‘Anatomy?’
‘But as for these clubs, Dussauts, parades, or progress, indeed, maybe —well, all that can go on without me,’ he went on, again without noticing the question. ‘Besides, who wants to be a card-sharper?’
‘Why, have you been a card-sharper then?’
‘How could I help being? There was a regular set of us, men of the best society, eight years ago; we had a fine time. And all men of breeding, you know, poets, men of property. And indeed as a rule in our Russian society the best manners are found among those who’ve been thrashed, have you no-ticed that? I’ve deteriorated in the country. But I did get into prison for debt, through a low Greek who came from Ne-zhin. Then Marfa Petrovna turned up; she bargained with him and bought me off for thirty thousand silver pieces (I owed seventy thousand). We were united in lawful wedlock and she bore me off into the country like a treasure. You know she was five years older than I. She was very fond of me. For seven years I never left the country. And, take note, that all my life she held a document over me, the IOU for thirty thousand roubles, so if I were to elect to be restive about anything I should be trapped at once! And she would have done it! Women find nothing incompatible in that.’
‘If it hadn’t been for that, would you have given her the slip?’
‘I don’t know what to say. It was scarcely the document restrained me. I didn’t want to go anywhere else. Mar-fa Petrovna herself invited me to go abroad, seeing I was bored, but I’ve been abroad before, and always felt sick there. For no reason, but the sunrise, the bay of Naples, the
sea—you look at them and it makes you sad. What’s most revolting is that one is really sad! No, it’s better at home. Here at least one blames others for everything and excuses oneself. I should have gone perhaps on an expedition to the North Pole, because j’ai le vin mauvais and hate drinking, and there’s nothing left but wine. I have tried it. But, I say, I’ve been told Berg is going up in a great balloon next Sun-day from the Yusupov Garden and will take up passengers at a fee. Is it true?’
‘Why, would you go up?’
‘I … No, oh, no,’ muttered Svidrigaïlov really seeming to be deep in thought.
‘What does he mean? Is he in earnest?’ Raskolnikov won-dered.
‘No, the document didn’t restrain me,’ Svidrigaïlov went on, meditatively. ‘It was my own doing, not leaving the country, and nearly a year ago Marfa Petrovna gave me back the document on my name- day and made me a present of a considerable sum of money, too. She had a fortune, you know. ‘You see how I trust you, Arkady Ivanovitch’— that was actually her expression. You don’t believe she used it? But do you know I managed the estate quite decently, they know me in the neighbourhood. I ordered books, too. Mar-fa Petrovna at first approved, but afterwards she was afraid of my over-studying.’
‘You seem to be missing Marfa Petrovna very much?’ ‘Missing her? Perhaps. Really, perhaps I am. And, by the
way, do you believe in ghosts?’ ‘What ghosts?’
‘Why, ordinary ghosts.’ ‘Do you believe in them?’
‘Perhaps not, pour vous plaire…. I wouldn’t say no ex-actly.’
‘Do you see them, then?’
Svidrigaïlov looked at him rather oddly.
‘Marfa Petrovna is pleased to visit me,’ he said, twisting his mouth into a strange smile.
‘How do you mean ‘she is pleased to visit you’?’
‘She has been three times. I saw her first on the very day of the funeral, an hour after she was buried. It was the day before I left to come here. The second time was the day be-fore yesterday, at daybreak, on the journey at the station of Malaya Vishera, and the third time was two hours ago in the room where I am staying. I was alone.’
‘Were you awake?’
‘Quite awake. I was wide awake every time. She comes, speaks to me for a minute and goes out at the door—always at the door. I can almost hear her.’
‘What made me think that something of the sort must be happening to you?’ Raskolnikov said suddenly.
At the same moment he was surprised at having said it. He was much excited.
‘What! Did you think so?’ Svidrigaïlov asked in astonish-ment. ‘Did you really? Didn’t I say that there was something in common between us, eh?’
‘You never said so!’ Raskolnikov cried sharply and with heat.
‘Didn’t I?’
‘No!’
‘I thought I did. When I came in and saw you lying with your eyes shut, pretending, I said to myself at once, ‘Here’s the man.’’
‘What do you mean by ‘the man?’ What are you talking about?’ cried Raskolnikov.
