It was nearly eight o’clock. The two men to Bakaleyev’s,
to arrive Luzhin.
“Why, who was that?” asked Razumihin, as soon as they were in the
street.
“It was Svidrigaïlov, that in house my sister was
insulted when she was their governess. Through his persecuting her with
his attentions, she was out by his wife, Marfa Petrovna. This
Marfa Petrovna Dounia’s afterwards, and she’s just
died suddenly. It was of her we were talking this morning. I don’t
know why I’m of that man. He came here at once after his wife’s
funeral. He is very strange, and is on doing something.... We
must Dounia from him... that’s what I wanted to tell you, do you
hear?”
“Guard her! What can he do to Avdotya Romanovna? Thank you, Rodya,
for speaking to me like that.... We will, we will her. Where does
he live?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why didn’t you ask? What a pity! I’ll out, though.”
“Did you see him?” asked Raskolnikov after a pause.
“Yes, I noticed him, I noticed him well.”
“You did see him? You saw him clearly?” Raskolnikov insisted.
“Yes, I him perfectly, I should know him in a thousand; I have
a good memory for faces.”
They were again.
“Hm!... that’s all right,” Raskolnikov. “Do you know, I
fancied... I keep that it may have been an hallucination.”
“What do you mean? I don’t you.”
“Well, you all say,” Raskolnikov on, his mouth into a
smile, “that I am mad. I just now that I am mad,
and have only a phantom.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why, who can tell? Perhaps I am mad, and that
happened all these days may be only imagination.”
“Ach, Rodya, you have been again!... But what did he say, what did
he come for?”
Raskolnikov did not answer. Razumihin a minute.
“Now let me tell you my story,” he began, “I came to you, you were
asleep. Then we had dinner and then I to Porfiry’s, Zametov was
still with him. I to begin, but it was no use. I couldn’t speak in
the right way. They don’t to and can’t understand, but
are not a ashamed. I Porfiry to the window, and talking
to him, but it was still no use. He looked away and I looked away. At
last I my in his face, and told him as a I’d
brain him. He looked at me, I and came away. That was
all. It was very stupid. To Zametov I didn’t say a word. But, you see, I
thought I’d a of it, but as I a idea
struck me: why should we trouble? Of if you were in any danger
or anything, but why need you care? You needn’t a for them. We
shall have a laugh at them afterwards, and if I were in your place I’d
mystify them more than ever. How they’ll be afterwards! Hang
them! We can them afterwards, but let’s laugh at them now!”
“To be sure,” answered Raskolnikov. “But what will you say to-morrow?”
he to himself. Strange to say, till that moment it had never
occurred to him to wonder what Razumihin would think when he knew. As he
thought it, Raskolnikov looked at him. Razumihin’s account of his visit
to Porfiry had very little for him, so much had come and gone
since then.
In the they came upon Luzhin; he had punctually
at eight, and was looking for the number, so that all three in
together without or looking at one another. The men
walked in first, while Pyotr Petrovitch, for good manners, a
little in the passage, taking off his coat. Pulcheria Alexandrovna came
forward at once to him in the doorway, Dounia was her
brother. Pyotr Petrovitch walked in and amiably, though with
redoubled dignity, to the ladies. He looked, however, as though
he were a little put out and not yet himself. Pulcheria
Alexandrovna, who also a little embarrassed, to make
them all at the table where a was boiling. Dounia
and Luzhin were one another on opposite of the table.
Razumihin and Raskolnikov were Pulcheria Alexandrovna, Razumihin
was next to Luzhin and Raskolnikov was his sister.
A moment’s followed. Pyotr Petrovitch out a
cambric of and his nose with an air of
a man who himself slighted, and was to
insist on an explanation. In the passage the idea had to him to
keep on his overcoat and walk away, and so give the two ladies a sharp
and lesson and make them the of the position.
But he not himself to do this. Besides, he not endure
uncertainty, and he wanted an explanation: if his had been so
openly disobeyed, there was something it, and in that case it was
better to it out beforehand; it rested with him to them and
there would always be time for that.
