but
Svidrigaïlov hastened to explain.
“Look here, at this second large room. Notice that
door, it’s locked. By the door stands a chair, the only
one in the two rooms. I brought it from my rooms so
as to listen more conveniently. Just the other side of
the door is Sofya Semyonovna’s table; she sat there
talking to Rodion Romanovitch. And I sat here listen-
ing on two successive evenings, for two hours each
time — and of course I was able to learn something,
what do you think?”
“You listened?”
“Yes, I did. Now come back to my room; we can’t
sit down here.”
He brought Avdotya Romanovna back into his sit-
ting-room and offered her a chair. He sat down at the
opposite side of the table, at least seven feet from her,
but probably there was the same glow in his eyes which
had once frightened Dounia so much. She shuddered
and once more looked about her distrustfully. It was an
involuntary gesture; she evidently did not wish to
betray her uneasiness. But the secluded position of

756
 crime and punishment

Svidrigaïlov’s lodging had suddenly struck her. She

wanted to ask whether his landlady at least were at
home, but pride kept her from asking. Moreover, she
had another trouble in her heart incomparably
greater than fear for herself. She was in great distress.
“Here is your letter,” she said, laying it on the
table. “Can it be true what you write? You hint at a
crime committed, you say, by my brother. You hint at
it too clearly; you daren’t deny it now. I must tell you
that I’d heard of this stupid story before you wrote
and don’t believe a word of it. It’s a disgusting and
ridiculous suspicion. I know the story and why and
how it was invented. You can have no proofs. You
promised to prove it. Speak! But let me warn you that
I don’t believe you! I don’t believe you!”
Dounia said this, speaking hurriedly, and for an
instant the colour rushed to her face.
“If you didn’t believe it, how could you risk com-
ing alone to my rooms? Why have you come? Simply
from curiosity?”
“Don’t torment me. Speak, speak!”
“There’s no denying that you are a brave girl.
Upon my word, I thought you would have asked Mr.
Razumihin to escort you here. But he was not with
you nor anywhere near. I was on the look-out. It’s
spirited of you, it proves you wanted to spare Rodion
Romanovitch. But everything is divine in you . . .
About your brother, what am I to say to you? You’ve
just seen him yourself. What did you think of him?”

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“Surely that’s not the only thing you are building on?”
“No, not on that, but on his own words. He came
here on two successive evenings to see Sofya
Semyonovna. I’ve shown you where they sat. He
made a full confession to her. He is a murderer. He
killed an old woman, a pawnbroker, with whom he
had pawned things himself. He killed her sister too,
a pedlar woman called Lizaveta, who happened to
come in while he was murdering her sister. He killed
them with an axe he brought with him. He mur-
dered them to rob them and he did rob them. He
took money and various things . . . He told all this,
word for word, to Sofya Semyonovna, the only per-
son who knows his secret. But she has had no share
by word or deed in the murder; she was as horrified
at it as you are now. Don’t be anxious, she won’t
betray him.”
“It cannot be,” muttered Dounia, with white lips.
She gasped for breath. “It cannot be. There was not
the slightest cause, no sort of ground . . . It’s a lie, a lie!”
“He robbed her, that was the cause, he took
money and things. It’s true that by his own admission
he made no use of the money or things, but hid them
under a stone, where they are now. But that was
because he dared not make use of them.”
“But how could he steal, rob? How could he
dream of it?” cried Dounia, and she jumped up from
the chair. “Why, you know him, and you’ve seen him,
can he be a thief?”

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 crime and punishment

She seemed to be imploring Svidrigaïlov; she had

entirely forgotten her fear.
“There are thousands and millions of combina-
tions and possibilities, Avdotya Romanovna. A thief
steals and knows he is a scoundrel, but I’ve heard of a
gentleman who broke open the mail. Who knows,
very likely he thought he was doing a gentlemanly
thing! Of course I should not have believed it myself
if I’d been told of it as you have, but I believe my own
ears. He explained all the causes of it to Sofya
Semyonovna too, but she did not believe her ears at
first, yet she believed her own eyes at last.”
“What . . . were the causes?”
“It’s a long story, Avdotya Romanovna. Here’s . . .
how shall I tell you? — A theory of a sort, the same one
by which I for instance consider that a single misdeed
is permissible if the principal aim is right, a solitary
wrongdoing and hundreds of good deeds! It’s galling
too, of course, for a young man of gifts and over-
weening pride to know that if he had, for instance, a
paltry three thousand, his whole career, his whole
future would be differently shaped and yet not to
have that three thousand. Add to that, nervous irri-
tability from hunger, from lodging in a hole, from
rags, from a vivid sense of the charm of his social posi-
tion and his sister’s and mother’s position too. Above
all, vanity, pride and vanity, though goodness knows
he may have good qualities too . . . I am not blaming
him, please don’t think it; besides, it’s not my busi-

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ness. A special little theory came in too — a theory of

a sort — dividing mankind, you see, into material and
superior persons, that is persons to whom the law
does not apply owing to their superiority, who make
laws for the rest of mankind, the material, that is. It’s
all right as a theory, une théorie comme une autre.
Napoleon attracted him tremendously, that is, what
affected him was that a great many men of genius
have not hesitated at wrongdoing, but have over-
stepped the law without thinking about it. He seems
to have fancied that he was a genius too — that is, he
was convinced of it for a time. He has suffered a great
deal and is still suffering from the idea that he could
make a theory, but was incapable of boldly overstep-
ping the law, and so he is not a man of genius. And
that’s humiliating for a young man of any pride, in
our day especially . . . ”
“But remorse? You deny him any moral feeling
then? Is he like that?”
“Ah, Avdotya Romanovna, everything is in a mud-
dle now; not that it was ever in very good order.
Russians in general are broad in their ideas, Avdotya
Romanovna, broad like their land and exceedingly
disposed to the fantastic, the chaotic. But it’s a mis-
fortune to be broad without a special genius. Do you
remember what a lot of talk we had together on this
subject, sitting in the evenings on the terrace after
supper? Why, you used to reproach me with breadth!
Who knows, perhaps we were talking at the very time

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when he was lying here thinking over his plan. There

are no sacred traditions amongst us, especially in the
educated class, Avdotya Romanovna. At the best some
one will make them up somehow for himself out of
books or from some old chronicle. But those are for
the most part the learned and all old fogeys, so that it
would be almost ill-bred in a man of society. You
know my opinions in general, though. I never blame
any one. I do nothing at all, I persevere in that. But
we’ve talked of this more than once before. I was so
happy indeed as to interest you in my opinions . . . You
are very pale, Avdotya Romanovna.”
“I know his theory. I read that article of his about
men to whom all is permitted. Razumihin brought it
to me.”
“Mr. Razumihin? Your brother’s article? In a maga-
zine? Is there such an article? I didn’t know. It must
be interesting. But where are you going, Avdotya
Romanovna?”
“I want to see Sofya Semyonovna,” Dounia articu-
lated faintly. “How do I go to her? She has come in,
perhaps. I must see her at once. Perhaps she . . .”
Avdotya Romanovna could not finish. Her breath
literally failed her.
“Sofya Semyonovna will not be back till night, at
least I believe not. She was to have been back at once,
but if not, then she will not be in till quite late.”
“Ah, then you are lying! I see . . . you were lying . . .
lying all the time . . . I don’t believe you! I don’t

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 fyodor dostoevsky

believe you!” cried Dounia, completely losing her

head.
Almost fainting, she sank on to a chair which
Svidrigaïlov made haste to give her.
“Avdotya Romanovna, what is it? Control yourself!
Here is some water. Drink a little . . .”
He sprinkled some water over her. Dounia shud-
dered and came to herself.
“It has acted violently,” Svidrigaïlov muttered to
himself, frowning. “Avdotya Romanovna, calm your-
self! Believe me, he has friends. We will save him.
Would you like me to take him abroad? I have money,
I can get a ticket in three days. And as for the murder,
he will do all sorts of good deeds yet, to atone for it.
Calm yourself. He may become a great man yet. Well,
how are you? How do you feel?”
“Cruel man! To be able to jeer at it! Let me go . . . ”
“Where are you going?”
“To him. Where is he? Do you know? Why is this
door locked? We came in at that door and now it is
locked. When did you manage to lock it?”
“We couldn’t be shouting all over the flat on such
a subject. I am far from jeering; it’s simply that I’m
sick of talking like this. But how can you go in such a
state? Do you want to betray him? You will drive him
to fury, and he will give himself up. Let me tell you,
he is already being watched; they are already on his
track. You will simply be giving him away. Wait a little:
I saw him and was talking to him just now. He can still

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 crime and punishment

be saved. Wait a bit, sit down; let us think it over

together. I asked you to come in order to discuss it
alone with you and to consider it thoroughly. But do
sit down!”
“How can you save him? Can he really be saved?”
Dounia sat down. Svidrigaïlov sat down beside her.
“It all depends on you, on you, on you alone,” he
began with glowing eyes, almost in a whisper and
hardly able to utter the words for emotion.
Dounia drew back from him in alarm. He too was
trembling all over.
“You . . . one word from you, and he is saved. I . . .
I’ll save him. I have money and friends. I’ll send him
away at once. I’ll get a passport, two passports, one for
him and one for me. I have friends . . . capable people
. . . If you like, I’ll take a passport for you . . . for your
mother . . . What do you want with Razumihin? I love
you too . . . I love you beyond everything . . . Let me
kiss the hem of your dress, let me, let me . . . The very
rustle of it is too much for me. Tell me, ‘do that,’ and
I’ll do it. I’ll do everything. I will do the impossible.
What you believe, I will believe. I’ll do anything —
anything! Don’t, don’t look at me like that. Do you
know that you are killing me? . . . ”
He was almost beginning to rave . . . Something
seemed suddenly to go to his head. Dounia jumped
up and rushed to the door.
“Open it! Open it!” she called, shaking the door.
“Open it! Is there no one there?”

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 fyodor dostoevsky

Svidrigaïlov got up and came to himself. His still

trembling lips slowly broke into an angry mocking
smile.
“There is no one at home,” he said quietly and
emphatically. “The landlady has gone out, and it’s a
waste of time to shout like that. You are only exciting
yourself uselessly.”
“Where is the key? Open the door at once, at
once, base man!”
“I have lost the key and cannot find it.”
“This is an outrage,” cried Dounia, turning pale as
death. She rushed to the furthest corner, where she
made haste to barricade herself with a little table.
She did not scream, but she fixed her eyes on her
tormentor and watched every movement he made.
Svidrigaïlov remained standing at the other end of
the room facing her. He was positively composed, at
least in appearance, but his face was pale as before.
The mocking smile did not leave his face.
“You spoke of outrage just now, Avdotya
Romanovna. In that case you may be sure I’ve taken
measures. Sofya Semyonovna is not at home. The
Kapernaumovs are far away — there are five locked
rooms between. I am at least twice as strong as you are
and I have nothing to fear, besides. For you could not
complain afterwards. You surely would not be willing
actually to betray your brother? Besides, no one
would believe you. How should a girl have come
alone to visit a solitary man in his lodgings? So that

764
 crime and punishment

even if you do sacrifice your brother, you could prove

nothing. It is very difficult to prove an assault,
Avdotya Romanovna.”
“Scoundrel!” whispered Dounia indignantly.
“As you like, but observe I was only speaking by
way of a general proposition. It’s my personal con-
viction that you are perfectly right — violence is
hateful. I only spoke to show you that you need
have no remorse even if . . . you were willing to save
your brother of your own accord, as I suggest to
you. You would be simply submitting to circum-
stances, to violence, in fact, if we must use that
word. Think about it. Your brother’s and your
mother’s fate are in your hands. I will be your slave
. . . all my life . . . I will wait here.”
Svidrigaïlov sat down on the sofa about eight steps
from Dounia. She had not the slightest doubt now of
his unbending determination. Besides, she knew
him. Suddenly she pulled out of her pocket a
revolver, cocked it and laid it in her hand on the
table. Svidrigaïlov jumped up.
“Aha! So that’s it, is it?” he cried, surprised but
smiling maliciously. “Well, that completely alters the
aspect of affairs. You’ve made things wonderfully eas-
ier for me, Avdotya Romanovna. But where did you
get the revolver? Was it Mr. Razumihin? Why, it’s my
revolver, an old friend! And how I’ve hunted for it!
The shooting lessons I’ve given you in the country
have not been thrown away.”

765
 fyodor dostoevsky

“It’s not your revolver, it belonged to Marfa

Petrovna, whom you killed, wretch! There was noth-
ing of yours in her house. I took it when I began to
suspect what you were capable of. If you dare to
advance one step, I swear I’ll kill you.” She was frantic.
“But your brother? I ask from curiosity,” said
Svidrigaïlov, still standing where he was.
“Inform, if you want to! Don’t stir! Don’t come
near! I’ll shoot! You poisoned your wife, I know; you
are a murderer yourself!” She held the revolver
ready.
“Are you so positive I poisoned Marfa Petrovna?”
“You did! You hinted it yourself! You talked to me
of poison . . . I know you went to get it . . . you had it in
readiness . . . It was your doing . . . It must have been
your doing . . . Scoundrel!”
“Even if that were true, it would have been for
your sake . . . you would have been the cause.”
“You are lying! I hated you always, always . . .”
“Oho, Avdotya Romanovna! You seem to have for-
gotten how you softened to me in the heat of propa-
ganda. I saw it in your eyes. Do you remember that
moonlight night, when the nightingale was singing?”
“That’s a lie,” there was a flash of fury in Dounia’s
eyes, “that’s a lie and a libel!”
“A lie? Well, if you like, it’s a lie. I made it up.
Women ought not to be reminded of such things,” he
smiled. “I know you will shoot, you pretty wild crea-
ture. Well, shoot away!”

