The thought flashed across Sonya's mind: 'Is he mad?' But it immediately vanished: no, this was something else. She didn't understand any of it, any of it!
'You know, Sonya,' he said, with sudden inspiration, 'here's what I'll say to you: if I'd killed them just because I was hungry' - he was stressing every word and looking at her with an enigmatic but sincere expression - 'then I'd be . . . happy now! You'd better know that!
'And anyway,' he cried out a second later, almost despairingly, 'even if I were to admit now that what I did was wrong, what good is that to you? Well, what? What good is it to you to claim this stupid victory over me? Ah, Sonya, as if that's why I've come to you now!'
Again Sonya wanted to say something, but kept silent.
'That's why I asked you to come with me yesterday - you're all I have left.'
'Come with you where?' asked Sonya timidly.
'Not to steal and not to kill - don't worry, not for that,' he said, with a caustic smile. 'We're chalk and cheese, you and I . . . You know, Sonya, it's only now, just now, that I've understood where it was I was asking you to go yesterday! Yesterday, when I asked you, I didn't know myself. I had one reason for asking, one reason for coming: don't leave me. You won't, Sonya, will you?'
She squeezed his hand.
'Why, why did I tell her, open up to her?' he exclaimed in despair a minute later, looking at her with infinite torment. 'Here you are, Sonya, waiting for me to explain myself, sitting and waiting. I can see it, but what can I tell you? It won't make any sense to you anyway - you'll just wear yourself out with suffering . . . because of me! There you go, crying and hugging me again - but why are you hugging me? Because I couldn't bear it any longer and I've come here to unload my burden? "You suffer too and I'll suffer less!" And you can love such a scoundrel?'
'But you're in agony too!' cried Sonya.
Again the same feeling burst like a wave over his soul and again softened it for an instant.
'Sonya, I have an angry heart, remember that: it explains a great deal. That's why I came here - because I'm angry. There are those who wouldn't have come. But I'm a coward and . . . a scoundrel! But . . . never mind! That's all by the by . . . Now's the time for speaking, and I can't even start . . .'
He paused, deep in thought.
'Chalk and cheese, that's us!' he cried again. 'And why, why have I come? I'll never forgive myself!'
'No, no, it's good you've come!' exclaimed Sonya. 'It's better that I know! Far better!'
He looked at her in anguish.
'But perhaps that's just it!' he said, as if he'd finally made his mind up. 'That's how it was! Listen: I wanted to become a Napoleon, that's why I killed . . . Now do you understand?'
'N-no,' whispered Sonya, guilelessly and timidly, 'but . . . speak, speak! I'll understand - I'll understand everything inside myself!' she begged him.
'You will? Fine - so let's see!'
He fell silent and had a long think.
'Here's what: I once asked myself the following question: what if, say, Napoleon had found himself in my shoes and had neither Toulon nor Egypt nor the pass at Mont Blanc34 to get his career going, and instead of all those beautiful, grand things all he had was some ridiculous old hag, some pen-pusher's widow, and what's more he'd have to murder her to get his hands on the money she kept in her box (for his career, understand?); well, could he have brought himself to do that, if he had no other way out? Wouldn't he have been put off by the fact that it was insufficiently grand, to say the least, and . . . and a sin? Well then, let me tell you that I agonized over this "question" for such a long time that I was horribly ashamed when it finally got through to me (all of a sudden) that not only would he not have been put off, it wouldn't even have occurred to him that there was nothing grand about it . . . he wouldn't even have understood the question: put off by what? And if there really were no other path open to him, he'd have throttled her before she could even squeak, with no second thoughts! . . . So I, too . . . put second thoughts aside . . . and throttled her . . . taking him as my authority . . . And that's precisely what happened! You find it funny? Yes, Sonya, and the funniest thing about it is that perhaps this is exactly how it was . . .'
Sonya didn't find it funny in the least.
'Please speak plainly . . . without examples,' she asked even more timidly, barely audibly.
He turned to face her, looked at her sadly and took her hands in his.
