Crime and Punishment Read online

  'Lizaveta Ivanovna, my dear, why don't you decide for yourself?' the tradesman was saying in a loud voice. 'Come by tomorrow, between six and seven. That lot will come too.'

  'Tomorrow?' said Lizaveta slowly and pensively, as if in two minds.

  'Alyona Ivanovna's put the wind up you and no mistake!' jabbered the trader's wife, a lively sort. 'I look at you, lady, and think: a child, a mere child. And your sister's only your half-sister, but look how she's got you under her thumb!'

  'No need to say anything to Alyona Ivanovna this time,' her husband broke in. 'That's my advice anyway - just come to us without asking. It's a nice bit of business, lady. Your big sister will see for herself later.'

  'Maybe I should?'

  'Between six and seven, tomorrow. Them lot will come too. Decide for yourself, dear.'

  'We'll get the samovar going,' added his wife.

  'All right, I'll come,' said Lizaveta, still thinking it over, then slowly moved off.

  Raskolnikov walked past at this point and heard no more. He'd slipped by quietly, trying to catch every word. His initial astonishment had given way, little by little, to horror, like ice down his spine. He'd learned, suddenly and quite unexpectedly, that tomorrow, at precisely seven o'clock in the evening, Lizaveta, the old woman's sister and sole cohabitant, would not be in and that, as a result, the old woman, at precisely seven o'clock in the evening, would be at home on her own.

  His room was only a few steps away. He entered like a man sentenced to death. He wasn't thinking, nor was he capable of thinking; but he suddenly felt in every fibre of his being that he no longer had the freedom of reason or will and that everything had suddenly been decided for good.

  Of course, even if he'd waited years on end for a favourable opportunity, even then, with a plan in place, he could scarcely have counted on a surer step towards the successful execution of that plan than the one that had suddenly presented itself now. In any case it would have been difficult to establish just the day before, with greater precision or smaller risk, without the need for any dangerous enquiries or searches, that the very next day, at such-and-such a time, such-and-such a woman - the object of an intended murder - would be home all alone.

  VI

  Later, Raskolnikov happened to find out why exactly the tradesman and his wife had invited Lizaveta round. It was a perfectly run-of-the-mill affair. A newly arrived, impoverished family was selling off various things - clothing and so on, all women's stuff. It was hard to make anything much at the market, so they were looking for a dealer - Lizaveta's line: she took a commission, got around and had plenty of experience, being very honest and always naming her lowest price: there was no shifting her after that. She didn't talk much in any case and, as has already been said, she was as meek and shy as they come . . .

  Recently, though, Raskolnikov had become superstitious. Traces of superstition would remain in him for a long time yet, almost indelibly. In fact, he would always be prone to find something rather strange about this whole business, something mysterious, the presence, as it were, of some special influences and coincidences. Back in winter a student he knew, Pokoryov, who was leaving for Kharkov, mentioned in passing the address of old Alyona Ivanovna, should he ever need to pawn anything. For a long time he stayed away: he had some teaching and could just about make ends meet. He'd remembered about the address six weeks or so ago; he had two things fit for pawning: his father's old silver watch and a small gold ring with three red stones, a farewell gift from his sister, to remember her by. He'd decided on the ring; and the moment he found and clapped eyes on the old woman, not yet knowing anything much about her, he felt overcome by disgust, took two 'nice little notes' off her and on his way back stopped off in a shabby little tavern. He ordered tea, took a seat and plunged deep in thought. A strange idea was tapping away in his head, like a chick in its egg, occupying him body and soul.

  At another small table, very close to his, sat a student he neither knew nor remembered, and a young officer. They were drinking tea after a game of billiards. Suddenly he'd overheard the student telling the officer about the moneylender, Alyona Ivanovna, a collegiate secretary's widow, and giving him her address. This in itself had struck Raskolnikov as strange: he'd only just come from seeing her. Sheer chance, of course, but there he was unable to rid himself of one highly unusual impression only to see someone bend over backwards (or so it seemed) to oblige him: the student suddenly started telling his friend all manner of details about this Alyona Ivanovna.

