Fyodor Dostoyevsky: The Complete Novels. Fyodor Dostoevsky

of a bolster. A little table stood in front of the sofa.

      It would have been difficult to sink to a lower ebb of disorder, but to Raskolnikov in his present state of mind this was positively agreeable. He had got completely away from everyone, like a tortoise in its shell, and even the sight of a servant girl who had to wait upon him and looked sometimes into his room made him writhe with nervous irritation. He was in the condition that overtakes some monomaniacs entirely concentrated upon one thing. His landlady had for the last fortnight given up sending him in meals, and he had not yet thought of expostulating with her, though he went without his dinner. Nastasya, the cook and only servant, was rather pleased at the lodger's mood and had entirely given up sweeping and doing his room, only once a week or so she would stray into his room with a broom. She waked him up that day.

      "Get up, why are you asleep?" she called to him. "It's past nine, I have brought you some tea; will you have a cup? I should think you're fairly starving?"

      Raskolnikov opened his eyes, started and recognised Nastasya.

      "From the landlady, eh?" he asked, slowly and with a sickly face sitting up on the sofa.

      "From the landlady, indeed!"

      She set before him her own cracked teapot full of weak and stale tea and laid two yellow lumps of sugar by the side of it.

      "Here, Nastasya, take it please," he said, fumbling in his pocket (for he had slept in his clothes) and taking out a handful of coppers—"run and buy me a loaf. And get me a little sausage, the cheapest, at the pork-butcher's."

      "The loaf I'll fetch you this very minute, but wouldn't you rather have some cabbage soup instead of sausage? It's capital soup, yesterday's. I saved it for you yesterday, but you came in late. It's fine soup."

      When the soup had been brought, and he had begun upon it, Nastasya sat down beside him on the sofa and began chatting. She was a country peasant-woman and a very talkative one.

      "Praskovya Pavlovna means to complain to the police about you," she said.

      He scowled.

      "To the police? What does she want?"

      "You don't pay her money and you won't turn out of the room. That's what she wants, to be sure."

      "The devil, that's the last straw," he muttered, grinding his teeth, "no, that would not suit me … just now. She is a fool," he added aloud. "I'll go and talk to her to-day."

      "Fool she is and no mistake, just as I am. But why, if you are so clever, do you lie here like a sack and have nothing to show for it? One time you used to go out, you say, to teach children. But why is it you do nothing now?"

      "I am doing … " Raskolnikov began sullenly and reluctantly.

      "What are you doing?"

      "Work … "

      "What sort of work?"

      "I am thinking," he answered seriously after a pause.

      Nastasya was overcome with a fit of laughter. She was given to laughter and when anything amused her, she laughed inaudibly, quivering and shaking all over till she felt ill.

      "And have you made much money by your thinking?" she managed to articulate at last.

      "One can't go out to give lessons without boots. And I'm sick of it."

      "Don't quarrel with your bread and butter."

      "They pay so little for lessons. What's the use of a few coppers?" he answered, reluctantly, as though replying to his own thought.

      "And you want to get a fortune all at once?"

      He looked at her strangely.

      "Yes, I want a fortune," he answered firmly, after a brief pause.

      "Don't be in such a hurry, you quite frighten me! Shall I get you the loaf or not?"

      "As you please."

      "Ah, I forgot! A letter came for you yesterday when you were out."

      "A letter? for me! from whom?"

      "I can't say. I gave three copecks of my own to the postman for it. Will you pay me back?"

      "Then bring it to me, for God's sake, bring it," cried Raskolnikov greatly excited—"good God!"

      A minute later the letter was brought him. That was it: from his mother, from the province of R——. He turned pale when he took it. It was a long while since he had received a letter, but another feeling also suddenly stabbed his heart.

      "Nastasya, leave me alone, for goodness' sake; here are your three copecks, but for goodness' sake, make haste and go!"

      The letter was quivering in his hand; he did not want to open it in her presence; he wanted to be left alone with this letter. When Nastasya had gone out, he lifted it quickly to his lips and kissed it; then he gazed intently at the address, the small, sloping handwriting, so dear and familiar, of the mother who had once taught him to read and write. He delayed; he seemed almost afraid of something. At last he opened it; it was a thick heavy letter, weighing over two ounces, two large sheets of note paper were covered with very small handwriting.

      "My dear Rodya," wrote his mother—"it's two months since I last had a talk with you by letter which has distressed me and even kept me awake at night, thinking. But I am sure you will not blame me for my inevitable silence. You know how I love you; you are all we have to look to, Dounia and I, you are our all, our one hope, our one stay. What a grief it was to me when I heard that you had given up the university some months ago, for want of means to keep yourself and that you had lost your lessons and your other work! How could I help you out of my hundred and twenty roubles a year pension? The fifteen roubles I sent you four months ago I borrowed, as you know, on security of my pension, from Vassily Ivanovitch Vahrushin a merchant of this town. He is a kind-hearted man and was a friend of your father's too. But having given him the right to receive the pension, I had to wait till the debt was paid off and that is only just done, so that I've been unable to send you anything all this time. But now, thank God, I believe I shall be able to send you something more and in fact we may congratulate ourselves on our good fortune now, of which I hasten to inform you. In the first place, would you have guessed, dear Rodya, that your sister has been living with me for the last six weeks and we shall not be separated in the future. Thank God, her sufferings are over, but I will tell you everything in order, so that you may know just how everything has happened and all that we have hitherto concealed from you. When you wrote to me two months ago that you had heard that Dounia had a great deal to put up with in the Svidrigraïlovs' house, when you wrote that and asked me to tell you all about it—what could I write in answer to you? If I had written the whole truth to you, I dare say you would have thrown up everything and have come to us, even if you had to walk all the way, for I know your character and your feelings, and you would not let your sister be insulted. I was in despair myself, but what could I do? And, besides, I did not know the whole truth myself then. What made it all so difficult was that Dounia received a hundred roubles in advance when she took the place as governess in their family, on condition of part of her salary being deducted every month, and so it was impossible to throw up the situation without repaying the debt. This sum (now I can explain it all to you, my precious Rodya) she took chiefly in order to send you sixty roubles, which you needed so terribly then and which you received from us last year. We deceived you then, writing that this money came from Dounia's savings, but that was not so, and now I tell you all about it, because, thank God, things have suddenly changed for the better, and that you may know how Dounia loves you and what a heart she has. At first indeed Mr. Svidrigaïlov treated her very rudely and used to make disrespectful and jeering remarks at table… . But I don't want to go into all those painful details, so as not to worry you for nothing when it is now all over. In short, in spite of the kind and generous behaviour of Marfa Petrovna, Mr. Svidrigaïlov's wife, and all the rest of the household, Dounia had a very hard time, especially when Mr. Svidrigaïlov, relapsing into his old regimental habits, was under the influence of Bacchus. And how do you think it was all explained later on? Would you believe that the crazy fellow had conceived a passion for Dounia from the beginning,