CUSTOMS AND TRADITIONS OF GREAT BRITAIN 1 page

"Well," the orator began again stolidly and with even increased dignity,

after waiting for the laughter in the room to subside. "Well, so be

it, I am a pig, but she is a lady! I have the semblance of a beast, but

Katerina Ivanovna, my spouse, is a person of education and an officer's

daughter. Granted, granted, I am a scoundrel, but she is a woman of a

noble heart, full of sentiments, refined by education. And yet... oh,

if only she felt for me! Honoured sir, honoured sir, you know every man

ought to have at least one place where people feel for him! But Katerina

Ivanovna, though she is magnanimous, she is unjust.... And yet, although

I realise that when she pulls my hair she only does it out of pity--for

I repeat without being ashamed, she pulls my hair, young man," he

declared with redoubled dignity, hearing the sniggering again--"but, my

God, if she would but once.... But no, no! It's all in vain and it's no

use talking! No use talking! For more than once, my wish did come true

and more than once she has felt for me but... such is my fate and I am a

beast by nature!"

"Rather!" assented the innkeeper yawning. Marmeladov struck his fist

resolutely on the table.

"Such is my fate! Do you know, sir, do you know, I have sold her very

stockings for drink? Not her shoes--that would be more or less in the

order of things, but her stockings, her stockings I have sold for drink!

Her mohair shawl I sold for drink, a present to her long ago, her own

property, not mine; and we live in a cold room and she caught cold this

winter and has begun coughing and spitting blood too. We have three

little children and Katerina Ivanovna is at work from morning till

night; she is scrubbing and cleaning and washing the children, for she's

been used to cleanliness from a child. But her chest is weak and she has

a tendency to consumption and I feel it! Do you suppose I don't feel it?

And the more I drink the more I feel it. That's why I drink too. I try

to find sympathy and feeling in drink.... I drink so that I may suffer

twice as much!" And as though in despair he laid his head down on the

table.

"Young man," he went on, raising his head again, "in your face I seem to

read some trouble of mind. When you came in I read it, and that was why

I addressed you at once. For in unfolding to you the story of my life, I

do not wish to make myself a laughing-stock before these idle listeners,

who indeed know all about it already, but I am looking for a man

of feeling and education. Know then that my wife was educated in a

high-class school for the daughters of noblemen, and on leaving she

danced the shawl dance before the governor and other personages for

which she was presented with a gold medal and a certificate of merit.

The medal... well, the medal of course was sold--long ago, hm... but the

certificate of merit is in her trunk still and not long ago she showed

it to our landlady. And although she is most continually on bad terms

with the landlady, yet she wanted to tell someone or other of her past

honours and of the happy days that are gone. I don't condemn her for

it, I don't blame her, for the one thing left her is recollection of

the past, and all the rest is dust and ashes. Yes, yes, she is a lady

of spirit, proud and determined. She scrubs the floors herself and has

nothing but black bread to eat, but won't allow herself to be treated

with disrespect. That's why she would not overlook Mr. Lebeziatnikov's

rudeness to her, and so when he gave her a beating for it, she took to

her bed more from the hurt to her feelings than from the blows. She was

a widow when I married her, with three children, one smaller than the

other. She married her first husband, an infantry officer, for love, and

ran away with him from her father's house. She was exceedingly fond of

her husband; but he gave way to cards, got into trouble and with that he

died. He used to beat her at the end: and although she paid him back, of

which I have authentic documentary evidence, to this day she speaks of

him with tears and she throws him up to me; and I am glad, I am glad

that, though only in imagination, she should think of herself as having

once been happy.... And she was left at his death with three children in

a wild and remote district where I happened to be at the time; and she

was left in such hopeless poverty that, although I have seen many ups

and downs of all sort, I don't feel equal to describing it even. Her

relations had all thrown her off. And she was proud, too, excessively

proud.... And then, honoured sir, and then, I, being at the time a

widower, with a daughter of fourteen left me by my first wife, offered

her my hand, for I could not bear the sight of such suffering. You can

judge the extremity of her calamities, that she, a woman of education

and culture and distinguished family, should have consented to be my

wife. But she did! Weeping and sobbing and wringing her hands, she

married me! For she had nowhere to turn! Do you understand, sir, do you

understand what it means when you have absolutely nowhere to turn? No,

that you don't understand yet.... And for a whole year, I performed

my duties conscientiously and faithfully, and did not touch this" (he

tapped the jug with his finger), "for I have feelings. But even so, I

could not please her; and then I lost my place too, and that through no

fault of mine but through changes in the office; and then I did touch

it!... It will be a year and a half ago soon since we found ourselves at

last after many wanderings and numerous calamities in this magnificent

capital, adorned with innumerable monuments. Here I obtained a

situation.... I obtained it and I lost it again. Do you understand? This

time it was through my own fault I lost it: for my weakness had come

out.... We have now part of a room at Amalia Fyodorovna Lippevechsel's;

and what we live upon and what we pay our rent with, I could not say.

