PART V

<h2><a id="link2H_PART5"/>
  PART V
</h2>

<h2><a id="link2HCH0027"/>
  CHAPTER I
</h2>
<p>
  The morning that followed the fateful interview with Dounia and her mother
  brought sobering influences to bear on Pyotr Petrovitch. Intensely
  unpleasant as it was, he was forced little by little to accept as a fact
  beyond recall what had seemed to him only the day before fantastic and
  incredible. The black snake of wounded vanity had been gnawing at his
  heart all night. When he got out of bed, Pyotr Petrovitch immediately
  looked in the looking-glass. He was afraid that he had jaundice. However
  his health seemed unimpaired so far, and looking at his noble,
  clear-skinned countenance which had grown fattish of late, Pyotr
  Petrovitch for an instant was positively comforted in the conviction that
  he would find another bride and, perhaps, even a better one. But coming
  back to the sense of his present position, he turned aside and spat
  vigorously, which excited a sarcastic smile in Andrey Semyonovitch
  Lebeziatnikov, the young friend with whom he was staying. That smile Pyotr
  Petrovitch noticed, and at once set it down against his young friend’s
  account. He had set down a good many points against him of late. His anger
  was redoubled when he reflected that he ought not to have told Andrey
  Semyonovitch about the result of yesterday’s interview. That was the
  second mistake he had made in temper, through impulsiveness and
  irritability.... Moreover, all that morning one unpleasantness followed
  another. He even found a hitch awaiting him in his legal case in the
  senate. He was particularly irritated by the owner of the flat which had
  been taken in view of his approaching marriage and was being redecorated
  at his own expense; the owner, a rich German tradesman, would not
  entertain the idea of breaking the contract which had just been signed and
  insisted on the full forfeit money, though Pyotr Petrovitch would be
  giving him back the flat practically redecorated. In the same way the
  upholsterers refused to return a single rouble of the instalment paid for
  the furniture purchased but not yet removed to the flat.
</p>
<p>
  “Am I to get married simply for the sake of the furniture?” Pyotr
  Petrovitch ground his teeth and at the same time once more he had a gleam
  of desperate hope. “Can all that be really so irrevocably over? Is it no
  use to make another effort?” The thought of Dounia sent a voluptuous pang
  through his heart. He endured anguish at that moment, and if it had been
  possible to slay Raskolnikov instantly by wishing it, Pyotr Petrovitch
  would promptly have uttered the wish.
</p>
<p>
  “It was my mistake, too, not to have given them money,” he thought, as he
  returned dejectedly to Lebeziatnikov’s room, “and why on earth was I such
  a Jew? It was false economy! I meant to keep them without a penny so that
  they should turn to me as their providence, and look at them! foo! If I’d
  spent some fifteen hundred roubles on them for the trousseau and presents,
  on knick-knacks, dressing-cases, jewellery, materials, and all that sort
  of trash from Knopp’s and the English shop, my position would have been
  better and... stronger! They could not have refused me so easily! They are
  the sort of people that would feel bound to return money and presents if
  they broke it off; and they would find it hard to do it! And their
  conscience would prick them: how can we dismiss a man who has hitherto
  been so generous and delicate?.... H’m! I’ve made a blunder.”
 </p>
<p>
  And grinding his teeth again, Pyotr Petrovitch called himself a fool—but
  not aloud, of course.
</p>
<p>
  He returned home, twice as irritated and angry as before. The preparations
  for the funeral dinner at Katerina Ivanovna’s excited his curiosity as he
  passed. He had heard about it the day before; he fancied, indeed, that he
  had been invited, but absorbed in his own cares he had paid no attention.
  Inquiring of Madame Lippevechsel who was busy laying the table while
  Katerina Ivanovna was away at the cemetery, he heard that the
  entertainment was to be a great affair, that all the lodgers had been
  invited, among them some who had not known the dead man, that even Andrey
  Semyonovitch Lebeziatnikov was invited in spite of his previous quarrel
  with Katerina Ivanovna, that he, Pyotr Petrovitch, was not only invited,
  but was eagerly expected as he was the most important of the lodgers.