'You're right again, Sonya. That's all rubbish; little more than empty talk! You see, my mother, as you know, has almost nothing. By chance, my sister received an education and now she has to go from one governess job to another. They pinned all their hopes on me. I was at university, but I could no longer support myself and had to put my studies on hold. Still, even if things had gone on like that, in ten, maybe twelve years' time (circumstances permitting) I'd have had every chance of finding a job in a school or in the civil service somewhere, on a thousand roubles a year . . .' (He spoke as if he'd learned it all by heart.) 'But by then mother would have wasted away with worry and grief, and there'd have been nothing I could have done to reassure her, while my sister . . . well, her plight might have been even worse! . . . And anyway, who wants to go through life walking past everything, turning your back on everything, forgetting about your mother and, for example, respectfully putting up with insults to your sister? What for? So that once they're dead you can replace them with new ones - a wife and children, and then leave them, too, without a copeck or a crust of bread? So . . . so I decided I'd use the hag's money on my first few years, on supporting myself at university and taking my first steps after that without pestering Mother - and I'd make a real go of it, setting up my new career in such a way that I could hardly fail, and launching myself on a new, independent path . . . And . . . well, that's about it . . . Yes, of course, killing the old woman was a bad thing to do . . . but enough!'
He limped feebly to the end of his story and hung his head.
'Oh, that's not it,' Sonya exclaimed in anguish. 'How could it be . . . ? No, that's not it, it's not!'
'You can see that yourself! . . . But I was being sincere. I was telling the truth!'
'What sort of truth is that? O Lord!'
'I only killed a louse, Sonya, a useless, foul, noxious louse.'
'A human being, not a louse!'
'I know that myself,' he replied, giving her a strange look. 'But I'm lying, Sonya,' he added. 'I've been lying for so long . . . That's not it at all. You're right. The real reasons are quite different - quite different! . . . I haven't talked to anyone for so long, Sonya . . . My head's aching terribly.'
His eyes blazed with fever and fire. He was on the verge of delirium and an anxious smile played on his lips. But his excitement could no longer conceal his complete enfeeblement. Sonya saw his suffering. Her head, too, was beginning to spin. And what a strange way he had of putting things: it almost seemed to make sense, but . . . 'How on earth? How, Lord?' And she wrung her hands in despair.
'No, Sonya, that's not it!' he began again, suddenly lifting his head, as though a sudden, surprising change in the direction of his thoughts had aroused him again. 'That's not it! Better for you . . . to assume (yes! it really is better!) that I'm vain, envious, angry, loathsome, vindictive and . . . and - why not? - prone to madness as well. (Better to get it all out at once! There was talk of madness before - I noticed!) I told you just now that I couldn't support myself at university. But . . . maybe I could. Mother would have sent me enough for my fees, and as for shoes, clothes and meals, I'd have earned what I needed myself. I'm sure of it! There were lessons going, fifty copecks a time. Razumikhin works, doesn't he? But I didn't want to - out of spite. Yes, out of spite (a fine phrase!). So I crawled back into my little corner, like a spider. You've been in my hovel, you've seen what it's like . . . Do you have any idea, Sonya, how small rooms and low ceilings cramp the soul and the mind? Oh, how I hated that hovel! But I still didn't want to leave it. On purpose! I was there day and nigh
t, didn't want to work, didn't even want to eat, just lay there. If Nastasya brought something, I'd eat a bit; if not - the day would just pass. I wouldn't ask on purpose, from spite! At night, I just lay there in the dark - didn't even want to earn enough for a candle. I should have been studying, but I'd sold my books; even now the dust on my desk, on my papers and notebooks, is half an inch deep. I preferred to lie on the couch and think. Think and think . . . And my dreams were always so strange, no two the same - I can't begin to describe them! But that was when I also began imagining that . . . No, that's not it! I'm still not telling it right! You see, at the time I couldn't stop asking myself: why am I so stupid that even though others are stupid and I know for a fact that they're stupid, I don't want to be any cleverer? Later, Sonya, I discovered that if you wait for everyone else to become cleverer, you'll be waiting a very long time . . . Later still I discovered that this will never happen anyway, that people will never change, and no one can reform them, and there's no point trying! Yes, that's it! That's their law . . . Their law, Sonya! That's it! . . . And now I know, Sonya, that he who is tough in mind and spirit will be their master! For them, he who dares is right. He who cares least is their lawmaker, and he who dares most is most right! It's always been the way and always will be! Only a blind man would fail to see it!'