766
 crime and punishment

Dounia raised the revolver, and deadly pale, gazed

at him, measuring the distance and awaiting the first
movement on his part. Her lower lip was white and
quivering and her big black eyes flashed like fire. He
had never seen her so handsome. The fire glowing in
her eyes at the moment she raised the revolver
seemed to kindle him and there was a pang of anguish
in his heart. He took a step forward and a shot rang
out. The bullet grazed his hair and flew into the wall
behind. He stood still and laughed softly.
“The wasp has stung me. She aimed straight at my
head. What’s this? Blood?” he pulled out his handker-
chief to wipe the blood, which flowed in a thin stream
down his right temple. The bullet seemed to have just
grazed the skin.
Dounia lowered the revolver and looked at
Svidrigaïlov not so much in terror as in a sort of wild
amazement. She seemed not to understand what she
was doing and what was going on.
“Well, you missed! Fire again, I’ll wait,” said
Svidrigaïlov softly, still smiling, but gloomily. “If you
go on like that, I shall have time to seize you before
you cock again.”
Dounia started, quickly cocked the pistol and
again raised it.
“Let me be,” she cried in despair. “I swear I’ll
shoot again. I . . . I’ll kill you.”
“Well . . . at three paces you can hardly help it.
But if you don’t . . . then.” His eyes flashed and he

767
 fyodor dostoevsky

took two steps forward. Dounia shot again: it

missed fire.
“You haven’t loaded it properly. Never mind, you
have another charge there. Get it ready, I’ll wait.”
He stood facing her, two paces away, waiting and
gazing at her with wild determination, with feverishly
passionate, stubborn, set eyes. Dounia saw that he
would sooner die than let her go. “And . . . now, of
course she would kill him, at two paces!” Suddenly
she flung away the revolver.
“She’s dropped it!” said Svidrigaïlov with surprise,
and he drew a deep breath. A weight seemed to have
rolled from his heart — perhaps not only the fear of
death; indeed he may scarcely have felt it at that
moment. It was the deliverance from another feeling,
darker and more bitter, which he could not himself
have defined.
He went to Dounia and gently put his arm round
her waist. She did not resist, but, trembling like a leaf,
looked at him with suppliant eyes. He tried to say
something, but his lips moved without being able to
utter a sound.
“Let me go,” Dounia implored. Svidrigaïlov shud-
dered. Her voice now was quite different.
“Then you don’t love me?” he asked softly. Dounia
shook her head.
“And . . . and you can’t? Never?” he whispered in
despair.
“Never!”

768
 crime and punishment

There followed a moment of terrible, dumb strug-

gle in the heart of Svidrigaïlov. He looked at her with
an indescribable gaze. Suddenly he withdrew his arm,
turned quickly to the window and stood facing it.
Another moment passed.
“Here’s the key.”
He took it out of the left pocket of his coat and
laid it on the table behind him, without turning or
looking at Dounia.
“Take it! Make haste!”
He looked stubbornly out of the window. Dounia
went up to the table to take the key.
“Make haste! Make haste!” repeated Svidrigaïlov,
still without turning or moving. But there seemed a
terrible significance in the tone of that “make
haste.”
Dounia understood it, snatched up the key, flew to
the door, unlocked it quickly and rushed out of the
room. A minute later, beside herself, she ran out on
to the canal bank in the direction of X. Bridge.
Svidrigaïlov remained three minutes standing at
the window. At last he slowly turned, looked about
him and passed his hand over his forehead. A strange
smile contorted his face, a pitiful, sad, weak smile, a
smile of despair. The blood, which was already get-
ting dry, smeared his hand. He looked angrily at it,
then wetted a towel and washed his temple. The
revolver which Dounia had flung away lay near the
door and suddenly caught his eye. He picked it up

769
 fyodor dostoevsky

and examined it. It was a little pocket three-barrel

revolver of old-fashioned construction. There were
still two charges and one capsule left in it. It could be
fired again. He thought a little, put the revolver in his
pocket, took his hat and went out.

770
 chapter vi

He spent that evening till ten o’clock, going from

one low haunt to another, Katia too turned up and
sang another gutter song, how a certain “villain
and tyrant”
“began kissing Katia.”
Svidrigaïlov treated Katia and the organ-grinder and
some singers and the waiters and two little clerks. He
was particularly drawn to these clerks by the fact that
they both had crooked noses, one bent to the left and
the other to the right. They took him finally to a
pleasure garden, where he paid for their entrance.
There was one lanky three-year-old pine tree and
three bushes in the garden, besides a “Vauxhall,”
which was in reality a drinking-bar where tea too was
served, and there were a few green tables and chairs
standing round it. A chorus of wretched singers and a
drunken, but exceedingly depressed German clown
from Münich with a red nose entertained the public.

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 fyodor dostoevsky

The clerks quarrelled with some other clerks and a

fight seemed imminent. Svidrigaïlov was chosen to
decide the dispute. He listened to them for a quarter
of an hour, but they shouted so loud that there was
no possibility of understanding them. The only fact
that seemed certain was that one of them had stolen
something and had even succeeded in selling it on
the spot to a Jew, but would not share the spoil with
his companion. Finally it appeared that the stolen
object was a teaspoon belonging to the Vauxhall. It
was missed and the affair began to seem troublesome.
Svidrigaïlov paid for the spoon, got up, and walked
out of the garden. It was about six o’clock. He had
not drunk a drop of wine all this time and had
ordered tea more for the sake of appearances than
anything.
It was a dark and stifling evening. Threatening
stormclouds came over the sky about ten o’clock.
There was a clap of thunder, and the rain came down
like a waterfall. The water fell not in drops, but beat
on the earth in streams. There were flashes of light-
ning every minute and each flash lasted while one
could count five.
Drenched to the skin, he went home, locked him-
self in, opened the bureau, took out all his money
and tore up two or three papers. Then, putting the
money in his pocket, he was about to change his
clothes, but, looking out of the window and listening
to the thunder and the rain, he gave up the idea,

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 crime and punishment

took up his hat and went out of the room without

locking the door. He went straight to Sonia. She was
at home.
She was not alone: the four Kapernaumov chil-
dren were with her. She was giving them tea. She
received Svidrigaïlov in respectful silence, looking
wonderingly at his soaking clothes. The children all
ran away at once in indescribable terror.
Svidrigaïlov sat down at the table and asked Sonia
to sit beside him. She timidly prepared to listen.
“I may be going to America, Sofya Semyonovna,”
said Svidrigaïlov, “and as I am probably seeing you for
the last time, I have come to make some arrange-
ments. Well, did you see the lady to-day? I know what
she said to you, you need not tell me.” (Sonia made a
movement and blushed.) “Those people have their
own way of doing things. As to your sisters and your
brother, they are really provided for and the money
assigned to them I’ve put into safe keeping and have
received acknowledgments. You had better take
charge of the receipts, in case anything happens.
Here, take them! Well, now that’s settled. Here are
three 5 per cent. bonds to the value of three thousand
roubles. Take those for yourself, entirely for yourself,
and let that be strictly between ourselves, so that no
one knows of it, whatever you hear. You will need the
money, for to go on living in the old way, Sofya
Semyonovna, is bad, and besides there is no need for
it now.”

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“I am so much indebted to you, and so are the

children and my stepmother,” said Sonia hurriedly,
“and if I’ve said so little . . . please don’t consider . . . ”
“That’s enough! that’s enough!”
“But as for the money, Arkady Ivanovitch, I am
very grateful to you, but I don’t need it now. I can
always earn my own living. Don’t think me ungrate-
ful. If you are so charitable, that money . . . ”
“It’s for you, for you, Sofya Semyonovna, and
please don’t waste words over it. I haven’t time for it.
You will want it. Rodion Romanovitch has two alter-
natives: a bullet in the brain or Siberia.” (Sonia
looked wildly at him, and started.) “Don’t be uneasy, I
know all about it from himself and I am not a gossip;
I won’t tell any one. It was good advice when you told
him to give himself up and confess. It would be much
better for him. Well, if it turns out to be Siberia, he
will go and you will follow him. That’s so, isn’t it? And
if so, you’ll need money. You’ll need it for him, do
you understand? Giving it to you is the same as my
giving it to him. Besides, you promised Amalia
Ivanovna to pay what’s owing. I heard you. How can
you undertake such obligations so heedlessly, Sofya
Semyonovna? It was Katerina Ivanovna’s debt and not
yours, so you ought not to have taken any notice of
the German woman. You can’t get through the world
like that. If you are even questioned about me — to-
morrow or the day after you will be asked — don’t say
anything about my coming to see you now and don’t

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 crime and punishment

show the money to any one or say a word about it.

Well, now good-bye.” (He got up.) “My greetings to
Rodion Romanovitch. By the way, you’d better put
the money for the present in Mr. Razumihin’s keep-
ing. You know Mr. Razumihin? Of course you do.
He’s not a bad fellow. Take it to him to-morrow or . . .
when the time comes. And till then, hide it carefully.”
Sonia too jumped up from her chair and looked
in dismay at Svidrigaïlov. She longed to speak, to ask a
question, but for the first moments she did not dare
and did not know how to begin.
“How can you . . . how can you be going now, in
such rain?”
“Why, be starting for America, and be stopped by
rain! Ha, ha! Good-bye, Sofya Semyonovna, my dear!
Live and live long, you will be of use to others. By the
way . . . tell Mr. Razumihin I send my greetings to him.
Tell him Arkady Ivanovitch Svidrigaïlov sends his
greetings. Be sure to.”
He went out, leaving Sonia in a state of wondering
anxiety and vague apprehension.
It appeared afterwards that on the same evening,
at twenty past eleven, he made another very eccentric
and unexpected visit. The rain still persisted.
Drenched to the skin, he walked into the little flat
where the parents of his betrothed lived, in Third
Street in Vassilyevsky Island. He knocked some time
before he was admitted, and his visit at first caused
great perturbation; but Svidrigaïlov could be very fas-

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 fyodor dostoevsky

cinating when he liked, so that the first, and indeed

very intelligent surmise of the sensible parents that
Svidrigaïlov had probably had so much to drink that
he did not know what he was doing vanished immedi-
ately. The decrepit father was wheeled in to see
Svidrigaïlov by the tender and sensible mother, who
as usual began the conversation with various irrele-
vant questions. She never asked a direct question, but
began by smiling and rubbing her hands and then, if
she were obliged to ascertain something — for
instance, when Svidrigaïlov would like to have the
wedding — she would begin by interested and almost
eager questions about Paris and the court life there,
and only by degrees brought the conversation round
to Third Street. On other occasions this had of
course been very impressive, but this time Arkady
Ivanovitch seemed particularly impatient, and
insisted on seeing his betrothed at once, though he
had been informed to begin with that she had already
gone to bed. The girl of course appeared.
Svidrigaïlov informed her at once that he was
obliged by very important affairs to leave Petersburg
for a time, and therefore brought her fifteen thou-
sand roubles and begged her accept them as a pres-
ent from him, as he had long been intending to make
her this trifling present before their wedding. The
logical connection of the present with his immediate
departure and the absolute necessity of visiting them
for that purpose in pouring rain at midnight was not

776
 crime and punishment

made clear. But it all went off very well; even the
inevitable ejaculations of wonder and regret, the
inevitable questions were extraordinarily few and
restrained. On the other hand, the gratitude
expressed was most glowing and was reinforced by
tears from the most sensible of mothers. Svidrigaïlov
got up, laughed, kissed his betrothed, patted her
cheek, declared he would soon come back, and notic-
ing in her eyes, together with childish curiosity, a sort
of earnest dumb inquiry, reflected and kissed her
again, though he felt sincere anger inwardly at the
thought that his present would be immediately
locked up in the keeping of the most sensible of
mothers. He went away, leaving them all in a state of
extraordinary excitement, but the tender mamma,
speaking quietly in a half whisper, settled some of the
most important of their doubts, concluding that
Svidrigaïlov was a great man, a man of great affairs
and connections and of great wealth — there was no
knowing what he had in his mind. He would start off
on a journey and give away money just as the fancy
took him, so that there was nothing surprising about
it. Of course it was strange that he was wet through,
but Englishmen, for instance, are even more eccen-
tric, and all these people of high society didn’t think
of what was said of them and didn’t stand on cere-
mony. Possibly, indeed, he came like that on purpose
to show that he was not afraid of any one. Above all,
not a word should be said about it, for God knows

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what might come of it, and the money must be locked

up, and it was most fortunate that Fedosya, the cook,
had not left the kitchen. And above all not a word
must be said to that old cat, Madame Resslich, and so
on and so on. They sat up whispering till two o’clock,
but the girl went to bed much earlier, amazed and
rather sorrowful.
Svidrigaïlov meanwhile, exactly at midnight,
crossed the bridge on the way back to the mainland.
The rain had ceased and there was a roaring wind.
He began shivering, and for one moment he gazed at
the black waters of the Little Neva with a look of spe-
cial interest, even inquiry. But he soon felt it very
cold, standing by the water; he turned and went
towards Y. Prospect. He walked along that endless
street for a long time, almost half an hour, more than
once stumbling in the dark on the wooden pavement,
but continually looking for something on the right
side of the street. He had noticed passing through
this street lately that there was a hotel somewhere
towards the end, built of wood, but fairly large, and
its name he remembered was something like
Adrianople. He was not mistaken; the hotel was so
conspicuous in that God-forsaken place that he could
not fail to see it even in the dark. It was a long, black-
ened wooden building, and in spite of the late hour
there were lights in the windows and signs of life
within. He went in and asked a ragged fellow who
met him in the corridor for a room. The latter, scan-

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ning Svidrigaïlov, pulled himself together and led

him at once to a close and tiny room in the distance,
at the end of the corridor, under the stairs. There was
no other, all were occupied. The ragged fellow
looked inquiringly.
“Is there tea?” asked Svidrigaïlov.
“Yes, sir.”
“What else is there?”
“Veal, vodka, savouries.”
“Bring me tea and veal.”
“And you want nothing else?” he asked with appar-
ent surprise.
“Nothing, nothing.”
The ragged man went away, completely disillu-
sioned.
“It must be a nice place,” thought Svidrigaïlov.
“How was it I didn’t know it? I expect I look as if I
came from a café chantant and have had some adven-
ture on the way. It would be interesting to know who
stayed here.”
He lighted the candle and looked at the room
more carefully. It was a room so low-pitched that
Svidrigaïlov could only just stand up in it; it had one
window; the bed, which was very dirty, and the plain
stained chair and table almost filled it up. The walls
looked as though they were made of planks, covered
with shabby paper, so torn and dusty that the pattern
was indistinguishable, though the general colour —
yellow — could still be made out. One of the walls was

