CHAPTER VIII

When he went into Sonia’s room, it was already getting dark. All day

Sonia had been waiting for him in terrible anxiety. Dounia had been

waiting with her. She had come to her that morning, remembering

Svidrigaïlov’s words that Sonia knew. We will not describe the

conversation and tears of the two girls, and how friendly they became.

Dounia gained one comfort at least from that interview, that her

brother would not be alone. He had gone to her, Sonia, first with his

confession; he had gone to her for human fellowship when he needed it;

she would go with him wherever fate might send him. Dounia did not ask,

but she knew it was so. She looked at Sonia almost with reverence and

at first almost embarrassed her by it. Sonia was almost on the point

of tears. She felt herself, on the contrary, hardly worthy to look at

Dounia. Dounia’s gracious image when she had bowed to her so attentively

and respectfully at their first meeting in Raskolnikov’s room had

remained in her mind as one of the fairest visions of her life.

Dounia at last became impatient and, leaving Sonia, went to her

brother’s room to await him there; she kept thinking that he would come

there first. When she had gone, Sonia began to be tortured by the dread

of his committing suicide, and Dounia too feared it. But they had spent

the day trying to persuade each other that that could not be, and both

were less anxious while they were together. As soon as they parted, each

thought of nothing else. Sonia remembered how Svidrigaïlov had said to

her the day before that Raskolnikov had two alternatives--Siberia or...

Besides she knew his vanity, his pride and his lack of faith.

“Is it possible that he has nothing but cowardice and fear of death to

make him live?” she thought at last in despair.

Meanwhile the sun was setting. Sonia was standing in dejection, looking

intently out of the window, but from it she could see nothing but the

unwhitewashed blank wall of the next house. At last when she began to

feel sure of his death--he walked into the room.

She gave a cry of joy, but looking carefully into his face she turned

pale.

“Yes,” said Raskolnikov, smiling. “I have come for your cross, Sonia. It

was you told me to go to the cross-roads; why is it you are frightened

now it’s come to that?”

Sonia gazed at him astonished. His tone seemed strange to her; a cold

shiver ran over her, but in a moment she guessed that the tone and the

words were a mask. He spoke to her looking away, as though to avoid

meeting her eyes.

“You see, Sonia, I’ve decided that it will be better so. There is one

fact.... But it’s a long story and there’s no need to discuss it. But

do you know what angers me? It annoys me that all those stupid brutish

faces will be gaping at me directly, pestering me with their stupid

questions, which I shall have to answer--they’ll point their fingers at

me.... Tfoo! You know I am not going to Porfiry, I am sick of him. I’d

rather go to my friend, the Explosive Lieutenant; how I shall surprise

him, what a sensation I shall make! But I must be cooler; I’ve become

too irritable of late. You know I was nearly shaking my fist at my

sister just now, because she turned to take a last look at me. It’s

a brutal state to be in! Ah! what am I coming to! Well, where are the

crosses?”

He seemed hardly to know what he was doing. He could not stay still or

concentrate his attention on anything; his ideas seemed to gallop after

one another, he talked incoherently, his hands trembled slightly.

Without a word Sonia took out of the drawer two crosses, one of cypress

wood and one of copper. She made the sign of the cross over herself and

over him, and put the wooden cross on his neck.

“It’s the symbol of my taking up the cross,” he laughed. “As though I

had not suffered much till now! The wooden cross, that is the peasant

one; the copper one, that is Lizaveta’s--you will wear yourself, show

me! So she had it on... at that moment? I remember two things like

these too, a silver one and a little ikon. I threw them back on the old

woman’s neck. Those would be appropriate now, really, those are what I

ought to put on now.... But I am talking nonsense and forgetting what

matters; I’m somehow forgetful.... You see I have come to warn you,

Sonia, so that you might know... that’s all--that’s all I came for. But

I thought I had more to say. You wanted me to go yourself. Well, now I

am going to prison and you’ll have your wish. Well, what are you crying

for? You too? Don’t. Leave off! Oh, how I hate it all!”

But his feeling was stirred; his heart ached, as he looked at her. “Why

is she grieving too?” he thought to himself. “What am I to her? Why does

she weep? Why is she looking after me, like my mother or Dounia? She’ll

be my nurse.”

“Cross yourself, say at least one prayer,” Sonia begged in a timid

broken voice.

“Oh certainly, as much as you like! And sincerely, Sonia, sincerely....”

But he wanted to say something quite different.

He crossed himself several times. Sonia took up her shawl and put

it over her head. It was the green _drap de dames_ shawl of which

Marmeladov had spoken, “the family shawl.” Raskolnikov thought of that

looking at it, but he did not ask. He began to feel himself that he

was certainly forgetting things and was disgustingly agitated. He was

frightened at this. He was suddenly struck too by the thought that Sonia

meant to go with him.

“What are you doing? Where are you going? Stay here, stay! I’ll go

alone,” he cried in cowardly vexation, and almost resentful, he moved

towards the door. “What’s the use of going in procession?” he muttered

going out.

Sonia remained standing in the middle of the room. He had not even said

good-bye to her; he had forgotten her. A poignant and rebellious doubt

surged in his heart.

“Was it right, was it right, all this?” he thought again as he went down

the stairs. “Couldn’t he stop and retract it all... and not go?”

But still he went. He felt suddenly once for all that he mustn’t ask

himself questions. As he turned into the street he remembered that he

had not said good-bye to Sonia, that he had left her in the middle of

the room in her green shawl, not daring to stir after he had shouted

at her, and he stopped short for a moment. At the same instant, another

thought dawned upon him, as though it had been lying in wait to strike

him then.

“Why, with what object did I go to her just now? I told her--on

business; on what business? I had no sort of business! To tell her I was

_going_; but where was the need? Do I love her? No, no, I drove her away

just now like a dog. Did I want her crosses? Oh, how low I’ve sunk! No,

I wanted her tears, I wanted to see her terror, to see how her heart

ached! I had to have something to cling to, something to delay me, some

friendly face to see! And I dared to believe in myself, to dream of what

I would do! I am a beggarly contemptible wretch, contemptible!”

