Dowd Siobhan - The London Eye Mystery 15 page

wrathfully at him.

"Own up that you believed it, yes, you did?"

"Not a bit of it, I believe it less than ever now," Zametov cried

hastily.

"I've caught my cock-sparrow! So you did believe it before, if now you

believe less than ever?"

"Not at all," cried Zametov, obviously embarrassed. "Have you been

frightening me so as to lead up to this?"

"You don't believe it then? What were you talking about behind my

back when I went out of the police-office? And why did the explosive

lieutenant question me after I fainted? Hey, there," he shouted to the

waiter, getting up and taking his cap, "how much?"

"Thirty copecks," the latter replied, running up.

"And there is twenty copecks for vodka. See what a lot of money!" he

held out his shaking hand to Zametov with notes in it. "Red notes and

blue, twenty-five roubles. Where did I get them? And where did my new

clothes come from? You know I had not a copeck. You've cross-examined my

landlady, I'll be bound.... Well, that's enough! _Assez cause!_ Till we

meet again!"

He went out, trembling all over from a sort of wild hysterical

sensation, in which there was an element of insufferable rapture. Yet he

was gloomy and terribly tired. His face was twisted as after a fit.

His fatigue increased rapidly. Any shock, any irritating sensation

stimulated and revived his energies at once, but his strength failed as

quickly when the stimulus was removed.

Zametov, left alone, sat for a long time in the same place, plunged in

thought. Raskolnikov had unwittingly worked a revolution in his brain on

a certain point and had made up his mind for him conclusively.

"Ilya Petrovitch is a blockhead," he decided.

Raskolnikov had hardly opened the door of the restaurant when he

stumbled against Razumihin on the steps. They did not see each other

till they almost knocked against each other. For a moment they stood

looking each other up and down. Razumihin was greatly astounded, then

anger, real anger gleamed fiercely in his eyes.

"So here you are!" he shouted at the top of his voice--"you ran away

from your bed! And here I've been looking for you under the sofa! We

went up to the garret. I almost beat Nastasya on your account. And here

he is after all. Rodya! What is the meaning of it? Tell me the whole

truth! Confess! Do you hear?"

"It means that I'm sick to death of you all and I want to be alone,"

Raskolnikov answered calmly.

"Alone? When you are not able to walk, when your face is as white as a

sheet and you are gasping for breath! Idiot!... What have you been doing

in the Palais de Cristal? Own up at once!"

"Let me go!" said Raskolnikov and tried to pass him. This was too much

for Razumihin; he gripped him firmly by the shoulder.

"Let you go? You dare tell me to let you go? Do you know what I'll do

with you directly? I'll pick you up, tie you up in a bundle, carry you

home under my arm and lock you up!"

"Listen, Razumihin," Raskolnikov began quietly, apparently calm--"can't

you see that I don't want your benevolence? A strange desire you have to

shower benefits on a man who... curses them, who feels them a burden in

fact! Why did you seek me out at the beginning of my illness? Maybe I

was very glad to die. Didn't I tell you plainly enough to-day that

you were torturing me, that I was... sick of you! You seem to want to

torture people! I assure you that all that is seriously hindering my

recovery, because it's continually irritating me. You saw Zossimov

went away just now to avoid irritating me. You leave me alone too, for

goodness' sake! What right have you, indeed, to keep me by force? Don't

you see that I am in possession of all my faculties now? How, how can

I persuade you not to persecute me with your kindness? I may be

ungrateful, I may be mean, only let me be, for God's sake, let me be!

Let me be, let me be!"

He began calmly, gloating beforehand over the venomous phrases he was

about to utter, but finished, panting for breath, in a frenzy, as he had

been with Luzhin.

Razumihin stood a moment, thought and let his hand drop.

