Crime and Punishment Page 15

  PART TWO

  I

  He lay like that for a very long time. Occasionally, he even seemed to wake up, and at such moments he noticed that night had long since fallen, but the thought of getting up did not occur to him. Eventually, he noticed it was already as bright as day. He lay supine on the couch, still dazed after his recent trance. The rasping sounds of terrible, desperate screams from the street reached his ears, the same sounds, in fact, that he listened out for beneath his window every night between two and three. It was this that had woken him up. 'Ah! The drunks are pouring out of the dens,' he thought, 'so it's gone two,' and he suddenly jumped to his feet, as though someone had yanked him off the couch. 'What? Gone two already?' He sat down on the couch - and everything came back to him! Suddenly, all at once!

  For a second or two he thought he'd go mad. He felt freezing cold; but the cold came from the fever as well, which had set in while he was sleeping, some time before. Now he was suddenly struck by a fit of shivering so violent that his teeth almost leapt from his mouth and his insides were thrown this way and that. He opened the door and listened: the whole house was fast asleep. He looked at himself and everything else in the room in complete astonishment: how on earth could he have just walked in yesterday, left the door off the latch and flung himself on the couch, without even taking off his hat, never mind his clothes: the hat had slid down to the floor, not far from the pillow. 'If someone had walked in, what would they have thought? That I was drunk, but . . .' He rushed over to the little window. There was enough light and he hastily set about inspecting himself, all over, from top to toe, every item of clothing: any traces? But that was no way to do it: shaking uncontrollably, he started taking everything off and inspecting it all over again. He turned everything inside out, down to the last thread and scrap of cloth, and, not trusting himself, repeated the inspection another two or three times. But there didn't seem to be anything, not a single trace; only where his trousers were frayed at the ends did thick traces of caked blood still remain. He grabbed his big folding knife and cut off the frayed ends. That seemed to be it. Suddenly he remembered that the purse and the items from the old woman's box were still in his pockets! It hadn't even crossed his mind to take them out and hide them! He hadn't even remembered them now, while inspecting his clothes! Why on earth not? Quick as a flash, he began taking them out and flinging them down on the table. After emptying his pockets and even turning them inside out to check he hadn't missed anything, he carried the whole pile over to the corner. There, right in the corner, near the floor, the peeling wallpaper was torn in one place: he immediately started stuffing everything into this hole, behind the paper: 'Done it! Out of sight, out of mind, and the purse too!' he thought with a sense of joy, half-rising and looking dully at the corner, at the hole bulging even more than before. Suddenly, his whole body shuddered with horror: 'God,' he whispered in despair, 'what's the matter with me? Call that hidden? Call that hiding?'

  True, he hadn't reckoned on the items. He'd only expected to find money, which was why he hadn't prepared anywhere in advance. 'But now what have I got to be so happy about?' he thought. 'Call that hiding? My wits really are deserting me!' He sat down on the couch in complete exhaustion and was immediately shaken by another unbearable fit of shivering. He reached without thinking for the winter coat lying next to him on the chair, his old student one, warm but now almost in shreds, covered himself with it, and sleep and delirium seized him once more. Oblivion came over him.

  Less than five minutes later he was back on his feet and set about his clothes once more in a kind of frenzy. 'How could I fall asleep again, when nothing's been done? See, see: I haven't even taken the loop off the armpit! To forget a thing like that! A clue like that!' He ripped out the loop and set about hurriedly tearing it to pieces, then stuffing it under the pillow, in amongst the linen. 'Torn bits of old cloth can't arouse anyone's suspicion; surely they can't, surely they can't!' he repeated, standing in the middle of the room. In an agony of concentration, he began looking around again, on the floor and all around - anything else he might have forgotten? The conviction that everything was deserting him - even his memory, even the ability to put two and two together - was becoming an unbearable torment: 'What, is this it already, my punishment? Yes, that's it, that's it!' The frayed ends he'd cut off from his trousers really did lie strewn across the floor, in the middle of the room, for anyone to see! 'What on earth's the matter with me!' he cried out once more, as if lost.

