The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations

J >> Julian Hawthorne >> The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28

"It cannot be, they will both be released. In the first place, all
is contradictory. Consider. Why did they call the porter if it
were their work? To denounce themselves? Or out of cunning? Not
at all, that would be too much! Besides, did not the porter see
the student Pestriakoff at the very gate just as he came in, and he
stood there some time with three friends who had accompanied him.
And Koch: was he not below in the silversmith's for half an hour
before he went up to the old woman's? Now, consider."

"But see what contradictions arise! They say they knocked and
found the door closed; yet three minutes after, when they went back
with the porter, it was open."

"That's true. The murderer was inside, and had bolted the door,
and certainly he would have been captured had not Koch foolishly
run off to the porter. In the interval HE, no doubt, had time to
escape downstairs. Koch explains that, if he had remained, the man
would have leaped out and killed him. He wanted to have a Te Deum
sung. Ha, ha!"

"Did nobody see the murderer?"

"How could they? The house is a perfect Noah's ark," put in the
clerk, who had been listening.

"The thing is clear, very clear," said Nicodemus Thomich
decisively.

"Not at all! Not at all!" cried Elia Petrovitch, in reply.
Raskolnikoff took up his hat and made for the door, but he never
reached it. When he came to himself he found he was sitting on a
chair, supported on the right by some unknown man, while to his
left stood another, holding some yellow water in a yellow glass.
Nicodemus Thomich, standing before him, was looking at him fixedly.
Raskolnikoff rose.

"What is it? Are you ill?" asked the officer sharply.

"He could hardly hold the pen to sign his name," the clerk
explained, at the same time going back to his books.

"Have you been ill very long?" cried Elia Petrovitch from his
table; he had run to see the swoon and returned to his place.

"Since yesterday," murmured Raskolnikoff in reply.

"You went out yesterday?"

"I did."

"Ill?"

"Ill!"

"At what time?"

"Eight o'clock in the evening."

"Where did you go, allow me to ask?"

"In the streets."

"Concise and clear."

Raskolnikoff had replied sharply, in a broken voice, his face as
pale as a handkerchief, and with his black swollen eyes averted
from Elia Petrovitch's scrutinizing glance.

"He can hardly stand on his legs. Do you want to ask anything
more?" said Nicodemus Thomich.

"Nothing," replied Elia Petrovitch.

Nicodemus Thomich evidently wished to say more, but, turning to the
clerk, who in turn glanced expressively at him, the latter became
silent, all suddenly stopped speaking. It was strange.

Raskolnikoff went out. As he descended the stairs he could hear an
animated discussion had broken out, and above all, the
interrogative voice of Nicodemus Thomich. In the street he came to
himself.

"Search, search! they are going to search!" he cried. "The
scoundrels, they suspect me!" The old dread seized him again, from
head to foot.

Here was the room. All was quiet, and no one had, apparently,
disturbed it--not even Nastasia. But, heavens! how could he have
left all those things where they were? He rushed to the corner,
pushed his hands behind the paper, took out the things, and thrust
them in his pockets. There were eight articles in all: two little
boxes with earrings or something of that description, then four
little morocco cases; a chain wrapped up in paper, and something
else done up in a common piece of newspaper--possibly a decoration.
Raskolnikoff distributed these, together with the purse, about his
person, in order to make them less noticeable, and quitted the room
again. All the time he had left the door wide open. He went away
hurriedly, fearing pursuit. Perhaps in a few minutes orders would
be issued to hunt him down, so he must hide all traces of his theft
at once; and he would do so while he had strength and reason left
him. But where should he go?

This had been long decided. Throw the lot in the canal and the
matter would be at an end! So he had resolved in that night of
delirium, when he cried out, "Quick, quick! throw all away!" But
this was not so easy. He wandered to the quays of the Catherine
Canal, and lingered there for half an hour. Here a washing raft
lay where he had thought of sinking his spoil, or there boats were
moored, and everywhere people swarmed. Then, again, would the
cases sink? Would they not rather float? No, this would not do.
He would go to the Neva; there would be fewer people there and more
room, and it would be more convenient. He recognized that he had
been wandering about for fully half an hour, and in dangerous
places. He must make haste. He made his way to the river, but
soon came to another standstill. Why in the Neva? Why in the
water at all? Better some solitary place in a wood, or under some
bushes. Dig a hole and bury them! He felt he was not in a
condition to deliberate clearly and soundly, but this idea appeared
the best.

