Prestuplenie i nakazanie. English

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  CHAPTER III

  He hurried to Svidrigailov's. What he had to hope from that man hedid not know. But that man had some hidden power over him. Having oncerecognised this, he could not rest, and now the time had come.

  On the way, one question particularly worried him: had Svidrigailov beento Porfiry's?

  As far as he could judge, he would swear to it, that he had not. Hepondered 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 hefancied 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 allworried him and at the same time he could not attend to it. Strange tosay, none would have believed it perhaps, but he only felt a faint vagueanxiety about his immediate future. Another, much more important anxietytormented him--it concerned himself, but in a different, more vital way.Moreover, he was conscious of immense moral fatigue, though his mind wasworking better that morning than it had done of late.

  And was it worth while, after all that had happened, to contend withthese new trivial difficulties? Was it worth while, for instance, tomanoeuvre that Svidrigailov should not go to Porfiry's? Was it worthwhile to investigate, to ascertain the facts, to waste time over anyonelike Svidrigailov?

  Oh, how sick he was of it all!

  And yet he was hastening to Svidrigailov; could he be expectingsomething _new_ from him, information, or means of escape? Men willcatch at straws! Was it destiny or some instinct bringing them together?Perhaps it was only fatigue, despair; perhaps it was not Svidrigailovbut some other whom he needed, and Svidrigailov had simply presentedhimself by chance. Sonia? But what should he go to Sonia for now? To begher tears again? He was afraid of Sonia, too. Sonia stood before him asan irrevocable sentence. He must go his own way or hers. At that momentespecially he did not feel equal to seeing her. No, would it not bebetter to try Svidrigailov? And he could not help inwardly owning thathe had long felt that he must see him for some reason.

  But what could they have in common? Their very evil-doing could notbe of the same kind. The man, moreover, was very unpleasant, evidentlydepraved, undoubtedly cunning and deceitful, possibly malignant. Suchstories were told about him. It is true he was befriending KaterinaIvanovna's children, but who could tell with what motive and what itmeant? The man always had some design, some project.

  There was another thought which had been continually hovering of lateabout Raskolnikov's mind, and causing him great uneasiness. It was sopainful that he made distinct efforts to get rid of it. He sometimesthought that Svidrigailov was dogging his footsteps. Svidrigailov hadfound out his secret and had had designs on Dounia. What if he had themstill? Wasn't it practically certain that he had? And what if, havinglearnt his secret and so having gained power over him, he were to use itas a weapon against Dounia?

  This idea sometimes even tormented his dreams, but it had neverpresented itself so vividly to him as on his way to Svidrigailov.The very thought moved him to gloomy rage. To begin with, this wouldtransform everything, even his own position; he would have at once toconfess his secret to Dounia. Would he have to give himself up perhapsto prevent Dounia from taking some rash step? The letter? This morningDounia had received a letter. From whom could she get letters inPetersburg? Luzhin, perhaps? It's true Razumihin was there to protecther, but Razumihin knew nothing of the position. Perhaps it was his dutyto tell Razumihin? He thought of it with repugnance.

  In any case he must see Svidrigailov as soon as possible, he decidedfinally. Thank God, the details of the interview were of littleconsequence, if only he could get at the root of the matter; butif Svidrigailov were capable... if he were intriguing againstDounia--then...

  Raskolnikov was so exhausted by what he had passed through that monththat he could only decide such questions in one way; "then I shall killhim," he thought in cold despair.

  A sudden anguish oppressed his heart, he stood still in the middle ofthe street and began looking about to see where he was and which way hewas going. He found himself in X. Prospect, thirty or forty paces fromthe Hay Market, through which he had come. The whole second storey ofthe house on the left was used as a tavern. All the windows were wideopen; judging from the figures moving at the windows, the rooms werefull to overflowing. There were sounds of singing, of clarionet andviolin, 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 Svidrigailov, sittingat a tea-table right in the open window with a pipe in his mouth.Raskolnikov was dreadfully taken aback, almost terrified. Svidrigailovwas silently watching and scrutinising him and, what struck Raskolnikovat once, seemed to be meaning to get up and slip away unobserved.Raskolnikov at once pretended not to have seen him, but to be lookingabsent-mindedly away, while he watched him out of the corner of his eye.His heart was beating violently. Yet, it was evident that Svidrigailovdid not want to be seen. He took the pipe out of his mouth and was onthe point of concealing himself, but as he got up and moved back hischair, he seemed to have become suddenly aware that Raskolnikov had seenhim, and was watching him. What had passed between them was much thesame as what happened at their first meeting in Raskolnikov's room. Asly smile came into Svidrigailov's face and grew broader andbroader. Each knew that he was seen and watched by the other. At lastSvidrigailov broke into a loud laugh.

