Crime and Punishment - Noyemi

By Fyodor Dostoevsky

would have been bloodshed.

There was another question he could not decide: why were they all so
fond of Sonia? She did not try to win their favour; she rarely met
them, sometimes only she came to see him at work for a moment. And yet
everybody knew her, they knew that she had come out to follow him,
knew how and where she lived. She never gave them money, did them no
particular services. Only once at Christmas she sent them all presents
of pies and rolls. But by degrees closer relations sprang up between
them and Sonia. She would write and post letters for them to their
relations. Relations of the prisoners who visited the town, at their
instructions, left with Sonia presents and money for them. Their wives
and sweethearts knew her and used to visit her. And when she visited
Raskolnikov at work, or met a party of the prisoners on the road, they
all took off their hats to her. "Little mother Sofya Semyonovna, you
are our dear, good little mother," coarse branded criminals said to
that frail little creature. She would smile and bow to them and
everyone was delighted when she smiled. They even admired her gait and
turned round to watch her walking; they admired her too for being so
little, and, in fact, did not know what to admire her most for. They
even came to her for help in their illnesses.

He was in the hospital from the middle of Lent till after Easter. When
he was better, he remembered the dreams he had had while he was
feverish and delirious. He dreamt that the whole world was condemned
to a terrible new strange plague that had come to Europe from the
depths of Asia. All were to be destroyed except a very few chosen.
Some new sorts of microbes were attacking the bodies of men, but these
microbes were endowed with intelligence and will. Men attacked by them
became at once mad and furious. But never had men considered
themselves so intellectual and so completely in possession of the
truth as these sufferers, never had they considered their decisions,
their scientific conclusions, their moral convictions so infallible.
Whole villages, whole towns and peoples went mad from the infection.
All were excited and did not understand one another. Each thought that
he alone had the truth and was wretched looking at the others, beat
himself on the breast, wept, and wrung his hands. They did not know
how to judge and could not agree what to consider evil and what good;
they did not know whom to blame, whom to justify. Men killed each
other in a sort of senseless spite. They gathered together in armies
against one another, but even on the march the armies would begin
attacking each other, the ranks would be broken and the soldiers would
fall on each other, stabbing and cutting, biting and devouring each
other. The alarm bell was ringing all day long in the towns; men
rushed together, but why they were summoned and who was summoning them
no one knew. The most ordinary trades were abandoned, because everyone
proposed his own ideas, his own improvements, and they could not
agree. The land too was abandoned. Men met in groups, agreed on
something, swore to keep together, but at once began on something
quite different from what they had proposed. They accused one another,
fought and killed each other. There were conflagrations and famine.
All men and all things were involved in destruction. The plague spread
and moved further and further. Only a few men could be saved in the
whole world. They were a pure chosen people, destined to found a new
race and a new life, to renew and purify the earth, but no one had
seen these men, no one had heard their words and their voices.

Raskolnikov was worried that this senseless dream haunted his memory
so miserably, the impression of this feverish delirium persisted so
long. The second week after Easter had come. There were warm bright
spring days; in the prison ward the grating windows under which the
sentinel paced were opened. Sonia had only been able to visit him
twice during his illness; each time she had to obtain permission, and
it was difficult. But she often used to come to the hospital yard,
especially in the evening, sometimes only to stand a minute and look
up at the windows of the ward.

One evening, when he was almost well again, Raskolnikov fell asleep.
On waking up he chanced to go to the window, and at once saw Sonia in
the distance at the hospital gate. She seemed to be waiting for
someone. Something stabbed him to the heart at that minute. He
shuddered and moved away from the window. Next day Sonia did not come,
nor the day after; he noticed that he was expecting her uneasily. At
last he was discharged. On reaching the prison he learnt from the
convicts that Sofya Semyonovna was lying ill at home and was unable to
go out.

He was very uneasy and sent to inquire after her; he soon learnt that
her illness was not dangerous. Hearing that he was anxious about her,
Sonia sent him a pencilled note, telling him that she was much better,
that she had a slight cold and that she would soon, very soon come and
see him at his work. His heart throbbed painfully as he read it.

Again it was a warm bright day. Early in the morning, at six o'clock,
he went off to work on the river bank, where they used to pound
alabaster and where there was a kiln for baking it in a shed. There
were only three of them sent. One of the convicts went with the guard
to the fortress to fetch a tool; the other began getting the wood
ready and laying it in the kiln. Raskolnikov came out of the shed on
to the river bank, sat down on a heap of logs by the shed and began
gazing at the wide deserted river. From the high bank a broad
landscape opened before him, the sound of singing floated faintly
audible from the other bank. In the vast steppe, bathed in sunshine,
he could just see, like black specks, the nomads' tents. There there
was freedom, there other men were living, utterly unlike those here;
there time itself seemed to stand still, as though the age of Abraham
and his flocks had not passed. Raskolnikov sat gazing, his thoughts
passed into day-dreams, into contemplation; he thought of nothing, but
a vague restlessness excited and troubled him. Suddenly he found Sonia
beside him; she had come up noiselessly and sat down at his side. It

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Crime and Punishment - Noyemi

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