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

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 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 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 skinflint 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 hour later I’ll bring Zossimov, you’ll see! Goodbye, 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 serious illness⁠—that’s the reason.”

“Ah, that illness! What will happen, what will happen? And how he talked to you, Dounia!” said the mother, looking timidly at her daughter, trying to read her thoughts and, already half consoled by Dounia’s standing up for her brother, which meant that she had already forgiven him. “I am sure he will think better of it tomorrow,” she added, probing her further.

“And I am sure that he will say the same tomorrow⁠ ⁠… about that,” Avdotya Romanovna said finally. And, of course, there was no going beyond that, for this was a point which Pulcheria Alexandrovna was afraid to discuss. Dounia went up and kissed her mother. The latter warmly embraced her without speaking. Then she sat down to wait anxiously for Razumihin’s return, timidly watching her daughter who walked up and down the room with her arms folded, lost in thought. This walking up and down when she was thinking was a habit of Avdotya Romanovna’s and the mother was always afraid to break in on her daughter’s mood at such moments.

Razumihin, of course, was ridiculous in his sudden drunken infatuation for Avdotya Romanovna. Yet apart from his eccentric condition, many people would have thought it justified if they had seen Avdotya Romanovna, especially at that moment when she was walking to and fro with folded arms, pensive and melancholy. Avdotya Romanovna was remarkably good-looking; she was tall, strikingly well-proportioned, strong and self-reliant⁠—the latter quality was apparent in every gesture, though it did not in the least detract from the grace and softness of her movements. In face she resembled her brother, but she might be described as really beautiful. Her hair was dark brown, a little lighter than her brother’s; there was a proud light in her almost black eyes and yet at times a look of extraordinary kindness. She was pale, but it was a healthy pallor; her face was radiant with freshness and vigour. Her mouth was rather small; the full red lower lip projected a little as did her chin; it was the only irregularity in her beautiful face, but it gave it a