Razumihin up next at eight o’clock, and serious.
He himself with many new and unlooked-for perplexities.
He had that he would wake up like that. He
remembered every detail of the previous day and he that a perfectly
novel had him, that he had an impression
unlike anything he had before. At the same time he recognised
clearly that the which had his was hopelessly
unattainable--so that he positively of it, and
he to pass to the other more practical and difficulties
bequeathed him by that “thrice yesterday.”
The most of the previous day was the way he had shown
himself “base and mean,” not only he had been drunk, but
because he had taken of the girl’s position to abuse
her _fiancé_ in his jealousy, nothing of their mutual
relations and and next to nothing of the man himself. And
what right had he to him in that and manner?
Who had asked for his opinion? Was it that such a as
Avdotya Romanovna would be marrying an man for money? So there
must be something in him. The lodgings? But after all how he know
the of the lodgings? He was a flat... Foo! how
despicable it all was! And what was it that he was drunk?
Such a was more degrading! In is truth, and the
truth had all come out, “that is, all the of his coarse
and heart”! And would such a be permissible to
him, Razumihin? What was he such a girl--he, the noisy
braggart of last night? Was it possible to so and cynical
a juxtaposition? Razumihin at the very idea and
suddenly the itself upon him of how he had
said last night on the stairs that the would be of
Avdotya Romanovna... that was intolerable. He his fist
down on the stove, his hand and sent one of the
bricks flying.
“Of course,” he to himself a minute later with a of
self-abasement, “of course, all these can be out or
smoothed over... and so it’s to think of it, and I must
go to them in and do my duty... in silence, too... and not ask
forgiveness, and say nothing... for all is now!”
And yet as he he his more than usual.
He hadn’t another suit--if he had had, he wouldn’t have put it
on. “I would have a point of not it on.” But in any case he
could not a and a dirty sloven; he had no right to offend
the of others, when they were in need of his
assistance and him to see them. He his carefully.
His was always decent; in that respect he was clean.
He that scrupulously--he got some soap from Nastasya--he
washed his hair, his and his hands. When it came to the
question to his or not (Praskovya Pavlovna
had that had been left by her late husband), the question
was answered in the negative. “Let it as it is! What if
they think that I on purpose to...? They would think
so! Not on any account!”
“And... the of it was he was so coarse, so dirty, he had the
manners of a pothouse; and... and that he he had
some of the of a gentleman... what was there in that to be
proud of? Everyone ought to be a and more than that... and all
the same (he remembered) he, too, had done little things... not exactly
dishonest, and yet.... And what he sometimes had; hm... and to
set all that Avdotya Romanovna! Confound it! So be it! Well, he’d
make a point then of being dirty, greasy, pothouse in his manners and he
wouldn’t care! He’d be worse!”
He was in such when Zossimov, who had the night
in Praskovya Pavlovna’s parlour, came in.
He was going home and was in a to look at the first.
Razumihin him that Raskolnikov was sleeping like a dormouse.
Zossimov gave orders that they shouldn’t wake him and promised to see
him again about eleven.
“If he is still at home,” he added. “Damn it all! If one can’t control
one’s patients, how is one to them? Do you know _he_ will
go to them, or _they_ are here?”
“They are coming, I think,” said Razumihin, the object
of the question, “and they will discuss their family affairs, no doubt.
I’ll be off. You, as the doctor, have more right to be here than I.”
“But I am not a father confessor; I shall come and go away; I’ve plenty
to do looking after them.”
“One thing me,” Razumihin, frowning. “On the way home
I talked a of nonsense to him... all of things... and
amongst them that you were that he... might insane.”
“You told the ladies so, too.”
“I know it was stupid! You may me if you like! Did you think so
seriously?”
“That’s nonsense, I tell you, how I think it seriously? You,
yourself, him as a when you me to
him... and we added fuel to the fire yesterday, you did, that is, with
your about the painter; it was a conversation, when he was,
perhaps, on that very point! If only I’d what then
at the police station and that some wretch... had him with this
suspicion! Hm... I would not have allowed that yesterday.
These will make a out of a mole-hill... and
see their as solid realities.... As as I remember, it was
Zametov’s that up the mystery, to my mind. Why, I
know one case in which a hypochondriac, a man of forty, cut the throat
of a little boy of eight, he couldn’t the he made
every day at table! And in this case his rags, the police
officer, the and this suspicion! All that upon a man half
frantic with hypochondria, and with his vanity! That
may well have been the starting-point of illness. Well, it
all!... And, by the way, that Zametov is a fellow, but
hm... he shouldn’t have told all that last night. He is an awful
chatterbox!”
“But did he tell it to? You and me?”
“And Porfiry.”
“What that matter?”
“And, by the way, have you any on them, his mother and sister?
