Crime and Punishment

“A roo-ooster? Did you say a roo-ooster?” cried the supply gentleman.

Katerina Ivanovna did not deign to answer him. She lapsed into thought about something and sighed.

“You no doubt think, as everyone else does, that I was too strict with him,” she went on, addressing Raskolnikov. “But it wasn't so! He respected me, he respected me very, very much! He was a man of good soul! And I oftentimes felt so sorry for him! He used to sit and look at me from the corner, and I'd feel such pity for him, I'd have liked to be nice to him, but then I'd think to myself: 'I'll be nice to him, and he'll just get drunk again.' It was only by strictness that it was possible to restrain him at all.”

“Yes, ma'am, it did go on, the hair-pulling, that it did, more than once, ma'am,” the supply man bellowed again, and poured another glass of vodka into himself.

“Not just hair-pulling but even the broom would be a useful treatment for some fools. I'm not talking about my late husband now,” Katerina Ivanovna snapped at the supply man.

The flushed spots on her cheeks glowed brighter and brighter; her chest was heaving. Another minute and she would be ready to start a scene. Many were chuckling; evidently many found it enjoyable. They began nudging the supply man and whispering something to him. Obviously they wanted to set them at each other.

“And ma-a-ay I ask on what account, ma'am,” the supply man began, “that is, on whose noble account... you have just been so good as to...but, no! Nonsense! A widow! A widow-woman! I forgive...I pass!” and he knocked back some more vodka.

Raskolnikov sat and listened silently and with loathing. And he ate only out of politeness, barely touching the food that Katerina Ivanovna was constantly putting on his plate, and then only to avoid offending her. He kept a close eye on Sonya. But Sonya was becoming more and more anxious and preoccupied; she, too, anticipated that the memorial meal was not going to end peaceably, and watched with fear Katerina Ivanovna's mounting irritation. She knew, incidentally, that she herself, Sonya, was the main reason that the two visiting ladies had treated Katerina Ivanovna's invitation so contemptuously. She had heard from Amalia Ivanovna herself that the mother was even offended at the invitation and had posed the question: “How could she possibly place her daughter next to that girl?” Sonya had a feeling that this had somehow already become known to Katerina Ivanovna; and an offense to her, Sonya, meant more to Katerina Ivanovna than an offense to herself personally, or to her children, or to her papa; in short, it was a mortal offense, and Sonya knew that now Katerina Ivanovna would not rest “until she had proved to those skirt-swishers that they were both...” and so on and so forth. As if on purpose, someone sent Sonya a plate from the other end of the table with two hearts on it pierced by an arrow, molded in black bread. Katerina Ivanovna flared up and at once loudly remarked across the table that whoever had sent it was, of course, “a drunken ass.” Amalia Ivanovna, who also anticipated something bad, and furthermore was insulted to the bottom of her soul by Katerina Ivanovna's haughtiness, in order to divert the unpleasant mood of the company, and at the same time raise herself in the general esteem, suddenly, out of the blue, began telling of how an acquaintance of hers, “Karl from the pharmacy,” had taken a cab one night, and the driver “vanted to kill him, and Karl he pegged him fery, fery much not to kill him, and he vept and clasped his hands, and he vas sheared, and from fear vas pierced his heart.” Katerina Ivanovna, though she smiled, immediately observed that Amalia Ivanovna ought not to tell anecdotes in Russian. The woman became even more offended, and replied that her “fater aus Berlin vas a fery, fery important ma

“What a barn owl!” Katerina Ivanovna whispered again to Raskolnikov, almost cheerfully. “She meant to say he kept his hands in his pockets, but it came out that he picked people's pockets, hem, hem!

And have you noticed, Rodion Romanovich, once and for all, that all these Petersburg foreigners—that is, Germans mainly, wherever they come from—are all stupider than we are! You must agree, one simply ca

Having cheered up, Katerina Ivanovna immediately got carried away with various details, and suddenly began to talk of how, with the aid of the obtained pension, she would certainly start an institute for noble girls in her native town of T------. This was something Katerina Ivanovna herself had not yet spoken of with Raskolnikov, and she was immediately carried away with the most tempting details. All at once, no one knew how, she was holding in her hands that same “certificate of merit” which Raskolnikov had heard about from the late Marmeladov, when he was explaining to him in the tavern that Katerina Ivanovna, his spouse, on her graduation from the institute, had danced with a shawl “before the governor and other personages.” This certificate of merit was now obviously meant to serve as evidence of Katerina Ivanovna's right to start an institute of her own; but above all it had been kept ready with the purpose of finally confounding “those two frippery skirt-swishers” in case they should come to the memorial meal, and proving clearly to them that Katerina Ivanovna was from a most noble, “one might even say aristocratic, house, a colonel's daughter, and certainly better than the sort of adventuresses who have been multiplying in such quantity lately.” The certificate of merit was immediately handed around among the drunken guests, which Katerina Ivanovna did not prevent, because it did indeed mention en toutes lettres[118] that she was the daughter of a court councillor and chevalier of an order, and therefore indeed almost a colonel's daughter. Burning with excitement, Katerina Ivanovna immediately expanded on all the details of this wonderful and peaceful future life in T------, the school-masters she would invite to give lessons in her institute, the venerable old Frenchman, Mangot, who had taught French to Katerina Ivanovna herself at the institute, and was now living out his old age in T------, and who would certainly come to her on quite suitable terms. Finally, it came to Sonya as well, “who would go to T------together with Katerina Ivanovna and help her there in everything.” Here someone suddenly snorted at the other end of the table. Though Katerina Ivanovna at once made a pretense of scornfully ignoring the laughter that arose at the end of the table, she deliberately raised her voice at once and began talking animatedly about Sofya Semyonovna's undoubted abilities to serve as her assistant, about “her meekness, patience, self-denial, nobility, and education,” and she patted Sonya on the cheek and, rising a little, warmly kissed her twice. Sonya flushed, and Katerina Ivanovna suddenly burst into tears, immediately observing of herself that “she was a nervous fool, and much too upset, and that it was time to end, and since the meal was over, why not serve tea.” At the same moment, Amalia Ivanovna, now utterly offended because she had not taken the least part in the entire conversation and no one would even listen to her, suddenly risked a last attempt and, with concealed anguish, ventured to offer Katerina Ivanovna an extremely sensible and profound observation about the necessity, in the future institute, of paying special attention to the girls' clean linen (die Wàsche) and “of making sure dere iss vun such good lady” (die Dame) “who should look vell after the linen,” and second, “that all the young girls mussn't sneak any novel by night to read.” Katerina Ivanovna, who was really upset and very tired, and was already thoroughly sick of the memorial meal, immediately “snapped” at Amalia Ivanovna that she was “pouring out drivel” and understood nothing; that it was for the head matron to worry about die Wàsche, not the directress of a noble institute; and as far as reading novels was concerned, that was all simply indecencies and she begged her to keep quiet. Amalia Ivanovna flushed and, getting angry, remarked that she was only “vishing vell” and that she “fery much vished vell,” but that “for a long time she vasn't the geld paid for the apartment.” Katerina Ivanovna “put her down” at once, declaring that she was lying when she said she “vished her vell,” because just yesterday, while the dead man was still laid out on the table,[119] she had been tormenting her about the apartment. To this Amalia Ivanovna responded, quite consistently, that she had “infited those ladies, but the ladies didn't come, because those been noble ladies, and to a not noble lady they ca

118

"In black and white" (French).

119

It was customary in Russia for a corpse to be laid out on a table until it was put in the coffin.