cal Review. ’
‘My article? In the Periodical Review?’ Raskolnikov asked
in astonishment. ‘I certainly did write an article upon a
book six months ago when I left the university, but I sent it
to the Weekly Review. ’
‘But it came out in the Periodical. ’
‘And the Weekly Review ceased to exist, so that’s why it
wasn’t printed at the time.’
‘That’s true; but when it ceased to exist, the Weekly Re-
view was amalgamated with the Periodical and so your
article appeared two months ago in the latter. Didn’t you
know?’
Raskolnikov had not known.
‘Why, you might get some money out of them for the
article! What a strange person you are! You lead such a soli-
tary life that you know nothing of matters that concern you
directly. It’s a fact, I assure you.’
‘Bravo, Rodya! I knew nothing about it either!’ cried Ra-
zumihin. ‘I’ll run to-day to the reading-room and ask for
the number. Two months ago? What was the date? It doesn’t
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matter though, I will find it. Think of not telling us!’
‘How did you find out that the article was mine? It’s only
signed with an initial.’
‘I only learnt it by chance, the other day. Through the edi-
tor; I know him…. I was very much interested.’
‘I analysed, if I remember, the psychology of a criminal
before and after the crime.’
‘Yes, and you maintained that the perpetration of a crime
is always accompanied by illness. Very, very original, but
… it was not that part of your article that interested me so
much, but an idea at the end of the article which I regret
to say you merely suggested without working it out clearly.
There is, if you recollect, a suggestion that there are certain
persons who can … that is, not precisely are able to, but
have a perfect right to commit breaches of morality and
crimes, and that the law is not for them.’
Raskolnikov smiled at the exaggerated and intentional
distortion of his idea.
‘What? What do you mean? A right to crime? But not
because of the influence of environment?’ Razumihin in-
quired with some alarm even.
‘No, not exactly because of it,’ answered Porfiry. ‘In his
article all men are divided into ‘ordinary’ and ‘extraordi-
nary.’ Ordinary men have to live in submission, have no
right to transgress the law, because, don’t you see, they are
ordinary. But extraordinary men have a right to commit
any crime and to transgress the law in any way, just because
they are extraordinary. That was your idea, if I am not mis-
taken?’
Crime and Punishment
‘What do you mean? That can’t be right?’ Razumihin
muttered in bewilderment.
Raskolnikov smiled again. He saw the point at once, and
knew where they wanted to drive him. He decided to take
up the challenge.
‘That wasn’t quite my contention,’ he began simply and
modestly. ‘Yet I admit that you have stated it almost cor-
rectly; perhaps, if you like, perfectly so.’ (It almost gave
him pleasure to admit this.) ‘The only difference is that I
don’t contend that extraordinary people are always bound
to commit breaches of morals, as you call it. In fact, I doubt
whether such an argument could be published. I simply
hinted that an ‘extraordinary’ man has the right … that
is not an official right, but an inner right to decide in his
own conscience to overstep … certain obstacles, and only
in case it is essential for the practical fulfilment of his idea
(sometimes, perhaps, of benefit to the whole of humanity).
You say that my article isn’t definite; I am ready to make it
as clear as I can. Perhaps I am right in thinking you want
me to; very well. I maintain that if the discoveries of Ke-
pler and Newton could not have been made known except
by sacrificing the lives of one, a dozen, a hundred, or more
men, Newton would have had the right, would indeed have
been in duty bound … to eliminate the dozen or the hun-
dred men for the sake of making his discoveries known to
the whole of humanity. But it does not follow from that that
Newton had a right to murder people right and left and to
steal every day in the market. Then, I remember, I main-
tain in my article that all … well, legislators and leaders of
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men, such as Lycurgus, Solon, Mahomet, Napoleon, and
so on, were all without exception criminals, from the very
fact that, making a new law, they transgressed the ancient
one, handed down from their ancestors and held sacred
by the people, and they did not stop short at bloodshed ei-
ther, if that bloodshed—often of innocent persons fighting
bravely in defence of ancient law—were of use to their cause.
It’s remarkable, in fact, that the majority, indeed, of these
benefactors and leaders of humanity were guilty of terrible
carnage. In short, I maintain that all great men or even men
a little out of the common, that is to say capable of giving
some new word, must from their very nature be criminals—
more or less, of course. Otherwise it’s hard for them to get
out of the common rut; and to remain in the common rut is
what they can’t submit to, from their very nature again, and
to my mind they ought not, indeed, to submit to it. You see
that there is nothing particularly new in all that. The same
thing has been printed and read a thousand times before.
