第27章 共41章

I

The morning that followed the explanation, so fatal for Pyotr Petrovich, with Dunechka and Pulcheria Alexandrovna, brought its sobering effect upon Pyotr Petrovich as well. To his very great annoyance, he was compelled little by little to accept as an accomplished and irrevocable fact that which only yesterday had seemed to him an occurrence almost fantastical—one which, though it had indeed come to pass, still appeared, as it were, impossible. All night long the black serpent of wounded vanity had gnawed at his heart. Rising from his bed, Pyotr Petrovich at once looked at himself in the glass. He feared lest his bile had risen overnight. On that score, however, all was as yet well, and, gazing upon his noble, white countenance, of late grown somewhat fleshy, Pyotr Petrovich even took comfort for a moment, in the fullest conviction that he could find himself a bride somewhere else, and perhaps a finer one at that; but he came to his senses at once and spat energetically to one side, which drew a silent but sarcastic smile from his young friend and housemate, Andrei Semyonovich Lebezyatnikov. This smile Pyotr Petrovich noted, and promptly set it down to his young friend's account. He had already, of late, set a good deal down to his account. His spite was redoubled when he suddenly reflected that he ought not to have informed Andrei Semyonovich the day before of yesterday's results. That had been the second blunder of the previous day, made in the heat of the moment, out of excessive expansiveness, in his irritation… Then, throughout that whole morning, as if by design, one unpleasantness followed upon another. Even at the Senate there awaited him some setback in a matter he was pressing there. His landlord in particular exasperated him: the flat had been leased with a view to a speedy marriage and was being done up at his own expense, and this landlord—some German artisan who had grown rich—would on no account agree to break the contract just concluded, and demanded the full forfeit stipulated therein, notwithstanding that Pyotr Petrovich was returning the flat to him practically done up anew. In just the same way, at the furniture shop they would on no account return a single rouble of the deposit for furniture that had been bought but not yet moved into the flat. "It's not as if I were marrying for the sake of the furniture!" Pyotr Petrovich ground his teeth to himself, while at the same time a desperate hope flickered in him once more: "Can it be that everything is really so hopelessly lost and finished? Can it be there is no trying once more?" The thought of Dunechka pricked his heart alluringly again. In torment he bore that moment, and, to be sure, if it had been possible then and there, by a mere wish, to strike Raskolnikov dead, Pyotr Petrovich would have uttered that wish on the instant.

"My mistake, besides, was in giving them no money at all," he thought, returning ruefully to Lebezyatnikov's cubbyhole, "and why the devil did I turn such a skinflint? There wasn't even any calculation in it! I meant to keep them on short commons and bring them to look upon me as their providence, and here they've gone and… Faugh!… No, if I'd handed out to them during all this time, say, some fifteen hundred for the trousseau, and for presents, for various little boxes, dressing-cases, cornelians, dress-fabrics and all that rubbish from Knop's and the English shop, then things would have stood cleaner and… firmer! It wouldn't have been so easy for them to refuse me now! They're the sort of people who would infallibly have deemed it their duty, in case of a refusal, to return both the presents and the money; and returning it would have come hard, and been a pity! Their consciences would have pricked them too: how, they'd have thought, to dismiss all of a sudden a man who had been so generous hitherto, and so delicate withal?.. Hm! I let slip my chance!" And, grinding his teeth once more, Pyotr Petrovich there and then called himself a fool—to himself, of course.

Having arrived at this conclusion, he came home twice as spiteful and irritable as when he had gone out. The preparations for the memorial dinner in Katerina Ivanovna's room drew his curiosity in part. He had heard something of this dinner even the day before; he even remembered that he had, as it were, been invited too; but amid his own cares he had let all the rest pass unheeded. Hastening to inquire of Madame Lippewechsel, who was bustling about the table being laid in the absence of Katerina Ivanovna (who was at the cemetery), he learned that the dinner was to be a grand affair, that nearly all the lodgers had been invited, among them even some who had never known the deceased, that even Andrei Semyonovich Lebezyatnikov had been invited despite his former quarrel with Katerina Ivanovna, and, finally, that he himself, Pyotr Petrovich, was not merely invited but was even awaited with great impatience, being almost the most important guest of all the lodgers. Amalia Ivanovna herself had also been invited with great honor, notwithstanding all the past unpleasantnesses, and so she was now playing hostess and bustling about, almost taking a delight in it; and, moreover, she was decked out from head to foot—in mourning, true, but all of it new, all silken, in her very best finery, and she took pride in it. All these facts and particulars gave Pyotr Petrovich a certain idea, and he went into his own room—that is, into the room of Andrei Semyonovich Lebezyatnikov—in some thoughtfulness. The thing was, he had also learned that among those invited was Raskolnikov.

