Dowd Siobhan - The London Eye Mystery 5 page

and stood facing her in perplexity. This boulevard was never much

frequented; and now, at two o'clock, in the stifling heat, it was quite

deserted. And yet on the further side of the boulevard, about fifteen

paces away, a gentleman was standing on the edge of the pavement. He,

too, would apparently have liked to approach the girl with some object

of his own. He, too, had probably seen her in the distance and had

followed her, but found Raskolnikov in his way. He looked angrily at

him, though he tried to escape his notice, and stood impatiently biding

his time, till the unwelcome man in rags should have moved away. His

intentions were unmistakable. The gentleman was a plump, thickly-set

man, about thirty, fashionably dressed, with a high colour, red lips and

moustaches. Raskolnikov felt furious; he had a sudden longing to insult

this fat dandy in some way. He left the girl for a moment and walked

towards the gentleman.

"Hey! You Svidrigailov! What do you want here?" he shouted, clenching

his fists and laughing, spluttering with rage.

"What do you mean?" the gentleman asked sternly, scowling in haughty

astonishment.

"Get away, that's what I mean."

"How dare you, you low fellow!"

He raised his cane. Raskolnikov rushed at him with his fists, without

reflecting that the stout gentleman was a match for two men like

himself. But at that instant someone seized him from behind, and a

police constable stood between them.

"That's enough, gentlemen, no fighting, please, in a public place. What

do you want? Who are you?" he asked Raskolnikov sternly, noticing his

rags.

Raskolnikov looked at him intently. He had a straight-forward, sensible,

soldierly face, with grey moustaches and whiskers.

"You are just the man I want," Raskolnikov cried, catching at his arm.

"I am a student, Raskolnikov.... You may as well know that too," he

added, addressing the gentleman, "come along, I have something to show

you."

And taking the policeman by the hand he drew him towards the seat.

"Look here, hopelessly drunk, and she has just come down the boulevard.

There is no telling who and what she is, she does not look like a

professional. It's more likely she has been given drink and deceived

somewhere... for the first time... you understand? and they've put her

out into the street like that. Look at the way her dress is torn, and

the way it has been put on: she has been dressed by somebody, she has

not dressed herself, and dressed by unpractised hands, by a man's hands;

that's evident. And now look there: I don't know that dandy with whom I

was going to fight, I see him for the first time, but he, too, has seen

her on the road, just now, drunk, not knowing what she is doing, and now

he is very eager to get hold of her, to get her away somewhere while she

is in this state... that's certain, believe me, I am not wrong. I saw

him myself watching her and following her, but I prevented him, and he

is just waiting for me to go away. Now he has walked away a little, and

is standing still, pretending to make a cigarette.... Think how can we

keep her out of his hands, and how are we to get her home?"

The policeman saw it all in a flash. The stout gentleman was easy to

understand, he turned to consider the girl. The policeman bent over to

examine her more closely, and his face worked with genuine compassion.

"Ah, what a pity!" he said, shaking his head--"why, she is quite a

child! She has been deceived, you can see that at once. Listen, lady,"

he began addressing her, "where do you live?" The girl opened her weary

and sleepy-looking eyes, gazed blankly at the speaker and waved her

hand.

"Here," said Raskolnikov feeling in his pocket and finding twenty

copecks, "here, call a cab and tell him to drive her to her address. The

only thing is to find out her address!"

"Missy, missy!" the policeman began again, taking the money. "I'll fetch

you a cab and take you home myself. Where shall I take you, eh? Where do

you live?"

"Go away! They won't let me alone," the girl muttered, and once more

waved her hand.

"Ach, ach, how shocking! It's shameful, missy, it's a shame!" He shook

his head again, shocked, sympathetic and indignant.

"It's a difficult job," the policeman said to Raskolnikov, and as he

did so, he looked him up and down in a rapid glance. He, too, must have

seemed a strange figure to him: dressed in rags and handing him money!

"Did you meet her far from here?" he asked him.

"I tell you she was walking in front of me, staggering, just here, in

the boulevard. She only just reached the seat and sank down on it."

"Ah, the shameful things that are done in the world nowadays, God have

mercy on us! An innocent creature like that, drunk already! She has been

deceived, that's a sure thing. See how her dress has been torn too....

Ah, the vice one sees nowadays! And as likely as not she belongs to

gentlefolk too, poor ones maybe.... There are many like that nowadays.

