Part Three · V

Raskolnikov was already going into the rooms. He went in looking as though he were restraining himself with all his might so as not to burst out laughing somehow. Behind him, his face utterly upset and ferocious, red as a peony, lanky and awkward, came the shamefaced Razumikhin. His face and his whole figure really were funny at that moment and justified Raskolnikov’s laughter. Raskolnikov, not yet introduced, bowed to the host, who stood in the middle of the room looking at them questioningly, held out his hand and shook the host’s, still with a visible, extraordinary effort to suppress his merriment and get out at least two or three words to introduce himself. But no sooner had he managed to put on a serious look and mutter something than suddenly, as if involuntarily, he glanced at Razumikhin again and at that point could not hold out: the suppressed laughter broke through all the more irrepressibly for having been held back so hard until then. The extraordinary ferocity with which Razumikhin received this “heartfelt” laughter gave the whole scene an air of the most sincere merriment and, above all, of naturalness. Razumikhin, as if on purpose, helped matters further.

“Pfoo, the devil!” he roared, waving his arm, and struck it right against a small round table on which stood an emptied glass of tea. Everything went flying and crashing.

“But why break the chairs, gentlemen, it’s a loss to the Treasury!” Porfiry Petrovich shouted merrily.

The scene looked like this: Raskolnikov was finishing his laugh, his hand forgotten in his host’s, but, knowing where to stop, he was waiting for the moment to finish quickly and as naturally as possible. Razumikhin, utterly embarrassed by the fall of the table and the broken glass, looked gloomily at the pieces, spat, and turned sharply to the window, where he stood with his back to the company, his face terribly scowling, looking out the window and seeing nothing. Porfiry Petrovich laughed and wanted to laugh, but it was obvious that he needed explanations. In the corner on a chair sat Zametov, who had half risen when the guests came in and stood waiting, his mouth stretched into a smile, but looking at the whole scene with bewilderment and even, it seemed, with mistrust, and at Raskolnikov even with a sort of embarrassment. Zametov’s unexpected presence struck Raskolnikov unpleasantly.

“That has to be thought over too!” he thought.

“Excuse me, please,” he began, with a show of great embarrassment, “Raskolnikov…”

“Not at all, very pleased, sir, and you came in so pleasantly… What, doesn’t he even want to say hello?” Porfiry Petrovich nodded at Razumikhin.

“Honest to God, I don’t know why he’s so furious with me. All I told him on the way was that he looks like Romeo, and… and I proved it, and there was nothing else, I think.”

“Swine!” Razumikhin responded without turning around.

“He must have had very serious reasons to get so angry over one little word,” Porfiry laughed.

“Oh, you! Examining magistrate!… Well, the devil take you all!” Razumikhin snapped, and suddenly, laughing himself, his face cheered up, he walked over to Porfiry Petrovich as if nothing had happened.

“Enough! Everybody’s a fool; to business: here’s a friend of mine, Rodion Romanych Raskolnikov, in the first place he’s heard a lot about you and wanted to meet you, and in the second place he has a little matter for you. Bah! Zametov! How do you come to be here? Do you two know each other? Since when?”

“What’s this now!” Raskolnikov thought anxiously.

Zametov seemed embarrassed, but not very.

“We met yesterday, at your place,” he said casually.

“Then God has spared me the trouble: last week he begged me terribly to introduce him to you somehow, Porfiry, and you’ve sniffed each other out without me… Where’s your tobacco?”

Porfiry Petrovich was dressed for home, in a dressing gown, very clean linen, and trodden-down slippers. He was a man of about thirty-five, shorter than average, stout and even with a little paunch, clean-shaven, without mustache or side-whiskers, his hair cropped close on a large round head that was somehow especially bulging and rounded at the back. His puffy, round, slightly snub-nosed face was of a sickly, dark yellow color, but rather lively and even mocking. It would even have been good-natured if it had not been for the expression of his eyes, which had a sort of liquid, watery gleam and were covered by almost white lashes that blinked as if winking at someone. The look of those eyes was somehow strangely out of harmony with his whole figure, which even had something womanish about it, and gave it something far more serious than one might have expected of it at first glance.

As soon as Porfiry Petrovich heard that his guest had a “little matter” for him, he at once asked him to sit on the sofa, sat down himself at the other end, and fixed his eyes on his guest in immediate expectation of hearing the matter set out, with that intense and all too serious attention which weighs on you and embarrasses you from the first, especially with a stranger, and especially if what you are setting out is, in your own opinion, far out of proportion to such extraordinarily weighty attention being shown you. But Raskolnikov, in brief and coherent words, explained his matter clearly and precisely, and was so pleased with himself that he even managed to get a fairly good look at Porfiry. Porfiry Petrovich, for his part, did not take his eyes off him once the whole time. Razumikhin, settling himself opposite, at the same table, followed the setting out of the matter hotly and impatiently, constantly shifting his eyes from one to the other and back, which was already a little overdone.