Andrei Semyonovich had, for some reason, stayed at home all that morning. Between this gentleman and Pyotr Petrovich there had come to be established a certain strange—though, indeed, in part quite natural—relationship: Pyotr Petrovich despised and hated him beyond all measure, almost from the very day he had taken up quarters with him, yet at the same time he seemed somewhat to fear him. He had put up with him on his arrival in Petersburg not out of niggardly economy alone—though that was almost the chief reason—but there was another reason too. Even in the provinces he had heard of Andrei Semyonovich, his former ward, as one of the most advanced of the young progressives, and even as one who played a considerable part in certain curious and legendary circles. This had struck Pyotr Petrovich. It was precisely these mighty, all-knowing, all-despising, all-denouncing circles that had long frightened Pyotr Petrovich with a peculiar dread, one that was, however, altogether vague. Naturally he himself, and in the provinces at that, could form no exact notion of anything of the sort, even approximately. He had heard, like everyone, that there existed, especially in Petersburg, certain progressives, nihilists, exposers, and so on, and so forth; but, like many others, he exaggerated and distorted the sense and significance of these names to the point of absurdity. Above all, for several years now, he had feared exposure, and this was the chief ground of his constant, exaggerated uneasiness, particularly when he dreamed of transferring his activities to Petersburg. In this respect he was, as they say, scared, as little children are sometimes scared. Some years before, in the provinces, when he was only just beginning to arrange his career, he had come upon two instances of provincial personages of some importance, to whom he had until then clung and who had been his patrons, being cruelly exposed. One instance had ended for the exposed personage in some peculiarly scandalous fashion, and the other had come within a hair's breadth of ending in a most troublesome way indeed. That was why Pyotr Petrovich had resolved, on arriving in Petersburg, to find out at once how the land lay, and, if need be, just in case, to run on ahead and ingratiate himself with "our younger generations." In this he counted on Andrei Semyonovich, and by the time of his visit to Raskolnikov, for instance, he had already learned after a fashion to round off certain phrases picked up from others…

Of course, he had quickly succeeded in discerning in Andrei Semyonovich an exceedingly vulgar and simple-minded man. But this in no way undeceived or reassured Pyotr Petrovich. Even had he been persuaded that all the progressives were just such little fools, his uneasiness would not have subsided all the same. All these teachings, ideas, and systems (with which Andrei Semyonovich fairly hurled himself upon him) were, properly speaking, no concern of his. He had his own aim. All he needed was to find out quickly and at once: what and how had things come to pass here? Were these people in power or were they not? Was there anything for him personally to fear, or not? Would he be exposed if he undertook such-and-such, or would he not? And if exposed, then for what precisely, and for what were people being exposed just now? What was more: might it not somehow be possible to ingratiate himself with them and, at the same time, to dupe them, should they indeed prove strong? Was that necessary or not? Might one not, for instance, contrive to advance one's career through their very agency? In short, there confronted him hundreds of questions.

This Andrei Semyonovich was an anemic, scrofulous little man, of small stature, employed in some office or other, oddly flaxen-haired, with side-whiskers shaped like mutton-chops, of which he was very proud. Moreover, his eyes ached almost incessantly. His heart was fairly soft, but his speech was most self-assured, and at times exceedingly overbearing withal—which, by contrast with his diminutive figure, nearly always came out ludicrous. With Amalia Ivanovna, however, he was reckoned among the fairly honorable lodgers—that is, he did not drink and he paid his rent regularly. Despite all these qualities, Andrei Semyonovich was in truth rather stupid. He had attached himself to progress and to "our younger generations"—out of infatuation. He was one of that innumerable and multifarious legion of vulgarians, sickly little half-wits, and petty tyrants who have half-learned everything, who fasten in an instant upon whatever idea is most fashionably in vogue, only to vulgarize it on the spot, to make an instant caricature of everything to which they sometimes, in all sincerity, devote themselves.

