Capítulo 11 de 41

IV

Zossimov was a tall, fat man with a puffy, colorlessly pale, clean-shaven face, straight flaxen hair, spectacles, and a large gold ring on his fat, swollen finger. He was about twenty-seven years old. He was dressed in a loose, fashionable light overcoat and light summer trousers, and in general everything about him was loose, fashionable, and brand new; his linen was impeccable, his watch chain massive. His manner was slow, as if sluggish and at the same time studied and casual; pretension, though assiduously concealed, kept showing through. All who knew him found him a heavy person, but said that he knew his business.

"I stopped by to see you twice, brother... You see, he's come to!" cried Razumikhin.

"I see, I see; well now, how are we feeling, eh?" Zossimov addressed Raskolnikov, peering at him intently and settling down beside him on the sofa, at his feet, where he immediately sprawled out as much as possible.

"He's still in the dumps," Razumikhin continued. "We just changed his linen, and he nearly burst into tears."

"That's understandable; you could have changed the linen later, if he didn't want it... Pulse is good. Does your head still ache a little, eh?"

"I'm well, I'm perfectly well!" Raskolnikov said insistently and irritably, suddenly raising himself up on the sofa with flashing eyes, but immediately fell back on the pillow again and turned to the wall. Zossimov watched him closely.

"Very good... everything as it should be," he drawled. "Did he eat anything?"

They told him and asked what could be given.

"Everything can be given... Soup, tea... Of course, no mushrooms or cucumbers, well, and no beef either, and... well, why go on talking!" He exchanged glances with Razumikhin. "No more medicine, and everything else—away; and tomorrow I'll see... Today perhaps... well, yes..."

"Tomorrow evening I'm taking him for a walk!" Razumikhin decided. "To the Yusupov Garden, and then we'll stop by the Palais de Crystal."

"I wouldn't move him tomorrow, but however... a little... well, we'll see then."

"What a pity, I'm having a housewarming today, just two steps away; he could at least lie on the sofa among us. You'll be there, won't you?" Razumikhin suddenly turned to Zossimov. "Don't forget, mind you, you promised."

"Perhaps later, maybe. What have you arranged there?"

"Nothing much, tea, vodka, herring. We'll have a pie: just our own people gathering."

"Who exactly?"

"All from around here and all almost new, really—except perhaps my old uncle, and even he's new: only arrived in Petersburg yesterday, on some business or other; we see each other once every five years."

"Who is he?"

"Well, he's been vegetating his whole life as a district postmaster... gets a pension, sixty-five years old, not worth mentioning... I'm fond of him, though. Porfiry Petrovich will come: he's the local examining magistrate... a law graduate. But you know him..."

"Is he some relative of yours too?"

"Some very distant one; but why are you frowning? Just because you quarreled with him once, you won't come perhaps?"

"I don't give a damn about him..."

"All the better. Well, then—students, a teacher, one clerk, one musician, an officer, Zametov..."

"Tell me, please, what can you or he"—Zossimov nodded toward Raskolnikov—"have in common with some Zametov or other?"

"Oh, these grumblers! Principles!.. You're entirely on principles, like on springs; you don't dare turn of your own will; but in my opinion, if a person's good—that's a principle, and I don't want to know anything else. Zametov is a most wonderful person."

"And he takes bribes."

"Well, he takes bribes, so what! So what if he takes bribes!" Razumikhin suddenly cried out, growing unnaturally irritated. "Did I praise him to you for taking bribes? I only said that in his own way he's good! And if you look at people directly, in all ways—will many good people be left? Why, I'm sure that for me then, complete with innards, they'd give only one baked onion, and even that only if you came with it!.."

"That's not enough; I'd give two for you..."

"And I'd give only one for you! Go ahead and be witty! Zametov is still a boy, I may yet pull his hair, because he needs to be drawn in, not pushed away. You won't reform a person by pushing him away, especially a boy. With a boy you need to be doubly careful. Oh, you dull progressives, you don't understand anything! You don't respect people, you hurt yourselves... And if you want to know, we perhaps have one common matter getting started."

"I'd like to know."

