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II

He had been ill for a long time; but it was not the horrors of prison life, not the hard labor, not the food, not the shaven head, not the ragged clothes that had broken him: oh! what did all these torments and sufferings matter to him! On the contrary, he was even glad of the work: exhausted physically by the labor, he at least secured for himself a few hours of peaceful sleep. And what did the food matter to him—those empty cabbage soup with cockroaches? As a student, during his former life, he often had not even that much. His clothing was warm and suited to his way of life. He did not even feel the fetters on himself. Was he to be ashamed of his shaven head and convict's jacket? But before whom? Before Sonya? Sonya was afraid of him, and was he to be ashamed before her?

And yet? He was ashamed even before Sonya, whom he tormented for this with his contemptuous and rude treatment. But it was not the shaven head and fetters he was ashamed of: his pride was deeply wounded; it was from wounded pride that he fell ill. Oh, how happy he would have been if he could have blamed himself! He would have borne everything then, even the shame and disgrace. But he judged himself severely, and his hardened conscience found no particularly terrible guilt in his past, except perhaps a simple blunder, which could have happened to anyone. He was ashamed precisely that he, Raskolnikov, had perished so blindly, hopelessly, dully and stupidly, by some decree of blind fate, and must humble himself and submit before the "senselessness" of some decree, if he wanted to calm himself in any way.

Objectless and aimless anxiety in the present, and in the future one continuous sacrifice, which gained nothing—that is what lay before him in the world. And what did it matter that in eight years he would be only thirty-two years old and could still begin to live again! Why should he live? What should he aim for? What should he strive toward? To live in order to exist? But a thousand times before he had been ready to give up his existence for an idea, for a hope, even for a fantasy. Mere existence had always been too little for him; he had always wanted more. Perhaps it was only by the strength of his desires that he considered himself then a man to whom more was permitted than to others.

And if only fate had sent him repentance—burning repentance, breaking the heart, driving away sleep, such repentance from whose terrible torments the noose and the whirlpool appear! Oh, he would have rejoiced at it! Torment and tears—that too is life. But he did not repent of his crime.

At least he could have been angry at his stupidity, as he had been angry before at his ugly and most stupid actions that had brought him to prison. But now, already in prison, at liberty, he reconsidered and thought over all his former actions and did not find them at all as stupid and ugly as they had seemed to him at that fatal time, before.

"Why, why," he thought, "was my idea more stupid than other ideas and theories that have been swarming and clashing with one another in the world since this world has stood? One need only look at the matter with a completely independent, broad view, freed from commonplace influences, and then, of course, my idea will prove not at all so... strange. O deniers and penny-wise philosophers, why do you stop halfway!

Well, why does my action seem so ugly to them?" he said to himself. "Because it is a crime? What does the word 'crime' mean? My conscience is at peace. Of course, a criminal offense has been committed; of course, the letter of the law has been violated and blood has been shed, well then, take my head for the letter of the law... and that's enough! Of course, in such a case even many benefactors of humanity, who did not inherit power but seized it themselves, should have been executed at their very first steps. But those people carried out their steps, and therefore they are right, but I did not carry it out and, consequently, I had no right to permit myself that step."

That was the only thing in which he acknowledged his crime: only that he had not carried it out and had made a voluntary confession.

He also suffered from the thought: why had he not killed himself then? Why had he stood then over the river and preferred a voluntary confession? Was the desire to live really so strong and so difficult to overcome? Svidrigailov had overcome it, who feared death.

He asked himself this question with anguish and could not understand that even then, when he stood over the river, perhaps he already sensed in himself and in his convictions a profound lie. He did not understand that this premonition could be a harbinger of the future change in his life, of his future resurrection, of his future new view of life.

He was more inclined to admit here only the dull burden of instinct, which he was unable to break and which he was again unable to step over (due to weakness and insignificance). He looked at his fellow convicts and was amazed: how they too loved life, how they cherished it! It seemed to him that in prison they loved and valued it even more, and cherished it more than at liberty. What terrible torments and sufferings some of them had endured, for example the tramps! Could a single ray of sunshine really mean so much to them, a dense forest, somewhere in an unknown wilderness a cold spring, marked three years ago and about a meeting with which the tramp dreams as about a meeting with a mistress, seeing it in his dreams, the green grass around it, a bird singing in the bush? Looking further, he saw examples still more inexplicable.

In prison, in his surroundings, he certainly did not notice much, and did not want to notice at all. He lived as if with downcast eyes: it was disgusting and unbearable for him to look. But in the end much began to surprise him, and he somehow involuntarily began to notice what he had not suspected before. In general, and most of all, he was surprised by that terrible, that impassable abyss that lay between him and all these people. It seemed as if he and they were of different nations. He and they looked at each other with distrust and hostility. He knew and understood the general causes of such separation; but he had never before admitted that these causes were in reality so deep and strong. There were also exiled Poles in prison, political criminals. They simply considered all these people as ignorant and serfs and despised them from on high; but Raskolnikov could not look at it that way: he clearly saw that these ignorant people were in many ways much more intelligent than these very Poles. There were also Russians here who despised this people too much—a former officer and two seminarians; Raskolnikov clearly noticed their error too.