For all that, Lebezyatnikov, in spite of being very good-natured, was also beginning in part to find his housemate and former guardian Pyotr Petrovich intolerable. This had come about on both sides somehow inadvertently and mutually. Simple as Andrei Semyonovich was, he had nonetheless begun little by little to perceive that Pyotr Petrovich was hoodwinking him and secretly despised him, and that "the man was not at all what he seemed." He had tried expounding to him the system of Fourier and the theory of Darwin, but Pyotr Petrovich, especially of late, had taken to listening somehow all too sarcastically, and of very late had even taken to abusing him. The fact was that, by instinct, he was beginning to fathom that Lebezyatnikov was not merely a vulgar and rather stupid little man, but perhaps a bit of a liar too, and that he had no connections of any significance even in his own circle, but had only heard things at third hand; nay, more: that perhaps he did not even properly understand his own business of propaganda, for he got too muddled about it—and small chance he had of being an exposer! Let us note in passing that Pyotr Petrovich, during these week and a half, had willingly accepted (especially at first) even the strangest praises from Andrei Semyonovich—that is, he had not objected, for instance, and had held his tongue, when Andrei Semyonovich ascribed to him a readiness to further the future and speedy establishment of a new "commune" somewhere on Meshchanskaya Street; or, for example, not to hinder Dunechka, should it enter her head, with the very first month of marriage, to take a lover; or not to have his future children baptized, and so on, and so forth—all in that vein. Pyotr Petrovich, after his custom, made no objection to such qualities being ascribed to him, and allowed himself to be praised even in this fashion—so agreeable to him was any praise whatever.

Pyotr Petrovich, having for certain reasons cashed several five-per-cent bonds that morning, sat at the table counting over the packets of banknotes and coupon-bonds. Andrei Semyonovich, who scarcely ever had any money, walked about the room affecting to himself an air of looking upon all these packets with indifference, even with disdain. Pyotr Petrovich, for one, would on no account have believed that Andrei Semyonovich could really look upon such money with indifference; and Andrei Semyonovich, for his part, reflected bitterly that Pyotr Petrovich might indeed be capable of thinking so of him, and, what was more, was probably glad of the chance to tickle and tease his young friend with the packets of banknotes spread out before him, reminding him of his nonentity and of the whole difference supposed to exist between the two of them.

This time he found him irritable and inattentive to an unprecedented degree, notwithstanding that he, Andrei Semyonovich, had set about developing before him his favorite theme of the founding of a new, special "commune." The brief objections and remarks that escaped Pyotr Petrovich in the intervals between the clicking of the counters on his abacus breathed the most manifest and deliberately discourteous mockery. But the "humane" Andrei Semyonovich ascribed Pyotr Petrovich's frame of mind to the impression of yesterday's rupture with Dunechka, and burned with the desire to broach that theme without delay: he had something of a progressive and propagandist nature to say on that score, something that might comfort his esteemed friend and "unquestionably" prove beneficial to his further development.

"What's this memorial dinner they're getting up there at that… at the widow's?" Pyotr Petrovich asked suddenly, breaking in on Andrei Semyonovich at the most interesting point.

"As if you didn't know; why, I was talking with you on this very subject only yesterday, and developing my notion of all these rites… And she invited you too, I heard. You yourself were speaking with her yesterday…"

"I never expected that beggarly fool would fling away on a memorial dinner all the money she got from that other fool… Raskolnikov. I was quite astonished just now, passing by: such preparations, such wines!.. Several people asked—devil knows what to make of it!" Pyotr Petrovich went on, questioning and steering the conversation as if with some purpose. "What? You say I was invited too?" he added suddenly, raising his head. "When was that? I don't recollect it, sir. However, I shan't go. What have I to do there? I only spoke with her yesterday, in passing, about the possibility of her obtaining, as the destitute widow of an official, a year's salary in the form of a lump-sum relief. Is it perhaps for that she invites me? Heh, heh!"

"I don't intend to go either," said Lebezyatnikov.

"I should think not! You gave her a thrashing with your own hands. No wonder you're ashamed, heh, heh, heh!"

"Who thrashed her? Whom?" Lebezyatnikov burst out, all in a flutter, and even flushed.

"Why, you did—Katerina Ivanovna, about a month ago, wasn't it! I heard of it, sir, only yesterday, sir… So that's what your convictions come to!.. And the woman question came to grief too. Heh, heh, heh!"

And Pyotr Petrovich, as if comforted, set to clicking his abacus again.