There are a lot of people living there besides ourselves. Dirt and

disorder, a perfect Bedlam... hm... yes... And meanwhile my daughter by

my first wife has grown up; and what my daughter has had to put up with

from her step-mother whilst she was growing up, I won't speak of. For,

though Katerina Ivanovna is full of generous feelings, she is a spirited

lady, irritable and short--tempered.... Yes. But it's no use going over

that! Sonia, as you may well fancy, has had no education. I did make an

effort four years ago to give her a course of geography and universal

history, but as I was not very well up in those subjects myself and we

had no suitable books, and what books we had... hm, anyway we have not

even those now, so all our instruction came to an end. We stopped at

Cyrus of Persia. Since she has attained years of maturity, she has read

other books of romantic tendency and of late she had read with great

interest a book she got through Mr. Lebeziatnikov, Lewes' Physiology--do

you know it?--and even recounted extracts from it to us: and that's the

whole of her education. And now may I venture to address you, honoured

sir, on my own account with a private question. Do you suppose that

a respectable poor girl can earn much by honest work? Not fifteen

farthings a day can she earn, if she is respectable and has no special

talent and that without putting her work down for an instant! And what's

more, Ivan Ivanitch Klopstock the civil counsellor--have you heard of

him?--has not to this day paid her for the half-dozen linen shirts she

made him and drove her roughly away, stamping and reviling her, on the

pretext that the shirt collars were not made like the pattern and were

put in askew. And there are the little ones hungry.... And Katerina

Ivanovna walking up and down and wringing her hands, her cheeks flushed

red, as they always are in that disease: 'Here you live with us,' says

she, 'you eat and drink and are kept warm and you do nothing to help.'

And much she gets to eat and drink when there is not a crust for the

little ones for three days! I was lying at the time... well, what of

it! I was lying drunk and I heard my Sonia speaking (she is a gentle

creature with a soft little voice... fair hair and such a pale, thin

little face). She said: 'Katerina Ivanovna, am I really to do a thing

like that?' And Darya Frantsovna, a woman of evil character and very

well known to the police, had two or three times tried to get at her

through the landlady. 'And why not?' said Katerina Ivanovna with a jeer,

'you are something mighty precious to be so careful of!' But don't blame

her, don't blame her, honoured sir, don't blame her! She was not herself

when she spoke, but driven to distraction by her illness and the crying

of the hungry children; and it was said more to wound her than anything

else.... For that's Katerina Ivanovna's character, and when children

cry, even from hunger, she falls to beating them at once. At six o'clock

I saw Sonia get up, put on her kerchief and her cape, and go out of the

room and about nine o'clock she came back. She walked straight up to

Katerina Ivanovna and she laid thirty roubles on the table before her

in silence. She did not utter a word, she did not even look at her, she

simply picked up our big green _drap de dames_ shawl (we have a shawl,

made of _drap de dames_), put it over her head and face and lay down

on the bed with her face to the wall; only her little shoulders and her

body kept shuddering.... And I went on lying there, just as before....

And then I saw, young man, I saw Katerina Ivanovna, in the same silence

go up to Sonia's little bed; she was on her knees all the evening

kissing Sonia's feet, and would not get up, and then they both fell

asleep in each other's arms... together, together... yes... and I... lay

drunk."

Marmeladov stopped short, as though his voice had failed him. Then he

hurriedly filled his glass, drank, and cleared his throat.

"Since then, sir," he went on after a brief pause--"Since then, owing

to an unfortunate occurrence and through information given by

evil-intentioned persons--in all which Darya Frantsovna took a

leading part on the pretext that she had been treated with want of

respect--since then my daughter Sofya Semyonovna has been forced to take

a yellow ticket, and owing to that she is unable to go on living with

us. For our landlady, Amalia Fyodorovna would not hear of it (though

she had backed up Darya Frantsovna before) and Mr. Lebeziatnikov too...

