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The Brothers Karamazov
The Brothers Karamazov
Translated from the Russian of
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
by Constance Garnett
The Lowell Press
New York
CONTENTS
Part I
Book I. The History Of A Family
Chapter I. Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov
Chapter II. He Gets Rid Of His Eldest Son
Chapter III. The Second Marriage And The Second Family
Chapter IV. The Third Son, Alyosha
Chapter V. Elders
Book II. An Unfortunate Gathering
Chapter I. They Arrive At The Monastery
Chapter II. The Old Buffoon
Chapter III. Peasant Women Who Have Faith
Chapter IV. A Lady Of Little Faith
Chapter V. So Be It! So Be It!
Chapter VI. Why Is Such A Man Alive?
Chapter VII. A Young Man Bent On A Career
Chapter VIII. The Scandalous Scene
Book III. The Sensualists
Chapter I. In The Servants’ Quarters
Chapter II. Lizaveta
Chapter III. The Confession Of A Passionate Heart—In Verse
Chapter IV. The Confession Of A Passionate Heart—In Anecdote
Chapter V. The Confession Of A Passionate Heart—"Heels Up"
Chapter VI. Smerdyakov
Chapter VII. The Controversy
Chapter VIII. Over The Brandy
Chapter IX. The Sensualists
Chapter X. Both Together
Chapter XI. Another Reputation Ruined
Part II
Book IV. Lacerations
Chapter I. Father Ferapont
Chapter II. At His Father’s
Chapter III. A Meeting With The Schoolboys
Chapter IV. At The Hohlakovs’
Chapter V. A Laceration In The Drawing‐Room
Chapter VI. A Laceration In The Cottage
Chapter VII. And In The Open Air
Book V. Pro And Contra
Chapter I. The Engagement
Chapter II. Smerdyakov With A Guitar
Chapter III. The Brothers Make Friends
Chapter IV. Rebellion
Chapter V. The Grand Inquisitor
Chapter VI. For Awhile A Very Obscure One
Chapter VII. “It’s Always Worth While Speaking To A Clever Man”
Book VI. The Russian Monk
Chapter I. Father Zossima And His Visitors
Chapter II. The Duel
Chapter III. Conversations And Exhortations Of Father Zossima
Part III
Book VII. Alyosha
Chapter I. The Breath Of Corruption
Chapter II. A Critical Moment
Chapter III. An Onion
Chapter IV. Cana Of Galilee
Book VIII. Mitya
Chapter I. Kuzma Samsonov
Chapter II. Lyagavy
Chapter III. Gold‐Mines
Chapter IV. In The Dark
Chapter V. A Sudden Resolution
Chapter VI. “I Am Coming, Too!”
Chapter VII. The First And Rightful Lover
Chapter VIII. Delirium
Book IX. The Preliminary Investigation
Chapter I. The Beginning Of Perhotin’s Official Career
Chapter II. The Alarm
Chapter III. The Sufferings Of A Soul, The First Ordeal
Chapter IV. The Second Ordeal
Chapter V. The Third Ordeal
Chapter VI. The Prosecutor Catches Mitya
Chapter VII. Mitya’s Great Secret. Received With Hisses
Chapter VIII. The Evidence Of The Witnesses. The Babe
Chapter IX. They Carry Mitya Away
Part IV
Book X. The Boys
Chapter I. Kolya Krassotkin
Chapter II. Children
Chapter III. The Schoolboy
Chapter IV. The Lost Dog
Chapter V. By Ilusha’s Bedside
Chapter VI. Precocity
Chapter VII. Ilusha
Book XI. Ivan
Chapter I. At Grushenka’s
Chapter II. The Injured Foot
Chapter III. A Little Demon
Chapter IV. A Hymn And A Secret
Chapter V. Not You, Not You!
Chapter VI. The First Interview With Smerdyakov
Chapter VII. The Second Visit To Smerdyakov
Chapter VIII. The Third And Last Interview With Smerdyakov
Chapter IX. The Devil. Ivan’s Nightmare
Chapter X. “It Was He Who Said That”
Book XII. A Judicial Error
Chapter I. The Fatal Day
Chapter II. Dangerous Witnesses
Chapter III. The Medical Experts And A Pound Of Nuts
Chapter IV. Fortune Smiles On Mitya
Chapter V. A Sudden Catastrophe
Chapter VI. The Prosecutor’s Speech. Sketches Of Character
Chapter VII. An Historical Survey
Chapter VIII. A Treatise On Smerdyakov
Chapter IX. The Galloping Troika. The End Of The Prosecutor’s
Speech.
Chapter X. The Speech For The Defense. An Argument That Cuts Both
Ways
Chapter XI. There Was No Money. There Was No Robbery
Chapter XII. And There Was No Murder Either
Chapter XIII. A Corrupter Of Thought
Chapter XIV. The Peasants Stand Firm
Epilogue
Chapter I. Plans For Mitya’s Escape
Chapter II. For A Moment The Lie Becomes Truth
Chapter III. Ilusha’s Funeral. The Speech At The Stone
Footnotes
PART I
Book I. The History Of A Family
Chapter I. Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov
Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov was the third son of Fyodor Pavlovitch
Karamazov, a land owner well known in our district in his own day, and
still remembered among us owing to his gloomy and tragic death, which
happened thirteen years ago, and which I shall describe in its proper
place. For the present I will only say that this “landowner”—for so we
used to call him, although he hardly spent a day of his life on his own
estate—was a strange type, yet one pretty frequently to be met with, a
type abject and vicious and at the same time senseless. But he was one of
those senseless persons who are very well capable of looking after their
worldly affairs, and, apparently, after nothing else. Fyodor Pavlovitch,
for instance, began with next to nothing; his estate was of the smallest;
he ran to dine at other men’s tables, and fastened on them as a toady, yet
at his death it appeared that he had a hundred thousand roubles in hard
cash. At the same time, he was all his life one of the most senseless,
fantastical fellows in the whole district. I repeat, it was not
stupidity—the majority of these fantastical fellows are shrewd and
intelligent enough—but just senselessness, and a peculiar national form of
it.
He was married twice, and had three sons, the eldest, Dmitri, by his first
wife, and two, Ivan and Alexey, by his second. Fyodor Pavlovitch’s first
wife, Adelaïda Ivanovna, belonged to a fairly rich and distinguished noble
family, also landowners in our district, the Miüsovs. How it came to pass
that an heiress, who was also a beauty, and moreover one of those
vigorous, intelligent girls, so common in this generation, but sometimes
also to be found in the last, could have married such a worthless, puny
weakling, as we all called him, I won’t attempt to explain. I knew a young
lady of the last “romantic” generation who after some years of an
enigmatic passion for a gentleman, whom she might quite easily have
married at any moment, invented insuperable obstacles to their union, and
ended by throwing herself one stormy night into a rather deep and rapid
river from a high bank, almost a precipice, and so perished, entirely to
satisfy her own caprice, and to be like Shakespeare’s Ophelia. Indeed, if
this precipice, a chosen and favorite spot of hers, had been less
picturesque, if there had been a prosaic flat bank in its place, most
likely the suicide would never have taken place. This is a fact, and
probably there have been not a few similar instances in the last two or
three generations. Adelaïda Ivanovna Miüsov’s action was similarly, no
doubt, an echo of other people’s ideas, and was due to the irritation
caused by lack of mental freedom. She wanted, perhaps, to show her
feminine independence, to override class distinctions and the despotism of
her family. And a pliable imagination persuaded her, we must suppose, for
a brief moment, that Fyodor Pavlovitch, in spite of his parasitic
position, was one of the bold and ironical spirits of that progressive
epoch, though he was, in fact, an ill‐natured buffoon and nothing more.
What gave the marriage piquancy was that it was preceded by an elopement,
and this greatly captivated Adelaïda Ivanovna’s fancy. Fyodor Pavlovitch’s
position at the time made him specially eager for any such enterprise, for
he was passionately anxious to make a career in one way or another. To
attach himself to a good family and obtain a dowry was an alluring
prospect. As for mutual love it did not exist apparently, either in the
bride or in him, in spite of Adelaïda Ivanovna’s beauty. This was,
perhaps, a unique case of the kind in the life of Fyodor Pavlovitch, who
was always of a voluptuous temper, and ready to run after any petticoat on
the slightest encouragement. She seems to have been the only woman who
made no particular appeal to his senses.
Immediately after the elopement Adelaïda Ivanovna discerned in a flash
that she had no feeling for her husband but contempt. The marriage
accordingly showed itself in its true colors with extraordinary rapidity.
Although the family accepted the event pretty quickly and apportioned the
runaway bride her dowry, the husband and wife began to lead a most
disorderly life, and there were everlasting scenes between them. It was
said that the young wife showed incomparably more generosity and dignity
than Fyodor Pavlovitch, who, as is now known, got hold of all her money up
to twenty‐five thousand roubles as soon as she received it, so that those
thousands were lost to her for ever. The little village and the rather
fine town house which formed part of her dowry he did his utmost for a
long time to transfer to his name, by means of some deed of conveyance. He
would probably have succeeded, merely from her moral fatigue and desire to
get rid of him, and from the contempt and loathing he aroused by his
persistent and shameless importunity. But, fortunately, Adelaïda
Ivanovna’s family intervened and circumvented his greediness. It is known
for a fact that frequent fights took place between the husband and wife,
but rumor had it that Fyodor Pavlovitch did not beat his wife but was
beaten by her, for she was a hot‐tempered, bold, dark‐browed, impatient
woman, possessed of remarkable physical strength. Finally, she left the
house and ran away from Fyodor Pavlovitch with a destitute divinity
student, leaving Mitya, a child of three years old, in her husband’s
hands. Immediately Fyodor Pavlovitch introduced a regular harem into the
house, and abandoned himself to orgies of drunkenness. In the intervals he
used to drive all over the province, complaining tearfully to each and all
of Adelaïda Ivanovna’s having left him, going into details too disgraceful
for a husband to mention in regard to his own married life. What seemed to
gratify him and flatter his self‐love most was to play the ridiculous part
of the injured husband, and to parade his woes with embellishments.
“One would think that you’d got a promotion, Fyodor Pavlovitch, you seem
so pleased in spite of your sorrow,” scoffers said to him. Many even added
that he was glad of a new comic part in which to play the buffoon, and
that it was simply to make it funnier that he pretended to be unaware of
his ludicrous position. But, who knows, it may have been simplicity. At
last he succeeded in getting on the track of his runaway wife. The poor
woman turned out to be in Petersburg, where she had gone with her divinity
student, and where she had thrown herself into a life of complete
emancipation. Fyodor Pavlovitch at once began bustling about, making
preparations to go to Petersburg, with what object he could not himself
have said. He would perhaps have really gone; but having determined to do
so he felt at once entitled to fortify himself for the journey by another
bout of reckless drinking. And just at that time his wife’s family
received the news of her death in Petersburg. She had died quite suddenly
in a garret, according to one story, of typhus, or as another version had
it, of starvation. Fyodor Pavlovitch was drunk when he heard of his wife’s
death, and the story is that he ran out into the street and began shouting
with joy, raising his hands to Heaven: “Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant
depart in peace,” but others say he wept without restraint like a little
child, so much so that people were sorry for him, in spite of the
repulsion he inspired. It is quite possible that both versions were true,
that he rejoiced at his release, and at the same time wept for her who
released him. As a general rule, people, even the wicked, are much more
naïve and simple‐hearted than we suppose. And we ourselves are, too.
Chapter II. He Gets Rid Of His Eldest Son
You can easily imagine what a father such a man could be and how he would
bring up his children. His behavior as a father was exactly what might be
expected. He completely abandoned the child of his marriage with Adelaïda
Ivanovna, not from malice, nor because of his matrimonial grievances, but
simply because he forgot him. While he was wearying every one with his
tears and complaints, and turning his house into a sink of debauchery, a
faithful servant of the family, Grigory, took the three‐year‐old Mitya
into his care. If he hadn’t looked after him there would have been no one
even to change the baby’s little shirt.
It happened moreover that the child’s relations on his mother’s side
forgot him too at first. His grandfather was no longer living, his widow,
Mitya’s grandmother, had moved to Moscow, and was seriously ill, while his
daughters were married, so that Mitya remained for almost a whole year in
old Grigory’s charge and lived with him in the servant’s cottage. But if
his father had remembered him (he could not, indeed, have been altogether
unaware of his existence) he would have sent him back to the cottage, as
the child would only have been in the way of his debaucheries. But a
cousin of Mitya’s mother, Pyotr Alexandrovitch Miüsov, happened to return
from Paris. He lived for many years afterwards abroad, but was at that
time quite a young man, and distinguished among the Miüsovs as a man of
enlightened ideas and of European culture, who had been in the capitals
and abroad. Towards the end of his life he became a Liberal of the type
common in the forties and fifties. In the course of his career he had come
into contact with many of the most Liberal men of his epoch, both in
Russia and abroad. He had known Proudhon and Bakunin personally, and in
his declining years was very fond of describing the three days of the
Paris Revolution of February 1848, hinting that he himself had almost
taken part in the fighting on the barricades. This was one of the most
grateful recollections of his youth. He had an independent property of
about a thousand souls, to reckon in the old style. His splendid estate
lay on the outskirts of our little town and bordered on the lands of our
famous monastery, with which Pyotr Alexandrovitch began an endless
lawsuit, almost as soon as he came into the estate, concerning the rights
of fishing in the river or wood‐cutting in the forest, I don’t know
exactly which. He regarded it as his duty as a citizen and a man of
culture to open an attack upon the “clericals.” Hearing all about Adelaïda
Ivanovna, whom he, of course, remembered, and in whom he had at one time
been interested, and learning of the existence of Mitya, he intervened, in
spite of all his youthful indignation and contempt for Fyodor Pavlovitch.
He made the latter’s acquaintance for the first time, and told him
directly that he wished to undertake the child’s education. He used long
afterwards to tell as a characteristic touch, that when he began to speak
of Mitya, Fyodor Pavlovitch looked for some time as though he did not
understand what child he was talking about, and even as though he was
surprised to hear that he had a little son in the house. The story may
have been exaggerated, yet it must have been something like the truth.
Fyodor Pavlovitch was all his life fond of acting, of suddenly playing an
unexpected part, sometimes without any motive for doing so, and even to
his own direct disadvantage, as, for instance, in the present case. This
habit, however, is characteristic of a very great number of people, some
of them very clever ones, not like Fyodor Pavlovitch. Pyotr Alexandrovitch
carried the business through vigorously, and was appointed, with Fyodor
Pavlovitch, joint guardian of the child, who had a small property, a house
and land, left him by his mother. Mitya did, in fact, pass into this
cousin’s keeping, but as the latter had no family of his own, and after
securing the revenues of his estates was in haste to return at once to
Paris, he left the boy in charge of one of his cousins, a lady living in
Moscow. It came to pass that, settling permanently in Paris he, too,
forgot the child, especially when the Revolution of February broke out,
making an impression on his mind that he remembered all the rest of his
life. The Moscow lady died, and Mitya passed into the care of one of her
married daughters. I believe he changed his home a fourth time later on. I
won’t enlarge upon that now, as I shall have much to tell later of Fyodor
Pavlovitch’s firstborn, and must confine myself now to the most essential
facts about him, without which I could not begin my story.
In the first place, this Mitya, or rather Dmitri Fyodorovitch, was the
only one of Fyodor Pavlovitch’s three sons who grew up in the belief that
he had property, and that he would be independent on coming of age. He
spent an irregular boyhood and youth. He did not finish his studies at the
gymnasium, he got into a military school, then went to the Caucasus, was
promoted, fought a duel, and was degraded to the ranks, earned promotion
again, led a wild life, and spent a good deal of money. He did not begin
to receive any income from Fyodor Pavlovitch until he came of age, and
until then got into debt. He saw and knew his father, Fyodor Pavlovitch,
for the first time on coming of age, when he visited our neighborhood on
purpose to settle with him about his property. He seems not to have liked
his father. He did not stay long with him, and made haste to get away,
having only succeeded in obtaining a sum of money, and entering into an
agreement for future payments from the estate, of the revenues and value
of which he was unable (a fact worthy of note), upon this occasion, to get
a statement from his father. Fyodor Pavlovitch remarked for the first time
then (this, too, should be noted) that Mitya had a vague and exaggerated
idea of his property. Fyodor Pavlovitch was very well satisfied with this,
as it fell in with his own designs. He gathered only that the young man
was frivolous, unruly, of violent passions, impatient, and dissipated, and
that if he could only obtain ready money he would be satisfied, although
only, of course, for a short time. So Fyodor Pavlovitch began to take
advantage of this fact, sending him from time to time small doles,
installments. In the end, when four years later, Mitya, losing patience,
came a second time to our little town to settle up once for all with his
father, it turned out to his amazement that he had nothing, that it was
difficult to get an account even, that he had received the whole value of
his property in sums of money from Fyodor Pavlovitch, and was perhaps even
in debt to him, that by various agreements into which he had, of his own
desire, entered at various previous dates, he had no right to expect
anything more, and so on, and so on. The young man was overwhelmed,
suspected deceit and cheating, and was almost beside himself. And, indeed,
this circumstance led to the catastrophe, the account of which forms the
subject of my first introductory story, or rather the external side of it.
But before I pass to that story I must say a little of Fyodor Pavlovitch’s
other two sons, and of their origin.
Chapter III. The Second Marriage And The Second Family
Very shortly after getting his four‐year‐old Mitya off his hands Fyodor
Pavlovitch married a second time. His second marriage lasted eight years.
He took this second wife, Sofya Ivanovna, also a very young girl, from
another province, where he had gone upon some small piece of business in
company with a Jew. Though Fyodor Pavlovitch was a drunkard and a vicious
debauchee he never neglected investing his capital, and managed his
business affairs very successfully, though, no doubt, not over‐
scrupulously. Sofya Ivanovna was the daughter of an obscure deacon, and
was left from childhood an orphan without relations. She grew up in the
house of a general’s widow, a wealthy old lady of good position, who was
at once her benefactress and tormentor. I do not know the details, but I
have only heard that the orphan girl, a meek and gentle creature, was once
cut down from a halter in which she was hanging from a nail in the loft,
so terrible were her sufferings from the caprice and everlasting nagging
of this old woman, who was apparently not bad‐hearted but had become an
insufferable tyrant through idleness.
Fyodor Pavlovitch made her an offer; inquiries were made about him and he
was refused. But again, as in his first marriage, he proposed an elopement
to the orphan girl. There is very little doubt that she would not on any
account have married him if she had known a little more about him in time.
But she lived in another province; besides, what could a little girl of
sixteen know about it, except that she would be better at the bottom of
the river than remaining with her benefactress. So the poor child
exchanged a benefactress for a benefactor. Fyodor Pavlovitch did not get a
penny this time, for the general’s widow was furious. She gave them
nothing and cursed them both. But he had not reckoned on a dowry; what
allured him was the remarkable beauty of the innocent girl, above all her
innocent appearance, which had a peculiar attraction for a vicious
profligate, who had hitherto admired only the coarser types of feminine
beauty.
“Those innocent eyes slit my soul up like a razor,” he used to say
afterwards, with his loathsome snigger. In a man so depraved this might,
of course, mean no more than sensual attraction. As he had received no
dowry with his wife, and had, so to speak, taken her “from the halter,” he
did not stand on ceremony with her. Making her feel that she had “wronged”
him, he took advantage of her phenomenal meekness and submissiveness to
trample on the elementary decencies of marriage. He gathered loose women
into his house, and carried on orgies of debauchery in his wife’s
presence. To show what a pass things had come to, I may mention that
Grigory, the gloomy, stupid, obstinate, argumentative servant, who had
always hated his first mistress, Adelaïda Ivanovna, took the side of his
new mistress. He championed her cause, abusing Fyodor Pavlovitch in a
manner little befitting a servant, and on one occasion broke up the revels
and drove all the disorderly women out of the house. In the end this
unhappy young woman, kept in terror from her childhood, fell into that
kind of nervous disease which is most frequently found in peasant women
who are said to be “possessed by devils.” At times after terrible fits of
hysterics she even lost her reason. Yet she bore Fyodor Pavlovitch two
sons, Ivan and Alexey, the eldest in the first year of marriage and the
second three years later. When she died, little Alexey was in his fourth
year, and, strange as it seems, I know that he remembered his mother all
his life, like a dream, of course. At her death almost exactly the same
thing happened to the two little boys as to their elder brother, Mitya.
They were completely forgotten and abandoned by their father. They were
looked after by the same Grigory and lived in his cottage, where they were
found by the tyrannical old lady who had brought up their mother. She was
still alive, and had not, all those eight years, forgotten the insult done
her. All that time she was obtaining exact information as to her Sofya’s
manner of life, and hearing of her illness and hideous surroundings she
declared aloud two or three times to her retainers:
“It serves her right. God has punished her for her ingratitude.”
Exactly three months after Sofya Ivanovna’s death the general’s widow
suddenly appeared in our town, and went straight to Fyodor Pavlovitch’s
house. She spent only half an hour in the town but she did a great deal.
It was evening. Fyodor Pavlovitch, whom she had not seen for those eight
years, came in to her drunk. The story is that instantly upon seeing him,
without any sort of explanation, she gave him two good, resounding slaps
on the face, seized him by a tuft of hair, and shook him three times up
and down. Then, without a word, she went straight to the cottage to the
two boys. Seeing, at the first glance, that they were unwashed and in
dirty linen, she promptly gave Grigory, too, a box on the ear, and
announcing that she would carry off both the children she wrapped them
just as they were in a rug, put them in the carriage, and drove off to her
own town. Grigory accepted the blow like a devoted slave, without a word,
and when he escorted the old lady to her carriage he made her a low bow
and pronounced impressively that, “God would repay her for the orphans.”
“You are a blockhead all the same,” the old lady shouted to him as she
drove away.
Fyodor Pavlovitch, thinking it over, decided that it was a good thing, and
did not refuse the general’s widow his formal consent to any proposition
in regard to his children’s education. As for the slaps she had given him,
he drove all over the town telling the story.
It happened that the old lady died soon after this, but she left the boys
in her will a thousand roubles each “for their instruction, and so that
all be spent on them exclusively, with the condition that it be so
portioned out as to last till they are twenty‐one, for it is more than
adequate provision for such children. If other people think fit to throw
away their money, let them.” I have not read the will myself, but I heard
there was something queer of the sort, very whimsically expressed. The
principal heir, Yefim Petrovitch Polenov, the Marshal of Nobility of the
province, turned out, however, to be an honest man. Writing to Fyodor
Pavlovitch, and discerning at once that he could extract nothing from him
for his children’s education (though the latter never directly refused but
only procrastinated as he always did in such cases, and was, indeed, at
times effusively sentimental), Yefim Petrovitch took a personal interest
in the orphans. He became especially fond of the younger, Alexey, who
lived for a long while as one of his family. I beg the reader to note this
from the beginning. And to Yefim Petrovitch, a man of a generosity and
humanity rarely to be met with, the young people were more indebted for
their education and bringing up than to any one. He kept the two thousand
roubles left to them by the general’s widow intact, so that by the time
they came of age their portions had been doubled by the accumulation of
interest. He educated them both at his own expense, and certainly spent
far more than a thousand roubles upon each of them. I won’t enter into a
detailed account of their boyhood and youth, but will only mention a few
of the most important events. Of the elder, Ivan, I will only say that he
grew into a somewhat morose and reserved, though far from timid boy. At
ten years old he had realized that they were living not in their own home
but on other people’s charity, and that their father was a man of whom it
was disgraceful to speak. This boy began very early, almost in his infancy
(so they say at least), to show a brilliant and unusual aptitude for
learning. I don’t know precisely why, but he left the family of Yefim
Petrovitch when he was hardly thirteen, entering a Moscow gymnasium, and
boarding with an experienced and celebrated teacher, an old friend of
Yefim Petrovitch. Ivan used to declare afterwards that this was all due to
the “ardor for good works” of Yefim Petrovitch, who was captivated by the
idea that the boy’s genius should be trained by a teacher of genius. But
neither Yefim Petrovitch nor this teacher was living when the young man
finished at the gymnasium and entered the university. As Yefim Petrovitch
had made no provision for the payment of the tyrannical old lady’s legacy,
which had grown from one thousand to two, it was delayed, owing to
formalities inevitable in Russia, and the young man was in great straits
for the first two years at the university, as he was forced to keep
himself all the time he was studying. It must be noted that he did not
even attempt to communicate with his father, perhaps from pride, from
contempt for him, or perhaps from his cool common sense, which told him
that from such a father he would get no real assistance. However that may
have been, the young man was by no means despondent and succeeded in
getting work, at first giving sixpenny lessons and afterwards getting
paragraphs on street incidents into the newspapers under the signature of
“Eye‐Witness.” These paragraphs, it was said, were so interesting and
piquant that they were soon taken. This alone showed the young man’s
practical and intellectual superiority over the masses of needy and
unfortunate students of both sexes who hang about the offices of the
newspapers and journals, unable to think of anything better than
everlasting entreaties for copying and translations from the French.
Having once got into touch with the editors Ivan Fyodorovitch always kept
up his connection with them, and in his latter years at the university he
published brilliant reviews of books upon various special subjects, so
that he became well known in literary circles. But only in his last year
he suddenly succeeded in attracting the attention of a far wider circle of
readers, so that a great many people noticed and remembered him. It was
rather a curious incident. When he had just left the university and was
preparing to go abroad upon his two thousand roubles, Ivan Fyodorovitch
published in one of the more important journals a strange article, which
attracted general notice, on a subject of which he might have been
supposed to know nothing, as he was a student of natural science. The
article dealt with a subject which was being debated everywhere at the
time—the position of the ecclesiastical courts. After discussing several
opinions on the subject he went on to explain his own view. What was most
striking about the article was its tone, and its unexpected conclusion.
Many of the Church party regarded him unquestioningly as on their side.
And yet not only the secularists but even atheists joined them in their
applause. Finally some sagacious persons opined that the article was
nothing but an impudent satirical burlesque. I mention this incident
particularly because this article penetrated into the famous monastery in
our neighborhood, where the inmates, being particularly interested in the
question of the ecclesiastical courts, were completely bewildered by it.
Learning the author’s name, they were interested in his being a native of
the town and the son of “that Fyodor Pavlovitch.” And just then it was
that the author himself made his appearance among us.
Why Ivan Fyodorovitch had come amongst us I remember asking myself at the
time with a certain uneasiness. This fateful visit, which was the first
step leading to so many consequences, I never fully explained to myself.
It seemed strange on the face of it that a young man so learned, so proud,
and apparently so cautious, should suddenly visit such an infamous house
and a father who had ignored him all his life, hardly knew him, never
thought of him, and would not under any circumstances have given him
money, though he was always afraid that his sons Ivan and Alexey would
also come to ask him for it. And here the young man was staying in the
house of such a father, had been living with him for two months, and they
were on the best possible terms. This last fact was a special cause of
wonder to many others as well as to me. Pyotr Alexandrovitch Miüsov, of
whom we have spoken already, the cousin of Fyodor Pavlovitch’s first wife,
happened to be in the neighborhood again on a visit to his estate. He had
come from Paris, which was his permanent home. I remember that he was more
surprised than any one when he made the acquaintance of the young man, who
interested him extremely, and with whom he sometimes argued and not
without an inner pang compared himself in acquirements.
“He is proud,” he used to say, “he will never be in want of pence; he has
got money enough to go abroad now. What does he want here? Every one can
see that he hasn’t come for money, for his father would never give him
any. He has no taste for drink and dissipation, and yet his father can’t
do without him. They get on so well together!”
That was the truth; the young man had an unmistakable influence over his
father, who positively appeared to be behaving more decently and even
seemed at times ready to obey his son, though often extremely and even
spitefully perverse.
It was only later that we learned that Ivan had come partly at the request
of, and in the interests of, his elder brother, Dmitri, whom he saw for
the first time on this very visit, though he had before leaving Moscow
been in correspondence with him about an important matter of more concern
to Dmitri than himself. What that business was the reader will learn fully
in due time. Yet even when I did know of this special circumstance I still
felt Ivan Fyodorovitch to be an enigmatic figure, and thought his visit
rather mysterious.
I may add that Ivan appeared at the time in the light of a mediator
between his father and his elder brother Dmitri, who was in open quarrel
with his father and even planning to bring an action against him.
The family, I repeat, was now united for the first time, and some of its
members met for the first time in their lives. The younger brother,
Alexey, had been a year already among us, having been the first of the
three to arrive. It is of that brother Alexey I find it most difficult to
speak in this introduction. Yet I must give some preliminary account of
him, if only to explain one queer fact, which is that I have to introduce
my hero to the reader wearing the cassock of a novice. Yes, he had been
for the last year in our monastery, and seemed willing to be cloistered
there for the rest of his life.
Chapter IV. The Third Son, Alyosha
He was only twenty, his brother Ivan was in his twenty‐fourth year at the
time, while their elder brother Dmitri was twenty‐seven. First of all, I
must explain that this young man, Alyosha, was not a fanatic, and, in my
opinion at least, was not even a mystic. I may as well give my full
opinion from the beginning. He was simply an early lover of humanity, and
that he adopted the monastic life was simply because at that time it
struck him, so to say, as the ideal escape for his soul struggling from
the darkness of worldly wickedness to the light of love. And the reason
this life struck him in this way was that he found in it at that time, as
he thought, an extraordinary being, our celebrated elder, Zossima, to whom
he became attached with all the warm first love of his ardent heart. But I
do not dispute that he was very strange even at that time, and had been so
indeed from his cradle. I have mentioned already, by the way, that though
he lost his mother in his fourth year he remembered her all his life—her
face, her caresses, “as though she stood living before me.” Such memories
may persist, as every one knows, from an even earlier age, even from two
years old, but scarcely standing out through a whole lifetime like spots
of light out of darkness, like a corner torn out of a huge picture, which
has all faded and disappeared except that fragment. That is how it was
with him. He remembered one still summer evening, an open window, the
slanting rays of the setting sun (that he recalled most vividly of all);
in a corner of the room the holy image, before it a lighted lamp, and on
her knees before the image his mother, sobbing hysterically with cries and
moans, snatching him up in both arms, squeezing him close till it hurt,
and praying for him to the Mother of God, holding him out in both arms to
the image as though to put him under the Mother’s protection ... and
suddenly a nurse runs in and snatches him from her in terror. That was the
picture! And Alyosha remembered his mother’s face at that minute. He used
to say that it was frenzied but beautiful as he remembered. But he rarely
cared to speak of this memory to any one. In his childhood and youth he
was by no means expansive, and talked little indeed, but not from shyness
or a sullen unsociability; quite the contrary, from something different,
from a sort of inner preoccupation entirely personal and unconcerned with
other people, but so important to him that he seemed, as it were, to
forget others on account of it. But he was fond of people: he seemed
throughout his life to put implicit trust in people: yet no one ever
looked on him as a simpleton or naïve person. There was something about
him which made one feel at once (and it was so all his life afterwards)
that he did not care to be a judge of others—that he would never take it
upon himself to criticize and would never condemn any one for anything. He
seemed, indeed, to accept everything without the least condemnation though
often grieving bitterly: and this was so much so that no one could
surprise or frighten him even in his earliest youth. Coming at twenty to
his father’s house, which was a very sink of filthy debauchery, he, chaste
and pure as he was, simply withdrew in silence when to look on was
unbearable, but without the slightest sign of contempt or condemnation.
His father, who had once been in a dependent position, and so was
sensitive and ready to take offense, met him at first with distrust and
sullenness. “He does not say much,” he used to say, “and thinks the more.”
But soon, within a fortnight indeed, he took to embracing him and kissing
him terribly often, with drunken tears, with sottish sentimentality, yet
he evidently felt a real and deep affection for him, such as he had never
been capable of feeling for any one before.
Every one, indeed, loved this young man wherever he went, and it was so
from his earliest childhood. When he entered the household of his patron
and benefactor, Yefim Petrovitch Polenov, he gained the hearts of all the
family, so that they looked on him quite as their own child. Yet he
entered the house at such a tender age that he could not have acted from
design nor artfulness in winning affection. So that the gift of making
himself loved directly and unconsciously was inherent in him, in his very
nature, so to speak. It was the same at school, though he seemed to be
just one of those children who are distrusted, sometimes ridiculed, and
even disliked by their schoolfellows. He was dreamy, for instance, and
rather solitary. From his earliest childhood he was fond of creeping into
a corner to read, and yet he was a general favorite all the while he was
at school. He was rarely playful or merry, but any one could see at the
first glance that this was not from any sullenness. On the contrary he was
bright and good‐tempered. He never tried to show off among his
schoolfellows. Perhaps because of this, he was never afraid of any one,
yet the boys immediately understood that he was not proud of his
fearlessness and seemed to be unaware that he was bold and courageous. He
never resented an insult. It would happen that an hour after the offense
he would address the offender or answer some question with as trustful and
candid an expression as though nothing had happened between them. And it
was not that he seemed to have forgotten or intentionally forgiven the
affront, but simply that he did not regard it as an affront, and this
completely conquered and captivated the boys. He had one characteristic
which made all his schoolfellows from the bottom class to the top want to
mock at him, not from malice but because it amused them. This
characteristic was a wild fanatical modesty and chastity. He could not
bear to hear certain words and certain conversations about women. There
are “certain” words and conversations unhappily impossible to eradicate in
schools. Boys pure in mind and heart, almost children, are fond of talking
in school among themselves, and even aloud, of things, pictures, and
images of which even soldiers would sometimes hesitate to speak. More than
that, much that soldiers have no knowledge or conception of is familiar to
quite young children of our intellectual and higher classes. There is no
moral depravity, no real corrupt inner cynicism in it, but there is the
appearance of it, and it is often looked upon among them as something
refined, subtle, daring, and worthy of imitation. Seeing that Alyosha
Karamazov put his fingers in his ears when they talked of “that,” they
used sometimes to crowd round him, pull his hands away, and shout
nastiness into both ears, while he struggled, slipped to the floor, tried
to hide himself without uttering one word of abuse, enduring their insults
in silence. But at last they left him alone and gave up taunting him with
being a “regular girl,” and what’s more they looked upon it with
compassion as a weakness. He was always one of the best in the class but
was never first.
At the time of Yefim Petrovitch’s death Alyosha had two more years to
complete at the provincial gymnasium. The inconsolable widow went almost
immediately after his death for a long visit to Italy with her whole
family, which consisted only of women and girls. Alyosha went to live in
the house of two distant relations of Yefim Petrovitch, ladies whom he had
never seen before. On what terms he lived with them he did not know
himself. It was very characteristic of him, indeed, that he never cared at
whose expense he was living. In that respect he was a striking contrast to
his elder brother Ivan, who struggled with poverty for his first two years
in the university, maintained himself by his own efforts, and had from
childhood been bitterly conscious of living at the expense of his
benefactor. But this strange trait in Alyosha’s character must not, I
think, be criticized too severely, for at the slightest acquaintance with
him any one would have perceived that Alyosha was one of those youths,
almost of the type of religious enthusiast, who, if they were suddenly to
come into possession of a large fortune, would not hesitate to give it
away for the asking, either for good works or perhaps to a clever rogue.
In general he seemed scarcely to know the value of money, not, of course,
in a literal sense. When he was given pocket‐money, which he never asked
for, he was either terribly careless of it so that it was gone in a
moment, or he kept it for weeks together, not knowing what to do with it.
In later years Pyotr Alexandrovitch Miüsov, a man very sensitive on the
score of money and bourgeois honesty, pronounced the following judgment,
after getting to know Alyosha:
“Here is perhaps the one man in the world whom you might leave alone
without a penny, in the center of an unknown town of a million
inhabitants, and he would not come to harm, he would not die of cold and
hunger, for he would be fed and sheltered at once; and if he were not, he
would find a shelter for himself, and it would cost him no effort or
humiliation. And to shelter him would be no burden, but, on the contrary,
would probably be looked on as a pleasure.”
He did not finish his studies at the gymnasium. A year before the end of
the course he suddenly announced to the ladies that he was going to see
his father about a plan which had occurred to him. They were sorry and
unwilling to let him go. The journey was not an expensive one, and the
ladies would not let him pawn his watch, a parting present from his
benefactor’s family. They provided him liberally with money and even
fitted him out with new clothes and linen. But he returned half the money
they gave him, saying that he intended to go third class. On his arrival
in the town he made no answer to his father’s first inquiry why he had
come before completing his studies, and seemed, so they say, unusually
thoughtful. It soon became apparent that he was looking for his mother’s
tomb. He practically acknowledged at the time that that was the only
object of his visit. But it can hardly have been the whole reason of it.
It is more probable that he himself did not understand and could not
explain what had suddenly arisen in his soul, and drawn him irresistibly
into a new, unknown, but inevitable path. Fyodor Pavlovitch could not show
him where his second wife was buried, for he had never visited her grave
since he had thrown earth upon her coffin, and in the course of years had
entirely forgotten where she was buried.
Fyodor Pavlovitch, by the way, had for some time previously not been
living in our town. Three or four years after his wife’s death he had gone
to the south of Russia and finally turned up in Odessa, where he spent
several years. He made the acquaintance at first, in his own words, “of a
lot of low Jews, Jewesses, and Jewkins,” and ended by being received by
“Jews high and low alike.” It may be presumed that at this period he
developed a peculiar faculty for making and hoarding money. He finally
returned to our town only three years before Alyosha’s arrival. His former
acquaintances found him looking terribly aged, although he was by no means
an old man. He behaved not exactly with more dignity but with more
effrontery. The former buffoon showed an insolent propensity for making
buffoons of others. His depravity with women was not simply what it used
to be, but even more revolting. In a short time he opened a great number
of new taverns in the district. It was evident that he had perhaps a
hundred thousand roubles or not much less. Many of the inhabitants of the
town and district were soon in his debt, and, of course, had given good
security. Of late, too, he looked somehow bloated and seemed more
irresponsible, more uneven, had sunk into a sort of incoherence, used to
begin one thing and go on with another, as though he were letting himself
go altogether. He was more and more frequently drunk. And, if it had not
been for the same servant Grigory, who by that time had aged considerably
too, and used to look after him sometimes almost like a tutor, Fyodor
Pavlovitch might have got into terrible scrapes. Alyosha’s arrival seemed
to affect even his moral side, as though something had awakened in this
prematurely old man which had long been dead in his soul.
“Do you know,” he used often to say, looking at Alyosha, “that you are
like her, ‘the crazy woman’ ”—that was what he used to call his dead wife,
Alyosha’s mother. Grigory it was who pointed out the “crazy woman’s” grave
to Alyosha. He took him to our town cemetery and showed him in a remote
corner a cast‐iron tombstone, cheap but decently kept, on which were
inscribed the name and age of the deceased and the date of her death, and
below a four‐lined verse, such as are commonly used on old‐fashioned
middle‐class tombs. To Alyosha’s amazement this tomb turned out to be
Grigory’s doing. He had put it up on the poor “crazy woman’s” grave at his
own expense, after Fyodor Pavlovitch, whom he had often pestered about the
grave, had gone to Odessa, abandoning the grave and all his memories.
Alyosha showed no particular emotion at the sight of his mother’s grave.
He only listened to Grigory’s minute and solemn account of the erection of
the tomb; he stood with bowed head and walked away without uttering a
word. It was perhaps a year before he visited the cemetery again. But this
little episode was not without an influence upon Fyodor Pavlovitch—and a
very original one. He suddenly took a thousand roubles to our monastery to
pay for requiems for the soul of his wife; but not for the second,
Alyosha’s mother, the “crazy woman,” but for the first, Adelaïda Ivanovna,
who used to thrash him. In the evening of the same day he got drunk and
abused the monks to Alyosha. He himself was far from being religious; he
had probably never put a penny candle before the image of a saint. Strange
impulses of sudden feeling and sudden thought are common in such types.
I have mentioned already that he looked bloated. His countenance at this
time bore traces of something that testified unmistakably to the life he
had led. Besides the long fleshy bags under his little, always insolent,
suspicious, and ironical eyes; besides the multitude of deep wrinkles in
his little fat face, the Adam’s apple hung below his sharp chin like a
great, fleshy goiter, which gave him a peculiar, repulsive, sensual
appearance; add to that a long rapacious mouth with full lips, between
which could be seen little stumps of black decayed teeth. He slobbered
every time he began to speak. He was fond indeed of making fun of his own
face, though, I believe, he was well satisfied with it. He used
particularly to point to his nose, which was not very large, but very
delicate and conspicuously aquiline. “A regular Roman nose,” he used to
say, “with my goiter I’ve quite the countenance of an ancient Roman
patrician of the decadent period.” He seemed proud of it.
Not long after visiting his mother’s grave Alyosha suddenly announced that
he wanted to enter the monastery, and that the monks were willing to
receive him as a novice. He explained that this was his strong desire, and
that he was solemnly asking his consent as his father. The old man knew
that the elder Zossima, who was living in the monastery hermitage, had
made a special impression upon his “gentle boy.”
“That is the most honest monk among them, of course,” he observed, after
listening in thoughtful silence to Alyosha, and seeming scarcely surprised
at his request. “H’m!... So that’s where you want to be, my gentle boy?”
He was half drunk, and suddenly he grinned his slow half‐drunken grin,
which was not without a certain cunning and tipsy slyness. “H’m!... I had
a presentiment that you would end in something like this. Would you
believe it? You were making straight for it. Well, to be sure you have
your own two thousand. That’s a dowry for you. And I’ll never desert you,
my angel. And I’ll pay what’s wanted for you there, if they ask for it.
But, of course, if they don’t ask, why should we worry them? What do you
say? You know, you spend money like a canary, two grains a week. H’m!...
Do you know that near one monastery there’s a place outside the town where
every baby knows there are none but ‘the monks’ wives’ living, as they are
called. Thirty women, I believe. I have been there myself. You know, it’s
interesting in its own way, of course, as a variety. The worst of it is
it’s awfully Russian. There are no French women there. Of course they
could get them fast enough, they have plenty of money. If they get to hear
of it they’ll come along. Well, there’s nothing of that sort here, no
‘monks’ wives,’ and two hundred monks. They’re honest. They keep the
fasts. I admit it.... H’m.... So you want to be a monk? And do you know
I’m sorry to lose you, Alyosha; would you believe it, I’ve really grown
fond of you? Well, it’s a good opportunity. You’ll pray for us sinners; we
have sinned too much here. I’ve always been thinking who would pray for
me, and whether there’s any one in the world to do it. My dear boy, I’m
awfully stupid about that. You wouldn’t believe it. Awfully. You see,
however stupid I am about it, I keep thinking, I keep thinking—from time
to time, of course, not all the while. It’s impossible, I think, for the
devils to forget to drag me down to hell with their hooks when I die. Then
I wonder—hooks? Where would they get them? What of? Iron hooks? Where do
they forge them? Have they a foundry there of some sort? The monks in the
monastery probably believe that there’s a ceiling in hell, for instance.
Now I’m ready to believe in hell, but without a ceiling. It makes it more
refined, more enlightened, more Lutheran that is. And, after all, what
does it matter whether it has a ceiling or hasn’t? But, do you know,
there’s a damnable question involved in it? If there’s no ceiling there
can be no hooks, and if there are no hooks it all breaks down, which is
unlikely again, for then there would be none to drag me down to hell, and
if they don’t drag me down what justice is there in the world? _Il
faudrait les inventer_, those hooks, on purpose for me alone, for, if you
only knew, Alyosha, what a blackguard I am.”
“But there are no hooks there,” said Alyosha, looking gently and seriously
at his father.
“Yes, yes, only the shadows of hooks, I know, I know. That’s how a
Frenchman described hell: ‘_J’ai vu l’ombre d’un cocher qui avec l’ombre
d’une brosse frottait l’ombre d’une carrosse._’ How do you know there are
no hooks, darling? When you’ve lived with the monks you’ll sing a
different tune. But go and get at the truth there, and then come and tell
me. Anyway it’s easier going to the other world if one knows what there is
there. Besides, it will be more seemly for you with the monks than here
with me, with a drunken old man and young harlots ... though you’re like
an angel, nothing touches you. And I dare say nothing will touch you
there. That’s why I let you go, because I hope for that. You’ve got all
your wits about you. You will burn and you will burn out; you will be
healed and come back again. And I will wait for you. I feel that you’re
the only creature in the world who has not condemned me. My dear boy, I
feel it, you know. I can’t help feeling it.”
And he even began blubbering. He was sentimental. He was wicked and
sentimental.
Chapter V. Elders
Some of my readers may imagine that my young man was a sickly, ecstatic,
poorly developed creature, a pale, consumptive dreamer. On the contrary,
Alyosha was at this time a well‐grown, red‐cheeked, clear‐eyed lad of
nineteen, radiant with health. He was very handsome, too, graceful,
moderately tall, with hair of a dark brown, with a regular, rather long,
oval‐shaped face, and wide‐set dark gray, shining eyes; he was very
thoughtful, and apparently very serene. I shall be told, perhaps, that red
cheeks are not incompatible with fanaticism and mysticism; but I fancy
that Alyosha was more of a realist than any one. Oh! no doubt, in the
monastery he fully believed in miracles, but, to my thinking, miracles are
never a stumbling‐block to the realist. It is not miracles that dispose
realists to belief. The genuine realist, if he is an unbeliever, will
always find strength and ability to disbelieve in the miraculous, and if
he is confronted with a miracle as an irrefutable fact he would rather
disbelieve his own senses than admit the fact. Even if he admits it, he
admits it as a fact of nature till then unrecognized by him. Faith does
not, in the realist, spring from the miracle but the miracle from faith.
If the realist once believes, then he is bound by his very realism to
admit the miraculous also. The Apostle Thomas said that he would not
believe till he saw, but when he did see he said, “My Lord and my God!”
Was it the miracle forced him to believe? Most likely not, but he believed
solely because he desired to believe and possibly he fully believed in his
secret heart even when he said, “I do not believe till I see.”
I shall be told, perhaps, that Alyosha was stupid, undeveloped, had not
finished his studies, and so on. That he did not finish his studies is
true, but to say that he was stupid or dull would be a great injustice.
I’ll simply repeat what I have said above. He entered upon this path only
because, at that time, it alone struck his imagination and presented
itself to him as offering an ideal means of escape for his soul from
darkness to light. Add to that that he was to some extent a youth of our
last epoch—that is, honest in nature, desiring the truth, seeking for it
and believing in it, and seeking to serve it at once with all the strength
of his soul, seeking for immediate action, and ready to sacrifice
everything, life itself, for it. Though these young men unhappily fail to
understand that the sacrifice of life is, in many cases, the easiest of
all sacrifices, and that to sacrifice, for instance, five or six years of
their seething youth to hard and tedious study, if only to multiply
tenfold their powers of serving the truth and the cause they have set
before them as their goal—such a sacrifice is utterly beyond the strength
of many of them. The path Alyosha chose was a path going in the opposite
direction, but he chose it with the same thirst for swift achievement. As
soon as he reflected seriously he was convinced of the existence of God
and immortality, and at once he instinctively said to himself: “I want to
live for immortality, and I will accept no compromise.” In the same way,
if he had decided that God and immortality did not exist, he would at once
have become an atheist and a socialist. For socialism is not merely the
labor question, it is before all things the atheistic question, the
question of the form taken by atheism to‐day, the question of the tower of
Babel built without God, not to mount to heaven from earth but to set up
heaven on earth. Alyosha would have found it strange and impossible to go
on living as before. It is written: “Give all that thou hast to the poor
and follow Me, if thou wouldst be perfect.”
Alyosha said to himself: “I can’t give two roubles instead of ‘all,’ and
only go to mass instead of ‘following Him.’ ” Perhaps his memories of
childhood brought back our monastery, to which his mother may have taken
him to mass. Perhaps the slanting sunlight and the holy image to which his
poor “crazy” mother had held him up still acted upon his imagination.
Brooding on these things he may have come to us perhaps only to see
whether here he could sacrifice all or only “two roubles,” and in the
monastery he met this elder. I must digress to explain what an “elder” is
in Russian monasteries, and I am sorry that I do not feel very competent
to do so. I will try, however, to give a superficial account of it in a
few words. Authorities on the subject assert that the institution of
“elders” is of recent date, not more than a hundred years old in our
monasteries, though in the orthodox East, especially in Sinai and Athos,
it has existed over a thousand years. It is maintained that it existed in
ancient times in Russia also, but through the calamities which overtook
Russia—the Tartars, civil war, the interruption of relations with the East
after the destruction of Constantinople—this institution fell into
oblivion. It was revived among us towards the end of last century by one
of the great “ascetics,” as they called him, Païssy Velitchkovsky, and his
disciples. But to this day it exists in few monasteries only, and has
sometimes been almost persecuted as an innovation in Russia. It flourished
especially in the celebrated Kozelski Optin Monastery. When and how it was
introduced into our monastery I cannot say. There had already been three
such elders and Zossima was the last of them. But he was almost dying of
weakness and disease, and they had no one to take his place. The question
for our monastery was an important one, for it had not been distinguished
by anything in particular till then: they had neither relics of saints,
nor wonder‐working ikons, nor glorious traditions, nor historical
exploits. It had flourished and been glorious all over Russia through its
elders, to see and hear whom pilgrims had flocked for thousands of miles
from all parts.
What was such an elder? An elder was one who took your soul, your will,
into his soul and his will. When you choose an elder, you renounce your
own will and yield it to him in complete submission, complete self‐
abnegation. This novitiate, this terrible school of abnegation, is
undertaken voluntarily, in the hope of self‐conquest, of self‐mastery, in
order, after a life of obedience, to attain perfect freedom, that is, from
self; to escape the lot of those who have lived their whole life without
finding their true selves in themselves. This institution of elders is not
founded on theory, but was established in the East from the practice of a
thousand years. The obligations due to an elder are not the ordinary
“obedience” which has always existed in our Russian monasteries. The
obligation involves confession to the elder by all who have submitted
themselves to him, and to the indissoluble bond between him and them.
The story is told, for instance, that in the early days of Christianity
one such novice, failing to fulfill some command laid upon him by his
elder, left his monastery in Syria and went to Egypt. There, after great
exploits, he was found worthy at last to suffer torture and a martyr’s
death for the faith. When the Church, regarding him as a saint, was
burying him, suddenly, at the deacon’s exhortation, “Depart all ye
unbaptized,” the coffin containing the martyr’s body left its place and
was cast forth from the church, and this took place three times. And only
at last they learnt that this holy man had broken his vow of obedience and
left his elder, and, therefore, could not be forgiven without the elder’s
absolution in spite of his great deeds. Only after this could the funeral
take place. This, of course, is only an old legend. But here is a recent
instance.
A monk was suddenly commanded by his elder to quit Athos, which he loved
as a sacred place and a haven of refuge, and to go first to Jerusalem to
do homage to the Holy Places and then to go to the north to Siberia:
“There is the place for thee and not here.” The monk, overwhelmed with
sorrow, went to the Œcumenical Patriarch at Constantinople and besought
him to release him from his obedience. But the Patriarch replied that not
only was he unable to release him, but there was not and could not be on
earth a power which could release him except the elder who had himself
laid that duty upon him. In this way the elders are endowed in certain
cases with unbounded and inexplicable authority. That is why in many of
our monasteries the institution was at first resisted almost to
persecution. Meantime the elders immediately began to be highly esteemed
among the people. Masses of the ignorant people as well as men of
distinction flocked, for instance, to the elders of our monastery to
confess their doubts, their sins, and their sufferings, and ask for
counsel and admonition. Seeing this, the opponents of the elders declared
that the sacrament of confession was being arbitrarily and frivolously
degraded, though the continual opening of the heart to the elder by the
monk or the layman had nothing of the character of the sacrament. In the
end, however, the institution of elders has been retained and is becoming
established in Russian monasteries. It is true, perhaps, that this
instrument which had stood the test of a thousand years for the moral
regeneration of a man from slavery to freedom and to moral perfectibility
may be a two‐edged weapon and it may lead some not to humility and
complete self‐control but to the most Satanic pride, that is, to bondage
and not to freedom.
The elder Zossima was sixty‐five. He came of a family of landowners, had
been in the army in early youth, and served in the Caucasus as an officer.
He had, no doubt, impressed Alyosha by some peculiar quality of his soul.
Alyosha lived in the cell of the elder, who was very fond of him and let
him wait upon him. It must be noted that Alyosha was bound by no
obligation and could go where he pleased and be absent for whole days.
Though he wore the monastic dress it was voluntarily, not to be different
from others. No doubt he liked to do so. Possibly his youthful imagination
was deeply stirred by the power and fame of his elder. It was said that so
many people had for years past come to confess their sins to Father
Zossima and to entreat him for words of advice and healing, that he had
acquired the keenest intuition and could tell from an unknown face what a
new‐comer wanted, and what was the suffering on his conscience. He
sometimes astounded and almost alarmed his visitors by his knowledge of
their secrets before they had spoken a word.
Alyosha noticed that many, almost all, went in to the elder for the first
time with apprehension and uneasiness, but came out with bright and happy
faces. Alyosha was particularly struck by the fact that Father Zossima was
not at all stern. On the contrary, he was always almost gay. The monks
used to say that he was more drawn to those who were more sinful, and the
greater the sinner the more he loved him. There were, no doubt, up to the
end of his life, among the monks some who hated and envied him, but they
were few in number and they were silent, though among them were some of
great dignity in the monastery, one, for instance, of the older monks
distinguished for his strict keeping of fasts and vows of silence. But the
majority were on Father Zossima’s side and very many of them loved him
with all their hearts, warmly and sincerely. Some were almost fanatically
devoted to him, and declared, though not quite aloud, that he was a saint,
that there could be no doubt of it, and, seeing that his end was near,
they anticipated miracles and great glory to the monastery in the
immediate future from his relics. Alyosha had unquestioning faith in the
miraculous power of the elder, just as he had unquestioning faith in the
story of the coffin that flew out of the church. He saw many who came with
sick children or relatives and besought the elder to lay hands on them and
to pray over them, return shortly after—some the next day—and, falling in
tears at the elder’s feet, thank him for healing their sick.
Whether they had really been healed or were simply better in the natural
course of the disease was a question which did not exist for Alyosha, for
he fully believed in the spiritual power of his teacher and rejoiced in
his fame, in his glory, as though it were his own triumph. His heart
throbbed, and he beamed, as it were, all over when the elder came out to
the gates of the hermitage into the waiting crowd of pilgrims of the
humbler class who had flocked from all parts of Russia on purpose to see
the elder and obtain his blessing. They fell down before him, wept, kissed
his feet, kissed the earth on which he stood, and wailed, while the women
held up their children to him and brought him the sick “possessed with
devils.” The elder spoke to them, read a brief prayer over them, blessed
them, and dismissed them. Of late he had become so weak through attacks of
illness that he was sometimes unable to leave his cell, and the pilgrims
waited for him to come out for several days. Alyosha did not wonder why
they loved him so, why they fell down before him and wept with emotion
merely at seeing his face. Oh! he understood that for the humble soul of
the Russian peasant, worn out by grief and toil, and still more by the
everlasting injustice and everlasting sin, his own and the world’s, it was
the greatest need and comfort to find some one or something holy to fall
down before and worship.
“Among us there is sin, injustice, and temptation, but yet, somewhere on
earth there is some one holy and exalted. He has the truth; he knows the
truth; so it is not dead upon the earth; so it will come one day to us,
too, and rule over all the earth according to the promise.”
Alyosha knew that this was just how the people felt and even reasoned. He
understood it, but that the elder Zossima was this saint and custodian of
God’s truth—of that he had no more doubt than the weeping peasants and the
sick women who held out their children to the elder. The conviction that
after his death the elder would bring extraordinary glory to the monastery
was even stronger in Alyosha than in any one there, and, of late, a kind
of deep flame of inner ecstasy burnt more and more strongly in his heart.
He was not at all troubled at this elder’s standing as a solitary example
before him.
“No matter. He is holy. He carries in his heart the secret of renewal for
all: that power which will, at last, establish truth on the earth, and all
men will be holy and love one another, and there will be no more rich nor
poor, no exalted nor humbled, but all will be as the children of God, and
the true Kingdom of Christ will come.” That was the dream in Alyosha’s
heart.
The arrival of his two brothers, whom he had not known till then, seemed
to make a great impression on Alyosha. He more quickly made friends with
his half‐brother Dmitri (though he arrived later) than with his own
brother Ivan. He was extremely interested in his brother Ivan, but when
the latter had been two months in the town, though they had met fairly
often, they were still not intimate. Alyosha was naturally silent, and he
seemed to be expecting something, ashamed about something, while his
brother Ivan, though Alyosha noticed at first that he looked long and
curiously at him, seemed soon to have left off thinking of him. Alyosha
noticed it with some embarrassment. He ascribed his brother’s indifference
at first to the disparity of their age and education. But he also wondered
whether the absence of curiosity and sympathy in Ivan might be due to some
other cause entirely unknown to him. He kept fancying that Ivan was
absorbed in something—something inward and important—that he was striving
towards some goal, perhaps very hard to attain, and that that was why he
had no thought for him. Alyosha wondered, too, whether there was not some
contempt on the part of the learned atheist for him—a foolish novice. He
knew for certain that his brother was an atheist. He could not take
offense at this contempt, if it existed; yet, with an uneasy embarrassment
which he did not himself understand, he waited for his brother to come
nearer to him. Dmitri used to speak of Ivan with the deepest respect and
with a peculiar earnestness. From him Alyosha learnt all the details of
the important affair which had of late formed such a close and remarkable
bond between the two elder brothers. Dmitri’s enthusiastic references to
Ivan were the more striking in Alyosha’s eyes since Dmitri was, compared
with Ivan, almost uneducated, and the two brothers were such a contrast in
personality and character that it would be difficult to find two men more
unlike.
It was at this time that the meeting, or, rather gathering of the members
of this inharmonious family took place in the cell of the elder who had
such an extraordinary influence on Alyosha. The pretext for this gathering
was a false one. It was at this time that the discord between Dmitri and
his father seemed at its acutest stage and their relations had become
insufferably strained. Fyodor Pavlovitch seems to have been the first to
suggest, apparently in joke, that they should all meet in Father Zossima’s
cell, and that, without appealing to his direct intervention, they might
more decently come to an understanding under the conciliating influence of
the elder’s presence. Dmitri, who had never seen the elder, naturally
supposed that his father was trying to intimidate him, but, as he secretly
blamed himself for his outbursts of temper with his father on several
recent occasions, he accepted the challenge. It must be noted that he was
not, like Ivan, staying with his father, but living apart at the other end
of the town. It happened that Pyotr Alexandrovitch Miüsov, who was staying
in the district at the time, caught eagerly at the idea. A Liberal of the
forties and fifties, a freethinker and atheist, he may have been led on by
boredom or the hope of frivolous diversion. He was suddenly seized with
the desire to see the monastery and the holy man. As his lawsuit with the
monastery still dragged on, he made it the pretext for seeing the
Superior, in order to attempt to settle it amicably. A visitor coming with
such laudable intentions might be received with more attention and
consideration than if he came from simple curiosity. Influences from
within the monastery were brought to bear on the elder, who of late had
scarcely left his cell, and had been forced by illness to deny even his
ordinary visitors. In the end he consented to see them, and the day was
fixed.
“Who has made me a judge over them?” was all he said, smilingly, to
Alyosha.
Alyosha was much perturbed when he heard of the proposed visit. Of all the
wrangling, quarrelsome party, Dmitri was the only one who could regard the
interview seriously. All the others would come from frivolous motives,
perhaps insulting to the elder. Alyosha was well aware of that. Ivan and
Miüsov would come from curiosity, perhaps of the coarsest kind, while his
father might be contemplating some piece of buffoonery. Though he said
nothing, Alyosha thoroughly understood his father. The boy, I repeat, was
far from being so simple as every one thought him. He awaited the day with
a heavy heart. No doubt he was always pondering in his mind how the family
discord could be ended. But his chief anxiety concerned the elder. He
trembled for him, for his glory, and dreaded any affront to him,
especially the refined, courteous irony of Miüsov and the supercilious
half‐utterances of the highly educated Ivan. He even wanted to venture on
warning the elder, telling him something about them, but, on second
thoughts, said nothing. He only sent word the day before, through a
friend, to his brother Dmitri, that he loved him and expected him to keep
his promise. Dmitri wondered, for he could not remember what he had
promised, but he answered by letter that he would do his utmost not to let
himself be provoked “by vileness,” but that, although he had a deep
respect for the elder and for his brother Ivan, he was convinced that the
meeting was either a trap for him or an unworthy farce.
“Nevertheless I would rather bite out my tongue than be lacking in respect
to the sainted man whom you reverence so highly,” he wrote in conclusion.
Alyosha was not greatly cheered by the letter.
Book II. An Unfortunate Gathering
Chapter I. They Arrive At The Monastery
It was a warm, bright day at the end of August. The interview with the
elder had been fixed for half‐past eleven, immediately after late mass.
Our visitors did not take part in the service, but arrived just as it was
over. First an elegant open carriage, drawn by two valuable horses, drove
up with Miüsov and a distant relative of his, a young man of twenty,
called Pyotr Fomitch Kalganov. This young man was preparing to enter the
university. Miüsov, with whom he was staying for the time, was trying to
persuade him to go abroad to the university of Zurich or Jena. The young
man was still undecided. He was thoughtful and absent‐minded. He was nice‐
looking, strongly built, and rather tall. There was a strange fixity in
his gaze at times. Like all very absent‐minded people he would sometimes
stare at a person without seeing him. He was silent and rather awkward,
but sometimes, when he was alone with any one, he became talkative and
effusive, and would laugh at anything or nothing. But his animation
vanished as quickly as it appeared. He was always well and even
elaborately dressed; he had already some independent fortune and
expectations of much more. He was a friend of Alyosha’s.
In an ancient, jolting, but roomy, hired carriage, with a pair of old
pinkish‐gray horses, a long way behind Miüsov’s carriage, came Fyodor
Pavlovitch, with his son Ivan. Dmitri was late, though he had been
informed of the time the evening before. The visitors left their carriage
at the hotel, outside the precincts, and went to the gates of the
monastery on foot. Except Fyodor Pavlovitch, none of the party had ever
seen the monastery, and Miüsov had probably not even been to church for
thirty years. He looked about him with curiosity, together with assumed
ease. But, except the church and the domestic buildings, though these too
were ordinary enough, he found nothing of interest in the interior of the
monastery. The last of the worshippers were coming out of the church,
bareheaded and crossing themselves. Among the humbler people were a few of
higher rank—two or three ladies and a very old general. They were all
staying at the hotel. Our visitors were at once surrounded by beggars, but
none of them gave them anything, except young Kalganov, who took a ten‐
copeck piece out of his purse, and, nervous and embarrassed—God knows
why!—hurriedly gave it to an old woman, saying: “Divide it equally.” None
of his companions made any remark upon it, so that he had no reason to be
embarrassed; but, perceiving this, he was even more overcome.
It was strange that their arrival did not seem expected, and that they
were not received with special honor, though one of them had recently made
a donation of a thousand roubles, while another was a very wealthy and
highly cultured landowner, upon whom all in the monastery were in a sense
dependent, as a decision of the lawsuit might at any moment put their
fishing rights in his hands. Yet no official personage met them.
Miüsov looked absent‐mindedly at the tombstones round the church, and was
on the point of saying that the dead buried here must have paid a pretty
penny for the right of lying in this “holy place,” but refrained. His
liberal irony was rapidly changing almost into anger.
“Who the devil is there to ask in this imbecile place? We must find out,
for time is passing,” he observed suddenly, as though speaking to himself.
All at once there came up a bald‐headed, elderly man with ingratiating
little eyes, wearing a full, summer overcoat. Lifting his hat, he
introduced himself with a honeyed lisp as Maximov, a landowner of Tula. He
at once entered into our visitors’ difficulty.
“Father Zossima lives in the hermitage, apart, four hundred paces from the
monastery, the other side of the copse.”
“I know it’s the other side of the copse,” observed Fyodor Pavlovitch,
“but we don’t remember the way. It is a long time since we’ve been here.”
“This way, by this gate, and straight across the copse ... the copse. Come
with me, won’t you? I’ll show you. I have to go.... I am going myself.
This way, this way.”
They came out of the gate and turned towards the copse. Maximov, a man of
sixty, ran rather than walked, turning sideways to stare at them all, with
an incredible degree of nervous curiosity. His eyes looked starting out of
his head.
“You see, we have come to the elder upon business of our own,” observed
Miüsov severely. “That personage has granted us an audience, so to speak,
and so, though we thank you for showing us the way, we cannot ask you to
accompany us.”
“I’ve been there. I’ve been already; _un chevalier parfait_,” and Maximov
snapped his fingers in the air.
“Who is a _chevalier_?” asked Miüsov.
“The elder, the splendid elder, the elder! The honor and glory of the
monastery, Zossima. Such an elder!”
But his incoherent talk was cut short by a very pale, wan‐looking monk of
medium height, wearing a monk’s cap, who overtook them. Fyodor Pavlovitch
and Miüsov stopped.
The monk, with an extremely courteous, profound bow, announced:
“The Father Superior invites all of you gentlemen to dine with him after
your visit to the hermitage. At one o’clock, not later. And you also,” he
added, addressing Maximov.
“That I certainly will, without fail,” cried Fyodor Pavlovitch, hugely
delighted at the invitation. “And, believe me, we’ve all given our word to
behave properly here.... And you, Pyotr Alexandrovitch, will you go, too?”
“Yes, of course. What have I come for but to study all the customs here?
The only obstacle to me is your company....”
“Yes, Dmitri Fyodorovitch is non‐existent as yet.”
“It would be a capital thing if he didn’t turn up. Do you suppose I like
all this business, and in your company, too? So we will come to dinner.
Thank the Father Superior,” he said to the monk.
“No, it is my duty now to conduct you to the elder,” answered the monk.
“If so I’ll go straight to the Father Superior—to the Father Superior,”
babbled Maximov.
“The Father Superior is engaged just now. But as you please—” the monk
hesitated.
“Impertinent old man!” Miüsov observed aloud, while Maximov ran back to
the monastery.
“He’s like von Sohn,” Fyodor Pavlovitch said suddenly.
“Is that all you can think of?... In what way is he like von Sohn? Have
you ever seen von Sohn?”
“I’ve seen his portrait. It’s not the features, but something indefinable.
He’s a second von Sohn. I can always tell from the physiognomy.”
“Ah, I dare say you are a connoisseur in that. But, look here, Fyodor
Pavlovitch, you said just now that we had given our word to behave
properly. Remember it. I advise you to control yourself. But, if you begin
to play the fool I don’t intend to be associated with you here.... You see
what a man he is”—he turned to the monk—“I’m afraid to go among decent
people with him.” A fine smile, not without a certain slyness, came on to
the pale, bloodless lips of the monk, but he made no reply, and was
evidently silent from a sense of his own dignity. Miüsov frowned more than
ever.
“Oh, devil take them all! An outer show elaborated through centuries, and
nothing but charlatanism and nonsense underneath,” flashed through
Miüsov’s mind.
“Here’s the hermitage. We’ve arrived,” cried Fyodor Pavlovitch. “The gates
are shut.”
And he repeatedly made the sign of the cross to the saints painted above
and on the sides of the gates.
“When you go to Rome you must do as the Romans do. Here in this hermitage
there are twenty‐five saints being saved. They look at one another, and
eat cabbages. And not one woman goes in at this gate. That’s what is
remarkable. And that really is so. But I did hear that the elder receives
ladies,” he remarked suddenly to the monk.
“Women of the people are here too now, lying in the portico there waiting.
But for ladies of higher rank two rooms have been built adjoining the
portico, but outside the precincts—you can see the windows—and the elder
goes out to them by an inner passage when he is well enough. They are
always outside the precincts. There is a Harkov lady, Madame Hohlakov,
waiting there now with her sick daughter. Probably he has promised to come
out to her, though of late he has been so weak that he has hardly shown
himself even to the people.”
“So then there are loopholes, after all, to creep out of the hermitage to
the ladies. Don’t suppose, holy father, that I mean any harm. But do you
know that at Athos not only the visits of women are not allowed, but no
creature of the female sex—no hens, nor turkey‐hens, nor cows.”
“Fyodor Pavlovitch, I warn you I shall go back and leave you here. They’ll
turn you out when I’m gone.”
“But I’m not interfering with you, Pyotr Alexandrovitch. Look,” he cried
suddenly, stepping within the precincts, “what a vale of roses they live
in!”
Though there were no roses now, there were numbers of rare and beautiful
autumn flowers growing wherever there was space for them, and evidently
tended by a skillful hand; there were flower‐beds round the church, and
between the tombs; and the one‐storied wooden house where the elder lived
was also surrounded with flowers.
“And was it like this in the time of the last elder, Varsonofy? He didn’t
care for such elegance. They say he used to jump up and thrash even ladies
with a stick,” observed Fyodor Pavlovitch, as he went up the steps.
“The elder Varsonofy did sometimes seem rather strange, but a great deal
that’s told is foolishness. He never thrashed any one,” answered the monk.
“Now, gentlemen, if you will wait a minute I will announce you.”
“Fyodor Pavlovitch, for the last time, your compact, do you hear? Behave
properly or I will pay you out!” Miüsov had time to mutter again.
“I can’t think why you are so agitated,” Fyodor Pavlovitch observed
sarcastically. “Are you uneasy about your sins? They say he can tell by
one’s eyes what one has come about. And what a lot you think of their
opinion! you, a Parisian, and so advanced. I’m surprised at you.”
But Miüsov had no time to reply to this sarcasm. They were asked to come
in. He walked in, somewhat irritated.
“Now, I know myself, I am annoyed, I shall lose my temper and begin to
quarrel—and lower myself and my ideas,” he reflected.
Chapter II. The Old Buffoon
They entered the room almost at the same moment that the elder came in
from his bedroom. There were already in the cell, awaiting the elder, two
monks of the hermitage, one the Father Librarian, and the other Father
Païssy, a very learned man, so they said, in delicate health, though not
old. There was also a tall young man, who looked about two and twenty,
standing in the corner throughout the interview. He had a broad, fresh
face, and clever, observant, narrow brown eyes, and was wearing ordinary
dress. He was a divinity student, living under the protection of the
monastery. His expression was one of unquestioning, but self‐respecting,
reverence. Being in a subordinate and dependent position, and so not on an
equality with the guests, he did not greet them with a bow.
Father Zossima was accompanied by a novice, and by Alyosha. The two monks
rose and greeted him with a very deep bow, touching the ground with their
fingers; then kissed his hand. Blessing them, the elder replied with as
deep a reverence to them, and asked their blessing. The whole ceremony was
performed very seriously and with an appearance of feeling, not like an
everyday rite. But Miüsov fancied that it was all done with intentional
impressiveness. He stood in front of the other visitors. He ought—he had
reflected upon it the evening before—from simple politeness, since it was
the custom here, to have gone up to receive the elder’s blessing, even if
he did not kiss his hand. But when he saw all this bowing and kissing on
the part of the monks he instantly changed his mind. With dignified
gravity he made a rather deep, conventional bow, and moved away to a
chair. Fyodor Pavlovitch did the same, mimicking Miüsov like an ape. Ivan
bowed with great dignity and courtesy, but he too kept his hands at his
sides, while Kalganov was so confused that he did not bow at all. The
elder let fall the hand raised to bless them, and bowing to them again,
asked them all to sit down. The blood rushed to Alyosha’s cheeks. He was
ashamed. His forebodings were coming true.
Father Zossima sat down on a very old‐fashioned mahogany sofa, covered
with leather, and made his visitors sit down in a row along the opposite
wall on four mahogany chairs, covered with shabby black leather. The monks
sat, one at the door and the other at the window. The divinity student,
the novice, and Alyosha remained standing. The cell was not very large and
had a faded look. It contained nothing but the most necessary furniture,
of coarse and poor quality. There were two pots of flowers in the window,
and a number of holy pictures in the corner. Before one huge ancient ikon
of the Virgin a lamp was burning. Near it were two other holy pictures in
shining settings, and, next them, carved cherubims, china eggs, a Catholic
cross of ivory, with a Mater Dolorosa embracing it, and several foreign
engravings from the great Italian artists of past centuries. Next to these
costly and artistic engravings were several of the roughest Russian prints
of saints and martyrs, such as are sold for a few farthings at all the
fairs. On the other walls were portraits of Russian bishops, past and
present.
Miüsov took a cursory glance at all these “conventional” surroundings and
bent an intent look upon the elder. He had a high opinion of his own
insight, a weakness excusable in him as he was fifty, an age at which a
clever man of the world of established position can hardly help taking
himself rather seriously. At the first moment he did not like Zossima.
There was, indeed, something in the elder’s face which many people besides
Miüsov might not have liked. He was a short, bent, little man, with very
weak legs, and though he was only sixty‐five, he looked at least ten years
older. His face was very thin and covered with a network of fine wrinkles,
particularly numerous about his eyes, which were small, light‐colored,
quick, and shining like two bright points. He had a sprinkling of gray
hair about his temples. His pointed beard was small and scanty, and his
lips, which smiled frequently, were as thin as two threads. His nose was
not long, but sharp, like a bird’s beak.
“To all appearances a malicious soul, full of petty pride,” thought
Miüsov. He felt altogether dissatisfied with his position.
A cheap little clock on the wall struck twelve hurriedly, and served to
begin the conversation.
“Precisely to our time,” cried Fyodor Pavlovitch, “but no sign of my son,
Dmitri. I apologize for him, sacred elder!” (Alyosha shuddered all over at
“sacred elder.”) “I am always punctual myself, minute for minute,
remembering that punctuality is the courtesy of kings....”
“But you are not a king, anyway,” Miüsov muttered, losing his self‐
restraint at once.
“Yes; that’s true. I’m not a king, and, would you believe it, Pyotr
Alexandrovitch, I was aware of that myself. But, there! I always say the
wrong thing. Your reverence,” he cried, with sudden pathos, “you behold
before you a buffoon in earnest! I introduce myself as such. It’s an old
habit, alas! And if I sometimes talk nonsense out of place it’s with an
object, with the object of amusing people and making myself agreeable. One
must be agreeable, mustn’t one? I was seven years ago in a little town
where I had business, and I made friends with some merchants there. We
went to the captain of police because we had to see him about something,
and to ask him to dine with us. He was a tall, fat, fair, sulky man, the
most dangerous type in such cases. It’s their liver. I went straight up to
him, and with the ease of a man of the world, you know, ‘Mr. Ispravnik,’
said I, ‘be our Napravnik.’ ‘What do you mean by Napravnik?’ said he. I
saw, at the first half‐second, that it had missed fire. He stood there so
glum. ‘I wanted to make a joke,’ said I, ‘for the general diversion, as
Mr. Napravnik is our well‐known Russian orchestra conductor and what we
need for the harmony of our undertaking is some one of that sort.’ And I
explained my comparison very reasonably, didn’t I? ‘Excuse me,’ said he,
‘I am an Ispravnik, and I do not allow puns to be made on my calling.’ He
turned and walked away. I followed him, shouting, ‘Yes, yes, you are an
Ispravnik, not a Napravnik.’ ‘No,’ he said, ‘since you called me a
Napravnik I am one.’ And would you believe it, it ruined our business! And
I’m always like that, always like that. Always injuring myself with my
politeness. Once, many years ago, I said to an influential person: ‘Your
wife is a ticklish lady,’ in an honorable sense, of the moral qualities,
so to speak. But he asked me, ‘Why, have you tickled her?’ I thought I’d
be polite, so I couldn’t help saying, ‘Yes,’ and he gave me a fine
tickling on the spot. Only that happened long ago, so I’m not ashamed to
tell the story. I’m always injuring myself like that.”
“You’re doing it now,” muttered Miüsov, with disgust.
Father Zossima scrutinized them both in silence.
“Am I? Would you believe it, I was aware of that, too, Pyotr
Alexandrovitch, and let me tell you, indeed, I foresaw I should as soon as
I began to speak. And do you know I foresaw, too, that you’d be the first
to remark on it. The minute I see my joke isn’t coming off, your
reverence, both my cheeks feel as though they were drawn down to the lower
jaw and there is almost a spasm in them. That’s been so since I was young,
when I had to make jokes for my living in noblemen’s families. I am an
inveterate buffoon, and have been from birth up, your reverence, it’s as
though it were a craze in me. I dare say it’s a devil within me. But only
a little one. A more serious one would have chosen another lodging. But
not your soul, Pyotr Alexandrovitch; you’re not a lodging worth having
either. But I do believe—I believe in God, though I have had doubts of
late. But now I sit and await words of wisdom. I’m like the philosopher,
Diderot, your reverence. Did you ever hear, most Holy Father, how Diderot
went to see the Metropolitan Platon, in the time of the Empress Catherine?
He went in and said straight out, ‘There is no God.’ To which the great
bishop lifted up his finger and answered, ‘The fool hath said in his heart
there is no God.’ And he fell down at his feet on the spot. ‘I believe,’
he cried, ‘and will be christened.’ And so he was. Princess Dashkov was
his godmother, and Potyomkin his godfather.”
“Fyodor Pavlovitch, this is unbearable! You know you’re telling lies and
that that stupid anecdote isn’t true. Why are you playing the fool?” cried
Miüsov in a shaking voice.
“I suspected all my life that it wasn’t true,” Fyodor Pavlovitch cried
with conviction. “But I’ll tell you the whole truth, gentlemen. Great
elder! Forgive me, the last thing about Diderot’s christening I made up
just now. I never thought of it before. I made it up to add piquancy. I
play the fool, Pyotr Alexandrovitch, to make myself agreeable. Though I
really don’t know myself, sometimes, what I do it for. And as for Diderot,
I heard as far as ‘the fool hath said in his heart’ twenty times from the
gentry about here when I was young. I heard your aunt, Pyotr
Alexandrovitch, tell the story. They all believe to this day that the
infidel Diderot came to dispute about God with the Metropolitan
Platon....”
Miüsov got up, forgetting himself in his impatience. He was furious, and
conscious of being ridiculous.
What was taking place in the cell was really incredible. For forty or
fifty years past, from the times of former elders, no visitors had entered
that cell without feelings of the profoundest veneration. Almost every one
admitted to the cell felt that a great favor was being shown him. Many
remained kneeling during the whole visit. Of those visitors, many had been
men of high rank and learning, some even freethinkers, attracted by
curiosity, but all without exception had shown the profoundest reverence
and delicacy, for here there was no question of money, but only, on the
one side love and kindness, and on the other penitence and eager desire to
decide some spiritual problem or crisis. So that such buffoonery amazed
and bewildered the spectators, or at least some of them. The monks, with
unchanged countenances, waited, with earnest attention, to hear what the
elder would say, but seemed on the point of standing up, like Miüsov.
Alyosha stood, with hanging head, on the verge of tears. What seemed to
him strangest of all was that his brother Ivan, on whom alone he had
rested his hopes, and who alone had such influence on his father that he
could have stopped him, sat now quite unmoved, with downcast eyes,
apparently waiting with interest to see how it would end, as though he had
nothing to do with it. Alyosha did not dare to look at Rakitin, the
divinity student, whom he knew almost intimately. He alone in the
monastery knew Rakitin’s thoughts.
“Forgive me,” began Miüsov, addressing Father Zossima, “for perhaps I seem
to be taking part in this shameful foolery. I made a mistake in believing
that even a man like Fyodor Pavlovitch would understand what was due on a
visit to so honored a personage. I did not suppose I should have to
apologize simply for having come with him....”
Pyotr Alexandrovitch could say no more, and was about to leave the room,
overwhelmed with confusion.
“Don’t distress yourself, I beg.” The elder got on to his feeble legs, and
taking Pyotr Alexandrovitch by both hands, made him sit down again. “I beg
you not to disturb yourself. I particularly beg you to be my guest.” And
with a bow he went back and sat down again on his little sofa.
“Great elder, speak! Do I annoy you by my vivacity?” Fyodor Pavlovitch
cried suddenly, clutching the arms of his chair in both hands, as though
ready to leap up from it if the answer were unfavorable.
“I earnestly beg you, too, not to disturb yourself, and not to be uneasy,”
the elder said impressively. “Do not trouble. Make yourself quite at home.
And, above all, do not be so ashamed of yourself, for that is at the root
of it all.”
“Quite at home? To be my natural self? Oh, that is much too much, but I
accept it with grateful joy. Do you know, blessed Father, you’d better not
invite me to be my natural self. Don’t risk it.... I will not go so far as
that myself. I warn you for your own sake. Well, the rest is still plunged
in the mists of uncertainty, though there are people who’d be pleased to
describe me for you. I mean that for you, Pyotr Alexandrovitch. But as for
you, holy being, let me tell you, I am brimming over with ecstasy.”
He got up, and throwing up his hands, declaimed, “Blessed be the womb that
bare thee, and the paps that gave thee suck—the paps especially. When you
said just now, ‘Don’t be so ashamed of yourself, for that is at the root
of it all,’ you pierced right through me by that remark, and read me to
the core. Indeed, I always feel when I meet people that I am lower than
all, and that they all take me for a buffoon. So I say, ‘Let me really
play the buffoon. I am not afraid of your opinion, for you are every one
of you worse than I am.’ That is why I am a buffoon. It is from shame,
great elder, from shame; it’s simply over‐sensitiveness that makes me
rowdy. If I had only been sure that every one would accept me as the
kindest and wisest of men, oh, Lord, what a good man I should have been
then! Teacher!” he fell suddenly on his knees, “what must I do to gain
eternal life?”
It was difficult even now to decide whether he was joking or really moved.
Father Zossima, lifting his eyes, looked at him, and said with a smile:
“You have known for a long time what you must do. You have sense enough:
don’t give way to drunkenness and incontinence of speech; don’t give way
to sensual lust; and, above all, to the love of money. And close your
taverns. If you can’t close all, at least two or three. And, above
all—don’t lie.”
“You mean about Diderot?”
“No, not about Diderot. Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies
to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot
distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect
for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love, and
in order to occupy and distract himself without love he gives way to
passions and coarse pleasures, and sinks to bestiality in his vices, all
from continual lying to other men and to himself. The man who lies to
himself can be more easily offended than any one. You know it is sometimes
very pleasant to take offense, isn’t it? A man may know that nobody has
insulted him, but that he has invented the insult for himself, has lied
and exaggerated to make it picturesque, has caught at a word and made a
mountain out of a molehill—he knows that himself, yet he will be the first
to take offense, and will revel in his resentment till he feels great
pleasure in it, and so pass to genuine vindictiveness. But get up, sit
down, I beg you. All this, too, is deceitful posturing....”
“Blessed man! Give me your hand to kiss.”
Fyodor Pavlovitch skipped up, and imprinted a rapid kiss on the elder’s
thin hand. “It is, it is pleasant to take offense. You said that so well,
as I never heard it before. Yes, I have been all my life taking offense,
to please myself, taking offense on esthetic grounds, for it is not so
much pleasant as distinguished sometimes to be insulted—that you had
forgotten, great elder, it is distinguished! I shall make a note of that.
But I have been lying, lying positively my whole life long, every day and
hour of it. Of a truth, I am a lie, and the father of lies. Though I
believe I am not the father of lies. I am getting mixed in my texts. Say,
the son of lies, and that will be enough. Only ... my angel ... I may
sometimes talk about Diderot! Diderot will do no harm, though sometimes a
word will do harm. Great elder, by the way, I was forgetting, though I had
been meaning for the last two years to come here on purpose to ask and to
find out something. Only do tell Pyotr Alexandrovitch not to interrupt me.
Here is my question: Is it true, great Father, that the story is told
somewhere in the _Lives of the Saints_ of a holy saint martyred for his
faith who, when his head was cut off at last, stood up, picked up his
head, and, ‘courteously kissing it,’ walked a long way, carrying it in his
hands. Is that true or not, honored Father?”
“No, it is untrue,” said the elder.
“There is nothing of the kind in all the lives of the saints. What saint
do you say the story is told of?” asked the Father Librarian.
“I do not know what saint. I do not know, and can’t tell. I was deceived.
I was told the story. I had heard it, and do you know who told it? Pyotr
Alexandrovitch Miüsov here, who was so angry just now about Diderot. He it
was who told the story.”
“I have never told it you, I never speak to you at all.”
“It is true you did not tell me, but you told it when I was present. It
was three years ago. I mentioned it because by that ridiculous story you
shook my faith, Pyotr Alexandrovitch. You knew nothing of it, but I went
home with my faith shaken, and I have been getting more and more shaken
ever since. Yes, Pyotr Alexandrovitch, you were the cause of a great fall.
That was not a Diderot!”
Fyodor Pavlovitch got excited and pathetic, though it was perfectly clear
to every one by now that he was playing a part again. Yet Miüsov was stung
by his words.
“What nonsense, and it is all nonsense,” he muttered. “I may really have
told it, some time or other ... but not to you. I was told it myself. I
heard it in Paris from a Frenchman. He told me it was read at our mass
from the _Lives of the Saints_ ... he was a very learned man who had made
a special study of Russian statistics and had lived a long time in
Russia.... I have not read the _Lives of the Saints_ myself, and I am not
going to read them ... all sorts of things are said at dinner—we were
dining then.”
“Yes, you were dining then, and so I lost my faith!” said Fyodor
Pavlovitch, mimicking him.
“What do I care for your faith?” Miüsov was on the point of shouting, but
he suddenly checked himself, and said with contempt, “You defile
everything you touch.”
The elder suddenly rose from his seat. “Excuse me, gentlemen, for leaving
you a few minutes,” he said, addressing all his guests. “I have visitors
awaiting me who arrived before you. But don’t you tell lies all the same,”
he added, turning to Fyodor Pavlovitch with a good‐humored face. He went
out of the cell. Alyosha and the novice flew to escort him down the steps.
Alyosha was breathless: he was glad to get away, but he was glad, too,
that the elder was good‐humored and not offended. Father Zossima was going
towards the portico to bless the people waiting for him there. But Fyodor
Pavlovitch persisted in stopping him at the door of the cell.
“Blessed man!” he cried, with feeling. “Allow me to kiss your hand once
more. Yes, with you I could still talk, I could still get on. Do you think
I always lie and play the fool like this? Believe me, I have been acting
like this all the time on purpose to try you. I have been testing you all
the time to see whether I could get on with you. Is there room for my
humility beside your pride? I am ready to give you a testimonial that one
can get on with you! But now, I’ll be quiet; I will keep quiet all the
time. I’ll sit in a chair and hold my tongue. Now it is for you to speak,
Pyotr Alexandrovitch. You are the principal person left now—for ten
minutes.”
Chapter III. Peasant Women Who Have Faith
Near the wooden portico below, built on to the outer wall of the precinct,
there was a crowd of about twenty peasant women. They had been told that
the elder was at last coming out, and they had gathered together in
anticipation. Two ladies, Madame Hohlakov and her daughter, had also come
out into the portico to wait for the elder, but in a separate part of it
set aside for women of rank.
Madame Hohlakov was a wealthy lady, still young and attractive, and always
dressed with taste. She was rather pale, and had lively black eyes. She
was not more than thirty‐three, and had been five years a widow. Her
daughter, a girl of fourteen, was partially paralyzed. The poor child had
not been able to walk for the last six months, and was wheeled about in a
long reclining chair. She had a charming little face, rather thin from
illness, but full of gayety. There was a gleam of mischief in her big dark
eyes with their long lashes. Her mother had been intending to take her
abroad ever since the spring, but they had been detained all the summer by
business connected with their estate. They had been staying a week in our
town, where they had come more for purposes of business than devotion, but
had visited Father Zossima once already, three days before. Though they
knew that the elder scarcely saw any one, they had now suddenly turned up
again, and urgently entreated “the happiness of looking once again on the
great healer.”
The mother was sitting on a chair by the side of her daughter’s invalid
carriage, and two paces from her stood an old monk, not one of our
monastery, but a visitor from an obscure religious house in the far north.
He too sought the elder’s blessing.
But Father Zossima, on entering the portico, went first straight to the
peasants who were crowded at the foot of the three steps that led up into
the portico. Father Zossima stood on the top step, put on his stole, and
began blessing the women who thronged about him. One crazy woman was led
up to him. As soon as she caught sight of the elder she began shrieking
and writhing as though in the pains of childbirth. Laying the stole on her
forehead, he read a short prayer over her, and she was at once soothed and
quieted.
I do not know how it may be now, but in my childhood I often happened to
see and hear these “possessed” women in the villages and monasteries. They
used to be brought to mass; they would squeal and bark like a dog so that
they were heard all over the church. But when the sacrament was carried in
and they were led up to it, at once the “possession” ceased, and the sick
women were always soothed for a time. I was greatly impressed and amazed
at this as a child; but then I heard from country neighbors and from my
town teachers that the whole illness was simulated to avoid work, and that
it could always be cured by suitable severity; various anecdotes were told
to confirm this. But later on I learnt with astonishment from medical
specialists that there is no pretense about it, that it is a terrible
illness to which women are subject, specially prevalent among us in
Russia, and that it is due to the hard lot of the peasant women. It is a
disease, I was told, arising from exhausting toil too soon after hard,
abnormal and unassisted labor in childbirth, and from the hopeless misery,
from beatings, and so on, which some women were not able to endure like
others. The strange and instant healing of the frantic and struggling
woman as soon as she was led up to the holy sacrament, which had been
explained to me as due to malingering and the trickery of the “clericals,”
arose probably in the most natural manner. Both the women who supported
her and the invalid herself fully believed as a truth beyond question that
the evil spirit in possession of her could not hold out if the sick woman
were brought to the sacrament and made to bow down before it. And so, with
a nervous and psychically deranged woman, a sort of convulsion of the
whole organism always took place, and was bound to take place, at the
moment of bowing down to the sacrament, aroused by the expectation of the
miracle of healing and the implicit belief that it would come to pass; and
it did come to pass, though only for a moment. It was exactly the same now
as soon as the elder touched the sick woman with the stole.
Many of the women in the crowd were moved to tears of ecstasy by the
effect of the moment: some strove to kiss the hem of his garment, others
cried out in sing‐song voices.
He blessed them all and talked with some of them. The “possessed” woman he
knew already. She came from a village only six versts from the monastery,
and had been brought to him before.
“But here is one from afar.” He pointed to a woman by no means old but
very thin and wasted, with a face not merely sunburnt but almost blackened
by exposure. She was kneeling and gazing with a fixed stare at the elder;
there was something almost frenzied in her eyes.
“From afar off, Father, from afar off! From two hundred miles from here.
From afar off, Father, from afar off!” the woman began in a sing‐song
voice as though she were chanting a dirge, swaying her head from side to
side with her cheek resting in her hand.
There is silent and long‐suffering sorrow to be met with among the
peasantry. It withdraws into itself and is still. But there is a grief
that breaks out, and from that minute it bursts into tears and finds vent
in wailing. This is particularly common with women. But it is no lighter a
grief than the silent. Lamentations comfort only by lacerating the heart
still more. Such grief does not desire consolation. It feeds on the sense
of its hopelessness. Lamentations spring only from the constant craving to
reopen the wound.
“You are of the tradesman class?” said Father Zossima, looking curiously
at her.
“Townfolk we are, Father, townfolk. Yet we are peasants though we live in
the town. I have come to see you, O Father! We heard of you, Father, we
heard of you. I have buried my little son, and I have come on a
pilgrimage. I have been in three monasteries, but they told me, ‘Go,
Nastasya, go to them’—that is to you. I have come; I was yesterday at the
service, and to‐day I have come to you.”
“What are you weeping for?”
“It’s my little son I’m grieving for, Father. He was three years old—three
years all but three months. For my little boy, Father, I’m in anguish, for
my little boy. He was the last one left. We had four, my Nikita and I, and
now we’ve no children, our dear ones have all gone. I buried the first
three without grieving overmuch, and now I have buried the last I can’t
forget him. He seems always standing before me. He never leaves me. He has
withered my heart. I look at his little clothes, his little shirt, his
little boots, and I wail. I lay out all that is left of him, all his
little things. I look at them and wail. I say to Nikita, my husband, ‘Let
me go on a pilgrimage, master.’ He is a driver. We’re not poor people,
Father, not poor; he drives our own horse. It’s all our own, the horse and
the carriage. And what good is it all to us now? My Nikita has begun
drinking while I am away. He’s sure to. It used to be so before. As soon
as I turn my back he gives way to it. But now I don’t think about him.
It’s three months since I left home. I’ve forgotten him. I’ve forgotten
everything. I don’t want to remember. And what would our life be now
together? I’ve done with him, I’ve done. I’ve done with them all. I don’t
care to look upon my house and my goods. I don’t care to see anything at
all!”
“Listen, mother,” said the elder. “Once in olden times a holy saint saw in
the Temple a mother like you weeping for her little one, her only one,
whom God had taken. ‘Knowest thou not,’ said the saint to her, ‘how bold
these little ones are before the throne of God? Verily there are none
bolder than they in the Kingdom of Heaven. “Thou didst give us life, O
Lord,” they say, “and scarcely had we looked upon it when Thou didst take
it back again.” And so boldly they ask and ask again that God gives them
at once the rank of angels. Therefore,’ said the saint, ‘thou, too, O
mother, rejoice and weep not, for thy little son is with the Lord in the
fellowship of the angels.’ That’s what the saint said to the weeping
mother of old. He was a great saint and he could not have spoken falsely.
Therefore you too, mother, know that your little one is surely before the
throne of God, is rejoicing and happy, and praying to God for you, and
therefore weep not, but rejoice.”
The woman listened to him, looking down with her cheek in her hand. She
sighed deeply.
“My Nikita tried to comfort me with the same words as you. ‘Foolish one,’
he said, ‘why weep? Our son is no doubt singing with the angels before
God.’ He says that to me, but he weeps himself. I see that he cries like
me. ‘I know, Nikita,’ said I. ‘Where could he be if not with the Lord God?
Only, here with us now he is not as he used to sit beside us before.’ And
if only I could look upon him one little time, if only I could peep at him
one little time, without going up to him, without speaking, if I could be
hidden in a corner and only see him for one little minute, hear him
playing in the yard, calling in his little voice, ‘Mammy, where are you?’
If only I could hear him pattering with his little feet about the room
just once, only once; for so often, so often I remember how he used to run
to me and shout and laugh, if only I could hear his little feet I should
know him! But he’s gone, Father, he’s gone, and I shall never hear him
again. Here’s his little sash, but him I shall never see or hear now.”
She drew out of her bosom her boy’s little embroidered sash, and as soon
as she looked at it she began shaking with sobs, hiding her eyes with her
fingers through which the tears flowed in a sudden stream.
“It is Rachel of old,” said the elder, “weeping for her children, and will
not be comforted because they are not. Such is the lot set on earth for
you mothers. Be not comforted. Consolation is not what you need. Weep and
be not consoled, but weep. Only every time that you weep be sure to
remember that your little son is one of the angels of God, that he looks
down from there at you and sees you, and rejoices at your tears, and
points at them to the Lord God; and a long while yet will you keep that
great mother’s grief. But it will turn in the end into quiet joy, and your
bitter tears will be only tears of tender sorrow that purifies the heart
and delivers it from sin. And I shall pray for the peace of your child’s
soul. What was his name?”
“Alexey, Father.”
“A sweet name. After Alexey, the man of God?”
“Yes, Father.”
“What a saint he was! I will remember him, mother, and your grief in my
prayers, and I will pray for your husband’s health. It is a sin for you to
leave him. Your little one will see from heaven that you have forsaken his
father, and will weep over you. Why do you trouble his happiness? He is
living, for the soul lives for ever, and though he is not in the house he
is near you, unseen. How can he go into the house when you say that the
house is hateful to you? To whom is he to go if he find you not together,
his father and mother? He comes to you in dreams now, and you grieve. But
then he will send you gentle dreams. Go to your husband, mother; go this
very day.”
“I will go, Father, at your word. I will go. You’ve gone straight to my
heart. My Nikita, my Nikita, you are waiting for me,” the woman began in a
sing‐song voice; but the elder had already turned away to a very old
woman, dressed like a dweller in the town, not like a pilgrim. Her eyes
showed that she had come with an object, and in order to say something.
She said she was the widow of a non‐commissioned officer, and lived close
by in the town. Her son Vasenka was in the commissariat service, and had
gone to Irkutsk in Siberia. He had written twice from there, but now a
year had passed since he had written. She did inquire about him, but she
did not know the proper place to inquire.
“Only the other day Stepanida Ilyinishna—she’s a rich merchant’s wife—said
to me, ‘You go, Prohorovna, and put your son’s name down for prayer in the
church, and pray for the peace of his soul as though he were dead. His
soul will be troubled,’ she said, ‘and he will write you a letter.’ And
Stepanida Ilyinishna told me it was a certain thing which had been many
times tried. Only I am in doubt.... Oh, you light of ours! is it true or
false, and would it be right?”
“Don’t think of it. It’s shameful to ask the question. How is it possible
to pray for the peace of a living soul? And his own mother too! It’s a
great sin, akin to sorcery. Only for your ignorance it is forgiven you.
Better pray to the Queen of Heaven, our swift defense and help, for his
good health, and that she may forgive you for your error. And another
thing I will tell you, Prohorovna. Either he will soon come back to you,
your son, or he will be sure to send a letter. Go, and henceforward be in
peace. Your son is alive, I tell you.”
“Dear Father, God reward you, our benefactor, who prays for all of us and
for our sins!”
But the elder had already noticed in the crowd two glowing eyes fixed upon
him. An exhausted, consumptive‐looking, though young peasant woman was
gazing at him in silence. Her eyes besought him, but she seemed afraid to
approach.
“What is it, my child?”
“Absolve my soul, Father,” she articulated softly, and slowly sank on her
knees and bowed down at his feet. “I have sinned, Father. I am afraid of
my sin.”
The elder sat down on the lower step. The woman crept closer to him, still
on her knees.
“I am a widow these three years,” she began in a half‐whisper, with a sort
of shudder. “I had a hard life with my husband. He was an old man. He used
to beat me cruelly. He lay ill; I thought looking at him, if he were to
get well, if he were to get up again, what then? And then the thought came
to me—”
“Stay!” said the elder, and he put his ear close to her lips.
The woman went on in a low whisper, so that it was almost impossible to
catch anything. She had soon done.
“Three years ago?” asked the elder.
“Three years. At first I didn’t think about it, but now I’ve begun to be
ill, and the thought never leaves me.”
“Have you come from far?”
“Over three hundred miles away.”
“Have you told it in confession?”
“I have confessed it. Twice I have confessed it.”
“Have you been admitted to Communion?”
“Yes. I am afraid. I am afraid to die.”
“Fear nothing and never be afraid; and don’t fret. If only your penitence
fail not, God will forgive all. There is no sin, and there can be no sin
on all the earth, which the Lord will not forgive to the truly repentant!
Man cannot commit a sin so great as to exhaust the infinite love of God.
Can there be a sin which could exceed the love of God? Think only of
repentance, continual repentance, but dismiss fear altogether. Believe
that God loves you as you cannot conceive; that He loves you with your
sin, in your sin. It has been said of old that over one repentant sinner
there is more joy in heaven than over ten righteous men. Go, and fear not.
Be not bitter against men. Be not angry if you are wronged. Forgive the
dead man in your heart what wrong he did you. Be reconciled with him in
truth. If you are penitent, you love. And if you love you are of God. All
things are atoned for, all things are saved by love. If I, a sinner, even
as you are, am tender with you and have pity on you, how much more will
God. Love is such a priceless treasure that you can redeem the whole world
by it, and expiate not only your own sins but the sins of others.”
He signed her three times with the cross, took from his own neck a little
ikon and put it upon her. She bowed down to the earth without speaking.
He got up and looked cheerfully at a healthy peasant woman with a tiny
baby in her arms.
“From Vyshegorye, dear Father.”
“Five miles you have dragged yourself with the baby. What do you want?”
“I’ve come to look at you. I have been to you before—or have you
forgotten? You’ve no great memory if you’ve forgotten me. They told us you
were ill. Thinks I, I’ll go and see him for myself. Now I see you, and
you’re not ill! You’ll live another twenty years. God bless you! There are
plenty to pray for you; how should you be ill?”
“I thank you for all, daughter.”
“By the way, I have a thing to ask, not a great one. Here are sixty
copecks. Give them, dear Father, to some one poorer than me. I thought as
I came along, better give through him. He’ll know whom to give to.”
“Thanks, my dear, thanks! You are a good woman. I love you. I will do so
certainly. Is that your little girl?”
“My little girl, Father, Lizaveta.”
“May the Lord bless you both, you and your babe Lizaveta! You have
gladdened my heart, mother. Farewell, dear children, farewell, dear ones.”
He blessed them all and bowed low to them.
Chapter IV. A Lady Of Little Faith
A visitor looking on the scene of his conversation with the peasants and
his blessing them shed silent tears and wiped them away with her
handkerchief. She was a sentimental society lady of genuinely good
disposition in many respects. When the elder went up to her at last she
met him enthusiastically.
“Ah, what I have been feeling, looking on at this touching scene!...” She
could not go on for emotion. “Oh, I understand the people’s love for you.
I love the people myself. I want to love them. And who could help loving
them, our splendid Russian people, so simple in their greatness!”
“How is your daughter’s health? You wanted to talk to me again?”
“Oh, I have been urgently begging for it, I have prayed for it! I was
ready to fall on my knees and kneel for three days at your windows until
you let me in. We have come, great healer, to express our ardent
gratitude. You have healed my Lise, healed her completely, merely by
praying over her last Thursday and laying your hands upon her. We have
hastened here to kiss those hands, to pour out our feelings and our
homage.”
“What do you mean by healed? But she is still lying down in her chair.”
“But her night fevers have entirely ceased ever since Thursday,” said the
lady with nervous haste. “And that’s not all. Her legs are stronger. This
morning she got up well; she had slept all night. Look at her rosy cheeks,
her bright eyes! She used to be always crying, but now she laughs and is
gay and happy. This morning she insisted on my letting her stand up, and
she stood up for a whole minute without any support. She wagers that in a
fortnight she’ll be dancing a quadrille. I’ve called in Doctor
Herzenstube. He shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘I am amazed; I can make
nothing of it.’ And would you have us not come here to disturb you, not
fly here to thank you? Lise, thank him—thank him!”
Lise’s pretty little laughing face became suddenly serious. She rose in
her chair as far as she could and, looking at the elder, clasped her hands
before him, but could not restrain herself and broke into laughter.
“It’s at him,” she said, pointing to Alyosha, with childish vexation at
herself for not being able to repress her mirth.
If any one had looked at Alyosha standing a step behind the elder, he
would have caught a quick flush crimsoning his cheeks in an instant. His
eyes shone and he looked down.
“She has a message for you, Alexey Fyodorovitch. How are you?” the mother
went on, holding out her exquisitely gloved hand to Alyosha.
The elder turned round and all at once looked attentively at Alyosha. The
latter went nearer to Lise and, smiling in a strangely awkward way, held
out his hand to her too. Lise assumed an important air.
“Katerina Ivanovna has sent you this through me.” She handed him a little
note. “She particularly begs you to go and see her as soon as possible;
that you will not fail her, but will be sure to come.”
“She asks me to go and see her? Me? What for?” Alyosha muttered in great
astonishment. His face at once looked anxious. “Oh, it’s all to do with
Dmitri Fyodorovitch and—what has happened lately,” the mother explained
hurriedly. “Katerina Ivanovna has made up her mind, but she must see you
about it.... Why, of course, I can’t say. But she wants to see you at
once. And you will go to her, of course. It is a Christian duty.”
“I have only seen her once,” Alyosha protested with the same perplexity.
“Oh, she is such a lofty, incomparable creature! If only for her
suffering.... Think what she has gone through, what she is enduring now!
Think what awaits her! It’s all terrible, terrible!”
“Very well, I will come,” Alyosha decided, after rapidly scanning the
brief, enigmatic note, which consisted of an urgent entreaty that he would
come, without any sort of explanation.
“Oh, how sweet and generous that would be of you!” cried Lise with sudden
animation. “I told mamma you’d be sure not to go. I said you were saving
your soul. How splendid you are! I’ve always thought you were splendid.
How glad I am to tell you so!”
“Lise!” said her mother impressively, though she smiled after she had said
it.
“You have quite forgotten us, Alexey Fyodorovitch,” she said; “you never
come to see us. Yet Lise has told me twice that she is never happy except
with you.”
Alyosha raised his downcast eyes and again flushed, and again smiled
without knowing why. But the elder was no longer watching him. He had
begun talking to a monk who, as mentioned before, had been awaiting his
entrance by Lise’s chair. He was evidently a monk of the humblest, that is
of the peasant, class, of a narrow outlook, but a true believer, and, in
his own way, a stubborn one. He announced that he had come from the far
north, from Obdorsk, from Saint Sylvester, and was a member of a poor
monastery, consisting of only ten monks. The elder gave him his blessing
and invited him to come to his cell whenever he liked.
“How can you presume to do such deeds?” the monk asked suddenly, pointing
solemnly and significantly at Lise. He was referring to her “healing.”
“It’s too early, of course, to speak of that. Relief is not complete cure,
and may proceed from different causes. But if there has been any healing,
it is by no power but God’s will. It’s all from God. Visit me, Father,” he
added to the monk. “It’s not often I can see visitors. I am ill, and I
know that my days are numbered.”
“Oh, no, no! God will not take you from us. You will live a long, long
time yet,” cried the lady. “And in what way are you ill? You look so well,
so gay and happy.”
“I am extraordinarily better to‐day. But I know that it’s only for a
moment. I understand my disease now thoroughly. If I seem so happy to you,
you could never say anything that would please me so much. For men are
made for happiness, and any one who is completely happy has a right to say
to himself, ‘I am doing God’s will on earth.’ All the righteous, all the
saints, all the holy martyrs were happy.”
“Oh, how you speak! What bold and lofty words!” cried the lady. “You seem
to pierce with your words. And yet—happiness, happiness—where is it? Who
can say of himself that he is happy? Oh, since you have been so good as to
let us see you once more to‐day, let me tell you what I could not utter
last time, what I dared not say, all I am suffering and have been for so
long! I am suffering! Forgive me! I am suffering!”
And in a rush of fervent feeling she clasped her hands before him.
“From what specially?”
“I suffer ... from lack of faith.”
“Lack of faith in God?”
“Oh, no, no! I dare not even think of that. But the future life—it is such
an enigma! And no one, no one can solve it. Listen! You are a healer, you
are deeply versed in the human soul, and of course I dare not expect you
to believe me entirely, but I assure you on my word of honor that I am not
speaking lightly now. The thought of the life beyond the grave distracts
me to anguish, to terror. And I don’t know to whom to appeal, and have not
dared to all my life. And now I am so bold as to ask you. Oh, God! What
will you think of me now?”
She clasped her hands.
“Don’t distress yourself about my opinion of you,” said the elder. “I
quite believe in the sincerity of your suffering.”
“Oh, how thankful I am to you! You see, I shut my eyes and ask myself if
every one has faith, where did it come from? And then they do say that it
all comes from terror at the menacing phenomena of nature, and that none
of it’s real. And I say to myself, ‘What if I’ve been believing all my
life, and when I come to die there’s nothing but the burdocks growing on
my grave?’ as I read in some author. It’s awful! How—how can I get back my
faith? But I only believed when I was a little child, mechanically,
without thinking of anything. How, how is one to prove it? I have come now
to lay my soul before you and to ask you about it. If I let this chance
slip, no one all my life will answer me. How can I prove it? How can I
convince myself? Oh, how unhappy I am! I stand and look about me and see
that scarcely any one else cares; no one troubles his head about it, and
I’m the only one who can’t stand it. It’s deadly—deadly!”
“No doubt. But there’s no proving it, though you can be convinced of it.”
“How?”
“By the experience of active love. Strive to love your neighbor actively
and indefatigably. In as far as you advance in love you will grow surer of
the reality of God and of the immortality of your soul. If you attain to
perfect self‐forgetfulness in the love of your neighbor, then you will
believe without doubt, and no doubt can possibly enter your soul. This has
been tried. This is certain.”
“In active love? There’s another question—and such a question! You see, I
so love humanity that—would you believe it?—I often dream of forsaking all
that I have, leaving Lise, and becoming a sister of mercy. I close my eyes
and think and dream, and at that moment I feel full of strength to
overcome all obstacles. No wounds, no festering sores could at that moment
frighten me. I would bind them up and wash them with my own hands. I would
nurse the afflicted. I would be ready to kiss such wounds.”
“It is much, and well that your mind is full of such dreams and not
others. Sometime, unawares, you may do a good deed in reality.”
“Yes. But could I endure such a life for long?” the lady went on
fervently, almost frantically. “That’s the chief question—that’s my most
agonizing question. I shut my eyes and ask myself, ‘Would you persevere
long on that path? And if the patient whose wounds you are washing did not
meet you with gratitude, but worried you with his whims, without valuing
or remarking your charitable services, began abusing you and rudely
commanding you, and complaining to the superior authorities of you (which
often happens when people are in great suffering)—what then? Would you
persevere in your love, or not?’ And do you know, I came with horror to
the conclusion that, if anything could dissipate my love to humanity, it
would be ingratitude. In short, I am a hired servant, I expect my payment
at once—that is, praise, and the repayment of love with love. Otherwise I
am incapable of loving any one.”
She was in a very paroxysm of self‐castigation, and, concluding, she
looked with defiant resolution at the elder.
“It’s just the same story as a doctor once told me,” observed the elder.
“He was a man getting on in years, and undoubtedly clever. He spoke as
frankly as you, though in jest, in bitter jest. ‘I love humanity,’ he
said, ‘but I wonder at myself. The more I love humanity in general, the
less I love man in particular. In my dreams,’ he said, ‘I have often come
to making enthusiastic schemes for the service of humanity, and perhaps I
might actually have faced crucifixion if it had been suddenly necessary;
and yet I am incapable of living in the same room with any one for two
days together, as I know by experience. As soon as any one is near me, his
personality disturbs my self‐complacency and restricts my freedom. In
twenty‐four hours I begin to hate the best of men: one because he’s too
long over his dinner; another because he has a cold and keeps on blowing
his nose. I become hostile to people the moment they come close to me. But
it has always happened that the more I detest men individually the more
ardent becomes my love for humanity.’ ”
“But what’s to be done? What can one do in such a case? Must one despair?”
“No. It is enough that you are distressed at it. Do what you can, and it
will be reckoned unto you. Much is done already in you since you can so
deeply and sincerely know yourself. If you have been talking to me so
sincerely, simply to gain approbation for your frankness, as you did from
me just now, then of course you will not attain to anything in the
achievement of real love; it will all get no further than dreams, and your
whole life will slip away like a phantom. In that case you will naturally
cease to think of the future life too, and will of yourself grow calmer
after a fashion in the end.”
“You have crushed me! Only now, as you speak, I understand that I was
really only seeking your approbation for my sincerity when I told you I
could not endure ingratitude. You have revealed me to myself. You have
seen through me and explained me to myself!”
“Are you speaking the truth? Well, now, after such a confession, I believe
that you are sincere and good at heart. If you do not attain happiness,
always remember that you are on the right road, and try not to leave it.
Above all, avoid falsehood, every kind of falsehood, especially falseness
to yourself. Watch over your own deceitfulness and look into it every
hour, every minute. Avoid being scornful, both to others and to yourself.
What seems to you bad within you will grow purer from the very fact of
your observing it in yourself. Avoid fear, too, though fear is only the
consequence of every sort of falsehood. Never be frightened at your own
faint‐heartedness in attaining love. Don’t be frightened overmuch even at
your evil actions. I am sorry I can say nothing more consoling to you, for
love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams.
Love in dreams is greedy for immediate action, rapidly performed and in
the sight of all. Men will even give their lives if only the ordeal does
not last long but is soon over, with all looking on and applauding as
though on the stage. But active love is labor and fortitude, and for some
people too, perhaps, a complete science. But I predict that just when you
see with horror that in spite of all your efforts you are getting farther
from your goal instead of nearer to it—at that very moment I predict that
you will reach it and behold clearly the miraculous power of the Lord who
has been all the time loving and mysteriously guiding you. Forgive me for
not being able to stay longer with you. They are waiting for me. Good‐by.”
The lady was weeping.
“Lise, Lise! Bless her—bless her!” she cried, starting up suddenly.
“She does not deserve to be loved. I have seen her naughtiness all along,”
the elder said jestingly. “Why have you been laughing at Alexey?”
Lise had in fact been occupied in mocking at him all the time. She had
noticed before that Alyosha was shy and tried not to look at her, and she
found this extremely amusing. She waited intently to catch his eye.
Alyosha, unable to endure her persistent stare, was irresistibly and
suddenly drawn to glance at her, and at once she smiled triumphantly in
his face. Alyosha was even more disconcerted and vexed. At last he turned
away from her altogether and hid behind the elder’s back. After a few
minutes, drawn by the same irresistible force, he turned again to see
whether he was being looked at or not, and found Lise almost hanging out
of her chair to peep sideways at him, eagerly waiting for him to look.
Catching his eye, she laughed so that the elder could not help saying,
“Why do you make fun of him like that, naughty girl?”
Lise suddenly and quite unexpectedly blushed. Her eyes flashed and her
face became quite serious. She began speaking quickly and nervously in a
warm and resentful voice:
“Why has he forgotten everything, then? He used to carry me about when I
was little. We used to play together. He used to come to teach me to read,
do you know. Two years ago, when he went away, he said that he would never
forget me, that we were friends for ever, for ever, for ever! And now he’s
afraid of me all at once. Am I going to eat him? Why doesn’t he want to
come near me? Why doesn’t he talk? Why won’t he come and see us? It’s not
that you won’t let him. We know that he goes everywhere. It’s not good
manners for me to invite him. He ought to have thought of it first, if he
hasn’t forgotten me. No, now he’s saving his soul! Why have you put that
long gown on him? If he runs he’ll fall.”
And suddenly she hid her face in her hand and went off into irresistible,
prolonged, nervous, inaudible laughter. The elder listened to her with a
smile, and blessed her tenderly. As she kissed his hand she suddenly
pressed it to her eyes and began crying.
“Don’t be angry with me. I’m silly and good for nothing ... and perhaps
Alyosha’s right, quite right, in not wanting to come and see such a
ridiculous girl.”
“I will certainly send him,” said the elder.
Chapter V. So Be It! So Be It!
The elder’s absence from his cell had lasted for about twenty‐five
minutes. It was more than half‐past twelve, but Dmitri, on whose account
they had all met there, had still not appeared. But he seemed almost to be
forgotten, and when the elder entered the cell again, he found his guests
engaged in eager conversation. Ivan and the two monks took the leading
share in it. Miüsov, too, was trying to take a part, and apparently very
eagerly, in the conversation. But he was unsuccessful in this also. He was
evidently in the background, and his remarks were treated with neglect,
which increased his irritability. He had had intellectual encounters with
Ivan before and he could not endure a certain carelessness Ivan showed
him.
“Hitherto at least I have stood in the front ranks of all that is
progressive in Europe, and here the new generation positively ignores us,”
he thought.
Fyodor Pavlovitch, who had given his word to sit still and be quiet, had
actually been quiet for some time, but he watched his neighbor Miüsov with
an ironical little smile, obviously enjoying his discomfiture. He had been
waiting for some time to pay off old scores, and now he could not let the
opportunity slip. Bending over his shoulder he began teasing him again in
a whisper.
“Why didn’t you go away just now, after the ‘courteously kissing’? Why did
you consent to remain in such unseemly company? It was because you felt
insulted and aggrieved, and you remained to vindicate yourself by showing
off your intelligence. Now you won’t go till you’ve displayed your
intellect to them.”
“You again?... On the contrary, I’m just going.”
“You’ll be the last, the last of all to go!” Fyodor Pavlovitch delivered
him another thrust, almost at the moment of Father Zossima’s return.
The discussion died down for a moment, but the elder, seating himself in
his former place, looked at them all as though cordially inviting them to
go on. Alyosha, who knew every expression of his face, saw that he was
fearfully exhausted and making a great effort. Of late he had been liable
to fainting fits from exhaustion. His face had the pallor that was common
before such attacks, and his lips were white. But he evidently did not
want to break up the party. He seemed to have some special object of his
own in keeping them. What object? Alyosha watched him intently.
“We are discussing this gentleman’s most interesting article,” said Father
Iosif, the librarian, addressing the elder, and indicating Ivan. “He
brings forward much that is new, but I think the argument cuts both ways.
It is an article written in answer to a book by an ecclesiastical
authority on the question of the ecclesiastical court, and the scope of
its jurisdiction.”
“I’m sorry I have not read your article, but I’ve heard of it,” said the
elder, looking keenly and intently at Ivan.
“He takes up a most interesting position,” continued the Father Librarian.
“As far as Church jurisdiction is concerned he is apparently quite opposed
to the separation of Church from State.”
“That’s interesting. But in what sense?” Father Zossima asked Ivan.
The latter, at last, answered him, not condescendingly, as Alyosha had
feared, but with modesty and reserve, with evident goodwill and apparently
without the slightest _arrière‐pensée_.
“I start from the position that this confusion of elements, that is, of
the essential principles of Church and State, will, of course, go on for
ever, in spite of the fact that it is impossible for them to mingle, and
that the confusion of these elements cannot lead to any consistent or even
normal results, for there is falsity at the very foundation of it.
Compromise between the Church and State in such questions as, for
instance, jurisdiction, is, to my thinking, impossible in any real sense.
My clerical opponent maintains that the Church holds a precise and defined
position in the State. I maintain, on the contrary, that the Church ought
to include the whole State, and not simply to occupy a corner in it, and,
if this is, for some reason, impossible at present, then it ought, in
reality, to be set up as the direct and chief aim of the future
development of Christian society!”
“Perfectly true,” Father Païssy, the silent and learned monk, assented
with fervor and decision.
“The purest Ultramontanism!” cried Miüsov impatiently, crossing and
recrossing his legs.
“Oh, well, we have no mountains,” cried Father Iosif, and turning to the
elder he continued: “Observe the answer he makes to the following
‘fundamental and essential’ propositions of his opponent, who is, you must
note, an ecclesiastic. First, that ‘no social organization can or ought to
arrogate to itself power to dispose of the civic and political rights of
its members.’ Secondly, that ‘criminal and civil jurisdiction ought not to
belong to the Church, and is inconsistent with its nature, both as a
divine institution and as an organization of men for religious objects,’
and, finally, in the third place, ‘the Church is a kingdom not of this
world.’ ”
“A most unworthy play upon words for an ecclesiastic!” Father Païssy could
not refrain from breaking in again. “I have read the book which you have
answered,” he added, addressing Ivan, “and was astounded at the words ‘the
Church is a kingdom not of this world.’ If it is not of this world, then
it cannot exist on earth at all. In the Gospel, the words ‘not of this
world’ are not used in that sense. To play with such words is
indefensible. Our Lord Jesus Christ came to set up the Church upon earth.
The Kingdom of Heaven, of course, is not of this world, but in Heaven; but
it is only entered through the Church which has been founded and
established upon earth. And so a frivolous play upon words in such a
connection is unpardonable and improper. The Church is, in truth, a
kingdom and ordained to rule, and in the end must undoubtedly become the
kingdom ruling over all the earth. For that we have the divine promise.”
He ceased speaking suddenly, as though checking himself. After listening
attentively and respectfully Ivan went on, addressing the elder with
perfect composure and as before with ready cordiality:
“The whole point of my article lies in the fact that during the first
three centuries Christianity only existed on earth in the Church and was
nothing but the Church. When the pagan Roman Empire desired to become
Christian, it inevitably happened that, by becoming Christian, it included
the Church but remained a pagan State in very many of its departments. In
reality this was bound to happen. But Rome as a State retained too much of
the pagan civilization and culture, as, for example, in the very objects
and fundamental principles of the State. The Christian Church entering
into the State could, of course, surrender no part of its fundamental
principles—the rock on which it stands—and could pursue no other aims than
those which have been ordained and revealed by God Himself, and among them
that of drawing the whole world, and therefore the ancient pagan State
itself, into the Church. In that way (that is, with a view to the future)
it is not the Church that should seek a definite position in the State,
like ‘every social organization,’ or as ‘an organization of men for
religious purposes’ (as my opponent calls the Church), but, on the
contrary, every earthly State should be, in the end, completely
transformed into the Church and should become nothing else but a Church,
rejecting every purpose incongruous with the aims of the Church. All this
will not degrade it in any way or take from its honor and glory as a great
State, nor from the glory of its rulers, but only turns it from a false,
still pagan, and mistaken path to the true and rightful path, which alone
leads to the eternal goal. This is why the author of the book _On the
Foundations of Church Jurisdiction_ would have judged correctly if, in
seeking and laying down those foundations, he had looked upon them as a
temporary compromise inevitable in our sinful and imperfect days. But as
soon as the author ventures to declare that the foundations which he
predicates now, part of which Father Iosif just enumerated, are the
permanent, essential, and eternal foundations, he is going directly
against the Church and its sacred and eternal vocation. That is the gist
of my article.”
“That is, in brief,” Father Païssy began again, laying stress on each
word, “according to certain theories only too clearly formulated in the
nineteenth century, the Church ought to be transformed into the State, as
though this would be an advance from a lower to a higher form, so as to
disappear into it, making way for science, for the spirit of the age, and
civilization. And if the Church resists and is unwilling, some corner will
be set apart for her in the State, and even that under control—and this
will be so everywhere in all modern European countries. But Russian hopes
and conceptions demand not that the Church should pass as from a lower
into a higher type into the State, but, on the contrary, that the State
should end by being worthy to become only the Church and nothing else. So
be it! So be it!”
“Well, I confess you’ve reassured me somewhat,” Miüsov said smiling, again
crossing his legs. “So far as I understand, then, the realization of such
an ideal is infinitely remote, at the second coming of Christ. That’s as
you please. It’s a beautiful Utopian dream of the abolition of war,
diplomacy, banks, and so on—something after the fashion of socialism,
indeed. But I imagined that it was all meant seriously, and that the
Church might be _now_ going to try criminals, and sentence them to
beating, prison, and even death.”
“But if there were none but the ecclesiastical court, the Church would not
even now sentence a criminal to prison or to death. Crime and the way of
regarding it would inevitably change, not all at once of course, but
fairly soon,” Ivan replied calmly, without flinching.
“Are you serious?” Miüsov glanced keenly at him.
“If everything became the Church, the Church would exclude all the
criminal and disobedient, and would not cut off their heads,” Ivan went
on. “I ask you, what would become of the excluded? He would be cut off
then not only from men, as now, but from Christ. By his crime he would
have transgressed not only against men but against the Church of Christ.
This is so even now, of course, strictly speaking, but it is not clearly
enunciated, and very, very often the criminal of to‐day compromises with
his conscience: ‘I steal,’ he says, ‘but I don’t go against the Church.
I’m not an enemy of Christ.’ That’s what the criminal of to‐day is
continually saying to himself, but when the Church takes the place of the
State it will be difficult for him, in opposition to the Church all over
the world, to say: ‘All men are mistaken, all in error, all mankind are
the false Church. I, a thief and murderer, am the only true Christian
Church.’ It will be very difficult to say this to himself; it requires a
rare combination of unusual circumstances. Now, on the other side, take
the Church’s own view of crime: is it not bound to renounce the present
almost pagan attitude, and to change from a mechanical cutting off of its
tainted member for the preservation of society, as at present, into
completely and honestly adopting the idea of the regeneration of the man,
of his reformation and salvation?”
“What do you mean? I fail to understand again,” Miüsov interrupted. “Some
sort of dream again. Something shapeless and even incomprehensible. What
is excommunication? What sort of exclusion? I suspect you are simply
amusing yourself, Ivan Fyodorovitch.”
“Yes, but you know, in reality it is so now,” said the elder suddenly, and
all turned to him at once. “If it were not for the Church of Christ there
would be nothing to restrain the criminal from evil‐doing, no real
chastisement for it afterwards; none, that is, but the mechanical
punishment spoken of just now, which in the majority of cases only
embitters the heart; and not the real punishment, the only effectual one,
the only deterrent and softening one, which lies in the recognition of sin
by conscience.”
“How is that, may one inquire?” asked Miüsov, with lively curiosity.
“Why,” began the elder, “all these sentences to exile with hard labor, and
formerly with flogging also, reform no one, and what’s more, deter hardly
a single criminal, and the number of crimes does not diminish but is
continually on the increase. You must admit that. Consequently the
security of society is not preserved, for, although the obnoxious member
is mechanically cut off and sent far away out of sight, another criminal
always comes to take his place at once, and often two of them. If anything
does preserve society, even in our time, and does regenerate and transform
the criminal, it is only the law of Christ speaking in his conscience. It
is only by recognizing his wrong‐doing as a son of a Christian
society—that is, of the Church—that he recognizes his sin against
society—that is, against the Church. So that it is only against the
Church, and not against the State, that the criminal of to‐day can
recognize that he has sinned. If society, as a Church, had jurisdiction,
then it would know when to bring back from exclusion and to reunite to
itself. Now the Church having no real jurisdiction, but only the power of
moral condemnation, withdraws of her own accord from punishing the
criminal actively. She does not excommunicate him but simply persists in
motherly exhortation of him. What is more, the Church even tries to
preserve all Christian communion with the criminal. She admits him to
church services, to the holy sacrament, gives him alms, and treats him
more as a captive than as a convict. And what would become of the
criminal, O Lord, if even the Christian society—that is, the Church—were
to reject him even as the civil law rejects him and cuts him off? What
would become of him if the Church punished him with her excommunication as
the direct consequence of the secular law? There could be no more terrible
despair, at least for a Russian criminal, for Russian criminals still have
faith. Though, who knows, perhaps then a fearful thing would happen,
perhaps the despairing heart of the criminal would lose its faith and then
what would become of him? But the Church, like a tender, loving mother,
holds aloof from active punishment herself, as the sinner is too severely
punished already by the civil law, and there must be at least some one to
have pity on him. The Church holds aloof, above all, because its judgment
is the only one that contains the truth, and therefore cannot practically
and morally be united to any other judgment even as a temporary
compromise. She can enter into no compact about that. The foreign
criminal, they say, rarely repents, for the very doctrines of to‐day
confirm him in the idea that his crime is not a crime, but only a reaction
against an unjustly oppressive force. Society cuts him off completely by a
force that triumphs over him mechanically and (so at least they say of
themselves in Europe) accompanies this exclusion with hatred,
forgetfulness, and the most profound indifference as to the ultimate fate
of the erring brother. In this way, it all takes place without the
compassionate intervention of the Church, for in many cases there are no
churches there at all, for though ecclesiastics and splendid church
buildings remain, the churches themselves have long ago striven to pass
from Church into State and to disappear in it completely. So it seems at
least in Lutheran countries. As for Rome, it was proclaimed a State
instead of a Church a thousand years ago. And so the criminal is no longer
conscious of being a member of the Church and sinks into despair. If he
returns to society, often it is with such hatred that society itself
instinctively cuts him off. You can judge for yourself how it must end. In
many cases it would seem to be the same with us, but the difference is
that besides the established law courts we have the Church too, which
always keeps up relations with the criminal as a dear and still precious
son. And besides that, there is still preserved, though only in thought,
the judgment of the Church, which though no longer existing in practice is
still living as a dream for the future, and is, no doubt, instinctively
recognized by the criminal in his soul. What was said here just now is
true too, that is, that if the jurisdiction of the Church were introduced
in practice in its full force, that is, if the whole of the society were
changed into the Church, not only the judgment of the Church would have
influence on the reformation of the criminal such as it never has now, but
possibly also the crimes themselves would be incredibly diminished. And
there can be no doubt that the Church would look upon the criminal and the
crime of the future in many cases quite differently and would succeed in
restoring the excluded, in restraining those who plan evil, and in
regenerating the fallen. It is true,” said Father Zossima, with a smile,
“the Christian society now is not ready and is only resting on some seven
righteous men, but as they are never lacking, it will continue still
unshaken in expectation of its complete transformation from a society
almost heathen in character into a single universal and all‐powerful
Church. So be it, so be it! Even though at the end of the ages, for it is
ordained to come to pass! And there is no need to be troubled about times
and seasons, for the secret of the times and seasons is in the wisdom of
God, in His foresight, and His love. And what in human reckoning seems
still afar off, may by the Divine ordinance be close at hand, on the eve
of its appearance. And so be it, so be it!”
“So be it, so be it!” Father Païssy repeated austerely and reverently.
“Strange, extremely strange!” Miüsov pronounced, not so much with heat as
with latent indignation.
“What strikes you as so strange?” Father Iosif inquired cautiously.
“Why, it’s beyond anything!” cried Miüsov, suddenly breaking out; “the
State is eliminated and the Church is raised to the position of the State.
It’s not simply Ultramontanism, it’s arch‐Ultramontanism! It’s beyond the
dreams of Pope Gregory the Seventh!”
“You are completely misunderstanding it,” said Father Païssy sternly.
“Understand, the Church is not to be transformed into the State. That is
Rome and its dream. That is the third temptation of the devil. On the
contrary, the State is transformed into the Church, will ascend and become
a Church over the whole world—which is the complete opposite of
Ultramontanism and Rome, and your interpretation, and is only the glorious
destiny ordained for the Orthodox Church. This star will arise in the
east!”
Miüsov was significantly silent. His whole figure expressed extraordinary
personal dignity. A supercilious and condescending smile played on his
lips. Alyosha watched it all with a throbbing heart. The whole
conversation stirred him profoundly. He glanced casually at Rakitin, who
was standing immovable in his place by the door listening and watching
intently though with downcast eyes. But from the color in his cheeks
Alyosha guessed that Rakitin was probably no less excited, and he knew
what caused his excitement.
“Allow me to tell you one little anecdote, gentlemen,” Miüsov said
impressively, with a peculiarly majestic air. “Some years ago, soon after
the _coup d’état_ of December, I happened to be calling in Paris on an
extremely influential personage in the Government, and I met a very
interesting man in his house. This individual was not precisely a
detective but was a sort of superintendent of a whole regiment of
political detectives—a rather powerful position in its own way. I was
prompted by curiosity to seize the opportunity of conversation with him.
And as he had not come as a visitor but as a subordinate official bringing
a special report, and as he saw the reception given me by his chief, he
deigned to speak with some openness, to a certain extent only, of course.
He was rather courteous than open, as Frenchmen know how to be courteous,
especially to a foreigner. But I thoroughly understood him. The subject
was the socialist revolutionaries who were at that time persecuted. I will
quote only one most curious remark dropped by this person. ‘We are not
particularly afraid,’ said he, ‘of all these socialists, anarchists,
infidels, and revolutionists; we keep watch on them and know all their
goings on. But there are a few peculiar men among them who believe in God
and are Christians, but at the same time are socialists. These are the
people we are most afraid of. They are dreadful people! The socialist who
is a Christian is more to be dreaded than a socialist who is an atheist.’
The words struck me at the time, and now they have suddenly come back to
me here, gentlemen.”
“You apply them to us, and look upon us as socialists?” Father Païssy
asked directly, without beating about the bush.
But before Pyotr Alexandrovitch could think what to answer, the door
opened, and the guest so long expected, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, came in. They
had, in fact, given up expecting him, and his sudden appearance caused
some surprise for a moment.
Chapter VI. Why Is Such A Man Alive?
Dmitri Fyodorovitch, a young man of eight and twenty, of medium height and
agreeable countenance, looked older than his years. He was muscular, and
showed signs of considerable physical strength. Yet there was something
not healthy in his face. It was rather thin, his cheeks were hollow, and
there was an unhealthy sallowness in their color. His rather large,
prominent, dark eyes had an expression of firm determination, and yet
there was a vague look in them, too. Even when he was excited and talking
irritably, his eyes somehow did not follow his mood, but betrayed
something else, sometimes quite incongruous with what was passing. “It’s
hard to tell what he’s thinking,” those who talked to him sometimes
declared. People who saw something pensive and sullen in his eyes were
startled by his sudden laugh, which bore witness to mirthful and light‐
hearted thoughts at the very time when his eyes were so gloomy. A certain
strained look in his face was easy to understand at this moment. Every one
knew, or had heard of, the extremely restless and dissipated life which he
had been leading of late, as well as of the violent anger to which he had
been roused in his quarrels with his father. There were several stories
current in the town about it. It is true that he was irascible by nature,
“of an unstable and unbalanced mind,” as our justice of the peace,
Katchalnikov, happily described him.
He was stylishly and irreproachably dressed in a carefully buttoned frock‐
coat. He wore black gloves and carried a top‐hat. Having only lately left
the army, he still had mustaches and no beard. His dark brown hair was
cropped short, and combed forward on his temples. He had the long,
determined stride of a military man. He stood still for a moment on the
threshold, and glancing at the whole party went straight up to the elder,
guessing him to be their host. He made him a low bow, and asked his
blessing. Father Zossima, rising in his chair, blessed him. Dmitri kissed
his hand respectfully, and with intense feeling, almost anger, he said:
“Be so generous as to forgive me for having kept you waiting so long, but
Smerdyakov, the valet sent me by my father, in reply to my inquiries, told
me twice over that the appointment was for one. Now I suddenly learn—”
“Don’t disturb yourself,” interposed the elder. “No matter. You are a
little late. It’s of no consequence....”
“I’m extremely obliged to you, and expected no less from your goodness.”
Saying this, Dmitri bowed once more. Then, turning suddenly towards his
father, made him, too, a similarly low and respectful bow. He had
evidently considered it beforehand, and made this bow in all seriousness,
thinking it his duty to show his respect and good intentions.
Although Fyodor Pavlovitch was taken unawares, he was equal to the
occasion. In response to Dmitri’s bow he jumped up from his chair and made
his son a bow as low in return. His face was suddenly solemn and
impressive, which gave him a positively malignant look. Dmitri bowed
generally to all present, and without a word walked to the window with his
long, resolute stride, sat down on the only empty chair, near Father
Païssy, and, bending forward, prepared to listen to the conversation he
had interrupted.
Dmitri’s entrance had taken no more than two minutes, and the conversation
was resumed. But this time Miüsov thought it unnecessary to reply to
Father Païssy’s persistent and almost irritable question.
“Allow me to withdraw from this discussion,” he observed with a certain
well‐bred nonchalance. “It’s a subtle question, too. Here Ivan
Fyodorovitch is smiling at us. He must have something interesting to say
about that also. Ask him.”
“Nothing special, except one little remark,” Ivan replied at once.
“European Liberals in general, and even our liberal dilettanti, often mix
up the final results of socialism with those of Christianity. This wild
notion is, of course, a characteristic feature. But it’s not only Liberals
and dilettanti who mix up socialism and Christianity, but, in many cases,
it appears, the police—the foreign police, of course—do the same. Your
Paris anecdote is rather to the point, Pyotr Alexandrovitch.”
“I ask your permission to drop this subject altogether,” Miüsov repeated.
“I will tell you instead, gentlemen, another interesting and rather
characteristic anecdote of Ivan Fyodorovitch himself. Only five days ago,
in a gathering here, principally of ladies, he solemnly declared in
argument that there was nothing in the whole world to make men love their
neighbors. That there was no law of nature that man should love mankind,
and that, if there had been any love on earth hitherto, it was not owing
to a natural law, but simply because men have believed in immortality.
Ivan Fyodorovitch added in parenthesis that the whole natural law lies in
that faith, and that if you were to destroy in mankind the belief in
immortality, not only love but every living force maintaining the life of
the world would at once be dried up. Moreover, nothing then would be
immoral, everything would be lawful, even cannibalism. That’s not all. He
ended by asserting that for every individual, like ourselves, who does not
believe in God or immortality, the moral law of nature must immediately be
changed into the exact contrary of the former religious law, and that
egoism, even to crime, must become not only lawful but even recognized as
the inevitable, the most rational, even honorable outcome of his position.
From this paradox, gentlemen, you can judge of the rest of our eccentric
and paradoxical friend Ivan Fyodorovitch’s theories.”
“Excuse me,” Dmitri cried suddenly; “if I’ve heard aright, crime must not
only be permitted but even recognized as the inevitable and the most
rational outcome of his position for every infidel! Is that so or not?”
“Quite so,” said Father Païssy.
“I’ll remember it.”
Having uttered these words Dmitri ceased speaking as suddenly as he had
begun. Every one looked at him with curiosity.
“Is that really your conviction as to the consequences of the
disappearance of the faith in immortality?” the elder asked Ivan suddenly.
“Yes. That was my contention. There is no virtue if there is no
immortality.”
“You are blessed in believing that, or else most unhappy.”
“Why unhappy?” Ivan asked smiling.
“Because, in all probability you don’t believe yourself in the immortality
of your soul, nor in what you have written yourself in your article on
Church jurisdiction.”
“Perhaps you are right! ... But I wasn’t altogether joking,” Ivan suddenly
and strangely confessed, flushing quickly.
“You were not altogether joking. That’s true. The question is still
fretting your heart, and not answered. But the martyr likes sometimes to
divert himself with his despair, as it were driven to it by despair
itself. Meanwhile, in your despair, you, too, divert yourself with
magazine articles, and discussions in society, though you don’t believe
your own arguments, and with an aching heart mock at them inwardly....
That question you have not answered, and it is your great grief, for it
clamors for an answer.”
“But can it be answered by me? Answered in the affirmative?” Ivan went on
asking strangely, still looking at the elder with the same inexplicable
smile.
“If it can’t be decided in the affirmative, it will never be decided in
the negative. You know that that is the peculiarity of your heart, and all
its suffering is due to it. But thank the Creator who has given you a
lofty heart capable of such suffering; of thinking and seeking higher
things, for our dwelling is in the heavens. God grant that your heart will
attain the answer on earth, and may God bless your path.”
The elder raised his hand and would have made the sign of the cross over
Ivan from where he stood. But the latter rose from his seat, went up to
him, received his blessing, and kissing his hand went back to his place in
silence. His face looked firm and earnest. This action and all the
preceding conversation, which was so surprising from Ivan, impressed every
one by its strangeness and a certain solemnity, so that all were silent
for a moment, and there was a look almost of apprehension in Alyosha’s
face. But Miüsov suddenly shrugged his shoulders. And at the same moment
Fyodor Pavlovitch jumped up from his seat.
“Most pious and holy elder,” he cried, pointing to Ivan, “that is my son,
flesh of my flesh, the dearest of my flesh! He is my most dutiful Karl
Moor, so to speak, while this son who has just come in, Dmitri, against
whom I am seeking justice from you, is the undutiful Franz Moor—they are
both out of Schiller’s _Robbers_, and so I am the reigning Count von Moor!
Judge and save us! We need not only your prayers but your prophecies!”
“Speak without buffoonery, and don’t begin by insulting the members of
your family,” answered the elder, in a faint, exhausted voice. He was
obviously getting more and more fatigued, and his strength was failing.
“An unseemly farce which I foresaw when I came here!” cried Dmitri
indignantly. He too leapt up. “Forgive it, reverend Father,” he added,
addressing the elder. “I am not a cultivated man, and I don’t even know
how to address you properly, but you have been deceived and you have been
too good‐natured in letting us meet here. All my father wants is a
scandal. Why he wants it only he can tell. He always has some motive. But
I believe I know why—”
“They all blame me, all of them!” cried Fyodor Pavlovitch in his turn.
“Pyotr Alexandrovitch here blames me too. You have been blaming me, Pyotr
Alexandrovitch, you have!” he turned suddenly to Miüsov, although the
latter was not dreaming of interrupting him. “They all accuse me of having
hidden the children’s money in my boots, and cheated them, but isn’t there
a court of law? There they will reckon out for you, Dmitri Fyodorovitch,
from your notes, your letters, and your agreements, how much money you
had, how much you have spent, and how much you have left. Why does Pyotr
Alexandrovitch refuse to pass judgment? Dmitri is not a stranger to him.
Because they are all against me, while Dmitri Fyodorovitch is in debt to
me, and not a little, but some thousands of which I have documentary
proof. The whole town is echoing with his debaucheries. And where he was
stationed before, he several times spent a thousand or two for the
seduction of some respectable girl; we know all about that, Dmitri
Fyodorovitch, in its most secret details. I’ll prove it.... Would you
believe it, holy Father, he has captivated the heart of the most honorable
of young ladies of good family and fortune, daughter of a gallant colonel,
formerly his superior officer, who had received many honors and had the
Anna Order on his breast. He compromised the girl by his promise of
marriage, now she is an orphan and here; she is betrothed to him, yet
before her very eyes he is dancing attendance on a certain enchantress.
And although this enchantress has lived in, so to speak, civil marriage
with a respectable man, yet she is of an independent character, an
unapproachable fortress for everybody, just like a legal wife—for she is
virtuous, yes, holy Fathers, she is virtuous. Dmitri Fyodorovitch wants to
open this fortress with a golden key, and that’s why he is insolent to me
now, trying to get money from me, though he has wasted thousands on this
enchantress already. He’s continually borrowing money for the purpose.
From whom do you think? Shall I say, Mitya?”
“Be silent!” cried Dmitri, “wait till I’m gone. Don’t dare in my presence
to asperse the good name of an honorable girl! That you should utter a
word about her is an outrage, and I won’t permit it!”
He was breathless.
“Mitya! Mitya!” cried Fyodor Pavlovitch hysterically, squeezing out a
tear. “And is your father’s blessing nothing to you? If I curse you, what
then?”
“Shameless hypocrite!” exclaimed Dmitri furiously.
“He says that to his father! his father! What would he be with others?
Gentlemen, only fancy; there’s a poor but honorable man living here,
burdened with a numerous family, a captain who got into trouble and was
discharged from the army, but not publicly, not by court‐martial, with no
slur on his honor. And three weeks ago, Dmitri seized him by the beard in
a tavern, dragged him out into the street and beat him publicly, and all
because he is an agent in a little business of mine.”
“It’s all a lie! Outwardly it’s the truth, but inwardly a lie!” Dmitri was
trembling with rage. “Father, I don’t justify my action. Yes, I confess it
publicly, I behaved like a brute to that captain, and I regret it now, and
I’m disgusted with myself for my brutal rage. But this captain, this agent
of yours, went to that lady whom you call an enchantress, and suggested to
her from you, that she should take I.O.U.’s of mine which were in your
possession, and should sue me for the money so as to get me into prison by
means of them, if I persisted in claiming an account from you of my
property. Now you reproach me for having a weakness for that lady when you
yourself incited her to captivate me! She told me so to my face.... She
told me the story and laughed at you.... You wanted to put me in prison
because you are jealous of me with her, because you’d begun to force your
attentions upon her; and I know all about that, too; she laughed at you
for that as well—you hear—she laughed at you as she described it. So here
you have this man, this father who reproaches his profligate son!
Gentlemen, forgive my anger, but I foresaw that this crafty old man would
only bring you together to create a scandal. I had come to forgive him if
he held out his hand; to forgive him, and ask forgiveness! But as he has
just this minute insulted not only me, but an honorable young lady, for
whom I feel such reverence that I dare not take her name in vain, I have
made up my mind to show up his game, though he is my father....”
He could not go on. His eyes were glittering and he breathed with
difficulty. But every one in the cell was stirred. All except Father
Zossima got up from their seats uneasily. The monks looked austere but
waited for guidance from the elder. He sat still, pale, not from
excitement but from the weakness of disease. An imploring smile lighted up
his face; from time to time he raised his hand, as though to check the
storm, and, of course, a gesture from him would have been enough to end
the scene; but he seemed to be waiting for something and watched them
intently as though trying to make out something which was not perfectly
clear to him. At last Miüsov felt completely humiliated and disgraced.
“We are all to blame for this scandalous scene,” he said hotly. “But I did
not foresee it when I came, though I knew with whom I had to deal. This
must be stopped at once! Believe me, your reverence, I had no precise
knowledge of the details that have just come to light, I was unwilling to
believe them, and I learn for the first time.... A father is jealous of
his son’s relations with a woman of loose behavior and intrigues with the
creature to get his son into prison! This is the company in which I have
been forced to be present! I was deceived. I declare to you all that I was
as much deceived as any one.”
“Dmitri Fyodorovitch,” yelled Fyodor Pavlovitch suddenly, in an unnatural
voice, “if you were not my son I would challenge you this instant to a
duel ... with pistols, at three paces ... across a handkerchief,” he
ended, stamping with both feet.
With old liars who have been acting all their lives there are moments when
they enter so completely into their part that they tremble or shed tears
of emotion in earnest, although at that very moment, or a second later,
they are able to whisper to themselves, “You know you are lying, you
shameless old sinner! You’re acting now, in spite of your ‘holy’ wrath.”
Dmitri frowned painfully, and looked with unutterable contempt at his
father.
“I thought ... I thought,” he said, in a soft and, as it were, controlled
voice, “that I was coming to my native place with the angel of my heart,
my betrothed, to cherish his old age, and I find nothing but a depraved
profligate, a despicable clown!”
“A duel!” yelled the old wretch again, breathless and spluttering at each
syllable. “And you, Pyotr Alexandrovitch Miüsov, let me tell you that
there has never been in all your family a loftier, and more honest—you
hear—more honest woman than this ‘creature,’ as you have dared to call
her! And you, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, have abandoned your betrothed for that
‘creature,’ so you must yourself have thought that your betrothed couldn’t
hold a candle to her. That’s the woman called a ‘creature’!”
“Shameful!” broke from Father Iosif.
“Shameful and disgraceful!” Kalganov, flushing crimson, cried in a boyish
voice, trembling with emotion. He had been silent till that moment.
“Why is such a man alive?” Dmitri, beside himself with rage, growled in a
hollow voice, hunching up his shoulders till he looked almost deformed.
“Tell me, can he be allowed to go on defiling the earth?” He looked round
at every one and pointed at the old man. He spoke evenly and deliberately.
“Listen, listen, monks, to the parricide!” cried Fyodor Pavlovitch,
rushing up to Father Iosif. “That’s the answer to your ‘shameful!’ What is
shameful? That ‘creature,’ that ‘woman of loose behavior’ is perhaps
holier than you are yourselves, you monks who are seeking salvation! She
fell perhaps in her youth, ruined by her environment. But she loved much,
and Christ himself forgave the woman ‘who loved much.’ ”
“It was not for such love Christ forgave her,” broke impatiently from the
gentle Father Iosif.
“Yes, it was for such, monks, it was! You save your souls here, eating
cabbage, and think you are the righteous. You eat a gudgeon a day, and you
think you bribe God with gudgeon.”
“This is unendurable!” was heard on all sides in the cell.
But this unseemly scene was cut short in a most unexpected way. Father
Zossima rose suddenly from his seat. Almost distracted with anxiety for
the elder and every one else, Alyosha succeeded, however, in supporting
him by the arm. Father Zossima moved towards Dmitri and reaching him sank
on his knees before him. Alyosha thought that he had fallen from weakness,
but this was not so. The elder distinctly and deliberately bowed down at
Dmitri’s feet till his forehead touched the floor. Alyosha was so
astounded that he failed to assist him when he got up again. There was a
faint smile on his lips.
“Good‐by! Forgive me, all of you!” he said, bowing on all sides to his
guests.
Dmitri stood for a few moments in amazement. Bowing down to him—what did
it mean? Suddenly he cried aloud, “Oh, God!” hid his face in his hands,
and rushed out of the room. All the guests flocked out after him, in their
confusion not saying good‐by, or bowing to their host. Only the monks went
up to him again for a blessing.
“What did it mean, falling at his feet like that? Was it symbolic or
what?” said Fyodor Pavlovitch, suddenly quieted and trying to reopen
conversation without venturing to address anybody in particular. They were
all passing out of the precincts of the hermitage at the moment.
“I can’t answer for a madhouse and for madmen,” Miüsov answered at once
ill‐humoredly, “but I will spare myself your company, Fyodor Pavlovitch,
and, trust me, for ever. Where’s that monk?”
“That monk,” that is, the monk who had invited them to dine with the
Superior, did not keep them waiting. He met them as soon as they came down
the steps from the elder’s cell, as though he had been waiting for them
all the time.
“Reverend Father, kindly do me a favor. Convey my deepest respect to the
Father Superior, apologize for me, personally, Miüsov, to his reverence,
telling him that I deeply regret that owing to unforeseen circumstances I
am unable to have the honor of being present at his table, greatly as I
should desire to do so,” Miüsov said irritably to the monk.
“And that unforeseen circumstance, of course, is myself,” Fyodor
Pavlovitch cut in immediately. “Do you hear, Father; this gentleman
doesn’t want to remain in my company or else he’d come at once. And you
shall go, Pyotr Alexandrovitch, pray go to the Father Superior and good
appetite to you. I will decline, and not you. Home, home, I’ll eat at
home, I don’t feel equal to it here, Pyotr Alexandrovitch, my amiable
relative.”
“I am not your relative and never have been, you contemptible man!”
“I said it on purpose to madden you, because you always disclaim the
relationship, though you really are a relation in spite of your shuffling.
I’ll prove it by the church calendar. As for you, Ivan, stay if you like.
I’ll send the horses for you later. Propriety requires you to go to the
Father Superior, Pyotr Alexandrovitch, to apologize for the disturbance
we’ve been making....”
“Is it true that you are going home? Aren’t you lying?”
“Pyotr Alexandrovitch! How could I dare after what’s happened! Forgive me,
gentlemen, I was carried away! And upset besides! And, indeed, I am
ashamed. Gentlemen, one man has the heart of Alexander of Macedon and
another the heart of the little dog Fido. Mine is that of the little dog
Fido. I am ashamed! After such an escapade how can I go to dinner, to
gobble up the monastery’s sauces? I am ashamed, I can’t. You must excuse
me!”
“The devil only knows, what if he deceives us?” thought Miüsov, still
hesitating, and watching the retreating buffoon with distrustful eyes. The
latter turned round, and noticing that Miüsov was watching him, waved him
a kiss.
“Well, are you coming to the Superior?” Miüsov asked Ivan abruptly.
“Why not? I was especially invited yesterday.”
“Unfortunately I feel myself compelled to go to this confounded dinner,”
said Miüsov with the same irritability, regardless of the fact that the
monk was listening. “We ought, at least, to apologize for the disturbance,
and explain that it was not our doing. What do you think?”
“Yes, we must explain that it wasn’t our doing. Besides, father won’t be
there,” observed Ivan.
“Well, I should hope not! Confound this dinner!”
They all walked on, however. The monk listened in silence. On the road
through the copse he made one observation however—that the Father Superior
had been waiting a long time, and that they were more than half an hour
late. He received no answer. Miüsov looked with hatred at Ivan.
“Here he is, going to the dinner as though nothing had happened,” he
thought. “A brazen face, and the conscience of a Karamazov!”
Chapter VII. A Young Man Bent On A Career
Alyosha helped Father Zossima to his bedroom and seated him on his bed. It
was a little room furnished with the bare necessities. There was a narrow
iron bedstead, with a strip of felt for a mattress. In the corner, under
the ikons, was a reading‐desk with a cross and the Gospel lying on it. The
elder sank exhausted on the bed. His eyes glittered and he breathed hard.
He looked intently at Alyosha, as though considering something.
“Go, my dear boy, go. Porfiry is enough for me. Make haste, you are needed
there, go and wait at the Father Superior’s table.”
“Let me stay here,” Alyosha entreated.
“You are more needed there. There is no peace there. You will wait, and be
of service. If evil spirits rise up, repeat a prayer. And remember, my
son”—the elder liked to call him that—“this is not the place for you in
the future. When it is God’s will to call me, leave the monastery. Go away
for good.”
Alyosha started.
“What is it? This is not your place for the time. I bless you for great
service in the world. Yours will be a long pilgrimage. And you will have
to take a wife, too. You will have to bear _all_ before you come back.
There will be much to do. But I don’t doubt of you, and so I send you
forth. Christ is with you. Do not abandon Him and He will not abandon you.
You will see great sorrow, and in that sorrow you will be happy. This is
my last message to you: in sorrow seek happiness. Work, work unceasingly.
Remember my words, for although I shall talk with you again, not only my
days but my hours are numbered.”
Alyosha’s face again betrayed strong emotion. The corners of his mouth
quivered.
“What is it again?” Father Zossima asked, smiling gently. “The worldly may
follow the dead with tears, but here we rejoice over the father who is
departing. We rejoice and pray for him. Leave me, I must pray. Go, and
make haste. Be near your brothers. And not near one only, but near both.”
Father Zossima raised his hand to bless him. Alyosha could make no
protest, though he had a great longing to remain. He longed, moreover, to
ask the significance of his bowing to Dmitri, the question was on the tip
of his tongue, but he dared not ask it. He knew that the elder would have
explained it unasked if he had thought fit. But evidently it was not his
will. That action had made a terrible impression on Alyosha; he believed
blindly in its mysterious significance. Mysterious, and perhaps awful.
As he hastened out of the hermitage precincts to reach the monastery in
time to serve at the Father Superior’s dinner, he felt a sudden pang at
his heart, and stopped short. He seemed to hear again Father Zossima’s
words, foretelling his approaching end. What he had foretold so exactly
must infallibly come to pass. Alyosha believed that implicitly. But how
could he be left without him? How could he live without seeing and hearing
him? Where should he go? He had told him not to weep, and to leave the
monastery. Good God! It was long since Alyosha had known such anguish. He
hurried through the copse that divided the monastery from the hermitage,
and unable to bear the burden of his thoughts, he gazed at the ancient
pines beside the path. He had not far to go—about five hundred paces. He
expected to meet no one at that hour, but at the first turn of the path he
noticed Rakitin. He was waiting for some one.
“Are you waiting for me?” asked Alyosha, overtaking him.
“Yes,” grinned Rakitin. “You are hurrying to the Father Superior, I know;
he has a banquet. There’s not been such a banquet since the Superior
entertained the Bishop and General Pahatov, do you remember? I shan’t be
there, but you go and hand the sauces. Tell me one thing, Alexey, what
does that vision mean? That’s what I want to ask you.”
“What vision?”
“That bowing to your brother, Dmitri. And didn’t he tap the ground with
his forehead, too!”
“You speak of Father Zossima?”
“Yes, of Father Zossima.”
“Tapped the ground?”
“Ah, an irreverent expression! Well, what of it? Anyway, what does that
vision mean?”
“I don’t know what it means, Misha.”
“I knew he wouldn’t explain it to you! There’s nothing wonderful about it,
of course, only the usual holy mummery. But there was an object in the
performance. All the pious people in the town will talk about it and
spread the story through the province, wondering what it meant. To my
thinking the old man really has a keen nose; he sniffed a crime. Your
house stinks of it.”
“What crime?”
Rakitin evidently had something he was eager to speak of.
“It’ll be in your family, this crime. Between your brothers and your rich
old father. So Father Zossima flopped down to be ready for what may turn
up. If something happens later on, it’ll be: ‘Ah, the holy man foresaw it,
prophesied it!’ though it’s a poor sort of prophecy, flopping like that.
‘Ah, but it was symbolic,’ they’ll say, ‘an allegory,’ and the devil knows
what all! It’ll be remembered to his glory: ‘He predicted the crime and
marked the criminal!’ That’s always the way with these crazy fanatics;
they cross themselves at the tavern and throw stones at the temple. Like
your elder, he takes a stick to a just man and falls at the feet of a
murderer.”
“What crime? What murderer? What do you mean?”
Alyosha stopped dead. Rakitin stopped, too.
“What murderer? As though you didn’t know! I’ll bet you’ve thought of it
before. That’s interesting, too, by the way. Listen, Alyosha, you always
speak the truth, though you’re always between two stools. Have you thought
of it or not? Answer.”
“I have,” answered Alyosha in a low voice. Even Rakitin was taken aback.
“What? Have you really?” he cried.
“I ... I’ve not exactly thought it,” muttered Alyosha, “but directly you
began speaking so strangely, I fancied I had thought of it myself.”
“You see? (And how well you expressed it!) Looking at your father and your
brother Mitya to‐day you thought of a crime. Then I’m not mistaken?”
“But wait, wait a minute,” Alyosha broke in uneasily. “What has led you to
see all this? Why does it interest you? That’s the first question.”
“Two questions, disconnected, but natural. I’ll deal with them separately.
What led me to see it? I shouldn’t have seen it, if I hadn’t suddenly
understood your brother Dmitri, seen right into the very heart of him all
at once. I caught the whole man from one trait. These very honest but
passionate people have a line which mustn’t be crossed. If it were, he’d
run at your father with a knife. But your father’s a drunken and abandoned
old sinner, who can never draw the line—if they both let themselves go,
they’ll both come to grief.”
“No, Misha, no. If that’s all, you’ve reassured me. It won’t come to
that.”
“But why are you trembling? Let me tell you; he may be honest, our Mitya
(he is stupid, but honest), but he’s—a sensualist. That’s the very
definition and inner essence of him. It’s your father has handed him on
his low sensuality. Do you know, I simply wonder at you, Alyosha, how you
can have kept your purity. You’re a Karamazov too, you know! In your
family sensuality is carried to a disease. But now, these three
sensualists are watching one another, with their knives in their belts.
The three of them are knocking their heads together, and you may be the
fourth.”
“You are mistaken about that woman. Dmitri—despises her,” said Alyosha,
with a sort of shudder.
“Grushenka? No, brother, he doesn’t despise her. Since he has openly
abandoned his betrothed for her, he doesn’t despise her. There’s something
here, my dear boy, that you don’t understand yet. A man will fall in love
with some beauty, with a woman’s body, or even with a part of a woman’s
body (a sensualist can understand that), and he’ll abandon his own
children for her, sell his father and mother, and his country, Russia,
too. If he’s honest, he’ll steal; if he’s humane, he’ll murder; if he’s
faithful, he’ll deceive. Pushkin, the poet of women’s feet, sung of their
feet in his verse. Others don’t sing their praises, but they can’t look at
their feet without a thrill—and it’s not only their feet. Contempt’s no
help here, brother, even if he did despise Grushenka. He does, but he
can’t tear himself away.”
“I understand that,” Alyosha jerked out suddenly.
“Really? Well, I dare say you do understand, since you blurt it out at the
first word,” said Rakitin, malignantly. “That escaped you unawares, and
the confession’s the more precious. So it’s a familiar subject; you’ve
thought about it already, about sensuality, I mean! Oh, you virgin soul!
You’re a quiet one, Alyosha, you’re a saint, I know, but the devil only
knows what you’ve thought about, and what you know already! You are pure,
but you’ve been down into the depths.... I’ve been watching you a long
time. You’re a Karamazov yourself; you’re a thorough Karamazov—no doubt
birth and selection have something to answer for. You’re a sensualist from
your father, a crazy saint from your mother. Why do you tremble? Is it
true, then? Do you know, Grushenka has been begging me to bring you along.
‘I’ll pull off his cassock,’ she says. You can’t think how she keeps
begging me to bring you. I wondered why she took such an interest in you.
Do you know, she’s an extraordinary woman, too!”
“Thank her and say I’m not coming,” said Alyosha, with a strained smile.
“Finish what you were saying, Misha. I’ll tell you my idea after.”
“There’s nothing to finish. It’s all clear. It’s the same old tune,
brother. If even you are a sensualist at heart, what of your brother,
Ivan? He’s a Karamazov, too. What is at the root of all you Karamazovs is
that you’re all sensual, grasping and crazy! Your brother Ivan writes
theological articles in joke, for some idiotic, unknown motive of his own,
though he’s an atheist, and he admits it’s a fraud himself—that’s your
brother Ivan. He’s trying to get Mitya’s betrothed for himself, and I
fancy he’ll succeed, too. And what’s more, it’s with Mitya’s consent. For
Mitya will surrender his betrothed to him to be rid of her, and escape to
Grushenka. And he’s ready to do that in spite of all his nobility and
disinterestedness. Observe that. Those are the most fatal people! Who the
devil can make you out? He recognizes his vileness and goes on with it!
Let me tell you, too, the old man, your father, is standing in Mitya’s way
now. He has suddenly gone crazy over Grushenka. His mouth waters at the
sight of her. It’s simply on her account he made that scene in the cell
just now, simply because Miüsov called her an ‘abandoned creature.’ He’s
worse than a tom‐cat in love. At first she was only employed by him in
connection with his taverns and in some other shady business, but now he
has suddenly realized all she is and has gone wild about her. He keeps
pestering her with his offers, not honorable ones, of course. And they’ll
come into collision, the precious father and son, on that path! But
Grushenka favors neither of them, she’s still playing with them, and
teasing them both, considering which she can get most out of. For though
she could filch a lot of money from the papa he wouldn’t marry her, and
maybe he’ll turn stingy in the end, and keep his purse shut. That’s where
Mitya’s value comes in; he has no money, but he’s ready to marry her. Yes,
ready to marry her! to abandon his betrothed, a rare beauty, Katerina
Ivanovna, who’s rich, and the daughter of a colonel, and to marry
Grushenka, who has been the mistress of a dissolute old merchant,
Samsonov, a coarse, uneducated, provincial mayor. Some murderous conflict
may well come to pass from all this, and that’s what your brother Ivan is
waiting for. It would suit him down to the ground. He’ll carry off
Katerina Ivanovna, for whom he is languishing, and pocket her dowry of
sixty thousand. That’s very alluring to start with, for a man of no
consequence and a beggar. And, take note, he won’t be wronging Mitya, but
doing him the greatest service. For I know as a fact that Mitya only last
week, when he was with some gypsy girls drunk in a tavern, cried out aloud
that he was unworthy of his betrothed, Katya, but that his brother Ivan,
he was the man who deserved her. And Katerina Ivanovna will not in the end
refuse such a fascinating man as Ivan. She’s hesitating between the two of
them already. And how has that Ivan won you all, so that you all worship
him? He is laughing at you, and enjoying himself at your expense.”
“How do you know? How can you speak so confidently?” Alyosha asked
sharply, frowning.
“Why do you ask, and are frightened at my answer? It shows that you know
I’m speaking the truth.”
“You don’t like Ivan. Ivan wouldn’t be tempted by money.”
“Really? And the beauty of Katerina Ivanovna? It’s not only the money,
though a fortune of sixty thousand is an attraction.”
“Ivan is above that. He wouldn’t make up to any one for thousands. It is
not money, it’s not comfort Ivan is seeking. Perhaps it’s suffering he is
seeking.”
“What wild dream now? Oh, you—aristocrats!”
“Ah, Misha, he has a stormy spirit. His mind is in bondage. He is haunted
by a great, unsolved doubt. He is one of those who don’t want millions,
but an answer to their questions.”
“That’s plagiarism, Alyosha. You’re quoting your elder’s phrases. Ah, Ivan
has set you a problem!” cried Rakitin, with undisguised malice. His face
changed, and his lips twitched. “And the problem’s a stupid one. It is no
good guessing it. Rack your brains—you’ll understand it. His article is
absurd and ridiculous. And did you hear his stupid theory just now: if
there’s no immortality of the soul, then there’s no virtue, and everything
is lawful. (And by the way, do you remember how your brother Mitya cried
out: ‘I will remember!’) An attractive theory for scoundrels!—(I’m being
abusive, that’s stupid.) Not for scoundrels, but for pedantic _poseurs_,
‘haunted by profound, unsolved doubts.’ He’s showing off, and what it all
comes to is, ‘on the one hand we cannot but admit’ and ‘on the other it
must be confessed!’ His whole theory is a fraud! Humanity will find in
itself the power to live for virtue even without believing in immortality.
It will find it in love for freedom, for equality, for fraternity.”
Rakitin could hardly restrain himself in his heat, but, suddenly, as
though remembering something, he stopped short.
“Well, that’s enough,” he said, with a still more crooked smile. “Why are
you laughing? Do you think I’m a vulgar fool?”
“No, I never dreamed of thinking you a vulgar fool. You are clever but ...
never mind, I was silly to smile. I understand your getting hot about it,
Misha. I guess from your warmth that you are not indifferent to Katerina
Ivanovna yourself; I’ve suspected that for a long time, brother, that’s
why you don’t like my brother Ivan. Are you jealous of him?”
“And jealous of her money, too? Won’t you add that?”
“I’ll say nothing about money. I am not going to insult you.”
“I believe it, since you say so, but confound you, and your brother Ivan
with you. Don’t you understand that one might very well dislike him, apart
from Katerina Ivanovna. And why the devil should I like him? He
condescends to abuse me, you know. Why haven’t I a right to abuse him?”
“I never heard of his saying anything about you, good or bad. He doesn’t
speak of you at all.”
“But I heard that the day before yesterday at Katerina Ivanovna’s he was
abusing me for all he was worth—you see what an interest he takes in your
humble servant. And which is the jealous one after that, brother, I can’t
say. He was so good as to express the opinion that, if I don’t go in for
the career of an archimandrite in the immediate future and don’t become a
monk, I shall be sure to go to Petersburg and get on to some solid
magazine as a reviewer, that I shall write for the next ten years, and in
the end become the owner of the magazine, and bring it out on the liberal
and atheistic side, with a socialistic tinge, with a tiny gloss of
socialism, but keeping a sharp look out all the time, that is, keeping in
with both sides and hoodwinking the fools. According to your brother’s
account, the tinge of socialism won’t hinder me from laying by the
proceeds and investing them under the guidance of some Jew, till at the
end of my career I build a great house in Petersburg and move my
publishing offices to it, and let out the upper stories to lodgers. He has
even chosen the place for it, near the new stone bridge across the Neva,
which they say is to be built in Petersburg.”
“Ah, Misha, that’s just what will really happen, every word of it,” cried
Alyosha, unable to restrain a good‐humored smile.
“You are pleased to be sarcastic, too, Alexey Fyodorovitch.”
“No, no, I’m joking, forgive me. I’ve something quite different in my
mind. But, excuse me, who can have told you all this? You can’t have been
at Katerina Ivanovna’s yourself when he was talking about you?”
“I wasn’t there, but Dmitri Fyodorovitch was; and I heard him tell it with
my own ears; if you want to know, he didn’t tell me, but I overheard him,
unintentionally, of course, for I was sitting in Grushenka’s bedroom and I
couldn’t go away because Dmitri Fyodorovitch was in the next room.”
“Oh, yes, I’d forgotten she was a relation of yours.”
“A relation! That Grushenka a relation of mine!” cried Rakitin, turning
crimson. “Are you mad? You’re out of your mind!”
“Why, isn’t she a relation of yours? I heard so.”
“Where can you have heard it? You Karamazovs brag of being an ancient,
noble family, though your father used to run about playing the buffoon at
other men’s tables, and was only admitted to the kitchen as a favor. I may
be only a priest’s son, and dirt in the eyes of noblemen like you, but
don’t insult me so lightly and wantonly. I have a sense of honor, too,
Alexey Fyodorovitch, I couldn’t be a relation of Grushenka, a common
harlot. I beg you to understand that!”
Rakitin was intensely irritated.
“Forgive me, for goodness’ sake, I had no idea ... besides ... how can you
call her a harlot? Is she ... that sort of woman?” Alyosha flushed
suddenly. “I tell you again, I heard that she was a relation of yours. You
often go to see her, and you told me yourself you’re not her lover. I
never dreamed that you of all people had such contempt for her! Does she
really deserve it?”
“I may have reasons of my own for visiting her. That’s not your business.
But as for relationship, your brother, or even your father, is more likely
to make her yours than mine. Well, here we are. You’d better go to the
kitchen. Hullo! what’s wrong, what is it? Are we late? They can’t have
finished dinner so soon! Have the Karamazovs been making trouble again? No
doubt they have. Here’s your father and your brother Ivan after him.
They’ve broken out from the Father Superior’s. And look, Father Isidor’s
shouting out something after them from the steps. And your father’s
shouting and waving his arms. I expect he’s swearing. Bah, and there goes
Miüsov driving away in his carriage. You see, he’s going. And there’s old
Maximov running!—there must have been a row. There can’t have been any
dinner. Surely they’ve not been beating the Father Superior! Or have they,
perhaps, been beaten? It would serve them right!”
There was reason for Rakitin’s exclamations. There had been a scandalous,
an unprecedented scene. It had all come from the impulse of a moment.
Chapter VIII. The Scandalous Scene
Miüsov, as a man of breeding and delicacy, could not but feel some inward
qualms, when he reached the Father Superior’s with Ivan: he felt ashamed
of having lost his temper. He felt that he ought to have disdained that
despicable wretch, Fyodor Pavlovitch, too much to have been upset by him
in Father Zossima’s cell, and so to have forgotten himself. “The monks
were not to blame, in any case,” he reflected, on the steps. “And if
they’re decent people here (and the Father Superior, I understand, is a
nobleman) why not be friendly and courteous with them? I won’t argue, I’ll
fall in with everything, I’ll win them by politeness, and ... and ... show
them that I’ve nothing to do with that Æsop, that buffoon, that Pierrot,
and have merely been taken in over this affair, just as they have.”
He determined to drop his litigation with the monastery, and relinquish
his claims to the wood‐cutting and fishery rights at once. He was the more
ready to do this because the rights had become much less valuable, and he
had indeed the vaguest idea where the wood and river in question were.
These excellent intentions were strengthened when he entered the Father
Superior’s dining‐room, though, strictly speaking, it was not a dining‐
room, for the Father Superior had only two rooms altogether; they were,
however, much larger and more comfortable than Father Zossima’s. But there
was no great luxury about the furnishing of these rooms either. The
furniture was of mahogany, covered with leather, in the old‐fashioned
style of 1820; the floor was not even stained, but everything was shining
with cleanliness, and there were many choice flowers in the windows; the
most sumptuous thing in the room at the moment was, of course, the
beautifully decorated table. The cloth was clean, the service shone; there
were three kinds of well‐baked bread, two bottles of wine, two of
excellent mead, and a large glass jug of kvas—both the latter made in the
monastery, and famous in the neighborhood. There was no vodka. Rakitin
related afterwards that there were five dishes: fish‐soup made of
sterlets, served with little fish patties; then boiled fish served in a
special way; then salmon cutlets, ice pudding and compote, and finally,
blanc‐mange. Rakitin found out about all these good things, for he could
not resist peeping into the kitchen, where he already had a footing. He
had a footing everywhere, and got information about everything. He was of
an uneasy and envious temper. He was well aware of his own considerable
abilities, and nervously exaggerated them in his self‐conceit. He knew he
would play a prominent part of some sort, but Alyosha, who was attached to
him, was distressed to see that his friend Rakitin was dishonorable, and
quite unconscious of being so himself, considering, on the contrary, that
because he would not steal money left on the table he was a man of the
highest integrity. Neither Alyosha nor any one else could have influenced
him in that.
Rakitin, of course, was a person of too little consequence to be invited
to the dinner, to which Father Iosif, Father Païssy, and one other monk
were the only inmates of the monastery invited. They were already waiting
when Miüsov, Kalganov, and Ivan arrived. The other guest, Maximov, stood a
little aside, waiting also. The Father Superior stepped into the middle of
the room to receive his guests. He was a tall, thin, but still vigorous
old man, with black hair streaked with gray, and a long, grave, ascetic
face. He bowed to his guests in silence. But this time they approached to
receive his blessing. Miüsov even tried to kiss his hand, but the Father
Superior drew it back in time to avoid the salute. But Ivan and Kalganov
went through the ceremony in the most simple‐hearted and complete manner,
kissing his hand as peasants do.
“We must apologize most humbly, your reverence,” began Miüsov, simpering
affably, and speaking in a dignified and respectful tone. “Pardon us for
having come alone without the gentleman you invited, Fyodor Pavlovitch. He
felt obliged to decline the honor of your hospitality, and not without
reason. In the reverend Father Zossima’s cell he was carried away by the
unhappy dissension with his son, and let fall words which were quite out
of keeping ... in fact, quite unseemly ... as”—he glanced at the
monks—“your reverence is, no doubt, already aware. And therefore,
recognizing that he had been to blame, he felt sincere regret and shame,
and begged me, and his son Ivan Fyodorovitch, to convey to you his
apologies and regrets. In brief, he hopes and desires to make amends
later. He asks your blessing, and begs you to forget what has taken
place.”
As he uttered the last word of his tirade, Miüsov completely recovered his
self‐complacency, and all traces of his former irritation disappeared. He
fully and sincerely loved humanity again.
The Father Superior listened to him with dignity, and, with a slight bend
of the head, replied:
“I sincerely deplore his absence. Perhaps at our table he might have
learnt to like us, and we him. Pray be seated, gentlemen.”
He stood before the holy image, and began to say grace, aloud. All bent
their heads reverently, and Maximov clasped his hands before him, with
peculiar fervor.
It was at this moment that Fyodor Pavlovitch played his last prank. It
must be noted that he really had meant to go home, and really had felt the
impossibility of going to dine with the Father Superior as though nothing
had happened, after his disgraceful behavior in the elder’s cell. Not that
he was so very much ashamed of himself—quite the contrary perhaps. But
still he felt it would be unseemly to go to dinner. Yet his creaking
carriage had hardly been brought to the steps of the hotel, and he had
hardly got into it, when he suddenly stopped short. He remembered his own
words at the elder’s: “I always feel when I meet people that I am lower
than all, and that they all take me for a buffoon; so I say let me play
the buffoon, for you are, every one of you, stupider and lower than I.” He
longed to revenge himself on every one for his own unseemliness. He
suddenly recalled how he had once in the past been asked, “Why do you hate
so and so, so much?” And he had answered them, with his shameless
impudence, “I’ll tell you. He has done me no harm. But I played him a
dirty trick, and ever since I have hated him.”
Remembering that now, he smiled quietly and malignantly, hesitating for a
moment. His eyes gleamed, and his lips positively quivered. “Well, since I
have begun, I may as well go on,” he decided. His predominant sensation at
that moment might be expressed in the following words, “Well, there is no
rehabilitating myself now. So let me shame them for all I am worth. I will
show them I don’t care what they think—that’s all!”
He told the coachman to wait, while with rapid steps he returned to the
monastery and straight to the Father Superior’s. He had no clear idea what
he would do, but he knew that he could not control himself, and that a
touch might drive him to the utmost limits of obscenity, but only to
obscenity, to nothing criminal, nothing for which he could be legally
punished. In the last resort, he could always restrain himself, and had
marveled indeed at himself, on that score, sometimes. He appeared in the
Father Superior’s dining‐room, at the moment when the prayer was over, and
all were moving to the table. Standing in the doorway, he scanned the
company, and laughing his prolonged, impudent, malicious chuckle, looked
them all boldly in the face. “They thought I had gone, and here I am
again,” he cried to the whole room.
For one moment every one stared at him without a word; and at once every
one felt that something revolting, grotesque, positively scandalous, was
about to happen. Miüsov passed immediately from the most benevolent frame
of mind to the most savage. All the feelings that had subsided and died
down in his heart revived instantly.
“No! this I cannot endure!” he cried. “I absolutely cannot! and ... I
certainly cannot!”
The blood rushed to his head. He positively stammered; but he was beyond
thinking of style, and he seized his hat.
“What is it he cannot?” cried Fyodor Pavlovitch, “that he absolutely
cannot and certainly cannot? Your reverence, am I to come in or not? Will
you receive me as your guest?”
“You are welcome with all my heart,” answered the Superior. “Gentlemen!”
he added, “I venture to beg you most earnestly to lay aside your
dissensions, and to be united in love and family harmony—with prayer to
the Lord at our humble table.”
“No, no, it is impossible!” cried Miüsov, beside himself.
“Well, if it is impossible for Pyotr Alexandrovitch, it is impossible for
me, and I won’t stop. That is why I came. I will keep with Pyotr
Alexandrovitch everywhere now. If you will go away, Pyotr Alexandrovitch,
I will go away too, if you remain, I will remain. You stung him by what
you said about family harmony, Father Superior, he does not admit he is my
relation. That’s right, isn’t it, von Sohn? Here’s von Sohn. How are you,
von Sohn?”
“Do you mean me?” muttered Maximov, puzzled.
“Of course I mean you,” cried Fyodor Pavlovitch. “Who else? The Father
Superior could not be von Sohn.”
“But I am not von Sohn either. I am Maximov.”
“No, you are von Sohn. Your reverence, do you know who von Sohn was? It
was a famous murder case. He was killed in a house of harlotry—I believe
that is what such places are called among you—he was killed and robbed,
and in spite of his venerable age, he was nailed up in a box and sent from
Petersburg to Moscow in the luggage van, and while they were nailing him
up, the harlots sang songs and played the harp, that is to say, the piano.
So this is that very von Sohn. He has risen from the dead, hasn’t he, von
Sohn?”
“What is happening? What’s this?” voices were heard in the group of monks.
“Let us go,” cried Miüsov, addressing Kalganov.
“No, excuse me,” Fyodor Pavlovitch broke in shrilly, taking another step
into the room. “Allow me to finish. There in the cell you blamed me for
behaving disrespectfully just because I spoke of eating gudgeon, Pyotr
Alexandrovitch. Miüsov, my relation, prefers to have _plus de noblesse que
de sincérité_ in his words, but I prefer in mine _plus de sincérité que de
noblesse_, and—damn the _noblesse_! That’s right, isn’t it, von Sohn?
Allow me, Father Superior, though I am a buffoon and play the buffoon, yet
I am the soul of honor, and I want to speak my mind. Yes, I am the soul of
honor, while in Pyotr Alexandrovitch there is wounded vanity and nothing
else. I came here perhaps to have a look and speak my mind. My son,
Alexey, is here, being saved. I am his father; I care for his welfare, and
it is my duty to care. While I’ve been playing the fool, I have been
listening and having a look on the sly; and now I want to give you the
last act of the performance. You know how things are with us? As a thing
falls, so it lies. As a thing once has fallen, so it must lie for ever.
Not a bit of it! I want to get up again. Holy Father, I am indignant with
you. Confession is a great sacrament, before which I am ready to bow down
reverently; but there in the cell, they all kneel down and confess aloud.
Can it be right to confess aloud? It was ordained by the holy Fathers to
confess in secret: then only your confession will be a mystery, and so it
was of old. But how can I explain to him before every one that I did this
and that ... well, you understand what—sometimes it would not be proper to
talk about it—so it is really a scandal! No, Fathers, one might be carried
along with you to the Flagellants, I dare say ... at the first opportunity
I shall write to the Synod, and I shall take my son, Alexey, home.”
We must note here that Fyodor Pavlovitch knew where to look for the weak
spot. There had been at one time malicious rumors which had even reached
the Archbishop (not only regarding our monastery, but in others where the
institution of elders existed) that too much respect was paid to the
elders, even to the detriment of the authority of the Superior, that the
elders abused the sacrament of confession and so on and so on—absurd
charges which had died away of themselves everywhere. But the spirit of
folly, which had caught up Fyodor Pavlovitch, and was bearing him on the
current of his own nerves into lower and lower depths of ignominy,
prompted him with this old slander. Fyodor Pavlovitch did not understand a
word of it, and he could not even put it sensibly, for on this occasion no
one had been kneeling and confessing aloud in the elder’s cell, so that he
could not have seen anything of the kind. He was only speaking from
confused memory of old slanders. But as soon as he had uttered his foolish
tirade, he felt he had been talking absurd nonsense, and at once longed to
prove to his audience, and above all to himself, that he had not been
talking nonsense. And, though he knew perfectly well that with each word
he would be adding more and more absurdity, he could not restrain himself,
and plunged forward blindly.
“How disgraceful!” cried Pyotr Alexandrovitch.
“Pardon me!” said the Father Superior. “It was said of old, ‘Many have
begun to speak against me and have uttered evil sayings about me. And
hearing it I have said to myself: it is the correction of the Lord and He
has sent it to heal my vain soul.’ And so we humbly thank you, honored
guest!” and he made Fyodor Pavlovitch a low bow.
“Tut—tut—tut—sanctimoniousness and stock phrases! Old phrases and old
gestures. The old lies and formal prostrations. We know all about them. A
kiss on the lips and a dagger in the heart, as in Schiller’s _Robbers_. I
don’t like falsehood, Fathers, I want the truth. But the truth is not to
be found in eating gudgeon and that I proclaim aloud! Father monks, why do
you fast? Why do you expect reward in heaven for that? Why, for reward
like that I will come and fast too! No, saintly monk, you try being
virtuous in the world, do good to society, without shutting yourself up in
a monastery at other people’s expense, and without expecting a reward up
aloft for it—you’ll find that a bit harder. I can talk sense, too, Father
Superior. What have they got here?” He went up to the table. “Old port
wine, mead brewed by the Eliseyev Brothers. Fie, fie, fathers! That is
something beyond gudgeon. Look at the bottles the fathers have brought
out, he he he! And who has provided it all? The Russian peasant, the
laborer, brings here the farthing earned by his horny hand, wringing it
from his family and the tax‐gatherer! You bleed the people, you know, holy
fathers.”
“This is too disgraceful!” said Father Iosif.
Father Païssy kept obstinately silent. Miüsov rushed from the room, and
Kalganov after him.
“Well, Father, I will follow Pyotr Alexandrovitch! I am not coming to see
you again. You may beg me on your knees, I shan’t come. I sent you a
thousand roubles, so you have begun to keep your eye on me. He he he! No,
I’ll say no more. I am taking my revenge for my youth, for all the
humiliation I endured.” He thumped the table with his fist in a paroxysm
of simulated feeling. “This monastery has played a great part in my life!
It has cost me many bitter tears. You used to set my wife, the crazy one,
against me. You cursed me with bell and book, you spread stories about me
all over the place. Enough, fathers! This is the age of Liberalism, the
age of steamers and railways. Neither a thousand, nor a hundred roubles,
no, nor a hundred farthings will you get out of me!”
It must be noted again that our monastery never had played any great part
in his life, and he never had shed a bitter tear owing to it. But he was
so carried away by his simulated emotion, that he was for one moment
almost believing it himself. He was so touched he was almost weeping. But
at that very instant, he felt that it was time to draw back.
The Father Superior bowed his head at his malicious lie, and again spoke
impressively:
“It is written again, ‘Bear circumspectly and gladly dishonor that cometh
upon thee by no act of thine own, be not confounded and hate not him who
hath dishonored thee.’ And so will we.”
“Tut, tut, tut! Bethinking thyself and the rest of the rigmarole. Bethink
yourselves, Fathers, I will go. But I will take my son, Alexey, away from
here for ever, on my parental authority. Ivan Fyodorovitch, my most
dutiful son, permit me to order you to follow me. Von Sohn, what have you
to stay for? Come and see me now in the town. It is fun there. It is only
one short verst; instead of lenten oil, I will give you sucking‐pig and
kasha. We will have dinner with some brandy and liqueur to it.... I’ve
cloudberry wine. Hey, von Sohn, don’t lose your chance.” He went out,
shouting and gesticulating.
It was at that moment Rakitin saw him and pointed him out to Alyosha.
“Alexey!” his father shouted, from far off, catching sight of him. “You
come home to me to‐day, for good, and bring your pillow and mattress, and
leave no trace behind.”
Alyosha stood rooted to the spot, watching the scene in silence.
Meanwhile, Fyodor Pavlovitch had got into the carriage, and Ivan was about
to follow him in grim silence without even turning to say good‐by to
Alyosha. But at this point another almost incredible scene of grotesque
buffoonery gave the finishing touch to the episode. Maximov suddenly
appeared by the side of the carriage. He ran up, panting, afraid of being
too late. Rakitin and Alyosha saw him running. He was in such a hurry that
in his impatience he put his foot on the step on which Ivan’s left foot
was still resting, and clutching the carriage he kept trying to jump in.
“I am going with you!” he kept shouting, laughing a thin mirthful laugh
with a look of reckless glee in his face. “Take me, too.”
“There!” cried Fyodor Pavlovitch, delighted. “Did I not say he was von
Sohn. It is von Sohn himself, risen from the dead. Why, how did you tear
yourself away? What did you _vonsohn_ there? And how could you get away
from the dinner? You must be a brazen‐faced fellow! I am that myself, but
I am surprised at you, brother! Jump in, jump in! Let him pass, Ivan. It
will be fun. He can lie somewhere at our feet. Will you lie at our feet,
von Sohn? Or perch on the box with the coachman. Skip on to the box, von
Sohn!”
But Ivan, who had by now taken his seat, without a word gave Maximov a
violent punch in the breast and sent him flying. It was quite by chance he
did not fall.
“Drive on!” Ivan shouted angrily to the coachman.
“Why, what are you doing, what are you about? Why did you do that?” Fyodor
Pavlovitch protested.
But the carriage had already driven away. Ivan made no reply.
“Well, you are a fellow,” Fyodor Pavlovitch said again.
After a pause of two minutes, looking askance at his son, “Why, it was you
got up all this monastery business. You urged it, you approved of it. Why
are you angry now?”
“You’ve talked rot enough. You might rest a bit now,” Ivan snapped
sullenly.
Fyodor Pavlovitch was silent again for two minutes.
“A drop of brandy would be nice now,” he observed sententiously, but Ivan
made no response.
“You shall have some, too, when we get home.”
Ivan was still silent.
Fyodor Pavlovitch waited another two minutes.
“But I shall take Alyosha away from the monastery, though you will dislike
it so much, most honored Karl von Moor.”
Ivan shrugged his shoulders contemptuously, and turning away stared at the
road. And they did not speak again all the way home.
Book III. The Sensualists
Chapter I. In The Servants’ Quarters
The Karamazovs’ house was far from being in the center of the town, but it
was not quite outside it. It was a pleasant‐looking old house of two
stories, painted gray, with a red iron roof. It was roomy and snug, and
might still last many years. There were all sorts of unexpected little
cupboards and closets and staircases. There were rats in it, but Fyodor
Pavlovitch did not altogether dislike them. “One doesn’t feel so solitary
when one’s left alone in the evening,” he used to say. It was his habit to
send the servants away to the lodge for the night and to lock himself up
alone. The lodge was a roomy and solid building in the yard. Fyodor
Pavlovitch used to have the cooking done there, although there was a
kitchen in the house; he did not like the smell of cooking, and, winter
and summer alike, the dishes were carried in across the courtyard. The
house was built for a large family; there was room for five times as many,
with their servants. But at the time of our story there was no one living
in the house but Fyodor Pavlovitch and his son Ivan. And in the lodge
there were only three servants: old Grigory, and his old wife Marfa, and a
young man called Smerdyakov. Of these three we must say a few words. Of
old Grigory we have said something already. He was firm and determined and
went blindly and obstinately for his object, if once he had been brought
by any reasons (and they were often very illogical ones) to believe that
it was immutably right. He was honest and incorruptible. His wife, Marfa
Ignatyevna, had obeyed her husband’s will implicitly all her life, yet she
had pestered him terribly after the emancipation of the serfs. She was set
on leaving Fyodor Pavlovitch and opening a little shop in Moscow with
their small savings. But Grigory decided then, once for all, that “the
woman’s talking nonsense, for every woman is dishonest,” and that they
ought not to leave their old master, whatever he might be, for “that was
now their duty.”
“Do you understand what duty is?” he asked Marfa Ignatyevna.
“I understand what duty means, Grigory Vassilyevitch, but why it’s our
duty to stay here I never shall understand,” Marfa answered firmly.
“Well, don’t understand then. But so it shall be. And you hold your
tongue.”
And so it was. They did not go away, and Fyodor Pavlovitch promised them a
small sum for wages, and paid it regularly. Grigory knew, too, that he had
an indisputable influence over his master. It was true, and he was aware
of it. Fyodor Pavlovitch was an obstinate and cunning buffoon, yet, though
his will was strong enough “in some of the affairs of life,” as he
expressed it, he found himself, to his surprise, extremely feeble in
facing certain other emergencies. He knew his weaknesses and was afraid of
them. There are positions in which one has to keep a sharp look out. And
that’s not easy without a trustworthy man, and Grigory was a most
trustworthy man. Many times in the course of his life Fyodor Pavlovitch
had only just escaped a sound thrashing through Grigory’s intervention,
and on each occasion the old servant gave him a good lecture. But it
wasn’t only thrashings that Fyodor Pavlovitch was afraid of. There were
graver occasions, and very subtle and complicated ones, when Fyodor
Pavlovitch could not have explained the extraordinary craving for some one
faithful and devoted, which sometimes unaccountably came upon him all in a
moment. It was almost a morbid condition. Corrupt and often cruel in his
lust, like some noxious insect, Fyodor Pavlovitch was sometimes, in
moments of drunkenness, overcome by superstitious terror and a moral
convulsion which took an almost physical form. “My soul’s simply quaking
in my throat at those times,” he used to say. At such moments he liked to
feel that there was near at hand, in the lodge if not in the room, a
strong, faithful man, virtuous and unlike himself, who had seen all his
debauchery and knew all his secrets, but was ready in his devotion to
overlook all that, not to oppose him, above all, not to reproach him or
threaten him with anything, either in this world or in the next, and, in
case of need, to defend him—from whom? From somebody unknown, but terrible
and dangerous. What he needed was to feel that there was _another_ man, an
old and tried friend, that he might call him in his sick moments merely to
look at his face, or, perhaps, exchange some quite irrelevant words with
him. And if the old servant were not angry, he felt comforted, and if he
were angry, he was more dejected. It happened even (very rarely however)
that Fyodor Pavlovitch went at night to the lodge to wake Grigory and
fetch him for a moment. When the old man came, Fyodor Pavlovitch would
begin talking about the most trivial matters, and would soon let him go
again, sometimes even with a jest. And after he had gone, Fyodor
Pavlovitch would get into bed with a curse and sleep the sleep of the
just. Something of the same sort had happened to Fyodor Pavlovitch on
Alyosha’s arrival. Alyosha “pierced his heart” by “living with him, seeing
everything and blaming nothing.” Moreover, Alyosha brought with him
something his father had never known before: a complete absence of
contempt for him and an invariable kindness, a perfectly natural
unaffected devotion to the old man who deserved it so little. All this was
a complete surprise to the old profligate, who had dropped all family
ties. It was a new and surprising experience for him, who had till then
loved nothing but “evil.” When Alyosha had left him, he confessed to
himself that he had learnt something he had not till then been willing to
learn.
I have mentioned already that Grigory had detested Adelaïda Ivanovna, the
first wife of Fyodor Pavlovitch and the mother of Dmitri, and that he had,
on the contrary, protected Sofya Ivanovna, the poor “crazy woman,” against
his master and any one who chanced to speak ill or lightly of her. His
sympathy for the unhappy wife had become something sacred to him, so that
even now, twenty years after, he could not bear a slighting allusion to
her from any one, and would at once check the offender. Externally,
Grigory was cold, dignified and taciturn, and spoke, weighing his words,
without frivolity. It was impossible to tell at first sight whether he
loved his meek, obedient wife; but he really did love her, and she knew
it.
Marfa Ignatyevna was by no means foolish; she was probably, indeed,
cleverer than her husband, or, at least, more prudent than he in worldly
affairs, and yet she had given in to him in everything without question or
complaint ever since her marriage, and respected him for his spiritual
superiority. It was remarkable how little they spoke to one another in the
course of their lives, and only of the most necessary daily affairs. The
grave and dignified Grigory thought over all his cares and duties alone,
so that Marfa Ignatyevna had long grown used to knowing that he did not
need her advice. She felt that her husband respected her silence, and took
it as a sign of her good sense. He had never beaten her but once, and then
only slightly. Once during the year after Fyodor Pavlovitch’s marriage
with Adelaïda Ivanovna, the village girls and women—at that time
serfs—were called together before the house to sing and dance. They were
beginning “In the Green Meadows,” when Marfa, at that time a young woman,
skipped forward and danced “the Russian Dance,” not in the village
fashion, but as she had danced it when she was a servant in the service of
the rich Miüsov family, in their private theater, where the actors were
taught to dance by a dancing master from Moscow. Grigory saw how his wife
danced, and, an hour later, at home in their cottage he gave her a lesson,
pulling her hair a little. But there it ended: the beating was never
repeated, and Marfa Ignatyevna gave up dancing.
God had not blessed them with children. One child was born but it died.
Grigory was fond of children, and was not ashamed of showing it. When
Adelaïda Ivanovna had run away, Grigory took Dmitri, then a child of three
years old, combed his hair and washed him in a tub with his own hands, and
looked after him for almost a year. Afterwards he had looked after Ivan
and Alyosha, for which the general’s widow had rewarded him with a slap in
the face; but I have already related all that. The only happiness his own
child had brought him had been in the anticipation of its birth. When it
was born, he was overwhelmed with grief and horror. The baby had six
fingers. Grigory was so crushed by this, that he was not only silent till
the day of the christening, but kept away in the garden. It was spring,
and he spent three days digging the kitchen garden. The third day was
fixed for christening the baby: mean‐time Grigory had reached a
conclusion. Going into the cottage where the clergy were assembled and the
visitors had arrived, including Fyodor Pavlovitch, who was to stand god‐
father, he suddenly announced that the baby “ought not to be christened at
all.” He announced this quietly, briefly, forcing out his words, and
gazing with dull intentness at the priest.
“Why not?” asked the priest with good‐humored surprise.
“Because it’s a dragon,” muttered Grigory.
“A dragon? What dragon?”
Grigory did not speak for some time. “It’s a confusion of nature,” he
muttered vaguely, but firmly, and obviously unwilling to say more.
They laughed, and of course christened the poor baby. Grigory prayed
earnestly at the font, but his opinion of the new‐born child remained
unchanged. Yet he did not interfere in any way. As long as the sickly
infant lived he scarcely looked at it, tried indeed not to notice it, and
for the most part kept out of the cottage. But when, at the end of a
fortnight, the baby died of thrush, he himself laid the child in its
little coffin, looked at it in profound grief, and when they were filling
up the shallow little grave he fell on his knees and bowed down to the
earth. He did not for years afterwards mention his child, nor did Marfa
speak of the baby before him, and, even if Grigory were not present, she
never spoke of it above a whisper. Marfa observed that, from the day of
the burial, he devoted himself to “religion,” and took to reading the
_Lives of the Saints_, for the most part sitting alone and in silence, and
always putting on his big, round, silver‐rimmed spectacles. He rarely read
aloud, only perhaps in Lent. He was fond of the Book of Job, and had
somehow got hold of a copy of the sayings and sermons of “the God‐fearing
Father Isaac the Syrian,” which he read persistently for years together,
understanding very little of it, but perhaps prizing and loving it the
more for that. Of late he had begun to listen to the doctrines of the sect
of Flagellants settled in the neighborhood. He was evidently shaken by
them, but judged it unfitting to go over to the new faith. His habit of
theological reading gave him an expression of still greater gravity.
He was perhaps predisposed to mysticism. And the birth of his deformed
child, and its death, had, as though by special design, been accompanied
by another strange and marvelous event, which, as he said later, had left
a “stamp” upon his soul. It happened that, on the very night after the
burial of his child, Marfa was awakened by the wail of a new‐born baby.
She was frightened and waked her husband. He listened and said he thought
it was more like some one groaning, “it might be a woman.” He got up and
dressed. It was a rather warm night in May. As he went down the steps, he
distinctly heard groans coming from the garden. But the gate from the yard
into the garden was locked at night, and there was no other way of
entering it, for it was enclosed all round by a strong, high fence. Going
back into the house, Grigory lighted a lantern, took the garden key, and
taking no notice of the hysterical fears of his wife, who was still
persuaded that she heard a child crying, and that it was her own baby
crying and calling for her, went into the garden in silence. There he
heard at once that the groans came from the bath‐house that stood near the
garden gate, and that they were the groans of a woman. Opening the door of
the bath‐house, he saw a sight which petrified him. An idiot girl, who
wandered about the streets and was known to the whole town by the nickname
of Lizaveta Smerdyastchaya (Stinking Lizaveta), had got into the bath‐
house and had just given birth to a child. She lay dying with the baby
beside her. She said nothing, for she had never been able to speak. But
her story needs a chapter to itself.
Chapter II. Lizaveta
There was one circumstance which struck Grigory particularly, and
confirmed a very unpleasant and revolting suspicion. This Lizaveta was a
dwarfish creature, “not five foot within a wee bit,” as many of the pious
old women said pathetically about her, after her death. Her broad,
healthy, red face had a look of blank idiocy and the fixed stare in her
eyes was unpleasant, in spite of their meek expression. She wandered
about, summer and winter alike, barefooted, wearing nothing but a hempen
smock. Her coarse, almost black hair curled like lamb’s wool, and formed a
sort of huge cap on her head. It was always crusted with mud, and had
leaves, bits of stick, and shavings clinging to it, as she always slept on
the ground and in the dirt. Her father, a homeless, sickly drunkard,
called Ilya, had lost everything and lived many years as a workman with
some well‐to‐do tradespeople. Her mother had long been dead. Spiteful and
diseased, Ilya used to beat Lizaveta inhumanly whenever she returned to
him. But she rarely did so, for every one in the town was ready to look
after her as being an idiot, and so specially dear to God. Ilya’s
employers, and many others in the town, especially of the tradespeople,
tried to clothe her better, and always rigged her out with high boots and
sheepskin coat for the winter. But, although she allowed them to dress her
up without resisting, she usually went away, preferably to the cathedral
porch, and taking off all that had been given her—kerchief, sheepskin,
skirt or boots—she left them there and walked away barefoot in her smock
as before. It happened on one occasion that a new governor of the
province, making a tour of inspection in our town, saw Lizaveta, and was
wounded in his tenderest susceptibilities. And though he was told she was
an idiot, he pronounced that for a young woman of twenty to wander about
in nothing but a smock was a breach of the proprieties, and must not occur
again. But the governor went his way, and Lizaveta was left as she was. At
last her father died, which made her even more acceptable in the eyes of
the religious persons of the town, as an orphan. In fact, every one seemed
to like her; even the boys did not tease her, and the boys of our town,
especially the schoolboys, are a mischievous set. She would walk into
strange houses, and no one drove her away. Every one was kind to her and
gave her something. If she were given a copper, she would take it, and at
once drop it in the alms‐jug of the church or prison. If she were given a
roll or bun in the market, she would hand it to the first child she met.
Sometimes she would stop one of the richest ladies in the town and give it
to her, and the lady would be pleased to take it. She herself never tasted
anything but black bread and water. If she went into an expensive shop,
where there were costly goods or money lying about, no one kept watch on
her, for they knew that if she saw thousands of roubles overlooked by
them, she would not have touched a farthing. She scarcely ever went to
church. She slept either in the church porch or climbed over a hurdle
(there are many hurdles instead of fences to this day in our town) into a
kitchen garden. She used at least once a week to turn up “at home,” that
is at the house of her father’s former employers, and in the winter went
there every night, and slept either in the passage or the cowhouse. People
were amazed that she could stand such a life, but she was accustomed to
it, and, although she was so tiny, she was of a robust constitution. Some
of the townspeople declared that she did all this only from pride, but
that is hardly credible. She could hardly speak, and only from time to
time uttered an inarticulate grunt. How could she have been proud?
It happened one clear, warm, moonlight night in September (many years ago)
five or six drunken revelers were returning from the club at a very late
hour, according to our provincial notions. They passed through the “back‐
way,” which led between the back gardens of the houses, with hurdles on
either side. This way leads out on to the bridge over the long, stinking
pool which we were accustomed to call a river. Among the nettles and
burdocks under the hurdle our revelers saw Lizaveta asleep. They stopped
to look at her, laughing, and began jesting with unbridled licentiousness.
It occurred to one young gentleman to make the whimsical inquiry whether
any one could possibly look upon such an animal as a woman, and so
forth.... They all pronounced with lofty repugnance that it was
impossible. But Fyodor Pavlovitch, who was among them, sprang forward and
declared that it was by no means impossible, and that, indeed, there was a
certain piquancy about it, and so on.... It is true that at that time he
was overdoing his part as a buffoon. He liked to put himself forward and
entertain the company, ostensibly on equal terms, of course, though in
reality he was on a servile footing with them. It was just at the time
when he had received the news of his first wife’s death in Petersburg,
and, with crape upon his hat, was drinking and behaving so shamelessly
that even the most reckless among us were shocked at the sight of him. The
revelers, of course, laughed at this unexpected opinion; and one of them
even began challenging him to act upon it. The others repelled the idea
even more emphatically, although still with the utmost hilarity, and at
last they went on their way. Later on, Fyodor Pavlovitch swore that he had
gone with them, and perhaps it was so, no one knows for certain, and no
one ever knew. But five or six months later, all the town was talking,
with intense and sincere indignation, of Lizaveta’s condition, and trying
to find out who was the miscreant who had wronged her. Then suddenly a
terrible rumor was all over the town that this miscreant was no other than
Fyodor Pavlovitch. Who set the rumor going? Of that drunken band five had
left the town and the only one still among us was an elderly and much
respected civil councilor, the father of grown‐up daughters, who could
hardly have spread the tale, even if there had been any foundation for it.
But rumor pointed straight at Fyodor Pavlovitch, and persisted in pointing
at him. Of course this was no great grievance to him: he would not have
troubled to contradict a set of tradespeople. In those days he was proud,
and did not condescend to talk except in his own circle of the officials
and nobles, whom he entertained so well.
At the time, Grigory stood up for his master vigorously. He provoked
quarrels and altercations in defense of him and succeeded in bringing some
people round to his side. “It’s the wench’s own fault,” he asserted, and
the culprit was Karp, a dangerous convict, who had escaped from prison and
whose name was well known to us, as he had hidden in our town. This
conjecture sounded plausible, for it was remembered that Karp had been in
the neighborhood just at that time in the autumn, and had robbed three
people. But this affair and all the talk about it did not estrange popular
sympathy from the poor idiot. She was better looked after than ever. A
well‐to‐do merchant’s widow named Kondratyev arranged to take her into her
house at the end of April, meaning not to let her go out until after the
confinement. They kept a constant watch over her, but in spite of their
vigilance she escaped on the very last day, and made her way into Fyodor
Pavlovitch’s garden. How, in her condition, she managed to climb over the
high, strong fence remained a mystery. Some maintained that she must have
been lifted over by somebody; others hinted at something more uncanny. The
most likely explanation is that it happened naturally—that Lizaveta,
accustomed to clambering over hurdles to sleep in gardens, had somehow
managed to climb this fence, in spite of her condition, and had leapt
down, injuring herself.
Grigory rushed to Marfa and sent her to Lizaveta, while he ran to fetch an
old midwife who lived close by. They saved the baby, but Lizaveta died at
dawn. Grigory took the baby, brought it home, and making his wife sit
down, put it on her lap. “A child of God—an orphan is akin to all,” he
said, “and to us above others. Our little lost one has sent us this, who
has come from the devil’s son and a holy innocent. Nurse him and weep no
more.”
So Marfa brought up the child. He was christened Pavel, to which people
were not slow in adding Fyodorovitch (son of Fyodor). Fyodor Pavlovitch
did not object to any of this, and thought it amusing, though he persisted
vigorously in denying his responsibility. The townspeople were pleased at
his adopting the foundling. Later on, Fyodor Pavlovitch invented a surname
for the child, calling him Smerdyakov, after his mother’s nickname.
So this Smerdyakov became Fyodor Pavlovitch’s second servant, and was
living in the lodge with Grigory and Marfa at the time our story begins.
He was employed as cook. I ought to say something of this Smerdyakov, but
I am ashamed of keeping my readers’ attention so long occupied with these
common menials, and I will go back to my story, hoping to say more of
Smerdyakov in the course of it.
Chapter III. The Confession Of A Passionate Heart—In Verse
Alyosha remained for some time irresolute after hearing the command his
father shouted to him from the carriage. But in spite of his uneasiness he
did not stand still. That was not his way. He went at once to the kitchen
to find out what his father had been doing above. Then he set off,
trusting that on the way he would find some answer to the doubt tormenting
him. I hasten to add that his father’s shouts, commanding him to return
home “with his mattress and pillow” did not frighten him in the least. He
understood perfectly that those peremptory shouts were merely “a flourish”
to produce an effect. In the same way a tradesman in our town who was
celebrating his name‐day with a party of friends, getting angry at being
refused more vodka, smashed up his own crockery and furniture and tore his
own and his wife’s clothes, and finally broke his windows, all for the
sake of effect. Next day, of course, when he was sober, he regretted the
broken cups and saucers. Alyosha knew that his father would let him go
back to the monastery next day, possibly even that evening. Moreover, he
was fully persuaded that his father might hurt any one else, but would not
hurt him. Alyosha was certain that no one in the whole world ever would
want to hurt him, and, what is more, he knew that no one could hurt him.
This was for him an axiom, assumed once for all without question, and he
went his way without hesitation, relying on it.
But at that moment an anxiety of a different sort disturbed him, and
worried him the more because he could not formulate it. It was the fear of
a woman, of Katerina Ivanovna, who had so urgently entreated him in the
note handed to him by Madame Hohlakov to come and see her about something.
This request and the necessity of going had at once aroused an uneasy
feeling in his heart, and this feeling had grown more and more painful all
the morning in spite of the scenes at the hermitage and at the Father
Superior’s. He was not uneasy because he did not know what she would speak
of and what he must answer. And he was not afraid of her simply as a
woman. Though he knew little of women, he had spent his life, from early
childhood till he entered the monastery, entirely with women. He was
afraid of that woman, Katerina Ivanovna. He had been afraid of her from
the first time he saw her. He had only seen her two or three times, and
had only chanced to say a few words to her. He thought of her as a
beautiful, proud, imperious girl. It was not her beauty which troubled
him, but something else. And the vagueness of his apprehension increased
the apprehension itself. The girl’s aims were of the noblest, he knew
that. She was trying to save his brother Dmitri simply through generosity,
though he had already behaved badly to her. Yet, although Alyosha
recognized and did justice to all these fine and generous sentiments, a
shiver began to run down his back as soon as he drew near her house.
He reflected that he would not find Ivan, who was so intimate a friend,
with her, for Ivan was certainly now with his father. Dmitri he was even
more certain not to find there, and he had a foreboding of the reason. And
so his conversation would be with her alone. He had a great longing to run
and see his brother Dmitri before that fateful interview. Without showing
him the letter, he could talk to him about it. But Dmitri lived a long way
off, and he was sure to be away from home too. Standing still for a
minute, he reached a final decision. Crossing himself with a rapid and
accustomed gesture, and at once smiling, he turned resolutely in the
direction of his terrible lady.
He knew her house. If he went by the High Street and then across the
market‐place, it was a long way round. Though our town is small, it is
scattered, and the houses are far apart. And meanwhile his father was
expecting him, and perhaps had not yet forgotten his command. He might be
unreasonable, and so he had to make haste to get there and back. So he
decided to take a short cut by the back‐way, for he knew every inch of the
ground. This meant skirting fences, climbing over hurdles, and crossing
other people’s back‐yards, where every one he met knew him and greeted
him. In this way he could reach the High Street in half the time.
He had to pass the garden adjoining his father’s, and belonging to a
little tumbledown house with four windows. The owner of this house, as
Alyosha knew, was a bedridden old woman, living with her daughter, who had
been a genteel maid‐servant in generals’ families in Petersburg. Now she
had been at home a year, looking after her sick mother. She always dressed
up in fine clothes, though her old mother and she had sunk into such
poverty that they went every day to Fyodor Pavlovitch’s kitchen for soup
and bread, which Marfa gave readily. Yet, though the young woman came up
for soup, she had never sold any of her dresses, and one of these even had
a long train—a fact which Alyosha had learned from Rakitin, who always
knew everything that was going on in the town. He had forgotten it as soon
as he heard it, but now, on reaching the garden, he remembered the dress
with the train, raised his head, which had been bowed in thought, and came
upon something quite unexpected.
Over the hurdle in the garden, Dmitri, mounted on something, was leaning
forward, gesticulating violently, beckoning to him, obviously afraid to
utter a word for fear of being overheard. Alyosha ran up to the hurdle.
“It’s a good thing you looked up. I was nearly shouting to you,” Mitya
said in a joyful, hurried whisper. “Climb in here quickly! How splendid
that you’ve come! I was just thinking of you!”
Alyosha was delighted too, but he did not know how to get over the hurdle.
