بخش 02 - فصل 05

CHAPTER FIVE

HE WAS CLEARLY NO longer a young man: he looked stiff and portly and had a cautious, sour expression on his face. He began by stopping short in the doorway, staring around himself with offensive and undisguised astonishment, as though asking himself what kind of a place he had come to. Mistrustfully pretending to be alarmed and almost affronted, he scanned Raskolnikov’s low and narrow “cabin.” With the same amazement he gazed at Raskolnikov, who lay undressed, disheveled, unwashed, on his miserable dirty sofa, staring at him fixedly. Then with the same deliberation he scrutinized the improper, untidy figure and unshaven face of Razumikhin, who looked him boldly and inquiringly in the face without rising from his seat. A constrained silence lasted for a couple of minutes, and then, as expected, some scene-shifting occurred. Reflecting, probably from certain fairly unmistakable signs, that he would get nothing in this “cabin” by attempting to overawe them, the gentleman softened somewhat, and civilly, though with some severity, emphasizing every syllable of his question, addressed Zossimov: “Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, a student, or former student?”

Zossimov made a slight movement, and would have answered if Razumikhin had not anticipated him.

“Here he is lying on the sofa! What do you want?”

This familiar “what do you want” seemed to cut the ground from under the feet of the pompous gentleman. He was turning to Razumikhin, but checked himself in time and turned to Zossimov again.

“This is Raskolnikov,” mumbled Zossimov, nodding towards him. Then he yawned long and hard, opening his mouth as wide as possible, lazily put his hand into his waistcoat-pocket, pulled out a huge gold watch in a round hunter’s case, opened it, looked at it and slowly and lazily put it back.

Raskolnikov himself lay without speaking, on his back, gazing persistently at the stranger, though without any understanding. Now that his face was turned away from the strange flower on the wallpaper, it was extremely pale, with a look of anguish, as though he had just undergone an agonizing operation or just been taken from the rack. But the newcomer gradually began to arouse his attention, then his wonder, then suspicion and even alarm. When Zossimov said “This is Raskolnikov,” he jumped up quickly, sat on the sofa and with an almost defiant, but weak and breaking, voice articulated: “Yes, I am Raskolnikov! What do you want?”

The visitor scrutinized him and pronounced impressively:

“Peter Petrovich Luzhin. I believe I have reason to hope that my name is not wholly unknown to you?”

But Raskolnikov, who had expected something quite different, gazed blankly and dreamily at him, making no reply, as though he was hearing the name of Peter Petrovich for the first time.

“Is it possible that you can up until now have received no information?” asked Peter Petrovich, somewhat confused.

In reply Raskolnikov sank languidly back on the pillow, put his hands behind his head and gazed at the ceiling. A look of dismay came into Luzhin’s face. Zossimov and Razumikhin stared at him more inquisitively than ever, and at last he showed unmistakable signs of embarrassment.

“I had presumed and calculated,” he faltered, “that a letter posted more than ten days, if not a fortnight ago . . . ”

“Why are you standing in the doorway?” Razumikhin interrupted suddenly. “If you’ve got something to say, sit down. You and Nastasia are so crowded. Nastasia, make room for him. Here’s a chair, thread your way in!” He moved his chair back from the table, made a little space between the table and his knees, and waited in a rather cramped position for the visitor to “thread his way in.” The minute was chosen so that it was impossible to refuse, and the visitor squeezed his way through, hurrying and stumbling. Reaching the chair, he sat down, looking suspiciously at Razumikhin.

“There’s no need to be nervous,” the latter blurted out. “Rodia has been ill for the last five days and delirious for three, but now he is recovering and has got an appetite. This is his doctor, who has just had a look at him. I am a colleague of Rodia’s, like him, formerly a student, and now I am nursing him; so don’t take any notice of us, just carry on with your business.” “Thank you. But shall I not disturb the invalid by my presence and conversation?” Peter Petrovich asked of Zossimov.

“N-no,” mumbled Zossimov; “you may amuse him.” He yawned again.

“He has been conscious a long time, since the morning,” went on Razumikhin, whose familiarity seemed so much like unaffected good-nature that Peter Petrovich began to be more cheerful, partly, perhaps, because this shabby and insolent person had introduced himself as a student.

