بخش 06 - فصل 03

CHAPTER THREE

HE HURRIED TO SVIDRIGAILOV’S. What he had to hope from that man he did not know. But Svidrigailov had some hidden power over him. Having recognized this once, he could not rest, and now the time had come.

On the way, one question worried him in particular: had Svidrigailov been to Porfiry’s?

As far as he could judge, he would swear that he had not. He pondered again and again, went over Porfiry’s visit; no, he hadn’t been, of course he hadn’t.

But if he had not been there yet, would he go? Meanwhile, for the present he fancied he couldn’t. Why? He could not have explained, but if he could, he would not have wasted much thought over it at the moment. It all worried him and at the same time he could not attend to it. Strange to say, no-one would have believed it perhaps, but only he felt a faint vague anxiety about his immediate future. Another, much more important anxiety tormented him—it concerned himself, but in a different, more vital way. Moreover, he was conscious of immense moral fatigue, though his mind was working better that morning than it had done of late.

And was it worthwhile, after all that had happened, to contend with these new trivial difficulties? Was it worthwhile, for instance, to perform some maneuver so that Svidrigailov would not go to Porfiry’s? Was it worthwhile to investigate, to establish the facts, to waste time over anyone like Svidrigailov?

Oh how sick he was of it all!

And yet he was hastening to Svidrigailov’s; could he be expecting something new from him, information, or means of escape? People do clutch at straws! Was it destiny or some instinct bringing them together? Perhaps it was only fatigue, despair; perhaps it was not Svidrigailov but some other person whom he needed, and Svidrigailov had simply presented himself by chance. Sonia? But what should he go to Sonia for now? To beg for her tears again? He was afraid of Sonia, too. Sonia stood before him like an irrevocable sentence. He must go his own way or hers. At that moment especially he did not feel strong enough to see her. No, would it not be better to try Svidrigailov? And he could not help inwardly admitting that he had long felt that he must see him for some reason.

But what could they have in common? Even their evil-doing could not be of the same kind. The man, moreover, was very unpleasant, evidently depraved, undoubtedly cunning and deceitful, possibly malignant. Such stories were told about him. It is true he was befriending Katerina Ivanovna’s children, but who could tell with what motive and what it meant? The man always had some scheme, some project.

There was another thought which had been continually hovering around Raskolnikov’s mind recently, and which was causing him great uneasiness. It was so painful that he made evident efforts to get rid of it. He sometimes thought that Svidrigailov was shadowing him. Svidrigailov had found out his secret and had had intentions towards Dunia. What if he had them still? Wasn’t it practically certain that he had? And what if, having learnt his secret and gained power over him, he were to use it as a weapon against Dunia?

This idea sometimes even tormented his dreams, but it had never presented itself so vividly to him as on his way to Svidrigailov. Even the thought of it moved him to gloomy rage. To begin with, this would transform everything, even his own position; he would have to confess his secret at once to Dunia. Would he have to give himself up, perhaps, to prevent Dunia from taking some rash step? The letter? This morning Dunia had received a letter. From whom could she get letters in Petersburg? Luzhin, perhaps? It’s true Razumikhin was there to protect her, but Razumikhin knew nothing of her position. Perhaps it was his duty to tell Razumikhin? The thought of it repulsed him.

In any case he must see Svidrigailov as soon as possible, he decided finally. Thank God, the details of the interview would not have many consequences, if only he could get to the root of the matter; but if Svidrigailov were capable . . . if he were plotting against Dunia, then . . .

Raskolnikov was so exhausted by what he had been through that month that he could only decide this type of question in one way. “Then I shall kill him,” he thought in cold despair.

A sudden anguish oppressed his heart; he stood still in the middle of the street and began looking around to see where he was and which way he was going. He found himself in X. Prospect thirty or forty yards from the Haymarket, through which he had come. The whole second storey of the house on the left was used as a tavern. All the windows were wide open; judging from the figures moving at the windows, the rooms were full to overflowing. There were sounds of singing, of clarinets and violins, and the boom of a Turkish drum. He could hear women shrieking. He was about to turn back wondering why he had come to X. Prospect, when suddenly at one of the end windows he saw Svidrigailov, sitting at a tea-table right in the open window with a pipe in his mouth. Raskolnikov was completely taken aback, almost terrified. Svidrigailov was silently watching and scrutinizing him, and what struck Raskolnikov at once was that he seemed to be intending to get up and slip away unobserved. Raskolnikov at once pretended not to have seen him, but to be looking absentmindedly away, while he watched him out of the corner of his eye. His heart was beating violently. Yet it was evident that Svidrigailov did not want to be seen. He took the pipe out of his mouth and was about to hide himself, but as he got up and moved his chair back, he seemed to have become suddenly aware that Raskolnikov had seen him and was watching him. What had passed between them was much the same as what happened at their first meeting in Raskolnikov’s room. A sly smile came into Svidrigailov’s face and grew broader and broader. Both of them knew that they had been seen and were being watched by the other. At last Svidrigailov broke into a loud laugh.

