Part 2 Chapter 1-2

Crime and Punishment 192 of 967 ‘Yes, yes. I perfectly agree with you. But
allow me to explain ...’ Raskolnikov put in again, still addressing Nikodim
Fomitch, but trying his best to address Ilya Petrovitch also, though the latter
persistently appeared to be rummaging among his papers and to be
contemptuously oblivious of him. ‘Allow me to explain that I have been
living with her for nearly three years and at first ... at first ... for why should I
not confess it, at the very beginning I promised to marry her daughter, it was
a verbal promise, freely given ... she was a girl ... indeed, I liked her, though I
was not in love with her ... a youthful affair in fact ... that is, I mean to say,
that my landlady gave me credit freely in those days, and I led a life of ... I
was very heedless ...’ ‘Nobody asks you for these personal details, sir, we’ve
no time to waste,’ Ilya Petrovitch interposed roughly and with a note of
triumph; but Raskolnikov stopped him hotly, though he suddenly found it
exceedingly difficult to speak. ‘But excuse me, excuse me. It is for me to
explain ... how it all happened ... In my turn ... though I agree with you ... it is
unnecessary. But a year ago, the girl died of typhus. I remained lodging there
as before, and when my landlady moved into her present quarters, she said to
me
Crime and Punishment 193 of 967 ... and in a friendly way ... that she had
complete trust in me, but still, would I not give her an I O U for one hundred
and fifteen roubles, all the debt I owed her. She said if only I gave her that,
she would trust me again, as much as I liked, and that she would never,
never—those were her own words—make use of that I O U till I could pay of
myself ... and now, when I have lost my lessons and have nothing to eat, she
takes action against me. What am I to say to that?’ ‘All these affecting details
are no business of ours.’ Ilya Petrovitch interrupted rudely. ‘You must give a
written undertaking but as for your love affairs and all these tragic events, we
have nothing to do with that.’ ‘Come now ... you are harsh,’ muttered
Nikodim Fomitch, sitting down at the table and also beginning to write. He
looked a little ashamed. ‘Write!’ said the head clerk to Raskolnikov. ‘Write
what?’ the latter asked, gruffly. ‘I will dictate to you.’ Raskolnikov fancied
that the head clerk treated him more casually and contemptuously after his
speech, but strange to say he suddenly felt completely indifferent to anyone’s
opinion, and this revulsion took place in a flash, in one instant. If he had
cared to think a little, he would
Crime and Punishment 194 of 967 have been amazed indeed that he could have
talked to them like that a minute before, forcing his feelings upon them. And
where had those feelings come from? Now if the whole room had been filled,
not with police officers, but with those nearest and dearest to him, he would
not have found one human word for them, so empty was his heart. A gloomy
sensation of agonising, everlasting solitude and remoteness, took conscious
form in his soul. It was not the meanness of his sentimental effusions before
Ilya Petrovitch, nor the meanness of the latter’s triumph over him that had
caused this sudden revulsion in his heart. Oh, what had he to do now with his
own baseness, with all these petty vanities, officers, German women, debts,
police- offices? If he had been sentenced to be burnt at that moment, he
would not have stirred, would hardly have heard the sentence to the end.
Something was happening to him entirely new, sudden and unknown. It was
not that he understood, but he felt clearly with all the intensity of sensation
that he could never more appeal to these people in the police-office with
sentimental effusions like his recent outburst, or with anything whatever; and
that if they had been his own brothers and sisters and not police-officers, it
would have been utterly out of the question to appeal to them in any
circumstance of life. He
Crime and Punishment 195 of 967 had never experienced such a strange and
awful sensation. And what was most agonising—it was more a sensation than
a conception or idea, a direct sensation, the most agonising of all the
sensations he had known in his life. The head clerk began dictating to him the
usual form of declaration, that he could not pay, that he undertook to do so at
a future date, that he would not leave the town, nor sell his property, and so
on. ‘But you can’t write, you can hardly hold the pen,’ observed the head
clerk, looking with curiosity at Raskolnikov. ‘Are you ill?’ ‘Yes, I am giddy.
