‘I don’t remember,’ faltered Pulcheria Alexandrovna. ‘I repeated them as I understood them. I don’t know how Ro-dya repeated them to you, perhaps he exaggerated.’
‘He could not have exaggerated them, except at your in-stigation.’
‘Pyotr Petrovitch,’ Pulcheria Alexandrovna declared with dignity, ‘the proof that Dounia and I did not take your words in a very bad sense is the fact that we are here.’
‘Good, mother,’ said Dounia approvingly.
‘Then this is my fault again,’ said Luzhin, aggrieved. ‘Well, Pyotr Petrovitch, you keep blaming Rodion, but
you yourself have just written what was false about him,’ Pulcheria Alexandrovna added, gaining courage.
‘I don’t remember writing anything false.’
‘You wrote,’ Raskolnikov said sharply, not turning to Lu-zhin, ‘that I gave money yesterday not to the widow of the man who was killed, as was the fact, but to his daughter (whom I had never seen till yesterday). You wrote this to make dissension between me and my family, and for that object added coarse expressions about the conduct of a girl whom you don’t know. All that is mean slander.’
‘Excuse me, sir,’ said Luzhin, quivering with fury. ‘I en-larged upon your qualities and conduct in my letter solely in response to your sister’s and mother’s inquiries, how I found you, and what impression you made on me. As for what you’ve alluded to in my letter, be so good as to point out one word of falsehood, show, that is, that you didn’t throw away your money, and that there are not worthless persons in that family, however unfortunate.’
‘To my thinking, you, with all your virtues, are not worth the little finger of that unfortunate girl at whom you throw stones.’
‘Would you go so far then as to let her associate with your mother and sister?’
‘I have done so already, if you care to know. I made her sit down to-day with mother and Dounia.’
‘Rodya!’ cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. Dounia crim-soned, Razumihin knitted his brows. Luzhin smiled with lofty sarcasm.
‘You may see for yourself, Avdotya Romanovna,’ he said, ‘whether it is possible for us to agree. I hope now that this
question is at an end, once and for all. I will withdraw, that I may not hinder the pleasures of family intimacy, and the
discussion of secrets.’ He got up from his chair and took his hat. ‘But in withdrawing, I venture to request that for the future I may be spared similar meetings, and, so to say, compromises. I appeal particularly to you, honoured Pul-cheria Alexandrovna, on this subject, the more as my letter was addressed to you and to no one else.’
Pulcheria Alexandrovna was a little offended.
‘You seem to think we are completely under your author-ity, Pyotr Petrovitch. Dounia has told you the reason your desire was disregarded, she had the best intentions. And in-deed you write as though you were laying commands upon me. Are we to consider every desire of yours as a command? Let me tell you on the contrary that you ought to show par-ticular delicacy and consideration for us now, because we have thrown up everything, and have come here relying on you, and so we are in any case in a sense in your hands.’
‘That is not quite true, Pulcheria Alexandrovna, espe-cially at the present moment, when the news has come of Marfa Petrovna’s legacy, which seems indeed very apropos, judging from the new tone you take to me,’ he added sar-castically.
‘Judging from that remark, we may certainly presume that you were reckoning on our helplessness,’ Dounia ob-served irritably.
‘But now in any case I cannot reckon on it, and I par-ticularly desire not to hinder your discussion of the secret proposals of Arkady Ivanovitch Svidrigaïlov, which he has entrusted to your brother and which have, I perceive, a great and possibly a very agreeable interest for you.’
‘Good heavens!’ cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. Razumihin could not sit still on his chair.
‘Aren’t you ashamed now, sister?’ asked Raskolnikov.
‘I am ashamed, Rodya,’ said Dounia. ‘Pyotr Petrovitch, go away,’ she turned to him, white with anger.
Pyotr Petrovitch had apparently not at all expected such a conclusion. He had too much confidence in himself, in his power and in the helplessness of his victims. He could not believe it even now. He turned pale, and his lips quivered.
‘Avdotya Romanovna, if I go out of this door now, after such a dismissal, then, you may reckon on it, I will never come back. Consider what you are doing. My word is not to be shaken.’