“Well, well, come in if you want me; I am here!” he shouted from the window.

Raskolnikov went up into the tavern. He found Svidrigailov in a tiny back room next to the saloon in which merchants, clerks and people of all sorts were drinking tea at twenty little tables to the desperate bawling of a chorus of singers. The click of billiard balls could be heard in the distance. On the table in front of Svidrigailov stood an open bottle, and a glass half full of champagne. In the room he also found a boy with a little hand organ, a healthy-looking, red-cheeked, eighteen-year-old girl, wearing a tucked-up striped skirt and a Tyrolese hat with ribbons. In spite of the chorus in the other room, she was singing some servants’ hall song in a rather husky contralto, to the accompaniment of the organ.

“Come on, that’s enough,” Svidrigailov stopped her at Raskolnikov’s entrance. The girl at once broke off and stood waiting respectfully. She had sung her guttural rhymes, too, with a serious and respectful expression on her face.

“Hey, Philip, a glass!” shouted Svidrigailov.

“I don’t want anything to drink,” said Raskolnikov.

“As you wish, I didn’t intend it to be for you. Drink, Katia! I don’t want anything else today, you can go.” He poured her a full glass, and laid out a yellow note.

Katia drank up her glass of wine, as women do, without putting it down, in twenty gulps, took the note and kissed Svidrigailov’s hand, which he allowed her to do quite seriously. She went out of the room and the boy trailed after her with the organ. Both of them had been brought in from the street. Svidrigailov had not even been in Petersburg a week, but everything about him was already, so to speak, in patriarchal mode; the waiter, Philip, was by now an old friend and had fallen right under his thumb.

The door leading to the saloon had a lock on it. Svidrigailov was at home in this room and perhaps spent whole days in it. The tavern was dirty and wretched, not even second rate.

“I was going to see you, I started looking for you,” Raskolnikov began, “but I don’t know what made me turn out of the Haymarket into X. Prospect just now. I never take this turning. I turn right out of the Haymarket. And this isn’t the way to your house. I just turned and here you are. Strange!” “Why don’t you say straight off, ‘It’s a miracle’?”

“Because it may be only chance.”

“Oh, that’s the way with all you people,” laughed Svidrigailov. “You won’t admit it, even if you inwardly believe it’s a miracle! Here you say that it may only be chance. And what cowards they all are here, about having an opinion of their own, you can’t imagine, Rodion Romanovich. I don’t mean you, you have an opinion of your own and you aren’t afraid to have it. That’s how you attracted my curiosity.” “Nothing else?”

“Well, that’s enough, as you know,” Svidrigailov was obviously exhilarated, but only slightly; he had not had more than half a glass of wine.

“I think you came to see me before you knew that I was capable of having what you call an opinion of my own,” observed Raskolnikov.

“Oh, well, that was a different matter. Everyone has his own plans. And as for the miracle, let me tell you, I think you have been asleep for the last two or three days. I told you about this tavern myself, there is no miracle in your coming straight here. I explained the way myself, told you where it was, and the hours you could find me here. Do you remember?” “I don’t remember,” answered Raskolnikov with surprise.

“I believe you. I told you twice. The address has been stamped mechanically on your memory. You turned this way mechanically and yet precisely according to the directions, though you aren’t aware of it. When I told you then, I hardly hoped you understood me. You give yourself away too much, Rodion Romanovich. And another thing—I’m convinced there are lots of people in Petersburg who talk to themselves as they walk. This is a town of crazy people. If only we had scientists, doctors, lawyers and philosophers might make some highly valuable investigations in Petersburg. There are few places where there are so many gloomy, strong and strange influences on the human soul as in Petersburg. The influence of the climate alone means so much. And it’s the administrative center of all Russia and its character must be reflected on the whole country. But that is neither here nor there now. The point is that I have watched you several times. You walk out of your house—holding your head high—twenty paces from home you let it sink, and fold your hands behind your back. You look and evidently see nothing in front of you or beside you. At last you begin moving your lips and talking to yourself, and sometimes you wave one hand and declaim, and at last stand still in the middle of the road. That’s definitely not the thing to do. Someone may be watching you apart from me, and it won’t do you any good. It’s nothing really to do with me and I can’t cure you, but, of course, you understand me.” “Do you know that I am being followed?” asked Raskolnikov, looking inquisitively at him.

