(Continuation from page 142.)
Zametov said angrily, "it's all nonsense!"
Zametov and Raskolnikov talk about all the crimes making the paper recently.Talk soon comes back to the murder of the old pawnbroker.
"Zametov "take for example that old woman murdered in our district. The murderer seems to have been a desperate fellow, he risked everything in open daylight, was saved by a miracle--but his hands shook too. He did not succeed in robbing the place, he couldn't stand it. That was clear from the . . ."
Raskolnikov seemed offended.
"Clear why don't you catch him then?" he cried maliciously gibing (mocking) at Zametov.
"Well, they will catch him."
"Who? You? Do you suppose you could catch him? Any child could misled you."
"The fact is, they always do that, though," answered Zametov. "A man will commit a clever murder at the risk of his life and then at once go drinking at a tavern. They are caught spending money, they are not all as cunning as you are. You wouldn't go to a tavern of course?"
Raskolnikov frowned and looked steadily at Zametov.
"You seem to enjoy the subject and would like to know how I would behave in that case too?" he asked with displeasure.
"I should like to," Zametov answered firmly and seriously. Somewhat too much earnestness began to appear in his words and looks.
"Very much?"
"Very much!"
" All right then. This is how I should behave," Raskolnikov began, again bringing his face close to Zametov's, again staring at him and speaking in a whisper, so that the Zametov shuddered.
Raskolnikov explained in detail exactly what he did with the money and jewels, taunting Zametov.
"You are a madman," said Zametov, and for some reason he too spoke in a whisper, and moved away from Raskolnikov, whose eyes were glittering. (EYES WERE GLITTERING. WOW!) He had turned fearfully pale and his upper lip was twitching. He bent down as close as possible to Zametov, his lips began to move without uttering a word. This went on for half a minute; he knew what he was doing, but could not restrain himself. The terrible word trembled on his lips, like the latch on that door; in another moment it will break out, in another moment he will let it go, he will speak out.
"And what if it was I who murdered the old woman and Lizaveta?" he said suddenly and--realised what he had done.
Zametov looked at him and turned as white as the table cloth. His face wore a contorted smile.
"But it is possible?" he brought out faintly. Raskolnikov looked wrathfully at him.
"Own up that you believed it, yes you did?"
"Not a bit of it, I believe it less than ever now," Zametov cried hastily.
"I've caught my cock-sparrow! So you did believe it before, if now you believe it less than ever?"
Not at all," cried Zametov, obviously embarrassed. "Have you been frightening me so as to lead up to this?"
"You don't believe it then? What were you talking about behind my back when I went out of the police-office? And why did the explosive lieutenant question me after I fainted? Hey there he shouted to the waiter, getting up and taking his cap, "how much?"
"Thirty copecks," said the waiter.
"And here is twenty copecks for vodka. See what a lot of money!" he held out his shaking hand to Zametov with notes in it. "Red notes and blue, twenty-five roubles. Where did I get them? And where did my new clothes come from? You know I had not a copeck. You've cross-examined my landlady, I'll be bound. . . . Well, that's enough! Till we meet again!"
He went out trembling all over from a sort of wild hysterical sensation, in which there was an element of insufferable rapture. Yet he was gloomy and terribly tired. His face was twisted as if after a fit. (Seizure) His fatigue increased rapidly. Any shock, any irritating sensation stimulated and revived his energies at once, but his strength failed as quickly when the stimulus was removed.
Zametov sat alone for a long time deep in thought. Raskolnikov had unwittingly made his mind up on a certain point conclusively. "Ilya Petrovitch is a block head," he decided.
Raskolnikov had hardly opened the door of the restaurant when he stumbled against Razumihin on the steps. They did not see each other until they almost knocked against each other. For a moment they stood looking each other up and down. Razumihin was greatly astounded, then anger, real anger gleamed fiercely in his eyes.
"So here you are!" he shouted-- "you've ran away from your bed! And here I have been looking for you under the sofa! We went up to your room. I almost Natasya on your account. And here he is after all. Rodya! (Friends and family remember call him this.) What is the meaning of it? Tell me the whole truth! Confess! Do you hear?"
"It means I'm sick to death of you all and I want to be alone," Raskolnikov answered calmly.
"Alone? When you are not able to walk, when your face is as white as a sheet and you are grasping for breath! Idiot! . . . What have you been doing in the Palais de Cristal? Own up at once!?
"Let me go!? said Raskolnikov, and tried to pass him. This was too much for Razumihin; he gripped him firmly by the shoulder.
"Let you go? You dare tell me to let you go? Do you know what I'll do with you?" I'll tie you up in a bundle, carry you home under my arm and lock you up!"
