Dowd Siobhan - The London Eye Mystery 14 page

mustn't be irritated."

"What's the matter with him?"

"If only he could get some favourable 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.... I am very much afraid so; he must have!"

"Perhaps it's that gentleman, Pyotr Petrovitch. From his conversation

I gather he is going to marry his sister, and that he had received a

letter about it just before his illness...."

"Yes, confound the man! he may have upset the case altogether. But have

you noticed, he takes no interest in anything, he does not respond to

anything except one point on which he seems excited--that's the murder?"

"Yes, yes," Razumihin 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 very much! In half an hour I'll go and see

him again.... There'll be no inflammation though."

"Thanks! And I'll wait with Pashenka meantime and will keep watch on him

through Nastasya...."

Raskolnikov, left alone, looked with impatience and misery at Nastasya,

but she still lingered.

"Won't you have some tea now?" she asked.

"Later! I am sleepy! Leave me."

He turned abruptly to the wall; Nastasya went out.

CHAPTER VI

But as soon as she went out, he got up, latched the door, undid the

parcel which Razumihin had brought in that evening and had tied up again

and began dressing. Strange to say, he seemed immediately to have become

perfectly calm; not a trace of his recent delirium nor of the panic

fear that had haunted him of late. It was the first moment of a strange

sudden calm. His movements were precise and definite; a firm purpose was

evident in them. "To-day, to-day," he muttered to himself. He understood

that he was still weak, but his intense spiritual concentration gave him

strength and self-confidence. He hoped, moreover, that he would not

fall down in the street. When he had dressed in entirely new clothes, he

looked at the money lying on the table, and after a moment's thought

put it in his pocket. It was twenty-five roubles. He took also all the

copper change from the ten roubles spent by Razumihin on the clothes.

Then he softly unlatched the door, went out, slipped downstairs and

glanced in at the open kitchen door. Nastasya was standing with her back

to him, blowing up the landlady's samovar. She heard nothing. Who would

have dreamed of his going out, indeed? A minute later he was in the

street.

It was nearly eight o'clock, the sun was setting. It was as stifling as

before, but he eagerly drank in the stinking, dusty town air. His head

felt rather dizzy; a sort of savage energy gleamed suddenly in his

feverish eyes and his wasted, pale and yellow face. He did not know and

did not think where he was going, he had one thought only: "that all

_this_ must be ended to-day, once for all, immediately; that he would

not return home without it, because he _would not go on living like

that_." How, with what to make an end? He had not an idea about it,

he did not even want to think of it. He drove away thought; thought

tortured him. All he knew, all he felt was that everything must be

changed "one way or another," he repeated with desperate and immovable

self-confidence and determination.

From old habit he took his usual walk in the direction of the Hay

Market. A dark-haired young man with a barrel organ was standing in

the road in front of a little general shop and was grinding out a very

sentimental song. He was accompanying a girl of fifteen, who stood

on the pavement in front of him. She was dressed up in a crinoline, a

mantle and a straw hat with a flame-coloured feather in it, all very

old and shabby. In a strong and rather agreeable voice, cracked and

coarsened by street singing, she sang in hope of getting a copper from

the shop. Raskolnikov joined two or three listeners, took out a five

copeck piece and put it in the girl's hand. She broke off abruptly on a

sentimental high note, shouted sharply to the organ grinder "Come on,"

and both moved on to the next shop.

"Do you like street music?" said Raskolnikov, addressing a middle-aged

man standing idly by him. The man looked at him, startled and wondering.

"I love to hear singing to a street organ," said Raskolnikov, and his

manner seemed strangely out of keeping with the subject--"I like it

on cold, dark, damp autumn evenings--they must be damp--when all the

passers-by have pale green, sickly faces, or better still when wet

snow is falling straight down, when there's no wind--you know what I

mean?--and the street lamps shine through it..."

"I don't know.... Excuse me..." muttered the stranger, frightened by the

question and Raskolnikov's strange manner, and he crossed over to the

other side of the street.

Raskolnikov walked straight on and came out at the corner of the Hay

Market, where the huckster and his wife had talked with Lizaveta; but

they were not there now. Recognising the place, he stopped, looked round

and addressed a young fellow in a red shirt who stood gaping before a

corn chandler's shop.