"Well, go to hell then," he said gently and thoughtfully. "Stay," he

roared, as Raskolnikov was about to move. "Listen to me. Let me tell

you, that you are all a set of babbling, posing idiots! If you've any

little trouble you brood over it like a hen over an egg. And you are

plagiarists even in that! There isn't a sign of independent life in

you! You are made of spermaceti ointment and you've lymph in your veins

instead of blood. I don't believe in anyone of you! In any circumstances

the first thing for all of you is to be unlike a human being! Stop!" he

cried with redoubled fury, noticing that Raskolnikov was again making

a movement--"hear me out! You know I'm having a house-warming this

evening, I dare say they've arrived by now, but I left my uncle there--I

just ran in--to receive the guests. And if you weren't a fool, a common

fool, a perfect fool, if you were an original instead of a translation...

you see, Rodya, I recognise you're a clever fellow, but you're a

fool!--and if you weren't a fool you'd come round to me this evening

instead of wearing out your boots in the street! Since you have gone

out, there's no help for it! I'd give you a snug easy chair, my landlady

has one... a cup of tea, company.... Or you could lie on the sofa--any

way you would be with us.... Zossimov will be there too. Will you come?"

"No."

"R-rubbish!" Razumihin shouted, out of patience. "How do you know?

You can't answer for yourself! You don't know anything about it....

Thousands of times I've fought tooth and nail with people and run back

to them afterwards.... One feels ashamed and goes back to a man! So

remember, Potchinkov's house on the third storey...."

"Why, Mr. Razumihin, I do believe you'd let anybody beat you from sheer

benevolence."

"Beat? Whom? Me? I'd twist his nose off at the mere idea! Potchinkov's

house, 47, Babushkin's flat...."

"I shall not come, Razumihin." Raskolnikov turned and walked away.

"I bet you will," Razumihin shouted after him. "I refuse to know you if

you don't! Stay, hey, is Zametov in there?"

"Yes."

"Did you see him?"

"Yes."

"Talked to him?"

"Yes."

"What about? Confound you, don't tell me then. Potchinkov's house, 47,

Babushkin's flat, remember!"

Raskolnikov walked on and turned the corner into Sadovy Street.

Razumihin looked after him thoughtfully. Then with a wave of his hand he

went into the house but stopped short of the stairs.

"Confound it," he went on almost aloud. "He talked sensibly but yet...

I am a fool! As if madmen didn't talk sensibly! And this was just what

Zossimov seemed afraid of." He struck his finger on his forehead. "What

if... how could I let him go off alone? He may drown himself.... Ach,

what a blunder! I can't." And he ran back to overtake Raskolnikov, but

there was no trace of him. With a curse he returned with rapid steps to

the Palais de Cristal to question Zametov.

Raskolnikov walked straight to X---- Bridge, stood in the middle, and

leaning both elbows on the rail stared into the distance. On parting

with Razumihin, he felt so much weaker that he could scarcely reach this

place. He longed to sit or lie down somewhere in the street. Bending

over the water, he gazed mechanically at the last pink flush of the

sunset, at the row of houses growing dark in the gathering twilight, at

one distant attic window on the left bank, flashing as though on fire in

the last rays of the setting sun, at the darkening water of the canal,

and the water seemed to catch his attention. At last red circles flashed

before his eyes, the houses seemed moving, the passers-by, the canal

banks, the carriages, all danced before his eyes. Suddenly he started,

saved again perhaps from swooning by an uncanny and hideous sight. He

became aware of someone standing on the right side of him; he looked

and saw a tall woman with a kerchief on her head, with a long, yellow,

wasted face and red sunken eyes. She was looking straight at him, but

obviously she saw nothing and recognised no one. Suddenly she leaned her

right hand on the parapet, lifted her right leg over the railing, then

her left and threw herself into the canal. The filthy water parted and

swallowed up its victim for a moment, but an instant later the drowning

woman floated to the surface, moving slowly with the current, her head

and legs in the water, her skirt inflated like a balloon over her back.

"A woman drowning! A woman drowning!" shouted dozens of voices; people

ran up, both banks were thronged with spectators, on the bridge people

crowded about Raskolnikov, pressing up behind him.

"Mercy on it! it's our Afrosinya!" a woman cried tearfully close by.

"Mercy! save her! kind people, pull her out!"

"A boat, a boat" was shouted in the crowd. But there was no need of a

boat; a policeman ran down the steps to the canal, threw off his great

coat and his boots and rushed into the water. It was easy to reach her:

she floated within a couple of yards from the steps, he caught hold of

her clothes with his right hand and with his left seized a pole which a

comrade held out to him; the drowning woman was pulled out at once. They

laid her on the granite pavement of the embankment. She soon recovered

consciousness, raised her head, sat up and began sneezing and coughing,

stupidly wiping her wet dress with her hands. She said nothing.