  "Well, well, come in if you want me; I am here!" he shouted from thewindow.

  Raskolnikov went up into the tavern. He found Svidrigailov in a tinyback room, adjoining the saloon in which merchants, clerks and numbersof people of all sorts were drinking tea at twenty little tables to thedesperate bawling of a chorus of singers. The click of billiard ballscould be heard in the distance. On the table before Svidrigailov stoodan open bottle and a glass half full of champagne. In the room he foundalso a boy with a little hand organ, a healthy-looking red-cheeked girlof eighteen, wearing a tucked-up striped skirt, and a Tyrolese hat withribbons. In spite of the chorus in the other room, she was singing someservants' hall song in a rather husky contralto, to the accompaniment ofthe organ.

  "Come, that's enough," Svidrigailov stopped her at Raskolnikov'sentrance. The girl at once broke off and stood waiting respectfully.She had sung her guttural rhymes, too, with a serious and respectfulexpression in her face.

  "Hey, Philip, a glass!" shouted Svidrigailov.

  "I won't drink anything," said Raskolnikov.

  "As you like, I didn't mean it for you. Drink, Katia! I don't wantanything more to-day, you can go." He poured her out a full glass, andlaid 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 Svidrigailov's hand, which heallowed quite seriously. She went out of the room and the boy trailedafter her with the organ. Both had been brought in from the street.Svidrigailov had not been a week in Petersburg, but everything about himwas 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. Svidrigailov was athome in this room and perhaps spent whole days in it. The tavern wasdirty and wretched, not even second-rate.

  "I was going to see you and looking for you," Raskolnikov began, "butI don't know what made me turn from the Hay Market into the X. Prospectjust now. I never take this turning. I turn to the right from the HayMarket. 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 Svidrigailov. "You won'tadmit it, even if you do inwardly believe it a miracle! Here you saythat it may be only chance. And what cowards they all are here, abouthaving an opinion of their own, you can't fancy, Rodion Romanovitch. Idon't mean you, you have an opinion of your own and are not afraid tohave it. That's h
ow it was you attracted my curiosity."

  "Nothing else?"

  "Well, that's enough, you know," Svidrigailov 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 havingwhat you call an opinion of my own," observed Raskolnikov.

  "Oh, well, it was a different matter. Everyone has his own plans. Andapropos of the miracle let me tell you that I think you have been asleepfor the last two or three days. I told you of this tavern myself, thereis 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 youremember?"

  "I don't remember," answered Raskolnikov with surprise.

  "I believe you. I told you twice. The address has been stampedmechanically on your memory. You turned this way mechanically and yetprecisely according to the direction, though you are not aware ofit. When I told you then, I hardly hoped you understood me. You giveyourself away too much, Rodion Romanovitch. And another thing, I'mconvinced there are lots of people in Petersburg who talk to themselvesas they walk. This is a town of crazy people. If only we had scientificmen, doctors, lawyers and philosophers might make most valuableinvestigations in Petersburg each in his own line. There are few placeswhere there are so many gloomy, strong and queer influences on the soulof man as in Petersburg. The mere influences of climate mean so much.And it's the administrative centre of all Russia and its character mustbe reflected on the whole country. But that is neither here nor therenow. The point is that I have several times watched you. You walk outof your house--holding your head high--twenty paces from home you let itsink, and fold your hands behind your back. You look and evidently seenothing before nor beside you. At last you begin moving your lips andtalking to yourself, and sometimes you wave one hand and declaim, and atlast stand still in the middle of the road. That's not at all the thing.Someone 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."

  "Do you know that I am being followed?" asked Raskolnikov, lookinginquisitively at him.

  "No, I know nothing about it," said Svidrigailov, 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 metwice to come here to you, why did you hide, and try to get away justnow 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 andpretended to be asleep, though you were wide awake while I stood in yourdoorway? 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 thefingers of his right hand, and stared intently at Svidrigailov. For afull minute he scrutinised his face, which had impressed him before. Itwas 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 somehowtoo blue and their expression somehow too heavy and fixed. There wassomething awfully unpleasant in that handsome face, which looked sowonderfully young for his age. Svidrigailov was smartly dressed in lightsummer clothes and was particularly dainty in his linen. He wore a hugering with a precious stone in it.

  "Have I got to bother myself about you, too, now?" said Raskolnikovsuddenly, coming with nervous impatience straight to the point. "Eventhough perhaps 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 Idon't prize myself as you probably think I do. I've come to tell you atonce that if you keep to your former intentions with regard to my sisterand if you think to derive any benefit in that direction from what hasbeen 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 thesecond place if you want to tell me anything--for I keep fancying allthis 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 Svidrigailov, looking at him curiously.

