Crime and Punishment & Other Great Novels of Dostoevsky. Fyodor Dostoevsky

looked at Raskolnikov . . . he stood against the wall, with his arms crossed, looking at her with glowing eyes.

      “Good God!” broke from Sonia.

      “Amalia Ivanovna, we shall have to send word to the police and therefore I humbly beg you meanwhile to send for the house porter,” Luzhin said softly and even kindly.

      “Gott der Barmherzige! I knew she was the thief,” cried Amalia Ivanovna, throwing up her hands.

      “You knew it?” Luzhin caught her up, “then I suppose you had some reason before this for thinking so. I beg you, worthy Amalia Ivanovna, to remember your words which have been uttered before witnesses.”

      There was a buzz of loud conversation on all sides. All were in movement.

      “What!” cried Katerina Ivanovna, suddenly realising the position, and she rushed at Luzhin. “What! You accuse her of stealing? Sonia? Ah, the wretches, the wretches!”

      And running to Sonia she flung her wasted arms round her and held her as in a vise.

      “Sonia! how dared you take ten roubles from him? Foolish girl! Give it to me! Give me the ten roubles at once — here!

      And snatching the note from Sonia, Katerina Ivanovna crumpled it up and flung it straight into Luzhin’s face. It hit him in the eye and fell on the ground. Amalia Ivanovna hastened to pick it up. Pyotr Petrovitch lost his temper.

      “Hold that mad woman!” he shouted.

      At that moment several other persons, besides Lebeziatnikov, appeared in the doorway, among them the two ladies.

      “What! Mad? Am I mad? Idiot!” shrieked Katerina Ivanovna. “You are an idiot yourself, pettifogging lawyer, base man! Sonia, Sonia take his money! Sonia a thief! Why, she’d give away her last penny!” and Katerina Ivanovna broke into hysterical laughter. “Did you ever see such an idiot?” she turned from side to side. “And you too?” she suddenly saw the landlady, “and you too, sausage eater, you declare that she is a thief, you trashy Prussian hen’s leg in a crinoline! She hasn’t been out of this room: she came straight from you, you wretch, and sat down beside me, everyone saw her. She sat here, by Rodion Romanovitch. Search her! Since she’s not left the room, the money would have to be on her! Search her, search her! But if you don’t find it, then excuse me, my dear fellow, you’ll answer for it! I’ll go to our Sovereign, to our Sovereign, to our gracious Tsar himself, and throw myself at his feet, to-day, this minute! I am alone in the world! They would let me in! Do you think they wouldn’t? You’re wrong, I will get in! I will get in! You reckoned on her meekness! You relied upon that! But I am not so submissive, let me tell you! You’ve gone too far yourself. Search her, search her!”

      And Katerina Ivanovna in a frenzy shook Luzhin and dragged him towards Sonia.

      “I am ready, I’ll be responsible . . . but calm yourself, madam, calm yourself. I see that you are not so submissive! . . . Well, well, but as to that . . .” Luzhin muttered, “that ought to be before the police . . . though indeed there are witnesses enough as it is. . . . I am ready. . . . But in any case it’s difficult for a man . . . on account of her sex. . . . But with the help of Amalia Ivanovna . . . though, of course, it’s not the way to do things. . . . How is it to be done?”

      “As you will! Let anyone who likes search her!” cried Katerina Ivanovna. “Sonia, turn out your pockets! See! Look, monster, the pocket is empty, here was her handkerchief! Here is the other pocket, look! D’you see, d’you see?”

      And Katerina Ivanovna turned — or rather snatched — both pockets inside out. But from the right pocket a piece of paper flew out and describing a parabola in the air fell at Luzhin’s feet. Everyone saw it, several cried out. Pyotr Petrovitch stooped down, picked up the paper in two fingers, lifted it where all could see it and opened it. It was a hundred-rouble note folded in eight. Pyotr Petrovitch held up the note showing it to everyone.

