Chapter 39 of 41

VIII

When he entered Sonya's room, dusk was already falling. All day Sonya had waited for him in terrible agitation. She and Dunya had waited together. Dunya had come to her early that morning, remembering Svidrigailov's words from the day before, that Sonya "knew about it." We will not recount the details of the conversation and tears of both women, and how closely they had drawn together. From this meeting, Dunya at least took away one consolation: that her brother would not be alone; he had come to her, to Sonya, first with his confession; he had sought out a human being in her when he needed one; and she would follow him wherever fate should send him. She did not even ask, but she knew that this would be so. She even looked upon Sonya with a kind of reverence and at first almost embarrassed her with this reverential feeling with which she treated her. Sonya was ready to burst into tears: she, on the contrary, considered herself unworthy even to look at Dunya. The beautiful image of Dunya, when she had bowed to her with such attention and respect during their first meeting at Raskolnikov's, had remained in her soul forever since then, as one of the most beautiful and unattainable visions of her life.

At last Dunya could bear it no longer and left Sonya to wait for her brother in his apartment; she kept thinking that he would come there first. Left alone, Sonya immediately began to suffer from fear at the thought that perhaps he really would commit suicide. Dunya feared the same thing. But both of them had spent the whole day trying to convince each other with every argument that this could not be, and they were calmer while they were together. Now, as soon as they had parted, each began to think only of this. Sonya recalled how Svidrigailov had told her yesterday that Raskolnikov had two roads—the Vladimir road or... She also knew his vanity, arrogance, self-love and disbelief. "Can only cowardice and fear of death compel him to live?" she thought at last, in despair. Meanwhile the sun was already setting. She stood sadly before the window and gazed intently at it—but from this window only the bare, unwhitewashed wall of the neighboring house could be seen. At last, when she had reached complete conviction of the unfortunate man's death—he entered her room.

A joyful cry burst from her breast. But, glancing intently at his face, she suddenly turned pale.

"Well, yes!" said Raskolnikov, smiling. "I've come for your crosses, Sonya. You yourself sent me to the crossroads; why now, when it comes to the deed, are you frightened?"

Sonya looked at him in astonishment. His tone seemed strange to her; a cold shiver passed through her body, but a minute later she understood that both the tone and the words were all assumed. He spoke to her looking somehow into the corner and as if avoiding looking directly into her face.

"You see, Sonya, I've reasoned that this way will perhaps be more advantageous. There's a certain circumstance... Well, it would take too long to explain, and there's no need. Do you know what angers me? It vexes me that all these stupid, beastly mugs will surround me now, will stare at me with their bug-eyes, will ask me their stupid questions that I'll have to answer—they'll point their fingers at me... Bah! You know, I'm not going to Porfiry; I'm sick of him. I'd rather go to my friend Gunpowder, that'll surprise him, that'll produce quite an effect of its kind. But I should be cooler; I've become too bilious lately. Would you believe it: I just threatened my sister, almost with my fist, just because she turned to look at me for the last time. What beastly behavior—such a state! Ugh, what have I come to! Well, where are the crosses?"

He seemed not himself. He could not even stand still in one place for a minute, could not concentrate his attention on any one object; his thoughts leaped over one another, he rambled; his hands trembled slightly.

Sonya silently took two crosses from the drawer, a cypress one and a copper one, crossed herself, crossed him, and put the cypress cross on his breast.

"This, then, is a symbol that I take up the cross, heh-heh! And it's true, I've suffered little until now! The cypress one, that is, the common people's; the copper one—that's Lizaveta's, you're taking for yourself—show me? So it was on her... at that moment? I also know of two such crosses, a silver one and an icon. I threw them on the old woman's breast then. Those would be appropriate now, really, I should wear those ones... But anyway, I'm talking nonsense, forgetting the business; I'm somehow distracted... You see, Sonya—I actually came to warn you in advance, so that you'd know... Well, that's all... I only came for that, really. (Hm, though I thought I'd have more to say.) But you yourself wanted me to go, so here I'll be sitting in prison, and your wish will be fulfilled; so why are you crying? You too? Stop, enough; oh, how hard all this is for me!"

