De: Crime and Punishment
II
Raskolnikov was unaccustomed to crowds and, as has been said, avoided all society, especially lately. But now something suddenly drew him toward people. Something was taking place in him as if it were new, and with it came a sort of thirst for people. He was so tired from a whole month of this concentrated anguish of his and gloomy agitation that he wanted, if only for a minute, to breathe in another world, no matter what kind, and, despite all the filthiness of the surroundings, he now remained in the tavern with pleasure.
The proprietor of the establishment was in another room, but frequently entered the main one, descending into it from somewhere by steps, and first of all his fancy greased boots with large red turn-downs would appear. He wore a Russian coat and a terribly greasy black satin waistcoat, without a necktie, and his whole face seemed smeared with oil, like an iron lock. Behind the counter stood a boy of about fourteen, and there was another younger boy who served if anything was ordered. There were chopped cucumbers, black rusks, and fish cut in pieces; everything smelled very bad. It was stuffy, so much so that it was almost unbearable to sit, and everything was so saturated with the smell of wine that it seemed one could get drunk in five minutes from this air alone.
There are certain encounters, even with people completely unknown to us, in whom we begin to take interest at first sight, somehow suddenly, instantaneously, before we say a word. Just such an impression was produced on Raskolnikov by the guest who was sitting apart and looked like a retired civil servant. The young man recalled this first impression several times later and even attributed it to a premonition. He kept glancing at the clerk, of course, also because the clerk himself was staring at him persistently, and it was obvious that he very much wanted to begin a conversation. But at the others in the tavern, not excluding the proprietor, the clerk looked somehow habitually and even with boredom, and at the same time with a shade of some haughty disdain, as if at people of lower position and development, with whom he had nothing to talk about. This was a man already over fifty, of medium height and stout build, with graying hair and a large bald spot, with a face swollen from constant drinking, yellow, even greenish, and with puffy eyelids, from behind which shone tiny, slit-like but animated reddish eyes. But there was something very strange about him; in his gaze there shone something like even rapture—perhaps there was sense and intelligence—but at the same time there flickered something like madness. He was dressed in an old, completely tattered black tailcoat, with buttons falling off. Only one still held on somehow, and this was the one he buttoned, evidently wishing not to abandon propriety. From under his nankeen waistcoat stuck out a shirt front, all crumpled, dirty, and stained. His face was shaved, civil-servant style, but long ago, so that a thick bluish stubble had begun to appear. And in his manners there really was something solidly bureaucratic. But he was restless, ruffled his hair, and sometimes, in anguish, propped his head with both hands, resting his worn-through elbows on the stained and sticky table. Finally he looked straight at Raskolnikov and said loudly and firmly:
"Might I dare, my dear sir, to address you with proper conversation? For although you are not of significant appearance, my experience distinguishes in you an educated man unaccustomed to drink. I have always respected education combined with heartfelt feelings, and, moreover, I hold the rank of titular councillor. Marmeladov—such is my name; titular councillor. Might I venture to inquire, have you been in service?"
"No, I'm a student..." answered the young man, partly surprised both by the particularly flowery tone of the speech and by being addressed so directly, point-blank. Despite his recent momentary desire for at least some kind of society with people, at the first word actually addressed to him he suddenly felt his usual unpleasant and irritable feeling of revulsion toward any outside person who touched or merely wished to touch his person.
"A student, then, or a former student!" cried the clerk, "just as I thought! Experience, my dear sir, repeated experience!" and in a sign of boasting he put his finger to his forehead. "You were a student or pursued the learned profession! But allow me..." He rose, swayed, grabbed his vessel, a small glass, and moved closer to the young man, somewhat diagonally from him. He was drunk, but spoke eloquently and boldly, only getting confused a little in places here and there and drawing out his speech. With a kind of even greediness he threw himself upon Raskolnikov, as if he too had not spoken to anyone for a whole month.
