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                                      1879

                             THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV

                       by Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky

                        translated by Constance Garnett

                                PART I



                                Book I

                       The History of a Family



                              Chapter 1

                     Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov



    ALEXEY Fyodorovitch Karamazov was the third son of Fyodor

Pavlovitch Karamazov, a landowner 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, Adelaida Ivanovna, belonged to a fairly

rich and distinguished noble family, also landowners in our

district, the Miusovs. 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 favourite 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. Adelaida Ivanovna

Miusov'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 Adelaida 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 Adelaida

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.

    Immediatley after the elopement Adelaida Ivanovna discerned in a

flash that she had no feeling for her husband but contempt. The

marriage accordingly showed itself in its true colours 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 forever. 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, Adelaida 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 rumour

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 Adelaida 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 naive and

simple-hearted than we suppose. And we ourselves are, too.

                              Chapter 2

                    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 behaviour as a father was

exactly what might be expected. He completely abandoned the child of

his marriage with Adelaida Ivanovna, not from malice, nor because of

his matrimonial grievances, but simply because he forgot him. While he

was wearying everyone 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 Miusov, 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 Miusovs 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 Adelaida 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 neighbourhood 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, a short time. So Fyodor Pavlovitch began to take advantage

of this fact, sending him from time to time small doles,

instalments. 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 3

              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, Adelaida 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 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 anyone.

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 realised 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 "ardour 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 neighbourhood, where the inmates,

being particularly interested in 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 Miusov,

of whom we have spoken already, the cousin of Fyodor Pavlovitch's

first wife, happened to be in the neighbourhood 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 anyone when he made the

acquaintance of the young man, who interested him extremely, and

with whom he sometimes argued and not without 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?

Everyone 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 4

                        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

extrordinary 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 everyone 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 anyone.

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 naive 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 criticise and would never condemn anyone 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 offence,

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 anyone before.

    Everyone, 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 favourite all the while he was at

school. He was rarely playful or merry, but anyone 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 anyone,

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

offence 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 she

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,

criticised too severely, for at the slightest acquaintance with him

anyone 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 Miusov, 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 centre 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 as 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, Adelaida 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 goitre, 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 goitre 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 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 anyone 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 black-guard I am."



    * It would be neccessary to invent them.



    "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."



    * I've seen the shadow of a coachman rubbing the shadow of a coach

with the shadow of a brush.



    And he even began blubbering. He was sentimental. He was wicked

and sentimental.

                              Chapter 5

                                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 grey,

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 anyone. 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 unrecognised

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 labour 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, Paissy 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 fulfil 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 unbaptised," 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 Oecumenical 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 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 someone or something holy to fall down before and worship.

    "Among us there is sin, injustice, and temptation, but yet,

somewhere on earth there is someone 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 anyone 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 offence 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 Miusov, 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 Miusov 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 everyone 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 Miusov 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 1

                     They Arrive at the Monastery



    IT was a warm, bright day 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 Miusov and a distant relative of

his, a young man of twenty, called Pyotr Fomitch Kalganov. This

young man was preparing to enter the university. Miusov 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 anyone, 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-grey horses, a long way behind Miusov'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, more of

the party had ever seen the monastery, and Miusov 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 honour, 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.

    Miusov 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 Miusov 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 Miusov.

    "The elder, the splendid elder, the elder! The honour 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 Miusov 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!" Miusov 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. Miusov frowned more than ever.

    "Oh, devil take them all! An outer show elaborated through

centuries, and nothing but charlatanism and nonsense underneath,"

flashed through Miusov'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 skilful 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 anyone,"

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!" Miusov 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 Miusov 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 2

                           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 Paissy, 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 Miusov

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 Miusov 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 cherubim, 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.

    Miusov 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 Miusov 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-coloured, quick, and shining like two bright points. He had a

sprinkling of grey 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 Miusov. 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 apologise 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," Miusov 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 someone 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 honourable 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 Miusov, with disgust.

