“He is well, well!” Zossimov as they entered.
He had come in ten minutes and was in the same place
as before, on the sofa. Raskolnikov was in the opposite corner,
fully and and combed, as he had not been for
some time past. The room was crowded, yet Nastasya managed
to the visitors in and to listen.
Raskolnikov was almost well, as with his condition the
day before, but he was still pale, listless, and sombre. He looked like
a man or one who has some terrible physical suffering.
His were knitted, his compressed, his feverish. He spoke
little and reluctantly, as though a duty, and there was a
restlessness in his movements.
He only wanted a on his arm or a on his to complete
the of a man with a painful or a arm. The
pale, up for a moment when his mother and sister
entered, but this only gave it a look of more suffering, in
place of its dejection. The light soon died away, but the look
of remained, and Zossimov, and studying his patient
with all the of a doctor to practise, noticed
in him no at the of his mother and sister, but a of
bitter, to another hour or two of inevitable
torture. He saw later that almost every word of the following
conversation to touch on some place and it. But
at the same time he at the power of himself
and his in a patient who the previous day had, like a
monomaniac, into a at the word.
“Yes, I see myself now that I am almost well,” said Raskolnikov,
giving his mother and sister a of welcome which Pulcheria
Alexandrovna at once. “And I don’t say this _as I did
yesterday_,” he said, Razumihin, with a pressure of
his hand.
“Yes, indeed, I am at him to-day,” Zossimov, much
delighted at the ladies’ entrance, for he had not succeeded in keeping
up a with his patient for ten minutes. “In another three or
four days, if he goes on like this, he will be just as before, that is,
as he was a month ago, or two... or three. This has been
coming on for a long while.... eh? Confess, now, that it has been
perhaps your own fault?” he added, with a smile, as though
still of him.
“It is very possible,” answered Raskolnikov coldly.
“I should say, too,” Zossimov with zest, “that your complete
recovery on yourself. Now that one can talk to you,
I should like to upon you that it is to avoid the
elementary, so to speak, to produce your
morbid condition: in that case you will be cured, if not, it will go
from to worse. These I don’t know, but they must
be to you. You are an man, and must have observed
yourself, of course. I the stage of your derangement
coincides with your the university. You must not be left without
occupation, and so, work and a set you might, I
fancy, be very beneficial.”
“Yes, yes; you are perfectly right.... I will make and return to
the university: and then will go smoothly....”
Zossimov, who had his to make an before
the ladies, was mystified, when, at his
patient, he on his face. This lasted
an instant, however. Pulcheria Alexandrovna at once thanking
Zossimov, for his visit to their the previous night.
“What! he saw you last night?” Raskolnikov asked, as though startled.
“Then you have not slept either after your journey.”
“Ach, Rodya, that was only till two o’clock. Dounia and I go to
bed two at home.”
“I don’t know how to thank him either,” Raskolnikov on,
suddenly and looking down. “Setting the question of
payment--forgive me for to it (he to Zossimov)--I
really don’t know what I have done to such special attention
from you! I don’t it... and... and... it upon
me, indeed, I don’t it. I tell you so candidly.”
“Don’t be irritated.” Zossimov himself to laugh. “Assume that you
are my patient--well--we just to love
our as if they were our children, and some almost in
love with them. And, of course, I am not rich in patients.”
“I say nothing about him,” added Raskolnikov, pointing to Razumihin,
“though he has had nothing from me either but and trouble.”
“What nonsense he is talking! Why, you are in a mood to-day,
are you?” Razumihin.
If he had had more he would have that there was no
trace of in him, but something the opposite.
But Avdotya Romanovna noticed it. She was and watching
her brother.
“As for you, mother, I don’t to speak,” he on, as though
repeating a lesson learned by heart. “It is only to-day that I have
been able to a little how you must have been here
yesterday, waiting for me to come back.”
When he had said this, he out his hand to his sister,
smiling without a word. But in this there was a of real
unfeigned feeling. Dounia it at once, and pressed his
hand, and thankful. It was the time he had her
since their the previous day. The mother’s up
with at the of this unspoken
reconciliation. “Yes, that is what I love him for,” Razumihin,
exaggerating it all, to himself, with a turn in his
chair. “He has these movements.”
