Dowd Siobhan - The London Eye Mystery 23 page tendencies. But I don't think there is any considerable danger here,
and you really need not be uneasy for they never go very far. Of course,
they might have a thrashing sometimes for letting their fancy run away
with them and to teach them their place, but no more; in fact, even
this isn't necessary as they castigate themselves, for they are very
conscientious: some perform this service for one another and others
chastise themselves with their own hands.... They will impose various
public acts of penitence upon themselves with a beautiful and edifying
effect; in fact you've nothing to be uneasy about.... It's a law of
nature."
"Well, you have certainly set my mind more at rest on that score; but
there's another thing worries me. Tell me, please, are there many people
who have the right to kill others, these extraordinary people? I am
ready to bow down to them, of course, but you must admit it's alarming
if there are a great many of them, eh?"
"Oh, you needn't worry about that either," Raskolnikov went on in the
same tone. "People with new ideas, people with the faintest capacity for
saying something _new_, are extremely few in number, extraordinarily
so in fact. One thing only is clear, that the appearance of all these
grades and sub-divisions of men must follow with unfailing regularity
some law of nature. That law, of course, is unknown at present, but I am
convinced that it exists, and one day may become known. The vast mass of
mankind is mere material, and only exists in order by some great effort,
by some mysterious process, by means of some crossing of races and
stocks, to bring into the world at last perhaps one man out of a
thousand with a spark of independence. One in ten thousand perhaps--I
speak roughly, approximately--is born with some independence, and with
still greater independence one in a hundred thousand. The man of genius
is one of millions, and the great geniuses, the crown of humanity,
appear on earth perhaps one in many thousand millions. In fact I have
not peeped into the retort in which all this takes place. But there
certainly is and must be a definite law, it cannot be a matter of
chance."
"Why, are you both joking?" Razumihin cried at last. "There you sit,
making fun of one another. Are you serious, Rodya?"
Raskolnikov raised his pale and almost mournful face and made no reply.
And the unconcealed, persistent, nervous, and _discourteous_ sarcasm of
Porfiry seemed strange to Razumihin beside that quiet and mournful face.
"Well, brother, if you are really serious... You are right, of course,
in saying that it's not new, that it's like what we've read and heard a
thousand times already; but what is really original in all this, and is
exclusively your own, to my horror, is that you sanction bloodshed
_in the name of conscience_, and, excuse my saying so, with such
fanaticism.... That, I take it, is the point of your article. But that
sanction of bloodshed _by conscience_ is to my mind... more terrible
than the official, legal sanction of bloodshed...."
"You are quite right, it is more terrible," Porfiry agreed.
"Yes, you must have exaggerated! There is some mistake, I shall read it.
You can't think that! I shall read it."
"All that is not in the article, there's only a hint of it," said
Raskolnikov.
"Yes, yes." Porfiry couldn't sit still. "Your attitude to crime is
pretty clear to me now, but... excuse me for my impertinence (I am
really ashamed to be worrying you like this), you see, you've removed
my anxiety as to the two grades getting mixed, but... there are various
practical possibilities that make me uneasy! What if some man or youth
imagines that he is a Lycurgus or Mahomet--a future one of course--and
suppose he begins to remove all obstacles.... He has some great
enterprise before him and needs money for it... and tries to get it...
do you see?"
Zametov gave a sudden guffaw in his corner. Raskolnikov did not even
raise his eyes to him.
"I must admit," he went on calmly, "that such cases certainly must
arise. The vain and foolish are particularly apt to fall into that
snare; young people especially."
"Yes, you see. Well then?"
"What then?" Raskolnikov smiled in reply; "that's not my fault. So it is
and so it always will be. He said just now (he nodded at Razumihin)
that I sanction bloodshed. Society is too well protected by prisons,
banishment, criminal investigators, penal servitude. There's no need to
be uneasy. You have but to catch the thief."
"And what if we do catch him?"
"Then he gets what he deserves."
"You are certainly logical. But what of his conscience?"
"Why do you care about that?"
"Simply from humanity."
"If he has a conscience he will suffer for his mistake. That will be his
punishment--as well as the prison."
"But the real geniuses," asked Razumihin frowning, "those who have
the right to murder? Oughtn't they to suffer at all even for the blood
they've shed?"
