CUSTOMS AND TRADITIONS OF GREAT BRITAIN 28 page to place and fussily making Raskolnikov sit down. "There's no hurry,
there's no hurry, it's all nonsense. Oh, no, I'm very glad you've come
to see me at last... I look upon you simply as a visitor. And as for
my confounded laughter, please excuse it, Rodion Romanovitch. Rodion
Romanovitch? That is your name?... It's my nerves, you tickled me
so with your witty observation; I assure you, sometimes I shake with
laughter like an india-rubber ball for half an hour at a time.... I'm
often afraid of an attack of paralysis. Do sit down. Please do, or I
shall think you are angry..."
Raskolnikov did not speak; he listened, watching him, still frowning
angrily. He did sit down, but still held his cap.
"I must tell you one thing about myself, my dear Rodion Romanovitch,"
Porfiry Petrovitch continued, moving about the room and again avoiding
his visitor's eyes. "You see, I'm a bachelor, a man of no consequence
and not used to society; besides, I have nothing before me, I'm set, I'm
running to seed and... and have you noticed, Rodion Romanovitch, that in
our Petersburg circles, if two clever men meet who are not intimate, but
respect each other, like you and me, it takes them half an hour before
they can find a subject for conversation--they are dumb, they sit
opposite each other and feel awkward. Everyone has subjects of
conversation, ladies for instance... people in high society always have
their subjects of conversation, _c'est de rigueur_, but people of the
middle sort like us, thinking people that is, are always tongue-tied
and awkward. What is the reason of it? Whether it is the lack of public
interest, or whether it is we are so honest we don't want to deceive one
another, I don't know. What do you think? Do put down your cap, it
looks as if you were just going, it makes me uncomfortable... I am so
delighted..."
Raskolnikov put down his cap and continued listening in silence with
a serious frowning face to the vague and empty chatter of Porfiry
Petrovitch. "Does he really want to distract my attention with his silly
babble?"
"I can't offer you coffee here; but why not spend five minutes with a
friend?" Porfiry pattered on, "and you know all these official
duties... please don't mind my running up and down, excuse it, my dear
fellow, I am very much afraid of offending you, but exercise is
absolutely indispensable for me. I'm always sitting and so glad to be
moving about for five minutes... I suffer from my sedentary life... I
always intend to join a gymnasium; they say that officials of all ranks,
even Privy Councillors, may be seen skipping gaily there; there you have
it, modern science... yes, yes.... But as for my duties here, inquiries
and all such formalities... you mentioned inquiries yourself just now...
I assure you these interrogations are sometimes more embarrassing for
the interrogator than for the interrogated.... You made the observation
yourself just now very aptly and wittily." (Raskolnikov had made no
observation of the kind.) "One gets into a muddle! A regular muddle! One
keeps harping on the same note, like a drum! There is to be a reform and
we shall be called by a different name, at least, he-he-he! And as for
our legal tradition, as you so wittily called it, I thoroughly agree
with you. Every prisoner on trial, even the rudest peasant, knows that
they begin by disarming him with irrelevant questions (as you so happily
put it) and then deal him a knock-down blow, he-he-he!--your felicitous
comparison, he-he! So you really imagined that I meant by 'government
quarters'... he-he! You are an ironical person. Come. I won't go on! Ah,
by the way, yes! One word leads to another. You spoke of formality just
now, apropos of the inquiry, you know. But what's the use of formality?
In many cases it's nonsense. Sometimes one has a friendly chat and gets
a good deal more out of it. One can always fall back on formality, allow
me to assure you. And after all, what does it amount to? An examining
lawyer cannot be bounded by formality at every step. The work of
investigation is, so to speak, a free art in its own way, he-he-he!"
Porfiry Petrovitch took breath a moment. He had simply babbled on
uttering empty phrases, letting slip a few enigmatic words and again
reverting to incoherence. He was almost running about the room, moving
his fat little legs quicker and quicker, looking at the ground, with his
right hand behind his back, while with his left making gesticulations
that were extraordinarily incongruous with his words. Raskolnikov
suddenly noticed that as he ran about the room he seemed twice to stop
for a moment near the door, as though he were listening.
"Is he expecting anything?"
"You are certainly quite right about it," Porfiry began gaily, looking
with extraordinary simplicity at Raskolnikov (which startled him and
instantly put him on his guard); "certainly quite right in laughing so
wittily at our legal forms, he-he! Some of these elaborate psychological
methods are exceedingly ridiculous and perhaps useless, if one adheres
too closely to the forms. Yes... I am talking of forms again. Well, if
I recognise, or more strictly speaking, if I suspect someone or other to
be a criminal in any case entrusted to me... you're reading for the law,
of course, Rodion Romanovitch?"
