CUSTOMS AND TRADITIONS OF GREAT BRITAIN 18 page 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.
"Well, what about the man who was run over? I interrupted you!"
Razumihin cried hastily.
"What?" Raskolnikov seemed to wake up. "Oh... I got spattered with
blood helping to carry him to his lodging. By the way, mamma, I did an
unpardonable thing yesterday. I was literally out of my mind. I gave
away all the money you sent me... to his wife for the funeral. She's
a widow now, in consumption, a poor creature... three little children,
starving... nothing in the house... there's a daughter, too... perhaps
you'd have given it yourself if you'd seen them. But I had no right to
do it I admit, especially as I knew how you needed the money yourself.
To help others one must have the right to do it, or else _Crevez,
chiens, si vous n'etes pas contents_." He laughed, "That's right, isn't
it, Dounia?"
"No, it's not," answered Dounia firmly.
"Bah! you, too, have ideals," he muttered, looking at her almost with
hatred, and smiling sarcastically. "I ought to have considered that....
Well, that's praiseworthy, and it's better for you... and if you reach a
line you won't overstep, you will be unhappy... and if you overstep it,
maybe you will be still unhappier.... But all that's nonsense," he added
irritably, vexed at being carried away. "I only meant to say that I beg
your forgiveness, mother," he concluded, shortly and abruptly.
"That's enough, Rodya, I am sure that everything you do is very good,"
said his mother, delighted.
"Don't be too sure," he answered, twisting his mouth into a smile.
A silence followed. There was a certain constraint in all this
conversation, and in the silence, and in the reconciliation, and in the
forgiveness, and all were feeling it.
"It is as though they were afraid of me," Raskolnikov was thinking
to himself, looking askance at his mother and sister. Pulcheria
Alexandrovna was indeed growing more timid the longer she kept silent.
Date: 2014-12-29; view: 689
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