“Fool!” Raskolnikov swore to himself.

“You should submit a statement to the police,” Porfiry answered with the most businesslike air, “to the effect, sir, that, having been informed of such-and-such an occurrence, that is, of this murder, you request in your turn that the examining magistrate to whom the case is entrusted be notified that such-and-such articles belong to you and that you wish to redeem them… or something like that… but they’ll write it for you there anyway.”

“That’s just the thing, that at the present moment,” Raskolnikov tried to look as embarrassed as possible, “I’m not exactly in funds… and I can’t manage even such a trifle… you see, what I’d like now is just to declare that these things are mine, but that when I have the money…”

“That makes no difference, sir,” answered Porfiry Petrovich, receiving the explanation of his finances coldly, “but then, if you like, you can also write directly to me, to the same effect: that, having been informed of such-and-such, and declaring such-and-such articles to be mine, I request…”

“On plain paper, I suppose?” Raskolnikov hastened to interrupt, again taking an interest in the financial side of the matter.

“Oh, the plainest, sir!” and suddenly Porfiry Petrovich looked at him somehow openly mockingly, narrowing his eyes and as if winking at him. Though perhaps it only seemed so to Raskolnikov, because it lasted only an instant. At any rate, there was something of the sort. Raskolnikov would have sworn that he winked at him, devil knows why.

“He knows!” flashed through him like lightning.

“Forgive me for troubling you with such trifles,” he went on, somewhat thrown off, “my things are worth only five roubles, but they’re especially dear to me, as a memory of those I had them from, and, I confess, when I found out, I was very frightened…”

“So that’s why you started up like that yesterday when I blurted out to Zosimov that Porfiry was questioning the pawners!” Razumikhin put in, with visible intent.

This was already unbearable. Raskolnikov could not stand it and flashed his black eyes at him, ablaze with anger. At once he came to his senses.

“You seem to be making fun of me, brother?” he turned to him with deftly worked-up irritation. “I grant that maybe, in your eyes, I’m much too concerned about such junk; but you can’t consider me either an egoist or greedy for that, and in my eyes these two trifling little things may not be junk at all. I told you just now that this silver watch, not worth a kopeck, is the only thing my father left. Laugh at me, but my mother has come to see me,” he suddenly turned to Porfiry, “and if she found out,” he quickly turned back to Razumikhin, trying especially to make his voice tremble, “that this watch was lost, then, I swear, she would be in despair! Women!”

“But not at all! I didn’t mean it that way at all! Quite the opposite!” cried the aggrieved Razumikhin.

“Was that good? Was it natural? Did I overdo it?” Raskolnikov trembled inwardly. “Why did I say ‘women’?”

“So your mother has come to see you?” Porfiry Petrovich inquired, for some reason.

“Yes.”

“And when was that, sir?”

“Yesterday evening.”

Porfiry was silent for a moment, as if considering.

“Your things could not have been lost in any case,” he went on calmly and coldly. “I’ve been waiting for you here for a long time, you know.”

And as if nothing had happened, he solicitously began moving an ashtray toward Razumikhin, who was mercilessly dropping cigarette ash on the carpet. Raskolnikov gave a start, but Porfiry did not seem even to be looking, still preoccupied with Razumikhin’s cigarette.

“Wha-at? Waiting! Did you know, then, that he’d pawned things there too?” cried Razumikhin.

Porfiry Petrovich turned straight to Raskolnikov:

“Both your things, the ring and the watch, were wrapped together in one piece of paper at her place, and on the paper your name was clearly written in pencil, as well as the day of the month when she received them from you…”

“How observant you are!…” Raskolnikov tried to smile awkwardly, making a special effort to look him straight in the eye; but he could not hold back and suddenly added: “I say that because there were probably a great many pawners… so it would be hard for you to remember them all… And you, on the contrary, remember them all so distinctly, and… and…”

“Stupid! Weak! Why did I add that!”

“But almost all the pawners are known by now, so that you’re the only one who hasn’t been so kind as to call,” answered Porfiry, with a barely noticeable shade of mockery.

“I wasn’t quite well.”

“I’ve heard about that too, sir. I’ve heard even that you were very upset about something. You seem pale even now?”

“I’m not pale at all… on the contrary, I’m perfectly well!” Raskolnikov snapped rudely and angrily, suddenly changing his tone. The anger was boiling up in him, and he could not suppress it. “And in my anger I’ll let something slip!” flashed through him again. “But why are they tormenting me!…”

“Not quite well!” Razumikhin took up. “That’s putting it mildly! Until yesterday he was raving, almost out of his mind… Would you believe it, Porfiry, he can hardly stand on his feet himself, but the minute we turned our backs yesterday, Zosimov and I, he got dressed and slipped off on the quiet and was gallivanting around somewhere almost till midnight, and all in the most complete delirium, I tell you, can you imagine it! A most remarkable case!”

