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Monday, February 18, 2013

(17) C. P. Part Two (Chap. II)

   Raskolnikov goes home immediately pulling out the eight articles he had hidden in the corner, behind the wallpaper. Placing them in his coat and trouser pockets, he must do away with them. Fling them into the canal was his plan. There were people everywhere and he could not carry this out, everyone he met seemed to give him a stare. Seemed as though they had nothing else to do but watch him.

   He decided to go to the Neva, (river) where there would be less people and more convenient in every way. Why the Neva would it not be better to go somewhere farther off? He was incapable of clear judgment.

   He came upon a courtyard with walls on both sides leading to a area in back filled with all sorts of rubbish, there he spots a stone of perhaps sixty pounds, underneath this stone was a hole, he placed the eight pieces and the purse inside.

   He begins thinking "it is all over, no clue!" He begin laughing, a thin, nervous, noiseless, laugh while crossing the square.

   He comes upon the bench where two days before he had come upon the young girl, and he had given money to the policeman for a carriage to take the poor thing home.

   He walked looking about him angrily and distractedly. All his ideas seem to be circling a single point. For the first time in the last two months he was now facing that point.

   "Damn it all! If it has begun, then it has begun. Hang the new life! Lord how stupid it was! . . . And what lies I told today! How despicably I fawned  (To seek notice or favor by a servile demeanor.)  upon that wretched Ilya Petrovitch  (The assistant superintendent at the police station.)  But that was all folly!  (Foolish action.)  What do I care for them all, and my fawning upon them! It is not that at all!"

(I FEEL THE NEED TO DEFINE ANY WORD THAT MAY THROW A WRENCH INTO MY GEARS/BRAIN SORRY! FAWNED AND FOLLY ARE NOT PART OF MY EVERYDAY VOCABULARY. HOPE YOU'RE ENJOYING THIS QUEST OF MINE.)

   A new unexpected question, bitterly confounded him.

   "If all has been done deliberately and not idiotically, how is it I did not glance into the purse, for which I undertook this filthy, degrading, business? How is that?"

    "It is because I'm very ill," he decided grimly at last, "I have been worrying and fretting myself, and I don't know what I'm doing . . . I shall get well and I shall not worry. . . . Good God, how sick I am of it all!"

   While walking he had a terrible urge for something to distract him. A new overwhelming sensation was gaining mastery over him; this was an immeasurable, almost physical, repulsion for everything surrounding him, an obstinate, malignant feeling of hatred. All who met him were loathsome to him--he loathed their faces, their movements, their gestures.

   He stopped suddenly realising he had come to where Razumihin lived. "I have come to see Razumihin of my own accord! Have I come here on purpose, or by chance? I said the day before yesterday that I would go and see him, the day AFTER; and so I will!"

(RAZUMIHIN IS PROBABLY THE ONLY FRIEND RASKOLNIKOV HAD AT THE UNIVERSITY, THE DESCRIPTION WAS GIVEN OF HIM EARLIER IN THE BOOK AND HE FIGURES IN PROMINENTLY FOR THE NEXT SEVERAL CHAPTERS.

   He was tired and goes up to Razumihin's room on the fifth floor. He was home in his garret (attic room) busily writing. It was four months since they had seen each other. Razumihin was in a ragged dressing-gown, with slippers on his bare feet, unkempt, unshaven and unwashed. His face showed surprise.

   "Is it you ?" he cried. He looked his comrade up and down; then after a brief pause, he whistled. "As hard up as all that! Why, brother, you've cut me out!" he added, looking at Raskolnikov's rags. "Come sit down, you are tired."

   Razumihin knew at once his visitor was ill. "Why you are seriously ill, do you know that?" He began feeling his pulse. Raskolnikov pulled away his hand.

   "Never mind," he said, "I've come for this: I have no lessons. . . . I wanted . . . but I don't really want lessons. . . . "

   "But I say! You are delirious, you know!" Razumihin observed watching him carefully.

   "No I am not!"

   He realised at that moment he did not want to be face to face with anyone in the world. His spleen rose up within him. He was almost choked with rage at himself.

   "Good-bye," he said abruptly and walked to the door.

   "Stop, stop! You queer fish."

   "I don't want to,"  said the other, again pulling away his hand.

   "Then why the devil have you come?" Are you mad, or what? Why this is . . .  almost insulting! I won't let you go like that."

   "Well, then, I come to you because I know no one but you could help . . . to begin . . . because you are kinder than anyone--cleverer, I mean, and can judge . . . and now I see I want nothing. Do you hear? Nothing at all . . . no one's services . . . no one's sympathy. I am by myself . . . . Come that's enough. Leave me alone."

