Epilogue · I

Siberia. On the bank of a wide, desolate river stands a town, one of the administrative centers of Russia; in the town there is a fortress, in the fortress a prison. In the prison an exiled convict of the second class, Rodion Raskolnikov, has been confined for nine months now. Almost a year and a half has passed since the day of his crime.

The legal proceedings in his case went off without great difficulties. The criminal maintained his statement firmly, precisely, and clearly, without confusing the circumstances, without softening them in his own favor, without distorting the facts, without forgetting the smallest detail. He told the whole process of the murder down to the last stroke: he explained the secret of the pledge (the little wooden board with the strip of metal) that had turned up in the murdered old woman’s hand; he told in detail how he had taken the keys from the murdered woman, described those keys, described the trunk and what it had been filled with; he even enumerated some of the separate articles that had lain in it; he explained the riddle of Lizaveta’s murder; he told how Koch had come and knocked, and after him the student, conveying everything they had said to each other; how he, the criminal, had afterward run down the stairs and heard Mikolka and Mitka squealing; how he had hidden in the empty apartment, gone home, and in conclusion he pointed out the stone in the yard on Voznesensky Avenue, under the gateway, under which the things and the purse were found. In a word, the case came out clear. The examining magistrates and the judges were very surprised, among other things, that he had hidden the purse and the things under the stone without making use of them, and most of all that he not only did not remember in detail all the things he had actually stolen, but even made a mistake about their number. The circumstance itself, that he had not once opened the purse and did not even know how much money exactly lay in it, seemed incredible (the purse turned out to contain three hundred and seventeen roubles in silver and three twenty-kopeck pieces; from lying long under the stone, some of the top notes, the largest ones, had been extremely damaged). They tried for a long time to find out why the accused should lie about this one circumstance alone, when about everything else he confessed voluntarily and truthfully. At last some (especially among the psychologists) even admitted the possibility that he really had not looked into the purse, and so had not known what was in it, and, not knowing, had simply carried it off under the stone; but from this very thing they at once concluded that the crime itself could not have come about otherwise than in a state of a certain temporary insanity, so to speak, of a morbid monomania of murder and robbery, without further aims or calculations of gain. Here, by the way, the newest fashionable theory of temporary insanity arrived in good time, which in our day people so often try to apply to certain criminals. Besides, Raskolnikov’s long-standing hypochondriac condition had been attested with precision by many witnesses: Dr. Zosimov, his former comrades, his landlady, the servant. All this contributed greatly to the conclusion that Raskolnikov was not quite like an ordinary murderer, bandit, and robber, but that there was something else here. To the greatest vexation of those who defended this opinion, the criminal himself hardly tried to defend himself; to the final questions, what exactly could have inclined him to murder and what had induced him to commit robbery, he answered very clearly, with the crudest precision, that the cause of it all had been his wretched situation, his poverty and helplessness, the desire to secure the first steps of his career in life with the help of at least three thousand roubles, which he had counted on finding at the murdered woman’s. He had resolved on the murder as a consequence of his frivolous and fainthearted character, which had been irritated, besides, by privations and failures. To the questions of what exactly had induced him to come and confess, he answered straight out that it was sincere repentance. All this was already almost crude…

The sentence, however, proved more merciful than might have been expected, judging by the crime committed, and perhaps precisely because the criminal not only did not wish to justify himself but even seemed to express a desire to accuse himself still further. All the strange and peculiar circumstances of the case were taken into consideration. The morbid and wretched condition of the criminal before the commission of the crime was not subjected to the slightest doubt. The fact that he had not made use of what he had stolen was credited partly to the action of awakened repentance, partly to the not entirely sound state of his mental faculties at the time the crime was committed. The circumstance of the unpremeditated murder of Lizaveta even served as an example supporting the latter supposition: a man commits two murders and at the same time forgets that the door is standing unlocked! Finally, his coming to confess, at the very time when the case had become unusually tangled as a consequence of the false self-accusation of a dispirited fanatic (Nikolai), and, besides, when there was not only no clear evidence against the real criminal but almost no suspicion of him either (Porfiry Petrovich had fully kept his word), all this definitively contributed to the mitigation of the accused man’s lot.

Other circumstances, too, came to light quite unexpectedly, strongly favoring the defendant. The former student Razumikhin dug up information somewhere and presented proof that the criminal Raskolnikov, while he was at the university, had used his last means to help a poor and consumptive fellow student of his and had almost supported him for half a year. And when the latter died, he had looked after the surviving old and paralyzed father of his dead comrade (who had kept and fed his father by his own labor almost from the age of thirteen), had finally placed this old man in a hospital, and, when he too died, had buried him. All this information had a certain favorable influence on the decision of Raskolnikov’s fate. His former landlady herself, the mother of Raskolnikov’s dead fiancée, the widow Zarnitsyna, also testified that when they were still living in another house, at the Five Corners, Raskolnikov, during a fire, at night, had pulled two little children out of an apartment that was already burning, and had been burned in doing so. This fact was carefully investigated and fairly well attested by many witnesses. In a word, it ended with the criminal being sentenced to penal servitude of the second class for a term of only eight years, in consideration of his coming to confess and of certain extenuating circumstances.