This idea also, however, was not destined to be realized, and
another took its place. As he passed the V---- Prospect, he
suddenly noticed on the left an entrance into a court, which was
surrounded entirely by high walls. On the right, a long way up the
court, rose the side of a huge four-storied building. To the left,
parallel with the walls of the house, and commencing immediately at
the gate, there ran a wooden hoarding of about twenty paces down
the court. Then came a space where a lot of rubbish was deposited;
while farther down, at the bottom of the court, was a shed,
apparently part of some workshop, possibly that of a carpenter or
coach builder. Everything appeared as black as coal dust. Here
was the very place, he thought; and, after looking round, went up
the court. Behind the door he espied a large unworked stone,
weighing about fifty pounds, which lay close up against the
hoarding. No one could see him where he stood; he was entirely
free from observation. He bent down to the stone, managed to turn
it over after considerable effort, and found underneath a small
cavity. He threw in the cases, and then the purse on the top of
all. The stone was not perceptibly higher when he had replaced it,
and little traces of its having been moved could be noticed. So he
pressed some earth against the edges with his foot, and made off.

He laughed for joy when again in the street. All traces were gone,
and who would think of looking there? And if they were found who
would suspect him? All proofs were gone, and he laughed again.
Yes, he recollected afterwards how he laughed--a long, nervous,
lingering laugh, lasting all the time he was in that street.

He reached home toward evening, perhaps at about eight o'clock--
how, and by what particular way he never recollected--but, speedily
undressing, he lay down on the couch, trembling like a beaten
horse, and, drawing his overcoat over him, he fell immediately into
a deep sleep. He awoke in a high fever and delirious. Some days
later he came to himself, rose and went out. It was eight o'clock,
and the sun had disappeared. The heat was as intolerable as
before, but he inhaled the dusty, fetid, infected town air with
greediness. And now his head began to spin round, and a wild
expression of energy crept into his inflamed eyes and pale, meager,
wan face. He did not know, did not even think, what he was going
to do; he only knew that all was to be finished "to-day," at one
blow, immediately, or he would never return home, because he had no
desire to live thus. How to finish? By what means? No matter
how, and he did not want to think. He drove away any thoughts
which disturbed him, and only clung to the necessity of ending all,
"no matter how," said he, with desperate self-confidence and
decision. By force of habit he took his old walk, and set out in
the direction of the Haymarket. Farther on, he came on a young man
who was grinding some very feeling ballads upon a barrel organ.
Near the man, on the footpath, was a young girl of about fifteen
years of age, fashionably dressed, with crinoline, mantle, and
gloves, and a straw hat trimmed with gaudy feathers, but all old
and terribly worn out, who, in a loud and cracked though not
altogether unpleasing voice, was singing before a shop in
expectation of a couple of kopecks. Raskolnikoff stopped and
joined one or two listeners, took out a five-kopeck piece, and gave
it to the girl. The latter at once stopped on a very high note
which she had just reached, and cried to the man, "Come along," and
both immediately moved on to another place.

"Do you like street music?" said Raskolnikoff to a middle-aged man
standing near him. The latter looked at him in surprise, but
smiled. "I love it," continued Raskolnikoff, "especially when they
sing to the organ on a cold, dark, gray winter's evening, when all
the passers-by seem to have pale, green, sickly-looking faces--when
the snow is falling like a sleet, straight down and with no wind,
you know, and while the lamps shine on it all."

"I don't know. Excuse me," said the man, frightened at the
question and Raskolnikoff's strange appearance, and hastily
withdrawing to the other side of the street.

Raskolnikoff went on, and came to the place in the Hay-market where
he had met the trader and his wife and Elizabeth. No one was there
at the moment. He stopped, and turned to a young fellow, in a red
shirt, who was gaping at the entrance to a flour shop.

"A man trades here at this corner, with his wife, eh?"

"Everyone trades here," replied the lad, scanning his questioner
from head to foot.

"What is he called?"

"What he was christened."

"But you belong to Zaraisk, don't you? To what Government?"

The boy stared at Raskolnikoff. "We have no governor, your
highness, but districts. I stay at home, and know nothing about
it, but my brother does; so pardon me, your most mighty highness."

"Is that an eating house there?"

"That's a dram shop; they have a billiard table."

"There are newspapers here?" asked he, as he entered a room--one of
a suite--rather empty. Two or three persons sat with tea before
them, while in a farther room a group of men were seated, drinking
champagne. Raskolnikoff thought he recognized Zametoff among them,
but be could not be sure. "Never mind, if it is!" he muttered.