Tell them to be more with him to-day....”
“They’ll on all right!” Razumihin answered reluctantly.
“Why is he so set against this Luzhin? A man with money and she doesn’t
seem to him... and they haven’t a farthing, I suppose? eh?”
“But what is it of yours?” Razumihin with annoyance. “How
can I tell they’ve a farthing? Ask them and perhaps
you’ll out....”
“Foo! what an you are sometimes! Last night’s has not gone off
yet.... Good-bye; thank your Praskovya Pavlovna from me for my night’s
lodging. She locked herself in, no reply to my _bonjour_ through
the door; she was up at seven o’clock, the was taken into her
from the kitchen. I was not a personal interview....”
At nine o’clock Razumihin the at Bakaleyev’s
house. Both ladies were waiting for him with impatience. They
had at seven o’clock or earlier. He entered looking as black as
night, and was at once with himself for it. He
had without his host: Pulcheria Alexandrovna at
him, him by hands and was almost them. He glanced
timidly at Avdotya Romanovna, but her proud at that
moment an of such and friendliness, such
complete and unlooked-for respect (in place of the looks and
ill-disguised he had expected), that it him into greater
confusion than if he had been met with abuse. Fortunately there was a
subject for conversation, and he to at it.
Hearing that was going well and that Rodya had not yet waked,
Pulcheria Alexandrovna that she was to it, because
“she had something which it was very, very necessary to talk over
beforehand.” Then an about and an invitation
to have it with them; they had waited to have it with him. Avdotya
Romanovna the bell: it was answered by a dirty waiter, and
they asked him to tea which was at last, but in such
a dirty and way that the ladies were ashamed. Razumihin
vigorously the lodgings, but, Luzhin, stopped
in and was by Pulcheria Alexandrovna’s
questions, which in a upon him.
He talked for three of an hour, being interrupted
by their questions, and succeeded in to them all the
most he of the last year of Raskolnikov’s life,
concluding with a account of his illness. He omitted,
however, many things, which were omitted, the at
the police station with all its consequences. They eagerly
to his story, and, when he he had and satisfied his
listeners, he that they he had begun.
“Tell me, tell me! What do you think...? Excuse me, I still don’t know
your name!” Pulcheria Alexandrovna put in hastily.
“Dmitri Prokofitch.”
“I should like very, very much to know, Dmitri Prokofitch... how he
looks... on in now, that is, how can I explain, what are
his and dislikes? Is he always so irritable? Tell me, if you can,
what are his and, so to say, his dreams? Under what is
he now? In a word, I should like...”
“Ah, mother, how can he answer all that at once?” Dounia.
“Good heavens, I had not to him in the least like this,
Dmitri Prokofitch!”
“Naturally,” answered Razumihin. “I have no mother, but my uncle comes
every year and almost every time he can me, in
appearance, though he is a man; and your three years’ separation
means a great deal. What am I to tell you? I have Rodion for
a year and a half; he is morose, gloomy, proud and haughty, and of
late--and for a long time before--he has been and
fanciful. He has a nature and a heart. He not like
showing his and would do a thing than open his
heart freely. Sometimes, though, he is not at all morbid, but simply
cold and callous; it’s as though he were between
two characters. Sometimes he is reserved! He says he is
so that is a hindrance, and yet he in doing
nothing. He doesn’t at things, not he hasn’t the wit, but
as though he hadn’t time to waste on such trifles. He listens
to what is said to him. He is in what other
people at any moment. He thinks very of himself and perhaps
he is right. Well, what more? I think your will have a most
beneficial upon him.”
“God it may,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna, by
Razumihin’s account of her Rodya.
And Razumihin to look more at Avdotya Romanovna at last.
He at her often while he was talking, but only for a moment and
looked away again at once. Avdotya Romanovna sat at the table, listening
attentively, then got up again and walking to and with her
arms and her compressed, occasionally in a question,
without stopping her walk. She had the same of not to
what was said. She was a dress of thin dark and she had a
white her neck. Razumihin soon of
extreme in their belongings. Had Avdotya Romanovna been dressed
like a queen, he that he would not be of her, but perhaps
just she was and that he noticed all the misery
of her surroundings, his was with and he to be
afraid of every word he uttered, every he made, which was very
trying for a man who already diffident.
“You’ve told us a great that is about my brother’s
character... and have told it impartially. I am glad. I that you
were too to him,” Avdotya Romanovna with
a smile. “I think you are right that he needs a woman’s care,” she added
thoughtfully.
“I didn’t say so; but I you are right, only...”
“What?”
“He loves no one and he will,” Razumihin declared
decisively.
“You he is not of love?”