Mitya put his powerful hand under his elbow to help him jump. Tucking up
his cassock, Alyosha leapt over the hurdle with the agility of a bare‐
legged street urchin.
“Well done! Now come along,” said Mitya in an enthusiastic whisper.
“Where?” whispered Alyosha, looking about him and finding himself in a
deserted garden with no one near but themselves. The garden was small, but
the house was at least fifty paces away.
“There’s no one here. Why do you whisper?” asked Alyosha.
“Why do I whisper? Deuce take it!” cried Dmitri at the top of his voice.
“You see what silly tricks nature plays one. I am here in secret, and on
the watch. I’ll explain later on, but, knowing it’s a secret, I began
whispering like a fool, when there’s no need. Let us go. Over there. Till
then be quiet. I want to kiss you.
Glory to God in the world,
Glory to God in me ...
I was just repeating that, sitting here, before you came.”
The garden was about three acres in extent, and planted with trees only
along the fence at the four sides. There were apple‐trees, maples, limes
and birch‐trees. The middle of the garden was an empty grass space, from
which several hundredweight of hay was carried in the summer. The garden
was let out for a few roubles for the summer. There were also plantations
of raspberries and currants and gooseberries laid out along the sides; a
kitchen garden had been planted lately near the house.
Dmitri led his brother to the most secluded corner of the garden. There,
in a thicket of lime‐trees and old bushes of black currant, elder,
snowball‐tree, and lilac, there stood a tumble‐down green summer‐house,
blackened with age. Its walls were of lattice‐work, but there was still a
roof which could give shelter. God knows when this summer‐house was built.
There was a tradition that it had been put up some fifty years before by a
retired colonel called von Schmidt, who owned the house at that time. It
was all in decay, the floor was rotting, the planks were loose, the
woodwork smelled musty. In the summer‐house there was a green wooden table
fixed in the ground, and round it were some green benches upon which it
was still possible to sit. Alyosha had at once observed his brother’s
exhilarated condition, and on entering the arbor he saw half a bottle of
brandy and a wineglass on the table.
“That’s brandy,” Mitya laughed. “I see your look: ‘He’s drinking again!’
Distrust the apparition.
Distrust the worthless, lying crowd,
And lay aside thy doubts.
I’m not drinking, I’m only ‘indulging,’ as that pig, your Rakitin, says.
He’ll be a civil councilor one day, but he’ll always talk about
‘indulging.’ Sit down. I could take you in my arms, Alyosha, and press you
to my bosom till I crush you, for in the whole world—in reality—in re‐al‐
i‐ty—(can you take it in?) I love no one but you!”
He uttered the last words in a sort of exaltation.
“No one but you and one ‘jade’ I have fallen in love with, to my ruin. But
being in love doesn’t mean loving. You may be in love with a woman and yet
hate her. Remember that! I can talk about it gayly still. Sit down here by
the table and I’ll sit beside you and look at you, and go on talking. You
shall keep quiet and I’ll go on talking, for the time has come. But on
reflection, you know, I’d better speak quietly, for here—here—you can
never tell what ears are listening. I will explain everything; as they
say, ‘the story will be continued.’ Why have I been longing for you? Why
have I been thirsting for you all these days, and just now? (It’s five
days since I’ve cast anchor here.) Because it’s only to you I can tell
everything; because I must, because I need you, because to‐morrow I shall
fly from the clouds, because to‐morrow life is ending and beginning. Have
you ever felt, have you ever dreamt of falling down a precipice into a
pit? That’s just how I’m falling, but not in a dream. And I’m not afraid,
and don’t you be afraid. At least, I am afraid, but I enjoy it. It’s not
enjoyment though, but ecstasy. Damn it all, whatever it is! A strong
spirit, a weak spirit, a womanish spirit—whatever it is! Let us praise
nature: you see what sunshine, how clear the sky is, the leaves are all
green, it’s still summer; four o’clock in the afternoon and the stillness!
Where were you going?”
“I was going to father’s, but I meant to go to Katerina Ivanovna’s first.”
“To her, and to father! Oo! what a coincidence! Why was I waiting for you?
Hungering and thirsting for you in every cranny of my soul and even in my
ribs? Why, to send you to father and to her, Katerina Ivanovna, so as to
have done with her and with father. To send an angel. I might have sent
any one, but I wanted to send an angel. And here you are on your way to
see father and her.”
“Did you really mean to send me?” cried Alyosha with a distressed
expression.
“Stay! You knew it! And I see you understand it all at once. But be quiet,
be quiet for a time. Don’t be sorry, and don’t cry.”
Dmitri stood up, thought a moment, and put his finger to his forehead.
“She’s asked you, written to you a letter or something, that’s why you’re
going to her? You wouldn’t be going except for that?”
“Here is her note.” Alyosha took it out of his pocket. Mitya looked
through it quickly.
“And you were going the back‐way! Oh, gods, I thank you for sending him by
the back‐way, and he came to me like the golden fish to the silly old
fishermen in the fable! Listen, Alyosha, listen, brother! Now I mean to
tell you everything, for I must tell some one. An angel in heaven I’ve
told already; but I want to tell an angel on earth. You are an angel on
earth. You will hear and judge and forgive. And that’s what I need, that
some one above me should forgive. Listen! If two people break away from
everything on earth and fly off into the unknown, or at least one of them,
and before flying off or going to ruin he comes to some one else and says,
‘Do this for me’—some favor never asked before that could only be asked on
one’s deathbed—would that other refuse, if he were a friend or a brother?”
“I will do it, but tell me what it is, and make haste,” said Alyosha.
“Make haste! H’m!... Don’t be in a hurry, Alyosha, you hurry and worry
yourself. There’s no need to hurry now. Now the world has taken a new
turning. Ah, Alyosha, what a pity you can’t understand ecstasy. But what
am I saying to him? As though you didn’t understand it. What an ass I am!
What am I saying? ‘Be noble, O man!’—who says that?”
Alyosha made up his mind to wait. He felt that, perhaps, indeed, his work
lay here. Mitya sank into thought for a moment, with his elbow on the
table and his head in his hand. Both were silent.
“Alyosha,” said Mitya, “you’re the only one who won’t laugh. I should like
to begin—my confession—with Schiller’s _Hymn to Joy_, _An die Freude_! I
don’t know German, I only know it’s called that. Don’t think I’m talking
nonsense because I’m drunk. I’m not a bit drunk. Brandy’s all very well,
but I need two bottles to make me drunk:
Silenus with his rosy phiz
Upon his stumbling ass.
But I’ve not drunk a quarter of a bottle, and I’m not Silenus. I’m not
Silenus, though I am strong,(1) for I’ve made a decision once for all.
Forgive me the pun; you’ll have to forgive me a lot more than puns to‐day.
Don’t be uneasy. I’m not spinning it out. I’m talking sense, and I’ll come
to the point in a minute. I won’t keep you in suspense. Stay, how does it
go?”
He raised his head, thought a minute, and began with enthusiasm:
“Wild and fearful in his cavern
Hid the naked troglodyte,
And the homeless nomad wandered
Laying waste the fertile plain.
Menacing with spear and arrow
In the woods the hunter strayed....
Woe to all poor wretches stranded
On those cruel and hostile shores!
“From the peak of high Olympus
Came the mother Ceres down,
Seeking in those savage regions
Her lost daughter Proserpine.
But the Goddess found no refuge,
Found no kindly welcome there,
And no temple bearing witness
To the worship of the gods.
“From the fields and from the vineyards
Came no fruits to deck the feasts,
Only flesh of bloodstained victims
Smoldered on the altar‐fires,
And where’er the grieving goddess
Turns her melancholy gaze,
Sunk in vilest degradation
Man his loathsomeness displays.”
Mitya broke into sobs and seized Alyosha’s hand.
“My dear, my dear, in degradation, in degradation now, too. There’s a
terrible amount of suffering for man on earth, a terrible lot of trouble.
Don’t think I’m only a brute in an officer’s uniform, wallowing in dirt
and drink. I hardly think of anything but of that degraded man—if only I’m
not lying. I pray God I’m not lying and showing off. I think about that
man because I am that man myself.
Would he purge his soul from vileness
And attain to light and worth,
He must turn and cling for ever
To his ancient Mother Earth.
But the difficulty is how am I to cling for ever to Mother Earth. I don’t
kiss her. I don’t cleave to her bosom. Am I to become a peasant or a
shepherd? I go on and I don’t know whether I’m going to shame or to light
and joy. That’s the trouble, for everything in the world is a riddle! And
whenever I’ve happened to sink into the vilest degradation (and it’s
always been happening) I always read that poem about Ceres and man. Has it
reformed me? Never! For I’m a Karamazov. For when I do leap into the pit,
I go headlong with my heels up, and am pleased to be falling in that
degrading attitude, and pride myself upon it. And in the very depths of
that degradation I begin a hymn of praise. Let me be accursed. Let me be
vile and base, only let me kiss the hem of the veil in which my God is
shrouded. Though I may be following the devil, I am Thy son, O Lord, and I
love Thee, and I feel the joy without which the world cannot stand.
Joy everlasting fostereth
The soul of all creation,
It is her secret ferment fires
The cup of life with flame.
’Tis at her beck the grass hath turned
Each blade towards the light
And solar systems have evolved
From chaos and dark night,
Filling the realms of boundless space
Beyond the sage’s sight.
At bounteous Nature’s kindly breast,
All things that breathe drink Joy,
And birds and beasts and creeping things
All follow where She leads.
Her gifts to man are friends in need,
The wreath, the foaming must,
To angels—vision of God’s throne,
To insects—sensual lust.
But enough poetry! I am in tears; let me cry. It may be foolishness that
every one would laugh at. But you won’t laugh. Your eyes are shining, too.
Enough poetry. I want to tell you now about the insects to whom God gave
“sensual lust.”
To insects—sensual lust.
I am that insect, brother, and it is said of me specially. All we
Karamazovs are such insects, and, angel as you are, that insect lives in
you, too, and will stir up a tempest in your blood. Tempests, because
sensual lust is a tempest—worse than a tempest! Beauty is a terrible and
awful thing! It is terrible because it has not been fathomed and never can
be fathomed, for God sets us nothing but riddles. Here the boundaries meet
and all contradictions exist side by side. I am not a cultivated man,
brother, but I’ve thought a lot about this. It’s terrible what mysteries
there are! Too many riddles weigh men down on earth. We must solve them as
we can, and try to keep a dry skin in the water. Beauty! I can’t endure
the thought that a man of lofty mind and heart begins with the ideal of
the Madonna and ends with the ideal of Sodom. What’s still more awful is
that a man with the ideal of Sodom in his soul does not renounce the ideal
of the Madonna, and his heart may be on fire with that ideal, genuinely on
fire, just as in his days of youth and innocence. Yes, man is broad, too
broad, indeed. I’d have him narrower. The devil only knows what to make of
it! What to the mind is shameful is beauty and nothing else to the heart.
Is there beauty in Sodom? Believe me, that for the immense mass of mankind
beauty is found in Sodom. Did you know that secret? The awful thing is
that beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and the devil are
fighting there and the battlefield is the heart of man. But a man always
talks of his own ache. Listen, now to come to facts.”
Chapter IV. The Confession Of A Passionate Heart—In Anecdote
“I was leading a wild life then. Father said just now that I spent several
thousand roubles in seducing young girls. That’s a swinish invention, and
there was nothing of the sort. And if there was, I didn’t need money
simply for _that_. With me money is an accessory, the overflow of my
heart, the framework. To‐day she would be my lady, to‐morrow a wench out
of the streets in her place. I entertained them both. I threw away money
by the handful on music, rioting, and gypsies. Sometimes I gave it to the
ladies, too, for they’ll take it greedily, that must be admitted, and be
pleased and thankful for it. Ladies used to be fond of me: not all of
them, but it happened, it happened. But I always liked side‐paths, little
dark back‐alleys behind the main road—there one finds adventures and
surprises, and precious metal in the dirt. I am speaking figuratively,
brother. In the town I was in, there were no such back‐alleys in the
literal sense, but morally there were. If you were like me, you’d know
what that means. I loved vice, I loved the ignominy of vice. I loved
cruelty; am I not a bug, am I not a noxious insect? In fact a Karamazov!
Once we went, a whole lot of us, for a picnic, in seven sledges. It was
dark, it was winter, and I began squeezing a girl’s hand, and forced her
to kiss me. She was the daughter of an official, a sweet, gentle,
submissive creature. She allowed me, she allowed me much in the dark. She
thought, poor thing, that I should come next day to make her an offer (I
was looked upon as a good match, too). But I didn’t say a word to her for
five months. I used to see her in a corner at dances (we were always
having dances), her eyes watching me. I saw how they glowed with fire—a
fire of gentle indignation. This game only tickled that insect lust I
cherished in my soul. Five months later she married an official and left
the town, still angry, and still, perhaps, in love with me. Now they live
happily. Observe that I told no one. I didn’t boast of it. Though I’m full
of low desires, and love what’s low, I’m not dishonorable. You’re
blushing; your eyes flashed. Enough of this filth with you. And all this
was nothing much—wayside blossoms _à la_ Paul de Kock—though the cruel
insect had already grown strong in my soul. I’ve a perfect album of
reminiscences, brother. God bless them, the darlings. I tried to break it
off without quarreling. And I never gave them away. I never bragged of one
of them. But that’s enough. You can’t suppose I brought you here simply to
talk of such nonsense. No, I’m going to tell you something more curious;
and don’t be surprised that I’m glad to tell you, instead of being
ashamed.”
“You say that because I blushed,” Alyosha said suddenly. “I wasn’t
blushing at what you were saying or at what you’ve done. I blushed because
I am the same as you are.”
“You? Come, that’s going a little too far!”
“No, it’s not too far,” said Alyosha warmly (obviously the idea was not a
new one). “The ladder’s the same. I’m at the bottom step, and you’re
above, somewhere about the thirteenth. That’s how I see it. But it’s all
the same. Absolutely the same in kind. Any one on the bottom step is bound
to go up to the top one.”
“Then one ought not to step on at all.”
“Any one who can help it had better not.”
“But can you?”
“I think not.”
“Hush, Alyosha, hush, darling! I could kiss your hand, you touch me so.
That rogue Grushenka has an eye for men. She told me once that she’d
devour you one day. There, there, I won’t! From this field of corruption
fouled by flies, let’s pass to my tragedy, also befouled by flies, that is
by every sort of vileness. Although the old man told lies about my
seducing innocence, there really was something of the sort in my tragedy,
though it was only once, and then it did not come off. The old man who has
reproached me with what never happened does not even know of this fact; I
never told any one about it. You’re the first, except Ivan, of course—Ivan
knows everything. He knew about it long before you. But Ivan’s a tomb.”
“Ivan’s a tomb?”
“Yes.”
Alyosha listened with great attention.
“I was lieutenant in a line regiment, but still I was under supervision,
like a kind of convict. Yet I was awfully well received in the little
town. I spent money right and left. I was thought to be rich; I thought so
myself. But I must have pleased them in other ways as well. Although they
shook their heads over me, they liked me. My colonel, who was an old man,
took a sudden dislike to me. He was always down upon me, but I had
powerful friends, and, moreover, all the town was on my side, so he
couldn’t do me much harm. I was in fault myself for refusing to treat him
with proper respect. I was proud. This obstinate old fellow, who was
really a very good sort, kind‐hearted and hospitable, had had two wives,
both dead. His first wife, who was of a humble family, left a daughter as
unpretentious as herself. She was a young woman of four and twenty when I
was there, and was living with her father and an aunt, her mother’s
sister. The aunt was simple and illiterate; the niece was simple but
lively. I like to say nice things about people. I never knew a woman of
more charming character than Agafya—fancy, her name was Agafya Ivanovna!
And she wasn’t bad‐looking either, in the Russian style: tall, stout, with
a full figure, and beautiful eyes, though a rather coarse face. She had
not married, although she had had two suitors. She refused them, but was
as cheerful as ever. I was intimate with her, not in ‘that’ way, it was
pure friendship. I have often been friendly with women quite innocently. I
used to talk to her with shocking frankness, and she only laughed. Many
women like such freedom, and she was a girl too, which made it very
amusing. Another thing, one could never think of her as a young lady. She
and her aunt lived in her father’s house with a sort of voluntary
humility, not putting themselves on an equality with other people. She was
a general favorite, and of use to every one, for she was a clever
dressmaker. She had a talent for it. She gave her services freely without
asking for payment, but if any one offered her payment, she didn’t refuse.
The colonel, of course, was a very different matter. He was one of the
chief personages in the district. He kept open house, entertained the
whole town, gave suppers and dances. At the time I arrived and joined the
battalion, all the town was talking of the expected return of the
colonel’s second daughter, a great beauty, who had just left a fashionable
school in the capital. This second daughter is Katerina Ivanovna, and she
was the child of the second wife, who belonged to a distinguished
general’s family; although, as I learnt on good authority, she too brought
the colonel no money. She had connections, and that was all. There may
have been expectations, but they had come to nothing.
“Yet, when the young lady came from boarding‐school on a visit, the whole
town revived. Our most distinguished ladies—two ‘Excellencies’ and a
colonel’s wife—and all the rest following their lead, at once took her up
and gave entertainments in her honor. She was the belle of the balls and
picnics, and they got up _tableaux vivants_ in aid of distressed
governesses. I took no notice, I went on as wildly as before, and one of
my exploits at the time set all the town talking. I saw her eyes taking my
measure one evening at the battery commander’s, but I didn’t go up to her,
as though I disdained her acquaintance. I did go up and speak to her at an
evening party not long after. She scarcely looked at me, and compressed
her lips scornfully. ‘Wait a bit. I’ll have my revenge,’ thought I. I
behaved like an awful fool on many occasions at that time, and I was
conscious of it myself. What made it worse was that I felt that ‘Katenka’
was not an innocent boarding‐school miss, but a person of character, proud
and really high‐principled; above all, she had education and intellect,
and I had neither. You think I meant to make her an offer? No, I simply
wanted to revenge myself, because I was such a hero and she didn’t seem to
feel it.
“Meanwhile, I spent my time in drink and riot, till the lieutenant‐colonel
put me under arrest for three days. Just at that time father sent me six
thousand roubles in return for my sending him a deed giving up all claims
upon him—settling our accounts, so to speak, and saying that I wouldn’t
expect anything more. I didn’t understand a word of it at the time. Until
I came here, Alyosha, till the last few days, indeed, perhaps even now, I
haven’t been able to make head or tail of my money affairs with father.
But never mind that, we’ll talk of it later.
“Just as I received the money, I got a letter from a friend telling me
something that interested me immensely. The authorities, I learnt, were
dissatisfied with our lieutenant‐colonel. He was suspected of
irregularities; in fact, his enemies were preparing a surprise for him.
And then the commander of the division arrived, and kicked up the devil of
a shindy. Shortly afterwards he was ordered to retire. I won’t tell you
how it all happened. He had enemies certainly. Suddenly there was a marked
coolness in the town towards him and all his family. His friends all
turned their backs on him. Then I took my first step. I met Agafya
Ivanovna, with whom I’d always kept up a friendship, and said, ‘Do you
know there’s a deficit of 4,500 roubles of government money in your
father’s accounts?’
“ ‘What do you mean? What makes you say so? The general was here not long
ago, and everything was all right.’
“ ‘Then it was, but now it isn’t.’
“She was terribly scared.
“ ‘Don’t frighten me!’ she said. ‘Who told you so?’
“ ‘Don’t be uneasy,’ I said, ‘I won’t tell any one. You know I’m as silent
as the tomb. I only wanted, in view of “possibilities,” to add, that when
they demand that 4,500 roubles from your father, and he can’t produce it,
he’ll be tried, and made to serve as a common soldier in his old age,
unless you like to send me your young lady secretly. I’ve just had money
paid me. I’ll give her four thousand, if you like, and keep the secret
religiously.’
“ ‘Ah, you scoundrel!’—that’s what she said. ‘You wicked scoundrel! How
dare you!’
“She went away furiously indignant, while I shouted after her once more
that the secret should be kept sacred. Those two simple creatures, Agafya
and her aunt, I may as well say at once, behaved like perfect angels all
through this business. They genuinely adored their ‘Katya,’ thought her
far above them, and waited on her, hand and foot. But Agafya told her of
our conversation. I found that out afterwards. She didn’t keep it back,
and of course that was all I wanted.
“Suddenly the new major arrived to take command of the battalion. The old
lieutenant‐colonel was taken ill at once, couldn’t leave his room for two
days, and didn’t hand over the government money. Dr. Kravchenko declared
that he really was ill. But I knew for a fact, and had known for a long
time, that for the last four years the money had never been in his hands
except when the Commander made his visits of inspection. He used to lend
it to a trustworthy person, a merchant of our town called Trifonov, an old
widower, with a big beard and gold‐rimmed spectacles. He used to go to the
fair, do a profitable business with the money, and return the whole sum to
the colonel, bringing with it a present from the fair, as well as interest
on the loan. But this time (I heard all about it quite by chance from
Trifonov’s son and heir, a driveling youth and one of the most vicious in
the world)—this time, I say, Trifonov brought nothing back from the fair.
The lieutenant‐colonel flew to him. ‘I’ve never received any money from
you, and couldn’t possibly have received any.’ That was all the answer he
got. So now our lieutenant‐colonel is confined to the house, with a towel
round his head, while they’re all three busy putting ice on it. All at
once an orderly arrives on the scene with the book and the order to ‘hand
over the battalion money immediately, within two hours.’ He signed the
book (I saw the signature in the book afterwards), stood up, saying he
would put on his uniform, ran to his bedroom, loaded his double‐barreled
gun with a service bullet, took the boot off his right foot, fixed the gun
against his chest, and began feeling for the trigger with his foot. But
Agafya, remembering what I had told her, had her suspicions. She stole up
and peeped into the room just in time. She rushed in, flung herself upon
him from behind, threw her arms round him, and the gun went off, hit the
ceiling, but hurt no one. The others ran in, took away the gun, and held
him by the arms. I heard all about this afterwards. I was at home, it was
getting dusk, and I was just preparing to go out. I had dressed, brushed
my hair, scented my handkerchief, and taken up my cap, when suddenly the
door opened, and facing me in the room stood Katerina Ivanovna.
“It’s strange how things happen sometimes. No one had seen her in the
street, so that no one knew of it in the town. I lodged with two decrepit
old ladies, who looked after me. They were most obliging old things, ready
to do anything for me, and at my request were as silent afterwards as two
cast‐iron posts. Of course I grasped the position at once. She walked in
and looked straight at me, her dark eyes determined, even defiant, but on
her lips and round her mouth I saw uncertainty.
“ ‘My sister told me,’ she began, ‘that you would give me 4,500 roubles if
I came to you for it—myself. I have come ... give me the money!’
“She couldn’t keep it up. She was breathless, frightened, her voice failed
her, and the corners of her mouth and the lines round it quivered.
Alyosha, are you listening, or are you asleep?”
“Mitya, I know you will tell the whole truth,” said Alyosha in agitation.
“I am telling it. If I tell the whole truth just as it happened I shan’t
spare myself. My first idea was a—Karamazov one. Once I was bitten by a
centipede, brother, and laid up a fortnight with fever from it. Well, I
felt a centipede biting at my heart then—a noxious insect, you understand?
I looked her up and down. You’ve seen her? She’s a beauty. But she was
beautiful in another way then. At that moment she was beautiful because
she was noble, and I was a scoundrel; she in all the grandeur of her
generosity and sacrifice for her father, and I—a bug! And, scoundrel as I
was, she was altogether at my mercy, body and soul. She was hemmed in. I
tell you frankly, that thought, that venomous thought, so possessed my
heart that it almost swooned with suspense. It seemed as if there could be
no resisting it; as though I should act like a bug, like a venomous
spider, without a spark of pity. I could scarcely breathe. Understand, I
should have gone next day to ask for her hand, so that it might end
honorably, so to speak, and that nobody would or could know. For though
I’m a man of base desires, I’m honest. And at that very second some voice
seemed to whisper in my ear, ‘But when you come to‐morrow to make your
proposal, that girl won’t even see you; she’ll order her coachman to kick
you out of the yard. “Publish it through all the town,” she would say,
“I’m not afraid of you.” ’ I looked at the young lady, my voice had not
deceived me. That is how it would be, not a doubt of it. I could see from
her face now that I should be turned out of the house. My spite was
roused. I longed to play her the nastiest swinish cad’s trick: to look at
her with a sneer, and on the spot where she stood before me to stun her
with a tone of voice that only a shopman could use.
“ ‘Four thousand! What do you mean? I was joking. You’ve been counting
your chickens too easily, madam. Two hundred, if you like, with all my
heart. But four thousand is not a sum to throw away on such frivolity.
You’ve put yourself out to no purpose.’
“I should have lost the game, of course. She’d have run away. But it would
have been an infernal revenge. It would have been worth it all. I’d have
howled with regret all the rest of my life, only to have played that
trick. Would you believe it, it has never happened to me with any other
woman, not one, to look at her at such a moment with hatred. But, on my
oath, I looked at her for three seconds, or five perhaps, with fearful
hatred—that hate which is only a hair’s‐breadth from love, from the
maddest love!
“I went to the window, put my forehead against the frozen pane, and I
remember the ice burnt my forehead like fire. I did not keep her long,
don’t be afraid. I turned round, went up to the table, opened the drawer
and took out a banknote for five thousand roubles (it was lying in a
French dictionary). Then I showed it her in silence, folded it, handed it
to her, opened the door into the passage, and, stepping back, made her a
deep bow, a most respectful, a most impressive bow, believe me! She
shuddered all over, gazed at me for a second, turned horribly pale—white
as a sheet, in fact—and all at once, not impetuously but softly, gently,
bowed down to my feet—not a boarding‐school curtsey, but a Russian bow,
with her forehead to the floor. She jumped up and ran away. I was wearing
my sword. I drew it and nearly stabbed myself with it on the spot; why, I
don’t know. It would have been frightfully stupid, of course. I suppose it
was from delight. Can you understand that one might kill oneself from
delight? But I didn’t stab myself. I only kissed my sword and put it back
in the scabbard—which there was no need to have told you, by the way. And
I fancy that in telling you about my inner conflict I have laid it on
rather thick to glorify myself. But let it pass, and to hell with all who
pry into the human heart! Well, so much for that ‘adventure’ with Katerina
Ivanovna. So now Ivan knows of it, and you—no one else.”
Dmitri got up, took a step or two in his excitement, pulled out his
handkerchief and mopped his forehead, then sat down again, not in the same
place as before, but on the opposite side, so that Alyosha had to turn
quite round to face him.
Chapter V. The Confession Of A Passionate Heart—"Heels Up"
“Now,” said Alyosha, “I understand the first half.”
“You understand the first half. That half is a drama, and it was played
out there. The second half is a tragedy, and it is being acted here.”
“And I understand nothing of that second half so far,” said Alyosha.
“And I? Do you suppose I understand it?”
“Stop, Dmitri. There’s one important question. Tell me, you were
betrothed, you are betrothed still?”
“We weren’t betrothed at once, not for three months after that adventure.
The next day I told myself that the incident was closed, concluded, that
there would be no sequel. It seemed to me caddish to make her an offer. On
her side she gave no sign of life for the six weeks that she remained in
the town; except, indeed, for one action. The day after her visit the
maid‐servant slipped round with an envelope addressed to me. I tore it
open: it contained the change out of the banknote. Only four thousand five
hundred roubles was needed, but there was a discount of about two hundred
on changing it. She only sent me about two hundred and sixty. I don’t
remember exactly, but not a note, not a word of explanation. I searched
the packet for a pencil mark—n‐nothing! Well, I spent the rest of the
money on such an orgy that the new major was obliged to reprimand me.
“Well, the lieutenant‐colonel produced the battalion money, to the
astonishment of every one, for nobody believed that he had the money
untouched. He’d no sooner paid it than he fell ill, took to his bed, and,
three weeks later, softening of the brain set in, and he died five days
afterwards. He was buried with military honors, for he had not had time to
receive his discharge. Ten days after his funeral, Katerina Ivanovna, with
her aunt and sister, went to Moscow. And, behold, on the very day they
went away (I hadn’t seen them, didn’t see them off or take leave) I
received a tiny note, a sheet of thin blue paper, and on it only one line
in pencil: ‘I will write to you. Wait. K.’ And that was all.
“I’ll explain the rest now, in two words. In Moscow their fortunes changed
with the swiftness of lightning and the unexpectedness of an Arabian
fairy‐tale. That general’s widow, their nearest relation, suddenly lost
the two nieces who were her heiresses and next‐of‐kin—both died in the
same week of small‐pox. The old lady, prostrated with grief, welcomed
Katya as a daughter, as her one hope, clutched at her, altered her will in
Katya’s favor. But that concerned the future. Meanwhile she gave her, for
present use, eighty thousand roubles, as a marriage portion, to do what
she liked with. She was an hysterical woman. I saw something of her in
Moscow, later.
“Well, suddenly I received by post four thousand five hundred roubles. I
was speechless with surprise, as you may suppose. Three days later came
the promised letter. I have it with me now. You must read it. She offers
to be my wife, offers herself to me. ‘I love you madly,’ she says, ‘even
if you don’t love me, never mind. Be my husband. Don’t be afraid. I won’t
hamper you in any way. I will be your chattel. I will be the carpet under
your feet. I want to love you for ever. I want to save you from yourself.’
Alyosha, I am not worthy to repeat those lines in my vulgar words and in
my vulgar tone, my everlastingly vulgar tone, that I can never cure myself
of. That letter stabs me even now. Do you think I don’t mind—that I don’t
mind still? I wrote her an answer at once, as it was impossible for me to
go to Moscow. I wrote to her with tears. One thing I shall be ashamed of
for ever. I referred to her being rich and having a dowry while I was only
a stuck‐up beggar! I mentioned money! I ought to have borne it in silence,
but it slipped from my pen. Then I wrote at once to Ivan, and told him all
I could about it in a letter of six pages, and sent him to her. Why do you
look like that? Why are you staring at me? Yes, Ivan fell in love with
her; he’s in love with her still. I know that. I did a stupid thing, in
the world’s opinion; but perhaps that one stupid thing may be the saving
of us all now. Oo! Don’t you see what a lot she thinks of Ivan, how she
respects him? When she compares us, do you suppose she can love a man like
me, especially after all that has happened here?”
“But I am convinced that she does love a man like you, and not a man like
him.”
“She loves her own _virtue_, not me.” The words broke involuntarily, and
almost malignantly, from Dmitri. He laughed, but a minute later his eyes
gleamed, he flushed crimson and struck the table violently with his fist.
“I swear, Alyosha,” he cried, with intense and genuine anger at himself;
“you may not believe me, but as God is holy, and as Christ is God, I swear
that though I smiled at her lofty sentiments just now, I know that I am a
million times baser in soul than she, and that these lofty sentiments of
hers are as sincere as a heavenly angel’s. That’s the tragedy of it—that I
know that for certain. What if any one does show off a bit? Don’t I do it
myself? And yet I’m sincere, I’m sincere. As for Ivan, I can understand
how he must be cursing nature now—with his intellect, too! To see the
preference given—to whom, to what? To a monster who, though he is
betrothed and all eyes are fixed on him, can’t restrain his
debaucheries—and before the very eyes of his betrothed! And a man like me
is preferred, while he is rejected. And why? Because a girl wants to
sacrifice her life and destiny out of gratitude. It’s ridiculous! I’ve
never said a word of this to Ivan, and Ivan of course has never dropped a
hint of the sort to me. But destiny will be accomplished, and the best man
will hold his ground while the undeserving one will vanish into his back‐
alley for ever—his filthy back‐alley, his beloved back‐alley, where he is
at home and where he will sink in filth and stench at his own free will
and with enjoyment. I’ve been talking foolishly. I’ve no words left. I use
them at random, but it will be as I have said. I shall drown in the back‐
alley, and she will marry Ivan.”
“Stop, Dmitri,” Alyosha interrupted again with great anxiety. “There’s one
thing you haven’t made clear yet: you are still betrothed all the same,
aren’t you? How can you break off the engagement if she, your betrothed,
doesn’t want to?”
“Yes, formally and solemnly betrothed. It was all done on my arrival in
Moscow, with great ceremony, with ikons, all in fine style. The general’s
wife blessed us, and—would you believe it?—congratulated Katya. ‘You’ve
made a good choice,’ she said, ‘I see right through him.’ And—would you
believe it?—she didn’t like Ivan, and hardly greeted him. I had a lot of
talk with Katya in Moscow. I told her about myself—sincerely, honorably.
She listened to everything.
There was sweet confusion,
There were tender words.
Though there were proud words, too. She wrung out of me a mighty promise
to reform. I gave my promise, and here—”
“What?”
“Why, I called to you and brought you out here to‐day, this very
day—remember it—to send you—this very day again—to Katerina Ivanovna,
and—”
“What?”
“To tell her that I shall never come to see her again. Say, ‘He sends you
his compliments.’ ”
“But is that possible?”
“That’s just the reason I’m sending you, in my place, because it’s
impossible. And, how could I tell her myself?”
“And where are you going?”
“To the back‐alley.”
“To Grushenka, then!” Alyosha exclaimed mournfully, clasping his hands.
“Can Rakitin really have told the truth? I thought that you had just
visited her, and that was all.”
“Can a betrothed man pay such visits? Is such a thing possible and with
such a betrothed, and before the eyes of all the world? Confound it, I
have some honor! As soon as I began visiting Grushenka, I ceased to be
betrothed, and to be an honest man. I understand that. Why do you look at
me? You see, I went in the first place to beat her. I had heard, and I
know for a fact now, that that captain, father’s agent, had given
Grushenka an I.O.U. of mine for her to sue me for payment, so as to put an
end to me. They wanted to scare me. I went to beat her. I had had a
glimpse of her before. She doesn’t strike one at first sight. I knew about
her old merchant, who’s lying ill now, paralyzed; but he’s leaving her a
decent little sum. I knew, too, that she was fond of money, that she
hoarded it, and lent it at a wicked rate of interest, that she’s a
merciless cheat and swindler. I went to beat her, and I stayed. The storm
broke—it struck me down like the plague. I’m plague‐stricken still, and I
know that everything is over, that there will never be anything more for
me. The cycle of the ages is accomplished. That’s my position. And though
I’m a beggar, as fate would have it, I had three thousand just then in my
pocket. I drove with Grushenka to Mokroe, a place twenty‐five versts from
here. I got gypsies there and champagne and made all the peasants there
drunk on it, and all the women and girls. I sent the thousands flying. In
three days’ time I was stripped bare, but a hero. Do you suppose the hero
had gained his end? Not a sign of it from her. I tell you that rogue,
Grushenka, has a supple curve all over her body. You can see it in her
little foot, even in her little toe. I saw it, and kissed it, but that was
all, I swear! ‘I’ll marry you if you like,’ she said, ‘you’re a beggar,
you know. Say that you won’t beat me, and will let me do anything I
choose, and perhaps I will marry you.’ She laughed, and she’s laughing
still!”
Dmitri leapt up with a sort of fury. He seemed all at once as though he
were drunk. His eyes became suddenly bloodshot.
“And do you really mean to marry her?”
“At once, if she will. And if she won’t, I shall stay all the same. I’ll
be the porter at her gate. Alyosha!” he cried. He stopped short before
him, and taking him by the shoulders began shaking him violently. “Do you
know, you innocent boy, that this is all delirium, senseless delirium, for
there’s a tragedy here. Let me tell you, Alexey, that I may be a low man,
with low and degraded passions, but a thief and a pickpocket Dmitri
Karamazov never can be. Well, then; let me tell you that I am a thief and
a pickpocket. That very morning, just before I went to beat Grushenka,
Katerina Ivanovna sent for me, and in strict secrecy (why I don’t know, I
suppose she had some reason) asked me to go to the chief town of the
province and to post three thousand roubles to Agafya Ivanovna in Moscow,
so that nothing should be known of it in the town here. So I had that
three thousand roubles in my pocket when I went to see Grushenka, and it
was that money we spent at Mokroe. Afterwards I pretended I had been to
the town, but did not show her the post office receipt. I said I had sent
the money and would bring the receipt, and so far I haven’t brought it.
I’ve forgotten it. Now what do you think you’re going to her to‐day to
say? ‘He sends his compliments,’ and she’ll ask you, ‘What about the
money?’ You might still have said to her, ‘He’s a degraded sensualist, and
a low creature, with uncontrolled passions. He didn’t send your money
then, but wasted it, because, like a low brute, he couldn’t control
himself.’ But still you might have added, ‘He isn’t a thief though. Here
is your three thousand; he sends it back. Send it yourself to Agafya
Ivanovna. But he told me to say “he sends his compliments.” ’ But, as it
is, she will ask, ‘But where is the money?’ ”
“Mitya, you are unhappy, yes! But not as unhappy as you think. Don’t worry
yourself to death with despair.”
“What, do you suppose I’d shoot myself because I can’t get three thousand
to pay back? That’s just it. I shan’t shoot myself. I haven’t the strength
now. Afterwards, perhaps. But now I’m going to Grushenka. I don’t care
what happens.”
“And what then?”
“I’ll be her husband if she deigns to have me, and when lovers come, I’ll
go into the next room. I’ll clean her friends’ goloshes, blow up their
samovar, run their errands.”
“Katerina Ivanovna will understand it all,” Alyosha said solemnly. “She’ll
understand how great this trouble is and will forgive. She has a lofty
mind, and no one could be more unhappy than you. She’ll see that for
herself.”
“She won’t forgive everything,” said Dmitri, with a grin. “There’s
something in it, brother, that no woman could forgive. Do you know what
would be the best thing to do?”
“What?”
“Pay back the three thousand.”
“Where can we get it from? I say, I have two thousand. Ivan will give you
another thousand—that makes three. Take it and pay it back.”
“And when would you get it, your three thousand? You’re not of age,
besides, and you must—you absolutely must—take my farewell to her to‐day,
with the money or without it, for I can’t drag on any longer, things have
come to such a pass. To‐morrow is too late. I shall send you to father.”
“To father?”
“Yes, to father first. Ask him for three thousand.”
“But, Mitya, he won’t give it.”
“As though he would! I know he won’t. Do you know the meaning of despair,
Alexey?”
“Yes.”
“Listen. Legally he owes me nothing. I’ve had it all from him, I know
that. But morally he owes me something, doesn’t he? You know he started
with twenty‐eight thousand of my mother’s money and made a hundred
thousand with it. Let him give me back only three out of the twenty‐eight
thousand, and he’ll draw my soul out of hell, and it will atone for many
of his sins. For that three thousand—I give you my solemn word—I’ll make
an end of everything, and he shall hear nothing more of me. For the last
time I give him the chance to be a father. Tell him God Himself sends him
this chance.”
“Mitya, he won’t give it for anything.”
“I know he won’t. I know it perfectly well. Now, especially. That’s not
all. I know something more. Now, only a few days ago, perhaps only
yesterday he found out for the first time _in earnest_ (underline _in
earnest_) that Grushenka is really perhaps not joking, and really means to
marry me. He knows her nature; he knows the cat. And do you suppose he’s
going to give me money to help to bring that about when he’s crazy about
her himself? And that’s not all, either. I can tell you more than that. I
know that for the last five days he has had three thousand drawn out of
the bank, changed into notes of a hundred roubles, packed into a large
envelope, sealed with five seals, and tied across with red tape. You see
how well I know all about it! On the envelope is written: ‘To my angel,
Grushenka, when she will come to me.’ He scrawled it himself in silence
and in secret, and no one knows that the money’s there except the valet,
Smerdyakov, whom he trusts like himself. So now he has been expecting
Grushenka for the last three or four days; he hopes she’ll come for the
money. He has sent her word of it, and she has sent him word that perhaps
she’ll come. And if she does go to the old man, can I marry her after
that? You understand now why I’m here in secret and what I’m on the watch
for.”
“For her?”
“Yes, for her. Foma has a room in the house of these sluts here. Foma
comes from our parts; he was a soldier in our regiment. He does jobs for
them. He’s watchman at night and goes grouse‐shooting in the day‐time; and
that’s how he lives. I’ve established myself in his room. Neither he nor
the women of the house know the secret—that is, that I am on the watch
here.”
“No one but Smerdyakov knows, then?”
“No one else. He will let me know if she goes to the old man.”
“It was he told you about the money, then?”
“Yes. It’s a dead secret. Even Ivan doesn’t know about the money, or
anything. The old man is sending Ivan to Tchermashnya on a two or three
days’ journey. A purchaser has turned up for the copse: he’ll give eight
thousand for the timber. So the old man keeps asking Ivan to help him by
going to arrange it. It will take him two or three days. That’s what the
old man wants, so that Grushenka can come while he’s away.”
“Then he’s expecting Grushenka to‐day?”
“No, she won’t come to‐day; there are signs. She’s certain not to come,”
cried Mitya suddenly. “Smerdyakov thinks so, too. Father’s drinking now.
He’s sitting at table with Ivan. Go to him, Alyosha, and ask for the three
thousand.”
“Mitya, dear, what’s the matter with you?” cried Alyosha, jumping up from
his place, and looking keenly at his brother’s frenzied face. For one
moment the thought struck him that Dmitri was mad.
“What is it? I’m not insane,” said Dmitri, looking intently and earnestly
at him. “No fear. I am sending you to father, and I know what I’m saying.
I believe in miracles.”
“In miracles?”
“In a miracle of Divine Providence. God knows my heart. He sees my
despair. He sees the whole picture. Surely He won’t let something awful
happen. Alyosha, I believe in miracles. Go!”
“I am going. Tell me, will you wait for me here?”
“Yes. I know it will take some time. You can’t go at him point blank. He’s
drunk now. I’ll wait three hours—four, five, six, seven. Only remember you
must go to Katerina Ivanovna to‐day, if it has to be at midnight, _with
the money or without the money_, and say, ‘He sends his compliments to
you.’ I want you to say that verse to her: ‘He sends his compliments to
you.’ ”
“Mitya! And what if Grushenka comes to‐day—if not to‐day, to‐morrow, or
the next day?”
“Grushenka? I shall see her. I shall rush out and prevent it.”
“And if—”
“If there’s an if, it will be murder. I couldn’t endure it.”
“Who will be murdered?”
“The old man. I shan’t kill her.”
“Brother, what are you saying?”
“Oh, I don’t know.... I don’t know. Perhaps I shan’t kill, and perhaps I
shall. I’m afraid that he will suddenly become so loathsome to me with his
face at that moment. I hate his ugly throat, his nose, his eyes, his
shameless snigger. I feel a physical repulsion. That’s what I’m afraid of.
That’s what may be too much for me.”
“I’ll go, Mitya. I believe that God will order things for the best, that
nothing awful may happen.”
“And I will sit and wait for the miracle. And if it doesn’t come to pass—”
Alyosha went thoughtfully towards his father’s house.
Chapter VI. Smerdyakov
He did in fact find his father still at table. Though there was a dining‐
room in the house, the table was laid as usual in the drawing‐room, which
was the largest room, and furnished with old‐fashioned ostentation. The
furniture was white and very old, upholstered in old, red, silky material.
In the spaces between the windows there were mirrors in elaborate white
and gilt frames, of old‐fashioned carving. On the walls, covered with
white paper, which was torn in many places, there hung two large
portraits—one of some prince who had been governor of the district thirty
years before, and the other of some bishop, also long since dead. In the
corner opposite the door there were several ikons, before which a lamp was
lighted at nightfall ... not so much for devotional purposes as to light
the room. Fyodor Pavlovitch used to go to bed very late, at three or four
o’clock in the morning, and would wander about the room at night or sit in
an arm‐chair, thinking. This had become a habit with him. He often slept
quite alone in the house, sending his servants to the lodge; but usually
Smerdyakov remained, sleeping on a bench in the hall.
When Alyosha came in, dinner was over, but coffee and preserves had been
served. Fyodor Pavlovitch liked sweet things with brandy after dinner.
Ivan was also at table, sipping coffee. The servants, Grigory and
Smerdyakov, were standing by. Both the gentlemen and the servants seemed
in singularly good spirits. Fyodor Pavlovitch was roaring with laughter.
Before he entered the room, Alyosha heard the shrill laugh he knew so
well, and could tell from the sound of it that his father had only reached
the good‐humored stage, and was far from being completely drunk.
“Here he is! Here he is!” yelled Fyodor Pavlovitch, highly delighted at
seeing Alyosha. “Join us. Sit down. Coffee is a lenten dish, but it’s hot
and good. I don’t offer you brandy, you’re keeping the fast. But would you
like some? No; I’d better give you some of our famous liqueur. Smerdyakov,
go to the cupboard, the second shelf on the right. Here are the keys. Look
sharp!”
Alyosha began refusing the liqueur.
“Never mind. If you won’t have it, we will,” said Fyodor Pavlovitch,
beaming. “But stay—have you dined?”
“Yes,” answered Alyosha, who had in truth only eaten a piece of bread and
drunk a glass of kvas in the Father Superior’s kitchen. “Though I should
be pleased to have some hot coffee.”
“Bravo, my darling! He’ll have some coffee. Does it want warming? No, it’s
boiling. It’s capital coffee: Smerdyakov’s making. My Smerdyakov’s an
artist at coffee and at fish patties, and at fish soup, too. You must come
one day and have some fish soup. Let me know beforehand.... But, stay;
didn’t I tell you this morning to come home with your mattress and pillow
and all? Have you brought your mattress? He he he!”
“No, I haven’t,” said Alyosha, smiling, too.
“Ah, but you were frightened, you were frightened this morning, weren’t
you? There, my darling, I couldn’t do anything to vex you. Do you know,
Ivan, I can’t resist the way he looks one straight in the face and laughs?
It makes me laugh all over. I’m so fond of him. Alyosha, let me give you
my blessing—a father’s blessing.”
Alyosha rose, but Fyodor Pavlovitch had already changed his mind.
“No, no,” he said. “I’ll just make the sign of the cross over you, for
now. Sit still. Now we’ve a treat for you, in your own line, too. It’ll
make you laugh. Balaam’s ass has begun talking to us here—and how he
talks! How he talks!”
Balaam’s ass, it appeared, was the valet, Smerdyakov. He was a young man
of about four and twenty, remarkably unsociable and taciturn. Not that he
was shy or bashful. On the contrary, he was conceited and seemed to
despise everybody.
But we must pause to say a few words about him now. He was brought up by
Grigory and Marfa, but the boy grew up “with no sense of gratitude,” as
Grigory expressed it; he was an unfriendly boy, and seemed to look at the
world mistrustfully. In his childhood he was very fond of hanging cats,
and burying them with great ceremony. He used to dress up in a sheet as
though it were a surplice, and sang, and waved some object over the dead
cat as though it were a censer. All this he did on the sly, with the
greatest secrecy. Grigory caught him once at this diversion and gave him a
sound beating. He shrank into a corner and sulked there for a week. “He
doesn’t care for you or me, the monster,” Grigory used to say to Marfa,
“and he doesn’t care for any one. Are you a human being?” he said,
addressing the boy directly. “You’re not a human being. You grew from the
mildew in the bath‐house.(2) That’s what you are.” Smerdyakov, it appeared
afterwards, could never forgive him those words. Grigory taught him to
read and write, and when he was twelve years old, began teaching him the
Scriptures. But this teaching came to nothing. At the second or third
lesson the boy suddenly grinned.
“What’s that for?” asked Grigory, looking at him threateningly from under
his spectacles.
“Oh, nothing. God created light on the first day, and the sun, moon, and
stars on the fourth day. Where did the light come from on the first day?”
Grigory was thunderstruck. The boy looked sarcastically at his teacher.
There was something positively condescending in his expression. Grigory
could not restrain himself. “I’ll show you where!” he cried, and gave the
boy a violent slap on the cheek. The boy took the slap without a word, but
withdrew into his corner again for some days. A week later he had his
first attack of the disease to which he was subject all the rest of his
life—epilepsy. When Fyodor Pavlovitch heard of it, his attitude to the boy
seemed changed at once. Till then he had taken no notice of him, though he
never scolded him, and always gave him a copeck when he met him.
Sometimes, when he was in good humor, he would send the boy something
sweet from his table. But as soon as he heard of his illness, he showed an
active interest in him, sent for a doctor, and tried remedies, but the
disease turned out to be incurable. The fits occurred, on an average, once
a month, but at various intervals. The fits varied too, in violence: some
were light and some were very severe. Fyodor Pavlovitch strictly forbade
Grigory to use corporal punishment to the boy, and began allowing him to
come upstairs to him. He forbade him to be taught anything whatever for a
time, too. One day when the boy was about fifteen, Fyodor Pavlovitch
noticed him lingering by the bookcase, and reading the titles through the
glass. Fyodor Pavlovitch had a fair number of books—over a hundred—but no
one ever saw him reading. He at once gave Smerdyakov the key of the
bookcase. “Come, read. You shall be my librarian. You’ll be better sitting
reading than hanging about the courtyard. Come, read this,” and Fyodor
Pavlovitch gave him _Evenings in a Cottage near Dikanka_.
He read a little but didn’t like it. He did not once smile, and ended by
frowning.
“Why? Isn’t it funny?” asked Fyodor Pavlovitch.
Smerdyakov did not speak.
“Answer, stupid!”
“It’s all untrue,” mumbled the boy, with a grin.
“Then go to the devil! You have the soul of a lackey. Stay, here’s
Smaragdov’s _Universal History_. That’s all true. Read that.”
But Smerdyakov did not get through ten pages of Smaragdov. He thought it
dull. So the bookcase was closed again.
Shortly afterwards Marfa and Grigory reported to Fyodor Pavlovitch that
Smerdyakov was gradually beginning to show an extraordinary
fastidiousness. He would sit before his soup, take up his spoon and look
into the soup, bend over it, examine it, take a spoonful and hold it to
the light.
“What is it? A beetle?” Grigory would ask.
“A fly, perhaps,” observed Marfa.
The squeamish youth never answered, but he did the same with his bread,
his meat, and everything he ate. He would hold a piece on his fork to the
light, scrutinize it microscopically, and only after long deliberation
decide to put it in his mouth.
“Ach! What fine gentlemen’s airs!” Grigory muttered, looking at him.
When Fyodor Pavlovitch heard of this development in Smerdyakov he
determined to make him his cook, and sent him to Moscow to be trained. He
spent some years there and came back remarkably changed in appearance. He
looked extraordinarily old for his age. His face had grown wrinkled,
yellow, and strangely emasculate. In character he seemed almost exactly
the same as before he went away. He was just as unsociable, and showed not
the slightest inclination for any companionship. In Moscow, too, as we
heard afterwards, he had always been silent. Moscow itself had little
interest for him; he saw very little there, and took scarcely any notice
of anything. He went once to the theater, but returned silent and
displeased with it. On the other hand, he came back to us from Moscow well
dressed, in a clean coat and clean linen. He brushed his clothes most
scrupulously twice a day invariably, and was very fond of cleaning his
smart calf boots with a special English polish, so that they shone like
mirrors. He turned out a first‐rate cook. Fyodor Pavlovitch paid him a
salary, almost the whole of which Smerdyakov spent on clothes, pomade,
perfumes, and such things. But he seemed to have as much contempt for the
female sex as for men; he was discreet, almost unapproachable, with them.
Fyodor Pavlovitch began to regard him rather differently. His fits were
becoming more frequent, and on the days he was ill Marfa cooked, which did
not suit Fyodor Pavlovitch at all.
“Why are your fits getting worse?” asked Fyodor Pavlovitch, looking
askance at his new cook. “Would you like to get married? Shall I find you
a wife?”
But Smerdyakov turned pale with anger, and made no reply. Fyodor
Pavlovitch left him with an impatient gesture. The great thing was that he
had absolute confidence in his honesty. It happened once, when Fyodor
Pavlovitch was drunk, that he dropped in the muddy courtyard three
hundred‐rouble notes which he had only just received. He only missed them
next day, and was just hastening to search his pockets when he saw the
notes lying on the table. Where had they come from? Smerdyakov had picked
them up and brought them in the day before.
“Well, my lad, I’ve never met any one like you,” Fyodor Pavlovitch said
shortly, and gave him ten roubles. We may add that he not only believed in
his honesty, but had, for some reason, a liking for him, although the
young man looked as morosely at him as at every one and was always silent.
He rarely spoke. If it had occurred to any one to wonder at the time what
the young man was interested in, and what was in his mind, it would have
been impossible to tell by looking at him. Yet he used sometimes to stop
suddenly in the house, or even in the yard or street, and would stand
still for ten minutes, lost in thought. A physiognomist studying his face
would have said that there was no thought in it, no reflection, but only a
sort of contemplation. There is a remarkable picture by the painter
Kramskoy, called “Contemplation.” There is a forest in winter, and on a
roadway through the forest, in absolute solitude, stands a peasant in a
torn kaftan and bark shoes. He stands, as it were, lost in thought. Yet he
is not thinking; he is “contemplating.” If any one touched him he would
start and look at one as though awakening and bewildered. It’s true he
would come to himself immediately; but if he were asked what he had been
thinking about, he would remember nothing. Yet probably he has, hidden
within himself, the impression which had dominated him during the period
of contemplation. Those impressions are dear to him and no doubt he hoards
them imperceptibly, and even unconsciously. How and why, of course, he
does not know either. He may suddenly, after hoarding impressions for many
years, abandon everything and go off to Jerusalem on a pilgrimage for his
soul’s salvation, or perhaps he will suddenly set fire to his native
village, and perhaps do both. There are a good many “contemplatives” among
the peasantry. Well, Smerdyakov was probably one of them, and he probably
was greedily hoarding up his impressions, hardly knowing why.
Chapter VII. The Controversy
But Balaam’s ass had suddenly spoken. The subject was a strange one.
Grigory had gone in the morning to make purchases, and had heard from the
shopkeeper Lukyanov the story of a Russian soldier which had appeared in
the newspaper of that day. This soldier had been taken prisoner in some
remote part of Asia, and was threatened with an immediate agonizing death
if he did not renounce Christianity and follow Islam. He refused to deny
his faith, and was tortured, flayed alive, and died, praising and
glorifying Christ. Grigory had related the story at table. Fyodor
Pavlovitch always liked, over the dessert after dinner, to laugh and talk,
if only with Grigory. This afternoon he was in a particularly good‐humored
and expansive mood. Sipping his brandy and listening to the story, he
observed that they ought to make a saint of a soldier like that, and to
take his skin to some monastery. “That would make the people flock, and
bring the money in.”
Grigory frowned, seeing that Fyodor Pavlovitch was by no means touched,
but, as usual, was beginning to scoff. At that moment Smerdyakov, who was
standing by the door, smiled. Smerdyakov often waited at table towards the
end of dinner, and since Ivan’s arrival in our town he had done so every
day.
“What are you grinning at?” asked Fyodor Pavlovitch, catching the smile
instantly, and knowing that it referred to Grigory.
“Well, my opinion is,” Smerdyakov began suddenly and unexpectedly in a
loud voice, “that if that laudable soldier’s exploit was so very great
there would have been, to my thinking, no sin in it if he had on such an
emergency renounced, so to speak, the name of Christ and his own
christening, to save by that same his life, for good deeds, by which, in
the course of years to expiate his cowardice.”
“How could it not be a sin? You’re talking nonsense. For that you’ll go
straight to hell and be roasted there like mutton,” put in Fyodor
Pavlovitch.
It was at this point that Alyosha came in, and Fyodor Pavlovitch, as we
have seen, was highly delighted at his appearance.
“We’re on your subject, your subject,” he chuckled gleefully, making
Alyosha sit down to listen.
“As for mutton, that’s not so, and there’ll be nothing there for this, and
there shouldn’t be either, if it’s according to justice,” Smerdyakov
maintained stoutly.
“How do you mean ‘according to justice’?” Fyodor Pavlovitch cried still
more gayly, nudging Alyosha with his knee.
“He’s a rascal, that’s what he is!” burst from Grigory. He looked
Smerdyakov wrathfully in the face.
“As for being a rascal, wait a little, Grigory Vassilyevitch,” answered
Smerdyakov with perfect composure. “You’d better consider yourself that,
once I am taken prisoner by the enemies of the Christian race, and they
demand from me to curse the name of God and to renounce my holy
christening, I am fully entitled to act by my own reason, since there
would be no sin in it.”
“But you’ve said that before. Don’t waste words. Prove it,” cried Fyodor
Pavlovitch.
“Soup‐maker!” muttered Grigory contemptuously.
“As for being a soup‐maker, wait a bit, too, and consider for yourself,
Grigory Vassilyevitch, without abusing me. For as soon as I say to those
enemies, ‘No, I’m not a Christian, and I curse my true God,’ then at once,
by God’s high judgment, I become immediately and specially anathema
accursed, and am cut off from the Holy Church, exactly as though I were a
heathen, so that at that very instant, not only when I say it aloud, but
when I think of saying it, before a quarter of a second has passed, I am
cut off. Is that so or not, Grigory Vassilyevitch?”
He addressed Grigory with obvious satisfaction, though he was really
answering Fyodor Pavlovitch’s questions, and was well aware of it, and
intentionally pretending that Grigory had asked the questions.
“Ivan,” cried Fyodor Pavlovitch suddenly, “stoop down for me to whisper.
He’s got this all up for your benefit. He wants you to praise him. Praise
him.”
Ivan listened with perfect seriousness to his father’s excited whisper.
“Stay, Smerdyakov, be quiet a minute,” cried Fyodor Pavlovitch once more.
“Ivan, your ear again.”
Ivan bent down again with a perfectly grave face.
“I love you as I do Alyosha. Don’t think I don’t love you. Some brandy?”
“Yes.—But you’re rather drunk yourself,” thought Ivan, looking steadily at
his father.
He was watching Smerdyakov with great curiosity.
“You’re anathema accursed, as it is,” Grigory suddenly burst out, “and how
dare you argue, you rascal, after that, if—”
“Don’t scold him, Grigory, don’t scold him,” Fyodor Pavlovitch cut him
short.
“You should wait, Grigory Vassilyevitch, if only a short time, and listen,
for I haven’t finished all I had to say. For at the very moment I become
accursed, at that same highest moment, I become exactly like a heathen,
and my christening is taken off me and becomes of no avail. Isn’t that
so?”
“Make haste and finish, my boy,” Fyodor Pavlovitch urged him, sipping from
his wine‐glass with relish.
“And if I’ve ceased to be a Christian, then I told no lie to the enemy
when they asked whether I was a Christian or not a Christian, seeing I had
already been relieved by God Himself of my Christianity by reason of the
thought alone, before I had time to utter a word to the enemy. And if I
have already been discharged, in what manner and with what sort of justice
can I be held responsible as a Christian in the other world for having
denied Christ, when, through the very thought alone, before denying Him I
had been relieved from my christening? If I’m no longer a Christian, then
I can’t renounce Christ, for I’ve nothing then to renounce. Who will hold
an unclean Tatar responsible, Grigory Vassilyevitch, even in heaven, for
not having been born a Christian? And who would punish him for that,
considering that you can’t take two skins off one ox? For God Almighty
Himself, even if He did make the Tatar responsible, when he dies would
give him the smallest possible punishment, I imagine (since he must be
punished), judging that he is not to blame if he has come into the world
an unclean heathen, from heathen parents. The Lord God can’t surely take a
Tatar and say he was a Christian? That would mean that the Almighty would
tell a real untruth. And can the Lord of Heaven and earth tell a lie, even
in one word?”
Grigory was thunderstruck and looked at the orator, his eyes nearly
starting out of his head. Though he did not clearly understand what was
said, he had caught something in this rigmarole, and stood, looking like a
man who has just hit his head against a wall. Fyodor Pavlovitch emptied
his glass and went off into his shrill laugh.
“Alyosha! Alyosha! What do you say to that! Ah, you casuist! He must have
been with the Jesuits, somewhere, Ivan. Oh, you stinking Jesuit, who
taught you? But you’re talking nonsense, you casuist, nonsense, nonsense,
nonsense. Don’t cry, Grigory, we’ll reduce him to smoke and ashes in a
moment. Tell me this, O ass; you may be right before your enemies, but you
have renounced your faith all the same in your own heart, and you say
yourself that in that very hour you became anathema accursed. And if once
you’re anathema they won’t pat you on the head for it in hell. What do you
say to that, my fine Jesuit?”
“There is no doubt that I have renounced it in my own heart, but there was
no special sin in that. Or if there was sin, it was the most ordinary.”
“How’s that the most ordinary?”
“You lie, accursed one!” hissed Grigory.
“Consider yourself, Grigory Vassilyevitch,” Smerdyakov went on, staid and
unruffled, conscious of his triumph, but, as it were, generous to the
vanquished foe. “Consider yourself, Grigory Vassilyevitch; it is said in
the Scripture that if you have faith, even as a mustard seed, and bid a
mountain move into the sea, it will move without the least delay at your
bidding. Well, Grigory Vassilyevitch, if I’m without faith and you have so
great a faith that you are continually swearing at me, you try yourself
telling this mountain, not to move into the sea for that’s a long way off,
but even to our stinking little river which runs at the bottom of the
garden. You’ll see for yourself that it won’t budge, but will remain just
where it is however much you shout at it, and that shows, Grigory
Vassilyevitch, that you haven’t faith in the proper manner, and only abuse
others about it. Again, taking into consideration that no one in our day,
not only you, but actually no one, from the highest person to the lowest
peasant, can shove mountains into the sea—except perhaps some one man in
the world, or, at most, two, and they most likely are saving their souls
in secret somewhere in the Egyptian desert, so you wouldn’t find them—if
so it be, if all the rest have no faith, will God curse all the rest? that
is, the population of the whole earth, except about two hermits in the
desert, and in His well‐known mercy will He not forgive one of them? And
so I’m persuaded that though I may once have doubted I shall be forgiven
if I shed tears of repentance.”
“Stay!” cried Fyodor Pavlovitch, in a transport of delight. “So you do
suppose there are two who can move mountains? Ivan, make a note of it,
write it down. There you have the Russian all over!”
“You’re quite right in saying it’s characteristic of the people’s faith,”
Ivan assented, with an approving smile.
“You agree. Then it must be so, if you agree. It’s true, isn’t it,
Alyosha? That’s the Russian faith all over, isn’t it?”
“No, Smerdyakov has not the Russian faith at all,” said Alyosha firmly and
gravely.
“I’m not talking about his faith. I mean those two in the desert, only
that idea. Surely that’s Russian, isn’t it?”
“Yes, that’s purely Russian,” said Alyosha smiling.
“Your words are worth a gold piece, O ass, and I’ll give it to you to‐day.
But as to the rest you talk nonsense, nonsense, nonsense. Let me tell you,
stupid, that we here are all of little faith, only from carelessness,
because we haven’t time; things are too much for us, and, in the second
place, the Lord God has given us so little time, only twenty‐four hours in
the day, so that one hasn’t even time to get sleep enough, much less to
repent of one’s sins. While you have denied your faith to your enemies
when you’d nothing else to think about but to show your faith! So I
consider, brother, that it constitutes a sin.”
“Constitute a sin it may, but consider yourself, Grigory Vassilyevitch,
that it only extenuates it, if it does constitute. If I had believed then
in very truth, as I ought to have believed, then it really would have been
sinful if I had not faced tortures for my faith, and had gone over to the
pagan Mohammedan faith. But, of course, it wouldn’t have come to torture
then, because I should only have had to say at that instant to the
mountain, ‘Move and crush the tormentor,’ and it would have moved and at
the very instant have crushed him like a black‐beetle, and I should have
walked away as though nothing had happened, praising and glorifying God.
But, suppose at that very moment I had tried all that, and cried to that
mountain, ‘Crush these tormentors,’ and it hadn’t crushed them, how could
I have helped doubting, pray, at such a time, and at such a dread hour of
mortal terror? And apart from that, I should know already that I could not
attain to the fullness of the Kingdom of Heaven (for since the mountain
had not moved at my word, they could not think very much of my faith up
aloft, and there could be no very great reward awaiting me in the world to
come). So why should I let them flay the skin off me as well, and to no
good purpose? For, even though they had flayed my skin half off my back,
even then the mountain would not have moved at my word or at my cry. And
at such a moment not only doubt might come over one but one might lose
one’s reason from fear, so that one would not be able to think at all.
And, therefore, how should I be particularly to blame if not seeing my
advantage or reward there or here, I should, at least, save my skin. And
so trusting fully in the grace of the Lord I should cherish the hope that
I might be altogether forgiven.”
Chapter VIII. Over The Brandy
The controversy was over. But, strange to say, Fyodor Pavlovitch, who had
been so gay, suddenly began frowning. He frowned and gulped brandy, and it
was already a glass too much.
“Get along with you, Jesuits!” he cried to the servants. “Go away,
Smerdyakov. I’ll send you the gold piece I promised you to‐day, but be
off! Don’t cry, Grigory. Go to Marfa. She’ll comfort you and put you to
bed. The rascals won’t let us sit in peace after dinner,” he snapped
peevishly, as the servants promptly withdrew at his word.
“Smerdyakov always pokes himself in now, after dinner. It’s you he’s so
interested in. What have you done to fascinate him?” he added to Ivan.
“Nothing whatever,” answered Ivan. “He’s pleased to have a high opinion of
me; he’s a lackey and a mean soul. Raw material for revolution, however,
when the time comes.”
“For revolution?”
“There will be others and better ones. But there will be some like him as
well. His kind will come first, and better ones after.”
“And when will the time come?”
“The rocket will go off and fizzle out, perhaps. The peasants are not very
fond of listening to these soup‐makers, so far.”
“Ah, brother, but a Balaam’s ass like that thinks and thinks, and the
devil knows where he gets to.”
“He’s storing up ideas,” said Ivan, smiling.
“You see, I know he can’t bear me, nor any one else, even you, though you
fancy that he has a high opinion of you. Worse still with Alyosha, he
despises Alyosha. But he doesn’t steal, that’s one thing, and he’s not a
gossip, he holds his tongue, and doesn’t wash our dirty linen in public.
He makes capital fish pasties too. But, damn him, is he worth talking
about so much?”
“Of course he isn’t.”
“And as for the ideas he may be hatching, the Russian peasant, generally
speaking, needs thrashing. That I’ve always maintained. Our peasants are
swindlers, and don’t deserve to be pitied, and it’s a good thing they’re
still flogged sometimes. Russia is rich in birches. If they destroyed the
forests, it would be the ruin of Russia. I stand up for the clever people.
We’ve left off thrashing the peasants, we’ve grown so clever, but they go
on thrashing themselves. And a good thing too. ‘For with what measure ye
mete it shall be measured to you again,’ or how does it go? Anyhow, it
will be measured. But Russia’s all swinishness. My dear, if you only knew
how I hate Russia.... That is, not Russia, but all this vice! But maybe I
mean Russia. _Tout cela c’est de la cochonnerie_.... Do you know what I
like? I like wit.”
“You’ve had another glass. That’s enough.”
“Wait a bit. I’ll have one more, and then another, and then I’ll stop. No,
stay, you interrupted me. At Mokroe I was talking to an old man, and he
told me: ‘There’s nothing we like so much as sentencing girls to be
thrashed, and we always give the lads the job of thrashing them. And the
girl he has thrashed to‐day, the young man will ask in marriage to‐morrow.
So it quite suits the girls, too,’ he said. There’s a set of de Sades for
you! But it’s clever, anyway. Shall we go over and have a look at it, eh?
Alyosha, are you blushing? Don’t be bashful, child. I’m sorry I didn’t
stay to dinner at the Superior’s and tell the monks about the girls at
Mokroe. Alyosha, don’t be angry that I offended your Superior this
morning. I lost my temper. If there is a God, if He exists, then, of
course, I’m to blame, and I shall have to answer for it. But if there
isn’t a God at all, what do they deserve, your fathers? It’s not enough to
cut their heads off, for they keep back progress. Would you believe it,
Ivan, that that lacerates my sentiments? No, you don’t believe it as I see
from your eyes. You believe what people say, that I’m nothing but a
buffoon. Alyosha, do you believe that I’m nothing but a buffoon?”
“No, I don’t believe it.”
“And I believe you don’t, and that you speak the truth. You look sincere
and you speak sincerely. But not Ivan. Ivan’s supercilious.... I’d make an
end of your monks, though, all the same. I’d take all that mystic stuff
and suppress it, once for all, all over Russia, so as to bring all the
fools to reason. And the gold and the silver that would flow into the
mint!”
“But why suppress it?” asked Ivan.
“That Truth may prevail. That’s why.”
“Well, if Truth were to prevail, you know, you’d be the first to be robbed
and suppressed.”
“Ah! I dare say you’re right. Ah, I’m an ass!” burst out Fyodor
Pavlovitch, striking himself lightly on the forehead. “Well, your
monastery may stand then, Alyosha, if that’s how it is. And we clever
people will sit snug and enjoy our brandy. You know, Ivan, it must have
been so ordained by the Almighty Himself. Ivan, speak, is there a God or
not? Stay, speak the truth, speak seriously. Why are you laughing again?”
“I’m laughing that you should have made a clever remark just now about
Smerdyakov’s belief in the existence of two saints who could move
mountains.”
“Why, am I like him now, then?”
“Very much.”
“Well, that shows I’m a Russian, too, and I have a Russian characteristic.
And you may be caught in the same way, though you are a philosopher. Shall
I catch you? What do you bet that I’ll catch you to‐morrow. Speak, all the
same, is there a God, or not? Only, be serious. I want you to be serious
now.”
“No, there is no God.”
“Alyosha, is there a God?”
“There is.”
“Ivan, and is there immortality of some sort, just a little, just a tiny
bit?”
“There is no immortality either.”
“None at all?”
“None at all.”
“There’s absolute nothingness then. Perhaps there is just something?
Anything is better than nothing!”
“Absolute nothingness.”
“Alyosha, is there immortality?”
“There is.”
“God and immortality?”
“God and immortality. In God is immortality.”
“H’m! It’s more likely Ivan’s right. Good Lord! to think what faith, what
force of all kinds, man has lavished for nothing, on that dream, and for
how many thousand years. Who is it laughing at man? Ivan! For the last
time, once for all, is there a God or not? I ask for the last time!”
“And for the last time there is not.”
“Who is laughing at mankind, Ivan?”
“It must be the devil,” said Ivan, smiling.
“And the devil? Does he exist?”
“No, there’s no devil either.”
“It’s a pity. Damn it all, what wouldn’t I do to the man who first
invented God! Hanging on a bitter aspen tree would be too good for him.”
“There would have been no civilization if they hadn’t invented God.”
“Wouldn’t there have been? Without God?”
“No. And there would have been no brandy either. But I must take your
brandy away from you, anyway.”
“Stop, stop, stop, dear boy, one more little glass. I’ve hurt Alyosha’s
feelings. You’re not angry with me, Alyosha? My dear little Alexey!”
“No, I am not angry. I know your thoughts. Your heart is better than your
head.”
“My heart better than my head, is it? Oh, Lord! And that from you. Ivan,
do you love Alyosha?”
“Yes.”
“You must love him” (Fyodor Pavlovitch was by this time very drunk).
“Listen, Alyosha, I was rude to your elder this morning. But I was
excited. But there’s wit in that elder, don’t you think, Ivan?”
“Very likely.”
“There is, there is. _Il y a du Piron là‐dedans._ He’s a Jesuit, a Russian
one, that is. As he’s an honorable person there’s a hidden indignation
boiling within him at having to pretend and affect holiness.”
“But, of course, he believes in God.”
“Not a bit of it. Didn’t you know? Why, he tells every one so, himself.
That is, not every one, but all the clever people who come to him. He said
straight out to Governor Schultz not long ago: ‘_Credo_, but I don’t know
in what.’ ”
“Really?”
“He really did. But I respect him. There’s something of Mephistopheles
about him, or rather of ‘The hero of our time’ ... Arbenin, or what’s his
name?... You see, he’s a sensualist. He’s such a sensualist that I should
be afraid for my daughter or my wife if she went to confess to him. You
know, when he begins telling stories.... The year before last he invited
us to tea, tea with liqueur (the ladies send him liqueur), and began
telling us about old times till we nearly split our sides.... Especially
how he once cured a paralyzed woman. ‘If my legs were not bad I know a
dance I could dance you,’ he said. What do you say to that? ‘I’ve plenty
of tricks in my time,’ said he. He did Dernidov, the merchant, out of
sixty thousand.”
“What, he stole it?”
“He brought him the money as a man he could trust, saying, ‘Take care of
it for me, friend, there’ll be a police search at my place to‐morrow.’ And
he kept it. ‘You have given it to the Church,’ he declared. I said to him:
‘You’re a scoundrel,’ I said. ‘No,’ said he, ‘I’m not a scoundrel, but I’m
broad‐minded.’ But that wasn’t he, that was some one else. I’ve muddled
him with some one else ... without noticing it. Come, another glass and
that’s enough. Take away the bottle, Ivan. I’ve been telling lies. Why
didn’t you stop me, Ivan, and tell me I was lying?”
“I knew you’d stop of yourself.”
“That’s a lie. You did it from spite, from simple spite against me. You
despise me. You have come to me and despised me in my own house.”
“Well, I’m going away. You’ve had too much brandy.”
“I’ve begged you for Christ’s sake to go to Tchermashnya for a day or two,
and you don’t go.”
“I’ll go to‐morrow if you’re so set upon it.”
“You won’t go. You want to keep an eye on me. That’s what you want,
spiteful fellow. That’s why you won’t go.”
The old man persisted. He had reached that state of drunkenness when the
drunkard who has till then been inoffensive tries to pick a quarrel and to
assert himself.
“Why are you looking at me? Why do you look like that? Your eyes look at
me and say, ‘You ugly drunkard!’ Your eyes are mistrustful. They’re
contemptuous.... You’ve come here with some design. Alyosha, here, looks
at me and his eyes shine. Alyosha doesn’t despise me. Alexey, you mustn’t
love Ivan.”
“Don’t be ill‐tempered with my brother. Leave off attacking him,” Alyosha
said emphatically.
“Oh, all right. Ugh, my head aches. Take away the brandy, Ivan. It’s the
third time I’ve told you.”
He mused, and suddenly a slow, cunning grin spread over his face.
“Don’t be angry with a feeble old man, Ivan. I know you don’t love me, but
don’t be angry all the same. You’ve nothing to love me for. You go to
Tchermashnya. I’ll come to you myself and bring you a present. I’ll show
you a little wench there. I’ve had my eye on her a long time. She’s still
running about bare‐foot. Don’t be afraid of bare‐footed wenches—don’t
despise them—they’re pearls!”
And he kissed his hand with a smack.
“To my thinking,” he revived at once, seeming to grow sober the instant he
touched on his favorite topic. “To my thinking ... Ah, you boys! You
children, little sucking‐pigs, to my thinking ... I never thought a woman
ugly in my life—that’s been my rule! Can you understand that? How could
you understand it? You’ve milk in your veins, not blood. You’re not out of
your shells yet. My rule has been that you can always find something
devilishly interesting in every woman that you wouldn’t find in any other.
Only, one must know how to find it, that’s the point! That’s a talent! To
my mind there are no ugly women. The very fact that she is a woman is half
the battle ... but how could you understand that? Even in _vieilles
filles_, even in them you may discover something that makes you simply
wonder that men have been such fools as to let them grow old without
noticing them. Bare‐footed girls or unattractive ones, you must take by
surprise. Didn’t you know that? You must astound them till they’re
fascinated, upset, ashamed that such a gentleman should fall in love with
such a little slut. It’s a jolly good thing that there always are and will
be masters and slaves in the world, so there always will be a little maid‐
of‐all‐work and her master, and you know, that’s all that’s needed for
happiness. Stay ... listen, Alyosha, I always used to surprise your
mother, but in a different way. I paid no attention to her at all, but all
at once, when the minute came, I’d be all devotion to her, crawl on my
knees, kiss her feet, and I always, always—I remember it as though it were
to‐day—reduced her to that tinkling, quiet, nervous, queer little laugh.
It was peculiar to her. I knew her attacks always used to begin like that.
The next day she would begin shrieking hysterically, and this little laugh
was not a sign of delight, though it made a very good counterfeit. That’s
the great thing, to know how to take every one. Once Belyavsky—he was a
handsome fellow, and rich—used to like to come here and hang about
her—suddenly gave me a slap in the face in her presence. And she—such a
mild sheep—why, I thought she would have knocked me down for that blow.
How she set on me! ‘You’re beaten, beaten now,’ she said. ‘You’ve taken a
blow from him. You have been trying to sell me to him,’ she said.... ‘And
how dared he strike you in my presence! Don’t dare come near me again,
never, never! Run at once, challenge him to a duel!’... I took her to the
monastery then to bring her to her senses. The holy Fathers prayed her
back to reason. But I swear, by God, Alyosha, I never insulted the poor
crazy girl! Only once, perhaps, in the first year; then she was very fond
of praying. She used to keep the feasts of Our Lady particularly and used
to turn me out of her room then. I’ll knock that mysticism out of her,
thought I! ‘Here,’ said I, ‘you see your holy image. Here it is. Here I
take it down. You believe it’s miraculous, but here, I’ll spit on it
directly and nothing will happen to me for it!’... When she saw it, good
Lord! I thought she would kill me. But she only jumped up, wrung her
hands, then suddenly hid her face in them, began trembling all over and
fell on the floor ... fell all of a heap. Alyosha, Alyosha, what’s the
matter?”
The old man jumped up in alarm. From the time he had begun speaking about
his mother, a change had gradually come over Alyosha’s face. He flushed
crimson, his eyes glowed, his lips quivered. The old sot had gone
spluttering on, noticing nothing, till the moment when something very
strange happened to Alyosha. Precisely what he was describing in the crazy
woman was suddenly repeated with Alyosha. He jumped up from his seat
exactly as his mother was said to have done, wrung his hands, hid his face
in them, and fell back in his chair, shaking all over in an hysterical
paroxysm of sudden violent, silent weeping. His extraordinary resemblance
to his mother particularly impressed the old man.
“Ivan, Ivan! Water, quickly! It’s like her, exactly as she used to be
then, his mother. Spurt some water on him from your mouth, that’s what I
used to do to her. He’s upset about his mother, his mother,” he muttered
to Ivan.
“But she was my mother, too, I believe, his mother. Was she not?” said
Ivan, with uncontrolled anger and contempt. The old man shrank before his
flashing eyes. But something very strange had happened, though only for a
second; it seemed really to have escaped the old man’s mind that Alyosha’s
mother actually was the mother of Ivan too.
“Your mother?” he muttered, not understanding. “What do you mean? What
mother are you talking about? Was she?... Why, damn it! of course she was
yours too! Damn it! My mind has never been so darkened before. Excuse me,
why, I was thinking, Ivan.... He he he!” He stopped. A broad, drunken,
half‐senseless grin overspread his face.
At that moment a fearful noise and clamor was heard in the hall, there
were violent shouts, the door was flung open, and Dmitri burst into the
room. The old man rushed to Ivan in terror.
“He’ll kill me! He’ll kill me! Don’t let him get at me!” he screamed,
clinging to the skirt of Ivan’s coat.
Chapter IX. The Sensualists
Grigory and Smerdyakov ran into the room after Dmitri. They had been
struggling with him in the passage, refusing to admit him, acting on
instructions given them by Fyodor Pavlovitch some days before. Taking
advantage of the fact that Dmitri stopped a moment on entering the room to
look about him, Grigory ran round the table, closed the double doors on
the opposite side of the room leading to the inner apartments, and stood
before the closed doors, stretching wide his arms, prepared to defend the
entrance, so to speak, with the last drop of his blood. Seeing this,
Dmitri uttered a scream rather than a shout and rushed at Grigory.
“Then she’s there! She’s hidden there! Out of the way, scoundrel!”
He tried to pull Grigory away, but the old servant pushed him back. Beside
himself with fury, Dmitri struck out, and hit Grigory with all his might.
The old man fell like a log, and Dmitri, leaping over him, broke in the
door. Smerdyakov remained pale and trembling at the other end of the room,
huddling close to Fyodor Pavlovitch.
“She’s here!” shouted Dmitri. “I saw her turn towards the house just now,
but I couldn’t catch her. Where is she? Where is she?”
That shout, “She’s here!” produced an indescribable effect on Fyodor
Pavlovitch. All his terror left him.
“Hold him! Hold him!” he cried, and dashed after Dmitri. Meanwhile Grigory
had got up from the floor, but still seemed stunned. Ivan and Alyosha ran
after their father. In the third room something was heard to fall on the
floor with a ringing crash: it was a large glass vase—not an expensive
one—on a marble pedestal which Dmitri had upset as he ran past it.
“At him!” shouted the old man. “Help!”
Ivan and Alyosha caught the old man and were forcibly bringing him back.
“Why do you run after him? He’ll murder you outright,” Ivan cried
wrathfully at his father.
“Ivan! Alyosha! She must be here. Grushenka’s here. He said he saw her
himself, running.”
He was choking. He was not expecting Grushenka at the time, and the sudden
news that she was here made him beside himself. He was trembling all over.
He seemed frantic.
“But you’ve seen for yourself that she hasn’t come,” cried Ivan.
“But she may have come by that other entrance.”
“You know that entrance is locked, and you have the key.”
Dmitri suddenly reappeared in the drawing‐room. He had, of course, found
the other entrance locked, and the key actually was in Fyodor Pavlovitch’s
pocket. The windows of all the rooms were also closed, so Grushenka could
not have come in anywhere nor have run out anywhere.
“Hold him!” shrieked Fyodor Pavlovitch, as soon as he saw him again. “He’s
been stealing money in my bedroom.” And tearing himself from Ivan he
rushed again at Dmitri. But Dmitri threw up both hands and suddenly
clutched the old man by the two tufts of hair that remained on his
temples, tugged at them, and flung him with a crash on the floor. He
kicked him two or three times with his heel in the face. The old man
moaned shrilly. Ivan, though not so strong as Dmitri, threw his arms round
him, and with all his might pulled him away. Alyosha helped him with his
slender strength, holding Dmitri in front.
“Madman! You’ve killed him!” cried Ivan.
“Serve him right!” shouted Dmitri breathlessly. “If I haven’t killed him,
I’ll come again and kill him. You can’t protect him!”
“Dmitri! Go away at once!” cried Alyosha commandingly.
“Alexey! You tell me. It’s only you I can believe; was she here just now,
or not? I saw her myself creeping this way by the fence from the lane. I
shouted, she ran away.”
“I swear she’s not been here, and no one expected her.”
“But I saw her.... So she must ... I’ll find out at once where she is....
Good‐by, Alexey! Not a word to Æsop about the money now. But go to
Katerina Ivanovna at once and be sure to say, ‘He sends his compliments to
you!’ Compliments, his compliments! Just compliments and farewell!
Describe the scene to her.”
Meanwhile Ivan and Grigory had raised the old man and seated him in an
arm‐chair. His face was covered with blood, but he was conscious and
listened greedily to Dmitri’s cries. He was still fancying that Grushenka
really was somewhere in the house. Dmitri looked at him with hatred as he
went out.
“I don’t repent shedding your blood!” he cried. “Beware, old man, beware
of your dream, for I have my dream, too. I curse you, and disown you
altogether.”
He ran out of the room.
“She’s here. She must be here. Smerdyakov! Smerdyakov!” the old man
wheezed, scarcely audibly, beckoning to him with his finger.
“No, she’s not here, you old lunatic!” Ivan shouted at him angrily. “Here,
he’s fainting! Water! A towel! Make haste, Smerdyakov!”
Smerdyakov ran for water. At last they got the old man undressed, and put
him to bed. They wrapped a wet towel round his head. Exhausted by the
brandy, by his violent emotion, and the blows he had received, he shut his
eyes and fell asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow. Ivan and
Alyosha went back to the drawing‐room. Smerdyakov removed the fragments of
the broken vase, while Grigory stood by the table looking gloomily at the
floor.
“Shouldn’t you put a wet bandage on your head and go to bed, too?” Alyosha
said to him. “We’ll look after him. My brother gave you a terrible blow—on
the head.”
“He’s insulted me!” Grigory articulated gloomily and distinctly.
“He’s ‘insulted’ his father, not only you,” observed Ivan with a forced
smile.
“I used to wash him in his tub. He’s insulted me,” repeated Grigory.
“Damn it all, if I hadn’t pulled him away perhaps he’d have murdered him.
It wouldn’t take much to do for Æsop, would it?” whispered Ivan to
Alyosha.
“God forbid!” cried Alyosha.
“Why should He forbid?” Ivan went on in the same whisper, with a malignant
grimace. “One reptile will devour the other. And serve them both right,
too.”
Alyosha shuddered.
“Of course I won’t let him be murdered as I didn’t just now. Stay here,
Alyosha, I’ll go for a turn in the yard. My head’s begun to ache.”
Alyosha went to his father’s bedroom and sat by his bedside behind the
screen for about an hour. The old man suddenly opened his eyes and gazed
for a long while at Alyosha, evidently remembering and meditating. All at
once his face betrayed extraordinary excitement.
“Alyosha,” he whispered apprehensively, “where’s Ivan?”
“In the yard. He’s got a headache. He’s on the watch.”
“Give me that looking‐glass. It stands over there. Give it me.”
Alyosha gave him a little round folding looking‐glass which stood on the
chest of drawers. The old man looked at himself in it; his nose was
considerably swollen, and on the left side of his forehead there was a
rather large crimson bruise.
“What does Ivan say? Alyosha, my dear, my only son, I’m afraid of Ivan.
I’m more afraid of Ivan than the other. You’re the only one I’m not afraid
of....”
“Don’t be afraid of Ivan either. He is angry, but he’ll defend you.”
“Alyosha, and what of the other? He’s run to Grushenka. My angel, tell me
the truth, was she here just now or not?”
“No one has seen her. It was a mistake. She has not been here.”
“You know Mitya wants to marry her, to marry her.”
“She won’t marry him.”
“She won’t. She won’t. She won’t. She won’t on any account!”
The old man fairly fluttered with joy, as though nothing more comforting
could have been said to him. In his delight he seized Alyosha’s hand and
pressed it warmly to his heart. Tears positively glittered in his eyes.
“That image of the Mother of God of which I was telling you just now,” he
said. “Take it home and keep it for yourself. And I’ll let you go back to
the monastery.... I was joking this morning, don’t be angry with me. My
head aches, Alyosha.... Alyosha, comfort my heart. Be an angel and tell me
the truth!”
“You’re still asking whether she has been here or not?” Alyosha said
sorrowfully.
“No, no, no. I believe you. I’ll tell you what it is: you go to Grushenka
yourself, or see her somehow; make haste and ask her; see for yourself,
which she means to choose, him or me. Eh? What? Can you?”
“If I see her I’ll ask her,” Alyosha muttered, embarrassed.
“No, she won’t tell you,” the old man interrupted, “she’s a rogue. She’ll
begin kissing you and say that it’s you she wants. She’s a deceitful,
shameless hussy. You mustn’t go to her, you mustn’t!”
“No, father, and it wouldn’t be suitable, it wouldn’t be right at all.”
“Where was he sending you just now? He shouted ‘Go’ as he ran away.”
“To Katerina Ivanovna.”
“For money? To ask her for money?”
“No. Not for money.”
“He’s no money; not a farthing. I’ll settle down for the night, and think
things over, and you can go. Perhaps you’ll meet her.... Only be sure to
come to me to‐morrow in the morning. Be sure to. I have a word to say to
you to‐morrow. Will you come?”
“Yes.”
“When you come, pretend you’ve come of your own accord to ask after me.
Don’t tell any one I told you to. Don’t say a word to Ivan.”
“Very well.”
“Good‐by, my angel. You stood up for me, just now. I shall never forget
it. I’ve a word to say to you to‐morrow—but I must think about it.”
“And how do you feel now?”
“I shall get up to‐morrow and go out, perfectly well, perfectly well!”
Crossing the yard Alyosha found Ivan sitting on the bench at the gateway.
He was sitting writing something in pencil in his note‐book. Alyosha told
Ivan that their father had waked up, was conscious, and had let him go
back to sleep at the monastery.
“Alyosha, I should be very glad to meet you to‐morrow morning,” said Ivan
cordially, standing up. His cordiality was a complete surprise to Alyosha.
“I shall be at the Hohlakovs’ to‐morrow,” answered Alyosha, “I may be at
Katerina Ivanovna’s, too, if I don’t find her now.”
“But you’re going to her now, anyway? For that ‘compliments and
farewell,’ ” said Ivan smiling. Alyosha was disconcerted.
“I think I quite understand his exclamations just now, and part of what
went before. Dmitri has asked you to go to her and say that he—well, in
fact—takes his leave of her?”
“Brother, how will all this horror end between father and Dmitri?”
exclaimed Alyosha.
“One can’t tell for certain. Perhaps in nothing: it may all fizzle out.
That woman is a beast. In any case we must keep the old man indoors and
not let Dmitri in the house.”
“Brother, let me ask one thing more: has any man a right to look at other
men and decide which is worthy to live?”
“Why bring in the question of worth? The matter is most often decided in
men’s hearts on other grounds much more natural. And as for rights—who has
not the right to wish?”
“Not for another man’s death?”
“What even if for another man’s death? Why lie to oneself since all men
live so and perhaps cannot help living so. Are you referring to what I
said just now—that one reptile will devour the other? In that case let me
ask you, do you think me like Dmitri capable of shedding Æsop’s blood,
murdering him, eh?”
“What are you saying, Ivan? Such an idea never crossed my mind. I don’t
think Dmitri is capable of it, either.”
“Thanks, if only for that,” smiled Ivan. “Be sure, I should always defend
him. But in my wishes I reserve myself full latitude in this case. Good‐by
till to‐morrow. Don’t condemn me, and don’t look on me as a villain,” he
added with a smile.
They shook hands warmly as they had never done before. Alyosha felt that
his brother had taken the first step towards him, and that he had
certainly done this with some definite motive.
Chapter X. Both Together
Alyosha left his father’s house feeling even more exhausted and dejected
in spirit than when he had entered it. His mind too seemed shattered and
unhinged, while he felt that he was afraid to put together the disjointed
fragments and form a general idea from all the agonizing and conflicting
experiences of the day. He felt something bordering upon despair, which he
had never known till then. Towering like a mountain above all the rest
stood the fatal, insoluble question: How would things end between his
father and his brother Dmitri with this terrible woman? Now he had himself
been a witness of it, he had been present and seen them face to face. Yet
only his brother Dmitri could be made unhappy, terribly, completely
unhappy: there was trouble awaiting him. It appeared too that there were
other people concerned, far more so than Alyosha could have supposed
before. There was something positively mysterious in it, too. Ivan had
made a step towards him, which was what Alyosha had been long desiring.
Yet now he felt for some reason that he was frightened at it. And these
women? Strange to say, that morning he had set out for Katerina Ivanovna’s
in the greatest embarrassment; now he felt nothing of the kind. On the
contrary, he was hastening there as though expecting to find guidance from
her. Yet to give her this message was obviously more difficult than
before. The matter of the three thousand was decided irrevocably, and
Dmitri, feeling himself dishonored and losing his last hope, might sink to
any depth. He had, moreover, told him to describe to Katerina Ivanovna the
scene which had just taken place with his father.
It was by now seven o’clock, and it was getting dark as Alyosha entered
the very spacious and convenient house in the High Street occupied by
Katerina Ivanovna. Alyosha knew that she lived with two aunts. One of
them, a woman of little education, was that aunt of her half‐sister Agafya
Ivanovna who had looked after her in her father’s house when she came from
boarding‐school. The other aunt was a Moscow lady of style and
consequence, though in straitened circumstances. It was said that they
both gave way in everything to Katerina Ivanovna, and that she only kept
them with her as chaperons. Katerina Ivanovna herself gave way to no one
but her benefactress, the general’s widow, who had been kept by illness in
Moscow, and to whom she was obliged to write twice a week a full account
of all her doings.
When Alyosha entered the hall and asked the maid who opened the door to
him to take his name up, it was evident that they were already aware of
his arrival. Possibly he had been noticed from the window. At least,
Alyosha heard a noise, caught the sound of flying footsteps and rustling
skirts. Two or three women, perhaps, had run out of the room.
Alyosha thought it strange that his arrival should cause such excitement.
He was conducted however to the drawing‐room at once. It was a large room,
elegantly and amply furnished, not at all in provincial style. There were
many sofas, lounges, settees, big and little tables. There were pictures
on the walls, vases and lamps on the tables, masses of flowers, and even
an aquarium in the window. It was twilight and rather dark. Alyosha made
out a silk mantle thrown down on the sofa, where people had evidently just
been sitting; and on a table in front of the sofa were two unfinished cups
of chocolate, cakes, a glass saucer with blue raisins, and another with
sweetmeats. Alyosha saw that he had interrupted visitors, and frowned. But
at that instant the portière was raised, and with rapid, hurrying
footsteps Katerina Ivanovna came in, holding out both hands to Alyosha
with a radiant smile of delight. At the same instant a servant brought in
two lighted candles and set them on the table.
“Thank God! At last you have come too! I’ve been simply praying for you
all day! Sit down.”
Alyosha had been struck by Katerina Ivanovna’s beauty when, three weeks
before, Dmitri had first brought him, at Katerina Ivanovna’s special
request, to be introduced to her. There had been no conversation between
them at that interview, however. Supposing Alyosha to be very shy,
Katerina Ivanovna had talked all the time to Dmitri to spare him. Alyosha
had been silent, but he had seen a great deal very clearly. He was struck
by the imperiousness, proud ease, and self‐confidence of the haughty girl.
And all that was certain, Alyosha felt that he was not exaggerating it. He
thought her great glowing black eyes were very fine, especially with her
pale, even rather sallow, longish face. But in those eyes and in the lines
of her exquisite lips there was something with which his brother might
well be passionately in love, but which perhaps could not be loved for
long. He expressed this thought almost plainly to Dmitri when, after the
visit, his brother besought and insisted that he should not conceal his
impressions on seeing his betrothed.
“You’ll be happy with her, but perhaps—not tranquilly happy.”
“Quite so, brother. Such people remain always the same. They don’t yield
to fate. So you think I shan’t love her for ever.”
“No; perhaps you will love her for ever. But perhaps you won’t always be
happy with her.”
Alyosha had given his opinion at the time, blushing, and angry with
himself for having yielded to his brother’s entreaties and put such
“foolish” ideas into words. For his opinion had struck him as awfully
foolish immediately after he had uttered it. He felt ashamed too of having
given so confident an opinion about a woman. It was with the more
amazement that he felt now, at the first glance at Katerina Ivanovna as
she ran in to him, that he had perhaps been utterly mistaken. This time
her face was beaming with spontaneous good‐natured kindliness, and direct
warm‐hearted sincerity. The “pride and haughtiness,” which had struck
Alyosha so much before, was only betrayed now in a frank, generous energy
and a sort of bright, strong faith in herself. Alyosha realized at the
first glance, at the first word, that all the tragedy of her position in
relation to the man she loved so dearly was no secret to her; that she
perhaps already knew everything, positively everything. And yet, in spite
of that, there was such brightness in her face, such faith in the future.
Alyosha felt at once that he had gravely wronged her in his thoughts. He
was conquered and captivated immediately. Besides all this, he noticed at
her first words that she was in great excitement, an excitement perhaps
quite exceptional and almost approaching ecstasy.
“I was so eager to see you, because I can learn from you the whole
truth—from you and no one else.”
“I have come,” muttered Alyosha confusedly, “I—he sent me.”
“Ah, he sent you! I foresaw that. Now I know everything—everything!” cried
Katerina Ivanovna, her eyes flashing. “Wait a moment, Alexey Fyodorovitch,
I’ll tell you why I’ve been so longing to see you. You see, I know perhaps
far more than you do yourself, and there’s no need for you to tell me
anything. I’ll tell you what I want from you. I want to know your own last
impression of him. I want you to tell me most directly, plainly, coarsely
even (oh, as coarsely as you like!), what you thought of him just now and
of his position after your meeting with him to‐day. That will perhaps be
better than if I had a personal explanation with him, as he does not want
to come to me. Do you understand what I want from you? Now, tell me
simply, tell me every word of the message he sent you with (I knew he
would send you).”
“He told me to give you his compliments—and to say that he would never
come again—but to give you his compliments.”
“His compliments? Was that what he said—his own expression?”
“Yes.”
“Accidentally perhaps he made a mistake in the word, perhaps he did not
use the right word?”
“No; he told me precisely to repeat that word. He begged me two or three
times not to forget to say so.”
Katerina Ivanovna flushed hotly.
“Help me now, Alexey Fyodorovitch. Now I really need your help. I’ll tell
you what I think, and you must simply say whether it’s right or not.
Listen! If he had sent me his compliments in passing, without insisting on
your repeating the words, without emphasizing them, that would be the end
of everything! But if he particularly insisted on those words, if he
particularly told you not to forget to repeat them to me, then perhaps he
was in excitement, beside himself. He had made his decision and was
frightened at it. He wasn’t walking away from me with a resolute step, but
leaping headlong. The emphasis on that phrase may have been simply
bravado.”
“Yes, yes!” cried Alyosha warmly. “I believe that is it.”
“And, if so, he’s not altogether lost. I can still save him. Stay! Did he
not tell you anything about money—about three thousand roubles?”
“He did speak about it, and it’s that more than anything that’s crushing
him. He said he had lost his honor and that nothing matters now,” Alyosha
answered warmly, feeling a rush of hope in his heart and believing that
there really might be a way of escape and salvation for his brother. “But
do you know about the money?” he added, and suddenly broke off.
“I’ve known of it a long time; I telegraphed to Moscow to inquire, and
heard long ago that the money had not arrived. He hadn’t sent the money,
but I said nothing. Last week I learnt that he was still in need of money.
My only object in all this was that he should know to whom to turn, and
who was his true friend. No, he won’t recognize that I am his truest
friend; he won’t know me, and looks on me merely as a woman. I’ve been
tormented all the week, trying to think how to prevent him from being
ashamed to face me because he spent that three thousand. Let him feel
ashamed of himself, let him be ashamed of other people’s knowing, but not
of my knowing. He can tell God everything without shame. Why is it he
still does not understand how much I am ready to bear for his sake? Why,
why doesn’t he know me? How dare he not know me after all that has
happened? I want to save him for ever. Let him forget me as his betrothed.
And here he fears that he is dishonored in my eyes. Why, he wasn’t afraid
to be open with you, Alexey Fyodorovitch. How is it that I don’t deserve
the same?”
The last words she uttered in tears. Tears gushed from her eyes.
“I must tell you,” Alyosha began, his voice trembling too, “what happened
just now between him and my father.”
And he described the whole scene, how Dmitri had sent him to get the
money, how he had broken in, knocked his father down, and after that had
again specially and emphatically begged him to take his compliments and
farewell. “He went to that woman,” Alyosha added softly.
“And do you suppose that I can’t put up with that woman? Does he think I
can’t? But he won’t marry her,” she suddenly laughed nervously. “Could
such a passion last for ever in a Karamazov? It’s passion, not love. He
won’t marry her because she won’t marry him.” Again Katerina Ivanovna
laughed strangely.
“He may marry her,” said Alyosha mournfully, looking down.
“He won’t marry her, I tell you. That girl is an angel. Do you know that?
Do you know that?” Katerina Ivanovna exclaimed suddenly with extraordinary
warmth. “She is one of the most fantastic of fantastic creatures. I know
how bewitching she is, but I know too that she is kind, firm and noble.
Why do you look at me like that, Alexey Fyodorovitch? Perhaps you are
wondering at my words, perhaps you don’t believe me? Agrafena
Alexandrovna, my angel!” she cried suddenly to some one, peeping into the
next room, “come in to us. This is a friend. This is Alyosha. He knows all
about our affairs. Show yourself to him.”
“I’ve only been waiting behind the curtain for you to call me,” said a
soft, one might even say sugary, feminine voice.
The portière was raised and Grushenka herself, smiling and beaming, came
up to the table. A violent revulsion passed over Alyosha. He fixed his
eyes on her and could not take them off. Here she was, that awful woman,
the “beast,” as Ivan had called her half an hour before. And yet one would
have thought the creature standing before him most simple and ordinary, a
good‐natured, kind woman, handsome certainly, but so like other handsome
ordinary women! It is true she was very, very good‐looking with that
Russian beauty so passionately loved by many men. She was a rather tall
woman, though a little shorter than Katerina Ivanovna, who was
exceptionally tall. She had a full figure, with soft, as it were,
noiseless, movements, softened to a peculiar over‐sweetness, like her
voice. She moved, not like Katerina Ivanovna, with a vigorous, bold step,
but noiselessly. Her feet made absolutely no sound on the floor. She sank
softly into a low chair, softly rustling her sumptuous black silk dress,
and delicately nestling her milk‐white neck and broad shoulders in a
costly cashmere shawl. She was twenty‐two years old, and her face looked
exactly that age. She was very white in the face, with a pale pink tint on
her cheeks. The modeling of her face might be said to be too broad, and
the lower jaw was set a trifle forward. Her upper lip was thin, but the
slightly prominent lower lip was at least twice as full, and looked
pouting. But her magnificent, abundant dark brown hair, her sable‐colored
eyebrows and charming gray‐blue eyes with their long lashes would have
made the most indifferent person, meeting her casually in a crowd in the
street, stop at the sight of her face and remember it long after. What
struck Alyosha most in that face was its expression of childlike good
nature. There was a childlike look in her eyes, a look of childish
delight. She came up to the table, beaming with delight and seeming to
expect something with childish, impatient, and confiding curiosity. The
light in her eyes gladdened the soul—Alyosha felt that. There was
something else in her which he could not understand, or would not have
been able to define, and which yet perhaps unconsciously affected him. It
was that softness, that voluptuousness of her bodily movements, that
catlike noiselessness. Yet it was a vigorous, ample body. Under the shawl
could be seen full broad shoulders, a high, still quite girlish bosom. Her
figure suggested the lines of the Venus of Milo, though already in
somewhat exaggerated proportions. That could be divined. Connoisseurs of
Russian beauty could have foretold with certainty that this fresh, still
youthful beauty would lose its harmony by the age of thirty, would
“spread”; that the face would become puffy, and that wrinkles would very
soon appear upon her forehead and round the eyes; the complexion would
grow coarse and red perhaps—in fact, that it was the beauty of the moment,
the fleeting beauty which is so often met with in Russian women. Alyosha,
of course, did not think of this; but though he was fascinated, yet he
wondered with an unpleasant sensation, and as it were regretfully, why she
drawled in that way and could not speak naturally. She did so evidently
feeling there was a charm in the exaggerated, honeyed modulation of the
syllables. It was, of course, only a bad, underbred habit that showed bad
education and a false idea of good manners. And yet this intonation and
manner of speaking impressed Alyosha as almost incredibly incongruous with
the childishly simple and happy expression of her face, the soft, babyish
joy in her eyes. Katerina Ivanovna at once made her sit down in an arm‐
chair facing Alyosha, and ecstatically kissed her several times on her
smiling lips. She seemed quite in love with her.
“This is the first time we’ve met, Alexey Fyodorovitch,” she said
rapturously. “I wanted to know her, to see her. I wanted to go to her, but
I’d no sooner expressed the wish than she came to me. I knew we should
settle everything together—everything. My heart told me so—I was begged
not to take the step, but I foresaw it would be a way out of the
difficulty, and I was not mistaken. Grushenka has explained everything to
me, told me all she means to do. She flew here like an angel of goodness
and brought us peace and joy.”
“You did not disdain me, sweet, excellent young lady,” drawled Grushenka
in her sing‐song voice, still with the same charming smile of delight.
“Don’t dare to speak to me like that, you sorceress, you witch! Disdain
you! Here, I must kiss your lower lip once more. It looks as though it
were swollen, and now it will be more so, and more and more. Look how she
laughs, Alexey Fyodorovitch! It does one’s heart good to see the angel.”
Alyosha flushed, and faint, imperceptible shivers kept running down him.
“You make so much of me, dear young lady, and perhaps I am not at all
worthy of your kindness.”
“Not worthy! She’s not worthy of it!” Katerina Ivanovna cried again with
the same warmth. “You know, Alexey Fyodorovitch, we’re fanciful, we’re
self‐willed, but proudest of the proud in our little heart. We’re noble,
we’re generous, Alexey Fyodorovitch, let me tell you. We have only been
unfortunate. We were too ready to make every sacrifice for an unworthy,
perhaps, or fickle man. There was one man—one, an officer too, we loved
him, we sacrificed everything to him. That was long ago, five years ago,
and he has forgotten us, he has married. Now he is a widower, he has
written, he is coming here, and, do you know, we’ve loved him, none but
him, all this time, and we’ve loved him all our life! He will come, and
Grushenka will be happy again. For the last five years she’s been
wretched. But who can reproach her, who can boast of her favor? Only that
bedridden old merchant, but he is more like her father, her friend, her
protector. He found her then in despair, in agony, deserted by the man she
loved. She was ready to drown herself then, but the old merchant saved
her—saved her!”
“You defend me very kindly, dear young lady. You are in a great hurry
about everything,” Grushenka drawled again.
“Defend you! Is it for me to defend you? Should I dare to defend you?
Grushenka, angel, give me your hand. Look at that charming soft little
hand, Alexey Fyodorovitch! Look at it! It has brought me happiness and has
lifted me up, and I’m going to kiss it, outside and inside, here, here,
here!”
And three times she kissed the certainly charming, though rather fat, hand
of Grushenka in a sort of rapture. She held out her hand with a charming
musical, nervous little laugh, watched the “sweet young lady,” and
obviously liked having her hand kissed.
“Perhaps there’s rather too much rapture,” thought Alyosha. He blushed. He
felt a peculiar uneasiness at heart the whole time.
“You won’t make me blush, dear young lady, kissing my hand like this
before Alexey Fyodorovitch.”
“Do you think I meant to make you blush?” said Katerina Ivanovna, somewhat
surprised. “Ah, my dear, how little you understand me!”
“Yes, and you too perhaps quite misunderstand me, dear young lady. Maybe
I’m not so good as I seem to you. I’ve a bad heart; I will have my own
way. I fascinated poor Dmitri Fyodorovitch that day simply for fun.”
“But now you’ll save him. You’ve given me your word. You’ll explain it all
to him. You’ll break to him that you have long loved another man, who is
now offering you his hand.”
“Oh, no! I didn’t give you my word to do that. It was you kept talking
about that. I didn’t give you my word.”
“Then I didn’t quite understand you,” said Katerina Ivanovna slowly,
turning a little pale. “You promised—”
“Oh, no, angel lady, I’ve promised nothing,” Grushenka interrupted softly
and evenly, still with the same gay and simple expression. “You see at
once, dear young lady, what a willful wretch I am compared with you. If I
want to do a thing I do it. I may have made you some promise just now. But
now again I’m thinking: I may take to Mitya again. I liked him very much
once—liked him for almost a whole hour. Now maybe I shall go and tell him
to stay with me from this day forward. You see, I’m so changeable.”
“Just now you said—something quite different,” Katerina Ivanovna whispered
faintly.
“Ah, just now! But, you know. I’m such a soft‐hearted, silly creature.
Only think what he’s gone through on my account! What if when I go home I
feel sorry for him? What then?”
“I never expected—”
“Ah, young lady, how good and generous you are compared with me! Now
perhaps you won’t care for a silly creature like me, now you know my
character. Give me your sweet little hand, angelic lady,” she said
tenderly, and with a sort of reverence took Katerina Ivanovna’s hand.
“Here, dear young lady, I’ll take your hand and kiss it as you did mine.
You kissed mine three times, but I ought to kiss yours three hundred times
to be even with you. Well, but let that pass. And then it shall be as God
wills. Perhaps I shall be your slave entirely and want to do your bidding
like a slave. Let it be as God wills, without any agreements and promises.
What a sweet hand—what a sweet hand you have! You sweet young lady, you
incredible beauty!”
She slowly raised the hands to her lips, with the strange object indeed of
“being even” with her in kisses.
Katerina Ivanovna did not take her hand away. She listened with timid hope
to the last words, though Grushenka’s promise to do her bidding like a
slave was very strangely expressed. She looked intently into her eyes; she
still saw in those eyes the same simple‐hearted, confiding expression, the
same bright gayety.
“She’s perhaps too naïve,” thought Katerina Ivanovna, with a gleam of
hope.
Grushenka meanwhile seemed enthusiastic over the “sweet hand.” She raised
it deliberately to her lips. But she held it for two or three minutes near
her lips, as though reconsidering something.
“Do you know, angel lady,” she suddenly drawled in an even more soft and
sugary voice, “do you know, after all, I think I won’t kiss your hand?”
And she laughed a little merry laugh.
“As you please. What’s the matter with you?” said Katerina Ivanovna,
starting suddenly.
“So that you may be left to remember that you kissed my hand, but I didn’t
kiss yours.”
There was a sudden gleam in her eyes. She looked with awful intentness at
Katerina Ivanovna.
“Insolent creature!” cried Katerina Ivanovna, as though suddenly grasping
something. She flushed all over and leapt up from her seat.
Grushenka too got up, but without haste.
“So I shall tell Mitya how you kissed my hand, but I didn’t kiss yours at
all. And how he will laugh!”
“Vile slut! Go away!”
“Ah, for shame, young lady! Ah, for shame! That’s unbecoming for you, dear
young lady, a word like that.”
“Go away! You’re a creature for sale!” screamed Katerina Ivanovna. Every
feature was working in her utterly distorted face.
“For sale indeed! You used to visit gentlemen in the dusk for money once;
you brought your beauty for sale. You see, I know.”
Katerina Ivanovna shrieked, and would have rushed at her, but Alyosha held
her with all his strength.
“Not a step, not a word! Don’t speak, don’t answer her. She’ll go
away—she’ll go at once.”
At that instant Katerina Ivanovna’s two aunts ran in at her cry, and with
them a maid‐servant. All hurried to her.
“I will go away,” said Grushenka, taking up her mantle from the sofa.
“Alyosha, darling, see me home!”
“Go away—go away, make haste!” cried Alyosha, clasping his hands
imploringly.
“Dear little Alyosha, see me home! I’ve got a pretty little story to tell
you on the way. I got up this scene for your benefit, Alyosha. See me
home, dear, you’ll be glad of it afterwards.”
Alyosha turned away, wringing his hands. Grushenka ran out of the house,
laughing musically.
Katerina Ivanovna went into a fit of hysterics. She sobbed, and was shaken
with convulsions. Every one fussed round her.
“I warned you,” said the elder of her aunts. “I tried to prevent your
doing this. You’re too impulsive. How could you do such a thing? You don’t
know these creatures, and they say she’s worse than any of them. You are
too self‐willed.”
“She’s a tigress!” yelled Katerina Ivanovna. “Why did you hold me, Alexey
Fyodorovitch? I’d have beaten her—beaten her!”
She could not control herself before Alyosha; perhaps she did not care to,
indeed.
“She ought to be flogged in public on a scaffold!”
Alyosha withdrew towards the door.
“But, my God!” cried Katerina Ivanovna, clasping her hands. “He! He! He
could be so dishonorable, so inhuman! Why, he told that creature what
happened on that fatal, accursed day! ‘You brought your beauty for sale,
dear young lady.’ She knows it! Your brother’s a scoundrel, Alexey
Fyodorovitch.”
Alyosha wanted to say something, but he couldn’t find a word. His heart
ached.
“Go away, Alexey Fyodorovitch! It’s shameful, it’s awful for me! To‐
morrow, I beg you on my knees, come to‐morrow. Don’t condemn me. Forgive
me. I don’t know what I shall do with myself now!”
Alyosha walked out into the street reeling. He could have wept as she did.
Suddenly he was overtaken by the maid.
“The young lady forgot to give you this letter from Madame Hohlakov; it’s
been left with us since dinner‐time.”
Alyosha took the little pink envelope mechanically and put it, almost
unconsciously, into his pocket.
Chapter XI. Another Reputation Ruined
It was not much more than three‐quarters of a mile from the town to the
monastery. Alyosha walked quickly along the road, at that hour deserted.
It was almost night, and too dark to see anything clearly at thirty paces
ahead. There were cross‐roads half‐way. A figure came into sight under a
solitary willow at the cross‐roads. As soon as Alyosha reached the cross‐
roads the figure moved out and rushed at him, shouting savagely:
“Your money or your life!”
“So it’s you, Mitya,” cried Alyosha, in surprise, violently startled
however.
“Ha ha ha! You didn’t expect me? I wondered where to wait for you. By her
house? There are three ways from it, and I might have missed you. At last
I thought of waiting here, for you had to pass here, there’s no other way
to the monastery. Come, tell me the truth. Crush me like a beetle. But
what’s the matter?”
“Nothing, brother—it’s the fright you gave me. Oh, Dmitri! Father’s blood
just now.” (Alyosha began to cry, he had been on the verge of tears for a
long time, and now something seemed to snap in his soul.) “You almost
killed him—cursed him—and now—here—you’re making jokes—‘Your money or your
life!’ ”
“Well, what of that? It’s not seemly—is that it? Not suitable in my
position?”
“No—I only—”
“Stay. Look at the night. You see what a dark night, what clouds, what a
wind has risen. I hid here under the willow waiting for you. And as God’s
above, I suddenly thought, why go on in misery any longer, what is there
to wait for? Here I have a willow, a handkerchief, a shirt, I can twist
them into a rope in a minute, and braces besides, and why go on burdening
the earth, dishonoring it with my vile presence? And then I heard you
coming—Heavens, it was as though something flew down to me suddenly. So
there is a man, then, whom I love. Here he is, that man, my dear little
brother, whom I love more than any one in the world, the only one I love
in the world. And I loved you so much, so much at that moment that I
thought, ‘I’ll fall on his neck at once.’ Then a stupid idea struck me, to
have a joke with you and scare you. I shouted, like a fool, ‘Your money!’
Forgive my foolery—it was only nonsense, and there’s nothing unseemly in
my soul.... Damn it all, tell me what’s happened. What did she say? Strike
me, crush me, don’t spare me! Was she furious?”
“No, not that.... There was nothing like that, Mitya. There—I found them
both there.”
“Both? Whom?”
“Grushenka at Katerina Ivanovna’s.”
Dmitri was struck dumb.
“Impossible!” he cried. “You’re raving! Grushenka with her?”
Alyosha described all that had happened from the moment he went in to
Katerina Ivanovna’s. He was ten minutes telling his story. He can’t be
said to have told it fluently and consecutively, but he seemed to make it
clear, not omitting any word or action of significance, and vividly
describing, often in one word, his own sensations. Dmitri listened in
silence, gazing at him with a terrible fixed stare, but it was clear to
Alyosha that he understood it all, and had grasped every point. But as the
story went on, his face became not merely gloomy, but menacing. He
scowled, he clenched his teeth, and his fixed stare became still more
rigid, more concentrated, more terrible, when suddenly, with incredible
rapidity, his wrathful, savage face changed, his tightly compressed lips
parted, and Dmitri Fyodorovitch broke into uncontrolled, spontaneous
laughter. He literally shook with laughter. For a long time he could not
speak.
“So she wouldn’t kiss her hand! So she didn’t kiss it; so she ran away!”
he kept exclaiming with hysterical delight; insolent delight it might have
been called, if it had not been so spontaneous. “So the other one called
her tigress! And a tigress she is! So she ought to be flogged on a
scaffold? Yes, yes, so she ought. That’s just what I think; she ought to
have been long ago. It’s like this, brother, let her be punished, but I
must get better first. I understand the queen of impudence. That’s her all
over! You saw her all over in that hand‐kissing, the she‐devil! She’s
magnificent in her own line! So she ran home? I’ll go—ah—I’ll run to her!
Alyosha, don’t blame me, I agree that hanging is too good for her.”
“But Katerina Ivanovna!” exclaimed Alyosha sorrowfully.
“I see her, too! I see right through her, as I’ve never done before! It’s
a regular discovery of the four continents of the world, that is, of the
five! What a thing to do! That’s just like Katya, who was not afraid to
face a coarse, unmannerly officer and risk a deadly insult on a generous
impulse to save her father! But the pride, the recklessness, the defiance
of fate, the unbounded defiance! You say that aunt tried to stop her? That
aunt, you know, is overbearing, herself. She’s the sister of the general’s
widow in Moscow, and even more stuck‐up than she. But her husband was
caught stealing government money. He lost everything, his estate and all,
and the proud wife had to lower her colors, and hasn’t raised them since.
So she tried to prevent Katya, but she wouldn’t listen to her! She thinks
she can overcome everything, that everything will give way to her. She
thought she could bewitch Grushenka if she liked, and she believed it
herself: she plays a part to herself, and whose fault is it? Do you think
she kissed Grushenka’s hand first, on purpose, with a motive? No, she
really was fascinated by Grushenka, that’s to say, not by Grushenka, but
by her own dream, her own delusion—because it was _her_ dream, _her_
delusion! Alyosha, darling, how did you escape from them, those women? Did
you pick up your cassock and run? Ha ha ha!”
“Brother, you don’t seem to have noticed how you’ve insulted Katerina
Ivanovna by telling Grushenka about that day. And she flung it in her face
just now that she had gone to gentlemen in secret to sell her beauty!
Brother, what could be worse than that insult?”
What worried Alyosha more than anything was that, incredible as it seemed,
his brother appeared pleased at Katerina Ivanovna’s humiliation.
“Bah!” Dmitri frowned fiercely, and struck his forehead with his hand. He
only now realized it, though Alyosha had just told him of the insult, and
Katerina Ivanovna’s cry: “Your brother is a scoundrel!”
“Yes, perhaps, I really did tell Grushenka about that ‘fatal day,’ as
Katya calls it. Yes, I did tell her, I remember! It was that time at
Mokroe. I was drunk, the gypsies were singing.... But I was sobbing. I was
sobbing then, kneeling and praying to Katya’s image, and Grushenka
understood it. She understood it all then. I remember, she cried
herself.... Damn it all! But it’s bound to be so now.... Then she cried,
but now ‘the dagger in the heart’! That’s how women are.”
He looked down and sank into thought.
“Yes, I am a scoundrel, a thorough scoundrel!” he said suddenly, in a
gloomy voice. “It doesn’t matter whether I cried or not, I’m a scoundrel!
Tell her I accept the name, if that’s any comfort. Come, that’s enough.
Good‐by. It’s no use talking! It’s not amusing. You go your way and I
mine. And I don’t want to see you again except as a last resource. Good‐
by, Alexey!”
He warmly pressed Alyosha’s hand, and still looking down, without raising
his head, as though tearing himself away, turned rapidly towards the town.
Alyosha looked after him, unable to believe he would go away so abruptly.
“Stay, Alexey, one more confession to you alone!” cried Dmitri, suddenly
turning back. “Look at me. Look at me well. You see here, here—there’s
terrible disgrace in store for me.” (As he said “here,” Dmitri struck his
chest with his fist with a strange air, as though the dishonor lay
precisely on his chest, in some spot, in a pocket, perhaps, or hanging
round his neck.) “You know me now, a scoundrel, an avowed scoundrel, but
let me tell you that I’ve never done anything before and never shall
again, anything that can compare in baseness with the dishonor which I
bear now at this very minute on my breast, here, here, which will come to
pass, though I’m perfectly free to stop it. I can stop it or carry it
through, note that. Well, let me tell you, I shall carry it through. I
shan’t stop it. I told you everything just now, but I didn’t tell you
this, because even I had not brass enough for it. I can still pull up; if
I do, I can give back the full half of my lost honor to‐morrow. But I
shan’t pull up. I shall carry out my base plan, and you can bear witness
that I told you so beforehand. Darkness and destruction! No need to
explain. You’ll find out in due time. The filthy back‐alley and the she‐
devil. Good‐by. Don’t pray for me, I’m not worth it. And there’s no need,
no need at all.... I don’t need it! Away!”
And he suddenly retreated, this time finally. Alyosha went towards the
monastery.
“What? I shall never see him again! What is he saying?” he wondered
wildly. “Why, I shall certainly see him to‐morrow. I shall look him up. I
shall make a point of it. What does he mean?”
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
He went round the monastery, and crossed the pine‐wood to the hermitage.
The door was opened to him, though no one was admitted at that hour. There
was a tremor in his heart as he went into Father Zossima’s cell.
“Why, why, had he gone forth? Why had he sent him into the world? Here was
peace. Here was holiness. But there was confusion, there was darkness in
which one lost one’s way and went astray at once....”
In the cell he found the novice Porfiry and Father Païssy, who came every
hour to inquire after Father Zossima. Alyosha learnt with alarm that he
was getting worse and worse. Even his usual discourse with the brothers
could not take place that day. As a rule every evening after service the
monks flocked into Father Zossima’s cell, and all confessed aloud their
sins of the day, their sinful thoughts and temptations; even their
disputes, if there had been any. Some confessed kneeling. The elder
absolved, reconciled, exhorted, imposed penance, blessed, and dismissed
them. It was against this general “confession” that the opponents of
“elders” protested, maintaining that it was a profanation of the sacrament
of confession, almost a sacrilege, though this was quite a different
thing. They even represented to the diocesan authorities that such
confessions attained no good object, but actually to a large extent led to
sin and temptation. Many of the brothers disliked going to the elder, and
went against their own will because every one went, and for fear they
should be accused of pride and rebellious ideas. People said that some of
the monks agreed beforehand, saying, “I’ll confess I lost my temper with
you this morning, and you confirm it,” simply in order to have something
to say. Alyosha knew that this actually happened sometimes. He knew, too,
that there were among the monks some who deeply resented the fact that
letters from relations were habitually taken to the elder, to be opened
and read by him before those to whom they were addressed.
It was assumed, of course, that all this was done freely, and in good
faith, by way of voluntary submission and salutary guidance. But, in fact,
there was sometimes no little insincerity, and much that was false and
strained in this practice. Yet the older and more experienced of the monks
adhered to their opinion, arguing that “for those who have come within
these walls sincerely seeking salvation, such obedience and sacrifice will
certainly be salutary and of great benefit; those, on the other hand, who
find it irksome, and repine, are no true monks, and have made a mistake in
entering the monastery—their proper place is in the world. Even in the
temple one cannot be safe from sin and the devil. So it was no good taking
it too much into account.”
“He is weaker, a drowsiness has come over him,” Father Païssy whispered to
Alyosha, as he blessed him. “It’s difficult to rouse him. And he must not
be roused. He waked up for five minutes, sent his blessing to the
brothers, and begged their prayers for him at night. He intends to take
the sacrament again in the morning. He remembered you, Alexey. He asked
whether you had gone away, and was told that you were in the town. ‘I
blessed him for that work,’ he said, ‘his place is there, not here, for
awhile.’ Those were his words about you. He remembered you lovingly, with
anxiety; do you understand how he honored you? But how is it that he has
decided that you shall spend some time in the world? He must have foreseen
something in your destiny! Understand, Alexey, that if you return to the
world, it must be to do the duty laid upon you by your elder, and not for
frivolous vanity and worldly pleasures.”
Father Païssy went out. Alyosha had no doubt that Father Zossima was
dying, though he might live another day or two. Alyosha firmly and
ardently resolved that in spite of his promises to his father, the
Hohlakovs, and Katerina Ivanovna, he would not leave the monastery next
day, but would remain with his elder to the end. His heart glowed with
love, and he reproached himself bitterly for having been able for one
instant to forget him whom he had left in the monastery on his deathbed,
and whom he honored above every one in the world. He went into Father
Zossima’s bedroom, knelt down, and bowed to the ground before the elder,
who slept quietly without stirring, with regular, hardly audible breathing
and a peaceful face.
Alyosha returned to the other room, where Father Zossima had received his
guests in the morning. Taking off his boots, he lay down on the hard,
narrow, leathern sofa, which he had long used as a bed, bringing nothing
but a pillow. The mattress, about which his father had shouted to him that
morning, he had long forgotten to lie on. He took off his cassock, which
he used as a covering. But before going to bed, he fell on his knees and
prayed a long time. In his fervent prayer he did not beseech God to
lighten his darkness but only thirsted for the joyous emotion, which
always visited his soul after the praise and adoration, of which his
evening prayer usually consisted. That joy always brought him light
untroubled sleep. As he was praying, he suddenly felt in his pocket the
little pink note the servant had handed him as he left Katerina
Ivanovna’s. He was disturbed, but finished his prayer. Then, after some
hesitation, he opened the envelope. In it was a letter to him, signed by
Lise, the young daughter of Madame Hohlakov, who had laughed at him before
the elder in the morning.
“Alexey Fyodorovitch,” she wrote, “I am writing to you without any one’s
knowledge, even mamma’s, and I know how wrong it is. But I cannot live
without telling you the feeling that has sprung up in my heart, and this
no one but us two must know for a time. But how am I to say what I want so
much to tell you? Paper, they say, does not blush, but I assure you it’s
not true and that it’s blushing just as I am now, all over. Dear Alyosha,
I love you, I’ve loved you from my childhood, since our Moscow days, when
you were very different from what you are now, and I shall love you all my
life. My heart has chosen you, to unite our lives, and pass them together
till our old age. Of course, on condition that you will leave the
monastery. As for our age we will wait for the time fixed by the law. By
that time I shall certainly be quite strong, I shall be walking and
dancing. There can be no doubt of that.
“You see how I’ve thought of everything. There’s only one thing I can’t
imagine: what you’ll think of me when you read this. I’m always laughing
and being naughty. I made you angry this morning, but I assure you before
I took up my pen, I prayed before the Image of the Mother of God, and now
I’m praying, and almost crying.
“My secret is in your hands. When you come to‐morrow, I don’t know how I
shall look at you. Ah, Alexey Fyodorovitch, what if I can’t restrain
myself like a silly and laugh when I look at you as I did to‐day. You’ll
think I’m a nasty girl making fun of you, and you won’t believe my letter.
And so I beg you, dear one, if you’ve any pity for me, when you come to‐
morrow, don’t look me straight in the face, for if I meet your eyes, it
will be sure to make me laugh, especially as you’ll be in that long gown.
I feel cold all over when I think of it, so when you come, don’t look at
me at all for a time, look at mamma or at the window....
“Here I’ve written you a love‐letter. Oh, dear, what have I done? Alyosha,
don’t despise me, and if I’ve done something very horrid and wounded you,
forgive me. Now the secret of my reputation, ruined perhaps for ever, is
in your hands.
“I shall certainly cry to‐day. Good‐by till our meeting, our _awful_
meeting.—LISE.
“P.S.—Alyosha! You must, must, must come!—LISE.”
Alyosha read the note in amazement, read it through twice, thought a
little, and suddenly laughed a soft, sweet laugh. He started. That laugh
seemed to him sinful. But a minute later he laughed again just as softly
and happily. He slowly replaced the note in the envelope, crossed himself
and lay down. The agitation in his heart passed at once. “God, have mercy
upon all of them, have all these unhappy and turbulent souls in Thy
keeping, and set them in the right path. All ways are Thine. Save them
according to Thy wisdom. Thou art love. Thou wilt send joy to all!”
Alyosha murmured, crossing himself, and falling into peaceful sleep.
PART II
Book IV. Lacerations
Chapter I. Father Ferapont
Alyosha was roused early, before daybreak. Father Zossima woke up feeling
very weak, though he wanted to get out of bed and sit up in a chair. His
mind was quite clear; his face looked very tired, yet bright and almost
joyful. It wore an expression of gayety, kindness and cordiality. “Maybe I
shall not live through the coming day,” he said to Alyosha. Then he
desired to confess and take the sacrament at once. He always confessed to
Father Païssy. After taking the communion, the service of extreme unction
followed. The monks assembled and the cell was gradually filled up by the
inmates of the hermitage. Meantime it was daylight. People began coming
from the monastery. After the service was over the elder desired to kiss
and take leave of every one. As the cell was so small the earlier visitors
withdrew to make room for others. Alyosha stood beside the elder, who was
seated again in his arm‐chair. He talked as much as he could. Though his
voice was weak, it was fairly steady.
“I’ve been teaching you so many years, and therefore I’ve been talking
aloud so many years, that I’ve got into the habit of talking, and so much
so that it’s almost more difficult for me to hold my tongue than to talk,
even now, in spite of my weakness, dear Fathers and brothers,” he jested,
looking with emotion at the group round him.
Alyosha remembered afterwards something of what he said to them. But
though he spoke out distinctly and his voice was fairly steady, his speech
was somewhat disconnected. He spoke of many things, he seemed anxious
before the moment of death to say everything he had not said in his life,
and not simply for the sake of instructing them, but as though thirsting
to share with all men and all creation his joy and ecstasy, and once more
in his life to open his whole heart.
“Love one another, Fathers,” said Father Zossima, as far as Alyosha could
remember afterwards. “Love God’s people. Because we have come here and
shut ourselves within these walls, we are no holier than those that are
outside, but on the contrary, from the very fact of coming here, each of
us has confessed to himself that he is worse than others, than all men on
earth.... And the longer the monk lives in his seclusion, the more keenly
he must recognize that. Else he would have had no reason to come here.
When he realizes that he is not only worse than others, but that he is
responsible to all men for all and everything, for all human sins,
national and individual, only then the aim of our seclusion is attained.
For know, dear ones, that every one of us is undoubtedly responsible for
all men and everything on earth, not merely through the general sinfulness
of creation, but each one personally for all mankind and every individual
man. This knowledge is the crown of life for the monk and for every man.
For monks are not a special sort of men, but only what all men ought to
be. Only through that knowledge, our heart grows soft with infinite,
universal, inexhaustible love. Then every one of you will have the power
to win over the whole world by love and to wash away the sins of the world
with your tears.... Each of you keep watch over your heart and confess
your sins to yourself unceasingly. Be not afraid of your sins, even when
perceiving them, if only there be penitence, but make no conditions with
God. Again I say, Be not proud. Be proud neither to the little nor to the
great. Hate not those who reject you, who insult you, who abuse and
slander you. Hate not the atheists, the teachers of evil, the
materialists—and I mean not only the good ones—for there are many good
ones among them, especially in our day—hate not even the wicked ones.
Remember them in your prayers thus: Save, O Lord, all those who have none
to pray for them, save too all those who will not pray. And add: it is not
in pride that I make this prayer, O Lord, for I am lower than all men....
Love God’s people, let not strangers draw away the flock, for if you
slumber in your slothfulness and disdainful pride, or worse still, in
covetousness, they will come from all sides and draw away your flock.
Expound the Gospel to the people unceasingly ... be not extortionate....
Do not love gold and silver, do not hoard them.... Have faith. Cling to
the banner and raise it on high.”
But the elder spoke more disconnectedly than Alyosha reported his words
afterwards. Sometimes he broke off altogether, as though to take breath,
and recover his strength, but he was in a sort of ecstasy. They heard him
with emotion, though many wondered at his words and found them obscure....
Afterwards all remembered those words.
When Alyosha happened for a moment to leave the cell, he was struck by the
general excitement and suspense in the monks who were crowding about it.
This anticipation showed itself in some by anxiety, in others by devout
solemnity. All were expecting that some marvel would happen immediately
after the elder’s death. Their suspense was, from one point of view,
almost frivolous, but even the most austere of the monks were affected by
it. Father Païssy’s face looked the gravest of all.
Alyosha was mysteriously summoned by a monk to see Rakitin, who had
arrived from town with a singular letter for him from Madame Hohlakov. In
it she informed Alyosha of a strange and very opportune incident. It
appeared that among the women who had come on the previous day to receive
Father Zossima’s blessing, there had been an old woman from the town, a
sergeant’s widow, called Prohorovna. She had inquired whether she might
pray for the rest of the soul of her son, Vassenka, who had gone to
Irkutsk, and had sent her no news for over a year. To which Father Zossima
had answered sternly, forbidding her to do so, and saying that to pray for
the living as though they were dead was a kind of sorcery. He afterwards
forgave her on account of her ignorance, and added, “as though reading the
book of the future” (this was Madame Hohlakov’s expression), words of
comfort: “that her son Vassya was certainly alive and he would either come
himself very shortly or send a letter, and that she was to go home and
expect him.” And “Would you believe it?” exclaimed Madame Hohlakov
enthusiastically, “the prophecy has been fulfilled literally indeed, and
more than that.” Scarcely had the old woman reached home when they gave
her a letter from Siberia which had been awaiting her. But that was not
all; in the letter written on the road from Ekaterinenburg, Vassya
informed his mother that he was returning to Russia with an official, and
that three weeks after her receiving the letter he hoped “to embrace his
mother.”
Madame Hohlakov warmly entreated Alyosha to report this new “miracle of
prediction” to the Superior and all the brotherhood. “All, all, ought to
know of it!” she concluded. The letter had been written in haste, the
excitement of the writer was apparent in every line of it. But Alyosha had
no need to tell the monks, for all knew of it already. Rakitin had
commissioned the monk who brought his message “to inform most respectfully
his reverence Father Païssy, that he, Rakitin, has a matter to speak of
with him, of such gravity that he dare not defer it for a moment, and
humbly begs forgiveness for his presumption.” As the monk had given the
message to Father Païssy before that to Alyosha, the latter found after
reading the letter, there was nothing left for him to do but to hand it to
Father Païssy in confirmation of the story.
And even that austere and cautious man, though he frowned as he read the
news of the “miracle,” could not completely restrain some inner emotion.
His eyes gleamed, and a grave and solemn smile came into his lips.
“We shall see greater things!” broke from him.
“We shall see greater things, greater things yet!” the monks around
repeated.
But Father Païssy, frowning again, begged all of them, at least for a
time, not to speak of the matter “till it be more fully confirmed, seeing
there is so much credulity among those of this world, and indeed this
might well have chanced naturally,” he added, prudently, as it were to
satisfy his conscience, though scarcely believing his own disavowal, a
fact his listeners very clearly perceived.
Within the hour the “miracle” was of course known to the whole monastery,
and many visitors who had come for the mass. No one seemed more impressed
by it than the monk who had come the day before from St. Sylvester, from
the little monastery of Obdorsk in the far North. It was he who had been
standing near Madame Hohlakov the previous day and had asked Father
Zossima earnestly, referring to the “healing” of the lady’s daughter, “How
can you presume to do such things?”
He was now somewhat puzzled and did not know whom to believe. The evening
before he had visited Father Ferapont in his cell apart, behind the
apiary, and had been greatly impressed and overawed by the visit. This
Father Ferapont was that aged monk so devout in fasting and observing
silence who has been mentioned already, as antagonistic to Father Zossima
and the whole institution of “elders,” which he regarded as a pernicious
and frivolous innovation. He was a very formidable opponent, although from
his practice of silence he scarcely spoke a word to any one. What made him
formidable was that a number of monks fully shared his feeling, and many
of the visitors looked upon him as a great saint and ascetic, although
they had no doubt that he was crazy. But it was just his craziness
attracted them.
Father Ferapont never went to see the elder. Though he lived in the
hermitage they did not worry him to keep its regulations, and this too
because he behaved as though he were crazy. He was seventy‐five or more,
and he lived in a corner beyond the apiary in an old decaying wooden cell
which had been built long ago for another great ascetic, Father Iona, who
had lived to be a hundred and five, and of whose saintly doings many
curious stories were still extant in the monastery and the neighborhood.
Father Ferapont had succeeded in getting himself installed in this same
solitary cell seven years previously. It was simply a peasant’s hut,
though it looked like a chapel, for it contained an extraordinary number
of ikons with lamps perpetually burning before them—which men brought to
the monastery as offerings to God. Father Ferapont had been appointed to
look after them and keep the lamps burning. It was said (and indeed it was
true) that he ate only two pounds of bread in three days. The beekeeper,
who lived close by the apiary, used to bring him the bread every three
days, and even to this man who waited upon him, Father Ferapont rarely
uttered a word. The four pounds of bread, together with the sacrament
bread, regularly sent him on Sundays after the late mass by the Father
Superior, made up his weekly rations. The water in his jug was changed
every day. He rarely appeared at mass. Visitors who came to do him homage
saw him sometimes kneeling all day long at prayer without looking round.
If he addressed them, he was brief, abrupt, strange, and almost always
rude. On very rare occasions, however, he would talk to visitors, but for
the most part he would utter some one strange saying which was a complete
riddle, and no entreaties would induce him to pronounce a word in
explanation. He was not a priest, but a simple monk. There was a strange
belief, chiefly however among the most ignorant, that Father Ferapont had
communication with heavenly spirits and would only converse with them, and
so was silent with men.
The monk from Obdorsk, having been directed to the apiary by the
beekeeper, who was also a very silent and surly monk, went to the corner
where Father Ferapont’s cell stood. “Maybe he will speak as you are a
stranger and maybe you’ll get nothing out of him,” the beekeeper had
warned him. The monk, as he related afterwards, approached in the utmost
apprehension. It was rather late in the evening. Father Ferapont was
sitting at the door of his cell on a low bench. A huge old elm was lightly
rustling overhead. There was an evening freshness in the air. The monk
from Obdorsk bowed down before the saint and asked his blessing.
“Do you want me to bow down to you, monk?” said Father Ferapont. “Get up!”
The monk got up.
“Blessing, be blessed! Sit beside me. Where have you come from?”
What most struck the poor monk was the fact that in spite of his strict
fasting and great age, Father Ferapont still looked a vigorous old man. He
was tall, held himself erect, and had a thin, but fresh and healthy face.
There was no doubt he still had considerable strength. He was of athletic
build. In spite of his great age he was not even quite gray, and still had
very thick hair and a full beard, both of which had once been black. His
eyes were gray, large and luminous, but strikingly prominent. He spoke
with a broad accent. He was dressed in a peasant’s long reddish coat of
coarse convict cloth (as it used to be called) and had a stout rope round
his waist. His throat and chest were bare. Beneath his coat, his shirt of
the coarsest linen showed almost black with dirt, not having been changed
for months. They said that he wore irons weighing thirty pounds under his
coat. His stockingless feet were thrust in old slippers almost dropping to
pieces.
“From the little Obdorsk monastery, from St. Sylvester,” the monk answered
humbly, whilst his keen and inquisitive, but rather frightened little eyes
kept watch on the hermit.
“I have been at your Sylvester’s. I used to stay there. Is Sylvester
well?”
The monk hesitated.
“You are a senseless lot! How do you keep the fasts?”
“Our dietary is according to the ancient conventual rules. During Lent
there are no meals provided for Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. For Tuesday
and Thursday we have white bread, stewed fruit with honey, wild berries,
or salt cabbage and wholemeal stirabout. On Saturday white cabbage soup,
noodles with peas, kasha, all with hemp oil. On weekdays we have dried
fish and kasha with the cabbage soup. From Monday till Saturday evening,
six whole days in Holy Week, nothing is cooked, and we have only bread and
water, and that sparingly; if possible not taking food every day, just the
same as is ordered for first week in Lent. On Good Friday nothing is
eaten. In the same way on the Saturday we have to fast till three o’clock,
and then take a little bread and water and drink a single cup of wine. On
Holy Thursday we drink wine and have something cooked without oil or not
cooked at all, inasmuch as the Laodicean council lays down for Holy
Thursday: ‘It is unseemly by remitting the fast on the Holy Thursday to
dishonor the whole of Lent!’ This is how we keep the fast. But what is
that compared with you, holy Father,” added the monk, growing more
confident, “for all the year round, even at Easter, you take nothing but
bread and water, and what we should eat in two days lasts you full seven.
It’s truly marvelous—your great abstinence.”
“And mushrooms?” asked Father Ferapont, suddenly.
“Mushrooms?” repeated the surprised monk.
“Yes. I can give up their bread, not needing it at all, and go away into
the forest and live there on the mushrooms or the berries, but they can’t
give up their bread here, wherefore they are in bondage to the devil.
Nowadays the unclean deny that there is need of such fasting. Haughty and
unclean is their judgment.”
“Och, true,” sighed the monk.
“And have you seen devils among them?” asked Ferapont.
“Among them? Among whom?” asked the monk, timidly.
“I went to the Father Superior on Trinity Sunday last year, I haven’t been
since. I saw a devil sitting on one man’s chest hiding under his cassock,
only his horns poked out; another had one peeping out of his pocket with
such sharp eyes, he was afraid of me; another settled in the unclean belly
of one, another was hanging round a man’s neck, and so he was carrying him
about without seeing him.”
“You—can see spirits?” the monk inquired.
“I tell you I can see, I can see through them. When I was coming out from
the Superior’s I saw one hiding from me behind the door, and a big one, a
yard and a half or more high, with a thick long gray tail, and the tip of
his tail was in the crack of the door and I was quick and slammed the
door, pinching his tail in it. He squealed and began to struggle, and I
made the sign of the cross over him three times. And he died on the spot
like a crushed spider. He must have rotted there in the corner and be
stinking, but they don’t see, they don’t smell it. It’s a year since I
have been there. I reveal it to you, as you are a stranger.”
“Your words are terrible! But, holy and blessed Father,” said the monk,
growing bolder and bolder, “is it true, as they noise abroad even to
distant lands about you, that you are in continual communication with the
Holy Ghost?”
“He does fly down at times.”
“How does he fly down? In what form?”
“As a bird.”
“The Holy Ghost in the form of a dove?”
“There’s the Holy Ghost and there’s the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit can
appear as other birds—sometimes as a swallow, sometimes a goldfinch and
sometimes as a blue‐tit.”
“How do you know him from an ordinary tit?”
“He speaks.”
“How does he speak, in what language?”
“Human language.”
“And what does he tell you?”
“Why, to‐day he told me that a fool would visit me and would ask me
unseemly questions. You want to know too much, monk.”
“Terrible are your words, most holy and blessed Father,” the monk shook
his head. But there was a doubtful look in his frightened little eyes.
“Do you see this tree?” asked Father Ferapont, after a pause.
“I do, blessed Father.”
“You think it’s an elm, but for me it has another shape.”
“What sort of shape?” inquired the monk, after a pause of vain
expectation.
“It happens at night. You see those two branches? In the night it is
Christ holding out His arms to me and seeking me with those arms, I see it
clearly and tremble. It’s terrible, terrible!”
“What is there terrible if it’s Christ Himself?”
“Why, He’ll snatch me up and carry me away.”
“Alive?”
“In the spirit and glory of Elijah, haven’t you heard? He will take me in
His arms and bear me away.”
Though the monk returned to the cell he was sharing with one of the
brothers, in considerable perplexity of mind, he still cherished at heart
a greater reverence for Father Ferapont than for Father Zossima. He was
strongly in favor of fasting, and it was not strange that one who kept so
rigid a fast as Father Ferapont should “see marvels.” His words seemed
certainly queer, but God only could tell what was hidden in those words,
and were not worse words and acts commonly seen in those who have
sacrificed their intellects for the glory of God? The pinching of the
devil’s tail he was ready and eager to believe, and not only in the
figurative sense. Besides he had, before visiting the monastery, a strong
prejudice against the institution of “elders,” which he only knew of by
hearsay and believed to be a pernicious innovation. Before he had been
long at the monastery, he had detected the secret murmurings of some
shallow brothers who disliked the institution. He was, besides, a
meddlesome, inquisitive man, who poked his nose into everything. This was
why the news of the fresh “miracle” performed by Father Zossima reduced
him to extreme perplexity. Alyosha remembered afterwards how their
inquisitive guest from Obdorsk had been continually flitting to and fro
from one group to another, listening and asking questions among the monks
that were crowding within and without the elder’s cell. But he did not pay
much attention to him at the time, and only recollected it afterwards.
He had no thought to spare for it indeed, for when Father Zossima, feeling
tired again, had gone back to bed, he thought of Alyosha as he was closing
his eyes, and sent for him. Alyosha ran at once. There was no one else in
the cell but Father Païssy, Father Iosif, and the novice Porfiry. The
elder, opening his weary eyes and looking intently at Alyosha, asked him
suddenly:
“Are your people expecting you, my son?”
Alyosha hesitated.
“Haven’t they need of you? Didn’t you promise some one yesterday to see
them to‐day?”
“I did promise—to my father—my brothers—others too.”
“You see, you must go. Don’t grieve. Be sure I shall not die without your
being by to hear my last word. To you I will say that word, my son, it
will be my last gift to you. To you, dear son, because you love me. But
now go to keep your promise.”
Alyosha immediately obeyed, though it was hard to go. But the promise that
he should hear his last word on earth, that it should be the last gift to
him, Alyosha, sent a thrill of rapture through his soul. He made haste
that he might finish what he had to do in the town and return quickly.
Father Païssy, too, uttered some words of exhortation which moved and
surprised him greatly. He spoke as they left the cell together.
“Remember, young man, unceasingly,” Father Païssy began, without preface,
“that the science of this world, which has become a great power, has,
especially in the last century, analyzed everything divine handed down to
us in the holy books. After this cruel analysis the learned of this world
have nothing left of all that was sacred of old. But they have only
analyzed the parts and overlooked the whole, and indeed their blindness is
marvelous. Yet the whole still stands steadfast before their eyes, and the
gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Has it not lasted nineteen
centuries, is it not still a living, a moving power in the individual soul
and in the masses of people? It is still as strong and living even in the
souls of atheists, who have destroyed everything! For even those who have
renounced Christianity and attack it, in their inmost being still follow
the Christian ideal, for hitherto neither their subtlety nor the ardor of
their hearts has been able to create a higher ideal of man and of virtue
than the ideal given by Christ of old. When it has been attempted, the
result has been only grotesque. Remember this especially, young man, since
you are being sent into the world by your departing elder. Maybe,
remembering this great day, you will not forget my words, uttered from the
heart for your guidance, seeing you are young, and the temptations of the
world are great and beyond your strength to endure. Well, now go, my
orphan.”
With these words Father Païssy blessed him. As Alyosha left the monastery
and thought them over, he suddenly realized that he had met a new and
unexpected friend, a warmly loving teacher, in this austere monk who had
hitherto treated him sternly. It was as though Father Zossima had
bequeathed him to him at his death, and “perhaps that’s just what had
passed between them,” Alyosha thought suddenly. The philosophic
reflections he had just heard so unexpectedly testified to the warmth of
Father Païssy’s heart. He was in haste to arm the boy’s mind for conflict
with temptation and to guard the young soul left in his charge with the
strongest defense he could imagine.
Chapter II. At His Father’s
First of all, Alyosha went to his father. On the way he remembered that
his father had insisted the day before that he should come without his
brother Ivan seeing him. “Why so?” Alyosha wondered suddenly. “Even if my
father has something to say to me alone, why should I go in unseen? Most
likely in his excitement yesterday he meant to say something different,”
he decided. Yet he was very glad when Marfa Ignatyevna, who opened the
garden gate to him (Grigory, it appeared, was ill in bed in the lodge),
told him in answer to his question that Ivan Fyodorovitch had gone out two
hours ago.
“And my father?”
“He is up, taking his coffee,” Marfa answered somewhat dryly.
Alyosha went in. The old man was sitting alone at the table wearing
slippers and a little old overcoat. He was amusing himself by looking
through some accounts, rather inattentively however. He was quite alone in
the house, for Smerdyakov too had gone out marketing. Though he had got up
early and was trying to put a bold face on it, he looked tired and weak.
His forehead, upon which huge purple bruises had come out during the
night, was bandaged with a red handkerchief; his nose too had swollen
terribly in the night, and some smaller bruises covered it in patches,
giving his whole face a peculiarly spiteful and irritable look. The old
man was aware of this, and turned a hostile glance on Alyosha as he came
in.
“The coffee is cold,” he cried harshly; “I won’t offer you any. I’ve
ordered nothing but a Lenten fish soup to‐day, and I don’t invite any one
to share it. Why have you come?”
“To find out how you are,” said Alyosha.
“Yes. Besides, I told you to come yesterday. It’s all of no consequence.
You need not have troubled. But I knew you’d come poking in directly.”
He said this with almost hostile feeling. At the same time he got up and
looked anxiously in the looking‐glass (perhaps for the fortieth time that
morning) at his nose. He began, too, binding his red handkerchief more
becomingly on his forehead.
“Red’s better. It’s just like the hospital in a white one,” he observed
sententiously. “Well, how are things over there? How is your elder?”
“He is very bad; he may die to‐day,” answered Alyosha. But his father had
not listened, and had forgotten his own question at once.
“Ivan’s gone out,” he said suddenly. “He is doing his utmost to carry off
Mitya’s betrothed. That’s what he is staying here for,” he added
maliciously, and, twisting his mouth, looked at Alyosha.
“Surely he did not tell you so?” asked Alyosha.
“Yes, he did, long ago. Would you believe it, he told me three weeks ago?
You don’t suppose he too came to murder me, do you? He must have had some
object in coming.”
“What do you mean? Why do you say such things?” said Alyosha, troubled.
“He doesn’t ask for money, it’s true, but yet he won’t get a farthing from
me. I intend living as long as possible, you may as well know, my dear
Alexey Fyodorovitch, and so I need every farthing, and the longer I live,
the more I shall need it,” he continued, pacing from one corner of the
room to the other, keeping his hands in the pockets of his loose greasy
overcoat made of yellow cotton material. “I can still pass for a man at
five and fifty, but I want to pass for one for another twenty years. As I
get older, you know, I shan’t be a pretty object. The wenches won’t come
to me of their own accord, so I shall want my money. So I am saving up
more and more, simply for myself, my dear son Alexey Fyodorovitch. You may
as well know. For I mean to go on in my sins to the end, let me tell you.
For sin is sweet; all abuse it, but all men live in it, only others do it
on the sly, and I openly. And so all the other sinners fall upon me for
being so simple. And your paradise, Alexey Fyodorovitch, is not to my
taste, let me tell you that; and it’s not the proper place for a
gentleman, your paradise, even if it exists. I believe that I fall asleep
and don’t wake up again, and that’s all. You can pray for my soul if you
like. And if you don’t want to, don’t, damn you! That’s my philosophy.
Ivan talked well here yesterday, though we were all drunk. Ivan is a
conceited coxcomb, but he has no particular learning ... nor education
either. He sits silent and smiles at one without speaking—that’s what
pulls him through.”
Alyosha listened to him in silence.
“Why won’t he talk to me? If he does speak, he gives himself airs. Your
Ivan is a scoundrel! And I’ll marry Grushenka in a minute if I want to.
For if you’ve money, Alexey Fyodorovitch, you have only to want a thing
and you can have it. That’s what Ivan is afraid of, he is on the watch to
prevent me getting married and that’s why he is egging on Mitya to marry
Grushenka himself. He hopes to keep me from Grushenka by that (as though I
should leave him my money if I don’t marry her!). Besides if Mitya marries
Grushenka, Ivan will carry off his rich betrothed, that’s what he’s
reckoning on! He is a scoundrel, your Ivan!”
“How cross you are! It’s because of yesterday; you had better lie down,”
said Alyosha.
“There! you say that,” the old man observed suddenly, as though it had
struck him for the first time, “and I am not angry with you. But if Ivan
said it, I should be angry with him. It is only with you I have good
moments, else you know I am an ill‐natured man.”
“You are not ill‐natured, but distorted,” said Alyosha with a smile.
“Listen. I meant this morning to get that ruffian Mitya locked up and I
don’t know now what I shall decide about it. Of course in these
fashionable days fathers and mothers are looked upon as a prejudice, but
even now the law does not allow you to drag your old father about by the
hair, to kick him in the face in his own house, and brag of murdering him
outright—all in the presence of witnesses. If I liked, I could crush him
and could have him locked up at once for what he did yesterday.”
“Then you don’t mean to take proceedings?”
“Ivan has dissuaded me. I shouldn’t care about Ivan, but there’s another
thing.”
And bending down to Alyosha, he went on in a confidential half‐whisper.
“If I send the ruffian to prison, she’ll hear of it and run to see him at
once. But if she hears that he has beaten me, a weak old man, within an
inch of my life, she may give him up and come to me.... For that’s her
way, everything by contraries. I know her through and through! Won’t you
have a drop of brandy? Take some cold coffee and I’ll pour a quarter of a
glass of brandy into it, it’s delicious, my boy.”
“No, thank you. I’ll take that roll with me if I may,” said Alyosha, and
taking a halfpenny French roll he put it in the pocket of his cassock.
“And you’d better not have brandy, either,” he suggested apprehensively,
looking into the old man’s face.
“You are quite right, it irritates my nerves instead of soothing them.
Only one little glass. I’ll get it out of the cupboard.”
He unlocked the cupboard, poured out a glass, drank it, then locked the
cupboard and put the key back in his pocket.
“That’s enough. One glass won’t kill me.”
“You see you are in a better humor now,” said Alyosha, smiling.
“Um! I love you even without the brandy, but with scoundrels I am a
scoundrel. Ivan is not going to Tchermashnya—why is that? He wants to spy
how much I give Grushenka if she comes. They are all scoundrels! But I
don’t recognize Ivan, I don’t know him at all. Where does he come from? He
is not one of us in soul. As though I’d leave him anything! I shan’t leave
a will at all, you may as well know. And I’ll crush Mitya like a beetle. I
squash black‐beetles at night with my slipper; they squelch when you tread
on them. And your Mitya will squelch too. _Your_ Mitya, for you love him.
Yes, you love him and I am not afraid of your loving him. But if Ivan
loved him I should be afraid for myself at his loving him. But Ivan loves
nobody. Ivan is not one of us. People like Ivan are not our sort, my boy.
They are like a cloud of dust. When the wind blows, the dust will be
gone.... I had a silly idea in my head when I told you to come to‐day; I
wanted to find out from you about Mitya. If I were to hand him over a
thousand or maybe two now, would the beggarly wretch agree to take himself
off altogether for five years or, better still, thirty‐five, and without
Grushenka, and give her up once for all, eh?”
“I—I’ll ask him,” muttered Alyosha. “If you would give him three thousand,
perhaps he—”
“That’s nonsense! You needn’t ask him now, no need! I’ve changed my mind.
It was a nonsensical idea of mine. I won’t give him anything, not a penny,
I want my money myself,” cried the old man, waving his hand. “I’ll crush
him like a beetle without it. Don’t say anything to him or else he will
begin hoping. There’s nothing for you to do here, you needn’t stay. Is
that betrothed of his, Katerina Ivanovna, whom he has kept so carefully
hidden from me all this time, going to marry him or not? You went to see
her yesterday, I believe?”
“Nothing will induce her to abandon him.”
“There you see how dearly these fine young ladies love a rake and a
scoundrel. They are poor creatures I tell you, those pale young ladies,
very different from—Ah, if I had his youth and the looks I had then (for I
was better‐looking than he at eight and twenty) I’d have been a conquering
hero just as he is. He is a low cad! But he shan’t have Grushenka, anyway,
he shan’t! I’ll crush him!”
His anger had returned with the last words.
“You can go. There’s nothing for you to do here to‐day,” he snapped
harshly.
Alyosha went up to say good‐by to him, and kissed him on the shoulder.
“What’s that for?” The old man was a little surprised. “We shall see each
other again, or do you think we shan’t?”
“Not at all, I didn’t mean anything.”
“Nor did I, I did not mean anything,” said the old man, looking at him.
“Listen, listen,” he shouted after him, “make haste and come again and
I’ll have a fish soup for you, a fine one, not like to‐day. Be sure to
come! Come to‐morrow, do you hear, to‐morrow!”
And as soon as Alyosha had gone out of the door, he went to the cupboard
again and poured out another half‐glass.
“I won’t have more!” he muttered, clearing his throat, and again he locked
the cupboard and put the key in his pocket. Then he went into his bedroom,
lay down on the bed, exhausted, and in one minute he was asleep.
Chapter III. A Meeting With The Schoolboys
“Thank goodness he did not ask me about Grushenka,” thought Alyosha, as he
left his father’s house and turned towards Madame Hohlakov’s, “or I might
have to tell him of my meeting with Grushenka yesterday.”
Alyosha felt painfully that since yesterday both combatants had renewed
their energies, and that their hearts had grown hard again. “Father is
spiteful and angry, he’s made some plan and will stick to it. And what of
Dmitri? He too will be harder than yesterday, he too must be spiteful and
angry, and he too, no doubt, has made some plan. Oh, I must succeed in
finding him to‐day, whatever happens.”
But Alyosha had not long to meditate. An incident occurred on the road,
which, though apparently of little consequence, made a great impression on
him. Just after he had crossed the square and turned the corner coming out
into Mihailovsky Street, which is divided by a small ditch from the High
Street (our whole town is intersected by ditches), he saw a group of
schoolboys between the ages of nine and twelve, at the bridge. They were
going home from school, some with their bags on their shoulders, others
with leather satchels slung across them, some in short jackets, others in
little overcoats. Some even had those high boots with creases round the
ankles, such as little boys spoilt by rich fathers love to wear. The whole
group was talking eagerly about something, apparently holding a council.
Alyosha had never from his Moscow days been able to pass children without
taking notice of them, and although he was particularly fond of children
of three or thereabout, he liked schoolboys of ten and eleven too. And so,
anxious as he was to‐day, he wanted at once to turn aside to talk to them.
He looked into their excited rosy faces, and noticed at once that all the
boys had stones in their hands. Behind the ditch some thirty paces away,
there was another schoolboy standing by a fence. He too had a satchel at
his side. He was about ten years old, pale, delicate‐looking and with
sparkling black eyes. He kept an attentive and anxious watch on the other
six, obviously his schoolfellows with whom he had just come out of school,
but with whom he had evidently had a feud.
Alyosha went up and, addressing a fair, curly‐headed, rosy boy in a black
jacket, observed:
“When I used to wear a satchel like yours, I always used to carry it on my
left side, so as to have my right hand free, but you’ve got yours on your
right side. So it will be awkward for you to get at it.”
Alyosha had no art or premeditation in beginning with this practical
remark. But it is the only way for a grown‐up person to get at once into
confidential relations with a child, or still more with a group of
children. One must begin in a serious, businesslike way so as to be on a
perfectly equal footing. Alyosha understood it by instinct.
“But he is left‐handed,” another, a fine healthy‐looking boy of eleven,
answered promptly. All the others stared at Alyosha.
“He even throws stones with his left hand,” observed a third.
At that instant a stone flew into the group, but only just grazed the
left‐handed boy, though it was well and vigorously thrown by the boy
standing the other side of the ditch.
“Give it him, hit him back, Smurov,” they all shouted. But Smurov, the
left‐handed boy, needed no telling, and at once revenged himself; he threw
a stone, but it missed the boy and hit the ground. The boy the other side
of the ditch, the pocket of whose coat was visibly bulging with stones,
flung another stone at the group; this time it flew straight at Alyosha
and hit him painfully on the shoulder.
“He aimed it at you, he meant it for you. You are Karamazov, Karamazov!”
the boys shouted, laughing. “Come, all throw at him at once!” and six
stones flew at the boy. One struck the boy on the head and he fell down,
but at once leapt up and began ferociously returning their fire. Both
sides threw stones incessantly. Many of the group had their pockets full
too.
“What are you about! Aren’t you ashamed? Six against one! Why, you’ll kill
him,” cried Alyosha.
He ran forward and met the flying stones to screen the solitary boy. Three
or four ceased throwing for a minute.
“He began first!” cried a boy in a red shirt in an angry childish voice.
“He is a beast, he stabbed Krassotkin in class the other day with a
penknife. It bled. Krassotkin wouldn’t tell tales, but he must be
thrashed.”
“But what for? I suppose you tease him.”
“There, he sent a stone in your back again, he knows you,” cried the
children. “It’s you he is throwing at now, not us. Come, all of you, at
him again, don’t miss, Smurov!” and again a fire of stones, and a very
vicious one, began. The boy the other side of the ditch was hit in the
chest; he screamed, began to cry and ran away uphill towards Mihailovsky
Street. They all shouted: “Aha, he is funking, he is running away. Wisp of
tow!”
“You don’t know what a beast he is, Karamazov, killing is too good for
him,” said the boy in the jacket, with flashing eyes. He seemed to be the
eldest.
“What’s wrong with him?” asked Alyosha, “is he a tell‐tale or what?”
The boys looked at one another as though derisively.
“Are you going that way, to Mihailovsky?” the same boy went on. “Catch him
up.... You see he’s stopped again, he is waiting and looking at you.”
“He is looking at you,” the other boys chimed in.
“You ask him, does he like a disheveled wisp of tow. Do you hear, ask him
that!”
There was a general burst of laughter. Alyosha looked at them, and they at
him.
“Don’t go near him, he’ll hurt you,” cried Smurov in a warning voice.
“I shan’t ask him about the wisp of tow, for I expect you tease him with
that question somehow. But I’ll find out from him why you hate him so.”
“Find out then, find out,” cried the boys, laughing.
Alyosha crossed the bridge and walked uphill by the fence, straight
towards the boy.
“You’d better look out,” the boys called after him; “he won’t be afraid of
you. He will stab you in a minute, on the sly, as he did Krassotkin.”
The boy waited for him without budging. Coming up to him, Alyosha saw
facing him a child of about nine years old. He was an undersized weakly
boy with a thin pale face, with large dark eyes that gazed at him
vindictively. He was dressed in a rather shabby old overcoat, which he had
monstrously outgrown. His bare arms stuck out beyond his sleeves. There
was a large patch on the right knee of his trousers, and in his right boot
just at the toe there was a big hole in the leather, carefully blackened
with ink. Both the pockets of his great‐coat were weighed down with
stones. Alyosha stopped two steps in front of him, looking inquiringly at
him. The boy, seeing at once from Alyosha’s eyes that he wouldn’t beat
him, became less defiant, and addressed him first.
“I am alone, and there are six of them. I’ll beat them all, alone!” he
said suddenly, with flashing eyes.
“I think one of the stones must have hurt you badly,” observed Alyosha.
“But I hit Smurov on the head!” cried the boy.
“They told me that you know me, and that you threw a stone at me on
purpose,” said Alyosha.
The boy looked darkly at him.
“I don’t know you. Do you know me?” Alyosha continued.
“Let me alone!” the boy cried irritably; but he did not move, as though he
were expecting something, and again there was a vindictive light in his
eyes.
“Very well, I am going,” said Alyosha; “only I don’t know you and I don’t
tease you. They told me how they tease you, but I don’t want to tease you.
Good‐by!”
“Monk in silk trousers!” cried the boy, following Alyosha with the same
vindictive and defiant expression, and he threw himself into an attitude
of defense, feeling sure that now Alyosha would fall upon him; but Alyosha
turned, looked at him, and walked away. He had not gone three steps before
the biggest stone the boy had in his pocket hit him a painful blow in the
back.
“So you’ll hit a man from behind! They tell the truth, then, when they say
that you attack on the sly,” said Alyosha, turning round again. This time
the boy threw a stone savagely right into Alyosha’s face; but Alyosha just
had time to guard himself, and the stone struck him on the elbow.
“Aren’t you ashamed? What have I done to you?” he cried.
The boy waited in silent defiance, certain that now Alyosha would attack
him. Seeing that even now he would not, his rage was like a little wild
beast’s; he flew at Alyosha himself, and before Alyosha had time to move,
the spiteful child had seized his left hand with both of his and bit his
middle finger. He fixed his teeth in it and it was ten seconds before he
let go. Alyosha cried out with pain and pulled his finger away with all
his might. The child let go at last and retreated to his former distance.
Alyosha’s finger had been badly bitten to the bone, close to the nail; it
began to bleed. Alyosha took out his handkerchief and bound it tightly
round his injured hand. He was a full minute bandaging it. The boy stood
waiting all the time. At last Alyosha raised his gentle eyes and looked at
him.
“Very well,” he said, “you see how badly you’ve bitten me. That’s enough,
isn’t it? Now tell me, what have I done to you?”
The boy stared in amazement.
“Though I don’t know you and it’s the first time I’ve seen you,” Alyosha
went on with the same serenity, “yet I must have done something to you—you
wouldn’t have hurt me like this for nothing. So what have I done? How have
I wronged you, tell me?”
Instead of answering, the boy broke into a loud tearful wail and ran away.
Alyosha walked slowly after him towards Mihailovsky Street, and for a long
time he saw the child running in the distance as fast as ever, not turning
his head, and no doubt still keeping up his tearful wail. He made up his
mind to find him out as soon as he had time, and to solve this mystery.
Just now he had not the time.
Chapter IV. At The Hohlakovs’
Alyosha soon reached Madame Hohlakov’s house, a handsome stone house of
two stories, one of the finest in our town. Though Madame Hohlakov spent
most of her time in another province where she had an estate, or in
Moscow, where she had a house of her own, yet she had a house in our town
too, inherited from her forefathers. The estate in our district was the
largest of her three estates, yet she had been very little in our province
before this time. She ran out to Alyosha in the hall.
“Did you get my letter about the new miracle?” She spoke rapidly and
nervously.
“Yes.”
“Did you show it to every one? He restored the son to his mother!”
“He is dying to‐day,” said Alyosha.
“I have heard, I know, oh, how I long to talk to you, to you or some one,
about all this. No, to you, to you! And how sorry I am I can’t see him!
The whole town is in excitement, they are all suspense. But now—do you
know Katerina Ivanovna is here now?”
“Ah, that’s lucky,” cried Alyosha. “Then I shall see her here. She told me
yesterday to be sure to come and see her to‐day.”
“I know, I know all. I’ve heard exactly what happened yesterday—and the
atrocious behavior of that—creature. _C’est tragique_, and if I’d been in
her place I don’t know what I should have done. And your brother Dmitri
Fyodorovitch, what do you think of him?—my goodness! Alexey Fyodorovitch,
I am forgetting, only fancy; your brother is in there with her, not that
dreadful brother who was so shocking yesterday, but the other, Ivan
Fyodorovitch, he is sitting with her talking; they are having a serious
conversation. If you could only imagine what’s passing between them
now—it’s awful, I tell you it’s lacerating, it’s like some incredible tale
of horror. They are ruining their lives for no reason any one can see.
They both recognize it and revel in it. I’ve been watching for you! I’ve
been thirsting for you! It’s too much for me, that’s the worst of it. I’ll
tell you all about it presently, but now I must speak of something else,
the most important thing—I had quite forgotten what’s most important. Tell
me, why has Lise been in hysterics? As soon as she heard you were here,
she began to be hysterical!”
“_Maman_, it’s you who are hysterical now, not I,” Lise’s voice caroled
through a tiny crack of the door at the side. Her voice sounded as though
she wanted to laugh, but was doing her utmost to control it. Alyosha at
once noticed the crack, and no doubt Lise was peeping through it, but that
he could not see.
“And no wonder, Lise, no wonder ... your caprices will make me hysterical
too. But she is so ill, Alexey Fyodorovitch, she has been so ill all
night, feverish and moaning! I could hardly wait for the morning and for
Herzenstube to come. He says that he can make nothing of it, that we must
wait. Herzenstube always comes and says that he can make nothing of it. As
soon as you approached the house, she screamed, fell into hysterics, and
insisted on being wheeled back into this room here.”
“Mamma, I didn’t know he had come. It wasn’t on his account I wanted to be
wheeled into this room.”
“That’s not true, Lise, Yulia ran to tell you that Alexey Fyodorovitch was
coming. She was on the look‐out for you.”
“My darling mamma, it’s not at all clever of you. But if you want to make
up for it and say something very clever, dear mamma, you’d better tell our
honored visitor, Alexey Fyodorovitch, that he has shown his want of wit by
venturing to us after what happened yesterday and although every one is
laughing at him.”
“Lise, you go too far. I declare I shall have to be severe. Who laughs at
him? I am so glad he has come, I need him, I can’t do without him. Oh,
Alexey Fyodorovitch, I am exceedingly unhappy!”
“But what’s the matter with you, mamma, darling?”
“Ah, your caprices, Lise, your fidgetiness, your illness, that awful night
of fever, that awful everlasting Herzenstube, everlasting, everlasting,
that’s the worst of it! Everything, in fact, everything.... Even that
miracle, too! Oh, how it has upset me, how it has shattered me, that
miracle, dear Alexey Fyodorovitch! And that tragedy in the drawing‐room,
it’s more than I can bear, I warn you. I can’t bear it. A comedy, perhaps,
not a tragedy. Tell me, will Father Zossima live till to‐morrow, will he?
Oh, my God! What is happening to me? Every minute I close my eyes and see
that it’s all nonsense, all nonsense.”
“I should be very grateful,” Alyosha interrupted suddenly, “if you could
give me a clean rag to bind up my finger with. I have hurt it, and it’s
very painful.”
Alyosha unbound his bitten finger. The handkerchief was soaked with blood.
Madame Hohlakov screamed and shut her eyes.
“Good heavens, what a wound, how awful!”
But as soon as Lise saw Alyosha’s finger through the crack, she flung the
door wide open.
“Come, come here,” she cried, imperiously. “No nonsense now! Good heavens,
why did you stand there saying nothing about it all this time? He might
have bled to death, mamma! How did you do it? Water, water! You must wash
it first of all, simply hold it in cold water to stop the pain, and keep
it there, keep it there.... Make haste, mamma, some water in a slop‐basin.
But do make haste,” she finished nervously. She was quite frightened at
the sight of Alyosha’s wound.
“Shouldn’t we send for Herzenstube?” cried Madame Hohlakov.
“Mamma, you’ll be the death of me. Your Herzenstube will come and say that
he can make nothing of it! Water, water! Mamma, for goodness’ sake go
yourself and hurry Yulia, she is such a slowcoach and never can come
quickly! Make haste, mamma, or I shall die.”
“Why, it’s nothing much,” cried Alyosha, frightened at this alarm.
Yulia ran in with water and Alyosha put his finger in it.
“Some lint, mamma, for mercy’s sake, bring some lint and that muddy
caustic lotion for wounds, what’s it called? We’ve got some. You know
where the bottle is, mamma; it’s in your bedroom in the right‐hand
cupboard, there’s a big bottle of it there with the lint.”
“I’ll bring everything in a minute, Lise, only don’t scream and don’t
fuss. You see how bravely Alexey Fyodorovitch bears it. Where did you get
such a dreadful wound, Alexey Fyodorovitch?”
Madame Hohlakov hastened away. This was all Lise was waiting for.
“First of all, answer the question, where did you get hurt like this?” she
asked Alyosha, quickly. “And then I’ll talk to you about something quite
different. Well?”
Instinctively feeling that the time of her mother’s absence was precious
for her, Alyosha hastened to tell her of his enigmatic meeting with the
schoolboys in the fewest words possible. Lise clasped her hands at his
story.
“How can you, and in that dress too, associate with schoolboys?” she cried
angrily, as though she had a right to control him. “You are nothing but a
boy yourself if you can do that, a perfect boy! But you must find out for
me about that horrid boy and tell me all about it, for there’s some
mystery in it. Now for the second thing, but first a question: does the
pain prevent you talking about utterly unimportant things, but talking
sensibly?”
“Of course not, and I don’t feel much pain now.”
“That’s because your finger is in the water. It must be changed directly,
for it will get warm in a minute. Yulia, bring some ice from the cellar
and another basin of water. Now she is gone, I can speak; will you give me
the letter I sent you yesterday, dear Alexey Fyodorovitch—be quick, for
mamma will be back in a minute and I don’t want—”
“I haven’t got the letter.”
“That’s not true, you have. I knew you would say that. You’ve got it in
that pocket. I’ve been regretting that joke all night. Give me back the
letter at once, give it me.”
“I’ve left it at home.”
“But you can’t consider me as a child, a little girl, after that silly
joke! I beg your pardon for that silliness, but you must bring me the
letter, if you really haven’t got it—bring it to‐day, you must, you must.”
“To‐day I can’t possibly, for I am going back to the monastery and I
shan’t come and see you for the next two days—three or four perhaps—for
Father Zossima—”
“Four days, what nonsense! Listen. Did you laugh at me very much?”
“I didn’t laugh at all.”
“Why not?”
“Because I believed all you said.”
“You are insulting me!”
“Not at all. As soon as I read it, I thought that all that would come to
pass, for as soon as Father Zossima dies, I am to leave the monastery.
Then I shall go back and finish my studies, and when you reach the legal
age we will be married. I shall love you. Though I haven’t had time to
think about it, I believe I couldn’t find a better wife than you, and
Father Zossima tells me I must marry.”
“But I am a cripple, wheeled about in a chair,” laughed Lise, flushing
crimson.
“I’ll wheel you about myself, but I’m sure you’ll get well by then.”
“But you are mad,” said Lise, nervously, “to make all this nonsense out of
a joke! Here’s mamma, very _à propos_, perhaps. Mamma, how slow you always
are, how can you be so long! And here’s Yulia with the ice!”
“Oh, Lise, don’t scream, above all things don’t scream. That scream drives
me ... How can I help it when you put the lint in another place? I’ve been
hunting and hunting—I do believe you did it on purpose.”
“But I couldn’t tell that he would come with a bad finger, or else perhaps
I might have done it on purpose. My darling mamma, you begin to say really
witty things.”
“Never mind my being witty, but I must say you show nice feeling for
Alexey Fyodorovitch’s sufferings! Oh, my dear Alexey Fyodorovitch, what’s
killing me is no one thing in particular, not Herzenstube, but everything
together, that’s what is too much for me.”
“That’s enough, mamma, enough about Herzenstube,” Lise laughed gayly.
“Make haste with the lint and the lotion, mamma. That’s simply Goulard’s
water, Alexey Fyodorovitch, I remember the name now, but it’s a splendid
lotion. Would you believe it, mamma, on the way here he had a fight with
the boys in the street, and it was a boy bit his finger, isn’t he a child,
a child himself? Is he fit to be married after that? For only fancy, he
wants to be married, mamma. Just think of him married, wouldn’t it be
funny, wouldn’t it be awful?”
And Lise kept laughing her thin hysterical giggle, looking slyly at
Alyosha.
“But why married, Lise? What makes you talk of such a thing? It’s quite
out of place—and perhaps the boy was rabid.”
“Why, mamma! As though there were rabid boys!”
“Why not, Lise, as though I had said something stupid! Your boy might have
been bitten by a mad dog and he would become mad and bite any one near
him. How well she has bandaged it, Alexey Fyodorovitch! I couldn’t have
done it. Do you still feel the pain?”
“It’s nothing much now.”
“You don’t feel afraid of water?” asked Lise.
“Come, that’s enough, Lise, perhaps I really was rather too quick talking
of the boy being rabid, and you pounced upon it at once Katerina Ivanovna
has only just heard that you are here, Alexey Fyodorovitch, she simply
rushed at me, she’s dying to see you, dying!”
“Ach, mamma, go to them yourself. He can’t go just now, he is in too much
pain.”
“Not at all, I can go quite well,” said Alyosha.
“What! You are going away? Is that what you say?”
“Well, when I’ve seen them, I’ll come back here and we can talk as much as
you like. But I should like to see Katerina Ivanovna at once, for I am
very anxious to be back at the monastery as soon as I can.”
“Mamma, take him away quickly. Alexey Fyodorovitch, don’t trouble to come
and see me afterwards, but go straight back to your monastery and a good
riddance. I want to sleep, I didn’t sleep all night.”
“Ah, Lise, you are only making fun, but how I wish you would sleep!” cried
Madame Hohlakov.
“I don’t know what I’ve done.... I’ll stay another three minutes, five if
you like,” muttered Alyosha.
“Even five! Do take him away quickly, mamma, he is a monster.”
“Lise, you are crazy. Let us go, Alexey Fyodorovitch, she is too
capricious to‐day. I am afraid to cross her. Oh, the trouble one has with
nervous girls! Perhaps she really will be able to sleep after seeing you.
How quickly you have made her sleepy, and how fortunate it is!”
“Ah, mamma, how sweetly you talk! I must kiss you for it, mamma.”
“And I kiss you too, Lise. Listen, Alexey Fyodorovitch,” Madame Hohlakov
began mysteriously and importantly, speaking in a rapid whisper. “I don’t
want to suggest anything, I don’t want to lift the veil, you will see for
yourself what’s going on. It’s appalling. It’s the most fantastic farce.
She loves your brother, Ivan, and she is doing her utmost to persuade
herself she loves your brother, Dmitri. It’s appalling! I’ll go in with
you, and if they don’t turn me out, I’ll stay to the end.”
Chapter V. A Laceration In The Drawing‐Room
But in the drawing‐room the conversation was already over. Katerina
Ivanovna was greatly excited, though she looked resolute. At the moment
Alyosha and Madame Hohlakov entered, Ivan Fyodorovitch stood up to take
leave. His face was rather pale, and Alyosha looked at him anxiously. For
this moment was to solve a doubt, a harassing enigma which had for some
time haunted Alyosha. During the preceding month it had been several times
suggested to him that his brother Ivan was in love with Katerina Ivanovna,
and, what was more, that he meant “to carry her off” from Dmitri. Until
quite lately the idea seemed to Alyosha monstrous, though it worried him
extremely. He loved both his brothers, and dreaded such rivalry between
them. Meantime, Dmitri had said outright on the previous day that he was
glad that Ivan was his rival, and that it was a great assistance to him,
Dmitri. In what way did it assist him? To marry Grushenka? But that
Alyosha considered the worst thing possible. Besides all this, Alyosha had
till the evening before implicitly believed that Katerina Ivanovna had a
steadfast and passionate love for Dmitri; but he had only believed it till
the evening before. He had fancied, too, that she was incapable of loving
a man like Ivan, and that she did love Dmitri, and loved him just as he
was, in spite of all the strangeness of such a passion.
But during yesterday’s scene with Grushenka another idea had struck him.
The word “lacerating,” which Madame Hohlakov had just uttered, almost made
him start, because half waking up towards daybreak that night he had cried
out “Laceration, laceration,” probably applying it to his dream. He had
been dreaming all night of the previous day’s scene at Katerina
Ivanovna’s. Now Alyosha was impressed by Madame Hohlakov’s blunt and
persistent assertion that Katerina Ivanovna was in love with Ivan, and
only deceived herself through some sort of pose, from “self‐laceration,”
and tortured herself by her pretended love for Dmitri from some fancied
duty of gratitude. “Yes,” he thought, “perhaps the whole truth lies in
those words.” But in that case what was Ivan’s position? Alyosha felt
instinctively that a character like Katerina Ivanovna’s must dominate, and
she could only dominate some one like Dmitri, and never a man like Ivan.
For Dmitri might at last submit to her domination “to his own happiness”
(which was what Alyosha would have desired), but Ivan—no, Ivan could not
submit to her, and such submission would not give him happiness. Alyosha
could not help believing that of Ivan. And now all these doubts and
reflections flitted through his mind as he entered the drawing‐room.
Another idea, too, forced itself upon him: “What if she loved neither of
them—neither Ivan nor Dmitri?”
It must be noted that Alyosha felt as it were ashamed of his own thoughts
and blamed himself when they kept recurring to him during the last month.
“What do I know about love and women and how can I decide such questions?”
he thought reproachfully, after such doubts and surmises. And yet it was
impossible not to think about it. He felt instinctively that this rivalry
was of immense importance in his brothers’ lives and that a great deal
depended upon it.
“One reptile will devour the other,” Ivan had pronounced the day before,
speaking in anger of his father and Dmitri. So Ivan looked upon Dmitri as
a reptile, and perhaps had long done so. Was it perhaps since he had known
Katerina Ivanovna? That phrase had, of course, escaped Ivan unawares
yesterday, but that only made it more important. If he felt like that,
what chance was there of peace? Were there not, on the contrary, new
grounds for hatred and hostility in their family? And with which of them
was Alyosha to sympathize? And what was he to wish for each of them? He
loved them both, but what could he desire for each in the midst of these
conflicting interests? He might go quite astray in this maze, and
Alyosha’s heart could not endure uncertainty, because his love was always
of an active character. He was incapable of passive love. If he loved any
one, he set to work at once to help him. And to do so he must know what he
was aiming at; he must know for certain what was best for each, and having
ascertained this it was natural for him to help them both. But instead of
a definite aim, he found nothing but uncertainty and perplexity on all
sides. “It was lacerating,” as was said just now. But what could he
understand even in this “laceration”? He did not understand the first word
in this perplexing maze.
Seeing Alyosha, Katerina Ivanovna said quickly and joyfully to Ivan, who
had already got up to go, “A minute! Stay another minute! I want to hear
the opinion of this person here whom I trust absolutely. Don’t go away,”
she added, addressing Madame Hohlakov. She made Alyosha sit down beside
her, and Madame Hohlakov sat opposite, by Ivan.
“You are all my friends here, all I have in the world, my dear friends,”
she began warmly, in a voice which quivered with genuine tears of
suffering, and Alyosha’s heart warmed to her at once. “You, Alexey
Fyodorovitch, were witness yesterday of that abominable scene, and saw
what I did. You did not see it, Ivan Fyodorovitch, he did. What he thought
of me yesterday I don’t know. I only know one thing, that if it were
repeated to‐day, this minute, I should express the same feelings again as
yesterday—the same feelings, the same words, the same actions. You
remember my actions, Alexey Fyodorovitch; you checked me in one of them”
... (as she said that, she flushed and her eyes shone). “I must tell you
that I can’t get over it. Listen, Alexey Fyodorovitch. I don’t even know
whether I still love _him_. I feel _pity_ for him, and that is a poor sign
of love. If I loved him, if I still loved him, perhaps I shouldn’t be
sorry for him now, but should hate him.”
Her voice quivered, and tears glittered on her eyelashes. Alyosha
shuddered inwardly. “That girl is truthful and sincere,” he thought, “and
she does not love Dmitri any more.”
“That’s true, that’s true,” cried Madame Hohlakov.
“Wait, dear. I haven’t told you the chief, the final decision I came to
during the night. I feel that perhaps my decision is a terrible one—for
me, but I foresee that nothing will induce me to change it—nothing. It
will be so all my life. My dear, kind, ever‐faithful and generous adviser,
the one friend I have in the world, Ivan Fyodorovitch, with his deep
insight into the heart, approves and commends my decision. He knows it.”
“Yes, I approve of it,” Ivan assented, in a subdued but firm voice.
“But I should like Alyosha, too (Ah! Alexey Fyodorovitch, forgive my
calling you simply Alyosha), I should like Alexey Fyodorovitch, too, to
tell me before my two friends whether I am right. I feel instinctively
that you, Alyosha, my dear brother (for you are a dear brother to me),”
she said again ecstatically, taking his cold hand in her hot one, “I
foresee that your decision, your approval, will bring me peace, in spite
of all my sufferings, for, after your words, I shall be calm and submit—I
feel that.”
“I don’t know what you are asking me,” said Alyosha, flushing. “I only
know that I love you and at this moment wish for your happiness more than
my own!... But I know nothing about such affairs,” something impelled him
to add hurriedly.
“In such affairs, Alexey Fyodorovitch, in such affairs, the chief thing is
honor and duty and something higher—I don’t know what—but higher perhaps
even than duty. I am conscious of this irresistible feeling in my heart,
and it compels me irresistibly. But it may all be put in two words. I’ve
already decided, even if he marries that—creature,” she began solemnly,
“whom I never, never can forgive, _even then I will not abandon him_.
Henceforward I will never, never abandon him!” she cried, breaking into a
sort of pale, hysterical ecstasy. “Not that I would run after him
continually, get in his way and worry him. Oh, no! I will go away to
another town—where you like—but I will watch over him all my life—I will
watch over him all my life unceasingly. When he becomes unhappy with that
woman, and that is bound to happen quite soon, let him come to me and he
will find a friend, a sister.... Only a sister, of course, and so for
ever; but he will learn at least that that sister is really his sister,
who loves him and has sacrificed all her life to him. I will gain my
point. I will insist on his knowing me and confiding entirely in me,
without reserve,” she cried, in a sort of frenzy. “I will be a god to whom
he can pray—and that, at least, he owes me for his treachery and for what
I suffered yesterday through him. And let him see that all my life I will
be true to him and the promise I gave him, in spite of his being untrue
and betraying me. I will—I will become nothing but a means for his
happiness, or—how shall I say?—an instrument, a machine for his happiness,
and that for my whole life, my whole life, and that he may see that all
his life! That’s my decision. Ivan Fyodorovitch fully approves me.”
She was breathless. She had perhaps intended to express her idea with more
dignity, art and naturalness, but her speech was too hurried and crude. It
was full of youthful impulsiveness, it betrayed that she was still
smarting from yesterday’s insult, and that her pride craved satisfaction.
She felt this herself. Her face suddenly darkened, an unpleasant look came
into her eyes. Alyosha at once saw it and felt a pang of sympathy. His
brother Ivan made it worse by adding:
“I’ve only expressed my own view,” he said. “From any one else, this would
have been affected and overstrained, but from you—no. Any other woman
would have been wrong, but you are right. I don’t know how to explain it,
but I see that you are absolutely genuine and, therefore, you are right.”
“But that’s only for the moment. And what does this moment stand for?
Nothing but yesterday’s insult.” Madame Hohlakov obviously had not
intended to interfere, but she could not refrain from this very just
comment.
“Quite so, quite so,” cried Ivan, with peculiar eagerness, obviously
annoyed at being interrupted, “in any one else this moment would be only
due to yesterday’s impression and would be only a moment. But with
Katerina Ivanovna’s character, that moment will last all her life. What
for any one else would be only a promise is for her an everlasting
burdensome, grim perhaps, but unflagging duty. And she will be sustained
by the feeling of this duty being fulfilled. Your life, Katerina Ivanovna,
will henceforth be spent in painful brooding over your own feelings, your
own heroism, and your own suffering; but in the end that suffering will be
softened and will pass into sweet contemplation of the fulfillment of a
bold and proud design. Yes, proud it certainly is, and desperate in any
case, but a triumph for you. And the consciousness of it will at last be a
source of complete satisfaction and will make you resigned to everything
else.”
This was unmistakably said with some malice and obviously with intention;
even perhaps with no desire to conceal that he spoke ironically and with
intention.
“Oh, dear, how mistaken it all is!” Madame Hohlakov cried again.
“Alexey Fyodorovitch, you speak. I want dreadfully to know what you will
say!” cried Katerina Ivanovna, and burst into tears. Alyosha got up from
the sofa.
“It’s nothing, nothing!” she went on through her tears. “I’m upset, I
didn’t sleep last night. But by the side of two such friends as you and
your brother I still feel strong—for I know—you two will never desert me.”
“Unluckily I am obliged to return to Moscow—perhaps to‐morrow—and to leave
you for a long time—And, unluckily, it’s unavoidable,” Ivan said suddenly.
“To‐morrow—to Moscow!” her face was suddenly contorted; “but—but, dear me,
how fortunate!” she cried in a voice suddenly changed. In one instant
there was no trace left of her tears. She underwent an instantaneous
transformation, which amazed Alyosha. Instead of a poor, insulted girl,
weeping in a sort of “laceration,” he saw a woman completely self‐
possessed and even exceedingly pleased, as though something agreeable had
just happened.
“Oh, not fortunate that I am losing you, of course not,” she corrected
herself suddenly, with a charming society smile. “Such a friend as you are
could not suppose that. I am only too unhappy at losing you.” She rushed
impulsively at Ivan, and seizing both his hands, pressed them warmly. “But
what is fortunate is that you will be able in Moscow to see auntie and
Agafya and to tell them all the horror of my present position. You can
speak with complete openness to Agafya, but spare dear auntie. You will
know how to do that. You can’t think how wretched I was yesterday and this
morning, wondering how I could write them that dreadful letter—for one can
never tell such things in a letter.... Now it will be easy for me to
write, for you will see them and explain everything. Oh, how glad I am!
But I am only glad of that, believe me. Of course, no one can take your
place.... I will run at once to write the letter,” she finished suddenly,
and took a step as though to go out of the room.
“And what about Alyosha and his opinion, which you were so desperately
anxious to hear?” cried Madame Hohlakov. There was a sarcastic, angry note
in her voice.
“I had not forgotten that,” cried Katerina Ivanovna, coming to a sudden
standstill, “and why are you so antagonistic at such a moment?” she added,
with warm and bitter reproachfulness. “What I said, I repeat. I must have
his opinion. More than that, I must have his decision! As he says, so it
shall be. You see how anxious I am for your words, Alexey Fyodorovitch....
But what’s the matter?”
“I couldn’t have believed it. I can’t understand it!” Alyosha cried
suddenly in distress.
“What? What?”
“He is going to Moscow, and you cry out that you are glad. You said that
on purpose! And you begin explaining that you are not glad of that but
sorry to be—losing a friend. But that was acting, too—you were playing a
part—as in a theater!”
“In a theater? What? What do you mean?” exclaimed Katerina Ivanovna,
profoundly astonished, flushing crimson, and frowning.
“Though you assure him you are sorry to lose a friend in him, you persist
in telling him to his face that it’s fortunate he is going,” said Alyosha
breathlessly. He was standing at the table and did not sit down.
“What are you talking about? I don’t understand.”
“I don’t understand myself.... I seemed to see in a flash ... I know I am
not saying it properly, but I’ll say it all the same,” Alyosha went on in
the same shaking and broken voice. “What I see is that perhaps you don’t
love Dmitri at all ... and never have, from the beginning.... And Dmitri,
too, has never loved you ... and only esteems you.... I really don’t know
how I dare to say all this, but somebody must tell the truth ... for
nobody here will tell the truth.”
“What truth?” cried Katerina Ivanovna, and there was an hysterical ring in
her voice.
“I’ll tell you,” Alyosha went on with desperate haste, as though he were
jumping from the top of a house. “Call Dmitri; I will fetch him—and let
him come here and take your hand and take Ivan’s and join your hands. For
you’re torturing Ivan, simply because you love him—and torturing him,
because you love Dmitri through ‘self‐laceration’—with an unreal
love—because you’ve persuaded yourself.”
Alyosha broke off and was silent.
“You ... you ... you are a little religious idiot—that’s what you are!”
Katerina Ivanovna snapped. Her face was white and her lips were moving
with anger.
Ivan suddenly laughed and got up. His hat was in his hand.
“You are mistaken, my good Alyosha,” he said, with an expression Alyosha
had never seen in his face before—an expression of youthful sincerity and
strong, irresistibly frank feeling. “Katerina Ivanovna has never cared for
me! She has known all the time that I cared for her—though I never said a
word of my love to her—she knew, but she didn’t care for me. I have never
been her friend either, not for one moment; she is too proud to need my
friendship. She kept me at her side as a means of revenge. She revenged
with me and on me all the insults which she has been continually receiving
from Dmitri ever since their first meeting. For even that first meeting
has rankled in her heart as an insult—that’s what her heart is like! She
has talked to me of nothing but her love for him. I am going now; but,
believe me, Katerina Ivanovna, you really love him. And the more he
insults you, the more you love him—that’s your ‘laceration.’ You love him
just as he is; you love him for insulting you. If he reformed, you’d give
him up at once and cease to love him. But you need him so as to
contemplate continually your heroic fidelity and to reproach him for
infidelity. And it all comes from your pride. Oh, there’s a great deal of
humiliation and self‐abasement about it, but it all comes from pride.... I
am too young and I’ve loved you too much. I know that I ought not to say
this, that it would be more dignified on my part simply to leave you, and
it would be less offensive for you. But I am going far away, and shall
never come back.... It is for ever. I don’t want to sit beside a
‘laceration.’... But I don’t know how to speak now. I’ve said
everything.... Good‐by, Katerina Ivanovna; you can’t be angry with me, for
I am a hundred times more severely punished than you, if only by the fact
that I shall never see you again. Good‐by! I don’t want your hand. You
have tortured me too deliberately for me to be able to forgive you at this
moment. I shall forgive you later, but now I don’t want your hand. ‘Den
Dank, Dame, begehr ich nicht,’ ” he added, with a forced smile, showing,
however, that he could read Schiller, and read him till he knew him by
heart—which Alyosha would never have believed. He went out of the room
without saying good‐by even to his hostess, Madame Hohlakov. Alyosha
clasped his hands.
“Ivan!” he cried desperately after him. “Come back, Ivan! No, nothing will
induce him to come back now!” he cried again, regretfully realizing it;
“but it’s my fault, my fault. I began it! Ivan spoke angrily, wrongly.
Unjustly and angrily. He must come back here, come back,” Alyosha kept
exclaiming frantically.
Katerina Ivanovna went suddenly into the next room.
“You have done no harm. You behaved beautifully, like an angel,” Madame
Hohlakov whispered rapidly and ecstatically to Alyosha. “I will do my
utmost to prevent Ivan Fyodorovitch from going.”
Her face beamed with delight, to the great distress of Alyosha, but
Katerina Ivanovna suddenly returned. She had two hundred‐rouble notes in
her hand.
“I have a great favor to ask of you, Alexey Fyodorovitch,” she began,
addressing Alyosha with an apparently calm and even voice, as though
nothing had happened. “A week—yes, I think it was a week ago—Dmitri
Fyodorovitch was guilty of a hasty and unjust action—a very ugly action.
There is a low tavern here, and in it he met that discharged officer, that
captain, whom your father used to employ in some business. Dmitri
Fyodorovitch somehow lost his temper with this captain, seized him by the
beard and dragged him out into the street and for some distance along it,
in that insulting fashion. And I am told that his son, a boy, quite a
child, who is at the school here, saw it and ran beside them crying and
begging for his father, appealing to every one to defend him, while every
one laughed. You must forgive me, Alexey Fyodorovitch, I cannot think
without indignation of that disgraceful action of _his_ ... one of those
actions of which only Dmitri Fyodorovitch would be capable in his anger
... and in his passions! I can’t describe it even.... I can’t find my
words. I’ve made inquiries about his victim, and find he is quite a poor
man. His name is Snegiryov. He did something wrong in the army and was
discharged. I can’t tell you what. And now he has sunk into terrible
destitution, with his family—an unhappy family of sick children, and, I
believe, an insane wife. He has been living here a long time; he used to
work as a copying clerk, but now he is getting nothing. I thought if you
... that is I thought ... I don’t know. I am so confused. You see, I
wanted to ask you, my dear Alexey Fyodorovitch, to go to him, to find some
excuse to go to them—I mean to that captain—oh, goodness, how badly I
explain it!—and delicately, carefully, as only you know how to” (Alyosha
blushed), “manage to give him this assistance, these two hundred roubles.
He will be sure to take it.... I mean, persuade him to take it.... Or,
rather, what do I mean? You see it’s not by way of compensation to prevent
him from taking proceedings (for I believe he meant to), but simply a
token of sympathy, of a desire to assist him from me, Dmitri
Fyodorovitch’s betrothed, not from himself.... But you know.... I would go
myself, but you’ll know how to do it ever so much better. He lives in Lake
Street, in the house of a woman called Kalmikov.... For God’s sake, Alexey
Fyodorovitch, do it for me, and now ... now I am rather ... tired. Good‐
by!”
She turned and disappeared behind the portière so quickly that Alyosha had
not time to utter a word, though he wanted to speak. He longed to beg her
pardon, to blame himself, to say something, for his heart was full and he
could not bear to go out of the room without it. But Madame Hohlakov took
him by the hand and drew him along with her. In the hall she stopped him
again as before.
“She is proud, she is struggling with herself; but kind, charming,
generous,” she exclaimed, in a half‐whisper. “Oh, how I love her,
especially sometimes, and how glad I am again of everything! Dear Alexey
Fyodorovitch, you didn’t know, but I must tell you, that we all, all—both
her aunts, I and all of us, Lise, even—have been hoping and praying for
nothing for the last month but that she may give up your favorite Dmitri,
who takes no notice of her and does not care for her, and may marry Ivan
Fyodorovitch—such an excellent and cultivated young man, who loves her
more than anything in the world. We are in a regular plot to bring it
about, and I am even staying on here perhaps on that account.”
“But she has been crying—she has been wounded again,” cried Alyosha.
“Never trust a woman’s tears, Alexey Fyodorovitch. I am never for the
women in such cases. I am always on the side of the men.”
“Mamma, you are spoiling him,” Lise’s little voice cried from behind the
door.
“No, it was all my fault. I am horribly to blame,” Alyosha repeated
unconsoled, hiding his face in his hands in an agony of remorse for his
indiscretion.
“Quite the contrary; you behaved like an angel, like an angel. I am ready
to say so a thousand times over.”
“Mamma, how has he behaved like an angel?” Lise’s voice was heard again.
“I somehow fancied all at once,” Alyosha went on as though he had not
heard Lise, “that she loved Ivan, and so I said that stupid thing.... What
will happen now?”
“To whom, to whom?” cried Lise. “Mamma, you really want to be the death of
me. I ask you and you don’t answer.”
At the moment the maid ran in.
“Katerina Ivanovna is ill.... She is crying, struggling ... hysterics.”
“What is the matter?” cried Lise, in a tone of real anxiety. “Mamma, I
shall be having hysterics, and not she!”
“Lise, for mercy’s sake, don’t scream, don’t persecute me. At your age one
can’t know everything that grown‐up people know. I’ll come and tell you
everything you ought to know. Oh, mercy on us! I am coming, I am
coming.... Hysterics is a good sign, Alexey Fyodorovitch; it’s an
excellent thing that she is hysterical. That’s just as it ought to be. In
such cases I am always against the woman, against all these feminine tears
and hysterics. Run and say, Yulia, that I’ll fly to her. As for Ivan
Fyodorovitch’s going away like that, it’s her own fault. But he won’t go
away. Lise, for mercy’s sake, don’t scream! Oh, yes; you are not
screaming. It’s I am screaming. Forgive your mamma; but I am delighted,
delighted, delighted! Did you notice, Alexey Fyodorovitch, how young, how
young Ivan Fyodorovitch was just now when he went out, when he said all
that and went out? I thought he was so learned, such a _savant_, and all
of a sudden he behaved so warmly, openly, and youthfully, with such
youthful inexperience, and it was all so fine, like you.... And the way he
repeated that German verse, it was just like you! But I must fly, I must
fly! Alexey Fyodorovitch, make haste to carry out her commission, and then
make haste back. Lise, do you want anything now? For mercy’s sake, don’t
keep Alexey Fyodorovitch a minute. He will come back to you at once.”
Madame Hohlakov at last ran off. Before leaving, Alyosha would have opened
the door to see Lise.
“On no account,” cried Lise. “On no account now. Speak through the door.
How have you come to be an angel? That’s the only thing I want to know.”
“For an awful piece of stupidity, Lise! Good‐by!”
“Don’t dare to go away like that!” Lise was beginning.
“Lise, I have a real sorrow! I’ll be back directly, but I have a great,
great sorrow!”
And he ran out of the room.
Chapter VI. A Laceration In The Cottage
He certainly was really grieved in a way he had seldom been before. He had
rushed in like a fool, and meddled in what? In a love‐affair. “But what do
I know about it? What can I tell about such things?” he repeated to
himself for the hundredth time, flushing crimson. “Oh, being ashamed would
be nothing; shame is only the punishment I deserve. The trouble is I shall
certainly have caused more unhappiness.... And Father Zossima sent me to
reconcile and bring them together. Is this the way to bring them
together?” Then he suddenly remembered how he had tried to join their
hands, and he felt fearfully ashamed again. “Though I acted quite
sincerely, I must be more sensible in the future,” he concluded suddenly,
and did not even smile at his conclusion.
Katerina Ivanovna’s commission took him to Lake Street, and his brother
Dmitri lived close by, in a turning out of Lake Street. Alyosha decided to
go to him in any case before going to the captain, though he had a
presentiment that he would not find his brother. He suspected that he
would intentionally keep out of his way now, but he must find him anyhow.
Time was passing: the thought of his dying elder had not left Alyosha for
one minute from the time he set off from the monastery.
There was one point which interested him particularly about Katerina
Ivanovna’s commission; when she had mentioned the captain’s son, the
little schoolboy who had run beside his father crying, the idea had at
once struck Alyosha that this must be the schoolboy who had bitten his
finger when he, Alyosha, asked him what he had done to hurt him. Now
Alyosha felt practically certain of this, though he could not have said
why. Thinking of another subject was a relief, and he resolved to think no
more about the “mischief” he had done, and not to torture himself with
remorse, but to do what he had to do, let come what would. At that thought
he was completely comforted. Turning to the street where Dmitri lodged, he
felt hungry, and taking out of his pocket the roll he had brought from his
father’s, he ate it. It made him feel stronger.
Dmitri was not at home. The people of the house, an old cabinet‐maker, his
son, and his old wife, looked with positive suspicion at Alyosha. “He
hasn’t slept here for the last three nights. Maybe he has gone away,” the
old man said in answer to Alyosha’s persistent inquiries. Alyosha saw that
he was answering in accordance with instructions. When he asked whether he
were not at Grushenka’s or in hiding at Foma’s (Alyosha spoke so freely on
purpose), all three looked at him in alarm. “They are fond of him, they
are doing their best for him,” thought Alyosha. “That’s good.”
At last he found the house in Lake Street. It was a decrepit little house,
sunk on one side, with three windows looking into the street, and with a
muddy yard, in the middle of which stood a solitary cow. He crossed the
yard and found the door opening into the passage. On the left of the
passage lived the old woman of the house with her old daughter. Both
seemed to be deaf. In answer to his repeated inquiry for the captain, one
of them at last understood that he was asking for their lodgers, and
pointed to a door across the passage. The captain’s lodging turned out to
be a simple cottage room. Alyosha had his hand on the iron latch to open
the door, when he was struck by the strange hush within. Yet he knew from
Katerina Ivanovna’s words that the man had a family. “Either they are all
asleep or perhaps they have heard me coming and are waiting for me to open
the door. I’d better knock first,” and he knocked. An answer came, but not
at once, after an interval of perhaps ten seconds.
“Who’s there?” shouted some one in a loud and very angry voice.
Then Alyosha opened the door and crossed the threshold. He found himself
in a regular peasant’s room. Though it was large, it was cumbered up with
domestic belongings of all sorts, and there were several people in it. On
the left was a large Russian stove. From the stove to the window on the
left was a string running across the room, and on it there were rags
hanging. There was a bedstead against the wall on each side, right and
left, covered with knitted quilts. On the one on the left was a pyramid of
four print‐covered pillows, each smaller than the one beneath. On the
other there was only one very small pillow. The opposite corner was
screened off by a curtain or a sheet hung on a string. Behind this curtain
could be seen a bed made up on a bench and a chair. The rough square table
of plain wood had been moved into the middle window. The three windows,
which consisted each of four tiny greenish mildewy panes, gave little
light, and were close shut, so that the room was not very light and rather
stuffy. On the table was a frying‐pan with the remains of some fried eggs,
a half‐eaten piece of bread, and a small bottle with a few drops of vodka.
A woman of genteel appearance, wearing a cotton gown, was sitting on a
chair by the bed on the left. Her face was thin and yellow, and her sunken
cheeks betrayed at the first glance that she was ill. But what struck
Alyosha most was the expression in the poor woman’s eyes—a look of
surprised inquiry and yet of haughty pride. And while he was talking to
her husband, her big brown eyes moved from one speaker to the other with
the same haughty and questioning expression. Beside her at the window
stood a young girl, rather plain, with scanty reddish hair, poorly but
very neatly dressed. She looked disdainfully at Alyosha as he came in.
Beside the other bed was sitting another female figure. She was a very sad
sight, a young girl of about twenty, but hunchback and crippled “with
withered legs,” as Alyosha was told afterwards. Her crutches stood in the
corner close by. The strikingly beautiful and gentle eyes of this poor
girl looked with mild serenity at Alyosha. A man of forty‐five was sitting
at the table, finishing the fried eggs. He was spare, small and weakly
built. He had reddish hair and a scanty light‐colored beard, very much
like a wisp of tow (this comparison and the phrase “a wisp of tow” flashed
at once into Alyosha’s mind for some reason, he remembered it afterwards).
It was obviously this gentleman who had shouted to him, as there was no
other man in the room. But when Alyosha went in, he leapt up from the
bench on which he was sitting, and, hastily wiping his mouth with a ragged
napkin, darted up to Alyosha.
“It’s a monk come to beg for the monastery. A nice place to come to!” the
girl standing in the left corner said aloud. The man spun round instantly
towards her and answered her in an excited and breaking voice:
“No, Varvara, you are wrong. Allow me to ask,” he turned again to Alyosha,
“what has brought you to—our retreat?”
Alyosha looked attentively at him. It was the first time he had seen him.
There was something angular, flurried and irritable about him. Though he
had obviously just been drinking, he was not drunk. There was
extraordinary impudence in his expression, and yet, strange to say, at the
same time there was fear. He looked like a man who had long been kept in
subjection and had submitted to it, and now had suddenly turned and was
trying to assert himself. Or, better still, like a man who wants
dreadfully to hit you but is horribly afraid you will hit him. In his
words and in the intonation of his shrill voice there was a sort of crazy
humor, at times spiteful and at times cringing, and continually shifting
from one tone to another. The question about “our retreat” he had asked as
it were quivering all over, rolling his eyes, and skipping up so close to
Alyosha that he instinctively drew back a step. He was dressed in a very
shabby dark cotton coat, patched and spotted. He wore checked trousers of
an extremely light color, long out of fashion, and of very thin material.
They were so crumpled and so short that he looked as though he had grown
out of them like a boy.
“I am Alexey Karamazov,” Alyosha began in reply.
“I quite understand that, sir,” the gentleman snapped out at once to
assure him that he knew who he was already. “I am Captain Snegiryov, sir,
but I am still desirous to know precisely what has led you—”
“Oh, I’ve come for nothing special. I wanted to have a word with you—if
only you allow me.”
“In that case, here is a chair, sir; kindly be seated. That’s what they
used to say in the old comedies, ‘kindly be seated,’ ” and with a rapid
gesture he seized an empty chair (it was a rough wooden chair, not
upholstered) and set it for him almost in the middle of the room; then,
taking another similar chair for himself, he sat down facing Alyosha, so
close to him that their knees almost touched.
“Nikolay Ilyitch Snegiryov, sir, formerly a captain in the Russian
infantry, put to shame for his vices, but still a captain. Though I might
not be one now for the way I talk; for the last half of my life I’ve
learnt to say ‘sir.’ It’s a word you use when you’ve come down in the
world.”
“That’s very true,” smiled Alyosha. “But is it used involuntarily or on
purpose?”
“As God’s above, it’s involuntary, and I usen’t to use it! I didn’t use
the word ‘sir’ all my life, but as soon as I sank into low water I began
to say ‘sir.’ It’s the work of a higher power. I see you are interested in
contemporary questions, but how can I have excited your curiosity, living
as I do in surroundings impossible for the exercise of hospitality?”
“I’ve come—about that business.”
“About what business?” the captain interrupted impatiently.
“About your meeting with my brother Dmitri Fyodorovitch,” Alyosha blurted
out awkwardly.
“What meeting, sir? You don’t mean that meeting? About my ‘wisp of tow,’
then?” He moved closer so that his knees positively knocked against
Alyosha. His lips were strangely compressed like a thread.
“What wisp of tow?” muttered Alyosha.
“He is come to complain of me, father!” cried a voice familiar to
Alyosha—the voice of the schoolboy—from behind the curtain. “I bit his
finger just now.” The curtain was pulled, and Alyosha saw his assailant
lying on a little bed made up on the bench and the chair in the corner
under the ikons. The boy lay covered by his coat and an old wadded quilt.
He was evidently unwell, and, judging by his glittering eyes, he was in a
fever. He looked at Alyosha without fear, as though he felt he was at home
and could not be touched.
“What! Did he bite your finger?” The captain jumped up from his chair.
“Was it your finger he bit?”
“Yes. He was throwing stones with other schoolboys. There were six of them
against him alone. I went up to him, and he threw a stone at me and then
another at my head. I asked him what I had done to him. And then he rushed
at me and bit my finger badly, I don’t know why.”
“I’ll thrash him, sir, at once—this minute!” The captain jumped up from
his seat.
“But I am not complaining at all, I am simply telling you ... I don’t want
him to be thrashed. Besides, he seems to be ill.”
“And do you suppose I’d thrash him? That I’d take my Ilusha and thrash him
before you for your satisfaction? Would you like it done at once, sir?”
said the captain, suddenly turning to Alyosha, as though he were going to
attack him. “I am sorry about your finger, sir; but instead of thrashing
Ilusha, would you like me to chop off my four fingers with this knife here
before your eyes to satisfy your just wrath? I should think four fingers
would be enough to satisfy your thirst for vengeance. You won’t ask for
the fifth one too?” He stopped short with a catch in his throat. Every
feature in his face was twitching and working; he looked extremely
defiant. He was in a sort of frenzy.
