CHAPTER V

<h2><a id="link2HCH0012"/>
  CHAPTER V
</h2>
<p>
  This was a gentleman no longer young, of a stiff and portly appearance,
  and a cautious and sour countenance. He began by stopping short in the
  doorway, staring about him with offensive and undisguised astonishment, as
  though asking himself what sort of place he had come to. Mistrustfully and
  with an affectation of being alarmed and almost affronted, he scanned
  Raskolnikov’s low and narrow “cabin.” With the same amazement he stared at
  Raskolnikov, who lay undressed, dishevelled, unwashed, on his miserable
  dirty sofa, looking fixedly at him. Then with the same deliberation he
  scrutinised the uncouth, unkempt figure and unshaven face of Razumihin,
  who looked him boldly and inquiringly in the face without rising from his
  seat. A constrained silence lasted for a couple of minutes, and then, as
  might be expected, some scene-shifting took place. Reflecting, probably
  from certain fairly unmistakable signs, that he would get nothing in this
  “cabin” by attempting to overawe them, the gentleman softened somewhat,
  and civilly, though with some severity, emphasising every syllable of his
  question, addressed Zossimov:
</p>
<p>
  “Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov, a student, or formerly a student?”
 </p>
<p>
  Zossimov made a slight movement, and would have answered, had not
  Razumihin anticipated him.
</p>
<p>
  “Here he is lying on the sofa! What do you want?”
 </p>
<p>
  This familiar “what do you want” seemed to cut the ground from the feet of
  the pompous gentleman. He was turning to Razumihin, but checked himself in
  time and turned to Zossimov again.
</p>
<p>
  “This is Raskolnikov,” mumbled Zossimov, nodding towards him. Then he gave
  a prolonged yawn, opening his mouth as wide as possible. Then he lazily
  put his hand into his waistcoat-pocket, pulled out a huge gold watch in a
  round hunter’s case, opened it, looked at it and as slowly and lazily
  proceeded to put it back.
</p>
<p>
  Raskolnikov himself lay without speaking, on his back, gazing
  persistently, though without understanding, at the stranger. Now that his
  face was turned away from the strange flower on the paper, it was
  extremely pale and wore a look of anguish, as though he had just undergone
  an agonising operation or just been taken from the rack. But the new-comer
  gradually began to arouse his attention, then his wonder, then suspicion
  and even alarm. When Zossimov said “This is Raskolnikov” he jumped up
  quickly, sat on the sofa and with an almost defiant, but weak and
  breaking, voice articulated:
</p>
<p>
  “Yes, I am Raskolnikov! What do you want?”
 </p>
<p>
  The visitor scrutinised him and pronounced impressively:
</p>
<p>
  “Pyotr Petrovitch Luzhin. I believe I have reason to hope that my name is
  not wholly unknown to you?”
 </p>
<p>
  But Raskolnikov, who had expected something quite different, gazed blankly
  and dreamily at him, making no reply, as though he heard the name of Pyotr
  Petrovitch for the first time.
</p>
<p>
  “Is it possible that you can up to the present have received no
  information?” asked Pyotr Petrovitch, somewhat disconcerted.
</p>
<p>
  In reply Raskolnikov sank languidly back on the pillow, put his hands
  behind his head and gazed at the ceiling. A look of dismay came into
  Luzhin’s face. Zossimov and Razumihin stared at him more inquisitively
  than ever, and at last he showed unmistakable signs of embarrassment.
</p>
<p>
  “I had presumed and calculated,” he faltered, “that a letter posted more
  than ten days, if not a fortnight ago...”
 </p>
<p>
  “I say, why are you standing in the doorway?” Razumihin interrupted
  suddenly. “If you’ve something to say, sit down. Nastasya and you are so
  crowded. Nastasya, make room. Here’s a chair, thread your way in!”
 </p>
<p>
  He moved his chair back from the table, made a little space between the