"Yes, I was..."
"Well, then it is a precedent for you for the future--though don't
suppose I should venture to instruct you after the articles you publish
about crime! No, I simply make bold to state it by way of fact, if I
took this man or that for a criminal, why, I ask, should I worry him
prematurely, even though I had evidence against him? In one case I may
be bound, for instance, to arrest a man at once, but another may be in
quite a different position, you know, so why shouldn't I let him walk
about the town a bit? he-he-he! But I see you don't quite understand, so
I'll give you a clearer example. If I put him in prison too soon, I
may very likely give him, so to speak, moral support, he-he! You're
laughing?"
Raskolnikov had no idea of laughing. He was sitting with compressed
lips, his feverish eyes fixed on Porfiry Petrovitch's.
"Yet that is the case, with some types especially, for men are so
different. You say 'evidence'. Well, there may be evidence. But
evidence, you know, can generally be taken two ways. I am an examining
lawyer and a weak man, I confess it. I should like to make a proof, so
to say, mathematically clear. I should like to make a chain of evidence
such as twice two are four, it ought to be a direct, irrefutable proof!
And if I shut him up too soon--even though I might be convinced _he_
was the man, I should very likely be depriving myself of the means of
getting further evidence against him. And how? By giving him, so to
speak, a definite position, I shall put him out of suspense and set his
mind at rest, so that he will retreat into his shell. They say that at
Sevastopol, soon after Alma, the clever people were in a terrible fright
that the enemy would attack openly and take Sevastopol at once. But when
they saw that the enemy preferred a regular siege, they were delighted,
I am told and reassured, for the thing would drag on for two months at
least. You're laughing, you don't believe me again? Of course, you're
right, too. You're right, you're right. These are special cases, I
admit. But you must observe this, my dear Rodion Romanovitch, the
general case, the case for which all legal forms and rules are intended,
for which they are calculated and laid down in books, does not exist at
all, for the reason that every case, every crime, for instance, so soon
as it actually occurs, at once becomes a thoroughly special case and
sometimes a case unlike any that's gone before. Very comic cases of that
sort sometimes occur. If I leave one man quite alone, if I don't touch
him and don't worry him, but let him know or at least suspect every
moment that I know all about it and am watching him day and night, and
if he is in continual suspicion and terror, he'll be bound to lose his
head. He'll come of himself, or maybe do something which will make it as
plain as twice two are four--it's delightful. It may be so with a simple
peasant, but with one of our sort, an intelligent man cultivated on a
certain side, it's a dead certainty. For, my dear fellow, it's a very
important matter to know on what side a man is cultivated. And then
there are nerves, there are nerves, you have overlooked them! Why, they
are all sick, nervous and irritable!... And then how they all suffer
from spleen! That I assure you is a regular gold-mine for us. And it's
no anxiety to me, his running about the town free! Let him, let him walk
about for a bit! I know well enough that I've caught him and that he
won't escape me. Where could he escape to, he-he? Abroad, perhaps? A
Pole will escape abroad, but not here, especially as I am watching
and have taken measures. Will he escape into the depths of the country
perhaps? But you know, peasants live there, real rude Russian peasants.
A modern cultivated man would prefer prison to living with such
strangers as our peasants. He-he! But that's all nonsense, and on
the surface. It's not merely that he has nowhere to run to, he is
_psychologically_ unable to escape me, he-he! What an expression!
Through a law of nature he can't escape me if he had anywhere to go.
Have you seen a butterfly round a candle? That's how he will keep
circling and circling round me. Freedom will lose its attractions. He'll
begin to brood, he'll weave a tangle round himself, he'll worry himself
to death! What's more he will provide me with a mathematical proof--if I
only give him long enough interval.... And he'll keep circling round
me, getting nearer and nearer and then--flop! He'll fly straight into my
mouth and I'll swallow him, and that will be very amusing, he-he-he! You
don't believe me?"
Raskolnikov made no reply; he sat pale and motionless, still gazing with
the same intensity into Porfiry's face.
