CUSTOMS AND TRADITIONS OF GREAT BRITAIN 12 page

and a personage came in who was a stranger to all present.

CHAPTER V

This was a gentleman no longer young, of a stiff and portly appearance,

and a cautious and sour countenance. He began by stopping short in the

doorway, staring about him with offensive and undisguised astonishment,

as though asking himself what sort of place he had come to.

Mistrustfully and with an affectation of being alarmed and almost

affronted, he scanned Raskolnikov's low and narrow "cabin." With the

same amazement he stared at Raskolnikov, who lay undressed, dishevelled,

unwashed, on his miserable dirty sofa, looking fixedly at him. Then with

the same deliberation he scrutinised the uncouth, unkempt figure and

unshaven face of Razumihin, who looked him boldly and inquiringly in the

face without rising from his seat. A constrained silence lasted for a

couple of minutes, and then, as might be expected, some scene-shifting

took place. Reflecting, probably from certain fairly unmistakable signs,

that he would get nothing in this "cabin" by attempting to overawe them,

the gentleman softened somewhat, and civilly, though with some severity,

emphasising every syllable of his question, addressed Zossimov:

"Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov, a student, or formerly a student?"

Zossimov made a slight movement, and would have answered, had not

Razumihin anticipated him.

"Here he is lying on the sofa! What do you want?"

This familiar "what do you want" seemed to cut the ground from the

feet of the pompous gentleman. He was turning to Razumihin, but checked

himself in time and turned to Zossimov again.

"This is Raskolnikov," mumbled Zossimov, nodding towards him. Then he

gave a prolonged yawn, opening his mouth as wide as possible. Then he

lazily put his hand into his waistcoat-pocket, pulled out a huge gold

watch in a round hunter's case, opened it, looked at it and as slowly

and lazily proceeded to put it back.

Raskolnikov himself lay without speaking, on his back, gazing

persistently, though without understanding, at the stranger. Now that

his face was turned away from the strange flower on the paper, it

was extremely pale and wore a look of anguish, as though he had just

undergone an agonising operation or just been taken from the rack. But

the new-comer gradually began to arouse his attention, then his wonder,

then suspicion and even alarm. When Zossimov said "This is Raskolnikov"

he jumped up quickly, sat on the sofa and with an almost defiant, but

weak and breaking, voice articulated:

"Yes, I am Raskolnikov! What do you want?"

The visitor scrutinised him and pronounced impressively:

"Pyotr Petrovitch Luzhin. I believe I have reason to hope that my name

is not wholly unknown to you?"

But Raskolnikov, who had expected something quite different, gazed

blankly and dreamily at him, making no reply, as though he heard the

name of Pyotr Petrovitch for the first time.

"Is it possible that you can up to the present have received no

information?" asked Pyotr Petrovitch, somewhat disconcerted.

In reply Raskolnikov sank languidly back on the pillow, put his hands

behind his head and gazed at the ceiling. A look of dismay came into

Luzhin's face. Zossimov and Razumihin stared at him more inquisitively

than ever, and at last he showed unmistakable signs of embarrassment.

"I had presumed and calculated," he faltered, "that a letter posted more

than ten days, if not a fortnight ago..."

"I say, why are you standing in the doorway?" Razumihin interrupted

suddenly. "If you've something to say, sit down. Nastasya and you are so

crowded. Nastasya, make room. Here's a chair, thread your way in!"

He moved his chair back from the table, made a little space between the

table and his knees, and waited in a rather cramped position for the

visitor to "thread his way in." The minute was so chosen that it was

impossible to refuse, and the visitor squeezed his way through, hurrying

and stumbling. Reaching the chair, he sat down, looking suspiciously at

Razumihin.

"No need to be nervous," the latter blurted out. "Rodya has been ill for

the last five days and delirious for three, but now he is recovering and

has got an appetite. This is his doctor, who has just had a look at him.

I am a comrade of Rodya's, like him, formerly a student, and now I am

nursing him; so don't you take any notice of us, but go on with your

business."

