The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales

"And so are you in court; and, besides bawling, you are smoking, so you are wanting in politeness to the whole company." As he said this, Raskolnikoff felt an inexpressible delight at his maliciousness. The clerk looked up with a smile. The choleric officer was clearly nonplused.

"That is not your business, sir," he cried at last, unnaturally loud.

"Make the necessary declaration. Show him, Alexander Gregorivitch.

Complaints have been made about you! You don't pay your debts! You know how to fly the kite evidently!"

Raskolnikoff did not listen, but greedily seized the paper. He read it through more than once, and could make nothing of it. "What is this?" he asked of the clerk.

"It is a writ for recovery on a note of hand of yours. Please write," said the clerk.

"Write what?" asked he rudely.

"As I dictate."

The clerk stood near and dictated to him the usual form of declaration: that he was unable to pay, that he would not quit the capital, dispose of his goods in any way, etc., etc.

"You cannot write, your pen is falling from your fingers," said the clerk, and he looked him in the face. "Are you ill?"

"Yes, my head swims. Go on."

"That is all. Now sign it."

Raskolnikoff let fall the pen, and seemed as if about to rise and go; but, instead of doing so, he laid both elbows on the table and supported his head with his hands. A new idea formed in his mind: to rise immediately, go straight to Nicodemus Thomich the ward officer and tell him all that had occurred; then to accompany him to his room, and show him all the things hidden away in the wall behind the paper. His desire to do all this was of such strength that he got up from the table to carry his design into execution. "Reflect, reflect a moment!" ran in his head. "No, better not think, get it off my shoulders." Suddenly he stood still as if shot. Nicodemus Thomich was at this moment hotly discussing something with Elia Petrovitch, the inspector of police, and the words caught Raskolnikoff's anxious attention. He listened.

"It cannot be, they will both be released. In the first place, all is contradictory. Consider. Why did they call the porter if it were their work? To denounce themselves? Or out of cunning? Not at all, that would be too much! Besides, did not the porter see the student Pestriakoff at the very gate just as he came in, and he stood there some time with three friends who had accompanied him. And Koch: was he not below in the silversmith's for half an hour before he went up to the old woman's? Now, consider."

"But see what contradictions arise! They say they knocked and found the door closed; yet three minutes after, when they went back with the porter, it was open."

"That's true. The murderer was inside, and had bolted the door, and certainly he would have been captured had not Koch foolishly run off to the porter. In the interval he, no doubt, had time to escape downstairs. Koch explains that, if he had remained, the man would have leaped out and killed him. He wanted to have a Te Deum sung. Ha, ha!"

"Did nobody see the murderer?"

"How could they? The house is a perfect Noah's ark," put in the clerk, who had been listening.

"The thing is clear, very clear," said Nicodemus Thomich decisively.

"Not at all! Not at all!" cried Elia Petrovitch, in reply.

Raskolnikoff took up his hat and made for the door, but he never reached it. When he came to himself he found he was sitting on a chair, supported on the right by some unknown man, while to his left stood another, holding some yellow water in a yellow glass. Nicodemus Thomich, standing before him, was looking at him fixedly. Raskolnikoff rose.

"What is it? Are you ill?" asked the officer sharply.

"He could hardly hold the pen to sign his name," the clerk explained, at the same time going back to his books.

"Have you been ill very long?" cried Elia Petrovitch from his table; he had run to see the swoon and returned to his place.

"Since yesterday," murmured Raskolnikoff in reply.

"You went out yesterday?"

"I did."

"Ill?"

"Ill!"

"At what time?"

"Eight o'clock in the evening."

"Where did you go, allow me to ask?"

"In the streets."

"Concise and clear."

Raskolnikoff had replied sharply, in a broken voice, his face as pale as a handkerchief, and with his black swollen eyes averted from Elia Petrovitch's scrutinizing glance.

"He can hardly stand on his legs. Do you want to ask anything more?" said Nicodemus Thomich.

"Nothing," replied Elia Petrovitch.

Nicodemus Thomich evidently wished to say more, but, turning to the clerk, who in turn glanced expressively at him, the latter became silent, all suddenly stopped speaking. It was strange.