"Isn't there a man who keeps a booth with his wife at this corner?"

"All sorts of people keep booths here," answered the young man, glancing

superciliously at Raskolnikov.

"What's his name?"

"What he was christened."

"Aren't you a Zaraisky man, too? Which province?"

The young man looked at Raskolnikov again.

"It's not a province, your excellency, but a district. Graciously

forgive me, your excellency!"

"Is that a tavern at the top there?"

"Yes, it's an eating-house and there's a billiard-room and you'll find

princesses there too.... La-la!"

Raskolnikov crossed the square. In that corner there was a dense crowd

of peasants. He pushed his way into the thickest part of it, looking

at the faces. He felt an unaccountable inclination to enter into

conversation with people. But the peasants took no notice of him; they

were all shouting in groups together. He stood and thought a little and

took a turning to the right in the direction of V.

He had often crossed that little street which turns at an angle, leading

from the market-place to Sadovy Street. Of late he had often felt drawn

to wander about this district, when he felt depressed, that he might

feel more so.

Now he walked along, thinking of nothing. At that point there is a great

block of buildings, entirely let out in dram shops and eating-houses;

women were continually running in and out, bare-headed and in their

indoor clothes. Here and there they gathered in groups, on the pavement,

especially about the entrances to various festive establishments in

the lower storeys. From one of these a loud din, sounds of singing, the

tinkling of a guitar and shouts of merriment, floated into the street.

A crowd of women were thronging round the door; some were sitting on the

steps, others on the pavement, others were standing talking. A drunken

soldier, smoking a cigarette, was walking near them in the road,

swearing; he seemed to be trying to find his way somewhere, but had

forgotten where. One beggar was quarrelling with another, and a man dead

drunk was lying right across the road. Raskolnikov joined the throng of

women, who were talking in husky voices. They were bare-headed and wore

cotton dresses and goatskin shoes. There were women of forty and some

not more than seventeen; almost all had blackened eyes.

He felt strangely attracted by the singing and all the noise and

uproar in the saloon below.... someone could be heard within dancing

frantically, marking time with his heels to the sounds of the guitar

and of a thin falsetto voice singing a jaunty air. He listened intently,

gloomily and dreamily, bending down at the entrance and peeping

inquisitively in from the pavement.

"Oh, my handsome soldier Don't beat me for nothing,"

trilled the thin voice of the singer. Raskolnikov felt a great desire to

make out what he was singing, as though everything depended on that.

"Shall I go in?" he thought. "They are laughing. From drink. Shall I get

drunk?"

"Won't you come in?" one of the women asked him. Her voice was

still musical and less thick than the others, she was young and not

repulsive--the only one of the group.

"Why, she's pretty," he said, drawing himself up and looking at her.

She smiled, much pleased at the compliment.

"You're very nice looking yourself," she said.

"Isn't he thin though!" observed another woman in a deep bass. "Have you

just come out of a hospital?"

"They're all generals' daughters, it seems, but they have all snub

noses," interposed a tipsy peasant with a sly smile on his face, wearing

a loose coat. "See how jolly they are."

"Go along with you!"

"I'll go, sweetie!"

And he darted down into the saloon below. Raskolnikov moved on.

"I say, sir," the girl shouted after him.

"What is it?"

She hesitated.

"I'll always be pleased to spend an hour with you, kind gentleman, but

now I feel shy. Give me six copecks for a drink, there's a nice young

man!"

Raskolnikov gave her what came first--fifteen copecks.

"Ah, what a good-natured gentleman!"

"What's your name?"

"Ask for Duclida."

"Well, that's too much," one of the women observed, shaking her head

at Duclida. "I don't know how you can ask like that. I believe I should

drop with shame...."

Raskolnikov looked curiously at the speaker. She was a pock-marked wench

of thirty, covered with bruises, with her upper lip swollen. She made

her criticism quietly and earnestly. "Where is it," thought Raskolnikov.