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cut short by the sloping ceiling, though the room was

not an attic, but just under the stairs.
Svidrigaïlov set down the candle, sat down on the
bed and sank into thought. But a strange persistent
murmur which sometimes rose to a shout in the next
room attracted his attention. The murmur had not
ceased from the moment he entered the room. He
listened: some one was upbraiding and almost tear-
fully scolding, but he heard only one voice.
Svidrigaïlov got up, shaded the light with his hand
and at once he saw light through a crack in the wall;
he went up and peeped through. The room, which
was somewhat larger than his, had two occupants.
One of them, a very curly-headed man with a red
inflamed face, was standing in the pose of an orator,
without his coat, with his legs wide apart to preserve
his balance, and smiting himself on the breast. He
reproached the other with being a beggar, with hav-
ing no standing whatever. He declared that he had
taken the other out of the gutter and he could turn
him out when he liked, and that only the finger of
Providence sees it all. The object of his reproaches
was sitting in a chair, and had the air of a man who
wants dreadfully to sneeze, but can’t. He sometimes
turned sheepish and befogged eyes on the speaker,
but obviously had not the slightest idea what he was
talking about and scarcely heard it. A candle was
burning down on the table; there were wine glasses, a
nearly empty bottle of vodka, bread and cucumber,

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and glasses with the dregs of stale tea. After gazing

attentively at this, Svidrigaïlov turned away indiffer-
ently and sat down on the bed.
The ragged attendant, returning with the tea,
could not resist asking him again whether he didn’t
want anything more, and again receiving a negative
reply, finally withdrew. Svidrigaïlov made haste to
drink a glass of tea to warm himself, but could not eat
anything. He began to feel feverish. He took off his
coat and, wrapping himself in the blanket, lay down
on the bed. He was annoyed. “It would have been bet-
ter to be well for the occasion,” he thought with a
smile. The room was close, the candle burnt dimly,
the wind was roaring outside, he heard a mouse
scratching in the corner and the room smelt of mice
and of leather. He lay in a sort of reverie: one thought
followed another. He felt a longing to fix his imagina-
tion on something. “It must be a garden under the
window,” he thought. “There’s a sound of trees. How
I dislike the sound of trees on a stormy night, in the
dark! They give one a horrid feeling.” He remem-
bered how he had disliked it when he passed
Petrovsky Park just now. This reminded him of the
bridge over the Little Neva and he felt cold again as
he had when standing there. “I never have liked
water,” he thought, “even in a landscape,” and he sud-
denly smiled again at a strange idea: “Surely now all
these questions of taste and comfort ought not to
matter, but I’ve become more particular, like an ani-

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mal that picks out a special place . . . for such an occa-

sion. I ought to have gone into the Petrovsky Park! I
suppose it seemed dark, cold, ha-ha! As though I
were seeking pleasant sensations! . . . By the way, why
haven’t I put out the candle?” he blew it out. “They’ve
gone to bed next door,” he thought, not seeing the
light at the crack. “Well, now, Marfa Petrovna, now is
the time for you to turn up; it’s dark, and the very
time and place for you. But now you won’t come!”
He suddenly recalled how, an hour before carry-
ing out his design on Dounia, he had recommended
Raskolnikov to trust her to Razumihin’s keeping. “I
suppose I really did say it, as Raskolnikov guessed, to
tease myself. But what a rogue that Raskolnikov is!
He’s gone through a good deal. He may be a success-
ful rogue in time when he’s got over his nonsense.
But now he’s too eager for life. These young men are
contemptible on that point. But, hang the fellow! Let
him please himself, it’s nothing to do with me.”
He could not get to sleep. By degrees Dounia’s
image rose before him, and a shudder ran over him.
“No, I must give up all that now,” he thought, rous-
ing himself. “I must think of something else. It’s
queer and funny. I never had a great hatred for any
one, I never particularly desired to revenge myself
even, and that’s a bad sign, a bad sign, a bad sign. I
never liked quarrelling either, and never lost my tem-
per — that’s a bad sign too. And the promises I made
her just now, too — Damnation! But — who knows? —

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perhaps she would have made a new man of me

somehow . . . ”
He ground his teeth and sank into silence again.
Again Dounia’s image rose before him, just as she was
when, after shooting the first time, she had lowered
the revolver in terror and gazed blankly at him, so
that he might have seized her twice over and she
would not have lifted a hand to defend herself if he
had not reminded her. He recalled how at that
instant he felt almost sorry for her, how he had felt a
pang at his heart . . .
“Aïe! Damnation, these thoughts again! I must put
it away!”
He was dozing off; the feverish shiver had ceased,
when suddenly something seemed to run over his
arm and leg under the bedclothes. He started. “Ugh!
hang it! I believe it’s a mouse,” he thought, “that’s the
veal I left on the table.” He felt fearfully disinclined
to pull off the blanket, get up, get cold, but all at once
something unpleasant ran over his leg again. He
pulled off the blanket and lighted the candle.
Shaking with feverish chill he bent down to examine
the bed: there was nothing. He shook the blanket
and suddenly a mouse jumped out on the sheet. He
tried to catch it, but the mouse ran to and fro in zig-
zags without leaving the bed, slipped between his fin-
gers, ran over his hand and suddenly darted under
the pillow. He threw down the pillow, but in one
instant felt something leap on his chest and dart over

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his body and down his back under his shirt. He trem-
bled nervously and woke up.
The room was dark. He was lying on the bed and
wrapped up in the blanket as before. The wind was
howling under the window. “How disgusting,” he
thought with annoyance.
He got up and sat on the edge of the bedstead
with his back to the window. “It’s better not to sleep at
all,” he decided. There was a cold damp draught
from the window, however; without getting up he
drew the blanket over him and wrapped himself in it.
He was not thinking of anything and did not want to
think. But one image rose after another, incoherent
scraps of thought without beginning or end passed
through his mind. He sank into drowsiness. Perhaps
the cold, or the dampness, or the dark, or the wind
that howled under the window and tossed the trees
roused a sort of persistent craving for the fantastic.
He kept dwelling on images of flowers, he fancied a
charming flower garden, a bright, warm, almost hot
day, a holiday — Trinity day. A fine, sumptuous coun-
try cottage in the English taste overgrown with fra-
grant flowers, with flower beds going round the
house; the porch, wreathed in climbers, was sur-
rounded with beds of roses. A light, cool staircase,
carpeted with rich rugs, was decorated with rare
plants in china pots. He noticed particularly in the
windows nosegays of tender, white, heavily fragrant
narcissus bending over their bright, green, thick long

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stalks. He was reluctant to move away from them, but

he went up the stairs and came into a large, high
drawing-room and again everywhere — at the win-
dows, the doors on to the balcony, and on the bal-
cony itself — were flowers. The floors were strewn with
freshly-cut fragrant hay, the windows were open, a
fresh, cool, light air came into the room. The birds
were chirruping under the window, and in the mid-
dle of the room, on a table covered with a white satin
shroud, stood a coffin. The coffin was covered with
white silk and edged with a thick frill; wreaths of flow-
ers surrounded it on all sides. Among the flowers lay
a girl in a white muslin dress, with her arms crossed
and pressed on her bosom, as though carved out of
marble. But her loose fair hair was wet; there was a
wreath of roses on her head. The stern and already
rigid profile of her face looked as though chiselled of
marble too, and the smile on her pale lips was full of
an immense unchildish misery and sorrowful appeal.
Svidrigaïlov knew that girl; there was no holy image,
no burning candle beside the coffin; no sound of
prayers: the girl had drowned herself. She was only
fourteen, but her heart was broken. And she had
destroyed herself, crushed by an insult that had
appalled and amazed that childish soul, had
smirched that angel purity with unmerited disgrace
and torn from her a last scream of despair, unheeded
and brutally disregarded, on a dark night in the cold
and wet while the wind howled . . .

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 fyodor dostoevsky

Svidrigaïlov came to himself, got up from the bed

and went to the window. He felt for the latch and
opened it. The wind lashed furiously into the little
room and stung his face and his chest, only covered
with his shirt, as though with frost. Under the window
there must have been something like a garden, and
apparently a pleasure garden. There, too, probably
there were tea tables and singing in the daytime. Now
drops of rain flew in at the window from the trees and
bushes; it was dark as in a cellar, so that he could only
just make out some dark blurs of objects. Svidrigaïlov,
bending down with elbows on the window-sill gazed for
five minutes into the darkness; the boom of a cannon,
followed by a second one, resounded in the darkness of
the night. “Ah, the signal! The river is overflowing,” he
thought. “By morning it will be swirling down the street
in the lower parts, flooding the basements and cellars.
The cellar rats will swim out, and men will curse in the
rain and wind as they drag their rubbish to their upper
storeys. What time is it now?” And he had hardly
thought it when, somewhere near, a clock on the wall,
ticking away hurriedly, struck three.
“Aha! It will be light in an hour! Why wait? I’ll go
out at once straight to the park. I’ll choose a great
bush there drenched with rain, so that as soon as
one’s shoulder touches it, millions of drops drip on
one’s head.”
He moved away from the window, shut it, lighted
the candle, put on his waistcoat, his overcoat and his

786
 crime and punishment

hat and went out, carrying the candle, into the passage
to look for the ragged attendant who would be asleep
somewhere in the midst of candle ends and all sorts of
rubbish, to pay him for the room and leave the hotel.
“It’s the best minute; I couldn’t choose a better.”
He walked for some time through a long narrow
corridor without finding any one and was just going
to call out, when suddenly in a dark corner between
an old cupboard and the door he caught sight of a
strange object which seemed to be alive. He bent
down with the candle and saw a little girl, not more
than five years old, shivering and crying, with her
clothes as wet as a soaking house-flannel. She did not
seem afraid of Svidrigaïlov, but looked at him with
blank amazement out of her big black eyes. Now and
then she sobbed as children do when they have been
crying a long time, but are beginning to be com-
forted. The child’s face was pale and tired, she was
numb with cold. “How can she have come here? She
must have hidden here and not slept all night.” He
began questioning her. The child suddenly becoming
animated, chattered away in her baby language,
something about “mammy” and that “mammy would
beat her,” and about some cup that she had
“bwoken.” The child chattered on without stopping.
He could only guess from what she said that she was a
neglected child, whose mother, probably a drunken
cook, in the service of the hotel, whipped and fright-
ened her; that the child had broken a cup of her

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mother’s and was so frightened that she had run away

the evening before, had hidden for a long while
somewhere outside in the rain, at last had made her
way in here, hidden behind the cupboard and spent
the night there, crying and trembling from the
damp, the darkness and the fear that she would be
badly beaten for it. He took her in his arms, went
back to his room, sat her on the bed, and began
undressing her. The torn shoes which she had on her
stockingless feet were as wet as if they had been stand-
ing in a puddle all night. When he had undressed
her, he put her on the bed, covered her up and
wrapped her in the blanket from her head down-
wards. She fell asleep at once. Then he sank into
dreary musing again.
“What folly to trouble myself,” he decided sud-
denly with an oppressive feeling of annoyance. “What
idiocy!” In vexation he took up the candle to go and
look for the ragged attendant again and make haste
to go away. “Damn the child!” he thought as he
opened the door, but he turned again to see whether
the child was asleep. He raised the blanket carefully.
The child was sleeping soundly, she had got warm
under the blanket, and her pale cheeks were flushed.
But strange to say that flush seemed brighter and
coarser than the rosy cheeks of childhood. “It’s a
flush of fever,” thought Svidrigaïlov. It was like the
flush from drinking, as though she had been given a
full glass to drink. Her crimson lips were hot and

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glowing; but what was this? He suddenly fancied that

her long black eyelashes were quivering, as though
the lids were opening and a sly crafty eye peeped out
with an unchildlike wink, as though the little girl
were not asleep, but pretending. Yes, it was so. Her
lips parted in a smile. The corners of her mouth quiv-
ered, as though she were trying to control them. But
now she quite gave up all effort, now it was a grin, a
broad grin; there was something shameless, provoca-
tive in that quite unchildish face; it was depravity, it
was the face of a harlot, the shameless face of a
French harlot. Now both eyes opened wide; they
turned a glowing, shameless glance upon him; they
laughed, invited him . . . There was something infi-
nitely hideous and shocking in that laugh, in those
eyes, in such nastiness in the face of a child. “What, at
five years old?” Svidrigaïlov muttered in genuine hor-
ror. “What does it mean?” And now she turned to
him, her little face all aglow, holding out her arms . . .
“Accursed child!” Svidrigaïlov cried, raising his hand
to strike her, but at that moment he woke up.
He was in the same bed, still wrapped in the blan-
ket. The candle had not been lighted, and daylight
was streaming in at the window.
“I’ve had nightmares all night!” He got up angrily,
feeling utterly shattered; his bones ached. There was
a thick mist outside and he could see nothing. It was
nearly five. He had overslept himself! He got up, put
on his still damp jacket and overcoat. Feeling the

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revolver in his pocket, he took it out and then he sat

down, took a notebook out of his pocket and in the
most conspicuous place on the title page wrote a few
lines in large letters. Reading them over, he sank into
thought with his elbows on the table. The revolver
and the notebook lay beside him. Some flies woke up
and settled on the untouched veal, which was still on
the table. He stared at them and at last with his free
right hand began trying to catch one. He tried till he
was tired, but could not catch it. At last, realising that
he was engaged in this interesting pursuit, he started,
got up and walked resolutely out of the room. A
minute later he was in the street.
A thick milky mist hung over the town.
Svidrigaïlov walked along the slippery dirty wooden
pavement towards the Little Neva. He was picturing
the waters of the Little Neva swollen in the night,
Petrovsky Island, the wet paths, the wet grass, the wet
trees and bushes and at last the bush . . . He began ill-
humouredly staring at the houses, trying to think of
something else. There was not a cabman or a passer-
by in the street. The bright yellow, wooden, little
houses looked dirty and dejected with their closed
shutters. The cold and damp penetrated his whole
body and he began to shiver. From time to time he
came across shop signs and read each carefully. At
last he reached the end of the wooden pavement and
came to a big stone house. A dirty, shivering dog
crossed his path with its tail between its legs. A man in

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a great coat lay face downwards; dead drunk, across

the pavement. He looked at him and went on. A high
tower stood up on the left. “Bah!” he shouted, “here
is a place. Why should it be Petrovsky? It will be in the
presence of an official witness anyway . . . ”
He almost smiled at this new thought and turned
into the street where there was the big house with the
tower. At the great closed gates of the house, a little
man stood with his shoulder leaning against them,
wrapped in a grey soldier’s coat, with a copper Achilles
helmet on his head. He cast a drowsy and indifferent
glance at Svidrigaïlov. His face wore that perpetual
look of peevish dejection, which is so sourly printed on
all faces of Jewish race without exception. They both,
Svidrigaïlov and Achilles, stared at each other for a few
minutes without speaking. At last it struck Achilles as
irregular for a man not drunk to be standing three
steps from him, staring and not saying a word.
“What do you want here?” he said, without moving
or changing his position.
“Nothing, brother, good morning,” answered
Svidrigaïlov.
“This isn’t the place.”
“I am going to foreign parts, brother.”
“To foreign parts?”
“To America.”
“America?”
Svidrigaïlov took out the revolver and cocked it.
Achilles raised his eyebrows.