“Your mother,” began Luzhin.

“Hm!” Razumikhin cleared his throat loudly. Luzhin looked at him inquiringly.

“That’s all right, go on.”

Luzhin shrugged his shoulders.

“Your mother had commenced a letter to you while I was sojourning in her neighborhood. On my arrival here I purposely allowed a few days to elapse before coming to see you, in order that I might be fully assured that you were in full possession of the news; but now, to my astonishment . . . ” “I know, I know!” Raskolnikov cried suddenly with impatient vexation. “So you’re the fiancé? I know, and that’s enough!”

There was no doubt that Peter Petrovich was offended this time, but he said nothing. He made a violent effort to understand what it all meant. There was a moment’s silence.

Meanwhile Raskolnikov, who had turned a little towards him when he answered, began suddenly staring at him again with marked curiosity, as though he had not had a good look at him yet, or as though something new had struck him; he rose from his pillow on purpose to stare at him. There certainly was something peculiar in Peter Petrovich’s whole appearance, something which seemed to justify the title of “fiancé” which had so unfortunately been applied to him. In the first place, it was evident, far too evident, actually, that Peter Petrovich had eagerly used his few days in the capital to buy himself a new set of clothes in which to greet his fiancée—which was in fact an entirely innocent, permissible thing to do. Even his slightly complacent consciousness of the improvement in his appearance might have been forgiven in such circumstances, given that Peter Petrovich had just got engaged. All his clothes were fresh from the tailor’s and fine for the occasion, except for the fact that they were too new and too distinctly appropriate. Even the stylish new round hat had the same significance. Peter Petrovich treated it too respectfully and held it too carefully in his hands. The exquisite pair of lavender gloves, real Louvain, told the same tale, if only because he did not wear them and just carried them in his hand for show. Light, youthful colors were the dominant feature of Peter Petrovich’s dress. He wore a charming fawn-colored summer jacket, light thin trousers, a waistcoat of the same fine new cloth, a cravat made of the lightest cambric with pink stripes on it—and the best thing about it was that it all suited Peter Petrovich. His very fresh and even handsome face always looked younger than forty-five, his real age. His dark, lamb-chop whiskers made a beautiful setting on both sides, growing thickly about his shining, clean-shaven chin. Although his hair was touched here and there with gray and had been combed and curled at a hairdresser’s, it did not give him a stupid appearance, as curled hair usually does, by inevitably suggesting a German on his wedding-day. If there really was something unpleasant and repulsive in his pretty good-looking and imposing face, it was caused by a completely different factor. After he had disrespectfully scanned Mr. Luzhin, Raskolnikov smiled wickedly, sank back on the pillow and stared at the ceiling as before.

But Mr. Luzhin hardened his heart and seemed to determine to take no notice of their oddities.

“I feel the greatest regret at finding you in this situation,” he began, again breaking the silence with an effort. “If I had been aware of your illness I should have come earlier. But you know what business is. I have, too, a very important legal affair in the Senate, not to mention other preoccupations which you may well conjecture. I am expecting your mother and sister any minute.” Raskolnikov made a movement and seemed about to speak; his face showed some excitement. Peter Petrovich paused, waited, but as nothing followed, he went on:

“ . Any minute. I have found an apartment for when they arrive.”

“Where?” asked Raskolnikov weakly.

“Very near here, in Bakaleyev’s house.”

“That’s in Voskresensky,” put in Razumikhin. “There are two floors there which are let by a merchant called Yushin; I’ve been there.”

“Yes, rooms . . . ”

“A disgusting place—filthy, stinking and, what’s more, dubious. Things have happened there, and there are all sorts of queer people living there. And I went there to investigate a scandal. It’s cheap, though . . . ” “I could not, of course, find out so much about it, as I am a stranger in Petersburg myself,” Peter Petrovich replied sulkily. “However, the two rooms are extremely clean, and as it is going to be for such a short time . . . I have already found a permanent, that is, our future apartment,” he said, addressing Raskolnikov, “and I am having it done up. And meanwhile I myself have been crammed into a room with my friend Andrei Semionovich Lebeziatnikov, in Madame Lippewechsel’s apartment; it was he who told me about Bakaleyev’s house, too . . . ” “Lebeziatnikov?” said Raskolnikov slowly, as if remembering something.