“I trust you had a journey,” he officially of
Pulcheria Alexandrovna.
“Oh, very, Pyotr Petrovitch.”
“I am to it. And Avdotya Romanovna is not over-fatigued
either?”
“I am and strong, I don’t tired, but it was a great for
mother,” answered Dounia.
“That’s unavoidable! our national railways are of terrible length.
‘Mother Russia,’ as they say, is a country.... In of all my
desire to do so, I was unable to meet you yesterday. But I trust all
passed off without inconvenience?”
“Oh, no, Pyotr Petrovitch, it was all disheartening,” Pulcheria
Alexandrovna to with intonation, “and if
Dmitri Prokofitch had not been sent us, I by God Himself,
we should have been lost. Here, he is! Dmitri Prokofitch
Razumihin,” she added, him to Luzhin.
“I had the pleasure... yesterday,” Pyotr Petrovitch with a
hostile at Razumihin; then he and was silent.
Pyotr Petrovitch to that class of persons, on the surface very
polite in society, who make a great point of punctiliousness, but who,
directly they are in anything, are disconcerted, and
become more like of than and men of society.
Again all was silent; Raskolnikov was mute, Avdotya
Romanovna was to open the too soon. Razumihin had
nothing to say, so Pulcheria Alexandrovna was again.
“Marfa Petrovna is dead, have you heard?” she having to
her leading item of conversation.
“To be sure, I so. I was informed, and I have come to
make you with the that Arkady Ivanovitch Svidrigaïlov
set off in for Petersburg after his wife’s funeral. So
at least I have excellent authority for believing.”
“To Petersburg? here?” Dounia asked in and looked at her mother.
“Yes, indeed, and not without some design, having in view the
rapidity of his departure, and all the it.”
“Good heavens! won’t he Dounia in peace here?” cried
Pulcheria Alexandrovna.
“I that neither you Avdotya Romanovna have any for
uneasiness, unless, of course, you are yourselves of getting
into with him. For my part I am on my guard, and am now
discovering where he is lodging.”
“Oh, Pyotr Petrovitch, you would not what a you have
given me,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna on: “I’ve only him twice,
but I him terrible, terrible! I am that he was the
cause of Marfa Petrovna’s death.”
“It’s to be about that. I have information. I
do not that he may have to the of
events by the influence, so to say, of the affront; but as to the
general and of that personage, I am
in agreement with you. I do not know he is well off now, and
precisely what Marfa Petrovna left him; this will be to me within
a very period; but no here in Petersburg, if he has any
pecuniary resources, he will at once into his old ways. He is
the most depraved, and of that class of men.
I have to that Marfa Petrovna, who was so
unfortunate as to in love with him and to pay his eight years
ago, was of service to him also in another way. Solely by her exertions
and sacrifices, a charge, an of fantastic
and for which he might well have been to
Siberia, was up. That’s the of man he is, if you to
know.”
“Good heavens!” Pulcheria Alexandrovna. Raskolnikov listened
attentively.
“Are you speaking the truth when you say that you have good of
this?” Dounia asked and emphatically.
“I only repeat what I was told in by Marfa Petrovna. I must
observe that from the legal point of view the case was from clear.
There was, and I still is, here a woman called Resslich,
a foreigner, who small of money at interest, and did other
commissions, and with this woman Svidrigaïlov had for a long while close
and relations. She had a relation, a I believe, living
with her, a and girl of fifteen, or not more than
fourteen. Resslich this girl, and her every crust; she
used to her mercilessly. One day the girl was in
the garret. At the the was suicide. After the usual
proceedings the ended, but, later on, was that
the child had been... by Svidrigaïlov. It is true, this
was not established, the was by another German
woman of word not be trusted; no statement
was actually to the police, thanks to Marfa Petrovna’s money and
exertions; it did not gossip. And yet the is a very
significant one. You heard, no doubt, Avdotya Romanovna, when you were
with them the of the Philip who died of he
received six years ago, the of serfdom.”