"Where is it I've read that someone condemned to death says or thinks,

an hour before his death, that if he had to live on some high rock,

on such a narrow ledge that he'd only room to stand, and the ocean,

everlasting darkness, everlasting solitude, everlasting tempest around

him, if he had to remain standing on a square yard of space all his

life, a thousand years, eternity, it were better to live so than to die

at once! Only to live, to live and live! Life, whatever it may be!...

How true it is! Good God, how true! Man is a vile creature!... And vile

is he who calls him vile for that," he added a moment later.

He went into another street. "Bah, the Palais de Cristal! Razumihin

was just talking of the Palais de Cristal. But what on earth was it

I wanted? Yes, the newspapers.... Zossimov said he'd read it in the

papers. Have you the papers?" he asked, going into a very spacious and

positively clean restaurant, consisting of several rooms, which were,

however, rather empty. Two or three people were drinking tea, and in a

room further away were sitting four men drinking champagne. Raskolnikov

fancied that Zametov was one of them, but he could not be sure at that

distance. "What if it is?" he thought.

"Will you have vodka?" asked the waiter.

"Give me some tea and bring me the papers, the old ones for the last

five days, and I'll give you something."

"Yes, sir, here's to-day's. No vodka?"

The old newspapers and the tea were brought. Raskolnikov sat down and

began to look through them.

"Oh, damn... these are the items of intelligence. An accident on a

staircase, spontaneous combustion of a shopkeeper from alcohol, a fire

in Peski... a fire in the Petersburg quarter... another fire in the

Petersburg quarter... and another fire in the Petersburg quarter....

Ah, here it is!" He found at last what he was seeking and began to

read it. The lines danced before his eyes, but he read it all and began

eagerly seeking later additions in the following numbers. His hands

shook with nervous impatience as he turned the sheets. Suddenly someone

sat down beside him at his table. He looked up, it was the head clerk

Zametov, looking just the same, with the rings on his fingers and the

watch-chain, with the curly, black hair, parted and pomaded, with the

smart waistcoat, rather shabby coat and doubtful linen. He was in a good

humour, at least he was smiling very gaily and good-humouredly. His dark

face was rather flushed from the champagne he had drunk.

"What, you here?" he began in surprise, speaking as though he'd known

him all his life. "Why, Razumihin told me only yesterday you were

unconscious. How strange! And do you know I've been to see you?"

Raskolnikov knew he would come up to him. He laid aside the papers and

turned to Zametov. There was a smile on his lips, and a new shade of

irritable impatience was apparent in that smile.

"I know you have," he answered. "I've heard it. You looked for my

sock.... And you know Razumihin has lost his heart to you? He says

you've been with him to Luise Ivanovna's--you know, the woman you tried

to befriend, for whom you winked to the Explosive Lieutenant and he

would not understand. Do you remember? How could he fail to

understand--it was quite clear, wasn't it?"

"What a hot head he is!"

"The explosive one?"

"No, your friend Razumihin."

"You must have a jolly life, Mr. Zametov; entrance free to the most

agreeable places. Who's been pouring champagne into you just now?"

"We've just been... having a drink together.... You talk about pouring

it into me!"

"By way of a fee! You profit by everything!" Raskolnikov laughed, "it's

all right, my dear boy," he added, slapping Zametov on the shoulder. "I

am not speaking from temper, but in a friendly way, for sport, as that

workman of yours said when he was scuffling with Dmitri, in the case of

the old woman...."

"How do you know about it?"

"Perhaps I know more about it than you do."

"How strange you are.... I am sure you are still very unwell. You

oughtn't to have come out."

"Oh, do I seem strange to you?"

"Yes. What are you doing, reading the papers?"

"Yes."

"There's a lot about the fires."

"No, I am not reading about the fires." Here he looked mysteriously at

Zametov; his lips were twisted again in a mocking smile. "No, I am not

reading about the fires," he went on, winking at Zametov. "But confess

now, my dear fellow, you're awfully anxious to know what I am reading

about?"

"I am not in the least. Mayn't I ask a question? Why do you keep

on...?"

"Listen, you are a man of culture and education?"

"I was in the sixth class at the gymnasium," said Zametov with some

dignity.

