 Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, translated by Constance Garnett. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Dramatis Personae and Translators' Breakfast. Dramatis Personae. Narration, read by Mary J. The Narrator, read by Piotr Natter. Radion Romanovich Raskolnikov, read by Chris Pyle. Semyon Zaharovich Marmeladov, read by John Burlinson. Katerina Ivanovna Marmeladova, read by T.J. Burns. Nastasia Petrovna, read by Patricia Silveira. Pulkeria Alexandrovna Raskolnikovna, read by Beth Thomas. Alexander Grigoryevich Zamietov, read by Fon. Dmitri Prokofievich Vrazumichin, read by Zach Kelchin. Zozomov, read by Brett Hirsch. Piotr Petrovich Luzhin, read by Eduardo Cortwright. Amalia Fyodorovna Lipevezel. Amalia Ludwigovna. Amalia Ivanovna. Radion Romanovna Raskolnikov. Donia, read by Christine G. Sofia Semyonovna Marmeladova. Sonya, read by Wanda White. Arkady Ivanovich Shvidrykailov, read by Antivakail. Parfiri Petrovich, read by Tavariš. Andrei Semyonovich Lebeziatnikov, read by Peter Tucker. Drunken Passerby. The Innkeeper, read by Ty Ambdoul Oluwanli. Nikolai, read by Alan Matstone. Raskolnikov's father. Coachman. Priest, too. By Algipag. Peasant Six, young officer, read by Eva Davis. Old man. Priest. Drink, workman. Read by Adonios Sotopatinio. Passerby Six, by Daphne Ma. Lady. Woman, too. Read by J.L. Baldwin, a.k.a. Harpen the Closet. Porter, too. Read by Altivakail. Policeman. Tavern, pattern, too. Mikolka. Ilya Petrovich. Passerby Three. Priest, recovered. Read by Mark Chosky. Ayona Ivanovna. Hoxter's wife. Student. Porter. Street singer. Collier. Read by Lian Yao. The Girl, read by Lian. Tavern, patron, Three. Peasant Five. Passerby Two. Elderly Woman. Prisoner Three. Read by Lynette Geisel. Lizaveta. Passerby Four. Polish Lodger. Beggar Woman. Volinka, read by Lydia. Peasant and Passerby. Read by Mirian. Peasant Four. Read by Melanie T. Youth, innkeeper, Two. Woman, Three. Read by Idlibra Vox Volunteer. Clerk, Two. Policeman, Three. Coke. Commissariat, Clerk. Duclida. A soldier. Read by Kay Hand. Tavern, patron, One. The Artisan, read by Oxen Handler. Waiter, read by Paesra. Clerk, Policeman Two. Read by Tom Penn. Huxter, read by Recording Person. Gentlemen, Peasant One. Stranger, Doctor. Read by David Purdy. Woman, Four. Read by Sara Hale. Child, read by Sash Elliott. Porter, Three. The Older Workman. Read by Cheryl Helms, M.D. Nicodem Fommage. Prisoner, Two. Read by Larry Wilson. Luisa Ivanovna. Read by Christine Layman. Boy, Raskolnikov. The Younger Workman. Read by Asher Grovy. Passer by One. Read by Joseph Tabler. Peasant Two. Neighbor. Messenger. Warder. Prisoner One. Read by Michelle Eaton. Singing Falsetto Voice. Kacha, Woman One. Read by Catherine Edmund. Young Man. Read by Zechariah Raman. Translator's Preface. A few words about Dostoevsky himself may help the English reader to understand his work. Dostoevsky was the son of a doctor. His parents were very hardworking and deeply religious people, but so poor that they lived with their five children in only two rooms. The father and mother spent their evenings in reading aloud to their children, generally from books of a serious character. Though always sickly and delicate, Dostoevsky came out third in the final examination of the Petersburg School of Engineering. There, he had already begun his first work, Poor Folk. This story was published by Dostoevsky in his book in Krasov in his review and was received with acclamations. The shy, unknown youth found himself instantly something of a celebrity. A brilliant and successful career seemed to open before him. But those hopes were soon dashed. In 1849, he was arrested. Though neither by temperament nor conviction a revolutionist, Dostoevsky was one of a little group of young men who met together to read Fourier and Proudhon. He was a man who was against the censorship of reading a letter from Balinsky to Gogol and of knowing of the intention to set up a printing press. Under Nicholas I, that stern and just man as Marie Sparing calls him, this was enough and he was condemned to death. After eight months' imprisonment, he was, with 21 others, taken out to the Semyonovsky Square to be shot. Writing to his brother, he snapped words over our heads and they made us put on the white shirts worn by persons condemned to death. Thereupon we were bound in threes to stakes to suffer execution. Being the third in the row, I had concluded I had only a few minutes of life before me. I thought of you and your dear ones and I contrived to kiss Pleschev and Durov who were next to me and to bid them farewell. Suddenly the troops beat a tattoo. We were unbound, brought back and our majesty had spared our lives. The sentence was commuted to hard labor. One of the prisoners, Grigoryev, went mad as soon as he was untied and never regained his sanity. The intense suffering of this experience left a lasting stamp on Dostoevsky's mind. Though his religious temper led him in the end to accept every suffering with resignation and to regard it as a blessing in his own case, he constantly recurs to the subject in his writings. He describes the awful agony of the condemned man and insists on the cruelty of inflicting such torture. Then followed four years of penal servitude, spent in the company of common criminals in Siberia where he began the dead house and some years of service in a disciplinary battalion. He had shown signs of some obscure nervous disease before his arrest and this now developed into violent attacks of epilepsy from which he suffered for the rest of his life. The fits occurred three or four times a year and were more frequent in periods of great strain. In 1859 he was allowed to return to Russia. He started a journal, Remya, which was forbidden by the censorship through a misunderstanding. In 1864 he lost his first wife and his brother Mihail. He was in terrible poverty yet he took upon himself the payment of his brother's debts. He started another journal, The Epic, which within a few months was also prohibited. He was weighted down by debt, he was forced to write at heartbreaking speed and is said never to have corrected his work. The later years of his life were much softened by the tenderness and devotion of his second wife. In June 1880 he made his famous speech at the unveiling of the monument to Pushkin in Moscow and he was received with extraordinary demonstrations of love and honor. A few months later, Dostoevsky died. He was followed to the grave by a vast multitude of mourners and an endless man, the funeral of a king. He is still probably the most widely read writer in Russia. In the words of a Russian critic who seeks to explain the feeling inspired by Dostoevsky, he was one of ourselves, a man of our blood and our bone, but one who has suffered and seen so much more deeply than we have, his insight impresses us his wisdom. That wisdom of the heart which we seek that we may learn from it how to live. All his other gifts came to him from nature. This he won for himself and through it he became great. End of translator's preface. Section 1 of Crime and Punishment This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Section 1 of Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky translated by Constance Garnett Part 1, Chapter 1 On an exceptionally hot evening in early July a young man came out of the garret in which he lodged in S. Place and walked slowly as though in hesitation towards K. Bridge. He had successfully avoided meeting his landlady on the staircase. His garret was under the roof of a high five-storied house and was more like a cupboard than a room. The landlady who provided him with garret, dinners, and attendants lived on the floor below, and every time he went out he was obliged to pass her kitchen, the door of which was open, and each time he passed the young man had a sick, frightened feeling which made him scowl and feel ashamed. He was hopelessly in debt to his landlady and was afraid of meeting her. This was not because he was cowardly and abject, quite the contrary, but for some time past he had been in an overstrained irritable condition verging on hypochondria. He had become so completely absorbed in himself and isolated from his fellows that he dreaded meeting not only his landlady but any one at all. He was crushed by poverty, but the anxieties of his position had of late ceased to weigh upon him. He had given up attending to matters of practical importance. He had lost all desire to do so. Nothing that any landlady could do had a real terror for him. But to be stopped on the stairs, to be forced to listen to her trivial, irrelevant gossip, to pestering demands for payment, threats, and complaints, and to rack his brains for excuses, to pervericate, to lie. No, rather than that, he would creep down the stairs like a cat and slip out on scene. This evening, however, on coming out into the street, he became acutely aware of his fears. I want to attempt a thing like that, and am frightened by these trifles. He thought, with an odd smile. Hmm. Yes. All is in a man's hands and he lets it slip from cowardice. That's an axiom. It would be interesting to know what it is men are most afraid of. Taking a new step, uttering a new word is what they fear most. But I am talking too much. It's because I chatter that I do nothing. Or perhaps it is that I chatter because I do nothing. I've learned to chatter this last month, lying for days together in my den thinking, of Jack the Giant Killer. Why am I going there now? Am I capable of that? Is that serious? It's not serious at all. It is simply a fantasy to amuse myself. A plaything. Yes. Maybe it is a plaything. The heat in the street was terrible and the airlessness, the bustle and the plaster scaffolding bricks and dust all about him, and that special Petersburg stench so familiar to all who are unable to get out of town in summer, all worked painfully upon the young man's already overwrought nerves, the insufferable stench from the pothouses which are particularly numerous in that part of the town, and the drunken men whom he met continually, although it was a working day, completed the revolting misery of the picture. An expression of the profoundest disgust gleaned for a moment in the young man's refined face. He was, by the way, exceptionally handsome, above the average in height, beautiful dark eyes and dark brown hair. Soon he sank into deep thought or more accurately speaking into a complete blankness of mind. He walked along not observing what was about him and not caring to observe it. From time to time he would mutter something from the habit of talking to himself which he had just confessed. At these moments he would become conscious that his ideas were sometimes in a tangle and that he was very weak. For two days he had scarcely tasted food. He was so badly dressed that even a man accustomed to shabbiness would have been ashamed to be seen in the street in such rags. In that quarter of the town, however, scarcely any shortcoming in dress would have created surprise. Owing to the proximity of the hay market the number of establishments of bad character, the preponderance of the trading and working-class population crowded in these streets and alleys in the heart of Petersburg, types so various were to be seen in the streets that no figure, however queer, would have caused surprise. He was so agitated and contempt in the young man's heart that, in spite of all the facetiousness of youth, he minded his