"My dear sir," he began almost solemnly, "poverty is no vice, that is the truth. I know that drunkenness too is no virtue, and that all the more. But destitution, my dear sir, destitution—is a vice, sir. In poverty you still preserve your innate nobility of feelings, in destitution never and no one. For destitution they don't even drive you out with a stick, but sweep you out with a broom from human company, to make it more offensive; and rightly so, for in destitution I am the first ready to offend myself. And hence the drinking! My dear sir, a month ago Mr. Lebezyatnikov beat my spouse, and my spouse is not the same as I! Do you understand, sir? Allow me to ask you another question, if only out of simple curiosity: have you ever spent the night on the Neva, on the hay barges?"
"No, I haven't," answered Raskolnikov. "What's that about?"
"Well, sir, I've come from there, and this is the fifth night, sir..."
He poured a glass, drank it, and fell into thought. Indeed, on his clothes and even in his hair there were visible here and there stuck bits of hay. It was very probable that he had not undressed or washed for five days. His hands especially were dirty, greasy, red, with black nails.
His talk seemed to arouse general, though lazy, attention. The boys behind the counter began to snicker. The proprietor, it seemed, came down from the upper room on purpose to listen to the "funny fellow," and sat down at a distance, yawning lazily but importantly. Evidently Marmeladov had been well known here for a long time. And he had probably acquired his inclination for flowery speech as a result of his habit of frequent tavern conversations with various strangers. This habit becomes a necessity for some drunkards, and primarily for those who are treated strictly at home and who are pushed around. That's why in drinking company they always try somehow to win themselves justification, and if possible, even respect.
"Funny fellow!" said the proprietor loudly. "And why don't you work, why aren't you in service, if you're a clerk?"
"Why am I not in service, my dear sir," Marmeladov picked up, addressing himself exclusively to Raskolnikov, as if it was he who had asked the question, "why am I not in service? And doesn't my heart ache that I crawl about in vain? When Mr. Lebezyatnikov beat my spouse with his own hands a month ago, and I lay there drunk, didn't I suffer? Allow me, young man, has it ever happened to you... hm... well, at least to borrow money hopelessly?"
"It has happened... that is, what do you mean hopelessly?"
"That is, completely hopelessly, sir, knowing in advance that nothing will come of it. For example, you know in advance and thoroughly that this person, this most well-intentioned and most useful citizen, will not give you money under any circumstances, for why, I ask, would he give it? After all, he knows I won't repay it. Out of compassion? But Mr. Lebezyatnikov, who follows new ideas, explained the other day that compassion is now even prohibited by science and that this is already being done in England, where political economy is practiced. Why then, I ask, would he give it? And so, knowing in advance that he won't give it, you still set out on the journey and..."
"Why go then?" added Raskolnikov.
"But if there's no one else, if there's nowhere else to go! For every man must have at least somewhere he can go. Because there comes such a time when one absolutely must go at least somewhere! When my only daughter went for the first time with a yellow ticket, I also went then... (for my daughter lives by a yellow ticket, sir...)" he added in parentheses, looking at the young man with some anxiety. "It's nothing, my dear sir, nothing!" he hastened to declare at once, and apparently calmly, when both boys behind the counter snorted and the proprietor himself smiled. "Nothing, sir! I am not disturbed by this shaking of heads, for everything is already known to everyone and all that is secret becomes manifest; and I relate to this not with contempt, but with humility. Let it be! Let it be! 'Behold the man!' Allow me, young man: can you... But no, to express it more strongly and graphically: not can you, but do you dare, looking at me at this hour, to say affirmatively that I am not a swine?"
The young man answered not a word.
"Well, sir," continued the orator, having waited out the snickering that followed in the room again, this time with solid and even intensified dignity, "well, sir, let me be a swine, but she is a lady! I have the form of a beast, but Katerina Ivanovna, my spouse, is an educated person and the daughter of a staff officer by birth. Let it be, let it be, I am a scoundrel, but she is of lofty heart, and full of feelings ennobled by education. And yet... oh, if only she would pity me! My dear sir, my dear sir, for every man must have at least one such place where he would be pitied! But Katerina Ivanovna, though she is a magnanimous lady, is unjust... And though I understand myself that when she pulls my hair, she pulls it only out of pity of heart (for, I repeat without embarrassment, she pulls my hair, young man," he confirmed with redoubled dignity, hearing the snickering again), "but, God, what if she would at least once... But no! no! all this is in vain, and there's nothing to talk about! nothing to talk about!.. for more than once already the desired has happened, and more than once they have pitied me, but... such is my character, and I am a born beast!"