He walked along the canal bank, and he had not much further to go. But

on reaching the bridge he stopped and turning out of his way along it

went to the Hay Market.

He looked eagerly to right and left, gazed intently at every object and

could not fix his attention on anything; everything slipped away. “In

another week, another month I shall be driven in a prison van over this

bridge, how shall I look at the canal then? I should like to remember

this!” slipped into his mind. “Look at this sign! How shall I read those

letters then? It’s written here ‘Campany,’ that’s a thing to remember,

that letter _a_, and to look at it again in a month--how shall I look

at it then? What shall I be feeling and thinking then?... How trivial

it all must be, what I am fretting about now! Of course it must all be

interesting... in its way... (Ha-ha-ha! What am I thinking about?) I am

becoming a baby, I am showing off to myself; why am I ashamed? Foo! how

people shove! that fat man--a German he must be--who pushed against

me, does he know whom he pushed? There’s a peasant woman with a baby,

begging. It’s curious that she thinks me happier than she is. I might

give her something, for the incongruity of it. Here’s a five copeck

piece left in my pocket, where did I get it? Here, here... take it, my

good woman!”

“God bless you,” the beggar chanted in a lachrymose voice.

He went into the Hay Market. It was distasteful, very distasteful to be

in a crowd, but he walked just where he saw most people. He would have

given anything in the world to be alone; but he knew himself that he

would not have remained alone for a moment. There was a man drunk and

disorderly in the crowd; he kept trying to dance and falling down. There

was a ring round him. Raskolnikov squeezed his way through the crowd,

stared for some minutes at the drunken man and suddenly gave a short

jerky laugh. A minute later he had forgotten him and did not see him,

though he still stared. He moved away at last, not remembering where he

was; but when he got into the middle of the square an emotion suddenly

came over him, overwhelming him body and mind.

He suddenly recalled Sonia’s words, “Go to the cross-roads, bow down to

the people, kiss the earth, for you have sinned against it too, and say

aloud to the whole world, ‘I am a murderer.’” He trembled, remembering

that. And the hopeless misery and anxiety of all that time, especially

of the last hours, had weighed so heavily upon him that he positively

clutched at the chance of this new unmixed, complete sensation. It came

over him like a fit; it was like a single spark kindled in his soul and

spreading fire through him. Everything in him softened at once and the

tears started into his eyes. He fell to the earth on the spot....

He knelt down in the middle of the square, bowed down to the earth, and

kissed that filthy earth with bliss and rapture. He got up and bowed

down a second time.

“He’s boozed,” a youth near him observed.

There was a roar of laughter.

“He’s going to Jerusalem, brothers, and saying good-bye to his children

and his country. He’s bowing down to all the world and kissing the great

city of St. Petersburg and its pavement,” added a workman who was a

little drunk.

“Quite a young man, too!” observed a third.

“And a gentleman,” someone observed soberly.

“There’s no knowing who’s a gentleman and who isn’t nowadays.”

These exclamations and remarks checked Raskolnikov, and the words, “I am

a murderer,” which were perhaps on the point of dropping from his lips,

died away. He bore these remarks quietly, however, and, without looking

round, he turned down a street leading to the police office. He had a

glimpse of something on the way which did not surprise him; he had felt

that it must be so. The second time he bowed down in the Hay Market he

saw, standing fifty paces from him on the left, Sonia. She was hiding

from him behind one of the wooden shanties in the market-place. She had

followed him then on his painful way! Raskolnikov at that moment felt

and knew once for all that Sonia was with him for ever and would follow

him to the ends of the earth, wherever fate might take him. It wrung his

heart... but he was just reaching the fatal place.

He went into the yard fairly resolutely. He had to mount to the third

storey. “I shall be some time going up,” he thought. He felt as though

the fateful moment was still far off, as though he had plenty of time

left for consideration.

Again the same rubbish, the same eggshells lying about on the spiral

stairs, again the open doors of the flats, again the same kitchens and

the same fumes and stench coming from them. Raskolnikov had not been

here since that day. His legs were numb and gave way under him, but

still they moved forward. He stopped for a moment to take breath, to

collect himself, so as to enter _like a man_. “But why? what for?” he

wondered, reflecting. “If I must drink the cup what difference does it

make? The more revolting the better.” He imagined for an instant the

figure of the “explosive lieutenant,” Ilya Petrovitch. Was he actually

going to him? Couldn’t he go to someone else? To Nikodim Fomitch?

Couldn’t he turn back and go straight to Nikodim Fomitch’s lodgings?

At least then it would be done privately.... No, no! To the “explosive

lieutenant”! If he must drink it, drink it off at once.

Turning cold and hardly conscious, he opened the door of the office.

There were very few people in it this time--only a house porter and a

peasant. The doorkeeper did not even peep out from behind his screen.

Raskolnikov walked into the next room. “Perhaps I still need not speak,”

passed through his mind. Some sort of clerk not wearing a uniform was

settling himself at a bureau to write. In a corner another clerk was

seating himself. Zametov was not there, nor, of course, Nikodim Fomitch.

“No one in?” Raskolnikov asked, addressing the person at the bureau.

“Whom do you want?”

“A-ah! Not a sound was heard, not a sight was seen, but I scent the

Russian... how does it go on in the fairy tale... I’ve forgotten! ‘At

your service!’” a familiar voice cried suddenly.

Raskolnikov shuddered. The Explosive Lieutenant stood before him. He

had just come in from the third room. “It is the hand of fate,” thought

Raskolnikov. “Why is he here?”

“You’ve come to see us? What about?” cried Ilya Petrovitch. He

was obviously in an exceedingly good humour and perhaps a trifle

exhilarated. “If it’s on business you are rather early.[*] It’s only a

chance that I am here... however I’ll do what I can. I must admit, I...

what is it, what is it? Excuse me....”

