Epilogue · Chapter 2

He's been sick for a long time. But it wasn't the awful prison conditions, the brutal labor, the gross food, the shaved head, or the patched-up clothes that were crushing him. He didn’t even care about all those struggles! He was almost glad for the hard work.

Physically drained, he could at least count on a few hours of quiet sleep. And the food? Who cared - thin cabbage soup with bugs floating in it? Back when he was a student, he often didn't even have that much. His clothes were warm and suited his life. He barely noticed the shackles.

Was he embarrassed about his shaved head and mismatched clothes? In front of who? Sonia? Sonia was scared of him - how could he be ashamed in front of her? But he was ashamed, even before Sonia, the woman he tortured with his cold, dismissive attitude.

But it wasn't his shaved head or the shackles he was ashamed of - his pride was deeply wounded . It was that wounded pride that made him ill. Oh, how happy he would have been if he could have blamed himself! He could have handled anything then, even shame and disgrace.

But he judged himself harshly, and his frustrated conscience couldn’t find any major fault in his past, just a simple mistake that could happen to anyone.

He was ashamed just because he, Raskolnikov, had completely and stupidly failed, crushed by some random twist of fate, and now had to humble himself and submit to the "joke" of a sentence if he wanted any peace.

A vague, directionless anxiety in the present, and a future of endless sacrifice leading nowhere - that’s all that lay ahead. What comfort was it that in eight years, he’d only be thirty-two and able to start over? What did he have to live for? What was there to look forward to? Why bother trying?

Just existing? He’d been ready to give up everything for an idea, a hope, even a fleeting dream a thousand times before. Just existing had always been too little for him; he always wanted more.

Maybe it was because of the intensity of his desires that he’d thought he was a man to whom more was allowed than to others.

If only fate had sent him real repentance - a burning regret that would tear at his heart and steal his sleep, that kind of repentance, the agonizing pain that brings visions of hanging or drowning! Oh, he would have welcomed it! Tears and agony would at least have been something to live for.

But he didn’t regret his crime.

He could have found some relief in raging at his own stupidity, like he had raged at the ridiculous blunders that landed him in prison.

But now, in prison, and even when free, he replayed and analyzed every action, and didn’t find them nearly as clumsy or ridiculous as they’d seemed at the time of the disaster.

"In what way," he asked himself, "was my theory dumber than all the others that have sprung up and clashed since the beginning of time? You just have to look at it objectively, broadly, without getting bogged down in common sense, and my idea won’t seem so... weird."

"Oh, skeptics and armchair philosophers, why are you always halfway there?"

"Why does my action strike them as so awful?" he said to himself. "Is it because it was a crime? What does ‘crime’ even mean? My conscience is clear. Of course, it was a legal crime, of course, the law was broken and blood was shed."

Fine, punish me for breaking the letter of the law... and that’s enough. Of course, then a lot of the people who did good in the world, who seized power instead of inheriting it, should have been punished at their first step.

"But those guys succeeded, so they were right, and I didn't, so I had no right to even try."

That’s when he finally realized he was criminal - only in the fact that he failed, and he admitted it.

He kept replaying the question: why hadn't he just done it? Why had he stood there staring at the river and chosen to confess? Was the urge to live that powerful, that hard to beat? Didn't Svidrigaïlov manage to overcome it, even though he was scared of dying?

Lost in his misery, he kept asking himself this, and couldn’t grasp that while he’d been staring into the river, he might’ve dimly realized how fake he and his beliefs were.

He didn't get that this realization could be a sign of a major crisis ahead, a new way of seeing life, and a chance for a fresh start.

He preferred to blame it on a basic instinct he couldn't shake, again because he was weak and petty. He looked at the other prisoners and was shocked to see how much they loved life and cherished it.

It seemed to him that they loved and valued life more in prison than they ever did when they were free. What terrible suffering and hardships some of them, like the homeless guys, had gone through!

How could they care so much for a little sunshine, for the ancient forest, the hidden spring tucked away somewhere, which one tramp had marked three years ago and longed to see again, just like he’d miss a girlfriend, dreaming of the green grass around it and the bird singing in the bush?

As he thought about it, he saw even more baffling examples.

Of course, in prison, there was a lot he didn't see and didn't want to see; he lived as if he was looking down. It was disgusting and unbearable for him to look.

But eventually, there was a lot that surprised him, and he started, almost without thinking, to notice things he hadn't suspected before. What surprised him the most was the huge, impossible gap that stretched between him and everyone else.

They seemed like a different species, and he looked at them, and they looked at him, with distrust and hostility. He felt and knew the reasons for his isolation, but he’d never admitted until then that those reasons were so deep and strong.

