Essential Novelists - Fyodor Dostoevsky. Fyodor Dostoevsky

for it before dinner.”

      “Certainly not to the police station. Certainly to Porfiry,” Razumihin shouted in extraordinary excitement. “Well, how glad I am. Let us go at once. It is a couple of steps. We shall be sure to find him.”

      “Very well, let us go.”

      “And he will be very, very glad to make your acquaintance. I have often talked to him of you at different times. I was speaking of you yesterday. Let us go. So you knew the old woman? So that’s it! It is all turning out splendidly.... Oh, yes, Sofya Ivanovna...”

      “Sofya Semyonovna,” corrected Raskolnikov. “Sofya Semyonovna, this is my friend Razumihin, and he is a good man.”

      “If you have to go now,” Sonia was beginning, not looking at Razumihin at all, and still more embarrassed.

      “Let us go,” decided Raskolnikov. “I will come to you to-day, Sofya Semyonovna. Only tell me where you live.”

      He was not exactly ill at ease, but seemed hurried, and avoided her eyes. Sonia gave her address, and flushed as she did so. They all went out together.

      “Don’t you lock up?” asked Razumihin, following him on to the stairs.

      “Never,” answered Raskolnikov. “I have been meaning to buy a lock for these two years. People are happy who have no need of locks,” he said, laughing, to Sonia. They stood still in the gateway.

      “Do you go to the right, Sofya Semyonovna? How did you find me, by the way?” he added, as though he wanted to say something quite different. He wanted to look at her soft clear eyes, but this was not easy.

      “Why, you gave your address to Polenka yesterday.”

      “Polenka? Oh, yes; Polenka, that is the little girl. She is your sister? Did I give her the address?”

      “Why, had you forgotten?”

      “No, I remember.”

      “I had heard my father speak of you... only I did not know your name, and he did not know it. And now I came... and as I had learnt your name, I asked to-day, ‘Where does Mr. Raskolnikov live?’ I did not know you had only a room too.... Good-bye, I will tell Katerina Ivanovna.”

      She was extremely glad to escape at last; she went away looking down, hurrying to get out of sight as soon as possible, to walk the twenty steps to the turning on the right and to be at last alone, and then moving rapidly along, looking at no one, noticing nothing, to think, to remember, to meditate on every word, every detail. Never, never had she felt anything like this. Dimly and unconsciously a whole new world was opening before her. She remembered suddenly that Raskolnikov meant to come to her that day, perhaps at once!

      “Only not to-day, please, not to-day!” she kept muttering with a sinking heart, as though entreating someone, like a frightened child. “Mercy! to me... to that room... he will see... oh, dear!”

      She was not capable at that instant of noticing an unknown gentleman who was watching her and following at her heels. He had accompanied her from the gateway. At the moment when Razumihin, Raskolnikov, and she stood still at parting on the pavement, this gentleman, who was just passing, started on hearing Sonia’s words: “and I asked where Mr. Raskolnikov lived?” He turned a rapid but attentive look upon all three, especially upon Raskolnikov, to whom Sonia was speaking; then looked back and noted the house. All this was done in an instant as he passed, and trying not to betray his interest, he walked on more slowly as though waiting for something. He was waiting for Sonia; he saw that they were parting, and that Sonia was going home.

      “Home? Where? I’ve seen that face somewhere,” he thought. “I must find out.”

      At the turning he crossed over, looked round, and saw Sonia coming the same way, noticing nothing. She turned the corner. He followed her on the other side. After about fifty paces he crossed over again, overtook her and kept two or three yards behind her.

      He was a man about fifty, rather tall and thickly set, with broad high shoulders which made him look as though he stooped a little. He wore good and fashionable clothes, and looked like a gentleman of position. He carried a handsome cane, which he tapped on the pavement at each step; his gloves were spotless. He had a broad, rather pleasant face with high cheek-bones and a fresh colour, not often seen in Petersburg. His flaxen hair was still abundant, and only touched here and there with grey, and his thick square beard was even lighter than his hair. His eyes were blue and had a cold and thoughtful look; his lips were crimson. He was a remarkedly well-preserved man and looked much younger than his years.

      When Sonia came out on the canal bank, they were the only two persons on the pavement. He observed her dreaminess and preoccupation. On reaching the house where she lodged, Sonia turned in at the gate; he followed her, seeming rather surprised. In the courtyard she turned to the right corner. “Bah!” muttered the unknown gentleman, and mounted the stairs behind her. Only then Sonia noticed him. She reached the third storey, turned down the passage, and rang at No. 9. On the door was inscribed in chalk, “Kapernaumov, Tailor.” “Bah!” the stranger repeated again, wondering at the strange coincidence, and he rang next door, at No. 8. The doors were two or three yards apart.

      “You lodge at Kapernaumov’s,” he said, looking at Sonia and laughing. “He altered a waistcoat for me yesterday. I am staying close here at Madame Resslich’s. How odd!” Sonia looked at him attentively.

      “We are neighbours,” he went on gaily. “I only came to town the day before yesterday. Good-bye for the present.”

      Sonia made no reply; the door opened and she slipped in. She felt for some reason ashamed and uneasy.

      On the way to Porfiry’s, Razumihin was obviously excited.

      “That’s capital, brother,” he repeated several times, “and I am glad! I am glad!”

      “What are you glad about?” Raskolnikov thought to himself.

      “I didn’t know that you pledged things at the old woman’s, too. And... was it long ago? I mean, was it long since you were there?”

      “What a simple-hearted fool he is!”

      “When was it?” Raskolnikov stopped still to recollect. “Two or three days before her death it must have been. But I am not going to redeem the things now,” he put in with a sort of hurried and conspicuous solicitude about the things. “I’ve not more than a silver rouble left... after last night’s accursed delirium!”

      He laid special emphasis on the delirium.

      “Yes, yes,” Razumihin hastened to agree—with what was not clear. “Then that’s why you... were stuck... partly... you know in your delirium you were continually mentioning some rings or chains! Yes, yes... that’s clear, it’s all clear now.”

      “Hullo! How that idea must have got about among them. Here this man will go to the stake for me, and I find him delighted at having it cleared up why I spoke of rings in my delirium! What a hold the idea must have on all of them!”

      “Shall we find him?” he asked suddenly.

      “Oh, yes,” Razumihin answered quickly. “He is a nice fellow, you will see, brother. Rather clumsy, that is to say, he is a man of polished manners, but I mean clumsy in a different sense. He is an intelligent fellow, very much so indeed, but he has his own range of ideas.... He is incredulous, sceptical, cynical... he likes to impose on people, or rather to make fun of them. His is the old, circumstantial method.... But he understands his work... thoroughly.... Last year he cleared up a case of murder in which the police had hardly a clue. He is very, very anxious to make your acquaintance!”

      “On what grounds is he so anxious?”

      “Oh, it’s not exactly... you see, since you’ve been ill I happen to have mentioned you several times.... So, when he heard about you... about your being a law student and not able to finish your studies, he said, ‘What a pity!’ And so I concluded... from