Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky [best books to read for women TXT] 📗

uttered, probably to emphasise his arguments, he squeezed their hands painfully as in a vise. He stared at Avdotya Romanovna without the least regard for good manners. They sometimes pulled their hands out of his huge bony paws, but far from noticing what was the matter, he drew them all the closer to him. If they’d told him to jump head foremost from the staircase, he would have done it without thought or hesitation in their service. Though Pulcheria

Alexandrovna felt that the young man was really too eccentric and pinched her hand too much, in her anxiety over her Rodya she looked on his presence as

providential, and was unwilling to notice all his peculiarities. But though Avdotya Romanovna shared her anxiety, and was not of timorous disposition, she could not see the glowing light in his eyes without wonder and almost alarm. It was only the unbounded confidence inspired by Nastasya’s account of her brother’s queer friend, which prevented her from trying to run away from 359 of 967

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him, and to persuade her mother to do the same. She realised, too, that even running away was perhaps impossible now. Ten minutes later, however, she was considerably reassured; it was characteristic of Razumihin that he showed his true nature at once, whatever mood he might be in, so that people quickly saw the sort of man they had to deal with.

‘You can’t go to the landlady, that’s perfect nonsense!’

he cried. ‘If you stay, though you are his mother, you’ll drive him to a frenzy, and then goodness knows what will happen! Listen, I’ll tell you what I’ll do: Nastasya will stay with him now, and I’ll conduct you both home, you can’t be in the streets alone; Petersburg is an awful place in that way…. But no matter! Then I’ll run straight back here and a quarter of an hour later, on my word of honour, I’ll bring you news how he is, whether he is asleep, and all that. Then, listen! Then I’ll run home in a twinkling—I’ve a lot of friends there, all drunk—I’ll fetch Zossimov—

that’s the doctor who is looking after him, he is there, too, but he is not drunk; he is not drunk, he is never drunk! I’ll drag him to Rodya, and then to you, so that you’ll get two reports in the hour—from the doctor, you

understand, from the doctor himself, that’s a very different thing from my account of him! If there’s anything wrong, 360 of 967

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I swear I’ll bring you here myself, but, if it’s all right, you go to bed. And I’ll spend the night here, in the passage, he won’t hear me, and I’ll tell Zossimov to sleep at the landlady’s, to be at hand. Which is better for him: you or the doctor? So come home then! But the landlady is out of the question; it’s all right for me, but it’s out of the question for you: she wouldn’t take you, for she’s … for she’s a fool … She’d be jealous on my account of Avdotya Romanovna and of you, too, if you want to know … of Avdotya Romanovna certainly. She is an absolutely, absolutely unaccountable character! But I am a fool, too!

… No matter! Come along! Do you trust me? Come, do you trust me or not?’

‘Let us go, mother,’ said Avdotya Romanovna, ‘he will certainly do what he has promised. He has saved Rodya already, and if the doctor really will consent to spend the night here, what could be better?’

‘You see, you … you … understand me, because you are an angel!’ Razumihin cried in ecstasy, ‘let us go!

Nastasya! Fly upstairs and sit with him with a light; I’ll come in a quarter of an hour.’

Though Pulcheria Alexandrovna was not perfectly convinced, she made no further resistance. Razumihin gave an arm to each and drew them down the stairs. He 361 of 967

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still made her uneasy, as though he was competent and good-natured, was he capable of carrying out his promise?

He seemed in such a condition….

‘Ah, I see you think I am in such a condition!’

Razumihin broke in upon her thoughts, guessing them, as he strolled along the pavement with huge steps, so that the two ladies could hardly keep up with him, a fact he did not observe, however. ‘Nonsense! That is … I am drunk like a fool, but that’s not it; I am not drunk from wine. It’s seeing you has turned my head … But don’t mind me!

Don’t take any notice: I am talking nonsense, I am not worthy of you…. I am utterly unworthy of you! The minute I’ve taken you home, I’ll pour a couple of pailfuls of water over my head in the gutter here, and then I shall be all right…. If only you knew how I love you both!

Don’t laugh, and don’t be angry! You may be angry with anyone, but not with me! I am his friend, and therefore I am your friend, too, I want to be … I had a presentiment

… Last year there was a moment … though it wasn’t a presentiment really, for you seem to have fallen from heaven. And I expect I shan’t sleep all night … Zossimov was afraid a little time ago that he would go mad … that’s why he mustn’t be irritated.’

‘What do you say?’ cried the mother.

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‘Did the doctor really say that?’ asked Avdotya Romanovna, alarmed.

‘Yes, but it’s not so, not a bit of it. He gave him some medicine, a powder, I saw it, and then your coming here…. Ah! It would have been better if you had come to-morrow. It’s a good thing we went away. And in an hour Zossimov himself will report to you about everything. He is not drunk! And I shan’t be drunk….

And what made me get so tight? Because they got me into an argument, damn them! I’ve sworn never to argue!