[*] Dostoevsky appears to have forgotten that it is after

sunset, and that the last time Raskolnikov visited the

police office at two in the afternoon he was reproached for

coming too late.--TRANSLATOR.

“Raskolnikov.”

“Of course, Raskolnikov. You didn’t imagine I’d forgotten? Don’t think I

am like that... Rodion Ro--Ro--Rodionovitch, that’s it, isn’t it?”

“Rodion Romanovitch.”

“Yes, yes, of course, Rodion Romanovitch! I was just getting at it. I

made many inquiries about you. I assure you I’ve been genuinely grieved

since that... since I behaved like that... it was explained to me

afterwards that you were a literary man... and a learned one too... and

so to say the first steps... Mercy on us! What literary or scientific

man does not begin by some originality of conduct! My wife and I have

the greatest respect for literature, in my wife it’s a genuine passion!

Literature and art! If only a man is a gentleman, all the rest can be

gained by talents, learning, good sense, genius. As for a hat--well,

what does a hat matter? I can buy a hat as easily as I can a bun; but

what’s under the hat, what the hat covers, I can’t buy that! I was even

meaning to come and apologise to you, but thought maybe you’d... But I

am forgetting to ask you, is there anything you want really? I hear your

family have come?”

“Yes, my mother and sister.”

“I’ve even had the honour and happiness of meeting your sister--a highly

cultivated and charming person. I confess I was sorry I got so hot with

you. There it is! But as for my looking suspiciously at your fainting

fit--that affair has been cleared up splendidly! Bigotry and fanaticism!

I understand your indignation. Perhaps you are changing your lodging on

account of your family’s arriving?”

“No, I only looked in... I came to ask... I thought that I should find

Zametov here.”

“Oh, yes! Of course, you’ve made friends, I heard. Well, no, Zametov is

not here. Yes, we’ve lost Zametov. He’s not been here since yesterday...

he quarrelled with everyone on leaving... in the rudest way. He is a

feather-headed youngster, that’s all; one might have expected something

from him, but there, you know what they are, our brilliant young men.

He wanted to go in for some examination, but it’s only to talk and

boast about it, it will go no further than that. Of course it’s a very

different matter with you or Mr. Razumihin there, your friend. Your

career is an intellectual one and you won’t be deterred by failure. For

you, one may say, all the attractions of life _nihil est_--you are an

ascetic, a monk, a hermit!... A book, a pen behind your ear, a learned

research--that’s where your spirit soars! I am the same way myself....

Have you read Livingstone’s Travels?”

“No.”

“Oh, I have. There are a great many Nihilists about nowadays, you know,

and indeed it is not to be wondered at. What sort of days are they? I

ask you. But we thought... you are not a Nihilist of course? Answer me

openly, openly!”

“N-no...”

“Believe me, you can speak openly to me as you would to yourself!

Official duty is one thing but... you are thinking I meant to say

_friendship_ is quite another? No, you’re wrong! It’s not friendship,

but the feeling of a man and a citizen, the feeling of humanity and of

love for the Almighty. I may be an official, but I am always bound

to feel myself a man and a citizen.... You were asking about Zametov.

Zametov will make a scandal in the French style in a house of bad

reputation, over a glass of champagne... that’s all your Zametov is good

for! While I’m perhaps, so to speak, burning with devotion and lofty

feelings, and besides I have rank, consequence, a post! I am married and

have children, I fulfil the duties of a man and a citizen, but who is

he, may I ask? I appeal to you as a man ennobled by education... Then

these midwives, too, have become extraordinarily numerous.”

Raskolnikov raised his eyebrows inquiringly. The words of Ilya

Petrovitch, who had obviously been dining, were for the most part a

stream of empty sounds for him. But some of them he understood. He

looked at him inquiringly, not knowing how it would end.

“I mean those crop-headed wenches,” the talkative Ilya Petrovitch

continued. “Midwives is my name for them. I think it a very satisfactory

one, ha-ha! They go to the Academy, study anatomy. If I fall ill, am

I to send for a young lady to treat me? What do you say? Ha-ha!” Ilya

Petrovitch laughed, quite pleased with his own wit. “It’s an immoderate

zeal for education, but once you’re educated, that’s enough. Why abuse

it? Why insult honourable people, as that scoundrel Zametov does? Why

did he insult me, I ask you? Look at these suicides, too, how common

they are, you can’t fancy! People spend their last halfpenny and kill

themselves, boys and girls and old people. Only this morning we heard

about a gentleman who had just come to town. Nil Pavlitch, I say, what

was the name of that gentleman who shot himself?”

“Svidrigaïlov,” someone answered from the other room with drowsy

listlessness.

Raskolnikov started.

“Svidrigaïlov! Svidrigaïlov has shot himself!” he cried.

“What, do you know Svidrigaïlov?”

“Yes... I knew him.... He hadn’t been here long.”

“Yes, that’s so. He had lost his wife, was a man of reckless habits and

all of a sudden shot himself, and in such a shocking way.... He left

in his notebook a few words: that he dies in full possession of his

faculties and that no one is to blame for his death. He had money, they

say. How did you come to know him?”

“I... was acquainted... my sister was governess in his family.”

“Bah-bah-bah! Then no doubt you can tell us something about him. You had

no suspicion?”

“I saw him yesterday... he... was drinking wine; I knew nothing.”

Raskolnikov felt as though something had fallen on him and was stifling

him.

“You’ve turned pale again. It’s so stuffy here...”

“Yes, I must go,” muttered Raskolnikov. “Excuse my troubling you....”

“Oh, not at all, as often as you like. It’s a pleasure to see you and I

am glad to say so.”

Ilya Petrovitch held out his hand.

“I only wanted... I came to see Zametov.”

“I understand, I understand, and it’s a pleasure to see you.”

“I... am very glad... good-bye,” Raskolnikov smiled.

He went out; he reeled, he was overtaken with giddiness and did not know

what he was doing. He began going down the stairs, supporting himself

with his right hand against the wall. He fancied that a porter pushed

past him on his way upstairs to the police office, that a dog in

the lower storey kept up a shrill barking and that a woman flung a

rolling-pin at it and shouted. He went down and out into the yard.

