فصل 02 - بخش 02

CHAPTER TWO

“AND WHAT IF THERE has been a search already? What if I find them in my room?”

But here was his room. Nothing and no-one in it. No-one had peeped in. Even Nastasia had not touched it. But, Lord! how could he have left all those things in the hole?

He rushed to the corner, slipped his hand under the paper, pulled the things out and lined his pockets with them. There were eight articles in all, two little boxes with earrings or something of the sort—he hardly looked to see—then four small leather cases. There was a chain, too, just wrapped in newspaper and something else in newspaper that looked like a decoration . . . He put them all in the different pockets of his overcoat and the remaining pocket of his trousers, trying to conceal them as much as possible. He took the purse too. Then he went out of his room, leaving the door open. He walked quickly and resolutely, and though he felt shattered, he had his senses about him. He was afraid they would pursue him, he was afraid that in another half-hour, another quarter of an hour perhaps, instructions would be issued for them to pursue him, and so at all costs, he must hide every trace before then. He must clear everything up while he still had some strength, some reasoning power left . . . Where was he to go?

That had long been settled. “Fling them into the canal, and all traces hidden in the water, the whole thing would be over.” That was what he had decided during the night of his delirium when several times he had had the impulse to get up and go away, to hurry up and get rid of it all. But getting rid of it turned out to be a very difficult task. He wandered along the bank of the Ekaterinsky Canal for half an hour or more and looked several times at the steps running down to the water, but he could not think of carrying out his plan; either rafts stood at the steps’ edge, and women were washing clothes on them, or boats were moored there, and people were swarming everywhere. Moreover he could be seen and noticed from the banks on all sides; it would look suspicious for someone to go down on purpose, stop, and throw something into the water. And what if the boxes were to float instead of sinking? And, of course, they would. Even as it was, everyone he met seemed to stare and look round, as if they had nothing to do but to watch him. “Why is it, or is it my imagination?” he thought.

At last the thought struck him that it might be better to go to the Neva. There were not so many people there, he would be less well observed, and it would be more convenient in every way—above all, it was further off. He wondered how he could have been wandering for a good half hour, worried and anxious in this dangerous part of town without thinking of it before. And that half hour he had lost over an irrational plan, simply because he had thought of it in delirium! He had become extremely absent and forgetful and he was aware of it. He must finish it quickly.

He walked towards the Neva along V____ Prospect, but on the way another idea struck him. “Why to the Neva? Would it not be better to go somewhere far off, to the Islands again, and hide the things there in some solitary place, in a wood or under a bush, and mark the spot, perhaps?” And though he felt incapable of clear judgment, the idea seemed to him a good one. But he was not destined to go there. For coming out of V____ Prospect towards the square, he saw on the left a passage leading between two blank walls to a courtyard. On the right-hand side, the blank unwhitewashed wall of a four-storied house stretched far into the court; on the left, a wooden hoarding ran parallel to it for twenty paces into the courtyard and then turned sharply to the left. Here was a deserted fenced-off place where rubbish of various sorts was lying. At the end of the courtyard, the corner of a low, seedy stone shed, apparently part of some workshop, peeped from behind the hoarding. It was probably a carriage builder’s or carpenter’s shed; the whole place from the entrance was black with coal dust. Here would be the place to throw it, he thought. Not seeing anyone in the yard, he slipped in and at once saw a sink near the gate, such as is often put in yards where there are many workmen or cabdrivers; and on the hoarding above had been scribbled in chalk the age-old joke, “Standing here strictly forbidden.” This was all for the better, because there would be nothing suspicious about him going in. “Here I could throw it all in a heap and get away!” Looking round once more, with his hand already in his pocket, he noticed against the outer wall, between the entrance and the sink, a big uncut stone, weighing perhaps sixty pounds. The other side of the wall was a street. He could hear passersby, always numerous in that part, but he could not be seen from the entrance, unless someone came in from the street, which might well happen, in fact, so he needed to hurry.

He bent down over the stone, seized the top of it firmly in both hands and, using all his strength, turned it over. Under the stone was a small hollow in the ground, and he immediately emptied his pocket into it. The purse lay at the top, and yet the hollow was not filled up. Then he seized the stone again and with one twist turned it back, so that it was in the same position again, though it stood a touch higher. But he scraped the earth around it and pressed it at the edges with his foot. Nothing could be noticed.