rags least of all in the street. It was a different matter when he met with acquaintances or with former fellow students, whom indeed he disliked meeting at any time. And yet when a drunken man who, for some unknown reason, was being taken somewhere in a huge wagon dragged by a heavy, drey horse, suddenly shouted at him as he drove past — — bawling at the top of his voice and pointing at him. He suddenly, enclutched tremulously at his hat. It was a tall, round hat from Zimmerman's, but completely worn out, rusty with age, all torn and bespattered, brimless and bent on one side in a most unseemly fashion. Not shame, however, but quite another feeling akin to terror had overtaken him. I knew it. He muttered in confusion. I thought so. That's the worst of all. Why, a stupid thing like this. The most trivial detail might spoil the whole plan. Yes, my hat is too noticeable. It looks absurd. And that makes it noticeable. With my rags I ought to wear a cap. Any sort of old pancake. But not this grotesque thing. Nobody wears such a hat. It would be noticed a mile off. It would be remembered. What matters is that people would remember it. And that would give them a clue. For this business one should be as little conspicuous as possible. Trifles. Trifles are what matter. Why, it's just such trifles that always ruin everything. He had not far to go. He knew indeed how many steps it was from the gate of his lodging-house, exactly 730. He had counted them once when he had been lost in dreams. At the time he had put no faith in those dreams and was only tantalizing himself by their hideous but daring recklessness. Now, a month later, he had begun to look upon them differently, and in spite of the monologues in which he jeered at his own impotence and indecision he had involuntarily come to regard this hideous dream as an exploit to be attempted, although he still did not realize this himself. He was positively going now for a rehearsal of his project and at every step his excitement grew more and more violent. With a sinking heart and a nervous tremor he went up to a huge house one side looked on to the canal and on the other into the street. This house was let out in tiny tenements and was inhabited by working people of all kinds tailors, locksmiths, cooks, Germans of sorts, girls picking up a living as best they could, petty clerks, etc. There was a continual coming and going through the two gates and in the two courtyards of the house. Three or four doorkeepers were employed on the building. The young man was very glad to meet none of them and at once slipped unnoticed through the door on the right side of the staircase. It was a back staircase, dark and narrow, but he was familiar with it already and knew his way. And he liked all these surroundings. In such darkness even the most inquisitive eyes were not to be dreaded. If I am so scared now, what would it be if it somehow came to pass that I were really going to do it? He could not help asking himself as he reached the fourth story. There his progress was barred by some porters who were engaged in moving furniture and occupied by a German clerk in the civil service and his family. This German was moving out then and so the fourth floor on this staircase would be untenanted except by the old woman. That's a good thing, anyway. He thought to himself as he rang the bell of the old woman's flat. The bell gave a faint tinkle as though it were made of tin and not copper. The little flats in such houses always have bells that ring like that. He had forgotten the note of that bell and now its peculiar tinkle seemed to remind him. He started. His nerves were terribly overstrained by now. In a little while the door was opened a tiny crack. The old woman eyed her visitor with evident distrust through the crack and nothing could be seen but her little eyes glittering in the darkness. But seeing a number of people on the landing she grew bolder and opened the door wide. The young man stepped into the dark entry which was partitioned off from the tiny kitchen. The old woman stood facing him in silence and looking inquiringly at him. The diminutive withered up old woman of sixty with sharp malignant eyes and a sharp little nose. Her colorless, somewhat grizzled hair was thickly smeared with oil and she wore no kerchief over it. Round her long thin neck which looked like a hen's leg was knotted some sort of flannel rag and, in spite of the heat, there hung flapping on her shoulders a mangy fur cape, yellow with age. The old woman coughed and groaned at every instant. The young man must have looked at her with a rather peculiar expression for a gleam of mistrust came into her eyes again. Raskolnikov, a student, I came here a month ago. The young man made haste to mutter with a half-bow remembering that he ought to be more polite. I remember, my good sir. I remember quite well you're coming here. The old woman said distinctly still keeping her inquiring eyes on his face. And here I am again on the same errand. Raskolnikov continued a little disconcerted and surprised at the old woman's mistrust. Perhaps she is always like that though. Only I did not notice at the other time. He thought with an uneasy feeling. The old woman paused as though hesitating, then stepped on one side and pointing to the door of the room, she said, letting her visitor pass in front of her. Step in, my good sir. The little room into which the young man walked with yellow paper on the walls, geraniums and muslin curtains in the windows was brightly lighted up at that moment by the setting sun. So the sun will shine like this then, too. Flashed as it were by chance, threw Raskolnikov's mind. And with a rapid glance he scanned everything in the room, trying as far as possible to notice and remember its arrangement. But there was nothing special in the room. The furniture, all very old and of yellow wood, consisted of a sofa with a huge bent wooden back, an oval table in front of the sofa, a dressing table with a looking glass fixed on it between the two windows, chairs along the walls, and two or three half-penny prints in yellow frames representing German damsels with birds in their hands. That was all. In the corner a light was burning before a small icon. Everything was very clean. The floor and the furniture were brightly polished. Everything shone. These aviettes work. Thought the young man. There was not a speck of dust to be seen in the whole flat. It is in the house of the spiteful old widows that one finds such cleanliness. Raskolnikov thought again. And he stole a curious glance at the cotton curtain over the door leading into another tiny room, in which stood the old man. bed and chest of drawers, and into which he had never looked before. These two rooms made up the whole flat. What do you want? The old woman said severely, coming into the room and, as before, standing in front of him so as to look him straight in the face. I brought something to pawn here. And he drew out of his pocket an old-fashioned flat silver watch on the back of which was engraved a globe. The chain was of steel. But the time is up for your last pledge. The month was up the day before. I will bring you the interest for another month. Wait a little. But that's for me to do as I please, my good sir. To wait, or to sell your pledge at once. How much will you give me for the watch? Alionya Ivanovna. You come with such trifles, my good sir. It's scarcely worth anything. I gave you two rubles last time for your ring, and one could buy it quite new at a jeweller's for a ruble and a half. Give me four rubles for it. I shall redeem it. I shall redeem it. It was my father's. I shall be getting some money soon. A ruble and a half. An interest in advance of you like. A ruble and a half. Cried the young man. Please yourself. And the old woman handed him back the watch. The young man took it, and was so angry that he was on the point of going away, but checked himself at once, remembering that there was nowhere else he could go, and that he had had another object also in coming. Hand it over. He said roughly. The old woman fumbled in her pocket for her keys, and disappeared behind the curtain into the other room. The young man, left standing alone in the middle of the room, listened inquisitively, thinking. He could hear her unlocking the chest of drawers. It must be the top drawer. He reflected. So she carries the keys in a pocket on the right, all in one bunch on a steel ring. And there's one key there, three times as big as all the others, with deep notches. That can't be the key of the chest of drawers. Then there must be some other chest or strong box. That's worth knowing. Strong boxes always have keys like that. But how degrading it all is. The old woman came back. Here, sir, as we say, ten copax to ruble a month. So I must take fifteen copax from a ruble, and half of the month in advance. But for the two rubles I led you before, you owe me now twenty copax on the same reckoning in advance. That makes thirty-five copax altogether. So I must give you a ruble and fifteen copax for the watch. Here it is. What? Only a ruble and fifteen copax now? Just so. The young man did not dispute it and took the money. He looked at the old woman and was in no hurry to get away, as though there was still something he wanted to say or do, but he did not himself quite know what. I may be bringing you something else in a day or two. Al Ionia Ivanovna. A valuable thing. Silver. A cigarette box as soon as I get it back from a friend. He broke off in confusion. Well, we will talk about it then, sir. Goodbye. Are you always at home alone? Your sister is not here with you? He asked her as casually as possible as he went out into the passage. What business is she of yours, my good sir? Oh, nothing particular. I simply asked. You are too quick. Good day, Al Ionia Ivanovna. Raskolnikov went out in complete confusion. This confusion became more and more intense. As he went down the stairs he even stopped short, two or three times, as though suddenly struck by some thought. When he was in the street he cried out. Oh, God! How loathsome it all is! And can I? Can I possibly? No. It's nonsense. It's rubbish. He added resolutely. And how could such an atrocious thing come into my head? What filthy things my heart is capable of! Yes, filthy above all, disgusting, loathsome, loathsome! And for a whole month I've been— But no words, no exclamations could express his agitation. The feeling of intense repulsion which had begun to oppress and torture his heart while he was on his way to the old woman, had by now reached such a pitch and had taken such a definite form that he did not know what to do with himself to escape from his wretchedness. He walked along the pavement like a drunken man, regardless of the passers-by and jostling against them, and only came to his senses when he was in the next street. Looking round he noticed that he was standing close to a tavern which was entered by steps leading from the pavement to the basement. At that instant two drunken men came out at the door and, abusing and supporting one another, they mounted the steps. Without stopping to think Raskolnikov went down the steps at once. Till that moment he had never been into a tavern, but now he felt giddy and was tormented by a burning thirst. He longed for a drink of cold beer, and attributed his sudden weakness to the want of food. He sat down at a sticky little table in a dark and dirty corner, ordered