Dowd Siobhan - The London Eye Mystery 19 page

cold and inhumanly callous; it's as though he were alternating between

two characters. Sometimes he is fearfully reserved! He says he is

so busy that everything is a hindrance, and yet he lies in bed doing

nothing. He doesn't jeer at things, not because he hasn't the wit, but

as though he hadn't time to waste on such trifles. He never listens

to what is said to him. He is never interested in what interests other

people at any given moment. He thinks very highly of himself and perhaps

he is right. Well, what more? I think your arrival will have a most

beneficial influence upon him."

"God grant it may," cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna, distressed by

Razumihin's account of her Rodya.

And Razumihin ventured to look more boldly at Avdotya Romanovna at last.

He glanced at her often while he was talking, but only for a moment and

looked away again at once. Avdotya Romanovna sat at the table, listening

attentively, then got up again and began walking to and fro with her

arms folded and her lips compressed, occasionally putting in a question,

without stopping her walk. She had the same habit of not listening to

what was said. She was wearing a dress of thin dark stuff and she had a

white transparent scarf round her neck. Razumihin soon detected signs of

extreme poverty in their belongings. Had Avdotya Romanovna been dressed

like a queen, he felt that he would not be afraid of her, but perhaps

just because she was poorly dressed and that he noticed all the misery

of her surroundings, his heart was filled with dread and he began to be

afraid of every word he uttered, every gesture he made, which was very

trying for a man who already felt diffident.

"You've told us a great deal that is interesting about my brother's

character... and have told it impartially. I am glad. I thought that you

were too uncritically devoted to him," observed Avdotya Romanovna with

a smile. "I think you are right that he needs a woman's care," she added

thoughtfully.

"I didn't say so; but I daresay you are right, only..."

"What?"

"He loves no one and perhaps he never will," Razumihin declared

decisively.

"You mean he is not capable of love?"

"Do you know, Avdotya Romanovna, you are awfully like your brother, in

everything, indeed!" he blurted out suddenly to his own surprise, but

remembering at once what he had just before said of her brother,

he turned as red as a crab and was overcome with confusion. Avdotya

Romanovna couldn't help laughing when she looked at him.

"You may both be mistaken about Rodya," Pulcheria Alexandrovna remarked,

slightly piqued. "I am not talking of our present difficulty, Dounia.

What Pyotr Petrovitch writes in this letter and what you and I have

supposed may be mistaken, but you can't imagine, Dmitri Prokofitch, how

moody and, so to say, capricious he is. I never could depend on what

he would do when he was only fifteen. And I am sure that he might

do something now that nobody else would think of doing... Well, for

instance, do you know how a year and a half ago he astounded me and gave

me a shock that nearly killed me, when he had the idea of marrying that

girl--what was her name--his landlady's daughter?"

"Did you hear about that affair?" asked Avdotya Romanovna.

"Do you suppose----" Pulcheria Alexandrovna continued warmly. "Do you

suppose that my tears, my entreaties, my illness, my possible death from

grief, our poverty would have made him pause? No, he would calmly have

disregarded all obstacles. And yet it isn't that he doesn't love us!"

"He has never spoken a word of that affair to me," Razumihin answered

cautiously. "But I did hear something from Praskovya Pavlovna herself,

though she is by no means a gossip. And what I heard certainly was

rather strange."

"And what did you hear?" both the ladies asked at once.

"Well, nothing very special. I only learned that the marriage, which

only failed to take place through the girl's death, was not at all to

Praskovya Pavlovna's liking. They say, too, the girl was not at all

pretty, in fact I am told positively ugly... and such an invalid... and

queer. But she seems to have had some good qualities. She must have

had some good qualities or it's quite inexplicable.... She had no money

either and he wouldn't have considered her money.... But it's always

difficult to judge in such matters."

"I am sure she was a good girl," Avdotya Romanovna observed briefly.

"God forgive me, I simply rejoiced at her death. Though I don't know

which of them would have caused most misery to the other--he to her

or she to him," Pulcheria Alexandrovna concluded. Then she began

tentatively questioning him about the scene on the previous day with

Luzhin, hesitating and continually glancing at Dounia, obviously to

the latter's annoyance. This incident more than all the rest evidently

caused her uneasiness, even consternation. Razumihin described it in

detail again, but this time he added his own conclusions: he openly

blamed Raskolnikov for intentionally insulting Pyotr Petrovitch, not

seeking to excuse him on the score of his illness.