"That's for sure!" remarked the proprietor, yawning.
Marmeladov decisively struck his fist on the table.
"Such is my character! Do you know, do you know, my dear sir, that I even drank her stockings? Not shoes, sir, for that would at least somewhat resemble the order of things, but her stockings, I drank her stockings, sir! Her little shawl of goat's wool I also drank, a gift, an old one, her own, not mine; and we live in a cold corner, and she caught cold this winter and started to cough, already with blood. We have three small children, and Katerina Ivanovna works from morning to night, scrubs and washes and bathes the children, for she has been accustomed to cleanliness from childhood, but with a weak chest and a tendency to consumption, and I feel this. Don't I feel it? And the more I drink, the more I feel it. That's why I drink, that in this drinking I seek compassion and feeling. Not merriment, but sorrow alone I seek... I drink because I want to suffer doubly!" And he, as if in despair, laid his head on the table.
"Young man," he continued, raising himself up again, "in your face I read a certain sorrow. When you came in, I read it, and that's why I addressed you at once. For in communicating to you the history of my life, I do not wish to put myself on display before these pleasure-seekers, who already know everything anyway, but I seek a sensitive and educated person. Know then that my spouse was educated in a noble provincial institute for daughters of the nobility and at graduation danced with a shawl before the governor and other persons, for which she received a gold medal and a certificate of merit. The medal... well, the medal was sold... long ago... hm... the certificate of merit still lies in her trunk to this day, and she showed it to the landlady just recently. And though she has the most constant quarrels with the landlady, she wanted to boast to at least someone and tell of the happy bygone days. And I do not condemn, I do not condemn, for this is the last thing remaining to her in her memories, and all the rest has turned to dust! Yes, yes; a hot-tempered, proud, and unbending lady. She washes the floor herself and sits on black bread, but will not allow disrespect to herself. That's why she would not let Mr. Lebezyatnikov's rudeness pass, and when Mr. Lebezyatnikov beat her for it, she took to her bed not so much from the blows as from her feelings. I took her as a widow, with three children, each smaller than the last. She married her first husband, an infantry officer, for love, and ran away with him from her parents' home. She loved her husband immoderately, but he took to cards, came under trial, and died. He beat her toward the end; but she, though she did not let it pass, of which I know for certain and from documents, still remembers him with tears and reproaches me with him, and I am glad, I am glad, for at least in her imagination she sees herself as once happy... And after him she was left with three infant children in a distant and savage district, where I also was at the time, and was left in such hopeless destitution that, although I have seen many various incidents, I am not even in a position to describe. And all her relatives refused her. And she was proud, excessively proud... And then, my dear sir, then I, also a widower and having a fourteen-year-old daughter from my first wife, offered my hand, for I could not look at such suffering. You can judge from this to what degree her misfortunes had reached, that she, educated and well-bred and of a well-known family, consented to marry me! But she did! Weeping and sobbing and wringing her hands—she did! For there was nowhere to go. Do you understand, do you understand, my dear sir, what it means when there is absolutely nowhere to go? No! You do not yet understand... And for a whole year I fulfilled my duty piously and sacredly and did not touch this (he poked his finger at the half-bottle), for I have feelings. But even with this I could not please; and then I lost my position, and also not through my fault, but through changes in the staff, and then I touched it!.. It will be a year and a half ago now since we found ourselves, after wanderings and numerous calamities, in this magnificent capital adorned with numerous monuments. And here I got a position... Got it and lost it again. Do you understand, sir? Here I lost it through my own fault, for my character came upon me... We live now in a corner, at the landlady Amalia Fyodorovna Lippevechsel's, and what we live on and what we pay with, I do not know. Many others live there besides us... It's Sodom, sir, most disgraceful... hm... yes... And meanwhile my daughter grew up, from my first marriage, and what she suffered, my daughter, from her stepmother as she grew up, I say nothing of. For though Katerina Ivanovna is full of magnanimous feelings, she is a hot-tempered and irritated lady, and will snap... Yes, sir! Well, there's nothing to remember about that! As you can imagine, Sonya received no education. I tried four years ago to go through geography and universal history with her; but as I myself was weak in this knowledge, and we had no proper guides for it, for what books we had... hm!.. well, those books are gone now, and so all the instruction ended. We stopped at Cyrus of Persia. Then, having already reached mature age, she read several books of a romantic content, and recently, through the mediation of Mr. Lebezyatnikov, one book—Lewes's 'Physiology,' do you know it, sir?