    Father Zossima scrutinised them both in silence.

    "Am I? Would you believe it, I was aware of that, too, Pyotr

Alexandrovitch, and let 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 has 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 Miusov 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...."

    Miusov 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 everyone admitted to the cell felt that a great

favour 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 free thinkers, 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

Miusov. 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 Miusov, 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 honoured a personage. I did

not suppose I should have to apologise 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

unfavourable.

    "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 everyone 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 anyone. You know it is sometimes very pleasant to take

offence, 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 offence, 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 offence. You said

that so well, as I never heard it before. Yes, I have been all my life

taking offence, to please myself, taking offence on aesthetic 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... 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, honoured 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 Miusov here, 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 everyone by now that he was playing a part again.

Yet Miusov 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?" Miusov 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-humoured 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-humoured

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 3

                     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

paralysed. 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 gaiety.

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 anyone, 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 neighbours 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 pretence about it, that it is a

terrible illness to which women are subject, especially 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 labour 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 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 re-open 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, 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 defence

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 someone 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 4

                        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 mourning 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 anyone 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 anyone 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 honour 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 everyone 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? 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 anyone

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."

    "By the experience of active love. Strive to love your neighbour

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 neighbour, 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. Some time, 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 agonising 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 anyone.'"

    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 anyone for two days

together, as I know by experience. As soon as anyone 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

labour 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-bye."

    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 5

                         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. Miusov, 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

neighbour Miusov 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 arrierepensee

    "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 Paissy, the silent and learned monk,

assented with fervour and decision.

    "The purest Ultramontanism!" cried Miusov 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

organisation 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 organisation 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

Paissy 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 civilisation 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 organisation,' or as 'an organisation 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

honour 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 bad 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 Paissy 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 civilisation. 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," Miusov said

smiling, again crossing his legs. "So far as I understand, then, the

realisation 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?" Miusov 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," Miusov

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 Miusov, with lively

curiosity.

    "Why," began the elder, "all these sentences to exile with hard

labour, 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

recognising his wrongdoing as a son of a Christian society- that is,

of the Church- that he recognises 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 recognise 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 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

someone 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 recognised 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 Paissy repeated austerely and

reverently.

    "Strange, extremely strange" Miusov 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 Miusov, 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 Paissy

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!"

    Miusov 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 colour

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," Miusov said

impressively, with a peculiarly majestic air. "Some years ago, soon

after the coup d'etat 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

Paissy 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 6

                       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

colour. 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.

Everyone 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 moustaches 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 Paissy, 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 Miusov thought it

unnecessary to reply to Father Paissy'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," Miusov

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 neighbours. 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 recognised

as the inevitable, the most rational, even honourable 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 recognised as the inevitable and

the most rational outcome of his position for every infidel! Is that

so or not?"

    "Quite so," said Father Paissy.

    "I'll remember it."

    Having uttered these words Dmitri ceased speaking as suddenly as

he had begun. Everyone 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 clamours 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 everyone 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 Miusov 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

Miusov, 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 honourable of young ladies of good family and

fortune, daughter of a gallant colonel, formerly his superior officer,

who had received many honours 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 honourable girl! That you

should utter a word about her is an outrage, and I won't permit it!"

He was breathless.

    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 honourable 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 honour. 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 honourable 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 everyone 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 Miusov 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 relation with a woman of

loose behaviour 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

anyone."

    "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 Miusov,

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 everyone 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

behaviour' 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 Father Zossima rose suddenly from his seat. Almost

distracted with anxiety for the elder and everyone 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-bye! 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-bye, 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," Miusov answered at

once ill-humouredly, "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 favour. Convey my deepest respect

to the Father Superior, apologise for me, personally, Miusov, to his

reverence, telling him that I deeply regret that owing to unforeseen

circumstances I am unable to have the honour of being present at his

table, greatly I should desire to do so," Miusov 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

apologise 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 Miusov,

still hesitating, and watching the retreating buffoon with distrustful

eyes. The latter turned round, and noticing that Miusov was watching

him, waved him a kiss.