A feeling, however, arose in him; his heart contracted, looking at her. "Why is she, why is she?" he thought to himself. "What am I to her? Why is she crying, why is she getting me ready, like a mother or Dunya? She'll be my nanny!"

"Cross yourself, say a prayer at least once," Sonya asked in a trembling, timid voice.

"Oh, by all means, as much as you like! And from a pure heart, Sonya, from a pure heart..."

He wanted, however, to say something else.

He crossed himself several times. Sonya seized her shawl and threw it over her head. It was a green drap de dames shawl, probably the very one Marmeladov had mentioned then, the "family one." The thought flashed through Raskolnikov's mind, but he did not ask. Indeed, he himself had begun to feel that he was terribly distracted and somehow disgracefully agitated. He was frightened by this. He was also suddenly struck by the fact that Sonya wanted to leave with him.

"What are you doing! Where are you going? Stay, stay! I'll go alone," he cried in cowardly vexation and, almost enraged, went to the door. "What need is there for a whole retinue!" he muttered as he left.

Sonya remained standing in the middle of the room. He had not even said goodbye to her, he had already forgotten about her; a caustic and rebellious doubt seethed up in his soul.

"But is it right, is all this right?" he thought again, descending the stairs. "Can't I still stop and correct everything again... and not go?"

But he kept walking nonetheless. He suddenly felt definitively that there was no point in asking himself questions. As he went out into the street, he remembered that he had not said goodbye to Sonya, that she had remained standing in the middle of the room in her green shawl, not daring to move after his shout, and he paused for a moment. At the same instant one thought suddenly illuminated him brightly—as if it had been waiting to strike him finally.

"Why, for what reason did I come to her now? I told her: on business; but what business? There was no business at all! To announce that I'm going; so what? What a necessity! Do I love her, or what? Surely not, no? Why, I just drove her away like a dog. Did I really need her crosses? Oh, how low I've fallen! No—I needed her tears, I needed to see her fright, to watch her heart ache and be tormented! I needed to cling to something, to linger, to look at a human being! And I dared to hope so much for myself, to dream so much about myself, I'm a pauper, I'm a nobody, I'm a scoundrel, a scoundrel!"

He walked along the embankment of the canal, and there was not far left for him to go. But reaching the bridge, he paused and suddenly turned onto the bridge, to the side, and walked to the Haymarket.

He looked eagerly to the right and left, peered intently at every object and could not concentrate his attention on anything; everything slipped away. "In a week, in a month they'll transport me somewhere in those prison carts over this bridge, how will I look at this canal then—should I remember this?" flashed through his head. "Here's this sign, how will I read these same letters then? Here it says: 'Company,' well, I'll remember this 'a,' the letter 'a,' and look at it in a month, at this same 'a': how will I look at it then? What will I be feeling and thinking then?... God, how base all this must be, all these present... concerns of mine! Of course, all this must be curious... in its way... (ha-ha-ha! what am I thinking about?) I'm becoming a child, I'm showing off before myself; well, why am I shaming myself? Ugh, how they're pushing! Here's this fat man—must be a German—who pushed me: well, does he know whom he pushed? A woman with a child is begging for alms, curious that she considers me happier than herself. Well, why not give for curiosity's sake? Bah, a five-kopeck piece survived in my pocket, where from? Here, here... take it, mother!"

"God preserve you!" came the plaintive voice of the beggar woman.

