“Can this be still a dream?” Raskolnikov once more.
He looked and at the visitor.
“Svidrigaïlov! What nonsense! It can’t be!” he said at last in
bewilderment.
His visitor did not at all at this exclamation.
“I’ve come to you for two reasons. In the place, I wanted to make
your personal acquaintance, as I have already a great about
you that is and flattering; secondly, I the hope
that you may not to me in a directly the
welfare of your sister, Avdotya Romanovna. For without your support she
might not let me come near her now, for she is against me,
but with your I on...”
“You wrongly,” Raskolnikov.
“They only yesterday, may I ask you?”
Raskolnikov no reply.
“It was yesterday, I know. I only myself the day before. Well,
let me tell you this, Rodion Romanovitch, I don’t it necessary
to myself, but tell me what was there particularly
criminal on my part in all this business, speaking without prejudice,
with common sense?”
Raskolnikov to look at him in silence.
“That in my own house I a girl and ‘insulted her
with my proposals’--is that it? (I am you.) But
you’ve only to assume that I, too, am a man _et humanum_... in a
word, that I am of being and in love (which
does not on our will), then can be in the
most natural manner. The question is, am I a monster, or am I myself
a victim? And what if I am a victim? In to the object of my
passion to with me to America or Switzerland, I may have cherished
the respect for her and may have that I was promoting
our happiness! Reason is the of passion, you know; why,
probably, I was doing more to myself than anyone!”
“But that’s not the point,” Raskolnikov with disgust. “It’s
simply that you are right or wrong, we you. We don’t
want to have anything to do with you. We you the door. Go out!”
Svidrigaïlov into a laugh.
“But you’re... but there’s no you,” he said, laughing in
the way. “I to you, but you took up the right
line at once!”
“But you are trying to me still!”
“What of it? What of it?” Svidrigaïlov, laughing openly. “But this
is what the French call _bonne guerre_, and the most of
deception!... But still you have me; one way or another, I
repeat again: there would have been any for
what in the garden. Marfa Petrovna...”
“You have got of Marfa Petrovna, too, so they say?” Raskolnikov
interrupted rudely.
“Oh, you’ve that, too, then? You’d be sure to, though.... But
as for your question, I don’t know what to say, though my own
conscience is at on that score. Don’t that I am in
any about it. All was regular and in order; the medical
inquiry to after a heavy
dinner and a bottle of wine, and it have proved nothing
else. But I’ll tell you what I have been to myself of late, on
my way here in the train, especially: didn’t I to all that...
calamity, morally, in a way, by or something of the
sort. But I came to the that that, too, was out of the
question.”
Raskolnikov laughed.
“I wonder you trouble about it!”
“But what are you laughing at? Only consider, I her just twice
with a switch--there were no marks even... don’t me as a cynic,
please; I am perfectly aware how it was of me and all that;
but I know for certain, too, that Marfa Petrovna was very likely pleased
at my, so to say, warmth. The of your sister had been out to
the last drop; for the last three days Marfa Petrovna had been to
sit at home; she had nothing to herself with in the town. Besides,
she had them so with that (you about her reading the
letter). And all of a those two from heaven! Her
first act was to order the to be got out.... Not to speak
of the that there are cases when are very, very to be
insulted in of all their of indignation. There are instances
of it with everyone; beings in general, indeed, love to
be insulted, have you noticed that? But it’s particularly so with women.
One might say it’s their only amusement.”
At one time Raskolnikov of up and walking out and so
finishing the interview. But some and a of prudence
made him for a moment.
“You are of fighting?” he asked carelessly.
“No, not very,” Svidrigaïlov answered, calmly. “And Marfa Petrovna and
I fought. We very harmoniously, and she was always
pleased with me. I only used the twice in all our seven years (not
counting a third occasion of a very character). The first
time, two months after our marriage, after we in the
country, and the last time was that of which we are speaking. Did you
suppose I was such a monster, such a reactionary, such a driver?
Ha, ha! By the way, do you remember, Rodion Romanovitch, how a years
ago, in those days of publicity, a nobleman, I’ve forgotten
his name, was put to everywhere, in all the papers, for having
thrashed a German woman in the railway train. You remember? It was in
those days, that very year I believe, the ‘disgraceful action of the
_Age_’ took place (you know, ‘The Egyptian Nights,’ that public reading,
you remember? The dark eyes, you know! Ah, the days of our youth,
where are they?). Well, as for the who the German,
I no with him, after all what need is there
for sympathy? But I must say that there are sometimes such provoking
‘Germans’ that I don’t there is a progressive who quite
answer for himself. No one looked at the from that point of view
then, but that’s the point of view, I you.”