"That's all nonsense and slander!" flared up Lebezyatnikov, who was forever unnerved by any reminder of that affair. "And it wasn't like that at all! It was something quite different… You heard it wrong; it's mere gossip! I was simply defending myself at the time. She was the one who first flew at me with her claws… She plucked out one whole side of my whiskers… Every man is entitled, I hope, to defend his own person. Besides, I will let no one use violence against me… On principle. Because that would be all but despotism. What was I to do—stand there before her and take it? I merely pushed her away."

"Heh, heh, heh!" Luzhin went on, sniggering spitefully.

"You keep needling me because you're out of sorts yourself and in a temper… But that's rubbish, and it has nothing, nothing whatever to do with the woman question! You've got it all wrong; I even thought at the time that if it is granted that a woman is the equal of a man in everything, even in strength (as some already maintain), then there ought to be equality here too. Of course, I reasoned afterward that, in essence, no such question should even arise, since fighting itself should not exist, and that instances of fighting are inconceivable in the society of the future… and that it is odd, of course, to seek equality in a fistfight. I'm not that stupid… though fighting does exist, to be sure… that is, later it won't, but for the present it still does… ugh! the devil! With you a man loses the thread! It's not because of that unpleasantness that I won't go to the memorial dinner. I simply won't go on principle, so as not to take part in the vile prejudice of memorial dinners, that's what! Though, as a matter of fact, one might go, just to have a good laugh… A pity there won't be any priests. Otherwise I'd certainly go."

"That is to say, sit down at another man's board and salt, and then spit upon it there and then—and upon those who invited you into the bargain. Is that it?"

"Not spit upon it at all, but protest. I'd do it with a useful aim. I can indirectly further development and propaganda. Every man is bound to develop and to propagandize, and perhaps the sharper the better. I can plant an idea, a seed… And out of that seed a fact will grow. How am I offending them? At first they'll take offense, but afterward they'll see for themselves that I've done them a service. Take Terebyeva, whom they were accusing among us (she's in a commune now)—when she left her family and… gave herself, she wrote to her mother and father that she did not wish to live amid prejudices and was entering into a civil union, and they said, if you please, that it was too crude, toward her parents, that she might have spared them and written more gently. To my mind that's all nonsense, and there's no need to be gentle at all; on the contrary, on the contrary, that's the very moment to protest. Look at Varents—she lived seven years with her husband, abandoned her two children, and cut her husband off flat in a letter: 'I have come to realize that I cannot be happy with you. I shall never forgive you for having deceived me by concealing from me that another organization of society exists, by means of communes. I learned all this recently from a magnanimous man, to whom I have given myself, and together with him I am founding a commune. I speak plainly, because I consider it dishonorable to deceive you. Remain as you please. Do not hope to win me back; you are too late. I wish you happiness.' That's how such letters are written!"

"And this Terebyeva—is she the very one you told us was in her third civil union?"

"Only her second, if you judge it properly! But even were it her fourth, even her fifteenth, it's all nonsense! And if I ever regretted that my father and mother were dead, it's now, of course. I've even dreamed several times that, had they still been living, how I would have singed them with a protest! I'd have arranged things on purpose… What's all that talk of a 'chip off the old block,' pah! I'd have shown them! I'd have astonished them! Really, it's a pity there's no one!"

"To astonish, eh? Heh, heh! Well, that may be as you please," Pyotr Petrovich interrupted, "but here—tell me this: you're acquainted with that daughter of the deceased, the thin little thing! Is it perfectly true what they say about her, eh?"

"What of it? To my mind—that is, by my personal conviction—that is a woman's most normal condition. Why not? That is, distinguons. In present-day society it is, of course, not entirely normal, being compelled; but in the society to come it will be perfectly normal, being free. And even now she had the right: she was suffering, and that was her fund, so to speak her capital, which she had every right to dispose of. In the society of the future, naturally, there will be no need of funds; but her role will be defined in another sense, ordered harmoniously and rationally. As for Sofya Semyonovna personally, at the present time I regard her actions as an energetic and embodied protest against the ordering of society, and I profoundly respect her for it; I even rejoice to look upon her!"

"And yet I was told that it was you who drove her out of these very lodgings!"

Lebezyatnikov positively flew into a rage.

"That's another piece of gossip!" he shrieked. "It wasn't like that at all, at all! Now that's really not how it was! It was all Katerina Ivanovna making things up at the time, because she understood nothing! And I was never making up to Sofya Semyonovna! I was simply developing her, quite disinterestedly, trying to rouse a protest in her… All I needed was the protest, and besides, Sofya Semyonovna could no longer have stayed on here in the lodgings anyway!"

