Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky [classic children's novels .TXT] 📗

must be, as though it could not possibly be otherwise.⁠ ⁠… Yes, he had known it all, and understood it all; it surely had all been settled even yesterday at the moment when he was bending over the box and pulling the jewel-cases out of it.⁠ ⁠… Yes, so it was.

“It is because I am very ill,” he decided grimly at last, “I have been worrying and fretting myself, and I don’t know what I am doing.⁠ ⁠… Yesterday and the day before yesterday and all this time I have been worrying myself.⁠ ⁠… I shall get well and I shall not worry.⁠ ⁠… But what if I don’t get well at all? Good God, how sick I am of it all!”

He walked on without resting. He had a terrible longing for some distraction, but he did not know what to do, what to attempt. A new overwhelming sensation was gaining more and more mastery over him every moment; this was an immeasurable, almost physical, repulsion for everything surrounding him, an obstinate, malignant feeling of hatred. All who met him were loathsome to him⁠—he loathed their faces, their movements, their gestures. If anyone had addressed him, he felt that he might have spat at him or bitten him.⁠ ⁠…

He stopped suddenly, on coming out on the bank of the Little Neva, near the bridge to Vassilyevsky Ostrov. “Why, he lives here, in that house,” he thought, “why, I have not come to Razumihin of my own accord! Here it’s the same thing over again.⁠ ⁠… Very interesting to know, though; have I come on purpose or have I simply walked here by chance? Never mind, I said the day before yesterday that I would go and see him the day after; well, and so I will! Besides I really cannot go further now.”

He went up to Razumihin’s room on the fifth floor.

The latter was at home in his garret, busily writing at the moment, and he opened the door himself. It was four months since they had seen each other. Razumihin was sitting in a ragged dressing-gown, with slippers on his bare feet, unkempt, unshaven and unwashed. His face showed surprise.

“Is it you?” he cried. He looked his comrade up and down; then after a brief pause, he whistled. “As hard up as all that! Why, brother, you’ve cut me out!” he added, looking at Raskolnikov’s rags. “Come sit down, you are tired, I’ll be bound.”

And when he had sunk down on the American leather sofa, which was in even worse condition than his own, Razumihin saw at once that his visitor was ill.

“Why, you are seriously ill, do you know that?” He began feeling his pulse. Raskolnikov pulled away his hand.

“Never mind,” he said, “I have come for this: I have no lessons.⁠ ⁠… I wanted,⁠ ⁠… but I don’t really want lessons.⁠ ⁠…”

“But I say! You are delirious, you know!” Razumihin observed, watching him carefully.

“No, I am not.”

Raskolnikov got up from the sofa. As he had mounted the stairs to Razumihin’s, he had not realised that he would be meeting his friend face to face. Now, in a flash, he knew, that what he was least of all disposed for at that moment was to be face to face with anyone in the wide world. His spleen rose within him. He almost choked with rage at himself as soon as he crossed Razumihin’s threshold.

“Goodbye,” he said abruptly, and walked to the door.

“Stop, stop! You queer fish.”

“I don’t want to,” said the other, again pulling away his hand.

“Then why the devil have you come? Are you mad, or what? Why, this is⁠ ⁠… almost insulting! I won’t let you go like that.”

“Well, then, I came to you because I know no one but you who could help⁠ ⁠… to begin⁠ ⁠… because you are kinder than anyone⁠—cleverer, I mean, and can judge⁠ ⁠… and now I see that I want nothing. Do you hear? Nothing at all⁠ ⁠… no one’s services⁠ ⁠… no one’s sympathy. I am by myself⁠ ⁠… alone. Come, that’s enough. Leave me alone.”

“Stay a minute, you sweep! You are a perfect madman. As you like for all I care. I have no lessons, do you see, and I don’t care about that, but there’s a bookseller, Heruvimov⁠—and he takes the place of a lesson. I would not exchange him for five lessons. He’s doing publishing of a kind, and issuing natural science manuals and what a circulation they have! The very titles are worth the money! You always maintained that I was a fool, but by Jove, my boy, there are greater fools than I am! Now he is setting up for being advanced, not that he has an inkling of anything, but, of course, I encourage him. Here are two signatures of the German text⁠—in my opinion, the crudest charlatanism; it discusses the question, ‘Is woman a human being?’ And, of course, triumphantly proves that she is. Heruvimov is going to bring out this work as a contribution to the woman question; I am translating it; he will expand these two and a half signatures into six, we shall make up a gorgeous title half a page long and bring it out at half a rouble. It will do! He pays me six roubles the signature, it works out to about fifteen roubles for the job, and I’ve had six already in advance. When we have finished this, we are going to begin a translation about whales, and then some of the dullest scandals out of the second part of Les Confessions we have marked for translation; somebody has told Heruvimov, that Rousseau was a kind of Radishchev. You may be sure I don’t contradict him, hang him! Well, would you like to do the second signature of ‘Is woman a human being?’ If you would, take the German and pens and paper⁠—all those are provided, and take three roubles; for as I have had six roubles in advance on the whole thing, three roubles come to you for your share. And when you have finished the signature