"It's all about the painter, that is, the housepainter... We'll get him out! There's no trouble now, really. The case is quite, quite clear now! We're just adding steam."

"What housepainter?"

"What, didn't I tell you? Or no? Well, yes, I only told you the beginning... about the murder of that old woman pawnbroker, the official's wife... well, now a housepainter's gotten mixed up in it..."

"I heard about this murder even before you told me, and I'm even interested in this case... partly... for one reason... and I read about it in the papers! But now..."

"Lizaveta was killed too!" Nastasya suddenly blurted out, addressing Raskolnikov. She had remained in the room the whole time, pressed against the door, listening.

"Lizaveta?" Raskolnikov murmured in a barely audible voice.

"Lizaveta, the peddler woman, don't you know? She used to come down here. She even mended a shirt for you."

Raskolnikov turned to the wall, where on the dirty yellow wallpaper with white flowers he picked out one clumsy white flower with some brownish lines, and began examining it: how many petals it had, what serrations were on the petals, and how many lines. He felt that his arms and legs had gone numb, as if paralyzed, but he didn't even try to move and stared stubbornly at the flower.

"Well, what about the housepainter?" Zossimov interrupted Nastasya's chatter with some particular displeasure. She sighed and fell silent.

"He's been put down as a murderer too!" Razumikhin continued with heat.

"Are there any clues?"

"What the devil clues! Well, actually, precisely clues, but the clue isn't a clue, that's what needs to be proved! It's exactly like at first they grabbed and suspected those, what were their names... Koch and Pestryakov. Ugh! How stupidly it's all being done, it's disgusting even from the sidelines! Pestryakov may stop by to see me today, by the way... By the way, Rodya, you already know this story, it happened before your illness, exactly the day before you fainted in the office when they were talking about it there..."

Zossimov looked curiously at Raskolnikov; he didn't move.

"You know what, Razumikhin? I'm looking at you: what a busybody you are, though," Zossimov remarked.

"Let that be, but we'll get him out all the same!" cried Razumikhin, striking his fist on the table. "You know what's most offensive about all this? It's not that they lie; lies can always be forgiven; lies are a gracious thing, because they lead to truth. No, what's annoying is that they lie and then worship their own lies. I respect Porfiry, but... You see, what threw them off track first of all? The door was locked, but when they came with the caretaker—it was open: so that means Koch and Pestryakov killed her! That's their logic."

"Don't get heated; they were simply detained; you can't just... By the way: I've met this Koch; it turned out he buys up unredeemed items from the old woman, right?"

"Yes, he's some kind of swindler! He buys up promissory notes too. A businessman. But to hell with him! I'll tell you what I'm angry about, understand? I'm angry at their decrepit, trivial, hidebound routine... And here, in this one case, a whole new path could be opened. By psychological data alone you can show how to get on the right track. 'We have facts,' they say! But facts aren't everything; at least half the matter is in how you know how to handle facts!"

"And you know how to handle facts?"

"But you can't keep silent when you feel, feel by touch, that you could help the case, if only... Eh!.. Do you know the case in detail?"

"I'm waiting to hear about the housepainter."