"Why the word _ought_? It's not a matter of permission or prohibition.
He will suffer if he is sorry for his victim. Pain and suffering are
always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The
really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth," he added
dreamily, not in the tone of the conversation.
He raised his eyes, looked earnestly at them all, smiled, and took his
cap. He was too quiet by comparison with his manner at his entrance, and
he felt this. Everyone got up.
"Well, you may abuse me, be angry with me if you like," Porfiry
Petrovitch began again, "but I can't resist. Allow me one little
question (I know I am troubling you). There is just one little notion I
want to express, simply that I may not forget it."
"Very good, tell me your little notion," Raskolnikov stood waiting, pale
and grave before him.
"Well, you see... I really don't know how to express it properly....
It's a playful, psychological idea.... When you were writing your
article, surely you couldn't have helped, he-he! fancying yourself...
just a little, an 'extraordinary' man, uttering a _new word_ in your
sense.... That's so, isn't it?"
"Quite possibly," Raskolnikov answered contemptuously.
Razumihin made a movement.
"And, if so, could you bring yourself in case of worldly difficulties
and hardship or for some service to humanity--to overstep obstacles?...
For instance, to rob and murder?"
And again he winked with his left eye, and laughed noiselessly just as
before.
"If I did I certainly should not tell you," Raskolnikov answered with
defiant and haughty contempt.
"No, I was only interested on account of your article, from a literary
point of view..."
"Foo! how obvious and insolent that is!" Raskolnikov thought with
repulsion.
"Allow me to observe," he answered dryly, "that I don't consider myself
a Mahomet or a Napoleon, nor any personage of that kind, and not being
one of them I cannot tell you how I should act."
"Oh, come, don't we all think ourselves Napoleons now in Russia?"
Porfiry Petrovitch said with alarming familiarity.
Something peculiar betrayed itself in the very intonation of his voice.
"Perhaps it was one of these future Napoleons who did for Alyona
Ivanovna last week?" Zametov blurted out from the corner.
Raskolnikov did not speak, but looked firmly and intently at Porfiry.
Razumihin was scowling gloomily. He seemed before this to be noticing
something. He looked angrily around. There was a minute of gloomy
silence. Raskolnikov turned to go.
"Are you going already?" Porfiry said amiably, holding out his hand with
excessive politeness. "Very, very glad of your acquaintance. As for your
request, have no uneasiness, write just as I told you, or, better still,
come to me there yourself in a day or two... to-morrow, indeed. I shall
be there at eleven o'clock for certain. We'll arrange it all; we'll have
a talk. As one of the last to be _there_, you might perhaps be able to
tell us something," he added with a most good-natured expression.
"You want to cross-examine me officially in due form?" Raskolnikov asked
sharply.
"Oh, why? That's not necessary for the present. You misunderstand me.
I lose no opportunity, you see, and... I've talked with all who had
pledges.... I obtained evidence from some of them, and you are the
last.... Yes, by the way," he cried, seemingly suddenly delighted, "I
just remember, what was I thinking of?" he turned to Razumihin, "you
were talking my ears off about that Nikolay... of course, I know, I know
very well," he turned to Raskolnikov, "that the fellow is innocent, but
what is one to do? We had to trouble Dmitri too.... This is the point,
this is all: when you went up the stairs it was past seven, wasn't it?"
"Yes," answered Raskolnikov, with an unpleasant sensation at the very
moment he spoke that he need not have said it.
"Then when you went upstairs between seven and eight, didn't you see in
a flat that stood open on a second storey, do you remember? two workmen
or at least one of them? They were painting there, didn't you notice
them? It's very, very important for them."
"Painters? No, I didn't see them," Raskolnikov answered slowly, as
though ransacking his memory, while at the same instant he was racking
every nerve, almost swooning with anxiety to conjecture as quickly as
possible where the trap lay and not to overlook anything. "No, I didn't
see them, and I don't think I noticed a flat like that open.... But on
the fourth storey" (he had mastered the trap now and was triumphant)
"I remember now that someone was moving out of the flat opposite Alyona
Ivanovna's.... I remember... I remember it clearly. Some porters
were carrying out a sofa and they squeezed me against the wall. But
painters... no, I don't remember that there were any painters, and I
don't think that there was a flat open anywhere, no, there wasn't."