Then he went out, and turned into the square. Again an intense, almost unbearable joy overwhelmed him for an instant, as it had in the police office. “I have buried my tracks! And who, who can think of looking under that stone? It has been lying there most likely ever since the house was built, and will lie as many years more. And if it were found, who would think of me? It is all over! No clue!” And he laughed. Yes, he remembered that he began laughing a thin, nervous noiseless laugh, and went on laughing all the time he was crossing the square. But when he reached the K____ Boulevard where two days before he had come upon that girl, his laughter suddenly ceased. Other ideas crept into his mind. He felt all at once that it would be loathsome to pass that seat on which he had sat and pondered after the girl had gone, and that it would be hateful, too, to meet that whiskered policeman to whom he had given the twenty kopecks: “Damn him!” He walked, looking around him angrily and distractedly. All his ideas now seemed to be circling round some single point, and he felt that there really was such a point, and that now, now, he was left facing that point—and for the first time, in fact, during the last two months.

“Curse it all!” he thought suddenly, in a fit of uncontrollable fury. “If it’s begun, then it’s begun. Damn the new life! Lord, how stupid it is! . . . And what lies I told today! How despicably I fawned on that wretched Ilia Petrovich! But that is all stupidity! What do I care for them all, and the fact that I fawned on them! It’s not that at all! It’s not that at all!” Suddenly he stopped; an utterly unexpected and extremely simple new question perplexed and bitterly confounded him.

“If all this has really been done deliberately and not idiotically, if I really had a certain and definite object, how is it that I didn’t even glance into the purse and don’t know what I had there, that purse for which I have undergone these agonies and have deliberately undertaken this base, filthy, degrading business? And here I wanted to throw into the water the purse together with all the things which I had not seen either . . . how’s that?” Yes, that was true, that was all true. Yet he had known it all before, and it was not a new question for him, even when it was decided in the night without hesitation and consideration, as though that was how it must be, as though it could not possibly be otherwise . . . Yes, he had known it all, and understood it all; surely it had all been settled even yesterday at the moment when he was bending over the box and pulling the jewel-cases out of it … Yes, that’s the way it was.

“It’s because I’m very ill,” he decided grimly at last, “I’ve been worrying and irritating myself, and I don’t know what I’m doing . . . Yesterday and the day before yesterday and all this time I’ve been worrying myself . . . I’ll get well and I shan’t worry . . . But what if I don’t get well at all? Good God, how sick I am of it all!” He walked on without resting. He had a terrible longing for some distraction, but he did not know what to do, what to attempt. A new overwhelming sensation was gaining more and more mastery over him every moment; it was an immeasurable, almost physical repulsion for everything surrounding him, a stubborn, malignant feeling of hatred. All who met him were loathsome to him—he loathed their faces, their movements, their gestures. If anyone had addressed him, he felt that he might have spat at them or bitten them . . .

He stopped suddenly on coming out onto the bank of the Little Neva, near the bridge to Vassilyevsky Island. “But he lives here, in that house,” he thought, “but it’s not as if I’ve not come to Razumikhin of my own accord! Here it is, the same thing over again . . . I wonder, though; have I come on purpose or have I simply got here by chance? Never mind, I said the day before yesterday that I would go and see him the day after, so I will! Besides, I really cannot go any further now.” He went up to Razumikhin’s room on the fifth floor.

The latter was at home in his little room, busily writing at the time, and he opened the door himself. It was four months since they had seen each other. Razumikhin was sitting in a ragged dressing-gown, with slippers on his bare feet, untidy, unshaven and unwashed. His face showed surprise.

“Is it you?” he cried. He looked his comrade up and down; then after a brief pause, he whistled. “As hard up as all that! My friend, you’ve cut me out!” he added, looking at Raskolnikov’s rags. “Come and sit down, you look tired.”

And when he had sunk down on the American leather sofa, which was in an even worse condition than his own, Razumikhin saw at once that his visitor was ill.

“Hey, you’re seriously ill, do you know that?” He began feeling his pulse. Raskolnikov pulled his hand away.

“Never mind,” he said, “I have come for this; I have no lessons . . . I wanted . . . but I don’t want lessons . . . ”

“My God! You’re delirious!” Razumikhin remarked, watching him carefully.

“No, I am not.”

Raskolnikov got up from the sofa. As he had mounted the stairs to Razumikhin’s, he had not realized that he would be meeting his friend face to face. Now, in a flash, he knew that what he was least of all disposed for at that moment was to be face to face with anyone in the world. He almost choked with rage at himself as soon as he crossed Razumikhin’s threshold.

“Goodbye,” he said abruptly, and walked to the door.

“Stop, stop! You’re behaving very strangely.”

“I don’t want to,” said the other, again pulling away his hand.

“Then why in God’s name have you come? Are you mad, or what? This is . . . almost insulting! I won’t let you go like that.”

