Crime and Punishment Page 6

  'My good sir, may I make so bold as to engage you in polite conversation? For though you may be of indifferent appearance, my experience detects in you a man of education and one unaccustomed to drink. I myself have always respected learning, when combined with heartfelt sentiment; moreover, I hold the rank of titular counsellor.14 Marmeladov's the name. Titular counsellor. Dare I ask whether you have been in the service?'

  'No, I'm studying . . . ,' replied the young man, somewhat surprised both by the speaker's distinctive flowery tone and at being addressed so directly and so bluntly. Despite his recent pang of desire for human company of any kind, the very first word addressed to him in reality instantly elicited his usual, unpleasant and irritable feeling of disgust towards any stranger who came into contact with him, or showed the slightest wish to do so.

  'I knew it - a student or a former student!'15 the civil servant cried. 'Experience, my good sir, long years of experience!' He put a finger to his forehead as if to congratulate himself. 'Either you were once a student or you were still walking that road! Permit me . . .' He rose, swayed, grabbed his pot and little glass, moved over to the young man and sat down next to him at a slight angle. Though drunk, he spoke with a vigorous eloquence, only occasionally tripping over his words and drawling. He threw himself on Raskolnikov almost hungrily, as if he, too, hadn't spoken to anyone for an entire month.

  'My good sir,' he began almost solemnly, 'poverty is no sin - that much is true. And drunkenness is no virtue - that's even truer. But beggary, sir - yes, beggary - now that is a sin. In poverty, you still retain the nobility of your innate feelings; in beggary, nobody retains it, ever. Beggars are not driven from the fold of humanity with a stick - no, they are swept out with a broom to make the insult all the greater; and rightly so, for in beggary I am the first to insult myself. Hence the public house! My good sir, a month ago Mr Lebezyatnikov gave my spouse a thrashing - and my spouse is nothing like me! Do you follow, sir? Permit me further to enquire, if for no better reason than mere curiosity: have you ever had occasion to pass the night on the Neva, on the hay barges?'

  'No, I haven't,' replied Raskolnikov. 'How do you mean?'

  'Well, sir, that's where I've been, for the fifth night running . . .'

  He refilled his glass and drank, lost in thought. Wisps of hay did indeed cling to his clothes here and there, and there was even some in his hair. It was more than likely that five days had passed since he'd last changed his clothes or washed. His hands, in particular, were filthy, greasy and red, the nails black.

  His conversation appeared to arouse a general, if idle interest. The boys behind the bar began to titter. The landlord, it seemed, had come down specially from the room upstairs so as to listen to this 'entertainer', and he sat at a distance, yawning lazily and self-importantly. Marmeladov was clearly an old face here. And his penchant for flowery speech must have derived from his habit of talking to strangers in bars. For some drinkers this habit becomes a need, especially if at home they are ordered about and harshly treated. That's why, in the company of other drinkers, they always go to such lengths to be vindicated and, if possible, earn their respect.

  'A right entertainer!' the landlord boomed. 'Why's you not working, then? Why, pray, d'you not serve, civil servant?'

  'Why do I not serve, my dear sir?' echoed Marmeladov, addressing himself exclusively to Raskolnikov, as though it were he who had posed the question. 'Why do I not serve? Does my heart not ache to know that I bow and scrape in vain? A month ago, when Mr Lebezyatnikov thrashed my spouse with his own bare hands, while I lay tipsy, did I not suffer? Pray tell me, young man, have you ever had occasion to . . . ahem . . . well, beg for a loan, say, without hope?'

  'I have . . . but what do you mean, without hope?'

  'I mean, without any hope at all, sir, knowing in advance that nothing will come of it. For example, you know in advance and with complete certainty that this man, this most well-intentioned and most helpful citizen, will not give you a copeck, for, I ask you, why should he? After all, he knows full well that I shan't return it. Out of compassion? But Mr Lebezyatnikov, who keeps abreast of the latest thinking, was explaining only the other day that in our age even science has prohibited compassion, and that is how they already do things in England, where political economy16 is all the rage. So, I ask you, why should he? And yet, knowing in advance that he will not give it to you, you set out all the same and . . .'

