PART I // chapter 6-5

[모나리자]

그리고 실제로 모든 것이 사소한 지점까지 고려되고 마침내 해결되고 어떤 종류의 불확실성도 남지 않았다면, 그는 모든 것을 터무니없고, 괴물스럽고, 불가능한 것으로 포기했을 것입니다. 그러나 해결되지 않은 점과 불확실성이 여전히 많이 남았습니다. 도끼를 구하는 것에 관해서는, 그 사소한 일이 그에게 불안을 초래하지 않았습니다. 아무것도 더 쉬울 수 없었기 때문입니다. 나스타샤는 특히 저녁에 계속 집을 비웠습니다. 그녀는 이웃이나 가게로 달려가 항상 문을 반쯤 열어 두었습니다.

그것은 집주인이 항상 그녀를 꾸중하던 유일한 일이었습니다. 그래서 시간이 되면 그는 조용히 부엌으로 가서 도끼를 가져가고 한 시간 후에 (모든 것이 끝났을 때) 다시 들어가서 도끼를 다시 놓으면 되었습니다. 그러나 이것들은 의심스러운 지점이었습니다. 그가 한 시간 후에 도끼를 다시 놓으러 돌아왔고 나스타샤가 돌아와서 그 자리에 있었다고 가정해 보겠습니다.

물론 그는 그녀가 다시 나갈 때까지 기다려야 할 것이다. 하지만 그녀가 그 사이에 도끼를 놓치고, 그것을 찾고, 소리를 지르면—그것은 의심을 의미하거나 적어도 의심할 근거가 될 것이다. 하지만 그것은 그가 생각조차 하지 않은 사소한 일들이었고, 사실 그는 시간도 없었다. 그는 가장 중요한 요점을 생각하고 있었고, 사소한 세부 사항은 미루다가 결국 모든 것을 믿을 수 있을 때까지 미루었다. 하지만 그것은 완전히 달성할 수 없는 것처럼 보였다. 적어도 자신에게는 그렇게 보였다.

예를 들어, 그는 언젠가 생각하는 것을 멈추고 일어나서 그냥 그곳에 갈 것이라고 상상할 수 없었다... 심지어 그의 최근 실험(즉, 그 장소를 마지막으로 조사하는 대상과의 방문)도 단지 실험에 대한 시도일 뿐이었고, 진짜와는 거리가 멀었다. 마치 "와서, 가서 시도해 보자—왜 꿈꾸는가!"라고 말해야 하는 것처럼—그리고 그는 즉시 무너지고 저주하며 달아났다. 한편, 도덕적 문제에 관해서는 그의 분석이 완료된 듯하다. 그의 변론술은 면도날처럼 날카로워졌고, 그는 자신에게서 합리적인 반대의견을 찾을 수 없었다.

하지만 결국 그는 자신을 믿는 것을 그만두고, 끈기 있게, 노예처럼 사방팔방에서 주장을 찾으며, 마치 누군가가 그를 강요하고 끌어당기는 것처럼 더듬거렸다. 처음에—사실 오래 전부터—그는 한 가지 의문에 사로잡혀 있었다. 거의 모든 범죄가 왜 그렇게 심하게 은폐되고 쉽게 발각되는가, 그리고 왜 거의 모든 범죄자가 그렇게 명백한 흔적을 남기는가? 그는 점차 다양하고 기이한 결론에 도달했고, 그의 의견에 따르면 주된 이유는 범죄를 은폐하는 것이 물질적으로 불가능한 것이 아니라 범죄자 자신에게 있었다. 거의 모든 범죄자는 신중함과 주의가 가장 필수적인 순간에 유치하고 경이로운 부주의로 인해 의지와 추론 능력이 저하된다.

이성의 이성과 의지의 실패가 질병처럼 사람을 공격하고, 점진적으로 발전하여

범죄를 저지르기 직전에 최고조에 달하고, 범죄가 발생한 순간과 그 후 개별 사례에 따라 더 길거나 짧은 시간 동안 동일한 폭력을 계속한 다음 다른 질병과 마찬가지로 지나간다는 것이 그의 확신이었습니다. 질병이 범죄를 일으키는지, 아니면 범죄가 고유한 특성으로 인해 항상 질병의 본질을 동반하는지에 대한 질문은 아직 결정할 수 없었습니다.

