Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (best selling autobiographies .txt) đ
- Author: Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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He raised his eyes, looked earnestly at them all, smiled, and took his cap. He was too quiet by comparison with his manner at his entrance, and he felt this. Everyone got up.
âWell, you may abuse me, be angry with me if you like,â Porfiry Petrovitch began again, âbut I canât resist. Allow me one little question (I know I am troubling you). There is just one little notion I want to express, simply that I may not forget it.â
âVery good, tell me your little notion,â Raskolnikov stood waiting, pale and grave before him.
âWell, you see... I really donât know how to express it properly.... Itâs a playful, psychological idea.... When you were writing your article, surely you couldnât have helped, he-he! fancying yourself... just a little, an âextraordinaryâ man, uttering a new word in your sense.... Thatâs so, isnât it?â
âQuite possibly,â Raskolnikov answered contemptuously.
Razumihin made a movement.
âAnd, if so, could you bring yourself in case of worldly difficulties and hardship or for some service to humanityâto overstep obstacles?... For instance, to rob and murder?â
And again he winked with his left eye, and laughed noiselessly just as before.
âIf I did I certainly should not tell you,â Raskolnikov answered with defiant and haughty contempt.
âNo, I was only interested on account of your article, from a literary point of view...â
âFoo! how obvious and insolent that is!â Raskolnikov thought with repulsion.
âAllow me to observe,â he answered dryly, âthat I donât consider myself a Mahomet or a Napoleon, nor any personage of that kind, and not being one of them I cannot tell you how I should act.â
âOh, come, donât we all think ourselves Napoleons now in Russia?â Porfiry Petrovitch said with alarming familiarity.
Something peculiar betrayed itself in the very intonation of his voice.
âPerhaps it was one of these future Napoleons who did for Alyona Ivanovna last week?â Zametov blurted out from the corner.
Raskolnikov did not speak, but looked firmly and intently at Porfiry. Razumihin was scowling gloomily. He seemed before this to be noticing something. He looked angrily around. There was a minute of gloomy silence. Raskolnikov turned to go.
âAre you going already?â Porfiry said amiably, holding out his hand with excessive politeness. âVery, very glad of your acquaintance. As for your request, have no uneasiness, write just as I told you, or, better still, come to me there yourself in a day or two... to-morrow, indeed. I shall be there at eleven oâclock for certain. Weâll arrange it all; weâll have a talk. As one of the last to be there, you might perhaps be able to tell us something,â he added with a most good-natured expression.
âYou want to cross-examine me officially in due form?â Raskolnikov asked sharply.
âOh, why? Thatâs not necessary for the present. You misunderstand me. I lose no opportunity, you see, and... Iâve talked with all who had pledges.... I obtained evidence from some of them, and you are the last.... Yes, by the way,â he cried, seemingly suddenly delighted, âI just remember, what was I thinking of?â he turned to Razumihin, âyou were talking my ears off about that Nikolay... of course, I know, I know very well,â he turned to Raskolnikov, âthat the fellow is innocent, but what is one to do? We had to trouble Dmitri too.... This is the point, this is all: when you went up the stairs it was past seven, wasnât it?â
âYes,â answered Raskolnikov, with an unpleasant sensation at the very moment he spoke that he need not have said it.
âThen when you went upstairs between seven and eight, didnât you see in a flat that stood open on a second storey, do you remember? two workmen or at least one of them? They were painting there, didnât you notice them? Itâs very, very important for them.â
âPainters? No, I didnât see them,â Raskolnikov answered slowly, as though ransacking his memory, while at the same instant he was racking every nerve, almost swooning with anxiety to conjecture as quickly as possible where the trap lay and not to overlook anything. âNo, I didnât see them, and I donât think I noticed a flat like that open.... But on the fourth storeyâ (he had mastered the trap now and was triumphant) âI remember now that someone was moving out of the flat opposite Alyona Ivanovnaâs.... I remember... I remember it clearly. Some porters were carrying out a sofa and they squeezed me against the wall. But painters... no, I donât remember that there were any painters, and I donât think that there was a flat open anywhere, no, there wasnât.â
âWhat do you mean?â Razumihin shouted suddenly, as though he had reflected and realised. âWhy, it was on the day of the murder the painters were at work, and he was there three days before? What are you asking?â
âFoo! I have muddled it!â Porfiry slapped himself on the forehead. âDeuce take it! This business is turning my brain!â he addressed Raskolnikov somewhat apologetically. âIt would be such a great thing for us to find out whether anyone had seen them between seven and eight at the flat, so I fancied you could perhaps have told us something.... I quite muddled it.â
âThen you should be more careful,â Razumihin observed grimly.
The last words were uttered in the passage. Porfiry Petrovitch saw them to the door with excessive politeness.
They went out into the street gloomy and sullen, and for some steps they did not say a word. Raskolnikov drew a deep breath.