"What do you mean?" Razumihin shouted suddenly, as though he had
reflected and realised. "Why, it was on the day of the murder the
painters were at work, and he was there three days before? What are you
asking?"
"Foo! I have muddled it!" Porfiry slapped himself on the forehead.
"Deuce take it! This business is turning my brain!" he addressed
Raskolnikov somewhat apologetically. "It would be such a great thing for
us to find out whether anyone had seen them between seven and eight at
the flat, so I fancied you could perhaps have told us something.... I
quite muddled it."
"Then you should be more careful," Razumihin observed grimly.
The last words were uttered in the passage. Porfiry Petrovitch saw them
to the door with excessive politeness.
They went out into the street gloomy and sullen, and for some steps they
did not say a word. Raskolnikov drew a deep breath.
CHAPTER VI
"I don't believe it, I can't believe it!" repeated Razumihin, trying in
perplexity to refute Raskolnikov's arguments.
They were by now approaching Bakaleyev's lodgings, where Pulcheria
Alexandrovna and Dounia had been expecting them a long while. Razumihin
kept stopping on the way in the heat of discussion, confused and excited
by the very fact that they were for the first time speaking openly about
_it_.
"Don't believe it, then!" answered Raskolnikov, with a cold, careless
smile. "You were noticing nothing as usual, but I was weighing every
word."
"You are suspicious. That is why you weighed their words... h'm...
certainly, I agree, Porfiry's tone was rather strange, and still
more that wretch Zametov!... You are right, there was something about
him--but why? Why?"
"He has changed his mind since last night."
"Quite the contrary! If they had that brainless idea, they would do
their utmost to hide it, and conceal their cards, so as to catch you
afterwards.... But it was all impudent and careless."
"If they had had facts--I mean, real facts--or at least grounds for
suspicion, then they would certainly have tried to hide their game,
in the hope of getting more (they would have made a search long ago
besides). But they have no facts, not one. It is all mirage--all
ambiguous. Simply a floating idea. So they try to throw me out by
impudence. And perhaps, he was irritated at having no facts, and blurted
it out in his vexation--or perhaps he has some plan... he seems an
intelligent man. Perhaps he wanted to frighten me by pretending to
know. They have a psychology of their own, brother. But it is loathsome
explaining it all. Stop!"
"And it's insulting, insulting! I understand you. But... since we have
spoken openly now (and it is an excellent thing that we have at last--I
am glad) I will own now frankly that I noticed it in them long ago,
this idea. Of course the merest hint only--an insinuation--but why an
insinuation even? How dare they? What foundation have they? If only you
knew how furious I have been. Think only! Simply because a poor student,
unhinged by poverty and hypochondria, on the eve of a severe delirious
illness (note that), suspicious, vain, proud, who has not seen a soul to
speak to for six months, in rags and in boots without soles, has to
face some wretched policemen and put up with their insolence; and
the unexpected debt thrust under his nose, the I.O.U. presented
by Tchebarov, the new paint, thirty degrees Reaumur and a stifling
atmosphere, a crowd of people, the talk about the murder of a person
where he had been just before, and all that on an empty stomach--he
might well have a fainting fit! And that, that is what they found it
all on! Damn them! I understand how annoying it is, but in your place,
Rodya, I would laugh at them, or better still, spit in their ugly faces,
and spit a dozen times in all directions. I'd hit out in all
directions, neatly too, and so I'd put an end to it. Damn them! Don't be
downhearted. It's a shame!"
"He really has put it well, though," Raskolnikov thought.
"Damn them? But the cross-examination again, to-morrow?" he said with
bitterness. "Must I really enter into explanations with them? I feel
vexed as it is, that I condescended to speak to Zametov yesterday in the
restaurant...."
"Damn it! I will go myself to Porfiry. I will squeeze it out of him, as
one of the family: he must let me know the ins and outs of it all! And
as for Zametov..."
"At last he sees through him!" thought Raskolnikov.
"Stay!" cried Razumihin, seizing him by the shoulder again. "Stay! you
were wrong. I have thought it out. You are wrong! How was that a trap?
You say that the question about the workmen was a trap. But if you had
done _that_, could you have said you had seen them painting the flat...
and the workmen? On the contrary, you would have seen nothing, even if
you had seen it. Who would own it against himself?"
