Riverwood Presbyterian Church

Books

Murder Gets A New Dress: Finicking Over Esthetics

by Tim Lien

At your next get-together don’t mention that you’ve just read Crime and Punishment. It’s really not a good opener. I mean, what will people say? “That’s great…one of the classics, huh?”
(awkward pause)
“Hey, did I ever tell you the one about the nun, the mechanic, and Harry Potter….”
Since, we’ve all had 150 years to read it, I don’t think I’m providing a spoiler—but stop reading if you think you’ll get to it soon.

Quick Summary: A poor university student (Rhodia Raskolnikov) murders a mean, old, haggling woman who is a predatory pawn-broker. Her sister comes in unannounced (during the deed) and he kills her, too. A double axe-murder. The rest of the book details the guilt and anguish that torments Raskolnikov. The following quote is in the final pages of the novel. And, to me, it was worth reading the entire book for this single page:

“…By going to suffer, surely you wash away half your crime?” she cried pressing and hugging and kissing him. “Crime? What crime?” he suddenly shouted, in a kind of sudden rage. “Killing a foul, noxious louse! An old pawn-broker woman no good to anybody, who sucked the life juices of the poor—why, for killing her I’ll be forgiven forty sins! I don’t think about it, and I don’t think about washing it away. Why does everybody push ‘crime, crime!’ at me? Only now do I see clearly the full depth of my mean-spiritedness, now that I’ve already decided to accept this unnecessary shame! Just because I’m worthless and have no talent, maybe also for my own advantage,…” “Brother, what are you saying!” Dunia cried out in despair. “You have shed human blood.” “Which they all shed,” he interrupted, almost frantic. “Which cascades, and always has, down upon the earth like a waterfall, which they pour like champagne, and for which they are crowned on the Capitoline and called the benefactors for mankind. Look a little harder and you’ll see! My own intentions were good, as far as people were concerned. I would have done hundreds, thousands of good deeds, instead of this one stupidity—not even stupidity, just clumsiness. Because the whole idea wasn’t quite as stupid as it seems now that it’s failed…(Everything seems stupid when it fails!) Performing this stupidity, I wanted to make myself independent, to take the first step, to acquire the means; then everything would have been cancelled by the relatively immense good…I couldn’t even take the first step…Because I’m vile! That’s what it all comes to! Anyway, I refuse to look at it your way. If I had made it I would have been crowned, but now—off to jail!” “Brother, what are you saying! That isn’t so at all!” “Ah, not the right form! Esthetically, not such very good form! Well, I don’t understand why blasting people with bombs or a barrage is better form. Finicking over esthetics is the first sign of impotence!…I never, never felt stronger or more convinced than now!”