پایان بندی

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

SIBERIA. ON THE BANKS of a broad solitary river stands a town, one of the administrative centers of Russia; in the town there is a fortress, and in the fortress there is a prison. In the prison the second-class77 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 or misrepresent the facts, or soften them in his own interest, or 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 afterwards he had run downstairs and heard Nikolai and Dmitri shouting; how he had hidden in the empty apartment and afterwards gone home. He finished 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, amongst 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. It turned out to hold three hundred and seventeen rubles and sixty kopecks. Because it had been lying under the stone for so long, some of the most valuable notes had suffered from the damp. They spent a long while trying to discover why the accused man should tell a lie about this when he had made a truthful and straight forward confession about everything else. 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 deduced that the crime could only have been committed through temporary mental derangement, through homicidal mania, without any purpose or pursuit of gain. This fell in with the most recent fashionable theory of temporary insanity, so often applied nowadays in criminal cases. Moreover Raskolnikov’s hypochondriac 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 rubles he had reckoned on finding. He had been led to the murder through his shallow and cowardly nature, exasperated moreover by poverty 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 state at the time of the crime. Incidentally, the murder of Lizaveta served in fact 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 Nikolai through melancholy and fanaticism, and when, moreover, there were no proofs against the real criminal, no suspicions even (Porfiry Petrovich fully kept his word)—all this did much to soften the sentence. Other circumstances, too, in the prisoner’s favor came out quite unexpectedly. Razumikhin 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 favor.

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. Dunia and Razumikhin found it possible to get her out of Petersburg during the trial. Razumikhin 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 Avdotia 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 Dunia returned from her last interview with her brother, she had found her mother already ill, in feverish delirium. That evening Razumikhin 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 that he had to go away to a distant part of Russia on a business commission, which would eventually bring him money and renown.

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 goodbye to her, hinting that she alone knew many mysterious and important facts, and that Rodia 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 Razumikhin that her son would one day be a great statesman, that his article and brilliant literary talent proved it. She read this article continually, she even read it aloud, almost took it to bed with her, but scarcely asked where Rodia 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 that she never received any letters from him, though in previous years she had lived solely on the hope of letters from her beloved Rodia. This was a cause of great uneasiness to Dunia; 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, Dunia saw clearly that her mother was not in full possession of her faculties.

Once or twice, however, Pulcheria Alexandrovna gave such a turn to the conversation that it was impossible to answer her without mentioning where Rodia was, and on receiving unsatisfactory and suspicious answers she immediately became gloomy and silent. Such moods would last for a long time. Dunia 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. Dunia remembered her brother telling her that her mother had overheard her talking in her sleep on the night after her interview with Svidrigailov and before the fatal day of the confession: had she not understood something from that? Sometimes days and even weeks of gloomy silence and tears would be followed 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 ideas were sometimes very strange. They humored 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. Razumikhin and Sonia saw him in prison as often as possible. At last the moment of separation came. Dunia swore to her brother that the separation should not be for ever, Razumikhin did the same. Razumikhin, in his youthful ardor, had firmly resolved to lay the foundations at least of a secure livelihood during the next three or four years, save up a certain sum and 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 Rodia would be living and begin a new life together. They all wept when they parted.

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 Dunia. 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 Svidrigailov, Sonia had long ago made her preparations to follow the party of convicts in which he was dispatched to Siberia. Not a word passed between Raskolnikov and her on the subject, but both knew that was how it would be. At their final parting he smiled strangely at his sister’s and Razumikhin’s fervent anticipations of their happy future together when he would come out of prison. He predicted that their mother’s illness would soon end fatally. At last, Sonia and he set off.

Two months later Dunia was married to Razumikhin. It was a quiet and sorrowful wedding; Porfiry Petrovich and Zossimov, however, were invited. During this whole period Razumikhin wore an air of resolute determination. Dunia implicitly believed he would carry 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. Until then they rested their hopes on Sonia.

Pulcheria Alexandrovna was delighted to give her blessing to Dunia’s marriage with Razumikhin; but after the marriage she became even more melancholy and anxious. To give her pleasure Razumikhin 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 talked about them continually, even entering into conversation with strangers in the street, though Dunia always accompanied her. In public conveyances and stores, wherever she could capture a listener, she would start talking about her son, his article, how he had helped the student, how he had been burnt in the fire, and so on. Dunia did not know how to restrain her. Apart from the danger of her morbid excitement, there was the risk of someone 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 Rodia should soon be home, that she remembered when he said goodbye to her he said that they must expect him back in nine months. She began to prepare for his arrival, began to do up her room for him, to clean the furniture, to wash and put up new hangings and so on. Dunia was anxious, but said nothing and helped her to arrange the room. After a fatiguing day spent in continual fantasies, in joyful daydreams 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 hints 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 Razumikhins and received replies 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, since 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 predictions for 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 clarity and precision.

There could be no mistake, because nothing was given but facts.