some beer, and eagerly drank off the first glassful. At once he felt easier, and his thoughts became clear. All that's nonsense, he said hopefully. And there is nothing in it to worry about, it's simply physical derangement. Just a glass of beer, a piece of dry bread, and in one moment the brain is stronger, the mind is clearer, and the will is firm. Phew! how utterly petty it all is! But in spite of this scornful reflection, he was by now looking cheerful as though he were suddenly set free from a terrible burden, and he gazed round in a friendly way at the people in the room. But even at that moment he had a dim foreboding that this happier frame of mind was also not normal. There were few people at the time in the tavern. Besides the two drunken men he had met on the steps, a group consisting of about five men and a girl with a concertina had gone out at the same time. Their departure left the room quiet and rather empty. The persons still in the tavern were a man who appeared to be an artisan, drunk but not extremely so, sitting before a pot of beer, and his companion, a huge stout man with a gray beard, in a short, full-skirted coat. He was very drunk, and had dropped asleep on the bench. Every now and then he began as though in his sleep cracking his fingers, with his arms wide apart and the upper part of his body bounding about on the bench, while he hummed some meaningless refrain, trying to recall some such lines as these. His wife a year he fondly loved. His wife a year he fondly loved. Or suddenly waking up again. Walking along the crowded row, he met the one he used to know. But no one shared his enjoyment. His silent companion looked with positive hostility and mistrust at all these manifestations. There was another man in the room who looked somewhat like a retired government clerk. He was sitting apart, now and then sipping from his pot and looking round at the company. He too appeared to be in some agitation. Section 2 of Crime and Punishment This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, translated by Constance Garnet. Part 1, Chapter 2. Raskolnikov was not used to crowds, and, as we said before, he avoided society of every sort, more especially of late. But now all at once he felt a desire to be with other people. Something new seemed to be taking place within him, and with it he felt a sort of thirst for company. He was so weary after a whole month of concentrated wretchedness and gloomy excitement that he longed to rest, if only for a moment, in some other world, whatever it might be. And, in spite of the filthiness of the surroundings, he was glad now to stay in the tavern. The master of the establishment was in another room, but he frequently came down some steps into the main room. His jaunty, tarred boots with red turnover tops coming into view each time before the rest of his person. He wore a full coat, and a horribly greasy black satin waistcoat with no cravat, and his whole face seemed smeared with oil like an iron mock. At the counters stood a boy of about fourteen, and there was another boy, somewhat younger, who handed whatever was wanted. On the counter lay some sliced cucumber, some pieces of dried black bread, and some fish, chopped up small, all smelling very bad. It was insufferably close, and so heavy with the fumes of spirits that five minutes in such an atmosphere might well make a man drunk. There are chance meetings with strangers that interest us from the first moment before a word is spoken. Such was the impression made on Raskolnikov by the person sitting a little distance from him, who looked like a retired clerk. The young man often recalled this impression afterwards, and even ascribed it to presentiment. He looked repeatedly at the clerk, partly no doubt because the latter was staring persistently at him, obviously anxious to enter into conversation. At the other persons in the room, including the tavern-keeper, the clerk looked as though he were used to their company, and weary of it, showing a shade of condescending contempt for them as persons of station and culture inferior to his own, with whom it would be useless for him to converse. He was a man over fifty, bald and grizzled, of medium height and stoutly belt. His face, bloated from continual drinking, was of a yellow even greenish tinge, with swollen eyelids out of which keen reddish eyes gleamed like little chinks. But there was something very strange in him. There was a light in his eyes as though of intense feeling. Perhaps there were even thought and intelligence, but at the same time there was a gleam of something like madness. He was wearing an old and hopelessly ragged black dress-coat, with all its buttons missing except one, and that one he had buttoned, evidently clinging to this last trace of respectability, a crumpled shirt-front covered with spots and stains protruded from his canvas waistcoat. Like a clerk he wore no beard nor mustache, but had been so long unshaven that his chin looked like a stiff grayish brush, and there was something respectable and like an official about his manner too. But he was restless. He ruffled up his hair and from time to time let his head drop into his hands, suddenly resting his ragged elbows on the stained and sticky table. At last he looked straight at Raskolnikov and said loudly and resolutely, May I venture, honoured sir, to engage you in polite conversation. For as much as though your exterior would not command respect, my experience admonishes me that you are a man of education and not accustomed to drinking. I have always respected education when in conjunction with genuine sentiments, and I am, besides, a titular counsellor in rank. My lord of such is my name, titular counsellor, I make bold to inquire, have you been in the service? No, I am studying. Answered the young man, somewhat surprised at the grand deliquent style of the speaker and at being so directly addressed. In spite of the momentary desire he had just been feeling for company of any sort, on being actually spoken to he felt immediately his habitual irritable and uneasy aversion for any stranger who approached or attempted to approach him. A student, then, or formally a student, cried the clerk, Just what I thought. I am a man of experience, immense experience, sir. And he tapped his forehead with his fingers and self-approval. You've been a student or have attended some learned institution. But allow me! He got up, staggered, took up his jug and glass, and sat down beside the young man, facing him a little sideways. He was drunk, but spoke fluently and boldly, only occasionally losing the thread of his sentences and drawing his words. He pounced upon Raskonikov as greedily as though he too had not spoken to his soul for a month. Honoured sir! He began almost with solemnity. Poverty is not a vice. That's a true saying. Yet I know too that drunkenness is not a virtue, and that that's even truer. But beggary, honoured sir, beggary is a vice. In poverty you may still retain your innate nobility of soul. But in beggary, never, no one. For beggary a man is not chased out of human society with a stick. He is swept out with a broom, so as to make it as humiliating as possible, and quite right too. For as much as in beggary I am ready to be the first to humiliate myself. Hence the pot-house. Honoured sir! A month ago Mr. Libyzyatnikov gave my wife a beating, and my wife is a very different matter from me. Do you understand? Allow me to ask you another question out of simple curiosity. Have you ever spent a night on a hay barge? On the Neva? No, I have not happened to. Answered Raskolnikov? What do you mean? Well, I've just come from one, and it's the fifth night I've slept so. He filled his glass, emptied it, and paused. Bits of hay were in fact clinging to his clothes and sticking to his hair. It seemed quite probable that he had not undressed or washed for the last five days. His hands, particularly, were filthy. They were fat and red with black nails. His conversations seemed to excite a general, though languid, interest. The boys at the counter fell to sniggering. The innkeeper came down from the upper room, apparently on purpose to listen to the funny fellow, and sat down at a little distance, yawning lazily, but with dignity. Evidently Marmiladov was a familiar figure here, and he had most likely acquired his weakness for high-flown speeches from the habit of frequently entering into conversation with strangers of all sorts in the tavern. This habit develops into a necessity in some drunkards, especially in those who are looked after sharply and kept in order at home. Hence, in the company of other drinkers, they try to justify themselves, and even if possible, obtain consideration. Funny fellow! pronounced the innkeeper. And why don't you work? Why aren't you at your duty, if you are in the service? Why am I not at my duty, honoured sir? Marmiladov went on, addressing himself exclusively to Raskolnikov, as though it had been he who put that question to him. Why am I not at my duty? Does not my heart ache to think what a useless worm I am? A month ago, when Mr. Lebizyatnikov beat my wife with his own hands, and I lay drunk, didn't I suffer? Excuse me, young man, has it ever happened to you, well, to petition hopelessly for a loan? Yes, it has. But what do you mean by hopelessly? Hopelessly, in the fullest sense, when you know beforehand that you will get nothing by it. You know, for instance, beforehand, with positive certainty, that this man, this most reputable and exemplary citizen, will on no consideration give you money. And indeed, I ask you, why should he? For he knows, of course, that I shan't pay it back, from compassion. But Mr. Lebizyatnikov, who keeps up with modern ideas, explained the other day that compassion is forbidden nowadays by science itself, and that that's what is done now in England, where there is political economy. Why, I ask you, should he give it to me? And yet, though I know beforehand that he won't, I set off to him, and why do you go? Put in what's going to come. Well, when one has no one, nowhere else one can go, for every man must have somewhere to go, since there are times when one absolutely must go somewhere. When my own daughter first went out with a yellow ticket, then I had to go, for my daughter has a yellow passport. He added in parenthesis, looking with a certain uneasiness at the young man. No matter, sir, no matter. He went on hurriedly, and with apparent composure, when both the boys at the counter gaffed, and even the innkeeper smiled. No matter, I am not confounded by the wagging of their heads. For everyone knows everything about it already, and all that is secret is made open. And I accept it all, not with contempt, but with humility. So be it. So be it. Behold the man. Excuse me, young man. Can you know to put it more strongly and more distinctly, not can you, but dare you, looking upon me, assert that I am not a pig? The young man did not answer a word. Well— The orator began again stolidly, and with even increased dignity, after waiting for the laughter in the room to subside. Well, so be it. I am a pig. But she is a lady. I have the semblance of a beast. But Katarina Ivanovna, my spouse, is a person of education, and an office's daughter. Granted, granted, I am a scoundrel. But she is a woman of a noble heart, full of sentiments, refined by education. And yet, oh, if only she felt for me. Honoured sir, honoured sir, you know every man ought