"Thank you. But shall I not disturb the invalid by my presence and

conversation?" Pyotr Petrovitch asked of Zossimov.

"N-no," mumbled Zossimov; "you may amuse him." He yawned again.

"He has been conscious a long time, since the morning," went on

Razumihin, whose familiarity seemed so much like unaffected good-nature

that Pyotr Petrovitch began to be more cheerful, partly, perhaps,

because this shabby and impudent person had introduced himself as a

student.

"Your mamma," began Luzhin.

"Hm!" Razumihin cleared his throat loudly. Luzhin looked at him

inquiringly.

"That's all right, go on."

Luzhin shrugged his shoulders.

"Your mamma had commenced a letter to you while I was sojourning in

her neighbourhood. On my arrival here I purposely allowed a few days to

elapse before coming to see you, in order that I might be fully

assured that you were in full possession of the tidings; but now, to my

astonishment..."

"I know, I know!" Raskolnikov cried suddenly with impatient vexation.

"So you are the _fiance_? I know, and that's enough!"

There was no doubt about Pyotr Petrovitch's being offended this time,

but he said nothing. He made a violent effort to understand what it all

meant. There was a moment's silence.

Meanwhile Raskolnikov, who had turned a little towards him when he

answered, began suddenly staring at him again with marked curiosity, as

though he had not had a good look at him yet, or as though something

new had struck him; he rose from his pillow on purpose to stare at

him. There certainly was something peculiar in Pyotr Petrovitch's whole

appearance, something which seemed to justify the title of "fiance" so

unceremoniously applied to him. In the first place, it was evident, far

too much so indeed, that Pyotr Petrovitch had made eager use of his few

days in the capital to get himself up and rig himself out in expectation

of his betrothed--a perfectly innocent and permissible proceeding,

indeed. Even his own, perhaps too complacent, consciousness of the

agreeable improvement in his appearance might have been forgiven in such

circumstances, seeing that Pyotr Petrovitch had taken up the role of

fiance. All his clothes were fresh from the tailor's and were all

right, except for being too new and too distinctly appropriate. Even

the stylish new round hat had the same significance. Pyotr Petrovitch

treated it too respectfully and held it too carefully in his hands. The

exquisite pair of lavender gloves, real Louvain, told the same tale,

if only from the fact of his not wearing them, but carrying them in

his hand for show. Light and youthful colours predominated in Pyotr

Petrovitch's attire. He wore a charming summer jacket of a fawn shade,

light thin trousers, a waistcoat of the same, new and fine linen, a

cravat of the lightest cambric with pink stripes on it, and the best

of it was, this all suited Pyotr Petrovitch. His very fresh and even

handsome face looked younger than his forty-five years at all times.

His dark, mutton-chop whiskers made an agreeable setting on both sides,

growing thickly upon his shining, clean-shaven chin. Even his hair,

touched here and there with grey, though it had been combed and curled

at a hairdresser's, did not give him a stupid appearance, as curled hair

usually does, by inevitably suggesting a German on his wedding-day.

If there really was something unpleasing and repulsive in his rather

good-looking and imposing countenance, it was due to quite other

causes. After scanning Mr. Luzhin unceremoniously, Raskolnikov smiled

malignantly, sank back on the pillow and stared at the ceiling as

before.

But Mr. Luzhin hardened his heart and seemed to determine to take no

notice of their oddities.

"I feel the greatest regret at finding you in this situation," he began,

again breaking the silence with an effort. "If I had been aware of your

illness I should have come earlier. But you know what business is. I

have, too, a very important legal affair in the Senate, not to mention

other preoccupations which you may well conjecture. I am expecting your

mamma and sister any minute."

Raskolnikov made a movement and seemed about to speak; his face showed

some excitement. Pyotr Petrovitch paused, waited, but as nothing

followed, he went on:

"... Any minute. I have found a lodging for them on their arrival."

"Where?" asked Raskolnikov weakly.

"Very near here, in Bakaleyev's house."