  'So why go?' Raskolnikov put in.

  'What if there is nowhere else to go and no one else to go to? After all, every man must have at least somewhere he can go. There are times when one simply has to go somewhere, anywhere! When my only-begotten daughter went off to work for the first time on a "yellow ticket",17 I, too, went off . . . (for my daughter lives on a yellow ticket, sir . . . ),' he added in parenthesis, looking at the young man with a certain unease. 'Never mind, good sir, never mind!' he hurriedly continued with apparent equanimity, when the two boys behind the bar snorted and the landlord grinned. 'Never mind, sir! The mere wagging of heads cannot embarrass me, for now everything is known to all and all that was hidden is made manifest; and I respond not with contempt, but with humility. So be it! So be it! "Behold the Man!"18 Pray tell me, young man: can you . . . ? No, let's put it more strongly, more vividly: not can you, but dare you, gazing at me here and now, state for a fact that I am not a pig?'

  The young man said nothing.

  'Well, sir,' the orator continued, pausing with an imposing and even, on this occasion, exaggeratedly dignified air for the latest round of sniggering to abate. 'Well, sir, I may be a pig, but she is a lady! I may bear the likeness of a beast, but Katerina Ivanovna, my spouse, is an educated person, who was born to a field officer. I may be a scoundrel, but she is endowed with a sublime heart and feelings ennobled by good breeding. And yet . . . oh, would that my lady had pity on me! After all, kindest sir, every man must have at least one place where even he might be pitied! Katerina Ivanovna is high-minded, but unjust . . . And though I understand myself that even when she seizes me by my forelocks she does so purely from the pity of her heart (for I am not embarrassed to repeat, young man, that she seizes me by my forelocks),' he reaffirmed with redoubled dignity, after hearing sniggers once more, 'but heavens - if she could only once, just once . . . But no! No! All this is vanity! A waste of breath and nothing more! . . . For my desire has come to pass more than once and I have been pitied more than once, but . . . that's just how I am: a born brute!'

  'Not half!' observed the landlord with a yawn.

  Marmeladov banged his fist on the table.

  'Yes, it's the mark of my character! Are you aware, good sir, that I even drank away her stockings - are you aware of that fact? Not her boots, sir, for at least that would have borne some resemblance to the order of things, but her stockings - yes, sir, her stockings! Her little mohair shawl, I drank that away too - a gift, from before, her very own, not mine; and we live in a chilly little corner,19 and she caught cold this winter, and now she's coughing up blood. Not to mention our three little mites: Katerina Ivanovna's hard at it from dawn till dusk, scrubbing and cleaning and washing the children, for cleanliness has been a habit of hers since infancy, and she is weak of chest and prone to consumption, and I can feel it. Do I not feel? The more I drink, the more I feel. That is why I do it: imbibing, I seek compassion and feeling. It is not merriment I seek, but sorrow, only sorrow . . . I drink that I may suffer more deeply!' With that, he lowered his head onto the table, as if in despair.