She looks refined, too, as though she were a lady," and he bent over her

once more.

Perhaps he had daughters growing up like that, "looking like ladies and

refined" with pretensions to gentility and smartness....

"The chief thing is," Raskolnikov persisted, "to keep her out of this

scoundrel's hands! Why should he outrage her! It's as clear as day what

he is after; ah, the brute, he is not moving off!"

Raskolnikov spoke aloud and pointed to him. The gentleman heard him,

and seemed about to fly into a rage again, but thought better of it, and

confined himself to a contemptuous look. He then walked slowly another

ten paces away and again halted.

"Keep her out of his hands we can," said the constable thoughtfully,

"if only she'd tell us where to take her, but as it is.... Missy, hey,

missy!" he bent over her once more.

She opened her eyes fully all of a sudden, looked at him intently, as

though realising something, got up from the seat and walked away in the

direction from which she had come. "Oh shameful wretches, they won't let

me alone!" she said, waving her hand again. She walked quickly, though

staggering as before. The dandy followed her, but along another avenue,

keeping his eye on her.

"Don't be anxious, I won't let him have her," the policeman said

resolutely, and he set off after them.

"Ah, the vice one sees nowadays!" he repeated aloud, sighing.

At that moment something seemed to sting Raskolnikov; in an instant a

complete revulsion of feeling came over him.

"Hey, here!" he shouted after the policeman.

The latter turned round.

"Let them be! What is it to do with you? Let her go! Let him amuse

himself." He pointed at the dandy, "What is it to do with you?"

The policeman was bewildered, and stared at him open-eyed. Raskolnikov

laughed.

"Well!" ejaculated the policeman, with a gesture of contempt, and he

walked after the dandy and the girl, probably taking Raskolnikov for a

madman or something even worse.

"He has carried off my twenty copecks," Raskolnikov murmured angrily

when he was left alone. "Well, let him take as much from the other

fellow to allow him to have the girl and so let it end. And why did I

want to interfere? Is it for me to help? Have I any right to help? Let

them devour each other alive--what is to me? How did I dare to give him

twenty copecks? Were they mine?"

In spite of those strange words he felt very wretched. He sat down on

the deserted seat. His thoughts strayed aimlessly.... He found it hard

to fix his mind on anything at that moment. He longed to forget himself

altogether, to forget everything, and then to wake up and begin life

anew....

"Poor girl!" he said, looking at the empty corner where she had

sat--"She will come to herself and weep, and then her mother will find

out.... She will give her a beating, a horrible, shameful beating and

then maybe, turn her out of doors.... And even if she does not, the

Darya Frantsovnas will get wind of it, and the girl will soon be

slipping out on the sly here and there. Then there will be the hospital

directly (that's always the luck of those girls with respectable

mothers, who go wrong on the sly) and then... again the hospital...

drink... the taverns... and more hospital, in two or three years--a

wreck, and her life over at eighteen or nineteen.... Have not I seen

cases like that? And how have they been brought to it? Why, they've all

come to it like that. Ugh! But what does it matter? That's as it should

be, they tell us. A certain percentage, they tell us, must every year

go... that way... to the devil, I suppose, so that the rest may remain

chaste, and not be interfered with. A percentage! What splendid words

they have; they are so scientific, so consolatory.... Once you've said

'percentage' there's nothing more to worry about. If we had any other

word... maybe we might feel more uneasy.... But what if Dounia were one

of the percentage! Of another one if not that one?

"But where am I going?" he thought suddenly. "Strange, I came out for

something. As soon as I had read the letter I came out.... I was going

to Vassilyevsky Ostrov, to Razumihin. That's what it was... now I

remember. What for, though? And what put the idea of going to Razumihin

into my head just now? That's curious."

He wondered at himself. Razumihin was one of his old comrades at the

university. It was remarkable that Raskolnikov had hardly any friends at

the university; he kept aloof from everyone, went to see no one, and did

not welcome anyone who came to see him, and indeed everyone soon gave

him up. He took no part in the students' gatherings, amusements or

conversations. He worked with great intensity without sparing himself,

and he was respected for this, but no one liked him. He was very poor,

and there was a sort of haughty pride and reserve about him, as though

he were keeping something to himself. He seemed to some of his comrades

to look down upon them all as children, as though he were superior in

development, knowledge and convictions, as though their beliefs and

interests were beneath him.