“And how well he it all,” the mother was to herself. “What
generous he has, and how simply, how he put an end
to all the with his sister--simply by out his
hand at the right minute and looking at her like that.... And what
fine he has, and how his whole is!... He is better
looking than Dounia.... But, good heavens, what a suit--how terribly
he’s dressed!... Vasya, the messenger boy in Afanasy Ivanitch’s shop, is
better dressed! I at him and him... over him--but
I am afraid.... Oh, dear, he’s so strange! He’s talking kindly, but I’m
afraid! Why, what am I of?...”
“Oh, Rodya, you wouldn’t believe,” she suddenly, in to
answer his to her, “how Dounia and I were yesterday! Now
that it’s all over and done with and we are happy again--I can
tell you. Fancy, we ran here almost from the train to embrace
you and that woman--ah, here she is! Good morning, Nastasya!... She told
us at once that you were in a high and had just away
from the doctor in delirium, and they were looking for you in the
streets. You can’t how we felt! I couldn’t help of the
tragic end of Lieutenant Potanchikov, a friend of your father’s--you
can’t him, Rodya--who ran out in the same way in a high fever
and into the well in the court-yard and they couldn’t him out
till next day. Of course, we things. We were on the point of
rushing to Pyotr Petrovitch to ask him to help.... Because we were
alone, alone,” she said and stopped short,
suddenly, it was still to speak of Pyotr
Petrovitch, although “we are happy again.”
“Yes, yes.... Of it’s very annoying....” Raskolnikov in
reply, but with such a and air that Dounia gazed
at him in perplexity.
“What else was it I wanted to say?” He on trying to recollect. “Oh,
yes; mother, and you too, Dounia, don’t think that I didn’t mean
to come and see you to-day and was waiting for you to come first.”
“What are you saying, Rodya?” Pulcheria Alexandrovna. She, too,
was surprised.
“Is he us as a duty?” Dounia wondered. “Is he being reconciled
and as though he were a or repeating
a lesson?”
“I’ve only just up, and wanted to go to you, but was owing
to my clothes; I yesterday to ask her... Nastasya... to wash out
the blood... I’ve only just dressed.”
“Blood! What blood?” Pulcheria Alexandrovna asked in alarm.
“Oh, nothing--don’t be uneasy. It was when I was about
yesterday, delirious, I upon a man who had been run
over... a clerk...”
“Delirious? But you everything!” Razumihin interrupted.
“That’s true,” Raskolnikov answered with special carefulness. “I
remember to the detail, and yet--why I did
that and there and said that, I can’t now.”
“A familiar phenomenon,” Zossimov, “actions are sometimes
performed in a and most way, while the direction of the
actions is and on impressions--it’s
like a dream.”
“Perhaps it’s a good thing that he should think me almost a
madman,” Raskolnikov.
“Why, people in perfect health act in the same way too,” observed
Dounia, looking at Zossimov.
“There is some truth in your observation,” the replied. “In that
sense we are all not like madmen, but with the
slight that the are madder, for we
must a line. A normal man, it is true, exists. Among
dozens--perhaps hundreds of thousands--hardly one is to be met with.”
At the word “madman,” by Zossimov in his on
his subject, frowned.
Raskolnikov sat not to pay attention, in with a
strange on his lips. He was still on something.
“Well, what about the man who was over? I you!”
Razumihin hastily.
“What?” Raskolnikov to wake up. “Oh... I got with
blood helping to him to his lodging. By the way, mamma, I did an
unpardonable thing yesterday. I was out of my mind. I gave
away all the money you sent me... to his wife for the funeral. She’s
a now, in consumption, a creature... three little children,
starving... nothing in the house... there’s a daughter, too... perhaps
you’d have it if you’d them. But I had no right to
do it I admit, as I how you needed the money yourself.
To help others one must have the right to do it, or else _Crevez,
chiens, si n’êtes contents_.” He laughed, “That’s right, isn’t
it, Dounia?”
“No, it’s not,” answered Dounia firmly.
“Bah! you, too, have ideals,” he muttered, looking at her almost with
hatred, and sarcastically. “I ought to have that....
Well, that’s praiseworthy, and it’s for you... and if you a
line you won’t overstep, you will be unhappy... and if you it,
maybe you will be still unhappier.... But all that’s nonsense,” he added
irritably, at being away. “I only meant to say that I beg
your forgiveness, mother,” he concluded, and abruptly.
“That’s enough, Rodya, I am sure that you do is very good,”
said his mother, delighted.
“Don’t be too sure,” he answered, his mouth into a smile.
A followed. There was a in all this
conversation, and in the silence, and in the reconciliation, and in the
forgiveness, and all were it.