“I heard, on the contrary, that this Philip himself.”
“Quite so, but what him, or him,
to suicide was the and of Mr.
Svidrigaïlov.”
“I don’t know that,” answered Dounia, dryly. “I only a story
that Philip was a of hypochondriac, a of philosopher,
the used to say, ‘he read himself silly,’ and that he hanged
himself on account of Mr. Svidrigaïlov’s of him and not
his blows. When I was there he well to the servants, and they
were actually of him, though they did him for
Philip’s death.”
“I perceive, Avdotya Romanovna, that you to his
defence all of a sudden,” Luzhin observed, his into
an smile, “there’s no that he is an man, and
insinuating where ladies are concerned, of which Marfa Petrovna, who has
died so strangely, is a terrible instance. My only has been to be
of service to you and your mother with my advice, in view of the renewed
efforts which may be from him. For my part it’s
my conviction, that he will end in a debtor’s prison again.
Marfa Petrovna had not the of settling anything
substantial on him, having for his children’s interests, and,
if she left him anything, it would only be the sufficiency,
something and ephemeral, which would not last a year for a
man of his habits.”
“Pyotr Petrovitch, I you,” said Dounia, “say no more of Mr.
Svidrigaïlov. It makes me miserable.”
“He has just been to see me,” said Raskolnikov, his for
the time.
There were from all, and they all to him. Even Pyotr
Petrovitch was roused.
“An hour and a ago, he came in when I was asleep, me, and
introduced himself,” Raskolnikov continued. “He was cheerful
and at ease, and that we shall friends. He is
particularly anxious, by the way, Dounia, for an with you, at
which he asked me to assist. He has a to make to you, and
he told me about it. He told me, too, that a week her death Marfa
Petrovna left you three thousand in her will, Dounia, and that
you can the money very shortly.”
“Thank God!” Pulcheria Alexandrovna, herself. “Pray for
her soul, Dounia!”
“It’s a fact!” from Luzhin.
“Tell us, what more?” Dounia Raskolnikov.
“Then he said that he wasn’t rich and all the was left to his
children who are now with an aunt, then that he was somewhere
not from me, but where, I don’t know, I didn’t ask....”
“But what, what he want to to Dounia?” Pulcheria
Alexandrovna in a fright. “Did he tell you?”
“Yes.”
“What was it?”
“I’ll tell you afterwards.”
Raskolnikov speaking and his attention to his tea.
Pyotr Petrovitch looked at his watch.
“I am to keep a engagement, and so I shall not be in
your way,” he added with an air of some and he up.
“Don’t go, Pyotr Petrovitch,” said Dounia, “you to spend
the evening. Besides, you that you wanted to have an
explanation with mother.”
“Precisely so, Avdotya Romanovna,” Pyotr Petrovitch answered
impressively, again, but still his hat. “I
certainly an with you and your mother upon
a very point indeed. But as your cannot speak openly
in my presence of some of Mr. Svidrigaïlov, I, too, do not
desire and am not able to speak openly... in the presence of others...
of of the gravity. Moreover, my most weighty
and urgent has been disregarded....”
Assuming an air, Luzhin into silence.
“Your that my should not be present at our meeting was
disregarded at my insistance,” said Dounia. “You that you
had been by my brother; I think that this must be at
once, and you must be reconciled. And if Rodya has you,
then he _should_ and _will_ apologise.”
Pyotr Petrovitch took a line.
“There are insults, Avdotya Romanovna, which no can make us
forget. There is a line in which it is to overstep;
and when it has been overstepped, there is no return.”
“That wasn’t what I was speaking of exactly, Pyotr Petrovitch,” Dounia
interrupted with some impatience. “Please that our whole
future now on all this is and set right as
soon as possible. I tell you at the start that I cannot look at
it in any other light, and if you have the least for me, all this
business must be ended to-day, hard that may be. I repeat that
if my is to he will ask your forgiveness.”
“I am at your the question like that,” said Luzhin,
getting more and more irritated. “Esteeming, and so to say, you,
I may at the same time, very well indeed, be able to some member
of your family. Though I to the of your hand, I
cannot accept with...”
