CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
A monologue from the
novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky
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NOTE: This monologue is reprinted
from Crime and Punishment. Trans. Constance Garnett. New
York: P. F. Collier & Son, 1917. |
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MARMELADOV: Well, so be it, I am a pig, but she is
a lady! I have the semblance of a beast, but Katerina Ivanovna,
my spouse is a person of education and an officer’s daughter.
Granted, granted, I am a scoundrel, but she is a woman of a noble
heart, full of sentiments, refined by education. And yet …
oh, if only she felt for me! Honoured sir, honoured sir, you
know every man ought to have at least one place where people
feel for him!! But Katerina Ivanovna, though she is magnanimous,
she is unjust.… And yet, although I realise that when she
pulls my hair she only does it out of pity—for I repeat
without being ashamed, she pulls my hair, young man, but, my
God, if she would but once.… But no, no! It’s all in
vain and it’s no use talking! No use talking! For more than
once, my wish did come true and more than once she has felt for
me but … such is my fate and I am a beast by nature! Do
you know, sir, do you know, I have sold her very stockings for
drink? Not her shoes—that would be more or less in the order
of things, but her stockings, her stockings I have sold for drink!
Her mohair shawl I sold for drink, a present to her long ago,
her own property, not mine; and we live in a cold room and she
caught cold this winter and has begun coughing and spitting blood
too. We have three little children and Katerina Ivanovna is at
work from morning till night; she is scrubbing and cleaning and
washing the children, for she’s been used to cleanliness
from a child. But her chest is weak and she has a tendency to
consumption and I feel it! Do you suppose I don’t feel it?
And the more I drink the more I feel it. That’s why I drink
too. I try to find sympathy and feeling in drink.… I drink
so that I may suffer twice as much! Young man, my wife was educated
in a high-class school for the daughters of noblemen, and on
leaving, she danced the shawl dance before the governor and other
personages for which she was presented with a gold medal and
a certificate of merit. The medal … well, the medal of course
was sold—long ago, hm … but the certificate of merit
is in her trunk still and not long ago she showed it to our landlady.
And although she is most continually on bad terms with the landlady,
yet she wanted to tell some one or other of her past honours
and of the happy days that are gone. I don’t condemn her
for it. I don’t blame her, for the one thing left her is
recollection of the past, and all the rest is dust and ashes.
Yes, yes, she is a lady of spirit, proud and determined. She
scrubs the floors herself and has nothing but black bread to
eat, but won’t allow herself to be treated with disrespect.
We have now part of a room at Amalia Ivanovna Lippevechsel’s;
and what we live upon and what we pay our rent with, I could
not say. There are a lot of people living there beside ourselves.
Dirt and disorder, a perfect Bedlam … hm … yes.…
And meanwhile my daughter by my first wife has grown up; and
what my daughter has had to put up with from her step-mother
whilst she was growing up, I won’t speak of. For, though
Katerina Ivanovna is full of generous feelings, she is a spirited
lady, irritable and short-tempered.… Yes. But it’s
no use going over that! Sonia, as you may well fancy, has had
no education. And do you suppose that a respectable poor girl
can earn much by honest work? Not fifteen farthings a day can
she earn, if she is respectable and has no special talent and
that without putting her work down for an instant! And there
are the little ones hungry.… And Katerina Ivanovna walking
up and down and wringing her hands, her cheeks flushed red, as
they always are in that disease: "Here you live with us,"
says she, "you eat and drink and are kept warm and you do
nothing to help." And much she gets to eat and drink when
there is not a crust for the little ones for three days! I was
lying at the time … well, what of it! I was lying drunk
and I heard my Sonia speaking (she is a gentle creature with
a soft little voice … fair hair and such a pale, thin little
face). She said: "Katerina Ivanovna, am I really to do a
thing like that?" Darya Frantsovna, you see, a woman of
evil character and very well known to the police, had two or
three times tried to get at her through the landlady. "And
why not?" said Katerina Ivanovna with a jeer, "You
are something mighty precious to be so careful of!" But
don’t blame her, don’t blame her, honoured sir, don’t
blame her! She was not herself when she spoke, but driven to
distraction by her illness and the crying of the hungry children.
At six o’clock I saw Sonia get up, put on her kerchief and
her cape, and go out of the room and about nine o’clock
she came back. She walked straight up to Katerina Ivanovna and
she laid thirty roubles on the table before her in silence. She
did not utter a word, she did not even look at her, she simply
picked up our big green shawl, put it over her head and lay down
on the bed with her face to the wall; only her little shoulders
and her body kept shuddering.… And I went on lying there,
just as before.… And then I saw, young man, I saw Katerina
Ivanovna, in the same silence go up to Sonia’s little bed;
she was on her knees all the evening kissing Sonia’s feet,
and would not get up, and then they both fell asleep in each
other’s arms … together, together … yes …
and I … lay drunk.
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MONOLOGUES BY FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY |
