or other, but you don’t get a diploma for chatting and bragging. Not a bit like you, say, or your friend Mr Razumikhin! Yours is the career of a scholar, no misfortune will throw you off course! For you, one might say, life’s fripperies – nihil est; you’re an ascetic, a monk, a hermit! . . . A book, a pen behind your ear, scholarly publications – only there does your spirit soar! I myself . . . perhaps you’ve read Livingstone’s journals?’45
‘No.’
‘Well I have. But there’s so many nihilists about nowadays. Quite understandable, I suppose; just think of the times we’re living in! Although you and I . . . Well, I’m sure you’re not a nihilist! Answer me frankly now, frankly!’
‘N-no . . .’
‘Really, be frank with me, don’t hold back – talk as if you were the only person in the room! Public service is one thing, quite another is . . . Ha, you thought I was going to say friendship! No sir, not friendship, but the sense of being a citizen and a man,46 the sense of one’s humanity and love for the Almighty. I may be a state official, I may be at my post, but I am forever obliged to sense the citizen within me, to stand up and be counted . . . You saw fit to mention Zametov just now. You know, Zametov’s just the type to do something disgraceful, something French, in some seedy establishment, over a glass of champagne or Russian wine – that’s Zametov for you! Whereas I, so to speak, burn with loyalty and fine feelings; not only that, I am a man of consequence and rank, with a certain position! Married, with children. Fulfilling my duty as citizen and man. And who’s he, pray tell? I speak to you as to a man ennobled by education. Or take these new midwives: there’s far too many of them about.’
Raskolnikov raised his eyebrows. For the most part, the words uttered by Ilya Petrovich, evidently just up from the dinner table, rained down on him like empty sounds. Some of them, though, made a kind of sense. He gave him a questioning glance and wondered where it would all end.
‘I mean those short-haired wenches,’ the loquacious Ilya Petrovich went on. ‘Midwives is my own little nickname, and I find the description more than satisfactory. Heh-heh! There they are, sneaking into the medical academy to study anatomy.47 But tell me, when I get sick am I really going to ask a young lady to treat me? Heh-heh!’
Ilya Petrovich guffawed, savouring his wit.
‘An immoderate thirst for enlightenment, I suppose, but one must know when to stop. Why abuse one’s privilege? Why insult honourable people, as that scoundrel Zametov likes to do? Why did he insult me, I ask you? Or take all these suicides – you can’t imagine how common it’s become. Spending their last roubles, then doing themselves in. Young girls, young boys, old men . . . Only this morning a report came in about some gentleman, a recent arrival. Nil Pavlych? Hey, Nil Pavlych! What was his name again, that well-mannered gent who shot himself yesterday on Petersburg Side?’
‘Svidrigailov,’ came a hoarse, indifferent voice from the other room.
Raskolnikov shuddered.
‘Svidrigailov! Svidrigailov’s shot himself!’ he cried.
‘You mean you know Svidrigailov?!’
‘Yes . . . I know him . . . He arrived not long ago.’
‘That’s right, arrived not long ago, recently widowed, a rake if ever there was, and suddenly shot himself in the most scandalous way imaginable . . . Left a few lines in his notebook to say he was sound of mind and to ask that no one be blamed for his death. Had money, I hear. But how do you know him?’
‘We’re . . . acquainted . . . My sister was their governess . . .’
‘Well, well, well . . . Then there must be things you can tell us about him. And you didn’t suspect anything?’
‘I saw him only yesterday . . . He . . . was drinking wine . . . I didn’t know.’
Raskolnikov felt as though something had fallen on him, crushed him.
‘You seem to