hm.... All the trouble between him and Katerina Ivanovna was on Sonia's

account. At first he was for making up to Sonia himself and then all of

a sudden he stood on his dignity: 'how,' said he, 'can a highly educated

man like me live in the same rooms with a girl like that?' And Katerina

Ivanovna would not let it pass, she stood up for her... and so that's

how it happened. And Sonia comes to us now, mostly after dark; she

comforts Katerina Ivanovna and gives her all she can.... She has a room

at the Kapernaumovs' the tailors, she lodges with them; Kapernaumov is

a lame man with a cleft palate and all of his numerous family have cleft

palates too. And his wife, too, has a cleft palate. They all live in one

room, but Sonia has her own, partitioned off.... Hm... yes... very poor

people and all with cleft palates... yes. Then I got up in the morning,

and put on my rags, lifted up my hands to heaven and set off to his

excellency Ivan Afanasyvitch. His excellency Ivan Afanasyvitch, do you

know him? No? Well, then, it's a man of God you don't know. He is wax...

wax before the face of the Lord; even as wax melteth!... His eyes were

dim when he heard my story. 'Marmeladov, once already you have

deceived my expectations... I'll take you once more on my own

responsibility'--that's what he said, 'remember,' he said, 'and now you

can go.' I kissed the dust at his feet--in thought only, for in reality

he would not have allowed me to do it, being a statesman and a man of

modern political and enlightened ideas. I returned home, and when I

announced that I'd been taken back into the service and should receive a

salary, heavens, what a to-do there was!..."

Marmeladov stopped again in violent excitement. At that moment a whole

party of revellers already drunk came in from the street, and the sounds

of a hired concertina and the cracked piping voice of a child of seven

singing "The Hamlet" were heard in the entry. The room was filled with

noise. The tavern-keeper and the boys were busy with the new-comers.

Marmeladov paying no attention to the new arrivals continued his story.

He appeared by now to be extremely weak, but as he became more and more

drunk, he became more and more talkative. The recollection of his

recent success in getting the situation seemed to revive him, and was

positively reflected in a sort of radiance on his face. Raskolnikov

listened attentively.

"That was five weeks ago, sir. Yes.... As soon as Katerina Ivanovna

and Sonia heard of it, mercy on us, it was as though I stepped into the

kingdom of Heaven. It used to be: you can lie like a beast, nothing but

abuse. Now they were walking on tiptoe, hushing the children. 'Semyon

Zaharovitch is tired with his work at the office, he is resting, shh!'

They made me coffee before I went to work and boiled cream for me! They

began to get real cream for me, do you hear that? And how they managed

to get together the money for a decent outfit--eleven roubles, fifty

copecks, I can't guess. Boots, cotton shirt-fronts--most magnificent,

a uniform, they got up all in splendid style, for eleven roubles and

a half. The first morning I came back from the office I found Katerina

Ivanovna had cooked two courses for dinner--soup and salt meat with

horse radish--which we had never dreamed of till then. She had not any

dresses... none at all, but she got herself up as though she were going

on a visit; and not that she'd anything to do it with, she smartened

herself up with nothing at all, she'd done her hair nicely, put on a

clean collar of some sort, cuffs, and there she was, quite a different

person, she was younger and better looking. Sonia, my little darling,

had only helped with money 'for the time,' she said, 'it won't do for me

to come and see you too often. After dark maybe when no one can see.' Do

you hear, do you hear? I lay down for a nap after dinner and what do you

think: though Katerina Ivanovna had quarrelled to the last degree with

our landlady Amalia Fyodorovna only a week before, she could not

resist then asking her in to coffee. For two hours they were sitting,

whispering together. 'Semyon Zaharovitch is in the service again,

now, and receiving a salary,' says she, 'and he went himself to his

excellency and his excellency himself came out to him, made all the

others wait and led Semyon Zaharovitch by the hand before everybody into

his study.' Do you hear, do you hear? 'To be sure,' says he, 'Semyon

Zaharovitch, remembering your past services,' says he, 'and in spite

of your propensity to that foolish weakness, since you promise now and

since moreover we've got on badly without you,' (do you hear, do you

hear;) 'and so,' says he, 'I rely now on your word as a gentleman.' And

all that, let me tell you, she has simply made up for herself, and not

simply out of wantonness, for the sake of bragging; no, she believes it

all herself, she amuses herself with her own fancies, upon my word she

does! And I don't blame her for it, no, I don't blame her!... Six days

ago when I brought her my first earnings in full--twenty-three roubles

forty copecks altogether--she called me her poppet: 'poppet,' said she,

'my little poppet.' And when we were by ourselves, you understand?

You would not think me a beauty, you would not think much of me as a

husband, would you?... Well, she pinched my cheek, 'my little poppet,'

said she."

