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

with a broom. She waked him up that day.

‘Get up, why are you asleep?’ she called to him. ‘It’s past nine, I have brought you some tea; will you have a cup? I should think you’re fairly starving?’

Raskolnikov opened his eyes, started and recognised Nastasya.

‘From the landlady, eh?’ he asked, slowly and with a sickly face sitting up on the sofa.

‘From the landlady, indeed!’

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She set before him her own cracked teapot full of weak and stale tea and laid two yellow lumps of sugar by the side of it.

‘Here, Nastasya, take it please,’ he said, fumbling in his pocket (for he had slept in his clothes) and taking out a handful of coppers—‘run and buy me a loaf. And get me a little sausage, the cheapest, at the pork-butcher’s.’

‘The loaf I’ll fetch you this very minute, but wouldn’t you rather have some cabbage soup instead of sausage? It’s capital soup, yesterday’s. I saved it for you yesterday, but you came in late. It’s fine soup.’

When the soup had been brought, and he had begun upon it, Nastasya sat down beside him on the sofa and began chatting. She was a country peasant-woman and a very talkative one.

‘Praskovya Pavlovna means to complain to the police about you,’ she said.

He scowled.

‘To the police? What does she want?’

‘You don’t pay her money and you won’t turn out of the room. That’s what she wants, to be sure.’

‘The devil, that’s the last straw,’ he muttered, grinding his teeth, ‘no, that would not suit me … just now. She is a fool,’ he added aloud. ‘I’ll go and talk to her to-day.’

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‘Fool she is and no mistake, just as I am. But why, if you are so clever, do you lie here like a sack and have nothing to show for it? One time you used to go out, you say, to teach children. But why is it you do nothing now?’

‘I am doing …’ Raskolnikov began sullenly and

reluctantly.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Work …’

‘What sort of work?’

‘I am thinking,’ he answered seriously after a pause.

Nastasya was overcome with a fit of laughter. She was given to laughter and when anything amused her, she laughed inaudibly, quivering and shaking all over till she felt ill.

‘And have you made much money by your thinking?’

she managed to articulate at last.

‘One can’t go out to give lessons without boots. And I’m sick of it.’

‘Don’t quarrel with your bread and butter.’

‘They pay so little for lessons. What’s the use of a few coppers?’ he answered, reluctantly, as though replying to his own thought.

‘And you want to get a fortune all at once?’

He looked at her strangely.

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‘Yes, I want a fortune,’ he answered firmly, after a brief pause.

‘Don’t be in such a hurry, you quite frighten me! Shall I get you the loaf or not?’

‘As you please.’

‘Ah, I forgot! A letter came for you yesterday when you were out.’

‘A letter? for me! from whom?’

‘I can’t say. I gave three copecks of my own to the postman for it. Will you pay me back?’

‘Then bring it to me, for God’s sake, bring it,’ cried Raskolnikov greatly excited—‘good God!’

A minute later the letter was brought him. That was it: from his mother, from the province of R——. He turned pale when he took it. It was a long while since he had received a letter, but another feeling also suddenly stabbed his heart.

‘Nastasya, leave me alone, for goodness’ sake; here are your three copecks, but for goodness’ sake, make haste and go!’

The letter was quivering in his hand; he did not want to open it in her presence; he wanted to be left alone with this letter. When Nastasya had gone out, he lifted it quickly to his lips and kissed it; then he gazed intently at 58 of 967

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the address, the small, sloping handwriting, so dear and familiar, of the mother who had once taught him to read and write. He delayed; he seemed almost afraid of something. At last he opened it; it was a thick heavy letter, weighing over two ounces, two large sheets of note paper were covered with very small handwriting.

"My dear Rodya,’ wrote his mother—‘it’s

two months since I last had a talk with you

by letter which has distressed me and even

kept me awake at night, thinking. But I am

sure you will not blame me for my

inevitable silence. You know how I love

you; you are all we have to look to,

Dounia and I, you are our all, our one

hope, our one stay. What a grief it was to

me when I heard that you had given up the

university some months ago, for want of

means to keep yourself and that you had

lost your lessons and your other work!

How could I help you out of my hundred

and twenty roubles a year pension? The

fifteen roubles I sent you four months ago I

borrowed, as you know, on security of my

pension, from Vassily Ivanovitch Vahrushin

a merchant of this town. He is a kind-

hearted man and was a friend of your

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father’s too. But having given him the right

to receive the pension, I had to wait till the debt was paid off and that is only just done,

so that I’ve been unable to send you

anything all this time. But now, thank

God, I believe I shall be able to send you

something more and in fact we may

congratulate ourselves on our good fortune

now, of which I hasten to inform you. In

the first place, would you have guessed,

dear Rodya, that your sister has been living

with me for the last six weeks and we shall

not be separated in the future. Thank God,

her sufferings are over, but I will tell you

everything in order, so that you may know

just how everything has happened and all

that we have hitherto concealed from you.