"Inviting her into the commune, were you?"

"You keep laughing, and very ineptly too, permit me to remark. You understand nothing! In a commune there are no such roles. A commune is founded precisely so that such roles shall not exist. In a commune this role will change its entire present essence, and what is stupid here will become sensible there; what is unnatural here, under present circumstances, will become perfectly natural there. It all depends on what surroundings and what milieu a man is in. Everything comes from environment, and man himself is nothing. And I'm on good terms with Sofya Semyonovna even now, which may serve you as proof that she never regarded me as her enemy or her wronger. Yes! I'm luring her into the commune now, but only on quite, quite different grounds! What are you laughing at? We mean to found our own commune, a special one, but only on broader foundations than the former ones. We've gone further in our convictions. We negate more! Were Dobrolyubov to rise from his grave, I'd dispute with him. And as for Belinsky—I'd trounce him! And meanwhile I go on developing Sofya Semyonovna. She is a fine, a fine nature!"

"Well, and so you make use of the fine nature, eh? Heh, heh!"

"No, no! Oh no! On the contrary!"

"Oh, come, on the contrary! Heh, heh, heh! What a thing to say!"

"But do believe me! What reason on earth should I have to conceal it from you, pray tell? On the contrary, I find it strange even myself: with me she is somehow strenuously, somehow timorously chaste and modest!"

"And you, of course, are developing her… heh, heh! proving to her that all this modesty is nonsense?…"

"Not at all! Not at all! Oh, how coarsely, how even stupidly—forgive me—you understand the word: development! You understand n-nothing whatever! O God, how far you still are… from being ready! We seek the liberation of woman, and you have but one thing on your mind… Setting aside altogether the question of chastity and womanly modesty, as things in themselves useless and even prejudicial, I fully, fully allow her chastity toward me, because in that lies her whole will, her whole right. Naturally, if she were herself to say to me, 'I wish to have you,' I should count myself in great luck, for the girl pleases me very much; but now, now at least, most assuredly, no one has ever treated her more politely and courteously than I, with more respect for her dignity… I wait and hope—and that is all!"

"Better make her a present of something. I'll wager that's the very thing that hasn't crossed your mind."

"You understand n-nothing, I've told you! Her position is such, granted, but that's another question! quite another! You simply despise her. Seeing a fact which by mistake you deem worthy of contempt, you deny a human being a humane view. You don't yet know what a nature that is! I'm only very vexed that of late she's somehow left off reading altogether, and no longer takes books from me. Whereas before she did. It's a pity, too, that for all her energy and resolve to protest—which she has already proved once—she still seems to have too little self-sufficiency, so to speak, independence, too little negation, to break away completely from certain prejudices and… follies. For all that, she grasps certain questions splendidly. She grasped magnificently, for instance, the question of kissing hands—that is, that a man insults a woman by inequality if he kisses her hand. This question was debated among us, and I passed it on to her at once. She also listened attentively to the matter of the workers' associations in France. Now I'm expounding to her the question of free entry into rooms in the society of the future."

"And what may that be?"

"There was debated of late the question: has a member of the commune the right to enter another member's room, man's or woman's, at any hour whatever… well, and it was decided that he has…"

"But suppose he or she is engaged at that moment in the necessary functions of nature, heh, heh!"

Andrei Semyonovich fairly lost his temper.

"You're forever harping on that, on those cursed 'functions'!" he cried out with loathing. "Pah, how I rage and fret that, in setting forth the system, I mentioned those cursed functions to you prematurely that time! Devil take it! It's the stumbling block for all your sort, and worst of all—you make a jest of it before you've the faintest notion what it's about! And so cocksure, into the bargain! Actually preening yourselves over something! Pah! I've maintained several times that the whole of that question ought to be laid before novices only at the very end, once a man is already convinced of the system, once he's already developed and set on the right course. But do tell me, pray, what do you find so shameful and contemptible even in cesspits? I'd be the first, I, ready to clean out any cesspits you please! And there's no self-sacrifice about it at all! It's simply work, a noble, socially useful activity, worth any other, and far higher, for instance, than the activity of some Raphael or Pushkin, because it's more useful!"

"And nobler, nobler—heh, heh, heh!"

"What is 'nobler'? I don't understand such expressions as a definition of human activity. 'Nobler,' 'more magnanimous'—it's all nonsense, absurdities, old prejudiced words that I reject! Whatever is useful to mankind is noble! I understand but one word: useful! Snigger as you please, but that's how it is!"