  Amalia Ivanovna herself had been invited with great ceremony in spite of
  the recent unpleasantness, and so she was very busy with preparations and
  was taking a positive pleasure in them; she was moreover dressed up to the
  nines, all in new black silk, and she was proud of it. All this suggested
  an idea to Pyotr Petrovitch and he went into his room, or rather
  Lebeziatnikov’s, somewhat thoughtful. He had learnt that Raskolnikov was
  to be one of the guests.
</p>
<p>
  Andrey Semyonovitch had been at home all the morning. The attitude of
  Pyotr Petrovitch to this gentleman was strange, though perhaps natural.
  Pyotr Petrovitch had despised and hated him from the day he came to stay
  with him and at the same time he seemed somewhat afraid of him. He had not
  come to stay with him on his arrival in Petersburg simply from parsimony,
  though that had been perhaps his chief object. He had heard of Andrey
  Semyonovitch, who had once been his ward, as a leading young progressive
  who was taking an important part in certain interesting circles, the
  doings of which were a legend in the provinces. It had impressed Pyotr
  Petrovitch. These powerful omniscient circles who despised everyone and
  showed everyone up had long inspired in him a peculiar but quite vague
  alarm. He had not, of course, been able to form even an approximate notion
  of what they meant. He, like everyone, had heard that there were,
  especially in Petersburg, progressives of some sort, nihilists and so on,
  and, like many people, he exaggerated and distorted the significance of
  those words to an absurd degree. What for many years past he had feared
  more than anything was <i>being shown up</i> and this was the chief ground
  for his continual uneasiness at the thought of transferring his business
  to Petersburg. He was afraid of this as little children are sometimes
  panic-stricken. Some years before, when he was just entering on his own
  career, he had come upon two cases in which rather important personages in
  the province, patrons of his, had been cruelly shown up. One instance had
  ended in great scandal for the person attacked and the other had very
  nearly ended in serious trouble. For this reason Pyotr Petrovitch intended
  to go into the subject as soon as he reached Petersburg and, if necessary,
  to anticipate contingencies by seeking the favour of “our younger
  generation.” He relied on Andrey Semyonovitch for this and before his
  visit to Raskolnikov he had succeeded in picking up some current phrases.
  He soon discovered that Andrey Semyonovitch was a commonplace simpleton,
  but that by no means reassured Pyotr Petrovitch. Even if he had been
  certain that all the progressives were fools like him, it would not have
  allayed his uneasiness. All the doctrines, the ideas, the systems, with
  which Andrey Semyonovitch pestered him had no interest for him. He had his
  own object—he simply wanted to find out at once what was happening
  <i>here</i>. Had these people any power or not? Had he anything to fear
  from them? Would they expose any enterprise of his? And what precisely was
  now the object of their attacks? Could he somehow make up to them and get
  round them if they really were powerful? Was this the thing to do or not?
  Couldn’t he gain something through them? In fact hundreds of questions
  presented themselves.
</p>
<p>
  Andrey Semyonovitch was an anæmic, scrofulous little man, with strangely
  flaxen mutton-chop whiskers of which he was very proud. He was a clerk and
  had almost always something wrong with his eyes. He was rather
  soft-hearted, but self-confident and sometimes extremely conceited in
  speech, which had an absurd effect, incongruous with his little figure. He
  was one of the lodgers most respected by Amalia Ivanovna, for he did not
  get drunk and paid regularly for his lodgings. Andrey Semyonovitch really
  was rather stupid; he attached himself to the cause of progress and “our
  younger generation” from enthusiasm. He was one of the numerous and varied
  legion of dullards, of half-animate abortions, conceited, half-educated
  coxcombs, who attach themselves to the idea most in fashion only to
  vulgarise it and who caricature every cause they serve, however sincerely.
</p>
<p>
  Though Lebeziatnikov was so good-natured, he, too, was beginning to
  dislike Pyotr Petrovitch. This happened on both sides unconsciously.
  However simple Andrey Semyonovitch might be, he began to see that Pyotr
  Petrovitch was duping him and secretly despising him, and that “he was not
  the right sort of man.” He had tried expounding to him the system of
  Fourier and the Darwinian theory, but of late Pyotr Petrovitch began to
  listen too sarcastically and even to be rude. The fact was he had begun
  instinctively to guess that Lebeziatnikov was not merely a commonplace
  simpleton, but, perhaps, a liar, too, and that he had no connections of
  any consequence even in his own circle, but had simply picked things up
  third-hand; and that very likely he did not even know much about his own
  work of propaganda, for he was in too great a muddle. A fine person he
  would be to show anyone up! It must be noted, by the way, that Pyotr
  Petrovitch had during those ten days eagerly accepted the strangest praise
  from Andrey Semyonovitch; he had not protested, for instance, when Andrey
  Semyonovitch belauded him for being ready to contribute to the
  establishment of the new “commune,” or to abstain from christening his
  future children, or to acquiesce if Dounia were to take a lover a month
  after marriage, and so on. Pyotr Petrovitch so enjoyed hearing his own
  praises that he did not disdain even such virtues when they were
  attributed to him.
