The Road to Hell
by Zelempa
This was written for Yond Cassius for Yuletide 2009. The request was for a prequel, showing the beginning of the deterioration of Rodya's mental state.
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The landlady left Raskolnikov in the doorway. She had stopped chaperoning his visits to her daughter after the first two, which had clearly bored her. Perhaps she assumed that no man would have less than pure intentions with an invalid girl who had a sallow, pockmarked face, and hair which fell in black, greasy strings on her pillow. Her body was always invisible under at least three blankets. Raskolnikov stood in the doorway, wavering between the cool musty hallway and the stiflingly warm, medicinal air that hung like an additional blanket in Nadya's room. Idly he wondered what it would be like to defile the girl. She was weak, and he would hold her hands down with the blankets so she could not struggle. Perhaps she would not want to. She considered him "my dear husband already," she had told him once, and although she was too innocent to conceal a hidden meaning in that pure statement of devotion, it seemed probable that she could be talked into understanding the most horrific violation of her body as an expression of love.
"You're here." She smiled angelically and breathed the name as her eyes fluttered open.
"Good morning, Nadezhda Petrovna," Raskolnikov said.
She laughed.
Why did I speak so formally? he wondered. He felt like a child caught in the larder. He felt the need to make up for his thoughts, but why? They had all been theoretical, of course; he would never actually do anything to this poor girl. He hadn't the slightest desire for her and so such an act could not be said to benefit even him, the hypothetical perpetrator.
"Come sit by me, Rodya," said Nadya in a small, pleading voice, like a child's.
Dutifully he took the chair by the bed and accepted the tiny, cold hand she held out to him. Her fingers were bony, almost like a claw.
"I knew you would come today," said Nadya. "You did not come yesterday and I thought, I know he will come tomorrow. In fact I am glad you did not come yesterday because I am so happy now."
"Yes," said Raskolnikov. "I thought exactly the same." In actuality he had been working hard on his treatise on crime and had not thought of Nadya once during the whole of the day; in fact he would not have eaten had not Razumihin stolen his pen. "It is so nice to put off pleasure so that you might enjoy it later."
"Only one mustn't put it off too long," said Nadya, and because she had no sense of subtlety, she added, "I might die."
"Nonsense," said Raskolnikov. "You are getting stronger every day." This too was a lie, but it seemed to please Nadya.
"I get out of bed each day for an hour and dress and work on my sewing," said Nadya. "Perhaps soon it shall be two, or three. One day perhaps the whole day, and I could be a proper wife to you, and sit by the door, and tell callers, 'Oh, no, my Rodion Romanovich is not home at present, he is giving a great talk on very important topics.'"
"Of course," said Raskolnikov. "Why else should I marry? I shall require it."
Nadya laughed and then coughed. Raskolnikov turned toward the window. The wallpaper was grimy, but the landlady had carefully polished the glass so that Nadya could look down into X Street, which swarmed at all hours with thieves and beggars, and sigh at the busy world of human activity that she could not join.
"Will you tell me about your work, Rodya?"
Raskolnikov looked back at Nadya's pleading face. She constantly wanted to hear about his work, which Raskolnikov found totally inexplicable. He often obliged her, because he liked to tell her his ideas. It was useful to hear them spoken aloud, and his audience, though she did not understand, always smiled encouragingly. But he did not understand why she begged to hear them. He often thought it would be kinder to spare her, and talk about some stultifying topic in her own world, such as the stitching design she was slowly working into her wedding dress, or her sister's new baby, but she always brought the conversation back around to his work.
"Tell me again about the bad men," said Nadya.
"You mean criminals," Raskolnikov interpreted. "But they are not necessarily all bad. It depends upon your definition of 'bad,' but virtue and lawbreaking are not mutually exclusive. Why, suppose you lived in a country where you were absolutely required, by law, to kill someone, or else be thrown in jail." Nadya's brow was furrowed, and Raskolnikov realized he had strayed into dangerous theoretical territory.
"That is a horrible country!" said Nadya. "What country is that?"
"There is no country," said Raskolnikov. "It was only an example. Never mind that. Surely you can imagine a reason to commit a crime which is not in itself bad. If the result of the crime was good..."