“In the most complete delirium, really? You don’t say!” Porfiry shook his head with a sort of womanish gesture.

“Oh, nonsense! Don’t believe it! But then you don’t believe it anyway!” broke from Raskolnikov, out of too much anger. But Porfiry Petrovich did not seem to hear these strange words.

“But how could you have gone out if you weren’t delirious?” Razumikhin suddenly grew heated. “Why did you go out? What for?… And why on the sly, exactly? Well, were you in your right mind then? Now that all the danger is past, I’m telling you straight out!”

“I got very sick of them yesterday,” Raskolnikov suddenly turned to Porfiry with an insolently challenging grin, “so I ran away from them to rent an apartment where they wouldn’t find me, and I took a pile of money with me. Mr. Zametov there saw the money. So tell us, Mr. Zametov, was I in my right mind yesterday or delirious, settle the argument?”

It seemed he could have strangled Zametov at that moment. He disliked his look and his silence too much.

“In my opinion you talked very sensibly, sir, and even cunningly, sir, only you were much too irritable,” Zametov declared dryly.

“And today Nikodim Fomich was telling me,” Porfiry Petrovich put in, “that he met you yesterday, very late, in the lodging of a clerk who had been run over by horses…”

“Well, take that clerk!” Razumikhin took up. “Well, weren’t you mad at that clerk’s place? You gave your last money to the widow for the funeral! All right, you wanted to help—give fifteen, give twenty, but keep at least three roubles for yourself, and instead he forks over all twenty-five!”

“And maybe I found a treasure somewhere, and you don’t know it? So yesterday I was generous… Mr. Zametov there knows I found a treasure!… Excuse us, please,” he turned to Porfiry, his lips quivering, “for bothering you for half an hour with such trivial squabbling. You’re sick of us, eh?”

“Not at all, sir, on the contrary, on the co-o-ntrary! If you only knew how you interest me! It’s curious both to watch and to listen… and I confess I’m so glad that you’ve finally been so kind as to call…”

“At least give us some tea! My throat’s dry!” cried Razumikhin.

“Splendid idea! Maybe everyone will keep you company. But wouldn’t you like… something more substantial, before the tea?”

“Get along with you!”

Porfiry Petrovich went out to order tea.

Thoughts whirled like a whirlwind in Raskolnikov’s head. He was terribly irritated.

“The main thing is, they don’t even hide it, they don’t want to stand on ceremony! And on what occasion, if you don’t know me at all, did you talk about me with Nikodim Fomich? So they don’t even want to hide that they’re after me like a pack of dogs! They spit in my face so openly!” He was trembling with fury. “Well, strike straight out, and don’t play cat and mouse. That’s not polite, Porfiry Petrovich, and maybe I won’t allow it yet, sir!… I’ll get up and blurt the whole truth in all your faces; and you’ll see how I despise you!…” He drew breath with difficulty. “And what if it only seems so to me? What if it’s a mirage and I’m wrong about everything, getting angry from inexperience, unable to keep up my vile part? Maybe it’s all without intent? All their words are ordinary, but there’s something in them… All of that could always be said, but there’s something. Why did he say straight out ‘at her place’? Why did Zametov add that I talked cunningly? Why do they talk in such a tone? Yes… the tone… Razumikhin was sitting right here, so why doesn’t anything seem so to him? Nothing ever seems so to that innocent blockhead! The fever again!… Did Porfiry wink at me just now or not? Must be nonsense; why would he wink? Do they want to work on my nerves, or are they teasing me? Either it’s all a mirage, or they know!… Even Zametov is insolent… Is Zametov insolent? Zametov has changed his mind overnight. I had a presentiment that he would! He’s at home here, and yet it’s his first time. Porfiry doesn’t treat him as a guest, sits with his back to him. They’ve sniffed each other out! They’ve sniffed each other out over me, for certain! They were talking about me before we came, for certain!… Do they know about the apartment? Let’s get it over with!… When I said I ran off yesterday to rent an apartment, he let it pass, didn’t pick it up… But that was clever of me to slip in the apartment: it will come in handy later!… In delirium, they’ll say!… Ha-ha-ha! He knows about the whole of yesterday evening! He didn’t know about my mother’s arrival!… And the witch even wrote the date down in pencil!… You lie, I won’t give in! These aren’t facts yet, it’s only a mirage! No, you give me facts! And the apartment isn’t a fact, it’s delirium; I know what to tell them… Do they know about the apartment? I won’t leave without finding out! Why did I come? But the fact that I’m angry now, that may well be a fact! Pfoo, how irritable I am! But maybe that’s good; the part of a sick man… He’s feeling me out. He’ll try to trip me up. Why did I come?”

