in getting hold of certain personages by whose help the three orphans could be at once placed in very suitable insti-tutions; that the money he had settled on them had been of great assistance, as it is much easier to place orphans with some property than destitute ones. He said something too about Sonia and promised to come himself in a day or two to see Raskolnikov, mentioning that ‘he would like to con-sult with him, that there were things they must talk over….’
This conversation took place in the passage on the stairs. Svidrigaïlov looked intently at Raskolnikov and suddenly, after a brief pause, dropping his voice, asked: ‘But how is it, Rodion Romanovitch; you don’t seem yourself? You look and you listen, but you don’t seem to understand. Cheer up! We’ll talk things over; I am only sorry, I’ve so much to do of my own business and other people’s. Ah, Rodion Roma-novitch,’ he added suddenly, ‘what all men need is fresh air, fresh air … more than anything!’
He moved to one side to make way for the priest and server, who were coming up the stairs. They had come for the requiem service. By Svidrigaïlov’s orders it was sung twice a day punctually. Svidrigaïlov went his way. Raskol-nikov stood still a moment, thought, and followed the priest into Sonia’s room. He stood at the door. They began quietly, slowly and mournfully singing the service. From his child-hood the thought of death and the presence of death had something oppressive and mysteriously awful; and it was long since he had heard the requiem service. And there was something else here as well, too awful and disturbing. He looked at the children: they were all kneeling by the cof-
fin; Polenka was weeping. Behind them Sonia prayed, softly and, as it were, timidly weeping.
‘These last two days she hasn’t said a word to me, she hasn’t glanced at me,’ Raskolnikov thought suddenly. The sunlight was bright in the room; the incense rose in clouds; the priest read, ‘Give rest, oh Lord….’ Raskolnikov stayed all through the service. As he blessed them and took his leave, the priest looked round strangely. After the service, Raskolnikov went up to Sonia. She took both his hands and let her head sink on his shoulder. This slight friendly ges-ture bewildered Raskolnikov. It seemed strange to him that there was no trace of repugnance, no trace of disgust, no tremor in her hand. It was the furthest limit of self-abnega-tion, at least so he interpreted it.
Sonia said nothing. Raskolnikov pressed her hand and went out. He felt very miserable. If it had been possible to escape to some solitude, he would have thought himself lucky, even if he had to spend his whole life there. But al-though he had almost always been by himself of late, he had never been able to feel alone. Sometimes he walked out of the town on to the high road, once he had even reached a little wood, but the lonelier the place was, the more he seemed to be aware of an uneasy presence near him. It did not frighten him, but greatly annoyed him, so that he made haste to return to the town, to mingle with the crowd, to enter restaurants and taverns, to walk in busy thorough-fares. There he felt easier and even more solitary. One day at dusk he sat for an hour listening to songs in a tavern and he remembered that he positively enjoyed it. But at last he
had suddenly felt the same uneasiness again, as though his conscience smote him. ‘Here I sit listening to singing, is that what I ought to be doing?’ he thought. Yet he felt at once that that was not the only cause of his uneasiness; there was something requiring immediate decision, but it was some-thing he could not clearly understand or put into words. It was a hopeless tangle. ‘No, better the struggle again! Better Porfiry again … or Svidrigaïlov…. Better some challenge again … some attack. Yes, yes!’ he thought. He went out of the tavern and rushed away almost at a run. The thought of Dounia and his mother suddenly reduced him almost to a panic. That night he woke up before morning among some bushes in Krestovsky Island, trembling all over with fever; he walked home, and it was early morning when he arrived. After some hours’ sleep the fever left him, but he woke up late, two o’clock in the afternoon.
He remembered that Katerina Ivanovna’s funeral had been fixed for that day, and was glad that he was not pres-ent at it. Nastasya brought him some food; he ate and drank with appetite, almost with greediness. His head was fresh-er and he was calmer than he had been for the last three days. He even felt a passing wonder at his previous attacks of panic.
The door opened and Razumihin came in.
‘Ah, he’s eating, then he’s not ill,’ said Razumihin. He took a chair and sat down at the table opposite Raskolnikov.
He was troubled and did not attempt to conceal it. He spoke with evident annoyance, but without hurry or rais-ing his voice. He looked as though he had some special fixed
determination.
‘Listen,’ he began resolutely. ‘As far as I am concerned, you may all go to hell, but from what I see, it’s clear to me that I can’t make head or tail of it; please don’t think I’ve come to ask you questions. I don’t want to know, hang it! If you begin telling me your secrets, I dare say I shouldn’t stay to listen, I should go away cursing. I have only come to find out once for all whether it’s a fact that you are mad? There is a conviction in the air that you are mad or very nearly so. I admit I’ve been disposed to that opinion myself, judging from your stupid, repulsive and quite inexplicable actions, and from your recent behavior to your mother and sister. Only a monster or a madman could treat them as you have; so you must be mad.’
‘When did you see them last?’
‘Just now. Haven’t you seen them since then? What have you been doing with yourself? Tell me, please. I’ve been to you three times already. Your mother has been seriously ill since yesterday. She had made up her mind to come to you; Avdotya Romanovna tried to prevent her; she wouldn’t hear a word. ‘If he is ill, if his mind is giving way, who can look af-ter him like his mother?’ she said. We all came here together, we couldn’t let her come alone all the way. We kept begging her to be calm. We came in, you weren’t here; she sat down, and stayed ten minutes, while we stood waiting in silence. She got up and said: ‘If he’s gone out, that is, if he is well, and has forgotten his mother, it’s humiliating and unseemly for his mother to stand at his door begging for kindness.’ She returned home and took to her bed; now she is in a fever. ‘I
see,’ she said, ‘that he has time for his girl. ‘ She means by your girl Sofya Semyonovna, your betrothed or your mis-tress, I don’t know. I went at once to Sofya Semyonovna’s, for I wanted to know what was going on. I looked round, I saw the cofin, the children crying, and Sofya Semyonovna trying them on mourning dresses. No sign of you. I apol-ogised, came away, and reported to Avdotya Romanovna. So that’s all nonsense and you haven’t got a girl; the most likely thing is that you are mad. But here you sit, guzzling boiled beef as though you’d not had a bite for three days. Though as far as that goes, madmen eat too, but though you have not said a word to me yet … you are not mad! That I’d swear! Above all, you are not mad! So you may go to hell, all of you, for there’s some mystery, some secret about it, and I don’t intend to worry my brains over your secrets. So I’ve simply come to swear at you,’ he finished, getting up, ‘to re-lieve my mind. And I know what to do now.’
‘What do you mean to do now?’
‘What business is it of yours what I mean to do?’ ‘You are going in for a drinking bout.’
‘How … how did you know?’ ‘Why, it’s pretty plain.’ Razumihin paused for a minute.
‘You always have been a very rational person and you’ve never been mad, never,’ he observed suddenly with warmth.
‘You’re right: I shall drink. Good-bye!’ And he moved to go out.
‘I was talking with my sister—the day before yesterday, I think it was—about you, Razumihin.’
‘About me! But … where can you have seen her the day before yesterday?’ Razumihin stopped short and even turned a little pale.
One could see that his heart was throbbing slowly and violently.
‘She came here by herself, sat there and talked to me.’ ‘She did!’
‘Yes.’
‘What did you say to her … I mean, about me?’
‘I told her you were a very good, honest, and industrious man. I didn’t tell her you love her, because she knows that herself.’
‘She knows that herself?’
‘Well, it’s pretty plain. Wherever I might go, whatever happened to me, you would remain to look after them. I, so to speak, give them into your keeping, Razumihin. I say this because I