"It's a lesson," he thought, turning cold. "This is beyond the cat
playing with a mouse, like yesterday. He can't be showing off his power
with no motive... prompting me; he is far too clever for that... he must
have another object. What is it? It's all nonsense, my friend, you are
pretending, to scare me! You've no proofs and the man I saw had no
real existence. You simply want to make me lose my head, to work me up
beforehand and so to crush me. But you are wrong, you won't do it! But
why give me such a hint? Is he reckoning on my shattered nerves? No, my
friend, you are wrong, you won't do it even though you have some trap
for me... let us see what you have in store for me."
And he braced himself to face a terrible and unknown ordeal. At times
he longed to fall on Porfiry and strangle him. This anger was what he
dreaded from the beginning. He felt that his parched lips were flecked
with foam, his heart was throbbing. But he was still determined not to
speak till the right moment. He realised that this was the best
policy in his position, because instead of saying too much he would be
irritating his enemy by his silence and provoking him into speaking too
freely. Anyhow, this was what he hoped for.
"No, I see you don't believe me, you think I am playing a harmless joke
on you," Porfiry began again, getting more and more lively, chuckling
at every instant and again pacing round the room. "And to be sure you're
right: God has given me a figure that can awaken none but comic ideas in
other people; a buffoon; but let me tell you, and I repeat it, excuse
an old man, my dear Rodion Romanovitch, you are a man still young, so to
say, in your first youth and so you put intellect above everything, like
all young people. Playful wit and abstract arguments fascinate you and
that's for all the world like the old Austrian _Hof-kriegsrath_, as
far as I can judge of military matters, that is: on paper they'd beaten
Napoleon and taken him prisoner, and there in their study they worked it
all out in the cleverest fashion, but look you, General Mack surrendered
with all his army, he-he-he! I see, I see, Rodion Romanovitch, you are
laughing at a civilian like me, taking examples out of military history!
But I can't help it, it's my weakness. I am fond of military science.
And I'm ever so fond of reading all military histories. I've certainly
missed my proper career. I ought to have been in the army, upon my
word I ought. I shouldn't have been a Napoleon, but I might have been a
major, he-he! Well, I'll tell you the whole truth, my dear fellow, about
this _special case_, I mean: actual fact and a man's temperament, my
dear sir, are weighty matters and it's astonishing how they sometimes
deceive the sharpest calculation! I--listen to an old man--am speaking
seriously, Rodion Romanovitch" (as he said this Porfiry Petrovitch, who
was scarcely five-and-thirty, actually seemed to have grown old; even
his voice changed and he seemed to shrink together) "Moreover, I'm
a candid man... am I a candid man or not? What do you say? I fancy I
really am: I tell you these things for nothing and don't even expect a
reward for it, he-he! Well, to proceed, wit in my opinion is a splendid
thing, it is, so to say, an adornment of nature and a consolation of
life, and what tricks it can play! So that it sometimes is hard for a
poor examining lawyer to know where he is, especially when he's liable
to be carried away by his own fancy, too, for you know he is a man after
all! But the poor fellow is saved by the criminal's temperament, worse
luck for him! But young people carried away by their own wit don't think
of that 'when they overstep all obstacles,' as you wittily and cleverly
expressed it yesterday. He will lie--that is, the man who is a _special
case_, the incognito, and he will lie well, in the cleverest fashion;
you might think he would triumph and enjoy the fruits of his wit, but at
the most interesting, the most flagrant moment he will faint. Of course
there may be illness and a stuffy room as well, but anyway! Anyway he's
given us the idea! He lied incomparably, but he didn't reckon on his
temperament. That's what betrays him! Another time he will be carried
away by his playful wit into making fun of the man who suspects him, he
will turn pale as it were on purpose to mislead, but his paleness will
be _too natural_, too much like the real thing, again he has given us
an idea! Though his questioner may be deceived at first, he will think
differently next day if he is not a fool, and, of course, it is like
that at every step! He puts himself forward where he is not wanted,
speaks continually when he ought to keep silent, brings in all sorts of
allegorical allusions, he-he! Comes and asks why didn't you take me long
ago? he-he-he! And that can happen, you know, with the cleverest man,
the psychologist, the literary man. The temperament reflects everything
like a mirror! Gaze into it and admire what you see! But why are you so
pale, Rodion Romanovitch? Is the room stuffy? Shall I open the window?"
"Oh, don't trouble, please," cried Raskolnikov and he suddenly broke
into a laugh. "Please don't trouble."
Porfiry stood facing him, paused a moment and suddenly he too laughed.
Raskolnikov got up from the sofa, abruptly checking his hysterical
laughter.
