Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky (mini ebook reader .TXT) 📗

now that you think Nikolay guilty and had yourself assured him of it….’

His voice failed him, and he broke off. He had been listening in indescribable agitation, as this man who had seen through and through him, went back upon himself.

He was afraid of believing it and did not believe it. In those still ambiguous words he kept eagerly looking for something more definite and conclusive.

‘Mr. Razumihin!’ cried Porfiry Petrovitch, seeming glad of a question from Raskolnikov, who had till then been silent. ‘He-he-he! But I had to put Mr. Razumihin off; two is company, three is none. Mr. Razumihin is not the right man, besides he is an outsider. He came running to me with a pale face…. But never mind him, why bring 801 of 967

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him in? To return to Nikolay, would you like to know what sort of a type he is, how I understand him, that is?

To begin with, he is still a child and not exactly a coward, but something by way of an artist. Really, don’t laugh at my describing him so. He is innocent and responsive to influence. He has a heart, and is a fantastic fellow. He sings and dances, he tells stories, they say, so that people come from other villages to hear him. He attends school too, and laughs till he cries if you hold up a finger to him; he will drink himself senseless—not as a regular vice, but at times, when people treat him, like a child. And he stole, too, then, without knowing it himself, for ‘How can it be stealing, if one picks it up?’ And do you know he is an Old Believer, or rather a dissenter? There have been Wanderers[*] in his family, and he was for two years in his village under the spiritual guidance of a certain elder. I learnt all this from Nikolay and from his fellow villagers.

And what’s more, he wanted to run into the wilderness!

He was full of fervour, prayed at night, read the old books,

‘the true’ ones, and read himself crazy.

[*] A religious sect.—TRANSLATOR’S NOTE.

‘Petersburg had a great effect upon him, especially the women and the wine. He responds to everything and he forgot the elder and all that. I learnt that an artist here 802 of 967

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took a fancy to him, and used to go and see him, and now this business came upon him.

‘Well, he was frightened, he tried to hang himself! He ran away! How can one get over the idea the people have of Russian legal proceedings? The very word ‘trial’

frightens some of them. Whose fault is it? We shall see what the new juries will do. God grant they do good!

Well, in prison, it seems, he remembered the venerable elder; the Bible, too, made its appearance again. Do you know, Rodion Romanovitch, the force of the word

‘suffering’ among some of these people! It’s not a question of suffering for someone’s benefit, but simply, ‘one must suffer.’ If they suffer at the hands of the authorities, so much the better. In my time there was a very meek and mild prisoner who spent a whole year in prison always reading his Bible on the stove at night and he read himself crazy, and so crazy, do you know, that one day, apropos of nothing, he seized a brick and flung it at the governor; though he had done him no harm. And the way he threw it too: aimed it a yard on one side on purpose, for fear of hurting him. Well, we know what happens to a prisoner who assaults an officer with a weapon. So ‘he took his suffering.’

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‘So I suspect now that Nikolay wants to take his suffering or something of the sort. I know it for certain from facts, indeed. Only he doesn’t know that I know.

What, you don’t admit that there are such fantastic people among the peasants? Lots of them. The elder now has begun influencing him, especially since he tried to hang himself. But he’ll come and tell me all himself. You think he’ll hold out? Wait a bit, he’ll take his words back. I am waiting from hour to hour for him to come and abjure his evidence. I have come to like that Nikolay and am studying him in detail. And what do you think? He-he!

He answered me very plausibly on some points, he obviously had collected some evidence and prepared himself cleverly. But on other points he is simply at sea, knows nothing and doesn’t even suspect that he doesn’t know!

‘No, Rodion Romanovitch, Nikolay doesn’t come in!

This is a fantastic, gloomy business, a modern case, an incident of to-day when the heart of man is troubled, when the phrase is quoted that blood ‘renews,’ when comfort is preached as the aim of life. Here we have bookish dreams, a heart unhinged by theories. Here we see resolution in the first stage, but resolution of a special kind: he resolved to do it like jumping over a precipice or 804 of 967

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from a bell tower and his legs shook as he went to the crime. He forgot to shut the door after him, and murdered two people for a theory. He committed the murder and couldn’t take the money, and what he did manage to snatch up he hid under a stone. It wasn’t enough for him to suffer agony behind the door while they battered at the door and rung the bell, no, he had to go to the empty lodging, half delirious, to recall the bell-ringing, he wanted to feel the cold shiver over again…. Well, that we grant, was through illness, but consider this: he is a murderer, but looks upon himself as an honest man, despises others, poses as injured innocence. No, that’s not the work of a Nikolay, my dear Rodion Romanovitch!’

All that had been said before had sounded so like a recantation that these words were too great a shock.

Raskolnikov shuddered as though he had been stabbed.

‘Then … who then … is the murderer?’ he asked in a breathless voice, unable to restrain himself.