There were some Polish exiles, political prisoners, among them. They just looked down on everyone else as clueless and uncultured; but Raskolnikov couldn’t see them that way. He realized that these seemingly ignorant men were often far wiser than the Poles.

There were some Russians who were just as snobby, a former military officer and two seminary students. Raskolnikov saw their mistake clearly. Everyone disliked and avoided him; they even started to hate him - he couldn't figure out why.

People who had committed far worse crimes looked down on and mocked his crime.

"You’re a decent guy," they’d say. "You shouldn’t be swinging an axe; that’s not something a decent person does."

During the second week of Lent, it was his turn to take communion with his group. He went to church and prayed with the others. A fight broke out one day, he didn't know how it started. Everyone turned on him in a sudden rage.

"You’re a non-believer! You don’t believe in God," they shouted. "You should be killed."

He’d never talked to them about God or his beliefs, but they wanted to kill him because he was an infidel. He said nothing. One of the prisoners lunged at him in a complete frenzy. Raskolnikov waited calmly and silently; his eyebrows didn't twitch, his face didn't flinch.

The guard managed to step between him and his attacker, or there would have been bloodshed.

Everyone was crazy about Sonia, and he couldn’t figure out why. She didn't try to get people to like her; she hardly ever saw them. Sometimes she’s just pop in to see him at work for a quick minute. Still, everyone knew her, knew she’s come all this way to be with him, knew where she lived.

She never gave them money or did them any big favors. Only once at Christmas, she sent everyone pies and rolls. But little by little, they got closer to Sonia. She’s write and mail letters for them to their families.

Families of the prisoners who visited town, following their instructions, would leave gifts and cash with Sonia for them. Their wives and girlfriends knew her and would visit her.

And when she visited Raskolnikov at work or met a group of the prisoners on the road, they’d all take off their hats to her.

"Little mother Sofya Semyonovna, you’re our dear, good little mother," the roughest criminals would say to that tiny, fragile girl.

She’s smile and bow, and everyone loved it when she did. They even admired her walk and would turn around just to watch her. They admired how small she was, and honestly, they didn’t know what to admire most. They’d even come to her for help when they were sick.

He was in the hospital from mid-Lent until after Easter. When he got better, he remembered the dreams he’s had while he was feverish and delirious. He dreamt the whole world was being hit with a terrifying new plague that had come to Europe from deep in Asia.

Everyone was going to be destroyed except for a very few chosen people. Some new kinds of germs were attacking people’s bodies, but these germs were smart and had their own will. People infected by them would instantly go crazy and furious.

But they’d also think they were the smartest people ever, completely certain they had the truth. They’re decisions, their scientific conclusions, their moral beliefs - everything seemed perfect. Whole villages, towns, and nations went mad from the infection.

Everyone was hyped up and couldn’t understand each other. Each person thought they alone had the truth and would look at everyone else with disgust, beat their chests, cry, and wring their hands.

They didn’t know how to judge things or agree on what was good or bad; they didn’t know who to blame or who to defend. People killed each other out of some kind of senseless anger.

They gathered into armies and fought each other, but even while marching, the armies would start attacking each other, lines would break, and soldiers would jump on each other, stabbing and biting, devouring each other. The alarm bell was ringing all day long in the towns; people

rushed together, but nobody knew why they were being summoned or who was summoning them. Even the most basic jobs were abandoned because everyone wanted to share their own ideas and improvements, and they couldn’t agree. The land was also abandoned.

People would meet in groups, agree on something, swear to stick together, but then immediately start doing something completely different. They’d accuse each other, fight, and kill each other. There were fires and famine. Everything and everyone was being destroyed. The plague spread and kept going.

Only a few people could be saved in the whole world. They were a pure, chosen group, destined to start a new race and a new life, to renew and purify the earth, but nobody had seen these people, nobody had heard their words or their voices.

Raskolnikov was stressing that this weird dream was totally haunting him, and the feeling of that feverish nightmare just wouldn’t go away. It was the second week after Easter. The weather was warm and sunny, and the prison windows where the guards paced were opened.

Sonia had only been able to visit him twice during his illness; each time she had to get permission, and it was a hassle. But she often used to come to the hospital yard, especially in the evening, sometimes just to stand for a minute and look up at his ward window.

One evening, when he was almost better, Raskolnikov fell asleep. When he woke up, he glanced out the window and saw Sonia way off at the hospital gate. She seemed to be waiting for someone. Something hit him hard in that moment. He shuddered and moved away from the window.

The next day Sonia didn't come, nor the day after; he noticed he was expecting her anxiously. Finally, he was released. When he got to the prison, he heard from the other inmates that Sofya Semyonovna was sick at home and couldn’t go out.