"He had planned it before his illness," he added.

"I think so, too," Pulcheria Alexandrovna agreed with a dejected air.

But she was very much surprised at hearing Razumihin express himself

so carefully and even with a certain respect about Pyotr Petrovitch.

Avdotya Romanovna, too, was struck by it.

"So this is your opinion of Pyotr Petrovitch?" Pulcheria Alexandrovna

could not resist asking.

"I can have no other opinion of your daughter's future husband,"

Razumihin answered firmly and with warmth, "and I don't say it simply

from vulgar politeness, but because... simply because Avdotya Romanovna

has of her own free will deigned to accept this man. If I spoke so

rudely of him last night, it was because I was disgustingly drunk and...

mad besides; yes, mad, crazy, I lost my head completely... and this

morning I am ashamed of it."

He crimsoned and ceased speaking. Avdotya Romanovna flushed, but did not

break the silence. She had not uttered a word from the moment they began

to speak of Luzhin.

Without her support Pulcheria Alexandrovna obviously did not know what

to do. At last, faltering and continually glancing at her daughter, she

confessed that she was exceedingly worried by one circumstance.

"You see, Dmitri Prokofitch," she began. "I'll be perfectly open with

Dmitri Prokofitch, Dounia?"

"Of course, mother," said Avdotya Romanovna emphatically.

"This is what it is," she began in haste, as though the permission to

speak of her trouble lifted a weight off her mind. "Very early this

morning we got a note from Pyotr Petrovitch in reply to our letter

announcing our arrival. He promised to meet us at the station, you

know; instead of that he sent a servant to bring us the address of these

lodgings and to show us the way; and he sent a message that he would

be here himself this morning. But this morning this note came from him.

You'd better read it yourself; there is one point in it which worries me

very much... you will soon see what that is, and... tell me your candid

opinion, Dmitri Prokofitch! You know Rodya's character better than

anyone and no one can advise us better than you can. Dounia, I must tell

you, made her decision at once, but I still don't feel sure how to act

and I... I've been waiting for your opinion."

Razumihin opened the note which was dated the previous evening and read

as follows:

"Dear Madam, Pulcheria Alexandrovna, I have the honour to inform you

that owing to unforeseen obstacles I was rendered unable to meet you at

the railway station; I sent a very competent person with the same object

in view. I likewise shall be deprived of the honour of an interview with

you to-morrow morning by business in the Senate that does not admit of

delay, and also that I may not intrude on your family circle while you

are meeting your son, and Avdotya Romanovna her brother. I shall have

the honour of visiting you and paying you my respects at your lodgings

not later than to-morrow evening at eight o'clock precisely, and

herewith I venture to present my earnest and, I may add, imperative

request that Rodion Romanovitch may not be present at our interview--as

he offered me a gross and unprecedented affront on the occasion of my

visit to him in his illness yesterday, and, moreover, since I desire

from you personally an indispensable and circumstantial explanation

upon a certain point, in regard to which I wish to learn your own

interpretation. I have the honour to inform you, in anticipation,

that if, in spite of my request, I meet Rodion Romanovitch, I shall be

compelled to withdraw immediately and then you have only yourself to

blame. I write on the assumption that Rodion Romanovitch who appeared so

ill at my visit, suddenly recovered two hours later and so, being able

to leave the house, may visit you also. I was confirmed in that belief

by the testimony of my own eyes in the lodging of a drunken man who

was run over and has since died, to whose daughter, a young woman of

notorious behaviour, he gave twenty-five roubles on the pretext of the

funeral, which gravely surprised me knowing what pains you were at to

raise that sum. Herewith expressing my special respect to your estimable

daughter, Avdotya Romanovna, I beg you to accept the respectful homage

of

"Your humble servant,

"P. LUZHIN."

"What am I to do now, Dmitri Prokofitch?" began Pulcheria Alexandrovna,

almost weeping. "How can I ask Rodya not to come? Yesterday he insisted

so earnestly on our refusing Pyotr Petrovitch and now we are ordered not

to receive Rodya! He will come on purpose if he knows, and... what will

happen then?"

"Act on Avdotya Romanovna's decision," Razumihin answered calmly at

once.

"Oh, dear me! She says... goodness knows what she says, she doesn't

explain her object! She says that it would be best, at least, not that

it would be best, but that it's absolutely necessary that Rodya should

make a point of being here at eight o'clock and that they must meet....