As for my division of people into ordinary and extraordi-
nary, I acknowledge that it’s somewhat arbitrary, but I don’t
insist upon exact numbers. I only believe in my leading
idea that men are in general divided by a law of nature into
two categories, inferior (ordinary), that is, so to say, mate-
rial that serves only to reproduce its kind, and men who
have the gift or the talent to utter a new word. There are, of
course, innumerable sub- divisions, but the distinguishing
features of both categories are fairly well marked. The first
category, generally speaking, are men conservative in tem-
perament and law-abiding; they live under control and love
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0
to be controlled. To my thinking it is their duty to be con-
trolled, because that’s their vocation, and there is nothing
humiliating in it for them. The second category all trans-
gress the law; they are destroyers or disposed to destruction
according to their capacities. The crimes of these men are
of course relative and varied; for the most part they seek in
very varied ways the destruction of the present for the sake
of the better. But if such a one is forced for the sake of his
idea to step over a corpse or wade through blood, he can, I
maintain, find within himself, in his conscience, a sanction
for wading through blood—that depends on the idea and
its dimensions, note that. It’s only in that sense I speak of
their right to crime in my article (you remember it began
with the legal question). There’s no need for such anxiety,
however; the masses will scarcely ever admit this right, they
punish them or hang them (more or less), and in doing so
fulfil quite justly their conservative vocation. But the same
masses set these criminals on a pedestal in the next genera-
tion and worship them (more or less). The first category is
always the man of the present, the second the man of the
future. The first preserve the world and people it, the sec-
ond move the world and lead it to its goal. Each class has
an equal right to exist. In fact, all have equal rights with
me—and vive la guerre éternelle—till the New Jerusalem,
of course!’
‘Then you believe in the New Jerusalem, do you?’
‘I do,’ Raskolnikov answered firmly; as he said these
words and during the whole preceding tirade he kept his
eyes on one spot on the carpet.
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‘And … and do you believe in God? Excuse my curios-
ity.’
‘I do,’ repeated Raskolnikov, raising his eyes to Porfiry.
‘And … do you believe in Lazarus’ rising from the dead?’
‘I … I do. Why do you ask all this?’
‘You believe it literally?’
‘Literally.’
‘You don’t say so…. I asked from curiosity. Excuse me.
But let us go back to the question; they are not always ex-
ecuted. Some, on the contrary …’
‘Triumph in their lifetime? Oh, yes, some attain their
ends in this life, and then …’
‘They begin executing other people?’
‘If it’s necessary; indeed, for the most part they do. Your
remark is very witty.’
‘Thank you. But tell me this: how do you distinguish
those extraordinary people from the ordinary ones? Are
there signs at their birth? I feel there ought to be more exac-
titude, more external definition. Excuse the natural anxiety
of a practical law-abiding citizen, but couldn’t they adopt
a special uniform, for instance, couldn’t they wear some-
thing, be branded in some way? For you know if confusion
arises and a member of one category imagines that he be-
longs to the other, begins to ‘eliminate obstacles’ as you so
happily expressed it, then …’
‘Oh, that very often happens! That remark is wittier than
the other.’
‘Thank you.’
‘No reason to; but take note that the mistake can only
Crime and Punishment
arise in the first category, that is among the ordinary people
(as I perhaps unfortunately called them). In spite of their
predisposition to obedience very many of them, through
a playfulness of nature, sometimes vouchsafed even to the
cow, like to imagine themselves advanced people, ‘destroy-
ers,’ and to push themselves into the ‘new movement,’ and
this quite sincerely. Meanwhile the really new people are
very often unobserved by them, or even despised as reac-
tionaries of grovelling tendencies. But I don’t think there
is any considerable danger here, and you really need not
be uneasy for they never go very far. Of course, they might
have a thrashing sometimes for letting their fancy run away
with them and to teach them their place, but no more; in
fact, even this isn’t necessary as they castigate themselves,
for they are very conscientious: some perform this service
for one another and others chastise themselves with their
own hands…. They will impose various public acts of peni-
tence upon themselves with a beautiful and edifying effect;
in fact you’ve nothing to be uneasy about…. It’s a law of
nature.’