“Yes, Andrei Semionovich Lebeziatnikov, a clerk in the Ministry. Do you know him?”

“Yes . . . no,” Raskolnikov answered.

“I apologize, I imagined that was the case from your inquiry. I was once his guardian . . . A very nice young man, and a progressive as well. I like to meet young people: you can learn new things from them.” Luzhin looked round hopefully at them all.

“How do you mean?” asked Razumikhin.

“In the most serious and essential matters,” Peter Petrovich replied, as though delighted by the question. “You see, it’s ten years since I visited Petersburg. All the novelties, reforms, ideas have reached us in the provinces, but to see it all more clearly one must be in Petersburg. And in my opinion you observe and learn most by watching the younger generation. And I confess I am delighted . . . ” “At what?”

“Your question is a broad one. I may be mistaken, but I think I find clearer views, more, as it were, criticism, more practicality . . . ”

“That’s true,” Zossimov let drop.

“Nonsense! There’s no practicality.” Razumikhin flew at him. “Practicality is a difficult thing to find; it does not drop down from heaven. And for the last two hundred years we have been divorced from all practical life. Ideas, if you like, are fermenting,” he said to Peter Petrovich, “and desire for good exists, though it’s in a childish form, and honesty you may find, although there are people who hijack it. Anyway, there’s no practicality. Practicality has to have some kind of experience behind it.” “I don’t agree with you,” Peter Petrovich replied, with evident enjoyment. “Of course, people do get carried away and make mistakes, but you must be indulgent of that; those mistakes are merely evidence of enthusiasm for the cause and of an abnormal external environment. If little has been done, then there hasn’t been the time, let alone the means. It’s my personal view, if you would like to know, that something has been accomplished already. New and valuable ideas, new and valuable works are circulating instead of our dreamy old romantic authors. Literature is taking on a more mature form, many unjust prejudices have been rooted up and turned into ridicule . In a word, we have cut ourselves off irreversibly from the past, and that, to my thinking, is a great thing . . . ” “He’s learnt it by heart to show off,” Raskolnikov pronounced suddenly.

“What?” asked Peter Petrovich, not catching his words; but he received no reply.

“That’s all true,” Zossimov hastily remarked.

“Isn’t it so?” Peter Petrovich went on, giving Zossimov a friendly glance. “You must admit,” he went on, addressing Razumikhin with a shade of triumph and superiority—he almost added “young man”— “that there has been an advance or, as they say now, progress in the name of science and economic truth . . . ” “A commonplace.”

“No, not a commonplace! Up until now, for instance, if I were told, ‘love thy neighbor,’ what came of it?” Peter Petrovich went on, perhaps too hastily. “It meant I had to tear my coat in half to share it with my neighbor and we both were left half naked. As the Russian proverb says, ‘catch several hares and you won’t catch one.’ Science now tells us, love yourself above everyone else, for everything in the world relies on self-interest. You love yourself and manage your own affairs properly and your coat remains whole. Economic truth adds that the better private affairs are organized in society—the more whole coats, so to speak—the firmer its foundations and the better organized common welfare shall be. Therefore, in acquiring wealth solely and exclusively for myself, I am acquiring, so to speak, for everyone, and helping to get my neighbor a little more than a torn coat; and that is not because of my private, personal liberality, but because of a general advance. The idea is simple, but unhappily it has been a long time reaching us because we have been hindered by idealism and sentimentality. And yet very little intelligence is needed to perceive it . . . ” “Excuse me, I’ve very little intelligence myself,” Razumikhin cut in sharply, “so let’s drop it. I began this discussion with a purpose, but I’ve grown so sick during the last three years of chattering to amuse myself, of constantly pouring forth commonplaces, which are always the same, that I blush even when other people talk like that. You are in a hurry, no doubt, to exhibit your acquirements; and I don’t blame you, it’s forgivable. I only wanted to find out what sort of man you are, because so many unscrupulous people have got hold of the progressive cause recently and have distorted it in their own interests to such an extent that the whole cause has been dragged through the mire. That’s enough!” “Excuse me, sir,” said Luzhin, offended, and speaking with excessive dignity. “Do you mean to suggest so improperly that I too . . . ”

“Oh, sir . . . how could I? . . . Come on, that’s enough,” Razumikhin concluded, and he turned abruptly to Zossimov to continue their previous conversation.