All this swept through his head like lightning.

Porfiry Petrovich came back in a moment. He had suddenly cheered up somehow.

“My head, brother, ever since your party yesterday… And I’m somehow all unstrung,” he began in an entirely different tone, laughing, to Razumikhin.

“Well, was it interesting? I left you yesterday at the most interesting point, didn’t I? Who won?”

“Why, nobody, of course. We got onto the eternal questions, soared in the empyrean.”

“Imagine, Rodya, what we got onto yesterday: does crime exist or not? I told you they talked themselves blue in the face!”

“What’s surprising about that? An ordinary social question,” Raskolnikov answered absentmindedly.

“The question wasn’t formulated quite that way,” Porfiry remarked.

“Not quite that way, that’s true,” Razumikhin agreed at once, hurrying and getting heated as usual. “You see, Rodion: listen and give your opinion. I want you to. I was jumping out of my skin with them yesterday and waiting for you; I told them about you too, that you’d come… It started with the view of the socialists. Everybody knows the view: crime is a protest against the abnormality of the social order—and that’s all, and nothing more, and no other causes are admitted—and nothing!…”

“There you go, lying!” cried Porfiry Petrovich. He was visibly growing livelier and kept laughing as he looked at Razumikhin, which egged him on all the more.

“N-nothing is admitted!” Razumikhin interrupted hotly. “I’m not lying!… I’ll show you their books: with them everything is because ‘the environment devoured him’—and nothing more! Their favorite phrase! Straight from that it follows that if society is arranged normally, then all crimes will vanish at once, since there will be nothing to protest against, and everyone will become righteous in an instant. Nature isn’t taken into account, nature is driven out, nature isn’t allowed! With them it isn’t mankind, developing to the end along a historical, living path, that will finally turn into a normal society of itself, but, on the contrary, a social system, coming out of some mathematical head, that will at once arrange all mankind and make it righteous and sinless in an instant, ahead of any living process, without any historical and living path! That’s why they dislike history so instinctively: ‘there’s nothing in it but outrages and stupidities’—and everything is explained by stupidity alone! That’s why they dislike the living process of life so much: no need for a living soul! A living soul will demand life, a living soul won’t obey mechanics, a living soul is suspicious, a living soul is retrograde! But this thing here, though it may smell a bit of carrion, can be made out of rubber—but then it isn’t alive, but then it has no will, but then it’s servile, it won’t rebel! And the upshot is that they’ve reduced everything to the laying of bricks and the arrangement of corridors and rooms in a phalanstery!¹ The phalanstery is ready, all right, but your nature isn’t ready for the phalanstery yet, it wants life, it hasn’t completed the process of life yet, it’s too early for the graveyard! With logic alone you can’t leap over nature! Logic will foresee three cases, and there are a million! Cut off the whole million and reduce everything to the one question of comfort! The easiest solution of the problem! Seductively clear, and no need to think! The main thing—no need to think! The whole secret of life fits on two printer’s sheets!”

“There, he’s broken loose, he’s drumming away! He has to be held by the arms,” laughed Porfiry. “Imagine,” he turned to Raskolnikov, “it was just like this yesterday evening, in one room, six voices at once, and he’d plied them with punch beforehand—can you picture it? No, brother, you’re lying: ‘the environment’ means a great deal in crime; I’ll back you up on that.”

“I know myself that it means a lot, but you tell me this: a man of forty dishonors a girl of ten—was it the environment that drove him to it?”

“Well, in the strict sense, it may well be the environment,” Porfiry remarked with astonishing gravity, “a crime against a little girl can very, very well be explained by ‘the environment.’”

Razumikhin nearly flew into a fury.

“Well, do you want me to deduce for you right now,” he roared, “that your eyelashes are white solely because Ivan the Great is thirty-five sazhens high,² and deduce it clearly, precisely, progressively, and even with a liberal tinge? I’ll take it on! Well, want to bet?”

“Accepted! Let’s hear, please, how he deduces it!”

“But he’s pretending all the time, the devil!” cried Razumikhin, jumping up and waving his arm. “Well, is it worth talking to you! He does it all on purpose, you don’t know him yet, Rodion! And yesterday he took their side only to make fools of everyone. And the things he said yesterday, Lord! And how glad they were of him!… He keeps it up for two weeks at a time like this, you know. Last year he assured us, for some reason, that he was going to become a monk: he stuck to it for two months! Not long ago he took it into his head to assure us that he was getting married, that everything was ready for the wedding. He even had new clothes made. We had already begun congratulating him. There was no bride, nothing at all: all a mirage!”

“There you go, lying! I had the clothes made before. It was the new clothes that gave me the idea of fooling you all.”