  'A splendid woman,' he said. 'You can always get money from her. Rich as a Yid. She can hand over five thousand just like that, and she won't turn her nose up at trifles either. Plenty of our lot have called on her. She's a right bitch, mind . . .'

  He set about describing what a nasty and capricious woman she was, how you only had to be a day late paying and your item would disappear. She gave four times less than the thing was worth, charged five or even seven per cent interest a month, etcetera. Letting his tongue run away with him, the student also mentioned that the old woman had a sister, Lizaveta, whom she, so little and so horrid, never stopped beating and kept in utter servitude, like a little child, when in fact Lizaveta was a whole foot taller, at the very least . . .

  'Just try explaining that!' the student exclaimed and roared with laughter.

  The conversation turned to Lizaveta. The student took particular pleasure in talking about her and couldn't stop laughing, while the officer listened with the keenest interest and asked the student to send him this Lizaveta to mend his linen. Raskolnikov caught every word, and learned everything there and then: Lizaveta was the old woman's younger half-sister (by a different mother), and she was already thirty-five years old. She worked for her sister day and night, doing all the cooking and the laundry; on top of that, she sewed to order and even washed other people's floors, handing over all the earnings to her sister. She didn't dare accept a single order or a single job without the old woman's say-so. The latter, meanwhile, had already made her own will, which was known to Lizaveta herself, who stood to receive not a penny, apart from chattels, chairs and so on; the money was to go to a certain monastery in N---- province, for the eternal remembrance of the old woman's soul. Lizaveta, who was born into trade, not the civil service, was a spinster and frightful to look at: she was remarkably tall with long, twisted-looking feet and a single pair of down-at-heel goatskin shoes, and she always kept herself clean. But the main thing that surprised the student and made him laugh was the fact that Lizaveta was forever pregnant . . .

  'But you said she was hideous?' the officer observed.

  'Well, she's swarthy-looking, like a soldier in drag, but actually far from hideous. Her face and eyes are ever so nice. Really very nice. There's proof - plenty of people like her. So quiet and meek, so tame and agreeable - she'll agree to anything. And she's got a lovely smile on her.'

  'Sounds like you like her, too?' the officer laughed.

  'For her strangeness. But what I really want to tell you is this: I could murder and rob this hag, and without the faintest pang of conscience, I assure you,' the student added with fervour.

  The officer guffawed once more and Raskolnikov shuddered. How very strange this was!

  'Let me ask you a serious question,' the student continued. 'I was joking just now, of course, but look: on the one hand a stupid, pointless, worthless, nasty, sick old hag who nobody needs and who is positively vicious to all and sundry, who doesn't know herself why she's alive and who in any case will drop dead tomorrow or the day after. Catch my drift?'

  'Yes, I suppose,' answered the officer, fixing an attentive gaze on his excited friend.

  'There's more. On the other hand, fresh-faced youths going to waste for lack of support - thousands of them, everywhere! A hundred, a thousand good deeds and initiatives could be arranged and assisted with the money doomed for the monastery! Hundreds, possibly thousands of lives could be set on the right path; dozens of families saved from beggary, disintegration, rui
n, depravity, the venereal hospital - and all this on her money. Kill her and take her money, so as to devote yourself afterwards to the service of all humanity and the common cause. What do you reckon? Won't thousands of good deeds iron out one tiny little crime? For one life - thousands of lives saved from decay and ruin. One death and a hundred lives in return - it's basic arithmetic! And anyway, what does the life of this consumptive, stupid, nasty hag weigh on the scales of the world? No more than the life of a louse, a cockroach, and it's not even worth that, because the hag is vicious. She'll eat you alive: just the other day she bit Lizaveta's finger out of pure spite. They nearly had to cut it off!'

  'Of course she doesn't deserve to live,' remarked the officer, 'but there's nature to think about.'

  'Nature, my dear chap, is forever being corrected and directed, otherwise by now we'd all have drowned in our preconceptions. Otherwise, no great man would ever have been born. People talk about "duty", "conscience", and I've nothing against duty and conscience, but what do we understand by them, that's the thing? Hang on, I've another question for you. Now listen!'

