Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
CHAPTER VIII
13146 words | Chapter 40
When he went into Sonia’s room, it was already getting 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 worthy 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 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 persuade 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?”
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 brutal 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.
“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 spoken, “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 vexation, 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 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 beggarly contemptible 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 anything; 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 showing off to myself; why am I ashamed? Foo! how
people shove! that fat man--a German he must be--who 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 lachrymose 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 anything 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 anxiety of all that time, especially
of the last hours, had weighed so heavily upon him that he positively
clutched at the chance of this new unmixed, complete 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 second 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,” 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....”
[*] 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.--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 education, 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.
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 letters 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 conversation 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 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
succeeded 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,
pretended 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 separation came. Dounia swore to her brother that the
separation 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.
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 preparations 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 anticipations 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 however.
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 university 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.
Pulcheria Alexandrovna was delighted to give her blessing to Dounia’s
marriage with Razumihin; but after the marriage she became even more
melancholy 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 children 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 discourse 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 someone’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 nine months. She began to prepare for his coming,
began to do up her room for him, to clean the furniture, 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 delirium 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 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 minuteness. 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 comfort 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 everyone--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 without 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 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 positively 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.
At last the news came (Dounia had indeed noticed signs of alarm and
uneasiness in the preceding letters) that he held aloof from everyone,
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 letter Sonia wrote
that he had been taken very seriously ill and was in the convict ward of
the hospital.
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 hardships!
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 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 anyone. 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 permissible 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 drowning! Oh, he would
have been glad of it! Tears and 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 didn’t, and so I
had no right to have taken that step.”
It was only in that that he recognised his criminality, only in the fact
that he had been unsuccessful and had confessed it.
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 prisoners 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 terrible 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.
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 reasons
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 former
officer and two seminarists. Raskolnikov saw their mistake as clearly.
He was disliked and avoided by everyone; 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 gentleman’s work.”
The second week in Lent, his turn came to take the sacrament with his
gang. He went to church and 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 only she 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 services. Only once at Christmas she sent them all presents
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
instructions, 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, you
are our dear, good little mother,” coarse branded criminals said to that
frail little creature. She would smile and bow to them and everyone 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 delirious. 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, their 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
consider 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 devouring 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 abandoned,
because everyone 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, destined 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 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
difficult. 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
distance at the hospital gate. She seemed to be waiting for someone.
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 morning, 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 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 in 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
living, 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
contemplation; 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 illness, 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 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 suffering 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 barracks 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 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 continually 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 something 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.
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 gradual 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 present story is
ended.
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