"Brandy, sir?" asked the waiter.

"No, tea; and bring me some newspapers--for about the last five
days. I'll give you a drink."

The papers and the tea appeared. Raskolnikoff sat and searched,
and, at last, found what he wanted. "Ah, here it is!" he cried, as
he began to read. The words danced before his eyes, but he read
greedily to the end, and turned to others for later intelligence.
His hands trembled with impatience, and the sheets shook again.
Suddenly some one sat down near him. He looked up, and there was
Zametoff--that same Zametoff, with his rings and chain, his oiled
locks and fancy waistcoat and unclean linen. He seemed pleased,
and his tanned face, a little inflamed by the champagne, wore a
smile.

"Ah! you here?" he commenced, in a tone as if he had known
Raskolnikoff for an age. "Why Razoumikhin told me yesterday that
you were lying unconscious. How strange! Then I was at your
place--"

Raskolnikoff laid down the paper and turned to Zametoff. On his
lips was a slight provoking smile. "I know you were," he replied,
"I heard so. You searched for my boot. To what agreeable places
you resort. Who gives you champagne to drink?"

"We were drinking together. What do you mean?"

"Nothing, dear boy, nothing," said Raskolnikoff, with a smile and
slapping Zametoff on the shoulders. "I am not in earnest, but
simply in fun, as your workman said, when he wrestled with Dmitri,
you know, in that murder case."

"Do you know about that?"

"Yes, and perhaps more than you do."

"You are very peculiar. It is a pity you came out. You are ill."

"Do I seem strange?"

"Yes; what are you reading?"

"The paper."

"There are a number of fires."

"I am not reading about them." He looked curiously at Zametoff,
and a malicious smile distorted his lips. "No, fires are not in my
line," he added, winking at Zametoff. "Now, I should like to know,
sweet youth, what it signifies to you what I read?"

"Nothing at all. I only asked. Perhaps I--"

"Listen. You are a cultivated man--a literary man, are you not?"

"I was in the sixth class at college," Zametoff answered, with a
certain amount of dignity.

"The sixth! Oh, my fine fellow! With rings and a chain--a rich
man! You are a dear boy," and Raskolnikoff gave a short, nervous
laugh, right in the face of Zametoff. The latter was very much
taken aback, and, if not offended, seemed a good deal surprised.

"How strange you are!" said Zametoff seriously. "You have the
fever still on you; you are raving!"

"Am I, my fine fellow--am I strange? Yes, but I am very
interesting to you, am I not?"

"Interesting?"

"Yes. You ask me what I am reading, what I am looking for; then I
am looking through a number of papers. Suspicious, isn't it?
Well, I will explain to you, or rather confess--no, not that
exactly. I will give testimony, and you shall take it down--that's
it. So then, I swear that I was reading, and came here on
purpose"--Raskolnikoff blinked his eyes and paused--"to read an
account of the murder of the old woman." He finished almost in a
whisper, eagerly watching Zametoff's face. The latter returned his
glances without flinching. And it appeared strange to Zametoff
that a full minute seemed to pass as they kept fixedly staring at
each other in this manner.

"Oh, so that's what you have been reading?" Zametoff at last cried
impatiently. "What is there in that?"

"She is the same woman," continued Raskolnikoff, still in a
whisper, and taking no notice of Zametoff's remark, "the very same
woman you were talking about when I swooned in your office. You
recollect--you surely recollect?"

"Recollect what?" said Zametoff, almost alarmed.

The serious expression on Raskolnikoff's face altered in an
instant, and he again commenced his nervous laugh, and laughed as
if he were quite unable to contain himself. There had recurred to
his mind, with fearful clearness, the moment when he stood at the
door with the hatchet in his hand. There he was, holding the bolt,
and they were tugging and thumping away at the door. Oh, how he
itched to shriek at them, open the door, thrust out his tongue at
them, and frighten them away, and then laugh, "Ah, ah, ah, ah!"

"You are insane, or else--" said Zametoff, and then paused as if a
new thought had suddenly struck him.

"Or what, or what? Now what? Tell me!"

"Nonsense!" said Zametoff to himself, "it can't be." Both became
silent. After this unexpected and fitful outburst of laughter,
Raskolnikoff had become lost in thought and looked very sad. He
leaned on the table with his elbows, buried his head in his hands,
and seemed to have quite forgotten Zametoff. The silence continued
a long time. "You do not drink your tea; it is getting cold," said
the latter, at last.