"She's drunk herself out of her senses," the same woman's voice wailed

at her side. "Out of her senses. The other day she tried to hang

herself, we cut her down. I ran out to the shop just now, left my little

girl to look after her--and here she's in trouble again! A neighbour,

gentleman, a neighbour, we live close by, the second house from the end,

see yonder...."

The crowd broke up. The police still remained round the woman, someone

mentioned the police station.... Raskolnikov looked on with a strange

sensation of indifference and apathy. He felt disgusted. "No, that's

loathsome... water... it's not good enough," he muttered to himself.

"Nothing will come of it," he added, "no use to wait. What about the

police office...? And why isn't Zametov at the police office? The police

office is open till ten o'clock...." He turned his back to the railing

and looked about him.

"Very well then!" he said resolutely; he moved from the bridge and

walked in the direction of the police office. His heart felt hollow and

empty. He did not want to think. Even his depression had passed, there

was not a trace now of the energy with which he had set out "to make an

end of it all." Complete apathy had succeeded to it.

"Well, it's a way out of it," he thought, walking slowly and listlessly

along the canal bank. "Anyway I'll make an end, for I want to.... But

is it a way out? What does it matter! There'll be the square yard of

space--ha! But what an end! Is it really the end? Shall I tell them or

not? Ah... damn! How tired I am! If I could find somewhere to sit or lie

down soon! What I am most ashamed of is its being so stupid. But I don't

care about that either! What idiotic ideas come into one's head."

To reach the police office he had to go straight forward and take the

second turning to the left. It was only a few paces away. But at the

first turning he stopped and, after a minute's thought, turned into a

side street and went two streets out of his way, possibly without any

object, or possibly to delay a minute and gain time. He walked, looking

at the ground; suddenly someone seemed to whisper in his ear; he lifted

his head and saw that he was standing at the very gate of _the_ house.

He had not passed it, he had not been near it since _that_ evening.

An overwhelming, unaccountable prompting drew him on. He went into the

house, passed through the gateway, then into the first entrance on the

right, and began mounting the familiar staircase to the fourth storey.

The narrow, steep staircase was very dark. He stopped at each landing

and looked round him with curiosity; on the first landing the framework

of the window had been taken out. "That wasn't so then," he thought.

Here was the flat on the second storey where Nikolay and Dmitri had been

working. "It's shut up and the door newly painted. So it's to let." Then

the third storey and the fourth. "Here!" He was perplexed to find the

door of the flat wide open. There were men there, he could hear voices;

he had not expected that. After brief hesitation he mounted the last

stairs and went into the flat. It, too, was being done up; there were

workmen in it. This seemed to amaze him; he somehow fancied that he

would find everything as he left it, even perhaps the corpses in the

same places on the floor. And now, bare walls, no furniture; it seemed

strange. He walked to the window and sat down on the window-sill. There

were two workmen, both young fellows, but one much younger than the

other. They were papering the walls with a new white paper covered with

lilac flowers, instead of the old, dirty, yellow one. Raskolnikov for

some reason felt horribly annoyed by this. He looked at the new paper

with dislike, as though he felt sorry to have it all so changed.

The workmen had obviously stayed beyond their time and now they were

hurriedly rolling up their paper and getting ready to go home. They took

no notice of Raskolnikov's coming in; they were talking. Raskolnikov

folded his arms and listened.

"She comes to me in the morning," said the elder to the younger, "very

early, all dressed up. 'Why are you preening and prinking?' says I. 'I

am ready to do anything to please you, Tit Vassilitch!' That's a way of

going on! And she dressed up like a regular fashion book!"

"And what is a fashion book?" the younger one asked. He obviously

regarded the other as an authority.

"A fashion book is a lot of pictures, coloured, and they come to the

tailors here every Saturday, by post from abroad, to show folks how

to dress, the male sex as well as the female. They're pictures. The

gentlemen are generally wearing fur coats and for the ladies' fluffles,

they're beyond anything you can fancy."

"There's nothing you can't find in Petersburg," the younger cried

enthusiastically, "except father and mother, there's everything!"

"Except them, there's everything to be found, my boy," the elder

declared sententiously.