‘Well, you have certainly set my mind more at rest on
that score; but there’s another thing worries me. Tell me,
please, are there many people who have the right to kill oth-
ers, these extraordinary people? I am ready to bow down to
them, of course, but you must admit it’s alarming if there
are a great many of them, eh?’
‘Oh, you needn’t worry about that either,’ Raskolnikov
went on in the same tone. ‘People with new ideas, people
with the faintest capacity for saying something new are
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extremely few in number, extraordinarily so in fact. One
thing only is clear, that the appearance of all these grades
and sub-divisions of men must follow with unfailing regu-
larity some law of nature. That law, of course, is unknown
at present, but I am convinced that it exists, and one day
may become known. The vast mass of mankind is mere
material, and only exists in order by some great effort, by
some mysterious process, by means of some crossing of rac-
es and stocks, to bring into the world at last perhaps one
man out of a thousand with a spark of independence. One
in ten thousand perhaps—I speak roughly, approximate-
ly—is born with some independence, and with still greater
independence one in a hundred thousand. The man of ge-
nius is one of millions, and the great geniuses, the crown of
humanity, appear on earth perhaps one in many thousand
millions. In fact I have not peeped into the retort in which
all this takes place. But there certainly is and must be a defi-
nite law, it cannot be a matter of chance.’
‘Why, are you both joking?’ Razumihin cried at last.
‘There you sit, making fun of one another. Are you serious,
Rodya?’
Raskolnikov raised his pale and almost mournful face
and made no reply. And the unconcealed, persistent, ner-
vous, and discourteous sarcasm of Porfiry seemed strange
to Razumihin beside that quiet and mournful face.
‘Well, brother, if you are really serious … You are right,
of course, in saying that it’s not new, that it’s like what we’ve
read and heard a thousand times already; but what is re-
ally original in all this, and is exclusively your own, to my
Crime and Punishment
horror, is that you sanction bloodshed in the name of con-
science and, excuse my saying so, with such fanaticism….
That, I take it, is the point of your article. But that sanction
of bloodshed by conscience is to my mind … more terrible
than the official, legal sanction of bloodshed….’
‘You are quite right, it is more terrible,’ Porfiry agreed.
‘Yes, you must have exaggerated! There is some mistake, I
shall read it. You can’t think that! I shall read it.’
‘All that is not in the article, there’s only a hint of it,’ said
Raskolnikov.
‘Yes, yes.’ Porfiry couldn’t sit still. ‘Your attitude to crime
is pretty clear to me now, but … excuse me for my imper-
tinence (I am really ashamed to be worrying you like this),
you see, you’ve removed my anxiety as to the two grades
getting mixed, but … there are various practical possi-
bilities that make me uneasy! What if some man or youth
imagines that he is a Lycurgus or Mahomet—a future one
of course—and suppose he begins to remove all obstacles….
He has some great enterprise before him and needs money
for it … and tries to get it … do you see?’
Zametov gave a sudden guffaw in his corner. Raskol-
nikov did not even raise his eyes to him.
‘I must admit,’ he went on calmly, ‘that such cases cer-
tainly must arise. The vain and foolish are particularly apt
to fall into that snare; young people especially.’
‘Yes, you see. Well then?’
‘What then?’ Raskolnikov smiled in reply; ‘that’s not my
fault. So it is and so it always will be. He said just now (he
nodded at Razumihin) that I sanction bloodshed. Society is
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too well protected by prisons, banishment, criminal inves-
tigators, penal servitude. There’s no need to be uneasy. You
have but to catch the thief.’
‘And what if we do catch him?’
‘Then he gets what he deserves.’
‘You are certainly logical. But what of his conscience?’
‘Why do you care about that?’
‘Simply from humanity.’
‘If he has a conscience he will suffer for his mistake. That
will be his punishment—as well as the prison.’
‘But the real geniuses,’ asked Razumihin frowning, ‘those
who have the right to murder? Oughtn’t they to suffer at all
even for the blood they’ve shed?’
‘Why the word ought? It’s not a matter of permission or
prohibition. He will suffer if he is sorry for his victim. Pain
and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence
and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have
great sadness on earth,’ he added dreamily, not in the tone
of the conversation.
He raised his eyes, looked earnestly at them all, smiled,
and took his cap. He was too quiet by comparison with his
manner at his entrance, and he felt this. Everyone got up.