to have at least one place where people feel for him. But Katarina Ivanovna, though she is magnanimous, she is unjust. And yet, although I realize that when she pulls my hair, she only does it out of pity. For I repeat, without being shamed, she pulls my hair, young man. He declared with redoubled dignity, hearing the sniggering again. But, my God, if she would but once— God, no. No. It's all in vain, and it's no use talking. No use talking. For more than once, my wish did come true. And more than once she has felt for me. But such is my fate, and I am a beast by nature. Rather— Ascented the innkeeper, yawning. Marmiladov struck his fist resolutely on the table. Such is my fate! Do you know, sir, do you know, I have sold her very stockings for drink. Not her shoes. That would be more or less in the order of things, but her stockings. Her stockings I have sold for drink. Her mohair shawl I sold for drink. A present to her long ago. Her own property, not mine. And we live in a cold room, and she caught cold this winter, and has been coughing, spitting blood, too. We have three little children, and Katarina Ivanovna is at work from morning to night. She is scrubbing and cleaning and washing the children, where she's been used to cleanliness from a child. But her chest is weak, and she has a tendency to consumption, and I feel it. Do you suppose I don't feel it? And the more I drink, the more I feel it. That's why I drink, too. I try to find sympathy and feeling in drink. I drink so that I may suffer twice as much. And as though in despair he laid his head down on the table. Young man! He went on, raising his head again. In your face I seem to read some trouble of mind. When you came in I read it, and that was why I addressed you at once. For in unfolding to you the story of my life, I do not wish to make myself a laughing stock before these idle listeners who indeed know all about it already. But I am looking for a man of feeling and education. Know then that my wife was educated in a high-class school for the daughters of noblemen. And on leaving, she danced the shawl dance before the governor and other personages for which she was presented with a gold medal and a certificate of merit. The medal, well, the medal, of course, was sold long ago. But the certificate of merit is in her trunk still and not long ago she showed it to our landlady. And although she is most continually on bad terms with a landlady, yet she wanted to tell someone or other of her past honors and of the happy days that have gone. I don't condemn her for it. I don't blame her for the one thing left her is recollection of the past and all rest is dust and ashes. Yes, yes, she is a lady of spirit, proud and determined. She scrubs the floors herself and has nothing but black bread to eat but won't allow herself to be treated with disrespect. That's why she would not overlook Mr. Lebizyatnikov's rudeness to her and so when he gave her a beating for it she took to her bed more from the hurt to her feelings than from the blows. She was a widow when I married her with three children, one smaller than the other. She married her first husband, an infantry officer for love and ran away with him from her father's house. She was exceedingly fond of her husband but he gave way to cards, got into trouble with that he died. He used to beat her at the end and although she paid him back of which I have authentic documentary evidence to this day, she speaks of him with tears and she throws him up to me. I am glad, I am glad that although only in imagination she should think of herself as having once been happy and she was left at his death with three children in a wild and remote district where I happened to be at the time and she was left in such a hopeless poverty that although I have seen many ups and downs of all sort I don't feel equal to describing it even. Her relations had all thrown her off and she was proud to, excessively proud and then honoured sir and then I being at the time a widower with a daughter of fourteen left me by my first wife offered her my hand for I could not bear the sight of such suffering. You can judge the extremity of her calamities that she, a woman of education and culture and distinguished family should have consented to be my wife but she did weeping and sobbing wringing her hands she married me for she had nowhere to turn do you understand sir do you understand what it means when you have absolutely nowhere to turn no, that you don't understand yet and for a whole year I performed my duties conscientiously and faithfully and did not touch this he tapped the jug with his finger for I have feelings but even so I could not please her and then I lost my place too and that through no fault of mine but through changes in the office and then I did touch it it will be a year and a half ago soon since we found ourselves at last after many wanderings numerous calamities in this magnificent capital adorned with innumerable monuments here I obtained a situation I obtained it and I lost it again do you understand this time it was through my own fault I lost it for my weakness had come out we have now part of a room at Amalia Fyodorovna Lipid Gessels and what we live upon and what we pay our rent with I could not say there are a lot of people living there besides ourselves dirt and disorder a perfect bedlam yes but meanwhile my daughter by my first wife has grown up and what my daughter has had to put up with from her stepmother while she was growing up I won't speak of for though Katerina Ivanovna is full of generous feelings she is a spirited lady irritable and short tempered yes but it's no use growing over that Sonia as you may well fancy she has had no education I did make an effort four years ago to give her a course of geography and universal history but as I was not very well up in those subjects myself and we had no suitable books and what books we had anyway we have not even those now so all our instruction came to an end we stopped at Cyrus of Persia since she has attained years of maturity she has read other books of romantic tendency and of late she has read with great interest a book she got through Mr. Libziatnikov Louis's physiology do you know and even recounted extracts from it to us and that's the whole of her education and now may I venture to address you on my own account with a private question do you suppose that a respectable poor girl can earn much by honest work not 15 farthings a day can she earn if she is respectable and has no special talent and that without putting her work down for an instant and what's more Ivan Ivanovich Klopstock the civil counselor have you heard of him has not this day paid her for the half dozen linen shirts she made in and drove her roughly away stamping and refiling her on the pretext that the shirt collars were not made like the pattern and were put in as skill and there are the little ones hungry and Katarina Ivanovna walking up and down and wringing her hands her cheeks flushed red as they always are in that disease here you live with us says she you eat and drink and are kept warm and you do nothing to help and much she gets to eat and drink when there is not a crust for the little ones for three days I was lying at the time well what of it I was lying drunk and I heard my Sonya speaking she is a gentle creature with a soft little voice fair hair and such a pale thin little face she said Katarina Ivanovna am I really to do a thing like that and Daria Fransovna a woman of evil character very well known to the police and two or three times tried to get at her through the landlady and why not said Katarina Ivanovna with a jeer you are something mighty precious to be so careful of but don't blame her don't blame her honest sir don't blame her she was not herself when she spoke but driven to distraction by her illness and the crying of the hungry children and it was said more to wound her than anything else for that's Katarina Ivanovna's character and when children cry even from hunger she falls to beating them at once at six o'clock I saw Sonya get up put on her kerchief and her cape and go out of the room at about nine o'clock she came back she walked straight up to Katarina Ivanovna and she laid 30 rubles on the table before her in silence she did not utter a word she did not even look at her she simply picked up our big green drop-the-dams shawl well here you have a shawl made of drop-the-dams put it over her head and face and lay down on the bed with her face to the wall only her little shoulders and her body kept shuddering and I went on lying there just as before and then I saw young man I saw Katarina Ivanovna in the same silence go up to Sonya's little bed she was on her knees all the evening guessing Sonya's feet and would not get up and then they both fell asleep in each other's arms together together yes and I lay broke Marmiladov stopped short as though his voice had failed him then he hurriedly filled his glass drank and cleared his throat since then sir he went on after a brief pause since then owing to an unfortunate occurrence and through information given by ill-intentioned persons in all which Daria Fransovna took a leading part on the pretext that she had been treated with wanton respect since then my daughter Sofia Semyonovna has been forced to take a yellow ticket and owing to that she is unable to go on living with us for our landlady Emalia Fyodorovna would not air of it though she had backed up Daria Fransovna before and Mr. Libyzyatnikov too all the trouble between him and Katarina Ivanovna was on Sonia's account at first he was for making up to Sonia himself and then all of a sudden he stood on his dignity how said he can a highly educated man like me live in the same rooms with a girl like that and Katarina Ivanovna would not let it pass she stood up for her and so that's how it happened and Sonia comes to us now mostly after dark she comforts Katarina Ivanovna and gives her all she can she has a room at the Copernam of Stalers she lodges with them Copernam of its lame man with a cleft palate and all of his numerous family have cleft palates too and his wife too has a cleft palate they all live in one room but Sonia has her own partitioned off yes very poor people and all with cleft palates yes then I got up in the morning and I put on my rags lifted up my hands to heaven and set off to His Excellency Ivan Afanasievich His Excellency Ivan Afanasievich you know him? no? well it's a man of God you don't know he is wax wax before the face of the Lord even as wax melteth his eyes would dim when he heard my story Marilorov once already you have deceived my expectations I'll take you once more on my own responsibility as what he said remember he said and now you can go I kissed the dust at his feet in thought only for in reality he would not have allowed me to do it being a statesman and a man of modern political and enlightened ideas I returned home and when I announced that I'd been taken back into the service and should receive a salary heavens what to do there was Marilorov stopped again in violent excitement at that moment a whole party of revelers already drunk came in from the street in the sounds of a hired concertina and the cracked piping voice of a child of seven singing the Hamlet were heard in the entry the room was filled with noise the tavern keeper and the boys were busy with the newcomers Marilorov paying no attention to the new arrivals continued his story