Crime and Punishment Read online

  'I'm not shouting, I'm speaking perfectly calmly. You're the one shouting; but I am a student and I will not allow myself to be shouted at.'

  The assistant was so incensed that at first he couldn't even speak and merely sputtered and spat. He leapt from his seat.

  'Kindly hold your tongue, sir! You're on state premises. Watch your step, I say!'

  'You, too, are on state premises,' shrieked Raskolnikov, 'and not only are you shouting, you are also smoking, thereby showing us all a distinct lack of respect!' Saying this, Raskolnikov experienced inexpressible pleasure.

  The head clerk smiled at them. The fiery lieutenant was visibly flustered.

  'None of your business, sir!' he yelled at last, more loudly than was natural. 'Now kindly supply the statement demanded of you. Show him, Alexander Grigoryevich. We've received a complaint about you! For not paying up! You've got some pluck, I'll give you that!'

  But Raskolnikov was no longer listening and greedily snatched the document, desperate to see what it was all about. He read it once, twice, and still didn't understand.

  'What is it?' he asked the head clerk.

  'A demand for payment on a promissory note, a recovery claim. Either you pay up, including all the costs, fines and so on, or you submit a statement in writing, saying when you will be able to pay and undertaking not to leave the capital until that time and not to sell or conceal your property. The creditor, meanwhile, is free to sell your property and to deal with you in accordance with the law.'

  'But I . . . don't owe anyone!'

  'That's none of our business. What concerns us is the legitimate claim we have received for overdue payment on a promissory note made out for one hundred and fifteen roubles, issued by yourself to the collegiate assessor's widow Zarnitsyna nine months ago and transferred as payment to court counsellor Chebarov. Hence, we are inviting you to make a statement.'

  'But she's my landlady!'

  'And what if she is?'

  The head clerk looked at him with a patronizing smile of pity mixed with a note of triumph, as if Raskolnikov were a raw recruit coming under fire for the first time: 'Now how do you feel?' he seemed to be saying. But how could any of this - promissory notes, recovery claims - matter to him now? Did it really warrant the faintest anxiety or even a moment's attention? He stood, read, listened, replied, even asked questions himself, but he did so mechanically. The triumph of survival, of deliverance from oppressive danger - this was what filled his entire being at that moment; no predictions or analysis, no speculations or deductions, no doubts or questions. It was a moment of complete, spontaneous, purely animal joy. But at this very same moment something like thunder and lightning erupted in the bureau. The lieutenant, still badly shaken by such shocking familiarity, ablaze with indignation and clearly desperate to avenge his wounded vanity, was now directing all his thunderbolts at the unfortunate 'lavish lady', who'd been looking at him, ever since he walked in, with a perfectly stupid smile.

  'And you, Mrs Whatnot,' he suddenly yelled at the top of his voice (the lady in mourning had already left), 'what was all that about over at yours last night? Eh? Bringing shame on the whole street again! More debauchery, more fights, more drunkenness. Suppose you fancy a stint in a house of correction! Ten times I've told you, Mrs Whatnot, ten times I've warned you that the eleventh will be one too many! And here you are, all over again!'

  The document fell from Raskolnikov's hands and he stared wildly at the lavish lady who was being told off so unceremoniously; but he soon grasped what it was all about and immediately began to find the whole business most entertaining. He listened with such pleasure that he wanted to roar and roar with laughter . . . His nerves were all tingling inside him.

  'Ilya Petrovich!' the head clerk began solicitously, before deciding to bide his time: there was no way of restraining the lieutenant once his blood was up other than by force, as he knew from his own experience.

  As for the lavish lady, at first she simply quivered from the force of the thunder and lightning; but, strangely enough, the more frequent and the more abusive the insults became, the more courteous she seemed and the more charmingly she smiled at the menacing lieutenant. She danced from foot to foot, dropping one curtsey after another and impatiently waiting for the moment when she, too, would be allowed to have her say; it finally came.