There, not far from the entrance, stood Sonia, pale and horror-stricken.

She looked wildly at him. He stood still before her. There was a look of

poignant agony, of despair, in her face. She clasped her hands. His lips

worked in an ugly, meaningless smile. He stood still a minute, grinned

and went back to the police office.

Ilya Petrovitch had sat down and was rummaging among some papers. Before

him stood the same peasant who had pushed by on the stairs.

“Hulloa! Back again! have you left something behind? What’s the matter?”

Raskolnikov, with white lips and staring eyes, came slowly nearer.

He walked right to the table, leaned his hand on it, tried to say

something, but could not; only incoherent sounds were audible.

“You are feeling ill, a chair! Here, sit down! Some water!”

Raskolnikov dropped on to a chair, but he kept his eyes fixed on the

face of Ilya Petrovitch, which expressed unpleasant surprise. Both

looked at one another for a minute and waited. Water was brought.

“It was I...” began Raskolnikov.

“Drink some water.”

Raskolnikov refused the water with his hand, and softly and brokenly,

but distinctly said:

“_It was I killed the old pawnbroker woman and her sister Lizaveta with

an axe and robbed them._”

Ilya Petrovitch opened his mouth. People ran up on all sides.

Raskolnikov repeated his statement.

EPILOGUE

I

Siberia. On the banks of a broad solitary river stands a town, one of

the administrative centres of Russia; in the town there is a fortress,

in the fortress there is a prison. In the prison the second-class

convict Rodion Raskolnikov has been confined for nine months. Almost a

year and a half has passed since his crime.

There had been little difficulty about his trial. The criminal adhered

exactly, firmly, and clearly to his statement. He did not confuse nor

misrepresent the facts, nor soften them in his own interest, nor omit

the smallest detail. He explained every incident of the murder, the

secret of _the pledge_ (the piece of wood with a strip of metal) which

was found in the murdered woman’s hand. He described minutely how he

had taken her keys, what they were like, as well as the chest and its

contents; he explained the mystery of Lizaveta’s murder; described how

Koch and, after him, the student knocked, and repeated all they had said

to one another; how he afterwards had run downstairs and heard Nikolay

and Dmitri shouting; how he had hidden in the empty flat and afterwards

gone home. He ended by indicating the stone in the yard off the

Voznesensky Prospect under which the purse and the trinkets were found.

The whole thing, in fact, was perfectly clear. The lawyers and the

judges were very much struck, among other things, by the fact that he

had hidden the trinkets and the purse under a stone, without making

use of them, and that, what was more, he did not now remember what the

trinkets were like, or even how many there were. The fact that he had

never opened the purse and did not even know how much was in it seemed

incredible. There turned out to be in the purse three hundred and

seventeen roubles and sixty copecks. From being so long under the stone,

some of the most valuable notes lying uppermost had suffered from the

damp. They were a long while trying to discover why the accused man

should tell a lie about this, when about everything else he had made

a truthful and straightforward confession. Finally some of the lawyers

more versed in psychology admitted that it was possible he had really

not looked into the purse, and so didn’t know what was in it when he

hid it under the stone. But they immediately drew the deduction that

the crime could only have been committed through temporary mental

derangement, through homicidal mania, without object or the pursuit of

gain. This fell in with the most recent fashionable theory of temporary

insanity, so often applied in our days in criminal cases. Moreover

Raskolnikov’s hypochondriacal condition was proved by many witnesses, by

Dr. Zossimov, his former fellow students, his landlady and her servant.

All this pointed strongly to the conclusion that Raskolnikov was not

quite like an ordinary murderer and robber, but that there was another

element in the case.

To the intense annoyance of those who maintained this opinion, the

criminal scarcely attempted to defend himself. To the decisive question

as to what motive impelled him to the murder and the robbery, he

answered very clearly with the coarsest frankness that the cause was

his miserable position, his poverty and helplessness, and his desire to

provide for his first steps in life by the help of the three thousand

roubles he had reckoned on finding. He had been led to the murder

through his shallow and cowardly nature, exasperated moreover by

privation and failure. To the question what led him to confess, he

answered that it was his heartfelt repentance. All this was almost

coarse....

The sentence however was more merciful than could have been expected,

perhaps partly because the criminal had not tried to justify himself,

but had rather shown a desire to exaggerate his guilt. All the strange

and peculiar circumstances of the crime were taken into consideration.

There could be no doubt of the abnormal and poverty-stricken condition

of the criminal at the time. The fact that he had made no use of what he

had stolen was put down partly to the effect of remorse, partly to his

abnormal mental condition at the time of the crime. Incidentally the

murder of Lizaveta served indeed to confirm the last hypothesis: a man

commits two murders and forgets that the door is open! Finally, the

confession, at the very moment when the case was hopelessly muddled by

the false evidence given by Nikolay through melancholy and fanaticism,

and when, moreover, there were no proofs against the real criminal, no

suspicions even (Porfiry Petrovitch fully kept his word)--all this did

much to soften the sentence. Other circumstances, too, in the prisoner’s

favour came out quite unexpectedly. Razumihin somehow discovered and

proved that while Raskolnikov was at the university he had helped a poor

consumptive fellow student and had spent his last penny on supporting

him for six months, and when this student died, leaving a decrepit

old father whom he had maintained almost from his thirteenth year,

Raskolnikov had got the old man into a hospital and paid for his funeral

when he died. Raskolnikov’s landlady bore witness, too, that when they

had lived in another house at Five Corners, Raskolnikov had rescued two

little children from a house on fire and was burnt in doing so. This was

investigated and fairly well confirmed by many witnesses. These facts

made an impression in his favour.

And in the end the criminal was, in consideration of extenuating

circumstances, condemned to penal servitude in the second class for a

term of eight years only.

