What are you to be pitied for? shouted the tavern-keeper who was again near them.
Shouts of laughter and even oaths followed. The laughter and the oaths came from those who were listening and also from those who had heard nothing but were simply looking at the figure of the discharged government clerk.
To be pitied! Why am I to be pitied? Marmeladov suddenly declaimed, standing up with his arm outstretched, as though he had been only waiting for that question.
Why am I to be pitied, you say? Yes! theres nothing to pity me for! I ought to be crucified, crucified on a cross, not pitied! Crucify me, oh judge, crucify me but pity me! And then I will go of myself to be crucified, for its not merry-making I seek but tears and tribulation! Do you suppose, you that sell, that this pint of yours has been sweet to me? It was tribulation I sought at the bottom of it, tears and tribulation, and have found it, and I have tasted it; but He will pity us Who has had pity on all men, Who has understood all men and all things, He is the One, He too is the judge. He will come in that day and He will ask: Where is the daughter who gave herself for her cross, consumptive step-mother and for the little children of another? Where is the daughter who had pity upon the filthy drunkard, her earthly father, undismayed by his beastliness? And He will say, come to me! I have already forgiven thee once I have forgiven thee once Thy sins which are many are forgiven thee for thou hast loved much And he will forgive my Sonia, He will forgive, I know it I felt it in my heart when I was with her just now! And He will judge and will forgive all, the good and the evil, the wise and the meek And when He has done with all of them, then He will summon us. You too come forth, He will say, come forth ye drunkards, come forth, ye weak ones, come forth, ye children of shame! And we shall all come forth, without shame and shall stand before him. And He will say unto us, Ye are swine, made in the Image of the Beast and with his mark; but come ye also! And the wise ones and those of understanding will say, Oh Lord, why dost Thou receive these men? And He will say, this is why I receive them, oh ye wise, this is why I receive them, oh ye of understanding, that not one of them believed himself to be worthy of this. And He will hold out His hands to us and we shall fall down before him and we shall weep and we shall understand all things! Then we shall understand all! and all will understand, Katerina Ivanovna even she will understand Lord, Thy kingdom come! And he sank down on the bench exhausted, and helpless, looking at no one, apparently oblivious of his surroundings and plunged in deep thought. His words had created a certain impression; there was a moment of silence; but soon laughter and oaths were heard again.
Thats his notion!
Talked himself silly!
A fine clerk he is!
And so on, and so on.
Let us go, sir, said Marmeladov all at once, raising his head and addressing Raskolnikov come along with me Kozels house, looking into the yard. Im going to Katerina Ivanovna time I did.
Raskolnikov had for some time been wanting to go and he had meant to help him. Marmeladov was much unsteadier on his legs than in his speech and leaned heavily on the young man. They had two or three hundred paces to go. The drunken man was more and more overcome by dismay and confusion as they drew nearer the house.
Its not Katerina Ivanovna I am afraid of now, he muttered in agitation and that she will begin pulling my hair. What does my hair matter! Bother my hair! Thats what I say! Indeed it will be better if she does begin pulling it, thats not what I am afraid of its her eyes I am afraid of yes, her eyes the red on her cheeks, too, frightens me and her breathing too Have you noticed how people in that disease breathe when they are excited? I am frightened of the childrens crying, too For if Sonia has not taken them food I dont know whats happened! I dont know! But blows I am not afraid of Know, sir, that such blows are not a pain to me, but even an enjoyment. In fact I cant get on without it Its better so. Let her strike me, it relieves her heart its better so There is the house. The house of Kozel, the cabinet-maker a German, well-to-do. Lead the way!
They went in from the yard and up to the fourth storey. The staircase got darker and darker as they went up. It was nearly eleven oclock and although in summer in Petersburg there is no real night, yet it was quite dark at the top of the stairs.
A grimy little door at the very top of the stairs stood ajar. A very poor-looking room about ten paces long was lighted up by a candle-end; the whole of it was visible from the entrance. It was all in disorder, littered up with rags of all sorts, especially childrens garments. Across the furthest corner was stretched a ragged sheet. Behind it probably was the bed. There was nothing in the room except two chairs and a sofa covered with American leather, full of holes, before which stood an old deal kitchen-table, unpainted and uncovered. At the edge of the table stood a smoldering tallow-candle in an iron candlestick. It appeared that the family had a room to themselves, not part of a room, but their room was practically a passage. The door leading to the other rooms, or rather cupboards, into which Amalia Lippevechsels flat was divided stood half open, and there was shouting, uproar and laughter within. People seemed to be playing cards and drinking tea there. Words of the most unceremonious kind flew out from time to time.