At the very beginning of the trial Raskolnikov’s mother fell ill. Dunya and Razumikhin found it possible to take her away from Petersburg for the whole time of the trial. Razumikhin chose a town on the railroad and a short distance from Petersburg, so as to be able to follow all the circumstances of the trial regularly and at the same time see Avdotya Romanovna as often as possible. Pulcheria Alexandrovna’s illness was a strange sort of nervous one and was accompanied by something like derangement, if not complete, then at least partial. Dunya, returning from her last meeting with her brother, found her mother already quite ill, feverish and delirious. That same evening she agreed with Razumikhin on what exactly to answer her mother’s questions about her brother, and even made up with him, for her mother, a whole story about Raskolnikov’s departure somewhere far away, to the border of Russia, on a private commission that would at last bring him both money and renown. But they were struck that Pulcheria Alexandrovna herself asked nothing about any of this, either then or afterward. On the contrary, she turned out to have a whole story of her own about her son’s sudden departure; she would tell with tears how he had come to her to say goodbye; she gave to understand by hints that she alone knew many very important and mysterious circumstances, and that Rodya had many very powerful enemies, so that he even had to go into hiding. As for his future career, that too seemed to her certain and brilliant, once certain hostile circumstances had passed; she assured Razumikhin that her son would in time even become a statesman, as was proved by his article and his brilliant literary talent. She read this article incessantly, sometimes even aloud, all but slept with it, and yet she almost never asked where exactly Rodya was now, despite the fact that people evidently avoided talking with her about it, which alone might have aroused her suspicion. They began at last to fear this strange silence of Pulcheria Alexandrovna’s on certain points. She did not even complain, for instance, that there were no letters from him, whereas before, living in her little town, she had lived only on the one hope and the one expectation of soon receiving a letter from her beloved Rodya. This last circumstance was much too inexplicable and greatly worried Dunya; the thought occurred to her that her mother perhaps had a presentiment of something terrible in her son’s fate and was afraid to ask questions for fear of learning something still more terrible. In any case, Dunya saw clearly that Pulcheria Alexandrovna was not in a sound state of mind.

Once or twice, however, it happened that she herself steered the conversation so that it was impossible, in answering her, not to mention where exactly Rodya was now; and when the answers were bound to come out unsatisfactory and suspicious, she suddenly became extremely sad, gloomy, and silent, which lasted a very long time. Dunya saw at last that it was hard to lie and invent, and came to the final conclusion that it was better to keep completely silent on certain points; but it became more and more evidently clear that the poor mother suspected something terrible. Dunya remembered, among other things, her brother’s words that their mother had listened to Dunya’s raving in the night before that last fatal day, after her scene with Svidrigailov: had she not overheard something then? Often, sometimes after several days and even weeks of sullen, gloomy silence and wordless tears, the sick woman would somehow come to life hysterically and suddenly begin talking aloud, almost without stopping, about her son, about her hopes, about the future… Her fantasies were sometimes very strange. They humored her, they agreed with her (she herself perhaps saw clearly that they were agreeing with her and only humoring her), but she went on talking all the same…

Five months after the criminal came to confess, his sentence followed. Razumikhin saw him in prison whenever it was possible. Sonya too. At last the parting came; Dunya swore to her brother that this parting was not forever; Razumikhin too. In Razumikhin’s young and ardent head the plan had firmly lodged to lay, in the next three or four years, at least the beginnings of a future fortune, as far as possible, to save at least a little money and move to Siberia, where the soil is rich in every respect, and workers, people, and capital are scarce; to settle there in the very town where Rodya would be, and… all together to begin a new life. In parting they all wept. In the very last days Raskolnikov was very pensive, asked a great deal about his mother, was constantly anxious about her. He even tormented himself much too much about her, which troubled Dunya. Learning in detail about his mother’s morbid state of mind, he became very gloomy. With Sonya he was for some reason especially taciturn the whole time. Sonya, with the help of the money Svidrigailov had left her, had long since got ready and prepared to follow the convoy of convicts in which he would be sent. Not a word about this was ever mentioned between her and Raskolnikov; but both knew it would be so. At the very last farewell he smiled strangely at the ardent assurances of his sister and Razumikhin about their happy future when he came out of penal servitude, and predicted that his mother’s morbid condition would soon end in misfortune. He and Sonya at last set off.