I didn't want even to show him the letter, but to prevent him

from coming by some stratagem with your help... because he is so

irritable.... Besides I don't understand about that drunkard who died

and that daughter, and how he could have given the daughter all the

money... which..."

"Which cost you such sacrifice, mother," put in Avdotya Romanovna.

"He was not himself yesterday," Razumihin said thoughtfully, "if you

only knew what he was up to in a restaurant yesterday, though there

was sense in it too.... Hm! He did say something, as we were going home

yesterday evening, about a dead man and a girl, but I didn't understand

a word.... But last night, I myself..."

"The best thing, mother, will be for us to go to him ourselves and

there I assure you we shall see at once what's to be done. Besides,

it's getting late--good heavens, it's past ten," she cried looking at

a splendid gold enamelled watch which hung round her neck on a thin

Venetian chain, and looked entirely out of keeping with the rest of her

dress. "A present from her _fiance_," thought Razumihin.

"We must start, Dounia, we must start," her mother cried in a flutter.

"He will be thinking we are still angry after yesterday, from our coming

so late. Merciful heavens!"

While she said this she was hurriedly putting on her hat and mantle;

Dounia, too, put on her things. Her gloves, as Razumihin noticed, were

not merely shabby but had holes in them, and yet this evident poverty

gave the two ladies an air of special dignity, which is always found in

people who know how to wear poor clothes. Razumihin looked reverently

at Dounia and felt proud of escorting her. "The queen who mended her

stockings in prison," he thought, "must have looked then every inch a

queen and even more a queen than at sumptuous banquets and levees."

"My God!" exclaimed Pulcheria Alexandrovna, "little did I think that I

should ever fear seeing my son, my darling, darling Rodya! I am afraid,

Dmitri Prokofitch," she added, glancing at him timidly.

"Don't be afraid, mother," said Dounia, kissing her, "better have faith

in him."

"Oh, dear, I have faith in him, but I haven't slept all night,"

exclaimed the poor woman.

They came out into the street.

"Do you know, Dounia, when I dozed a little this morning I dreamed of

Marfa Petrovna... she was all in white... she came up to me, took

my hand, and shook her head at me, but so sternly as though she were

blaming me.... Is that a good omen? Oh, dear me! You don't know, Dmitri

Prokofitch, that Marfa Petrovna's dead!"

"No, I didn't know; who is Marfa Petrovna?"

"She died suddenly; and only fancy..."

"Afterwards, mamma," put in Dounia. "He doesn't know who Marfa Petrovna

is."

"Ah, you don't know? And I was thinking that you knew all about us.

Forgive me, Dmitri Prokofitch, I don't know what I am thinking about

these last few days. I look upon you really as a providence for us, and

so I took it for granted that you knew all about us. I look on you as a

relation.... Don't be angry with me for saying so. Dear me, what's the

matter with your right hand? Have you knocked it?"

"Yes, I bruised it," muttered Razumihin overjoyed.

"I sometimes speak too much from the heart, so that Dounia finds fault

with me.... But, dear me, what a cupboard he lives in! I wonder whether

he is awake? Does this woman, his landlady, consider it a room? Listen,

you say he does not like to show his feelings, so perhaps I shall annoy

him with my... weaknesses? Do advise me, Dmitri Prokofitch, how am I to

treat him? I feel quite distracted, you know."

"Don't question him too much about anything if you see him frown; don't

ask him too much about his health; he doesn't like that."

"Ah, Dmitri Prokofitch, how hard it is to be a mother! But here are the

stairs.... What an awful staircase!"

"Mother, you are quite pale, don't distress yourself, darling," said

Dounia caressing her, then with flashing eyes she added: "He ought to be

happy at seeing you, and you are tormenting yourself so."

"Wait, I'll peep in and see whether he has waked up."

The ladies slowly followed Razumihin, who went on before, and when they

reached the landlady's door on the fourth storey, they noticed that her

door was a tiny crack open and that two keen black eyes were watching

them from the darkness within. When their eyes met, the door was

suddenly shut with such a slam that Pulcheria Alexandrovna almost cried

out.

CHAPTER III

"He is well, quite well!" Zossimov cried cheerfully as they entered.

