Chapter 3

“He is well, quite well!” Zossimov cried cheerfully as they entered.

He had come in ten minutes earlier and was sitting in the same place as before, on the sofa. Raskolnikov was sitting in the opposite corner, fully dressed and carefully washed and combed, as he had not been for some time past. The room was immediately crowded, yet Nastasya managed to follow the visitors in and stayed to listen.

Raskolnikov really was almost well, as compared with his condition the day before, but he was still pale, listless, and sombre. He looked like a wounded man or one who has undergone some terrible physical suffering. His brows were knitted, his lips compressed, his eyes feverish. He spoke little and reluctantly, as though performing a duty, and there was a restlessness in his movements.

He only wanted a sling on his arm or a bandage on his finger to complete the impression of a man with a painful abscess or a broken arm. The pale, sombre face lighted up for a moment when his mother and sister entered, but this only gave it a look of more intense suffering, in place of its listless dejection. The light soon died away, but the look of suffering remained, and Zossimov, watching and studying his patient with all the zest of a young doctor beginning to practise, noticed in him no joy at the arrival of his mother and sister, but a sort of bitter, hidden determination to bear another hour or two of inevitable torture. He saw later that almost every word of the following conversation seemed to touch on some sore place and irritate it. But at the same time he marvelled at the power of controlling himself and hiding his feelings in a patient who the previous day had, like a monomaniac, fallen into a frenzy at the slightest word.

“Yes, I see myself now that I am almost well,” said Raskolnikov, giving his mother and sister a kiss of welcome which made Pulcheria Alexandrovna radiant at once. “And I don’t say this as I did yesterday,” he said, addressing Razumihin, with a friendly pressure of his hand.

“Yes, indeed, I am quite surprised at him to-day,” began Zossimov, much delighted at the ladies’ entrance, for he had not succeeded in keeping up a conversation with his patient for ten minutes. “In another three or four days, if he goes on like this, he will be just as before, that is, as he was a month ago, or two … or perhaps even three. This has been coming on for a long while. … eh? Confess, now, that it has been perhaps your own fault?” he added, with a tentative smile, as though still afraid of irritating him.

“It is very possible,” answered Raskolnikov coldly.

“I should say, too,” continued Zossimov with zest, “that your complete recovery depends solely on yourself. Now that one can talk to you, I should like to impress upon you that it is essential to avoid the elementary, so to speak, fundamental causes tending to produce your morbid condition: in that case you will be cured, if not, it will go from bad to worse. These fundamental causes I don’t know, but they must be known to you. You are an intelligent man, and must have observed yourself, of course. I fancy the first stage of your derangement coincides with your leaving the university. You must not be left without occupation, and so, work and a definite aim set before you might, I fancy, be very beneficial.”

“Yes, yes; you are perfectly right. … I will make haste and return to the university: and then everything will go smoothly. …”

Zossimov, who had begun his sage advice partly to make an effect before the ladies, was certainly somewhat mystified, when, glancing at his patient, he observed unmistakable mockery on his face. This lasted an instant, however. Pulcheria Alexandrovna began at once thanking Zossimov, especially for his visit to their lodging the previous night.

“What! he saw you last night?” Raskolnikov asked, as though startled. “Then you have not slept either after your journey.”

“Ach, Rodya, that was only till two o’clock. Dounia and I never go to bed before two at home.”