He himself was not liked and was avoided by everyone. They even began to hate him toward the end—why? He did not know. They despised him, laughed at him, laughed at his crime—those who were much more criminal than he.

"You're a gentleman!" they said to him. "You had no business going about with an axe; it's not a gentleman's business at all."

During the second week of Lent it was his turn to observe the fast with his barracks. He went to church to pray together with the others. For some reason he himself did not know—a quarrel broke out one day; they all attacked him at once with fury.

"You're an atheist! You don't believe in God!" they shouted at him. "You should be killed."

He never talked to them about God and faith, but they wanted to kill him as an atheist; he was silent and did not object to them. One convict was about to throw himself at him in decisive frenzy; Raskolnikov awaited him calmly and silently: his eyebrow did not move, not a single feature of his face trembled. The guard managed in time to stand between him and the murderer—otherwise blood would have been spilled.

There was still another question insoluble for him: why did they all love Sonya so much? She did not ingratiate herself with them; they met her rarely, sometimes only at work, when she came for one minute to see him. And yet everyone already knew her, knew also that she had followed him, knew how she lived, where she lived. She did not give them money, did not render any special services. Only once, at Christmas, did she bring alms for the whole prison: pies and buns. But little by little certain closer relations were established between them and Sonya: she wrote letters for them to their relatives and sent them to the post office. Their relatives and female relatives, arriving in the city, left things for them and even money in Sonya's hands, according to their instructions. Their wives and mistresses knew her and went to her. And when she appeared at work, coming to see Raskolnikov, or met a party of convicts going to work—everyone took off their caps, everyone bowed: "Little mother, Sofya Semyonovna, you are our mother, tender and compassionate!" said these coarse, branded convicts to this small and thin creature. She smiled and bowed back, and they all loved it when she smiled at them. They even loved her gait, turned to look after her as she walked, and praised her; they even praised her for being so small, they simply did not know what to praise her for. They even came to her to be treated.

He lay in the hospital through the end of Lent and Holy Week. Already recovering, he remembered his dreams when he still lay in fever and delirium. He dreamed in his illness that the whole world was condemned to fall victim to some terrible, unheard-of and unprecedented plague coming from the depths of Asia to Europe. All were to perish except certain, very few, chosen ones. Some new trichinae appeared, microscopic creatures that lodged themselves in people's bodies. But these creatures were spirits, endowed with mind and will. People who received them into themselves immediately became possessed and mad. But never, never had people considered themselves so intelligent and unshakable in the truth as those infected considered themselves. Never had they considered their verdicts, their scientific conclusions, their moral convictions and beliefs more unshakable. Whole villages, whole cities and peoples became infected and went mad. Everyone was alarmed and did not understand one another, everyone thought that truth resided in him alone, and was tormented looking at others, beat his breast, wept and wrung his hands. They did not know whom and how to judge, could not agree on what to consider evil, what good. They did not know whom to accuse, whom to acquit. People killed one another in some senseless spite. They gathered against one another in whole armies, but the armies, already on the march, suddenly began to tear at themselves, the ranks broke up, the warriors threw themselves at one another, stabbed and cut, bit and ate one another. In the cities the alarm bell rang all day: everyone was summoned, but who was summoning and for what, no one knew, and everyone was alarmed. The most ordinary trades were abandoned, because everyone proposed his own ideas, his own corrections, and they could not agree; agriculture stopped. Here and there people ran together in groups, agreed together on something, swore not to separate—but immediately began something completely different from what they themselves had just proposed, began to accuse one another, fought and cut one another. Fires began, famine began. Everything and everyone perished. The plague grew and moved further and further. In the whole world only a few people could be saved, these were the pure and chosen, destined to begin a new race of people and a new life, to renew and purify the earth, but no one anywhere saw these people, no one heard their word and voice.

Raskolnikov was tormented by the fact that this senseless delirium echoed so sadly and so painfully in his memories, that the impression of these feverish dreams did not pass for so long. It was already the second week after Holy Week; warm, clear, spring days had come; in the prison ward they opened the windows (barred, under which a sentry walked). Sonya, during his whole illness, could visit him in the ward only twice; each time permission had to be requested, and this was difficult. But she often came to the hospital courtyard, under the windows, especially in the evening, and sometimes just to stand in the yard for a minute and at least look from afar at the windows of the ward. One evening, almost completely recovered, Raskolnikov fell asleep; waking up, he accidentally approached the window and suddenly saw Sonya in the distance, at the hospital gates. She stood as if waiting for something. Something seemed to pierce his heart at that moment; he shuddered and quickly moved away from the window. The next day Sonya did not come, nor on the third day; he noticed that he was waiting for her with anxiety. Finally he was discharged. Coming to the prison, he learned from the convicts that Sofya Semyonovna had fallen ill, was lying at home and was not going out anywhere.

