Butchering a classic -- or Dostoevsky made readable

By Parvathi Sharma

JAKARTA (JP): For several years now, I have told myself at the start of every summer vacation that this time I will read both Crime and Punishment and War and Peace. Periodically, I remind myself that I've also vowed to go bungee jumping before I hit 25.

Usually, both goals seem equally distant. Then, last week, alone at home, out of Mad magazines and suffering from terminal boredom, I picked up my battered copy of Crime and Punishment and opened it to page one.

I didn't look back. Really. I read the first 150 pages without even realizing it. The remaining 400 took somewhat more work, but still went by too quickly. I wept copiously; I felt I was participating in something larger than life; I realized, in a blinding flash that this was what students of literature live for; all that I'd ever heard about the Russian masters was coming true.

I reached the last few pages ready for a suitably grand, intensely tragic denouement; one that would leave me reeling for days. Instead, it made me reach for my keyboard.

Dostoevsky is a magnificent writer, people who have never read a word by him will tell you so with conviction. All right, he's magnificent, a brilliant, larger than life, uninhibited genius. He is also anti-Semitic, anti-socialist, xenophobic and excessively subservient to Tsarist authoritarianism.

As a young man, Dostoevsky belonged to a revolutionary group. The state arrested members of this organization and sent them to Siberia. As though two years in an absolutely harrowing prison environment wasn't harsh enough, the Tsar tortured Dostoevsky and his companions further. They were all sentenced to death and the preparations for their execution were carried on until they faced the firing squad. At this point, a messenger arrived carrying the Tsar's pardon.

This was a particularly effective form of torture; it certainly twisted Dostoevsky's spirit, even if it couldn't break it.

Perhaps it accounts for the last three pages of Crime and Punishment.

Here, in very simplistic terms, is the plot: Raskolnikov (or Rodya), a student racked by poverty, unable to either continue his studies or support his mother and sister, plans the perfect murder. He justifies the crime, arguing that some people are superhuman and therefore justified in committing particular atrocities that will eventually put them in a position to benefit all humanity. He murders an old, utterly despicable pawnbroker and, accidentally, her gentle, simple minded sister.

Thereafter, he tortures himself, questioning the rightness of his action and wondering if he should turn himself in. He meets various people, amongst them Sonya, a prostitute. Sonya gives him her cross, pleads with him to repent, to stand in a public square, kiss the earth that he has wronged and proclaim his sin; to go and suffer in Siberia. He dons the cross, goes to the square, kisses the earth and confesses to the police. He neither repents nor publicly proclaims his sin.

Sonya follows him to Siberia. Rodya is irascible and unpopular. Sonya, patient, loving, timid, gentle, pure, epitomizing saintly womanhood, hangs on for a year. Then, she meets Rodya sitting by a river, awaiting a guard's orders. Inexplicably, Rodya has an epiphany, kisses Sonya's feet, turns to religion and decides to suffer through the remaining seven years of his sentence and then begin life anew.

Dostoevsky may never forgive me, but I cannot reconcile myself to this. The unrelenting power, anger, despair and purity of 500 pages is compromised in a few hundred words. Rodya, storming against the injustices of a totalitarian state for so long, suddenly decides to become a pillar of that very institution. Why does such a strong character become so weak?

I don't know. I haven't studied Dostoevsky. Until I do, I have no right to comment on his motivations or his intentions. For all I know, it requires more strength to belong to society than to oppose it. Here, however, is what I would do different.

"It was another clear, warm day. Early in the morning, at six o'clock, he set off for work on the riverbank, where a kiln for baking alabaster had been set up in a shed and where it was also pounded. Only three workers were sent there. One prisoner, accompanied by a guard, went back to the fortress for some tools; the other began to get some firewood ready and stoke the kiln. Raskolnikov walked out of the shed and onto the riverbank, sat down on some logs that were piled beside the shed and began to look at the broad, deserted river. A wide panorama opened out before the high bank where he was sitting. From the far shore came the faint sound of a song being sung. Over there, on the boundless steppe, which was flooded with sunshine, the tens of nomads appeared as barely perceptible black dots. Over there was freedom, a different kind of people lived there, not at all like the ones where he was. Over therw it was as though time itself had stopped, as though the age of Abraham and his flocks had still not passed. Raskolnikov sat there and looked, without moving or taking his eyes off the scene; his thoughts gave to daydreams and contemplation; he was not thinking of anything, but a feeling of misery disturbed and nagged him."

Rodya heaved a great sigh, his chest constricted and he coughed without stopping for several minutes. He raised his hand, involuntarily, to stop the cough and his fingers appeared flecked with blood. A voice cried within him, again and again, terrifying and shrill, making him stop. He must wash the blood away, he must be clean, clean and fresh. He must be cool, not sweaty, fevered, hot, dirty.

Dazed, his head spinning wildly a great buzzing orchestra between his ears, Rodya walked towards the river. The water beckoned him, he could not refuse. Reaching the bank he stopped. Timidly he began to bend towards the great soothing expanse. And yet again that voice, NO! The water would come to him. Ignoring the chain on his foot, he stepped in.