"That's in Voskresensky," put in Razumihin. "There are two storeys of

rooms, let by a merchant called Yushin; I've been there."

"Yes, rooms..."

"A disgusting place--filthy, stinking and, what's more, of doubtful

character. Things have happened there, and there are all sorts of queer

people living there. And I went there about a scandalous business. It's

cheap, though..."

"I could not, of course, find out so much about it, for I am a stranger

in Petersburg myself," Pyotr Petrovitch replied huffily. "However, the

two rooms are exceedingly clean, and as it is for so short a time...

I have already taken a permanent, that is, our future flat," he said,

addressing Raskolnikov, "and I am having it done up. And meanwhile I am

myself cramped for room in a lodging with my friend Andrey Semyonovitch

Lebeziatnikov, in the flat of Madame Lippevechsel; it was he who told me

of Bakaleyev's house, too..."

"Lebeziatnikov?" said Raskolnikov slowly, as if recalling something.

"Yes, Andrey Semyonovitch Lebeziatnikov, a clerk in the Ministry. Do you

know him?"

"Yes... no," Raskolnikov answered.

"Excuse me, I fancied so from your inquiry. I was once his guardian....

A very nice young man and advanced. I like to meet young people: one

learns new things from them." Luzhin looked round hopefully at them all.

"How do you mean?" asked Razumihin.

"In the most serious and essential matters," Pyotr Petrovitch replied,

as though delighted at the question. "You see, it's ten years since I

visited Petersburg. All the novelties, reforms, ideas have reached us in

the provinces, but to see it all more clearly one must be in Petersburg.

And it's my notion that you observe and learn most by watching the

younger generation. And I confess I am delighted..."

"At what?"

"Your question is a wide one. I may be mistaken, but I fancy I find

clearer views, more, so to say, criticism, more practicality..."

"That's true," Zossimov let drop.

"Nonsense! There's no practicality." Razumihin flew at him.

"Practicality is a difficult thing to find; it does not drop down from

heaven. And for the last two hundred years we have been divorced from

all practical life. Ideas, if you like, are fermenting," he said to

Pyotr Petrovitch, "and desire for good exists, though it's in a childish

form, and honesty you may find, although there are crowds of brigands.

Anyway, there's no practicality. Practicality goes well shod."

"I don't agree with you," Pyotr Petrovitch replied, with evident

enjoyment. "Of course, people do get carried away and make mistakes,

but one must have indulgence; those mistakes are merely evidence of

enthusiasm for the cause and of abnormal external environment. If little

has been done, the time has been but short; of means I will not speak.

It's my personal view, if you care to know, that something has been

accomplished already. New valuable ideas, new valuable works are

circulating in the place of our old dreamy and romantic authors.

Literature is taking a maturer form, many injurious prejudice have been

rooted up and turned into ridicule.... In a word, we have cut ourselves

off irrevocably from the past, and that, to my thinking, is a great

thing..."

"He's learnt it by heart to show off!" Raskolnikov pronounced suddenly.

"What?" asked Pyotr Petrovitch, not catching his words; but he received

no reply.

"That's all true," Zossimov hastened to interpose.

"Isn't it so?" Pyotr Petrovitch went on, glancing affably at Zossimov.

"You must admit," he went on, addressing Razumihin with a shade of

triumph and superciliousness--he almost added "young man"--"that there

is an advance, or, as they say now, progress in the name of science and

economic truth..."

"A commonplace."

"No, not a commonplace! Hitherto, for instance, if I were told, 'love

thy neighbour,' what came of it?" Pyotr Petrovitch went on, perhaps with

excessive haste. "It came to my tearing my coat in half to share with my

neighbour and we both were left half naked. As a Russian proverb has

it, 'Catch several hares and you won't catch one.' Science now tells

us, love yourself before all men, for everything in the world rests on

self-interest. You love yourself and manage your own affairs properly

and your coat remains whole. Economic truth adds that the better private

affairs are organised in society--the more whole coats, so to say--the

firmer are its foundations and the better is the common welfare

organised too. Therefore, in acquiring wealth solely and exclusively for

myself, I am acquiring, so to speak, for all, and helping to bring to

pass my neighbour's getting a little more than a torn coat; and that not

from private, personal liberality, but as a consequence of the general

advance. The idea is simple, but unhappily it has been a long time

reaching us, being hindered by idealism and sentimentality. And yet it

would seem to want very little wit to perceive it..."