“Are you really such a pretender?” Raskolnikov asked carelessly.

“And you thought not? Wait, I’ll take you in too—ha-ha-ha! No, you see, sir, I’ll tell you the whole truth. Apropos of all these questions, crimes, environment, little girls, I’ve just recalled—though it has always interested me, actually—a little article of yours: ‘On Crime’… or whatever you called it, I’ve forgotten the title, I don’t remember. I had the pleasure of reading it two months ago in Periodical Speech.”

“My article? In Periodical Speech?” Raskolnikov asked in surprise. “I really did write an article, half a year ago, when I left the university, about a certain book, but I took it then to the newspaper Weekly Speech, not to Periodical.”

“But it got into Periodical.”

“But Weekly Speech ceased to exist, that’s why they didn’t print it then…”

“That’s true, sir; but in ceasing to exist, Weekly Speech merged with Periodical Speech, and therefore your little article appeared two months ago in Periodical Speech. And you didn’t know?”

Raskolnikov really had known nothing.

“Goodness, you can ask them for money for the article! What a character you have, though! You live so solitarily that you don’t know about such things that concern you directly. That’s a fact, sir.”

“Bravo, Rodka! And I didn’t know either!” cried Razumikhin. “I’ll run into the reading room this very day and ask for the issue! Two months ago? What date? Doesn’t matter, I’ll find it! There’s a thing! And he won’t say!”

“And how did you find out the article was mine? It was signed with an initial.”

“By chance, and only the other day. Through the editor; I know him… I was very much interested.”

“I examined, as I recall, the psychological state of the criminal throughout the whole course of the crime.”

“Yes, sir, and you insist that the act of carrying out a crime is always accompanied by illness. Very, very original, but… it wasn’t really that part of your little article that interested me, but a certain idea let slip at the end of the article, which, unfortunately, you put forward only in a hint, unclearly… In short, if you recall, there is a certain hint that there exist in the world certain persons, supposedly, who can… that is, not that they can, but who have the full right to commit all sorts of outrages and crimes, and that the law, supposedly, is not written for them.”

Raskolnikov smiled at this strained and deliberate distortion of his idea.

“What? What’s that? A right to crime? But not because ‘the environment devoured them’?” Razumikhin inquired with something even like alarm.

“No, no, not quite because of that,” answered Porfiry. “The whole point is that in his article all people are somehow divided into the ‘ordinary’ and the ‘extraordinary.’ The ordinary must live in obedience and have no right to step over the law, because, you see, they are ordinary. While the extraordinary have the right to commit all sorts of crimes and to step over the law in every way, precisely because they are extraordinary.³ That’s how you have it, I believe, if I’m not mistaken?”

“But how can that be? It can’t be like that!” Razumikhin muttered in bewilderment.

Raskolnikov smiled again. He understood at once what this was about and what they wanted to push him toward; he remembered his article. He decided to accept the challenge.