The cold liquid stung. Stinging liquid, his feet trembled, he felt he would fall and concentrated on nothing but his feet for the next minute. Another step. And another, faster. He advanced, each step drowning another inch of his body. The chill of the water refreshed him so he felt almost light-headed until eventually he waded forward with the energy of a madman, looking no longer looking at his feet but at the bank ahead, his black bright eyes straight, refusing the land accustomed salute.

"Hey!" A guard's voice pierced the silence. The song in the horizon died. "Where do you think you're going? Hey, you! Come back! Turn around now, you hear me?" But Rodya didn't hear him, his eyes were fixed, his senses devoured a slight figure standing alone on the further bank. Sonya.

The prostitute, the destitute, the fallen victim, vile all vile, soiled with blood but cleaner nonetheless, cleaner than Rodya's river. She too had seen him and stood transfixed, afraid and uncomprehending. But he understood, too well now ... too late. With hypnotizing deliberation, so even the guard stopped shouting, he removed his hands from the water that now caressed his waist, and removed the cypress cross from his neck. He kissed it, once. Then, clutching it tightly, he sank to his knees in the water. His eyes dry, he clutched his head in both hands and pulled it in with him. Submerged, his body began to hurt to break, his eyes stung by the freezing, cruel water remained relentlessly open.

He bowed down low, his head touched the earth. Once more he kissed it and water gushed into his mouth.

Moments passed, two seconds... four... seven. Sonya screamed. The guard, as though stung, yelled again and waded into the river.

Nine seconds... twelve... fifteen. Rodya heard the scream, felt the water move around him. Blood rushed to his head into his eyes. All he could see was red, red, the dread red; he coughed again and stained water rushed out.

Seventeen seconds. The blood disappeared, white peace unconsciousness peace seeped... to the core.

As the guard lunged to grab him, Rodya crashed up, crashed into the guard with such force that the man fell backwards into the water.

Laughing, Rodya looked for Sonya and finding her spread his arms wide. Almost imperceptibly, the cross slipped from his fingers and floated away.

"She looked at him, trembling. But at once, that very instant, she understood all. Her eyes lit up with infinite happiness; she had understood, and she no longer doubted that he loved her, loved her infinitely, and that the moment had come at last..."

Instantly, she stepped into the river and walked to him not hurrying, not scared anymore. He too advanced and they met more than half drowned.

"They wanted to say something but were unable to. Tears stood in their eyes, they were both pale and thin; but those pale, sickly faces of theirs already reflected the radiant dawn of a renewed future, of resurrection to a new file. Love had resurrected them."

Then, Rodya found a voice, buried deep in his soul. "Seven years," he whispered, "seven years. I cannot ... I am not made to withstand ... I can't make you ... my people, your people ... they shall be my people." Then, with sudden decision, "I want to live, do you understand? For once, today, one time ... just now I want to live so much."

She tried to understand. For many a year and more she had rebelled against understanding, trusting in a future more kind that the present which beat her so mercilessly; perhaps she understood, now, that she needed no longer drown in sacrificial blood, she could, she would wash it away. She would be new-born, clean, pure now and by her own doing; not later at another's mercy.

"Run away, come to me," she said, in a trance.

"Stop!" The guard had recovered, he stood behind them, gun in hand. "Stop, or I'll shoot."

Rodya shivered. "No," he said, "no, you run away with me. Please. We'll live ... longer that way." Did she understand? Did she want to understand? Did he quite know himself what he was asking of her, of himself? He turned around and looked at the guard who no longer yelled but waited, light and shadow locked together in his eyes. The two other prisoners stood on the bank and stared not at the men, but at Sonya. Rodya turned again and faced the opposite bank. The singing started where it had stopped. In his head whole symphonies accompanied the song, improvising, the notes falling free through the air, autumn leaves in a whirlwind dance.

Sonya looked at him with frightened, angry eyes. "You'll die," she whispered. "I won't let you die. I won't let you be the hero. I won't, will not wait for you anymore! Do you hear, Rodya? Stop! Please ... you can't go, not like this, not without ... without me."

A shot; a bullet whizzing through the air, disrupting the autumn dance. Sonya threw herself around Rodya, pushing him away. The bullet, carelessly aimed, missed her. Rodya's head shattered, the song flew away.

A wail, long and clear, pure as the river's water pierced the silent air and died.

Note: The passages in italics are taken from Michael Scammell's translation of Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. This edition was published in 1967 by Washington Square Press, Inc.

Window A: Dostoevsky is a magnificent writer, people who have never read a word by him will tell you so with conviction. All right, he's magnificent, a brilliant, large tha life, uninhibited genius. He is also anti-Semitic, anti-socialist, xenophobic and excessively subservient Tsarist authoritarianism.

Window B: I don't know. I haven't studied Dostoevsky. Until I do, I have no right to comment on his motivations or his intentions. For all I know, it requires more strength to belong to society than to oppose it.