“Well, then, I came to you because I know no-one but you who could help . . . to begin with . . . because you are kinder than anyone—clever, I mean, and can judge . . . and now I see that I want nothing. Do you hear? Nothing at all . . . no-one’s services . . . no-one’s sympathy. I am by myself . . . alone. Come on, that’s enough. Leave me alone.” “Stay a minute, you idiot! You are a total madman. Do what you like for all I care. I have no lessons, do you see, and I don’t care about that, but there’s a bookseller, Kheruvimov, and he’s what I’ve replaced my lessons with. I wouldn’t exchange him for five of them. He’s doing some kind of publishing, and issuing natural science manuals, and what a circulation they have! Even the titles are worth the money! You always told me I was a fool, but, my God, there are greater fools than I am! Now he is setting up for being advanced, not that he has any understanding of anything, but, of course, I encourage him. Here are two signatures of the German text—in my opinion, the crudest charlatanism; it discusses the question, ‘Is woman a human being?’ and, of course, triumphantly proves that she is. Kheruvimov is going to bring out this work as a contribution to the question of women; I am translating it; he will expand these two and a half signatures into six, we shall make up a gorgeous title half a page long and bring it out at half a ruble. It will do! He pays me six rubles per signature, it works out to fifteen rubles for the job, and I’ve had six already in advance. When we have finished this, we are going to begin a translation about whales, and then some of the dullest scandals out of the second part of “The Confessions” we have marked for translation; somebody has told Kheruvimov that Rousseau was a kind of Radishchev.21 You can be sure I don’t contradict him, damn him! Well, would you like to do the second signature of ‘Is woman a human being?’ If you would, take the German and pens and paper—all those are provided—and take three rubles; for as I have had six rubles in advance on the whole thing, three rubles come to you for your share. And when you have finished the signature there will be another three rubles for you. And please don’t think I am doing you a service; quite the contrary, as soon as you came in, I saw how you could help me; to start with, I am bad at spelling, and secondly, I am sometimes totally lost when I read German, so I make it up as I go along for the most part. The only comfort is that it’s bound to be a change for the better. Though who can tell, maybe it’s sometimes for the worse. Will you take it?” Raskolnikov took the German sheets in silence, took the three rubles and, without a word, went out. Razumikhin gazed after him in astonishment. But when Raskolnikov was in the next street, he turned back, mounted the stairs to Razumikhin’s again and laying on the table the German article and the three rubles, went out again, still without uttering a word.

“Are you raving, or what?” Razumikhin shouted, roused to fury at last. “What farce is this? You’ll drive me crazy too . . . what did you come to see me for, damn you?”

“I don’t want . . . translation,” muttered Raskolnikov from the stairs.

“Then what on earth do you want?” shouted Razumikhin from above.

Raskolnikov continued descending the staircase in silence.

“Hey! Where are you living?”

No answer.

“Well, then, go to hell!”

But Raskolnikov was already stepping out into the street. On the Nikolaevsky Bridge he was roused to full consciousness again by an unpleasant incident. A coachman, after shouting at him two or three times, gave him a violent lash on the back with his whip, for having almost fallen under his horses’ hoofs. The lash so infuriated him that he dashed away to the railing (for some unknown reason he had been walking right in the middle of the bridge in the traffic). He angrily clenched and ground his teeth. He heard laughter, of course.

“Serves him right!”

“A pickpocket, I’d say.”

“Pretending to be drunk, and getting under the wheels on purpose; and you have to answer for him.”

“It’s a regular profession, that’s what it is.”

But while he stood at the railing, still looking angry and bewildered at the retreating carriage and rubbing his back, he suddenly felt someone thrust money into his hand. He looked. It was an elderly woman in a shawl and goatskin shoes, with a girl, probably her daughter, wearing a hat, and carrying a green parasol.

“Take it, my good man, in Christ’s name.”

He took it, and they passed by. It was a twenty kopeck piece. From his dress and appearance they might well have taken him for a beggar asking for donations in the streets, and the gift of the twenty kopecks he doubtless owed to the blow, which made them feel sorry for him.

He closed his hand on the twenty kopecks, walked on for ten paces, and turned facing the Neva, looking towards the palace. The sky was cloudless and the water was almost bright blue, which is so rare in the Neva. The dome of the cathedral, which is seen at its best from the bridge about twenty paces from the chapel, glittered in the sunlight, and in the pure air every ornament on it could be clearly distinguished. The pain from the lash eased off, and Raskolnikov forgot about it; one uneasy and not quite definite idea now occupied him completely. He stood still, and gazed long and intently into the distance; this spot was especially familiar to him. When he was attending the university, he had hundreds of times—generally on his way home—stood still on this spot, gazed at this truly magnificent spectacle and almost always marveled at a vague and mysterious emotion it aroused in him. It left him strangely cold; for him, this gorgeous picture was blank and lifeless. He wondered every time at his somber and enigmatic impression and, mistrusting himself, put off finding an explanation for it. He vividly recalled those old doubts and perplexities, and it seemed to him that it was no mere chance that he recalled them now. It struck him as strange and grotesque that he should have stopped at the same spot as before, as though he actually imagined he could think the same thoughts, be interested in the same theories and pictures that had interested him . . . so short a time ago. He felt it almost amusing, and yet it wrung his heart. Deep down, hidden far away out of sight all that seemed to him now—all his old past, his old thoughts, his old problems and theories, his old impressions and that picture and himself and all, all . . . He felt as though he were flying upwards, and everything were vanishing from his sight. Making an unconscious movement with his hand, he suddenly became aware of the piece of money in his fist. He opened his hand, stared at the coin, and with a sweep his arm flung it into the water; then he turned and went home. It seemed to him, he had cut himself off from every one and from everything at that moment.