"Oh yes! Well, listen to the story: exactly on the third day after the murder, in the morning, when they were still fussing there with Koch and Pestryakov—though those two proved every step they took: the evidence cries out!—suddenly the most unexpected fact appears. A certain peasant Dushkin, keeper of a tavern opposite that very house, comes to the station and brings a jewelry case with gold earrings and tells a whole tale: 'A workman housepainter,' he says, 'who had visited me during the day before, Mikolai, came running to me in the evening, the day before yesterday, around the beginning of nine o'clock'—note the day and hour! you listening?—'and brought me this box with gold earrings with stones, and asked to pawn them for two rubles, and when I asked where he got them, he declared that he picked them up on the pavement. I didn't question him further about it'—this is Dushkin speaking—'but I gave him a ticket—one ruble, that is, because I thought, if not me, someone else will pawn them, it's all the same—he'll drink it away, and it's better the thing stays with me: the farther you put it, the closer you'll get it, and if something turns up or rumors start, then I'll present it.' Well, of course, that's a grandmother's fairy tale, he lies like a horse, because I know this Dushkin, he's a pawnbroker himself and a receiver of stolen goods, and he didn't filch the thirty-ruble item from Mikolai in order to 'present' it. He simply got scared. Well, to hell with it, listen; Dushkin continues: 'And I've known this peasant, Mikolai Dementyev, since childhood, from our province and district, Zaraisk, because we're Ryazan people ourselves. And though Mikolai's no drunkard, he does drink, and it was known to us that he was working in that very house, painting, together with Mitrei, and with Mitrei they're from the same parts. And having received the ticket, he immediately changed it, drank two glasses right away, took his change and left, and I didn't see Mitrei with him at that time. And the next day we heard that Alena Ivanovna and her sister Lizaveta Ivanovna had been killed with an axe, and we knew them, sir, and I began to have misgivings about the earrings—because it was known to us that the deceased lent money on things. I went to their house and began carefully finding things out for myself, on tiptoe, and first of all I asked: is Mikolai here? And Mitrei said that Mikolai had been carousing, came home at dawn, drunk, stayed home about ten minutes and left again, and Mitrei hadn't seen him since and was finishing the work alone. And their work is on the same staircase as the murdered women, on the second floor. Having heard all this, we told no one at the time'—this is Dushkin speaking—'but we found out all we could about the murder and went home still in the same misgivings. And this morning, at eight o'clock'—that is, on the third day, understand?—'I see Mikolai coming in to me, not quite sober, but not very drunk either, able to understand conversation. He sat down on the bench and said nothing. And except for him, at that time in the tavern there was only one other stranger, and another man asleep on a bench, an acquaintance, and two of our boys, sir. "Have you seen Mitrei?" I ask. "No," he says, "haven't seen him." "And he hasn't been here?" "Hasn't been," he says, "since the day before yesterday." "And where did you spend last night?" "On the Sands," he says, "with the Kolomna people." "And where," I say, "did you get the earrings then?" "Found them on the pavement," he says—and he says it somehow improperly, and doesn't look at me. "And did you hear," I say, "that such and such happened, at that very evening and hour, on that staircase?" "No," he says, "didn't hear,"—but he's listening, his eyes bulging, and he suddenly turned white, like chalk. I'm telling him this, I look, and he reaches for his cap and starts to get up. Then I wanted to detain him: "Wait, Mikolai," I say, "won't you have a drink?" And I winked at the boy to hold the door, and I come out from behind the bar: but he dashes away from me, into the street, at a run, into the alley—and that was the last I saw of him. Then my misgivings were decided, because his sin was clear as day...'

"I should think so!.." said Zossimov.

"Wait! Hear the end! Naturally they rushed with all their might to find Mikolai: they detained Dushkin and searched him, Mitrei too; they shook down the Kolomna people too—and suddenly the day before yesterday they bring in Mikolai himself: he was detained near the —— Gate, at an inn. He came there, took off his cross, a silver one, and asked for a glass of vodka for the cross. They gave it to him. A few minutes later the woman went to the cowshed and saw through a crack: in the shed next door he had tied a sash to a beam, made a noose; he stood on a block and was about to put the noose around his neck; the woman screamed at the top of her lungs, people came running: 'So that's what you're like!' 'Take me,' he says, 'to such and such station, I'll confess everything.' Well, he was brought with due honors to such and such station, here that is. Well, this and that, who, how, how old—'twenty-two'—and so on and so forth. Question: 'When you were working with Mitrei, didn't you see anyone on the staircase, at such and such an hour?' Answer: 'Of course, some people may have passed, but we didn't notice.' 'And didn't you hear anything, any noise or other?' 'We didn't hear anything special.' 'And did you know, Mikolai, that on that very day, at such and such day and hour, such and such a widow and her sister were murdered and robbed?' 'I knew nothing, heard nothing. I first heard about it from Afanasy Pavlych, on the third day, in the tavern.' 'And where did you get the earrings?' 'Found them on the pavement.' 'Why didn't you show up for work with Mitrei the next day?' 'Because I was carousing.' 'Where were you carousing?' 'Such and such place.' 'Why did you run away from Dushkin?' 'Because we were very frightened then.' 'What were you frightened of?' 'That they'd prosecute us.' 'How could you be frightened of that if you feel yourself in no way guilty?..' Well, believe it or not, Zossimov, this question was asked, and literally in those expressions, I know it positively, it was accurately conveyed to me! How's that? How's that?"

