Lebeziatnikov looked perturbed.
“I’ve come to you, Sofya Semyonovna,” he began. “Excuse me... I thought
I should you,” he said, Raskolnikov suddenly, “that is,
I didn’t anything... of that sort... But I just thought... Katerina
Ivanovna has gone out of her mind,” he out suddenly, turning
from Raskolnikov to Sonia.
Sonia screamed.
“At least it so. But... we don’t know what to do, you see! She
came back--she to have been out somewhere, perhaps
beaten.... So it at least,... She had to your father’s former
chief, she didn’t him at home: he was at some other
general’s.... Only fancy, she off there, to the other general’s,
and, imagine, she was so that she managed to the to
see her, had him out from dinner, it seems. You can what
happened. She was out, of course; but, according to her own
story, she him and something at him. One may well believe
it.... How it is she wasn’t taken up, I can’t understand! Now she is
telling everyone, Amalia Ivanovna; but it’s difficult to
understand her, she is and herself about.... Oh yes,
she that since has her, she will take the
children and go into the with a barrel-organ, and the children
will sing and dance, and she too, and money, and will go every
day under the general’s window... ‘to let see well-born
children, father was an official, in the street.’ She
keeps the children and they are all crying. She is teaching Lida
to sing ‘My Village,’ the boy to dance, Polenka the same. She is tearing
up all the clothes, and making them little like actors; she means
to a and make it tinkle, of music.... She won’t
listen to anything.... Imagine the of things! It’s beyond
anything!”
Lebeziatnikov would have gone on, but Sonia, who had him almost
breathless, up her and hat, and ran out of the room,
putting on her as she went. Raskolnikov her and
Lebeziatnikov came after him.
“She has gone mad!” he said to Raskolnikov, as they out
into the street. “I didn’t want to Sofya Semyonovna, so I said
‘it like it,’ but there isn’t a of it. They say that in
consumption the sometimes in the brain; it’s a I
know nothing of medicine. I did try to her, but she wouldn’t
listen.”
“Did you talk to her about the tubercles?”
“Not of the tubercles. Besides, she wouldn’t have understood!
But what I say is, that if you a person that he
has nothing to about, he’ll stop crying. That’s clear. Is it your
conviction that he won’t?”
“Life would be too easy if it were so,” answered Raskolnikov.
“Excuse me, me; of it would be difficult for
Katerina Ivanovna to understand, but do you know that in Paris they have
been as to the possibility of the
insane, by logical argument? One there, a scientific
man of standing, dead, in the possibility of such
treatment. His idea was that there’s nothing with the
physical of the insane, and that is, so to say, a
logical mistake, an error of judgment, an view of things. He
gradually the his error and, would you it, they
say he was successful? But as he use of too, how far
success was to that uncertain.... So it at
least.”
Raskolnikov had long to listen. Reaching the house where he
lived, he to Lebeziatnikov and in at the gate. Lebeziatnikov
woke up with a start, looked about him and on.
Raskolnikov into his little room and still in the middle
of it. Why had he come here? He looked at the yellow and tattered
paper, at the dust, at his sofa.... From the came a loud continuous
knocking; someone to be hammering... He to the window, rose
on and looked out into the for a long time with an air of
absorbed attention. But the was empty and he not see who was
hammering. In the house on the left he saw some open windows; on the
window-sills were of sickly-looking geraniums. Linen was out
of the windows... He it all by heart. He away and sat down
on the sofa.
Never, had he himself so alone!
Yes, he once more that he would come to Sonia, now
that he had her more miserable.
“Why had he gone to her to for her tears? What need had he to poison
her life? Oh, the of it!”
“I will alone,” he said resolutely, “and she shall not come to
the prison!”
Five minutes later he his with a smile. That was a
strange thought.
“Perhaps it would be in Siberia,” he suddenly.
He not have said how long he sat there with surging
through his mind. All at once the door opened and Dounia came in. At
first she still and looked at him from the doorway, just as he
had done at Sonia; then she came in and sat in the same place
as yesterday, on the chair him. He looked and almost
vacantly at her.
“Don’t be angry, brother; I’ve only come for one minute,” said Dounia.
Her looked but not stern. Her were and soft.
He saw that she too had come to him with love.