At the very beginning of the trial Raskolnikov’s mother fell ill. Dounia

and Razumihin found it possible to get her out of Petersburg during the

trial. Razumihin chose a town on the railway not far from Petersburg, so

as to be able to follow every step of the trial and at the same time

to see Avdotya Romanovna as often as possible. Pulcheria Alexandrovna’s

illness was a strange nervous one and was accompanied by a partial

derangement of her intellect.

When Dounia returned from her last interview with her brother, she

had found her mother already ill, in feverish delirium. That evening

Razumihin and she agreed what answers they must make to her mother’s

questions about Raskolnikov and made up a complete story for her

mother’s benefit of his having to go away to a distant part of Russia

on a business commission, which would bring him in the end money and

reputation.

But they were struck by the fact that Pulcheria Alexandrovna never

asked them anything on the subject, neither then nor thereafter. On the

contrary, she had her own version of her son’s sudden departure; she

told them with tears how he had come to say good-bye to her, hinting

that she alone knew many mysterious and important facts, and that Rodya

had many very powerful enemies, so that it was necessary for him to be

in hiding. As for his future career, she had no doubt that it would be

brilliant when certain sinister influences could be removed. She assured

Razumihin that her son would be one day a great statesman, that his

article and brilliant literary talent proved it. This article she was

continually reading, she even read it aloud, almost took it to bed

with her, but scarcely asked where Rodya was, though the subject was

obviously avoided by the others, which might have been enough to awaken

her suspicions.

They began to be frightened at last at Pulcheria Alexandrovna’s strange

silence on certain subjects. She did not, for instance, complain of

getting no letters from him, though in previous years she had only lived

on the hope of letters from her beloved Rodya. This was the cause of

great uneasiness to Dounia; the idea occurred to her that her mother

suspected that there was something terrible in her son’s fate and was

afraid to ask, for fear of hearing something still more awful. In any

case, Dounia saw clearly that her mother was not in full possession of

her faculties.

It happened once or twice, however, that Pulcheria Alexandrovna gave

such a turn to the conversation that it was impossible to answer her

without mentioning where Rodya was, and on receiving unsatisfactory and

suspicious answers she became at once gloomy and silent, and this mood

lasted for a long time. Dounia saw at last that it was hard to deceive

her and came to the conclusion that it was better to be absolutely

silent on certain points; but it became more and more evident that

the poor mother suspected something terrible. Dounia remembered her

brother’s telling her that her mother had overheard her talking in her

sleep on the night after her interview with Svidrigaïlov and before the

fatal day of the confession: had not she made out something from that?

Sometimes days and even weeks of gloomy silence and tears would be

succeeded by a period of hysterical animation, and the invalid would

begin to talk almost incessantly of her son, of her hopes of his

future.... Her fancies were sometimes very strange. They humoured her,

pretended to agree with her (she saw perhaps that they were pretending),

but she still went on talking.

Five months after Raskolnikov’s confession, he was sentenced. Razumihin

and Sonia saw him in prison as often as it was possible. At last

the moment of separation came. Dounia swore to her brother that the

separation should not be for ever, Razumihin did the same. Razumihin, in

his youthful ardour, had firmly resolved to lay the foundations at least

of a secure livelihood during the next three or four years, and saving

up a certain sum, to emigrate to Siberia, a country rich in every

natural resource and in need of workers, active men and capital. There

they would settle in the town where Rodya was and all together would

begin a new life. They all wept at parting.

Raskolnikov had been very dreamy for a few days before. He asked a great

deal about his mother and was constantly anxious about her. He worried

so much about her that it alarmed Dounia. When he heard about his

mother’s illness he became very gloomy. With Sonia he was particularly

reserved all the time. With the help of the money left to her by

Svidrigaïlov, Sonia had long ago made her preparations to follow the

party of convicts in which he was despatched to Siberia. Not a word

passed between Raskolnikov and her on the subject, but both knew it

would be so. At the final leave-taking he smiled strangely at his

sister’s and Razumihin’s fervent anticipations of their happy future

together when he should come out of prison. He predicted that their

mother’s illness would soon have a fatal ending. Sonia and he at last

set off.

Two months later Dounia was married to Razumihin. It was a quiet and

sorrowful wedding; Porfiry Petrovitch and Zossimov were invited however.

During all this period Razumihin wore an air of resolute determination.

Dounia put implicit faith in his carrying out his plans and indeed she

could not but believe in him. He displayed a rare strength of will.

Among other things he began attending university lectures again in order

to take his degree. They were continually making plans for the future;

both counted on settling in Siberia within five years at least. Till

then they rested their hopes on Sonia.

Pulcheria Alexandrovna was delighted to give her blessing to Dounia’s

marriage with Razumihin; but after the marriage she became even more

melancholy and anxious. To give her pleasure Razumihin told her how

Raskolnikov had looked after the poor student and his decrepit father

and how a year ago he had been burnt and injured in rescuing two

little children from a fire. These two pieces of news excited Pulcheria

Alexandrovna’s disordered imagination almost to ecstasy. She was

continually talking about them, even entering into conversation with

strangers in the street, though Dounia always accompanied her. In public

conveyances and shops, wherever she could capture a listener, she would

begin the discourse about her son, his article, how he had helped the

student, how he had been burnt at the fire, and so on! Dounia did

not know how to restrain her. Apart from the danger of her morbid

excitement, there was the risk of someone’s recalling Raskolnikov’s name

and speaking of the recent trial. Pulcheria Alexandrovna found out the

address of the mother of the two children her son had saved and insisted

on going to see her.

At last her restlessness reached an extreme point. She would sometimes

begin to cry suddenly and was often ill and feverishly delirious. One

morning she declared that by her reckoning Rodya ought soon to be home,

that she remembered when he said good-bye to her he said that they must

expect him back in nine months. She began to prepare for his coming,

began to do up her room for him, to clean the furniture, to wash and

put up new hangings and so on. Dounia was anxious, but said nothing and

helped her to arrange the room. After a fatiguing day spent in continual

fancies, in joyful day-dreams and tears, Pulcheria Alexandrovna was

taken ill in the night and by morning she was feverish and delirious.