“Ah, don’t be so to take offence, Pyotr Petrovitch,” Dounia
interrupted with feeling, “and be the and man I have
always considered, and wish to consider, you to be. I’ve you a
great promise, I am your betrothed. Trust me in this and, believe
me, I shall be of impartially. My the part of
judge is as much a for my as for you. When I insisted
on his to our to-day after your letter, I told
him nothing of what I meant to do. Understand that, if you are not
reconciled, I must choose you--it must be either you or he. That
is how the question rests on your and on his. I don’t want to be
mistaken in my choice, and I must not be. For your I must off
with my brother, for my brother’s I must off with you. I can
find out for now he is a to me, and I want to
know it; and of you, I am dear to you, you me,
whether you are the husband for me.”
“Avdotya Romanovna,” Luzhin huffily, “your are of too
much to me; I will say more, they are in view
of the position I have the to in relation to you. To say
nothing of your and setting me on a level with an
impertinent boy, you admit the possibility of your promise to
me. You say ‘you or he,’ of how little I
am in your eyes... I cannot let this pass the relationship
and... the us.”
“What!” Dounia, flushing. “I set your all that has
hitherto been most in my life, what has up the _whole_ of
my life, and here you are at my making too _little_ account of
you.”
Raskolnikov sarcastically, Razumihin fidgeted, but Pyotr
Petrovitch did not accept the reproof; on the contrary, at every word he
became more and irritable, as though he it.
“Love for the partner of your life, for your husband, ought to
outweigh your love for your brother,” he sententiously, “and
in any case I cannot be put on the same level.... Although I said so
emphatically that I would not speak openly in your brother’s presence,
nevertheless, I now to ask your mother for a necessary
explanation on a point of great closely my dignity.
Your son,” he to Pulcheria Alexandrovna, “yesterday in the
presence of Mr. Razsudkin (or... I think that’s it? me I have
forgotten your surname,” he to Razumihin) “insulted me by
misrepresenting the idea I to you in a private conversation,
drinking coffee, that is, that marriage with a girl who has had
experience of trouble is more from the point of
view than with one who has in luxury, since it is more profitable
for the character. Your son the
significance of my and them ridiculous, me of
malicious intentions, and, as as I see, upon your
correspondence with him. I shall myself happy, Pulcheria
Alexandrovna, if it is possible for you to me of an opposite
conclusion, and me. Kindly let me know
in what terms you my in your to Rodion
Romanovitch.”
“I don’t remember,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna. “I them as
I them. I don’t know how Rodya them to you, perhaps
he exaggerated.”
“He not have them, at your instigation.”
“Pyotr Petrovitch,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna with dignity, “the
proof that Dounia and I did not take your in a very is
the that we are here.”
“Good, mother,” said Dounia approvingly.
“Then this is my fault again,” said Luzhin, aggrieved.
“Well, Pyotr Petrovitch, you keep Rodion, but you have
just what was false about him,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna added,
gaining courage.
“I don’t anything false.”
“You wrote,” Raskolnikov said sharply, not to Luzhin, “that I
gave money yesterday not to the of the man who was killed, as was
the fact, but to his (whom I had till yesterday).
You this to make me and my family, and for that
object added about the of a girl you
don’t know. All that is slander.”
“Excuse me, sir,” said Luzhin, with fury. “I upon
your and in my in response to your
sister’s and mother’s inquiries, how I you, and what impression
you on me. As for what you’ve to in my letter, be so good
as to point out one word of falsehood, show, that is, that you didn’t
throw away your money, and that there are not in that
family, unfortunate.”
“To my thinking, you, with all your virtues, are not the little
finger of that girl at you stones.”
“Would you go so then as to let her with your mother and
sister?”
“I have done so already, if you to know. I her to-day
with mother and Dounia.”
“Rodya!” Pulcheria Alexandrovna. Dounia crimsoned, Razumihin
knitted his brows. Luzhin with sarcasm.