"Sixth class! Ah, my cock-sparrow! With your parting and your rings--you

are a gentleman of fortune. Foo! what a charming boy!" Here Raskolnikov

broke into a nervous laugh right in Zametov's face. The latter drew

back, more amazed than offended.

"Foo! how strange you are!" Zametov repeated very seriously. "I can't

help thinking you are still delirious."

"I am delirious? You are fibbing, my cock-sparrow! So I am strange? You

find me curious, do you?"

"Yes, curious."

"Shall I tell you what I was reading about, what I was looking for? See

what a lot of papers I've made them bring me. Suspicious, eh?"

"Well, what is it?"

"You prick up your ears?"

"How do you mean--'prick up my ears'?"

"I'll explain that afterwards, but now, my boy, I declare to you... no,

better 'I confess'... No, that's not right either; 'I make a deposition

and you take it.' I depose that I was reading, that I was looking and

searching...." he screwed up his eyes and paused. "I was searching--and

came here on purpose to do it--for news of the murder of the old

pawnbroker woman," he articulated at last, almost in a whisper, bringing

his face exceedingly close to the face of Zametov. Zametov looked at him

steadily, without moving or drawing his face away. What struck Zametov

afterwards as the strangest part of it all was that silence followed for

exactly a minute, and that they gazed at one another all the while.

"What if you have been reading about it?" he cried at last, perplexed

and impatient. "That's no business of mine! What of it?"

"The same old woman," Raskolnikov went on in the same whisper, not

heeding Zametov's explanation, "about whom you were talking in the

police-office, you remember, when I fainted. Well, do you understand

now?"

"What do you mean? Understand... what?" Zametov brought out, almost

alarmed.

Raskolnikov's set and earnest face was suddenly transformed, and he

suddenly went off into the same nervous laugh as before, as though

utterly unable to restrain himself. And in one flash he recalled with

extraordinary vividness of sensation a moment in the recent past, that

moment when he stood with the axe behind the door, while the latch

trembled and the men outside swore and shook it, and he had a sudden

desire to shout at them, to swear at them, to put out his tongue at

them, to mock them, to laugh, and laugh, and laugh!

"You are either mad, or..." began Zametov, and he broke off, as though

stunned by the idea that had suddenly flashed into his mind.

"Or? Or what? What? Come, tell me!"

"Nothing," said Zametov, getting angry, "it's all nonsense!"

Both were silent. After his sudden fit of laughter Raskolnikov became

suddenly thoughtful and melancholy. He put his elbow on the table and

leaned his head on his hand. He seemed to have completely forgotten

Zametov. The silence lasted for some time.

"Why don't you drink your tea? It's getting cold," said Zametov.

"What! Tea? Oh, yes...." Raskolnikov sipped the glass, put a morsel of

bread in his mouth and, suddenly looking at Zametov, seemed to remember

everything and pulled himself together. At the same moment his face

resumed its original mocking expression. He went on drinking tea.

"There have been a great many of these crimes lately," said Zametov.

"Only the other day I read in the _Moscow News_ that a whole gang of

false coiners had been caught in Moscow. It was a regular society. They

used to forge tickets!"

"Oh, but it was a long time ago! I read about it a month ago,"

Raskolnikov answered calmly. "So you consider them criminals?" he added,

smiling.

"Of course they are criminals."

"They? They are children, simpletons, not criminals! Why, half a hundred

people meeting for such an object--what an idea! Three would be too

many, and then they want to have more faith in one another than in

themselves! One has only to blab in his cups and it all collapses.

Simpletons! They engaged untrustworthy people to change the notes--what

a thing to trust to a casual stranger! Well, let us suppose that these

simpletons succeed and each makes a million, and what follows for the

rest of their lives? Each is dependent on the others for the rest of his

life! Better hang oneself at once! And they did not know how to change

the notes either; the man who changed the notes took five thousand

roubles, and his hands trembled. He counted the first four thousand,

but did not count the fifth thousand--he was in such a hurry to get the

money into his pocket and run away. Of course he roused suspicion. And

the whole thing came to a crash through one fool! Is it possible?"

"That his hands trembled?" observed Zametov, "yes, that's quite

possible. That, I feel quite sure, is possible. Sometimes one can't

stand things."