"If I had done _that thing_, I should certainly have said that I had
seen the workmen and the flat," Raskolnikov answered, with reluctance
and obvious disgust.
"But why speak against yourself?"
"Because only peasants, or the most inexperienced novices deny
everything flatly at examinations. If a man is ever so little developed
and experienced, he will certainly try to admit all the external facts
that can't be avoided, but will seek other explanations of them, will
introduce some special, unexpected turn, that will give them another
significance and put them in another light. Porfiry might well reckon
that I should be sure to answer so, and say I had seen them to give an
air of truth, and then make some explanation."
"But he would have told you at once that the workmen could not have been
there two days before, and that therefore you must have been there on
the day of the murder at eight o'clock. And so he would have caught you
over a detail."
"Yes, that is what he was reckoning on, that I should not have time to
reflect, and should be in a hurry to make the most likely answer, and
so would forget that the workmen could not have been there two days
before."
"But how could you forget it?"
"Nothing easier. It is in just such stupid things clever people are most
easily caught. The more cunning a man is, the less he suspects that he
will be caught in a simple thing. The more cunning a man is, the simpler
the trap he must be caught in. Porfiry is not such a fool as you
think...."
"He is a knave then, if that is so!"
Raskolnikov could not help laughing. But at the very moment, he was
struck by the strangeness of his own frankness, and the eagerness
with which he had made this explanation, though he had kept up all the
preceding conversation with gloomy repulsion, obviously with a motive,
from necessity.
"I am getting a relish for certain aspects!" he thought to himself.
But almost at the same instant he became suddenly uneasy, as though an
unexpected and alarming idea had occurred to him. His uneasiness kept on
increasing. They had just reached the entrance to Bakaleyev's.
"Go in alone!" said Raskolnikov suddenly. "I will be back directly."
"Where are you going? Why, we are just here."
"I can't help it.... I will come in half an hour. Tell them."
"Say what you like, I will come with you."
"You, too, want to torture me!" he screamed, with such bitter
irritation, such despair in his eyes that Razumihin's hands dropped.
He stood for some time on the steps, looking gloomily at Raskolnikov
striding rapidly away in the direction of his lodging. At last, gritting
his teeth and clenching his fist, he swore he would squeeze Porfiry
like a lemon that very day, and went up the stairs to reassure Pulcheria
Alexandrovna, who was by now alarmed at their long absence.
When Raskolnikov got home, his hair was soaked with sweat and he was
breathing heavily. He went rapidly up the stairs, walked into his
unlocked room and at once fastened the latch. Then in senseless terror
he rushed to the corner, to that hole under the paper where he had put
the things; put his hand in, and for some minutes felt carefully in the
hole, in every crack and fold of the paper. Finding nothing, he got up
and drew a deep breath. As he was reaching the steps of Bakaleyev's, he
suddenly fancied that something, a chain, a stud or even a bit of paper
in which they had been wrapped with the old woman's handwriting on it,
might somehow have slipped out and been lost in some crack, and then
might suddenly turn up as unexpected, conclusive evidence against him.
He stood as though lost in thought, and a strange, humiliated, half
senseless smile strayed on his lips. He took his cap at last and went
quietly out of the room. His ideas were all tangled. He went dreamily
through the gateway.
"Here he is himself," shouted a loud voice.
He raised his head.
The porter was standing at the door of his little room and was pointing
him out to a short man who looked like an artisan, wearing a long coat
and a waistcoat, and looking at a distance remarkably like a woman. He
stooped, and his head in a greasy cap hung forward. From his wrinkled
flabby face he looked over fifty; his little eyes were lost in fat and
they looked out grimly, sternly and discontentedly.
"What is it?" Raskolnikov asked, going up to the porter.
The man stole a look at him from under his brows and he looked at him
attentively, deliberately; then he turned slowly and went out of the
gate into the street without saying a word.
"What is it?" cried Raskolnikov.
"Why, he there was asking whether a student lived here, mentioned your
name and whom you lodged with. I saw you coming and pointed you out and
he went away. It's funny."
The porter too seemed rather puzzled, but not much so, and after
wondering for a moment he turned and went back to his room.
Raskolnikov ran after the stranger, and at once caught sight of
him walking along the other side of the street with the same even,
deliberate step with his eyes fixed on the ground, as though in
meditation. He soon overtook him, but for some time walked behind him.