“Brother, now I know all, _all_. Dmitri Prokofitch has and
told me everything. They are and persecuting you through a
stupid and suspicion.... Dmitri Prokofitch told me that
there is no danger, and that you are in looking upon it with such
horror. I don’t think so, and I how you must
be, and that that may have a permanent on you. That’s
what I am of. As for your off from us, I don’t
judge you, I don’t to judge you, and me for having
blamed you for it. I that I too, if I had so great a trouble,
should keep away from everyone. I shall tell mother nothing _of this_,
but I shall talk about you and shall tell her from you that
you will come very soon. Don’t worry about her; _I_ will set her mind at
rest; but don’t you try her too much--come once at least; that
she is your mother. And now I have come to say” (Dounia began
to up) “that if you should need me or should need... all my life or
anything... call me, and I’ll come. Good-bye!”
She and the door.
“Dounia!” Raskolnikov stopped her and her. “That Razumihin,
Dmitri Prokofitch, is a very good fellow.”
Dounia slightly.
“Well?” she asked, waiting a moment.
“He is competent, hardworking, and of love....
Good-bye, Dounia.”
Dounia crimson, then she took alarm.
“But what it mean, brother? Are we for that
you... give me such a message?”
“Never mind.... Good-bye.”
He away, and walked to the window. She a moment, looked at
him uneasily, and out troubled.
No, he was not cold to her. There was an (the very last one)
when he had to take her in his arms and _say good-bye_ to her,
and _to tell_ her, but he had not to touch her hand.
“Afterwards she may when she that I her, and
will that I her kiss.”
“And would _she_ that test?” he on a minutes later to
himself. “No, she wouldn’t; girls like that can’t things! They
never do.”
And he of Sonia.
There was a of fresh air from the window. The was
fading. He took up his cap and out.
He not, of course, and would not how he was. But all
this and of mind not but affect him. And
if he were not in high it was just this
continual helped to keep him on his and in possession
of his faculties. But this not last long.
He aimlessly. The sun was setting. A special of had
begun to him of late. There was nothing poignant, nothing acute
about it; but there was a of permanence, of about it;
it a of years of this cold misery, a
foretaste of an “on a square of space.” Towards evening
this to on him more heavily.
“With this idiotic, purely physical weakness, on the or
something, one can’t help doing something stupid! You’ll go to Dounia,
as well as to Sonia,” he bitterly.
He his name called. He looked round. Lebeziatnikov up to
him.
“Only fancy, I’ve been to your room looking for you. Only fancy, she’s
carried out her plan, and taken away the children. Sofya Semyonovna and
I have had a job to them. She is on a frying-pan and making
the children dance. The children are crying. They keep stopping at the
cross-roads and in of shops; there’s a of running
after them. Come along!”
“And Sonia?” Raskolnikov asked anxiously, after Lebeziatnikov.
“Simply frantic. That is, it’s not Sofya Semyonovna’s frantic, but
Katerina Ivanovna, though Sofya Semyonova’s too. But Katerina
Ivanovna is frantic. I tell you she is mad. They’ll be
taken to the police. You can what an that will have....
They are on the bank, near the now, not from Sofya
Semyonovna’s, close.”
On the bank near the and not two houses away from the one
where Sonia lodged, there was a of people, principally
of children. The voice of Katerina Ivanovna could
be from the bridge, and it was a spectacle
likely to a crowd. Katerina Ivanovna in her old dress
with the green shawl, a hat, in a way
on one side, was frantic. She was and breathless. Her
wasted looked more than ever, and out
of doors in the a always looks than at home.
But her did not flag, and every moment her grew
more intense. She at the children, at them, coaxed
them, told them the how to and what to sing, began
explaining to them why it was necessary, and to by
their not understanding, them.... Then she would make a at the
crowd; if she noticed any person stopping to look, she
immediately to him to see what these children “from a genteel,
one may say aristocratic, house” had been to. If she heard
laughter or in the crowd, she would at once at the scoffers
and with them. Some people laughed, others their
heads, but at the of the with the
frightened children. The frying-pan of which Lebeziatnikov had spoken
was not there, at least Raskolnikov did not see it. But of
rapping on the pan, Katerina Ivanovna her hands,
when she Lida and Kolya and Polenka sing. She too joined in
the singing, but at the second note with a cough,
which her in and tears. What her most
furious was the and terror of Kolya and Lida. Some had
been to dress the children up as singers are dressed. The
boy had on a of something red and white to look like a Turk.
There had been no for Lida; she had a red cap,
or a night cap that had to Marmeladov, with
a piece of white feather, which had been Katerina
Ivanovna’s grandmother’s and had been as a family possession.