“That isn’t quite how I have it,” he began simply and modestly. “I confess, though, that you’ve stated it almost correctly, even, if you like, perfectly correctly…” (It was as if it gave him pleasure to agree that it was perfectly correct.) “The only difference is that I do not at all insist that extraordinary people must without fail, and are obliged to, commit all sorts of outrages always, as you put it. It even seems to me that such an article wouldn’t have been allowed into print. I simply hinted that the ‘extraordinary’ man has the right… that is, not an official right, but he himself has the right to permit his conscience to step over… certain obstacles, and only in the event that the fulfillment of his idea (sometimes a saving one, perhaps, for all mankind) requires it. You are pleased to say that my article is unclear; I am ready to make it clear to you, as far as I can. Perhaps I won’t be mistaken in supposing that this is just what you seem to want; very well, sir. In my opinion, if the discoveries of Kepler and Newton, owing to certain combinations of circumstances, could in no way have become known to people except by sacrificing the lives of one, ten, a hundred, and so on, people who would be hindering this discovery or standing in its path as an obstacle, then Newton would have the right, and would even be obliged… to remove those ten or a hundred people, in order to make his discoveries known to all mankind. It does not follow from this, however, that Newton had the right to kill anyone he pleased, anyone he came across, or to steal every day at the market. Further, as I recall, I develop the idea in my article that all… well, for example, the lawgivers and founders of mankind, beginning with the most ancient, continuing with the Lycurguses, the Solons, the Mahomets, the Napoleons, and so on, were all to a man criminals, by the very fact that, in giving a new law, they thereby violated the ancient one, held sacred by society and handed down from their fathers, and, of course, they did not stop short of blood either, if only blood (sometimes quite innocent and valiantly shed for the ancient law) could help them. It is even remarkable that most of these benefactors and founders of mankind were particularly terrible shedders of blood. In short, I conclude that all, not only the great, but even those slightly out of the rut, that is, even slightly capable of saying something a little new, must by their nature be criminals without fail—more or less, of course. Otherwise it is hard for them to get out of the rut, and to stay in the rut they of course cannot agree, again by their nature, and in my opinion they are even obliged not to agree. In short, you see that so far there is nothing especially new here. It has been printed and read a thousand times. As for my division of people into ordinary and extraordinary, I agree that it is somewhat arbitrary, but then I don’t insist on exact figures. I believe only in my main idea. It consists precisely in this, that people, by a law of nature, are divided in general into two categories: the lower (the ordinary), that is, so to speak, material serving solely for the generation of its own kind, and people properly so called, that is, those who have the gift or talent to speak a new word in their milieu. The subdivisions here are endless, of course, but the distinguishing features of the two categories are fairly sharp: the first category, that is, the material, generally speaking, are people conservative by nature, staid, they live in obedience and like to be obedient. In my opinion they are even obliged to be obedient, because that is their purpose, and there is absolutely nothing humiliating in it for them. The second category all step over the law, they are destroyers, or inclined to be, according to their abilities. The crimes of these people are, of course, relative and manifold; for the most part they demand, in very diverse declarations, the destruction of the present in the name of something better. But if such a man needs, for the sake of his idea, to step over even a corpse, over blood, then he can, within himself, in conscience, in my opinion, give himself permission to step over blood—depending, however, on the idea and on its scale—note that. It is only in this sense that I speak in my article of their right to crime. (You will recall that we began with a legal question.) However, there is no need to be much alarmed: the mass almost never recognizes this right in them, it executes them and hangs them (more or less) and in so doing, quite justly, fulfills its conservative purpose, with this proviso, however, that in the following generations this same mass places the executed on a pedestal and worships them (more or less). The first category is always the master of the present, the second category the master of the future. The first preserve the world and increase it numerically; the second move the world and lead it to its goal. Both have exactly the same right to exist. In short, with me they all have an equal right, and—vive la guerre éternelle⁴—until the New Jerusalem, of course!”

“So you do believe in the New Jerusalem, after all?”

“I believe,” Raskolnikov answered firmly; as he said this, and throughout the whole of his long tirade, he had been looking at the ground, having picked out a spot on the carpet.

“And-and-and do you believe in God? Excuse me for being so curious.”

“I believe,” Raskolnikov repeated, raising his eyes to Porfiry.

“And-and do you believe in the raising of Lazarus?”

“I-I believe. Why do you want to know all this?”

“You believe it literally?”

“Literally.”

“I see, sir… I was just curious. Excuse me, sir. But allow me—I’m going back to what we were saying—they’re not always executed, are they; some, on the contrary…”

“Triumph in their lifetime? Oh yes, some achieve it in their lifetime, and then…”

“They begin executing others themselves?”

“If it’s necessary, and, you know, for the most part even. On the whole, your remark is witty.”

“Thank you, sir. But tell me this: how would one tell these extraordinary ones from the ordinary? Are there signs at birth, or what? I mean that there ought to be more precision here, so to speak, more outward definiteness: forgive the natural anxiety of a practical and well-meaning man, but couldn’t they introduce a special garment, for instance, wear something, brands of some sort, or whatever?… Because, you’ll agree, if there’s a mix-up, and someone from one category imagines that he belongs to the other category, and begins ‘removing all obstacles,’ as you so happily put it, why then…”

“Oh, that happens very often! That remark of yours is even wittier than the last…”

“Thank you, sir…”

“Don’t mention it, sir; but take into consideration that a mistake is possible only on the part of the first category, that is, the ‘ordinary’ people (as I called them, perhaps very unfortunately). In spite of their innate inclination to obedience, through a certain playfulness of nature, which is not denied even to a cow, a great many of them like to imagine themselves progressive people, ‘destroyers,’ and to push their way into the ‘new word,’ and this quite sincerely, sir. At the same time they very often fail to notice the really new ones, and even despise them as backward and abjectly thinking people. But in my opinion there can be no significant danger here, and you really have nothing to worry about, because they never step very far. For getting carried away, of course, they might sometimes be flogged, to remind them of their place, but no more; there isn’t even any need for an executioner here: they will flog themselves, because they are very well-behaved; some render this service to one another, and others do it to themselves with their own hands… They impose various public penances on themselves into the bargain—it comes out beautiful and edifying; in short, you have nothing to worry about… There is such a law.”

“Well, at least on that score you’ve set my mind at rest somewhat; but here’s another trouble, sir: tell me, please, are there many such people who have the right to cut down others, these ‘extraordinary’ ones? I’m ready to bow down, of course, but you’ll agree, sir, it’s eerie if there are going to be a great many of them, eh?”