—she read with great interest and even communicated excerpts to us aloud: that's all her enlightenment. Now I will address you, my dear sir, myself with a private question: in your opinion, how much can a poor but honest girl earn by honest labor?... Fifteen kopecks a day, sir, she won't earn, if she's honest and has no special talents, and even then working without putting her hands down! And even then state councillor Klopstock, Ivan Ivanovich—have you heard of him? —not only hasn't paid for the sewing of half a dozen Holland shirts to this day, but even drove her away with insults, stamping his feet and calling her names, under the pretext that the shirt collar was sewn not to measure and crooked. And here the children are hungry... And here Katerina Ivanovna walks about the room wringing her hands, and red spots come out on her cheeks—which always happens in this disease: 'You live, they say, as a parasite with us, you eat and drink and enjoy the warmth,' but what is there to drink and eat when even the children haven't seen a crust for three days! I was lying then... well, why hide it! I was lying drunk, sir, and I heard my Sonya say (she's meek, and her voice is so gentle... fair-haired, her little face always pale, thin), she says: 'What, Katerina Ivanovna, must I really go to such a business?' And Darya Frantsevna, a woman of evil intentions and well known to the police many times, had made inquiries three times through the landlady. 'Well then,' Katerina Ivanovna answers mockingly, 'what is there to protect? What a treasure!' But don't blame, don't blame, my dear sir, don't blame! This was not said in sound judgment, but with agitated feelings, in illness and with the children crying from hunger, and it was said more for offense than in the exact sense... For Katerina Ivanovna is of such a character, and when the children cry, even if from hunger, she immediately starts beating them. And I see, around six o'clock, Sonechka got up, put on her kerchief, put on her little burnous and left the apartment, and at nine o'clock she came back. She came in, and went straight to Katerina Ivanovna, and silently laid out thirty silver rubles before her on the table. Not a single word did she utter, she didn't even glance, but just took our large green drap de dames shawl (we have such a communal shawl, drap de dames), covered her head and face completely with it and lay down on the bed, face to the wall, only her shoulders and body kept trembling... And I, as before, lay in the same state, sir... And then I saw, young man, I saw how then Katerina Ivanovna, also without saying a word, went to Sonechka's little bed and all evening knelt at her feet, kissed her feet, did not want to get up, and then they both fell asleep together, embracing each other... both... both... yes, sir... and I... lay drunk, sir."
Marmeladov fell silent, as if his voice had given out. Then he suddenly hurriedly poured, drank, and grunted.
"Since then, my dear sir," he continued after some silence, "since then, through one unfavorable incident and through denunciation by ill-intentioned persons—to which Darya Frantsevna especially contributed, allegedly for being slighted in proper respect—since then my daughter, Sofya Semyonovna, was forced to obtain a yellow ticket, and could no longer remain with us on account of this. For the landlady, Amalia Fyodorovna, would not allow it (though she herself had previously aided Darya Frantsevna), and Mr. Lebezyatnikov too... hm... That story between him and Katerina Ivanovna happened over Sonya. At first he himself sought Sonechka's favors, but then he suddenly took offense: 'How,' he says, 'can I, such an enlightened man, live in the same apartment with such a one?' And Katerina Ivanovna would not let it pass, intervened... well, it happened... And Sonechka comes to us now mostly at dusk, and eases Katerina Ivanovna's burden, and provides means as she can... She lives in lodgings at Kapernaumov the tailor's, she rents a room from them, and Kapernaumov is lame and has a speech impediment, and his whole numerous family also has speech impediments. And his wife also has a speech impediment... They occupy one room, and Sonya has her own separate one, with a partition... Hm, yes... The poorest people and with speech impediments... yes... Well, I got up that morning, sir, put on my rags, raised my hands to heaven and went to his excellency Ivan Afanasyevich. Do you know his excellency Ivan Afanasyevich?.. No? Well then you don't know a man of God! He is—wax... wax before the face of the Lord; as wax melts!.. He even shed tears, having heard everything. 'Well,' he says, 'Marmeladov, you have already betrayed my expectations once... I'm taking you again on my personal responsibility,' just like that he said, 'remember,' he says, 'now go!' I kissed the dust of his feet, mentally, for in reality they would not have allowed it, him being a dignitary and a man of new state and enlightened ideas; I returned home, and when I announced that I was enrolled in service again and receiving a salary, Lord, what happened then!.."