  table and his knees, and waited in a rather cramped position for the
  visitor to “thread his way in.” The minute was so chosen that it was
  impossible to refuse, and the visitor squeezed his way through, hurrying
  and stumbling. Reaching the chair, he sat down, looking suspiciously at
  Razumihin.
</p>
<p>
  “No need to be nervous,” the latter blurted out. “Rodya has been ill for
  the last five days and delirious for three, but now he is recovering and
  has got an appetite. This is his doctor, who has just had a look at him. I
  am a comrade of Rodya’s, like him, formerly a student, and now I am
  nursing him; so don’t you take any notice of us, but go on with your
  business.”
 </p>
<p>
  “Thank you. But shall I not disturb the invalid by my presence and
  conversation?” Pyotr Petrovitch asked of Zossimov.
</p>
<p>
  “N-no,” mumbled Zossimov; “you may amuse him.” He yawned again.
</p>
<p>
  “He has been conscious a long time, since the morning,” went on Razumihin,
  whose familiarity seemed so much like unaffected good-nature that Pyotr
  Petrovitch began to be more cheerful, partly, perhaps, because this shabby
  and impudent person had introduced himself as a student.
</p>
<p>
  “Your mamma,” began Luzhin.
</p>
<p>
  “Hm!” Razumihin cleared his throat loudly. Luzhin looked at him
  inquiringly.
</p>
<p>
  “That’s all right, go on.”
 </p>
<p>
  Luzhin shrugged his shoulders.
</p>
<p>
  “Your mamma had commenced a letter to you while I was sojourning in her
  neighbourhood. On my arrival here I purposely allowed a few days to elapse
  before coming to see you, in order that I might be fully assured that you
  were in full possession of the tidings; but now, to my astonishment...”
 </p>
<p>
  “I know, I know!” Raskolnikov cried suddenly with impatient vexation. “So
  you are the <i>fiancé</i>? I know, and that’s enough!”
 </p>
<p>
  There was no doubt about Pyotr Petrovitch’s being offended this time, but
  he said nothing. He made a violent effort to understand what it all meant.
  There was a moment’s silence.
</p>
<p>
  Meanwhile Raskolnikov, who had turned a little towards him when he
  answered, began suddenly staring at him again with marked curiosity, as
  though he had not had a good look at him yet, or as though something new
  had struck him; he rose from his pillow on purpose to stare at him. There
  certainly was something peculiar in Pyotr Petrovitch’s whole appearance,
  something which seemed to justify the title of “fiancé” so unceremoniously
  applied to him. In the first place, it was evident, far too much so
  indeed, that Pyotr Petrovitch had made eager use of his few days in the
  capital to get himself up and rig himself out in expectation of his
  betrothed—a perfectly innocent and permissible proceeding, indeed.
  Even his own, perhaps too complacent, consciousness of the agreeable
  improvement in his appearance might have been forgiven in such
  circumstances, seeing that Pyotr Petrovitch had taken up the rôle of
  fiancé. All his clothes were fresh from the tailor’s and were all right,
  except for being too new and too distinctly appropriate. Even the stylish
  new round hat had the same significance. Pyotr Petrovitch treated it too
  respectfully and held it too carefully in his hands. The exquisite pair of
  lavender gloves, real Louvain, told the same tale, if only from the fact
  of his not wearing them, but carrying them in his hand for show. Light and
  youthful colours predominated in Pyotr Petrovitch’s attire. He wore a
  charming summer jacket of a fawn shade, light thin trousers, a waistcoat
  of the same, new and fine linen, a cravat of the lightest cambric with
  pink stripes on it, and the best of it was, this all suited Pyotr
  Petrovitch. His very fresh and even handsome face looked younger than his
  forty-five years at all times. His dark, mutton-chop whiskers made an
  agreeable setting on both sides, growing thickly upon his shining,