With Razumihin he had got on, or, at least, he was more unreserved and

communicative with him. Indeed it was impossible to be on any other

terms with Razumihin. He was an exceptionally good-humoured and candid

youth, good-natured to the point of simplicity, though both depth and

dignity lay concealed under that simplicity. The better of his comrades

understood this, and all were fond of him. He was extremely intelligent,

though he was certainly rather a simpleton at times. He was of striking

appearance--tall, thin, blackhaired and always badly shaved. He was

sometimes uproarious and was reputed to be of great physical strength.

One night, when out in a festive company, he had with one blow laid

a gigantic policeman on his back. There was no limit to his drinking

powers, but he could abstain from drink altogether; he sometimes went

too far in his pranks; but he could do without pranks altogether.

Another thing striking about Razumihin, no failure distressed him, and

it seemed as though no unfavourable circumstances could crush him. He

could lodge anywhere, and bear the extremes of cold and hunger. He was

very poor, and kept himself entirely on what he could earn by work of

one sort or another. He knew of no end of resources by which to earn

money. He spent one whole winter without lighting his stove, and used to

declare that he liked it better, because one slept more soundly in

the cold. For the present he, too, had been obliged to give up the

university, but it was only for a time, and he was working with all his

might to save enough to return to his studies again. Raskolnikov had

not been to see him for the last four months, and Razumihin did not even

know his address. About two months before, they had met in the street,

but Raskolnikov had turned away and even crossed to the other side that

he might not be observed. And though Razumihin noticed him, he passed

him by, as he did not want to annoy him.

CHAPTER V

"Of course, I've been meaning lately to go to Razumihin's to ask for

work, to ask him to get me lessons or something..." Raskolnikov thought,

"but what help can he be to me now? Suppose he gets me lessons, suppose

he shares his last farthing with me, if he has any farthings, so that

I could get some boots and make myself tidy enough to give lessons...

hm... Well and what then? What shall I do with the few coppers I

earn? That's not what I want now. It's really absurd for me to go to

Razumihin...."

The question why he was now going to Razumihin agitated him even more

than he was himself aware; he kept uneasily seeking for some sinister

significance in this apparently ordinary action.

"Could I have expected to set it all straight and to find a way out by

means of Razumihin alone?" he asked himself in perplexity.

He pondered and rubbed his forehead, and, strange to say, after long

musing, suddenly, as if it were spontaneously and by chance, a fantastic

thought came into his head.

"Hm... to Razumihin's," he said all at once, calmly, as though he had

reached a final determination. "I shall go to Razumihin's of course,

but... not now. I shall go to him... on the next day after It, when It

will be over and everything will begin afresh...."

And suddenly he realised what he was thinking.

"After It," he shouted, jumping up from the seat, "but is It really

going to happen? Is it possible it really will happen?" He left the

seat, and went off almost at a run; he meant to turn back, homewards,

but the thought of going home suddenly filled him with intense loathing;

in that hole, in that awful little cupboard of his, all _this_ had for a

month past been growing up in him; and he walked on at random.

His nervous shudder had passed into a fever that made him feel

shivering; in spite of the heat he felt cold. With a kind of effort he

began almost unconsciously, from some inner craving, to stare at all

the objects before him, as though looking for something to distract his

attention; but he did not succeed, and kept dropping every moment into

brooding. When with a start he lifted his head again and looked round,

he forgot at once what he had just been thinking about and even where he

was going. In this way he walked right across Vassilyevsky Ostrov, came

out on to the Lesser Neva, crossed the bridge and turned towards the

islands. The greenness and freshness were at first restful to his weary

eyes after the dust of the town and the huge houses that hemmed him in

and weighed upon him. Here there were no taverns, no stifling closeness,

no stench. But soon these new pleasant sensations passed into morbid

irritability. Sometimes he stood still before a brightly painted summer

villa standing among green foliage, he gazed through the fence, he saw

in the distance smartly dressed women on the verandahs and balconies,

and children running in the gardens. The flowers especially caught his

attention; he gazed at them longer than at anything. He was met, too, by

luxurious carriages and by men and women on horseback; he watched them

with curious eyes and forgot about them before they had vanished from

his sight. Once he stood still and counted his money; he found he had

thirty copecks. "Twenty to the policeman, three to Nastasya for the

letter, so I must have given forty-seven or fifty to the Marmeladovs

yesterday," he thought, reckoning it up for some unknown reason, but he

soon forgot with what object he had taken the money out of his pocket.