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“I say, this is not the place for such jokes!”

“Why shouldn’t it be the place?”
“Because it isn’t.”
“Well, brother, I don’t mind that. It’s a good place.
When you are asked, you just say he was going, he
said, to America.”
He put the revolver to his right temple.
“You can’t do it here, it’s not the place,” cried
Achilles, rousing himself, his eyes growing bigger and
bigger.
Svidrigaïlov pulled the trigger.

792
 chapter vii

The same day, about seven o’clock in the evening,

Raskolnikov was on his way to his mother’s and sis-
ter’s lodging — the lodging in Bakaleyev’s house
which Razumihin had found for them. The stairs
went up from the street. Raskolnikov walked with lag-
ging steps, as though still hesitating whether to go or
not. But nothing would have turned him back: his
decision was taken.
“Besides, it doesn’t matter, they still know noth-
ing,” he thought, “and they are used to thinking of
me as eccentric.”
He was appallingly dressed: his clothes torn and
dirty, soaked with a night’s rain. His face was almost
distorted from fatigue, exposure, the inward conflict
that had lasted for twenty-four hours. He had spent
all the previous night alone, God knows where. But
anyway he had reached a decision.
He knocked at the door which was opened by his
mother. Dounia was not at home. Even the servant

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happened to be out. At first Pulcheria Alexandrovna

was speechless with joy and surprise; then she took
him by the hand and drew him into the room.
“Here you are!” she began, faltering with joy.
“Don’t be angry with me, Rodya, for welcoming you
so foolishly with tears: I am laughing, not crying. Did
you think I was crying? No, I am delighted, but I’ve
got into such a stupid habit of shedding tears. I’ve
been like that ever since your father’s death. I cry for
anything. Sit down, dear boy, you must be tired; I see
you are. Ah, how muddy you are.”
“I was in the rain yesterday, mother . . . ” Raskolnikov
began.
“No, no,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna hurriedly inter-
rupted, “you thought I was going to cross-question
you in the womanish way I used to; don’t be anxious,
I understand, I understand it all: now I’ve learnt the
ways here and truly I see for myself that they are bet-
ter. I’ve made up my mind once for all: how could I
understand your plans and expect you to give an
account of them? God knows what concerns and
plans you may have, or what ideas you are hatching;
so it’s not for me to keep nudging your elbow, asking
you what you are thinking about. But, my goodness!
why am I running to and fro as though I were crazy . .
. ? I am reading your article in the magazine for the
third time, Rodya. Dmitri Prokofitch brought it to
me. Directly I saw it I cried out to myself, there, fool-
ish one, I thought, that’s what he is busy about; that’s

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 crime and punishment

the solution of the mystery! Learned people are

always like that. He may have some new ideas in his
head just now; he is thinking them over and I worry
him and upset him. I read it, my dear, and of course
there was a great deal I did not understand; but that’s
only natural — how should I?”
“Show me, mother.”
Raskolnikov took the magazine and glanced at his
article. Incongruous as it was with his mood and his
circumstances, he felt that strange and bitter sweet
sensation that every author experiences the first time
he sees himself in print; besides, he was only twenty-
three. It lasted only a moment. After reading a few
lines he frowned and his heart throbbed with
anguish. He recalled all the inward conflict of the
preceding months. He flung the article on the table
with disgust and anger.
“But, however foolish I may be, Rodya, I can see for
myself that you will very soon be one of the leading— if
not the leading man — in the world of Russian thought.
And they dared to think you were mad! You don’t
know, but they really thought that. Ah, the despicable
creatures, how could they understand genius! And
Dounia, Dounia was all but believing it — what do you
say to that! Your father sent twice to magazines — the
first time poems (I’ve got the manuscript and will show
you) and the second time a whole novel (I begged him
to let me copy it out) and how we prayed that they
should be taken — they weren’t! I was breaking my

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 fyodor dostoevsky

heart, Rodya, six or seven days ago over your food and
your clothes and the way you are living. But now I see
again how foolish I was, for you can attain any position
you like by your intellect and talent. No doubt you
don’t care about that for the present and you are occu-
pied with much more important matters . . . ”
“Dounia’s not at home, mother?”
“No, Rodya. I often don’t see her; she leaves me
alone. Dmitri Prokofitch comes to see me, it’s so
good of him, and he always talks about you. He loves
and respects you, my dear. I don’t say that Dounia is
very wanting in consideration. I am not complaining.
She has her ways and I have mine; she seems to have
got some secrets of late and I never have any secrets
from you two. Of course, I am sure that Dounia has
far too much sense, and besides she loves you and me
. . . but I don’t know what it will all lead to. You’ve
made me so happy by coming now, Rodya, but she
has missed you by going out; when she comes in I’ll
tell her: your brother came in while you were out.
Where have you been all this time? You mustn’t spoil
me, Rodya, you know; come when you can, but if you
can’t, it doesn’t matter, I can wait. I shall know, any-
way, that you are fond of me, that will be enough for
me. I shall read what you write, I shall hear about you
from every one, and sometimes you’ll come yourself
to see me. What could be better? Here you’ve come
now to comfort your mother, I see that.”
Here Pulcheria Alexandrovna began to cry.

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 crime and punishment

“Here I am again! Don’t mind my foolishness. My

goodness, why am I sitting here?” she cried, jumping
up. “There is coffee and I don’t offer you any. Ah,
that’s the selfishness of old age. I’ll get it at once!”
“Mother, don’t trouble, I am going at once. I
haven’t come for that. Please listen to me.”
Pulcheria Alexandrovna went up to him timidly.
“Mother, whatever happens, whatever you hear
about me, whatever you are told about me, will you
always love me as you do now?” he asked suddenly
from the fulness of his heart, as though not thinking
of his words and not weighing them.
“Rodya, Rodya, what is the matter? How can you
ask me such a question? Why, who will tell me any-
thing about you? Besides, I shouldn’t believe any one,
I should refuse to listen.”
“I’ve come to assure you that I’ve always loved you
and I am glad that we are alone, even glad Dounia is
out,” he went on with the same impulse. “I have come
to tell you that though you will be unhappy, you must
believe that your son loves you now more than him-
self, and that all you thought about me, that I was
cruel and didn’t care about you, was all a mistake. I
shall never cease to love you . . . Well, that’s enough: I
thought I must do this and begin with this . . . ”
Pulcheria Alexandrovna embraced him in silence,
pressing him to her bosom and weeping gently.
“I don’t know what is wrong with you, Rodya,” she
said at last. “I’ve been thinking all this time that we

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were simply boring you and now I see that there is a

great sorrow in store for you, and that’s why you are
miserable. I’ve foreseen it a long time, Rodya. Forgive
me for speaking about it. I keep thinking about it and
lie awake at nights. Your sister lay talking in her sleep
all last night, talking of nothing but you. I caught
something, but I couldn’t make it out. I felt all the
morning as though I were going to be hanged, wait-
ing for something, expecting something, and now it
has come! Rodya, Rodya, where are you going? You
are going away somewhere?”
“Yes.”
“That’s what I thought! I can come with you, you
know, if you need me. And Dounia, too; she loves
you, she loves you dearly — and Sofya Semyonovna
may come with us if you like. You see, I am glad to
look upon her as a daughter even . . . Dmitri Prokofitch
will help us to go together. But . . . where . . . are you
going?”
“Good-bye, mother.”
“What, to-day?” she cried, as though losing him
for ever.
“I can’t stay, I must go now . . .”
“And can’t I come with you?”
“No, but kneel down and pray to God for me. Your
prayer perhaps will reach Him.”
“Let me bless you and sign you with the cross.
That’s right, that’s right. Oh, God, what are we
doing?”

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Yes, he was glad, he was very glad that there was no

one there, that he was alone with his mother. For the
first time after all those awful months his heart was
softened. He fell down before her, he kissed her feet
and both wept, embracing. And she was not surprised
and did not question him this time. For some days
she had realised that something awful was happening
to her son and that now some terrible minute had
come for him.
“Rodya, my darling, my first born,” she said sob-
bing, “now you are just as when you were little. You
would run like this to me and hug me and kiss me.
When your father was living and we were poor, you
comforted us simply by being with us and when I
buried your father, how often we wept together at his
grave and embraced, as now. And if I’ve been crying
lately, it’s that my mother’s heart had a foreboding of
trouble. The first time I saw you, that evening you
remember, as soon as we arrived here, I guessed sim-
ply from your eyes. My heart sank at once, and to-day
when I opened the door and looked at you, I thought
the fatal hour had come. Rodya, Rodya, you are not
going away to-day?”
“No!”
“You’ll come again?”
“Yes . . . I’ll come.”
“Rodya, don’t be angry, I don’t dare to question
you. I know I mustn’t. Only say two words to me — is it
far where you are going?”

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“Very far.”
“What is awaiting you there? Some post or career
for you?”
“What God sends . . . only pray for me.” Raskolnikov
went to the door, but she clutched him and gazed
despairingly into his eyes. Her face worked with terror.
“Enough, mother,” said Raskolnikov, deeply
regretting that he had come.
“Not for ever, it’s not yet for ever? You’ll come,
you’ll come to-morrow?”
“I will, I will, good-bye.” He tore himself away at last.
It was a warm, fresh, bright evening; it had cleared
up in the morning. Raskolnikov went to his lodgings;
he made haste. He wanted to finish all before sunset.
He did not want to meet any one till then. Going up
the stairs he noticed that Nastasya rushed from the
samovar to watch him intently. “Can any one have
come to see me?” he wondered. He had a disgusted
vision of Porfiry. But opening his door he saw Dounia.
She was sitting alone, plunged in deep thought, and
looked as though she had been waiting a long time.
He stopped short in the doorway. She rose from the
sofa in dismay and stood up facing him. Her eyes fixed
upon him, betrayed horror and infinite grief. And
from those eyes alone he saw at once that she knew.
“Am I to come in or go away?” he asked uncertainly.
“I’ve been all day with Sofya Semyonovna. We were
both waiting for you. We thought that you would be
sure to come there.”

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Raskolnikov went into the room and sank

exhausted on a chair.
“I feel weak, Dounia, I am very tired; and I should
have liked at this moment to be able to control
myself.”
He glanced at her mistrustfully.
“Where were you all night?”
“I don’t remember clearly. You see, sister, I
wanted to make up my mind once for all, and sev-
eral times I walked by the Neva, I remember that I
wanted to end it all there, but . . . I couldn’t make up
my mind,” he whispered, looking at her mistrust-
fully again.
“Thank God! That was just what we were afraid of,
Sofya Semyonovna and I. Then you still have faith in
life? Thank God, thank God!”
Raskolnikov smiled bitterly.
“I haven’t faith, but I have just been weeping in
mother’s arms; I haven’t faith, but I have just asked
her to pray for me. I don’t know how it is, Dounia, I
don’t understand it.”
“Have you been at mother’s? Have you told her?”
cried Dounia, horror-stricken. “Surely you haven’t
done that?”
“No, I didn’t tell her . . . in words; but she under-
stood a great deal. She heard you talking in your
sleep. I am sure she half understands it already.
Perhaps I did wrong in going to see her. I don’t know
why I did go. I am a contemptible person, Dounia.”