Two months later Dunechka married Razumikhin. The wedding was sad and quiet. Among those invited, however, were Porfiry Petrovich and Zosimov. All this last while Razumikhin had had the look of a man who has firmly made up his mind. Dunya believed blindly that he would carry out all his intentions, and could not help believing: an iron will could be seen in this man. Among other things, he began attending university lectures again, so as to finish his course. The two of them were constantly making plans for the future; both firmly counted on moving to Siberia for certain in five years. Until then they were relying on Sonya there…

Pulcheria Alexandrovna joyfully blessed her daughter’s marriage to Razumikhin; but after this marriage she seemed to become still sadder and more worried. To give her a pleasant moment, Razumikhin told her, among other things, about the student and his decrepit father, and about how Rodya had been burned and had even been ill after saving two little ones from death the year before. Both pieces of news brought Pulcheria Alexandrovna, whose mind was disordered as it was, almost to a state of rapture. She talked about it incessantly, even started conversations in the street (though Dunya always accompanied her). In public carriages, in shops, catching hold of any listener at all, she would steer the conversation to her son, to his article, to how he had helped the student, had been burned in a fire, and so on. Dunechka did not even know how to restrain her. Apart from the danger of such a rapturous, morbid state of mind, this alone threatened trouble: that someone might remember the name Raskolnikov from the recent court case and begin to talk about it. Pulcheria Alexandrovna even found out the address of the mother of the two little ones saved from the fire and absolutely wanted to go and see her. At last her restlessness grew to the utmost limits. Sometimes she would suddenly begin to cry, she often fell ill and raved in fever. One morning she announced straight out that by her calculations Rodya must be arriving soon, that she remembered how, saying goodbye to her, he himself had mentioned that he was to be expected in exactly nine months. She began to tidy up everything in the apartment and to prepare for the meeting, began to do up the room intended for him (her own), to clean the furniture, to wash and hang new curtains, and so on. Dunya was alarmed but kept silent and even helped her arrange the room for her brother’s reception. After an anxious day spent in incessant fantasies, in joyful daydreams and tears, she fell ill in the night, and by morning she was already feverish and delirious. A fever set in. Two weeks later she died. In her delirium words escaped her from which it could be concluded that she had suspected much more about her son’s terrible fate than they had even supposed.

For a long time Raskolnikov did not know of his mother’s death, although a correspondence with Petersburg had been established from the very beginning of his settling in Siberia. It was arranged through Sonya, who punctually every month wrote to Petersburg, addressed to Razumikhin, and punctually every month received an answer from Petersburg. Sonya’s letters at first seemed to Dunya and Razumikhin somehow dry and unsatisfactory; but in the end they both found that it was impossible to write better, because from these letters, after all, there emerged in the end the fullest and most precise picture of their unhappy brother’s fate. Sonya’s letters were filled with the most everyday reality, with the simplest and clearest description of the whole setting of Raskolnikov’s life in penal servitude. There was in them no setting out of her own hopes, no guessing about the future, no descriptions of her own feelings. Instead of attempts to explain his state of mind and his whole inner life in general, there stood only facts, that is, his own words, detailed news about the state of his health, what he had wished for at such and such a meeting, what he had asked her for, what he had charged her with, and so on. All this news was conveyed in extraordinary detail. The image of the unhappy brother emerged in the end of itself, drawn precisely and clearly; there could be no mistakes here, because it was all true facts.

But Dunya and her husband could draw little comfort from this news, especially at first. Sonya reported continually that he was always sullen, uncommunicative, and even took almost no interest at all in the news she passed on to him each time from the letters she received; that he sometimes asked about his mother; and when, seeing that he already guessed the truth, she at last told him of her death, then, to her surprise, even the news of his mother’s death seemed not to affect him very strongly, at least so it seemed to her from his outward appearance. She reported, among other things, that although he was apparently so absorbed in himself and had as if shut himself off from everyone, he had taken his new life very directly and simply; that he clearly understood his position, expected nothing better in the near future, had no frivolous hopes (which are so natural in his position), and was surprised at almost nothing amid his new surroundings, so little like anything before. She reported that his health was satisfactory. He went out to work, which he did not shirk and did not volunteer for. He was almost indifferent to food, but this food, except on Sundays and holidays, was so bad that at last he willingly accepted a little money from her, Sonya, to have his own tea every day; as for everything else, he asked her not to worry, assuring her that all these concerns for him only annoyed him. Sonya further reported that his quarters in the prison were shared with everyone; she had not seen the inside of their barracks, but concluded that it was crowded, hideous, and unhealthy there; that he slept on the plank bed with a piece of felt under him, and did not want to arrange anything else for himself. But that he lived so roughly and poorly not at all from any preconceived plan or intention, but simply from inattention and outward indifference to his fate. Sonya wrote plainly that he, especially at first, had not only taken no interest in her visits but had even been almost vexed with her, had been uncommunicative and even rude to her, but that in the end these meetings had become a habit with him and even almost a need, so that he had even pined very much when she was ill for several days and could not visit him. She saw him on holidays at the prison gates or in the guardhouse, where he was called out to her for a few minutes; and on weekdays at work, where she would go to see him, either in the workshops, or at the brickworks, or in the sheds on the bank of the Irtysh. About herself Sonya reported that she had succeeded in acquiring in the town even some acquaintances and patrons; that she was doing sewing, and since there was almost no dressmaker in the town, she had become even indispensable in many houses; only she did not mention that through her Raskolnikov too had obtained the protection of the authorities, that his work was made lighter, and so on. At last news came (Dunya had even noticed a certain special agitation and anxiety in her last letters) that he shunned everyone, that the convicts in the prison had not taken to him; that he was silent for whole days and was becoming very pale. Suddenly, in her last letter, Sonya wrote that he had fallen very seriously ill and was lying in the hospital, in the convicts’ ward…