</p>
<p>
  Pyotr Petrovitch had had occasion that morning to realise some
  five-per-cent bonds and now he sat down to the table and counted over
  bundles of notes. Andrey Semyonovitch who hardly ever had any money walked
  about the room pretending to himself to look at all those bank notes with
  indifference and even contempt. Nothing would have convinced Pyotr
  Petrovitch that Andrey Semyonovitch could really look on the money
  unmoved, and the latter, on his side, kept thinking bitterly that Pyotr
  Petrovitch was capable of entertaining such an idea about him and was,
  perhaps, glad of the opportunity of teasing his young friend by reminding
  him of his inferiority and the great difference between them.
</p>
<p>
  He found him incredibly inattentive and irritable, though he, Andrey
  Semyonovitch, began enlarging on his favourite subject, the foundation of
  a new special “commune.” The brief remarks that dropped from Pyotr
  Petrovitch between the clicking of the beads on the reckoning frame
  betrayed unmistakable and discourteous irony. But the “humane” Andrey
  Semyonovitch ascribed Pyotr Petrovitch’s ill-humour to his recent breach
  with Dounia and he was burning with impatience to discourse on that theme.
  He had something progressive to say on the subject which might console his
  worthy friend and “could not fail” to promote his development.
</p>
<p>
  “There is some sort of festivity being prepared at that... at the widow’s,
  isn’t there?” Pyotr Petrovitch asked suddenly, interrupting Andrey
  Semyonovitch at the most interesting passage.
</p>
<p>
  “Why, don’t you know? Why, I was telling you last night what I think about
  all such ceremonies. And she invited you too, I heard. You were talking to
  her yesterday...”
 </p>
<p>
  “I should never have expected that beggarly fool would have spent on this
  feast all the money she got from that other fool, Raskolnikov. I was
  surprised just now as I came through at the preparations there, the wines!
  Several people are invited. It’s beyond everything!” continued Pyotr
  Petrovitch, who seemed to have some object in pursuing the conversation.
  “What? You say I am asked too? When was that? I don’t remember. But I
  shan’t go. Why should I? I only said a word to her in passing yesterday of
  the possibility of her obtaining a year’s salary as a destitute widow of a
  government clerk. I suppose she has invited me on that account, hasn’t
  she? He-he-he!”
 </p>
<p>
  “I don’t intend to go either,” said Lebeziatnikov.
</p>
<p>
  “I should think not, after giving her a thrashing! You might well
  hesitate, he-he!”
 </p>
<p>
  “Who thrashed? Whom?” cried Lebeziatnikov, flustered and blushing.
</p>
<p>
  “Why, you thrashed Katerina Ivanovna a month ago. I heard so yesterday...
  so that’s what your convictions amount to... and the woman question, too,
  wasn’t quite sound, he-he-he!” and Pyotr Petrovitch, as though comforted,
  went back to clicking his beads.
</p>
<p>
  “It’s all slander and nonsense!” cried Lebeziatnikov, who was always
  afraid of allusions to the subject. “It was not like that at all, it was
  quite different. You’ve heard it wrong; it’s a libel. I was simply
  defending myself. She rushed at me first with her nails, she pulled out
  all my whiskers.... It’s permissable for anyone, I should hope, to defend
  himself and I never allow anyone to use violence to me on principle, for
  it’s an act of despotism. What was I to do? I simply pushed her back.”
 </p>
<p>
  “He-he-he!” Luzhin went on laughing maliciously.