"Porfiry Petrovitch," he began, speaking loudly and distinctly, though
his legs trembled and he could scarcely stand. "I see clearly at last
that you actually suspect me of murdering that old woman and her sister
Lizaveta. Let me tell you for my part that I am sick of this. If you
find that you have a right to prosecute me legally, to arrest me, then
prosecute me, arrest me. But I will not let myself be jeered at to my
face and worried..."
His lips trembled, his eyes glowed with fury and he could not restrain
his voice.
"I won't allow it!" he shouted, bringing his fist down on the table. "Do
you hear that, Porfiry Petrovitch? I won't allow it."
"Good heavens! What does it mean?" cried Porfiry Petrovitch, apparently
quite frightened. "Rodion Romanovitch, my dear fellow, what is the
matter with you?"
"I won't allow it," Raskolnikov shouted again.
"Hush, my dear man! They'll hear and come in. Just think, what could we
say to them?" Porfiry Petrovitch whispered in horror, bringing his face
close to Raskolnikov's.
"I won't allow it, I won't allow it," Raskolnikov repeated mechanically,
but he too spoke in a sudden whisper.
Porfiry turned quickly and ran to open the window.
"Some fresh air! And you must have some water, my dear fellow. You're
ill!" and he was running to the door to call for some when he found a
decanter of water in the corner. "Come, drink a little," he whispered,
rushing up to him with the decanter. "It will be sure to do you good."
Porfiry Petrovitch's alarm and sympathy were so natural that Raskolnikov
was silent and began looking at him with wild curiosity. He did not take
the water, however.
"Rodion Romanovitch, my dear fellow, you'll drive yourself out of your
mind, I assure you, ach, ach! Have some water, do drink a little."
He forced him to take the glass. Raskolnikov raised it mechanically to
his lips, but set it on the table again with disgust.
"Yes, you've had a little attack! You'll bring back your illness again,
my dear fellow," Porfiry Petrovitch cackled with friendly sympathy,
though he still looked rather disconcerted. "Good heavens, you must
take more care of yourself! Dmitri Prokofitch was here, came to see me
yesterday--I know, I know, I've a nasty, ironical temper, but what they
made of it!... Good heavens, he came yesterday after you'd been. We
dined and he talked and talked away, and I could only throw up my hands
in despair! Did he come from you? But do sit down, for mercy's sake, sit
down!"
"No, not from me, but I knew he went to you and why he went,"
Raskolnikov answered sharply.
"You knew?"
"I knew. What of it?"
"Why this, Rodion Romanovitch, that I know more than that about you;
I know about everything. I know how you went _to take a flat_ at night
when it was dark and how you rang the bell and asked about the blood, so
that the workmen and the porter did not know what to make of it. Yes, I
understand your state of mind at that time... but you'll drive yourself
mad like that, upon my word! You'll lose your head! You're full of
generous indignation at the wrongs you've received, first from destiny,
and then from the police officers, and so you rush from one thing to
another to force them to speak out and make an end of it all, because
you are sick of all this suspicion and foolishness. That's so, isn't
it? I have guessed how you feel, haven't I? Only in that way you'll
lose your head and Razumihin's, too; he's too _good_ a man for such
a position, you must know that. You are ill and he is good and your
illness is infectious for him... I'll tell you about it when you are
more yourself.... But do sit down, for goodness' sake. Please rest, you
look shocking, do sit down."
Raskolnikov sat down; he no longer shivered, he was hot all over. In
amazement he listened with strained attention to Porfiry Petrovitch who
still seemed frightened as he looked after him with friendly solicitude.
But he did not believe a word he said, though he felt a strange
inclination to believe. Porfiry's unexpected words about the flat had
utterly overwhelmed him. "How can it be, he knows about the flat then,"
he thought suddenly, "and he tells it me himself!"
"Yes, in our legal practice there was a case almost exactly similar, a
case of morbid psychology," Porfiry went on quickly. "A man confessed to
murder and how he kept it up! It was a regular hallucination; he brought
forward facts, he imposed upon everyone and why? He had been partly, but
only partly, unintentionally the cause of a murder and when he knew that
he had given the murderers the opportunity, he sank into dejection, it
got on his mind and turned his brain, he began imagining things and he
persuaded himself that he was the murderer. But at last the High Court
of Appeal went into it and the poor fellow was acquitted and put under
proper care. Thanks to the Court of Appeal! Tut-tut-tut! Why, my dear
fellow, you may drive yourself into delirium if you have the impulse
to work upon your nerves, to go ringing bells at night and asking about
blood! I've studied all this morbid psychology in my practice. A man
is sometimes tempted to jump out of a window or from a belfry. Just the
same with bell-ringing.... It's all illness, Rodion Romanovitch! You
have begun to neglect your illness. You should consult an experienced
doctor, what's the good of that fat fellow? You are lightheaded! You
were delirious when you did all this!"
