Existentialism
Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821 - 1881)
Crime and Punishment
translated by Constance Garnett |
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Chapter One
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ON AN exceptionally
hot evening early in July a young man came out
of the garret in
which he lodged in S. Place and walked slowly, as
though in hesitation,
towards K. bridge.
He had successfully
avoided meeting his landlady on the staircase.
His garret was
under the roof of a high, five-storied house and was
more like a cupboard
than a room. The landlady who provided him with
garret, dinners,
and attendance, lived on the floor below, and every
time he went out
he was obliged to pass her kitchen, the door of which
invariably stood
open. And each time he passed, the young man had a
sick, frightened
feeling, which made him scowl and feel ashamed. He
was hopelessly
in debt to his landlady, and was afraid of meeting her.
This was not because
he was cowardly and abject, quite the contrary;
but for some time
past he had been in an overstrained irritable
condition, verging
on hypochondria. He had become so completely
absorbed in himself,
and isolated from his fellows that he dreaded
meeting, not only
his landlady, but any one at all. He was crushed
by poverty, but
the anxieties of his position had of late ceased to
weigh upon him.
He had given up attending to matters of practical
importance; he
had lost all desire to do so. Nothing that any landlady
could do had a
real terror for him. But to be stopped on the stairs,
to be forced to
listen to her trivial, irrelevant gossip, to pestering
demands for payment,
threats and complaints, and to rack his brains
for excuses, to
prevaricate, to lie- no, rather than that, he would
creep down the
stairs like a cat and slip out unseen.
This evening,
however, on coming out into the street, he became
acutely aware of
his fears.
"I want to
attempt a thing like that and am frightened by these
trifles,"
he thought, with an odd smile. "Hm... yes, all is in a man's
hands and he lets
it all slip from cowardice, that's an axiom. It
would be interesting
to know what it is men are most afraid of. Taking
a new step, uttering
a new word is what they fear most.... But I am
talking too much.
It's because I chatter that I do nothing. Or perhaps
it is that I chatter
because I do nothing. I've learned to chatter
this last month,
lying for days together in my den thinking... of Jack
the Giant-killer.
Why am I going there now? Am I capable of that? Is
that serious? It
is not serious at all. It's simply a fantasy to amuse
myself; a plaything!
Yes, maybe it is a plaything."
The heat in the
street was terrible: and the airlessness, the bustle
and the plaster,
scaffolding, bricks, and dust all about him, and that
special Petersburg
stench, so familiar to all who are unable to get
out of town in
summer- all worked painfully upon the young man's
already overwrought
nerves. The insufferable stench from the
pot-houses, which
are particularly numerous in that part of the
town, and the drunken
men whom he met continually, although it was a
working day, completed
the revolting misery of the picture. An
expression of the
profoundest disgust gleamed for a moment in the
young man's refined
face. He was, by the way, exceptionally
handsome, above
the average in height, slim, well-built, with
beautiful dark
eyes and dark brown hair. Soon he sank into deep
thought, or more
accurately speaking into a complete blankness of
mind; he walked
along not observing what was about him and not
caring to observe
it. From time to time, he would mutter something,
from the habit
of talking to himself, to which he had just
confessed. At these
moments he would become conscious that his ideas
were sometimes
in a tangle and that he was very weak; for two days
he had scarcely
tasted food.
He was so badly
dressed that even a man accustomed to shabbiness
would have been
ashamed to be seen in the street in such rags. In that
quarter of the
town, however, scarcely any shortcoming in dress
would have created
surprise. Owing to the proximity of the Hay Market,
the number of establishments
of bad character, the preponderance of
the trading and
working class population crowded in these streets
and alleys in the
heart of Petersburg, types so various were to be
seen in the streets
that no figure, however queer, would have caused
surprise. But there
was such accumulated bitterness and contempt in
the young man's
heart, that, in spite of all the fastidiousness of
youth, he minded
his rags least of all in the street. It was a
different matter
when he met with acquaintances or with former
fellow students,
whom, indeed, he disliked meeting at any time. And
yet when a drunken
man who, for some unknown reason, was being taken
somewhere in a
huge waggon dragged by a heavy dray horse, suddenly
shouted at him
as he drove past: "Hey there, German hatter" bawling at
the top of his
voice and pointing at him- the young man stopped
suddenly and clutched
tremulously at his hat. It was a tall round
hat from Zimmerman's,
but completely worn out, rusty with age, all
torn and bespattered,
brimless and bent on one side in a most unseemly
fashion. Not shame,
however, but quite another feeling akin to
terror had overtaken
him.