he appeared by now to be extremely weak but as he became more and more drunk he became more and more talkative the recollection of his recent success in getting the situation seemed to revive him and was positively reflected on a sort of radiance on his face Raskolnikov listened attentively that was five weeks ago, sir yes as soon as Katarina Ivanovna and Sonja heard of it mercy on us it was as though I had stepped into the kingdom of heaven it used to be you can lie like a beast nothing but abuse now they were walking on tiptoe hushing the children Semyon Zaharovic is tired with his work at the office his resting they made me coffee before I went to work and boiled cream for me it began to get real cream for me do you hear that? and how they managed to get together the money for a decent outfit eleven rubles, fifty co-packs I can't guess boots, cotton shirt fronts most magnificent uniform they got up all in splendid style for eleven rubles and a half the first morning I came back from the office I found Katarina Ivanovna had cooked two courses for dinner soup and salt meat with horseradish which we had never dreamed of till then she had not any dresses none at all but she got herself up as though she were going on a visit and not that she had anything to do with she smartened herself up with nothing at all she'd done her hair nicely put on a clean collar some sort cuffs and there she was quite a different person she was younger and better looking and Sonya, my little darling had only helped with money for the time she said it won't do for me to come and see you so often after dark maybe when no one can see do you hear? do you hear? I lay down for a nap after dinner and what do you think? though Katarina Ivanovna had quarrelled to the last degree with our landlady Emalia Fyodorovna only a week before she could not resist then asking her into coffee for two hours they were sitting whispering together Semyon Zaharovich is in the service again now and receiving a salary says she and he went himself to his excellency and his excellency himself came out to him made all the others wait and led Semyon Zaharovich by the hand before everybody into his study do you hear? do you hear? to be sure says he Semyon Zaharovich remembering your past services says he and in spite of your propensity to that foolish weakness since you promised now and since moreover we've got on badly without you do you hear? do you hear? and so says he I rely now on your word gentlemen and all that let me tell you she had simply made up for herself and not simply out of waterness for the sake of bragging no she believes it all herself she amuses herself with her own fences upon my word she does and I don't blame her for it no I don't blame her six days ago when I brought up my first earnings in full twenty-three rubles forty co-pecks all together she called me her Poppet Poppet said she my little Poppet and when we were by ourselves you understand you would not think me a beauty you would not think much of me as a husband would you? well she pinched my cheek my little Poppet said she Marmiladov broke off, tried to smile but suddenly his chin began to twitch he controlled himself however the tavern, the degraded appearance of the man the five nights in the hay barge and the pot of spirits at this poignant love for his wife and children bewildered his listener Raskolnikov listened intently but with a sick sensation he felt vexed that he had come here honoured sir honoured sir cried Marmiladov recovering himself oh sir perhaps all this seems a laughing matter to you as it does to others and perhaps I'm only worrying you with all the stupidity of all the trivial details of my home life but it is not a laughing matter to me for I can feel it all and the whole of that heavenly day of my life and the whole of that evening I passed in fleeting dreams of how I could arrange it all and how I would dress all the children and how I should give her rest and how I should rescue my own daughter from dishonour and restore her to the bosom of her family and a great deal more quite excusable sir well then sir Marmiladov suddenly gave a sort of start raised his head and gazed intently at his listener well on the very next day after all those dreams that is to say exactly five days ago in the evening by a cunning trick like a thief in the night I stole from Katerina Ivanovna the key of her box took out what was left of my earnings how much it was I have forgotten and now look at me all of you it's the fifth day since I left home and they are looking for me there and it's the end of my employment and my uniform is lying in a tavern on the Egyptian bridge I exchanged it for the garments I have on and it's the end of everything Marmiladov struck his forehead with his fist clenched his teeth closed his eyes and leaned heavily with his elbow on the table but a minute later his face suddenly changed and with a certain assumed slideness and affectation of bravado he glanced at Raskolnikov, laughed and said this morning I went to see Sonia I went to ask her pick me up you don't say she gave it to you cried one of the newcomers he shouted the words and went off into a gaffa this very quart was bought with her money Marmiladov declared addressing himself exclusively to Raskolnikov thirty copecs she gave me with her own hands her last all she had as I saw she said nothing she only looked at me without a word not on earth but up yonder they grieve over men they weep but they don't blame them they don't blame them but it hurts more it hurts more when they don't blame thirty copecs yes and maybe she needs them now what do you think my dear sir for now she's got to keep up her appearance it costs money that smartness that special smartness you know do you understand and there's Pometon too you see she must have things petticoats starched ones shoes too real jaunty ones to show off a foot when she has to step over a puddle you understand sir do you understand what all that smartness means and here I her own father here I took thirty copecs of that money for a drink and I am drinking it and I have already drunk it come who will have pity on a man like me are you sorry for me sir or not tell me sir are you sorry or not he would have filled his glass but there was no drink left the pot was empty what are you to be pitied for shout of the tavern keeper who was again near them shouts of laughter and even oaths followed the laughter and the oaths came from those who were listening also from those who had heard nothing but were simply looking at the figure of the discharged government clerk to be pitied why am I to be pitied Marmieladov suddenly declined standing up with his arm outstretched as though he had been only waiting for that question why am I to be pitied you say yes there's nothing to pity me for I have to be crucified crucified on a cross not pitied crucify me oh judge crucify me but pity me and then I will go of myself to be crucified for it's not marrymaking I seek but tears and tribulation do you suppose you that sell that this pint of yours has been sweet to me it was tribulation I sought at the bottom of it tears and tribulation and have found it and I have tasted it but he will pity us who has pity on all men who has understood all men and all things he is the one he too is the judge he will come in that day and he will ask where is the daughter who gave herself for her cross consumptive stepmother and for the little children of another where is the daughter who had pity on the healthy drunkard her earthly father undismayed by his beastliness when he will say come to me I have already forgiven thee once I have forgiven thee once thy sins which are many are forgiven thee for thou hast loved much and he will forgive my Sonia he will forgive I know it I felt it in my heart when I was with her just now and he will judge and he will forgive all the good and the evil the wise and the meek and when he is done with all of them then he will summon us you too come forth he will say come forth ye drunkards drunkards come forth ye weak ones come forth ye children of shame and we shall all come forth without shame and she'll stand before him and he will say unto us you are swine made in the image of the beast and with his mark but come ye also and the wise ones and those of understanding will say oh lord why does that receive these men and he will say this is why I receive them oh ye wise this is why I receive them oh ye of understanding that not one of them believed himself to be worthy of this and he will hold out his hands to us and we shall fall down before him and we shall weep we shall understand all things then we shall understand all and all will understand Katerina Eleanorna even she will understand lord I kingdom come and he sank down on the bench exhausted and helpless looking at no one apparently oblivious of his surroundings and plunged in deep thought his words had created a certain impression there was a moment of silence but soon laughter and oaths were heard again that's his notion talked himself silly if I'm clerk he is and so on and so on let us go sir said Marmeladov all at once raising his head and addressing Raskolnikov come along with me Kozel's house looking into the yard I'm going to Katerina Eleanorna the time I did Raskolnikov had for some time been wanting to go and he had meant to help him Marmeladov was much unsteadier on his legs than in his speech and leaned heavily on the young man they had two or three hundred paces to go the drunken man was more and more overcome by dismay and confusion as they drew nearer the house it's not Katerina Eleanorna I'm afraid of now he muttered an agitation on that she will begin pulling my hair what does my hair matter bother my hair that's what I say indeed it will be better if she does begin pulling it that's not what I'm afraid of it's her eyes I am afraid of yes her eyes the red on her cheeks too frightens me and her breathing too have you noticed how people in that disease breathe when they are excited I'm frightened of the children's crying too for if Sonya has not taken them food I don't know what's happened I don't know but blows are not afraid of no sir that such blows are not a pain to me but even an enjoyment in fact I can't get on without it it's better so let us strike me it relieves her heart it's better so there is a house the house of Kozel the cabinet maker a German well-to-do lead the way they went in from the yard and up to the fourth story the staircase got darker and darker as they went up it was nearly eleven o'clock and although in summer in Petersburg there is no real night yet it was quite dark at the top of the stairs a grimy little door at the very top of the stairs stood ajar a very poor looking room about ten paces long it was not by a candle-end the hole of it was visible from the entrance it was all in disorder littered up with rags of all sorts especially children's garments across the furthest corner was stretched a ragged sheet behind it probably was the bed there was nothing in the room except two chairs and a sofa covered with American leather full of holes before which stood an old-deal kitchen table unpainted and uncovered at the edge of the table stood a smoldering tallow candle stick it appeared that the family had a room to themselves not part of a room but their room was practically a passage the door leading to the other rooms or rather cupboards into which Amalia Lepivegso's flat was divided