“It is as though they were of me,” Raskolnikov was thinking
to himself, looking at his mother and sister. Pulcheria
Alexandrovna was more the longer she silent.
“Yet in their I to love them so much,” through
his mind.
“Do you know, Rodya, Marfa Petrovna is dead,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna
suddenly out.
“What Marfa Petrovna?”
“Oh, on us--Marfa Petrovna Svidrigaïlov. I you so much about
her.”
“A-a-h! Yes, I remember.... So she’s dead! Oh, really?” he roused
himself suddenly, as if up. “What did she die of?”
“Only imagine, suddenly,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna answered
hurriedly, by his curiosity. “On the very day I was sending
you that letter! Would you it, that man to have been
the of her death. They say he her dreadfully.”
“Why, were they on such terms?” he asked, his sister.
“Not at all. Quite the indeed. With her, he was always very
patient, even. In fact, all those seven years of their
married life he gave way to her, too much so indeed, in many cases. All
of a he to have patience.”
“Then he not have been so if he himself for seven
years? You to be him, Dounia?”
“No, no, he’s an man! I can nothing more awful!” Dounia
answered, almost with a shudder, her brows, and into
thought.
“That had in the morning,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna on
hurriedly. “And directly she ordered the to be
harnessed to drive to the town after dinner. She always used
to drive to the town in such cases. She ate a very good dinner, I am
told....”
“After the beating?”
“That was always her... habit; and after dinner, so as not
to be late in starting, she to the bath-house.... You see, she was
undergoing some with baths. They have a cold there, and
she used to in it every day, and no sooner had she got
into the water when she had a stroke!”
“I should think so,” said Zossimov.
“And did he her badly?”
“What that matter!” put in Dounia.
“H’m! But I don’t know why you want to tell us such gossip, mother,”
said Raskolnikov irritably, as it were in of himself.
“Ah, my dear, I don’t know what to talk about,” from Pulcheria
Alexandrovna.
“Why, are you all of me?” he asked, with a smile.
“That’s true,” said Dounia, looking directly and at
her brother. “Mother was herself with terror as she came up the
stairs.”
His worked, as though in convulsion.
“Ach, what are you saying, Dounia! Don’t be angry, please, Rodya....
Why did you say that, Dounia?” Pulcheria Alexandrovna began,
overwhelmed--“You see, here, I was all the way, in the
train, how we should meet, how we should talk over everything
together.... And I was so happy, I did not notice the journey! But what
am I saying? I am happy now.... You should not, Dounia.... I am happy
now--simply in you, Rodya....”
“Hush, mother,” he in confusion, not looking at her, but
pressing her hand. “We shall have time to speak of everything!”
As he said this, he was with and turned
pale. Again that he had of late passed with deadly
chill over his soul. Again it plain and to
him that he had just told a lie--that he would now be
able to speak of everything--that he would again be able to
_speak_ of anything to anyone. The of this was such that
for a moment he almost himself. He got up from his seat, and not
looking at anyone walked the door.
“What are you about?” Razumihin, him by the arm.
He sat again, and looking about him, in silence. They were
all looking at him in perplexity.
“But what are you all so for?” he shouted, and quite
unexpectedly. “Do say something! What’s the use of like this?
Come, do speak. Let us talk.... We meet together and in silence....
Come, anything!”
“Thank God; I was the same thing as yesterday was beginning
again,” said Pulcheria Alexandrovna, herself.
“What is the matter, Rodya?” asked Avdotya Romanovna, distrustfully.
“Oh, nothing! I something,” he answered, and suddenly
laughed.
“Well, if you something; that’s all right!... I was beginning
to think...” Zossimov, up from the sofa. “It is time
for me to be off. I will look in again perhaps... if I can...” He made
his bows, and out.
“What an excellent man!” Pulcheria Alexandrovna.
“Yes, excellent, splendid, well-educated, intelligent,” Raskolnikov
began, speaking with rapidity, and a he
had not till then. “I can’t where I met him my
illness.... I I have met him somewhere----... And this is a good
man, too,” he at Razumihin. “Do you like him, Dounia?” he asked
her; and suddenly, for some unknown reason, laughed.
“Very much,” answered Dounia.
“Foo!--what a pig you are!” Razumihin protested, in terrible
confusion, and he got up from his chair. Pulcheria Alexandrovna smiled
faintly, but Raskolnikov laughed aloud.
“Where are you off to?”
“I must go.”
