“No, not very,” Svidrigailov answered, calmly. “And Marfa Petrovna and I scarcely ever fought. We lived very harmoniously, and she was always pleased with me. I only used the whip twice in all our seven years (not counting a third occasion of a very ambiguous character). The first time, two months after our marriage, immediately after we arrived in the country, and the last time was that of which we are speaking. Did you suppose I was such a monster, such a reactionary, such a slave driver? Ha, ha! By the way, do you remember, Rodion Romanovitch, how a few years ago, in those days of beneficent publicity, a nobleman, I’ve forgotten his name, was put to shame everywhere, in all the papers, for having thrashed a German woman in the railway train. You remember? It was in those days, that very year I believe, the ‘disgraceful action of the Age’ took place (you know, ‘The Egyptian Nights,’ that public reading, you remember? The dark eyes, you know! Ah, the golden days of our youth, where are they?). Well, as for the gentleman who thrashed the German, I feel no sympathy with him, because after all what need is there for sympathy? But I must say that there are sometimes such provoking ‘Germans’ that I don’t believe there is a progressive who could quite answer for himself. No one looked at the subject from that point of view then, but that’s the truly humane point of view, I assure you.”
After saying this, Svidrigailov broke into a sudden laugh again. Raskolnikov saw clearly that this was a man with a firm purpose in his mind and able to keep it to himself.
“I expect you’ve not talked to anyone for some days?” he asked.
“Scarcely anyone. I suppose you are wondering at my being such an adaptable man?”
“No, I am only wondering at your being too adaptable a man.”
“Because I am not offended at the rudeness of your questions? Is that it? But why take offence? As you asked, so I answered,” he replied, with a surprising expression of simplicity. “You know, there’s hardly anything I take interest in,” he went on, as it were dreamily, “especially now, I’ve nothing to do. … You are quite at liberty to imagine though that I am making up to you with a motive, particularly as I told you I want to see your sister about something. But I’ll confess frankly, I am very much bored. The last three days especially, so I am delighted to see you. … Don’t be angry, Rodion Romanovitch, but you seem to be somehow awfully strange yourself. Say what you like, there’s something wrong with you, and now, too … not this very minute, I mean, but now, generally. … Well, well, I won’t, I won’t, don’t scowl! I am not such a bear, you know, as you think.”
Raskolnikov looked gloomily at him.
“You are not a bear, perhaps, at all,” he said. “I fancy indeed that you are a man of very good breeding, or at least know how on occasion to behave like one.”
“I am not particularly interested in anyone’s opinion,” Svidrigailov answered, dryly and even with a shade of haughtiness, “and therefore why not be vulgar at times when vulgarity is such a convenient cloak for our climate … and especially if one has a natural propensity that way,” he added, laughing again.
“But I’ve heard you have many friends here. You are, as they say, ‘not without connections.’ What can you want with me, then, unless you’ve some special object?”
“That’s true that I have friends here,” Svidrigailov admitted, not replying to the chief point. “I’ve met some already. I’ve been lounging about for the last three days, and I’ve seen them, or they’ve seen me. That’s a matter of course. I am well dressed and reckoned not a poor man; the emancipation of the serfs hasn’t affected me; my property consists chiefly of forests and water meadows. The revenue has not fallen off; but … I am not going to see them, I was sick of them long ago. I’ve been here three days and have called on no one. … What a town it is! How has it come into existence among us, tell me that? A town of officials and students of all sorts. Yes, there’s a great deal I didn’t notice when I was here eight years ago, kicking up my heels. … My only hope now is in anatomy, by Jove, it is!”
“Anatomy?”
“But as for these clubs, Dussauts, parades, or progress, indeed, maybe —well, all that can go on without me,” he went on, again without noticing the question. “Besides, who wants to be a card-sharper?”
“Why, have you been a card-sharper then?”
“How could I help being? There was a regular set of us, men of the best society, eight years ago; we had a fine time. And all men of breeding, you know, poets, men of property. And indeed as a rule in our Russian society the best manners are found among those who’ve been thrashed, have you noticed that? I’ve deteriorated in the country. But I did get into prison for debt, through a low Greek who came from Nezhin. Then Marfa Petrovna turned up; she bargained with him and bought me off for thirty thousand silver pieces (I owed seventy thousand). We were united in lawful wedlock and she bore me off into the country like a treasure. You know she was five years older than I. She was very fond of me. For seven years I never left the country. And, take note, that all my life she held a document over me, the IOU for thirty thousand roubles, so if I were to elect to be restive about anything I should be trapped at once! And she would have done it! Women find nothing incompatible in that.”
“If it hadn’t been for that, would you have given her the slip?”