Free Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky Page B

all and all that was hidden is made manifest; and I respond not with contempt, but with humility. So be it! So be it! “Behold the Man!” 18 Pray tell me, young man: can you . . . ? No, let’s put it more strongly, more vividly: not
can
you, but
dare
you, gazing at me here and now, state for a fact that I am not a pig?’
    The young man said nothing.
    â€˜Well, sir,’ the orator continued, pausing with an imposing and even, on this occasion, exaggeratedly dignified air for the latest round of sniggering to abate. ‘Well, sir, I may be a pig, but she is a lady! I may bear the likeness of a beast, but Katerina Ivanovna, my spouse, is an educated person, who was born to a field officer. I may be a scoundrel, but she is endowed with a sublime heart and feelings ennobled by good breeding. And yet . . . oh, would that my lady had pity on me! After all, kindest sir, every man must have at least one place where even he might be pitied! Katerina Ivanovna is high-minded, but unjust . . . And though I understand myself that even when she seizes me by my forelocks she does so purely from the pity of her heart (for I am not embarrassed to repeat, young man, that she seizes me by my forelocks),’ he reaffirmed with redoubled dignity, after hearing sniggers once more, ‘but heavens – if she could only once, just once . . . But no! No! All this is vanity! A waste of breath and nothing more! . . . For my desire has come to pass more than once and I have been pitied more than once, but . . . that’s just how I am: a born brute!’
    â€˜Not half!’ observed the landlord with a yawn.
    Marmeladov banged his fist on the table.
    â€˜Yes, it’s the mark of my character! Are you aware, good sir, that I even drank away her stockings – are you aware of that fact? Not her boots, sir, for at least that would have borne some resemblance to the order of things, but her stockings – yes, sir, her stockings! Her little mohair shawl, I drank that away too – a gift, from before, her very own, not mine; and we live in a chilly little corner, 19 and she caught cold this winter, and now she’s coughing up blood. Not to mention our three little mites: Katerina Ivanovna’s hard at it from dawn till dusk, scrubbing and cleaning and washing the children, for cleanliness has been a habit of hers since infancy, and she is weak of chestand prone to consumption, and I can feel it. Do I not feel? The more I drink, the more I feel. That is why I do it: imbibing, I seek compassion and feeling. It is not merriment I seek, but sorrow, only sorrow . . . I drink that I may suffer more deeply!’ With that, he lowered his head onto the table, as if in despair.
    â€˜Young man,’ he continued, raising himself once more, ‘I read, as it were, a certain sorrow in your features. I read it there the moment you walked in, which is why I was so quick to address you. For it is not to disgrace myself before these gentlemen of leisure, who already know it all anyway, that I relate the story of my life to you; rather, I seek a man of feeling and education. You should know that my spouse attended an aristocratic school for daughters of the nobility, and at the leaving ball she danced the
pas de châle
20 in the presence of the governor and other persons, for which she received a gold medal and a certificate of distinction. The medal . . . well, the medal was sold . . . long ago now . . . H’m! . . . But the certificate of distinction is still in her trunk, and just recently she showed it to our landlady. And though she and the landlady are in perpetual discord, the urge to show off a little before someone – anyone – and reminisce about better, happier days was too strong to resist. And I do not judge her – no, I do not – for this is what has remained in