good-bye to her, and even to tell her, but he had not dared
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even to touch her hand.
‘Afterwards she may shudder when she remembers that I
embraced her, and will feel that I stole her kiss.’
‘And would she stand that test?’ he went on a few minutes
later to himself. ‘No, she wouldn’t; girls like that can’t stand
things! They never do.’
And he thought of Sonia.
There was a breath of fresh air from the window. The
daylight was fading. He took up his cap and went out.
He could not, of course, and would not consider how ill
he was. But all this continual anxiety and agony of mind
could not but affect him. And if he were not lying in high
fever it was perhaps just because this continual inner strain
helped to keep him on his legs and in possession of his fac-
ulties. But this artificial excitement could not last long.
He wandered aimlessly. The sun was setting. A special
form of misery had begun to oppress him of late. There was
nothing poignant, nothing acute about it; but there was a
feeling of permanence, of eternity about it; it brought a fore-
taste of hopeless years of this cold leaden misery, a foretaste
of an eternity ‘on a square yard of space.’ Towards evening
this sensation usually began to weigh on him more heavily.
‘With this idiotic, purely physical weakness, depending
on the sunset or something, one can’t help doing something
stupid! You’ll go to Dounia, as well as to Sonia,’ he muttered
bitterly.
He heard his name called. He looked round. Lebeziat-
nikov rushed up to him.
‘Only fancy, I’ve been to your room looking for you. Only
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fancy, she’s carried out her plan, and taken away the chil-
dren. Sofya Semyonovna and I have had a job to find them.
She is rapping on a frying-pan and making the children
dance. The children are crying. They keep stopping at the
cross-roads and in front of shops; there’s a crowd of fools
running after them. Come along!’
‘And Sonia?’ Raskolnikov asked anxiously, hurrying after
Lebeziatnikov.
‘Simply frantic. That is, it’s not Sofya Semyonovna’s
frantic, but Katerina Ivanovna, though Sofya Semyonova’s
frantic too. But Katerina Ivanovna is absolutely frantic. I tell
you she is quite mad. They’ll be taken to the police. You can
fancy what an effect that will have…. They are on the canal
bank, near the bridge now, not far from Sofya Semyonov-
na’s, quite close.’
On the canal bank near the bridge and not two houses
away from the one where Sonia lodged, there was a crowd of
people, consisting principally of gutter children. The hoarse
broken voice of Katerina Ivanovna could be heard from the
bridge, and it certainly was a strange spectacle likely to at-
tract a street crowd. Katerina Ivanovna in her old dress with
the green shawl, wearing a torn straw hat, crushed in a hid-
eous way on one side, was really frantic. She was exhausted
and breathless. Her wasted consumptive face looked more
suffering than ever, and indeed out of doors in the sunshine
a consumptive always looks worse than at home. But her ex-
citement did not flag, and every moment her irritation grew
more intense. She rushed at the children, shouted at them,
coaxed them, told them before the crowd how to dance and
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00
what to sing, began explaining to them why it was neces-
sary, and driven to desperation by their not understanding,
beat them…. Then she would make a rush at the crowd; if
she noticed any decently dressed person stopping to look,
she immediately appealed to him to see what these children
‘from a genteel, one may say aristocratic, house’ had been
brought to. If she heard laughter or jeering in the crowd,
she would rush at once at the scoffers and begin squabbling
with them. Some people laughed, others shook their heads,
but everyone felt curious at the sight of the madwoman
with the frightened children. The frying-pan of which Le-
beziatnikov had spoken was not there, at least Raskolnikov
did not see it. But instead of rapping on the pan, Katerina
Ivanovna began clapping her wasted hands, when she made
Lida and Kolya dance and Polenka sing. She too joined in
the singing, but broke down at the second note with a fear-
ful cough, which made her curse in despair and even shed
tears. What made her most furious was the weeping and ter-
ror of Kolya and Lida. Some effort had been made to dress
the children up as street singers are dressed. The boy had
on a turban made of something red and white to look like a
Turk. There had been no costume for Lida; she simply had a
red knitted cap, or rather a night cap that had belonged to
Marmeladov, decorated with a broken piece of white ostrich
feather, which had been Katerina Ivanovna’s grandmother’s
and had been preserved as a family possession. Polenka was
in her everyday dress; she looked in timid perplexity at her
mother, and kept at her side, hiding her tears. She dimly
realised her mother’s condition, and looked uneasily about
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her. She was terribly frightened of the street and the crowd.