“I think I understand it all now,” said Alyosha gently and sorrowfully,
still keeping his seat. “So your boy is a good boy, he loves his father,
and he attacked me as the brother of your assailant.... Now I understand
it,” he repeated thoughtfully. “But my brother Dmitri Fyodorovitch regrets
his action, I know that, and if only it is possible for him to come to
you, or better still, to meet you in that same place, he will ask your
forgiveness before every one—if you wish it.”
“After pulling out my beard, you mean, he will ask my forgiveness? And he
thinks that will be a satisfactory finish, doesn’t he?”
“Oh, no! On the contrary, he will do anything you like and in any way you
like.”
“So if I were to ask his highness to go down on his knees before me in
that very tavern—‘The Metropolis’ it’s called—or in the market‐place, he
would do it?”
“Yes, he would even go down on his knees.”
“You’ve pierced me to the heart, sir. Touched me to tears and pierced me
to the heart! I am only too sensible of your brother’s generosity. Allow
me to introduce my family, my two daughters and my son—my litter. If I
die, who will care for them, and while I live who but they will care for a
wretch like me? That’s a great thing the Lord has ordained for every man
of my sort, sir. For there must be some one able to love even a man like
me.”
“Ah, that’s perfectly true!” exclaimed Alyosha.
“Oh, do leave off playing the fool! Some idiot comes in, and you put us to
shame!” cried the girl by the window, suddenly turning to her father with
a disdainful and contemptuous air.
“Wait a little, Varvara!” cried her father, speaking peremptorily but
looking at her quite approvingly. “That’s her character,” he said,
addressing Alyosha again.
“And in all nature there was naught
That could find favor in his eyes—
or rather in the feminine: that could find favor in her eyes. But now let
me present you to my wife, Arina Petrovna. She is crippled, she is forty‐
three; she can move, but very little. She is of humble origin. Arina
Petrovna, compose your countenance. This is Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov.
Get up, Alexey Fyodorovitch.” He took him by the hand and with unexpected
force pulled him up. “You must stand up to be introduced to a lady. It’s
not the Karamazov, mamma, who ... h’m ... etcetera, but his brother,
radiant with modest virtues. Come, Arina Petrovna, come, mamma, first your
hand to be kissed.”
And he kissed his wife’s hand respectfully and even tenderly. The girl at
the window turned her back indignantly on the scene; an expression of
extraordinary cordiality came over the haughtily inquiring face of the
woman.
“Good morning! Sit down, Mr. Tchernomazov,” she said.
“Karamazov, mamma, Karamazov. We are of humble origin,” he whispered
again.
“Well, Karamazov, or whatever it is, but I always think of
Tchernomazov.... Sit down. Why has he pulled you up? He calls me crippled,
but I am not, only my legs are swollen like barrels, and I am shriveled up
myself. Once I used to be so fat, but now it’s as though I had swallowed a
needle.”
“We are of humble origin,” the captain muttered again.
“Oh, father, father!” the hunchback girl, who had till then been silent on
her chair, said suddenly, and she hid her eyes in her handkerchief.
“Buffoon!” blurted out the girl at the window.
“Have you heard our news?” said the mother, pointing at her daughters.
“It’s like clouds coming over; the clouds pass and we have music again.
When we were with the army, we used to have many such guests. I don’t mean
to make any comparisons; every one to their taste. The deacon’s wife used
to come then and say, ‘Alexandr Alexandrovitch is a man of the noblest
heart, but Nastasya Petrovna,’ she would say, ‘is of the brood of hell.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘that’s a matter of taste; but you are a little spitfire.’
‘And you want keeping in your place,’ says she. ‘You black sword,’ said I,
‘who asked you to teach me?’ ‘But my breath,’ says she, ‘is clean, and
yours is unclean.’ ‘You ask all the officers whether my breath is
unclean.’ And ever since then I had it in my mind. Not long ago I was
sitting here as I am now, when I saw that very general come in who came
here for Easter, and I asked him: ‘Your Excellency,’ said I, ‘can a lady’s
breath be unpleasant?’ ‘Yes,’ he answered; ‘you ought to open a window‐
pane or open the door, for the air is not fresh here.’ And they all go on
like that! And what is my breath to them? The dead smell worse still! ‘I
won’t spoil the air,’ said I, ‘I’ll order some slippers and go away.’ My
darlings, don’t blame your own mother! Nikolay Ilyitch, how is it I can’t
please you? There’s only Ilusha who comes home from school and loves me.
Yesterday he brought me an apple. Forgive your own mother—forgive a poor
lonely creature! Why has my breath become unpleasant to you?”
And the poor mad woman broke into sobs, and tears streamed down her
cheeks. The captain rushed up to her.
“Mamma, mamma, my dear, give over! You are not lonely. Every one loves
you, every one adores you.” He began kissing both her hands again and
tenderly stroking her face; taking the dinner‐napkin, he began wiping away
her tears. Alyosha fancied that he too had tears in his eyes. “There, you
see, you hear?” he turned with a sort of fury to Alyosha, pointing to the
poor imbecile.
“I see and hear,” muttered Alyosha.
“Father, father, how can you—with him! Let him alone!” cried the boy,
sitting up in his bed and gazing at his father with glowing eyes.
“Do give over fooling, showing off your silly antics which never lead to
anything!” shouted Varvara, stamping her foot with passion.
“Your anger is quite just this time, Varvara, and I’ll make haste to
satisfy you. Come, put on your cap, Alexey Fyodorovitch, and I’ll put on
mine. We will go out. I have a word to say to you in earnest, but not
within these walls. This girl sitting here is my daughter Nina; I forgot
to introduce her to you. She is a heavenly angel incarnate ... who has
flown down to us mortals,... if you can understand.”
“There he is shaking all over, as though he is in convulsions!” Varvara
went on indignantly.
“And she there stamping her foot at me and calling me a fool just now, she
is a heavenly angel incarnate too, and she has good reason to call me so.
Come along, Alexey Fyodorovitch, we must make an end.”
And, snatching Alyosha’s hand, he drew him out of the room into the
street.
Chapter VII. And In The Open Air
“The air is fresh, but in my apartment it is not so in any sense of the
word. Let us walk slowly, sir. I should be glad of your kind interest.”
“I too have something important to say to you,” observed Alyosha, “only I
don’t know how to begin.”
“To be sure you must have business with me. You would never have looked in
upon me without some object. Unless you come simply to complain of the
boy, and that’s hardly likely. And, by the way, about the boy: I could not
explain to you in there, but here I will describe that scene to you. My
tow was thicker a week ago—I mean my beard. That’s the nickname they give
to my beard, the schoolboys most of all. Well, your brother Dmitri
Fyodorovitch was pulling me by my beard, I’d done nothing, he was in a
towering rage and happened to come upon me. He dragged me out of the
tavern into the market‐place; at that moment the boys were coming out of
school, and with them Ilusha. As soon as he saw me in such a state he
rushed up to me. ‘Father,’ he cried, ‘father!’ He caught hold of me,
hugged me, tried to pull me away, crying to my assailant, ‘Let go, let go,
it’s my father, forgive him!’—yes, he actually cried ‘forgive him.’ He
clutched at that hand, that very hand, in his little hands and kissed
it.... I remember his little face at that moment, I haven’t forgotten it
and I never shall!”
“I swear,” cried Alyosha, “that my brother will express his most deep and
sincere regret, even if he has to go down on his knees in that same
market‐place.... I’ll make him or he is no brother of mine!”
“Aha, then it’s only a suggestion! And it does not come from him but
simply from the generosity of your own warm heart. You should have said
so. No, in that case allow me to tell you of your brother’s highly
chivalrous soldierly generosity, for he did give expression to it at the
time. He left off dragging me by my beard and released me: ‘You are an
officer,’ he said, ‘and I am an officer, if you can find a decent man to
be your second send me your challenge. I will give satisfaction, though
you are a scoundrel.’ That’s what he said. A chivalrous spirit indeed! I
retired with Ilusha, and that scene is a family record imprinted for ever
on Ilusha’s soul. No, it’s not for us to claim the privileges of noblemen.
Judge for yourself. You’ve just been in our mansion, what did you see
there? Three ladies, one a cripple and weak‐minded, another a cripple and
hunchback and the third not crippled but far too clever. She is a student,
dying to get back to Petersburg, to work for the emancipation of the
Russian woman on the banks of the Neva. I won’t speak of Ilusha, he is
only nine. I am alone in the world, and if I die, what will become of all
of them? I simply ask you that. And if I challenge him and he kills me on
the spot, what then? What will become of them? And worse still, if he
doesn’t kill me but only cripples me: I couldn’t work, but I should still
be a mouth to feed. Who would feed it and who would feed them all? Must I
take Ilusha from school and send him to beg in the streets? That’s what it
means for me to challenge him to a duel. It’s silly talk and nothing
else.”
“He will beg your forgiveness, he will bow down at your feet in the middle
of the market‐place,” cried Alyosha again, with glowing eyes.
“I did think of prosecuting him,” the captain went on, “but look in our
code, could I get much compensation for a personal injury? And then
Agrafena Alexandrovna(3) sent for me and shouted at me: ‘Don’t dare to
dream of it! If you proceed against him, I’ll publish it to all the world
that he beat you for your dishonesty, and then you will be prosecuted.’ I
call God to witness whose was the dishonesty and by whose commands I
acted, wasn’t it by her own and Fyodor Pavlovitch’s? ‘And what’s more,’
she went on, ‘I’ll dismiss you for good and you’ll never earn another
penny from me. I’ll speak to my merchant too’ (that’s what she calls her
old man) ‘and he will dismiss you!’ And if he dismisses me, what can I
earn then from any one? Those two are all I have to look to, for your
Fyodor Pavlovitch has not only given over employing me, for another
reason, but he means to make use of papers I’ve signed to go to law
against me. And so I kept quiet, and you have seen our retreat. But now
let me ask you: did Ilusha hurt your finger much? I didn’t like to go into
it in our mansion before him.”
“Yes, very much, and he was in a great fury. He was avenging you on me as
a Karamazov, I see that now. But if only you had seen how he was throwing
stones at his school‐fellows! It’s very dangerous. They might kill him.
They are children and stupid. A stone may be thrown and break somebody’s
head.”
“That’s just what has happened. He has been bruised by a stone to‐day. Not
on the head but on the chest, just above the heart. He came home crying
and groaning and now he is ill.”
“And you know he attacks them first. He is bitter against them on your
account. They say he stabbed a boy called Krassotkin with a pen‐knife not
long ago.”
“I’ve heard about that too, it’s dangerous. Krassotkin is an official
here, we may hear more about it.”
“I would advise you,” Alyosha went on warmly, “not to send him to school
at all for a time till he is calmer ... and his anger is passed.”
“Anger!” the captain repeated, “that’s just what it is. He is a little
creature, but it’s a mighty anger. You don’t know all, sir. Let me tell
you more. Since that incident all the boys have been teasing him about the
‘wisp of tow.’ Schoolboys are a merciless race, individually they are
angels, but together, especially in schools, they are often merciless.
Their teasing has stirred up a gallant spirit in Ilusha. An ordinary boy,
a weak son, would have submitted, have felt ashamed of his father, sir,
but he stood up for his father against them all. For his father and for
truth and justice. For what he suffered when he kissed your brother’s hand
and cried to him ‘Forgive father, forgive him,’—that only God knows—and I,
his father. For our children—not your children, but ours—the children of
the poor gentlemen looked down upon by every one—know what justice means,
sir, even at nine years old. How should the rich know? They don’t explore
such depths once in their lives. But at that moment in the square when he
kissed his hand, at that moment my Ilusha had grasped all that justice
means. That truth entered into him and crushed him for ever, sir,” the
captain said hotly again with a sort of frenzy, and he struck his right
fist against his left palm as though he wanted to show how “the truth”
crushed Ilusha. “That very day, sir, he fell ill with fever and was
delirious all night. All that day he hardly said a word to me, but I
noticed he kept watching me from the corner, though he turned to the
window and pretended to be learning his lessons. But I could see his mind
was not on his lessons. Next day I got drunk to forget my troubles, sinful
man as I am, and I don’t remember much. Mamma began crying, too—I am very
fond of mamma—well, I spent my last penny drowning my troubles. Don’t
despise me for that, sir, in Russia men who drink are the best. The best
men amongst us are the greatest drunkards. I lay down and I don’t remember
about Ilusha, though all that day the boys had been jeering at him at
school. ‘Wisp of tow,’ they shouted, ‘your father was pulled out of the
tavern by his wisp of tow, you ran by and begged forgiveness.’ ”
“On the third day when he came back from school, I saw he looked pale and
wretched. ‘What is it?’ I asked. He wouldn’t answer. Well, there’s no
talking in our mansion without mamma and the girls taking part in it.
What’s more, the girls had heard about it the very first day. Varvara had
begun snarling. ‘You fools and buffoons, can you ever do anything
rational?’ ‘Quite so,’ I said, ‘can we ever do anything rational?’ For the
time I turned it off like that. So in the evening I took the boy out for a
walk, for you must know we go for a walk every evening, always the same
way, along which we are going now—from our gate to that great stone which
lies alone in the road under the hurdle, which marks the beginning of the
town pasture. A beautiful and lonely spot, sir. Ilusha and I walked along
hand in hand as usual. He has a little hand, his fingers are thin and
cold—he suffers with his chest, you know. ‘Father,’ said he, ‘father!’
‘Well?’ said I. I saw his eyes flashing. ‘Father, how he treated you
then!’ ‘It can’t be helped, Ilusha,’ I said. ‘Don’t forgive him, father,
don’t forgive him! At school they say that he has paid you ten roubles for
it.’ ‘No, Ilusha,’ said I, ‘I would not take money from him for anything.’
Then he began trembling all over, took my hand in both his and kissed it
again. ‘Father,’ he said, ‘father, challenge him to a duel, at school they
say you are a coward and won’t challenge him, and that you’ll accept ten
roubles from him.’ ‘I can’t challenge him to a duel, Ilusha,’ I answered.
And I told briefly what I’ve just told you. He listened. ‘Father,’ he
said, ‘anyway don’t forgive it. When I grow up I’ll call him out myself
and kill him.’ His eyes shone and glowed. And of course I am his father,
and I had to put in a word: ‘It’s a sin to kill,’ I said, ‘even in a
duel.’ ‘Father,’ he said, ‘when I grow up, I’ll knock him down, knock the
sword out of his hand, I’ll fall on him, wave my sword over him and say:
“I could kill you, but I forgive you, so there!” ’ You see what the
workings of his little mind have been during these two days; he must have
been planning that vengeance all day, and raving about it at night.
“But he began to come home from school badly beaten, I found out about it
the day before yesterday, and you are right, I won’t send him to that
school any more. I heard that he was standing up against all the class
alone and defying them all, that his heart was full of resentment, of
bitterness—I was alarmed about him. We went for another walk. ‘Father,’ he
asked, ‘are the rich people stronger than any one else on earth?’ ‘Yes,
Ilusha,’ I said, ‘there are no people on earth stronger than the rich.’
‘Father,’ he said, ‘I will get rich, I will become an officer and conquer
everybody. The Tsar will reward me, I will come back here and then no one
will dare—’ Then he was silent and his lips still kept trembling.
‘Father,’ he said, ‘what a horrid town this is.’ ‘Yes, Ilusha,’ I said,
‘it isn’t a very nice town.’ ‘Father, let us move into another town, a
nice one,’ he said, ‘where people don’t know about us.’ ‘We will move, we
will, Ilusha,’ said I, ‘only I must save up for it.’ I was glad to be able
to turn his mind from painful thoughts, and we began to dream of how we
would move to another town, how we would buy a horse and cart. ‘We will
put mamma and your sisters inside, we will cover them up and we’ll walk,
you shall have a lift now and then, and I’ll walk beside, for we must take
care of our horse, we can’t all ride. That’s how we’ll go.’ He was
enchanted at that, most of all at the thought of having a horse and
driving him. For of course a Russian boy is born among horses. We
chattered a long while. Thank God, I thought, I have diverted his mind and
comforted him.
“That was the day before yesterday, in the evening, but last night
everything was changed. He had gone to school in the morning, he came back
depressed, terribly depressed. In the evening I took him by the hand and
we went for a walk; he would not talk. There was a wind blowing and no
sun, and a feeling of autumn; twilight was coming on. We walked along,
both of us depressed. ‘Well, my boy,’ said I, ‘how about our setting off
on our travels?’ I thought I might bring him back to our talk of the day
before. He didn’t answer, but I felt his fingers trembling in my hand. Ah,
I thought, it’s a bad job; there’s something fresh. We had reached the
stone where we are now. I sat down on the stone. And in the air there were
lots of kites flapping and whirling. There were as many as thirty in
sight. Of course, it’s just the season for the kites. ‘Look, Ilusha,’ said
I, ‘it’s time we got out our last year’s kite again. I’ll mend it, where
have you put it away?’ My boy made no answer. He looked away and turned
sideways to me. And then a gust of wind blew up the sand. He suddenly fell
on me, threw both his little arms round my neck and held me tight. You
know, when children are silent and proud, and try to keep back their tears
when they are in great trouble and suddenly break down, their tears fall
in streams. With those warm streams of tears, he suddenly wetted my face.
He sobbed and shook as though he were in convulsions, and squeezed up
against me as I sat on the stone. ‘Father,’ he kept crying, ‘dear father,
how he insulted you!’ And I sobbed too. We sat shaking in each other’s
arms. ‘Ilusha,’ I said to him, ‘Ilusha darling.’ No one saw us then. God
alone saw us, I hope He will record it to my credit. You must thank your
brother, Alexey Fyodorovitch. No, sir, I won’t thrash my boy for your
satisfaction.”
He had gone back to his original tone of resentful buffoonery. Alyosha
felt though that he trusted him, and that if there had been some one else
in his, Alyosha’s place, the man would not have spoken so openly and would
not have told what he had just told. This encouraged Alyosha, whose heart
was trembling on the verge of tears.
“Ah, how I would like to make friends with your boy!” he cried. “If you
could arrange it—”
“Certainly, sir,” muttered the captain.
“But now listen to something quite different!” Alyosha went on. “I have a
message for you. That same brother of mine, Dmitri, has insulted his
betrothed, too, a noble‐hearted girl of whom you have probably heard. I
have a right to tell you of her wrong; I ought to do so, in fact, for
hearing of the insult done to you and learning all about your unfortunate
position, she commissioned me at once—just now—to bring you this help from
her—but only from her alone, not from Dmitri, who has abandoned her. Nor
from me, his brother, nor from any one else, but from her, only from her!
She entreats you to accept her help.... You have both been insulted by the
same man. She thought of you only when she had just received a similar
insult from him—similar in its cruelty, I mean. She comes like a sister to
help a brother in misfortune.... She told me to persuade you to take these
two hundred roubles from her, as from a sister, knowing that you are in
such need. No one will know of it, it can give rise to no unjust slander.
There are the two hundred roubles, and I swear you must take them
unless—unless all men are to be enemies on earth! But there are brothers
even on earth.... You have a generous heart ... you must see that, you
must,” and Alyosha held out two new rainbow‐colored hundred‐rouble notes.
They were both standing at the time by the great stone close to the fence,
and there was no one near. The notes seemed to produce a tremendous
impression on the captain. He started, but at first only from
astonishment. Such an outcome of their conversation was the last thing he
expected. Nothing could have been farther from his dreams than help from
any one—and such a sum!
He took the notes, and for a minute he was almost unable to answer, quite
a new expression came into his face.
“That for me? So much money—two hundred roubles! Good heavens! Why, I
haven’t seen so much money for the last four years! Mercy on us! And she
says she is a sister.... And is that the truth?”
“I swear that all I told you is the truth,” cried Alyosha.
The captain flushed red.
“Listen, my dear, listen. If I take it, I shan’t be behaving like a
scoundrel? In your eyes, Alexey Fyodorovitch, I shan’t be a scoundrel? No,
Alexey Fyodorovitch, listen, listen,” he hurried, touching Alyosha with
both his hands. “You are persuading me to take it, saying that it’s a
sister sends it, but inwardly, in your heart won’t you feel contempt for
me if I take it, eh?”
“No, no, on my salvation I swear I shan’t! And no one will ever know but
me—I, you and she, and one other lady, her great friend.”
“Never mind the lady! Listen, Alexey Fyodorovitch, at a moment like this
you must listen, for you can’t understand what these two hundred roubles
mean to me now.” The poor fellow went on rising gradually into a sort of
incoherent, almost wild enthusiasm. He was thrown off his balance and
talked extremely fast, as though afraid he would not be allowed to say all
he had to say.
“Besides its being honestly acquired from a ‘sister,’ so highly respected
and revered, do you know that now I can look after mamma and Nina, my
hunchback angel daughter? Doctor Herzenstube came to me in the kindness of
his heart and was examining them both for a whole hour. ‘I can make
nothing of it,’ said he, but he prescribed a mineral water which is kept
at a chemist’s here. He said it would be sure to do her good, and he
ordered baths, too, with some medicine in them. The mineral water costs
thirty copecks, and she’d need to drink forty bottles perhaps; so I took
the prescription and laid it on the shelf under the ikons, and there it
lies. And he ordered hot baths for Nina with something dissolved in them,
morning and evening. But how can we carry out such a cure in our mansion,
without servants, without help, without a bath, and without water? Nina is
rheumatic all over, I don’t think I told you that. All her right side
aches at night, she is in agony, and, would you believe it, the angel
bears it without groaning for fear of waking us. We eat what we can get,
and she’ll only take the leavings, what you’d scarcely give to a dog. ‘I
am not worth it, I am taking it from you, I am a burden on you,’ that’s
what her angel eyes try to express. We wait on her, but she doesn’t like
it. ‘I am a useless cripple, no good to any one.’ As though she were not
worth it, when she is the saving of all of us with her angelic sweetness.
Without her, without her gentle word it would be hell among us! She
softens even Varvara. And don’t judge Varvara harshly either, she is an
angel too, she, too, has suffered wrong. She came to us for the summer,
and she brought sixteen roubles she had earned by lessons and saved up, to
go back with to Petersburg in September, that is now. But we took her
money and lived on it, so now she has nothing to go back with. Though
indeed she couldn’t go back, for she has to work for us like a slave. She
is like an overdriven horse with all of us on her back. She waits on us
all, mends and washes, sweeps the floor, puts mamma to bed. And mamma is
capricious and tearful and insane! And now I can get a servant with this
money, you understand, Alexey Fyodorovitch, I can get medicines for the
dear creatures, I can send my student to Petersburg, I can buy beef, I can
feed them properly. Good Lord, but it’s a dream!”
Alyosha was delighted that he had brought him such happiness and that the
poor fellow had consented to be made happy.
“Stay, Alexey Fyodorovitch, stay,” the captain began to talk with frenzied
rapidity, carried away by a new day‐dream. “Do you know that Ilusha and I
will perhaps really carry out our dream. We will buy a horse and cart, a
black horse, he insists on its being black, and we will set off as we
pretended the other day. I have an old friend, a lawyer in K. province,
and I heard through a trustworthy man that if I were to go he’d give me a
place as clerk in his office, so, who knows, maybe he would. So I’d just
put mamma and Nina in the cart, and Ilusha could drive, and I’d walk, I’d
walk.... Why, if I only succeed in getting one debt paid that’s owing me,
I should have perhaps enough for that too!”
“There would be enough!” cried Alyosha. “Katerina Ivanovna will send you
as much more as you need, and you know, I have money too, take what you
want, as you would from a brother, from a friend, you can give it back
later.... (You’ll get rich, you’ll get rich!) And you know you couldn’t
have a better idea than to move to another province! It would be the
saving of you, especially of your boy—and you ought to go quickly, before
the winter, before the cold. You must write to us when you are there, and
we will always be brothers.... No, it’s not a dream!”
Alyosha could have hugged him, he was so pleased. But glancing at him he
stopped short. The man was standing with his neck outstretched and his
lips protruding, with a pale and frenzied face. His lips were moving as
though trying to articulate something; no sound came, but still his lips
moved. It was uncanny.
“What is it?” asked Alyosha, startled.
“Alexey Fyodorovitch ... I ... you,” muttered the captain, faltering,
looking at him with a strange, wild, fixed stare, and an air of desperate
resolution. At the same time there was a sort of grin on his lips. “I ...
you, sir ... wouldn’t you like me to show you a little trick I know?” he
murmured, suddenly, in a firm rapid whisper, his voice no longer
faltering.
“What trick?”
“A pretty trick,” whispered the captain. His mouth was twisted on the left
side, his left eye was screwed up. He still stared at Alyosha.
“What is the matter? What trick?” Alyosha cried, now thoroughly alarmed.
“Why, look,” squealed the captain suddenly, and showing him the two notes
which he had been holding by one corner between his thumb and forefinger
during the conversation, he crumpled them up savagely and squeezed them
tight in his right hand. “Do you see, do you see?” he shrieked, pale and
infuriated. And suddenly flinging up his hand, he threw the crumpled notes
on the sand. “Do you see?” he shrieked again, pointing to them. “Look
there!”
And with wild fury he began trampling them under his heel, gasping and
exclaiming as he did so:
“So much for your money! So much for your money! So much for your money!
So much for your money!”
Suddenly he darted back and drew himself up before Alyosha, and his whole
figure expressed unutterable pride.
“Tell those who sent you that the wisp of tow does not sell his honor,” he
cried, raising his arm in the air. Then he turned quickly and began to
run; but he had not run five steps before he turned completely round and
kissed his hand to Alyosha. He ran another five paces and then turned
round for the last time. This time his face was not contorted with
laughter, but quivering all over with tears. In a tearful, faltering,
sobbing voice he cried:
“What should I say to my boy if I took money from you for our shame?”
And then he ran on without turning. Alyosha looked after him,
inexpressibly grieved. Oh, he saw that till the very last moment the man
had not known he would crumple up and fling away the notes. He did not
turn back. Alyosha knew he would not. He would not follow him and call him
back, he knew why. When he was out of sight, Alyosha picked up the two
notes. They were very much crushed and crumpled, and had been pressed into
the sand, but were uninjured and even rustled like new ones when Alyosha
unfolded them and smoothed them out. After smoothing them out, he folded
them up, put them in his pocket and went to Katerina Ivanovna to report on
the success of her commission.
Book V. Pro And Contra
Chapter I. The Engagement
Madame Hohlakov was again the first to meet Alyosha. She was flustered;
something important had happened. Katerina Ivanovna’s hysterics had ended
in a fainting fit, and then “a terrible, awful weakness had followed, she
lay with her eyes turned up and was delirious. Now she was in a fever.
They had sent for Herzenstube; they had sent for the aunts. The aunts were
already here, but Herzenstube had not yet come. They were all sitting in
her room, waiting. She was unconscious now, and what if it turned to brain
fever!”
Madame Hohlakov looked gravely alarmed. “This is serious, serious,” she
added at every word, as though nothing that had happened to her before had
been serious. Alyosha listened with distress, and was beginning to
describe his adventures, but she interrupted him at the first words. She
had not time to listen. She begged him to sit with Lise and wait for her
there.
“Lise,” she whispered almost in his ear, “Lise has greatly surprised me
just now, dear Alexey Fyodorovitch. She touched me, too, and so my heart
forgives her everything. Only fancy, as soon as you had gone, she began to
be truly remorseful for having laughed at you to‐day and yesterday, though
she was not laughing at you, but only joking. But she was seriously sorry
for it, almost ready to cry, so that I was quite surprised. She has never
been really sorry for laughing at me, but has only made a joke of it. And
you know she is laughing at me every minute. But this time she was in
earnest. She thinks a great deal of your opinion, Alexey Fyodorovitch, and
don’t take offense or be wounded by her if you can help it. I am never
hard upon her, for she’s such a clever little thing. Would you believe it?
She said just now that you were a friend of her childhood, ‘the greatest
friend of her childhood’—just think of that—‘greatest friend’—and what
about me? She has very strong feelings and memories, and, what’s more, she
uses these phrases, most unexpected words, which come out all of a sudden
when you least expect them. She spoke lately about a pine‐tree, for
instance: there used to be a pine‐tree standing in our garden in her early
childhood. Very likely it’s standing there still; so there’s no need to
speak in the past tense. Pine‐trees are not like people, Alexey
Fyodorovitch, they don’t change quickly. ‘Mamma,’ she said, ‘I remember
this pine‐tree as in a dream,’ only she said something so original about
it that I can’t repeat it. Besides, I’ve forgotten it. Well, good‐by! I am
so worried I feel I shall go out of my mind. Ah! Alexey Fyodorovitch, I’ve
been out of my mind twice in my life. Go to Lise, cheer her up, as you
always can so charmingly. Lise,” she cried, going to her door, “here I’ve
brought you Alexey Fyodorovitch, whom you insulted so. He is not at all
angry, I assure you; on the contrary, he is surprised that you could
suppose so.”
“_Merci, maman._ Come in, Alexey Fyodorovitch.”
Alyosha went in. Lise looked rather embarrassed, and at once flushed
crimson. She was evidently ashamed of something, and, as people always do
in such cases, she began immediately talking of other things, as though
they were of absorbing interest to her at the moment.
“Mamma has just told me all about the two hundred roubles, Alexey
Fyodorovitch, and your taking them to that poor officer ... and she told
me all the awful story of how he had been insulted ... and you know,
although mamma muddles things ... she always rushes from one thing to
another ... I cried when I heard. Well, did you give him the money and how
is that poor man getting on?”
“The fact is I didn’t give it to him, and it’s a long story,” answered
Alyosha, as though he, too, could think of nothing but his regret at
having failed, yet Lise saw perfectly well that he, too, looked away, and
that he, too, was trying to talk of other things.
Alyosha sat down to the table and began to tell his story, but at the
first words he lost his embarrassment and gained the whole of Lise’s
attention as well. He spoke with deep feeling, under the influence of the
strong impression he had just received, and he succeeded in telling his
story well and circumstantially. In old days in Moscow he had been fond of
coming to Lise and describing to her what had just happened to him, what
he had read, or what he remembered of his childhood. Sometimes they had
made day‐dreams and woven whole romances together—generally cheerful and
amusing ones. Now they both felt suddenly transported to the old days in
Moscow, two years before. Lise was extremely touched by his story. Alyosha
described Ilusha with warm feeling. When he finished describing how the
luckless man trampled on the money, Lise could not help clasping her hands
and crying out:
“So you didn’t give him the money! So you let him run away! Oh, dear, you
ought to have run after him!”
“No, Lise; it’s better I didn’t run after him,” said Alyosha, getting up
from his chair and walking thoughtfully across the room.
“How so? How is it better? Now they are without food and their case is
hopeless?”
“Not hopeless, for the two hundred roubles will still come to them. He’ll
take the money to‐morrow. To‐morrow he will be sure to take it,” said
Alyosha, pacing up and down, pondering. “You see, Lise,” he went on,
stopping suddenly before her, “I made one blunder, but that, even that, is
all for the best.”
“What blunder, and why is it for the best?”
“I’ll tell you. He is a man of weak and timorous character; he has
suffered so much and is very good‐natured. I keep wondering why he took
offense so suddenly, for I assure you, up to the last minute, he did not
know that he was going to trample on the notes. And I think now that there
was a great deal to offend him ... and it could not have been otherwise in
his position.... To begin with, he was sore at having been so glad of the
money in my presence and not having concealed it from me. If he had been
pleased, but not so much; if he had not shown it; if he had begun
affecting scruples and difficulties, as other people do when they take
money, he might still endure to take it. But he was too genuinely
delighted, and that was mortifying. Ah, Lise, he is a good and truthful
man—that’s the worst of the whole business. All the while he talked, his
voice was so weak, so broken, he talked so fast, so fast, he kept laughing
such a laugh, or perhaps he was crying—yes, I am sure he was crying, he
was so delighted—and he talked about his daughters—and about the situation
he could get in another town.... And when he had poured out his heart, he
felt ashamed at having shown me his inmost soul like that. So he began to
hate me at once. He is one of those awfully sensitive poor people. What
had made him feel most ashamed was that he had given in too soon and
accepted me as a friend, you see. At first he almost flew at me and tried
to intimidate me, but as soon as he saw the money he had begun embracing
me; he kept touching me with his hands. This must have been how he came to
feel it all so humiliating, and then I made that blunder, a very important
one. I suddenly said to him that if he had not money enough to move to
another town, we would give it to him, and, indeed, I myself would give
him as much as he wanted out of my own money. That struck him all at once.
Why, he thought, did I put myself forward to help him? You know, Lise,
it’s awfully hard for a man who has been injured, when other people look
at him as though they were his benefactors.... I’ve heard that; Father
Zossima told me so. I don’t know how to put it, but I have often seen it
myself. And I feel like that myself, too. And the worst of it was that
though he did not know, up to the very last minute, that he would trample
on the notes, he had a kind of presentiment of it, I am sure of that.
That’s just what made him so ecstatic, that he had that presentiment....
And though it’s so dreadful, it’s all for the best. In fact, I believe
nothing better could have happened.”
“Why, why could nothing better have happened?” cried Lise, looking with
great surprise at Alyosha.
“Because if he had taken the money, in an hour after getting home, he
would be crying with mortification, that’s just what would have happened.
And most likely he would have come to me early to‐morrow, and perhaps have
flung the notes at me and trampled upon them as he did just now. But now
he has gone home awfully proud and triumphant, though he knows he has
‘ruined himself.’ So now nothing could be easier than to make him accept
the two hundred roubles by to‐morrow, for he has already vindicated his
honor, tossed away the money, and trampled it under foot.... He couldn’t
know when he did it that I should bring it to him again to‐morrow, and yet
he is in terrible need of that money. Though he is proud of himself now,
yet even to‐day he’ll be thinking what a help he has lost. He will think
of it more than ever at night, will dream of it, and by to‐morrow morning
he may be ready to run to me to ask forgiveness. It’s just then that I’ll
appear. ‘Here, you are a proud man,’ I shall say: ‘you have shown it; but
now take the money and forgive us!’ And then he will take it!”
Alyosha was carried away with joy as he uttered his last words, “And then
he will take it!” Lise clapped her hands.
“Ah, that’s true! I understand that perfectly now. Ah, Alyosha, how do you
know all this? So young and yet he knows what’s in the heart.... I should
never have worked it out.”
“The great thing now is to persuade him that he is on an equal footing
with us, in spite of his taking money from us,” Alyosha went on in his
excitement, “and not only on an equal, but even on a higher footing.”
“ ‘On a higher footing’ is charming, Alexey Fyodorovitch; but go on, go
on!”
“You mean there isn’t such an expression as ‘on a higher footing’; but
that doesn’t matter because—”
“Oh, no, of course it doesn’t matter. Forgive me, Alyosha, dear.... You
know, I scarcely respected you till now—that is I respected you but on an
equal footing; but now I shall begin to respect you on a higher footing.
Don’t be angry, dear, at my joking,” she put in at once, with strong
feeling. “I am absurd and small, but you, you! Listen, Alexey
Fyodorovitch. Isn’t there in all our analysis—I mean your analysis ... no,
better call it ours—aren’t we showing contempt for him, for that poor
man—in analyzing his soul like this, as it were, from above, eh? In
deciding so certainly that he will take the money?”
“No, Lise, it’s not contempt,” Alyosha answered, as though he had prepared
himself for the question. “I was thinking of that on the way here. How can
it be contempt when we are all like him, when we are all just the same as
he is? For you know we are just the same, no better. If we are better, we
should have been just the same in his place.... I don’t know about you,
Lise, but I consider that I have a sordid soul in many ways, and his soul
is not sordid; on the contrary, full of fine feeling.... No, Lise, I have
no contempt for him. Do you know, Lise, my elder told me once to care for
most people exactly as one would for children, and for some of them as one
would for the sick in hospitals.”
“Ah, Alexey Fyodorovitch, dear, let us care for people as we would for the
sick!”
“Let us, Lise; I am ready. Though I am not altogether ready in myself. I
am sometimes very impatient and at other times I don’t see things. It’s
different with you.”
“Ah, I don’t believe it! Alexey Fyodorovitch, how happy I am!”
“I am so glad you say so, Lise.”
“Alexey Fyodorovitch, you are wonderfully good, but you are sometimes sort
of formal.... And yet you are not a bit formal really. Go to the door,
open it gently, and see whether mamma is listening,” said Lise, in a
nervous, hurried whisper.
Alyosha went, opened the door, and reported that no one was listening.
“Come here, Alexey Fyodorovitch,” Lise went on, flushing redder and
redder. “Give me your hand—that’s right. I have to make a great
confession, I didn’t write to you yesterday in joke, but in earnest,” and
she hid her eyes with her hand. It was evident that she was greatly
ashamed of the confession.
Suddenly she snatched his hand and impulsively kissed it three times.
“Ah, Lise, what a good thing!” cried Alyosha joyfully. “You know, I was
perfectly sure you were in earnest.”
“Sure? Upon my word!” She put aside his hand, but did not leave go of it,
blushing hotly, and laughing a little happy laugh. “I kiss his hand and he
says, ‘What a good thing!’ ”
But her reproach was undeserved. Alyosha, too, was greatly overcome.
“I should like to please you always, Lise, but I don’t know how to do it,”
he muttered, blushing too.
“Alyosha, dear, you are cold and rude. Do you see? He has chosen me as his
wife and is quite settled about it. He is sure I was in earnest. What a
thing to say! Why, that’s impertinence—that’s what it is.”
“Why, was it wrong of me to feel sure?” Alyosha asked, laughing suddenly.
“Ah, Alyosha, on the contrary, it was delightfully right,” cried Lise,
looking tenderly and happily at him.
Alyosha stood still, holding her hand in his. Suddenly he stooped down and
kissed her on her lips.
“Oh, what are you doing?” cried Lise. Alyosha was terribly abashed.
“Oh, forgive me if I shouldn’t.... Perhaps I’m awfully stupid.... You said
I was cold, so I kissed you.... But I see it was stupid.”
Lise laughed, and hid her face in her hands. “And in that dress!” she
ejaculated in the midst of her mirth. But she suddenly ceased laughing and
became serious, almost stern.
“Alyosha, we must put off kissing. We are not ready for that yet, and we
shall have a long time to wait,” she ended suddenly. “Tell me rather why
you who are so clever, so intellectual, so observant, choose a little
idiot, an invalid like me? Ah, Alyosha, I am awfully happy, for I don’t
deserve you a bit.”
“You do, Lise. I shall be leaving the monastery altogether in a few days.
If I go into the world, I must marry. I know that. _He_ told me to marry,
too. Whom could I marry better than you—and who would have me except you?
I have been thinking it over. In the first place, you’ve known me from a
child and you’ve a great many qualities I haven’t. You are more light‐
hearted than I am; above all, you are more innocent than I am. I have been
brought into contact with many, many things already.... Ah, you don’t
know, but I, too, am a Karamazov. What does it matter if you do laugh and
make jokes, and at me, too? Go on laughing. I am so glad you do. You laugh
like a little child, but you think like a martyr.”
“Like a martyr? How?”
“Yes, Lise, your question just now: whether we weren’t showing contempt
for that poor man by dissecting his soul—that was the question of a
sufferer.... You see, I don’t know how to express it, but any one who
thinks of such questions is capable of suffering. Sitting in your invalid
chair you must have thought over many things already.”
“Alyosha, give me your hand. Why are you taking it away?” murmured Lise in
a failing voice, weak with happiness. “Listen, Alyosha. What will you wear
when you come out of the monastery? What sort of suit? Don’t laugh, don’t
be angry, it’s very, very important to me.”
“I haven’t thought about the suit, Lise; but I’ll wear whatever you like.”
“I should like you to have a dark blue velvet coat, a white piqué
waistcoat, and a soft gray felt hat.... Tell me, did you believe that I
didn’t care for you when I said I didn’t mean what I wrote?”
“No, I didn’t believe it.”
“Oh, you insupportable person, you are incorrigible.”
“You see, I knew that you—seemed to care for me, but I pretended to
believe that you didn’t care for me to make it—easier for you.”
“That makes it worse! Worse and better than all! Alyosha, I am awfully
fond of you. Just before you came this morning, I tried my fortune. I
decided I would ask you for my letter, and if you brought it out calmly
and gave it to me (as might have been expected from you) it would mean
that you did not love me at all, that you felt nothing, and were simply a
stupid boy, good for nothing, and that I am ruined. But you left the
letter at home and that cheered me. You left it behind on purpose, so as
not to give it back, because you knew I would ask for it? That was it,
wasn’t it?”
“Ah, Lise, it was not so a bit. The letter is with me now, and it was this
morning, in this pocket. Here it is.”
Alyosha pulled the letter out laughing, and showed it her at a distance.
“But I am not going to give it to you. Look at it from here.”
“Why, then you told a lie? You, a monk, told a lie!”
“I told a lie if you like,” Alyosha laughed, too. “I told a lie so as not
to give you back the letter. It’s very precious to me,” he added suddenly,
with strong feeling, and again he flushed. “It always will be, and I won’t
give it up to any one!”
Lise looked at him joyfully. “Alyosha,” she murmured again, “look at the
door. Isn’t mamma listening?”
“Very well, Lise, I’ll look; but wouldn’t it be better not to look? Why
suspect your mother of such meanness?”
“What meanness? As for her spying on her daughter, it’s her right, it’s
not meanness!” cried Lise, firing up. “You may be sure, Alexey
Fyodorovitch, that when I am a mother, if I have a daughter like myself I
shall certainly spy on her!”
“Really, Lise? That’s not right.”
“Oh, my goodness! What has meanness to do with it? If she were listening
to some ordinary worldly conversation, it would be meanness, but when her
own daughter is shut up with a young man.... Listen, Alyosha, do you know
I shall spy upon you as soon as we are married, and let me tell you I
shall open all your letters and read them, so you may as well be
prepared.”
“Yes, of course, if so—” muttered Alyosha, “only it’s not right.”
“Ah, how contemptuous! Alyosha, dear, we won’t quarrel the very first day.
I’d better tell you the whole truth. Of course, it’s very wrong to spy on
people, and, of course, I am not right and you are, only I shall spy on
you all the same.”
“Do, then; you won’t find out anything,” laughed Alyosha.
“And, Alyosha, will you give in to me? We must decide that too.”
“I shall be delighted to, Lise, and certain to, only not in the most
important things. Even if you don’t agree with me, I shall do my duty in
the most important things.”
“That’s right; but let me tell you I am ready to give in to you not only
in the most important matters, but in everything. And I am ready to vow to
do so now—in everything, and for all my life!” cried Lise fervently, “and
I’ll do it gladly, gladly! What’s more, I’ll swear never to spy on you,
never once, never to read one of your letters. For you are right and I am
not. And though I shall be awfully tempted to spy, I know that I won’t do
it since you consider it dishonorable. You are my conscience now....
Listen, Alexey Fyodorovitch, why have you been so sad lately—both
yesterday and to‐day? I know you have a lot of anxiety and trouble, but I
see you have some special grief besides, some secret one, perhaps?”
“Yes, Lise, I have a secret one, too,” answered Alyosha mournfully. “I see
you love me, since you guessed that.”
“What grief? What about? Can you tell me?” asked Lise with timid entreaty.
“I’ll tell you later, Lise—afterwards,” said Alyosha, confused. “Now you
wouldn’t understand it perhaps—and perhaps I couldn’t explain it.”
“I know your brothers and your father are worrying you, too.”
“Yes, my brothers too,” murmured Alyosha, pondering.
“I don’t like your brother Ivan, Alyosha,” said Lise suddenly.
He noticed this remark with some surprise, but did not answer it.
“My brothers are destroying themselves,” he went on, “my father, too. And
they are destroying others with them. It’s ‘the primitive force of the
Karamazovs,’ as Father Païssy said the other day, a crude, unbridled,
earthly force. Does the spirit of God move above that force? Even that I
don’t know. I only know that I, too, am a Karamazov.... Me a monk, a monk!
Am I a monk, Lise? You said just now that I was.”
“Yes, I did.”
“And perhaps I don’t even believe in God.”
“You don’t believe? What is the matter?” said Lise quietly and gently. But
Alyosha did not answer. There was something too mysterious, too subjective
in these last words of his, perhaps obscure to himself, but yet torturing
him.
“And now on the top of it all, my friend, the best man in the world, is
going, is leaving the earth! If you knew, Lise, how bound up in soul I am
with him! And then I shall be left alone.... I shall come to you, Lise....
For the future we will be together.”
“Yes, together, together! Henceforward we shall be always together, all
our lives! Listen, kiss me, I allow you.”
Alyosha kissed her.
“Come, now go. Christ be with you!” and she made the sign of the cross
over him. “Make haste back to _him_ while he is alive. I see I’ve kept you
cruelly. I’ll pray to‐day for him and you. Alyosha, we shall be happy!
Shall we be happy, shall we?”
“I believe we shall, Lise.”
Alyosha thought it better not to go in to Madame Hohlakov and was going
out of the house without saying good‐by to her. But no sooner had he
opened the door than he found Madame Hohlakov standing before him. From
the first word Alyosha guessed that she had been waiting on purpose to
meet him.
“Alexey Fyodorovitch, this is awful. This is all childish nonsense and
ridiculous. I trust you won’t dream—It’s foolishness, nothing but
foolishness!” she said, attacking him at once.
“Only don’t tell her that,” said Alyosha, “or she will be upset, and
that’s bad for her now.”
“Sensible advice from a sensible young man. Am I to understand that you
only agreed with her from compassion for her invalid state, because you
didn’t want to irritate her by contradiction?”
“Oh, no, not at all. I was quite serious in what I said,” Alyosha declared
stoutly.
“To be serious about it is impossible, unthinkable, and in the first place
I shall never be at home to you again, and I shall take her away, you may
be sure of that.”
“But why?” asked Alyosha. “It’s all so far off. We may have to wait
another year and a half.”
“Ah, Alexey Fyodorovitch, that’s true, of course, and you’ll have time to
quarrel and separate a thousand times in a year and a half. But I am so
unhappy! Though it’s such nonsense, it’s a great blow to me. I feel like
Famusov in the last scene of _Sorrow from Wit_. You are Tchatsky and she
is Sofya, and, only fancy, I’ve run down to meet you on the stairs, and in
the play the fatal scene takes place on the staircase. I heard it all; I
almost dropped. So this is the explanation of her dreadful night and her
hysterics of late! It means love to the daughter but death to the mother.
I might as well be in my grave at once. And a more serious matter still,
what is this letter she has written? Show it me at once, at once!”
“No, there’s no need. Tell me, how is Katerina Ivanovna now? I must know.”
“She still lies in delirium; she has not regained consciousness. Her aunts
are here; but they do nothing but sigh and give themselves airs.
Herzenstube came, and he was so alarmed that I didn’t know what to do for
him. I nearly sent for a doctor to look after him. He was driven home in
my carriage. And on the top of it all, you and this letter! It’s true
nothing can happen for a year and a half. In the name of all that’s holy,
in the name of your dying elder, show me that letter, Alexey Fyodorovitch.
I’m her mother. Hold it in your hand, if you like, and I will read it so.”
“No, I won’t show it to you. Even if she sanctioned it, I wouldn’t. I am
coming to‐morrow, and if you like, we can talk over many things, but now
good‐by!”
And Alyosha ran downstairs and into the street.
Chapter II. Smerdyakov With A Guitar
He had no time to lose indeed. Even while he was saying good‐by to Lise,
the thought had struck him that he must attempt some stratagem to find his
brother Dmitri, who was evidently keeping out of his way. It was getting
late, nearly three o’clock. Alyosha’s whole soul turned to the monastery,
to his dying saint, but the necessity of seeing Dmitri outweighed
everything. The conviction that a great inevitable catastrophe was about
to happen grew stronger in Alyosha’s mind with every hour. What that
catastrophe was, and what he would say at that moment to his brother, he
could perhaps not have said definitely. “Even if my benefactor must die
without me, anyway I won’t have to reproach myself all my life with the
thought that I might have saved something and did not, but passed by and
hastened home. If I do as I intend, I shall be following his great
precept.”
His plan was to catch his brother Dmitri unawares, to climb over the
fence, as he had the day before, get into the garden and sit in the
summer‐house. If Dmitri were not there, thought Alyosha, he would not
announce himself to Foma or the women of the house, but would remain
hidden in the summer‐house, even if he had to wait there till evening. If,
as before, Dmitri were lying in wait for Grushenka to come, he would be
very likely to come to the summer‐house. Alyosha did not, however, give
much thought to the details of his plan, but resolved to act upon it, even
if it meant not getting back to the monastery that day.
Everything happened without hindrance, he climbed over the hurdle almost
in the same spot as the day before, and stole into the summer‐house
unseen. He did not want to be noticed. The woman of the house and Foma
too, if he were here, might be loyal to his brother and obey his
instructions, and so refuse to let Alyosha come into the garden, or might
warn Dmitri that he was being sought and inquired for.
There was no one in the summer‐house. Alyosha sat down and began to wait.
He looked round the summer‐house, which somehow struck him as a great deal
more ancient than before. Though the day was just as fine as yesterday, it
seemed a wretched little place this time. There was a circle on the table,
left no doubt from the glass of brandy having been spilt the day before.
Foolish and irrelevant ideas strayed about his mind, as they always do in
a time of tedious waiting. He wondered, for instance, why he had sat down
precisely in the same place as before, why not in the other seat. At last
he felt very depressed—depressed by suspense and uncertainty. But he had
not sat there more than a quarter of an hour, when he suddenly heard the
thrum of a guitar somewhere quite close. People were sitting, or had only
just sat down, somewhere in the bushes not more than twenty paces away.
Alyosha suddenly recollected that on coming out of the summer‐house the
day before, he had caught a glimpse of an old green low garden‐seat among
the bushes on the left, by the fence. The people must be sitting on it
now. Who were they?
A man’s voice suddenly began singing in a sugary falsetto, accompanying
himself on the guitar:
With invincible force
I am bound to my dear.
O Lord, have mercy
On her and on me!
On her and on me!
On her and on me!
The voice ceased. It was a lackey’s tenor and a lackey’s song. Another
voice, a woman’s, suddenly asked insinuatingly and bashfully, though with
mincing affectation:
“Why haven’t you been to see us for so long, Pavel Fyodorovitch? Why do
you always look down upon us?”
“Not at all,” answered a man’s voice politely, but with emphatic dignity.
It was clear that the man had the best of the position, and that the woman
was making advances. “I believe the man must be Smerdyakov,” thought
Alyosha, “from his voice. And the lady must be the daughter of the house
here, who has come from Moscow, the one who wears the dress with a tail
and goes to Marfa for soup.”
“I am awfully fond of verses of all kinds, if they rhyme,” the woman’s
voice continued. “Why don’t you go on?”
The man sang again:
What do I care for royal wealth
If but my dear one be in health?
Lord have mercy
On her and on me!
On her and on me!
On her and on me!
“It was even better last time,” observed the woman’s voice. “You sang ‘If
my darling be in health’; it sounded more tender. I suppose you’ve
forgotten to‐day.”
“Poetry is rubbish!” said Smerdyakov curtly.
“Oh, no! I am very fond of poetry.”
“So far as it’s poetry, it’s essential rubbish. Consider yourself, who
ever talks in rhyme? And if we were all to talk in rhyme, even though it
were decreed by government, we shouldn’t say much, should we? Poetry is no
good, Marya Kondratyevna.”
“How clever you are! How is it you’ve gone so deep into everything?” The
woman’s voice was more and more insinuating.
“I could have done better than that. I could have known more than that, if
it had not been for my destiny from my childhood up. I would have shot a
man in a duel if he called me names because I am descended from a filthy
beggar and have no father. And they used to throw it in my teeth in
Moscow. It had reached them from here, thanks to Grigory Vassilyevitch.
Grigory Vassilyevitch blames me for rebelling against my birth, but I
would have sanctioned their killing me before I was born that I might not
have come into the world at all. They used to say in the market, and your
mamma too, with great lack of delicacy, set off telling me that her hair
was like a mat on her head, and that she was short of five foot by a wee
bit. Why talk of a wee bit while she might have said ‘a little bit,’ like
every one else? She wanted to make it touching, a regular peasant’s
feeling. Can a Russian peasant be said to feel, in comparison with an
educated man? He can’t be said to have feeling at all, in his ignorance.
From my childhood up when I hear ‘a wee bit,’ I am ready to burst with
rage. I hate all Russia, Marya Kondratyevna.”
“If you’d been a cadet in the army, or a young hussar, you wouldn’t have
talked like that, but would have drawn your saber to defend all Russia.”
“I don’t want to be a hussar, Marya Kondratyevna, and, what’s more, I
should like to abolish all soldiers.”
“And when an enemy comes, who is going to defend us?”
“There’s no need of defense. In 1812 there was a great invasion of Russia
by Napoleon, first Emperor of the French, father of the present one, and
it would have been a good thing if they had conquered us. A clever nation
would have conquered a very stupid one and annexed it. We should have had
quite different institutions.”
“Are they so much better in their own country than we are? I wouldn’t
change a dandy I know of for three young Englishmen,” observed Marya
Kondratyevna tenderly, doubtless accompanying her words with a most
languishing glance.
“That’s as one prefers.”
“But you are just like a foreigner—just like a most gentlemanly foreigner.
I tell you that, though it makes me bashful.”
“If you care to know, the folks there and ours here are just alike in
their vice. They are swindlers, only there the scoundrel wears polished
boots and here he grovels in filth and sees no harm in it. The Russian
people want thrashing, as Fyodor Pavlovitch said very truly yesterday,
though he is mad, and all his children.”
“You said yourself you had such a respect for Ivan Fyodorovitch.”
“But he said I was a stinking lackey. He thinks that I might be unruly. He
is mistaken there. If I had a certain sum in my pocket, I would have left
here long ago. Dmitri Fyodorovitch is lower than any lackey in his
behavior, in his mind, and in his poverty. He doesn’t know how to do
anything, and yet he is respected by every one. I may be only a soup‐
maker, but with luck I could open a café restaurant in Petrovka, in
Moscow, for my cookery is something special, and there’s no one in Moscow,
except the foreigners, whose cookery is anything special. Dmitri
Fyodorovitch is a beggar, but if he were to challenge the son of the first
count in the country, he’d fight him. Though in what way is he better than
I am? For he is ever so much stupider than I am. Look at the money he has
wasted without any need!”
“It must be lovely, a duel,” Marya Kondratyevna observed suddenly.
“How so?”
“It must be so dreadful and so brave, especially when young officers with
pistols in their hands pop at one another for the sake of some lady. A
perfect picture! Ah, if only girls were allowed to look on, I’d give
anything to see one!”
“It’s all very well when you are firing at some one, but when he is firing
straight in your mug, you must feel pretty silly. You’d be glad to run
away, Marya Kondratyevna.”
“You don’t mean you would run away?” But Smerdyakov did not deign to
reply. After a moment’s silence the guitar tinkled again, and he sang
again in the same falsetto:
Whatever you may say,
I shall go far away.
Life will be bright and gay
In the city far away.
I shall not grieve,
I shall not grieve at all,
I don’t intend to grieve at all.
Then something unexpected happened. Alyosha suddenly sneezed. They were
silent. Alyosha got up and walked towards them. He found Smerdyakov
dressed up and wearing polished boots, his hair pomaded, and perhaps
curled. The guitar lay on the garden‐seat. His companion was the daughter
of the house, wearing a light‐blue dress with a train two yards long. She
was young and would not have been bad‐looking, but that her face was so
round and terribly freckled.
“Will my brother Dmitri soon be back?” asked Alyosha with as much
composure as he could.
Smerdyakov got up slowly; Marya Kondratyevna rose too.
“How am I to know about Dmitri Fyodorovitch? It’s not as if I were his
keeper,” answered Smerdyakov quietly, distinctly, and superciliously.
“But I simply asked whether you do know?” Alyosha explained.
“I know nothing of his whereabouts and don’t want to.”
“But my brother told me that you let him know all that goes on in the
house, and promised to let him know when Agrafena Alexandrovna comes.”
Smerdyakov turned a deliberate, unmoved glance upon him.
“And how did you get in this time, since the gate was bolted an hour ago?”
he asked, looking at Alyosha.
“I came in from the back‐alley, over the fence, and went straight to the
summer‐house. I hope you’ll forgive me,” he added, addressing Marya
Kondratyevna. “I was in a hurry to find my brother.”
“Ach, as though we could take it amiss in you!” drawled Marya
Kondratyevna, flattered by Alyosha’s apology. “For Dmitri Fyodorovitch
often goes to the summer‐house in that way. We don’t know he is here and
he is sitting in the summer‐house.”
“I am very anxious to find him, or to learn from you where he is now.
Believe me, it’s on business of great importance to him.”
“He never tells us,” lisped Marya Kondratyevna.
“Though I used to come here as a friend,” Smerdyakov began again, “Dmitri
Fyodorovitch has pestered me in a merciless way even here by his incessant
questions about the master. ‘What news?’ he’ll ask. ‘What’s going on in
there now? Who’s coming and going?’ and can’t I tell him something more.
Twice already he’s threatened me with death.”
“With death?” Alyosha exclaimed in surprise.
“Do you suppose he’d think much of that, with his temper, which you had a
chance of observing yourself yesterday? He says if I let Agrafena
Alexandrovna in and she passes the night there, I’ll be the first to
suffer for it. I am terribly afraid of him, and if I were not even more
afraid of doing so, I ought to let the police know. God only knows what he
might not do!”
“His honor said to him the other day, ‘I’ll pound you in a mortar!’ ”
added Marya Kondratyevna.
“Oh, if it’s pounding in a mortar, it may be only talk,” observed Alyosha.
“If I could meet him, I might speak to him about that too.”
“Well, the only thing I can tell you is this,” said Smerdyakov, as though
thinking better of it; “I am here as an old friend and neighbor, and it
would be odd if I didn’t come. On the other hand, Ivan Fyodorovitch sent
me first thing this morning to your brother’s lodging in Lake Street,
without a letter, but with a message to Dmitri Fyodorovitch to go to dine
with him at the restaurant here, in the market‐place. I went, but didn’t
find Dmitri Fyodorovitch at home, though it was eight o’clock. ‘He’s been
here, but he is quite gone,’ those were the very words of his landlady.
It’s as though there was an understanding between them. Perhaps at this
moment he is in the restaurant with Ivan Fyodorovitch, for Ivan
Fyodorovitch has not been home to dinner and Fyodor Pavlovitch dined alone
an hour ago, and is gone to lie down. But I beg you most particularly not
to speak of me and of what I have told you, for he’d kill me for nothing
at all.”
“Brother Ivan invited Dmitri to the restaurant to‐day?” repeated Alyosha
quickly.
“That’s so.”
“The Metropolis tavern in the market‐place?”
“The very same.”
“That’s quite likely,” cried Alyosha, much excited. “Thank you,
Smerdyakov; that’s important. I’ll go there at once.”
“Don’t betray me,” Smerdyakov called after him.
“Oh, no, I’ll go to the tavern as though by chance. Don’t be anxious.”
“But wait a minute, I’ll open the gate to you,” cried Marya Kondratyevna.
“No; it’s a short cut, I’ll get over the fence again.”
What he had heard threw Alyosha into great agitation. He ran to the
tavern. It was impossible for him to go into the tavern in his monastic
dress, but he could inquire at the entrance for his brothers and call them
down. But just as he reached the tavern, a window was flung open, and his
brother Ivan called down to him from it.
“Alyosha, can’t you come up here to me? I shall be awfully grateful.”
“To be sure I can, only I don’t quite know whether in this dress—”
“But I am in a room apart. Come up the steps; I’ll run down to meet you.”
A minute later Alyosha was sitting beside his brother. Ivan was alone
dining.
Chapter III. The Brothers Make Friends
Ivan was not, however, in a separate room, but only in a place shut off by
a screen, so that it was unseen by other people in the room. It was the
first room from the entrance with a buffet along the wall. Waiters were
continually darting to and fro in it. The only customer in the room was an
old retired military man drinking tea in a corner. But there was the usual
bustle going on in the other rooms of the tavern; there were shouts for
the waiters, the sound of popping corks, the click of billiard balls, the
drone of the organ. Alyosha knew that Ivan did not usually visit this
tavern and disliked taverns in general. So he must have come here, he
reflected, simply to meet Dmitri by arrangement. Yet Dmitri was not there.
“Shall I order you fish, soup or anything. You don’t live on tea alone, I
suppose,” cried Ivan, apparently delighted at having got hold of Alyosha.
He had finished dinner and was drinking tea.
“Let me have soup, and tea afterwards, I am hungry,” said Alyosha gayly.
“And cherry jam? They have it here. You remember how you used to love
cherry jam when you were little?”
“You remember that? Let me have jam too, I like it still.”
Ivan rang for the waiter and ordered soup, jam and tea.
“I remember everything, Alyosha, I remember you till you were eleven, I
was nearly fifteen. There’s such a difference between fifteen and eleven
that brothers are never companions at those ages. I don’t know whether I
was fond of you even. When I went away to Moscow for the first few years I
never thought of you at all. Then, when you came to Moscow yourself, we
only met once somewhere, I believe. And now I’ve been here more than three
months, and so far we have scarcely said a word to each other. To‐morrow I
am going away, and I was just thinking as I sat here how I could see you
to say good‐by and just then you passed.”
“Were you very anxious to see me, then?”
“Very. I want to get to know you once for all, and I want you to know me.
And then to say good‐by. I believe it’s always best to get to know people
just before leaving them. I’ve noticed how you’ve been looking at me these
three months. There has been a continual look of expectation in your eyes,
and I can’t endure that. That’s how it is I’ve kept away from you. But in
the end I have learned to respect you. The little man stands firm, I
thought. Though I am laughing, I am serious. You do stand firm, don’t you?
I like people who are firm like that whatever it is they stand by, even if
they are such little fellows as you. Your expectant eyes ceased to annoy
me, I grew fond of them in the end, those expectant eyes. You seem to love
me for some reason, Alyosha?”
“I do love you, Ivan. Dmitri says of you—Ivan is a tomb! I say of you,
Ivan is a riddle. You are a riddle to me even now. But I understand
something in you, and I did not understand it till this morning.”
“What’s that?” laughed Ivan.
“You won’t be angry?” Alyosha laughed too.
“Well?”
“That you are just as young as other young men of three and twenty, that
you are just a young and fresh and nice boy, green in fact! Now, have I
insulted you dreadfully?”
“On the contrary, I am struck by a coincidence,” cried Ivan, warmly and
good‐humoredly. “Would you believe it that ever since that scene with her,
I have thought of nothing else but my youthful greenness, and just as
though you guessed that, you begin about it. Do you know I’ve been sitting
here thinking to myself: that if I didn’t believe in life, if I lost faith
in the woman I love, lost faith in the order of things, were convinced in
fact that everything is a disorderly, damnable, and perhaps devil‐ridden
chaos, if I were struck by every horror of man’s disillusionment—still I
should want to live and, having once tasted of the cup, I would not turn
away from it till I had drained it! At thirty, though, I shall be sure to
leave the cup, even if I’ve not emptied it, and turn away—where I don’t
know. But till I am thirty, I know that my youth will triumph over
everything—every disillusionment, every disgust with life. I’ve asked
myself many times whether there is in the world any despair that would
overcome this frantic and perhaps unseemly thirst for life in me, and I’ve
come to the conclusion that there isn’t, that is till I am thirty, and
then I shall lose it of myself, I fancy. Some driveling consumptive
moralists—and poets especially—often call that thirst for life base. It’s
a feature of the Karamazovs, it’s true, that thirst for life regardless of
everything; you have it no doubt too, but why is it base? The centripetal
force on our planet is still fearfully strong, Alyosha. I have a longing
for life, and I go on living in spite of logic. Though I may not believe
in the order of the universe, yet I love the sticky little leaves as they
open in spring. I love the blue sky, I love some people, whom one loves
you know sometimes without knowing why. I love some great deeds done by
men, though I’ve long ceased perhaps to have faith in them, yet from old
habit one’s heart prizes them. Here they have brought the soup for you,
eat it, it will do you good. It’s first‐rate soup, they know how to make
it here. I want to travel in Europe, Alyosha, I shall set off from here.
And yet I know that I am only going to a graveyard, but it’s a most
precious graveyard, that’s what it is! Precious are the dead that lie
there, every stone over them speaks of such burning life in the past, of
such passionate faith in their work, their truth, their struggle and their
science, that I know I shall fall on the ground and kiss those stones and
weep over them; though I’m convinced in my heart that it’s long been
nothing but a graveyard. And I shall not weep from despair, but simply
because I shall be happy in my tears, I shall steep my soul in my emotion.
I love the sticky leaves in spring, the blue sky—that’s all it is. It’s
not a matter of intellect or logic, it’s loving with one’s inside, with
one’s stomach. One loves the first strength of one’s youth. Do you
understand anything of my tirade, Alyosha?” Ivan laughed suddenly.
“I understand too well, Ivan. One longs to love with one’s inside, with
one’s stomach. You said that so well and I am awfully glad that you have
such a longing for life,” cried Alyosha. “I think every one should love
life above everything in the world.”
“Love life more than the meaning of it?”
“Certainly, love it, regardless of logic as you say, it must be regardless
of logic, and it’s only then one will understand the meaning of it. I have
thought so a long time. Half your work is done, Ivan, you love life, now
you’ve only to try to do the second half and you are saved.”
“You are trying to save me, but perhaps I am not lost! And what does your
second half mean?”
“Why, one has to raise up your dead, who perhaps have not died after all.
Come, let me have tea. I am so glad of our talk, Ivan.”
“I see you are feeling inspired. I am awfully fond of such _professions de
foi_ from such—novices. You are a steadfast person, Alexey. Is it true
that you mean to leave the monastery?”
“Yes, my elder sends me out into the world.”
“We shall see each other then in the world. We shall meet before I am
thirty, when I shall begin to turn aside from the cup. Father doesn’t want
to turn aside from his cup till he is seventy, he dreams of hanging on to
eighty in fact, so he says. He means it only too seriously, though he is a
buffoon. He stands on a firm rock, too, he stands on his sensuality—though
after we are thirty, indeed, there may be nothing else to stand on.... But
to hang on to seventy is nasty, better only to thirty; one might retain ‘a
shadow of nobility’ by deceiving oneself. Have you seen Dmitri to‐day?”
“No, but I saw Smerdyakov,” and Alyosha rapidly, though minutely,
described his meeting with Smerdyakov. Ivan began listening anxiously and
questioned him.
“But he begged me not to tell Dmitri that he had told me about him,” added
Alyosha. Ivan frowned and pondered.
“Are you frowning on Smerdyakov’s account?” asked Alyosha.
“Yes, on his account. Damn him, I certainly did want to see Dmitri, but
now there’s no need,” said Ivan reluctantly.
“But are you really going so soon, brother?”
“Yes.”
“What of Dmitri and father? how will it end?” asked Alyosha anxiously.
“You are always harping upon it! What have I to do with it? Am I my
brother Dmitri’s keeper?” Ivan snapped irritably, but then he suddenly
smiled bitterly. “Cain’s answer about his murdered brother, wasn’t it?
Perhaps that’s what you’re thinking at this moment? Well, damn it all, I
can’t stay here to be their keeper, can I? I’ve finished what I had to do,
and I am going. Do you imagine I am jealous of Dmitri, that I’ve been
trying to steal his beautiful Katerina Ivanovna for the last three months?
Nonsense, I had business of my own. I finished it. I am going. I finished
it just now, you were witness.”
“At Katerina Ivanovna’s?”
“Yes, and I’ve released myself once for all. And after all, what have I to
do with Dmitri? Dmitri doesn’t come in. I had my own business to settle
with Katerina Ivanovna. You know, on the contrary, that Dmitri behaved as
though there was an understanding between us. I didn’t ask him to do it,
but he solemnly handed her over to me and gave us his blessing. It’s all
too funny. Ah, Alyosha, if you only knew how light my heart is now! Would
you believe, it, I sat here eating my dinner and was nearly ordering
champagne to celebrate my first hour of freedom. Tfoo! It’s been going on
nearly six months, and all at once I’ve thrown it off. I could never have
guessed even yesterday, how easy it would be to put an end to it if I
wanted.”
“You are speaking of your love, Ivan?”
“Of my love, if you like. I fell in love with the young lady, I worried
myself over her and she worried me. I sat watching over her ... and all at
once it’s collapsed! I spoke this morning with inspiration, but I went
away and roared with laughter. Would you believe it? Yes, it’s the literal
truth.”
“You seem very merry about it now,” observed Alyosha, looking into his
face, which had suddenly grown brighter.
“But how could I tell that I didn’t care for her a bit! Ha ha! It appears
after all I didn’t. And yet how she attracted me! How attractive she was
just now when I made my speech! And do you know she attracts me awfully
even now, yet how easy it is to leave her. Do you think I am boasting?”
“No, only perhaps it wasn’t love.”
“Alyosha,” laughed Ivan, “don’t make reflections about love, it’s unseemly
for you. How you rushed into the discussion this morning! I’ve forgotten
to kiss you for it.... But how she tormented me! It certainly was sitting
by a ‘laceration.’ Ah, she knew how I loved her! She loved me and not
Dmitri,” Ivan insisted gayly. “Her feeling for Dmitri was simply a self‐
laceration. All I told her just now was perfectly true, but the worst of
it is, it may take her fifteen or twenty years to find out that she
doesn’t care for Dmitri, and loves me whom she torments, and perhaps she
may never find it out at all, in spite of her lesson to‐day. Well, it’s
better so; I can simply go away for good. By the way, how is she now? What
happened after I departed?”
Alyosha told him she had been hysterical, and that she was now, he heard,
unconscious and delirious.
“Isn’t Madame Hohlakov laying it on?”
“I think not.”
“I must find out. Nobody dies of hysterics, though. They don’t matter. God
gave woman hysterics as a relief. I won’t go to her at all. Why push
myself forward again?”
“But you told her that she had never cared for you.”
“I did that on purpose. Alyosha, shall I call for some champagne? Let us
drink to my freedom. Ah, if only you knew how glad I am!”
“No, brother, we had better not drink,” said Alyosha suddenly. “Besides I
feel somehow depressed.”
“Yes, you’ve been depressed a long time, I’ve noticed it.”
“Have you settled to go to‐morrow morning, then?”
“Morning? I didn’t say I should go in the morning.... But perhaps it may
be the morning. Would you believe it, I dined here to‐day only to avoid
dining with the old man, I loathe him so. I should have left long ago, so
far as he is concerned. But why are you so worried about my going away?
We’ve plenty of time before I go, an eternity!”
“If you are going away to‐morrow, what do you mean by an eternity?”
“But what does it matter to us?” laughed Ivan. “We’ve time enough for our
talk, for what brought us here. Why do you look so surprised? Answer: why
have we met here? To talk of my love for Katerina Ivanovna, of the old man
and Dmitri? of foreign travel? of the fatal position of Russia? Of the
Emperor Napoleon? Is that it?”
“No.”
“Then you know what for. It’s different for other people; but we in our
green youth have to settle the eternal questions first of all. That’s what
we care about. Young Russia is talking about nothing but the eternal
questions now. Just when the old folks are all taken up with practical
questions. Why have you been looking at me in expectation for the last
three months? To ask me, ‘What do you believe, or don’t you believe at
all?’ That’s what your eyes have been meaning for these three months,
haven’t they?”
“Perhaps so,” smiled Alyosha. “You are not laughing at me, now, Ivan?”
“Me laughing! I don’t want to wound my little brother who has been
watching me with such expectation for three months. Alyosha, look straight
at me! Of course I am just such a little boy as you are, only not a
novice. And what have Russian boys been doing up till now, some of them, I
mean? In this stinking tavern, for instance, here, they meet and sit down
in a corner. They’ve never met in their lives before and, when they go out
of the tavern, they won’t meet again for forty years. And what do they
talk about in that momentary halt in the tavern? Of the eternal questions,
of the existence of God and immortality. And those who do not believe in
God talk of socialism or anarchism, of the transformation of all humanity
on a new pattern, so that it all comes to the same, they’re the same
questions turned inside out. And masses, masses of the most original
Russian boys do nothing but talk of the eternal questions! Isn’t it so?”
“Yes, for real Russians the questions of God’s existence and of
immortality, or, as you say, the same questions turned inside out, come
first and foremost, of course, and so they should,” said Alyosha, still
watching his brother with the same gentle and inquiring smile.
“Well, Alyosha, it’s sometimes very unwise to be a Russian at all, but
anything stupider than the way Russian boys spend their time one can
hardly imagine. But there’s one Russian boy called Alyosha I am awfully
fond of.”
“How nicely you put that in!” Alyosha laughed suddenly.
“Well, tell me where to begin, give your orders. The existence of God,
eh?”
“Begin where you like. You declared yesterday at father’s that there was
no God.” Alyosha looked searchingly at his brother.
“I said that yesterday at dinner on purpose to tease you and I saw your
eyes glow. But now I’ve no objection to discussing with you, and I say so
very seriously. I want to be friends with you, Alyosha, for I have no
friends and want to try it. Well, only fancy, perhaps I too accept God,”
laughed Ivan; “that’s a surprise for you, isn’t it?”
“Yes, of course, if you are not joking now.”
“Joking? I was told at the elder’s yesterday that I was joking. You know,
dear boy, there was an old sinner in the eighteenth century who declared
that, if there were no God, he would have to be invented. _S’il n’existait
pas Dieu, il faudrait l’inventer._ And man has actually invented God. And
what’s strange, what would be marvelous, is not that God should really
exist; the marvel is that such an idea, the idea of the necessity of God,
could enter the head of such a savage, vicious beast as man. So holy it
is, so touching, so wise and so great a credit it does to man. As for me,
I’ve long resolved not to think whether man created God or God man. And I
won’t go through all the axioms laid down by Russian boys on that subject,
all derived from European hypotheses; for what’s a hypothesis there, is an
axiom with the Russian boy, and not only with the boys but with their
teachers too, for our Russian professors are often just the same boys
themselves. And so I omit all the hypotheses. For what are we aiming at
now? I am trying to explain as quickly as possible my essential nature,
that is what manner of man I am, what I believe in, and for what I hope,
that’s it, isn’t it? And therefore I tell you that I accept God simply.
But you must note this: if God exists and if He really did create the
world, then, as we all know, He created it according to the geometry of
Euclid and the human mind with the conception of only three dimensions in
space. Yet there have been and still are geometricians and philosophers,
and even some of the most distinguished, who doubt whether the whole
universe, or to speak more widely the whole of being, was only created in
Euclid’s geometry; they even dare to dream that two parallel lines, which
according to Euclid can never meet on earth, may meet somewhere in
infinity. I have come to the conclusion that, since I can’t understand
even that, I can’t expect to understand about God. I acknowledge humbly
that I have no faculty for settling such questions, I have a Euclidian
earthly mind, and how could I solve problems that are not of this world?
And I advise you never to think about it either, my dear Alyosha,
especially about God, whether He exists or not. All such questions are
utterly inappropriate for a mind created with an idea of only three
dimensions. And so I accept God and am glad to, and what’s more, I accept
His wisdom, His purpose—which are utterly beyond our ken; I believe in the
underlying order and the meaning of life; I believe in the eternal harmony
in which they say we shall one day be blended. I believe in the Word to
Which the universe is striving, and Which Itself was ‘with God,’ and Which
Itself is God and so on, and so on, to infinity. There are all sorts of
phrases for it. I seem to be on the right path, don’t I? Yet would you
believe it, in the final result I don’t accept this world of God’s, and,
although I know it exists, I don’t accept it at all. It’s not that I don’t
accept God, you must understand, it’s the world created by Him I don’t and
cannot accept. Let me make it plain. I believe like a child that suffering
will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of
human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the
despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidian mind
of man, that in the world’s finale, at the moment of eternal harmony,
something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all
hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all
the crimes of humanity, of all the blood they’ve shed; that it will make
it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened with
men—but though all that may come to pass, I don’t accept it. I won’t
accept it. Even if parallel lines do meet and I see it myself, I shall see
it and say that they’ve met, but still I won’t accept it. That’s what’s at
the root of me, Alyosha; that’s my creed. I am in earnest in what I say. I
began our talk as stupidly as I could on purpose, but I’ve led up to my
confession, for that’s all you want. You didn’t want to hear about God,
but only to know what the brother you love lives by. And so I’ve told
you.”
Ivan concluded his long tirade with marked and unexpected feeling.
“And why did you begin ‘as stupidly as you could’?” asked Alyosha, looking
dreamily at him.
“To begin with, for the sake of being Russian. Russian conversations on
such subjects are always carried on inconceivably stupidly. And secondly,
the stupider one is, the closer one is to reality. The stupider one is,
the clearer one is. Stupidity is brief and artless, while intelligence
wriggles and hides itself. Intelligence is a knave, but stupidity is
honest and straightforward. I’ve led the conversation to my despair, and
the more stupidly I have presented it, the better for me.”
“You will explain why you don’t accept the world?” said Alyosha.
“To be sure I will, it’s not a secret, that’s what I’ve been leading up
to. Dear little brother, I don’t want to corrupt you or to turn you from
your stronghold, perhaps I want to be healed by you.” Ivan smiled suddenly
quite like a little gentle child. Alyosha had never seen such a smile on
his face before.
Chapter IV. Rebellion
“I must make you one confession,” Ivan began. “I could never understand
how one can love one’s neighbors. It’s just one’s neighbors, to my mind,
that one can’t love, though one might love those at a distance. I once
read somewhere of John the Merciful, a saint, that when a hungry, frozen
beggar came to him, he took him into his bed, held him in his arms, and
began breathing into his mouth, which was putrid and loathsome from some
awful disease. I am convinced that he did that from ‘self‐laceration,’
from the self‐laceration of falsity, for the sake of the charity imposed
by duty, as a penance laid on him. For any one to love a man, he must be
hidden, for as soon as he shows his face, love is gone.”
“Father Zossima has talked of that more than once,” observed Alyosha; “he,
too, said that the face of a man often hinders many people not practiced
in love, from loving him. But yet there’s a great deal of love in mankind,
and almost Christ‐like love. I know that myself, Ivan.”
“Well, I know nothing of it so far, and can’t understand it, and the
innumerable mass of mankind are with me there. The question is, whether
that’s due to men’s bad qualities or whether it’s inherent in their
nature. To my thinking, Christ‐like love for men is a miracle impossible
on earth. He was God. But we are not gods. Suppose I, for instance, suffer
intensely. Another can never know how much I suffer, because he is another
and not I. And what’s more, a man is rarely ready to admit another’s
suffering (as though it were a distinction). Why won’t he admit it, do you
think? Because I smell unpleasant, because I have a stupid face, because I
once trod on his foot. Besides, there is suffering and suffering;
degrading, humiliating suffering such as humbles me—hunger, for
instance—my benefactor will perhaps allow me; but when you come to higher
suffering—for an idea, for instance—he will very rarely admit that,
perhaps because my face strikes him as not at all what he fancies a man
should have who suffers for an idea. And so he deprives me instantly of
his favor, and not at all from badness of heart. Beggars, especially
genteel beggars, ought never to show themselves, but to ask for charity
through the newspapers. One can love one’s neighbors in the abstract, or
even at a distance, but at close quarters it’s almost impossible. If it
were as on the stage, in the ballet, where if beggars come in, they wear
silken rags and tattered lace and beg for alms dancing gracefully, then
one might like looking at them. But even then we should not love them. But
enough of that. I simply wanted to show you my point of view. I meant to
speak of the suffering of mankind generally, but we had better confine
ourselves to the sufferings of the children. That reduces the scope of my
argument to a tenth of what it would be. Still we’d better keep to the
children, though it does weaken my case. But, in the first place, children
can be loved even at close quarters, even when they are dirty, even when
they are ugly (I fancy, though, children never are ugly). The second
reason why I won’t speak of grown‐up people is that, besides being
disgusting and unworthy of love, they have a compensation—they’ve eaten
the apple and know good and evil, and they have become ‘like gods.’ They
go on eating it still. But the children haven’t eaten anything, and are so
far innocent. Are you fond of children, Alyosha? I know you are, and you
will understand why I prefer to speak of them. If they, too, suffer
horribly on earth, they must suffer for their fathers’ sins, they must be
punished for their fathers, who have eaten the apple; but that reasoning
is of the other world and is incomprehensible for the heart of man here on
earth. The innocent must not suffer for another’s sins, and especially
such innocents! You may be surprised at me, Alyosha, but I am awfully fond
of children, too. And observe, cruel people, the violent, the rapacious,
the Karamazovs are sometimes very fond of children. Children while they
are quite little—up to seven, for instance—are so remote from grown‐up
people; they are different creatures, as it were, of a different species.
I knew a criminal in prison who had, in the course of his career as a
burglar, murdered whole families, including several children. But when he
was in prison, he had a strange affection for them. He spent all his time
at his window, watching the children playing in the prison yard. He
trained one little boy to come up to his window and made great friends
with him.... You don’t know why I am telling you all this, Alyosha? My
head aches and I am sad.”
“You speak with a strange air,” observed Alyosha uneasily, “as though you
were not quite yourself.”
“By the way, a Bulgarian I met lately in Moscow,” Ivan went on, seeming
not to hear his brother’s words, “told me about the crimes committed by
Turks and Circassians in all parts of Bulgaria through fear of a general
rising of the Slavs. They burn villages, murder, outrage women and
children, they nail their prisoners by the ears to the fences, leave them
so till morning, and in the morning they hang them—all sorts of things you
can’t imagine. People talk sometimes of bestial cruelty, but that’s a
great injustice and insult to the beasts; a beast can never be so cruel as
a man, so artistically cruel. The tiger only tears and gnaws, that’s all
he can do. He would never think of nailing people by the ears, even if he
were able to do it. These Turks took a pleasure in torturing children,
too; cutting the unborn child from the mother’s womb, and tossing babies
up in the air and catching them on the points of their bayonets before
their mothers’ eyes. Doing it before the mothers’ eyes was what gave zest
to the amusement. Here is another scene that I thought very interesting.
Imagine a trembling mother with her baby in her arms, a circle of invading
Turks around her. They’ve planned a diversion: they pet the baby, laugh to
make it laugh. They succeed, the baby laughs. At that moment a Turk points
a pistol four inches from the baby’s face. The baby laughs with glee,
holds out its little hands to the pistol, and he pulls the trigger in the
baby’s face and blows out its brains. Artistic, wasn’t it? By the way,
Turks are particularly fond of sweet things, they say.”
“Brother, what are you driving at?” asked Alyosha.
“I think if the devil doesn’t exist, but man has created him, he has
created him in his own image and likeness.”
“Just as he did God, then?” observed Alyosha.
“ ‘It’s wonderful how you can turn words,’ as Polonius says in _Hamlet_,”
laughed Ivan. “You turn my words against me. Well, I am glad. Yours must
be a fine God, if man created Him in his image and likeness. You asked
just now what I was driving at. You see, I am fond of collecting certain
facts, and, would you believe, I even copy anecdotes of a certain sort
from newspapers and books, and I’ve already got a fine collection. The
Turks, of course, have gone into it, but they are foreigners. I have
specimens from home that are even better than the Turks. You know we
prefer beating—rods and scourges—that’s our national institution. Nailing
ears is unthinkable for us, for we are, after all, Europeans. But the rod
and the scourge we have always with us and they cannot be taken from us.
Abroad now they scarcely do any beating. Manners are more humane, or laws
have been passed, so that they don’t dare to flog men now. But they make
up for it in another way just as national as ours. And so national that it
would be practically impossible among us, though I believe we are being
inoculated with it, since the religious movement began in our aristocracy.
I have a charming pamphlet, translated from the French, describing how,
quite recently, five years ago, a murderer, Richard, was executed—a young
man, I believe, of three and twenty, who repented and was converted to the
Christian faith at the very scaffold. This Richard was an illegitimate
child who was given as a child of six by his parents to some shepherds on
the Swiss mountains. They brought him up to work for them. He grew up like
a little wild beast among them. The shepherds taught him nothing, and
scarcely fed or clothed him, but sent him out at seven to herd the flock
in cold and wet, and no one hesitated or scrupled to treat him so. Quite
the contrary, they thought they had every right, for Richard had been
given to them as a chattel, and they did not even see the necessity of
feeding him. Richard himself describes how in those years, like the
Prodigal Son in the Gospel, he longed to eat of the mash given to the
pigs, which were fattened for sale. But they wouldn’t even give him that,
and beat him when he stole from the pigs. And that was how he spent all
his childhood and his youth, till he grew up and was strong enough to go
away and be a thief. The savage began to earn his living as a day laborer
in Geneva. He drank what he earned, he lived like a brute, and finished by
killing and robbing an old man. He was caught, tried, and condemned to
death. They are not sentimentalists there. And in prison he was
immediately surrounded by pastors, members of Christian brotherhoods,
philanthropic ladies, and the like. They taught him to read and write in
prison, and expounded the Gospel to him. They exhorted him, worked upon
him, drummed at him incessantly, till at last he solemnly confessed his
crime. He was converted. He wrote to the court himself that he was a
monster, but that in the end God had vouchsafed him light and shown grace.
All Geneva was in excitement about him—all philanthropic and religious
Geneva. All the aristocratic and well‐bred society of the town rushed to
the prison, kissed Richard and embraced him; ‘You are our brother, you
have found grace.’ And Richard does nothing but weep with emotion, ‘Yes,
I’ve found grace! All my youth and childhood I was glad of pigs’ food, but
now even I have found grace. I am dying in the Lord.’ ‘Yes, Richard, die
in the Lord; you have shed blood and must die. Though it’s not your fault
that you knew not the Lord, when you coveted the pigs’ food and were
beaten for stealing it (which was very wrong of you, for stealing is
forbidden); but you’ve shed blood and you must die.’ And on the last day,
Richard, perfectly limp, did nothing but cry and repeat every minute:
‘This is my happiest day. I am going to the Lord.’ ‘Yes,’ cry the pastors
and the judges and philanthropic ladies. ‘This is the happiest day of your
life, for you are going to the Lord!’ They all walk or drive to the
scaffold in procession behind the prison van. At the scaffold they call to
Richard: ‘Die, brother, die in the Lord, for even thou hast found grace!’
And so, covered with his brothers’ kisses, Richard is dragged on to the
scaffold, and led to the guillotine. And they chopped off his head in
brotherly fashion, because he had found grace. Yes, that’s characteristic.
That pamphlet is translated into Russian by some Russian philanthropists
of aristocratic rank and evangelical aspirations, and has been distributed
gratis for the enlightenment of the people. The case of Richard is
interesting because it’s national. Though to us it’s absurd to cut off a
man’s head, because he has become our brother and has found grace, yet we
have our own speciality, which is all but worse. Our historical pastime is
the direct satisfaction of inflicting pain. There are lines in Nekrassov
describing how a peasant lashes a horse on the eyes, ‘on its meek eyes,’
every one must have seen it. It’s peculiarly Russian. He describes how a
feeble little nag has foundered under too heavy a load and cannot move.
The peasant beats it, beats it savagely, beats it at last not knowing what
he is doing in the intoxication of cruelty, thrashes it mercilessly over
and over again. ‘However weak you are, you must pull, if you die for it.’
The nag strains, and then he begins lashing the poor defenseless creature
on its weeping, on its ‘meek eyes.’ The frantic beast tugs and draws the
load, trembling all over, gasping for breath, moving sideways, with a sort
of unnatural spasmodic action—it’s awful in Nekrassov. But that’s only a
horse, and God has given horses to be beaten. So the Tatars have taught
us, and they left us the knout as a remembrance of it. But men, too, can
be beaten. A well‐educated, cultured gentleman and his wife beat their own
child with a birch‐rod, a girl of seven. I have an exact account of it.
The papa was glad that the birch was covered with twigs. ‘It stings more,’
said he, and so he began stinging his daughter. I know for a fact there
are people who at every blow are worked up to sensuality, to literal
sensuality, which increases progressively at every blow they inflict. They
beat for a minute, for five minutes, for ten minutes, more often and more
savagely. The child screams. At last the child cannot scream, it gasps,
‘Daddy! daddy!’ By some diabolical unseemly chance the case was brought
into court. A counsel is engaged. The Russian people have long called a
barrister ‘a conscience for hire.’ The counsel protests in his client’s
defense. ‘It’s such a simple thing,’ he says, ‘an everyday domestic event.
A father corrects his child. To our shame be it said, it is brought into
court.’ The jury, convinced by him, give a favorable verdict. The public
roars with delight that the torturer is acquitted. Ah, pity I wasn’t
there! I would have proposed to raise a subscription in his honor!
Charming pictures.
“But I’ve still better things about children. I’ve collected a great,
great deal about Russian children, Alyosha. There was a little girl of
five who was hated by her father and mother, ‘most worthy and respectable
people, of good education and breeding.’ You see, I must repeat again, it
is a peculiar characteristic of many people, this love of torturing
children, and children only. To all other types of humanity these
torturers behave mildly and benevolently, like cultivated and humane
Europeans; but they are very fond of tormenting children, even fond of
children themselves in that sense. It’s just their defenselessness that
tempts the tormentor, just the angelic confidence of the child who has no
refuge and no appeal, that sets his vile blood on fire. In every man, of
course, a demon lies hidden—the demon of rage, the demon of lustful heat
at the screams of the tortured victim, the demon of lawlessness let off
the chain, the demon of diseases that follow on vice, gout, kidney
disease, and so on.
“This poor child of five was subjected to every possible torture by those
cultivated parents. They beat her, thrashed her, kicked her for no reason
till her body was one bruise. Then, they went to greater refinements of
cruelty—shut her up all night in the cold and frost in a privy, and
because she didn’t ask to be taken up at night (as though a child of five
sleeping its angelic, sound sleep could be trained to wake and ask), they
smeared her face and filled her mouth with excrement, and it was her
mother, her mother did this. And that mother could sleep, hearing the poor
child’s groans! Can you understand why a little creature, who can’t even
understand what’s done to her, should beat her little aching heart with
her tiny fist in the dark and the cold, and weep her meek unresentful
tears to dear, kind God to protect her? Do you understand that, friend and
brother, you pious and humble novice? Do you understand why this infamy
must be and is permitted? Without it, I am told, man could not have
existed on earth, for he could not have known good and evil. Why should he
know that diabolical good and evil when it costs so much? Why, the whole
world of knowledge is not worth that child’s prayer to ‘dear, kind God’! I
say nothing of the sufferings of grown‐up people, they have eaten the
apple, damn them, and the devil take them all! But these little ones! I am
making you suffer, Alyosha, you are not yourself. I’ll leave off if you
like.”
“Never mind. I want to suffer too,” muttered Alyosha.
“One picture, only one more, because it’s so curious, so characteristic,
and I have only just read it in some collection of Russian antiquities.
I’ve forgotten the name. I must look it up. It was in the darkest days of
serfdom at the beginning of the century, and long live the Liberator of
the People! There was in those days a general of aristocratic connections,
the owner of great estates, one of those men—somewhat exceptional, I
believe, even then—who, retiring from the service into a life of leisure,
are convinced that they’ve earned absolute power over the lives of their
subjects. There were such men then. So our general, settled on his
property of two thousand souls, lives in pomp, and domineers over his poor
neighbors as though they were dependents and buffoons. He has kennels of
hundreds of hounds and nearly a hundred dog‐boys—all mounted, and in
uniform. One day a serf‐boy, a little child of eight, threw a stone in
play and hurt the paw of the general’s favorite hound. ‘Why is my favorite
dog lame?’ He is told that the boy threw a stone that hurt the dog’s paw.
‘So you did it.’ The general looked the child up and down. ‘Take him.’ He
was taken—taken from his mother and kept shut up all night. Early that
morning the general comes out on horseback, with the hounds, his
dependents, dog‐boys, and huntsmen, all mounted around him in full hunting
parade. The servants are summoned for their edification, and in front of
them all stands the mother of the child. The child is brought from the
lock‐up. It’s a gloomy, cold, foggy autumn day, a capital day for hunting.
The general orders the child to be undressed; the child is stripped naked.
He shivers, numb with terror, not daring to cry.... ‘Make him run,’
commands the general. ‘Run! run!’ shout the dog‐boys. The boy runs.... ‘At
him!’ yells the general, and he sets the whole pack of hounds on the
child. The hounds catch him, and tear him to pieces before his mother’s
eyes!... I believe the general was afterwards declared incapable of
administering his estates. Well—what did he deserve? To be shot? To be
shot for the satisfaction of our moral feelings? Speak, Alyosha!”
“To be shot,” murmured Alyosha, lifting his eyes to Ivan with a pale,
twisted smile.
“Bravo!” cried Ivan, delighted. “If even you say so.... You’re a pretty
monk! So there is a little devil sitting in your heart, Alyosha
Karamazov!”
“What I said was absurd, but—”
“That’s just the point, that ‘but’!” cried Ivan. “Let me tell you, novice,
that the absurd is only too necessary on earth. The world stands on
absurdities, and perhaps nothing would have come to pass in it without
them. We know what we know!”
“What do you know?”
“I understand nothing,” Ivan went on, as though in delirium. “I don’t want
to understand anything now. I want to stick to the fact. I made up my mind
long ago not to understand. If I try to understand anything, I shall be
false to the fact, and I have determined to stick to the fact.”
“Why are you trying me?” Alyosha cried, with sudden distress. “Will you
say what you mean at last?”
“Of course, I will; that’s what I’ve been leading up to. You are dear to
me, I don’t want to let you go, and I won’t give you up to your Zossima.”
Ivan for a minute was silent, his face became all at once very sad.
“Listen! I took the case of children only to make my case clearer. Of the
other tears of humanity with which the earth is soaked from its crust to
its center, I will say nothing. I have narrowed my subject on purpose. I
am a bug, and I recognize in all humility that I cannot understand why the
world is arranged as it is. Men are themselves to blame, I suppose; they
were given paradise, they wanted freedom, and stole fire from heaven,
though they knew they would become unhappy, so there is no need to pity
them. With my pitiful, earthly, Euclidian understanding, all I know is
that there is suffering and that there are none guilty; that cause follows
effect, simply and directly; that everything flows and finds its level—but
that’s only Euclidian nonsense, I know that, and I can’t consent to live
by it! What comfort is it to me that there are none guilty and that cause
follows effect simply and directly, and that I know it?—I must have
justice, or I will destroy myself. And not justice in some remote infinite
time and space, but here on earth, and that I could see myself. I have
believed in it. I want to see it, and if I am dead by then, let me rise
again, for if it all happens without me, it will be too unfair. Surely I
haven’t suffered, simply that I, my crimes and my sufferings, may manure
the soil of the future harmony for somebody else. I want to see with my
own eyes the hind lie down with the lion and the victim rise up and
embrace his murderer. I want to be there when every one suddenly
understands what it has all been for. All the religions of the world are
built on this longing, and I am a believer. But then there are the
children, and what am I to do about them? That’s a question I can’t
answer. For the hundredth time I repeat, there are numbers of questions,
but I’ve only taken the children, because in their case what I mean is so
unanswerably clear. Listen! If all must suffer to pay for the eternal
harmony, what have children to do with it, tell me, please? It’s beyond
all comprehension why they should suffer, and why they should pay for the
harmony. Why should they, too, furnish material to enrich the soil for the
harmony of the future? I understand solidarity in sin among men. I
understand solidarity in retribution, too; but there can be no such
solidarity with children. And if it is really true that they must share
responsibility for all their fathers’ crimes, such a truth is not of this
world and is beyond my comprehension. Some jester will say, perhaps, that
the child would have grown up and have sinned, but you see he didn’t grow
up, he was torn to pieces by the dogs, at eight years old. Oh, Alyosha, I
am not blaspheming! I understand, of course, what an upheaval of the
universe it will be, when everything in heaven and earth blends in one
hymn of praise and everything that lives and has lived cries aloud: ‘Thou
art just, O Lord, for Thy ways are revealed.’ When the mother embraces the
fiend who threw her child to the dogs, and all three cry aloud with tears,
‘Thou art just, O Lord!’ then, of course, the crown of knowledge will be
reached and all will be made clear. But what pulls me up here is that I
can’t accept that harmony. And while I am on earth, I make haste to take
my own measures. You see, Alyosha, perhaps it really may happen that if I
live to that moment, or rise again to see it, I, too, perhaps, may cry
aloud with the rest, looking at the mother embracing the child’s torturer,
‘Thou art just, O Lord!’ but I don’t want to cry aloud then. While there
is still time, I hasten to protect myself, and so I renounce the higher
harmony altogether. It’s not worth the tears of that one tortured child
who beat itself on the breast with its little fist and prayed in its
stinking outhouse, with its unexpiated tears to ‘dear, kind God’! It’s not
worth it, because those tears are unatoned for. They must be atoned for,
or there can be no harmony. But how? How are you going to atone for them?
Is it possible? By their being avenged? But what do I care for avenging
them? What do I care for a hell for oppressors? What good can hell do,
since those children have already been tortured? And what becomes of
harmony, if there is hell? I want to forgive. I want to embrace. I don’t
want more suffering. And if the sufferings of children go to swell the sum
of sufferings which was necessary to pay for truth, then I protest that
the truth is not worth such a price. I don’t want the mother to embrace
the oppressor who threw her son to the dogs! She dare not forgive him! Let
her forgive him for herself, if she will, let her forgive the torturer for
the immeasurable suffering of her mother’s heart. But the sufferings of
her tortured child she has no right to forgive; she dare not forgive the
torturer, even if the child were to forgive him! And if that is so, if
they dare not forgive, what becomes of harmony? Is there in the whole
world a being who would have the right to forgive and could forgive? I
don’t want harmony. From love for humanity I don’t want it. I would rather
be left with the unavenged suffering. I would rather remain with my
unavenged suffering and unsatisfied indignation, _even if I were wrong_.
Besides, too high a price is asked for harmony; it’s beyond our means to
pay so much to enter on it. And so I hasten to give back my entrance
ticket, and if I am an honest man I am bound to give it back as soon as
possible. And that I am doing. It’s not God that I don’t accept, Alyosha,
only I most respectfully return Him the ticket.”
“That’s rebellion,” murmured Alyosha, looking down.
“Rebellion? I am sorry you call it that,” said Ivan earnestly. “One can
hardly live in rebellion, and I want to live. Tell me yourself, I
challenge you—answer. Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human
destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace
and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to
death only one tiny creature—that baby beating its breast with its fist,
for instance—and to found that edifice on its unavenged tears, would you
consent to be the architect on those conditions? Tell me, and tell the
truth.”
“No, I wouldn’t consent,” said Alyosha softly.
“And can you admit the idea that men for whom you are building it would
agree to accept their happiness on the foundation of the unexpiated blood
of a little victim? And accepting it would remain happy for ever?”
“No, I can’t admit it. Brother,” said Alyosha suddenly, with flashing
eyes, “you said just now, is there a being in the whole world who would
have the right to forgive and could forgive? But there is a Being and He
can forgive everything, all and for all, because He gave His innocent
blood for all and everything. You have forgotten Him, and on Him is built
the edifice, and it is to Him they cry aloud, ‘Thou art just, O Lord, for
Thy ways are revealed!’ ”
“Ah! the One without sin and His blood! No, I have not forgotten Him; on
the contrary I’ve been wondering all the time how it was you did not bring
Him in before, for usually all arguments on your side put Him in the
foreground. Do you know, Alyosha—don’t laugh! I made a poem about a year
ago. If you can waste another ten minutes on me, I’ll tell it to you.”
“You wrote a poem?”
“Oh, no, I didn’t write it,” laughed Ivan, “and I’ve never written two
lines of poetry in my life. But I made up this poem in prose and I
remembered it. I was carried away when I made it up. You will be my first
reader—that is listener. Why should an author forego even one listener?”
smiled Ivan. “Shall I tell it to you?”
“I am all attention,” said Alyosha.
“My poem is called ‘The Grand Inquisitor’; it’s a ridiculous thing, but I
want to tell it to you.”
Chapter V. The Grand Inquisitor
“Even this must have a preface—that is, a literary preface,” laughed Ivan,
“and I am a poor hand at making one. You see, my action takes place in the
sixteenth century, and at that time, as you probably learnt at school, it
was customary in poetry to bring down heavenly powers on earth. Not to
speak of Dante, in France, clerks, as well as the monks in the
monasteries, used to give regular performances in which the Madonna, the
saints, the angels, Christ, and God himself were brought on the stage. In
those days it was done in all simplicity. In Victor Hugo’s _Notre Dame de
Paris_ an edifying and gratuitous spectacle was provided for the people in
the Hôtel de Ville of Paris in the reign of Louis XI. in honor of the
birth of the dauphin. It was called _Le bon jugement de la très sainte et
gracieuse Vierge Marie_, and she appears herself on the stage and
pronounces her _bon jugement_. Similar plays, chiefly from the Old
Testament, were occasionally performed in Moscow too, up to the times of
Peter the Great. But besides plays there were all sorts of legends and
ballads scattered about the world, in which the saints and angels and all
the powers of Heaven took part when required. In our monasteries the monks
busied themselves in translating, copying, and even composing such
poems—and even under the Tatars. There is, for instance, one such poem (of
course, from the Greek), _The Wanderings of Our Lady through Hell_, with
descriptions as bold as Dante’s. Our Lady visits hell, and the Archangel
Michael leads her through the torments. She sees the sinners and their
punishment. There she sees among others one noteworthy set of sinners in a
burning lake; some of them sink to the bottom of the lake so that they
can’t swim out, and ‘these God forgets’—an expression of extraordinary
depth and force. And so Our Lady, shocked and weeping, falls before the
throne of God and begs for mercy for all in hell—for all she has seen
there, indiscriminately. Her conversation with God is immensely
interesting. She beseeches Him, she will not desist, and when God points
to the hands and feet of her Son, nailed to the Cross, and asks, ‘How can
I forgive His tormentors?’ she bids all the saints, all the martyrs, all
the angels and archangels to fall down with her and pray for mercy on all
without distinction. It ends by her winning from God a respite of
suffering every year from Good Friday till Trinity Day, and the sinners at
once raise a cry of thankfulness from hell, chanting, ‘Thou art just, O
Lord, in this judgment.’ Well, my poem would have been of that kind if it
had appeared at that time. He comes on the scene in my poem, but He says
nothing, only appears and passes on. Fifteen centuries have passed since
He promised to come in His glory, fifteen centuries since His prophet
wrote, ‘Behold, I come quickly’; ‘Of that day and that hour knoweth no
man, neither the Son, but the Father,’ as He Himself predicted on earth.
But humanity awaits him with the same faith and with the same love. Oh,
with greater faith, for it is fifteen centuries since man has ceased to
see signs from heaven.
No signs from heaven come to‐day
To add to what the heart doth say.
There was nothing left but faith in what the heart doth say. It is true
there were many miracles in those days. There were saints who performed
miraculous cures; some holy people, according to their biographies, were
visited by the Queen of Heaven herself. But the devil did not slumber, and
doubts were already arising among men of the truth of these miracles. And
just then there appeared in the north of Germany a terrible new heresy. “A
huge star like to a torch” (that is, to a church) “fell on the sources of
the waters and they became bitter.” These heretics began blasphemously
denying miracles. But those who remained faithful were all the more ardent
in their faith. The tears of humanity rose up to Him as before, awaited
His coming, loved Him, hoped for Him, yearned to suffer and die for Him as
before. And so many ages mankind had prayed with faith and fervor, “O Lord
our God, hasten Thy coming,” so many ages called upon Him, that in His
infinite mercy He deigned to come down to His servants. Before that day He
had come down, He had visited some holy men, martyrs and hermits, as is
written in their lives. Among us, Tyutchev, with absolute faith in the
truth of his words, bore witness that
Bearing the Cross, in slavish dress,
Weary and worn, the Heavenly King
Our mother, Russia, came to bless,
And through our land went wandering.
And that certainly was so, I assure you.
“And behold, He deigned to appear for a moment to the people, to the
tortured, suffering people, sunk in iniquity, but loving Him like
children. My story is laid in Spain, in Seville, in the most terrible time
of the Inquisition, when fires were lighted every day to the glory of God,
and ‘in the splendid _auto da fé_ the wicked heretics were burnt.’ Oh, of
course, this was not the coming in which He will appear according to His
promise at the end of time in all His heavenly glory, and which will be
sudden ‘as lightning flashing from east to west.’ No, He visited His
children only for a moment, and there where the flames were crackling
round the heretics. In His infinite mercy He came once more among men in
that human shape in which He walked among men for three years fifteen
centuries ago. He came down to the ‘hot pavements’ of the southern town in
which on the day before almost a hundred heretics had, _ad majorem gloriam
Dei_, been burnt by the cardinal, the Grand Inquisitor, in a magnificent
_auto da fé_, in the presence of the king, the court, the knights, the
cardinals, the most charming ladies of the court, and the whole population
of Seville.
“He came softly, unobserved, and yet, strange to say, every one recognized
Him. That might be one of the best passages in the poem. I mean, why they
recognized Him. The people are irresistibly drawn to Him, they surround
Him, they flock about Him, follow Him. He moves silently in their midst
with a gentle smile of infinite compassion. The sun of love burns in His
heart, light and power shine from His eyes, and their radiance, shed on
the people, stirs their hearts with responsive love. He holds out His
hands to them, blesses them, and a healing virtue comes from contact with
Him, even with His garments. An old man in the crowd, blind from
childhood, cries out, ‘O Lord, heal me and I shall see Thee!’ and, as it
were, scales fall from his eyes and the blind man sees Him. The crowd
weeps and kisses the earth under His feet. Children throw flowers before
Him, sing, and cry hosannah. ‘It is He—it is He!’ all repeat. ‘It must be
He, it can be no one but Him!’ He stops at the steps of the Seville
cathedral at the moment when the weeping mourners are bringing in a little
open white coffin. In it lies a child of seven, the only daughter of a
prominent citizen. The dead child lies hidden in flowers. ‘He will raise
your child,’ the crowd shouts to the weeping mother. The priest, coming to
meet the coffin, looks perplexed, and frowns, but the mother of the dead
child throws herself at His feet with a wail. ‘If it is Thou, raise my
child!’ she cries, holding out her hands to Him. The procession halts, the
coffin is laid on the steps at His feet. He looks with compassion, and His
lips once more softly pronounce, ‘Maiden, arise!’ and the maiden arises.
The little girl sits up in the coffin and looks round, smiling with wide‐
open wondering eyes, holding a bunch of white roses they had put in her
hand.
“There are cries, sobs, confusion among the people, and at that moment the
cardinal himself, the Grand Inquisitor, passes by the cathedral. He is an
old man, almost ninety, tall and erect, with a withered face and sunken
eyes, in which there is still a gleam of light. He is not dressed in his
gorgeous cardinal’s robes, as he was the day before, when he was burning
the enemies of the Roman Church—at this moment he is wearing his coarse,
old, monk’s cassock. At a distance behind him come his gloomy assistants
and slaves and the ‘holy guard.’ He stops at the sight of the crowd and
watches it from a distance. He sees everything; he sees them set the
coffin down at His feet, sees the child rise up, and his face darkens. He
knits his thick gray brows and his eyes gleam with a sinister fire. He
holds out his finger and bids the guards take Him. And such is his power,
so completely are the people cowed into submission and trembling obedience
to him, that the crowd immediately makes way for the guards, and in the
midst of deathlike silence they lay hands on Him and lead Him away. The
crowd instantly bows down to the earth, like one man, before the old
Inquisitor. He blesses the people in silence and passes on. The guards
lead their prisoner to the close, gloomy vaulted prison in the ancient
palace of the Holy Inquisition and shut Him in it. The day passes and is
followed by the dark, burning, ‘breathless’ night of Seville. The air is
‘fragrant with laurel and lemon.’ In the pitch darkness the iron door of
the prison is suddenly opened and the Grand Inquisitor himself comes in
with a light in his hand. He is alone; the door is closed at once behind
him. He stands in the doorway and for a minute or two gazes into His face.
At last he goes up slowly, sets the light on the table and speaks.
“ ‘Is it Thou? Thou?’ but receiving no answer, he adds at once, ‘Don’t
answer, be silent. What canst Thou say, indeed? I know too well what Thou
wouldst say. And Thou hast no right to add anything to what Thou hadst
said of old. Why, then, art Thou come to hinder us? For Thou hast come to
hinder us, and Thou knowest that. But dost Thou know what will be to‐
morrow? I know not who Thou art and care not to know whether it is Thou or
only a semblance of Him, but to‐morrow I shall condemn Thee and burn Thee
at the stake as the worst of heretics. And the very people who have to‐day
kissed Thy feet, to‐morrow at the faintest sign from me will rush to heap
up the embers of Thy fire. Knowest Thou that? Yes, maybe Thou knowest it,’
he added with thoughtful penetration, never for a moment taking his eyes
off the Prisoner.”
“I don’t quite understand, Ivan. What does it mean?” Alyosha, who had been
listening in silence, said with a smile. “Is it simply a wild fantasy, or
a mistake on the part of the old man—some impossible _quiproquo_?”
“Take it as the last,” said Ivan, laughing, “if you are so corrupted by
modern realism and can’t stand anything fantastic. If you like it to be a
case of mistaken identity, let it be so. It is true,” he went on,
laughing, “the old man was ninety, and he might well be crazy over his set
idea. He might have been struck by the appearance of the Prisoner. It
might, in fact, be simply his ravings, the delusion of an old man of
ninety, over‐excited by the _auto da fé_ of a hundred heretics the day
before. But does it matter to us after all whether it was a mistake of
identity or a wild fantasy? All that matters is that the old man should
speak out, should speak openly of what he has thought in silence for
ninety years.”
“And the Prisoner too is silent? Does He look at him and not say a word?”
“That’s inevitable in any case,” Ivan laughed again. “The old man has told
Him He hasn’t the right to add anything to what He has said of old. One
may say it is the most fundamental feature of Roman Catholicism, in my
opinion at least. ‘All has been given by Thee to the Pope,’ they say, ‘and
all, therefore, is still in the Pope’s hands, and there is no need for
Thee to come now at all. Thou must not meddle for the time, at least.’
That’s how they speak and write too—the Jesuits, at any rate. I have read
it myself in the works of their theologians. ‘Hast Thou the right to
reveal to us one of the mysteries of that world from which Thou hast
come?’ my old man asks Him, and answers the question for Him. ‘No, Thou
hast not; that Thou mayest not add to what has been said of old, and
mayest not take from men the freedom which Thou didst exalt when Thou wast
on earth. Whatsoever Thou revealest anew will encroach on men’s freedom of
faith; for it will be manifest as a miracle, and the freedom of their
faith was dearer to Thee than anything in those days fifteen hundred years
ago. Didst Thou not often say then, “I will make you free”? But now Thou
hast seen these “free” men,’ the old man adds suddenly, with a pensive
smile. ‘Yes, we’ve paid dearly for it,’ he goes on, looking sternly at
Him, ‘but at last we have completed that work in Thy name. For fifteen
centuries we have been wrestling with Thy freedom, but now it is ended and
over for good. Dost Thou not believe that it’s over for good? Thou lookest
meekly at me and deignest not even to be wroth with me. But let me tell
Thee that now, to‐day, people are more persuaded than ever that they have
perfect freedom, yet they have brought their freedom to us and laid it
humbly at our feet. But that has been our doing. Was this what Thou didst?
Was this Thy freedom?’ ”
“I don’t understand again,” Alyosha broke in. “Is he ironical, is he
jesting?”
“Not a bit of it! He claims it as a merit for himself and his Church that
at last they have vanquished freedom and have done so to make men happy.
‘For now’ (he is speaking of the Inquisition, of course) ‘for the first
time it has become possible to think of the happiness of men. Man was
created a rebel; and how can rebels be happy? Thou wast warned,’ he says
to Him. ‘Thou hast had no lack of admonitions and warnings, but Thou didst
not listen to those warnings; Thou didst reject the only way by which men
might be made happy. But, fortunately, departing Thou didst hand on the
work to us. Thou hast promised, Thou hast established by Thy word, Thou
hast given to us the right to bind and to unbind, and now, of course, Thou
canst not think of taking it away. Why, then, hast Thou come to hinder
us?’ ”
“And what’s the meaning of ‘no lack of admonitions and warnings’?” asked
Alyosha.
“Why, that’s the chief part of what the old man must say.
“ ‘The wise and dread spirit, the spirit of self‐destruction and non‐
existence,’ the old man goes on, ‘the great spirit talked with Thee in the
wilderness, and we are told in the books that he “tempted” Thee. Is that
so? And could anything truer be said than what he revealed to Thee in
three questions and what Thou didst reject, and what in the books is
called “the temptation”? And yet if there has ever been on earth a real
stupendous miracle, it took place on that day, on the day of the three
temptations. The statement of those three questions was itself the
miracle. If it were possible to imagine simply for the sake of argument
that those three questions of the dread spirit had perished utterly from
the books, and that we had to restore them and to invent them anew, and to
do so had gathered together all the wise men of the earth—rulers, chief
priests, learned men, philosophers, poets—and had set them the task to
invent three questions, such as would not only fit the occasion, but
express in three words, three human phrases, the whole future history of
the world and of humanity—dost Thou believe that all the wisdom of the
earth united could have invented anything in depth and force equal to the
three questions which were actually put to Thee then by the wise and
mighty spirit in the wilderness? From those questions alone, from the
miracle of their statement, we can see that we have here to do not with
the fleeting human intelligence, but with the absolute and eternal. For in
those three questions the whole subsequent history of mankind is, as it
were, brought together into one whole, and foretold, and in them are
united all the unsolved historical contradictions of human nature. At the
time it could not be so clear, since the future was unknown; but now that
fifteen hundred years have passed, we see that everything in those three
questions was so justly divined and foretold, and has been so truly
fulfilled, that nothing can be added to them or taken from them.
“ ‘Judge Thyself who was right—Thou or he who questioned Thee then?
Remember the first question; its meaning, in other words, was this: “Thou
wouldst go into the world, and art going with empty hands, with some
promise of freedom which men in their simplicity and their natural
unruliness cannot even understand, which they fear and dread—for nothing
has ever been more insupportable for a man and a human society than
freedom. But seest Thou these stones in this parched and barren
wilderness? Turn them into bread, and mankind will run after Thee like a
flock of sheep, grateful and obedient, though for ever trembling, lest
Thou withdraw Thy hand and deny them Thy bread.” But Thou wouldst not
deprive man of freedom and didst reject the offer, thinking, what is that
freedom worth, if obedience is bought with bread? Thou didst reply that
man lives not by bread alone. But dost Thou know that for the sake of that
earthly bread the spirit of the earth will rise up against Thee and will
strive with Thee and overcome Thee, and all will follow him, crying, “Who
can compare with this beast? He has given us fire from heaven!” Dost Thou
know that the ages will pass, and humanity will proclaim by the lips of
their sages that there is no crime, and therefore no sin; there is only
hunger? “Feed men, and then ask of them virtue!” that’s what they’ll write
on the banner, which they will raise against Thee, and with which they
will destroy Thy temple. Where Thy temple stood will rise a new building;
the terrible tower of Babel will be built again, and though, like the one
of old, it will not be finished, yet Thou mightest have prevented that new
tower and have cut short the sufferings of men for a thousand years; for
they will come back to us after a thousand years of agony with their
tower. They will seek us again, hidden underground in the catacombs, for
we shall be again persecuted and tortured. They will find us and cry to
us, “Feed us, for those who have promised us fire from heaven haven’t
given it!” And then we shall finish building their tower, for he finishes
the building who feeds them. And we alone shall feed them in Thy name,
declaring falsely that it is in Thy name. Oh, never, never can they feed
themselves without us! No science will give them bread so long as they
remain free. In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet, and say
to us, “Make us your slaves, but feed us.” They will understand
themselves, at last, that freedom and bread enough for all are
inconceivable together, for never, never will they be able to share
between them! They will be convinced, too, that they can never be free,
for they are weak, vicious, worthless and rebellious. Thou didst promise
them the bread of Heaven, but, I repeat again, can it compare with earthly
bread in the eyes of the weak, ever sinful and ignoble race of man? And if
for the sake of the bread of Heaven thousands shall follow Thee, what is
to become of the millions and tens of thousands of millions of creatures
who will not have the strength to forego the earthly bread for the sake of
the heavenly? Or dost Thou care only for the tens of thousands of the
great and strong, while the millions, numerous as the sands of the sea,
who are weak but love Thee, must exist only for the sake of the great and
strong? No, we care for the weak too. They are sinful and rebellious, but
in the end they too will become obedient. They will marvel at us and look
on us as gods, because we are ready to endure the freedom which they have
found so dreadful and to rule over them—so awful it will seem to them to
be free. But we shall tell them that we are Thy servants and rule them in
Thy name. We shall deceive them again, for we will not let Thee come to us
again. That deception will be our suffering, for we shall be forced to
lie.
“ ‘This is the significance of the first question in the wilderness, and
this is what Thou hast rejected for the sake of that freedom which Thou
hast exalted above everything. Yet in this question lies hid the great
secret of this world. Choosing “bread,” Thou wouldst have satisfied the
universal and everlasting craving of humanity—to find some one to worship.
So long as man remains free he strives for nothing so incessantly and so
painfully as to find some one to worship. But man seeks to worship what is
established beyond dispute, so that all men would agree at once to worship
it. For these pitiful creatures are concerned not only to find what one or
the other can worship, but to find something that all would believe in and
worship; what is essential is that all may be _together_ in it. This
craving for _community_ of worship is the chief misery of every man
individually and of all humanity from the beginning of time. For the sake
of common worship they’ve slain each other with the sword. They have set
up gods and challenged one another, “Put away your gods and come and
worship ours, or we will kill you and your gods!” And so it will be to the
end of the world, even when gods disappear from the earth; they will fall
down before idols just the same. Thou didst know, Thou couldst not but
have known, this fundamental secret of human nature, but Thou didst reject
the one infallible banner which was offered Thee to make all men bow down
to Thee alone—the banner of earthly bread; and Thou hast rejected it for
the sake of freedom and the bread of Heaven. Behold what Thou didst
further. And all again in the name of freedom! I tell Thee that man is
tormented by no greater anxiety than to find some one quickly to whom he
can hand over that gift of freedom with which the ill‐fated creature is
born. But only one who can appease their conscience can take over their
freedom. In bread there was offered Thee an invincible banner; give bread,
and man will worship thee, for nothing is more certain than bread. But if
some one else gains possession of his conscience—oh! then he will cast
away Thy bread and follow after him who has ensnared his conscience. In
that Thou wast right. For the secret of man’s being is not only to live
but to have something to live for. Without a stable conception of the
object of life, man would not consent to go on living, and would rather
destroy himself than remain on earth, though he had bread in abundance.
That is true. But what happened? Instead of taking men’s freedom from
them, Thou didst make it greater than ever! Didst Thou forget that man
prefers peace, and even death, to freedom of choice in the knowledge of
good and evil? Nothing is more seductive for man than his freedom of
conscience, but nothing is a greater cause of suffering. And behold,
instead of giving a firm foundation for setting the conscience of man at
rest for ever, Thou didst choose all that is exceptional, vague and
enigmatic; Thou didst choose what was utterly beyond the strength of men,
acting as though Thou didst not love them at all—Thou who didst come to
give Thy life for them! Instead of taking possession of men’s freedom,
Thou didst increase it, and burdened the spiritual kingdom of mankind with
its sufferings for ever. Thou didst desire man’s free love, that he should
follow Thee freely, enticed and taken captive by Thee. In place of the
rigid ancient law, man must hereafter with free heart decide for himself
what is good and what is evil, having only Thy image before him as his
guide. But didst Thou not know that he would at last reject even Thy image
and Thy truth, if he is weighed down with the fearful burden of free
choice? They will cry aloud at last that the truth is not in Thee, for
they could not have been left in greater confusion and suffering than Thou
hast caused, laying upon them so many cares and unanswerable problems.
“ ‘So that, in truth, Thou didst Thyself lay the foundation for the
destruction of Thy kingdom, and no one is more to blame for it. Yet what
was offered Thee? There are three powers, three powers alone, able to
conquer and to hold captive for ever the conscience of these impotent
rebels for their happiness—those forces are miracle, mystery and
authority. Thou hast rejected all three and hast set the example for doing
so. When the wise and dread spirit set Thee on the pinnacle of the temple
and said to Thee, “If Thou wouldst know whether Thou art the Son of God
then cast Thyself down, for it is written: the angels shall hold him up
lest he fall and bruise himself, and Thou shalt know then whether Thou art
the Son of God and shalt prove then how great is Thy faith in Thy Father.”
But Thou didst refuse and wouldst not cast Thyself down. Oh, of course,
Thou didst proudly and well, like God; but the weak, unruly race of men,
are they gods? Oh, Thou didst know then that in taking one step, in making
one movement to cast Thyself down, Thou wouldst be tempting God and have
lost all Thy faith in Him, and wouldst have been dashed to pieces against
that earth which Thou didst come to save. And the wise spirit that tempted
Thee would have rejoiced. But I ask again, are there many like Thee? And
couldst Thou believe for one moment that men, too, could face such a
temptation? Is the nature of men such, that they can reject miracle, and
at the great moments of their life, the moments of their deepest, most
agonizing spiritual difficulties, cling only to the free verdict of the
heart? Oh, Thou didst know that Thy deed would be recorded in books, would
be handed down to remote times and the utmost ends of the earth, and Thou
didst hope that man, following Thee, would cling to God and not ask for a
miracle. But Thou didst not know that when man rejects miracle he rejects
God too; for man seeks not so much God as the miraculous. And as man
cannot bear to be without the miraculous, he will create new miracles of
his own for himself, and will worship deeds of sorcery and witchcraft,
though he might be a hundred times over a rebel, heretic and infidel. Thou
didst not come down from the Cross when they shouted to Thee, mocking and
reviling Thee, “Come down from the cross and we will believe that Thou art
He.” Thou didst not come down, for again Thou wouldst not enslave man by a
miracle, and didst crave faith given freely, not based on miracle. Thou
didst crave for free love and not the base raptures of the slave before
the might that has overawed him for ever. But Thou didst think too highly
of men therein, for they are slaves, of course, though rebellious by
nature. Look round and judge; fifteen centuries have passed, look upon
them. Whom hast Thou raised up to Thyself? I swear, man is weaker and
baser by nature than Thou hast believed him! Can he, can he do what Thou
didst? By showing him so much respect, Thou didst, as it were, cease to
feel for him, for Thou didst ask far too much from him—Thou who hast loved
him more than Thyself! Respecting him less, Thou wouldst have asked less
of him. That would have been more like love, for his burden would have
been lighter. He is weak and vile. What though he is everywhere now
rebelling against our power, and proud of his rebellion? It is the pride
of a child and a schoolboy. They are little children rioting and barring
out the teacher at school. But their childish delight will end; it will
cost them dear. They will cast down temples and drench the earth with
blood. But they will see at last, the foolish children, that, though they
are rebels, they are impotent rebels, unable to keep up their own
rebellion. Bathed in their foolish tears, they will recognize at last that
He who created them rebels must have meant to mock at them. They will say
this in despair, and their utterance will be a blasphemy which will make
them more unhappy still, for man’s nature cannot bear blasphemy, and in
the end always avenges it on itself. And so unrest, confusion and
unhappiness—that is the present lot of man after Thou didst bear so much
for their freedom! The great prophet tells in vision and in image, that he
saw all those who took part in the first resurrection and that there were
of each tribe twelve thousand. But if there were so many of them, they
must have been not men but gods. They had borne Thy cross, they had
endured scores of years in the barren, hungry wilderness, living upon
locusts and roots—and Thou mayest indeed point with pride at those
children of freedom, of free love, of free and splendid sacrifice for Thy
name. But remember that they were only some thousands; and what of the
rest? And how are the other weak ones to blame, because they could not
endure what the strong have endured? How is the weak soul to blame that it
is unable to receive such terrible gifts? Canst Thou have simply come to
the elect and for the elect? But if so, it is a mystery and we cannot
understand it. And if it is a mystery, we too have a right to preach a
mystery, and to teach them that it’s not the free judgment of their
hearts, not love that matters, but a mystery which they must follow
blindly, even against their conscience. So we have done. We have corrected
Thy work and have founded it upon _miracle_, _mystery_ and _authority_.
And men rejoiced that they were again led like sheep, and that the
terrible gift that had brought them such suffering was, at last, lifted
from their hearts. Were we right teaching them this? Speak! Did we not
love mankind, so meekly acknowledging their feebleness, lovingly
lightening their burden, and permitting their weak nature even sin with
our sanction? Why hast Thou come now to hinder us? And why dost Thou look
silently and searchingly at me with Thy mild eyes? Be angry. I don’t want
Thy love, for I love Thee not. And what use is it for me to hide anything
from Thee? Don’t I know to Whom I am speaking? All that I can say is known
to Thee already. And is it for me to conceal from Thee our mystery?
Perhaps it is Thy will to hear it from my lips. Listen, then. We are not
working with Thee, but with _him_—that is our mystery. It’s long—eight
centuries—since we have been on _his_ side and not on Thine. Just eight
centuries ago, we took from him what Thou didst reject with scorn, that
last gift he offered Thee, showing Thee all the kingdoms of the earth. We
took from him Rome and the sword of Cæsar, and proclaimed ourselves sole
rulers of the earth, though hitherto we have not been able to complete our
work. But whose fault is that? Oh, the work is only beginning, but it has
begun. It has long to await completion and the earth has yet much to
suffer, but we shall triumph and shall be Cæsars, and then we shall plan
the universal happiness of man. But Thou mightest have taken even then the
sword of Cæsar. Why didst Thou reject that last gift? Hadst Thou accepted
that last counsel of the mighty spirit, Thou wouldst have accomplished all
that man seeks on earth—that is, some one to worship, some one to keep his
conscience, and some means of uniting all in one unanimous and harmonious
ant‐heap, for the craving for universal unity is the third and last
anguish of men. Mankind as a whole has always striven to organize a
universal state. There have been many great nations with great histories,
but the more highly they were developed the more unhappy they were, for
they felt more acutely than other people the craving for world‐wide union.
The great conquerors, Timours and Ghenghis‐Khans, whirled like hurricanes
over the face of the earth striving to subdue its people, and they too
were but the unconscious expression of the same craving for universal
unity. Hadst Thou taken the world and Cæsar’s purple, Thou wouldst have
founded the universal state and have given universal peace. For who can
rule men if not he who holds their conscience and their bread in his
hands? We have taken the sword of Cæsar, and in taking it, of course, have
rejected Thee and followed _him_. Oh, ages are yet to come of the
confusion of free thought, of their science and cannibalism. For having
begun to build their tower of Babel without us, they will end, of course,
with cannibalism. But then the beast will crawl to us and lick our feet
and spatter them with tears of blood. And we shall sit upon the beast and
raise the cup, and on it will be written, “Mystery.” But then, and only
then, the reign of peace and happiness will come for men. Thou art proud
of Thine elect, but Thou hast only the elect, while we give rest to all.
And besides, how many of those elect, those mighty ones who could become
elect, have grown weary waiting for Thee, and have transferred and will
transfer the powers of their spirit and the warmth of their heart to the
other camp, and end by raising their _free_ banner against Thee. Thou
didst Thyself lift up that banner. But with us all will be happy and will
no more rebel nor destroy one another as under Thy freedom. Oh, we shall
persuade them that they will only become free when they renounce their
freedom to us and submit to us. And shall we be right or shall we be
lying? They will be convinced that we are right, for they will remember
the horrors of slavery and confusion to which Thy freedom brought them.
Freedom, free thought and science, will lead them into such straits and
will bring them face to face with such marvels and insoluble mysteries,
that some of them, the fierce and rebellious, will destroy themselves,
others, rebellious but weak, will destroy one another, while the rest,
weak and unhappy, will crawl fawning to our feet and whine to us: “Yes,
you were right, you alone possess His mystery, and we come back to you,
save us from ourselves!”
“ ‘Receiving bread from us, they will see clearly that we take the bread
made by their hands from them, to give it to them, without any miracle.
They will see that we do not change the stones to bread, but in truth they
will be more thankful for taking it from our hands than for the bread
itself! For they will remember only too well that in old days, without our
help, even the bread they made turned to stones in their hands, while
since they have come back to us, the very stones have turned to bread in
their hands. Too, too well will they know the value of complete
submission! And until men know that, they will be unhappy. Who is most to
blame for their not knowing it?—speak! Who scattered the flock and sent it
astray on unknown paths? But the flock will come together again and will
submit once more, and then it will be once for all. Then we shall give
them the quiet humble happiness of weak creatures such as they are by
nature. Oh, we shall persuade them at last not to be proud, for Thou didst
lift them up and thereby taught them to be proud. We shall show them that
they are weak, that they are only pitiful children, but that childlike
happiness is the sweetest of all. They will become timid and will look to
us and huddle close to us in fear, as chicks to the hen. They will marvel
at us and will be awe‐stricken before us, and will be proud at our being
so powerful and clever, that we have been able to subdue such a turbulent
flock of thousands of millions. They will tremble impotently before our
wrath, their minds will grow fearful, they will be quick to shed tears
like women and children, but they will be just as ready at a sign from us
to pass to laughter and rejoicing, to happy mirth and childish song. Yes,
we shall set them to work, but in their leisure hours we shall make their
life like a child’s game, with children’s songs and innocent dance. Oh, we
shall allow them even sin, they are weak and helpless, and they will love
us like children because we allow them to sin. We shall tell them that
every sin will be expiated, if it is done with our permission, that we
allow them to sin because we love them, and the punishment for these sins
we take upon ourselves. And we shall take it upon ourselves, and they will
adore us as their saviors who have taken on themselves their sins before
God. And they will have no secrets from us. We shall allow or forbid them
to live with their wives and mistresses, to have or not to have
children—according to whether they have been obedient or disobedient—and
they will submit to us gladly and cheerfully. The most painful secrets of
their conscience, all, all they will bring to us, and we shall have an
answer for all. And they will be glad to believe our answer, for it will
save them from the great anxiety and terrible agony they endure at present
in making a free decision for themselves. And all will be happy, all the
millions of creatures except the hundred thousand who rule over them. For
only we, we who guard the mystery, shall be unhappy. There will be
thousands of millions of happy babes, and a hundred thousand sufferers who
have taken upon themselves the curse of the knowledge of good and evil.
Peacefully they will die, peacefully they will expire in Thy name, and
beyond the grave they will find nothing but death. But we shall keep the
secret, and for their happiness we shall allure them with the reward of
heaven and eternity. Though if there were anything in the other world, it
certainly would not be for such as they. It is prophesied that Thou wilt
come again in victory, Thou wilt come with Thy chosen, the proud and
strong, but we will say that they have only saved themselves, but we have
saved all. We are told that the harlot who sits upon the beast, and holds
in her hands the _mystery_, shall be put to shame, that the weak will rise
up again, and will rend her royal purple and will strip naked her
loathsome body. But then I will stand up and point out to Thee the
thousand millions of happy children who have known no sin. And we who have
taken their sins upon us for their happiness will stand up before Thee and
say: “Judge us if Thou canst and darest.” Know that I fear Thee not. Know
that I too have been in the wilderness, I too have lived on roots and
locusts, I too prized the freedom with which Thou hast blessed men, and I
too was striving to stand among Thy elect, among the strong and powerful,
thirsting “to make up the number.” But I awakened and would not serve
madness. I turned back and joined the ranks of those _who have corrected
Thy work_. I left the proud and went back to the humble, for the happiness
of the humble. What I say to Thee will come to pass, and our dominion will
be built up. I repeat, to‐morrow Thou shalt see that obedient flock who at
a sign from me will hasten to heap up the hot cinders about the pile on
which I shall burn Thee for coming to hinder us. For if any one has ever
deserved our fires, it is Thou. To‐morrow I shall burn Thee. _Dixi._’ ”
Ivan stopped. He was carried away as he talked, and spoke with excitement;
when he had finished, he suddenly smiled.
Alyosha had listened in silence; towards the end he was greatly moved and
seemed several times on the point of interrupting, but restrained himself.
Now his words came with a rush.
“But ... that’s absurd!” he cried, flushing. “Your poem is in praise of
Jesus, not in blame of Him—as you meant it to be. And who will believe you
about freedom? Is that the way to understand it? That’s not the idea of it
in the Orthodox Church.... That’s Rome, and not even the whole of Rome,
it’s false—those are the worst of the Catholics, the Inquisitors, the
Jesuits!... And there could not be such a fantastic creature as your
Inquisitor. What are these sins of mankind they take on themselves? Who
are these keepers of the mystery who have taken some curse upon themselves
for the happiness of mankind? When have they been seen? We know the
Jesuits, they are spoken ill of, but surely they are not what you
describe? They are not that at all, not at all.... They are simply the
Romish army for the earthly sovereignty of the world in the future, with
the Pontiff of Rome for Emperor ... that’s their ideal, but there’s no
sort of mystery or lofty melancholy about it.... It’s simple lust of
power, of filthy earthly gain, of domination—something like a universal
serfdom with them as masters—that’s all they stand for. They don’t even
believe in God perhaps. Your suffering Inquisitor is a mere fantasy.”
“Stay, stay,” laughed Ivan, “how hot you are! A fantasy you say, let it be
so! Of course it’s a fantasy. But allow me to say: do you really think
that the Roman Catholic movement of the last centuries is actually nothing
but the lust of power, of filthy earthly gain? Is that Father Païssy’s
teaching?”
“No, no, on the contrary, Father Païssy did once say something rather the
same as you ... but of course it’s not the same, not a bit the same,”
Alyosha hastily corrected himself.
“A precious admission, in spite of your ‘not a bit the same.’ I ask you
why your Jesuits and Inquisitors have united simply for vile material
gain? Why can there not be among them one martyr oppressed by great sorrow
and loving humanity? You see, only suppose that there was one such man
among all those who desire nothing but filthy material gain—if there’s
only one like my old Inquisitor, who had himself eaten roots in the desert
and made frenzied efforts to subdue his flesh to make himself free and
perfect. But yet all his life he loved humanity, and suddenly his eyes
were opened, and he saw that it is no great moral blessedness to attain
perfection and freedom, if at the same time one gains the conviction that
millions of God’s creatures have been created as a mockery, that they will
never be capable of using their freedom, that these poor rebels can never
turn into giants to complete the tower, that it was not for such geese
that the great idealist dreamt his dream of harmony. Seeing all that he
turned back and joined—the clever people. Surely that could have
happened?”
“Joined whom, what clever people?” cried Alyosha, completely carried away.
“They have no such great cleverness and no mysteries and secrets....
Perhaps nothing but Atheism, that’s all their secret. Your Inquisitor does
not believe in God, that’s his secret!”
“What if it is so! At last you have guessed it. It’s perfectly true, it’s
true that that’s the whole secret, but isn’t that suffering, at least for
a man like that, who has wasted his whole life in the desert and yet could
not shake off his incurable love of humanity? In his old age he reached
the clear conviction that nothing but the advice of the great dread spirit
could build up any tolerable sort of life for the feeble, unruly,
‘incomplete, empirical creatures created in jest.’ And so, convinced of
this, he sees that he must follow the counsel of the wise spirit, the
dread spirit of death and destruction, and therefore accept lying and
deception, and lead men consciously to death and destruction, and yet
deceive them all the way so that they may not notice where they are being
led, that the poor blind creatures may at least on the way think
themselves happy. And note, the deception is in the name of Him in Whose
ideal the old man had so fervently believed all his life long. Is not that
tragic? And if only one such stood at the head of the whole army ‘filled
with the lust of power only for the sake of filthy gain’—would not one
such be enough to make a tragedy? More than that, one such standing at the
head is enough to create the actual leading idea of the Roman Church with
all its armies and Jesuits, its highest idea. I tell you frankly that I
firmly believe that there has always been such a man among those who stood
at the head of the movement. Who knows, there may have been some such even
among the Roman Popes. Who knows, perhaps the spirit of that accursed old
man who loves mankind so obstinately in his own way, is to be found even
now in a whole multitude of such old men, existing not by chance but by
agreement, as a secret league formed long ago for the guarding of the
mystery, to guard it from the weak and the unhappy, so as to make them
happy. No doubt it is so, and so it must be indeed. I fancy that even
among the Masons there’s something of the same mystery at the bottom, and
that that’s why the Catholics so detest the Masons as their rivals
breaking up the unity of the idea, while it is so essential that there
should be one flock and one shepherd.... But from the way I defend my idea
I might be an author impatient of your criticism. Enough of it.”
“You are perhaps a Mason yourself!” broke suddenly from Alyosha. “You
don’t believe in God,” he added, speaking this time very sorrowfully. He
fancied besides that his brother was looking at him ironically. “How does
your poem end?” he asked, suddenly looking down. “Or was it the end?”
“I meant to end it like this. When the Inquisitor ceased speaking he
waited some time for his Prisoner to answer him. His silence weighed down
upon him. He saw that the Prisoner had listened intently all the time,
looking gently in his face and evidently not wishing to reply. The old man
longed for Him to say something, however bitter and terrible. But He
suddenly approached the old man in silence and softly kissed him on his
bloodless aged lips. That was all His answer. The old man shuddered. His
lips moved. He went to the door, opened it, and said to Him: ‘Go, and come
no more ... come not at all, never, never!’ And he let Him out into the
dark alleys of the town. The Prisoner went away.”
“And the old man?”
“The kiss glows in his heart, but the old man adheres to his idea.”
“And you with him, you too?” cried Alyosha, mournfully.
Ivan laughed.
“Why, it’s all nonsense, Alyosha. It’s only a senseless poem of a
senseless student, who could never write two lines of verse. Why do you
take it so seriously? Surely you don’t suppose I am going straight off to
the Jesuits, to join the men who are correcting His work? Good Lord, it’s
no business of mine. I told you, all I want is to live on to thirty, and
then ... dash the cup to the ground!”
“But the little sticky leaves, and the precious tombs, and the blue sky,
and the woman you love! How will you live, how will you love them?”
Alyosha cried sorrowfully. “With such a hell in your heart and your head,
how can you? No, that’s just what you are going away for, to join them ...
if not, you will kill yourself, you can’t endure it!”
“There is a strength to endure everything,” Ivan said with a cold smile.
“What strength?”
“The strength of the Karamazovs—the strength of the Karamazov baseness.”
“To sink into debauchery, to stifle your soul with corruption, yes?”
“Possibly even that ... only perhaps till I am thirty I shall escape it,
and then—”
“How will you escape it? By what will you escape it? That’s impossible
with your ideas.”
“In the Karamazov way, again.”
“ ‘Everything is lawful,’ you mean? Everything is lawful, is that it?”
Ivan scowled, and all at once turned strangely pale.
“Ah, you’ve caught up yesterday’s phrase, which so offended Miüsov—and
which Dmitri pounced upon so naïvely, and paraphrased!” he smiled queerly.
“Yes, if you like, ‘everything is lawful’ since the word has been said. I
won’t deny it. And Mitya’s version isn’t bad.”
Alyosha looked at him in silence.
“I thought that going away from here I have you at least,” Ivan said
suddenly, with unexpected feeling; “but now I see that there is no place
for me even in your heart, my dear hermit. The formula, ‘all is lawful,’ I
won’t renounce—will you renounce me for that, yes?”
Alyosha got up, went to him and softly kissed him on the lips.
“That’s plagiarism,” cried Ivan, highly delighted. “You stole that from my
poem. Thank you though. Get up, Alyosha, it’s time we were going, both of
us.”
They went out, but stopped when they reached the entrance of the
restaurant.
“Listen, Alyosha,” Ivan began in a resolute voice, “if I am really able to
care for the sticky little leaves I shall only love them, remembering you.
It’s enough for me that you are somewhere here, and I shan’t lose my
desire for life yet. Is that enough for you? Take it as a declaration of
love if you like. And now you go to the right and I to the left. And it’s
enough, do you hear, enough. I mean even if I don’t go away to‐morrow (I
think I certainly shall go) and we meet again, don’t say a word more on
these subjects. I beg that particularly. And about Dmitri too, I ask you
specially, never speak to me again,” he added, with sudden irritation;
“it’s all exhausted, it has all been said over and over again, hasn’t it?
And I’ll make you one promise in return for it. When at thirty, I want to
‘dash the cup to the ground,’ wherever I may be I’ll come to have one more
talk with you, even though it were from America, you may be sure of that.
I’ll come on purpose. It will be very interesting to have a look at you,
to see what you’ll be by that time. It’s rather a solemn promise, you see.
And we really may be parting for seven years or ten. Come, go now to your
Pater Seraphicus, he is dying. If he dies without you, you will be angry
with me for having kept you. Good‐by, kiss me once more; that’s right, now
go.”
Ivan turned suddenly and went his way without looking back. It was just as
Dmitri had left Alyosha the day before, though the parting had been very
different. The strange resemblance flashed like an arrow through Alyosha’s
mind in the distress and dejection of that moment. He waited a little,
looking after his brother. He suddenly noticed that Ivan swayed as he
walked and that his right shoulder looked lower than his left. He had
never noticed it before. But all at once he turned too, and almost ran to
the monastery. It was nearly dark, and he felt almost frightened;
something new was growing up in him for which he could not account. The
wind had risen again as on the previous evening, and the ancient pines
murmured gloomily about him when he entered the hermitage copse. He almost
ran. “Pater Seraphicus—he got that name from somewhere—where from?”
Alyosha wondered. “Ivan, poor Ivan, and when shall I see you again?...
Here is the hermitage. Yes, yes, that he is, Pater Seraphicus, he will
save me—from him and for ever!”
Several times afterwards he wondered how he could on leaving Ivan so
completely forget his brother Dmitri, though he had that morning, only a
few hours before, so firmly resolved to find him and not to give up doing
so, even should he be unable to return to the monastery that night.
Chapter VI. For Awhile A Very Obscure One
And Ivan, on parting from Alyosha, went home to Fyodor Pavlovitch’s house.
But, strange to say, he was overcome by insufferable depression, which
grew greater at every step he took towards the house. There was nothing
strange in his being depressed; what was strange was that Ivan could not
have said what was the cause of it. He had often been depressed before,
and there was nothing surprising at his feeling so at such a moment, when
he had broken off with everything that had brought him here, and was
preparing that day to make a new start and enter upon a new, unknown
future. He would again be as solitary as ever, and though he had great
hopes, and great—too great—expectations from life, he could not have given
any definite account of his hopes, his expectations, or even his desires.
Yet at that moment, though the apprehension of the new and unknown
certainly found place in his heart, what was worrying him was something
quite different. “Is it loathing for my father’s house?” he wondered.
“Quite likely; I am so sick of it; and though it’s the last time I shall
cross its hateful threshold, still I loathe it.... No, it’s not that
either. Is it the parting with Alyosha and the conversation I had with
him? For so many years I’ve been silent with the whole world and not
deigned to speak, and all of a sudden I reel off a rigmarole like that.”
It certainly might have been the youthful vexation of youthful
inexperience and vanity—vexation at having failed to express himself,
especially with such a being as Alyosha, on whom his heart had certainly
been reckoning. No doubt that came in, that vexation, it must have done
indeed; but yet that was not it, that was not it either. “I feel sick with
depression and yet I can’t tell what I want. Better not think, perhaps.”
Ivan tried “not to think,” but that, too, was no use. What made his
depression so vexatious and irritating was that it had a kind of casual,
external character—he felt that. Some person or thing seemed to be
standing out somewhere, just as something will sometimes obtrude itself
upon the eye, and though one may be so busy with work or conversation that
for a long time one does not notice it, yet it irritates and almost
torments one till at last one realizes, and removes the offending object,
often quite a trifling and ridiculous one—some article left about in the
wrong place, a handkerchief on the floor, a book not replaced on the
shelf, and so on.
At last, feeling very cross and ill‐humored, Ivan arrived home, and
suddenly, about fifteen paces from the garden gate, he guessed what was
fretting and worrying him.
On a bench in the gateway the valet Smerdyakov was sitting enjoying the
coolness of the evening, and at the first glance at him Ivan knew that the
valet Smerdyakov was on his mind, and that it was this man that his soul
loathed. It all dawned upon him suddenly and became clear. Just before,
when Alyosha had been telling him of his meeting with Smerdyakov, he had
felt a sudden twinge of gloom and loathing, which had immediately stirred
responsive anger in his heart. Afterwards, as he talked, Smerdyakov had
been forgotten for the time; but still he had been in his mind, and as
soon as Ivan parted with Alyosha and was walking home, the forgotten
sensation began to obtrude itself again. “Is it possible that a miserable,
contemptible creature like that can worry me so much?” he wondered, with
insufferable irritation.
It was true that Ivan had come of late to feel an intense dislike for the
man, especially during the last few days. He had even begun to notice in
himself a growing feeling that was almost of hatred for the creature.
Perhaps this hatred was accentuated by the fact that when Ivan first came
to the neighborhood he had felt quite differently. Then he had taken a
marked interest in Smerdyakov, and had even thought him very original. He
had encouraged him to talk to him, although he had always wondered at a
certain incoherence, or rather restlessness, in his mind, and could not
understand what it was that so continually and insistently worked upon the
brain of “the contemplative.” They discussed philosophical questions and
even how there could have been light on the first day when the sun, moon,
and stars were only created on the fourth day, and how that was to be
understood. But Ivan soon saw that, though the sun, moon, and stars might
be an interesting subject, yet that it was quite secondary to Smerdyakov,
and that he was looking for something altogether different. In one way and
another, he began to betray a boundless vanity, and a wounded vanity, too,
and that Ivan disliked. It had first given rise to his aversion. Later on,
there had been trouble in the house. Grushenka had come on the scene, and
there had been the scandals with his brother Dmitri—they discussed that,
too. But though Smerdyakov always talked of that with great excitement, it
was impossible to discover what he desired to come of it. There was, in
fact, something surprising in the illogicality and incoherence of some of
his desires, accidentally betrayed and always vaguely expressed.
Smerdyakov was always inquiring, putting certain indirect but obviously
premeditated questions, but what his object was he did not explain, and
usually at the most important moment he would break off and relapse into
silence or pass to another subject. But what finally irritated Ivan most
and confirmed his dislike for him was the peculiar, revolting familiarity
which Smerdyakov began to show more and more markedly. Not that he forgot
himself and was rude; on the contrary, he always spoke very respectfully,
yet he had obviously begun to consider—goodness knows why!—that there was
some sort of understanding between him and Ivan Fyodorovitch. He always
spoke in a tone that suggested that those two had some kind of compact,
some secret between them, that had at some time been expressed on both
sides, only known to them and beyond the comprehension of those around
them. But for a long while Ivan did not recognize the real cause of his
growing dislike and he had only lately realized what was at the root of
it.
With a feeling of disgust and irritation he tried to pass in at the gate
without speaking or looking at Smerdyakov. But Smerdyakov rose from the
bench, and from that action alone, Ivan knew instantly that he wanted
particularly to talk to him. Ivan looked at him and stopped, and the fact
that he did stop, instead of passing by, as he meant to the minute before,
drove him to fury. With anger and repulsion he looked at Smerdyakov’s
emasculate, sickly face, with the little curls combed forward on his
forehead. His left eye winked and he grinned as if to say, “Where are you
going? You won’t pass by; you see that we two clever people have something
to say to each other.”
Ivan shook. “Get away, miserable idiot. What have I to do with you?” was
on the tip of his tongue, but to his profound astonishment he heard
himself say, “Is my father still asleep, or has he waked?”
He asked the question softly and meekly, to his own surprise, and at once,
again to his own surprise, sat down on the bench. For an instant he felt
almost frightened; he remembered it afterwards. Smerdyakov stood facing
him, his hands behind his back, looking at him with assurance and almost
severity.
“His honor is still asleep,” he articulated deliberately (“You were the
first to speak, not I,” he seemed to say). “I am surprised at you, sir,”
he added, after a pause, dropping his eyes affectedly, setting his right
foot forward, and playing with the tip of his polished boot.
“Why are you surprised at me?” Ivan asked abruptly and sullenly, doing his
utmost to restrain himself, and suddenly realizing, with disgust, that he
was feeling intense curiosity and would not, on any account, have gone
away without satisfying it.
“Why don’t you go to Tchermashnya, sir?” Smerdyakov suddenly raised his
eyes and smiled familiarly. “Why I smile you must understand of yourself,
if you are a clever man,” his screwed‐up left eye seemed to say.
“Why should I go to Tchermashnya?” Ivan asked in surprise.
Smerdyakov was silent again.
“Fyodor Pavlovitch himself has so begged you to,” he said at last, slowly
and apparently attaching no significance to his answer. “I put you off
with a secondary reason,” he seemed to suggest, “simply to say something.”
“Damn you! Speak out what you want!” Ivan cried angrily at last, passing
from meekness to violence.
Smerdyakov drew his right foot up to his left, pulled himself up, but
still looked at him with the same serenity and the same little smile.
“Substantially nothing—but just by way of conversation.”
Another silence followed. They did not speak for nearly a minute. Ivan
knew that he ought to get up and show anger, and Smerdyakov stood before
him and seemed to be waiting as though to see whether he would be angry or
not. So at least it seemed to Ivan. At last he moved to get up. Smerdyakov
seemed to seize the moment.
“I’m in an awful position, Ivan Fyodorovitch. I don’t know how to help
myself,” he said resolutely and distinctly, and at his last word he
sighed. Ivan Fyodorovitch sat down again.
“They are both utterly crazy, they are no better than little children,”
Smerdyakov went on. “I am speaking of your parent and your brother Dmitri
Fyodorovitch. Here Fyodor Pavlovitch will get up directly and begin
worrying me every minute, ‘Has she come? Why hasn’t she come?’ and so on
up till midnight and even after midnight. And if Agrafena Alexandrovna
doesn’t come (for very likely she does not mean to come at all) then he
will be at me again to‐morrow morning, ‘Why hasn’t she come? When will she
come?’—as though I were to blame for it. On the other side it’s no better.
As soon as it gets dark, or even before, your brother will appear with his
gun in his hands: ‘Look out, you rogue, you soup‐maker. If you miss her
and don’t let me know she’s been—I’ll kill you before any one.’ When the
night’s over, in the morning, he, too, like Fyodor Pavlovitch, begins
worrying me to death. ‘Why hasn’t she come? Will she come soon?’ And he,
too, thinks me to blame because his lady hasn’t come. And every day and
every hour they get angrier and angrier, so that I sometimes think I shall
kill myself in a fright. I can’t depend upon them, sir.”
“And why have you meddled? Why did you begin to spy for Dmitri
Fyodorovitch?” said Ivan irritably.
“How could I help meddling? Though, indeed, I haven’t meddled at all, if
you want to know the truth of the matter. I kept quiet from the very
beginning, not daring to answer; but he pitched on me to be his servant.
He has had only one thing to say since: ‘I’ll kill you, you scoundrel, if
you miss her,’ I feel certain, sir, that I shall have a long fit to‐
morrow.”
“What do you mean by ‘a long fit’?”
“A long fit, lasting a long time—several hours, or perhaps a day or two.
Once it went on for three days. I fell from the garret that time. The
struggling ceased and then began again, and for three days I couldn’t come
back to my senses. Fyodor Pavlovitch sent for Herzenstube, the doctor
here, and he put ice on my head and tried another remedy, too.... I might
have died.”
“But they say one can’t tell with epilepsy when a fit is coming. What
makes you say you will have one to‐morrow?” Ivan inquired, with a
peculiar, irritable curiosity.
“That’s just so. You can’t tell beforehand.”
“Besides, you fell from the garret then.”
“I climb up to the garret every day. I might fall from the garret again
to‐morrow. And, if not, I might fall down the cellar steps. I have to go
into the cellar every day, too.”
Ivan took a long look at him.
“You are talking nonsense, I see, and I don’t quite understand you,” he
said softly, but with a sort of menace. “Do you mean to pretend to be ill
to‐morrow for three days, eh?”
Smerdyakov, who was looking at the ground again, and playing with the toe
of his right foot, set the foot down, moved the left one forward, and,
grinning, articulated:
“If I were able to play such a trick, that is, pretend to have a fit—and
it would not be difficult for a man accustomed to them—I should have a
perfect right to use such a means to save myself from death. For even if
Agrafena Alexandrovna comes to see his father while I am ill, his honor
can’t blame a sick man for not telling him. He’d be ashamed to.”
“Hang it all!” Ivan cried, his face working with anger, “why are you
always in such a funk for your life? All my brother Dmitri’s threats are
only hasty words and mean nothing. He won’t kill you; it’s not you he’ll
kill!”
“He’d kill me first of all, like a fly. But even more than that, I am
afraid I shall be taken for an accomplice of his when he does something
crazy to his father.”
“Why should you be taken for an accomplice?”
“They’ll think I am an accomplice, because I let him know the signals as a
great secret.”
“What signals? Whom did you tell? Confound you, speak more plainly.”
“I’m bound to admit the fact,” Smerdyakov drawled with pedantic composure,
“that I have a secret with Fyodor Pavlovitch in this business. As you know
yourself (if only you do know it) he has for several days past locked
himself in as soon as night or even evening comes on. Of late you’ve been
going upstairs to your room early every evening, and yesterday you did not
come down at all, and so perhaps you don’t know how carefully he has begun
to lock himself in at night, and even if Grigory Vassilyevitch comes to
the door he won’t open to him till he hears his voice. But Grigory
Vassilyevitch does not come, because I wait upon him alone in his room
now. That’s the arrangement he made himself ever since this to‐do with
Agrafena Alexandrovna began. But at night, by his orders, I go away to the
lodge so that I don’t get to sleep till midnight, but am on the watch,
getting up and walking about the yard, waiting for Agrafena Alexandrovna
to come. For the last few days he’s been perfectly frantic expecting her.
What he argues is, she is afraid of him, Dmitri Fyodorovitch (Mitya, as he
calls him), ‘and so,’ says he, ‘she’ll come the back‐way, late at night,
to me. You look out for her,’ says he, ‘till midnight and later; and if
she does come, you run up and knock at my door or at the window from the
garden. Knock at first twice, rather gently, and then three times more
quickly, then,’ says he, ‘I shall understand at once that she has come,
and will open the door to you quietly.’ Another signal he gave me in case
anything unexpected happens. At first, two knocks, and then, after an
interval, another much louder. Then he will understand that something has
happened suddenly and that I must see him, and he will open to me so that
I can go and speak to him. That’s all in case Agrafena Alexandrovna can’t
come herself, but sends a message. Besides, Dmitri Fyodorovitch might
come, too, so I must let him know he is near. His honor is awfully afraid
of Dmitri Fyodorovitch, so that even if Agrafena Alexandrovna had come and
were locked in with him, and Dmitri Fyodorovitch were to turn up anywhere
near at the time, I should be bound to let him know at once, knocking
three times. So that the first signal of five knocks means Agrafena
Alexandrovna has come, while the second signal of three knocks means
‘something important to tell you.’ His honor has shown me them several
times and explained them. And as in the whole universe no one knows of
these signals but myself and his honor, so he’d open the door without the
slightest hesitation and without calling out (he is awfully afraid of
calling out aloud). Well, those signals are known to Dmitri Fyodorovitch
too, now.”
“How are they known? Did you tell him? How dared you tell him?”
“It was through fright I did it. How could I dare to keep it back from
him? Dmitri Fyodorovitch kept persisting every day, ‘You are deceiving me,
you are hiding something from me! I’ll break both your legs for you.’ So I
told him those secret signals that he might see my slavish devotion, and
might be satisfied that I was not deceiving him, but was telling him all I
could.”
“If you think that he’ll make use of those signals and try to get in,
don’t let him in.”
“But if I should be laid up with a fit, how can I prevent him coming in
then, even if I dared prevent him, knowing how desperate he is?”
“Hang it! How can you be so sure you are going to have a fit, confound
you? Are you laughing at me?”
“How could I dare laugh at you? I am in no laughing humor with this fear
on me. I feel I am going to have a fit. I have a presentiment. Fright
alone will bring it on.”
“Confound it! If you are laid up, Grigory will be on the watch. Let
Grigory know beforehand; he will be sure not to let him in.”
“I should never dare to tell Grigory Vassilyevitch about the signals
without orders from my master. And as for Grigory Vassilyevitch hearing
him and not admitting him, he has been ill ever since yesterday, and Marfa
Ignatyevna intends to give him medicine to‐morrow. They’ve just arranged
it. It’s a very strange remedy of hers. Marfa Ignatyevna knows of a
preparation and always keeps it. It’s a strong thing made from some herb.
She has the secret of it, and she always gives it to Grigory Vassilyevitch
three times a year when his lumbago’s so bad he is almost paralyzed by it.
Then she takes a towel, wets it with the stuff, and rubs his whole back
for half an hour till it’s quite red and swollen, and what’s left in the
bottle she gives him to drink with a special prayer; but not quite all,
for on such occasions she leaves some for herself, and drinks it herself.
And as they never take strong drink, I assure you they both drop asleep at
once and sleep sound a very long time. And when Grigory Vassilyevitch
wakes up he is perfectly well after it, but Marfa Ignatyevna always has a
headache from it. So, if Marfa Ignatyevna carries out her intention to‐
morrow, they won’t hear anything and hinder Dmitri Fyodorovitch. They’ll
be asleep.”
“What a rigmarole! And it all seems to happen at once, as though it were
planned. You’ll have a fit and they’ll both be unconscious,” cried Ivan.
“But aren’t you trying to arrange it so?” broke from him suddenly, and he
frowned threateningly.
“How could I?... And why should I, when it all depends on Dmitri
Fyodorovitch and his plans?... If he means to do anything, he’ll do it;
but if not, I shan’t be thrusting him upon his father.”
“And why should he go to father, especially on the sly, if, as you say
yourself, Agrafena Alexandrovna won’t come at all?” Ivan went on, turning
white with anger. “You say that yourself, and all the while I’ve been
here, I’ve felt sure it was all the old man’s fancy, and the creature
won’t come to him. Why should Dmitri break in on him if she doesn’t come?
Speak, I want to know what you are thinking!”
“You know yourself why he’ll come. What’s the use of what I think? His
honor will come simply because he is in a rage or suspicious on account of
my illness perhaps, and he’ll dash in, as he did yesterday through
impatience to search the rooms, to see whether she hasn’t escaped him on
the sly. He is perfectly well aware, too, that Fyodor Pavlovitch has a big
envelope with three thousand roubles in it, tied up with ribbon and sealed
with three seals. On it is written in his own hand, ‘To my angel
Grushenka, if she will come,’ to which he added three days later, ‘for my
little chicken.’ There’s no knowing what that might do.”
“Nonsense!” cried Ivan, almost beside himself. “Dmitri won’t come to steal
money and kill my father to do it. He might have killed him yesterday on
account of Grushenka, like the frantic, savage fool he is, but he won’t
steal.”
“He is in very great need of money now—the greatest need, Ivan
Fyodorovitch. You don’t know in what need he is,” Smerdyakov explained,
with perfect composure and remarkable distinctness. “He looks on that
three thousand as his own, too. He said so to me himself. ‘My father still
owes me just three thousand,’ he said. And besides that, consider, Ivan
Fyodorovitch, there is something else perfectly true. It’s as good as
certain, so to say, that Agrafena Alexandrovna will force him, if only she
cares to, to marry her—the master himself, I mean, Fyodor Pavlovitch—if
only she cares to, and of course she may care to. All I’ve said is that
she won’t come, but maybe she’s looking for more than that—I mean to be
mistress here. I know myself that Samsonov, her merchant, was laughing
with her about it, telling her quite openly that it would not be at all a
stupid thing to do. And she’s got plenty of sense. She wouldn’t marry a
beggar like Dmitri Fyodorovitch. So, taking that into consideration, Ivan
Fyodorovitch, reflect that then neither Dmitri Fyodorovitch nor yourself
and your brother, Alexey Fyodorovitch, would have anything after the
master’s death, not a rouble, for Agrafena Alexandrovna would marry him
simply to get hold of the whole, all the money there is. But if your
father were to die now, there’d be some forty thousand for sure, even for
Dmitri Fyodorovitch whom he hates so, for he’s made no will.... Dmitri
Fyodorovitch knows all that very well.”
A sort of shudder passed over Ivan’s face. He suddenly flushed.
“Then why on earth,” he suddenly interrupted Smerdyakov, “do you advise me
to go to Tchermashnya? What did you mean by that? If I go away, you see
what will happen here.” Ivan drew his breath with difficulty.
“Precisely so,” said Smerdyakov, softly and reasonably, watching Ivan
intently, however.
“What do you mean by ‘precisely so’?” Ivan questioned him, with a menacing
light in his eyes, restraining himself with difficulty.
“I spoke because I felt sorry for you. If I were in your place I should
simply throw it all up ... rather than stay on in such a position,”
answered Smerdyakov, with the most candid air looking at Ivan’s flashing
eyes. They were both silent.
“You seem to be a perfect idiot, and what’s more ... an awful scoundrel,
too.” Ivan rose suddenly from the bench. He was about to pass straight
through the gate, but he stopped short and turned to Smerdyakov. Something
strange followed. Ivan, in a sudden paroxysm, bit his lip, clenched his
fists, and, in another minute, would have flung himself on Smerdyakov. The
latter, anyway, noticed it at the same moment, started, and shrank back.
But the moment passed without mischief to Smerdyakov, and Ivan turned in
silence, as it seemed in perplexity, to the gate.
“I am going away to Moscow to‐morrow, if you care to know—early to‐morrow
morning. That’s all!” he suddenly said aloud angrily, and wondered himself
afterwards what need there was to say this then to Smerdyakov.
“That’s the best thing you can do,” he responded, as though he had
expected to hear it; “except that you can always be telegraphed for from
Moscow, if anything should happen here.”
Ivan stopped again, and again turned quickly to Smerdyakov. But a change
had passed over him, too. All his familiarity and carelessness had
completely disappeared. His face expressed attention and expectation,
intent but timid and cringing.
“Haven’t you something more to say—something to add?” could be read in the
intent gaze he fixed on Ivan.
“And couldn’t I be sent for from Tchermashnya, too—in case anything
happened?” Ivan shouted suddenly, for some unknown reason raising his
voice.
“From Tchermashnya, too ... you could be sent for,” Smerdyakov muttered,
almost in a whisper, looking disconcerted, but gazing intently into Ivan’s
eyes.
“Only Moscow is farther and Tchermashnya is nearer. Is it to save my
spending money on the fare, or to save my going so far out of my way, that
you insist on Tchermashnya?”
“Precisely so ...” muttered Smerdyakov, with a breaking voice. He looked
at Ivan with a revolting smile, and again made ready to draw back. But to
his astonishment Ivan broke into a laugh, and went through the gate still
laughing. Any one who had seen his face at that moment would have known
that he was not laughing from lightness of heart, and he could not have
explained himself what he was feeling at that instant. He moved and walked
as though in a nervous frenzy.
Chapter VII. “It’s Always Worth While Speaking To A Clever Man”
And in the same nervous frenzy, too, he spoke. Meeting Fyodor Pavlovitch
in the drawing‐room directly he went in, he shouted to him, waving his
hands, “I am going upstairs to my room, not in to you. Good‐by!” and
passed by, trying not even to look at his father. Very possibly the old
man was too hateful to him at that moment; but such an unceremonious
display of hostility was a surprise even to Fyodor Pavlovitch. And the old
man evidently wanted to tell him something at once and had come to meet
him in the drawing‐room on purpose. Receiving this amiable greeting, he
stood still in silence and with an ironical air watched his son going
upstairs, till he passed out of sight.
“What’s the matter with him?” he promptly asked Smerdyakov, who had
followed Ivan.
“Angry about something. Who can tell?” the valet muttered evasively.
“Confound him! Let him be angry then. Bring in the samovar, and get along
with you. Look sharp! No news?”
Then followed a series of questions such as Smerdyakov had just complained
of to Ivan, all relating to his expected visitor, and these questions we
will omit. Half an hour later the house was locked, and the crazy old man
was wandering along through the rooms in excited expectation of hearing
every minute the five knocks agreed upon. Now and then he peered out into
the darkness, seeing nothing.
It was very late, but Ivan was still awake and reflecting. He sat up late
that night, till two o’clock. But we will not give an account of his
thoughts, and this is not the place to look into that soul—its turn will
come. And even if one tried, it would be very hard to give an account of
them, for there were no thoughts in his brain, but something very vague,
and, above all, intense excitement. He felt himself that he had lost his
bearings. He was fretted, too, by all sorts of strange and almost
surprising desires; for instance, after midnight he suddenly had an
intense irresistible inclination to go down, open the door, go to the
lodge and beat Smerdyakov. But if he had been asked why, he could not have
given any exact reason, except perhaps that he loathed the valet as one
who had insulted him more gravely than any one in the world. On the other
hand, he was more than once that night overcome by a sort of inexplicable
humiliating terror, which he felt positively paralyzed his physical
powers. His head ached and he was giddy. A feeling of hatred was rankling
in his heart, as though he meant to avenge himself on some one. He even
hated Alyosha, recalling the conversation he had just had with him. At
moments he hated himself intensely. Of Katerina Ivanovna he almost forgot
to think, and wondered greatly at this afterwards, especially as he
remembered perfectly that when he had protested so valiantly to Katerina
Ivanovna that he would go away next day to Moscow, something had whispered
in his heart, “That’s nonsense, you are not going, and it won’t be so easy
to tear yourself away as you are boasting now.”
Remembering that night long afterwards, Ivan recalled with peculiar
repulsion how he had suddenly got up from the sofa and had stealthily, as
though he were afraid of being watched, opened the door, gone out on the
staircase and listened to Fyodor Pavlovitch stirring down below, had
listened a long while—some five minutes—with a sort of strange curiosity,
holding his breath while his heart throbbed. And why he had done all this,
why he was listening, he could not have said. That “action” all his life
afterwards he called “infamous,” and at the bottom of his heart, he
thought of it as the basest action of his life. For Fyodor Pavlovitch
himself he felt no hatred at that moment, but was simply intensely curious
to know how he was walking down there below and what he must be doing now.
He wondered and imagined how he must be peeping out of the dark windows
and stopping in the middle of the room, listening, listening—for some one
to knock. Ivan went out on to the stairs twice to listen like this.
About two o’clock when everything was quiet, and even Fyodor Pavlovitch
had gone to bed, Ivan had got into bed, firmly resolved to fall asleep at
once, as he felt fearfully exhausted. And he did fall asleep at once, and
slept soundly without dreams, but waked early, at seven o’clock, when it
was broad daylight. Opening his eyes, he was surprised to feel himself
extraordinarily vigorous. He jumped up at once and dressed quickly; then
dragged out his trunk and began packing immediately. His linen had come
back from the laundress the previous morning. Ivan positively smiled at
the thought that everything was helping his sudden departure. And his
departure certainly was sudden. Though Ivan had said the day before (to
Katerina Ivanovna, Alyosha, and Smerdyakov) that he was leaving next day,
yet he remembered that he had no thought of departure when he went to bed,
or, at least, had not dreamed that his first act in the morning would be
to pack his trunk. At last his trunk and bag were ready. It was about nine
o’clock when Marfa Ignatyevna came in with her usual inquiry, “Where will
your honor take your tea, in your own room or downstairs?” He looked
almost cheerful, but there was about him, about his words and gestures,
something hurried and scattered. Greeting his father affably, and even
inquiring specially after his health, though he did not wait to hear his
answer to the end, he announced that he was starting off in an hour to
return to Moscow for good, and begged him to send for the horses. His
father heard this announcement with no sign of surprise, and forgot in an
unmannerly way to show regret at losing him. Instead of doing so, he flew
into a great flutter at the recollection of some important business of his
own.
“What a fellow you are! Not to tell me yesterday! Never mind; we’ll manage
it all the same. Do me a great service, my dear boy. Go to Tchermashnya on
the way. It’s only to turn to the left from the station at Volovya, only
another twelve versts and you come to Tchermashnya.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t. It’s eighty versts to the railway and the train
starts for Moscow at seven o’clock to‐night. I can only just catch it.”
“You’ll catch it to‐morrow or the day after, but to‐day turn off to
Tchermashnya. It won’t put you out much to humor your father! If I hadn’t
had something to keep me here, I would have run over myself long ago, for
I’ve some business there in a hurry. But here I ... it’s not the time for
me to go now.... You see, I’ve two pieces of copse land there. The
Maslovs, an old merchant and his son, will give eight thousand for the
timber. But last year I just missed a purchaser who would have given
twelve. There’s no getting any one about here to buy it. The Maslovs have
it all their own way. One has to take what they’ll give, for no one here
dare bid against them. The priest at Ilyinskoe wrote to me last Thursday
that a merchant called Gorstkin, a man I know, had turned up. What makes
him valuable is that he is not from these parts, so he is not afraid of
the Maslovs. He says he will give me eleven thousand for the copse. Do you
hear? But he’ll only be here, the priest writes, for a week altogether, so
you must go at once and make a bargain with him.”
“Well, you write to the priest; he’ll make the bargain.”
“He can’t do it. He has no eye for business. He is a perfect treasure, I’d
give him twenty thousand to take care of for me without a receipt; but he
has no eye for business, he is a perfect child, a crow could deceive him.
And yet he is a learned man, would you believe it? This Gorstkin looks
like a peasant, he wears a blue kaftan, but he is a regular rogue. That’s
the common complaint. He is a liar. Sometimes he tells such lies that you
wonder why he is doing it. He told me the year before last that his wife
was dead and that he had married another, and would you believe it, there
was not a word of truth in it? His wife has never died at all, she is
alive to this day and gives him a beating twice a week. So what you have
to find out is whether he is lying or speaking the truth, when he says he
wants to buy it and would give eleven thousand.”
“I shall be no use in such a business. I have no eye either.”
“Stay, wait a bit! You will be of use, for I will tell you the signs by
which you can judge about Gorstkin. I’ve done business with him a long
time. You see, you must watch his beard; he has a nasty, thin, red beard.
If his beard shakes when he talks and he gets cross, it’s all right, he is
saying what he means, he wants to do business. But if he strokes his beard
with his left hand and grins—he is trying to cheat you. Don’t watch his
eyes, you won’t find out anything from his eyes, he is a deep one, a
rogue—but watch his beard! I’ll give you a note and you show it to him.
He’s called Gorstkin, though his real name is Lyagavy(4); but don’t call
him so, he will be offended. If you come to an understanding with him, and
see it’s all right, write here at once. You need only write: ‘He’s not
lying.’ Stand out for eleven thousand; one thousand you can knock off, but
not more. Just think! there’s a difference between eight thousand and
eleven thousand. It’s as good as picking up three thousand; it’s not so
easy to find a purchaser, and I’m in desperate need of money. Only let me
know it’s serious, and I’ll run over and fix it up. I’ll snatch the time
somehow. But what’s the good of my galloping over, if it’s all a notion of
the priest’s? Come, will you go?”
“Oh, I can’t spare the time. You must excuse me.”
“Come, you might oblige your father. I shan’t forget it. You’ve no heart,
any of you—that’s what it is? What’s a day or two to you? Where are you
going now—to Venice? Your Venice will keep another two days. I would have
sent Alyosha, but what use is Alyosha in a thing like that? I send you
just because you are a clever fellow. Do you suppose I don’t see that? You
know nothing about timber, but you’ve got an eye. All that is wanted is to
see whether the man is in earnest. I tell you, watch his beard—if his
beard shakes you know he is in earnest.”
“You force me to go to that damned Tchermashnya yourself, then?” cried
Ivan, with a malignant smile.
Fyodor Pavlovitch did not catch, or would not catch, the malignancy, but
he caught the smile.
“Then you’ll go, you’ll go? I’ll scribble the note for you at once.”
“I don’t know whether I shall go. I don’t know. I’ll decide on the way.”
“Nonsense! Decide at once. My dear fellow, decide! If you settle the
matter, write me a line; give it to the priest and he’ll send it on to me
at once. And I won’t delay you more than that. You can go to Venice. The
priest will give you horses back to Volovya station.”
The old man was quite delighted. He wrote the note, and sent for the
horses. A light lunch was brought in, with brandy. When Fyodor Pavlovitch
was pleased, he usually became expansive, but to‐day he seemed to restrain
himself. Of Dmitri, for instance, he did not say a word. He was quite
unmoved by the parting, and seemed, in fact, at a loss for something to
say. Ivan noticed this particularly. “He must be bored with me,” he
thought. Only when accompanying his son out on to the steps, the old man
began to fuss about. He would have kissed him, but Ivan made haste to hold
out his hand, obviously avoiding the kiss. His father saw it at once, and
instantly pulled himself up.
“Well, good luck to you, good luck to you!” he repeated from the steps.
“You’ll come again some time or other? Mind you do come. I shall always be
glad to see you. Well, Christ be with you!”
Ivan got into the carriage.
“Good‐by, Ivan! Don’t be too hard on me!” the father called for the last
time.
The whole household came out to take leave—Smerdyakov, Marfa and Grigory.
Ivan gave them ten roubles each. When he had seated himself in the
carriage, Smerdyakov jumped up to arrange the rug.
“You see ... I am going to Tchermashnya,” broke suddenly from Ivan. Again,
as the day before, the words seemed to drop of themselves, and he laughed,
too, a peculiar, nervous laugh. He remembered it long after.
“It’s a true saying then, that ‘it’s always worth while speaking to a
clever man,’ ” answered Smerdyakov firmly, looking significantly at Ivan.
The carriage rolled away. Nothing was clear in Ivan’s soul, but he looked
eagerly around him at the fields, at the hills, at the trees, at a flock
of geese flying high overhead in the bright sky. And all of a sudden he
felt very happy. He tried to talk to the driver, and he felt intensely
interested in an answer the peasant made him; but a minute later he
realized that he was not catching anything, and that he had not really
even taken in the peasant’s answer. He was silent, and it was pleasant
even so. The air was fresh, pure and cool, the sky bright. The images of
Alyosha and Katerina Ivanovna floated into his mind. But he softly smiled,
blew softly on the friendly phantoms, and they flew away. “There’s plenty
of time for them,” he thought. They reached the station quickly, changed
horses, and galloped to Volovya. “Why is it worth while speaking to a
clever man? What did he mean by that?” The thought seemed suddenly to
clutch at his breathing. “And why did I tell him I was going to
Tchermashnya?” They reached Volovya station. Ivan got out of the carriage,
and the drivers stood round him bargaining over the journey of twelve
versts to Tchermashnya. He told them to harness the horses. He went into
the station house, looked round, glanced at the overseer’s wife, and
suddenly went back to the entrance.
“I won’t go to Tchermashnya. Am I too late to reach the railway by seven,
brothers?”
“We shall just do it. Shall we get the carriage out?”
“At once. Will any one of you be going to the town to‐morrow?”
“To be sure. Mitri here will.”
“Can you do me a service, Mitri? Go to my father’s, to Fyodor Pavlovitch
Karamazov, and tell him I haven’t gone to Tchermashnya. Can you?”
“Of course I can. I’ve known Fyodor Pavlovitch a long time.”
“And here’s something for you, for I dare say he won’t give you anything,”
said Ivan, laughing gayly.
“You may depend on it he won’t.” Mitya laughed too. “Thank you, sir. I’ll
be sure to do it.”
At seven o’clock Ivan got into the train and set off to Moscow “Away with
the past. I’ve done with the old world for ever, and may I have no news,
no echo, from it. To a new life, new places and no looking back!” But
instead of delight his soul was filled with such gloom, and his heart
ached with such anguish, as he had never known in his life before. He was
thinking all the night. The train flew on, and only at daybreak, when he
was approaching Moscow, he suddenly roused himself from his meditation.
“I am a scoundrel,” he whispered to himself.
Fyodor Pavlovitch remained well satisfied at having seen his son off. For
two hours afterwards he felt almost happy, and sat drinking brandy. But
suddenly something happened which was very annoying and unpleasant for
every one in the house, and completely upset Fyodor Pavlovitch’s
equanimity at once. Smerdyakov went to the cellar for something and fell
down from the top of the steps. Fortunately, Marfa Ignatyevna was in the
yard and heard him in time. She did not see the fall, but heard his
scream—the strange, peculiar scream, long familiar to her—the scream of
the epileptic falling in a fit. They could not tell whether the fit had
come on him at the moment he was descending the steps, so that he must
have fallen unconscious, or whether it was the fall and the shock that had
caused the fit in Smerdyakov, who was known to be liable to them. They
found him at the bottom of the cellar steps, writhing in convulsions and
foaming at the mouth. It was thought at first that he must have broken
something—an arm or a leg—and hurt himself, but “God had preserved him,”
as Marfa Ignatyevna expressed it—nothing of the kind had happened. But it
was difficult to get him out of the cellar. They asked the neighbors to
help and managed it somehow. Fyodor Pavlovitch himself was present at the
whole ceremony. He helped, evidently alarmed and upset. The sick man did
not regain consciousness; the convulsions ceased for a time, but then
began again, and every one concluded that the same thing would happen, as
had happened a year before, when he accidentally fell from the garret.
They remembered that ice had been put on his head then. There was still
ice in the cellar, and Marfa Ignatyevna had some brought up. In the
evening, Fyodor Pavlovitch sent for Doctor Herzenstube, who arrived at
once. He was a most estimable old man, and the most careful and
conscientious doctor in the province. After careful examination, he
concluded that the fit was a very violent one and might have serious
consequences; that meanwhile he, Herzenstube, did not fully understand it,
but that by to‐morrow morning, if the present remedies were unavailing, he
would venture to try something else. The invalid was taken to the lodge,
to a room next to Grigory’s and Marfa Ignatyevna’s.
Then Fyodor Pavlovitch had one misfortune after another to put up with
that day. Marfa Ignatyevna cooked the dinner, and the soup, compared with
Smerdyakov’s, was “no better than dish‐water,” and the fowl was so dried
up that it was impossible to masticate it. To her master’s bitter, though
deserved, reproaches, Marfa Ignatyevna replied that the fowl was a very
old one to begin with, and that she had never been trained as a cook. In
the evening there was another trouble in store for Fyodor Pavlovitch; he
was informed that Grigory, who had not been well for the last three days,
was completely laid up by his lumbago. Fyodor Pavlovitch finished his tea
as early as possible and locked himself up alone in the house. He was in
terrible excitement and suspense. That evening he reckoned on Grushenka’s
coming almost as a certainty. He had received from Smerdyakov that morning
an assurance “that she had promised to come without fail.” The
incorrigible old man’s heart throbbed with excitement; he paced up and
down his empty rooms listening. He had to be on the alert. Dmitri might be
on the watch for her somewhere, and when she knocked on the window
(Smerdyakov had informed him two days before that he had told her where
and how to knock) the door must be opened at once. She must not be a
second in the passage, for fear—which God forbid!—that she should be
frightened and run away. Fyodor Pavlovitch had much to think of, but never
had his heart been steeped in such voluptuous hopes. This time he could
say almost certainly that she would come!
Book VI. The Russian Monk
Chapter I. Father Zossima And His Visitors
When with an anxious and aching heart Alyosha went into his elder’s cell,
he stood still almost astonished. Instead of a sick man at his last gasp,
perhaps unconscious, as he had feared to find him, he saw him sitting up
in his chair and, though weak and exhausted, his face was bright and
cheerful, he was surrounded by visitors and engaged in a quiet and joyful
conversation. But he had only got up from his bed a quarter of an hour
before Alyosha’s arrival; his visitors had gathered together in his cell
earlier, waiting for him to wake, having received a most confident
assurance from Father Païssy that “the teacher would get up, and as he had
himself promised in the morning, converse once more with those dear to his
heart.” This promise and indeed every word of the dying elder Father
Païssy put implicit trust in. If he had seen him unconscious, if he had
seen him breathe his last, and yet had his promise that he would rise up
and say good‐by to him, he would not have believed perhaps even in death,
but would still have expected the dead man to recover and fulfill his
promise. In the morning as he lay down to sleep, Father Zossima had told
him positively: “I shall not die without the delight of another
conversation with you, beloved of my heart. I shall look once more on your
dear face and pour out my heart to you once again.” The monks, who had
gathered for this probably last conversation with Father Zossima, had all
been his devoted friends for many years. There were four of them: Father
Iosif and Father Païssy, Father Mihaïl, the warden of the hermitage, a man
not very old and far from being learned. He was of humble origin, of
strong will and steadfast faith, of austere appearance, but of deep
tenderness, though he obviously concealed it as though he were almost
ashamed of it. The fourth, Father Anfim, was a very old and humble little
monk of the poorest peasant class. He was almost illiterate, and very
quiet, scarcely speaking to any one. He was the humblest of the humble,
and looked as though he had been frightened by something great and awful
beyond the scope of his intelligence. Father Zossima had a great affection
for this timorous man, and always treated him with marked respect, though
perhaps there was no one he had known to whom he had said less, in spite
of the fact that he had spent years wandering about holy Russia with him.
That was very long ago, forty years before, when Father Zossima first
began his life as a monk in a poor and little monastery at Kostroma, and
when, shortly after, he had accompanied Father Anfim on his pilgrimage to
collect alms for their poor monastery.
The whole party were in the bedroom which, as we mentioned before, was
very small, so that there was scarcely room for the four of them (in
addition to Porfiry, the novice, who stood) to sit round Father Zossima on
chairs brought from the sitting‐room. It was already beginning to get
dark, the room was lighted up by the lamps and the candles before the
ikons.
Seeing Alyosha standing embarrassed in the doorway, Father Zossima smiled
at him joyfully and held out his hand.
“Welcome, my quiet one, welcome, my dear, here you are too. I knew you
would come.”
Alyosha went up to him, bowed down before him to the ground and wept.
Something surged up from his heart, his soul was quivering, he wanted to
sob.
“Come, don’t weep over me yet,” Father Zossima smiled, laying his right
hand on his head. “You see I am sitting up talking; maybe I shall live
another twenty years yet, as that dear good woman from Vishegorye, with
her little Lizaveta in her arms, wished me yesterday. God bless the mother
and the little girl Lizaveta,” he crossed himself. “Porfiry, did you take
her offering where I told you?”
He meant the sixty copecks brought him the day before by the good‐humored
woman to be given “to some one poorer than me.” Such offerings, always of
money gained by personal toil, are made by way of penance voluntarily
undertaken. The elder had sent Porfiry the evening before to a widow,
whose house had been burnt down lately, and who after the fire had gone
with her children begging alms. Porfiry hastened to reply that he had
given the money, as he had been instructed, “from an unknown
benefactress.”
“Get up, my dear boy,” the elder went on to Alyosha. “Let me look at you.
Have you been home and seen your brother?” It seemed strange to Alyosha
that he asked so confidently and precisely, about one of his brothers
only—but which one? Then perhaps he had sent him out both yesterday and
to‐day for the sake of that brother.
“I have seen one of my brothers,” answered Alyosha.
“I mean the elder one, to whom I bowed down.”
“I only saw him yesterday and could not find him to‐day,” said Alyosha.
“Make haste to find him, go again to‐morrow and make haste, leave
everything and make haste. Perhaps you may still have time to prevent
something terrible. I bowed down yesterday to the great suffering in store
for him.”
He was suddenly silent and seemed to be pondering. The words were strange.
Father Iosif, who had witnessed the scene yesterday, exchanged glances
with Father Païssy. Alyosha could not resist asking:
“Father and teacher,” he began with extreme emotion, “your words are too
obscure.... What is this suffering in store for him?”
“Don’t inquire. I seemed to see something terrible yesterday ... as though
his whole future were expressed in his eyes. A look came into his eyes—so
that I was instantly horror‐stricken at what that man is preparing for
himself. Once or twice in my life I’ve seen such a look in a man’s face
... reflecting as it were his future fate, and that fate, alas, came to
pass. I sent you to him, Alexey, for I thought your brotherly face would
help him. But everything and all our fates are from the Lord. ‘Except a
corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it
die, it bringeth forth much fruit.’ Remember that. You, Alexey, I’ve many
times silently blessed for your face, know that,” added the elder with a
gentle smile. “This is what I think of you, you will go forth from these
walls, but will live like a monk in the world. You will have many enemies,
but even your foes will love you. Life will bring you many misfortunes,
but you will find your happiness in them, and will bless life and will
make others bless it—which is what matters most. Well, that is your
character. Fathers and teachers,” he addressed his friends with a tender
smile, “I have never till to‐day told even him why the face of this youth
is so dear to me. Now I will tell you. His face has been as it were a
remembrance and a prophecy for me. At the dawn of my life when I was a
child I had an elder brother who died before my eyes at seventeen. And
later on in the course of my life I gradually became convinced that that
brother had been for a guidance and a sign from on high for me. For had he
not come into my life, I should never perhaps, so I fancy at least, have
become a monk and entered on this precious path. He appeared first to me
in my childhood, and here, at the end of my pilgrimage, he seems to have
come to me over again. It is marvelous, fathers and teachers, that Alexey,
who has some, though not a great, resemblance in face, seems to me so like
him spiritually, that many times I have taken him for that young man, my
brother, mysteriously come back to me at the end of my pilgrimage, as a
reminder and an inspiration. So that I positively wondered at so strange a
dream in myself. Do you hear this, Porfiry?” he turned to the novice who
waited on him. “Many times I’ve seen in your face as it were a look of
mortification that I love Alexey more than you. Now you know why that was
so, but I love you too, know that, and many times I grieved at your
mortification. I should like to tell you, dear friends, of that youth, my
brother, for there has been no presence in my life more precious, more
significant and touching. My heart is full of tenderness, and I look at my
whole life at this moment as though living through it again.”
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
Here I must observe that this last conversation of Father Zossima with the
friends who visited him on the last day of his life has been partly
preserved in writing. Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov wrote it down from
memory, some time after his elder’s death. But whether this was only the
conversation that took place then, or whether he added to it his notes of
parts of former conversations with his teacher, I cannot determine. In his
account, Father Zossima’s talk goes on without interruption, as though he
told his life to his friends in the form of a story, though there is no
doubt, from other accounts of it, that the conversation that evening was
general. Though the guests did not interrupt Father Zossima much, yet they
too talked, perhaps even told something themselves. Besides, Father
Zossima could not have carried on an uninterrupted narrative, for he was
sometimes gasping for breath, his voice failed him, and he even lay down
to rest on his bed, though he did not fall asleep and his visitors did not
leave their seats. Once or twice the conversation was interrupted by
Father Païssy’s reading the Gospel. It is worthy of note, too, that no one
of them supposed that he would die that night, for on that evening of his
life after his deep sleep in the day he seemed suddenly to have found new
strength, which kept him up through this long conversation. It was like a
last effort of love which gave him marvelous energy; only for a little
time, however, for his life was cut short immediately.... But of that
later. I will only add now that I have preferred to confine myself to the
account given by Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov. It will be shorter and not
so fatiguing, though of course, as I must repeat, Alyosha took a great
deal from previous conversations and added them to it.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
Notes of the Life of the deceased Priest and Monk, the Elder Zossima,
taken from his own words by Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
_(a)_ _Father Zossima’s Brother_
Beloved fathers and teachers, I was born in a distant province in the
north, in the town of V. My father was a gentleman by birth, but of no
great consequence or position. He died when I was only two years old, and
I don’t remember him at all. He left my mother a small house built of
wood, and a fortune, not large, but sufficient to keep her and her
children in comfort. There were two of us, my elder brother Markel and I.
He was eight years older than I was, of hasty irritable temperament, but
kind‐hearted and never ironical. He was remarkably silent, especially at
home with me, his mother, and the servants. He did well at school, but did
not get on with his schoolfellows, though he never quarreled, at least so
my mother has told me. Six months before his death, when he was seventeen,
he made friends with a political exile who had been banished from Moscow
to our town for freethinking, and led a solitary existence there. He was a
good scholar who had gained distinction in philosophy in the university.
Something made him take a fancy to Markel, and he used to ask him to see
him. The young man would spend whole evenings with him during that winter,
till the exile was summoned to Petersburg to take up his post again at his
own request, as he had powerful friends.
It was the beginning of Lent, and Markel would not fast, he was rude and
laughed at it. “That’s all silly twaddle, and there is no God,” he said,
horrifying my mother, the servants, and me too. For though I was only
nine, I too was aghast at hearing such words. We had four servants, all
serfs. I remember my mother selling one of the four, the cook Afimya, who
was lame and elderly, for sixty paper roubles, and hiring a free servant
to take her place.
In the sixth week in Lent, my brother, who was never strong and had a
tendency to consumption, was taken ill. He was tall but thin and delicate‐
looking, and of very pleasing countenance. I suppose he caught cold,
anyway the doctor, who came, soon whispered to my mother that it was
galloping consumption, that he would not live through the spring. My
mother began weeping, and, careful not to alarm my brother, she entreated
him to go to church, to confess and take the sacrament, as he was still
able to move about. This made him angry, and he said something profane
about the church. He grew thoughtful, however; he guessed at once that he
was seriously ill, and that that was why his mother was begging him to
confess and take the sacrament. He had been aware, indeed, for a long time
past, that he was far from well, and had a year before coolly observed at
dinner to our mother and me, “My life won’t be long among you, I may not
live another year,” which seemed now like a prophecy.
Three days passed and Holy Week had come. And on Tuesday morning my
brother began going to church. “I am doing this simply for your sake,
mother, to please and comfort you,” he said. My mother wept with joy and
grief. “His end must be near,” she thought, “if there’s such a change in
him.” But he was not able to go to church long, he took to his bed, so he
had to confess and take the sacrament at home.
It was a late Easter, and the days were bright, fine, and full of
fragrance. I remember he used to cough all night and sleep badly, but in
the morning he dressed and tried to sit up in an arm‐chair. That’s how I
remember him sitting, sweet and gentle, smiling, his face bright and
joyous, in spite of his illness. A marvelous change passed over him, his
spirit seemed transformed. The old nurse would come in and say, “Let me
light the lamp before the holy image, my dear.” And once he would not have
allowed it and would have blown it out.
“Light it, light it, dear, I was a wretch to have prevented you doing it.
You are praying when you light the lamp, and I am praying when I rejoice
seeing you. So we are praying to the same God.”
Those words seemed strange to us, and mother would go to her room and
weep, but when she went in to him she wiped her eyes and looked cheerful.
“Mother, don’t weep, darling,” he would say, “I’ve long to live yet, long
to rejoice with you, and life is glad and joyful.”
“Ah, dear boy, how can you talk of joy when you lie feverish at night,
coughing as though you would tear yourself to pieces.”
“Don’t cry, mother,” he would answer, “life is paradise, and we are all in
paradise, but we won’t see it, if we would, we should have heaven on earth
the next day.”
Every one wondered at his words, he spoke so strangely and positively; we
were all touched and wept. Friends came to see us. “Dear ones,” he would
say to them, “what have I done that you should love me so, how can you
love any one like me, and how was it I did not know, I did not appreciate
it before?”
When the servants came in to him he would say continually, “Dear, kind
people, why are you doing so much for me, do I deserve to be waited on? If
it were God’s will for me to live, I would wait on you, for all men should
wait on one another.”
Mother shook her head as she listened. “My darling, it’s your illness
makes you talk like that.”
“Mother, darling,” he would say, “there must be servants and masters, but
if so I will be the servant of my servants, the same as they are to me.
And another thing, mother, every one of us has sinned against all men, and
I more than any.”
Mother positively smiled at that, smiled through her tears. “Why, how
could you have sinned against all men, more than all? Robbers and
murderers have done that, but what sin have you committed yet, that you
hold yourself more guilty than all?”
“Mother, little heart of mine,” he said (he had begun using such strange
caressing words at that time), “little heart of mine, my joy, believe me,
every one is really responsible to all men for all men and for everything.
I don’t know how to explain it to you, but I feel it is so, painfully
even. And how is it we went on then living, getting angry and not
knowing?”
So he would get up every day, more and more sweet and joyous and full of
love. When the doctor, an old German called Eisenschmidt, came:
“Well, doctor, have I another day in this world?” he would ask, joking.
“You’ll live many days yet,” the doctor would answer, “and months and
years too.”
“Months and years!” he would exclaim. “Why reckon the days? One day is
enough for a man to know all happiness. My dear ones, why do we quarrel,
try to outshine each other and keep grudges against each other? Let’s go
straight into the garden, walk and play there, love, appreciate, and kiss
each other, and glorify life.”
“Your son cannot last long,” the doctor told my mother, as she accompanied
him to the door. “The disease is affecting his brain.”
The windows of his room looked out into the garden, and our garden was a
shady one, with old trees in it which were coming into bud. The first
birds of spring were flitting in the branches, chirruping and singing at
the windows. And looking at them and admiring them, he began suddenly
begging their forgiveness too: “Birds of heaven, happy birds, forgive me,
for I have sinned against you too.” None of us could understand that at
the time, but he shed tears of joy. “Yes,” he said, “there was such a
glory of God all about me: birds, trees, meadows, sky; only I lived in
shame and dishonored it all and did not notice the beauty and glory.”
“You take too many sins on yourself,” mother used to say, weeping.
“Mother, darling, it’s for joy, not for grief I am crying. Though I can’t
explain it to you, I like to humble myself before them, for I don’t know
how to love them enough. If I have sinned against every one, yet all
forgive me, too, and that’s heaven. Am I not in heaven now?”
And there was a great deal more I don’t remember. I remember I went once
into his room when there was no one else there. It was a bright evening,
the sun was setting, and the whole room was lighted up. He beckoned me,
and I went up to him. He put his hands on my shoulders and looked into my
face tenderly, lovingly; he said nothing for a minute, only looked at me
like that.
“Well,” he said, “run and play now, enjoy life for me too.”
I went out then and ran to play. And many times in my life afterwards I
remembered even with tears how he told me to enjoy life for him too. There
were many other marvelous and beautiful sayings of his, though we did not
understand them at the time. He died the third week after Easter. He was
fully conscious though he could not talk; up to his last hour he did not
change. He looked happy, his eyes beamed and sought us, he smiled at us,
beckoned us. There was a great deal of talk even in the town about his
death. I was impressed by all this at the time, but not too much so,
though I cried a good deal at his funeral. I was young then, a child, but
a lasting impression, a hidden feeling of it all, remained in my heart,
ready to rise up and respond when the time came. So indeed it happened.
_(b) Of the Holy Scriptures in the Life of Father Zossima_
I was left alone with my mother. Her friends began advising her to send me
to Petersburg as other parents did. “You have only one son now,” they
said, “and have a fair income, and you will be depriving him perhaps of a
brilliant career if you keep him here.” They suggested I should be sent to
Petersburg to the Cadet Corps, that I might afterwards enter the Imperial
Guard. My mother hesitated for a long time, it was awful to part with her
only child, but she made up her mind to it at last, though not without
many tears, believing she was acting for my happiness. She brought me to
Petersburg and put me into the Cadet Corps, and I never saw her again. For
she too died three years afterwards. She spent those three years mourning
and grieving for both of us.
From the house of my childhood I have brought nothing but precious
memories, for there are no memories more precious than those of early
childhood in one’s first home. And that is almost always so if there is
any love and harmony in the family at all. Indeed, precious memories may
remain even of a bad home, if only the heart knows how to find what is
precious. With my memories of home I count, too, my memories of the Bible,
which, child as I was, I was very eager to read at home. I had a book of
Scripture history then with excellent pictures, called _A Hundred and Four
Stories from the Old and New Testament_, and I learned to read from it. I
have it lying on my shelf now, I keep it as a precious relic of the past.
But even before I learned to read, I remember first being moved to
devotional feeling at eight years old. My mother took me alone to mass (I
don’t remember where my brother was at the time) on the Monday before
Easter. It was a fine day, and I remember to‐day, as though I saw it now,
how the incense rose from the censer and softly floated upwards and,
overhead in the cupola, mingled in rising waves with the sunlight that
streamed in at the little window. I was stirred by the sight, and for the
first time in my life I consciously received the seed of God’s word in my
heart. A youth came out into the middle of the church carrying a big book,
so large that at the time I fancied he could scarcely carry it. He laid it
on the reading desk, opened it, and began reading, and suddenly for the
first time I understood something read in the church of God. In the land
of Uz, there lived a man, righteous and God‐fearing, and he had great
wealth, so many camels, so many sheep and asses, and his children feasted,
and he loved them very much and prayed for them. “It may be that my sons
have sinned in their feasting.” Now the devil came before the Lord
together with the sons of God, and said to the Lord that he had gone up
and down the earth and under the earth. “And hast thou considered my
servant Job?” God asked of him. And God boasted to the devil, pointing to
his great and holy servant. And the devil laughed at God’s words. “Give
him over to me and Thou wilt see that Thy servant will murmur against Thee
and curse Thy name.” And God gave up the just man He loved so, to the
devil. And the devil smote his children and his cattle and scattered his
wealth, all of a sudden like a thunderbolt from heaven. And Job rent his
mantle and fell down upon the ground and cried aloud, “Naked came I out of
my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return into the earth; the Lord gave
and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord for ever and
ever.”
Fathers and teachers, forgive my tears now, for all my childhood rises up
again before me, and I breathe now as I breathed then, with the breast of
a little child of eight, and I feel as I did then, awe and wonder and
gladness. The camels at that time caught my imagination, and Satan, who
talked like that with God, and God who gave His servant up to destruction,
and His servant crying out: “Blessed be Thy name although Thou dost punish
me,” and then the soft and sweet singing in the church: “Let my prayer
rise up before Thee,” and again incense from the priest’s censer and the
kneeling and the prayer. Ever since then—only yesterday I took it up—I’ve
never been able to read that sacred tale without tears. And how much that
is great, mysterious and unfathomable there is in it! Afterwards I heard
the words of mockery and blame, proud words, “How could God give up the
most loved of His saints for the diversion of the devil, take from him his
children, smite him with sore boils so that he cleansed the corruption
from his sores with a pot‐sherd—and for no object except to boast to the
devil! ‘See what My saint can suffer for My sake.’ ” But the greatness of
it lies just in the fact that it is a mystery—that the passing earthly
show and the eternal verity are brought together in it. In the face of the
earthly truth, the eternal truth is accomplished. The Creator, just as on
the first days of creation He ended each day with praise: “That is good
that I have created,” looks upon Job and again praises His creation. And
Job, praising the Lord, serves not only Him but all His creation for
generations and generations, and for ever and ever, since for that he was
ordained. Good heavens, what a book it is, and what lessons there are in
it! What a book the Bible is, what a miracle, what strength is given with
it to man! It is like a mold cast of the world and man and human nature,
everything is there, and a law for everything for all the ages. And what
mysteries are solved and revealed! God raises Job again, gives him wealth
again. Many years pass by, and he has other children and loves them. But
how could he love those new ones when those first children are no more,
when he has lost them? Remembering them, how could he be fully happy with
those new ones, however dear the new ones might be? But he could, he
could. It’s the great mystery of human life that old grief passes
gradually into quiet, tender joy. The mild serenity of age takes the place
of the riotous blood of youth. I bless the rising sun each day, and, as
before, my hearts sings to meet it, but now I love even more its setting,
its long slanting rays and the soft, tender, gentle memories that come
with them, the dear images from the whole of my long, happy life—and over
all the Divine Truth, softening, reconciling, forgiving! My life is
ending, I know that well, but every day that is left me I feel how my
earthly life is in touch with a new infinite, unknown, that approaching
life, the nearness of which sets my soul quivering with rapture, my mind
glowing and my heart weeping with joy.
Friends and teachers, I have heard more than once, and of late one may
hear it more often, that the priests, and above all the village priests,
are complaining on all sides of their miserable income and their
humiliating lot. They plainly state, even in print—I’ve read it
myself—that they are unable to teach the Scriptures to the people because
of the smallness of their means, and if Lutherans and heretics come and
lead the flock astray, they let them lead them astray because they have so
little to live upon. May the Lord increase the sustenance that is so
precious to them, for their complaint is just, too. But of a truth I say,
if any one is to blame in the matter, half the fault is ours. For he may
be short of time, he may say truly that he is overwhelmed all the while
with work and services, but still it’s not all the time, even he has an
hour a week to remember God. And he does not work the whole year round.
Let him gather round him once a week, some hour in the evening, if only
the children at first—the fathers will hear of it and they too will begin
to come. There’s no need to build halls for this, let him take them into
his own cottage. They won’t spoil his cottage, they would only be there
one hour. Let him open that book and begin reading it without grand words
or superciliousness, without condescension to them, but gently and kindly,
being glad that he is reading to them and that they are listening with
attention, loving the words himself, only stopping from time to time to
explain words that are not understood by the peasants. Don’t be anxious,
they will understand everything, the orthodox heart will understand all!
Let him read them about Abraham and Sarah, about Isaac and Rebecca, of how
Jacob went to Laban and wrestled with the Lord in his dream and said,
“This place is holy”—and he will impress the devout mind of the peasant.
Let him read, especially to the children, how the brothers sold Joseph,
the tender boy, the dreamer and prophet, into bondage, and told their
father that a wild beast had devoured him, and showed him his blood‐
stained clothes. Let him read them how the brothers afterwards journeyed
into Egypt for corn, and Joseph, already a great ruler, unrecognized by
them, tormented them, accused them, kept his brother Benjamin, and all
through love: “I love you, and loving you I torment you.” For he
remembered all his life how they had sold him to the merchants in the
burning desert by the well, and how, wringing his hands, he had wept and
besought his brothers not to sell him as a slave in a strange land. And
how, seeing them again after many years, he loved them beyond measure, but
he harassed and tormented them in love. He left them at last not able to
bear the suffering of his heart, flung himself on his bed and wept. Then,
wiping his tears away, he went out to them joyful and told them,
“Brothers, I am your brother Joseph!” Let him read them further how happy
old Jacob was on learning that his darling boy was still alive, and how he
went to Egypt leaving his own country, and died in a foreign land,
bequeathing his great prophecy that had lain mysteriously hidden in his
meek and timid heart all his life, that from his offspring, from Judah,
will come the great hope of the world, the Messiah and Saviour.
Fathers and teachers, forgive me and don’t be angry, that like a little
child I’ve been babbling of what you know long ago, and can teach me a
hundred times more skillfully. I only speak from rapture, and forgive my
tears, for I love the Bible. Let him too weep, the priest of God, and be
sure that the hearts of his listeners will throb in response. Only a
little tiny seed is needed—drop it into the heart of the peasant and it
won’t die, it will live in his soul all his life, it will be hidden in the
midst of his darkness and sin, like a bright spot, like a great reminder.
And there’s no need of much teaching or explanation, he will understand it
all simply. Do you suppose that the peasants don’t understand? Try reading
them the touching story of the fair Esther and the haughty Vashti; or the
miraculous story of Jonah in the whale. Don’t forget either the parables
of Our Lord, choose especially from the Gospel of St. Luke (that is what I
did), and then from the Acts of the Apostles the conversion of St. Paul
(that you mustn’t leave out on any account), and from the _Lives of the
Saints_, for instance, the life of Alexey, the man of God and, greatest of
all, the happy martyr and the seer of God, Mary of Egypt—and you will
penetrate their hearts with these simple tales. Give one hour a week to it
in spite of your poverty, only one little hour. And you will see for
yourselves that our people is gracious and grateful, and will repay you a
hundred‐fold. Mindful of the kindness of their priest and the moving words
they have heard from him, they will of their own accord help him in his
fields and in his house, and will treat him with more respect than
before—so that it will even increase his worldly well‐being too. The thing
is so simple that sometimes one is even afraid to put it into words, for
fear of being laughed at, and yet how true it is! One who does not believe
in God will not believe in God’s people. He who believes in God’s people
will see His Holiness too, even though he had not believed in it till
then. Only the people and their future spiritual power will convert our
atheists, who have torn themselves away from their native soil.
And what is the use of Christ’s words, unless we set an example? The
people is lost without the Word of God, for its soul is athirst for the
Word and for all that is good.
In my youth, long ago, nearly forty years ago, I traveled all over Russia
with Father Anfim, collecting funds for our monastery, and we stayed one
night on the bank of a great navigable river with some fishermen. A good‐
looking peasant lad, about eighteen, joined us; he had to hurry back next
morning to pull a merchant’s barge along the bank. I noticed him looking
straight before him with clear and tender eyes. It was a bright, warm,
still, July night, a cool mist rose from the broad river, we could hear
the plash of a fish, the birds were still, all was hushed and beautiful,
everything praying to God. Only we two were not sleeping, the lad and I,
and we talked of the beauty of this world of God’s and of the great
mystery of it. Every blade of grass, every insect, ant, and golden bee,
all so marvelously know their path, though they have not intelligence,
they bear witness to the mystery of God and continually accomplish it
themselves. I saw the dear lad’s heart was moved. He told me that he loved
the forest and the forest birds. He was a bird‐catcher, knew the note of
each of them, could call each bird. “I know nothing better than to be in
the forest,” said he, “though all things are good.”
“Truly,” I answered him, “all things are good and fair, because all is
truth. Look,” said I, “at the horse, that great beast that is so near to
man; or the lowly, pensive ox, which feeds him and works for him; look at
their faces, what meekness, what devotion to man, who often beats them
mercilessly. What gentleness, what confidence and what beauty! It’s
touching to know that there’s no sin in them, for all, all except man, is
sinless, and Christ has been with them before us.”
“Why,” asked the boy, “is Christ with them too?”
“It cannot but be so,” said I, “since the Word is for all. All creation
and all creatures, every leaf is striving to the Word, singing glory to
God, weeping to Christ, unconsciously accomplishing this by the mystery of
their sinless life. Yonder,” said I, “in the forest wanders the dreadful
bear, fierce and menacing, and yet innocent in it.” And I told him how
once a bear came to a great saint who had taken refuge in a tiny cell in
the wood. And the great saint pitied him, went up to him without fear and
gave him a piece of bread. “Go along,” said he, “Christ be with you,” and
the savage beast walked away meekly and obediently, doing no harm. And the
lad was delighted that the bear had walked away without hurting the saint,
and that Christ was with him too. “Ah,” said he, “how good that is, how
good and beautiful is all God’s work!” He sat musing softly and sweetly. I
saw he understood. And he slept beside me a light and sinless sleep. May
God bless youth! And I prayed for him as I went to sleep. Lord, send peace
and light to Thy people!
Chapter II. The Duel
_(c) Recollections of Father Zossima’s Youth before he became a Monk. The
Duel_
I spent a long time, almost eight years, in the military cadet school at
Petersburg, and in the novelty of my surroundings there, many of my
childish impressions grew dimmer, though I forgot nothing. I picked up so
many new habits and opinions that I was transformed into a cruel, absurd,
almost savage creature. A surface polish of courtesy and society manners I
did acquire together with the French language.
But we all, myself included, looked upon the soldiers in our service as
cattle. I was perhaps worse than the rest in that respect, for I was so
much more impressionable than my companions. By the time we left the
school as officers, we were ready to lay down our lives for the honor of
the regiment, but no one of us had any knowledge of the real meaning of
honor, and if any one had known it, he would have been the first to
ridicule it. Drunkenness, debauchery and devilry were what we almost
prided ourselves on. I don’t say that we were bad by nature, all these
young men were good fellows, but they behaved badly, and I worst of all.
What made it worse for me was that I had come into my own money, and so I
flung myself into a life of pleasure, and plunged headlong into all the
recklessness of youth.
I was fond of reading, yet strange to say, the Bible was the one book I
never opened at that time, though I always carried it about with me, and I
was never separated from it; in very truth I was keeping that book “for
the day and the hour, for the month and the year,” though I knew it not.
After four years of this life, I chanced to be in the town of K. where our
regiment was stationed at the time. We found the people of the town
hospitable, rich and fond of entertainments. I met with a cordial
reception everywhere, as I was of a lively temperament and was known to be
well off, which always goes a long way in the world. And then a
circumstance happened which was the beginning of it all.