Nadya frowned.
"If you killed an evil king, perhaps," said Raskolnikov.
"It is wrong to kill," said Nadya. "That is a commandment from God."
"But the king would kill many more. If you were standing behind an evil king with a gun in your hand, and you did not pull the trigger, and then he went on to kill a hundred innocent people, their blood would really be on your hands," said Raskolnikov.
Nadya bit her lip.
"Tell me about your sister's baby," said Raskolnikov. "I understand he recently had a worrying cough."
"How do you know he is going to kill many more people?" said Nadya. "The king?"
"He has killed many before."
"He might reform. He might become a good Christian. When you are standing so near him, you should teach him about God."
"He doesn't want to hear about God. If you open your mouth, he will turn around and kill you."
"Then you will die doing good, and you will go to Heaven," said Nadya.
"And the hundred innocent people would still die," said Raskolnikov. "If you killed him, they would be spared."
"If you kill, you go to Hell."
"Yes, absolutely! And your act would be all the more noble. Surely it must strike you as selfish to care more about your own salvation than about doing actual good on this Earth?"
Nadya shook her head. "If you do good on Earth, you will be saved."
She had lost the thread of the argument. Raskolnikov should have known that attempting to debate with such a disadvantaged and uninteresting partner was a waste of his time. He should have taken his usual course, and lectured at her until she shook her head and said, "What strange things you scholars write!"
"Well?" Nadya's eyes sparkled. "Have I convinced you? I have never won an argument with you!"
"I wouldn't say that you have quite won," said Raskolnikov with a cool smile. "Yours is a well-known argument."
"Oh," said Nadya, disappointed. Then she beamed. "I came up with a well-known argument? All on my own?"
"You hold fast to the idea that one must follow the letter of the law, whether it be God's law or man's, and that there is no extenuating circumstance, such as a bad act with a good result. In that case, of course, a person must be judged solely on their actions, and not on their intentions. It would be perfectly correct for a man, a student, to help a poorer student pay his bills, only because he needed that poor friend to remain at the college and help him cheat on an exam..."
"Cheating is wrong," said Nadya. "But it is very lovely to give money to the poor. Are you describing someone you know?"
"What if the cheating never happened?" said Raskolnikov. "If he only planned it, but never did it? Is he as good as a man who never planned to cheat?"
"His conscience kept him from doing wrong," said Nadya. "That is quite all right. That is what the conscience is for."
"Suppose it was not conscience, but plain fear, or circumstance... Forget that... Consider the reverse. If a person intends to do good works, but cannot--prevented by poverty or incapacitation--by your own logic, that person is no more worthwhile in the sight of God than a person who sits all day in his rooms, scheming crimes which he is too weak and fearful to commit."
Nadya gazed at him with a blank expression, though Raskolnikov did not know whether she was formulating a counterargument or simply trying to make sense of what he had said, or if perhaps she had lost interest. Then, all of a sudden, the light in her eyes seemed to vanish.
"I would very much like to help people, if I could," she said quietly, speaking to her threadbare blanket. "I have tried--I have tried to get out of bed sometimes and go out, but it is very difficult, and I--I know that counts for nothing in--in the sight of--"
"No, no! You entirely misunderstand me. I did not mean you, not in the least," Raskolnikov lied, clasping her thin cold hand in both of his, and laying it to his heart. "You do a great deal of good, more than you know. Why, you do your mother good, and your sister, and your little nephew; and you do me good, a great deal."
"Do I?" Nadya breathed out and relaxed, as though a weight had been lifted from her.
"Yes," said Raskolnikov. "Rest now. Save your strength. You will need to be strong on your wedding day; that will do me no end of good, to see you standing in the sun and looking lovely in your gown."
She leaned her head against Raskolnikov's knee and closed her eyes. "How much do you love me, Rodya?"
"More than the moon and stars," said Raskolnikov. "More than the ocean, more than the earth." He knew that she liked to hear his voice until she drifted to sleep. "More than the world, more than time." He slowly lifted his watch from his coat pocket. He could get in another few hours of work before sundown if she fell asleep quickly.
The End