  clean-shaven chin. Even his hair, touched here and there with grey, though
  it had been combed and curled at a hairdresser’s, did not give him a
  stupid appearance, as curled hair usually does, by inevitably suggesting a
  German on his wedding-day. If there really was something unpleasing and
  repulsive in his rather good-looking and imposing countenance, it was due
  to quite other causes. After scanning Mr. Luzhin unceremoniously,
  Raskolnikov smiled malignantly, sank back on the pillow and stared at the
  ceiling as before.
</p>
<p>
  But Mr. Luzhin hardened his heart and seemed to determine to take no
  notice of their oddities.
</p>
<p>
  “I feel the greatest regret at finding you in this situation,” he began,
  again breaking the silence with an effort. “If I had been aware of your
  illness I should have come earlier. But you know what business is. I have,
  too, a very important legal affair in the Senate, not to mention other
  preoccupations which you may well conjecture. I am expecting your mamma
  and sister any minute.”
 </p>
<p>
  Raskolnikov made a movement and seemed about to speak; his face showed
  some excitement. Pyotr Petrovitch paused, waited, but as nothing followed,
  he went on:
</p>
<p>
  “... Any minute. I have found a lodging for them on their arrival.”
 </p>
<p>
  “Where?” asked Raskolnikov weakly.
</p>
<p>
  “Very near here, in Bakaleyev’s house.”
 </p>
<p>
  “That’s in Voskresensky,” put in Razumihin. “There are two storeys of
  rooms, let by a merchant called Yushin; I’ve been there.”
 </p>
<p>
  “Yes, rooms...”
 </p>
<p>
  “A disgusting place—filthy, stinking and, what’s more, of doubtful
  character. Things have happened there, and there are all sorts of queer
  people living there. And I went there about a scandalous business. It’s
  cheap, though...”
 </p>
<p>
  “I could not, of course, find out so much about it, for I am a stranger in
  Petersburg myself,” Pyotr Petrovitch replied huffily. “However, the two
  rooms are exceedingly clean, and as it is for so short a time... I have
  already taken a permanent, that is, our future flat,” he said, addressing
  Raskolnikov, “and I am having it done up. And meanwhile I am myself
  cramped for room in a lodging with my friend Andrey Semyonovitch
  Lebeziatnikov, in the flat of Madame Lippevechsel; it was he who told me
  of Bakaleyev’s house, too...”
 </p>
<p>
  “Lebeziatnikov?” said Raskolnikov slowly, as if recalling something.
</p>
<p>
  “Yes, Andrey Semyonovitch Lebeziatnikov, a clerk in the Ministry. Do you
  know him?”
 </p>
<p>
  “Yes... no,” Raskolnikov answered.
</p>
<p>
  “Excuse me, I fancied so from your inquiry. I was once his guardian.... A
  very nice young man and advanced. I like to meet young people: one learns
  new things from them.” Luzhin looked round hopefully at them all.
</p>
<p>
  “How do you mean?” asked Razumihin.
</p>
<p>
  “In the most serious and essential matters,” Pyotr Petrovitch replied, as
  though delighted at the question. “You see, it’s ten years since I visited
  Petersburg. All the novelties, reforms, ideas have reached us in the
  provinces, but to see it all more clearly one must be in Petersburg. And
  it’s my notion that you observe and learn most by watching the younger
  generation. And I confess I am delighted...”
 </p>
<p>
  “At what?”
 </p>
<p>
  “Your question is a wide one. I may be mistaken, but I fancy I find
  clearer views, more, so to say, criticism, more practicality...”
 </p>
<p>
  “That’s true,” Zossimov let drop.
</p>
<p>
  “Nonsense! There’s no practicality.” Razumihin flew at him. “Practicality
  is a difficult thing to find; it does not drop down from heaven. And for
  the last two hundred years we have been divorced from all practical life.
  Ideas, if you like, are fermenting,” he said to Pyotr Petrovitch, “and
  desire for good exists, though it’s in a childish form, and honesty you
  may find, although there are crowds of brigands. Anyway, there’s no