I formed an attachment to a beautiful and intelligent young girl of noble
and lofty character, the daughter of people much respected. They were
well‐to‐do people of influence and position. They always gave me a cordial
and friendly reception. I fancied that the young lady looked on me with
favor and my heart was aflame at such an idea. Later on I saw and fully
realized that I perhaps was not so passionately in love with her at all,
but only recognized the elevation of her mind and character, which I could
not indeed have helped doing. I was prevented, however, from making her an
offer at the time by my selfishness, I was loath to part with the
allurements of my free and licentious bachelor life in the heyday of my
youth, and with my pockets full of money. I did drop some hint as to my
feelings however, though I put off taking any decisive step for a time.
Then, all of a sudden, we were ordered off for two months to another
district.
On my return two months later, I found the young lady already married to a
rich neighboring landowner, a very amiable man, still young though older
than I was, connected with the best Petersburg society, which I was not,
and of excellent education, which I also was not. I was so overwhelmed at
this unexpected circumstance that my mind was positively clouded. The
worst of it all was that, as I learned then, the young landowner had been
a long while betrothed to her, and I had met him indeed many times in her
house, but blinded by my conceit I had noticed nothing. And this
particularly mortified me; almost everybody had known all about it, while
I knew nothing. I was filled with sudden irrepressible fury. With flushed
face I began recalling how often I had been on the point of declaring my
love to her, and as she had not attempted to stop me or to warn me, she
must, I concluded, have been laughing at me all the time. Later on, of
course, I reflected and remembered that she had been very far from
laughing at me; on the contrary, she used to turn off any love‐making on
my part with a jest and begin talking of other subjects; but at that
moment I was incapable of reflecting and was all eagerness for revenge. I
am surprised to remember that my wrath and revengeful feelings were
extremely repugnant to my own nature, for being of an easy temper, I found
it difficult to be angry with any one for long, and so I had to work
myself up artificially and became at last revolting and absurd.
I waited for an opportunity and succeeded in insulting my “rival” in the
presence of a large company. I insulted him on a perfectly extraneous
pretext, jeering at his opinion upon an important public event—it was in
the year 1826(5)—and my jeer was, so people said, clever and effective.
Then I forced him to ask for an explanation, and behaved so rudely that he
accepted my challenge in spite of the vast inequality between us, as I was
younger, a person of no consequence, and of inferior rank. I learned
afterwards for a fact that it was from a jealous feeling on his side also
that my challenge was accepted; he had been rather jealous of me on his
wife’s account before their marriage; he fancied now that if he submitted
to be insulted by me and refused to accept my challenge, and if she heard
of it, she might begin to despise him and waver in her love for him. I
soon found a second in a comrade, an ensign of our regiment. In those days
though duels were severely punished, yet dueling was a kind of fashion
among the officers—so strong and deeply rooted will a brutal prejudice
sometimes be.
It was the end of June, and our meeting was to take place at seven o’clock
the next day on the outskirts of the town—and then something happened that
in very truth was the turning‐point of my life. In the evening, returning
home in a savage and brutal humor, I flew into a rage with my orderly
Afanasy, and gave him two blows in the face with all my might, so that it
was covered with blood. He had not long been in my service and I had
struck him before, but never with such ferocious cruelty. And, believe me,
though it’s forty years ago, I recall it now with shame and pain. I went
to bed and slept for about three hours; when I waked up the day was
breaking. I got up—I did not want to sleep any more—I went to the
window—opened it, it looked out upon the garden; I saw the sun rising; it
was warm and beautiful, the birds were singing.
“What’s the meaning of it?” I thought. “I feel in my heart as it were
something vile and shameful. Is it because I am going to shed blood? No,”
I thought, “I feel it’s not that. Can it be that I am afraid of death,
afraid of being killed? No, that’s not it, that’s not it at all.”... And
all at once I knew what it was: it was because I had beaten Afanasy the
evening before! It all rose before my mind, it all was as it were repeated
over again; he stood before me and I was beating him straight on the face
and he was holding his arms stiffly down, his head erect, his eyes fixed
upon me as though on parade. He staggered at every blow and did not even
dare to raise his hands to protect himself. That is what a man has been
brought to, and that was a man beating a fellow creature! What a crime! It
was as though a sharp dagger had pierced me right through. I stood as if I
were struck dumb, while the sun was shining, the leaves were rejoicing and
the birds were trilling the praise of God.... I hid my face in my hands,
fell on my bed and broke into a storm of tears. And then I remembered my
brother Markel and what he said on his death‐bed to his servants: “My dear
ones, why do you wait on me, why do you love me, am I worth your waiting
on me?”
“Yes, am I worth it?” flashed through my mind. “After all what am I worth,
that another man, a fellow creature, made in the likeness and image of
God, should serve me?” For the first time in my life this question forced
itself upon me. He had said, “Mother, my little heart, in truth we are
each responsible to all for all, it’s only that men don’t know this. If
they knew it, the world would be a paradise at once.”
“God, can that too be false?” I thought as I wept. “In truth, perhaps, I
am more than all others responsible for all, a greater sinner than all men
in the world.” And all at once the whole truth in its full light appeared
to me; what was I going to do? I was going to kill a good, clever, noble
man, who had done me no wrong, and by depriving his wife of happiness for
the rest of her life, I should be torturing and killing her too. I lay
thus in my bed with my face in the pillow, heedless how the time was
passing. Suddenly my second, the ensign, came in with the pistols to fetch
me.
“Ah,” said he, “it’s a good thing you are up already, it’s time we were
off, come along!”
I did not know what to do and hurried to and fro undecided; we went out to
the carriage, however.
“Wait here a minute,” I said to him. “I’ll be back directly, I have
forgotten my purse.”
And I ran back alone, to Afanasy’s little room.
“Afanasy,” I said, “I gave you two blows on the face yesterday, forgive
me,” I said.
He started as though he were frightened, and looked at me; and I saw that
it was not enough, and on the spot, in my full officer’s uniform, I
dropped at his feet and bowed my head to the ground.
“Forgive me,” I said.
Then he was completely aghast.
“Your honor ... sir, what are you doing? Am I worth it?”
And he burst out crying as I had done before, hid this face in his hands,
turned to the window and shook all over with his sobs. I flew out to my
comrade and jumped into the carriage.
“Ready,” I cried. “Have you ever seen a conqueror?” I asked him. “Here is
one before you.”
I was in ecstasy, laughing and talking all the way, I don’t remember what
about.
He looked at me. “Well, brother, you are a plucky fellow, you’ll keep up
the honor of the uniform, I can see.”
So we reached the place and found them there, waiting us. We were placed
twelve paces apart; he had the first shot. I stood gayly, looking him full
in the face; I did not twitch an eyelash, I looked lovingly at him, for I
knew what I would do. His shot just grazed my cheek and ear.
“Thank God,” I cried, “no man has been killed,” and I seized my pistol,
turned back and flung it far away into the wood. “That’s the place for
you,” I cried.
I turned to my adversary.
“Forgive me, young fool that I am, sir,” I said, “for my unprovoked insult
to you and for forcing you to fire at me. I am ten times worse than you
and more, maybe. Tell that to the person whom you hold dearest in the
world.”
I had no sooner said this than they all three shouted at me.
“Upon my word,” cried my adversary, annoyed, “if you did not want to
fight, why did not you let me alone?”
“Yesterday I was a fool, to‐day I know better,” I answered him gayly.
“As to yesterday, I believe you, but as for to‐day, it is difficult to
agree with your opinion,” said he.
“Bravo,” I cried, clapping my hands. “I agree with you there too. I have
deserved it!”
“Will you shoot, sir, or not?”
“No, I won’t,” I said; “if you like, fire at me again, but it would be
better for you not to fire.”
The seconds, especially mine, were shouting too: “Can you disgrace the
regiment like this, facing your antagonist and begging his forgiveness! If
I’d only known this!”
I stood facing them all, not laughing now.
“Gentlemen,” I said, “is it really so wonderful in these days to find a
man who can repent of his stupidity and publicly confess his wrongdoing?”
“But not in a duel,” cried my second again.
“That’s what’s so strange,” I said. “For I ought to have owned my fault as
soon as I got here, before he had fired a shot, before leading him into a
great and deadly sin; but we have made our life so grotesque, that to act
in that way would have been almost impossible, for only after I have faced
his shot at the distance of twelve paces could my words have any
significance for him, and if I had spoken before, he would have said, ‘He
is a coward, the sight of the pistols has frightened him, no use to listen
to him.’ Gentlemen,” I cried suddenly, speaking straight from my heart,
“look around you at the gifts of God, the clear sky, the pure air, the
tender grass, the birds; nature is beautiful and sinless, and we, only we,
are sinful and foolish, and we don’t understand that life is heaven, for
we have only to understand that and it will at once be fulfilled in all
its beauty, we shall embrace each other and weep.”
I would have said more but I could not; my voice broke with the sweetness
and youthful gladness of it, and there was such bliss in my heart as I had
never known before in my life.
“All this as rational and edifying,” said my antagonist, “and in any case
you are an original person.”
“You may laugh,” I said to him, laughing too, “but afterwards you will
approve of me.”
“Oh, I am ready to approve of you now,” said he; “will you shake hands?
for I believe you are genuinely sincere.”
“No,” I said, “not now, later on when I have grown worthier and deserve
your esteem, then shake hands and you will do well.”
We went home, my second upbraiding me all the way, while I kissed him. All
my comrades heard of the affair at once and gathered together to pass
judgment on me the same day.
“He has disgraced the uniform,” they said; “let him resign his
commission.”
Some stood up for me: “He faced the shot,” they said.
“Yes, but he was afraid of his other shot and begged for forgiveness.”
“If he had been afraid of being shot, he would have shot his own pistol
first before asking forgiveness, while he flung it loaded into the forest.
No, there’s something else in this, something original.”
I enjoyed listening and looking at them. “My dear friends and comrades,”
said I, “don’t worry about my resigning my commission, for I have done so
already. I have sent in my papers this morning and as soon as I get my
discharge I shall go into a monastery—it’s with that object I am leaving
the regiment.”
When I had said this every one of them burst out laughing.
“You should have told us of that first, that explains everything, we can’t
judge a monk.”
They laughed and could not stop themselves, and not scornfully, but kindly
and merrily. They all felt friendly to me at once, even those who had been
sternest in their censure, and all the following month, before my
discharge came, they could not make enough of me. “Ah, you monk,” they
would say. And every one said something kind to me, they began trying to
dissuade me, even to pity me: “What are you doing to yourself?”
“No,” they would say, “he is a brave fellow, he faced fire and could have
fired his own pistol too, but he had a dream the night before that he
should become a monk, that’s why he did it.”
It was the same thing with the society of the town. Till then I had been
kindly received, but had not been the object of special attention, and now
all came to know me at once and invited me; they laughed at me, but they
loved me. I may mention that although everybody talked openly of our duel,
the authorities took no notice of it, because my antagonist was a near
relation of our general, and as there had been no bloodshed and no serious
consequences, and as I resigned my commission, they took it as a joke. And
I began then to speak aloud and fearlessly, regardless of their laughter,
for it was always kindly and not spiteful laughter. These conversations
mostly took place in the evenings, in the company of ladies; women
particularly liked listening to me then and they made the men listen.
“But how can I possibly be responsible for all?” every one would laugh in
my face. “Can I, for instance, be responsible for you?”
“You may well not know it,” I would answer, “since the whole world has
long been going on a different line, since we consider the veriest lies as
truth and demand the same lies from others. Here I have for once in my
life acted sincerely and, well, you all look upon me as a madman. Though
you are friendly to me, yet, you see, you all laugh at me.”
“But how can we help being friendly to you?” said my hostess, laughing.
The room was full of people. All of a sudden the young lady rose, on whose
account the duel had been fought and whom only lately I had intended to be
my future wife. I had not noticed her coming into the room. She got up,
came to me and held out her hand.
“Let me tell you,” she said, “that I am the first not to laugh at you, but
on the contrary I thank you with tears and express my respect for you for
your action then.”
Her husband, too, came up and then they all approached me and almost
kissed me. My heart was filled with joy, but my attention was especially
caught by a middle‐aged man who came up to me with the others. I knew him
by name already, but had never made his acquaintance nor exchanged a word
with him till that evening.
_(d) The Mysterious Visitor_
He had long been an official in the town; he was in a prominent position,
respected by all, rich and had a reputation for benevolence. He subscribed
considerable sums to the almshouse and the orphan asylum; he was very
charitable, too, in secret, a fact which only became known after his
death. He was a man of about fifty, almost stern in appearance and not
much given to conversation. He had been married about ten years and his
wife, who was still young, had borne him three children. Well, I was
sitting alone in my room the following evening, when my door suddenly
opened and this gentleman walked in.
I must mention, by the way, that I was no longer living in my former
quarters. As soon as I resigned my commission, I took rooms with an old
lady, the widow of a government clerk. My landlady’s servant waited upon
me, for I had moved into her rooms simply because on my return from the
duel I had sent Afanasy back to the regiment, as I felt ashamed to look
him in the face after my last interview with him. So prone is the man of
the world to be ashamed of any righteous action.
“I have,” said my visitor, “with great interest listened to you speaking
in different houses the last few days and I wanted at last to make your
personal acquaintance, so as to talk to you more intimately. Can you, dear
sir, grant me this favor?”
“I can, with the greatest pleasure, and I shall look upon it as an honor.”
I said this, though I felt almost dismayed, so greatly was I impressed
from the first moment by the appearance of this man. For though other
people had listened to me with interest and attention, no one had come to
me before with such a serious, stern and concentrated expression. And now
he had come to see me in my own rooms. He sat down.
“You are, I see, a man of great strength of character,” he said; “as you
have dared to serve the truth, even when by doing so you risked incurring
the contempt of all.”
“Your praise is, perhaps, excessive,” I replied.
“No, it’s not excessive,” he answered; “believe me, such a course of
action is far more difficult than you think. It is that which has
impressed me, and it is only on that account that I have come to you,” he
continued. “Tell me, please, that is if you are not annoyed by my perhaps
unseemly curiosity, what were your exact sensations, if you can recall
them, at the moment when you made up your mind to ask forgiveness at the
duel. Do not think my question frivolous; on the contrary, I have in
asking the question a secret motive of my own, which I will perhaps
explain to you later on, if it is God’s will that we should become more
intimately acquainted.”
All the while he was speaking, I was looking at him straight into the face
and I felt all at once a complete trust in him and great curiosity on my
side also, for I felt that there was some strange secret in his soul.
“You ask what were my exact sensations at the moment when I asked my
opponent’s forgiveness,” I answered; “but I had better tell you from the
beginning what I have not yet told any one else.” And I described all that
had passed between Afanasy and me, and how I had bowed down to the ground
at his feet. “From that you can see for yourself,” I concluded, “that at
the time of the duel it was easier for me, for I had made a beginning
already at home, and when once I had started on that road, to go farther
along it was far from being difficult, but became a source of joy and
happiness.”
I liked the way he looked at me as he listened. “All that,” he said, “is
exceedingly interesting. I will come to see you again and again.”
And from that time forth he came to see me nearly every evening. And we
should have become greater friends, if only he had ever talked of himself.
But about himself he scarcely ever said a word, yet continually asked me
about myself. In spite of that I became very fond of him and spoke with
perfect frankness to him about all my feelings; “for,” thought I, “what
need have I to know his secrets, since I can see without that that he is a
good man? Moreover, though he is such a serious man and my senior, he
comes to see a youngster like me and treats me as his equal.” And I
learned a great deal that was profitable from him, for he was a man of
lofty mind.
“That life is heaven,” he said to me suddenly, “that I have long been
thinking about”; and all at once he added, “I think of nothing else
indeed.” He looked at me and smiled. “I am more convinced of it than you
are, I will tell you later why.”
I listened to him and thought that he evidently wanted to tell me
something.
“Heaven,” he went on, “lies hidden within all of us—here it lies hidden in
me now, and if I will it, it will be revealed to me to‐morrow and for all
time.”
I looked at him; he was speaking with great emotion and gazing
mysteriously at me, as if he were questioning me.
“And that we are all responsible to all for all, apart from our own sins,
you were quite right in thinking that, and it is wonderful how you could
comprehend it in all its significance at once. And in very truth, so soon
as men understand that, the Kingdom of Heaven will be for them not a
dream, but a living reality.”
“And when,” I cried out to him bitterly, “when will that come to pass? and
will it ever come to pass? Is not it simply a dream of ours?”
“What then, you don’t believe it,” he said. “You preach it and don’t
believe it yourself. Believe me, this dream, as you call it, will come to
pass without doubt; it will come, but not now, for every process has its
law. It’s a spiritual, psychological process. To transform the world, to
recreate it afresh, men must turn into another path psychologically. Until
you have become really, in actual fact, a brother to every one,
brotherhood will not come to pass. No sort of scientific teaching, no kind
of common interest, will ever teach men to share property and privileges
with equal consideration for all. Every one will think his share too small
and they will be always envying, complaining and attacking one another.
You ask when it will come to pass; it will come to pass, but first we have
to go through the period of isolation.”
“What do you mean by isolation?” I asked him.
“Why, the isolation that prevails everywhere, above all in our age—it has
not fully developed, it has not reached its limit yet. For every one
strives to keep his individuality as apart as possible, wishes to secure
the greatest possible fullness of life for himself; but meantime all his
efforts result not in attaining fullness of life but self‐destruction, for
instead of self‐realization he ends by arriving at complete solitude. All
mankind in our age have split up into units, they all keep apart, each in
his own groove; each one holds aloof, hides himself and hides what he has,
from the rest, and he ends by being repelled by others and repelling them.
He heaps up riches by himself and thinks, ‘How strong I am now and how
secure,’ and in his madness he does not understand that the more he heaps
up, the more he sinks into self‐destructive impotence. For he is
accustomed to rely upon himself alone and to cut himself off from the
whole; he has trained himself not to believe in the help of others, in men
and in humanity, and only trembles for fear he should lose his money and
the privileges that he has won for himself. Everywhere in these days men
have, in their mockery, ceased to understand that the true security is to
be found in social solidarity rather than in isolated individual effort.
But this terrible individualism must inevitably have an end, and all will
suddenly understand how unnaturally they are separated from one another.
It will be the spirit of the time, and people will marvel that they have
sat so long in darkness without seeing the light. And then the sign of the
Son of Man will be seen in the heavens.... But, until then, we must keep
the banner flying. Sometimes even if he has to do it alone, and his
conduct seems to be crazy, a man must set an example, and so draw men’s
souls out of their solitude, and spur them to some act of brotherly love,
that the great idea may not die.”
Our evenings, one after another, were spent in such stirring and fervent
talk. I gave up society and visited my neighbors much less frequently.
Besides, my vogue was somewhat over. I say this, not as blame, for they
still loved me and treated me good‐humoredly, but there’s no denying that
fashion is a great power in society. I began to regard my mysterious
visitor with admiration, for besides enjoying his intelligence, I began to
perceive that he was brooding over some plan in his heart, and was
preparing himself perhaps for a great deed. Perhaps he liked my not
showing curiosity about his secret, not seeking to discover it by direct
question nor by insinuation. But I noticed at last, that he seemed to show
signs of wanting to tell me something. This had become quite evident,
indeed, about a month after he first began to visit me.
“Do you know,” he said to me once, “that people are very inquisitive about
us in the town and wonder why I come to see you so often. But let them
wonder, for _soon all will be explained_.”
Sometimes an extraordinary agitation would come over him, and almost
always on such occasions he would get up and go away. Sometimes he would
fix a long piercing look upon me, and I thought, “He will say something
directly now.” But he would suddenly begin talking of something ordinary
and familiar. He often complained of headache too.
One day, quite unexpectedly indeed, after he had been talking with great
fervor a long time, I saw him suddenly turn pale, and his face worked
convulsively, while he stared persistently at me.
“What’s the matter?” I said; “do you feel ill?”—he had just been
complaining of headache.
“I ... do you know ... I murdered some one.”
He said this and smiled with a face as white as chalk. “Why is it he is
smiling?” The thought flashed through my mind before I realized anything
else. I too turned pale.
“What are you saying?” I cried.
“You see,” he said, with a pale smile, “how much it has cost me to say the
first word. Now I have said it, I feel I’ve taken the first step and shall
go on.”
For a long while I could not believe him, and I did not believe him at
that time, but only after he had been to see me three days running and
told me all about it. I thought he was mad, but ended by being convinced,
to my great grief and amazement. His crime was a great and terrible one.
Fourteen years before, he had murdered the widow of a landowner, a wealthy
and handsome young woman who had a house in our town. He fell passionately
in love with her, declared his feeling and tried to persuade her to marry
him. But she had already given her heart to another man, an officer of
noble birth and high rank in the service, who was at that time away at the
front, though she was expecting him soon to return. She refused his offer
and begged him not to come and see her. After he had ceased to visit her,
he took advantage of his knowledge of the house to enter at night through
the garden by the roof, at great risk of discovery. But, as often happens,
a crime committed with extraordinary audacity is more successful than
others.
Entering the garret through the skylight, he went down the ladder, knowing
that the door at the bottom of it was sometimes, through the negligence of
the servants, left unlocked. He hoped to find it so, and so it was. He
made his way in the dark to her bedroom, where a light was burning. As
though on purpose, both her maids had gone off to a birthday‐party in the
same street, without asking leave. The other servants slept in the
servants’ quarters or in the kitchen on the ground‐floor. His passion
flamed up at the sight of her asleep, and then vindictive, jealous anger
took possession of his heart, and like a drunken man, beside himself, he
thrust a knife into her heart, so that she did not even cry out. Then with
devilish and criminal cunning he contrived that suspicion should fall on
the servants. He was so base as to take her purse, to open her chest with
keys from under her pillow, and to take some things from it, doing it all
as it might have been done by an ignorant servant, leaving valuable papers
and taking only money. He took some of the larger gold things, but left
smaller articles that were ten times as valuable. He took with him, too,
some things for himself as remembrances, but of that later. Having done
this awful deed, he returned by the way he had come.
Neither the next day, when the alarm was raised, nor at any time after in
his life, did any one dream of suspecting that he was the criminal. No one
indeed knew of his love for her, for he was always reserved and silent and
had no friend to whom he would have opened his heart. He was looked upon
simply as an acquaintance, and not a very intimate one, of the murdered
woman, as for the previous fortnight he had not even visited her. A serf
of hers called Pyotr was at once suspected, and every circumstance
confirmed the suspicion. The man knew—indeed his mistress did not conceal
the fact—that having to send one of her serfs as a recruit she had decided
to send him, as he had no relations and his conduct was unsatisfactory.
People had heard him angrily threatening to murder her when he was drunk
in a tavern. Two days before her death, he had run away, staying no one
knew where in the town. The day after the murder, he was found on the road
leading out of the town, dead drunk, with a knife in his pocket, and his
right hand happened to be stained with blood. He declared that his nose
had been bleeding, but no one believed him. The maids confessed that they
had gone to a party and that the street‐door had been left open till they
returned. And a number of similar details came to light, throwing
suspicion on the innocent servant.
They arrested him, and he was tried for the murder; but a week after the
arrest, the prisoner fell sick of a fever and died unconscious in the
hospital. There the matter ended and the judges and the authorities and
every one in the town remained convinced that the crime had been committed
by no one but the servant who had died in the hospital. And after that the
punishment began.
My mysterious visitor, now my friend, told me that at first he was not in
the least troubled by pangs of conscience. He was miserable a long time,
but not for that reason; only from regret that he had killed the woman he
loved, that she was no more, that in killing her he had killed his love,
while the fire of passion was still in his veins. But of the innocent
blood he had shed, of the murder of a fellow creature, he scarcely
thought. The thought that his victim might have become the wife of another
man was insupportable to him, and so, for a long time, he was convinced in
his conscience that he could not have acted otherwise.
At first he was worried at the arrest of the servant, but his illness and
death soon set his mind at rest, for the man’s death was apparently (so he
reflected at the time) not owing to his arrest or his fright, but a chill
he had taken on the day he ran away, when he had lain all night dead drunk
on the damp ground. The theft of the money and other things troubled him
little, for he argued that the theft had not been committed for gain but
to avert suspicion. The sum stolen was small, and he shortly afterwards
subscribed the whole of it, and much more, towards the funds for
maintaining an almshouse in the town. He did this on purpose to set his
conscience at rest about the theft, and it’s a remarkable fact that for a
long time he really was at peace—he told me this himself. He entered then
upon a career of great activity in the service, volunteered for a
difficult and laborious duty, which occupied him two years, and being a
man of strong will almost forgot the past. Whenever he recalled it, he
tried not to think of it at all. He became active in philanthropy too,
founded and helped to maintain many institutions in the town, did a good
deal in the two capitals, and in both Moscow and Petersburg was elected a
member of philanthropic societies.
At last, however, he began brooding over the past, and the strain of it
was too much for him. Then he was attracted by a fine and intelligent girl
and soon after married her, hoping that marriage would dispel his lonely
depression, and that by entering on a new life and scrupulously doing his
duty to his wife and children, he would escape from old memories
altogether. But the very opposite of what he expected happened. He began,
even in the first month of his marriage, to be continually fretted by the
thought, “My wife loves me—but what if she knew?” When she first told him
that she would soon bear him a child, he was troubled. “I am giving life,
but I have taken life.” Children came. “How dare I love them, teach and
educate them, how can I talk to them of virtue? I have shed blood.” They
were splendid children, he longed to caress them; “and I can’t look at
their innocent candid faces, I am unworthy.”
At last he began to be bitterly and ominously haunted by the blood of his
murdered victim, by the young life he had destroyed, by the blood that
cried out for vengeance. He had begun to have awful dreams. But, being a
man of fortitude, he bore his suffering a long time, thinking: “I shall
expiate everything by this secret agony.” But that hope, too, was vain;
the longer it went on, the more intense was his suffering.
He was respected in society for his active benevolence, though every one
was overawed by his stern and gloomy character. But the more he was
respected, the more intolerable it was for him. He confessed to me that he
had thoughts of killing himself. But he began to be haunted by another
idea—an idea which he had at first regarded as impossible and unthinkable,
though at last it got such a hold on his heart that he could not shake it
off. He dreamed of rising up, going out and confessing in the face of all
men that he had committed murder. For three years this dream had pursued
him, haunting him in different forms. At last he believed with his whole
heart that if he confessed his crime, he would heal his soul and would be
at peace for ever. But this belief filled his heart with terror, for how
could he carry it out? And then came what happened at my duel.
“Looking at you, I have made up my mind.”
I looked at him.
“Is it possible,” I cried, clasping my hands, “that such a trivial
incident could give rise to such a resolution in you?”
“My resolution has been growing for the last three years,” he answered,
“and your story only gave the last touch to it. Looking at you, I
reproached myself and envied you.” He said this to me almost sullenly.
“But you won’t be believed,” I observed; “it’s fourteen years ago.”
“I have proofs, great proofs. I shall show them.”
Then I cried and kissed him.
“Tell me one thing, one thing,” he said (as though it all depended upon
me), “my wife, my children! My wife may die of grief, and though my
children won’t lose their rank and property, they’ll be a convict’s
children and for ever! And what a memory, what a memory of me I shall
leave in their hearts!”
I said nothing.
“And to part from them, to leave them for ever? It’s for ever, you know,
for ever!”
I sat still and repeated a silent prayer. I got up at last, I felt afraid.
“Well?” He looked at me.
“Go!” said I, “confess. Everything passes, only the truth remains. Your
children will understand, when they grow up, the nobility of your
resolution.”
He left me that time as though he had made up his mind. Yet for more than
a fortnight afterwards, he came to me every evening, still preparing
himself, still unable to bring himself to the point. He made my heart
ache. One day he would come determined and say fervently:
“I know it will be heaven for me, heaven, the moment I confess. Fourteen
years I’ve been in hell. I want to suffer. I will take my punishment and
begin to live. You can pass through the world doing wrong, but there’s no
turning back. Now I dare not love my neighbor nor even my own children.
Good God, my children will understand, perhaps, what my punishment has
cost me and will not condemn me! God is not in strength but in truth.”
“All will understand your sacrifice,” I said to him, “if not at once, they
will understand later; for you have served truth, the higher truth, not of
the earth.”
And he would go away seeming comforted, but next day he would come again,
bitter, pale, sarcastic.
“Every time I come to you, you look at me so inquisitively as though to
say, ‘He has still not confessed!’ Wait a bit, don’t despise me too much.
It’s not such an easy thing to do, as you would think. Perhaps I shall not
do it at all. You won’t go and inform against me then, will you?”
And far from looking at him with indiscreet curiosity, I was afraid to
look at him at all. I was quite ill from anxiety, and my heart was full of
tears. I could not sleep at night.
“I have just come from my wife,” he went on. “Do you understand what the
word ‘wife’ means? When I went out, the children called to me, ‘Good‐by,
father, make haste back to read _The Children’s Magazine_ with us.’ No,
you don’t understand that! No one is wise from another man’s woe.”
His eyes were glittering, his lips were twitching. Suddenly he struck the
table with his fist so that everything on it danced—it was the first time
he had done such a thing, he was such a mild man.
“But need I?” he exclaimed, “must I? No one has been condemned, no one has
been sent to Siberia in my place, the man died of fever. And I’ve been
punished by my sufferings for the blood I shed. And I shan’t be believed,
they won’t believe my proofs. Need I confess, need I? I am ready to go on
suffering all my life for the blood I have shed, if only my wife and
children may be spared. Will it be just to ruin them with me? Aren’t we
making a mistake? What is right in this case? And will people recognize
it, will they appreciate it, will they respect it?”
“Good Lord!” I thought to myself, “he is thinking of other people’s
respect at such a moment!” And I felt so sorry for him then, that I
believe I would have shared his fate if it could have comforted him. I saw
he was beside himself. I was aghast, realizing with my heart as well as my
mind what such a resolution meant.
“Decide my fate!” he exclaimed again.
“Go and confess,” I whispered to him. My voice failed me, but I whispered
it firmly. I took up the New Testament from the table, the Russian
translation, and showed him the Gospel of St. John, chapter xii. verse 24:
“Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the
ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much
fruit.”
I had just been reading that verse when he came in. He read it.
“That’s true,” he said, but he smiled bitterly. “It’s terrible the things
you find in those books,” he said, after a pause. “It’s easy enough to
thrust them upon one. And who wrote them? Can they have been written by
men?”
“The Holy Spirit wrote them,” said I.
“It’s easy for you to prate,” he smiled again, this time almost with
hatred.
I took the book again, opened it in another place and showed him the
Epistle to the Hebrews, chapter x. verse 31. He read:
“It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”
He read it and simply flung down the book. He was trembling all over.
“An awful text,” he said. “There’s no denying you’ve picked out fitting
ones.” He rose from the chair. “Well!” he said, “good‐by, perhaps I shan’t
come again ... we shall meet in heaven. So I have been for fourteen years
‘in the hands of the living God,’ that’s how one must think of those
fourteen years. To‐morrow I will beseech those hands to let me go.”
I wanted to take him in my arms and kiss him, but I did not dare—his face
was contorted and somber. He went away.
“Good God,” I thought, “what has he gone to face!” I fell on my knees
before the ikon and wept for him before the Holy Mother of God, our swift
defender and helper. I was half an hour praying in tears, and it was late,
about midnight. Suddenly I saw the door open and he came in again. I was
surprised.
“Where have you been?” I asked him.
“I think,” he said, “I’ve forgotten something ... my handkerchief, I
think.... Well, even if I’ve not forgotten anything, let me stay a
little.”
He sat down. I stood over him.
“You sit down, too,” said he.
I sat down. We sat still for two minutes; he looked intently at me and
suddenly smiled—I remembered that—then he got up, embraced me warmly and
kissed me.
“Remember,” he said, “how I came to you a second time. Do you hear,
remember it!”
And he went out.
“To‐morrow,” I thought.
And so it was. I did not know that evening that the next day was his
birthday. I had not been out for the last few days, so I had no chance of
hearing it from any one. On that day he always had a great gathering,
every one in the town went to it. It was the same this time. After dinner
he walked into the middle of the room, with a paper in his hand—a formal
declaration to the chief of his department who was present. This
declaration he read aloud to the whole assembly. It contained a full
account of the crime, in every detail.
“I cut myself off from men as a monster. God has visited me,” he said in
conclusion. “I want to suffer for my sin!”
Then he brought out and laid on the table all the things he had been
keeping for fourteen years, that he thought would prove his crime, the
jewels belonging to the murdered woman which he had stolen to divert
suspicion, a cross and a locket taken from her neck with a portrait of her
betrothed in the locket, her notebook and two letters; one from her
betrothed, telling her that he would soon be with her, and her unfinished
answer left on the table to be sent off next day. He carried off these two
letters—what for? Why had he kept them for fourteen years afterwards
instead of destroying them as evidence against him?
And this is what happened: every one was amazed and horrified, every one
refused to believe it and thought that he was deranged, though all
listened with intense curiosity. A few days later it was fully decided and
agreed in every house that the unhappy man was mad. The legal authorities
could not refuse to take the case up, but they too dropped it. Though the
trinkets and letters made them ponder, they decided that even if they did
turn out to be authentic, no charge could be based on those alone.
Besides, she might have given him those things as a friend, or asked him
to take care of them for her. I heard afterwards, however, that the
genuineness of the things was proved by the friends and relations of the
murdered woman, and that there was no doubt about them. Yet nothing was
destined to come of it, after all.
Five days later, all had heard that he was ill and that his life was in
danger. The nature of his illness I can’t explain, they said it was an
affection of the heart. But it became known that the doctors had been
induced by his wife to investigate his mental condition also, and had come
to the conclusion that it was a case of insanity. I betrayed nothing,
though people ran to question me. But when I wanted to visit him, I was
for a long while forbidden to do so, above all by his wife.
“It’s you who have caused his illness,” she said to me; “he was always
gloomy, but for the last year people noticed that he was peculiarly
excited and did strange things, and now you have been the ruin of him.
Your preaching has brought him to this; for the last month he was always
with you.”
Indeed, not only his wife but the whole town were down upon me and blamed
me. “It’s all your doing,” they said. I was silent and indeed rejoiced at
heart, for I saw plainly God’s mercy to the man who had turned against
himself and punished himself. I could not believe in his insanity.
They let me see him at last, he insisted upon saying good‐by to me. I went
in to him and saw at once, that not only his days, but his hours were
numbered. He was weak, yellow, his hands trembled, he gasped for breath,
but his face was full of tender and happy feeling.
“It is done!” he said. “I’ve long been yearning to see you, why didn’t you
come?”
I did not tell him that they would not let me see him.
“God has had pity on me and is calling me to Himself. I know I am dying,
but I feel joy and peace for the first time after so many years. There was
heaven in my heart from the moment I had done what I had to do. Now I dare
to love my children and to kiss them. Neither my wife nor the judges, nor
any one has believed it. My children will never believe it either. I see
in that God’s mercy to them. I shall die, and my name will be without a
stain for them. And now I feel God near, my heart rejoices as in Heaven
... I have done my duty.”
He could not speak, he gasped for breath, he pressed my hand warmly,
looking fervently at me. We did not talk for long, his wife kept peeping
in at us. But he had time to whisper to me:
“Do you remember how I came back to you that second time, at midnight? I
told you to remember it. You know what I came back for? I came to kill
you!”
I started.
“I went out from you then into the darkness, I wandered about the streets,
struggling with myself. And suddenly I hated you so that I could hardly
bear it. Now, I thought, he is all that binds me, and he is my judge. I
can’t refuse to face my punishment to‐morrow, for he knows all. It was not
that I was afraid you would betray me (I never even thought of that), but
I thought, ‘How can I look him in the face if I don’t confess?’ And if you
had been at the other end of the earth, but alive, it would have been all
the same, the thought was unendurable that you were alive knowing
everything and condemning me. I hated you as though you were the cause, as
though you were to blame for everything. I came back to you then,
remembering that you had a dagger lying on your table. I sat down and
asked you to sit down, and for a whole minute I pondered. If I had killed
you, I should have been ruined by that murder even if I had not confessed
the other. But I didn’t think about that at all, and I didn’t want to
think of it at that moment. I only hated you and longed to revenge myself
on you for everything. The Lord vanquished the devil in my heart. But let
me tell you, you were never nearer death.”
A week later he died. The whole town followed him to the grave. The chief
priest made a speech full of feeling. All lamented the terrible illness
that had cut short his days. But all the town was up in arms against me
after the funeral, and people even refused to see me. Some, at first a few
and afterwards more, began indeed to believe in the truth of his story,
and they visited me and questioned me with great interest and eagerness,
for man loves to see the downfall and disgrace of the righteous. But I
held my tongue, and very shortly after, I left the town, and five months
later by God’s grace I entered upon the safe and blessed path, praising
the unseen finger which had guided me so clearly to it. But I remember in
my prayer to this day, the servant of God, Mihail, who suffered so
greatly.
Chapter III. Conversations And Exhortations Of Father Zossima
_(e) The Russian Monk and his possible Significance_
Fathers and teachers, what is the monk? In the cultivated world the word
is nowadays pronounced by some people with a jeer, and by others it is
used as a term of abuse, and this contempt for the monk is growing. It is
true, alas, it is true, that there are many sluggards, gluttons,
profligates and insolent beggars among monks. Educated people point to
these: “You are idlers, useless members of society, you live on the labor
of others, you are shameless beggars.” And yet how many meek and humble
monks there are, yearning for solitude and fervent prayer in peace! These
are less noticed, or passed over in silence. And how surprised men would
be if I were to say that from these meek monks, who yearn for solitary
prayer, the salvation of Russia will come perhaps once more! For they are
in truth made ready in peace and quiet “for the day and the hour, the
month and the year.” Meanwhile, in their solitude, they keep the image of
Christ fair and undefiled, in the purity of God’s truth, from the times of
the Fathers of old, the Apostles and the martyrs. And when the time comes
they will show it to the tottering creeds of the world. That is a great
thought. That star will rise out of the East.
That is my view of the monk, and is it false? is it too proud? Look at the
worldly and all who set themselves up above the people of God, has not
God’s image and His truth been distorted in them? They have science; but
in science there is nothing but what is the object of sense. The spiritual
world, the higher part of man’s being is rejected altogether, dismissed
with a sort of triumph, even with hatred. The world has proclaimed the
reign of freedom, especially of late, but what do we see in this freedom
of theirs? Nothing but slavery and self‐destruction! For the world says:
“You have desires and so satisfy them, for you have the same rights as the
most rich and powerful. Don’t be afraid of satisfying them and even
multiply your desires.” That is the modern doctrine of the world. In that
they see freedom. And what follows from this right of multiplication of
desires? In the rich, isolation and spiritual suicide; in the poor, envy
and murder; for they have been given rights, but have not been shown the
means of satisfying their wants. They maintain that the world is getting
more and more united, more and more bound together in brotherly community,
as it overcomes distance and sets thoughts flying through the air.
Alas, put no faith in such a bond of union. Interpreting freedom as the
multiplication and rapid satisfaction of desires, men distort their own
nature, for many senseless and foolish desires and habits and ridiculous
fancies are fostered in them. They live only for mutual envy, for luxury
and ostentation. To have dinners, visits, carriages, rank and slaves to
wait on one is looked upon as a necessity, for which life, honor and human
feeling are sacrificed, and men even commit suicide if they are unable to
satisfy it. We see the same thing among those who are not rich, while the
poor drown their unsatisfied need and their envy in drunkenness. But soon
they will drink blood instead of wine, they are being led on to it. I ask
you is such a man free? I knew one “champion of freedom” who told me
himself that, when he was deprived of tobacco in prison, he was so
wretched at the privation that he almost went and betrayed his cause for
the sake of getting tobacco again! And such a man says, “I am fighting for
the cause of humanity.”
How can such a one fight? what is he fit for? He is capable perhaps of
some action quickly over, but he cannot hold out long. And it’s no wonder
that instead of gaining freedom they have sunk into slavery, and instead
of serving the cause of brotherly love and the union of humanity have
fallen, on the contrary, into dissension and isolation, as my mysterious
visitor and teacher said to me in my youth. And therefore the idea of the
service of humanity, of brotherly love and the solidarity of mankind, is
more and more dying out in the world, and indeed this idea is sometimes
treated with derision. For how can a man shake off his habits? What can
become of him if he is in such bondage to the habit of satisfying the
innumerable desires he has created for himself? He is isolated, and what
concern has he with the rest of humanity? They have succeeded in
accumulating a greater mass of objects, but the joy in the world has grown
less.
The monastic way is very different. Obedience, fasting and prayer are
laughed at, yet only through them lies the way to real, true freedom. I
cut off my superfluous and unnecessary desires, I subdue my proud and
wanton will and chastise it with obedience, and with God’s help I attain
freedom of spirit and with it spiritual joy. Which is most capable of
conceiving a great idea and serving it—the rich man in his isolation or
the man who has freed himself from the tyranny of material things and
habits? The monk is reproached for his solitude, “You have secluded
yourself within the walls of the monastery for your own salvation, and
have forgotten the brotherly service of humanity!” But we shall see which
will be most zealous in the cause of brotherly love. For it is not we, but
they, who are in isolation, though they don’t see that. Of old, leaders of
the people came from among us, and why should they not again? The same
meek and humble ascetics will rise up and go out to work for the great
cause. The salvation of Russia comes from the people. And the Russian monk
has always been on the side of the people. We are isolated only if the
people are isolated. The people believe as we do, and an unbelieving
reformer will never do anything in Russia, even if he is sincere in heart
and a genius. Remember that! The people will meet the atheist and overcome
him, and Russia will be one and orthodox. Take care of the peasant and
guard his heart. Go on educating him quietly. That’s your duty as monks,
for the peasant has God in his heart.
(_f_) _Of Masters and Servants, and of whether it is possible for them to
be Brothers in the Spirit_
Of course, I don’t deny that there is sin in the peasants too. And the
fire of corruption is spreading visibly, hourly, working from above
downwards. The spirit of isolation is coming upon the people too. Money‐
lenders and devourers of the commune are rising up. Already the merchant
grows more and more eager for rank, and strives to show himself cultured
though he has not a trace of culture, and to this end meanly despises his
old traditions, and is even ashamed of the faith of his fathers. He visits
princes, though he is only a peasant corrupted. The peasants are rotting
in drunkenness and cannot shake off the habit. And what cruelty to their
wives, to their children even! All from drunkenness! I’ve seen in the
factories children of nine years old, frail, rickety, bent and already
depraved. The stuffy workshop, the din of machinery, work all day long,
the vile language and the drink, the drink—is that what a little child’s
heart needs? He needs sunshine, childish play, good examples all about
him, and at least a little love. There must be no more of this, monks, no
more torturing of children, rise up and preach that, make haste, make
haste!
But God will save Russia, for though the peasants are corrupted and cannot
renounce their filthy sin, yet they know it is cursed by God and that they
do wrong in sinning. So that our people still believe in righteousness,
have faith in God and weep tears of devotion.
It is different with the upper classes. They, following science, want to
base justice on reason alone, but not with Christ, as before, and they
have already proclaimed that there is no crime, that there is no sin. And
that’s consistent, for if you have no God what is the meaning of crime? In
Europe the people are already rising up against the rich with violence,
and the leaders of the people are everywhere leading them to bloodshed,
and teaching them that their wrath is righteous. But their “wrath is
accursed, for it is cruel.” But God will save Russia as He has saved her
many times. Salvation will come from the people, from their faith and
their meekness.
Fathers and teachers, watch over the people’s faith and this will not be a
dream. I’ve been struck all my life in our great people by their dignity,
their true and seemly dignity. I’ve seen it myself, I can testify to it,
I’ve seen it and marveled at it, I’ve seen it in spite of the degraded
sins and poverty‐stricken appearance of our peasantry. They are not
servile, and even after two centuries of serfdom they are free in manner
and bearing, yet without insolence, and not revengeful and not envious.
“You are rich and noble, you are clever and talented, well, be so, God
bless you. I respect you, but I know that I too am a man. By the very fact
that I respect you without envy I prove my dignity as a man.”
In truth if they don’t say this (for they don’t know how to say this yet),
that is how they act. I have seen it myself, I have known it myself, and,
would you believe it, the poorer our Russian peasant is, the more
noticeable is that serene goodness, for the rich among them are for the
most part corrupted already, and much of that is due to our carelessness
and indifference. But God will save His people, for Russia is great in her
humility. I dream of seeing, and seem to see clearly already, our future.
It will come to pass, that even the most corrupt of our rich will end by
being ashamed of his riches before the poor, and the poor, seeing his
humility, will understand and give way before him, will respond joyfully
and kindly to his honorable shame. Believe me that it will end in that;
things are moving to that. Equality is to be found only in the spiritual
dignity of man, and that will only be understood among us. If we were
brothers, there would be fraternity, but before that, they will never
agree about the division of wealth. We preserve the image of Christ, and
it will shine forth like a precious diamond to the whole world. So may it
be, so may it be!
Fathers and teachers, a touching incident befell me once. In my wanderings
I met in the town of K. my old orderly, Afanasy. It was eight years since
I had parted from him. He chanced to see me in the market‐place,
recognized me, ran up to me, and how delighted he was! He simply pounced
on me: “Master dear, is it you? Is it really you I see?” He took me home
with him.
He was no longer in the army, he was married and already had two little
children. He and his wife earned their living as costermongers in the
market‐place. His room was poor, but bright and clean. He made me sit
down, set the samovar, sent for his wife, as though my appearance were a
festival for them. He brought me his children: “Bless them, Father.”
“Is it for me to bless them? I am only a humble monk. I will pray for
them. And for you, Afanasy Pavlovitch, I have prayed every day since that
day, for it all came from you,” said I. And I explained that to him as
well as I could. And what do you think? The man kept gazing at me and
could not believe that I, his former master, an officer, was now before
him in such a guise and position; it made him shed tears.
“Why are you weeping?” said I, “better rejoice over me, dear friend, whom
I can never forget, for my path is a glad and joyful one.”
He did not say much, but kept sighing and shaking his head over me
tenderly.
“What has became of your fortune?” he asked.
“I gave it to the monastery,” I answered; “we live in common.”
After tea I began saying good‐by, and suddenly he brought out half a
rouble as an offering to the monastery, and another half‐rouble I saw him
thrusting hurriedly into my hand: “That’s for you in your wanderings, it
may be of use to you, Father.”
I took his half‐rouble, bowed to him and his wife, and went out rejoicing.
And on my way I thought: “Here we are both now, he at home and I on the
road, sighing and shaking our heads, no doubt, and yet smiling joyfully in
the gladness of our hearts, remembering how God brought about our
meeting.”
I have never seen him again since then. I had been his master and he my
servant, but now when we exchanged a loving kiss with softened hearts,
there was a great human bond between us. I have thought a great deal about
that, and now what I think is this: Is it so inconceivable that that grand
and simple‐hearted unity might in due time become universal among the
Russian people? I believe that it will come to pass and that the time is
at hand.
And of servants I will add this: In old days when I was young I was often
angry with servants; “the cook had served something too hot, the orderly
had not brushed my clothes.” But what taught me better then was a thought
of my dear brother’s, which I had heard from him in childhood: “Am I worth
it, that another should serve me and be ordered about by me in his poverty
and ignorance?” And I wondered at the time that such simple and self‐
evident ideas should be so slow to occur to our minds.
It is impossible that there should be no servants in the world, but act so
that your servant may be freer in spirit than if he were not a servant.
And why cannot I be a servant to my servant and even let him see it, and
that without any pride on my part or any mistrust on his? Why should not
my servant be like my own kindred, so that I may take him into my family
and rejoice in doing so? Even now this can be done, but it will lead to
the grand unity of men in the future, when a man will not seek servants
for himself, or desire to turn his fellow creatures into servants as he
does now, but on the contrary, will long with his whole heart to be the
servant of all, as the Gospel teaches.
And can it be a dream, that in the end man will find his joy only in deeds
of light and mercy, and not in cruel pleasures as now, in gluttony,
fornication, ostentation, boasting and envious rivalry of one with the
other? I firmly believe that it is not and that the time is at hand.
People laugh and ask: “When will that time come and does it look like
coming?” I believe that with Christ’s help we shall accomplish this great
thing. And how many ideas there have been on earth in the history of man
which were unthinkable ten years before they appeared! Yet when their
destined hour had come, they came forth and spread over the whole earth.
So it will be with us, and our people will shine forth in the world, and
all men will say: “The stone which the builders rejected has become the
corner‐stone of the building.”
And we may ask the scornful themselves: If our hope is a dream, when will
you build up your edifice and order things justly by your intellect alone,
without Christ? If they declare that it is they who are advancing towards
unity, only the most simple‐hearted among them believe it, so that one may
positively marvel at such simplicity. Of a truth, they have more fantastic
dreams than we. They aim at justice, but, denying Christ, they will end by
flooding the earth with blood, for blood cries out for blood, and he that
taketh up the sword shall perish by the sword. And if it were not for
Christ’s covenant, they would slaughter one another down to the last two
men on earth. And those two last men would not be able to restrain each
other in their pride, and the one would slay the other and then himself.
And that would come to pass, were it not for the promise of Christ that
for the sake of the humble and meek the days shall be shortened.
While I was still wearing an officer’s uniform after my duel, I talked
about servants in general society, and I remember every one was amazed at
me. “What!” they asked, “are we to make our servants sit down on the sofa
and offer them tea?” And I answered them: “Why not, sometimes at least?”
Every one laughed. Their question was frivolous and my answer was not
clear; but the thought in it was to some extent right.
(_g_) _Of Prayer, of Love, and of Contact with other Worlds_
Young man, be not forgetful of prayer. Every time you pray, if your prayer
is sincere, there will be new feeling and new meaning in it, which will
give you fresh courage, and you will understand that prayer is an
education. Remember, too, every day, and whenever you can, repeat to
yourself, “Lord, have mercy on all who appear before Thee to‐day.” For
every hour and every moment thousands of men leave life on this earth, and
their souls appear before God. And how many of them depart in solitude,
unknown, sad, dejected that no one mourns for them or even knows whether
they have lived or not! And behold, from the other end of the earth
perhaps, your prayer for their rest will rise up to God though you knew
them not nor they you. How touching it must be to a soul standing in dread
before the Lord to feel at that instant that, for him too, there is one to
pray, that there is a fellow creature left on earth to love him too! And
God will look on you both more graciously, for if you have had so much
pity on him, how much will He have pity Who is infinitely more loving and
merciful than you! And He will forgive him for your sake.
Brothers, have no fear of men’s sin. Love a man even in his sin, for that
is the semblance of Divine Love and is the highest love on earth. Love all
God’s creation, the whole and every grain of sand in it. Love every leaf,
every ray of God’s light. Love the animals, love the plants, love
everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery
in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better
every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all‐
embracing love. Love the animals: God has given them the rudiments of
thought and joy untroubled. Do not trouble it, don’t harass them, don’t
deprive them of their happiness, don’t work against God’s intent. Man, do
not pride yourself on superiority to the animals; they are without sin,
and you, with your greatness, defile the earth by your appearance on it,
and leave the traces of your foulness after you—alas, it is true of almost
every one of us! Love children especially, for they too are sinless like
the angels; they live to soften and purify our hearts and as it were to
guide us. Woe to him who offends a child! Father Anfim taught me to love
children. The kind, silent man used often on our wanderings to spend the
farthings given us on sweets and cakes for the children. He could not pass
by a child without emotion. That’s the nature of the man.
At some thoughts one stands perplexed, especially at the sight of men’s
sin, and wonders whether one should use force or humble love. Always
decide to use humble love. If you resolve on that once for all, you may
subdue the whole world. Loving humility is marvelously strong, the
strongest of all things, and there is nothing else like it.
Every day and every hour, every minute, walk round yourself and watch
yourself, and see that your image is a seemly one. You pass by a little
child, you pass by, spiteful, with ugly words, with wrathful heart; you
may not have noticed the child, but he has seen you, and your image,
unseemly and ignoble, may remain in his defenseless heart. You don’t know
it, but you may have sown an evil seed in him and it may grow, and all
because you were not careful before the child, because you did not foster
in yourself a careful, actively benevolent love. Brothers, love is a
teacher; but one must know how to acquire it, for it is hard to acquire,
it is dearly bought, it is won slowly by long labor. For we must love not
only occasionally, for a moment, but for ever. Every one can love
occasionally, even the wicked can.
My brother asked the birds to forgive him; that sounds senseless, but it
is right; for all is like an ocean, all is flowing and blending; a touch
in one place sets up movement at the other end of the earth. It may be
senseless to beg forgiveness of the birds, but birds would be happier at
your side—a little happier, anyway—and children and all animals, if you
were nobler than you are now. It’s all like an ocean, I tell you. Then you
would pray to the birds too, consumed by an all‐embracing love, in a sort
of transport, and pray that they too will forgive you your sin. Treasure
this ecstasy, however senseless it may seem to men.
My friends, pray to God for gladness. Be glad as children, as the birds of
heaven. And let not the sin of men confound you in your doings. Fear not
that it will wear away your work and hinder its being accomplished. Do not
say, “Sin is mighty, wickedness is mighty, evil environment is mighty, and
we are lonely and helpless, and evil environment is wearing us away and
hindering our good work from being done.” Fly from that dejection,
children! There is only one means of salvation, then take yourself and
make yourself responsible for all men’s sins, that is the truth, you know,
friends, for as soon as you sincerely make yourself responsible for
everything and for all men, you will see at once that it is really so, and
that you are to blame for every one and for all things. But throwing your
own indolence and impotence on others you will end by sharing the pride of
Satan and murmuring against God.
Of the pride of Satan what I think is this: it is hard for us on earth to
comprehend it, and therefore it is so easy to fall into error and to share
it, even imagining that we are doing something grand and fine. Indeed,
many of the strongest feelings and movements of our nature we cannot
comprehend on earth. Let not that be a stumbling‐block, and think not that
it may serve as a justification to you for anything. For the Eternal Judge
asks of you what you can comprehend and not what you cannot. You will know
that yourself hereafter, for you will behold all things truly then and
will not dispute them. On earth, indeed, we are as it were astray, and if
it were not for the precious image of Christ before us, we should be
undone and altogether lost, as was the human race before the flood. Much
on earth is hidden from us, but to make up for that we have been given a
precious mystic sense of our living bond with the other world, with the
higher heavenly world, and the roots of our thoughts and feelings are not
here but in other worlds. That is why the philosophers say that we cannot
apprehend the reality of things on earth.
God took seeds from different worlds and sowed them on this earth, and His
garden grew up and everything came up that could come up, but what grows
lives and is alive only through the feeling of its contact with other
mysterious worlds. If that feeling grows weak or is destroyed in you, the
heavenly growth will die away in you. Then you will be indifferent to life
and even grow to hate it. That’s what I think.
_(h) Can a Man judge his Fellow Creatures? Faith to the End_
Remember particularly that you cannot be a judge of any one. For no one
can judge a criminal, until he recognizes that he is just such a criminal
as the man standing before him, and that he perhaps is more than all men
to blame for that crime. When he understands that, he will be able to be a
judge. Though that sounds absurd, it is true. If I had been righteous
myself, perhaps there would have been no criminal standing before me. If
you can take upon yourself the crime of the criminal your heart is
judging, take it at once, suffer for him yourself, and let him go without
reproach. And even if the law itself makes you his judge, act in the same
spirit so far as possible, for he will go away and condemn himself more
bitterly than you have done. If, after your kiss, he goes away untouched,
mocking at you, do not let that be a stumbling‐block to you. It shows his
time has not yet come, but it will come in due course. And if it come not,
no matter; if not he, then another in his place will understand and
suffer, and judge and condemn himself, and the truth will be fulfilled.
Believe that, believe it without doubt; for in that lies all the hope and
faith of the saints.
Work without ceasing. If you remember in the night as you go to sleep, “I
have not done what I ought to have done,” rise up at once and do it. If
the people around you are spiteful and callous and will not hear you, fall
down before them and beg their forgiveness; for in truth you are to blame
for their not wanting to hear you. And if you cannot speak to them in
their bitterness, serve them in silence and in humility, never losing
hope. If all men abandon you and even drive you away by force, then when
you are left alone fall on the earth and kiss it, water it with your tears
and it will bring forth fruit even though no one has seen or heard you in
your solitude. Believe to the end, even if all men went astray and you
were left the only one faithful; bring your offering even then and praise
God in your loneliness. And if two of you are gathered together—then there
is a whole world, a world of living love. Embrace each other tenderly and
praise God, for if only in you two His truth has been fulfilled.
If you sin yourself and grieve even unto death for your sins or for your
sudden sin, then rejoice for others, rejoice for the righteous man,
rejoice that if you have sinned, he is righteous and has not sinned.
If the evil‐doing of men moves you to indignation and overwhelming
distress, even to a desire for vengeance on the evil‐doers, shun above all
things that feeling. Go at once and seek suffering for yourself, as though
you were yourself guilty of that wrong. Accept that suffering and bear it
and your heart will find comfort, and you will understand that you too are
guilty, for you might have been a light to the evil‐doers, even as the one
man sinless, and you were not a light to them. If you had been a light,
you would have lightened the path for others too, and the evil‐doer might
perhaps have been saved by your light from his sin. And even though your
light was shining, yet you see men were not saved by it, hold firm and
doubt not the power of the heavenly light. Believe that if they were not
saved, they will be saved hereafter. And if they are not saved hereafter,
then their sons will be saved, for your light will not die even when you
are dead. The righteous man departs, but his light remains. Men are always
saved after the death of the deliverer. Men reject their prophets and slay
them, but they love their martyrs and honor those whom they have slain.
You are working for the whole, you are acting for the future. Seek no
reward, for great is your reward on this earth: the spiritual joy which is
only vouchsafed to the righteous man. Fear not the great nor the mighty,
but be wise and ever serene. Know the measure, know the times, study that.
When you are left alone, pray. Love to throw yourself on the earth and
kiss it. Kiss the earth and love it with an unceasing, consuming love.
Love all men, love everything. Seek that rapture and ecstasy. Water the
earth with the tears of your joy and love those tears. Don’t be ashamed of
that ecstasy, prize it, for it is a gift of God and a great one; it is not
given to many but only to the elect.
_(i) Of Hell and Hell Fire, a Mystic Reflection_
Fathers and teachers, I ponder, “What is hell?” I maintain that it is the
suffering of being unable to love. Once in infinite existence,
immeasurable in time and space, a spiritual creature was given on his
coming to earth, the power of saying, “I am and I love.” Once, only once,
there was given him a moment of active _living_ love, and for that was
earthly life given him, and with it times and seasons. And that happy
creature rejected the priceless gift, prized it and loved it not, scorned
it and remained callous. Such a one, having left the earth, sees Abraham’s
bosom and talks with Abraham as we are told in the parable of the rich man
and Lazarus, and beholds heaven and can go up to the Lord. But that is
just his torment, to rise up to the Lord without ever having loved, to be
brought close to those who have loved when he has despised their love. For
he sees clearly and says to himself, “Now I have understanding, and though
I now thirst to love, there will be nothing great, no sacrifice in my
love, for my earthly life is over, and Abraham will not come even with a
drop of living water (that is the gift of earthly active life) to cool the
fiery thirst of spiritual love which burns in me now, though I despised it
on earth; there is no more life for me and will be no more time! Even
though I would gladly give my life for others, it can never be, for that
life is passed which can be sacrificed for love, and now there is a gulf
fixed between that life and this existence.”
They talk of hell fire in the material sense. I don’t go into that mystery
and I shun it. But I think if there were fire in material sense, they
would be glad of it, for I imagine that in material agony, their still
greater spiritual agony would be forgotten for a moment. Moreover, that
spiritual agony cannot be taken from them, for that suffering is not
external but within them. And if it could be taken from them, I think it
would be bitterer still for the unhappy creatures. For even if the
righteous in Paradise forgave them, beholding their torments, and called
them up to heaven in their infinite love, they would only multiply their
torments, for they would arouse in them still more keenly a flaming thirst
for responsive, active and grateful love which is now impossible. In the
timidity of my heart I imagine, however, that the very recognition of this
impossibility would serve at last to console them. For accepting the love
of the righteous together with the impossibility of repaying it, by this
submissiveness and the effect of this humility, they will attain at last,
as it were, to a certain semblance of that active love which they scorned
in life, to something like its outward expression.... I am sorry, friends
and brothers, that I cannot express this clearly. But woe to those who
have slain themselves on earth, woe to the suicides! I believe that there
can be none more miserable then they. They tell us that it is a sin to
pray for them and outwardly the Church, as it were, renounces them, but in
my secret heart I believe that we may pray even for them. Love can never
be an offense to Christ. For such as those I have prayed inwardly all my
life, I confess it, fathers and teachers, and even now I pray for them
every day.
Oh, there are some who remain proud and fierce even in hell, in spite of
their certain knowledge and contemplation of the absolute truth; there are
some fearful ones who have given themselves over to Satan and his proud
spirit entirely. For such, hell is voluntary and ever consuming; they are
tortured by their own choice. For they have cursed themselves, cursing God
and life. They live upon their vindictive pride like a starving man in the
desert sucking blood out of his own body. But they are never satisfied,
and they refuse forgiveness, they curse God Who calls them. They cannot
behold the living God without hatred, and they cry out that the God of
life should be annihilated, that God should destroy Himself and His own
creation. And they will burn in the fire of their own wrath for ever and
yearn for death and annihilation. But they will not attain to death....
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
Here Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov’s manuscript ends. I repeat, it is
incomplete and fragmentary. Biographical details, for instance, cover only
Father Zossima’s earliest youth. Of his teaching and opinions we find
brought together sayings evidently uttered on very different occasions.
His utterances during the last few hours have not been kept separate from
the rest, but their general character can be gathered from what we have in
Alexey Fyodorovitch’s manuscript.
The elder’s death came in the end quite unexpectedly. For although those
who were gathered about him that last evening realized that his death was
approaching, yet it was difficult to imagine that it would come so
suddenly. On the contrary, his friends, as I observed already, seeing him
that night apparently so cheerful and talkative, were convinced that there
was at least a temporary change for the better in his condition. Even five
minutes before his death, they said afterwards wonderingly, it was
impossible to foresee it. He seemed suddenly to feel an acute pain in his
chest, he turned pale and pressed his hands to his heart. All rose from
their seats and hastened to him. But though suffering, he still looked at
them with a smile, sank slowly from his chair on to his knees, then bowed
his face to the ground, stretched out his arms and as though in joyful
ecstasy, praying and kissing the ground, quietly and joyfully gave up his
soul to God.
The news of his death spread at once through the hermitage and reached the
monastery. The nearest friends of the deceased and those whose duty it was
from their position began to lay out the corpse according to the ancient
ritual, and all the monks gathered together in the church. And before dawn
the news of the death reached the town. By the morning all the town was
talking of the event, and crowds were flocking from the town to the
monastery. But this subject will be treated in the next book; I will only
add here that before a day had passed something happened so unexpected, so
strange, upsetting, and bewildering in its effect on the monks and the
townspeople, that after all these years, that day of general suspense is
still vividly remembered in the town.
PART III
Book VII. Alyosha
Chapter I. The Breath Of Corruption
The body of Father Zossima was prepared for burial according to the
established ritual. As is well known, the bodies of dead monks and hermits
are not washed. In the words of the Church Ritual: “If any one of the
monks depart in the Lord, the monk designated (that is, whose office it
is) shall wipe the body with warm water, making first the sign of the
cross with a sponge on the forehead of the deceased, on the breast, on the
hands and feet and on the knees, and that is enough.” All this was done by
Father Païssy, who then clothed the deceased in his monastic garb and
wrapped him in his cloak, which was, according to custom, somewhat slit to
allow of its being folded about him in the form of a cross. On his head he
put a hood with an eight‐cornered cross. The hood was left open and the
dead man’s face was covered with black gauze. In his hands was put an ikon
of the Saviour. Towards morning he was put in the coffin which had been
made ready long before. It was decided to leave the coffin all day in the
cell, in the larger room in which the elder used to receive his visitors
and fellow monks. As the deceased was a priest and monk of the strictest
rule, the Gospel, not the Psalter, had to be read over his body by monks
in holy orders. The reading was begun by Father Iosif immediately after
the requiem service. Father Païssy desired later on to read the Gospel all
day and night over his dead friend, but for the present he, as well as the
Father Superintendent of the Hermitage, was very busy and occupied, for
something extraordinary, an unheard‐of, even “unseemly” excitement and
impatient expectation began to be apparent in the monks, and the visitors
from the monastery hostels, and the crowds of people flocking from the
town. And as time went on, this grew more and more marked. Both the
Superintendent and Father Païssy did their utmost to calm the general
bustle and agitation.
When it was fully daylight, some people began bringing their sick, in most
cases children, with them from the town—as though they had been waiting
expressly for this moment to do so, evidently persuaded that the dead
elder’s remains had a power of healing, which would be immediately made
manifest in accordance with their faith. It was only then apparent how
unquestionably every one in our town had accepted Father Zossima during
his lifetime as a great saint. And those who came were far from being all
of the humbler classes.
This intense expectation on the part of believers displayed with such
haste, such openness, even with impatience and almost insistence,
impressed Father Païssy as unseemly. Though he had long foreseen something
of the sort, the actual manifestation of the feeling was beyond anything
he had looked for. When he came across any of the monks who displayed this
excitement, Father Païssy began to reprove them. “Such immediate
expectation of something extraordinary,” he said, “shows a levity,
possible to worldly people but unseemly in us.”
But little attention was paid him and Father Païssy noticed it uneasily.
Yet he himself (if the whole truth must be told), secretly at the bottom
of his heart, cherished almost the same hopes and could not but be aware
of it, though he was indignant at the too impatient expectation around
him, and saw in it light‐mindedness and vanity. Nevertheless, it was
particularly unpleasant to him to meet certain persons, whose presence
aroused in him great misgivings. In the crowd in the dead man’s cell he
noticed with inward aversion (for which he immediately reproached himself)
the presence of Rakitin and of the monk from Obdorsk, who was still
staying in the monastery. Of both of them Father Païssy felt for some
reason suddenly suspicious—though, indeed, he might well have felt the
same about others.
The monk from Obdorsk was conspicuous as the most fussy in the excited
crowd. He was to be seen everywhere; everywhere he was asking questions,
everywhere he was listening, on all sides he was whispering with a
peculiar, mysterious air. His expression showed the greatest impatience
and even a sort of irritation.
As for Rakitin, he, as appeared later, had come so early to the hermitage
at the special request of Madame Hohlakov. As soon as that good‐hearted
but weak‐minded woman, who could not herself have been admitted to the
hermitage, waked and heard of the death of Father Zossima, she was
overtaken with such intense curiosity that she promptly dispatched Rakitin
to the hermitage, to keep a careful look out and report to her by letter
every half‐hour or so “_everything that takes place_.” She regarded
Rakitin as a most religious and devout young man. He was particularly
clever in getting round people and assuming whatever part he thought most
to their taste, if he detected the slightest advantage to himself from
doing so.
It was a bright, clear day, and many of the visitors were thronging about
the tombs, which were particularly numerous round the church and scattered
here and there about the hermitage. As he walked round the hermitage,
Father Païssy remembered Alyosha and that he had not seen him for some
time, not since the night. And he had no sooner thought of him than he at
once noticed him in the farthest corner of the hermitage garden, sitting
on the tombstone of a monk who had been famous long ago for his
saintliness. He sat with his back to the hermitage and his face to the
wall, and seemed to be hiding behind the tombstone. Going up to him,
Father Païssy saw that he was weeping quietly but bitterly, with his face
hidden in his hands, and that his whole frame was shaking with sobs.
Father Païssy stood over him for a little.
“Enough, dear son, enough, dear,” he pronounced with feeling at last. “Why
do you weep? Rejoice and weep not. Don’t you know that this is the
greatest of his days? Think only where he is now, at this moment!”
Alyosha glanced at him, uncovering his face, which was swollen with crying
like a child’s, but turned away at once without uttering a word and hid
his face in his hands again.
“Maybe it is well,” said Father Païssy thoughtfully; “weep if you must,
Christ has sent you those tears.”
“Your touching tears are but a relief to your spirit and will serve to
gladden your dear heart,” he added to himself, walking away from Alyosha,
and thinking lovingly of him. He moved away quickly, however, for he felt
that he too might weep looking at him.
Meanwhile the time was passing; the monastery services and the requiems
for the dead followed in their due course. Father Païssy again took Father
Iosif’s place by the coffin and began reading the Gospel. But before three
o’clock in the afternoon that something took place to which I alluded at
the end of the last book, something so unexpected by all of us and so
contrary to the general hope, that, I repeat, this trivial incident has
been minutely remembered to this day in our town and all the surrounding
neighborhood. I may add here, for myself personally, that I feel it almost
repulsive to recall that event which caused such frivolous agitation and
was such a stumbling‐block to many, though in reality it was the most
natural and trivial matter. I should, of course, have omitted all mention
of it in my story, if it had not exerted a very strong influence on the
heart and soul of the chief, though future, hero of my story, Alyosha,
forming a crisis and turning‐point in his spiritual development, giving a
shock to his intellect, which finally strengthened it for the rest of his
life and gave it a definite aim.
And so, to return to our story. When before dawn they laid Father
Zossima’s body in the coffin and brought it into the front room, the
question of opening the windows was raised among those who were around the
coffin. But this suggestion made casually by some one was unanswered and
almost unnoticed. Some of those present may perhaps have inwardly noticed
it, only to reflect that the anticipation of decay and corruption from the
body of such a saint was an actual absurdity, calling for compassion (if
not a smile) for the lack of faith and the frivolity it implied. For they
expected something quite different.
And, behold, soon after midday there were signs of something, at first
only observed in silence by those who came in and out and were evidently
each afraid to communicate the thought in his mind. But by three o’clock
those signs had become so clear and unmistakable, that the news swiftly
reached all the monks and visitors in the hermitage, promptly penetrated
to the monastery, throwing all the monks into amazement, and finally, in
the shortest possible time, spread to the town, exciting every one in it,
believers and unbelievers alike. The unbelievers rejoiced, and as for the
believers some of them rejoiced even more than the unbelievers, for “men
love the downfall and disgrace of the righteous,” as the deceased elder
had said in one of his exhortations.
The fact is that a smell of decomposition began to come from the coffin,
growing gradually more marked, and by three o’clock it was quite
unmistakable. In all the past history of our monastery, no such scandal
could be recalled, and in no other circumstances could such a scandal have
been possible, as showed itself in unseemly disorder immediately after
this discovery among the very monks themselves. Afterwards, even many
years afterwards, some sensible monks were amazed and horrified, when they
recalled that day, that the scandal could have reached such proportions.
For in the past, monks of very holy life had died, God‐fearing old men,
whose saintliness was acknowledged by all, yet from their humble coffins,
too, the breath of corruption had come, naturally, as from all dead
bodies, but that had caused no scandal nor even the slightest excitement.
Of course there had been, in former times, saints in the monastery whose
memory was carefully preserved and whose relics, according to tradition,
showed no signs of corruption. This fact was regarded by the monks as
touching and mysterious, and the tradition of it was cherished as
something blessed and miraculous, and as a promise, by God’s grace, of
still greater glory from their tombs in the future.
One such, whose memory was particularly cherished, was an old monk, Job,
who had died seventy years before at the age of a hundred and five. He had
been a celebrated ascetic, rigid in fasting and silence, and his tomb was
pointed out to all visitors on their arrival with peculiar respect and
mysterious hints of great hopes connected with it. (That was the very tomb
on which Father Païssy had found Alyosha sitting in the morning.) Another
memory cherished in the monastery was that of the famous Father Varsonofy,
who was only recently dead and had preceded Father Zossima in the
eldership. He was reverenced during his lifetime as a crazy saint by all
the pilgrims to the monastery. There was a tradition that both of these
had lain in their coffins as though alive, that they had shown no signs of
decomposition when they were buried and that there had been a holy light
in their faces. And some people even insisted that a sweet fragrance came
from their bodies.
Yet, in spite of these edifying memories, it would be difficult to explain
the frivolity, absurdity and malice that were manifested beside the coffin
of Father Zossima. It is my private opinion that several different causes
were simultaneously at work, one of which was the deeply‐rooted hostility
to the institution of elders as a pernicious innovation, an antipathy
hidden deep in the hearts of many of the monks. Even more powerful was
jealousy of the dead man’s saintliness, so firmly established during his
lifetime that it was almost a forbidden thing to question it. For though
the late elder had won over many hearts, more by love than by miracles,
and had gathered round him a mass of loving adherents, none the less, in
fact, rather the more on that account he had awakened jealousy and so had
come to have bitter enemies, secret and open, not only in the monastery
but in the world outside it. He did no one any harm, but “Why do they
think him so saintly?” And that question alone, gradually repeated, gave
rise at last to an intense, insatiable hatred of him. That, I believe, was
why many people were extremely delighted at the smell of decomposition
which came so quickly, for not a day had passed since his death. At the
same time there were some among those who had been hitherto reverently
devoted to the elder, who were almost mortified and personally affronted
by this incident. This was how the thing happened.
As soon as signs of decomposition had begun to appear, the whole aspect of
the monks betrayed their secret motives in entering the cell. They went
in, stayed a little while and hastened out to confirm the news to the
crowd of other monks waiting outside. Some of the latter shook their heads
mournfully, but others did not even care to conceal the delight which
gleamed unmistakably in their malignant eyes. And now no one reproached
them for it, no one raised his voice in protest, which was strange, for
the majority of the monks had been devoted to the dead elder. But it
seemed as though God had in this case let the minority get the upper hand
for a time.
Visitors from outside, particularly of the educated class, soon went into
the cell, too, with the same spying intent. Of the peasantry few went into
the cell, though there were crowds of them at the gates of the hermitage.
After three o’clock the rush of worldly visitors was greatly increased and
this was no doubt owing to the shocking news. People were attracted who
would not otherwise have come on that day and had not intended to come,
and among them were some personages of high standing. But external decorum
was still preserved and Father Païssy, with a stern face, continued firmly
and distinctly reading aloud the Gospel, apparently not noticing what was
taking place around him, though he had, in fact, observed something
unusual long before. But at last the murmurs, first subdued but gradually
louder and more confident, reached even him. “It shows God’s judgment is
not as man’s,” Father Païssy heard suddenly. The first to give utterance
to this sentiment was a layman, an elderly official from the town, known
to be a man of great piety. But he only repeated aloud what the monks had
long been whispering. They had long before formulated this damning
conclusion, and the worst of it was that a sort of triumphant satisfaction
at that conclusion became more and more apparent every moment. Soon they
began to lay aside even external decorum and almost seemed to feel they
had a sort of right to discard it.
“And for what reason can _this_ have happened,” some of the monks said, at
first with a show of regret; “he had a small frame and his flesh was dried
up on his bones, what was there to decay?”
“It must be a sign from heaven,” others hastened to add, and their opinion
was adopted at once without protest. For it was pointed out, too, that if
the decomposition had been natural, as in the case of every dead sinner,
it would have been apparent later, after a lapse of at least twenty‐four
hours, but this premature corruption “was in excess of nature,” and so the
finger of God was evident. It was meant for a sign. This conclusion seemed
irresistible.
Gentle Father Iosif, the librarian, a great favorite of the dead man’s,
tried to reply to some of the evil speakers that “this is not held
everywhere alike,” and that the incorruptibility of the bodies of the just
was not a dogma of the Orthodox Church, but only an opinion, and that even
in the most Orthodox regions, at Athos for instance, they were not greatly
confounded by the smell of corruption, and there the chief sign of the
glorification of the saved was not bodily incorruptibility, but the color
of the bones when the bodies have lain many years in the earth and have
decayed in it. “And if the bones are yellow as wax, that is the great sign
that the Lord has glorified the dead saint, if they are not yellow but
black, it shows that God has not deemed him worthy of such glory—that is
the belief in Athos, a great place, where the Orthodox doctrine has been
preserved from of old, unbroken and in its greatest purity,” said Father
Iosif in conclusion.
But the meek Father’s words had little effect and even provoked a mocking
retort. “That’s all pedantry and innovation, no use listening to it,” the
monks decided. “We stick to the old doctrine, there are all sorts of
innovations nowadays, are we to follow them all?” added others.
“We have had as many holy fathers as they had. There they are among the
Turks, they have forgotten everything. Their doctrine has long been impure
and they have no bells even,” the most sneering added.
Father Iosif walked away, grieving the more since he had put forward his
own opinion with little confidence as though scarcely believing in it
himself. He foresaw with distress that something very unseemly was
beginning and that there were positive signs of disobedience. Little by
little, all the sensible monks were reduced to silence like Father Iosif.
And so it came to pass that all who loved the elder and had accepted with
devout obedience the institution of the eldership were all at once
terribly cast down and glanced timidly in one another’s faces, when they
met. Those who were hostile to the institution of elders, as a novelty,
held up their heads proudly. “There was no smell of corruption from the
late elder Varsonofy, but a sweet fragrance,” they recalled malignantly.
“But he gained that glory not because he was an elder, but because he was
a holy man.”
And this was followed by a shower of criticism and even blame of Father
Zossima. “His teaching was false; he taught that life is a great joy and
not a vale of tears,” said some of the more unreasonable. “He followed the
fashionable belief, he did not recognize material fire in hell,” others,
still more unreasonable, added. “He was not strict in fasting, allowed
himself sweet things, ate cherry jam with his tea, ladies used to send it
to him. Is it for a monk of strict rule to drink tea?” could be heard
among some of the envious. “He sat in pride,” the most malignant declared
vindictively; “he considered himself a saint and he took it as his due
when people knelt before him.” “He abused the sacrament of confession,”
the fiercest opponents of the institution of elders added in a malicious
whisper. And among these were some of the oldest monks, strictest in their
devotion, genuine ascetics, who had kept silent during the life of the
deceased elder, but now suddenly unsealed their lips. And this was
terrible, for their words had great influence on young monks who were not
yet firm in their convictions. The monk from Obdorsk heard all this
attentively, heaving deep sighs and nodding his head. “Yes, clearly Father
Ferapont was right in his judgment yesterday,” and at that moment Father
Ferapont himself made his appearance, as though on purpose to increase the
confusion.
I have mentioned already that he rarely left his wooden cell by the
apiary. He was seldom even seen at church and they overlooked this neglect
on the ground of his craziness, and did not keep him to the rules binding
on all the rest. But if the whole truth is to be told, they hardly had a
choice about it. For it would have been discreditable to insist on
burdening with the common regulations so great an ascetic, who prayed day
and night (he even dropped asleep on his knees). If they had insisted, the
monks would have said, “He is holier than all of us and he follows a rule
harder than ours. And if he does not go to church, it’s because he knows
when he ought to; he has his own rule.” It was to avoid the chance of
these sinful murmurs that Father Ferapont was left in peace.
As every one was aware, Father Ferapont particularly disliked Father
Zossima. And now the news had reached him in his hut that “God’s judgment
is not the same as man’s,” and that something had happened which was “in
excess of nature.” It may well be supposed that among the first to run to
him with the news was the monk from Obdorsk, who had visited him the
evening before and left his cell terror‐stricken.
I have mentioned above, that though Father Païssy, standing firm and
immovable reading the Gospel over the coffin, could not hear nor see what
was passing outside the cell, he gauged most of it correctly in his heart,
for he knew the men surrounding him, well. He was not shaken by it, but
awaited what would come next without fear, watching with penetration and
insight for the outcome of the general excitement.
Suddenly an extraordinary uproar in the passage in open defiance of
decorum burst on his ears. The door was flung open and Father Ferapont
appeared in the doorway. Behind him there could be seen accompanying him a
crowd of monks, together with many people from the town. They did not,
however, enter the cell, but stood at the bottom of the steps, waiting to
see what Father Ferapont would say or do. For they felt with a certain
awe, in spite of their audacity, that he had not come for nothing.
Standing in the doorway, Father Ferapont raised his arms, and under his
right arm the keen inquisitive little eyes of the monk from Obdorsk peeped
in. He alone, in his intense curiosity, could not resist running up the
steps after Father Ferapont. The others, on the contrary, pressed farther
back in sudden alarm when the door was noisily flung open. Holding his
hands aloft, Father Ferapont suddenly roared:
“Casting out I cast out!” and, turning in all directions, he began at once
making the sign of the cross at each of the four walls and four corners of
the cell in succession. All who accompanied Father Ferapont immediately
understood his action. For they knew he always did this wherever he went,
and that he would not sit down or say a word, till he had driven out the
evil spirits.
“Satan, go hence! Satan, go hence!” he repeated at each sign of the cross.
“Casting out I cast out,” he roared again.
He was wearing his coarse gown girt with a rope. His bare chest, covered
with gray hair, could be seen under his hempen shirt. His feet were bare.
As soon as he began waving his arms, the cruel irons he wore under his
gown could be heard clanking.
Father Païssy paused in his reading, stepped forward and stood before him
waiting.
“What have you come for, worthy Father? Why do you offend against good
order? Why do you disturb the peace of the flock?” he said at last,
looking sternly at him.
“What have I come for? You ask why? What is your faith?” shouted Father
Ferapont crazily. “I’ve come here to drive out your visitors, the unclean
devils. I’ve come to see how many have gathered here while I have been
away. I want to sweep them out with a birch broom.”
“You cast out the evil spirit, but perhaps you are serving him yourself,”
Father Païssy went on fearlessly. “And who can say of himself ‘I am holy’?
Can you, Father?”
“I am unclean, not holy. I would not sit in an arm‐chair and would not
have them bow down to me as an idol,” thundered Father Ferapont. “Nowadays
folk destroy the true faith. The dead man, your saint,” he turned to the
crowd, pointing with his finger to the coffin, “did not believe in devils.
He gave medicine to keep off the devils. And so they have become as common
as spiders in the corners. And now he has begun to stink himself. In that
we see a great sign from God.”
The incident he referred to was this. One of the monks was haunted in his
dreams and, later on, in waking moments, by visions of evil spirits. When
in the utmost terror he confided this to Father Zossima, the elder had
advised continual prayer and rigid fasting. But when that was of no use,
he advised him, while persisting in prayer and fasting, to take a special
medicine. Many persons were shocked at the time and wagged their heads as
they talked over it—and most of all Father Ferapont, to whom some of the
censorious had hastened to report this “extraordinary” counsel on the part
of the elder.
“Go away, Father!” said Father Païssy, in a commanding voice, “it’s not
for man to judge but for God. Perhaps we see here a ‘sign’ which neither
you, nor I, nor any one of us is able to comprehend. Go, Father, and do
not trouble the flock!” he repeated impressively.
“He did not keep the fasts according to the rule and therefore the sign
has come. That is clear and it’s a sin to hide it,” the fanatic, carried
away by a zeal that outstripped his reason, would not be quieted. “He was
seduced by sweetmeats, ladies brought them to him in their pockets, he
sipped tea, he worshiped his belly, filling it with sweet things and his
mind with haughty thoughts.... And for this he is put to shame....”
“You speak lightly, Father.” Father Païssy, too, raised his voice. “I
admire your fasting and severities, but you speak lightly like some
frivolous youth, fickle and childish. Go away, Father, I command you!”
Father Païssy thundered in conclusion.
“I will go,” said Ferapont, seeming somewhat taken aback, but still as
bitter. “You learned men! You are so clever you look down upon my
humbleness. I came hither with little learning and here I have forgotten
what I did know, God Himself has preserved me in my weakness from your
subtlety.”
Father Païssy stood over him, waiting resolutely. Father Ferapont paused
and, suddenly leaning his cheek on his hand despondently, pronounced in a
sing‐song voice, looking at the coffin of the dead elder:
“To‐morrow they will sing over him ‘Our Helper and Defender’—a splendid
anthem—and over me when I die all they’ll sing will be ‘What earthly
joy’—a little canticle,”(6) he added with tearful regret. “You are proud
and puffed up, this is a vain place!” he shouted suddenly like a madman,
and with a wave of his hand he turned quickly and quickly descended the
steps. The crowd awaiting him below wavered; some followed him at once and
some lingered, for the cell was still open, and Father Païssy, following
Father Ferapont on to the steps, stood watching him. But the excited old
fanatic was not completely silenced. Walking twenty steps away, he
suddenly turned towards the setting sun, raised both his arms and, as
though some one had cut him down, fell to the ground with a loud scream.
“My God has conquered! Christ has conquered the setting sun!” he shouted
frantically, stretching up his hands to the sun, and falling face
downwards on the ground, he sobbed like a little child, shaken by his
tears and spreading out his arms on the ground. Then all rushed up to him;
there were exclamations and sympathetic sobs ... a kind of frenzy seemed
to take possession of them all.
“This is the one who is a saint! This is the one who is a holy man!” some
cried aloud, losing their fear. “This is he who should be an elder,”
others added malignantly.
“He wouldn’t be an elder ... he would refuse ... he wouldn’t serve a
cursed innovation ... he wouldn’t imitate their foolery,” other voices
chimed in at once. And it is hard to say how far they might have gone, but
at that moment the bell rang summoning them to service. All began crossing
themselves at once. Father Ferapont, too, got up and crossing himself went
back to his cell without looking round, still uttering exclamations which
were utterly incoherent. A few followed him, but the greater number
dispersed, hastening to service. Father Païssy let Father Iosif read in
his place and went down. The frantic outcries of bigots could not shake
him, but his heart was suddenly filled with melancholy for some special
reason and he felt that. He stood still and suddenly wondered, “Why am I
sad even to dejection?” and immediately grasped with surprise that his
sudden sadness was due to a very small and special cause. In the crowd
thronging at the entrance to the cell, he had noticed Alyosha and he
remembered that he had felt at once a pang at heart on seeing him. “Can
that boy mean so much to my heart now?” he asked himself, wondering.
At that moment Alyosha passed him, hurrying away, but not in the direction
of the church. Their eyes met. Alyosha quickly turned away his eyes and
dropped them to the ground, and from the boy’s look alone, Father Païssy
guessed what a great change was taking place in him at that moment.
“Have you, too, fallen into temptation?” cried Father Païssy. “Can you be
with those of little faith?” he added mournfully.
Alyosha stood still and gazed vaguely at Father Païssy, but quickly turned
his eyes away again and again looked on the ground. He stood sideways and
did not turn his face to Father Païssy, who watched him attentively.
“Where are you hastening? The bell calls to service,” he asked again, but
again Alyosha gave no answer.
“Are you leaving the hermitage? What, without asking leave, without asking
a blessing?”
Alyosha suddenly gave a wry smile, cast a strange, very strange, look at
the Father to whom his former guide, the former sovereign of his heart and
mind, his beloved elder, had confided him as he lay dying. And suddenly,
still without speaking, waved his hand, as though not caring even to be
respectful, and with rapid steps walked towards the gates away from the
hermitage.
“You will come back again!” murmured Father Païssy, looking after him with
sorrowful surprise.
Chapter II. A Critical Moment
Father Païssy, of course, was not wrong when he decided that his “dear
boy” would come back again. Perhaps indeed, to some extent, he penetrated
with insight into the true meaning of Alyosha’s spiritual condition. Yet I
must frankly own that it would be very difficult for me to give a clear
account of that strange, vague moment in the life of the young hero I love
so much. To Father Païssy’s sorrowful question, “Are you too with those of
little faith?” I could of course confidently answer for Alyosha, “No, he
is not with those of little faith. Quite the contrary.” Indeed, all his
trouble came from the fact that he was of great faith. But still the
trouble was there and was so agonizing that even long afterwards Alyosha
thought of that sorrowful day as one of the bitterest and most fatal days
of his life. If the question is asked: “Could all his grief and
disturbance have been only due to the fact that his elder’s body had shown
signs of premature decomposition instead of at once performing miracles?”
I must answer without beating about the bush, “Yes, it certainly was.” I
would only beg the reader not to be in too great a hurry to laugh at my
young hero’s pure heart. I am far from intending to apologize for him or
to justify his innocent faith on the ground of his youth, or the little
progress he had made in his studies, or any such reason. I must declare,
on the contrary, that I have genuine respect for the qualities of his
heart. No doubt a youth who received impressions cautiously, whose love
was lukewarm, and whose mind was too prudent for his age and so of little
value, such a young man might, I admit, have avoided what happened to my
hero. But in some cases it is really more creditable to be carried away by
an emotion, however unreasonable, which springs from a great love, than to
be unmoved. And this is even truer in youth, for a young man who is always
sensible is to be suspected and is of little worth—that’s my opinion!
“But,” reasonable people will exclaim perhaps, “every young man cannot
believe in such a superstition and your hero is no model for others.”
To this I reply again, “Yes! my hero had faith, a faith holy and
steadfast, but still I am not going to apologize for him.”
Though I declared above, and perhaps too hastily, that I should not
explain or justify my hero, I see that some explanation is necessary for
the understanding of the rest of my story. Let me say then, it was not a
question of miracles. There was no frivolous and impatient expectation of
miracles in his mind. And Alyosha needed no miracles at the time, for the
triumph of some preconceived idea—oh, no, not at all—what he saw before
all was one figure—the figure of his beloved elder, the figure of that
holy man whom he revered with such adoration. The fact is that all the
love that lay concealed in his pure young heart for every one and
everything had, for the past year, been concentrated—and perhaps wrongly
so—on one being, his beloved elder. It is true that being had for so long
been accepted by him as his ideal, that all his young strength and energy
could not but turn towards that ideal, even to the forgetting at the
moment “of every one and everything.” He remembered afterwards how, on
that terrible day, he had entirely forgotten his brother Dmitri, about
whom he had been so anxious and troubled the day before; he had forgotten,
too, to take the two hundred roubles to Ilusha’s father, though he had so
warmly intended to do so the preceding evening. But again it was not
miracles he needed but only “the higher justice” which had been in his
belief outraged by the blow that had so suddenly and cruelly wounded his
heart. And what does it signify that this “justice” looked for by Alyosha
inevitably took the shape of miracles to be wrought immediately by the
ashes of his adored teacher? Why, every one in the monastery cherished the
same thought and the same hope, even those whose intellects Alyosha
revered, Father Païssy himself, for instance. And so Alyosha, untroubled
by doubts, clothed his dreams too in the same form as all the rest. And a
whole year of life in the monastery had formed the habit of this
expectation in his heart. But it was justice, justice, he thirsted for,
not simply miracles.
And now the man who should, he believed, have been exalted above every one
in the whole world, that man, instead of receiving the glory that was his
due, was suddenly degraded and dishonored! What for? Who had judged him?
Who could have decreed this? Those were the questions that wrung his
inexperienced and virginal heart. He could not endure without
mortification, without resentment even, that the holiest of holy men
should have been exposed to the jeering and spiteful mockery of the
frivolous crowd so inferior to him. Even had there been no miracles, had
there been nothing marvelous to justify his hopes, why this indignity, why
this humiliation, why this premature decay, “in excess of nature,” as the
spiteful monks said? Why this “sign from heaven,” which they so
triumphantly acclaimed in company with Father Ferapont, and why did they
believe they had gained the right to acclaim it? Where is the finger of
Providence? Why did Providence hide its face “at the most critical moment”
(so Alyosha thought it), as though voluntarily submitting to the blind,
dumb, pitiless laws of nature?
That was why Alyosha’s heart was bleeding, and, of course, as I have said
already, the sting of it all was that the man he loved above everything on
earth should be put to shame and humiliated! This murmuring may have been
shallow and unreasonable in my hero, but I repeat again for the third
time—and am prepared to admit that it might be difficult to defend my
feeling—I am glad that my hero showed himself not too reasonable at that
moment, for any man of sense will always come back to reason in time, but,
if love does not gain the upper hand in a boy’s heart at such an
exceptional moment, when will it? I will not, however, omit to mention
something strange, which came for a time to the surface of Alyosha’s mind
at this fatal and obscure moment. This new something was the harassing
impression left by the conversation with Ivan, which now persistently
haunted Alyosha’s mind. At this moment it haunted him. Oh, it was not that
something of the fundamental, elemental, so to speak, faith of his soul
had been shaken. He loved his God and believed in Him steadfastly, though
he was suddenly murmuring against Him. Yet a vague but tormenting and evil
impression left by his conversation with Ivan the day before, suddenly
revived again now in his soul and seemed forcing its way to the surface of
his consciousness.
It had begun to get dusk when Rakitin, crossing the pine copse from the
hermitage to the monastery, suddenly noticed Alyosha, lying face downwards
on the ground under a tree, not moving and apparently asleep. He went up
and called him by his name.
“You here, Alexey? Can you have—” he began wondering but broke off. He had
meant to say, “Can you have come to this?”
Alyosha did not look at him, but from a slight movement Rakitin at once
saw that he heard and understood him.
“What’s the matter?” he went on; but the surprise in his face gradually
passed into a smile that became more and more ironical.
“I say, I’ve been looking for you for the last two hours. You suddenly
disappeared. What are you about? What foolery is this? You might just look
at me...”
Alyosha raised his head, sat up and leaned his back against the tree. He
was not crying, but there was a look of suffering and irritability in his
face. He did not look at Rakitin, however, but looked away to one side of
him.
“Do you know your face is quite changed? There’s none of your famous
mildness to be seen in it. Are you angry with some one? Have they been
ill‐treating you?”
“Let me alone,” said Alyosha suddenly, with a weary gesture of his hand,
still looking away from him.
“Oho! So that’s how we are feeling! So you can shout at people like other
mortals. That is a come‐down from the angels. I say, Alyosha, you have
surprised me, do you hear? I mean it. It’s long since I’ve been surprised
at anything here. I always took you for an educated man....”
Alyosha at last looked at him, but vaguely, as though scarcely
understanding what he said.
“Can you really be so upset simply because your old man has begun to
stink? You don’t mean to say you seriously believed that he was going to
work miracles?” exclaimed Rakitin, genuinely surprised again.
“I believed, I believe, I want to believe, and I will believe, what more
do you want?” cried Alyosha irritably.
“Nothing at all, my boy. Damn it all! why, no schoolboy of thirteen
believes in that now. But there.... So now you are in a temper with your
God, you are rebelling against Him; He hasn’t given promotion, He hasn’t
bestowed the order of merit! Eh, you are a set!”
Alyosha gazed a long while with his eyes half closed at Rakitin, and there
was a sudden gleam in his eyes ... but not of anger with Rakitin.
“I am not rebelling against my God; I simply ‘don’t accept His world.’ ”
Alyosha suddenly smiled a forced smile.
“How do you mean, you don’t accept the world?” Rakitin thought a moment
over his answer. “What idiocy is this?”
Alyosha did not answer.
“Come, enough nonsense, now to business. Have you had anything to eat to‐
day?”
“I don’t remember.... I think I have.”
“You need keeping up, to judge by your face. It makes one sorry to look at
you. You didn’t sleep all night either, I hear, you had a meeting in
there. And then all this bobbery afterwards. Most likely you’ve had
nothing to eat but a mouthful of holy bread. I’ve got some sausage in my
pocket; I’ve brought it from the town in case of need, only you won’t eat
sausage....”
“Give me some.”
“I say! You are going it! Why, it’s a regular mutiny, with barricades!
Well, my boy, we must make the most of it. Come to my place.... I
shouldn’t mind a drop of vodka myself, I am tired to death. Vodka is going
too far for you, I suppose ... or would you like some?”
“Give me some vodka too.”
“Hullo! You surprise me, brother!” Rakitin looked at him in amazement.
“Well, one way or another, vodka or sausage, this is a jolly fine chance
and mustn’t be missed. Come along.”
Alyosha got up in silence and followed Rakitin.
“If your little brother Ivan could see this—wouldn’t he be surprised! By
the way, your brother Ivan set off to Moscow this morning, did you know?”
“Yes,” answered Alyosha listlessly, and suddenly the image of his brother
Dmitri rose before his mind. But only for a minute, and though it reminded
him of something that must not be put off for a moment, some duty, some
terrible obligation, even that reminder made no impression on him, did not
reach his heart and instantly faded out of his mind and was forgotten.
But, a long while afterwards, Alyosha remembered this.
“Your brother Ivan declared once that I was a ‘liberal booby with no
talents whatsoever.’ Once you, too, could not resist letting me know I was
‘dishonorable.’ Well! I should like to see what your talents and sense of
honor will do for you now.” This phrase Rakitin finished to himself in a
whisper.
“Listen!” he said aloud, “let’s go by the path beyond the monastery
straight to the town. Hm! I ought to go to Madame Hohlakov’s by the way.
Only fancy, I’ve written to tell her everything that happened, and would
you believe it, she answered me instantly in pencil (the lady has a
passion for writing notes) that ‘she would never have expected _such
conduct_ from a man of such a reverend character as Father Zossima.’ That
was her very word: ‘conduct.’ She is angry too. Eh, you are a set! Stay!”
he cried suddenly again. He suddenly stopped and taking Alyosha by the
shoulder made him stop too.
“Do you know, Alyosha,” he peeped inquisitively into his eyes, absorbed in
a sudden new thought which had dawned on him, and though he was laughing
outwardly he was evidently afraid to utter that new idea aloud, so
difficult he still found it to believe in the strange and unexpected mood
in which he now saw Alyosha. “Alyosha, do you know where we had better
go?” he brought out at last timidly, and insinuatingly.
“I don’t care ... where you like.”
“Let’s go to Grushenka, eh? Will you come?” pronounced Rakitin at last,
trembling with timid suspense.
“Let’s go to Grushenka,” Alyosha answered calmly, at once, and this prompt
and calm agreement was such a surprise to Rakitin that he almost started
back.
“Well! I say!” he cried in amazement, but seizing Alyosha firmly by the
arm he led him along the path, still dreading that he would change his
mind.
They walked along in silence, Rakitin was positively afraid to talk.
“And how glad she will be, how delighted!” he muttered, but lapsed into
silence again. And indeed it was not to please Grushenka he was taking
Alyosha to her. He was a practical person and never undertook anything
without a prospect of gain for himself. His object in this case was
twofold, first a revengeful desire to see “the downfall of the righteous,”
and Alyosha’s fall “from the saints to the sinners,” over which he was
already gloating in his imagination, and in the second place he had in
view a certain material gain for himself, of which more will be said
later.
“So the critical moment has come,” he thought to himself with spiteful
glee, “and we shall catch it on the hop, for it’s just what we want.”
Chapter III. An Onion
Grushenka lived in the busiest part of the town, near the cathedral
square, in a small wooden lodge in the courtyard belonging to the house of
the widow Morozov. The house was a large stone building of two stories,
old and very ugly. The widow led a secluded life with her two unmarried
nieces, who were also elderly women. She had no need to let her lodge, but
every one knew that she had taken in Grushenka as a lodger, four years
before, solely to please her kinsman, the merchant Samsonov, who was known
to be the girl’s protector. It was said that the jealous old man’s object
in placing his “favorite” with the widow Morozov was that the old woman
should keep a sharp eye on her new lodger’s conduct. But this sharp eye
soon proved to be unnecessary, and in the end the widow Morozov seldom met
Grushenka and did not worry her by looking after her in any way. It is
true that four years had passed since the old man had brought the slim,
delicate, shy, timid, dreamy, and sad girl of eighteen from the chief town
of the province, and much had happened since then. Little was known of the
girl’s history in the town and that little was vague. Nothing more had
been learnt during the last four years, even after many persons had become
interested in the beautiful young woman into whom Agrafena Alexandrovna
had meanwhile developed. There were rumors that she had been at seventeen
betrayed by some one, some sort of officer, and immediately afterwards
abandoned by him. The officer had gone away and afterwards married, while
Grushenka had been left in poverty and disgrace. It was said, however,
that though Grushenka had been raised from destitution by the old man,
Samsonov, she came of a respectable family belonging to the clerical
class, that she was the daughter of a deacon or something of the sort.
And now after four years the sensitive, injured and pathetic little orphan
had become a plump, rosy beauty of the Russian type, a woman of bold and
determined character, proud and insolent. She had a good head for
business, was acquisitive, saving and careful, and by fair means or foul
had succeeded, it was said, in amassing a little fortune. There was only
one point on which all were agreed. Grushenka was not easily to be
approached and except her aged protector there had not been one man who
could boast of her favors during those four years. It was a positive fact,
for there had been a good many, especially during the last two years, who
had attempted to obtain those favors. But all their efforts had been in
vain and some of these suitors had been forced to beat an undignified and
even comic retreat, owing to the firm and ironical resistance they met
from the strong‐willed young person. It was known, too, that the young
person had, especially of late, been given to what is called
“speculation,” and that she had shown marked abilities in that direction,
so that many people began to say that she was no better than a Jew. It was
not that she lent money on interest, but it was known, for instance, that
she had for some time past, in partnership with old Karamazov, actually
invested in the purchase of bad debts for a trifle, a tenth of their
nominal value, and afterwards had made out of them ten times their value.
The old widower Samsonov, a man of large fortune, was stingy and
merciless. He tyrannized over his grown‐up sons, but, for the last year
during which he had been ill and lost the use of his swollen legs, he had
fallen greatly under the influence of his protégée, whom he had at first
kept strictly and in humble surroundings, “on Lenten fare,” as the wits
said at the time. But Grushenka had succeeded in emancipating herself,
while she established in him a boundless belief in her fidelity. The old
man, now long since dead, had had a large business in his day and was also
a noteworthy character, miserly and hard as flint. Though Grushenka’s hold
upon him was so strong that he could not live without her (it had been so
especially for the last two years), he did not settle any considerable
fortune on her and would not have been moved to do so, if she had
threatened to leave him. But he had presented her with a small sum, and
even that was a surprise to every one when it became known.
“You are a wench with brains,” he said to her, when he gave her eight
thousand roubles, “and you must look after yourself, but let me tell you
that except your yearly allowance as before, you’ll get nothing more from
me to the day of my death, and I’ll leave you nothing in my will either.”
And he kept his word; he died and left everything to his sons, whom, with
their wives and children, he had treated all his life as servants.
Grushenka was not even mentioned in his will. All this became known
afterwards. He helped Grushenka with his advice to increase her capital
and put business in her way.
When Fyodor Pavlovitch, who first came into contact with Grushenka over a
piece of speculation, ended to his own surprise by falling madly in love
with her, old Samsonov, gravely ill as he was, was immensely amused. It is
remarkable that throughout their whole acquaintance Grushenka was
absolutely and spontaneously open with the old man, and he seems to have
been the only person in the world with whom she was so. Of late, when
Dmitri too had come on the scene with his love, the old man left off
laughing. On the contrary, he once gave Grushenka a stern and earnest
piece of advice.
“If you have to choose between the two, father or son, you’d better choose
the old man, if only you make sure the old scoundrel will marry you and
settle some fortune on you beforehand. But don’t keep on with the captain,
you’ll get no good out of that.”
These were the very words of the old profligate, who felt already that his
death was not far off and who actually died five months later.
I will note, too, in passing, that although many in our town knew of the
grotesque and monstrous rivalry of the Karamazovs, father and son, the
object of which was Grushenka, scarcely any one understood what really
underlay her attitude to both of them. Even Grushenka’s two servants
(after the catastrophe of which we will speak later) testified in court
that she received Dmitri Fyodorovitch simply from fear because “he
threatened to murder her.” These servants were an old cook, invalidish and
almost deaf, who came from Grushenka’s old home, and her granddaughter, a
smart young girl of twenty, who performed the duties of a maid. Grushenka
lived very economically and her surroundings were anything but luxurious.
Her lodge consisted of three rooms furnished with mahogany furniture in
the fashion of 1820, belonging to her landlady.
It was quite dark when Rakitin and Alyosha entered her rooms, yet they
were not lighted up. Grushenka was lying down in her drawing‐room on the
big, hard, clumsy sofa, with a mahogany back. The sofa was covered with
shabby and ragged leather. Under her head she had two white down pillows
taken from her bed. She was lying stretched out motionless on her back
with her hands behind her head. She was dressed as though expecting some
one, in a black silk dress, with a dainty lace fichu on her head, which
was very becoming. Over her shoulders was thrown a lace shawl pinned with
a massive gold brooch. She certainly was expecting some one. She lay as
though impatient and weary, her face rather pale and her lips and eyes
hot, restlessly tapping the arm of the sofa with the tip of her right
foot. The appearance of Rakitin and Alyosha caused a slight excitement.
From the hall they could hear Grushenka leap up from the sofa and cry out
in a frightened voice, “Who’s there?” But the maid met the visitors and at
once called back to her mistress.
“It’s not he, it’s nothing, only other visitors.”
“What can be the matter?” muttered Rakitin, leading Alyosha into the
drawing‐room.
Grushenka was standing by the sofa as though still alarmed. A thick coil
of her dark brown hair escaped from its lace covering and fell on her
right shoulder, but she did not notice it and did not put it back till she
had gazed at her visitors and recognized them.
“Ah, it’s you, Rakitin? You quite frightened me. Whom have you brought?
Who is this with you? Good heavens, you have brought him!” she exclaimed,
recognizing Alyosha.
“Do send for candles!” said Rakitin, with the free‐and‐easy air of a most
intimate friend, who is privileged to give orders in the house.
“Candles ... of course, candles.... Fenya, fetch him a candle.... Well,
you have chosen a moment to bring him!” she exclaimed again, nodding
towards Alyosha, and turning to the looking‐glass she began quickly
fastening up her hair with both hands. She seemed displeased.
“Haven’t I managed to please you?” asked Rakitin, instantly almost
offended.
“You frightened me, Rakitin, that’s what it is.” Grushenka turned with a
smile to Alyosha. “Don’t be afraid of me, my dear Alyosha, you cannot
think how glad I am to see you, my unexpected visitor. But you frightened
me, Rakitin, I thought it was Mitya breaking in. You see, I deceived him
just now, I made him promise to believe me and I told him a lie. I told
him that I was going to spend the evening with my old man, Kuzma Kuzmitch,
and should be there till late counting up his money. I always spend one
whole evening a week with him making up his accounts. We lock ourselves in
and he counts on the reckoning beads while I sit and put things down in
the book. I am the only person he trusts. Mitya believes that I am there,
but I came back and have been sitting locked in here, expecting some news.
How was it Fenya let you in? Fenya, Fenya, run out to the gate, open it
and look about whether the captain is to be seen! Perhaps he is hiding and
spying, I am dreadfully frightened.”
“There’s no one there, Agrafena Alexandrovna, I’ve just looked out, I keep
running to peep through the crack, I am in fear and trembling myself.”
“Are the shutters fastened, Fenya? And we must draw the curtains—that’s
better!” She drew the heavy curtains herself. “He’d rush in at once if he
saw a light. I am afraid of your brother Mitya to‐day, Alyosha.”
Grushenka spoke aloud, and, though she was alarmed, she seemed very happy
about something.
“Why are you so afraid of Mitya to‐day?” inquired Rakitin. “I should have
thought you were not timid with him, you’d twist him round your little
finger.”
“I tell you, I am expecting news, priceless news, so I don’t want Mitya at
all. And he didn’t believe, I feel he didn’t, that I should stay at Kuzma
Kuzmitch’s. He must be in his ambush now, behind Fyodor Pavlovitch’s, in
the garden, watching for me. And if he’s there, he won’t come here, so
much the better! But I really have been to Kuzma Kuzmitch’s, Mitya
escorted me there. I told him I should stay there till midnight, and I
asked him to be sure to come at midnight to fetch me home. He went away
and I sat ten minutes with Kuzma Kuzmitch and came back here again. Ugh, I
was afraid, I ran for fear of meeting him.”
“And why are you so dressed up? What a curious cap you’ve got on!”
“How curious you are yourself, Rakitin! I tell you, I am expecting a
message. If the message comes, I shall fly, I shall gallop away and you
will see no more of me. That’s why I am dressed up, so as to be ready.”
“And where are you flying to?”
“If you know too much, you’ll get old too soon.”
“Upon my word! You are highly delighted ... I’ve never seen you like this
before. You are dressed up as if you were going to a ball.” Rakitin looked
her up and down.
“Much you know about balls.”
“And do you know much about them?”
“I have seen a ball. The year before last, Kuzma Kuzmitch’s son was
married and I looked on from the gallery. Do you suppose I want to be
talking to you, Rakitin, while a prince like this is standing here. Such a
visitor! Alyosha, my dear boy, I gaze at you and can’t believe my eyes.
Good heavens, can you have come here to see me! To tell you the truth, I
never had a thought of seeing you and I didn’t think that you would ever
come and see me. Though this is not the moment now, I am awfully glad to
see you. Sit down on the sofa, here, that’s right, my bright young moon. I
really can’t take it in even now.... Eh, Rakitin, if only you had brought
him yesterday or the day before! But I am glad as it is! Perhaps it’s
better he has come now, at such a moment, and not the day before
yesterday.”
She gayly sat down beside Alyosha on the sofa, looking at him with
positive delight. And she really was glad, she was not lying when she said
so. Her eyes glowed, her lips laughed, but it was a good‐hearted merry
laugh. Alyosha had not expected to see such a kind expression in her
face.... He had hardly met her till the day before, he had formed an
alarming idea of her, and had been horribly distressed the day before by
the spiteful and treacherous trick she had played on Katerina Ivanovna. He
was greatly surprised to find her now altogether different from what he
had expected. And, crushed as he was by his own sorrow, his eyes
involuntarily rested on her with attention. Her whole manner seemed
changed for the better since yesterday, there was scarcely any trace of
that mawkish sweetness in her speech, of that voluptuous softness in her
movements. Everything was simple and good‐natured, her gestures were
rapid, direct, confiding, but she was greatly excited.
“Dear me, how everything comes together to‐day!” she chattered on again.
“And why I am so glad to see you, Alyosha, I couldn’t say myself! If you
ask me, I couldn’t tell you.”
“Come, don’t you know why you’re glad?” said Rakitin, grinning. “You used
to be always pestering me to bring him, you’d some object, I suppose.”
“I had a different object once, but now that’s over, this is not the
moment. I say, I want you to have something nice. I am so good‐natured
now. You sit down, too, Rakitin; why are you standing? You’ve sat down
already? There’s no fear of Rakitin’s forgetting to look after himself.
Look, Alyosha, he’s sitting there opposite us, so offended that I didn’t
ask him to sit down before you. Ugh, Rakitin is such a one to take
offense!” laughed Grushenka. “Don’t be angry, Rakitin, I’m kind to‐day.
Why are you so depressed, Alyosha? Are you afraid of me?" She peeped into
his eyes with merry mockery”
“He’s sad. The promotion has not been given,” boomed Rakitin.
“What promotion?”
“His elder stinks.”
“What? You are talking some nonsense, you want to say something nasty. Be
quiet, you stupid! Let me sit on your knee, Alyosha, like this.” She
suddenly skipped forward and jumped, laughing, on his knee, like a
nestling kitten, with her right arm about his neck. “I’ll cheer you up, my
pious boy. Yes, really, will you let me sit on your knee? You won’t be
angry? If you tell me, I’ll get off?”
Alyosha did not speak. He sat afraid to move, he heard her words, “If you
tell me, I’ll get off,” but he did not answer. But there was nothing in
his heart such as Rakitin, for instance, watching him malignantly from his
corner, might have expected or fancied. The great grief in his heart
swallowed up every sensation that might have been aroused, and, if only he
could have thought clearly at that moment, he would have realized that he
had now the strongest armor to protect him from every lust and temptation.
Yet in spite of the vague irresponsiveness of his spiritual condition and
the sorrow that overwhelmed him, he could not help wondering at a new and
strange sensation in his heart. This woman, this “dreadful” woman, had no
terror for him now, none of that terror that had stirred in his soul at
any passing thought of woman. On the contrary, this woman, dreaded above
all women, sitting now on his knee, holding him in her arms, aroused in
him now a quite different, unexpected, peculiar feeling, a feeling of the
intensest and purest interest without a trace of fear, of his former
terror. That was what instinctively surprised him.
“You’ve talked nonsense enough,” cried Rakitin, “you’d much better give us
some champagne. You owe it me, you know you do!”
“Yes, I really do. Do you know, Alyosha, I promised him champagne on the
top of everything, if he’d bring you? I’ll have some too! Fenya, Fenya,
bring us the bottle Mitya left! Look sharp! Though I am so stingy, I’ll
stand a bottle, not for you, Rakitin, you’re a toadstool, but he is a
falcon! And though my heart is full of something very different, so be it,
I’ll drink with you. I long for some dissipation.”
“But what is the matter with you? And what is this message, may I ask, or
is it a secret?” Rakitin put in inquisitively, doing his best to pretend
not to notice the snubs that were being continually aimed at him.
“Ech, it’s not a secret, and you know it, too,” Grushenka said, in a voice
suddenly anxious, turning her head towards Rakitin, and drawing a little
away from Alyosha, though she still sat on his knee with her arm round his
neck. “My officer is coming, Rakitin, my officer is coming.”
“I heard he was coming, but is he so near?”
“He is at Mokroe now; he’ll send a messenger from there, so he wrote; I
got a letter from him to‐day. I am expecting the messenger every minute.”
“You don’t say so! Why at Mokroe?”
“That’s a long story, I’ve told you enough.”
“Mitya’ll be up to something now—I say! Does he know or doesn’t he?”
“He know! Of course he doesn’t. If he knew, there would be murder. But I
am not afraid of that now, I am not afraid of his knife. Be quiet,
Rakitin, don’t remind me of Dmitri Fyodorovitch, he has bruised my heart.
And I don’t want to think of that at this moment. I can think of Alyosha
here, I can look at Alyosha ... smile at me, dear, cheer up, smile at my
foolishness, at my pleasure.... Ah, he’s smiling, he’s smiling! How kindly
he looks at me! And you know, Alyosha, I’ve been thinking all this time
you were angry with me, because of the day before yesterday, because of
that young lady. I was a cur, that’s the truth.... But it’s a good thing
it happened so. It was a horrid thing, but a good thing too.” Grushenka
smiled dreamily and a little cruel line showed in her smile. “Mitya told
me that she screamed out that I ‘ought to be flogged.’ I did insult her
dreadfully. She sent for me, she wanted to make a conquest of me, to win
me over with her chocolate.... No, it’s a good thing it did end like
that.” She smiled again. “But I am still afraid of your being angry.”
“Yes, that’s really true,” Rakitin put in suddenly with genuine surprise.
“Alyosha, she is really afraid of a chicken like you.”
“He is a chicken to you, Rakitin ... because you’ve no conscience, that’s
what it is! You see, I love him with all my soul, that’s how it is!
Alyosha, do you believe I love you with all my soul?”
“Ah, you shameless woman! She is making you a declaration, Alexey!”
“Well, what of it, I love him!”
“And what about your officer? And the priceless message from Mokroe?”
“That is quite different.”
“That’s a woman’s way of looking at it!”
“Don’t you make me angry, Rakitin.” Grushenka caught him up hotly. “This
is quite different. I love Alyosha in a different way. It’s true, Alyosha,
I had sly designs on you before. For I am a horrid, violent creature. But
at other times I’ve looked upon you, Alyosha, as my conscience. I’ve kept
thinking ‘how any one like that must despise a nasty thing like me.’ I
thought that the day before yesterday, as I ran home from the young
lady’s. I have thought of you a long time in that way, Alyosha, and Mitya
knows, I’ve talked to him about it. Mitya understands. Would you believe
it, I sometimes look at you and feel ashamed, utterly ashamed of
myself.... And how, and since when, I began to think about you like that,
I can’t say, I don’t remember....”
Fenya came in and put a tray with an uncorked bottle and three glasses of
champagne on the table.
“Here’s the champagne!” cried Rakitin. “You’re excited, Agrafena
Alexandrovna, and not yourself. When you’ve had a glass of champagne,
you’ll be ready to dance. Eh, they can’t even do that properly,” he added,
looking at the bottle. “The old woman’s poured it out in the kitchen and
the bottle’s been brought in warm and without a cork. Well, let me have
some, anyway.”
He went up to the table, took a glass, emptied it at one gulp and poured
himself out another.
“One doesn’t often stumble upon champagne,” he said, licking his lips.
“Now, Alyosha, take a glass, show what you can do! What shall we drink to?
The gates of paradise? Take a glass, Grushenka, you drink to the gates of
paradise, too.”
“What gates of paradise?”
She took a glass, Alyosha took his, tasted it and put it back.
“No, I’d better not,” he smiled gently.
“And you bragged!” cried Rakitin.
“Well, if so, I won’t either,” chimed in Grushenka, “I really don’t want
any. You can drink the whole bottle alone, Rakitin. If Alyosha has some, I
will.”
“What touching sentimentality!” said Rakitin tauntingly; “and she’s
sitting on his knee, too! He’s got something to grieve over, but what’s
the matter with you? He is rebelling against his God and ready to eat
sausage....”
“How so?”
“His elder died to‐day, Father Zossima, the saint.”
“So Father Zossima is dead,” cried Grushenka. “Good God, I did not know!”
She crossed herself devoutly. “Goodness, what have I been doing, sitting
on his knee like this at such a moment!” She started up as though in
dismay, instantly slipped off his knee and sat down on the sofa.
Alyosha bent a long wondering look upon her and a light seemed to dawn in
his face.
“Rakitin,” he said suddenly, in a firm and loud voice; “don’t taunt me
with having rebelled against God. I don’t want to feel angry with you, so
you must be kinder, too, I’ve lost a treasure such as you have never had,
and you cannot judge me now. You had much better look at her—do you see
how she has pity on me? I came here to find a wicked soul—I felt drawn to
evil because I was base and evil myself, and I’ve found a true sister, I
have found a treasure—a loving heart. She had pity on me just now....
Agrafena Alexandrovna, I am speaking of you. You’ve raised my soul from
the depths.”
Alyosha’s lips were quivering and he caught his breath.
“She has saved you, it seems,” laughed Rakitin spitefully. “And she meant
to get you in her clutches, do you realize that?”
“Stay, Rakitin.” Grushenka jumped up. “Hush, both of you. Now I’ll tell
you all about it. Hush, Alyosha, your words make me ashamed, for I am bad
and not good—that’s what I am. And you hush, Rakitin, because you are
telling lies. I had the low idea of trying to get him in my clutches, but
now you are lying, now it’s all different. And don’t let me hear anything
more from you, Rakitin.”
All this Grushenka said with extreme emotion.
“They are both crazy,” said Rakitin, looking at them with amazement. “I
feel as though I were in a madhouse. They’re both getting so feeble
they’ll begin crying in a minute.”
“I shall begin to cry, I shall,” repeated Grushenka. “He called me his
sister and I shall never forget that. Only let me tell you, Rakitin,
though I am bad, I did give away an onion.”
“An onion? Hang it all, you really are crazy.”
Rakitin wondered at their enthusiasm. He was aggrieved and annoyed, though
he might have reflected that each of them was just passing through a
spiritual crisis such as does not come often in a lifetime. But though
Rakitin was very sensitive about everything that concerned himself, he was
very obtuse as regards the feelings and sensations of others—partly from
his youth and inexperience, partly from his intense egoism.
“You see, Alyosha,” Grushenka turned to him with a nervous laugh. “I was
boasting when I told Rakitin I had given away an onion, but it’s not to
boast I tell you about it. It’s only a story, but it’s a nice story. I
used to hear it when I was a child from Matryona, my cook, who is still
with me. It’s like this. Once upon a time there was a peasant woman and a
very wicked woman she was. And she died and did not leave a single good
deed behind. The devils caught her and plunged her into the lake of fire.
So her guardian angel stood and wondered what good deed of hers he could
remember to tell to God; ‘She once pulled up an onion in her garden,’ said
he, ‘and gave it to a beggar woman.’ And God answered: ‘You take that
onion then, hold it out to her in the lake, and let her take hold and be
pulled out. And if you can pull her out of the lake, let her come to
Paradise, but if the onion breaks, then the woman must stay where she is.’
The angel ran to the woman and held out the onion to her. ‘Come,’ said he,
‘catch hold and I’ll pull you out.’ And he began cautiously pulling her
out. He had just pulled her right out, when the other sinners in the lake,
seeing how she was being drawn out, began catching hold of her so as to be
pulled out with her. But she was a very wicked woman and she began kicking
them. ‘I’m to be pulled out, not you. It’s my onion, not yours.’ As soon
as she said that, the onion broke. And the woman fell into the lake and
she is burning there to this day. So the angel wept and went away. So
that’s the story, Alyosha; I know it by heart, for I am that wicked woman
myself. I boasted to Rakitin that I had given away an onion, but to you
I’ll say: ‘I’ve done nothing but give away one onion all my life, that’s
the only good deed I’ve done.’ So don’t praise me, Alyosha, don’t think me
good, I am bad, I am a wicked woman and you make me ashamed if you praise
me. Eh, I must confess everything. Listen, Alyosha. I was so anxious to
get hold of you that I promised Rakitin twenty‐five roubles if he would
bring you to me. Stay, Rakitin, wait!”
She went with rapid steps to the table, opened a drawer, pulled out a
purse and took from it a twenty‐five rouble note.
“What nonsense! What nonsense!” cried Rakitin, disconcerted.
“Take it. Rakitin, I owe it you, there’s no fear of your refusing it, you
asked for it yourself.” And she threw the note to him.
“Likely I should refuse it,” boomed Rakitin, obviously abashed, but
carrying off his confusion with a swagger. “That will come in very handy;
fools are made for wise men’s profit.”
“And now hold your tongue, Rakitin, what I am going to say now is not for
your ears. Sit down in that corner and keep quiet. You don’t like us, so
hold your tongue.”
“What should I like you for?” Rakitin snarled, not concealing his ill‐
humor. He put the twenty‐five rouble note in his pocket and he felt
ashamed at Alyosha’s seeing it. He had reckoned on receiving his payment
later, without Alyosha’s knowing of it, and now, feeling ashamed, he lost
his temper. Till that moment he had thought it discreet not to contradict
Grushenka too flatly in spite of her snubbing, since he had something to
get out of her. But now he, too, was angry:
“One loves people for some reason, but what have either of you done for
me?”
“You should love people without a reason, as Alyosha does.”
“How does he love you? How has he shown it, that you make such a fuss
about it?”
Grushenka was standing in the middle of the room; she spoke with heat and
there were hysterical notes in her voice.
“Hush, Rakitin, you know nothing about us! And don’t dare to speak to me
like that again. How dare you be so familiar! Sit in that corner and be
quiet, as though you were my footman! And now, Alyosha, I’ll tell you the
whole truth, that you may see what a wretch I am! I am not talking to
Rakitin, but to you. I wanted to ruin you, Alyosha, that’s the holy truth;
I quite meant to. I wanted to so much, that I bribed Rakitin to bring you.
And why did I want to do such a thing? You knew nothing about it, Alyosha,
you turned away from me; if you passed me, you dropped your eyes. And I’ve
looked at you a hundred times before to‐day; I began asking every one
about you. Your face haunted my heart. ‘He despises me,’ I thought; ‘he
won’t even look at me.’ And I felt it so much at last that I wondered at
myself for being so frightened of a boy. I’ll get him in my clutches and
laugh at him. I was full of spite and anger. Would you believe it, nobody
here dares talk or think of coming to Agrafena Alexandrovna with any evil
purpose. Old Kuzma is the only man I have anything to do with here; I was
bound and sold to him; Satan brought us together, but there has been no
one else. But looking at you, I thought, I’ll get him in my clutches and
laugh at him. You see what a spiteful cur I am, and you called me your
sister! And now that man who wronged me has come; I sit here waiting for a
message from him. And do you know what that man has been to me? Five years
ago, when Kuzma brought me here, I used to shut myself up, that no one
might have sight or sound of me. I was a silly slip of a girl; I used to
sit here sobbing; I used to lie awake all night, thinking: ‘Where is he
now, the man who wronged me? He is laughing at me with another woman, most
likely. If only I could see him, if I could meet him again, I’d pay him
out, I’d pay him out!’ At night I used to lie sobbing into my pillow in
the dark, and I used to brood over it; I used to tear my heart on purpose
and gloat over my anger. ‘I’ll pay him out, I’ll pay him out!’ That’s what
I used to cry out in the dark. And when I suddenly thought that I should
really do nothing to him, and that he was laughing at me then, or perhaps
had utterly forgotten me, I would fling myself on the floor, melt into
helpless tears, and lie there shaking till dawn. In the morning I would
get up more spiteful than a dog, ready to tear the whole world to pieces.
And then what do you think? I began saving money, I became hard‐hearted,
grew stout—grew wiser, would you say? No, no one in the whole world sees
it, no one knows it, but when night comes on, I sometimes lie as I did
five years ago, when I was a silly girl, clenching my teeth and crying all
night, thinking, ‘I’ll pay him out, I’ll pay him out!’ Do you hear? Well
then, now you understand me. A month ago a letter came to me—he was
coming, he was a widower, he wanted to see me. It took my breath away;
then I suddenly thought: ‘If he comes and whistles to call me, I shall
creep back to him like a beaten dog.’ I couldn’t believe myself. Am I so
abject? Shall I run to him or not? And I’ve been in such a rage with
myself all this month that I am worse than I was five years ago. Do you
see now, Alyosha, what a violent, vindictive creature I am? I have shown
you the whole truth! I played with Mitya to keep me from running to that
other. Hush, Rakitin, it’s not for you to judge me, I am not speaking to
you. Before you came in, I was lying here waiting, brooding, deciding my
whole future life, and you can never know what was in my heart. Yes,
Alyosha, tell your young lady not to be angry with me for what happened
the day before yesterday.... Nobody in the whole world knows what I am
going through now, and no one ever can know.... For perhaps I shall take a
knife with me to‐day, I can’t make up my mind ...”
And at this “tragic” phrase Grushenka broke down, hid her face in her
hands, flung herself on the sofa pillows, and sobbed like a little child.
Alyosha got up and went to Rakitin.
“Misha,” he said, “don’t be angry. She wounded you, but don’t be angry.
You heard what she said just now? You mustn’t ask too much of human
endurance, one must be merciful.”
Alyosha said this at the instinctive prompting of his heart. He felt
obliged to speak and he turned to Rakitin. If Rakitin had not been there,
he would have spoken to the air. But Rakitin looked at him ironically and
Alyosha stopped short.
“You were so primed up with your elder’s teaching last night that now you
have to let it off on me, Alexey, man of God!” said Rakitin, with a smile
of hatred.
“Don’t laugh, Rakitin, don’t smile, don’t talk of the dead—he was better
than any one in the world!” cried Alyosha, with tears in his voice. “I
didn’t speak to you as a judge but as the lowest of the judged. What am I
beside her? I came here seeking my ruin, and said to myself, ‘What does it
matter?’ in my cowardliness, but she, after five years in torment, as soon
as any one says a word from the heart to her—it makes her forget
everything, forgive everything, in her tears! The man who has wronged her
has come back, he sends for her and she forgives him everything, and
hastens joyfully to meet him and she won’t take a knife with her. She
won’t! No, I am not like that. I don’t know whether you are, Misha, but I
am not like that. It’s a lesson to me.... She is more loving than we....
Have you heard her speak before of what she has just told us? No, you
haven’t; if you had, you’d have understood her long ago ... and the person
insulted the day before yesterday must forgive her, too! She will, when
she knows ... and she shall know.... This soul is not yet at peace with
itself, one must be tender with it ... there may be a treasure in that
soul....”
Alyosha stopped, because he caught his breath. In spite of his ill‐humor
Rakitin looked at him with astonishment. He had never expected such a
tirade from the gentle Alyosha.
“She’s found some one to plead her cause! Why, are you in love with her?
Agrafena Alexandrovna, our monk’s really in love with you, you’ve made a
conquest!” he cried, with a coarse laugh.
Grushenka lifted her head from the pillow and looked at Alyosha with a
tender smile shining on her tear‐stained face.
“Let him alone, Alyosha, my cherub; you see what he is, he is not a person
for you to speak to. Mihail Osipovitch,” she turned to Rakitin, “I meant
to beg your pardon for being rude to you, but now I don’t want to.
Alyosha, come to me, sit down here.” She beckoned to him with a happy
smile. “That’s right, sit here. Tell me,” she shook him by the hand and
peeped into his face, smiling, “tell me, do I love that man or not? the
man who wronged me, do I love him or not? Before you came, I lay here in
the dark, asking my heart whether I loved him. Decide for me, Alyosha, the
time has come, it shall be as you say. Am I to forgive him or not?”
“But you have forgiven him already,” said Alyosha, smiling.
“Yes, I really have forgiven him,” Grushenka murmured thoughtfully. “What
an abject heart! To my abject heart!” She snatched up a glass from the
table, emptied it at a gulp, lifted it in the air and flung it on the
floor. The glass broke with a crash. A little cruel line came into her
smile.
“Perhaps I haven’t forgiven him, though,” she said, with a sort of menace
in her voice, and she dropped her eyes to the ground as though she were
talking to herself. “Perhaps my heart is only getting ready to forgive. I
shall struggle with my heart. You see, Alyosha, I’ve grown to love my
tears in these five years.... Perhaps I only love my resentment, not him
...”
“Well, I shouldn’t care to be in his shoes,” hissed Rakitin.
“Well, you won’t be, Rakitin, you’ll never be in his shoes. You shall
black my shoes, Rakitin, that’s the place you are fit for. You’ll never
get a woman like me ... and he won’t either, perhaps ...”
“Won’t he? Then why are you dressed up like that?” said Rakitin, with a
venomous sneer.
“Don’t taunt me with dressing up, Rakitin, you don’t know all that is in
my heart! If I choose to tear off my finery, I’ll tear it off at once,
this minute,” she cried in a resonant voice. “You don’t know what that
finery is for, Rakitin! Perhaps I shall see him and say: ‘Have you ever
seen me look like this before?’ He left me a thin, consumptive cry‐baby of
seventeen. I’ll sit by him, fascinate him and work him up. ‘Do you see
what I am like now?’ I’ll say to him; ‘well, and that’s enough for you, my
dear sir, there’s many a slip twixt the cup and the lip!’ That may be what
the finery is for, Rakitin.” Grushenka finished with a malicious laugh.
“I’m violent and resentful, Alyosha, I’ll tear off my finery, I’ll destroy
my beauty, I’ll scorch my face, slash it with a knife, and turn beggar. If
I choose, I won’t go anywhere now to see any one. If I choose, I’ll send
Kuzma back all he has ever given me, to‐morrow, and all his money and I’ll
go out charing for the rest of my life. You think I wouldn’t do it,
Rakitin, that I would not dare to do it? I would, I would, I could do it
directly, only don’t exasperate me ... and I’ll send him about his
business, I’ll snap my fingers in his face, he shall never see me again!”
She uttered the last words in an hysterical scream, but broke down again,
hid her face in her hands, buried it in the pillow and shook with sobs.
Rakitin got up.
“It’s time we were off,” he said, “it’s late, we shall be shut out of the
monastery.”
Grushenka leapt up from her place.
“Surely you don’t want to go, Alyosha!” she cried, in mournful surprise.
“What are you doing to me? You’ve stirred up my feeling, tortured me, and
now you’ll leave me to face this night alone!”
“He can hardly spend the night with you! Though if he wants to, let him!
I’ll go alone,” Rakitin scoffed jeeringly.
“Hush, evil tongue!” Grushenka cried angrily at him; “you never said such
words to me as he has come to say.”
“What has he said to you so special?” asked Rakitin irritably.
“I can’t say, I don’t know. I don’t know what he said to me, it went
straight to my heart; he has wrung my heart.... He is the first, the only
one who has pitied me, that’s what it is. Why did you not come before, you
angel?” She fell on her knees before him as though in a sudden frenzy.
“I’ve been waiting all my life for some one like you, I knew that some one
like you would come and forgive me. I believed that, nasty as I am, some
one would really love me, not only with a shameful love!”
“What have I done to you?” answered Alyosha, bending over her with a
tender smile, and gently taking her by the hands; “I only gave you an
onion, nothing but a tiny little onion, that was all!”
He was moved to tears himself as he said it. At that moment there was a
sudden noise in the passage, some one came into the hall. Grushenka jumped
up, seeming greatly alarmed. Fenya ran noisily into the room, crying out:
“Mistress, mistress darling, a messenger has galloped up,” she cried,
breathless and joyful. “A carriage from Mokroe for you, Timofey the
driver, with three horses, they are just putting in fresh horses.... A
letter, here’s the letter, mistress.”
A letter was in her hand and she waved it in the air all the while she
talked. Grushenka snatched the letter from her and carried it to the
candle. It was only a note, a few lines. She read it in one instant.
“He has sent for me,” she cried, her face white and distorted, with a wan
smile; “he whistles! Crawl back, little dog!”
But only for one instant she stood as though hesitating; suddenly the
blood rushed to her head and sent a glow to her cheeks.
“I will go,” she cried; “five years of my life! Good‐by! Good‐by, Alyosha,
my fate is sealed. Go, go, leave me all of you, don’t let me see you
again! Grushenka is flying to a new life.... Don’t you remember evil
against me either, Rakitin. I may be going to my death! Ugh! I feel as
though I were drunk!”
She suddenly left them and ran into her bedroom.
“Well, she has no thoughts for us now!” grumbled Rakitin. “Let’s go, or we
may hear that feminine shriek again. I am sick of all these tears and
cries.”
Alyosha mechanically let himself be led out. In the yard stood a covered
cart. Horses were being taken out of the shafts, men were running to and
fro with a lantern. Three fresh horses were being led in at the open gate.
But when Alyosha and Rakitin reached the bottom of the steps, Grushenka’s
bedroom window was suddenly opened and she called in a ringing voice after
Alyosha:
“Alyosha, give my greetings to your brother Mitya and tell him not to
remember evil against me, though I have brought him misery. And tell him,
too, in my words: ‘Grushenka has fallen to a scoundrel, and not to you,
noble heart.’ And add, too, that Grushenka loved him only one hour, only
one short hour she loved him—so let him remember that hour all his
life—say, ‘Grushenka tells you to!’ ”
She ended in a voice full of sobs. The window was shut with a slam.
“H’m, h’m!” growled Rakitin, laughing, “she murders your brother Mitya and
then tells him to remember it all his life! What ferocity!”
Alyosha made no reply, he seemed not to have heard. He walked fast beside
Rakitin as though in a terrible hurry. He was lost in thought and moved
mechanically. Rakitin felt a sudden twinge as though he had been touched
on an open wound. He had expected something quite different by bringing
Grushenka and Alyosha together. Something very different from what he had
hoped for had happened.
“He is a Pole, that officer of hers,” he began again, restraining himself;
“and indeed he is not an officer at all now. He served in the customs in
Siberia, somewhere on the Chinese frontier, some puny little beggar of a
Pole, I expect. Lost his job, they say. He’s heard now that Grushenka’s
saved a little money, so he’s turned up again—that’s the explanation of
the mystery.”
Again Alyosha seemed not to hear. Rakitin could not control himself.
“Well, so you’ve saved the sinner?” he laughed spitefully. “Have you
turned the Magdalene into the true path? Driven out the seven devils, eh?
So you see the miracles you were looking out for just now have come to
pass!”
“Hush, Rakitin,” Alyosha answered with an aching heart.
“So you despise me now for those twenty‐five roubles? I’ve sold my friend,
you think. But you are not Christ, you know, and I am not Judas.”
“Oh, Rakitin, I assure you I’d forgotten about it,” cried Alyosha, “you
remind me of it yourself....”
But this was the last straw for Rakitin.
“Damnation take you all and each of you!” he cried suddenly, “why the
devil did I take you up? I don’t want to know you from this time forward.
Go alone, there’s your road!”
And he turned abruptly into another street, leaving Alyosha alone in the
dark. Alyosha came out of the town and walked across the fields to the
monastery.
Chapter IV. Cana Of Galilee
It was very late, according to the monastery ideas, when Alyosha returned
to the hermitage; the door‐keeper let him in by a special entrance. It had
struck nine o’clock—the hour of rest and repose after a day of such
agitation for all. Alyosha timidly opened the door and went into the
elder’s cell where his coffin was now standing. There was no one in the
cell but Father Païssy, reading the Gospel in solitude over the coffin,
and the young novice Porfiry, who, exhausted by the previous night’s
conversation and the disturbing incidents of the day, was sleeping the
deep sound sleep of youth on the floor of the other room. Though Father
Païssy heard Alyosha come in, he did not even look in his direction.
Alyosha turned to the right from the door to the corner, fell on his knees
and began to pray.
His soul was overflowing but with mingled feelings; no single sensation
stood out distinctly; on the contrary, one drove out another in a slow,
continual rotation. But there was a sweetness in his heart and, strange to
say, Alyosha was not surprised at it. Again he saw that coffin before him,
the hidden dead figure so precious to him, but the weeping and poignant
grief of the morning was no longer aching in his soul. As soon as he came
in, he fell down before the coffin as before a holy shrine, but joy, joy
was glowing in his mind and in his heart. The one window of the cell was
open, the air was fresh and cool. “So the smell must have become stronger,
if they opened the window,” thought Alyosha. But even this thought of the
smell of corruption, which had seemed to him so awful and humiliating a
few hours before, no longer made him feel miserable or indignant. He began
quietly praying, but he soon felt that he was praying almost mechanically.
Fragments of thought floated through his soul, flashed like stars and went
out again at once, to be succeeded by others. But yet there was reigning
in his soul a sense of the wholeness of things—something steadfast and
comforting—and he was aware of it himself. Sometimes he began praying
ardently, he longed to pour out his thankfulness and love....
But when he had begun to pray, he passed suddenly to something else, and
sank into thought, forgetting both the prayer and what had interrupted it.
He began listening to what Father Païssy was reading, but worn out with
exhaustion he gradually began to doze.
“_And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee;_” read Father
Païssy. “_And the mother of Jesus was there; And both Jesus was called,
and his disciples, to the marriage._”
“Marriage? What’s that?... A marriage!” floated whirling through Alyosha’s
mind. “There is happiness for her, too.... She has gone to the feast....
No, she has not taken the knife.... That was only a tragic phrase.... Well
... tragic phrases should be forgiven, they must be. Tragic phrases
comfort the heart.... Without them, sorrow would be too heavy for men to
bear. Rakitin has gone off to the back alley. As long as Rakitin broods
over his wrongs, he will always go off to the back alley.... But the high
road ... The road is wide and straight and bright as crystal, and the sun
is at the end of it.... Ah!... What’s being read?”...
“_And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have
no wine_” ... Alyosha heard.
“Ah, yes, I was missing that, and I didn’t want to miss it, I love that
passage: it’s Cana of Galilee, the first miracle.... Ah, that miracle! Ah,
that sweet miracle! It was not men’s grief, but their joy Christ visited,
He worked His first miracle to help men’s gladness.... ‘He who loves men
loves their gladness, too’ ... He was always repeating that, it was one of
his leading ideas.... ‘There’s no living without joy,’ Mitya says.... Yes,
Mitya.... ‘Everything that is true and good is always full of
forgiveness,’ he used to say that, too” ...
“_Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what has it to do with thee or me? Mine
hour is not yet come._
“_His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever he saith unto you, do
it_” ...
“Do it.... Gladness, the gladness of some poor, very poor, people.... Of
course they were poor, since they hadn’t wine enough even at a wedding....
The historians write that, in those days, the people living about the Lake
of Gennesaret were the poorest that can possibly be imagined ... and
another great heart, that other great being, His Mother, knew that He had
come not only to make His great terrible sacrifice. She knew that His
heart was open even to the simple, artless merrymaking of some obscure and
unlearned people, who had warmly bidden Him to their poor wedding. ‘Mine
hour is not yet come,’ He said, with a soft smile (He must have smiled
gently to her). And, indeed, was it to make wine abundant at poor weddings
He had come down to earth? And yet He went and did as she asked Him....
Ah, he is reading again”....
“_Jesus saith unto them, Fill the waterpots with water. And they filled
them up to the brim._
“_And he saith unto them, Draw out now and bear unto the governor of the
feast. And they bare it._
“_When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and
knew not whence it was; (but the servants which drew the water knew;) the
governor of the feast called the bridegroom,_
“_And saith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine;
and when men have well drunk, that which is worse; but thou hast kept the
good wine until now._”
“But what’s this, what’s this? Why is the room growing wider?... Ah, yes
... It’s the marriage, the wedding ... yes, of course. Here are the
guests, here are the young couple sitting, and the merry crowd and ...
Where is the wise governor of the feast? But who is this? Who? Again the
walls are receding.... Who is getting up there from the great table?
What!... He here, too? But he’s in the coffin ... but he’s here, too. He
has stood up, he sees me, he is coming here.... God!”...
Yes, he came up to him, to him, he, the little, thin old man, with tiny
wrinkles on his face, joyful and laughing softly. There was no coffin now,
and he was in the same dress as he had worn yesterday sitting with them,
when the visitors had gathered about him. His face was uncovered, his eyes
were shining. How was this, then? He, too, had been called to the feast.
He, too, at the marriage of Cana in Galilee....
“Yes, my dear, I am called, too, called and bidden,” he heard a soft voice
saying over him. “Why have you hidden yourself here, out of sight? You
come and join us too.”
It was his voice, the voice of Father Zossima. And it must be he, since he
called him!
The elder raised Alyosha by the hand and he rose from his knees.
“We are rejoicing,” the little, thin old man went on. “We are drinking the
new wine, the wine of new, great gladness; do you see how many guests?
Here are the bride and bridegroom, here is the wise governor of the feast,
he is tasting the new wine. Why do you wonder at me? I gave an onion to a
beggar, so I, too, am here. And many here have given only an onion
each—only one little onion.... What are all our deeds? And you, my gentle
one, you, my kind boy, you too have known how to give a famished woman an
onion to‐day. Begin your work, dear one, begin it, gentle one!... Do you
see our Sun, do you see Him?”
“I am afraid ... I dare not look,” whispered Alyosha.
“Do not fear Him. He is terrible in His greatness, awful in His sublimity,
but infinitely merciful. He has made Himself like unto us from love and
rejoices with us. He is changing the water into wine that the gladness of
the guests may not be cut short. He is expecting new guests, He is calling
new ones unceasingly for ever and ever.... There they are bringing new
wine. Do you see they are bringing the vessels....”
Something glowed in Alyosha’s heart, something filled it till it ached,
tears of rapture rose from his soul.... He stretched out his hands,
uttered a cry and waked up.
Again the coffin, the open window, and the soft, solemn, distinct reading
of the Gospel. But Alyosha did not listen to the reading. It was strange,
he had fallen asleep on his knees, but now he was on his feet, and
suddenly, as though thrown forward, with three firm rapid steps he went
right up to the coffin. His shoulder brushed against Father Païssy without
his noticing it. Father Païssy raised his eyes for an instant from his
book, but looked away again at once, seeing that something strange was
happening to the boy. Alyosha gazed for half a minute at the coffin, at
the covered, motionless dead man that lay in the coffin, with the ikon on
his breast and the peaked cap with the octangular cross, on his head. He
had only just been hearing his voice, and that voice was still ringing in
his ears. He was listening, still expecting other words, but suddenly he
turned sharply and went out of the cell.
He did not stop on the steps either, but went quickly down; his soul,
overflowing with rapture, yearned for freedom, space, openness. The vault
of heaven, full of soft, shining stars, stretched vast and fathomless
above him. The Milky Way ran in two pale streams from the zenith to the
horizon. The fresh, motionless, still night enfolded the earth. The white
towers and golden domes of the cathedral gleamed out against the sapphire
sky. The gorgeous autumn flowers, in the beds round the house, were
slumbering till morning. The silence of earth seemed to melt into the
silence of the heavens. The mystery of earth was one with the mystery of
the stars....
Alyosha stood, gazed, and suddenly threw himself down on the earth. He did
not know why he embraced it. He could not have told why he longed so
irresistibly to kiss it, to kiss it all. But he kissed it weeping, sobbing
and watering it with his tears, and vowed passionately to love it, to love
it for ever and ever. “Water the earth with the tears of your joy and love
those tears,” echoed in his soul.
What was he weeping over?
Oh! in his rapture he was weeping even over those stars, which were
shining to him from the abyss of space, and “he was not ashamed of that
ecstasy.” There seemed to be threads from all those innumerable worlds of
God, linking his soul to them, and it was trembling all over “in contact
with other worlds.” He longed to forgive every one and for everything, and
to beg forgiveness. Oh, not for himself, but for all men, for all and for
everything. “And others are praying for me too,” echoed again in his soul.
But with every instant he felt clearly and, as it were, tangibly, that
something firm and unshakable as that vault of heaven had entered into his
soul. It was as though some idea had seized the sovereignty of his
mind—and it was for all his life and for ever and ever. He had fallen on
the earth a weak boy, but he rose up a resolute champion, and he knew and
felt it suddenly at the very moment of his ecstasy. And never, never, all
his life long, could Alyosha forget that minute.
“Some one visited my soul in that hour,” he used to say afterwards, with
implicit faith in his words.
Within three days he left the monastery in accordance with the words of
his elder, who had bidden him “sojourn in the world.”
Book VIII. Mitya
Chapter I. Kuzma Samsonov
But Dmitri, to whom Grushenka, flying away to a new life, had left her
last greetings, bidding him remember the hour of her love for ever, knew
nothing of what had happened to her, and was at that moment in a condition
of feverish agitation and activity. For the last two days he had been in
such an inconceivable state of mind that he might easily have fallen ill
with brain fever, as he said himself afterwards. Alyosha had not been able
to find him the morning before, and Ivan had not succeeded in meeting him
at the tavern on the same day. The people at his lodgings, by his orders,
concealed his movements.
He had spent those two days literally rushing in all directions,
“struggling with his destiny and trying to save himself,” as he expressed
it himself afterwards, and for some hours he even made a dash out of the
town on urgent business, terrible as it was to him to lose sight of
Grushenka for a moment. All this was explained afterwards in detail, and
confirmed by documentary evidence; but for the present we will only note
the most essential incidents of those two terrible days immediately
preceding the awful catastrophe, that broke so suddenly upon him.
Though Grushenka had, it is true, loved him for an hour, genuinely and
sincerely, yet she tortured him sometimes cruelly and mercilessly. The
worst of it was that he could never tell what she meant to do. To prevail
upon her by force or kindness was also impossible: she would yield to
nothing. She would only have become angry and turned away from him
altogether, he knew that well already. He suspected, quite correctly, that
she, too, was passing through an inward struggle, and was in a state of
extraordinary indecision, that she was making up her mind to something,
and unable to determine upon it. And so, not without good reason, he
divined, with a sinking heart, that at moments she must simply hate him
and his passion. And so, perhaps, it was, but what was distressing
Grushenka he did not understand. For him the whole tormenting question lay
between him and Fyodor Pavlovitch.
Here, we must note, by the way, one certain fact: he was firmly persuaded
that Fyodor Pavlovitch would offer, or perhaps had offered, Grushenka
lawful wedlock, and did not for a moment believe that the old voluptuary
hoped to gain his object for three thousand roubles. Mitya had reached
this conclusion from his knowledge of Grushenka and her character. That
was how it was that he could believe at times that all Grushenka’s
uneasiness rose from not knowing which of them to choose, which was most
to her advantage.
Strange to say, during those days it never occurred to him to think of the
approaching return of the “officer,” that is, of the man who had been such
a fatal influence in Grushenka’s life, and whose arrival she was expecting
with such emotion and dread. It is true that of late Grushenka had been
very silent about it. Yet he was perfectly aware of a letter she had
received a month ago from her seducer, and had heard of it from her own
lips. He partly knew, too, what the letter contained. In a moment of spite
Grushenka had shown him that letter, but to her astonishment he attached
hardly any consequence to it. It would be hard to say why this was.
Perhaps, weighed down by all the hideous horror of his struggle with his
own father for this woman, he was incapable of imagining any danger more
terrible, at any rate for the time. He simply did not believe in a suitor
who suddenly turned up again after five years’ disappearance, still less
in his speedy arrival. Moreover, in the “officer’s” first letter which had
been shown to Mitya, the possibility of his new rival’s visit was very
vaguely suggested. The letter was very indefinite, high‐flown, and full of
sentimentality. It must be noted that Grushenka had concealed from him the
last lines of the letter, in which his return was alluded to more
definitely. He had, besides, noticed at that moment, he remembered
afterwards, a certain involuntary proud contempt for this missive from
Siberia on Grushenka’s face. Grushenka told him nothing of what had passed
later between her and this rival; so that by degrees he had completely
forgotten the officer’s existence.
He felt that whatever might come later, whatever turn things might take,
his final conflict with Fyodor Pavlovitch was close upon him, and must be
decided before anything else. With a sinking heart he was expecting every
moment Grushenka’s decision, always believing that it would come suddenly,
on the impulse of the moment. All of a sudden she would say to him: “Take
me, I’m yours for ever,” and it would all be over. He would seize her and
bear her away at once to the ends of the earth. Oh, then he would bear her
away at once, as far, far away as possible; to the farthest end of Russia,
if not of the earth, then he would marry her, and settle down with her
incognito, so that no one would know anything about them, there, here, or
anywhere. Then, oh, then, a new life would begin at once!
Of this different, reformed and “virtuous” life (“it must, it must be
virtuous”) he dreamed feverishly at every moment. He thirsted for that
reformation and renewal. The filthy morass, in which he had sunk of his
own free will, was too revolting to him, and, like very many men in such
cases, he put faith above all in change of place. If only it were not for
these people, if only it were not for these circumstances, if only he
could fly away from this accursed place—he would be altogether
regenerated, would enter on a new path. That was what he believed in, and
what he was yearning for.
But all this could only be on condition of the first, the _happy_ solution
of the question. There was another possibility, a different and awful
ending. Suddenly she might say to him: “Go away. I have just come to terms
with Fyodor Pavlovitch. I am going to marry him and don’t want you”—and
then ... but then.... But Mitya did not know what would happen then. Up to
the last hour he didn’t know. That must be said to his credit. He had no
definite intentions, had planned no crime. He was simply watching and
spying in agony, while he prepared himself for the first, happy solution
of his destiny. He drove away any other idea, in fact. But for that ending
a quite different anxiety arose, a new, incidental, but yet fatal and
insoluble difficulty presented itself.
If she were to say to him: “I’m yours; take me away,” how could he take
her away? Where had he the means, the money to do it? It was just at this
time that all sources of revenue from Fyodor Pavlovitch, doles which had
gone on without interruption for so many years, ceased. Grushenka had
money, of course, but with regard to this Mitya suddenly evinced
extraordinary pride; he wanted to carry her away and begin the new life
with her himself, at his own expense, not at hers. He could not conceive
of taking her money, and the very idea caused him a pang of intense
repulsion. I won’t enlarge on this fact or analyze it here, but confine
myself to remarking that this was his attitude at the moment. All this may
have arisen indirectly and unconsciously from the secret stings of his
conscience for the money of Katerina Ivanovna that he had dishonestly
appropriated. “I’ve been a scoundrel to one of them, and I shall be a
scoundrel again to the other directly,” was his feeling then, as he
explained after: “and when Grushenka knows, she won’t care for such a
scoundrel.”
Where then was he to get the means, where was he to get the fateful money?
Without it, all would be lost and nothing could be done, “and only because
I hadn’t the money. Oh, the shame of it!”
To anticipate things: he did, perhaps, know where to get the money, knew,
perhaps, where it lay at that moment. I will say no more of this here, as
it will all be clear later. But his chief trouble, I must explain however
obscurely, lay in the fact that to have that sum he knew of, to _have the
right_ to take it, he must first restore Katerina Ivanovna’s three
thousand—if not, “I’m a common pickpocket, I’m a scoundrel, and I don’t
want to begin a new life as a scoundrel,” Mitya decided. And so he made up
his mind to move heaven and earth to return Katerina Ivanovna that three
thousand, and that _first of all_. The final stage of this decision, so to
say, had been reached only during the last hours, that is, after his last
interview with Alyosha, two days before, on the high‐road, on the evening
when Grushenka had insulted Katerina Ivanovna, and Mitya, after hearing
Alyosha’s account of it, had admitted that he was a scoundrel, and told
him to tell Katerina Ivanovna so, if it could be any comfort to her. After
parting from his brother on that night, he had felt in his frenzy that it
would be better “to murder and rob some one than fail to pay my debt to
Katya. I’d rather every one thought me a robber and a murderer, I’d rather
go to Siberia than that Katya should have the right to say that I deceived
her and stole her money, and used her money to run away with Grushenka and
begin a new life! That I can’t do!” So Mitya decided, grinding his teeth,
and he might well fancy at times that his brain would give way. But
meanwhile he went on struggling....
Strange to say, though one would have supposed there was nothing left for
him but despair—for what chance had he, with nothing in the world, to
raise such a sum?—yet to the very end he persisted in hoping that he would
get that three thousand, that the money would somehow come to him of
itself, as though it might drop from heaven. That is just how it is with
people who, like Dmitri, have never had anything to do with money, except
to squander what has come to them by inheritance without any effort of
their own, and have no notion how money is obtained. A whirl of the most
fantastic notions took possession of his brain immediately after he had
parted with Alyosha two days before, and threw his thoughts into a tangle
of confusion. This is how it was he pitched first on a perfectly wild
enterprise. And perhaps to men of that kind in such circumstances the most
impossible, fantastic schemes occur first, and seem most practical.
He suddenly determined to go to Samsonov, the merchant who was Grushenka’s
protector, and to propose a “scheme” to him, and by means of it to obtain
from him at once the whole of the sum required. Of the commercial value of
his scheme he had no doubt, not the slightest, and was only uncertain how
Samsonov would look upon his freak, supposing he were to consider it from
any but the commercial point of view. Though Mitya knew the merchant by
sight, he was not acquainted with him and had never spoken a word to him.
But for some unknown reason he had long entertained the conviction that
the old reprobate, who was lying at death’s door, would perhaps not at all
object now to Grushenka’s securing a respectable position, and marrying a
man “to be depended upon.” And he believed not only that he would not
object, but that this was what he desired, and, if opportunity arose, that
he would be ready to help. From some rumor, or perhaps from some stray
word of Grushenka’s, he had gathered further that the old man would
perhaps prefer him to Fyodor Pavlovitch for Grushenka.
Possibly many of the readers of my novel will feel that in reckoning on
such assistance, and being ready to take his bride, so to speak, from the
hands of her protector, Dmitri showed great coarseness and want of
delicacy. I will only observe that Mitya looked upon Grushenka’s past as
something completely over. He looked on that past with infinite pity and
resolved with all the fervor of his passion that when once Grushenka told
him she loved him and would marry him, it would mean the beginning of a
new Grushenka and a new Dmitri, free from every vice. They would forgive
one another and would begin their lives afresh. As for Kuzma Samsonov,
Dmitri looked upon him as a man who had exercised a fateful influence in
that remote past of Grushenka’s, though she had never loved him, and who
was now himself a thing of the past, completely done with, and, so to say,
non‐existent. Besides, Mitya hardly looked upon him as a man at all, for
it was known to every one in the town that he was only a shattered wreck,
whose relations with Grushenka had changed their character and were now
simply paternal, and that this had been so for a long time.
In any case there was much simplicity on Mitya’s part in all this, for in
spite of all his vices, he was a very simple‐hearted man. It was an
instance of this simplicity that Mitya was seriously persuaded that, being
on the eve of his departure for the next world, old Kuzma must sincerely
repent of his past relations with Grushenka, and that she had no more
devoted friend and protector in the world than this, now harmless old man.
After his conversation with Alyosha, at the cross‐roads, he hardly slept
all night, and at ten o’clock next morning, he was at the house of
Samsonov and telling the servant to announce him. It was a very large and
gloomy old house of two stories, with a lodge and outhouses. In the lower
story lived Samsonov’s two married sons with their families, his old
sister, and his unmarried daughter. In the lodge lived two of his clerks,
one of whom also had a large family. Both the lodge and the lower story
were overcrowded, but the old man kept the upper floor to himself, and
would not even let the daughter live there with him, though she waited
upon him, and in spite of her asthma was obliged at certain fixed hours,
and at any time he might call her, to run upstairs to him from below.
This upper floor contained a number of large rooms kept purely for show,
furnished in the old‐fashioned merchant style, with long monotonous rows
of clumsy mahogany chairs along the walls, with glass chandeliers under
shades, and gloomy mirrors on the walls. All these rooms were entirely
empty and unused, for the old man kept to one room, a small, remote
bedroom, where he was waited upon by an old servant with a kerchief on her
head, and by a lad, who used to sit on the locker in the passage. Owing to
his swollen legs, the old man could hardly walk at all, and was only
rarely lifted from his leather arm‐chair, when the old woman supporting
him led him up and down the room once or twice. He was morose and taciturn
even with this old woman.
When he was informed of the arrival of the “captain,” he at once refused
to see him. But Mitya persisted and sent his name up again. Samsonov
questioned the lad minutely: What he looked like? Whether he was drunk?
Was he going to make a row? The answer he received was: that he was sober,
but wouldn’t go away. The old man again refused to see him. Then Mitya,
who had foreseen this, and purposely brought pencil and paper with him,
wrote clearly on the piece of paper the words: “On most important business
closely concerning Agrafena Alexandrovna,” and sent it up to the old man.
After thinking a little Samsonov told the lad to take the visitor to the
drawing‐room, and sent the old woman downstairs with a summons to his
younger son to come upstairs to him at once. This younger son, a man over
six foot and of exceptional physical strength, who was closely‐shaven and
dressed in the European style, though his father still wore a kaftan and a
beard, came at once without a comment. All the family trembled before the
father. The old man had sent for this giant, not because he was afraid of
the “captain” (he was by no means of a timorous temper), but in order to
have a witness in case of any emergency. Supported by his son and the
servant‐lad, he waddled at last into the drawing‐room. It may be assumed
that he felt considerable curiosity. The drawing‐room in which Mitya was
awaiting him was a vast, dreary room that laid a weight of depression on
the heart. It had a double row of windows, a gallery, marbled walls, and
three immense chandeliers with glass lusters covered with shades.
Mitya was sitting on a little chair at the entrance, awaiting his fate
with nervous impatience. When the old man appeared at the opposite door,
seventy feet away, Mitya jumped up at once, and with his long, military
stride walked to meet him. Mitya was well dressed, in a frock‐coat,
buttoned up, with a round hat and black gloves in his hands, just as he
had been three days before at the elder’s, at the family meeting with his
father and brothers. The old man waited for him, standing dignified and
unbending, and Mitya felt at once that he had looked him through and
through as he advanced. Mitya was greatly impressed, too, with Samsonov’s
immensely swollen face. His lower lip, which had always been thick, hung
down now, looking like a bun. He bowed to his guest in dignified silence,
motioned him to a low chair by the sofa, and, leaning on his son’s arm he
began lowering himself on to the sofa opposite, groaning painfully, so
that Mitya, seeing his painful exertions, immediately felt remorseful and
sensitively conscious of his insignificance in the presence of the
dignified person he had ventured to disturb.
“What is it you want of me, sir?” said the old man, deliberately,
distinctly, severely, but courteously, when he was at last seated.
Mitya started, leapt up, but sat down again. Then he began at once
speaking with loud, nervous haste, gesticulating, and in a positive
frenzy. He was unmistakably a man driven into a corner, on the brink of
ruin, catching at the last straw, ready to sink if he failed. Old Samsonov
probably grasped all this in an instant, though his face remained cold and
immovable as a statue’s.
“Most honored sir, Kuzma Kuzmitch, you have no doubt heard more than once
of my disputes with my father, Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov, who robbed me
of my inheritance from my mother ... seeing the whole town is gossiping
about it ... for here every one’s gossiping of what they shouldn’t ... and
besides, it might have reached you through Grushenka ... I beg your
pardon, through Agrafena Alexandrovna ... Agrafena Alexandrovna, the lady
for whom I have the highest respect and esteem ...”
So Mitya began, and broke down at the first sentence. We will not
reproduce his speech word for word, but will only summarize the gist of
it. Three months ago, he said, he had of express intention (Mitya
purposely used these words instead of “intentionally”) consulted a lawyer
in the chief town of the province, “a distinguished lawyer, Kuzma
Kuzmitch, Pavel Pavlovitch Korneplodov. You have perhaps heard of him? A
man of vast intellect, the mind of a statesman ... he knows you, too ...
spoke of you in the highest terms ...” Mitya broke down again. But these
breaks did not deter him. He leapt instantly over the gaps, and struggled
on and on.
This Korneplodov, after questioning him minutely, and inspecting the
documents he was able to bring him (Mitya alluded somewhat vaguely to
these documents, and slurred over the subject with special haste),
reported that they certainly might take proceedings concerning the village
of Tchermashnya, which ought, he said, to have come to him, Mitya, from
his mother, and so checkmate the old villain, his father ... “because
every door was not closed and justice might still find a loophole.” In
fact, he might reckon on an additional sum of six or even seven thousand
roubles from Fyodor Pavlovitch, as Tchermashnya was worth, at least,
twenty‐five thousand, he might say twenty‐eight thousand, in fact,
“thirty, thirty, Kuzma Kuzmitch, and would you believe it, I didn’t get
seventeen from that heartless man!” So he, Mitya, had thrown the business
up, for the time, knowing nothing about the law, but on coming here was
struck dumb by a cross‐claim made upon him (here Mitya went adrift again
and again took a flying leap forward), “so will not you, excellent and
honored Kuzma Kuzmitch, be willing to take up all my claims against that
unnatural monster, and pay me a sum down of only three thousand?... You
see, you cannot, in any case, lose over it. On my honor, my honor, I swear
that. Quite the contrary, you may make six or seven thousand instead of
three.” Above all, he wanted this concluded that very day.
“I’ll do the business with you at a notary’s, or whatever it is ... in
fact, I’m ready to do anything.... I’ll hand over all the deeds ...
whatever you want, sign anything ... and we could draw up the agreement at
once ... and if it were possible, if it were only possible, that very
morning.... You could pay me that three thousand, for there isn’t a
capitalist in this town to compare with you, and so would save me from ...
would save me, in fact ... for a good, I might say an honorable action....
For I cherish the most honorable feelings for a certain person, whom you
know well, and care for as a father. I would not have come, indeed, if it
had not been as a father. And, indeed, it’s a struggle of three in this
business, for it’s fate—that’s a fearful thing, Kuzma Kuzmitch! A tragedy,
Kuzma Kuzmitch, a tragedy! And as you’ve dropped out long ago, it’s a tug‐
of‐war between two. I’m expressing it awkwardly, perhaps, but I’m not a
literary man. You see, I’m on the one side, and that monster on the other.
So you must choose. It’s either I or the monster. It all lies in your
hands—the fate of three lives, and the happiness of two.... Excuse me, I’m
making a mess of it, but you understand ... I see from your venerable eyes
that you understand ... and if you don’t understand, I’m done for ... so
you see!”
Mitya broke off his clumsy speech with that, “so you see!” and jumping up
from his seat, awaited the answer to his foolish proposal. At the last
phrase he had suddenly become hopelessly aware that it had all fallen
flat, above all, that he had been talking utter nonsense.
“How strange it is! On the way here it seemed all right, and now it’s
nothing but nonsense.” The idea suddenly dawned on his despairing mind.
All the while he had been talking, the old man sat motionless, watching
him with an icy expression in his eyes. After keeping him for a moment in
suspense, Kuzma Kuzmitch pronounced at last in the most positive and
chilling tone:
“Excuse me, we don’t undertake such business.”
Mitya suddenly felt his legs growing weak under him.
“What am I to do now, Kuzma Kuzmitch?” he muttered, with a pale smile. “I
suppose it’s all up with me—what do you think?”
“Excuse me....”
Mitya remained standing, staring motionless. He suddenly noticed a
movement in the old man’s face. He started.
“You see, sir, business of that sort’s not in our line,” said the old man
slowly. “There’s the court, and the lawyers—it’s a perfect misery. But if
you like, there is a man here you might apply to.”
“Good heavens! Who is it? You’re my salvation, Kuzma Kuzmitch,” faltered
Mitya.
“He doesn’t live here, and he’s not here just now. He is a peasant, he
does business in timber. His name is Lyagavy. He’s been haggling with
Fyodor Pavlovitch for the last year, over your copse at Tchermashnya. They
can’t agree on the price, maybe you’ve heard? Now he’s come back again and
is staying with the priest at Ilyinskoe, about twelve versts from the
Volovya station. He wrote to me, too, about the business of the copse,
asking my advice. Fyodor Pavlovitch means to go and see him himself. So if
you were to be beforehand with Fyodor Pavlovitch and to make Lyagavy the
offer you’ve made me, he might possibly—”
“A brilliant idea!” Mitya interrupted ecstatically. “He’s the very man, it
would just suit him. He’s haggling with him for it, being asked too much,
and here he would have all the documents entitling him to the property
itself. Ha ha ha!”
And Mitya suddenly went off into his short, wooden laugh, startling
Samsonov.
“How can I thank you, Kuzma Kuzmitch?” cried Mitya effusively.
“Don’t mention it,” said Samsonov, inclining his head.
“But you don’t know, you’ve saved me. Oh, it was a true presentiment
brought me to you.... So now to this priest!”
“No need of thanks.”
“I’ll make haste and fly there. I’m afraid I’ve overtaxed your strength. I
shall never forget it. It’s a Russian says that, Kuzma Kuzmitch, a R‐r‐
russian!”
“To be sure!”
Mitya seized his hand to press it, but there was a malignant gleam in the
old man’s eye. Mitya drew back his hand, but at once blamed himself for
his mistrustfulness.
“It’s because he’s tired,” he thought.
“For her sake! For her sake, Kuzma Kuzmitch! You understand that it’s for
her,” he cried, his voice ringing through the room. He bowed, turned
sharply round, and with the same long stride walked to the door without
looking back. He was trembling with delight.
“Everything was on the verge of ruin and my guardian angel saved me,” was
the thought in his mind. And if such a business man as Samsonov (a most
worthy old man, and what dignity!) had suggested this course, then ...
then success was assured. He would fly off immediately. “I will be back
before night, I shall be back at night and the thing is done. Could the
old man have been laughing at me?” exclaimed Mitya, as he strode towards
his lodging. He could, of course, imagine nothing, but that the advice was
practical “from such a business man” with an understanding of the
business, with an understanding of this Lyagavy (curious surname!). Or—the
old man was laughing at him.
Alas! The second alternative was the correct one. Long afterwards, when
the catastrophe had happened, old Samsonov himself confessed, laughing,
that he had made a fool of the “captain.” He was a cold, spiteful and
sarcastic man, liable to violent antipathies. Whether it was the
“captain’s” excited face, or the foolish conviction of the “rake and
spendthrift,” that he, Samsonov, could be taken in by such a cock‐and‐bull
story as his scheme, or his jealousy of Grushenka, in whose name this
“scapegrace” had rushed in on him with such a tale to get money which
worked on the old man, I can’t tell. But at the instant when Mitya stood
before him, feeling his legs grow weak under him, and frantically
exclaiming that he was ruined, at that moment the old man looked at him
with intense spite, and resolved to make a laughing‐stock of him. When
Mitya had gone, Kuzma Kuzmitch, white with rage, turned to his son and
bade him see to it that that beggar be never seen again, and never
admitted even into the yard, or else he’d—
He did not utter his threat. But even his son, who often saw him enraged,
trembled with fear. For a whole hour afterwards, the old man was shaking
with anger, and by evening he was worse, and sent for the doctor.
Chapter II. Lyagavy
So he must drive at full speed, and he had not the money for horses. He
had forty kopecks, and that was all, all that was left after so many years
of prosperity! But he had at home an old silver watch which had long
ceased to go. He snatched it up and carried it to a Jewish watchmaker who
had a shop in the market‐place. The Jew gave him six roubles for it.
“And I didn’t expect that,” cried Mitya, ecstatically. (He was still in a
state of ecstasy.) He seized his six roubles and ran home. At home he
borrowed three roubles from the people of the house, who loved him so much
that they were pleased to give it him, though it was all they had. Mitya
in his excitement told them on the spot that his fate would be decided
that day, and he described, in desperate haste, the whole scheme he had
put before Samsonov, the latter’s decision, his own hopes for the future,
and so on. These people had been told many of their lodger’s secrets
before, and so looked upon him as a gentleman who was not at all proud,
and almost one of themselves. Having thus collected nine roubles Mitya
sent for posting‐horses to take him to the Volovya station. This was how
the fact came to be remembered and established that “at midday, on the day
before the event, Mitya had not a farthing, and that he had sold his watch
to get money and had borrowed three roubles from his landlord, all in the
presence of witnesses.”
I note this fact, later on it will be apparent why I do so.
Though he was radiant with the joyful anticipation that he would at last
solve all his difficulties, yet, as he drew near Volovya station, he
trembled at the thought of what Grushenka might be doing in his absence.
What if she made up her mind to‐day to go to Fyodor Pavlovitch? This was
why he had gone off without telling her and why he left orders with his
landlady not to let out where he had gone, if any one came to inquire for
him.
“I must, I must get back to‐night,” he repeated, as he was jolted along in
the cart, “and I dare say I shall have to bring this Lyagavy back here ...
to draw up the deed.” So mused Mitya, with a throbbing heart, but alas!
his dreams were not fated to be carried out.
To begin with, he was late, taking a short cut from Volovya station which
turned out to be eighteen versts instead of twelve. Secondly, he did not
find the priest at home at Ilyinskoe; he had gone off to a neighboring
village. While Mitya, setting off there with the same exhausted horses,
was looking for him, it was almost dark.
The priest, a shy and amiable looking little man, informed him at once
that though Lyagavy had been staying with him at first, he was now at
Suhoy Possyolok, that he was staying the night in the forester’s cottage,
as he was buying timber there too. At Mitya’s urgent request that he would
take him to Lyagavy at once, and by so doing “save him, so to speak,” the
priest agreed, after some demur, to conduct him to Suhoy Possyolok; his
curiosity was obviously aroused. But, unluckily, he advised their going on
foot, as it would not be “much over” a verst. Mitya, of course, agreed,
and marched off with his yard‐long strides, so that the poor priest almost
ran after him. He was a very cautious man, though not old.
Mitya at once began talking to him, too, of his plans, nervously and
excitedly asking advice in regard to Lyagavy, and talking all the way. The
priest listened attentively, but gave little advice. He turned off Mitya’s
questions with: “I don’t know. Ah, I can’t say. How can I tell?” and so
on. When Mitya began to speak of his quarrel with his father over his
inheritance, the priest was positively alarmed, as he was in some way
dependent on Fyodor Pavlovitch. He inquired, however, with surprise, why
he called the peasant‐trader Gorstkin, Lyagavy, and obligingly explained
to Mitya that, though the man’s name really was Lyagavy, he was never
called so, as he would be grievously offended at the name, and that he
must be sure to call him Gorstkin, “or you’ll do nothing with him; he
won’t even listen to you,” said the priest in conclusion.
Mitya was somewhat surprised for a moment, and explained that that was
what Samsonov had called him. On hearing this fact, the priest dropped the
subject, though he would have done well to put into words his doubt
whether, if Samsonov had sent him to that peasant, calling him Lyagavy,
there was not something wrong about it and he was turning him into
ridicule. But Mitya had no time to pause over such trifles. He hurried,
striding along, and only when he reached Suhoy Possyolok did he realize
that they had come not one verst, nor one and a half, but at least three.
This annoyed him, but he controlled himself.
They went into the hut. The forester lived in one half of the hut, and
Gorstkin was lodging in the other, the better room the other side of the
passage. They went into that room and lighted a tallow candle. The hut was
extremely overheated. On the table there was a samovar that had gone out,
a tray with cups, an empty rum bottle, a bottle of vodka partly full, and
some half‐eaten crusts of wheaten bread. The visitor himself lay stretched
at full length on the bench, with his coat crushed up under his head for a
pillow, snoring heavily. Mitya stood in perplexity.
“Of course I must wake him. My business is too important. I’ve come in
such haste. I’m in a hurry to get back to‐day,” he said in great
agitation. But the priest and the forester stood in silence, not giving
their opinion. Mitya went up and began trying to wake him himself; he
tried vigorously, but the sleeper did not wake.
“He’s drunk,” Mitya decided. “Good Lord! What am I to do? What am I to
do?” And, terribly impatient, he began pulling him by the arms, by the
legs, shaking his head, lifting him up and making him sit on the bench.
Yet, after prolonged exertions, he could only succeed in getting the
drunken man to utter absurd grunts, and violent, but inarticulate oaths.
“No, you’d better wait a little,” the priest pronounced at last, “for he’s
obviously not in a fit state.”
“He’s been drinking the whole day,” the forester chimed in.
“Good heavens!” cried Mitya. “If only you knew how important it is to me
and how desperate I am!”
“No, you’d better wait till morning,” the priest repeated.
“Till morning? Mercy! that’s impossible!”
And in his despair he was on the point of attacking the sleeping man
again, but stopped short at once, realizing the uselessness of his
efforts. The priest said nothing, the sleepy forester looked gloomy.
“What terrible tragedies real life contrives for people,” said Mitya, in
complete despair. The perspiration was streaming down his face. The priest
seized the moment to put before him, very reasonably, that, even if he
succeeded in wakening the man, he would still be drunk and incapable of
conversation. “And your business is important,” he said, “so you’d
certainly better put it off till morning.” With a gesture of despair Mitya
agreed.
“Father, I will stay here with a light, and seize the favorable moment. As
soon as he wakes I’ll begin. I’ll pay you for the light,” he said to the
forester, “for the night’s lodging, too; you’ll remember Dmitri Karamazov.
Only, Father, I don’t know what we’re to do with you. Where will you
sleep?”
“No, I’m going home. I’ll take his horse and get home,” he said,
indicating the forester. “And now I’ll say good‐by. I wish you all
success.”
So it was settled. The priest rode off on the forester’s horse, delighted
to escape, though he shook his head uneasily, wondering whether he ought
not next day to inform his benefactor Fyodor Pavlovitch of this curious
incident, “or he may in an unlucky hour hear of it, be angry, and withdraw
his favor.”
The forester, scratching himself, went back to his room without a word,
and Mitya sat on the bench to “catch the favorable moment,” as he
expressed it. Profound dejection clung about his soul like a heavy mist. A
profound, intense dejection! He sat thinking, but could reach no
conclusion. The candle burnt dimly, a cricket chirped; it became
insufferably close in the overheated room. He suddenly pictured the
garden, the path behind the garden, the door of his father’s house
mysteriously opening and Grushenka running in. He leapt up from the bench.
“It’s a tragedy!” he said, grinding his teeth. Mechanically he went up to
the sleeping man and looked in his face. He was a lean, middle‐aged
peasant, with a very long face, flaxen curls, and a long, thin, reddish
beard, wearing a blue cotton shirt and a black waistcoat, from the pocket
of which peeped the chain of a silver watch. Mitya looked at his face with
intense hatred, and for some unknown reason his curly hair particularly
irritated him.
What was insufferably humiliating was, that after leaving things of such
importance and making such sacrifices, he, Mitya, utterly worn out, should
with business of such urgency be standing over this dolt on whom his whole
fate depended, while he snored as though there were nothing the matter, as
though he’d dropped from another planet.
“Oh, the irony of fate!” cried Mitya, and, quite losing his head, he fell
again to rousing the tipsy peasant. He roused him with a sort of ferocity,
pulled at him, pushed him, even beat him; but after five minutes of vain
exertions, he returned to his bench in helpless despair, and sat down.
“Stupid! Stupid!” cried Mitya. “And how dishonorable it all is!” something
made him add. His head began to ache horribly. “Should he fling it up and
go away altogether?” he wondered. “No, wait till to‐morrow now. I’ll stay
on purpose. What else did I come for? Besides, I’ve no means of going. How
am I to get away from here now? Oh, the idiocy of it!”
But his head ached more and more. He sat without moving, and unconsciously
dozed off and fell asleep as he sat. He seemed to have slept for two hours
or more. He was waked up by his head aching so unbearably that he could
have screamed. There was a hammering in his temples, and the top of his
head ached. It was a long time before he could wake up fully and
understand what had happened to him.
At last he realized that the room was full of charcoal fumes from the
stove, and that he might die of suffocation. And the drunken peasant still
lay snoring. The candle guttered and was about to go out. Mitya cried out,
and ran staggering across the passage into the forester’s room. The
forester waked up at once, but hearing that the other room was full of
fumes, to Mitya’s surprise and annoyance, accepted the fact with strange
unconcern, though he did go to see to it.
“But he’s dead, he’s dead! and ... what am I to do then?” cried Mitya
frantically.
They threw open the doors, opened a window and the chimney. Mitya brought
a pail of water from the passage. First he wetted his own head, then,
finding a rag of some sort, dipped it into the water, and put it on
Lyagavy’s head. The forester still treated the matter contemptuously, and
when he opened the window said grumpily:
“It’ll be all right, now.”
He went back to sleep, leaving Mitya a lighted lantern. Mitya fussed about
the drunken peasant for half an hour, wetting his head, and gravely
resolved not to sleep all night. But he was so worn out that when he sat
down for a moment to take breath, he closed his eyes, unconsciously
stretched himself full length on the bench and slept like the dead.
It was dreadfully late when he waked. It was somewhere about nine o’clock.
The sun was shining brightly in the two little windows of the hut. The
curly‐headed peasant was sitting on the bench and had his coat on. He had
another samovar and another bottle in front of him. Yesterday’s bottle had
already been finished, and the new one was more than half empty. Mitya
jumped up and saw at once that the cursed peasant was drunk again,
hopelessly and incurably. He stared at him for a moment with wide opened
eyes. The peasant was silently and slyly watching him, with insulting
composure, and even a sort of contemptuous condescension, so Mitya
fancied. He rushed up to him.
“Excuse me, you see ... I ... you’ve most likely heard from the forester
here in the hut. I’m Lieutenant Dmitri Karamazov, the son of the old
Karamazov whose copse you are buying.”
“That’s a lie!” said the peasant, calmly and confidently.
“A lie? You know Fyodor Pavlovitch?”
“I don’t know any of your Fyodor Pavlovitches,” said the peasant, speaking
thickly.
“You’re bargaining with him for the copse, for the copse. Do wake up, and
collect yourself. Father Pavel of Ilyinskoe brought me here. You wrote to
Samsonov, and he has sent me to you,” Mitya gasped breathlessly.
“You’re l‐lying!” Lyagavy blurted out again. Mitya’s legs went cold.
“For mercy’s sake! It isn’t a joke! You’re drunk, perhaps. Yet you can
speak and understand ... or else ... I understand nothing!”
“You’re a painter!”
“For mercy’s sake! I’m Karamazov, Dmitri Karamazov. I have an offer to
make you, an advantageous offer ... very advantageous offer, concerning
the copse!”
The peasant stroked his beard importantly.
“No, you’ve contracted for the job and turned out a scamp. You’re a
scoundrel!”
“I assure you you’re mistaken,” cried Mitya, wringing his hands in
despair. The peasant still stroked his beard, and suddenly screwed up his
eyes cunningly.
“No, you show me this: you tell me the law that allows roguery. D’you
hear? You’re a scoundrel! Do you understand that?”
Mitya stepped back gloomily, and suddenly “something seemed to hit him on
the head,” as he said afterwards. In an instant a light seemed to dawn in
his mind, “a light was kindled and I grasped it all.” He stood, stupefied,
wondering how he, after all a man of intelligence, could have yielded to
such folly, have been led into such an adventure, and have kept it up for
almost twenty‐four hours, fussing round this Lyagavy, wetting his head.
“Why, the man’s drunk, dead drunk, and he’ll go on drinking now for a
week; what’s the use of waiting here? And what if Samsonov sent me here on
purpose? What if she—? Oh, God, what have I done?”
The peasant sat watching him and grinning. Another time Mitya might have
killed the fool in a fury, but now he felt as weak as a child. He went
quietly to the bench, took up his overcoat, put it on without a word, and
went out of the hut. He did not find the forester in the next room; there
was no one there. He took fifty kopecks in small change out of his pocket
and put them on the table for his night’s lodging, the candle, and the
trouble he had given. Coming out of the hut he saw nothing but forest all
round. He walked at hazard, not knowing which way to turn out of the hut,
to the right or to the left. Hurrying there the evening before with the
priest, he had not noticed the road. He had no revengeful feeling for
anybody, even for Samsonov, in his heart. He strode along a narrow forest
path, aimless, dazed, without heeding where he was going. A child could
have knocked him down, so weak was he in body and soul. He got out of the
forest somehow, however, and a vista of fields, bare after the harvest,
stretched as far as the eye could see.
“What despair! What death all round!” he repeated, striding on and on.
He was saved by meeting an old merchant who was being driven across
country in a hired trap. When he overtook him, Mitya asked the way, and it
turned out that the old merchant, too, was going to Volovya. After some
discussion Mitya got into the trap. Three hours later they arrived. At
Volovya, Mitya at once ordered posting‐horses to drive to the town, and
suddenly realized that he was appallingly hungry. While the horses were
being harnessed, an omelette was prepared for him. He ate it all in an
instant, ate a huge hunk of bread, ate a sausage, and swallowed three
glasses of vodka. After eating, his spirits and his heart grew lighter. He
flew towards the town, urged on the driver, and suddenly made a new and
“unalterable” plan to procure that “accursed money” before evening. “And
to think, only to think that a man’s life should be ruined for the sake of
that paltry three thousand!” he cried, contemptuously. “I’ll settle it to‐
day.” And if it had not been for the thought of Grushenka and of what
might have happened to her, which never left him, he would perhaps have
become quite cheerful again.... But the thought of her was stabbing him to
the heart every moment, like a sharp knife.
At last they arrived, and Mitya at once ran to Grushenka.
Chapter III. Gold‐Mines
This was the visit of Mitya of which Grushenka had spoken to Rakitin with
such horror. She was just then expecting the “message,” and was much
relieved that Mitya had not been to see her that day or the day before.
She hoped that “please God he won’t come till I’m gone away,” and he
suddenly burst in on her. The rest we know already. To get him off her
hands she suggested at once that he should walk with her to Samsonov’s,
where she said she absolutely must go “to settle his accounts,” and when
Mitya accompanied her at once, she said good‐by to him at the gate, making
him promise to come at twelve o’clock to take her home again. Mitya, too,
was delighted at this arrangement. If she was sitting at Samsonov’s she
could not be going to Fyodor Pavlovitch’s, “if only she’s not lying,” he
added at once. But he thought she was not lying from what he saw.
He was that sort of jealous man who, in the absence of the beloved woman,
at once invents all sorts of awful fancies of what may be happening to
her, and how she may be betraying him, but, when shaken, heartbroken,
convinced of her faithlessness, he runs back to her; at the first glance
at her face, her gay, laughing, affectionate face, he revives at once,
lays aside all suspicion and with joyful shame abuses himself for his
jealousy.
After leaving Grushenka at the gate he rushed home. Oh, he had so much
still to do that day! But a load had been lifted from his heart, anyway.
“Now I must only make haste and find out from Smerdyakov whether anything
happened there last night, whether, by any chance, she went to Fyodor
Pavlovitch; ough!” floated through his mind.
Before he had time to reach his lodging, jealousy had surged up again in
his restless heart.
Jealousy! “Othello was not jealous, he was trustful,” observed Pushkin.
And that remark alone is enough to show the deep insight of our great
poet. Othello’s soul was shattered and his whole outlook clouded simply
because _his ideal was destroyed_. But Othello did not begin hiding,
spying, peeping. He was trustful, on the contrary. He had to be led up,
pushed on, excited with great difficulty before he could entertain the
idea of deceit. The truly jealous man is not like that. It is impossible
to picture to oneself the shame and moral degradation to which the jealous
man can descend without a qualm of conscience. And yet it’s not as though
the jealous were all vulgar and base souls. On the contrary, a man of
lofty feelings, whose love is pure and full of self‐sacrifice, may yet
hide under tables, bribe the vilest people, and be familiar with the
lowest ignominy of spying and eavesdropping.
Othello was incapable of making up his mind to faithlessness—not incapable
of forgiving it, but of making up his mind to it—though his soul was as
innocent and free from malice as a babe’s. It is not so with the really
jealous man. It is hard to imagine what some jealous men can make up their
mind to and overlook, and what they can forgive! The jealous are the
readiest of all to forgive, and all women know it. The jealous man can
forgive extraordinarily quickly (though, of course, after a violent
scene), and he is able to forgive infidelity almost conclusively proved,
the very kisses and embraces he has seen, if only he can somehow be
convinced that it has all been “for the last time,” and that his rival
will vanish from that day forward, will depart to the ends of the earth,
or that he himself will carry her away somewhere, where that dreaded rival
will not get near her. Of course the reconciliation is only for an hour.
For, even if the rival did disappear next day, he would invent another one
and would be jealous of him. And one might wonder what there was in a love
that had to be so watched over, what a love could be worth that needed
such strenuous guarding. But that the jealous will never understand. And
yet among them are men of noble hearts. It is remarkable, too, that those
very men of noble hearts, standing hidden in some cupboard, listening and
spying, never feel the stings of conscience at that moment, anyway, though
they understand clearly enough with their “noble hearts” the shameful
depths to which they have voluntarily sunk.
At the sight of Grushenka, Mitya’s jealousy vanished, and, for an instant
he became trustful and generous, and positively despised himself for his
evil feelings. But it only proved that, in his love for the woman, there
was an element of something far higher than he himself imagined, that it
was not only a sensual passion, not only the “curve of her body,” of which
he had talked to Alyosha. But, as soon as Grushenka had gone, Mitya began
to suspect her of all the low cunning of faithlessness, and he felt no
sting of conscience at it.
And so jealousy surged up in him again. He had, in any case, to make
haste. The first thing to be done was to get hold of at least a small,
temporary loan of money. The nine roubles had almost all gone on his
expedition. And, as we all know, one can’t take a step without money. But
he had thought over in the cart where he could get a loan. He had a brace
of fine dueling pistols in a case, which he had not pawned till then
because he prized them above all his possessions.
In the “Metropolis” tavern he had some time since made acquaintance with a
young official and had learnt that this very opulent bachelor was
passionately fond of weapons. He used to buy pistols, revolvers, daggers,
hang them on his wall and show them to acquaintances. He prided himself on
them, and was quite a specialist on the mechanism of the revolver. Mitya,
without stopping to think, went straight to him, and offered to pawn his
pistols to him for ten roubles. The official, delighted, began trying to
persuade him to sell them outright. But Mitya would not consent, so the
young man gave him ten roubles, protesting that nothing would induce him
to take interest. They parted friends.
Mitya was in haste; he rushed towards Fyodor Pavlovitch’s by the back way,
to his arbor, to get hold of Smerdyakov as soon as possible. In this way
the fact was established that three or four hours before a certain event,
of which I shall speak later on, Mitya had not a farthing, and pawned for
ten roubles a possession he valued, though, three hours later, he was in
possession of thousands.... But I am anticipating. From Marya Kondratyevna
(the woman living near Fyodor Pavlovitch’s) he learned the very disturbing
fact of Smerdyakov’s illness. He heard the story of his fall in the
cellar, his fit, the doctor’s visit, Fyodor Pavlovitch’s anxiety; he heard
with interest, too, that his brother Ivan had set off that morning for
Moscow.
“Then he must have driven through Volovya before me,” thought Dmitri, but
he was terribly distressed about Smerdyakov. “What will happen now? Who’ll
keep watch for me? Who’ll bring me word?” he thought. He began greedily
questioning the women whether they had seen anything the evening before.
They quite understood what he was trying to find out, and completely
reassured him. No one had been there. Ivan Fyodorovitch had been there the
night; everything had been perfectly as usual. Mitya grew thoughtful. He
would certainly have to keep watch to‐day, but where? Here or at
Samsonov’s gate? He decided that he must be on the look out both here and
there, and meanwhile ... meanwhile.... The difficulty was that he had to
carry out the new plan that he had made on the journey back. He was sure
of its success, but he must not delay acting upon it. Mitya resolved to
sacrifice an hour to it: “In an hour I shall know everything, I shall
settle everything, and then, then, first of all to Samsonov’s. I’ll
inquire whether Grushenka’s there and instantly be back here again, stay
till eleven, and then to Samsonov’s again to bring her home.” This was
what he decided.
He flew home, washed, combed his hair, brushed his clothes, dressed, and
went to Madame Hohlakov’s. Alas! he had built his hopes on her. He had
resolved to borrow three thousand from that lady. And what was more, he
felt suddenly convinced that she would not refuse to lend it to him. It
may be wondered why, if he felt so certain, he had not gone to her at
first, one of his own sort, so to speak, instead of to Samsonov, a man he
did not know, who was not of his own class, and to whom he hardly knew how
to speak.
But the fact was that he had never known Madame Hohlakov well, and had
seen nothing of her for the last month, and that he knew she could not
endure him. She had detested him from the first because he was engaged to
Katerina Ivanovna, while she had, for some reason, suddenly conceived the
desire that Katerina Ivanovna should throw him over, and marry the
“charming, chivalrously refined Ivan, who had such excellent manners.”
Mitya’s manners she detested. Mitya positively laughed at her, and had
once said about her that she was just as lively and at her ease as she was
uncultivated. But that morning in the cart a brilliant idea had struck
him: “If she is so anxious I should not marry Katerina Ivanovna” (and he
knew she was positively hysterical upon the subject) “why should she
refuse me now that three thousand, just to enable me to leave Katya and
get away from her for ever. These spoilt fine ladies, if they set their
hearts on anything, will spare no expense to satisfy their caprice.
Besides, she’s so rich,” Mitya argued.
As for his “plan” it was just the same as before; it consisted of the
offer of his rights to Tchermashnya—but not with a commercial object, as
it had been with Samsonov, not trying to allure the lady with the
possibility of making a profit of six or seven thousand—but simply as a
security for the debt. As he worked out this new idea, Mitya was enchanted
with it, but so it always was with him in all his undertakings, in all his
sudden decisions. He gave himself up to every new idea with passionate
enthusiasm. Yet, when he mounted the steps of Madame Hohlakov’s house he
felt a shiver of fear run down his spine. At that moment he saw fully, as
a mathematical certainty, that this was his last hope, that if this broke
down, nothing else was left him in the world, but to “rob and murder some
one for the three thousand.” It was half‐past seven when he rang at the
bell.
At first fortune seemed to smile upon him. As soon as he was announced he
was received with extraordinary rapidity. “As though she were waiting for
me,” thought Mitya, and as soon as he had been led to the drawing‐room,
the lady of the house herself ran in, and declared at once that she was
expecting him.
“I was expecting you! I was expecting you! Though I’d no reason to suppose
you would come to see me, as you will admit yourself. Yet, I did expect
you. You may marvel at my instinct, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, but I was
convinced all the morning that you would come.”
“That is certainly wonderful, madam,” observed Mitya, sitting down limply,
“but I have come to you on a matter of great importance.... On a matter of
supreme importance for me, that is, madam ... for me alone ... and I
hasten—”
“I know you’ve come on most important business, Dmitri Fyodorovitch; it’s
not a case of presentiment, no reactionary harking back to the miraculous
(have you heard about Father Zossima?). This is a case of mathematics: you
couldn’t help coming, after all that has passed with Katerina Ivanovna;
you couldn’t, you couldn’t, that’s a mathematical certainty.”
“The realism of actual life, madam, that’s what it is. But allow me to
explain—”
“Realism indeed, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. I’m all for realism now. I’ve seen
too much of miracles. You’ve heard that Father Zossima is dead?”
“No, madam, it’s the first time I’ve heard of it.” Mitya was a little
surprised. The image of Alyosha rose to his mind.
“Last night, and only imagine—”
“Madam,” said Mitya, “I can imagine nothing except that I’m in a desperate
position, and that if you don’t help me, everything will come to grief,
and I first of all. Excuse me for the triviality of the expression, but
I’m in a fever—”
“I know, I know that you’re in a fever. You could hardly fail to be, and
whatever you may say to me, I know beforehand. I have long been thinking
over your destiny, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, I am watching over it and studying
it.... Oh, believe me, I’m an experienced doctor of the soul, Dmitri
Fyodorovitch.”
“Madam, if you are an experienced doctor, I’m certainly an experienced
patient,” said Mitya, with an effort to be polite, “and I feel that if you
are watching over my destiny in this way, you will come to my help in my
ruin, and so allow me, at least to explain to you the plan with which I
have ventured to come to you ... and what I am hoping of you.... I have
come, madam—”
“Don’t explain it. It’s of secondary importance. But as for help, you’re
not the first I have helped, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. You have most likely
heard of my cousin, Madame Belmesov. Her husband was ruined, ‘had come to
grief,’ as you characteristically express it, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. I
recommended him to take to horse‐breeding, and now he’s doing well. Have
you any idea of horse‐breeding, Dmitri Fyodorovitch?”
“Not the faintest, madam; ah, madam, not the faintest!” cried Mitya, in
nervous impatience, positively starting from his seat. “I simply implore
you, madam, to listen to me. Only give me two minutes of free speech that
I may just explain to you everything, the whole plan with which I have
come. Besides, I am short of time. I’m in a fearful hurry,” Mitya cried
hysterically, feeling that she was just going to begin talking again, and
hoping to cut her short. “I have come in despair ... in the last gasp of
despair, to beg you to lend me the sum of three thousand, a loan, but on
safe, most safe security, madam, with the most trustworthy guarantees!
Only let me explain—”
“You must tell me all that afterwards, afterwards!” Madame Hohlakov with a
gesture demanded silence in her turn, “and whatever you may tell me, I
know it all beforehand; I’ve told you so already. You ask for a certain
sum, for three thousand, but I can give you more, immeasurably more, I
will save you, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, but you must listen to me.”
Mitya started from his seat again.
“Madam, will you really be so good!” he cried, with strong feeling. “Good
God, you’ve saved me! You have saved a man from a violent death, from a
bullet.... My eternal gratitude—”
“I will give you more, infinitely more than three thousand!” cried Madame
Hohlakov, looking with a radiant smile at Mitya’s ecstasy.
“Infinitely? But I don’t need so much. I only need that fatal three
thousand, and on my part I can give security for that sum with infinite
gratitude, and I propose a plan which—”
“Enough, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, it’s said and done.” Madame Hohlakov cut him
short, with the modest triumph of beneficence: “I have promised to save
you, and I will save you. I will save you as I did Belmesov. What do you
think of the gold‐mines, Dmitri Fyodorovitch?”
“Of the gold‐mines, madam? I have never thought anything about them.”
“But I have thought of them for you. Thought of them over and over again.
I have been watching you for the last month. I’ve watched you a hundred
times as you’ve walked past, saying to myself: that’s a man of energy who
ought to be at the gold‐mines. I’ve studied your gait and come to the
conclusion: that’s a man who would find gold.”
“From my gait, madam?” said Mitya, smiling.
“Yes, from your gait. You surely don’t deny that character can be told
from the gait, Dmitri Fyodorovitch? Science supports the idea. I’m all for
science and realism now. After all this business with Father Zossima,
which has so upset me, from this very day I’m a realist and I want to
devote myself to practical usefulness. I’m cured. ‘Enough!’ as Turgenev
says.”
“But, madam, the three thousand you so generously promised to lend me—”
“It is yours, Dmitri Fyodorovitch,” Madame Hohlakov cut in at once. “The
money is as good as in your pocket, not three thousand, but three million,
Dmitri Fyodorovitch, in less than no time. I’ll make you a present of the
idea: you shall find gold‐mines, make millions, return and become a
leading man, and wake us up and lead us to better things. Are we to leave
it all to the Jews? You will found institutions and enterprises of all
sorts. You will help the poor, and they will bless you. This is the age of
railways, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. You’ll become famous and indispensable to
the Department of Finance, which is so badly off at present. The
depreciation of the rouble keeps me awake at night, Dmitri Fyodorovitch;
people don’t know that side of me—”
“Madam, madam!” Dmitri interrupted with an uneasy presentiment. “I shall
indeed, perhaps, follow your advice, your wise advice, madam.... I shall
perhaps set off ... to the gold‐mines.... I’ll come and see you again
about it ... many times, indeed ... but now, that three thousand you so
generously ... oh, that would set me free, and if you could to‐day ... you
see, I haven’t a minute, a minute to lose to‐day—”
“Enough, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, enough!” Madame Hohlakov interrupted
emphatically. “The question is, will you go to the gold‐mines or not; have
you quite made up your mind? Answer yes or no.”
“I will go, madam, afterwards.... I’ll go where you like ... but now—”
“Wait!” cried Madame Hohlakov. And jumping up and running to a handsome
bureau with numerous little drawers, she began pulling out one drawer
after another, looking for something with desperate haste.
“The three thousand,” thought Mitya, his heart almost stopping, “and at
the instant ... without any papers or formalities ... that’s doing things
in gentlemanly style! She’s a splendid woman, if only she didn’t talk so
much!”
“Here!” cried Madame Hohlakov, running back joyfully to Mitya, “here is
what I was looking for!”
It was a tiny silver ikon on a cord, such as is sometimes worn next the
skin with a cross.
“This is from Kiev, Dmitri Fyodorovitch,” she went on reverently, “from
the relics of the Holy Martyr, Varvara. Let me put it on your neck myself,
and with it dedicate you to a new life, to a new career.”
And she actually put the cord round his neck, and began arranging it. In
extreme embarrassment, Mitya bent down and helped her, and at last he got
it under his neck‐tie and collar through his shirt to his chest.
“Now you can set off,” Madame Hohlakov pronounced, sitting down
triumphantly in her place again.
“Madam, I am so touched. I don’t know how to thank you, indeed ... for
such kindness, but ... If only you knew how precious time is to me....
That sum of money, for which I shall be indebted to your generosity....
Oh, madam, since you are so kind, so touchingly generous to me,” Mitya
exclaimed impulsively, “then let me reveal to you ... though, of course,
you’ve known it a long time ... that I love somebody here.... I have been
false to Katya ... Katerina Ivanovna I should say.... Oh, I’ve behaved
inhumanly, dishonorably to her, but I fell in love here with another woman
... a woman whom you, madam, perhaps, despise, for you know everything
already, but whom I cannot leave on any account, and therefore that three
thousand now—”
“Leave everything, Dmitri Fyodorovitch,” Madame Hohlakov interrupted in
the most decisive tone. “Leave everything, especially women. Gold‐mines
are your goal, and there’s no place for women there. Afterwards, when you
come back rich and famous, you will find the girl of your heart in the
highest society. That will be a modern girl, a girl of education and
advanced ideas. By that time the dawning woman question will have gained
ground, and the new woman will have appeared.”
“Madam, that’s not the point, not at all....” Mitya clasped his hands in
entreaty.
“Yes, it is, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, just what you need; the very thing
you’re yearning for, though you don’t realize it yourself. I am not at all
opposed to the present woman movement, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. The
development of woman, and even the political emancipation of woman in the
near future—that’s my ideal. I’ve a daughter myself, Dmitri Fyodorovitch,
people don’t know that side of me. I wrote a letter to the author,
Shtchedrin, on that subject. He has taught me so much, so much about the
vocation of woman. So last year I sent him an anonymous letter of two
lines: ‘I kiss and embrace you, my teacher, for the modern woman.
Persevere.’ And I signed myself, ‘A Mother.’ I thought of signing myself
‘A contemporary Mother,’ and hesitated, but I stuck to the simple
‘Mother’; there’s more moral beauty in that, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. And the
word ‘contemporary’ might have reminded him of ‘_The Contemporary_’—a
painful recollection owing to the censorship.... Good Heavens, what is the
matter!”
“Madam!” cried Mitya, jumping up at last, clasping his hands before her in
helpless entreaty. “You will make me weep if you delay what you have so
generously—”
“Oh, do weep, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, do weep! That’s a noble feeling ...
such a path lies open before you! Tears will ease your heart, and later on
you will return rejoicing. You will hasten to me from Siberia on purpose
to share your joy with me—”
“But allow me, too!” Mitya cried suddenly. “For the last time I entreat
you, tell me, can I have the sum you promised me to‐day, if not, when may
I come for it?”
“What sum, Dmitri Fyodorovitch?”
“The three thousand you promised me ... that you so generously—”
“Three thousand? Roubles? Oh, no, I haven’t got three thousand,” Madame
Hohlakov announced with serene amazement. Mitya was stupefied.
“Why, you said just now ... you said ... you said it was as good as in my
hands—”
“Oh, no, you misunderstood me, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. In that case you
misunderstood me. I was talking of the gold‐mines. It’s true I promised
you more, infinitely more than three thousand, I remember it all now, but
I was referring to the gold‐mines.”
“But the money? The three thousand?” Mitya exclaimed, awkwardly.
“Oh, if you meant money, I haven’t any. I haven’t a penny, Dmitri
Fyodorovitch. I’m quarreling with my steward about it, and I’ve just
borrowed five hundred roubles from Miüsov, myself. No, no, I’ve no money.
And, do you know, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, if I had, I wouldn’t give it to
you. In the first place I never lend money. Lending money means losing
friends. And I wouldn’t give it to you particularly. I wouldn’t give it
you, because I like you and want to save you, for all you need is the
gold‐mines, the gold‐mines, the gold‐mines!”
“Oh, the devil!” roared Mitya, and with all his might brought his fist
down on the table.
“Aie! Aie!” cried Madame Hohlakov, alarmed, and she flew to the other end
of the drawing‐room.
Mitya spat on the ground, and strode rapidly out of the room, out of the
house, into the street, into the darkness! He walked like one possessed,
and beating himself on the breast, on the spot where he had struck himself
two days previously, before Alyosha, the last time he saw him in the dark,
on the road. What those blows upon his breast signified, _on that spot_,
and what he meant by it—that was, for the time, a secret which was known
to no one in the world, and had not been told even to Alyosha. But that
secret meant for him more than disgrace; it meant ruin, suicide. So he had
determined, if he did not get hold of the three thousand that would pay
his debt to Katerina Ivanovna, and so remove from his breast, from _that
spot on his breast_, the shame he carried upon it, that weighed on his
conscience. All this will be fully explained to the reader later on, but
now that his last hope had vanished, this man, so strong in appearance,
burst out crying like a little child a few steps from the Hohlakovs’
house. He walked on, and not knowing what he was doing, wiped away his
tears with his fist. In this way he reached the square, and suddenly
became aware that he had stumbled against something. He heard a piercing
wail from an old woman whom he had almost knocked down.
“Good Lord, you’ve nearly killed me! Why don’t you look where you’re
going, scapegrace?”
“Why, it’s you!” cried Mitya, recognizing the old woman in the dark. It
was the old servant who waited on Samsonov, whom Mitya had particularly
noticed the day before.
“And who are you, my good sir?” said the old woman, in quite a different
voice. “I don’t know you in the dark.”
“You live at Kuzma Kuzmitch’s. You’re the servant there?”
“Just so, sir, I was only running out to Prohoritch’s.... But I don’t know
you now.”
“Tell me, my good woman, is Agrafena Alexandrovna there now?” said Mitya,
beside himself with suspense. “I saw her to the house some time ago.”
“She has been there, sir. She stayed a little while, and went off again.”
“What? Went away?” cried Mitya. “When did she go?”
“Why, as soon as she came. She only stayed a minute. She only told Kuzma
Kuzmitch a tale that made him laugh, and then she ran away.”
“You’re lying, damn you!” roared Mitya.
“Aie! Aie!” shrieked the old woman, but Mitya had vanished.
He ran with all his might to the house where Grushenka lived. At the
moment he reached it, Grushenka was on her way to Mokroe. It was not more
than a quarter of an hour after her departure.
Fenya was sitting with her grandmother, the old cook, Matryona, in the
kitchen when “the captain” ran in. Fenya uttered a piercing shriek on
seeing him.
“You scream?” roared Mitya, “where is she?”
But without giving the terror‐stricken Fenya time to utter a word, he fell
all of a heap at her feet.
“Fenya, for Christ’s sake, tell me, where is she?”
“I don’t know. Dmitri Fyodorovitch, my dear, I don’t know. You may kill me
but I can’t tell you.” Fenya swore and protested. “You went out with her
yourself not long ago—”
“She came back!”
“Indeed she didn’t. By God I swear she didn’t come back.”
“You’re lying!” shouted Mitya. “From your terror I know where she is.”
He rushed away. Fenya in her fright was glad she had got off so easily.
But she knew very well that it was only that he was in such haste, or she
might not have fared so well. But as he ran, he surprised both Fenya and
old Matryona by an unexpected action. On the table stood a brass mortar,
with a pestle in it, a small brass pestle, not much more than six inches
long. Mitya already had opened the door with one hand when, with the
other, he snatched up the pestle, and thrust it in his side‐pocket.
“Oh, Lord! He’s going to murder some one!” cried Fenya, flinging up her
hands.
Chapter IV. In The Dark
Where was he running? “Where could she be except at Fyodor Pavlovitch’s?
She must have run straight to him from Samsonov’s, that was clear now. The
whole intrigue, the whole deceit was evident.” ... It all rushed whirling
through his mind. He did not run to Marya Kondratyevna’s. “There was no
need to go there ... not the slightest need ... he must raise no alarm ...
they would run and tell directly.... Marya Kondratyevna was clearly in the
plot, Smerdyakov too, he too, all had been bought over!”
He formed another plan of action: he ran a long way round Fyodor
Pavlovitch’s house, crossing the lane, running down Dmitrovsky Street,
then over the little bridge, and so came straight to the deserted alley at
the back, which was empty and uninhabited, with, on one side the hurdle
fence of a neighbor’s kitchen‐garden, on the other the strong high fence,
that ran all round Fyodor Pavlovitch’s garden. Here he chose a spot,
apparently the very place, where according to the tradition, he knew
Lizaveta had once climbed over it: “If she could climb over it,” the
thought, God knows why, occurred to him, “surely I can.” He did in fact
jump up, and instantly contrived to catch hold of the top of the fence.
Then he vigorously pulled himself up and sat astride on it. Close by, in
the garden stood the bath‐house, but from the fence he could see the
lighted windows of the house too.
“Yes, the old man’s bedroom is lighted up. She’s there!” and he leapt from
the fence into the garden. Though he knew Grigory was ill and very likely
Smerdyakov, too, and that there was no one to hear him, he instinctively
hid himself, stood still, and began to listen. But there was dead silence
on all sides and, as though of design, complete stillness, not the
slightest breath of wind.
“And naught but the whispering silence,” the line for some reason rose to
his mind. “If only no one heard me jump over the fence! I think not.”
Standing still for a minute, he walked softly over the grass in the
garden, avoiding the trees and shrubs. He walked slowly, creeping
stealthily at every step, listening to his own footsteps. It took him five
minutes to reach the lighted window. He remembered that just under the
window there were several thick and high bushes of elder and whitebeam.
The door from the house into the garden on the left‐hand side, was shut;
he had carefully looked on purpose to see, in passing. At last he reached
the bushes and hid behind them. He held his breath. “I must wait now,” he
thought, “to reassure them, in case they heard my footsteps and are
listening ... if only I don’t cough or sneeze.”
He waited two minutes. His heart was beating violently, and, at moments,
he could scarcely breathe. “No, this throbbing at my heart won’t stop,” he
thought. “I can’t wait any longer.” He was standing behind a bush in the
shadow. The light of the window fell on the front part of the bush.
“How red the whitebeam berries are!” he murmured, not knowing why. Softly
and noiselessly, step by step, he approached the window, and raised
himself on tiptoe. All Fyodor Pavlovitch’s bedroom lay open before him. It
was not a large room, and was divided in two parts by a red screen,
“Chinese,” as Fyodor Pavlovitch used to call it. The word “Chinese”
flashed into Mitya’s mind, “and behind the screen, is Grushenka,” thought
Mitya. He began watching Fyodor Pavlovitch, who was wearing his new
striped‐silk dressing‐gown, which Mitya had never seen, and a silk cord
with tassels round the waist. A clean, dandified shirt of fine linen with
gold studs peeped out under the collar of the dressing‐gown. On his head
Fyodor Pavlovitch had the same red bandage which Alyosha had seen.
