“Maybe they won't fit!” Nastasya remarked.
“Won't fit? Look at this!” and he pulled Raskolnikov's old, stiff, torn, and mud-caked boot from his pocket. “I went equipped, and they reconstructed the right size from this monster. A lot of feeling went into this whole business. And with respect to linen, I made a deal with the landlady. Here are three shirts to begin with, hempen, but with fashionable fronts...So, sir, altogether that's eighty kopecks for the cap, two roubles twenty-five kopecks for the rest of the clothes, making it three roubles five kopecks in all; plus one rouble fifty kopecks for the boots—because they're so good. Four roubles fifty-five kopecks altogether, and five roubles for all the linen—I got it wholesale—so altogether it's exactly nine roubles fifty-five kopecks. Your change is forty-five kopecks in five-kopeck pieces—here, sir, be so good as to accept it—and thus, Rodya, you are now restored to your full costume, because in my opinion your coat will not only still serve, but even possesses a look of special nobility: that's what it means to buy from Charmeur! [53] As for socks and the rest, I leave that up to you; we've got twenty-five nice little roubles left—and don't worry about Pashenka and the rent; I told you: the most unlimited credit. And now, brother, allow me to change your linen, because I think the only thing still sick about you is your shirt . . .”
“Let me be! I don't want to!” Raskolnikov waved his hands, having listened with loathing to Razumikhin's tensely playful account of purchasing the clothes . . .
“That, brother, is impossible; why else did I wear out all that good shoe-leather?” Razumikhin insisted. “Nastasyushka, don't be bashful, give me a hand, that's it!” and, in spite of Raskolnikov's resistance, he succeeded in changing his shirt. Raskolnikov fell back on the pillow and for about two minutes would not say a word.
“It'll be some time before they leave me alone!” he thought. “What money did you use to pay for all that?” he asked finally, staring at the wall.
“What money? I like that! It was your own money. An agent came this morning from Vakhrushin; your mother sent it; did you forget that, too?”
“I remember now . . .” Raskolnikov said, after long and sullen reflection. Frowning, Razumikhin kept glancing at him worriedly.
The door opened, and a tall, heavyset man came in, whose appearance also seemed already somewhat familiar to Raskolnikov.
“Zossimov! At last!” Razumikhin cried out with delight.
IV
Zossimov was a tall, fat man with a puffy, colorlessly pale, cleanshaven face and straight blond hair, wearing spectacles, and with a large gold ring on his fat-swollen finger. He was about twenty-seven years old. He had on a loose, foppish summer coat and light-colored summer trousers; generally everything on him was loose, foppish, and brand new; his linen was impeccable, his watch-chain massive. He was slow, almost languid, of manner, and at the same time studiously casual; a certain pretentiousness, though carefully concealed, kept showing itself every moment. All who knew him found him a difficult man, but said that he knew his business.
“I stopped twice at your place, brother...See, he's come to!” cried Razumikhin.
“I see, I see. So, how are we feeling now, eh?” Zossimov addressed Raskolnikov, looking at him attentively and sitting by his feet on the sofa, where he immediately sprawled as well as he could.
“Eh, he's still sulking,” Razumikhin went on. “We just changed his shirt, and he almost started to cry.”
“That's understandable; you might have waited with the shirt, if he didn't want...Pulse is fine. You still have a little headache, hm?”
“I'm well, I'm completely well!” Raskolnikov said insistently and irritably, raising himself suddenly on the sofa and flashing his eyes, but he immediately fell back on the pillow and turned his face to the wall. Zossimov was watching him attentively.
“Very good...everything's as it ought to be,” he said languidly. “Has he eaten anything?”
They told him, and asked what he was allowed to have.
“Everything's allowed...soup, tea...no mushrooms, naturally, or cucumbers—well, and no need for any beef either, and...well, but what's there to talk about! . . .” He exchanged glances with Razumikhin. “No more medicine, no more anything; and tomorrow we'll see...Today wouldn't be...well, yes...”
“Tomorrow evening I'll take him for an outing!” Razumikhin decided. “To the Yusupov Garden, and then we'll go to the Palais de Cristal.” [54]
“I wouldn't budge him tomorrow; though maybe...a little... well, we'll see.”
“Too bad. I'm having a housewarming party tonight, just two steps away; he could come, too; at least he could lie on the sofa among us! And what about you?” Razumikhin suddenly addressed Zossimov. “Don't forget, you promised.”
“Maybe a little later. What are you planning to have?”
“Nothing much—tea, vodka, pickled herring. There'll be a pie. For friends only.”
“Who, precisely?”
“They're all from around here, and almost all of them new friends, actually—except maybe for the old uncle, and even he is new: came to Petersburg just yesterday on some little business of his; we see each other once in five years.”
“What is he?”
“He's vegetated all his life as a provincial postmaster...gets some wretched pension, sixty-five years old, nothing to talk about...I love him, though. Porfiry Petrovich will be there, the local police inspector in the department of investigation...a lawyer. But I think you know...”
“He's also some sort of relative of yours?”
“A very distant one; but why are you frowning? So, you quarreled with him once, and now maybe you won't come?”
“I don't give a damn about him . . .”
“So much the better. And then some students, a teacher, one functionary, one musician, an army officer, Zamyotov...”
“Tell me, please, what you, or he, for instance” (Zossimov nodded towards Raskolnikov), “can possibly have in common with someone like Zamyotov?”
“Oh, these peevish ones! Principles! ... You've all got principles in you like springs; you don't dare turn around by your own will; no, in my opinion, if he's a good man, there's a principle for you, and I don't want to know any more. Zamyotov is a most wonderful man.”
“And he has an open palm.”
“So what if he has an open palm! To hell with it! Who cares if he has an open palm!” Razumikhin suddenly cried, getting somehow unnaturally irritated. “Did I praise his open palm? I said he was a good man, only in his own way! And if we look straight, in all ways—will there be many good people left? No, in that case I'm sure that I, with all my innards, would be worth about as much as one baked onion, and then only with you thrown in! . . .”
“That's not enough; I'll give two for you . . .”
“And I'll give only one for you! Look at this wit! Zamyotov is still a boy, I can rough him up, because he ought to be drawn in and not pushed away. You won't set a person right by pushing him away, especially if he's a boy. You have to be twice as careful with a boy. Eh, you progressive dimwits, you really don't understand anything! You disparage man and damage yourselves...And if you'd like to know, we've even got something started together.”
“I wonder what.”
“It all has to do with the case of that painter—that house-painter, I mean...We're going to get him off! However, it won't be any trouble now. The case is perfectly clear now! We'll just put on some more heat.”
“What about this house-painter?”
“You mean I didn't tell you? Really? Ah, that's right, I only told you the beginning...it's about the murder of the old woman, the pawnbroker, the official's widow...so now this house-painter is mixed up in it . . .”
“I heard about that murder before you, and am even interested in the case...somewhat... for a certain reason...and I've read about it in the papers! So, now . . .”
53
I. G. Charmeur was a well-known Petersburg tailor; Dostoevsky had his own suits made by Charmeur.
54
The Palais de Cristal (later referred to in