Sonia followed Katerina Ivanovna, weeping and beseech-
ing her to return home, but Katerina Ivanovna was not to
be persuaded.
‘Leave off, Sonia, leave off,’ she shouted, speaking fast,
panting and coughing. ‘You don’t know what you ask; you
are like a child! I’ve told you before that I am not coming
back to that drunken German. Let everyone, let all Pe-
tersburg see the children begging in the streets, though
their father was an honourable man who served all his life
in truth and fidelity, and one may say died in the service.’
(Katerina Ivanovna had by now invented this fantastic story
and thoroughly believed it.) ‘Let that wretch of a general see
it! And you are silly, Sonia: what have we to eat? Tell me that.
We have worried you enough, I won’t go on so! Ah, Rodi-
on Romanovitch, is that you?’ she cried, seeing Raskolnikov
and rushing up to him. ‘Explain to this silly girl, please, that
nothing better could be done! Even organ-grinders earn
their living, and everyone will see at once that we are differ-
ent, that we are an honourable and bereaved family reduced
to beggary. And that general will lose his post, you’ll see!
We shall perform under his windows every day, and if the
Tsar drives by, I’ll fall on my knees, put the children before
me, show them to him, and say ‘Defend us father.’ He is
the father of the fatherless, he is merciful, he’ll protect us,
you’ll see, and that wretch of a general…. Lida, tenez vous
droite! Kolya, you’ll dance again. Why are you whimpering?
Whimpering again! What are you afraid of, stupid? Good-
ness, what am I to do with them, Rodion Romanovitch? If
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0
you only knew how stupid they are! What’s one to do with
such children?’
And she, almost crying herself—which did not stop her
uninterrupted, rapid flow of talk—pointed to the crying
children. Raskolnikov tried to persuade her to go home,
and even said, hoping to work on her vanity, that it was
unseemly for her to be wandering about the streets like an
organ-grinder, as she was intending to become the princi-
pal of a boarding-school.
‘A boarding-school, ha-ha-ha! A castle in the air,’ cried
Katerina Ivanovna, her laugh ending in a cough. ‘No, Ro-
dion Romanovitch, that dream is over! All have forsaken
us! … And that general…. You know, Rodion Romanovitch,
I threw an inkpot at him—it happened to be standing in
the waiting-room by the paper where you sign your name.
I wrote my name, threw it at him and ran away. Oh, the
scoundrels, the scoundrels! But enough of them, now I’ll
provide for the children myself, I won’t bow down to any-
body! She has had to bear enough for us!’ she pointed to
Sonia. ‘Polenka, how much have you got? Show me! What,
only two farthings! Oh, the mean wretches! They give us
nothing, only run after us, putting their tongues out. There,
what is that blockhead laughing at?’ (She pointed to a man
in the crowd.) ‘It’s all because Kolya here is so stupid; I have
such a bother with him. What do you want, Polenka? Tell
me in French, parlez-moi français. Why, I’ve taught you,
you know some phrases. Else how are you to show that you
are of good family, well brought-up children, and not at all
like other organ-grinders? We aren’t going to have a Punch
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and Judy show in the street, but to sing a genteel song…. Ah,
yes, … What are we to sing? You keep putting me out, but
we … you see, we are standing here, Rodion Romanovitch,
to find something to sing and get money, something Kolya
can dance to…. For, as you can fancy, our performance is
all impromptu…. We must talk it over and rehearse it all
thoroughly, and then we shall go to Nevsky, where there are
far more people of good society, and we shall be noticed at
once. Lida knows ‘My Village’ only, nothing but ‘My Village,’
and everyone sings that. We must sing something far more
genteel…. Well, have you thought of anything, Polenka? If
only you’d help your mother! My memory’s quite gone, or I
should have thought of something. We really can’t sing ‘An
Hussar.’ Ah, let us sing in French, ‘Cinq sous,’ I have taught
it you, I have taught it you. And as it is in French, people
will see at once that you are children of good family, and
that will be much more touching…. You might sing ‘Marl-
borough s’en va-t-en guerre,’ for that’s quite a child’s song
and is sung as a lullaby in all the aristocratic houses.
