Svidrigailov sat down on the sofa, about eight steps away from Dunya. For her there was no longer the slightest doubt of his unshakeable determination. Besides, she knew him . . .
Suddenly she took a revolver from her pocket, cocked it, and lowered the hand holding the revolver to the little table. Svidrigailov jumped up from his seat.
“Aha! So that's how it is!” he cried out in surprise, but with a spiteful grin. “Well, that completely changes the course of things! You're making it much easier for me, Avdotya Romanovna! And where did you get the revolver? Can it be Mr. Razumikhin? Hah, but that's my revolver! An old acquaintance! And how I was hunting for it then! ... So those shooting lessons I had the honor of giving you in the country weren't wasted after all.”
“It's not your revolver, it's Marfa Petrovna's, whom you killed, villain! [148] Nothing in her house was yours. I took it as soon as I began to suspect what you were capable of. If you dare take just one step, I swear I'll kill you!”
Dunya was in a frenzy. She held the revolver ready.
“Well, and your brother? I ask out of curiosity,” Svidrigailov said, still standing in the same place.
“Denounce him if you like! Don't move! Not a step! I'll shoot! You poisoned your wife, I know it; you're a murderer yourself! ... ”
“And are you firmly convinced that I poisoned Marfa Petrovna?”
“You did! You hinted it to me yourself; you spoke to me about poison...I know you went to get it...you had it ready...It was certainly you...scoundrel!”
“Even if that were true, it was because of you...you would still be the cause of it.”
“You're lying! I hated you always, always . . .”
“Aha, Avdotya Romanovna! You've obviously forgotten how in the heat of propaganda you were already inclining and melting...I saw it in your dear eyes; remember, in the evening, in the moonlight, and with a nightingale singing?”
“You're lying!” (Rage shone in Dunya's eyes.) “You're lying, slanderer!”
“Lying, am I? Well, maybe I am. So I lied. Women oughtn't to be reminded of these little things.” (He grinned.) “I know you'll shoot, you pretty little beast. Go on, shoot!”
Dunya raised the revolver and, deathly pale, her white lower lip trembling, her large black eyes flashing like fire, looked at him, having made up her mind, calculating, and waiting for the first movement from his side. He had never yet seen her so beautiful. The fire that flashed from her eyes as she raised the revolver seemed to burn him, and his heart was wrung with pain. He took a step, and a shot rang out. The bullet grazed his hair and struck the wall behind him. He stopped and laughed softly:
“The wasp has stung! She aims straight at the head...What's this? Blood?” He took out a handkerchief to wipe away the blood that was flowing in a thin trickle from his right temple; the bullet must have slightly touched his scalp. Dunya lowered the revolver and looked at Svidrigailov not really in fear but in some wild perplexity. It was as if she herself did not understand what she had done or what was happening.
“Well, so you missed! Shoot again, I'm waiting,” Svidrigailov said softly, still grinning, but somehow gloomily. “This way I'll have time to seize you before you cock it!”
Dunechka gave a start, quickly cocked the revolver, and raised it again.
“Let me be!” she said in despair. “I swear, I'll shoot again...I'll...kill you! . . .”
“Well, so...from three paces you could hardly fail to kill me. Well, but if you don't. . . then . . .” His eyes flashed, and he took two more steps.
Dunechka pulled the trigger—a misfire!
“You didn't load it properly. Never mind! You've got another cap left. Put it right; I'll wait.” [149]
He stood in front of her, two steps away, waiting and looking at her with wild determination, his grim eyes inflamed with passion. Dunya realized that he would rather die than let her go. “And... and of course she would kill him now, from two paces! . . .”
Suddenly she threw the revolver aside.
“She threw it down!” Svidrigailov said in surprise, and drew a deep breath. It was as if something had all at once been lifted from his heart, and perhaps not just the burden of mortal fear—which, besides, he had hardly felt in that minute. It was a deliverance from another, more sorrowful and gloomy feeling, the full force of which he himself would have been unable to define.
He went up to Dunya and gently put his arm around her waist. She did not resist but, all trembling like a leaf, looked at him with imploring eyes. He wanted to say something, his lips twisted, but he was unable to speak.
“Let me go!” Dunya said imploringly. [150]
Svidrigailov started; this let mewas spoken somehow differently from the previous one.