  Here, a strange thought occurred to him: what if there was blood all over his clothes, what if there were lots of stains, only he couldn't see them, didn't notice them, because his ability to think had been shot to pieces? . . . His mind had gone dark . . . Suddenly, he remembered: there was blood on the purse as well. 'Ha! So there must be blood in the pocket, too - the purse was still wet when I put it there!' In a flash, he turned out the pocket and there they were - traces and stains on the lining! 'So my wits haven't deserted me completely yet, nor my memory, and I can still put two and two together, if I caught myself in time!' he exulted, breathing a deep and joyful sigh. 'This is just weakness brought on by fever, a moment's delirium' - and he ripped out the entire lining from his left trouser pocket. At that moment a ray of sunlight fell on his left boot: the sock poking out of it seemed to have some kind of marks on it. He kicked off the boot: 'Yes, marks! Look, the toe's all soaked in blood'; he must have stepped in that puddle of blood by mistake . . . 'Now what? What do I do with this sock, the trouser ends, the pocket?'

  He gathered it all up in one hand and stood in the middle of the room. 'Bung it all in the stove? But that's the first place they'll look! Burn it? What with? I haven't even got matches. No, I'm better off going out and getting rid of the whole lot somewhere. Yes! Get rid of it!' he repeated, sitting down on the couch again. 'And do it now, this very minute, without delay!' But no: once again, his head sank back onto the pillow; once again an unbearable fit of shivering turned him to ice; once again he reached for his greatcoat. And for a long time, for several hours, the words kept coming back to him in waves: 'Just go somewhere, right now, don't put it off, get rid of it all, out of sight, the sooner the better!' Several times he made as if to get up from the couch, but he was no longer able to. Not until there was a loud knock on the door did he wake up fully.

  'Open up if you're still alive! Won't he ever stop snoozing?' shouted Nastasya, banging on the door with her fist. 'Snoozes all day long, like a dog! A dog - that's what he is! Open up. It's gone ten.'

  'What if he's out?' came a man's voice.

  ('Ha! The caretaker . . . What does he want?')

  He sat up with a jerk. His heart was thumping so hard it even hurt.

  'Who put the door on the hook, then?' Nastasya objected. 'So he's locking himself in now, eh? Scared of being stolen, I s'pose. Open up, egghead, wakey, wakey!'

  ('What do they want? Why's the caretaker come? The story's out. Resist or open? Ah, to hell with it . . .')

  He leant forward and lifted the hook.

  The dimensions of his room were such that he could lift the hook without getting up from his bed.

  Just as he thought: the caretaker and Nastasya.

  There was something strange about the way Nastasya looked him up and down. He threw a defiant and desperate glance at the caretaker. The latter silently handed over a grey piece of paper folded in two and sealed with bottle wax.

  'A summons, from the bureau,' he said, giving him the piece of paper.

  'What bureau . . . ?'

  'The police want to see you, that's what, in the bureau.1 You know which bureau.'

  'The police? . . . What for?'

  'How should I know? They're asking, so you'd better go.' He looked at him closely, glanced around the room and turned to leave.

  'Sick as a parrot, aren't you?' Nastasya remarked, never taking her eyes off him. The caretaker also glanced back before leaving. 'Running a fever since yesterday,' she added.

  He made no reply and
held the piece of paper, still sealed, in his hands.

  'You'd best stay in bed,' Nastasya went on, taking pity as she watched him lower his feet to the floor. 'Stay put if you're sick: that can wait. What's that in your hand?'

  He looked down: his right hand held the snipped-off trouser ends, the sock and the shreds of the ripped-out pocket. He'd slept with them like that. Later on, turning all this over in his mind, he recalled how, half-waking with fever, he'd clench it all fiercely in his hand and fall asleep again.

  'A regular scrap collector - he even sleeps with 'em, like hidden treasure . . .' And Nastasya went into fits of her unhealthy, nervous laughter. Quick as a flash, he stuffed everything under his greatcoat and fastened his eyes on her. Though he could barely think straight, he sensed that this was not how a man being taken away would be treated. 'But . . . the police?'