He recalled it on passing an eating-house or tavern, and felt that he

was hungry.... Going into the tavern he drank a glass of vodka and ate a

pie of some sort. He finished eating it as he walked away. It was a long

while since he had taken vodka and it had an effect upon him at once,

though he only drank a wineglassful. His legs felt suddenly heavy and

a great drowsiness came upon him. He turned homewards, but reaching

Petrovsky Ostrov he stopped completely exhausted, turned off the road

into the bushes, sank down upon the grass and instantly fell asleep.

In a morbid condition of the brain, dreams often have a singular

actuality, vividness, and extraordinary semblance of reality. At times

monstrous images are created, but the setting and the whole picture are

so truth-like and filled with details so delicate, so unexpectedly, but

so artistically consistent, that the dreamer, were he an artist like

Pushkin or Turgenev even, could never have invented them in the waking

state. Such sick dreams always remain long in the memory and make a

powerful impression on the overwrought and deranged nervous system.

Raskolnikov had a fearful dream. He dreamt he was back in his childhood

in the little town of his birth. He was a child about seven years old,

walking into the country with his father on the evening of a holiday. It

was a grey and heavy day, the country was exactly as he remembered it;

indeed he recalled it far more vividly in his dream than he had done in

memory. The little town stood on a level flat as bare as the hand, not

even a willow near it; only in the far distance, a copse lay, a dark

blur on the very edge of the horizon. A few paces beyond the last market

garden stood a tavern, a big tavern, which had always aroused in him a

feeling of aversion, even of fear, when he walked by it with his father.

There was always a crowd there, always shouting, laughter and abuse,

hideous hoarse singing and often fighting. Drunken and horrible-looking

figures were hanging about the tavern. He used to cling close to his

father, trembling all over when he met them. Near the tavern the road

became a dusty track, the dust of which was always black. It was a

winding road, and about a hundred paces further on, it turned to the

right to the graveyard. In the middle of the graveyard stood a stone

church with a green cupola where he used to go to mass two or three

times a year with his father and mother, when a service was held in

memory of his grandmother, who had long been dead, and whom he had never

seen. On these occasions they used to take on a white dish tied up in a

table napkin a special sort of rice pudding with raisins stuck in it in

the shape of a cross. He loved that church, the old-fashioned, unadorned

ikons and the old priest with the shaking head. Near his grandmother's

grave, which was marked by a stone, was the little grave of his younger

brother who had died at six months old. He did not remember him at all,

but he had been told about his little brother, and whenever he visited

the graveyard he used religiously and reverently to cross himself and

to bow down and kiss the little grave. And now he dreamt that he was

walking with his father past the tavern on the way to the graveyard; he

was holding his father's hand and looking with dread at the tavern. A

peculiar circumstance attracted his attention: there seemed to be

some kind of festivity going on, there were crowds of gaily dressed

townspeople, peasant women, their husbands, and riff-raff of all sorts,

all singing and all more or less drunk. Near the entrance of the tavern

stood a cart, but a strange cart. It was one of those big carts usually

drawn by heavy cart-horses and laden with casks of wine or other heavy

goods. He always liked looking at those great cart-horses, with their

long manes, thick legs, and slow even pace, drawing along a perfect

mountain with no appearance of effort, as though it were easier going

with a load than without it. But now, strange to say, in the shafts of

such a cart he saw a thin little sorrel beast, one of those peasants'

nags which he had often seen straining their utmost under a heavy load

of wood or hay, especially when the wheels were stuck in the mud or in

a rut. And the peasants would beat them so cruelly, sometimes even

about the nose and eyes, and he felt so sorry, so sorry for them that

he almost cried, and his mother always used to take him away from the

window. All of a sudden there was a great uproar of shouting, singing

and the balalaika, and from the tavern a number of big and very drunken

peasants came out, wearing red and blue shirts and coats thrown over

their shoulders.

"Get in, get in!" shouted one of them, a young thick-necked peasant with

a fleshy face red as a carrot. "I'll take you all, get in!"

But at once there was an outbreak of laughter and exclamations in the

crowd.

"Take us all with a beast like that!"

