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Besides which, other circumstances quite unexpectedly came out that greatly favored the accused. The former student Razumikhin dug up information somewhere and presented proofs that the criminal Raskolnikov, while at the university, had used his last resources to help a poor and consumptive fellow student, and had practically supported him for half a year. And when the student died, he had looked after his surviving old and paralytic father (whom his dead friend had fed and supported by his own efforts almost since the age of thirteen), finally placed the old man in a hospital, and when he died as well, buried him. All this information had a certain favorable influence on the deciding of Raskolnikov's fate. His former landlady, the mother of Raskolnikov's late fiancée, the widow Zarnitsyn, also testified that while they were still living in the other house, at Five Corners, Raskolnikov, during a fire one night, had carried two small children out of an apartment already in flames and had been burned in the process. This fact was carefully investigated and quite well attested to by many witnesses. In short, the outcome was that the criminal was sentenced to penal servitude of the second class for a term of only eight years, in consideration of his having come to confess his guilt and other mitigating circumstances.
At the very begi
A couple of times, however, it happened that she herself led the conversation in such a way that it was impossible in answering her not to mention precisely where Rodya was then; and when, willy-nilly, the answers came out unsatisfactory and suspicious, she would all at once turn extremely sad, gloomy, and silent, and would remain so for quite a long time. Dunya saw at last that it was hard to go on lying and inventing, and came to a final conclusion that it was better to be completely silent on certain issues; but it was becoming more and more clear, to the point of obviousness, that the poor mother suspected something terrible. Dunya incidentally remembered her brother saying that their mother had listened to her raving on the eve of that last, fatal day, after her scene with Svidrigailov: had she managed to hear something then? Often, sometimes after several days or even weeks of gloomy, sullen silence and wordless tears, the sick woman would become somehow hysterically animated and begin suddenly to talk aloud, almost without stop, about her son, about her hopes, about the future...Her fantasies were sometimes very strange. They humored her, yessed her (she herself perhaps saw clearly that they yessed her only to humor her), but she still went on talking . . .
The sentence came five months after the criminal went and confessed. Razumikhin saw him in prison whenever he possibly could. So did Sonya. Finally it came time to part. Dunya swore to her brother that the parting was not forever; so did Razumikhin. A project had firmly shaped itself in Razumikhin's young and ardent head, to lay, as far as possible, over the next three or four years, at least the foundations of a future fortune, to save at least some money, and move to Siberia, where the soil was rich in all respects, and workers, people, and capital were scarce; to settle there in the same town where Rodya was, and...begin a new life together. On saying farewell, they all wept. Raskolnikov had been very pensive during those last days, inquired often about his mother, was constantly worried about her. He even suffered too much over her, which alarmed Dunya. Having learned in detail of his mother's ailing spirits, he became very gloomy. With Sonya he was for some reason especially taciturn the whole time. Sonya had long since made her preparations, with the help of the money left her by Svidrigailov, and was ready to follow the party of convicts with which he would be sent. No word had been spoken of it between her and Raskolnikov, but they both knew it would be so. During the last farewell, he kept smiling strangely at the fervent assurances of his sister and Razumikhin about their happy future when he would be done with hard labor, and foretold that his mother's ailing condition would soon end in grief. He and Sonya finally set off.
Two months later Dunechka married Razumikhin. The wedding was sad and quiet. Among those invited, by the way, were Porfiry Petrovich and Zossimov. All the time recently, Razumikhin had had the look of a man who has firmly made up his mind. Dunya believed blindly that he would carry out all his intentions, and could not but believe it: an iron will could be seen in the man. Incidentally, he began attending university lectures again, to complete his studies. They were both constantly making plans for the future; both firmly counted on moving to Siberia without fail in five years' time. Until then they relied on Sonya being there . . .
Pulcheria Alexandrovna gladly blessed her daughter's marriage to Razumikhin; but after the marriage she seemed to become still more sad and preoccupied. To give her a moment's pleasure, Razumikhin incidentally told her the fact about the student and his decrepit father, and how Rodya had been burned and was even laid up after saving two little children from death the year before. This news sent Pulcheria Alexandrovna, whose mind was unsettled to begin with, almost into a state of ecstasy. She talked of it incessantly, even got into conversations in the street (though Dunya always accompanied her). In public carriages, in shops, having caught hold of at least some listener, she would bring the conversation around to her son, his article, how he had helped the student, had been burned in the fire, and so on. Dunechka simply did not know how to restrain her. Besides the danger of such an ecstatic, morbid state of mind, there could also have been trouble if someone had remembered Raskolnikov's name in co