"Well, no, still, there is evidence, though."

"I'm not talking about evidence now, I'm talking about the question, about how they understand the essence of things! Well, to hell with it!.. Well, so they pressed him, pressed, squeezed, squeezed, and he confessed: 'I didn't find it on the pavement,' he says, 'but in the apartment where Mitrei and I were painting.' 'In what manner?' 'In this very manner, that Mitrei and I were painting all day until eight o'clock, and were about to leave, and Mitrei took a brush and daubed me in the face with paint, daubed me in the face with paint, and ran away, and I after him. And I'm running after him, and shouting at the top of my lungs; and as I'm coming down the stairs to the gateway, I ran at full speed into the caretaker and some gentlemen, and how many gentlemen were with him, I don't remember, and the caretaker cursed me for it, and the other caretaker cursed me too, and the caretaker's wife came out and cursed us too, and one gentleman was entering the gateway with a lady and cursed us too, because Mitka and I were lying across the passage: I grabbed Mitka by the hair and knocked him down and started pummeling him, and Mitka too, from under me, grabbed me by the hair and started pummeling me, but we were doing it not out of malice, but in all affection, that is, playing. And then Mitka broke free and ran into the street, and I didn't catch him and went back to the apartment alone—because things needed tidying. I started tidying up and waiting for Mitrei, maybe he'll come. But by the door to the entryway, behind the partition, in the corner, I stepped on a box. I look, it's lying there, wrapped in paper. I took off the paper, I see little hooks, very small, I took off the hooks—and in the box are earrings...'

"Behind the door? Behind the door it was lying? Behind the door?" Raskolnikov suddenly cried out, looking at Razumikhin with a dull, frightened gaze, and slowly raised himself, leaning on his hand, on the sofa.

"Yes... so what? What's wrong with you? Why are you like that?" Razumikhin also rose from his place.

"Nothing!.." Raskolnikov answered barely audibly, sinking back onto the pillow and again turning away to the wall. Everyone was silent for a moment.

"Must have dozed off, still half asleep," Razumikhin finally said, looking questioningly at Zossimov; he made a slight negative shake of his head.

"Well, go on," said Zossimov, "what next?"

"What next? As soon as he saw the earrings, he immediately forgot both the apartment and Mitka, grabbed his cap and ran to Dushkin and, as is known, got a ruble from him, and lied to him that he found them on the pavement, and immediately went carousing. And about the murder he confirms his previous statement: 'I knew nothing, heard nothing, only heard about it on the third day.' 'And why haven't you come forward until now?' 'Out of fear.' 'And why did you want to hang yourself?' 'From thinking.' 'From what thinking?' 'That they'd prosecute me.' Well, that's the whole story. Now, what do you think they've extracted from this?"

"What is there to think, there's a trail, however slight. A fact. You can't let your housepainter go free, can you?"

"But they've put him down directly as the murderer now! They have no doubts at all anymore..."

"You're lying; you're getting heated. Well, what about the earrings? You must agree yourself that if on that very day and hour earrings from the old woman's trunk got into Nikolai's hands—you must agree that they must somehow have gotten there? That's not insignificant in such an investigation."

"How they got there! How they got there!" cried Razumikhin. "And is it possible that you, doctor, you, who are obliged above all to study man and have the opportunity, sooner than anyone else, to study human nature—is it possible you don't see, from all these facts, what kind of nature this Nikolai is? Is it possible you don't see, from the very first, that everything he testified to during interrogation is the sacred truth? They got into his hands exactly as he testified. He stepped on the box and picked it up!"

"The sacred truth! But he himself admitted that he lied at first?"