Raskolnikoff went out. As he descended the stairs he could hear an animated discussion had broken out, and above all, the interrogative voice of Nicodemus Thomich. In the street he came to himself.

"Search, search! they are going to search!" he cried. "The scoundrels, they suspect me!" The old dread seized him again, from head to foot.

Here was the room. All was quiet, and no one had, apparently, disturbed it—not even Nastasia. But, heavens! how could he have left all those things where they were? He rushed to the corner, pushed his hands behind the paper, took out the things, and thrust them in his pockets. There were eight articles in all: two little boxes with earrings or something of that description, then four little morocco cases; a chain wrapped up in paper, and something else done up in a common piece of newspaper—possibly a decoration. Raskolnikoff distributed these, together with the purse, about his person, in order to make them less noticeable, and quitted the room again. All the time he had left the door wide open. He went away hurriedly, fearing pursuit. Perhaps in a few minutes orders would be issued to hunt him down, so he must hide all traces of his theft at once; and he would do so while he had strength and reason left him. But where should he go?

This had been long decided. Throw the lot in the canal and the matter would be at an end! So he had resolved in that night of delirium, when he cried out, "Quick, quick! throw all away!" But this was not so easy. He wandered to the quays of the Catherine Canal, and lingered there for half an hour. Here a washing raft lay where he had thought of sinking his spoil, or there boats were moored, and everywhere people swarmed. Then, again, would the cases sink? Would they not rather float? No, this would not do. He would go to the Neva; there would be fewer people there and more room, and it would be more convenient. He recognized that he had been wandering about for fully half an hour, and in dangerous places. He must make haste. He made his way to the river, but soon came to another standstill. Why in the Neva? Why in the water at all? Better some solitary place in a wood, or under some bushes. Dig a hole and bury them! He felt he was not in a condition to deliberate clearly and soundly, but this idea appeared the best.

This idea also, however, was not destined to be realized, and another took its place. As he passed the V– Prospect, he suddenly noticed on the left an entrance into a court, which was surrounded entirely by high walls. On the right, a long way up the court, rose the side of a huge four-storied building. To the left, parallel with the walls of the house, and commencing immediately at the gate, there ran a wooden boarding of about twenty paces down the court. Then came a space where a lot of rubbish was deposited; while farther down, at the bottom of the court, was a shed, apparently part of some workshop, possibly that of a carpenter or coach builder. Everything appeared as black as coal dust. Here was the very place, he thought; and, after looking round, went up the court. Behind the door he espied a large unworked stone, weighing about fifty pounds, which lay close up against the hoarding. No one could see him where he stood; he was entirely free from observation. He bent down to the stone, managed to turn it over after considerable effort, and found underneath a small cavity. He threw in the cases, and then the purse on the top of all. The stone was not perceptibly higher when he had replaced it, and little traces of its having been moved could be noticed. So he pressed some earth against the edges with his foot, and made off.

He laughed for joy when again in the street. All traces were gone, and who would think of looking there? And if they were found who would suspect him? All proofs were gone, and he laughed again. Yes, he recollected afterwards how he laughed—a long, nervous, lingering laugh, lasting all the time he was in that street.

He reached home toward evening, perhaps at about eight o'clock—how, and by what particular way he never recollected—but, speedily undressing, he lay down on the couch, trembling like a beaten horse, and, drawing his overcoat over him, he fell immediately into a deep sleep. He awoke in a high fever and delirious. Some days later he came to himself, rose and went out. It was eight o'clock, and the sun had disappeared. The heat was as intolerable as before, but he inhaled the dusty, fetid, infected town air with greediness. And now his head began to spin round, and a wild expression of energy crept into his inflamed eyes and pale, meager, wan face. He did not know, did not even think, what he was going to do; he only knew that all was to be finished "today," at one blow, immediately, or he would never return home, because he had no desire to live thus. How to finish? By what means? No matter how, and he did not want to think. He drove away any thoughts which disturbed him, and only clung to the necessity of ending all, "no matter how," said he, with desperate self-confidence and decision. By force of habit he took his old walk, and set out in the direction of the Haymarket. Farther on, he came on a young man who was grinding some very feeling ballads upon a barrel organ. Near the man, on the footpath, was a young girl of about fifteen years of age, fashionably dressed, with crinoline, mantle, and gloves, and a straw hat trimmed with gaudy feathers, but all old and terribly worn out, who, in a loud and cracked though not altogether unpleasing voice, was singing before a shop in expectation of a couple of kopecks. Raskolnikoff stopped and joined one or two listeners, took out a five-kopeck piece, and gave it to the girl. The latter at once stopped on a very high note which she had just reached, and cried to the man, "Come along," and both immediately moved on to another place.

