He knelt in the middle of the square, bowed to the earth, and kissed that filthy earth with delight and happiness. He stood up and then bowed once more.
“This one's plastered all right!” a fellow near him observed.
There was laughter.
“It's that he's going to Jerusalem, brothers, and he's saying good-bye to his children and his motherland and bowing to the whole world, giving a kiss to the metropolitan city of Saint Petersburg and its soil,” some drunken little tradesman added.
“Still a young lad!” a third one put in.
“From gentlefolk!” someone observed in an imposing voice.
“You can't tell nowadays who's gentlefolk and who isn't.”
All this talk and commentary held Raskolnikov back, and the words “I killed,” which were perhaps on the tip of his tongue, froze in him. However, he calmly endured all these exclamations, and without looking back went straight down the side street in the direction of the police station. On the way an apparition flashed before him, but he was not surprised by it; he had already anticipated that it must be so. As he bowed down the second time in the Haymarket, turning to the left, he had seen Sonya standing about fifty steps away. She was hiding from him behind one of the wooden stalls in the square, which meant that she had accompanied him throughout his sorrowful procession! Raskolnikov felt and understood in that moment, once and for all, that Sonya was now with him forever and would follow him even to the ends of the earth, wherever his fate took him. His whole heart turned over inside him...but—here he was at the fatal place . . .
He walked quite briskly into the courtyard. He had to go up to the third floor. “So far so good,” he thought. Generally, it seemed to him that the fatal moment was still far off, that there was still much time left, that he could still think many things over.
Again the same trash, the same eggshells on the winding stairs, again the wide-open doors to the apartments, again the same kitchens emitting fumes and stench. Raskolnikov had not been back here since that time. His legs were going numb and giving way under him, but went on walking. He stopped for a moment to catch his breath and straighten himself up, so as to enter like a human being.“But why? What for?” he suddenly thought, having caught his own movement. “If I am indeed to drink this cup, what difference does it make? The fouler the better.” At that moment the picture of Ilya Petrovich Gunpowder flashed in his imagination. “Must I really go to him? Why not to someone else? Why not to Nikodim Fomich? Turn around and go to the police chief himself, to his place? At least things could be arranged in a homelike fashion...No, no! To Gunpowder, to Gunpowder! If I'm to drink, I'll drink it all at once . . .”
Turning cold and barely conscious of himself, he opened the door to the office. This time very few people were there, some caretaker and some other simple fellow. The guard did not even peek out from behind his partition. Raskolnikov went into the next room. “Maybe it's still possible not to tell them,” flashed in him. Here some person from among the scribes, dressed in a civilian jacket, was settling down to write something at a desk. In the corner another scrivener was about to take his seat. Zamyotov was not there. Nikodim Fomich was, of course, not there either.
“No one's here?” Raskolnikov asked, addressing the person at the desk.
“Who do you want?”
“Aha-a-a! Fee, fi, fo, fum, I smell the smell of a Russian man...or how does the tale go...I forget! Gr-r-reetings!” a familiar voice cried out suddenly.
Raskolnikov shook. There stood Gunpowder; he walked out suddenly from the third room. “This is fate itself,” Raskolnikov thought. “Why is he here?”
“Come to see us? What's the occasion? . . .” Ilya Petrovich exclaimed. (He was apparently in a most excellent and even somewhat excited state of mind.) “If it's on business, you've come too early. I myself just happen to be...However, anything I can do. I must confess...what's your, your...Excuse me...”
“Raskolnikov.”
“There you are—Raskolnikov! You don't suppose I really forgot! No, please, you mustn't regard me as such a...Rodion Ro...Ro...Rodionych, isn't it?”
“Rodion Romanych.”
“Yes, yes, of course! Rodion Romanych, Rodion Romanych! Just what I was getting at. I even made a number of inquiries. I—shall I confess to you?—I have been genuinely grieved that you and I were so...it was later explained to me, I learned that the young writer— scholar, even...the first steps, so to speak...Oh, Lord! And who among writers and scholars did not make some original steps to begin with! My wife and I, we both respect literature—my wife even to the point of passion! ... Literature and artistry! One need only be a gentleman, and the rest can all be acquired by talent, knowledge, reason, genius! A hat—now what, for instance, is a hat? A hat is a pancake, I can buy one at Zimmerman's; but that which is kept under the hat, and is covered by the hat, that I cannot buy, sir! ... I'll confess I even wanted to go and explain myself to you, but I thought perhaps you...However, I haven't even asked: do you in fact need anything? I hear your family has come?”
“Yes, my mother and sister.”
“I've even had the honor and happiness of meeting your sister—an educated and charming person. I'll confess I regretted that you and I got so worked up that time. A mishap! And that I gave you a certain kind of look then, on the occasion of your fainting—that was explained afterwards in a most brilliant manner! Overzealousness and fanaticism! I understand your indignation. Perhaps you're changing apartments on the occasion of your family's arrival?”
“N-no, I just... I came to ask... I thought I'd find Zamyotov here.”
“Ah, yes! You became friends; I heard, sir. Well, Zamyotov is no longer with us—you've missed him. Yes, sir, we've lost Alexander Grigorievich! He's been unavailable since yesterday; he's moved on...and as he was moving on he quarreled with everybody...even quite discourteously...A flighty youngster, nothing more; he might even give one hopes; but what can be done with them, these brilliant young men of ours! He wants to take some examination or other, but with us that's all just talk and swagger, and so much for the examination. It's quite another matter with you, for example, or let's say your friend, Mr. Razumikhin! Your career is a scholarly one, and you won't be put off by any setbacks! For you, all these beauties of life, one might say, nihil est [157] —ascetic, monk, hermit that you are! ... For you, it's a book, a pen behind the ear, scholarly research—there's where your spirit soars! I myself am somewhat...have you read Livingstone's diaries, [158] may I ask?”
“No.”
“But I have. Nowadays, by the way, there are a great many nihilists spreading around; well, it's quite understandable; what sort of times are these, I ask you! But I'm being too...by the way, you're surely not a nihilist! [159] Tell me frankly, frankly!”
“N-no.”
“No, you see, you can be frank with me, don't be embarrassed, just as if you were alone with yourself! Duty is one thing, and...what is another?... You thought I was going to say pleasure—no, sir, you've guessed wrong! Not pleasure, but the feeling of a citizen and a human being, the feeling of humaneness and love for the Almighty. I may be an official person and acting in the line of duty, but I must always feel the citizen and human being in myself, and be accountable for it...Now, you were so good as to bring up Zamyotov. Zamyotov! He'd go and cause a French-style scandal in some disreputable establishment, over a glass of champagne or Don wine—that's what your Zamyotov is! While I, perhaps, so to speak, am consumed with devotion and lofty feelings, and furthermore I have significance, rank, I occupy a position! I'm a married man, I have children. I fulfill the duties of a citizen and a human being, and who is he, may I ask? I advert to you as a man ennobled by education. And there are also these midwives spreading around in extraordinary numbers.”
158
David Livingstone (1813-73), famous Scottish explorer of central and southern Africa, published a book on his travels along the Zambezi River in 1865; it was soon translated into Russian.
159
"Nihilism" was a new movement among the radical Russian youth, emerging just around the time that Dostoevsky was writing