At last, moving on to a level with him, he looked at his face. The man
noticed him at once, looked at him quickly, but dropped his eyes again;
and so they walked for a minute side by side without uttering a word.
"You were inquiring for me... of the porter?" Raskolnikov said at last,
but in a curiously quiet voice.
The man made no answer; he didn't even look at him. Again they were both
silent.
"Why do you... come and ask for me... and say nothing.... What's the
meaning of it?"
Raskolnikov's voice broke and he seemed unable to articulate the words
clearly.
The man raised his eyes this time and turned a gloomy sinister look at
Raskolnikov.
"Murderer!" he said suddenly in a quiet but clear and distinct voice.
Raskolnikov went on walking beside him. His legs felt suddenly weak, a
cold shiver ran down his spine, and his heart seemed to stand still for
a moment, then suddenly began throbbing as though it were set free. So
they walked for about a hundred paces, side by side in silence.
The man did not look at him.
"What do you mean... what is.... Who is a murderer?" muttered
Raskolnikov hardly audibly.
"_You_ are a murderer," the man answered still more articulately and
emphatically, with a smile of triumphant hatred, and again he looked
straight into Raskolnikov's pale face and stricken eyes.
They had just reached the cross-roads. The man turned to the left
without looking behind him. Raskolnikov remained standing, gazing after
him. He saw him turn round fifty paces away and look back at him still
standing there. Raskolnikov could not see clearly, but he fancied that
he was again smiling the same smile of cold hatred and triumph.
With slow faltering steps, with shaking knees, Raskolnikov made his way
back to his little garret, feeling chilled all over. He took off his cap
and put it on the table, and for ten minutes he stood without moving.
Then he sank exhausted on the sofa and with a weak moan of pain he
stretched himself on it. So he lay for half an hour.
He thought of nothing. Some thoughts or fragments of thoughts, some
images without order or coherence floated before his mind--faces of
people he had seen in his childhood or met somewhere once, whom he would
never have recalled, the belfry of the church at V., the billiard table
in a restaurant and some officers playing billiards, the smell of cigars
in some underground tobacco shop, a tavern room, a back staircase quite
dark, all sloppy with dirty water and strewn with egg-shells, and the
Sunday bells floating in from somewhere.... The images followed one
another, whirling like a hurricane. Some of them he liked and tried
to clutch at, but they faded and all the while there was an oppression
within him, but it was not overwhelming, sometimes it was even
pleasant.... The slight shivering still persisted, but that too
was an almost pleasant sensation.
He heard the hurried footsteps of Razumihin; he closed his eyes and
pretended to be asleep. Razumihin opened the door and stood for some
time in the doorway as though hesitating, then he stepped softly into
the room and went cautiously to the sofa. Raskolnikov heard Nastasya's
whisper:
"Don't disturb him! Let him sleep. He can have his dinner later."
"Quite so," answered Razumihin. Both withdrew carefully and closed the
door. Another half-hour passed. Raskolnikov opened his eyes, turned on
his back again, clasping his hands behind his head.
"Who is he? Who is that man who sprang out of the earth? Where was he,
what did he see? He has seen it all, that's clear. Where was he then?
And from where did he see? Why has he only now sprung out of the earth?
And how could he see? Is it possible? Hm..." continued Raskolnikov,
turning cold and shivering, "and the jewel case Nikolay found behind the
door--was that possible? A clue? You miss an infinitesimal line and you
can build it into a pyramid of evidence! A fly flew by and saw it! Is it
possible?" He felt with sudden loathing how weak, how physically weak he
had become. "I ought to have known it," he thought with a bitter smile.
"And how dared I, knowing myself, knowing how I should be, take up an
axe and shed blood! I ought to have known beforehand.... Ah, but I did
know!" he whispered in despair. At times he came to a standstill at some
thought.
"No, those men are not made so. The real _Master_ to whom all is
permitted storms Toulon, makes a massacre in Paris, _forgets_ an army in
Egypt, _wastes_ half a million men in the Moscow expedition and gets off
with a jest at Vilna. And altars are set up to him after his death, and
so _all_ is permitted. No, such people, it seems, are not of flesh but
Date: 2014-12-29; view: 661
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