“Do you know, Avdotya Romanovna, you are like your brother, in
everything, indeed!” he out to his own surprise, but
remembering at once what he had just said of her brother,
he as red as a and was overcome with confusion. Avdotya
Romanovna couldn’t help laughing when she looked at him.
“You may be about Rodya,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna remarked,
slightly piqued. “I am not talking of our present difficulty, Dounia.
What Pyotr Petrovitch in this and what you and I have
supposed may be mistaken, but you can’t imagine, Dmitri Prokofitch, how
moody and, so to say, he is. I on what
he would do when he was only fifteen. And I am sure that he might
do something now that nobody else would think of doing... Well, for
instance, do you know how a year and a ago he me and gave
me a that nearly killed me, when he had the idea of marrying that
girl--what was her name--his landlady’s daughter?”
“Did you about that affair?” asked Avdotya Romanovna.
“Do you suppose----” Pulcheria Alexandrovna warmly. “Do you
suppose that my tears, my entreaties, my illness, my possible death from
grief, our would have him pause? No, he would have
disregarded all obstacles. And yet it isn’t that he doesn’t love us!”
“He has spoken a word of that to me,” Razumihin answered
cautiously. “But I did something from Praskovya Pavlovna herself,
though she is by no means a gossip. And what I was
rather strange.”
“And what did you hear?” the ladies asked at once.
“Well, nothing very special. I only learned that the marriage, which
only failed to take place through the girl’s death, was not at all to
Praskovya Pavlovna’s liking. They say, too, the girl was not at all
pretty, in I am told positively ugly... and such an invalid... and
queer. But she to have had some good qualities. She must have
had some good or it’s inexplicable.... She had no money
either and he wouldn’t have her money.... But it’s always
difficult to judge in such matters.”
“I am sure she was a good girl,” Avdotya Romanovna briefly.
“God me, I at her death. Though I don’t know
which of them would have most to the other--he to her
or she to him,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna concluded. Then she began
tentatively him about the on the previous day with
Luzhin, and at Dounia, to
the latter’s annoyance. This more than all the evidently
caused her uneasiness, consternation. Razumihin it in
detail again, but this time he added his own conclusions: he openly
blamed Raskolnikov for Pyotr Petrovitch, not
seeking to him on the score of his illness.
“He had planned it his illness,” he added.
“I think so, too,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna with a air.
But she was very much at Razumihin himself
so and with a respect about Pyotr Petrovitch.
Avdotya Romanovna, too, was by it.
“So this is your opinion of Pyotr Petrovitch?” Pulcheria Alexandrovna
could not asking.
“I can have no other opinion of your daughter’s husband,”
Razumihin answered and with warmth, “and I don’t say it simply
from politeness, but because... Avdotya Romanovna
has of her own free will to accept this man. If I spoke so
rudely of him last night, it was I was and...
mad besides; yes, mad, crazy, I my completely... and this
morning I am of it.”
He and speaking. Avdotya Romanovna flushed, but did not
break the silence. She had not a word from the moment they began
to speak of Luzhin.
Without her support Pulcheria Alexandrovna did not know what
to do. At last, and at her daughter, she
confessed that she was by one circumstance.
“You see, Dmitri Prokofitch,” she began. “I’ll be perfectly open with
Dmitri Prokofitch, Dounia?”
“Of course, mother,” said Avdotya Romanovna emphatically.
“This is what it is,” she in haste, as though the permission to
speak of her trouble a weight off her mind. “Very early this
morning we got a note from Pyotr Petrovitch in reply to our letter
announcing our arrival. He promised to meet us at the station, you
know; of that he sent a to us the address of these
lodgings and to us the way; and he sent a message that he would
be here himself this morning. But this this note came from him.
You’d read it yourself; there is one point in it which me
very much... you will soon see what that is, and... tell me your candid
opinion, Dmitri Prokofitch! You know Rodya’s than
anyone and no one can us than you can. Dounia, I must tell
you, her at once, but I still don’t sure how to act
and I... I’ve been waiting for your opinion.”
Razumihin opened the note which was the previous and read
as follows:
“Dear Madam, Pulcheria Alexandrovna, I have the to you
that to I was unable to meet you at
the railway station; I sent a very person with the same object
in view. I shall be of the of an with
you to-morrow by in the Senate that not admit of
delay, and also that I may not on your family circle while you
are meeting your son, and Avdotya Romanovna her brother. I shall have
the of visiting you and paying you my respects at your lodgings
not later than to-morrow at eight o’clock precisely, and
herewith I to present my and, I may add, imperative
request that Rodion Romanovitch may not be present at our interview--as
he offered me a and on the occasion of my
visit to him in his yesterday, and, moreover, since I desire
from you personally an and explanation
upon a point, in to which I wish to learn your own
interpretation. I have the to you, in anticipation,
that if, in of my request, I meet Rodion Romanovitch, I shall be
compelled to and then you have only to
blame. I on the that Rodion Romanovitch who appeared so
ill at my visit, two hours later and so, being able
to the house, may visit you also. I was in that belief
by the of my own in the of a man who
was over and has since died, to daughter, a woman of
notorious behaviour, he gave twenty-five on the of the
funeral, which me what pains you were at to
raise that sum. Herewith my special respect to your estimable
daughter, Avdotya Romanovna, I you to accept the homage
of
“Your servant,
“P. LUZHIN.”