“He has got himself up,” thought Mitya.
His father was standing near the window, apparently lost in thought.
Suddenly he jerked up his head, listened a moment, and hearing nothing
went up to the table, poured out half a glass of brandy from a decanter
and drank it off. Then he uttered a deep sigh, again stood still a moment,
walked carelessly up to the looking‐glass on the wall, with his right hand
raised the red bandage on his forehead a little, and began examining his
bruises and scars, which had not yet disappeared.
“He’s alone,” thought Mitya, “in all probability he’s alone.”
Fyodor Pavlovitch moved away from the looking‐glass, turned suddenly to
the window and looked out. Mitya instantly slipped away into the shadow.
“She may be there behind the screen. Perhaps she’s asleep by now,” he
thought, with a pang at his heart. Fyodor Pavlovitch moved away from the
window. “He’s looking for her out of the window, so she’s not there. Why
should he stare out into the dark? He’s wild with impatience.” ... Mitya
slipped back at once, and fell to gazing in at the window again. The old
man was sitting down at the table, apparently disappointed. At last he put
his elbow on the table, and laid his right cheek against his hand. Mitya
watched him eagerly.
“He’s alone, he’s alone!” he repeated again. “If she were here, his face
would be different.”
Strange to say, a queer, irrational vexation rose up in his heart that she
was not here. “It’s not that she’s not here,” he explained to himself,
immediately, “but that I can’t tell for certain whether she is or not.”
Mitya remembered afterwards that his mind was at that moment exceptionally
clear, that he took in everything to the slightest detail, and missed no
point. But a feeling of misery, the misery of uncertainty and indecision,
was growing in his heart with every instant. “Is she here or not?” The
angry doubt filled his heart, and suddenly, making up his mind, he put out
his hand and softly knocked on the window frame. He knocked the signal the
old man had agreed upon with Smerdyakov, twice slowly and then three times
more quickly, the signal that meant “Grushenka is here!”
The old man started, jerked up his head, and, jumping up quickly, ran to
the window. Mitya slipped away into the shadow. Fyodor Pavlovitch opened
the window and thrust his whole head out.
“Grushenka, is it you? Is it you?” he said, in a sort of trembling half‐
whisper. “Where are you, my angel, where are you?” He was fearfully
agitated and breathless.
“He’s alone.” Mitya decided.
“Where are you?” cried the old man again; and he thrust his head out
farther, thrust it out to the shoulders, gazing in all directions, right
and left. “Come here, I’ve a little present for you. Come, I’ll show
you....”
“He means the three thousand,” thought Mitya.
“But where are you? Are you at the door? I’ll open it directly.”
And the old man almost climbed out of the window, peering out to the
right, where there was a door into the garden, trying to see into the
darkness. In another second he would certainly have run out to open the
door without waiting for Grushenka’s answer.
Mitya looked at him from the side without stirring. The old man’s profile
that he loathed so, his pendent Adam’s apple, his hooked nose, his lips
that smiled in greedy expectation, were all brightly lighted up by the
slanting lamplight falling on the left from the room. A horrible fury of
hatred suddenly surged up in Mitya’s heart: “There he was, his rival, the
man who had tormented him, had ruined his life!” It was a rush of that
sudden, furious, revengeful anger of which he had spoken, as though
foreseeing it, to Alyosha, four days ago in the arbor, when, in answer to
Alyosha’s question, “How can you say you’ll kill our father?” “I don’t
know, I don’t know,” he had said then. “Perhaps I shall not kill him,
perhaps I shall. I’m afraid he’ll suddenly be so loathsome to me at that
moment. I hate his double chin, his nose, his eyes, his shameless grin. I
feel a personal repulsion. That’s what I’m afraid of, that’s what may be
too much for me.” ... This personal repulsion was growing unendurable.
Mitya was beside himself, he suddenly pulled the brass pestle out of his
pocket.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
“God was watching over me then,” Mitya himself said afterwards. At that
very moment Grigory waked up on his bed of sickness. Earlier in the
evening he had undergone the treatment which Smerdyakov had described to
Ivan. He had rubbed himself all over with vodka mixed with a secret, very
strong decoction, had drunk what was left of the mixture while his wife
repeated a “certain prayer” over him, after which he had gone to bed.
Marfa Ignatyevna had tasted the stuff, too, and, being unused to strong
drink, slept like the dead beside her husband.
But Grigory waked up in the night, quite suddenly, and, after a moment’s
reflection, though he immediately felt a sharp pain in his back, he sat up
in bed. Then he deliberated again, got up and dressed hurriedly. Perhaps
his conscience was uneasy at the thought of sleeping while the house was
unguarded “in such perilous times.” Smerdyakov, exhausted by his fit, lay
motionless in the next room. Marfa Ignatyevna did not stir. “The stuff’s
been too much for the woman,” Grigory thought, glancing at her, and
groaning, he went out on the steps. No doubt he only intended to look out
from the steps, for he was hardly able to walk, the pain in his back and
his right leg was intolerable. But he suddenly remembered that he had not
locked the little gate into the garden that evening. He was the most
punctual and precise of men, a man who adhered to an unchangeable routine,
and habits that lasted for years. Limping and writhing with pain he went
down the steps and towards the garden. Yes, the gate stood wide open.
Mechanically he stepped into the garden. Perhaps he fancied something,
perhaps caught some sound, and, glancing to the left he saw his master’s
window open. No one was looking out of it then.
“What’s it open for? It’s not summer now,” thought Grigory, and suddenly,
at that very instant he caught a glimpse of something extraordinary before
him in the garden. Forty paces in front of him a man seemed to be running
in the dark, a sort of shadow was moving very fast.
“Good Lord!” cried Grigory beside himself, and forgetting the pain in his
back, he hurried to intercept the running figure. He took a short cut,
evidently he knew the garden better; the flying figure went towards the
bath‐house, ran behind it and rushed to the garden fence. Grigory
followed, not losing sight of him, and ran, forgetting everything. He
reached the fence at the very moment the man was climbing over it. Grigory
cried out, beside himself, pounced on him, and clutched his leg in his two
hands.
Yes, his foreboding had not deceived him. He recognized him, it was he,
the “monster,” the “parricide.”
“Parricide!” the old man shouted so that the whole neighborhood could
hear, but he had not time to shout more, he fell at once, as though struck
by lightning.
Mitya jumped back into the garden and bent over the fallen man. In Mitya’s
hands was a brass pestle, and he flung it mechanically in the grass. The
pestle fell two paces from Grigory, not in the grass but on the path, in a
most conspicuous place. For some seconds he examined the prostrate figure
before him. The old man’s head was covered with blood. Mitya put out his
hand and began feeling it. He remembered afterwards clearly, that he had
been awfully anxious to make sure whether he had broken the old man’s
skull, or simply stunned him with the pestle. But the blood was flowing
horribly; and in a moment Mitya’s fingers were drenched with the hot
stream. He remembered taking out of his pocket the clean white
handkerchief with which he had provided himself for his visit to Madame
Hohlakov, and putting it to the old man’s head, senselessly trying to wipe
the blood from his face and temples. But the handkerchief was instantly
soaked with blood.
“Good heavens! what am I doing it for?” thought Mitya, suddenly pulling
himself together. “If I have broken his skull, how can I find out now? And
what difference does it make now?” he added, hopelessly. “If I’ve killed
him, I’ve killed him.... You’ve come to grief, old man, so there you must
lie!” he said aloud. And suddenly turning to the fence, he vaulted over it
into the lane and fell to running—the handkerchief soaked with blood he
held, crushed up in his right fist, and as he ran he thrust it into the
back pocket of his coat. He ran headlong, and the few passers‐by who met
him in the dark, in the streets, remembered afterwards that they had met a
man running that night. He flew back again to the widow Morozov’s house.
Immediately after he had left it that evening, Fenya had rushed to the
chief porter, Nazar Ivanovitch, and besought him, for Christ’s sake, “not
to let the captain in again to‐day or to‐morrow.” Nazar Ivanovitch
promised, but went upstairs to his mistress who had suddenly sent for him,
and meeting his nephew, a boy of twenty, who had recently come from the
country, on the way up told him to take his place, but forgot to mention
“the captain.” Mitya, running up to the gate, knocked. The lad instantly
recognized him, for Mitya had more than once tipped him. Opening the gate
at once, he let him in, and hastened to inform him with a good‐humored
smile that “Agrafena Alexandrovna is not at home now, you know.”
“Where is she then, Prohor?” asked Mitya, stopping short.
“She set off this evening, some two hours ago, with Timofey, to Mokroe.”
“What for?” cried Mitya.
“That I can’t say. To see some officer. Some one invited her and horses
were sent to fetch her.”
Mitya left him, and ran like a madman to Fenya.
Chapter V. A Sudden Resolution
She was sitting in the kitchen with her grandmother; they were both just
going to bed. Relying on Nazar Ivanovitch, they had not locked themselves
in. Mitya ran in, pounced on Fenya and seized her by the throat.
“Speak at once! Where is she? With whom is she now, at Mokroe?” he roared
furiously.
Both the women squealed.
“Aie! I’ll tell you. Aie! Dmitri Fyodorovitch, darling, I’ll tell you
everything directly, I won’t hide anything,” gabbled Fenya, frightened to
death; “she’s gone to Mokroe, to her officer.”
“What officer?” roared Mitya.
“To her officer, the same one she used to know, the one who threw her over
five years ago,” cackled Fenya, as fast as she could speak.
Mitya withdrew the hands with which he was squeezing her throat. He stood
facing her, pale as death, unable to utter a word, but his eyes showed
that he realized it all, all, from the first word, and guessed the whole
position. Poor Fenya was not in a condition at that moment to observe
whether he understood or not. She remained sitting on the trunk as she had
been when he ran into the room, trembling all over, holding her hands out
before her as though trying to defend herself. She seemed to have grown
rigid in that position. Her wide‐opened, scared eyes were fixed immovably
upon him. And to make matters worse, both his hands were smeared with
blood. On the way, as he ran, he must have touched his forehead with them,
wiping off the perspiration, so that on his forehead and his right cheek
were blood‐stained patches. Fenya was on the verge of hysterics. The old
cook had jumped up and was staring at him like a mad woman, almost
unconscious with terror.
Mitya stood for a moment, then mechanically sank on to a chair next to
Fenya. He sat, not reflecting but, as it were, terror‐stricken, benumbed.
Yet everything was clear as day: that officer, he knew about him, he knew
everything perfectly, he had known it from Grushenka herself, had known
that a letter had come from him a month before. So that for a month, for a
whole month, this had been going on, a secret from him, till the very
arrival of this new man, and he had never thought of him! But how could
he, how could he not have thought of him? Why was it he had forgotten this
officer, like that, forgotten him as soon as he heard of him? That was the
question that faced him like some monstrous thing. And he looked at this
monstrous thing with horror, growing cold with horror.
But suddenly, as gently and mildly as a gentle and affectionate child, he
began speaking to Fenya as though he had utterly forgotten how he had
scared and hurt her just now. He fell to questioning Fenya with an extreme
preciseness, astonishing in his position, and though the girl looked
wildly at his blood‐stained hands, she, too, with wonderful readiness and
rapidity, answered every question as though eager to put the whole truth
and nothing but the truth before him. Little by little, even with a sort
of enjoyment, she began explaining every detail, not wanting to torment
him, but, as it were, eager to be of the utmost service to him. She
described the whole of that day, in great detail, the visit of Rakitin and
Alyosha, how she, Fenya, had stood on the watch, how the mistress had set
off, and how she had called out of the window to Alyosha to give him,
Mitya, her greetings, and to tell him “to remember for ever how she had
loved him for an hour.”
Hearing of the message, Mitya suddenly smiled, and there was a flush of
color on his pale cheeks. At the same moment Fenya said to him, not a bit
afraid now to be inquisitive:
“Look at your hands, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. They’re all over blood!”
“Yes,” answered Mitya mechanically. He looked carelessly at his hands and
at once forgot them and Fenya’s question.
He sank into silence again. Twenty minutes had passed since he had run in.
His first horror was over, but evidently some new fixed determination had
taken possession of him. He suddenly stood up, smiling dreamily.
“What has happened to you, sir?” said Fenya, pointing to his hands again.
She spoke compassionately, as though she felt very near to him now in his
grief. Mitya looked at his hands again.
“That’s blood, Fenya,” he said, looking at her with a strange expression.
“That’s human blood, and my God! why was it shed? But ... Fenya ...
there’s a fence here” (he looked at her as though setting her a riddle),
“a high fence, and terrible to look at. But at dawn to‐morrow, when the
sun rises, Mitya will leap over that fence.... You don’t understand what
fence, Fenya, and, never mind.... You’ll hear to‐morrow and understand ...
and now, good‐by. I won’t stand in her way. I’ll step aside, I know how to
step aside. Live, my joy.... You loved me for an hour, remember Mityenka
Karamazov so for ever.... She always used to call me Mityenka, do you
remember?”
And with those words he went suddenly out of the kitchen. Fenya was almost
more frightened at this sudden departure than she had been when he ran in
and attacked her.
Just ten minutes later Dmitri went in to Pyotr Ilyitch Perhotin, the young
official with whom he had pawned his pistols. It was by now half‐past
eight, and Pyotr Ilyitch had finished his evening tea, and had just put
his coat on again to go to the “Metropolis” to play billiards. Mitya
caught him coming out.
Seeing him with his face all smeared with blood, the young man uttered a
cry of surprise.
“Good heavens! What is the matter?”
“I’ve come for my pistols,” said Mitya, “and brought you the money. And
thanks very much. I’m in a hurry, Pyotr Ilyitch, please make haste.”
Pyotr Ilyitch grew more and more surprised; he suddenly caught sight of a
bundle of bank‐notes in Mitya’s hand, and what was more, he had walked in
holding the notes as no one walks in and no one carries money: he had them
in his right hand, and held them outstretched as if to show them.
Perhotin’s servant‐boy, who met Mitya in the passage, said afterwards that
he walked into the passage in the same way, with the money outstretched in
his hand, so he must have been carrying them like that even in the
streets. They were all rainbow‐colored hundred‐rouble notes, and the
fingers holding them were covered with blood.
When Pyotr Ilyitch was questioned later on as to the sum of money, he said
that it was difficult to judge at a glance, but that it might have been
two thousand, or perhaps three, but it was a big, “fat” bundle. “Dmitri
Fyodorovitch,” so he testified afterwards, “seemed unlike himself, too;
not drunk, but, as it were, exalted, lost to everything, but at the same
time, as it were, absorbed, as though pondering and searching for
something and unable to come to a decision. He was in great haste,
answered abruptly and very strangely, and at moments seemed not at all
dejected but quite cheerful.”
“But what _is_ the matter with you? What’s wrong?” cried Pyotr Ilyitch,
looking wildly at his guest. “How is it that you’re all covered with
blood? Have you had a fall? Look at yourself!”
He took him by the elbow and led him to the glass.
Seeing his blood‐stained face, Mitya started and scowled wrathfully.
“Damnation! That’s the last straw,” he muttered angrily, hurriedly
changing the notes from his right hand to the left, and impulsively jerked
the handkerchief out of his pocket. But the handkerchief turned out to be
soaked with blood, too (it was the handkerchief he had used to wipe
Grigory’s face). There was scarcely a white spot on it, and it had not
merely begun to dry, but had stiffened into a crumpled ball and could not
be pulled apart. Mitya threw it angrily on the floor.
“Oh, damn it!” he said. “Haven’t you a rag of some sort ... to wipe my
face?”
“So you’re only stained, not wounded? You’d better wash,” said Pyotr
Ilyitch. “Here’s a wash‐stand. I’ll pour you out some water.”
“A wash‐stand? That’s all right ... but where am I to put this?”
With the strangest perplexity he indicated his bundle of hundred‐rouble
notes, looking inquiringly at Pyotr Ilyitch as though it were for him to
decide what he, Mitya, was to do with his own money.
“In your pocket, or on the table here. They won’t be lost.”
“In my pocket? Yes, in my pocket. All right.... But, I say, that’s all
nonsense,” he cried, as though suddenly coming out of his absorption.
“Look here, let’s first settle that business of the pistols. Give them
back to me. Here’s your money ... because I am in great need of them ...
and I haven’t a minute, a minute to spare.”
And taking the topmost note from the bundle he held it out to Pyotr
Ilyitch.
“But I shan’t have change enough. Haven’t you less?”
“No,” said Mitya, looking again at the bundle, and as though not trusting
his own words he turned over two or three of the topmost ones.
“No, they’re all alike,” he added, and again he looked inquiringly at
Pyotr Ilyitch.
“How have you grown so rich?” the latter asked. “Wait, I’ll send my boy to
Plotnikov’s, they close late—to see if they won’t change it. Here, Misha!”
he called into the passage.
“To Plotnikov’s shop—first‐rate!” cried Mitya, as though struck by an
idea. “Misha,” he turned to the boy as he came in, “look here, run to
Plotnikov’s and tell them that Dmitri Fyodorovitch sends his greetings,
and will be there directly.... But listen, listen, tell them to have
champagne, three dozen bottles, ready before I come, and packed as it was
to take to Mokroe. I took four dozen with me then,” he added (suddenly
addressing Pyotr Ilyitch); “they know all about it, don’t you trouble,
Misha,” he turned again to the boy. “Stay, listen; tell them to put in
cheese, Strasburg pies, smoked fish, ham, caviare, and everything,
everything they’ve got, up to a hundred roubles, or a hundred and twenty
as before.... But wait: don’t let them forget dessert, sweets, pears,
water‐melons, two or three or four—no, one melon’s enough, and chocolate,
candy, toffee, fondants; in fact, everything I took to Mokroe before,
three hundred roubles’ worth with the champagne ... let it be just the
same again. And remember, Misha, if you are called Misha—His name is
Misha, isn’t it?” He turned to Pyotr Ilyitch again.
“Wait a minute,” Protr Ilyitch intervened, listening and watching him
uneasily, “you’d better go yourself and tell them. He’ll muddle it.”
“He will, I see he will! Eh, Misha! Why, I was going to kiss you for the
commission.... If you don’t make a mistake, there’s ten roubles for you,
run along, make haste.... Champagne’s the chief thing, let them bring up
champagne. And brandy, too, and red and white wine, and all I had then....
They know what I had then.”
“But listen!” Pyotr Ilyitch interrupted with some impatience. “I say, let
him simply run and change the money and tell them not to close, and you go
and tell them.... Give him your note. Be off, Misha! Put your best leg
forward!”
Pyotr Ilyitch seemed to hurry Misha off on purpose, because the boy
remained standing with his mouth and eyes wide open, apparently
understanding little of Mitya’s orders, gazing up with amazement and
terror at his blood‐stained face and the trembling bloodstained fingers
that held the notes.
“Well, now come and wash,” said Pyotr Ilyitch sternly. “Put the money on
the table or else in your pocket.... That’s right, come along. But take
off your coat.”
And beginning to help him off with his coat, he cried out again:
“Look, your coat’s covered with blood, too!”
“That ... it’s not the coat. It’s only a little here on the sleeve.... And
that’s only here where the handkerchief lay. It must have soaked through.
I must have sat on the handkerchief at Fenya’s, and the blood’s come
through,” Mitya explained at once with a childlike unconsciousness that
was astounding. Pyotr Ilyitch listened, frowning.
“Well, you must have been up to something; you must have been fighting
with some one,” he muttered.
They began to wash. Pyotr Ilyitch held the jug and poured out the water.
Mitya, in desperate haste, scarcely soaped his hands (they were trembling,
and Pyotr Ilyitch remembered it afterwards). But the young official
insisted on his soaping them thoroughly and rubbing them more. He seemed
to exercise more and more sway over Mitya, as time went on. It may be
noted in passing that he was a young man of sturdy character.
“Look, you haven’t got your nails clean. Now rub your face; here, on your
temples, by your ear.... Will you go in that shirt? Where are you going?
Look, all the cuff of your right sleeve is covered with blood.”
“Yes, it’s all bloody,” observed Mitya, looking at the cuff of his shirt.
“Then change your shirt.”
“I haven’t time. You see I’ll ...” Mitya went on with the same confiding
ingenuousness, drying his face and hands on the towel, and putting on his
coat. “I’ll turn it up at the wrist. It won’t be seen under the coat....
You see!”
“Tell me now, what game have you been up to? Have you been fighting with
some one? In the tavern again, as before? Have you been beating that
captain again?” Pyotr Ilyitch asked him reproachfully. “Whom have you been
beating now ... or killing, perhaps?”
“Nonsense!” said Mitya.
“Why ‘nonsense’?”
“Don’t worry,” said Mitya, and he suddenly laughed. “I smashed an old
woman in the market‐place just now.”
“Smashed? An old woman?”
“An old man!” cried Mitya, looking Pyotr Ilyitch straight in the face,
laughing, and shouting at him as though he were deaf.
“Confound it! An old woman, an old man.... Have you killed some one?”
“We made it up. We had a row—and made it up. In a place I know of. We
parted friends. A fool.... He’s forgiven me.... He’s sure to have forgiven
me by now ... if he had got up, he wouldn’t have forgiven me”—Mitya
suddenly winked—“only damn him, you know, I say, Pyotr Ilyitch, damn him!
Don’t worry about him! I don’t want to just now!” Mitya snapped out,
resolutely.
“Whatever do you want to go picking quarrels with every one for? ... Just
as you did with that captain over some nonsense.... You’ve been fighting
and now you’re rushing off on the spree—that’s you all over! Three dozen
champagne—what do you want all that for?”
“Bravo! Now give me the pistols. Upon my honor I’ve no time now. I should
like to have a chat with you, my dear boy, but I haven’t the time. And
there’s no need, it’s too late for talking. Where’s my money? Where have I
put it?” he cried, thrusting his hands into his pockets.
“You put it on the table ... yourself.... Here it is. Had you forgotten?
Money’s like dirt or water to you, it seems. Here are your pistols. It’s
an odd thing, at six o’clock you pledged them for ten roubles, and now
you’ve got thousands. Two or three I should say.”
“Three, you bet,” laughed Mitya, stuffing the notes into the side‐pocket
of his trousers.
“You’ll lose it like that. Have you found a gold‐mine?”
“The mines? The gold‐mines?” Mitya shouted at the top of his voice and
went off into a roar of laughter. “Would you like to go to the mines,
Perhotin? There’s a lady here who’ll stump up three thousand for you, if
only you’ll go. She did it for me, she’s so awfully fond of gold‐mines. Do
you know Madame Hohlakov?”
“I don’t know her, but I’ve heard of her and seen her. Did she really give
you three thousand? Did she really?” said Pyotr Ilyitch, eyeing him
dubiously.
“As soon as the sun rises to‐morrow, as soon as Phœbus, ever young, flies
upwards, praising and glorifying God, you go to her, this Madame Hohlakov,
and ask her whether she did stump up that three thousand or not. Try and
find out.”
“I don’t know on what terms you are ... since you say it so positively, I
suppose she did give it to you. You’ve got the money in your hand, but
instead of going to Siberia you’re spending it all.... Where are you
really off to now, eh?”
“To Mokroe.”
“To Mokroe? But it’s night!”
“Once the lad had all, now the lad has naught,” cried Mitya suddenly.
“How ‘naught’? You say that with all those thousands!”
“I’m not talking about thousands. Damn thousands! I’m talking of the
female character.
Fickle is the heart of woman
Treacherous and full of vice;
I agree with Ulysses. That’s what he says.”
“I don’t understand you!”
“Am I drunk?”
“Not drunk, but worse.”
“I’m drunk in spirit, Pyotr Ilyitch, drunk in spirit! But that’s enough!”
“What are you doing, loading the pistol?”
“I’m loading the pistol.”
Unfastening the pistol‐case, Mitya actually opened the powder horn, and
carefully sprinkled and rammed in the charge. Then he took the bullet and,
before inserting it, held it in two fingers in front of the candle.
“Why are you looking at the bullet?” asked Pyotr Ilyitch, watching him
with uneasy curiosity.
“Oh, a fancy. Why, if you meant to put that bullet in your brain, would
you look at it or not?”
“Why look at it?”
“It’s going into my brain, so it’s interesting to look and see what it’s
like. But that’s foolishness, a moment’s foolishness. Now that’s done,” he
added, putting in the bullet and driving it home with the ramrod. “Pyotr
Ilyitch, my dear fellow, that’s nonsense, all nonsense, and if only you
knew what nonsense! Give me a little piece of paper now.”
“Here’s some paper.”
“No, a clean new piece, writing‐paper. That’s right.”
And taking a pen from the table, Mitya rapidly wrote two lines, folded the
paper in four, and thrust it in his waistcoat pocket. He put the pistols
in the case, locked it up, and kept it in his hand. Then he looked at
Pyotr Ilyitch with a slow, thoughtful smile.
“Now, let’s go.”
“Where are we going? No, wait a minute.... Are you thinking of putting
that bullet in your brain, perhaps?” Pyotr Ilyitch asked uneasily.
“I was fooling about the bullet! I want to live. I love life! You may be
sure of that. I love golden‐haired Phœbus and his warm light.... Dear
Pyotr Ilyitch, do you know how to step aside?”
“What do you mean by ‘stepping aside’?”
“Making way. Making way for a dear creature, and for one I hate. And to
let the one I hate become dear—that’s what making way means! And to say to
them: God bless you, go your way, pass on, while I—”
“While you—?”
“That’s enough, let’s go.”
“Upon my word. I’ll tell some one to prevent your going there,” said Pyotr
Ilyitch, looking at him. “What are you going to Mokroe for, now?”
“There’s a woman there, a woman. That’s enough for you. You shut up.”
“Listen, though you’re such a savage I’ve always liked you.... I feel
anxious.”
“Thanks, old fellow. I’m a savage you say. Savages, savages! That’s what I
am always saying. Savages! Why, here’s Misha! I was forgetting him.”
Misha ran in, post‐haste, with a handful of notes in change, and reported
that every one was in a bustle at the Plotnikovs’; “They’re carrying down
the bottles, and the fish, and the tea; it will all be ready directly.”
Mitya seized ten roubles and handed it to Pyotr Ilyitch, then tossed
another ten‐rouble note to Misha.
“Don’t dare to do such a thing!” cried Pyotr Ilyitch. “I won’t have it in
my house, it’s a bad, demoralizing habit. Put your money away. Here, put
it here, why waste it? It would come in handy to‐morrow, and I dare say
you’ll be coming to me to borrow ten roubles again. Why do you keep
putting the notes in your side‐pocket? Ah, you’ll lose them!”
“I say, my dear fellow, let’s go to Mokroe together.”
“What should I go for?”
“I say, let’s open a bottle at once, and drink to life! I want to drink,
and especially to drink with you. I’ve never drunk with you, have I?”
“Very well, we can go to the ‘Metropolis.’ I was just going there.”
“I haven’t time for that. Let’s drink at the Plotnikovs’, in the back
room. Shall I ask you a riddle?”
“Ask away.”
Mitya took the piece of paper out of his waistcoat pocket, unfolded it and
showed it. In a large, distinct hand was written: “I punish myself for my
whole life, my whole life I punish!”
“I will certainly speak to some one, I’ll go at once,” said Pyotr Ilyitch,
after reading the paper.
“You won’t have time, dear boy, come and have a drink. March!”
Plotnikov’s shop was at the corner of the street, next door but one to
Pyotr Ilyitch’s. It was the largest grocery shop in our town, and by no
means a bad one, belonging to some rich merchants. They kept everything
that could be got in a Petersburg shop, grocery of all sort, wines
“bottled by the brothers Eliseyev,” fruits, cigars, tea, coffee, sugar,
and so on. There were three shop‐assistants and two errand boys always
employed. Though our part of the country had grown poorer, the landowners
had gone away, and trade had got worse, yet the grocery stores flourished
as before, every year with increasing prosperity; there were plenty of
purchasers for their goods.
They were awaiting Mitya with impatience in the shop. They had vivid
recollections of how he had bought, three or four weeks ago, wine and
goods of all sorts to the value of several hundred roubles, paid for in
cash (they would never have let him have anything on credit, of course).
They remembered that then, as now, he had had a bundle of hundred‐rouble
notes in his hand, and had scattered them at random, without bargaining,
without reflecting, or caring to reflect what use so much wine and
provisions would be to him. The story was told all over the town that,
driving off then with Grushenka to Mokroe, he had “spent three thousand in
one night and the following day, and had come back from the spree without
a penny.” He had picked up a whole troop of gypsies (encamped in our
neighborhood at the time), who for two days got money without stint out of
him while he was drunk, and drank expensive wine without stint. People
used to tell, laughing at Mitya, how he had given champagne to grimy‐
handed peasants, and feasted the village women and girls on sweets and
Strasburg pies. Though to laugh at Mitya to his face was rather a risky
proceeding, there was much laughter behind his back, especially in the
tavern, at his own ingenuous public avowal that all he had got out of
Grushenka by this “escapade” was “permission to kiss her foot, and that
was the utmost she had allowed him.”
By the time Mitya and Pyotr Ilyitch reached the shop, they found a cart
with three horses harnessed abreast with bells, and with Andrey, the
driver, ready waiting for Mitya at the entrance. In the shop they had
almost entirely finished packing one box of provisions, and were only
waiting for Mitya’s arrival to nail it down and put it in the cart. Pyotr
Ilyitch was astounded.
“Where did this cart come from in such a hurry?” he asked Mitya.
“I met Andrey as I ran to you, and told him to drive straight here to the
shop. There’s no time to lose. Last time I drove with Timofey, but Timofey
now has gone on before me with the witch. Shall we be very late, Andrey?”
“They’ll only get there an hour at most before us, not even that maybe. I
got Timofey ready to start. I know how he’ll go. Their pace won’t be ours,
Dmitri Fyodorovitch. How could it be? They won’t get there an hour
earlier!” Andrey, a lanky, red‐haired, middle‐aged driver, wearing a full‐
skirted coat, and with a kaftan on his arm, replied warmly.
“Fifty roubles for vodka if we’re only an hour behind them.”
“I warrant the time, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. Ech, they won’t be half an hour
before us, let alone an hour.”
Though Mitya bustled about seeing after things, he gave his orders
strangely, as it were disconnectedly, and inconsecutively. He began a
sentence and forgot the end of it. Pyotr Ilyitch found himself obliged to
come to the rescue.
“Four hundred roubles’ worth, not less than four hundred roubles’ worth,
just as it was then,” commanded Mitya. “Four dozen champagne, not a bottle
less.”
“What do you want with so much? What’s it for? Stay!” cried Pyotr Ilyitch.
“What’s this box? What’s in it? Surely there isn’t four hundred roubles’
worth here?”
The officious shopmen began explaining with oily politeness that the first
box contained only half a dozen bottles of champagne, and only “the most
indispensable articles,” such as savories, sweets, toffee, etc. But the
main part of the goods ordered would be packed and sent off, as on the
previous occasion, in a special cart also with three horses traveling at
full speed, so that it would arrive not more than an hour later than
Dmitri Fyodorovitch himself.
“Not more than an hour! Not more than an hour! And put in more toffee and
fondants. The girls there are so fond of it,” Mitya insisted hotly.
“The fondants are all right. But what do you want with four dozen of
champagne? One would be enough,” said Pyotr Ilyitch, almost angry. He
began bargaining, asking for a bill of the goods, and refused to be
satisfied. But he only succeeded in saving a hundred roubles. In the end
it was agreed that only three hundred roubles’ worth should be sent.
“Well, you may go to the devil!” cried Pyotr Ilyitch, on second thoughts.
“What’s it to do with me? Throw away your money, since it’s cost you
nothing.”
“This way, my economist, this way, don’t be angry.” Mitya drew him into a
room at the back of the shop. “They’ll give us a bottle here directly.
We’ll taste it. Ech, Pyotr Ilyitch, come along with me, for you’re a nice
fellow, the sort I like.”
Mitya sat down on a wicker chair, before a little table, covered with a
dirty dinner‐napkin. Pyotr Ilyitch sat down opposite, and the champagne
soon appeared, and oysters were suggested to the gentlemen. “First‐class
oysters, the last lot in.”
“Hang the oysters. I don’t eat them. And we don’t need anything,” cried
Pyotr Ilyitch, almost angrily.
“There’s no time for oysters,” said Mitya. “And I’m not hungry. Do you
know, friend,” he said suddenly, with feeling, “I never have liked all
this disorder.”
“Who does like it? Three dozen of champagne for peasants, upon my word,
that’s enough to make any one angry!”
“That’s not what I mean. I’m talking of a higher order. There’s no order
in me, no higher order. But ... that’s all over. There’s no need to grieve
about it. It’s too late, damn it! My whole life has been disorder, and one
must set it in order. Is that a pun, eh?”
“You’re raving, not making puns!”
“Glory be to God in Heaven,
Glory be to God in me....
“That verse came from my heart once, it’s not a verse, but a tear.... I
made it myself ... not while I was pulling the captain’s beard,
though....”
“Why do you bring him in all of a sudden?”
“Why do I bring him in? Foolery! All things come to an end; all things are
made equal. That’s the long and short of it.”
“You know, I keep thinking of your pistols.”
“That’s all foolery, too! Drink, and don’t be fanciful. I love life. I’ve
loved life too much, shamefully much. Enough! Let’s drink to life, dear
boy, I propose the toast. Why am I pleased with myself? I’m a scoundrel,
but I’m satisfied with myself. And yet I’m tortured by the thought that
I’m a scoundrel, but satisfied with myself. I bless the creation. I’m
ready to bless God and His creation directly, but ... I must kill one
noxious insect for fear it should crawl and spoil life for others.... Let
us drink to life, dear brother. What can be more precious than life?
Nothing! To life, and to one queen of queens!”
“Let’s drink to life and to your queen, too, if you like.”
They drank a glass each. Although Mitya was excited and expansive, yet he
was melancholy, too. It was as though some heavy, overwhelming anxiety
were weighing upon him.
“Misha ... here’s your Misha come! Misha, come here, my boy, drink this
glass to Phœbus, the golden‐haired, of to‐morrow morn....”
“What are you giving it him for?” cried Pyotr Ilyitch, irritably.
“Yes, yes, yes, let me! I want to!”
“E—ech!”
Misha emptied the glass, bowed, and ran out.
“He’ll remember it afterwards,” Mitya remarked. “Woman, I love woman! What
is woman? The queen of creation! My heart is sad, my heart is sad, Pyotr
Ilyitch. Do you remember Hamlet? ‘I am very sorry, good Horatio! Alas,
poor Yorick!’ Perhaps that’s me, Yorick? Yes, I’m Yorick now, and a skull
afterwards.”
Pyotr Ilyitch listened in silence. Mitya, too, was silent for a while.
“What dog’s that you’ve got here?” he asked the shopman, casually,
noticing a pretty little lap‐dog with dark eyes, sitting in the corner.
“It belongs to Varvara Alexyevna, the mistress,” answered the clerk. “She
brought it and forgot it here. It must be taken back to her.”
“I saw one like it ... in the regiment ...” murmured Mitya dreamily, “only
that one had its hind leg broken.... By the way, Pyotr Ilyitch, I wanted
to ask you: have you ever stolen anything in your life?”
“What a question!”
“Oh, I didn’t mean anything. From somebody’s pocket, you know. I don’t
mean government money, every one steals that, and no doubt you do,
too....”
“You go to the devil.”
“I’m talking of other people’s money. Stealing straight out of a pocket?
Out of a purse, eh?”
“I stole twenty copecks from my mother when I was nine years old. I took
it off the table on the sly, and held it tight in my hand.”
“Well, and what happened?”
“Oh, nothing. I kept it three days, then I felt ashamed, confessed, and
gave it back.”
“And what then?”
“Naturally I was whipped. But why do you ask? Have you stolen something?”
“I have,” said Mitya, winking slyly.
“What have you stolen?” inquired Pyotr Ilyitch curiously.
“I stole twenty copecks from my mother when I was nine years old, and gave
it back three days after.”
As he said this, Mitya suddenly got up.
“Dmitri Fyodorovitch, won’t you come now?” called Andrey from the door of
the shop.
“Are you ready? We’ll come!” Mitya started. “A few more last words
and—Andrey, a glass of vodka at starting. Give him some brandy as well!
That box” (the one with the pistols) “put under my seat. Good‐by, Pyotr
Ilyitch, don’t remember evil against me.”
“But you’re coming back to‐morrow?”
“Of course.”
“Will you settle the little bill now?” cried the clerk, springing forward.
“Oh, yes, the bill. Of course.”
He pulled the bundle of notes out of his pocket again, picked out three
hundred roubles, threw them on the counter, and ran hurriedly out of the
shop. Every one followed him out, bowing and wishing him good luck.
Andrey, coughing from the brandy he had just swallowed, jumped up on the
box. But Mitya was only just taking his seat when suddenly to his surprise
he saw Fenya before him. She ran up panting, clasped her hands before him
with a cry, and plumped down at his feet.
“Dmitri Fyodorovitch, dear good Dmitri Fyodorovitch, don’t harm my
mistress. And it was I told you all about it.... And don’t murder him, he
came first, he’s hers! He’ll marry Agrafena Alexandrovna now. That’s why
he’s come back from Siberia. Dmitri Fyodorovitch, dear, don’t take a
fellow creature’s life!”
“Tut—tut—tut! That’s it, is it? So you’re off there to make trouble!”
muttered Pyotr Ilyitch. “Now, it’s all clear, as clear as daylight. Dmitri
Fyodorovitch, give me your pistols at once if you mean to behave like a
man,” he shouted aloud to Mitya. “Do you hear, Dmitri?”
“The pistols? Wait a bit, brother, I’ll throw them into the pool on the
road,” answered Mitya. “Fenya, get up, don’t kneel to me. Mitya won’t hurt
any one, the silly fool won’t hurt any one again. But I say, Fenya,” he
shouted, after having taken his seat. “I hurt you just now, so forgive me
and have pity on me, forgive a scoundrel.... But it doesn’t matter if you
don’t. It’s all the same now. Now then, Andrey, look alive, fly along full
speed!”
Andrey whipped up the horses, and the bells began ringing.
“Good‐by, Pyotr Ilyitch! My last tear is for you!...”
“He’s not drunk, but he keeps babbling like a lunatic,” Pyotr Ilyitch
thought as he watched him go. He had half a mind to stay and see the cart
packed with the remaining wines and provisions, knowing that they would
deceive and defraud Mitya. But, suddenly feeling vexed with himself, he
turned away with a curse and went to the tavern to play billiards.
“He’s a fool, though he’s a good fellow,” he muttered as he went. “I’ve
heard of that officer, Grushenka’s former flame. Well, if he has turned
up.... Ech, those pistols! Damn it all! I’m not his nurse! Let them do
what they like! Besides, it’ll all come to nothing. They’re a set of
brawlers, that’s all. They’ll drink and fight, fight and make friends
again. They are not men who do anything real. What does he mean by ‘I’m
stepping aside, I’m punishing myself?’ It’ll come to nothing! He’s shouted
such phrases a thousand times, drunk, in the taverns. But now he’s not
drunk. ‘Drunk in spirit’—they’re fond of fine phrases, the villains. Am I
his nurse? He must have been fighting, his face was all over blood. With
whom? I shall find out at the ‘Metropolis.’ And his handkerchief was
soaked in blood.... It’s still lying on my floor.... Hang it!”
He reached the tavern in a bad humor and at once made up a game. The game
cheered him. He played a second game, and suddenly began telling one of
his partners that Dmitri Karamazov had come in for some cash
again—something like three thousand roubles, and had gone to Mokroe again
to spend it with Grushenka.... This news roused singular interest in his
listeners. They all spoke of it, not laughing, but with a strange gravity.
They left off playing.
“Three thousand? But where can he have got three thousand?”
Questions were asked. The story of Madame Hohlakov’s present was received
with skepticism.
“Hasn’t he robbed his old father?—that’s the question.”
“Three thousand! There’s something odd about it.”
“He boasted aloud that he would kill his father; we all heard him, here.
And it was three thousand he talked about ...”
Pyotr Ilyitch listened. All at once he became short and dry in his
answers. He said not a word about the blood on Mitya’s face and hands,
though he had meant to speak of it at first.
They began a third game, and by degrees the talk about Mitya died away.
But by the end of the third game, Pyotr Ilyitch felt no more desire for
billiards; he laid down the cue, and without having supper as he had
intended, he walked out of the tavern. When he reached the market‐place he
stood still in perplexity, wondering at himself. He realized that what he
wanted was to go to Fyodor Pavlovitch’s and find out if anything had
happened there. “On account of some stupid nonsense—as it’s sure to turn
out—am I going to wake up the household and make a scandal? Fooh! damn it,
is it my business to look after them?”
In a very bad humor he went straight home, and suddenly remembered Fenya.
“Damn it all! I ought to have questioned her just now,” he thought with
vexation, “I should have heard everything.” And the desire to speak to
her, and so find out, became so pressing and importunate that when he was
half‐way home he turned abruptly and went towards the house where
Grushenka lodged. Going up to the gate he knocked. The sound of the knock
in the silence of the night sobered him and made him feel annoyed. And no
one answered him; every one in the house was asleep.
“And I shall be making a fuss!” he thought, with a feeling of positive
discomfort. But instead of going away altogether, he fell to knocking
again with all his might, filling the street with clamor.
“Not coming? Well, I will knock them up, I will!” he muttered at each
knock, fuming at himself, but at the same time he redoubled his knocks on
the gate.
Chapter VI. “I Am Coming, Too!”
But Dmitri Fyodorovitch was speeding along the road. It was a little more
than twenty versts to Mokroe, but Andrey’s three horses galloped at such a
pace that the distance might be covered in an hour and a quarter. The
swift motion revived Mitya. The air was fresh and cool, there were big
stars shining in the sky. It was the very night, and perhaps the very
hour, in which Alyosha fell on the earth, and rapturously swore to love it
for ever and ever.
All was confusion, confusion, in Mitya’s soul, but although many things
were goading his heart, at that moment his whole being was yearning for
her, his queen, to whom he was flying to look on her for the last time.
One thing I can say for certain; his heart did not waver for one instant.
I shall perhaps not be believed when I say that this jealous lover felt
not the slightest jealousy of this new rival, who seemed to have sprung
out of the earth. If any other had appeared on the scene, he would have
been jealous at once, and would perhaps have stained his fierce hands with
blood again. But as he flew through the night, he felt no envy, no
hostility even, for the man who had been her first lover.... It is true he
had not yet seen him.
“Here there was no room for dispute: it was her right and his; this was
her first love which, after five years, she had not forgotten; so she had
loved him only for those five years, and I, how do I come in? What right
have I? Step aside, Mitya, and make way! What am I now? Now everything is
over apart from the officer—even if he had not appeared, everything would
be over ...”
These words would roughly have expressed his feelings, if he had been
capable of reasoning. But he could not reason at that moment. His present
plan of action had arisen without reasoning. At Fenya’s first words, it
had sprung from feeling, and been adopted in a flash, with all its
consequences. And yet, in spite of his resolution, there was confusion in
his soul, an agonizing confusion: his resolution did not give him peace.
There was so much behind that tortured him. And it seemed strange to him,
at moments, to think that he had written his own sentence of death with
pen and paper: “I punish myself,” and the paper was lying there in his
pocket, ready; the pistol was loaded; he had already resolved how, next
morning, he would meet the first warm ray of “golden‐haired Phœbus.”
And yet he could not be quit of the past, of all that he had left behind
and that tortured him. He felt that miserably, and the thought of it sank
into his heart with despair. There was one moment when he felt an impulse
to stop Andrey, to jump out of the cart, to pull out his loaded pistol,
and to make an end of everything without waiting for the dawn. But that
moment flew by like a spark. The horses galloped on, “devouring space,”
and as he drew near his goal, again the thought of her, of her alone, took
more and more complete possession of his soul, chasing away the fearful
images that had been haunting it. Oh, how he longed to look upon her, if
only for a moment, if only from a distance!
“She’s now with _him_,” he thought, “now I shall see what she looks like
with him, her first love, and that’s all I want.” Never had this woman,
who was such a fateful influence in his life, aroused such love in his
breast, such new and unknown feeling, surprising even to himself, a
feeling tender to devoutness, to self‐effacement before her! “I will
efface myself!” he said, in a rush of almost hysterical ecstasy.
They had been galloping nearly an hour. Mitya was silent, and though
Andrey was, as a rule, a talkative peasant, he did not utter a word,
either. He seemed afraid to talk, he only whipped up smartly his three
lean, but mettlesome, bay horses. Suddenly Mitya cried out in horrible
anxiety:
“Andrey! What if they’re asleep?”
This thought fell upon him like a blow. It had not occurred to him before.
“It may well be that they’re gone to bed, by now, Dmitri Fyodorovitch.”
Mitya frowned as though in pain. Yes, indeed ... he was rushing there ...
with such feelings ... while they were asleep ... she was asleep, perhaps,
there too.... An angry feeling surged up in his heart.
“Drive on, Andrey! Whip them up! Look alive!” he cried, beside himself.
“But maybe they’re not in bed!” Andrey went on after a pause. “Timofey
said they were a lot of them there—”
“At the station?”
“Not at the posting‐station, but at Plastunov’s, at the inn, where they
let out horses, too.”
“I know. So you say there are a lot of them? How’s that? Who are they?”
cried Mitya, greatly dismayed at this unexpected news.
“Well, Timofey was saying they’re all gentlefolk. Two from our town—who
they are I can’t say—and there are two others, strangers, maybe more
besides. I didn’t ask particularly. They’ve set to playing cards, so
Timofey said.”
“Cards?”
“So, maybe they’re not in bed if they’re at cards. It’s most likely not
more than eleven.”
“Quicker, Andrey! Quicker!” Mitya cried again, nervously.
“May I ask you something, sir?” said Andrey, after a pause. “Only I’m
afraid of angering you, sir.”
“What is it?”
“Why, Fenya threw herself at your feet just now, and begged you not to
harm her mistress, and some one else, too ... so you see, sir— It’s I am
taking you there ... forgive me, sir, it’s my conscience ... maybe it’s
stupid of me to speak of it—”
Mitya suddenly seized him by the shoulders from behind.
“Are you a driver?” he asked frantically.
“Yes, sir.”
“Then you know that one has to make way. What would you say to a driver
who wouldn’t make way for any one, but would just drive on and crush
people? No, a driver mustn’t run over people. One can’t run over a man.
One can’t spoil people’s lives. And if you have spoilt a life—punish
yourself.... If only you’ve spoilt, if only you’ve ruined any one’s
life—punish yourself and go away.”
These phrases burst from Mitya almost hysterically. Though Andrey was
surprised at him, he kept up the conversation.
“That’s right, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, you’re quite right, one mustn’t crush
or torment a man, or any kind of creature, for every creature is created
by God. Take a horse, for instance, for some folks, even among us drivers,
drive anyhow. Nothing will restrain them, they just force it along.”
“To hell?” Mitya interrupted, and went off into his abrupt, short laugh.
“Andrey, simple soul,” he seized him by the shoulders again, “tell me,
will Dmitri Fyodorovitch Karamazov go to hell, or not, what do you think?”
“I don’t know, darling, it depends on you, for you are ... you see, sir,
when the Son of God was nailed on the Cross and died, He went straight
down to hell from the Cross, and set free all sinners that were in agony.
And the devil groaned, because he thought that he would get no more
sinners in hell. And God said to him, then, ‘Don’t groan, for you shall
have all the mighty of the earth, the rulers, the chief judges, and the
rich men, and shall be filled up as you have been in all the ages till I
come again.’ Those were His very words ...”
“A peasant legend! Capital! Whip up the left, Andrey!”
“So you see, sir, who it is hell’s for,” said Andrey, whipping up the left
horse, “but you’re like a little child ... that’s how we look on you ...
and though you’re hasty‐tempered, sir, yet God will forgive you for your
kind heart.”
“And you, do you forgive me, Andrey?”
“What should I forgive you for, sir? You’ve never done me any harm.”
“No, for every one, for every one, you here alone, on the road, will you
forgive me for every one? Speak, simple peasant heart!”
“Oh, sir! I feel afraid of driving you, your talk is so strange.”
But Mitya did not hear. He was frantically praying and muttering to
himself.
“Lord, receive me, with all my lawlessness, and do not condemn me. Let me
pass by Thy judgment ... do not condemn me, for I have condemned myself,
do not condemn me, for I love Thee, O Lord. I am a wretch, but I love
Thee. If Thou sendest me to hell, I shall love Thee there, and from there
I shall cry out that I love Thee for ever and ever.... But let me love to
the end.... Here and now for just five hours ... till the first light of
Thy day ... for I love the queen of my soul ... I love her and I cannot
help loving her. Thou seest my whole heart.... I shall gallop up, I shall
fall before her and say, ‘You are right to pass on and leave me. Farewell
and forget your victim ... never fret yourself about me!’ ”
“Mokroe!” cried Andrey, pointing ahead with his whip.
Through the pale darkness of the night loomed a solid black mass of
buildings, flung down, as it were, in the vast plain. The village of
Mokroe numbered two thousand inhabitants, but at that hour all were
asleep, and only here and there a few lights still twinkled.
“Drive on, Andrey, I come!” Mitya exclaimed, feverishly.
“They’re not asleep,” said Andrey again, pointing with his whip to the
Plastunovs’ inn, which was at the entrance to the village. The six
windows, looking on the street, were all brightly lighted up.
“They’re not asleep,” Mitya repeated joyously. “Quicker, Andrey! Gallop!
Drive up with a dash! Set the bells ringing! Let all know that I have
come. I’m coming! I’m coming, too!”
Andrey lashed his exhausted team into a gallop, drove with a dash and
pulled up his steaming, panting horses at the high flight of steps.
Mitya jumped out of the cart just as the innkeeper, on his way to bed,
peeped out from the steps curious to see who had arrived.
“Trifon Borissovitch, is that you?”
The innkeeper bent down, looked intently, ran down the steps, and rushed
up to the guest with obsequious delight.
“Dmitri Fyodorovitch, your honor! Do I see you again?”
Trifon Borissovitch was a thick‐set, healthy peasant, of middle height,
with a rather fat face. His expression was severe and uncompromising,
especially with the peasants of Mokroe, but he had the power of assuming
the most obsequious countenance, when he had an inkling that it was to his
interest. He dressed in Russian style, with a shirt buttoning down on one
side, and a full‐skirted coat. He had saved a good sum of money, but was
for ever dreaming of improving his position. More than half the peasants
were in his clutches, every one in the neighborhood was in debt to him.
From the neighboring landowners he bought and rented lands which were
worked by the peasants, in payment of debts which they could never shake
off. He was a widower, with four grown‐up daughters. One of them was
already a widow and lived in the inn with her two children, his
grandchildren, and worked for him like a charwoman. Another of his
daughters was married to a petty official, and in one of the rooms of the
inn, on the wall could be seen, among the family photographs, a miniature
photograph of this official in uniform and official epaulettes. The two
younger daughters used to wear fashionable blue or green dresses, fitting
tight at the back, and with trains a yard long, on Church holidays or when
they went to pay visits. But next morning they would get up at dawn, as
usual, sweep out the rooms with a birch‐broom, empty the slops, and clean
up after lodgers.
In spite of the thousands of roubles he had saved, Trifon Borissovitch was
very fond of emptying the pockets of a drunken guest, and remembering that
not a month ago he had, in twenty‐four hours, made two if not three
hundred roubles out of Dmitri, when he had come on his escapade with
Grushenka, he met him now with eager welcome, scenting his prey the moment
Mitya drove up to the steps.
“Dmitri Fyodorovitch, dear sir, we see you once more!”
“Stay, Trifon Borissovitch,” began Mitya, “first and foremost, where is
she?”
“Agrafena Alexandrovna?” The inn‐keeper understood at once, looking
sharply into Mitya’s face. “She’s here, too ...”
“With whom? With whom?”
“Some strangers. One is an official gentleman, a Pole, to judge from his
speech. He sent the horses for her from here; and there’s another with
him, a friend of his, or a fellow traveler, there’s no telling. They’re
dressed like civilians.”
“Well, are they feasting? Have they money?”
“Poor sort of a feast! Nothing to boast of, Dmitri Fyodorovitch.”
“Nothing to boast of? And who are the others?”
“They’re two gentlemen from the town.... They’ve come back from Tcherny,
and are putting up here. One’s quite a young gentleman, a relative of Mr.
Miüsov, he must be, but I’ve forgotten his name ... and I expect you know
the other, too, a gentleman called Maximov. He’s been on a pilgrimage, so
he says, to the monastery in the town. He’s traveling with this young
relation of Mr. Miüsov.”
“Is that all?”
“Yes.”
“Stay, listen, Trifon Borissovitch. Tell me the chief thing: What of her?
How is she?”
“Oh, she’s only just come. She’s sitting with them.”
“Is she cheerful? Is she laughing?”
“No, I think she’s not laughing much. She’s sitting quite dull. She’s
combing the young gentleman’s hair.”
“The Pole—the officer?”
“He’s not young, and he’s not an officer, either. Not him, sir. It’s the
young gentleman that’s Mr. Miüsov’s relation ... I’ve forgotten his name.”
“Kalganov.”
“That’s it, Kalganov!”
“All right. I’ll see for myself. Are they playing cards?”
“They have been playing, but they’ve left off. They’ve been drinking tea,
the official gentleman asked for liqueurs.”
“Stay, Trifon Borissovitch, stay, my good soul, I’ll see for myself. Now
answer one more question: are the gypsies here?”
“You can’t have the gypsies now, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. The authorities have
sent them away. But we’ve Jews that play the cymbals and the fiddle in the
village, so one might send for them. They’d come.”
“Send for them. Certainly send for them!” cried Mitya. “And you can get
the girls together as you did then, Marya especially, Stepanida, too, and
Arina. Two hundred roubles for a chorus!”
“Oh, for a sum like that I can get all the village together, though by now
they’re asleep. Are the peasants here worth such kindness, Dmitri
Fyodorovitch, or the girls either? To spend a sum like that on such
coarseness and rudeness! What’s the good of giving a peasant a cigar to
smoke, the stinking ruffian! And the girls are all lousy. Besides, I’ll
get my daughters up for nothing, let alone a sum like that. They’ve only
just gone to bed, I’ll give them a kick and set them singing for you. You
gave the peasants champagne to drink the other day, e—ech!”
For all his pretended compassion for Mitya, Trifon Borissovitch had hidden
half a dozen bottles of champagne on that last occasion, and had picked up
a hundred‐rouble note under the table, and it had remained in his
clutches.
“Trifon Borissovitch, I sent more than one thousand flying last time I was
here. Do you remember?”
“You did send it flying. I may well remember. You must have left three
thousand behind you.”
“Well, I’ve come to do the same again, do you see?”
And he pulled out his roll of notes, and held them up before the
innkeeper’s nose.
“Now, listen and remember. In an hour’s time the wine will arrive,
savories, pies, and sweets—bring them all up at once. That box Andrey has
got is to be brought up at once, too. Open it, and hand champagne
immediately. And the girls, we must have the girls, Marya especially.”
He turned to the cart and pulled out the box of pistols.
“Here, Andrey, let’s settle. Here’s fifteen roubles for the drive, and
fifty for vodka ... for your readiness, for your love.... Remember
Karamazov!”
“I’m afraid, sir,” faltered Andrey. “Give me five roubles extra, but more
I won’t take. Trifon Borissovitch, bear witness. Forgive my foolish words
...”
“What are you afraid of?” asked Mitya, scanning him. “Well, go to the
devil, if that’s it!” he cried, flinging him five roubles. “Now, Trifon
Borissovitch, take me up quietly and let me first get a look at them, so
that they don’t see me. Where are they? In the blue room?”
Trifon Borissovitch looked apprehensively at Mitya, but at once obediently
did his bidding. Leading him into the passage, he went himself into the
first large room, adjoining that in which the visitors were sitting, and
took the light away. Then he stealthily led Mitya in, and put him in a
corner in the dark, whence he could freely watch the company without being
seen. But Mitya did not look long, and, indeed, he could not see them, he
saw her, his heart throbbed violently, and all was dark before his eyes.
She was sitting sideways to the table in a low chair, and beside her, on
the sofa, was the pretty youth, Kalganov. She was holding his hand and
seemed to be laughing, while he, seeming vexed and not looking at her, was
saying something in a loud voice to Maximov, who sat the other side of the
table, facing Grushenka. Maximov was laughing violently at something. On
the sofa sat _he_, and on a chair by the sofa there was another stranger.
The one on the sofa was lolling backwards, smoking a pipe, and Mitya had
an impression of a stoutish, broad‐faced, short little man, who was
apparently angry about something. His friend, the other stranger, struck
Mitya as extraordinarily tall, but he could make out nothing more. He
caught his breath. He could not bear it for a minute, he put the pistol‐
case on a chest, and with a throbbing heart he walked, feeling cold all
over, straight into the blue room to face the company.
“Aie!” shrieked Grushenka, the first to notice him.
Chapter VII. The First And Rightful Lover
With his long, rapid strides, Mitya walked straight up to the table.
“Gentlemen,” he said in a loud voice, almost shouting, yet stammering at
every word, “I ... I’m all right! Don’t be afraid!” he exclaimed,
“I—there’s nothing the matter,” he turned suddenly to Grushenka, who had
shrunk back in her chair towards Kalganov, and clasped his hand tightly.
“I ... I’m coming, too. I’m here till morning. Gentlemen, may I stay with
you till morning? Only till morning, for the last time, in this same
room?”
So he finished, turning to the fat little man, with the pipe, sitting on
the sofa. The latter removed his pipe from his lips with dignity and
observed severely:
“_Panie_, we’re here in private. There are other rooms.”
“Why, it’s you, Dmitri Fyodorovitch! What do you mean?” answered Kalganov
suddenly. “Sit down with us. How are you?”
“Delighted to see you, dear ... and precious fellow, I always thought a
lot of you.” Mitya responded, joyfully and eagerly, at once holding out
his hand across the table.
“Aie! How tight you squeeze! You’ve quite broken my fingers,” laughed
Kalganov.
“He always squeezes like that, always,” Grushenka put in gayly, with a
timid smile, seeming suddenly convinced from Mitya’s face that he was not
going to make a scene. She was watching him with intense curiosity and
still some uneasiness. She was impressed by something about him, and
indeed the last thing she expected of him was that he would come in and
speak like this at such a moment.
“Good evening,” Maximov ventured blandly on the left. Mitya rushed up to
him, too.
“Good evening. You’re here, too! How glad I am to find you here, too!
Gentlemen, gentlemen, I—” (He addressed the Polish gentleman with the pipe
again, evidently taking him for the most important person present.) “I
flew here.... I wanted to spend my last day, my last hour in this room, in
this very room ... where I, too, adored ... my queen.... Forgive me,
_panie_,” he cried wildly, “I flew here and vowed— Oh, don’t be afraid,
it’s my last night! Let’s drink to our good understanding. They’ll bring
the wine at once.... I brought this with me.” (Something made him pull out
his bundle of notes.) “Allow me, _panie_! I want to have music, singing, a
revel, as we had before. But the worm, the unnecessary worm, will crawl
away, and there’ll be no more of him. I will commemorate my day of joy on
my last night.”
He was almost choking. There was so much, so much he wanted to say, but
strange exclamations were all that came from his lips. The Pole gazed
fixedly at him, at the bundle of notes in his hand; looked at Grushenka,
and was in evident perplexity.
“If my suverin lady is permitting—” he was beginning.
“What does ‘suverin’ mean? ‘Sovereign,’ I suppose?” interrupted Grushenka.
“I can’t help laughing at you, the way you talk. Sit down, Mitya, what are
you talking about? Don’t frighten us, please. You won’t frighten us, will
you? If you won’t, I am glad to see you ...”
“Me, me frighten you?” cried Mitya, flinging up his hands. “Oh, pass me
by, go your way, I won’t hinder you!...”
And suddenly he surprised them all, and no doubt himself as well, by
flinging himself on a chair, and bursting into tears, turning his head
away to the opposite wall, while his arms clasped the back of the chair
tight, as though embracing it.
“Come, come, what a fellow you are!” cried Grushenka reproachfully.
“That’s just how he comes to see me—he begins talking, and I can’t make
out what he means. He cried like that once before, and now he’s crying
again! It’s shameful! Why are you crying? _As though you had anything to
cry for!_” she added enigmatically, emphasizing each word with some
irritability.
“I ... I’m not crying.... Well, good evening!” He instantly turned round
in his chair, and suddenly laughed, not his abrupt wooden laugh, but a
long, quivering, inaudible nervous laugh.
“Well, there you are again.... Come, cheer up, cheer up!” Grushenka said
to him persuasively. “I’m very glad you’ve come, very glad, Mitya, do you
hear, I’m very glad! I want him to stay here with us,” she said
peremptorily, addressing the whole company, though her words were
obviously meant for the man sitting on the sofa. “I wish it, I wish it!
And if he goes away I shall go, too!” she added with flashing eyes.
“What my queen commands is law!” pronounced the Pole, gallantly kissing
Grushenka’s hand. “I beg you, _panie_, to join our company,” he added
politely, addressing Mitya.
Mitya was jumping up with the obvious intention of delivering another
tirade, but the words did not come.
“Let’s drink, _panie_,” he blurted out instead of making a speech. Every
one laughed.
“Good heavens! I thought he was going to begin again!” Grushenka exclaimed
nervously. “Do you hear, Mitya,” she went on insistently, “don’t prance
about, but it’s nice you’ve brought the champagne. I want some myself, and
I can’t bear liqueurs. And best of all, you’ve come yourself. We were
fearfully dull here.... You’ve come for a spree again, I suppose? But put
your money in your pocket. Where did you get such a lot?”
Mitya had been, all this time, holding in his hand the crumpled bundle of
notes on which the eyes of all, especially of the Poles, were fixed. In
confusion he thrust them hurriedly into his pocket. He flushed. At that
moment the innkeeper brought in an uncorked bottle of champagne, and
glasses on a tray. Mitya snatched up the bottle, but he was so bewildered
that he did not know what to do with it. Kalganov took it from him and
poured out the champagne.
“Another! Another bottle!” Mitya cried to the innkeeper, and, forgetting
to clink glasses with the Pole whom he had so solemnly invited to drink to
their good understanding, he drank off his glass without waiting for any
one else. His whole countenance suddenly changed. The solemn and tragic
expression with which he had entered vanished completely, and a look of
something childlike came into his face. He seemed to have become suddenly
gentle and subdued. He looked shyly and happily at every one, with a
continual nervous little laugh, and the blissful expression of a dog who
has done wrong, been punished, and forgiven. He seemed to have forgotten
everything, and was looking round at every one with a childlike smile of
delight. He looked at Grushenka, laughing continually, and bringing his
chair close up to her. By degrees he had gained some idea of the two
Poles, though he had formed no definite conception of them yet.
The Pole on the sofa struck him by his dignified demeanor and his Polish
accent; and, above all, by his pipe. “Well, what of it? It’s a good thing
he’s smoking a pipe,” he reflected. The Pole’s puffy, middle‐aged face,
with its tiny nose and two very thin, pointed, dyed and impudent‐looking
mustaches, had not so far roused the faintest doubts in Mitya. He was not
even particularly struck by the Pole’s absurd wig made in Siberia, with
love‐locks foolishly combed forward over the temples. “I suppose it’s all
right since he wears a wig,” he went on, musing blissfully. The other,
younger Pole, who was staring insolently and defiantly at the company and
listening to the conversation with silent contempt, still only impressed
Mitya by his great height, which was in striking contrast to the Pole on
the sofa. “If he stood up he’d be six foot three.” The thought flitted
through Mitya’s mind. It occurred to him, too, that this Pole must be the
friend of the other, as it were, a “bodyguard,” and no doubt the big Pole
was at the disposal of the little Pole with the pipe. But this all seemed
to Mitya perfectly right and not to be questioned. In his mood of doglike
submissiveness all feeling of rivalry had died away.
Grushenka’s mood and the enigmatic tone of some of her words he completely
failed to grasp. All he understood, with thrilling heart, was that she was
kind to him, that she had forgiven him, and made him sit by her. He was
beside himself with delight, watching her sip her glass of champagne. The
silence of the company seemed somehow to strike him, however, and he
looked round at every one with expectant eyes.
“Why are we sitting here though, gentlemen? Why don’t you begin doing
something?” his smiling eyes seemed to ask.
“He keeps talking nonsense, and we were all laughing,” Kalganov began
suddenly, as though divining his thought, and pointing to Maximov.
Mitya immediately stared at Kalganov and then at Maximov.
“He’s talking nonsense?” he laughed, his short, wooden laugh, seeming
suddenly delighted at something—“ha ha!”
“Yes. Would you believe it, he will have it that all our cavalry officers
in the twenties married Polish women. That’s awful rot, isn’t it?”
“Polish women?” repeated Mitya, perfectly ecstatic.
Kalganov was well aware of Mitya’s attitude to Grushenka, and he guessed
about the Pole, too, but that did not so much interest him, perhaps did
not interest him at all; what he was interested in was Maximov. He had
come here with Maximov by chance, and he met the Poles here at the inn for
the first time in his life. Grushenka he knew before, and had once been
with some one to see her; but she had not taken to him. But here she
looked at him very affectionately: before Mitya’s arrival, she had been
making much of him, but he seemed somehow to be unmoved by it. He was a
boy, not over twenty, dressed like a dandy, with a very charming fair‐
skinned face, and splendid thick, fair hair. From his fair face looked out
beautiful pale blue eyes, with an intelligent and sometimes even deep
expression, beyond his age indeed, although the young man sometimes looked
and talked quite like a child, and was not at all ashamed of it, even when
he was aware of it himself. As a rule he was very willful, even
capricious, though always friendly. Sometimes there was something fixed
and obstinate in his expression. He would look at you and listen, seeming
all the while to be persistently dreaming over something else. Often he
was listless and lazy, at other times he would grow excited, sometimes,
apparently, over the most trivial matters.
“Only imagine, I’ve been taking him about with me for the last four days,”
he went on, indolently drawling his words, quite naturally though, without
the slightest affectation. “Ever since your brother, do you remember,
shoved him off the carriage and sent him flying. That made me take an
interest in him at the time, and I took him into the country, but he keeps
talking such rot I’m ashamed to be with him. I’m taking him back.”
“The gentleman has not seen Polish ladies, and says what is impossible,”
the Pole with the pipe observed to Maximov.
He spoke Russian fairly well, much better, anyway, than he pretended. If
he used Russian words, he always distorted them into a Polish form.
“But I was married to a Polish lady myself,” tittered Maximov.
“But did you serve in the cavalry? You were talking about the cavalry.
Were you a cavalry officer?” put in Kalganov at once.
“Was he a cavalry officer indeed? Ha ha!” cried Mitya, listening eagerly,
and turning his inquiring eyes to each as he spoke, as though there were
no knowing what he might hear from each.
“No, you see,” Maximov turned to him. “What I mean is that those pretty
Polish ladies ... when they danced the mazurka with our Uhlans ... when
one of them dances a mazurka with a Uhlan she jumps on his knee like a
kitten ... a little white one ... and the _pan_‐father and _pan_‐mother
look on and allow it.... They allow it ... and next day the Uhlan comes
and offers her his hand.... That’s how it is ... offers her his hand, he
he!” Maximov ended, tittering.
“The _pan_ is a _lajdak_!” the tall Pole on the chair growled suddenly and
crossed one leg over the other. Mitya’s eye was caught by his huge greased
boot, with its thick, dirty sole. The dress of both the Poles looked
rather greasy.
“Well, now it’s _lajdak_! What’s he scolding about?” said Grushenka,
suddenly vexed.
“_Pani_ Agrippina, what the gentleman saw in Poland were servant girls,
and not ladies of good birth,” the Pole with the pipe observed to
Grushenka.
“You can reckon on that,” the tall Pole snapped contemptuously.
“What next! Let him talk! People talk, why hinder them? It makes it
cheerful,” Grushenka said crossly.
“I’m not hindering them, _pani_,” said the Pole in the wig, with a long
look at Grushenka, and relapsing into dignified silence he sucked his pipe
again.
“No, no. The Polish gentleman spoke the truth.” Kalganov got excited
again, as though it were a question of vast import. “He’s never been in
Poland, so how can he talk about it? I suppose you weren’t married in
Poland, were you?”
“No, in the Province of Smolensk. Only, a Uhlan had brought her to Russia
before that, my future wife, with her mamma and her aunt, and another
female relation with a grown‐up son. He brought her straight from Poland
and gave her up to me. He was a lieutenant in our regiment, a very nice
young man. At first he meant to marry her himself. But he didn’t marry
her, because she turned out to be lame.”
“So you married a lame woman?” cried Kalganov.
“Yes. They both deceived me a little bit at the time, and concealed it. I
thought she was hopping; she kept hopping.... I thought it was for fun.”
“So pleased she was going to marry you!” yelled Kalganov, in a ringing,
childish voice.
“Yes, so pleased. But it turned out to be quite a different cause.
Afterwards, when we were married, after the wedding, that very evening,
she confessed, and very touchingly asked forgiveness. ‘I once jumped over
a puddle when I was a child,’ she said, ‘and injured my leg.’ He he!”
Kalganov went off into the most childish laughter, almost falling on the
sofa. Grushenka, too, laughed. Mitya was at the pinnacle of happiness.
“Do you know, that’s the truth, he’s not lying now,” exclaimed Kalganov,
turning to Mitya; “and do you know, he’s been married twice; it’s his
first wife he’s talking about. But his second wife, do you know, ran away,
and is alive now.”
“Is it possible?” said Mitya, turning quickly to Maximov with an
expression of the utmost astonishment.
“Yes. She did run away. I’ve had that unpleasant experience,” Maximov
modestly assented, “with a _monsieur_. And what was worse, she’d had all
my little property transferred to her beforehand. ‘You’re an educated
man,’ she said to me. ‘You can always get your living.’ She settled my
business with that. A venerable bishop once said to me: ‘One of your wives
was lame, but the other was too light‐footed.’ He he!”
“Listen, listen!” cried Kalganov, bubbling over, “if he’s telling lies—and
he often is—he’s only doing it to amuse us all. There’s no harm in that,
is there? You know, I sometimes like him. He’s awfully low, but it’s
natural to him, eh? Don’t you think so? Some people are low from self‐
interest, but he’s simply so, from nature. Only fancy, he claims (he was
arguing about it all the way yesterday) that Gogol wrote _Dead Souls_
about him. Do you remember, there’s a landowner called Maximov in it, whom
Nozdryov thrashed. He was charged, do you remember, ‘for inflicting bodily
injury with rods on the landowner Maximov in a drunken condition.’ Would
you believe it, he claims that he was that Maximov and that he was beaten!
Now can it be so? Tchitchikov made his journey, at the very latest, at the
beginning of the twenties, so that the dates don’t fit. He couldn’t have
been thrashed then, he couldn’t, could he?”
It was difficult to imagine what Kalganov was excited about, but his
excitement was genuine. Mitya followed his lead without protest.
“Well, but if they did thrash him!” he cried, laughing.
“It’s not that they thrashed me exactly, but what I mean is—” put in
Maximov.
“What do you mean? Either they thrashed you or they didn’t.”
“What o’clock is it, _panie_?” the Pole, with the pipe, asked his tall
friend, with a bored expression. The other shrugged his shoulders in
reply. Neither of them had a watch.
“Why not talk? Let other people talk. Mustn’t other people talk because
you’re bored?” Grushenka flew at him with evident intention of finding
fault. Something seemed for the first time to flash upon Mitya’s mind.
This time the Pole answered with unmistakable irritability.
“_Pani_, I didn’t oppose it. I didn’t say anything.”
“All right then. Come, tell us your story,” Grushenka cried to Maximov.
“Why are you all silent?”
“There’s nothing to tell, it’s all so foolish,” answered Maximov at once,
with evident satisfaction, mincing a little. “Besides, all that’s by way
of allegory in Gogol, for he’s made all the names have a meaning. Nozdryov
was really called Nosov, and Kuvshinikov had quite a different name, he
was called Shkvornev. Fenardi really was called Fenardi, only he wasn’t an
Italian but a Russian, and Mamsel Fenardi was a pretty girl with her
pretty little legs in tights, and she had a little short skirt with
spangles, and she kept turning round and round, only not for four hours
but for four minutes only, and she bewitched every one...”
“But what were you beaten for?” cried Kalganov.
“For Piron!” answered Maximov.
“What Piron?” cried Mitya.
“The famous French writer, Piron. We were all drinking then, a big party
of us, in a tavern at that very fair. They’d invited me, and first of all
I began quoting epigrams. ‘Is that you, Boileau? What a funny get‐up!’ and
Boileau answers that he’s going to a masquerade, that is to the baths, he
he! And they took it to themselves, so I made haste to repeat another,
very sarcastic, well known to all educated people:
Yes, Sappho and Phaon are we!
But one grief is weighing on me.
You don’t know your way to the sea!
They were still more offended and began abusing me in the most unseemly
way for it. And as ill‐luck would have it, to set things right, I began
telling a very cultivated anecdote about Piron, how he was not accepted
into the French Academy, and to revenge himself wrote his own epitaph:
Ci‐gît Piron qui ne fut rien,
Pas même académicien.
They seized me and thrashed me.”
“But what for? What for?”
“For my education. People can thrash a man for anything,” Maximov
concluded, briefly and sententiously.
“Eh, that’s enough! That’s all stupid, I don’t want to listen. I thought
it would be amusing,” Grushenka cut them short, suddenly.
Mitya started, and at once left off laughing. The tall Pole rose upon his
feet, and with the haughty air of a man, bored and out of his element,
began pacing from corner to corner of the room, his hands behind his back.
“Ah, he can’t sit still,” said Grushenka, looking at him contemptuously.
Mitya began to feel anxious. He noticed besides, that the Pole on the sofa
was looking at him with an irritable expression.
“_Panie!_” cried Mitya, “let’s drink! and the other _pan_, too! Let us
drink.”
In a flash he had pulled three glasses towards him, and filled them with
champagne.
“To Poland, _panovie_, I drink to your Poland!” cried Mitya.
“I shall be delighted, _panie_,” said the Pole on the sofa, with dignity
and affable condescension, and he took his glass.
“And the other _pan_, what’s his name? Drink, most illustrious, take your
glass!” Mitya urged.
“Pan Vrublevsky,” put in the Pole on the sofa.
Pan Vrublevsky came up to the table, swaying as he walked.
“To Poland, _panovie!_” cried Mitya, raising his glass. “Hurrah!”
All three drank. Mitya seized the bottle and again poured out three
glasses.
“Now to Russia, _panovie_, and let us be brothers!”
“Pour out some for us,” said Grushenka; “I’ll drink to Russia, too!”
“So will I,” said Kalganov.
“And I would, too ... to Russia, the old grandmother!” tittered Maximov.
“All! All!” cried Mitya. “Trifon Borissovitch, some more bottles!”
The other three bottles Mitya had brought with him were put on the table.
Mitya filled the glasses.
“To Russia! Hurrah!” he shouted again. All drank the toast except the
Poles, and Grushenka tossed off her whole glass at once. The Poles did not
touch theirs.
“How’s this, _panovie_?” cried Mitya, “won’t you drink it?”
Pan Vrublevsky took the glass, raised it and said with a resonant voice:
“To Russia as she was before 1772.”
“Come, that’s better!” cried the other Pole, and they both emptied their
glasses at once.
“You’re fools, you _panovie_,” broke suddenly from Mitya.
“_Panie!_” shouted both the Poles, menacingly, setting on Mitya like a
couple of cocks. Pan Vrublevsky was specially furious.
“Can one help loving one’s own country?” he shouted.
“Be silent! Don’t quarrel! I won’t have any quarreling!” cried Grushenka
imperiously, and she stamped her foot on the floor. Her face glowed, her
eyes were shining. The effects of the glass she had just drunk were
apparent. Mitya was terribly alarmed.
“_Panovie_, forgive me! It was my fault, I’m sorry. Vrublevsky, _panie_
Vrublevsky, I’m sorry.”
“Hold your tongue, you, anyway! Sit down, you stupid!” Grushenka scolded
with angry annoyance.
Every one sat down, all were silent, looking at one another.
“Gentlemen, I was the cause of it all,” Mitya began again, unable to make
anything of Grushenka’s words. “Come, why are we sitting here? What shall
we do ... to amuse ourselves again?”
“Ach, it’s certainly anything but amusing!” Kalganov mumbled lazily.
“Let’s play faro again, as we did just now,” Maximov tittered suddenly.
“Faro? Splendid!” cried Mitya. “If only the _panovie_—”
“It’s lite, _panovie_,” the Pole on the sofa responded, as it were
unwillingly.
“That’s true,” assented Pan Vrublevsky.
“Lite? What do you mean by ‘lite’?” asked Grushenka.
“Late, _pani_! ‘a late hour’ I mean,” the Pole on the sofa explained.
“It’s always late with them. They can never do anything!” Grushenka almost
shrieked in her anger. “They’re dull themselves, so they want others to be
dull. Before you came, Mitya, they were just as silent and kept turning up
their noses at me.”
“My goddess!” cried the Pole on the sofa, “I see you’re not well‐disposed
to me, that’s why I’m gloomy. I’m ready, _panie_,” added he, addressing
Mitya.
“Begin, _panie_,” Mitya assented, pulling his notes out of his pocket, and
laying two hundred‐rouble notes on the table. “I want to lose a lot to
you. Take your cards. Make the bank.”
“We’ll have cards from the landlord, _panie_,” said the little Pole,
gravely and emphatically.
“That’s much the best way,” chimed in Pan Vrublevsky.
“From the landlord? Very good, I understand, let’s get them from him.
Cards!” Mitya shouted to the landlord.
The landlord brought in a new, unopened pack, and informed Mitya that the
girls were getting ready, and that the Jews with the cymbals would most
likely be here soon; but the cart with the provisions had not yet arrived.
Mitya jumped up from the table and ran into the next room to give orders,
but only three girls had arrived, and Marya was not there yet. And he did
not know himself what orders to give and why he had run out. He only told
them to take out of the box the presents for the girls, the sweets, the
toffee and the fondants. “And vodka for Andrey, vodka for Andrey!” he
cried in haste. “I was rude to Andrey!”
Suddenly Maximov, who had followed him out, touched him on the shoulder.
“Give me five roubles,” he whispered to Mitya. “I’ll stake something at
faro, too, he he!”
“Capital! Splendid! Take ten, here!”
Again he took all the notes out of his pocket and picked out one for ten
roubles. “And if you lose that, come again, come again.”
“Very good,” Maximov whispered joyfully, and he ran back again. Mitya,
too, returned, apologizing for having kept them waiting. The Poles had
already sat down, and opened the pack. They looked much more amiable,
almost cordial. The Pole on the sofa had lighted another pipe and was
preparing to throw. He wore an air of solemnity.
“To your places, gentlemen,” cried Pan Vrublevsky.
“No, I’m not going to play any more,” observed Kalganov, “I’ve lost fifty
roubles to them just now.”
“The _pan_ had no luck, perhaps he’ll be lucky this time,” the Pole on the
sofa observed in his direction.
“How much in the bank? To correspond?” asked Mitya.
“That’s according, _panie_, maybe a hundred, maybe two hundred, as much as
you will stake.”
“A million!” laughed Mitya.
“The Pan Captain has heard of Pan Podvysotsky, perhaps?”
“What Podvysotsky?”
“In Warsaw there was a bank and any one comes and stakes against it.
Podvysotsky comes, sees a thousand gold pieces, stakes against the bank.
The banker says, ‘_Panie_ Podvysotsky, are you laying down the gold, or
must we trust to your honor?’ ‘To my honor, _panie_,’ says Podvysotsky.
‘So much the better.’ The banker throws the dice. Podvysotsky wins. ‘Take
it, _panie_,’ says the banker, and pulling out the drawer he gives him a
million. ‘Take it, _panie_, this is your gain.’ There was a million in the
bank. ‘I didn’t know that,’ says Podvysotsky. ‘_Panie_ Podvysotsky,’ said
the banker, ‘you pledged your honor and we pledged ours.’ Podvysotsky took
the million.”
“That’s not true,” said Kalganov.
“_Panie_ Kalganov, in gentlemanly society one doesn’t say such things.”
“As if a Polish gambler would give away a million!” cried Mitya, but
checked himself at once. “Forgive me, _panie_, it’s my fault again, he
would, he would give away a million, for honor, for Polish honor. You see
how I talk Polish, ha ha! Here, I stake ten roubles, the knave leads.”
“And I put a rouble on the queen, the queen of hearts, the pretty little
_panienotchka_, he he!” laughed Maximov, pulling out his queen, and, as
though trying to conceal it from every one, he moved right up and crossed
himself hurriedly under the table. Mitya won. The rouble won, too.
“A corner!” cried Mitya.
“I’ll bet another rouble, a ‘single’ stake,” Maximov muttered gleefully,
hugely delighted at having won a rouble.
“Lost!” shouted Mitya. “A ‘double’ on the seven!”
The seven too was trumped.
“Stop!” cried Kalganov suddenly.
“Double! Double!” Mitya doubled his stakes, and each time he doubled the
stake, the card he doubled was trumped by the Poles. The rouble stakes
kept winning.
“On the double!” shouted Mitya furiously.
“You’ve lost two hundred, _panie_. Will you stake another hundred?” the
Pole on the sofa inquired.
“What? Lost two hundred already? Then another two hundred! All doubles!”
And pulling his money out of his pocket, Mitya was about to fling two
hundred roubles on the queen, but Kalganov covered it with his hand.
“That’s enough!” he shouted in his ringing voice.
“What’s the matter?” Mitya stared at him.
“That’s enough! I don’t want you to play any more. Don’t!”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t. Hang it, come away. That’s why. I won’t let you go on
playing.”
Mitya gazed at him in astonishment.
“Give it up, Mitya. He may be right. You’ve lost a lot as it is,” said
Grushenka, with a curious note in her voice. Both the Poles rose from
their seats with a deeply offended air.
“Are you joking, _panie_?” said the short man, looking severely at
Kalganov.
“How dare you!” Pan Vrublevsky, too, growled at Kalganov.
“Don’t dare to shout like that,” cried Grushenka. “Ah, you turkey‐cocks!”
Mitya looked at each of them in turn. But something in Grushenka’s face
suddenly struck him, and at the same instant something new flashed into
his mind—a strange new thought!
“_Pani_ Agrippina,” the little Pole was beginning, crimson with anger,
when Mitya suddenly went up to him and slapped him on the shoulder.
“Most illustrious, two words with you.”
“What do you want?”
“In the next room, I’ve two words to say to you, something pleasant, very
pleasant. You’ll be glad to hear it.”
The little _pan_ was taken aback and looked apprehensively at Mitya. He
agreed at once, however, on condition that Pan Vrublevsky went with them.
“The bodyguard? Let him come, and I want him, too. I must have him!” cried
Mitya. “March, _panovie_!”
“Where are you going?” asked Grushenka, anxiously.
“We’ll be back in one moment,” answered Mitya.
There was a sort of boldness, a sudden confidence shining in his eyes. His
face had looked very different when he entered the room an hour before.
He led the Poles, not into the large room where the chorus of girls was
assembling and the table was being laid, but into the bedroom on the
right, where the trunks and packages were kept, and there were two large
beds, with pyramids of cotton pillows on each. There was a lighted candle
on a small deal table in the corner. The small man and Mitya sat down to
this table, facing each other, while the huge Vrublevsky stood beside
them, his hands behind his back. The Poles looked severe but were
evidently inquisitive.
“What can I do for you, _panie_?” lisped the little Pole.
“Well, look here, _panie_, I won’t keep you long. There’s money for you,”
he pulled out his notes. “Would you like three thousand? Take it and go
your way.”
The Pole gazed open‐eyed at Mitya, with a searching look.
“Three thousand, _panie_?” He exchanged glances with Vrublevsky.
“Three, _panovie_, three! Listen, _panie_, I see you’re a sensible man.
Take three thousand and go to the devil, and Vrublevsky with you—d’you
hear? But, at once, this very minute, and for ever. You understand that,
_panie_, for ever. Here’s the door, you go out of it. What have you got
there, a great‐coat, a fur coat? I’ll bring it out to you. They’ll get the
horses out directly, and then—good‐by, _panie_!”
Mitya awaited an answer with assurance. He had no doubts. An expression of
extraordinary resolution passed over the Pole’s face.
“And the money, _panie_?”
“The money, _panie_? Five hundred roubles I’ll give you this moment for
the journey, and as a first installment, and two thousand five hundred to‐
morrow, in the town—I swear on my honor, I’ll get it, I’ll get it at any
cost!” cried Mitya.
The Poles exchanged glances again. The short man’s face looked more
forbidding.
“Seven hundred, seven hundred, not five hundred, at once, this minute,
cash down!” Mitya added, feeling something wrong. “What’s the matter,
_panie_? Don’t you trust me? I can’t give you the whole three thousand
straight off. If I give it, you may come back to her to‐morrow....
Besides, I haven’t the three thousand with me. I’ve got it at home in the
town,” faltered Mitya, his spirit sinking at every word he uttered. “Upon
my word, the money’s there, hidden.”
In an instant an extraordinary sense of personal dignity showed itself in
the little man’s face.
“What next?” he asked ironically. “For shame!” and he spat on the floor.
Pan Vrublevsky spat too.
“You do that, _panie_,” said Mitya, recognizing with despair that all was
over, “because you hope to make more out of Grushenka? You’re a couple of
capons, that’s what you are!”
“This is a mortal insult!” The little Pole turned as red as a crab, and he
went out of the room, briskly, as though unwilling to hear another word.
Vrublevsky swung out after him, and Mitya followed, confused and
crestfallen. He was afraid of Grushenka, afraid that the _pan_ would at
once raise an outcry. And so indeed he did. The Pole walked into the room
and threw himself in a theatrical attitude before Grushenka.
“_Pani_ Agrippina, I have received a mortal insult!” he exclaimed. But
Grushenka suddenly lost all patience, as though they had wounded her in
the tenderest spot.
“Speak Russian! Speak Russian!” she cried, “not another word of Polish!
You used to talk Russian. You can’t have forgotten it in five years.”
She was red with passion.
“_Pani_ Agrippina—”
“My name’s Agrafena, Grushenka, speak Russian or I won’t listen!”
The Pole gasped with offended dignity, and quickly and pompously delivered
himself in broken Russian:
“_Pani_ Agrafena, I came here to forget the past and forgive it, to forget
all that has happened till to‐day—”
“Forgive? Came here to forgive me?” Grushenka cut him short, jumping up
from her seat.
“Just so, _pani_, I’m not pusillanimous, I’m magnanimous. But I was
astounded when I saw your lovers. Pan Mitya offered me three thousand, in
the other room to depart. I spat in the _pan’s_ face.”
“What? He offered you money for me?” cried Grushenka, hysterically. “Is it
true, Mitya? How dare you? Am I for sale?”
“_Panie, panie!_” yelled Mitya, “she’s pure and shining, and I have never
been her lover! That’s a lie....”
“How dare you defend me to him?” shrieked Grushenka. “It wasn’t virtue
kept me pure, and it wasn’t that I was afraid of Kuzma, but that I might
hold up my head when I met him, and tell him he’s a scoundrel. And he did
actually refuse the money?”
“He took it! He took it!” cried Mitya; “only he wanted to get the whole
three thousand at once, and I could only give him seven hundred straight
off.”
“I see: he heard I had money, and came here to marry me!”
“_Pani_ Agrippina!” cried the little Pole. “I’m—a knight, I’m—a nobleman,
and not a _lajdak_. I came here to make you my wife and I find you a
different woman, perverse and shameless.”
“Oh, go back where you came from! I’ll tell them to turn you out and
you’ll be turned out,” cried Grushenka, furious. “I’ve been a fool, a
fool, to have been miserable these five years! And it wasn’t for his sake,
it was my anger made me miserable. And this isn’t he at all! Was he like
this? It might be his father! Where did you get your wig from? He was a
falcon, but this is a gander. He used to laugh and sing to me.... And I’ve
been crying for five years, damned fool, abject, shameless I was!”
She sank back in her low chair and hid her face in her hands. At that
instant the chorus of Mokroe began singing in the room on the left—a
rollicking dance song.
“A regular Sodom!” Vrublevsky roared suddenly. “Landlord, send the
shameless hussies away!”
The landlord, who had been for some time past inquisitively peeping in at
the door, hearing shouts and guessing that his guests were quarreling, at
once entered the room.
“What are you shouting for? D’you want to split your throat?” he said,
addressing Vrublevsky, with surprising rudeness.
“Animal!” bellowed Pan Vrublevsky.
“Animal? And what sort of cards were you playing with just now? I gave you
a pack and you hid it. You played with marked cards! I could send you to
Siberia for playing with false cards, d’you know that, for it’s just the
same as false banknotes....”
And going up to the sofa he thrust his fingers between the sofa back and
the cushion, and pulled out an unopened pack of cards.
“Here’s my pack unopened!”
He held it up and showed it to all in the room. “From where I stood I saw
him slip my pack away, and put his in place of it—you’re a cheat and not a
gentleman!”
“And I twice saw the _pan_ change a card!” cried Kalganov.
“How shameful! How shameful!” exclaimed Grushenka, clasping her hands, and
blushing for genuine shame. “Good Lord, he’s come to that!”
“I thought so, too!” said Mitya. But before he had uttered the words,
Vrublevsky, with a confused and infuriated face, shook his fist at
Grushenka, shouting:
“You low harlot!”
Mitya flew at him at once, clutched him in both hands, lifted him in the
air, and in one instant had carried him into the room on the right, from
which they had just come.
“I’ve laid him on the floor, there,” he announced, returning at once,
gasping with excitement. “He’s struggling, the scoundrel! But he won’t
come back, no fear of that!...”
He closed one half of the folding doors, and holding the other ajar called
out to the little Pole:
“Most illustrious, will you be pleased to retire as well?”
“My dear Dmitri Fyodorovitch,” said Trifon Borissovitch, “make them give
you back the money you lost. It’s as good as stolen from you.”
“I don’t want my fifty roubles back,” Kalganov declared suddenly.
“I don’t want my two hundred, either,” cried Mitya, “I wouldn’t take it
for anything! Let him keep it as a consolation.”
“Bravo, Mitya! You’re a trump, Mitya!” cried Grushenka, and there was a
note of fierce anger in the exclamation.
The little _pan_, crimson with fury but still mindful of his dignity, was
making for the door, but he stopped short and said suddenly, addressing
Grushenka:
“_Pani_, if you want to come with me, come. If not, good‐by.”
And swelling with indignation and importance he went to the door. This was
a man of character: he had so good an opinion of himself that after all
that had passed, he still expected that she would marry him. Mitya slammed
the door after him.
“Lock it,” said Kalganov. But the key clicked on the other side, they had
locked it from within.
“That’s capital!” exclaimed Grushenka relentlessly. “Serve them right!”
Chapter VIII. Delirium
What followed was almost an orgy, a feast to which all were welcome.
Grushenka was the first to call for wine.
“I want to drink. I want to be quite drunk, as we were before. Do you
remember, Mitya, do you remember how we made friends here last time!”
Mitya himself was almost delirious, feeling that his happiness was at
hand. But Grushenka was continually sending him away from her.
“Go and enjoy yourself. Tell them to dance, to make merry, ‘let the stove
and cottage dance’; as we had it last time,” she kept exclaiming. She was
tremendously excited. And Mitya hastened to obey her. The chorus were in
the next room. The room in which they had been sitting till that moment
was too small, and was divided in two by cotton curtains, behind which was
a huge bed with a puffy feather mattress and a pyramid of cotton pillows.
In the four rooms for visitors there were beds. Grushenka settled herself
just at the door. Mitya set an easy chair for her. She had sat in the same
place to watch the dancing and singing “the time before,” when they had
made merry there. All the girls who had come had been there then; the
Jewish band with fiddles and zithers had come, too, and at last the long
expected cart had arrived with the wines and provisions.
Mitya bustled about. All sorts of people began coming into the room to
look on, peasants and their women, who had been roused from sleep and
attracted by the hopes of another marvelous entertainment such as they had
enjoyed a month before. Mitya remembered their faces, greeting and
embracing every one he knew. He uncorked bottles and poured out wine for
every one who presented himself. Only the girls were very eager for the
champagne. The men preferred rum, brandy, and, above all, hot punch. Mitya
had chocolate made for all the girls, and ordered that three samovars
should be kept boiling all night to provide tea and punch for everyone to
help himself.
An absurd chaotic confusion followed, but Mitya was in his natural
element, and the more foolish it became, the more his spirits rose. If the
peasants had asked him for money at that moment, he would have pulled out
his notes and given them away right and left. This was probably why the
landlord, Trifon Borissovitch, kept hovering about Mitya to protect him.
He seemed to have given up all idea of going to bed that night; but he
drank little, only one glass of punch, and kept a sharp look‐out on
Mitya’s interests after his own fashion. He intervened in the nick of
time, civilly and obsequiously persuading Mitya not to give away “cigars
and Rhine wine,” and, above all, money to the peasants as he had done
before. He was very indignant, too, at the peasant girls drinking liqueur,
and eating sweets.
“They’re a lousy lot, Dmitri Fyodorovitch,” he said. “I’d give them a
kick, every one of them, and they’d take it as an honor—that’s all they’re
worth!”
Mitya remembered Andrey again, and ordered punch to be sent out to him. “I
was rude to him just now,” he repeated with a sinking, softened voice.
Kalganov did not want to drink, and at first did not care for the girls’
singing; but after he had drunk a couple of glasses of champagne he became
extraordinarily lively, strolling about the room, laughing and praising
the music and the songs, admiring every one and everything. Maximov,
blissfully drunk, never left his side. Grushenka, too, was beginning to
get drunk. Pointing to Kalganov, she said to Mitya:
“What a dear, charming boy he is!”
And Mitya, delighted, ran to kiss Kalganov and Maximov. Oh, great were his
hopes! She had said nothing yet, and seemed, indeed, purposely to refrain
from speaking. But she looked at him from time to time with caressing and
passionate eyes. At last she suddenly gripped his hand and drew him
vigorously to her. She was sitting at the moment in the low chair by the
door.
“How was it you came just now, eh? Have you walked in!... I was
frightened. So you wanted to give me up to him, did you? Did you really
want to?”
“I didn’t want to spoil your happiness!” Mitya faltered blissfully. But
she did not need his answer.
“Well, go and enjoy yourself ...” she sent him away once more. “Don’t cry,
I’ll call you back again.”
He would run away, and she listened to the singing and looked at the
dancing, though her eyes followed him wherever he went. But in another
quarter of an hour she would call him once more and again he would run
back to her.
“Come, sit beside me, tell me, how did you hear about me, and my coming
here yesterday? From whom did you first hear it?”
And Mitya began telling her all about it, disconnectedly, incoherently,
feverishly. He spoke strangely, often frowning, and stopping abruptly.
“What are you frowning at?” she asked.
“Nothing.... I left a man ill there. I’d give ten years of my life for him
to get well, to know he was all right!”
“Well, never mind him, if he’s ill. So you meant to shoot yourself to‐
morrow! What a silly boy! What for? I like such reckless fellows as you,”
she lisped, with a rather halting tongue. “So you would go any length for
me, eh? Did you really mean to shoot yourself to‐morrow, you stupid? No,
wait a little. To‐morrow I may have something to say to you.... I won’t
say it to‐day, but to‐morrow. You’d like it to be to‐day? No, I don’t want
to to‐day. Come, go along now, go and amuse yourself.”
Once, however, she called him, as it were, puzzled and uneasy.
“Why are you sad? I see you’re sad.... Yes, I see it,” she added, looking
intently into his eyes. “Though you keep kissing the peasants and
shouting, I see something. No, be merry. I’m merry; you be merry, too....
I love somebody here. Guess who it is. Ah, look, my boy has fallen asleep,
poor dear, he’s drunk.”
She meant Kalganov. He was, in fact, drunk, and had dropped asleep for a
moment, sitting on the sofa. But he was not merely drowsy from drink; he
felt suddenly dejected, or, as he said, “bored.” He was intensely
depressed by the girls’ songs, which, as the drinking went on, gradually
became coarse and more reckless. And the dances were as bad. Two girls
dressed up as bears, and a lively girl, called Stepanida, with a stick in
her hand, acted the part of keeper, and began to “show them.”
“Look alive, Marya, or you’ll get the stick!”
The bears rolled on the ground at last in the most unseemly fashion, amid
roars of laughter from the closely‐packed crowd of men and women.
“Well, let them! Let them!” said Grushenka sententiously, with an ecstatic
expression on her face. “When they do get a day to enjoy themselves, why
shouldn’t folks be happy?”
Kalganov looked as though he had been besmirched with dirt.
“It’s swinish, all this peasant foolery,” he murmured, moving away; “it’s
the game they play when it’s light all night in summer.”
He particularly disliked one “new” song to a jaunty dance‐tune. It
described how a gentleman came and tried his luck with the girls, to see
whether they would love him:
The master came to try the girls:
Would they love him, would they not?
But the girls could not love the master:
He would beat me cruelly
And such love won’t do for me.
Then a gypsy comes along and he, too, tries:
The gypsy came to try the girls:
Would they love him, would they not?
But they couldn’t love the gypsy either:
He would be a thief, I fear,
And would cause me many a tear.
And many more men come to try their luck, among them a soldier:
The soldier came to try the girls:
Would they love him, would they not?
But the soldier is rejected with contempt, in two indecent lines, sung
with absolute frankness and producing a furore in the audience. The song
ends with a merchant:
The merchant came to try the girls:
Would they love him, would they not?
And it appears that he wins their love because:
The merchant will make gold for me
And his queen I’ll gladly be.
Kalvanov was positively indignant.
“That’s just a song of yesterday,” he said aloud. “Who writes such things
for them? They might just as well have had a railwayman or a Jew come to
try his luck with the girls; they’d have carried all before them.”
And, almost as though it were a personal affront, he declared, on the
spot, that he was bored, sat down on the sofa and immediately fell asleep.
His pretty little face looked rather pale, as it fell back on the sofa
cushion.
“Look how pretty he is,” said Grushenka, taking Mitya up to him. “I was
combing his hair just now; his hair’s like flax, and so thick....”
And, bending over him tenderly, she kissed his forehead. Kalganov
instantly opened his eyes, looked at her, stood up, and with the most
anxious air inquired where was Maximov?
“So that’s who it is you want.” Grushenka laughed. “Stay with me a minute.
Mitya, run and find his Maximov.”
Maximov, it appeared, could not tear himself away from the girls, only
running away from time to time to pour himself out a glass of liqueur. He
had drunk two cups of chocolate. His face was red, and his nose was
crimson; his eyes were moist and mawkishly sweet. He ran up and announced
that he was going to dance the “sabotière.”
“They taught me all those well‐bred, aristocratic dances when I was
little....”
“Go, go with him, Mitya, and I’ll watch from here how he dances,” said
Grushenka.
“No, no, I’m coming to look on, too,” exclaimed Kalganov, brushing aside
in the most naïve way Grushenka’s offer to sit with him. They all went to
look on. Maximov danced his dance. But it roused no great admiration in
any one but Mitya. It consisted of nothing but skipping and hopping,
kicking up the feet, and at every skip Maximov slapped the upturned sole
of his foot. Kalganov did not like it at all, but Mitya kissed the dancer.
“Thanks. You’re tired perhaps? What are you looking for here? Would you
like some sweets? A cigar, perhaps?”
“A cigarette.”
“Don’t you want a drink?”
“I’ll just have a liqueur.... Have you any chocolates?”
“Yes, there’s a heap of them on the table there. Choose one, my dear
soul!”
“I like one with vanilla ... for old people. He he!”
“No, brother, we’ve none of that special sort.”
“I say,” the old man bent down to whisper in Mitya’s ear. “That girl
there, little Marya, he he! How would it be if you were to help me make
friends with her?”
“So that’s what you’re after! No, brother, that won’t do!”
“I’d do no harm to any one,” Maximov muttered disconsolately.
“Oh, all right, all right. They only come here to dance and sing, you
know, brother. But damn it all, wait a bit!... Eat and drink and be merry,
meanwhile. Don’t you want money?”
“Later on, perhaps,” smiled Maximov.
“All right, all right....”
Mitya’s head was burning. He went outside to the wooden balcony which ran
round the whole building on the inner side, overlooking the courtyard. The
fresh air revived him. He stood alone in a dark corner, and suddenly
clutched his head in both hands. His scattered thoughts came together; his
sensations blended into a whole and threw a sudden light into his mind. A
fearful and terrible light! “If I’m to shoot myself, why not now?” passed
through his mind. “Why not go for the pistols, bring them here, and here,
in this dark dirty corner, make an end?” Almost a minute he stood,
undecided. A few hours earlier, when he had been dashing here, he was
pursued by disgrace, by the theft he had committed, and that blood, that
blood!... But yet it was easier for him then. Then everything was over: he
had lost her, given her up. She was gone, for him—oh, then his death
sentence had been easier for him; at least it had seemed necessary,
inevitable, for what had he to stay on earth for?
But now? Was it the same as then? Now one phantom, one terror at least was
at an end: that first, rightful lover, that fateful figure had vanished,
leaving no trace. The terrible phantom had turned into something so small,
so comic; it had been carried into the bedroom and locked in. It would
never return. She was ashamed, and from her eyes he could see now whom she
loved. Now he had everything to make life happy ... but he could not go on
living, he could not; oh, damnation! “O God! restore to life the man I
knocked down at the fence! Let this fearful cup pass from me! Lord, thou
hast wrought miracles for such sinners as me! But what, what if the old
man’s alive? Oh, then the shame of the other disgrace I would wipe away. I
would restore the stolen money. I’d give it back; I’d get it somehow....
No trace of that shame will remain except in my heart for ever! But no,
no; oh, impossible cowardly dreams! Oh, damnation!”
Yet there was a ray of light and hope in his darkness. He jumped up and
ran back to the room—to her, to her, his queen for ever! Was not one
moment of her love worth all the rest of life, even in the agonies of
disgrace? This wild question clutched at his heart. “To her, to her alone,
to see her, to hear her, to think of nothing, to forget everything, if
only for that night, for an hour, for a moment!” Just as he turned from
the balcony into the passage, he came upon the landlord, Trifon
Borissovitch. He thought he looked gloomy and worried, and fancied he had
come to find him.
“What is it, Trifon Borissovitch? are you looking for me?”
“No, sir.” The landlord seemed disconcerted. “Why should I be looking for
you? Where have you been?”
“Why do you look so glum? You’re not angry, are you? Wait a bit, you shall
soon get to bed.... What’s the time?”
“It’ll be three o’clock. Past three, it must be.”
“We’ll leave off soon. We’ll leave off.”
“Don’t mention it; it doesn’t matter. Keep it up as long as you like....”
“What’s the matter with him?” Mitya wondered for an instant, and he ran
back to the room where the girls were dancing. But she was not there. She
was not in the blue room either; there was no one but Kalganov asleep on
the sofa. Mitya peeped behind the curtain—she was there. She was sitting
in the corner, on a trunk. Bent forward, with her head and arms on the bed
close by, she was crying bitterly, doing her utmost to stifle her sobs
that she might not be heard. Seeing Mitya, she beckoned him to her, and
when he ran to her, she grasped his hand tightly.
“Mitya, Mitya, I loved him, you know. How I have loved him these five
years, all that time! Did I love him or only my own anger? No, him, him!
It’s a lie that it was my anger I loved and not him. Mitya, I was only
seventeen then; he was so kind to me, so merry; he used to sing to me....
Or so it seemed to a silly girl like me.... And now, O Lord, it’s not the
same man. Even his face is not the same; he’s different altogether. I
shouldn’t have known him. I drove here with Timofey, and all the way I was
thinking how I should meet him, what I should say to him, how we should
look at one another. My soul was faint, and all of a sudden it was just as
though he had emptied a pail of dirty water over me. He talked to me like
a schoolmaster, all so grave and learned; he met me so solemnly that I was
struck dumb. I couldn’t get a word in. At first I thought he was ashamed
to talk before his great big Pole. I sat staring at him and wondering why
I couldn’t say a word to him now. It must have been his wife that ruined
him; you know he threw me up to get married. She must have changed him
like that. Mitya, how shameful it is! Oh, Mitya, I’m ashamed, I’m ashamed
for all my life. Curse it, curse it, curse those five years!”
And again she burst into tears, but clung tight to Mitya’s hand and did
not let it go.
“Mitya, darling, stay, don’t go away. I want to say one word to you,” she
whispered, and suddenly raised her face to him. “Listen, tell me who it is
I love? I love one man here. Who is that man? That’s what you must tell
me.”
A smile lighted up her face that was swollen with weeping, and her eyes
shone in the half darkness.
“A falcon flew in, and my heart sank. ‘Fool! that’s the man you love!’
That was what my heart whispered to me at once. You came in and all grew
bright. What’s he afraid of? I wondered. For you were frightened; you
couldn’t speak. It’s not them he’s afraid of—could you be frightened of
any one? It’s me he’s afraid of, I thought, only me. So Fenya told you,
you little stupid, how I called to Alyosha out of the window that I’d
loved Mityenka for one hour, and that I was going now to love ... another.
Mitya, Mitya, how could I be such a fool as to think I could love any one
after you? Do you forgive me, Mitya? Do you forgive me or not? Do you love
me? Do you love me?” She jumped up and held him with both hands on his
shoulders. Mitya, dumb with rapture, gazed into her eyes, at her face, at
her smile, and suddenly clasped her tightly in his arms and kissed her
passionately.
“You will forgive me for having tormented you? It was through spite I
tormented you all. It was for spite I drove the old man out of his
mind.... Do you remember how you drank at my house one day and broke the
wine‐glass? I remembered that and I broke a glass to‐day and drank ‘to my
vile heart.’ Mitya, my falcon, why don’t you kiss me? He kissed me once,
and now he draws back and looks and listens. Why listen to me? Kiss me,
kiss me hard, that’s right. If you love, well, then, love! I’ll be your
slave now, your slave for the rest of my life. It’s sweet to be a slave.
Kiss me! Beat me, ill‐treat me, do what you will with me.... And I do
deserve to suffer. Stay, wait, afterwards, I won’t have that....” she
suddenly thrust him away. “Go along, Mitya, I’ll come and have some wine,
I want to be drunk, I’m going to get drunk and dance; I must, I must!” She
tore herself away from him and disappeared behind the curtain. Mitya
followed like a drunken man.
“Yes, come what may—whatever may happen now, for one minute I’d give the
whole world,” he thought. Grushenka did, in fact, toss off a whole glass
of champagne at one gulp, and became at once very tipsy. She sat down in
the same chair as before, with a blissful smile on her face. Her cheeks
were glowing, her lips were burning, her flashing eyes were moist; there
was passionate appeal in her eyes. Even Kalganov felt a stir at the heart
and went up to her.
“Did you feel how I kissed you when you were asleep just now?” she said
thickly. “I’m drunk now, that’s what it is.... And aren’t you drunk? And
why isn’t Mitya drinking? Why don’t you drink, Mitya? I’m drunk, and you
don’t drink....”
“I am drunk! I’m drunk as it is ... drunk with you ... and now I’ll be
drunk with wine, too.”
He drank off another glass, and—he thought it strange himself—that glass
made him completely drunk. He was suddenly drunk, although till that
moment he had been quite sober, he remembered that. From that moment
everything whirled about him, as though he were delirious. He walked,
laughed, talked to everybody, without knowing what he was doing. Only one
persistent burning sensation made itself felt continually, “like a red‐hot
coal in his heart,” he said afterwards. He went up to her, sat beside her,
gazed at her, listened to her.... She became very talkative, kept calling
every one to her, and beckoned to different girls out of the chorus. When
the girl came up, she either kissed her, or made the sign of the cross
over her. In another minute she might have cried. She was greatly amused
by the “little old man,” as she called Maximov. He ran up every minute to
kiss her hands, “each little finger,” and finally he danced another dance
to an old song, which he sang himself. He danced with special vigor to the
refrain:
The little pig says—umph! umph! umph!
The little calf says—moo, moo, moo,
The little duck says—quack, quack, quack,
The little goose says—ga, ga, ga.
The hen goes strutting through the porch;
Troo‐roo‐roo‐roo‐roo, she’ll say,
Troo‐roo‐roo‐roo‐roo, she’ll say!
“Give him something, Mitya,” said Grushenka. “Give him a present, he’s
poor, you know. Ah, the poor, the insulted!... Do you know, Mitya, I shall
go into a nunnery. No, I really shall one day, Alyosha said something to
me to‐day that I shall remember all my life.... Yes.... But to‐day let us
dance. To‐morrow to the nunnery, but to‐day we’ll dance. I want to play
to‐day, good people, and what of it? God will forgive us. If I were God,
I’d forgive every one: ‘My dear sinners, from this day forth I forgive
you.’ I’m going to beg forgiveness: ‘Forgive me, good people, a silly
wench.’ I’m a beast, that’s what I am. But I want to pray. I gave a little
onion. Wicked as I’ve been, I want to pray. Mitya, let them dance, don’t
stop them. Every one in the world is good. Every one—even the worst of
them. The world’s a nice place. Though we’re bad the world’s all right.
We’re good and bad, good and bad.... Come, tell me, I’ve something to ask
you: come here every one, and I’ll ask you: Why am I so good? You know I
am good. I’m very good.... Come, why am I so good?”
So Grushenka babbled on, getting more and more drunk. At last she
announced that she was going to dance, too. She got up from her chair,
staggering. “Mitya, don’t give me any more wine—if I ask you, don’t give
it to me. Wine doesn’t give peace. Everything’s going round, the stove,
and everything. I want to dance. Let every one see how I dance ... let
them see how beautifully I dance....”
She really meant it. She pulled a white cambric handkerchief out of her
pocket, and took it by one corner in her right hand, to wave it in the
dance. Mitya ran to and fro, the girls were quiet, and got ready to break
into a dancing song at the first signal. Maximov, hearing that Grushenka
wanted to dance, squealed with delight, and ran skipping about in front of
her, humming:
With legs so slim and sides so trim
And its little tail curled tight.
But Grushenka waved her handkerchief at him and drove him away.
“Sh‐h! Mitya, why don’t they come? Let every one come ... to look on. Call
them in, too, that were locked in.... Why did you lock them in? Tell them
I’m going to dance. Let them look on, too....”
Mitya walked with a drunken swagger to the locked door, and began knocking
to the Poles with his fist.
“Hi, you ... Podvysotskys! Come, she’s going to dance. She calls you.”
“_Lajdak!_” one of the Poles shouted in reply.
“You’re a _lajdak_ yourself! You’re a little scoundrel, that’s what you
are.”
“Leave off laughing at Poland,” said Kalganov sententiously. He too was
drunk.
“Be quiet, boy! If I call him a scoundrel, it doesn’t mean that I called
all Poland so. One _lajdak_ doesn’t make a Poland. Be quiet, my pretty
boy, eat a sweetmeat.”
“Ach, what fellows! As though they were not men. Why won’t they make
friends?” said Grushenka, and went forward to dance. The chorus broke into
“Ah, my porch, my new porch!” Grushenka flung back her head, half opened
her lips, smiled, waved her handkerchief, and suddenly, with a violent
lurch, stood still in the middle of the room, looking bewildered.
“I’m weak....” she said in an exhausted voice. “Forgive me.... I’m weak, I
can’t.... I’m sorry.”
She bowed to the chorus, and then began bowing in all directions.
“I’m sorry.... Forgive me....”
“The lady’s been drinking. The pretty lady has been drinking,” voices were
heard saying.
“The lady’s drunk too much,” Maximov explained to the girls, giggling.
“Mitya, lead me away ... take me,” said Grushenka helplessly. Mitya
pounced on her, snatched her up in his arms, and carried the precious
burden through the curtains.
“Well, now I’ll go,” thought Kalganov, and walking out of the blue room,
he closed the two halves of the door after him. But the orgy in the larger
room went on and grew louder and louder. Mitya laid Grushenka on the bed
and kissed her on the lips.
“Don’t touch me....” she faltered, in an imploring voice. “Don’t touch me,
till I’m yours.... I’ve told you I’m yours, but don’t touch me ... spare
me.... With them here, with them close, you mustn’t. He’s here. It’s nasty
here....”
“I’ll obey you! I won’t think of it ... I worship you!” muttered Mitya.
“Yes, it’s nasty here, it’s abominable.”
And still holding her in his arms, he sank on his knees by the bedside.
“I know, though you’re a brute, you’re generous,” Grushenka articulated
with difficulty. “It must be honorable ... it shall be honorable for the
future ... and let us be honest, let us be good, not brutes, but good ...
take me away, take me far away, do you hear? I don’t want it to be here,
but far, far away....”
“Oh, yes, yes, it must be!” said Mitya, pressing her in his arms. “I’ll
take you and we’ll fly away.... Oh, I’d give my whole life for one year
only to know about that blood!”
“What blood?” asked Grushenka, bewildered.
“Nothing,” muttered Mitya, through his teeth. “Grusha, you wanted to be
honest, but I’m a thief. But I’ve stolen money from Katya.... Disgrace, a
disgrace!”
“From Katya, from that young lady? No, you didn’t steal it. Give it her
back, take it from me.... Why make a fuss? Now everything of mine is
yours. What does money matter? We shall waste it anyway.... Folks like us
are bound to waste money. But we’d better go and work the land. I want to
dig the earth with my own hands. We must work, do you hear? Alyosha said
so. I won’t be your mistress, I’ll be faithful to you, I’ll be your slave,
I’ll work for you. We’ll go to the young lady and bow down to her
together, so that she may forgive us, and then we’ll go away. And if she
won’t forgive us, we’ll go, anyway. Take her her money and love me....
Don’t love her.... Don’t love her any more. If you love her, I shall
strangle her.... I’ll put out both her eyes with a needle....”
“I love you. I love only you. I’ll love you in Siberia....”
“Why Siberia? Never mind, Siberia, if you like. I don’t care ... we’ll
work ... there’s snow in Siberia.... I love driving in the snow ... and
must have bells.... Do you hear, there’s a bell ringing? Where is that
bell ringing? There are people coming.... Now it’s stopped.”
She closed her eyes, exhausted, and suddenly fell asleep for an instant.
There had certainly been the sound of a bell in the distance, but the
ringing had ceased. Mitya let his head sink on her breast. He did not
notice that the bell had ceased ringing, nor did he notice that the songs
had ceased, and that instead of singing and drunken clamor there was
absolute stillness in the house. Grushenka opened her eyes.
“What’s the matter? Was I asleep? Yes ... a bell ... I’ve been asleep and
dreamt I was driving over the snow with bells, and I dozed. I was with
some one I loved, with you. And far, far away. I was holding you and
kissing you, nestling close to you. I was cold, and the snow glistened....
You know how the snow glistens at night when the moon shines. It was as
though I was not on earth. I woke up, and my dear one is close to me. How
sweet that is!...”
“Close to you,” murmured Mitya, kissing her dress, her bosom, her hands.
And suddenly he had a strange fancy: it seemed to him that she was looking
straight before her, not at him, not into his face, but over his head,
with an intent, almost uncanny fixity. An expression of wonder, almost of
alarm, came suddenly into her face.
“Mitya, who is that looking at us?” she whispered.
Mitya turned, and saw that some one had, in fact, parted the curtains and
seemed to be watching them. And not one person alone, it seemed.
He jumped up and walked quickly to the intruder.
“Here, come to us, come here,” said a voice, speaking not loudly, but
firmly and peremptorily.
Mitya passed to the other side of the curtain and stood stock still. The
room was filled with people, but not those who had been there before. An
instantaneous shiver ran down his back, and he shuddered. He recognized
all those people instantly. That tall, stout old man in the overcoat and
forage‐cap with a cockade—was the police captain, Mihail Makarovitch. And
that “consumptive‐looking” trim dandy, “who always has such polished
boots”—that was the deputy prosecutor. “He has a chronometer worth four
hundred roubles; he showed it to me.” And that small young man in
spectacles.... Mitya forgot his surname though he knew him, had seen him:
he was the “investigating lawyer,” from the “school of jurisprudence,” who
had only lately come to the town. And this man—the inspector of police,
Mavriky Mavrikyevitch, a man he knew well. And those fellows with the
brass plates on, why are they here? And those other two ... peasants....
And there at the door Kalganov with Trifon Borissovitch....
“Gentlemen! What’s this for, gentlemen?” began Mitya, but suddenly, as
though beside himself, not knowing what he was doing, he cried aloud, at
the top of his voice:
“I un—der—stand!”
The young man in spectacles moved forward suddenly, and stepping up to
Mitya, began with dignity, though hurriedly:
“We have to make ... in brief, I beg you to come this way, this way to the
sofa.... It is absolutely imperative that you should give an explanation.”
“The old man!” cried Mitya frantically. “The old man and his blood!... I
understand.”
And he sank, almost fell, on a chair close by, as though he had been mown
down by a scythe.
“You understand? He understands it! Monster and parricide! Your father’s
blood cries out against you!” the old captain of police roared suddenly,
stepping up to Mitya.
He was beside himself, crimson in the face and quivering all over.
“This is impossible!” cried the small young man. “Mihail Makarovitch,
Mihail Makarovitch, this won’t do!... I beg you’ll allow me to speak. I
should never have expected such behavior from you....”
“This is delirium, gentlemen, raving delirium,” cried the captain of
police; “look at him: drunk, at this time of night, in the company of a
disreputable woman, with the blood of his father on his hands.... It’s
delirium!...”
“I beg you most earnestly, dear Mihail Makarovitch, to restrain your
feelings,” the prosecutor said in a rapid whisper to the old police
captain, “or I shall be forced to resort to—”
But the little lawyer did not allow him to finish. He turned to Mitya, and
delivered himself in a loud, firm, dignified voice:
“Ex‐Lieutenant Karamazov, it is my duty to inform you that you are charged
with the murder of your father, Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov, perpetrated
this night....”
He said something more, and the prosecutor, too, put in something, but
though Mitya heard them he did not understand them. He stared at them all
with wild eyes.
Book IX. The Preliminary Investigation
Chapter I. The Beginning Of Perhotin’s Official Career
Pyotr Ilyitch Perhotin, whom we left knocking at the strong locked gates
of the widow Morozov’s house, ended, of course, by making himself heard.
Fenya, who was still excited by the fright she had had two hours before,
and too much “upset” to go to bed, was almost frightened into hysterics on
hearing the furious knocking at the gate. Though she had herself seen him
drive away, she fancied that it must be Dmitri Fyodorovitch knocking
again, no one else could knock so savagely. She ran to the house‐porter,
who had already waked up and gone out to the gate, and began imploring him
not to open it. But having questioned Pyotr Ilyitch, and learned that he
wanted to see Fenya on very “important business,” the man made up his mind
at last to open. Pyotr Ilyitch was admitted into Fenya’s kitchen, but the
girl begged him to allow the house‐porter to be present, “because of her
misgivings.” He began questioning her and at once learnt the most vital
fact, that is, that when Dmitri Fyodorovitch had run out to look for
Grushenka, he had snatched up a pestle from the mortar, and that when he
returned, the pestle was not with him and his hands were smeared with
blood.
“And the blood was simply flowing, dripping from him, dripping!” Fenya
kept exclaiming. This horrible detail was simply the product of her
disordered imagination. But although not “dripping,” Pyotr Ilyitch had
himself seen those hands stained with blood, and had helped to wash them.
Moreover, the question he had to decide was not how soon the blood had
dried, but where Dmitri Fyodorovitch had run with the pestle, or rather,
whether it really was to Fyodor Pavlovitch’s, and how he could
satisfactorily ascertain. Pyotr Ilyitch persisted in returning to this
point, and though he found out nothing conclusive, yet he carried away a
conviction that Dmitri Fyodorovitch could have gone nowhere but to his
father’s house, and that therefore something must have happened there.
“And when he came back,” Fenya added with excitement, “I told him the
whole story, and then I began asking him, ‘Why have you got blood on your
hands, Dmitri Fyodorovitch?’ and he answered that that was human blood,
and that he had just killed some one. He confessed it all to me, and
suddenly ran off like a madman. I sat down and began thinking, where’s he
run off to now like a madman? He’ll go to Mokroe, I thought, and kill my
mistress there. I ran out to beg him not to kill her. I was running to his
lodgings, but I looked at Plotnikov’s shop, and saw him just setting off,
and there was no blood on his hands then.” (Fenya had noticed this and
remembered it.) Fenya’s old grandmother confirmed her evidence as far as
she was capable. After asking some further questions, Pyotr Ilyitch left
the house, even more upset and uneasy than he had been when he entered it.
The most direct and the easiest thing for him to do would have been to go
straight to Fyodor Pavlovitch’s, to find out whether anything had happened
there, and if so, what; and only to go to the police captain, as Pyotr
Ilyitch firmly intended doing, when he had satisfied himself of the fact.
But the night was dark, Fyodor Pavlovitch’s gates were strong, and he
would have to knock again. His acquaintance with Fyodor Pavlovitch was of
the slightest, and what if, after he had been knocking, they opened to
him, and nothing had happened? Then Fyodor Pavlovitch in his jeering way
would go telling the story all over the town, how a stranger, called
Perhotin, had broken in upon him at midnight to ask if any one had killed
him. It would make a scandal. And scandal was what Pyotr Ilyitch dreaded
more than anything in the world.
Yet the feeling that possessed him was so strong, that though he stamped
his foot angrily and swore at himself, he set off again, not to Fyodor
Pavlovitch’s but to Madame Hohlakov’s. He decided that if she denied
having just given Dmitri Fyodorovitch three thousand roubles, he would go
straight to the police captain, but if she admitted having given him the
money, he would go home and let the matter rest till next morning.
It is, of course, perfectly evident that there was even more likelihood of
causing scandal by going at eleven o’clock at night to a fashionable lady,
a complete stranger, and perhaps rousing her from her bed to ask her an
amazing question, than by going to Fyodor Pavlovitch. But that is just how
it is, sometimes, especially in cases like the present one, with the
decisions of the most precise and phlegmatic people. Pyotr Ilyitch was by
no means phlegmatic at that moment. He remembered all his life how a
haunting uneasiness gradually gained possession of him, growing more and
more painful and driving him on, against his will. Yet he kept cursing
himself, of course, all the way for going to this lady, but “I will get to
the bottom of it, I will!” he repeated for the tenth time, grinding his
teeth, and he carried out his intention.
It was exactly eleven o’clock when he entered Madame Hohlakov’s house. He
was admitted into the yard pretty quickly, but, in response to his inquiry
whether the lady was still up, the porter could give no answer, except
that she was usually in bed by that time.
“Ask at the top of the stairs. If the lady wants to receive you, she’ll
receive you. If she won’t, she won’t.”
Pyotr Ilyitch went up, but did not find things so easy here. The footman
was unwilling to take in his name, but finally called a maid. Pyotr
Ilyitch politely but insistently begged her to inform her lady that an
official, living in the town, called Perhotin, had called on particular
business, and that if it were not of the greatest importance he would not
have ventured to come. “Tell her in those words, in those words exactly,”
he asked the girl.
She went away. He remained waiting in the entry. Madame Hohlakov herself
was already in her bedroom, though not yet asleep. She had felt upset ever
since Mitya’s visit, and had a presentiment that she would not get through
the night without the sick headache which always, with her, followed such
excitement. She was surprised on hearing the announcement from the maid.
She irritably declined to see him, however, though the unexpected visit at
such an hour, of an “official living in the town,” who was a total
stranger, roused her feminine curiosity intensely. But this time Pyotr
Ilyitch was as obstinate as a mule. He begged the maid most earnestly to
take another message in these very words:
“That he had come on business of the greatest importance, and that Madame
Hohlakov might have cause to regret it later, if she refused to see him
now.”
“I plunged headlong,” he described it afterwards.
The maid, gazing at him in amazement, went to take his message again.
Madame Hohlakov was impressed. She thought a little, asked what he looked
like, and learned that he was “very well dressed, young and so polite.” We
may note, parenthetically, that Pyotr Ilyitch was a rather good‐looking
young man, and well aware of the fact. Madame Hohlakov made up her mind to
see him. She was in her dressing‐gown and slippers, but she flung a black
shawl over her shoulders. “The official” was asked to walk into the
drawing‐room, the very room in which Mitya had been received shortly
before. The lady came to meet her visitor, with a sternly inquiring
countenance, and, without asking him to sit down, began at once with the
question:
“What do you want?”
“I have ventured to disturb you, madam, on a matter concerning our common
acquaintance, Dmitri Fyodorovitch Karamazov,” Perhotin began.
But he had hardly uttered the name, when the lady’s face showed signs of
acute irritation. She almost shrieked, and interrupted him in a fury:
“How much longer am I to be worried by that awful man?” she cried
hysterically. “How dare you, sir, how could you venture to disturb a lady
who is a stranger to you, in her own house at such an hour!... And to
force yourself upon her to talk of a man who came here, to this very
drawing‐room, only three hours ago, to murder me, and went stamping out of
the room, as no one would go out of a decent house. Let me tell you, sir,
that I shall lodge a complaint against you, that I will not let it pass.
Kindly leave me at once.... I am a mother.... I ... I—”
“Murder! then he tried to murder you, too?”
“Why, has he killed somebody else?” Madame Hohlakov asked impulsively.
“If you would kindly listen, madam, for half a moment, I’ll explain it all
in a couple of words,” answered Perhotin, firmly. “At five o’clock this
afternoon Dmitri Fyodorovitch borrowed ten roubles from me, and I know for
a fact he had no money. Yet at nine o’clock, he came to see me with a
bundle of hundred‐rouble notes in his hand, about two or three thousand
roubles. His hands and face were all covered with blood, and he looked
like a madman. When I asked him where he had got so much money, he
answered that he had just received it from you, that you had given him a
sum of three thousand to go to the gold‐mines....”
Madame Hohlakov’s face assumed an expression of intense and painful
excitement.
“Good God! He must have killed his old father!” she cried, clasping her
hands. “I have never given him money, never! Oh, run, run!... Don’t say
another word! Save the old man ... run to his father ... run!”
“Excuse me, madam, then you did not give him money? You remember for a
fact that you did not give him any money?”
“No, I didn’t, I didn’t! I refused to give it him, for he could not
appreciate it. He ran out in a fury, stamping. He rushed at me, but I
slipped away.... And let me tell you, as I wish to hide nothing from you
now, that he positively spat at me. Can you fancy that! But why are we
standing? Ah, sit down.”
“Excuse me, I....”
“Or better run, run, you must run and save the poor old man from an awful
death!”
“But if he has killed him already?”
“Ah, good heavens, yes! Then what are we to do now? What do you think we
must do now?”
Meantime she had made Pyotr Ilyitch sit down and sat down herself, facing
him. Briefly, but fairly clearly, Pyotr Ilyitch told her the history of
the affair, that part of it at least which he had himself witnessed. He
described, too, his visit to Fenya, and told her about the pestle. All
these details produced an overwhelming effect on the distracted lady, who
kept uttering shrieks, and covering her face with her hands....
“Would you believe it, I foresaw all this! I have that special faculty,
whatever I imagine comes to pass. And how often I’ve looked at that awful
man and always thought, that man will end by murdering me. And now it’s
happened ... that is, if he hasn’t murdered me, but only his own father,
it’s only because the finger of God preserved me, and what’s more, he was
ashamed to murder me because, in this very place, I put the holy ikon from
the relics of the holy martyr, Saint Varvara, on his neck.... And to think
how near I was to death at that minute, I went close up to him and he
stretched out his neck to me!... Do you know, Pyotr Ilyitch (I think you
said your name was Pyotr Ilyitch), I don’t believe in miracles, but that
ikon and this unmistakable miracle with me now—that shakes me, and I’m
ready to believe in anything you like. Have you heard about Father
Zossima?... But I don’t know what I’m saying ... and only fancy, with the
ikon on his neck he spat at me.... He only spat, it’s true, he didn’t
murder me and ... he dashed away! But what shall we do, what must we do
now? What do you think?”
Pyotr Ilyitch got up, and announced that he was going straight to the
police captain, to tell him all about it, and leave him to do what he
thought fit.
“Oh, he’s an excellent man, excellent! Mihail Makarovitch, I know him. Of
course, he’s the person to go to. How practical you are, Pyotr Ilyitch!
How well you’ve thought of everything! I should never have thought of it
in your place!”
“Especially as I know the police captain very well, too,” observed Pyotr
Ilyitch, who still continued to stand, and was obviously anxious to escape
as quickly as possible from the impulsive lady, who would not let him say
good‐by and go away.
“And be sure, be sure,” she prattled on, “to come back and tell me what
you see there, and what you find out ... what comes to light ... how
they’ll try him ... and what he’s condemned to.... Tell me, we have no
capital punishment, have we? But be sure to come, even if it’s at three
o’clock at night, at four, at half‐past four.... Tell them to wake me, to
wake me, to shake me, if I don’t get up.... But, good heavens, I shan’t
sleep! But wait, hadn’t I better come with you?”
“N—no. But if you would write three lines with your own hand, stating that
you did not give Dmitri Fyodorovitch money, it might, perhaps, be of use
... in case it’s needed....”
“To be sure!” Madame Hohlakov skipped, delighted, to her bureau. “And you
know I’m simply struck, amazed at your resourcefulness, your good sense in
such affairs. Are you in the service here? I’m delighted to think that
you’re in the service here!”
And still speaking, she scribbled on half a sheet of notepaper the
following lines:
I’ve never in my life lent to that unhappy man, Dmitri
Fyodorovitch Karamazov (for, in spite of all, he is unhappy),
three thousand roubles to‐day. I’ve never given him money, never:
That I swear by all that’s holy!
K. HOHLAKOV.
“Here’s the note!” she turned quickly to Pyotr Ilyitch. “Go, save him.
It’s a noble deed on your part!”
And she made the sign of the cross three times over him. She ran out to
accompany him to the passage.
“How grateful I am to you! You can’t think how grateful I am to you for
having come to me, first. How is it I haven’t met you before? I shall feel
flattered at seeing you at my house in the future. How delightful it is
that you are living here!... Such precision! Such practical ability!...
They must appreciate you, they must understand you. If there’s anything I
can do, believe me ... oh, I love young people! I’m in love with young
people! The younger generation are the one prop of our suffering country.
Her one hope.... Oh, go, go!...”
But Pyotr Ilyitch had already run away or she would not have let him go so
soon. Yet Madame Hohlakov had made a rather agreeable impression on him,
which had somewhat softened his anxiety at being drawn into such an
unpleasant affair. Tastes differ, as we all know. “She’s by no means so
elderly,” he thought, feeling pleased, “on the contrary I should have
taken her for her daughter.”
As for Madame Hohlakov, she was simply enchanted by the young man. “Such
sense! such exactness! in so young a man! in our day! and all that with
such manners and appearance! People say the young people of to‐day are no
good for anything, but here’s an example!” etc. So she simply forgot this
“dreadful affair,” and it was only as she was getting into bed, that,
suddenly recalling “how near death she had been,” she exclaimed: “Ah, it
is awful, awful!”
But she fell at once into a sound, sweet sleep.
I would not, however, have dwelt on such trivial and irrelevant details,
if this eccentric meeting of the young official with the by no means
elderly widow had not subsequently turned out to be the foundation of the
whole career of that practical and precise young man. His story is
remembered to this day with amazement in our town, and I shall perhaps
have something to say about it, when I have finished my long history of
the Brothers Karamazov.
Chapter II. The Alarm
Our police captain, Mihail Makarovitch Makarov, a retired lieutenant‐
colonel, was a widower and an excellent man. He had only come to us three
years previously, but had won general esteem, chiefly because he “knew how
to keep society together.” He was never without visitors, and could not
have got on without them. Some one or other was always dining with him; he
never sat down to table without guests. He gave regular dinners, too, on
all sorts of occasions, sometimes most surprising ones. Though the fare
was not _recherché_, it was abundant. The fish‐pies were excellent, and
the wine made up in quantity for what it lacked in quality.
The first room his guests entered was a well‐fitted billiard‐room, with
pictures of English race‐horses, in black frames on the walls, an
essential decoration, as we all know, for a bachelor’s billiard‐room.
There was card‐playing every evening at his house, if only at one table.
But at frequent intervals, all the society of our town, with the mammas
and young ladies, assembled at his house to dance. Though Mihail
Makarovitch was a widower, he did not live alone. His widowed daughter
lived with him, with her two unmarried daughters, grown‐up girls, who had
finished their education. They were of agreeable appearance and lively
character, and though every one knew they would have no dowry, they
attracted all the young men of fashion to their grandfather’s house.
Mihail Makarovitch was by no means very efficient in his work, though he
performed his duties no worse than many others. To speak plainly, he was a
man of rather narrow education. His understanding of the limits of his
administrative power could not always be relied upon. It was not so much
that he failed to grasp certain reforms enacted during the present reign,
as that he made conspicuous blunders in his interpretation of them. This
was not from any special lack of intelligence, but from carelessness, for
he was always in too great a hurry to go into the subject.
“I have the heart of a soldier rather than of a civilian,” he used to say
of himself. He had not even formed a definite idea of the fundamental
principles of the reforms connected with the emancipation of the serfs,
and only picked it up, so to speak, from year to year, involuntarily
increasing his knowledge by practice. And yet he was himself a landowner.
Pyotr Ilyitch knew for certain that he would meet some of Mihail
Makarovitch’s visitors there that evening, but he didn’t know which. As it
happened, at that moment the prosecutor, and Varvinsky, our district
doctor, a young man, who had only just come to us from Petersburg after
taking a brilliant degree at the Academy of Medicine, were playing whist
at the police captain’s. Ippolit Kirillovitch, the prosecutor (he was
really the deputy prosecutor, but we always called him the prosecutor),
was rather a peculiar man, of about five and thirty, inclined to be
consumptive, and married to a fat and childless woman. He was vain and
irritable, though he had a good intellect, and even a kind heart. It
seemed that all that was wrong with him was that he had a better opinion
of himself than his ability warranted. And that made him seem constantly
uneasy. He had, moreover, certain higher, even artistic, leanings, towards
psychology, for instance, a special study of the human heart, a special
knowledge of the criminal and his crime. He cherished a grievance on this
ground, considering that he had been passed over in the service, and being
firmly persuaded that in higher spheres he had not been properly
appreciated, and had enemies. In gloomy moments he even threatened to give
up his post, and practice as a barrister in criminal cases. The unexpected
Karamazov case agitated him profoundly: “It was a case that might well be
talked about all over Russia.” But I am anticipating.
Nikolay Parfenovitch Nelyudov, the young investigating lawyer, who had
only come from Petersburg two months before, was sitting in the next room
with the young ladies. People talked about it afterwards and wondered that
all the gentlemen should, as though intentionally, on the evening of “the
crime” have been gathered together at the house of the executive
authority. Yet it was perfectly simple and happened quite naturally.
Ippolit Kirillovitch’s wife had had toothache for the last two days, and
he was obliged to go out to escape from her groans. The doctor, from the
very nature of his being, could not spend an evening except at cards.
Nikolay Parfenovitch Nelyudov had been intending for three days past to
drop in that evening at Mihail Makarovitch’s, so to speak casually, so as
slyly to startle the eldest granddaughter, Olga Mihailovna, by showing
that he knew her secret, that he knew it was her birthday, and that she
was trying to conceal it on purpose, so as not to be obliged to give a
dance. He anticipated a great deal of merriment, many playful jests about
her age, and her being afraid to reveal it, about his knowing her secret
and telling everybody, and so on. The charming young man was a great adept
at such teasing; the ladies had christened him “the naughty man,” and he
seemed to be delighted at the name. He was extremely well‐bred, however,
of good family, education and feelings, and, though leading a life of
pleasure, his sallies were always innocent and in good taste. He was
short, and delicate‐looking. On his white, slender, little fingers he
always wore a number of big, glittering rings. When he was engaged in his
official duties, he always became extraordinarily grave, as though
realizing his position and the sanctity of the obligations laid upon him.
He had a special gift for mystifying murderers and other criminals of the
peasant class during interrogation, and if he did not win their respect,
he certainly succeeded in arousing their wonder.
Pyotr Ilyitch was simply dumbfounded when he went into the police
captain’s. He saw instantly that every one knew. They had positively
thrown down their cards, all were standing up and talking. Even Nikolay
Parfenovitch had left the young ladies and run in, looking strenuous and
ready for action. Pyotr Ilyitch was met with the astounding news that old
Fyodor Pavlovitch really had been murdered that evening in his own house,
murdered and robbed. The news had only just reached them in the following
manner.
Marfa Ignatyevna, the wife of old Grigory, who had been knocked senseless
near the fence, was sleeping soundly in her bed and might well have slept
till morning after the draught she had taken. But, all of a sudden she
waked up, no doubt roused by a fearful epileptic scream from Smerdyakov,
who was lying in the next room unconscious. That scream always preceded
his fits, and always terrified and upset Marfa Ignatyevna. She could never
get accustomed to it. She jumped up and ran half‐awake to Smerdyakov’s
room. But it was dark there, and she could only hear the invalid beginning
to gasp and struggle. Then Marfa Ignatyevna herself screamed out and was
going to call her husband, but suddenly realized that when she had got up,
he was not beside her in bed. She ran back to the bedstead and began
groping with her hands, but the bed was really empty. Then he must have
gone out—where? She ran to the steps and timidly called him. She got no
answer, of course, but she caught the sound of groans far away in the
garden in the darkness. She listened. The groans were repeated, and it was
evident they came from the garden.
“Good Lord! Just as it was with Lizaveta Smerdyastchaya!” she thought
distractedly. She went timidly down the steps and saw that the gate into
the garden was open.
“He must be out there, poor dear,” she thought. She went up to the gate
and all at once she distinctly heard Grigory calling her by name, “Marfa!
Marfa!” in a weak, moaning, dreadful voice.
“Lord, preserve us from harm!” Marfa Ignatyevna murmured, and ran towards
the voice, and that was how she found Grigory. But she found him not by
the fence where he had been knocked down, but about twenty paces off. It
appeared later, that he had crawled away on coming to himself, and
probably had been a long time getting so far, losing consciousness several
times. She noticed at once that he was covered with blood, and screamed at
the top of her voice. Grigory was muttering incoherently:
“He has murdered ... his father murdered.... Why scream, silly ... run ...
fetch some one....”
But Marfa continued screaming, and seeing that her master’s window was
open and that there was a candle alight in the window, she ran there and
began calling Fyodor Pavlovitch. But peeping in at the window, she saw a
fearful sight. Her master was lying on his back, motionless, on the floor.
His light‐colored dressing‐gown and white shirt were soaked with blood.
The candle on the table brightly lighted up the blood and the motionless
dead face of Fyodor Pavlovitch. Terror‐stricken, Marfa rushed away from
the window, ran out of the garden, drew the bolt of the big gate and ran
headlong by the back way to the neighbor, Marya Kondratyevna. Both mother
and daughter were asleep, but they waked up at Marfa’s desperate and
persistent screaming and knocking at the shutter. Marfa, shrieking and
screaming incoherently, managed to tell them the main fact, and to beg for
assistance. It happened that Foma had come back from his wanderings and
was staying the night with them. They got him up immediately and all three
ran to the scene of the crime. On the way, Marya Kondratyevna remembered
that at about eight o’clock she heard a dreadful scream from their garden,
and this was no doubt Grigory’s scream, “Parricide!” uttered when he
caught hold of Mitya’s leg.
“Some one person screamed out and then was silent,” Marya Kondratyevna
explained as she ran. Running to the place where Grigory lay, the two
women with the help of Foma carried him to the lodge. They lighted a
candle and saw that Smerdyakov was no better, that he was writhing in
convulsions, his eyes fixed in a squint, and that foam was flowing from
his lips. They moistened Grigory’s forehead with water mixed with vinegar,
and the water revived him at once. He asked immediately:
“Is the master murdered?”
Then Foma and both the women ran to the house and saw this time that not
only the window, but also the door into the garden was wide open, though
Fyodor Pavlovitch had for the last week locked himself in every night and
did not allow even Grigory to come in on any pretext. Seeing that door
open, they were afraid to go in to Fyodor Pavlovitch “for fear anything
should happen afterwards.” And when they returned to Grigory, the old man
told them to go straight to the police captain. Marya Kondratyevna ran
there and gave the alarm to the whole party at the police captain’s. She
arrived only five minutes before Pyotr Ilyitch, so that his story came,
not as his own surmise and theory, but as the direct confirmation, by a
witness, of the theory held by all, as to the identity of the criminal (a
theory he had in the bottom of his heart refused to believe till that
moment).
It was resolved to act with energy. The deputy police inspector of the
town was commissioned to take four witnesses, to enter Fyodor Pavlovitch’s
house and there to open an inquiry on the spot, according to the regular
forms, which I will not go into here. The district doctor, a zealous man,
new to his work, almost insisted on accompanying the police captain, the
prosecutor, and the investigating lawyer.
I will note briefly that Fyodor Pavlovitch was found to be quite dead,
with his skull battered in. But with what? Most likely with the same
weapon with which Grigory had been attacked. And immediately that weapon
was found, Grigory, to whom all possible medical assistance was at once
given, described in a weak and breaking voice how he had been knocked
down. They began looking with a lantern by the fence and found the brass
pestle dropped in a most conspicuous place on the garden path. There were
no signs of disturbance in the room where Fyodor Pavlovitch was lying. But
by the bed, behind the screen, they picked up from the floor a big and
thick envelope with the inscription: “A present of three thousand roubles
for my angel Grushenka, if she is willing to come.” And below had been
added by Fyodor Pavlovitch, “For my little chicken.” There were three
seals of red sealing‐wax on the envelope, but it had been torn open and
was empty: the money had been removed. They found also on the floor a
piece of narrow pink ribbon, with which the envelope had been tied up.
One piece of Pyotr Ilyitch’s evidence made a great impression on the
prosecutor and the investigating magistrate, namely, his idea that Dmitri
Fyodorovitch would shoot himself before daybreak, that he had resolved to
do so, had spoken of it to Ilyitch, had taken the pistols, loaded them
before him, written a letter, put it in his pocket, etc. When Pyotr
Ilyitch, though still unwilling to believe in it, threatened to tell some
one so as to prevent the suicide, Mitya had answered grinning: “You’ll be
too late.” So they must make haste to Mokroe to find the criminal, before
he really did shoot himself.
“That’s clear, that’s clear!” repeated the prosecutor in great excitement.
“That’s just the way with mad fellows like that: ‘I shall kill myself to‐
morrow, so I’ll make merry till I die!’ ”
The story of how he had bought the wine and provisions excited the
prosecutor more than ever.
“Do you remember the fellow that murdered a merchant called Olsufyev,
gentlemen? He stole fifteen hundred, went at once to have his hair curled,
and then, without even hiding the money, carrying it almost in his hand in
the same way, he went off to the girls.”
All were delayed, however, by the inquiry, the search, and the
formalities, etc., in the house of Fyodor Pavlovitch. It all took time and
so, two hours before starting, they sent on ahead to Mokroe the officer of
the rural police, Mavriky Mavrikyevitch Schmertsov, who had arrived in the
town the morning before to get his pay. He was instructed to avoid raising
the alarm when he reached Mokroe, but to keep constant watch over the
“criminal” till the arrival of the proper authorities, to procure also
witnesses for the arrest, police constables, and so on. Mavriky
Mavrikyevitch did as he was told, preserving his incognito, and giving no
one but his old acquaintance, Trifon Borissovitch, the slightest hint of
his secret business. He had spoken to him just before Mitya met the
landlord in the balcony, looking for him in the dark, and noticed at once
a change in Trifon Borissovitch’s face and voice. So neither Mitya nor any
one else knew that he was being watched. The box with the pistols had been
carried off by Trifon Borissovitch and put in a suitable place. Only after
four o’clock, almost at sunrise, all the officials, the police captain,
the prosecutor, the investigating lawyer, drove up in two carriages, each
drawn by three horses. The doctor remained at Fyodor Pavlovitch’s to make
a post‐mortem next day on the body. But he was particularly interested in
the condition of the servant, Smerdyakov.
“Such violent and protracted epileptic fits, recurring continually for
twenty‐four hours, are rarely to be met with, and are of interest to
science,” he declared enthusiastically to his companions, and as they left
they laughingly congratulated him on his find. The prosecutor and the
investigating lawyer distinctly remembered the doctor’s saying that
Smerdyakov could not outlive the night.
After these long, but I think necessary explanations, we will return to
that moment of our tale at which we broke off.
Chapter III. The Sufferings Of A Soul, The First Ordeal
And so Mitya sat looking wildly at the people round him, not understanding
what was said to him. Suddenly he got up, flung up his hands, and shouted
aloud:
“I’m not guilty! I’m not guilty of that blood! I’m not guilty of my
father’s blood.... I meant to kill him. But I’m not guilty. Not I.”
But he had hardly said this, before Grushenka rushed from behind the
curtain and flung herself at the police captain’s feet.
“It was my fault! Mine! My wickedness!” she cried, in a heartrending
voice, bathed in tears, stretching out her clasped hands towards them. “He
did it through me. I tortured him and drove him to it. I tortured that
poor old man that’s dead, too, in my wickedness, and brought him to this!
It’s my fault, mine first, mine most, my fault!”
“Yes, it’s your fault! You’re the chief criminal! You fury! You harlot!
You’re the most to blame!” shouted the police captain, threatening her
with his hand. But he was quickly and resolutely suppressed. The
prosecutor positively seized hold of him.
“This is absolutely irregular, Mihail Makarovitch!” he cried. “You are
positively hindering the inquiry.... You’re ruining the case....” he
almost gasped.
“Follow the regular course! Follow the regular course!” cried Nikolay
Parfenovitch, fearfully excited too, “otherwise it’s absolutely
impossible!...”
“Judge us together!” Grushenka cried frantically, still kneeling. “Punish
us together. I will go with him now, if it’s to death!”
“Grusha, my life, my blood, my holy one!” Mitya fell on his knees beside
her and held her tight in his arms. “Don’t believe her,” he cried, “she’s
not guilty of anything, of any blood, of anything!”
He remembered afterwards that he was forcibly dragged away from her by
several men, and that she was led out, and that when he recovered himself
he was sitting at the table. Beside him and behind him stood the men with
metal plates. Facing him on the other side of the table sat Nikolay
Parfenovitch, the investigating lawyer. He kept persuading him to drink a
little water out of a glass that stood on the table.
“That will refresh you, that will calm you. Be calm, don’t be frightened,”
he added, extremely politely. Mitya (he remembered it afterwards) became
suddenly intensely interested in his big rings, one with an amethyst, and
another with a transparent bright yellow stone, of great brilliance. And
long afterwards he remembered with wonder how those rings had riveted his
attention through all those terrible hours of interrogation, so that he
was utterly unable to tear himself away from them and dismiss them, as
things that had nothing to do with his position. On Mitya’s left side, in
the place where Maximov had been sitting at the beginning of the evening,
the prosecutor was now seated, and on Mitya’s right hand, where Grushenka
had been, was a rosy‐cheeked young man in a sort of shabby hunting‐jacket,
with ink and paper before him. This was the secretary of the investigating
lawyer, who had brought him with him. The police captain was now standing
by the window at the other end of the room, beside Kalganov, who was
sitting there.
“Drink some water,” said the investigating lawyer softly, for the tenth
time.
“I have drunk it, gentlemen, I have ... but ... come, gentlemen, crush me,
punish me, decide my fate!” cried Mitya, staring with terribly fixed wide‐
open eyes at the investigating lawyer.
“So you positively declare that you are not guilty of the death of your
father, Fyodor Pavlovitch?” asked the investigating lawyer, softly but
insistently.
“I am not guilty. I am guilty of the blood of another old man but not of
my father’s. And I weep for it! I killed, I killed the old man and knocked
him down.... But it’s hard to have to answer for that murder with another,
a terrible murder of which I am not guilty.... It’s a terrible accusation,
gentlemen, a knock‐down blow. But who has killed my father, who has killed
him? Who can have killed him if I didn’t? It’s marvelous, extraordinary,
impossible.”
“Yes, who can have killed him?” the investigating lawyer was beginning,
but Ippolit Kirillovitch, the prosecutor, glancing at him, addressed
Mitya.
“You need not worry yourself about the old servant, Grigory Vassilyevitch.
He is alive, he has recovered, and in spite of the terrible blows
inflicted, according to his own and your evidence, by you, there seems no
doubt that he will live, so the doctor says, at least.”
“Alive? He’s alive?” cried Mitya, flinging up his hands. His face beamed.
“Lord, I thank Thee for the miracle Thou has wrought for me, a sinner and
evildoer. That’s an answer to my prayer. I’ve been praying all night.” And
he crossed himself three times. He was almost breathless.
“So from this Grigory we have received such important evidence concerning
you, that—” The prosecutor would have continued, but Mitya suddenly jumped
up from his chair.
“One minute, gentlemen, for God’s sake, one minute; I will run to her—”
“Excuse me, at this moment it’s quite impossible,” Nikolay Parfenovitch
almost shrieked. He, too, leapt to his feet. Mitya was seized by the men
with the metal plates, but he sat down of his own accord....
“Gentlemen, what a pity! I wanted to see her for one minute only; I wanted
to tell her that it has been washed away, it has gone, that blood that was
weighing on my heart all night, and that I am not a murderer now!
Gentlemen, she is my betrothed!” he said ecstatically and reverently,
looking round at them all. “Oh, thank you, gentlemen! Oh, in one minute
you have given me new life, new heart!... That old man used to carry me in
his arms, gentlemen. He used to wash me in the tub when I was a baby three
years old, abandoned by every one, he was like a father to me!...”
“And so you—” the investigating lawyer began.
“Allow me, gentlemen, allow me one minute more,” interposed Mitya, putting
his elbows on the table and covering his face with his hands. “Let me have
a moment to think, let me breathe, gentlemen. All this is horribly
upsetting, horribly. A man is not a drum, gentlemen!”
“Drink a little more water,” murmured Nikolay Parfenovitch.
Mitya took his hands from his face and laughed. His eyes were confident.
He seemed completely transformed in a moment. His whole bearing was
changed; he was once more the equal of these men, with all of whom he was
acquainted, as though they had all met the day before, when nothing had
happened, at some social gathering. We may note in passing that, on his
first arrival, Mitya had been made very welcome at the police captain’s,
but later, during the last month especially, Mitya had hardly called at
all, and when the police captain met him, in the street, for instance,
Mitya noticed that he frowned and only bowed out of politeness. His
acquaintance with the prosecutor was less intimate, though he sometimes
paid his wife, a nervous and fanciful lady, visits of politeness, without
quite knowing why, and she always received him graciously and had, for
some reason, taken an interest in him up to the last. He had not had time
to get to know the investigating lawyer, though he had met him and talked
to him twice, each time about the fair sex.
“You’re a most skillful lawyer, I see, Nikolay Parfenovitch,” cried Mitya,
laughing gayly, “but I can help you now. Oh, gentlemen, I feel like a new
man, and don’t be offended at my addressing you so simply and directly.
I’m rather drunk, too, I’ll tell you that frankly. I believe I’ve had the
honor and pleasure of meeting you, Nikolay Parfenovitch, at my kinsman
Miüsov’s. Gentlemen, gentlemen, I don’t pretend to be on equal terms with
you. I understand, of course, in what character I am sitting before you.
Oh, of course, there’s a horrible suspicion ... hanging over me ... if
Grigory has given evidence.... A horrible suspicion! It’s awful, awful, I
understand that! But to business, gentlemen, I am ready, and we will make
an end of it in one moment; for, listen, listen, gentlemen! Since I know
I’m innocent, we can put an end to it in a minute. Can’t we? Can’t we?”
Mitya spoke much and quickly, nervously and effusively, as though he
positively took his listeners to be his best friends.
“So, for the present, we will write that you absolutely deny the charge
brought against you,” said Nikolay Parfenovitch, impressively, and bending
down to the secretary he dictated to him in an undertone what to write.
“Write it down? You want to write that down? Well, write it; I consent, I
give my full consent, gentlemen, only ... do you see?... Stay, stay, write
this. Of disorderly conduct I am guilty, of violence on a poor old man I
am guilty. And there is something else at the bottom of my heart, of which
I am guilty, too—but that you need not write down” (he turned suddenly to
the secretary); “that’s my personal life, gentlemen, that doesn’t concern
you, the bottom of my heart, that’s to say.... But of the murder of my old
father I’m not guilty. That’s a wild idea. It’s quite a wild idea!... I
will prove you that and you’ll be convinced directly.... You will laugh,
gentlemen. You’ll laugh yourselves at your suspicion!...”
“Be calm, Dmitri Fyodorovitch,” said the investigating lawyer evidently
trying to allay Mitya’s excitement by his own composure. “Before we go on
with our inquiry, I should like, if you will consent to answer, to hear
you confirm the statement that you disliked your father, Fyodor
Pavlovitch, that you were involved in continual disputes with him. Here at
least, a quarter of an hour ago, you exclaimed that you wanted to kill
him: ‘I didn’t kill him,’ you said, ‘but I wanted to kill him.’ ”
“Did I exclaim that? Ach, that may be so, gentlemen! Yes, unhappily, I did
want to kill him ... many times I wanted to ... unhappily, unhappily!”
“You wanted to. Would you consent to explain what motives precisely led
you to such a sentiment of hatred for your parent?”
“What is there to explain, gentlemen?” Mitya shrugged his shoulders
sullenly, looking down. “I have never concealed my feelings. All the town
knows about it—every one knows in the tavern. Only lately I declared them
in Father Zossima’s cell.... And the very same day, in the evening I beat
my father. I nearly killed him, and I swore I’d come again and kill him,
before witnesses.... Oh, a thousand witnesses! I’ve been shouting it aloud
for the last month, any one can tell you that!... The fact stares you in
the face, it speaks for itself, it cries aloud, but feelings, gentlemen,
feelings are another matter. You see, gentlemen”—Mitya frowned—“it seems
to me that about feelings you’ve no right to question me. I know that you
are bound by your office, I quite understand that, but that’s my affair,
my private, intimate affair, yet ... since I haven’t concealed my feelings
in the past ... in the tavern, for instance, I’ve talked to every one, so
... so I won’t make a secret of it now. You see, I understand, gentlemen,
that there are terrible facts against me in this business. I told every
one that I’d kill him, and now, all of a sudden, he’s been killed. So it
must have been me! Ha ha! I can make allowances for you, gentlemen, I can
quite make allowances. I’m struck all of a heap myself, for who can have
murdered him, if not I? That’s what it comes to, isn’t it? If not I, who
can it be, who? Gentlemen, I want to know, I insist on knowing!” he
exclaimed suddenly. “Where was he murdered? How was he murdered? How, and
with what? Tell me,” he asked quickly, looking at the two lawyers.
“We found him in his study, lying on his back on the floor, with his head
battered in,” said the prosecutor.
“That’s horrible!” Mitya shuddered and, putting his elbows on the table,
hid his face in his right hand.
“We will continue,” interposed Nikolay Parfenovitch. “So what was it that
impelled you to this sentiment of hatred? You have asserted in public, I
believe, that it was based upon jealousy?”
“Well, yes, jealousy. And not only jealousy.”
“Disputes about money?”
“Yes, about money, too.”
“There was a dispute about three thousand roubles, I think, which you
claimed as part of your inheritance?”
“Three thousand! More, more,” cried Mitya hotly; “more than six thousand,
more than ten, perhaps. I told every one so, shouted it at them. But I
made up my mind to let it go at three thousand. I was desperately in need
of that three thousand ... so the bundle of notes for three thousand that
I knew he kept under his pillow, ready for Grushenka, I considered as
simply stolen from me. Yes, gentlemen, I looked upon it as mine, as my own
property....”
The prosecutor looked significantly at the investigating lawyer, and had
time to wink at him on the sly.
“We will return to that subject later,” said the lawyer promptly. “You
will allow us to note that point and write it down; that you looked upon
that money as your own property?”
“Write it down, by all means. I know that’s another fact that tells
against me, but I’m not afraid of facts and I tell them against myself. Do
you hear? Do you know, gentlemen, you take me for a different sort of man
from what I am,” he added, suddenly gloomy and dejected. “You have to deal
with a man of honor, a man of the highest honor; above all—don’t lose
sight of it—a man who’s done a lot of nasty things, but has always been,
and still is, honorable at bottom, in his inner being. I don’t know how to
express it. That’s just what’s made me wretched all my life, that I
yearned to be honorable, that I was, so to say, a martyr to a sense of
honor, seeking for it with a lantern, with the lantern of Diogenes, and
yet all my life I’ve been doing filthy things like all of us, gentlemen
... that is like me alone. That was a mistake, like me alone, me alone!...
Gentlemen, my head aches ...” His brows contracted with pain. “You see,
gentlemen, I couldn’t bear the look of him, there was something in him
ignoble, impudent, trampling on everything sacred, something sneering and
irreverent, loathsome, loathsome. But now that he’s dead, I feel
differently.”
“How do you mean?”
“I don’t feel differently, but I wish I hadn’t hated him so.”
“You feel penitent?”
“No, not penitent, don’t write that. I’m not much good myself, I’m not
very beautiful, so I had no right to consider him repulsive. That’s what I
mean. Write that down, if you like.”
Saying this Mitya became very mournful. He had grown more and more gloomy
as the inquiry continued.
At that moment another unexpected scene followed. Though Grushenka had
been removed, she had not been taken far away, only into the room next but
one from the blue room, in which the examination was proceeding. It was a
little room with one window, next beyond the large room in which they had
danced and feasted so lavishly. She was sitting there with no one by her
but Maximov, who was terribly depressed, terribly scared, and clung to her
side, as though for security. At their door stood one of the peasants with
a metal plate on his breast. Grushenka was crying, and suddenly her grief
was too much for her, she jumped up, flung up her arms and, with a loud
wail of sorrow, rushed out of the room to him, to her Mitya, and so
unexpectedly that they had not time to stop her. Mitya, hearing her cry,
trembled, jumped up, and with a yell rushed impetuously to meet her, not
knowing what he was doing. But they were not allowed to come together,
though they saw one another. He was seized by the arms. He struggled, and
tried to tear himself away. It took three or four men to hold him. She was
seized too, and he saw her stretching out her arms to him, crying aloud as
they carried her away. When the scene was over, he came to himself again,
sitting in the same place as before, opposite the investigating lawyer,
and crying out to them:
“What do you want with her? Why do you torment her? She’s done nothing,
nothing!...”
The lawyers tried to soothe him. About ten minutes passed like this. At
last Mihail Makarovitch, who had been absent, came hurriedly into the
room, and said in a loud and excited voice to the prosecutor:
“She’s been removed, she’s downstairs. Will you allow me to say one word
to this unhappy man, gentlemen? In your presence, gentlemen, in your
presence.”
“By all means, Mihail Makarovitch,” answered the investigating lawyer. “In
the present case we have nothing against it.”
“Listen, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, my dear fellow,” began the police captain,
and there was a look of warm, almost fatherly, feeling for the luckless
prisoner on his excited face. “I took your Agrafena Alexandrovna
downstairs myself, and confided her to the care of the landlord’s
daughters, and that old fellow Maximov is with her all the time. And I
soothed her, do you hear? I soothed and calmed her. I impressed on her
that you have to clear yourself, so she mustn’t hinder you, must not
depress you, or you may lose your head and say the wrong thing in your
evidence. In fact, I talked to her and she understood. She’s a sensible
girl, my boy, a good‐hearted girl, she would have kissed my old hands,
begging help for you. She sent me herself, to tell you not to worry about
her. And I must go, my dear fellow, I must go and tell her that you are
calm and comforted about her. And so you must be calm, do you understand?
I was unfair to her; she is a Christian soul, gentlemen, yes, I tell you,
she’s a gentle soul, and not to blame for anything. So what am I to tell
her, Dmitri Fyodorovitch? Will you sit quiet or not?”
The good‐natured police captain said a great deal that was irregular, but
Grushenka’s suffering, a fellow creature’s suffering, touched his good‐
natured heart, and tears stood in his eyes. Mitya jumped up and rushed
towards him.
“Forgive me, gentlemen, oh, allow me, allow me!” he cried. “You’ve the
heart of an angel, an angel, Mihail Makarovitch, I thank you for her. I
will, I will be calm, cheerful, in fact. Tell her, in the kindness of your
heart, that I am cheerful, quite cheerful, that I shall be laughing in a
minute, knowing that she has a guardian angel like you. I shall have done
with all this directly, and as soon as I’m free, I’ll be with her, she’ll
see, let her wait. Gentlemen,” he said, turning to the two lawyers, “now
I’ll open my whole soul to you; I’ll pour out everything. We’ll finish
this off directly, finish it off gayly. We shall laugh at it in the end,
shan’t we? But, gentlemen, that woman is the queen of my heart. Oh, let me
tell you that. That one thing I’ll tell you now.... I see I’m with
honorable men. She is my light, she is my holy one, and if only you knew!
Did you hear her cry, ‘I’ll go to death with you’? And what have I, a
penniless beggar, done for her? Why such love for me? How can a clumsy,
ugly brute like me, with my ugly face, deserve such love, that she is
ready to go to exile with me? And how she fell down at your feet for my
sake, just now!... and yet she’s proud and has done nothing! How can I
help adoring her, how can I help crying out and rushing to her as I did
just now? Gentlemen, forgive me! But now, now I am comforted.”
And he sank back in his chair and, covering his face with his hands, burst
into tears. But they were happy tears. He recovered himself instantly. The
old police captain seemed much pleased, and the lawyers also. They felt
that the examination was passing into a new phase. When the police captain
went out, Mitya was positively gay.
“Now, gentlemen, I am at your disposal, entirely at your disposal. And if
it were not for all these trivial details, we should understand one
another in a minute. I’m at those details again. I’m at your disposal,
gentlemen, but I declare that we must have mutual confidence, you in me
and I in you, or there’ll be no end to it. I speak in your interests. To
business, gentlemen, to business, and don’t rummage in my soul; don’t
tease me with trifles, but only ask me about facts and what matters, and I
will satisfy you at once. And damn the details!”
So spoke Mitya. The interrogation began again.
Chapter IV. The Second Ordeal
“You don’t know how you encourage us, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, by your
readiness to answer,” said Nikolay Parfenovitch, with an animated air, and
obvious satisfaction beaming in his very prominent, short‐sighted, light
gray eyes, from which he had removed his spectacles a moment before. “And
you have made a very just remark about the mutual confidence, without
which it is sometimes positively impossible to get on in cases of such
importance, if the suspected party really hopes and desires to defend
himself and is in a position to do so. We, on our side, will do everything
in our power, and you can see for yourself how we are conducting the case.
You approve, Ippolit Kirillovitch?” He turned to the prosecutor.
“Oh, undoubtedly,” replied the prosecutor. His tone was somewhat cold,
compared with Nikolay Parfenovitch’s impulsiveness.
I will note once for all that Nikolay Parfenovitch, who had but lately
arrived among us, had from the first felt marked respect for Ippolit
Kirillovitch, our prosecutor, and had become almost his bosom friend. He
was almost the only person who put implicit faith in Ippolit
Kirillovitch’s extraordinary talents as a psychologist and orator and in
the justice of his grievance. He had heard of him in Petersburg. On the
other hand, young Nikolay Parfenovitch was the only person in the whole
world whom our “unappreciated” prosecutor genuinely liked. On their way to
Mokroe they had time to come to an understanding about the present case.
And now as they sat at the table, the sharp‐witted junior caught and
interpreted every indication on his senior colleague’s face—half a word, a
glance, or a wink.
“Gentlemen, only let me tell my own story and don’t interrupt me with
trivial questions and I’ll tell you everything in a moment,” said Mitya
excitedly.
“Excellent! Thank you. But before we proceed to listen to your
communication, will you allow me to inquire as to another little fact of
great interest to us? I mean the ten roubles you borrowed yesterday at
about five o’clock on the security of your pistols, from your friend,
Pyotr Ilyitch Perhotin.”
“I pledged them, gentlemen. I pledged them for ten roubles. What more?
That’s all about it. As soon as I got back to town I pledged them.”
“You got back to town? Then you had been out of town?”
“Yes, I went a journey of forty versts into the country. Didn’t you know?”
The prosecutor and Nikolay Parfenovitch exchanged glances.
“Well, how would it be if you began your story with a systematic
description of all you did yesterday, from the morning onwards? Allow us,
for instance, to inquire why you were absent from the town, and just when
you left and when you came back—all those facts.”
“You should have asked me like that from the beginning,” cried Mitya,
laughing aloud, “and, if you like, we won’t begin from yesterday, but from
the morning of the day before; then you’ll understand how, why, and where
I went. I went the day before yesterday, gentlemen, to a merchant of the
town, called Samsonov, to borrow three thousand roubles from him on safe
security. It was a pressing matter, gentlemen, it was a sudden necessity.”
“Allow me to interrupt you,” the prosecutor put in politely. “Why were you
in such pressing need for just that sum, three thousand?”
“Oh, gentlemen, you needn’t go into details, how, when and why, and why
just so much money, and not so much, and all that rigmarole. Why, it’ll
run to three volumes, and then you’ll want an epilogue!”
Mitya said all this with the good‐natured but impatient familiarity of a
man who is anxious to tell the whole truth and is full of the best
intentions.
“Gentlemen!”—he corrected himself hurriedly—“don’t be vexed with me for my
restiveness, I beg you again. Believe me once more, I feel the greatest
respect for you and understand the true position of affairs. Don’t think
I’m drunk. I’m quite sober now. And, besides, being drunk would be no
hindrance. It’s with me, you know, like the saying: ‘When he is sober, he
is a fool; when he is drunk, he is a wise man.’ Ha ha! But I see,
gentlemen, it’s not the proper thing to make jokes to you, till we’ve had
our explanation, I mean. And I’ve my own dignity to keep up, too. I quite
understand the difference for the moment. I am, after all, in the position
of a criminal, and so, far from being on equal terms with you. And it’s
your business to watch me. I can’t expect you to pat me on the head for
what I did to Grigory, for one can’t break old men’s heads with impunity.
I suppose you’ll put me away for him for six months, or a year perhaps, in
a house of correction. I don’t know what the punishment is—but it will be
without loss of the rights of my rank, without loss of my rank, won’t it?
So you see, gentlemen, I understand the distinction between us.... But you
must see that you could puzzle God Himself with such questions. ‘How did
you step? Where did you step? When did you step? And on what did you
step?’ I shall get mixed up, if you go on like this, and you will put it
all down against me. And what will that lead to? To nothing! And even if
it’s nonsense I’m talking now, let me finish, and you, gentlemen, being
men of honor and refinement, will forgive me! I’ll finish by asking you,
gentlemen, to drop that conventional method of questioning. I mean,
beginning from some miserable trifle, how I got up, what I had for
breakfast, how I spat, and where I spat, and so distracting the attention
of the criminal, suddenly stun him with an overwhelming question, ‘Whom
did you murder? Whom did you rob?’ Ha ha! That’s your regulation method,
that’s where all your cunning comes in. You can put peasants off their
guard like that, but not me. I know the tricks. I’ve been in the service,
too. Ha ha ha! You’re not angry, gentlemen? You forgive my impertinence?”
he cried, looking at them with a good‐nature that was almost surprising.
“It’s only Mitya Karamazov, you know, so you can overlook it. It would be
inexcusable in a sensible man; but you can forgive it in Mitya. Ha ha!”
Nikolay Parfenovitch listened, and laughed too. Though the prosecutor did
not laugh, he kept his eyes fixed keenly on Mitya, as though anxious not
to miss the least syllable, the slightest movement, the smallest twitch of
any feature of his face.
“That’s how we have treated you from the beginning,” said Nikolay
Parfenovitch, still laughing. “We haven’t tried to put you out by asking
how you got up in the morning and what you had for breakfast. We began,
indeed, with questions of the greatest importance.”
“I understand. I saw it and appreciated it, and I appreciate still more
your present kindness to me, an unprecedented kindness, worthy of your
noble hearts. We three here are gentlemen, and let everything be on the
footing of mutual confidence between educated, well‐bred people, who have
the common bond of noble birth and honor. In any case, allow me to look
upon you as my best friends at this moment of my life, at this moment when
my honor is assailed. That’s no offense to you, gentlemen, is it?”
“On the contrary. You’ve expressed all that so well, Dmitri Fyodorovitch,”
Nikolay Parfenovitch answered with dignified approbation.
“And enough of those trivial questions, gentlemen, all those tricky
questions!” cried Mitya enthusiastically. “Or there’s simply no knowing
where we shall get to! Is there?”
“I will follow your sensible advice entirely,” the prosecutor interposed,
addressing Mitya. “I don’t withdraw my question, however. It is now
vitally important for us to know exactly why you needed that sum, I mean
precisely three thousand.”
“Why I needed it?... Oh, for one thing and another.... Well, it was to pay
a debt.”
“A debt to whom?”
“That I absolutely refuse to answer, gentlemen. Not because I couldn’t, or
because I shouldn’t dare, or because it would be damaging, for it’s all a
paltry matter and absolutely trifling, but—I won’t, because it’s a matter
of principle: that’s my private life, and I won’t allow any intrusion into
my private life. That’s my principle. Your question has no bearing on the
case, and whatever has nothing to do with the case is my private affair. I
wanted to pay a debt. I wanted to pay a debt of honor but to whom I won’t
say.”
“Allow me to make a note of that,” said the prosecutor.
“By all means. Write down that I won’t say, that I won’t. Write that I
should think it dishonorable to say. Ech! you can write it; you’ve nothing
else to do with your time.”
“Allow me to caution you, sir, and to remind you once more, if you are
unaware of it,” the prosecutor began, with a peculiar and stern
impressiveness, “that you have a perfect right not to answer the questions
put to you now, and we on our side have no right to extort an answer from
you, if you decline to give it for one reason or another. That is entirely
a matter for your personal decision. But it is our duty, on the other
hand, in such cases as the present, to explain and set before you the
degree of injury you will be doing yourself by refusing to give this or
that piece of evidence. After which I will beg you to continue.”
“Gentlemen, I’m not angry ... I ...” Mitya muttered in a rather
disconcerted tone. “Well, gentlemen, you see, that Samsonov to whom I went
then ...”
We will, of course, not reproduce his account of what is known to the
reader already. Mitya was impatiently anxious not to omit the slightest
detail. At the same time he was in a hurry to get it over. But as he gave
his evidence it was written down, and therefore they had continually to
pull him up. Mitya disliked this, but submitted; got angry, though still
good‐humoredly. He did, it is true, exclaim, from time to time,
“Gentlemen, that’s enough to make an angel out of patience!” Or,
“Gentlemen, it’s no good your irritating me.”
But even though he exclaimed he still preserved for a time his genially
expansive mood. So he told them how Samsonov had made a fool of him two
days before. (He had completely realized by now that he had been fooled.)
The sale of his watch for six roubles to obtain money for the journey was
something new to the lawyers. They were at once greatly interested, and
even, to Mitya’s intense indignation, thought it necessary to write the
fact down as a secondary confirmation of the circumstance that he had
hardly a farthing in his pocket at the time. Little by little Mitya began
to grow surly. Then, after describing his journey to see Lyagavy, the
night spent in the stifling hut, and so on, he came to his return to the
town. Here he began, without being particularly urged, to give a minute
account of the agonies of jealousy he endured on Grushenka’s account.
He was heard with silent attention. They inquired particularly into the
circumstance of his having a place of ambush in Marya Kondratyevna’s house
at the back of Fyodor Pavlovitch’s garden to keep watch on Grushenka, and
of Smerdyakov’s bringing him information. They laid particular stress on
this, and noted it down. Of his jealousy he spoke warmly and at length,
and though inwardly ashamed at exposing his most intimate feelings to
“public ignominy,” so to speak, he evidently overcame his shame in order
to tell the truth. The frigid severity, with which the investigating
lawyer, and still more the prosecutor, stared intently at him as he told
his story, disconcerted him at last considerably.
“That boy, Nikolay Parfenovitch, to whom I was talking nonsense about
women only a few days ago, and that sickly prosecutor are not worth my
telling this to,” he reflected mournfully. “It’s ignominious. ‘Be patient,
humble, hold thy peace.’ ” He wound up his reflections with that line. But
he pulled himself together to go on again. When he came to telling of his
visit to Madame Hohlakov, he regained his spirits and even wished to tell
a little anecdote of that lady which had nothing to do with the case. But
the investigating lawyer stopped him, and civilly suggested that he should
pass on to “more essential matters.” At last, when he described his
despair and told them how, when he left Madame Hohlakov’s, he thought that
he’d “get three thousand if he had to murder some one to do it,” they
stopped him again and noted down that he had “meant to murder some one.”
Mitya let them write it without protest. At last he reached the point in
his story when he learned that Grushenka had deceived him and had returned
from Samsonov’s as soon as he left her there, though she had said that she
would stay there till midnight.
“If I didn’t kill Fenya then, gentlemen, it was only because I hadn’t
time,” broke from him suddenly at that point in his story. That, too, was
carefully written down. Mitya waited gloomily, and was beginning to tell
how he ran into his father’s garden when the investigating lawyer suddenly
stopped him, and opening the big portfolio that lay on the sofa beside him
he brought out the brass pestle.
“Do you recognize this object?” he asked, showing it to Mitya.
“Oh, yes,” he laughed gloomily. “Of course I recognize it. Let me have a
look at it.... Damn it, never mind!”
“You have forgotten to mention it,” observed the investigating lawyer.
“Hang it all, I shouldn’t have concealed it from you. Do you suppose I
could have managed without it? It simply escaped my memory.”
“Be so good as to tell us precisely how you came to arm yourself with it.”
“Certainly I will be so good, gentlemen.”
And Mitya described how he took the pestle and ran.
“But what object had you in view in arming yourself with such a weapon?”
“What object? No object. I just picked it up and ran off.”
“What for, if you had no object?”
Mitya’s wrath flared up. He looked intently at “the boy” and smiled
gloomily and malignantly. He was feeling more and more ashamed at having
told “such people” the story of his jealousy so sincerely and
spontaneously.
“Bother the pestle!” broke from him suddenly.
“But still—”
“Oh, to keep off dogs.... Oh, because it was dark.... In case anything
turned up.”
“But have you ever on previous occasions taken a weapon with you when you
went out, since you’re afraid of the dark?”
“Ugh! damn it all, gentlemen! There’s positively no talking to you!” cried
Mitya, exasperated beyond endurance, and turning to the secretary, crimson
with anger, he said quickly, with a note of fury in his voice:
“Write down at once ... at once ... ‘that I snatched up the pestle to go
and kill my father ... Fyodor Pavlovitch ... by hitting him on the head
with it!’ Well, now are you satisfied, gentlemen? Are your minds
relieved?” he said, glaring defiantly at the lawyers.
“We quite understand that you made that statement just now through
exasperation with us and the questions we put to you, which you consider
trivial, though they are, in fact, essential,” the prosecutor remarked
dryly in reply.
“Well, upon my word, gentlemen! Yes, I took the pestle.... What does one
pick things up for at such moments? I don’t know what for. I snatched it
up and ran—that’s all. For to me, gentlemen, _passons_, or I declare I
won’t tell you any more.”
He sat with his elbows on the table and his head in his hand. He sat
sideways to them and gazed at the wall, struggling against a feeling of
nausea. He had, in fact, an awful inclination to get up and declare that
he wouldn’t say another word, “not if you hang me for it.”
“You see, gentlemen,” he said at last, with difficulty controlling
himself, “you see. I listen to you and am haunted by a dream.... It’s a
dream I have sometimes, you know.... I often dream it—it’s always the same
... that some one is hunting me, some one I’m awfully afraid of ... that
he’s hunting me in the dark, in the night ... tracking me, and I hide
somewhere from him, behind a door or cupboard, hide in a degrading way,
and the worst of it is, he always knows where I am, but he pretends not to
know where I am on purpose, to prolong my agony, to enjoy my terror....
That’s just what you’re doing now. It’s just like that!”
“Is that the sort of thing you dream about?” inquired the prosecutor.
“Yes, it is. Don’t you want to write it down?” said Mitya, with a
distorted smile.
“No; no need to write it down. But still you do have curious dreams.”
“It’s not a question of dreams now, gentlemen—this is realism, this is
real life! I’m a wolf and you’re the hunters. Well, hunt him down!”
“You are wrong to make such comparisons ...” began Nikolay Parfenovitch,
with extraordinary softness.
“No, I’m not wrong, not at all!” Mitya flared up again, though his
outburst of wrath had obviously relieved his heart. He grew more good‐
humored at every word. “You may not trust a criminal or a man on trial
tortured by your questions, but an honorable man, the honorable impulses
of the heart (I say that boldly!)—no! That you must believe you have no
right indeed ... but—
Be silent, heart,
Be patient, humble, hold thy peace.
Well, shall I go on?” he broke off gloomily.
“If you’ll be so kind,” answered Nikolay Parfenovitch.
Chapter V. The Third Ordeal
Though Mitya spoke sullenly, it was evident that he was trying more than
ever not to forget or miss a single detail of his story. He told them how
he had leapt over the fence into his father’s garden; how he had gone up
to the window; told them all that had passed under the window. Clearly,
precisely, distinctly, he described the feelings that troubled him during
those moments in the garden when he longed so terribly to know whether
Grushenka was with his father or not. But, strange to say, both the
lawyers listened now with a sort of awful reserve, looked coldly at him,
asked few questions. Mitya could gather nothing from their faces.
“They’re angry and offended,” he thought. “Well, bother them!”
When he described how he made up his mind at last to make the “signal” to
his father that Grushenka had come, so that he should open the window, the
lawyers paid no attention to the word “signal,” as though they entirely
failed to grasp the meaning of the word in this connection: so much so,
that Mitya noticed it. Coming at last to the moment when, seeing his
father peering out of the window, his hatred flared up and he pulled the
pestle out of his pocket, he suddenly, as though of design, stopped short.
He sat gazing at the wall and was aware that their eyes were fixed upon
him.
“Well?” said the investigating lawyer. “You pulled out the weapon and ...
and what happened then?”
“Then? Why, then I murdered him ... hit him on the head and cracked his
skull.... I suppose that’s your story. That’s it!”
His eyes suddenly flashed. All his smothered wrath suddenly flamed up with
extraordinary violence in his soul.
“Our story?” repeated Nikolay Parfenovitch. “Well—and yours?”
Mitya dropped his eyes and was a long time silent.
“My story, gentlemen? Well, it was like this,” he began softly. “Whether
it was some one’s tears, or my mother prayed to God, or a good angel
kissed me at that instant, I don’t know. But the devil was conquered. I
rushed from the window and ran to the fence. My father was alarmed and,
for the first time, he saw me then, cried out, and sprang back from the
window. I remember that very well. I ran across the garden to the fence
... and there Grigory caught me, when I was sitting on the fence.”
At that point he raised his eyes at last and looked at his listeners. They
seemed to be staring at him with perfectly unruffled attention. A sort of
paroxysm of indignation seized on Mitya’s soul.
“Why, you’re laughing at me at this moment, gentlemen!” he broke off
suddenly.
“What makes you think that?” observed Nikolay Parfenovitch.
“You don’t believe one word—that’s why! I understand, of course, that I
have come to the vital point. The old man’s lying there now with his skull
broken, while I—after dramatically describing how I wanted to kill him,
and how I snatched up the pestle—I suddenly run away from the window. A
romance! Poetry! As though one could believe a fellow on his word. Ha ha!
You are scoffers, gentlemen!”
And he swung round on his chair so that it creaked.
“And did you notice,” asked the prosecutor suddenly, as though not
observing Mitya’s excitement, “did you notice when you ran away from the
window, whether the door into the garden was open?”
“No, it was not open.”
“It was not?”
“It was shut. And who could open it? Bah! the door. Wait a bit!” he seemed
suddenly to bethink himself, and almost with a start:
“Why, did you find the door open?”
“Yes, it was open.”
“Why, who could have opened it if you did not open it yourselves?” cried
Mitya, greatly astonished.
“The door stood open, and your father’s murderer undoubtedly went in at
that door, and, having accomplished the crime, went out again by the same
door,” the prosecutor pronounced deliberately, as though chiseling out
each word separately. “That is perfectly clear. The murder was committed
in the room and _not through the __ window_; that is absolutely certain
from the examination that has been made, from the position of the body and
everything. There can be no doubt of that circumstance.”
Mitya was absolutely dumbfounded.
“But that’s utterly impossible!” he cried, completely at a loss. “I ... I
didn’t go in.... I tell you positively, definitely, the door was shut the
whole time I was in the garden, and when I ran out of the garden. I only
stood at the window and saw him through the window. That’s all, that’s
all.... I remember to the last minute. And if I didn’t remember, it would
be just the same. I know it, for no one knew the signals except
Smerdyakov, and me, and the dead man. And he wouldn’t have opened the door
to any one in the world without the signals.”
“Signals? What signals?” asked the prosecutor, with greedy, almost
hysterical, curiosity. He instantly lost all trace of his reserve and
dignity. He asked the question with a sort of cringing timidity. He
scented an important fact of which he had known nothing, and was already
filled with dread that Mitya might be unwilling to disclose it.
“So you didn’t know!” Mitya winked at him with a malicious and mocking
smile. “What if I won’t tell you? From whom could you find out? No one
knew about the signals except my father, Smerdyakov, and me: that was all.
Heaven knew, too, but it won’t tell you. But it’s an interesting fact.
There’s no knowing what you might build on it. Ha ha! Take comfort,
gentlemen, I’ll reveal it. You’ve some foolish idea in your hearts. You
don’t know the man you have to deal with! You have to do with a prisoner
who gives evidence against himself, to his own damage! Yes, for I’m a man
of honor and you—are not.”
The prosecutor swallowed this without a murmur. He was trembling with
impatience to hear the new fact. Minutely and diffusely Mitya told them
everything about the signals invented by Fyodor Pavlovitch for Smerdyakov.
He told them exactly what every tap on the window meant, tapped the
signals on the table, and when Nikolay Parfenovitch said that he supposed
he, Mitya, had tapped the signal “Grushenka has come,” when he tapped to
his father, he answered precisely that he had tapped that signal, that
“Grushenka had come.”
“So now you can build up your tower,” Mitya broke off, and again turned
away from them contemptuously.
“So no one knew of the signals but your dead father, you, and the valet
Smerdyakov? And no one else?” Nikolay Parfenovitch inquired once more.
“Yes. The valet Smerdyakov, and Heaven. Write down about Heaven. That may
be of use. Besides, you will need God yourselves.”
And they had already, of course, begun writing it down. But while they
wrote, the prosecutor said suddenly, as though pitching on a new idea:
“But if Smerdyakov also knew of these signals and you absolutely deny all
responsibility for the death of your father, was it not he, perhaps, who
knocked the signal agreed upon, induced your father to open to him, and
then ... committed the crime?”
Mitya turned upon him a look of profound irony and intense hatred. His
silent stare lasted so long that it made the prosecutor blink.
“You’ve caught the fox again,” commented Mitya at last; “you’ve got the
beast by the tail. Ha ha! I see through you, Mr. Prosecutor. You thought,
of course, that I should jump at that, catch at your prompting, and shout
with all my might, ‘Aie! it’s Smerdyakov; he’s the murderer.’ Confess
that’s what you thought. Confess, and I’ll go on.”
But the prosecutor did not confess. He held his tongue and waited.
“You’re mistaken. I’m not going to shout ‘It’s Smerdyakov,’ ” said Mitya.
“And you don’t even suspect him?”
“Why, do you suspect him?”
“He is suspected, too.”
Mitya fixed his eyes on the floor.
“Joking apart,” he brought out gloomily. “Listen. From the very beginning,
almost from the moment when I ran out to you from behind the curtain, I’ve
had the thought of Smerdyakov in my mind. I’ve been sitting here, shouting
that I’m innocent and thinking all the time ‘Smerdyakov!’ I can’t get
Smerdyakov out of my head. In fact, I, too, thought of Smerdyakov just
now; but only for a second. Almost at once I thought, ‘No, it’s not
Smerdyakov.’ It’s not his doing, gentlemen.”
“In that case is there anybody else you suspect?” Nikolay Parfenovitch
inquired cautiously.
“I don’t know any one it could be, whether it’s the hand of Heaven or
Satan, but ... not Smerdyakov,” Mitya jerked out with decision.
“But what makes you affirm so confidently and emphatically that it’s not
he?”
“From my conviction—my impression. Because Smerdyakov is a man of the most
abject character and a coward. He’s not a coward, he’s the epitome of all
the cowardice in the world walking on two legs. He has the heart of a
chicken. When he talked to me, he was always trembling for fear I should
kill him, though I never raised my hand against him. He fell at my feet
and blubbered; he has kissed these very boots, literally, beseeching me
‘not to frighten him.’ Do you hear? ‘Not to frighten him.’ What a thing to
say! Why, I offered him money. He’s a puling chicken—sickly, epileptic,
weak‐minded—a child of eight could thrash him. He has no character worth
talking about. It’s not Smerdyakov, gentlemen. He doesn’t care for money;
he wouldn’t take my presents. Besides, what motive had he for murdering
the old man? Why, he’s very likely his son, you know—his natural son. Do
you know that?”
“We have heard that legend. But you are your father’s son, too, you know;
yet you yourself told every one you meant to murder him.”
“That’s a thrust! And a nasty, mean one, too! I’m not afraid! Oh,
gentlemen, isn’t it too base of you to say that to my face? It’s base,
because I told you that myself. I not only wanted to murder him, but I
might have done it. And, what’s more, I went out of my way to tell you of
my own accord that I nearly murdered him. But, you see, I didn’t murder
him; you see, my guardian angel saved me—that’s what you’ve not taken into
account. And that’s why it’s so base of you. For I didn’t kill him, I
didn’t kill him! Do you hear, I did not kill him.”
He was almost choking. He had not been so moved before during the whole
interrogation.
“And what has he told you, gentlemen—Smerdyakov, I mean?” he added
suddenly, after a pause. “May I ask that question?”
“You may ask any question,” the prosecutor replied with frigid severity,
“any question relating to the facts of the case, and we are, I repeat,
bound to answer every inquiry you make. We found the servant Smerdyakov,
concerning whom you inquire, lying unconscious in his bed, in an epileptic
fit of extreme severity, that had recurred, possibly, ten times. The
doctor who was with us told us, after seeing him, that he may possibly not
outlive the night.”
“Well, if that’s so, the devil must have killed him,” broke suddenly from
Mitya, as though until that moment he had been asking himself: “Was it
Smerdyakov or not?”
“We will come back to this later,” Nikolay Parfenovitch decided. “Now,
wouldn’t you like to continue your statement?”
Mitya asked for a rest. His request was courteously granted. After
resting, he went on with his story. But he was evidently depressed. He was
exhausted, mortified and morally shaken. To make things worse the
prosecutor exasperated him, as though intentionally, by vexatious
interruptions about “trifling points.” Scarcely had Mitya described how,
sitting on the wall, he had struck Grigory on the head with the pestle,
while the old man had hold of his left leg, and how he had then jumped
down to look at him, when the prosecutor stopped him to ask him to
describe exactly how he was sitting on the wall. Mitya was surprised.
“Oh, I was sitting like this, astride, one leg on one side of the wall and
one on the other.”
“And the pestle?”
“The pestle was in my hand.”
“Not in your pocket? Do you remember that precisely? Was it a violent blow
you gave him?”
“It must have been a violent one. But why do you ask?”
“Would you mind sitting on the chair just as you sat on the wall then and
showing us just how you moved your arm, and in what direction?”
“You’re making fun of me, aren’t you?” asked Mitya, looking haughtily at
the speaker; but the latter did not flinch.
Mitya turned abruptly, sat astride on his chair, and swung his arm.
“This was how I struck him! That’s how I knocked him down! What more do
you want?”
“Thank you. May I trouble you now to explain why you jumped down, with
what object, and what you had in view?”
“Oh, hang it!... I jumped down to look at the man I’d hurt ... I don’t
know what for!”
“Though you were so excited and were running away?”
“Yes, though I was excited and running away.”
“You wanted to help him?”
“Help!... Yes, perhaps I did want to help him.... I don’t remember.”
“You don’t remember? Then you didn’t quite know what you were doing?”
“Not at all. I remember everything—every detail. I jumped down to look at
him, and wiped his face with my handkerchief.”
“We have seen your handkerchief. Did you hope to restore him to
consciousness?”
“I don’t know whether I hoped it. I simply wanted to make sure whether he
was alive or not.”
“Ah! You wanted to be sure? Well, what then?”
“I’m not a doctor. I couldn’t decide. I ran away thinking I’d killed him.
And now he’s recovered.”
“Excellent,” commented the prosecutor. “Thank you. That’s all I wanted.
Kindly proceed.”
Alas! it never entered Mitya’s head to tell them, though he remembered it,
that he had jumped back from pity, and standing over the prostrate figure
had even uttered some words of regret: “You’ve come to grief, old
man—there’s no help for it. Well, there you must lie.”
The prosecutor could only draw one conclusion: that the man had jumped
back “at such a moment and in such excitement simply with the object of
ascertaining whether the _only_ witness of his crime were dead; that he
must therefore have been a man of great strength, coolness, decision and
foresight even at such a moment,” ... and so on. The prosecutor was
satisfied: “I’ve provoked the nervous fellow by ‘trifles’ and he has said
more than he meant to.”
With painful effort Mitya went on. But this time he was pulled up
immediately by Nikolay Parfenovitch.
“How came you to run to the servant, Fedosya Markovna, with your hands so
covered with blood, and, as it appears, your face, too?”
“Why, I didn’t notice the blood at all at the time,” answered Mitya.
“That’s quite likely. It does happen sometimes.” The prosecutor exchanged
glances with Nikolay Parfenovitch.
“I simply didn’t notice. You’re quite right there, prosecutor,” Mitya
assented suddenly.
Next came the account of Mitya’s sudden determination to “step aside” and
make way for their happiness. But he could not make up his mind to open
his heart to them as before, and tell them about “the queen of his soul.”
He disliked speaking of her before these chilly persons “who were
fastening on him like bugs.” And so in response to their reiterated
questions he answered briefly and abruptly:
“Well, I made up my mind to kill myself. What had I left to live for? That
question stared me in the face. Her first rightful lover had come back,
the man who wronged her but who’d hurried back to offer his love, after
five years, and atone for the wrong with marriage.... So I knew it was all
over for me.... And behind me disgrace, and that blood—Grigory’s.... What
had I to live for? So I went to redeem the pistols I had pledged, to load
them and put a bullet in my brain to‐morrow.”
“And a grand feast the night before?”
“Yes, a grand feast the night before. Damn it all, gentlemen! Do make
haste and finish it. I meant to shoot myself not far from here, beyond the
village, and I’d planned to do it at five o’clock in the morning. And I
had a note in my pocket already. I wrote it at Perhotin’s when I loaded my
pistols. Here’s the letter. Read it! It’s not for you I tell it,” he added
contemptuously. He took it from his waistcoat pocket and flung it on the
table. The lawyers read it with curiosity, and, as is usual, added it to
the papers connected with the case.
“And you didn’t even think of washing your hands at Perhotin’s? You were
not afraid then of arousing suspicion?”
“What suspicion? Suspicion or not, I should have galloped here just the
same, and shot myself at five o’clock, and you wouldn’t have been in time
to do anything. If it hadn’t been for what’s happened to my father, you
would have known nothing about it, and wouldn’t have come here. Oh, it’s
the devil’s doing. It was the devil murdered father, it was through the
devil that you found it out so soon. How did you manage to get here so
quick? It’s marvelous, a dream!”
“Mr. Perhotin informed us that when you came to him, you held in your
hands ... your blood‐stained hands ... your money ... a lot of money ... a
bundle of hundred‐rouble notes, and that his servant‐boy saw it too.”
“That’s true, gentlemen. I remember it was so.”
“Now, there’s one little point presents itself. Can you inform us,”
Nikolay Parfenovitch began, with extreme gentleness, “where did you get so
much money all of a sudden, when it appears from the facts, from the
reckoning of time, that you had not been home?”
The prosecutor’s brows contracted at the question being asked so plainly,
but he did not interrupt Nikolay Parfenovitch.
“No, I didn’t go home,” answered Mitya, apparently perfectly composed, but
looking at the floor.
“Allow me then to repeat my question,” Nikolay Parfenovitch went on as
though creeping up to the subject. “Where were you able to procure such a
sum all at once, when by your own confession, at five o’clock the same day
you—”
“I was in want of ten roubles and pledged my pistols with Perhotin, and
then went to Madame Hohlakov to borrow three thousand which she wouldn’t
give me, and so on, and all the rest of it,” Mitya interrupted sharply.
“Yes, gentlemen, I was in want of it, and suddenly thousands turned up,
eh? Do you know, gentlemen, you’re both afraid now ‘what if he won’t tell
us where he got it?’ That’s just how it is. I’m not going to tell you,
gentlemen. You’ve guessed right. You’ll never know,” said Mitya, chipping
out each word with extraordinary determination. The lawyers were silent
for a moment.
“You must understand, Mr. Karamazov, that it is of vital importance for us
to know,” said Nikolay Parfenovitch, softly and suavely.
“I understand; but still I won’t tell you.”
The prosecutor, too, intervened, and again reminded the prisoner that he
was at liberty to refuse to answer questions, if he thought it to his
interest, and so on. But in view of the damage he might do himself by his
silence, especially in a case of such importance as—
“And so on, gentlemen, and so on. Enough! I’ve heard that rigmarole
before,” Mitya interrupted again. “I can see for myself how important it
is, and that this is the vital point, and still I won’t say.”
“What is it to us? It’s not our business, but yours. You are doing
yourself harm,” observed Nikolay Parfenovitch nervously.
“You see, gentlemen, joking apart”—Mitya lifted his eyes and looked firmly
at them both—“I had an inkling from the first that we should come to
loggerheads at this point. But at first when I began to give my evidence,
it was all still far away and misty; it was all floating, and I was so
simple that I began with the supposition of mutual confidence existing
between us. Now I can see for myself that such confidence is out of the
question, for in any case we were bound to come to this cursed stumbling‐
block. And now we’ve come to it! It’s impossible and there’s an end of it!
But I don’t blame you. You can’t believe it all simply on my word. I
understand that, of course.”
He relapsed into gloomy silence.
“Couldn’t you, without abandoning your resolution to be silent about the
chief point, could you not, at the same time, give us some slight hint as
to the nature of the motives which are strong enough to induce you to
refuse to answer, at a crisis so full of danger to you?”
Mitya smiled mournfully, almost dreamily.
“I’m much more good‐natured than you think, gentlemen. I’ll tell you the
reason why and give you that hint, though you don’t deserve it. I won’t
speak of that, gentlemen, because it would be a stain on my honor. The
answer to the question where I got the money would expose me to far
greater disgrace than the murder and robbing of my father, if I had
murdered and robbed him. That’s why I can’t tell you. I can’t for fear of
disgrace. What, gentlemen, are you going to write that down?”
“Yes, we’ll write it down,” lisped Nikolay Parfenovitch.
“You ought not to write that down about ‘disgrace.’ I only told you that
in the goodness of my heart. I needn’t have told you. I made you a present
of it, so to speak, and you pounce upon it at once. Oh, well, write—write
what you like,” he concluded, with scornful disgust. “I’m not afraid of
you and I can still hold up my head before you.”
“And can’t you tell us the nature of that disgrace?” Nikolay Parfenovitch
hazarded.
The prosecutor frowned darkly.
“No, no, _c’est fini_, don’t trouble yourselves. It’s not worth while
soiling one’s hands. I have soiled myself enough through you as it is.
You’re not worth it—no one is ... Enough, gentlemen. I’m not going on.”
This was said too peremptorily. Nikolay Parfenovitch did not insist
further, but from Ippolit Kirillovitch’s eyes he saw that he had not given
up hope.
“Can you not, at least, tell us what sum you had in your hands when you
went into Mr. Perhotin’s—how many roubles exactly?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“You spoke to Mr. Perhotin, I believe, of having received three thousand
from Madame Hohlakov.”
“Perhaps I did. Enough, gentlemen. I won’t say how much I had.”
“Will you be so good then as to tell us how you came here and what you
have done since you arrived?”
“Oh! you might ask the people here about that. But I’ll tell you if you
like.”
He proceeded to do so, but we won’t repeat his story. He told it dryly and
curtly. Of the raptures of his love he said nothing, but told them that he
abandoned his determination to shoot himself, owing to “new factors in the
case.” He told the story without going into motives or details. And this
time the lawyers did not worry him much. It was obvious that there was no
essential point of interest to them here.
“We shall verify all that. We will come back to it during the examination
of the witnesses, which will, of course, take place in your presence,”
said Nikolay Parfenovitch in conclusion. “And now allow me to request you
to lay on the table everything in your possession, especially all the
money you still have about you.”
“My money, gentlemen? Certainly. I understand that that is necessary. I’m
surprised, indeed, that you haven’t inquired about it before. It’s true I
couldn’t get away anywhere. I’m sitting here where I can be seen. But
here’s my money—count it—take it. That’s all, I think.”
He turned it all out of his pockets; even the small change—two pieces of
twenty copecks—he pulled out of his waistcoat pocket. They counted the
money, which amounted to eight hundred and thirty‐six roubles, and forty
copecks.
“And is that all?” asked the investigating lawyer.
“Yes.”
“You stated just now in your evidence that you spent three hundred roubles
at Plotnikovs’. You gave Perhotin ten, your driver twenty, here you lost
two hundred, then....”
Nikolay Parfenovitch reckoned it all up. Mitya helped him readily. They
recollected every farthing and included it in the reckoning. Nikolay
Parfenovitch hurriedly added up the total.
“With this eight hundred you must have had about fifteen hundred at
first?”
“I suppose so,” snapped Mitya.
“How is it they all assert there was much more?”
“Let them assert it.”
“But you asserted it yourself.”
“Yes, I did, too.”
“We will compare all this with the evidence of other persons not yet
examined. Don’t be anxious about your money. It will be properly taken
care of and be at your disposal at the conclusion of ... what is beginning
... if it appears, or, so to speak, is proved that you have undisputed
right to it. Well, and now....”
Nikolay Parfenovitch suddenly got up, and informed Mitya firmly that it
was his duty and obligation to conduct a minute and thorough search “of
your clothes and everything else....”
“By all means, gentlemen. I’ll turn out all my pockets, if you like.”
And he did, in fact, begin turning out his pockets.
“It will be necessary to take off your clothes, too.”
“What! Undress? Ugh! Damn it! Won’t you search me as I am! Can’t you?”
“It’s utterly impossible, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. You must take off your
clothes.”
“As you like,” Mitya submitted gloomily; “only, please, not here, but
behind the curtains. Who will search them?”
“Behind the curtains, of course.”
Nikolay Parfenovitch bent his head in assent. His small face wore an
expression of peculiar solemnity.
Chapter VI. The Prosecutor Catches Mitya
Something utterly unexpected and amazing to Mitya followed. He could
never, even a minute before, have conceived that any one could behave like
that to him, Mitya Karamazov. What was worst of all, there was something
humiliating in it, and on their side something “supercilious and
scornful.” It was nothing to take off his coat, but he was asked to
undress further, or rather not asked but “commanded,” he quite understood
that. From pride and contempt he submitted without a word. Several
peasants accompanied the lawyers and remained on the same side of the
curtain. “To be ready if force is required,” thought Mitya, “and perhaps
for some other reason, too.”
“Well, must I take off my shirt, too?” he asked sharply, but Nikolay
Parfenovitch did not answer. He was busily engaged with the prosecutor in
examining the coat, the trousers, the waistcoat and the cap; and it was
evident that they were both much interested in the scrutiny. “They make no
bones about it,” thought Mitya, “they don’t keep up the most elementary
politeness.”
“I ask you for the second time—need I take off my shirt or not?” he said,
still more sharply and irritably.
“Don’t trouble yourself. We will tell you what to do,” Nikolay
Parfenovitch said, and his voice was positively peremptory, or so it
seemed to Mitya.
Meantime a consultation was going on in undertones between the lawyers.
There turned out to be on the coat, especially on the left side at the
back, a huge patch of blood, dry, and still stiff. There were bloodstains
on the trousers, too. Nikolay Parfenovitch, moreover, in the presence of
the peasant witnesses, passed his fingers along the collar, the cuffs, and
all the seams of the coat and trousers, obviously looking for
something—money, of course. He didn’t even hide from Mitya his suspicion
that he was capable of sewing money up in his clothes.
“He treats me not as an officer but as a thief,” Mitya muttered to
himself. They communicated their ideas to one another with amazing
frankness. The secretary, for instance, who was also behind the curtain,
fussing about and listening, called Nikolay Parfenovitch’s attention to
the cap, which they were also fingering.
“You remember Gridyenko, the copying‐clerk,” observed the secretary. “Last
summer he received the wages of the whole office, and pretended to have
lost the money when he was drunk. And where was it found? Why, in just
such pipings in his cap. The hundred‐rouble notes were screwed up in
little rolls and sewed in the piping.”
Both the lawyers remembered Gridyenko’s case perfectly, and so laid aside
Mitya’s cap, and decided that all his clothes must be more thoroughly
examined later.
“Excuse me,” cried Nikolay Parfenovitch, suddenly, noticing that the right
cuff of Mitya’s shirt was turned in, and covered with blood, “excuse me,
what’s that, blood?”
“Yes,” Mitya jerked out.
“That is, what blood? ... and why is the cuff turned in?”
Mitya told him how he had got the sleeve stained with blood looking after
Grigory, and had turned it inside when he was washing his hands at
Perhotin’s.
“You must take off your shirt, too. That’s very important as material
evidence.”
Mitya flushed red and flew into a rage.
“What, am I to stay naked?” he shouted.
“Don’t disturb yourself. We will arrange something. And meanwhile take off
your socks.”
“You’re not joking? Is that really necessary?” Mitya’s eyes flashed.
“We are in no mood for joking,” answered Nikolay Parfenovitch sternly.
“Well, if I must—” muttered Mitya, and sitting down on the bed, he took
off his socks. He felt unbearably awkward. All were clothed, while he was
naked, and strange to say, when he was undressed he felt somehow guilty in
their presence, and was almost ready to believe himself that he was
inferior to them, and that now they had a perfect right to despise him.
“When all are undressed, one is somehow not ashamed, but when one’s the
only one undressed and everybody is looking, it’s degrading,” he kept
repeating to himself, again and again. “It’s like a dream, I’ve sometimes
dreamed of being in such degrading positions.” It was a misery to him to
take off his socks. They were very dirty, and so were his underclothes,
and now every one could see it. And what was worse, he disliked his feet.
All his life he had thought both his big toes hideous. He particularly
loathed the coarse, flat, crooked nail on the right one, and now they
would all see it. Feeling intolerably ashamed made him, at once and
intentionally, rougher. He pulled off his shirt, himself.
“Would you like to look anywhere else if you’re not ashamed to?”
“No, there’s no need to, at present.”
“Well, am I to stay naked like this?” he added savagely.
“Yes, that can’t be helped for the time.... Kindly sit down here for a
while. You can wrap yourself in a quilt from the bed, and I ... I’ll see
to all this.”
All the things were shown to the witnesses. The report of the search was
drawn up, and at last Nikolay Parfenovitch went out, and the clothes were
carried out after him. Ippolit Kirillovitch went out, too. Mitya was left
alone with the peasants, who stood in silence, never taking their eyes off
him. Mitya wrapped himself up in the quilt. He felt cold. His bare feet
stuck out, and he couldn’t pull the quilt over so as to cover them.
Nikolay Parfenovitch seemed to be gone a long time, “an insufferable
time.” “He thinks of me as a puppy,” thought Mitya, gnashing his teeth.
“That rotten prosecutor has gone, too, contemptuous no doubt, it disgusts
him to see me naked!”
Mitya imagined, however, that his clothes would be examined and returned
to him. But what was his indignation when Nikolay Parfenovitch came back
with quite different clothes, brought in behind him by a peasant.
“Here are clothes for you,” he observed airily, seeming well satisfied
with the success of his mission. “Mr. Kalganov has kindly provided these
for this unusual emergency, as well as a clean shirt. Luckily he had them
all in his trunk. You can keep your own socks and underclothes.”
Mitya flew into a passion.
“I won’t have other people’s clothes!” he shouted menacingly, “give me my
own!”
“It’s impossible!”
“Give me my own. Damn Kalganov and his clothes, too!”
It was a long time before they could persuade him. But they succeeded
somehow in quieting him down. They impressed upon him that his clothes,
being stained with blood, must be “included with the other material
evidence,” and that they “had not even the right to let him have them now
... taking into consideration the possible outcome of the case.” Mitya at
last understood this. He subsided into gloomy silence and hurriedly
dressed himself. He merely observed, as he put them on, that the clothes
were much better than his old ones, and that he disliked “gaining by the
change.” The coat was, besides, “ridiculously tight. Am I to be dressed up
like a fool ... for your amusement?”
They urged upon him again that he was exaggerating, that Kalganov was only
a little taller, so that only the trousers might be a little too long. But
the coat turned out to be really tight in the shoulders.
“Damn it all! I can hardly button it,” Mitya grumbled. “Be so good as to
tell Mr. Kalganov from me that I didn’t ask for his clothes, and it’s not
my doing that they’ve dressed me up like a clown.”
“He understands that, and is sorry ... I mean, not sorry to lend you his
clothes, but sorry about all this business,” mumbled Nikolay Parfenovitch.
“Confound his sorrow! Well, where now? Am I to go on sitting here?”
He was asked to go back to the “other room.” Mitya went in, scowling with
anger, and trying to avoid looking at any one. Dressed in another man’s
clothes he felt himself disgraced, even in the eyes of the peasants, and
of Trifon Borissovitch, whose face appeared, for some reason, in the
doorway, and vanished immediately. “He’s come to look at me dressed up,”
thought Mitya. He sat down on the same chair as before. He had an absurd
nightmarish feeling, as though he were out of his mind.
“Well, what now? Are you going to flog me? That’s all that’s left for
you,” he said, clenching his teeth and addressing the prosecutor. He would
not turn to Nikolay Parfenovitch, as though he disdained to speak to him.
“He looked too closely at my socks, and turned them inside out on purpose
to show every one how dirty they were—the scoundrel!”
“Well, now we must proceed to the examination of witnesses,” observed
Nikolay Parfenovitch, as though in reply to Mitya’s question.
“Yes,” said the prosecutor thoughtfully, as though reflecting on
something.
“We’ve done what we could in your interest, Dmitri Fyodorovitch,” Nikolay
Parfenovitch went on, “but having received from you such an uncompromising
refusal to explain to us the source from which you obtained the money
found upon you, we are, at the present moment—”
“What is the stone in your ring?” Mitya interrupted suddenly, as though
awakening from a reverie. He pointed to one of the three large rings
adorning Nikolay Parfenovitch’s right hand.
“Ring?” repeated Nikolay Parfenovitch with surprise.
“Yes, that one ... on your middle finger, with the little veins in it,
what stone is that?” Mitya persisted, like a peevish child.
“That’s a smoky topaz,” said Nikolay Parfenovitch, smiling. “Would you
like to look at it? I’ll take it off ...”
“No, don’t take it off,” cried Mitya furiously, suddenly waking up, and
angry with himself. “Don’t take it off ... there’s no need.... Damn it!...