      “Thief! Out of my lodging. Police, police!” yelled Amalia Ivanovna. “They must to Siberia be sent! Away!”

      Exclamations arose on all sides. Raskolnikov was silent, keeping his eyes fixed on Sonia, except for an occasional rapid glance at Luzhin. Sonia stood still, as though unconscious. She was hardly able to feel surprise. Suddenly the colour rushed to her cheeks; she uttered a cry and hid her face in her hands.

      “No, it wasn’t I! I didn’t take it! I know nothing about it,” she cried with a heartrending wail, and she ran to Katerina Ivanovna, who clasped her tightly in her arms, as though she would shelter her from all the world.

      “Sonia! Sonia! I don’t believe it! You see, I don’t believe it!” she cried in the face of the obvious fact, swaying her to and fro in her arms like a baby, kissing her face continually, then snatching at her hands and kissing them, too, “you took it! How stupid these people are! Oh dear! You are fools, fools,” she cried, addressing the whole room, “you don’t know, you don’t know what a heart she has, what a girl she is! She take it, she? She’d sell her last rag, she’d go barefoot to help you if you needed it, that’s what she is! She has the yellow passport because my children were starving, she sold herself for us! Ah, husband, husband! Do you see? Do you see? What a memorial dinner for you! Merciful heavens! Defend her, why are you all standing still? Rodion Romanovitch, why don’t you stand up for her? Do you believe it, too? You are not worth her little finger, all of you together! Good God! Defend her now, at least!”

      The wail of the poor, consumptive, helpless woman seemed to produce a great effect on her audience. The agonised, wasted, consumptive face, the parched blood-stained lips, the hoarse voice, the tears unrestrained as a child’s, the trustful, childish and yet despairing prayer for help were so piteous that everyone seemed to feel for her. Pyotr Petrovitch at any rate was at once moved to compassion.

      “Madam, madam, this incident does not reflect upon you!” he cried impressively, “no one would take upon himself to accuse you of being an instigator or even an accomplice in it, especially as you have proved her guilt by turning out her pockets, showing that you had no previous idea of it. I am most ready, most ready to show compassion, if poverty, so to speak, drove Sofya Semyonovna to it, but why did you refuse to confess, mademoiselle? Were you afraid of the disgrace? The first step? You lost your head, perhaps? One can quite understand it. . . . But how could you have lowered yourself to such an action? Gentlemen,” he addressed the whole company, “gentlemen! Compassionate and, so to say, commiserating these people, I am ready to overlook it even now in spite of the personal insult lavished upon me! And may this disgrace be a lesson to you for the future,” he said, addressing Sonia, “and I will carry the matter no further. Enough!”

      Pyotr Petrovitch stole a glance at Raskolnikov. Their eyes met, and the fire in Raskolnikov’s seemed ready to reduce him to ashes. Meanwhile Katerina Ivanovna apparently heard nothing. She was kissing and hugging Sonia like a madwoman. The children, too, were embracing Sonia on all sides, and Polenka — though she did not fully understand what was wrong — was drowned in tears and shaking with sobs, as she hid her pretty little face, swollen with weeping, on Sonia’s shoulder.

      “How vile!” a loud voice cried suddenly in the doorway.

      Pyotr Petrovitch looked round quickly.

      “What vileness!” Lebeziatnikov repeated, staring him straight in the face.

      Pyotr Petrovitch gave a positive start — all noticed it and recalled it afterwards. Lebeziatnikov strode into the room.

      “And you dared to call me as witness?” he said, going up to Pyotr Petrovitch.

      “What do you mean? What are you talking about?” muttered Luzhin.

      “I mean that you . . . are a slanderer, that’s what my words mean!” Lebeziatnikov said hotly, looking sternly at him with his short-sighted eyes.

      He was extremely angry. Raskolnikov gazed intently at him, as though seizing and weighing each word. Again there was a silence. Pyotr Petrovitch indeed seemed almost dumbfounded for the first moment.

      “If you mean that