   "Stay a minute, you sweep! You are a perfect madman. As you like for all I care. I have no lessons but a better way to make money. There is a bookseller Heruvimov he takes the place of a lesson. He's doing publishing of a kind, issuing natural service manuals, I translate the books for him. He pays in advance. Razumihin wants Raskolnikov to help him. Raskolnikov took sheets to be translated from German and three roubles from Razumihin and left, then when he was in the street took the sheets and money back.

   "Are you raving or what?" Razumihin shouted, roused to fury. "What farce is this? You'll drive me crazy, what did you come to see me for, damn you?"

   "I don't want . . . translation," muttered Raskolnikov from the stairs.

   Then what the devil do you want?" Shouted Razumihin, "hey where are you living?"

   No answer.

   "Well confound you then!"

   He was roused to full consciousness on the Nikolaevky Bridge, a coachman after shouting at him several times gave him a lash on the back, (for some unknown reason he had been walking in the middle of the bridge in the traffic).

   He stood at the railing angrily looking back, bewildered, rubbing his back, he suddenly felt someone thrust money into his hand. It was an elderly woman in a kerchief and goat skin shoes, with a girl, probably her daughter wearing a hat, and carrying a green parasol.

   "Take it, my good man, in Christ's name."

   He took it and they passed on. From his dress and appearance they may have took him for a beggar, the gift undoubtedly was due from the blow, which made them feel sorry for him.

   He walked on for about ten paces, and turned facing the Neva, looking towards the palace. The sky was without a cloud and the water was almost bright blue, which is so rare in the Neva. The cupola of the cathedral, glittered in the sunlight, and in the pure air every ornament on it could be clearly distinguished. The pain from the lash wore off, and Raskolnikov forgot about it; one uneasy and not quite definite idea occupied him now completely. He stood still, and gazed long and intently into the distance; this spot was especially familiar to him. When he was attending the university, he had hundreds of times--generally on his way home--stood still on this spot, gazed at this truly magnificent spectacle and almost always marvelled at a vague and mysterious emotion it roused in him. It left him strangely cold; this picture was for him blank and lifeless. He wondered every time at his sombre and enigmatic impression and, mistrusting himself, put off finding the explanation of it. He vividly recalled those old doubts and perplexities, and it seemed to him that it was no mere chance that he recalled then now. It struck him as strange and grotesque that he should have stopped at the same spot as before, as though he actually imagined he could think the same thoughts, be interested in the same theories and pictures that interested him . . . so short a time ago. He felt it almost amusing, and yet it wrung his heart. Deep down, hidden far away out of sight all that seemed to him now--all his old past, his old thoughts, his old problems and theories, his old impressions and that picture and himself and all, all. . . . He felt as though he were flying upwards, and everything were vanishing from his sight. Making an unconscious movement with his hand, he suddenly became aware of the money in his fist. He opened his hand, stared at the coin, and with a sweep of his arm flung it into the water; then he turned and went home. It seemed to him, he had cut himself off from everyone and from everything at that moment.

((WHAT A PARAGRAPH!))   ((I'VE BEEN GRAPPLING WITH THIS PARAGRAPH AFTER READING IT COUNTLESS TIMES! GRAPPLING PERHAPS IS NOT THE BEST WORD, POSSIBLY AMAZED!))

THE BEAUTY OF THAT MOMENT SEEMED ALMOST MIRACULOUS, BUT HE WAS DEAD INSIDE!

PUT OFF FINDING THE MEANING OF THE CATHEDRAL. TO HIM IT WAS MEANINGLESS!

THROWING THE COIN IN THE NEVA, "MONEY DESTROYS ALL HUMANITY!"

ONCE HE MARVELLED AT THE VAGUE MYSTERIOUS EMOTION IT ROUSED IN HIM!

(JUST A FEW THOUGHTS I WAS KICKING AROUND WHAT DOES THIS PARAGRAPH MEAN TO YOU?)

I CHOOSE TO END THIS POST HERE, EVEN THOUGH THERE IS A COUPLE PAGES LEFT IN THIS CHAPTER. I WILL START THE NEXT POST FROM HERE BECAUSE IT TIES IN WITH THE ENDING OF THIS CHAPTER.

If you have the book and are following along with me, I am at page 102 in the Bantam Classic's. Marvelous . . . I must say!     Glen here on GlenView . . . . . . . . 

1 comment:

  1. I think I need to read it several times myself.....
    I am rather amazed at you Glen... amazed at how well you are going along with this little project of yours and sweeping me back up into this story as you go.

    ReplyDelete