Pyotr Petrovich laughed a good deal. He had finished his reckoning and put the money away. Some of it, however, still lay on the table for some reason. This "question of the cesspits" had, for all its triviality, served several times already as a pretext for rupture and disagreement between Pyotr Petrovich and his young friend. The whole absurdity lay in the fact that Andrei Semyonovich really did lose his temper. Luzhin, meanwhile, took it as a way of easing his spleen, and at the present moment he particularly relished baiting Lebezyatnikov.

"It's from your setback of yesterday that you're so cross and out for a quarrel," Lebezyatnikov burst out at last—Lebezyatnikov, who, generally speaking, for all his "independence" and all his "protests," somehow never dared to stand up to Pyotr Petrovich and still, in general, preserved toward him a certain habitual deference from former years.

"You'd do better to tell me this," Pyotr Petrovich broke in haughtily and with vexation, "can you, sir… or rather, are you in fact, and to such a degree, on close terms with the aforesaid young person as to ask her here this very minute, for a moment, into this room? I fancy they've all come back by now, from the cemetery… I hear people moving about… I should need to see her, sir—the person, that is."

"But whatever for?" asked Lebezyatnikov in surprise.

"Oh, I have need to, sir. I'm moving out of here today or tomorrow, and so I should like to inform her… But do stay here, by all means, during the interview. It'll be all the better, in fact. Otherwise you might go and think God knows what."

"I shall think nothing whatever… I only asked in passing, and if you've business with her, nothing's easier than to call her out. I'll go this instant. And be assured, I shan't be in your way."

And, sure enough, some five minutes later Lebezyatnikov came back with Sonechka. She entered in extreme surprise and, as was her way, all shyness. She was always timid on such occasions and greatly feared new faces and new acquaintances—had feared them before, even in childhood, and now all the more so… Pyotr Petrovich met her "graciously and politely," though with a certain tinge of a kind of jovial familiarity, befitting, in Pyotr Petrovich's opinion, so respectable and solid a man as himself in relation to so youthful and, in a certain sense, interesting a creature. He hastened to "put her at ease" and seated her at the table opposite himself. Sonya sat down, looked about her—at Lebezyatnikov, at the money lying on the table, and then all at once back at Pyotr Petrovich, and after that she never took her eyes off him again, as though riveted to him. Lebezyatnikov made as if to go to the door. Pyotr Petrovich rose, motioned Sonya to keep her seat, and stopped Lebezyatnikov in the doorway.

"Is that Raskolnikov in there? Has he come?" he asked him in a whisper.

"Raskolnikov? He's there. Why? Yes, there… He's only just come in, I saw him… Why?"

"Well, then, I'll particularly beg you to remain here, with us, and not to leave me alone with this… young woman. It's a trifling matter, but they'll make God knows what of it. I don't want Raskolnikov to go passing it on in there… Do you follow what I mean?"

"Ah, I follow, I follow!" Lebezyatnikov suddenly caught on. "Yes, you have the right… By my personal conviction, of course, you're carrying your apprehensions rather far, but… you have the right all the same. Very well, I'll stay. I'll stand here by the window and won't be in your way… To my mind, you have the right…"

Pyotr Petrovich returned to the sofa, sat down facing Sonya, looked attentively at her, and suddenly assumed an exceedingly solid, even somewhat stern air, as much as to say, "Now don't you go imagining anything either, madam." Sonya was thrown into utter confusion.

"In the first place, be so good as to make my excuses, Sofya Semyonovna, to your most esteemed mamma… That's right, I take it? Katerina Ivanovna stands in a mother's place to you?" Pyotr Petrovich began most solidly, though quite amiably withal. It was plain he had the friendliest of intentions.

"Just so, sir; just so; in a mother's place, sir," Sonya answered hurriedly and in alarm.

"Well then, make my excuses to her that, owing to circumstances beyond my control, I am compelled to default and shall not be at your pancakes… that is, at the memorial dinner, notwithstanding your mamma's kind summons."

"Just so, sir; I'll tell her, sir; at once, sir"—and Sonechka jumped hastily up from her chair.

"That is not all, ma'am," Pyotr Petrovich stopped her, smiling at her simplicity and ignorance of the proprieties; "and little do you know me, dearest Sofya Semyonovna, if you supposed that on account of so trifling a matter, one that concerns me alone, I should trouble to summon a person such as yourself and call her here in person. My purpose is another, ma'am."