Gentlemen, you’ve sullied my heart! Can you suppose that I would conceal
it from you, if I had really killed my father, that I would shuffle, lie,
and hide myself? No, that’s not like Dmitri Karamazov, that he couldn’t
do, and if I were guilty, I swear I shouldn’t have waited for your coming,
or for the sunrise as I meant at first, but should have killed myself
before this, without waiting for the dawn! I know that about myself now. I
couldn’t have learnt so much in twenty years as I’ve found out in this
accursed night!... And should I have been like this on this night, and at
this moment, sitting with you, could I have talked like this, could I have
moved like this, could I have looked at you and at the world like this, if
I had really been the murderer of my father, when the very thought of
having accidentally killed Grigory gave me no peace all night—not from
fear—oh, not simply from fear of your punishment! The disgrace of it! And
you expect me to be open with such scoffers as you, who see nothing and
believe in nothing, blind moles and scoffers, and to tell you another
nasty thing I’ve done, another disgrace, even if that would save me from
your accusation! No, better Siberia! The man who opened the door to my
father and went in at that door, he killed him, he robbed him. Who was he?
I’m racking my brains and can’t think who. But I can tell you it was not
Dmitri Karamazov, and that’s all I can tell you, and that’s enough,
enough, leave me alone.... Exile me, punish me, but don’t bother me any
more. I’ll say no more. Call your witnesses!”
Mitya uttered his sudden monologue as though he were determined to be
absolutely silent for the future. The prosecutor watched him the whole
time and only when he had ceased speaking, observed, as though it were the
most ordinary thing, with the most frigid and composed air:
“Oh, about the open door of which you spoke just now, we may as well
inform you, by the way, now, of a very interesting piece of evidence of
the greatest importance both to you and to us, that has been given us by
Grigory, the old man you wounded. On his recovery, he clearly and
emphatically stated, in reply to our questions, that when, on coming out
to the steps, and hearing a noise in the garden, he made up his mind to go
into it through the little gate which stood open, before he noticed you
running, as you have told us already, in the dark from the open window
where you saw your father, he, Grigory, glanced to the left, and, while
noticing the open window, observed at the same time, much nearer to him,
the door, standing wide open—that door which you have stated to have been
shut the whole time you were in the garden. I will not conceal from you
that Grigory himself confidently affirms and bears witness that you must
have run from that door, though, of course, he did not see you do so with
his own eyes, since he only noticed you first some distance away in the
garden, running towards the fence.”
Mitya had leapt up from his chair half‐way through this speech.
“Nonsense!” he yelled, in a sudden frenzy, “it’s a barefaced lie. He
couldn’t have seen the door open because it was shut. He’s lying!”
“I consider it my duty to repeat that he is firm in his statement. He does
not waver. He adheres to it. We’ve cross‐examined him several times.”
“Precisely. I have cross‐examined him several times,” Nikolay Parfenovitch
confirmed warmly.
“It’s false, false! It’s either an attempt to slander me, or the
hallucination of a madman,” Mitya still shouted. “He’s simply raving, from
loss of blood, from the wound. He must have fancied it when he came to....
He’s raving.”
“Yes, but he noticed the open door, not when he came to after his
injuries, but before that, as soon as he went into the garden from the
lodge.”
“But it’s false, it’s false! It can’t be so! He’s slandering me from
spite.... He couldn’t have seen it ... I didn’t come from the door,”
gasped Mitya.
The prosecutor turned to Nikolay Parfenovitch and said to him
impressively:
“Confront him with it.”
“Do you recognize this object?”
Nikolay Parfenovitch laid upon the table a large and thick official
envelope, on which three seals still remained intact. The envelope was
empty, and slit open at one end. Mitya stared at it with open eyes.
“It ... it must be that envelope of my father’s, the envelope that
contained the three thousand roubles ... and if there’s inscribed on it,
allow me, ‘For my little chicken’ ... yes—three thousand!” he shouted, “do
you see, three thousand, do you see?”
“Of course, we see. But we didn’t find the money in it. It was empty, and
lying on the floor by the bed, behind the screen.”
For some seconds Mitya stood as though thunderstruck.
“Gentlemen, it’s Smerdyakov!” he shouted suddenly, at the top of his
voice. “It’s he who’s murdered him! He’s robbed him! No one else knew
where the old man hid the envelope. It’s Smerdyakov, that’s clear, now!”
“But you, too, knew of the envelope and that it was under the pillow.”
“I never knew it. I’ve never seen it. This is the first time I’ve looked
at it. I’d only heard of it from Smerdyakov.... He was the only one who
knew where the old man kept it hidden, I didn’t know ...” Mitya was
completely breathless.
“But you told us yourself that the envelope was under your deceased
father’s pillow. You especially stated that it was under the pillow, so
you must have known it.”
“We’ve got it written down,” confirmed Nikolay Parfenovitch.
“Nonsense! It’s absurd! I’d no idea it was under the pillow. And perhaps
it wasn’t under the pillow at all.... It was just a chance guess that it
was under the pillow. What does Smerdyakov say? Have you asked him where
it was? What does Smerdyakov say? that’s the chief point.... And I went
out of my way to tell lies against myself.... I told you without thinking
that it was under the pillow, and now you— Oh, you know how one says the
wrong thing, without meaning it. No one knew but Smerdyakov, only
Smerdyakov, and no one else.... He didn’t even tell me where it was! But
it’s his doing, his doing; there’s no doubt about it, he murdered him,
that’s as clear as daylight now,” Mitya exclaimed more and more
frantically, repeating himself incoherently, and growing more and more
exasperated and excited. “You must understand that, and arrest him at
once.... He must have killed him while I was running away and while
Grigory was unconscious, that’s clear now.... He gave the signal and
father opened to him ... for no one but he knew the signal, and without
the signal father would never have opened the door....”
“But you’re again forgetting the circumstance,” the prosecutor observed,
still speaking with the same restraint, though with a note of triumph,
“that there was no need to give the signal if the door already stood open
when you were there, while you were in the garden....”
“The door, the door,” muttered Mitya, and he stared speechless at the
prosecutor. He sank back helpless in his chair. All were silent.
“Yes, the door!... It’s a nightmare! God is against me!” he exclaimed,
staring before him in complete stupefaction.
“Come, you see,” the prosecutor went on with dignity, “and you can judge
for yourself, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. On the one hand we have the evidence of
the open door from which you ran out, a fact which overwhelms you and us.
On the other side your incomprehensible, persistent, and, so to speak,
obdurate silence with regard to the source from which you obtained the
money which was so suddenly seen in your hands, when only three hours
earlier, on your own showing, you pledged your pistols for the sake of ten
roubles! In view of all these facts, judge for yourself. What are we to
believe, and what can we depend upon? And don’t accuse us of being
‘frigid, cynical, scoffing people,’ who are incapable of believing in the
generous impulses of your heart.... Try to enter into our position ...”
Mitya was indescribably agitated. He turned pale.
“Very well!” he exclaimed suddenly. “I will tell you my secret. I’ll tell
you where I got the money!... I’ll reveal my shame, that I may not have to
blame myself or you hereafter.”
“And believe me, Dmitri Fyodorovitch,” put in Nikolay Parfenovitch, in a
voice of almost pathetic delight, “that every sincere and complete
confession on your part at this moment may, later on, have an immense
influence in your favor, and may, indeed, moreover—”
But the prosecutor gave him a slight shove under the table, and he checked
himself in time. Mitya, it is true, had not heard him.
Chapter VII. Mitya’s Great Secret. Received With Hisses
“Gentlemen,” he began, still in the same agitation, “I want to make a full
confession: that money was _my own_.” The lawyers’ faces lengthened. That
was not at all what they expected.
“How do you mean?” faltered Nikolay Parfenovitch, “when at five o’clock on
the same day, from your own confession—”
“Damn five o’clock on the same day and my own confession! That’s nothing
to do with it now! That money was my own, my own, that is, stolen by me
... not mine, I mean, but stolen by me, and it was fifteen hundred
roubles, and I had it on me all the time, all the time ...”
“But where did you get it?”
“I took it off my neck, gentlemen, off this very neck ... it was here,
round my neck, sewn up in a rag, and I’d had it round my neck a long time,
it’s a month since I put it round my neck ... to my shame and disgrace!”
“And from whom did you ... appropriate it?”
“You mean, ‘steal it’? Speak out plainly now. Yes, I consider that I
practically stole it, but, if you prefer, I ‘appropriated it.’ I consider
I stole it. And last night I stole it finally.”
“Last night? But you said that it’s a month since you ... obtained it?...”
“Yes. But not from my father. Not from my father, don’t be uneasy. I
didn’t steal it from my father, but from her. Let me tell you without
interrupting. It’s hard to do, you know. You see, a month ago, I was sent
for by Katerina Ivanovna, formerly my betrothed. Do you know her?”
“Yes, of course.”
“I know you know her. She’s a noble creature, noblest of the noble. But
she has hated me ever so long, oh, ever so long ... and hated me with good
reason, good reason!”
“Katerina Ivanovna!” Nikolay Parfenovitch exclaimed with wonder. The
prosecutor, too, stared.
“Oh, don’t take her name in vain! I’m a scoundrel to bring her into it.
Yes, I’ve seen that she hated me ... a long while.... From the very first,
even that evening at my lodging ... but enough, enough. You’re unworthy
even to know of that. No need of that at all.... I need only tell you that
she sent for me a month ago, gave me three thousand roubles to send off to
her sister and another relation in Moscow (as though she couldn’t have
sent it off herself!) and I ... it was just at that fatal moment in my
life when I ... well, in fact, when I’d just come to love another, her,
she’s sitting down below now, Grushenka. I carried her off here to Mokroe
then, and wasted here in two days half that damned three thousand, but the
other half I kept on me. Well, I’ve kept that other half, that fifteen
hundred, like a locket round my neck, but yesterday I undid it, and spent
it. What’s left of it, eight hundred roubles, is in your hands now,
Nikolay Parfenovitch. That’s the change out of the fifteen hundred I had
yesterday.”
“Excuse me. How’s that? Why, when you were here a month ago you spent
three thousand, not fifteen hundred, everybody knows that.”
“Who knows it? Who counted the money? Did I let any one count it?”
“Why, you told every one yourself that you’d spent exactly three
thousand.”
“It’s true, I did. I told the whole town so, and the whole town said so.
And here, at Mokroe, too, every one reckoned it was three thousand. Yet I
didn’t spend three thousand, but fifteen hundred. And the other fifteen
hundred I sewed into a little bag. That’s how it was, gentlemen. That’s
where I got that money yesterday....”
“This is almost miraculous,” murmured Nikolay Parfenovitch.
“Allow me to inquire,” observed the prosecutor at last, “have you informed
any one whatever of this circumstance before, I mean that you had fifteen
hundred left about you a month ago?”
“I told no one.”
“That’s strange. Do you mean absolutely no one?”
“Absolutely no one. No one and nobody.”
“What was your reason for this reticence? What was your motive for making
such a secret of it? To be more precise: You have told us at last your
secret, in your words, so ‘disgraceful,’ though in reality—that is, of
course, comparatively speaking—this action, that is, the appropriation of
three thousand roubles belonging to some one else, and, of course, only
for a time is, in my view at least, only an act of the greatest
recklessness and not so disgraceful, when one takes into consideration
your character.... Even admitting that it was an action in the highest
degree discreditable, still, discreditable is not ‘disgraceful.’... Many
people have already guessed, during this last month, about the three
thousand of Katerina Ivanovna’s, that you have spent, and I heard the
legend myself, apart from your confession.... Mihail Makarovitch, for
instance, had heard it, too, so that indeed, it was scarcely a legend, but
the gossip of the whole town. There are indications, too, if I am not
mistaken, that you confessed this yourself to some one, I mean that the
money was Katerina Ivanovna’s, and so, it’s extremely surprising to me
that hitherto, that is, up to the present moment, you have made such an
extraordinary secret of the fifteen hundred you say you put by, apparently
connecting a feeling of positive horror with that secret.... It’s not easy
to believe that it could cost you such distress to confess such a
secret.... You cried out, just now, that Siberia would be better than
confessing it ...”
The prosecutor ceased speaking. He was provoked. He did not conceal his
vexation, which was almost anger, and gave vent to all his accumulated
spleen, disconnectedly and incoherently, without choosing words.
“It’s not the fifteen hundred that’s the disgrace, but that I put it apart
from the rest of the three thousand,” said Mitya firmly.
“Why?” smiled the prosecutor irritably. “What is there disgraceful, to
your thinking, in your having set aside half of the three thousand you had
discreditably, if you prefer, ‘disgracefully,’ appropriated? Your taking
the three thousand is more important than what you did with it. And by the
way, why did you do that—why did you set apart that half, for what
purpose, for what object did you do it? Can you explain that to us?”
“Oh, gentlemen, the purpose is the whole point!” cried Mitya. “I put it
aside because I was vile, that is, because I was calculating, and to be
calculating in such a case is vile ... and that vileness has been going on
a whole month.”
“It’s incomprehensible.”
“I wonder at you. But I’ll make it clearer. Perhaps it really is
incomprehensible. You see, attend to what I say. I appropriate three
thousand entrusted to my honor, I spend it on a spree, say I spend it all,
and next morning I go to her and say, ‘Katya, I’ve done wrong, I’ve
squandered your three thousand,’ well, is that right? No, it’s not
right—it’s dishonest and cowardly, I’m a beast, with no more self‐control
than a beast, that’s so, isn’t it? But still I’m not a thief? Not a
downright thief, you’ll admit! I squandered it, but I didn’t steal it. Now
a second, rather more favorable alternative: follow me carefully, or I may
get confused again—my head’s going round—and so, for the second
alternative: I spend here only fifteen hundred out of the three thousand,
that is, only half. Next day I go and take that half to her: ‘Katya, take
this fifteen hundred from me, I’m a low beast, and an untrustworthy
scoundrel, for I’ve wasted half the money, and I shall waste this, too, so
keep me from temptation!’ Well, what of that alternative? I should be a
beast and a scoundrel, and whatever you like; but not a thief, not
altogether a thief, or I should not have brought back what was left, but
have kept that, too. She would see at once that since I brought back half,
I should pay back what I’d spent, that I should never give up trying to,
that I should work to get it and pay it back. So in that case I should be
a scoundrel, but not a thief, you may say what you like, not a thief!”
“I admit that there is a certain distinction,” said the prosecutor, with a
cold smile. “But it’s strange that you see such a vital difference.”
“Yes, I see a vital difference! Every man may be a scoundrel, and perhaps
every man is a scoundrel, but not every one can be a thief, it takes an
arch‐scoundrel to be that. Oh, of course, I don’t know how to make these
fine distinctions ... but a thief is lower than a scoundrel, that’s my
conviction. Listen, I carry the money about me a whole month, I may make
up my mind to give it back to‐morrow, and I’m a scoundrel no longer, but I
cannot make up my mind, you see, though I’m making up my mind every day,
and every day spurring myself on to do it, and yet for a whole month I
can’t bring myself to it, you see. Is that right to your thinking, is that
right?”
“Certainly, that’s not right, that I can quite understand, and that I
don’t dispute,” answered the prosecutor with reserve. “And let us give up
all discussion of these subtleties and distinctions, and, if you will be
so kind, get back to the point. And the point is, that you have still not
told us, altogether we’ve asked you, why, in the first place, you halved
the money, squandering one half and hiding the other? For what purpose
exactly did you hide it, what did you mean to do with that fifteen
hundred? I insist upon that question, Dmitri Fyodorovitch.”
“Yes, of course!” cried Mitya, striking himself on the forehead; “forgive
me, I’m worrying you, and am not explaining the chief point, or you’d
understand in a minute, for it’s just the motive of it that’s the
disgrace! You see, it was all to do with the old man, my dead father. He
was always pestering Agrafena Alexandrovna, and I was jealous; I thought
then that she was hesitating between me and him. So I kept thinking every
day, suppose she were to make up her mind all of a sudden, suppose she
were to leave off tormenting me, and were suddenly to say to me, ‘I love
you, not him; take me to the other end of the world.’ And I’d only forty
copecks; how could I take her away, what could I do? Why, I’d be lost. You
see, I didn’t know her then, I didn’t understand her, I thought she wanted
money, and that she wouldn’t forgive my poverty. And so I fiendishly
counted out the half of that three thousand, sewed it up, calculating on
it, sewed it up before I was drunk, and after I had sewn it up, I went off
to get drunk on the rest. Yes, that was base. Do you understand now?”
Both the lawyers laughed aloud.
“I should have called it sensible and moral on your part not to have
squandered it all,” chuckled Nikolay Parfenovitch, “for after all what
does it amount to?”
“Why, that I stole it, that’s what it amounts to! Oh, God, you horrify me
by not understanding! Every day that I had that fifteen hundred sewn up
round my neck, every day and every hour I said to myself, ‘You’re a thief!
you’re a thief!’ Yes, that’s why I’ve been so savage all this month,
that’s why I fought in the tavern, that’s why I attacked my father, it was
because I felt I was a thief. I couldn’t make up my mind, I didn’t dare
even to tell Alyosha, my brother, about that fifteen hundred: I felt I was
such a scoundrel and such a pickpocket. But, do you know, while I carried
it I said to myself at the same time every hour: ‘No, Dmitri Fyodorovitch,
you may yet not be a thief.’ Why? Because I might go next day and pay back
that fifteen hundred to Katya. And only yesterday I made up my mind to
tear my amulet off my neck, on my way from Fenya’s to Perhotin. I hadn’t
been able till that moment to bring myself to it. And it was only when I
tore it off that I became a downright thief, a thief and a dishonest man
for the rest of my life. Why? Because, with that I destroyed, too, my
dream of going to Katya and saying, ‘I’m a scoundrel, but not a thief!’ Do
you understand now? Do you understand?”
“What was it made you decide to do it yesterday?” Nikolay Parfenovitch
interrupted.
“Why? It’s absurd to ask. Because I had condemned myself to die at five
o’clock this morning, here, at dawn. I thought it made no difference
whether I died a thief or a man of honor. But I see it’s not so, it turns
out that it does make a difference. Believe me, gentlemen, what has
tortured me most during this night has not been the thought that I’d
killed the old servant, and that I was in danger of Siberia just when my
love was being rewarded, and Heaven was open to me again. Oh, that did
torture me, but not in the same way: not so much as the damned
consciousness that I had torn that damned money off my breast at last and
spent it, and had become a downright thief! Oh, gentlemen, I tell you
again, with a bleeding heart, I have learnt a great deal this night. I
have learnt that it’s not only impossible to live a scoundrel, but
impossible to die a scoundrel.... No, gentlemen, one must die honest....”
Mitya was pale. His face had a haggard and exhausted look, in spite of his
being intensely excited.
“I am beginning to understand you, Dmitri Fyodorovitch,” the prosecutor
said slowly, in a soft and almost compassionate tone. “But all this, if
you’ll excuse my saying so, is a matter of nerves, in my opinion ... your
overwrought nerves, that’s what it is. And why, for instance, should you
not have saved yourself such misery for almost a month, by going and
returning that fifteen hundred to the lady who had entrusted it to you?
And why could you not have explained things to her, and in view of your
position, which you describe as being so awful, why could you not have had
recourse to the plan which would so naturally have occurred to one’s mind,
that is, after honorably confessing your errors to her, why could you not
have asked her to lend you the sum needed for your expenses, which, with
her generous heart, she would certainly not have refused you in your
distress, especially if it had been with some guarantee, or even on the
security you offered to the merchant Samsonov, and to Madame Hohlakov? I
suppose you still regard that security as of value?”
Mitya suddenly crimsoned.
“Surely you don’t think me such an out and out scoundrel as that? You
can’t be speaking in earnest?” he said, with indignation, looking the
prosecutor straight in the face, and seeming unable to believe his ears.
“I assure you I’m in earnest.... Why do you imagine I’m not serious?” It
was the prosecutor’s turn to be surprised.
“Oh, how base that would have been! Gentlemen, do you know, you are
torturing me! Let me tell you everything, so be it. I’ll confess all my
infernal wickedness, but to put you to shame, and you’ll be surprised
yourselves at the depth of ignominy to which a medley of human passions
can sink. You must know that I already had that plan myself, that plan you
spoke of, just now, prosecutor! Yes, gentlemen, I, too, have had that
thought in my mind all this current month, so that I was on the point of
deciding to go to Katya—I was mean enough for that. But to go to her, to
tell her of my treachery, and for that very treachery, to carry it out,
for the expenses of that treachery, to beg for money from her, Katya (to
beg, do you hear, to beg), and go straight from her to run away with the
other, the rival, who hated and insulted her—to think of it! You must be
mad, prosecutor!”
“Mad I am not, but I did speak in haste, without thinking ... of that
feminine jealousy ... if there could be jealousy in this case, as you
assert ... yes, perhaps there is something of the kind,” said the
prosecutor, smiling.
“But that would have been so infamous!” Mitya brought his fist down on the
table fiercely. “That would have been filthy beyond everything! Yes, do
you know that she might have given me that money, yes, and she would have
given it, too; she’d have been certain to give it, to be revenged on me,
she’d have given it to satisfy her vengeance, to show her contempt for me,
for hers is an infernal nature, too, and she’s a woman of great wrath. I’d
have taken the money, too, oh, I should have taken it; I should have taken
it, and then, for the rest of my life ... oh, God! Forgive me, gentlemen,
I’m making such an outcry because I’ve had that thought in my mind so
lately, only the day before yesterday, that night when I was having all
that bother with Lyagavy, and afterwards yesterday, all day yesterday, I
remember, till that happened ...”
“Till what happened?” put in Nikolay Parfenovitch inquisitively, but Mitya
did not hear it.
“I have made you an awful confession,” Mitya said gloomily in conclusion.
“You must appreciate it, and what’s more, you must respect it, for if not,
if that leaves your souls untouched, then you’ve simply no respect for me,
gentlemen, I tell you that, and I shall die of shame at having confessed
it to men like you! Oh, I shall shoot myself! Yes, I see, I see already
that you don’t believe me. What, you want to write that down, too?” he
cried in dismay.
“Yes, what you said just now,” said Nikolay Parfenovitch, looking at him
in surprise, “that is, that up to the last hour you were still
contemplating going to Katerina Ivanovna to beg that sum from her.... I
assure you, that’s a very important piece of evidence for us, Dmitri
Fyodorovitch, I mean for the whole case ... and particularly for you,
particularly important for you.”
“Have mercy, gentlemen!” Mitya flung up his hands. “Don’t write that,
anyway; have some shame. Here I’ve torn my heart asunder before you, and
you seize the opportunity and are fingering the wounds in both halves....
Oh, my God!”
In despair he hid his face in his hands.
“Don’t worry yourself so, Dmitri Fyodorovitch,” observed the prosecutor,
“everything that is written down will be read over to you afterwards, and
what you don’t agree to we’ll alter as you like. But now I’ll ask you one
little question for the second time. Has no one, absolutely no one, heard
from you of that money you sewed up? That, I must tell you, is almost
impossible to believe.”
“No one, no one, I told you so before, or you’ve not understood anything!
Let me alone!”
“Very well, this matter is bound to be explained, and there’s plenty of
time for it, but meantime, consider; we have perhaps a dozen witnesses
that you yourself spread it abroad, and even shouted almost everywhere
about the three thousand you’d spent here; three thousand, not fifteen
hundred. And now, too, when you got hold of the money you had yesterday,
you gave many people to understand that you had brought three thousand
with you.”
“You’ve got not dozens, but hundreds of witnesses, two hundred witnesses,
two hundred have heard it, thousands have heard it!” cried Mitya.
“Well, you see, all bear witness to it. And the word _all_ means
something.”
“It means nothing. I talked rot, and every one began repeating it.”
“But what need had you to ‘talk rot,’ as you call it?”
“The devil knows. From bravado perhaps ... at having wasted so much
money.... To try and forget that money I had sewn up, perhaps ... yes,
that was why ... damn it ... how often will you ask me that question?
Well, I told a fib, and that was the end of it, once I’d said it, I didn’t
care to correct it. What does a man tell lies for sometimes?”
“That’s very difficult to decide, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, what makes a man
tell lies,” observed the prosecutor impressively. “Tell me, though, was
that ‘amulet,’ as you call it, on your neck, a big thing?”
“No, not big.”
“How big, for instance?”
“If you fold a hundred‐rouble note in half, that would be the size.”
“You’d better show us the remains of it. You must have them somewhere.”
“Damnation, what nonsense! I don’t know where they are.”
“But excuse me: where and when did you take it off your neck? According to
your own evidence you didn’t go home.”
“When I was going from Fenya’s to Perhotin’s, on the way I tore it off my
neck and took out the money.”
“In the dark?”
“What should I want a light for? I did it with my fingers in one minute.”
“Without scissors, in the street?”
“In the market‐place I think it was. Why scissors? It was an old rag. It
was torn in a minute.”
“Where did you put it afterwards?”
“I dropped it there.”
“Where was it, exactly?”
“In the market‐place, in the market‐place! The devil knows whereabouts.
What do you want to know for?”
“That’s extremely important, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. It would be material
evidence in your favor. How is it you don’t understand that? Who helped
you to sew it up a month ago?”
“No one helped me. I did it myself.”
“Can you sew?”
“A soldier has to know how to sew. No knowledge was needed to do that.”
“Where did you get the material, that is, the rag in which you sewed the
money?”
“Are you laughing at me?”
“Not at all. And we are in no mood for laughing, Dmitri Fyodorovitch.”
“I don’t know where I got the rag from—somewhere, I suppose.”
“I should have thought you couldn’t have forgotten it?”
“Upon my word, I don’t remember. I might have torn a bit off my linen.”
“That’s very interesting. We might find in your lodgings to‐morrow the
shirt or whatever it is from which you tore the rag. What sort of rag was
it, cloth or linen?”
“Goodness only knows what it was. Wait a bit.... I believe I didn’t tear
it off anything. It was a bit of calico.... I believe I sewed it up in a
cap of my landlady’s.”
“In your landlady’s cap?”
“Yes. I took it from her.”
“How did you get it?”
“You see, I remember once taking a cap for a rag, perhaps to wipe my pen
on. I took it without asking, because it was a worthless rag. I tore it
up, and I took the notes and sewed them up in it. I believe it was in that
very rag I sewed them. An old piece of calico, washed a thousand times.”
“And you remember that for certain now?”
“I don’t know whether for certain. I think it was in the cap. But, hang
it, what does it matter?”
“In that case your landlady will remember that the thing was lost?”
“No, she won’t, she didn’t miss it. It was an old rag, I tell you, an old
rag not worth a farthing.”
“And where did you get the needle and thread?”
“I’ll stop now. I won’t say any more. Enough of it!” said Mitya, losing
his temper at last.
“It’s strange that you should have so completely forgotten where you threw
the pieces in the market‐place.”
“Give orders for the market‐place to be swept to‐morrow, and perhaps
you’ll find it,” said Mitya, sneering. “Enough, gentlemen, enough!” he
decided, in an exhausted voice. “I see you don’t believe me! Not for a
moment! It’s my fault, not yours. I ought not to have been so ready. Why,
why did I degrade myself by confessing my secret to you? It’s a joke to
you. I see that from your eyes. You led me on to it, prosecutor? Sing a
hymn of triumph if you can.... Damn you, you torturers!”
He bent his head, and hid his face in his hands. The lawyers were silent.
A minute later he raised his head and looked at them almost vacantly. His
face now expressed complete, hopeless despair, and he sat mute and passive
as though hardly conscious of what was happening. In the meantime they had
to finish what they were about. They had immediately to begin examining
the witnesses. It was by now eight o’clock in the morning. The lights had
been extinguished long ago. Mihail Makarovitch and Kalganov, who had been
continually in and out of the room all the while the interrogation had
been going on, had now both gone out again. The lawyers, too, looked very
tired. It was a wretched morning, the whole sky was overcast, and the rain
streamed down in bucketfuls. Mitya gazed blankly out of the window.
“May I look out of the window?” he asked Nikolay Parfenovitch, suddenly.
“Oh, as much as you like,” the latter replied.
Mitya got up and went to the window.... The rain lashed against its little
greenish panes. He could see the muddy road just below the house, and
farther away, in the rain and mist, a row of poor, black, dismal huts,
looking even blacker and poorer in the rain. Mitya thought of “Phœbus the
golden‐haired,” and how he had meant to shoot himself at his first ray.
“Perhaps it would be even better on a morning like this,” he thought with
a smile, and suddenly, flinging his hand downwards, he turned to his
“torturers.”
“Gentlemen,” he cried, “I see that I am lost! But she? Tell me about her,
I beseech you. Surely she need not be ruined with me? She’s innocent, you
know, she was out of her mind when she cried last night ‘It’s all my
fault!’ She’s done nothing, nothing! I’ve been grieving over her all night
as I sat with you.... Can’t you, won’t you tell me what you are going to
do with her now?”
“You can set your mind quite at rest on that score, Dmitri Fyodorovitch,”
the prosecutor answered at once, with evident alacrity. “We have, so far,
no grounds for interfering with the lady in whom you are so interested. I
trust that it may be the same in the later development of the case.... On
the contrary, we’ll do everything that lies in our power in that matter.
Set your mind completely at rest.”
“Gentlemen, I thank you. I knew that you were honest, straight‐forward
people in spite of everything. You’ve taken a load off my heart.... Well,
what are we to do now? I’m ready.”
“Well, we ought to make haste. We must pass to examining the witnesses
without delay. That must be done in your presence and therefore—”
“Shouldn’t we have some tea first?” interposed Nikolay Parfenovitch, “I
think we’ve deserved it!”
They decided that if tea were ready downstairs (Mihail Makarovitch had, no
doubt, gone down to get some) they would have a glass and then “go on and
on,” putting off their proper breakfast until a more favorable
opportunity. Tea really was ready below, and was soon brought up. Mitya at
first refused the glass that Nikolay Parfenovitch politely offered him,
but afterwards he asked for it himself and drank it greedily. He looked
surprisingly exhausted. It might have been supposed from his Herculean
strength that one night of carousing, even accompanied by the most violent
emotions, could have had little effect on him. But he felt that he could
hardly hold his head up, and from time to time all the objects about him
seemed heaving and dancing before his eyes. “A little more and I shall
begin raving,” he said to himself.
Chapter VIII. The Evidence Of The Witnesses. The Babe
The examination of the witnesses began. But we will not continue our story
in such detail as before. And so we will not dwell on how Nikolay
Parfenovitch impressed on every witness called that he must give his
evidence in accordance with truth and conscience, and that he would
afterwards have to repeat his evidence on oath, how every witness was
called upon to sign the protocol of his evidence, and so on. We will only
note that the point principally insisted upon in the examination was the
question of the three thousand roubles, that is, was the sum spent here,
at Mokroe, by Mitya on the first occasion, a month before, three thousand
or fifteen hundred? And again had he spent three thousand or fifteen
hundred yesterday? Alas, all the evidence given by every one turned out to
be against Mitya. There was not one in his favor, and some witnesses
introduced new, almost crushing facts, in contradiction of his, Mitya’s,
story.
The first witness examined was Trifon Borissovitch. He was not in the
least abashed as he stood before the lawyers. He had, on the contrary, an
air of stern and severe indignation with the accused, which gave him an
appearance of truthfulness and personal dignity. He spoke little, and with
reserve, waited to be questioned, answered precisely and deliberately.
Firmly and unhesitatingly he bore witness that the sum spent a month
before could not have been less than three thousand, that all the peasants
about here would testify that they had heard the sum of three thousand
mentioned by Dmitri Fyodorovitch himself. “What a lot of money he flung
away on the gypsy girls alone! He wasted a thousand, I daresay, on them
alone.”
“I don’t believe I gave them five hundred,” was Mitya’s gloomy comment on
this. “It’s a pity I didn’t count the money at the time, but I was
drunk....”
Mitya was sitting sideways with his back to the curtains. He listened
gloomily, with a melancholy and exhausted air, as though he would say:
“Oh, say what you like. It makes no difference now.”
“More than a thousand went on them, Dmitri Fyodorovitch,” retorted Trifon
Borissovitch firmly. “You flung it about at random and they picked it up.
They were a rascally, thievish lot, horse‐stealers, they’ve been driven
away from here, or maybe they’d bear witness themselves how much they got
from you. I saw the sum in your hands, myself—count it I didn’t, you
didn’t let me, that’s true enough—but by the look of it I should say it
was far more than fifteen hundred ... fifteen hundred, indeed! We’ve seen
money too. We can judge of amounts....”
As for the sum spent yesterday he asserted that Dmitri Fyodorovitch had
told him, as soon as he arrived, that he had brought three thousand with
him.
“Come now, is that so, Trifon Borissovitch?” replied Mitya. “Surely I
didn’t declare so positively that I’d brought three thousand?”
“You did say so, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. You said it before Andrey. Andrey
himself is still here. Send for him. And in the hall, when you were
treating the chorus, you shouted straight out that you would leave your
sixth thousand here—that is with what you spent before, we must
understand. Stepan and Semyon heard it, and Pyotr Fomitch Kalganov, too,
was standing beside you at the time. Maybe he’d remember it....”
The evidence as to the “sixth” thousand made an extraordinary impression
on the two lawyers. They were delighted with this new mode of reckoning;
three and three made six, three thousand then and three now made six, that
was clear.
They questioned all the peasants suggested by Trifon Borissovitch, Stepan
and Semyon, the driver Andrey, and Kalganov. The peasants and the driver
unhesitatingly confirmed Trifon Borissovitch’s evidence. They noted down,
with particular care, Andrey’s account of the conversation he had had with
Mitya on the road: “ ‘Where,’ says he, ‘am I, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, going,
to heaven or to hell, and shall I be forgiven in the next world or not?’ ”
The psychological Ippolit Kirillovitch heard this with a subtle smile, and
ended by recommending that these remarks as to where Dmitri Fyodorovitch
would go should be “included in the case.”
Kalganov, when called, came in reluctantly, frowning and ill‐humored, and
he spoke to the lawyers as though he had never met them before in his
life, though they were acquaintances whom he had been meeting every day
for a long time past. He began by saying that “he knew nothing about it
and didn’t want to.” But it appeared that he had heard of the “sixth”
thousand, and he admitted that he had been standing close by at the
moment. As far as he could see he “didn’t know” how much money Mitya had
in his hands. He affirmed that the Poles had cheated at cards. In reply to
reiterated questions he stated that, after the Poles had been turned out,
Mitya’s position with Agrafena Alexandrovna had certainly improved, and
that she had said that she loved him. He spoke of Agrafena Alexandrovna
with reserve and respect, as though she had been a lady of the best
society, and did not once allow himself to call her Grushenka. In spite of
the young man’s obvious repugnance at giving evidence, Ippolit
Kirillovitch examined him at great length, and only from him learnt all
the details of what made up Mitya’s “romance,” so to say, on that night.
Mitya did not once pull Kalganov up. At last they let the young man go,
and he left the room with unconcealed indignation.
The Poles, too, were examined. Though they had gone to bed in their room,
they had not slept all night, and on the arrival of the police officers
they hastily dressed and got ready, realizing that they would certainly be
sent for. They gave their evidence with dignity, though not without some
uneasiness. The little Pole turned out to be a retired official of the
twelfth class, who had served in Siberia as a veterinary surgeon. His name
was Mussyalovitch. Pan Vrublevsky turned out to be an uncertificated
dentist. Although Nikolay Parfenovitch asked them questions on entering
the room they both addressed their answers to Mihail Makarovitch, who was
standing on one side, taking him in their ignorance for the most important
person and in command, and addressed him at every word as “Pan Colonel.”
Only after several reproofs from Mihail Makarovitch himself, they grasped
that they had to address their answers to Nikolay Parfenovitch only. It
turned out that they could speak Russian quite correctly except for their
accent in some words. Of his relations with Grushenka, past and present,
Pan Mussyalovitch spoke proudly and warmly, so that Mitya was roused at
once and declared that he would not allow the “scoundrel” to speak like
that in his presence! Pan Mussyalovitch at once called attention to the
word “scoundrel” and begged that it should be put down in the protocol.
Mitya fumed with rage.
“He’s a scoundrel! A scoundrel! You can put that down. And put down, too,
that, in spite of the protocol I still declare that he’s a scoundrel!” he
cried.
Though Nikolay Parfenovitch did insert this in the protocol, he showed the
most praiseworthy tact and management. After sternly reprimanding Mitya,
he cut short all further inquiry into the romantic aspect of the case, and
hastened to pass to what was essential. One piece of evidence given by the
Poles roused special interest in the lawyers: that was how, in that very
room, Mitya had tried to buy off Pan Mussyalovitch, and had offered him
three thousand roubles to resign his claims, seven hundred roubles down,
and the remaining two thousand three hundred “to be paid next day in the
town.” He had sworn at the time that he had not the whole sum with him at
Mokroe, but that his money was in the town. Mitya observed hotly that he
had not said that he would be sure to pay him the remainder next day in
the town. But Pan Vrublevsky confirmed the statement, and Mitya, after
thinking for a moment admitted, frowning, that it must have been as the
Poles stated, that he had been excited at the time, and might indeed have
said so.
The prosecutor positively pounced on this piece of evidence. It seemed to
establish for the prosecution (and they did, in fact, base this deduction
on it) that half, or a part of, the three thousand that had come into
Mitya’s hands might really have been left somewhere hidden in the town, or
even, perhaps, somewhere here, in Mokroe. This would explain the
circumstance, so baffling for the prosecution, that only eight hundred
roubles were to be found in Mitya’s hands. This circumstance had been the
one piece of evidence which, insignificant as it was, had hitherto told,
to some extent, in Mitya’s favor. Now this one piece of evidence in his
favor had broken down. In answer to the prosecutor’s inquiry, where he
would have got the remaining two thousand three hundred roubles, since he
himself had denied having more than fifteen hundred, Mitya confidently
replied that he had meant to offer the “little chap,” not money, but a
formal deed of conveyance of his rights to the village of Tchermashnya,
those rights which he had already offered to Samsonov and Madame Hohlakov.
The prosecutor positively smiled at the “innocence of this subterfuge.”
“And you imagine he would have accepted such a deed as a substitute for
two thousand three hundred roubles in cash?”
“He certainly would have accepted it,” Mitya declared warmly. “Why, look
here, he might have grabbed not two thousand, but four or six, for it. He
would have put his lawyers, Poles and Jews, on to the job, and might have
got, not three thousand, but the whole property out of the old man.”
The evidence of Pan Mussyalovitch was, of course, entered in the protocol
in the fullest detail. Then they let the Poles go. The incident of the
cheating at cards was hardly touched upon. Nikolay Parfenovitch was too
well pleased with them, as it was, and did not want to worry them with
trifles, moreover, it was nothing but a foolish, drunken quarrel over
cards. There had been drinking and disorder enough, that night.... So the
two hundred roubles remained in the pockets of the Poles.
Then old Maximov was summoned. He came in timidly, approached with little
steps, looking very disheveled and depressed. He had, all this time, taken
refuge below with Grushenka, sitting dumbly beside her, and “now and then
he’d begin blubbering over her and wiping his eyes with a blue check
handkerchief,” as Mihail Makarovitch described afterwards. So that she
herself began trying to pacify and comfort him. The old man at once
confessed that he had done wrong, that he had borrowed “ten roubles in my
poverty,” from Dmitri Fyodorovitch, and that he was ready to pay it back.
To Nikolay Parfenovitch’s direct question, had he noticed how much money
Dmitri Fyodorovitch held in his hand, as he must have been able to see the
sum better than any one when he took the note from him, Maximov, in the
most positive manner, declared that there was twenty thousand.
“Have you ever seen so much as twenty thousand before, then?” inquired
Nikolay Parfenovitch, with a smile.
“To be sure I have, not twenty, but seven, when my wife mortgaged my
little property. She’d only let me look at it from a distance, boasting of
it to me. It was a very thick bundle, all rainbow‐colored notes. And
Dmitri Fyodorovitch’s were all rainbow‐colored....”
He was not kept long. At last it was Grushenka’s turn. Nikolay
Parfenovitch was obviously apprehensive of the effect her appearance might
have on Mitya, and he muttered a few words of admonition to him, but Mitya
bowed his head in silence, giving him to understand “that he would not
make a scene.” Mihail Makarovitch himself led Grushenka in. She entered
with a stern and gloomy face, that looked almost composed and sat down
quietly on the chair offered her by Nikolay Parfenovitch. She was very
pale, she seemed to be cold, and wrapped herself closely in her
magnificent black shawl. She was suffering from a slight feverish
chill—the first symptom of the long illness which followed that night. Her
grave air, her direct earnest look and quiet manner made a very favorable
impression on every one. Nikolay Parfenovitch was even a little bit
“fascinated.” He admitted himself, when talking about it afterwards, that
only then had he seen “how handsome the woman was,” for, though he had
seen her several times before, he had always looked upon her as something
of a “provincial hetaira.” “She has the manners of the best society,” he
said enthusiastically, gossiping about her in a circle of ladies. But this
was received with positive indignation by the ladies, who immediately
called him a “naughty man,” to his great satisfaction.
As she entered the room, Grushenka only glanced for an instant at Mitya,
who looked at her uneasily. But her face reassured him at once. After the
first inevitable inquiries and warnings, Nikolay Parfenovitch asked her,
hesitating a little, but preserving the most courteous manner, on what
terms she was with the retired lieutenant, Dmitri Fyodorovitch Karamazov.
To this Grushenka firmly and quietly replied:
“He was an acquaintance. He came to see me as an acquaintance during the
last month.” To further inquisitive questions she answered plainly and
with complete frankness, that, though “at times” she had thought him
attractive, she had not loved him, but had won his heart as well as his
old father’s “in my nasty spite,” that she had seen that Mitya was very
jealous of Fyodor Pavlovitch and every one else; but that had only amused
her. She had never meant to go to Fyodor Pavlovitch, she had simply been
laughing at him. “I had no thoughts for either of them all this last
month. I was expecting another man who had wronged me. But I think,” she
said in conclusion, “that there’s no need for you to inquire about that,
nor for me to answer you, for that’s my own affair.”
Nikolay Parfenovitch immediately acted upon this hint. He again dismissed
the “romantic” aspect of the case and passed to the serious one, that is,
to the question of most importance, concerning the three thousand roubles.
Grushenka confirmed the statement that three thousand roubles had
certainly been spent on the first carousal at Mokroe, and, though she had
not counted the money herself, she had heard that it was three thousand
from Dmitri Fyodorovitch’s own lips.
“Did he tell you that alone, or before some one else, or did you only hear
him speak of it to others in your presence?” the prosecutor inquired
immediately.
To which Grushenka replied that she had heard him say so before other
people, and had heard him say so when they were alone.
“Did he say it to you alone once, or several times?” inquired the
prosecutor, and learned that he had told Grushenka so several times.
Ippolit Kirillovitch was very well satisfied with this piece of evidence.
Further examination elicited that Grushenka knew, too, where that money
had come from, and that Dmitri Fyodorovitch had got it from Katerina
Ivanovna.
“And did you never, once, hear that the money spent a month ago was not
three thousand, but less, and that Dmitri Fyodorovitch had saved half that
sum for his own use?”
“No, I never heard that,” answered Grushenka.
It was explained further that Mitya had, on the contrary, often told her
that he hadn’t a farthing.
“He was always expecting to get some from his father,” said Grushenka in
conclusion.
“Did he never say before you ... casually, or in a moment of irritation,”
Nikolay Parfenovitch put in suddenly, “that he intended to make an attempt
on his father’s life?”
“Ach, he did say so,” sighed Grushenka.
“Once or several times?”
“He mentioned it several times, always in anger.”
“And did you believe he would do it?”
“No, I never believed it,” she answered firmly. “I had faith in his noble
heart.”
“Gentlemen, allow me,” cried Mitya suddenly, “allow me to say one word to
Agrafena Alexandrovna, in your presence.”
“You can speak,” Nikolay Parfenovitch assented.
“Agrafena Alexandrovna!” Mitya got up from his chair, “have faith in God
and in me. I am not guilty of my father’s murder!”
Having uttered these words Mitya sat down again on his chair. Grushenka
stood up and crossed herself devoutly before the ikon. “Thanks be to Thee,
O Lord,” she said, in a voice thrilled with emotion, and still standing,
she turned to Nikolay Parfenovitch and added:
“As he has spoken now, believe it! I know him. He’ll say anything as a
joke or from obstinacy, but he’ll never deceive you against his
conscience. He’s telling the whole truth, you may believe it.”
“Thanks, Agrafena Alexandrovna, you’ve given me fresh courage,” Mitya
responded in a quivering voice.
As to the money spent the previous day, she declared that she did not know
what sum it was, but had heard him tell several people that he had three
thousand with him. And to the question where he got the money, she said
that he had told her that he had “stolen” it from Katerina Ivanovna, and
that she had replied to that that he hadn’t stolen it, and that he must
pay the money back next day. On the prosecutor’s asking her emphatically
whether the money he said he had stolen from Katerina Ivanovna was what he
had spent yesterday, or what he had squandered here a month ago, she
declared that he meant the money spent a month ago, and that that was how
she understood him.
Grushenka was at last released, and Nikolay Parfenovitch informed her
impulsively that she might at once return to the town and that if he could
be of any assistance to her, with horses for example, or if she would care
for an escort, he ... would be—
“I thank you sincerely,” said Grushenka, bowing to him, “I’m going with
this old gentleman, I am driving him back to town with me, and meanwhile,
if you’ll allow me, I’ll wait below to hear what you decide about Dmitri
Fyodorovitch.”
She went out. Mitya was calm, and even looked more cheerful, but only for
a moment. He felt more and more oppressed by a strange physical weakness.
His eyes were closing with fatigue. The examination of the witnesses was,
at last, over. They proceeded to a final revision of the protocol. Mitya
got up, moved from his chair to the corner by the curtain, lay down on a
large chest covered with a rug, and instantly fell asleep.
He had a strange dream, utterly out of keeping with the place and the
time.
He was driving somewhere in the steppes, where he had been stationed long
ago, and a peasant was driving him in a cart with a pair of horses,
through snow and sleet. He was cold, it was early in November, and the
snow was falling in big wet flakes, melting as soon as it touched the
earth. And the peasant drove him smartly, he had a fair, long beard. He
was not an old man, somewhere about fifty, and he had on a gray peasant’s
smock. Not far off was a village, he could see the black huts, and half
the huts were burnt down, there were only the charred beams sticking up.
And as they drove in, there were peasant women drawn up along the road, a
lot of women, a whole row, all thin and wan, with their faces a sort of
brownish color, especially one at the edge, a tall, bony woman, who looked
forty, but might have been only twenty, with a long thin face. And in her
arms was a little baby crying. And her breasts seemed so dried up that
there was not a drop of milk in them. And the child cried and cried, and
held out its little bare arms, with its little fists blue from cold.
“Why are they crying? Why are they crying?” Mitya asked, as they dashed
gayly by.
“It’s the babe,” answered the driver, “the babe weeping.”
And Mitya was struck by his saying, in his peasant way, “the babe,” and he
liked the peasant’s calling it a “babe.” There seemed more pity in it.
“But why is it weeping?” Mitya persisted stupidly, “why are its little
arms bare? Why don’t they wrap it up?”
“The babe’s cold, its little clothes are frozen and don’t warm it.”
“But why is it? Why?” foolish Mitya still persisted.
“Why, they’re poor people, burnt out. They’ve no bread. They’re begging
because they’ve been burnt out.”
“No, no,” Mitya, as it were, still did not understand. “Tell me why it is
those poor mothers stand there? Why are people poor? Why is the babe poor?
Why is the steppe barren? Why don’t they hug each other and kiss? Why
don’t they sing songs of joy? Why are they so dark from black misery? Why
don’t they feed the babe?”
And he felt that, though his questions were unreasonable and senseless,
yet he wanted to ask just that, and he had to ask it just in that way. And
he felt that a passion of pity, such as he had never known before, was
rising in his heart, that he wanted to cry, that he wanted to do something
for them all, so that the babe should weep no more, so that the dark‐
faced, dried‐up mother should not weep, that no one should shed tears
again from that moment, and he wanted to do it at once, at once,
regardless of all obstacles, with all the recklessness of the Karamazovs.
“And I’m coming with you. I won’t leave you now for the rest of my life,
I’m coming with you,” he heard close beside him Grushenka’s tender voice,
thrilling with emotion. And his heart glowed, and he struggled forward
towards the light, and he longed to live, to live, to go on and on,
towards the new, beckoning light, and to hasten, hasten, now, at once!
“What! Where?” he exclaimed opening his eyes, and sitting up on the chest,
as though he had revived from a swoon, smiling brightly. Nikolay
Parfenovitch was standing over him, suggesting that he should hear the
protocol read aloud and sign it. Mitya guessed that he had been asleep an
hour or more, but he did not hear Nikolay Parfenovitch. He was suddenly
struck by the fact that there was a pillow under his head, which hadn’t
been there when he had leant back, exhausted, on the chest.
“Who put that pillow under my head? Who was so kind?” he cried, with a
sort of ecstatic gratitude, and tears in his voice, as though some great
kindness had been shown him.
He never found out who this kind man was; perhaps one of the peasant
witnesses, or Nikolay Parfenovitch’s little secretary, had compassionately
thought to put a pillow under his head; but his whole soul was quivering
with tears. He went to the table and said that he would sign whatever they
liked.
“I’ve had a good dream, gentlemen,” he said in a strange voice, with a new
light, as of joy, in his face.
Chapter IX. They Carry Mitya Away
When the protocol had been signed, Nikolay Parfenovitch turned solemnly to
the prisoner and read him the “Committal,” setting forth, that in such a
year, on such a day, in such a place, the investigating lawyer of such‐
and‐such a district court, having examined so‐and‐so (to wit, Mitya)
accused of this and of that (all the charges were carefully written out)
and having considered that the accused, not pleading guilty to the charges
made against him, had brought forward nothing in his defense, while the
witnesses, so‐and‐so, and so‐and‐so, and the circumstances such‐and‐such
testify against him, acting in accordance with such‐and‐such articles of
the Statute Book, and so on, has ruled, that, in order to preclude so‐and‐
so (Mitya) from all means of evading pursuit and judgment he be detained
in such‐and‐such a prison, which he hereby notifies to the accused and
communicates a copy of this same “Committal” to the deputy prosecutor, and
so on, and so on.
In brief, Mitya was informed that he was, from that moment, a prisoner,
and that he would be driven at once to the town, and there shut up in a
very unpleasant place. Mitya listened attentively, and only shrugged his
shoulders.
“Well, gentlemen, I don’t blame you. I’m ready.... I understand that
there’s nothing else for you to do.”
Nikolay Parfenovitch informed him gently that he would be escorted at once
by the rural police officer, Mavriky Mavrikyevitch, who happened to be on
the spot....
“Stay,” Mitya interrupted, suddenly, and impelled by uncontrollable
feeling he pronounced, addressing all in the room:
“Gentlemen, we’re all cruel, we’re all monsters, we all make men weep, and
mothers, and babes at the breast, but of all, let it be settled here, now,
of all I am the lowest reptile! I’ve sworn to amend, and every day I’ve
done the same filthy things. I understand now that such men as I need a
blow, a blow of destiny to catch them as with a noose, and bind them by a
force from without. Never, never should I have risen of myself! But the
thunderbolt has fallen. I accept the torture of accusation, and my public
shame, I want to suffer and by suffering I shall be purified. Perhaps I
shall be purified, gentlemen? But listen, for the last time, I am not
guilty of my father’s blood. I accept my punishment, not because I killed
him, but because I meant to kill him, and perhaps I really might have
killed him. Still I mean to fight it out with you. I warn you of that.
I’ll fight it out with you to the end, and then God will decide. Good‐by,
gentlemen, don’t be vexed with me for having shouted at you during the
examination. Oh, I was still such a fool then.... In another minute I
shall be a prisoner, but now, for the last time, as a free man, Dmitri
Karamazov offers you his hand. Saying good‐by to you, I say it to all
men.”
His voice quivered and he stretched out his hand, but Nikolay
Parfenovitch, who happened to stand nearest to him, with a sudden, almost
nervous movement, hid his hands behind his back. Mitya instantly noticed
this, and started. He let his outstretched hand fall at once.
“The preliminary inquiry is not yet over,” Nikolay Parfenovitch faltered,
somewhat embarrassed. “We will continue it in the town, and I, for my
part, of course, am ready to wish you all success ... in your defense....
As a matter of fact, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, I’ve always been disposed to
regard you as, so to speak, more unfortunate than guilty. All of us here,
if I may make bold to speak for all, we are all ready to recognize that
you are, at bottom, a young man of honor, but, alas, one who has been
carried away by certain passions to a somewhat excessive degree....”
Nikolay Parfenovitch’s little figure was positively majestic by the time
he had finished speaking. It struck Mitya that in another minute this
“boy” would take his arm, lead him to another corner, and renew their
conversation about “girls.” But many quite irrelevant and inappropriate
thoughts sometimes occur even to a prisoner when he is being led out to
execution.
“Gentlemen, you are good, you are humane, may I see _her_ to say ‘good‐by’
for the last time?” asked Mitya.
“Certainly, but considering ... in fact, now it’s impossible except in the
presence of—”
“Oh, well, if it must be so, it must!”
Grushenka was brought in, but the farewell was brief, and of few words,
and did not at all satisfy Nikolay Parfenovitch. Grushenka made a deep bow
to Mitya.
“I have told you I am yours, and I will be yours. I will follow you for
ever, wherever they may send you. Farewell; you are guiltless, though
you’ve been your own undoing.”
Her lips quivered, tears flowed from her eyes.
“Forgive me, Grusha, for my love, for ruining you, too, with my love.”
Mitya would have said something more, but he broke off and went out. He
was at once surrounded by men who kept a constant watch on him. At the
bottom of the steps to which he had driven up with such a dash the day
before with Andrey’s three horses, two carts stood in readiness. Mavriky
Mavrikyevitch, a sturdy, thick‐set man with a wrinkled face, was annoyed
about something, some sudden irregularity. He was shouting angrily. He
asked Mitya to get into the cart with somewhat excessive surliness.
“When I stood him drinks in the tavern, the man had quite a different
face,” thought Mitya, as he got in. At the gates there was a crowd of
people, peasants, women and drivers. Trifon Borissovitch came down the
steps too. All stared at Mitya.
“Forgive me at parting, good people!” Mitya shouted suddenly from the
cart.
“Forgive us too!” he heard two or three voices.
“Good‐by to you, too, Trifon Borissovitch!”
But Trifon Borissovitch did not even turn round. He was, perhaps, too
busy. He, too, was shouting and fussing about something. It appeared that
everything was not yet ready in the second cart, in which two constables
were to accompany Mavriky Mavrikyevitch. The peasant who had been ordered
to drive the second cart was pulling on his smock, stoutly maintaining
that it was not his turn to go, but Akim’s. But Akim was not to be seen.
They ran to look for him. The peasant persisted and besought them to wait.
“You see what our peasants are, Mavriky Mavrikyevitch. They’ve no shame!”
exclaimed Trifon Borissovitch. “Akim gave you twenty‐five copecks the day
before yesterday. You’ve drunk it all and now you cry out. I’m simply
surprised at your good‐nature, with our low peasants, Mavriky
Mavrikyevitch, that’s all I can say.”
“But what do we want a second cart for?” Mitya put in. “Let’s start with
the one, Mavriky Mavrikyevitch. I won’t be unruly, I won’t run away from
you, old fellow. What do we want an escort for?”
“I’ll trouble you, sir, to learn how to speak to me if you’ve never been
taught. I’m not ‘old fellow’ to you, and you can keep your advice for
another time!” Mavriky Mavrikyevitch snapped out savagely, as though glad
to vent his wrath.
Mitya was reduced to silence. He flushed all over. A moment later he felt
suddenly very cold. The rain had ceased, but the dull sky was still
overcast with clouds, and a keen wind was blowing straight in his face.
“I’ve taken a chill,” thought Mitya, twitching his shoulders.
At last Mavriky Mavrikyevitch, too, got into the cart, sat down heavily,
and, as though without noticing it, squeezed Mitya into the corner. It is
true that he was out of humor and greatly disliked the task that had been
laid upon him.
“Good‐by, Trifon Borissovitch!” Mitya shouted again, and felt himself,
that he had not called out this time from good‐nature, but involuntarily,
from resentment.
But Trifon Borissovitch stood proudly, with both hands behind his back,
and staring straight at Mitya with a stern and angry face, he made no
reply.
“Good‐by, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, good‐by!” he heard all at once the voice of
Kalganov, who had suddenly darted out. Running up to the cart he held out
his hand to Mitya. He had no cap on.
Mitya had time to seize and press his hand.
“Good‐by, dear fellow! I shan’t forget your generosity,” he cried warmly.
But the cart moved and their hands parted. The bell began ringing and
Mitya was driven off.
Kalganov ran back, sat down in a corner, bent his head, hid his face in
his hands, and burst out crying. For a long while he sat like that, crying
as though he were a little boy instead of a young man of twenty. Oh, he
believed almost without doubt in Mitya’s guilt.
“What are these people? What can men be after this?” he exclaimed
incoherently, in bitter despondency, almost despair. At that moment he had
no desire to live.
“Is it worth it? Is it worth it?” exclaimed the boy in his grief.
PART IV
Book X. The Boys
Chapter I. Kolya Krassotkin
It was the beginning of November. There had been a hard frost, eleven
degrees Réaumur, without snow, but a little dry snow had fallen on the
frozen ground during the night, and a keen dry wind was lifting and
blowing it along the dreary streets of our town, especially about the
market‐place. It was a dull morning, but the snow had ceased.
Not far from the market‐place, close to Plotnikov’s shop, there stood a
small house, very clean both without and within. It belonged to Madame
Krassotkin, the widow of a former provincial secretary, who had been dead
for fourteen years. His widow, still a nice‐looking woman of thirty‐two,
was living in her neat little house on her private means. She lived in
respectable seclusion; she was of a soft but fairly cheerful disposition.
She was about eighteen at the time of her husband’s death; she had been
married only a year and had just borne him a son. From the day of his
death she had devoted herself heart and soul to the bringing up of her
precious treasure, her boy Kolya. Though she had loved him passionately
those fourteen years, he had caused her far more suffering than happiness.
She had been trembling and fainting with terror almost every day, afraid
he would fall ill, would catch cold, do something naughty, climb on a
chair and fall off it, and so on and so on. When Kolya began going to
school, the mother devoted herself to studying all the sciences with him
so as to help him, and go through his lessons with him. She hastened to
make the acquaintance of the teachers and their wives, even made up to
Kolya’s schoolfellows, and fawned upon them in the hope of thus saving
Kolya from being teased, laughed at, or beaten by them. She went so far
that the boys actually began to mock at him on her account and taunt him
with being a “mother’s darling.”
But the boy could take his own part. He was a resolute boy, “tremendously
strong,” as was rumored in his class, and soon proved to be the fact; he
was agile, strong‐willed, and of an audacious and enterprising temper. He
was good at lessons, and there was a rumor in the school that he could
beat the teacher, Dardanelov, at arithmetic and universal history. Though
he looked down upon every one, he was a good comrade and not supercilious.
He accepted his schoolfellows’ respect as his due, but was friendly with
them. Above all, he knew where to draw the line. He could restrain himself
on occasion, and in his relations with the teachers he never overstepped
that last mystic limit beyond which a prank becomes an unpardonable breach
of discipline. But he was as fond of mischief on every possible occasion
as the smallest boy in the school, and not so much for the sake of
mischief as for creating a sensation, inventing something, something
effective and conspicuous. He was extremely vain. He knew how to make even
his mother give way to him; he was almost despotic in his control of her.
She gave way to him, oh, she had given way to him for years. The one
thought unendurable to her was that her boy had no great love for her. She
was always fancying that Kolya was “unfeeling” to her, and at times,
dissolving into hysterical tears, she used to reproach him with his
coldness. The boy disliked this, and the more demonstrations of feeling
were demanded of him the more he seemed intentionally to avoid them. Yet
it was not intentional on his part but instinctive—it was his character.
His mother was mistaken; he was very fond of her. He only disliked
“sheepish sentimentality,” as he expressed it in his schoolboy language.
There was a bookcase in the house containing a few books that had been his
father’s. Kolya was fond of reading, and had read several of them by
himself. His mother did not mind that and only wondered sometimes at
seeing the boy stand for hours by the bookcase poring over a book instead
of going to play. And in that way Kolya read some things unsuitable for
his age.
Though the boy, as a rule, knew where to draw the line in his mischief, he
had of late begun to play pranks that caused his mother serious alarm. It
is true there was nothing vicious in what he did, but a wild mad
recklessness.
It happened that July, during the summer holidays, that the mother and son
went to another district, forty‐five miles away, to spend a week with a
distant relation, whose husband was an official at the railway station
(the very station, the nearest one to our town, from which a month later
Ivan Fyodorovitch Karamazov set off for Moscow). There Kolya began by
carefully investigating every detail connected with the railways, knowing
that he could impress his schoolfellows when he got home with his newly
acquired knowledge. But there happened to be some other boys in the place
with whom he soon made friends. Some of them were living at the station,
others in the neighborhood; there were six or seven of them, all between
twelve and fifteen, and two of them came from our town. The boys played
together, and on the fourth or fifth day of Kolya’s stay at the station, a
mad bet was made by the foolish boys. Kolya, who was almost the youngest
of the party and rather looked down upon by the others in consequence, was
moved by vanity or by reckless bravado to bet them two roubles that he
would lie down between the rails at night when the eleven o’clock train
was due, and would lie there without moving while the train rolled over
him at full speed. It is true they made a preliminary investigation, from
which it appeared that it was possible to lie so flat between the rails
that the train could pass over without touching, but to lie there was no
joke! Kolya maintained stoutly that he would. At first they laughed at
him, called him a little liar, a braggart, but that only egged him on.
What piqued him most was that these boys of fifteen turned up their noses
at him too superciliously, and were at first disposed to treat him as “a
small boy,” not fit to associate with them, and that was an unendurable
insult.
And so it was resolved to go in the evening, half a mile from the station,
so that the train might have time to get up full speed after leaving the
station. The boys assembled. It was a pitch‐dark night without a moon. At
the time fixed, Kolya lay down between the rails. The five others who had
taken the bet waited among the bushes below the embankment, their hearts
beating with suspense, which was followed by alarm and remorse. At last
they heard in the distance the rumble of the train leaving the station.
Two red lights gleamed out of the darkness; the monster roared as it
approached.
“Run, run away from the rails,” the boys cried to Kolya from the bushes,
breathless with terror. But it was too late: the train darted up and flew
past. The boys rushed to Kolya. He lay without moving. They began pulling
at him, lifting him up. He suddenly got up and walked away without a word.
Then he explained that he had lain there as though he were insensible to
frighten them, but the fact was that he really had lost consciousness, as
he confessed long after to his mother. In this way his reputation as “a
desperate character,” was established for ever. He returned home to the
station as white as a sheet. Next day he had a slight attack of nervous
fever, but he was in high spirits and well pleased with himself. The
incident did not become known at once, but when they came back to the town
it penetrated to the school and even reached the ears of the masters. But
then Kolya’s mother hastened to entreat the masters on her boy’s behalf,
and in the end Dardanelov, a respected and influential teacher, exerted
himself in his favor, and the affair was ignored.
Dardanelov was a middle‐aged bachelor, who had been passionately in love
with Madame Krassotkin for many years past, and had once already, about a
year previously, ventured, trembling with fear and the delicacy of his
sentiments, to offer her most respectfully his hand in marriage. But she
refused him resolutely, feeling that to accept him would be an act of
treachery to her son, though Dardanelov had, to judge from certain
mysterious symptoms, reason for believing that he was not an object of
aversion to the charming but too chaste and tender‐hearted widow. Kolya’s
mad prank seemed to have broken the ice, and Dardanelov was rewarded for
his intercession by a suggestion of hope. The suggestion, it is true, was
a faint one, but then Dardanelov was such a paragon of purity and delicacy
that it was enough for the time being to make him perfectly happy. He was
fond of the boy, though he would have felt it beneath him to try and win
him over, and was severe and strict with him in class. Kolya, too, kept
him at a respectful distance. He learned his lessons perfectly; he was
second in his class, was reserved with Dardanelov, and the whole class
firmly believed that Kolya was so good at universal history that he could
“beat” even Dardanelov. Kolya did indeed ask him the question, “Who
founded Troy?” to which Dardanelov had made a very vague reply, referring
to the movements and migrations of races, to the remoteness of the period,
to the mythical legends. But the question, “Who had founded Troy?” that
is, what individuals, he could not answer, and even for some reason
regarded the question as idle and frivolous. But the boys remained
convinced that Dardanelov did not know who founded Troy. Kolya had read of
the founders of Troy in Smaragdov, whose history was among the books in
his father’s bookcase. In the end all the boys became interested in the
question, who it was that had founded Troy, but Krassotkin would not tell
his secret, and his reputation for knowledge remained unshaken.
After the incident on the railway a certain change came over Kolya’s
attitude to his mother. When Anna Fyodorovna (Madame Krassotkin) heard of
her son’s exploit, she almost went out of her mind with horror. She had
such terrible attacks of hysterics, lasting with intervals for several
days, that Kolya, seriously alarmed at last, promised on his honor that
such pranks should never be repeated. He swore on his knees before the
holy image, and swore by the memory of his father, at Madame Krassotkin’s
instance, and the “manly” Kolya burst into tears like a boy of six. And
all that day the mother and son were constantly rushing into each other’s
arms sobbing. Next day Kolya woke up as “unfeeling” as before, but he had
become more silent, more modest, sterner, and more thoughtful.
Six weeks later, it is true, he got into another scrape, which even
brought his name to the ears of our Justice of the Peace, but it was a
scrape of quite another kind, amusing, foolish, and he did not, as it
turned out, take the leading part in it, but was only implicated in it.
But of this later. His mother still fretted and trembled, but the more
uneasy she became, the greater were the hopes of Dardanelov. It must be
noted that Kolya understood and divined what was in Dardanelov’s heart
and, of course, despised him profoundly for his “feelings”; he had in the
past been so tactless as to show this contempt before his mother, hinting
vaguely that he knew what Dardanelov was after. But from the time of the
railway incident his behavior in this respect also was changed; he did not
allow himself the remotest allusion to the subject and began to speak more
respectfully of Dardanelov before his mother, which the sensitive woman at
once appreciated with boundless gratitude. But at the slightest mention of
Dardanelov by a visitor in Kolya’s presence, she would flush as pink as a
rose. At such moments Kolya would either stare out of the window scowling,
or would investigate the state of his boots, or would shout angrily for
“Perezvon,” the big, shaggy, mangy dog, which he had picked up a month
before, brought home, and kept for some reason secretly indoors, not
showing him to any of his schoolfellows. He bullied him frightfully,
teaching him all sorts of tricks, so that the poor dog howled for him
whenever he was absent at school, and when he came in, whined with
delight, rushed about as if he were crazy, begged, lay down on the ground
pretending to be dead, and so on; in fact, showed all the tricks he had
taught him, not at the word of command, but simply from the zeal of his
excited and grateful heart.
I have forgotten, by the way, to mention that Kolya Krassotkin was the boy
stabbed with a penknife by the boy already known to the reader as the son
of Captain Snegiryov. Ilusha had been defending his father when the
schoolboys jeered at him, shouting the nickname “wisp of tow.”
Chapter II. Children
And so on that frosty, snowy, and windy day in November, Kolya Krassotkin
was sitting at home. It was Sunday and there was no school. It had just
struck eleven, and he particularly wanted to go out “on very urgent
business,” but he was left alone in charge of the house, for it so
happened that all its elder inmates were absent owing to a sudden and
singular event. Madame Krassotkin had let two little rooms, separated from
the rest of the house by a passage, to a doctor’s wife with her two small
children. This lady was the same age as Anna Fyodorovna, and a great
friend of hers. Her husband, the doctor, had taken his departure twelve
months before, going first to Orenburg and then to Tashkend, and for the
last six months she had not heard a word from him. Had it not been for her
friendship with Madame Krassotkin, which was some consolation to the
forsaken lady, she would certainly have completely dissolved away in
tears. And now, to add to her misfortunes, Katerina, her only servant, was
suddenly moved the evening before to announce, to her mistress’s
amazement, that she proposed to bring a child into the world before
morning. It seemed almost miraculous to every one that no one had noticed
the probability of it before. The astounded doctor’s wife decided to move
Katerina while there was still time to an establishment in the town kept
by a midwife for such emergencies. As she set great store by her servant,
she promptly carried out this plan and remained there looking after her.
By the morning all Madame Krassotkin’s friendly sympathy and energy were
called upon to render assistance and appeal to some one for help in the
case.
So both the ladies were absent from home, the Krassotkins’ servant,
Agafya, had gone out to the market, and Kolya was thus left for a time to
protect and look after “the kids,” that is, the son and daughter of the
doctor’s wife, who were left alone. Kolya was not afraid of taking care of
the house, besides he had Perezvon, who had been told to lie flat, without
moving, under the bench in the hall. Every time Kolya, walking to and fro
through the rooms, came into the hall, the dog shook his head and gave two
loud and insinuating taps on the floor with his tail, but alas! the
whistle did not sound to release him. Kolya looked sternly at the luckless
dog, who relapsed again into obedient rigidity. The one thing that
troubled Kolya was “the kids.” He looked, of course, with the utmost scorn
on Katerina’s unexpected adventure, but he was very fond of the bereaved
“kiddies,” and had already taken them a picture‐book. Nastya, the elder, a
girl of eight, could read, and Kostya, the boy, aged seven, was very fond
of being read to by her. Krassotkin could, of course, have provided more
diverting entertainment for them. He could have made them stand side by
side and played soldiers with them, or sent them hiding all over the
house. He had done so more than once before and was not above doing it, so
much so that a report once spread at school that Krassotkin played horses
with the little lodgers at home, prancing with his head on one side like a
trace‐horse. But Krassotkin haughtily parried this thrust, pointing out
that to play horses with boys of one’s own age, boys of thirteen, would
certainly be disgraceful “at this date,” but that he did it for the sake
of “the kids” because he liked them, and no one had a right to call him to
account for his feelings. The two “kids” adored him.
But on this occasion he was in no mood for games. He had very important
business of his own before him, something almost mysterious. Meanwhile
time was passing and Agafya, with whom he could have left the children,
would not come back from market. He had several times already crossed the
passage, opened the door of the lodgers’ room and looked anxiously at “the
kids” who were sitting over the book, as he had bidden them. Every time he
opened the door they grinned at him, hoping he would come in and would do
something delightful and amusing. But Kolya was bothered and did not go
in.
At last it struck eleven and he made up his mind, once for all, that if
that “damned” Agafya did not come back within ten minutes he should go out
without waiting for her, making “the kids” promise, of course, to be brave
when he was away, not to be naughty, not to cry from fright. With this
idea he put on his wadded winter overcoat with its catskin fur collar,
slung his satchel round his shoulder, and, regardless of his mother’s
constantly reiterated entreaties that he would always put on goloshes in
such cold weather, he looked at them contemptuously as he crossed the hall
and went out with only his boots on. Perezvon, seeing him in his outdoor
clothes, began tapping nervously, yet vigorously, on the floor with his
tail. Twitching all over, he even uttered a plaintive whine. But Kolya,
seeing his dog’s passionate excitement, decided that it was a breach of
discipline, kept him for another minute under the bench, and only when he
had opened the door into the passage, whistled for him. The dog leapt up
like a mad creature and rushed bounding before him rapturously.
Kolya opened the door to peep at “the kids.” They were both sitting as
before at the table, not reading but warmly disputing about something. The
children often argued together about various exciting problems of life,
and Nastya, being the elder, always got the best of it. If Kostya did not
agree with her, he almost always appealed to Kolya Krassotkin, and his
verdict was regarded as infallible by both of them. This time the “kids’”
discussion rather interested Krassotkin, and he stood still in the passage
to listen. The children saw he was listening and that made them dispute
with even greater energy.
“I shall never, never believe,” Nastya prattled, “that the old women find
babies among the cabbages in the kitchen‐garden. It’s winter now and there
are no cabbages, and so the old woman couldn’t have taken Katerina a
daughter.”
Kolya whistled to himself.
“Or perhaps they do bring babies from somewhere, but only to those who are
married.”
Kostya stared at Nastya and listened, pondering profoundly.
“Nastya, how silly you are!” he said at last, firmly and calmly. “How can
Katerina have a baby when she isn’t married?”
Nastya was exasperated.
“You know nothing about it,” she snapped irritably. “Perhaps she has a
husband, only he is in prison, so now she’s got a baby.”
“But is her husband in prison?” the matter‐of‐fact Kostya inquired
gravely.
“Or, I tell you what,” Nastya interrupted impulsively, completely
rejecting and forgetting her first hypothesis. “She hasn’t a husband, you
are right there, but she wants to be married, and so she’s been thinking
of getting married, and thinking and thinking of it till now she’s got it,
that is, not a husband but a baby.”
“Well, perhaps so,” Kostya agreed, entirely vanquished. “But you didn’t
say so before. So how could I tell?”
“Come, kiddies,” said Kolya, stepping into the room. “You’re terrible
people, I see.”
“And Perezvon with you!” grinned Kostya, and began snapping his fingers
and calling Perezvon.
“I am in a difficulty, kids,” Krassotkin began solemnly, “and you must
help me. Agafya must have broken her leg, since she has not turned up till
now, that’s certain. I must go out. Will you let me go?”
The children looked anxiously at one another. Their smiling faces showed
signs of uneasiness, but they did not yet fully grasp what was expected of
them.
“You won’t be naughty while I am gone? You won’t climb on the cupboard and
break your legs? You won’t be frightened alone and cry?”
A look of profound despondency came into the children’s faces.
“And I could show you something as a reward, a little copper cannon which
can be fired with real gunpowder.”
The children’s faces instantly brightened. “Show us the cannon,” said
Kostya, beaming all over.
Krassotkin put his hand in his satchel, and pulling out a little bronze
cannon stood it on the table.
“Ah, you are bound to ask that! Look, it’s on wheels.” He rolled the toy
on along the table. “And it can be fired off, too. It can be loaded with
shot and fired off.”
“And it could kill any one?”
“It can kill any one; you’ve only got to aim at anybody,” and Krassotkin
explained where the powder had to be put, where the shot should be rolled
in, showing a tiny hole like a touch‐hole, and told them that it kicked
when it was fired.
The children listened with intense interest. What particularly struck
their imagination was that the cannon kicked.
“And have you got any powder?” Nastya inquired.
“Yes.”
“Show us the powder, too,” she drawled with a smile of entreaty.
Krassotkin dived again into his satchel and pulled out a small flask
containing a little real gunpowder. He had some shot, too, in a screw of
paper. He even uncorked the flask and shook a little powder into the palm
of his hand.
“One has to be careful there’s no fire about, or it would blow up and kill
us all,” Krassotkin warned them sensationally.
The children gazed at the powder with an awe‐stricken alarm that only
intensified their enjoyment. But Kostya liked the shot better.
“And does the shot burn?” he inquired.
“No, it doesn’t.”
“Give me a little shot,” he asked in an imploring voice.
“I’ll give you a little shot; here, take it, but don’t show it to your
mother till I come back, or she’ll be sure to think it’s gunpowder, and
will die of fright and give you a thrashing.”
“Mother never does whip us,” Nastya observed at once.
“I know, I only said it to finish the sentence. And don’t you ever deceive
your mother except just this once, until I come back. And so, kiddies, can
I go out? You won’t be frightened and cry when I’m gone?”
“We sha—all cry,” drawled Kostya, on the verge of tears already.
“We shall cry, we shall be sure to cry,” Nastya chimed in with timid
haste.
“Oh, children, children, how fraught with peril are your years! There’s no
help for it, chickens, I shall have to stay with you I don’t know how
long. And time is passing, time is passing, oogh!”
“Tell Perezvon to pretend to be dead!” Kostya begged.
“There’s no help for it, we must have recourse to Perezvon. _Ici_,
Perezvon.” And Kolya began giving orders to the dog, who performed all his
tricks.
He was a rough‐haired dog, of medium size, with a coat of a sort of lilac‐
gray color. He was blind in his right eye, and his left ear was torn. He
whined and jumped, stood and walked on his hind legs, lay on his back with
his paws in the air, rigid as though he were dead. While this last
performance was going on, the door opened and Agafya, Madame Krassotkin’s
servant, a stout woman of forty, marked with small‐pox, appeared in the
doorway. She had come back from market and had a bag full of provisions in
her hand. Holding up the bag of provisions in her left hand she stood
still to watch the dog. Though Kolya had been so anxious for her return,
he did not cut short the performance, and after keeping Perezvon dead for
the usual time, at last he whistled to him. The dog jumped up and began
bounding about in his joy at having done his duty.
“Only think, a dog!” Agafya observed sententiously.
“Why are you late, female?” asked Krassotkin sternly.
“Female, indeed! Go on with you, you brat.”
“Brat?”
“Yes, a brat. What is it to you if I’m late; if I’m late, you may be sure
I have good reason,” muttered Agafya, busying herself about the stove,
without a trace of anger or displeasure in her voice. She seemed quite
pleased, in fact, to enjoy a skirmish with her merry young master.
“Listen, you frivolous young woman,” Krassotkin began, getting up from the
sofa, “can you swear by all you hold sacred in the world and something
else besides, that you will watch vigilantly over the kids in my absence?
I am going out.”
“And what am I going to swear for?” laughed Agafya. “I shall look after
them without that.”
“No, you must swear on your eternal salvation. Else I shan’t go.”
“Well, don’t then. What does it matter to me? It’s cold out; stay at
home.”
“Kids,” Kolya turned to the children, “this woman will stay with you till
I come back or till your mother comes, for she ought to have been back
long ago. She will give you some lunch, too. You’ll give them something,
Agafya, won’t you?”
“That I can do.”
“Good‐by, chickens, I go with my heart at rest. And you, granny,” he added
gravely, in an undertone, as he passed Agafya, “I hope you’ll spare their
tender years and not tell them any of your old woman’s nonsense about
Katerina. _Ici_, Perezvon!”
“Get along with you!” retorted Agafya, really angry this time. “Ridiculous
boy! You want a whipping for saying such things, that’s what you want!”
Chapter III. The Schoolboy
But Kolya did not hear her. At last he could go out. As he went out at the
gate he looked round him, shrugged up his shoulders, and saying “It is
freezing,” went straight along the street and turned off to the right
towards the market‐place. When he reached the last house but one before
the market‐place he stopped at the gate, pulled a whistle out of his
pocket, and whistled with all his might as though giving a signal. He had
not to wait more than a minute before a rosy‐cheeked boy of about eleven,
wearing a warm, neat and even stylish coat, darted out to meet him. This
was Smurov, a boy in the preparatory class (two classes below Kolya
Krassotkin), son of a well‐to‐do official. Apparently he was forbidden by
his parents to associate with Krassotkin, who was well known to be a
desperately naughty boy, so Smurov was obviously slipping out on the sly.
He was—if the reader has not forgotten—one of the group of boys who two
months before had thrown stones at Ilusha. He was the one who told Alyosha
Karamazov about Ilusha.
“I’ve been waiting for you for the last hour, Krassotkin,” said Smurov
stolidly, and the boys strode towards the market‐place.
“I am late,” answered Krassotkin. “I was detained by circumstances. You
won’t be thrashed for coming with me?”
“Come, I say, I’m never thrashed! And you’ve got Perezvon with you?”
“Yes.”
“You’re taking him, too?”
“Yes.”
“Ah! if it were only Zhutchka!”
“That’s impossible. Zhutchka’s non‐existent. Zhutchka is lost in the mists
of obscurity.”
“Ah! couldn’t we do this?” Smurov suddenly stood still. “You see Ilusha
says that Zhutchka was a shaggy, grayish, smoky‐looking dog like Perezvon.
Couldn’t you tell him this is Zhutchka, and he might believe you?”
“Boy, shun a lie, that’s one thing; even with a good object—that’s
another. Above all, I hope you’ve not told them anything about my coming.”
“Heaven forbid! I know what I am about. But you won’t comfort him with
Perezvon,” said Smurov, with a sigh. “You know his father, the captain,
‘the wisp of tow,’ told us that he was going to bring him a real mastiff
pup, with a black nose, to‐day. He thinks that would comfort Ilusha; but I
doubt it.”
“And how is Ilusha?”
“Ah, he is bad, very bad! I believe he’s in consumption: he is quite
conscious, but his breathing! His breathing’s gone wrong. The other day he
asked to have his boots on to be led round the room. He tried to walk, but
he couldn’t stand. ‘Ah, I told you before, father,’ he said, ‘that those
boots were no good. I could never walk properly in them.’ He fancied it
was his boots that made him stagger, but it was simply weakness, really.
He won’t live another week. Herzenstube is looking after him. Now they are
rich again—they’ve got heaps of money.”
“They are rogues.”
“Who are rogues?”
“Doctors and the whole crew of quacks collectively, and also, of course,
individually. I don’t believe in medicine. It’s a useless institution. I
mean to go into all that. But what’s that sentimentality you’ve got up
there? The whole class seems to be there every day.”
“Not the whole class: it’s only ten of our fellows who go to see him every
day. There’s nothing in that.”
“What I don’t understand in all this is the part that Alexey Karamazov is
taking in it. His brother’s going to be tried to‐morrow or next day for
such a crime, and yet he has so much time to spend on sentimentality with
boys.”
“There’s no sentimentality about it. You are going yourself now to make it
up with Ilusha.”
“Make it up with him? What an absurd expression! But I allow no one to
analyze my actions.”
“And how pleased Ilusha will be to see you! He has no idea that you are
coming. Why was it, why was it you wouldn’t come all this time?” Smurov
cried with sudden warmth.
“My dear boy, that’s my business, not yours. I am going of myself because
I choose to, but you’ve all been hauled there by Alexey Karamazov—there’s
a difference, you know. And how do you know? I may not be going to make it
up at all. It’s a stupid expression.”
“It’s not Karamazov at all; it’s not his doing. Our fellows began going
there of themselves. Of course, they went with Karamazov at first. And
there’s been nothing of that sort—no silliness. First one went, and then
another. His father was awfully pleased to see us. You know he will simply
go out of his mind if Ilusha dies. He sees that Ilusha’s dying. And he
seems so glad we’ve made it up with Ilusha. Ilusha asked after you, that
was all. He just asks and says no more. His father will go out of his mind
or hang himself. He behaved like a madman before. You know he is a very
decent man. We made a mistake then. It’s all the fault of that murderer
who beat him then.”
“Karamazov’s a riddle to me all the same. I might have made his
acquaintance long ago, but I like to have a proper pride in some cases.
Besides, I have a theory about him which I must work out and verify.”
Kolya subsided into dignified silence. Smurov, too, was silent. Smurov, of
course, worshiped Krassotkin and never dreamed of putting himself on a
level with him. Now he was tremendously interested at Kolya’s saying that
he was “going of himself” to see Ilusha. He felt that there must be some
mystery in Kolya’s suddenly taking it into his head to go to him that day.
They crossed the market‐place, in which at that hour were many loaded
wagons from the country and a great number of live fowls. The market women
were selling rolls, cottons and threads, etc., in their booths. These
Sunday markets were naïvely called “fairs” in the town, and there were
many such fairs in the year.
Perezvon ran about in the wildest spirits, sniffing about first one side,
then the other. When he met other dogs they zealously smelt each other
over according to the rules of canine etiquette.
“I like to watch such realistic scenes, Smurov,” said Kolya suddenly.
“Have you noticed how dogs sniff at one another when they meet? It seems
to be a law of their nature.”
“Yes; it’s a funny habit.”
“No, it’s not funny; you are wrong there. There’s nothing funny in nature,
however funny it may seem to man with his prejudices. If dogs could reason
and criticize us they’d be sure to find just as much that would be funny
to them, if not far more, in the social relations of men, their
masters—far more, indeed. I repeat that, because I am convinced that there
is far more foolishness among us. That’s Rakitin’s idea—a remarkable idea.
I am a Socialist, Smurov.”
“And what is a Socialist?” asked Smurov.
“That’s when all are equal and all have property in common, there are no
marriages, and every one has any religion and laws he likes best, and all
the rest of it. You are not old enough to understand that yet. It’s cold,
though.”
“Yes, twelve degrees of frost. Father looked at the thermometer just now.”
“Have you noticed, Smurov, that in the middle of winter we don’t feel so
cold even when there are fifteen or eighteen degrees of frost as we do
now, in the beginning of winter, when there is a sudden frost of twelve
degrees, especially when there is not much snow. It’s because people are
not used to it. Everything is habit with men, everything even in their
social and political relations. Habit is the great motive‐power. What a
funny‐looking peasant!”
Kolya pointed to a tall peasant, with a good‐natured countenance in a long
sheepskin coat, who was standing by his wagon, clapping together his
hands, in their shapeless leather gloves, to warm them. His long fair
beard was all white with frost.
“That peasant’s beard’s frozen,” Kolya cried in a loud provocative voice
as he passed him.
“Lots of people’s beards are frozen,” the peasant replied, calmly and
sententiously.
“Don’t provoke him,” observed Smurov.
“It’s all right; he won’t be cross; he’s a nice fellow. Good‐by, Matvey.”
“Good‐by.”
“Is your name Matvey?”
“Yes. Didn’t you know?”
“No, I didn’t. It was a guess.”
“You don’t say so! You are a schoolboy, I suppose?”
“Yes.”
“You get whipped, I expect?”
“Nothing to speak of—sometimes.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Well, yes, it does.”
“Ech, what a life!” The peasant heaved a sigh from the bottom of his
heart.
“Good‐by, Matvey.”
“Good‐by. You are a nice chap, that you are.”
The boys went on.
“That was a nice peasant,” Kolya observed to Smurov. “I like talking to
the peasants, and am always glad to do them justice.”
“Why did you tell a lie, pretending we are thrashed?” asked Smurov.
“I had to say that to please him.”
“How do you mean?”
“You know, Smurov, I don’t like being asked the same thing twice. I like
people to understand at the first word. Some things can’t be explained.
According to a peasant’s notions, schoolboys are whipped, and must be
whipped. What would a schoolboy be if he were not whipped? And if I were
to tell him we are not, he’d be disappointed. But you don’t understand
that. One has to know how to talk to the peasants.”
“Only don’t tease them, please, or you’ll get into another scrape as you
did about that goose.”
“So you’re afraid?”
“Don’t laugh, Kolya. Of course I’m afraid. My father would be awfully
cross. I am strictly forbidden to go out with you.”
“Don’t be uneasy, nothing will happen this time. Hallo, Natasha!” he
shouted to a market woman in one of the booths.
“Call me Natasha! What next! My name is Marya,” the middle‐aged market
woman shouted at him.
“I am so glad it’s Marya. Good‐by!”
“Ah, you young rascal! A brat like you to carry on so!”
“I’m in a hurry. I can’t stay now. You shall tell me next Sunday.” Kolya
waved his hand at her, as though she had attacked him and not he her.
“I’ve nothing to tell you next Sunday. You set upon me, you impudent young
monkey. I didn’t say anything,” bawled Marya. “You want a whipping, that’s
what you want, you saucy jackanapes!”
There was a roar of laughter among the other market women round her.
Suddenly a man in a violent rage darted out from the arcade of shops close
by. He was a young man, not a native of the town, with dark, curly hair
and a long, pale face, marked with smallpox. He wore a long blue coat and
a peaked cap, and looked like a merchant’s clerk. He was in a state of
stupid excitement and brandished his fist at Kolya.
“I know you!” he cried angrily, “I know you!”
Kolya stared at him. He could not recall when he could have had a row with
the man. But he had been in so many rows in the street that he could
hardly remember them all.
“Do you?” he asked sarcastically.
“I know you! I know you!” the man repeated idiotically.
“So much the better for you. Well, it’s time I was going. Good‐by!”
“You are at your saucy pranks again?” cried the man. “You are at your
saucy pranks again? I know, you are at it again!”
“It’s not your business, brother, if I am at my saucy pranks again,” said
Kolya, standing still and scanning him.
“Not my business?”
“No; it’s not your business.”
“Whose then? Whose then? Whose then?”
“It’s Trifon Nikititch’s business, not yours.”
“What Trifon Nikititch?” asked the youth, staring with loutish amazement
at Kolya, but still as angry as ever.
Kolya scanned him gravely.
“Have you been to the Church of the Ascension?” he suddenly asked him,
with stern emphasis.
“What Church of Ascension? What for? No, I haven’t,” said the young man,
somewhat taken aback.
“Do you know Sabaneyev?” Kolya went on even more emphatically and even
more severely.
“What Sabaneyev? No, I don’t know him.”
“Well then you can go to the devil,” said Kolya, cutting short the
conversation; and turning sharply to the right he strode quickly on his
way as though he disdained further conversation with a dolt who did not
even know Sabaneyev.
“Stop, heigh! What Sabaneyev?” the young man recovered from his momentary
stupefaction and was as excited as before. “What did he say?” He turned to
the market women with a silly stare.
The women laughed.
“You can never tell what he’s after,” said one of them.
“What Sabaneyev is it he’s talking about?” the young man repeated, still
furious and brandishing his right arm.
“It must be a Sabaneyev who worked for the Kuzmitchovs, that’s who it must
be,” one of the women suggested.
The young man stared at her wildly.
“For the Kuzmitchovs?” repeated another woman. “But his name wasn’t
Trifon. His name’s Kuzma, not Trifon; but the boy said Trifon Nikititch,
so it can’t be the same.”
“His name is not Trifon and not Sabaneyev, it’s Tchizhov,” put in suddenly
a third woman, who had hitherto been silent, listening gravely. “Alexey
Ivanitch is his name. Tchizhov, Alexey Ivanitch.”
“Not a doubt about it, it’s Tchizhov,” a fourth woman emphatically
confirmed the statement.
The bewildered youth gazed from one to another.
“But what did he ask for, what did he ask for, good people?” he cried
almost in desperation. “ ‘Do you know Sabaneyev?’ says he. And who the
devil’s to know who is Sabaneyev?”
“You’re a senseless fellow. I tell you it’s not Sabaneyev, but Tchizhov,
Alexey Ivanitch Tchizhov, that’s who it is!” one of the women shouted at
him impressively.
“What Tchizhov? Who is he? Tell me, if you know.”
“That tall, sniveling fellow who used to sit in the market in the summer.”
“And what’s your Tchizhov to do with me, good people, eh?”
“How can I tell what he’s to do with you?” put in another. “You ought to
know yourself what you want with him, if you make such a clamor about him.
He spoke to you, he did not speak to us, you stupid. Don’t you really know
him?”
“Know whom?”
“Tchizhov.”
“The devil take Tchizhov and you with him. I’ll give him a hiding, that I
will. He was laughing at me!”
“Will give Tchizhov a hiding! More likely he will give you one. You are a
fool, that’s what you are!”
“Not Tchizhov, not Tchizhov, you spiteful, mischievous woman. I’ll give
the boy a hiding. Catch him, catch him, he was laughing at me!”
The woman guffawed. But Kolya was by now a long way off, marching along
with a triumphant air. Smurov walked beside him, looking round at the
shouting group far behind. He too was in high spirits, though he was still
afraid of getting into some scrape in Kolya’s company.
“What Sabaneyev did you mean?” he asked Kolya, foreseeing what his answer
would be.
“How do I know? Now there’ll be a hubbub among them all day. I like to
stir up fools in every class of society. There’s another blockhead, that
peasant there. You know, they say ‘there’s no one stupider than a stupid
Frenchman,’ but a stupid Russian shows it in his face just as much. Can’t
you see it all over his face that he is a fool, that peasant, eh?”
“Let him alone, Kolya. Let’s go on.”
“Nothing could stop me, now I am once off. Hey, good morning, peasant!”
A sturdy‐looking peasant, with a round, simple face and grizzled beard,
who was walking by, raised his head and looked at the boy. He seemed not
quite sober.
“Good morning, if you are not laughing at me,” he said deliberately in
reply.
“And if I am?” laughed Kolya.
“Well, a joke’s a joke. Laugh away. I don’t mind. There’s no harm in a
joke.”
“I beg your pardon, brother, it was a joke.”
“Well, God forgive you!”
“Do you forgive me, too?”
“I quite forgive you. Go along.”
“I say, you seem a clever peasant.”
“Cleverer than you,” the peasant answered unexpectedly, with the same
gravity.
“I doubt it,” said Kolya, somewhat taken aback.
“It’s true, though.”
“Perhaps it is.”
“It is, brother.”
“Good‐by, peasant!”
“Good‐by!”
“There are all sorts of peasants,” Kolya observed to Smurov after a brief
silence. “How could I tell I had hit on a clever one? I am always ready to
recognize intelligence in the peasantry.”
In the distance the cathedral clock struck half‐past eleven. The boys made
haste and they walked as far as Captain Snegiryov’s lodging, a
considerable distance, quickly and almost in silence. Twenty paces from
the house Kolya stopped and told Smurov to go on ahead and ask Karamazov
to come out to him.
“One must sniff round a bit first,” he observed to Smurov.
“Why ask him to come out?” Smurov protested. “You go in; they will be
awfully glad to see you. What’s the sense of making friends in the frost
out here?”
“I know why I want to see him out here in the frost,” Kolya cut him short
in the despotic tone he was fond of adopting with “small boys,” and Smurov
ran to do his bidding.
Chapter IV. The Lost Dog
Kolya leaned against the fence with an air of dignity, waiting for Alyosha
to appear. Yes, he had long wanted to meet him. He had heard a great deal
about him from the boys, but hitherto he had always maintained an
appearance of disdainful indifference when he was mentioned, and he had
even “criticized” what he heard about Alyosha. But secretly he had a great
longing to make his acquaintance; there was something sympathetic and
attractive in all he was told about Alyosha. So the present moment was
important: to begin with, he had to show himself at his best, to show his
independence, “Or he’ll think of me as thirteen and take me for a boy,
like the rest of them. And what are these boys to him? I shall ask him
when I get to know him. It’s a pity I am so short, though. Tuzikov is
younger than I am, yet he is half a head taller. But I have a clever face.
I am not good‐looking. I know I’m hideous, but I’ve a clever face. I
mustn’t talk too freely; if I fall into his arms all at once, he may
think—Tfoo! how horrible if he should think—!”
Such were the thoughts that excited Kolya while he was doing his utmost to
assume the most independent air. What distressed him most was his being so
short; he did not mind so much his “hideous” face, as being so short. On
the wall in a corner at home he had the year before made a pencil‐mark to
show his height, and every two months since he anxiously measured himself
against it to see how much he had gained. But alas! he grew very slowly,
and this sometimes reduced him almost to despair. His face was in reality
by no means “hideous”; on the contrary, it was rather attractive, with a
fair, pale skin, freckled. His small, lively gray eyes had a fearless
look, and often glowed with feeling. He had rather high cheekbones; small,
very red, but not very thick, lips; his nose was small and unmistakably
turned up. “I’ve a regular pug nose, a regular pug nose,” Kolya used to
mutter to himself when he looked in the looking‐glass, and he always left
it with indignation. “But perhaps I haven’t got a clever face?” he
sometimes thought, doubtful even of that. But it must not be supposed that
his mind was preoccupied with his face and his height. On the contrary,
however bitter the moments before the looking‐glass were to him, he
quickly forgot them, and forgot them for a long time, “abandoning himself
entirely to ideas and to real life,” as he formulated it to himself.
Alyosha came out quickly and hastened up to Kolya. Before he reached him,
Kolya could see that he looked delighted. “Can he be so glad to see me?”
Kolya wondered, feeling pleased. We may note here, in passing, that
Alyosha’s appearance had undergone a complete change since we saw him
last. He had abandoned his cassock and was wearing now a well‐cut coat, a
soft, round hat, and his hair had been cropped short. All this was very
becoming to him, and he looked quite handsome. His charming face always
had a good‐humored expression; but there was a gentleness and serenity in
his good‐humor. To Kolya’s surprise, Alyosha came out to him just as he
was, without an overcoat. He had evidently come in haste. He held out his
hand to Kolya at once.
“Here you are at last! How anxious we’ve been to see you!”
“There were reasons which you shall know directly. Anyway, I am glad to
make your acquaintance. I’ve long been hoping for an opportunity, and have
heard a great deal about you,” Kolya muttered, a little breathless.
“We should have met anyway. I’ve heard a great deal about you, too; but
you’ve been a long time coming here.”
“Tell me, how are things going?”
“Ilusha is very ill. He is certainly dying.”
“How awful! You must admit that medicine is a fraud, Karamazov,” cried
Kolya warmly.
“Ilusha has mentioned you often, very often, even in his sleep, in
delirium, you know. One can see that you used to be very, very dear to him
... before the incident ... with the knife.... Then there’s another
reason.... Tell me, is that your dog?”
“Yes, Perezvon.”
“Not Zhutchka?” Alyosha looked at Kolya with eyes full of pity. “Is she
lost for ever?”
“I know you would all like it to be Zhutchka. I’ve heard all about it.”
Kolya smiled mysteriously. “Listen, Karamazov, I’ll tell you all about it.
That’s what I came for; that’s what I asked you to come out here for, to
explain the whole episode to you before we go in,” he began with
animation. “You see, Karamazov, Ilusha came into the preparatory class
last spring. Well, you know what our preparatory class is—a lot of small
boys. They began teasing Ilusha at once. I am two classes higher up, and,
of course, I only look on at them from a distance. I saw the boy was weak
and small, but he wouldn’t give in to them; he fought with them. I saw he
was proud, and his eyes were full of fire. I like children like that. And
they teased him all the more. The worst of it was he was horribly dressed
at the time, his breeches were too small for him, and there were holes in
his boots. They worried him about it; they jeered at him. That I can’t
stand. I stood up for him at once, and gave it to them hot. I beat them,
but they adore me, do you know, Karamazov?” Kolya boasted impulsively;
“but I am always fond of children. I’ve two chickens in my hands at home
now—that’s what detained me to‐day. So they left off beating Ilusha and I
took him under my protection. I saw the boy was proud. I tell you that,
the boy was proud; but in the end he became slavishly devoted to me: he
did my slightest bidding, obeyed me as though I were God, tried to copy
me. In the intervals between the classes he used to run to me at once, and
I’d go about with him. On Sundays, too. They always laugh when an older
boy makes friends with a younger one like that; but that’s a prejudice. If
it’s my fancy, that’s enough. I am teaching him, developing him. Why
shouldn’t I develop him if I like him? Here you, Karamazov, have taken up
with all these nestlings. I see you want to influence the younger
generation—to develop them, to be of use to them, and I assure you this
trait in your character, which I knew by hearsay, attracted me more than
anything. Let us get to the point, though. I noticed that there was a sort
of softness and sentimentality coming over the boy, and you know I have a
positive hatred of this sheepish sentimentality, and I have had it from a
baby. There were contradictions in him, too: he was proud, but he was
slavishly devoted to me, and yet all at once his eyes would flash and he’d
refuse to agree with me; he’d argue, fly into a rage. I used sometimes to
propound certain ideas; I could see that it was not so much that he
disagreed with the ideas, but that he was simply rebelling against me,
because I was cool in responding to his endearments. And so, in order to
train him properly, the tenderer he was, the colder I became. I did it on
purpose: that was my idea. My object was to form his character, to lick
him into shape, to make a man of him ... and besides ... no doubt, you
understand me at a word. Suddenly I noticed for three days in succession
he was downcast and dejected, not because of my coldness, but for
something else, something more important. I wondered what the tragedy was.
I have pumped him and found out that he had somehow got to know
Smerdyakov, who was footman to your late father—it was before his death,
of course—and he taught the little fool a silly trick—that is, a brutal,
nasty trick. He told him to take a piece of bread, to stick a pin in it,
and throw it to one of those hungry dogs who snap up anything without
biting it, and then to watch and see what would happen. So they prepared a
piece of bread like that and threw it to Zhutchka, that shaggy dog there’s
been such a fuss about. The people of the house it belonged to never fed
it at all, though it barked all day. (Do you like that stupid barking,
Karamazov? I can’t stand it.) So it rushed at the bread, swallowed it, and
began to squeal; it turned round and round and ran away, squealing as it
ran out of sight. That was Ilusha’s own account of it. He confessed it to
me, and cried bitterly. He hugged me, shaking all over. He kept on
repeating ‘He ran away squealing’: the sight of that haunted him. He was
tormented by remorse, I could see that. I took it seriously. I determined
to give him a lesson for other things as well. So I must confess I wasn’t
quite straightforward, and pretended to be more indignant perhaps than I
was. ‘You’ve done a nasty thing,’ I said, ‘you are a scoundrel. I won’t
tell of it, of course, but I shall have nothing more to do with you for a
time. I’ll think it over and let you know through Smurov’—that’s the boy
who’s just come with me; he’s always ready to do anything for me—‘whether
I will have anything to do with you in the future or whether I give you up
for good as a scoundrel.’ He was tremendously upset. I must own I felt I’d
gone too far as I spoke, but there was no help for it. I did what I
thought best at the time. A day or two after, I sent Smurov to tell him
that I would not speak to him again. That’s what we call it when two
schoolfellows refuse to have anything more to do with one another.
Secretly I only meant to send him to Coventry for a few days and then, if
I saw signs of repentance, to hold out my hand to him again. That was my
intention. But what do you think happened? He heard Smurov’s message, his
eyes flashed. ‘Tell Krassotkin from me,’ he cried, ‘that I will throw
bread with pins to all the dogs—all—all of them!’ ‘So he’s going in for a
little temper. We must smoke it out of him.’ And I began to treat him with
contempt; whenever I met him I turned away or smiled sarcastically. And
just then that affair with his father happened. You remember? You must
realize that he was fearfully worked up by what had happened already. The
boys, seeing I’d given him up, set on him and taunted him, shouting, ‘Wisp
of tow, wisp of tow!’ And he had soon regular skirmishes with them, which
I am very sorry for. They seem to have given him one very bad beating. One
day he flew at them all as they were coming out of school. I stood a few
yards off, looking on. And, I swear, I don’t remember that I laughed; it
was quite the other way, I felt awfully sorry for him, in another minute I
would have run up to take his part. But he suddenly met my eyes. I don’t
know what he fancied; but he pulled out a penknife, rushed at me, and
struck at my thigh, here in my right leg. I didn’t move. I don’t mind
owning I am plucky sometimes, Karamazov. I simply looked at him
contemptuously, as though to say, ‘This is how you repay all my kindness!
Do it again, if you like, I’m at your service.’ But he didn’t stab me
again; he broke down, he was frightened at what he had done, he threw away
the knife, burst out crying, and ran away. I did not sneak on him, of
course, and I made them all keep quiet, so it shouldn’t come to the ears
of the masters. I didn’t even tell my mother till it had healed up. And
the wound was a mere scratch. And then I heard that the same day he’d been
throwing stones and had bitten your finger—but you understand now what a
state he was in! Well, it can’t be helped: it was stupid of me not to come
and forgive him—that is, to make it up with him—when he was taken ill. I
am sorry for it now. But I had a special reason. So now I’ve told you all
about it ... but I’m afraid it was stupid of me.”
“Oh, what a pity,” exclaimed Alyosha, with feeling, “that I didn’t know
before what terms you were on with him, or I’d have come to you long ago
to beg you to go to him with me. Would you believe it, when he was
feverish he talked about you in delirium. I didn’t know how much you were
to him! And you’ve really not succeeded in finding that dog? His father
and the boys have been hunting all over the town for it. Would you believe
it, since he’s been ill, I’ve three times heard him repeat with tears,
‘It’s because I killed Zhutchka, father, that I am ill now. God is
punishing me for it.’ He can’t get that idea out of his head. And if the
dog were found and proved to be alive, one might almost fancy the joy
would cure him. We have all rested our hopes on you.”
“Tell me, what made you hope that I should be the one to find him?” Kolya
asked, with great curiosity. “Why did you reckon on me rather than any one
else?”
“There was a report that you were looking for the dog, and that you would
bring it when you’d found it. Smurov said something of the sort. We’ve all
been trying to persuade Ilusha that the dog is alive, that it’s been seen.
The boys brought him a live hare; he just looked at it, with a faint
smile, and asked them to set it free in the fields. And so we did. His
father has just this moment come back, bringing him a mastiff pup, hoping
to comfort him with that; but I think it only makes it worse.”
“Tell me, Karamazov, what sort of man is the father? I know him, but what
do you make of him—a mountebank, a buffoon?”
“Oh, no; there are people of deep feeling who have been somehow crushed.
Buffoonery in them is a form of resentful irony against those to whom they
daren’t speak the truth, from having been for years humiliated and
intimidated by them. Believe me, Krassotkin, that sort of buffoonery is
sometimes tragic in the extreme. His whole life now is centered in Ilusha,
and if Ilusha dies, he will either go mad with grief or kill himself. I
feel almost certain of that when I look at him now.”
“I understand you, Karamazov. I see you understand human nature,” Kolya
added, with feeling.
“And as soon as I saw you with a dog, I thought it was Zhutchka you were
bringing.”
“Wait a bit, Karamazov, perhaps we shall find it yet; but this is
Perezvon. I’ll let him go in now and perhaps it will amuse Ilusha more
than the mastiff pup. Wait a bit, Karamazov, you will know something in a
minute. But, I say, I am keeping you here!” Kolya cried suddenly. “You’ve
no overcoat on in this bitter cold. You see what an egoist I am. Oh, we
are all egoists, Karamazov!”
“Don’t trouble; it is cold, but I don’t often catch cold. Let us go in,
though, and, by the way, what is your name? I know you are called Kolya,
but what else?”
“Nikolay—Nikolay Ivanovitch Krassotkin, or, as they say in official
documents, ‘Krassotkin son.’ ” Kolya laughed for some reason, but added
suddenly, “Of course I hate my name Nikolay.”
“Why so?”
“It’s so trivial, so ordinary.”
“You are thirteen?” asked Alyosha.
“No, fourteen—that is, I shall be fourteen very soon, in a fortnight. I’ll
confess one weakness of mine, Karamazov, just to you, since it’s our first
meeting, so that you may understand my character at once. I hate being
asked my age, more than that ... and in fact ... there’s a libelous story
going about me, that last week I played robbers with the preparatory boys.
It’s a fact that I did play with them, but it’s a perfect libel to say I
did it for my own amusement. I have reasons for believing that you’ve
heard the story; but I wasn’t playing for my own amusement, it was for the
sake of the children, because they couldn’t think of anything to do by
themselves. But they’ve always got some silly tale. This is an awful town
for gossip, I can tell you.”
“But what if you had been playing for your own amusement, what’s the
harm?”
“Come, I say, for my own amusement! You don’t play horses, do you?”
“But you must look at it like this,” said Alyosha, smiling. “Grown‐up
people go to the theater and there the adventures of all sorts of heroes
are represented—sometimes there are robbers and battles, too—and isn’t
that just the same thing, in a different form, of course? And young
people’s games of soldiers or robbers in their playtime are also art in
its first stage. You know, they spring from the growing artistic instincts
of the young. And sometimes these games are much better than performances
in the theater, the only difference is that people go there to look at the
actors, while in these games the young people are the actors themselves.
But that’s only natural.”
“You think so? Is that your idea?” Kolya looked at him intently. “Oh, you
know, that’s rather an interesting view. When I go home, I’ll think it
over. I’ll admit I thought I might learn something from you. I’ve come to
learn of you, Karamazov,” Kolya concluded, in a voice full of spontaneous
feeling.
“And I of you,” said Alyosha, smiling and pressing his hand.
Kolya was much pleased with Alyosha. What struck him most was that he
treated him exactly like an equal and that he talked to him just as if he
were “quite grown up.”
“I’ll show you something directly, Karamazov; it’s a theatrical
performance, too,” he said, laughing nervously. “That’s why I’ve come.”
“Let us go first to the people of the house, on the left. All the boys
leave their coats in there, because the room is small and hot.”
“Oh, I’m only coming in for a minute. I’ll keep on my overcoat. Perezvon
will stay here in the passage and be dead. _Ici_, Perezvon, lie down and
be dead! You see how he’s dead. I’ll go in first and explore, then I’ll
whistle to him when I think fit, and you’ll see, he’ll dash in like mad.
Only Smurov must not forget to open the door at the moment. I’ll arrange
it all and you’ll see something.”
Chapter V. By Ilusha’s Bedside
The room inhabited by the family of the retired captain Snegiryov is
already familiar to the reader. It was close and crowded at that moment
with a number of visitors. Several boys were sitting with Ilusha, and
though all of them, like Smurov, were prepared to deny that it was Alyosha
who had brought them and reconciled them with Ilusha, it was really the
fact. All the art he had used had been to take them, one by one, to
Ilusha, without “sheepish sentimentality,” appearing to do so casually and
without design. It was a great consolation to Ilusha in his suffering. He
was greatly touched by seeing the almost tender affection and sympathy
shown him by these boys, who had been his enemies. Krassotkin was the only
one missing and his absence was a heavy load on Ilusha’s heart. Perhaps
the bitterest of all his bitter memories was his stabbing Krassotkin, who
had been his one friend and protector. Clever little Smurov, who was the
first to make it up with Ilusha, thought it was so. But when Smurov hinted
to Krassotkin that Alyosha wanted to come and see him about something, the
latter cut him short, bidding Smurov tell “Karamazov” at once that he knew
best what to do, that he wanted no one’s advice, and that, if he went to
see Ilusha, he would choose his own time for he had “his own reasons.”
That was a fortnight before this Sunday. That was why Alyosha had not been
to see him, as he had meant to. But though he waited, he sent Smurov to
him twice again. Both times Krassotkin met him with a curt, impatient
refusal, sending Alyosha a message not to bother him any more, that if he
came himself, he, Krassotkin, would not go to Ilusha at all. Up to the
very last day, Smurov did not know that Kolya meant to go to Ilusha that
morning, and only the evening before, as he parted from Smurov, Kolya
abruptly told him to wait at home for him next morning, for he would go
with him to the Snegiryovs’, but warned him on no account to say he was
coming, as he wanted to drop in casually. Smurov obeyed. Smurov’s fancy
that Kolya would bring back the lost dog was based on the words Kolya had
dropped that “they must be asses not to find the dog, if it was alive.”
When Smurov, waiting for an opportunity, timidly hinted at his guess about
the dog, Krassotkin flew into a violent rage. “I’m not such an ass as to
go hunting about the town for other people’s dogs when I’ve got a dog of
my own! And how can you imagine a dog could be alive after swallowing a
pin? Sheepish sentimentality, that’s what it is!”
For the last fortnight Ilusha had not left his little bed under the ikons
in the corner. He had not been to school since the day he met Alyosha and
bit his finger. He was taken ill the same day, though for a month
afterwards he was sometimes able to get up and walk about the room and
passage. But latterly he had become so weak that he could not move without
help from his father. His father was terribly concerned about him. He even
gave up drinking and was almost crazy with terror that his boy would die.
And often, especially after leading him round the room on his arm and
putting him back to bed, he would run to a dark corner in the passage and,
leaning his head against the wall, he would break into paroxysms of
violent weeping, stifling his sobs that they might not be heard by Ilusha.
Returning to the room, he would usually begin doing something to amuse and
comfort his precious boy; he would tell him stories, funny anecdotes, or
would mimic comic people he had happened to meet, even imitate the howls
and cries of animals. But Ilusha could not bear to see his father fooling
and playing the buffoon. Though the boy tried not to show how he disliked
it, he saw with an aching heart that his father was an object of contempt,
and he was continually haunted by the memory of the “wisp of tow” and that
“terrible day.”
Nina, Ilusha’s gentle, crippled sister, did not like her father’s
buffoonery either (Varvara had been gone for some time past to Petersburg
to study at the university). But the half‐imbecile mother was greatly
diverted and laughed heartily when her husband began capering about or
performing something. It was the only way she could be amused; all the
rest of the time she was grumbling and complaining that now every one had
forgotten her, that no one treated her with respect, that she was
slighted, and so on. But during the last few days she had completely
changed. She began looking constantly at Ilusha’s bed in the corner and
seemed lost in thought. She was more silent, quieter, and, if she cried,
she cried quietly so as not to be heard. The captain noticed the change in
her with mournful perplexity. The boys’ visits at first only angered her,
but later on their merry shouts and stories began to divert her, and at
last she liked them so much that, if the boys had given up coming, she
would have felt dreary without them. When the children told some story or
played a game, she laughed and clapped her hands. She called some of them
to her and kissed them. She was particularly fond of Smurov.
As for the captain, the presence in his room of the children, who came to
cheer up Ilusha, filled his heart from the first with ecstatic joy. He
even hoped that Ilusha would now get over his depression, and that that
would hasten his recovery. In spite of his alarm about Ilusha, he had not,
till lately, felt one minute’s doubt of his boy’s ultimate recovery.
He met his little visitors with homage, waited upon them hand and foot; he
was ready to be their horse and even began letting them ride on his back,
but Ilusha did not like the game and it was given up. He began buying
little things for them, gingerbread and nuts, gave them tea and cut them
sandwiches. It must be noted that all this time he had plenty of money. He
had taken the two hundred roubles from Katerina Ivanovna just as Alyosha
had predicted he would. And afterwards Katerina Ivanovna, learning more
about their circumstances and Ilusha’s illness, visited them herself, made
the acquaintance of the family, and succeeded in fascinating the half‐
imbecile mother. Since then she had been lavish in helping them, and the
captain, terror‐stricken at the thought that his boy might be dying,
forgot his pride and humbly accepted her assistance.
All this time Doctor Herzenstube, who was called in by Katerina Ivanovna,
came punctually every other day, but little was gained by his visits and
he dosed the invalid mercilessly. But on that Sunday morning a new doctor
was expected, who had come from Moscow, where he had a great reputation.
Katerina Ivanovna had sent for him from Moscow at great expense, not
expressly for Ilusha, but for another object of which more will be said in
its place hereafter. But, as he had come, she had asked him to see Ilusha
as well, and the captain had been told to expect him. He hadn’t the
slightest idea that Kolya Krassotkin was coming, though he had long wished
for a visit from the boy for whom Ilusha was fretting.
At the moment when Krassotkin opened the door and came into the room, the
captain and all the boys were round Ilusha’s bed, looking at a tiny
mastiff pup, which had only been born the day before, though the captain
had bespoken it a week ago to comfort and amuse Ilusha, who was still
fretting over the lost and probably dead Zhutchka. Ilusha, who had heard
three days before that he was to be presented with a puppy, not an
ordinary puppy, but a pedigree mastiff (a very important point, of
course), tried from delicacy of feeling to pretend that he was pleased.
But his father and the boys could not help seeing that the puppy only
served to recall to his little heart the thought of the unhappy dog he had
killed. The puppy lay beside him feebly moving and he, smiling sadly,
stroked it with his thin, pale, wasted hand. Clearly he liked the puppy,
but ... it wasn’t Zhutchka; if he could have had Zhutchka and the puppy,
too, then he would have been completely happy.
“Krassotkin!” cried one of the boys suddenly. He was the first to see him
come in.
Krassotkin’s entrance made a general sensation; the boys moved away and
stood on each side of the bed, so that he could get a full view of Ilusha.
The captain ran eagerly to meet Kolya.
“Please come in ... you are welcome!” he said hurriedly. “Ilusha, Mr.
Krassotkin has come to see you!”
But Krassotkin, shaking hands with him hurriedly, instantly showed his
complete knowledge of the manners of good society. He turned first to the
captain’s wife sitting in her arm‐chair, who was very ill‐humored at the
moment, and was grumbling that the boys stood between her and Ilusha’s bed
and did not let her see the new puppy. With the greatest courtesy he made
her a bow, scraping his foot, and turning to Nina, he made her, as the
only other lady present, a similar bow. This polite behavior made an
extremely favorable impression on the deranged lady.
“There, you can see at once he is a young man that has been well brought
up,” she commented aloud, throwing up her hands; “but as for our other
visitors they come in one on the top of another.”
“How do you mean, mamma, one on the top of another, how is that?” muttered
the captain affectionately, though a little anxious on her account.
“That’s how they ride in. They get on each other’s shoulders in the
passage and prance in like that on a respectable family. Strange sort of
visitors!”
“But who’s come in like that, mamma?”
“Why, that boy came in riding on that one’s back and this one on that
one’s.”
Kolya was already by Ilusha’s bedside. The sick boy turned visibly paler.
He raised himself in the bed and looked intently at Kolya. Kolya had not
seen his little friend for two months, and he was overwhelmed at the sight
of him. He had never imagined that he would see such a wasted, yellow
face, such enormous, feverishly glowing eyes and such thin little hands.
He saw, with grieved surprise, Ilusha’s rapid, hard breathing and dry
lips. He stepped close to him, held out his hand, and almost overwhelmed,
he said:
“Well, old man ... how are you?” But his voice failed him, he couldn’t
achieve an appearance of ease; his face suddenly twitched and the corners
of his mouth quivered. Ilusha smiled a pitiful little smile, still unable
to utter a word. Something moved Kolya to raise his hand and pass it over
Ilusha’s hair.
“Never mind!” he murmured softly to him to cheer him up, or perhaps not
knowing why he said it. For a minute they were silent again.
“Hallo, so you’ve got a new puppy?” Kolya said suddenly, in a most callous
voice.
“Ye—es,” answered Ilusha in a long whisper, gasping for breath.
“A black nose, that means he’ll be fierce, a good house‐dog,” Kolya
observed gravely and stolidly, as if the only thing he cared about was the
puppy and its black nose. But in reality he still had to do his utmost to
control his feelings not to burst out crying like a child, and do what he
would he could not control it. “When it grows up, you’ll have to keep it
on the chain, I’m sure.”
“He’ll be a huge dog!” cried one of the boys.
“Of course he will,” “a mastiff,” “large,” “like this,” “as big as a
calf,” shouted several voices.
“As big as a calf, as a real calf,” chimed in the captain. “I got one like
that on purpose, one of the fiercest breed, and his parents are huge and
very fierce, they stand as high as this from the floor.... Sit down here,
on Ilusha’s bed, or here on the bench. You are welcome, we’ve been hoping
to see you a long time.... You were so kind as to come with Alexey
Fyodorovitch?”
Krassotkin sat on the edge of the bed, at Ilusha’s feet. Though he had
perhaps prepared a free‐and‐easy opening for the conversation on his way,
now he completely lost the thread of it.
“No ... I came with Perezvon. I’ve got a dog now, called Perezvon. A
Slavonic name. He’s out there ... if I whistle, he’ll run in. I’ve brought
a dog, too,” he said, addressing Ilusha all at once. “Do you remember
Zhutchka, old man?” he suddenly fired the question at him.
Ilusha’s little face quivered. He looked with an agonized expression at
Kolya. Alyosha, standing at the door, frowned and signed to Kolya not to
speak of Zhutchka, but he did not or would not notice.
“Where ... is Zhutchka?” Ilusha asked in a broken voice.
“Oh, well, my boy, your Zhutchka’s lost and done for!”
Ilusha did not speak, but he fixed an intent gaze once more on Kolya.
Alyosha, catching Kolya’s eye, signed to him vigorously again, but he
turned away his eyes pretending not to have noticed.
“It must have run away and died somewhere. It must have died after a meal
like that,” Kolya pronounced pitilessly, though he seemed a little
breathless. “But I’ve got a dog, Perezvon ... A Slavonic name.... I’ve
brought him to show you.”
“I don’t want him!” said Ilusha suddenly.
“No, no, you really must see him ... it will amuse you. I brought him on
purpose.... He’s the same sort of shaggy dog.... You allow me to call in
my dog, madam?” He suddenly addressed Madame Snegiryov, with inexplicable
excitement in his manner.
“I don’t want him, I don’t want him!” cried Ilusha, with a mournful break
in his voice. There was a reproachful light in his eyes.
“You’d better,” the captain started up from the chest by the wall on which
he had just sat down, “you’d better ... another time,” he muttered, but
Kolya could not be restrained. He hurriedly shouted to Smurov, “Open the
door,” and as soon as it was open, he blew his whistle. Perezvon dashed
headlong into the room.
“Jump, Perezvon, beg! Beg!” shouted Kolya, jumping up, and the dog stood
erect on its hind‐legs by Ilusha’s bedside. What followed was a surprise
to every one: Ilusha started, lurched violently forward, bent over
Perezvon and gazed at him, faint with suspense.
“It’s ... Zhutchka!” he cried suddenly, in a voice breaking with joy and
suffering.
“And who did you think it was?” Krassotkin shouted with all his might, in
a ringing, happy voice, and bending down he seized the dog and lifted him
up to Ilusha.
“Look, old man, you see, blind of one eye and the left ear is torn, just
the marks you described to me. It was by that I found him. I found him
directly. He did not belong to any one!” he explained, turning quickly to
the captain, to his wife, to Alyosha and then again to Ilusha. “He used to
live in the Fedotovs’ back‐yard. Though he made his home there, they did
not feed him. He was a stray dog that had run away from the village ... I
found him.... You see, old man, he couldn’t have swallowed what you gave
him. If he had, he must have died, he must have! So he must have spat it
out, since he is alive. You did not see him do it. But the pin pricked his
tongue, that is why he squealed. He ran away squealing and you thought
he’d swallowed it. He might well squeal, because the skin of dogs’ mouths
is so tender ... tenderer than in men, much tenderer!” Kolya cried
impetuously, his face glowing and radiant with delight. Ilusha could not
speak. White as a sheet, he gazed open‐mouthed at Kolya, with his great
eyes almost starting out of his head. And if Krassotkin, who had no
suspicion of it, had known what a disastrous and fatal effect such a
moment might have on the sick child’s health, nothing would have induced
him to play such a trick on him. But Alyosha was perhaps the only person
in the room who realized it. As for the captain he behaved like a small
child.
“Zhutchka! It’s Zhutchka!” he cried in a blissful voice, “Ilusha, this is
Zhutchka, your Zhutchka! Mamma, this is Zhutchka!” He was almost weeping.
“And I never guessed!” cried Smurov regretfully. “Bravo, Krassotkin! I
said he’d find the dog and here he’s found him.”
“Here he’s found him!” another boy repeated gleefully.
“Krassotkin’s a brick!” cried a third voice.
“He’s a brick, he’s a brick!” cried the other boys, and they began
clapping.
“Wait, wait,” Krassotkin did his utmost to shout above them all. “I’ll
tell you how it happened, that’s the whole point. I found him, I took him
home and hid him at once. I kept him locked up at home and did not show
him to any one till to‐day. Only Smurov has known for the last fortnight,
but I assured him this dog was called Perezvon and he did not guess. And
meanwhile I taught the dog all sorts of tricks. You should only see all
the things he can do! I trained him so as to bring you a well‐trained dog,
in good condition, old man, so as to be able to say to you, ‘See, old man,
what a fine dog your Zhutchka is now!’ Haven’t you a bit of meat? He’ll
show you a trick that will make you die with laughing. A piece of meat,
haven’t you got any?”
The captain ran across the passage to the landlady, where their cooking
was done. Not to lose precious time, Kolya, in desperate haste, shouted to
Perezvon, “Dead!” And the dog immediately turned round and lay on his back
with its four paws in the air. The boys laughed. Ilusha looked on with the
same suffering smile, but the person most delighted with the dog’s
performance was “mamma.” She laughed at the dog and began snapping her
fingers and calling it, “Perezvon, Perezvon!”
“Nothing will make him get up, nothing!” Kolya cried triumphantly, proud
of his success. “He won’t move for all the shouting in the world, but if I
call to him, he’ll jump up in a minute. Ici, Perezvon!” The dog leapt up
and bounded about, whining with delight. The captain ran back with a piece
of cooked beef.
“Is it hot?” Kolya inquired hurriedly, with a business‐like air, taking
the meat. “Dogs don’t like hot things. No, it’s all right. Look,
everybody, look, Ilusha, look, old man; why aren’t you looking? He does
not look at him, now I’ve brought him.”
The new trick consisted in making the dog stand motionless with his nose
out and putting a tempting morsel of meat just on his nose. The luckless
dog had to stand without moving, with the meat on his nose, as long as his
master chose to keep him, without a movement, perhaps for half an hour.
But he kept Perezvon only for a brief moment.
“Paid for!” cried Kolya, and the meat passed in a flash from the dog’s
nose to his mouth. The audience, of course, expressed enthusiasm and
surprise.
“Can you really have put off coming all this time simply to train the
dog?” exclaimed Alyosha, with an involuntary note of reproach in his
voice.
“Simply for that!” answered Kolya, with perfect simplicity. “I wanted to
show him in all his glory.”
“Perezvon! Perezvon,” called Ilusha suddenly, snapping his thin fingers
and beckoning to the dog.
“What is it? Let him jump up on the bed! _Ici_, Perezvon!” Kolya slapped
the bed and Perezvon darted up by Ilusha. The boy threw both arms round
his head and Perezvon instantly licked his cheek. Ilusha crept close to
him, stretched himself out in bed and hid his face in the dog’s shaggy
coat.
“Dear, dear!” kept exclaiming the captain. Kolya sat down again on the
edge of the bed.
“Ilusha, I can show you another trick. I’ve brought you a little cannon.
You remember, I told you about it before and you said how much you’d like
to see it. Well, here, I’ve brought it to you.”
And Kolya hurriedly pulled out of his satchel the little bronze cannon. He
hurried, because he was happy himself. Another time he would have waited
till the sensation made by Perezvon had passed off, now he hurried on
regardless of all consideration. “You are all happy now,” he felt, “so
here’s something to make you happier!” He was perfectly enchanted himself.
“I’ve been coveting this thing for a long while; it’s for you, old man,
it’s for you. It belonged to Morozov, it was no use to him, he had it from
his brother. I swopped a book from father’s book‐case for it, _A Kinsman
of Mahomet or Salutary Folly_, a scandalous book published in Moscow a
hundred years ago, before they had any censorship. And Morozov has a taste
for such things. He was grateful to me, too....”
Kolya held the cannon in his hand so that all could see and admire it.
Ilusha raised himself, and, with his right arm still round the dog, he
gazed enchanted at the toy. The sensation was even greater when Kolya
announced that he had gunpowder too, and that it could be fired off at
once “if it won’t alarm the ladies.” “Mamma” immediately asked to look at
the toy closer and her request was granted. She was much pleased with the
little bronze cannon on wheels and began rolling it to and fro on her lap.
She readily gave permission for the cannon to be fired, without any idea
of what she had been asked. Kolya showed the powder and the shot. The
captain, as a military man, undertook to load it, putting in a minute
quantity of powder. He asked that the shot might be put off till another
time. The cannon was put on the floor, aiming towards an empty part of the
room, three grains of powder were thrust into the touch‐hole and a match
was put to it. A magnificent explosion followed. Mamma was startled, but
at once laughed with delight. The boys gazed in speechless triumph. But
the captain, looking at Ilusha, was more enchanted than any of them. Kolya
picked up the cannon and immediately presented it to Ilusha, together with
the powder and the shot.
“I got it for you, for you! I’ve been keeping it for you a long time,” he
repeated once more in his delight.
“Oh, give it to me! No, give me the cannon!” mamma began begging like a
little child. Her face showed a piteous fear that she would not get it.
Kolya was disconcerted. The captain fidgeted uneasily.
“Mamma, mamma,” he ran to her, “the cannon’s yours, of course, but let
Ilusha have it, because it’s a present to him, but it’s just as good as
yours. Ilusha will always let you play with it; it shall belong to both of
you, both of you.”
“No, I don’t want it to belong to both of us, I want it to be mine
altogether, not Ilusha’s,” persisted mamma, on the point of tears.
“Take it, mother, here, keep it!” Ilusha cried. “Krassotkin, may I give it
to my mother?” he turned to Krassotkin with an imploring face, as though
he were afraid he might be offended at his giving his present to some one
else.
“Of course you may,” Krassotkin assented heartily, and, taking the cannon
from Ilusha, he handed it himself to mamma with a polite bow. She was so
touched that she cried.
“Ilusha, darling, he’s the one who loves his mamma!” she said tenderly,
and at once began wheeling the cannon to and fro on her lap again.
“Mamma, let me kiss your hand.” The captain darted up to her at once and
did so.
“And I never saw such a charming fellow as this nice boy,” said the
grateful lady, pointing to Krassotkin.
“And I’ll bring you as much powder as you like, Ilusha. We make the powder
ourselves now. Borovikov found out how it’s made—twenty‐four parts of
saltpeter, ten of sulphur and six of birchwood charcoal. It’s all pounded
together, mixed into a paste with water and rubbed through a tammy
sieve—that’s how it’s done.”
“Smurov told me about your powder, only father says it’s not real
gunpowder,” responded Ilusha.
“Not real?” Kolya flushed. “It burns. I don’t know, of course.”
“No, I didn’t mean that,” put in the captain with a guilty face. “I only
said that real powder is not made like that, but that’s nothing, it can be
made so.”
“I don’t know, you know best. We lighted some in a pomatum pot, it burned
splendidly, it all burnt away leaving only a tiny ash. But that was only
the paste, and if you rub it through ... but of course you know best, I
don’t know.... And Bulkin’s father thrashed him on account of our powder,
did you hear?” he turned to Ilusha.
“Yes,” answered Ilusha. He listened to Kolya with immense interest and
enjoyment.
“We had prepared a whole bottle of it and he used to keep it under his
bed. His father saw it. He said it might explode, and thrashed him on the
spot. He was going to make a complaint against me to the masters. He is
not allowed to go about with me now, no one is allowed to go about with me
now. Smurov is not allowed to either, I’ve got a bad name with every one.
They say I’m a ‘desperate character,’ ” Kolya smiled scornfully. “It all
began from what happened on the railway.”
“Ah, we’ve heard of that exploit of yours, too,” cried the captain. “How
could you lie still on the line? Is it possible you weren’t the least
afraid, lying there under the train? Weren’t you frightened?”
The captain was abject in his flattery of Kolya.
“N—not particularly,” answered Kolya carelessly. “What’s blasted my
reputation more than anything here was that cursed goose,” he said,
turning again to Ilusha. But though he assumed an unconcerned air as he
talked, he still could not control himself and was continually missing the
note he tried to keep up.
“Ah! I heard about the goose!” Ilusha laughed, beaming all over. “They
told me, but I didn’t understand. Did they really take you to the court?”
“The most stupid, trivial affair, they made a mountain of a molehill as
they always do,” Kolya began carelessly. “I was walking through the
market‐place here one day, just when they’d driven in the geese. I stopped
and looked at them. All at once a fellow, who is an errand‐boy at
Plotnikov’s now, looked at me and said, ‘What are you looking at the geese
for?’ I looked at him; he was a stupid, moon‐faced fellow of twenty. I am
always on the side of the peasantry, you know. I like talking to the
peasants.... We’ve dropped behind the peasants—that’s an axiom. I believe
you are laughing, Karamazov?”
“No, Heaven forbid, I am listening,” said Alyosha with a most good‐natured
air, and the sensitive Kolya was immediately reassured.
“My theory, Karamazov, is clear and simple,” he hurried on again, looking
pleased. “I believe in the people and am always glad to give them their
due, but I am not for spoiling them, that is a _sine qua non_ ... But I
was telling you about the goose. So I turned to the fool and answered, ‘I
am wondering what the goose thinks about.’ He looked at me quite stupidly,
‘And what does the goose think about?’ he asked. ‘Do you see that cart
full of oats?’ I said. ‘The oats are dropping out of the sack, and the
goose has put its neck right under the wheel to gobble them up—do you
see?’ ‘I see that quite well,’ he said. ‘Well,’ said I, ‘if that cart were
to move on a little, would it break the goose’s neck or not?’ ‘It’d be
sure to break it,’ and he grinned all over his face, highly delighted.
‘Come on, then,’ said I, ‘let’s try.’ ‘Let’s,’ he said. And it did not
take us long to arrange: he stood at the bridle without being noticed, and
I stood on one side to direct the goose. And the owner wasn’t looking, he
was talking to some one, so I had nothing to do, the goose thrust its head
in after the oats of itself, under the cart, just under the wheel. I
winked at the lad, he tugged at the bridle, and crack. The goose’s neck
was broken in half. And, as luck would have it, all the peasants saw us at
that moment and they kicked up a shindy at once. ‘You did that on
purpose!’ ‘No, not on purpose.’ ‘Yes, you did, on purpose!’ Well, they
shouted, ‘Take him to the justice of the peace!’ They took me, too. ‘You
were there, too,’ they said, ‘you helped, you’re known all over the
market!’ And, for some reason, I really am known all over the market,”
Kolya added conceitedly. “We all went off to the justice’s, they brought
the goose, too. The fellow was crying in a great funk, simply blubbering
like a woman. And the farmer kept shouting that you could kill any number
of geese like that. Well, of course, there were witnesses. The justice of
the peace settled it in a minute, that the farmer was to be paid a rouble
for the goose, and the fellow to have the goose. And he was warned not to
play such pranks again. And the fellow kept blubbering like a woman. ‘It
wasn’t me,’ he said, ‘it was he egged me on,’ and he pointed to me. I
answered with the utmost composure that I hadn’t egged him on, that I
simply stated the general proposition, had spoken hypothetically. The
justice of the peace smiled and was vexed with himself at once for having
smiled. ‘I’ll complain to your masters of you, so that for the future you
mayn’t waste your time on such general propositions, instead of sitting at
your books and learning your lessons.’ He didn’t complain to the masters,
that was a joke, but the matter was noised abroad and came to the ears of
the masters. Their ears are long, you know! The classical master,
Kolbasnikov, was particularly shocked about it, but Dardanelov got me off
again. But Kolbasnikov is savage with every one now like a green ass. Did
you know, Ilusha, he is just married, got a dowry of a thousand roubles,
and his bride’s a regular fright of the first rank and the last degree.
The third‐class fellows wrote an epigram on it:
Astounding news has reached the class,
Kolbasnikov has been an ass.
And so on, awfully funny, I’ll bring it to you later on. I say nothing
against Dardanelov, he is a learned man, there’s no doubt about it. I
respect men like that and it’s not because he stood up for me.”
“But you took him down about the founders of Troy!” Smurov put in
suddenly, unmistakably proud of Krassotkin at such a moment. He was
particularly pleased with the story of the goose.
“Did you really take him down?” the captain inquired, in a flattering way.
“On the question who founded Troy? We heard of it, Ilusha told me about it
at the time.”
“He knows everything, father, he knows more than any of us!” put in
Ilusha; “he only pretends to be like that, but really he is top in every
subject....”
Ilusha looked at Kolya with infinite happiness.
“Oh, that’s all nonsense about Troy, a trivial matter. I consider this an
unimportant question,” said Kolya with haughty humility. He had by now
completely recovered his dignity, though he was still a little uneasy. He
felt that he was greatly excited and that he had talked about the goose,
for instance, with too little reserve, while Alyosha had looked serious
and had not said a word all the time. And the vain boy began by degrees to
have a rankling fear that Alyosha was silent because he despised him, and
thought he was showing off before him. If he dared to think anything like
that Kolya would—
“I regard the question as quite a trivial one,” he rapped out again,
proudly.
“And I know who founded Troy,” a boy, who had not spoken before, said
suddenly, to the surprise of every one. He was silent and seemed to be
shy. He was a pretty boy of about eleven, called Kartashov. He was sitting
near the door. Kolya looked at him with dignified amazement.
The fact was that the identity of the founders of Troy had become a secret
for the whole school, a secret which could only be discovered by reading
Smaragdov, and no one had Smaragdov but Kolya. One day, when Kolya’s back
was turned, Kartashov hastily opened Smaragdov, which lay among Kolya’s
books, and immediately lighted on the passage relating to the foundation
of Troy. This was a good time ago, but he felt uneasy and could not bring
himself to announce publicly that he too knew who had founded Troy, afraid
of what might happen and of Krassotkin’s somehow putting him to shame over
it. But now he couldn’t resist saying it. For weeks he had been longing
to.
“Well, who did found it?” asked Kolya, turning to him with haughty
superciliousness. He saw from his face that he really did know and at once
made up his mind how to take it. There was, so to speak, a discordant note
in the general harmony.
“Troy was founded by Teucer, Dardanus, Ilius and Tros,” the boy rapped out
at once, and in the same instant he blushed, blushed so, that it was
painful to look at him. But the boys stared at him, stared at him for a
whole minute, and then all the staring eyes turned at once and were
fastened upon Kolya, who was still scanning the audacious boy with
disdainful composure.
“In what sense did they found it?” he deigned to comment at last. “And
what is meant by founding a city or a state? What do they do? Did they go
and each lay a brick, do you suppose?”
There was laughter. The offending boy turned from pink to crimson. He was
silent and on the point of tears. Kolya held him so for a minute.
“Before you talk of a historical event like the foundation of a
nationality, you must first understand what you mean by it,” he admonished
him in stern, incisive tones. “But I attach no consequence to these old
wives’ tales and I don’t think much of universal history in general,” he
added carelessly, addressing the company generally.
“Universal history?” the captain inquired, looking almost scared.
“Yes, universal history! It’s the study of the successive follies of
mankind and nothing more. The only subjects I respect are mathematics and
natural science,” said Kolya. He was showing off and he stole a glance at
Alyosha; his was the only opinion he was afraid of there. But Alyosha was
still silent and still serious as before. If Alyosha had said a word it
would have stopped him, but Alyosha was silent and “it might be the
silence of contempt,” and that finally irritated Kolya.
“The classical languages, too ... they are simply madness, nothing more.
You seem to disagree with me again, Karamazov?”
“I don’t agree,” said Alyosha, with a faint smile.
“The study of the classics, if you ask my opinion, is simply a police
measure, that’s simply why it has been introduced into our schools.” By
degrees Kolya began to get breathless again. “Latin and Greek were
introduced because they are a bore and because they stupefy the intellect.
It was dull before, so what could they do to make things duller? It was
senseless enough before, so what could they do to make it more senseless?
So they thought of Greek and Latin. That’s my opinion, I hope I shall
never change it,” Kolya finished abruptly. His cheeks were flushed.
“That’s true,” assented Smurov suddenly, in a ringing tone of conviction.
He had listened attentively.
“And yet he is first in Latin himself,” cried one of the group of boys
suddenly.
“Yes, father, he says that and yet he is first in Latin,” echoed Ilusha.
“What of it?” Kolya thought fit to defend himself, though the praise was
very sweet to him. “I am fagging away at Latin because I have to, because
I promised my mother to pass my examination, and I think that whatever you
do, it’s worth doing it well. But in my soul I have a profound contempt
for the classics and all that fraud.... You don’t agree, Karamazov?”
“Why ‘fraud’?” Alyosha smiled again.
“Well, all the classical authors have been translated into all languages,
so it was not for the sake of studying the classics they introduced Latin,
but solely as a police measure, to stupefy the intelligence. So what can
one call it but a fraud?”
“Why, who taught you all this?” cried Alyosha, surprised at last.
“In the first place I am capable of thinking for myself without being
taught. Besides, what I said just now about the classics being translated
our teacher Kolbasnikov has said to the whole of the third class.”
“The doctor has come!” cried Nina, who had been silent till then.
A carriage belonging to Madame Hohlakov drove up to the gate. The captain,
who had been expecting the doctor all the morning, rushed headlong out to
meet him. “Mamma” pulled herself together and assumed a dignified air.
Alyosha went up to Ilusha and began setting his pillows straight. Nina,
from her invalid chair, anxiously watched him putting the bed tidy. The
boys hurriedly took leave. Some of them promised to come again in the
evening. Kolya called Perezvon and the dog jumped off the bed.
“I won’t go away, I won’t go away,” Kolya said hastily to Ilusha. “I’ll
wait in the passage and come back when the doctor’s gone, I’ll come back
with Perezvon.”
But by now the doctor had entered, an important‐looking person with long,
dark whiskers and a shiny, shaven chin, wearing a bearskin coat. As he
crossed the threshold he stopped, taken aback; he probably fancied he had
come to the wrong place. “How is this? Where am I?” he muttered, not
removing his coat nor his peaked sealskin cap. The crowd, the poverty of
the room, the washing hanging on a line in the corner, puzzled him. The
captain, bent double, was bowing low before him.
“It’s here, sir, here, sir,” he muttered cringingly; “it’s here, you’ve
come right, you were coming to us...”
“Sne‐gi‐ryov?” the doctor said loudly and pompously. “Mr. Snegiryov—is
that you?”
“That’s me, sir!”
“Ah!”
The doctor looked round the room with a squeamish air once more and threw
off his coat, displaying to all eyes the grand decoration at his neck. The
captain caught the fur coat in the air, and the doctor took off his cap.
“Where is the patient?” he asked emphatically.
Chapter VI. Precocity
“What do you think the doctor will say to him?” Kolya asked quickly. “What
a repulsive mug, though, hasn’t he? I can’t endure medicine!”
“Ilusha is dying. I think that’s certain,” answered Alyosha, mournfully.
“They are rogues! Medicine’s a fraud! I am glad to have made your
acquaintance, though, Karamazov. I wanted to know you for a long time. I
am only sorry we meet in such sad circumstances.”
Kolya had a great inclination to say something even warmer and more
demonstrative, but he felt ill at ease. Alyosha noticed this, smiled, and
pressed his hand.
“I’ve long learned to respect you as a rare person,” Kolya muttered again,
faltering and uncertain. “I have heard you are a mystic and have been in
the monastery. I know you are a mystic, but ... that hasn’t put me off.
Contact with real life will cure you.... It’s always so with characters
like yours.”
“What do you mean by mystic? Cure me of what?” Alyosha was rather
astonished.
“Oh, God and all the rest of it.”
“What, don’t you believe in God?”
“Oh, I’ve nothing against God. Of course, God is only a hypothesis, but
... I admit that He is needed ... for the order of the universe and all
that ... and that if there were no God He would have to be invented,”
added Kolya, beginning to blush. He suddenly fancied that Alyosha might
think he was trying to show off his knowledge and to prove that he was
“grown up.” “I haven’t the slightest desire to show off my knowledge to
him,” Kolya thought indignantly. And all of a sudden he felt horribly
annoyed.
“I must confess I can’t endure entering on such discussions,” he said with
a final air. “It’s possible for one who doesn’t believe in God to love
mankind, don’t you think so? Voltaire didn’t believe in God and loved
mankind?” (“I am at it again,” he thought to himself.)
“Voltaire believed in God, though not very much, I think, and I don’t
think he loved mankind very much either,” said Alyosha quietly, gently,
and quite naturally, as though he were talking to some one of his own age,
or even older. Kolya was particularly struck by Alyosha’s apparent
diffidence about his opinion of Voltaire. He seemed to be leaving the
question for him, little Kolya, to settle.
“Have you read Voltaire?” Alyosha finished.
“No, not to say read.... But I’ve read _Candide_ in the Russian
translation ... in an absurd, grotesque, old translation ... (At it again!
again!)”
“And did you understand it?”
“Oh, yes, everything.... That is ... Why do you suppose I shouldn’t
understand it? There’s a lot of nastiness in it, of course.... Of course I
can understand that it’s a philosophical novel and written to advocate an
idea....” Kolya was getting mixed by now. “I am a Socialist, Karamazov, I
am an incurable Socialist,” he announced suddenly, apropos of nothing.
“A Socialist?” laughed Alyosha. “But when have you had time to become one?
Why, I thought you were only thirteen?”
Kolya winced.
“In the first place I am not thirteen, but fourteen, fourteen in a
fortnight,” he flushed angrily, “and in the second place I am at a
complete loss to understand what my age has to do with it? The question is
what are my convictions, not what is my age, isn’t it?”
“When you are older, you’ll understand for yourself the influence of age
on convictions. I fancied, too, that you were not expressing your own
ideas,” Alyosha answered serenely and modestly, but Kolya interrupted him
hotly:
“Come, you want obedience and mysticism. You must admit that the Christian
religion, for instance, has only been of use to the rich and the powerful
to keep the lower classes in slavery. That’s so, isn’t it?”
“Ah, I know where you read that, and I am sure some one told you so!”
cried Alyosha.
“I say, what makes you think I read it? And certainly no one told me so. I
can think for myself.... I am not opposed to Christ, if you like. He was a
most humane person, and if He were alive to‐day, He would be found in the
ranks of the revolutionists, and would perhaps play a conspicuous part....
There’s no doubt about that.”
“Oh, where, where did you get that from? What fool have you made friends
with?” exclaimed Alyosha.
“Come, the truth will out! It has so chanced that I have often talked to
Mr. Rakitin, of course, but ... old Byelinsky said that, too, so they
say.”
“Byelinsky? I don’t remember. He hasn’t written that anywhere.”
“If he didn’t write it, they say he said it. I heard that from a ... but
never mind.”
“And have you read Byelinsky?”
“Well, no ... I haven’t read all of him, but ... I read the passage about
Tatyana, why she didn’t go off with Onyegin.”
“Didn’t go off with Onyegin? Surely you don’t ... understand that
already?”
“Why, you seem to take me for little Smurov,” said Kolya, with a grin of
irritation. “But please don’t suppose I am such a revolutionist. I often
disagree with Mr. Rakitin. Though I mention Tatyana, I am not at all for
the emancipation of women. I acknowledge that women are a subject race and
must obey. _Les femmes tricottent_, as Napoleon said.” Kolya, for some
reason, smiled, “And on that question at least I am quite of one mind with
that pseudo‐great man. I think, too, that to leave one’s own country and
fly to America is mean, worse than mean—silly. Why go to America when one
may be of great service to humanity here? Now especially. There’s a
perfect mass of fruitful activity open to us. That’s what I answered.”
“What do you mean? Answered whom? Has some one suggested your going to
America already?”
“I must own, they’ve been at me to go, but I declined. That’s between
ourselves, of course, Karamazov; do you hear, not a word to any one. I say
this only to you. I am not at all anxious to fall into the clutches of the
secret police and take lessons at the Chain bridge.
_Long will you remember_
_The house at the Chain bridge._
Do you remember? It’s splendid. Why are you laughing? You don’t suppose I
am fibbing, do you?” (“What if he should find out that I’ve only that one
number of _The Bell_ in father’s bookcase, and haven’t read any more of
it?” Kolya thought with a shudder.)
“Oh, no, I am not laughing and don’t suppose for a moment that you are
lying. No, indeed, I can’t suppose so, for all this, alas! is perfectly
true. But tell me, have you read Pushkin—_Onyegin_, for instance?... You
spoke just now of Tatyana.”
“No, I haven’t read it yet, but I want to read it. I have no prejudices,
Karamazov; I want to hear both sides. What makes you ask?”
“Oh, nothing.”
“Tell me, Karamazov, have you an awful contempt for me?” Kolya rapped out
suddenly and drew himself up before Alyosha, as though he were on drill.
“Be so kind as to tell me, without beating about the bush.”
“I have a contempt for you?” Alyosha looked at him wondering. “What for? I
am only sad that a charming nature such as yours should be perverted by
all this crude nonsense before you have begun life.”
“Don’t be anxious about my nature,” Kolya interrupted, not without
complacency. “But it’s true that I am stupidly sensitive, crudely
sensitive. You smiled just now, and I fancied you seemed to—”
“Oh, my smile meant something quite different. I’ll tell you why I smiled.
Not long ago I read the criticism made by a German who had lived in
Russia, on our students and schoolboys of to‐day. ‘Show a Russian
schoolboy,’ he writes, ‘a map of the stars, which he knows nothing about,
and he will give you back the map next day with corrections on it.’ No
knowledge and unbounded conceit—that’s what the German meant to say about
the Russian schoolboy.”
“Yes, that’s perfectly right,” Kolya laughed suddenly, “exactly so! Bravo
the German! But he did not see the good side, what do you think? Conceit
may be, that comes from youth, that will be corrected if need be, but, on
the other hand, there is an independent spirit almost from childhood,
boldness of thought and conviction, and not the spirit of these sausage
makers, groveling before authority.... But the German was right all the
same. Bravo the German! But Germans want strangling all the same. Though
they are so good at science and learning they must be strangled.”
“Strangled, what for?” smiled Alyosha.
“Well, perhaps I am talking nonsense, I agree. I am awfully childish
sometimes, and when I am pleased about anything I can’t restrain myself
and am ready to talk any stuff. But, I say, we are chattering away here
about nothing, and that doctor has been a long time in there. But perhaps
he’s examining the mamma and that poor crippled Nina. I liked that Nina,
you know. She whispered to me suddenly as I was coming away, ‘Why didn’t
you come before?’ And in such a voice, so reproachfully! I think she is
awfully nice and pathetic.”
“Yes, yes! Well, you’ll be coming often, you will see what she is like. It
would do you a great deal of good to know people like that, to learn to
value a great deal which you will find out from knowing these people,”
Alyosha observed warmly. “That would have more effect on you than
anything.”
“Oh, how I regret and blame myself for not having come sooner!” Kolya
exclaimed, with bitter feeling.
“Yes, it’s a great pity. You saw for yourself how delighted the poor child
was to see you. And how he fretted for you to come!”
“Don’t tell me! You make it worse! But it serves me right. What kept me
from coming was my conceit, my egoistic vanity, and the beastly
wilfullness, which I never can get rid of, though I’ve been struggling
with it all my life. I see that now. I am a beast in lots of ways,
Karamazov!”
“No, you have a charming nature, though it’s been distorted, and I quite
understand why you have had such an influence on this generous, morbidly
sensitive boy,” Alyosha answered warmly.
“And you say that to me!” cried Kolya; “and would you believe it, I
thought—I’ve thought several times since I’ve been here—that you despised
me! If only you knew how I prize your opinion!”
“But are you really so sensitive? At your age! Would you believe it, just
now, when you were telling your story, I thought, as I watched you, that
you must be very sensitive!”
“You thought so? What an eye you’ve got, I say! I bet that was when I was
talking about the goose. That was just when I was fancying you had a great
contempt for me for being in such a hurry to show off, and for a moment I
quite hated you for it, and began talking like a fool. Then I fancied—just
now, here—when I said that if there were no God He would have to be
invented, that I was in too great a hurry to display my knowledge,
especially as I got that phrase out of a book. But I swear I wasn’t
showing off out of vanity, though I really don’t know why. Because I was
so pleased? Yes, I believe it was because I was so pleased ... though it’s
perfectly disgraceful for any one to be gushing directly they are pleased,
I know that. But I am convinced now that you don’t despise me; it was all
my imagination. Oh, Karamazov, I am profoundly unhappy. I sometimes fancy
all sorts of things, that every one is laughing at me, the whole world,
and then I feel ready to overturn the whole order of things.”
“And you worry every one about you,” smiled Alyosha.
“Yes, I worry every one about me, especially my mother. Karamazov, tell
me, am I very ridiculous now?”
“Don’t think about that, don’t think of it at all!” cried Alyosha. “And
what does ridiculous mean? Isn’t every one constantly being or seeming
ridiculous? Besides, nearly all clever people now are fearfully afraid of
being ridiculous, and that makes them unhappy. All I am surprised at is
that you should be feeling that so early, though I’ve observed it for some
time past, and not only in you. Nowadays the very children have begun to
suffer from it. It’s almost a sort of insanity. The devil has taken the
form of that vanity and entered into the whole generation; it’s simply the
devil,” added Alyosha, without a trace of the smile that Kolya, staring at
him, expected to see. “You are like every one else,” said Alyosha, in
conclusion, “that is, like very many others. Only you must not be like
everybody else, that’s all.”
“Even if every one is like that?”
“Yes, even if every one is like that. You be the only one not like it. You
really are not like every one else, here you are not ashamed to confess to
something bad and even ridiculous. And who will admit so much in these
days? No one. And people have even ceased to feel the impulse to self‐
criticism. Don’t be like every one else, even if you are the only one.”
“Splendid! I was not mistaken in you. You know how to console one. Oh, how
I have longed to know you, Karamazov! I’ve long been eager for this
meeting. Can you really have thought about me, too? You said just now that
you thought of me, too?”
“Yes, I’d heard of you and had thought of you, too ... and if it’s partly
vanity that makes you ask, it doesn’t matter.”
“Do you know, Karamazov, our talk has been like a declaration of love,”
said Kolya, in a bashful and melting voice. “That’s not ridiculous, is
it?”
“Not at all ridiculous, and if it were, it wouldn’t matter, because it’s
been a good thing.” Alyosha smiled brightly.
“But do you know, Karamazov, you must admit that you are a little ashamed
yourself, now.... I see it by your eyes.” Kolya smiled with a sort of sly
happiness.
“Why ashamed?”
“Well, why are you blushing?”
“It was you made me blush,” laughed Alyosha, and he really did blush. “Oh,
well, I am a little, goodness knows why, I don’t know...” he muttered,
almost embarrassed.
“Oh, how I love you and admire you at this moment just because you are
rather ashamed! Because you are just like me,” cried Kolya, in positive
ecstasy. His cheeks glowed, his eyes beamed.
“You know, Kolya, you will be very unhappy in your life,” something made
Alyosha say suddenly.
“I know, I know. How you know it all beforehand!” Kolya agreed at once.
“But you will bless life on the whole, all the same.”
“Just so, hurrah! You are a prophet. Oh, we shall get on together,
Karamazov! Do you know, what delights me most, is that you treat me quite
like an equal. But we are not equals, no, we are not, you are better! But
we shall get on. Do you know, all this last month, I’ve been saying to
myself, ‘Either we shall be friends at once, for ever, or we shall part
enemies to the grave!’ ”
“And saying that, of course, you loved me,” Alyosha laughed gayly.
“I did. I loved you awfully. I’ve been loving and dreaming of you. And how
do you know it all beforehand? Ah, here’s the doctor. Goodness! What will
he tell us? Look at his face!”
Chapter VII. Ilusha
The doctor came out of the room again, muffled in his fur coat and with
his cap on his head. His face looked almost angry and disgusted, as though
he were afraid of getting dirty. He cast a cursory glance round the
passage, looking sternly at Alyosha and Kolya as he did so. Alyosha waved
from the door to the coachman, and the carriage that had brought the
doctor drove up. The captain darted out after the doctor, and, bowing
apologetically, stopped him to get the last word. The poor fellow looked
utterly crushed; there was a scared look in his eyes.
“Your Excellency, your Excellency ... is it possible?” he began, but could
not go on and clasped his hands in despair. Yet he still gazed imploringly
at the doctor, as though a word from him might still change the poor boy’s
fate.
“I can’t help it, I am not God!” the doctor answered offhand, though with
the customary impressiveness.
“Doctor ... your Excellency ... and will it be soon, soon?”
“You must be prepared for anything,” said the doctor in emphatic and
incisive tones, and dropping his eyes, he was about to step out to the
coach.
“Your Excellency, for Christ’s sake!” the terror‐stricken captain stopped
him again. “Your Excellency! but can nothing, absolutely nothing save him
now?”
“It’s not in my hands now,” said the doctor impatiently, “but h’m!...” he
stopped suddenly. “If you could, for instance ... send ... your patient
... at once, without delay” (the words “at once, without delay,” the
doctor uttered with an almost wrathful sternness that made the captain
start) “to Syracuse, the change to the new be‐ne‐ficial climatic
conditions might possibly effect—”
“To Syracuse!” cried the captain, unable to grasp what was said.
“Syracuse is in Sicily,” Kolya jerked out suddenly in explanation. The
doctor looked at him.
“Sicily! your Excellency,” faltered the captain, “but you’ve seen”—he
spread out his hands, indicating his surroundings—“mamma and my family?”
“N—no, Sicily is not the place for the family, the family should go to
Caucasus in the early spring ... your daughter must go to the Caucasus,
and your wife ... after a course of the waters in the Caucasus for her
rheumatism ... must be sent straight to Paris to the mental specialist
Lepelletier; I could give you a note to him, and then ... there might be a
change—”
“Doctor, doctor! But you see!” The captain flung wide his hands again
despairingly, indicating the bare wooden walls of the passage.
“Well, that’s not my business,” grinned the doctor. “I have only told you
the answer of medical science to your question as to possible treatment.
As for the rest, to my regret—”
“Don’t be afraid, apothecary, my dog won’t bite you,” Kolya rapped out
loudly, noticing the doctor’s rather uneasy glance at Perezvon, who was
standing in the doorway. There was a wrathful note in Kolya’s voice. He
used the word apothecary instead of doctor on purpose, and, as he
explained afterwards, used it “to insult him.”
“What’s that?” The doctor flung up his head, staring with surprise at
Kolya. “Who’s this?” he addressed Alyosha, as though asking him to
explain.
“It’s Perezvon’s master, don’t worry about me,” Kolya said incisively
again.
“Perezvon?”(7) repeated the doctor, perplexed.
“He hears the bell, but where it is he cannot tell. Good‐by, we shall meet
in Syracuse.”
“Who’s this? Who’s this?” The doctor flew into a terrible rage.
“He is a schoolboy, doctor, he is a mischievous boy; take no notice of
him,” said Alyosha, frowning and speaking quickly. “Kolya, hold your
tongue!” he cried to Krassotkin. “Take no notice of him, doctor,” he
repeated, rather impatiently.
“He wants a thrashing, a good thrashing!” The doctor stamped in a perfect
fury.
“And you know, apothecary, my Perezvon might bite!” said Kolya, turning
pale, with quivering voice and flashing eyes. “_Ici_, Perezvon!”
“Kolya, if you say another word, I’ll have nothing more to do with you,”
Alyosha cried peremptorily.
“There is only one man in the world who can command Nikolay
Krassotkin—this is the man”; Kolya pointed to Alyosha. “I obey him, good‐
by!”
He stepped forward, opened the door, and quickly went into the inner room.
Perezvon flew after him. The doctor stood still for five seconds in
amazement, looking at Alyosha; then, with a curse, he went out quickly to
the carriage, repeating aloud, “This is ... this is ... I don’t know what
it is!” The captain darted forward to help him into the carriage. Alyosha
followed Kolya into the room. He was already by Ilusha’s bedside. The sick
boy was holding his hand and calling for his father. A minute later the
captain, too, came back.
“Father, father, come ... we ...” Ilusha faltered in violent excitement,
but apparently unable to go on, he flung his wasted arms round his father
and Kolya, uniting them in one embrace, and hugging them as tightly as he
could. The captain suddenly began to shake with dumb sobs, and Kolya’s
lips and chin twitched.
“Father, father! How sorry I am for you!” Ilusha moaned bitterly.
“Ilusha ... darling ... the doctor said ... you would be all right ... we
shall be happy ... the doctor ...” the captain began.
“Ah, father! I know what the new doctor said to you about me.... I saw!”
cried Ilusha, and again he hugged them both with all his strength, hiding
his face on his father’s shoulder.
“Father, don’t cry, and when I die get a good boy, another one ... choose
one of them all, a good one, call him Ilusha and love him instead of
me....”
“Hush, old man, you’ll get well,” Krassotkin cried suddenly, in a voice
that sounded angry.
“But don’t ever forget me, father,” Ilusha went on, “come to my grave ...
and, father, bury me by our big stone, where we used to go for our walk,
and come to me there with Krassotkin in the evening ... and Perezvon ... I
shall expect you.... Father, father!”
His voice broke. They were all three silent, still embracing. Nina was
crying quietly in her chair, and at last seeing them all crying, “mamma,”
too, burst into tears.
“Ilusha! Ilusha!” she exclaimed.
Krassotkin suddenly released himself from Ilusha’s embrace.
“Good‐by, old man, mother expects me back to dinner,” he said quickly.
“What a pity I did not tell her! She will be dreadfully anxious.... But
after dinner I’ll come back to you for the whole day, for the whole
evening, and I’ll tell you all sorts of things, all sorts of things. And
I’ll bring Perezvon, but now I will take him with me, because he will
begin to howl when I am away and bother you. Good‐by!”
And he ran out into the passage. He didn’t want to cry, but in the passage
he burst into tears. Alyosha found him crying.
“Kolya, you must be sure to keep your word and come, or he will be
terribly disappointed,” Alyosha said emphatically.
“I will! Oh, how I curse myself for not having come before!” muttered
Kolya, crying, and no longer ashamed of it.
At that moment the captain flew out of the room, and at once closed the
door behind him. His face looked frenzied, his lips were trembling. He
stood before the two and flung up his arms.
“I don’t want a good boy! I don’t want another boy!” he muttered in a wild
whisper, clenching his teeth. “If I forget thee, Jerusalem, may my
tongue—” He broke off with a sob and sank on his knees before the wooden
bench. Pressing his fists against his head, he began sobbing with absurd
whimpering cries, doing his utmost that his cries should not be heard in
the room.
Kolya ran out into the street.
“Good‐by, Karamazov? Will you come yourself?” he cried sharply and angrily
to Alyosha.
“I will certainly come in the evening.”
“What was that he said about Jerusalem?... What did he mean by that?”
“It’s from the Bible. ‘If I forget thee, Jerusalem,’ that is, if I forget
all that is most precious to me, if I let anything take its place, then
may—”
“I understand, that’s enough! Mind you come! _Ici_, Perezvon!” he cried
with positive ferocity to the dog, and with rapid strides he went home.
Book XI. Ivan
Chapter I. At Grushenka’s
Alyosha went towards the cathedral square to the widow Morozov’s house to
see Grushenka, who had sent Fenya to him early in the morning with an
urgent message begging him to come. Questioning Fenya, Alyosha learned
that her mistress had been particularly distressed since the previous day.
During the two months that had passed since Mitya’s arrest, Alyosha had
called frequently at the widow Morozov’s house, both from his own
inclination and to take messages for Mitya. Three days after Mitya’s
arrest, Grushenka was taken very ill and was ill for nearly five weeks.
For one whole week she was unconscious. She was very much changed—thinner
and a little sallow, though she had for the past fortnight been well
enough to go out. But to Alyosha her face was even more attractive than
before, and he liked to meet her eyes when he went in to her. A look of
firmness and intelligent purpose had developed in her face. There were
signs of a spiritual transformation in her, and a steadfast, fine and
humble determination that nothing could shake could be discerned in her.
There was a small vertical line between her brows which gave her charming
face a look of concentrated thought, almost austere at the first glance.
There was scarcely a trace of her former frivolity.
It seemed strange to Alyosha, too, that in spite of the calamity that had
overtaken the poor girl, betrothed to a man who had been arrested for a
terrible crime, almost at the instant of their betrothal, in spite of her
illness and the almost inevitable sentence hanging over Mitya, Grushenka
had not yet lost her youthful cheerfulness. There was a soft light in the
once proud eyes, though at times they gleamed with the old vindictive fire
when she was visited by one disturbing thought stronger than ever in her
heart. The object of that uneasiness was the same as ever—Katerina
Ivanovna, of whom Grushenka had even raved when she lay in delirium.
Alyosha knew that she was fearfully jealous of her. Yet Katerina Ivanovna
had not once visited Mitya in his prison, though she might have done it
whenever she liked. All this made a difficult problem for Alyosha, for he
was the only person to whom Grushenka opened her heart and from whom she
was continually asking advice. Sometimes he was unable to say anything.
Full of anxiety he entered her lodging. She was at home. She had returned
from seeing Mitya half an hour before, and from the rapid movement with
which she leapt up from her chair to meet him he saw that she had been
expecting him with great impatience. A pack of cards dealt for a game of
“fools” lay on the table. A bed had been made up on the leather sofa on
the other side and Maximov lay, half‐reclining, on it. He wore a dressing‐
gown and a cotton nightcap, and was evidently ill and weak, though he was
smiling blissfully. When the homeless old man returned with Grushenka from
Mokroe two months before, he had simply stayed on and was still staying
with her. He arrived with her in rain and sleet, sat down on the sofa,
drenched and scared, and gazed mutely at her with a timid, appealing
smile. Grushenka, who was in terrible grief and in the first stage of
fever, almost forgot his existence in all she had to do the first half‐
hour after her arrival. Suddenly she chanced to look at him intently: he
laughed a pitiful, helpless little laugh. She called Fenya and told her to
give him something to eat. All that day he sat in the same place, almost
without stirring. When it got dark and the shutters were closed, Fenya
asked her mistress:
“Is the gentleman going to stay the night, mistress?”
“Yes; make him a bed on the sofa,” answered Grushenka.
Questioning him more in detail, Grushenka learned from him that he had
literally nowhere to go, and that “Mr. Kalganov, my benefactor, told me
straight that he wouldn’t receive me again and gave me five roubles.”
“Well, God bless you, you’d better stay, then,” Grushenka decided in her
grief, smiling compassionately at him. Her smile wrung the old man’s heart
and his lips twitched with grateful tears. And so the destitute wanderer
had stayed with her ever since. He did not leave the house even when she
was ill. Fenya and her grandmother, the cook, did not turn him out, but
went on serving him meals and making up his bed on the sofa. Grushenka had
grown used to him, and coming back from seeing Mitya (whom she had begun
to visit in prison before she was really well) she would sit down and
begin talking to “Maximushka” about trifling matters, to keep her from
thinking of her sorrow. The old man turned out to be a good story‐teller
on occasions, so that at last he became necessary to her. Grushenka saw
scarcely any one else beside Alyosha, who did not come every day and never
stayed long. Her old merchant lay seriously ill at this time, “at his last
gasp” as they said in the town, and he did, in fact, die a week after
Mitya’s trial. Three weeks before his death, feeling the end approaching,
he made his sons, their wives and children, come upstairs to him at last
and bade them not leave him again. From that moment he gave strict orders
to his servants not to admit Grushenka and to tell her if she came, “The
master wishes you long life and happiness and tells you to forget him.”
But Grushenka sent almost every day to inquire after him.
“You’ve come at last!” she cried, flinging down the cards and joyfully
greeting Alyosha, “and Maximushka’s been scaring me that perhaps you
wouldn’t come. Ah, how I need you! Sit down to the table. What will you
have—coffee?”
“Yes, please,” said Alyosha, sitting down at the table. “I am very
hungry.”
“That’s right. Fenya, Fenya, coffee,” cried Grushenka. “It’s been made a
long time ready for you. And bring some little pies, and mind they are
hot. Do you know, we’ve had a storm over those pies to‐day. I took them to
the prison for him, and would you believe it, he threw them back to me: he
would not eat them. He flung one of them on the floor and stamped on it.
So I said to him: ‘I shall leave them with the warder; if you don’t eat
them before evening, it will be that your venomous spite is enough for
you!’ With that I went away. We quarreled again, would you believe it?
Whenever I go we quarrel.”
Grushenka said all this in one breath in her agitation. Maximov, feeling
nervous, at once smiled and looked on the floor.
“What did you quarrel about this time?” asked Alyosha.
“I didn’t expect it in the least. Only fancy, he is jealous of the Pole.
‘Why are you keeping him?’ he said. ‘So you’ve begun keeping him.’ He is
jealous, jealous of me all the time, jealous eating and sleeping! He even
took it into his head to be jealous of Kuzma last week.”
“But he knew about the Pole before?”
“Yes, but there it is. He has known about him from the very beginning, but
to‐day he suddenly got up and began scolding about him. I am ashamed to
repeat what he said. Silly fellow! Rakitin went in as I came out. Perhaps
Rakitin is egging him on. What do you think?” she added carelessly.
“He loves you, that’s what it is: he loves you so much. And now he is
particularly worried.”
“I should think he might be, with the trial to‐morrow. And I went to him
to say something about to‐morrow, for I dread to think what’s going to
happen then. You say that he is worried, but how worried I am! And he
talks about the Pole! He’s too silly! He is not jealous of Maximushka yet,
anyway.”
“My wife was dreadfully jealous over me, too,” Maximov put in his word.
“Jealous of you?” Grushenka laughed in spite of herself. “Of whom could
she have been jealous?”
“Of the servant girls.”
“Hold your tongue, Maximushka, I am in no laughing mood now; I feel angry.
Don’t ogle the pies. I shan’t give you any; they are not good for you, and
I won’t give you any vodka either. I have to look after him, too, just as
though I kept an almshouse,” she laughed.
“I don’t deserve your kindness. I am a worthless creature,” said Maximov,
with tears in his voice. “You would do better to spend your kindness on
people of more use than me.”
“Ech, every one is of use, Maximushka, and how can we tell who’s of most
use? If only that Pole didn’t exist, Alyosha. He’s taken it into his head
to fall ill, too, to‐day. I’ve been to see him also. And I shall send him
some pies, too, on purpose. I hadn’t sent him any, but Mitya accused me of
it, so now I shall send some! Ah, here’s Fenya with a letter! Yes, it’s
from the Poles—begging again!”
Pan Mussyalovitch had indeed sent an extremely long and characteristically
eloquent letter in which he begged her to lend him three roubles. In the
letter was enclosed a receipt for the sum, with a promise to repay it
within three months, signed by Pan Vrublevsky as well. Grushenka had
received many such letters, accompanied by such receipts, from her former
lover during the fortnight of her convalescence. But she knew that the two
Poles had been to ask after her health during her illness. The first
letter Grushenka got from them was a long one, written on large notepaper
and with a big family crest on the seal. It was so obscure and rhetorical
that Grushenka put it down before she had read half, unable to make head
or tail of it. She could not attend to letters then. The first letter was
followed next day by another in which Pan Mussyalovitch begged her for a
loan of two thousand roubles for a very short period. Grushenka left that
letter, too, unanswered. A whole series of letters had followed—one every
day—all as pompous and rhetorical, but the loan asked for, gradually
diminishing, dropped to a hundred roubles, then to twenty‐five, to ten,
and finally Grushenka received a letter in which both the Poles begged her
for only one rouble and included a receipt signed by both.
Then Grushenka suddenly felt sorry for them, and at dusk she went round
herself to their lodging. She found the two Poles in great poverty, almost
destitution, without food or fuel, without cigarettes, in debt to their
landlady. The two hundred roubles they had carried off from Mitya at
Mokroe had soon disappeared. But Grushenka was surprised at their meeting
her with arrogant dignity and self‐assertion, with the greatest punctilio
and pompous speeches. Grushenka simply laughed, and gave her former
admirer ten roubles. Then, laughing, she told Mitya of it and he was not
in the least jealous. But ever since, the Poles had attached themselves to
Grushenka and bombarded her daily with requests for money and she had
always sent them small sums. And now that day Mitya had taken it into his
head to be fearfully jealous.
“Like a fool, I went round to him just for a minute, on the way to see
Mitya, for he is ill, too, my Pole,” Grushenka began again with nervous
haste. “I was laughing, telling Mitya about it. ‘Fancy,’ I said, ‘my Pole
had the happy thought to sing his old songs to me to the guitar. He
thought I would be touched and marry him!’ Mitya leapt up swearing.... So,
there, I’ll send them the pies! Fenya, is it that little girl they’ve
sent? Here, give her three roubles and pack a dozen pies up in a paper and
tell her to take them. And you, Alyosha, be sure to tell Mitya that I did
send them the pies.”
“I wouldn’t tell him for anything,” said Alyosha, smiling.
“Ech! You think he is unhappy about it. Why, he’s jealous on purpose. He
doesn’t care,” said Grushenka bitterly.
“On purpose?” queried Alyosha.
“I tell you you are silly, Alyosha. You know nothing about it, with all
your cleverness. I am not offended that he is jealous of a girl like me. I
would be offended if he were not jealous. I am like that. I am not
offended at jealousy. I have a fierce heart, too. I can be jealous myself.
Only what offends me is that he doesn’t love me at all. I tell you he is
jealous now _on purpose_. Am I blind? Don’t I see? He began talking to me
just now of that woman, of Katerina, saying she was this and that, how she
had ordered a doctor from Moscow for him, to try and save him; how she had
ordered the best counsel, the most learned one, too. So he loves her, if
he’ll praise her to my face, more shame to him! He’s treated me badly
himself, so he attacked me, to make out I am in fault first and to throw
it all on me. ‘You were with your Pole before me, so I can’t be blamed for
Katerina,’ that’s what it amounts to. He wants to throw the whole blame on
me. He attacked me on purpose, on purpose, I tell you, but I’ll—”
Grushenka could not finish saying what she would do. She hid her eyes in
her handkerchief and sobbed violently.
“He doesn’t love Katerina Ivanovna,” said Alyosha firmly.
“Well, whether he loves her or not, I’ll soon find out for myself,” said
Grushenka, with a menacing note in her voice, taking the handkerchief from
her eyes. Her face was distorted. Alyosha saw sorrowfully that from being
mild and serene, it had become sullen and spiteful.
“Enough of this foolishness,” she said suddenly; “it’s not for that I sent
for you. Alyosha, darling, to‐morrow—what will happen to‐morrow? That’s
what worries me! And it’s only me it worries! I look at every one and no
one is thinking of it. No one cares about it. Are you thinking about it
even? To‐morrow he’ll be tried, you know. Tell me, how will he be tried?
You know it’s the valet, the valet killed him! Good heavens! Can they
condemn him in place of the valet and will no one stand up for him? They
haven’t troubled the valet at all, have they?”
“He’s been severely cross‐examined,” observed Alyosha thoughtfully; “but
every one came to the conclusion it was not he. Now he is lying very ill.
He has been ill ever since that attack. Really ill,” added Alyosha.
“Oh, dear! couldn’t you go to that counsel yourself and tell him the whole
thing by yourself? He’s been brought from Petersburg for three thousand
roubles, they say.”
“We gave these three thousand together—Ivan, Katerina Ivanovna and I—but
she paid two thousand for the doctor from Moscow herself. The counsel
Fetyukovitch would have charged more, but the case has become known all
over Russia; it’s talked of in all the papers and journals. Fetyukovitch
agreed to come more for the glory of the thing, because the case has
become so notorious. I saw him yesterday.”
“Well? Did you talk to him?” Grushenka put in eagerly.
“He listened and said nothing. He told me that he had already formed his
opinion. But he promised to give my words consideration.”
“Consideration! Ah, they are swindlers! They’ll ruin him. And why did she
send for the doctor?”
“As an expert. They want to prove that Mitya’s mad and committed the
murder when he didn’t know what he was doing”; Alyosha smiled gently; “but
Mitya won’t agree to that.”
“Yes; but that would be the truth if he had killed him!” cried Grushenka.
“He was mad then, perfectly mad, and that was my fault, wretch that I am!
But, of course, he didn’t do it, he didn’t do it! And they are all against
him, the whole town. Even Fenya’s evidence went to prove he had done it.
And the people at the shop, and that official, and at the tavern, too,
before, people had heard him say so! They are all, all against him, all
crying out against him.”
“Yes, there’s a fearful accumulation of evidence,” Alyosha observed
grimly.
“And Grigory—Grigory Vassilyevitch—sticks to his story that the door was
open, persists that he saw it—there’s no shaking him. I went and talked to
him myself. He’s rude about it, too.”
“Yes, that’s perhaps the strongest evidence against him,” said Alyosha.
“And as for Mitya’s being mad, he certainly seems like it now,” Grushenka
began with a peculiarly anxious and mysterious air. “Do you know, Alyosha,
I’ve been wanting to talk to you about it for a long time. I go to him
every day and simply wonder at him. Tell me, now, what do you suppose he’s
always talking about? He talks and talks and I can make nothing of it. I
fancied he was talking of something intellectual that I couldn’t
understand in my foolishness. Only he suddenly began talking to me about a
babe—that is, about some child. ‘Why is the babe poor?’ he said. ‘It’s for
that babe I am going to Siberia now. I am not a murderer, but I must go to
Siberia!’ What that meant, what babe, I couldn’t tell for the life of me.
Only I cried when he said it, because he said it so nicely. He cried
himself, and I cried, too. He suddenly kissed me and made the sign of the
cross over me. What did it mean, Alyosha, tell me? What is this babe?”
“It must be Rakitin, who’s been going to see him lately,” smiled Alyosha,
“though ... that’s not Rakitin’s doing. I didn’t see Mitya yesterday. I’ll
see him to‐day.”
“No, it’s not Rakitin; it’s his brother Ivan Fyodorovitch upsetting him.
It’s his going to see him, that’s what it is,” Grushenka began, and
suddenly broke off. Alyosha gazed at her in amazement.
“Ivan’s going? Has he been to see him? Mitya told me himself that Ivan
hasn’t been once.”
“There ... there! What a girl I am! Blurting things out!” exclaimed
Grushenka, confused and suddenly blushing. “Stay, Alyosha, hush! Since
I’ve said so much I’ll tell the whole truth—he’s been to see him twice,
the first directly he arrived. He galloped here from Moscow at once, of
course, before I was taken ill; and the second time was a week ago. He
told Mitya not to tell you about it, under any circumstances; and not to
tell any one, in fact. He came secretly.”
Alyosha sat plunged in thought, considering something. The news evidently
impressed him.
“Ivan doesn’t talk to me of Mitya’s case,” he said slowly. “He’s said very
little to me these last two months. And whenever I go to see him, he seems
vexed at my coming, so I’ve not been to him for the last three weeks.
H’m!... if he was there a week ago ... there certainly has been a change
in Mitya this week.”
“There has been a change,” Grushenka assented quickly. “They have a
secret, they have a secret! Mitya told me himself there was a secret, and
such a secret that Mitya can’t rest. Before then, he was cheerful—and,
indeed, he is cheerful now—but when he shakes his head like that, you
know, and strides about the room and keeps pulling at the hair on his
right temple with his right hand, I know there is something on his mind
worrying him.... I know! He was cheerful before, though, indeed, he is
cheerful to‐day.”
“But you said he was worried.”
“Yes, he is worried and yet cheerful. He keeps on being irritable for a
minute and then cheerful and then irritable again. And you know, Alyosha,
I am constantly wondering at him—with this awful thing hanging over him,
he sometimes laughs at such trifles as though he were a baby himself.”
“And did he really tell you not to tell me about Ivan? Did he say, ‘Don’t
tell him’?”
“Yes, he told me, ‘Don’t tell him.’ It’s you that Mitya’s most afraid of.
Because it’s a secret: he said himself it was a secret. Alyosha, darling,
go to him and find out what their secret is and come and tell me,”
Grushenka besought him with sudden eagerness. “Set my mind at rest that I
may know the worst that’s in store for me. That’s why I sent for you.”
“You think it’s something to do with you? If it were, he wouldn’t have
told you there was a secret.”
“I don’t know. Perhaps he wants to tell me, but doesn’t dare to. He warns
me. There is a secret, he tells me, but he won’t tell me what it is.”
“What do you think yourself?”
“What do I think? It’s the end for me, that’s what I think. They all three
have been plotting my end, for Katerina’s in it. It’s all Katerina, it all
comes from her. She is this and that, and that means that I am not. He
tells me that beforehand—warns me. He is planning to throw me over, that’s
the whole secret. They’ve planned it together, the three of them—Mitya,
Katerina, and Ivan Fyodorovitch. Alyosha, I’ve been wanting to ask you a
long time. A week ago he suddenly told me that Ivan was in love with
Katerina, because he often goes to see her. Did he tell me the truth or
not? Tell me, on your conscience, tell me the worst.”
“I won’t tell you a lie. Ivan is not in love with Katerina Ivanovna, I
think.”
“Oh, that’s what I thought! He is lying to me, shameless deceiver, that’s
what it is! And he was jealous of me just now, so as to put the blame on
me afterwards. He is stupid, he can’t disguise what he is doing; he is so
open, you know.... But I’ll give it to him, I’ll give it to him! ‘You
believe I did it,’ he said. He said that to me, to me. He reproached me
with that! God forgive him! You wait, I’ll make it hot for Katerina at the
trial! I’ll just say a word then ... I’ll tell everything then!”
And again she cried bitterly.
“This I can tell you for certain, Grushenka,” Alyosha said, getting up.
“First, that he loves you, loves you more than any one in the world, and
you only, believe me. I know. I do know. The second thing is that I don’t
want to worm his secret out of him, but if he’ll tell me of himself to‐
day, I shall tell him straight out that I have promised to tell you. Then
I’ll come to you to‐day, and tell you. Only ... I fancy ... Katerina
Ivanovna has nothing to do with it, and that the secret is about something
else. That’s certain. It isn’t likely it’s about Katerina Ivanovna, it
seems to me. Good‐by for now.”
Alyosha shook hands with her. Grushenka was still crying. He saw that she
put little faith in his consolation, but she was better for having had her
sorrow out, for having spoken of it. He was sorry to leave her in such a
state of mind, but he was in haste. He had a great many things to do
still.
Chapter II. The Injured Foot
The first of these things was at the house of Madame Hohlakov, and he
hurried there to get it over as quickly as possible and not be too late
for Mitya. Madame Hohlakov had been slightly ailing for the last three
weeks: her foot had for some reason swollen up, and though she was not in
bed, she lay all day half‐reclining on the couch in her boudoir, in a
fascinating but decorous _déshabillé_. Alyosha had once noted with
innocent amusement that, in spite of her illness, Madame Hohlakov had
begun to be rather dressy—top‐knots, ribbons, loose wrappers, had made
their appearance, and he had an inkling of the reason, though he dismissed
such ideas from his mind as frivolous. During the last two months the
young official, Perhotin, had become a regular visitor at the house.
Alyosha had not called for four days and he was in haste to go straight to
Lise, as it was with her he had to speak, for Lise had sent a maid to him
the previous day, specially asking him to come to her “about something
very important,” a request which, for certain reasons, had interest for
Alyosha. But while the maid went to take his name in to Lise, Madame
Hohlakov heard of his arrival from some one, and immediately sent to beg
him to come to her “just for one minute.” Alyosha reflected that it was
better to accede to the mamma’s request, or else she would be sending down
to Lise’s room every minute that he was there. Madame Hohlakov was lying
on a couch. She was particularly smartly dressed and was evidently in a
state of extreme nervous excitement. She greeted Alyosha with cries of
rapture.
“It’s ages, ages, perfect ages since I’ve seen you! It’s a whole week—only
think of it! Ah, but you were here only four days ago, on Wednesday. You
have come to see Lise. I’m sure you meant to slip into her room on tiptoe,
without my hearing you. My dear, dear Alexey Fyodorovitch, if you only
knew how worried I am about her! But of that later, though that’s the most
important thing, of that later. Dear Alexey Fyodorovitch, I trust you
implicitly with my Lise. Since the death of Father Zossima—God rest his
soul!” (she crossed herself)—“I look upon you as a monk, though you look
charming in your new suit. Where did you find such a tailor in these
parts? No, no, that’s not the chief thing—of that later. Forgive me for
sometimes calling you Alyosha; an old woman like me may take liberties,”
she smiled coquettishly; “but that will do later, too. The important thing
is that I shouldn’t forget what is important. Please remind me of it
yourself. As soon as my tongue runs away with me, you just say ‘the
important thing?’ Ach! how do I know now what is of most importance? Ever
since Lise took back her promise—her childish promise, Alexey
Fyodorovitch—to marry you, you’ve realized, of course, that it was only
the playful fancy of a sick child who had been so long confined to her
chair—thank God, she can walk now!... that new doctor Katya sent for from
Moscow for your unhappy brother, who will to‐morrow—But why speak of to‐
morrow? I am ready to die at the very thought of to‐morrow. Ready to die
of curiosity.... That doctor was with us yesterday and saw Lise.... I paid
him fifty roubles for the visit. But that’s not the point, that’s not the
point again. You see, I’m mixing everything up. I am in such a hurry. Why
am I in a hurry? I don’t understand. It’s awful how I seem growing unable
to understand anything. Everything seems mixed up in a sort of tangle. I
am afraid you are so bored you will jump up and run away, and that will be
all I shall see of you. Goodness! Why are we sitting here and no coffee?
Yulia, Glafira, coffee!”
Alyosha made haste to thank her, and said that he had only just had
coffee.
“Where?”
“At Agrafena Alexandrovna’s.”
“At ... at that woman’s? Ah, it’s she has brought ruin on every one. I
know nothing about it though. They say she has become a saint, though it’s
rather late in the day. She had better have done it before. What use is it
now? Hush, hush, Alexey Fyodorovitch, for I have so much to say to you
that I am afraid I shall tell you nothing. This awful trial ... I shall
certainly go, I am making arrangements. I shall be carried there in my
chair; besides I can sit up. I shall have people with me. And, you know, I
am a witness. How shall I speak, how shall I speak? I don’t know what I
shall say. One has to take an oath, hasn’t one?”
“Yes; but I don’t think you will be able to go.”
“I can sit up. Ah, you put me out! Ah! this trial, this savage act, and
then they are all going to Siberia, some are getting married, and all this
so quickly, so quickly, everything’s changing, and at last—nothing. All
grow old and have death to look forward to. Well, so be it! I am weary.
This Katya, _cette charmante personne_, has disappointed all my hopes. Now
she is going to follow one of your brothers to Siberia, and your other
brother is going to follow her, and will live in the nearest town, and
they will all torment one another. It drives me out of my mind. Worst of
all—the publicity. The story has been told a million times over in all the
papers in Moscow and Petersburg. Ah! yes, would you believe it, there’s a
paragraph that I was ‘a dear friend’ of your brother’s ——, I can’t repeat
the horrid word. Just fancy, just fancy!”
“Impossible! Where was the paragraph? What did it say?”
“I’ll show you directly. I got the paper and read it yesterday. Here, in
the Petersburg paper _Gossip_. The paper began coming out this year. I am
awfully fond of gossip, and I take it in, and now it pays me out—this is
what gossip comes to! Here it is, here, this passage. Read it.”
And she handed Alyosha a sheet of newspaper which had been under her
pillow.
It was not exactly that she was upset, she seemed overwhelmed and perhaps
everything really was mixed up in a tangle in her head. The paragraph was
very typical, and must have been a great shock to her, but, fortunately
perhaps, she was unable to keep her mind fixed on any one subject at that
moment, and so might race off in a minute to something else and quite
forget the newspaper.
Alyosha was well aware that the story of the terrible case had spread all
over Russia. And, good heavens! what wild rumors about his brother, about
the Karamazovs, and about himself he had read in the course of those two
months, among other equally credible items! One paper had even stated that
he had gone into a monastery and become a monk, in horror at his brother’s
crime. Another contradicted this, and stated that he and his elder, Father
Zossima, had broken into the monastery chest and “made tracks from the
monastery.” The present paragraph in the paper _Gossip_ was under the
heading, “The Karamazov Case at Skotoprigonyevsk.” (That, alas! was the
name of our little town. I had hitherto kept it concealed.) It was brief,
and Madame Hohlakov was not directly mentioned in it. No names appeared,
in fact. It was merely stated that the criminal, whose approaching trial
was making such a sensation—retired army captain, an idle swaggerer, and
reactionary bully—was continually involved in amorous intrigues, and
particularly popular with certain ladies “who were pining in solitude.”
One such lady, a pining widow, who tried to seem young though she had a
grown‐up daughter, was so fascinated by him that only two hours before the
crime she offered him three thousand roubles, on condition that he would
elope with her to the gold mines. But the criminal, counting on escaping
punishment, had preferred to murder his father to get the three thousand
rather than go off to Siberia with the middle‐aged charms of his pining
lady. This playful paragraph finished, of course, with an outburst of
generous indignation at the wickedness of parricide and at the lately
abolished institution of serfdom. Reading it with curiosity, Alyosha
folded up the paper and handed it back to Madame Hohlakov.
“Well, that must be me,” she hurried on again. “Of course I am meant.
Scarcely more than an hour before, I suggested gold mines to him, and here
they talk of ‘middle‐aged charms’ as though that were my motive! He writes
that out of spite! God Almighty forgive him for the middle‐aged charms, as
I forgive him! You know it’s— Do you know who it is? It’s your friend
Rakitin.”
“Perhaps,” said Alyosha, “though I’ve heard nothing about it.”
“It’s he, it’s he! No ‘perhaps’ about it. You know I turned him out of the
house.... You know all that story, don’t you?”
“I know that you asked him not to visit you for the future, but why it
was, I haven’t heard ... from you, at least.”
“Ah, then you’ve heard it from him! He abuses me, I suppose, abuses me
dreadfully?”
“Yes, he does; but then he abuses every one. But why you’ve given him up I
haven’t heard from him either. I meet him very seldom now, indeed. We are
not friends.”
“Well, then, I’ll tell you all about it. There’s no help for it, I’ll
confess, for there is one point in which I was perhaps to blame. Only a
little, little point, so little that perhaps it doesn’t count. You see, my
dear boy”—Madame Hohlakov suddenly looked arch and a charming, though
enigmatic, smile played about her lips—“you see, I suspect ... You must
forgive me, Alyosha. I am like a mother to you.... No, no; quite the
contrary. I speak to you now as though you were my father—mother’s quite
out of place. Well, it’s as though I were confessing to Father Zossima,
that’s just it. I called you a monk just now. Well, that poor young man,
your friend, Rakitin (Mercy on us! I can’t be angry with him. I feel
cross, but not very), that frivolous young man, would you believe it,
seems to have taken it into his head to fall in love with me. I only
noticed it later. At first—a month ago—he only began to come oftener to
see me, almost every day; though, of course, we were acquainted before. I
knew nothing about it ... and suddenly it dawned upon me, and I began to
notice things with surprise. You know, two months ago, that modest,
charming, excellent young man, Pyotr Ilyitch Perhotin, who’s in the
service here, began to be a regular visitor at the house. You met him here
ever so many times yourself. And he is an excellent, earnest young man,
isn’t he? He comes once every three days, not every day (though I should
be glad to see him every day), and always so well dressed. Altogether, I
love young people, Alyosha, talented, modest, like you, and he has almost
the mind of a statesman, he talks so charmingly, and I shall certainly,
certainly try and get promotion for him. He is a future diplomat. On that
awful day he almost saved me from death by coming in the night. And your
friend Rakitin comes in such boots, and always stretches them out on the
carpet.... He began hinting at his feelings, in fact, and one day, as he
was going, he squeezed my hand terribly hard. My foot began to swell
directly after he pressed my hand like that. He had met Pyotr Ilyitch here
before, and would you believe it, he is always gibing at him, growling at
him, for some reason. I simply looked at the way they went on together and
laughed inwardly. So I was sitting here alone—no, I was laid up then.
Well, I was lying here alone and suddenly Rakitin comes in, and only
fancy! brought me some verses of his own composition—a short poem, on my
bad foot: that is, he described my foot in a poem. Wait a minute—how did
it go?
A captivating little foot.
It began somehow like that. I can never remember poetry. I’ve got it here.
I’ll show it to you later. But it’s a charming thing—charming; and, you
know, it’s not only about the foot, it had a good moral, too, a charming
idea, only I’ve forgotten it; in fact, it was just the thing for an album.
So, of course, I thanked him, and he was evidently flattered. I’d hardly
had time to thank him when in comes Pyotr Ilyitch, and Rakitin suddenly
looked as black as night. I could see that Pyotr Ilyitch was in the way,
for Rakitin certainly wanted to say something after giving me the verses.
I had a presentiment of it; but Pyotr Ilyitch came in. I showed Pyotr
Ilyitch the verses and didn’t say who was the author. But I am convinced
that he guessed, though he won’t own it to this day, and declares he had
no idea. But he says that on purpose. Pyotr Ilyitch began to laugh at
once, and fell to criticizing it. ‘Wretched doggerel,’ he said they were,
‘some divinity student must have written them,’ and with such vehemence,
such vehemence! Then, instead of laughing, your friend flew into a rage.
‘Good gracious!’ I thought, ‘they’ll fly at each other.’ ‘It was I who
wrote them,’ said he. ‘I wrote them as a joke,’ he said, ‘for I think it
degrading to write verses.... But they are good poetry. They want to put a
monument to your Pushkin for writing about women’s feet, while I wrote
with a moral purpose, and you,’ said he, ‘are an advocate of serfdom.
You’ve no humane ideas,’ said he. ‘You have no modern enlightened
feelings, you are uninfluenced by progress, you are a mere official,’ he
said, ‘and you take bribes.’ Then I began screaming and imploring them.
And, you know, Pyotr Ilyitch is anything but a coward. He at once took up
the most gentlemanly tone, looked at him sarcastically, listened, and
apologized. ‘I’d no idea,’ said he. ‘I shouldn’t have said it, if I had
known. I should have praised it. Poets are all so irritable,’ he said. In
short, he laughed at him under cover of the most gentlemanly tone. He
explained to me afterwards that it was all sarcastic. I thought he was in
earnest. Only as I lay there, just as before you now, I thought, ‘Would
it, or would it not, be the proper thing for me to turn Rakitin out for
shouting so rudely at a visitor in my house?’ And, would you believe it, I
lay here, shut my eyes, and wondered, would it be the proper thing or not.
I kept worrying and worrying, and my heart began to beat, and I couldn’t
make up my mind whether to make an outcry or not. One voice seemed to be
telling me, ‘Speak,’ and the other ‘No, don’t speak.’ And no sooner had
the second voice said that than I cried out, and fainted. Of course, there
was a fuss. I got up suddenly and said to Rakitin, ‘It’s painful for me to
say it, but I don’t wish to see you in my house again.’ So I turned him
out. Ah! Alexey Fyodorovitch, I know myself I did wrong. I was putting it
on. I wasn’t angry with him at all, really; but I suddenly fancied—that
was what did it—that it would be such a fine scene.... And yet, believe
me, it was quite natural, for I really shed tears and cried for several
days afterwards, and then suddenly, one afternoon, I forgot all about it.
So it’s a fortnight since he’s been here, and I kept wondering whether he
would come again. I wondered even yesterday, then suddenly last night came
this _Gossip_. I read it and gasped. Who could have written it? He must
have written it. He went home, sat down, wrote it on the spot, sent it,
and they put it in. It was a fortnight ago, you see. But, Alyosha, it’s
awful how I keep talking and don’t say what I want to say. Ah! the words
come of themselves!”
“It’s very important for me to be in time to see my brother to‐day,”
Alyosha faltered.
“To be sure, to be sure! You bring it all back to me. Listen, what is an
aberration?”
“What aberration?” asked Alyosha, wondering.
“In the legal sense. An aberration in which everything is pardonable.
Whatever you do, you will be acquitted at once.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ll tell you. This Katya ... Ah! she is a charming, charming creature,
only I never can make out who it is she is in love with. She was with me
some time ago and I couldn’t get anything out of her. Especially as she
won’t talk to me except on the surface now. She is always talking about my
health and nothing else, and she takes up such a tone with me, too. I
simply said to myself, ‘Well, so be it. I don’t care’... Oh, yes. I was
talking of aberration. This doctor has come. You know a doctor has come?
Of course, you know it—the one who discovers madmen. You wrote for him.
No, it wasn’t you, but Katya. It’s all Katya’s doing. Well, you see, a man
may be sitting perfectly sane and suddenly have an aberration. He may be
conscious and know what he is doing and yet be in a state of aberration.
And there’s no doubt that Dmitri Fyodorovitch was suffering from
aberration. They found out about aberration as soon as the law courts were
reformed. It’s all the good effect of the reformed law courts. The doctor
has been here and questioned me about that evening, about the gold mines.
‘How did he seem then?’ he asked me. He must have been in a state of
aberration. He came in shouting, ‘Money, money, three thousand! Give me
three thousand!’ and then went away and immediately did the murder. ‘I
don’t want to murder him,’ he said, and he suddenly went and murdered him.
That’s why they’ll acquit him, because he struggled against it and yet he
murdered him.”
“But he didn’t murder him,” Alyosha interrupted rather sharply. He felt
more and more sick with anxiety and impatience.
“Yes, I know it was that old man Grigory murdered him.”
“Grigory?” cried Alyosha.
“Yes, yes; it was Grigory. He lay as Dmitri Fyodorovitch struck him down,
and then got up, saw the door open, went in and killed Fyodor Pavlovitch.”
“But why, why?”
“Suffering from aberration. When he recovered from the blow Dmitri
Fyodorovitch gave him on the head, he was suffering from aberration; he
went and committed the murder. As for his saying he didn’t, he very likely
doesn’t remember. Only, you know, it’ll be better, ever so much better, if
Dmitri Fyodorovitch murdered him. And that’s how it must have been, though
I say it was Grigory. It certainly was Dmitri Fyodorovitch, and that’s
better, ever so much better! Oh! not better that a son should have killed
his father, I don’t defend that. Children ought to honor their parents,
and yet it would be better if it were he, as you’d have nothing to cry
over then, for he did it when he was unconscious or rather when he was
conscious, but did not know what he was doing. Let them acquit him—that’s
so humane, and would show what a blessing reformed law courts are. I knew
nothing about it, but they say they have been so a long time. And when I
heard it yesterday, I was so struck by it that I wanted to send for you at
once. And if he is acquitted, make him come straight from the law courts
to dinner with me, and I’ll have a party of friends, and we’ll drink to
the reformed law courts. I don’t believe he’d be dangerous; besides, I’ll
invite a great many friends, so that he could always be led out if he did
anything. And then he might be made a justice of the peace or something in
another town, for those who have been in trouble themselves make the best
judges. And, besides, who isn’t suffering from aberration nowadays?—you,
I, all of us are in a state of aberration, and there are ever so many
examples of it: a man sits singing a song, suddenly something annoys him,
he takes a pistol and shoots the first person he comes across, and no one
blames him for it. I read that lately, and all the doctors confirm it. The
doctors are always confirming; they confirm anything. Why, my Lise is in a
state of aberration. She made me cry again yesterday, and the day before,
too, and to‐day I suddenly realized that it’s all due to aberration. Oh,
Lise grieves me so! I believe she’s quite mad. Why did she send for you?
Did she send for you or did you come of yourself?”
“Yes, she sent for me, and I am just going to her.” Alyosha got up
resolutely.
“Oh, my dear, dear Alexey Fyodorovitch, perhaps that’s what’s most
important,” Madame Hohlakov cried, suddenly bursting into tears. “God
knows I trust Lise to you with all my heart, and it’s no matter her
sending for you on the sly, without telling her mother. But forgive me, I
can’t trust my daughter so easily to your brother Ivan Fyodorovitch,
though I still consider him the most chivalrous young man. But only fancy,
he’s been to see Lise and I knew nothing about it!”
“How? What? When?” Alyosha was exceedingly surprised. He had not sat down
again and listened standing.
“I will tell you; that’s perhaps why I asked you to come, for I don’t know
now why I did ask you to come. Well, Ivan Fyodorovitch has been to see me
twice, since he came back from Moscow. First time he came as a friend to
call on me, and the second time Katya was here and he came because he
heard she was here. I didn’t, of course, expect him to come often, knowing
what a lot he has to do as it is, _vous comprenez, cette affaire et la
mort terrible de votre papa_. But I suddenly heard he’d been here again,
not to see me but to see Lise. That’s six days ago now. He came, stayed
five minutes, and went away. And I didn’t hear of it till three days
afterwards, from Glafira, so it was a great shock to me. I sent for Lise
directly. She laughed. ‘He thought you were asleep,’ she said, ‘and came
in to me to ask after your health.’ Of course, that’s how it happened. But
Lise, Lise, mercy on us, how she distresses me! Would you believe it, one
night, four days ago, just after you saw her last time, and had gone away,
she suddenly had a fit, screaming, shrieking, hysterics! Why is it I never
have hysterics? Then, next day another fit, and the same thing on the
third, and yesterday too, and then yesterday that aberration. She suddenly
screamed out, ‘I hate Ivan Fyodorovitch. I insist on your never letting
him come to the house again.’ I was struck dumb at these amazing words,
and answered, ‘On what grounds could I refuse to see such an excellent
young man, a young man of such learning too, and so unfortunate?’—for all
this business is a misfortune, isn’t it? She suddenly burst out laughing
at my words, and so rudely, you know. Well, I was pleased; I thought I had
amused her and the fits would pass off, especially as I wanted to refuse
to see Ivan Fyodorovitch anyway on account of his strange visits without
my knowledge, and meant to ask him for an explanation. But early this
morning Lise waked up and flew into a passion with Yulia and, would you
believe it, slapped her in the face. That’s monstrous; I am always polite
to my servants. And an hour later she was hugging Yulia’s feet and kissing
them. She sent a message to me that she wasn’t coming to me at all, and
would never come and see me again, and when I dragged myself down to her,
she rushed to kiss me, crying, and as she kissed me, she pushed me out of
the room without saying a word, so I couldn’t find out what was the
matter. Now, dear Alexey Fyodorovitch, I rest all my hopes on you, and, of
course, my whole life is in your hands. I simply beg you to go to Lise and
find out everything from her, as you alone can, and come back and tell
me—me, her mother, for you understand it will be the death of me, simply
the death of me, if this goes on, or else I shall run away. I can stand no
more. I have patience; but I may lose patience, and then ... then
something awful will happen. Ah, dear me! At last, Pyotr Ilyitch!” cried
Madame Hohlakov, beaming all over as she saw Perhotin enter the room. “You
are late, you are late! Well, sit down, speak, put us out of suspense.
What does the counsel say. Where are you off to, Alexey Fyodorovitch?”
“To Lise.”
“Oh, yes. You won’t forget, you won’t forget what I asked you? It’s a
question of life and death!”
“Of course, I won’t forget, if I can ... but I am so late,” muttered
Alyosha, beating a hasty retreat.
“No, be sure, be sure to come in; don’t say ‘If you can.’ I shall die if
you don’t,” Madame Hohlakov called after him, but Alyosha had already left
the room.
Chapter III. A Little Demon
Going in to Lise, he found her half reclining in the invalid‐chair, in
which she had been wheeled when she was unable to walk. She did not move
to meet him, but her sharp, keen eyes were simply riveted on his face.
There was a feverish look in her eyes, her face was pale and yellow.
Alyosha was amazed at the change that had taken place in her in three
days. She was positively thinner. She did not hold out her hand to him. He
touched the thin, long fingers which lay motionless on her dress, then he
sat down facing her, without a word.
“I know you are in a hurry to get to the prison,” Lise said curtly, “and
mamma’s kept you there for hours; she’s just been telling you about me and
Yulia.”
“How do you know?” asked Alyosha.
“I’ve been listening. Why do you stare at me? I want to listen and I do
listen, there’s no harm in that. I don’t apologize.”
“You are upset about something?”
“On the contrary, I am very happy. I’ve only just been reflecting for the
thirtieth time what a good thing it is I refused you and shall not be your
wife. You are not fit to be a husband. If I were to marry you and give you
a note to take to the man I loved after you, you’d take it and be sure to
give it to him and bring an answer back, too. If you were forty, you would
still go on taking my love‐letters for me.”
She suddenly laughed.
“There is something spiteful and yet open‐hearted about you,” Alyosha
smiled to her.
“The open‐heartedness consists in my not being ashamed of myself with you.
What’s more, I don’t want to feel ashamed with you, just with you.
Alyosha, why is it I don’t respect you? I am very fond of you, but I don’t
respect you. If I respected you, I shouldn’t talk to you without shame,
should I?”
“No.”
“But do you believe that I am not ashamed with you?”
“No, I don’t believe it.”
Lise laughed nervously again; she spoke rapidly.
“I sent your brother, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, some sweets in prison. Alyosha,
you know, you are quite pretty! I shall love you awfully for having so
quickly allowed me not to love you.”
“Why did you send for me to‐day, Lise?”
“I wanted to tell you of a longing I have. I should like some one to
torture me, marry me and then torture me, deceive me and go away. I don’t
want to be happy.”
“You are in love with disorder?”
“Yes, I want disorder. I keep wanting to set fire to the house. I keep
imagining how I’ll creep up and set fire to the house on the sly; it must
be on the sly. They’ll try to put it out, but it’ll go on burning. And I
shall know and say nothing. Ah, what silliness! And how bored I am!”
She waved her hand with a look of repulsion.
“It’s your luxurious life,” said Alyosha, softly.
“Is it better, then, to be poor?”
“Yes, it is better.”
“That’s what your monk taught you. That’s not true. Let me be rich and all
the rest poor, I’ll eat sweets and drink cream and not give any to any one
else. Ach, don’t speak, don’t say anything,” she shook her hand at him,
though Alyosha had not opened his mouth. “You’ve told me all that before,
I know it all by heart. It bores me. If I am ever poor, I shall murder
somebody, and even if I am rich, I may murder some one, perhaps—why do
nothing! But do you know, I should like to reap, cut the rye? I’ll marry
you, and you shall become a peasant, a real peasant; we’ll keep a colt,
shall we? Do you know Kalganov?”
“Yes.”
“He is always wandering about, dreaming. He says, ‘Why live in real life?
It’s better to dream. One can dream the most delightful things, but real
life is a bore.’ But he’ll be married soon for all that; he’s been making
love to me already. Can you spin tops?”
“Yes.”
“Well, he’s just like a top: he wants to be wound up and set spinning and
then to be lashed, lashed, lashed with a whip. If I marry him, I’ll keep
him spinning all his life. You are not ashamed to be with me?”
“No.”
“You are awfully cross, because I don’t talk about holy things. I don’t
want to be holy. What will they do to one in the next world for the
greatest sin? You must know all about that.”
“God will censure you.” Alyosha was watching her steadily.
“That’s just what I should like. I would go up and they would censure me,
and I would burst out laughing in their faces. I should dreadfully like to
set fire to the house, Alyosha, to our house; you still don’t believe me?”
“Why? There are children of twelve years old, who have a longing to set
fire to something and they do set things on fire, too. It’s a sort of
disease.”
“That’s not true, that’s not true; there may be children, but that’s not
what I mean.”
“You take evil for good; it’s a passing crisis, it’s the result of your
illness, perhaps.”
“You do despise me, though! It’s simply that I don’t want to do good, I
want to do evil, and it has nothing to do with illness.”
“Why do evil?”
“So that everything might be destroyed. Ah, how nice it would be if
everything were destroyed! You know, Alyosha, I sometimes think of doing a
fearful lot of harm and everything bad, and I should do it for a long
while on the sly and suddenly every one would find it out. Every one will
stand round and point their fingers at me and I would look at them all.
That would be awfully nice. Why would it be so nice, Alyosha?”
“I don’t know. It’s a craving to destroy something good or, as you say, to
set fire to something. It happens sometimes.”
“I not only say it, I shall do it.”
“I believe you.”
“Ah, how I love you for saying you believe me. And you are not lying one
little bit. But perhaps you think that I am saying all this on purpose to
annoy you?”
“No, I don’t think that ... though perhaps there is a little desire to do
that in it, too.”
“There is a little. I never can tell lies to you,” she declared, with a
strange fire in her eyes.
What struck Alyosha above everything was her earnestness. There was not a
trace of humor or jesting in her face now, though, in old days, fun and
gayety never deserted her even at her most “earnest” moments.
“There are moments when people love crime,” said Alyosha thoughtfully.
“Yes, yes! You have uttered my thought; they love crime, every one loves
crime, they love it always, not at some ‘moments.’ You know, it’s as
though people have made an agreement to lie about it and have lied about
it ever since. They all declare that they hate evil, but secretly they all
love it.”
“And are you still reading nasty books?”
“Yes, I am. Mamma reads them and hides them under her pillow and I steal
them.”
“Aren’t you ashamed to destroy yourself?”
“I want to destroy myself. There’s a boy here, who lay down between the
railway lines when the train was passing. Lucky fellow! Listen, your
brother is being tried now for murdering his father and every one loves
his having killed his father.”
“Loves his having killed his father?”
“Yes, loves it; every one loves it! Everybody says it’s so awful, but
secretly they simply love it. I for one love it.”
“There is some truth in what you say about every one,” said Alyosha
softly.
“Oh, what ideas you have!” Lise shrieked in delight. “And you a monk, too!
You wouldn’t believe how I respect you, Alyosha, for never telling lies.
Oh, I must tell you a funny dream of mine. I sometimes dream of devils.
It’s night; I am in my room with a candle and suddenly there are devils
all over the place, in all the corners, under the table, and they open the
doors; there’s a crowd of them behind the doors and they want to come and
seize me. And they are just coming, just seizing me. But I suddenly cross
myself and they all draw back, though they don’t go away altogether, they
stand at the doors and in the corners, waiting. And suddenly I have a
frightful longing to revile God aloud, and so I begin, and then they come
crowding back to me, delighted, and seize me again and I cross myself
again and they all draw back. It’s awful fun. it takes one’s breath away.”
“I’ve had the same dream, too,” said Alyosha suddenly.
“Really?” cried Lise, surprised. “I say, Alyosha, don’t laugh, that’s
awfully important. Could two different people have the same dream?”
“It seems they can.”