"I knew it,"
he muttered in confusion, "I thought so! That's the
worst of all! Why,
a stupid thing like this, the most trivial detail
might spoil the
whole plan. Yes, my hat is too noticeable.... It looks
absurd and that
makes it noticeable.... With my rags I ought to wear a
cap, any sort of
old pancake, but not this grotesque thing. Nobody
wears such a hat,
it would be noticed a mile off, it would be
remembered....
What matters is that people would remember it, and that
would give them
a clue. For this business one should be as little
conspicuous as
possible.... Trifles, trifles are what matter! Why,
it's just such
trifles that always ruin everything...."
He had not far
to go; he knew indeed how many steps it was from
the gate of his
lodging house: exactly seven hundred and thirty. He
had counted them
once when he had been lost in dreams. At the time
he had put no faith
in those dreams and was only tantalising himself
by their hideous
but daring recklessness. Now, a month later, he had
begun to look upon
them differently, and, in spite of the monologues
in which he jeered
at his own impotence and indecision, he had
involuntarily come
to regard this "hideous" dream as an exploit to
be attempted, although
he still did not realise this himself. He was
positively going
now for a "rehearsal" of his project, and at every
step his excitement
grew more and more violent.
With a sinking
heart and a nervous tremor, he went up to a huge
house which on
one side looked on to the canal, and on the other
into the street.
This house was let out in tiny tenements and was
inhabited by working
people of all kinds- tailors, locksmiths,
cooks, Germans
of sorts, girls picking up a living as best they could,
petty clerks, &c.
There was a continual coming and going through the
two gates and in
the two courtyards of the house. Three or four
door-keepers were
employed on the building. The young man was very
glad to meet none
of them, and at once slipped unnoticed through the
door on the right,
and up the staircase. It was a back staircase, dark
and narrow, but
he was familiar with it already, and knew his way, and
he liked all these
surroundings: in such darkness even the most
inquisitive eyes
were not to be dreaded.
"If I am
so scared now, what would it be if it somehow came to
pass that I were
really going to do it?" he could not help asking
himself as he reached
the fourth storey. There his progress was barred
by some porters
who were engaged in moving furniture out of a flat. He
knew that the flat
had been occupied by a German clerk in the civil
service, and his
family. This German was moving out then, and so the
fourth floor on
this staircase would be untenanted except by the old
woman. "That's
a good thing anyway," he thought to himself, as he rang
the bell of the
old woman's flat. The bell gave a faint tinkle as
though it were
made of tin and not of copper. The little flats in such
houses always have
bells that ring like that. He had forgotten the
note of that bell,
and now its peculiar tinkle seemed to remind him of
something and to
bring it clearly before him.... He started, his
nerves were terribly
overstrained by now. In a little while, the
door was opened
a tiny crack: the old woman eyed her visitor with
evident distrust
through the crack, and nothing could be seen but
her little eyes,
glittering in the darkness. But, seeing a number of
people on the landing,
she grew bolder, and opened the door wide.
The young man stepped
into the dark entry, which was partitioned off
from the tiny kitchen.
The old woman stood facing him in silence and
looking inquiringly
at him. She was a diminutive, withered up old
woman of sixty,
with sharp malignant eyes and a sharp little nose. Her
colourless, somewhat
grizzled hair was thickly smeared with oil, and
she wore no kerchief
over it. Round her thin long neck, which looked
like a hen's leg,
was knotted some sort of flannel rag, and, in
spite of the heat,
there hung flapping on her shoulders, a mangy fur
cape, yellow with
age. The old woman coughed and groaned at every
instant. The young
man must have looked at her with a rather
peculiar expression,
for a gleam of mistrust came into her eyes again.