  'Zer vas no noise und no fighting in my haus, Herr Kapitan,' she suddenly rapped out, scattering her words like peas, in boisterous Russian, albeit with a heavy German accent, 'und zer vas no scandal, und he come back to haus drunken, und I tell you everysing, Herr Kapitan, und I not guilty . . . I haff honourable haus, Herr Kapitan, and honourable behaviour, Herr Kapitan, and alvays, alvays no scandal vant. Und he come back very drunken, und he three more pottles ask for, und zen he lifted one leg and begin play piano with foot, und zis very bad in honourable haus, und he break piano, und zis very, very vulgar, und I say so. Zen he pottle take and begin pushing everyone behind mit pottle. Und I begin call ze caretaker, und Karl come. He take Karl und black eye give him, und Genriet too, und my cheek hit five times. Zis is so rude in honourable haus, Herr Kapitan, und I begin shout. Zen he open window to Ditch and begin sqveal in vindow like small pig; vat disgrace, Herr Kapitan. Sqveal, sqveal, sqveal, like little pig! Vat disgrace! Foo-foo-foo! Und Karl grab him behind mit tails und take him from vindow, und zen - zis is true, Herr Kapitan - he tear sein tailcoat. Und zen he shout zat Karl muss fifteen roubles fine pay. Und I myself, Herr Kapitan, him five roubles for sein tailcoat pay. Und he dishonourable guest, Herr Kapitan, und great scandal making! I will have big satire in all ze papers about you gedruckt, he say.'

  'A scribbler, I suppose?'

  'Yes, Herr Kapitan, und such dishonourable guest, Herr Kapitan, in such honourable haus . . .'

  'All right, all right! Enough! If I've told you once, I've told you . . .'

  'Ilya Petrovich!' said the head clerk again with meaning. The lieutenant glanced in his direction and the head clerk gave the faintest of nods.

  '... So here's what I'll say to you, most esteemed Laviza Ivanovna,2 and I'm saying it for the very last time,' the lieutenant went on. 'One more scandal in your honourable house and I'll have your guts for garters, as ze poets say. Got it? So, you say, a scribbler, a writer, earned five roubles in an "honourable house" for a coat-tail. A fine lot, these writers!' he exclaimed, with a contemptuous glance at Raskolnikov. 'There was another scene in a tavern a couple of days ago: he'd eaten, but didn't want to pay. "I'll write you up in a satire instead," he said. Then there was that chap on a steamer last week who heaped the vilest abuse on the respected family of a state counsellor, his wife and daughter. And another who recently got himself chucked out of a pastry shop. That's what they're like, these writers, scribblers, students, town criers . . . Ugh! Well, clear off then! I'll be paying you a visit myself . . . so watch your step! Got it?'

  With precipitate civility, Luiza Ivanovna set about curtseying in all directions and curtsied her way back to the door; but in the doorway, still walking backwards, she bumped into a rather striking officer with a fresh, open face and quite magnificent thick blond whiskers. This was Nikodim Fomich himself, the district superintendent. Luiza Ivanovna hastily curtsied almost to the floor and flew out of the bureau with quick, mincing, bouncing steps.

  'Making a racket again, more thunder and lightning, a tornado, a hurricane!' remarked Nikodim Fomich to Ilya Petrovich in an amiable, friendly way. 'I see they've got you all worked up again, boiling over again! I could hear you from the stairs.'

  'Come off it!' said Ilya Petrovich with well-bred nonchalance (and not so much 'off it' as 'orf it'), taking some documents or other over to another table and lifting his shoulders theatrically with each step. 'Please judge for yourself: Mr Writer here, or should I say Mr Student or rather former student, won't pay, having written out one promissory note after another, won't vacate the apartment, is the subject of endless complaints, yet still has the temerity to rebuke me for lighting a papirosa in his p
resence! His behaviour is simply disgraceful, and anyway, just take a look at him: a fine specimen!'

  'Poverty is no sin, my friend, but why all the fuss? You're a powder keg, as everyone knows, and you can't take an insult. I expect he insulted you first, so you lashed out,' Nikodim Fomich went on, courteously addressing Raskolnikov, 'but you really shouldn't have done: he's the noblest of men, let me assure you, the noblest, but he's gunpowder! Flares up, sizzles away, burns out - and that's that! Finished! And all that's left is the gold in his heart! Lieutenant Powder Keg, that's what they called him in the regiment . . .'

  'And what a regiment that was!' exclaimed Ilya Petrovich, delighted at being so agreeably tickled, though still in a huff.