Polenka was in her dress; she looked in at her
mother, and at her side, her tears. She her
mother’s condition, and looked about her. She was terribly
frightened of the and the crowd. Sonia Katerina
Ivanovna, and her to return home, but Katerina
Ivanovna was not to be persuaded.
“Leave off, Sonia, off,” she shouted, speaking fast, and
coughing. “You don’t know what you ask; you are like a child! I’ve
told you that I am not to that German. Let
everyone, let all Petersburg see the children in the streets,
though their father was an man who all his life in
truth and fidelity, and one may say died in the service.” (Katerina
Ivanovna had by now this and thoroughly
believed it.) “Let that of a see it! And you are silly,
Sonia: what have we to eat? Tell me that. We have you enough, I
won’t go on so! Ah, Rodion Romanovitch, is that you?” she cried, seeing
Raskolnikov and up to him. “Explain to this girl, please,
that nothing be done! Even organ-grinders earn their
living, and will see at once that we are different, that we are
an and family to beggary. And that general
will his post, you’ll see! We shall perform under his every
day, and if the Tsar by, I’ll on my knees, put the children
before me, them to him, and say ‘Defend us father.’ He is the
father of the fatherless, he is merciful, he’ll protect us, you’ll
see, and that of a general.... Lida, _tenez droite_! Kolya,
you’ll again. Why are you whimpering? Whimpering again! What
are you of, stupid? Goodness, what am I to do with them, Rodion
Romanovitch? If you only how they are! What’s one to do with
such children?”
And she, almost herself--which did not stop her uninterrupted,
rapid of talk--pointed to the children. Raskolnikov tried
to her to go home, and said, to work on her vanity,
that it was for her to be about the like
an organ-grinder, as she was to the of a
boarding-school.
“A boarding-school, ha-ha-ha! A in the air,” Katerina
Ivanovna, her laugh in a cough. “No, Rodion Romanovitch, that
dream is over! All have us!... And that general.... You know,
Rodion Romanovitch, I an at him--it to be standing
in the waiting-room by the paper where you your name. I my
name, it at him and ran away. Oh, the scoundrels, the scoundrels!
But of them, now I’ll provide for the children myself, I won’t
bow to anybody! She has had to for us!” she pointed
to Sonia. “Polenka, how much have you got? Show me! What, only two
farthings! Oh, the wretches! They give us nothing, only after
us, their out. There, what is that laughing
at?” (She pointed to a man in the crowd.) “It’s all Kolya here
is so stupid; I have such a with him. What do you want, Polenka?
Tell me in French, _parlez-moi français_. Why, I’ve you, you know
some phrases. Else how are you to that you are of good family, well
brought-up children, and not at all like other organ-grinders? We aren’t
going to have a Punch and Judy in the street, but to sing a genteel
song.... Ah, yes,... What are we to sing? You keep me out,
but we... you see, we are here, Rodion Romanovitch, to find
something to sing and money, something Kolya can to.... For,
as you can fancy, our performance is all impromptu.... We must talk it
over and it all thoroughly, and then we shall go to Nevsky,
where there are more people of good society, and we shall be noticed
at once. Lida ‘My Village’ only, nothing but ‘My Village,’ and
everyone that. We must sing something more genteel.... Well,
have you of anything, Polenka? If only you’d help your mother!
My memory’s gone, or I should have of something. We really
can’t sing ‘An Hussar.’ Ah, let us sing in French, ‘Cinq sous,’ I have
taught it you, I have it you. And as it is in French, people will
see at once that you are children of good family, and that will be much
more touching.... You might sing ‘Marlborough s’en va-t-en guerre,’
for that’s a child’s song and is as a in all the
aristocratic houses.
“_Marlborough s’en va-t-en Ne reviendra_...”
she singing. “But no, sing ‘Cinq sous.’ Now, Kolya, your
hands on your hips, make haste, and you, Lida, keep the other
way, and Polenka and I will sing and clap our hands!
“_Cinq sous, Pour menage_.”
(Cough-cough-cough!) “Set your dress straight, Polenka, it’s slipped
down on your shoulders,” she observed, from coughing. “Now it’s
particularly necessary to and genteelly, that all may
see that you are well-born children. I said at the time that the bodice
should be cut longer, and of two widths. It was your fault, Sonia,
with your to make it shorter, and now you see the child is quite
deformed by it.... Why, you’re all again! What’s the matter,
stupids? Come, Kolya, begin. Make haste, make haste! Oh, what an
unbearable child!
“Cinq sous, sous.
“A again! What do you want?”