stood half open and there was shouting uproar and laughter within people seemed to be playing cards and drinking tea there words of the most unceremonious kind flew out from time to time Raskolnikov recognized Katerina Ivanovna once she was a rather tall, slim and graceful woman terribly emaciated with magnificent dark brown hair and with a hectic flush in her cheeks she was pacing up and down in her little room pressing her hands against her chest her lips were parched and her breathing came in nervous broken gasps her eyes glittered as in a fever and looked about with a harsh, immovable stare and that consumptive and excited face with the last flickering light of the candle end playing upon it made a sickening impression she seemed to Raskolnikov about thirty years old and was certainly a strange wife for Marmeladov she had not heard them and did not notice them coming in she seemed to be lost in thought hearing and seeing nothing the room was closed but she had not opened the window a stench rose from the staircase but the door onto the stairs was not closed from the inner rooms clouds of tobacco smoke floated in she kept coughing but did not close the door the youngest child, a girl of six was asleep, sitting curled up on the floor with her head on the sofa her older stood crying and shaking in the corner probably he had just had a beating beside him stood a girl of nine years old tall and thin wearing a thin and ragged chemise with an ancient cashmere police flung over her bare shoulders long outgrown and barely reaching her knees her arm as thin as a stick was round her brother's neck she was trying to comfort him whispering something to him and doing all she could to keep him from whimpering again at the same time her large dark eyes which looked larger still from the thinness of her frightened face were watching her mother with alarm Marmiladov did not enter the door but dropped on his knees in the doorway pushing Raskolnikov in front of him the woman, seeing a stranger stopped indifferently facing him coming to herself for a moment and apparently wondering what he had come for but evidently she decided that he was going into the next room as he had to pass through hers to get there taking no further notice of him she walked towards the outer door to close it and uttered a sudden scream on seeing her husband on his knees in the doorway ah she cried out in a frenzy he has come back, the criminal the monster and where is the money what's in your pocket, show me oh and your clothes are all different where are your clothes where is the money speak and she fell to searching him Marmiladov submissively and obediently got both arms to facilitate the search not a farthing was there where is the money she cried mercy on us, can he have drunk at all there were twelve silver rubles left in the chest and in a fury she seized him by the hair and dragged him into the room Marmiladov seconded her efforts by meekly crawling along on his knees and this is a consolation to me this does not hurt me but it is it is a positive consolation honor answer he called out, shaken too and fro by his hair and even once striking the ground with his forehead the child asleep on the floor woke up and began to cry the boy in the corner losing all control began trembling and screaming and rushed to his sister in violent terror almost in a fit the eldest girl was shaking like a leaf he's drunk it, he's drunk it all the poor woman screamed in despair and his clothes are gone and the hair hungry hungry and wringing her hands she pointed to the children oh it cursed life and you are you not ashamed she pounced all at once upon Raskolnikov from the tavern have you been drinking with him you have been drinking with him too go away the young man was hastening away without uttering a word the inner door was thrown wide open and inquisitive faces were peering in at it coarse laughing faces with pipes and cigarettes and heads wearing caps thrust themselves into the doorway furthering could be seen figures and dressing gowns flung open in costumes of unseemly scantiness some of them with cards in their hands they were particularly diverted when Marmeladov dragged about by his hair shouted that it was a consolation to him they even began to come into the room at last a sinister shrill outcry was heard this came from Amalia Lipavigsil herself pushing her way amongst them and trying to restore order after her own fashion and for the hundredth time to frighten the poor woman by ordering her with coarse abuse to clear out of the room the next day as he went out Raskolnikov had time to put his hand into his pocket to snatch up the coppers he had received in exchange for his rubble in the tavern and to lay them unnoticed on the window afterwards on the stairs he changed his mind and would have gone back what a stupid thing I've done he thought to himself they have Sonya and I want it myself but reflecting that it would be impossible to take it back now and that in any case he would not have taken it he dismissed it with a wave of his hand and went back to his lodging Sonya wants pomadom too he said as he walked along the street and laughed malignantly such smartness cost money hmm and maybe Sonya herself will be bankrupt today but there is always a risk cunning big game digging for gold then they will all be without a crust tomorrow except for my money hurrah for Sonya what a mind they've dug there and they're making the most of it yes they are making the most of it they've wept over it and grown used to it man grows used to everything the scoundrel he sank into thought he cried suddenly after a moment's thought what if man is not really a scoundrel man in general I mean the whole race of mankind then all the rest is prejudice simply artificial terrors and there are no barriers and it's all as it should be end of part one chapter two section three of crime and punishment this LibriVox recording is in the public domain crime and punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky translated by Constance Garnett part one chapter three he waked up late next day after a broken sleep but his sleep had not refreshed him he waked up bilious irritable, ill-tempered and looked with hatred at his room it was a tiny cupboard of a room about six paces in length it had a poverty-stricken appearance with its dusty yellow paper peeling off the walls and it was so low-pitched that a man of more than average height was ill at ease in it and felt every moment that he would knock his head against the ceiling the furniture was in keeping with the room there were three old chairs rather rickety a painted table in the corner on which lay a few manuscripts and books the dust that lay thick upon them showed that they had been long untouched a big clumsy sofa occupied almost the whole of one wall and half the floor space of the room it was once covered with chints but was now in rags and served Raskonokov as a bed often he went to sleep on it but he was, without undressing, without sheets wrapped in his old student's overcoat with the head on one little pillow under which he heaped all the linen he had clean and dirty by way of a bolster a little table stood in front of the sofa it would have been difficult to sink to a lower ebb of disorder but Raskonokov in his present state of mind this was positively agreeable he had got completely away from everyone like a tortoise in its shell and even the sight of a servant-croll who had to wait upon him and looked sometimes into his room and arrived with nervous irritation he was in the condition that overtakes some monomaniacs entirely concentrated upon one thing his landlady had for the last fortnight given up sending him in meals and he had not yet thought of expostulating with her though he went without his dinner Nastasia, the cook and only servant was rather pleased at the lodger's mood and had entirely given up sweeping and doing his room only once a week or so she would stray into his room with a broom she waked him up that day get up, why are you asleep? she called to him it's past nine I have brought you some tea, will you have a cup? I should think you're fairly starving Raskonokov opened his eyes, started and recognized Nastasia from the landlady eh? he asked slowly and with a sickly face sitting up on the sofa from the landlady indeed? she set before him her own cracked teapot full of weak and stale tea and laid two yellow lumps of sugar by the side of it here Nastasia, take it please he said, fumbling in his pocket for he had slept in his clothes and taking out a handful of coppers run and buy me a loaf and give me a little sausage the cheapest at the pork butchers the loaf I'll fetch you this very minute but wouldn't you rather have some cabbage soup instead of sausage? it's capital soup, yesterday's I saved it for you yesterday but you came in late it's fine soup when the soup had been brought and he had begun upon it Nastasia sat down beside him on the sofa chatting she was a country peasant woman and a very talkative one Preskovia Pavlovna means to complain to the police about you she said he scowled to the police? what does she want? you don't pay her money and you won't turn out of the room that's what she wants to be sure the devil, that's the last straw he muttered grinding his teeth no, that would not suit me just now she is a fool he added aloud I'll go and talk to her today fool she is and no mistake just as I am but why, if you are so clever do you lie here like a sack and have nothing to show for it one time you used to go out, you say to teach children but why is it you do nothing now? I am doing Raskolnikov began sullenly and reluctantly what are you doing? work what sort of work? I am thinking he answered seriously after a pause Nastasia was overcome with a fit of laughter she was given to laughter and when anything amused her she laughed inaudibly quivering and shaking all over till she felt ill and have you made much money by your thinking? she managed to articulate at last one can't go out to give lessons without boots and I am sick of it don't quarrel with your breath and butter they pay so little for lessons what's the use of a few coppers? he answered reluctantly as though replying to his own thought and you want to get a fortune all at once? he looked at her strangely yes, I want a fortune he answered firmly after a brief pause don't be in such a hurry you quite frightened me shall I get you the loaf or not? as you please oh I forgot a letter came for you yesterday when you were out a letter? for me? from whom? I can't say I gave three coppics of my own to the postman for it will you pay me back? then bring it to me for God's sakes bring it cried Raskolnikov greatly excited good God! a minute later the letter was brought him that was it from his mother from the province of R he turned pale when he took it it was a long while since he had received a letter but another feeling also suddenly stabbed his heart Nastasia, leave me alone for goodness sake here are your three coppics but for goodness sake make haste and go the letter was quivering in his hand he did not want to open it in her presence he wanted to be left alone with his letter when Nastasia had gone out he lifted it quickly to his lips and kissed it then he gazed intently at the address the small sloping handwriting so dear and familiar of the mother who had once taught him to read and write he delayed he seemed almost afraid of something at last he