  Raskolnikov had a sudden urge to say something exceptionally nice to them all.

  'Have a heart, Captain,' he began very freely, turning all of a sudden to Nikodim Fomich, 'and put yourself in my shoes for a moment . . . I'm even prepared to offer him an apology, if I've shown a lack of respect. I'm a poor, sick student, dejected' (that was his exact word: 'dejected') 'by poverty. I'm a former student, because I can't support myself at the moment, but I'm expecting some money . . . My mother and sister live in ---- province . . . They're sending me some and I'll . . . pay. My landlady's a kind woman, but she's so angry with me for losing my teaching and not paying four months in a row that she won't even send up meals . . . And as for the promissory note - I haven't a clue what you mean! She's waving that IOU at me, but what can I pay her with? Judge for yourselves!'

  'But that's none of our business . . . ,' the head clerk tried to put in again.

  'Quite so, I couldn't agree more, but kindly allow me to put my side of the story,' Raskolnikov rejoined, still addressing Nikodim Fomich rather than the head clerk, while making every effort to address Ilya Petrovich at the same time, even though the latter kept up a stubborn pretence of rummaging through his papers and contemptuously ignoring him. 'Allow me to explain, for my part, that I've been living at hers for about three years now, ever since I arrived from the provinces, and before . . . before . . . well, why don't I just admit it? You see, I gave her my word right from the start that I'd marry her daughter, a verbal promise, freely undertaken . . . This girl was . . . well, I even took a fancy to her . . . though I wasn't in love with her . . . youth, in a word . . . What I mean is, my landlady lent me plenty of money at the time and the life I led was, to a certain extent . . . well, I was very frivolous . . .'

  'Nobody's asking you for such intimacies, sir, and there's no time for them anyway,' Ilya Petrovich interrupted, rudely and gloatingly, but Raskolnikov rushed to cut him short, even though he was suddenly finding it terribly difficult to speak.

  'But kindly allow me, if you would, to tell the whole story . . . to explain how it was . . . for my part . . . though it's quite unnecessary, I agree . . . but a year ago this young girl died of typhus, while I stayed on as a lodger, and the landlady, when she'd moved into the apartment she has now, said to me . . . in a friendly way . . . that she had every confidence in me and so on . . . but wouldn't I like to write her a promissory note for one hundred and fifteen roubles, which, according to her sums, was what I owed her? Take note, sir: she specifically said that just as soon as I gave her that document she'd once again lend me as much as I wanted and that never, never, for her part - these were her exact words - would she take advantage of this document, until I paid up myself . . . And now, just when I have lost my teaching and have nothing to eat, she goes and files a recovery claim . . . So what can I say?'

  'All these sentimental details, honourable sir, do not concern us,' Ilya Petrovich insolently broke in. 'You must supply a statement and an undertaking, and as for being in love and all these tragic particulars, well, we couldn't care less.'

  'Well really . . . that's a bit harsh . . . ,' muttered Nikodim Fomich, sitting down to sign some papers as well. He felt almost ashamed.

  'Go on, write,' the head clerk told Raskolnikov.

  'Write what?' asked the latter in a particularly rude sort of way.

  'I'll dictate.'

  It seemed to Raskolnikov that the head clerk had become more casual and scornful towards him after his confession, but, strangely enough, he suddenly felt utterly indifferent to anyone else's opinion, and this change had come about just like that, in a flash. Had he chosen to pause for a moment's thought, then he would of course have been amazed: how could he have spoken to them like that, just a moment ago, and even thrust his feelings upon them? And where had they come from, these feelings? Now, on the contrary, if the room had suddenly filled up not with police officers but with his bosom friends, even then, it seemed, he could have found no human words for them, so empty had his heart suddenly become. A gloomy sensation of excruciating, endless solitude and estrangement suddenly communicated itself consciously to his soul. His abject effusions before Ilya Petrovich, the lieutenant's abject gloating - it was not these that had suddenly turned his heart inside out. Oh, what did any of it matter to him now: his own despicable behaviour, all this vanity, these lieutenants, German ladies, recovery claims, bureaus, etcetera, etcetera? Had he been sentenced to the stake at this moment, even then he would not have stirred, even then he would scarcely have bothered listening to the sentence. Something entirely unfamiliar was happening to him, something new, sudden and completely unprecedented. He did not so much understand as sense, with the full force and clarity of his senses, that he no longer had anything to say to these people in the local police bureau, never mind exhibitions of sentiment, and had they all been his very own brothers and sisters and not district lieutenants, even then there would have been no point talking to them, whatever life threw in his path; never before had he experienced such a strange and dreadful sensation. And the most excruciating thing of all was that this was more a sensation than something conscious, something intellectual; a direct sensation, the most excruciating of all sensations experienced by him hitherto in his life.