  practicality. Practicality goes well shod.”
 </p>
<p>
  “I don’t agree with you,” Pyotr Petrovitch replied, with evident
  enjoyment. “Of course, people do get carried away and make mistakes, but
  one must have indulgence; those mistakes are merely evidence of enthusiasm
  for the cause and of abnormal external environment. If little has been
  done, the time has been but short; of means I will not speak. It’s my
  personal view, if you care to know, that something has been accomplished
  already. New valuable ideas, new valuable works are circulating in the
  place of our old dreamy and romantic authors. Literature is taking a
  maturer form, many injurious prejudices have been rooted up and turned
  into ridicule.... In a word, we have cut ourselves off irrevocably from
  the past, and that, to my thinking, is a great thing...”
 </p>
<p>
  “He’s learnt it by heart to show off!” Raskolnikov pronounced suddenly.
</p>
<p>
  “What?” asked Pyotr Petrovitch, not catching his words; but he received no
  reply.
</p>
<p>
  “That’s all true,” Zossimov hastened to interpose.
</p>
<p>
  “Isn’t it so?” Pyotr Petrovitch went on, glancing affably at Zossimov.
  “You must admit,” he went on, addressing Razumihin with a shade of triumph
  and superciliousness—he almost added “young man”—“that there
  is an advance, or, as they say now, progress in the name of science and
  economic truth...”
 </p>
<p>
  “A commonplace.”
 </p>
<p>
  “No, not a commonplace! Hitherto, for instance, if I were told, ‘love thy
  neighbour,’ what came of it?” Pyotr Petrovitch went on, perhaps with
  excessive haste. “It came to my tearing my coat in half to share with my
  neighbour and we both were left half naked. As a Russian proverb has it,
  ‘Catch several hares and you won’t catch one.’ Science now tells us, love
  yourself before all men, for everything in the world rests on
  self-interest. You love yourself and manage your own affairs properly and
  your coat remains whole. Economic truth adds that the better private
  affairs are organised in society—the more whole coats, so to say—the
  firmer are its foundations and the better is the common welfare organised
  too. Therefore, in acquiring wealth solely and exclusively for myself, I
  am acquiring, so to speak, for all, and helping to bring to pass my
  neighbour’s getting a little more than a torn coat; and that not from
  private, personal liberality, but as a consequence of the general advance.
  The idea is simple, but unhappily it has been a long time reaching us,
  being hindered by idealism and sentimentality. And yet it would seem to
  want very little wit to perceive it...”
 </p>
<p>
  “Excuse me, I’ve very little wit myself,” Razumihin cut in sharply, “and
  so let us drop it. I began this discussion with an object, but I’ve grown
  so sick during the last three years of this chattering to amuse oneself,
  of this incessant flow of commonplaces, always the same, that, by Jove, I
  blush even when other people talk like that. You are in a hurry, no doubt,
  to exhibit your acquirements; and I don’t blame you, that’s quite
  pardonable. I only wanted to find out what sort of man you are, for so
  many unscrupulous people have got hold of the progressive cause of late
  and have so distorted in their own interests everything they touched, that
  the whole cause has been dragged in the mire. That’s enough!”
 </p>
<p>
  “Excuse me, sir,” said Luzhin, affronted, and speaking with excessive
  dignity. “Do you mean to suggest so unceremoniously that I too...”
 </p>
<p>
  “Oh, my dear sir... how could I?... Come, that’s enough,” Razumihin
  concluded, and he turned abruptly to Zossimov to continue their previous
  conversation.
</p>
<p>
  Pyotr Petrovitch had the good sense to accept the disavowal. He made up
  his mind to take leave in another minute or two.
</p>
<p>
  “I trust our acquaintance,” he said, addressing Raskolnikov, “may, upon
  your recovery and in view of the circumstances of which you are aware,