"Do you like street music?" said Raskolnikoff to a middle-aged man standing near him. The latter looked at him in surprise, but smiled. "I love it," continued Raskolnikoff, "especially when they sing to the organ on a cold, dark, gray winter's evening, when all the passers-by seem to have pale, green, sickly-looking faces—when the snow is falling like a sleet, straight down and with no wind, you know, and while the lamps shine on it all."

"I don't know. Excuse me," said the man, frightened at the question and Raskolnikoff's strange appearance, and hastily withdrawing to the other side of the street.

Raskolnikoff went on, and came to the place in the Haymarket where he had met the trader and his wife and Elizabeth. No one was there at the moment. He stopped, and turned to a young fellow, in a red shirt, who was gaping at the entrance to a flour shop.

"A man trades here at this corner, with his wife, eh?"

"Everyone trades here," replied the lad, scanning his questioner from head to foot.

"What is he called?"

"What he was christened."

"But you belong to Zaraisk, don't you? To what Government?"

The boy stared at Raskolnikoff. "We have no governor, your highness, but districts. I stay at home, and know nothing about it, but my brother does; so pardon me, your most mighty highness."

"Is that an eating house there?"

"That's a dram shop; they have a billiard table."

"There are newspapers here?" asked he, as he entered a room—one of a suite—rather empty. Two or three persons sat with tea before them, while in a farther room a group of men were seated, drinking champagne. Raskolnikoff thought he recognized Zametoff among them, but he could not be sure. "Never mind, if it is!" he muttered.

"Brandy, sir?" asked the waiter.

"No, tea; and bring me some newspapers—for about the last five days.

I'll give you a drink."

The papers and the tea appeared. Raskolnikoff sat and searched, and, at last, found what he wanted. "Ah, here it is!" he cried, as he began to read. The words danced before his eyes, but he read greedily to the end, and turned to others for later intelligence. His hands trembled with impatience, and the sheets shook again. Suddenly some one sat down near him. He looked up, and there was Zametoff—that same Zametoff, with his rings and chain, his oiled locks and fancy waistcoat and unclean linen. He seemed pleased, and his tanned face, a little inflamed by the champagne, wore a smile.

"Ah! you here?" he commenced, in a tone as if he had known Raskolnikoff for an age. "Why Razoumikhin told me yesterday that you were lying unconscious. How strange! Then I was at your place–"

Raskolnikoff laid down the paper and turned to Zametoff. On his lips was a slight provoking smile. "I know you were," he replied, "I heard so. You searched for my boot. To what agreeable places you resort. Who gives you champagne to drink?"

"We were drinking together. What do you mean?"

"Nothing, dear boy, nothing," said Raskolnikoff, with a smile and slapping Zametoff on the shoulders. "I am not in earnest, but simply in fun, as your workman said, when he wrestled with Dmitri, you know, in that murder case."

"Do you know about that?"

"Yes, and perhaps more than you do."

"You are very peculiar. It is a pity you came out. You are ill."

"Do I seem strange?"

"Yes; what are you reading?"

"The paper."

"There are a number of fires."

"I am not reading about them." He looked curiously at Zametoff, and a malicious smile distorted his lips. "No, fires are not in my line," he added, winking at Zametoff. "Now, I should like to know, sweet youth, what it signifies to you what I read?"

"Nothing at all. I only asked. Perhaps I–"

"Listen. You are a cultivated man—a literary man, are you not?"

"I was in the sixth class at college," Zametoff answered, with a certain amount of dignity.

"The sixth! Oh, my fine fellow! With rings and a chain—a rich man! You are a dear boy," and Raskolnikoff gave a short, nervous laugh, right in the face of Zametoff. The latter was very much taken aback, and, if not offended, seemed a good deal surprised.

"How strange you are!" said Zametoff seriously. "You have the fever still on you; you are raving!"

