bar began to titter. The landlord, it seemed, had come down specially from the room upstairs so as to listen to this ‘entertainer’, and he sat at a distance, yawning lazily and self-importantly. Marmeladov was clearly an old face here. And his penchant for flowery speech must have derived from his habit of talking to strangers in bars. For some drinkers this habit becomes a need, especially if at home they are ordered about and harshly treated. That’s why, in the company of other drinkers, they always go to such lengths to be vindicated and, if possible, earn their respect.
‘A right entertainer!’ the landlord boomed. ‘Why’s you not working, then? Why, pray, d’you not serve, civil servant?’
‘Why do I not serve, my dear sir?’ echoed Marmeladov, addressing himself exclusively to Raskolnikov, as though it were he who had posed the question. ‘Why do I not serve? Does my heart not ache to know that I bow and scrape in vain? A month ago, when Mr Lebezyatnikov thrashed my spouse with his own bare hands, while I lay tipsy, did I not suffer? Pray tell me, young man, have you ever had occasion to . . . ahem . . . well, beg for a loan, say, without hope?’
‘I have . . . but what do you mean, without hope?’
‘I mean, without any hope at all, sir, knowing in advance that nothing will come of it. For example, you know in advance and with complete certainty that this man, this most well-intentioned and most helpful citizen, will not give you a copeck, for, I ask you, why should he? After all, he knows full well that I shan’t return it. Out of compassion? But Mr Lebezyatnikov, who keeps abreast of the latest thinking, was explaining only the other day that in our age even science has prohibited compassion, and that is how they already do things in England, where political economy16 is all the rage. So, I ask you, why should he? And yet, knowing in advance that he will not give it to you, you set out all the same and . . .’
‘So why go?’ Raskolnikov put in.
‘What if there is nowhere else to go and no one else to go to? After all, every man must have at least somewhere he can go. There are times when one simply has to go somewhere, anywhere! When my only-begotten daughter went off to work for the first time on a “yellow ticket”,17 I, too, went off . . . (for my daughter lives on a yellow ticket, sir . . . ),’ he added in parenthesis, looking at the young man with a certain unease. ‘Never mind, good sir, never mind!’ he hurriedly continued with apparent equanimity, when the two boys behind the bar snorted and the landlord grinned. ‘Never mind, sir! The mere wagging of heads cannot embarrass me, for now everything is known to all and all that was hidden is made manifest; and I respond not with contempt, but with humility. So be it! So be it! “Behold the Man!”18 Pray tell me, young man: can you . . . ? No, let’s put it more strongly, more vividly: not can you, but dare you, gazing at me here and now, state for a fact that I am not a pig?’
The young man said nothing.
‘Well, sir,’ the orator continued, pausing with an imposing and even, on this occasion, exaggeratedly dignified air for the latest round of sniggering to abate. ‘Well, sir, I may be a pig, but she is a lady! I may bear the likeness of a beast, but Katerina Ivanovna, my spouse, is an educated person, who was born to a field officer. I may be a scoundrel, but she is endowed with a sublime heart and feelings ennobled by good breeding. And yet . . . oh, would that my lady had pity on me! After all, kindest sir, every man must have at least one place where even he might be pitied! Katerina Ivanovna is high-minded, but unjust . . . And though I understand myself that even when she seizes me by my forelocks she does so purely from the pity of her heart (for I am not embarrassed to repeat, young man, that she seizes me by my forelocks),’ he reaffirmed with redoubled dignity, after hearing sniggers