‘Well, you may abuse me, be angry with me if you like,’
Porfiry Petrovitch began again, ‘but I can’t resist. Allow me
one little question (I know I am troubling you). There is just
one little notion I want to express, simply that I may not
forget it.’
‘Very good, tell me your little notion,’ Raskolnikov stood
waiting, pale and grave before him.
Crime and Punishment
‘Well, you see … I really don’t know how to express it
properly…. It’s a playful, psychological idea…. When you
were writing your article, surely you couldn’t have helped,
he-he! fancying yourself … just a little, an ‘extraordinary’
man, uttering a new word in your sense…. That’s so, isn’t
it?’
‘Quite possibly,’ Raskolnikov answered contemptuously.
Razumihin made a movement.
‘And, if so, could you bring yourself in case of worldly
difficulties and hardship or for some service to humanity—
to overstep obstacles? … For instance, to rob and murder?’
And again he winked with his left eye, and laughed noise-
lessly just as before.
‘If I did I certainly should not tell you,’ Raskolnikov an-
swered with defiant and haughty contempt.
‘No, I was only interested on account of your article, from
a literary point of view …’
‘Foo! how obvious and insolent that is!’ Raskolnikov
thought with repulsion.
‘Allow me to observe,’ he answered dryly, ‘that I don’t
consider myself a Mahomet or a Napoleon, nor any person-
age of that kind, and not being one of them I cannot tell you
how I should act.’
‘Oh, come, don’t we all think ourselves Napoleons now in
Russia?’ Porfiry Petrovitch said with alarming familiarity.
Something peculiar betrayed itself in the very intonation
of his voice.
‘Perhaps it was one of these future Napoleons who did
for Alyona Ivanovna last week?’ Zametov blurted out from
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the corner.
Raskolnikov did not speak, but looked firmly and intent-
ly at Porfiry. Razumihin was scowling gloomily. He seemed
before this to be noticing something. He looked angrily
around. There was a minute of gloomy silence. Raskolnikov
turned to go.
‘Are you going already?’ Porfiry said amiably, holding
out his hand with excessive politeness. ‘Very, very glad of
your acquaintance. As for your request, have no uneasiness,
write just as I told you, or, better still, come to me there
yourself in a day or two … to-morrow, indeed. I shall be
there at eleven o’clock for certain. We’ll arrange it all; we’ll
have a talk. As one of the last to be there you might perhaps
be able to tell us something,’ he added with a most good-na-
tured expression.
‘You want to cross-examine me officially in due form?’
Raskolnikov asked sharply.
‘Oh, why? That’s not necessary for the present. You mis-
understand me. I lose no opportunity, you see, and … I’ve
talked with all who had pledges…. I obtained evidence
from some of them, and you are the last…. Yes, by the way,’
he cried, seemingly suddenly delighted, ‘I just remember,
what was I thinking of?’ he turned to Razumihin, ‘you were
talking my ears off about that Nikolay … of course, I know,
I know very well,’ he turned to Raskolnikov, ‘that the fellow
is innocent, but what is one to do? We had to trouble Dmi-
tri too…. This is the point, this is all: when you went up the
stairs it was past seven, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ answered Raskolnikov, with an unpleasant sensa-
Crime and Punishment
tion at the very moment he spoke that he need not have said
it.
‘Then when you went upstairs between seven and eight,
didn’t you see in a flat that stood open on a second storey,
do you remember? two workmen or at least one of them?
They were painting there, didn’t you notice them? It’s very,
very important for them.’
‘Painters? No, I didn’t see them,’ Raskolnikov answered
slowly, as though ransacking his memory, while at the same
instant he was racking every nerve, almost swooning with
anxiety to conjecture as quickly as possible where the trap
lay and not to overlook anything. ‘No, I didn’t see them, and
I don’t think I noticed a flat like that open…. But on the
fourth storey’ (he had mastered the trap now and was tri-
umphant) ‘I remember now that someone was moving out
of the flat opposite Alyona Ivanovna’s…. I remember … I
remember it clearly. Some porters were carrying out a sofa
and they squeezed me against the wall. But painters … no,
I don’t remember that there were any painters, and I don’t
think that there was a flat open anywhere, no, there wasn’t.’
‘What do you mean?’ Razumihin shouted suddenly, as
though he had reflected and realised. ‘Why, it was on the
day of the murder the painters were at work, and he was
there three days before? What are you asking?’