Marmeladov broke off, tried to smile, but suddenly his chin began

to twitch. He controlled himself however. The tavern, the degraded

appearance of the man, the five nights in the hay barge, and the pot of

spirits, and yet this poignant love for his wife and children bewildered

his listener. Raskolnikov listened intently but with a sick sensation.

He felt vexed that he had come here.

"Honoured sir, honoured sir," cried Marmeladov recovering himself--"Oh,

sir, perhaps all this seems a laughing matter to you, as it does to

others, and perhaps I am only worrying you with the stupidity of all the

trivial details of my home life, but it is not a laughing matter to me.

For I can feel it all.... And the whole of that heavenly day of my life

and the whole of that evening I passed in fleeting dreams of how I would

arrange it all, and how I would dress all the children, and how I should

give her rest, and how I should rescue my own daughter from dishonour

and restore her to the bosom of her family.... And a great deal more....

Quite excusable, sir. Well, then, sir" (Marmeladov suddenly gave a sort

of start, raised his head and gazed intently at his listener) "well, on

the very next day after all those dreams, that is to say, exactly five

days ago, in the evening, by a cunning trick, like a thief in the night,

I stole from Katerina Ivanovna the key of her box, took out what was

left of my earnings, how much it was I have forgotten, and now look

at me, all of you! It's the fifth day since I left home, and they are

looking for me there and it's the end of my employment, and my uniform

is lying in a tavern on the Egyptian bridge. I exchanged it for the

garments I have on... and it's the end of everything!"

Marmeladov struck his forehead with his fist, clenched his teeth, closed

his eyes and leaned heavily with his elbow on the table. But a minute

later his face suddenly changed and with a certain assumed slyness and

affectation of bravado, he glanced at Raskolnikov, laughed and said:

"This morning I went to see Sonia, I went to ask her for a pick-me-up!

He-he-he!"

"You don't say she gave it to you?" cried one of the new-comers; he

shouted the words and went off into a guffaw.

"This very quart was bought with her money," Marmeladov declared,

addressing himself exclusively to Raskolnikov. "Thirty copecks she gave

me with her own hands, her last, all she had, as I saw.... She said

nothing, she only looked at me without a word.... Not on earth, but up

yonder... they grieve over men, they weep, but they don't blame them,

they don't blame them! But it hurts more, it hurts more when they don't

blame! Thirty copecks yes! And maybe she needs them now, eh? What do

you think, my dear sir? For now she's got to keep up her appearance. It

costs money, that smartness, that special smartness, you know? Do you

understand? And there's pomatum, too, you see, she must have things;

petticoats, starched ones, shoes, too, real jaunty ones to show off her

foot when she has to step over a puddle. Do you understand, sir, do you

understand what all that smartness means? And here I, her own father,

here I took thirty copecks of that money for a drink! And I am drinking

it! And I have already drunk it! Come, who will have pity on a man like

me, eh? Are you sorry for me, sir, or not? Tell me, sir, are you sorry

or not? He-he-he!"

He would have filled his glass, but there was no drink left. The pot was

empty.

"What are you to be pitied for?" shouted the tavern-keeper who was again

near them.

Shouts of laughter and even oaths followed. The laughter and the oaths

came from those who were listening and also from those who had heard

nothing but were simply looking at the figure of the discharged

government clerk.

"To be pitied! Why am I to be pitied?" Marmeladov suddenly declaimed,

standing up with his arm outstretched, as though he had been only

waiting for that question.

"Why am I to be pitied, you say? Yes! there's nothing to pity me for! I

ought to be crucified, crucified on a cross, not pitied! Crucify me,

oh judge, crucify me but pity me! And then I will go of myself to be

crucified, for it's not merry-making I seek but tears and tribulation!...

Do you suppose, you that sell, that this pint of yours has been

sweet to me? It was tribulation I sought at the bottom of it, tears and

tribulation, and have found it, and I have tasted it; but He will pity

us Who has had pity on all men, Who has understood all men and all

things, He is the One, He too is the judge. He will come in that day

and He will ask: 'Where is the daughter who gave herself for her cross,

consumptive step-mother and for the little children of another? Where is

the daughter who had pity upon the filthy drunkard, her earthly father,

undismayed by his beastliness?' And He will say, 'Come to me! I have

already forgiven thee once.... I have forgiven thee once.... Thy sins

which are many are forgiven thee for thou hast loved much....' And he

will forgive my Sonia, He will forgive, I know it... I felt it in my

heart when I was with her just now! And He will judge and will forgive

all, the good and the evil, the wise and the meek.... And when He has

done with all of them, then He will summon us. 'You too come forth,'

He will say, 'Come forth ye drunkards, come forth, ye weak ones, come

forth, ye children of shame!' And we shall all come forth, without shame

and shall stand before him. And He will say unto us, 'Ye are swine, made

in the Image of the Beast and with his mark; but come ye also!' And the

wise ones and those of understanding will say, 'Oh Lord, why dost Thou

receive these men?' And He will say, 'This is why I receive them, oh ye

wise, this is why I receive them, oh ye of understanding, that not one

of them believed himself to be worthy of this.' And He will hold out His

hands to us and we shall fall down before him... and we shall weep...

and we shall understand all things! Then we shall understand all!... and

all will understand, Katerina Ivanovna even... she will understand....