‘Marlborough s’en va-t-en guerre Ne sait quand reviendra
…’
she began singing. ‘But no, better sing ‘Cinq sous.’ Now,
Kolya, your hands on your hips, make haste, and you, Lida,
keep turning the other way, and Polenka and I will sing and
clap our hands!
‘Cinq sous, cinq sous Pour monter notre menage.’
(Cough-cough-cough!) ‘Set your dress straight, Polenka,
it’s slipped down on your shoulders,’ she observed, panting
from coughing. ‘Now it’s particularly necessary to behave
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0
nicely and genteelly, that all may see that you are well-born
children. I said at the time that the bodice should be cut
longer, and made of two widths. It was your fault, Sonia,
with your advice to make it shorter, and now you see the
child is quite deformed by it…. Why, you’re all crying again!
What’s the matter, stupids? Come, Kolya, begin. Make haste,
make haste! Oh, what an unbearable child!
‘Cinq sous, cinq sous.
‘A policeman again! What do you want?’
A policeman was indeed forcing his way through the
crowd. But at that moment a gentleman in civilian uniform
and an overcoat—a solid- looking official of about fifty with
a decoration on his neck (which delighted Katerina Ivanov-
na and had its effect on the policeman)— approached and
without a word handed her a green three-rouble note. His
face wore a look of genuine sympathy. Katerina Ivanovna
took it and gave him a polite, even ceremonious, bow.
‘I thank you, honoured sir,’ she began loftily. ‘The causes
that have induced us (take the money, Polenka: you see there
are generous and honourable people who are ready to help a
poor gentlewoman in distress). You see, honoured sir, these
orphans of good family—I might even say of aristocratic
connections—and that wretch of a general sat eating grouse
… and stamped at my disturbing him. ‘Your excellency,’ I
said, ‘protect the orphans, for you knew my late husband,
Semyon Zaharovitch, and on the very day of his death the
basest of scoundrels slandered his only daughter.’ … That
policeman again! Protect me,’ she cried to the official. ‘Why
is that policeman edging up to me? We have only just run
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away from one of them. What do you want, fool?’
‘It’s forbidden in the streets. You mustn’t make a distur-
bance.’
‘It’s you’re making a disturbance. It’s just the same as if I
were grinding an organ. What business is it of yours?’
‘You have to get a licence for an organ, and you haven’t
got one, and in that way you collect a crowd. Where do you
lodge?’
‘What, a license?’ wailed Katerina Ivanovna. ‘I buried my
husband to-day. What need of a license?’
‘Calm yourself, madam, calm yourself,’ began the official.
‘Come along; I will escort you…. This is no place for you in
the crowd. You are ill.’
‘Honoured sir, honoured sir, you don’t know,’ screamed
Katerina Ivanovna. ‘We are going to the Nevsky…. Sonia,
Sonia! Where is she? She is crying too! What’s the matter
with you all? Kolya, Lida, where are you going?’ she cried
suddenly in alarm. ‘Oh, silly children! Kolya, Lida, where
are they off to? …’
Kolya and Lida, scared out of their wits by the crowd,
and their mother’s mad pranks, suddenly seized each oth-
er by the hand, and ran off at the sight of the policeman
who wanted to take them away somewhere. Weeping and
wailing, poor Katerina Ivanovna ran after them. She was
a piteous and unseemly spectacle, as she ran, weeping and
panting for breath. Sonia and Polenka rushed after them.
‘Bring them back, bring them back, Sonia! Oh stupid,
ungrateful children! … Polenka! catch them…. It’s for your
sakes I …’
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She stumbled as she ran and fell down.