"Am I, my fine fellow—am I strange? Yes, but I am very interesting to you, am I not?"

"Interesting?"

"Yes. You ask me what I am reading, what I am looking for; then I am looking through a number of papers. Suspicious, isn't it? Well, I will explain to you, or rather confess—no, not that exactly. I will give testimony, and you shall take it down—that's it. So then, I swear that I was reading, and came here on purpose"—Raskolnikoff blinked his eyes and paused—"to read an account of the murder of the old woman." He finished almost in a whisper, eagerly watching Zametoff's face. The latter returned his glances without flinching. And it appeared strange to Zametoff that a full minute seemed to pass as they kept fixedly staring at each other in this manner.

"Oh, so that's what you have been reading?" Zametoff at last cried impatiently. "What is there in that?" "She is the same woman," continued Raskolnikoff, still in a whisper, and taking no notice of Zametoff's remark, "the very same woman you were talking about when I swooned in your office. You recollect—you surely recollect?"

"Recollect what?" said Zametoff, almost alarmed.

The serious expression on Raskolnikoff's face altered in an instant, and he again commenced his nervous laugh, and laughed as if he were quite unable to contain himself. There had recurred to his mind, with fearful clearness, the moment when he stood at the door with the hatchet in his hand. There he was, holding the bolt, and they were tugging and thumping away at the door. Oh, how he itched to shriek at them, open the door, thrust out his tongue at them, and frighten them away, and then laugh, "Ah, ah, ah, ah!"

"You are insane, or else—" said Zametoff, and then paused as if a new thought had suddenly struck him.

"Or what, or what? Now what? Tell me!"

"Nonsense!" said Zametoff to himself, "it can't be." Both became silent. After this unexpected and fitful outburst of laughter, Raskolnikoff had become lost in thought and looked very sad. He leaned on the table with his elbows, buried his head in his hands, and seemed to have quite forgotten Zametoff. The silence continued a long time. "You do not drink your tea; it is getting cold," said the latter, at last.

"What? Tea? Yes!" Raskolnikoff snatched at his glass, put a piece of bread in his mouth, and then, after looking at Zametoff, seemingly recollected and roused himself. His face at once resumed its previous smile, and he continued to sip his tea.

"What a number of rogues there are about," Zametoff said. "I read not long ago, in the Moscow papers, that they had captured a whole gang of forgers in that city. Quite a colony."

"That's old news. I read it a month ago," replied Raskolnikoff in a careless manner. "And you call such as these rogues?" he added, smiling.

"Why not?"

"Rogues indeed! Why, they are only children and babies. Fifty banded together for such purposes! Is it possible? Three would be quite sufficient, and then they should be sure of one another—not babble over their cups. The babies! Then to hire unreliable people to change the notes at the money changers', persons whose hands tremble as they receive the rubles. On such their lives depend! Far better to strangle yourself! The man goes in, receives the change, counts some over, the last portion he takes on faith, stuffs all in his pocket, rushes away and the murder is out. All is lost by one foolish man. Is it not ridiculous?"

"That his hands should shake?" replied Zametoff. "No; that is quite likely. Yours would not, I suppose? I could not endure it, though. For a paltry reward of a hundred rubles to go on such a mission! And where? Into a banker's office with forged notes! I should certainly lose my head. Would not you?"

Raskolnikoff felt again a strong impulse to make a face at him. A shiver ran down his back. "You would not catch me acting so foolishly," he commenced. "This is how I should do. I should count over the first thousand very carefully, perhaps four times, right to the end, carefully examine each note, and then only pass to the second thousand, count these as far as the middle of the bundle, take out a note, hold it to the light, turn it over, then hold it to the light again, and say, 'I fear this is a bad note,' and then begin to relate some story about a lost note. Then there would be a third thousand to count. Not yet, please, there is a mistake in the second thousand. No, it is correct. And so I should proceed until I had received all. At last I should turn to go, open the door, but, no, pardon me! I should return, ask some question, receive some explanation, and there it is all done."

"What funny things you do say!" said Zametoff with a smile. "You are all very well theoretically, but try it and see. Look, for example, at the murder of the money lender, a case in point. There was a desperate villain who in broad daylight stopped at nothing, and yet his hand shook, did it not?—and he could not finish, and left all the spoil behind him. The deed evidently robbed him of his presence of mind."

