Dowd Siobhan - The London Eye Mystery 44 page

once for all, and several times I walked by the Neva, I remember that

I wanted to end it all there, but... I couldn't make up my mind," he

whispered, looking at her mistrustfully again.

"Thank God! That was just what we were afraid of, Sofya Semyonovna and

I. Then you still have faith in life? Thank God, thank God!"

Raskolnikov smiled bitterly.

"I haven't faith, but I have just been weeping in mother's arms; I

haven't faith, but I have just asked her to pray for me. I don't know

how it is, Dounia, I don't understand it."

"Have you been at mother's? Have you told her?" cried Dounia,

horror-stricken. "Surely you haven't done that?"

"No, I didn't tell her... in words; but she understood a great deal.

She heard you talking in your sleep. I am sure she half understands it

already. Perhaps I did wrong in going to see her. I don't know why I did

go. I am a contemptible person, Dounia."

"A contemptible person, but ready to face suffering! You are, aren't

you?"

"Yes, I am going. At once. Yes, to escape the disgrace I thought of

drowning myself, Dounia, but as I looked into the water, I thought that

if I had considered myself strong till now I'd better not be afraid of

disgrace," he said, hurrying on. "It's pride, Dounia."

"Pride, Rodya."

There was a gleam of fire in his lustreless eyes; he seemed to be glad

to think that he was still proud.

"You don't think, sister, that I was simply afraid of the water?" he

asked, looking into her face with a sinister smile.

"Oh, Rodya, hush!" cried Dounia bitterly. Silence lasted for two

minutes. He sat with his eyes fixed on the floor; Dounia stood at the

other end of the table and looked at him with anguish. Suddenly he got

up.

"It's late, it's time to go! I am going at once to give myself up. But I

don't know why I am going to give myself up."

Big tears fell down her cheeks.

"You are crying, sister, but can you hold out your hand to me?"

"You doubted it?"

She threw her arms round him.

"Aren't you half expiating your crime by facing the suffering?" she

cried, holding him close and kissing him.

"Crime? What crime?" he cried in sudden fury. "That I killed a vile

noxious insect, an old pawnbroker woman, of use to no one!... Killing

her was atonement for forty sins. She was sucking the life out of poor

people. Was that a crime? I am not thinking of it and I am not thinking

of expiating it, and why are you all rubbing it in on all sides? 'A

crime! a crime!' Only now I see clearly the imbecility of my cowardice,

now that I have decided to face this superfluous disgrace. It's simply

because I am contemptible and have nothing in me that I have decided to,

perhaps too for my advantage, as that... Porfiry... suggested!"

"Brother, brother, what are you saying? Why, you have shed blood?" cried

Dounia in despair.

"Which all men shed," he put in almost frantically, "which flows and has

always flowed in streams, which is spilt like champagne, and for which

men are crowned in the Capitol and are called afterwards benefactors of

mankind. Look into it more carefully and understand it! I too wanted to

do good to men and would have done hundreds, thousands of good deeds

to make up for that one piece of stupidity, not stupidity even, simply

clumsiness, for the idea was by no means so stupid as it seems now

that it has failed.... (Everything seems stupid when it fails.) By that

stupidity I only wanted to put myself into an independent position, to

take the first step, to obtain means, and then everything would have

been smoothed over by benefits immeasurable in comparison.... But I...

I couldn't carry out even the first step, because I am contemptible,

that's what's the matter! And yet I won't look at it as you do. If I had

succeeded I should have been crowned with glory, but now I'm trapped."

"But that's not so, not so! Brother, what are you saying?"

"Ah, it's not picturesque, not aesthetically attractive! I fail to

understand why bombarding people by regular siege is more honourable.

The fear of appearances is the first symptom of impotence. I've never,

never recognised this more clearly than now, and I am further than ever

from seeing that what I did was a crime. I've never, never been stronger

and more convinced than now."

The colour had rushed into his pale exhausted face, but as he uttered

his last explanation, he happened to meet Dounia's eyes and he saw such

anguish in them that he could not help being checked. He felt that he

had, anyway, made these two poor women miserable, that he was, anyway,

the cause...

"Dounia darling, if I am guilty forgive me (though I cannot be forgiven

if I am guilty). Good-bye! We won't dispute. It's time, high time to go.