After saying this, Svidrigaïlov into a laugh again.
Raskolnikov saw that this was a man with a purpose in his
mind and able to keep it to himself.
“I you’ve not talked to anyone for some days?” he asked.
“Scarcely anyone. I you are at my being such an
adaptable man?”
“No, I am only at your being too a man.”
“Because I am not at the of your questions? Is that
it? But why take offence? As you asked, so I answered,” he replied,
with a of simplicity. “You know, there’s
hardly anything I take in,” he on, as it were dreamily,
“especially now, I’ve nothing to do.... You are at to
imagine though that I am making up to you with a motive, particularly as
I told you I want to see your sister about something. But I’ll confess
frankly, I am very much bored. The last three days especially, so I am
delighted to see you.... Don’t be angry, Rodion Romanovitch, but you
seem to be somehow yourself. Say what you like, there’s
something with you, and now, too... not this very minute, I mean,
but now, generally.... Well, well, I won’t, I won’t, don’t scowl! I am
not such a bear, you know, as you think.”
Raskolnikov looked at him.
“You are not a bear, perhaps, at all,” he said. “I that
you are a man of very good breeding, or at least know how on occasion to
behave like one.”
“I am not particularly in anyone’s opinion,” Svidrigaïlov
answered, and with a of haughtiness, “and therefore why
not be at times when is such a for our
climate... and if one has a natural that way,” he
added, laughing again.
“But I’ve you have many friends here. You are, as they say, ‘not
without connections.’ What can you want with me, then, unless you’ve
some special object?”
“That’s true that I have friends here,” Svidrigaïlov admitted, not
replying to the point. “I’ve met some already. I’ve been lounging
about for the last three days, and I’ve them, or they’ve me.
That’s a of course. I am well and not a poor
man; the of the hasn’t me; my property
consists of and water meadows. The revenue has not
fallen off; but... I am not going to see them, I was of them long
ago. I’ve been here three days and have called on no one.... What a town
it is! How has it come into among us, tell me that? A town of
officials and students of all sorts. Yes, there’s a great I didn’t
notice when I was here eight years ago, kicking up my heels.... My only
hope now is in anatomy, by Jove, it is!”
“Anatomy?”
“But as for these clubs, Dussauts, parades, or progress, indeed,
maybe--well, all that can go on without me,” he on, again without
noticing the question. “Besides, who wants to be a card-sharper?”
“Why, have you been a card-sharper then?”
“How I help being? There was a regular set of us, men of the best
society, eight years ago; we had a time. And all men of breeding,
you know, poets, men of property. And as a in our Russian
society the best manners are among those who’ve been thrashed,
have you noticed that? I’ve in the country. But I did get
into prison for debt, through a low Greek who came from Nezhin. Then
Marfa Petrovna up; she with him and me off for
thirty thousand pieces (I seventy thousand). We were united
in and she me off into the country like a treasure.
You know she was five years older than I. She was very of me. For
seven years I left the country. And, take note, that all my life
she a document over me, the IOU for thirty thousand roubles, so
if I were to elect to be about anything I should be at
once! And she would have done it! Women nothing in
that.”
“If it hadn’t been for that, would you have her the slip?”
“I don’t know what to say. It was the document me. I
didn’t want to go else. Marfa Petrovna herself me to go
abroad, I was bored, but I’ve been before, and always
felt there. For no reason, but the sunrise, the of Naples, the
sea--you look at them and it makes you sad. What’s most is
that one is sad! No, it’s at home. Here at least one
blames others for and oneself. I should have gone
perhaps on an to the North Pole, _j’ai le vin
mauvais_ and drinking, and there’s nothing left but wine. I have
tried it. But, I say, I’ve been told Berg is going up in a great balloon
next Sunday from the Yusupov Garden and will take up at a
fee. Is it true?”
“Why, would you go up?”
“I... No, oh, no,” Svidrigaïlov to be in
thought.
“What he mean? Is he in earnest?” Raskolnikov wondered.