‘She’s cut herself, she’s bleeding! Oh, dear!’ cried Sonia,
bending over her.
All ran up and crowded around. Raskolnikov and Leb-
eziatnikov were the first at her side, the official too hastened
up, and behind him the policeman who muttered, ‘Bother!’
with a gesture of impatience, feeling that the job was going
to be a troublesome one.
‘Pass on! Pass on!’ he said to the crowd that pressed for-
ward.
‘She’s dying,’ someone shouted.
‘She’s gone out of her mind,’ said another.
‘Lord have mercy upon us,’ said a woman, crossing her-
self. ‘Have they caught the little girl and the boy? They’re
being brought back, the elder one’s got them…. Ah, the
naughty imps!’
When they examined Katerina Ivanovna carefully, they
saw that she had not cut herself against a stone, as Sonia
thought, but that the blood that stained the pavement red
was from her chest.
‘I’ve seen that before,’ muttered the official to Raskol-
nikov and Lebeziatnikov; ‘that’s consumption; the blood
flows and chokes the patient. I saw the same thing with a
relative of my own not long ago … nearly a pint of blood, all
in a minute…. What’s to be done though? She is dying.’
‘This way, this way, to my room!’ Sonia implored. ‘I live
here! … See, that house, the second from here…. Come to
me, make haste,’ she turned from one to the other. ‘Send for
the doctor! Oh, dear!’
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Thanks to the official’s efforts, this plan was adopted, the
policeman even helping to carry Katerina Ivanovna. She
was carried to Sonia’s room, almost unconscious, and laid
on the bed. The blood was still flowing, but she seemed to
be coming to herself. Raskolnikov, Lebeziatnikov, and the
official accompanied Sonia into the room and were followed
by the policeman, who first drove back the crowd which fol-
lowed to the very door. Polenka came in holding Kolya and
Lida, who were trembling and weeping. Several persons
came in too from the Kapernaumovs’ room; the landlord,
a lame one-eyed man of strange appearance with whis-
kers and hair that stood up like a brush, his wife, a woman
with an everlastingly scared expression, and several open-
mouthed children with wonder-struck faces. Among these,
Svidrigaïlov suddenly made his appearance. Raskolnikov
looked at him with surprise, not understanding where he
had come from and not having noticed him in the crowd.
A doctor and priest wore spoken of. The official whispered
to Raskolnikov that he thought it was too late now for the
doctor, but he ordered him to be sent for. Kapernaumov ran
himself.
Meanwhile Katerina Ivanovna had regained her breath.
The bleeding ceased for a time. She looked with sick but
intent and penetrating eyes at Sonia, who stood pale and
trembling, wiping the sweat from her brow with a handker-
chief. At last she asked to be raised. They sat her up on the
bed, supporting her on both sides.
‘Where are the children?’ she said in a faint voice. ‘You’ve
brought them, Polenka? Oh the sillies! Why did you run
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0
away…. Och!’
Once more her parched lips were covered with blood.
She moved her eyes, looking about her.
‘So that’s how you live, Sonia! Never once have I been in
your room.’
She looked at her with a face of suffering.
‘We have been your ruin, Sonia. Polenka, Lida, Kolya,
come here! Well, here they are, Sonia, take them all! I hand
them over to you, I’ve had enough! The ball is over.’ (Cough!)
‘Lay me down, let me die in peace.’
They laid her back on the pillow.
‘What, the priest? I don’t want him. You haven’t got a
rouble to spare. I have no sins. God must forgive me with-
out that. He knows how I have suffered…. And if He won’t
forgive me, I don’t care!’
She sank more and more into uneasy delirium. At times
she shuddered, turned her eyes from side to side, recog-
nised everyone for a minute, but at once sank into delirium
again. Her breathing was hoarse and difficult, there was a
sort of rattle in her throat.
‘I said to him, your excellency,’ she ejaculated, gasping
after each word. ‘That Amalia Ludwigovna, ah! Lida, Kolya,
hands on your hips, make haste! Glissez, glissez! pas de
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