A Heart Deranged by Theories
Crime and Punishment Week 33: Part Six, Chapter 2
Welcome to Week 33 of my slow-read of Crime and Punishment. This week’s chapter is Part Six, Chapter 2.
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This week’s characters
(I don’t include Raskolnikov in this listing as he’s in most of the chapters)
Synopsis
Porfiry just arrived at Raskolnikov’s room as Raskolnikov himself was just heading out. A discussion ensues, during which Porfiry tells Raskolnikov that he knows he’s the murderer and tells him that he will confess at some point soon, even if he himself doesn’t even know it the hour before the confession.
True to style, Porfiry dances around his point, going into Mikolka’s fake confession and the reasons behind it. In short, it comes down to suffering and Mikolka’s being an Old Believer.
Have you any idea, Rodion Romanych, how significant the word 'to suffer' is with these people? We're not talking about suffering for someone's sake here, but simply the need 'to suffer' - that is, to accept suffering - and if it's at the hands of the authorities, then so much the better.
It’s a clever dialogue on Porfiry’s part, the way that he toys with Raskolnikov’s emotions. He refers back to their first meeting, back in Chapter 3.5, when Raskolnikov and Razumikhin visited Porfiry and Raskolnikov made sure that he was laughing as they entered in order that he look nonchalant and relaxed. Porfiry explains how impressed he was at the way in which Raskolnikov ran rings round Zamyotov and then states that ‘psychology is a double-edged sword’. He repeats this later in the chapter too:
Besides, as I myself have several times openly acknowledged, I have said that psychology is double-edged, and that the second edge is sharper and more solid than the first—and, in any case, for the time being I have nothing to prove you did it.
It’s this through this double-edge that Porfiry feels confident that Raskolnikov will confess. He’s got the measure of the man and knows that Raskolnikov won’t run, can’t run, because if he does he’d end up being tortured by his conscience. His psychological experiment has failed and Porfiry states that Raskolnikov ‘won’t be able to survive without us’. It’s a fascinating glimpse into madness and redemption. Porfiry seems to be capable of great empathy and it’s that that allows him to do his job so well; he knows he’s legally stuck because of the paucity of evidence against Raskolnikov, but he’s able to read him and invoke a confession, even if it’s not today.
But you don't believe in your theory any more, so what would be the point in running away? Anyway, what would you do in your hideout? Life would be difficult and horrible and what you crave most of all is life and a well-defined position, with a suitable atmosphere. And you wouldn't find it there, would you? No sooner had you run away than you'd be back: you won't be able to survive without us. And if I lock you up, say for a couple of months or so, you'll suddenly recall what I've said and you'll come and confess, possibly even surprising yourself - you'll have no idea you're going to do so even an hour before you do. I'm actually convinced you'll decide to 'accept your suffering'.
And d’you know what? I think he’s right.
In her essay on this chapter, Dana looks at the number of times that air is recommended to Raskolnikov and talks about the intertextual link with Turgenev’s Fathers and Children. As I’m reading Dickens’ Bleak House (1852) right now, I was tickled to see air’s being mentioned in that book:
It is not a large world. Relatively even to this world of ours, which has its limits too (as your Highness shall find when you have made the tour of it and are come to the brink of the void beyond), it is a very little speck. There is much good in it; there are many good and true people in it; it has its appointed place. But the evil of it is that it is a world wrapped up in too much jeweller’s cotton and fine wool, and cannot hear the rushing of the larger worlds, and cannot see them as they circle round the sun. It is a deadened world, and its growth is sometimes unhealthy for want of air.
Perhaps there’s no connection here at all, but it still tickled me that I’m reading two novels published in the Victorian era that refer to the lack of air as a motif for a kind of psychological depression. In the previous chapter, Svidrigailov prescribes air, and in this, it’s Porfiry who makes the prescription.
Firstly, what you need, and have needed for a long time, is a change of air. […] All you need is fresh air—fresh air, that’s all!
Yeah, the fresh air of confession, of a clean soul.
All quotations in this post are taken from Roger Cockrell’s translation of 2022, Alma Classics, © Roger Cockrell 2022
Translation Points
The word ‘hoodwinked’ stood out to me in Cockrell’s translation. Little did I know it was the Herculean pillars in the second clause that would throw up the most interesting variations!
Russian - По крайней мере, долго себя не морочил, разом до последних столбов дошел.
Garnett - At least you didn’t deceive yourself for long, you went straight to the furthest point at one bound.
Coulson - At least, you did not deceive yourself for long, but in one leap reached the farthest extremity.
McDuff - At any rate, you haven't fooled yourself for long, you've reached the pillars of Hercules in one go.
P&V - At least you didn't addle your brain for long, you went all at once to the outermost pillars.
Ready - At least you didn't agonize about it for long - you made straight for the final pillars.
Pasternak Slater - At least you didn't go deceiving yourself for long-you went straight to the very limit.
Katz - At least you didn't deceive yourself for long; you headed straight for the final posts.
Cockrell - At least you didn't hoodwink yourself for long: you reached the pillars of Hercules at one bound.
Head on over to the comparison spreadsheet to see the phrase in context, along with examples from every chapter so far in EIGHT different translations.
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This is an illuminating example from Dickens. I wouldn't be surprised if Dostoevsky referenced it—he loved Dickens's novels, even though he read them in French! While many elements "inspired" him, literary borrowing was common practice at the time and considered perfectly acceptable.
I'm certain about the elements from David Copperfield and The Old Curiosity Shop that appear in Crime and Punishment. I haven't encountered any connections to Bleak House yet, but this could be your literary discovery, Cams!