</p>
<p>
  “You keep on like that because you are out of humour yourself.... But
  that’s nonsense and it has nothing, nothing whatever to do with the woman
  question! You don’t understand; I used to think, indeed, that if women are
  equal to men in all respects, even in strength (as is maintained now)
  there ought to be equality in that, too. Of course, I reflected afterwards
  that such a question ought not really to arise, for there ought not to be
  fighting and in the future society fighting is unthinkable... and that it
  would be a queer thing to seek for equality in fighting. I am not so
  stupid... though, of course, there is fighting... there won’t be later,
  but at present there is... confound it! How muddled one gets with you!
  It’s not on that account that I am not going. I am not going on principle,
  not to take part in the revolting convention of memorial dinners, that’s
  why! Though, of course, one might go to laugh at it.... I am sorry there
  won’t be any priests at it. I should certainly go if there were.”
 </p>
<p>
  “Then you would sit down at another man’s table and insult it and those
  who invited you. Eh?”
 </p>
<p>
  “Certainly not insult, but protest. I should do it with a good object. I
  might indirectly assist the cause of enlightenment and propaganda. It’s a
  duty of every man to work for enlightenment and propaganda and the more
  harshly, perhaps, the better. I might drop a seed, an idea.... And
  something might grow up from that seed. How should I be insulting them?
  They might be offended at first, but afterwards they’d see I’d done them a
  service. You know, Terebyeva (who is in the community now) was blamed
  because when she left her family and... devoted... herself, she wrote to
  her father and mother that she wouldn’t go on living conventionally and
  was entering on a free marriage and it was said that that was too harsh,
  that she might have spared them and have written more kindly. I think
  that’s all nonsense and there’s no need of softness; on the contrary,
  what’s wanted is protest. Varents had been married seven years, she
  abandoned her two children, she told her husband straight out in a letter:
  ‘I have realised that I cannot be happy with you. I can never forgive you
  that you have deceived me by concealing from me that there is another
  organisation of society by means of the communities. I have only lately
  learned it from a great-hearted man to whom I have given myself and with
  whom I am establishing a community. I speak plainly because I consider it
  dishonest to deceive you. Do as you think best. Do not hope to get me
  back, you are too late. I hope you will be happy.’ That’s how letters like
  that ought to be written!”
 </p>
<p>
  “Is that Terebyeva the one you said had made a third free marriage?”
 </p>
<p>
  “No, it’s only the second, really! But what if it were the fourth, what if
  it were the fifteenth, that’s all nonsense! And if ever I regretted the
  death of my father and mother, it is now, and I sometimes think if my
  parents were living what a protest I would have aimed at them! I would
  have done something on purpose... I would have shown them! I would have
  astonished them! I am really sorry there is no one!”
 </p>
<p>
  “To surprise! He-he! Well, be that as you will,” Pyotr Petrovitch
  interrupted, “but tell me this; do you know the dead man’s daughter, the
  delicate-looking little thing? It’s true what they say about her, isn’t
  it?”
 </p>
<p>
  “What of it? I think, that is, it is my own personal conviction that this
  is the normal condition of women. Why not? I mean, <i>distinguons</i>. In
  our present society it is not altogether normal, because it is compulsory,
  but in the future society it will be perfectly normal, because it will be
  voluntary. Even as it is, she was quite right: she was suffering and that
  was her asset, so to speak, her capital which she had a perfect right to
  dispose of. Of course, in the future society there will be no need of
  assets, but her part will have another significance, rational and in
  harmony with her environment. As to Sofya Semyonovna personally, I regard
  her action as a vigorous protest against the organisation of society, and
  I respect her deeply for it; I rejoice indeed when I look at her!”
 </p>
<p>
  “I was told that you got her turned out of these lodgings.”
 </p>
<p>
  Lebeziatnikov was enraged.
</p>
<p>
  “That’s another slander,” he yelled. “It was not so at all! That was all
  Katerina Ivanovna’s invention, for she did not understand! And I never
  made love to Sofya Semyonovna! I was simply developing her, entirely
  disinterestedly, trying to rouse her to protest.... All I wanted was her
  protest and Sofya Semyonovna could not have remained here anyway!”
 </p>
<p>
  “Have you asked her to join your community?”