Raskolnikov recognised Katerina Ivanovna at once. She was a rather tall, slim and graceful woman, terribly emaciated, with magnificent dark brown hair and with a hectic flush in her cheeks. She was pacing up and down in her little room, pressing her hands against her chest; her lips were parched and her breathing came in nervous broken gasps. Her eyes glittered as in fever and looked about with a harsh immovable stare. And that consumptive and excited face with the last flickering light of the candle-end playing upon it made a sickening impression. She seemed to Raskolnikov about thirty years old and was certainly a strange wife for Marmeladov She had not heard them and did not notice them coming in. She seemed to be lost in thought, hearing and seeing nothing. The room was close, but she had not opened the window; a stench rose from the staircase, but the door on to the stairs was not closed. From the inner rooms clouds of tobacco smoke floated in, she kept coughing, but did not close the door. The youngest child, a girl of six, was asleep, sitting curled up on the floor with her head on the sofa. A boy a year older stood crying and shaking in the corner, probably he had just had a beating. Beside him stood a girl of nine years old, tall and thin, wearing a thin and ragged chemise with an ancient cashmere pelisse flung over her bare shoulders, long outgrown and barely reaching her knees. Her arm, as thin as a stick, was round her brothers neck. She was trying to comfort him, whispering something to him, and doing all she could to keep him from whimpering again. At the same time her large dark eyes, which looked larger still from the thinness of her frightened face, were watching her mother with alarm. Marmeladov did not enter the door, but dropped on his knees in the very doorway, pushing Raskolnikov in front of him. The woman seeing a stranger stopped indifferently facing him, coming to herself for a moment and apparently wondering what he had come for. But evidently she decided that he was going into the next room, as he had to pass through hers to get there. Taking no further notice of him, she walked towards the outer door to close it and uttered a sudden scream on seeing her husband on his knees in the doorway.
Ah! she cried out in a frenzy, he has come back! The criminal! the monster! And where is the money? Whats in your pocket, show me! And your clothes are all different! Where are your clothes? Where is the money! Speak!
And she fell to searching him. Marmeladov submissively and obediently held up both arms to facilitate the search. Not a farthing was there.
Where is the money? she cried Mercy on us, can he have drunk it all? There were twelve silver roubles left in the chest! and in a fury she seized him by the hair and dragged him into the room. Marmeladov seconded her efforts by meekly crawling along on his knees.
And this is a consolation to me! This does not hurt me, but is a positive con-so-la-tion, ho-nou-red sir, he called out, shaken to and fro by his hair and even once striking the ground with his forehead. The child asleep on the floor woke up, and began to cry. The boy in the corner losing all control began trembling and screaming and rushed to his sister in violent terror, almost in a fit. The eldest girl was shaking like a leaf.
Hes drunk it! hes drunk it all, the poor woman screamed in despair and his clothes are gone! And they are hungry, hungry! and wringing her hands she pointed to the children. Oh, accursed life! And you, are you not ashamed? she pounced all at once upon Raskolnikov from the tavern! Have you been drinking with him? You have been drinking with him, too! Go away!
The young man was hastening away without uttering a word. The inner door was thrown wide open and inquisitive faces were peering in at it. Coarse laughing faces with pipes and cigarettes and heads wearing caps thrust themselves in at the doorway. Further in could be seen figures in dressing gowns flung open, in costumes of unseemly scantiness, some of them with cards in their hands. They were particularly diverted, when Marmeladov, dragged about by his hair, shouted that it was a consolation to him. They even began to come into the room; at last a sinister shrill outcry was heard: this came from Amalia Lippevechsel herself pushing her way amongst them and trying to restore order after her own fashion and for the hundredth time to frighten the poor woman by ordering her with coarse abuse to clear out of the room next day. As he went out, Raskolnikov had time to put his hand into his pocket, to snatch up the coppers he had received in exchange for his rouble in the tavern and to lay them unnoticed on the window. Afterwards on the stairs, he changed his mind and would have gone back.
