(PART TWO, CHAPTER FOUR, PAGE 117)
Doctor Zossimov was a tall, fat man with a puffy, colourless, clean-shaven face and straight flaxen hair. He wore spectacles, and a big gold ring on his fat finger, He was twenty-seven. He had on a light grey fashionable loose coat, light summer trousers, and everything about him loose, fashionable and spic and span; his linen was irreproachable, his watch-chain was massive. In manner he was slow and, as it were, nonchalant, and at the same time studiously free and easy; he made efforts to conceal his self-importance, but it was apparent at every instant. All his acquaintances found him tedious, but said he was clever at his work.
Zossimov ask Raskolnikov "how do you feel?" Watching him carefully.
"He is still depressed," said Razumihin. "We changed his linen and he almost cried."
"That's natural; you might of put it off, if he did not wish it. . . . His pulse is good. Is your head still hurting?" Zossimov asked.
"I am well, I am perfectly well!" Raskolnikov declared positively and irritably.
"Very good. . . . Going all right. I'll look in on him tomorrow. He may have soup, tea."
"Tomorrow I'll take him for a walk," said Razumihin."I've got a house-warming party tonight; it's only a step from here. Could he come? He could lie on the sofa. You are coming?" Razumihin said to Zossimov. "Don't forget, you promised." There will be tea, vodka, herrings, pie, just our friends, except my old uncle, he just arrived in Petersburg yesterday on business. We only meet once in five years. He's been stagnating all his life a district postmaster; gets a little pension, He is sixty-five not worth talking about. But I am fond of him. Porfiry Petrovitch will be there, the head of the Investigative Department here. . . . But you know him.
"Is he a relation of yours too?"
"A very distant one. But why are you scowling? Because you quarrelled once, won't you come then?"
"I don't give a care for him!" Zossimov said.
"So much the better. Well, there will be some students, a teacher, a government clerk, a musician, an officer and Zametov." (Zametov, the head clerk at the police station, a young well dressed man of about twenty two per Raskolnikov's description earlier.)
"Do tell me, please, what you, or he"--Zossimov nodded at Raskolnikov--"can have in common with this Zametov?"
"Oh, you particular gentlemen! Principles! You are worked by principles, as it were on springs: you won't venture to turn around on your own account. If a man is a nice fella, that's the only principle I go upon. Zametov is a delightful person."
"Though he does take bribes."
"Well he does! What of it? I don't care if he does take bribes." Razumihin cries with unnatural irritability. "I don't praise him for taking bribes. I only say he is a nice man in his own way! But if one looks at men in all ways--are there many good ones left? Why, I am sure I shouldn't be worth a baked onion myself . . . perhaps with you thrown in."
"If you really want to what we have in common, it's about a house painter . . . We are getting him out of a mess with the old pawnbroker's murder. He was accused of the murder," Razumihin went on hotly. "There is no evidence, that's what we have to prove. Just like they picked on those two fellows, Koch and Pestryakov at first." (These are the two that were outside the old pawnbrokers door, when Raskolnikov was trying to leave, a student Pestryakov and a fat man Koch.)
"But I say, Razumihin, what a busybody you are!" Zossimov observed.
"Maybe I am, but will get him off anyway," shouted Razumihin, bringing his fist down on the table. "What's the most offensive is not their lying--one can always forgive lying--lying is a delightful thing, for it leads to truth--what is offensive is they lie and worship their own lying. . . . I respect Porfiry Petrovitch but . . . (The head of the investigative department.) What threw them off at first ? the door was locked, and when they came back with the porter it was open. They assume Koch and Pestryakov were the murders--that was their logic!"
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I'LL DRASTICALLY SUMMARIZE THE NEXT SEVERAL PAGES.
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Razumihin tells Zossimov, how Koch the fat man behind the door talking to Pestryakov, the student when Raskolnikov was trying to make his exit at the old pawnbrokers apartment after the murders, was a swindler who buys up bad debts.
(((NOTE! IT IS TERRIBLY HARD TO KEEP THE CHARACTERS STRAIGHT, SO I'LL REMIND YOU OVER AND OVER. HOPE YOU DON'T MIND?)))