  'Young man,' he continued, raising himself once more, 'I read, as it were, a certain sorrow in your features. I read it there the moment you walked in, which is why I was so quick to address you. For it is not to disgrace myself before these gentlemen of leisure, who already know it all anyway, that I relate the story of my life to you; rather, I seek a man of feeling and education. You should know that my spouse attended an aristocratic school for daughters of the nobility, and at the leaving ball she danced the pas de chale20 in the pr
esence of the governor and other persons, for which she received a gold medal and a certificate of distinction. The medal . . . well, the medal was sold . . . long ago now . . . H'm! . . . But the certificate of distinction is still in her trunk, and just recently she showed it to our landlady. And though she and the landlady are in perpetual discord, the urge to show off a little before someone - anyone - and reminisce about better, happier days was too strong to resist. And I do not judge her - no, I do not - for this is what has remained in her memory, when all else has turned to dust! Yes, yes; a proud lady, proud and unbending. She scrubs the floor herself and gets by on black bread, but she will not be slighted. That is why she could not let Mr Lebezyatnikov's rudeness pass unchallenged, and when Mr Lebezyatnikov gave her a beating for it, she took to her bed less from injury to her body than from injury to her feelings. I married her when she was already a widow, with three children, three tiny little mites. She married her first husband, an infantry officer, for love, and ran away with him from her father's home. She loved him beyond measure, but he started gambling, ended up in court and promptly died. He beat her towards the end; and though she stood up to him, which I know for a fact, with papers to prove it, she remembers him to this day with tears in her eyes and reproaches me with his example, and I am glad, I am glad, for in her imagination, at least, she once was happy . . . So she was left with three infants in a far-flung, savage district, where I also happened to find myself, and she was left in such hopeless beggary that I, for all that I have seen in my life, am quite incapable of even describing it. Her relations turned their backs on her. And she was proud, too proud . . . So then, my good sir, I, also widowed, with a fourteen-year-old daughter from my first wife, offered my hand in marriage, for I could not bear to look on such suffering. You may judge the depth of her plight from the fact that she, educated, well brought up, the bearer of a famous surname, consented to marry me! She did! Crying and sobbing and wringing her hands - but marry me she did! For she had nowhere else to go. Do you understand, my good sir, do you really understand what that means, to have nowhere left to go? No! This you have yet to understand . . . For an entire year I carried out my duty in godly, pious fashion and not a drop did I touch,' (he jabbed at his pint-measure of vodka) 'for I am a man of feeling. Yet even thus I could not please. Then I lost my position, also through no fault of my own: a change of personnel; and then I began to partake! . . . A year and a half must have passed now since we finally found ourselves, after lengthy wanderings and numerous calamities, in this magnificent capital city graced by numerous monuments. And here, I received a position . . . Received it and lost it again. Understand, sir? This time it was my own fault; the mark of my character came to the fore . . . So now we occupy a little corner of a house, and Amalia Fyodorovna Lippewechsel is our landlady, and how we get by and how we pay, I do not know. Many others live there, too, of course . . . Sodom, sir, of the foulest kind . . . H'm . . . Yes . . . Meanwhile, my girl from my first marriage has grown up and the things she has had to endure from her stepmother along the way - well, the less said, the better. For although Katerina Ivanovna's soul overflows with the noblest sentiments, she is fiery and irritable, and quick to slap you down . . . Yes sir! But what is the use in remembering? Sonya, as you can well imagine, received no education. I did try, some four years ago, to give her a grounding in geography and world history; but because my own grasp of these fields is uncertain, and due to a lack of decent primers (for what books there were . . . h'm! . . . well, they are no longer even around, those books) that was all the teaching she had. Cyrus the Great21 was as far as we got. Later, on reaching maturity, she read several books of a romantic bent, and just recently, through the good offices of Mr Lebezyatnikov, she read with great interest a certain little tome, Lewes's Physiology22 - perhaps you know it? - and even conveyed parts of it to us aloud: and that is the sum of her education. Now let me turn to you, my good sir, with a private question of my own: in your view, can a poor but honest girl earn much through honest labour? . . . She'll not earn fifteen copecks a day, sir, if she is honest and has no particular talents, and even then only if she works herself into the ground! And even then Counsellor Ivan Ivanovich Klopstok - are you familiar with the name? - not only failed to pay her for sewing half a dozen Holland-cloth shirts, he even insulted her and showed her the door, stamping his feet and calling her all sorts of names, claiming that a collar she'd sewn was the wrong size and not straight. Not to mention the little mites going hungry . . . and Katerina Ivanovna wringing her hands and pacing the room, her cheeks coming out in red blotches, as is always the way with this ailment: "You're sponging, girl, eating and drinking and keeping yourself warm," but search me how you can drink and eat when even the little ones don't see a crust of bread for three days at a time! I had my feet up at the time . . . well, all right, I was tipsy, sir, and I could hear my Sonya (as tame as they come, with that meek little voice of hers . . . and her fair hair and her little face, always so pale and thin), I could hear her saying: "Well then, Katerina Ivanovna, do I really have to do that?" Meanwhile Darya Frantsevna, a malicious woman well known to the police, had already made a few enquiries through the landlady. "Well then," mocked Katerina Ivanovna, "what are you saving exactly? Precious jewels?" But blame her not, my good sir, blame her not! This was said not in soundness of mind, but in a tumult of feeling, in sickness and to the crying of unfed children, and it was said more to offend than for its precise meaning . . . For such is Katerina Ivanovna's character, and the moment the children start crying, albeit from hunger, she immediately beats them. Come six o'clock, I saw Sonechka get to her feet, cover her head, put on her little burnous and leave the apartment, and by nine she was back again. She went straight to Katerina Ivanovna and laid out thirty roubles on the table without saying a word. Not a word, not even a glance. She just took our big, green drap de dames23 shawl (we have one between us, made of drap de dames), buried her head and face in it and lay down on the bed, her face to the wall, her little shoulders and body a-quivering . . . As for me, sir, I was in the same state as before, with my feet up . . . And that, young man, was when I saw Katerina Ivanovna walk over to Sonechka's little bed, also without saying a word, and kneel at the foot of the bed for the rest of the evening, kissing Sonechka's feet, not wanting to get up, and, in the end, they both fell asleep just like that, in each other's arms . . . both of them . . . both . . . yes, sir . . . and as for me . . . I was tipsy and had my feet up.'