‘What do I mean? I really don’t know….’ Svidrigaïlov muttered ingenuously, as though he, too, were puzzled.
For a minute they were silent. They stared in each other’s faces.
‘That’s all nonsense!’ Raskolnikov shouted with vexation. ‘What does she say when she comes to you?’
‘She! Would you believe it, she talks of the silliest trifles and—man is a strange creature—it makes me angry. The first time she came in (I was tired you know: the funeral service, the funeral ceremony, the lunch afterwards. At last I was left alone in my study. I lighted a cigar and began to think), she came in at the door. ‘You’ve been so busy to-day, Arkady Ivanovitch, you have forgotten to wind the din-ing- room clock,’ she said. All those seven years I’ve wound that clock every week, and if I forgot it she would always remind me. The next day I set off on my way here. I got out at the station at daybreak; I’d been asleep, tired out, with my eyes half open, I was drinking some coffee. I looked up and there was suddenly Marfa Petrovna sitting beside me with a pack of cards in her hands. ‘Shall I tell your fortune for the journey, Arkady Ivanovitch?’ She was a great hand at telling fortunes. I shall never forgive myself for not ask-ing her to. I ran away in a fright, and, besides, the bell rang.
I was sitting to-day, feeling very heavy after a miserable dinner from a cookshop; I was sitting smoking, all of a sud-den Marfa Petrovna again. She came in very smart in a new green silk dress with a long train. ‘Good day, Arkady Iva-novitch! How do you like my dress? Aniska can’t make like this.’ (Aniska was a dressmaker in the country, one of our former serf girls who had been trained in Moscow, a pretty wench.) She stood turning round before me. I looked at the dress, and then I looked carefully, very carefully, at her face.
‘I wonder you trouble to come to me about such trifles, Mar-fa Petrovna.’ ‘Good gracious, you won’t let one disturb you about anything!’ To tease her I said, ‘I want to get married, Marfa Petrovna.’ ‘That’s just like you, Arkady Ivanovitch; it does you very little credit to come looking for a bride when you’ve hardly buried your wife. And if you could make a good choice, at least, but I know it won’t be for your happi-ness or hers, you will only be a laughing-stock to all good people.’ Then she went out and her train seemed to rustle. Isn’t it nonsense, eh?’
‘But perhaps you are telling lies?’ Raskolnikov put in.
‘I rarely lie,’ answered Svidrigaïlov thoughtfully, appar-ently not noticing the rudeness of the question.
‘And in the past, have you ever seen ghosts before?’
‘Y-yes, I have seen them, but only once in my life, six years ago. I had a serf, Filka; just after his burial I called out forgetting ‘Filka, my pipe!’ He came in and went to the cupboard where my pipes were. I sat still and thought ‘he is doing it out of revenge,’ because we had a violent quarrel just before his death. ‘How dare you come in with a hole in
your elbow?’ I said. ‘Go away, you scamp!’ He turned and went out, and never came again. I didn’t tell Marfa Petro-vna at the time. I wanted to have a service sung for him, but I was ashamed.’
‘You should go to a doctor.’
‘I know I am not well, without your telling me, though I don’t know what’s wrong; I believe I am five times as strong as you are. I didn’t ask you whether you believe that ghosts are seen, but whether you believe that they exist.’
‘No, I won’t believe it!’ Raskolnikov cried, with positive anger.
‘What do people generally say?’ muttered Svidrigaïlov, as though speaking to himself, looking aside and bowing his head. ‘They say, ‘You are ill, so what appears to you is only unreal fantasy.’ But that’s not strictly logical. I agree that ghosts only appear to the sick, but that only proves that they are unable to appear except to the sick, not that they don’t exist.’
‘Nothing of the sort,’ Raskolnikov insisted irritably. ‘No? You don’t think so?’ Svidrigaïlov went on, looking
at him deliberately. ‘But what do you say to this argument (help me with it): ghosts are, as it were, shreds and frag-ments of other worlds, the beginning of them. A man in health has, of course, no reason to see them, because he is above all a man of this earth and is bound for the sake of completeness and order to live only in this life. But as soon as one is ill, as soon as the normal earthly order of the or-ganism is broken, one