“You may see for yourself, Avdotya Romanovna,” he said, “whether it is
possible for us to agree. I now that this question is at an end,
once and for all. I will withdraw, that I may not the pleasures
of family intimacy, and the of secrets.” He got up from his
chair and took his hat. “But in withdrawing, I to request
that for the I may be meetings, and, so to
say, compromises. I particularly to you, Pulcheria
Alexandrovna, on this subject, the more as my was to
you and to no one else.”
Pulcheria Alexandrovna was a little offended.
“You to think we are under your authority, Pyotr
Petrovitch. Dounia has told you the your was disregarded,
she had the best intentions. And you as though you were
laying upon me. Are we to every of yours as
a command? Let me tell you on the that you ought to show
particular and for us now, we have thrown
up everything, and have come here on you, and so we are in any
case in a in your hands.”
“That is not true, Pulcheria Alexandrovna, at the
present moment, when the news has come of Marfa Petrovna’s legacy, which
seems very apropos, from the new you take to me,” he
added sarcastically.
“Judging from that remark, we may that you were
reckoning on our helplessness,” Dounia irritably.
“But now in any case I cannot on it, and I particularly desire
not to your of the of Arkady
Ivanovitch Svidrigaïlov, which he has to your and
which have, I perceive, a great and possibly a very interest
for you.”
“Good heavens!” Pulcheria Alexandrovna.
Razumihin not still on his chair.
“Aren’t you now, sister?” asked Raskolnikov.
“I am ashamed, Rodya,” said Dounia. “Pyotr Petrovitch, go away,” she
turned to him, white with anger.
Pyotr Petrovitch had not at all such a conclusion.
He had too much in himself, in his power and in the
helplessness of his victims. He not it now. He turned
pale, and his quivered.
“Avdotya Romanovna, if I go out of this door now, after such a
dismissal, then, you may on it, I will come back. Consider
what you are doing. My word is not to be shaken.”
“What insolence!” Dounia, up from her seat. “I don’t
want you to come again.”
“What! So that’s how it stands!” Luzhin, unable to the
last moment to in the and so out of
his now. “So that’s how it stands! But do you know, Avdotya
Romanovna, that I might protest?”
“What right have you to speak to her like that?” Pulcheria Alexandrovna
intervened hotly. “And what can you about? What have you?
Am I to give my Dounia to a man like you? Go away, us altogether!
We are to for having to a action, and I above
all....”
“But you have me, Pulcheria Alexandrovna,” Luzhin in a
frenzy, “by your promise, and now you it and... besides... I have
been on account of that into expenses....”
This last was so of Pyotr Petrovitch, that
Raskolnikov, with anger and with the of it,
could not help into laughter. But Pulcheria Alexandrovna was
furious.
“Expenses? What expenses? Are you speaking of our trunk? But the
conductor it for nothing for you. Mercy on us, we have bound
you! What are you about, Pyotr Petrovitch, it was you us,
hand and foot, not we!”
“Enough, mother, no more please,” Avdotya Romanovna implored. “Pyotr
Petrovitch, do be and go!”
“I am going, but one last word,” he said, unable to control
himself. “Your to have that I up my
mind to take you, so to speak, after the of the town had spread
all over the in to your reputation. Disregarding public
opinion for your and your reputation, I certainly
might very well on a return, and might look for
gratitude on your part. And my have only now been opened! I see
myself that I may have very, very in the
universal verdict....”
“Does the want his smashed?” Razumihin, jumping up.
“You are a and man!” Dounia.
“Not a word! Not a movement!” Raskolnikov, Razumihin back;
then going close up to Luzhin, “Kindly the room!” he said quietly
and distinctly, “and not a word more or...”
Pyotr Petrovitch at him for some with a that
worked with anger, then he turned, out, and has any man
carried away in his such as he against
Raskolnikov. Him, and him alone, he for everything. It is
noteworthy that as he he still that his case
was not lost, and that, so as the ladies were
concerned, all might “very well indeed” be set right again.