Marmeladov stopped again in great agitation. At this moment a whole party of drunkards, already drunk anyway, came in from the street, and the sounds of a hired barrel-organ and a child's cracked seven-year-old voice singing "The Little Farm" were heard at the entrance. It became noisy. The proprietor and the servants busied themselves with those who had entered. Marmeladov, paying no attention to those who had entered, began to continue his story. He seemed already to have grown very weak, but the more drunk he became, the more loquacious he grew. The recollection of his recent success in service seemed to revive him and was even reflected on his face with a kind of radiance. Raskolnikov listened attentively.
"That was five weeks ago, my dear sir. Yes... As soon as they both found out, Katerina Ivanovna and Sonechka, Lord, it was as if I had moved into the kingdom of heaven. Before, I would lie like a beast, only cursing! But now: they walk on tiptoe, quiet the children: 'Semyon Zakharych is tired from service, he's resting, shh!' They give me coffee before service, they boil cream! Real cream they started to get, do you hear? And where they scraped together eleven rubles fifty kopecks for decent equipment, I don't understand? Boots, calico shirt-fronts—magnificent, a uniform, all made in most excellent fashion for eleven and a half, sir. I come home the first morning from service, I look: Katerina Ivanovna has prepared two courses, soup and corned beef with horseradish, of which there had been no notion till then. She has no dresses... that is, none at all, sir, but here she's dressed up as if going visiting, and it's not that she had anything, but she knows how to make everything out of nothing: she'll fix her hair, put on some kind of clean little collar, cuffs, and a completely different person emerges, younger and prettier. Sonechka, my dove, only helped with money, but she herself, she says, it's improper for me to visit you often for the time being, only maybe at dusk, so that no one sees. Do you hear, do you hear? After dinner I went to take a nap, so what do you think, Katerina Ivanovna could not restrain herself: just a week before she had quarreled with the landlady, with Amalia Fyodorovna, to the last degree, and here she invited her for coffee. They sat for two hours and whispered about everything: 'How,' she says, 'Semyon Zakharych is now in service and receiving a salary, and he himself appeared before his excellency, and his excellency himself came out, made everyone wait, and led Semyon Zakharych by the hand past everyone into his study.' Do you hear, do you hear? 'I, of course,' he says, 'Semyon Zakharych, remembering your services, and although you adhered to this frivolous weakness, but since you now promise, and moreover things have gone badly with us without you (do you hear, do you hear!), so I hope now,' he says, 'in your noble word,' that is, all this, I'll tell you, she made up, and not from frivolity, not just for boasting, sir! No, sir, she believes it all herself, she amuses herself with her own imaginings, by God, sir! And I do not condemn; no, I do not condemn this!.. When, six days ago, I brought home my first salary—twenty-three rubles forty kopecks—in full, she called me a little cutie: 'Little cutie,' she says, 'you are!' And in private, sir, do you understand? Well, what beauty is there in me, and what kind of husband am I? No, she pinched my cheek: 'Little cutie you are!' she says."
Marmeladov stopped, wanted to smile, but suddenly his chin began to quiver. He restrained himself, however. This tavern, his debauched appearance, five nights on the hay barges and the bottle, and at the same time this painful love for his wife and family confused his listener. Raskolnikov listened intently, but with a painful sensation. He was annoyed that he had come here.
