Fyodor Dostoevsky - Essential Novelists - Fyodor Dostoevsky

He felt strangely attracted by the singing and all the noise and uproar in the saloon below.... someone could be heard within dancing frantically, marking time with his heels to the sounds of the guitar and of a thin falsetto voice singing a jaunty air. He listened intently, gloomily and dreamily, bending down at the entrance and peeping inquisitively in from the pavement.

“Oh, my handsome soldier

Don’t beat me for nothing,”

trilled the thin voice of the singer. Raskolnikov felt a great desire to make out what he was singing, as though everything depended on that.

“Shall I go in?” he thought. “They are laughing. From drink. Shall I get drunk?”

“Won’t you come in?” one of the women asked him. Her voice was still musical and less thick than the others, she was young and not repulsive—the only one of the group.

“Why, she’s pretty,” he said, drawing himself up and looking at her.

She smiled, much pleased at the compliment.

“You’re very nice looking yourself,” she said.

“Isn’t he thin though!” observed another woman in a deep bass. “Have you just come out of a hospital?”

“They’re all generals’ daughters, it seems, but they have all snub noses,” interposed a tipsy peasant with a sly smile on his face, wearing a loose coat. “See how jolly they are.”

“Go along with you!”

“I’ll go, sweetie!”

And he darted down into the saloon below. Raskolnikov moved on.

“I say, sir,” the girl shouted after him.

“What is it?”

She hesitated.

“I’ll always be pleased to spend an hour with you, kind gentleman, but now I feel shy. Give me six copecks for a drink, there’s a nice young man!”

Raskolnikov gave her what came first—fifteen copecks.

“Ah, what a good-natured gentleman!”

“What’s your name?”

“Ask for Duclida.”

“Well, that’s too much,” one of the women observed, shaking her head at Duclida. “I don’t know how you can ask like that. I believe I should drop with shame....”

Raskolnikov looked curiously at the speaker. She was a pock-marked wench of thirty, covered with bruises, with her upper lip swollen. She made her criticism quietly and earnestly. “Where is it,” thought Raskolnikov. “Where is it I’ve read that someone condemned to death says or thinks, an hour before his death, that if he had to live on some high rock, on such a narrow ledge that he’d only room to stand, and the ocean, everlasting darkness, everlasting solitude, everlasting tempest around him, if he had to remain standing on a square yard of space all his life, a thousand years, eternity, it were better to live so than to die at once! Only to live, to live and live! Life, whatever it may be!... How true it is! Good God, how true! Man is a vile creature!... And vile is he who calls him vile for that,” he added a moment later.

He went into another street. “Bah, the Palais de Cristal! Razumihin was just talking of the Palais de Cristal. But what on earth was it I wanted? Yes, the newspapers.... Zossimov said he’d read it in the papers. Have you the papers?” he asked, going into a very spacious and positively clean restaurant, consisting of several rooms, which were, however, rather empty. Two or three people were drinking tea, and in a room further away were sitting four men drinking champagne. Raskolnikov fancied that Zametov was one of them, but he could not be sure at that distance. “What if it is?” he thought.

“Will you have vodka?” asked the waiter.

“Give me some tea and bring me the papers, the old ones for the last five days, and I’ll give you something.”

“Yes, sir, here’s to-day’s. No vodka?”

The old newspapers and the tea were brought. Raskolnikov sat down and began to look through them.

“Oh, damn... these are the items of intelligence. An accident on a staircase, spontaneous combustion of a shopkeeper from alcohol, a fire in Peski... a fire in the Petersburg quarter... another fire in the Petersburg quarter... and another fire in the Petersburg quarter.... Ah, here it is!” He found at last what he was seeking and began to read it. The lines danced before his eyes, but he read it all and began eagerly seeking later additions in the following numbers. His hands shook with nervous impatience as he turned the sheets. Suddenly someone sat down beside him at his table. He looked up, it was the head clerk Zametov, looking just the same, with the rings on his fingers and the watch-chain, with the curly, black hair, parted and pomaded, with the smart waistcoat, rather shabby coat and doubtful linen. He was in a good humour, at least he was smiling very gaily and good-humouredly. His dark face was rather flushed from the champagne he had drunk.

“What, you here?” he began in surprise, speaking as though he’d known him all his life. “Why, Razumihin told me only yesterday you were unconscious. How strange! And do you know I’ve been to see you?”

Raskolnikov knew he would come up to him. He laid aside the papers and turned to Zametov. There was a smile on his lips, and a new shade of irritable impatience was apparent in that smile.

“I know you have,” he answered. “I’ve heard it. You looked for my sock.... And you know Razumihin has lost his heart to you? He says you’ve been with him to Luise Ivanovna’s—you know, the woman you tried to befriend, for whom you winked to the Explosive Lieutenant and he would not understand. Do you remember? How could he fail to understand—it was quite clear, wasn’t it?”

“What a hot head he is!”

“The explosive one?”

“No, your friend Razumihin.”

“You must have a jolly life, Mr. Zametov; entrance free to the most agreeable places. Who’s been pouring champagne into you just now?”

“We’ve just been... having a drink together.... You talk about pouring it into me!”

“By way of a fee! You profit by everything!” Raskolnikov laughed, “it’s all right, my dear boy,” he added, slapping Zametov on the shoulder. “I am not speaking from temper, but in a friendly way, for sport, as that workman of yours said when he was scuffling with Dmitri, in the case of the old woman....”

“How do you know about it?”

“Perhaps I know more about it than you do.”

“How strange you are.... I am sure you are still very unwell. You oughtn’t to have come out.”

“Oh, do I seem strange to you?”

“Yes. What are you doing, reading the papers?”

“Yes.”

“There’s a lot about the fires.”

“No, I am not reading about the fires.” Here he looked mysteriously at Zametov; his lips were twisted again in a mocking smile. “No, I am not reading about the fires,” he went on, winking at Zametov. “But confess now, my dear fellow, you’re awfully anxious to know what I am reading about?”

“I am not in the least. Mayn’t I ask a question? Why do you keep on...?”

“Listen, you are a man of culture and education?”

“I was in the sixth class at the gymnasium,” said Zametov with some dignity.

“Sixth class! Ah, my cock-sparrow! With your parting and your rings—you are a gentleman of fortune. Foo! what a charming boy!” Here Raskolnikov broke into a nervous laugh right in Zametov’s face. The latter drew back, more amazed than offended.

“Foo! how strange you are!” Zametov repeated very seriously. “I can’t help thinking you are still delirious.”

“I am delirious? You are fibbing, my cock-sparrow! So I am strange? You find me curious, do you?”

“Yes, curious.”

“Shall I tell you what I was reading about, what I was looking for? See what a lot of papers I’ve made them bring me. Suspicious, eh?”

“Well, what is it?”

“You prick up your ears?”