  Marmeladov fell silent - his voice just seemed to break off. Then, with sudden haste, he poured out a glass, drank it and cleared his throat.

  'And ever since then, good sir,' he went on after a pause, 'in consequence of a certain unfavourable circumstance and certain malicious reports, in which activity Darya Frantsevna proved especially zealous, alleging that she had not been shown due respect - ever since then my daughter, Sofya Semyonovna, has been obliged to take the yellow ticket, on account of which she could remain with us no longer. For our landlady, Amalia Fyodorovna, would not allow it (though she had previously assisted Darya Frantsevna), and Mr Lebezyatnikov himself . . . H'm . . . Well, it was on account of Sonya that he had that rumpus with Katerina Ivanovna. First he tried his luck with Sonechka, then he suddenly got up on his high horse: "Am I, a man of considerable education, to live under one roof with the likes of her?" Well, Katerina Ivanovna didn't let that pass; she stepped in . . . and that was that . . . Sonechka usually comes by at dusk now, helps out Katerina Ivanovna and brings us what she can . . . She lives at Kapernaumov's, the tailor's, rents a room there, and Kapernaumov is lame and tongue-tied, and his entire numerous brood is also tongue-tied. And his wife, she too is tongue-tied . . . They squeeze into a single room, while Sonya has one of her own, with a partition . . . H'm, yes . . . The poorest of people and tied of tongue . . . yes indeed . . . So I got up bright and early, put on my rags, raised my hands to heaven and set off to see His Excellency Ivan Afanasyevich. Perhaps you know His Excellency Ivan Afanasyevich? . . . No? Then yo
u do not know a godly man! He is wax . . . wax before the face of the Lord; as wax melteth!24 He was even moved to tears after deigning to hear me out. "Well, Marmeladov," he says, "you've already disappointed me once . . . Now I'm giving you a second chance as my personal responsibility," (those were his very words) "so remember that, and be off with you!" I kissed the dust at his feet - in my mind, of course, for in reality he would not have allowed it, being a dignitary and a man of the latest thinking in matters of state and education - and when I returned home and announced that I had been taken back into the service and was drawing a salary, well, good heavens, you should have seen what happened then! . . .'