“Alyosha, I tell you, it’s awfully important,” Lise went on, with really
excessive amazement. “It’s not the dream that’s important, but your having
the same dream as me. You never lie to me, don’t lie now: is it true? You
are not laughing?”
“It’s true.”
Lise seemed extraordinarily impressed and for half a minute she was
silent.
“Alyosha, come and see me, come and see me more often,” she said suddenly,
in a supplicating voice.
“I’ll always come to see you, all my life,” answered Alyosha firmly.
“You are the only person I can talk to, you know,” Lise began again. “I
talk to no one but myself and you. Only you in the whole world. And to you
more readily than to myself. And I am not a bit ashamed with you, not a
bit. Alyosha, why am I not ashamed with you, not a bit? Alyosha, is it
true that at Easter the Jews steal a child and kill it?”
“I don’t know.”
“There’s a book here in which I read about the trial of a Jew, who took a
child of four years old and cut off the fingers from both hands, and then
crucified him on the wall, hammered nails into him and crucified him, and
afterwards, when he was tried, he said that the child died soon, within
four hours. That was ‘soon’! He said the child moaned, kept on moaning and
he stood admiring it. That’s nice!”
“Nice?”
“Nice; I sometimes imagine that it was I who crucified him. He would hang
there moaning and I would sit opposite him eating pineapple _compote_. I
am awfully fond of pineapple _compote_. Do you like it?”
Alyosha looked at her in silence. Her pale, sallow face was suddenly
contorted, her eyes burned.
“You know, when I read about that Jew I shook with sobs all night. I kept
fancying how the little thing cried and moaned (a child of four years old
understands, you know), and all the while the thought of pineapple
_compote_ haunted me. In the morning I wrote a letter to a certain person,
begging him _particularly_ to come and see me. He came and I suddenly told
him all about the child and the pineapple _compote_. _All_ about it,
_all_, and said that it was nice. He laughed and said it really was nice.
Then he got up and went away. He was only here five minutes. Did he
despise me? Did he despise me? Tell me, tell me, Alyosha, did he despise
me or not?” She sat up on the couch, with flashing eyes.
“Tell me,” Alyosha asked anxiously, “did you send for that person?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Did you send him a letter?”
“Yes.”
“Simply to ask about that, about that child?”
“No, not about that at all. But when he came, I asked him about that at
once. He answered, laughed, got up and went away.”
“That person behaved honorably,” Alyosha murmured.
“And did he despise me? Did he laugh at me?”
“No, for perhaps he believes in the pineapple _compote_ himself. He is
very ill now, too, Lise.”
“Yes, he does believe in it,” said Lise, with flashing eyes.
“He doesn’t despise any one,” Alyosha went on. “Only he does not believe
any one. If he doesn’t believe in people, of course, he does despise
them.”
“Then he despises me, me?”
“You, too.”
“Good,” Lise seemed to grind her teeth. “When he went out laughing, I felt
that it was nice to be despised. The child with fingers cut off is nice,
and to be despised is nice....”
And she laughed in Alyosha’s face, a feverish malicious laugh.
“Do you know, Alyosha, do you know, I should like—Alyosha, save me!” She
suddenly jumped from the couch, rushed to him and seized him with both
hands. “Save me!” she almost groaned. “Is there any one in the world I
could tell what I’ve told you? I’ve told you the truth, the truth. I shall
kill myself, because I loathe everything! I don’t want to live, because I
loathe everything! I loathe everything, everything. Alyosha, why don’t you
love me in the least?” she finished in a frenzy.
“But I do love you!” answered Alyosha warmly.
“And will you weep over me, will you?”
“Yes.”
“Not because I won’t be your wife, but simply weep for me?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you! It’s only your tears I want. Every one else may punish me and
trample me under foot, every one, every one, not excepting _any one_. For
I don’t love any one. Do you hear, not any one! On the contrary, I hate
him! Go, Alyosha; it’s time you went to your brother”; she tore herself
away from him suddenly.
“How can I leave you like this?” said Alyosha, almost in alarm.
“Go to your brother, the prison will be shut; go, here’s your hat. Give my
love to Mitya, go, go!”
And she almost forcibly pushed Alyosha out of the door. He looked at her
with pained surprise, when he was suddenly aware of a letter in his right
hand, a tiny letter folded up tight and sealed. He glanced at it and
instantly read the address, “To Ivan Fyodorovitch Karamazov.” He looked
quickly at Lise. Her face had become almost menacing.
“Give it to him, you must give it to him!” she ordered him, trembling and
beside herself. “To‐day, at once, or I’ll poison myself! That’s why I sent
for you.”
And she slammed the door quickly. The bolt clicked. Alyosha put the note
in his pocket and went straight downstairs, without going back to Madame
Hohlakov; forgetting her, in fact. As soon as Alyosha had gone, Lise
unbolted the door, opened it a little, put her finger in the crack and
slammed the door with all her might, pinching her finger. Ten seconds
after, releasing her finger, she walked softly, slowly to her chair, sat
up straight in it and looked intently at her blackened finger and at the
blood that oozed from under the nail. Her lips were quivering and she kept
whispering rapidly to herself:
“I am a wretch, wretch, wretch, wretch!”
Chapter IV. A Hymn And A Secret
It was quite late (days are short in November) when Alyosha rang at the
prison gate. It was beginning to get dusk. But Alyosha knew that he would
be admitted without difficulty. Things were managed in our little town, as
everywhere else. At first, of course, on the conclusion of the preliminary
inquiry, relations and a few other persons could only obtain interviews
with Mitya by going through certain inevitable formalities. But later,
though the formalities were not relaxed, exceptions were made for some, at
least, of Mitya’s visitors. So much so, that sometimes the interviews with
the prisoner in the room set aside for the purpose were practically
_tête‐à‐tête_.
These exceptions, however, were few in number; only Grushenka, Alyosha and
Rakitin were treated like this. But the captain of the police, Mihail
Mihailovitch, was very favorably disposed to Grushenka. His abuse of her
at Mokroe weighed on the old man’s conscience, and when he learned the
whole story, he completely changed his view of her. And strange to say,
though he was firmly persuaded of his guilt, yet after Mitya was once in
prison, the old man came to take a more and more lenient view of him. “He
was a man of good heart, perhaps,” he thought, “who had come to grief from
drinking and dissipation.” His first horror had been succeeded by pity. As
for Alyosha, the police captain was very fond of him and had known him for
a long time. Rakitin, who had of late taken to coming very often to see
the prisoner, was one of the most intimate acquaintances of the “police
captain’s young ladies,” as he called them, and was always hanging about
their house. He gave lessons in the house of the prison superintendent,
too, who, though scrupulous in the performance of his duties, was a kind‐
hearted old man. Alyosha, again, had an intimate acquaintance of long
standing with the superintendent, who was fond of talking to him,
generally on sacred subjects. He respected Ivan Fyodorovitch, and stood in
awe of his opinion, though he was a great philosopher himself; “self‐
taught,” of course. But Alyosha had an irresistible attraction for him.
During the last year the old man had taken to studying the Apocryphal
Gospels, and constantly talked over his impressions with his young friend.
He used to come and see him in the monastery and discussed for hours
together with him and with the monks. So even if Alyosha were late at the
prison, he had only to go to the superintendent and everything was made
easy. Besides, every one in the prison, down to the humblest warder, had
grown used to Alyosha. The sentry, of course, did not trouble him so long
as the authorities were satisfied.
When Mitya was summoned from his cell, he always went downstairs, to the
place set aside for interviews. As Alyosha entered the room he came upon
Rakitin, who was just taking leave of Mitya. They were both talking
loudly. Mitya was laughing heartily as he saw him out, while Rakitin
seemed grumbling. Rakitin did not like meeting Alyosha, especially of
late. He scarcely spoke to him, and bowed to him stiffly. Seeing Alyosha
enter now, he frowned and looked away, as though he were entirely absorbed
in buttoning his big, warm, fur‐trimmed overcoat. Then he began looking at
once for his umbrella.
“I must mind not to forget my belongings,” he muttered, simply to say
something.
“Mind you don’t forget other people’s belongings,” said Mitya, as a joke,
and laughed at once at his own wit. Rakitin fired up instantly.
“You’d better give that advice to your own family, who’ve always been a
slave‐driving lot, and not to Rakitin,” he cried, suddenly trembling with
anger.
“What’s the matter? I was joking,” cried Mitya. “Damn it all! They are all
like that,” he turned to Alyosha, nodding towards Rakitin’s hurriedly
retreating figure. “He was sitting here, laughing and cheerful, and all at
once he boils up like that. He didn’t even nod to you. Have you broken
with him completely? Why are you so late? I’ve not been simply waiting,
but thirsting for you the whole morning. But never mind. We’ll make up for
it now.”
“Why does he come here so often? Surely you are not such great friends?”
asked Alyosha. He, too, nodded at the door through which Rakitin had
disappeared.
“Great friends with Rakitin? No, not as much as that. Is it likely—a pig
like that? He considers I am ... a blackguard. They can’t understand a
joke either, that’s the worst of such people. They never understand a
joke, and their souls are dry, dry and flat; they remind me of prison
walls when I was first brought here. But he is a clever fellow, very
clever. Well, Alexey, it’s all over with me now.”
He sat down on the bench and made Alyosha sit down beside him.
“Yes, the trial’s to‐morrow. Are you so hopeless, brother?” Alyosha said,
with an apprehensive feeling.
“What are you talking about?” said Mitya, looking at him rather
uncertainly. “Oh, you mean the trial! Damn it all! Till now we’ve been
talking of things that don’t matter, about this trial, but I haven’t said
a word to you about the chief thing. Yes, the trial is to‐morrow; but it
wasn’t the trial I meant, when I said it was all over with me. Why do you
look at me so critically?”
“What do you mean, Mitya?”
“Ideas, ideas, that’s all! Ethics! What is ethics?”
“Ethics?” asked Alyosha, wondering.
“Yes; is it a science?”
“Yes, there is such a science ... but ... I confess I can’t explain to you
what sort of science it is.”
“Rakitin knows. Rakitin knows a lot, damn him! He’s not going to be a
monk. He means to go to Petersburg. There he’ll go in for criticism of an
elevating tendency. Who knows, he may be of use and make his own career,
too. Ough! they are first‐rate, these people, at making a career! Damn
ethics, I am done for, Alexey, I am, you man of God! I love you more than
any one. It makes my heart yearn to look at you. Who was Karl Bernard?”
“Karl Bernard?” Alyosha was surprised again.
“No, not Karl. Stay, I made a mistake. Claude Bernard. What was he?
Chemist or what?”
“He must be a savant,” answered Alyosha; “but I confess I can’t tell you
much about him, either. I’ve heard of him as a savant, but what sort I
don’t know.”
“Well, damn him, then! I don’t know either,” swore Mitya. “A scoundrel of
some sort, most likely. They are all scoundrels. And Rakitin will make his
way. Rakitin will get on anywhere; he is another Bernard. Ugh, these
Bernards! They are all over the place.”
“But what is the matter?” Alyosha asked insistently.
“He wants to write an article about me, about my case, and so begin his
literary career. That’s what he comes for; he said so himself. He wants to
prove some theory. He wants to say ‘he couldn’t help murdering his father,
he was corrupted by his environment,’ and so on. He explained it all to
me. He is going to put in a tinge of Socialism, he says. But there, damn
the fellow, he can put in a tinge if he likes, I don’t care. He can’t bear
Ivan, he hates him. He’s not fond of you, either. But I don’t turn him
out, for he is a clever fellow. Awfully conceited, though. I said to him
just now, ‘The Karamazovs are not blackguards, but philosophers; for all
true Russians are philosophers, and though you’ve studied, you are not a
philosopher—you are a low fellow.’ He laughed, so maliciously. And I said
to him, ‘_De ideabus non est disputandum_.’ Isn’t that rather good? I can
set up for being a classic, you see!” Mitya laughed suddenly.
“Why is it all over with you? You said so just now,” Alyosha interposed.
“Why is it all over with me? H’m!... The fact of it is ... if you take it
as a whole, I am sorry to lose God—that’s why it is.”
“What do you mean by ‘sorry to lose God’?”
“Imagine: inside, in the nerves, in the head—that is, these nerves are
there in the brain ... (damn them!) there are sort of little tails, the
little tails of those nerves, and as soon as they begin quivering ... that
is, you see, I look at something with my eyes and then they begin
quivering, those little tails ... and when they quiver, then an image
appears ... it doesn’t appear at once, but an instant, a second, passes
... and then something like a moment appears; that is, not a moment—devil
take the moment!—but an image; that is, an object, or an action, damn it!
That’s why I see and then think, because of those tails, not at all
because I’ve got a soul, and that I am some sort of image and likeness.
All that is nonsense! Rakitin explained it all to me yesterday, brother,
and it simply bowled me over. It’s magnificent, Alyosha, this science! A
new man’s arising—that I understand.... And yet I am sorry to lose God!”
“Well, that’s a good thing, anyway,” said Alyosha.
“That I am sorry to lose God? It’s chemistry, brother, chemistry! There’s
no help for it, your reverence, you must make way for chemistry. And
Rakitin does dislike God. Ough! doesn’t he dislike Him! That’s the sore
point with all of them. But they conceal it. They tell lies. They pretend.
‘Will you preach this in your reviews?’ I asked him. ‘Oh, well, if I did
it openly, they won’t let it through,’ he said. He laughed. ‘But what will
become of men then?’ I asked him, ‘without God and immortal life? All
things are lawful then, they can do what they like?’ ‘Didn’t you know?’ he
said laughing, ‘a clever man can do what he likes,’ he said. ‘A clever man
knows his way about, but you’ve put your foot in it, committing a murder,
and now you are rotting in prison.’ He says that to my face! A regular
pig! I used to kick such people out, but now I listen to them. He talks a
lot of sense, too. Writes well. He began reading me an article last week.
I copied out three lines of it. Wait a minute. Here it is.”
Mitya hurriedly pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket and read:
“ ‘In order to determine this question, it is above all essential to put
one’s personality in contradiction to one’s reality.’ Do you understand
that?”
“No, I don’t,” said Alyosha. He looked at Mitya and listened to him with
curiosity.
“I don’t understand either. It’s dark and obscure, but intellectual.
‘Every one writes like that now,’ he says, ‘it’s the effect of their
environment.’ They are afraid of the environment. He writes poetry, too,
the rascal. He’s written in honor of Madame Hohlakov’s foot. Ha ha ha!”
“I’ve heard about it,” said Alyosha.
“Have you? And have you heard the poem?”
“No.”
“I’ve got it. Here it is. I’ll read it to you. You don’t know—I haven’t
told you—there’s quite a story about it. He’s a rascal! Three weeks ago he
began to tease me. ‘You’ve got yourself into a mess, like a fool, for the
sake of three thousand, but I’m going to collar a hundred and fifty
thousand. I am going to marry a widow and buy a house in Petersburg.’ And
he told me he was courting Madame Hohlakov. She hadn’t much brains in her
youth, and now at forty she has lost what she had. ‘But she’s awfully
sentimental,’ he says; ‘that’s how I shall get hold of her. When I marry
her, I shall take her to Petersburg and there I shall start a newspaper.’
And his mouth was simply watering, the beast, not for the widow, but for
the hundred and fifty thousand. And he made me believe it. He came to see
me every day. ‘She is coming round,’ he declared. He was beaming with
delight. And then, all of a sudden, he was turned out of the house.
Perhotin’s carrying everything before him, bravo! I could kiss the silly
old noodle for turning him out of the house. And he had written this
doggerel. ‘It’s the first time I’ve soiled my hands with writing poetry,’
he said. ‘It’s to win her heart, so it’s in a good cause. When I get hold
of the silly woman’s fortune, I can be of great social utility.’ They have
this social justification for every nasty thing they do! ‘Anyway it’s
better than your Pushkin’s poetry,’ he said, ‘for I’ve managed to advocate
enlightenment even in that.’ I understand what he means about Pushkin, I
quite see that, if he really was a man of talent and only wrote about
women’s feet. But wasn’t Rakitin stuck up about his doggerel! The vanity
of these fellows! ‘On the convalescence of the swollen foot of the object
of my affections’—he thought of that for a title. He’s a waggish fellow.
A captivating little foot,
Though swollen and red and tender!
The doctors come and plasters put,
But still they cannot mend her.
Yet, ’tis not for her foot I dread—
A theme for Pushkin’s muse more fit—
It’s not her foot, it is her head:
I tremble for her loss of wit!
For as her foot swells, strange to say,
Her intellect is on the wane—
Oh, for some remedy I pray
That may restore both foot and brain!
He is a pig, a regular pig, but he’s very arch, the rascal! And he really
has put in a progressive idea. And wasn’t he angry when she kicked him
out! He was gnashing his teeth!”
“He’s taken his revenge already,” said Alyosha. “He’s written a paragraph
about Madame Hohlakov.”
And Alyosha told him briefly about the paragraph in _Gossip_.
“That’s his doing, that’s his doing!” Mitya assented, frowning. “That’s
him! These paragraphs ... I know ... the insulting things that have been
written about Grushenka, for instance.... And about Katya, too.... H’m!”
He walked across the room with a harassed air.
“Brother, I cannot stay long,” Alyosha said, after a pause. “To‐morrow
will be a great and awful day for you, the judgment of God will be
accomplished ... I am amazed at you, you walk about here, talking of I
don’t know what ...”
“No, don’t be amazed at me,” Mitya broke in warmly. “Am I to talk of that
stinking dog? Of the murderer? We’ve talked enough of him. I don’t want to
say more of the stinking son of Stinking Lizaveta! God will kill him, you
will see. Hush!”
He went up to Alyosha excitedly and kissed him. His eyes glowed.
“Rakitin wouldn’t understand it,” he began in a sort of exaltation; “but
you, you’ll understand it all. That’s why I was thirsting for you. You
see, there’s so much I’ve been wanting to tell you for ever so long, here,
within these peeling walls, but I haven’t said a word about what matters
most; the moment never seems to have come. Now I can wait no longer. I
must pour out my heart to you. Brother, these last two months I’ve found
in myself a new man. A new man has risen up in me. He was hidden in me,
but would never have come to the surface, if it hadn’t been for this blow
from heaven. I am afraid! And what do I care if I spend twenty years in
the mines, breaking ore with a hammer? I am not a bit afraid of that—it’s
something else I am afraid of now: that that new man may leave me. Even
there, in the mines, under‐ground, I may find a human heart in another
convict and murderer by my side, and I may make friends with him, for even
there one may live and love and suffer. One may thaw and revive a frozen
heart in that convict, one may wait upon him for years, and at last bring
up from the dark depths a lofty soul, a feeling, suffering creature; one
may bring forth an angel, create a hero! There are so many of them,
hundreds of them, and we are all to blame for them. Why was it I dreamed
of that ‘babe’ at such a moment? ‘Why is the babe so poor?’ That was a
sign to me at that moment. It’s for the babe I’m going. Because we are all
responsible for all. For all the ‘babes,’ for there are big children as
well as little children. All are ‘babes.’ I go for all, because some one
must go for all. I didn’t kill father, but I’ve got to go. I accept it.
It’s all come to me here, here, within these peeling walls. There are
numbers of them there, hundreds of them underground, with hammers in their
hands. Oh, yes, we shall be in chains and there will be no freedom, but
then, in our great sorrow, we shall rise again to joy, without which man
cannot live nor God exist, for God gives joy: it’s His privilege—a grand
one. Ah, man should be dissolved in prayer! What should I be underground
there without God? Rakitin’s laughing! If they drive God from the earth,
we shall shelter Him underground. One cannot exist in prison without God;
it’s even more impossible than out of prison. And then we men underground
will sing from the bowels of the earth a glorious hymn to God, with Whom
is joy. Hail to God and His joy! I love Him!”
Mitya was almost gasping for breath as he uttered his wild speech. He
turned pale, his lips quivered, and tears rolled down his cheeks.
“Yes, life is full, there is life even underground,” he began again. “You
wouldn’t believe, Alexey, how I want to live now, what a thirst for
existence and consciousness has sprung up in me within these peeling
walls. Rakitin doesn’t understand that; all he cares about is building a
house and letting flats. But I’ve been longing for you. And what is
suffering? I am not afraid of it, even if it were beyond reckoning. I am
not afraid of it now. I was afraid of it before. Do you know, perhaps I
won’t answer at the trial at all.... And I seem to have such strength in
me now, that I think I could stand anything, any suffering, only to be
able to say and to repeat to myself every moment, ‘I exist.’ In thousands
of agonies—I exist. I’m tormented on the rack—but I exist! Though I sit
alone on a pillar—I exist! I see the sun, and if I don’t see the sun, I
know it’s there. And there’s a whole life in that, in knowing that the sun
is there. Alyosha, my angel, all these philosophies are the death of me.
Damn them! Brother Ivan—”
“What of brother Ivan?” interrupted Alyosha, but Mitya did not hear.
“You see, I never had any of these doubts before, but it was all hidden
away in me. It was perhaps just because ideas I did not understand were
surging up in me, that I used to drink and fight and rage. It was to
stifle them in myself, to still them, to smother them. Ivan is not
Rakitin, there is an idea in him. Ivan is a sphinx and is silent; he is
always silent. It’s God that’s worrying me. That’s the only thing that’s
worrying me. What if He doesn’t exist? What if Rakitin’s right—that it’s
an idea made up by men? Then if He doesn’t exist, man is the chief of the
earth, of the universe. Magnificent! Only how is he going to be good
without God? That’s the question. I always come back to that. For whom is
man going to love then? To whom will he be thankful? To whom will he sing
the hymn? Rakitin laughs. Rakitin says that one can love humanity without
God. Well, only a sniveling idiot can maintain that. I can’t understand
it. Life’s easy for Rakitin. ‘You’d better think about the extension of
civic rights, or even of keeping down the price of meat. You will show
your love for humanity more simply and directly by that, than by
philosophy.’ I answered him, ‘Well, but you, without a God, are more
likely to raise the price of meat, if it suits you, and make a rouble on
every copeck.’ He lost his temper. But after all, what is goodness? Answer
me that, Alexey. Goodness is one thing with me and another with a
Chinaman, so it’s a relative thing. Or isn’t it? Is it not relative? A
treacherous question! You won’t laugh if I tell you it’s kept me awake two
nights. I only wonder now how people can live and think nothing about it.
Vanity! Ivan has no God. He has an idea. It’s beyond me. But he is silent.
I believe he is a free‐mason. I asked him, but he is silent. I wanted to
drink from the springs of his soul—he was silent. But once he did drop a
word.”
“What did he say?” Alyosha took it up quickly.
“I said to him, ‘Then everything is lawful, if it is so?’ He frowned.
‘Fyodor Pavlovitch, our papa,’ he said, ‘was a pig, but his ideas were
right enough.’ That was what he dropped. That was all he said. That was
going one better than Rakitin.”
“Yes,” Alyosha assented bitterly. “When was he with you?”
“Of that later; now I must speak of something else. I have said nothing
about Ivan to you before. I put it off to the last. When my business here
is over and the verdict has been given, then I’ll tell you something. I’ll
tell you everything. We’ve something tremendous on hand.... And you shall
be my judge in it. But don’t begin about that now; be silent. You talk of
to‐morrow, of the trial; but, would you believe it, I know nothing about
it.”
“Have you talked to the counsel?”
“What’s the use of the counsel? I told him all about it. He’s a soft,
city‐bred rogue—a Bernard! But he doesn’t believe me—not a bit of it. Only
imagine, he believes I did it. I see it. ‘In that case,’ I asked him, ‘why
have you come to defend me?’ Hang them all! They’ve got a doctor down,
too, want to prove I’m mad. I won’t have that! Katerina Ivanovna wants to
do her ‘duty’ to the end, whatever the strain!” Mitya smiled bitterly.
“The cat! Hard‐hearted creature! She knows that I said of her at Mokroe
that she was a woman of ‘great wrath.’ They repeated it. Yes, the facts
against me have grown numerous as the sands of the sea. Grigory sticks to
his point. Grigory’s honest, but a fool. Many people are honest because
they are fools: that’s Rakitin’s idea. Grigory’s my enemy. And there are
some people who are better as foes than friends. I mean Katerina Ivanovna.
I am afraid, oh, I am afraid she will tell how she bowed to the ground
after that four thousand. She’ll pay it back to the last farthing. I don’t
want her sacrifice; they’ll put me to shame at the trial. I wonder how I
can stand it. Go to her, Alyosha, ask her not to speak of that in the
court, can’t you? But damn it all, it doesn’t matter! I shall get through
somehow. I don’t pity her. It’s her own doing. She deserves what she gets.
I shall have my own story to tell, Alexey.” He smiled bitterly again.
“Only ... only Grusha, Grusha! Good Lord! Why should she have such
suffering to bear?” he exclaimed suddenly, with tears. “Grusha’s killing
me; the thought of her’s killing me, killing me. She was with me just
now....”
“She told me she was very much grieved by you to‐day.”
“I know. Confound my temper! It was jealousy. I was sorry, I kissed her as
she was going. I didn’t ask her forgiveness.”
“Why didn’t you?” exclaimed Alyosha.
Suddenly Mitya laughed almost mirthfully.
“God preserve you, my dear boy, from ever asking forgiveness for a fault
from a woman you love. From one you love especially, however greatly you
may have been in fault. For a woman—devil only knows what to make of a
woman! I know something about them, anyway. But try acknowledging you are
in fault to a woman. Say, ‘I am sorry, forgive me,’ and a shower of
reproaches will follow! Nothing will make her forgive you simply and
directly, she’ll humble you to the dust, bring forward things that have
never happened, recall everything, forget nothing, add something of her
own, and only then forgive you. And even the best, the best of them do it.
She’ll scrape up all the scrapings and load them on your head. They are
ready to flay you alive, I tell you, every one of them, all these angels
without whom we cannot live! I tell you plainly and openly, dear boy,
every decent man ought to be under some woman’s thumb. That’s my
conviction—not conviction, but feeling. A man ought to be magnanimous, and
it’s no disgrace to a man! No disgrace to a hero, not even a Cæsar! But
don’t ever beg her pardon all the same for anything. Remember that rule
given you by your brother Mitya, who’s come to ruin through women. No, I’d
better make it up to Grusha somehow, without begging pardon. I worship
her, Alexey, worship her. Only she doesn’t see it. No, she still thinks I
don’t love her enough. And she tortures me, tortures me with her love. The
past was nothing! In the past it was only those infernal curves of hers
that tortured me, but now I’ve taken all her soul into my soul and through
her I’ve become a man myself. Will they marry us? If they don’t, I shall
die of jealousy. I imagine something every day.... What did she say to you
about me?”
Alyosha repeated all Grushenka had said to him that day. Mitya listened,
made him repeat things, and seemed pleased.
“Then she is not angry at my being jealous?” he exclaimed. “She is a
regular woman! ‘I’ve a fierce heart myself!’ Ah, I love such fierce
hearts, though I can’t bear any one’s being jealous of me. I can’t endure
it. We shall fight. But I shall love her, I shall love her infinitely.
Will they marry us? Do they let convicts marry? That’s the question. And
without her I can’t exist....”
Mitya walked frowning across the room. It was almost dark. He suddenly
seemed terribly worried.
“So there’s a secret, she says, a secret? We have got up a plot against
her, and Katya is mixed up in it, she thinks. No, my good Grushenka,
that’s not it. You are very wide of the mark, in your foolish feminine
way. Alyosha, darling, well, here goes! I’ll tell you our secret!”
He looked round, went close up quickly to Alyosha, who was standing before
him, and whispered to him with an air of mystery, though in reality no one
could hear them: the old warder was dozing in the corner, and not a word
could reach the ears of the soldiers on guard.
“I will tell you all our secret,” Mitya whispered hurriedly. “I meant to
tell you later, for how could I decide on anything without you? You are
everything to me. Though I say that Ivan is superior to us, you are my
angel. It’s your decision will decide it. Perhaps it’s you that is
superior and not Ivan. You see, it’s a question of conscience, question of
the higher conscience—the secret is so important that I can’t settle it
myself, and I’ve put it off till I could speak to you. But anyway it’s too
early to decide now, for we must wait for the verdict. As soon as the
verdict is given, you shall decide my fate. Don’t decide it now. I’ll tell
you now. You listen, but don’t decide. Stand and keep quiet. I won’t tell
you everything. I’ll only tell you the idea, without details, and you keep
quiet. Not a question, not a movement. You agree? But, goodness, what
shall I do with your eyes? I’m afraid your eyes will tell me your
decision, even if you don’t speak. Oo! I’m afraid! Alyosha, listen! Ivan
suggests my _escaping_. I won’t tell you the details: it’s all been
thought out: it can all be arranged. Hush, don’t decide. I should go to
America with Grusha. You know I can’t live without Grusha! What if they
won’t let her follow me to Siberia? Do they let convicts get married? Ivan
thinks not. And without Grusha what should I do there underground with a
hammer? I should only smash my skull with the hammer! But, on the other
hand, my conscience? I should have run away from suffering. A sign has
come, I reject the sign. I have a way of salvation and I turn my back on
it. Ivan says that in America, ‘with the good‐will,’ I can be of more use
than underground. But what becomes of our hymn from underground? What’s
America? America is vanity again! And there’s a lot of swindling in
America, too, I expect. I should have run away from crucifixion! I tell
you, you know, Alexey, because you are the only person who can understand
this. There’s no one else. It’s folly, madness to others, all I’ve told
you of the hymn. They’ll say I’m out of my mind or a fool. I am not out of
my mind and I am not a fool. Ivan understands about the hymn, too. He
understands, only he doesn’t answer—he doesn’t speak. He doesn’t believe
in the hymn. Don’t speak, don’t speak. I see how you look! You have
already decided. Don’t decide, spare me! I can’t live without Grusha. Wait
till after the trial!”
Mitya ended beside himself. He held Alyosha with both hands on his
shoulders, and his yearning, feverish eyes were fixed on his brother’s.
“They don’t let convicts marry, do they?” he repeated for the third time
in a supplicating voice.
Alyosha listened with extreme surprise and was deeply moved.
“Tell me one thing,” he said. “Is Ivan very keen on it, and whose idea was
it?”
“His, his, and he is very keen on it. He didn’t come to see me at first,
then he suddenly came a week ago and he began about it straight away. He
is awfully keen on it. He doesn’t ask me, but orders me to escape. He
doesn’t doubt of my obeying him, though I showed him all my heart as I
have to you, and told him about the hymn, too. He told me he’d arrange it;
he’s found out about everything. But of that later. He’s simply set on it.
It’s all a matter of money: he’ll pay ten thousand for escape and give me
twenty thousand for America. And he says we can arrange a magnificent
escape for ten thousand.”
“And he told you on no account to tell me?” Alyosha asked again.
“To tell no one, and especially not you; on no account to tell you. He is
afraid, no doubt, that you’ll stand before me as my conscience. Don’t tell
him I told you. Don’t tell him, for anything.”
“You are right,” Alyosha pronounced; “it’s impossible to decide anything
before the trial is over. After the trial you’ll decide of yourself. Then
you’ll find that new man in yourself and he will decide.”
“A new man, or a Bernard who’ll decide _à la_ Bernard, for I believe I’m a
contemptible Bernard myself,” said Mitya, with a bitter grin.
“But, brother, have you no hope then of being acquitted?”
Mitya shrugged his shoulders nervously and shook his head. “Alyosha,
darling, it’s time you were going,” he said, with a sudden haste. “There’s
the superintendent shouting in the yard. He’ll be here directly. We are
late; it’s irregular. Embrace me quickly. Kiss me! Sign me with the cross,
darling, for the cross I have to bear to‐morrow.”
They embraced and kissed.
“Ivan,” said Mitya suddenly, “suggests my escaping; but, of course, he
believes I did it.”
A mournful smile came on to his lips.
“Have you asked him whether he believes it?” asked Alyosha.
“No, I haven’t. I wanted to, but I couldn’t. I hadn’t the courage. But I
saw it from his eyes. Well, good‐by!”
Once more they kissed hurriedly, and Alyosha was just going out, when
Mitya suddenly called him back.
“Stand facing me! That’s right!” And again he seized Alyosha, putting both
hands on his shoulders. His face became suddenly quite pale, so that it
was dreadfully apparent, even through the gathering darkness. His lips
twitched, his eyes fastened upon Alyosha.
“Alyosha, tell me the whole truth, as you would before God. Do you believe
I did it? Do you, do you in yourself, believe it? The whole truth, don’t
lie!” he cried desperately.
Everything seemed heaving before Alyosha, and he felt something like a
stab at his heart.
“Hush! What do you mean?” he faltered helplessly.
“The whole truth, the whole, don’t lie!” repeated Mitya.
“I’ve never for one instant believed that you were the murderer!” broke in
a shaking voice from Alyosha’s breast, and he raised his right hand in the
air, as though calling God to witness his words.
Mitya’s whole face was lighted up with bliss.
“Thank you!” he articulated slowly, as though letting a sigh escape him
after fainting. “Now you have given me new life. Would you believe it,
till this moment I’ve been afraid to ask you, you, even you. Well, go!
You’ve given me strength for to‐morrow. God bless you! Come, go along!
Love Ivan!” was Mitya’s last word.
Alyosha went out in tears. Such distrustfulness in Mitya, such lack of
confidence even to him, to Alyosha—all this suddenly opened before Alyosha
an unsuspected depth of hopeless grief and despair in the soul of his
unhappy brother. Intense, infinite compassion overwhelmed him instantly.
There was a poignant ache in his torn heart. “Love Ivan!”—he suddenly
recalled Mitya’s words. And he was going to Ivan. He badly wanted to see
Ivan all day. He was as much worried about Ivan as about Mitya, and more
than ever now.
Chapter V. Not You, Not You!
On the way to Ivan he had to pass the house where Katerina Ivanovna was
living. There was light in the windows. He suddenly stopped and resolved
to go in. He had not seen Katerina Ivanovna for more than a week. But now
it struck him that Ivan might be with her, especially on the eve of the
terrible day. Ringing, and mounting the staircase, which was dimly lighted
by a Chinese lantern, he saw a man coming down, and as they met, he
recognized him as his brother. So he was just coming from Katerina
Ivanovna.
“Ah, it’s only you,” said Ivan dryly. “Well, good‐by! You are going to
her?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t advise you to; she’s upset and you’ll upset her more.”
A door was instantly flung open above, and a voice cried suddenly:
“No, no! Alexey Fyodorovitch, have you come from him?”
“Yes, I have been with him.”
“Has he sent me any message? Come up, Alyosha, and you, Ivan Fyodorovitch,
you must come back, you must. Do you hear?”
There was such a peremptory note in Katya’s voice that Ivan, after a
moment’s hesitation, made up his mind to go back with Alyosha.
“She was listening,” he murmured angrily to himself, but Alyosha heard it.
“Excuse my keeping my greatcoat on,” said Ivan, going into the drawing‐
room. “I won’t sit down. I won’t stay more than a minute.”
“Sit down, Alexey Fyodorovitch,” said Katerina Ivanovna, though she
remained standing. She had changed very little during this time, but there
was an ominous gleam in her dark eyes. Alyosha remembered afterwards that
she had struck him as particularly handsome at that moment.
“What did he ask you to tell me?”
“Only one thing,” said Alyosha, looking her straight in the face, “that
you would spare yourself and say nothing at the trial of what” (he was a
little confused) “... passed between you ... at the time of your first
acquaintance ... in that town.”
“Ah! that I bowed down to the ground for that money!” She broke into a
bitter laugh. “Why, is he afraid for me or for himself? He asks me to
spare—whom? Him or myself? Tell me, Alexey Fyodorovitch!”
Alyosha watched her intently, trying to understand her.
“Both yourself and him,” he answered softly.
“I am glad to hear it,” she snapped out maliciously, and she suddenly
blushed.
“You don’t know me yet, Alexey Fyodorovitch,” she said menacingly. “And I
don’t know myself yet. Perhaps you’ll want to trample me under foot after
my examination to‐morrow.”
“You will give your evidence honorably,” said Alyosha; “that’s all that’s
wanted.”
“Women are often dishonorable,” she snarled. “Only an hour ago I was
thinking I felt afraid to touch that monster ... as though he were a
reptile ... but no, he is still a human being to me! But did he do it? Is
he the murderer?” she cried, all of a sudden, hysterically, turning
quickly to Ivan. Alyosha saw at once that she had asked Ivan that question
before, perhaps only a moment before he came in, and not for the first
time, but for the hundredth, and that they had ended by quarreling.
“I’ve been to see Smerdyakov.... It was you, you who persuaded me that he
murdered his father. It’s only you I believed!” she continued, still
addressing Ivan. He gave her a sort of strained smile. Alyosha started at
her tone. He had not suspected such familiar intimacy between them.
“Well, that’s enough, anyway,” Ivan cut short the conversation. “I am
going. I’ll come to‐morrow.” And turning at once, he walked out of the
room and went straight downstairs.
With an imperious gesture, Katerina Ivanovna seized Alyosha by both hands.
“Follow him! Overtake him! Don’t leave him alone for a minute!” she said,
in a hurried whisper. “He’s mad! Don’t you know that he’s mad? He is in a
fever, nervous fever. The doctor told me so. Go, run after him....”
Alyosha jumped up and ran after Ivan, who was not fifty paces ahead of
him.
“What do you want?” He turned quickly on Alyosha, seeing that he was
running after him. “She told you to catch me up, because I’m mad. I know
it all by heart,” he added irritably.
“She is mistaken, of course; but she is right that you are ill,” said
Alyosha. “I was looking at your face just now. You look very ill, Ivan.”
Ivan walked on without stopping. Alyosha followed him.
“And do you know, Alexey Fyodorovitch, how people do go out of their
mind?” Ivan asked in a voice suddenly quiet, without a trace of
irritation, with a note of the simplest curiosity.
“No, I don’t. I suppose there are all kinds of insanity.”
“And can one observe that one’s going mad oneself?”
“I imagine one can’t see oneself clearly in such circumstances,” Alyosha
answered with surprise.
Ivan paused for half a minute.
“If you want to talk to me, please change the subject,” he said suddenly.
“Oh, while I think of it, I have a letter for you,” said Alyosha timidly,
and he took Lise’s note from his pocket and held it out to Ivan. They were
just under a lamp‐post. Ivan recognized the handwriting at once.
“Ah, from that little demon!” he laughed maliciously, and, without opening
the envelope, he tore it into bits and threw it in the air. The bits were
scattered by the wind.
“She’s not sixteen yet, I believe, and already offering herself,” he said
contemptuously, striding along the street again.
“How do you mean, offering herself?” exclaimed Alyosha.
“As wanton women offer themselves, to be sure.”
“How can you, Ivan, how can you?” Alyosha cried warmly, in a grieved
voice. “She is a child; you are insulting a child! She is ill; she is very
ill, too. She is on the verge of insanity, too, perhaps.... I had hoped to
hear something from you ... that would save her.”
“You’ll hear nothing from me. If she is a child I am not her nurse. Be
quiet, Alexey. Don’t go on about her. I am not even thinking about it.”
They were silent again for a moment.
“She will be praying all night now to the Mother of God to show her how to
act to‐morrow at the trial,” he said sharply and angrily again.
“You ... you mean Katerina Ivanovna?”
“Yes. Whether she’s to save Mitya or ruin him. She’ll pray for light from
above. She can’t make up her mind for herself, you see. She has not had
time to decide yet. She takes me for her nurse, too. She wants me to sing
lullabies to her.”
“Katerina Ivanovna loves you, brother,” said Alyosha sadly.
“Perhaps; but I am not very keen on her.”
“She is suffering. Why do you ... sometimes say things to her that give
her hope?” Alyosha went on, with timid reproach. “I know that you’ve given
her hope. Forgive me for speaking to you like this,” he added.
“I can’t behave to her as I ought—break off altogether and tell her so
straight out,” said Ivan, irritably. “I must wait till sentence is passed
on the murderer. If I break off with her now, she will avenge herself on
me by ruining that scoundrel to‐morrow at the trial, for she hates him and
knows she hates him. It’s all a lie—lie upon lie! As long as I don’t break
off with her, she goes on hoping, and she won’t ruin that monster, knowing
how I want to get him out of trouble. If only that damned verdict would
come!”
The words “murderer” and “monster” echoed painfully in Alyosha’s heart.
“But how can she ruin Mitya?” he asked, pondering on Ivan’s words. “What
evidence can she give that would ruin Mitya?”
“You don’t know that yet. She’s got a document in her hands, in Mitya’s
own writing, that proves conclusively that he did murder Fyodor
Pavlovitch.”
“That’s impossible!” cried Alyosha.
“Why is it impossible? I’ve read it myself.”
“There can’t be such a document!” Alyosha repeated warmly. “There can’t
be, because he’s not the murderer. It’s not he murdered father, not he!”
Ivan suddenly stopped.
“Who is the murderer then, according to you?” he asked, with apparent
coldness. There was even a supercilious note in his voice.
“You know who,” Alyosha pronounced in a low, penetrating voice.
“Who? You mean the myth about that crazy idiot, the epileptic,
Smerdyakov?”
Alyosha suddenly felt himself trembling all over.
“You know who,” broke helplessly from him. He could scarcely breathe.
“Who? Who?” Ivan cried almost fiercely. All his restraint suddenly
vanished.
“I only know one thing,” Alyosha went on, still almost in a whisper, “_it
wasn’t you_ killed father.”
“ ‘Not you’! What do you mean by ‘not you’?” Ivan was thunderstruck.
“It was not you killed father, not you!” Alyosha repeated firmly.
The silence lasted for half a minute.
“I know I didn’t. Are you raving?” said Ivan, with a pale, distorted
smile. His eyes were riveted on Alyosha. They were standing again under a
lamp‐post.
“No, Ivan. You’ve told yourself several times that you are the murderer.”
“When did I say so? I was in Moscow.... When have I said so?” Ivan
faltered helplessly.
“You’ve said so to yourself many times, when you’ve been alone during
these two dreadful months,” Alyosha went on softly and distinctly as
before. Yet he was speaking now, as it were, not of himself, not of his
own will, but obeying some irresistible command. “You have accused
yourself and have confessed to yourself that you are the murderer and no
one else. But you didn’t do it: you are mistaken: you are not the
murderer. Do you hear? It was not you! God has sent me to tell you so.”
They were both silent. The silence lasted a whole long minute. They were
both standing still, gazing into each other’s eyes. They were both pale.
Suddenly Ivan began trembling all over, and clutched Alyosha’s shoulder.
“You’ve been in my room!” he whispered hoarsely. “You’ve been there at
night, when he came.... Confess ... have you seen him, have you seen him?”
“Whom do you mean—Mitya?” Alyosha asked, bewildered.
“Not him, damn the monster!” Ivan shouted, in a frenzy. “Do you know that
he visits me? How did you find out? Speak!”
“Who is _he_! I don’t know whom you are talking about,” Alyosha faltered,
beginning to be alarmed.
“Yes, you do know ... or how could you—? It’s impossible that you don’t
know.”
Suddenly he seemed to check himself. He stood still and seemed to reflect.
A strange grin contorted his lips.
“Brother,” Alyosha began again, in a shaking voice, “I have said this to
you, because you’ll believe my word, I know that. I tell you once and for
all, it’s not you. You hear, once for all! God has put it into my heart to
say this to you, even though it may make you hate me from this hour.”
But by now Ivan had apparently regained his self‐control.
“Alexey Fyodorovitch,” he said, with a cold smile, “I can’t endure
prophets and epileptics—messengers from God especially—and you know that
only too well. I break off all relations with you from this moment and
probably for ever. I beg you to leave me at this turning. It’s the way to
your lodgings, too. You’d better be particularly careful not to come to me
to‐day! Do you hear?”
He turned and walked on with a firm step, not looking back.
“Brother,” Alyosha called after him, “if anything happens to you to‐day,
turn to me before any one!”
But Ivan made no reply. Alyosha stood under the lamp‐post at the cross
roads, till Ivan had vanished into the darkness. Then he turned and walked
slowly homewards. Both Alyosha and Ivan were living in lodgings; neither
of them was willing to live in Fyodor Pavlovitch’s empty house. Alyosha
had a furnished room in the house of some working people. Ivan lived some
distance from him. He had taken a roomy and fairly comfortable lodge
attached to a fine house that belonged to a well‐to‐do lady, the widow of
an official. But his only attendant was a deaf and rheumatic old crone who
went to bed at six o’clock every evening and got up at six in the morning.
Ivan had become remarkably indifferent to his comforts of late, and very
fond of being alone. He did everything for himself in the one room he
lived in, and rarely entered any of the other rooms in his abode.
He reached the gate of the house and had his hand on the bell, when he
suddenly stopped. He felt that he was trembling all over with anger.
Suddenly he let go of the bell, turned back with a curse, and walked with
rapid steps in the opposite direction. He walked a mile and a half to a
tiny, slanting, wooden house, almost a hut, where Marya Kondratyevna, the
neighbor who used to come to Fyodor Pavlovitch’s kitchen for soup and to
whom Smerdyakov had once sung his songs and played on the guitar, was now
lodging. She had sold their little house, and was now living here with her
mother. Smerdyakov, who was ill—almost dying—had been with them ever since
Fyodor Pavlovitch’s death. It was to him Ivan was going now, drawn by a
sudden and irresistible prompting.
Chapter VI. The First Interview With Smerdyakov
This was the third time that Ivan had been to see Smerdyakov since his
return from Moscow. The first time he had seen him and talked to him was
on the first day of his arrival, then he had visited him once more, a
fortnight later. But his visits had ended with that second one, so that it
was now over a month since he had seen him. And he had scarcely heard
anything of him.
Ivan had only returned five days after his father’s death, so that he was
not present at the funeral, which took place the day before he came back.
The cause of his delay was that Alyosha, not knowing his Moscow address,
had to apply to Katerina Ivanovna to telegraph to him, and she, not
knowing his address either, telegraphed to her sister and aunt, reckoning
on Ivan’s going to see them as soon as he arrived in Moscow. But he did
not go to them till four days after his arrival. When he got the telegram,
he had, of course, set off post‐haste to our town. The first to meet him
was Alyosha, and Ivan was greatly surprised to find that, in opposition to
the general opinion of the town, he refused to entertain a suspicion
against Mitya, and spoke openly of Smerdyakov as the murderer. Later on,
after seeing the police captain and the prosecutor, and hearing the
details of the charge and the arrest, he was still more surprised at
Alyosha, and ascribed his opinion only to his exaggerated brotherly
feeling and sympathy with Mitya, of whom Alyosha, as Ivan knew, was very
fond.
By the way, let us say a word or two of Ivan’s feeling to his brother
Dmitri. He positively disliked him; at most, felt sometimes a compassion
for him, and even that was mixed with great contempt, almost repugnance.
Mitya’s whole personality, even his appearance, was extremely unattractive
to him. Ivan looked with indignation on Katerina Ivanovna’s love for his
brother. Yet he went to see Mitya on the first day of his arrival, and
that interview, far from shaking Ivan’s belief in his guilt, positively
strengthened it. He found his brother agitated, nervously excited. Mitya
had been talkative, but very absent‐minded and incoherent. He used violent
language, accused Smerdyakov, and was fearfully muddled. He talked
principally about the three thousand roubles, which he said had been
“stolen” from him by his father.
“The money was mine, it was my money,” Mitya kept repeating. “Even if I
had stolen it, I should have had the right.”
He hardly contested the evidence against him, and if he tried to turn a
fact to his advantage, it was in an absurd and incoherent way. He hardly
seemed to wish to defend himself to Ivan or any one else. Quite the
contrary, he was angry and proudly scornful of the charges against him; he
was continually firing up and abusing every one. He only laughed
contemptuously at Grigory’s evidence about the open door, and declared
that it was “the devil that opened it.” But he could not bring forward any
coherent explanation of the fact. He even succeeded in insulting Ivan
during their first interview, telling him sharply that it was not for
people who declared that “everything was lawful,” to suspect and question
him. Altogether he was anything but friendly with Ivan on that occasion.
Immediately after that interview with Mitya, Ivan went for the first time
to see Smerdyakov.
In the railway train on his way from Moscow, he kept thinking of
Smerdyakov and of his last conversation with him on the evening before he
went away. Many things seemed to him puzzling and suspicious. But when he
gave his evidence to the investigating lawyer Ivan said nothing, for the
time, of that conversation. He put that off till he had seen Smerdyakov,
who was at that time in the hospital.
Doctor Herzenstube and Varvinsky, the doctor he met in the hospital,
confidently asserted in reply to Ivan’s persistent questions, that
Smerdyakov’s epileptic attack was unmistakably genuine, and were surprised
indeed at Ivan asking whether he might not have been shamming on the day
of the catastrophe. They gave him to understand that the attack was an
exceptional one, the fits persisting and recurring several times, so that
the patient’s life was positively in danger, and it was only now, after
they had applied remedies, that they could assert with confidence that the
patient would survive. “Though it might well be,” added Doctor
Herzenstube, “that his reason would be impaired for a considerable period,
if not permanently.” On Ivan’s asking impatiently whether that meant that
he was now mad, they told him that this was not yet the case, in the full
sense of the word, but that certain abnormalities were perceptible. Ivan
decided to find out for himself what those abnormalities were.
At the hospital he was at once allowed to see the patient. Smerdyakov was
lying on a truckle‐bed in a separate ward. There was only one other bed in
the room, and in it lay a tradesman of the town, swollen with dropsy, who
was obviously almost dying; he could be no hindrance to their
conversation. Smerdyakov grinned uncertainly on seeing Ivan, and for the
first instant seemed nervous. So at least Ivan fancied. But that was only
momentary. For the rest of the time he was struck, on the contrary, by
Smerdyakov’s composure. From the first glance Ivan had no doubt that he
was very ill. He was very weak; he spoke slowly, seeming to move his
tongue with difficulty; he was much thinner and sallower. Throughout the
interview, which lasted twenty minutes, he kept complaining of headache
and of pain in all his limbs. His thin emasculate face seemed to have
become so tiny; his hair was ruffled, and his crest of curls in front
stood up in a thin tuft. But in the left eye, which was screwed up and
seemed to be insinuating something, Smerdyakov showed himself unchanged.
“It’s always worth while speaking to a clever man.” Ivan was reminded of
that at once. He sat down on the stool at his feet. Smerdyakov, with
painful effort, shifted his position in bed, but he was not the first to
speak. He remained dumb, and did not even look much interested.
“Can you talk to me?” asked Ivan. “I won’t tire you much.”
“Certainly I can,” mumbled Smerdyakov, in a faint voice. “Has your honor
been back long?” he added patronizingly, as though encouraging a nervous
visitor.
“I only arrived to‐day.... To see the mess you are in here.”
Smerdyakov sighed.
“Why do you sigh? You knew of it all along,” Ivan blurted out.
Smerdyakov was stolidly silent for a while.
“How could I help knowing? It was clear beforehand. But how could I tell
it would turn out like that?”
“What would turn out? Don’t prevaricate! You’ve foretold you’d have a fit;
on the way down to the cellar, you know. You mentioned the very spot.”
“Have you said so at the examination yet?” Smerdyakov queried with
composure.
Ivan felt suddenly angry.
“No, I haven’t yet, but I certainly shall. You must explain a great deal
to me, my man; and let me tell you, I am not going to let you play with
me!”
“Why should I play with you, when I put my whole trust in you, as in God
Almighty?” said Smerdyakov, with the same composure, only for a moment
closing his eyes.
“In the first place,” began Ivan, “I know that epileptic fits can’t be
told beforehand. I’ve inquired; don’t try and take me in. You can’t
foretell the day and the hour. How was it you told me the day and the hour
beforehand, and about the cellar, too? How could you tell that you would
fall down the cellar stairs in a fit, if you didn’t sham a fit on
purpose?”
“I had to go to the cellar anyway, several times a day, indeed,”
Smerdyakov drawled deliberately. “I fell from the garret just in the same
way a year ago. It’s quite true you can’t tell the day and hour of a fit
beforehand, but you can always have a presentiment of it.”
“But you did foretell the day and the hour!”
“In regard to my epilepsy, sir, you had much better inquire of the doctors
here. You can ask them whether it was a real fit or a sham; it’s no use my
saying any more about it.”
“And the cellar? How could you know beforehand of the cellar?”
“You don’t seem able to get over that cellar! As I was going down to the
cellar, I was in terrible dread and doubt. What frightened me most was
losing you and being left without defense in all the world. So I went down
into the cellar thinking, ‘Here, it’ll come on directly, it’ll strike me
down directly, shall I fall?’ And it was through this fear that I suddenly
felt the spasm that always comes ... and so I went flying. All that and
all my previous conversation with you at the gate the evening before, when
I told you how frightened I was and spoke of the cellar, I told all that
to Doctor Herzenstube and Nikolay Parfenovitch, the investigating lawyer,
and it’s all been written down in the protocol. And the doctor here, Mr.
Varvinsky, maintained to all of them that it was just the thought of it
brought it on, the apprehension that I might fall. It was just then that
the fit seized me. And so they’ve written it down, that it’s just how it
must have happened, simply from my fear.”
As he finished, Smerdyakov drew a deep breath, as though exhausted.
“Then you have said all that in your evidence?” said Ivan, somewhat taken
aback. He had meant to frighten him with the threat of repeating their
conversation, and it appeared that Smerdyakov had already reported it all
himself.
“What have I to be afraid of? Let them write down the whole truth,”
Smerdyakov pronounced firmly.
“And have you told them every word of our conversation at the gate?”
“No, not to say every word.”
“And did you tell them that you can sham fits, as you boasted then?”
“No, I didn’t tell them that either.”
“Tell me now, why did you send me then to Tchermashnya?”
“I was afraid you’d go away to Moscow; Tchermashnya is nearer, anyway.”
“You are lying; you suggested my going away yourself; you told me to get
out of the way of trouble.”
“That was simply out of affection and my sincere devotion to you,
foreseeing trouble in the house, to spare you. Only I wanted to spare
myself even more. That’s why I told you to get out of harm’s way, that you
might understand that there would be trouble in the house, and would
remain at home to protect your father.”
“You might have said it more directly, you blockhead!” Ivan suddenly fired
up.
“How could I have said it more directly then? It was simply my fear that
made me speak, and you might have been angry, too. I might well have been
apprehensive that Dmitri Fyodorovitch would make a scene and carry away
that money, for he considered it as good as his own; but who could tell
that it would end in a murder like this? I thought that he would only
carry off the three thousand that lay under the master’s mattress in the
envelope, and you see, he’s murdered him. How could you guess it either,
sir?”
“But if you say yourself that it couldn’t be guessed, how could I have
guessed and stayed at home? You contradict yourself!” said Ivan,
pondering.
“You might have guessed from my sending you to Tchermashnya and not to
Moscow.”
“How could I guess it from that?”
Smerdyakov seemed much exhausted, and again he was silent for a minute.
“You might have guessed from the fact of my asking you not to go to
Moscow, but to Tchermashnya, that I wanted to have you nearer, for
Moscow’s a long way off, and Dmitri Fyodorovitch, knowing you are not far
off, would not be so bold. And if anything had happened, you might have
come to protect me, too, for I warned you of Grigory Vassilyevitch’s
illness, and that I was afraid of having a fit. And when I explained those
knocks to you, by means of which one could go in to the deceased, and that
Dmitri Fyodorovitch knew them all through me, I thought that you would
guess yourself that he would be sure to do something, and so wouldn’t go
to Tchermashnya even, but would stay.”
“He talks very coherently,” thought Ivan, “though he does mumble; what’s
the derangement of his faculties that Herzenstube talked of?”
“You are cunning with me, damn you!” he exclaimed, getting angry.
“But I thought at the time that you quite guessed,” Smerdyakov parried
with the simplest air.
“If I’d guessed, I should have stayed,” cried Ivan.
“Why, I thought that it was because you guessed, that you went away in
such a hurry, only to get out of trouble, only to run away and save
yourself in your fright.”
“You think that every one is as great a coward as yourself?”
“Forgive me, I thought you were like me.”
“Of course, I ought to have guessed,” Ivan said in agitation; “and I did
guess there was some mischief brewing on your part ... only you are lying,
you are lying again,” he cried, suddenly recollecting. “Do you remember
how you went up to the carriage and said to me, ‘It’s always worth while
speaking to a clever man’? So you were glad I went away, since you praised
me?”
Smerdyakov sighed again and again. A trace of color came into his face.
“If I was pleased,” he articulated rather breathlessly, “it was simply
because you agreed not to go to Moscow, but to Tchermashnya. For it was
nearer, anyway. Only when I said these words to you, it was not by way of
praise, but of reproach. You didn’t understand it.”
“What reproach?”
“Why, that foreseeing such a calamity you deserted your own father, and
would not protect us, for I might have been taken up any time for stealing
that three thousand.”
“Damn you!” Ivan swore again. “Stay, did you tell the prosecutor and the
investigating lawyer about those knocks?”
“I told them everything just as it was.”
Ivan wondered inwardly again.
“If I thought of anything then,” he began again, “it was solely of some
wickedness on your part. Dmitri might kill him, but that he would steal—I
did not believe that then.... But I was prepared for any wickedness from
you. You told me yourself you could sham a fit. What did you say that
for?”
“It was just through my simplicity, and I never have shammed a fit on
purpose in my life. And I only said so then to boast to you. It was just
foolishness. I liked you so much then, and was open‐hearted with you.”
“My brother directly accuses you of the murder and theft.”
“What else is left for him to do?” said Smerdyakov, with a bitter grin.
“And who will believe him with all the proofs against him? Grigory
Vassilyevitch saw the door open. What can he say after that? But never
mind him! He is trembling to save himself.”
He slowly ceased speaking; then suddenly, as though on reflection, added:
“And look here again. He wants to throw it on me and make out that it is
the work of my hands—I’ve heard that already. But as to my being clever at
shamming a fit: should I have told you beforehand that I could sham one,
if I really had had such a design against your father? If I had been
planning such a murder could I have been such a fool as to give such
evidence against myself beforehand? And to his son, too! Upon my word! Is
that likely? As if that could be, such a thing has never happened. No one
hears this talk of ours now, except Providence itself, and if you were to
tell of it to the prosecutor and Nikolay Parfenovitch you might defend me
completely by doing so, for who would be likely to be such a criminal, if
he is so open‐hearted beforehand? Any one can see that.”
“Well,” and Ivan got up to cut short the conversation, struck by
Smerdyakov’s last argument. “I don’t suspect you at all, and I think it’s
absurd, indeed, to suspect you. On the contrary, I am grateful to you for
setting my mind at rest. Now I am going, but I’ll come again. Meanwhile,
good‐by. Get well. Is there anything you want?”
“I am very thankful for everything. Marfa Ignatyevna does not forget me,
and provides me anything I want, according to her kindness. Good people
visit me every day.”
“Good‐by. But I shan’t say anything of your being able to sham a fit, and
I don’t advise you to, either,” something made Ivan say suddenly.
“I quite understand. And if you don’t speak of that, I shall say nothing
of that conversation of ours at the gate.”
Then it happened that Ivan went out, and only when he had gone a dozen
steps along the corridor, he suddenly felt that there was an insulting
significance in Smerdyakov’s last words. He was almost on the point of
turning back, but it was only a passing impulse, and muttering,
“Nonsense!” he went out of the hospital.
His chief feeling was one of relief at the fact that it was not
Smerdyakov, but Mitya, who had committed the murder, though he might have
been expected to feel the opposite. He did not want to analyze the reason
for this feeling, and even felt a positive repugnance at prying into his
sensations. He felt as though he wanted to make haste to forget something.
In the following days he became convinced of Mitya’s guilt, as he got to
know all the weight of evidence against him. There was evidence of people
of no importance, Fenya and her mother, for instance, but the effect of it
was almost overpowering. As to Perhotin, the people at the tavern, and at
Plotnikov’s shop, as well as the witnesses at Mokroe, their evidence
seemed conclusive. It was the details that were so damning. The secret of
the knocks impressed the lawyers almost as much as Grigory’s evidence as
to the open door. Grigory’s wife, Marfa, in answer to Ivan’s questions,
declared that Smerdyakov had been lying all night the other side of the
partition wall. “He was not three paces from our bed,” and that although
she was a sound sleeper she waked several times and heard him moaning, “He
was moaning the whole time, moaning continually.”
Talking to Herzenstube, and giving it as his opinion that Smerdyakov was
not mad, but only rather weak, Ivan only evoked from the old man a subtle
smile.
“Do you know how he spends his time now?” he asked; “learning lists of
French words by heart. He has an exercise‐book under his pillow with the
French words written out in Russian letters for him by some one, he he
he!”
Ivan ended by dismissing all doubts. He could not think of Dmitri without
repulsion. Only one thing was strange, however. Alyosha persisted that
Dmitri was not the murderer, and that “in all probability” Smerdyakov was.
Ivan always felt that Alyosha’s opinion meant a great deal to him, and so
he was astonished at it now. Another thing that was strange was that
Alyosha did not make any attempt to talk about Mitya with Ivan, that he
never began on the subject and only answered his questions. This, too,
struck Ivan particularly.
But he was very much preoccupied at that time with something quite apart
from that. On his return from Moscow, he abandoned himself hopelessly to
his mad and consuming passion for Katerina Ivanovna. This is not the time
to begin to speak of this new passion of Ivan’s, which left its mark on
all the rest of his life: this would furnish the subject for another
novel, which I may perhaps never write. But I cannot omit to mention here
that when Ivan, on leaving Katerina Ivanovna with Alyosha, as I’ve related
already, told him, “I am not keen on her,” it was an absolute lie: he
loved her madly, though at times he hated her so that he might have
murdered her. Many causes helped to bring about this feeling. Shattered by
what had happened with Mitya, she rushed on Ivan’s return to meet him as
her one salvation. She was hurt, insulted and humiliated in her feelings.
And here the man had come back to her, who had loved her so ardently
before (oh! she knew that very well), and whose heart and intellect she
considered so superior to her own. But the sternly virtuous girl did not
abandon herself altogether to the man she loved, in spite of the Karamazov
violence of his passions and the great fascination he had for her. She was
continually tormented at the same time by remorse for having deserted
Mitya, and in moments of discord and violent anger (and they were
numerous) she told Ivan so plainly. This was what he had called to Alyosha
“lies upon lies.” There was, of course, much that was false in it, and
that angered Ivan more than anything.... But of all this later.
He did, in fact, for a time almost forget Smerdyakov’s existence, and yet,
a fortnight after his first visit to him, he began to be haunted by the
same strange thoughts as before. It’s enough to say that he was
continually asking himself, why was it that on that last night in Fyodor
Pavlovitch’s house he had crept out on to the stairs like a thief and
listened to hear what his father was doing below? Why had he recalled that
afterwards with repulsion? Why next morning, had he been suddenly so
depressed on the journey? Why, as he reached Moscow, had he said to
himself, “I am a scoundrel”? And now he almost fancied that these
tormenting thoughts would make him even forget Katerina Ivanovna, so
completely did they take possession of him again. It was just after
fancying this, that he met Alyosha in the street. He stopped him at once,
and put a question to him:
“Do you remember when Dmitri burst in after dinner and beat father, and
afterwards I told you in the yard that I reserved ‘the right to
desire’?... Tell me, did you think then that I desired father’s death or
not?”
“I did think so,” answered Alyosha, softly.
“It was so, too; it was not a matter of guessing. But didn’t you fancy
then that what I wished was just that ‘one reptile should devour another’;
that is, just that Dmitri should kill father, and as soon as possible ...
and that I myself was even prepared to help to bring that about?”
Alyosha turned rather pale, and looked silently into his brother’s face.
“Speak!” cried Ivan, “I want above everything to know what you thought
then. I want the truth, the truth!”
He drew a deep breath, looking angrily at Alyosha before his answer came.
“Forgive me, I did think that, too, at the time,” whispered Alyosha, and
he did not add one softening phrase.
“Thanks,” snapped Ivan, and, leaving Alyosha, he went quickly on his way.
From that time Alyosha noticed that Ivan began obviously to avoid him and
seemed even to have taken a dislike to him, so much so that Alyosha gave
up going to see him. Immediately after that meeting with him, Ivan had not
gone home, but went straight to Smerdyakov again.
Chapter VII. The Second Visit To Smerdyakov
By that time Smerdyakov had been discharged from the hospital. Ivan knew
his new lodging, the dilapidated little wooden house, divided in two by a
passage on one side of which lived Marya Kondratyevna and her mother, and
on the other, Smerdyakov. No one knew on what terms he lived with them,
whether as a friend or as a lodger. It was supposed afterwards that he had
come to stay with them as Marya Kondratyevna’s betrothed, and was living
there for a time without paying for board or lodging. Both mother and
daughter had the greatest respect for him and looked upon him as greatly
superior to themselves.
Ivan knocked, and, on the door being opened, went straight into the
passage. By Marya Kondratyevna’s directions he went straight to the better
room on the left, occupied by Smerdyakov. There was a tiled stove in the
room and it was extremely hot. The walls were gay with blue paper, which
was a good deal used however, and in the cracks under it cockroaches
swarmed in amazing numbers, so that there was a continual rustling from
them. The furniture was very scanty: two benches against each wall and two
chairs by the table. The table of plain wood was covered with a cloth with
pink patterns on it. There was a pot of geranium on each of the two little
windows. In the corner there was a case of ikons. On the table stood a
little copper samovar with many dents in it, and a tray with two cups. But
Smerdyakov had finished tea and the samovar was out. He was sitting at the
table on a bench. He was looking at an exercise‐book and slowly writing
with a pen. There was a bottle of ink by him and a flat iron candlestick,
but with a composite candle. Ivan saw at once from Smerdyakov’s face that
he had completely recovered from his illness. His face was fresher,
fuller, his hair stood up jauntily in front, and was plastered down at the
sides. He was sitting in a parti‐colored, wadded dressing‐gown, rather
dirty and frayed, however. He had spectacles on his nose, which Ivan had
never seen him wearing before. This trifling circumstance suddenly
redoubled Ivan’s anger: “A creature like that and wearing spectacles!”
Smerdyakov slowly raised his head and looked intently at his visitor
through his spectacles; then he slowly took them off and rose from the
bench, but by no means respectfully, almost lazily, doing the least
possible required by common civility. All this struck Ivan instantly; he
took it all in and noted it at once—most of all the look in Smerdyakov’s
eyes, positively malicious, churlish and haughty. “What do you want to
intrude for?” it seemed to say; “we settled everything then; why have you
come again?” Ivan could scarcely control himself.
“It’s hot here,” he said, still standing, and unbuttoned his overcoat.
“Take off your coat,” Smerdyakov conceded.
Ivan took off his coat and threw it on a bench with trembling hands. He
took a chair, moved it quickly to the table and sat down. Smerdyakov
managed to sit down on his bench before him.
“To begin with, are we alone?” Ivan asked sternly and impulsively. “Can
they overhear us in there?”
“No one can hear anything. You’ve seen for yourself: there’s a passage.”
“Listen, my good fellow; what was that you babbled, as I was leaving the
hospital, that if I said nothing about your faculty of shamming fits, you
wouldn’t tell the investigating lawyer all our conversation at the gate?
What do you mean by _all_? What could you mean by it? Were you threatening
me? Have I entered into some sort of compact with you? Do you suppose I am
afraid of you?”
Ivan said this in a perfect fury, giving him to understand with obvious
intention that he scorned any subterfuge or indirectness and meant to show
his cards. Smerdyakov’s eyes gleamed resentfully, his left eye winked, and
he at once gave his answer, with his habitual composure and deliberation.
“You want to have everything above‐board; very well, you shall have it,”
he seemed to say.
“This is what I meant then, and this is why I said that, that you, knowing
beforehand of this murder of your own parent, left him to his fate, and
that people mightn’t after that conclude any evil about your feelings and
perhaps of something else, too—that’s what I promised not to tell the
authorities.”
Though Smerdyakov spoke without haste and obviously controlling himself,
yet there was something in his voice, determined and emphatic, resentful
and insolently defiant. He stared impudently at Ivan. A mist passed before
Ivan’s eyes for the first moment.
“How? What? Are you out of your mind?”
“I’m perfectly in possession of all my faculties.”
“Do you suppose I _knew_ of the murder?” Ivan cried at last, and he
brought his fist violently on the table. “What do you mean by ‘something
else, too’? Speak, scoundrel!”
Smerdyakov was silent and still scanned Ivan with the same insolent stare.
“Speak, you stinking rogue, what is that ‘something else, too’?”
“The ‘something else’ I meant was that you probably, too, were very
desirous of your parent’s death.”
Ivan jumped up and struck him with all his might on the shoulder, so that
he fell back against the wall. In an instant his face was bathed in tears.
Saying, “It’s a shame, sir, to strike a sick man,” he dried his eyes with
a very dirty blue check handkerchief and sank into quiet weeping. A minute
passed.
“That’s enough! Leave off,” Ivan said peremptorily, sitting down again.
“Don’t put me out of all patience.”
Smerdyakov took the rag from his eyes. Every line of his puckered face
reflected the insult he had just received.
“So you thought then, you scoundrel, that together with Dmitri I meant to
kill my father?”
“I didn’t know what thoughts were in your mind then,” said Smerdyakov
resentfully; “and so I stopped you then at the gate to sound you on that
very point.”
“To sound what, what?”
“Why, that very circumstance, whether you wanted your father to be
murdered or not.”
What infuriated Ivan more than anything was the aggressive, insolent tone
to which Smerdyakov persistently adhered.
“It was you murdered him?” he cried suddenly.
Smerdyakov smiled contemptuously.
“You know of yourself, for a fact, that it wasn’t I murdered him. And I
should have thought that there was no need for a sensible man to speak of
it again.”
“But why, why had you such a suspicion about me at the time?”
“As you know already, it was simply from fear. For I was in such a
position, shaking with fear, that I suspected every one. I resolved to
sound you, too, for I thought if you wanted the same as your brother, then
the business was as good as settled and I should be crushed like a fly,
too.”
“Look here, you didn’t say that a fortnight ago.”
“I meant the same when I talked to you in the hospital, only I thought
you’d understand without wasting words, and that being such a sensible man
you wouldn’t care to talk of it openly.”
“What next! Come answer, answer, I insist: what was it ... what could I
have done to put such a degrading suspicion into your mean soul?”
“As for the murder, you couldn’t have done that and didn’t want to, but as
for wanting some one else to do it, that was just what you did want.”
“And how coolly, how coolly he speaks! But why should I have wanted it;
what grounds had I for wanting it?”
“What grounds had you? What about the inheritance?” said Smerdyakov
sarcastically, and, as it were, vindictively. “Why, after your parent’s
death there was at least forty thousand to come to each of you, and very
likely more, but if Fyodor Pavlovitch got married then to that lady,
Agrafena Alexandrovna, she would have had all his capital made over to her
directly after the wedding, for she’s plenty of sense, so that your parent
would not have left you two roubles between the three of you. And were
they far from a wedding, either? Not a hair’s‐breadth: that lady had only
to lift her little finger and he would have run after her to church, with
his tongue out.”
Ivan restrained himself with painful effort.
“Very good,” he commented at last. “You see, I haven’t jumped up, I
haven’t knocked you down, I haven’t killed you. Speak on. So, according to
you, I had fixed on Dmitri to do it; I was reckoning on him?”
“How could you help reckoning on him? If he killed him, then he would lose
all the rights of a nobleman, his rank and property, and would go off to
exile; so his share of the inheritance would come to you and your brother
Alexey Fyodorovitch in equal parts; so you’d each have not forty, but
sixty thousand each. There’s not a doubt you did reckon on Dmitri
Fyodorovitch.”
“What I put up with from you! Listen, scoundrel, if I had reckoned on any
one then, it would have been on you, not on Dmitri, and I swear I did
expect some wickedness from you ... at the time.... I remember my
impression!”
“I thought, too, for a minute, at the time, that you were reckoning on me
as well,” said Smerdyakov, with a sarcastic grin. “So that it was just by
that more than anything you showed me what was in your mind. For if you
had a foreboding about me and yet went away, you as good as said to me,
‘You can murder my parent, I won’t hinder you!’ ”
“You scoundrel! So that’s how you understood it!”
“It was all that going to Tchermashnya. Why! You were meaning to go to
Moscow and refused all your father’s entreaties to go to Tchermashnya—and
simply at a foolish word from me you consented at once! What reason had
you to consent to Tchermashnya? Since you went to Tchermashnya with no
reason, simply at my word, it shows that you must have expected something
from me.”
“No, I swear I didn’t!” shouted Ivan, grinding his teeth.
“You didn’t? Then you ought, as your father’s son, to have had me taken to
the lock‐up and thrashed at once for my words then ... or at least, to
have given me a punch in the face on the spot, but you were not a bit
angry, if you please, and at once in a friendly way acted on my foolish
word and went away, which was utterly absurd, for you ought to have stayed
to save your parent’s life. How could I help drawing my conclusions?”
Ivan sat scowling, both his fists convulsively pressed on his knees.
“Yes, I am sorry I didn’t punch you in the face,” he said with a bitter
smile. “I couldn’t have taken you to the lock‐up just then. Who would have
believed me and what charge could I bring against you? But the punch in
the face ... oh, I’m sorry I didn’t think of it. Though blows are
forbidden, I should have pounded your ugly face to a jelly.”
Smerdyakov looked at him almost with relish.
“In the ordinary occasions of life,” he said in the same complacent and
sententious tone in which he had taunted Grigory and argued with him about
religion at Fyodor Pavlovitch’s table, “in the ordinary occasions of life,
blows on the face are forbidden nowadays by law, and people have given
them up, but in exceptional occasions of life people still fly to blows,
not only among us but all over the world, be it even the fullest Republic
of France, just as in the time of Adam and Eve, and they never will leave
off, but you, even in an exceptional case, did not dare.”
“What are you learning French words for?” Ivan nodded towards the
exercise‐book lying on the table.
“Why shouldn’t I learn them so as to improve my education, supposing that
I may myself chance to go some day to those happy parts of Europe?”
“Listen, monster.” Ivan’s eyes flashed and he trembled all over. “I am not
afraid of your accusations; you can say what you like about me, and if I
don’t beat you to death, it’s simply because I suspect you of that crime
and I’ll drag you to justice. I’ll unmask you.”
“To my thinking, you’d better keep quiet, for what can you accuse me of,
considering my absolute innocence? and who would believe you? Only if you
begin, I shall tell everything, too, for I must defend myself.”
“Do you think I am afraid of you now?”
“If the court doesn’t believe all I’ve said to you just now, the public
will, and you will be ashamed.”
“That’s as much as to say, ‘It’s always worth while speaking to a sensible
man,’ eh?” snarled Ivan.
“You hit the mark, indeed. And you’d better be sensible.”
Ivan got up, shaking all over with indignation, put on his coat, and
without replying further to Smerdyakov, without even looking at him,
walked quickly out of the cottage. The cool evening air refreshed him.
There was a bright moon in the sky. A nightmare of ideas and sensations
filled his soul. “Shall I go at once and give information against
Smerdyakov? But what information can I give? He is not guilty, anyway. On
the contrary, he’ll accuse me. And in fact, why did I set off for
Tchermashnya then? What for? What for?” Ivan asked himself. “Yes, of
course, I was expecting something and he is right....” And he remembered
for the hundredth time how, on the last night in his father’s house, he
had listened on the stairs. But he remembered it now with such anguish
that he stood still on the spot as though he had been stabbed. “Yes, I
expected it then, that’s true! I wanted the murder, I did want the murder!
Did I want the murder? Did I want it? I must kill Smerdyakov! If I don’t
dare kill Smerdyakov now, life is not worth living!”
Ivan did not go home, but went straight to Katerina Ivanovna and alarmed
her by his appearance. He was like a madman. He repeated all his
conversation with Smerdyakov, every syllable of it. He couldn’t be calmed,
however much she tried to soothe him: he kept walking about the room,
speaking strangely, disconnectedly. At last he sat down, put his elbows on
the table, leaned his head on his hands and pronounced this strange
sentence: “If it’s not Dmitri, but Smerdyakov who’s the murderer, I share
his guilt, for I put him up to it. Whether I did, I don’t know yet. But if
he is the murderer, and not Dmitri, then, of course, I am the murderer,
too.”
When Katerina Ivanovna heard that, she got up from her seat without a
word, went to her writing‐table, opened a box standing on it, took out a
sheet of paper and laid it before Ivan. This was the document of which
Ivan spoke to Alyosha later on as a “conclusive proof” that Dmitri had
killed his father. It was the letter written by Mitya to Katerina Ivanovna
when he was drunk, on the very evening he met Alyosha at the crossroads on
the way to the monastery, after the scene at Katerina Ivanovna’s, when
Grushenka had insulted her. Then, parting from Alyosha, Mitya had rushed
to Grushenka. I don’t know whether he saw her, but in the evening he was
at the “Metropolis,” where he got thoroughly drunk. Then he asked for pen
and paper and wrote a document of weighty consequences to himself. It was
a wordy, disconnected, frantic letter, a drunken letter in fact. It was
like the talk of a drunken man, who, on his return home, begins with
extraordinary heat telling his wife or one of his household how he has
just been insulted, what a rascal had just insulted him, what a fine
fellow he is on the other hand, and how he will pay that scoundrel out;
and all that at great length, with great excitement and incoherence, with
drunken tears and blows on the table. The letter was written on a dirty
piece of ordinary paper of the cheapest kind. It had been provided by the
tavern and there were figures scrawled on the back of it. There was
evidently not space enough for his drunken verbosity and Mitya not only
filled the margins but had written the last line right across the rest.
The letter ran as follows:
FATAL KATYA: To‐morrow I will get the money and repay your three
thousand and farewell, woman of great wrath, but farewell, too, my
love! Let us make an end! To‐morrow I shall try and get it from
every one, and if I can’t borrow it, I give you my word of honor I
shall go to my father and break his skull and take the money from
under the pillow, if only Ivan has gone. If I have to go to
Siberia for it, I’ll give you back your three thousand. And
farewell. I bow down to the ground before you, for I’ve been a
scoundrel to you. Forgive me! No, better not forgive me, you’ll be
happier and so shall I! Better Siberia than your love, for I love
another woman and you got to know her too well to‐day, so how can
you forgive? I will murder the man who’s robbed me! I’ll leave you
all and go to the East so as to see no one again. Not _her_
either, for you are not my only tormentress; she is too. Farewell!
P.S.—I write my curse, but I adore you! I hear it in my heart. One
string is left, and it vibrates. Better tear my heart in two! I
shall kill myself, but first of all that cur. I shall tear three
thousand from him and fling it to you. Though I’ve been a
scoundrel to you, I am not a thief! You can expect three thousand.
The cur keeps it under his mattress, in pink ribbon. I am not a
thief, but I’ll murder my thief. Katya, don’t look disdainful.
Dmitri is not a thief! but a murderer! He has murdered his father
and ruined himself to hold his ground, rather than endure your
pride. And he doesn’t love you.
P.P.S.—I kiss your feet, farewell! P.P.P.S.—Katya, pray to God
that some one’ll give me the money. Then I shall not be steeped in
gore, and if no one does—I shall! Kill me!
Your slave and enemy,
D. KARAMAZOV.
When Ivan read this “document” he was convinced. So then it was his
brother, not Smerdyakov. And if not Smerdyakov, then not he, Ivan. This
letter at once assumed in his eyes the aspect of a logical proof. There
could be no longer the slightest doubt of Mitya’s guilt. The suspicion
never occurred to Ivan, by the way, that Mitya might have committed the
murder in conjunction with Smerdyakov, and, indeed, such a theory did not
fit in with the facts. Ivan was completely reassured. The next morning he
only thought of Smerdyakov and his gibes with contempt. A few days later
he positively wondered how he could have been so horribly distressed at
his suspicions. He resolved to dismiss him with contempt and forget him.
So passed a month. He made no further inquiry about Smerdyakov, but twice
he happened to hear that he was very ill and out of his mind.
“He’ll end in madness,” the young doctor Varvinsky observed about him, and
Ivan remembered this. During the last week of that month Ivan himself
began to feel very ill. He went to consult the Moscow doctor who had been
sent for by Katerina Ivanovna just before the trial. And just at that time
his relations with Katerina Ivanovna became acutely strained. They were
like two enemies in love with one another. Katerina Ivanovna’s “returns”
to Mitya, that is, her brief but violent revulsions of feeling in his
favor, drove Ivan to perfect frenzy. Strange to say, until that last scene
described above, when Alyosha came from Mitya to Katerina Ivanovna, Ivan
had never once, during that month, heard her express a doubt of Mitya’s
guilt, in spite of those “returns” that were so hateful to him. It is
remarkable, too, that while he felt that he hated Mitya more and more
every day, he realized that it was not on account of Katya’s “returns”
that he hated him, but just _because he was the murderer of his father_.
He was conscious of this and fully recognized it to himself.
Nevertheless, he went to see Mitya ten days before the trial and proposed
to him a plan of escape—a plan he had obviously thought over a long time.
He was partly impelled to do this by a sore place still left in his heart
from a phrase of Smerdyakov’s, that it was to his, Ivan’s, advantage that
his brother should be convicted, as that would increase his inheritance
and Alyosha’s from forty to sixty thousand roubles. He determined to
sacrifice thirty thousand on arranging Mitya’s escape. On his return from
seeing him, he was very mournful and dispirited; he suddenly began to feel
that he was anxious for Mitya’s escape, not only to heal that sore place
by sacrificing thirty thousand, but for another reason. “Is it because I
am as much a murderer at heart?” he asked himself. Something very deep
down seemed burning and rankling in his soul. His pride above all suffered
cruelly all that month. But of that later....
When, after his conversation with Alyosha, Ivan suddenly decided with his
hand on the bell of his lodging to go to Smerdyakov, he obeyed a sudden
and peculiar impulse of indignation. He suddenly remembered how Katerina
Ivanovna had only just cried out to him in Alyosha’s presence: “It was
you, you, persuaded me of his” (that is, Mitya’s) “guilt!” Ivan was
thunderstruck when he recalled it. He had never once tried to persuade her
that Mitya was the murderer; on the contrary, he had suspected himself in
her presence, that time when he came back from Smerdyakov. It was _she_,
she, who had produced that “document” and proved his brother’s guilt. And
now she suddenly exclaimed: “I’ve been at Smerdyakov’s myself!” When had
she been there? Ivan had known nothing of it. So she was not at all so
sure of Mitya’s guilt! And what could Smerdyakov have told her? What,
what, had he said to her? His heart burned with violent anger. He could
not understand how he could, half an hour before, have let those words
pass and not have cried out at the moment. He let go of the bell and
rushed off to Smerdyakov. “I shall kill him, perhaps, this time,” he
thought on the way.
Chapter VIII. The Third And Last Interview With Smerdyakov
When he was half‐way there, the keen dry wind that had been blowing early
that morning rose again, and a fine dry snow began falling thickly. It did
not lie on the ground, but was whirled about by the wind, and soon there
was a regular snowstorm. There were scarcely any lamp‐posts in the part of
the town where Smerdyakov lived. Ivan strode alone in the darkness,
unconscious of the storm, instinctively picking out his way. His head
ached and there was a painful throbbing in his temples. He felt that his
hands were twitching convulsively. Not far from Marya Kondratyevna’s
cottage, Ivan suddenly came upon a solitary drunken little peasant. He was
wearing a coarse and patched coat, and was walking in zigzags, grumbling
and swearing to himself. Then suddenly he would begin singing in a husky
drunken voice:
“Ach, Vanka’s gone to Petersburg;
I won’t wait till he comes back.”
But he broke off every time at the second line and began swearing again;
then he would begin the same song again. Ivan felt an intense hatred for
him before he had thought about him at all. Suddenly he realized his
presence and felt an irresistible impulse to knock him down. At that
moment they met, and the peasant with a violent lurch fell full tilt
against Ivan, who pushed him back furiously. The peasant went flying
backwards and fell like a log on the frozen ground. He uttered one
plaintive “O—oh!” and then was silent. Ivan stepped up to him. He was
lying on his back, without movement or consciousness. “He will be frozen,”
thought Ivan, and he went on his way to Smerdyakov’s.
In the passage, Marya Kondratyevna, who ran out to open the door with a
candle in her hand, whispered that Smerdyakov was very ill, “It’s not that
he’s laid up, but he seems not himself, and he even told us to take the
tea away; he wouldn’t have any.”
“Why, does he make a row?” asked Ivan coarsely.
“Oh, dear, no, quite the contrary, he’s very quiet. Only please don’t talk
to him too long,” Marya Kondratyevna begged him. Ivan opened the door and
stepped into the room.
It was over‐heated as before, but there were changes in the room. One of
the benches at the side had been removed, and in its place had been put a
large old mahogany leather sofa, on which a bed had been made up, with
fairly clean white pillows. Smerdyakov was sitting on the sofa, wearing
the same dressing‐gown. The table had been brought out in front of the
sofa, so that there was hardly room to move. On the table lay a thick book
in yellow cover, but Smerdyakov was not reading it. He seemed to be
sitting doing nothing. He met Ivan with a slow silent gaze, and was
apparently not at all surprised at his coming. There was a great change in
his face; he was much thinner and sallower. His eyes were sunken and there
were blue marks under them.
“Why, you really are ill?” Ivan stopped short. “I won’t keep you long, I
won’t even take off my coat. Where can one sit down?”
He went to the other end of the table, moved up a chair and sat down on
it.
“Why do you look at me without speaking? I’ve only come with one question,
and I swear I won’t go without an answer. Has the young lady, Katerina
Ivanovna, been with you?”
Smerdyakov still remained silent, looking quietly at Ivan as before.
Suddenly, with a motion of his hand, he turned his face away.
“What’s the matter with you?” cried Ivan.
“Nothing.”
“What do you mean by ‘nothing’?”
“Yes, she has. It’s no matter to you. Let me alone.”
“No, I won’t let you alone. Tell me, when was she here?”
“Why, I’d quite forgotten about her,” said Smerdyakov, with a scornful
smile, and turning his face to Ivan again, he stared at him with a look of
frenzied hatred, the same look that he had fixed on him at their last
interview, a month before.
“You seem very ill yourself, your face is sunken; you don’t look like
yourself,” he said to Ivan.
“Never mind my health, tell me what I ask you.”
“But why are your eyes so yellow? The whites are quite yellow. Are you so
worried?” He smiled contemptuously and suddenly laughed outright.
“Listen; I’ve told you I won’t go away without an answer!” Ivan cried,
intensely irritated.
“Why do you keep pestering me? Why do you torment me?” said Smerdyakov,
with a look of suffering.
“Damn it! I’ve nothing to do with you. Just answer my question and I’ll go
away.”
“I’ve no answer to give you,” said Smerdyakov, looking down again.
“You may be sure I’ll make you answer!”
“Why are you so uneasy?” Smerdyakov stared at him, not simply with
contempt, but almost with repulsion. “Is this because the trial begins to‐
morrow? Nothing will happen to you; can’t you believe that at last? Go
home, go to bed and sleep in peace, don’t be afraid of anything.”
“I don’t understand you.... What have I to be afraid of to‐morrow?” Ivan
articulated in astonishment, and suddenly a chill breath of fear did in
fact pass over his soul. Smerdyakov measured him with his eyes.
“You don’t understand?” he drawled reproachfully. “It’s a strange thing a
sensible man should care to play such a farce!”
Ivan looked at him speechless. The startling, incredibly supercilious tone
of this man who had once been his valet, was extraordinary in itself. He
had not taken such a tone even at their last interview.
“I tell you, you’ve nothing to be afraid of. I won’t say anything about
you; there’s no proof against you. I say, how your hands are trembling!
Why are your fingers moving like that? Go home, _you_ did not murder him.”
Ivan started. He remembered Alyosha.
“I know it was not I,” he faltered.
“Do you?” Smerdyakov caught him up again.
Ivan jumped up and seized him by the shoulder.
“Tell me everything, you viper! Tell me everything!”
Smerdyakov was not in the least scared. He only riveted his eyes on Ivan
with insane hatred.
“Well, it was you who murdered him, if that’s it,” he whispered furiously.
Ivan sank back on his chair, as though pondering something. He laughed
malignantly.
“You mean my going away. What you talked about last time?”
“You stood before me last time and understood it all, and you understand
it now.”
“All I understand is that you are mad.”
“Aren’t you tired of it? Here we are face to face; what’s the use of going
on keeping up a farce to each other? Are you still trying to throw it all
on me, to my face? _You_ murdered him; you are the real murderer, I was
only your instrument, your faithful servant, and it was following your
words I did it.”
“_Did_ it? Why, did you murder him?” Ivan turned cold.
Something seemed to give way in his brain, and he shuddered all over with
a cold shiver. Then Smerdyakov himself looked at him wonderingly; probably
the genuineness of Ivan’s horror struck him.
“You don’t mean to say you really did not know?” he faltered
mistrustfully, looking with a forced smile into his eyes. Ivan still gazed
at him, and seemed unable to speak.
Ach, Vanka’s gone to Petersburg;
I won’t wait till he comes back,
suddenly echoed in his head.
“Do you know, I am afraid that you are a dream, a phantom sitting before
me,” he muttered.
“There’s no phantom here, but only us two and one other. No doubt he is
here, that third, between us.”
“Who is he? Who is here? What third person?” Ivan cried in alarm, looking
about him, his eyes hastily searching in every corner.
“That third is God Himself—Providence. He is the third beside us now. Only
don’t look for Him, you won’t find Him.”
“It’s a lie that you killed him!” Ivan cried madly. “You are mad, or
teasing me again!”
Smerdyakov, as before, watched him curiously, with no sign of fear. He
could still scarcely get over his incredulity; he still fancied that Ivan
knew everything and was trying to “throw it all on him to his face.”
“Wait a minute,” he said at last in a weak voice, and suddenly bringing up
his left leg from under the table, he began turning up his trouser leg. He
was wearing long white stockings and slippers. Slowly he took off his
garter and fumbled to the bottom of his stocking. Ivan gazed at him, and
suddenly shuddered in a paroxysm of terror.
“He’s mad!” he cried, and rapidly jumping up, he drew back, so that he
knocked his back against the wall and stood up against it, stiff and
straight. He looked with insane terror at Smerdyakov, who, entirely
unaffected by his terror, continued fumbling in his stocking, as though he
were making an effort to get hold of something with his fingers and pull
it out. At last he got hold of it and began pulling it out. Ivan saw that
it was a piece of paper, or perhaps a roll of papers. Smerdyakov pulled it
out and laid it on the table.
“Here,” he said quietly.
“What is it?” asked Ivan, trembling.
“Kindly look at it,” Smerdyakov answered, still in the same low tone.
Ivan stepped up to the table, took up the roll of paper and began
unfolding it, but suddenly he drew back his fingers, as though from
contact with a loathsome reptile.
“Your hands keep twitching,” observed Smerdyakov, and he deliberately
unfolded the bundle himself. Under the wrapper were three packets of
hundred‐rouble notes.
“They are all here, all the three thousand roubles; you need not count
them. Take them,” Smerdyakov suggested to Ivan, nodding at the notes. Ivan
sank back in his chair. He was as white as a handkerchief.
“You frightened me ... with your stocking,” he said, with a strange grin.
“Can you really not have known till now?” Smerdyakov asked once more.
“No, I did not know. I kept thinking of Dmitri. Brother, brother! Ach!” He
suddenly clutched his head in both hands.
“Listen. Did you kill him alone? With my brother’s help or without?”
“It was only with you, with your help, I killed him, and Dmitri
Fyodorovitch is quite innocent.”
“All right, all right. Talk about me later. Why do I keep on trembling? I
can’t speak properly.”
“You were bold enough then. You said ‘everything was lawful,’ and how
frightened you are now,” Smerdyakov muttered in surprise. “Won’t you have
some lemonade? I’ll ask for some at once. It’s very refreshing. Only I
must hide this first.”
And again he motioned at the notes. He was just going to get up and call
at the door to Marya Kondratyevna to make some lemonade and bring it them,
but, looking for something to cover up the notes that she might not see
them, he first took out his handkerchief, and as it turned out to be very
dirty, took up the big yellow book that Ivan had noticed at first lying on
the table, and put it over the notes. The book was _The Sayings of the
Holy Father Isaac the Syrian_. Ivan read it mechanically.
“I won’t have any lemonade,” he said. “Talk of me later. Sit down and tell
me how you did it. Tell me all about it.”
“You’d better take off your greatcoat, or you’ll be too hot.” Ivan, as
though he’d only just thought of it, took off his coat, and, without
getting up from his chair, threw it on the bench.
“Speak, please, speak.”
He seemed calmer. He waited, feeling sure that Smerdyakov would tell him
_all_ about it.
“How it was done?” sighed Smerdyakov. “It was done in a most natural way,
following your very words.”
“Of my words later,” Ivan broke in again, apparently with complete self‐
possession, firmly uttering his words, and not shouting as before. “Only
tell me in detail how you did it. Everything, as it happened. Don’t forget
anything. The details, above everything, the details, I beg you.”
“You’d gone away, then I fell into the cellar.”
“In a fit or in a sham one?”
“A sham one, naturally. I shammed it all. I went quietly down the steps to
the very bottom and lay down quietly, and as I lay down I gave a scream,
and struggled, till they carried me out.”
“Stay! And were you shamming all along, afterwards, and in the hospital?”
“No, not at all. Next day, in the morning, before they took me to the
hospital, I had a real attack and a more violent one than I’ve had for
years. For two days I was quite unconscious.”
“All right, all right. Go on.”
“They laid me on the bed. I knew I’d be the other side of the partition,
for whenever I was ill, Marfa Ignatyevna used to put me there, near them.
She’s always been very kind to me, from my birth up. At night I moaned,
but quietly. I kept expecting Dmitri Fyodorovitch to come.”
“Expecting him? To come to you?”
“Not to me. I expected him to come into the house, for I’d no doubt that
he’d come that night, for being without me and getting no news, he’d be
sure to come and climb over the fence, as he used to, and do something.”
“And if he hadn’t come?”
“Then nothing would have happened. I should never have brought myself to
it without him.”
“All right, all right ... speak more intelligibly, don’t hurry; above all,
don’t leave anything out!”
“I expected him to kill Fyodor Pavlovitch. I thought that was certain, for
I had prepared him for it ... during the last few days.... He knew about
the knocks, that was the chief thing. With his suspiciousness and the fury
which had been growing in him all those days, he was bound to get into the
house by means of those taps. That was inevitable, so I was expecting
him.”
“Stay,” Ivan interrupted; “if he had killed him, he would have taken the
money and carried it away; you must have considered that. What would you
have got by it afterwards? I don’t see.”
“But he would never have found the money. That was only what I told him,
that the money was under the mattress. But that wasn’t true. It had been
lying in a box. And afterwards I suggested to Fyodor Pavlovitch, as I was
the only person he trusted, to hide the envelope with the notes in the
corner behind the ikons, for no one would have guessed that place,
especially if they came in a hurry. So that’s where the envelope lay, in
the corner behind the ikons. It would have been absurd to keep it under
the mattress; the box, anyway, could be locked. But all believe it was
under the mattress. A stupid thing to believe. So if Dmitri Fyodorovitch
had committed the murder, finding nothing, he would either have run away
in a hurry, afraid of every sound, as always happens with murderers, or he
would have been arrested. So I could always have clambered up to the ikons
and have taken away the money next morning or even that night, and it
would have all been put down to Dmitri Fyodorovitch. I could reckon upon
that.”
“But what if he did not kill him, but only knocked him down?”
“If he did not kill him, of course, I would not have ventured to take the
money, and nothing would have happened. But I calculated that he would
beat him senseless, and I should have time to take it then, and then I’d
make out to Fyodor Pavlovitch that it was no one but Dmitri Fyodorovitch
who had taken the money after beating him.”
“Stop ... I am getting mixed. Then it was Dmitri after all who killed him;
you only took the money?”
“No, he didn’t kill him. Well, I might as well have told you now that he
was the murderer.... But I don’t want to lie to you now, because ...
because if you really haven’t understood till now, as I see for myself,
and are not pretending, so as to throw your guilt on me to my very face,
you are still responsible for it all, since you knew of the murder and
charged me to do it, and went away knowing all about it. And so I want to
prove to your face this evening that you are the only real murderer in the
whole affair, and I am not the real murderer, though I did kill him. You
are the rightful murderer.”
“Why, why, am I a murderer? Oh, God!” Ivan cried, unable to restrain
himself at last, and forgetting that he had put off discussing himself
till the end of the conversation. “You still mean that Tchermashnya? Stay,
tell me, why did you want my consent, if you really took Tchermashnya for
consent? How will you explain that now?”
“Assured of your consent, I should have known that you wouldn’t have made
an outcry over those three thousand being lost, even if I’d been
suspected, instead of Dmitri Fyodorovitch, or as his accomplice; on the
contrary, you would have protected me from others.... And when you got
your inheritance you would have rewarded me when you were able, all the
rest of your life. For you’d have received your inheritance through me,
seeing that if he had married Agrafena Alexandrovna, you wouldn’t have had
a farthing.”
“Ah! Then you intended to worry me all my life afterwards,” snarled Ivan.
“And what if I hadn’t gone away then, but had informed against you?”
“What could you have informed? That I persuaded you to go to Tchermashnya?
That’s all nonsense. Besides, after our conversation you would either have
gone away or have stayed. If you had stayed, nothing would have happened.
I should have known that you didn’t want it done, and should have
attempted nothing. As you went away, it meant you assured me that you
wouldn’t dare to inform against me at the trial, and that you’d overlook
my having the three thousand. And, indeed, you couldn’t have prosecuted me
afterwards, because then I should have told it all in the court; that is,
not that I had stolen the money or killed him—I shouldn’t have said
that—but that you’d put me up to the theft and the murder, though I didn’t
consent to it. That’s why I needed your consent, so that you couldn’t have
cornered me afterwards, for what proof could you have had? I could always
have cornered you, revealing your eagerness for your father’s death, and I
tell you the public would have believed it all, and you would have been
ashamed for the rest of your life.”
“Was I then so eager, was I?” Ivan snarled again.
“To be sure you were, and by your consent you silently sanctioned my doing
it.” Smerdyakov looked resolutely at Ivan. He was very weak and spoke
slowly and wearily, but some hidden inner force urged him on. He evidently
had some design. Ivan felt that.
“Go on,” he said. “Tell me what happened that night.”
“What more is there to tell! I lay there and I thought I heard the master
shout. And before that Grigory Vassilyevitch had suddenly got up and came
out, and he suddenly gave a scream, and then all was silence and darkness.
I lay there waiting, my heart beating; I couldn’t bear it. I got up at
last, went out. I saw the window open on the left into the garden, and I
stepped to the left to listen whether he was sitting there alive, and I
heard the master moving about, sighing, so I knew he was alive. ‘Ech!’ I
thought. I went to the window and shouted to the master, ‘It’s I.’ And he
shouted to me, ‘He’s been, he’s been; he’s run away.’ He meant Dmitri
Fyodorovitch had been. ‘He’s killed Grigory!’ ‘Where?’ I whispered.
‘There, in the corner,’ he pointed. He was whispering, too. ‘Wait a bit,’
I said. I went to the corner of the garden to look, and there I came upon
Grigory Vassilyevitch lying by the wall, covered with blood, senseless. So
it’s true that Dmitri Fyodorovitch has been here, was the thought that
came into my head, and I determined on the spot to make an end of it, as
Grigory Vassilyevitch, even if he were alive, would see nothing of it, as
he lay there senseless. The only risk was that Marfa Ignatyevna might wake
up. I felt that at the moment, but the longing to get it done came over
me, till I could scarcely breathe. I went back to the window to the master
and said, ‘She’s here, she’s come; Agrafena Alexandrovna has come, wants
to be let in.’ And he started like a baby. ‘Where is she?’ he fairly
gasped, but couldn’t believe it. ‘She’s standing there,’ said I. ‘Open.’
He looked out of the window at me, half believing and half distrustful,
but afraid to open. ‘Why, he is afraid of me now,’ I thought. And it was
funny. I bethought me to knock on the window‐frame those taps we’d agreed
upon as a signal that Grushenka had come, in his presence, before his
eyes. He didn’t seem to believe my word, but as soon as he heard the taps,
he ran at once to open the door. He opened it. I would have gone in, but
he stood in the way to prevent me passing. ‘Where is she? Where is she?’
He looked at me, all of a tremble. ‘Well,’ thought I, ‘if he’s so
frightened of me as all that, it’s a bad look out!’ And my legs went weak
with fright that he wouldn’t let me in or would call out, or Marfa
Ignatyevna would run up, or something else might happen. I don’t remember
now, but I must have stood pale, facing him. I whispered to him, ‘Why,
she’s there, there, under the window; how is it you don’t see her?’ I
said. ‘Bring her then, bring her.’ ‘She’s afraid,’ said I; ‘she was
frightened at the noise, she’s hidden in the bushes; go and call to her
yourself from the study.’ He ran to the window, put the candle in the
window. ‘Grushenka,’ he cried, ‘Grushenka, are you here?’ Though he cried
that, he didn’t want to lean out of the window, he didn’t want to move
away from me, for he was panic‐stricken; he was so frightened he didn’t
dare to turn his back on me. ‘Why, here she is,’ said I. I went up to the
window and leaned right out of it. ‘Here she is; she’s in the bush,
laughing at you, don’t you see her?’ He suddenly believed it; he was all
of a shake—he was awfully crazy about her—and he leaned right out of the
window. I snatched up that iron paper‐weight from his table; do you
remember, weighing about three pounds? I swung it and hit him on the top
of the skull with the corner of it. He didn’t even cry out. He only sank
down suddenly, and I hit him again and a third time. And the third time I
knew I’d broken his skull. He suddenly rolled on his back, face upwards,
covered with blood. I looked round. There was no blood on me, not a spot.
I wiped the paper‐weight, put it back, went up to the ikons, took the
money out of the envelope, and flung the envelope on the floor and the
pink ribbon beside it. I went out into the garden all of a tremble,
straight to the apple‐tree with a hollow in it—you know that hollow. I’d
marked it long before and put a rag and a piece of paper ready in it. I
wrapped all the notes in the rag and stuffed it deep down in the hole. And
there it stayed for over a fortnight. I took it out later, when I came out
of the hospital. I went back to my bed, lay down and thought, ‘If Grigory
Vassilyevitch has been killed outright it may be a bad job for me, but if
he is not killed and recovers, it will be first‐rate, for then he’ll bear
witness that Dmitri Fyodorovitch has been here, and so he must have killed
him and taken the money.’ Then I began groaning with suspense and
impatience, so as to wake Marfa Ignatyevna as soon as possible. At last
she got up and she rushed to me, but when she saw Grigory Vassilyevitch
was not there, she ran out, and I heard her scream in the garden. And that
set it all going and set my mind at rest.”
He stopped. Ivan had listened all the time in dead silence without
stirring or taking his eyes off him. As he told his story Smerdyakov
glanced at him from time to time, but for the most part kept his eyes
averted. When he had finished he was evidently agitated and was breathing
hard. The perspiration stood out on his face. But it was impossible to
tell whether it was remorse he was feeling, or what.
“Stay,” cried Ivan, pondering. “What about the door? If he only opened the
door to you, how could Grigory have seen it open before? For Grigory saw
it before you went.”
It was remarkable that Ivan spoke quite amicably, in a different tone, not
angry as before, so if any one had opened the door at that moment and
peeped in at them, he would certainly have concluded that they were
talking peaceably about some ordinary, though interesting, subject.
“As for that door and Grigory Vassilyevitch’s having seen it open, that’s
only his fancy,” said Smerdyakov, with a wry smile. “He is not a man, I
assure you, but an obstinate mule. He didn’t see it, but fancied he had
seen it, and there’s no shaking him. It’s just our luck he took that
notion into his head, for they can’t fail to convict Dmitri Fyodorovitch
after that.”
“Listen ...” said Ivan, beginning to seem bewildered again and making an
effort to grasp something. “Listen. There are a lot of questions I want to
ask you, but I forget them ... I keep forgetting and getting mixed up.
Yes. Tell me this at least, why did you open the envelope and leave it
there on the floor? Why didn’t you simply carry off the envelope?... When
you were telling me, I thought you spoke about it as though it were the
right thing to do ... but why, I can’t understand....”
“I did that for a good reason. For if a man had known all about it, as I
did for instance, if he’d seen those notes before, and perhaps had put
them in that envelope himself, and had seen the envelope sealed up and
addressed, with his own eyes, if such a man had done the murder, what
should have made him tear open the envelope afterwards, especially in such
desperate haste, since he’d know for certain the notes must be in the
envelope? No, if the robber had been some one like me, he’d simply have
put the envelope straight in his pocket and got away with it as fast as he
could. But it’d be quite different with Dmitri Fyodorovitch. He only knew
about the envelope by hearsay; he had never seen it, and if he’d found it,
for instance, under the mattress, he’d have torn it open as quickly as
possible to make sure the notes were in it. And he’d have thrown the
envelope down, without having time to think that it would be evidence
against him. Because he was not an habitual thief and had never directly
stolen anything before, for he is a gentleman born, and if he did bring
himself to steal, it would not be regular stealing, but simply taking what
was his own, for he’d told the whole town he meant to before, and had even
bragged aloud before every one that he’d go and take his property from
Fyodor Pavlovitch. I didn’t say that openly to the prosecutor when I was
being examined, but quite the contrary, I brought him to it by a hint, as
though I didn’t see it myself, and as though he’d thought of it himself
and I hadn’t prompted him; so that Mr. Prosecutor’s mouth positively
watered at my suggestion.”
“But can you possibly have thought of all that on the spot?” cried Ivan,
overcome with astonishment. He looked at Smerdyakov again with alarm.
“Mercy on us! Could any one think of it all in such a desperate hurry? It
was all thought out beforehand.”
“Well ... well, it was the devil helped you!” Ivan cried again. “No, you
are not a fool, you are far cleverer than I thought....”
He got up, obviously intending to walk across the room. He was in terrible
distress. But as the table blocked his way, and there was hardly room to
pass between the table and the wall, he only turned round where he stood
and sat down again. Perhaps the impossibility of moving irritated him, as
he suddenly cried out almost as furiously as before.
“Listen, you miserable, contemptible creature! Don’t you understand that
if I haven’t killed you, it’s simply because I am keeping you to answer
to‐morrow at the trial. God sees,” Ivan raised his hand, “perhaps I, too,
was guilty; perhaps I really had a secret desire for my father’s ...
death, but I swear I was not as guilty as you think, and perhaps I didn’t
urge you on at all. No, no, I didn’t urge you on! But no matter, I will
give evidence against myself to‐morrow at the trial. I’m determined to! I
shall tell everything, everything. But we’ll make our appearance together.
And whatever you may say against me at the trial, whatever evidence you
give, I’ll face it; I am not afraid of you. I’ll confirm it all myself!
But you must confess, too! You must, you must; we’ll go together. That’s
how it shall be!”
Ivan said this solemnly and resolutely and from his flashing eyes alone it
could be seen that it would be so.
“You are ill, I see; you are quite ill. Your eyes are yellow,” Smerdyakov
commented, without the least irony, with apparent sympathy in fact.
“We’ll go together,” Ivan repeated. “And if you won’t go, no matter, I’ll
go alone.”
Smerdyakov paused as though pondering.
“There’ll be nothing of the sort, and you won’t go,” he concluded at last
positively.
“You don’t understand me,” Ivan exclaimed reproachfully.
“You’ll be too much ashamed, if you confess it all. And, what’s more, it
will be no use at all, for I shall say straight out that I never said
anything of the sort to you, and that you are either ill (and it looks
like it, too), or that you’re so sorry for your brother that you are
sacrificing yourself to save him and have invented it all against me, for
you’ve always thought no more of me than if I’d been a fly. And who will
believe you, and what single proof have you got?”
“Listen, you showed me those notes just now to convince me.”
Smerdyakov lifted the book off the notes and laid it on one side.
“Take that money away with you,” Smerdyakov sighed.
“Of course, I shall take it. But why do you give it to me, if you
committed the murder for the sake of it?” Ivan looked at him with great
surprise.
“I don’t want it,” Smerdyakov articulated in a shaking voice, with a
gesture of refusal. “I did have an idea of beginning a new life with that
money in Moscow or, better still, abroad. I did dream of it, chiefly
because ‘all things are lawful.’ That was quite right what you taught me,
for you talked a lot to me about that. For if there’s no everlasting God,
there’s no such thing as virtue, and there’s no need of it. You were right
there. So that’s how I looked at it.”
“Did you come to that of yourself?” asked Ivan, with a wry smile.
“With your guidance.”
“And now, I suppose, you believe in God, since you are giving back the
money?”
“No, I don’t believe,” whispered Smerdyakov.
“Then why are you giving it back?”
“Leave off ... that’s enough!” Smerdyakov waved his hand again. “You used
to say yourself that everything was lawful, so now why are you so upset,
too? You even want to go and give evidence against yourself.... Only
there’ll be nothing of the sort! You won’t go to give evidence,”
Smerdyakov decided with conviction.
“You’ll see,” said Ivan.
“It isn’t possible. You are very clever. You are fond of money, I know
that. You like to be respected, too, for you’re very proud; you are far
too fond of female charms, too, and you mind most of all about living in
undisturbed comfort, without having to depend on any one—that’s what you
care most about. You won’t want to spoil your life for ever by taking such
a disgrace on yourself. You are like Fyodor Pavlovitch, you are more like
him than any of his children; you’ve the same soul as he had.”
“You are not a fool,” said Ivan, seeming struck. The blood rushed to his
face. “You are serious now!” he observed, looking suddenly at Smerdyakov
with a different expression.
“It was your pride made you think I was a fool. Take the money.”
Ivan took the three rolls of notes and put them in his pocket without
wrapping them in anything.
“I shall show them at the court to‐morrow,” he said.
“Nobody will believe you, as you’ve plenty of money of your own; you may
simply have taken it out of your cash‐box and brought it to the court.”
Ivan rose from his seat.
“I repeat,” he said, “the only reason I haven’t killed you is that I need
you for to‐morrow, remember that, don’t forget it!”
“Well, kill me. Kill me now,” Smerdyakov said, all at once looking
strangely at Ivan. “You won’t dare do that even!” he added, with a bitter
smile. “You won’t dare to do anything, you, who used to be so bold!”
“Till to‐morrow,” cried Ivan, and moved to go out.
“Stay a moment.... Show me those notes again.”
Ivan took out the notes and showed them to him. Smerdyakov looked at them
for ten seconds.
“Well, you can go,” he said, with a wave of his hand. “Ivan Fyodorovitch!”
he called after him again.
“What do you want?” Ivan turned without stopping.
“Good‐by!”
“Till to‐morrow!” Ivan cried again, and he walked out of the cottage.
The snowstorm was still raging. He walked the first few steps boldly, but
suddenly began staggering. “It’s something physical,” he thought with a
grin. Something like joy was springing up in his heart. He was conscious
of unbounded resolution; he would make an end of the wavering that had so
tortured him of late. His determination was taken, “and now it will not be
changed,” he thought with relief. At that moment he stumbled against
something and almost fell down. Stopping short, he made out at his feet
the peasant he had knocked down, still lying senseless and motionless. The
snow had almost covered his face. Ivan seized him and lifted him in his
arms. Seeing a light in the little house to the right he went up, knocked
at the shutters, and asked the man to whom the house belonged to help him
carry the peasant to the police‐station, promising him three roubles. The
man got ready and came out. I won’t describe in detail how Ivan succeeded
in his object, bringing the peasant to the police‐station and arranging
for a doctor to see him at once, providing with a liberal hand for the
expenses. I will only say that this business took a whole hour, but Ivan
was well content with it. His mind wandered and worked incessantly.
“If I had not taken my decision so firmly for to‐morrow,” he reflected
with satisfaction, “I should not have stayed a whole hour to look after
the peasant, but should have passed by, without caring about his being
frozen. I am quite capable of watching myself, by the way,” he thought at
the same instant, with still greater satisfaction, “although they have
decided that I am going out of my mind!”
Just as he reached his own house he stopped short, asking himself suddenly
hadn’t he better go at once to the prosecutor and tell him everything. He
decided the question by turning back to the house. “Everything together
to‐morrow!” he whispered to himself, and, strange to say, almost all his
gladness and self‐satisfaction passed in one instant.
As he entered his own room he felt something like a touch of ice on his
heart, like a recollection or, more exactly, a reminder, of something
agonizing and revolting that was in that room now, at that moment, and had
been there before. He sank wearily on his sofa. The old woman brought him
a samovar; he made tea, but did not touch it. He sat on the sofa and felt
giddy. He felt that he was ill and helpless. He was beginning to drop
asleep, but got up uneasily and walked across the room to shake off his
drowsiness. At moments he fancied he was delirious, but it was not illness
that he thought of most. Sitting down again, he began looking round, as
though searching for something. This happened several times. At last his
eyes were fastened intently on one point. Ivan smiled, but an angry flush
suffused his face. He sat a long time in his place, his head propped on
both arms, though he looked sideways at the same point, at the sofa that
stood against the opposite wall. There was evidently something, some
object, that irritated him there, worried him and tormented him.
Chapter IX. The Devil. Ivan’s Nightmare
I am not a doctor, but yet I feel that the moment has come when I must
inevitably give the reader some account of the nature of Ivan’s illness.
Anticipating events I can say at least one thing: he was at that moment on
the very eve of an attack of brain fever. Though his health had long been
affected, it had offered a stubborn resistance to the fever which in the
end gained complete mastery over it. Though I know nothing of medicine, I
venture to hazard the suggestion that he really had perhaps, by a terrible
effort of will, succeeded in delaying the attack for a time, hoping, of
course, to check it completely. He knew that he was unwell, but he loathed
the thought of being ill at that fatal time, at the approaching crisis in
his life, when he needed to have all his wits about him, to say what he
had to say boldly and resolutely and “to justify himself to himself.”
He had, however, consulted the new doctor, who had been brought from
Moscow by a fantastic notion of Katerina Ivanovna’s to which I have
referred already. After listening to him and examining him the doctor came
to the conclusion that he was actually suffering from some disorder of the
brain, and was not at all surprised by an admission which Ivan had
reluctantly made him. “Hallucinations are quite likely in your condition,”
the doctor opined, “though it would be better to verify them ... you must
take steps at once, without a moment’s delay, or things will go badly with
you.” But Ivan did not follow this judicious advice and did not take to
his bed to be nursed. “I am walking about, so I am strong enough, if I
drop, it’ll be different then, any one may nurse me who likes,” he
decided, dismissing the subject.
And so he was sitting almost conscious himself of his delirium and, as I
have said already, looking persistently at some object on the sofa against
the opposite wall. Some one appeared to be sitting there, though goodness
knows how he had come in, for he had not been in the room when Ivan came
into it, on his return from Smerdyakov. This was a person or, more
accurately speaking, a Russian gentleman of a particular kind, no longer
young, _qui faisait la cinquantaine_, as the French say, with rather long,
still thick, dark hair, slightly streaked with gray and a small pointed
beard. He was wearing a brownish reefer jacket, rather shabby, evidently
made by a good tailor though, and of a fashion at least three years old,
that had been discarded by smart and well‐to‐do people for the last two
years. His linen and his long scarf‐like neck‐tie were all such as are
worn by people who aim at being stylish, but on closer inspection his
linen was not over‐clean and his wide scarf was very threadbare. The
visitor’s check trousers were of excellent cut, but were too light in
color and too tight for the present fashion. His soft fluffy white hat was
out of keeping with the season.
In brief there was every appearance of gentility on straitened means. It
looked as though the gentleman belonged to that class of idle landowners
who used to flourish in the times of serfdom. He had unmistakably been, at
some time, in good and fashionable society, had once had good connections,
had possibly preserved them indeed, but, after a gay youth, becoming
gradually impoverished on the abolition of serfdom, he had sunk into the
position of a poor relation of the best class, wandering from one good old
friend to another and received by them for his companionable and
accommodating disposition and as being, after all, a gentleman who could
be asked to sit down with any one, though, of course, not in a place of
honor. Such gentlemen of accommodating temper and dependent position, who
can tell a story, take a hand at cards, and who have a distinct aversion
for any duties that may be forced upon them, are usually solitary
creatures, either bachelors or widowers. Sometimes they have children, but
if so, the children are always being brought up at a distance, at some
aunt’s, to whom these gentlemen never allude in good society, seeming
ashamed of the relationship. They gradually lose sight of their children
altogether, though at intervals they receive a birthday or Christmas
letter from them and sometimes even answer it.
The countenance of the unexpected visitor was not so much good‐natured, as
accommodating and ready to assume any amiable expression as occasion might
arise. He had no watch, but he had a tortoise‐shell lorgnette on a black
ribbon. On the middle finger of his right hand was a massive gold ring
with a cheap opal stone in it.
Ivan was angrily silent and would not begin the conversation. The visitor
waited and sat exactly like a poor relation who had come down from his
room to keep his host company at tea, and was discreetly silent, seeing
that his host was frowning and preoccupied. But he was ready for any
affable conversation as soon as his host should begin it. All at once his
face expressed a sudden solicitude.
“I say,” he began to Ivan, “excuse me, I only mention it to remind you.
You went to Smerdyakov’s to find out about Katerina Ivanovna, but you came
away without finding out anything about her, you probably forgot—”
“Ah, yes,” broke from Ivan and his face grew gloomy with uneasiness. “Yes,
I’d forgotten ... but it doesn’t matter now, never mind, till to‐morrow,”
he muttered to himself, “and you,” he added, addressing his visitor, “I
should have remembered that myself in a minute, for that was just what was
tormenting me! Why do you interfere, as if I should believe that you
prompted me, and that I didn’t remember it of myself?”
“Don’t believe it then,” said the gentleman, smiling amicably, “what’s the
good of believing against your will? Besides, proofs are no help to
believing, especially material proofs. Thomas believed, not because he saw
Christ risen, but because he wanted to believe, before he saw. Look at the
spiritualists, for instance.... I am very fond of them ... only fancy,
they imagine that they are serving the cause of religion, because the
devils show them their horns from the other world. That, they say, is a
material proof, so to speak, of the existence of another world. The other
world and material proofs, what next! And if you come to that, does
proving there’s a devil prove that there’s a God? I want to join an
idealist society, I’ll lead the opposition in it, I’ll say I am a realist,
but not a materialist, he he!”
“Listen,” Ivan suddenly got up from the table. “I seem to be delirious....
I am delirious, in fact, talk any nonsense you like, I don’t care! You
won’t drive me to fury, as you did last time. But I feel somehow
ashamed.... I want to walk about the room.... I sometimes don’t see you
and don’t even hear your voice as I did last time, but I always guess what
you are prating, for it’s I, _I myself speaking, not you_. Only I don’t
know whether I was dreaming last time or whether I really saw you. I’ll
wet a towel and put it on my head and perhaps you’ll vanish into air.”
Ivan went into the corner, took a towel, and did as he said, and with a
wet towel on his head began walking up and down the room.
“I am so glad you treat me so familiarly,” the visitor began.
“Fool,” laughed Ivan, “do you suppose I should stand on ceremony with you?
I am in good spirits now, though I’ve a pain in my forehead ... and in the
top of my head ... only please don’t talk philosophy, as you did last
time. If you can’t take yourself off, talk of something amusing. Talk
gossip, you are a poor relation, you ought to talk gossip. What a
nightmare to have! But I am not afraid of you. I’ll get the better of you.
I won’t be taken to a mad‐house!”
“_C’est charmant_, poor relation. Yes, I am in my natural shape. For what
am I on earth but a poor relation? By the way, I am listening to you and
am rather surprised to find you are actually beginning to take me for
something real, not simply your fancy, as you persisted in declaring last
time—”
“Never for one minute have I taken you for reality,” Ivan cried with a
sort of fury. “You are a lie, you are my illness, you are a phantom. It’s
only that I don’t know how to destroy you and I see I must suffer for a
time. You are my hallucination. You are the incarnation of myself, but
only of one side of me ... of my thoughts and feelings, but only the
nastiest and stupidest of them. From that point of view you might be of
interest to me, if only I had time to waste on you—”
“Excuse me, excuse me, I’ll catch you. When you flew out at Alyosha under
the lamp‐post this evening and shouted to him, ‘You learnt it from _him_!
How do you know that _he_ visits me?’ you were thinking of me then. So for
one brief moment you did believe that I really exist,” the gentleman
laughed blandly.
“Yes, that was a moment of weakness ... but I couldn’t believe in you. I
don’t know whether I was asleep or awake last time. Perhaps I was only
dreaming then and didn’t see you really at all—”
“And why were you so surly with Alyosha just now? He is a dear; I’ve
treated him badly over Father Zossima.”
“Don’t talk of Alyosha! How dare you, you flunkey!” Ivan laughed again.
“You scold me, but you laugh—that’s a good sign. But you are ever so much
more polite than you were last time and I know why: that great resolution
of yours—”
“Don’t speak of my resolution,” cried Ivan, savagely.
“I understand, I understand, _c’est noble, c’est charmant_, you are going
to defend your brother and to sacrifice yourself ... _C’est
chevaleresque_.”
“Hold your tongue, I’ll kick you!”
“I shan’t be altogether sorry, for then my object will be attained. If you
kick me, you must believe in my reality, for people don’t kick ghosts.
Joking apart, it doesn’t matter to me, scold if you like, though it’s
better to be a trifle more polite even to me. ‘Fool, flunkey!’ what
words!”
“Scolding you, I scold myself,” Ivan laughed again, “you are myself,
myself, only with a different face. You just say what I am thinking ...
and are incapable of saying anything new!”
“If I am like you in my way of thinking, it’s all to my credit,” the
gentleman declared, with delicacy and dignity.
“You choose out only my worst thoughts, and what’s more, the stupid ones.
You are stupid and vulgar. You are awfully stupid. No, I can’t put up with
you! What am I to do, what am I to do?” Ivan said through his clenched
teeth.
“My dear friend, above all things I want to behave like a gentleman and to
be recognized as such,” the visitor began in an excess of deprecating and
simple‐hearted pride, typical of a poor relation. “I am poor, but ... I
won’t say very honest, but ... it’s an axiom generally accepted in society
that I am a fallen angel. I certainly can’t conceive how I can ever have
been an angel. If I ever was, it must have been so long ago that there’s
no harm in forgetting it. Now I only prize the reputation of being a
gentlemanly person and live as I can, trying to make myself agreeable. I
love men genuinely, I’ve been greatly calumniated! Here when I stay with
you from time to time, my life gains a kind of reality and that’s what I
like most of all. You see, like you, I suffer from the fantastic and so I
love the realism of earth. Here, with you, everything is circumscribed,
here all is formulated and geometrical, while we have nothing but
indeterminate equations! I wander about here dreaming. I like dreaming.
Besides, on earth I become superstitious. Please don’t laugh, that’s just
what I like, to become superstitious. I adopt all your habits here: I’ve
grown fond of going to the public baths, would you believe it? and I go
and steam myself with merchants and priests. What I dream of is becoming
incarnate once for all and irrevocably in the form of some merchant’s wife
weighing eighteen stone, and of believing all she believes. My ideal is to
go to church and offer a candle in simple‐hearted faith, upon my word it
is. Then there would be an end to my sufferings. I like being doctored
too; in the spring there was an outbreak of smallpox and I went and was
vaccinated in a foundling hospital—if only you knew how I enjoyed myself
that day. I subscribed ten roubles in the cause of the Slavs!... But you
are not listening. Do you know, you are not at all well this evening? I
know you went yesterday to that doctor ... well, what about your health?
What did the doctor say?”
“Fool!” Ivan snapped out.
“But you are clever, anyway. You are scolding again? I didn’t ask out of
sympathy. You needn’t answer. Now rheumatism has come in again—”
“Fool!” repeated Ivan.
“You keep saying the same thing; but I had such an attack of rheumatism
last year that I remember it to this day.”
“The devil have rheumatism!”
“Why not, if I sometimes put on fleshly form? I put on fleshly form and I
take the consequences. Satan _sum et nihil humanum a me alienum puto_.”
“What, what, Satan _sum et nihil humanum_ ... that’s not bad for the
devil!”
“I am glad I’ve pleased you at last.”
“But you didn’t get that from me.” Ivan stopped suddenly, seeming struck.
“That never entered my head, that’s strange.”
“_C’est du nouveau, n’est‐ce pas?_ This time I’ll act honestly and explain
to you. Listen, in dreams and especially in nightmares, from indigestion
or anything, a man sees sometimes such artistic visions, such complex and
real actuality, such events, even a whole world of events, woven into such
a plot, with such unexpected details from the most exalted matters to the
last button on a cuff, as I swear Leo Tolstoy has never invented. Yet such
dreams are sometimes seen not by writers, but by the most ordinary people,
officials, journalists, priests.... The subject is a complete enigma. A
statesman confessed to me, indeed, that all his best ideas came to him
when he was asleep. Well, that’s how it is now, though I am your
hallucination, yet just as in a nightmare, I say original things which had
not entered your head before. So I don’t repeat your ideas, yet I am only
your nightmare, nothing more.”
“You are lying, your aim is to convince me you exist apart and are not my
nightmare, and now you are asserting you are a dream.”
“My dear fellow, I’ve adopted a special method to‐day, I’ll explain it to
you afterwards. Stay, where did I break off? Oh, yes! I caught cold then,
only not here but yonder.”
“Where is yonder? Tell me, will you be here long? Can’t you go away?” Ivan
exclaimed almost in despair. He ceased walking to and fro, sat down on the
sofa, leaned his elbows on the table again and held his head tight in both
hands. He pulled the wet towel off and flung it away in vexation. It was
evidently of no use.
“Your nerves are out of order,” observed the gentleman, with a carelessly
easy, though perfectly polite, air. “You are angry with me even for being
able to catch cold, though it happened in a most natural way. I was
hurrying then to a diplomatic _soirée_ at the house of a lady of high rank
in Petersburg, who was aiming at influence in the Ministry. Well, an
evening suit, white tie, gloves, though I was God knows where and had to
fly through space to reach your earth.... Of course, it took only an
instant, but you know a ray of light from the sun takes full eight
minutes, and fancy in an evening suit and open waistcoat. Spirits don’t
freeze, but when one’s in fleshly form, well ... in brief, I didn’t think,
and set off, and you know in those ethereal spaces, in the water that is
above the firmament, there’s such a frost ... at least one can’t call it
frost, you can fancy, 150 degrees below zero! You know the game the
village girls play—they invite the unwary to lick an ax in thirty degrees
of frost, the tongue instantly freezes to it and the dupe tears the skin
off, so it bleeds. But that’s only in 30 degrees, in 150 degrees I imagine
it would be enough to put your finger on the ax and it would be the end of
it ... if only there could be an ax there.”
“And can there be an ax there?” Ivan interrupted, carelessly and
disdainfully. He was exerting himself to the utmost not to believe in the
delusion and not to sink into complete insanity.
“An ax?” the guest interrupted in surprise.
“Yes, what would become of an ax there?” Ivan cried suddenly, with a sort
of savage and insistent obstinacy.
“What would become of an ax in space? _Quelle idée!_ If it were to fall to
any distance, it would begin, I think, flying round the earth without
knowing why, like a satellite. The astronomers would calculate the rising
and the setting of the ax, _Gatzuk_ would put it in his calendar, that’s
all.”
“You are stupid, awfully stupid,” said Ivan peevishly. “Fib more cleverly
or I won’t listen. You want to get the better of me by realism, to
convince me that you exist, but I don’t want to believe you exist! I won’t
believe it!”
“But I am not fibbing, it’s all the truth; the truth is unhappily hardly
ever amusing. I see you persist in expecting something big of me, and
perhaps something fine. That’s a great pity, for I only give what I can—”
“Don’t talk philosophy, you ass!”
“Philosophy, indeed, when all my right side is numb and I am moaning and
groaning. I’ve tried all the medical faculty: they can diagnose
beautifully, they have the whole of your disease at their finger‐tips, but
they’ve no idea how to cure you. There was an enthusiastic little student
here, ‘You may die,’ said he, ‘but you’ll know perfectly what disease you
are dying of!’ And then what a way they have sending people to
specialists! ‘We only diagnose,’ they say, ‘but go to such‐and‐such a
specialist, he’ll cure you.’ The old doctor who used to cure all sorts of
disease has completely disappeared, I assure you, now there are only
specialists and they all advertise in the newspapers. If anything is wrong
with your nose, they send you to Paris: there, they say, is a European
specialist who cures noses. If you go to Paris, he’ll look at your nose; I
can only cure your right nostril, he’ll tell you, for I don’t cure the
left nostril, that’s not my speciality, but go to Vienna, there there’s a
specialist who will cure your left nostril. What are you to do? I fell
back on popular remedies, a German doctor advised me to rub myself with
honey and salt in the bath‐house. Solely to get an extra bath I went,
smeared myself all over and it did me no good at all. In despair I wrote
to Count Mattei in Milan. He sent me a book and some drops, bless him,
and, only fancy, Hoff’s malt extract cured me! I bought it by accident,
drank a bottle and a half of it, and I was ready to dance, it took it away
completely. I made up my mind to write to the papers to thank him, I was
prompted by a feeling of gratitude, and only fancy, it led to no end of a
bother: not a single paper would take my letter. ‘It would be very
reactionary,’ they said, ‘no one will believe it. _Le diable n’existe
point._ You’d better remain anonymous,’ they advised me. What use is a
letter of thanks if it’s anonymous? I laughed with the men at the
newspaper office; ‘It’s reactionary to believe in God in our days,’ I
said, ‘but I am the devil, so I may be believed in.’ ‘We quite understand
that,’ they said. ‘Who doesn’t believe in the devil? Yet it won’t do, it
might injure our reputation. As a joke, if you like.’ But I thought as a
joke it wouldn’t be very witty. So it wasn’t printed. And do you know, I
have felt sore about it to this day. My best feelings, gratitude, for
instance, are literally denied me simply from my social position.”
“Philosophical reflections again?” Ivan snarled malignantly.
“God preserve me from it, but one can’t help complaining sometimes. I am a
slandered man. You upbraid me every moment with being stupid. One can see
you are young. My dear fellow, intelligence isn’t the only thing! I have
naturally a kind and merry heart. ‘I also write vaudevilles of all sorts.’
You seem to take me for Hlestakov grown old, but my fate is a far more
serious one. Before time was, by some decree which I could never make out,
I was pre‐destined ‘to deny’ and yet I am genuinely good‐hearted and not
at all inclined to negation. ‘No, you must go and deny, without denial
there’s no criticism and what would a journal be without a column of
criticism?’ Without criticism it would be nothing but one ‘hosannah.’ But
nothing but hosannah is not enough for life, the hosannah must be tried in
the crucible of doubt and so on, in the same style. But I don’t meddle in
that, I didn’t create it, I am not answerable for it. Well, they’ve chosen
their scapegoat, they’ve made me write the column of criticism and so life
was made possible. We understand that comedy; I, for instance, simply ask
for annihilation. No, live, I am told, for there’d be nothing without you.
If everything in the universe were sensible, nothing would happen. There
would be no events without you, and there must be events. So against the
grain I serve to produce events and do what’s irrational because I am
commanded to. For all their indisputable intelligence, men take this farce
as something serious, and that is their tragedy. They suffer, of course
... but then they live, they live a real life, not a fantastic one, for
suffering is life. Without suffering what would be the pleasure of it? It
would be transformed into an endless church service; it would be holy, but
tedious. But what about me? I suffer, but still, I don’t live. I am x in
an indeterminate equation. I am a sort of phantom in life who has lost all
beginning and end, and who has even forgotten his own name. You are
laughing— no, you are not laughing, you are angry again. You are for ever
angry, all you care about is intelligence, but I repeat again that I would
give away all this super‐stellar life, all the ranks and honors, simply to
be transformed into the soul of a merchant’s wife weighing eighteen stone
and set candles at God’s shrine.”
“Then even you don’t believe in God?” said Ivan, with a smile of hatred.
“What can I say?—that is, if you are in earnest—”
“Is there a God or not?” Ivan cried with the same savage intensity.
“Ah, then you are in earnest! My dear fellow, upon my word I don’t know.
There! I’ve said it now!”
“You don’t know, but you see God? No, you are not some one apart, you are
myself, you are I and nothing more! You are rubbish, you are my fancy!”
“Well, if you like, I have the same philosophy as you, that would be true.
_Je pense, donc je suis_, I know that for a fact; all the rest, all these
worlds, God and even Satan—all that is not proved, to my mind. Does all
that exist of itself, or is it only an emanation of myself, a logical
development of my ego which alone has existed for ever: but I make haste
to stop, for I believe you will be jumping up to beat me directly.”
“You’d better tell me some anecdote!” said Ivan miserably.
“There is an anecdote precisely on our subject, or rather a legend, not an
anecdote. You reproach me with unbelief, you see, you say, yet you don’t
believe. But, my dear fellow, I am not the only one like that. We are all
in a muddle over there now and all through your science. Once there used
to be atoms, five senses, four elements, and then everything hung together
somehow. There were atoms in the ancient world even, but since we’ve
learned that you’ve discovered the chemical molecule and protoplasm and
the devil knows what, we had to lower our crest. There’s a regular muddle,
and, above all, superstition, scandal; there’s as much scandal among us as
among you, you know; a little more in fact, and spying, indeed, for we
have our secret police department where private information is received.
Well, this wild legend belongs to our middle ages—not yours, but ours—and
no one believes it even among us, except the old ladies of eighteen stone,
not your old ladies I mean, but ours. We’ve everything you have, I am
revealing one of our secrets out of friendship for you; though it’s
forbidden. This legend is about Paradise. There was, they say, here on
earth a thinker and philosopher. He rejected everything, ‘laws,
conscience, faith,’ and, above all, the future life. He died; he expected
to go straight to darkness and death and he found a future life before
him. He was astounded and indignant. ‘This is against my principles!’ he
said. And he was punished for that ... that is, you must excuse me, I am
just repeating what I heard myself, it’s only a legend ... he was
sentenced to walk a quadrillion kilometers in the dark (we’ve adopted the
metric system, you know) and when he has finished that quadrillion, the
gates of heaven would be opened to him and he’ll be forgiven—”
“And what tortures have you in the other world besides the quadrillion
kilometers?” asked Ivan, with a strange eagerness.
“What tortures? Ah, don’t ask. In old days we had all sorts, but now they
have taken chiefly to moral punishments—‘the stings of conscience’ and all
that nonsense. We got that, too, from you, from the softening of your
manners. And who’s the better for it? Only those who have got no
conscience, for how can they be tortured by conscience when they have
none? But decent people who have conscience and a sense of honor suffer
for it. Reforms, when the ground has not been prepared for them,
especially if they are institutions copied from abroad, do nothing but
mischief! The ancient fire was better. Well, this man, who was condemned
to the quadrillion kilometers, stood still, looked round and lay down
across the road. ‘I won’t go, I refuse on principle!’ Take the soul of an
enlightened Russian atheist and mix it with the soul of the prophet Jonah,
who sulked for three days and nights in the belly of the whale, and you
get the character of that thinker who lay across the road.”
“What did he lie on there?”
“Well, I suppose there was something to lie on. You are not laughing?”
“Bravo!” cried Ivan, still with the same strange eagerness. Now he was
listening with an unexpected curiosity. “Well, is he lying there now?”
“That’s the point, that he isn’t. He lay there almost a thousand years and
then he got up and went on.”
“What an ass!” cried Ivan, laughing nervously and still seeming to be
pondering something intently. “Does it make any difference whether he lies
there for ever or walks the quadrillion kilometers? It would take a
billion years to walk it?”
“Much more than that. I haven’t got a pencil and paper or I could work it
out. But he got there long ago, and that’s where the story begins.”
“What, he got there? But how did he get the billion years to do it?”
“Why, you keep thinking of our present earth! But our present earth may
have been repeated a billion times. Why, it’s become extinct, been frozen;
cracked, broken to bits, disintegrated into its elements, again ‘the water
above the firmament,’ then again a comet, again a sun, again from the sun
it becomes earth—and the same sequence may have been repeated endlessly
and exactly the same to every detail, most unseemly and insufferably
tedious—”
“Well, well, what happened when he arrived?”
“Why, the moment the gates of Paradise were open and he walked in, before
he had been there two seconds, by his watch (though to my thinking his
watch must have long dissolved into its elements on the way), he cried out
that those two seconds were worth walking not a quadrillion kilometers but
a quadrillion of quadrillions, raised to the quadrillionth power! In fact,
he sang ‘hosannah’ and overdid it so, that some persons there of lofty
ideas wouldn’t shake hands with him at first—he’d become too rapidly
reactionary, they said. The Russian temperament. I repeat, it’s a legend.
I give it for what it’s worth. So that’s the sort of ideas we have on such
subjects even now.”
“I’ve caught you!” Ivan cried, with an almost childish delight, as though
he had succeeded in remembering something at last. “That anecdote about
the quadrillion years, I made up myself! I was seventeen then, I was at
the high school. I made up that anecdote and told it to a schoolfellow
called Korovkin, it was at Moscow.... The anecdote is so characteristic
that I couldn’t have taken it from anywhere. I thought I’d forgotten it
... but I’ve unconsciously recalled it—I recalled it myself—it was not you
telling it! Thousands of things are unconsciously remembered like that
even when people are being taken to execution ... it’s come back to me in
a dream. You are that dream! You are a dream, not a living creature!”
“From the vehemence with which you deny my existence,” laughed the
gentleman, “I am convinced that you believe in me.”
“Not in the slightest! I haven’t a hundredth part of a grain of faith in
you!”
“But you have the thousandth of a grain. Homeopathic doses perhaps are the
strongest. Confess that you have faith even to the ten‐thousandth of a
grain.”
“Not for one minute,” cried Ivan furiously. “But I should like to believe
in you,” he added strangely.
“Aha! There’s an admission! But I am good‐natured. I’ll come to your
assistance again. Listen, it was I caught you, not you me. I told you your
anecdote you’d forgotten, on purpose, so as to destroy your faith in me
completely.”
“You are lying. The object of your visit is to convince me of your
existence!”
“Just so. But hesitation, suspense, conflict between belief and
disbelief—is sometimes such torture to a conscientious man, such as you
are, that it’s better to hang oneself at once. Knowing that you are
inclined to believe in me, I administered some disbelief by telling you
that anecdote. I lead you to belief and disbelief by turns, and I have my
motive in it. It’s the new method. As soon as you disbelieve in me
completely, you’ll begin assuring me to my face that I am not a dream but
a reality. I know you. Then I shall have attained my object, which is an
honorable one. I shall sow in you only a tiny grain of faith and it will
grow into an oak‐tree—and such an oak‐tree that, sitting on it, you will
long to enter the ranks of ‘the hermits in the wilderness and the saintly
women,’ for that is what you are secretly longing for. You’ll dine on
locusts, you’ll wander into the wilderness to save your soul!”
“Then it’s for the salvation of my soul you are working, is it, you
scoundrel?”
“One must do a good work sometimes. How ill‐humored you are!”
“Fool! did you ever tempt those holy men who ate locusts and prayed
seventeen years in the wilderness till they were overgrown with moss?”
“My dear fellow, I’ve done nothing else. One forgets the whole world and
all the worlds, and sticks to one such saint, because he is a very
precious diamond. One such soul, you know, is sometimes worth a whole
constellation. We have our system of reckoning, you know. The conquest is
priceless! And some of them, on my word, are not inferior to you in
culture, though you won’t believe it. They can contemplate such depths of
belief and disbelief at the same moment that sometimes it really seems
that they are within a hair’s‐breadth of being ‘turned upside down,’ as
the actor Gorbunov says.”
“Well, did you get your nose pulled?”(8)
“My dear fellow,” observed the visitor sententiously, “it’s better to get
off with your nose pulled than without a nose at all. As an afflicted
marquis observed not long ago (he must have been treated by a specialist)
in confession to his spiritual father—a Jesuit. I was present, it was
simply charming. ‘Give me back my nose!’ he said, and he beat his breast.
‘My son,’ said the priest evasively, ‘all things are accomplished in
accordance with the inscrutable decrees of Providence, and what seems a
misfortune sometimes leads to extraordinary, though unapparent, benefits.
If stern destiny has deprived you of your nose, it’s to your advantage
that no one can ever pull you by your nose.’ ‘Holy father, that’s no
comfort,’ cried the despairing marquis. ‘I’d be delighted to have my nose
pulled every day of my life, if it were only in its proper place.’ ‘My
son,’ sighs the priest, ‘you can’t expect every blessing at once. This is
murmuring against Providence, who even in this has not forgotten you, for
if you repine as you repined just now, declaring you’d be glad to have
your nose pulled for the rest of your life, your desire has already been
fulfilled indirectly, for when you lost your nose, you were led by the
nose.’ ”
“Fool, how stupid!” cried Ivan.
“My dear friend, I only wanted to amuse you. But I swear that’s the
genuine Jesuit casuistry and I swear that it all happened word for word as
I’ve told you. It happened lately and gave me a great deal of trouble. The
unhappy young man shot himself that very night when he got home. I was by
his side till the very last moment. Those Jesuit confessionals are really
my most delightful diversion at melancholy moments. Here’s another
incident that happened only the other day. A little blonde Norman girl of
twenty—a buxom, unsophisticated beauty that would make your mouth
water—comes to an old priest. She bends down and whispers her sin into the
grating. ‘Why, my daughter, have you fallen again already?’ cries the
priest. ‘O Sancta Maria, what do I hear! Not the same man this time, how
long is this going on? Aren’t you ashamed!’ ‘_Ah, mon père_,’ answers the
sinner with tears of penitence, ‘_ça lui fait tant de plaisir, et à moi si
peu de peine!_’ Fancy, such an answer! I drew back. It was the cry of
nature, better than innocence itself, if you like. I absolved her sin on
the spot and was turning to go, but I was forced to turn back. I heard the
priest at the grating making an appointment with her for the
evening—though he was an old man hard as flint, he fell in an instant! It
was nature, the truth of nature asserted its rights! What, you are turning
up your nose again? Angry again? I don’t know how to please you—”
“Leave me alone, you are beating on my brain like a haunting nightmare,”
Ivan moaned miserably, helpless before his apparition. “I am bored with
you, agonizingly and insufferably. I would give anything to be able to
shake you off!”
“I repeat, moderate your expectations, don’t demand of me ‘everything
great and noble’ and you’ll see how well we shall get on,” said the
gentleman impressively. “You are really angry with me for not having
appeared to you in a red glow, with thunder and lightning, with scorched
wings, but have shown myself in such a modest form. You are wounded, in
the first place, in your esthetic feelings, and, secondly, in your pride.
How could such a vulgar devil visit such a great man as you! Yes, there is
that romantic strain in you, that was so derided by Byelinsky. I can’t
help it, young man, as I got ready to come to you I did think as a joke of
appearing in the figure of a retired general who had served in the
Caucasus, with a star of the Lion and the Sun on my coat. But I was
positively afraid of doing it, for you’d have thrashed me for daring to
pin the Lion and the Sun on my coat, instead of, at least, the Polar Star
or the Sirius. And you keep on saying I am stupid, but, mercy on us! I
make no claim to be equal to you in intelligence. Mephistopheles declared
to Faust that he desired evil, but did only good. Well, he can say what he
likes, it’s quite the opposite with me. I am perhaps the one man in all
creation who loves the truth and genuinely desires good. I was there when
the Word, Who died on the Cross, rose up into heaven bearing on His bosom
the soul of the penitent thief. I heard the glad shrieks of the cherubim
singing and shouting hosannah and the thunderous rapture of the seraphim
which shook heaven and all creation, and I swear to you by all that’s
sacred, I longed to join the choir and shout hosannah with them all. The
word had almost escaped me, had almost broken from my lips ... you know
how susceptible and esthetically impressionable I am. But common sense—oh,
a most unhappy trait in my character—kept me in due bounds and I let the
moment pass! For what would have happened, I reflected, what would have
happened after my hosannah? Everything on earth would have been
extinguished at once and no events could have occurred. And so, solely
from a sense of duty and my social position, I was forced to suppress the
good moment and to stick to my nasty task. Somebody takes all the credit
of what’s good for Himself, and nothing but nastiness is left for me. But
I don’t envy the honor of a life of idle imposture, I am not ambitious.
Why am I, of all creatures in the world, doomed to be cursed by all decent
people and even to be kicked, for if I put on mortal form I am bound to
take such consequences sometimes? I know, of course, there’s a secret in
it, but they won’t tell me the secret for anything, for then perhaps,
seeing the meaning of it, I might bawl hosannah, and the indispensable
minus would disappear at once, and good sense would reign supreme
throughout the whole world. And that, of course, would mean the end of
everything, even of magazines and newspapers, for who would take them in?
I know that at the end of all things I shall be reconciled. I, too, shall
walk my quadrillion and learn the secret. But till that happens I am
sulking and fulfill my destiny though it’s against the grain—that is, to
ruin thousands for the sake of saving one. How many souls have had to be
ruined and how many honorable reputations destroyed for the sake of that
one righteous man, Job, over whom they made such a fool of me in old days!
Yes, till the secret is revealed, there are two sorts of truths for
me—one, their truth, yonder, which I know nothing about so far, and the
other my own. And there’s no knowing which will turn out the better....
Are you asleep?”
“I might well be,” Ivan groaned angrily. “All my stupid ideas—outgrown,
thrashed out long ago, and flung aside like a dead carcass—you present to
me as something new!”
“There’s no pleasing you! And I thought I should fascinate you by my
literary style. That hosannah in the skies really wasn’t bad, was it? And
then that ironical tone _à la_ Heine, eh?”
“No, I was never such a flunkey! How then could my soul beget a flunkey
like you?”
“My dear fellow, I know a most charming and attractive young Russian
gentleman, a young thinker and a great lover of literature and art, the
author of a promising poem entitled _The Grand Inquisitor_. I was only
thinking of him!”
“I forbid you to speak of _The Grand Inquisitor_,” cried Ivan, crimson
with shame.
“And the _Geological Cataclysm_. Do you remember? That was a poem, now!”
“Hold your tongue, or I’ll kill you!”
“You’ll kill me? No, excuse me, I will speak. I came to treat myself to
that pleasure. Oh, I love the dreams of my ardent young friends, quivering
with eagerness for life! ‘There are new men,’ you decided last spring,
when you were meaning to come here, ‘they propose to destroy everything
and begin with cannibalism. Stupid fellows! they didn’t ask my advice! I
maintain that nothing need be destroyed, that we only need to destroy the
idea of God in man, that’s how we have to set to work. It’s that, that we
must begin with. Oh, blind race of men who have no understanding! As soon
as men have all of them denied God—and I believe that period, analogous
with geological periods, will come to pass—the old conception of the
universe will fall of itself without cannibalism, and, what’s more, the
old morality, and everything will begin anew. Men will unite to take from
life all it can give, but only for joy and happiness in the present world.
Man will be lifted up with a spirit of divine Titanic pride and the man‐
god will appear. From hour to hour extending his conquest of nature
infinitely by his will and his science, man will feel such lofty joy from
hour to hour in doing it that it will make up for all his old dreams of
the joys of heaven. Every one will know that he is mortal and will accept
death proudly and serenely like a god. His pride will teach him that it’s
useless for him to repine at life’s being a moment, and he will love his
brother without need of reward. Love will be sufficient only for a moment
of life, but the very consciousness of its momentariness will intensify
its fire, which now is dissipated in dreams of eternal love beyond the
grave’... and so on and so on in the same style. Charming!”
Ivan sat with his eyes on the floor, and his hands pressed to his ears,
but he began trembling all over. The voice continued.
“The question now is, my young thinker reflected, is it possible that such
a period will ever come? If it does, everything is determined and humanity
is settled for ever. But as, owing to man’s inveterate stupidity, this
cannot come about for at least a thousand years, every one who recognizes
the truth even now may legitimately order his life as he pleases, on the
new principles. In that sense, ‘all things are lawful’ for him. What’s
more, even if this period never comes to pass, since there is anyway no
God and no immortality, the new man may well become the man‐god, even if
he is the only one in the whole world, and promoted to his new position,
he may lightheartedly overstep all the barriers of the old morality of the
old slave‐man, if necessary. There is no law for God. Where God stands,
the place is holy. Where I stand will be at once the foremost place ...
‘all things are lawful’ and that’s the end of it! That’s all very
charming; but if you want to swindle why do you want a moral sanction for
doing it? But that’s our modern Russian all over. He can’t bring himself
to swindle without a moral sanction. He is so in love with truth—”
The visitor talked, obviously carried away by his own eloquence, speaking
louder and louder and looking ironically at his host. But he did not
succeed in finishing; Ivan suddenly snatched a glass from the table and
flung it at the orator.
“_Ah, mais c’est bête enfin_,” cried the latter, jumping up from the sofa
and shaking the drops of tea off himself. “He remembers Luther’s inkstand!
He takes me for a dream and throws glasses at a dream! It’s like a woman!
I suspected you were only pretending to stop up your ears.”
A loud, persistent knocking was suddenly heard at the window. Ivan jumped
up from the sofa.
“Do you hear? You’d better open,” cried the visitor; “it’s your brother
Alyosha with the most interesting and surprising news, I’ll be bound!”
“Be silent, deceiver, I knew it was Alyosha, I felt he was coming, and of
course he has not come for nothing; of course he brings ‘news,’ ” Ivan
exclaimed frantically.
“Open, open to him. There’s a snowstorm and he is your brother. _Monsieur
sait‐il le temps qu’il fait? C’est à ne pas mettre un chien dehors_.”
The knocking continued. Ivan wanted to rush to the window, but something
seemed to fetter his arms and legs. He strained every effort to break his
chains, but in vain. The knocking at the window grew louder and louder. At
last the chains were broken and Ivan leapt up from the sofa. He looked
round him wildly. Both candles had almost burnt out, the glass he had just
thrown at his visitor stood before him on the table, and there was no one
on the sofa opposite. The knocking on the window frame went on
persistently, but it was by no means so loud as it had seemed in his
dream; on the contrary, it was quite subdued.
“It was not a dream! No, I swear it was not a dream, it all happened just
now!” cried Ivan. He rushed to the window and opened the movable pane.
“Alyosha, I told you not to come,” he cried fiercely to his brother. “In
two words, what do you want? In two words, do you hear?”
“An hour ago Smerdyakov hanged himself,” Alyosha answered from the yard.
“Come round to the steps, I’ll open at once,” said Ivan, going to open the
door to Alyosha.
Chapter X. “It Was He Who Said That”
Alyosha coming in told Ivan that a little over an hour ago Marya
Kondratyevna had run to his rooms and informed him Smerdyakov had taken
his own life. “I went in to clear away the samovar and he was hanging on a
nail in the wall.” On Alyosha’s inquiring whether she had informed the
police, she answered that she had told no one, “but I flew straight to
you, I’ve run all the way.” She seemed perfectly crazy, Alyosha reported,
and was shaking like a leaf. When Alyosha ran with her to the cottage, he
found Smerdyakov still hanging. On the table lay a note: “I destroy my
life of my own will and desire, so as to throw no blame on any one.”
Alyosha left the note on the table and went straight to the police captain
and told him all about it. “And from him I’ve come straight to you,” said
Alyosha, in conclusion, looking intently into Ivan’s face. He had not
taken his eyes off him while he told his story, as though struck by
something in his expression.
“Brother,” he cried suddenly, “you must be terribly ill. You look and
don’t seem to understand what I tell you.”
“It’s a good thing you came,” said Ivan, as though brooding, and not
hearing Alyosha’s exclamation. “I knew he had hanged himself.”
“From whom?”
“I don’t know. But I knew. Did I know? Yes, he told me. He told me so just
now.”
Ivan stood in the middle of the room, and still spoke in the same brooding
tone, looking at the ground.
“Who is _he_?” asked Alyosha, involuntarily looking round.
“He’s slipped away.”
Ivan raised his head and smiled softly.
“He was afraid of you, of a dove like you. You are a ‘pure cherub.’ Dmitri
calls you a cherub. Cherub!... the thunderous rapture of the seraphim.
What are seraphim? Perhaps a whole constellation. But perhaps that
constellation is only a chemical molecule. There’s a constellation of the
Lion and the Sun. Don’t you know it?”
“Brother, sit down,” said Alyosha in alarm. “For goodness’ sake, sit down
on the sofa! You are delirious; put your head on the pillow, that’s right.
Would you like a wet towel on your head? Perhaps it will do you good.”
“Give me the towel: it’s here on the chair. I just threw it down there.”
“It’s not here. Don’t worry yourself. I know where it is—here,” said
Alyosha, finding a clean towel, folded up and unused, by Ivan’s dressing‐
table in the other corner of the room. Ivan looked strangely at the towel:
recollection seemed to come back to him for an instant.
“Stay”—he got up from the sofa—“an hour ago I took that new towel from
there and wetted it. I wrapped it round my head and threw it down here ...
How is it it’s dry? There was no other.”
“You put that towel on your head?” asked Alyosha.
“Yes, and walked up and down the room an hour ago ... Why have the candles
burnt down so? What’s the time?”
“Nearly twelve.”
“No, no, no!” Ivan cried suddenly. “It was not a dream. He was here; he
was sitting here, on that sofa. When you knocked at the window, I threw a
glass at him ... this one. Wait a minute. I was asleep last time, but this
dream was not a dream. It has happened before. I have dreams now, Alyosha
... yet they are not dreams, but reality. I walk about, talk and see ...
though I am asleep. But he was sitting here, on that sofa there.... He is
frightfully stupid, Alyosha, frightfully stupid.” Ivan laughed suddenly
and began pacing about the room.
“Who is stupid? Of whom are you talking, brother?” Alyosha asked anxiously
again.
“The devil! He’s taken to visiting me. He’s been here twice, almost three
times. He taunted me with being angry at his being a simple devil and not
Satan, with scorched wings, in thunder and lightning. But he is not Satan:
that’s a lie. He is an impostor. He is simply a devil—a paltry, trivial
devil. He goes to the baths. If you undressed him, you’d be sure to find
he had a tail, long and smooth like a Danish dog’s, a yard long, dun
color.... Alyosha, you are cold. You’ve been in the snow. Would you like
some tea? What? Is it cold? Shall I tell her to bring some? _C’est à ne
pas mettre un chien dehors._...”
Alyosha ran to the washing‐stand, wetted the towel, persuaded Ivan to sit
down again, and put the wet towel round his head. He sat down beside him.
“What were you telling me just now about Lise?” Ivan began again. (He was
becoming very talkative.) “I like Lise. I said something nasty about her.
It was a lie. I like her ... I am afraid for Katya to‐morrow. I am more
afraid of her than of anything. On account of the future. She will cast me
off to‐morrow and trample me under foot. She thinks that I am ruining
Mitya from jealousy on her account! Yes, she thinks that! But it’s not so.
To‐morrow the cross, but not the gallows. No, I shan’t hang myself. Do you
know, I can never commit suicide, Alyosha. Is it because I am base? I am
not a coward. Is it from love of life? How did I know that Smerdyakov had
hanged himself? Yes, it was _he_ told me so.”
“And you are quite convinced that there has been some one here?” asked
Alyosha.
“Yes, on that sofa in the corner. You would have driven him away. You did
drive him away: he disappeared when you arrived. I love your face,
Alyosha. Did you know that I loved your face? And _he_ is myself, Alyosha.
All that’s base in me, all that’s mean and contemptible. Yes, I am a
romantic. He guessed it ... though it’s a libel. He is frightfully stupid;
but it’s to his advantage. He has cunning, animal cunning—he knew how to
infuriate me. He kept taunting me with believing in him, and that was how
he made me listen to him. He fooled me like a boy. He told me a great deal
that was true about myself, though. I should never have owned it to
myself. Do you know, Alyosha,” Ivan added in an intensely earnest and
confidential tone, “I should be awfully glad to think that it was _he_ and
not I.”
“He has worn you out,” said Alyosha, looking compassionately at his
brother.
“He’s been teasing me. And you know he does it so cleverly, so cleverly.
‘Conscience! What is conscience? I make it up for myself. Why am I
tormented by it? From habit. From the universal habit of mankind for the
seven thousand years. So let us give it up, and we shall be gods.’ It was
he said that, it was he said that!”
“And not you, not you?” Alyosha could not help crying, looking frankly at
his brother. “Never mind him, anyway; have done with him and forget him.
And let him take with him all that you curse now, and never come back!”
“Yes, but he is spiteful. He laughed at me. He was impudent, Alyosha,”
Ivan said, with a shudder of offense. “But he was unfair to me, unfair to
me about lots of things. He told lies about me to my face. ‘Oh, you are
going to perform an act of heroic virtue: to confess you murdered your
father, that the valet murdered him at your instigation.’ ”
“Brother,” Alyosha interposed, “restrain yourself. It was not you murdered
him. It’s not true!”
“That’s what he says, he, and he knows it. ‘You are going to perform an
act of heroic virtue, and you don’t believe in virtue; that’s what
tortures you and makes you angry, that’s why you are so vindictive.’ He
said that to me about me and he knows what he says.”
“It’s you say that, not he,” exclaimed Alyosha mournfully, “and you say it
because you are ill and delirious, tormenting yourself.”
“No, he knows what he says. ‘You are going from pride,’ he says. ‘You’ll
stand up and say it was I killed him, and why do you writhe with horror?
You are lying! I despise your opinion, I despise your horror!’ He said
that about me. ‘And do you know you are longing for their praise—“he is a
criminal, a murderer, but what a generous soul; he wanted to save his
brother and he confessed.” ’ That’s a lie, Alyosha!” Ivan cried suddenly,
with flashing eyes. “I don’t want the low rabble to praise me, I swear I
don’t! That’s a lie! That’s why I threw the glass at him and it broke
against his ugly face.”
“Brother, calm yourself, stop!” Alyosha entreated him.
“Yes, he knows how to torment one. He’s cruel,” Ivan went on, unheeding.
“I had an inkling from the first what he came for. ‘Granting that you go
through pride, still you had a hope that Smerdyakov might be convicted and
sent to Siberia, and Mitya would be acquitted, while you would only be
punished with moral condemnation’ (‘Do you hear?’ he laughed then)—‘and
some people will praise you. But now Smerdyakov’s dead, he has hanged
himself, and who’ll believe you alone? But yet you are going, you are
going, you’ll go all the same, you’ve decided to go. What are you going
for now?’ That’s awful, Alyosha. I can’t endure such questions. Who dare
ask me such questions?”
“Brother,” interposed Alyosha—his heart sank with terror, but he still
seemed to hope to bring Ivan to reason—“how could he have told you of
Smerdyakov’s death before I came, when no one knew of it and there was no
time for any one to know of it?”
“He told me,” said Ivan firmly, refusing to admit a doubt. “It was all he
did talk about, if you come to that. ‘And it would be all right if you
believed in virtue,’ he said. ‘No matter if they disbelieve you, you are
going for the sake of principle. But you are a little pig like Fyodor
Pavlovitch, and what do you want with virtue? Why do you want to go
meddling if your sacrifice is of no use to any one? Because you don’t know
yourself why you go! Oh, you’d give a great deal to know yourself why you
go! And can you have made up your mind? You’ve not made up your mind.
You’ll sit all night deliberating whether to go or not. But you will go;
you know you’ll go. You know that whichever way you decide, the decision
does not depend on you. You’ll go because you won’t dare not to go. Why
won’t you dare? You must guess that for yourself. That’s a riddle for
you!’ He got up and went away. You came and he went. He called me a
coward, Alyosha! _Le mot de l’énigme_ is that I am a coward. ‘It is not
for such eagles to soar above the earth.’ It was he added that—he! And
Smerdyakov said the same. He must be killed! Katya despises me. I’ve seen
that for a month past. Even Lise will begin to despise me! ‘You are going
in order to be praised.’ That’s a brutal lie! And you despise me too,
Alyosha. Now I am going to hate you again! And I hate the monster, too! I
hate the monster! I don’t want to save the monster. Let him rot in
Siberia! He’s begun singing a hymn! Oh, to‐morrow I’ll go, stand before
them, and spit in their faces!”
He jumped up in a frenzy, flung off the towel, and fell to pacing up and
down the room again. Alyosha recalled what he had just said. “I seem to be
sleeping awake.... I walk, I speak, I see, but I am asleep.” It seemed to
be just like that now. Alyosha did not leave him. The thought passed
through his mind to run for a doctor, but he was afraid to leave his
brother alone: there was no one to whom he could leave him. By degrees
Ivan lost consciousness completely at last. He still went on talking,
talking incessantly, but quite incoherently, and even articulated his
words with difficulty. Suddenly he staggered violently; but Alyosha was in
time to support him. Ivan let him lead him to his bed. Alyosha undressed
him somehow and put him to bed. He sat watching over him for another two
hours. The sick man slept soundly, without stirring, breathing softly and
evenly. Alyosha took a pillow and lay down on the sofa, without
undressing.
As he fell asleep he prayed for Mitya and Ivan. He began to understand
Ivan’s illness. “The anguish of a proud determination. An earnest
conscience!” God, in Whom he disbelieved, and His truth were gaining
mastery over his heart, which still refused to submit. “Yes,” the thought
floated through Alyosha’s head as it lay on the pillow, “yes, if
Smerdyakov is dead, no one will believe Ivan’s evidence; but he will go
and give it.” Alyosha smiled softly. “God will conquer!” he thought. “He
will either rise up in the light of truth, or ... he’ll perish in hate,
revenging on himself and on every one his having served the cause he does
not believe in,” Alyosha added bitterly, and again he prayed for Ivan.
Book XII. A Judicial Error
Chapter I. The Fatal Day
At ten o’clock in the morning of the day following the events I have
described, the trial of Dmitri Karamazov began in our district court.
I hasten to emphasize the fact that I am far from esteeming myself capable
of reporting all that took place at the trial in full detail, or even in
the actual order of events. I imagine that to mention everything with full
explanation would fill a volume, even a very large one. And so I trust I
may not be reproached, for confining myself to what struck me. I may have
selected as of most interest what was of secondary importance, and may
have omitted the most prominent and essential details. But I see I shall
do better not to apologize. I will do my best and the reader will see for
himself that I have done all I can.
And, to begin with, before entering the court, I will mention what
surprised me most on that day. Indeed, as it appeared later, every one was
surprised at it, too. We all knew that the affair had aroused great
interest, that every one was burning with impatience for the trial to
begin, that it had been a subject of talk, conjecture, exclamation and
surmise for the last two months in local society. Every one knew, too,
that the case had become known throughout Russia, but yet we had not
imagined that it had aroused such burning, such intense, interest in every
one, not only among ourselves, but all over Russia. This became evident at
the trial this day.
Visitors had arrived not only from the chief town of our province, but
from several other Russian towns, as well as from Moscow and Petersburg.
Among them were lawyers, ladies, and even several distinguished
personages. Every ticket of admission had been snatched up. A special
place behind the table at which the three judges sat was set apart for the
most distinguished and important of the men visitors; a row of arm‐chairs
had been placed there—something exceptional, which had never been allowed
before. A large proportion—not less than half of the public—were ladies.
There was such a large number of lawyers from all parts that they did not
know where to seat them, for every ticket had long since been eagerly
sought for and distributed. I saw at the end of the room, behind the
platform, a special partition hurriedly put up, behind which all these
lawyers were admitted, and they thought themselves lucky to have standing
room there, for all chairs had been removed for the sake of space, and the
crowd behind the partition stood throughout the case closely packed,
shoulder to shoulder.
Some of the ladies, especially those who came from a distance, made their
appearance in the gallery very smartly dressed, but the majority of the
ladies were oblivious even of dress. Their faces betrayed hysterical,
intense, almost morbid, curiosity. A peculiar fact—established afterwards
by many observations—was that almost all the ladies, or, at least the vast
majority of them, were on Mitya’s side and in favor of his being
acquitted. This was perhaps chiefly owing to his reputation as a conqueror
of female hearts. It was known that two women rivals were to appear in the
case. One of them—Katerina Ivanovna—was an object of general interest. All
sorts of extraordinary tales were told about her, amazing anecdotes of her
passion for Mitya, in spite of his crime. Her pride and “aristocratic
connections” were particularly insisted upon (she had called upon scarcely
any one in the town). People said she intended to petition the Government
for leave to accompany the criminal to Siberia and to be married to him
somewhere in the mines. The appearance of Grushenka in court was awaited
with no less impatience. The public was looking forward with anxious
curiosity to the meeting of the two rivals—the proud aristocratic girl and
“the hetaira.” But Grushenka was a more familiar figure to the ladies of
the district than Katerina Ivanovna. They had already seen “the woman who
had ruined Fyodor Pavlovitch and his unhappy son,” and all, almost without
exception, wondered how father and son could be so in love with “such a
very common, ordinary Russian girl, who was not even pretty.”
In brief, there was a great deal of talk. I know for a fact that there
were several serious family quarrels on Mitya’s account in our town. Many
ladies quarreled violently with their husbands over differences of opinion
about the dreadful case, and it was only natural that the husbands of
these ladies, far from being favorably disposed to the prisoner, should
enter the court bitterly prejudiced against him. In fact, one may say
pretty certainly that the masculine, as distinguished from the feminine,
part of the audience were biased against the prisoner. There were numbers
of severe, frowning, even vindictive faces. Mitya, indeed, had managed to
offend many people during his stay in the town. Some of the visitors were,
of course, in excellent spirits and quite unconcerned as to the fate of
Mitya personally. But all were interested in the trial, and the majority
of the men were certainly hoping for the conviction of the criminal,
except perhaps the lawyers, who were more interested in the legal than in
the moral aspect of the case.
Everybody was excited at the presence of the celebrated lawyer,
Fetyukovitch. His talent was well known, and this was not the first time
he had defended notorious criminal cases in the provinces. And if he
defended them, such cases became celebrated and long remembered all over
Russia. There were stories, too, about our prosecutor and about the
President of the Court. It was said that Ippolit Kirillovitch was in a
tremor at meeting Fetyukovitch, and that they had been enemies from the
beginning of their careers in Petersburg, that though our sensitive
prosecutor, who always considered that he had been aggrieved by some one
in Petersburg because his talents had not been properly appreciated, was
keenly excited over the Karamazov case, and was even dreaming of
rebuilding his flagging fortunes by means of it, Fetyukovitch, they said,
was his one anxiety. But these rumors were not quite just. Our prosecutor
was not one of those men who lose heart in face of danger. On the
contrary, his self‐confidence increased with the increase of danger. It
must be noted that our prosecutor was in general too hasty and morbidly
impressionable. He would put his whole soul into some case and work at it
as though his whole fate and his whole fortune depended on its result.
This was the subject of some ridicule in the legal world, for just by this
characteristic our prosecutor had gained a wider notoriety than could have
been expected from his modest position. People laughed particularly at his
passion for psychology. In my opinion, they were wrong, and our prosecutor
was, I believe, a character of greater depth than was generally supposed.
But with his delicate health he had failed to make his mark at the outset
of his career and had never made up for it later.
As for the President of our Court, I can only say that he was a humane and
cultured man, who had a practical knowledge of his work and progressive
views. He was rather ambitious, but did not concern himself greatly about
his future career. The great aim of his life was to be a man of advanced
ideas. He was, too, a man of connections and property. He felt, as we
learnt afterwards, rather strongly about the Karamazov case, but from a
social, not from a personal standpoint. He was interested in it as a
social phenomenon, in its classification and its character as a product of
our social conditions, as typical of the national character, and so on,
and so on. His attitude to the personal aspect of the case, to its tragic
significance and the persons involved in it, including the prisoner, was
rather indifferent and abstract, as was perhaps fitting, indeed.
The court was packed and overflowing long before the judges made their
appearance. Our court is the best hall in the town—spacious, lofty, and
good for sound. On the right of the judges, who were on a raised platform,
a table and two rows of chairs had been put ready for the jury. On the
left was the place for the prisoner and the counsel for the defense. In
the middle of the court, near the judges, was a table with the “material
proofs.” On it lay Fyodor Pavlovitch’s white silk dressing‐gown, stained
with blood; the fatal brass pestle with which the supposed murder had been
committed; Mitya’s shirt, with a blood‐stained sleeve; his coat, stained
with blood in patches over the pocket in which he had put his
handkerchief; the handkerchief itself, stiff with blood and by now quite
yellow; the pistol loaded by Mitya at Perhotin’s with a view to suicide,
and taken from him on the sly at Mokroe by Trifon Borissovitch; the
envelope in which the three thousand roubles had been put ready for
Grushenka, the narrow pink ribbon with which it had been tied, and many
other articles I don’t remember. In the body of the hall, at some
distance, came the seats for the public. But in front of the balustrade a
few chairs had been placed for witnesses who remained in the court after
giving their evidence.
At ten o’clock the three judges arrived—the President, one honorary
justice of the peace, and one other. The prosecutor, of course, entered
immediately after. The President was a short, stout, thick‐set man of
fifty, with a dyspeptic complexion, dark hair turning gray and cut short,
and a red ribbon, of what Order I don’t remember. The prosecutor struck me
and the others, too, as looking particularly pale, almost green. His face
seemed to have grown suddenly thinner, perhaps in a single night, for I
had seen him looking as usual only two days before. The President began
with asking the court whether all the jury were present.
But I see I can’t go on like this, partly because some things I did not
hear, others I did not notice, and others I have forgotten, but most of
all because, as I have said before, I have literally no time or space to
mention everything that was said and done. I only know that neither side
objected to very many of the jurymen. I remember the twelve jurymen—four
were petty officials of the town, two were merchants, and six peasants and
artisans of the town. I remember, long before the trial, questions were
continually asked with some surprise, especially by ladies: “Can such a
delicate, complex and psychological case be submitted for decision to
petty officials and even peasants?” and “What can an official, still more
a peasant, understand in such an affair?” All the four officials in the
jury were, in fact, men of no consequence and of low rank. Except one who
was rather younger, they were gray‐headed men, little known in society,
who had vegetated on a pitiful salary, and who probably had elderly,
unpresentable wives and crowds of children, perhaps even without shoes and
stockings. At most, they spent their leisure over cards and, of course,
had never read a single book. The two merchants looked respectable, but
were strangely silent and stolid. One of them was close‐shaven, and was
dressed in European style; the other had a small, gray beard, and wore a
red ribbon with some sort of a medal upon it on his neck. There is no need
to speak of the artisans and the peasants. The artisans of
Skotoprigonyevsk are almost peasants, and even work on the land. Two of
them also wore European dress, and, perhaps for that reason, were dirtier
and more uninviting‐looking than the others. So that one might well
wonder, as I did as soon as I had looked at them, “what men like that
could possibly make of such a case?” Yet their faces made a strangely
imposing, almost menacing, impression; they were stern and frowning.
At last the President opened the case of the murder of Fyodor Pavlovitch
Karamazov. I don’t quite remember how he described him. The court usher
was told to bring in the prisoner, and Mitya made his appearance. There
was a hush through the court. One could have heard a fly. I don’t know how
it was with others, but Mitya made a most unfavorable impression on me. He
looked an awful dandy in a brand‐new frock‐coat. I heard afterwards that
he had ordered it in Moscow expressly for the occasion from his own
tailor, who had his measure. He wore immaculate black kid gloves and
exquisite linen. He walked in with his yard‐long strides, looking stiffly
straight in front of him, and sat down in his place with a most
unperturbed air.
At the same moment the counsel for defense, the celebrated Fetyukovitch,
entered, and a sort of subdued hum passed through the court. He was a
tall, spare man, with long thin legs, with extremely long, thin, pale
fingers, clean‐shaven face, demurely brushed, rather short hair, and thin
lips that were at times curved into something between a sneer and a smile.
He looked about forty. His face would have been pleasant, if it had not
been for his eyes, which, in themselves small and inexpressive, were set
remarkably close together, with only the thin, long nose as a dividing
line between them. In fact, there was something strikingly birdlike about
his face. He was in evening dress and white tie.
I remember the President’s first questions to Mitya, about his name, his
calling, and so on. Mitya answered sharply, and his voice was so
unexpectedly loud that it made the President start and look at the
prisoner with surprise. Then followed a list of persons who were to take
part in the proceedings—that is, of the witnesses and experts. It was a
long list. Four of the witnesses were not present—Miüsov, who had given
evidence at the preliminary inquiry, but was now in Paris; Madame Hohlakov
and Maximov, who were absent through illness; and Smerdyakov, through his
sudden death, of which an official statement from the police was
presented. The news of Smerdyakov’s death produced a sudden stir and
whisper in the court. Many of the audience, of course, had not heard of
the sudden suicide. What struck people most was Mitya’s sudden outburst. As
soon as the statement of Smerdyakov’s death was made, he cried out aloud
from his place:
“He was a dog and died like a dog!”
I remember how his counsel rushed to him, and how the President addressed
him, threatening to take stern measures, if such an irregularity were
repeated. Mitya nodded and in a subdued voice repeated several times
abruptly to his counsel, with no show of regret:
“I won’t again, I won’t. It escaped me. I won’t do it again.”
And, of course, this brief episode did him no good with the jury or the
public. His character was displayed, and it spoke for itself. It was under
the influence of this incident that the opening statement was read. It was
rather short, but circumstantial. It only stated the chief reasons why he
had been arrested, why he must be tried, and so on. Yet it made a great
impression on me. The clerk read it loudly and distinctly. The whole
tragedy was suddenly unfolded before us, concentrated, in bold relief, in
a fatal and pitiless light. I remember how, immediately after it had been
read, the President asked Mitya in a loud impressive voice:
“Prisoner, do you plead guilty?”
Mitya suddenly rose from his seat.
“I plead guilty to drunkenness and dissipation,” he exclaimed, again in a
startling, almost frenzied, voice, “to idleness and debauchery. I meant to
become an honest man for good, just at the moment when I was struck down
by fate. But I am not guilty of the death of that old man, my enemy and my
father. No, no, I am not guilty of robbing him! I could not be. Dmitri
Karamazov is a scoundrel, but not a thief.”
He sat down again, visibly trembling all over. The President again
briefly, but impressively, admonished him to answer only what was asked,
and not to go off into irrelevant exclamations. Then he ordered the case
to proceed. All the witnesses were led up to take the oath. Then I saw
them all together. The brothers of the prisoner were, however, allowed to
give evidence without taking the oath. After an exhortation from the
priest and the President, the witnesses were led away and were made to sit
as far as possible apart from one another. Then they began calling them up
one by one.
Chapter II. Dangerous Witnesses
I do not know whether the witnesses for the defense and for the
prosecution were separated into groups by the President, and whether it
was arranged to call them in a certain order. But no doubt it was so. I
only know that the witnesses for the prosecution were called first. I
repeat I don’t intend to describe all the questions step by step. Besides,
my account would be to some extent superfluous, because in the speeches
for the prosecution and for the defense the whole course of the evidence
was brought together and set in a strong and significant light, and I took
down parts of those two remarkable speeches in full, and will quote them
in due course, together with one extraordinary and quite unexpected
episode, which occurred before the final speeches, and undoubtedly
influenced the sinister and fatal outcome of the trial.
I will only observe that from the first moments of the trial one peculiar
characteristic of the case was conspicuous and observed by all, that is,
the overwhelming strength of the prosecution as compared with the
arguments the defense had to rely upon. Every one realized it from the
first moment that the facts began to group themselves round a single
point, and the whole horrible and bloody crime was gradually revealed.
Every one, perhaps, felt from the first that the case was beyond dispute,
that there was no doubt about it, that there could be really no
discussion, and that the defense was only a matter of form, and that the
prisoner was guilty, obviously and conclusively guilty. I imagine that
even the ladies, who were so impatiently longing for the acquittal of the
interesting prisoner, were at the same time, without exception, convinced
of his guilt. What’s more, I believe they would have been mortified if his
guilt had not been so firmly established, as that would have lessened the
effect of the closing scene of the criminal’s acquittal. That he would be
acquitted, all the ladies, strange to say, were firmly persuaded up to the
very last moment. “He is guilty, but he will be acquitted, from motives of
humanity, in accordance with the new ideas, the new sentiments that had
come into fashion,” and so on, and so on. And that was why they had
crowded into the court so impatiently. The men were more interested in the
contest between the prosecutor and the famous Fetyukovitch. All were
wondering and asking themselves what could even a talent like
Fetyukovitch’s make of such a desperate case; and so they followed his
achievements, step by step, with concentrated attention.
But Fetyukovitch remained an enigma to all up to the very end, up to his
speech. Persons of experience suspected that he had some design, that he
was working towards some object, but it was almost impossible to guess
what it was. His confidence and self‐reliance were unmistakable, however.
Every one noticed with pleasure, moreover, that he, after so short a stay,
not more than three days, perhaps, among us, had so wonderfully succeeded
in mastering the case and “had studied it to a nicety.” People described
with relish, afterwards, how cleverly he had “taken down” all the
witnesses for the prosecution, and as far as possible perplexed them and,
what’s more, had aspersed their reputation and so depreciated the value of
their evidence. But it was supposed that he did this rather by way of
sport, so to speak, for professional glory, to show nothing had been
omitted of the accepted methods, for all were convinced that he could do
no real good by such disparagement of the witnesses, and probably was more
aware of this than any one, having some idea of his own in the background,
some concealed weapon of defense, which he would suddenly reveal when the
time came. But meanwhile, conscious of his strength, he seemed to be
diverting himself.
So, for instance, when Grigory, Fyodor Pavlovitch’s old servant, who had
given the most damning piece of evidence about the open door, was
examined, the counsel for the defense positively fastened upon him when
his turn came to question him. It must be noted that Grigory entered the
hall with a composed and almost stately air, not the least disconcerted by
the majesty of the court or the vast audience listening to him. He gave
evidence with as much confidence as though he had been talking with his
Marfa, only perhaps more respectfully. It was impossible to make him
contradict himself. The prosecutor questioned him first in detail about
the family life of the Karamazovs. The family picture stood out in lurid
colors. It was plain to ear and eye that the witness was guileless and
impartial. In spite of his profound reverence for the memory of his
deceased master, he yet bore witness that he had been unjust to Mitya and
“hadn’t brought up his children as he should. He’d have been devoured by
lice when he was little, if it hadn’t been for me,” he added, describing
Mitya’s early childhood. “It wasn’t fair either of the father to wrong his
son over his mother’s property, which was by right his.”
In reply to the prosecutor’s question what grounds he had for asserting
that Fyodor Pavlovitch had wronged his son in their money relations,
Grigory, to the surprise of every one, had no proof at all to bring
forward, but he still persisted that the arrangement with the son was
“unfair,” and that he ought “to have paid him several thousand roubles
more.” I must note, by the way, that the prosecutor asked this question
whether Fyodor Pavlovitch had really kept back part of Mitya’s inheritance
with marked persistence of all the witnesses who could be asked it, not
excepting Alyosha and Ivan, but he obtained no exact information from any
one; all alleged that it was so, but were unable to bring forward any
distinct proof. Grigory’s description of the scene at the dinner‐table,
when Dmitri had burst in and beaten his father, threatening to come back
to kill him, made a sinister impression on the court, especially as the
old servant’s composure in telling it, his parsimony of words and peculiar
phraseology, were as effective as eloquence. He observed that he was not
angry with Mitya for having knocked him down and struck him on the face;
he had forgiven him long ago, he said. Of the deceased Smerdyakov he
observed, crossing himself, that he was a lad of ability, but stupid and
afflicted, and, worse still, an infidel, and that it was Fyodor Pavlovitch
and his elder son who had taught him to be so. But he defended
Smerdyakov’s honesty almost with warmth, and related how Smerdyakov had
once found the master’s money in the yard, and, instead of concealing it,
had taken it to his master, who had rewarded him with a “gold piece” for
it, and trusted him implicitly from that time forward. He maintained
obstinately that the door into the garden had been open. But he was asked
so many questions that I can’t recall them all.
At last the counsel for the defense began to cross‐examine him, and the
first question he asked was about the envelope in which Fyodor Pavlovitch
was supposed to have put three thousand roubles for “a certain person.”
“Have you ever seen it, you, who were for so many years in close
attendance on your master?” Grigory answered that he had not seen it and
had never heard of the money from any one “till everybody was talking
about it.” This question about the envelope Fetyukovitch put to every one
who could conceivably have known of it, as persistently as the prosecutor
asked his question about Dmitri’s inheritance, and got the same answer
from all, that no one had seen the envelope, though many had heard of it.
From the beginning every one noticed Fetyukovitch’s persistence on this
subject.
“Now, with your permission I’ll ask you a question,” Fetyukovitch said,
suddenly and unexpectedly. “Of what was that balsam, or, rather,
decoction, made, which, as we learn from the preliminary inquiry, you used
on that evening to rub your lumbago, in the hope of curing it?”
Grigory looked blankly at the questioner, and after a brief silence
muttered, “There was saffron in it.”
“Nothing but saffron? Don’t you remember any other ingredient?”
“There was milfoil in it, too.”
“And pepper perhaps?” Fetyukovitch queried.
“Yes, there was pepper, too.”
“Etcetera. And all dissolved in vodka?”
“In spirit.”
There was a faint sound of laughter in the court.
“You see, in spirit. After rubbing your back, I believe, you drank what
was left in the bottle with a certain pious prayer, only known to your
wife?”
“I did.”
“Did you drink much? Roughly speaking, a wine‐glass or two?”
“It might have been a tumbler‐full.”
“A tumbler‐full, even. Perhaps a tumbler and a half?”
Grigory did not answer. He seemed to see what was meant.
“A glass and a half of neat spirit—is not at all bad, don’t you think? You
might see the gates of heaven open, not only the door into the garden?”
Grigory remained silent. There was another laugh in the court. The
President made a movement.
“Do you know for a fact,” Fetyukovitch persisted, “whether you were awake
or not when you saw the open door?”
“I was on my legs.”
“That’s not a proof that you were awake.” (There was again laughter in the
court.) “Could you have answered at that moment, if any one had asked you
a question—for instance, what year it is?”
“I don’t know.”
“And what year is it, Anno Domini, do you know?”
Grigory stood with a perplexed face, looking straight at his tormentor.
Strange to say, it appeared he really did not know what year it was.
“But perhaps you can tell me how many fingers you have on your hands?”
“I am a servant,” Grigory said suddenly, in a loud and distinct voice. “If
my betters think fit to make game of me, it is my duty to suffer it.”
Fetyukovitch was a little taken aback, and the President intervened,
reminding him that he must ask more relevant questions. Fetyukovitch bowed
with dignity and said that he had no more questions to ask of the witness.
The public and the jury, of course, were left with a grain of doubt in
their minds as to the evidence of a man who might, while undergoing a
certain cure, have seen “the gates of heaven,” and who did not even know
what year he was living in. But before Grigory left the box another
episode occurred. The President, turning to the prisoner, asked him
whether he had any comment to make on the evidence of the last witness.
“Except about the door, all he has said is true,” cried Mitya, in a loud
voice. “For combing the lice off me, I thank him; for forgiving my blows,
I thank him. The old man has been honest all his life and as faithful to
my father as seven hundred poodles.”
“Prisoner, be careful in your language,” the President admonished him.
“I am not a poodle,” Grigory muttered.
“All right, it’s I am a poodle myself,” cried Mitya. “If it’s an insult, I
take it to myself and I beg his pardon. I was a beast and cruel to him. I
was cruel to Æsop too.”
“What Æsop?” the President asked sternly again.
“Oh, Pierrot ... my father, Fyodor Pavlovitch.”
The President again and again warned Mitya impressively and very sternly
to be more careful in his language.
“You are injuring yourself in the opinion of your judges.”
The counsel for the defense was equally clever in dealing with the
evidence of Rakitin. I may remark that Rakitin was one of the leading
witnesses and one to whom the prosecutor attached great significance. It
appeared that he knew everything; his knowledge was amazing, he had been
everywhere, seen everything, talked to everybody, knew every detail of the
biography of Fyodor Pavlovitch and all the Karamazovs. Of the envelope, it
is true, he had only heard from Mitya himself. But he described minutely
Mitya’s exploits in the “Metropolis,” all his compromising doings and
sayings, and told the story of Captain Snegiryov’s “wisp of tow.” But even
Rakitin could say nothing positive about Mitya’s inheritance, and confined
himself to contemptuous generalities.
“Who could tell which of them was to blame, and which was in debt to the
other, with their crazy Karamazov way of muddling things so that no one
could make head or tail of it?” He attributed the tragic crime to the
habits that had become ingrained by ages of serfdom and the distressed
condition of Russia, due to the lack of appropriate institutions. He was,
in fact, allowed some latitude of speech. This was the first occasion on
which Rakitin showed what he could do, and attracted notice. The
prosecutor knew that the witness was preparing a magazine article on the
case, and afterwards in his speech, as we shall see later, quoted some
ideas from the article, showing that he had seen it already. The picture
drawn by the witness was a gloomy and sinister one, and greatly
strengthened the case for the prosecution. Altogether, Rakitin’s discourse
fascinated the public by its independence and the extraordinary nobility
of its ideas. There were even two or three outbreaks of applause when he
spoke of serfdom and the distressed condition of Russia.
But Rakitin, in his youthful ardor, made a slight blunder, of which the
counsel for the defense at once adroitly took advantage. Answering certain
questions about Grushenka, and carried away by the loftiness of his own
sentiments and his success, of which he was, of course, conscious, he went
so far as to speak somewhat contemptuously of Agrafena Alexandrovna as
“the kept mistress of Samsonov.” He would have given a good deal to take
back his words afterwards, for Fetyukovitch caught him out over it at
once. And it was all because Rakitin had not reckoned on the lawyer having
been able to become so intimately acquainted with every detail in so short
a time.
“Allow me to ask,” began the counsel for the defense, with the most
affable and even respectful smile, “you are, of course, the same Mr.
Rakitin whose pamphlet, _The Life of the Deceased Elder, Father Zossima_,
published by the diocesan authorities, full of profound and religious
reflections and preceded by an excellent and devout dedication to the
bishop, I have just read with such pleasure?”
“I did not write it for publication ... it was published afterwards,”
muttered Rakitin, for some reason fearfully disconcerted and almost
ashamed.
“Oh, that’s excellent! A thinker like you can, and indeed ought to, take
the widest view of every social question. Your most instructive pamphlet
has been widely circulated through the patronage of the bishop, and has
been of appreciable service.... But this is the chief thing I should like
to learn from you. You stated just now that you were very intimately
acquainted with Madame Svyetlov.” (It must be noted that Grushenka’s
surname was Svyetlov. I heard it for the first time that day, during the
case.)
“I cannot answer for all my acquaintances.... I am a young man ... and who
can be responsible for every one he meets?” cried Rakitin, flushing all
over.
“I understand, I quite understand,” cried Fetyukovitch, as though he, too,
were embarrassed and in haste to excuse himself. “You, like any other,
might well be interested in an acquaintance with a young and beautiful
woman who would readily entertain the _élite_ of the youth of the
neighborhood, but ... I only wanted to know ... It has come to my
knowledge that Madame Svyetlov was particularly anxious a couple of months
ago to make the acquaintance of the younger Karamazov, Alexey
Fyodorovitch, and promised you twenty‐five roubles, if you would bring him
to her in his monastic dress. And that actually took place on the evening
of the day on which the terrible crime, which is the subject of the
present investigation, was committed. You brought Alexey Karamazov to
Madame Svyetlov, and did you receive the twenty‐five roubles from Madame
Svyetlov as a reward, that’s what I wanted to hear from you?”
“It was a joke.... I don’t see of what interest that can be to you.... I
took it for a joke ... meaning to give it back later....”
“Then you did take— But you have not given it back yet ... or have you?”
“That’s of no consequence,” muttered Rakitin, “I refuse to answer such
questions.... Of course I shall give it back.”
The President intervened, but Fetyukovitch declared he had no more
questions to ask of the witness. Mr. Rakitin left the witness‐box not
absolutely without a stain upon his character. The effect left by the
lofty idealism of his speech was somewhat marred, and Fetyukovitch’s
expression, as he watched him walk away, seemed to suggest to the public
“this is a specimen of the lofty‐minded persons who accuse him.” I
remember that this incident, too, did not pass off without an outbreak
from Mitya. Enraged by the tone in which Rakitin had referred to
Grushenka, he suddenly shouted “Bernard!” When, after Rakitin’s cross‐
examination, the President asked the prisoner if he had anything to say,
Mitya cried loudly:
“Since I’ve been arrested, he has borrowed money from me! He is a
contemptible Bernard and opportunist, and he doesn’t believe in God; he
took the bishop in!”
Mitya, of course, was pulled up again for the intemperance of his
language, but Rakitin was done for. Captain Snegiryov’s evidence was a
failure, too, but from quite a different reason. He appeared in ragged and
dirty clothes, muddy boots, and in spite of the vigilance and expert
observation of the police officers, he turned out to be hopelessly drunk.
On being asked about Mitya’s attack upon him, he refused to answer.
“God bless him. Ilusha told me not to. God will make it up to me yonder.”
“Who told you not to tell? Of whom are you talking?”
“Ilusha, my little son. ‘Father, father, how he insulted you!’ He said
that at the stone. Now he is dying....”
The captain suddenly began sobbing, and plumped down on his knees before
the President. He was hurriedly led away amidst the laughter of the
public. The effect prepared by the prosecutor did not come off at all.
Fetyukovitch went on making the most of every opportunity, and amazed
people more and more by his minute knowledge of the case. Thus, for
example, Trifon Borissovitch made a great impression, of course, very
prejudicial to Mitya. He calculated almost on his fingers that on his
first visit to Mokroe, Mitya must have spent three thousand roubles, “or
very little less. Just think what he squandered on those gypsy girls
alone! And as for our lousy peasants, it wasn’t a case of flinging half a
rouble in the street, he made them presents of twenty‐five roubles each,
at least, he didn’t give them less. And what a lot of money was simply
stolen from him! And if any one did steal, he did not leave a receipt. How
could one catch the thief when he was flinging his money away all the
time? Our peasants are robbers, you know; they have no care for their
souls. And the way he went on with the girls, our village girls! They’re
completely set up since then, I tell you, they used to be poor.” He
recalled, in fact, every item of expense and added it all up. So the
theory that only fifteen hundred had been spent and the rest had been put
aside in a little bag seemed inconceivable.
“I saw three thousand as clear as a penny in his hands, I saw it with my
own eyes; I should think I ought to know how to reckon money,” cried
Trifon Borissovitch, doing his best to satisfy “his betters.”
When Fetyukovitch had to cross‐examine him, he scarcely tried to refute
his evidence, but began asking him about an incident at the first carousal
at Mokroe, a month before the arrest, when Timofey and another peasant
called Akim had picked up on the floor in the passage a hundred roubles
dropped by Mitya when he was drunk, and had given them to Trifon
Borissovitch and received a rouble each from him for doing so. “Well,”
asked the lawyer, “did you give that hundred roubles back to Mr.
Karamazov?” Trifon Borissovitch shuffled in vain.... He was obliged, after
the peasants had been examined, to admit the finding of the hundred
roubles, only adding that he had religiously returned it all to Dmitri
Fyodorovitch “in perfect honesty, and it’s only because his honor was in
liquor at the time, he wouldn’t remember it.” But, as he had denied the
incident of the hundred roubles till the peasants had been called to prove
it, his evidence as to returning the money to Mitya was naturally regarded
with great suspicion. So one of the most dangerous witnesses brought
forward by the prosecution was again discredited.
The same thing happened with the Poles. They took up an attitude of pride
and independence; they vociferated loudly that they had both been in the
service of the Crown, and that “Pan Mitya” had offered them three thousand
“to buy their honor,” and that they had seen a large sum of money in his
hands. Pan Mussyalovitch introduced a terrible number of Polish words into
his sentences, and seeing that this only increased his consequence in the
eyes of the President and the prosecutor, grew more and more pompous, and
ended by talking in Polish altogether. But Fetyukovitch caught them, too,
in his snares. Trifon Borissovitch, recalled, was forced, in spite of his
evasions, to admit that Pan Vrublevsky had substituted another pack of
cards for the one he had provided, and that Pan Mussyalovitch had cheated
during the game. Kalganov confirmed this, and both the Poles left the
witness‐box with damaged reputations, amidst laughter from the public.
Then exactly the same thing happened with almost all the most dangerous
witnesses. Fetyukovitch succeeded in casting a slur on all of them, and
dismissing them with a certain derision. The lawyers and experts were lost
in admiration, and were only at a loss to understand what good purpose
could be served by it, for all, I repeat, felt that the case for the
prosecution could not be refuted, but was growing more and more tragically
overwhelming. But from the confidence of the “great magician” they saw
that he was serene, and they waited, feeling that “such a man” had not
come from Petersburg for nothing, and that he was not a man to return
unsuccessful.
Chapter III. The Medical Experts And A Pound Of Nuts
The evidence of the medical experts, too, was of little use to the
prisoner. And it appeared later that Fetyukovitch had not reckoned much
upon it. The medical line of defense had only been taken up through the
insistence of Katerina Ivanovna, who had sent for a celebrated doctor from
Moscow on purpose. The case for the defense could, of course, lose nothing
by it and might, with luck, gain something from it. There was, however, an
element of comedy about it, through the difference of opinion of the
doctors. The medical experts were the famous doctor from Moscow, our
doctor, Herzenstube, and the young doctor, Varvinsky. The two latter
appeared also as witnesses for the prosecution.
The first to be called in the capacity of expert was Doctor Herzenstube.
He was a gray and bald old man of seventy, of middle height and sturdy
build. He was much esteemed and respected by every one in the town. He was
a conscientious doctor and an excellent and pious man, a Hernguter or
Moravian brother, I am not quite sure which. He had been living amongst us
for many years and behaved with wonderful dignity. He was a kind‐hearted
and humane man. He treated the sick poor and peasants for nothing, visited
them in their slums and huts, and left money for medicine, but he was as
obstinate as a mule. If once he had taken an idea into his head, there was
no shaking it. Almost every one in the town was aware, by the way, that
the famous doctor had, within the first two or three days of his presence
among us, uttered some extremely offensive allusions to Doctor
Herzenstube’s qualifications. Though the Moscow doctor asked twenty‐five
roubles for a visit, several people in the town were glad to take
advantage of his arrival, and rushed to consult him regardless of expense.
All these had, of course, been previously patients of Doctor Herzenstube,
and the celebrated doctor had criticized his treatment with extreme
harshness. Finally, he had asked the patients as soon as he saw them,
“Well, who has been cramming you with nostrums? Herzenstube? He, he!”
Doctor Herzenstube, of course, heard all this, and now all the three
doctors made their appearance, one after another, to be examined.
Doctor Herzenstube roundly declared that the abnormality of the prisoner’s
mental faculties was self‐evident. Then giving his grounds for this
opinion, which I omit here, he added that the abnormality was not only
evident in many of the prisoner’s actions in the past, but was apparent
even now at this very moment. When he was asked to explain how it was
apparent now at this moment, the old doctor, with simple‐hearted
directness, pointed out that the prisoner on entering the court had “an
extraordinary air, remarkable in the circumstances”; that he had “marched
in like a soldier, looking straight before him, though it would have been
more natural for him to look to the left where, among the public, the
ladies were sitting, seeing that he was a great admirer of the fair sex
and must be thinking much of what the ladies are saying of him now,” the
old man concluded in his peculiar language.
I must add that he spoke Russian readily, but every phrase was formed in
German style, which did not, however, trouble him, for it had always been
a weakness of his to believe that he spoke Russian perfectly, better
indeed than Russians. And he was very fond of using Russian proverbs,
always declaring that the Russian proverbs were the best and most
expressive sayings in the whole world. I may remark, too, that in
conversation, through absent‐mindedness he often forgot the most ordinary
words, which sometimes went out of his head, though he knew them
perfectly. The same thing happened, though, when he spoke German, and at
such times he always waved his hand before his face as though trying to
catch the lost word, and no one could induce him to go on speaking till he
had found the missing word. His remark that the prisoner ought to have
looked at the ladies on entering roused a whisper of amusement in the
audience. All our ladies were very fond of our old doctor; they knew, too,
that having been all his life a bachelor and a religious man of exemplary
conduct, he looked upon women as lofty creatures. And so his unexpected
observation struck every one as very queer.
The Moscow doctor, being questioned in his turn, definitely and
emphatically repeated that he considered the prisoner’s mental condition
abnormal in the highest degree. He talked at length and with erudition of
“aberration” and “mania,” and argued that, from all the facts collected,
the prisoner had undoubtedly been in a condition of aberration for several
days before his arrest, and, if the crime had been committed by him, it
must, even if he were conscious of it, have been almost involuntary, as he
had not the power to control the morbid impulse that possessed him.
But apart from temporary aberration, the doctor diagnosed mania, which
premised, in his words, to lead to complete insanity in the future. (It
must be noted that I report this in my own words, the doctor made use of
very learned and professional language.) “All his actions are in
contravention of common sense and logic,” he continued. “Not to refer to
what I have not seen, that is, the crime itself and the whole catastrophe,
the day before yesterday, while he was talking to me, he had an
unaccountably fixed look in his eye. He laughed unexpectedly when there
was nothing to laugh at. He showed continual and inexplicable
irritability, using strange words, ‘Bernard!’ ‘Ethics!’ and others equally
inappropriate.” But the doctor detected mania, above all, in the fact that
the prisoner could not even speak of the three thousand roubles, of which
he considered himself to have been cheated, without extraordinary
irritation, though he could speak comparatively lightly of other
misfortunes and grievances. According to all accounts, he had even in the
past, whenever the subject of the three thousand roubles was touched on,
flown into a perfect frenzy, and yet he was reported to be a disinterested
and not grasping man.
“As to the opinion of my learned colleague,” the Moscow doctor added
ironically in conclusion, “that the prisoner would, on entering the court,
have naturally looked at the ladies and not straight before him, I will
only say that, apart from the playfulness of this theory, it is radically
unsound. For though I fully agree that the prisoner, on entering the court
where his fate will be decided, would not naturally look straight before
him in that fixed way, and that that may really be a sign of his abnormal
mental condition, at the same time I maintain that he would naturally not
look to the left at the ladies, but, on the contrary, to the right to find
his legal adviser, on whose help all his hopes rest and on whose defense
all his future depends.” The doctor expressed his opinion positively and
emphatically.
But the unexpected pronouncement of Doctor Varvinsky gave the last touch
of comedy to the difference of opinion between the experts. In his opinion
the prisoner was now, and had been all along, in a perfectly normal
condition, and, although he certainly must have been in a nervous and
exceedingly excited state before his arrest, this might have been due to
several perfectly obvious causes, jealousy, anger, continual drunkenness,
and so on. But this nervous condition would not involve the mental
aberration of which mention had just been made. As to the question whether
the prisoner should have looked to the left or to the right on entering
the court, “in his modest opinion,” the prisoner would naturally look
straight before him on entering the court, as he had in fact done, as that
was where the judges, on whom his fate depended, were sitting. So that it
was just by looking straight before him that he showed his perfectly
normal state of mind at the present. The young doctor concluded his
“modest” testimony with some heat.
“Bravo, doctor!” cried Mitya, from his seat, “just so!”
Mitya, of course, was checked, but the young doctor’s opinion had a
decisive influence on the judges and on the public, and, as appeared
afterwards, every one agreed with him. But Doctor Herzenstube, when called
as a witness, was quite unexpectedly of use to Mitya. As an old resident
in the town who had known the Karamazov family for years, he furnished
some facts of great value for the prosecution, and suddenly, as though
recalling something, he added:
“But the poor young man might have had a very different life, for he had a
good heart both in childhood and after childhood, that I know. But the
Russian proverb says, ‘If a man has one head, it’s good, but if another
clever man comes to visit him, it would be better still, for then there
will be two heads and not only one.’ ”
“One head is good, but two are better,” the prosecutor put in impatiently.
He knew the old man’s habit of talking slowly and deliberately, regardless
of the impression he was making and of the delay he was causing, and
highly prizing his flat, dull and always gleefully complacent German wit.
The old man was fond of making jokes.
“Oh, yes, that’s what I say,” he went on stubbornly. “One head is good,
but two are much better, but he did not meet another head with wits, and
his wits went. Where did they go? I’ve forgotten the word.” He went on,
passing his hand before his eyes, “Oh, yes, _spazieren_.”
“Wandering?”
“Oh, yes, wandering, that’s what I say. Well, his wits went wandering and
fell in such a deep hole that he lost himself. And yet he was a grateful
and sensitive boy. Oh, I remember him very well, a little chap so high,
left neglected by his father in the back yard, when he ran about without
boots on his feet, and his little breeches hanging by one button.”
A note of feeling and tenderness suddenly came into the honest old man’s
voice. Fetyukovitch positively started, as though scenting something, and
caught at it instantly.
“Oh, yes, I was a young man then.... I was ... well, I was forty‐five
then, and had only just come here. And I was so sorry for the boy then; I
asked myself why shouldn’t I buy him a pound of ... a pound of what? I’ve
forgotten what it’s called. A pound of what children are very fond of,
what is it, what is it?” The doctor began waving his hands again. “It
grows on a tree and is gathered and given to every one....”
“Apples?”
“Oh, no, no. You have a dozen of apples, not a pound.... No, there are a
lot of them, and all little. You put them in the mouth and crack.”
“Nuts?”
“Quite so, nuts, I say so.” The doctor repeated in the calmest way as
though he had been at no loss for a word. “And I bought him a pound of
nuts, for no one had ever bought the boy a pound of nuts before. And I
lifted my finger and said to him, ‘Boy, _Gott der Vater_.’ He laughed and
said, ‘_Gott der Vater_.’... ‘_Gott der Sohn_.’ He laughed again and
lisped, ‘_Gott der Sohn_.’ ‘_Gott der heilige Geist_.’ Then he laughed and
said as best he could, ‘_Gott der heilige Geist_.’ I went away, and two
days after I happened to be passing, and he shouted to me of himself,
‘Uncle, _Gott der Vater, Gott der Sohn_,’ and he had only forgotten ‘_Gott
der heilige Geist_.’ But I reminded him of it and I felt very sorry for
him again. But he was taken away, and I did not see him again. Twenty‐
three years passed. I am sitting one morning in my study, a white‐haired
old man, when there walks into the room a blooming young man, whom I
should never have recognized, but he held up his finger and said,
laughing, ‘_Gott der Vater, Gott der Sohn_, and _Gott der heilige Geist_.
I have just arrived and have come to thank you for that pound of nuts, for
no one else ever bought me a pound of nuts; you are the only one that ever
did.’ And then I remembered my happy youth and the poor child in the yard,
without boots on his feet, and my heart was touched and I said, ‘You are a
grateful young man, for you have remembered all your life the pound of
nuts I bought you in your childhood.’ And I embraced him and blessed him.
And I shed tears. He laughed, but he shed tears, too ... for the Russian
often laughs when he ought to be weeping. But he did weep; I saw it. And
now, alas!...”
“And I am weeping now, German, I am weeping now, too, you saintly man,”
Mitya cried suddenly.
In any case the anecdote made a certain favorable impression on the
public. But the chief sensation in Mitya’s favor was created by the
evidence of Katerina Ivanovna, which I will describe directly. Indeed,
when the witnesses _à décharge_, that is, called by the defense, began
giving evidence, fortune seemed all at once markedly more favorable to
Mitya, and what was particularly striking, this was a surprise even to the
counsel for the defense. But before Katerina Ivanovna was called, Alyosha
was examined, and he recalled a fact which seemed to furnish positive
evidence against one important point made by the prosecution.
Chapter IV. Fortune Smiles On Mitya
It came quite as a surprise even to Alyosha himself. He was not required
to take the oath, and I remember that both sides addressed him very gently
and sympathetically. It was evident that his reputation for goodness had
preceded him. Alyosha gave his evidence modestly and with restraint, but
his warm sympathy for his unhappy brother was unmistakable. In answer to
one question, he sketched his brother’s character as that of a man,
violent‐tempered perhaps and carried away by his passions, but at the same
time honorable, proud and generous, capable of self‐sacrifice, if
necessary. He admitted, however, that, through his passion for Grushenka
and his rivalry with his father, his brother had been of late in an
intolerable position. But he repelled with indignation the suggestion that
his brother might have committed a murder for the sake of gain, though he
recognized that the three thousand roubles had become almost an obsession
with Mitya; that he looked upon them as part of the inheritance he had
been cheated of by his father, and that, indifferent as he was to money as
a rule, he could not even speak of that three thousand without fury. As
for the rivalry of the two “ladies,” as the prosecutor expressed it—that
is, of Grushenka and Katya—he answered evasively and was even unwilling to
answer one or two questions altogether.
“Did your brother tell you, anyway, that he intended to kill your father?”
asked the prosecutor. “You can refuse to answer if you think necessary,”
he added.
“He did not tell me so directly,” answered Alyosha.
“How so? Did he indirectly?”
“He spoke to me once of his hatred for our father and his fear that at an
extreme moment ... at a moment of fury, he might perhaps murder him.”
“And you believed him?”
“I am afraid to say that I did. But I never doubted that some higher
feeling would always save him at the fatal moment, as it has indeed saved
him, for it was not he killed my father,” Alyosha said firmly, in a loud
voice that was heard throughout the court.
The prosecutor started like a war‐horse at the sound of a trumpet.
“Let me assure you that I fully believe in the complete sincerity of your
conviction and do not explain it by or identify it with your affection for
your unhappy brother. Your peculiar view of the whole tragic episode is
known to us already from the preliminary investigation. I won’t attempt to
conceal from you that it is highly individual and contradicts all the
other evidence collected by the prosecution. And so I think it essential
to press you to tell me what facts have led you to this conviction of your
brother’s innocence and of the guilt of another person against whom you
gave evidence at the preliminary inquiry?”
“I only answered the questions asked me at the preliminary inquiry,”
replied Alyosha, slowly and calmly. “I made no accusation against
Smerdyakov of myself.”
“Yet you gave evidence against him?”
“I was led to do so by my brother Dmitri’s words. I was told what took
place at his arrest and how he had pointed to Smerdyakov before I was
examined. I believe absolutely that my brother is innocent, and if he
didn’t commit the murder, then—”
“Then Smerdyakov? Why Smerdyakov? And why are you so completely persuaded
of your brother’s innocence?”
“I cannot help believing my brother. I know he wouldn’t lie to me. I saw
from his face he wasn’t lying.”
“Only from his face? Is that all the proof you have?”
“I have no other proof.”
“And of Smerdyakov’s guilt you have no proof whatever but your brother’s
word and the expression of his face?”
“No, I have no other proof.”
The prosecutor dropped the examination at this point. The impression left
by Alyosha’s evidence on the public was most disappointing. There had been
talk about Smerdyakov before the trial; some one had heard something, some
one had pointed out something else, it was said that Alyosha had gathered
together some extraordinary proofs of his brother’s innocence and
Smerdyakov’s guilt, and after all there was nothing, no evidence except
certain moral convictions so natural in a brother.
But Fetyukovitch began his cross‐examination. On his asking Alyosha when
it was that the prisoner had told him of his hatred for his father and
that he might kill him, and whether he had heard it, for instance, at
their last meeting before the catastrophe, Alyosha started as he answered,
as though only just recollecting and understanding something.
“I remember one circumstance now which I’d quite forgotten myself. It
wasn’t clear to me at the time, but now—”
And, obviously only now for the first time struck by an idea, he recounted
eagerly how, at his last interview with Mitya that evening under the tree,
on the road to the monastery, Mitya had struck himself on the breast, “the
upper part of the breast,” and had repeated several times that he had a
means of regaining his honor, that that means was here, here on his
breast. “I thought, when he struck himself on the breast, he meant that it
was in his heart,” Alyosha continued, “that he might find in his heart
strength to save himself from some awful disgrace which was awaiting him
and which he did not dare confess even to me. I must confess I did think
at the time that he was speaking of our father, and that the disgrace he
was shuddering at was the thought of going to our father and doing some
violence to him. Yet it was just then that he pointed to something on his
breast, so that I remember the idea struck me at the time that the heart
is not on that part of the breast, but below, and that he struck himself
much too high, just below the neck, and kept pointing to that place. My
idea seemed silly to me at the time, but he was perhaps pointing then to
that little bag in which he had fifteen hundred roubles!”