‘Foo! I have muddled it!’ Porfiry slapped himself on the
forehead. ‘Deuce take it! This business is turning my brain!’
he addressed Raskolnikov somewhat apologetically. ‘It
would be such a great thing for us to find out whether any-
one had seen them between seven and eight at the flat, so I
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fancied you could perhaps have told us something…. I quite
muddled it.’
‘Then you should be more careful,’ Razumihin observed
grimly.
The last words were uttered in the passage. Porfiry Petro-
vitch saw them to the door with excessive politeness.
They went out into the street gloomy and sullen, and for
some steps they did not say a word. Raskolnikov drew a
deep breath.
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0
Chapter VI
‘I
don’t believe it, I can’t believe it!’ repeated Razumihin,
trying in perplexity to refute Raskolnikov’s arguments.
They were by now approaching Bakaleyev’s lodgings,
where Pulcheria Alexandrovna and Dounia had been ex-
pecting them a long while. Razumihin kept stopping on the
way in the heat of discussion, confused and excited by the
very fact that they were for the first time speaking openly
about it.
‘Don’t believe it, then!’ answered Raskolnikov, with a
cold, careless smile. ‘You were noticing nothing as usual,
but I was weighing every word.’
‘You are suspicious. That is why you weighed their words
… h’m … certainly, I agree, Porfiry’s tone was rather strange,
and still more that wretch Zametov! … You are right, there
was something about him—but why? Why?’
‘He has changed his mind since last night.’
‘Quite the contrary! If they had that brainless idea, they
would do their utmost to hide it, and conceal their cards, so
as to catch you afterwards…. But it was all impudent and
careless.’
‘If they had had facts—I mean, real facts—or at least
grounds for suspicion, then they would certainly have tried
to hide their game, in the hope of getting more (they would
have made a search long ago besides). But they have no facts,
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not one. It is all mirage—all ambiguous. Simply a floating
idea. So they try to throw me out by impudence. And per-
haps, he was irritated at having no facts, and blurted it out
in his vexation—or perhaps he has some plan … he seems
an intelligent man. Perhaps he wanted to frighten me by
pretending to know. They have a psychology of their own,
brother. But it is loathsome explaining it all. Stop!’
‘And it’s insulting, insulting! I understand you. But …
since we have spoken openly now (and it is an excellent
thing that we have at last—I am glad) I will own now frank-
ly that I noticed it in them long ago, this idea. Of course
the merest hint only—an insinuation—but why an insinu-
ation even? How dare they? What foundation have they? If
only you knew how furious I have been. Think only! Simply
because a poor student, unhinged by poverty and hypo-
chondria, on the eve of a severe delirious illness (note that),
suspicious, vain, proud, who has not seen a soul to speak to
for six months, in rags and in boots without soles, has to
face some wretched policemen and put up with their inso-
lence; and the unexpected debt thrust under his nose, the
I.O.U. presented by Tchebarov, the new paint, thirty de-
grees Reaumur and a stifling atmosphere, a crowd of people,
the talk about the murder of a person where he had been
just before, and all that on an empty stomach—he might
well have a fainting fit! And that, that is what they found it
all on! Damn them! I understand how annoying it is, but in
your place, Rodya, I would laugh at them, or better still, spit
in their ugly faces, and spit a dozen times in all directions.
I’d hit out in all directions, neatly too, and so I’d put an end
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to it. Damn them! Don’t be downhearted. It’s a shame!’
‘He really has put it well, though,’ Raskolnikov thought.
‘Damn them? But the cross-examination again, to-mor-
row?’ he said with bitterness. ‘Must I really enter into
explanations with them? I feel vexed as it is, that I conde-
scended to speak to Zametov yesterday in the restaurant….’
‘Damn it! I will go myself to Porfiry. I will squeeze it out
of him, as one of the family: he must let me know the ins
and outs of it all! And as for Zametov …’
‘At last he sees through him!’ thought Raskolnikov.
‘Stay!’ cried Razumihin, seizing him by the shoulder
again. ‘Stay! you were wrong. I have thought it out. You
are wrong! How was that a trap? You say that the question
about the workmen was a trap. But if you had done that
could you have said you had seen them painting the flat …
and the workmen? On the contrary, you would have seen
nothing, even if you had seen it. Who would own it against
himself?’