Peter Petrovich was sensible enough to accept this denial. He made up his mind to take leave in another minute or two.

“I trust our acquaintance,” he said, addressing Raskolnikov,

“may, upon your recovery and in view of the circumstances, become closer . . . Above all, I hope you return to health . . . ”

Raskolnikov did not even turn his head. Peter Petrovich began getting up from his chair.

“One of her customers must have killed her,” Zossimov declared.

“Not a doubt,” replied Razumikhin. “Porfiry hasn’t given me his opinion, but he’s examining everyone who left pledges with her.”

“Examining them?” Raskolnikov asked aloud.

“Yes. What then?”

“Nothing.”

“How does he get hold of them?” asked Zossimov.

“Koch has put forward some of their names, other names are on the wrappers of the pledges and some have come forward themselves.”

“It must have been a cunning, experienced criminal! The boldness of it! The coolness!”

“That’s just what it wasn’t!” interposed Razumikhin. “That’s what throws you all off the scent. I don’t think he’s cunning or experienced; this was probably his first crime! Assuming the criminal planned it all out doesn’t work. Suppose he’s inexperienced: it’s clear that the only thing which saved him was chance—and chance can do anything. Perhaps he didn’t even foresee any obstacles! What did he do? He took jewels worth ten or twenty rubles, stuffed his pockets with them, ransacked the old woman’s trunk, her rags—and they found fifteen hundred rubles, besides notes, in a box in the top drawer of the chest! He didn’t know how to rob anyone; he could only carry out the murder. It was his first crime, I’m telling you, his first crime; he lost his head. He got off because he was lucky, not because he was experienced!” “You are talking about the murder of the old pawnbroker, I believe?” Peter Petrovich put in, addressing Zossimov. He was standing, hat and gloves in hand, but before departing he felt disposed to throw off a few more intellectual phrases. He was evidently anxious to make a favorable impression and his vanity overcame his good sense.

“Yes. You’ve heard about it?”

“Oh, yes, being in the neighborhood.”

“Do you know the details?”

“I can’t say that; but there’s another circumstance which interests me about the case—the whole question, so to say. Not to speak of the fact that crime has been greatly on the increase among the lower classes during the last five years, not to speak of the cases of robbery and arson everywhere—what strikes me as the strangest thing is that even on the upper rungs of the social ladder crime is increasing proportionately. In one place you hear about a student robbing the mail on the high road; in another place high-class people forge false banknotes; in Moscow a whole gang has recently been caught forging lottery tickets, and one of the ringleaders was a lecturer in universal history; then one of our diplomats abroad was murdered for some obscure motive of gain . . . And if this old woman, the pawnbroker, has been murdered by member of the higher classes—peasants, after all, don’t pawn gold trinkets—how are we to explain this demoralization of the civilized part of our society?” “There have been many economic changes,” put in Zossimov.

“How can we explain it?” Razumikhin caught him up. “Perhaps it’s happening because we are totally impractical.”

“How do you mean?”

“How did your lecturer in Moscow reply when he was asked why he was forging notes? ‘Everybody is getting rich one way or another, so I want to hurry up and get rich too.’ I don’t remember the exact words, but the upshot was that he wants money for nothing, without waiting or working! We’ve got used to having everything ready-made for us, from walking on crutches to chewing our food. Then the great moment26 arrived, and everyone showed their true colors.”— “But morality? And, so to speak, principles . . . ”

“But why do you worry about it?” Raskolnikov interposed suddenly. “It’s in accordance with your theory!”

“In accordance with my theory?”

“Well, if you carry out logically the theory you were advocating just now, it follows that people may be killed . . . ”

“My God!” cried Luzhin.