"What? Tea? Yes!" Raskolnikoff snatched at his glass, put a
piece of bread in his mouth, and then, after looking at Zametoff,
seemingly recollected and roused himself. His face at once resumed
its previous smile, and he continued to sip his tea.

"What a number of rogues there are about," Zametoff said. "I read
not long ago, in the Moscow papers, that they had captured a whole
gang of forgers in that city. Quite a colony."

"That's old news. I read it a month ago," replied Raskolnikoff in
a careless manner. "And you call such as these rogues?" he added,
smiling.

"Why not?"

"Rogues indeed! Why, they are only children and babies. Fifty
banded together for such purposes! Is it possible? Three would be
quite sufficient, and then they should be sure of one another--not
babble over their cups. The babies! Then to hire unreliable
people to change the notes at the money changers', persons whose
hands tremble as they receive the rubles. On such their lives
depend! Far better to strangle yourself! The man goes in,
receives the change, counts some over, the last portion he takes on
faith, stuffs all in his pocket, rushes away and the murder is out.
All is lost by one foolish man. Is it not ridiculous?"

"That his hands should shake?" replied Zametoff. "No; that is
quite likely. Yours would not, I suppose? I could not endure it,
though. For a paltry reward of a hundred rubles to go on such a
mission! And where? Into a banker's office with forged notes! I
should certainly lose my head. Would not you?"

Raskolnikoff felt again a strong impulse to make a face at him. A
shiver ran down his back. "You would not catch me acting so
foolishly," he commenced. "This is how I should do. I should
count over the first thousand very carefully, perhaps four times,
right to the end, carefully examine each note, and then only pass
to the second thousand, count these as far as the middle of the
bundle, take out a note, hold it to the light, turn it over, then
hold it to the light again, and say, 'I fear this is a bad note,'
and then begin to relate some story about a lost note. Then there
would be a third thousand to count. Not yet, please, there is a
mistake in the second thousand. No, it is correct. And so I
should proceed until I had received all. At last I should turn to
go, open the door, but, no, pardon me! I should return, ask some
question, receive some explanation, and there it is all done."

"What funny things you do say!" said Zametoff with a smile. "You
are all very well theoretically, but try it and see. Look, for
example, at the murder of the money lender, a case in point. There
was a desperate villain who in broad daylight stopped at nothing,
and yet his hand shook, did it not?--and he could not finish, and
left all the spoil behind him. The deed evidently robbed him of
his presence of mind."

This language nettled Raskolnikoff. "You think so? Then lay your
hand upon him," said he, maliciously delighted to tease him.

"Never fear but we shall!"

"You? Go to, you know nothing about it. All you think of
inquiring is whether a man is flinging money about; he is--then,
ergo he is guilty."

"That is exactly what they do," replied Zametoff, "they murder,
risk their lives, and then rush to the public house and are caught.
Their lavishness betrays them. You see they are not all so crafty
as you are. You would not run there, I suppose?"

Raskolnikoff frowned and looked steadily at Zametoff. "You seem
anxious to know how I should act," he said with some displeasure.

"I should very much like to know," replied Zametoff in a serious
tone. He seemed, indeed, very anxious.

"Very much?"

"Very much."

"Good. This would be my plan," Raskolnikoff said, as he again bent
near to the face of his listener, and speaking in such a tragic
whisper as almost to make the latter shudder. "I should take the
money and all I could find, and make off, going, however, in no
particular direction, but on and on until I came to some obscure
and inclosed place, where no one was about--a market garden, or any
such-like spot. I should then look about me for a stone, perhaps a
pound and a half in weight, lying, it may be, in a corner against a
partition, say a stone used for building purposes; this I should
lift up and under it there would be a hole. In that hole I should
deposit all the things I had got, roll back the stone, stamp it
down with my feet, and be off. For a year I should let them lie--
for two years, three years. Now then, search for them! Where are
they?"

"You are indeed mad," said Zametoff, also in a low tone, but
turning away from Raskolnikoff. The latter's eyes glistened, he
became paler than ever, while his upper lip trembled violently. He
placed his face closer, if possible, to that of Zametoff, his lips
moving as if he wished to speak, but no words escaped them--several
moments elapsed--Raskolnikoff knew what he was doing, but felt
utterly unable to control himself, that strange impulse was upon
him as when he stood at the bolted door, to come forth and let all
be known.