For a moment Raskolnikov felt everything going round.
"Is it possible, is it possible," flashed through his mind, "that he is
still lying? He can't be, he can't be." He rejected that idea, feeling
to what a degree of fury it might drive him, feeling that that fury
might drive him mad.
"I was not delirious. I knew what I was doing," he cried, straining
every faculty to penetrate Porfiry's game, "I was quite myself, do you
hear?"
"Yes, I hear and understand. You said yesterday you were not delirious,
you were particularly emphatic about it! I understand all you can tell
me! A-ach!... Listen, Rodion Romanovitch, my dear fellow. If you were
actually a criminal, or were somehow mixed up in this damnable business,
would you insist that you were not delirious but in full possession
of your faculties? And so emphatically and persistently? Would it be
possible? Quite impossible, to my thinking. If you had anything on
your conscience, you certainly ought to insist that you were delirious.
That's so, isn't it?"
There was a note of slyness in this inquiry. Raskolnikov drew back on
the sofa as Porfiry bent over him and stared in silent perplexity at
him.
"Another thing about Razumihin--you certainly ought to have said that he
came of his own accord, to have concealed your part in it! But you don't
conceal it! You lay stress on his coming at your instigation."
Raskolnikov had not done so. A chill went down his back.
"You keep telling lies," he said slowly and weakly, twisting his lips
into a sickly smile, "you are trying again to show that you know all
my game, that you know all I shall say beforehand," he said, conscious
himself that he was not weighing his words as he ought. "You want to
frighten me... or you are simply laughing at me..."
He still stared at him as he said this and again there was a light of
intense hatred in his eyes.
"You keep lying," he said. "You know perfectly well that the best
policy for the criminal is to tell the truth as nearly as possible... to
conceal as little as possible. I don't believe you!"
"What a wily person you are!" Porfiry tittered, "there's no catching
you; you've a perfect monomania. So you don't believe me? But still you
do believe me, you believe a quarter; I'll soon make you believe the
whole, because I have a sincere liking for you and genuinely wish you
good."
Raskolnikov's lips trembled.
"Yes, I do," went on Porfiry, touching Raskolnikov's arm genially, "you
must take care of your illness. Besides, your mother and sister are here
now; you must think of them. You must soothe and comfort them and you do
nothing but frighten them..."
"What has that to do with you? How do you know it? What concern is it of
yours? You are keeping watch on me and want to let me know it?"
"Good heavens! Why, I learnt it all from you yourself! You don't
notice that in your excitement you tell me and others everything. From
Razumihin, too, I learnt a number of interesting details yesterday. No,
you interrupted me, but I must tell you that, for all your wit, your
suspiciousness makes you lose the common-sense view of things. To return
to bell-ringing, for instance. I, an examining lawyer, have betrayed a
precious thing like that, a real fact (for it is a fact worth having),
and you see nothing in it! Why, if I had the slightest suspicion of you,
should I have acted like that? No, I should first have disarmed your
suspicions and not let you see I knew of that fact, should have diverted
your attention and suddenly have dealt you a knock-down blow (your
expression) saying: 'And what were you doing, sir, pray, at ten or
nearly eleven at the murdered woman's flat and why did you ring the bell
and why did you ask about blood? And why did you invite the porters
to go with you to the police station, to the lieutenant?' That's how
I ought to have acted if I had a grain of suspicion of you. I ought to
have taken your evidence in due form, searched your lodging and perhaps
have arrested you, too... so I have no suspicion of you, since I have
not done that! But you can't look at it normally and you see nothing, I
say again."
Raskolnikov started so that Porfiry Petrovitch could not fail to
perceive it.
"You are lying all the while," he cried, "I don't know your object,
but you are lying. You did not speak like that just now and I cannot be
mistaken!"
"I am lying?" Porfiry repeated, apparently incensed, but preserving
a good-humoured and ironical face, as though he were not in the least
concerned at Raskolnikov's opinion of him. "I am lying... but how did
I treat you just now, I, the examining lawyer? Prompting you and giving
you every means for your defence; illness, I said, delirium, injury,
melancholy and the police officers and all the rest of it? Ah! He-he-he!
Though, indeed, all those psychological means of defence are not very
Date: 2014-12-29; view: 661
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