"Can't stand that?"

"Why, could you stand it then? No, I couldn't. For the sake of a hundred

roubles to face such a terrible experience? To go with false notes

into a bank where it's their business to spot that sort of thing! No, I

should not have the face to do it. Would you?"

Raskolnikov had an intense desire again "to put his tongue out." Shivers

kept running down his spine.

"I should do it quite differently," Raskolnikov began. "This is how I

would change the notes: I'd count the first thousand three or four times

backwards and forwards, looking at every note and then I'd set to the

second thousand; I'd count that half-way through and then hold some

fifty-rouble note to the light, then turn it, then hold it to the light

again--to see whether it was a good one. 'I am afraid,' I would say, 'a

relation of mine lost twenty-five roubles the other day through a

false note,' and then I'd tell them the whole story. And after I began

counting the third, 'No, excuse me,' I would say, 'I fancy I made a

mistake in the seventh hundred in that second thousand, I am not sure.'

And so I would give up the third thousand and go back to the second and

so on to the end. And when I had finished, I'd pick out one from the

fifth and one from the second thousand and take them again to the light

and ask again, 'Change them, please,' and put the clerk into such a stew

that he would not know how to get rid of me. When I'd finished and had

gone out, I'd come back, 'No, excuse me,' and ask for some explanation.

That's how I'd do it."

"Foo! what terrible things you say!" said Zametov, laughing. "But all

that is only talk. I dare say when it came to deeds you'd make a slip.

I believe that even a practised, desperate man cannot always reckon on

himself, much less you and I. To take an example near home--that old

woman murdered in our district. The murderer seems to have been a

desperate fellow, he risked everything in open daylight, was saved by

a miracle--but his hands shook, too. He did not succeed in robbing the

place, he couldn't stand it. That was clear from the..."

Raskolnikov seemed offended.

"Clear? Why don't you catch him then?" he cried, maliciously gibing at

Zametov.

"Well, they will catch him."

"Who? You? Do you suppose you could catch him? You've a tough job! A

great point for you is whether a man is spending money or not. If he had

no money and suddenly begins spending, he must be the man. So that any

child can mislead you."

"The fact is they always do that, though," answered Zametov. "A man will

commit a clever murder at the risk of his life and then at once he goes

drinking in a tavern. They are caught spending money, they are not all

as cunning as you are. You wouldn't go to a tavern, of course?"

Raskolnikov frowned and looked steadily at Zametov.

"You seem to enjoy the subject and would like to know how I should

behave in that case, too?" he asked with displeasure.

"I should like to," Zametov answered firmly and seriously. Somewhat too

much earnestness began to appear in his words and looks.

"Very much?"

"Very much!"

"All right then. This is how I should behave," Raskolnikov began, again

bringing his face close to Zametov's, again staring at him and speaking

in a whisper, so that the latter positively shuddered. "This is what

I should have done. I should have taken the money and jewels, I should

have walked out of there and have gone straight to some deserted place

with fences round it and scarcely anyone to be seen, some kitchen garden

or place of that sort. I should have looked out beforehand some stone

weighing a hundredweight or more which had been lying in the corner from

the time the house was built. I would lift that stone--there would sure

to be a hollow under it, and I would put the jewels and money in that

hole. Then I'd roll the stone back so that it would look as before,

would press it down with my foot and walk away. And for a year or two,

three maybe, I would not touch it. And, well, they could search! There'd

be no trace."

"You are a madman," said Zametov, and for some reason he too spoke in a

whisper, and moved away from Raskolnikov, whose eyes were glittering. He

had turned fearfully pale and his upper lip was twitching and quivering.

He bent down as close as possible to Zametov, and his lips began to move

without uttering a word. This lasted for half a minute; he knew what he

was doing, but could not restrain himself. The terrible word trembled on

his lips, like the latch on that door; in another moment it will break

out, in another moment he will let it go, he will speak out.

"And what if it was I who murdered the old woman and Lizaveta?" he said

suddenly and--realised what he had done.

Zametov looked wildly at him and turned white as the tablecloth. His

face wore a contorted smile.

"But is it possible?" he brought out faintly. Raskolnikov looked

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