What a stupid thing Ive done, he thought to himself, they have Sonia and I want it myself. But reflecting that it would be impossible to take it back now and that in any case he would not have taken it, he dismissed it with a wave of his hand and went back to his lodging. Sonia wants pomatum too, he said as he walked along the street, and he laughed malignantly such smartness costs money Hm! And maybe Sonia herself will be bankrupt to-day, for there is always a risk, hunting big game digging for gold then they would all be without a crust to-morrow except for my money. Hurrah for Sonia! What a mine theyve dug there! And theyre making the most of it! Yes, they are making the most of it! Theyve wept over it and grown used to it. Man grows used to everything, the scoundrel!
He sank into thought.
And what if I am wrong, he cried suddenly after a moments thought. What if man is not really a scoundrel, man in general, I mean, the whole race of mankind then all the rest is prejudice, simply artificial terrors and there are no barriers and its all as it should be.
CHAPTER III
He waked up late next day after a broken sleep. But his sleep had not refreshed him; he waked up bilious, irritable, ill-tempered, and looked with hatred at his room. It was a tiny cupboard of a room about six paces in length. It had a poverty-stricken appearance with its dusty yellow paper peeling off the walls, and it was so low-pitched that a man of more than average height was ill at ease in it and felt every moment that he would knock his head against the ceiling. The furniture was in keeping with the room: there were three old chairs, rather rickety; a painted table in the corner on which lay a few manuscripts and books; the dust that lay thick upon them showed that they had been long untouched. A big clumsy sofa occupied almost the whole of one wall and half the floor space of the room; it was once covered with chintz, but was now in rags and served Raskolnikov as a bed. Often he went to sleep on it, as he was, without undressing, without sheets, wrapped in his old students overcoat, with his head on one little pillow, under which he heaped up all the linen he had, clean and dirty, by way of a bolster. A little table stood in front of the sofa.
It would have been difficult to sink to a lower ebb of disorder, but to Raskolnikov in his present state of mind this was positively agreeable. He had got completely away from everyone, like a tortoise in its shell, and even the sight of a servant girl who had to wait upon him and looked sometimes into his room made him writhe with nervous irritation. He was in the condition that overtakes some monomaniacs entirely concentrated upon one thing. His landlady had for the last fortnight given up sending him in meals, and he had not yet thought of expostulating with her, though he went without his dinner. Nastasya, the cook and only servant, was rather pleased at the lodgers mood and had entirely given up sweeping and doing his room, only once a week or so she would stray into his room with a broom. She waked him up that day.
Get up, why are you asleep? she called to him. Its past nine, I have brought you some tea; will you have a cup? I should think youre fairly starving?
Raskolnikov opened his eyes, started and recognised Nastasya.
From the landlady, eh? he asked, slowly and with a sickly face sitting up on the sofa.
From the landlady, indeed!
She set before him her own cracked teapot full of weak and stale tea and laid two yellow lumps of sugar by the side of it.
Here, Nastasya, take it please, he said, fumbling in his pocket (for he had slept in his clothes) and taking out a handful of coppers run and buy me a loaf. And get me a little sausage, the cheapest, at the pork-butchers.
The loaf Ill fetch you this very minute, but wouldnt you rather have some cabbage soup instead of sausage? Its capital soup, yesterdays. I saved it for you yesterday, but you came in late. Its fine soup.
When the soup had been brought, and he had begun upon it, Nastasya sat down beside him on the sofa and began chatting. She was a country peasant-woman and a very talkative one.
Praskovya Pavlovna means to complain to the police about you, she said.
He scowled.
To the police? What does she want?
You dont pay her money and you wont turn out of the room. Thats what she wants, to be sure.
The devil, thats the last straw, he muttered, grinding his teeth, no, that would not suit me just now. She is a fool, he added aloud. Ill go and talk to her to-day.
Fool she is and no mistake, just as I am. But why, if you are so clever, do you lie here like a sack and have nothing to show for it? One time you used to go out, you say, to teach children. But why is it you do nothing now?
I am doing Raskolnikov began sullenly and reluctantly.
What are you doing?
Work
What sort of work?
I am thinking, he answered seriously after a pause.
Nastasya was overcome with a fit of laughter. She was given to laughter and when anything amused her, she laughed inaudibly, quivering and shaking all over till she felt ill.