This language nettled Raskolnikoff. "You think so? Then lay your hand upon him," said he, maliciously delighted to tease him.

"Never fear but we shall!"

"You? Go to, you know nothing about it. All you think of inquiring is whether a man is flinging money about; he is—then, ergo he is guilty."

"That is exactly what they do," replied Zametoff, "they murder, risk their lives, and then rush to the public house and are caught. Their lavishness betrays them. You see they are not all so crafty as you are. You would not run there, I suppose?"

Raskolnikoff frowned and looked steadily at Zametoff. "You seem anxious to know how I should act," he said with some displeasure.

"I should very much like to know," replied Zametoff in a serious tone.

He seemed, indeed, very anxious.

"Very much?"

"Very much."

"Good. This would be my plan," Raskolnikoff said, as he again bent near to the face of his listener, and speaking in such a tragic whisper as almost to make the latter shudder. "I should take the money and all I could find, and make off, going, however, in no particular direction, but on and on until I came to some obscure and inclosed place, where no one was about—a market garden, or any such-like spot. I should then look about me for a stone, perhaps a pound and a half in weight, lying, it may be, in a corner against a partition, say a stone used for building purposes; this I should lift up and under it there would be a hole. In that hole I should deposit all the things I had got, roll back the stone, stamp it down with my feet, and be off. For a year I should let them lie—for two years, three years. Now then, search for them! Where are they?"

"You are indeed mad," said Zametoff, also in a low tone, but turning away from Raskolnikoff. The latter's eyes glistened, he became paler than ever, while his upper lip trembled violently. He placed his face closer, if possible, to that of Zametoff, his lips moving as if he wished to speak, but no words escaped them—several moments elapsed—Raskolnikoff knew what he was doing, but felt utterly unable to control himself, that strange impulse was upon him as when he stood at the bolted door, to come forth and let all be known.

"What if I killed the old woman and Elizabeth?" he asked suddenly, and then—came to himself.

Zametoff turned quite pale; then his face changed to a smile. "Can it be so?" he muttered to himself.

Raskolnikoff eyed him savagely. "Speak out. What do you think? Yes? Is it so?"

"Of course not. I believe it now less than ever," replied Zametoff hastily.

"Caught at last! caught, my fine fellow! What people believe less than ever, they must have believed once, eh?"

"Not at all. You frightened me into the supposition," said Zametoff, visibly confused.

"So you do not think this? Then why those questions in the office? Why did the lieutenant question me after my swoon? Waiter," he cried, seizing his cap, "here, how much?"

"Thirty kopecks, sir," replied the man.

"There you are, and twenty for yourself. Look, what a lot of money!" turning to Zametoff and thrusting forth his shaking hand filled with the twenty-five rubles, red and blue notes. "Whence comes all this? Where did I obtain these new clothes from? You know I had none. You have asked the landlady, I suppose? Well, no matter!—Enough! Adieu, most affectionately."

He went out, shaking from some savage hysterical emotion, a mixture of delight, gloom, and weariness. His face was drawn as if he had just recovered from a fit; and, as his agitation of mind increased, so did his weakness.

Meanwhile, Zametoff remained in the restaurant where Raskolnikoff had left him, deeply buried in thought, considering the different points Raskolnikoff had placed before him.

His heart was empty and depressed, and he strove again to drive off thought. No feeling of anguish came, neither was there any trace of that fierce energy which moved him when he left the house to "put an end to it all."

"What will be the end of it? The result lies in my own will. What kind of end? Ah, we are all alike, and accept the bit of ground for our feet and live. Must this be the end? Shall I say the word or not? Oh, how weary I feel! Oh, to lie down or sit anywhere! How foolish it is to strive against my illness! Bah! What thoughts run through my brain!" Thus he meditated as he went drowsily along the banks of the canal, until, turning to the right and then to the left, he reached the office building. He stopped short, however, and, turning down a lane, went on past two other streets, with no fixed purpose, simply, no doubt, to give himself a few moments longer for reflection. He went on, his eyes fixed on the ground, until all of a sudden he started, as if some one had whispered in his ear. Raising his eyes he saw that he stood before the house, at its very gates.