Have you ever thought about what fiction is? Probably, such a question may seem surprising: and so everything is clear. Every person throughout his life has to repeatedly create the works he needs for specific purposes - statements, autobiographies, dictations - using not gypsum or clay, not musical notes, not paints, but just a word. At the same time, almost every person will be very surprised if he is told that he thereby created a work of fiction, which is very different from visual art, music and sculpture making. However, everyone understands that a student's essay or dictation is fundamentally different from novels, short stories, news that are created by professional writers. In the works of professionals there is the most important difference - excogitation. But, oddly enough, in a school literature course, you donât realize the full power of fiction. So using our website in your free time discover fiction for yourself. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (best selling autobiographies .txt) đ
- Author: Fyodor Dostoyevsky
- Performer: 0140449132
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âNow, why need you have come? Your laughter, too, as you came in, do you remember? I saw it all plain as daylight, but if I hadnât expected you so specially, I should not have noticed anything in your laughter. You see what influence a mood has! Mr. Razumihin thenâah, that stone, that stone under which the things were hidden! I seem to see it somewhere in a kitchen garden. It was in a kitchen garden, you told Zametov and afterwards you repeated that in my office? And when we began picking your article to pieces, how you explained it! One could take every word of yours in two senses, as though there were another meaning hidden.
âSo in this way, Rodion Romanovitch, I reached the furthest limit, and knocking my head against a post, I pulled myself up, asking myself what I was about. After all, I said, you can take it all in another sense if you like, and itâs more natural so, indeed. I couldnât help admitting it was more natural. I was bothered! âNo, Iâd better get hold of some little factâ I said. So when I heard of the bell-ringing, I held my breath and was all in a tremor. âHere is my little fact,â thought I, and I didnât think it over, I simply wouldnât. I would have given a thousand roubles at that minute to have seen you with my own eyes, when you walked a hundred paces beside that workman, after he had called you murderer to your face, and you did not dare to ask him a question all the way. And then what about your trembling, what about your bell-ringing in your illness, in semi-delirium?
âAnd so, Rodion Romanovitch, can you wonder that I played such pranks on you? And what made you come at that very minute? Someone seemed to have sent you, by Jove! And if Nikolay had not parted us... and do you remember Nikolay at the time? Do you remember him clearly? It was a thunderbolt, a regular thunderbolt! And how I met him! I didnât believe in the thunderbolt, not for a minute. You could see it for yourself; and how could I? Even afterwards, when you had gone and he began making very, very plausible answers on certain points, so that I was surprised at him myself, even then I didnât believe his story! You see what it is to be as firm as a rock! No, thought I, MorgenfrĂŒh. What has Nikolay got to do with it!â
âRazumihin told me just now that you think Nikolay guilty and had yourself assured him of it....â
His voice failed him, and he broke off. He had been listening in indescribable agitation, as this man who had seen through and through him, went back upon himself. He was afraid of believing it and did not believe it. In those still ambiguous words he kept eagerly looking for something more definite and conclusive.
âMr. Razumihin!â cried Porfiry Petrovitch, seeming glad of a question from Raskolnikov, who had till then been silent. âHe-he-he! But I had to put Mr. Razumihin off; two is company, three is none. Mr. Razumihin is not the right man, besides he is an outsider. He came running to me with a pale face.... But never mind him, why bring him in? To return to Nikolay, would you like to know what sort of a type he is, how I understand him, that is? To begin with, he is still a child and not exactly a coward, but something by way of an artist. Really, donât laugh at my describing him so. He is innocent and responsive to influence. He has a heart, and is a fantastic fellow. He sings and dances, he tells stories, they say, so that people come from other villages to hear him. He attends school too, and laughs till he cries if you hold up a finger to him; he will drink himself senselessânot as a regular vice, but at times, when people treat him, like a child. And he stole, too, then, without knowing it himself, for âHow can it be stealing, if one picks it up?â And do you know he is an Old Believer, or rather a dissenter? There have been Wanderers[*] in his family, and he was for two years in his village under the spiritual guidance of a certain elder. I learnt all this from Nikolay and from his fellow villagers. And whatâs more, he wanted to run into the wilderness! He was full of fervour, prayed at night, read the old books, âthe trueâ ones, and read himself crazy.
âPetersburg had a great effect upon him, especially the women and the wine. He responds to everything and he forgot the elder and all that. I learnt that an artist here took a fancy to him, and used to go and see him, and now this business came upon him.
