. . . How come?’
Yes, exactly. But he’d known that already and there was nothing new about this question; and when he’d decided, the previous night, to throw the stuff in the water, he’d done so without a moment’s hesitation or a single reservation, as if that was exactly how it should be, as if there could be no other way . . . Yes, he knew all this already, remembered it all; and what was to say it hadn’t been decided yesterday, at that very moment when he was sitting over the box and taking out the cases? . . . Exactly!
‘It’s because I’m so ill,’ he decided at last, sullenly. ‘I’ve tormented myself, torn myself to pieces, and don’t even know what I’m doing . . . Yesterday, the day before, all these days – one torment after another . . . I’ll get better and . . . I won’t torment myself . . . And if I don’t get any better? God! I’m just so sick of it all!’ He walked without stopping. He desperately wanted to distract himself, but he didn’t know what to do, what to undertake. A new, overwhelming sensation was taking possession of him, growing stronger almost by the minute: some sort of infinite, almost physical disgust – stubborn, spiteful, hate-filled – towards everything that surrounded him. Everyone he met disgusted him – their faces, their gait, their gestures. Had anyone tried to talk to him, he’d probably have spat in his face, or bitten him . . .
He suddenly stopped when he came out on the embankment of the Little Neva, on Vasilyevsky Island, by a bridge. ‘This is where he lives, this is the house,’ he thought. ‘Don’t tell me I’ve come to Razumikhin’s again! Just like then . . . Fascinating, though: did I mean to come here or was I just walking by? Makes no odds; I did say . . . a couple of days ago . . . that I’d drop in the day after that, so that’s what I’ll do! What’s to stop me . . . ?’
He went up to the fifth floor.
Razumikhin was at home, in his own little cell; he was busy working – writing – and opened the door himself. They hadn’t seen each other for four months or so. Razumikhin was wearing a tattered dressing gown, and shoes on bare feet; he was unkempt, unshaven and unwashed. His face expressed surprise.
‘What’s happened?’ he cried, inspecting his friend from top to toe; then he fell silent and whistled.
‘That bad, eh? Just look at you! I feel positively underdressed,’ – he added, staring at Raskolnikov’s rags – ‘but sit down, for heaven’s sake, you look exhausted!’ – and when Raskolnikov collapsed on the ‘Turkish’ oilcloth-covered couch, which was even shabbier than his own, Razumikhin suddenly saw that his guest was sick.
‘You’re seriously ill, do you know that?’ He started feeling his pulse. Raskolnikov tore his hand away.
‘Don’t!’ he said. ‘I’ve come . . . here’s what: I’ve no teaching at all . . . I was going to . . . though actually, I don’t need any . . .’
‘Know what? You’re raving!’ remarked Razumikhin, observing him closely.
‘No I’m not . . . ,’ said Raskolnikov, getting up from the couch. While climbing the stairs it hadn’t occurred to him that he would, of course, end up face to face with Razumikhin. But now, in a flash, he had seen for himself that the very last thing he felt like doing, at this moment, was to come face to face with anyone at all in the whole world. He was turning yellow with bile. He’d all but choked with self-loathing the second he crossed Razumikhin’s threshold.
‘See you!’ he suddenly said, and made for the door.
‘Wait there, you mad dog!’
‘Don’t!’ the other repeated, tearing his hand away again.
‘So why the hell did you come in the first place? Are you off your head? I mean it’s . . . almost insulting. I won’t let you off so easily.’
‘All right. I came to you because I didn’t know anyone else who could help me . . . start . . . because you’re kinder than all