“Oh, don’t worry about that either,” Raskolnikov went on in the same tone. “In general, people with a new idea, even ones barely capable of saying anything new at all, are born extraordinarily few, even strangely few. Only one thing is clear, that the order in which people are born, all these categories and subdivisions, must be very surely and precisely determined by some law of nature. This law is, of course, unknown at present, but I believe that it exists and may later become known. The enormous mass of people, the material, exists in the world only so that finally, through some effort, by some process mysterious so far, by means of some crossing of stocks and breeds, it may strain itself and finally bring into the world, well, one in a thousand, let us say, a person who is to some degree independent. One with still broader independence is born, perhaps, one in ten thousand (I’m speaking approximately, for illustration). One with still broader—one in a hundred thousand. Men of genius—one in millions, and the great geniuses, the consummators of mankind—perhaps after many thousands of millions of people have passed over the earth. In short, I haven’t looked into the retort in which all this takes place. But a definite law certainly exists and must exist; there can be no chance in it.”

“What is this, are you both joking?” Razumikhin cried at last. “Are you pulling each other’s legs or not? They sit there making fun of each other! Are you serious, Rodya?”

Raskolnikov silently raised his pale and almost sad face to him and made no answer. And beside that quiet and sad face, Porfiry’s undisguised, importunate, irritable, and impolite sarcasm seemed strange to Razumikhin.

“Well, brother, if this is really serious, then… You’re right, of course, in saying that it isn’t new and resembles everything we’ve read and heard a thousand times; but what is really original in all this—and really belongs to you alone, to my horror—is that you permit blood in conscience after all, and, forgive me, with such fanaticism even… So that, then, is the main idea of your article. This permission of blood in conscience, it’s… it’s more terrible, in my opinion, than an official permission to shed blood, a legal one…”

“Quite right, more terrible, sir,” Porfiry responded.

“No, you got carried away somehow! There’s a mistake here. I’ll read it… You got carried away! You can’t think that… I’ll read it.”

“None of that is in the article, there are only hints there,” Raskolnikov said.

“Just so, sir, just so,” Porfiry could not sit still, “it has almost become clear to me now how you are pleased to look at crime, sir, but… do excuse me for my persistence (I’m troubling you so much, I’m ashamed of myself!)—you see, sir: you set my mind very much at rest just now concerning those mistaken cases of confusing the two categories, but… all sorts of practical cases here still trouble me! Well, what if some man or other, or a youth, imagines that he is a Lycurgus or a Mahomet—a future one, of course—and goes ahead removing all obstacles to it… There’s a long campaign ahead, he says, and a campaign needs money… and he starts getting it for himself for the campaign… you know?”

Zametov suddenly snorted from his corner. Raskolnikov did not even raise his eyes to him.

“I must agree,” he answered calmly, “that such cases really must occur. The silly and the vain are especially apt to take that bait; young people in particular.”

“There you see, sir. Well, so what then, sir?”

“Why, the same as always,” Raskolnikov grinned, “I’m not to blame for it. That’s how it is and always will be. He here” (he nodded at Razumikhin) “was saying just now that I permit blood. So what? Society is only too well provided with exile, prisons, examining magistrates, penal servitude—why worry? Go and look for the thief!…”

“Well, and if we find him?”

“Serves him right.”

“You are logical, though. Well, sir, and what about his conscience?”

“What business is it of yours?”

“Oh, just so, out of humaneness, sir.”

“Whoever has one, let him suffer, if he recognizes his mistake. That is his punishment too—over and above penal servitude.”

“Well, and the real geniuses,” Razumikhin asked with a frown, “the ones who are given the right to cut people down, must they really not suffer at all, even for blood they’ve shed?”

“Why the word ‘must’ here? There is neither permission nor prohibition here. Let him suffer, if he pities the victim… Suffering and pain are always obligatory for a broad consciousness and a deep heart. Truly great men, it seems to me, must feel a great sadness in the world,” he added suddenly, pensively, not even in the tone of the conversation.

He raised his eyes, looked thoughtfully at them all, smiled, and took his cap. He was too calm compared with how he had come in earlier, and he felt it. Everyone stood up.

“Well, sir, scold me or not, be angry or not, but I can’t hold back,” Porfiry Petrovich concluded again, “allow me one more little question (I’m troubling you so much, sir!), there was just one little idea I wanted to put in, solely so as not to forget it, sir…”

“All right, tell me your little idea.” Raskolnikov stood before him, serious and pale, waiting.

“Why, you see, sir… really, I don’t know how best to put it… the little idea is much too playful… psychological, sir… Why, you see, sir, when you were composing your little article—surely it can’t be, heh-heh! that you didn’t consider yourself, well, even just a tiny bit—also an ‘extraordinary’ man, saying a new word—in your sense, that is, sir… Isn’t that so, sir?”

“Very possibly,” Raskolnikov answered contemptuously.

Razumikhin made a movement.