"Raskolnikov,
a student, I came here a month ago," the young man
made haste to mutter,
with a half bow, remembering that he ought to be
more polite.
"I remember,
my good sir, I remember quite well your coming here,"
the old woman said
distinctly, still keeping her inquiring eyes on his
face.
"And here...
I am again on the same errand," Raskolnikov
continued, a little
disconcerted and surprised at the old woman's
mistrust. "Perhaps
she is always like that though, only I did not
notice it the other
time," he thought with an uneasy feeling.
The old woman
paused, as though hesitating; then stepped on one
side, and pointing
to the door of the room, she said, letting her
visitor pass in
front of her:
"Step in,
my good sir."
The little room
into which the young man walked, with yellow paper
on the walls, geraniums
and muslin curtains in the windows, was
brightly lighted
up at that moment by the setting sun.
"So the sun
will shine like this then too!" flashed as it were by
chance through
Raskolnikov's mind, and with a rapid glance he
scanned everything
in the room, trying as far as possible to notice
and remember its
arrangement. But there was nothing special in the
room. The furniture,
all very old and of yellow wood, consisted of a
sofa with a huge
bent wooden back, an oval table in front of the sofa,
a dressing-table
with a looking-glass fixed on it between the windows,
chairs along the
walls and two or three half-penny prints in yellow
frames, representing
German damsels with birds in their hands- that
was all. In the
corner a light was burning before a small ikon.
Everything was
very clean; the floor and the furniture were brightly
polished; everything
shone.
"Lizaveta's
work," thought the young man. There was not a speck of
dust to be seen
in the whole flat.
"It's in
the houses of spiteful old widows that one finds such
cleanliness,"
Raskolnikov thought again, and he stole a curious glance
at the cotton curtain
over the door leading into another tiny room, in
which stood the
old woman's bed and chest of drawers and into which he
had never looked
before. These two rooms made up the whole flat.
"What do
you want?" the old woman said severely, coming into the
room and, as before,
standing in front of him so as to look him
straight in the
face.
"I've brought
something to pawn here," and he drew out of his pocket
an old-fashioned
flat silver watch, on the back of which was
engraved a globe;
the chain was of steel.
"But the
time is up for your last pledge. The month was up the day
before yesterday."
"I will bring
you the interest for another month; wait a little."
"But that's
for me to do as I please, my good sir, to wait or to
sell your pledge
at once."
"How much
will you give me for the watch, Alyona Ivanovna?"
"You come
with such trifles, my good sir, it's scarcely worth
anything. I gave
you two roubles last time for your ring and one could
buy it quite new
at a jeweler's for a rouble and a half."
"Give me
four roubles for it, I shall redeem it, it was my father's.
I shall be getting
some money soon."
"A rouble
and a half, and interest in advance, if you like!"
"A rouble
and a half!" cried the young man.
"Please yourself"-
and the old woman handed him back the watch.
The young man took
it, and was so angry that he was on the point of
going away; but
checked himself at once, remembering that there was
nowhere else he
could go, and that he had had another object also in
coming.
"Hand it
over," he said roughly.
The old woman
fumbled in her pocket for her keys, and disappeared
behind the curtain
into the other room. The young man, left standing
alone in the middle
of the room, listened inquisitively, thinking.
He could hear her
unlocking the chest of drawers.
"It must
be the top drawer," he reflected. "So she carries the
keys in a pocket
on the right. All in one bunch on a steel ring....
And there's one
key there, three times as big as all the others,
with deep notches;
that can't be the key of the chest of drawers...
then there must
be some other chest or strong-box... that's worth
knowing. Strong-boxes
always have keys like that... but how
degrading it all
is."
The old woman
came back.
"Here, sir:
as we say ten copecks the rouble a month, so I must take
fifteen copecks
from a rouble and a half for the month in advance. But
for the two roubles
I lent you before, you owe me now twenty copecks
on the same reckoning
in advance. That makes thirty-five copecks
altogether. So
I must give you a rouble and fifteen copecks for the
watch. Here it
is."