opened it it was a thick heavy letter weighing over two ounces two large sheets of note paper were covered with a very small handwriting my dear Odja wrote his mother it's two months since I last had a talk with you by letter which has distressed me and even kept me awake at night thinking but I'm sure you will not blame me for my inevitable silence you know how I love you you are all we have to look to, Dunia and I you are our all our one hope our one stay it's distressed me when I heard that you had given up the university some months ago for want of means to keep yourself and that you had lost your lessons and your other work how could I help you out of my 120 rubles a year pension the 15 rubles I sent you four months ago I borrowed, as you know on security of my pension from Vasily Ivanovich Varushin a merchant of this town he is a kind-hearted man and was a friend of your father's too but to receive the pension I had to wait till the debt was paid off and that is only just done so that I've been unable to send you anything all this time but now, thank God I believe I shall be able to send you something more and in fact we may congratulate ourselves on our good fortune now of which I hasten to inform you in the first place would you have guessed, dear Roger that your sister has been living with me for the last six weeks and we shall not be separated in the future as our feelings are over but I will tell you everything in order so that you may know just how everything has happened and all that we have hitherto concealed from you when you wrote to me two months ago that you had heard that Dunia had a great deal to put up with in the Svidri Greilov's house when you wrote that and asked me to tell you all about it what could I write in answer to you if I had written the whole truth to you I dare say you would have thrown up everything and have come to us even if you had to walk all the way for I know your character and your feelings and you would not let your sister be insulted I was in despair myself but what could I do and besides I did not know the whole truth myself then what made it all so difficult was that Dunia received a hundred rubles in advance when she took the place as governess in their family on condition of part of her salary being deducted every month and so it was impossible to throw up the situation without repaying the debt this sum now I can explain it all to you my precious Rodja she took chiefly in order to send you 60 rubles which you needed so terribly then and which you received from us last year we deceived you then writing that this money came from Dunia's savings but that was not so and now I tell you all about it because, thank God things have suddenly changed for the better and that you may know how Dunia loves you and what a heart she has at first indeed Mr. Svidriy Greilov treated her very rudely and used to make disrespectful and jeering remarks at table but I don't want to go into all these painful details so as not to worry you for nothing when it is now all over in short, in spite of the kind and generous behaviour of Marfa Petrovna Mr. Svidriy Greilov's wife and all the rest of the household Dunia had a very hard time especially when Mr. Svidriy Greilov relapsing into his old regimental habits was under the influence of Bacchus and how do you think it was all explained later on? Would you believe that the crazy fellow had conceived a passion for Dunia from the beginning but had concealed it under a show of rudeness and contempt possibly he was ashamed and horrified himself at his own flighty hopes considering his years and his being the father of a family and that made him angry with Dunia and possibly too he hoped by his rude and sneering behaviour to hide the truth from others but at last he lost all control and had the face to make Dunia an open and shameful proposal promising her all sorts of inducements and offering besides to throw up everything and take her to another estate of his or even abroad you can imagine all she went through to leave her situation at once was impossible not only on account of the money debt but also to spare the feelings of Marfa Petrovna whose suspicions would have been aroused Dunia would have been the cause of a rupture in the family and it would have meant a terrible scandal for Dunia too that would have been inevitable there were various other reasons owing to which Dunia could not hope to escape from that awful house for another six weeks you know Dunia of course you know how clever she is and what a strong will she has Dunia can endure a great deal and even in the most difficult cases she has the fortitude to maintain her firmness she did not even write to me without everything for fear of upsetting me although we were constantly in communication it all ended very unexpectedly Marfa Petrovna accidentally overheard her husband imploring Dunia in the garden and putting quite a wrong interpretation on the position through the blame upon her believing her to be the cause of it all an awful scene took place between them on the spot in the garden Marfa Petrovna went so far as to strike Dunia refused to hear anything and was shouting at her for a whole hour and then gave orders that Dunia should be packed off at once to me in a plain peasant's cart into which they flung all her things her linen and her clothes all pal-mel without folding it up and packing it and a heavy shower of rain came on too and Dunia insulted and put to shame had to drive with a peasant in an open cart all the seventeen bursts into town only think now what answer could I have sent to the letter I received from you two months ago and what could I have written I was in despair I dared not write to you the truth because you would have been very unhappy mortified and indignant and yet what could you do you could only perhaps ruin yourself and besides Dunia would not allow it and fill up my letter with trifles when my heart was so full of sorrow I could not for a whole month the town was full of gossip about this scandal and it came to such a pass that Dunia and I dared not even go to church on account of the contemptuous looks, whispers and even remarks made a loud about us all our acquaintances avoided us nobody even bowed to us in the street and I learnt that some shopmen and clerks were intending to insult us in a shameful way smearing the gates of our house with pitch so that the landlord began to tell us we must leave this was set going by Marfa Petrovna who managed to slander Dunia and throw dirt at her in every family she knows everyone in the neighbourhood and that month she was continually coming into the town and as she is rather talkative and fond of gossiping about her family affairs and particularly of complaining to all and each of her husband which is not at all right so in a short time she had spread her story not only in the town but over the whole surrounding district it made me ill but Dunia bore it better than I did and if only you could have seen how she endured it all and tried to comfort me and cheer me up she is an angel but by God's mercy our sufferings were cut short Mr. Svidrigrela returned to his senses and repented and probably feeling sorry for Dunia he laid before Marfa Petrovna a complete and unmistakable proof of Dunia's innocence Dunia had been forced to write and give to him before Marfa Petrovna came upon them in the garden this letter which remained in Mr. Svidrigrela's hands after her departure she had written to refuse personal explanations and secret interviews for which he was in treating her in that letter she reproached him with great heat and indignation for the baseness of his behaviour in regard to Marfa Petrovna reminding him that he was the father and head of a family and perhaps it was of him to torment and make unhappy a defenceless girl unhappy enough already indeed dear Odja the letter was so nobly and touchingly written that I sobbed when I read it and to this day I cannot read it without tears moreover the evidence of the servants too cleared Dunia's reputation they had seen and known a great deal more than Mr. Svidrigrela himself had supposed as indeed is always the case with servants Marfa Petrovna was completely taken aback and again crushed as she said herself to us but she was completely convinced of Dunia's innocence the very next day being Sunday she went straight to the cathedral knelt down and prayed with tears to our lady to give her strength to bear this new trial and to do her duty then she came straight from the cathedral to us told us the whole story wept bitterly and fully penitent she embraced Dunia to forgive her the same morning without any delay she went round to all the houses in the town and everywhere shedding tears she asserted in the most flattering terms Dunia's innocence and the nobility of her feelings and her behaviour what was more she showed and read to everyone the letter in Dunia's own handwriting to Mr. Svidrigrela and even allowed them to take copies of it which I must say I think was superfluous in this way she was busy for several days arriving about the whole town because some people had taken offence through precedence having been given to others and therefore they had to take turns so that in every house she was expected before she arrived and everyone knew that on such and such a day Marfa Petrovna would be reading the letter in such and such a place and people assembled for every reading of it even many who had heard it several times already both in their own houses and in other people's in my opinion a great deal a very great deal of all this but that's Marfa Petrovna's character anyway she succeeded in completely re-establishing Dunia's reputation and the whole ignominy of this affair rested as indelible disgrace upon her husband as the only person to blame so that I really began to feel sorry for him it was really treating the crazy fellow too harshly Dunia was at once asked to give lessons in several families but she refused all of a sudden everyone began to treat her with marked respect and all this did much to bring about the event by which one may say our whole fortunes are now transformed you must know dear Rodya that Dunia has a suitor and that she has already consented to marry him I hasten to tell you all about the matter and though it has been arranged without asking your consent I think you will not be aggrieved with me or with your sister on that account for you will see that we could not wait and put off our decision till we heard from you and you could not have judged all the facts without being on the spot this was how it happened he is already the rank of a counsellor Piotr Petrovich Luzin and is distantly related to Marfa Petrovna who has been very active in bringing the match about it began with his expressing through her his desire to make our acquaintance he was properly received drank coffee with us and the very next day he sent a letter in which he very courteously made an offer and begged for a speedy and decided answer he is a very busy man and is in a great hurry to get to Petersburg so that every moment is precious to him at first of course we were greatly surprised as it had all happened so quickly and unexpectedly we thought and talked it over the whole day he is a well to do man to be depended upon he has two posts in the government and has already made his fortune it is true that he is 45 years old but he is of a fairly prepossessing appearance and might still