  'What about that tea, then? I can bring what's left . . .'

  'No . . . I'm going. I'll go right now,' he muttered, getting to his feet.

  'You'll not even get down the stairs.'

  'I'll go . . .'

  'Please yourself.'

  She followed the caretaker out. He rushed over to the window to inspect the sock and trouser ends. 'There are stains, but not very noticeable ones; it's all mixed up with dirt, all rubbed and faded. You'd never spot anything unless you knew. So Nastasya, thank God, couldn't have seen anything from where she was!' Then, in trepidation, he unsealed the summons and began reading; he read for a long time before he could understand what he was reading. It was an ordinary summons from the local police bureau to present himself that very same day, at half past nine, to the district superintendent.

  'It's unheard of! What business have I ever had with the police? And why today of all days?' he thought, racked with confusion. 'Lord, the sooner the better!' He was about to fall to his knees in prayer, only to burst out laughing - at himself, not the prayer. He began hurriedly getting dressed. 'If I'm done for, I'm done for - so be it! The sock! Put it on!' suddenly occurred to him. 'It'll get even dustier and dirtier, and the traces will vanish.' But no sooner had he put it on than he immediately pulled it off in disgust and horror. He pulled it off and then, realizing it was the only one he had, put it back on again - and again burst out laughing. 'This is all mere convention, merely relative, mere form,' came a passing thought, glimpsed at the very edge of his mind, while his whole body shook. 'Look, I still put it on! In the end, I still put it on!' But laughter instantly gave way to despair. 'No, I'm not up to it . . .' His legs were shaking. 'With fear,' he muttered to himself. His head was spinning and aching from the fever. 'It's a trick! They want to lure me in, then trip me up,' he went on to himself, walking out onto the landing. 'Too bad I'm almost raving . . . I might come out with something stupid . . .'

  On the stairs he remembered he'd left all the items where they were, in the hole in the wallpaper - 'Now, when I'm out, would be just the time for a search' - remembered and stopped. But he was suddenly overwhelmed by such despair, by what one can only call the cynicism of doom, that he dismissed the thought and carried on.

  'The sooner the better!'

  Outside, it was unbearably hot again; all these days and not a drop of rain. Again the dust, bricks and mortar, again the stink from the shops and drinking dens, again the drunks at every corner, the Finnish pedlars, the decrepit cabs. The sun shone brightly into his eyes, to the point that it became painful to look and his head spun round and round - as usually happens when you suddenly step outside with a fever on a bright sunny day.

  Reaching the turn to yesterday's street, he glanced down it at that house with excruciating anxiety . . . and immediately looked away.

  'If they ask, I might just tell them,' he thought, approaching the bureau.

  It was a few hundred yards from where he lived to the bureau. It had just moved to new premises, a new building, the fourth floor. He'd passed by the old premises once, but a long time ago now. Going under the arch, he noticed stairs on his right and a man walking down with a book in his hands: 'Must be the caretaker; so the bureau must be here,' and he started climbing up, following his nose. He was in no mood to ask anyone about anything.

  'I'll go in, fall to my knees and tell them everything,' he thought, on reaching the fourth floor.

  It was a tight, steep staircase, covered in slops. All the kitchens of all the apartments on all four floors opened on to these stairs and stayed open nearly all day long. That was why it was so terribly stuffy. Up and down the stairs went caretakers with registers tucked under their arms, police errand boys, and assorted men and women - the visitors. The door to the bureau itself was also wide open. He went in and stopped in the anteroom. Some peasant types were standing around waiting. It was exceptionally stuffy here, too, not to mention the nauseatingly strong smell from the freshly coated walls: damp paint made with rancid oil. After waiting a short while, he decided to press on to the next room. They were all so tiny and low. A terrible impatience drew him on. No one noticed him. Some clerks - a strange-looking lot, dressed only marginally better than he was - were sat writing in the second room. He turned to one of them.

  'Well?'

  He presented the summons from the bureau.

  'You're a student?' the man asked, glancing at the summons.

  'Yes, a former student.'