But Dunia and her husband could derive little comfort from the news, especially at first. Sonia wrote that he was constantly sullen and unready 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 being, had no ill-founded hopes (as is so common in his position) and scarcely seemed surprised at anything in his surroundings, which were 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 to have his own tea every day. He begged her not to trouble about anything else, declaring that all the fuss 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 intention or plan, but simply from inattention and indifference.

Sonia wrote simply that he had at first shown no interest in her visits, had almost been irritated with her for coming; he had even been rude to her and unwilling to talk. But in the end these visits had become a habit and almost a necessity for him, and he was positively distressed when she was ill for several days and could not come to see him. She used to meet him on holidays at the prison gates or in the guard-room, to which he would be brought for a few minutes to be with 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 Irtysh.78 About herself, Sonia wrote that she had succeeded in making some acquaintances in the town, that she sewed and, as there was scarcely a dressmaker in the vicinity, 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 (Dunia had indeed noticed signs of alarm and uneasiness in the preceding letters) that he had remained 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.

CHAPTER TWO

HE WAS ILL FOR a long time. But it was not the horrors of prison life, not the hard labor, 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 count on a few hours of quiet sleep. And what did the food matter 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 way of life. He did not even feel the chains. Was he ashamed of his shaven head and his prison coat? In whose presence? In Sonia’s? Sonia was afraid of him, how could he feel ashamed in her presence? And yet he was even ashamed when he came to see Sonia, because of which he tortured her with his rough, contemptuous manner. But it was not his shaven head and his chains 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 endured 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 in order somehow to find peace.

Vague and aimless 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 be only thirty-two and able to begin a new life! What did he have to live for? What did he have to look forward to? Why should he strive? To live in order to exist? He had been ready a thousand times before to give up existence for the sake of an idea, for a hope, even for a whim. 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 considered 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 criticized all his actions again and by no means found them as blundering and as grotesque as they had seemed at the fatal time.

“In what way,” he asked himself, “was my theory more stupid than others that have swarmed and clashed from the beginning of the world? You only have to look at the thing entirely independently, broadly, and uninfluenced by commonplace ideas, and my idea will by no means seem so . . . strange. Oh, skeptics and halfpenny philosophers, why do you halt halfway!”

“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 recognized his criminality, only in the fact that he had been unsuccessful and had confessed it.

He suffered from another 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 Svidrigailov overcome it, although he was afraid of death?

In his 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 even 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 of them. They seemed to be a different species, and he looked at them and they at him with distrust and hostility. He recognized and understood the reasons for his isolation, but he would never have admitted until then that those reasons were so deep and strong. There were some Polish exiles, political prisoners, among them. They simply looked down upon everyone else and treated them like ignorant fools; 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 seminarians.79 Raskolnikov saw their mistake as clearly. He was disliked and avoided by everyone; they finally even began to hate him—why, he could not tell. Men who had been guilty of far greater offenses 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. Everyone 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 or his belief, but they wanted to kill him because he was an infidel. He said nothing. One of the prisoners rushed at him in an absolute 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 resolve: why were they all so fond of Sonia? She did not try to win their favor; she rarely met them, only occasionally coming to see him at work, and even then only 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 service. Only once, at Christmas, did she send 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 presents and money for them with Sonia. 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 Sofia Semionovna, 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 with their illnesses.

He was in the hospital from the middle of Lent until 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 strange new plague that had come to Europe from the depths of Asia. Everyone was to be destroyed except a few chosen ones. Some sort of new microbe was attacking people’s bodies, but these microbes were endowed with intelligence and will. Men attacked by them became instantly furious and mad. 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 were driven mad by the infection. Everyone was 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 who to blame, who 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 bells kept 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 their own ideas and their 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, that 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. When he awoke he happened 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 almost stabbed his heart at that moment. He shuddered and moved away from the window. The 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 Sofia Semionovna was lying ill at home and was unable to go out.

He was very uneasy and sent a message to inquire after her; he soon learnt that her illness was not dangerous. Hearing that he was anxious about her, Sonia sent him a penciled note, telling him that she was much better, that she had a slight cold and that she would come soon, very soon and see him at 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 had a kiln for baking it in a shed. There were only three of them who were 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 daydreams, 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 sharp. She wore her threadbare old wrap and the green shawl; her face still showed signs of illness, and it was thinner and paler. She gave him a joyful, welcoming smile, but held out her hand with her usual timidity. She was always timid about holding out her hand to him and sometimes did not offer it at all, as though she were afraid he would repel it. He always took her hand as if with repugnance, always seemed irritated to meet her and was sometimes obstinately silent throughout her visit. Sometimes she trembled before him and went away deeply upset. 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 being.

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. At 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 above everything else 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 his whole being, while she—she lived through him alone.

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 imagined that day that all the convicts who had been his enemies looked at him differently; he had even started talking to 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, 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 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 of anything for long that evening, and he could not have analyzed 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. Until 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 transition 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 over.-—

THE END