Lord, Thy kingdom come!" And he sank down on the bench exhausted, and

helpless, looking at no one, apparently oblivious of his surroundings

and plunged in deep thought. His words had created a certain impression;

there was a moment of silence; but soon laughter and oaths were heard

again.

"That's his notion!"

"Talked himself silly!"

"A fine clerk he is!"

And so on, and so on.

"Let us go, sir," said Marmeladov all at once, raising his head and

addressing Raskolnikov--"come along with me... Kozel's house, looking

into the yard. I'm going to Katerina Ivanovna--time I did."

Raskolnikov had for some time been wanting to go and he had meant to

help him. Marmeladov was much unsteadier on his legs than in his speech

and leaned heavily on the young man. They had two or three hundred

paces to go. The drunken man was more and more overcome by dismay and

confusion as they drew nearer the house.

"It's not Katerina Ivanovna I am afraid of now," he muttered in

agitation--"and that she will begin pulling my hair. What does my hair

matter! Bother my hair! That's what I say! Indeed it will be better if

she does begin pulling it, that's not what I am afraid of... it's her

eyes I am afraid of... yes, her eyes... the red on her cheeks, too,

frightens me... and her breathing too.... Have you noticed how people

in that disease breathe... when they are excited? I am frightened of

the children's crying, too.... For if Sonia has not taken them food...

I don't know what's happened! I don't know! But blows I am not afraid

of.... Know, sir, that such blows are not a pain to me, but even an

enjoyment. In fact I can't get on without it.... It's better so. Let

her strike me, it relieves her heart... it's better so... There is the

house. The house of Kozel, the cabinet-maker... a German, well-to-do.

Lead the way!"

They went in from the yard and up to the fourth storey. The staircase

got darker and darker as they went up. It was nearly eleven o'clock

and although in summer in Petersburg there is no real night, yet it was

quite dark at the top of the stairs.

A grimy little door at the very top of the stairs stood ajar. A very

poor-looking room about ten paces long was lighted up by a candle-end;

the whole of it was visible from the entrance. It was all in disorder,

littered up with rags of all sorts, especially children's garments.

Across the furthest corner was stretched a ragged sheet. Behind it

probably was the bed. There was nothing in the room except two chairs

and a sofa covered with American leather, full of holes, before which

stood an old deal kitchen-table, unpainted and uncovered. At the edge

of the table stood a smoldering tallow-candle in an iron candlestick. It

appeared that the family had a room to themselves, not part of a room,

but their room was practically a passage. The door leading to the other

rooms, or rather cupboards, into which Amalia Lippevechsel's flat was

divided stood half open, and there was shouting, uproar and laughter

within. People seemed to be playing cards and drinking tea there. Words

of the most unceremonious kind flew out from time to time.

Raskolnikov recognised Katerina Ivanovna at once. She was a rather tall,

slim and graceful woman, terribly emaciated, with magnificent dark brown

hair and with a hectic flush in her cheeks. She was pacing up and down

in her little room, pressing her hands against her chest; her lips

were parched and her breathing came in nervous broken gasps. Her eyes

glittered as in fever and looked about with a harsh immovable stare. And

that consumptive and excited face with the last flickering light of the

candle-end playing upon it made a sickening impression. She seemed to

Raskolnikov about thirty years old and was certainly a strange wife for

Marmeladov.... She had not heard them and did not notice them coming in.

She seemed to be lost in thought, hearing and seeing nothing. The room

was close, but she had not opened the window; a stench rose from the

staircase, but the door on to the stairs was not closed. From the inner

rooms clouds of tobacco smoke floated in, she kept coughing, but did not

close the door. The youngest child, a girl of six, was asleep, sitting

curled up on the floor with her head on the sofa. A boy a year older

stood crying and shaking in the corner, probably he had just had a

beating. Beside him stood a girl of nine years old, tall and thin,

wearing a thin and ragged chemise with an ancient cashmere pelisse flung

Date: 2014-12-29; view: 874