"Excuse me, I've very little wit myself," Razumihin cut in sharply,

"and so let us drop it. I began this discussion with an object, but I've

grown so sick during the last three years of this chattering to amuse

oneself, of this incessant flow of commonplaces, always the same, that,

by Jove, I blush even when other people talk like that. You are in a

hurry, no doubt, to exhibit your acquirements; and I don't blame you,

that's quite pardonable. I only wanted to find out what sort of man you

are, for so many unscrupulous people have got hold of the progressive

cause of late and have so distorted in their own interests everything

they touched, that the whole cause has been dragged in the mire. That's

enough!"

"Excuse me, sir," said Luzhin, affronted, and speaking with excessive

dignity. "Do you mean to suggest so unceremoniously that I too..."

"Oh, my dear sir... how could I?... Come, that's enough," Razumihin

concluded, and he turned abruptly to Zossimov to continue their previous

conversation.

Pyotr Petrovitch had the good sense to accept the disavowal. He made up

his mind to take leave in another minute or two.

"I trust our acquaintance," he said, addressing Raskolnikov, "may, upon

your recovery and in view of the circumstances of which you are aware,

become closer... Above all, I hope for your return to health..."

Raskolnikov did not even turn his head. Pyotr Petrovitch began getting

up from his chair.

"One of her customers must have killed her," Zossimov declared

positively.

"Not a doubt of it," replied Razumihin. "Porfiry doesn't give his

opinion, but is examining all who have left pledges with her there."

"Examining them?" Raskolnikov asked aloud.

"Yes. What then?"

"Nothing."

"How does he get hold of them?" asked Zossimov.

"Koch has given the names of some of them, other names are on the

wrappers of the pledges and some have come forward of themselves."

"It must have been a cunning and practised ruffian! The boldness of it!

The coolness!"

"That's just what it wasn't!" interposed Razumihin. "That's what throws

you all off the scent. But I maintain that he is not cunning, not

practised, and probably this was his first crime! The supposition that

it was a calculated crime and a cunning criminal doesn't work. Suppose

him to have been inexperienced, and it's clear that it was only a chance

that saved him--and chance may do anything. Why, he did not foresee

obstacles, perhaps! And how did he set to work? He took jewels worth

ten or twenty roubles, stuffing his pockets with them, ransacked the

old woman's trunks, her rags--and they found fifteen hundred roubles,

besides notes, in a box in the top drawer of the chest! He did not know

how to rob; he could only murder. It was his first crime, I assure you,

his first crime; he lost his head. And he got off more by luck than good

counsel!"

"You are talking of the murder of the old pawnbroker, I believe?" Pyotr

Petrovitch put in, addressing Zossimov. He was standing, hat and gloves

in hand, but before departing he felt disposed to throw off a few more

intellectual phrases. He was evidently anxious to make a favourable

impression and his vanity overcame his prudence.

"Yes. You've heard of it?"

"Oh, yes, being in the neighbourhood."

"Do you know the details?"

"I can't say that; but another circumstance interests me in the

case--the whole question, so to say. Not to speak of the fact that crime

has been greatly on the increase among the lower classes during the last

five years, not to speak of the cases of robbery and arson everywhere,

what strikes me as the strangest thing is that in the higher classes,

too, crime is increasing proportionately. In one place one hears of a

student's robbing the mail on the high road; in another place people of

good social position forge false banknotes; in Moscow of late a whole

gang has been captured who used to forge lottery tickets, and one of

the ringleaders was a lecturer in universal history; then our secretary

abroad was murdered from some obscure motive of gain.... And if this old

woman, the pawnbroker, has been murdered by someone of a higher class

in society--for peasants don't pawn gold trinkets--how are we to explain

this demoralisation of the civilised part of our society?"