âWell, he was frightened, he tried to hang himself! He ran away! How can one get over the idea the people have of Russian legal proceedings? The very word âtrialâ frightens some of them. Whose fault is it? We shall see what the new juries will do. God grant they do good! Well, in prison, it seems, he remembered the venerable elder; the Bible, too, made its appearance again. Do you know, Rodion Romanovitch, the force of the word âsufferingâ among some of these people! Itâs not a question of suffering for someoneâs benefit, but simply, âone must suffer.â If they suffer at the hands of the authorities, so much the better. In my time there was a very meek and mild prisoner who spent a whole year in prison always reading his Bible on the stove at night and he read himself crazy, and so crazy, do you know, that one day, apropos of nothing, he seized a brick and flung it at the governor; though he had done him no harm. And the way he threw it too: aimed it a yard on one side on purpose, for fear of hurting him. Well, we know what happens to a prisoner who assaults an officer with a weapon. So âhe took his suffering.â
âSo I suspect now that Nikolay wants to take his suffering or something of the sort. I know it for certain from facts, indeed. Only he doesnât know that I know. What, you donât admit that there are such fantastic people among the peasants? Lots of them. The elder now has begun influencing him, especially since he tried to hang himself. But heâll come and tell me all himself. You think heâll hold out? Wait a bit, heâll take his words back. I am waiting from hour to hour for him to come and abjure his evidence. I have come to like that Nikolay and am studying him in detail. And what do you think? He-he! He answered me very plausibly on some points, he obviously had collected some evidence and prepared himself cleverly. But on other points he is simply at sea, knows nothing and doesnât even suspect that he doesnât know!
âNo, Rodion Romanovitch, Nikolay doesnât come in! This is a fantastic, gloomy business, a modern case, an incident of to-day when the heart of man is troubled, when the phrase is quoted that blood ârenews,â when comfort is preached as the aim of life. Here we have bookish dreams, a heart unhinged by theories. Here we see resolution in the first stage, but resolution of a special kind: he resolved to do it like jumping over a precipice or from a bell tower and his legs shook as he went to the crime. He forgot to shut the door after him, and murdered two people for a theory. He committed the murder and couldnât take the money, and what he did manage to snatch up he hid under a stone. It wasnât enough for him to suffer agony behind the door while they battered at the door and rung the bell, no, he had to go to the empty lodging, half delirious, to recall the bell-ringing, he wanted to feel the cold shiver over again.... Well, that we grant, was through illness, but consider this: he is a murderer, but looks upon himself as an honest man, despises others, poses as injured innocence. No, thatâs not the work of a Nikolay, my dear Rodion Romanovitch!â
All that had been said before had sounded so like a recantation that these words were too great a shock. Raskolnikov shuddered as though he had been stabbed.
âThen... who then... is the murderer?â he asked in a breathless voice, unable to restrain himself.
Porfiry Petrovitch sank back in his chair, as though he were amazed at the question.
âWho is the murderer?â he repeated, as though unable to believe his ears. âWhy, you, Rodion Romanovitch! You are the murderer,â he added, almost in a whisper, in a voice of genuine conviction.
Raskolnikov leapt from the sofa, stood up for a few seconds and sat down again without uttering a word. His face twitched convulsively.
âYour lip is twitching just as it did before,â Porfiry Petrovitch observed almost sympathetically. âYouâve been misunderstanding me, I think, Rodion Romanovitch,â he added after a brief pause, âthatâs why you are so surprised. I came on purpose to tell you everything and deal openly with you.â
âIt was not I murdered her,â Raskolnikov whispered like a frightened child caught in the act.
âNo, it was you, you Rodion Romanovitch, and no one else,â Porfiry whispered sternly, with conviction.
They were both silent and the silence lasted strangely long, about ten minutes. Raskolnikov put his elbow on the table and passed his fingers through his hair. Porfiry Petrovitch sat quietly waiting. Suddenly Raskolnikov looked scornfully at Porfiry.
âYou are at your old tricks again, Porfiry Petrovitch! Your old method again. I wonder you donât get sick of it!â
âOh, stop that, what does that matter now? It would be a different matter if there were witnesses present, but we are whispering alone. You see yourself that I have not come to chase and capture you like a hare. Whether you confess it or not is nothing to me now; for myself, I am convinced without it.â
âIf so, what did you come for?â Raskolnikov asked irritably. âI ask you the same question again: if you consider me guilty, why donât you take me to prison?â
âOh, thatâs your question! I will answer you, point for point. In the first place, to arrest you so directly is not to my interest.â
âHow so? If you are convinced you ought....â
âAch, what if I am convinced? Thatâs only my dream for the time. Why should I put you in safety? You know thatâs it, since you ask me to do it. If I confront you with that workman for instance and you say to him âwere you drunk or not? Who saw me with you? I simply took you to be drunk, and you were drunk, too.â Well, what could I answer, especially as your story is a more likely one than his? for thereâs nothing but psychology to support his evidenceâthatâs almost unseemly with his ugly mug, while you hit the mark exactly, for the rascal is an inveterate drunkard and notoriously so. And I have myself admitted candidly several times already that that psychology can be taken in two ways and that the second way is stronger and looks far more probable, and that apart
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