It was brain fever. She died within a fortnight. In her delirium she

dropped words which showed that she knew a great deal more about her

son’s terrible fate than they had supposed.

For a long time Raskolnikov did not know of his mother’s death, though

a regular correspondence had been maintained from the time he reached

Siberia. It was carried on by means of Sonia, who wrote every month

to the Razumihins and received an answer with unfailing regularity. At

first they found Sonia’s letters dry and unsatisfactory, but later on

they came to the conclusion that the letters could not be better, for

from these letters they received a complete picture of their unfortunate

brother’s life. Sonia’s letters were full of the most matter-of-fact

detail, the simplest and clearest description of all Raskolnikov’s

surroundings as a convict. There was no word of her own hopes, no

conjecture as to the future, no description of her feelings. Instead of

any attempt to interpret his state of mind and inner life, she gave the

simple facts--that is, his own words, an exact account of his health,

what he asked for at their interviews, what commission he gave her

and so on. All these facts she gave with extraordinary minuteness. The

picture of their unhappy brother stood out at last with great clearness

and precision. There could be no mistake, because nothing was given but

facts.

But Dounia and her husband could get little comfort out of the news,

especially at first. Sonia wrote that he was constantly sullen and not

ready to talk, that he scarcely seemed interested in the news she gave

him from their letters, that he sometimes asked after his mother and

that when, seeing that he had guessed the truth, she told him at last

of her death, she was surprised to find that he did not seem greatly

affected by it, not externally at any rate. She told them that, although

he seemed so wrapped up in himself and, as it were, shut himself off

from everyone--he took a very direct and simple view of his new life;

that he understood his position, expected nothing better for the time,

had no ill-founded hopes (as is so common in his position) and scarcely

seemed surprised at anything in his surroundings, so unlike anything he

had known before. She wrote that his health was satisfactory; he did his

work without shirking or seeking to do more; he was almost indifferent

about food, but except on Sundays and holidays the food was so bad that

at last he had been glad to accept some money from her, Sonia, to have

his own tea every day. He begged her not to trouble about anything else,

declaring that all this fuss about him only annoyed him. Sonia wrote

further that in prison he shared the same room with the rest, that she

had not seen the inside of their barracks, but concluded that they were

crowded, miserable and unhealthy; that he slept on a plank bed with a

rug under him and was unwilling to make any other arrangement. But that

he lived so poorly and roughly, not from any plan or design, but simply

from inattention and indifference.

Sonia wrote simply that he had at first shown no interest in her visits,

had almost been vexed with her indeed for coming, unwilling to talk and

rude to her. But that in the end these visits had become a habit and

almost a necessity for him, so that he was positively distressed when

she was ill for some days and could not visit him. She used to see him

on holidays at the prison gates or in the guard-room, to which he was

brought for a few minutes to see her. On working days she would go to

see him at work either at the workshops or at the brick kilns, or at the

sheds on the banks of the Irtish.

About herself, Sonia wrote that she had succeeded in making some

acquaintances in the town, that she did sewing, and, as there

was scarcely a dressmaker in the town, she was looked upon as an

indispensable person in many houses. But she did not mention that the

authorities were, through her, interested in Raskolnikov; that his task

was lightened and so on.

At last the news came (Dounia had indeed noticed signs of alarm and

uneasiness in the preceding letters) that he held aloof from everyone,

that his fellow prisoners did not like him, that he kept silent for days

at a time and was becoming very pale. In the last letter Sonia wrote

that he had been taken very seriously ill and was in the convict ward of

the hospital.

II

He was ill a long time. But it was not the horrors of prison life, not

the hard labour, the bad food, the shaven head, or the patched clothes

that crushed him. What did he care for all those trials and hardships!

he was even glad of the hard work. Physically exhausted, he could at

least reckon on a few hours of quiet sleep. And what was the food to

him--the thin cabbage soup with beetles floating in it? In the past as a

student he had often not had even that. His clothes were warm and suited

to his manner of life. He did not even feel the fetters. Was he ashamed

of his shaven head and parti-coloured coat? Before whom? Before Sonia?

Sonia was afraid of him, how could he be ashamed before her? And yet he

was ashamed even before Sonia, whom he tortured because of it with

his contemptuous rough manner. But it was not his shaven head and his

fetters he was ashamed of: his pride had been stung to the quick. It was

wounded pride that made him ill. Oh, how happy he would have been if he

could have blamed himself! He could have borne anything then, even

shame and disgrace. But he judged himself severely, and his exasperated

conscience found no particularly terrible fault in his past, except

a simple _blunder_ which might happen to anyone. He was ashamed just

because he, Raskolnikov, had so hopelessly, stupidly come to grief

through some decree of blind fate, and must humble himself and submit to

“the idiocy” of a sentence, if he were anyhow to be at peace.

Vague and objectless anxiety in the present, and in the future a

continual sacrifice leading to nothing--that was all that lay before

him. And what comfort was it to him that at the end of eight years he

would only be thirty-two and able to begin a new life! What had he to

live for? What had he to look forward to? Why should he strive? To live

in order to exist? Why, he had been ready a thousand times before to

give up existence for the sake of an idea, for a hope, even for a fancy.

Mere existence had always been too little for him; he had always wanted

more. Perhaps it was just because of the strength of his desires that he

had thought himself a man to whom more was permissible than to others.

And if only fate would have sent him repentance--burning repentance that

would have torn his heart and robbed him of sleep, that repentance, the

awful agony of which brings visions of hanging or drowning! Oh, he would

have been glad of it! Tears and agonies would at least have been life.

But he did not repent of his crime.

At least he might have found relief in raging at his stupidity, as he

had raged at the grotesque blunders that had brought him to prison.

But now in prison, _in freedom_, he thought over and criticised all his

actions again and by no means found them so blundering and so grotesque

as they had seemed at the fatal time.