"My dear sir, my dear sir!" exclaimed Marmeladov, recovering himself, "oh my dear sir, perhaps all this seems laughable to you, as to others, and I only disturb you with the stupidity of all these miserable details of my domestic life, but it's not laughable to me! For I can feel all this... And throughout that entire paradisal day of my life and that whole evening I passed in fleeting daydreams: namely, how I would arrange it all, and dress the children, and give her peace, and bring my only daughter back from dishonor into the bosom of the family... And much, much more... Permissible, sir. Well, sir, my dear sir (Marmeladov suddenly seemed to start, raised his head and looked intently at his listener), well, sir, on the very next day after all these daydreams (that is, exactly five days ago), toward evening, by cunning deception, like a thief in the night, I stole from Katerina Ivanovna the key to her trunk, took out what remained of my brought salary, how much altogether I don't remember, and look at me, everyone! It's the fifth day away from home, and they're looking for me there, and my service is over, and the uniform lies in a tavern at the Egyptian Bridge, in exchange for which I received these garments... and everything is over!"
Marmeladov struck himself on the forehead with his fist, clenched his teeth, closed his eyes, and leaned his elbow firmly on the table. But a minute later his face suddenly changed, and with a kind of affected slyness and feigned impudence he glanced at Raskolnikov, laughed and said:
"And today I went to Sonya, went to ask for money for a hair of the dog! Heh-heh-heh!"
"She didn't give it, did she?" shouted someone from the side among those who had entered, and burst out laughing at the top of his lungs.
"This very half-bottle, sir, was bought with her money," Marmeladov declared, addressing himself exclusively to Raskolnikov. "Thirty kopecks she brought out, with her own hands, her last, all she had, I saw it myself... She said nothing, only looked at me silently... Not on earth, but there... they grieve over people, they weep, but they do not reproach, do not reproach! And it hurts more, sir, hurts more when they don't reproach!... Thirty kopecks, yes, sir. And she needs them now too, doesn't she? What do you think, my dear sir? For she must now maintain cleanliness. This cleanliness costs money, special cleanliness, you understand? Do you understand? Well, she needs to buy pomade too, you can't do without it, sir; starched petticoats, a little boot like that, more fancy, to show off her foot when she has to cross a puddle. Do you understand, do you understand, sir, what this cleanliness means? Well, sir, and I, her own father, took those thirty kopecks for a hair of the dog! And I'm drinking, sir! And I've already drunk it, sir!.. Now who will pity such a one as me? Eh? Do you pity me now, sir, or not? Speak, sir, do you pity me or not? Heh-heh-heh-heh!"
He wanted to pour, but there was nothing left. The half-bottle was empty.
"Why should anyone pity you?" shouted the proprietor, who happened to be near them again.
There was laughter and even cursing. Those who had listened laughed and cursed, and those who hadn't listened, looking just at the figure of the retired clerk.
"Pity! Why should anyone pity me!" Marmeladov suddenly cried out, rising with his hand stretched forward, in decisive inspiration, as if he had been waiting only for these words. "Why pity me, you say? Yes! There's nothing to pity me for! I should be crucified, crucified on a cross, not pitied! But crucify me, judge, crucify me and, having crucified, pity him! And then I will come to you myself for crucifixion, for I thirst not for joy, but for sorrow and tears!.. Do you think, you seller, that this half-bottle of yours was sweet to me? I sought sorrow at the bottom of it, sorrow and tears, and I tasted it, and I found it; but he will pity us who pitied all and who understood all and everyone, he alone, he is also the judge. He will come on that day and ask: 'Where is the daughter who gave herself for a wicked and consumptive stepmother, for strange and infant children? Where is the daughter who pitied her earthly father, a drunken dissolute, not horrified by his beastliness?' And he will say: 'Come! I have already forgiven you once... Forgiven you once... Your many sins are forgiven now too, because you loved much...' And he will forgive my Sonya, he will forgive, I know he will forgive... I felt it just now, when I was with her, in my heart!.. And he will judge and forgive all, both the good and the evil, and the wise and the meek... And when he has finished with all, then he will speak to us too: 'Come forth,' he will say, 'you too! Come forth you drunkards, come forth you weaklings, come forth you shameless!' And we will all come forth, not ashamed, and we will stand. And he will say: 'You are swine! of the image of the beast and his mark; but come you too!' And the wise will speak, the reasonable will speak: 'Lord! why do you receive these?' And he will say: 'I receive them, wise ones, I receive them, reasonable ones, because not one of them considered himself worthy of this...' And he will stretch out his arms to us, and we will fall down... and weep... and understand everything! Then we will understand everything!.. and everyone will understand... and Katerina Ivanovna... she too will understand... Lord, let thy kingdom come!"
