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psalm_onethirtyoneLots of Crime and Punishment short ficlets.
"Utopia!" he tells his friends, as they laugh and nod and agree, to please him. "Utopia!" he insists to Pyotr and Pyotr raises his eyebrows. "Utopia!" he pleads with the people around him, who shake their heads and murmur, "Impossible."
"Utopia," he whispers to Sofya, and she lets him take her hands and explain it.
He's built his own Utopia on dreams and aspirations. He's built his own Utopia, and foolishly, he wants the world to embrace it.
Sofya is a good girl, who doesn't call him a fool or madman -- or even think him one. He can feel the invisible barrier people put up against him, but Sofya never uses it.
He tells the truth when Pyotr accuses her of thievery. In Utopia, one always speaks the truth. In Utopia, one is perfect. So in the end, helping Sofya is linked to Utopia. Everything is linked to Utopia. It is good.
So, "Utopia!" he calls to the world, his arms wide to embrace it, no matter how it laughs.
~~~
There was no one to claim his body. There was no one to claim the body of the eccentric man who'd shot himself a few days before his wedding to a lovely girl. So she begged her parents to claim it and bury him somewhere pretty, in some graveyard where there were at least trees and real headstones.
They did. He would have been her husband, after all, and it was only fair to try to make her happier. She didn't think anyone would understand being devoted to him, because why should parents or friends understand something like that? It's easier to feel misunderstood. But they did understand, and they buried him in a nice graveyard just as she'd hoped but not said.
They put him beside a bush with red flowers and gave him a small marble headstone that she wouldn't be ashamed of.
While she was still young, and before she married, she went to his grave and read there. It was all right to do that--it wasn't disrespectful, somehow. He liked it, she supposed. After all, he'd loved her. She sometimes read aloud, because she imagined him under the dirt, in the coffin, with his face smiling, hearing her voice seep down through the earth. She imagined that pleased him.
And when she was married, she put a bundle of small cherry branches on the grave, and left. Because people have to live, and no one can read by a grave forever. People have to grow up. You can't forget things, but you can't think about them all the time.
She imagined he was proud of her for knowing that.
~~~
"Dounia," he wailed, trying to sit up in bed, "I hate being an invalid! I won't be an invalid! Let me get up. Please, darling," he added coaxingly.
But sensible Dounia shook her head. "Oh, no. You are ill, and you shall not move from that bed until Zossimov says you're quite well again."
"At sixty years, I don't trust Zossimov to correctly diagnose a cat," Razumihin said sulkily. "I don't believe he can see out of those funny little spectacles. He'll tell me to take this and that and it won't do a damned bit of good."
"At sixty years, I don't think Zossimov trusts you to take care of yourself properly any more than you trust him to take care of you. Now lie down. You're tiring yourself, and you're making your fluffy white hair stand on end."
"Is it? It is not."
"Dimitri..."
"Very well, very well." Razumihin settled back comfortably into the bed. "But if I am an invalid after all, I intend to take advantage of it."
"I'll wait on you hand and foot if you'll only get well."
"Mmhmm. I think my pillow's gone flat."
Dounia took it, laughing as she plumped it. "You're impossible."
"It's an art, and don't you forget it!"
"I shan't, Dimitri." She stroked his thin white hair and tried not to cry.
~~~
Nastasya mumbled to herself, cleaning up the room where Rodion Romanovitch used to live. The paper was disgusting, she decided. Those dreadful yellow flowers. Yellow was a bad colour for paper in the first place. No wonder Rodion Romanovitch had gone off his head. She frowned. She'd go mad and start killing old pawnbrokers, too, if she had to live in this tiny little room with this sickening yellow paper.
Poor Rodion. Siberia sounded dreadful. Even the word 'Siberia' sounded like a curse. And she'd heard convicts had their hair shaved off. Pity. Rodion had that lovely dark hair that was so thick. She hated the thought of it swept aside in a little dark pile on the floor. Lord, she couldn't even picture the boy without his hair.
