“It's put in a legal manner, there's no other way to put it legally, and it came out coarser than he may have wanted. However, I must disappoint you somewhat: there is one other expression in this letter that is a bit of a slander against me, and rather a low one. Yesterday I gave money to a consumptive and broken-hearted widow, not 'on the pretext of a funeral,' but simply for the funeral, and I handed it not to the daughter—a girl, as he writes, 'of notorious behavior' (whom I saw yesterday for the first time in my life)—but precisely to the widow. In all this I see an overly hasty desire to sully me and make me quarrel with you. Again, he expresses himself legalistically—that is, revealing his purpose too plainly, and with rather naive haste. He's an intelligent man, but it takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently. All this portrays the man, and...I don't think he values you very much. I say this in admonition, because I sincerely wish you well...”
Dunechka did not reply; her decision had already been made, and she was only waiting for that evening.
“Well, what have you decided, Rodya?” asked Pulcheria Alexandrovna, troubled even more than before by his sudden, new businessliketone of voice.
“What do you mean—'decided'?”
“But Pyotr Petrovich writes here that you mustn't be with us in the evening, and that he will leave...if you come. So, will you...come?”
“That is, of course, not up to me to decide, but up to you, first, if such a demand from Pyotr Petrovich does not offend you, and, second, up to Dunya, if she also is not offended. I will do as you think best,” he added dryly.
“Dunechka has already decided, and I agree with her completely,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna hastened to put in.
“I decided to ask you, Rodya, to ask you earnestly to join us at this meeting without fail,” said Dunya. “Will you come?”
“I will.”
“I ask you, too, to join us at eight o'clock,” she turned to Razumikhin. “Mama, I'm inviting him, too.”
“That's fine, Dunechka. Whatever you all decide,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna added, “so let it be. And it's easier for me; I don't like lying and pretending; better to tell the whole truth...and let Pyotr Petrovich be angry if he chooses!”
IV
At that moment the door opened quietly, and a girl came into the room, looking timidly around. Everyone turned to her with surprise and curiosity. Raskolnikov did not recognize her at first. It was Sofya Semyonovna Marmeladov. He had seen her for the first time the day before, but at such a moment, under such circumstances, and in such attire that his memory retained the image of quite a different person. Here, now, was a modestly and even poorly dressed girl, still very young, looking almost like a little girl, with a modest and decent manner and a bright but as if somewhat intimidated face. She was wearing a very simple, everyday dress and an old hat no longer in fashion, though she still carried yesterday's parasol. Suddenly seeing a room full of people, she became not so much confused as quite lost, timid as a little child, and even made a move to go out again.
“Ah...it's you?” Raskolnikov said, greatly surprised, and he suddenly became embarrassed himself.
It occurred to him at once that his mother and sister had already heard fleetingly, in Luzhin's letter, of a certain girl of “notorious” behavior. He had just been protesting against Luzhin's slander and stated that it was the first time he had seen the girl, and suddenly she herself walked in. He also recalled that he had not protested in the least against the expression “of notorious behavior.” All this flitted vaguely and instantly through his head. But, looking more attentively, he suddenly saw that this humiliated being was already so humiliated that he suddenly felt pity for her. And when she made a move to run away in fear—it was as if something turned over inside him.
“I was not at all expecting you,” he hurried, stopping her with his eyes. “Be so good as to sit down. You must have come from Katerina Ivanovna. Excuse me, not here; sit over there . . .”
When Sonya entered, Razumikhin, who had been sitting just by the door on one of Raskolnikov's three chairs, rose to let her in. At first Raskolnikov had shown her to the end of the sofa where Zossimov had been sitting, but recalling that this sofa was too familiara place, that it served him as a bed, he hastily directed her to Razumikhin's chair.
“And you sit here,” he said to Razumikhin, putting him on the end where Zossimov had been sitting.
Sonya sat down, all but trembling with fear, and glanced timidly at the two ladies. One could see that she herself did not know how she could possibly have sat down next to them. She became so frightened when she realized it that she suddenly stood up again and in complete embarrassment addressed Raskolnikov.
“I...I...have come just for a moment, excuse me for disturbing you,” she began, faltering. “Katerina Ivanovna sent me, she had no one else...And Katerina Ivanovna told me to beg you please to come to the funeral service tomorrow, in the morning...to the liturgy...at the Mitrofanievsky Cemetery, and to stay afterwards for a meal...with us...with her...To do her the honor...She told me to ask you.” [73]
Sonya faltered and fell silent.
“I will certainly try...certainly,” Raskolnikov answered, also standing up, and also faltering and not finishing...”Be so good as to sit down,” he said suddenly, “I must speak with you. Please— but perhaps you're in a hurry—be so good as to give me two minutes . . .”
And he moved the chair for her. Sonya sat down again and again quickly gave the two ladies a timid, lost glance, and suddenly looked down.
Raskolnikov's pale face became flushed; he cringed all over, as it were; his eyes lit up.
“Mama,” he said, firmly and insistently, “this is Sofya Semyonovna Marmeladov, the daughter of that most unfortunate Mr. Marmeladov who was run over before my eyes yesterday, and about whom I have already spoken with you...”
Pulcheria Alexandrovna looked at Sonya and slightly narrowed her eyes. In spite of her confusion before Rodya's insistent and challenging look, she simply could not deny herself that pleasure. Dunechka stared seriously and fixedly straight in the poor girl's face and gazed at her in perplexity. Hearing the introduction, Sonya tried to raise her eyes, but became even more embarrassed than before.
“I wanted to ask you,” Raskolnikov hastened to address her, “how things worked out with you today. Did you have any trouble?... With the police, for instance?”
“No, sir, everything went all right... It's only too clear what caused his death; we weren't troubled; except that the neighbors are angry.”
“Why?”
“That the body's been there so long...it's hot now; there's a smell...so today, around vespers, they'll carry it over to the cemetery, to the chapel, till tomorrow. Katerina Ivanovna was against it at first, but now she sees herself that it's impossible . . .”
“Today, then?”
“She begs you to do us the honor of attending the funeral service in church tomorrow, and of coming to her afterwards for a memorial meal.”
“She's preparing a meal?”
“Yes, sir, a light one; she told me to thank you very much for your help yesterday...without you we'd have nothing for the funeral.” And her lips and chin suddenly quivered, but she collected herself and overcame her emotion by quickly looking down again.
As they spoke, Raskolnikov studied her closely. She had a thin little face, quite thin and pale, and rather irregular, somehow sharp, with a sharp little nose and chin. She could not even have been called pretty, but her blue eyes were so clear, and when they were animated, the expression of her face became so kind and simple-hearted, that one involuntarily felt drawn to her. There was, besides, a special, characteristic feature of her face and of her whole figure: despite her eighteen years, she looked almost like a little girl, much younger than her age, almost quite a child, and this sometimes even appeared comically in some of her movements.
“But can Katerina Ivanovna manage on such small means, and even plan to have a meal? . . .” Raskolnikov asked, determined to continue the conversation.
“But the coffin will be a simple one, sir...it will all be simple, so it won't cost much...Katerina Ivanovna and I calculated everything so as to have something left for the meal...and Katerina Ivanovna wants very much to have it. One can't really...it's a consolation to her...that's how she is, you know . . .”
73
The Mitrofanievsky Cemetery, established in 1831 during a cholera epidemic, was considered a cemetery for the poor. A meal, called a "memorial meal"