“No, I know nothing about it,” said Svidrigailov, seeming surprised.

“Well, then, let’s leave me out of it,” Raskolnikov muttered, frowning.

“Very well, let’s leave you out of it.”

“You had better tell me, if you come here to drink, and directed me twice to come here to see you, why did you hide and try to get away just now when I looked at the window from the street? I saw it.”

“He-he! And why was it you lay on your sofa with closed eyes and pretended to be asleep, though you were wide awake while I stood in your doorway? I saw it.”

“I may have had . . . reasons. You know that yourself.”

“And I may have had my reasons, though you don’t know them.”

Raskolnikov dropped his right elbow on the table, leaned his chin in the fingers of his right hand, and stared intently at Svidrigailov. For a full minute he scrutinized his face, which had impressed him before. It was a strange face, like a mask; white and red, with bright red lips, with a flaxen beard, and flaxen hair which was still thick. His eyes were somehow too blue and their expression somehow too heavy and fixed. There was something extremely unpleasant in that handsome face, which looked so wonderfully young for its age. Svidrigailov was smartly dressed in light summer clothes and looked particularly refined in his linen. He wore a huge ring with a precious stone in it.

“Have I got to bother myself now with you too?” said Raskolnikov suddenly, coming straight to the point with nervous impatience. “Even though you might be the most dangerous if you wanted to hurt me, I don’t want to put myself out anymore. I will show you at once that I don’t prize myself as much as you probably think I do. I’ve come to tell you at once that if you keep to your former intentions with regard to my sister and if you wish to derive any benefit in that direction from what has been discovered of late, I will kill you before you get me locked up. You can count on my word. You know that I can keep it. And, secondly, if you want to tell me anything—because I keep thinking all the time that you have something to tell me—hurry up and tell it, because time is precious and very likely it will soon be too late.” “Why in such haste?” asked Svidrigailov, looking at him curiously.

“Everyone has his plans,” Raskolnikov answered gloomily and impatiently.

“You urged me yourself to be frank just now, and you refuse to answer the first question I put to you,” Svidrigailov observed with a smile. “You keep imagining that I have aims of my own and so you look at me with suspicion. Of course it’s perfectly natural in your position. But though I would like to be friends with you, I shan’t trouble myself to convince you of the opposite. The game isn’t worth the candle and I wasn’t intending to talk to you about anything special.” “What did you want me, for, then? It was you who came hanging around me.”

“Just as an interesting subject for observation. I liked the fantastic nature of your position—that’s what it was! Besides, you are the brother of a person who greatly interested me, and from that person I had in the past heard a very great deal about you, from which I gathered that you had a great influence over her; isn’t that enough? Ha-ha-ha! Still I must admit that your question is rather complex; it is difficult for me to answer. Here, you, for instance, have come to me not only with a definite purpose, but also for the sake of hearing something new. Isn’t that so? Isn’t that so?” persisted Svidrigailov with a sly smile. “Well, can’t you imagine then that on my way here in the train I too was counting on you, on the fact that you would tell me something new, and on the fact that I would make some profit out of you! You see what rich men we are!” “What profit could you make?”

“How can I tell you? How do I know? You see the tavern in which I spend all my time and it’s my enjoyment, that’s to say it’s no great enjoyment, but I have to sit somewhere; that poor Katia now—you saw her? . . . If only I had been a glutton now, a club gourmand, but you see I can eat this.” He pointed to a little table in the corner where the remnants of a terrible looking beef-steak and potatoes lay on a tin dish.

“Have you had dinner, by the way? I’ve had something and I don’t want anything else. I don’t drink, for instance, at all. Except for champagne I never touch anything, and not more than a glass of that all evening, and even that is enough to make my head ache. I ordered it just now to wind myself up: I am just going off somewhere and you see I am in a strange state of mind. That was why I hid myself just now like a schoolboy, because I was afraid you would get in my way. But I believe,” he pulled out his watch, “I can spend an hour with you. It’s half-past four now. If only I’d been something, a landowner, a father, a cavalry officer, a photographer, a journalist . . . I am nothing, no specialty, and sometimes I am positively bored. I really thought you would tell me something new.” “But what are you, and why have you come here?”