 </p>
<p>
  “You keep on laughing and very inappropriately, allow me to tell you. You
  don’t understand! There is no such rôle in a community. The community is
  established that there should be no such rôles. In a community, such a
  rôle is essentially transformed and what is stupid here is sensible there,
  what, under present conditions, is unnatural becomes perfectly natural in
  the community. It all depends on the environment. It’s all the environment
  and man himself is nothing. And I am on good terms with Sofya Semyonovna
  to this day, which is a proof that she never regarded me as having wronged
  her. I am trying now to attract her to the community, but on quite, quite
  a different footing. What are you laughing at? We are trying to establish
  a community of our own, a special one, on a broader basis. We have gone
  further in our convictions. We reject more! And meanwhile I’m still
  developing Sofya Semyonovna. She has a beautiful, beautiful character!”
 </p>
<p>
  “And you take advantage of her fine character, eh? He-he!”
 </p>
<p>
  “No, no! Oh, no! On the contrary.”
 </p>
<p>
  “Oh, on the contrary! He-he-he! A queer thing to say!”
 </p>
<p>
  “Believe me! Why should I disguise it? In fact, I feel it strange myself
  how timid, chaste and modern she is with me!”
 </p>
<p>
  “And you, of course, are developing her... he-he! trying to prove to her
  that all that modesty is nonsense?”
 </p>
<p>
  “Not at all, not at all! How coarsely, how stupidly—excuse me saying
  so—you misunderstand the word development! Good heavens, how...
  crude you still are! We are striving for the freedom of women and you have
  only one idea in your head.... Setting aside the general question of
  chastity and feminine modesty as useless in themselves and indeed
  prejudices, I fully accept her chastity with me, because that’s for her to
  decide. Of course if she were to tell me herself that she wanted me, I
  should think myself very lucky, because I like the girl very much; but as
  it is, no one has ever treated her more courteously than I, with more
  respect for her dignity... I wait in hopes, that’s all!”
 </p>
<p>
  “You had much better make her a present of something. I bet you never
  thought of that.”
 </p>
<p>
  “You don’t understand, as I’ve told you already! Of course, she is in such
  a position, but it’s another question. Quite another question! You simply
  despise her. Seeing a fact which you mistakenly consider deserving of
  contempt, you refuse to take a humane view of a fellow creature. You don’t
  know what a character she is! I am only sorry that of late she has quite
  given up reading and borrowing books. I used to lend them to her. I am
  sorry, too, that with all the energy and resolution in protesting—which
  she has already shown once—she has little self-reliance, little, so
  to say, independence, so as to break free from certain prejudices and
  certain foolish ideas. Yet she thoroughly understands some questions, for
  instance about kissing of hands, that is, that it’s an insult to a woman
  for a man to kiss her hand, because it’s a sign of inequality. We had a
  debate about it and I described it to her. She listened attentively to an
  account of the workmen’s associations in France, too. Now I am explaining
  the question of coming into the room in the future society.”
 </p>
<p>
  “And what’s that, pray?”
 </p>
<p>
  “We had a debate lately on the question: Has a member of the community the
  right to enter another member’s room, whether man or woman, at any time...
  and we decided that he has!”
 </p>
<p>
  “It might be at an inconvenient moment, he-he!”
 </p>
<p>
  Lebeziatnikov was really angry.
</p>
<p>
  “You are always thinking of something unpleasant,” he cried with aversion.
  “Tfoo! How vexed I am that when I was expounding our system, I referred
  prematurely to the question of personal privacy! It’s always a
  stumbling-block to people like you, they turn it into ridicule before they
  understand it. And how proud they are of it, too! Tfoo! I’ve often
  maintained that that question should not be approached by a novice till he
  has a firm faith in the system. And tell me, please, what do you find so
  shameful even in cesspools? I should be the first to be ready to clean out
  any cesspool you like. And it’s not a question of self-sacrifice, it’s
  simply work, honourable, useful work which is as good as any other and
  much better than the work of a Raphael and a Pushkin, because it is more
  useful.”
 </p>
<p>
  “And more honourable, more honourable, he-he-he!”
 </p>
<p>
  “What do you mean by ‘more honourable’? I don’t understand such
  expressions to describe human activity. ‘More honourable,’ ‘nobler’—all
  those are old-fashioned prejudices which I reject. Everything which is <i>of
  use</i> to mankind is honourable. I only understand one word: <i>useful</i>!
  You can snigger as much as you like, but that’s so!”
 </p>
<p>
  Pyotr Petrovitch laughed heartily. He had finished counting the money and
  was putting it away. But some of the notes he left on the table. The
  “cesspool question” had already been a subject of dispute between them.