  become closer... Above all, I hope for your return to health...”
 </p>
<p>
  Raskolnikov did not even turn his head. Pyotr Petrovitch began getting up
  from his chair.
</p>
<p>
  “One of her customers must have killed her,” Zossimov declared positively.
</p>
<p>
  “Not a doubt of it,” replied Razumihin. “Porfiry doesn’t give his opinion,
  but is examining all who have left pledges with her there.”
 </p>
<p>
  “Examining them?” Raskolnikov asked aloud.
</p>
<p>
  “Yes. What then?”
 </p>
<p>
  “Nothing.”
 </p>
<p>
  “How does he get hold of them?” asked Zossimov.
</p>
<p>
  “Koch has given the names of some of them, other names are on the wrappers
  of the pledges and some have come forward of themselves.”
 </p>
<p>
  “It must have been a cunning and practised ruffian! The boldness of it!
  The coolness!”
 </p>
<p>
  “That’s just what it wasn’t!” interposed Razumihin. “That’s what throws
  you all off the scent. But I maintain that he is not cunning, not
  practised, and probably this was his first crime! The supposition that it
  was a calculated crime and a cunning criminal doesn’t work. Suppose him to
  have been inexperienced, and it’s clear that it was only a chance that
  saved him—and chance may do anything. Why, he did not foresee
  obstacles, perhaps! And how did he set to work? He took jewels worth ten
  or twenty roubles, stuffing his pockets with them, ransacked the old
  woman’s trunks, her rags—and they found fifteen hundred roubles,
  besides notes, in a box in the top drawer of the chest! He did not know
  how to rob; he could only murder. It was his first crime, I assure you,
  his first crime; he lost his head. And he got off more by luck than good
  counsel!”
 </p>
<p>
  “You are talking of the murder of the old pawnbroker, I believe?” Pyotr
  Petrovitch put in, addressing Zossimov. He was standing, hat and gloves in
  hand, but before departing he felt disposed to throw off a few more
  intellectual phrases. He was evidently anxious to make a favourable
  impression and his vanity overcame his prudence.
</p>
<p>
  “Yes. You’ve heard of it?”
 </p>
<p>
  “Oh, yes, being in the neighbourhood.”
 </p>
<p>
  “Do you know the details?”
 </p>
<p>
  “I can’t say that; but another circumstance interests me in the case—the
  whole question, so to say. Not to speak of the fact that crime has been
  greatly on the increase among the lower classes during the last five
  years, not to speak of the cases of robbery and arson everywhere, what
  strikes me as the strangest thing is that in the higher classes, too,
  crime is increasing proportionately. In one place one hears of a student’s
  robbing the mail on the high road; in another place people of good social
  position forge false banknotes; in Moscow of late a whole gang has been
  captured who used to forge lottery tickets, and one of the ringleaders was
  a lecturer in universal history; then our secretary abroad was murdered
  from some obscure motive of gain.... And if this old woman, the
  pawnbroker, has been murdered by someone of a higher class in society—for
  peasants don’t pawn gold trinkets—how are we to explain this
  demoralisation of the civilised part of our society?”
 </p>
<p>
  “There are many economic changes,” put in Zossimov.
</p>
<p>
  “How are we to explain it?” Razumihin caught him up. “It might be
  explained by our inveterate impracticality.”
 </p>
<p>
  “How do you mean?”
 </p>
<p>
  “What answer had your lecturer in Moscow to make to the question why he
  was forging notes? ‘Everybody is getting rich one way or another, so I
  want to make haste to get rich too.’ I don’t remember the exact words, but
  the upshot was that he wants money for nothing, without waiting or
  working! We’ve grown used to having everything ready-made, to walking on
  crutches, to having our food chewed for us. Then the great hour struck,[*]
  and every man showed himself in his true colours.”
 </p>