Sonya hastily sat down. The grey and rainbow-coloured notes that had not been cleared from the table flickered once more before her eyes, but she quickly turned her face from them and raised it to Pyotr Petrovich: it suddenly struck her as dreadfully improper — for her especially — to be looking at another's money. She fixed her gaze upon Pyotr Petrovich's gold lorgnette, which he held in his left hand, and along with it upon the large, massive, exceedingly handsome ring set with a yellow stone that adorned the middle finger of that hand — but all at once she looked away from that too, and, not knowing where to turn, ended by staring straight into Pyotr Petrovich's eyes again. After a silence still more solid than before, he continued:

"Yesterday it chanced that I exchanged a couple of words, in passing, with the unhappy Katerina Ivanovna. Two words were enough to learn that she is in a condition that is — unnatural, if one may so put it…"

"Yes, sir… unnatural, sir," Sonya hurriedly assented.

"Or, to speak more plainly and simply — a diseased one."

"Yes, sir, more plainly and pla… yes, sir, she is ill, sir."

"Just so, ma'am. Well then, out of a feeling of humanity and — and — and, so to speak, of compassion, I should wish, for my part, to be of some use, foreseeing as I do her inevitably unhappy lot. It seems this whole most impoverished family now depends on you alone."

"Permit me to ask," Sonya suddenly rose, "did you deign to tell her something yesterday about the possibility of a pension? For only yesterday she told me that you had undertaken to secure her a pension. Is that true, sir?"

"By no means, ma'am, and in a certain sense it is even an absurdity. I merely hinted at a temporary allowance for the widow of an official who died in the service — provided there be some patronage — but it seems your late parent not only had not served out his term, but of late had not been in the service at all. In a word, though there might be some hope, it is a most ephemeral one, for in essence no right whatever to any allowance exists in this case; on the contrary, indeed… And she has already set her mind on a pension — heh-heh-heh! A lively lady!"

"Yes, sir, on a pension… For she is credulous and good-hearted, and out of goodness she believes everything, and… and… and she has such a mind… Yes, sir… forgive me, sir," said Sonya, and again she rose to go.

"Permit me, you have not yet heard me out, ma'am."

"Yes, sir, I have not heard you out, sir," Sonya murmured.

"Then be seated, ma'am."

Sonya grew dreadfully confused and sat down again, for the third time.

"Seeing her in such a plight, with those unhappy little children, I should wish — as I have already said — to be of some use so far as my means allow, that is, as they say, so far as my means allow, ma'am, and no further. One might, for instance, arrange a subscription on her behalf, or, so to speak, a lottery… or something of that sort — as is always arranged in such cases by relatives, or even by outsiders, but in general by people wishing to help. It was of this that I intended to inform you. It might be done, ma'am."

"Yes, sir, it would be a fine thing, sir… God will reward you for it, sir…" Sonya babbled, gazing intently at Pyotr Petrovich.

"It might be done, ma'am, but… we shall see to that later, ma'am… that is, one might begin this very day. We shall see one another this evening, come to an understanding, and lay, so to speak, the foundation. Come and call on me here, say, at about seven o'clock. Andrei Semyonovich, I hope, will also take part with us… But… there is one circumstance that ought to be mentioned beforehand, and with care. It is for this that I have troubled you, Sofya Semyonovna, by summoning you here. Namely, ma'am, it is my opinion that the money must not — indeed, that it would be dangerous to — put into Katerina Ivanovna's own hands; the proof of which is this very memorial dinner today. Not having, so to speak, so much as one crust of daily bread for the morrow, and… well, and no shoes, and nothing at all, she goes and buys today Jamaica rum, and even, it seems, Madeira, and — and — and coffee. I saw it as I passed. Tomorrow the whole burden will fall on you again, down to the last morsel of bread; and that is absurd, ma'am. And therefore the subscription, in my personal view, ought to be conducted in such a way that the unhappy widow, so to speak, should not even know of the money, but that only you, for instance, should know of it. Do I speak rightly?"

"I don't know, sir. It is only today that she is like this, sir… it is once in a lifetime… she so longed to do him honour, to show respect, to keep his memory… and she is very clever, sir. But, however, as you please, sir, and I shall be very, very, very glad… and they will all be to you… and God will bless you, sir… and the orphans, sir…"

Sonya did not finish and burst into tears.