Don't follow me, I beseech you, I have somewhere else to go.... But you

go at once and sit with mother. I entreat you to! It's my last request

of you. Don't leave her at all; I left her in a state of anxiety, that

she is not fit to bear; she will die or go out of her mind. Be with

her! Razumihin will be with you. I've been talking to him.... Don't cry

about me: I'll try to be honest and manly all my life, even if I am a

murderer. Perhaps I shall some day make a name. I won't disgrace you,

you will see; I'll still show.... Now good-bye for the present," he

concluded hurriedly, noticing again a strange expression in Dounia's

eyes at his last words and promises. "Why are you crying? Don't cry,

don't cry: we are not parting for ever! Ah, yes! Wait a minute, I'd

forgotten!"

He went to the table, took up a thick dusty book, opened it and took

from between the pages a little water-colour portrait on ivory. It was

the portrait of his landlady's daughter, who had died of fever, that

strange girl who had wanted to be a nun. For a minute he gazed at the

delicate expressive face of his betrothed, kissed the portrait and gave

it to Dounia.

"I used to talk a great deal about it to her, only to her," he said

thoughtfully. "To her heart I confided much of what has since been so

hideously realised. Don't be uneasy," he returned to Dounia, "she was

as much opposed to it as you, and I am glad that she is gone. The great

point is that everything now is going to be different, is going to

be broken in two," he cried, suddenly returning to his dejection.

"Everything, everything, and am I prepared for it? Do I want it myself?

They say it is necessary for me to suffer! What's the object of these

senseless sufferings? shall I know any better what they are for, when I

am crushed by hardships and idiocy, and weak as an old man after twenty

years' penal servitude? And what shall I have to live for then? Why am I

consenting to that life now? Oh, I knew I was contemptible when I stood

looking at the Neva at daybreak to-day!"

At last they both went out. It was hard for Dounia, but she loved him.

She walked away, but after going fifty paces she turned round to look

at him again. He was still in sight. At the corner he too turned and for

the last time their eyes met; but noticing that she was looking at him,

he motioned her away with impatience and even vexation, and turned the

corner abruptly.

"I am wicked, I see that," he thought to himself, feeling ashamed a

moment later of his angry gesture to Dounia. "But why are they so fond

of me if I don't deserve it? Oh, if only I were alone and no one loved

me and I too had never loved anyone! _Nothing of all this would have

happened._ But I wonder shall I in those fifteen or twenty years grow so

meek that I shall humble myself before people and whimper at every word

that I am a criminal? Yes, that's it, that's it, that's what they are

sending me there for, that's what they want. Look at them running to and

fro about the streets, every one of them a scoundrel and a criminal at

heart and, worse still, an idiot. But try to get me off and they'd be

wild with righteous indignation. Oh, how I hate them all!"

He fell to musing by what process it could come to pass, that he could

be humbled before all of them, indiscriminately--humbled by conviction.

And yet why not? It must be so. Would not twenty years of continual

bondage crush him utterly? Water wears out a stone. And why, why should

he live after that? Why should he go now when he knew that it would be

so? It was the hundredth time perhaps that he had asked himself that

question since the previous evening, but still he went.

CHAPTER VIII

When he went into Sonia's room, it was already getting dark. All day

Sonia had been waiting for him in terrible anxiety. Dounia had been

waiting with her. She had come to her that morning, remembering

Svidrigailov's words that Sonia knew. We will not describe the

conversation and tears of the two girls, and how friendly they became.

Dounia gained one comfort at least from that interview, that her

brother would not be alone. He had gone to her, Sonia, first with his

confession; he had gone to her for human fellowship when he needed it;

she would go with him wherever fate might send him. Dounia did not ask,

but she knew it was so. She looked at Sonia almost with reverence and

at first almost embarrassed her by it. Sonia was almost on the point

of tears. She felt herself, on the contrary, hardly worthy to look at

Dounia. Dounia's gracious image when she had bowed to her so attentively

and respectfully at their first meeting in Raskolnikov's room had

remained in her mind as one of the fairest visions of her life.

Dounia at last became impatient and, leaving Sonia, went to her

brother's room to await him there; she kept thinking that he would come

there first. When she had gone, Sonia began to be tortured by the dread

of his committing suicide, and Dounia too feared it. But they had spent

the day trying to persuade each other that that could not be, and both

were less anxious while they were together. As soon as they parted, each

thought of nothing else. Sonia remembered how Svidrigailov had said to

her the day before that Raskolnikov had two alternatives--Siberia or...