He had come in ten minutes earlier and was sitting in the same place

as before, on the sofa. Raskolnikov was sitting in the opposite corner,

fully dressed and carefully washed and combed, as he had not been for

some time past. The room was immediately crowded, yet Nastasya managed

to follow the visitors in and stayed to listen.

Raskolnikov really was almost well, as compared with his condition the

day before, but he was still pale, listless, and sombre. He looked like

a wounded man or one who has undergone some terrible physical suffering.

His brows were knitted, his lips compressed, his eyes feverish. He spoke

little and reluctantly, as though performing a duty, and there was a

restlessness in his movements.

He only wanted a sling on his arm or a bandage on his finger to complete

the impression of a man with a painful abscess or a broken arm. The

pale, sombre face lighted up for a moment when his mother and sister

entered, but this only gave it a look of more intense suffering, in

place of its listless dejection. The light soon died away, but the look

of suffering remained, and Zossimov, watching and studying his patient

with all the zest of a young doctor beginning to practise, noticed

in him no joy at the arrival of his mother and sister, but a sort of

bitter, hidden determination to bear another hour or two of inevitable

torture. He saw later that almost every word of the following

conversation seemed to touch on some sore place and irritate it. But

at the same time he marvelled at the power of controlling himself

and hiding his feelings in a patient who the previous day had, like a

monomaniac, fallen into a frenzy at the slightest word.

"Yes, I see myself now that I am almost well," said Raskolnikov,

giving his mother and sister a kiss of welcome which made Pulcheria

Alexandrovna radiant at once. "And I don't say this _as I did

yesterday_," he said, addressing Razumihin, with a friendly pressure of

his hand.

"Yes, indeed, I am quite surprised at him to-day," began Zossimov, much

delighted at the ladies' entrance, for he had not succeeded in keeping

up a conversation with his patient for ten minutes. "In another three or

four days, if he goes on like this, he will be just as before, that is,

as he was a month ago, or two... or perhaps even three. This has been

coming on for a long while.... eh? Confess, now, that it has been

perhaps your own fault?" he added, with a tentative smile, as though

still afraid of irritating him.

"It is very possible," answered Raskolnikov coldly.

"I should say, too," continued Zossimov with zest, "that your complete

recovery depends solely on yourself. Now that one can talk to you,

I should like to impress upon you that it is essential to avoid the

elementary, so to speak, fundamental causes tending to produce your

morbid condition: in that case you will be cured, if not, it will go

from bad to worse. These fundamental causes I don't know, but they must

be known to you. You are an intelligent man, and must have observed

yourself, of course. I fancy the first stage of your derangement

coincides with your leaving the university. You must not be left without

occupation, and so, work and a definite aim set before you might, I

fancy, be very beneficial."

"Yes, yes; you are perfectly right.... I will make haste and return to

the university: and then everything will go smoothly...."

Zossimov, who had begun his sage advice partly to make an effect before

the ladies, was certainly somewhat mystified, when, glancing at his

patient, he observed unmistakable mockery on his face. This lasted

an instant, however. Pulcheria Alexandrovna began at once thanking

Zossimov, especially for his visit to their lodging the previous night.

"What! he saw you last night?" Raskolnikov asked, as though startled.

"Then you have not slept either after your journey."

"Ach, Rodya, that was only till two o'clock. Dounia and I never go to

bed before two at home."

"I don't know how to thank him either," Raskolnikov went on,

suddenly frowning and looking down. "Setting aside the question of

payment--forgive me for referring to it (he turned to Zossimov)--I

really don't know what I have done to deserve such special attention

from you! I simply don't understand it... and... and... it weighs upon

me, indeed, because I don't understand it. I tell you so candidly."

"Don't be irritated." Zossimov forced himself to laugh. "Assume that you

are my first patient--well--we fellows just beginning to practise love

our first patients as if they were our children, and some almost fall in

love with them. And, of course, I am not rich in patients."

"I say nothing about him," added Raskolnikov, pointing to Razumihin,

"though he has had nothing from me either but insult and trouble."

"What nonsense he is talking! Why, you are in a sentimental mood to-day,

are you?" shouted Razumihin.

If he had had more penetration he would have seen that there was no

trace of sentimentality in him, but something indeed quite the opposite.

But Avdotya Romanovna noticed it. She was intently and uneasily watching

her brother.

"As for you, mother, I don't dare to speak," he went on, as though

repeating a lesson learned by heart. "It is only to-day that I have

been able to realise a little how distressed you must have been here

yesterday, waiting for me to come back."