Evening was coming on when he reached home, so he must have been walking for about six hours. How and where he came back he did not remember. Undressing, and quivering like an overdriven horse, he lay down on the sofa, drew his overcoat over him, and at once sank into oblivion …

It was dusk when he was woken by a fearful scream. God, what a scream! He had never heard such unnatural sounds, such howling, wailing, grinding, tears, blows and curses.

He could never have imagined such brutality, such frenzy. In terror he sat up in bed, almost swooning with agony. But the fighting, wailing and cursing grew louder and louder. And then to his intense amazement he caught the voice of his landlady. She was howling, shrieking and wailing, rapidly, hurriedly, incoherently, so that he could not make out what she was talking about; she was pleading, no doubt, not to be beaten, as she was being mercilessly beaten on the stairs. The voice of her assailant was so horrible with spite and rage that it was almost a croak; but he, too, was saying something, and just as quickly and indistinctly, hurrying and spluttering. All at once Raskolnikov trembled; he recognized the voice—it was the voice of Ilia Petrovich. Ilia Petrovich here and beating the landlady! He is kicking her, banging her head against the steps—that’s clear, he could tell that from the sounds, from the cries and the thuds. What’s happening, has the world turned upside down? He could hear people running in crowds from all the floors and staircases; he heard voices, exclamations, knocking, doors banging. “But why, why, and how could it be?” he repeated, thinking seriously that he had gone mad. But no, he heard it too distinctly! And then they would come to him next, “for no doubt . . . it’s all about that . . . about yesterday . . . My God!” He would have fastened his door with the latch, but he could not lift his hand . . . besides, it would be useless. Terror gripped his heart like ice, tortured him and numbed him . . . But at last all this uproar, after continuing for about ten minutes, gradually began to subside. The landlady was moaning and groaning; Ilia Petrovich was still uttering threats and curses . . . But at last he, too, seemed to be silent, and now he could not be heard. “Can he have gone away? Good Lord!” Yes, and now the landlady is going too, still weeping and moaning . . .

And then her door slammed . . . Now the crowd was going from the stairs to their rooms, exclaiming, disputing, calling to one another, raising their voices to a shout, dropping them to a whisper. There must have been huge numbers of them—almost all the inmates of the block. “But, good God, how could it be! And why, why had he come here!” Raskolnikov sank worn out on the sofa, but could not close his eyes. He lay for half an hour in such anguish, such intolerably infinite terror as he had never experienced before. Suddenly a bright light flashed into his room. Nastasia came in with a candle and a plate of soup. Looking at him carefully and making sure that he was not asleep, she set the candle on the table and began to lay out what she had brought—bread, salt, a plate, a spoon.

“You’ve eaten nothing since yesterday, I bet. You’ve been trudging about all day, and you’re shaking with fever.”

“Nastasia . . . what were they beating the landlady for?”

She looked intently at him.

“Who beat the landlady?”

“Just now . . . half an hour ago, Ilia Petrovich, the assistant-superintendent, on the stairs . . . Why was he maltreating her like that, and . . . why was he here?”

Nastasia scrutinized him, silent and frowning, and her scrutiny lasted a long time. He felt uneasy, even frightened at her searching eyes.

“Nastasia, why aren’t you saying anything?” he said timidly at last in a weak voice.

“It’s the blood,” she answered at last softly, as though speaking to herself.

“Blood? What blood?” he muttered, growing white and turning towards the wall.

Nastasia still looked at him without speaking.

“Nobody has been beating the landlady,” she declared at last in a firm, resolute voice.

He gazed at her, hardly able to breathe.

“I heard it myself . . . I was not asleep . . . I was sitting up,” he said still more timidly. “I listened for a long while. The assistant-superintendent came . . . Everyone ran out on to the stairs from all the apartments.”

“No-one has been here. That’s the blood crying in your ears. When there’s no outlet for it and it gets clotted, you start imagining things . . . Will you eat something?”

He made no answer. Nastasia still stood over him, watching him.

“Give me something to drink . . . Nastasia.”

She went downstairs and returned with a white earthenware jug of water. He remembered only swallowing one sip of the cold water and spilling some on his neck. Then he sank into oblivion.