Fyodor Dostoyevsky: The Complete Novels. Fyodor Dostoevsky

of his right hand, and stared intently at Svidrigaïlov. For a full minute he scrutinised his face, which had impressed him before. It was a strange face, like a mask; white and red, with bright red lips, with a flaxen beard, and still thick flaxen hair. His eyes were somehow too blue and their expression somehow too heavy and fixed. There was something awfully unpleasant in that handsome face, which looked so wonderfully young for his age. Svidrigaïlov was smartly dressed in light summer clothes and was particularly dainty in his linen. He wore a huge ring with a precious stone in it.

      "Have I got to bother myself about you, too, now?" said Raskolnikov suddenly, coming with nervous impatience straight to the point. "Even though perhaps you are the most dangerous man if you care to injure me, I don't want to put myself out any more. I will show you at once that I don't prize myself as you probably think I do. I've come to tell you at once that if you keep to your former intentions with regard to my sister and if you think to derive any benefit in that direction from what has been discovered of late, I will kill you before you get me locked up. You can reckon on my word. You know that I can keep it. And in the second place if you want to tell me anything —for I keep fancying all this time that you have something to tell me—make haste and tell it, for time is precious and very likely it will soon be too late."

      "Why in such haste?" asked Svidrigaïlov, looking at him curiously.

      "Everyone has his plans," Raskolnikov answered gloomily and impatiently.

      "You urged me yourself to frankness just now, and at the first question you refuse to answer," Svidrigaïlov observed with a smile. "You keep fancying that I have aims of my own and so you look at me with suspicion. Of course it's perfectly natural in your position. But though I should like to be friends with you, I shan't trouble myself to convince you of the contrary. The game isn't worth the candle and I wasn't intending to talk to you about anything special."

      "What did you want me, for, then? It was you who came hanging about me."

      "Why, simply as an interesting subject for observation. I liked the fantastic nature of your position—that's what it was! Besides you are the brother of a person who greatly interested me, and from that person I had in the past heard a very great deal about you, from which I gathered that you had a great influence over her; isn't that enough? Ha-ha-ha! Still I must admit that your question is rather complex, and is difficult for me to answer. Here, you, for instance, have come to me not only for a definite object, but for the sake of hearing something new. Isn't that so? Isn't that so?" persisted Svidrigaïlov with a sly smile. "Well, can't you fancy then that I, too, on my way here in the train was reckoning on you, on your telling me something new, and on my making some profit out of you! You see what rich men we are!"

      "What profit could you make?"

      "How can I tell you? How do I know? You see in what a tavern I spend all my time and it's my enjoyment, that's to say it's no great enjoyment, but one must sit somewhere; that poor Katia now—you saw her? … If only I had been a glutton now, a club gourmand, but you see I can eat this."

      He pointed to a little table in the corner where the remnants of a terrible-looking beef-steak and potatoes lay on a tin dish.

      "Have you dined, by the way? I've had something and want nothing more. I don't drink, for instance, at all. Except for champagne I never touch anything, and not more than a glass of that all the evening, and even that is enough to make my head ache. I ordered it just now to wind myself up, for I am just going off somewhere and you see me in a peculiar state of mind. That was why I hid myself just now like a schoolboy, for I was afraid you would hinder me. But I believe," he pulled out his watch, "I can spend an hour with you. It's half-past four now. If only I'd been something, a landowner, a father, a cavalry officer, a photographer, a journalist … I am nothing, no specialty, and sometimes I am positively bored. I really thought you would tell me something new."

      "But what are you, and why have you come here?"

      "What am I? You know, a gentleman, I served for two years in the cavalry, then I knocked about here in Petersburg, then I married Marfa Petrovna and lived in the country. There you have my biography!"

      "You are a gambler, I believe?"

      "No, a poor sort of gambler. A card-sharper—not a gambler."

      "You have been a card-sharper then?"

      "Yes, I've been a card-sharper too."

      "Didn't you get thrashed sometimes?"

      "It did happen. Why?"

      "Why, you might have challenged them … altogether it must have been lively."

      "I won't contradict you, and besides I am no hand at philosophy. I confess that I hastened here for the sake of the women."

      "As soon as you buried Marfa Petrovna?"

      "Quite so," Svidrigaïlov smiled with engaging candour. "What of it? You seem to find something wrong in my speaking like that about women?"

      "You ask whether I find anything wrong in vice?"

      "Vice! Oh, that's what you are after! But I'll answer you in order, first about women in general; you know I am fond of talking. Tell me, what should I restrain myself for? Why should I give up women, since I have a passion for them? It's an occupation, anyway."

      "So you hope for nothing here but vice?"

      "Oh, very well, for vice then. You insist on its being vice. But anyway I like a direct question. In this vice at least there is something permanent, founded indeed upon nature and not dependent on fantasy, something present in the blood like an ever-burning ember, for ever setting one on fire and, maybe, not to be quickly extinguished, even with years. You'll agree it's an occupation of a sort."

      "That's nothing to rejoice at, it's a disease and a dangerous one."

      "Oh, that's what you think, is it! I agree, that it is a disease like everything that exceeds moderation. And, of course, in this one must exceed moderation. But in the first place, everybody does so in one way or another, and in the second place, of course, one ought to be moderate and prudent, however mean it may be, but what am I to do? If I hadn't this, I might have to shoot myself. I am ready to admit that a decent man ought to put up with being bored, but yet … "

      "And could you shoot yourself?"

      "Oh, come!" Svidrigaïlov parried with disgust. "Please don't speak of it," he added hurriedly and with none of the bragging tone he had shown in all the previous conversation. His face quite changed. "I admit it's an unpardonable weakness, but I can't help it. I am afraid of death and I dislike its being talked of. Do you know that I am to a certain extent a mystic?"

      "Ah, the apparitions of Marfa Petrovna! Do they still go on visiting you?"

      "Oh, don't talk of them; there have been no more in Petersburg, confound them!" he cried with an air of irritation. "Let's rather talk of that … though … H'm! I have not much time, and can't stay long with you, it's a pity! I should have found plenty to tell you."

      "What's your engagement, a woman?"

      "Yes, a woman, a casual incident… . No, that's not what I want to talk of."

      "And the hideousness, the filthiness of all your surroundings, doesn't that affect you? Have you lost the strength to stop yourself?"

      "And do you pretend to strength, too? He-he-he! You surprised me just now, Rodion Romanovitch, though I knew beforehand it would be so. You preach to me about vice and æsthetics! You—a Schiller, you—an idealist! Of course that's all as it should be and it would be surprising if it were not so, yet it is strange in reality… . Ah, what a pity I have no time, for you're a most interesting type! And, by-the-way, are you fond of Schiller? I am awfully fond of him."

      "But what a braggart you are," Raskolnikov said with some disgust.

      "Upon my word, I am not," answered Svidrigaïlov laughing. "However, I won't dispute it, let me be a braggart, why not brag, if it hurts no one? I spent seven years in the country with Marfa Petrovna, so now when I come across an intelligent person like you—intelligent and highly interesting—I