“You need not at all. Stay. Zossimov has gone, so you must. Don’t go.
What’s the time? Is it twelve o’clock? What a watch you have got,
Dounia. But why are you all again? I do all the talking.”
“It was a present from Marfa Petrovna,” answered Dounia.
“And a very one!” added Pulcheria Alexandrovna.
“A-ah! What a big one! Hardly like a lady’s.”
“I like that sort,” said Dounia.
“So it is not a present from her _fiancé_,” Razumihin, and was
unreasonably delighted.
“I it was Luzhin’s present,” Raskolnikov.
“No, he has not Dounia any presents yet.”
“A-ah! And do you remember, mother, I was in love and wanted to get
married?” he said suddenly, looking at his mother, who was disconcerted
by the of and the way he spoke of it.
“Oh, yes, my dear.”
Pulcheria Alexandrovna with Dounia and Razumihin.
“H’m, yes. What shall I tell you? I don’t much indeed. She was
such a girl,” he on, and looking again.
“Quite an invalid. She was of to the poor, and was
always of a nunnery, and once she into when she
began talking to me about it. Yes, yes, I remember. I very
well. She was an little thing. I don’t know what me
to her then--I think it was she was always ill. If she had been
lame or hunchback, I I should have liked her still,” he
smiled dreamily. “Yes, it was a of delirium.”
“No, it was not only delirium,” said Dounia, with warm feeling.
He a look on his sister, but did not or did
not her words. Then, in thought, he got up,
went up to his mother, her, to his place and sat down.
“You love her now?” said Pulcheria Alexandrovna, touched.
“Her? Now? Oh, yes.... You ask about her? No... that’s all now, as
it were, in another world... and so long ago. And everything
happening here somehow away.” He looked at them.
“You, now... I to be looking at you from a thousand miles away...
but, why we are talking of that! And what’s the use of
asking about it?” he added with annoyance, and his nails, fell
into again.
“What a you have, Rodya! It’s like a tomb,” said
Pulcheria Alexandrovna, the silence. “I
am sure it’s through your you have so
melancholy.”
“My lodging,” he answered, listlessly. “Yes, the had a great
deal to do with it.... I that, too.... If only you knew, though,
what a thing you said just now, mother,” he said, laughing
strangely.
A little more, and their companionship, this mother and this sister,
with him after three years’ absence, this of conversation,
in of the of speaking about anything,
would have been his power of endurance. But there was one urgent
matter which must be settled one way or the other that day--so he had
decided when he woke. Now he was to it, as a means of
escape.
“Listen, Dounia,” he began, and drily, “of I your
pardon for yesterday, but I it my to tell you again that
I do not from my point. It is me or Luzhin. If I am a
scoundrel, you must not be. One is enough. If you Luzhin, I cease
at once to look on you as a sister.”
“Rodya, Rodya! It is the same as yesterday again,” Pulcheria
Alexandrovna cried, mournfully. “And why do you call a
scoundrel? I can’t it. You said the same yesterday.”
“Brother,” Dounia answered and with the same dryness. “In all
this there is a mistake on your part. I it over at night,
and out the mistake. It is all you to I am
sacrificing myself to someone and for someone. That is not the case at
all. I am marrying for my own sake, are hard for
me. Though, of course, I shall be if I succeed in being useful to
my family. But that is not the for my decision....”
“She is lying,” he to himself, his vindictively.
“Proud creature! She won’t admit she wants to do it out of charity! Too
haughty! Oh, characters! They love as though they hate.... Oh,
how I... them all!”
“In fact,” Dounia, “I am marrying Pyotr Petrovitch of
two I choose the less. I to do all he of
me, so I am not him.... Why did you just now?” She, too,
flushed, and there was a of anger in her eyes.
“All?” he asked, with a grin.
“Within limits. Both the manner and of Pyotr Petrovitch’s
courtship me at once what he wanted. He may, of course, think too
well of himself, but I he me, too.... Why are you laughing
again?”
“And why are you again? You are lying, sister. You are
intentionally lying, from obstinacy, to your
own against me.... You cannot respect Luzhin. I have him and talked
with him. So you are selling for money, and so in any case you
are acting basely, and I am at least that you can for it.”
“It is not true. I am not lying,” Dounia, her composure.
“I would not him if I were not that he me
and thinks of me. I would not him if I were not firmly
convinced that I can respect him. Fortunately, I can have convincing
proof of it this very day... and such a marriage is not a vileness, as
you say! And if you were right, if I had on a
vile action, is it not on your part to speak to me like that?