  'No, you hang on. I've a question for you. Now you listen!'

  'Well?'

  'Here you are speaking and speechifying, but tell me: are you going to kill the old woman yourself or aren't you?'

  'Of course not! I'm talking about justice . . . It's not about me . . .'

  'Well, as I see it, if you don't dare do it yourself, there's no justice to speak of! Let's have another game!'

  Raskolnikov was in a state of extreme agitation. Of course, these were just the usual, everyday conversations and ideas of the young, such as he had heard many times before; only the form and topic varied. But why had it fallen to him, precisely then, to hear precisely this conversation and precisely these thoughts . . . at a time when those very same thoughts had just been conceived in his own mind? And why precisely then - just when he had carried away from the old woman the embryo of his idea - had he chanced on a conversation about her and no one else? The coincidence would always strike him as strange. This trivial conversation in a tavern exerted the most radical influence on him in the subsequent course of events: as if there really were something preordained in it all, some sign . . .

  *

  Getting back from Haymarket, he collapsed on his couch and sat there without moving for a whole hour. Meanwhile it grew dark. He had no candles and in any case it didn't cross his mind to light one. He could never remember: was he thinking about anything during all that time? Eventually he began to feel feverish and shivery, just like before, and realized with pleasure that the couch might also be used for lying on. A deep, leaden sleep soon descended, like some crushing weight.

  He slept for an unusually long time, dreamlessly. Nastasya came into his room at ten the next morning and had to give him a forceful shake. She'd brought tea and bread. Once again she'd used old leaves, and once again it came in her own pot.

  'What a sleepyhead!' she cried indignantly. 'Sleeping, sleeping, sleeping!'

  He forced himself to sit up. His head ached. He tried to stand and turn around, but fell back down on the couch.

  'Back to sleep, I suppose!' Nastasya cried. 'Are you sick?'

  He said nothing.

  'Fancy some tea?'

  'Later,' he said, forcing out a reply before closing his eyes again and turning towards the wall. Nastasya stood over him a while.

  'Maybe he really is sick,' she said, then turned and walked out.

  She came back at two with some soup. He hadn't moved. The tea hadn't been touched. Nastasya took offence and set about shaking him furiously.

  'Enough snoozing!' she cried, looking at him in disgust. He sat himself up, but said nothing and gazed at the floor.

  'Are you sick or ain't you?' Nastasya asked and again received no reply.

  'Get yourself out a bit,' she said after a pause. 'Blow away them cobwebs. Are you or ain't you eating?'

  'Later,' he said weakly, then, 'Off you go now!' - and waved her out.

  She stood where she was a short while longer, looked at him with pity and went out.

  A few minutes later he lifted up his eyes and stared for a long time at the tea and the soup. Then he took the bread, took the spoon and started eating.