Besides she knew his vanity, his pride and his lack of faith.

"Is it possible that he has nothing but cowardice and fear of death to

make him live?" she thought at last in despair.

Meanwhile the sun was setting. Sonia was standing in dejection, looking

intently out of the window, but from it she could see nothing but the

unwhitewashed blank wall of the next house. At last when she began to

feel sure of his death--he walked into the room.

She gave a cry of joy, but looking carefully into his face she turned

pale.

"Yes," said Raskolnikov, smiling. "I have come for your cross, Sonia. It

was you told me to go to the cross-roads; why is it you are frightened

now it's come to that?"

Sonia gazed at him astonished. His tone seemed strange to her; a cold

shiver ran over her, but in a moment she guessed that the tone and the

words were a mask. He spoke to her looking away, as though to avoid

meeting her eyes.

"You see, Sonia, I've decided that it will be better so. There is one

fact.... But it's a long story and there's no need to discuss it. But

do you know what angers me? It annoys me that all those stupid brutish

faces will be gaping at me directly, pestering me with their stupid

questions, which I shall have to answer--they'll point their fingers at

me.... Tfoo! You know I am not going to Porfiry, I am sick of him. I'd

rather go to my friend, the Explosive Lieutenant; how I shall surprise

him, what a sensation I shall make! But I must be cooler; I've become

too irritable of late. You know I was nearly shaking my fist at my

sister just now, because she turned to take a last look at me. It's

a brutal state to be in! Ah! what am I coming to! Well, where are the

crosses?"

He seemed hardly to know what he was doing. He could not stay still or

concentrate his attention on anything; his ideas seemed to gallop after

one another, he talked incoherently, his hands trembled slightly.

Without a word Sonia took out of the drawer two crosses, one of cypress

wood and one of copper. She made the sign of the cross over herself and

over him, and put the wooden cross on his neck.

"It's the symbol of my taking up the cross," he laughed. "As though I

had not suffered much till now! The wooden cross, that is the peasant

one; the copper one, that is Lizaveta's--you will wear yourself, show

me! So she had it on... at that moment? I remember two things like

these too, a silver one and a little ikon. I threw them back on the old

woman's neck. Those would be appropriate now, really, those are what I

ought to put on now.... But I am talking nonsense and forgetting what

matters; I'm somehow forgetful.... You see I have come to warn you,

Sonia, so that you might know... that's all--that's all I came for. But

I thought I had more to say. You wanted me to go yourself. Well, now I

am going to prison and you'll have your wish. Well, what are you crying

for? You too? Don't. Leave off! Oh, how I hate it all!"

But his feeling was stirred; his heart ached, as he looked at her. "Why

is she grieving too?" he thought to himself. "What am I to her? Why does

she weep? Why is she looking after me, like my mother or Dounia? She'll

be my nurse."

"Cross yourself, say at least one prayer," Sonia begged in a timid

broken voice.

"Oh certainly, as much as you like! And sincerely, Sonia, sincerely...."

But he wanted to say something quite different.

He crossed himself several times. Sonia took up her shawl and put

it over her head. It was the green _drap de dames_ shawl of which

Marmeladov had spoken, "the family shawl." Raskolnikov thought of that

looking at it, but he did not ask. He began to feel himself that he

was certainly forgetting things and was disgustingly agitated. He was

frightened at this. He was suddenly struck too by the thought that Sonia

meant to go with him.

"What are you doing? Where are you going? Stay here, stay! I'll go

alone," he cried in cowardly vexation, and almost resentful, he moved

towards the door. "What's the use of going in procession?" he muttered

going out.

Sonia remained standing in the middle of the room. He had not even said

good-bye to her; he had forgotten her. A poignant and rebellious doubt

surged in his heart.

"Was it right, was it right, all this?" he thought again as he went down

the stairs. "Couldn't he stop and retract it all... and not go?"

But still he went. He felt suddenly once for all that he mustn't ask

himself questions. As he turned into the street he remembered that he

had not said good-bye to Sonia, that he had left her in the middle of

the room in her green shawl, not daring to stir after he had shouted

at her, and he stopped short for a moment. At the same instant, another

thought dawned upon him, as though it had been lying in wait to strike

him then.