"Listen, Razumihin," Raskolnikov began quietly, apparently calm--"can't you see that I don't want your benevolence? A strange desire you have to shower benefits on a man who . . . who curses them, who feels them a burden in fact! Why did you seek me out at the beginning of my illness? Maybe I was very glad to die. Didn't I tell you plainly enough t0-day that you were torturing me, that I was . . . sick of you! You seem to want to torture people! I assure you that is seriously hindering my recovery, because it's continually irritating me. You saw Zossimov go away to avoid irritating me. You leave me alone too, for goodness' sake! What right have you , to keep me by force? Don't you see that I am in possession of all my faculties now? How can I not persuade you to not persecute me with your kindness? I may be ungrateful, I may be mean, only let me be, for God's sake, let me be! Let me be, let me be!"
Razumihin stood a moment and let his hand drop. "Well go to hell then," he said gently. "You know I'm having a house-warming this evening. I left my uncle there. If you weren't such a fool, a common fool, a perfect fool, if you were an original instead of a translation . . . you see, Rodya I recognise you're a clever fellow, but you're a fool!--and if you weren't a fool you'd come around to me this evening instead of wearing out your boots on the street! Since you have gone out, there's no help for it! I'd give you a snug easy-chair, a cup of tea, company. Zossimov will be there. Will you come?"
"No."
"I'll bet you will, is Zametov in there, did you talk to him? Confound you, Potchinkov's house, 47, Babushkin's flat, remember!"
Raskolnikov walked away and turned the corner. Razumihin watched him thoughtfully. Then he waved his hand and went inside but stopped on the stairs.
"Confound it," he went on. "He talked sensibly but yet . . . I am no fool! As if madmen didn't talk sensibly! How could I let him go off? He may drown himself. . . . What a blunder! I can't." He ran to catch Raskolnikov, but there was no trace of him. He returned to talk to Zametov.
Raskolnikov walked to the bridge, stood in the middle gazing into the distance. He longed to sit or lie down. The dark water of the canal drew his attention. Red circles flashed before his eyes, everything danced before his eyes. Suddenly a tall woman with with a long, wasted, yellow, face and red sunken eyes was looking at him but seeing nothing. She threw herself into the canal.
"A woman drowning !' shouted dozens of voices. A policeman threw off his coat and boots grabbed her dress dragging her to the embankment. She recovered consciousness and began sneezing and coughing. She said nothing.
"She's drunk herself out of her senses, the other day she tried to hang herself." Said a woman.
Raskolnikov looked on with a strange sensation of indifference and apathy. He felt so disgusted. "No that's loathsome . . . water . . . it's not good enough," he muttered to himself.
He moved from the bridge and walked in the direction of the police station. His heart felt hollow and empty. His depression had passed, there was not a trace now of the energy which he had set our "to make an end of it all." Complete apathy had succeeded to it.
"Well it's a way out of it," he thought, walking slowly, listlessly along the canal bank. "Anyway, I'll make an end, for I want to. . . . But is it a way out? What does it matter? There'll be the square yard of space--ha!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(REMEMBER EARLIER IN THIS CHAPTER WHAT HE THOUGHT ABOUT THAT? ("Where is it that I've read that someone condemned to death says or thinks, an hour before his death, that if he had to live on some high rock, on such a narrow ledge that he'd only room to stand, and the ocean, the everlasting darkness, everlasting solitude, everlasting tempest around him, if he had to remain standing on a square yard of space all his life, a thousand years, eternity, it were better to live than to die at once.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
What idiotic ideas come into ones head."
On his way to the police station he stopped and thought for a moment, he goes out of the way possibly to delay a minute. He walked along looking at the ground, then as though someone spoke into his ear, he looked up and he was standing at the very gate of the house, where he had committed the murders. An overwhelming prompting drew him inside up to the fourth floor where workmen were hanging wall paper. How strange it seemed without furniture he sat down on the window-sill. He wandered about the apartment and the workers finally said "you shouldn't be here without the porter."
"The floors have been washed, will they be painted?" Raskolnikov went on. "Is there no blood?"
"What blood?"
"Why, the old woman and her sister were murdered here."
"Who are you?" cried the workman.
"You want to know come to the police station, I'll tell you."
"We must lock up," said the elder workman.
Raskolnikov goes downstairs talking to the porters, talking about police station and blood in the apartment. The workmen verified him being in the apartment talking about the murders. One of the porters wants to take him to the police station, the other calls him a rogue and pushes him out into the street.
"Shall I go or not?" thought Raskolnikov standing in the middle of the street. At the end of the street two hundred yards away was a crowd and he heard talk and shouts. In the middle stood a carriage. A light gleamed in the middle of the street, "What is it?" Raskolnikov walked toward the crowd, He seemed to clutch at everything and smiled coldly when he recognised it, for he had fully made up his mind to go to the police station and he knew it would be all over soon.
Excellent :-) I'm proud of you for doing this. It would be way more than I would take on for sure.
ReplyDelete