"Listen to me, listen carefully: both the caretaker, and Koch, and Pestryakov, and the other caretaker, and the first caretaker's wife, and the meshchanka woman who was sitting in the caretaker's lodge at that time, and Court Councillor Kryukov, who at that very moment got down from a cab and was entering the gateway arm in arm with a lady—all of them, that is, eight or ten witnesses, unanimously testify that Nikolai pressed Dmitri to the ground, was lying on him and pummeling him, and the other grabbed his hair and was pummeling him too. They're lying across the road and blocking the passage; they're cursed from all sides, but they, 'like little children' (the witnesses' literal expression), lie on top of each other, squealing, fighting and laughing, both laughing fit to burst, with the funniest faces, and one chasing the other, ran out into the street like children. Do you hear? Now note strictly: the bodies upstairs are still warm, hear me, warm, that's how they found them! If they killed, or only Nikolai alone, and in addition robbed the trunks with breaking in, or only participated somehow in the robbery, then allow me to ask you just one question: does such a state of mind, that is, squeals, laughter, childish fighting under the gateway—does it accord with axes, with blood, with villainous cunning, caution, robbery? They had just killed, only some five or ten minutes before—because that's how it works out, the bodies are still warm—and suddenly, abandoning both the bodies and the apartment unlocked, and knowing that people just went there, and abandoning the loot, they roll on the road like little children, laugh, attract universal attention to themselves, and there are ten unanimous witnesses to this!"

"Of course it's strange! Of course it's impossible, but..."

"No, brother, not but, but if the earrings that got into Nikolai's hands on that very day and hour really constitute important factual evidence against him—however directly explained by his testimony, therefore still disputable evidence—then one must also take into consideration the exculpatory facts, and especially since they are irrefutable facts. And what do you think, according to the character of our jurisprudence, will they accept or are they capable of accepting such a fact—based solely only on psychological impossibility, on state of mind alone—as an irrefutable fact, and one that destroys all accusatory and material facts, whatever they may be? No, they won't accept it, they won't accept it for anything, because they found the box and a man wanted to hang himself, 'which couldn't be if he didn't feel himself guilty!' That's the capital question, that's what I'm getting heated about! Understand!"

"Well, I can see you're getting heated. Wait, I forgot to ask: what proves that the box with earrings really came from the old woman's trunk?"

"It's been proved," Razumikhin answered, frowning and as if reluctantly. "Koch recognized the item and indicated the pledger, and he positively proved that the item was indeed his."

"That's bad. Now another thing: did anyone see Nikolai at the time when Koch and Pestryakov went upstairs, and can this be proved somehow?"

"That's just it, that nobody saw him," Razumikhin answered with vexation. "That's what's bad; even Koch and Pestryakov didn't notice them when they went upstairs, though their testimony wouldn't mean very much now anyway. 'We saw,' they say, 'that the apartment was open, that work must have been going on in it, but passing by, we paid no attention and don't remember exactly whether there were workmen there at that moment or not.'"

"Hm. So the only exculpation is that they pummeled each other and laughed. Let's grant that's strong proof, but... Allow me now: how do you yourself explain the whole fact? How do you explain the finding of the earrings, if he really found them as he testifies?"

"How do I explain it? What's there to explain: the thing is clear! At least the road the case should be conducted on is clear and proved, and precisely the box proved it. The real murderer dropped those earrings. The murderer was upstairs when Koch and Pestryakov were knocking, and sat locked in. Koch played the fool and went downstairs; then the murderer jumped out and also ran downstairs, because he had no other way out. On the stairs he hid from Koch, Pestryakov and the caretaker in the empty apartment, precisely at the moment when Dmitri and Nikolai ran out of it, stood behind the door when the caretaker and the others passed upstairs, waited until the footsteps died down, and went downstairs quite calmly, precisely at the very moment when Dmitri and Nikolai ran out into the street and everyone dispersed and no one remained under the gateway. Maybe they saw him, but didn't notice; plenty of people pass by! And he dropped the box from his pocket when he stood behind the door, and didn't notice he dropped it, because he had other things to think about. The box clearly proves that he stood precisely there. That's the whole thing!"

"Clever! No, brother, that's clever. That's the cleverest of all!"

"But why, why?"

"Because everything came together too successfully... and meshed together... exactly like in the theater."

"E-eh!" Razumikhin was about to cry out, but at that moment the door opened and a new person, unknown to any of those present, entered.