“No, the document didn’t me,” Svidrigaïlov on,
meditatively. “It was my own doing, not the country, and nearly
a year ago Marfa Petrovna gave me the document on my name-day
and me a present of a of money, too. She had a
fortune, you know. ‘You see how I trust you, Arkady Ivanovitch’--that
was actually her expression. You don’t she used it? But do
you know I managed the decently, they know me in the
neighbourhood. I ordered books, too. Marfa Petrovna at approved,
but she was of my over-studying.”
“You to be missing Marfa Petrovna very much?”
“Missing her? Perhaps. Really, I am. And, by the way, do you
believe in ghosts?”
“What ghosts?”
“Why, ordinary ghosts.”
“Do you in them?”
“Perhaps not, _pour plaire_.... I wouldn’t say no exactly.”
“Do you see them, then?”
Svidrigaïlov looked at him oddly.
“Marfa Petrovna is pleased to visit me,” he said, his mouth
into a smile.
“How do you ‘she is pleased to visit you’?”
“She has been three times. I saw her on the very day of the
funeral, an hour after she was buried. It was the day I left to
come here. The second time was the day yesterday, at daybreak, on
the at the station of Malaya Vishera, and the third time was two
hours ago in the room where I am staying. I was alone.”
“Were you awake?”
“Quite awake. I was wide every time. She comes, speaks to me for
a minute and goes out at the door--always at the door. I can almost hear
her.”
“What me think that something of the must be to
you?” Raskolnikov said suddenly.
At the same moment he was at having said it. He was much
excited.
“What! Did you think so?” Svidrigaïlov asked in astonishment. “Did you
really? Didn’t I say that there was something in common us, eh?”
“You said so!” Raskolnikov and with heat.
“Didn’t I?”
“No!”
“I I did. When I came in and saw you with your shut,
pretending, I said to myself at once, ‘Here’s the man.’”
“What do you by ‘the man?’ What are you talking about?” cried
Raskolnikov.
“What do I mean? I don’t know....” Svidrigaïlov muttered
ingenuously, as though he, too, were puzzled.
For a minute they were silent. They in each other’s faces.
“That’s all nonsense!” Raskolnikov with vexation. “What she
say when she comes to you?”
“She! Would you it, she talks of the and--man
is a creature--it makes me angry. The time she came in (I
was you know: the service, the ceremony, the lunch
afterwards. At last I was left alone in my study. I a cigar and
began to think), she came in at the door. ‘You’ve been so to-day,
Arkady Ivanovitch, you have to wind the dining-room clock,’
she said. All those seven years I’ve that clock every week, and if
I it she would always me. The next day I set off on my way
here. I got out at the station at daybreak; I’d been asleep, out,
with my open, I was some coffee. I looked up and
there was Marfa Petrovna me with a pack of
cards in her hands. ‘Shall I tell your for the journey, Arkady
Ivanovitch?’ She was a great hand at telling fortunes. I shall never
forgive myself for not her to. I ran away in a fright, and,
besides, the rang. I was to-day, very after a
miserable dinner from a cookshop; I was smoking, all of a sudden
Marfa Petrovna again. She came in very in a new green dress
with a long train. ‘Good day, Arkady Ivanovitch! How do you like my
dress? Aniska can’t make like this.’ (Aniska was a in the
country, one of our girls who had been in Moscow, a
pretty wench.) She me. I looked at the dress,
and then I looked carefully, very carefully, at her face. ‘I wonder
you trouble to come to me about such trifles, Marfa Petrovna.’ ‘Good
gracious, you won’t let one you about anything!’ To her
I said, ‘I want to married, Marfa Petrovna.’ ‘That’s just like you,
Arkady Ivanovitch; it you very little to come looking for a
bride when you’ve your wife. And if you make a good
choice, at least, but I know it won’t be for your or hers, you
will only be a laughing-stock to all good people.’ Then she out and
her train to rustle. Isn’t it nonsense, eh?”
“But you are telling lies?” Raskolnikov put in.
“I lie,” answered Svidrigaïlov thoughtfully, not
noticing the of the question.
“And in the past, have you before?”
“Y-yes, I have them, but only once in my life, six years ago. I had
a serf, Filka; just after his I called out ‘Filka, my
pipe!’ He came in and to the where my pipes were. I sat
still and ‘he is doing it out of revenge,’ we had a
violent just his death. ‘How you come in with a hole
in your elbow?’ I said. ‘Go away, you scamp!’ He and out,
and came again. I didn’t tell Marfa Petrovna at the time. I wanted
to have a service for him, but I was ashamed.”