He entered the Haymarket. It was unpleasant, very unpleasant for him to encounter people, but he walked precisely where more people could be seen. He would have given anything in the world to be alone; but he himself felt that he would not remain alone for a single minute. In the crowd a drunk was making a scene: he kept wanting to dance, but kept falling to the side. They surrounded him. Raskolnikov pushed through the crowd, watched the drunk for several minutes and suddenly laughed shortly and abruptly. A minute later he had already forgotten about him, didn't even see him, though he was looking at him. He finally walked away, not even remembering where he was; but when he reached the middle of the square, one movement suddenly occurred within him, one sensation seized him all at once, captured all of him—body and mind.

He suddenly remembered Sonya's words: "Go to the crossroads, bow down to the people, kiss the earth, because you have sinned before it too, and say aloud to the whole world: 'I am a murderer!'" He trembled all over, remembering this. And so crushed already was he by the hopeless anguish and anxiety of all this time, but especially of these last hours, that he simply rushed into the possibility of this whole, new, complete sensation. It came upon him suddenly like a fit: it flared up in his soul with a single spark and suddenly, like fire, seized all of him. Everything softened in him at once, and tears gushed forth. As he stood, so he fell to the ground...

He knelt in the middle of the square, bowed down to the earth and kissed this dirty earth, with pleasure and happiness. He rose and bowed down a second time.

"Look, he's plastered!" remarked a young fellow beside him.

Laughter rang out.

"He's going to Jerusalem, brothers, saying goodbye to his children, to his homeland, bowing to the whole world, kissing the capital city of St. Petersburg and its soil," added some drunken tradesman.

"Still a young lad!" put in a third.

"From the gentry!" someone remarked in a dignified voice.

"Nowadays you can't tell who's gentry and who's not."

All these responses and conversations restrained Raskolnikov, and the words "I killed," which were perhaps ready to fly from his tongue, died within him. He calmly bore all these shouts, however, and, without looking around, walked straight through the lane toward the office. One vision flashed before him on the way, but he was not surprised by it; he had already sensed that it had to be so. When he was at the Haymarket, bowing down to the earth for the second time, turning to the left, about fifty paces from himself, he saw Sonya. She was hiding from him behind one of the wooden barracks standing in the square, which meant she had accompanied his entire sorrowful procession! Raskolnikov felt and understood at that moment, once and for all, that Sonya was now with him forever and would follow him even to the ends of the earth, wherever fate should take him. His whole heart turned over... but—there, he had already reached the fateful place...

He entered the courtyard rather briskly. He had to go up to the third floor. "I still have to climb up," he thought. In general it seemed to him that the fatal minute was still far off, there was still much time left, he could still rethink many things.

Again the same filth, the same eggshells on the spiral staircase, again the apartment doors wide open, again the same kitchens from which smoke and stench poured. Raskolnikov had not been here since then. His legs grew numb and buckled, but kept going. He paused for an instant to catch his breath, to collect himself, to enter as a human being. "But why? what for?" he suddenly thought, realizing his action. "If I must drink this cup, then isn't it all the same? The fouler, the better." At this instant the figure of Ilya Petrovich Gunpowder flashed in his imagination. "Is it really to him? And couldn't it be to someone else? Couldn't it be to Nikodim Fomich? Turn back right now and go to the superintendent himself at his apartment? At least it will be handled in a domestic manner... No, no! To Gunpowder, to Gunpowder! If one must drink, drink it all at once..."

Having grown cold and barely conscious of himself, he opened the door to the office. This time there were very few people in it; some janitor was standing there and some other common man. The guard did not even look out from his partition. Raskolnikov went into the next room. "Perhaps I still won't have to speak," flashed through him. Here some personage from among the clerks, in a civilian frock coat, was preparing to write something at a desk. In the corner another clerk was settling himself. Zametov was not there. Nikodim Fomich, of course, was not there either.

"No one here?" Raskolnikov asked, addressing the personage at the desk.

"What do you want?"

"A-a-ah! Not heard nor seen, but the Russian spirit... how does it go in the fairy tale... I forget! Ma-ay ree-spects!" a familiar voice suddenly cried out.