“And if so, sir, then could you really bring yourself—well, in view of some failures and straits in life, or to further all mankind somehow—to step over the obstacle?… Well, for example, to kill and rob?…”

And somehow suddenly he winked at him again with his left eye and laughed soundlessly—exactly as before.

“Even if I had stepped over, I would of course not tell you,” Raskolnikov answered with challenging, haughty contempt.

“No, sir, I’m only interested, you see, strictly for the understanding of your article, in a purely literary respect, sir…”

“Pfoo, how obvious and insolent that is!” Raskolnikov thought with disgust.

“Allow me to point out to you,” he answered dryly, “that I do not consider myself a Mahomet or a Napoleon… or any person of that sort, and consequently, not being one of them, I cannot give you a satisfactory explanation of how I would act.”

“Come now, who in our Russia doesn’t consider himself a Napoleon nowadays?” Porfiry suddenly said with terrible familiarity. Even in the intonation of his voice there was this time something especially clear.

“Maybe it was some future Napoleon who did in our Alyona Ivanovna with an ax last week?” Zametov suddenly blurted out from the corner.

Raskolnikov was silent and looked steadily, firmly at Porfiry. Razumikhin scowled darkly. Something had already seemed to be dawning on him even before. He looked around angrily. A minute of gloomy silence passed. Raskolnikov turned to go.

“Leaving already!” Porfiry said kindly, holding out his hand with extraordinary amiability. “Very, very glad to have made your acquaintance. And as for your request, have no doubts at all. Just write it the way I told you. Or better still, come and see me there yourself… one of these days… tomorrow, even. I’ll be there at about eleven o’clock, for certain. We’ll arrange everything… we’ll have a talk… And as one of the last people who were there, you might be able to tell us something…” he added with the most good-natured air.

“You want to question me officially, with all the formalities?” Raskolnikov asked sharply.

“Why should I, sir? For the time being that isn’t required at all. You misunderstood. You see, I don’t let an opportunity slip, and… and I’ve already talked with all the pawners… I took statements from some… and you, as the last… Oh, yes, by the way!” he exclaimed, suddenly delighted about something, “by the way, I’ve just remembered, what’s the matter with me!…” he turned to Razumikhin, “you wore my ears out about that Nikolashka back then… well, I know myself, I know myself,” he turned to Raskolnikov, “that the fellow is clean, but what can you do, we had to trouble Mitka too… here’s the thing, sir, the whole point, sir: when you were going up the stairs back then… allow me: you were there after seven, weren’t you, sir?”

“After seven,” answered Raskolnikov, with the unpleasant feeling in that same second that he need not have said it.

“So when you were going up the stairs after seven, sir, didn’t you see, on the second floor, in an open apartment—do you remember?—two workmen, or at least one of them? They were painting there, didn’t you notice? It’s very, very important for them!…”

“Painters? No, I didn’t see them…” Raskolnikov answered slowly and as if rummaging in his memories, at the same instant straining his whole being and freezing in an agony to guess as quickly as possible where exactly the trap lay, and not overlook anything. “No, I didn’t see them, and I somehow didn’t notice any such apartment, open… but on the fourth floor” (he now had full command of the trap and was triumphant) “I do remember that a clerk was moving out of an apartment… across from Alyona Ivanovna’s… I remember… I remember that clearly… some soldiers were carrying out a sofa and squeezed me against the wall… but painters—no, I don’t remember there being any painters… and there was no open apartment anywhere, I think. No; there wasn’t…”

“What’s the matter with you!” Razumikhin suddenly cried, as if coming to his senses and catching on. “Why, the painters were daubing on the very day of the murder, and he was there three days before? What are you asking for?”

“Pfoo! I’ve mixed it up!” Porfiry slapped himself on the forehead. “Devil take it, this case is driving me out of my wits!” he turned to Raskolnikov, as if even apologizing. “It would be so important for us to find out whether anyone saw them, after seven, in the apartment, that I just imagined that you too might be able to tell us… I’ve mixed it all up!”

“Then you ought to be more careful,” Razumikhin remarked sullenly.

These last words were spoken already in the entry. Porfiry Petrovich saw them to the very door with extraordinary amiability. Both came out into the street gloomy and scowling, and for several steps did not say a word. Raskolnikov drew a deep breath…

Notes

1. 1. The phalanstery: the communal dwelling of an ideal society in the scheme of the French utopian socialist Charles Fourier (1772–1837).

2. 2. The Ivan the Great Bell Tower in the Moscow Kremlin; a sazhen is seven feet, so about 245 feet.

3. 3. The Russian for “crime,” prestuplenie, means literally a “stepping over” (from prestupit, to step over or transgress). Raskolnikov’s own verb, pereshagnut, is “to step across.” Both are rendered “step over” throughout.

4. 4. French: “Long live eternal war.”