He was really worried and asked about her; he soon learned that her illness wasn’t serious. Hearing that he was concerned, Sonia sent him a handwritten note, telling him she was much better, that she just had a bit of a cold, and that she’d come to see him at his work soon, really soon.

His heart pounded painfully as he read it.

Again, it was a warm, sunny day. Early in the morning, around six o’clock, he headed to work on the riverbank, where they crushed alabaster and had a kiln to bake it in a small building. Only three of them were sent.

One of the inmates went with the guard to the fortress to get a tool; the other started getting the wood ready and laying it in the kiln. Raskolnikov came out of the building onto the riverbank, sat down on a pile of logs by the building and started staring at the wide, empty river.

From the high bank, a huge landscape opened up before him; the sound of singing drifted faintly from the other side. In the vast steppe, bathed in sunshine, he could just make out, like tiny black dots, the nomads’ tents.

There was freedom, other people were living, totally unlike those here; time itself seemed to stand still, like the age of Abraham and his flocks hadn’t even passed.

Raskolnikov sat gazing, his thoughts drifted into daydreams, into deep thinking; he wasn't thinking about anything, but a vague restlessness excited and bothered him. Suddenly he found Sonia beside him; she’d come up silently and sat down next to him.

It was still early; the morning chill was still sharp. She wore her old, worn cloak and the green shawl; her face still showed signs of illness, it was thinner and paler. She gave him a happy smile, but held out her hand with her usual shyness.

She was always timid about offering her hand to him and sometimes didn't offer it at all, as if afraid he’d reject it. He always took her hand as if with disgust, always seemed annoyed to see her and sometimes was stubbornly silent during her visits.

Sometimes she trembled before him and left deeply upset. But now their hands didn't part. He quickly glanced at her and lowered his eyes to the ground without speaking. They were alone, no one had seen them. The guard had turned away for a moment.

He didn't know how it happened. But all at once, something seemed to grab him and fling him at her feet. He started crying and wrapped his arms around her knees. For the first moment, she was totally freaked out and went pale. She jumped up and looked at him, trembling.

But at the same moment, she understood, and a light of unbelievable happiness came into her eyes. She knew and had no doubt that he loved her more than anything and that finally, the moment had arrived...

They wanted to talk, but couldnn't; tears welled up in their eyes. They were both pale and thin, but those sick, pale faces glowed with the promise of a new future, a real comeback to a fresh start. They felt renewed by love; each heart held endless sources of life for the other.

They decided to wait and be patient. They had another seven years to go, and what awful suffering and incredible happiness lay ahead! But he’s come back, and he knew it, felt it in every part of him, while she - she just lived in his world.

That evening, when the barracks doors were locked, Raskolnikov lay on his bunk and thought about her. He even thought that day that all the other prisoners who’s been his enemies were looking at him differently; he even talked to them and they responded kindly.

He remembered that now, and figured it had to be that way. Wasn’t everything about to change?

He thought about her. He remembered how often he’s messed with her and hurt her feelings. He remembered her pale, thin little face. But those memories didn’t bother him much now; he knew with what endless love he’s going to make up for all her suffering. And what were all the agonies of the past!

Everything, even his crime, his sentence, and imprisonment, seemed to him now, in that first rush of feeling, like an outside thing, a weird fact he wasn’t involved in. But he couldn’t think for very long that night, and he couldn’t have figured anything out consciously; he was just feeling.

Life had taken over where theory used to be, and something totally different would work itself out in his mind.

Under his pillow was the New Testament. He picked it up without really thinking. The book belonged to Sonia; it was the one she’s read the story of Lazarus coming back to life from. At first he was worried that she’s going to bug him about religion, talk about the Bible and push books on him.

But to his surprise, she hadn’t brought up the subject even once, hadn’t even offered him the Testament. He’s asked for it himself not long before he got sick, and she brought him the book without saying a word. Until now, he hadn’t opened it.

He didn’t open it now, but one thought crossed his mind: "Can her beliefs become mine now? Her feelings, her hopes, at least..."

She too had been really upset that day, and that night she got sick again. But she was so happy - and so unexpectedly happy - that she was almost scared of her own happiness. Seven years, only seven years!

At the start of their happiness, sometimes they were both ready to see those seven years like just seven days. He didn’t know that this new life wouldn’t be free, that he’s going to have to pay dearly for it, that it’s going to cost him a lot of effort, a lot of suffering.

But that’s the start of a new story - the story of a man slowly getting better, the story of his gradual recovery, of his moving from one world to another, of his introduction to a new, unknown life. That could be the subject of a new story, but our current story is over.