Raskolnikov shuddered. Gunpowder stood before him; he had suddenly emerged from the third room. "This is fate itself," thought Raskolnikov, "why is he here?"

"Come to us? On what business?" exclaimed Ilya Petrovich. (He was apparently in the most excellent and even slightly excited state of spirits.) "If on business, then you've come early. I'm only here by chance... However, what can I do for you. I confess... how? how? Forgive me..."

"Raskolnikov."

"What: Raskolnikov! And surely you couldn't suppose that I'd forgotten! Please don't take me for such... Rodion Ro... Ro... Rodionovich, isn't it?"

"Rodion Romanovich."

"Yes, yes, yes! Rodion Romanovich, Rodion Romanovich! That's what I was aiming for. I even inquired many times. I confess to you, since then I've sincerely grieved that we quarreled so with you then... I was later explained to, I learned that you're a young literary man and even a scholar... and, so to speak, your first steps... Oh Lord! But which of literary men and scholars didn't take original steps initially! My wife and I—we both respect literature, and my wife—she's passionate about it!... Literature and art! If only one is of noble birth, everything else can be acquired by talents, knowledge, reason, genius! A hat—well, for example, what does a hat mean? A hat is a pancake, I can buy it at Zimmerman's; but what is preserved under the hat and covered by the hat, that I cannot buy, sir!... I confess, I even wanted to come to you to explain, but I thought perhaps you... However, I won't ask: you really do need something? They say your relatives have arrived?"

"Yes, my mother and sister."

"I even had the honor and happiness of meeting your sister—an educated and charming person. I confess, I regretted that we became so heated with you then. A curious case! And that I looked at you then, regarding your fainting spell, with a certain look—that was later explained in the most brilliant manner! Fanaticism and zealotry! I understand your indignation. Perhaps due to your arriving family you're changing apartments?"

"N-no, I just... I dropped by to ask... I thought I'd find Zametov here."

"Ah, yes! Why, you became friends; I heard, sir. Well, Zametov isn't with us—you didn't find him. Yes, sir, we've lost Alexandr Grigorievich! Since yesterday he's not been on hand; he's transferred... and, in transferring, he even quarreled with everyone... so even rudely... A frivolous boy, nothing more; he even might have given hope; but there, what can you do with them, with our brilliant youth! He wants to take some exam or other, but with us one only has to talk and show off, and that's the end of the exam. It's not like, for example, you or your friend Mr. Razumikhin! Your career is the scholarly path, and failures won't shake you! For you all these beauties of life are, so to speak—nihil est, an ascetic, a monk, a hermit!... For you it's a book, a pen behind your ear, scholarly research—that's where your spirit soars! I myself in part... have you read Livingstone's notes?"

"No."

"But I've read them. Though nowadays, incidentally, there are very many nihilists proliferating; well, but it's understandable; what times we have, I ask you? But incidentally, I with you... why, you're surely not a nihilist? Answer frankly, frankly!"

"N-no..."

"No, you know, be frank with me, don't be shy, as if alone with yourself! Service is one thing, but another... you thought I wanted to say: friendship, no sir, you didn't guess! Not friendship, but the feeling of a citizen and a human being, the feeling of humanity and love for the Almighty. I may be an official person, on duty, but I'm always obligated to feel the citizen and human being in myself and to give account... You deigned to mention Zametov. Zametov will make a scandal in the French manner in an indecent establishment, over a glass of champagne or Don wine—that's what your Zametov is! But I, perhaps, so to speak, am consumed with devotion and lofty feelings and besides have significance, rank, occupy a position! I'm married and have children. I fulfill the duty of a citizen and human being, but who is he, may I ask? I address you as a person ennobled by education. And then these midwives have proliferated excessively."

Raskolnikov raised his eyebrows questioningly. The words of Ilya Petrovich, who had evidently recently risen from the table, mostly rattled and poured before him like empty sounds. But part of them he still somehow understood; he looked questioningly and did not know how all this would end.