    "Well, are you coming to the Superior?" Miusov asked Ivan

abruptly.

    "Why not? I was especially invited yesterday."

    "Unfortunately I feel myself compelled to go to this confounded

dinner," said Miusov with the same irritability, regardless of the

fact that the monk was listening. "We ought, at least, to apologise

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. Miusov 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 7

                     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 hermatage 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 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 someone.

    "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."

    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 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 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 recognises 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 Miusov 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 realised all she is and has gone

wild about her. He keeps pestering her with his offers, not honourable

ones, of course. And they'll come into collision, the precious

father and son, on that path! But Grushenka favours 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

Gipsy 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 anyone 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 lookout 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-humoured 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 favour. 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 honour, 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 Miusov

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 8

                         The Scandalous Scene



    MIUSOV, 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 Aesop, 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 neighbourhood. 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

dishonourable, 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

anyone 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 Paissy, and one

other monk were the only inmates of the monastery invited. They were

already waiting when Miusov, 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 grey, and a long, grave, ascetic face. He bowed to his guests

in silence. But this time they approached to receive his blessing.

Miusov 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 apologise most humbly, your reverence," began Miusov,

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 honour 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, recognising 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, Miusov 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 fervour.

    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

behaviour 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 everyone 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 marvelled 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 everyone stared at him without a word; and at

once everyone felt that something revolting, grotesque, positively

scandalous, was about to happen. Miusov 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 Miusov, 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

Solin. 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 Miusov, 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. Miusov, my relation, prefers

to have plus de noblesse que de sincerite in his words, but I prefer

in mine plus de sincerite 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 honour,

and I want to speak my mind. Yes, I am the soul of honour, 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 everyone 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 rumours 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, honoured 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 labourer,

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 Paissy kept obstinately silent. Miusov rushed from the

room, and Kalgonov 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 dishonour

that cometh upon thee by no act of thine own, be not confounded and

hate not him who hath dishonoured 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-bye 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 von Sohn 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 honoured 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 1

                      In the Servants' Quarters



    THE Karamazovs' house was far from being in the centre of the

town, but it was not quite outside it. It was a pleasant-looking old

house of two stories, painted grey, 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 be 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 lookout. 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 someone 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 Adelaida

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 anyone 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 anyone,

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 Adelaida 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 Miusov family, in their private

theatre, 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 Adelaida 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: meantime 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 godfather, 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-humoured 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 neighbourhood.

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 marvellous 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 someone 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 2

                               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 everyone 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, everyone 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. Everyone 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 cow-house.

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 revellers were returning from the

club at a very late hour, according to our provincial notions. They

passed through the "backway," 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

revellers 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 anyone

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 revellers, 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 rumour was all over the town that this miscreant was no other

than Fyodor Pavlovitch. Who set the rumour going? Of that drunken band

five had left the town and the only one still among us was an

elderly and much respected civil councillor, the father of grown-up

daughters, who could hardly have spread the tale, even if there had

been any foundation for it. But rumour 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 defence 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 neighbourhood 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

merchants'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 3

            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 anyone

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 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

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 recognised 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

backway, for he knew every inch of the ground. This meant skirting

fences, climbing over hurdles, and crossing other people's back-yards,

where everyone 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 tumbledown

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 arbour 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 councillor 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 real-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 gaily

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- what, ever 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 anyone, 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 backway! Oh, gods, I thank you for sending

him by the backway, 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 someone. 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 someone 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 someone else and says, 'Do this for me'- some

favour 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,* 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?"



    * In Russian, silen.



    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

                   Smouldered 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 everyone 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 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 4

          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 dishonourable.