Though Raskolnikov was looking at Sonya as he said this, he no longer worried whether or not she would understand. The fever had him in its grip. Some dismal ecstasy had overcome him. (Yes, it had been far too long since he'd last spoken to anyone!) Sonya understood that this gloomy catechism had become his creed and law.
'That, Sonya,' he continued rapturously, 'was when I realized that power is given only to the man who dares to stoop and grab. One thing, just one: to dare! A certain thought came to me then, for the first time in my life; one which had never come to anyone, ever! Anyone! It suddenly dawned on me like the sun: how come not a single person, walking past all these absurdities, has ever dared, not now, not ever, to grab everything by the tail and shake it to hell? I . . . I felt like trying . . . I killed for a dare, Sonya, and that's the whole reason!'
'Oh, be quiet, be quiet!' cried Sonya, throwing up her arms. 'You walked away from God and God struck you and gave you away to the devil!'
'By the way, Sonya - when I was lying in the dark and all this was dawning on me,35 was that the devil playing with my mind? Eh?'
'Be quiet! Don't you dare laugh, you blasphemous man. You don't understand a thing, not a thing! O Lord! He'll never understand, never!'
'Hush, Sonya, I'm not laughing at all. I know myself that it was the devil dragging me along. Hush, Sonya, hush!' he repeated dismally and insistently. 'I know everything. I thought and whispered my way through it all while lying on my own in the dark back then . . . Argued my way through every point, down to the last little mark, the last little jot, and I know everything, everything! How sick and tired I was of all this empty talk! I wanted to forget it all and start again, Sonya, and stop wittering! Surely you don't think I went there like some idiot, without a moment's thought? I went there like a man with brains, and that was my downfall! Can't you see that I must have known that if I'd already started asking myself the question, "Do I have a right to power?", then it already meant I didn't. Or that if I asked, "Is a human being a louse?", then man was certainly no louse for me, only for someone to whom the question never occurs, and who sets off without asking questions . . . And if I'd already tormented myself for so many days wondering, "Would Napoleon have gone or wouldn't he?", then I obviously knew that I was no Napoleon . . . I endured all the agony of this empty talk, Sonya, all of it, and now I just wanted to shake it off. I wanted to kill without casuistry, Sonya, to kill for myself, for myself alone! I didn't want to lie about it, not even to myself! It wasn't to help mother that I killed - nonsense! It wasn't to acquire funds and power that I killed, so as to make myself a benefactor of humanity. Nonsense! I just killed. I killed for myself, for myself alone; and whether I'd become anyone's benefactor or spend my entire life as a spider, catching everyone in my web and sucking out their vital juices, shouldn't have mattered to me one jot at that moment! . . . And it wasn't so much money I needed, Sonya, when I killed; not so much money as something else . . . I know all this now . . . Try to understand: taking that same road again, I might never have repeated the murder. There was something else I needed to find out then, something else was nudging me along: what I needed to find out, and find out quickly, was whether I was a louse, like everyone else, or a human being. Could I take that step or couldn't I? Would I dare to stoop and grab or wouldn't I? Was I a quivering creature or did I have the right . . . ?'
'To murder? The right to murder?' Sonya threw up her arms.
'Oh, Sonya!' he cried out in exasperation. He was about to answer back, but lapsed into scornful silence. 'Don't interrupt me, Sonya! I merely wanted to prove one thing to you: that it was the devil who dragged me along then, and only after did he explain to me that I had no right to go there, because I'm as much of a louse as everyone else! He had a good laugh at me then, so here I am! Make me welcome! Would I have come to you now if I weren't a louse? Listen: when I went to the old woman that time, it was only as a test . . . You'd better know that!'
'And you killed! You killed!'
'But just look how I did it! Who kills like that? Who goes off to kill the way I went off to kill? One day I'll tell you what that was like . . . Was it really the hag I killed? It was myself I killed, not her! I murdered myself in one fell blow, for all time! . . . And the hag was killed by the devil, not me . . . Enough, Sonya. Enough! Enough! Leave me be!' he suddenly cried, convulsed with anguish. 'Leave me be!'
