ken to a soul for a month.
‘Honoured sir,’ he began almost with solemnity, ‘poverty is not a vice, that’s a true saying. Yet I know too that drunk-enness is not a virtue, and that that’s even truer. But beggary, honoured sir, beggary is a vice. In poverty you may still re-tain your innate nobility of soul, but in beggary—never—no one. For beggary a man is not chased out of human society with a stick, he is swept out with a broom, so as to make it as humiliating as possible; and quite right, too, forasmuch as in beggary I am ready to be the first to humiliate myself. Hence the pot-house! Honoured sir, a month ago Mr. Le-beziatnikov gave my wife a beating, and my wife is a very different matter from me! Do you understand? Allow me to ask you another question out of simple curiosity: have you ever spent a night on a hay barge, on the Neva?’
‘No, I have not happened to,’ answered Raskolnikov. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, I’ve just come from one and it’s the fifth night I’ve slept so….’ He filled his glass, emptied it and paused. Bits of hay were in fact clinging to his clothes and sticking to his hair. It seemed quite probable that he had not undressed or washed for the last five days. His hands, particularly, were filthy. They were fat and red, with black nails.
His conversation seemed to excite a general though lan-guid interest. The boys at the counter fell to sniggering. The innkeeper came down from the upper room, apparently on purpose to listen to the ‘funny fellow’ and sat down at a little distance, yawning lazily, but with dignity. Evidently Marmeladov was a familiar figure here, and he had most
likely acquired his weakness for high-flown speeches from the habit of frequently entering into conversation with strangers of all sorts in the tavern. This habit develops into a necessity in some drunkards, and especially in those who are looked after sharply and kept in order at home. Hence in the company of other drinkers they try to justify them-selves and even if possible obtain consideration.
‘Funny fellow!’ pronounced the innkeeper. ‘And why don’t you work, why aren’t you at your duty, if you are in the service?’
‘Why am I not at my duty, honoured sir,’ Marmeladov went on, addressing himself exclusively to Raskolnikov, as though it had been he who put that question to him. ‘Why am I not at my duty? Does not my heart ache to think what a useless worm I am? A month ago when Mr. Lebeziatnikov beat my wife with his own hands, and I lay drunk, didn’t I suffer? Excuse me, young man, has it ever happened to you
… hm … well, to petition hopelessly for a loan?’ ‘Yes, it has. But what do you mean by hopelessly?’
‘Hopelessly in the fullest sense, when you know before-hand that you will get nothing by it. You know, for instance, beforehand with positive certainty that this man, this most reputable and exemplary citizen, will on no consideration give you money; and indeed I ask you why should he? For he knows of course that I shan’t pay it back. From compas-sion? But Mr. Lebeziatnikov who keeps up with modern ideas explained the other day that compassion is forbidden nowadays by science itself, and that that’s what is done now in England, where there is political economy. Why, I ask
you, should he give it to me? And yet though I know before-hand that he won’t, I set off to him and …’
‘Why do you go?’ put in Raskolnikov.
‘Well, when one has no one, nowhere else one can go! For every man must have somewhere to go. Since there are times when one absolutely must go somewhere! When my own daughter first went out with a yellow ticket, then I had to go … (for my daughter has a yellow passport),’ he add-ed in parenthesis, looking with a certain uneasiness at the young man. ‘No matter, sir, no matter!’ he went on hurried-ly and with apparent composure when both the boys at the counter guffawed and even the innkeeper smiled—‘No mat-ter, I am not confounded by the wagging of their heads; for everyone knows everything about it already, and all that is secret is made open. And I accept it all, not with contempt, but with humility. So be it! So be it! ‘Behold the man!’ Ex-cuse me, young man, can you…. No, to put it more strongly and more distinctly; not canyou but dareyou, looking upon me, assert that I am not a pig?’
The young man did not answer a word.
‘Well,’ the orator began again stolidly and with even in-creased dignity, after waiting for the laughter in the room to subside. ‘Well, so be it, I am a pig, but she is a lady! I have the semblance of a beast, but Katerina Ivanovna, my spouse, is a person of education and an oficer’s daughter. Granted, granted, I am a scoundrel, but she is a woman of a noble heart, full of sentiments, refined by education. And yet … oh, if only she felt for me! Honoured sir, honoured sir, you know every man ought to have at least one place where
people feel for him! But Katerina Ivanovna, though she is magnanimous, she is unjust…. And yet, although I realise that when she pulls my hair she only does it out of pity—for I repeat without being ashamed, she pulls my hair, young man,’ he declared with redoubled dignity, hearing the snig-gering again—‘but, my God, if she would but once…. But no, no! It’s all in vain and it’s no use talking! No use talk-ing! For more than once, my wish did come true and more than once she has felt for me but … such is my fate and I am a beast by nature!’
‘Rather!’ assented the innkeeper yawning. Marmeladov struck his fist resolutely on the table.
‘Such is my fate! Do you know, sir, do you know, I have sold her very stockings for drink? Not her shoes—that would be more or less in the order of things, but her stock-ings, her stockings I have sold for drink! Her mohair shawl I sold for drink, a present to her long ago, her own property, not mine; and we live in a cold room and she caught cold this winter and has begun coughing and spitting blood too. We have three little children and Katerina Ivanovna is at work from morning till night; she is scrubbing and cleaning and washing the children, for she’s been used to cleanliness from a child. But her chest is weak and she has a tendency to consumption and I feel it! Do you suppose I don’t feel it? And the more I drink the more I feel it. That’s why I drink too. I try to find sympathy and feeling in drink…. I drink so that I may suffer twice as much!’ And as though in despair he laid his head down on the table.
‘Young man,’ he went on, raising his head again, ‘in your
face I seem to read some trouble of mind. When you came in I read it, and that was why I addressed you at once. For in unfolding to you the story of my life, I do not wish to make myself a laughing-stock before these idle listeners, who indeed know all about it already, but I am looking for a man of feeling and education. Know then that my wife was educated in a high-class school for the daughters of noble-men, and on leaving she danced the shawl dance before the governor and other personages for which she was presented with a gold medal and a certificate of merit. The medal … well, the medal of course was sold—long ago, hm … but the certificate of merit is in her trunk still and not long ago she showed it to our landlady. And although she is most con-tinually on bad terms with the landlady, yet she wanted to tell someone or other of her past honours and of the happy days that are gone. I don’t condemn her for it, I don’t blame her, for the one thing left her is recollection of the past, and all the rest is dust and ashes. Yes, yes, she is a lady of spirit, proud and determined. She scrubs the floors herself and has nothing but black bread to eat, but won’t allow herself to be treated with disrespect. That’s why she would not overlook Mr. Lebeziatnikov’s rudeness to her, and so when he gave her a beating for it, she took to her bed more from the hurt to her feelings than from the blows. She was a widow when I married her, with three children, one smaller than the other. She married her first husband, an infantry oficer, for love, and ran away with him from her father’s house. She was exceedingly fond of her husband; but he gave way to cards, got into trouble and with that he died. He used to beat her
at the end: and although she paid him back, of which I have authentic documentary evidence, to this day she speaks of him with tears and