“In what way,” he asked himself, “was my theory stupider than others

that have swarmed and clashed from the beginning of the world? One has

only to look at the thing quite independently, broadly, and uninfluenced

by commonplace ideas, and my idea will by no means seem so... strange.

Oh, sceptics and halfpenny philosophers, why do you halt half-way!

“Why does my action strike them as so horrible?” he said to himself. “Is

it because it was a crime? What is meant by crime? My conscience is at

rest. Of course, it was a legal crime, of course, the letter of the law

was broken and blood was shed. Well, punish me for the letter of the

law... and that’s enough. Of course, in that case many of the

benefactors of mankind who snatched power for themselves instead of

inheriting it ought to have been punished at their first steps. But

those men succeeded and so _they were right_, and I didn’t, and so I

had no right to have taken that step.”

It was only in that that he recognised his criminality, only in the fact

that he had been unsuccessful and had confessed it.

He suffered too from the question: why had he not killed himself? Why

had he stood looking at the river and preferred to confess? Was the

desire to live so strong and was it so hard to overcome it? Had not

Svidrigaïlov overcome it, although he was afraid of death?

In misery he asked himself this question, and could not understand that,

at the very time he had been standing looking into the river, he had

perhaps been dimly conscious of the fundamental falsity in himself and

his convictions. He didn’t understand that that consciousness might be

the promise of a future crisis, of a new view of life and of his future

resurrection.

He preferred to attribute it to the dead weight of instinct which he

could not step over, again through weakness and meanness. He looked at

his fellow prisoners and was amazed to see how they all loved life and

prized it. It seemed to him that they loved and valued life more in

prison than in freedom. What terrible agonies and privations some of

them, the tramps for instance, had endured! Could they care so much for

a ray of sunshine, for the primeval forest, the cold spring hidden away

in some unseen spot, which the tramp had marked three years before, and

longed to see again, as he might to see his sweetheart, dreaming of the

green grass round it and the bird singing in the bush? As he went on he

saw still more inexplicable examples.

In prison, of course, there was a great deal he did not see and did not

want to see; he lived as it were with downcast eyes. It was loathsome

and unbearable for him to look. But in the end there was much that

surprised him and he began, as it were involuntarily, to notice much

that he had not suspected before. What surprised him most of all was

the terrible impossible gulf that lay between him and all the rest. They

seemed to be a different species, and he looked at them and they at

him with distrust and hostility. He felt and knew the reasons of his

isolation, but he would never have admitted till then that those reasons

were so deep and strong. There were some Polish exiles, political

prisoners, among them. They simply looked down upon all the rest as

ignorant churls; but Raskolnikov could not look upon them like that.

He saw that these ignorant men were in many respects far wiser than the

Poles. There were some Russians who were just as contemptuous, a former

officer and two seminarists. Raskolnikov saw their mistake as clearly.

He was disliked and avoided by everyone; they even began to hate him at

last--why, he could not tell. Men who had been far more guilty despised

and laughed at his crime.

“You’re a gentleman,” they used to say. “You shouldn’t hack about with

an axe; that’s not a gentleman’s work.”

The second week in Lent, his turn came to take the sacrament with his

gang. He went to church and prayed with the others. A quarrel broke out

one day, he did not know how. All fell on him at once in a fury.

“You’re an infidel! You don’t believe in God,” they shouted. “You ought

to be killed.”

He had never talked to them about God nor his belief, but they wanted to

kill him as an infidel. He said nothing. One of the prisoners rushed at

him in a perfect frenzy. Raskolnikov awaited him calmly and silently;

his eyebrows did not quiver, his face did not flinch. The guard

succeeded in intervening between him and his assailant, or there would

have been bloodshed.

There was another question he could not decide: why were they all so

fond of Sonia? She did not try to win their favour; she rarely met

them, sometimes only she came to see him at work for a moment. And yet

everybody knew her, they knew that she had come out to follow _him_,

knew how and where she lived. She never gave them money, did them no

particular services. Only once at Christmas she sent them all presents

of pies and rolls. But by degrees closer relations sprang up between

them and Sonia. She would write and post letters for them to their

relations. Relations of the prisoners who visited the town, at their

instructions, left with Sonia presents and money for them. Their wives

and sweethearts knew her and used to visit her. And when she visited

Raskolnikov at work, or met a party of the prisoners on the road, they

all took off their hats to her. “Little mother Sofya Semyonovna, you

are our dear, good little mother,” coarse branded criminals said to that

frail little creature. She would smile and bow to them and everyone was

delighted when she smiled. They even admired her gait and turned round

to watch her walking; they admired her too for being so little, and, in

fact, did not know what to admire her most for. They even came to her

for help in their illnesses.

He was in the hospital from the middle of Lent till after Easter. When

he was better, he remembered the dreams he had had while he was feverish

and delirious. He dreamt that the whole world was condemned to a

terrible new strange plague that had come to Europe from the depths of

Asia. All were to be destroyed except a very few chosen. Some new sorts

of microbes were attacking the bodies of men, but these microbes were

endowed with intelligence and will. Men attacked by them became at once

mad and furious. But never had men considered themselves so intellectual

and so completely in possession of the truth as these sufferers, never

had they considered their decisions, their scientific conclusions, their

moral convictions so infallible. Whole villages, whole towns and peoples

went mad from the infection. All were excited and did not understand

one another. Each thought that he alone had the truth and was wretched

looking at the others, beat himself on the breast, wept, and wrung

his hands. They did not know how to judge and could not agree what to

consider evil and what good; they did not know whom to blame, whom

to justify. Men killed each other in a sort of senseless spite. They

gathered together in armies against one another, but even on the march

the armies would begin attacking each other, the ranks would be broken

and the soldiers would fall on each other, stabbing and cutting, biting

and devouring each other. The alarm bell was ringing all day long in

the towns; men rushed together, but why they were summoned and who was

summoning them no one knew. The most ordinary trades were abandoned,

because everyone proposed his own ideas, his own improvements, and they

could not agree. The land too was abandoned. Men met in groups, agreed

on something, swore to keep together, but at once began on something

quite different from what they had proposed. They accused one another,

fought and killed each other. There were conflagrations and famine. All

men and all things were involved in destruction. The plague spread and

moved further and further. Only a few men could be saved in the whole

world. They were a pure chosen people, destined to found a new race and

a new life, to renew and purify the earth, but no one had seen these

men, no one had heard their words and their voices.