He rested his elbows on his knees, his head clamped between his palms.
'Such suffering!' came Sonya's howl of torment.
'So what's to be done? Tell me!' he asked, suddenly lifting his head and looking at her, his face disfigured by despair.
'What's to be done?' she exclaimed, leaping from her seat, her tearful eyes suddenly ablaze. 'Get up!' (She grabbed him by the shoulder and he started getting to his feet, looking at her in near amazement.) 'Off you go, right now, this minute, stand at the crossroads and bow down; kiss the earth you've polluted,36 then bow down to the whole world, to all four corners, and tell everyone out loud: "I have killed!" Then God will send you life once more. Are you going? Are you going?' she asked him, shaking all over as if in a fit, grabbing both his hands, squeezing them hard in her own and looking at him with fire in her eyes.
He was amazed and even shocked by this sudden ecstasy.
'Do you mean Siberia, Sonya? What, do I have to turn myself in?' he asked, dismally.
'Accept suffering and through suffering redeem yourself - that is what you must do.'
'No! I won't go to them, Sonya.'
'Then how will you live? How on earth will you keep going?' exclaimed Sonya. 'How's that even possible now? How will you ever speak to your mother? (And what on earth will they do now?) But what am I saying? You've already abandoned your mother and sister, haven't you? Of course you have. O Lord!' she cried. 'But he already knows it all himself! How, how can you live your life without a single human being? What will become of you now?'
'Don't be a child, Sonya,' he said softly. 'In what way am I guilty before them? Why should I go? What would I say to them? These are all just phantoms . . . They themselves wipe out millions and think it a virtue. They're swindlers and scoundrels, Sonya! . . . I won't go. What would I say? That I killed, but didn't dare take the money and hid it under a stone?' he added with a caustic grin. 'They'll only laugh at me and say: "You're an idiot for not taking it. A coward and an idiot!" They won't understand anything, Sonya, anything, and they don't deserve to understand. Why should I go? I won't go. Don't be a child, Sonya . . .'
'The torment will be too much for you,' she said, holding her arms out towards him in a despairing plea.
'Maybe I'm still slandering myself now,' he remarked dismally, in a pensive kind
of way. 'Maybe I'm still a human being, not a louse, and I was in too much of a hurry to condemn myself . . . Maybe I can still fight.'
A haughty smile was forcing itself to his lips.
'To bear such torment! And for a whole lifetime, a whole lifetime!'
'I'll get used to it . . .' he said sullenly, seriously. 'Listen,' he began a minute later, 'enough crying, enough talking. I've come to tell you that they're after me, looking for me . . .'
'Ah!' shrieked Sonya in fright.
'There's no need to shriek! You yourself want me to go to Siberia and now you're frightened? Only I won't let them have their way. I've still got some fight left in me and they won't get anywhere. They've no proper evidence. Yesterday I was in grave danger and thought I was done for; today things are looking up. All their evidence is double-edged. I can turn all their accusations to my advantage - understand? - and that's precisely what I'll do. Now I know how . . . They'll put me away, though, that's for sure. But for one stroke of fortune, they'd probably have done so already today, and they might still do so . . . But that's nothing, Sonya. They'll keep me in a bit, then let me out . . . because they haven't a scrap of solid proof and never will, I give you my word. And what they do have isn't enough to lock anyone up. Well, enough of that . . . I just wanted you to know . . . As for my sister and mother, I'll do what I can to put their minds at rest . . . Anyway, my sister seems to be out of harm's way now . . . so mother is, too . . . Well, that's about it. Be careful, though. Will you visit me, once I'm inside?'
'Oh yes! Yes!'
They sat side by side, sad and broken, as if they'd been washed up, after a storm, alone on an empty shore. He looked at Sonya and felt all her love upon him. How strange: he suddenly found it hard and painful to be loved so much. Yes, a strange and dreadful feeling! Walking over to Sonya's he'd felt that she was his one hope, his one way out; he'd expected to cast off at least some of his suffering, and now, all of a sudden, when her whole heart was turned towards him, he suddenly felt and realized that he was infinitely unhappier than before.
Crime and Punishment Page 52