When you wrote to me two months ago

that you had heard that Dounia had a great

deal to put up with in the Svidrigraïlovs’

house, when you wrote that and asked me

to tell you all about it—what could I write

in answer to you? If I had written the

whole truth to you, I dare say you would

have thrown up everything and have come

to us, even if you had to walk all the way,

for I know your character and your

feelings, and you would not let your sister

be insulted. I was in despair myself, but

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what could I do? And, besides, I did not

know the whole truth myself then. What

made it all so difficult was that Dounia

received a hundred roubles in advance

when she took the place as governess in

their family, on condition of part of her

salary being deducted every month, and so

it was impossible to throw up the situation

without repaying the debt. This sum (now

I can explain it all to you, my precious

Rodya) she took chiefly in order to send

you sixty roubles, which you needed so

terribly then and which you received from

us last year. We deceived you then, writing

that this money came from Dounia’s

savings, but that was not so, and now I tell

you all about it, because, thank God, things

have suddenly changed for the better, and

that you may know how Dounia loves you

and what a heart she has. At first indeed

Mr. Svidrigaïlov treated her very rudely

and used to make disrespectful and jeering

remarks at table…. But I don’t want to go

into all those painful details, so as not to

worry you for nothing when it is now all

over. In short, in spite of the kind and

generous behaviour of Marfa Petrovna, Mr.

Svidrigaïlov’s wife, and all the rest of the

household, Dounia had a very hard time,

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especially when Mr. Svidrigaïlov, relapsing

into his old regimental habits, was under

the influence of Bacchus. And how do you

think it was all explained later on? Would

you believe that the crazy fellow had

conceived a passion for Dounia from the

beginning, but had concealed it under a

show of rudeness and contempt. Possibly

he was ashamed and horrified himself at his

own flighty hopes, considering his years

and his being the father of a family; and

that made him angry with Dounia. And

possibly, too, he hoped by his rude and

sneering behaviour to hide the truth from

others. But at last he lost all control and

had the face to make Dounia an open and

shameful proposal, promising her all sorts of

inducements and offering, besides, to throw

up everything and take her to another

estate of his, or even abroad. You can

imagine all she went through! To leave her

situation at once was impossible not only

on account of the money debt, but also to

spare the feelings of Marfa Petrovna, whose

suspicions would have been aroused: and

then Dounia would have been the cause of

a rupture in the family. And it would have

meant a terrible scandal for Dounia too;

that would have been inevitable. There

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were various other reasons owing to which

Dounia could not hope to escape from that

awful house for another six weeks. You

know Dounia, of course; you know how

clever she is and what a strong will she has.

Dounia can endure a great deal and even in

the most difficult cases she has the fortitude to maintain her firmness. She did not even

write to me about everything for fear of

upsetting me, although we were constantly

in communication. It all ended very

unexpectedly. Marfa Petrovna accidentally

overheard her husband imploring Dounia

in the garden, and, putting quite a wrong

interpretation on the position, threw the

blame upon her, believing her to be the

cause of it all. An awful scene took place

between them on the spot in the garden;

Marfa Petrovna went so far as to strike

Dounia, refused to hear anything and was

shouting at her for a whole hour and then

gave orders that Dounia should be packed

off at once to me in a plain peasant’s cart,

into which they flung all her things, her

linen and her clothes, all pell-mell, without

folding it up and packing it. And a heavy

shower of rain came on, too, and Dounia,

insulted and put to shame, had to drive

with a peasant in an open cart all the

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seventeen versts into town. Only think

now what answer could I have sent to the

letter I received from you two months ago

and what could I have written? I was in

despair; I dared not write to you the truth

because you would have been very

unhappy, mortified and indignant, and yet

what could you do? You could only

perhaps ruin yourself, and, besides, Dounia

would not allow it; and fill up my letter

with trifles when my heart was so full of

sorrow, I could not. For a whole month

the town was full of gossip about this

scandal, and it came to such a pass that

Dounia and I dared not even go to church

on account of the contemptuous looks,

whispers, and even remarks made aloud

about us. All our acquaintances avoided us,

nobody even bowed to us in the street, and

I learnt that some shopmen and clerks were

intending to insult us in a shameful way,

smearing the gates of our house with pitch,

so that the landlord began to tell us we

must leave. All this was set going by Marfa

Petrovna who managed to slander Dounia

and throw dirt at her in every family. She

knows everyone in the neighbourhood,

and that month she was continually coming

into the town, and as she is rather talkative

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and fond of gossiping about her family

affairs and particularly of complaining to all and each of her husband—which is not at

all right —so in a short time she had spread

her story not only in the town, but over

the whole surrounding district. It made me

ill, but Dounia bore it better than I did,

and if only you could have seen how she

endured it all and tried to comfort me and

cheer me up! She is an angel! But by God’s

mercy, our sufferings were cut short: Mr.

Svidrigaïlov returned to his senses and

repented and, probably feeling sorry for

Dounia, he laid before Marfa Petrovna a

complete and unmistakable proof of

Dounia’s innocence, in the form of a letter

Dounia had been forced to write and give

to him, before Marfa Petrovna came upon

them in the garden. This letter, which

remained in Mr. Svidrigaïlov’s hands after

her