At one point Raskolnikov had wanted to get up and leave, thereby putting an end to the meeting. But a certain curiosity and even calculation, as it were, kept him for the moment.
“Do you enjoy fighting?” he asked distractedly.
“No, not really,” Svidrigailov answered calmly. “And Marfa Petrovna and I hardly ever fought. Our life was quite harmonious, and she always remained pleased with me. In all those seven years I used the whip only twice (unless one counts a third rather ambiguous occasion): the first time was two months after our marriage, just after we came to the estate; and then in this last instance. And you were thinking I was such a monster, a retrograde, a serf-owner? Heh, heh...By the way, you must remember, Rodion Romanovich, how a few years ago, still in the days of beneficent freedom of expression, one of our noblemen was disgraced nationwide and presswide—I've forgotten his name!—he gave a whipping to a German woman on a train, remember? It was then, too, in that same year, I think, that the 'Outrageous Act of The Age' occurred (I mean the Egyptian Nights,the public reading, remember? Those dark eyes! Oh, where have you gone, golden days of our youth!). [86] So, sir, here is my opinion: I feel no deep sympathy for the gentleman who gave a whipping to the German woman, because it's really...well, what is there to sympathize with? But all the same I cannot help declaring that one sometimes runs across such provoking 'German women' that I don't think there's a single progressivist who could vouch for himself entirely. At the time no one looked at the subject from that point, and yet that point is the truly humane one, it really is, sir!”
Having said this, Svidrigailov suddenly laughed again. It was clear to Raskolnikov that this was a man who was firmly set on something, and who kept his own counsel.
“You must not have talked with anyone for several days?” he asked.
“Almost right. And so? You're no doubt surprised that I'm such a congenial man?”
“No, I'm surprised that you're a much too congenial man.”
“Because I was not offended by the rudeness of your questions? Is that it? But...why be offended? As I was asked, so I answered,” he added, with a surprisingly simple-hearted expression. “You see, there's not much that interests me especially, by God!” he went on, somehow pensively. “Especially now, nothing really occupies me...However, you may be permitted to think that I am ingratiating myself with you for some purpose, all the more so in that I have business with your dear sister, as I myself have declared. But I'll tell you frankly: I'm very bored! These last three days especially, so that I was even glad to see you...Don't be angry, Rodion Romanovich, but you yourself seem terribly strange to me for some reason. Like it or not, there's something in you; and precisely now—that is, not this very minute, but now generally...Well, well, I'll stop, I'll stop, don't scowl! I'm really not such a bear as you think.”
Raskolnikov looked at him glumly.
“Perhaps you're not a bear at all,” he said. “It even seems to me that you're of very good society, or can at least be a decent man on occasion.”
“In fact, I'm not particularly interested in anyone's opinion,” Svidrigailov answered dryly and even as if with a shade of haughtiness, “and therefore why not be a vulgar fellow for a while—the attire is so well suited to our climate, and...and especially if that is also one's natural inclination,” he added, laughing again.
“I've heard, however, that you have many acquaintances here. You're what's known as 'not without connections.' In that case what do you need me for, if not for some purpose?”
“It's true, as you say, that I have acquaintances,” Svidrigailov picked up, without responding to the main point. “I've met some already; this is the third day I've been hanging about; I recognize people, and seem to be recognized as well. I'm decently dressed, of course, and am not reckoned a poor man; even the peasant reform didn't touch us: it's all forests and water-meadows, so there was no loss of income, [87] but...I won't go to them; I was sick of it even before: I've been walking around for three days without telling anyone...And then there's this city! I mean, tell me, how did we ever come up with it! A city of functionaries and all sorts of seminarians! Really, there's much that I never noticed before, when I was lolling about here some eight years ago...I now place all my hopes in anatomy, by God!”
“Anatomy?”
“And as for these clubs, these Dussots, these pointesof yours, [88] this progress, if you like—well, it can all do without us,” he went on, again ignoring the question. “Besides, who wants to be a sharper?”
“So you were a sharper, too?”
“What else? There was a whole group of us, a most respectable one, about eight years ago; we whiled the time away; all well-mannered people, you know, poets, capitalists. Generally, in our Russian society, the best-mannered people are those who have been beaten—did you ever notice that? It was on the estate that I started going to seed. Anyway, they put me in prison then, for debt—a little Greek, from Nezhin. And then Marfa Petrovna turned up, bargained a bit, and bought me off for thirty thousand pieces of silver. (I owed seventy thousand all told.) I entered into lawful marriage with her, and she immediately took me home to her estate, like some treasure. She was five years older than I, you see. She loved me very much. For seven years I never left the estate. And, mark this, all her life she kept a document against me, in somebody else's name, for the thirty thousand, so that if I ever decided to rebel at anything—there'd be a trap right there! And she'd have done it! Women can keep all these things together.”
“And if it weren't for the document, you'd have skipped out?”
“I don't know what to say. The document was almost no hindrance to me. I didn't want to go anywhere, though Marfa Petrovna herself even suggested twice that I go abroad, seeing that I was bored. But what for? I used to go abroad, and I always felt sick at heart. Nothing special, really—here's the dawn coming up, here's the Bay of Naples, the sea—you look, and it's somehow sad. The most disgusting thing is that you're always sad about something! No, the fatherland's better; here at least you can blame it all on everyone else and justify yourself. I might go on an expedition to the North Pole now, because j'ai le vin mauvais, [89] drinking disgusts me, and wine is the only thing I have left. I've tried. Listen, they say Berg is going to fly in a huge balloon from the Yusupov Garden on Sunday, and is inviting people to go with him for a certain fee—is it true?” [90]
“Why, would you go and fly?”
“Me? No...I just. . .” Svidrigailov muttered, as if he were indeed reflecting.
“What is he...really...or something?” Raskolnikov thought.
“No, the document was no hindrance to me,” Svidrigailov went on reflectively. “I myself wouldn't leave the estate. And a year ago, on my name-day, Marfa Petrovna handed the document over to me, and gave me a significant sum on top of it. She had a fortune, you know. 'See how I trust you, Arkady Ivanovich'—really, that's what she said. You don't believe she said it? And you know, I got to be quite a manager on the estate; the whole neighborhood knows me. I ordered books. Marfa Petrovna approved at first, but then kept being afraid I'd overstudy.”
86
"Freedom of expression" in Svidrigailov's ironic phrase is
87
After the emancipation of the serfs in 1861, peasants were allotted arable land, which was taken from the landowners; forests and water meadows were not included in such allotments.
88
Dussot owned a famous restaurant in Petersburg frequented by high society.
90
Berg was the owner of amusement attractions in Petersburg. Known as