‘If I had done that thing I should certainly have said that I
had seen the workmen and the flat,’ Raskolnikov answered,
with reluctance and obvious disgust.
‘But why speak against yourself?’
‘Because only peasants, or the most inexperienced novic-
es deny everything flatly at examinations. If a man is ever so
little developed and experienced, he will certainly try to ad-
mit all the external facts that can’t be avoided, but will seek
other explanations of them, will introduce some special,
unexpected turn, that will give them another significance
and put them in another light. Porfiry might well reckon
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that I should be sure to answer so, and say I had seen them
to give an air of truth, and then make some explanation.’
‘But he would have told you at once that the workmen
could not have been there two days before, and that there-
fore you must have been there on the day of the murder at
eight o’clock. And so he would have caught you over a de-
tail.’
‘Yes, that is what he was reckoning on, that I should not
have time to reflect, and should be in a hurry to make the
most likely answer, and so would forget that the workmen
could not have been there two days before.’
‘But how could you forget it?’
‘Nothing easier. It is in just such stupid things clever peo-
ple are most easily caught. The more cunning a man is, the
less he suspects that he will be caught in a simple thing. The
more cunning a man is, the simpler the trap he must be
caught in. Porfiry is not such a fool as you think….’
‘He is a knave then, if that is so!’
Raskolnikov could not help laughing. But at the very mo-
ment, he was struck by the strangeness of his own frankness,
and the eagerness with which he had made this explanation,
though he had kept up all the preceding conversation with
gloomy repulsion, obviously with a motive, from necessity.
‘I am getting a relish for certain aspects!’ he thought to
himself. But almost at the same instant he became suddenly
uneasy, as though an unexpected and alarming idea had oc-
curred to him. His uneasiness kept on increasing. They had
just reached the entrance to Bakaleyev’s.
‘Go in alone!’ said Raskolnikov suddenly. ‘I will be back
Crime and Punishment
directly.’
‘Where are you going? Why, we are just here.’
‘I can’t help it…. I will come in half an hour. Tell them.’
‘Say what you like, I will come with you.’
‘You, too, want to torture me!’ he screamed, with such
bitter irritation, such despair in his eyes that Razumi-
hin’s hands dropped. He stood for some time on the steps,
looking gloomily at Raskolnikov striding rapidly away in
the direction of his lodging. At last, gritting his teeth and
clenching his fist, he swore he would squeeze Porfiry like
a lemon that very day, and went up the stairs to reassure
Pulcheria Alexandrovna, who was by now alarmed at their
long absence.
When Raskolnikov got home, his hair was soaked with
sweat and he was breathing heavily. He went rapidly up the
stairs, walked into his unlocked room and at once fastened
the latch. Then in senseless terror he rushed to the corner,
to that hole under the paper where he had put the things;
put his hand in, and for some minutes felt carefully in the
hole, in every crack and fold of the paper. Finding nothing,
he got up and drew a deep breath. As he was reaching the
steps of Bakaleyev’s, he suddenly fancied that something, a
chain, a stud or even a bit of paper in which they had been
wrapped with the old woman’s handwriting on it, might
somehow have slipped out and been lost in some crack, and
then might suddenly turn up as unexpected, conclusive evi-
dence against him.
He stood as though lost in thought, and a strange, hu-
miliated, half senseless smile strayed on his lips. He took his
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cap at last and went quietly out of the room. His ideas were
all tangled. He went dreamily through the gateway.
‘Here he is himself,’ shouted a loud voice.
He raised his head.
The porter was standing at the door of his little room
and was pointing him out to a short man who looked like
an artisan, wearing a long coat and a waistcoat, and look-
ing at a distance remarkably like a woman. He stooped, and
his head in a greasy cap hung forward. From his wrinkled
flabby face he looked over fifty; his little eyes were lost in fat
and they looked out grimly, sternly and discontentedly.
‘What is it?’ Raskolnikov asked, going up to the porter.
The man stole a look at him from under his brows and
he looked at him attentively, deliberately; then he turned
slowly and went out of the gate into the street without say-
ing a word.
‘What is it?’ cried Raskolnikov.
‘Why, he there was asking whether a student lived here,
mentioned your name and whom you lodged with. I saw
you coming and pointed you out and he went away. It’s fun-
ny.’
The porter too seemed rather puzzled, but not much so,
and after wondering for a moment he turned and went back
to his room.