  The head clerk began dictating the statement, following the usual form in such cases, i.e., unable to pay, promise to do so on such-and-such a date (whenever), shan't leave town, shan't sell or give away my property, etcetera.

  'But you can't even write - you keep dropping the pen,' the head clerk observed, peering curiously at Raskolnikov. 'Are you sick?'

  'Yes . . . head's spinning . . . Carry on!'

  'That's it. Now sign.'

  The head clerk took the document and turned to the other people waiting.

  Raskolnikov gave back the pen, but instead of getting up to leave he placed his elbows on the desk and gripped his head in his hands. As if a nail were being knocked into the crown of his head. A strange notion suddenly struck him: to get up right now, walk over to Nikodim Fomich and tell him all about yesterday, down to the very last detail, then go with them to his apartment and show them the items, in the corner, in the hole. The urge was so strong that he was already on his feet to carry it out. 'Perhaps I should think about it first?' flashed across his mind. 'No, best not to think and get it over and done with!' But he suddenly stopped dead in his tracks: Nikodim Fomich was having a heated exchange with Ilya Petrovich and their words carried over to him:

  'Impossible! They'll release the pair of them! First off, it makes no sense: why would they call the caretaker if it was their doing? To inform against themselves? Or were they just being clever? No, that would be too clever by half! And anyway, Pestryakov, the student, was seen right at the gates by both caretakers and the tradeswoman at the very moment he walked in: he had three friends with him and he left them at the gates and asked the caretakers about accommodation while his friends were still there. You tell me: would he have started asking about accommodation if those were his intentions? And as for Kokh, before calling on the old woman he kept the silversmith company for half an hour downstairs, then went up to see her at a quarter to eight sharp. Think about it . . .'

  'But wait, isn't there a glaring contradiction here: they say they knocked and the door was l
ocked, then three minutes later, when they came back with the caretaker, it turns out to be open?'

  'That's just it: the killer was inside, no doubt about it, and had locked himself in; and they would have caught him, no doubt about it, if Kokh hadn't stupidly run off to get the caretaker. And it was precisely then, during that brief interval, that he managed to go down the stairs and somehow slip past them. Kokh crosses himself with one hand then the other, and says, "If I'd stayed put, he'd have leapt out and killed me with the axe." Now he wants to hold a thanksgiving service in the Russian fashion, heh-heh!'

  'So no one saw the killer?'

  'How could they? It's like Noah's Ark, that house,' the head clerk observed, listening in from his desk.

  'It's all clear as day, clear as day!' Nikodim Fomich excitedly repeated.

  'Clear as mud!' snapped Ilya Petrovich.

  Raskolnikov picked up his hat and made for the door, but he didn't reach it . . .

  When he came to his senses, he saw that he was sitting on a chair, that there was someone supporting him to his right and someone else standing to his left, holding a yellow glass filled with yellow water, while Nikodim Fomich stood before him, staring at him. He got up from the chair.

  'What is it? Are you sick?' asked Nikodim Fomich rather abruptly.

  'Even when he was signing his name, he could barely hold the pen,' observed the head clerk, returning to his seat and busying himself with his papers again.

  'Been sick long?' Ilya Petrovich shouted from his desk, as he, too, sorted through his papers. He, of course, had also been studying him after he fainted, but immediately moved off when he came round.

  'Since yesterday . . . ,' Raskolnikov muttered in reply.

  'And did you go outside yesterday?'

  'Yes.'

  'Sick?'

  'Yes.'

  'What time?'

  'Evening, after seven.'

  'And where to, may I ask?'

  'Down the street.'

  'Clear and to the point.'

  Raskolnikov, pale as a handkerchief, replied abruptly and curtly, meeting Ilya Petrovich's gaze with his black, swollen eyes.