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 fyodor dostoevsky

“A contemptible person, but ready to face suffer-

ing! You are, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am going. At once. Yes, to escape the dis-
grace I thought of drowning myself, Dounia, but as I
looked into the water, I thought that if I had consid-
ered myself strong till now, I’d better not be afraid of
disgrace,” he said, hurrying on. “It’s pride, Dounia.”
“Pride, Rodya.”
There was a gleam of fire in his lustreless eyes; he
seemed to be glad to think that he was still proud.
“You don’t think, sister, that I was simply afraid of
the water?” he asked, looking into her face with a sin-
ister smile.
“Oh, Rodya, hush!” cried Dounia bitterly. Silence
lasted for two minutes. He sat with his eyes fixed on
the floor; Dounia stood at the other end of the table
and looked at him with anguish. Suddenly he got up.
“It’s late, it’s time to go! I am going at once to give
myself up. But I don’t know why I am going to give
myself up.”
Big tears fell down her cheeks.
“You are crying, sister, but can you hold out your
hand to me?”
“You doubted it?”
She threw her arms round him.
“Aren’t you half expiating your crime by facing the
suffering!” she cried, holding him close and kissing him.
“Crime? What crime?” he cried in sudden fury.
“That I killed a vile noxious insect, and old pawnbro-

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ker woman, of use to no one! . . . Killing her was

atonement for forty sins. She was sucking the life out
of poor people. Was that a crime? I am not thinking
of it and I am not thinking of expiating it, and why
are you all rubbing it in on all sides? ‘A crime! a
crime!’ Only now I see clearly the imbecility of my
cowardice, now that I have decided to face this super-
fluous disgrace. It’s simply because I am con-
temptible and have nothing in me that I have
decided to, perhaps too for my advantage, as that . . .
Porfiry . . . suggested!”
“Brother, brother, what are you saying! Why, you
have shed blood!” cried Dounia in despair.
“Which all men shed,” he put in almost frantically,
“which flows and has always flowed in streams, which
is spilt like champagne, and for which men are
crowned in the Capitol and are called afterwards
benefactors of mankind. Look into it more carefully
and understand it! I too wanted to do good to men
and would have done hundreds, thousands of good
deeds to make up for that one piece of stupidity, not
stupidity even, simply clumsiness, for the idea was by
no means so stupid as it seems now that it has failed . .
. (Everything seems stupid when it fails.) By that stu-
pidity I only wanted to put myself into an independ-
ent position, to take the first step, to obtain means,
and then everything would have been smoothed over
by benefits immeasurable in comparison . . . But I . . . I
couldn’t carry out even the first step, because I am

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contemptible, that’s what’s the matter! And yet I

won’t look at it as you do. If I had succeeded I should
have been crowned with glory, but now I’m trapped.”
“But that’s not so, not so! Brother, what are you
saying?”
“Ah, it’s not picturesque, not æsthetically attrac-
tive! I fail to understand why bombarding people by
regular siege is more honourable. The fear of appear-
ances is the first symptom of impotence. I’ve never,
never recognised this more clearly than now, and I
am further than ever from seeing that what I did was
a crime. I’ve never, never been stronger and more
convinced than now.”
The colour had rushed into his pale exhausted
face, but as he uttered his last explanation, he hap-
pened to meet Dounia’s eyes and he saw such anguish
in them that he could not help being checked. He felt
that he had any way made these two poor women mis-
erable, that he was any way the cause . . .
“Dounia darling, if I am guilty forgive me (though
I cannot be forgiven if I am guilty). Good-bye! We
won’t dispute. It’s time, high time to go. Don’t follow
me, I beseech you, I have somewhere else to go . . .
But you go at once and sit with mother. I entreat you
to! It’s my last request of you. Don’t leave her at all; I
left her in a state of anxiety, that she is not fit to bear;
she will die or go out of her mind. Be with her!
Razumihin will be with you. I’ve been talking to him .
. . Don’t cry about me: I’ll try to be honest and manly

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 crime and punishment

all my life, even if I am a murderer. Perhaps I shall

some day make a name. I won’t disgrace you, you will
see; I’ll still show . . . Now, good-bye for the present,”
he concluded hurriedly, noticing again a strange
expression in Dounia’s eyes at his last words and
promises. “Why are you crying? Don’t cry, don’t cry:
we are not parting for ever! Ah, yes! Wait a minute,
I’d forgotten!”
He went to the table, took up a thick dusty book,
opened it and took from between the pages a little
water-colour portrait on ivory. It was the portrait of
his landlady’s daughter, who had died of fever, that
strange girl who had wanted to be a nun. For a
minute he gazed at the delicate expressive face of his
betrothed, kissed the portrait and gave it to Dounia.
“I used to talk a great deal about it to her, only to
her,” he said thoughtfully. “To her heart I confided
much of what has since been so hideously realised.
Don’t be uneasy,” he returned to Dounia, “she was as
much opposed to it as you, and I am glad that she is
gone. The great point is that everything now is going
to be different, is going to be broken in two,” he
cried, suddenly returning to his dejection.
“Everything, everything, and am I prepared for it? Do
I want it myself? They say it is necessary for me to suf-
fer! What’s the object of these senseless sufferings?
Shall I know any better what they are for, when I am
crushed by hardships and idiocy, and weak as an old
man after twenty years’ penal servitude? And what

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shall I have to live for then? Why am I consenting to

that life now? Oh, I knew I was contemptible when I
stood looking at the Neva at daybreak to-day!”
At last they both went out. It was hard for Dounia,
but she loved him. She walked away, but after going
fifty paces she turned round to look at him again. He
was still in sight. At the comer he too turned and for
the last time their eyes met; but noticing that she was
looking at him, he motioned her away with impa-
tience and even vexation, and turned the corner
abruptly.
“I am wicked, I see that,” he thought to himself,
feeling ashamed a moment later of his angry gesture
to Dounia. “But why are they so fond of me if I don’t
deserve it? Oh, if only I were alone and no one loved
me and I too had never loved any one! Nothing of all
this would have happened. But I wonder shall I in those
fifteen or twenty years grow so meek that I shall hum-
ble myself before people and whimper at every word
that I am a criminal. Yes, that’s it, that’s it, that’s what
they are sending me there for, that’s what they want.
Look at them running to and fro about the streets,
every one of them a scoundrel and a criminal at heart
and, worse still, an idiot. But try to get me off and
they’d be wild with righteous indignation. Oh, how I
hate them all!”
He fell to musing by what process it could come to
pass, that he could be humbled before all of them,
indiscriminately — humbled by conviction. And yet

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 crime and punishment

why not? It must be so. Would not twenty years of con-

tinual bondage crush him utterly? Water wears out a
stone. And why, why should he live after that? Why
should he go now when he knew that it would be so?
It was the hundredth time perhaps that he had asked
himself that question since the previous evening, but
still he went.

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 chapter viii

When he went into Sonia’s room, it was already get-

ting dark. All day Sonia had been waiting for him in
terrible anxiety. Dounia had been waiting with her.
She had come to her that morning, remembering
Svidrigaïlov’s words that Sonia knew. We will not
describe the conversation and tears of the two girls,
and how friendly they became. Dounia gained one
comfort at least from that interview, that her
brother would not be alone. He had gone to her,
Sonia, first with his confession; he had gone to her
for human fellowship when he needed it; she would
go with him wherever fate might send him. Dounia
did not ask, but she knew it was so. She looked at
Sonia almost with reverence and at first almost
embarrassed her by it. Sonia was almost on the point
of tears. She felt herself, on the contrary, hardly wor-
thy to look at Dounia. Dounia’s gracious image
when she had bowed to her so attentively and
respectfully at their first meeting in Raskolnikov’s

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 crime and punishment

room had remained in her mind as one of the

fairest visions of her life.
Dounia at last became impatient and, leaving
Sonia, went to her brother’s room to await him there;
she kept thinking that he would come there first.
When she had gone, Sonia began to be tortured by
the dread of his committing suicide, and Dounia too
feared it. But they had spent the day trying to per-
suade each other that that could not be, and both
were less anxious while they were together. As soon as
they parted, each thought of nothing else. Sonia
remembered how Svidrigaïlov had said to her the day
before that Raskolnikov had two alternatives —
Siberia or . . . Besides she knew his vanity, his pride
and his lack of faith.
“Is it possible that he has nothing but cowardice
and fear of death to make him live?” she thought at
last in despair.
Meanwhile the sun was setting. Sonia was standing
in dejection, looking intently out of the window, but
from it she could see nothing but the unwhitewashed
blank wall of the next house. At last when she began
to feel sure of his death — he walked into the room.
She gave a cry of joy, but looking carefully into his
face she turned pale.
“Yes,” said Raskolnikov, smiling. “I have come for
your cross, Sonia. It was you told me to go to the
cross-roads; why is it you are frightened now it’s come
to that?”

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 fyodor dostoevsky

Sonia gazed at him astonished. His tone seemed

strange to her; a cold shiver ran over her, but in a
moment she guessed that the tone and the words
were a mask. He spoke to her looking away, as though
to avoid meeting her eyes.
“You see, Sonia, I’ve decided that it will be better
so. There is one fact . . . But it’s a long story and
there’s no need to discuss it. But do you know what
angers me? It annoys me that all those stupid brutish
faces will be gaping at me directly, pestering me with
their stupid questions, which I shall have to answer —
they’ll point their fingers at me . . . Tfoo! You know I
am not going to Porfiry, I am sick of him. I’d rather
go to my friend, the Explosive Lieutenant; how I shall
surprise him, what a sensation I shall make! But I
must be cooler; I’ve become too irritable of late. You
know I was nearly shaking my fist at my sister just now,
because she turned to take a last look at me. It’s a bru-
tal state to be in! Ah! what am I coming to! Well,
where are the crosses?”
He seemed hardly to know what he was doing. He
could not stay still or concentrate his attention on
anything; his ideas seemed to gallop after one
another, he talked incoherently, his hands trembled
slightly.
Without a word Sonia took out of the drawer two
crosses, one of cypress wood and one of copper. She
made the sign of the cross over herself and over him,
and put the wooden cross on his neck.

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 crime and punishment

“It’s the symbol of my taking up the cross,” he

laughed. “As though I had not suffered much till
now! The wooden cross, that is the peasant one; the
copper one, that is Lizaveta’s — you will wear yourself,
show me! So she had it on . . . at that moment? I
remember two things like these too, a silver one and a
little ikon. I threw them back on the old woman’s
neck. Those would be appropriate now, really, those
are what I ought to put on now . . . But I am talking
nonsense and forgetting what matters; I’m somehow
forgetful . . . You see I have come to warn you, Sonia,
so that you might know . . . that’s all — that’s all I came
for. But I thought I had more to say. You wanted me
to go yourself. Well, now I am going to prison and
you’ll have your wish. Well, what are you crying for?
You too? Don’t. Leave off! Oh, how I hate it all!”
But his feeling was stirred; his heart ached, as he
looked at her. “Why is she grieving too?” he thought
to himself. “What am I to her? Why does she weep?
Why is she looking after me, like my mother or
Dounia? She’ll be my nurse.”
“Cross yourself, say at least one prayer,” Sonia
begged in a timid broken voice.
“Oh certainly, as much as you like! And sincerely,
Sonia, sincerely . . .”
But he wanted to say something quite different.
He crossed himself several times. Sonia took up
her shawl and put it over her head. It was the green
drap de dames shawl of which Marmeladov had spo-

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 fyodor dostoevsky

ken, “the family shawl.” Raskolnikov thought of that

looking at it, but he did not ask. He began to feel
himself that he was certainly forgetting things and
was disgustingly agitated. He was frightened at this.
He was suddenly struck too by the thought that Sonia
meant to go with him.
“What are you doing? Where are you going? Stay
here, stay! I’ll go alone,” he cried in cowardly vexa-
tion, and almost resentful, he moved towards the
door. “What’s the use of going in procession!” he
muttered going out.
Sonia remained standing in the middle of the
room. He had not even said good-bye to her; he had
forgotten her. A poignant and rebellious doubt
surged in his heart.
“Was it right, was it right, all this?” he thought
again as he went down the stairs. “Couldn’t he stop
and retract it all . . . and not go?”
But still he went. He felt suddenly once for all that
he mustn’t ask himself questions. As he turned into
the street he remembered that he had not said good-
bye to Sonia, that he had left her in the middle of the
room in her green shawl, not daring to stir after he
had shouted at her, and he stopped short for a
moment. At the same instant, another thought
dawned upon him, as though it had been lying in wait
to strike him then.
“Why, with what object did I go to her just now? I
told her — on business; on what business? I had no

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 crime and punishment

sort of business! To tell her I was going; but where was

the need? Do I love her? No, no, I drove her away just
now like a dog. Did I want her crosses? Oh, how low
I’ve sunk! No, I wanted her tears, I wanted to see her
terror, to see how her heart ached! I had to have
something to cling to, something to delay me, some
friendly face to see! And I dared to believe in myself,
to dream of what I would do! I am a beggardly con-
temptible wretch, contemptible!”
He walked along the canal bank, and he had not
much further to go. But on reaching the bridge he
stopped and turning out of his way along it went to
the Hay Market.
He looked eagerly to right and left, gazed intently
at every object and could not fix his attention on any-
thing; everything slipped away. “In another week,
another month I shall be driven in a prison van over
this bridge, how shall I look at the canal then? I
should like to remember this!” slipped into his mind.
“Look at this sign! How shall I read those letters
then? It’s written here ‘Campany,’ that’s a thing to
remember, that letter a, and to look at it again in a
month — how shall I look at it then? What shall I be
feeling and thinking then? . . . How trivial it all must
be, what I am fretting about now! Of course it must
all be interesting . . . in its way . . . (Ha-ha-ha! What am
I thinking about?) I am becoming a baby, I am show-
ing off to myself; why am I ashamed? Foo, how people
shove! that fat man — a German he must be — who

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pushed against me, does he know whom he pushed?