And he sank onto the bench, exhausted and weakened, looking at no one, as if forgetting his surroundings and deep in thought. His words had made some impression; for a minute silence reigned, but soon the former laughter and cursing resumed:
"He's reasoned it all out!"
"He's talking nonsense!"
"A bureaucrat!"
And so on and so forth.
"Let us go, sir," Marmeladov said suddenly, raising his head and addressing Raskolnikov, "take me... Kozel's house, in the courtyard. It's time... to Katerina Ivanovna..."
Raskolnikov had long wanted to leave; he had thought of helping him anyway. Marmeladov proved much weaker on his feet than in his speech, and leaned heavily on the young man. They had some two or three hundred paces to go. Confusion and fear increasingly took hold of the drunkard as they approached the house.
"It's not Katerina Ivanovna I'm afraid of now," he muttered in agitation, "and not that she'll start pulling my hair. What's the hair!... The hair is nothing! That's what I say! It's even better if she starts pulling, but I'm not afraid of that... I'm... afraid of her eyes... yes... her eyes... I'm also afraid of the red spots on her cheeks... and also—I'm afraid of her breathing... Have you seen how people breathe in this disease... with agitated feelings? I'm also afraid of the children's crying... Because if Sonya hasn't fed them, then... I don't know what! I don't know! But I'm not afraid of blows... Know, sir, that such blows are not only not painful to me, but even a pleasure... For I myself cannot do without them. It's better. Let her beat me, unburden her soul... it's better... And here's the house. Kozel's house. The locksmith's, a German, rich... Lead on!"
They entered from the courtyard and went up to the fourth floor. The stairway grew darker the higher they went. It was already almost eleven o'clock, and though at this time of year there is no real night in Petersburg, it was very dark at the top of the stairs.
A small sooty door at the end of the stairs, at the very top, stood open. A candle-end illuminated a very poor room about ten paces long; all of it was visible from the entryway. Everything was scattered and in disorder, especially various children's rags. A torn sheet was stretched across the back corner. Behind it, probably, stood a bed. In the room itself there were only two chairs and an oilcloth-covered sofa, very shabby, before which stood an old kitchen pine table, unpainted and uncovered. At the edge of the table stood a guttering tallow candle-end in an iron candlestick. It turned out that Marmeladov occupied a separate room, not a corner, but his room was a passageway. The door to the further premises or cells into which Amalia Lippevechsel's apartment was divided stood ajar. It was noisy and clamorous there. People were laughing. It seemed they were playing cards and drinking tea. The most unceremonious words flew out sometimes.
Raskolnikov immediately recognized Katerina Ivanovna. She was a terribly thin woman, rather tall and well-proportioned, still with beautiful dark-brown hair and indeed with cheeks flushed to red spots. She paced back and forth in her small room, her hands clasped on her chest, her lips parched and her breathing uneven and intermittent. Her eyes shone as in fever, but her gaze was sharp and fixed, and the consumptive and agitated face produced a painful impression in the last illumination of the guttering candle-end, flickering on her face. She seemed to Raskolnikov about thirty, and indeed she was no match for Marmeladov... She did not hear or notice those entering; she seemed to be in some kind of oblivion, not listening and not seeing. It was stuffy in the room, but she did not open the window; a stench came from the staircase, but the door to the stairs was not closed; from the inner rooms, through the unclosed door, came waves of tobacco smoke, she coughed, but did not close the door. The smallest girl, about six years old, slept on the floor, somehow sitting, hunched up and with her head buried in the sofa. A boy a year older than her was trembling all over in the corner and crying. He had probably just been beaten. The eldest girl, about nine years old, tall and thin as a matchstick, in only a thin torn shirt and with a worn-out drap de dames burnous thrown over her bare shoulders, sewn for her probably two years ago, because it now did not even reach her knees, stood in the corner near her little brother, with her long arm, dried up like a matchstick, around his neck. She seemed to be calming him, whispering something to him, restraining him in every way so that he wouldn't start whimpering again, and at the same time fearfully watched her mother with her big, big dark eyes, which seemed even bigger on her emaciated and frightened little face. Marmeladov, without entering the room, got down on his knees right in the doorway, and pushed Raskolnikov forward. The woman, seeing a stranger, stopped distractedly before him, coming to herself for a moment and apparently trying to figure out: why had he come? But apparently it immediately occurred to her that he was going to the other rooms, since theirs was a passageway. Having figured this out and no longer paying attention to him, she went to the entryway door to close it, and suddenly cried out, seeing her husband on his knees right on the threshold.