CHAPTER VI
âI donât believe it, I canât believe it!â repeated Razumihin, trying in perplexity to refute Raskolnikovâs arguments.
They were by now approaching Bakaleyevâs lodgings, where Pulcheria Alexandrovna and Dounia had been expecting them a long while. Razumihin kept stopping on the way in the heat of discussion, confused and excited by the very fact that they were for the first time speaking openly about it.
âDonât believe it, then!â answered Raskolnikov, with a cold, careless smile. âYou were noticing nothing as usual, but I was weighing every word.â
âYou are suspicious. That is why you weighed their words... hâm... certainly, I agree, Porfiryâs tone was rather strange, and still more that wretch Zametov!... You are right, there was something about himâbut why? Why?â
âHe has changed his mind since last night.â
âQuite the contrary! If they had that brainless idea, they would do their utmost to hide it, and conceal their cards, so as to catch you afterwards.... But it was all impudent and careless.â
âIf they had had factsâI mean, real factsâor at least grounds for suspicion, then they would certainly have tried to hide their game, in the hope of getting more (they would have made a search long ago besides). But they have no facts, not one. It is all mirageâall ambiguous. Simply a floating idea. So they try to throw me out by impudence. And perhaps, he was irritated at having no facts, and blurted it out in his vexationâor perhaps he has some plan... he seems an intelligent man. Perhaps he wanted to frighten me by pretending to know. They have a psychology of their own, brother. But it is loathsome explaining it all. Stop!â
âAnd itâs insulting, insulting! I understand you. But... since we have spoken openly now (and it is an excellent thing that we have at lastâI am glad) I will own now frankly that I noticed it in them long ago, this idea. Of course the merest hint onlyâan insinuationâbut why an insinuation even? How dare they? What foundation have they? If only you knew how furious I have been. Think only! Simply because a poor student, unhinged by poverty and hypochondria, on the eve of a severe delirious illness (note that), suspicious, vain, proud, who has not seen a soul to speak to for six months, in rags and in boots without soles, has to face some wretched policemen and put up with their insolence; and the unexpected debt thrust under his nose, the I.O.U. presented by Tchebarov, the new paint, thirty degrees Reaumur and a stifling atmosphere, a crowd of people, the talk about the murder of a person where he had been just before, and all that on an empty stomachâhe might well have a fainting fit! And that, that is what they found it all on! Damn them! I understand how annoying it is, but in your place, Rodya, I would laugh at them, or better still, spit in their ugly faces, and spit a dozen times in all directions. Iâd hit out in all directions, neatly too, and so Iâd put an end to it. Damn them! Donât be downhearted. Itâs a shame!â
âHe really has put it well, though,â Raskolnikov thought.
âDamn them? But the cross-examination again, to-morrow?â he said with bitterness. âMust I really enter into explanations with them? I feel vexed as it is, that I condescended to speak to Zametov yesterday in the restaurant....â
âDamn it! I will go myself to Porfiry. I will squeeze it out of him, as one of the family: he must let me know the ins and outs of it all! And as for Zametov...â
âAt last he sees through him!â thought Raskolnikov.
âStay!â cried Razumihin, seizing him by the shoulder again. âStay! you were wrong. I have thought it out. You are wrong! How was that a trap? You say that the question about the workmen was a trap. But if you had done that, could you have said you had seen them painting the flat... and the workmen? On the contrary, you would have seen nothing, even if you had seen it. Who would own it against himself?â
âIf I had done that thing, I should certainly have said that I had seen the workmen and the flat,â Raskolnikov answered, with reluctance and obvious disgust.
âBut why speak against yourself?â
âBecause only peasants, or the most inexperienced novices deny everything flatly at examinations. If a man is ever so little developed and experienced, he will certainly try to admit all the external facts that canât be avoided, but will seek other explanations of them, will introduce some special, unexpected turn, that will give them another significance and put them in another light. Porfiry might well reckon that I should be sure to answer so, and say I had seen them to give an air of truth, and then make some explanation.â
âBut he would have told you at once that the workmen could not have been there two days before, and that therefore you must have been there on the day of the murder at eight oâclock. And so he would have caught you over a detail.â
âYes, that is what he was reckoning on, that I should not have time to reflect, and should be in a hurry to make the most likely answer, and so would forget that the workmen could not have been there two days before.â
âBut how could you forget it?â
âNothing easier. It is in just such stupid things clever people are most easily caught. The more cunning a man is, the less he suspects that he will be caught in a simple thing. The more cunning a man is, the simpler the trap he must be caught in. Porfiry is not such a fool as you think....â
âHe is a knave then, if that is so!â
Raskolnikov could not help laughing. But at the very moment, he was struck by the strangeness of his own frankness, and the eagerness with which he had made this explanation, though he had kept up all the preceding conversation with gloomy repulsion, obviously with a motive, from necessity.
âI am getting a relish for certain aspects!â he thought to himself. But almost at the same instant he became suddenly uneasy, as though an unexpected and alarming idea had occurred to
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