"Just so, ma'am. Well then, bear it in mind, ma'am; and now be so good as to accept, in the interests of your relative, and for the present occasion, such a sum as I can afford, from me personally. I very, very much desire that my name should not be mentioned in connection with it. There, ma'am… having, so to speak, cares of my own, I am not in a position to do more…"

And Pyotr Petrovich, having carefully unfolded it, held out to Sonya a ten-rouble note. Sonya took it, flushed crimson, jumped up, murmured something, and hastened to take her leave. Pyotr Petrovich solemnly saw her to the door. At last she burst out of the room, all agitated and worn out, and returned to Katerina Ivanovna in the utmost confusion.

Throughout this whole scene Andrei Semyonovich had either stood by the window or paced the room, not wishing to interrupt the conversation; but when Sonya had gone, he suddenly went up to Pyotr Petrovich and solemnly held out his hand to him:

"I heard everything and saw everything," he said, laying particular stress on the last word. "That is noble — that is, I meant to say, humane! You wished to avoid gratitude, I saw it! And although, I confess to you, I cannot, on principle, sympathise with private charity, because it not only fails to root out the evil radically, but even feeds it the more, nevertheless I cannot but admit that I looked upon your action with pleasure — yes, yes, I like it."

"Eh, this is all nonsense!" muttered Pyotr Petrovich, somewhat agitated, and eyeing Lebezyatnikov in a peculiar way.

"No, it is not nonsense! A man aggrieved and vexed, as you are, by yesterday's incident, and at the same time capable of thinking of the misfortunes of others — such a man, sir… though by his actions he commits a social error — is nonetheless… worthy of respect! I did not even expect it of you, Pyotr Petrovich, the more so as, by your notions — oh! how your notions still hamper you! How agitated you are, for instance, by this failure of yesterday's," exclaimed the good-natured Andrei Semyonovich, feeling once more an intensified affection for Pyotr Petrovich, "and why, why must you have this marriage, this lawful marriage, most noble, most amiable Pyotr Petrovich? Why must you have this lawfulness in marriage? Well, beat me if you like, but I am glad, glad that it fell through, that you are free, that you are not yet altogether lost to humanity — glad… There, you see: I have spoken out!"

"Because, sir, in your civil marriage I have no wish to wear horns and to rear other men's children — that is why I have need of a lawful marriage, sir," said Luzhin, merely to say something in reply. He was particularly absorbed and pensive over something.

"Children? You touch upon children?" Andrei Semyonovich started, like a war-horse hearing the trumpet. "Children are a social question, and a question of the first importance, I agree; but the question of children will be resolved otherwise. Some go so far as to deny children altogether, as any hint of the family. We shall speak of children later; for now let us take up the horns! I confess to you, this is my weak point. This vile, hussar-like, Pushkinian expression is even unthinkable in the lexicon of the future. And what, after all, are horns? Oh, what a delusion! What horns? Why horns? What nonsense! On the contrary, in a civil marriage there will be none of them! Horns are merely the natural consequence of every lawful marriage, its correction, so to speak, its protest, so that in this sense they are not in the least degrading… And if I ever — supposing the absurdity — should find myself in a lawful marriage, I should even be glad of your thrice-accursed horns; I should then say to my wife: 'My dear, until now I have only loved you, but now I respect you, because you have known how to protest!' You laugh? That is because you cannot tear yourself free of prejudice! Devil take it, I do understand precisely wherein lies the unpleasantness when one is deceived in a lawful union; but that, after all, is only the base consequence of a base fact, in which both parties are degraded. But when the horns are set openly, as in a civil marriage, then they no longer exist, they are unthinkable, and even lose the very name of horns. On the contrary, your wife will only prove to you how much she respects you, holding you incapable of opposing her happiness and developed enough not to revenge yourself on her for taking a new husband. Devil take it, I sometimes dream that if I were given in marriage — pah! — if I were to marry (whether by civil or by lawful rites, it is all one), I should, I fancy, bring my wife a lover myself, if she were too long about getting one. 'My dear,' I should say to her, 'I love you, but beyond that I desire that you should respect me — there!' Do I speak rightly, do I speak rightly?…"

Pyotr Petrovich sniggered as he listened, but without any particular relish. Indeed, he scarcely listened at all. He was in truth pondering over something else, and even Lebezyatnikov noticed it at last. Pyotr Petrovich was even agitated; he rubbed his hands and fell to musing. All this Andrei Semyonovich reckoned up and recalled afterwards…