They talk such trash! I almost came to blows! I’ve left my uncle to preside. Would you believe, they insist on complete absence of individualism and that’s just what they relish! Not to be themselves, to be as unlike themselves as they can. That’s what they regard as the highest point of progress. If only their nonsense were their own, but as it is …’

‘Listen!’ Pulcheria Alexandrovna interrupted timidly, but it only added fuel to the flames.

‘What do you think?’ shouted Razumihin, louder than ever, ‘you think I am attacking them for talking nonsense?

Not a bit! I like them to talk nonsense. That’s man’s one privilege over all creation. Through error you come to the truth! I am a man because I err! You never reach any truth 363 of 967

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without making fourteen mistakes and very likely a hundred and fourteen. And a fine thing, too, in its way; but we can’t even make mistakes on our own account!

Talk nonsense, but talk your own nonsense, and I’ll kiss you for it. To go wrong in one’s own way is better than to go right in someone else’s. In the first case you are a man, in the second you’re no better than a bird. Truth won’t escape you, but life can be cramped. There have been examples. And what are we doing now? In science, development, thought, invention, ideals, aims, liberalism, judgment, experience and everything, everything, everything, we are still in the preparatory class at school.

We prefer to live on other people’s ideas, it’s what we are used to! Am I right, am I right?’ cried Razumihin, pressing and shaking the two ladies’ hands.

‘Oh, mercy, I do not know,’ cried poor Pulcheria Alexandrovna.

‘Yes, yes … though I don’t agree with you in

everything,’ added Avdotya Romanovna earnestly and at once uttered a cry, for he squeezed her hand so painfully.

‘Yes, you say yes … well after that you … you …’ he cried in a transport, ‘you are a fount of goodness, purity, sense … and perfection. Give me your hand … you give me yours, too! I want to kiss your hands here at once, on 364 of 967

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my knees …’ and he fell on his knees on the pavement, fortunately at that time deserted.

‘Leave off, I entreat you, what are you doing?’

Pulcheria Alexandrovna cried, greatly distressed.

‘Get up, get up!’ said Dounia laughing, though she, too, was upset.

‘Not for anything till you let me kiss your hands! That’s it! Enough! I get up and we’ll go on! I am a luckless fool, I am unworthy of you and drunk … and I am ashamed…. I am not worthy to love you, but to do homage to you is the duty of every man who is not a perfect beast! And I’ve done homage…. Here are your lodgings, and for that alone Rodya was right in driving your Pyotr Petrovitch away…. How dare he! how dare he put you in such lodgings! It’s a scandal! Do you know the sort of people they take in here? And you his betrothed! You are his betrothed? Yes? Well, then, I’ll tell you, your fiancé is a scoundrel.’

‘Excuse me, Mr. Razumihin, you are forgetting …’

Pulcheria Alexandrovna was beginning.

‘Yes, yes, you are right, I did forget myself, I am ashamed of it,’ Razumihin made haste to apologise. ‘But

… but you can’t be angry with me for speaking so! For I speak sincerely and not because … hm, hm! That would 365 of 967

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be disgraceful; in fact not because I’m in … hm! Well, anyway, I won’t say why, I daren’t…. But we all saw today when he came in that that man is not of our sort. Not because he had his hair curled at the barber’s, not because he was in such a hurry to show his wit, but because he is a spy, a speculator, because he is a skin-flint and a buffoon.

That’s evident. Do you think him clever? No, he is a fool, a fool. And is he a match for you? Good heavens! Do you see, ladies?’ he stopped suddenly on the way upstairs to their rooms, ‘though all my friends there are drunk, yet they are all honest, and though we do talk a lot of trash, and I do, too, yet we shall talk our way to the truth at last, for we are on the right path, while Pyotr Petrovitch … is not on the right path. Though I’ve been calling them all sorts of names just now, I do respect them all … though I don’t respect Zametov, I like him, for he is a puppy, and that bullock Zossimov, because he is an honest man and knows his work. But enough, it’s all said and forgiven. Is it forgiven? Well, then, let’s go on. I know this corridor, I’ve been here, there was a scandal here at Number 3….

Where are you here? Which number? eight? Well, lock yourselves in for the night, then. Don’t let anybody in. In a quarter of an hour I’ll come back with news, and half an 366 of 967

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hour later I’ll bring Zossimov, you’ll see! Good- bye, I’ll run.’

‘Good heavens, Dounia, what is going to happen?’ said Pulcheria Alexandrovna, addressing her daughter with anxiety and dismay.

‘Don’t worry yourself, mother,’ said Dounia, taking off her hat and cape. ‘God has sent this gentleman to our aid, though he has come from a drinking party. We can depend on him, I assure you. And all that he has done for Rodya….’

‘Ah. Dounia, goodness knows whether he will come!

How could I bring myself to leave Rodya? … And how different, how different I had fancied our meeting! How sullen he was, as though not pleased to see us….’

Tears came into her eyes.

‘No, it’s not that, mother. You didn’t see, you were crying all the time. He is quite unhinged by