Free Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Katerina Ivanovna is a magnanimous lady, she is also an unjust one… And though I am well aware that when she tugs my locks she does it solely out of the kindness of her heart – for, I say it again without embarrassment, she tugs my locks, young man –’ he affirmed with especial dignity, having detected more sniggering, ‘but, oh God, if only one single time she would… But no! No! All that is in vain, and there's no more to be said, no more to be said!… For on more than one occasion I attained that which I desired, and pity was shown me on morethan one occasion, but… such is my proclivity: I am a born brute!’
    ‘You can say that again,’ the owner remarked, yawning.
    Marmeladov resolutely hammered his fist down on the table.
    ‘Such is my proclivity! Do you know, do you know, dear sir, that I even bartered her stockings for drink? Not her shoes, sir, for that would have been ever so slightly in the normal way of events, but her stockings – it was her stockings I pawned! She had a little mohair scarf, given to her as a present before our marriage – it was hers, not mine – and I bartered that, too; yet we live in a cold corner of a room, and that winter she caught a chill and began to cough, brought up blood, she did. And we have three little children, and Katerina Ivanovna works from morning to night, scrubbing and washing and bathing the children, for she's been used to cleanliness since an early age, and she has a weak chest and a predisposition to tuberculosis, and I feel that. How could I not feel it? And the more I drink, the more I feel. That's the reason for my drinking. I'm looking for feeling and compassion in it… Not revelry do I seek, but pure sorrow… I drink, for I desire to suffer doubly!’ And, as if in despair, he let his head sink on to the table.
    ‘Young man,’ he went on, straightening up. ‘In your features I seem to read a certain unhappiness. I saw it as soon as you came in, and that's why I lost no time in appealing to you. For, in communicating to you the story of my life, I seek to avoid exposing myself to the most grotesque ridicule in the eyes of these lovers of idleness, to whom it is all in any case common knowledge, and come to you perceiving you to be a man of sensitivity and education. I may as well tell you that my lady-wife was brought up in a high-class establishment for daughters of the local aristocracy, and that at the ball that was held upon her graduation she danced with the shawl 6 in the presence of the governor and other notables, for which she received a gold medal and a testimonial of good progress. The medal… oh, the medal got sold… a long time ago… hm… but she still keeps the testimonial in her travelling-box, and not so long ago she showed it to our landlady. Even though she exists in a state of the most incessant strife with our landlady, she felt a desireto take a bit of pride in herself in front of someone for a change, and to tell her about her happy bygone days. And I don't condemn her, I don't condemn her, for these memories are all that remain to her now – the rest has all passed to ashes! Yes, yes; she's a hot-tempered, proud and indomitable lady. She scrubs the floors herself, she lives on black bread, but she won't tolerate disrespect towards herself. That's why she made Mr Lebezyatnikov pay for his coarse behaviour, and when Mr Lebezyatnikov gave her a battering in return, she took to her bed not so much because of the beating she'd received as because her feelings had been hurt. She was a widow when I married her, with three children, each smaller than the other. Her first marriage, to an infantry officer, had been an affair of the heart – she'd run away from her parents’ house in order to be with him. She loved that husband of hers beyond all bounds, but he took to gambling at cards, got into trouble with the law, and then died. Towards the end he used to beat her; and although she made him pay for it, in terms for which I