[*] The emancipation of the serfs in 1861 is meant.—TRANSLATOR’S NOTE.

“But morality? And so to speak, principles...”

“But why do you worry about it?” Raskolnikov interposed suddenly. “It’s in accordance with your theory!”

“In accordance with my theory?”

“Why, carry out logically the theory you were advocating just now, and it follows that people may be killed...”

“Upon my word!” cried Luzhin.

“No, that’s not so,” put in Zossimov.

Raskolnikov lay with a white face and twitching upper lip, breathing painfully.

“There’s a measure in all things,” Luzhin went on superciliously. “Economic ideas are not an incitement to murder, and one has but to suppose...”

“And is it true,” Raskolnikov interposed once more suddenly, again in a voice quivering with fury and delight in insulting him, “is it true that you told your fiancée... within an hour of her acceptance, that what pleased you most... was that she was a beggar... because it was better to raise a wife from poverty, so that you may have complete control over her, and reproach her with your being her benefactor?”

“Upon my word,” Luzhin cried wrathfully and irritably, crimson with confusion, “to distort my words in this way! Excuse me, allow me to assure you that the report which has reached you, or rather, let me say, has been conveyed to you, has no foundation in truth, and I... suspect who... in a word... this arrow... in a word, your mamma... She seemed to me in other things, with all her excellent qualities, of a somewhat high-flown and romantic way of thinking.... But I was a thousand miles from supposing that she would misunderstand and misrepresent things in so fanciful a way.... And indeed... indeed...”

“I tell you what,” cried Raskolnikov, raising himself on his pillow and fixing his piercing, glittering eyes upon him, “I tell you what.”

“What?” Luzhin stood still, waiting with a defiant and offended face. Silence lasted for some seconds.

“Why, if ever again... you dare to mention a single word... about my mother... I shall send you flying downstairs!”

“What’s the matter with you?” cried Razumihin.

“So that’s how it is?” Luzhin turned pale and bit his lip. “Let me tell you, sir,” he began deliberately, doing his utmost to restrain himself but breathing hard, “at the first moment I saw you you were ill-disposed to me, but I remained here on purpose to find out more. I could forgive a great deal in a sick man and a connection, but you... never after this...”

“I am not ill,” cried Raskolnikov.

“So much the worse...”

“Go to hell!”

But Luzhin was already leaving without finishing his speech, squeezing between the table and the chair; Razumihin got up this time to let him pass. Without glancing at anyone, and not even nodding to Zossimov, who had for some time been making signs to him to let the sick man alone, he went out, lifting his hat to the level of his shoulders to avoid crushing it as he stooped to go out of the door. And even the curve of his spine was expressive of the horrible insult he had received.

“How could you—how could you!” Razumihin said, shaking his head in perplexity.

“Let me alone—let me alone all of you!” Raskolnikov cried in a frenzy. “Will you ever leave off tormenting me? I am not afraid of you! I am not afraid of anyone, anyone now! Get away from me! I want to be alone, alone, alone!”

“Come along,” said Zossimov, nodding to Razumihin.

“But we can’t leave him like this!”

“Come along,” Zossimov repeated insistently, and he went out. Razumihin thought a minute and ran to overtake him.

“It might be worse not to obey him,” said Zossimov on the stairs. “He mustn’t be irritated.”

“What’s the matter with him?”

“If only he could get some favourable shock, that’s what would do it! At first he was better.... You know he has got something on his mind! Some fixed idea weighing on him.... I am very much afraid so; he must have!”

“Perhaps it’s that gentleman, Pyotr Petrovitch. From his conversation I gather he is going to marry his sister, and that he had received a letter about it just before his illness....”

“Yes, confound the man! he may have upset the case altogether. But have you noticed, he takes no interest in anything, he does not respond to anything except one point on which he seems excited—that’s the murder?”

“Yes, yes,” Razumihin agreed, “I noticed that, too. He is interested, frightened. It gave him a shock on the day he was ill in the police office; he fainted.”

“Tell me more about that this evening and I’ll tell you something afterwards. He interests me very much! In half an hour I’ll go and see him again.... There’ll be no inflammation though.”

“Thanks! And I’ll wait with Pashenka meantime and will keep watch on him through Nastasya....”

Raskolnikov, left alone, looked with impatience and misery at Nastasya, but she still lingered.

“Won’t you have some tea now?” she asked.

“Later! I am sleepy! Leave me.”

He turned abruptly to the wall; Nastasya went out.