"Why, with what object did I go to her just now? I told her--on

business; on what business? I had no sort of business! To tell her I was

_going_; but where was the need? Do I love her? No, no, I drove her away

just now like a dog. Did I want her crosses? Oh, how low I've sunk! No,

I wanted her tears, I wanted to see her terror, to see how her heart

ached! I had to have something to cling to, something to delay me, some

friendly face to see! And I dared to believe in myself, to dream of what

I would do! I am a beggarly contemptible wretch, contemptible!"

He walked along the canal bank, and he had not much further to go. But

on reaching the bridge he stopped and turning out of his way along it

went to the Hay Market.

He looked eagerly to right and left, gazed intently at every object and

could not fix his attention on anything; everything slipped away. "In

another week, another month I shall be driven in a prison van over this

bridge, how shall I look at the canal then? I should like to remember

this!" slipped into his mind. "Look at this sign! How shall I read those

letters then? It's written here 'Campany,' that's a thing to remember,

that letter _a_, and to look at it again in a month--how shall I look

at it then? What shall I be feeling and thinking then?... How trivial

it all must be, what I am fretting about now! Of course it must all be

interesting... in its way... (Ha-ha-ha! What am I thinking about?) I am

becoming a baby, I am showing off to myself; why am I ashamed? Foo! how

people shove! that fat man--a German he must be--who pushed against

me, does he know whom he pushed? There's a peasant woman with a baby,

begging. It's curious that she thinks me happier than she is. I might

give her something, for the incongruity of it. Here's a five copeck

piece left in my pocket, where did I get it? Here, here... take it, my

good woman!"

"God bless you," the beggar chanted in a lachrymose voice.

He went into the Hay Market. It was distasteful, very distasteful to be

in a crowd, but he walked just where he saw most people. He would have

given anything in the world to be alone; but he knew himself that he

would not have remained alone for a moment. There was a man drunk and

disorderly in the crowd; he kept trying to dance and falling down. There

was a ring round him. Raskolnikov squeezed his way through the crowd,

stared for some minutes at the drunken man and suddenly gave a short

jerky laugh. A minute later he had forgotten him and did not see him,

though he still stared. He moved away at last, not remembering where he

was; but when he got into the middle of the square an emotion suddenly

came over him, overwhelming him body and mind.

He suddenly recalled Sonia's words, "Go to the cross-roads, bow down to

the people, kiss the earth, for you have sinned against it too, and say

aloud to the whole world, 'I am a murderer.'" He trembled, remembering

that. And the hopeless misery and anxiety of all that time, especially

of the last hours, had weighed so heavily upon him that he positively

clutched at the chance of this new unmixed, complete sensation. It came

over him like a fit; it was like a single spark kindled in his soul and

spreading fire through him. Everything in him softened at once and the

tears started into his eyes. He fell to the earth on the spot....

He knelt down in the middle of the square, bowed down to the earth, and

kissed that filthy earth with bliss and rapture. He got up and bowed

down a second time.

"He's boozed," a youth near him observed.

There was a roar of laughter.

"He's going to Jerusalem, brothers, and saying good-bye to his children

and his country. He's bowing down to all the world and kissing the great

city of St. Petersburg and its pavement," added a workman who was a

little drunk.

"Quite a young man, too!" observed a third.

"And a gentleman," someone observed soberly.

"There's no knowing who's a gentleman and who isn't nowadays."

These exclamations and remarks checked Raskolnikov, and the words, "I am

a murderer," which were perhaps on the point of dropping from his lips,

died away. He bore these remarks quietly, however, and, without looking

round, he turned down a street leading to the police office. He had a

glimpse of something on the way which did not surprise him; he had felt

that it must be so. The second time he bowed down in the Hay Market he

saw, standing fifty paces from him on the left, Sonia. She was hiding

from him behind one of the wooden shanties in the market-place. She had

followed him then on his painful way! Raskolnikov at that moment felt

and knew once for all that Sonia was with him for ever and would follow

him to the ends of the earth, wherever fate might take him. It wrung his

heart... but he was just reaching the fatal place.

He went into the yard fairly resolutely. He had to mount to the third

storey. "I shall be some time going up," he thought. He felt as though

the fateful moment was still far off, as though he had plenty of time

left for consideration.

Again the same rubbish, the same eggshells lying about on the spiral

stairs, again the open doors of the flats, again the same kitchens and

the same fumes and stench coming from them. Raskolnikov had not been

here since that day. His legs were numb and gave way under him, but

still they moved forward. He stopped for a moment to take breath, to

collect himself, so as to enter _like a man_. "But why? what for?" he

wondered, reflecting. "If I must drink the cup what difference does it

make? The more revolting the better." He imagined for an instant the

figure of the "explosive lieutenant," Ilya Petrovitch. Was he actually

going to him? Couldn't he go to someone else? To Nikodim Fomitch?