"I'm speaking of these short-haired girls," continued the talkative Ilya Petrovich. "I myself nicknamed them midwives and I find the nickname quite satisfactory. Heh-heh! They climb into the academy, study anatomy; well, tell me, if I fall ill, will I call a girl to treat me? Heh-heh!"

Ilya Petrovich laughed, quite pleased with his witticisms.

"Granted, an immoderate thirst for enlightenment; but once you're enlightened, that's enough. Why abuse it? Why insult noble persons, as that scoundrel Zametov does? Why did he insult me, I ask you? And then how many of these suicides have proliferated—you can't imagine. They spend their last money and kill themselves. Girls, boys, old people... Just this morning a report came about some gentleman who arrived recently. Nil Pavlych, or Nil Pavlych! what's his name, the gentleman about whom they reported earlier, who shot himself on Peterburgskaya?"

"Svidrigailov," someone answered hoarsely and indifferently from the other room.

Raskolnikov started.

"Svidrigailov! Svidrigailov shot himself!" he cried.

"What! You know Svidrigailov?"

"Yes... I know him... He arrived recently..."

"Well yes, arrived recently, lost his wife, a man of dissolute behavior, and suddenly shot himself, and so scandalously that you can't imagine... left a few words in his notebook that he's dying in sound mind and asks that no one be blamed for his death. This one had money, they say. How do you happen to know him?"

"I... am acquainted... my sister lived in their house as a governess..."

"Bah, bah, bah... So you can tell us about him, then. And you didn't suspect?"

"I saw him yesterday... he... was drinking wine... I knew nothing."

Raskolnikov felt as if something had fallen on him and crushed him.

"You've turned pale again, it seems. We have such stuffy air here..."

"Yes, I must go now, sir," Raskolnikov muttered. "Excuse me, I've troubled you..."

"Oh, not at all, as much as you like! You've given me pleasure, and I'm glad to declare..."

Ilya Petrovich even extended his hand.

"I only wanted... I came to see Zametov..."

"I understand, I understand, and you've given me pleasure."

"I... am very glad... goodbye, sir..." Raskolnikov smiled.

He went out; he was swaying. His head was spinning. He could not feel whether he was standing on his feet. He began descending the stairs, leaning his right hand against the wall. It seemed to him that some janitor with a book in his hand pushed him, climbing toward him into the office; that some little dog was barking frantically somewhere on the lower floor and that some woman threw a rolling pin at it and screamed. He went down and out into the courtyard. There in the courtyard, not far from the exit, stood Sonya, pale, death-like pale, and looked at him wildly, wildly. He stopped before her. Something sick and tormented expressed itself in her face, something desperate. She clasped her hands. A hideous, lost smile forced itself onto his lips. He stood, smirked, and turned back upstairs, back into the office.

Ilya Petrovich had sat down and was rummaging through some papers. Before him stood the same peasant who had just pushed Raskolnikov while climbing the stairs.

"A-a-ah? You again! Left something?.. But what's wrong with you?"

Raskolnikov, with pale lips, with a fixed gaze, quietly approached him, came right up to the desk, leaned his hand on it, wanted to say something, but could not; only some incoherent sounds were heard.

"You're unwell, a chair! Here, sit on the chair, sit down! Water!"

Raskolnikov lowered himself onto the chair but did not take his eyes from the face of the very unpleasantly surprised Ilya Petrovich. For a minute they both looked at each other and waited. Water was brought.

"It was I..." Raskolnikov began.

"Drink some water."

Raskolnikov waved away the water and quietly, with pauses, but clearly said:

"It was I who killed the old pawnbroker woman and her sister Lizaveta with an axe, and robbed them."

Ilya Petrovich opened his mouth. People came running from all sides.

Raskolnikov repeated his confession.

………