"There are many economic changes," put in Zossimov.

"How are we to explain it?" Razumihin caught him up. "It might be

explained by our inveterate impracticality."

"How do you mean?"

"What answer had your lecturer in Moscow to make to the question why he

was forging notes? 'Everybody is getting rich one way or another, so I

want to make haste to get rich too.' I don't remember the exact words,

but the upshot was that he wants money for nothing, without waiting or

working! We've grown used to having everything ready-made, to walking

on crutches, to having our food chewed for us. Then the great hour

struck,[*] and every man showed himself in his true colours."

[*] The emancipation of the serfs in 1861 is meant.

--TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.

"But morality? And so to speak, principles..."

"But why do you worry about it?" Raskolnikov interposed suddenly. "It's

in accordance with your theory!"

"In accordance with my theory?"

"Why, carry out logically the theory you were advocating just now, and

it follows that people may be killed..."

"Upon my word!" cried Luzhin.

"No, that's not so," put in Zossimov.

Raskolnikov lay with a white face and twitching upper lip, breathing

painfully.

"There's a measure in all things," Luzhin went on superciliously.

"Economic ideas are not an incitement to murder, and one has but to

suppose..."

"And is it true," Raskolnikov interposed once more suddenly, again in a

voice quivering with fury and delight in insulting him, "is it true that

you told your _fiancee_... within an hour of her acceptance, that what

pleased you most... was that she was a beggar... because it was better

to raise a wife from poverty, so that you may have complete control over

her, and reproach her with your being her benefactor?"

"Upon my word," Luzhin cried wrathfully and irritably, crimson with

confusion, "to distort my words in this way! Excuse me, allow me to

assure you that the report which has reached you, or rather, let me say,

has been conveyed to you, has no foundation in truth, and I... suspect

who... in a word... this arrow... in a word, your mamma... She seemed

to me in other things, with all her excellent qualities, of a somewhat

high-flown and romantic way of thinking.... But I was a thousand miles

from supposing that she would misunderstand and misrepresent things in

so fanciful a way.... And indeed... indeed..."

"I tell you what," cried Raskolnikov, raising himself on his pillow and

fixing his piercing, glittering eyes upon him, "I tell you what."

"What?" Luzhin stood still, waiting with a defiant and offended face.

Silence lasted for some seconds.

"Why, if ever again... you dare to mention a single word... about my

mother... I shall send you flying downstairs!"

"What's the matter with you?" cried Razumihin.

"So that's how it is?" Luzhin turned pale and bit his lip. "Let me tell

you, sir," he began deliberately, doing his utmost to restrain himself

but breathing hard, "at the first moment I saw you you were ill-disposed

to me, but I remained here on purpose to find out more. I could forgive

a great deal in a sick man and a connection, but you... never after

this..."

"I am not ill," cried Raskolnikov.

"So much the worse..."

"Go to hell!"

But Luzhin was already leaving without finishing his speech, squeezing

between the table and the chair; Razumihin got up this time to let him

pass. Without glancing at anyone, and not even nodding to Zossimov, who

had for some time been making signs to him to let the sick man alone,

he went out, lifting his hat to the level of his shoulders to avoid

crushing it as he stooped to go out of the door. And even the curve of

his spine was expressive of the horrible insult he had received.

"How could you--how could you!" Razumihin said, shaking his head in

perplexity.

"Let me alone--let me alone all of you!" Raskolnikov cried in a frenzy.

"Will you ever leave off tormenting me? I am not afraid of you! I am

not afraid of anyone, anyone now! Get away from me! I want to be alone,

alone, alone!"

"Come along," said Zossimov, nodding to Razumihin.

"But we can't leave him like this!"

"Come along," Zossimov repeated insistently, and he went out. Razumihin

thought a minute and ran to overtake him.

"It might be worse not to obey him," said Zossimov on the stairs. "He

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

Date: 2014-12-29; view: 673