A was his way through the crowd. But at that
moment a in and an overcoat--a solid-looking
official of about fifty with a on his (which delighted
Katerina Ivanovna and had its on the policeman)--approached and
without a word her a green three-rouble note. His wore
a look of sympathy. Katerina Ivanovna took it and gave him a
polite, ceremonious, bow.
“I thank you, sir,” she loftily. “The that have
induced us (take the money, Polenka: you see there are and
honourable people who are to help a in distress).
You see, sir, these of good family--I might say of
aristocratic connections--and that of a sat eating
grouse... and at my him. ‘Your excellency,’ I said,
‘protect the orphans, for you my late husband, Semyon Zaharovitch,
and on the very day of his death the of his
only daughter.’... That again! Protect me,” she to the
official. “Why is that up to me? We have only just run
away from one of them. What do you want, fool?”
“It’s in the streets. You mustn’t make a disturbance.”
“It’s you’re making a disturbance. It’s just the same as if I were
grinding an organ. What is it of yours?”
“You have to a for an organ, and you haven’t got one, and in
that way you a crowd. Where do you lodge?”
“What, a license?” Katerina Ivanovna. “I my husband
to-day. What need of a license?”
“Calm yourself, madam, yourself,” the official. “Come along;
I will you.... This is no place for you in the crowd. You are
ill.”
“Honoured sir, sir, you don’t know,” Katerina
Ivanovna. “We are going to the Nevsky.... Sonia, Sonia! Where is she?
She is too! What’s the with you all? Kolya, Lida, where
are you going?” she in alarm. “Oh, children! Kolya,
Lida, where are they off to?...”
Kolya and Lida, out of their by the crowd, and their
mother’s pranks, each other by the hand, and ran off
at the of the who wanted to take them away somewhere.
Weeping and wailing, Katerina Ivanovna ran after them. She was
a and spectacle, as she ran, and for
breath. Sonia and Polenka after them.
“Bring them back, them back, Sonia! Oh stupid, ungrateful
children!... Polenka! catch them.... It’s for your I...”
She as she ran and down.
“She’s cut herself, she’s bleeding! Oh, dear!” Sonia, over
her.
All ran up and around. Raskolnikov and Lebeziatnikov were the
first at her side, the official too up, and him the
policeman who muttered, “Bother!” with a of impatience, feeling
that the job was going to be a one.
“Pass on! Pass on!” he said to the that pressed forward.
“She’s dying,” someone shouted.
“She’s gone out of her mind,” said another.
“Lord have upon us,” said a woman, herself. “Have they
caught the little girl and the boy? They’re being back, the
elder one’s got them.... Ah, the imps!”
When they Katerina Ivanovna carefully, they saw that she had
not cut herself against a stone, as Sonia thought, but that the blood
that the red was from her chest.
“I’ve that before,” the official to Raskolnikov and
Lebeziatnikov; “that’s consumption; the blood and the
patient. I saw the same thing with a relative of my own not long ago...
nearly a of blood, all in a minute.... What’s to be done though?
She is dying.”
“This way, this way, to my room!” Sonia implored. “I live here!... See,
that house, the second from here.... Come to me, make haste,” she turned
from one to the other. “Send for the doctor! Oh, dear!”
Thanks to the official’s efforts, this plan was adopted, the policeman
even helping to Katerina Ivanovna. She was to Sonia’s
room, almost unconscious, and on the bed. The blood was still
flowing, but she to be to herself. Raskolnikov,
Lebeziatnikov, and the official Sonia into the room and were
followed by the policeman, who the which followed
to the very door. Polenka came in Kolya and Lida, who
were and weeping. Several came in too from the
Kapernaumovs’ room; the landlord, a one-eyed man of strange
appearance with and that up like a brush, his
wife, a woman with an expression, and several
open-mouthed children with wonder-struck faces. Among these,
Svidrigaïlov his appearance. Raskolnikov looked at him
with surprise, not where he had come from and not having
noticed him in the crowd. A doctor and spoken of. The
official to Raskolnikov that he it was too late now
for the doctor, but he ordered him to be sent for. Kapernaumov ran
himself.
Meanwhile Katerina Ivanovna had her breath. The ceased
for a time. She looked with but and at
Sonia, who and trembling, the from her with
a handkerchief. At last she asked to be raised. They sat her up on the
bed, supporting her on sides.
“Where are the children?” she said in a voice. “You’ve brought
them, Polenka? Oh the sillies! Why did you away.... Och!”