“Just so,” Mitya cried from his place. “That’s right, Alyosha, it was the
little bag I struck with my fist.”
Fetyukovitch flew to him in hot haste entreating him to keep quiet, and at
the same instant pounced on Alyosha. Alyosha, carried away himself by his
recollection, warmly expressed his theory that this disgrace was probably
just that fifteen hundred roubles on him, which he might have returned to
Katerina Ivanovna as half of what he owed her, but which he had yet
determined not to repay her and to use for another purpose—namely, to
enable him to elope with Grushenka, if she consented.
“It is so, it must be so,” exclaimed Alyosha, in sudden excitement. “My
brother cried several times that half of the disgrace, half of it (he said
_half_ several times) he could free himself from at once, but that he was
so unhappy in his weakness of will that he wouldn’t do it ... that he knew
beforehand he was incapable of doing it!”
“And you clearly, confidently remember that he struck himself just on this
part of the breast?” Fetyukovitch asked eagerly.
“Clearly and confidently, for I thought at the time, ‘Why does he strike
himself up there when the heart is lower down?’ and the thought seemed
stupid to me at the time ... I remember its seeming stupid ... it flashed
through my mind. That’s what brought it back to me just now. How could I
have forgotten it till now? It was that little bag he meant when he said
he had the means but wouldn’t give back that fifteen hundred. And when he
was arrested at Mokroe he cried out—I know, I was told it—that he
considered it the most disgraceful act of his life that when he had the
means of repaying Katerina Ivanovna half (half, note!) what he owed her,
he yet could not bring himself to repay the money and preferred to remain
a thief in her eyes rather than part with it. And what torture, what
torture that debt has been to him!” Alyosha exclaimed in conclusion.
The prosecutor, of course, intervened. He asked Alyosha to describe once
more how it had all happened, and several times insisted on the question,
“Had the prisoner seemed to point to anything? Perhaps he had simply
struck himself with his fist on the breast?”
“But it was not with his fist,” cried Alyosha; “he pointed with his
fingers and pointed here, very high up.... How could I have so completely
forgotten it till this moment?”
The President asked Mitya what he had to say to the last witness’s
evidence. Mitya confirmed it, saying that he had been pointing to the
fifteen hundred roubles which were on his breast, just below the neck, and
that that was, of course, the disgrace, “A disgrace I cannot deny, the
most shameful act of my whole life,” cried Mitya. “I might have repaid it
and didn’t repay it. I preferred to remain a thief in her eyes rather than
give it back. And the most shameful part of it was that I knew beforehand
I shouldn’t give it back! You are right, Alyosha! Thanks, Alyosha!”
So Alyosha’s cross‐examination ended. What was important and striking
about it was that one fact at least had been found, and even though this
were only one tiny bit of evidence, a mere hint at evidence, it did go
some little way towards proving that the bag had existed and had contained
fifteen hundred roubles and that the prisoner had not been lying at the
preliminary inquiry when he alleged at Mokroe that those fifteen hundred
roubles were “his own.” Alyosha was glad. With a flushed face he moved
away to the seat assigned to him. He kept repeating to himself: “How was
it I forgot? How could I have forgotten it? And what made it come back to
me now?”
Katerina Ivanovna was called to the witness‐box. As she entered something
extraordinary happened in the court. The ladies clutched their lorgnettes
and opera‐glasses. There was a stir among the men: some stood up to get a
better view. Everybody alleged afterwards that Mitya had turned “white as
a sheet” on her entrance. All in black, she advanced modestly, almost
timidly. It was impossible to tell from her face that she was agitated;
but there was a resolute gleam in her dark and gloomy eyes. I may remark
that many people mentioned that she looked particularly handsome at that
moment. She spoke softly but clearly, so that she was heard all over the
court. She expressed herself with composure, or at least tried to appear
composed. The President began his examination discreetly and very
respectfully, as though afraid to touch on “certain chords,” and showing
consideration for her great unhappiness. But in answer to one of the first
questions Katerina Ivanovna replied firmly that she had been formerly
betrothed to the prisoner, “until he left me of his own accord...” she
added quietly. When they asked her about the three thousand she had
entrusted to Mitya to post to her relations, she said firmly, “I didn’t
give him the money simply to send it off. I felt at the time that he was
in great need of money.... I gave him the three thousand on the
understanding that he should post it within the month if he cared to.
There was no need for him to worry himself about that debt afterwards.”
I will not repeat all the questions asked her and all her answers in
detail. I will only give the substance of her evidence.
“I was firmly convinced that he would send off that sum as soon as he got
money from his father,” she went on. “I have never doubted his
disinterestedness and his honesty ... his scrupulous honesty ... in money
matters. He felt quite certain that he would receive the money from his
father, and spoke to me several times about it. I knew he had a feud with
his father and have always believed that he had been unfairly treated by
his father. I don’t remember any threat uttered by him against his father.
He certainly never uttered any such threat before me. If he had come to me
at that time, I should have at once relieved his anxiety about that
unlucky three thousand roubles, but he had given up coming to see me ...
and I myself was put in such a position ... that I could not invite
him.... And I had no right, indeed, to be exacting as to that money,” she
added suddenly, and there was a ring of resolution in her voice. “I was
once indebted to him for assistance in money for more than three thousand,
and I took it, although I could not at that time foresee that I should
ever be in a position to repay my debt.”
There was a note of defiance in her voice. It was then Fetyukovitch began
his cross‐examination.
“Did that take place not here, but at the beginning of your acquaintance?”
Fetyukovitch suggested cautiously, feeling his way, instantly scenting
something favorable. I must mention in parenthesis that, though
Fetyukovitch had been brought from Petersburg partly at the instance of
Katerina Ivanovna herself, he knew nothing about the episode of the four
thousand roubles given her by Mitya, and of her “bowing to the ground to
him.” She concealed this from him and said nothing about it, and that was
strange. It may be pretty certainly assumed that she herself did not know
till the very last minute whether she would speak of that episode in the
court, and waited for the inspiration of the moment.
No, I can never forget those moments. She began telling her story. She
told everything, the whole episode that Mitya had told Alyosha, and her
bowing to the ground, and her reason. She told about her father and her
going to Mitya, and did not in one word, in a single hint, suggest that
Mitya had himself, through her sister, proposed they should “send him
Katerina Ivanovna” to fetch the money. She generously concealed that and
was not ashamed to make it appear as though she had of her own impulse run
to the young officer, relying on something ... to beg him for the money.
It was something tremendous! I turned cold and trembled as I listened. The
court was hushed, trying to catch each word. It was something unexampled.
Even from such a self‐willed and contemptuously proud girl as she was,
such an extremely frank avowal, such sacrifice, such self‐immolation,
seemed incredible. And for what, for whom? To save the man who had
deceived and insulted her and to help, in however small a degree, in
saving him, by creating a strong impression in his favor. And, indeed, the
figure of the young officer who, with a respectful bow to the innocent
girl, handed her his last four thousand roubles—all he had in the
world—was thrown into a very sympathetic and attractive light, but ... I
had a painful misgiving at heart! I felt that calumny might come of it
later (and it did, in fact, it did). It was repeated all over the town
afterwards with spiteful laughter that the story was perhaps not quite
complete—that is, in the statement that the officer had let the young lady
depart “with nothing but a respectful bow.” It was hinted that something
was here omitted.
“And even if nothing had been omitted, if this were the whole story,” the
most highly respected of our ladies maintained, “even then it’s very
doubtful whether it was creditable for a young girl to behave in that way,
even for the sake of saving her father.”
And can Katerina Ivanovna, with her intelligence, her morbid
sensitiveness, have failed to understand that people would talk like that?
She must have understood it, yet she made up her mind to tell everything.
Of course, all these nasty little suspicions as to the truth of her story
only arose afterwards and at the first moment all were deeply impressed by
it. As for the judges and the lawyers, they listened in reverent, almost
shame‐faced silence to Katerina Ivanovna. The prosecutor did not venture
upon even one question on the subject. Fetyukovitch made a low bow to her.
Oh, he was almost triumphant! Much ground had been gained. For a man to
give his last four thousand on a generous impulse and then for the same
man to murder his father for the sake of robbing him of three thousand—the
idea seemed too incongruous. Fetyukovitch felt that now the charge of
theft, at least, was as good as disproved. “The case” was thrown into
quite a different light. There was a wave of sympathy for Mitya. As for
him.... I was told that once or twice, while Katerina Ivanovna was giving
her evidence, he jumped up from his seat, sank back again, and hid his
face in his hands. But when she had finished, he suddenly cried in a
sobbing voice:
“Katya, why have you ruined me?” and his sobs were audible all over the
court. But he instantly restrained himself, and cried again:
“Now I am condemned!”
Then he sat rigid in his place, with his teeth clenched and his arms
across his chest. Katerina Ivanovna remained in the court and sat down in
her place. She was pale and sat with her eyes cast down. Those who were
sitting near her declared that for a long time she shivered all over as
though in a fever. Grushenka was called.
I am approaching the sudden catastrophe which was perhaps the final cause
of Mitya’s ruin. For I am convinced, so is every one—all the lawyers said
the same afterwards—that if the episode had not occurred, the prisoner
would at least have been recommended to mercy. But of that later. A few
words first about Grushenka.
She, too, was dressed entirely in black, with her magnificent black shawl
on her shoulders. She walked to the witness‐box with her smooth, noiseless
tread, with the slightly swaying gait common in women of full figure. She
looked steadily at the President, turning her eyes neither to the right
nor to the left. To my thinking she looked very handsome at that moment,
and not at all pale, as the ladies alleged afterwards. They declared, too,
that she had a concentrated and spiteful expression. I believe that she
was simply irritated and painfully conscious of the contemptuous and
inquisitive eyes of our scandal‐loving public. She was proud and could not
stand contempt. She was one of those people who flare up, angry and eager
to retaliate, at the mere suggestion of contempt. There was an element of
timidity, too, of course, and inward shame at her own timidity, so it was
not strange that her tone kept changing. At one moment it was angry,
contemptuous and rough, and at another there was a sincere note of self‐
condemnation. Sometimes she spoke as though she were taking a desperate
plunge; as though she felt, “I don’t care what happens, I’ll say it....”
Apropos of her acquaintance with Fyodor Pavlovitch, she remarked curtly,
“That’s all nonsense, and was it my fault that he would pester me?” But a
minute later she added, “It was all my fault. I was laughing at them
both—at the old man and at him, too—and I brought both of them to this. It
was all on account of me it happened.”
Samsonov’s name came up somehow. “That’s nobody’s business,” she snapped
at once, with a sort of insolent defiance. “He was my benefactor; he took
me when I hadn’t a shoe to my foot, when my family had turned me out.” The
President reminded her, though very politely, that she must answer the
questions directly, without going off into irrelevant details. Grushenka
crimsoned and her eyes flashed.
The envelope with the notes in it she had not seen, but had only heard
from “that wicked wretch” that Fyodor Pavlovitch had an envelope with
notes for three thousand in it. “But that was all foolishness. I was only
laughing. I wouldn’t have gone to him for anything.”
“To whom are you referring as ‘that wicked wretch’?” inquired the
prosecutor.
“The lackey, Smerdyakov, who murdered his master and hanged himself last
night.”
She was, of course, at once asked what ground she had for such a definite
accusation; but it appeared that she, too, had no grounds for it.
“Dmitri Fyodorovitch told me so himself; you can believe him. The woman
who came between us has ruined him; she is the cause of it all, let me
tell you,” Grushenka added. She seemed to be quivering with hatred, and
there was a vindictive note in her voice.
She was again asked to whom she was referring.
“The young lady, Katerina Ivanovna there. She sent for me, offered me
chocolate, tried to fascinate me. There’s not much true shame about her, I
can tell you that....”
At this point the President checked her sternly, begging her to moderate
her language. But the jealous woman’s heart was burning, and she did not
care what she did.
“When the prisoner was arrested at Mokroe,” the prosecutor asked, “every
one saw and heard you run out of the next room and cry out: ‘It’s all my
fault. We’ll go to Siberia together!’ So you already believed him to have
murdered his father?”
“I don’t remember what I felt at the time,” answered Grushenka. “Every one
was crying out that he had killed his father, and I felt that it was my
fault, that it was on my account he had murdered him. But when he said he
wasn’t guilty, I believed him at once, and I believe him now and always
shall believe him. He is not the man to tell a lie.”
Fetyukovitch began his cross‐examination. I remember that among other
things he asked about Rakitin and the twenty‐five roubles “you paid him
for bringing Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov to see you.”
“There was nothing strange about his taking the money,” sneered Grushenka,
with angry contempt. “He was always coming to me for money: he used to get
thirty roubles a month at least out of me, chiefly for luxuries: he had
enough to keep him without my help.”
“What led you to be so liberal to Mr. Rakitin?” Fetyukovitch asked, in
spite of an uneasy movement on the part of the President.
“Why, he is my cousin. His mother was my mother’s sister. But he’s always
besought me not to tell any one here of it, he is so dreadfully ashamed of
me.”
This fact was a complete surprise to every one; no one in the town nor in
the monastery, not even Mitya, knew of it. I was told that Rakitin turned
purple with shame where he sat. Grushenka had somehow heard before she
came into the court that he had given evidence against Mitya, and so she
was angry. The whole effect on the public, of Rakitin’s speech, of his
noble sentiments, of his attacks upon serfdom and the political disorder
of Russia, was this time finally ruined. Fetyukovitch was satisfied: it
was another godsend. Grushenka’s cross‐examination did not last long and,
of course, there could be nothing particularly new in her evidence. She
left a very disagreeable impression on the public; hundreds of
contemptuous eyes were fixed upon her, as she finished giving her evidence
and sat down again in the court, at a good distance from Katerina
Ivanovna. Mitya was silent throughout her evidence. He sat as though
turned to stone, with his eyes fixed on the ground.
Ivan was called to give evidence.
Chapter V. A Sudden Catastrophe
I may note that he had been called before Alyosha. But the usher of the
court announced to the President that, owing to an attack of illness or
some sort of fit, the witness could not appear at the moment, but was
ready to give his evidence as soon as he recovered. But no one seemed to
have heard it and it only came out later.
His entrance was for the first moment almost unnoticed. The principal
witnesses, especially the two rival ladies, had already been questioned.
Curiosity was satisfied for the time; the public was feeling almost
fatigued. Several more witnesses were still to be heard, who probably had
little information to give after all that had been given. Time was
passing. Ivan walked up with extraordinary slowness, looking at no one,
and with his head bowed, as though plunged in gloomy thought. He was
irreproachably dressed, but his face made a painful impression, on me at
least: there was an earthy look in it, a look like a dying man’s. His eyes
were lusterless; he raised them and looked slowly round the court. Alyosha
jumped up from his seat and moaned “Ah!” I remember that, but it was
hardly noticed.
The President began by informing him that he was a witness not on oath,
that he might answer or refuse to answer, but that, of course, he must
bear witness according to his conscience, and so on, and so on. Ivan
listened and looked at him blankly, but his face gradually relaxed into a
smile, and as soon as the President, looking at him in astonishment,
finished, he laughed outright.
“Well, and what else?” he asked in a loud voice.
There was a hush in the court; there was a feeling of something strange.
The President showed signs of uneasiness.
“You ... are perhaps still unwell?” he began, looking everywhere for the
usher.
“Don’t trouble yourself, your excellency, I am well enough and can tell
you something interesting,” Ivan answered with sudden calmness and
respectfulness.
“You have some special communication to make?” the President went on,
still mistrustfully.
Ivan looked down, waited a few seconds and, raising his head, answered,
almost stammering:
“No ... I haven’t. I have nothing particular.”
They began asking him questions. He answered, as it were, reluctantly,
with extreme brevity, with a sort of disgust which grew more and more
marked, though he answered rationally. To many questions he answered that
he did not know. He knew nothing of his father’s money relations with
Dmitri. “I wasn’t interested in the subject,” he added. Threats to murder
his father he had heard from the prisoner. Of the money in the envelope he
had heard from Smerdyakov.
“The same thing over and over again,” he interrupted suddenly, with a look
of weariness. “I have nothing particular to tell the court.”
“I see you are unwell and understand your feelings,” the President began.
He turned to the prosecutor and the counsel for the defense to invite them
to examine the witness, if necessary, when Ivan suddenly asked in an
exhausted voice:
“Let me go, your excellency, I feel very ill.”
And with these words, without waiting for permission, he turned to walk
out of the court. But after taking four steps he stood still, as though he
had reached a decision, smiled slowly, and went back.
“I am like the peasant girl, your excellency ... you know. How does it go?
‘I’ll stand up if I like, and I won’t if I don’t.’ They were trying to put
on her sarafan to take her to church to be married, and she said, ‘I’ll
stand up if I like, and I won’t if I don’t.’... It’s in some book about
the peasantry.”
“What do you mean by that?” the President asked severely.
“Why, this,” Ivan suddenly pulled out a roll of notes. “Here’s the money
... the notes that lay in that envelope” (he nodded towards the table on
which lay the material evidence), “for the sake of which our father was
murdered. Where shall I put them? Mr. Superintendent, take them.”
The usher of the court took the whole roll and handed it to the President.
“How could this money have come into your possession if it is the same
money?” the President asked wonderingly.
“I got them from Smerdyakov, from the murderer, yesterday.... I was with
him just before he hanged himself. It was he, not my brother, killed our
father. He murdered him and I incited him to do it ... Who doesn’t desire
his father’s death?”
“Are you in your right mind?” broke involuntarily from the President.
“I should think I am in my right mind ... in the same nasty mind as all of
you ... as all these ... ugly faces.” He turned suddenly to the audience.
“My father has been murdered and they pretend they are horrified,” he
snarled, with furious contempt. “They keep up the sham with one another.
Liars! They all desire the death of their fathers. One reptile devours
another.... If there hadn’t been a murder, they’d have been angry and gone
home ill‐humored. It’s a spectacle they want! _Panem et circenses_. Though
I am one to talk! Have you any water? Give me a drink for Christ’s sake!”
He suddenly clutched his head.
The usher at once approached him. Alyosha jumped up and cried, “He is ill.
Don’t believe him: he has brain fever.” Katerina Ivanovna rose impulsively
from her seat and, rigid with horror, gazed at Ivan. Mitya stood up and
greedily looked at his brother and listened to him with a wild, strange
smile.
“Don’t disturb yourselves. I am not mad, I am only a murderer,” Ivan began
again. “You can’t expect eloquence from a murderer,” he added suddenly for
some reason and laughed a queer laugh.
The prosecutor bent over to the President in obvious dismay. The two other
judges communicated in agitated whispers. Fetyukovitch pricked up his ears
as he listened: the hall was hushed in expectation. The President seemed
suddenly to recollect himself.
“Witness, your words are incomprehensible and impossible here. Calm
yourself, if you can, and tell your story ... if you really have something
to tell. How can you confirm your statement ... if indeed you are not
delirious?”
“That’s just it. I have no proof. That cur Smerdyakov won’t send you
proofs from the other world ... in an envelope. You think of nothing but
envelopes—one is enough. I’ve no witnesses ... except one, perhaps,” he
smiled thoughtfully.
“Who is your witness?”
“He has a tail, your excellency, and that would be irregular! _Le diable
n’existe point!_ Don’t pay attention: he is a paltry, pitiful devil,” he
added suddenly. He ceased laughing and spoke as it were, confidentially.
“He is here somewhere, no doubt—under that table with the material
evidence on it, perhaps. Where should he sit if not there? You see, listen
to me. I told him I don’t want to keep quiet, and he talked about the
geological cataclysm ... idiocy! Come, release the monster ... he’s been
singing a hymn. That’s because his heart is light! It’s like a drunken man
in the street bawling how ‘Vanka went to Petersburg,’ and I would give a
quadrillion quadrillions for two seconds of joy. You don’t know me! Oh,
how stupid all this business is! Come, take me instead of him! I didn’t
come for nothing.... Why, why is everything so stupid?...”
And he began slowly, and as it were reflectively, looking round him again.
But the court was all excitement by now. Alyosha rushed towards him, but
the court usher had already seized Ivan by the arm.
“What are you about?” he cried, staring into the man’s face, and suddenly
seizing him by the shoulders, he flung him violently to the floor. But the
police were on the spot and he was seized. He screamed furiously. And all
the time he was being removed, he yelled and screamed something
incoherent.
The whole court was thrown into confusion. I don’t remember everything as
it happened. I was excited myself and could not follow. I only know that
afterwards, when everything was quiet again and every one understood what
had happened, the court usher came in for a reprimand, though he very
reasonably explained that the witness had been quite well, that the doctor
had seen him an hour ago, when he had a slight attack of giddiness, but
that, until he had come into the court, he had talked quite consecutively,
so that nothing could have been foreseen—that he had, in fact, insisted on
giving evidence. But before every one had completely regained their
composure and recovered from this scene, it was followed by another.
Katerina Ivanovna had an attack of hysterics. She sobbed, shrieking
loudly, but refused to leave the court, struggled, and besought them not
to remove her. Suddenly she cried to the President:
“There is more evidence I must give at once ... at once! Here is a
document, a letter ... take it, read it quickly, quickly! It’s a letter
from that monster ... that man there, there!” she pointed to Mitya. “It
was he killed his father, you will see that directly. He wrote to me how
he would kill his father! But the other one is ill, he is ill, he is
delirious!” she kept crying out, beside herself.
The court usher took the document she held out to the President, and she,
dropping into her chair, hiding her face in her hands, began convulsively
and noiselessly sobbing, shaking all over, and stifling every sound for
fear she should be ejected from the court. The document she had handed up
was that letter Mitya had written at the “Metropolis” tavern, which Ivan
had spoken of as a “mathematical proof.” Alas! its mathematical
conclusiveness was recognized, and had it not been for that letter, Mitya
might have escaped his doom or, at least, that doom would have been less
terrible. It was, I repeat, difficult to notice every detail. What
followed is still confused to my mind. The President must, I suppose, have
at once passed on the document to the judges, the jury, and the lawyers on
both sides. I only remember how they began examining the witness. On being
gently asked by the President whether she had recovered sufficiently,
Katerina Ivanovna exclaimed impetuously:
“I am ready, I am ready! I am quite equal to answering you,” she added,
evidently still afraid that she would somehow be prevented from giving
evidence. She was asked to explain in detail what this letter was and
under what circumstances she received it.
“I received it the day before the crime was committed, but he wrote it the
day before that, at the tavern—that is, two days before he committed the
crime. Look, it is written on some sort of bill!” she cried breathlessly.
“He hated me at that time, because he had behaved contemptibly and was
running after that creature ... and because he owed me that three
thousand.... Oh! he was humiliated by that three thousand on account of
his own meanness! This is how it happened about that three thousand. I beg
you, I beseech you, to hear me. Three weeks before he murdered his father,
he came to me one morning. I knew he was in want of money, and what he
wanted it for. Yes, yes—to win that creature and carry her off. I knew
then that he had been false to me and meant to abandon me, and it was I,
I, who gave him that money, who offered it to him on the pretext of his
sending it to my sister in Moscow. And as I gave it him, I looked him in
the face and said that he could send it when he liked, ‘in a month’s time
would do.’ How, how could he have failed to understand that I was
practically telling him to his face, ‘You want money to be false to me
with your creature, so here’s the money for you. I give it to you myself.
Take it, if you have so little honor as to take it!’ I wanted to prove
what he was, and what happened? He took it, he took it, and squandered it
with that creature in one night.... But he knew, he knew that I knew all
about it. I assure you he understood, too, that I gave him that money to
test him, to see whether he was so lost to all sense of honor as to take
it from me. I looked into his eyes and he looked into mine, and he
understood it all and he took it—he carried off my money!”
“That’s true, Katya,” Mitya roared suddenly, “I looked into your eyes and
I knew that you were dishonoring me, and yet I took your money. Despise me
as a scoundrel, despise me, all of you! I’ve deserved it!”
“Prisoner,” cried the President, “another word and I will order you to be
removed.”
“That money was a torment to him,” Katya went on with impulsive haste. “He
wanted to repay it me. He wanted to, that’s true; but he needed money for
that creature, too. So he murdered his father, but he didn’t repay me, and
went off with her to that village where he was arrested. There, again, he
squandered the money he had stolen after the murder of his father. And a
day before the murder he wrote me this letter. He was drunk when he wrote
it. I saw it at once, at the time. He wrote it from spite, and feeling
certain, positively certain, that I should never show it to any one, even
if he did kill him, or else he wouldn’t have written it. For he knew I
shouldn’t want to revenge myself and ruin him! But read it, read it
attentively—more attentively, please—and you will see that he had
described it all in his letter, all beforehand, how he would kill his
father and where his money was kept. Look, please, don’t overlook that,
there’s one phrase there, ‘I shall kill him as soon as Ivan has gone
away.’ So he thought it all out beforehand how he would kill him,”
Katerina Ivanovna pointed out to the court with venomous and malignant
triumph. Oh! it was clear she had studied every line of that letter and
detected every meaning underlining it. “If he hadn’t been drunk, he
wouldn’t have written to me; but, look, everything is written there
beforehand, just as he committed the murder after. A complete program of
it!” she exclaimed frantically.
She was reckless now of all consequences to herself, though, no doubt, she
had foreseen them even a month ago, for even then, perhaps, shaking with
anger, she had pondered whether to show it at the trial or not. Now she
had taken the fatal plunge. I remember that the letter was read aloud by
the clerk, directly afterwards, I believe. It made an overwhelming
impression. They asked Mitya whether he admitted having written the
letter.
“It’s mine, mine!” cried Mitya. “I shouldn’t have written it, if I hadn’t
been drunk!... We’ve hated each other for many things, Katya, but I swear,
I swear I loved you even while I hated you, and you didn’t love me!”
He sank back on his seat, wringing his hands in despair. The prosecutor
and counsel for the defense began cross‐examining her, chiefly to
ascertain what had induced her to conceal such a document and to give her
evidence in quite a different tone and spirit just before.
“Yes, yes. I was telling lies just now. I was lying against my honor and
my conscience, but I wanted to save him, for he has hated and despised me
so!” Katya cried madly. “Oh, he has despised me horribly, he has always
despised me, and do you know, he has despised me from the very moment that
I bowed down to him for that money. I saw that.... I felt it at once at
the time, but for a long time I wouldn’t believe it. How often I have read
it in his eyes, ‘You came of yourself, though.’ Oh, he didn’t understand,
he had no idea why I ran to him, he can suspect nothing but baseness, he
judged me by himself, he thought every one was like himself!” Katya hissed
furiously, in a perfect frenzy. “And he only wanted to marry me, because
I’d inherited a fortune, because of that, because of that! I always
suspected it was because of that! Oh, he is a brute! He was always
convinced that I should be trembling with shame all my life before him,
because I went to him then, and that he had a right to despise me for ever
for it, and so to be superior to me—that’s why he wanted to marry me!
That’s so, that’s all so! I tried to conquer him by my love—a love that
knew no bounds. I even tried to forgive his faithlessness; but he
understood nothing, nothing! How could he understand indeed? He is a
monster! I only received that letter the next evening: it was brought me
from the tavern—and only that morning, only that morning I wanted to
forgive him everything, everything—even his treachery!”
The President and the prosecutor, of course, tried to calm her. I can’t
help thinking that they felt ashamed of taking advantage of her hysteria
and of listening to such avowals. I remember hearing them say to her, “We
understand how hard it is for you; be sure we are able to feel for you,”
and so on, and so on. And yet they dragged the evidence out of the raving,
hysterical woman. She described at last with extraordinary clearness,
which is so often seen, though only for a moment, in such over‐wrought
states, how Ivan had been nearly driven out of his mind during the last
two months trying to save “the monster and murderer,” his brother.
“He tortured himself,” she exclaimed, “he was always trying to minimize
his brother’s guilt and confessing to me that he, too, had never loved his
father, and perhaps desired his death himself. Oh, he has a tender, over‐
tender conscience! He tormented himself with his conscience! He told me
everything, everything! He came every day and talked to me as his only
friend. I have the honor to be his only friend!” she cried suddenly with a
sort of defiance, and her eyes flashed. “He had been twice to see
Smerdyakov. One day he came to me and said, ‘If it was not my brother, but
Smerdyakov committed the murder’ (for the legend was circulating
everywhere that Smerdyakov had done it), ‘perhaps I too am guilty, for
Smerdyakov knew I didn’t like my father and perhaps believed that I
desired my father’s death.’ Then I brought out that letter and showed it
him. He was entirely convinced that his brother had done it, and he was
overwhelmed by it. He couldn’t endure the thought that his own brother was
a parricide! Only a week ago I saw that it was making him ill. During the
last few days he has talked incoherently in my presence. I saw his mind
was giving way. He walked about, raving; he was seen muttering in the
streets. The doctor from Moscow, at my request, examined him the day
before yesterday and told me that he was on the eve of brain fever—and all
on his account, on account of this monster! And last night he learnt that
Smerdyakov was dead! It was such a shock that it drove him out of his mind
... and all through this monster, all for the sake of saving the monster!”
Oh, of course, such an outpouring, such an avowal is only possible once in
a lifetime—at the hour of death, for instance, on the way to the scaffold!
But it was in Katya’s character, and it was such a moment in her life. It
was the same impetuous Katya who had thrown herself on the mercy of a
young profligate to save her father; the same Katya who had just before,
in her pride and chastity, sacrificed herself and her maidenly modesty
before all these people, telling of Mitya’s generous conduct, in the hope
of softening his fate a little. And now, again, she sacrificed herself;
but this time it was for another, and perhaps only now—perhaps only at
this moment—she felt and knew how dear that other was to her! She had
sacrificed herself in terror for him, conceiving all of a sudden that he
had ruined himself by his confession that it was he who had committed the
murder, not his brother, she had sacrificed herself to save him, to save
his good name, his reputation!
And yet one terrible doubt occurred to one—was she lying in her
description of her former relations with Mitya?—that was the question. No,
she had not intentionally slandered him when she cried that Mitya despised
her for her bowing down to him! She believed it herself. She had been
firmly convinced, perhaps ever since that bow, that the simple‐hearted
Mitya, who even then adored her, was laughing at her and despising her.
She had loved him with an hysterical, “lacerated” love only from pride,
from wounded pride, and that love was not like love, but more like
revenge. Oh! perhaps that lacerated love would have grown into real love,
perhaps Katya longed for nothing more than that, but Mitya’s faithlessness
had wounded her to the bottom of her heart, and her heart could not
forgive him. The moment of revenge had come upon her suddenly, and all
that had been accumulating so long and so painfully in the offended
woman’s breast burst out all at once and unexpectedly. She betrayed Mitya,
but she betrayed herself, too. And no sooner had she given full expression
to her feelings than the tension of course was over and she was
overwhelmed with shame. Hysterics began again: she fell on the floor,
sobbing and screaming. She was carried out. At that moment Grushenka, with
a wail, rushed towards Mitya before they had time to prevent her.
“Mitya,” she wailed, “your serpent has destroyed you! There, she has shown
you what she is!” she shouted to the judges, shaking with anger. At a
signal from the President they seized her and tried to remove her from the
court. She wouldn’t allow it. She fought and struggled to get back to
Mitya. Mitya uttered a cry and struggled to get to her. He was
overpowered.
Yes, I think the ladies who came to see the spectacle must have been
satisfied—the show had been a varied one. Then I remember the Moscow
doctor appeared on the scene. I believe the President had previously sent
the court usher to arrange for medical aid for Ivan. The doctor announced
to the court that the sick man was suffering from a dangerous attack of
brain fever, and that he must be at once removed. In answer to questions
from the prosecutor and the counsel for the defense he said that the
patient had come to him of his own accord the day before yesterday and
that he had warned him that he had such an attack coming on, but he had
not consented to be looked after. “He was certainly not in a normal state
of mind: he told me himself that he saw visions when he was awake, that he
met several persons in the street, who were dead, and that Satan visited
him every evening,” said the doctor, in conclusion. Having given his
evidence, the celebrated doctor withdrew. The letter produced by Katerina
Ivanovna was added to the material proofs. After some deliberation, the
judges decided to proceed with the trial and to enter both the unexpected
pieces of evidence (given by Ivan and Katerina Ivanovna) on the protocol.
But I will not detail the evidence of the other witnesses, who only
repeated and confirmed what had been said before, though all with their
characteristic peculiarities. I repeat, all was brought together in the
prosecutor’s speech, which I shall quote immediately. Every one was
excited, every one was electrified by the late catastrophe, and all were
awaiting the speeches for the prosecution and the defense with intense
impatience. Fetyukovitch was obviously shaken by Katerina Ivanovna’s
evidence. But the prosecutor was triumphant. When all the evidence had
been taken, the court was adjourned for almost an hour. I believe it was
just eight o’clock when the President returned to his seat and our
prosecutor, Ippolit Kirillovitch, began his speech.
Chapter VI. The Prosecutor’s Speech. Sketches Of Character
Ippolit Kirillovitch began his speech, trembling with nervousness, with
cold sweat on his forehead, feeling hot and cold all over by turns. He
described this himself afterwards. He regarded this speech as his _chef‐
d’œuvre_, the _chef‐d’œuvre_ of his whole life, as his swan‐song. He died,
it is true, nine months later of rapid consumption, so that he had the
right, as it turned out, to compare himself to a swan singing his last
song. He had put his whole heart and all the brain he had into that
speech. And poor Ippolit Kirillovitch unexpectedly revealed that at least
some feeling for the public welfare and “the eternal question” lay
concealed in him. Where his speech really excelled was in its sincerity.
He genuinely believed in the prisoner’s guilt; he was accusing him not as
an official duty only, and in calling for vengeance he quivered with a
genuine passion “for the security of society.” Even the ladies in the
audience, though they remained hostile to Ippolit Kirillovitch, admitted
that he made an extraordinary impression on them. He began in a breaking
voice, but it soon gained strength and filled the court to the end of his
speech. But as soon as he had finished, he almost fainted.
“Gentlemen of the jury,” began the prosecutor, “this case has made a stir
throughout Russia. But what is there to wonder at, what is there so
peculiarly horrifying in it for us? We are so accustomed to such crimes!
That’s what’s so horrible, that such dark deeds have ceased to horrify us.
What ought to horrify us is that we are so accustomed to it, and not this
or that isolated crime. What are the causes of our indifference, our
lukewarm attitude to such deeds, to such signs of the times, ominous of an
unenviable future? Is it our cynicism, is it the premature exhaustion of
intellect and imagination in a society that is sinking into decay, in
spite of its youth? Is it that our moral principles are shattered to their
foundations, or is it, perhaps, a complete lack of such principles among
us? I cannot answer such questions; nevertheless they are disturbing, and
every citizen not only must, but ought to be harassed by them. Our newborn
and still timid press has done good service to the public already, for
without it we should never have heard of the horrors of unbridled violence
and moral degradation which are continually made known by the press, not
merely to those who attend the new jury courts established in the present
reign, but to every one. And what do we read almost daily? Of things
beside which the present case grows pale, and seems almost commonplace.
But what is most important is that the majority of our national crimes of
violence bear witness to a widespread evil, now so general among us that
it is difficult to contend against it.
“One day we see a brilliant young officer of high society, at the very
outset of his career, in a cowardly underhand way, without a pang of
conscience, murdering an official who had once been his benefactor, and
the servant girl, to steal his own I.O.U. and what ready money he could
find on him; ‘it will come in handy for my pleasures in the fashionable
world and for my career in the future.’ After murdering them, he puts
pillows under the head of each of his victims; he goes away. Next, a young
hero ‘decorated for bravery’ kills the mother of his chief and benefactor,
like a highwayman, and to urge his companions to join him he asserts that
‘she loves him like a son, and so will follow all his directions and take
no precautions.’ Granted that he is a monster, yet I dare not say in these
days that he is unique. Another man will not commit the murder, but will
feel and think like him, and is as dishonorable in soul. In silence, alone
with his conscience, he asks himself perhaps, ‘What is honor, and isn’t
the condemnation of bloodshed a prejudice?’
“Perhaps people will cry out against me that I am morbid, hysterical, that
it is a monstrous slander, that I am exaggerating. Let them say so—and
heavens! I should be the first to rejoice if it were so! Oh, don’t believe
me, think of me as morbid, but remember my words; if only a tenth, if only
a twentieth part of what I say is true—even so it’s awful! Look how our
young people commit suicide, without asking themselves Hamlet’s question
what there is beyond, without a sign of such a question, as though all
that relates to the soul and to what awaits us beyond the grave had long
been erased in their minds and buried under the sands. Look at our vice,
at our profligates. Fyodor Pavlovitch, the luckless victim in the present
case, was almost an innocent babe compared with many of them. And yet we
all knew him, ‘he lived among us!’...
“Yes, one day perhaps the leading intellects of Russia and of Europe will
study the psychology of Russian crime, for the subject is worth it. But
this study will come later, at leisure, when all the tragic topsy‐turvydom
of to‐day is farther behind us, so that it’s possible to examine it with
more insight and more impartiality than I can do. Now we are either
horrified or pretend to be horrified, though we really gloat over the
spectacle, and love strong and eccentric sensations which tickle our
cynical, pampered idleness. Or, like little children, we brush the
dreadful ghosts away and hide our heads in the pillow so as to return to
our sports and merriment as soon as they have vanished. But we must one
day begin life in sober earnest, we must look at ourselves as a society;
it’s time we tried to grasp something of our social position, or at least
to make a beginning in that direction.
“A great writer(9) of the last epoch, comparing Russia to a swift troika
galloping to an unknown goal, exclaims, ‘Oh, troika, birdlike troika, who
invented thee!’ and adds, in proud ecstasy, that all the peoples of the
world stand aside respectfully to make way for the recklessly galloping
troika to pass. That may be, they may stand aside, respectfully or no, but
in my poor opinion the great writer ended his book in this way either in
an access of childish and naïve optimism, or simply in fear of the
censorship of the day. For if the troika were drawn by his heroes,
Sobakevitch, Nozdryov, Tchitchikov, it could reach no rational goal,
whoever might be driving it. And those were the heroes of an older
generation, ours are worse specimens still....”
At this point Ippolit Kirillovitch’s speech was interrupted by applause.
The liberal significance of this simile was appreciated. The applause was,
it’s true, of brief duration, so that the President did not think it
necessary to caution the public, and only looked severely in the direction
of the offenders. But Ippolit Kirillovitch was encouraged; he had never
been applauded before! He had been all his life unable to get a hearing,
and now he suddenly had an opportunity of securing the ear of all Russia.
“What, after all, is this Karamazov family, which has gained such an
unenviable notoriety throughout Russia?” he continued. “Perhaps I am
exaggerating, but it seems to me that certain fundamental features of the
educated class of to‐day are reflected in this family picture—only, of
course, in miniature, ‘like the sun in a drop of water.’ Think of that
unhappy, vicious, unbridled old man, who has met with such a melancholy
end, the head of a family! Beginning life of noble birth, but in a poor
dependent position, through an unexpected marriage he came into a small
fortune. A petty knave, a toady and buffoon, of fairly good, though
undeveloped, intelligence, he was, above all, a moneylender, who grew
bolder with growing prosperity. His abject and servile characteristics
disappeared, his malicious and sarcastic cynicism was all that remained.
On the spiritual side he was undeveloped, while his vitality was
excessive. He saw nothing in life but sensual pleasure, and he brought his
children up to be the same. He had no feelings for his duties as a father.
He ridiculed those duties. He left his little children to the servants,
and was glad to be rid of them, forgot about them completely. The old
man’s maxim was _Après moi le déluge_. He was an example of everything
that is opposed to civic duty, of the most complete and malignant
individualism. ‘The world may burn for aught I care, so long as I am all
right,’ and he was all right; he was content, he was eager to go on living
in the same way for another twenty or thirty years. He swindled his own
son and spent his money, his maternal inheritance, on trying to get his
mistress from him. No, I don’t intend to leave the prisoner’s defense
altogether to my talented colleague from Petersburg. I will speak the
truth myself, I can well understand what resentment he had heaped up in
his son’s heart against him.
“But enough, enough of that unhappy old man; he has paid the penalty. Let
us remember, however, that he was a father, and one of the typical fathers
of to‐day. Am I unjust, indeed, in saying that he is typical of many
modern fathers? Alas! many of them only differ in not openly professing
such cynicism, for they are better educated, more cultured, but their
philosophy is essentially the same as his. Perhaps I am a pessimist, but
you have agreed to forgive me. Let us agree beforehand, you need not
believe me, but let me speak. Let me say what I have to say, and remember
something of my words.
“Now for the children of this father, this head of a family. One of them
is the prisoner before us, all the rest of my speech will deal with him.
Of the other two I will speak only cursorily.
“The elder is one of those modern young men of brilliant education and
vigorous intellect, who has lost all faith in everything. He has denied
and rejected much already, like his father. We have all heard him, he was
a welcome guest in local society. He never concealed his opinions, quite
the contrary in fact, which justifies me in speaking rather openly of him
now, of course, not as an individual, but as a member of the Karamazov
family. Another personage closely connected with the case died here by his
own hand last night. I mean an afflicted idiot, formerly the servant, and
possibly the illegitimate son, of Fyodor Pavlovitch, Smerdyakov. At the
preliminary inquiry, he told me with hysterical tears how the young Ivan
Karamazov had horrified him by his spiritual audacity. ‘Everything in the
world is lawful according to him, and nothing must be forbidden in the
future—that is what he always taught me.’ I believe that idiot was driven
out of his mind by this theory, though, of course, the epileptic attacks
from which he suffered, and this terrible catastrophe, have helped to
unhinge his faculties. But he dropped one very interesting observation,
which would have done credit to a more intelligent observer, and that is,
indeed, why I’ve mentioned it: ‘If there is one of the sons that is like
Fyodor Pavlovitch in character, it is Ivan Fyodorovitch.’
“With that remark I conclude my sketch of his character, feeling it
indelicate to continue further. Oh, I don’t want to draw any further
conclusions and croak like a raven over the young man’s future. We’ve seen
to‐day in this court that there are still good impulses in his young
heart, that family feeling has not been destroyed in him by lack of faith
and cynicism, which have come to him rather by inheritance than by the
exercise of independent thought.
“Then the third son. Oh, he is a devout and modest youth, who does not
share his elder brother’s gloomy and destructive theory of life. He has
sought to cling to the ‘ideas of the people,’ or to what goes by that name
in some circles of our intellectual classes. He clung to the monastery,
and was within an ace of becoming a monk. He seems to me to have betrayed
unconsciously, and so early, that timid despair which leads so many in our
unhappy society, who dread cynicism and its corrupting influences, and
mistakenly attribute all the mischief to European enlightenment, to return
to their ‘native soil,’ as they say, to the bosom, so to speak, of their
mother earth, like frightened children, yearning to fall asleep on the
withered bosom of their decrepit mother, and to sleep there for ever, only
to escape the horrors that terrify them.
“For my part I wish the excellent and gifted young man every success; I
trust that his youthful idealism and impulse towards the ideas of the
people may never degenerate, as often happens, on the moral side into
gloomy mysticism, and on the political into blind chauvinism—two elements
which are even a greater menace to Russia than the premature decay, due to
misunderstanding and gratuitous adoption of European ideas, from which his
elder brother is suffering.”
Two or three people clapped their hands at the mention of chauvinism and
mysticism. Ippolit Kirillovitch had been, indeed, carried away by his own
eloquence. All this had little to do with the case in hand, to say nothing
of the fact of its being somewhat vague, but the sickly and consumptive
man was overcome by the desire to express himself once in his life. People
said afterwards that he was actuated by unworthy motives in his criticism
of Ivan, because the latter had on one or two occasions got the better of
him in argument, and Ippolit Kirillovitch, remembering it, tried now to
take his revenge. But I don’t know whether it was true. All this was only
introductory, however, and the speech passed to more direct consideration
of the case.
“But to return to the eldest son,” Ippolit Kirillovitch went on. “He is
the prisoner before us. We have his life and his actions, too, before us;
the fatal day has come and all has been brought to the surface. While his
brothers seem to stand for ‘Europeanism’ and ‘the principles of the
people,’ he seems to represent Russia as she is. Oh, not all Russia, not
all! God preserve us, if it were! Yet, here we have her, our mother
Russia, the very scent and sound of her. Oh, he is spontaneous, he is a
marvelous mingling of good and evil, he is a lover of culture and
Schiller, yet he brawls in taverns and plucks out the beards of his boon
companions. Oh, he, too, can be good and noble, but only when all goes
well with him. What is more, he can be carried off his feet, positively
carried off his feet by noble ideals, but only if they come of themselves,
if they fall from heaven for him, if they need not be paid for. He
dislikes paying for anything, but is very fond of receiving, and that’s so
with him in everything. Oh, give him every possible good in life (he
couldn’t be content with less), and put no obstacle in his way, and he
will show that he, too, can be noble. He is not greedy, no, but he must
have money, a great deal of money, and you will see how generously, with
what scorn of filthy lucre, he will fling it all away in the reckless
dissipation of one night. But if he has not money, he will show what he is
ready to do to get it when he is in great need of it. But all this later,
let us take events in their chronological order.
“First, we have before us a poor abandoned child, running about the back‐
yard ‘without boots on his feet,’ as our worthy and esteemed fellow
citizen, of foreign origin, alas! expressed it just now. I repeat it
again, I yield to no one the defense of the criminal. I am here to accuse
him, but to defend him also. Yes, I, too, am human; I, too, can weigh the
influence of home and childhood on the character. But the boy grows up and
becomes an officer; for a duel and other reckless conduct he is exiled to
one of the remote frontier towns of Russia. There he led a wild life as an
officer. And, of course, he needed money, money before all things, and so
after prolonged disputes he came to a settlement with his father, and the
last six thousand was sent him. A letter is in existence in which he
practically gives up his claim to the rest and settles his conflict with
his father over the inheritance on the payment of this six thousand.
“Then came his meeting with a young girl of lofty character and brilliant
education. Oh, I do not venture to repeat the details; you have only just
heard them. Honor, self‐sacrifice were shown there, and I will be silent.
The figure of the young officer, frivolous and profligate, doing homage to
true nobility and a lofty ideal, was shown in a very sympathetic light
before us. But the other side of the medal was unexpectedly turned to us
immediately after in this very court. Again I will not venture to
conjecture why it happened so, but there were causes. The same lady,
bathed in tears of long‐concealed indignation, alleged that he, he of all
men, had despised her for her action, which, though incautious, reckless
perhaps, was still dictated by lofty and generous motives. He, he, the
girl’s betrothed, looked at her with that smile of mockery, which was more
insufferable from him than from any one. And knowing that he had already
deceived her (he had deceived her, believing that she was bound to endure
everything from him, even treachery), she intentionally offered him three
thousand roubles, and clearly, too clearly, let him understand that she
was offering him money to deceive her. ‘Well, will you take it or not, are
you so lost to shame?’ was the dumb question in her scrutinizing eyes. He
looked at her, saw clearly what was in her mind (he’s admitted here before
you that he understood it all), appropriated that three thousand
unconditionally, and squandered it in two days with the new object of his
affections.
“What are we to believe then? The first legend of the young officer
sacrificing his last farthing in a noble impulse of generosity and doing
reverence to virtue, or this other revolting picture? As a rule, between
two extremes one has to find the mean, but in the present case this is not
true. The probability is that in the first case he was genuinely noble,
and in the second as genuinely base. And why? Because he was of the broad
Karamazov character—that’s just what I am leading up to—capable of
combining the most incongruous contradictions, and capable of the greatest
heights and of the greatest depths. Remember the brilliant remark made by
a young observer who has seen the Karamazov family at close quarters—Mr.
Rakitin: ‘The sense of their own degradation is as essential to those
reckless, unbridled natures as the sense of their lofty generosity.’ And
that’s true, they need continually this unnatural mixture. Two extremes at
the same moment, or they are miserable and dissatisfied and their
existence is incomplete. They are wide, wide as mother Russia; they
include everything and put up with everything.
“By the way, gentlemen of the jury, we’ve just touched upon that three
thousand roubles, and I will venture to anticipate things a little. Can
you conceive that a man like that, on receiving that sum and in such a
way, at the price of such shame, such disgrace, such utter degradation,
could have been capable that very day of setting apart half that sum, that
very day, and sewing it up in a little bag, and would have had the
firmness of character to carry it about with him for a whole month
afterwards, in spite of every temptation and his extreme need of it!
Neither in drunken debauchery in taverns, nor when he was flying into the
country, trying to get from God knows whom, the money so essential to him
to remove the object of his affections from being tempted by his father,
did he bring himself to touch that little bag! Why, if only to avoid
abandoning his mistress to the rival of whom he was so jealous, he would
have been certain to have opened that bag and to have stayed at home to
keep watch over her, and to await the moment when she would say to him at
last ‘I am yours,’ and to fly with her far from their fatal surroundings.
“But no, he did not touch his talisman, and what is the reason he gives
for it? The chief reason, as I have just said, was that when she would
say, ‘I am yours, take me where you will,’ he might have the wherewithal
to take her. But that first reason, in the prisoner’s own words, was of
little weight beside the second. While I have that money on me, he said, I
am a scoundrel, not a thief, for I can always go to my insulted betrothed,
and, laying down half the sum I have fraudulently appropriated, I can
always say to her, ‘You see, I’ve squandered half your money, and shown I
am a weak and immoral man, and, if you like, a scoundrel’ (I use the
prisoner’s own expressions), ‘but though I am a scoundrel, I am not a
thief, for if I had been a thief, I shouldn’t have brought you back this
half of the money, but should have taken it as I did the other half!’ A
marvelous explanation! This frantic, but weak man, who could not resist
the temptation of accepting the three thousand roubles at the price of
such disgrace, this very man suddenly develops the most stoical firmness,
and carries about a thousand roubles without daring to touch it. Does that
fit in at all with the character we have analyzed? No, and I venture to
tell you how the real Dmitri Karamazov would have behaved in such
circumstances, if he really had brought himself to put away the money.
“At the first temptation—for instance, to entertain the woman with whom he
had already squandered half the money—he would have unpicked his little
bag and have taken out some hundred roubles, for why should he have taken
back precisely half the money, that is, fifteen hundred roubles? why not
fourteen hundred? He could just as well have said then that he was not a
thief, because he brought back fourteen hundred roubles. Then another time
he would have unpicked it again and taken out another hundred, and then a
third, and then a fourth, and before the end of the month he would have
taken the last note but one, feeling that if he took back only a hundred
it would answer the purpose, for a thief would have stolen it all. And
then he would have looked at this last note, and have said to himself,
‘It’s really not worth while to give back one hundred; let’s spend that,
too!’ That’s how the real Dmitri Karamazov, as we know him, would have
behaved. One cannot imagine anything more incongruous with the actual fact
than this legend of the little bag. Nothing could be more inconceivable.
But we shall return to that later.”
After touching upon what had come out in the proceedings concerning the
financial relations of father and son, and arguing again and again that it
was utterly impossible, from the facts known, to determine which was in
the wrong, Ippolit Kirillovitch passed to the evidence of the medical
experts in reference to Mitya’s fixed idea about the three thousand owing
him.
Chapter VII. An Historical Survey
“The medical experts have striven to convince us that the prisoner is out
of his mind and, in fact, a maniac. I maintain that he is in his right
mind, and that if he had not been, he would have behaved more cleverly. As
for his being a maniac, that I would agree with, but only in one point,
that is, his fixed idea about the three thousand. Yet I think one might
find a much simpler cause than his tendency to insanity. For my part I
agree thoroughly with the young doctor who maintained that the prisoner’s
mental faculties have always been normal, and that he has only been
irritable and exasperated. The object of the prisoner’s continual and
violent anger was not the sum itself; there was a special motive at the
bottom of it. That motive is jealousy!”
Here Ippolit Kirillovitch described at length the prisoner’s fatal passion
for Grushenka. He began from the moment when the prisoner went to the
“young person’s” lodgings “to beat her”—“I use his own expression,” the
prosecutor explained—“but instead of beating her, he remained there, at
her feet. That was the beginning of the passion. At the same time the
prisoner’s father was captivated by the same young person—a strange and
fatal coincidence, for they both lost their hearts to her simultaneously,
though both had known her before. And she inspired in both of them the
most violent, characteristically Karamazov passion. We have her own
confession: ‘I was laughing at both of them.’ Yes, the sudden desire to
make a jest of them came over her, and she conquered both of them at once.
The old man, who worshiped money, at once set aside three thousand roubles
as a reward for one visit from her, but soon after that, he would have
been happy to lay his property and his name at her feet, if only she would
become his lawful wife. We have good evidence of this. As for the
prisoner, the tragedy of his fate is evident; it is before us. But such
was the young person’s ‘game.’ The enchantress gave the unhappy young man
no hope until the last moment, when he knelt before her, stretching out
hands that were already stained with the blood of his father and rival. It
was in that position that he was arrested. ‘Send me to Siberia with him, I
have brought him to this, I am most to blame,’ the woman herself cried, in
genuine remorse at the moment of his arrest.
“The talented young man, to whom I have referred already, Mr. Rakitin,
characterized this heroine in brief and impressive terms: ‘She was
disillusioned early in life, deceived and ruined by a betrothed, who
seduced and abandoned her. She was left in poverty, cursed by her
respectable family, and taken under the protection of a wealthy old man,
whom she still, however, considers as her benefactor. There was perhaps
much that was good in her young heart, but it was embittered too early.
She became prudent and saved money. She grew sarcastic and resentful
against society.’ After this sketch of her character it may well be
understood that she might laugh at both of them simply from mischief, from
malice.
“After a month of hopeless love and moral degradation, during which he
betrayed his betrothed and appropriated money entrusted to his honor, the
prisoner was driven almost to frenzy, almost to madness by continual
jealousy—and of whom? His father! And the worst of it was that the crazy
old man was alluring and enticing the object of his affection by means of
that very three thousand roubles, which the son looked upon as his own
property, part of his inheritance from his mother, of which his father was
cheating him. Yes, I admit it was hard to bear! It might well drive a man
to madness. It was not the money, but the fact that this money was used
with such revolting cynicism to ruin his happiness!”
Then the prosecutor went on to describe how the idea of murdering his
father had entered the prisoner’s head, and illustrated his theory with
facts.
“At first he only talked about it in taverns—he was talking about it all
that month. Ah, he likes being always surrounded with company, and he
likes to tell his companions everything, even his most diabolical and
dangerous ideas; he likes to share every thought with others, and expects,
for some reason, that those he confides in will meet him with perfect
sympathy, enter into all his troubles and anxieties, take his part and not
oppose him in anything. If not, he flies into a rage and smashes up
everything in the tavern. [Then followed the anecdote about Captain
Snegiryov.] Those who heard the prisoner began to think at last that he
might mean more than threats, and that such a frenzy might turn threats
into actions.”
Here the prosecutor described the meeting of the family at the monastery,
the conversations with Alyosha, and the horrible scene of violence when
the prisoner had rushed into his father’s house just after dinner.
“I cannot positively assert,” the prosecutor continued, “that the prisoner
fully intended to murder his father before that incident. Yet the idea had
several times presented itself to him, and he had deliberated on it—for
that we have facts, witnesses, and his own words. I confess, gentlemen of
the jury,” he added, “that till to‐day I have been uncertain whether to
attribute to the prisoner conscious premeditation. I was firmly convinced
that he had pictured the fatal moment beforehand, but had only pictured
it, contemplating it as a possibility. He had not definitely considered
when and how he might commit the crime.
“But I was only uncertain till to‐day, till that fatal document was
presented to the court just now. You yourselves heard that young lady’s
exclamation, ‘It is the plan, the program of the murder!’ That is how she
defined that miserable, drunken letter of the unhappy prisoner. And, in
fact, from that letter we see that the whole fact of the murder was
premeditated. It was written two days before, and so we know now for a
fact that, forty‐eight hours before the perpetration of his terrible
design, the prisoner swore that, if he could not get money next day, he
would murder his father in order to take the envelope with the notes from
under his pillow, as soon as Ivan had left. ‘As soon as Ivan had gone
away’—you hear that; so he had thought everything out, weighing every
circumstance, and he carried it all out just as he had written it. The
proof of premeditation is conclusive; the crime must have been committed
for the sake of the money, that is stated clearly, that is written and
signed. The prisoner does not deny his signature.
“I shall be told he was drunk when he wrote it. But that does not diminish
the value of the letter, quite the contrary; he wrote when drunk what he
had planned when sober. Had he not planned it when sober, he would not
have written it when drunk. I shall be asked: Then why did he talk about
it in taverns? A man who premeditates such a crime is silent and keeps it
to himself. Yes, but he talked about it before he had formed a plan, when
he had only the desire, only the impulse to it. Afterwards he talked less
about it. On the evening he wrote that letter at the ‘Metropolis’ tavern,
contrary to his custom he was silent, though he had been drinking. He did
not play billiards, he sat in a corner, talked to no one. He did indeed
turn a shopman out of his seat, but that was done almost unconsciously,
because he could never enter a tavern without making a disturbance. It is
true that after he had taken the final decision, he must have felt
apprehensive that he had talked too much about his design beforehand, and
that this might lead to his arrest and prosecution afterwards. But there
was nothing for it; he could not take his words back, but his luck had
served him before, it would serve him again. He believed in his star, you
know! I must confess, too, that he did a great deal to avoid the fatal
catastrophe. ‘To‐morrow I shall try and borrow the money from every one,’
as he writes in his peculiar language, ‘and if they won’t give it to me,
there will be bloodshed.’ ”
Here Ippolit Kirillovitch passed to a detailed description of all Mitya’s
efforts to borrow the money. He described his visit to Samsonov, his
journey to Lyagavy. “Harassed, jeered at, hungry, after selling his watch
to pay for the journey (though he tells us he had fifteen hundred roubles
on him—a likely story), tortured by jealousy at having left the object of
his affections in the town, suspecting that she would go to Fyodor
Pavlovitch in his absence, he returned at last to the town, to find, to
his joy, that she had not been near his father. He accompanied her himself
to her protector. (Strange to say, he doesn’t seem to have been jealous of
Samsonov, which is psychologically interesting.) Then he hastens back to
his ambush in the back gardens, and there learns that Smerdyakov is in a
fit, that the other servant is ill—the coast is clear and he knows the
‘signals’—what a temptation! Still he resists it; he goes off to a lady
who has for some time been residing in the town, and who is highly
esteemed among us, Madame Hohlakov. That lady, who had long watched his
career with compassion, gave him the most judicious advice, to give up his
dissipated life, his unseemly love‐affair, the waste of his youth and
vigor in pot‐house debauchery, and to set off to Siberia to the gold‐
mines: ‘that would be an outlet for your turbulent energies, your romantic
character, your thirst for adventure.’ ”
After describing the result of this conversation and the moment when the
prisoner learnt that Grushenka had not remained at Samsonov’s, the sudden
frenzy of the luckless man worn out with jealousy and nervous exhaustion,
at the thought that she had deceived him and was now with his father,
Ippolit Kirillovitch concluded by dwelling upon the fatal influence of
chance. “Had the maid told him that her mistress was at Mokroe with her
former lover, nothing would have happened. But she lost her head, she
could only swear and protest her ignorance, and if the prisoner did not
kill her on the spot, it was only because he flew in pursuit of his false
mistress.
“But note, frantic as he was, he took with him a brass pestle. Why that?
Why not some other weapon? But since he had been contemplating his plan
and preparing himself for it for a whole month, he would snatch up
anything like a weapon that caught his eye. He had realized for a month
past that any object of the kind would serve as a weapon, so he instantly,
without hesitation, recognized that it would serve his purpose. So it was
by no means unconsciously, by no means involuntarily, that he snatched up
that fatal pestle. And then we find him in his father’s garden—the coast
is clear, there are no witnesses, darkness and jealousy. The suspicion
that she was there, with him, with his rival, in his arms, and perhaps
laughing at him at that moment—took his breath away. And it was not mere
suspicion, the deception was open, obvious. She must be there, in that
lighted room, she must be behind the screen; and the unhappy man would
have us believe that he stole up to the window, peeped respectfully in,
and discreetly withdrew, for fear something terrible and immoral should
happen. And he tries to persuade us of that, us, who understand his
character, who know his state of mind at the moment, and that he knew the
signals by which he could at once enter the house.” At this point Ippolit
Kirillovitch broke off to discuss exhaustively the suspected connection of
Smerdyakov with the murder. He did this very circumstantially, and every
one realized that, although he professed to despise that suspicion, he
thought the subject of great importance.
Chapter VIII. A Treatise On Smerdyakov
“To begin with, what was the source of this suspicion?” (Ippolit
Kirillovitch began.) “The first person who cried out that Smerdyakov had
committed the murder was the prisoner himself at the moment of his arrest,
yet from that time to this he had not brought forward a single fact to
confirm the charge, nor the faintest suggestion of a fact. The charge is
confirmed by three persons only—the two brothers of the prisoner and
Madame Svyetlov. The elder of these brothers expressed his suspicions only
to‐day, when he was undoubtedly suffering from brain fever. But we know
that for the last two months he has completely shared our conviction of
his brother’s guilt and did not attempt to combat that idea. But of that
later. The younger brother has admitted that he has not the slightest fact
to support his notion of Smerdyakov’s guilt, and has only been led to that
conclusion from the prisoner’s own words and the expression of his face.
Yes, that astounding piece of evidence has been brought forward twice to‐
day by him. Madame Svyetlov was even more astounding. ‘What the prisoner
tells you, you must believe; he is not a man to tell a lie.’ That is all
the evidence against Smerdyakov produced by these three persons, who are
all deeply concerned in the prisoner’s fate. And yet the theory of
Smerdyakov’s guilt has been noised about, has been and is still
maintained. Is it credible? Is it conceivable?”
Here Ippolit Kirillovitch thought it necessary to describe the personality
of Smerdyakov, “who had cut short his life in a fit of insanity.” He
depicted him as a man of weak intellect, with a smattering of education,
who had been thrown off his balance by philosophical ideas above his level
and certain modern theories of duty, which he learnt in practice from the
reckless life of his master, who was also perhaps his father—Fyodor
Pavlovitch; and, theoretically, from various strange philosophical
conversations with his master’s elder son, Ivan Fyodorovitch, who readily
indulged in this diversion, probably feeling dull or wishing to amuse
himself at the valet’s expense. “He spoke to me himself of his spiritual
condition during the last few days at his father’s house,” Ippolit
Kirillovitch explained; “but others too have borne witness to it—the
prisoner himself, his brother, and the servant Grigory—that is, all who
knew him well.
“Moreover, Smerdyakov, whose health was shaken by his attacks of epilepsy,
had not the courage of a chicken. ‘He fell at my feet and kissed them,’
the prisoner himself has told us, before he realized how damaging such a
statement was to himself. ‘He is an epileptic chicken,’ he declared about
him in his characteristic language. And the prisoner chose him for his
confidant (we have his own word for it) and he frightened him into
consenting at last to act as a spy for him. In that capacity he deceived
his master, revealing to the prisoner the existence of the envelope with
the notes in it and the signals by means of which he could get into the
house. How could he help telling him, indeed? ‘He would have killed me, I
could see that he would have killed me,’ he said at the inquiry, trembling
and shaking even before us, though his tormentor was by that time arrested
and could do him no harm. ‘He suspected me at every instant. In fear and
trembling I hastened to tell him every secret to pacify him, that he might
see that I had not deceived him and let me off alive.’ Those are his own
words. I wrote them down and I remember them. ‘When he began shouting at
me, I would fall on my knees.’
“He was naturally very honest and enjoyed the complete confidence of his
master, ever since he had restored him some money he had lost. So it may
be supposed that the poor fellow suffered pangs of remorse at having
deceived his master, whom he loved as his benefactor. Persons severely
afflicted with epilepsy are, so the most skillful doctors tell us, always
prone to continual and morbid self‐reproach. They worry over their
‘wickedness,’ they are tormented by pangs of conscience, often entirely
without cause; they exaggerate and often invent all sorts of faults and
crimes. And here we have a man of that type who had really been driven to
wrong‐doing by terror and intimidation.
“He had, besides, a strong presentiment that something terrible would be
the outcome of the situation that was developing before his eyes. When
Ivan Fyodorovitch was leaving for Moscow, just before the catastrophe,
Smerdyakov besought him to remain, though he was too timid to tell him
plainly what he feared. He confined himself to hints, but his hints were
not understood.
“It must be observed that he looked on Ivan Fyodorovitch as a protector,
whose presence in the house was a guarantee that no harm would come to
pass. Remember the phrase in Dmitri Karamazov’s drunken letter, ‘I shall
kill the old man, if only Ivan goes away.’ So Ivan Fyodorovitch’s presence
seemed to every one a guarantee of peace and order in the house.
“But he went away, and within an hour of his young master’s departure
Smerdyakov was taken with an epileptic fit. But that’s perfectly
intelligible. Here I must mention that Smerdyakov, oppressed by terror and
despair of a sort, had felt during those last few days that one of the
fits from which he had suffered before at moments of strain, might be
coming upon him again. The day and hour of such an attack cannot, of
course, be foreseen, but every epileptic can feel beforehand that he is
likely to have one. So the doctors tell us. And so, as soon as Ivan
Fyodorovitch had driven out of the yard, Smerdyakov, depressed by his
lonely and unprotected position, went to the cellar. He went down the
stairs wondering if he would have a fit or not, and what if it were to
come upon him at once. And that very apprehension, that very wonder,
brought on the spasm in his throat that always precedes such attacks, and
he fell unconscious into the cellar. And in this perfectly natural
occurrence people try to detect a suspicion, a hint that he was shamming
an attack _on purpose_. But, if it were on purpose, the question arises at
once, what was his motive? What was he reckoning on? What was he aiming
at? I say nothing about medicine: science, I am told, may go astray: the
doctors were not able to discriminate between the counterfeit and the
real. That may be so, but answer me one question: what motive had he for
such a counterfeit? Could he, had he been plotting the murder, have
desired to attract the attention of the household by having a fit just
before?
“You see, gentlemen of the jury, on the night of the murder, there were
five persons in Fyodor Pavlovitch’s—Fyodor Pavlovitch himself (but he did
not kill himself, that’s evident); then his servant, Grigory, but he was
almost killed himself; the third person was Grigory’s wife, Marfa
Ignatyevna, but it would be simply shameful to imagine her murdering her
master. Two persons are left—the prisoner and Smerdyakov. But, if we are
to believe the prisoner’s statement that he is not the murderer, then
Smerdyakov must have been, for there is no other alternative, no one else
can be found. That is what accounts for the artful, astounding accusation
against the unhappy idiot who committed suicide yesterday. Had a shadow of
suspicion rested on any one else, had there been any sixth person, I am
persuaded that even the prisoner would have been ashamed to accuse
Smerdyakov, and would have accused that sixth person, for to charge
Smerdyakov with that murder is perfectly absurd.
“Gentlemen, let us lay aside psychology, let us lay aside medicine, let us
even lay aside logic, let us turn only to the facts and see what the facts
tell us. If Smerdyakov killed him, how did he do it? Alone or with the
assistance of the prisoner? Let us consider the first alternative—that he
did it alone. If he had killed him it must have been with some object, for
some advantage to himself. But not having a shadow of the motive that the
prisoner had for the murder—hatred, jealousy, and so on—Smerdyakov could
only have murdered him for the sake of gain, in order to appropriate the
three thousand roubles he had seen his master put in the envelope. And yet
he tells another person—and a person most closely interested, that is, the
prisoner—everything about the money and the signals, where the envelope
lay, what was written on it, what it was tied up with, and, above all,
told him of those signals by which he could enter the house. Did he do
this simply to betray himself, or to invite to the same enterprise one who
would be anxious to get that envelope for himself? ‘Yes,’ I shall be told,
‘but he betrayed it from fear.’ But how do you explain this? A man who
could conceive such an audacious, savage act, and carry it out, tells
facts which are known to no one else in the world, and which, if he held
his tongue, no one would ever have guessed!
“No, however cowardly he might be, if he had plotted such a crime, nothing
would have induced him to tell any one about the envelope and the signals,
for that was as good as betraying himself beforehand. He would have
invented something, he would have told some lie if he had been forced to
give information, but he would have been silent about that. For, on the
other hand, if he had said nothing about the money, but had committed the
murder and stolen the money, no one in the world could have charged him
with murder for the sake of robbery, since no one but he had seen the
money, no one but he knew of its existence in the house. Even if he had
been accused of the murder, it could only have been thought that he had
committed it from some other motive. But since no one had observed any
such motive in him beforehand, and every one saw, on the contrary, that
his master was fond of him and honored him with his confidence, he would,
of course, have been the last to be suspected. People would have suspected
first the man who had a motive, a man who had himself declared he had such
motives, who had made no secret of it; they would, in fact, have suspected
the son of the murdered man, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. Had Smerdyakov killed
and robbed him, and the son been accused of it, that would, of course,
have suited Smerdyakov. Yet are we to believe that, though plotting the
murder, he told that son, Dmitri, about the money, the envelope, and the
signals? Is that logical? Is that clear?
“When the day of the murder planned by Smerdyakov came, we have him
falling downstairs in a _feigned_ fit—with what object? In the first place
that Grigory, who had been intending to take his medicine, might put it
off and remain on guard, seeing there was no one to look after the house,
and, in the second place, I suppose, that his master seeing that there was
no one to guard him, and in terror of a visit from his son, might redouble
his vigilance and precaution. And, most of all, I suppose that he,
Smerdyakov, disabled by the fit, might be carried from the kitchen, where
he always slept, apart from all the rest, and where he could go in and out
as he liked, to Grigory’s room at the other end of the lodge, where he was
always put, shut off by a screen three paces from their own bed. This was
the immemorial custom established by his master and the kind‐hearted Marfa
Ignatyevna, whenever he had a fit. There, lying behind the screen, he
would most likely, to keep up the sham, have begun groaning, and so
keeping them awake all night (as Grigory and his wife testified). And all
this, we are to believe, that he might more conveniently get up and murder
his master!
“But I shall be told that he shammed illness on purpose that he might not
be suspected and that he told the prisoner of the money and the signals to
tempt him to commit the murder, and when he had murdered him and had gone
away with the money, making a noise, most likely, and waking people,
Smerdyakov got up, am I to believe, and went in—what for? To murder his
master a second time and carry off the money that had already been stolen?
Gentlemen, are you laughing? I am ashamed to put forward such suggestions,
but, incredible as it seems, that’s just what the prisoner alleges. When
he had left the house, had knocked Grigory down and raised an alarm, he
tells us Smerdyakov got up, went in and murdered his master and stole the
money! I won’t press the point that Smerdyakov could hardly have reckoned
on this beforehand, and have foreseen that the furious and exasperated son
would simply come to peep in respectfully, though he knew the signals, and
beat a retreat, leaving Smerdyakov his booty. Gentlemen of the jury, I put
this question to you in earnest; when was the moment when Smerdyakov could
have committed his crime? Name that moment, or you can’t accuse him.
“But, perhaps, the fit was a real one, the sick man suddenly recovered,
heard a shout, and went out. Well—what then? He looked about him and said,
‘Why not go and kill the master?’ And how did he know what had happened,
since he had been lying unconscious till that moment? But there’s a limit
to these flights of fancy.
“ ‘Quite so,’ some astute people will tell me, ‘but what if they were in
agreement? What if they murdered him together and shared the money—what
then?’ A weighty question, truly! And the facts to confirm it are
astounding. One commits the murder and takes all the trouble while his
accomplice lies on one side shamming a fit, apparently to arouse suspicion
in every one, alarm in his master and alarm in Grigory. It would be
interesting to know what motives could have induced the two accomplices to
form such an insane plan.
“But perhaps it was not a case of active complicity on Smerdyakov’s part,
but only of passive acquiescence; perhaps Smerdyakov was intimidated and
agreed not to prevent the murder, and foreseeing that he would be blamed
for letting his master be murdered, without screaming for help or
resisting, he may have obtained permission from Dmitri Karamazov to get
out of the way by shamming a fit—‘you may murder him as you like; it’s
nothing to me.’ But as this attack of Smerdyakov’s was bound to throw the
household into confusion, Dmitri Karamazov could never have agreed to such
a plan. I will waive that point however. Supposing that he did agree, it
would still follow that Dmitri Karamazov is the murderer and the
instigator, and Smerdyakov is only a passive accomplice, and not even an
accomplice, but merely acquiesced against his will through terror.
“But what do we see? As soon as he is arrested the prisoner instantly
throws all the blame on Smerdyakov, not accusing him of being his
accomplice, but of being himself the murderer. ‘He did it alone,’ he says.
‘He murdered and robbed him. It was the work of his hands.’ Strange sort
of accomplices who begin to accuse one another at once! And think of the
risk for Karamazov. After committing the murder while his accomplice lay
in bed, he throws the blame on the invalid, who might well have resented
it and in self‐preservation might well have confessed the truth. For he
might well have seen that the court would at once judge how far he was
responsible, and so he might well have reckoned that if he were punished,
it would be far less severely than the real murderer. But in that case he
would have been certain to make a confession, yet he has not done so.
Smerdyakov never hinted at their complicity, though the actual murderer
persisted in accusing him and declaring that he had committed the crime
alone.
“What’s more, Smerdyakov at the inquiry volunteered the statement that it
was _he_ who had told the prisoner of the envelope of notes and of the
signals, and that, but for him, he would have known nothing about them. If
he had really been a guilty accomplice, would he so readily have made this
statement at the inquiry? On the contrary, he would have tried to conceal
it, to distort the facts or minimize them. But he was far from distorting
or minimizing them. No one but an innocent man, who had no fear of being
charged with complicity, could have acted as he did. And in a fit of
melancholy arising from his disease and this catastrophe he hanged himself
yesterday. He left a note written in his peculiar language, ‘I destroy
myself of my own will and inclination so as to throw no blame on any one.’
What would it have cost him to add: ‘I am the murderer, not Karamazov’?
But that he did not add. Did his conscience lead him to suicide and not to
avowing his guilt?
“And what followed? Notes for three thousand roubles were brought into the
court just now, and we were told that they were the same that lay in the
envelope now on the table before us, and that the witness had received
them from Smerdyakov the day before. But I need not recall the painful
scene, though I will make one or two comments, selecting such trivial ones
as might not be obvious at first sight to every one, and so may be
overlooked. In the first place, Smerdyakov must have given back the money
and hanged himself yesterday from remorse. And only yesterday he confessed
his guilt to Ivan Karamazov, as the latter informs us. If it were not so,
indeed, why should Ivan Fyodorovitch have kept silence till now? And so,
if he has confessed, then why, I ask again, did he not avow the whole
truth in the last letter he left behind, knowing that the innocent
prisoner had to face this terrible ordeal the next day?
“The money alone is no proof. A week ago, quite by chance, the fact came
to the knowledge of myself and two other persons in this court that Ivan
Fyodorovitch had sent two five per cent. coupons of five thousand
each—that is, ten thousand in all—to the chief town of the province to be
changed. I only mention this to point out that any one may have money, and
that it can’t be proved that these notes are the same as were in Fyodor
Pavlovitch’s envelope.
“Ivan Karamazov, after receiving yesterday a communication of such
importance from the real murderer, did not stir. Why didn’t he report it
at once? Why did he put it all off till morning? I think I have a right to
conjecture why. His health had been giving way for a week past: he had
admitted to a doctor and to his most intimate friends that he was
suffering from hallucinations and seeing phantoms of the dead: he was on
the eve of the attack of brain fever by which he has been stricken down
to‐day. In this condition he suddenly heard of Smerdyakov’s death, and at
once reflected, ‘The man is dead, I can throw the blame on him and save my
brother. I have money. I will take a roll of notes and say that Smerdyakov
gave them me before his death.’ You will say that was dishonorable: it’s
dishonorable to slander even the dead, and even to save a brother. True,
but what if he slandered him unconsciously? What if, finally unhinged by
the sudden news of the valet’s death, he imagined it really was so? You
saw the recent scene: you have seen the witness’s condition. He was
standing up and was speaking, but where was his mind?
“Then followed the document, the prisoner’s letter written two days before
the crime, and containing a complete program of the murder. Why, then, are
we looking for any other program? The crime was committed precisely
according to this program, and by no other than the writer of it. Yes,
gentlemen of the jury, it went off without a hitch! He did not run
respectfully and timidly away from his father’s window, though he was
firmly convinced that the object of his affections was with him. No, that
is absurd and unlikely! He went in and murdered him. Most likely he killed
him in anger, burning with resentment, as soon as he looked on his hated
rival. But having killed him, probably with one blow of the brass pestle,
and having convinced himself, after careful search, that she was not
there, he did not, however, forget to put his hand under the pillow and
take out the envelope, the torn cover of which lies now on the table
before us.
“I mention this fact that you may note one, to my thinking, very
characteristic circumstance. Had he been an experienced murderer and had
he committed the murder for the sake of gain only, would he have left the
torn envelope on the floor as it was found, beside the corpse? Had it been
Smerdyakov, for instance, murdering his master to rob him, he would have
simply carried away the envelope with him, without troubling himself to
open it over his victim’s corpse, for he would have known for certain that
the notes were in the envelope—they had been put in and sealed up in his
presence—and had he taken the envelope with him, no one would ever have
known of the robbery. I ask you, gentlemen, would Smerdyakov have behaved
in that way? Would he have left the envelope on the floor?
“No, this was the action of a frantic murderer, a murderer who was not a
thief and had never stolen before that day, who snatched the notes from
under the pillow, not like a thief stealing them, but as though seizing
his own property from the thief who had stolen it. For that was the idea
which had become almost an insane obsession in Dmitri Karamazov in regard
to that money. And pouncing upon the envelope, which he had never seen
before, he tore it open to make sure whether the money was in it, and ran
away with the money in his pocket, even forgetting to consider that he had
left an astounding piece of evidence against himself in that torn envelope
on the floor. All because it was Karamazov, not Smerdyakov, he didn’t
think, he didn’t reflect, and how should he? He ran away; he heard behind
him the servant cry out; the old man caught him, stopped him and was
felled to the ground by the brass pestle.
“The prisoner, moved by pity, leapt down to look at him. Would you believe
it, he tells us that he leapt down out of pity, out of compassion, to see
whether he could do anything for him. Was that a moment to show
compassion? No; he jumped down simply to make certain whether the only
witness of his crime were dead or alive. Any other feeling, any other
motive would be unnatural. Note that he took trouble over Grigory, wiped
his head with his handkerchief and, convincing himself he was dead, he ran
to the house of his mistress, dazed and covered with blood. How was it he
never thought that he was covered with blood and would be at once
detected? But the prisoner himself assures us that he did not even notice
that he was covered with blood. That may be believed, that is very
possible, that always happens at such moments with criminals. On one point
they will show diabolical cunning, while another will escape them
altogether. But he was thinking at that moment of one thing only—where was
_she_? He wanted to find out at once where she was, so he ran to her
lodging and learnt an unexpected and astounding piece of news—she had gone
off to Mokroe to meet her first lover.”
Chapter IX. The Galloping Troika. The End Of The Prosecutor’s Speech.
Ippolit Kirillovitch had chosen the historical method of exposition,
beloved by all nervous orators, who find in its limitation a check on
their own eager rhetoric. At this moment in his speech he went off into a
dissertation on Grushenka’s “first lover,” and brought forward several
interesting thoughts on this theme.
“Karamazov, who had been frantically jealous of every one, collapsed, so
to speak, and effaced himself at once before this first lover. What makes
it all the more strange is that he seems to have hardly thought of this
formidable rival. But he had looked upon him as a remote danger, and
Karamazov always lives in the present. Possibly he regarded him as a
fiction. But his wounded heart grasped instantly that the woman had been
concealing this new rival and deceiving him, because he was anything but a
fiction to her, because he was the one hope of her life. Grasping this
instantly, he resigned himself.
“Gentlemen of the jury, I cannot help dwelling on this unexpected trait in
the prisoner’s character. He suddenly evinces an irresistible desire for
justice, a respect for woman and a recognition of her right to love. And
all this at the very moment when he had stained his hands with his
father’s blood for her sake! It is true that the blood he had shed was
already crying out for vengeance, for, after having ruined his soul and
his life in this world, he was forced to ask himself at that same instant
what he was and what he could be now to her, to that being, dearer to him
than his own soul, in comparison with that former lover who had returned
penitent, with new love, to the woman he had once betrayed, with honorable
offers, with the promise of a reformed and happy life. And he, luckless
man, what could he give her now, what could he offer her?
“Karamazov felt all this, knew that all ways were barred to him by his
crime and that he was a criminal under sentence, and not a man with life
before him! This thought crushed him. And so he instantly flew to one
frantic plan, which, to a man of Karamazov’s character, must have appeared
the one inevitable way out of his terrible position. That way out was
suicide. He ran for the pistols he had left in pledge with his friend
Perhotin and on the way, as he ran, he pulled out of his pocket the money,
for the sake of which he had stained his hands with his father’s gore. Oh,
now he needed money more than ever. Karamazov would die, Karamazov would
shoot himself and it should be remembered! To be sure, he was a poet and
had burnt the candle at both ends all his life. ‘To her, to her! and
there, oh, there I will give a feast to the whole world, such as never was
before, that will be remembered and talked of long after! In the midst of
shouts of wild merriment, reckless gypsy songs and dances I shall raise
the glass and drink to the woman I adore and her new‐found happiness! And
then, on the spot, at her feet, I shall dash out my brains before her and
punish myself! She will remember Mitya Karamazov sometimes, she will see
how Mitya loved her, she will feel for Mitya!’
“Here we see in excess a love of effect, a romantic despair and
sentimentality, and the wild recklessness of the Karamazovs. Yes, but
there is something else, gentlemen of the jury, something that cries out
in the soul, throbs incessantly in the mind, and poisons the heart unto
death—that _something_ is conscience, gentlemen of the jury, its judgment,
its terrible torments! The pistol will settle everything, the pistol is
the only way out! But _beyond_—I don’t know whether Karamazov wondered at
that moment ‘What lies beyond,’ and whether Karamazov could, like Hamlet,
wonder ‘What lies beyond.’ No, gentlemen of the jury, they have their
Hamlets, but we still have our Karamazovs!”
Here Ippolit Kirillovitch drew a minute picture of Mitya’s preparations,
the scene at Perhotin’s, at the shop, with the drivers. He quoted numerous
words and actions, confirmed by witnesses, and the picture made a terrible
impression on the audience. The guilt of this harassed and desperate man
stood out clear and convincing, when the facts were brought together.
“What need had he of precaution? Two or three times he almost confessed,
hinted at it, all but spoke out.” (Then followed the evidence given by
witnesses.) “He even cried out to the peasant who drove him, ‘Do you know,
you are driving a murderer!’ But it was impossible for him to speak out,
he had to get to Mokroe and there to finish his romance. But what was
awaiting the luckless man? Almost from the first minute at Mokroe he saw
that his invincible rival was perhaps by no means so invincible, that the
toast to their new‐found happiness was not desired and would not be
acceptable. But you know the facts, gentlemen of the jury, from the
preliminary inquiry. Karamazov’s triumph over his rival was complete and
his soul passed into quite a new phase, perhaps the most terrible phase
through which his soul has passed or will pass.
“One may say with certainty, gentlemen of the jury,” the prosecutor
continued, “that outraged nature and the criminal heart bring their own
vengeance more completely than any earthly justice. What’s more, justice
and punishment on earth positively alleviate the punishment of nature and
are, indeed, essential to the soul of the criminal at such moments, as its
salvation from despair. For I cannot imagine the horror and moral
suffering of Karamazov when he learnt that she loved him, that for his
sake she had rejected her first lover, that she was summoning him, Mitya,
to a new life, that she was promising him happiness—and when? When
everything was over for him and nothing was possible!
“By the way, I will note in parenthesis a point of importance for the
light it throws on the prisoner’s position at the moment. This woman, this
love of his, had been till the last moment, till the very instant of his
arrest, a being unattainable, passionately desired by him but
unattainable. Yet why did he not shoot himself then, why did he relinquish
his design and even forget where his pistol was? It was just that
passionate desire for love and the hope of satisfying it that restrained
him. Throughout their revels he kept close to his adored mistress, who was
at the banquet with him and was more charming and fascinating to him than
ever—he did not leave her side, abasing himself in his homage before her.
“His passion might well, for a moment, stifle not only the fear of arrest,
but even the torments of conscience. For a moment, oh, only for a moment!
I can picture the state of mind of the criminal hopelessly enslaved by
these influences—first, the influence of drink, of noise and excitement,
of the thud of the dance and the scream of the song, and of her, flushed
with wine, singing and dancing and laughing to him! Secondly, the hope in
the background that the fatal end might still be far off, that not till
next morning, at least, they would come and take him. So he had a few
hours and that’s much, very much! In a few hours one can think of many
things. I imagine that he felt something like what criminals feel when
they are being taken to the scaffold. They have another long, long street
to pass down and at walking pace, past thousands of people. Then there
will be a turning into another street and only at the end of that street
the dread place of execution! I fancy that at the beginning of the journey
the condemned man, sitting on his shameful cart, must feel that he has
infinite life still before him. The houses recede, the cart moves on—oh,
that’s nothing, it’s still far to the turning into the second street and
he still looks boldly to right and to left at those thousands of callously
curious people with their eyes fixed on him, and he still fancies that he
is just such a man as they. But now the turning comes to the next street.
Oh, that’s nothing, nothing, there’s still a whole street before him, and
however many houses have been passed, he will still think there are many
left. And so to the very end, to the very scaffold.
“This I imagine is how it was with Karamazov then. ‘They’ve not had time
yet,’ he must have thought, ‘I may still find some way out, oh, there’s
still time to make some plan of defense, and now, now—she is so
fascinating!’
“His soul was full of confusion and dread, but he managed, however, to put
aside half his money and hide it somewhere—I cannot otherwise explain the
disappearance of quite half of the three thousand he had just taken from
his father’s pillow. He had been in Mokroe more than once before, he had
caroused there for two days together already, he knew the old big house
with all its passages and outbuildings. I imagine that part of the money
was hidden in that house, not long before the arrest, in some crevice,
under some floor, in some corner, under the roof. With what object? I
shall be asked. Why, the catastrophe may take place at once, of course; he
hadn’t yet considered how to meet it, he hadn’t the time, his head was
throbbing and his heart was with _her_, but money—money was indispensable
in any case! With money a man is always a man. Perhaps such foresight at
such a moment may strike you as unnatural? But he assures us himself that
a month before, at a critical and exciting moment, he had halved his money
and sewn it up in a little bag. And though that was not true, as we shall
prove directly, it shows the idea was a familiar one to Karamazov, he had
contemplated it. What’s more, when he declared at the inquiry that he had
put fifteen hundred roubles in a bag (which never existed) he may have
invented that little bag on the inspiration of the moment, because he had
two hours before divided his money and hidden half of it at Mokroe till
morning, in case of emergency, simply not to have it on himself. Two
extremes, gentlemen of the jury, remember that Karamazov can contemplate
two extremes and both at once.
“We have looked in the house, but we haven’t found the money. It may still
be there or it may have disappeared next day and be in the prisoner’s
hands now. In any case he was at her side, on his knees before her, she
was lying on the bed, he had his hands stretched out to her and he had so
entirely forgotten everything that he did not even hear the men coming to
arrest him. He hadn’t time to prepare any line of defense in his mind. He
was caught unawares and confronted with his judges, the arbiters of his
destiny.
“Gentlemen of the jury, there are moments in the execution of our duties
when it is terrible for us to face a man, terrible on his account, too!
The moments of contemplating that animal fear, when the criminal sees that
all is lost, but still struggles, still means to struggle, the moments
when every instinct of self‐preservation rises up in him at once and he
looks at you with questioning and suffering eyes, studies you, your face,
your thoughts, uncertain on which side you will strike, and his distracted
mind frames thousands of plans in an instant, but he is still afraid to
speak, afraid of giving himself away! This purgatory of the spirit, this
animal thirst for self‐preservation, these humiliating moments of the
human soul, are awful, and sometimes arouse horror and compassion for the
criminal even in the lawyer. And this was what we all witnessed then.
“At first he was thunderstruck and in his terror dropped some very
compromising phrases. ‘Blood! I’ve deserved it!’ But he quickly restrained
himself. He had not prepared what he was to say, what answer he was to
make, he had nothing but a bare denial ready. ‘I am not guilty of my
father’s death.’ That was his fence for the moment and behind it he hoped
to throw up a barricade of some sort. His first compromising exclamations
he hastened to explain by declaring that he was responsible for the death
of the servant Grigory only. ‘Of that bloodshed I am guilty, but who has
killed my father, gentlemen, who has killed him? Who can have killed him,
_if not I_?’ Do you hear, he asked us that, us, who had come to ask him
that question! Do you hear that phrase uttered with such premature
haste—‘if not I’—the animal cunning, the naïveté, the Karamazov impatience
of it? ‘I didn’t kill him and you mustn’t think I did! I wanted to kill
him, gentlemen, I wanted to kill him,’ he hastens to admit (he was in a
hurry, in a terrible hurry), ‘but still I am not guilty, it is not I
murdered him.’ He concedes to us that he wanted to murder him, as though
to say, you can see for yourselves how truthful I am, so you’ll believe
all the sooner that I didn’t murder him. Oh, in such cases the criminal is
often amazingly shallow and credulous.
“At that point one of the lawyers asked him, as it were incidentally, the
most simple question, ‘Wasn’t it Smerdyakov killed him?’ Then, as we
expected, he was horribly angry at our having anticipated him and caught
him unawares, before he had time to pave the way to choose and snatch the
moment when it would be most natural to bring in Smerdyakov’s name. He
rushed at once to the other extreme, as he always does, and began to
assure us that Smerdyakov could not have killed him, was not capable of
it. But don’t believe him, that was only his cunning; he didn’t really
give up the idea of Smerdyakov; on the contrary, he meant to bring him
forward again; for, indeed, he had no one else to bring forward, but he
would do that later, because for the moment that line was spoiled for him.
He would bring him forward perhaps next day, or even a few days later,
choosing an opportunity to cry out to us, ‘You know I was more skeptical
about Smerdyakov than you, you remember that yourselves, but now I am
convinced. He killed him, he must have done!’ And for the present he falls
back upon a gloomy and irritable denial. Impatience and anger prompted
him, however, to the most inept and incredible explanation of how he
looked into his father’s window and how he respectfully withdrew. The
worst of it was that he was unaware of the position of affairs, of the
evidence given by Grigory.
“We proceeded to search him. The search angered, but encouraged him, the
whole three thousand had not been found on him, only half of it. And no
doubt only at that moment of angry silence, the fiction of the little bag
first occurred to him. No doubt he was conscious himself of the
improbability of the story and strove painfully to make it sound more
likely, to weave it into a romance that would sound plausible. In such
cases the first duty, the chief task of the investigating lawyers, is to
prevent the criminal being prepared, to pounce upon him unexpectedly so
that he may blurt out his cherished ideas in all their simplicity,
improbability and inconsistency. The criminal can only be made to speak by
the sudden and apparently incidental communication of some new fact, of
some circumstance of great importance in the case, of which he had no
previous idea and could not have foreseen. We had such a fact in
readiness—that was Grigory’s evidence about the open door through which
the prisoner had run out. He had completely forgotten about that door and
had not even suspected that Grigory could have seen it.
“The effect of it was amazing. He leapt up and shouted to us, ‘Then
Smerdyakov murdered him, it was Smerdyakov!’ and so betrayed the basis of
the defense he was keeping back, and betrayed it in its most improbable
shape, for Smerdyakov could only have committed the murder after he had
knocked Grigory down and run away. When we told him that Grigory saw the
door was open before he fell down, and had heard Smerdyakov behind the
screen as he came out of his bedroom—Karamazov was positively crushed. My
esteemed and witty colleague, Nikolay Parfenovitch, told me afterwards
that he was almost moved to tears at the sight of him. And to improve
matters, the prisoner hastened to tell us about the much‐talked‐of little
bag—so be it, you shall hear this romance!
“Gentlemen of the jury, I have told you already why I consider this
romance not only an absurdity, but the most improbable invention that
could have been brought forward in the circumstances. If one tried for a
bet to invent the most unlikely story, one could hardly find anything more
incredible. The worst of such stories is that the triumphant romancers can
always be put to confusion and crushed by the very details in which real
life is so rich and which these unhappy and involuntary story‐tellers
neglect as insignificant trifles. Oh, they have no thought to spare for
such details, their minds are concentrated on their grand invention as a
whole, and fancy any one daring to pull them up for a trifle! But that’s
how they are caught. The prisoner was asked the question, ‘Where did you
get the stuff for your little bag and who made it for you?’ ‘I made it
myself.’ ‘And where did you get the linen?’ The prisoner was positively
offended, he thought it almost insulting to ask him such a trivial
question, and would you believe it, his resentment was genuine! But they
are all like that. ‘I tore it off my shirt.’ ‘Then we shall find that
shirt among your linen to‐morrow, with a piece torn off.’ And only fancy,
gentlemen of the jury, if we really had found that torn shirt (and how
could we have failed to find it in his chest of drawers or trunk?) that
would have been a fact, a material fact in support of his statement! But
he was incapable of that reflection. ‘I don’t remember, it may not have
been off my shirt, I sewed it up in one of my landlady’s caps.’ ‘What sort
of a cap?’ ‘It was an old cotton rag of hers lying about.’ ‘And do you
remember that clearly?’ ‘No, I don’t.’ And he was angry, very angry, and
yet imagine not remembering it! At the most terrible moments of man’s
life, for instance when he is being led to execution, he remembers just
such trifles. He will forget anything but some green roof that has flashed
past him on the road, or a jackdaw on a cross—that he will remember. He
concealed the making of that little bag from his household, he must have
remembered his humiliating fear that some one might come in and find him
needle in hand, how at the slightest sound he slipped behind the screen
(there is a screen in his lodgings).
“But, gentlemen of the jury, why do I tell you all this, all these
details, trifles?” cried Ippolit Kirillovitch suddenly. “Just because the
prisoner still persists in these absurdities to this moment. He has not
explained anything since that fatal night two months ago, he has not added
one actual illuminating fact to his former fantastic statements; all those
are trivialities. ‘You must believe it on my honor.’ Oh, we are glad to
believe it, we are eager to believe it, even if only on his word of honor!
Are we jackals thirsting for human blood? Show us a single fact in the
prisoner’s favor and we shall rejoice; but let it be a substantial, real
fact, and not a conclusion drawn from the prisoner’s expression by his own
brother, or that when he beat himself on the breast he must have meant to
point to the little bag, in the darkness, too. We shall rejoice at the new
fact, we shall be the first to repudiate our charge, we shall hasten to
repudiate it. But now justice cries out and we persist, we cannot
repudiate anything.”
Ippolit Kirillovitch passed to his final peroration. He looked as though
he was in a fever, he spoke of the blood that cried for vengeance, the
blood of the father murdered by his son, with the base motive of robbery!
He pointed to the tragic and glaring consistency of the facts.
“And whatever you may hear from the talented and celebrated counsel for
the defense,” Ippolit Kirillovitch could not resist adding, “whatever
eloquent and touching appeals may be made to your sensibilities, remember
that at this moment you are in a temple of justice. Remember that you are
the champions of our justice, the champions of our holy Russia, of her
principles, her family, everything that she holds sacred! Yes, you
represent Russia here at this moment, and your verdict will be heard not
in this hall only but will reëcho throughout the whole of Russia, and all
Russia will hear you, as her champions and her judges, and she will be
encouraged or disheartened by your verdict. Do not disappoint Russia and
her expectations. Our fatal troika dashes on in her headlong flight
perhaps to destruction and in all Russia for long past men have stretched
out imploring hands and called a halt to its furious reckless course. And
if other nations stand aside from that troika that may be, not from
respect, as the poet would fain believe, but simply from horror. From
horror, perhaps from disgust. And well it is that they stand aside, but
maybe they will cease one day to do so and will form a firm wall
confronting the hurrying apparition and will check the frenzied rush of
our lawlessness, for the sake of their own safety, enlightenment and
civilization. Already we have heard voices of alarm from Europe, they
already begin to sound. Do not tempt them! Do not heap up their growing
hatred by a sentence justifying the murder of a father by his son!”
Though Ippolit Kirillovitch was genuinely moved, he wound up his speech
with this rhetorical appeal—and the effect produced by him was
extraordinary. When he had finished his speech, he went out hurriedly and,
as I have mentioned before, almost fainted in the adjoining room. There
was no applause in the court, but serious persons were pleased. The ladies
were not so well satisfied, though even they were pleased with his
eloquence, especially as they had no apprehensions as to the upshot of the
trial and had full trust in Fetyukovitch. “He will speak at last and of
course carry all before him.”
Every one looked at Mitya; he sat silent through the whole of the
prosecutor’s speech, clenching his teeth, with his hands clasped, and his
head bowed. Only from time to time he raised his head and listened,
especially when Grushenka was spoken of. When the prosecutor mentioned
Rakitin’s opinion of her, a smile of contempt and anger passed over his
face and he murmured rather audibly, “The Bernards!” When Ippolit
Kirillovitch described how he had questioned and tortured him at Mokroe,
Mitya raised his head and listened with intense curiosity. At one point he
seemed about to jump up and cry out, but controlled himself and only
shrugged his shoulders disdainfully. People talked afterwards of the end
of the speech, of the prosecutor’s feat in examining the prisoner at
Mokroe, and jeered at Ippolit Kirillovitch. “The man could not resist
boasting of his cleverness,” they said.
The court was adjourned, but only for a short interval, a quarter of an
hour or twenty minutes at most. There was a hum of conversation and
exclamations in the audience. I remember some of them.
“A weighty speech,” a gentleman in one group observed gravely.
“He brought in too much psychology,” said another voice.
“But it was all true, the absolute truth!”
“Yes, he is first rate at it.”
“He summed it all up.”
“Yes, he summed us up, too,” chimed in another voice. “Do you remember, at
the beginning of his speech, making out we were all like Fyodor
Pavlovitch?”
“And at the end, too. But that was all rot.”
“And obscure too.”
“He was a little too much carried away.”
“It’s unjust, it’s unjust.”
“No, it was smartly done, anyway. He’s had long to wait, but he’s had his
say, ha ha!”
“What will the counsel for the defense say?”
In another group I heard:
“He had no business to make a thrust at the Petersburg man like that;
‘appealing to your sensibilities’—do you remember?”
“Yes, that was awkward of him.”
“He was in too great a hurry.”
“He is a nervous man.”
“We laugh, but what must the prisoner be feeling?”
“Yes, what must it be for Mitya?”
In a third group:
“What lady is that, the fat one, with the lorgnette, sitting at the end?”
“She is a general’s wife, divorced, I know her.”
“That’s why she has the lorgnette.”
“She is not good for much.”
“Oh, no, she is a piquante little woman.”
“Two places beyond her there is a little fair woman, she is prettier.”
“They caught him smartly at Mokroe, didn’t they, eh?”
“Oh, it was smart enough. We’ve heard it before, how often he has told the
story at people’s houses!”
“And he couldn’t resist doing it now. That’s vanity.”
“He is a man with a grievance, he he!”
“Yes, and quick to take offense. And there was too much rhetoric, such
long sentences.”
“Yes, he tries to alarm us, he kept trying to alarm us. Do you remember
about the troika? Something about ‘They have Hamlets, but we have, so far,
only Karamazovs!’ That was cleverly said!”
“That was to propitiate the liberals. He is afraid of them.”
“Yes, and he is afraid of the lawyer, too.”
“Yes, what will Fetyukovitch say?”
“Whatever he says, he won’t get round our peasants.”
“Don’t you think so?”
A fourth group:
“What he said about the troika was good, that piece about the other
nations.”
“And that was true what he said about other nations not standing it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why, in the English Parliament a Member got up last week and speaking
about the Nihilists asked the Ministry whether it was not high time to
intervene, to educate this barbarous people. Ippolit was thinking of him,
I know he was. He was talking about that last week.”
“Not an easy job.”
“Not an easy job? Why not?”
“Why, we’d shut up Kronstadt and not let them have any corn. Where would
they get it?”
“In America. They get it from America now.”
“Nonsense!”
But the bell rang, all rushed to their places. Fetyukovitch mounted the
tribune.
Chapter X. The Speech For The Defense. An Argument That Cuts Both Ways
All was hushed as the first words of the famous orator rang out. The eyes
of the audience were fastened upon him. He began very simply and directly,
with an air of conviction, but not the slightest trace of conceit. He made
no attempt at eloquence, at pathos, or emotional phrases. He was like a
man speaking in a circle of intimate and sympathetic friends. His voice
was a fine one, sonorous and sympathetic, and there was something genuine
and simple in the very sound of it. But every one realized at once that
the speaker might suddenly rise to genuine pathos and “pierce the heart
with untold power.” His language was perhaps more irregular than Ippolit
Kirillovitch’s, but he spoke without long phrases, and indeed, with more
precision. One thing did not please the ladies: he kept bending forward,
especially at the beginning of his speech, not exactly bowing, but as
though he were about to dart at his listeners, bending his long spine in
half, as though there were a spring in the middle that enabled him to bend
almost at right angles.
At the beginning of his speech he spoke rather disconnectedly, without
system, one may say, dealing with facts separately, though, at the end,
these facts formed a whole. His speech might be divided into two parts,
the first consisting of criticism in refutation of the charge, sometimes
malicious and sarcastic. But in the second half he suddenly changed his
tone, and even his manner, and at once rose to pathos. The audience seemed
on the look‐out for it, and quivered with enthusiasm.
He went straight to the point, and began by saying that although he
practiced in Petersburg, he had more than once visited provincial towns to
defend prisoners, of whose innocence he had a conviction or at least a
preconceived idea. “That is what has happened to me in the present case,”
he explained. “From the very first accounts in the newspapers I was struck
by something which strongly prepossessed me in the prisoner’s favor. What
interested me most was a fact which often occurs in legal practice, but
rarely, I think, in such an extreme and peculiar form as in the present
case. I ought to formulate that peculiarity only at the end of my speech,
but I will do so at the very beginning, for it is my weakness to go to
work directly, not keeping my effects in reserve and economizing my
material. That may be imprudent on my part, but at least it’s sincere.
What I have in my mind is this: there is an overwhelming chain of evidence
against the prisoner, and at the same time not one fact that will stand
criticism, if it is examined separately. As I followed the case more
closely in the papers my idea was more and more confirmed, and I suddenly
received from the prisoner’s relatives a request to undertake his defense.
I at once hurried here, and here I became completely convinced. It was to
break down this terrible chain of facts, and to show that each piece of
evidence taken separately was unproved and fantastic, that I undertook the
case.”
So Fetyukovitch began.
“Gentlemen of the jury,” he suddenly protested, “I am new to this
district. I have no preconceived ideas. The prisoner, a man of turbulent
and unbridled temper, has not insulted me. But he has insulted perhaps
hundreds of persons in this town, and so prejudiced many people against
him beforehand. Of course I recognize that the moral sentiment of local
society is justly excited against him. The prisoner is of turbulent and
violent temper. Yet he was received in society here; he was even welcome
in the family of my talented friend, the prosecutor.”
(N.B. At these words there were two or three laughs in the audience,
quickly suppressed, but noticed by all. All of us knew that the prosecutor
received Mitya against his will, solely because he had somehow interested
his wife—a lady of the highest virtue and moral worth, but fanciful,
capricious, and fond of opposing her husband, especially in trifles.
Mitya’s visits, however, had not been frequent.)
“Nevertheless I venture to suggest,” Fetyukovitch continued, “that in
spite of his independent mind and just character, my opponent may have
formed a mistaken prejudice against my unfortunate client. Oh, that is so
natural; the unfortunate man has only too well deserved such prejudice.
Outraged morality, and still more outraged taste, is often relentless. We
have, in the talented prosecutor’s speech, heard a stern analysis of the
prisoner’s character and conduct, and his severe critical attitude to the
case was evident. And, what’s more, he went into psychological subtleties
into which he could not have entered, if he had the least conscious and
malicious prejudice against the prisoner. But there are things which are
even worse, even more fatal in such cases, than the most malicious and
consciously unfair attitude. It is worse if we are carried away by the
artistic instinct, by the desire to create, so to speak, a romance,
especially if God has endowed us with psychological insight. Before I
started on my way here, I was warned in Petersburg, and was myself aware,
that I should find here a talented opponent whose psychological insight
and subtlety had gained him peculiar renown in legal circles of recent
years. But profound as psychology is, it’s a knife that cuts both ways.”
(Laughter among the public.) “You will, of course, forgive me my
comparison; I can’t boast of eloquence. But I will take as an example any
point in the prosecutor’s speech.
“The prisoner, running away in the garden in the dark, climbed over the
fence, was seized by the servant, and knocked him down with a brass
pestle. Then he jumped back into the garden and spent five minutes over
the man, trying to discover whether he had killed him or not. And the
prosecutor refuses to believe the prisoner’s statement that he ran to old
Grigory out of pity. ‘No,’ he says, ‘such sensibility is impossible at
such a moment, that’s unnatural; he ran to find out whether the only
witness of his crime was dead or alive, and so showed that he had
committed the murder, since he would not have run back for any other
reason.’
“Here you have psychology; but let us take the same method and apply it to
the case the other way round, and our result will be no less probable. The
murderer, we are told, leapt down to find out, as a precaution, whether
the witness was alive or not, yet he had left in his murdered father’s
study, as the prosecutor himself argues, an amazing piece of evidence in
the shape of a torn envelope, with an inscription that there had been
three thousand roubles in it. ‘If he had carried that envelope away with
him, no one in the world would have known of that envelope and of the
notes in it, and that the money had been stolen by the prisoner.’ Those
are the prosecutor’s own words. So on one side you see a complete absence
of precaution, a man who has lost his head and run away in a fright,
leaving that clew on the floor, and two minutes later, when he has killed
another man, we are entitled to assume the most heartless and calculating
foresight in him. But even admitting this was so, it is psychological
subtlety, I suppose, that discerns that under certain circumstances I
become as bloodthirsty and keen‐sighted as a Caucasian eagle, while at the
next I am as timid and blind as a mole. But if I am so bloodthirsty and
cruelly calculating that when I kill a man I only run back to find out
whether he is alive to witness against me, why should I spend five minutes
looking after my victim at the risk of encountering other witnesses? Why
soak my handkerchief, wiping the blood off his head so that it may be
evidence against me later? If he were so cold‐hearted and calculating, why
not hit the servant on the head again and again with the same pestle so as
to kill him outright and relieve himself of all anxiety about the witness?
“Again, though he ran to see whether the witness was alive, he left
another witness on the path, that brass pestle which he had taken from the
two women, and which they could always recognize afterwards as theirs, and
prove that he had taken it from them. And it is not as though he had
forgotten it on the path, dropped it through carelessness or haste, no, he
had flung away his weapon, for it was found fifteen paces from where
Grigory lay. Why did he do so? Just because he was grieved at having
killed a man, an old servant; and he flung away the pestle with a curse,
as a murderous weapon. That’s how it must have been, what other reason
could he have had for throwing it so far? And if he was capable of feeling
grief and pity at having killed a man, it shows that he was innocent of
his father’s murder. Had he murdered him, he would never have run to
another victim out of pity; then he would have felt differently; his
thoughts would have been centered on self‐preservation. He would have had
none to spare for pity, that is beyond doubt. On the contrary, he would
have broken his skull instead of spending five minutes looking after him.
There was room for pity and good‐feeling just because his conscience had
been clear till then. Here we have a different psychology. I have
purposely resorted to this method, gentlemen of the jury, to show that you
can prove anything by it. It all depends on who makes use of it.
Psychology lures even most serious people into romancing, and quite
unconsciously. I am speaking of the abuse of psychology, gentlemen.”
Sounds of approval and laughter, at the expense of the prosecutor, were
again audible in the court. I will not repeat the speech in detail; I will
only quote some passages from it, some leading points.
Chapter XI. There Was No Money. There Was No Robbery
There was one point that struck every one in Fetyukovitch’s speech. He
flatly denied the existence of the fatal three thousand roubles, and
consequently, the possibility of their having been stolen.
“Gentlemen of the jury,” he began. “Every new and unprejudiced observer
must be struck by a characteristic peculiarity in the present case,
namely, the charge of robbery, and the complete impossibility of proving
that there was anything to be stolen. We are told that money was
stolen—three thousand roubles—but whether those roubles ever existed,
nobody knows. Consider, how have we heard of that sum, and who has seen
the notes? The only person who saw them, and stated that they had been put
in the envelope, was the servant, Smerdyakov. He had spoken of it to the
prisoner and his brother, Ivan Fyodorovitch, before the catastrophe.
Madame Svyetlov, too, had been told of it. But not one of these three
persons had actually seen the notes, no one but Smerdyakov had seen them.
“Here the question arises, if it’s true that they did exist, and that
Smerdyakov had seen them, when did he see them for the last time? What if
his master had taken the notes from under his bed and put them back in his
cash‐box without telling him? Note, that according to Smerdyakov’s story
the notes were kept under the mattress; the prisoner must have pulled them
out, and yet the bed was absolutely unrumpled; that is carefully recorded
in the protocol. How could the prisoner have found the notes without
disturbing the bed? How could he have helped soiling with his blood‐
stained hands the fine and spotless linen with which the bed had been
purposely made?
“But I shall be asked: What about the envelope on the floor? Yes, it’s
worth saying a word or two about that envelope. I was somewhat surprised
just now to hear the highly talented prosecutor declare of himself—of
himself, observe—that but for that envelope, but for its being left on the
floor, no one in the world would have known of the existence of that
envelope and the notes in it, and therefore of the prisoner’s having
stolen it. And so that torn scrap of paper is, by the prosecutor’s own
admission, the sole proof on which the charge of robbery rests, ‘otherwise
no one would have known of the robbery, nor perhaps even of the money.’
But is the mere fact that that scrap of paper was lying on the floor a
proof that there was money in it, and that that money had been stolen?
Yet, it will be objected, Smerdyakov had seen the money in the envelope.
But when, when had he seen it for the last time, I ask you that? I talked
to Smerdyakov, and he told me that he had seen the notes two days before
the catastrophe. Then why not imagine that old Fyodor Pavlovitch, locked
up alone in impatient and hysterical expectation of the object of his
adoration, may have whiled away the time by breaking open the envelope and
taking out the notes. ‘What’s the use of the envelope?’ he may have asked
himself. ‘She won’t believe the notes are there, but when I show her the
thirty rainbow‐colored notes in one roll, it will make more impression,
you may be sure, it will make her mouth water.’ And so he tears open the
envelope, takes out the money, and flings the envelope on the floor,
conscious of being the owner and untroubled by any fears of leaving
evidence.
“Listen, gentlemen, could anything be more likely than this theory and
such an action? Why is it out of the question? But if anything of the sort
could have taken place, the charge of robbery falls to the ground; if
there was no money, there was no theft of it. If the envelope on the floor
may be taken as evidence that there had been money in it, why may I not
maintain the opposite, that the envelope was on the floor because the
money had been taken from it by its owner?
“But I shall be asked what became of the money if Fyodor Pavlovitch took
it out of the envelope since it was not found when the police searched the
house? In the first place, part of the money was found in the cash‐box,
and secondly, he might have taken it out that morning or the evening
before to make some other use of it, to give or send it away; he may have
changed his idea, his plan of action completely, without thinking it
necessary to announce the fact to Smerdyakov beforehand. And if there is
the barest possibility of such an explanation, how can the prisoner be so
positively accused of having committed murder for the sake of robbery, and
of having actually carried out that robbery? This is encroaching on the
domain of romance. If it is maintained that something has been stolen, the
thing must be produced, or at least its existence must be proved beyond
doubt. Yet no one had ever seen these notes.
“Not long ago in Petersburg a young man of eighteen, hardly more than a
boy, who carried on a small business as a costermonger, went in broad
daylight into a moneychanger’s shop with an ax, and with extraordinary,
typical audacity killed the master of the shop and carried off fifteen
hundred roubles. Five hours later he was arrested, and, except fifteen
roubles he had already managed to spend, the whole sum was found on him.
Moreover, the shopman, on his return to the shop after the murder,
informed the police not only of the exact sum stolen, but even of the
notes and gold coins of which that sum was made up, and those very notes
and coins were found on the criminal. This was followed by a full and
genuine confession on the part of the murderer. That’s what I call
evidence, gentlemen of the jury! In that case I know, I see, I touch the
money, and cannot deny its existence. Is it the same in the present case?
And yet it is a question of life and death.
“Yes, I shall be told, but he was carousing that night, squandering money;
he was shown to have had fifteen hundred roubles—where did he get the
money? But the very fact that only fifteen hundred could be found, and the
other half of the sum could nowhere be discovered, shows that that money
was not the same, and had never been in any envelope. By strict
calculation of time it was proved at the preliminary inquiry that the
prisoner ran straight from those women servants to Perhotin’s without
going home, and that he had been nowhere. So he had been all the time in
company and therefore could not have divided the three thousand in half
and hidden half in the town. It’s just this consideration that has led the
prosecutor to assume that the money is hidden in some crevice at Mokroe.
Why not in the dungeons of the castle of Udolpho, gentlemen? Isn’t this
supposition really too fantastic and too romantic? And observe, if that
supposition breaks down, the whole charge of robbery is scattered to the
winds, for in that case what could have become of the other fifteen
hundred roubles? By what miracle could they have disappeared, since it’s
proved the prisoner went nowhere else? And we are ready to ruin a man’s
life with such tales!
“I shall be told that he could not explain where he got the fifteen
hundred that he had, and every one knew that he was without money before
that night. Who knew it, pray? The prisoner has made a clear and
unflinching statement of the source of that money, and if you will have it
so, gentlemen of the jury, nothing can be more probable than that
statement, and more consistent with the temper and spirit of the prisoner.
The prosecutor is charmed with his own romance. A man of weak will, who
had brought himself to take the three thousand so insultingly offered by
his betrothed, could not, we are told, have set aside half and sewn it up,
but would, even if he had done so, have unpicked it every two days and
taken out a hundred, and so would have spent it all in a month. All this,
you will remember, was put forward in a tone that brooked no
contradiction. But what if the thing happened quite differently? What if
you’ve been weaving a romance, and about quite a different kind of man?
That’s just it, you have invented quite a different man!
“I shall be told, perhaps, there are witnesses that he spent on one day
all that three thousand given him by his betrothed a month before the
catastrophe, so he could not have divided the sum in half. But who are
these witnesses? The value of their evidence has been shown in court
already. Besides, in another man’s hand a crust always seems larger, and
no one of these witnesses counted that money; they all judged simply at
sight. And the witness Maximov has testified that the prisoner had twenty
thousand in his hand. You see, gentlemen of the jury, psychology is a two‐
edged weapon. Let me turn the other edge now and see what comes of it.
“A month before the catastrophe the prisoner was entrusted by Katerina
Ivanovna with three thousand roubles to send off by post. But the question
is: is it true that they were entrusted to him in such an insulting and
degrading way as was proclaimed just now? The first statement made by the
young lady on the subject was different, perfectly different. In the
second statement we heard only cries of resentment and revenge, cries of
long‐concealed hatred. And the very fact that the witness gave her first
evidence incorrectly, gives us a right to conclude that her second piece
of evidence may have been incorrect also. The prosecutor will not, dare
not (his own words) touch on that story. So be it. I will not touch on it
either, but will only venture to observe that if a lofty and high‐
principled person, such as that highly respected young lady unquestionably
is, if such a person, I say, allows herself suddenly in court to
contradict her first statement, with the obvious motive of ruining the
prisoner, it is clear that this evidence has been given not impartially,
not coolly. Have not we the right to assume that a revengeful woman might
have exaggerated much? Yes, she may well have exaggerated, in particular,
the insult and humiliation of her offering him the money. No, it was
offered in such a way that it was possible to take it, especially for a
man so easy‐going as the prisoner, above all, as he expected to receive
shortly from his father the three thousand roubles that he reckoned was
owing to him. It was unreflecting of him, but it was just his
irresponsible want of reflection that made him so confident that his
father would give him the money, that he would get it, and so could always
dispatch the money entrusted to him and repay the debt.
“But the prosecutor refuses to allow that he could the same day have set
aside half the money and sewn it up in a little bag. That’s not his
character, he tells us, he couldn’t have had such feelings. But yet he
talked himself of the broad Karamazov nature; he cried out about the two
extremes which a Karamazov can contemplate at once. Karamazov is just such
a two‐sided nature, fluctuating between two extremes, that even when moved
by the most violent craving for riotous gayety, he can pull himself up, if
something strikes him on the other side. And on the other side is
love—that new love which had flamed up in his heart, and for that love he
needed money; oh, far more than for carousing with his mistress. If she
were to say to him, ‘I am yours, I won’t have Fyodor Pavlovitch,’ then he
must have money to take her away. That was more important than carousing.
Could a Karamazov fail to understand it? That anxiety was just what he was
suffering from—what is there improbable in his laying aside that money and
concealing it in case of emergency?
“But time passed, and Fyodor Pavlovitch did not give the prisoner the
expected three thousand; on the contrary, the latter heard that he meant
to use this sum to seduce the woman he, the prisoner, loved. ‘If Fyodor
Pavlovitch doesn’t give the money,’ he thought, ‘I shall be put in the
position of a thief before Katerina Ivanovna.’ And then the idea presented
itself to him that he would go to Katerina Ivanovna, lay before her the
fifteen hundred roubles he still carried round his neck, and say, ‘I am a
scoundrel, but not a thief.’ So here we have already a twofold reason why
he should guard that sum of money as the apple of his eye, why he
shouldn’t unpick the little bag, and spend it a hundred at a time. Why
should you deny the prisoner a sense of honor? Yes, he has a sense of
honor, granted that it’s misplaced, granted it’s often mistaken, yet it
exists and amounts to a passion, and he has proved that.
“But now the affair becomes even more complex; his jealous torments reach
a climax, and those same two questions torture his fevered brain more and
more: ‘If I repay Katerina Ivanovna, where can I find the means to go off
with Grushenka?’ If he behaved wildly, drank, and made disturbances in the
taverns in the course of that month, it was perhaps because he was
wretched and strained beyond his powers of endurance. These two questions
became so acute that they drove him at last to despair. He sent his
younger brother to beg for the last time for the three thousand roubles,
but without waiting for a reply, burst in himself and ended by beating the
old man in the presence of witnesses. After that he had no prospect of
getting it from any one; his father would not give it him after that
beating.
“The same evening he struck himself on the breast, just on the upper part
of the breast where the little bag was, and swore to his brother that he
had the means of not being a scoundrel, but that still he would remain a
scoundrel, for he foresaw that he would not use that means, that he
wouldn’t have the character, that he wouldn’t have the will‐power to do
it. Why, why does the prosecutor refuse to believe the evidence of Alexey
Karamazov, given so genuinely and sincerely, so spontaneously and
convincingly? And why, on the contrary, does he force me to believe in
money hidden in a crevice, in the dungeons of the castle of Udolpho?
“The same evening, after his talk with his brother, the prisoner wrote
that fatal letter, and that letter is the chief, the most stupendous proof
of the prisoner having committed robbery! ‘I shall beg from every one, and
if I don’t get it I shall murder my father and shall take the envelope
with the pink ribbon on it from under his mattress as soon as Ivan has
gone.’ A full program of the murder, we are told, so it must have been he.
‘It has all been done as he wrote,’ cries the prosecutor.
“But in the first place, it’s the letter of a drunken man and written in
great irritation; secondly, he writes of the envelope from what he has
heard from Smerdyakov again, for he has not seen the envelope himself; and
thirdly, he wrote it indeed, but how can you prove that he did it? Did the
prisoner take the envelope from under the pillow, did he find the money,
did that money exist indeed? And was it to get money that the prisoner ran
off, if you remember? He ran off post‐haste not to steal, but to find out
where she was, the woman who had crushed him. He was not running to carry
out a program, to carry out what he had written, that is, not for an act
of premeditated robbery, but he ran suddenly, spontaneously, in a jealous
fury. Yes! I shall be told, but when he got there and murdered him he
seized the money, too. But did he murder him after all? The charge of
robbery I repudiate with indignation. A man cannot be accused of robbery,
if it’s impossible to state accurately what he has stolen; that’s an
axiom. But did he murder him without robbery, did he murder him at all? Is
that proved? Isn’t that, too, a romance?”
Chapter XII. And There Was No Murder Either
“Allow me, gentlemen of the jury, to remind you that a man’s life is at
stake and that you must be careful. We have heard the prosecutor himself
admit that until to‐day he hesitated to accuse the prisoner of a full and
conscious premeditation of the crime; he hesitated till he saw that fatal
drunken letter which was produced in court to‐day. ‘All was done as
written.’ But, I repeat again, he was running to her, to seek her, solely
to find out where she was. That’s a fact that can’t be disputed. Had she
been at home, he would not have run away, but would have remained at her
side, and so would not have done what he promised in the letter. He ran
unexpectedly and accidentally, and by that time very likely he did not
even remember his drunken letter. ‘He snatched up the pestle,’ they say,
and you will remember how a whole edifice of psychology was built on that
pestle—why he was bound to look at that pestle as a weapon, to snatch it
up, and so on, and so on. A very commonplace idea occurs to me at this
point: What if that pestle had not been in sight, had not been lying on
the shelf from which it was snatched by the prisoner, but had been put
away in a cupboard? It would not have caught the prisoner’s eye, and he
would have run away without a weapon, with empty hands, and then he would
certainly not have killed any one. How then can I look upon the pestle as
a proof of premeditation?
“Yes, but he talked in the taverns of murdering his father, and two days
before, on the evening when he wrote his drunken letter, he was quiet and
only quarreled with a shopman in the tavern, because a Karamazov could not
help quarreling, forsooth! But my answer to that is, that, if he was
planning such a murder in accordance with his letter, he certainly would
not have quarreled even with a shopman, and probably would not have gone
into the tavern at all, because a person plotting such a crime seeks quiet
and retirement, seeks to efface himself, to avoid being seen and heard,
and that not from calculation, but from instinct. Gentlemen of the jury,
the psychological method is a two‐edged weapon, and we, too, can use it.
As for all this shouting in taverns throughout the month, don’t we often
hear children, or drunkards coming out of taverns shout, ‘I’ll kill you’?
but they don’t murder any one. And that fatal letter—isn’t that simply
drunken irritability, too? Isn’t that simply the shout of the brawler
outside the tavern, ‘I’ll kill you! I’ll kill the lot of you!’ Why not,
why could it not be that? What reason have we to call that letter ‘fatal’
rather than absurd? Because his father has been found murdered, because a
witness saw the prisoner running out of the garden with a weapon in his
hand, and was knocked down by him: therefore, we are told, everything was
done as he had planned in writing, and the letter was not ‘absurd,’ but
‘fatal.’
“Now, thank God! we’ve come to the real point: ‘since he was in the
garden, he must have murdered him.’ In those few words: ‘since he _was_,
then he _must_’ lies the whole case for the prosecution. He was there, so
he must have. And what if there is no _must_ about it, even if he was
there? Oh, I admit that the chain of evidence—the coincidences—are really
suggestive. But examine all these facts separately, regardless of their
connection. Why, for instance, does the prosecution refuse to admit the
truth of the prisoner’s statement that he ran away from his father’s
window? Remember the sarcasms in which the prosecutor indulged at the
expense of the respectful and ‘pious’ sentiments which suddenly came over
the murderer. But what if there were something of the sort, a feeling of
religious awe, if not of filial respect? ‘My mother must have been praying
for me at that moment,’ were the prisoner’s words at the preliminary
inquiry, and so he ran away as soon as he convinced himself that Madame
Svyetlov was not in his father’s house. ‘But he could not convince himself
by looking through the window,’ the prosecutor objects. But why couldn’t
he? Why? The window opened at the signals given by the prisoner. Some word
might have been uttered by Fyodor Pavlovitch, some exclamation which
showed the prisoner that she was not there. Why should we assume
everything as we imagine it, as we make up our minds to imagine it? A
thousand things may happen in reality which elude the subtlest
imagination.
“ ‘Yes, but Grigory saw the door open and so the prisoner certainly was in
the house, therefore he killed him.’ Now about that door, gentlemen of the
jury.... Observe that we have only the statement of one witness as to that
door, and he was at the time in such a condition, that— But supposing the
door was open; supposing the prisoner has lied in denying it, from an
instinct of self‐defense, natural in his position; supposing he did go
into the house—well, what then? How does it follow that because he was
there he committed the murder? He might have dashed in, run through the
rooms; might have pushed his father away; might have struck him; but as
soon as he had made sure Madame Svyetlov was not there, he may have run
away rejoicing that she was not there and that he had not killed his
father. And it was perhaps just because he had escaped from the temptation
to kill his father, because he had a clear conscience and was rejoicing at
not having killed him, that he was capable of a pure feeling, the feeling
of pity and compassion, and leapt off the fence a minute later to the
assistance of Grigory after he had, in his excitement, knocked him down.
“With terrible eloquence the prosecutor has described to us the dreadful
state of the prisoner’s mind at Mokroe when love again lay before him
calling him to new life, while love was impossible for him because he had
his father’s bloodstained corpse behind him and beyond that
corpse—retribution. And yet the prosecutor allowed him love, which he
explained, according to his method, talking about his drunken condition,
about a criminal being taken to execution, about it being still far off,
and so on and so on. But again I ask, Mr. Prosecutor, have you not
invented a new personality? Is the prisoner so coarse and heartless as to
be able to think at that moment of love and of dodges to escape
punishment, if his hands were really stained with his father’s blood? No,
no, no! As soon as it was made plain to him that she loved him and called
him to her side, promising him new happiness, oh! then, I protest he must
have felt the impulse to suicide doubled, trebled, and must have killed
himself, if he had his father’s murder on his conscience. Oh, no! he would
not have forgotten where his pistols lay! I know the prisoner: the savage,
stony heartlessness ascribed to him by the prosecutor is inconsistent with
his character. He would have killed himself, that’s certain. He did not
kill himself just because ‘his mother’s prayers had saved him,’ and he was
innocent of his father’s blood. He was troubled, he was grieving that
night at Mokroe only about old Grigory and praying to God that the old man
would recover, that his blow had not been fatal, and that he would not
have to suffer for it. Why not accept such an interpretation of the facts?
What trustworthy proof have we that the prisoner is lying?
“But we shall be told at once again, ‘There is his father’s corpse! If he
ran away without murdering him, who did murder him?’ Here, I repeat, you
have the whole logic of the prosecution. Who murdered him, if not he?
There’s no one to put in his place.
“Gentlemen of the jury, is that really so? Is it positively, actually true
that there is no one else at all? We’ve heard the prosecutor count on his
fingers all the persons who were in that house that night. They were five
in number; three of them, I agree, could not have been responsible—the
murdered man himself, old Grigory, and his wife. There are left then the
prisoner and Smerdyakov, and the prosecutor dramatically exclaims that the
prisoner pointed to Smerdyakov because he had no one else to fix on, that
had there been a sixth person, even a phantom of a sixth person, he would
have abandoned the charge against Smerdyakov at once in shame and have
accused that other. But, gentlemen of the jury, why may I not draw the
very opposite conclusion? There are two persons—the prisoner and
Smerdyakov. Why can I not say that you accuse my client, simply because
you have no one else to accuse? And you have no one else only because you
have determined to exclude Smerdyakov from all suspicion.
“It’s true, indeed, Smerdyakov is accused only by the prisoner, his two
brothers, and Madame Svyetlov. But there are others who accuse him: there
are vague rumors of a question, of a suspicion, an obscure report, a
feeling of expectation. Finally, we have the evidence of a combination of
facts very suggestive, though, I admit, inconclusive. In the first place
we have precisely on the day of the catastrophe that fit, for the
genuineness of which the prosecutor, for some reason, has felt obliged to
make a careful defense. Then Smerdyakov’s sudden suicide on the eve of the
trial. Then the equally startling evidence given in court to‐day by the
elder of the prisoner’s brothers, who had believed in his guilt, but has
to‐day produced a bundle of notes and proclaimed Smerdyakov as the
murderer. Oh, I fully share the court’s and the prosecutor’s conviction
that Ivan Karamazov is suffering from brain fever, that his statement may
really be a desperate effort, planned in delirium, to save his brother by
throwing the guilt on the dead man. But again Smerdyakov’s name is
pronounced, again there is a suggestion of mystery. There is something
unexplained, incomplete. And perhaps it may one day be explained. But we
won’t go into that now. Of that later.
“The court has resolved to go on with the trial, but, meantime, I might
make a few remarks about the character‐sketch of Smerdyakov drawn with
subtlety and talent by the prosecutor. But while I admire his talent I
cannot agree with him. I have visited Smerdyakov, I have seen him and
talked to him, and he made a very different impression on me. He was weak
in health, it is true; but in character, in spirit, he was by no means the
weak man the prosecutor has made him out to be. I found in him no trace of
the timidity on which the prosecutor so insisted. There was no simplicity
about him, either. I found in him, on the contrary, an extreme
mistrustfulness concealed under a mask of _naïveté_, and an intelligence
of considerable range. The prosecutor was too simple in taking him for
weak‐minded. He made a very definite impression on me: I left him with the
conviction that he was a distinctly spiteful creature, excessively
ambitious, vindictive, and intensely envious. I made some inquiries: he
resented his parentage, was ashamed of it, and would clench his teeth when
he remembered that he was the son of ‘stinking Lizaveta.’ He was
disrespectful to the servant Grigory and his wife, who had cared for him
in his childhood. He cursed and jeered at Russia. He dreamed of going to
France and becoming a Frenchman. He used often to say that he hadn’t the
means to do so. I fancy he loved no one but himself and had a strangely
high opinion of himself. His conception of culture was limited to good
clothes, clean shirt‐fronts and polished boots. Believing himself to be
the illegitimate son of Fyodor Pavlovitch (there is evidence of this), he
might well have resented his position, compared with that of his master’s
legitimate sons. They had everything, he nothing. They had all the rights,
they had the inheritance, while he was only the cook. He told me himself
that he had helped Fyodor Pavlovitch to put the notes in the envelope. The
destination of that sum—a sum which would have made his career—must have
been hateful to him. Moreover, he saw three thousand roubles in new
rainbow‐colored notes. (I asked him about that on purpose.) Oh, beware of
showing an ambitious and envious man a large sum of money at once! And it
was the first time he had seen so much money in the hands of one man. The
sight of the rainbow‐colored notes may have made a morbid impression on
his imagination, but with no immediate results.
“The talented prosecutor, with extraordinary subtlety, sketched for us all
the arguments for and against the hypothesis of Smerdyakov’s guilt, and
asked us in particular what motive he had in feigning a fit. But he may
not have been feigning at all, the fit may have happened quite naturally,
but it may have passed off quite naturally, and the sick man may have
recovered, not completely perhaps, but still regaining consciousness, as
happens with epileptics.
“The prosecutor asks at what moment could Smerdyakov have committed the
murder. But it is very easy to point out that moment. He might have waked
up from deep sleep (for he was only asleep—an epileptic fit is always
followed by a deep sleep) at that moment when the old Grigory shouted at
the top of his voice ‘Parricide!’ That shout in the dark and stillness may
have waked Smerdyakov whose sleep may have been less sound at the moment:
he might naturally have waked up an hour before.
“Getting out of bed, he goes almost unconsciously and with no definite
motive towards the sound to see what’s the matter. His head is still
clouded with his attack, his faculties are half asleep; but, once in the
garden, he walks to the lighted windows and he hears terrible news from
his master, who would be, of course, glad to see him. His mind sets to
work at once. He hears all the details from his frightened master, and
gradually in his disordered brain there shapes itself an idea—terrible,
but seductive and irresistibly logical. To kill the old man, take the
three thousand, and throw all the blame on to his young master. A terrible
lust of money, of booty, might seize upon him as he realized his security
from detection. Oh! these sudden and irresistible impulses come so often
when there is a favorable opportunity, and especially with murderers who
have had no idea of committing a murder beforehand. And Smerdyakov may
have gone in and carried out his plan. With what weapon? Why, with any
stone picked up in the garden. But what for, with what object? Why, the
three thousand which means a career for him. Oh, I am not contradicting
myself—the money may have existed. And perhaps Smerdyakov alone knew where
to find it, where his master kept it. And the covering of the money—the
torn envelope on the floor?
“Just now, when the prosecutor was explaining his subtle theory that only
an inexperienced thief like Karamazov would have left the envelope on the
floor, and not one like Smerdyakov, who would have avoided leaving a piece
of evidence against himself, I thought as I listened that I was hearing
something very familiar, and, would you believe it, I have heard that very
argument, that very conjecture, of how Karamazov would have behaved,
precisely two days before, from Smerdyakov himself. What’s more, it struck
me at the time. I fancied that there was an artificial simplicity about
him; that he was in a hurry to suggest this idea to me that I might fancy
it was my own. He insinuated it, as it were. Did he not insinuate the same
idea at the inquiry and suggest it to the talented prosecutor?
“I shall be asked, ‘What about the old woman, Grigory’s wife? She heard
the sick man moaning close by, all night.’ Yes, she heard it, but that
evidence is extremely unreliable. I knew a lady who complained bitterly
that she had been kept awake all night by a dog in the yard. Yet the poor
beast, it appeared, had only yelped once or twice in the night. And that’s
natural. If any one is asleep and hears a groan he wakes up, annoyed at
being waked, but instantly falls asleep again. Two hours later, again a
groan, he wakes up and falls asleep again; and the same thing again two
hours later—three times altogether in the night. Next morning the sleeper
wakes up and complains that some one has been groaning all night and
keeping him awake. And it is bound to seem so to him: the intervals of two
hours of sleep he does not remember, he only remembers the moments of
waking, so he feels he has been waked up all night.
“But why, why, asks the prosecutor, did not Smerdyakov confess in his last
letter? Why did his conscience prompt him to one step and not to both?
But, excuse me, conscience implies penitence, and the suicide may not have
felt penitence, but only despair. Despair and penitence are two very
different things. Despair may be vindictive and irreconcilable, and the
suicide, laying his hands on himself, may well have felt redoubled hatred
for those whom he had envied all his life.
“Gentlemen of the jury, beware of a miscarriage of justice! What is there
unlikely in all I have put before you just now? Find the error in my
reasoning; find the impossibility, the absurdity. And if there is but a
shade of possibility, but a shade of probability in my propositions, do
not condemn him. And is there only a shade? I swear by all that is sacred,
I fully believe in the explanation of the murder I have just put forward.
What troubles me and makes me indignant is that of all the mass of facts
heaped up by the prosecution against the prisoner, there is not a single
one certain and irrefutable. And yet the unhappy man is to be ruined by
the accumulation of these facts. Yes, the accumulated effect is awful: the
blood, the blood dripping from his fingers, the bloodstained shirt, the
dark night resounding with the shout ‘Parricide!’ and the old man falling
with a broken head. And then the mass of phrases, statements, gestures,
shouts! Oh! this has so much influence, it can so bias the mind; but,
gentlemen of the jury, can it bias your minds? Remember, you have been
given absolute power to bind and to loose, but the greater the power, the
more terrible its responsibility.
“I do not draw back one iota from what I have said just now, but suppose
for one moment I agreed with the prosecution that my luckless client had
stained his hands with his father’s blood. This is only hypothesis, I
repeat; I never for one instant doubt of his innocence. But, so be it, I
assume that my client is guilty of parricide. Even so, hear what I have to
say. I have it in my heart to say something more to you, for I feel that
there must be a great conflict in your hearts and minds.... Forgive my
referring to your hearts and minds, gentlemen of the jury, but I want to
be truthful and sincere to the end. Let us all be sincere!”
At this point the speech was interrupted by rather loud applause. The last
words, indeed, were pronounced with a note of such sincerity that every
one felt that he really might have something to say, and that what he was
about to say would be of the greatest consequence. But the President,
hearing the applause, in a loud voice threatened to clear the court if
such an incident were repeated. Every sound was hushed and Fetyukovitch
began in a voice full of feeling quite unlike the tone he had used
hitherto.
Chapter XIII. A Corrupter Of Thought
“It’s not only the accumulation of facts that threatens my client with
ruin, gentlemen of the jury,” he began, “what is really damning for my
client is one fact—the dead body of his father. Had it been an ordinary
case of murder you would have rejected the charge in view of the
triviality, the incompleteness, and the fantastic character of the
evidence, if you examine each part of it separately; or, at least, you
would have hesitated to ruin a man’s life simply from the prejudice
against him which he has, alas! only too well deserved. But it’s not an
ordinary case of murder, it’s a case of parricide. That impresses men’s
minds, and to such a degree that the very triviality and incompleteness of
the evidence becomes less trivial and less incomplete even to an
unprejudiced mind. How can such a prisoner be acquitted? What if he
committed the murder and gets off unpunished? That is what every one,
almost involuntarily, instinctively, feels at heart.
“Yes, it’s a fearful thing to shed a father’s blood—the father who has
begotten me, loved me, not spared his life for me, grieved over my
illnesses from childhood up, troubled all his life for my happiness, and
has lived in my joys, in my successes. To murder such a father—that’s
inconceivable. Gentlemen of the jury, what is a father—a real father? What
is the meaning of that great word? What is the great idea in that name? We
have just indicated in part what a true father is and what he ought to be.
In the case in which we are now so deeply occupied and over which our
hearts are aching—in the present case, the father, Fyodor Pavlovitch
Karamazov, did not correspond to that conception of a father to which we
have just referred. That’s the misfortune. And indeed some fathers are a
misfortune. Let us examine this misfortune rather more closely: we must
shrink from nothing, gentlemen of the jury, considering the importance of
the decision you have to make. It’s our particular duty not to shrink from
any idea, like children or frightened women, as the talented prosecutor
happily expresses it.
“But in the course of his heated speech my esteemed opponent (and he was
my opponent before I opened my lips) exclaimed several times, ‘Oh, I will
not yield the defense of the prisoner to the lawyer who has come down from
Petersburg. I accuse, but I defend also!’ He exclaimed that several times,
but forgot to mention that if this terrible prisoner was for twenty‐three
years so grateful for a mere pound of nuts given him by the only man who
had been kind to him, as a child in his father’s house, might not such a
man well have remembered for twenty‐three years how he ran in his father’s
back‐yard, ‘without boots on his feet and with his little trousers hanging
by one button’—to use the expression of the kind‐hearted doctor,
Herzenstube?
“Oh, gentlemen of the jury, why need we look more closely at this
misfortune, why repeat what we all know already? What did my client meet
with when he arrived here, at his father’s house, and why depict my client
as a heartless egoist and monster? He is uncontrolled, he is wild and
unruly—we are trying him now for that—but who is responsible for his life?
Who is responsible for his having received such an unseemly bringing up,
in spite of his excellent disposition and his grateful and sensitive
heart? Did any one train him to be reasonable? Was he enlightened by
study? Did any one love him ever so little in his childhood? My client was
left to the care of Providence like a beast of the field. He thirsted
perhaps to see his father after long years of separation. A thousand times
perhaps he may, recalling his childhood, have driven away the loathsome
phantoms that haunted his childish dreams and with all his heart he may
have longed to embrace and to forgive his father! And what awaited him? He
was met by cynical taunts, suspicions and wrangling about money. He heard
nothing but revolting talk and vicious precepts uttered daily over the
brandy, and at last he saw his father seducing his mistress from him with
his own money. Oh, gentlemen of the jury, that was cruel and revolting!
And that old man was always complaining of the disrespect and cruelty of
his son. He slandered him in society, injured him, calumniated him, bought
up his unpaid debts to get him thrown into prison.
“Gentlemen of the jury, people like my client, who are fierce, unruly, and
uncontrolled on the surface, are sometimes, most frequently indeed,
exceedingly tender‐hearted, only they don’t express it. Don’t laugh, don’t
laugh at my idea! The talented prosecutor laughed mercilessly just now at
my client for loving Schiller—loving the sublime and beautiful! I should
not have laughed at that in his place. Yes, such natures—oh, let me speak
in defense of such natures, so often and so cruelly misunderstood—these
natures often thirst for tenderness, goodness, and justice, as it were, in
contrast to themselves, their unruliness, their ferocity—they thirst for
it unconsciously. Passionate and fierce on the surface, they are painfully
capable of loving woman, for instance, and with a spiritual and elevated
love. Again do not laugh at me, this is very often the case in such
natures. But they cannot hide their passions—sometimes very coarse—and
that is conspicuous and is noticed, but the inner man is unseen. Their
passions are quickly exhausted; but, by the side of a noble and lofty
creature that seemingly coarse and rough man seeks a new life, seeks to
correct himself, to be better, to become noble and honorable, ‘sublime and
beautiful,’ however much the expression has been ridiculed.
“I said just now that I would not venture to touch upon my client’s
engagement. But I may say half a word. What we heard just now was not
evidence, but only the scream of a frenzied and revengeful woman, and it
was not for her—oh, not for her!—to reproach him with treachery, for she
has betrayed him! If she had had but a little time for reflection she
would not have given such evidence. Oh, do not believe her! No, my client
is not a monster, as she called him!
“The Lover of Mankind on the eve of His Crucifixion said: ‘I am the Good
Shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep, so that not
one of them might be lost.’ Let not a man’s soul be lost through us!
“I asked just now what does ‘father’ mean, and exclaimed that it was a
great word, a precious name. But one must use words honestly, gentlemen,
and I venture to call things by their right names: such a father as old
Karamazov cannot be called a father and does not deserve to be. Filial
love for an unworthy father is an absurdity, an impossibility. Love cannot
be created from nothing: only God can create something from nothing.
“ ‘Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath,’ the apostle writes, from
a heart glowing with love. It’s not for the sake of my client that I quote
these sacred words, I mention them for all fathers. Who has authorized me
to preach to fathers? No one. But as a man and a citizen I make my
appeal—_vivos voco!_ We are not long on earth, we do many evil deeds and
say many evil words. So let us all catch a favorable moment when we are
all together to say a good word to each other. That’s what I am doing:
while I am in this place I take advantage of my opportunity. Not for
nothing is this tribune given us by the highest authority—all Russia hears
us! I am not speaking only for the fathers here present, I cry aloud to
all fathers: ‘Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath.’ Yes, let us
first fulfill Christ’s injunction ourselves and only then venture to
expect it of our children. Otherwise we are not fathers, but enemies of
our children, and they are not our children, but our enemies, and we have
made them our enemies ourselves. ‘What measure ye mete it shall be
measured unto you again’—it’s not I who say that, it’s the Gospel precept,
measure to others according as they measure to you. How can we blame
children if they measure us according to our measure?
“Not long ago a servant girl in Finland was suspected of having secretly
given birth to a child. She was watched, and a box of which no one knew
anything was found in the corner of the loft, behind some bricks. It was
opened and inside was found the body of a new‐born child which she had
killed. In the same box were found the skeletons of two other babies
which, according to her own confession, she had killed at the moment of
their birth.
“Gentlemen of the jury, was she a mother to her children? She gave birth
to them, indeed; but was she a mother to them? Would any one venture to
give her the sacred name of mother? Let us be bold, gentlemen, let us be
audacious even: it’s our duty to be so at this moment and not to be afraid
of certain words and ideas like the Moscow women in Ostrovsky’s play, who
are scared at the sound of certain words. No, let us prove that the
progress of the last few years has touched even us, and let us say
plainly, the father is not merely he who begets the child, but he who
begets it and does his duty by it.
“Oh, of course, there is the other meaning, there is the other
interpretation of the word ‘father,’ which insists that any father, even
though he be a monster, even though he be the enemy of his children, still
remains my father simply because he begot me. But this is, so to say, the
mystical meaning which I cannot comprehend with my intellect, but can only
accept by faith, or, better to say, _on faith_, like many other things
which I do not understand, but which religion bids me believe. But in that
case let it be kept outside the sphere of actual life. In the sphere of
actual life, which has, indeed, its own rights, but also lays upon us
great duties and obligations, in that sphere, if we want to be
humane—Christian, in fact—we must, or ought to, act only upon convictions
justified by reason and experience, which have been passed through the
crucible of analysis; in a word, we must act rationally, and not as though
in dream and delirium, that we may not do harm, that we may not ill‐treat
and ruin a man. Then it will be real Christian work, not only mystic, but
rational and philanthropic....”
There was violent applause at this passage from many parts of the court,
but Fetyukovitch waved his hands as though imploring them to let him
finish without interruption. The court relapsed into silence at once. The
orator went on.
“Do you suppose, gentlemen, that our children as they grow up and begin to
reason can avoid such questions? No, they cannot, and we will not impose
on them an impossible restriction. The sight of an unworthy father
involuntarily suggests tormenting questions to a young creature,
especially when he compares him with the excellent fathers of his
companions. The conventional answer to this question is: ‘He begot you,
and you are his flesh and blood, and therefore you are bound to love him.’
The youth involuntarily reflects: ‘But did he love me when he begot me?’
he asks, wondering more and more. ‘Was it for my sake he begot me? He did
not know me, not even my sex, at that moment, at the moment of passion,
perhaps, inflamed by wine, and he has only transmitted to me a propensity
to drunkenness—that’s all he’s done for me.... Why am I bound to love him
simply for begetting me when he has cared nothing for me all my life
after?’
“Oh, perhaps those questions strike you as coarse and cruel, but do not
expect an impossible restraint from a young mind. ‘Drive nature out of the
door and it will fly in at the window,’ and, above all, let us not be
afraid of words, but decide the question according to the dictates of
reason and humanity and not of mystic ideas. How shall it be decided? Why,
like this. Let the son stand before his father and ask him, ‘Father, tell
me, why must I love you? Father, show me that I must love you,’ and if
that father is able to answer him and show him good reason, we have a
real, normal, parental relation, not resting on mystical prejudice, but on
a rational, responsible and strictly humanitarian basis. But if he does
not, there’s an end to the family tie. He is not a father to him, and the
son has a right to look upon him as a stranger, and even an enemy. Our
tribune, gentlemen of the jury, ought to be a school of true and sound
ideas.”
(Here the orator was interrupted by irrepressible and almost frantic
applause. Of course, it was not the whole audience, but a good half of it
applauded. The fathers and mothers present applauded. Shrieks and
exclamations were heard from the gallery, where the ladies were sitting.
Handkerchiefs were waved. The President began ringing his bell with all
his might. He was obviously irritated by the behavior of the audience, but
did not venture to clear the court as he had threatened. Even persons of
high position, old men with stars on their breasts, sitting on specially
reserved seats behind the judges, applauded the orator and waved their
handkerchiefs. So that when the noise died down, the President confined
himself to repeating his stern threat to clear the court, and
Fetyukovitch, excited and triumphant, continued his speech.)
“Gentlemen of the jury, you remember that awful night of which so much has
been said to‐day, when the son got over the fence and stood face to face
with the enemy and persecutor who had begotten him. I insist most
emphatically it was not for money he ran to his father’s house: the charge
of robbery is an absurdity, as I proved before. And it was not to murder
him he broke into the house, oh, no! If he had had that design he would,
at least, have taken the precaution of arming himself beforehand. The
brass pestle he caught up instinctively without knowing why he did it.
Granted that he deceived his father by tapping at the window, granted that
he made his way in—I’ve said already that I do not for a moment believe
that legend, but let it be so, let us suppose it for a moment. Gentlemen,
I swear to you by all that’s holy, if it had not been his father, but an
ordinary enemy, he would, after running through the rooms and satisfying
himself that the woman was not there, have made off, post‐haste, without
doing any harm to his rival. He would have struck him, pushed him away
perhaps, nothing more, for he had no thought and no time to spare for
that. What he wanted to know was where she was. But his father, his
father! The mere sight of the father who had hated him from his childhood,
had been his enemy, his persecutor, and now his unnatural rival, was
enough! A feeling of hatred came over him involuntarily, irresistibly,
clouding his reason. It all surged up in one moment! It was an impulse of
madness and insanity, but also an impulse of nature, irresistibly and
unconsciously (like everything in nature) avenging the violation of its
eternal laws.
“But the prisoner even then did not murder him—I maintain that, I cry that
aloud!—no, he only brandished the pestle in a burst of indignant disgust,
not meaning to kill him, not knowing that he would kill him. Had he not
had this fatal pestle in his hand, he would have only knocked his father
down perhaps, but would not have killed him. As he ran away, he did not
know whether he had killed the old man. Such a murder is not a murder.
Such a murder is not a parricide. No, the murder of such a father cannot
be called parricide. Such a murder can only be reckoned parricide by
prejudice.
“But I appeal to you again and again from the depths of my soul; did this
murder actually take place? Gentlemen of the jury, if we convict and
punish him, he will say to himself: ‘These people have done nothing for my
bringing up, for my education, nothing to improve my lot, nothing to make
me better, nothing to make me a man. These people have not given me to eat
and to drink, have not visited me in prison and nakedness, and here they
have sent me to penal servitude. I am quits, I owe them nothing now, and
owe no one anything for ever. They are wicked and I will be wicked. They
are cruel and I will be cruel.’ That is what he will say, gentlemen of the
jury. And I swear, by finding him guilty you will only make it easier for
him: you will ease his conscience, he will curse the blood he has shed and
will not regret it. At the same time you will destroy in him the
possibility of becoming a new man, for he will remain in his wickedness
and blindness all his life.
“But do you want to punish him fearfully, terribly, with the most awful
punishment that could be imagined, and at the same time to save him and
regenerate his soul? If so, overwhelm him with your mercy! You will see,
you will hear how he will tremble and be horror‐struck. ‘How can I endure
this mercy? How can I endure so much love? Am I worthy of it?’ That’s what
he will exclaim.
“Oh, I know, I know that heart, that wild but grateful heart, gentlemen of
the jury! It will bow before your mercy; it thirsts for a great and loving
action, it will melt and mount upwards. There are souls which, in their
limitation, blame the whole world. But subdue such a soul with mercy, show
it love, and it will curse its past, for there are many good impulses in
it. Such a heart will expand and see that God is merciful and that men are
good and just. He will be horror‐stricken; he will be crushed by remorse
and the vast obligation laid upon him henceforth. And he will not say
then, ‘I am quits,’ but will say, ‘I am guilty in the sight of all men and
am more unworthy than all.’ With tears of penitence and poignant, tender
anguish, he will exclaim: ‘Others are better than I, they wanted to save
me, not to ruin me!’ Oh, this act of mercy is so easy for you, for in the
absence of anything like real evidence it will be too awful for you to
pronounce: ‘Yes, he is guilty.’
“Better acquit ten guilty men than punish one innocent man! Do you hear,
do you hear that majestic voice from the past century of our glorious
history? It is not for an insignificant person like me to remind you that
the Russian court does not exist for the punishment only, but also for the
salvation of the criminal! Let other nations think of retribution and the
letter of the law, we will cling to the spirit and the meaning—the
salvation and the reformation of the lost. If this is true, if Russia and
her justice are such, she may go forward with good cheer! Do not try to
scare us with your frenzied troikas from which all the nations stand aside
in disgust. Not a runaway troika, but the stately chariot of Russia will
move calmly and majestically to its goal. In your hands is the fate of my
client, in your hands is the fate of Russian justice. You will defend it,
you will save it, you will prove that there are men to watch over it, that
it is in good hands!”
Chapter XIV. The Peasants Stand Firm
This was how Fetyukovitch concluded his speech, and the enthusiasm of the
audience burst like an irresistible storm. It was out of the question to
stop it: the women wept, many of the men wept too, even two important
personages shed tears. The President submitted, and even postponed ringing
his bell. The suppression of such an enthusiasm would be the suppression
of something sacred, as the ladies cried afterwards. The orator himself
was genuinely touched.
And it was at this moment that Ippolit Kirillovitch got up to make certain
objections. People looked at him with hatred. “What? What’s the meaning of
it? He positively dares to make objections,” the ladies babbled. But if
the whole world of ladies, including his wife, had protested he could not
have been stopped at that moment. He was pale, he was shaking with
emotion, his first phrases were even unintelligible, he gasped for breath,
could hardly speak clearly, lost the thread. But he soon recovered
himself. Of this new speech of his I will quote only a few sentences.
“... I am reproached with having woven a romance. But what is this defense
if not one romance on the top of another? All that was lacking was poetry.
Fyodor Pavlovitch, while waiting for his mistress, tears open the envelope
and throws it on the floor. We are even told what he said while engaged in
this strange act. Is not this a flight of fancy? And what proof have we
that he had taken out the money? Who heard what he said? The weak‐minded
idiot, Smerdyakov, transformed into a Byronic hero, avenging society for
his illegitimate birth—isn’t this a romance in the Byronic style? And the
son who breaks into his father’s house and murders him without murdering
him is not even a romance—this is a sphinx setting us a riddle which he
cannot solve himself. If he murdered him, he murdered him, and what’s the
meaning of his murdering him without having murdered him—who can make head
or tail of this?
“Then we are admonished that our tribune is a tribune of true and sound
ideas and from this tribune of ‘sound ideas’ is heard a solemn declaration
that to call the murder of a father ‘parricide’ is nothing but a
prejudice! But if parricide is a prejudice, and if every child is to ask
his father why he is to love him, what will become of us? What will become
of the foundations of society? What will become of the family? Parricide,
it appears, is only a bogy of Moscow merchants’ wives. The most precious,
the most sacred guarantees for the destiny and future of Russian justice
are presented to us in a perverted and frivolous form, simply to attain an
object—to obtain the justification of something which cannot be justified.
‘Oh, crush him by mercy,’ cries the counsel for the defense; but that’s
all the criminal wants, and to‐morrow it will be seen how much he is
crushed. And is not the counsel for the defense too modest in asking only
for the acquittal of the prisoner? Why not found a charity in the honor of
the parricide to commemorate his exploit among future generations?
Religion and the Gospel are corrected—that’s all mysticism, we are told,
and ours is the only true Christianity which has been subjected to the
analysis of reason and common sense. And so they set up before us a false
semblance of Christ! ‘What measure ye mete so it shall be meted unto you
again,’ cried the counsel for the defense, and instantly deduces that
Christ teaches us to measure as it is measured to us—and this from the
tribune of truth and sound sense! We peep into the Gospel only on the eve
of making speeches, in order to dazzle the audience by our acquaintance
with what is, anyway, a rather original composition, which may be of use
to produce a certain effect—all to serve the purpose! But what Christ
commands us is something very different: He bids us beware of doing this,
because the wicked world does this, but we ought to forgive and to turn
the other cheek, and not to measure to our persecutors as they measure to
us. This is what our God has taught us and not that to forbid children to
murder their fathers is a prejudice. And we will not from the tribune of
truth and good sense correct the Gospel of our Lord, Whom the counsel for
the defense deigns to call only ‘the crucified lover of humanity,’ in
opposition to all orthodox Russia, which calls to Him, ‘For Thou art our
God!’ ”
At this the President intervened and checked the over‐zealous speaker,
begging him not to exaggerate, not to overstep the bounds, and so on, as
presidents always do in such cases. The audience, too, was uneasy. The
public was restless: there were even exclamations of indignation.
Fetyukovitch did not so much as reply; he only mounted the tribune to lay
his hand on his heart and, with an offended voice, utter a few words full
of dignity. He only touched again, lightly and ironically, on “romancing”
and “psychology,” and in an appropriate place quoted, “Jupiter, you are
angry, therefore you are wrong,” which provoked a burst of approving
laughter in the audience, for Ippolit Kirillovitch was by no means like
Jupiter. Then, _à propos_ of the accusation that he was teaching the young
generation to murder their fathers, Fetyukovitch observed, with great
dignity, that he would not even answer. As for the prosecutor’s charge of
uttering unorthodox opinions, Fetyukovitch hinted that it was a personal
insinuation and that he had expected in this court to be secure from
accusations “damaging to my reputation as a citizen and a loyal subject.”
But at these words the President pulled him up, too, and Fetyukovitch
concluded his speech with a bow, amid a hum of approbation in the court.
And Ippolit Kirillovitch was, in the opinion of our ladies, “crushed for
good.”
Then the prisoner was allowed to speak. Mitya stood up, but said very
little. He was fearfully exhausted, physically and mentally. The look of
strength and independence with which he had entered in the morning had
almost disappeared. He seemed as though he had passed through an
experience that day, which had taught him for the rest of his life
something very important he had not understood till then. His voice was
weak, he did not shout as before. In his words there was a new note of
humility, defeat and submission.
“What am I to say, gentlemen of the jury? The hour of judgment has come
for me, I feel the hand of God upon me! The end has come to an erring man!
But, before God, I repeat to you, I am innocent of my father’s blood! For
the last time I repeat, it wasn’t I killed him! I was erring, but I loved
what is good. Every instant I strove to reform, but I lived like a wild
beast. I thank the prosecutor, he told me many things about myself that I
did not know; but it’s not true that I killed my father, the prosecutor is
mistaken. I thank my counsel, too. I cried listening to him; but it’s not
true that I killed my father, and he needn’t have supposed it. And don’t
believe the doctors. I am perfectly sane, only my heart is heavy. If you
spare me, if you let me go, I will pray for you. I will be a better man. I
give you my word before God I will! And if you will condemn me, I’ll break
my sword over my head myself and kiss the pieces. But spare me, do not rob
me of my God! I know myself, I shall rebel! My heart is heavy, gentlemen
... spare me!”
He almost fell back in his place: his voice broke: he could hardly
articulate the last phrase. Then the judges proceeded to put the questions
and began to ask both sides to formulate their conclusions.
But I will not describe the details. At last the jury rose to retire for
consultation. The President was very tired, and so his last charge to the
jury was rather feeble. “Be impartial, don’t be influenced by the
eloquence of the defense, but yet weigh the arguments. Remember that there
is a great responsibility laid upon you,” and so on and so on.
The jury withdrew and the court adjourned. People could get up, move
about, exchange their accumulated impressions, refresh themselves at the
buffet. It was very late, almost one o’clock in the night, but nobody went
away: the strain was so great that no one could think of repose. All
waited with sinking hearts; though that is, perhaps, too much to say, for
the ladies were only in a state of hysterical impatience and their hearts
were untroubled. An acquittal, they thought, was inevitable. They all
prepared themselves for a dramatic moment of general enthusiasm. I must
own there were many among the men, too, who were convinced that an
acquittal was inevitable. Some were pleased, others frowned, while some
were simply dejected, not wanting him to be acquitted. Fetyukovitch
himself was confident of his success. He was surrounded by people
congratulating him and fawning upon him.
“There are,” he said to one group, as I was told afterwards, “there are
invisible threads binding the counsel for the defense with the jury. One
feels during one’s speech if they are being formed. I was aware of them.
They exist. Our cause is won. Set your mind at rest.”
“What will our peasants say now?” said one stout, cross‐looking, pock‐
marked gentleman, a landowner of the neighborhood, approaching a group of
gentlemen engaged in conversation.
“But they are not all peasants. There are four government clerks among
them.”
“Yes, there are clerks,” said a member of the district council, joining
the group.
“And do you know that Nazaryev, the merchant with the medal, a juryman?”
“What of him?”
“He is a man with brains.”
“But he never speaks.”
“He is no great talker, but so much the better. There’s no need for the
Petersburg man to teach him: he could teach all Petersburg himself. He’s
the father of twelve children. Think of that!”
“Upon my word, you don’t suppose they won’t acquit him?” one of our young
officials exclaimed in another group.
“They’ll acquit him for certain,” said a resolute voice.
“It would be shameful, disgraceful, not to acquit him!” cried the
official. “Suppose he did murder him—there are fathers and fathers! And,
besides, he was in such a frenzy.... He really may have done nothing but
swing the pestle in the air, and so knocked the old man down. But it was a
pity they dragged the valet in. That was simply an absurd theory! If I’d
been in Fetyukovitch’s place, I should simply have said straight out: ‘He
murdered him; but he is not guilty, hang it all!’ ”
“That’s what he did, only without saying, ‘Hang it all!’ ”
“No, Mihail Semyonovitch, he almost said that, too,” put in a third voice.
“Why, gentlemen, in Lent an actress was acquitted in our town who had cut
the throat of her lover’s lawful wife.”
“Oh, but she did not finish cutting it.”
“That makes no difference. She began cutting it.”
“What did you think of what he said about children? Splendid, wasn’t it?”
“Splendid!”
“And about mysticism, too!”
“Oh, drop mysticism, do!” cried some one else; “think of Ippolit and his
fate from this day forth. His wife will scratch his eyes out to‐morrow for
Mitya’s sake.”
“Is she here?”
“What an idea! If she’d been here she’d have scratched them out in court.
She is at home with toothache. He he he!”
“He he he!”
In a third group:
“I dare say they will acquit Mitenka, after all.”
“I should not be surprised if he turns the ‘Metropolis’ upside down to‐
morrow. He will be drinking for ten days!”
“Oh, the devil!”
“The devil’s bound to have a hand in it. Where should he be if not here?”
“Well, gentlemen, I admit it was eloquent. But still it’s not the thing to
break your father’s head with a pestle! Or what are we coming to?”
“The chariot! Do you remember the chariot?”
“Yes; he turned a cart into a chariot!”
“And to‐morrow he will turn a chariot into a cart, just to suit his
purpose.”
“What cunning chaps there are nowadays! Is there any justice to be had in
Russia?”
But the bell rang. The jury deliberated for exactly an hour, neither more
nor less. A profound silence reigned in the court as soon as the public
had taken their seats. I remember how the jurymen walked into the court.
At last! I won’t repeat the questions in order, and, indeed, I have
forgotten them. I remember only the answer to the President’s first and
chief question: “Did the prisoner commit the murder for the sake of
robbery and with premeditation?” (I don’t remember the exact words.) There
was a complete hush. The foreman of the jury, the youngest of the clerks,
pronounced, in a clear, loud voice, amidst the deathlike stillness of the
court:
“Yes, guilty!”
And the same answer was repeated to every question: “Yes, guilty!” and
without the slightest extenuating comment. This no one had expected;
almost every one had reckoned upon a recommendation to mercy, at least.
The deathlike silence in the court was not broken—all seemed petrified:
those who desired his conviction as well as those who had been eager for
his acquittal. But that was only for the first instant, and it was
followed by a fearful hubbub. Many of the men in the audience were
pleased. Some were rubbing their hands with no attempt to conceal their
joy. Those who disagreed with the verdict seemed crushed, shrugged their
shoulders, whispered, but still seemed unable to realize this. But how
shall I describe the state the ladies were in? I thought they would create
a riot. At first they could scarcely believe their ears. Then suddenly the
whole court rang with exclamations: “What’s the meaning of it? What next?”
They leapt up from their places. They seemed to fancy that it might be at
once reconsidered and reversed. At that instant Mitya suddenly stood up
and cried in a heartrending voice, stretching his hands out before him:
“I swear by God and the dreadful Day of Judgment I am not guilty of my
father’s blood! Katya, I forgive you! Brothers, friends, have pity on the
other woman!”
He could not go on, and broke into a terrible sobbing wail that was heard
all over the court in a strange, unnatural voice unlike his own. From the
farthest corner at the back of the gallery came a piercing shriek—it was
Grushenka. She had succeeded in begging admittance to the court again
before the beginning of the lawyers’ speeches. Mitya was taken away. The
passing of the sentence was deferred till next day. The whole court was in
a hubbub but I did not wait to hear. I only remember a few exclamations I
heard on the steps as I went out.
“He’ll have a twenty years’ trip to the mines!”
“Not less.”
“Well, our peasants have stood firm.”
“And have done for our Mitya.”
EPILOGUE
Chapter I. Plans For Mitya’s Escape
Very early, at nine o’clock in the morning, five days after the trial,
Alyosha went to Katerina Ivanovna’s to talk over a matter of great
importance to both of them, and to give her a message. She sat and talked
to him in the very room in which she had once received Grushenka. In the
next room Ivan Fyodorovitch lay unconscious in a high fever. Katerina
Ivanovna had immediately after the scene at the trial ordered the sick and
unconscious man to be carried to her house, disregarding the inevitable
gossip and general disapproval of the public. One of the two relations who
lived with her had departed to Moscow immediately after the scene in
court, the other remained. But if both had gone away, Katerina Ivanovna
would have adhered to her resolution, and would have gone on nursing the
sick man and sitting by him day and night. Varvinsky and Herzenstube were
attending him. The famous doctor had gone back to Moscow, refusing to give
an opinion as to the probable end of the illness. Though the doctors
encouraged Katerina Ivanovna and Alyosha, it was evident that they could
not yet give them positive hopes of recovery.
Alyosha came to see his sick brother twice a day. But this time he had
specially urgent business, and he foresaw how difficult it would be to
approach the subject, yet he was in great haste. He had another engagement
that could not be put off for that same morning, and there was need of
haste.
They had been talking for a quarter of an hour. Katerina Ivanovna was pale
and terribly fatigued, yet at the same time in a state of hysterical
excitement. She had a presentiment of the reason why Alyosha had come to
her.
“Don’t worry about his decision,” she said, with confident emphasis to
Alyosha. “One way or another he is bound to come to it. He must escape.
That unhappy man, that hero of honor and principle—not he, not Dmitri
Fyodorovitch, but the man lying the other side of that door, who has
sacrificed himself for his brother,” Katya added, with flashing eyes—“told
me the whole plan of escape long ago. You know he has already entered into
negotiations.... I’ve told you something already.... You see, it will
probably come off at the third _étape_ from here, when the party of
prisoners is being taken to Siberia. Oh, it’s a long way off yet. Ivan
Fyodorovitch has already visited the superintendent of the third _étape_.
But we don’t know yet who will be in charge of the party, and it’s
impossible to find that out so long beforehand. To‐morrow perhaps I will
show you in detail the whole plan which Ivan Fyodorovitch left me on the
eve of the trial in case of need.... That was when—do you remember?—you
found us quarreling. He had just gone down‐stairs, but seeing you I made
him come back; do you remember? Do you know what we were quarreling about
then?”
“No, I don’t,” said Alyosha.
“Of course he did not tell you. It was about that plan of escape. He had
told me the main idea three days before, and we began quarreling about it
at once and quarreled for three days. We quarreled because, when he told
me that if Dmitri Fyodorovitch were convicted he would escape abroad with
that creature, I felt furious at once—I can’t tell you why, I don’t know
myself why.... Oh, of course, I was furious then about that creature, and
that she, too, should go abroad with Dmitri!” Katerina Ivanovna exclaimed
suddenly, her lips quivering with anger. “As soon as Ivan Fyodorovitch saw
that I was furious about that woman, he instantly imagined I was jealous
of Dmitri and that I still loved Dmitri. That is how our first quarrel
began. I would not give an explanation, I could not ask forgiveness. I
could not bear to think that such a man could suspect me of still loving
that ... and when I myself had told him long before that I did not love
Dmitri, that I loved no one but him! It was only resentment against that
creature that made me angry with him. Three days later, on the evening you
came, he brought me a sealed envelope, which I was to open at once, if
anything happened to him. Oh, he foresaw his illness! He told me that the
envelope contained the details of the escape, and that if he died or was
taken dangerously ill, I was to save Mitya alone. Then he left me money,
nearly ten thousand—those notes to which the prosecutor referred in his
speech, having learnt from some one that he had sent them to be changed. I
was tremendously impressed to find that Ivan Fyodorovitch had not given up
his idea of saving his brother, and was confiding this plan of escape to
me, though he was still jealous of me and still convinced that I loved
Mitya. Oh, that was a sacrifice! No, you cannot understand the greatness
of such self‐sacrifice, Alexey Fyodorovitch. I wanted to fall at his feet
in reverence, but I thought at once that he would take it only for my joy
at the thought of Mitya’s being saved (and he certainly would have
imagined that!), and I was so exasperated at the mere possibility of such
an unjust thought on his part that I lost my temper again, and instead of
kissing his feet, flew into a fury again! Oh, I am unhappy! It’s my
character, my awful, unhappy character! Oh, you will see, I shall end by
driving him, too, to abandon me for another with whom he can get on
better, like Dmitri. But ... no, I could not bear it, I should kill
myself. And when you came in then, and when I called to you and told him
to come back, I was so enraged by the look of contempt and hatred he
turned on me that—do you remember?—I cried out to you that it was he, he
alone who had persuaded me that his brother Dmitri was a murderer! I said
that malicious thing on purpose to wound him again. He had never, never
persuaded me that his brother was a murderer. On the contrary, it was I
who persuaded him! Oh, my vile temper was the cause of everything! I paved
the way to that hideous scene at the trial. He wanted to show me that he
was an honorable man, and that, even if I loved his brother, he would not
ruin him for revenge or jealousy. So he came to the court ... I am the
cause of it all, I alone am to blame!”
Katya never had made such confessions to Alyosha before, and he felt that
she was now at that stage of unbearable suffering when even the proudest
heart painfully crushes its pride and falls vanquished by grief. Oh,
Alyosha knew another terrible reason of her present misery, though she had
carefully concealed it from him during those days since the trial; but it
would have been for some reason too painful to him if she had been brought
so low as to speak to him now about that. She was suffering for her
“treachery” at the trial, and Alyosha felt that her conscience was
impelling her to confess it to him, to him, Alyosha, with tears and cries
and hysterical writhings on the floor. But he dreaded that moment and
longed to spare her. It made the commission on which he had come even more
difficult. He spoke of Mitya again.
“It’s all right, it’s all right, don’t be anxious about him!” she began
again, sharply and stubbornly. “All that is only momentary, I know him, I
know his heart only too well. You may be sure he will consent to escape.
It’s not as though it would be immediately; he will have time to make up
his mind to it. Ivan Fyodorovitch will be well by that time and will
manage it all himself, so that I shall have nothing to do with it. Don’t
be anxious; he will consent to run away. He has agreed already: do you
suppose he would give up that creature? And they won’t let her go to him,
so he is bound to escape. It’s you he’s most afraid of, he is afraid you
won’t approve of his escape on moral grounds. But you must generously
_allow_ it, if your sanction is so necessary,” Katya added viciously. She
paused and smiled.
“He talks about some hymn,” she went on again, “some cross he has to bear,
some duty; I remember Ivan Fyodorovitch told me a great deal about it, and
if you knew how he talked!” Katya cried suddenly, with feeling she could
not repress, “if you knew how he loved that wretched man at the moment he
told me, and how he hated him, perhaps, at the same moment. And I heard
his story and his tears with sneering disdain. Brute! Yes, I am a brute. I
am responsible for his fever. But that man in prison is incapable of
suffering,” Katya concluded irritably. “Can such a man suffer? Men like
him never suffer!”
There was a note of hatred and contemptuous repulsion in her words. And
yet it was she who had betrayed him. “Perhaps because she feels how she’s
wronged him she hates him at moments,” Alyosha thought to himself. He
hoped that it was only “at moments.” In Katya’s last words he detected a
challenging note, but he did not take it up.
“I sent for you this morning to make you promise to persuade him yourself.
Or do you, too, consider that to escape would be dishonorable, cowardly,
or something ... unchristian, perhaps?” Katya added, even more defiantly.
“Oh, no. I’ll tell him everything,” muttered Alyosha. “He asks you to come
and see him to‐day,” he blurted out suddenly, looking her steadily in the
face. She started, and drew back a little from him on the sofa.
“Me? Can that be?” she faltered, turning pale.
“It can and ought to be!” Alyosha began emphatically, growing more
animated. “He needs you particularly just now. I would not have opened the
subject and worried you, if it were not necessary. He is ill, he is beside
himself, he keeps asking for you. It is not to be reconciled with you that
he wants you, but only that you would go and show yourself at his door. So
much has happened to him since that day. He realizes that he has injured
you beyond all reckoning. He does not ask your forgiveness—‘It’s
impossible to forgive me,’ he says himself—but only that you would show
yourself in his doorway.”
“It’s so sudden....” faltered Katya. “I’ve had a presentiment all these
days that you would come with that message. I knew he would ask me to
come. It’s impossible!”
“Let it be impossible, but do it. Only think, he realizes for the first
time how he has wounded you, the first time in his life; he had never
grasped it before so fully. He said, ‘If she refuses to come I shall be
unhappy all my life.’ Do you hear? though he is condemned to penal
servitude for twenty years, he is still planning to be happy—is not that
piteous? Think—you must visit him; though he is ruined, he is innocent,”
broke like a challenge from Alyosha. “His hands are clean, there is no
blood on them! For the sake of his infinite sufferings in the future visit
him now. Go, greet him on his way into the darkness—stand at his door,
that is all.... You ought to do it, you ought to!” Alyosha concluded,
laying immense stress on the word “ought.”
“I ought to ... but I cannot....” Katya moaned. “He will look at me.... I
can’t.”
“Your eyes ought to meet. How will you live all your life, if you don’t
make up your mind to do it now?”
“Better suffer all my life.”
“You ought to go, you ought to go,” Alyosha repeated with merciless
emphasis.
“But why to‐day, why at once?... I can’t leave our patient—”
“You can for a moment. It will only be a moment. If you don’t come, he
will be in delirium by to‐night. I would not tell you a lie; have pity on
him!”
“Have pity on _me!_” Katya said, with bitter reproach, and she burst into
tears.
“Then you will come,” said Alyosha firmly, seeing her tears. “I’ll go and
tell him you will come directly.”
“No, don’t tell him so on any account,” cried Katya in alarm. “I will
come, but don’t tell him beforehand, for perhaps I may go, but not go
in.... I don’t know yet—”
Her voice failed her. She gasped for breath. Alyosha got up to go.
“And what if I meet any one?” she said suddenly, in a low voice, turning
white again.
“That’s just why you must go now, to avoid meeting any one. There will be
no one there, I can tell you that for certain. We will expect you,” he
concluded emphatically, and went out of the room.
Chapter II. For A Moment The Lie Becomes Truth
He hurried to the hospital where Mitya was lying now. The day after his
fate was determined, Mitya had fallen ill with nervous fever, and was sent
to the prison division of the town hospital. But at the request of several
persons (Alyosha, Madame Hohlakov, Lise, etc.), Doctor Varvinsky had put
Mitya not with other prisoners, but in a separate little room, the one
where Smerdyakov had been. It is true that there was a sentinel at the
other end of the corridor, and there was a grating over the window, so
that Varvinsky could be at ease about the indulgence he had shown, which
was not quite legal, indeed; but he was a kind‐hearted and compassionate
young man. He knew how hard it would be for a man like Mitya to pass at
once so suddenly into the society of robbers and murderers, and that he
must get used to it by degrees. The visits of relations and friends were
informally sanctioned by the doctor and overseer, and even by the police
captain. But only Alyosha and Grushenka had visited Mitya. Rakitin had
tried to force his way in twice, but Mitya persistently begged Varvinsky
not to admit him.
Alyosha found him sitting on his bed in a hospital dressing‐gown, rather
feverish, with a towel, soaked in vinegar and water, on his head. He
looked at Alyosha as he came in with an undefined expression, but there
was a shade of something like dread discernible in it. He had become
terribly preoccupied since the trial; sometimes he would be silent for
half an hour together, and seemed to be pondering something heavily and
painfully, oblivious of everything about him. If he roused himself from
his brooding and began to talk, he always spoke with a kind of abruptness
and never of what he really wanted to say. He looked sometimes with a face
of suffering at his brother. He seemed to be more at ease with Grushenka
than with Alyosha. It is true, he scarcely spoke to her at all, but as
soon as she came in, his whole face lighted up with joy.
Alyosha sat down beside him on the bed in silence. This time Mitya was
waiting for Alyosha in suspense, but he did not dare ask him a question.
He felt it almost unthinkable that Katya would consent to come, and at the
same time he felt that if she did not come, something inconceivable would
happen. Alyosha understood his feelings.
“Trifon Borissovitch,” Mitya began nervously, “has pulled his whole inn to
pieces, I am told. He’s taken up the flooring, pulled apart the planks,
split up all the gallery, I am told. He is seeking treasure all the
time—the fifteen hundred roubles which the prosecutor said I’d hidden
there. He began playing these tricks, they say, as soon as he got home.
Serve him right, the swindler! The guard here told me yesterday; he comes
from there.”
“Listen,” began Alyosha. “She will come, but I don’t know when. Perhaps
to‐day, perhaps in a few days, that I can’t tell. But she will come, she
will, that’s certain.”
Mitya started, would have said something, but was silent. The news had a
tremendous effect on him. It was evident that he would have liked terribly
to know what had been said, but he was again afraid to ask. Something
cruel and contemptuous from Katya would have cut him like a knife at that
moment.
“This was what she said among other things; that I must be sure to set
your conscience at rest about escaping. If Ivan is not well by then she
will see to it all herself.”
“You’ve spoken of that already,” Mitya observed musingly.
“And you have repeated it to Grusha,” observed Alyosha.
“Yes,” Mitya admitted. “She won’t come this morning.” He looked timidly at
his brother. “She won’t come till the evening. When I told her yesterday
that Katya was taking measures, she was silent, but she set her mouth. She
only whispered, ‘Let her!’ She understood that it was important. I did not
dare to try her further. She understands now, I think, that Katya no
longer cares for me, but loves Ivan.”
“Does she?” broke from Alyosha.
“Perhaps she does not. Only she is not coming this morning,” Mitya
hastened to explain again; “I asked her to do something for me. You know,
Ivan is superior to all of us. He ought to live, not us. He will recover.”
“Would you believe it, though Katya is alarmed about him, she scarcely
doubts of his recovery,” said Alyosha.
“That means that she is convinced he will die. It’s because she is
frightened she’s so sure he will get well.”
“Ivan has a strong constitution, and I, too, believe there’s every hope
that he will get well,” Alyosha observed anxiously.
“Yes, he will get well. But she is convinced that he will die. She has a
great deal of sorrow to bear...” A silence followed. A grave anxiety was
fretting Mitya.
“Alyosha, I love Grusha terribly,” he said suddenly in a shaking voice,
full of tears.
“They won’t let her go out there to you,” Alyosha put in at once.
“And there is something else I wanted to tell you,” Mitya went on, with a
sudden ring in his voice. “If they beat me on the way or out there, I
won’t submit to it. I shall kill some one, and shall be shot for it. And
this will be going on for twenty years! They speak to me rudely as it is.
I’ve been lying here all night, passing judgment on myself. I am not
ready! I am not able to resign myself. I wanted to sing a ‘hymn’; but if a
guard speaks rudely to me, I have not the strength to bear it. For Grusha
I would bear anything ... anything except blows.... But she won’t be
allowed to come there.”
Alyosha smiled gently.
“Listen, brother, once for all,” he said. “This is what I think about it.
And you know that I would not tell you a lie. Listen: you are not ready,
and such a cross is not for you. What’s more, you don’t need such a
martyr’s cross when you are not ready for it. If you had murdered our
father, it would grieve me that you should reject your punishment. But you
are innocent, and such a cross is too much for you. You wanted to make
yourself another man by suffering. I say, only remember that other man
always, all your life and wherever you go; and that will be enough for
you. Your refusal of that great cross will only serve to make you feel all
your life an even greater duty, and that constant feeling will do more to
make you a new man, perhaps, than if you went there. For there you would
not endure it and would repine, and perhaps at last would say: ‘I am
quits.’ The lawyer was right about that. Such heavy burdens are not for
all men. For some they are impossible. These are my thoughts about it, if
you want them so much. If other men would have to answer for your escape,
officers or soldiers, then I would not have ‘allowed’ you,” smiled
Alyosha. “But they declare—the superintendent of that _étape_ told Ivan
himself—that if it’s well managed there will be no great inquiry, and that
they can get off easily. Of course, bribing is dishonest even in such a
case, but I can’t undertake to judge about it, because if Ivan and Katya
commissioned me to act for you, I know I should go and give bribes. I must
tell you the truth. And so I can’t judge of your own action. But let me
assure you that I shall never condemn you. And it would be a strange thing
if I could judge you in this. Now I think I’ve gone into everything.”
“But I do condemn myself!” cried Mitya. “I shall escape, that was settled
apart from you; could Mitya Karamazov do anything but run away? But I
shall condemn myself, and I will pray for my sin for ever. That’s how the
Jesuits talk, isn’t it? Just as we are doing?”
“Yes.” Alyosha smiled gently.
“I love you for always telling the whole truth and never hiding anything,”
cried Mitya, with a joyful laugh. “So I’ve caught my Alyosha being
Jesuitical. I must kiss you for that. Now listen to the rest; I’ll open
the other side of my heart to you. This is what I planned and decided. If
I run away, even with money and a passport, and even to America, I should
be cheered up by the thought that I am not running away for pleasure, not
for happiness, but to another exile as bad, perhaps, as Siberia. It is as
bad, Alyosha, it is! I hate that America, damn it, already. Even though
Grusha will be with me. Just look at her; is she an American? She is
Russian, Russian to the marrow of her bones; she will be homesick for the
mother country, and I shall see every hour that she is suffering for my
sake, that she has taken up that cross for me. And what harm has she done?
And how shall I, too, put up with the rabble out there, though they may be
better than I, every one of them? I hate that America already! And though
they may be wonderful at machinery, every one of them, damn them, they are
not of my soul. I love Russia, Alyosha, I love the Russian God, though I
am a scoundrel myself. I shall choke there!” he exclaimed, his eyes
suddenly flashing. His voice was trembling with tears. “So this is what
I’ve decided, Alyosha, listen,” he began again, mastering his emotion. “As
soon as I arrive there with Grusha, we will set to work at once on the
land, in solitude, somewhere very remote, with wild bears. There must be
some remote parts even there. I am told there are still Redskins there,
somewhere, on the edge of the horizon. So to the country of the _Last of
the Mohicans_, and there we’ll tackle the grammar at once, Grusha and I.
Work and grammar—that’s how we’ll spend three years. And by that time we
shall speak English like any Englishman. And as soon as we’ve learnt
it—good‐by to America! We’ll run here to Russia as American citizens.
Don’t be uneasy—we would not come to this little town. We’d hide
somewhere, a long way off, in the north or in the south. I shall be
changed by that time, and she will, too, in America. The doctors shall
make me some sort of wart on my face—what’s the use of their being so
mechanical!—or else I’ll put out one eye, let my beard grow a yard, and I
shall turn gray, fretting for Russia. I dare say they won’t recognize us.
And if they do, let them send us to Siberia. I don’t care. It will show
it’s our fate. We’ll work on the land here, too, somewhere in the wilds,
and I’ll make up as an American all my life. But we shall die on our own
soil. That’s my plan, and it shan’t be altered. Do you approve?”
“Yes,” said Alyosha, not wanting to contradict him. Mitya paused for a
minute and said suddenly:
“And how they worked it up at the trial! Didn’t they work it up!”
“If they had not, you would have been convicted just the same,” said
Alyosha, with a sigh.
“Yes, people are sick of me here! God bless them, but it’s hard,” Mitya
moaned miserably. Again there was silence for a minute.
“Alyosha, put me out of my misery at once!” he exclaimed suddenly. “Tell
me, is she coming now, or not? Tell me? What did she say? How did she say
it?”
“She said she would come, but I don’t know whether she will come to‐day.
It’s hard for her, you know,” Alyosha looked timidly at his brother.
“I should think it is hard for her! Alyosha, it will drive me out of my
mind. Grusha keeps looking at me. She understands. My God, calm my heart:
what is it I want? I want Katya! Do I understand what I want? It’s the
headstrong, evil Karamazov spirit! No, I am not fit for suffering. I am a
scoundrel, that’s all one can say.”
“Here she is!” cried Alyosha.
At that instant Katya appeared in the doorway. For a moment she stood
still, gazing at Mitya with a dazed expression. He leapt impulsively to
his feet, and a scared look came into his face. He turned pale, but a
timid, pleading smile appeared on his lips at once, and with an
irresistible impulse he held out both hands to Katya. Seeing it, she flew
impetuously to him. She seized him by the hands, and almost by force made
him sit down on the bed. She sat down beside him, and still keeping his
hands pressed them violently. Several times they both strove to speak, but
stopped short and again gazed speechless with a strange smile, their eyes
fastened on one another. So passed two minutes.
“Have you forgiven me?” Mitya faltered at last, and at the same moment
turning to Alyosha, his face working with joy, he cried, “Do you hear what
I am asking, do you hear?”
“That’s what I loved you for, that you are generous at heart!” broke from
Katya. “My forgiveness is no good to you, nor yours to me; whether you
forgive me or not, you will always be a sore place in my heart, and I in
yours—so it must be....” She stopped to take breath. “What have I come
for?” she began again with nervous haste: “to embrace your feet, to press
your hands like this, till it hurts—you remember how in Moscow I used to
squeeze them—to tell you again that you are my god, my joy, to tell you
that I love you madly,” she moaned in anguish, and suddenly pressed his
hand greedily to her lips. Tears streamed from her eyes. Alyosha stood
speechless and confounded; he had never expected what he was seeing.
“Love is over, Mitya!” Katya began again, “but the past is painfully dear
to me. Know that you will always be so. But now let what might have been
come true for one minute,” she faltered, with a drawn smile, looking into
his face joyfully again. “You love another woman, and I love another man,
and yet I shall love you for ever, and you will love me; do you know that?
Do you hear? Love me, love me all your life!” she cried, with a quiver
almost of menace in her voice.
“I shall love you, and ... do you know, Katya,” Mitya began, drawing a
deep breath at each word, “do you know, five days ago, that same evening,
I loved you.... When you fell down and were carried out ... All my life!
So it will be, so it will always be—”
So they murmured to one another frantic words, almost meaningless, perhaps
not even true, but at that moment it was all true, and they both believed
what they said implicitly.
“Katya,” cried Mitya suddenly, “do you believe I murdered him? I know you
don’t believe it now, but then ... when you gave evidence.... Surely,
surely you did not believe it!”
“I did not believe it even then. I’ve never believed it. I hated you, and
for a moment I persuaded myself. While I was giving evidence I persuaded
myself and believed it, but when I’d finished speaking I left off
believing it at once. Don’t doubt that! I have forgotten that I came here
to punish myself,” she said, with a new expression in her voice, quite
unlike the loving tones of a moment before.
“Woman, yours is a heavy burden,” broke, as it were, involuntarily from
Mitya.
“Let me go,” she whispered. “I’ll come again. It’s more than I can bear
now.”
She was getting up from her place, but suddenly uttered a loud scream and
staggered back. Grushenka walked suddenly and noiselessly into the room.
No one had expected her. Katya moved swiftly to the door, but when she
reached Grushenka, she stopped suddenly, turned as white as chalk and
moaned softly, almost in a whisper:
“Forgive me!”
Grushenka stared at her and, pausing for an instant, in a vindictive,
venomous voice, answered:
“We are full of hatred, my girl, you and I! We are both full of hatred! As
though we could forgive one another! Save him, and I’ll worship you all my
life.”
“You won’t forgive her!” cried Mitya, with frantic reproach.
“Don’t be anxious, I’ll save him for you!” Katya whispered rapidly, and
she ran out of the room.
“And you could refuse to forgive her when she begged your forgiveness
herself?” Mitya exclaimed bitterly again.
“Mitya, don’t dare to blame her; you have no right to!” Alyosha cried
hotly.
“Her proud lips spoke, not her heart,” Grushenka brought out in a tone of
disgust. “If she saves you I’ll forgive her everything—”
She stopped speaking, as though suppressing something. She could not yet
recover herself. She had come in, as appeared afterwards, accidentally,
with no suspicion of what she would meet.
“Alyosha, run after her!” Mitya cried to his brother; “tell her ... I
don’t know ... don’t let her go away like this!”
“I’ll come to you again at nightfall,” said Alyosha, and he ran after
Katya. He overtook her outside the hospital grounds. She was walking fast,
but as soon as Alyosha caught her up she said quickly:
“No, before that woman I can’t punish myself! I asked her forgiveness
because I wanted to punish myself to the bitter end. She would not forgive
me.... I like her for that!” she added, in an unnatural voice, and her
eyes flashed with fierce resentment.
“My brother did not expect this in the least,” muttered Alyosha. “He was
sure she would not come—”
“No doubt. Let us leave that,” she snapped. “Listen: I can’t go with you
to the funeral now. I’ve sent them flowers. I think they still have money.
If necessary, tell them I’ll never abandon them.... Now leave me, leave
me, please. You are late as it is—the bells are ringing for the
service.... Leave me, please!”
Chapter III. Ilusha’s Funeral. The Speech At The Stone
He really was late. They had waited for him and had already decided to
bear the pretty flower‐decked little coffin to the church without him. It
was the coffin of poor little Ilusha. He had died two days after Mitya was
sentenced. At the gate of the house Alyosha was met by the shouts of the
boys, Ilusha’s schoolfellows. They had all been impatiently expecting him
and were glad that he had come at last. There were about twelve of them,
they all had their school‐bags or satchels on their shoulders. “Father
will cry, be with father,” Ilusha had told them as he lay dying, and the
boys remembered it. Kolya Krassotkin was the foremost of them.
“How glad I am you’ve come, Karamazov!” he cried, holding out his hand to
Alyosha. “It’s awful here. It’s really horrible to see it. Snegiryov is
not drunk, we know for a fact he’s had nothing to drink to‐day, but he
seems as if he were drunk ... I am always manly, but this is awful.
Karamazov, if I am not keeping you, one question before you go in?”
“What is it, Kolya?” said Alyosha.
“Is your brother innocent or guilty? Was it he killed your father or was
it the valet? As you say, so it will be. I haven’t slept for the last four
nights for thinking of it.”
“The valet killed him, my brother is innocent,” answered Alyosha.
“That’s what I said,” cried Smurov.
“So he will perish an innocent victim!” exclaimed Kolya; “though he is
ruined he is happy! I could envy him!”
“What do you mean? How can you? Why?” cried Alyosha surprised.
“Oh, if I, too, could sacrifice myself some day for truth!” said Kolya
with enthusiasm.
“But not in such a cause, not with such disgrace and such horror!” said
Alyosha.
“Of course ... I should like to die for all humanity, and as for disgrace,
I don’t care about that—our names may perish. I respect your brother!”
“And so do I!” the boy, who had once declared that he knew who had founded
Troy, cried suddenly and unexpectedly, and he blushed up to his ears like
a peony as he had done on that occasion.
Alyosha went into the room. Ilusha lay with his hands folded and his eyes
closed in a blue coffin with a white frill round it. His thin face was
hardly changed at all, and strange to say there was no smell of decay from
the corpse. The expression of his face was serious and, as it were,
thoughtful. His hands, crossed over his breast, looked particularly
beautiful, as though chiseled in marble. There were flowers in his hands
and the coffin, inside and out, was decked with flowers, which had been
sent early in the morning by Lise Hohlakov. But there were flowers too
from Katerina Ivanovna, and when Alyosha opened the door, the captain had
a bunch in his trembling hands and was strewing them again over his dear
boy. He scarcely glanced at Alyosha when he came in, and he would not look
at any one, even at his crazy weeping wife, “mamma,” who kept trying to
stand on her crippled legs to get a nearer look at her dead boy. Nina had
been pushed in her chair by the boys close up to the coffin. She sat with
her head pressed to it and she too was no doubt quietly weeping.
Snegiryov’s face looked eager, yet bewildered and exasperated. There was
something crazy about his gestures and the words that broke from him. “Old
man, dear old man!” he exclaimed every minute, gazing at Ilusha. It was
his habit to call Ilusha “old man,” as a term of affection when he was
alive.
“Father, give me a flower, too; take that white one out of his hand and
give it me,” the crazy mother begged, whimpering. Either because the
little white rose in Ilusha’s hand had caught her fancy or that she wanted
one from his hand to keep in memory of him, she moved restlessly,
stretching out her hands for the flower.
“I won’t give it to any one, I won’t give you anything,” Snegiryov cried
callously. “They are his flowers, not yours! Everything is his, nothing is
yours!”
“Father, give mother a flower!” said Nina, lifting her face wet with
tears.
“I won’t give away anything and to her less than any one! She didn’t love
Ilusha. She took away his little cannon and he gave it to her,” the
captain broke into loud sobs at the thought of how Ilusha had given up his
cannon to his mother. The poor, crazy creature was bathed in noiseless
tears, hiding her face in her hands.
The boys, seeing that the father would not leave the coffin and that it
was time to carry it out, stood round it in a close circle and began to
lift it up.
“I don’t want him to be buried in the churchyard,” Snegiryov wailed
suddenly; “I’ll bury him by the stone, by our stone! Ilusha told me to. I
won’t let him be carried out!”
He had been saying for the last three days that he would bury him by the
stone, but Alyosha, Krassotkin, the landlady, her sister and all the boys
interfered.
“What an idea, bury him by an unholy stone, as though he had hanged
himself!” the old landlady said sternly. “There in the churchyard the
ground has been crossed. He’ll be prayed for there. One can hear the
singing in church and the deacon reads so plainly and verbally that it
will reach him every time just as though it were read over his grave.”
At last the captain made a gesture of despair as though to say, “Take him
where you will.” The boys raised the coffin, but as they passed the
mother, they stopped for a moment and lowered it that she might say good‐
by to Ilusha. But on seeing that precious little face, which for the last
three days she had only looked at from a distance, she trembled all over
and her gray head began twitching spasmodically over the coffin.
“Mother, make the sign of the cross over him, give him your blessing, kiss
him,” Nina cried to her. But her head still twitched like an automaton and
with a face contorted with bitter grief she began, without a word, beating
her breast with her fist. They carried the coffin past her. Nina pressed
her lips to her brother’s for the last time as they bore the coffin by
her. As Alyosha went out of the house he begged the landlady to look after
those who were left behind, but she interrupted him before he had
finished.
“To be sure, I’ll stay with them, we are Christians, too.” The old woman
wept as she said it.
They had not far to carry the coffin to the church, not more than three
hundred paces. It was a still, clear day, with a slight frost. The church
bells were still ringing. Snegiryov ran fussing and distracted after the
coffin, in his short old summer overcoat, with his head bare and his soft,
old, wide‐brimmed hat in his hand. He seemed in a state of bewildered
anxiety. At one minute he stretched out his hand to support the head of
the coffin and only hindered the bearers, at another he ran alongside and
tried to find a place for himself there. A flower fell on the snow and he
rushed to pick it up as though everything in the world depended on the
loss of that flower.
“And the crust of bread, we’ve forgotten the crust!” he cried suddenly in
dismay. But the boys reminded him at once that he had taken the crust of
bread already and that it was in his pocket. He instantly pulled it out
and was reassured.
“Ilusha told me to, Ilusha,” he explained at once to Alyosha. “I was
sitting by him one night and he suddenly told me: ‘Father, when my grave
is filled up crumble a piece of bread on it so that the sparrows may fly
down, I shall hear and it will cheer me up not to be lying alone.’ ”
“That’s a good thing,” said Alyosha, “we must often take some.”
“Every day, every day!” said the captain quickly, seeming cheered at the
thought.
They reached the church at last and set the coffin in the middle of it.
The boys surrounded it and remained reverently standing so, all through
the service. It was an old and rather poor church; many of the ikons were
without settings; but such churches are the best for praying in. During
the mass Snegiryov became somewhat calmer, though at times he had
outbursts of the same unconscious and, as it were, incoherent anxiety. At
one moment he went up to the coffin to set straight the cover or the
wreath, when a candle fell out of the candlestick he rushed to replace it
and was a fearful time fumbling over it, then he subsided and stood
quietly by the coffin with a look of blank uneasiness and perplexity.
After the Epistle he suddenly whispered to Alyosha, who was standing
beside him, that the Epistle had not been read properly but did not
explain what he meant. During the prayer, “Like the Cherubim,” he joined
in the singing but did not go on to the end. Falling on his knees, he
pressed his forehead to the stone floor and lay so for a long while.
At last came the funeral service itself and candles were distributed. The
distracted father began fussing about again, but the touching and
impressive funeral prayers moved and roused his soul. He seemed suddenly
to shrink together and broke into rapid, short sobs, which he tried at
first to smother, but at last he sobbed aloud. When they began taking
leave of the dead and closing the coffin, he flung his arms about, as
though he would not allow them to cover Ilusha, and began greedily and
persistently kissing his dead boy on the lips. At last they succeeded in
persuading him to come away from the step, but suddenly he impulsively
stretched out his hand and snatched a few flowers from the coffin. He
looked at them and a new idea seemed to dawn upon him, so that he
apparently forgot his grief for a minute. Gradually he seemed to sink into
brooding and did not resist when the coffin was lifted up and carried to
the grave. It was an expensive one in the churchyard close to the church,
Katerina Ivanovna had paid for it. After the customary rites the grave‐
diggers lowered the coffin. Snegiryov with his flowers in his hands bent
down so low over the open grave that the boys caught hold of his coat in
alarm and pulled him back. He did not seem to understand fully what was
happening. When they began filling up the grave, he suddenly pointed
anxiously at the falling earth and began trying to say something, but no
one could make out what he meant, and he stopped suddenly. Then he was
reminded that he must crumble the bread and he was awfully excited,
snatched up the bread and began pulling it to pieces and flinging the
morsels on the grave.
“Come, fly down, birds, fly down, sparrows!” he muttered anxiously.
One of the boys observed that it was awkward for him to crumble the bread
with the flowers in his hands and suggested he should give them to some
one to hold for a time. But he would not do this and seemed indeed
suddenly alarmed for his flowers, as though they wanted to take them from
him altogether. And after looking at the grave, and as it were, satisfying
himself that everything had been done and the bread had been crumbled, he
suddenly, to the surprise of every one, turned, quite composedly even, and
made his way homewards. But his steps became more and more hurried, he
almost ran. The boys and Alyosha kept up with him.
“The flowers are for mamma, the flowers are for mamma! I was unkind to
mamma,” he began exclaiming suddenly.
Some one called to him to put on his hat as it was cold. But he flung the
hat in the snow as though he were angry and kept repeating, “I won’t have
the hat, I won’t have the hat.” Smurov picked it up and carried it after
him. All the boys were crying, and Kolya and the boy who discovered about
Troy most of all. Though Smurov, with the captain’s hat in his hand, was
crying bitterly too, he managed, as he ran, to snatch up a piece of red
brick that lay on the snow of the path, to fling it at the flock of
sparrows that was flying by. He missed them, of course, and went on crying
as he ran. Half‐way, Snegiryov suddenly stopped, stood still for half a
minute, as though struck by something, and suddenly turning back to the
church, ran towards the deserted grave. But the boys instantly overtook
him and caught hold of him on all sides. Then he fell helpless on the snow
as though he had been knocked down, and struggling, sobbing, and wailing,
he began crying out, “Ilusha, old man, dear old man!” Alyosha and Kolya
tried to make him get up, soothing and persuading him.
“Captain, give over, a brave man must show fortitude,” muttered Kolya.
“You’ll spoil the flowers,” said Alyosha, “and mamma is expecting them,
she is sitting crying because you would not give her any before. Ilusha’s
little bed is still there—”
“Yes, yes, mamma!” Snegiryov suddenly recollected, “they’ll take away the
bed, they’ll take it away,” he added as though alarmed that they really
would. He jumped up and ran homewards again. But it was not far off and
they all arrived together. Snegiryov opened the door hurriedly and called
to his wife with whom he had so cruelly quarreled just before:
“Mamma, poor crippled darling, Ilusha has sent you these flowers,” he
cried, holding out to her a little bunch of flowers that had been frozen
and broken while he was struggling in the snow. But at that instant he saw
in the corner, by the little bed, Ilusha’s little boots, which the
landlady had put tidily side by side. Seeing the old, patched, rusty‐
looking, stiff boots he flung up his hands and rushed to them, fell on his
knees, snatched up one boot and, pressing his lips to it, began kissing it
greedily, crying, “Ilusha, old man, dear old man, where are your little
feet?”
“Where have you taken him away? Where have you taken him?” the lunatic
cried in a heartrending voice. Nina, too, broke into sobs. Kolya ran out
of the room, the boys followed him. At last Alyosha too went out.
“Let them weep,” he said to Kolya, “it’s no use trying to comfort them
just now. Let us wait a minute and then go back.”
“No, it’s no use, it’s awful,” Kolya assented. “Do you know, Karamazov,”
he dropped his voice so that no one could hear them, “I feel dreadfully
sad, and if it were only possible to bring him back, I’d give anything in
the world to do it.”
“Ah, so would I,” said Alyosha.
“What do you think, Karamazov? Had we better come back here to‐night?
He’ll be drunk, you know.”
“Perhaps he will. Let us come together, you and I, that will be enough, to
spend an hour with them, with the mother and Nina. If we all come together
we shall remind them of everything again,” Alyosha suggested.
“The landlady is laying the table for them now—there’ll be a funeral
dinner or something, the priest is coming; shall we go back to it,
Karamazov?”
“Of course,” said Alyosha.
“It’s all so strange, Karamazov, such sorrow and then pancakes after it,
it all seems so unnatural in our religion.”
“They are going to have salmon, too,” the boy who had discovered about
Troy observed in a loud voice.
“I beg you most earnestly, Kartashov, not to interrupt again with your
idiotic remarks, especially when one is not talking to you and doesn’t
care to know whether you exist or not!” Kolya snapped out irritably. The
boy flushed crimson but did not dare to reply.
Meantime they were strolling slowly along the path and suddenly Smurov
exclaimed:
“There’s Ilusha’s stone, under which they wanted to bury him.”
They all stood still by the big stone. Alyosha looked and the whole
picture of what Snegiryov had described to him that day, how Ilusha,
weeping and hugging his father, had cried, “Father, father, how he
insulted you,” rose at once before his imagination.
A sudden impulse seemed to come into his soul. With a serious and earnest
expression he looked from one to another of the bright, pleasant faces of
Ilusha’s schoolfellows, and suddenly said to them:
“Boys, I should like to say one word to you, here at this place.”
The boys stood round him and at once bent attentive and expectant eyes
upon him.
“Boys, we shall soon part. I shall be for some time with my two brothers,
of whom one is going to Siberia and the other is lying at death’s door.
But soon I shall leave this town, perhaps for a long time, so we shall
part. Let us make a compact here, at Ilusha’s stone, that we will never
forget Ilusha and one another. And whatever happens to us later in life,
if we don’t meet for twenty years afterwards, let us always remember how
we buried the poor boy at whom we once threw stones, do you remember, by
the bridge? and afterwards we all grew so fond of him. He was a fine boy,
a kind‐hearted, brave boy, he felt for his father’s honor and resented the
cruel insult to him and stood up for him. And so in the first place, we
will remember him, boys, all our lives. And even if we are occupied with
most important things, if we attain to honor or fall into great
misfortune—still let us remember how good it was once here, when we were
all together, united by a good and kind feeling which made us, for the
time we were loving that poor boy, better perhaps than we are. My little
doves—let me call you so, for you are very like them, those pretty blue
birds, at this minute as I look at your good dear faces. My dear children,
perhaps you won’t understand what I am saying to you, because I often
speak very unintelligibly, but you’ll remember it all the same and will
agree with my words some time. You must know that there is nothing higher
and stronger and more wholesome and good for life in the future than some
good memory, especially a memory of childhood, of home. People talk to you
a great deal about your education, but some good, sacred memory, preserved
from childhood, is perhaps the best education. If a man carries many such
memories with him into life, he is safe to the end of his days, and if one
has only one good memory left in one’s heart, even that may sometime be
the means of saving us. Perhaps we may even grow wicked later on, may be
unable to refrain from a bad action, may laugh at men’s tears and at those
people who say as Kolya did just now, ‘I want to suffer for all men,’ and
may even jeer spitefully at such people. But however bad we may
become—which God forbid—yet, when we recall how we buried Ilusha, how we
loved him in his last days, and how we have been talking like friends all
together, at this stone, the cruelest and most mocking of us—if we do
become so—will not dare to laugh inwardly at having been kind and good at
this moment! What’s more, perhaps, that one memory may keep him from great
evil and he will reflect and say, ‘Yes, I was good and brave and honest
then!’ Let him laugh to himself, that’s no matter, a man often laughs at
what’s good and kind. That’s only from thoughtlessness. But I assure you,
boys, that as he laughs he will say at once in his heart, ‘No, I do wrong
to laugh, for that’s not a thing to laugh at.’ ”
“That will be so, I understand you, Karamazov!” cried Kolya, with flashing
eyes.
The boys were excited and they, too, wanted to say something, but they
restrained themselves, looking with intentness and emotion at the speaker.
“I say this in case we become bad,” Alyosha went on, “but there’s no
reason why we should become bad, is there, boys? Let us be, first and
above all, kind, then honest and then let us never forget each other! I
say that again. I give you my word for my part that I’ll never forget one
of you. Every face looking at me now I shall remember even for thirty
years. Just now Kolya said to Kartashov that we did not care to know
whether he exists or not. But I cannot forget that Kartashov exists and
that he is not blushing now as he did when he discovered the founders of
Troy, but is looking at me with his jolly, kind, dear little eyes. Boys,
my dear boys, let us all be generous and brave like Ilusha, clever, brave
and generous like Kolya (though he will be ever so much cleverer when he
is grown up), and let us all be as modest, as clever and sweet as
Kartashov. But why am I talking about those two? You are all dear to me,
boys, from this day forth, I have a place in my heart for you all, and I
beg you to keep a place in your hearts for me! Well, and who has united us
in this kind, good feeling which we shall remember and intend to remember
all our lives? Who, if not Ilusha, the good boy, the dear boy, precious to
us for ever! Let us never forget him. May his memory live for ever in our
hearts from this time forth!”
“Yes, yes, for ever, for ever!” the boys cried in their ringing voices,
with softened faces.
“Let us remember his face and his clothes and his poor little boots, his
coffin and his unhappy, sinful father, and how boldly he stood up for him
alone against the whole school.”
“We will remember, we will remember,” cried the boys. “He was brave, he
was good!”
“Ah, how I loved him!” exclaimed Kolya.
“Ah, children, ah, dear friends, don’t be afraid of life! How good life is
when one does something good and just!”
“Yes, yes,” the boys repeated enthusiastically.
“Karamazov, we love you!” a voice, probably Kartashov’s, cried
impulsively.
“We love you, we love you!” they all caught it up. There were tears in the
eyes of many of them.
“Hurrah for Karamazov!” Kolya shouted ecstatically.
“And may the dead boy’s memory live for ever!” Alyosha added again with
feeling.
“For ever!” the boys chimed in again.
“Karamazov,” cried Kolya, “can it be true what’s taught us in religion,
that we shall all rise again from the dead and shall live and see each
other again, all, Ilusha too?”
“Certainly we shall all rise again, certainly we shall see each other and
shall tell each other with joy and gladness all that has happened!”
Alyosha answered, half laughing, half enthusiastic.
“Ah, how splendid it will be!” broke from Kolya.
“Well, now we will finish talking and go to his funeral dinner. Don’t be
put out at our eating pancakes—it’s a very old custom and there’s
something nice in that!” laughed Alyosha. “Well, let us go! And now we go
hand in hand.”
“And always so, all our lives hand in hand! Hurrah for Karamazov!” Kolya
cried once more rapturously, and once more the boys took up his
exclamation: “Hurrah for Karamazov!”
THE END
FOOTNOTES
1 In Russian, “silen.”
2 A proverbial expression in Russia.
3 Grushenka.
4 i.e. setter dog.
5 Probably the public event was the Decabrist plot against the Tsar,
of December 1825, in which the most distinguished men in Russia were
concerned.—TRANSLATOR’S NOTE.
6 When a monk’s body is carried out from the cell to the church and
from the church to the graveyard, the canticle “What earthly joy...”
is sung. If the deceased was a priest as well as a monk the canticle
“Our Helper and Defender” is sung instead.
7 i.e. a chime of bells.
8 Literally: “Did you get off with a long nose made at you?”—a
proverbial expression in Russia for failure.
9 Gogol is meant.
***