Three days after the murders, the police believing Koch and Pestryakov are the murderers, then a peasant, Dushkin who runs a small shop brings a jewellers case with gold ear-rings to the police department.
Dushkin bought the ear-rings from a house-painter Nikolay (One of the painters in the old pawnbrokers apartment building.) told Dushkin he found them in the street. Nikolay is a drunk, getting money for the ear-rings from Dushkin. A few days later after hearing of the murders Nikolay was seen behind a tavern trying to hang himself. Nikolay knew they would accuse him, because he found the ear-rings behind the door where Raskolnikov had hidden. (The open apartment beneath the old pawnbrokers, where Raskolnikov hid while the porter and others were going up.) Nikolay was taken to the police station where they squeezed him until he confessed.
(((REMEMBER NOW RAZUMIHIN IS LAYING OUT THE CASE TO ZOSSIMOV AND RASKOLNIKOV IS LISTENING TO EVERY WORD. THIS RAZUMIHIN IS LIKE A LAWYER AS HE STUDIES THIS CASE, LAYING IT OUT. IF YOU WISH TO READ THIS RATHER LONG BUT BRILLIANT SUMMATION, PLEASE READ PAGES 119 TO 126.)))
Razumihin was telling how Nikolay found the ear-rings behind the door and Raskolnikov cried out suddenly "behind the door? Lying behind the door? Behind the door?" Staring with a blank look of terror at Razumihin, and he slowly sat up on the sofa.
"Yes . . . why? What's the matter? What's wrong?" Razumihin rises from his seat.
"Nothing," Raskolnikov answered faintly, turning to the wall. All was silent.
"Well go on," said Zossimov. What next?"
"What next? The police take Nikolay into custody he admitted to telling a lie about finding them in the street and went off drinking. He keeps repeating his story about the murder: "I know nothing of it till the day before yesterday' 'And why didn't you come to the police station till now?' I was frightened.' 'And why did you try to hang yourself?' ' From anxiety.' 'What anxiety?' 'That I should be accused of it.' Well that's the whole story and what do you believe they deduced from that?"
Zossimov "there's no supposing. There's a clue, such as it is, a fact. You wouldn't have your painter set free?"
Razumihin "They've taken him for the murderer. They haven't a shadow of doubt."
Zossimov "Nonsense, you must admit that if, on the very same day and hour ear-rings from the old pawnbroker come into Nikolay's hands, that's a good deal in such a case."
"How did they get there?" cried Razumihin." How can you a doctor, who has more opportunity to study human nature fail to see the character of the man in the whole story? The answers Nikolay has given in the examination is the whole truth."
Zossimov "The whole truth! But didn't he say he told a lie at first?"
Razumihin "We have eight or ten witnesses that Nikolay and Demitri were on the ground fighting in the thoroughfare like children. Now take careful note. The bodies upstairs were warm, does squeals and giggling and scuffling fit in with axes, bloodshed, fiendish cunning, robbery?
Zossimov "Of course, it is strange! It's impossible, indeed. So the only evidence for the defense is that they were beating one another and laughing. That constitutes a strong presumption, but . . . How do you explain the facts yourself?"
Razumihin "How do I explain them? It's clear the jewel-case with the ear-rings points to it. The real murderer dropped them. The murderer was upstairs locked in. Koch like an ass, did not stay at the door; the murderer popped out and ran down; for he had no other way of escape. He hid from Koch, Pestryakov and the porter in the flat where Nikolay and Dmitri had just run out of. He stopped there waited and then went calmly downstairs at the very minute Dmitri and Nikolay were fighting; possibly he was seen but not noticed. He dropped the ear-rings when he stood behind the door. The jewel-case is conclusive proof that he did stand there. . . . That's how I explain it"
Zossimov "Too clever! No, my boy, you're too clever. That beats everything!"
Razumihin "But, why, why?"
Zossimov "Why, because everything fits too well . . . It's too melodramatic."
"A-ach!" Razumihin was exclaiming, but at that moment the door opened and someone came in who was a stranger to all present. (end page 126)
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