“No, that’s not true,” put in Zossimov.

Raskolnikov lay with a white face and twitching upper lip, breathing painfully.

“There’s a measure in all things,” Luzhin continued with an air of superiority. “Economic ideas are not an incitement to murder, and you only have to suppose . . . ” “And is it true,” Raskolnikov interposed once more suddenly, again in a voice quivering with fury and delight in insulting him, “is it true that you told your fiancée . . . within an hour of her acceptance, that what pleased you most . . . was that she was a beggar . . . because it was better to raise a wife from poverty, so that you could have complete control over her, and reproach her because she is dependent on your charitable donations?” “My God,” Luzhin cried furiously and irritably, crimson with confusion, “you have entirely distorted my words! Excuse me, allow me to assure you that the report which has reached you or, rather, has been conveyed to you, has no foundation in the truth, and I . . . suspect who . . . in a word . . . this arrow . . . in a word, your mother . . . She seemed to me in other things, with all her excellent qualities, a little high-flown and romantic . . . But I was a thousand miles from thinking that she would misunderstand and misrepresent things so willfully . . . And in fact . . . in fact . . . ” “I tell you what,” cried Raskolnikov, raising himself on his pillow and fixing his piercing, glittering eyes upon him, “I tell you what.”

“What?” Luzhin stood still, waiting with a defiant and offended face. Silence lasted for some seconds.

“If ever again . . . you dare to mention a single word . . . about my mother . . . I shall send you flying down the stairs!”

“What’s the matter with you?” cried Razumikhin.

“So that’s how it is?” Luzhin turned pale and bit his lip. “Let me tell you, sir,” he began deliberately, making the greatest possible effort to restrain himself but breathing hard, “from the moment I set eyes on you, I could see that you disliked me, but I remained here on purpose to find out more. I could forgive a great deal in a sick man and a connection, but you . . . never after this . . . ” “I am not ill,” cried Raskolnikov.

“So much the worse . ”

“Go to hell!”

But Luzhin was already leaving without finishing his speech, squeezing between the table and the chair; Razumikhin got up this time to let him past. Without glancing at anyone, and not even nodding to Zossimov, who had for some time been making signs to him to leave the sick man alone, he went out, lifting his hat to the level of his shoulders to avoid crushing it as he stooped to go out of the door. And even the curve of his spine indicated the horrible insult he had received.

“How could you—how could you!” Razumikhin said, shaking his head in perplexity.

“Leave me alone—leave me alone, all of you!” Raskolnikov shouted in a frenzy. “Will you ever stop tormenting me? I am not afraid of you! I am not afraid of anyone, anyone now! Get away from me! I want to be alone, alone, alone!” “Come along,” said Zossimov, nodding to Razumikhin.

“But we can’t leave him like this!”

“Come along,” Zossimov repeated insistently, and he went out. Razumikhin thought a minute and ran to overtake him.

“It might be worse not to obey him,” said Zossimov on the stairs. “He mustn’t be irritated.”

“What’s the matter with him?”

“If only he could get some favorable shock, that’s what would do it! At first he was better . . . You know he has got something on his mind! Some fixed idea weighing on him . . . he must have!” “Perhaps it’s that man, Peter Petrovich. From his conversation it seems he is going to marry his sister, and that he had received a letter about it just before his illness . . . ” “Yes, damn it! He may have completely wrecked the case. But have you noticed, he doesn’t take any interest in anything, he doesn’t respond to anything except one point he seems excited about—the murder?” “Yes, yes,” Razumikhin agreed, “I noticed that, too. He is interested, frightened. It gave him a shock on the day he was ill in the police office; he fainted.”

“Tell me more about that this evening and I’ll tell you something afterwards. He interests me a lot! In half an hour I’ll go and see him again . . . There’ll be no inflammation though.” “Thanks! And I’ll wait with Pashenka in the meanwhile and keep watch over him through Nastasia . . . ”

Raskolnikov, left alone, looked with impatience and misery at Nastasia, but she stayed.

“Don’t you want some tea now?” she asked.

“Later! I am sleepy! Leave me be.”

He turned abruptly to the wall, and Nastasia went out.