“You should go to a doctor.”
“I know I am not well, without your telling me, though I don’t know
what’s wrong; I I am five times as as you are. I didn’t
ask you you that are seen, but you
believe that they exist.”
“No, I won’t it!” Raskolnikov cried, with positive anger.
“What do people say?” Svidrigaïlov, as though
speaking to himself, looking and his head. “They say, ‘You
are ill, so what to you is only fantasy.’ But that’s not
strictly logical. I agree that only appear to the sick, but that
only proves that they are unable to appear to the sick, not that
they don’t exist.”
“Nothing of the sort,” Raskolnikov irritably.
“No? You don’t think so?” Svidrigaïlov on, looking at him
deliberately. “But what do you say to this (help me with
it): are, as it were, and of other worlds, the
beginning of them. A man in health has, of course, no to see
them, he is above all a man of this earth and is for the
sake of and order to live only in this life. But as soon
as one is ill, as soon as the normal order of the is
broken, one to the possibility of another world; and the
more one is, the closer one’s with that
other world, so that as soon as the man dies he steps into that
world. I of that long ago. If you in a life, you
could in that, too.”
“I don’t in a life,” said Raskolnikov.
Svidrigaïlov sat in thought.
“And what if there are only there, or something of that sort,”
he said suddenly.
“He is a madman,” Raskolnikov.
“We always as something our conception,
something vast, vast! But why must it be vast? Instead of all that, what
if it’s one little room, like a house in the country, black
and and in every corner, and that’s all is? I
sometimes it like that.”
“Can it be you can nothing and more than
that?” Raskolnikov cried, with a of anguish.
“Juster? And how can we tell, that is just, and do you know
it’s what I would have it,” answered Svidrigaïlov, with a
vague smile.
This answer sent a cold through Raskolnikov. Svidrigaïlov
raised his head, looked at him, and laughing.
“Only think,” he cried, “half an hour ago we had each other,
we each other as enemies; there is a between
us; we’ve it aside, and away we’ve gone into the abstract! Wasn’t
I right in saying that we were of a feather?”
“Kindly allow me,” Raskolnikov on irritably, “to ask you to explain
why you have me with your visit... and... and I am in a hurry,
I have no time to waste. I want to go out.”
“By all means, by all means. Your sister, Avdotya Romanovna, is going to
be married to Mr. Luzhin, Pyotr Petrovitch?”
“Can you from any question about my sister and from mentioning
her name? I can’t how you her name in my presence,
if you are Svidrigaïlov.”
“Why, but I’ve come here to speak about her; how can I avoid mentioning
her?”
“Very good, speak, but make haste.”
“I am sure that you must have your own opinion of this Mr.
Luzhin, who is a of mine through my wife, if you have only
seen him for an hour, or any about him. He is no
match for Avdotya Romanovna. I Avdotya Romanovna is sacrificing
herself and for the of... for the of
her family. I from all I had of you that you would be very
glad if the match be off without the of worldly
advantages. Now I know you personally, I am of it.”
“All this is very naïve... me, I should have said on
your part,” said Raskolnikov.
“You to say that I am my own ends. Don’t be uneasy, Rodion
Romanovitch, if I were for my own advantage, I would not have
spoken out so directly. I am not a fool. I will something
psychologically about that: just now, my love for
Avdotya Romanovna, I said I was myself the victim. Well, let me tell you
that I’ve no of love now, not the slightest, so that I wonder
myself indeed, for I did something...”
“Through and depravity,” Raskolnikov put in.
“I am and depraved, but your sister has such qualities
that I not help being by them. But that’s all
nonsense, as I see myself now.”
“Have you that long?”
“I to be aware of it before, but was only perfectly sure of it the
day yesterday, almost at the moment I in Petersburg. I
still in Moscow, though, that I was to try to Avdotya
Romanovna’s hand and to cut out Mr. Luzhin.”
“Excuse me for you; be brief, and come to the object
of your visit. I am in a hurry, I want to go out...”
“With the pleasure. On here and on a
certain... journey, I should like to make some necessary preliminary
arrangements. I left my children with an aunt; they are well provided
for; and they have no need of me personally. And a father I should
make, too! I have taken nothing but what Marfa Petrovna gave me a year
ago. That’s for me. Excuse me, I am just to the point.