There’s a peasant woman with a baby, begging. It’s
curious that she thinks me happier than she is. I
might give her something, for the incongruity of it.
Here’s a five copeck piece left in my pocket, where
did I get it? Here, here . . . take it, my good woman!”
“God bless you,” the beggar chanted in a lachry-
mose voice.
He went into the Hay Market. It was distasteful,
very distasteful to be in a crowd, but he walked just
where he saw most people. He would have given any-
thing in the world to be alone; but he knew himself
that he would not have remained alone for a
moment. There was a man drunk and disorderly in
the crowd; he kept trying to dance and falling down.
There was a ring round him. Raskolnikov squeezed
his way through the crowd, stared for some minutes
at the drunken man and suddenly gave a short jerky
laugh. A minute later he had forgotten him and did
not see him, though he still stared. He moved away at
last, not remembering where he was; but when he got
into the middle of the square an emotion suddenly
came over him, overwhelming him body and mind.
He suddenly recalled Sonia’s words, “Go to the
cross-roads, bow down to the people, kiss the earth,
for you have sinned against it too, and say aloud to
the whole world, ‘I am a murderer.’” He trembled,
remembering that. And the hopeless misery and anx-
iety of all that time, especially of the last hours, had

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 crime and punishment

weighed so heavily upon him that he positively

clutched at the chance of this new unmixed, com-
plete sensation. It came over him like a fit; it was like
a single spark kindled in his soul and spreading fire
through him. Everything in him softened at once and
the tears started into his eyes. He fell to the earth on
the spot . . .
He knelt down in the middle of the square, bowed
down to the earth, and kissed that filthy earth with
bliss and rapture. He got up and bowed down a sec-
ond time.
“He’s boozed,” a youth near him observed.
There was a roar of laughter.
“He’s going to Jerusalem, brothers, and saying
good-bye to his children and his country. He’s bowing
down to all the world and kissing the great city of St.
Petersburg and its pavement,” added a workman who
was a little drunk.
“Quite a young man, too!” observed a third.
“And a gentleman,” some one observed soberly.
“There’s no knowing who’s a gentleman and who
isn’t nowadays.”
These exclamations and remarks checked
Raskolnikov, and the words, “I am a murderer,” which
were perhaps on the point of dropping from his lips,
died away. He bore these remarks quietly, however,
and without looking round, he turned down a street
leading to the police office. He had a glimpse of
something on the way which did not surprise him; he

815
 fyodor dostoevsky

had felt that it must be so. The second time he bowed

down in the Hay Market, he saw standing fifty paces
from him on the left Sonia. She was hiding from him
behind one of the wooden shanties in the market-
place. She had followed him then on his painful way!
Raskolnikov at that moment felt and knew once for
all that Sonia was with him for ever and would follow
him to the ends of the earth, wherever fate might
take him. It wrung his heart . . . but he was just reach-
ing the fatal place.
He went into the yard fairly resolutely. He had to
mount to the third storey. “I shall be some time going
up,” he thought. He felt as though the fateful
moment was still far off, as though he had plenty of
time left for consideration.
Again the same rubbish, the same eggshells lying
about on the spiral stairs, again the open doors of
the flats, again the same kitchens and the same
fumes and stench coming from them. Raskolnikov
had not been here since that day. His legs were
numb and gave way under him, but still they moved
forward. He stopped for a moment to take breath, to
collect himself, so as to enter like a man. “But why?
what for?” he wondered, reflecting. “If I must drink
the cup what difference does it make? The more
revolting the better.” He imagined for an instant the
figure of the “explosive lieutenant,” Ilya Petrovitch.
Was he actually going to him? Couldn’t he go to
some one else? To Nikodim Fornitch? Couldn’t he

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 crime and punishment

turn back and go straight to Nikodim Fomitch’s

lodgings? At least then it would be done privately . . .
No, no! To the “explosive lieutenant”! If he must
drink it, drink it off at once.
Turning cold and hardly conscious, he opened
the door of the office. There were very few people
in it this time — only a house porter and a peasant.
The doorkeeper did not even peep out from
behind his screen. Raskolnikov walked into the
next room. “Perhaps I still need not speak,” passed
through his mind. Some sort of clerk not wearing a
uniform was settling himself at a bureau to write. In
a corner another clerk was seating himself.
Zametov was not there, nor, of course, Nikodim
Fomitch.
“No one in?” Raskolnikov asked, addressing the
person at the bureau.
“Whom do you want?”
“A-ah! Not a sound was heard, not a sight was seen,
but I scent the Russian . . . how does it go on in the
fairy tale . . . I’ve forgotten! At your service!” a familiar
voice cried suddenly.
Raskolnikov shuddered. The Explosive Lieutenant
stood before him. He had just come in from the third
room. “It is the hand of fate,” thought Raskolnikov.
“Why is he here?”
“You’ve come to see us? What about?” cried Ilya
Petrovitch. He was obviously in an exceedingly good
humour and perhaps a trifle exhilarated. “If it’s on

817
 fyodor dostoevsky

business you are rather early.1 It’s only a chance that I

am here . . . however I’ll do what I can. I must admit, I
. . . what is it, what is it? Excuse me . . . ”
“Raskolnikov.”
“Of course, Raskolnikov. You didn’t imagine I’d
forgotten? Don’t think I am like that . . . Rodion Ro —
Ro — Rodionovitch, that’s it, isn’t it?”
“Rodion Romanovitch.”
“Yes, yes, of course, Rodion Romanovitch! I was just
getting at it. I made many inquiries about you. I assure
you I’ve been genuinely grieved since that . . . since I
behaved like that . . . it was explained to me afterwards
that you were a literary man . . . and a learned one too . .
. and so to say the first steps . . . Mercy on us! What liter-
ary or scientific man does not begin by some originality
of conduct! My wife and I have the greatest respect for
literature, in my wife it’s a genuine passion! Literature
and art! If only a man is a gentleman, all the rest can be
gained by talents, learning, good sense, genius. As for a
hat — well, what does a hat matter? I can buy a hat as
easily as I can a bun; but what’s under the hat, what the
hat covers, I can’t buy that! I was even meaning to come
and apologise to you, but thought maybe you’d . . . But I
am forgetting to ask you, is there anything you want
really? I hear your family have come?”

1
Dostoevsky appears to have forgotten that it is after sunset,
and that the last time Raskolnikov visited the police office at
two in the afternoon, he was reproached for coming too late.

818
 crime and punishment

“Yes, my mother and sister.”

“I’ve even had the honour and happiness of meet-
ing your sister — a highly cultivated and charming
person. I confess I was sorry I got so hot with you.
There it is! But as for my looking suspiciously at your
fainting fit, — that affair has been cleared up splen-
didly! Bigotry and fanaticism! I understand your
indignation. Perhaps you are changing your lodging
on account of your family’s arriving?”
“No, I only looked in . . . I came to ask . . . I thought
that I should find Zametov here.”
“Oh, yes! Of course, you’ve made friends, I heard.
Well, no, Zametov is not here. Yes, we’ve lost Zametov.
He’s not been here since yesterday . . . he quarrelled
with every one on leaving . . . in the rudest way. He is a
feather-headed youngster, that’s all; one might have
expected something from him, but there, you know
what they are, our brilliant young men. He wanted to
go in for some examination, but it’s only to talk and
boast about it, it will go no further than that. Of course
it’s a very different matter with you or Mr. Razumihin
there, your friend. Your career is an intellectual one
and you won’t be deterred by failure. For you, one may
say, all the attractions of life nihil est — you are an ascetic,
a monk, a hermit! . . . A book, a pen behind your ear, a
learned research — that’s where your spirit soars! I am
the same way myself . . . Have you read Livingstone’s
Travels?”
“No.”

819
 fyodor dostoevsky

“Oh, I have. There are a great many Nihilists

about nowadays, you know, and indeed it is not to be
wondered at. What sort of days are they? I ask you.
But we thought . . . you are not a Nihilist of course?
Answer me openly, openly!”
“N-no . . . ”
“Believe me, you can speak openly to me as you
would to yourself! Official duty is one thing but . . .
you are thinking I meant to say friendship is quite
another? No, you’re wrong! It’s not friendship, but
the feeling of a man and a citizen, the feeling of
humanity and of love for the Almighty. I may be an
official, but I am always bound to feel myself a man
and a citizen . . . You were asking about Zametov.
Zametov will make a scandal in the French style in a
house of bad reputation, over a glass of champagne . .
. that’s all your Zametov is good for! While I’m per-
haps, so to speak, burning with devotion and lofty
feelings, and besides I have rank, consequence, a
post! I am married and have children, I fulfil the
duties of a man and a citizen, but who is he, may I
ask? I appeal to you as a man ennobled by education .
. . Then these midwives, too, have become extraordi-
narily numerous.”
Raskolnikov raised his eyebrows inquiringly. The
words of Ilya Petrovitch, who had obviously been din-
ing, were for the most part a stream of empty sounds
for him. But some of them he understood. He looked
at him inquiringly, not knowing how it would end.

820
 crime and punishment

“I mean those crop-headed wenches,” the talka-

tive Ilya Petrovitch continued. “Midwives is my name
for them. I think it a very satisfactory one, ha-ha!
They go to the Academy, study anatomy. If I fall ill,
am I to send for a young lady to treat me? What do
you say? Ha-ha!” Ilya Petrovitch laughed, quite
pleased with his own wit. “It’s an immoderate zeal
for education, but once you’re educated, that’s
enough. Why abuse it? Why insult honourable peo-
ple, as that scoundrel Zametov does? Why did he
insult me, I ask you? Look at these suicides, too, how
common they are, you can’t fancy! People spend
their last halfpenny and kill themselves, boys and
girls and old people. Only this morning we heard
about a gentleman who had just come to town. Nil
Pavlitch, I say, what was the name of that gentleman
who shot himself?”
“Svidrigaïlov,” some one answered from the other
room with drowsy listlessness.
Raskolnikov started.
“Svidrigaïlov! Svidrigaïlov has shot himself!” he cried.
“What, do you know Svidrigaïlov?”
“Yes . . . I knew him . . . He hadn’t been here long.”
“Yes, that’s so. He had lost his wife, was a man of
reckless habits and all of a sudden shot himself, and
in such a shocking way . . . He left in his notebook a
few words; that he dies in full possession of his facul-
ties and that no one is to blame for his death. He had
money, they say. How did you come to know him?”

821
 fyodor dostoevsky

“I . . . was acquainted . . . my sister was governess in

his family.”
“Bah-bah-bah! Then no doubt you can tell us
something about him. You had no suspicion?”
“I saw him yesterday . . . he . . . was drinking wine; I
knew nothing.”
Raskolnikov felt as though something had fallen
on him and was stifling him.
“You’ve turned pale again. It’s so stuffy here . . .”
“Yes, I must go,” muttered Raskolnikov. “Excuse
my troubling you . . . ”
“Oh, not at all, as often as you like. It’s a pleasure
to see you and I am glad to say so.”
Ilya Petrovitch held out his hand.
“I only wanted . . . I came to see Zametov.”
“I understand, I understand, and it’s a pleasure to
see you.”
“I . . . am very glad . . . good-bye,” Raskolnikov smiled.
He went out; he reeled, he was overtaken with gid-
diness and did not know what he was doing. He
began going down the stairs, supporting himself with
his right hand against the wall. He fancied that a
porter pushed past him on his way upstairs to the
police, that a dog in the lower storey kept up a shrill
barking and that a woman flung a rolling-pin at it and
shouted. He went down and out into the yard. There,
not far from the entrance, stood Sonia, pale and hor-
ror-stricken. She looked wildy at him. He stood still
before her. There was a look of poignant agony, of

822
 crime and punishment

despair, in her face. She clasped her hands. His lips

worked in an ugly, meaningless smile. He stood still a
minute, grinned and went back to the police office.
Ilya Petrovitch had sat down and was rummaging
among some papers. Before him stood the same peas-
ant who had pushed by on the stairs.
“Hulloa! Back again! have you left something
behind? What’s the matter?”
Raskolnikov, with white lips and staring eyes, came
slowly nearer. He walked right to the table, leaned his
hand on it, tried to say something, but could not;
only incoherent sounds were audible.
“You are feeling ill, a chair! Here, sit down! Some
water!”
Raskolnikov dropped on to a chair, but he kept his
eyes fixed on the face of Ilya Petrovitch which
expressed unpleasant surprise. Both looked at one
another for a minute and waited. Water was brought.
“It was I . . . ” began Raskolnikov.
“Drink some water.”
Raskolnikov refused the water with his hand, and
softly and brokenly, but distinctly said:
“It was I killed the old pawnbroker woman and her sister
Lizaveta with an axe and robbed them.”
Ilya Petrovitch opened his mouth. People ran up
on all sides.
Raskolnikov repeated his statement.

823
epilogue
 chapter i

Siberia. On the banks of a broad solitary river stands

a town, one of the administrative centres of Russia; in
the town there is a fortress, in the fortress there is a
prison. In the prison the second-class convict Rodion
Raskolnikov has been confined for nine months.
Almost a year and a half has passed since his crime.
There had been little difficulty about his trial. The
criminal adhered exactly, firmly, and clearly to his
statement. He did not confuse nor misrepresent the
facts, nor soften them in his own interest, nor omit
the smallest detail. He explained every incident of
the murder, the secret of the pledge (the piece of wood
with a strip of metal) which was found in the mur-
dered woman’s hand. He described minutely how he
had taken her keys, what they were like, as well as the
chest and its contents; he explained the mystery of
Lizaveta’s murder; described how Koch and, after
him, the student knocked, and repeated all they had
said to one another; how he afterwards had run

825
 epilogue

downstairs and heard Nikolay and Dmitri shouting;

how he had hidden in the empty flat and afterwards
gone home. He ended by indicating the stone in the
yard off the Voznesensky Prospect under which the
purse and the trinkets were found. The whole thing,
in fact, was perfectly clear. The lawyers and the judges
were very much struck, among other things, by the
fact that he had hidden the trinkets and the purse
under a stone, without making use of them, and that,
what was more, he did not now remember what the
trinkets were like, or even how many there were. The
fact that he had never opened the purse and did not
even know how much was in it seemed incredible.
There turned out to be in the purse three hundred
and seventeen roubles and sixty copecks. From being
so long under the stone, some of the most valuable
notes lying uppermost had suffered from the damp.
They were a long while trying to discover why the
accused man should tell a lie about this, when about
everything else he had made a truthful and straight-
forward confession. Finally some of the lawyers more
versed in psychology admitted that it was possible he
had really not looked into the purse, and so didn’t
know what was in it when he hid it under the stone.
But they immediately drew the deduction that the
crime could only have been committed through tem-
porary mental derangement, through homicidal
mania, without object or the pursuit of gain. This fell
in with the most recent fashionable theory of tempo-

826
 epilogue

rary insanity, so often applied in our days in criminal

cases. Moreover Raskolnikov’s hypochondriacal con-
dition was proved by many witnesses, by Dr. Zossimov,
his former fellow students, his landlady and her ser-
vant. All this pointed strongly to the conclusion that
Raskolnikov was not quite like an ordinary murderer
and robber, but that there was another element in
the case.
To the intense annoyance of those who main-
tained this opinion, the criminal scarcely attempted
to defend himself. To the decisive question as to what
motive impelled him to the murder and the robbery,
he answered very clearly with the coarsest frankness
that the cause was his miserable position, his poverty
and helplessness, and his desire to provide for his
first steps in life by the help of the three thousand
roubles he had reckoned on finding. He had been
led to the murder through his shallow and cowardly
nature, exasperated moreover by privation and fail-
ure. To the question what led him to confess, he
answered that it was his heartfelt repentance. All this
was almost coarse . . .
The sentence however was more merciful than
could have been expected, perhaps partly because
the criminal had not tried to justify himself, but had
rather shown a desire to exaggerate his guilt. All the
strange and peculiar circumstances of the crime
were taken into consideration. There could be no
doubt of the abnormal and poverty-stricken condi-

827
 epilogue

tion of the criminal at the time. The fact that he had

made no use of what he had stolen was put down
partly to the effect of remorse, partly to his abnormal
mental condition at the time of the crime.
Incidentally the murder of Lizaveta served indeed to
confirm the last hypothesis: a man commits two mur-
ders and forgets that the door is open! Finally, the
confession, at the very moment when the case was
hopelessly muddled by the false evidence given by
Nikolay through melancholy and fanaticism, and
when, moreover, there were no proofs against the
real criminal, no suspicions even (Porfiry Petrovitch
fully kept his word) — all this did much to soften the
sentence. Other circumstances, too, in the prisoner’s
favour came out quite unexpectedly. Razumihin
somehow discovered and proved that while
Raskolnikov was at the university he had helped a
poor consumptive fellow student and had spent his
last penny on supporting him for six months, and
when this student died, leaving a decrepit old father
whom he had maintained almost from his thirteenth
year, Raskolnikov had got the old man into a hospital
and paid for his funeral when he died. Raskolnikov’s
landlady bore witness, too, that when they had lived
in another house at Five Corners, Raskolnikov had
rescued two little children from a house on fire and
was burnt in doing so. This was investigated and
fairly well confirmed by many witnesses. These facts
made an impression in his favour.