She found a dirty sock under one of the cushions on the sofa, and put it in her pocket to burn in the grate once she got downstairs. Rodion had left tiny little remembrances of his living there all over the room, if one knew what to look for. The sock was certainly his. And that inkstain on the floorboard was his fault too; she recalled his knocking that over with his elbow.
Well, he was gone now. There was no more Rodion Romanovitch here. She'd clean up all the signs of Rodion that were still here, see the room rented to someone else, and then watch and someone else grew to match the ugly paper and the smallness.
Except perhaps not the horrid paper. She told herself to remember to ask the landlady if the paper could be changed.
~~~
When Rodya is ill, Razumihin comes every day, and drags Zossimov along as well. God forbid Rodya should die. God forbid dear Rodya should leave him.
Though Rodya doesn't know it. But there's something Razumihin loves about Rodya's dark eyes, and something that hurts him terribly when Rodya is angry. It's unfair, he thinks. Damn Rodya. What right has the little ingrate, the queer, reasonless boy, to make him unhappy and ecstatic at the same time? Why should he care so terribly much if Rodya lives? Any friend is brokenhearted to lose a friend; why does he feel it would be doubly so, three times so?
He sits and watches Rodya while he's ill, grumbling and cursing and worrying. He paces; he mutters prayers that he feels foolish making; he brushes back Rodya's damp hair; he sits in the one chair and just watches, feeling more helpless than anyone ever has.
Dounia saves him. Dounia is like her brother, but loving her makes so much more sense that it's painful. He loves Dounia, and he loves Rodya, and he makes the right choice.
"Utopia!" he tells his friends, as they laugh and nod and agree, to please him. "Utopia!" he insists to Pyotr and Pyotr raises his eyebrows. "Utopia!" he pleads with the people around him, who shake their heads and murmur, "Impossible."
"Utopia," he whispers to Sofya, and she lets him take her hands and explain it.
He's built his own Utopia on dreams and aspirations. He's built his own Utopia, and foolishly, he wants the world to embrace it.
Sofya is a good girl, who doesn't call him a fool or madman -- or even think him one. He can feel the invisible barrier people put up against him, but Sofya never uses it.
He tells the truth when Pyotr accuses her of thievery. In Utopia, one always speaks the truth. In Utopia, one is perfect. So in the end, helping Sofya is linked to Utopia. Everything is linked to Utopia. It is good.
So, "Utopia!" he calls to the world, his arms wide to embrace it, no matter how it laughs.
~~~
There was no one to claim his body. There was no one to claim the body of the eccentric man who'd shot himself a few days before his wedding to a lovely girl. So she begged her parents to claim it and bury him somewhere pretty, in some graveyard where there were at least trees and real headstones.
They did. He would have been her husband, after all, and it was only fair to try to make her happier. She didn't think anyone would understand being devoted to him, because why should parents or friends understand something like that? It's easier to feel misunderstood. But they did understand, and they buried him in a nice graveyard just as she'd hoped but not said.
They put him beside a bush with red flowers and gave him a small marble headstone that she wouldn't be ashamed of.
While she was still young, and before she married, she went to his grave and read there. It was all right to do that--it wasn't disrespectful, somehow. He liked it, she supposed. After all, he'd loved her. She sometimes read aloud, because she imagined him under the dirt, in the coffin, with his face smiling, hearing her voice seep down through the earth. She imagined that pleased him.
And when she was married, she put a bundle of small cherry branches on the grave, and left. Because people have to live, and no one can read by a grave forever. People have to grow up. You can't forget things, but you can't think about them all the time.
She imagined he was proud of her for knowing that.
~~~
"Dounia," he wailed, trying to sit up in bed, "I hate being an invalid! I won't be an invalid! Let me get up. Please, darling," he added coaxingly.
But sensible Dounia shook her head. "Oh, no. You are ill, and you shall not move from that bed until Zossimov says you're quite well again."