Raskolnikov ran after the stranger, and at once caught
sight of him walking along the other side of the street with
the same even, deliberate step with his eyes fixed on the
ground, as though in meditation. He soon overtook him,
but for some time walked behind him. At last, moving on
Crime and Punishment
to a level with him, he looked at his face. The man noticed
him at once, looked at him quickly, but dropped his eyes
again; and so they walked for a minute side by side without
uttering a word.
‘You were inquiring for me … of the porter?’ Raskolnikov
said at last, but in a curiously quiet voice.
The man made no answer; he didn’t even look at him.
Again they were both silent.
‘Why do you … come and ask for me … and say noth-
ing…. What’s the meaning of it?’
Raskolnikov’s voice broke and he seemed unable to ar-
ticulate the words clearly.
The man raised his eyes this time and turned a gloomy
sinister look at Raskolnikov.
‘Murderer!’ he said suddenly in a quiet but clear and dis-
tinct voice.
Raskolnikov went on walking beside him. His legs felt
suddenly weak, a cold shiver ran down his spine, and his
heart seemed to stand still for a moment, then suddenly be-
gan throbbing as though it were set free. So they walked for
about a hundred paces, side by side in silence.
The man did not look at him.
‘What do you mean … what is…. Who is a murderer?’
muttered Raskolnikov hardly audibly.
‘You are a murderer,’ the man answered still more articu-
lately and emphatically, with a smile of triumphant hatred,
and again he looked straight into Raskolnikov’s pale face
and stricken eyes.
They had just reached the cross-roads. The man turned
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to the left without looking behind him. Raskolnikov re-
mained standing, gazing after him. He saw him turn round
fifty paces away and look back at him still standing there.
Raskolnikov could not see clearly, but he fancied that he
was again smiling the same smile of cold hatred and tri-
umph.
With slow faltering steps, with shaking knees, Raskol-
nikov made his way back to his little garret, feeling chilled
all over. He took off his cap and put it on the table, and
for ten minutes he stood without moving. Then he sank
exhausted on the sofa and with a weak moan of pain he
stretched himself on it. So he lay for half an hour.
He thought of nothing. Some thoughts or fragments of
thoughts, some images without order or coherence floated
before his mind—faces of people he had seen in his child-
hood or met somewhere once, whom he would never have
recalled, the belfry of the church at V., the billiard table in
a restaurant and some officers playing billiards, the smell of
cigars in some underground tobacco shop, a tavern room,
a back staircase quite dark, all sloppy with dirty water and
strewn with egg-shells, and the Sunday bells floating in from
somewhere…. The images followed one another, whirling
like a hurricane. Some of them he liked and tried to clutch
at, but they faded and all the while there was an oppression
within him, but it was not overwhelming, sometimes it was
even pleasant…. The slight shivering still persisted, but that
too was an almost pleasant sensation.
He heard the hurried footsteps of Razumihin; he closed
his eyes and pretended to be asleep. Razumihin opened the
Crime and Punishment
door and stood for some time in the doorway as though
hesitating, then he stepped softly into the room and went
cautiously to the sofa. Raskolnikov heard Nastasya’s whis-
per:
‘Don’t disturb him! Let him sleep. He can have his din-
ner later.’
‘Quite so,’ answered Razumihin. Both withdrew carefully
and closed the door. Another half-hour passed. Raskol-
nikov opened his eyes, turned on his back again, clasping
his hands behind his head.
‘Who is he? Who is that man who sprang out of the earth?
Where was he, what did he see? He has seen it all, that’s clear.
Where was he then? And from where did he see? Why has
he only now sprung out of the earth? And how could he see?
Is it possible? Hm …’ continued Raskolnikov, turning cold
and shivering, ‘and the jewel case Nikolay found behind the
door—was that possible? A clue? You miss an infinitesimal
line and you can build it into a pyramid of evidence! A fly
flew by and saw it! Is it possible?’ He felt with sudden loath-
ing how weak, how physically weak he had become. ‘I ought
to have known it,’ he thought with a bitter smile. ‘And how
dared I, knowing myself, knowing how I should be, take
up an axe and shed blood! I ought to have known before-
hand…. Ah, but I did know!’ he whispered in despair. At
times he came to a standstill at some thought.
‘No, those men are not made so. The real Master to whom
all is permitted storms Toulon, makes a massacre in Paris,
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