828
 epilogue

And in the end the criminal was in consideration

of extenuating circumstances condemned to penal
servitude in the second class for a term of eight
years only.
At the very beginning of the trial Raskolnikov’s
mother fell ill. Dounia and Razumihin found it possi-
ble to get her out of Petersburg during the trial.
Razumihin chose a town on the railway not far from
Petersburg, so as to be able to follow every step of the
trial and at the same time to see Avdotya Romanovna
as often as possible. Pulcheria Alexandrovna’s illness
was a strange nervous one and was accompanied by a
partial derangement of her intellect.
When Dounia returned from her last interview
with her brother, she had found her mother already
ill, in feverish delirium. That evening Razumihin and
she agreed what answers they must make to her
mother’s questions about Raskolnikov and made up a
complete story for her mother’s benefit of his having
to go away to a distant part of Russia on a business
commission, which would bring him in the end
money and reputation.
But they were struck by the fact that Pulcheria
Alexandrovna never asked them anything on the sub-
ject, neither then nor thereafter. On the contrary, she
had her own version of her son’s sudden departure;
she told them with tears how he had come to say
good-bye to her, hinting that she alone knew many
mysterious and important facts, and that Rodya had

829
 epilogue

many very powerful enemies, so that it was necessary

for him to be in hiding. As for his future career, she
had no doubt that it would be brilliant when certain
sinister influences could be removed. She assured
Razumihin that her son would be one day a great
statesman, that his article and brilliant literary talent
proved it. This article she was continually reading,
she even read it aloud, almost took it to bed with her,
but scarcely asked where Rodya was, though the sub-
ject was obviously avoided by the others, which might
have been enough to awaken her suspicions.
They began to be frightened at last at Pulcheria
Alexandrovna’s strange silence on certain subjects.
She did not, for instance, complain of getting no let-
ters from him, though in previous years she had only
lived on the hope of letters from her beloved Rodya.
This was the cause of great uneasiness to Dounia; the
idea occurred to her that her mother suspected that
there was something terrible in her son’s fate and was
afraid to ask, for fear of hearing something still more
awful. In any case, Dounia saw clearly that her mother
was not in full possession of her faculties.
It happened once or twice, however, that
Pulcheria Alexandrovna gave such a turn to the con-
versation that it was impossible to answer her without
mentioning where Rodya was, and on receiving
unsatisfactory and suspicious answers she became at
once gloomy and silent, and this mood lasted for a
long time. Dounia saw at last that it was hard to

830
 epilogue

deceive her and came to the conclusion that it was

better to be absolutely silent on certain points; but it
became more and more evident that the poor
mother suspected something terrible. Dounia
remembered her brother’s telling her that her
mother had overheard her talking in her sleep on the
night after her interview with Svidrigaïlov and before
the fatal day of the confession: had not she made out
something from that? Sometimes days and even
weeks of gloomy silence and tears would be suc-
ceeded by a period of hysterical animation, and the
invalid would begin to talk almost incessantly of her
son, of her hopes of his future . . . Her fancies were
sometimes very strange. They humoured her, pre-
tended to agree with her (she saw perhaps that they
were pretending), but she still went on talking.
Five months after Raskolnikov’s confession, he was
sentenced. Razumihin and Sonia saw him in prison as
often as it was possible. At last the moment of separa-
tion came. Dounia swore to her brother that the sep-
aration should not be for ever, Razumihin did the
same. Razumihin, in his youthful ardour, had firmly
resolved to lay the foundations at least of a secure
livelihood during the next three or four years, and
saving up a certain sum, to emigrate to Siberia, a
country rich in every natural resource and in need of
workers, active men and capital. There they would
settle in the town where Rodya was and all together
would begin a new life. They all wept at parting.

831
 epilogue

Raskolnikov had been very dreamy for a few days

before. He asked a great deal about his mother and
was constantly anxious about her. He worried so
much about her that it alarmed Dounia. When he
heard about his mother’s illness he became very
gloomy. With Sonia he was particularly reserved all
the time. With the help of the money left to her by
Svidrigaïlov, Sonia had long ago made her prepara-
tions to follow the party of convicts in which he was
despatched to Siberia. Not a word passed between
Raskolnikov and her on the subject, but both knew it
would be so. At the final leave-taking he smiled
strangely at his sister’s and Razumihin’s fervent antic-
ipations of their happy future together when he
should come out of prison. He predicted that their
mother’s illness would soon have a fatal ending.
Sonia and he at last set off.
Two months later Dounia was married to
Razumihin. It was a quiet and sorrowful wedding;
Porfiry Petrovitch and Zossimov were invited how-
ever. During all this period Razumihin wore an air of
resolute determination. Dounia put implicit faith in
his carrying out his plans and indeed she could not
but believe in him. He displayed a rare strength of
will. Among other things he began attending univer-
sity lectures again in order to take his degree. They
were continually making plans for the future; both
counted on settling in Siberia within five years at
least. Till then they rested their hopes on Sonia.

832
 epilogue

Pulcheria Alexandrovna was delighted to give her

blessing to Dounia’s marriage with Razumihin; but
after the marriage she became even more melan-
choly and anxious. To give her pleasure Razumihin
told her how Raskolnikov had looked after the poor
student and his decrepit father and how a year ago he
had been burnt and injured in rescuing two little chil-
dren from a fire. These two pieces of news excited
Pulcheria Alexandrovna’s disordered imagination
almost to ecstasy. She was continually talking about
them, even entering into conversation with strangers
in the street, though Dounia always accompanied
her. In public conveyances and shops, wherever she
could capture a listener, she would begin the dis-
course about her son, his article, how he had helped
the student, how he had been burnt at the fire, and
so on! Dounia did not know how to restrain her.
Apart from the danger of her morbid excitement,
there was the risk of some one’s recalling Raskolnikov’s
name and speaking of the recent trial. Pulcheria
Alexandrovna found out the address of the mother of
the two children her son had saved and insisted on
going to see her.
At last her restlessness reached an extreme point.
She would sometimes begin to cry suddenly and was
often ill and feverishly delirious. One morning she
declared that by her reckoning Rodya ought soon to
be home, that she remembered when he said good-
bye to her he said that they must expect him back in

833
 epilogue

nine months. She began to prepare for his coming,

began to do up her room for him, to clean the furni-
ture, to wash and put up new hangings and so on.
Dounia was anxious, but said nothing and helped her
to arrange the room. After a fatiguing day spent in
continual fancies, in joyful day dreams and tears,
Pulcheria Alexandrovna was taken ill in the night and
by morning she was feverish and delirious. It was
brain fever. She died within a fortnight. In her delir-
ium she dropped words which showed that she knew
a great deal more about her son’s terrible fate than
they had supposed.
For a long time Raskolnikov did not know of his
mother’s death, though a regular correspondence
had been maintained from the time he reached
Siberia. It was carried on by means of Sonia, who
wrote every month to the Razumihins and received
an answer with unfailing regularity. At first they
found Sonia’s letters dry and unsatisfactory, but later
on they came to the conclusion that the letters could
not be better, for from these letters they received a
complete picture of their unfortunate brother’s life.
Sonia’s letters were full of the most matter of fact
detail, the simplest and clearest description of all
Raskolnikov’s surroundings as a convict. There was
no word of her own hopes, no conjecture as to the
future, no description of her feelings. Instead of any
attempt to interpret his state of mind and inner life,
she gave the simple facts — that is, his own words, an

834
 epilogue

exact account of his health, what he asked for at their

interviews, what commission he gave her and so on.
All these facts she gave with extraordinary minute-
ness. The picture of their unhappy brother stood out
at last with great clearness and precision. There could
be no mistake, because nothing was given but facts.
But Dounia and her husband could get little com-
fort out of the news, especially at first. Sonia wrote
that he was constantly sullen and not ready to talk,
that he scarcely seemed interested in the news she
gave him from their letters, that he sometimes asked
after his mother and that when, seeing that he had
guessed the truth, she told him at last of her death,
she was surprised to find that he did not seem greatly
affected by it, not externally at any rate. She told
them that, although he seemed so wrapped up in
himself and, as it were, shut himself off from every
one — he took a very direct and simple view of his
new life; that he understood his position, expected
nothing better for the time, had no ill-founded
hopes (as is so common in his position) and scarcely
seemed surprised at anything in his surroundings, so
unlike anything he had known before. She wrote
that his health was satisfactory; he did his work with-
out shirking or seeking to do more; he was almost
indifferent about food, but except on Sundays and
holidays the food was so bad that at last he had been
glad to accept some money from her, Sonia, to have
his own tea every day. He begged her not to trouble

835
 epilogue

about anything else, declaring that all this fuss about

him only annoyed him. Sonia wrote further that in
prison he shared the same room with the rest, that
she had not seen the inside of their barracks, but
concluded that they were crowded, miserable and
unhealthy; that he slept on a plank bed with a rug
under him and was unwilling to make any other
arrangement. But that he lived so poorly and
roughly, not from any plan or design, but simply
from inattention and indifference.
Sonia wrote simply that he had at first shown no
interest in her visits, had almost been vexed with her
indeed for coming, unwilling to talk and rude to her.
But that in the end these visits had become a habit
and almost a necessity for him, so that he was posi-
tively distressed when she was ill for some days and
could not visit him. She used to see him on holidays
at the prison gates or in the guard-room, to which he
was brought for a few minutes to see her. On working
days she would go to see him at work either at the
workshops or at the brick kilns, or at the sheds on the
banks of the Irtish.
About herself, Sonia wrote that she had succeeded
in making some acquaintances in the town, that she
did sewing, and, as there was scarcely a dressmaker in
the town, she was looked upon as an indispensable
person in many houses. But she did not mention that
the authorities were, through her, interested in
Raskolnikov; that his task was lightened and so on.

836
 epilogue

At last the news came (Dounia had indeed noticed

signs of alarm and uneasiness in the preceding let-
ters) that he held aloof from every one, that his fellow
prisoners did not like him, that he kept silent for days
at a time and was becoming very pale. In the last let-
ter Sonia wrote that he had been taken very seriously
ill and was in the convict ward of the hospital.

837
 chapter ii

He was ill a long time. But it was not the horrors of

prison life, not the hard labour, the bad food, the
shaven head, or the patched clothes that crushed
him. What did he care for all those trials and hard-
ships! he was even glad of the hard work. Physically
exhausted, he could at least reckon on a few hours of
quiet sleep. And what was the food to him — the thin
cabbage soup with beetles floating in it? In the past as
a student he had often not had even that. His clothes
were warm and suited to his manner of life. He did
not even feel the fetters. Was he ashamed of his
shaven head and parti-coloured coat? Before whom?
Before Sonia? Sonia was afraid of him, how could he
be ashamed before her? And yet he was ashamed
even before Sonia, whom he tortured because of it
with his contemptuous rough manner. But it was not
his shaven head and his fetters he was ashamed of: his
pride had been stung to the quick. It was wounded
pride that made him ill. Oh, how happy he would

838
 epilogue

have been if he could have blamed himself! He could

have borne anything then, even shame and disgrace.
But he judged himself severely, and his exasperated
conscience found no particularly terrible fault in his
past, except a simple blunder which might happen to
any one. He was ashamed just because he, Raskolnikov,
had so hopelessly, stupidly come to grief through
some decree of blind fate, and must humble himself
and submit to “the idiocy” of a sentence, if he were
anyhow to be at peace.
Vague and objectless anxiety in the present, and in
the future a continual sacrifice leading to nothing —
that was all that lay before him. And what comfort was
it to him that at the end of eight years he would only
be thirty-two and able to begin a new life! What had
he to live for? What had he to look forward to? Why
should he strive? To live in order to exist? Why, he
had been ready a thousand times before to give up
existence for the sake of an idea, for a hope, even for
a fancy. Mere existence had always been too little for
him; he had always wanted more. Perhaps it was just
because of the strength of his desires that he had
thought himself a man to whom more was permissi-
ble than to others.
And if only fate would have sent him repentance —
burning repentance that would have torn his heart
and robbed him of sleep, that repentance, the awful
agony of which brings visions of hanging or drown-
ing! Oh, he would have been glad of it! Tears and

839
 epilogue

agonies would at least have been life. But he did not

repent of his crime.
At least he might have found relief in raging at his
stupidity, as he had raged at the grotesque blunders
that had brought him to prison. But now in prison, in
freedom, he thought over and criticised all his actions
again and by no means found them so blundering
and so grotesque as they had seemed at the fatal time.
“In what way,” he asked himself, “was my theory
stupider than others that have swarmed and clashed
from the beginning of the world? One has only to
look at the thing quite independently, broadly, and
uninfluenced by commonplace ideas, and my idea
will by no means seem so . . . strange. Oh, sceptics and
halfpenny philosophers, why do you halt half-way!”
“Why does my action strike them as so horrible?”
he said to himself. “Is it because it was a crime? What is
meant by crime? My conscience is at rest. Of course, it
was a legal crime, of course, the letter of the law was
broken and blood was shed. Well, punish me for the
letter of the law . . . and that’s enough. Of course, in
that case many of the benefactors of mankind who
snatched power for themselves instead of inheriting it
ought to have been punished at their first steps. But
those men succeeded and so they were right, and I did-
n’t, and so I had no right to have taken that step.”
It was only in that that he recognised his criminal-
ity, only in the fact that he had been unsuccessful and
had confessed it.