"Why, Mikolka, are you crazy to put a nag like that in such a cart?"

"And this mare is twenty if she is a day, mates!"

"Get in, I'll take you all," Mikolka shouted again, leaping first into

the cart, seizing the reins and standing straight up in front. "The bay

has gone with Matvey," he shouted from the cart--"and this brute, mates,

is just breaking my heart, I feel as if I could kill her. She's just

eating her head off. Get in, I tell you! I'll make her gallop! She'll

gallop!" and he picked up the whip, preparing himself with relish to

flog the little mare.

"Get in! Come along!" The crowd laughed. "D'you hear, she'll gallop!"

"Gallop indeed! She has not had a gallop in her for the last ten years!"

"She'll jog along!"

"Don't you mind her, mates, bring a whip each of you, get ready!"

"All right! Give it to her!"

They all clambered into Mikolka's cart, laughing and making jokes. Six

men got in and there was still room for more. They hauled in a fat,

rosy-cheeked woman. She was dressed in red cotton, in a pointed, beaded

headdress and thick leather shoes; she was cracking nuts and laughing.

The crowd round them was laughing too and indeed, how could they help

laughing? That wretched nag was to drag all the cartload of them at a

gallop! Two young fellows in the cart were just getting whips ready to

help Mikolka. With the cry of "now," the mare tugged with all her might,

but far from galloping, could scarcely move forward; she struggled with

her legs, gasping and shrinking from the blows of the three whips which

were showered upon her like hail. The laughter in the cart and in the

crowd was redoubled, but Mikolka flew into a rage and furiously thrashed

the mare, as though he supposed she really could gallop.

"Let me get in, too, mates," shouted a young man in the crowd whose

appetite was aroused.

"Get in, all get in," cried Mikolka, "she will draw you all. I'll beat

her to death!" And he thrashed and thrashed at the mare, beside himself

with fury.

"Father, father," he cried, "father, what are they doing? Father, they

are beating the poor horse!"

"Come along, come along!" said his father. "They are drunken and

foolish, they are in fun; come away, don't look!" and he tried to draw

him away, but he tore himself away from his hand, and, beside himself

with horror, ran to the horse. The poor beast was in a bad way. She was

gasping, standing still, then tugging again and almost falling.

"Beat her to death," cried Mikolka, "it's come to that. I'll do for

her!"

"What are you about, are you a Christian, you devil?" shouted an old man

in the crowd.

"Did anyone ever see the like? A wretched nag like that pulling such a

cartload," said another.

"You'll kill her," shouted the third.

"Don't meddle! It's my property, I'll do what I choose. Get in, more of

you! Get in, all of you! I will have her go at a gallop!..."

All at once laughter broke into a roar and covered everything: the mare,

roused by the shower of blows, began feebly kicking. Even the old man

could not help smiling. To think of a wretched little beast like that

trying to kick!

Two lads in the crowd snatched up whips and ran to the mare to beat her

about the ribs. One ran each side.

"Hit her in the face, in the eyes, in the eyes," cried Mikolka.

"Give us a song, mates," shouted someone in the cart and everyone in the

cart joined in a riotous song, jingling a tambourine and whistling. The

woman went on cracking nuts and laughing.

... He ran beside the mare, ran in front of her, saw her being whipped

across the eyes, right in the eyes! He was crying, he felt choking, his

tears were streaming. One of the men gave him a cut with the whip across

the face, he did not feel it. Wringing his hands and screaming, he

rushed up to the grey-headed old man with the grey beard, who was

shaking his head in disapproval. One woman seized him by the hand and

would have taken him away, but he tore himself from her and ran back to

the mare. She was almost at the last gasp, but began kicking once more.

"I'll teach you to kick," Mikolka shouted ferociously. He threw down

the whip, bent forward and picked up from the bottom of the cart a long,

thick shaft, he took hold of one end with both hands and with an effort

brandished it over the mare.

"He'll crush her," was shouted round him. "He'll kill her!"

"It's my property," shouted Mikolka and brought the shaft down with a

swinging blow. There was a sound of a heavy thud.

"Thrash her, thrash her! Why have you stopped?" shouted voices in the

crowd.

And Mikolka swung the shaft a second time and it fell a second time

on the spine of the luckless mare. She sank back on her haunches, but

Date: 2014-12-29; view: 615