Raskolnikov was worried that this senseless dream haunted his memory so

miserably, the impression of this feverish delirium persisted so long.

The second week after Easter had come. There were warm bright spring

days; in the prison ward the grating windows under which the sentinel

paced were opened. Sonia had only been able to visit him twice during

his illness; each time she had to obtain permission, and it was

difficult. But she often used to come to the hospital yard, especially

in the evening, sometimes only to stand a minute and look up at the

windows of the ward.

One evening, when he was almost well again, Raskolnikov fell asleep. On

waking up he chanced to go to the window, and at once saw Sonia in the

distance at the hospital gate. She seemed to be waiting for someone.

Something stabbed him to the heart at that minute. He shuddered and

moved away from the window. Next day Sonia did not come, nor the day

after; he noticed that he was expecting her uneasily. At last he was

discharged. On reaching the prison he learnt from the convicts that

Sofya Semyonovna was lying ill at home and was unable to go out.

He was very uneasy and sent to inquire after her; he soon learnt that

her illness was not dangerous. Hearing that he was anxious about her,

Sonia sent him a pencilled note, telling him that she was much better,

that she had a slight cold and that she would soon, very soon come and

see him at his work. His heart throbbed painfully as he read it.

Again it was a warm bright day. Early in the morning, at six o’clock, he

went off to work on the river bank, where they used to pound alabaster

and where there was a kiln for baking it in a shed. There were only

three of them sent. One of the convicts went with the guard to the

fortress to fetch a tool; the other began getting the wood ready and

laying it in the kiln. Raskolnikov came out of the shed on to the river

bank, sat down on a heap of logs by the shed and began gazing at the

wide deserted river. From the high bank a broad landscape opened before

him, the sound of singing floated faintly audible from the other bank.

In the vast steppe, bathed in sunshine, he could just see, like black

specks, the nomads’ tents. There there was freedom, there other men were

living, utterly unlike those here; there time itself seemed to stand

still, as though the age of Abraham and his flocks had not passed.

Raskolnikov sat gazing, his thoughts passed into day-dreams, into

contemplation; he thought of nothing, but a vague restlessness excited

and troubled him. Suddenly he found Sonia beside him; she had come up

noiselessly and sat down at his side. It was still quite early; the

morning chill was still keen. She wore her poor old burnous and the

green shawl; her face still showed signs of illness, it was thinner and

paler. She gave him a joyful smile of welcome, but held out her hand

with her usual timidity. She was always timid of holding out her hand

to him and sometimes did not offer it at all, as though afraid he would

repel it. He always took her hand as though with repugnance, always

seemed vexed to meet her and was sometimes obstinately silent throughout

her visit. Sometimes she trembled before him and went away deeply

grieved. But now their hands did not part. He stole a rapid glance

at her and dropped his eyes on the ground without speaking. They were

alone, no one had seen them. The guard had turned away for the time.

How it happened he did not know. But all at once something seemed to

seize him and fling him at her feet. He wept and threw his arms round

her knees. For the first instant she was terribly frightened and she

turned pale. She jumped up and looked at him trembling. But at the same

moment she understood, and a light of infinite happiness came into her

eyes. She knew and had no doubt that he loved her beyond everything and

that at last the moment had come....

They wanted to speak, but could not; tears stood in their eyes. They

were both pale and thin; but those sick pale faces were bright with the

dawn of a new future, of a full resurrection into a new life. They were

renewed by love; the heart of each held infinite sources of life for the

heart of the other.

They resolved to wait and be patient. They had another seven years to

wait, and what terrible suffering and what infinite happiness before

them! But he had risen again and he knew it and felt it in all his

being, while she--she only lived in his life.

On the evening of the same day, when the barracks were locked,

Raskolnikov lay on his plank bed and thought of her. He had even fancied

that day that all the convicts who had been his enemies looked at him

differently; he had even entered into talk with them and they answered

him in a friendly way. He remembered that now, and thought it was bound

to be so. Wasn’t everything now bound to be changed?

He thought of her. He remembered how continually he had tormented her

and wounded her heart. He remembered her pale and thin little face.

But these recollections scarcely troubled him now; he knew with what

infinite love he would now repay all her sufferings. And what were all,

_all_ the agonies of the past! Everything, even his crime, his sentence

and imprisonment, seemed to him now in the first rush of feeling an

external, strange fact with which he had no concern. But he could not

think for long together of anything that evening, and he could not have

analysed anything consciously; he was simply feeling. Life had stepped

into the place of theory and something quite different would work itself

out in his mind.

Under his pillow lay the New Testament. He took it up mechanically.

The book belonged to Sonia; it was the one from which she had read the

raising of Lazarus to him. At first he was afraid that she would worry

him about religion, would talk about the gospel and pester him with

books. But to his great surprise she had not once approached the subject

and had not even offered him the Testament. He had asked her for it

himself not long before his illness and she brought him the book without

a word. Till now he had not opened it.

He did not open it now, but one thought passed through his mind: “Can

her convictions not be mine now? Her feelings, her aspirations at

least....”

She too had been greatly agitated that day, and at night she was taken

ill again. But she was so happy--and so unexpectedly happy--that she was

almost frightened of her happiness. Seven years, _only_ seven years! At

the beginning of their happiness at some moments they were both ready

to look on those seven years as though they were seven days. He did not

know that the new life would not be given him for nothing, that he would

have to pay dearly for it, that it would cost him great striving, great

suffering.

But that is the beginning of a new story--the story of the gradual

renewal of a man, the story of his gradual regeneration, of his passing

from one world into another, of his initiation into a new unknown life.

That might be the subject of a new story, but our present story is

ended.