“And where am I going to?” he thought suddenly. “Strange. I was going for some reason. As soon as I read the letter, off I went...To Vasilievsky Island, to Razumikhin's, that's where I was going . . .
now I remember. What for, however? And how is it that the thought of going to see Razumikhin flew into my head precisely now? Remarkable!”
He marveled at himself. Razumikhin was one of his former university friends. It was remarkable that Raskolnikov had almost no friends while he was at the university, kept aloof from everyone, visited no one, and had difficulty receiving visitors. Soon, however, everyone also turned away from him. General gatherings, conversations, merrymaking—he somehow did not participate in any of it. He was a zealous student, unsparing of himself, and was respected for it, but no one loved him. He was very poor and somehow haughtily proud and unsociable, as though he were keeping something to himself. It seemed to some of his friends that he looked upon them all as children, from above, as though he were ahead of them all in development, in knowledge, and in convictions, and that he regarded their convictions and interests as something inferior.
Yet for some reason he became close with Razumikhin—that is, not really close, but he was more sociable, more frank with him. However, it was impossible to be on any other terms with Razumikhin. He was an exceptionally cheerful and sociable fellow, kind to the point of simplicity. However, this simplicity concealed both depth and dignity. The best of his friends understood that; everyone loved him. He was far from stupid, though indeed a bit simple at times. His appearance was expressive—tall, thin, black-haired, always badly shaved. He could be violent on occasion, and was reputed to be a very strong man. Once, at night, in company, he knocked down a six-and-a-half-foot keeper of the peace with one blow. He could drink ad infinitum, or he could not drink at all; he could be impossibly mischievous, or he could not be mischievous at all. Razumikhin was also remarkable in that no setbacks ever confounded him, and no bad circumstances seemed able to crush him. He could make his lodgings even on a rooftop, suffer hellish hunger and extreme cold. He was very poor, and supported himself decidedly on his own, alone, getting money by work of one sort or another. He knew an endless number of sources to draw from—by means of working, of course. Once he went a whole winter without heating his room, asserting that he even found it more pleasant, because one sleeps better in the cold. At present he, too, had been forced to leave the university, but not for long, and he was trying in all haste to straighten out his circumstances so that he could continue. Raskolnikov had not visited him for about four months now, and Razumikhin did not even know his address. Once, some two months ago, they had chanced to meet in the street, but Raskolnikov had turned away and even crossed to the other side so as not to be noticed. And Razumikhin, though he did notice, passed by, not wishing to trouble a friend.
V
“In fact, just recently I was meaning to go to Razumikhin and ask him for work, to get me some lessons or something...” Raskolnikov went on puzzling, “but how can he help me now? Suppose he does get me lessons, suppose he even shares his last kopeck with me, if he has a kopeck, so that I could even buy boots and fix up my outfit enough to go and give lessons...hm...Well, and what then? What good will five coppers do me? Is that what I need now? Really, it's ridiculous to be going to Razumikhin . . .”
The question of why he was now going to Razumikhin troubled him more than he was even aware; he anxiously tried to find some sinister meaning for himself in this seemingly quite ordinary act.
“So, then, did I really mean to straighten things out with Razumikhin alone? To find the solution for everything in Razumikhin?” he asked himself in surprise.
He went on thinking and rubbing his forehead, and, strangely, somehow by chance, suddenly and almost of itself, after very long reflection, there came into his head a certain most strange thought.
“Hm...to Razumikhin,” he said suddenly, quite calmly, as if with a sense of final decision, “I will go to Razumikhin, of course I will...but—not now...I will go to him...the next day, after that, once that is already finished and everything has taken a new course...”
And suddenly he came to his senses.
“After that, “ he cried out, tearing himself from the bench, “but will that be? Will it really be?”
He abandoned the bench and started walking, almost running; he had been about to turn back home, but going home suddenly became terribly disgusting to him; it was there, in that corner, in that terrible cupboard, that for more than a month now all that had been ripening; and so he just followed his nose.
His nervous trembling turned into some sort of feverishness; he even began shivering; in such heat he was getting a chill. As if with effort, almost unconsciously, by some inner necessity, he began peering at every object he encountered, as though straining after some diversion, but he failed miserably, and every moment kept falling into revery. And when he would raise his head again, with a start, and look around, he would immediately forget what he had just been thinking about and even which way he had come. In this fashion he went right across Vasilievsky Island, came to the Little Neva, crossed the bridge, and turned towards the Islands.[34] At first the greenness and freshness pleased his tired eyes, accustomed to city dust, lime, and enormous, crowding and crushing buildings. Here there was no closeness, no stench, no taverns. But soon these pleasant new sensations turned painful and irritating. Occasionally he would stop in front of a summer house decked out in greenery, look through the fence, and see dressed-up women far away, on balconies and terraces, and children running in the garden. He took special interest in the flowers; he looked longer at them than at anything else. He also met with luxurious carriages, men and women on horseback; he would follow them with curious eyes and forget them before they disappeared from sight. Once he stopped and counted his money; it came to about thirty kopecks. “Twenty to the policeman, three to Nastasya for the letter—so I gave the Marmeladovs some forty-seven or fifty kopecks yesterday,” he thought, going over his accounts for some reason, but soon he even forgot why he had taken the money from his pocket. He remembered about it as he was passing an eating-house, a sort of cook-shop, and felt that he wanted to eat. Going into the cook-shop, he drank a glass of vodka and ate a piece of pie with some sort of filling. He finished it on the road. He had not drunk vodka for a very long time and it affected him at once, though he had drunk only one glass. His feet suddenly became heavy, and he began feeling a strong inclination to sleep. He started for home; but having reached Petrovsky Island, he stopped in complete exhaustion, left the road, went into the bushes, collapsed on the grass, and in a moment was asleep.
34
A series of islands (Petrovsky, Krestovsky, Yelagin) in the delta of the Neva west of Petersburg where wealthier people had summer houses.