이러한 결론에 도달했을 때, 그는 자신의 경우에는 그렇게 병적인 반응이 있을 수 없고, 자신의 이성과 의지가 자신의 계획을 수행할 때 손상되지 않을 것이라고 결정했습니다. 그 이유는 그의 계획이 "범죄가 아니기" 때문입니다. 우리는 그가 이 마지막 결론에 도달한 모든 과정을 생략할 것입니다. 우리는 이미 너무 앞서 나갔습니다.... 우리는 이 사건의 실제적이고 순전히 물질적인 어려움이 그의 마음 속에서 이차적인 위치를 차지했다는 것만 추가할 수 있습니다.

"모든 의지와 이성을 다해 처리하면 되고, 사업의 가장 사소한 세부 사항까지 익숙해지면 모든 것이 극복될 것입니다..." 하지만 이 준비는 결코 시작되지 않았습니다. 그의 최종 결정은 그가 가장 신뢰하지 못하는 것이었고, 시간이 되자 모든 것이 우연히, 예상치 못하게 완전히 다르게 진행되었습니다.

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And, indeed, if it had ever happened that everything to the least point could have been considered and finally settled, and no uncertainty of any kind had remained, he would, it seems, have renounced it all as something absurd, monstrous and impossible. But a whole mass of unsettled points and uncertainties remained. As for getting the axe, that trifling business cost him no anxiety, for nothing could be easier. Nastasya was continually out of the house, especially in the evenings; she would run in to the neighbours or to a shop, and always left the door ajar.

It was the one thing the landlady was always scolding her about. And so, when the time came, he would only have to go quietly into the kitchen and to take the axe, and an hour later (when everything was over) go in and put it back again. But these were doubtful points. Supposing he returned an hour later to put it back, and Nastasya had come back and was on the spot.

He would of course have to go by and wait till she went out again. But supposing she were in the meantime to miss the axe, look for it, make an outcry—that would mean suspicion or at least grounds for suspicion. But those were all trifles which he had not even begun to consider, and indeed he had no time. He was thinking of the chief point, and put off trifling details, until he could believe in it all. But that seemed utterly unattainable. So it seemed to himself at least.

He could not imagine, for instance, that he would sometime leave off thinking, get up and simply go there.... Even his late experiment (i.e. his visit with the object of a final survey of the place) was simply an attempt at an experiment, far from being the real thing, as though one should say “come, let us go and try it—why dream about it!”—and at once he had broken down and had run away cursing, in a frenzy with himself. Meanwhile it would seem, as regards the moral question, that his analysis was complete; his casuistry had become keen as a razor, and he could not find rational objections in himself.

But in the last resort he simply ceased to believe in himself, and doggedly, slavishly sought arguments in all directions, fumbling for them, as though someone were forcing and drawing him to it. At first—long before indeed—he had been much occupied with one question; why almost all crimes are so badly concealed and so easily detected, and why almost all criminals leave such obvious traces? He had come gradually to many different and curious conclusions, and in his opinion the chief reason lay not so much in the material impossibility of concealing the crime, as in the criminal himself. Almost every criminal is subject to a failure of will and reasoning power by a childish and phenomenal heedlessness, at the very instant when prudence and caution are most essential.

It was his conviction that this eclipse of reason and failure of will power attacked a man like a disease, developed gradually

and reached its highest point just before the perpetration of the crime, continued with equal violence at the moment of the crime and for longer or shorter time after, according to the individual case, and then passed off like any other disease. The question whether the disease gives rise to the crime, or whether the crime from its own peculiar nature is always accompanied by something of the nature of disease, he did not yet feel able to decide.

When he reached these conclusions, he decided that in his own case there could not be such a morbid reaction, that his reason and will would remain unimpaired at the time of carrying out his design, for the simple reason that his design was “not a crime....” We will omit all the process by means of which he arrived at this last conclusion; we have run too far ahead already.... We may add only that the practical, purely material difficulties of the affair occupied a secondary position in his mind.

“One has but to keep all one’s will-power and reason to deal with them, and they will all be overcome at the time when once one has familiarised oneself with the minutest details of the business....” But this preparation had never been begun. His final decisions were what he came to trust least, and when the hour struck, it all came to pass quite differently, as it were accidentally and unexpectedly.