"What! only
a rouble and fifteen copecks now!"
"Just so."
The young man
did not dispute it and took the money. He looked at
the old woman,
and was in no hurry to get away, as though there was
still something
he wanted to say or to do, but he did not himself
quite know what.
"I may be
bringing you something else in a day or two, Alyona
Ivanovna- a valuable
thing- silver- a cigarette box, as soon as I
get it back from
a friend..." he broke off in confusion.
"Well, we
will talk about it then, sir."
"Good-bye-
are you always at home alone, your sister is not here
with you?"
He asked her as casually as possible as he went out into
the passage.
"What business
is she of yours, my good sir?"
"Oh, nothing
particular, I simply asked. You are too quick....
Good-day, Alyona
Ivanovna."
Raskolnikov went
out in complete confusion. This confusion became
more and more intense.
As he went down the stairs, he even stopped
short, two or three
times, as though suddenly struck by some
thought. When he
was in the street he cried out, "Oh, God, how
loathsome it all
is! and can I, can I possibly.... No, it's
nonsense, it's
rubbish!" he added resolutely. "And how could such an
atrocious thing
come into my head? What filthy things my heart is
capable of. Yes,
filthy above all, disgusting, loathsome,
loathsome!- and
for a whole month I've been...." But no words, no
exclamations, could
express his agitation. The feeling of intense
repulsion, which
had begun to oppress and torture his heart while he
was on his way
to the old woman, had by now reached such a pitch and
had taken such
a definite form that he did not know what to do with
himself to escape
from his wretchedness. He walked along the
pavement like a
drunken man, regardless of the passers-by, and
jostling against
them, and only came to his senses when he was in
the next street.
Looking round, he noticed that he was standing
close to a tavern
which was entered by steps leading from the pavement
to the basement.
At that instant two drunken men came out at the door,
and abusing and
supporting one another, they mounted the steps.
Without stopping
to think, Raskolnikov went down the steps at once.
Till that moment
he had never been into a tavern, but now he felt
giddy and was tormented
by a burning thirst. He longed for a drink
of cold beer, and
attributed his sudden weakness to the want of
food. He sat down
at a sticky little table in a dark and dirty corner;
ordered some beer,
and eagerly drank off the first glassful. At once
he felt easier;
and his thoughts became clear.
"All that's
nonsense," he said hopefully, "and there is nothing in
it all to worry
about! It's simply physical derangement. Just a
glass of beer,
a piece of dry bread- and in one moment the brain is
stronger, the mind
is clearer and the will is firm! Phew, how
utterly petty it
all is!"
But in spite of
this scornful reflection, he was by now looking
cheerful as though
he were suddenly set free from a terrible burden:
and he gazed round
in a friendly way at the people in the room. But
even at that moment
he had a dim foreboding that this happier frame of
mind was also not
normal.
There were few
people at the time in the tavern. Besides the two
drunken men he
had met on the steps, a group consisting of about
five men and a
girl with a concertina had gone out at the same time.
Their departure
left the room quiet and rather empty. The persons
still in the tavern
were a man who appeared to be an artisan, drunk,
but not extremely
so, sitting before a pot of beer, and his companion,
a huge, stout man
with a grey beard, in a short full-skirted coat.
He was very drunk:
and had dropped asleep on the bench; every now
and then, he began
as though in his sleep, cracking his fingers,
with his arms wide
apart and the upper part of his body bounding about
on the bench, while
he hummed some meaningless refrain, trying to
recall some such
lines as these:
-
"His wife
a year he fondly loved
His wife a- a
year he- fondly loved."
-
Or suddenly waking
up again:
-
"Walking
along the crowded row
He met the one
he used to know."
-
But no one shared
his enjoyment: his silent companion looked with
positive hostility
and mistrust at all these manifestations. There was
another man in
the room who looked somewhat like a retired
government clerk.
He was sitting apart, now and then sipping from
his pot and looking
round at the company. He, too, appeared to be in
some agitation.
Ce
qu'on fait n'est jamais compris mais seulement loué ou blâmé.
Nietzsche, Gay Science |