  The clerk looked him over, though without the faintest curiosity. He was a particularly unkempt individual, with something obsessive in his gaze.

  'You won't learn anything from him: he doesn't give a damn,' thought Raskolnikov.

  'Go and see the head clerk,' said the unkempt man, jabbing his finger in the direction of the very last room.

  He entered this room (the fourth), which was cramped and filled to bursting with a somewhat smarter crowd than the others. Among the visitors were two ladies. One, dressed in humble mourning clothes, was sitting at a table opposite the head clerk, who was dictating something to her. The other lady - a very plump, crimson, blotchy, striking woman, dressed rather too lavishly with a brooch on her chest the size of a saucer - was standing to one side, waiting for something. Raskolnikov thrust his summons at the head clerk, who took one glance at it, told him to wait and turned back to the lady in mourning.

  He could breathe more freely. 'Must be something else!' Little by little he began to cheer up, exhorting himself as best he could to pull himself together.

  'Say something stupid or even just a tiny bit careless and you'll give yourself away completely! H'm . . . Shame there's no air in here,' he added. 'So stuffy . . . My head's spinning even more . . . and my mind, too . . .'

  Everything inside him was at sixes and sevens. He feared losing control. He tried to find something to hold on to, something to think about - something totally irrelevant - but without any success. The head clerk intrigued him greatly, though: he kept scanning his face for signs, for clues to his character. He was very young, twenty-two or so, with swarthy, mobile features that made him look older than his years, foppishly dressed, his hair parted at the back, combed and pomaded, with a great number of jewels and rings on white, brush-scrubbed fingers, and gold chains on his waistcoat. He even exchanged a few words in French - very competently, too - with a foreigner who happened to be in the room.

  'Luiza Ivanovna, won't you sit down?' he said in passing to the overdressed, crimson lady, who was still standing as if she dared not sit, though there was a chair right beside her.

  'Ich danke,' she said and, with a rustle of silk, lowered herself quietly into the chair. Her light-blue dress with white lace trimmings spread out around the chair like an air balloon, taking up nearly half the room. There was a whiff of perfume. But the lady was clearly embarrassed to be taking up half the room and to be filling it with her scent, though she was smiling, too, timidly and insolently at one and the same time, albeit with evident anxiety.

  The lady in mourning finally finished and started getting up. Suddenly, somewhat noisily, rolling his shoulders at each step in a very dashing, rather e
mphatic way, an officer walked in, flung his service cap down on the table and sat down in an armchair. The lavish lady all but leapt from her seat on seeing him and set about curtseying with particular enthusiasm; but the officer didn't pay her the slightest attention and she dared not sit down again in his presence. He was a lieutenant, assistant to the superintendent, with a ginger moustache that stuck out horizontally on both sides and exceptionally small features that failed to express anything much other than a certain insolence. He looked askance and with some indignation at Raskolnikov: his clothes were too shabby for words, but his bearing was somehow at odds with them, for all his abjection; Raskolnikov, in his recklessness, had stared at the lieutenant so long and so hard he'd even managed to offend him.

  'Well then?' shouted the lieutenant, probably amazed that this tramp had no intention of vaporizing beneath his fiery gaze.

  'An order . . . a summons . . . .,' Raskolnikov half-replied.

  'It's about that claim for some money, from the student, I mean,' the head clerk threw out, lifting his head from his papers. 'There you go, sir!' He tossed Raskolnikov a notebook, after pointing to the right place. 'Read it!'

  'Money? What money?' thought Raskolnikov. 'But that means . . . it definitely can't be that!' And he shuddered with joy. He suddenly felt dreadfully, inexpressibly relieved. Everything simply fell from his shoulders.

  'And when were you told to come, gracious sir?' shouted the lieutenant, who for some reason was taking ever greater offence. 'Nine o'clock is what's written and now it's gone eleven!'

  'It was only delivered a quarter of an hour ago,' Raskolnikov replied loudly over his shoulder, suddenly getting angry as well, to his own surprise, and even taking a certain pleasure in the fact. 'It's enough that I'm here at all, with a fever like mine.'

  'No need to shout!'