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: 645