When he had said this, he suddenly held out his hand to his sister,

smiling without a word. But in this smile there was a flash of real

unfeigned feeling. Dounia caught it at once, and warmly pressed his

hand, overjoyed and thankful. It was the first time he had addressed her

since their dispute the previous day. The mother's face lighted up

with ecstatic happiness at the sight of this conclusive unspoken

reconciliation. "Yes, that is what I love him for," Razumihin,

exaggerating it all, muttered to himself, with a vigorous turn in his

chair. "He has these movements."

"And how well he does it all," the mother was thinking to herself. "What

generous impulses he has, and how simply, how delicately he put an end

to all the misunderstanding with his sister--simply by holding out his

hand at the right minute and looking at her like that.... And what

fine eyes he has, and how fine his whole face is!... He is even better

looking than Dounia.... But, good heavens, what a suit--how terribly

he's dressed!... Vasya, the messenger boy in Afanasy Ivanitch's shop, is

better dressed! I could rush at him and hug him... weep over him--but

I am afraid.... Oh, dear, he's so strange! He's talking kindly, but I'm

afraid! Why, what am I afraid of?..."

"Oh, Rodya, you wouldn't believe," she began suddenly, in haste to

answer his words to her, "how unhappy Dounia and I were yesterday! Now

that it's all over and done with and we are quite happy again--I can

tell you. Fancy, we ran here almost straight from the train to embrace

you and that woman--ah, here she is! Good morning, Nastasya!... She told

us at once that you were lying in a high fever and had just run away

from the doctor in delirium, and they were looking for you in the

streets. You can't imagine how we felt! I couldn't help thinking of the

tragic end of Lieutenant Potanchikov, a friend of your father's--you

can't remember him, Rodya--who ran out in the same way in a high fever

and fell into the well in the court-yard and they couldn't pull him out

till next day. Of course, we exaggerated things. We were on the point of

rushing to find Pyotr Petrovitch to ask him to help.... Because we were

alone, utterly alone," she said plaintively and stopped short,

suddenly, recollecting it was still somewhat dangerous to speak of Pyotr

Petrovitch, although "we are quite happy again."

"Yes, yes.... Of course it's very annoying...." Raskolnikov muttered in

reply, but with such a preoccupied and inattentive air that Dounia gazed

at him in perplexity.

"What else was it I wanted to say?" He went on trying to recollect. "Oh,

yes; mother, and you too, Dounia, please don't think that I didn't mean

to come and see you to-day and was waiting for you to come first."

"What are you saying, Rodya?" cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. She, too,

was surprised.

"Is he answering us as a duty?" Dounia wondered. "Is he being reconciled

and asking forgiveness as though he were performing a rite or repeating

a lesson?"

"I've only just waked up, and wanted to go to you, but was delayed owing

to my clothes; I forgot yesterday to ask her... Nastasya... to wash out

the blood... I've only just dressed."

"Blood! What blood?" Pulcheria Alexandrovna asked in alarm.

"Oh, nothing--don't be uneasy. It was when I was wandering about

yesterday, rather delirious, I chanced upon a man who had been run

over... a clerk..."

"Delirious? But you remember everything!" Razumihin interrupted.

"That's true," Raskolnikov answered with special carefulness. "I

remember everything even to the slightest detail, and yet--why I did

that and went there and said that, I can't clearly explain now."

"A familiar phenomenon," interposed Zossimov, "actions are sometimes

performed in a masterly and most cunning way, while the direction of the

actions is deranged and dependent on various morbid impressions--it's

like a dream."

"Perhaps it's a good thing really that he should think me almost a

madman," thought Raskolnikov.

"Why, people in perfect health act in the same way too," observed

Dounia, looking uneasily at Zossimov.

"There is some truth in your observation," the latter replied. "In that

sense we are certainly all not infrequently like madmen, but with the

slight difference that the deranged are somewhat madder, for we

must draw a line. A normal man, it is true, hardly exists. Among

dozens--perhaps hundreds of thousands--hardly one is to be met with."

At the word "madman," carelessly dropped by Zossimov in his chatter on

his favourite subject, everyone frowned.

Raskolnikov sat seeming not to pay attention, plunged in thought with a

strange smile on his pale lips. He was still meditating on something.

Date: 2014-12-29; view: 517