“So you don't love me?” he asked softly.
Dunya moved her head negatively.
“And...you can't...ever?” he whispered in despair.
“Never!” whispered Dunya.
A moment of terrible, mute struggle passed in Svidrigailov's soul. He looked at her with an inexpressible look. Suddenly he withdrew his arm, turned away, walked quickly to the window, and stood in front of it.
Another moment passed.
“Here's the key!” (He took it from the left pocket of his coat and placed it on the table behind him, without looking and without turning to Dunya.) “Take it; go quickly! . . .”
He went on staring out the window.
Dunya approached the table to take the key.
“Quickly! Quickly!” Svidrigailov repeated, still without moving and without turning around. But in this “quickly” some terrible note must have sounded.
Dunya understood it, seized the key, rushed to the door, quickly unlocked it, and burst out of the room. A moment later, beside herself, she rushed madly to the canal and ran in the direction of the ------y Bridge.
Svidrigailov stood by the window for about three minutes; at last, he quietly turned, looked around, and slowly passed his hand over his forehead. A strange smile twisted his face, a pitiful, sad, weak smile, a smile of despair. Blood, already drying, stained his palm; he looked at the blood spitefully; then he wet a towel and washed his temple. The revolver Dunya had thrown aside, which had landed near the door, suddenly caught his eye. He picked it up and examined it. It was a small pocket revolver with a three-shot cylinder, of old-fashioned construction; there were two loads and one cap left. It could be fired one more time. He thought a moment, put the revolver into his pocket, took his hat, and went out.
VI
All that evening until ten o'clock he spent in various taverns and cesspools, passing from one to the other. Somewhere he came across Katya, who sang another lackey song about some “scoundrel and tyrant” who “Began kissing Katya.”
Svidrigailov bought drinks for Katya, and the organ-grinder, and the singers, and the lackeys, and two wretched little scriveners. He took up with these scriveners, in fact, because they both had crooked noses: one was crooked to the right, the other to the left. This struck Svidrigailov. They drew him finally to some pleasure garden, where he paid for them and for the entrance. In this garden were one spindly, three-year-old fir tree and three little bushes. Besides that, a “Vauxhall” had also been built, actually a bar, but one could also get tea there; and a few green tables and chairs were standing around. [151] A chorus of bad singers and some drunken German from Munich, like a clown with a red nose, but for some reason extremely downcast, were entertaining the public. The little scriveners quarreled with some other little scriveners and started a fight. They chose Svidrigailov as their arbiter. He arbitrated between them for a quarter of an hour, but they shouted so much that there was not the slightest possibility of making anything out. In all likelihood one of them had stolen something and even managed to sell it at once to some Jew who happened to be there; but, having sold it, he did not want to share the proceeds with his friend. In the end the stolen object turned out to be a teaspoon belonging to the vauxhall. It was found missing from the vauxhall, and the affair began to take on troublesome dimensions. Svidrigailov paid for the spoon, got up, and walked out of the garden. It was around ten o'clock. He himself had not drunk a drop of wine the whole time, but had only ordered some tea in the vauxhall, and even that more for propriety's sake. Meanwhile the evening was close and lowering. By ten o'clock terrible clouds had approached from all sides; thunder rolled, and rain poured down like a waterfall. It did not come in drops, but lashed the ground in steady streams. Lightning flashed every moment, and one could count to five in the course of each flash. Drenched to the skin, he arrived home, locked himself in, opened his bureau, took out all his money, and tore up two or three papers. Then, having thrust the money into his pocket, he thought of changing his clothes, but looking out the window and hearing the thunder and rain, he waved his hand, took his hat, and walked out without locking his apartment. He went straight to Sonya. She was at home.
148
Dunya speaks in the second person singular through "You're lying, slanderer!" Svidrigailov twice responds in kind.
149
The revolver is of the old cap-and-ball variety, midway between a firelock and the later cartridge pistol. The chambers were hand-loaded and fired by a separate percussion cap. In the "misfire" the cap apparently went off but did not fire the charge.
151
The original Vauxhall was a seventeenth-century pleasure garden in London. Here the term refers to an outdoor space for concerts and entertainment, with a tea-house, tables, and so on. Russian borrowed the word from English; evidently vauxhalls were a new thing in the 1860s.