"At sixty years, I don't trust Zossimov to correctly diagnose a cat," Razumihin said sulkily. "I don't believe he can see out of those funny little spectacles. He'll tell me to take this and that and it won't do a damned bit of good."
"At sixty years, I don't think Zossimov trusts you to take care of yourself properly any more than you trust him to take care of you. Now lie down. You're tiring yourself, and you're making your fluffy white hair stand on end."
"Is it? It is not."
"Dimitri..."
"Very well, very well." Razumihin settled back comfortably into the bed. "But if I am an invalid after all, I intend to take advantage of it."
"I'll wait on you hand and foot if you'll only get well."
"Mmhmm. I think my pillow's gone flat."
Dounia took it, laughing as she plumped it. "You're impossible."
"It's an art, and don't you forget it!"
"I shan't, Dimitri." She stroked his thin white hair and tried not to cry.
~~~
Nastasya mumbled to herself, cleaning up the room where Rodion Romanovitch used to live. The paper was disgusting, she decided. Those dreadful yellow flowers. Yellow was a bad colour for paper in the first place. No wonder Rodion Romanovitch had gone off his head. She frowned. She'd go mad and start killing old pawnbrokers, too, if she had to live in this tiny little room with this sickening yellow paper.
Poor Rodion. Siberia sounded dreadful. Even the word 'Siberia' sounded like a curse. And she'd heard convicts had their hair shaved off. Pity. Rodion had that lovely dark hair that was so thick. She hated the thought of it swept aside in a little dark pile on the floor. Lord, she couldn't even picture the boy without his hair.
She found a dirty sock under one of the cushions on the sofa, and put it in her pocket to burn in the grate once she got downstairs. Rodion had left tiny little remembrances of his living there all over the room, if one knew what to look for. The sock was certainly his. And that inkstain on the floorboard was his fault too; she recalled his knocking that over with his elbow.
Well, he was gone now. There was no more Rodion Romanovitch here. She'd clean up all the signs of Rodion that were still here, see the room rented to someone else, and then watch and someone else grew to match the ugly paper and the smallness.
Except perhaps not the horrid paper. She told herself to remember to ask the landlady if the paper could be changed.
~~~
When Rodya is ill, Razumihin comes every day, and drags Zossimov along as well. God forbid Rodya should die. God forbid dear Rodya should leave him.
Though Rodya doesn't know it. But there's something Razumihin loves about Rodya's dark eyes, and something that hurts him terribly when Rodya is angry. It's unfair, he thinks. Damn Rodya. What right has the little ingrate, the queer, reasonless boy, to make him unhappy and ecstatic at the same time? Why should he care so terribly much if Rodya lives? Any friend is brokenhearted to lose a friend; why does he feel it would be doubly so, three times so?
He sits and watches Rodya while he's ill, grumbling and cursing and worrying. He paces; he mutters prayers that he feels foolish making; he brushes back Rodya's damp hair; he sits in the one chair and just watches, feeling more helpless than anyone ever has.
Dounia saves him. Dounia is like her brother, but loving her makes so much more sense that it's painful. He loves Dounia, and he loves Rodya, and he makes the right choice.
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-03 03:10 pm (UTC)Rodya/Razumihin!! I also thought something like that when I read the book. (Ok, every time I've read the book...) :-)
Dounia is like her brother, but loving her makes so much more sense that it's painful. He loves Dounia, and he loves Rodya, and he makes the right choice.
I love particularly these last lines. You put is so well in words. That is makes more sense and all. Excellent!
You have just made my day... I mean night since it's 2 am here. But anyway, thank you for writing these!
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-03 07:35 pm (UTC)It's--it's--so there. Especially Razumihin's 'you queer fish!' remark. (at least in my copy. ^_~)
I love particularly these last lines. You put is so well in words. That is makes more sense and all. Excellent!
Eeee, thanks! I have a whole why-Razumihin/Rodya-is-canon argument based around the idea of those lines. *time-waster. nodnod*
You have just made my day... I mean night since it's 2 am here. But anyway, thank you for writing these!
Once again, thaaaanks! ^______^