“I have told you how-many-times before that you muss never dare say to me Amal Ludwigovna. I am Amal-Ivan!”
“You are not Amal-Ivan, you are Amalia Ludwigovna, and since I am not one of your base flatterers, like Mr. Lebezyatnikov, who is now laughing outside the door” (outside the door there was indeed laughter, and someone cried: “A cat-fight!”), “I shall always address you as Amalia Ludwigovna, though I decidedly fail to understand why you so dislike this appellation. You see for yourself what has happened to Semyon Zakharovich; he is dying. I ask you to close this door at once and not allow anyone in. Let him at least die in peace! Otherwise, I assure you, tomorrow your action will be made known to the governor-general himself. The prince knew me as a young girl, and very well remembers Semyon Zakharovich, to whom he has shown favor many times. Everyone knows that Semyon Zakharovich had many friends and protectors, whom he himself abandoned out of noble pride, aware of his unfortunate weakness, but now” (she pointed to Raskolnikov) “we are being helped by a magnanimous young man who has means and connections, and whom Semyon Zakharovich knew as a child, and rest assured, Amalia Ludwigovna . . .”
All this was spoken in a rapid patter, faster and faster, but coughing all at once interrupted Katerina Ivanovna's eloquence. At that moment the dying man came to and moaned, and she ran to him. He opened his eyes and, still without recognition or understanding, began peering at Raskolnikov, who was standing over him. He breathed heavily, deeply, rarely; blood oozed from the corners of his mouth; sweat stood out on his forehead. Not recognizing Raskolnikov, he began looking around anxiously. Katerina Ivanovna looked at him sadly but sternly, and tears flowed from her eyes.
“My God! His whole chest is crushed! And the blood, so much blood!” she said in despair. “We must take all his outer clothes off! Turn over a little, Semyon Zakharovich, if you can,” she cried to him.
Marmeladov recognized her.
“A priest!” he said in a hoarse voice.
Katerina Ivanovna went over to the window, leaned her forehead against the window frame, and exclaimed in desperation:
“Oh, curse this life!”
“A priest!” the dying man said again, after a moment's silence.
“They've go-o-one!” Katerina Ivanovna cried at him; he obeyed the cry and fell silent. He was seeking for her with timid, anguished eyes; she went back to him and stood by his head. He calmed down somewhat, but not for long. Soon his eyes rested on little Lidochka (his favorite), who was shaking in the corner as if in a fit and stared at him with her astonished, childishly attentive eyes.
“A...a...” he pointed to her worriedly. He wanted to say something.
“What now?” cried Katerina Ivanovna.
“Barefoot! Barefoot!” he muttered, pointing with crazed eyes at the girl's bare little feet.
“Be quiet!” Katerina Ivanovna cried irritably. “You know very well why she's barefoot!”
“Thank God, the doctor!” Raskolnikov cried joyfully.
The doctor came in, a trim little old man, a German, looking about him with mistrustful eyes; he went over to the sick man, took his pulse, carefully felt his head, and with Katerina Ivanovna's help unbuttoned his shirt, all soaked with blood, and bared the sick man's chest. His whole chest was torn, mangled, mutilated; several ribs on the right side were broken. On the left side, just over the heart, there was a large, ominous yellowish-black spot, the cruel blow of a hoof. The doctor frowned. The policeman told him that the injured man had been caught in a wheel and dragged, turning, about thirty paces along the pavement.
“It's surprising that he recovered consciousness at all,” the doctor whispered softly to Raskolnikov.
“What is your opinion?” the latter asked.
“He will die now.”
“There's no hope at all?”
“Not the slightest! He is at his last gasp...Besides, his head is dangerously injured...Hm. I could perhaps let some blood...but...it would be no use. In five or ten minutes he will certainly die.”
“Try letting some blood, then!”
“Perhaps...However, I warn you it will be perfectly useless.”
At that point more steps were heard, the crowd in the entryway parted, and a priest, a gray-haired old man, appeared on the threshold with the Holy Gifts. [67] A policeman had gone to fetch him while they were still in the street. The doctor immediately gave way to him, and they exchanged meaningful glances. Raskolnikov persuaded the doctor to stay at least for a little while. The doctor shrugged and stayed.
Everyone stepped aside. The confession lasted a very short time. The dying man probably did not understand much of anything; and he could utter only abrupt, inarticulate sounds. Katerina Ivanovna took Lidochka, got the boy down from his chair, went to the corner near the stove, knelt, and made the children kneel in front of her. The little girl went on shaking; but the boy, upright on his bare little knees, raised his hand regularly, making a full sign of the cross, and bowed to the ground, bumping with his forehead, which seemed to give him special pleasure. Katerina Ivanovna was biting her lips and holding back her tears; she, too, was praying, straightening the boy's shirt from time to time, and she managed to throw a kerchief over the girl's bare shoulders, taking it from the top of the chest of drawers as she prayed and without getting up from her knees. Meanwhile, curious people began opening the door from the inner rooms again. And more and more spectators, tenants from all down the stairs, crowded into the entryway, but without crossing the threshold. The whole scene was lighted by just one candle-end.
At that moment Polenka, who had run to fetch her sister, squeezed quickly through the crowd in the entryway. She came in, almost breathless from running hard, took off her kerchief, sought out her mother with her eyes, went to her, and said: “She's coming! I met her in the street!” Her mother pulled her down and made her kneel beside her. Timidly and inaudibly, a girl came in, squeezing through the crowd, and her sudden appearance was strange in that room, in the midst of poverty, rags, death, and despair. She, too, was in rags, a two-penny costume, but adorned in street fashion, to suit the taste and rules established in that special world, with a clearly and shamefully explicit purpose. Sonya stood in the entryway, just at the threshold but not crossing it, with a lost look, unconscious, as it seemed, of everything, forgetting her gaudy silk dress with its long and absurd train, bought at fourth hand and so unseemly here, and her boundless crinoline that blocked the entire doorway, and her light-colored shoes, and the little parasol, useless at night, which she still carried with her, and her absurd round straw hat with its flame-colored feather. From under this hat, cocked at a boyish angle, peered a thin, pale, and frightened little face, mouth open and eyes fixed in terror. Sonya was of small stature, about eighteen years old, thin but quite pretty, blond, and with remarkable blue eyes. She stared at the bed, at the priest; she, too, was breathless from walking quickly. Finally, certain whispered words from the crowd probably reached her. She looked down, took a step over the threshold, and stood in the room, though still just by the door.
Confession and communion were over. Katerina Ivanovna again went up to her husband's bed. The priest withdrew and, as he was leaving, tried to address a few words of admonition and comfort to Katerina Ivanovna.
“And what am I to do with these?” she interrupted sharply and irritably, pointing to the little ones.
“God is merciful; hope for help from the Almighty,” the priest began.
“Ehh! Merciful, but not to us!”
“That is sinful, madam, sinful,” the priest observed, shaking his head.
“And is this not sinful?” cried Katerina Ivanovna, pointing to the dying man.
“Perhaps those who were the inadvertent cause will agree to compensate you, at least for the loss of income...”
“You don't understand!” Katerina Ivanovna cried irritably, waving her hand. “What is there to compensate? He was drunk; he went and got under the horses himself! And what income? There wasn't any income from him, there was only torment. The drunkard drank up everything. He stole from us, and took it to the pot-house; he wasted their lives and mine in the pot-house! Thank God he's dying! We'll have fewer losses!”
67
Consecrated bread and wine of the Eucharist, reserved by the priest for .such occasions.