  What was absurd was that it made Lebeziatnikov really angry, while it
  amused Luzhin and at that moment he particularly wanted to anger his young
  friend.
</p>
<p>
  “It’s your ill-luck yesterday that makes you so ill-humoured and
  annoying,” blurted out Lebeziatnikov, who in spite of his “independence”
   and his “protests” did not venture to oppose Pyotr Petrovitch and still
  behaved to him with some of the respect habitual in earlier years.
</p>
<p>
  “You’d better tell me this,” Pyotr Petrovitch interrupted with haughty
  displeasure, “can you... or rather are you really friendly enough with
  that young person to ask her to step in here for a minute? I think they’ve
  all come back from the cemetery... I heard the sound of steps... I want to
  see her, that young person.”
 </p>
<p>
  “What for?” Lebeziatnikov asked with surprise.
</p>
<p>
  “Oh, I want to. I am leaving here to-day or to-morrow and therefore I
  wanted to speak to her about... However, you may be present during the
  interview. It’s better you should be, indeed. For there’s no knowing what
  you might imagine.”
 </p>
<p>
  “I shan’t imagine anything. I only asked and, if you’ve anything to say to
  her, nothing is easier than to call her in. I’ll go directly and you may
  be sure I won’t be in your way.”
 </p>
<p>
  Five minutes later Lebeziatnikov came in with Sonia. She came in very much
  surprised and overcome with shyness as usual. She was always shy in such
  circumstances and was always afraid of new people, she had been as a child
  and was even more so now.... Pyotr Petrovitch met her “politely and
  affably,” but with a certain shade of bantering familiarity which in his
  opinion was suitable for a man of his respectability and weight in dealing
  with a creature so young and so <i>interesting</i> as she. He hastened to
  “reassure” her and made her sit down facing him at the table. Sonia sat
  down, looked about her—at Lebeziatnikov, at the notes lying on the
  table and then again at Pyotr Petrovitch and her eyes remained riveted on
  him. Lebeziatnikov was moving to the door. Pyotr Petrovitch signed to
  Sonia to remain seated and stopped Lebeziatnikov.
</p>
<p>
  “Is Raskolnikov in there? Has he come?” he asked him in a whisper.
</p>
<p>
  “Raskolnikov? Yes. Why? Yes, he is there. I saw him just come in.... Why?”
 </p>
<p>
  “Well, I particularly beg you to remain here with us and not to leave me
  alone with this... young woman. I only want a few words with her, but God
  knows what they may make of it. I shouldn’t like Raskolnikov to repeat
  anything.... You understand what I mean?”
 </p>
<p>
  “I understand!” Lebeziatnikov saw the point. “Yes, you are right.... Of
  course, I am convinced personally that you have no reason to be uneasy,
  but... still, you are right. Certainly I’ll stay. I’ll stand here at the
  window and not be in your way... I think you are right...”
 </p>
<p>
  Pyotr Petrovitch returned to the sofa, sat down opposite Sonia, looked
  attentively at her and assumed an extremely dignified, even severe
  expression, as much as to say, “don’t you make any mistake, madam.” Sonia
  was overwhelmed with embarrassment.
</p>
<p>
  “In the first place, Sofya Semyonovna, will you make my excuses to your
  respected mamma.... That’s right, isn’t it? Katerina Ivanovna stands in
  the place of a mother to you?” Pyotr Petrovitch began with great dignity,
  though affably.
</p>
<p>
  It was evident that his intentions were friendly.
</p>
<p>
  “Quite so, yes; the place of a mother,” Sonia answered, timidly and
  hurriedly.
</p>
<p>
  “Then will you make my apologies to her? Through inevitable circumstances
  I am forced to be absent and shall not be at the dinner in spite of your
  mamma’s kind invitation.”
 </p>
<p>
  “Yes... I’ll tell her... at once.”
 </p>
<p>
  And Sonia hastily jumped up from her seat.
</p>
<p>
  “Wait, that’s not all,” Pyotr Petrovitch detained her, smiling at her
  simplicity and ignorance of good manners, “and you know me little, my dear
  Sofya Semyonovna, if you suppose I would have ventured to trouble a person
  like you for a matter of so little consequence affecting myself only. I
  have another object.”
