Crime And Punishment Page-259

Crime And Punishment

Svidrigaïlov looked at him rather oddly. “Marfa Petrovna is pleased to visit me,” he said, twisting his mouth into a strange smile. “How do you mean ‘she is pleased to visit you’?” “She has been three times. I saw her first on the very day of the funeral, an hour after she was buried. It was the day before I left to come here. The second time was the day before yesterday, at daybreak, on the journey at the station of Malaya Vishera, and the third time was two hours ago in the room where I am staying. I was alone.” “Were you awake?” “Quite awake. I was wide awake every time. She comes, speaks to me for a minute and goes out at the door—always at the door. I can almost hear her.” “What made me think that something of the sort must be happening to you?” Raskolnikov said suddenly. At the same moment he was surprised at having said it. He was much excited. “What! Did you think so?” Svidrigaïlov asked in astonishment. “Did you really? Didn’t I say that there was something in common between us, eh?” “You never said so!” Raskolnikov cried sharply and with heat. “Didn’t I?” “No!” “I thought I did. When I came in and saw you lying with your eyes shut, pretending, I said to myself at once, ‘Here’s the man.’” “What do you mean by ‘the man?’ What are you talking about?” cried Raskolnikov. “What do I mean? I really don’t know....” Svidrigaïlov muttered ingenuously, as though he, too, were puzzled. For a minute they were silent. They stared in each other’s faces. “That’s all nonsense!” Raskolnikov shouted with vexation. “What does she say when she comes to you?” “She! Would you believe it, she talks of the silliest trifles and—man is a strange creature—it makes me angry. The first time she came in (I was tired you know: the funeral service, the funeral ceremony, the lunch afterwards. At last I was left alone in my study. I lighted a cigar and began to think), she came in at the door. ‘You’ve been so busy to-day, Arkady Ivanovitch, you have forgotten to wind the dining-room clock,’ she said. All those seven years I’ve wound that