840
 epilogue

He suffered too from the question: why had he

not killed himself? Why had he stood looking at the
river and preferred to confess? Was the desire to
live so strong and was it so hard to overcome it?
Had not Svidrigaïlov overcome it, although he was
afraid of death?
In misery he asked himself this question, and
could not understand that, at the very time he had
been standing looking into the river, he had perhaps
been dimly conscious of the fundamental falsity in
himself and his convictions. He didn’t understand
that that consciousness might be the promise of a
future crisis, of a new view of life and of his future
resurrection.
He preferred to attribute it to the dead weight of
instinct which he could not step over, again through
weakness and meanness. He looked at his fellow pris-
oners and was amazed to see how they all loved life
and prized it. It seemed to him that they loved and
valued life more in prison than in freedom. What ter-
rible agonies and privations some of them, the
tramps for instance, had endured! Could they care so
much for a ray of sunshine, for the primeval forest,
the cold spring hidden away in some unseen spot,
which the tramp had marked three years before, and
longed to see again, as he might to see his sweetheart,
dreaming of the green grass round it and the bird
singing in the bush? As he went on he saw still more
inexplicable examples.

841
 epilogue

In prison, of course, there was a great deal he did

not see and did not want to see; he lived as it were
with downcast eyes. It was loathsome and unbearable
for him to look. But in the end there was much that
surprised him and he began, as it were involuntarily,
to notice much that he had not suspected before.
What surprised him most of all was the terrible
impossible gulf that lay between him and all the rest.
They seemed to be a different species, and he looked
at them and they at him with distrust and hostility. He
felt and knew the reasons of his isolation, but he
would never have admitted till then that those rea-
sons were so deep and strong. There were some
Polish exiles, political prisoners, among them. They
simply looked down upon all the rest as ignorant
churls; but Raskolnikov could not look upon them
like that. He saw that these ignorant men were in
many respects far wiser than the Poles. There were
some Russians who were just as contemptuous, a for-
mer officer and two seminarists. Raskolnikov saw
their mistake as clearly. He was disliked and avoided
by every one; they even began to hate him at last, —
why, he could not tell. Men who had been far more
guilty despised and laughed at his crime.
“You’re a gentleman,” they used to say. “You
shouldn’t hack about with an axe; that’s not a gentle-
man’s work.”
The second week in Lent, his turn came to take
the sacrament with his gang. He went to church and

842
 epilogue

prayed with the others. A quarrel broke out one day,

he did not know how. All fell on him at once in a fury.
“You’re an infidel! You don’t believe in God,” they
shouted. “You ought to be killed.”
He had never talked to them about God nor his
belief, but they wanted to kill him as an infidel. He
said nothing. One of the prisoners rushed at him in a
perfect frenzy. Raskolnikov awaited him calmly and
silently; his eyebrows did not quiver, his face did not
flinch. The guard succeeded in intervening between
him and his assailant, or there would have been
bloodshed.
There was another question he could not decide:
why were they all so fond of Sonia? She did not try to
win their favour: she rarely met them, sometimes she
only came to see him at work for a moment. And yet
everybody knew her, they knew that she had come out
to follow him, knew how and where she lived. She
never gave them money, did them no particular serv-
ices. Only once at Christmas she sent them all pres-
ents of pies and rolls. But by degrees closer relations
sprang up between them and Sonia. She would write
and post letters for them to their relations. Relations
of the prisoners who visited the town, at their instruc-
tions, left with Sonia presents and money for them.
Their wives and sweethearts knew her and used to visit
her. And when she visited Raskolnikov at work, or met
a party of the prisoners on the road, they all took off
their hats to her. “Little mother Sofya Semyonovna,

843
 epilogue

you are our dear, good little mother,” coarse branded

criminals said to that frail little creature. She would
smile and bow to them and every one was delighted
when she smiled. They even admired her gait and
turned round to watch her walking; they admired her
too for being so little, and, in fact, did not know what
to admire her most for. They even came to her for
help in their illnesses.
He was in the hospital from the middle of Lent till
after Easter. When he was better, he remembered the
dreams he had had while he was feverish and deliri-
ous. He dreamt that the whole world was condemned
to a terrible new strange plague that had come to
Europe from the depths of Asia. All were to be
destroyed except a very few chosen. Some new sorts
of microbes were attacking the bodies of men, but
these microbes were endowed with intelligence and
will. Men attacked by them became at once mad and
furious. But never had men considered themselves so
intellectual and so completely in possession of the
truth as these sufferers, never had they considered
their decisions, ther scientific conclusions, their
moral convictions so infallible. Whole villages, whole
towns and peoples went mad from the infection. All
were excited and did not understand one another.
Each thought that he alone had the truth and was
wretched looking at the others, beat himself on the
breast, wept, and wrung his hands. They did not
know how to judge and could not agree what to con-

844
 epilogue

sider evil and what good; they did not know whom to
blame, whom to justify. Men killed each other in a
sort of senseless spite. They gathered together in
armies against one another, but even on the march
the armies would begin attacking each other, the
ranks would be broken and the soldiers would fall on
each other, stabbing and cutting, biting and devour-
ing each other. The alarm bell was ringing all day
long in the towns; men rushed together, but why they
were summoned and who was summoning them no
one knew. The most ordinary trades were aban-
doned, because every one proposed his own ideas, his
own improvements, and they could not agree. The
land too was abandoned. Men met in groups, agreed
on something, swore to keep together, but at once
began on something quite different from what they
had proposed. They accused one another, fought and
killed each other. There were conflagrations and
famine. All men and all things were involved in
destruction. The plague spread and moved further
and further. Only a few men could be saved in the
whole world. They were a pure chosen people, des-
tined to found a new race and a new life, to renew
and purify the earth, but no one had seen these men,
no one had heard their words and their voices.
Raskolnikov was worried that this senseless dream
haunted his memory so miserably, the impression of
this feverish delirium persisted so long. The second
week after Easter had come. There were warm bright

845
 epilogue

spring days; in the prison ward the grating windows

under which the sentinel paced were opened. Sonia
had only been able to visit him twice during his illness;
each time she had to obtain permission, and it was dif-
ficult. But she often used to come to the hospital yard,
especially in the evening, sometimes only to stand a
minute and look up at the windows of the ward.
One evening, when he was almost well again,
Raskolnikov fell asleep. On waking up he chanced to
go to the window, and at once saw Sonia in the dis-
tance at the hospital gate. She seemed to be waiting
for some one. Something stabbed him to the heart at
that minute. He shuddered and moved away from the
window. Next day Sonia did not come, nor the day
after; he noticed that he was expecting her uneasily.
At last he was discharged. On reaching the prison he
learnt from the convicts that Sofya Semyonovna was
lying ill at home and was unable to go out.
He was very uneasy and sent to inquire after her;
he soon learnt that her illness was not dangerous.
Hearing that he was anxious about her, Sonia sent
him a pencilled note, telling him that she was much
better, that she had a slight cold and that she would
soon, very soon come and see him at his work. His
heart throbbed painfully as he read it.
Again it was a warm bright day. Early in the morn-
ing, at six o’clock, he went off to work on the river
bank, where they used to pound alabaster and where
there was a kiln for baking it in a shed. There were

846
 epilogue

only three of them sent. One of the convicts went

with the guard to the fortress to fetch a tool; the
other began getting the wood ready and laying it into
the kiln. Raskolnikov came out of the shed on to the
river bank, sat down on a heap of logs by the shed
and began gazing at the wide deserted river. From the
high bank a broad landscape opened before him, the
sound of singing floated faintly audible from the
other bank. In the vast steppe, bathed in sunshine, he
could just see, like black specks, the nomads’ tents.
There there was freedom, there other men were liv-
ing, utterly unlike those here; there time itself
seemed to stand still, as though the age of Abraham
and his flocks had not passed. Raskolnikov sat gazing,
his thoughts passed into day-dreams, into contempla-
tion; he thought of nothing, but a vague restlessness
excited and troubled him. Suddenly he found Sonia
beside him; she had come up noiselessly and sat
down at his side. It was still quite early; the morning
chill was still keen. She wore her poor old burnous
and the green shawl; her face still showed signs of ill-
ness, it was thinner and paler. She gave him a joyful
smile of welcome, but held out her hand with her
usual timidity. She was always timid of holding out
her hand to him and sometimes did not offer it at all,
as though afraid he would repel it. He always took her
hand as though with repugnance, always seemed
vexed to meet her and was sometimes obstinately
silent throughout her visit. Sometimes she trembled

847
 epilogue

before him and went away deeply grieved. But now

their hands did not part. He stole a rapid glance at
her and dropped his eyes on the ground without
speaking. They were alone, no one had seen them.
The guard had turned away for the time.
How it happened he did not know. But all at once
something seemed to seize him and fling him at her
feet. He wept and threw his arms round her knees.
For the first instant she was terribly frightened and
she turned pale. She jumped up and looked at him,
trembling. But at the same moment she understood,
and a light of infinite happiness came into her eyes.
She knew and had no doubt that he loved her beyond
everything and that at last the moment had come . . .
They wanted to speak, but could not; tears stood
in their eyes. They were both pale and thin; but those
sick pale faces were bright with the dawn of a new
future, of a full resurrection into a new life. They
were renewed by love; the heart of each held infinite
sources of life for the heart of the other.
They resolved to wait and be patient. They had
another seven years to wait, and what terrible suffer-
ing and what infinite happiness before them! But he
had risen again and he knew it and felt it in all his
being, while she — she only lived in his life.
On the evening of the same day, when the bar-
racks were locked, Raskolnikov lay on his plank bed
and thought of her. He had even fancied that day that
all the convicts who had been his enemies looked at

848
 epilogue

him differently; he had even entered into talk with

them and they answered him in a friendly way. He
remembered that now, and thought it was bound to
be so. Wasn’t everything now bound to be changed?
He thought of her. He remembered how continu-
ally he had tormented her and wounded her heart.
He remembered her pale and thin little face. But
these recollections scarcely troubled him now; he
knew with what infinite love he would now repay all
her sufferings. And what were all, all the agonies of
the past! Everything, even his crime, his sentence and
imprisonment, seemed to him now in the first rush of
feeling an external, strange fact with which he had no
concern. But he could not think for long together of
anything that evening, and he could not have
analysed anything consciously; he was simply feeling.
Life had stepped into the place of theory and some-
thing quite different would work itself out in his mind.
Under his pillow lay the New Testament. He took
it up mechanically. The book belonged to Sonia; it
was the one from which she had read the raising of
Lazarus to him. At first he was afraid that she would
worry him about religion, would talk about the
gospel and pester him with books. But to his great
surprise she had not once approached the subject
and had not even offered him the Testament. He had
asked her for it himself not long before his illness and
she brought him the book without a word. Till now
he had not opened it.

849
 epilogue

He did not open it now, but one thought passed

through his mind: “Can her convictions not be mine
now? Her feelings, her aspirations at least . . . ”
She too had been greatly agitated that day, and at
night she was taken ill again. But she was so happy —
and so unexpectedly happy — that she was almost
frightened of her happiness. Seven years, only seven
years! At the beginning of their happiness at some
moments they were both ready to look on those seven
years as though they were seven days. He did not
know that the new life would not be given him for
nothing, that he would have to pay dearly for it, that
it would cost him great striving, great suffering.
But that is the beginning of a new story — the story
of the gradual renewal of a man, the story of his grad-
ual regeneration, of his passing from one world into
another, of his initiation into a new unknown life.
That might be the subject of a new story, but our pres-
ent story is ended.

850
 a b o u t t h e au t h o r

Fyodor Dostoevsky was born in Moscow in 1821.

His early life was extremely unhappy. The son of an
impoverished nobleman — a hot-tempered discipli-
narian — Dostoevsky lost his mother at the age of
fifteen. Sent away to military school in 1837, he
learned of his father’s murder two years later. At
this time Dostoevsky also began to manifest the
epilepsy that would plague him all his life. In 1846
he published his first novel, Poor Folk. Three years
later he was arrested as part of a clandestine radi-
cal group and sentenced to death. Reprieved while
before the firing squad, Dostoevsky’s sentence was
commuted to four years’ hard labor. After his
release Dostoevsky resumed writing and publishing
novels. In 1858 he experienced a religious conver-
sion, but his erratic personal life continued. His
first wife died, and his compulsive gambling forced
him to flee Russia ahead of his creditors. His sec-
ond wife helped him straighten himself out, and

851
 about the author

they returned to Russia in 1871. Already recog-

nized at home as a great writer, Dostoevsky’s repu-
tation abroad grew during the next decade. He
died in St. Petersburg in 1881.

852
 suggested reading

frank, joseph. Dostoevsky: The Seeds of Revolt 1821-

1849. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979.
frank, joseph. Dostoevsky: The Years of Ordeal, 1850-
1859. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983.
frank, joseph. Dostoevsky: The Stir of Liberation, 1860-
1865. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986.
frank, joseph. Dostoevsky: The Miraculous Years, 1865-
1871. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997.
frank, joseph. Dostoevsky: The Mantle of the Prophet,
1871-1881. Princeton: Princeton University Press,
2002.
mochulsky, konstantin. Dostoevsky: His Life and
Work. Trans. Michael A. Minihan Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1972.
straus, nina pelikan. Dostoevsky and the Woman
Question: Rereadings at the End of a Century. New
York: St. Martin’s, 1994.
wellek, rene ed. Dostoevsky: A Collection of Critical
Essays. New York: Prentice Hall, 1962.

853