Couldn't he turn back and go straight to Nikodim Fomitch's lodgings?

At least then it would be done privately.... No, no! To the "explosive

lieutenant"! If he must drink it, drink it off at once.

Turning cold and hardly conscious, he opened the door of the office.

There were very few people in it this time--only a house porter and a

peasant. The doorkeeper did not even peep out from behind his screen.

Raskolnikov walked into the next room. "Perhaps I still need not speak,"

passed through his mind. Some sort of clerk not wearing a uniform was

settling himself at a bureau to write. In a corner another clerk was

seating himself. Zametov was not there, nor, of course, Nikodim Fomitch.

"No one in?" Raskolnikov asked, addressing the person at the bureau.

"Whom do you want?"

"A-ah! Not a sound was heard, not a sight was seen, but I scent the

Russian... how does it go on in the fairy tale... I've forgotten! 'At

your service!'" a familiar voice cried suddenly.

Raskolnikov shuddered. The Explosive Lieutenant stood before him. He

had just come in from the third room. "It is the hand of fate," thought

Raskolnikov. "Why is he here?"

"You've come to see us? What about?" cried Ilya Petrovitch. He

was obviously in an exceedingly good humour and perhaps a trifle

exhilarated. "If it's on business you are rather early.[*] It's only a

chance that I am here... however I'll do what I can. I must admit, I...

what is it, what is it? Excuse me...."

[*] Dostoevsky appears to have forgotten that it is after

sunset, and that the last time Raskolnikov visited the

police office at two in the afternoon he was reproached for

coming too late.--TRANSLATOR.

"Raskolnikov."

"Of course, Raskolnikov. You didn't imagine I'd forgotten? Don't think I

am like that... Rodion Ro--Ro--Rodionovitch, that's it, isn't it?"

"Rodion Romanovitch."

"Yes, yes, of course, Rodion Romanovitch! I was just getting at it. I

made many inquiries about you. I assure you I've been genuinely grieved

since that... since I behaved like that... it was explained to me

afterwards that you were a literary man... and a learned one too... and

so to say the first steps... Mercy on us! What literary or scientific

man does not begin by some originality of conduct! My wife and I have

the greatest respect for literature, in my wife it's a genuine passion!

Literature and art! If only a man is a gentleman, all the rest can be

gained by talents, learning, good sense, genius. As for a hat--well,

what does a hat matter? I can buy a hat as easily as I can a bun; but

what's under the hat, what the hat covers, I can't buy that! I was even

meaning to come and apologise to you, but thought maybe you'd... But I

am forgetting to ask you, is there anything you want really? I hear your

family have come?"

"Yes, my mother and sister."

"I've even had the honour and happiness of meeting your sister--a highly

cultivated and charming person. I confess I was sorry I got so hot with

you. There it is! But as for my looking suspiciously at your fainting

fit--that affair has been cleared up splendidly! Bigotry and fanaticism!

I understand your indignation. Perhaps you are changing your lodging on

account of your family's arriving?"

"No, I only looked in... I came to ask... I thought that I should find

Zametov here."

"Oh, yes! Of course, you've made friends, I heard. Well, no, Zametov is

not here. Yes, we've lost Zametov. He's not been here since yesterday...

he quarrelled with everyone on leaving... in the rudest way. He is a

feather-headed youngster, that's all; one might have expected something

from him, but there, you know what they are, our brilliant young men.

He wanted to go in for some examination, but it's only to talk and

boast about it, it will go no further than that. Of course it's a very

different matter with you or Mr. Razumihin there, your friend. Your

career is an intellectual one and you won't be deterred by failure. For

you, one may say, all the attractions of life _nihil est_--you are an

ascetic, a monk, a hermit!... A book, a pen behind your ear, a learned

research--that's where your spirit soars! I am the same way myself....

Have you read Livingstone's Travels?"

"No."

"Oh, I have. There are a great many Nihilists about nowadays, you know,

and indeed it is not to be wondered at. What sort of days are they? I

ask you. But we thought... you are not a Nihilist of course? Answer me

openly, openly!"

"N-no..."

"Believe me, you can speak openly to me as you would to yourself!

Date: 2014-12-29; view: 691