Raskolnikov got up and walked into the other room where the strong box,

the bed, and the chest of drawers had been; the room seemed to him very

tiny without furniture in it. The paper was the same; the paper in the

corner showed where the case of ikons had stood. He looked at it and

went to the window. The elder workman looked at him askance.

"What do you want?" he asked suddenly.

Instead of answering Raskolnikov went into the passage and pulled the

bell. The same bell, the same cracked note. He rang it a second and

a third time; he listened and remembered. The hideous and agonisingly

fearful sensation he had felt then began to come back more and more

vividly. He shuddered at every ring and it gave him more and more

satisfaction.

"Well, what do you want? Who are you?" the workman shouted, going out to

him. Raskolnikov went inside again.

"I want to take a flat," he said. "I am looking round."

"It's not the time to look at rooms at night! and you ought to come up

with the porter."

"The floors have been washed, will they be painted?" Raskolnikov went

on. "Is there no blood?"

"What blood?"

"Why, the old woman and her sister were murdered here. There was a

perfect pool there."

"But who are you?" the workman cried, uneasy.

"Who am I?"

"Yes."

"You want to know? Come to the police station, I'll tell you."

The workmen looked at him in amazement.

"It's time for us to go, we are late. Come along, Alyoshka. We must lock

up," said the elder workman.

"Very well, come along," said Raskolnikov indifferently, and going

out first, he went slowly downstairs. "Hey, porter," he cried in the

gateway.

At the entrance several people were standing, staring at the passers-by;

the two porters, a peasant woman, a man in a long coat and a few others.

Raskolnikov went straight up to them.

"What do you want?" asked one of the porters.

"Have you been to the police office?"

"I've just been there. What do you want?"

"Is it open?"

"Of course."

"Is the assistant there?"

"He was there for a time. What do you want?"

Raskolnikov made no reply, but stood beside them lost in thought.

"He's been to look at the flat," said the elder workman, coming forward.

"Which flat?"

"Where we are at work. 'Why have you washed away the blood?' says he.

'There has been a murder here,' says he, 'and I've come to take it.'

And he began ringing at the bell, all but broke it. 'Come to the police

station,' says he. 'I'll tell you everything there.' He wouldn't leave

us."

The porter looked at Raskolnikov, frowning and perplexed.

"Who are you?" he shouted as impressively as he could.

"I am Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov, formerly a student, I live in

Shil's house, not far from here, flat Number 14, ask the porter, he

knows me." Raskolnikov said all this in a lazy, dreamy voice, not

turning round, but looking intently into the darkening street.

"Why have you been to the flat?"

"To look at it."

"What is there to look at?"

"Take him straight to the police station," the man in the long coat

jerked in abruptly.

Raskolnikov looked intently at him over his shoulder and said in the

same slow, lazy tones:

"Come along."

"Yes, take him," the man went on more confidently. "Why was he going

into _that_, what's in his mind, eh?"

"He's not drunk, but God knows what's the matter with him," muttered the

workman.

"But what do you want?" the porter shouted again, beginning to get angry

in earnest--"Why are you hanging about?"

"You funk the police station then?" said Raskolnikov jeeringly.

"How funk it? Why are you hanging about?"

"He's a rogue!" shouted the peasant woman.

"Why waste time talking to him?" cried the other porter, a huge peasant

in a full open coat and with keys on his belt. "Get along! He is a rogue

and no mistake. Get along!"

And seizing Raskolnikov by the shoulder he flung him into the street. He

lurched forward, but recovered his footing, looked at the spectators in

silence and walked away.

"Strange man!" observed the workman.

"There are strange folks about nowadays," said the woman.

"You should have taken him to the police station all the same," said the

man in the long coat.

"Better have nothing to do with him," decided the big porter. "A regular

rogue! Just what he wants, you may be sure, but once take him up, you

won't get rid of him.... We know the sort!"

"Shall I go there or not?" thought Raskolnikov, standing in the middle

of the thoroughfare at the cross-roads, and he looked about him, as

though expecting from someone a decisive word. But no sound came, all

was dead and silent like the stones on which he walked, dead to him, to

him alone.... All at once at the end of the street, two hundred yards

away, in the gathering dusk he saw a crowd and heard talk and shouts.