be thought attractive by women and he is altogether a very respectable and presentable man only he seems a little morose and somewhat conceited but possibly that may only be the impression he makes at first sight and beware dear Rodja when he comes to Petersburg as he shortly will do beware of judging him too hastily and severely as your way is if there is anything you do not like in him at first sight I give you this warning although I feel sure that he will make a favourable impression upon you moreover in order to understand any man one must be deliberate and careful to avoid forming prejudices and mistaken ideas which are very difficult to correct and get over afterwards and Piotr Petrovich judging by many indications is a thoroughly estimable man at his first visit indeed he told us that he was a practical man but still he shares as he expressed it many of the convictions of our most rising generation and he is an opponent of all prejudices he said a good deal more for he seems a little conceited and likes to be listened to but this is scarcely a vice I of course understood very little of it but Dunia explained to me that though he is not a man of great education he is clever and seems to be good natured you know your sister's character Rodja she is a resolute sensible patient and generous girl but she has a passionate heart as I know very well of course there is no great love on his side or on hers but Dunia is a clever girl and has the heart of an angel and will make it her duty to make her husband happy who on his side will make her happiness his care of that we have no good reason to doubt though it must be admitted the matter has been arranged in great haste besides he is a man of great prudence and he will see to be sure of himself that his own happiness will be the more secure the happier Dunia is with him and as for some defects of character some habits and even certain differences of opinion which indeed are inevitable even in the happiest marriages Dunia has said that as regards all that she relies on herself that there is nothing to be uneasy about and that she is ready to put up with a great deal if only their future relationship can be an honourable and straightforward one he struck me for instance at first as rather abrupt but that may well come from his being an outspoken man and that is no doubt how it is for instance at his second visit after he had received Dunia's consent in the course of conversation he declared that before making Dunia's acquaintance he had made up his mind to marry a girl of good reputation without dowry and above all one who had experienced poverty because as he explained a man ought not to be indebted to his wife but that it is better for a wife to look upon her husband as her benefactor I must add that he expressed it more nicely and politely than I have done for I have forgotten his actual phrases and only remember the meaning and besides it was obviously not set of design but slipped out in the heat of conversation so that he afterwards tried to correct himself and smooth it over but all the same it did strike me as somewhat rude and I said so afterwards to Dunia but Dunia was vexed and answered that words are not deeds and that of course is perfectly true Dunia did not sleep all night before she made up her mind when I was asleep she got out of bed and was walking up and down the room all night at last she knelt down before the icon and prayed long and fervently and in the morning she told me that she had decided I have mentioned already that Pioto Petrovich is just setting off for Petersburg where he has a great deal of business and he wants to open a legal bureau he has been occupied for many years in conducting civil and commercial litigation and only the other day he won an important case he has to be in Petersburg because he has an important case before the Senate so Rudya dear he may be of the greatest use to you in every way indeed and Dunia and I have agreed that from this very day you could definitely enter upon your career and might consider that your future is marked out and assured for you oh if only this comes to pass this would be such a benefit that we could only look upon it as a providential blessing Dunia is dreaming of nothing else we have even ventured already to drop a few words on the subject to Pioto Petrovich he was cautious in his answer and said that of course as he could not get on without a secretary it would be better to be paying a salary to a relation than to a stranger if only the former were fitted for the duties as though there could be a doubt of your being fitted but then he expressed doubts whether your studies at the university would leave you time for work in his office that had dropped for the time but Dunia is thinking of nothing else now she has been in a sort of fever for the last few days and has already made a regular plan for your becoming in the end an associate and even a partner in Piotro Petrovich's business which might well be seeing that you are a student of law I am in complete agreement with Herodia and share all her plans and hopes and think there is every probability of realising them and in spite of Piotro Petrovich's very natural at present since he does not know you Dunia is firmly persuaded that she will gain everything by her good influence over her future husband this she is reckoning upon of course we are careful not to talk of any of these more remote plans to Piotro Petrovich especially if you are becoming his partner he is a practical man and might take this very coldly it might all seem to him simply a daydream nor has either Dunia or I breathed a word to him of the great hopes we have of his helping us to pay for your university studies we have not spoken of it in the first place because it will come to pass of itself later on and he will no doubt without wasting words offer to do it of himself as though he could refuse Dunia that the more readily since you may by your own efforts become his right hand in the office and receive this assistance not as a charity but as a salary earned by your own work Dunia wants to arrange it all like this and I quite agree with her she has spoken of our plans for another reason that is because I particularly wanted you to feel on an equal footing when you first meet him when Dunia spoke to him with enthusiasm about you he answered that one could never judge of a man without seeing him close for oneself and that he looked forward to forming his own opinion when he makes your acquaintance do you know my precious Roger I think that perhaps for some reasons nothing to do with Piotro Petrovich though simply for my own personal perhaps I should do better to go on living by myself apart than with them after the wedding I am convinced that he will be generous and delicate enough to invite me and to urge me to remain with my daughter for the future and if he has said nothing about it hitherto it is simply because it has been taken for granted but I shall refuse I have noticed more than once in my life that husbands don't quite get on with their mothers-in-law and I don't want to be the least bit in anyone's way and for my own sake too I would rather be quite independent so long as I have a crust of bread of my own and such children as you and Dunia if possible I would settle somewhere near you for the most joyful piece of news dear Roger I have kept for the end of my letter know then my dear boy that we may perhaps be all together in a very short time and may embrace one another again after a separation of almost three years it is settled for certain that Dunia and I are to set off for Petersburg exactly when I don't know but very, very soon possibly in a week it all depends on Piotr Petrovich who will let us know when he has had time to look around him in Petersburg to suit his own arrangements he is anxious to have the ceremony as soon as possible even before the fast of our lady if it could be managed or if that is too soon to be ready immediately after oh with what happiness I shall press you to my heart Dunia is all excitement at the joyful thought of seeing you that she would be ready to marry Piotr Petrovich for that alone she is an angel she is not writing anything to you now and has only told me to write that she has so much so much to tell you that she is not going to take up her pen now for a few lines would tell you nothing and would only mean upsetting herself she bids me send you her love and innumerable kisses but although we shall be meeting so soon perhaps I shall send you as much money as I can in a day or two no one has heard that Dunia is to marry Piotr Petrovich my credit has suddenly improved and I know that Affanasi Ivanovich will trust me now even to 75 rubles on the security of my pension so that perhaps I shall be able to send you 25 or even 30 rubles I would send you more but I am uneasy about her travelling expenses for though Piotr Petrovich has been so kind as to undertake part of the expenses of the journey that is to say he has taken upon himself the conveyance of our bags and the big trunk which will be conveyed through some acquaintance of his we must reckon upon some expense on our arrival in Petersburg where we can't be left without a half penny at least for the first few days but we have calculated it all Dunia and I to the last penny and we see that the journey will not cost very much it is only 90 verses from us to the railway and we have come to an agreement with a driver we know so as to be in readiness and from there Dunia and I can travel quite comfortably third class so that I may be very likely to be able to send you not 25 but 30 rubles but enough I have covered two sheets already and there is no space left for more our whole history but so many events have happened and now my precious Rodja I embrace you and send you a mother's blessing till we meet love Dunia your sister Rodja love her as she loves you and understand that she loves you beyond everything more than herself and you Rodja you are everything to us our one hope our one consolation if only you are happy we shall be happy do you still say your prayers Rodja and believe in the mercy of our creator and our Redeemer I am afraid in my heart that you may have been visited by the new spirit of infidelity that is abroad today if it is so I pray for you remember dear boy how in your childhood when your father was living you used to lisp your prayers at my knee and how happy we all were in those days goodbye till we meet then I embrace you warmly warmly with many kisses yours till death Pulcheria Raskolnikov almost from the first while he read the letter Raskolnikov's face was wet with tears but when he finished it his face was pale and distorted and a bitter, wrathful and malignant smile was on his lips he laid his head down on his threadbare dirty pillow pondered, pondered a long time his heart was beating violently and his brain was in turmoil at last he felt cramped and stifled in the little yellow room that was like a cupboard or a box his eyes and his mind craved for space he took up his hat and went out this time without dread of meeting anyone he had forgotten his dread he turned in the direction of Vasilyevsky Ostrov walking along Vasilyevsky Prospect as though hastening on some business but he walked as his habit was without noticing his way muttering and even speaking aloud to himself to the astonishment of the passersby many of them took him to be drunk End of Part 1 Chapter 3