Go on!’ ‘That’s all. Sign it.’ The head clerk took the paper, and turned to
attend to others. Raskolnikov gave back the pen; but instead of getting up and
going away, he put his elbows on the table and pressed his head in his hands.
He felt as if a nail were being driven into his skull. A strange idea suddenly
occurred to him, to get up at once, to go up to Nikodim Fomitch, and tell him
everything that had happened yesterday, and then to go with him to his
lodgings and to show him the things in the hole in the corner. The impulse
was so strong that he got up from his seat to carry it out. ‘Hadn’t I better
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Crime and Punishment 196 of 967 think a minute?’ flashed through his mind.
‘No, better cast off the burden without thinking.’ But all at once he stood still,
rooted to the spot. Nikodim Fomitch was talking eagerly with Ilya Petrovitch,
and the words reached him: ‘It’s impossible, they’ll both be released. To
begin with, the whole story contradicts itself. Why should they have called
the porter, if it had been their doing? To inform against themselves? Or as a
blind? No, that would be too cunning! Besides, Pestryakov, the student, was
seen at the gate by both the porters and a woman as he went in. He was
walking with three friends, who left him only at the gate, and he asked the
porters to direct him, in the presence of the friends. Now, would he have
asked his way if he had been going with such an object? As for Koch, he
spent half an hour at the silversmith’s below, before he went up to the old
woman and he left him at exactly a quarter to eight. Now just consider ...’
‘But excuse me, how do you explain this contradiction? They state
themselves that they knocked and the door was locked; yet three minutes
later when they went up with the porter, it turned out the door was
unfastened.’ ‘That’s just it; the murderer must have been there and bolted
himself in; and they’d have caught him for a certainty if Koch had not been
an ass and gone to look for
Crime and Punishment 197 of 967 the porter too. He must have seized the
interval to get downstairs and slip by them somehow. Koch keeps crossing
himself and saying: ‘If I had been there, he would have jumped out and killed
me with his axe.’ He is going to have a thanksgiving service—ha, ha!’ ‘And
no one saw the murderer?’ ‘They might well not see him; the house is a
regular Noah’s Ark,’ said the head clerk, who was listening. ‘It’s clear, quite
clear,’ Nikodim Fomitch repeated warmly. ‘No, it is anything but clear,’ Ilya
Petrovitch maintained. Raskolnikov picked up his hat and walked towards the
door, but he did not reach it.... When he recovered consciousness, he found
himself sitting in a chair, supported by someone on the right side, while
someone else was standing on the left, holding a yellowish glass filled with
yellow water, and Nikodim Fomitch standing before him, looking intently at
him. He got up from the chair. ‘What’s this? Are you ill?’ Nikodim Fomitch
asked, rather sharply.
Crime and Punishment 198 of 967 ‘He could hardly hold his pen when he was
signing,’ said the head clerk, settling back in his place, and taking up his
work again. ‘Have you been ill long?’ cried Ilya Petrovitch from his place,
where he, too, was looking through papers. He had, of course, come to look
at the sick man when he fainted, but retired at once when he recovered.
‘Since yesterday,’ muttered Raskolnikov in reply. ‘Did you go out
yesterday?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Though you were ill?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘At what time?’ ‘About
seven.’ ‘And where did you go, my I ask?’ ‘Along the street.’ ‘Short and
clear.’ Raskolnikov, white as a handkerchief, had answered sharply, jerkily,
without dropping his black feverish eyes before Ilya Petrovitch’s stare. ‘He
can scarcely stand upright. And you ...’ Nikodim Fomitch was beginning.
‘No matter,’ Ilya Petrovitch pronounced rather peculiarly.
Crime and Punishment 199 of 967