LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

come to business. This is my friend Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov; in the first place he has heard of you and wants to make your acquaintance, and secondly, he has a little matter of business with you. Bah! Zametov, what brought you here? Have you met before? Have you known each other long?”

      “What does this mean?” thought Raskolnikov uneasily.

      Zametov seemed taken aback, but not very much so.

      “Why, it was at your rooms we met yesterday,” he said easily.

      “Then I have been spared the trouble. All last week he was begging me to introduce him to you. Porfiry and you have sniffed each other out without me. Where is your tobacco?”

      Porfiry Petrovitch was wearing a dressing-gown, very clean linen, and trodden-down slippers. He was a man of about five and thirty, short, stout even to corpulence, and clean shaven. He wore his hair cut short and had a large round head, particularly prominent at the back. His soft, round, rather snub-nosed face was of a sickly yellowish colour, but had a vigorous and rather ironical expression. It would have been good-natured except for a look in the eyes, which shone with a watery, mawkish light under almost white, blinking eyelashes. The expression of those eyes was strangely out of keeping with his somewhat womanish figure, and gave it something far more serious than could be guessed at first sight.

      As soon as Porfiry Petrovitch heard that his visitor had a little matter of business with him, he begged him to sit down on the sofa and sat down himself on the other end, waiting for him to explain his business, with that careful and over-serious attention which is at once oppressive and embarrassing, especially to a stranger, and especially if what you are discussing is in your opinion of far too little importance for such exceptional solemnity. But in brief and coherent phrases Raskolnikov explained his business clearly and exactly, and was so well satisfied with himself that he even succeeded in taking a good look at Porfiry. Porfiry Petrovitch did not once take his eyes off him. Razumihin, sitting opposite at the same table, listened warmly and impatiently, looking from one to the other every moment with rather excessive interest.

      “Fool,” Raskolnikov swore to himself.

      “You have to give information to the police,” Porfiry replied, with a most businesslike air, “that having learnt of this incident, that is of the murder, you beg to inform the lawyer in charge of the case that such and such things belong to you, and that you desire to redeem them... or... but they will write to you.”

      “That’s just the point, that at the present moment,” Raskolnikov tried his utmost to feign embarrassment, “I am not quite in funds... and even this trifling sum is beyond me... I only wanted, you see, for the present to declare that the things are mine, and that when I have money....”

      “That’s no matter,” answered Porfiry Petrovitch, receiving his explanation of his pecuniary position coldly, “but you can, if you prefer, write straight to me, to say, that having been informed of the matter, and claiming such and such as your property, you beg...”

      “On an ordinary sheet of paper?” Raskolnikov interrupted eagerly, again interested in the financial side of the question.

      “Oh, the most ordinary,” and suddenly Porfiry Petrovitch looked with obvious irony at him, screwing up his eyes and, as it were, winking at him. But perhaps it was Raskolnikov’s fancy, for it all lasted but a moment. There was certainly something of the sort, Raskolnikov could have sworn he winked at him, goodness knows why.

      “He knows,” flashed through his mind like lightning.

      “Forgive my troubling you about such trifles,” he went on, a little disconcerted, “the things are only worth five roubles, but I prize them particularly for the sake of those from whom they came to me, and I must confess that I was alarmed when I heard...”

      “That’s why you were so much struck when I mentioned to Zossimov that Porfiry was inquiring for everyone who had pledges!” Razumihin put in with obvious intention.

      This was really unbearable. Raskolnikov could not help glancing at him with a flash of vindictive anger in his black eyes, but immediately recollected himself.

      “You seem to be jeering at me, brother?” he said to him, with a well-feigned irritability. “I dare say I do seem to you absurdly anxious about such trash; but you mustn’t think me selfish or grasping for that, and these two things may be anything but trash in my eyes. I told you just now that the silver watch, though it’s not worth a cent, is the only thing left us of my father’s. You may laugh at me, but my mother is here,” he turned suddenly to Porfiry, “and if she knew,” he turned again hurriedly to Razumihin, carefully making his voice tremble, “that the watch was lost, she would be in despair! You know what women are!”

      “Not a bit of it! I didn’t mean that at all! Quite the contrary!” shouted Razumihin distressed.

      “Was it right? Was it natural? Did I overdo it?” Raskolnikov asked himself in a tremor. “Why did I say that about women?”

      “Oh, your mother is with you?” Porfiry Petrovitch inquired.

      “Yes.”

      “When did she come?”

      “Last night.”

      Porfiry paused as though reflecting.

      “Your things would not in any case be lost,” he went on calmly and coldly. “I have been expecting you here for some time.”

      And as though that was a matter of no importance, he carefully offered the ash-tray to Razumihin, who was ruthlessly scattering cigarette ash over the carpet. Raskolnikov shuddered, but Porfiry did not seem to be looking at him, and was still concerned with Razumihin’s cigarette.

      “What? Expecting him? Why, did you know that he had pledges there?” cried Razumihin.

      Porfiry Petrovitch addressed himself to Raskolnikov.

      “Your things, the ring and the watch, were wrapped up together, and on the paper your name was legibly written in pencil, together with the date on which you left them with her...”

      “How observant you are!” Raskolnikov smiled awkwardly, doing his very utmost to look him straight in the face, but he failed, and suddenly added:

      “I say that because I suppose there were a great many pledges... that it must be difficult to remember them all.... But you remember them all so clearly, and... and...”

      “Stupid! Feeble!” he thought. “Why did I add that?”

      “But we know all who had pledges, and you are the only one who hasn’t come forward,” Porfiry answered with hardly perceptible irony.

      “I haven’t been quite well.”

      “I heard that too. I heard, indeed, that you were in great distress about something. You look pale still.”

      “I am not pale at all.... No, I am quite well,” Raskolnikov snapped out rudely and angrily, completely changing his tone. His anger was mounting, he could not repress it. “And in my anger I shall betray myself,” flashed through his mind again. “Why are they torturing me?”

      “Not quite well!” Razumihin caught him up. “What next! He was unconscious and delirious all yesterday. Would you believe, Porfiry, as soon as our backs were turned, he dressed, though he could hardly stand, and gave us the slip and went off on a spree somewhere till midnight, delirious all the time! Would you believe it! Extraordinary!”

      “Really delirious? You don’t say so!” Porfiry shook his head in a womanish way.

      “Nonsense! Don’t you believe it! But you don’t believe it anyway,” Raskolnikov let slip in his anger. But Porfiry Petrovitch did not seem to catch those strange words.

      “But how could you have gone out if you hadn’t been delirious?” Razumihin got hot suddenly. “What did you go out for? What was the object of it? And why on the sly? Were you in your senses when you

Скачать книгу