Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  “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,” someone 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 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 reaching 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 someone else? To Nikodim Fomitch? Couldn’t he 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 business you are rather early.[*] 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....”

  [*] Dostoyevsky 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. — TRANSLATOR.

  “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 literary 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?”

  “Yes, my mother and sister.”

  “I’ve even had the honour and happiness of meeting 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 splendidly! 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 everyone 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.”

  “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 perhaps, 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 extraordinarily numerous.”

  Raskolnikov raised his eyebrows inquiringly. The words of Ilya Petrovitch, who had obviously been dining, 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.

  “I mean those crop-headed wenches,” the talkative 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 educa
tion, but once you’re educated, that’s enough. Why abuse it? Why insult honourable people, 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,” someone 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 faculties and that no one is to blame for his death. He had money, they say. How did you come to know him?”

  “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 giddiness 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 office, 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 horror-stricken. She looked wildly at him. He stood still before her. There was a look of poignant agony, of 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 peasant 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.

  EPILOGUE

  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 murdered 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 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 straightforward 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 temporary mental derangement, through homicidal mania, without object or the pursuit of gain. This fell in with the most recent fashionable theory of temporary insanity, so often applied in our days in criminal cases. Moreover Raskolnikov’s hypochondriacal condition was proved by many witnesses, by Dr. Zossimov, his former fellow students, his landlady and her servant. 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 maintained 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 failure. 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 condition 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 murders 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.

  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 possible 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 subject, 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 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 subject was obviously avoided by the others, which might have been enough to awaken her suspicions.