  He reluctantly, almost mechanically, ate three or four spoonfuls, no more. His headache eased a little. After his meal, he stretched out again on the couch, but he could no longer fall asleep, so he lay without moving, face down, his head buried in the pillow. One daydream followed another, all of them strange. In most of them he found himself somewhere in Africa, in Egypt, at some oasis or other. The caravan is at rest, the camels lie peaceably; palm trees grow around in a circle; everyone's eating. As for him, he drinks and drinks from a stream which flows and bubbles right there beside him. How cool it is and how wonderfully blue the water, and how cold, racing over the many-coloured stones, over the bright clean sand sparkling like gold . . . Suddenly he heard a clock strike loud and clear. He came round with a start, raised his head, looked out of the window, worked out the time and suddenly leapt to his feet, wide awake now, as though someone had yanked him off the couch. He walked up to the door on tiptoe, gently opened it a fraction and listened for noises on the stairs below. His heart was thumping uncontrollably. But only silence came from the stairs, as if everyone was asleep . . . How bizarre to think that he could have slept through since the previous evening in such a trance and still hadn't done anything, hadn't prepared anything . . . Meanwhile, that clock was probably striking six . . . His sleepiness and torpor suddenly gave way to an unusually feverish and confused burst of activity. There wasn't much to prepare, though. He was doing his utmost to think of everything and forget nothing, but his heart thumped so hard that it became difficult to breathe. First, he had to make a loop and sew it to his coat - a moment's work. He rummaged beneath the pillow, where he'd stuffed his linen, and retrieved an old unwashed shirt that had all but fallen to pieces. From it he tore a strip about two inches wide and a good foot long. He folded this strip in two, took off his broad, sturdy, coarse-cotton summer coat (his only outer garment) and started sewing both ends of the strip to the inside, just below the left armpit. His hands shook, but he still managed to do it well enough that nothing was visible from the outside when he put his coat back on. He'd had needle and thread to hand for a while, inside a scrap of paper in the little table. As for the loop, that was a crafty invention of his own: it was intended for the axe. After all, he could hardly walk along the street brandishing an axe. Hiding it under his coat wouldn't do either - he'd have to hold it in place, which would be conspicuous. But now that he had the loop, all he needed to do was place the blade in it and the axe would hang nicely, under his armpit inside the coat, all the way there. What was more, by thrusting a hand into the side pocket of his coat he was able to hold the end of the axe handle and stop it moving about; and since the coat was very broad - a real sack - there was no way of noticing from the outside that he was holding it through the pocket. The loop was another thing he'd thought up a couple of weeks before.

  Having done this, he slid his fingers through the small gap between his 'Turkish' couch and the floor, fumbled around near the left-hand corner and extracted something he'd prepared and hidden there long before - a pledge. Pledge was hardly the word for it, though: it was a smoothly planed bit of wood, no bigger in size or thickness than a silver cigarette case. He'd found it by chance on one of his strolls, in a yard containing some kind of workshop housed in an outbuilding. Then he'd added to it a thin, smooth iron strip - a fragment of something, presumably - which he'd found in the street at the same time. Putting together the two pieces, of which the iron strip was the smaller, he tied them tightly with thread, making a cross; then he wrapped them neatly and daintily in clean white paper, tied a thin ribbon around it, also in a cross, and fixed the knot in such a way as to make it hard to untie. The point of it all was to distract the old woman as she fussed with the knot, and thus, to seize his cha
nce. As for the iron strip, it had been added for weight, to keep the old woman from guessing right away that the 'item' was made of wood. He'd kept it all under the couch until the time came. No sooner had he retrieved the pledge than there was a sudden yell from somewhere outside:

  'It's well past six!'

  'Well past! Good God!'

  He rushed to the door, listened, grabbed his hat and set off down his thirteen steps, warily, noiselessly, like a cat. Ahead lay the crucial business of stealing the axe from the kitchen. That the deed was to be done with an axe had been decided by him long before. He also had a small folding gardener's knife; but he had little faith in it, still less in his own strength, so he settled definitively on the axe. Let us note, by the way, one peculiarity of all the definitive decisions already taken by him in this venture. They shared one strange quality: the more definitive they were, the more hideous and absurd they immediately became in his own eyes. Despite all his inner torment and strife, never, for a single moment, could he make himself believe in the prospect of his plans being carried out, not once in all this time.

  And even if he should have reached the point some day, somehow, when everything had been analysed, down to the very last detail, and everything had been resolved, and not a single doubt remained - well then, it seemed, he would have rejected it all as an absurdity, a monstrosity, an impossibility. But unresolved details and doubts remained in abundance. As for the trivial matter of where to get an axe, this didn't worry him in the slightest: nothing could have been simpler. It so happened that Nastasya was always popping out, especially in the evenings, whether to the neighbours or to the shop, and she'd always leave the door wide open. This was the cause of all her squabbles with the landlady. So all he had to do, when the time came, was slip into the kitchen, take the axe, and then, an hour later (when it was all over), go in and put it back. But doubts crept in here, too: what if he were to come by in an hour to replace it and find Nastasya right there, back in the house? He'd have to walk past, of course, and wait for her to go out again. But suppose she noticed it was missing, started looking for it, raising a hue and cry - well, suspicions would be aroused, or at least cause for suspicion.