  "Everyone has his plans," Raskolnikov answered gloomily and impatiently.

  "You urged me yourself to frankness just now, and at the first questionyou refuse to answer," Svidrigailov observed with a smile. "Youkeep fancying that I have aims of my own and so you look at me withsuspicion. Of course it's perfectly natural in your position. Butthough I should like to be friends with you, I shan't trouble myselfto convince you of the contrary. The game isn't worth the candle and Iwasn't intending to talk to you about anything special."

  "What did you want me, for, then? It was you who came hanging about me."

  "Why, simply as an interesting subject for observation. I liked thefantastic nature of your position--that's what it was! Besides you arethe brother of a person who greatly interested me, and from that personI had in the past heard a very great deal about you, from which Igathered 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, andis difficult for me to answer. Here, you, for instance, have come to menot only for a definite object, but for the sake of hearing somethingnew. Isn't that so? Isn't that so?" persisted Svidrigailov with a slysmile. "Well, can't you fancy then that I, too, on my way here in thetrain was reckoning on you, on your telling me something new, and on mymaking 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 allmy time and it's my enjoyment, that's to say it's no great enjoyment,but one must sit somewhere; that poor Katia now--you saw her?... If onlyI had been a glutton now, a club gourmand, but you see I can eat this."

  He pointed to a little table in the corner where the remnants of aterrible-looking beef-steak and potatoes 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 touchanything, and not more than a glass of that all the evening, and eventhat is enough to make my head ache. I ordered it just now to windmyself up, for I am just going off somewhere and you see me in apeculiar state of mind. That was why I hid myself just now like aschoolboy, for I was afraid you would hinder me. But I believe," hepulled out his watch, "I can spend an hour with you. It's half-pastfour now. If only I'd been something, a landowner, a father, a cavalryofficer, a photographer, a journalist... I am nothing, no specialty,and sometimes I am positively bored. I really thought you would tell mesomething new."

  "But what are you, and why have you come here?"

  "What am I? You know, a gentleman, I served for two years in thecavalry, then I knocked about here in Petersburg, then I married MarfaPetrovna 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?"

  "It did happen. Why?"

  "Why, you might have challenged them... altogether it must have beenlively."

  "I won't contradict you, and besides I am no hand at philosophy. Iconfess that I hastened here for the sake of the women."

  "As soon as you buried Marfa Petrovna?"

  "Quite so," Svidrigailov smiled with engaging candour. "What of it? Youseem 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 Ihave a passion f
or 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 anywayI like a direct question. In this vice at least there is somethingpermanent, founded indeed upon nature and not dependent on fantasy,something present in the blood like an ever-burning ember, for eversetting one on fire and, maybe, not to be quickly extinguished, evenwith 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 likeeverything that exceeds moderation. And, of course, in this one mustexceed moderation. But in the first place, everybody does so in one wayor another, and in the second place, of course, one ought to be moderateand prudent, however mean it may be, but what am I to do? If I hadn'tthis, I might have to shoot myself. I am ready to admit that a decentman ought to put up with being bored, but yet..."

  "And could you shoot yourself?"

  "Oh, come!" Svidrigailov parried with disgust. "Please don't speak ofit," he added hurriedly and with none of the bragging tone he had shownin all the previous conversation. His face quite changed. "I admit it'san unpardonable weakness, but I can't help it. I am afraid of death andI dislike its being talked of. Do you know that I am to a certain extenta mystic?"

  "Ah, the apparitions of Marfa Petrovna! Do they still go on visitingyou?"

  "Oh, don't talk of them; there have been no more in Petersburg, confoundthem!" 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 talkof."

  "And the hideousness, the filthiness of all your surroundings, doesn'tthat affect you? Have you lost the strength to stop yourself?"

  "And do you pretend to strength, too? He-he-he! You surprised me justnow, Rodion Romanovitch, though I knew beforehand it would be so.You preach to me about vice and aesthetics! You--a Schiller, you--anidealist! Of course that's all as it should be and it would besurprising 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 Svidrigailov laughing. "However, Iwon't dispute it, let me be a braggart, why not brag, if it hurts noone? I spent seven years in the country with Marfa Petrovna, so now whenI come across an intelligent person like you--intelligent and highlyinteresting--I am simply glad to talk and, besides, I've drunk thathalf-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 thatI... 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 having come here. He felt convinced thatSvidrigailov was the most worthless scoundrel on the face of the earth.

  "A-ach! Sit down, stay a little!" Svidrigailov begged. "Let them bringyou some tea, anyway. Stay a little, I won't talk nonsense, aboutmyself, I mean. I'll tell you something. If you like I'll tell you how awoman tried 'to save' me, as you would call it? It will be an answer toyour first question indeed, for the woman was your sister. May I tellyou? 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."