In the middle of the crowd stood a carriage.... A light gleamed in the

middle of the street. "What is it?" Raskolnikov turned to the right

and went up to the crowd. He seemed to clutch at everything and smiled

coldly when he recognised it, for he had fully made up his mind to go to

the police station and knew that it would all soon be over.

CHAPTER VII

An elegant carriage stood in the middle of the road with a pair of

spirited grey horses; there was no one in it, and the coachman had got

off his box and stood by; the horses were being held by the bridle....

A mass of people had gathered round, the police standing in front. One

of them held a lighted lantern which he was turning on something lying

close to the wheels. Everyone was talking, shouting, exclaiming; the

coachman seemed at a loss and kept repeating:

"What a misfortune! Good Lord, what a misfortune!"

Raskolnikov pushed his way in as far as he could, and succeeded at last

in seeing the object of the commotion and interest. On the ground a

man who had been run over lay apparently unconscious, and covered with

blood; he was very badly dressed, but not like a workman. Blood was

flowing from his head and face; his face was crushed, mutilated and

disfigured. He was evidently badly injured.

"Merciful heaven!" wailed the coachman, "what more could I do? If I'd

been driving fast or had not shouted to him, but I was going quietly,

not in a hurry. Everyone could see I was going along just like everybody

else. A drunken man can't walk straight, we all know.... I saw him

crossing the street, staggering and almost falling. I shouted again

and a second and a third time, then I held the horses in, but he fell

straight under their feet! Either he did it on purpose or he was very

tipsy.... The horses are young and ready to take fright... they started,

he screamed... that made them worse. That's how it happened!"

"That's just how it was," a voice in the crowd confirmed.

"He shouted, that's true, he shouted three times," another voice

declared.

"Three times it was, we all heard it," shouted a third.

But the coachman was not very much distressed and frightened. It was

evident that the carriage belonged to a rich and important person who

was awaiting it somewhere; the police, of course, were in no little

anxiety to avoid upsetting his arrangements. All they had to do was to

take the injured man to the police station and the hospital. No one knew

his name.

Meanwhile Raskolnikov had squeezed in and stooped closer over him. The

lantern suddenly lighted up the unfortunate man's face. He recognised

him.

"I know him! I know him!" he shouted, pushing to the front. "It's a

government clerk retired from the service, Marmeladov. He lives close

by in Kozel's house.... Make haste for a doctor! I will pay, see?" He

pulled money out of his pocket and showed it to the policeman. He was in

violent agitation.

The police were glad that they had found out who the man was.

Raskolnikov gave his own name and address, and, as earnestly as if it

had been his father, he besought the police to carry the unconscious

Marmeladov to his lodging at once.

"Just here, three houses away," he said eagerly, "the house belongs to

Kozel, a rich German. He was going home, no doubt drunk. I know him,

he is a drunkard. He has a family there, a wife, children, he has one

daughter.... It will take time to take him to the hospital, and there is

sure to be a doctor in the house. I'll pay, I'll pay! At least he will

be looked after at home... they will help him at once. But he'll die

before you get him to the hospital." He managed to slip something

unseen into the policeman's hand. But the thing was straightforward

and legitimate, and in any case help was closer here. They raised the

injured man; people volunteered to help.

Kozel's house was thirty yards away. Raskolnikov walked behind,

carefully holding Marmeladov's head and showing the way.

"This way, this way! We must take him upstairs head foremost. Turn

round! I'll pay, I'll make it worth your while," he muttered.

Katerina Ivanovna had just begun, as she always did at every free

moment, walking to and fro in her little room from window to stove and

back again, with her arms folded across her chest, talking to herself

and coughing. Of late she had begun to talk more than ever to her eldest

girl, Polenka, a child of ten, who, though there was much she did not

understand, understood very well that her mother needed her, and so

always watched her with her big clever eyes and strove her utmost

to appear to understand. This time Polenka was undressing her little

brother, who had been unwell all day and was going to bed. The boy was

waiting for her to take off his shirt, which had to be washed at night.

He was sitting straight and motionless on a chair, with a silent,

serious face, with his legs stretched out straight before him--heels

together and toes turned out.

He was listening to what his mother was saying to his sister, sitting

Date: 2014-12-29; view: 573