Once more her were with blood. She moved her eyes,
looking about her.
“So that’s how you live, Sonia! Never once have I been in your room.”
She looked at her with a of suffering.
“We have been your ruin, Sonia. Polenka, Lida, Kolya, come here! Well,
here they are, Sonia, take them all! I hand them over to you, I’ve had
enough! The is over.” (Cough!) “Lay me down, let me die in peace.”
They her on the pillow.
“What, the priest? I don’t want him. You haven’t got a to spare.
I have no sins. God must me without that. He how I have
suffered.... And if He won’t me, I don’t care!”
She more and more into delirium. At times she shuddered,
turned her from to side, for a minute,
but at once into again. Her was and
difficult, there was a of in her throat.
“I said to him, your excellency,” she ejaculated, after each
word. “That Amalia Ludwigovna, ah! Lida, Kolya, hands on your hips,
make haste! _Glissez, glissez! de basque!_ Tap with your heels, be a
graceful child!
“_Du Diamanten Perlen_
“What next? That’s the thing to sing.
“_Du die schönsten Augen Mädchen, was du mehr?_
“What an idea! _Was du mehr?_ What the invents! Ah,
yes!
“In the of in the of Dagestan.
“Ah, how I loved it! I loved that song to distraction, Polenka! Your
father, you know, used to sing it when we were engaged.... Oh those
days! Oh that’s the thing for us to sing! How it go? I’ve
forgotten. Remind me! How was it?”
She was and to up. At last, in a horribly
hoarse, voice, she began, and at every word,
with a look of terror.
“In the of midday!... in the vale!... of Dagestan!... With lead in
my breast!...”
“Your excellency!” she with a heart-rending and
a of tears, “protect the orphans! You have been their father’s
guest... one may say aristocratic....” She started, regaining
consciousness, and at all with a of terror, but at once
recognised Sonia.
“Sonia, Sonia!” she and caressingly, as though
surprised to her there. “Sonia darling, are you here, too?”
They her up again.
“Enough! It’s over! Farewell, thing! I am done for! I am broken!”
she with despair, and her on the
pillow.
She into again, but this time it did not last long.
Her pale, yellow, back, her mouth open, her leg
moved convulsively, she gave a deep, and died.
Sonia upon her, her arms about her, and motionless
with her pressed to the woman’s bosom. Polenka threw
herself at her mother’s feet, them and violently. Though
Kolya and Lida did not what had happened, they had a feeling
that it was something terrible; they put their hands on each other’s
little shoulders, at one another and at once opened
their mouths and screaming. They were still in their fancy
dress; one in a turban, the other in the cap with the feather.
And how did “the certificate of merit” come to be on the beside
Katerina Ivanovna? It there by the pillow; Raskolnikov saw it.
He walked away to the window. Lebeziatnikov up to him.
“She is dead,” he said.
“Rodion Romanovitch, I must have two with you,” said Svidrigaïlov,
coming up to them.
Lebeziatnikov at once room for him and withdrew.
Svidrigaïlov Raskolnikov away.
“I will all the arrangements, the and that. You know
it’s a question of money and, as I told you, I have to spare. I
will put those two little ones and Polenka into some good asylum,
and I will settle fifteen hundred to be paid to each on coming
of age, so that Sofya Semyonovna need have no about them. And I
will her out of the too, for she is a good girl, isn’t she? So
tell Avdotya Romanovna that that is how I am her ten thousand.”
“What is your for such benevolence?” asked Raskolnikov.
“Ah! you person!” laughed Svidrigaïlov. “I told you I had no
need of that money. Won’t you admit that it’s done from humanity?
She wasn’t ‘a louse,’ you know” (he pointed to the where the
dead woman lay), “was she, like some old woman? Come, you’ll
agree, is Luzhin to go on living, and doing or is she to
die? And if I didn’t help them, Polenka would go the same way.”
He said this with an air of a of slyness, his
eyes on Raskolnikov, who white and cold, his own
phrases, spoken to Sonia. He and looked at
Svidrigaïlov.
“How do you know?” he whispered, able to breathe.
“Why, I here at Madame Resslich’s, the other of the wall.
Here is Kapernaumov, and there Madame Resslich, an old and devoted
friend of mine. I am a neighbour.”
“You?”
“Yes,” Svidrigaïlov, with laughter. “I you
on my honour, dear Rodion Romanovitch, that you have me
enormously. I told you we should friends, I it. Well,
here we have. And you will see what an person I am. You’ll
see that you can on with me!”
PART VI