 </p>
<p>
  Sonia sat down hurriedly. Her eyes rested again for an instant on the
  grey-and-rainbow-coloured notes that remained on the table, but she
  quickly looked away and fixed her eyes on Pyotr Petrovitch. She felt it
  horribly indecorous, especially for <i>her</i>, to look at another
  person’s money. She stared at the gold eye-glass which Pyotr Petrovitch
  held in his left hand and at the massive and extremely handsome ring with
  a yellow stone on his middle finger. But suddenly she looked away and, not
  knowing where to turn, ended by staring Pyotr Petrovitch again straight in
  the face. After a pause of still greater dignity he continued.
</p>
<p>
  “I chanced yesterday in passing to exchange a couple of words with
  Katerina Ivanovna, poor woman. That was sufficient to enable me to
  ascertain that she is in a position—preternatural, if one may so
  express it.”
 </p>
<p>
  “Yes... preternatural...” Sonia hurriedly assented.
</p>
<p>
  “Or it would be simpler and more comprehensible to say, ill.”
 </p>
<p>
  “Yes, simpler and more comprehen... yes, ill.”
 </p>
<p>
  “Quite so. So then from a feeling of humanity and so to speak compassion,
  I should be glad to be of service to her in any way, foreseeing her
  unfortunate position. I believe the whole of this poverty-stricken family
  depends now entirely on you?”
 </p>
<p>
  “Allow me to ask,” Sonia rose to her feet, “did you say something to her
  yesterday of the possibility of a pension? Because she told me you had
  undertaken to get her one. Was that true?”
 </p>
<p>
  “Not in the slightest, and indeed it’s an absurdity! I merely hinted at
  her obtaining temporary assistance as the widow of an official who had
  died in the service—if only she has patronage... but apparently your
  late parent had not served his full term and had not indeed been in the
  service at all of late. In fact, if there could be any hope, it would be
  very ephemeral, because there would be no claim for assistance in that
  case, far from it.... And she is dreaming of a pension already,
  he-he-he!... A go-ahead lady!”
 </p>
<p>
  “Yes, she is. For she is credulous and good-hearted, and she believes
  everything from the goodness of her heart and... and... and she is like
  that... yes... You must excuse her,” said Sonia, and again she got up to
  go.
</p>
<p>
  “But you haven’t heard what I have to say.”
 </p>
<p>
  “No, I haven’t heard,” muttered Sonia.
</p>
<p>
  “Then sit down.” She was terribly confused; she sat down again a third
  time.
</p>
<p>
  “Seeing her position with her unfortunate little ones, I should be glad,
  as I have said before, so far as lies in my power, to be of service, that
  is, so far as is in my power, not more. One might for instance get up a
  subscription for her, or a lottery, something of the sort, such as is
  always arranged in such cases by friends or even outsiders desirous of
  assisting people. It was of that I intended to speak to you; it might be
  done.”
 </p>
<p>
  “Yes, yes... God will repay you for it,” faltered Sonia, gazing intently
  at Pyotr Petrovitch.
</p>
<p>
  “It might be, but we will talk of it later. We might begin it to-day, we
  will talk it over this evening and lay the foundation so to speak. Come to
  me at seven o’clock. Mr. Lebeziatnikov, I hope, will assist us. But there
  is one circumstance of which I ought to warn you beforehand and for which
  I venture to trouble you, Sofya Semyonovna, to come here. In my opinion
  money cannot be, indeed it’s unsafe to put it into Katerina Ivanovna’s own
  hands. The dinner to-day is a proof of that. Though she has not, so to
  speak, a crust of bread for to-morrow and... well, boots or shoes, or
  anything; she has bought to-day Jamaica rum, and even, I believe, Madeira
  and... and coffee. I saw it as I passed through. To-morrow it will all
  fall upon you again, they won’t have a crust of bread. It’s absurd,
  really, and so, to my thinking, a subscription ought to be raised so that
  the unhappy widow should not know of the money, but only you, for
  instance. Am I right?”
 </p>
<p>
  “I don’t know... this is only to-day, once in her life.... She was so
  anxious to do honour, to celebrate the memory.... And she is very
  sensible... but just as you think and I shall be very, very... they will
  all be... and God will reward... and the orphans...”
 </p>
<p>
  Sonia burst into tears.
</p>
<p>
  “Very well, then, keep it in mind; and now will you accept for the benefit
  of your relation the small sum that I am able to spare, from me
  personally. I am very anxious that my name should not be mentioned in
  connection with it. Here... having so to speak anxieties of my own, I
  cannot do more...”