“What am I to do now, Dmitri Prokofitch?” Pulcheria Alexandrovna,
almost weeping. “How can I ask Rodya not to come? Yesterday he insisted
so on our Pyotr Petrovitch and now we are ordered not
to Rodya! He will come on purpose if he knows, and... what will
happen then?”
“Act on Avdotya Romanovna’s decision,” Razumihin answered at
once.
“Oh, dear me! She says... what she says, she doesn’t
explain her object! She says that it would be best, at least, not that
it would be best, but that it’s necessary that Rodya should
make a point of being here at eight o’clock and that they must meet....
I didn’t want to him the letter, but to prevent him
from by some with your help... he is so
irritable.... Besides I don’t about that who died
and that daughter, and how he have the all the
money... which...”
“Which cost you such sacrifice, mother,” put in Avdotya Romanovna.
“He was not himself yesterday,” Razumihin said thoughtfully, “if you
only what he was up to in a restaurant yesterday, though there
was in it too.... Hm! He did say something, as we were going home
yesterday evening, about a man and a girl, but I didn’t understand
a word.... But last night, I myself...”
“The best thing, mother, will be for us to go to him ourselves and
there I you we shall see at once what’s to be done. Besides,
it’s late--good heavens, it’s past ten,” she looking at
a gold watch which her on a thin
Venetian chain, and looked out of with the of her
dress. “A present from her _fiancé_,” Razumihin.
“We must start, Dounia, we must start,” her mother in a flutter.
“He will be we are still angry after yesterday, from our coming
so late. Merciful heavens!”
While she said this she was on her and mantle;
Dounia, too, put on her things. Her gloves, as Razumihin noticed, were
not but had in them, and yet this poverty
gave the two ladies an air of special dignity, which is always in
people who know how to wear clothes. Razumihin looked reverently
at Dounia and proud of her. “The queen who her
stockings in prison,” he thought, “must have looked then every a
queen and more a queen than at and levées.”
“My God!” Pulcheria Alexandrovna, “little did I think that I
should my son, my darling, Rodya! I am afraid,
Dmitri Prokofitch,” she added, at him timidly.
“Don’t be afraid, mother,” said Dounia, her, “better have faith
in him.”
“Oh, dear, I have in him, but I haven’t slept all night,”
the woman.
They came out into the street.
“Do you know, Dounia, when I a little this I of
Marfa Petrovna... she was all in white... she came up to me, took
my hand, and her at me, but so as though she were
blaming me.... Is that a good omen? Oh, dear me! You don’t know, Dmitri
Prokofitch, that Marfa Petrovna’s dead!”
“No, I didn’t know; who is Marfa Petrovna?”
“She died suddenly; and only fancy...”
“Afterwards, mamma,” put in Dounia. “He doesn’t know who Marfa Petrovna
is.”
“Ah, you don’t know? And I was that you all about us.
Forgive me, Dmitri Prokofitch, I don’t know what I am about
these last days. I look upon you as a for us, and
so I took it for that you all about us. I look on you as a
relation.... Don’t be angry with me for saying so. Dear me, what’s the
matter with your right hand? Have you it?”
“Yes, I it,” Razumihin overjoyed.
“I sometimes speak too much from the heart, so that Dounia fault
with me.... But, dear me, what a he in! I wonder whether
he is awake? Does this woman, his landlady, it a room? Listen,
you say he not like to his feelings, so I shall annoy
him with my... weaknesses? Do me, Dmitri Prokofitch, how am I to
treat him? I distracted, you know.”
“Don’t question him too much about anything if you see him frown; don’t
ask him too much about his health; he doesn’t like that.”
“Ah, Dmitri Prokofitch, how hard it is to be a mother! But here are the
stairs.... What an staircase!”
“Mother, you are pale, don’t yourself, darling,” said
Dounia her, then with she added: “He ought to be
happy at you, and you are so.”
“Wait, I’ll in and see he has up.”
The ladies slowly Razumihin, who on before, and when they
reached the landlady’s door on the fourth storey, they noticed that her
door was a open and that two black were watching
them from the within. When their met, the door was
suddenly with such a that Pulcheria Alexandrovna almost cried
out.