"Ah!" she shrieked in frenzy, "he's back! The jailbird! The monster!.. And where's the money? What's in your pocket, show me! And your clothes are different! Where are your clothes? Where's the money? Speak!.."
And she threw herself to search him. Marmeladov immediately submissively and obediently spread his arms to both sides to facilitate the pocket search. There wasn't a kopeck.
"Where's the money?" she cried. "Oh Lord, he hasn't drunk it all, has he! There were twelve silver rubles left in the trunk!.." and suddenly, in a rage, she grabbed him by the hair and dragged him into the room. Marmeladov himself facilitated her efforts, crawling meekly after her on his knees.
"And this is a pleasure to me! And this is not pain to me, but plea-sure, my dear sir," he cried out, being shaken by the hair and even once striking his forehead on the floor. The child sleeping on the floor woke up and started crying. The boy in the corner couldn't stand it, began trembling, screaming, and threw himself at his sister in terrible fright, almost in a fit. The older girl was trembling in her sleep like a leaf.
"He's drunk it! All of it, he's drunk it all!" the poor woman cried in despair, "and his clothes are different! They're hungry, hungry!" (and wringing her hands, she pointed at the children). "Oh, cursed life! And you, aren't you ashamed," she suddenly attacked Raskolnikov, "from the tavern! You drank with him? You drank with him too! Get out!"
The young man hastened to leave without saying a word. Moreover, the inner door opened wide, and from it several curious people looked out. Impudent laughing heads with cigarettes and pipes, in skullcaps, protruded. Figures were visible in dressing gowns and completely unbuttoned, in summer costumes indecent to the point of impropriety, some with cards in their hands. They laughed especially amusedly when Marmeladov, dragged by his hair, cried out that it was a pleasure to him. Some even began to enter the room; finally an ominous shriek was heard: this was Amalia Lippevechsel herself pushing forward to establish order in her own fashion and to frighten the poor woman for the hundredth time with an abusive order to clear out of the apartment the very next day. As he left, Raskolnikov managed to thrust his hand into his pocket, grabbed as many copper coins as came to hand from the ruble he had changed at the tavern, and imperceptibly placed them on the windowsill. Then on the stairs he changed his mind and wanted to go back.
"What nonsense I've done," he thought, "they have Sonya there, and I need it myself." But reasoning that it was impossible to take it back anyway and that he wouldn't have taken it back anyway, he waved his hand and went to his apartment. "Sonya needs pomade too," he continued, walking down the street, and smiled caustically, "this cleanliness costs money... Hm! And perhaps Sonechka herself will go bankrupt today, because there's the same risk, hunting for red game... gold prospecting... so they'll all be broke tomorrow without my money... Aye, what a well Sonya is! Yet they've managed to dig it! And they use it! Yes, they use it! And they've gotten used to it. They cried, and they got used to it. The scoundrel-man gets used to everything!"
He became thoughtful.
"Well, and what if I'm wrong," he suddenly exclaimed involuntarily, "what if man in general is not a scoundrel, man in general, that is, the whole human race, then it means that all the rest is prejudice, just imaginary fears, and there are no barriers, and that's how it should be!.."