 </p>
<p>
  And Pyotr Petrovitch held out to Sonia a ten-rouble note carefully
  unfolded. Sonia took it, flushed crimson, jumped up, muttered something
  and began taking leave. Pyotr Petrovitch accompanied her ceremoniously to
  the door. She got out of the room at last, agitated and distressed, and
  returned to Katerina Ivanovna, overwhelmed with confusion.
</p>
<p>
  All this time Lebeziatnikov had stood at the window or walked about the
  room, anxious not to interrupt the conversation; when Sonia had gone he
  walked up to Pyotr Petrovitch and solemnly held out his hand.
</p>
<p>
  “I heard and <i>saw</i> everything,” he said, laying stress on the last
  verb. “That is honourable, I mean to say, it’s humane! You wanted to avoid
  gratitude, I saw! And although I cannot, I confess, in principle
  sympathise with private charity, for it not only fails to eradicate the
  evil but even promotes it, yet I must admit that I saw your action with
  pleasure—yes, yes, I like it.”
 </p>
<p>
  “That’s all nonsense,” muttered Pyotr Petrovitch, somewhat disconcerted,
  looking carefully at Lebeziatnikov.
</p>
<p>
  “No, it’s not nonsense! A man who has suffered distress and annoyance as
  you did yesterday and who yet can sympathise with the misery of others,
  such a man... even though he is making a social mistake—is still
  deserving of respect! I did not expect it indeed of you, Pyotr Petrovitch,
  especially as according to your ideas... oh, what a drawback your ideas
  are to you! How distressed you are for instance by your ill-luck
  yesterday,” cried the simple-hearted Lebeziatnikov, who felt a return of
  affection for Pyotr Petrovitch. “And, what do you want with marriage, with
  <i>legal</i> marriage, my dear, noble Pyotr Petrovitch? Why do you cling
  to this <i>legality</i> of marriage? Well, you may beat me if you like,
  but I am glad, positively glad it hasn’t come off, that you are free, that
  you are not quite lost for humanity.... you see, I’ve spoken my mind!”
 </p>
<p>
  “Because I don’t want in your free marriage to be made a fool of and to
  bring up another man’s children, that’s why I want legal marriage,” Luzhin
  replied in order to make some answer.
</p>
<p>
  He seemed preoccupied by something.
</p>
<p>
  “Children? You referred to children,” Lebeziatnikov started off like a
  warhorse at the trumpet call. “Children are a social question and a
  question of first importance, I agree; but the question of children has
  another solution. Some refuse to have children altogether, because they
  suggest the institution of the family. We’ll speak of children later, but
  now as to the question of honour, I confess that’s my weak point. That
  horrid, military, Pushkin expression is unthinkable in the dictionary of
  the future. What does it mean indeed? It’s nonsense, there will be no
  deception in a free marriage! That is only the natural consequence of a
  legal marriage, so to say, its corrective, a protest. So that indeed it’s
  not humiliating... and if I ever, to suppose an absurdity, were to be
  legally married, I should be positively glad of it. I should say to my
  wife: ‘My dear, hitherto I have loved you, now I respect you, for you’ve
  shown you can protest!’ You laugh! That’s because you are incapable of
  getting away from prejudices. Confound it all! I understand now where the
  unpleasantness is of being deceived in a legal marriage, but it’s simply a
  despicable consequence of a despicable position in which both are
  humiliated. When the deception is open, as in a free marriage, then it
  does not exist, it’s unthinkable. Your wife will only prove how she
  respects you by considering you incapable of opposing her happiness and
  avenging yourself on her for her new husband. Damn it all! I sometimes
  dream if I were to be married, pfoo! I mean if I were to marry, legally or
  not, it’s just the same, I should present my wife with a lover if she had
  not found one for herself. ‘My dear,’ I should say, ‘I love you, but even
  more than that I desire you to respect me. See!’ Am I not right?”
 </p>
<p>
  Pyotr Petrovitch sniggered as he listened, but without much merriment. He
  hardly heard it indeed. He was preoccupied with something else and even
  Lebeziatnikov at last noticed it. Pyotr Petrovitch seemed excited and
  rubbed his hands. Lebeziatnikov remembered all this and reflected upon it
  afterwards.
</p>