Before the which may come off, I want to settle Mr. Luzhin, too.
It’s not that I him so much, but it was through him I quarrelled
with Marfa Petrovna when I learned that she had up this marriage.
I want now to see Avdotya Romanovna through your mediation, and if you
like in your presence, to to her that in the place she
will anything but from Mr. Luzhin. Then, begging
her for all past unpleasantness, to make her a present of ten
thousand and so the with Mr. Luzhin, a to
which I she is herself not disinclined, if she see the way
to it.”
“You are mad,” Raskolnikov not so much as
astonished. “How you talk like that!”
“I you would at me; but in the place, though I am not
rich, this ten thousand is perfectly free; I have no
need for it. If Avdotya Romanovna not accept it, I shall waste
it in some more way. That’s the thing. Secondly, my
conscience is perfectly easy; I make the offer with no motive.
You may not it, but in the end Avdotya Romanovna and you will
know. The point is, that I did actually your sister, I
greatly respect, some trouble and unpleasantness, and so, sincerely
regretting it, I want--not to compensate, not to her for the
unpleasantness, but to do something to her advantage, to show
that I am not, after all, to do nothing but harm. If there
were a of self-interest in my offer, I should not
have it so openly; and I should not have offered her ten thousand
only, when five ago I offered her more, Besides, I may, perhaps,
very soon a lady, and that alone ought to prevent suspicion
of any design on Avdotya Romanovna. In conclusion, let me say that
in marrying Mr. Luzhin, she is taking money just the same, only from
another man. Don’t be angry, Rodion Romanovitch, think it over coolly
and quietly.”
Svidrigaïlov himself was and as he was saying
this.
“I you to say no more,” said Raskolnikov. “In any case this is
unpardonable impertinence.”
“Not in the least. Then a man may do nothing but to his neighbour
in this world, and is from doing the of good
by formalities. That’s absurd. If I died, for
instance, and left that to your sister in my will, surely she
wouldn’t it?”
“Very likely she would.”
“Oh, no, indeed. However, if you it, so be it, though ten
thousand is a thing to have on occasion. In any case I
beg you to repeat what I have said to Avdotya Romanovna.”
“No, I won’t.”
“In that case, Rodion Romanovitch, I shall be to try and see her
myself and worry her by doing so.”
“And if I do tell her, will you not try to see her?”
“I don’t know what to say. I should like very much to see her
once more.”
“Don’t for it.”
“I’m sorry. But you don’t know me. Perhaps we may better
friends.”
“You think we may friends?”
“And why not?” Svidrigaïlov said, smiling. He up and took his hat.
“I didn’t to you and I came here without reckoning
on it... though I was very much by your this morning.”
“Where did you see me this morning?” Raskolnikov asked uneasily.
“I saw you by chance.... I there is something about you
like me.... But don’t be uneasy. I am not intrusive; I used to on
all right with card-sharpers, and I Prince Svirbey, a great
personage who is a relation of mine, and I about
Raphael’s _Madonna_ in Madam Prilukov’s album, and I left Marfa
Petrovna’s for seven years, and I used to the night at
Viazemsky’s house in the Hay Market in the old days, and I may go up in
a with Berg, perhaps.”
“Oh, all right. Are you starting soon on your travels, may I ask?”
“What travels?”
“Why, on that ‘journey’; you spoke of it yourself.”
“A journey? Oh, yes. I did speak of a journey. Well, that’s a wide
subject.... if only you what you are asking,” he added, and gave
a sudden, loud, laugh. “Perhaps I’ll married of the
journey. They’re making a match for me.”
“Here?”
“Yes.”
“How have you had time for that?”
“But I am very to see Avdotya Romanovna once. I beg
it. Well, good-bye for the present. Oh, yes. I have something.
Tell your sister, Rodion Romanovitch, that Marfa Petrovna remembered
her in her will and left her three thousand roubles. That’s absolutely
certain. Marfa Petrovna it a week her death, and it was
done in my presence. Avdotya Romanovna will be able to the money
in two or three weeks.”
“Are you telling the truth?”
“Yes, tell her. Well, your servant. I am very near you.”
As he out, Svidrigaïlov ran up against Razumihin in the doorway.
