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 don’t realize the full power of fiction. So using our website in your free time discover fiction for yourself. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (book club recommendations TXT) 📖
- Author: Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Book online «Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (book club recommendations TXT) 📖». Author Fyodor Dostoyevsky
He drew a deep breath—but his dream seemed strangely to persist: his door was flung open and a man whom he had never seen stood in the doorway watching him intently.
Raskolnikov had hardly opened his eyes and he instantly closed them again. He lay on his back without stirring.
“Is it still a dream?” he wondered and again raised his eyelids hardly perceptibly; the stranger was standing in the same place, still watching him.
He stepped cautiously into the room, carefully closing the door after him, went up to the table, paused a moment, still keeping his eyes on Raskolnikov, and noiselessly seated himself on the chair by the sofa; he put his hat on the floor beside him and leaned his hands on his cane and his chin on his hands. It was evident that he was prepared to wait indefinitely. As far as Raskolnikov could make out from his stolen glances, he was a man no longer young, stout, with a full, fair, almost whitish beard.
Ten minutes passed. It was still light, but beginning to get dusk. There was complete stillness in the room. Not a sound came from the stairs. Only a big fly buzzed and fluttered against the window pane. It was unbearable at last. Raskolnikov suddenly got up and sat on the sofa.
“Come, tell me what you want.”
“I knew you were not asleep, but only pretending,” the stranger answered oddly, laughing calmly. “Arkady Ivanovitch Svidrigaïlov, allow me to introduce myself....”
“Can this be still a dream?” Raskolnikov thought once more.
He looked carefully and suspiciously at the unexpected visitor.
“Svidrigaïlov! What nonsense! It can’t be!” he said at last aloud in bewilderment.
His visitor did not seem at all surprised at this exclamation.
“I’ve come to you for two reasons. In the first place, I wanted to make your personal acquaintance, as I have already heard a great deal about you that is interesting and flattering; secondly, I cherish the hope that you may not refuse to assist me in a matter directly concerning the welfare of your sister, Avdotya Romanovna. For without your support she might not let me come near her now, for she is prejudiced against me, but with your assistance I reckon on...”
“You reckon wrongly,” interrupted Raskolnikov.
“They only arrived yesterday, may I ask you?”
Raskolnikov made no reply.
“It was yesterday, I know. I only arrived myself the day before. Well, let me tell you this, Rodion Romanovitch, I don’t consider it necessary to justify myself, but kindly tell me what was there particularly criminal on my part in all this business, speaking without prejudice, with common sense?”
Raskolnikov continued to look at him in silence.
“That in my own house I persecuted a defenceless girl and ‘insulted her with my infamous proposals’—is that it? (I am anticipating you.) But you’ve only to assume that I, too, am a man et nihil humanum... in a word, that I am capable of being attracted and falling in love (which does not depend on our will), then everything can be explained in the most natural manner. The question is, am I a monster, or am I myself a victim? And what if I am a victim? In proposing to the object of my passion to elope with me to America or Switzerland, I may have cherished the deepest respect for her and may have thought that I was promoting our mutual happiness! Reason is the slave of passion, you know; why, probably, I was doing more harm to myself than anyone!”
“But that’s not the point,” Raskolnikov interrupted with disgust. “It’s simply that whether you are right or wrong, we dislike you. We don’t want to have anything to do with you. We show you the door. Go out!”
Svidrigaïlov broke into a sudden laugh.
“But you’re... but there’s no getting round you,” he said, laughing in the frankest way. “I hoped to get round you, but you took up the right line at once!”
“But you are trying to get round me still!”
“What of it? What of it?” cried Svidrigaïlov, laughing openly. “But this is what the French call bonne guerre, and the most innocent form of deception!... But still you have interrupted me; one way or another, I repeat again: there would never have been any unpleasantness except for what happened in the garden. Marfa Petrovna...”
“You have got rid of Marfa Petrovna, too, so they say?” Raskolnikov interrupted rudely.
“Oh, you’ve heard that, too, then? You’d be sure to, though.... But as for your question, I really don’t know what to say, though my own conscience is quite at rest on that score. Don’t suppose that I am in any apprehension about it. All was regular and in order; the medical inquiry diagnosed apoplexy due to bathing immediately after a heavy dinner and a
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