Raskolnikov's Letter

Letter from Rodion Raskolnikov to Sonya Marmeladova

13th January, 1867
Siberia

Dearest Sonya,

There resides through the window of my prison cell a mud track, often taken by the peasants. They traverse by this route, in their horses and carts, the distance separating their landowner's estate from their farms. I'm not certain what it is they freight back and forth - their barrows are covered by those coarse blankets such people favour – and it's not something with which I'm concerned.

What is of greater interest to me than the peasants themselves is the highway by which they travel.

It is the product not of new technologies, about which our St. Petersburg engineers are so verbose, nor the result of a proclamation by local authorities. It is barely more than twinned parallel lines in the snow, pressed into existence by the routine of the peasants who use it. No one condones it, officially at least, but it continues to exist.

Situated happily in the expanse of white that greets my gazing outside, this road is a muddy smear extending into the horizon. It babbles across the landscape, revealing every minor crevice that would otherwise be imperceivable, without regard for economy or common sense.

You'd imagine that these peasants would have discovered the efficacy of the straight line by now. Well, apparently not.

I've no doubt that by now you've a feeling for how extensive my acquaintance with this track has become. I've stared at it for hours beyond memory, in fact, with barely an occasional blink interrupting our communion. The grey walls facing me in every other direction are, needless to say, poor company by comparison.

But this is only one part of the reasoning behind my fascination with this deplorable dirt track, dearest Sonya.

Yes, terrible though it sounds, I've grown accustomed to and even relish the exasperating curvature of the highway. I thrill at the sound of approaching horses, if only for the chance to watch the peasants bobbing up and down, becoming smaller and smaller as they reach the horizon, in perfect recreation of their prior appearances.

But, as I say, this accounts for only part of my interest in the road. For in truth, whatever nourishment that the highway provides me as company is quite secondary to what it represents. Can you think what it might represent to me, Sonya? I'm certain you can.

Freedom.

Freedom! The tremor that courses through me with the utterance of this word, it's all I can do to keep my pen subservient.

I believe completely, more than I ever could before taking 'residence' in Siberia, that freedom is a word from which it is possible to drink long draughts. Its syllables are an elixir capable of quenching the deepest thirst - a thirst known best by those unfortunates whom share my very position. One merely has to close one's eyes and think of freedom, and the soul is transported immediately to the farthest vistas.

It is with unremitting gratitude that I've come to understand how the greyest walls in all creation cannot quash the raptures of a man imagining freedom. Wherever I may wish to go, beyond the stretches of snow blanketing the Earth's curvature, beyond the frozen destruction of all Siberia's wastes, freedom can take me! Oh, heavenly powers!

If only it were so.

For you must already see, dearest Sonya, how excruciating it must be to bludgeon the startling possibilities of freedom through the reality of an old highway. How contemptible it must be to charge the unsounded depths through something maintained without thought by local peasants. You must see – how could you fail to see? - the torment that this road inspires.

This road is an undignified attempt to preserve the sum of all human knowledge upon a scrap of toilet paper, because one lacks the proper parchment. It is a bewildering effort to stuff the thoughts of our brightest minds into a test tube, because an appropriate vessel cannot be found.

It is unforgivable folly. And yet – oh yes, yes! - it is such an endeavour with which I am confronted on an hourly basis. I must attempt to spy the events of the whole world, let alone Russia, through the underwhelming fact of... of an impromptu highway, sullying the snow with horse excrement!

Perhaps now you can appreciate why it is I don't blink whilst considering this highway. It carries everything - everything in my imaginings of freedom that must find some expression. In truth, I would like dearly to remove this dirt track from the snow, and transform its winding lengths into something to wrench around my neck. Perhaps then it would become capable of meeting my expectations.

Oh, but Sonya.

I notice it has been some weeks since your last visit.

I don't pretend to understand what could be keeping you from fulfilling your obligation to me. Indeed, I appreciate that there are any number of accidents that might hamper a reformed woman living in Siberia. The winter... well, even for one accustomed to the climate of St. Petersburg, it's scarce worth mentioning.

But here I am, inventing excuses for you, my pencil running away from me. You'll find you can barely prevent its doing so, when the outlooks competing for your attention are four grey walls and a dirt track. Your pencil becomes frantic, flying at all and any connection to the world outside, desperate to avoid the certainty of your isolation.

But, no, I cannot pretend to understand why it is you begin to fail me.

Merely let me remind you, Sonya, that it is for you I am enduring this incarceration. It is for you that I volunteered myself to the police, when all the proofs of that old woman's murder had been blotted out. It is for you, and the promises of your company, that I yielded my pursuit of Napoleonic glory. It is for you that the highway endures the burden of freedom placed upon it.

Without you, I am certain, the highway would collapse, implode, vanish without trace from Siberia. And how then would the peasants know where to transport their produce?

What I'm asking, Sonya, is not to make me regret this imprisonment, because it is for naught without you.

Do not make me regret it, Sonya, please.

Do not make me regret it.



With affection,

Rodion Raskolnikov