- cid
- bafkreifudcmurc3jlpcn2zjdhsjubub7bfj6q547tw2q2tm4pnxo6vhgau
- content_type
- image/jpeg
- filename
- crimepunishment00dostiala_page_0496.jpg
- key
- pdf-page-1768923071995-brs4xmi60u
- page_number
- 496
- pdf_type
- born_digital
- size
- 197007
- text
- 488 CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
"Pride, Rodya."
There was a gleam of fire in his lustreless eyes; he seemed to
be glad to think that he was still proud.
"You don't think, sister, that I was simply afraid of the
water?" he asked, looking into her face with a sinister smile.
"Oh, Rodya, hush!" cried Dounia bitterly. Silence lasted for
two minutes. He sat with his eyes fixed on the floor; Dounia
stood at the other end of the table and looked at him with an-
guish. Suddenly he got up.
"It's late, it's time to go! I am going at once to give myself
up. But I don't know why I am going to give myself up."
Big tears fell down her cheeks.
"You are crying, sister, but can you hold out your hand to
me?""You doubted it?"
She threw her arms round him.
"Aren't you half expiating your crime by facing the suflfer-
ing!" she cried, holding him close and kissing him.
"Crime? What crime?" he cried in sudden fury. "That I
killed a vile noxious insect, an old pawnbroker woman, of use to
no one! . . . Killing her was atonement for forty sins. She was
sucking the life out of poor people. Was that a crime? I am not
thinking of it and I am not thinking of expiating it, and why
are you all rubbing it in on all sides? 'A crime! a crime!' Only
now I see clearly the imbecility of my cowardice, now that I
have decided to face this superfluous disgrace. It's simply because
I am contemptible and have nothing in me that I have decided
to, perhaps too for my advantage, as that . . . Porfiry . . . sug-
gested!"
"Brother, brother, what are you saying! Why, you have shed
blood!" cried Dounia in despair.
"Which all men shed," he put in almost frantically, "which
flows and has always flowed in streams, which is spilt like cham-
pagne, and for which men are crowned in the Capitol and are
called afterwards benefactors of mankind. Look into it more
carefully and understand it! I too wanted to do good to men
and would have done hundreds, thousands of good deeds to make
up for that one piece of stupidity, not stupidity even, simply
clumsiness, for the idea was by no means so stupid as it seems
now that it has failed. . . . (Everything seems stupid when it
- text_extracted_at
- 2026-01-20T15:31:11.995Z
- text_extracted_by
- pdf-processor
- text_has_content
- true
- text_source
- born_digital
- uploaded
- true