“What am I? You know, a gentleman, I served for two years in the cavalry, then I knocked about here in Petersburg, then I married Marfa Petrovna and lived in the country. There you have my biography!”

“You’re a gambler, I believe?”

“No, a poor sort of gambler. A card-cheat—not a gambler.”

“You’ve been a card-cheat then?”

“Yes, I’ve been a card-cheat too.”

“Didn’t you get thrashed sometimes?”

“It did happen. Why?”

“Because you might have challenged them . . . all in all, it must have been lively.”

“I won’t contradict you and, besides, I am no good at philosophy. I confess that I hurried here because of the women.”

“As soon as you buried Marfa Petrovna?”

“Quite so,” Svidrigailov smiled with engaging candor. “What does it matter? You seem to find something wrong in my speaking like that about women?”

“Are you asking whether I find anything wrong in vice?”

“Vice! Oh, that’s what you’re after! But I’ll answer you in order, first about women in general; you know I am fond of talking. Tell me, what should I restrain myself for? Why should I give up women, since I have a passion for them? It’s an occupation, anyway.” “So you hope for nothing here but vice?”

“Oh, very well, for vice then. You insist that it’s vice. But anyway I like a direct question. In this vice at least there is something permanent, founded upon nature and not dependent on fantasy, something present in the blood like an ever-burning ember, forever setting one on fire and possibly not to be quickly extinguished, even with years. You’ll agree it’s an occupation of a sort.” “That’s nothing to rejoice at, it’s a disease and a dangerous one.”

“Oh, that’s what you think, is it? I agree that it is a disease like everything that exceeds moderation. And, of course, in this you must exceed moderation. But firstly, everybody does so in one way or another, and secondly, of course, you ought to be moderate and prudent, however mean it may be, but what am I to do? If I hadn’t got this, I might have to shoot myself. I am ready to admit that a decent man ought to put up with being bored, but yet . . . ” “And could you shoot yourself?”

“Oh, come on!” Svidrigailov parried with disgust. “Please don’t talk about it,” he added hurriedly and with none of the bragging tone he had shown in the whole of the previous conversation. His face changed completely. “I admit it’s an unforgivable weakness, but I can’t help it. I am afraid of death and I don’t like it when people talk about it. Do you know that I am to a certain extent a mystic?” “Ah, the apparitions of Marfa Petrovna! Do they still go on visiting you?”

“Oh, don’t talk of them; there have been no more in Petersburg, damn them!” he cried with an air of irritation. “Let’s talk about that instead . . . though . . . Hm! I haven’t got much time, and I can’t stay long with you, it’s a pity! I would have found plenty to tell you.” “What’s your engagement, a woman?”

“Yes, a woman, a casual incident . . . No, that’s not what I want to talk of.”

“And the hideousness, the filthiness of all your surroundings, doesn’t that affect you? Have you lost the strength to stop yourself?”

“And do you pretend to have strength, too? He-he-he! You surprised me just now, Rodion Romanovich, though I knew beforehand it would be so. You preach to me about vice and aesthetics! You—a Schiller, you—an idealist! Of course that’s all as it should be and it would be surprising if it were not so, yet it is strange in reality . . . Ah, what a pity I have no time, you’re an extremely interesting type! And, by the way, are you fond of Schiller? I am extremely fond of him.” “But what a braggart you are,” Raskolnikov said with some disgust.

“I’m not, I swear it,” answered Svidrigailov laughing. “However, I won’t dispute it, let me be a braggart, why not brag, if it doesn’t hurt anyone? I spent seven years in the country with Marfa Petrovna, so now when I come across an intelligent person like you—intelligent and highly interesting—I am simply glad to talk and, besides, I’ve drunk that half-glass of champagne and it’s gone to my head a little. And, besides, there’s a certain fact that has wound me up tremendously, but about that I . . . will keep quiet. Where are you off to?” he asked in alarm.

Raskolnikov had begun getting up. He felt oppressed and stifled and, as it were, ill at ease at having come here. He felt convinced that Svidrigailov was the most worthless scoundrel on the face of the earth.

“A-ah! Sit down, stay a little!” Svidrigailov begged. “Let them bring you some tea, anyway. Stay a little, I won’t talk nonsense, about myself, I mean. I’ll tell you something. If you like I’ll tell you how a woman tried ‘to save’ me, as you’d put it? It’ll be an answer to your first question, in fact, because the woman was your sister. May I tell you? It will help to pass the time.” “Tell me, but I trust that you . . . ”

“Oh, don’t be uneasy. Besides, even in a worthless low person like me, Avdotia Romanovna can only arouse the deepest respect.”