‘What insolence!’ cried Dounia, springing up from her seat. ‘I don’t want you to come back again.’
‘What! So that’s how it stands!’ cried Luzhin, utterly un-able to the last moment to believe in the rupture and so completely thrown out of his reckoning now. ‘So that’s how it stands! But do you know, Avdotya Romanovna, that I might protest?’
‘What right have you to speak to her like that?’ Pulcheria Alexandrovna intervened hotly. ‘And what can you protest about? What rights have you? Am I to give my Dounia to a man like you? Go away, leave us altogether! We are to blame for having agreed to a wrong action, and I above all….’
‘But you have bound me, Pulcheria Alexandrovna,’ Lu-zhin stormed in a frenzy, ‘by your promise, and now you deny it and … besides … I have been led on account of that into expenses….’
This last complaint was so characteristic of Pyotr Petro-vitch, that Raskolnikov, pale with anger and with the effort of restraining it, could not help breaking into laughter. But Pulcheria Alexandrovna was furious.
‘Expenses? What expenses? Are you speaking of our trunk? But the conductor brought it for nothing for you. Mercy on us, we have bound you! What are you thinking about, Pyotr Petrovitch, it was you bound us, hand and foot, not we!’
‘Enough, mother, no more please,’ Avdotya Romanovna implored. ‘Pyotr Petrovitch, do be kind and go!’
‘I am going, but one last word,’ he said, quite unable to control himself. ‘Your mamma seems to have entirely for-gotten that I made up my mind to take you, so to speak, after the gossip of the town had spread all over the district in regard to your reputation. Disregarding public opinion for your sake and reinstating your reputation, I certainly might very well reckon on a fitting return, and might in-deed look for gratitude on your part. And my eyes have only now been opened! I see myself that I may have acted very, very recklessly in disregarding the universal verdict….’
‘Does the fellow want his head smashed?’ cried Razumi-hin, jumping up.
‘You are a mean and spiteful man!’ cried Dounia.
‘Not a word! Not a movement!’ cried Raskolnikov, hold-ing Razumihin back; then going close up to Luzhin, ‘Kindly leave the room!’ he said quietly and distinctly, ‘and not a word more or …’
Pyotr Petrovitch gazed at him for some seconds with a
pale face that worked with anger, then he turned, went out, and rarely has any man carried away in his heart such vin-dictive hatred as he felt against Raskolnikov. Him, and him alone, he blamed for everything. It is noteworthy that as he went downstairs he still imagined that his case was perhaps not utterly lost, and that, so far as the ladies were concerned, all might ‘very well indeed’ be set right again.
Chapter III
The fact was that up to the last moment he had never ex-pected such an ending; he had been overbearing to the
last degree, never dreaming that two destitute and defence-less women could escape from his control. This conviction was strengthened by his vanity and conceit, a conceit to the point of fatuity. Pyotr Petrovitch, who had made his way up from insignificance, was morbidly given to self-admiration, had the highest opinion of his intelligence and capacities, and sometimes even gloated in solitude over his image in the glass. But what he loved and valued above all was the money he had amassed by his labour, and by all sorts of de-vices: that money made him the equal of all who had been his superiors.
When he had bitterly reminded Dounia that he had de-cided to take her in spite of evil report, Pyotr Petrovitch had spoken with perfect sincerity and had, indeed, felt genuine-ly indignant at such ‘black ingratitude.’ And yet, when he made Dounia his offer, he was fully aware of the ground-lessness of all the gossip. The story had been everywhere contradicted by Marfa Petrovna, and was by then disbe-lieved by all the townspeople, who were warm in Dounia’a defence. And he would not have denied that he knew all that at the time. Yet he still thought highly of his own resolution in lifting Dounia to his level and regarded it as something
heroic. In speaking of it to Dounia, he had let out the secret feeling he cherished and admired, and he could not under-stand that others should fail to admire it too. He had called on Raskolnikov with the feelings of a benefactor who is about to reap the fruits of his good deeds and to hear agree-able flattery. And as he went downstairs now, he considered himself most undeservedly injured and unrecognised.
Dounia was simply essential to him; to do without her was unthinkable. For many years he had had voluptuous dreams of marriage, but he had