"What if I killed the old woman and Elizabeth?" he asked suddenly,
and then--came to himself.

Zametoff turned quite pale; then his face changed to a smile. "Can
it be so?" he muttered to himself.

Raskolnikoff eyed him savagely. "Speak out. What do you think?
Yes? Is it so?"

"Of course not. I believe it now less than ever," replied Zametoff
hastily.

"Caught at last! caught, my fine fellow! What people believe less
than ever, they must have believed once, eh?"

"Not at all. You frightened me into the supposition," said
Zametoff, visibly confused.

"So you do not think this? Then why those questions in the office?
Why did the lieutenant question me after my swoon? Waiter," he
cried, seizing his cap, "here, how much?"

"Thirty kopecks, sir," replied the man.

"There you are, and twenty for yourself. Look, what a lot of
money!" turning to Zametoff and thrusting forth his shaking hand
filled with the twenty-five rubles, red and blue notes. "Whence
comes all this? Where did I obtain these new clothes from? You
know I had none. You have asked the landlady, I suppose? Well, no
matter!--Enough! Adieu, most affectionately."

He went out, shaking from some savage hysterical emotion, a mixture
of delight, gloom, and weariness. His face was drawn as if he had
just recovered from a fit; and, as his agitation of mind increased,
so did his weakness.

Meanwhile, Zametoff remained in the restaurant where Raskolnikoff
had left him, deeply buried in thought, considering the different
points Raskolnikoff had placed before him.

His heart was empty and depressed, and he strove again to drive off
thought. No feeling of anguish came, neither was there any trace
of that fierce energy which moved him when he left the house to
"put an end to it all."

"What will be the end of it? The result lies in my own will. What
kind of end? Ah, we are all alike, and accept the bit of ground
for our feet and live. Must this be the end? Shall I say the word
or not? Oh, how weary I feel! Oh, to lie down or sit anywhere!
How foolish it is to strive against my illness! Bah! What
thoughts run through my brain!" Thus he meditated as he went
drowsily along the banks of the canal, until, turning to the right
and then to the left, he reached the office building. He stopped
short, however, and, turning down a lane, went on past two other
streets, with no fixed purpose, simply, no doubt, to give himself a
few moments longer for reflection. He went on, his eyes fixed on
the ground, until all of a sudden he started, as if some one had
whispered in his ear. Raising his eyes he saw that he stood before
THE HOUSE, at its very gates.

Quick as lightning, an idea rushed into his head, and he marched
through the yard and made his way up the well-known staircase to
the fourth story. It was, as usual, very dark, and as he reached
each landing he peered almost with caution. There was the room
newly painted, where Dmitri and Mikola had worked. He reached the
fourth landing and he paused before the murdered woman's room in
doubt. The door was wide open and he could hear voices within;
this he had not anticipated. However, after wavering a little, he
went straight in. The room was being done up, and in it were some
workmen. This astonished him--indeed, it would seem he had
expected to find everything as he had left it, even to the dead
bodies lying on the floor. But to see the place with bare walls
and bereft of furniture was very strange! He walked up to the
windows and sat on the sill. One of the workmen now saw him and
cried:

"What do you want here?"

Instead of replying, Raskolnikoff walked to the outer door and,
standing outside, began to pull at the bell. Yes, that was the
bell, with its harsh sound. He pulled again and again three times,
and remained there listening and thinking.

"What is it you want?" again cried the workman as he went out to
Raskolnikoff.

"I wish to hire some rooms. I came to look at these."

"People don't take lodgings in the night. Why don't you apply to
the porter?"

"The floor has been washed. Are you going to paint it?" remarked
Raskolnikoff. "Where is the blood?"

"What blood?"

"The old woman's and her sister's. There was quite a pool."

"Who are you?" cried the workman uneasily.

"I am Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikoff, ex-student. I live at the
house Schilla, in a lane not far from here, No. 14. Ask the porter
there--he knows me," Raskolnikoff replied indifferently, without
turning to his questioner.

"What were you doing in those rooms?"

"Looking at them."

"What for? Come, out you go then, if you won't explain yourself,"
suddenly shouted the porter, a huge fellow in a smock frock, with a
large bunch of keys round his waist; and he caught Raskolnikoff by
the shoulder and pitched him into the street. The latter lurched
forward, but recovered himself, and, giving one look at the
spectators, went quietly away.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28