He was very anxious, sent to inquire about her. He soon learned that her illness was not dangerous. Learning in her turn that he was so grieving and worrying about her, Sonya sent him a note written in pencil, and informed him that she was much better, that she had a simple, light cold and that she would soon, very soon, come to see him at work. When he read this note, his heart beat strongly and painfully.

The day was again clear and warm. Early in the morning, about six o'clock, he went to work, on the bank of the river, where a kiln for alabaster was set up in a shed and where they pounded it. Only three workers went there in all. One of the convicts took the guard and went with him to the fortress for some tool; another began to prepare wood and load it into the kiln. Raskolnikov went out of the shed to the very bank, sat down on logs stacked by the shed and began to gaze at the wide and deserted river. From the high bank a wide expanse opened up. From the distant opposite bank a song could barely be heard. There, in the boundless steppe flooded with sunlight, nomadic yurts showed as barely visible black dots. There was freedom there and other people lived, quite unlike those here, there as if time itself had stopped, as if the centuries of Abraham and his flocks had not yet passed. Raskolnikov sat, looked motionlessly, without tearing himself away; his thought passed into dreams, into contemplation; he was not thinking about anything, but some kind of anguish stirred and tormented him.

Suddenly Sonya appeared beside him. She approached almost inaudibly and sat down next to him. It was still very early, the morning chill had not yet softened. She wore her poor, old burnous and green kerchief. Her face still bore signs of illness, had grown thin, pale, haggard. She smiled at him affably and joyfully, but, as usual, timidly extended her hand to him.

She always extended her hand to him timidly, sometimes even did not offer it at all, as if afraid that he would push her away. He always took her hand as if with revulsion, always as if with vexation met her, sometimes stubbornly kept silent during her entire visit. It happened that she trembled before him and left in deep sorrow. But now their hands did not part; he glanced at her briefly and quickly, said nothing and lowered his eyes to the ground. They were alone, no one saw them. The guard had turned away at that time.

How it happened, he himself did not know, but suddenly something seemed to pick him up and throw him at her feet. He wept and embraced her knees. In the first moment she was terribly frightened, and her whole face went deathly pale. She jumped up and, trembling, looked at him. But at once, at that very moment she understood everything. Infinite happiness lit up in her eyes; she understood, and for her there was no longer any doubt that he loved, infinitely loved her and that this moment had come at last...

They wanted to speak but could not. Tears stood in their eyes. They were both pale and thin; but in these sick and pale faces there already shone the dawn of a renewed future, of full resurrection into a new life. Love had resurrected them, the heart of one contained infinite sources of life for the heart of the other.

They resolved to wait and endure. They still had seven years left; and before then so much unbearable torment and so much infinite happiness! But he was resurrected, and he knew it, felt it fully with his whole renewed being, and she—she lived only by his life!

In the evening of that same day, when the barracks were already locked, Raskolnikov lay on his plank bed and thought about her. That day it even seemed to him that all the convicts, who had been his enemies, now looked at him differently. He even spoke to them himself, and they answered him kindly. He remembered this now, but of course it had to be so: shouldn't everything change now?

He thought about her. He remembered how he had constantly tormented her and torn at her heart; he remembered her pale, thin little face, but now these memories almost did not torment him: he knew with what infinite love he would now redeem all her sufferings.

And really, what were all these, all the torments of the past! Everything, even his crime, even the sentence and exile, seemed to him now, in the first impulse, some external, strange fact, as if it had not even happened to him. However, he could not think long and steadily about anything that evening, concentrate his thoughts on anything; and he would not have resolved anything consciously now; he only felt. Instead of dialectics, life had come, and something completely different had to work itself out in his consciousness.

Under his pillow lay the Gospel. He took it mechanically. This book belonged to her, was the very same one from which she had read to him about the resurrection of Lazarus. At the beginning of his hard labor he thought that she would torment him with religion, would talk about the Gospel and force books on him. But to his greatest surprise, she never once spoke of this, never once even offered him the Gospel. He himself had asked her for it shortly before his illness, and she silently brought him the book. Until now he had not opened it.

He did not open it now either, but one thought flashed through him: "Can her convictions not be my convictions now too? Her feelings, her aspirations, at least..."

She too had been agitated all that day, and at night even fell ill again. But she was so happy that she was almost frightened of her happiness. Seven years, only seven years! At the beginning of their happiness, at certain moments, they were both ready to look at these seven years as at seven days. He did not even know that the new life would not come to him for nothing, that it still had to be dearly bought, paid for with a great future deed...

But here begins a new story, the story of the gradual renewal of a man, the story of his gradual regeneration, his gradual transition from one world to another, his acquaintance with a new, hitherto completely unknown reality. This could constitute the theme of a new tale—but our present tale is ended.