Why do you of me a that you have not either? It
is despotism; it is tyranny. If I anyone, it is only myself.... I
am not a murder. Why do you look at me like that? Why are you
so pale? Rodya, darling, what’s the matter?”
“Good heavens! You have him faint,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna.
“No, no, nonsense! It’s nothing. A little giddiness--not fainting. You
have on the brain. H’m, yes, what was I saying? Oh, yes. In
what way will you proof to-day that you can respect him,
and that he... you, as you said. I think you said to-day?”
“Mother, Rodya Pyotr Petrovitch’s letter,” said Dounia.
With hands, Pulcheria Alexandrovna gave him the letter. He
took it with great interest, but, opening it, he looked
with a of wonder at Dounia.
“It is strange,” he said, slowly, as though by a new idea. “What
am I making such a for? What is it all about? Marry you like!”
He said this as though to himself, but said it aloud, and looked for
some time at his sister, as though puzzled. He opened the at
last, still with the same look of wonder on his face. Then,
slowly and attentively, he reading, and read it through twice.
Pulcheria Alexandrovna marked anxiety, and all expected
something particular.
“What me,” he began, after a pause, the letter
to his mother, but not anyone in particular, “is that he is a
business man, a lawyer, and his is indeed, and
yet he such an letter.”
They all started. They had something different.
“But they all like that, you know,” Razumihin observed, abruptly.
“Have you read it?”
“Yes.”
“We him, Rodya. We... him just now,” Pulcheria
Alexandrovna began, embarrassed.
“That’s just the of the courts,” Razumihin put in. “Legal
documents are like that to this day.”
“Legal? Yes, it’s just legal--business language--not so very uneducated,
and not educated--business language!”
“Pyotr Petrovitch makes no of the that he had a cheap
education, he is proud of having his own way,” Avdotya
Romanovna observed, by her brother’s tone.
“Well, if he’s proud of it, he has reason, I don’t it. You to
be offended, sister, at my making only such a on the
letter, and to think that I speak of such on purpose to
annoy you. It is the contrary, an of the style
occurred to me that is by no means as stand. There
is one expression, ‘blame yourselves’ put in very and
plainly, and there is a threat that he will go away at once if I
am present. That threat to go away is to a threat to abandon
you if you are disobedient, and to you now after summoning
you to Petersburg. Well, what do you think? Can one such an
expression from Luzhin, as we should if he (he pointed to Razumihin) had
written it, or Zossimov, or one of us?”
“N-no,” answered Dounia, with more animation. “I saw that it
was too naïvely expressed, and that he has no skill
in writing... that is a true criticism, brother. I did not expect,
indeed...”
“It is in legal style, and than he
intended. But I must you a little. There is one expression
in the letter, one about me, and a one. I
gave the money last night to the widow, a woman in consumption, crushed
with trouble, and not ‘on the of the funeral,’ but to pay
for the funeral, and not to the daughter--a woman, as he writes,
of (whom I saw last night for the time in my
life)--but to the widow. In all this I see a too to slander
me and to us. It is again in legal
jargon, that is to say, with a too of the aim, and
with a very naïve eagerness. He is a man of intelligence, but to act
sensibly, is not enough. It all the man and... I
don’t think he has a great for you. I tell you this to
warn you, I wish for your good...”
Dounia did not reply. Her had been taken. She was only
awaiting the evening.
“Then what is your decision, Rodya?” asked Pulcheria Alexandrovna, who
was more than at the sudden, new of his
talk.
“What decision?”
“You see Pyotr Petrovitch that you are not to be with us this
evening, and that he will go away if you come. So will you... come?”
“That, of course, is not for me to decide, but for you first, if you are
not by such a request; and secondly, by Dounia, if she, too, is
not offended. I will do what you think best,” he added, drily.
“Dounia has already decided, and I agree with her,” Pulcheria
Alexandrovna to declare.
“I to ask you, Rodya, to you not to fail to be with us at
this interview,” said Dounia. “Will you come?”
“Yes.”
“I will ask you, too, to be with us at eight o’clock,” she said,
addressing Razumihin. “Mother, I am him, too.”
“Quite right, Dounia. Well, since you have decided,” added Pulcheria
Alexandrovna, “so be it. I shall myself. I do not like
concealment and deception. Better let us have the whole truth.... Pyotr
Petrovitch may be angry or not, now!”