Porfiry Petrovitch sank back in his chair, as though he were amazed at the question.

‘Who is the murderer?’ he repeated, as though unable to believe his ears. ‘Why, you Rodion Romanovitch! You are the murderer,’ he added, almost in a whisper, in a voice of genuine conviction.

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Raskolnikov leapt from the sofa, stood up for a few seconds and sat down again without uttering a word. His face twitched convulsively.

‘Your lip is twitching just as it did before,’ Porfiry Petrovitch observed almost sympathetically. ‘You’ve been misunderstanding me, I think, Rodion Romanovitch,’ he added after a brief pause, ‘that’s why you are so surprised. I came on purpose to tell you everything and deal openly with you.’

‘It was not I murdered her,’ Raskolnikov whispered like a frightened child caught in the act.

‘No, it was you, you Rodion Romanovitch, and no one else,’ Porfiry whispered sternly, with conviction.

They were both silent and the silence lasted strangely long, about ten minutes. Raskolnikov put his elbow on the table and passed his fingers through his hair. Porfiry Petrovitch sat quietly waiting. Suddenly Raskolnikov looked scornfully at Porfiry.

‘You are at your old tricks again, Porfiry Petrovitch!

Your old method again. I wonder you don’t get sick of it!’

‘Oh, stop that, what does that matter now? It would be a different matter if there were witnesses present, but we are whispering alone. You see yourself that I have not come to chase and capture you like a hare. Whether you 806 of 967

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confess it or not is nothing to me now; for myself, I am convinced without it.’

‘If so, what did you come for?’ Raskolnikov asked irritably. ‘I ask you the same question again: if you consider me guilty, why don’t you take me to prison?’

‘Oh, that’s your question! I will answer you, point for point. In the first place, to arrest you so directly is not to my interest.’

‘How so? If you are convinced you ought….’

‘Ach, what if I am convinced? That’s only my dream for the time. Why should I put you in safety? You know that’s it, since you ask me to do it. If I confront you with that workman for instance and you say to him ‘were you drunk or not? Who saw me with you? I simply took you to be drunk, and you were drunk, too.’ Well, what could I answer, especially as your story is a more likely one than his? for there’s nothing but psychology to support his evidence—that’s almost unseemly with his ugly mug, while you hit the mark exactly, for the rascal is an inveterate drunkard and notoriously so. And I have myself admitted candidly several times already that that psychology can be taken in two ways and that the second way is stronger and looks far more probable, and that apart from that I have as yet nothing against you. And though I 807 of 967

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shall put you in prison and indeed have come—quite contrary to etiquette—to inform you of it beforehand, yet I tell you frankly, also contrary to etiquette, that it won’t be to my advantage. Well, secondly, I’ve come to you because …’

‘Yes, yes, secondly?’ Raskolnikov was listening breathless.

‘Because, as I told you just now, I consider I owe you an explanation. I don’t want you to look upon me as a monster, as I have a genuine liking for you, you may believe me or not. And in the third place I’ve come to you with a direct and open proposition—that you should surrender and confess. It will be infinitely more to your advantage and to my advantage too, for my task will be done. Well, is this open on my part or not?’

Raskolnikov thought a minute.

‘Listen, Porfiry Petrovitch. You said just now you have nothing but psychology to go on, yet now you’ve gone on mathematics. Well, what if you are mistaken yourself, now?’

‘No, Rodion Romanovitch, I am not mistaken. I have a little fact even then, Providence sent it me.’

‘What little fact?’

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‘I won’t tell you what, Rodion Romanovitch. And in any case, I haven’t the right to put it off any longer, I must arrest you. So think it over: it makes no difference to me now and so I speak only for your sake. Believe me, it will be better, Rodion Romanovitch.’

Raskolnikov smiled malignantly.

‘That’s not simply ridiculous, it’s positively shameless.

Why, even if I were guilty, which I don’t admit, what reason should I have to confess, when you tell me yourself that I shall be in greater safety in prison?’

‘Ah, Rodion Romanovitch, don’t put too much faith in words, perhaps prison will not be altogether a restful place. That’s only theory and my theory, and what authority am I for you? Perhaps, too, even now I am hiding something from you? I can’t lay bare everything, he-he! And how can you ask what advantage? Don’t you know how it would lessen your sentence? You would be confessing at a moment when another man has taken the crime on himself and so has muddled the whole case.

Consider that! I swear before God that I will so arrange that your confession shall come as a complete surprise. We will make a clean sweep of all these psychological points, of a suspicion against you, so that your crime will appear to have been something like an aberration, for in truth it 809 of 967

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was an aberration. I am an honest man, Rodion

Romanovitch, and will keep my word.’

Raskolnikov maintained a mournful silence and let his head sink dejectedly. He pondered a long while and at last smiled again, but his smile was sad and gentle.

‘No!’ he said, apparently abandoning all attempt to