You're blushing; your eyes flashed. Enough of this filth with you. And

all this was nothing much- wayside blossoms a 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 quarrelling. 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. Anyone on the

bottom step is bound to go up to the top one."

    "Then one ought not to step on at all."

    "Anyone 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 anyone 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?"

    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 woman 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 favourite, and of use of everyone, for she was a clever

dressmaker. She had a talent for it. She gave her services freely

without asking for payment, but if anyone 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 honour.

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 4500

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 anyone. You know I'm

as silent as the tomb. I only wanted, in view of "possibilities," to

add, that when they demand that 4500 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 drivelling 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-barrelled 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

mouth I saw uncertainty.

    "'My sister told me,' she began, 'that you would give me 4500

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 honourably, 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 5

           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, 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 everyone, 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 honours, 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 favour. 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'm 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 anyone

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 used 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, honourably. 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- "

    "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 honour! 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, paralysed; 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, 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 6

                              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 armchair, 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-humoured 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 kvass 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 anyone. 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. 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 humour, 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, scrutinise 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 theatre, 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 anyone 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

everyone and was always silent. He rarely spoke. If it had occurred to

anyone 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 anyone

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 7

                           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 agonising 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-humoured 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 gaily, 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 wineglass 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 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 8

                           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."

    "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 anyone 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."



    * All this is filthiness.



    "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!"

    "Alyosha, is there immortality?"

    "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 civilisation 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?"

    "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 la-dedans.* He's a Jesuit,

a Russian one, that is. As he's an honourable person there's a

hidden indignation boiling within him at having to pretend and

affect holiness."



    * There's something of Piron inside of him.



    "But, of course, he believes in God."

    "Not a bit of it. Didn't you know? Why, he tells everyone so,

himself. That is, not everyone, 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

paralysed 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 Demidov, 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 broadminded.' But that wasn't he,

that was someone else. I've muddled him with someone 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 favourite 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 everyone. 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 clamour 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 9

                           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 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-bye, Alexey! Not a word to Aesop 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 Aesop, 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."

    "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?"

    "When you come, pretend you've come of your own accord to ask

after me. Don't tell anyone I told you to. Don't say a word to Ivan."

     "Very well."

     "Good-bye, 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 notebook.

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 Aesop'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-bye 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 10

                            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

agonising 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

dishonoured 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 portiere 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 realised 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 emphasising

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 honour 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 recognise 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 dishonoured 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 someone, 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 portiere 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 modelling 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-coloured eyebrows and charming greyblue 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 singsong 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!

    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 favour? 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 wilful 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

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 gaiety.

    "She's perhaps too naive," 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. Everyone 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 dishonourable, 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 condemm 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 11

                      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, dishonouring 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 anyone 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. 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 had 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 colours, 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 realised 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-bye. 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-bye, 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 dishonour 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 dishonour 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 honour to-morrow. But I

shan't pull up. I shall carry out my base plan, and you can bear

witness that I told 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-bye. 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 Paissy, 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 everyone 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 deep 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 Paissy

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

honoured 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 Paissy 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

death bed, and whom he honoured above everyone 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

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

anyone'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-bye 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 1

                           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 gaiety, 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 Paissy. 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 everyone. 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 recognise that. Else he would

have had no reason to come here. When he realises 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 Paissy'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 Paissy, 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 Paissy,

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 Paissy

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 Paissy, 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 anyone. 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 neighbourhood.

    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 grey, and still had very thick hair and a full beard,

both of which had once been black. His eyes were grey, 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 whole meal 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 dishonour 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 marvellous- 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

grey 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 favour 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 Paissy, 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 someone 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 Paissy, 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 Paissy began, without

preface, "that the science of this world, which has become a great

power, has, especially in the last century, analysed 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 analysed the parts and overlooked the whole, and

indeed their blindness is marvellous. 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 ardour 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 Paissy blessed him. As Alyosha left the

monastery and thought them over, he suddenly realised 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 Paissy'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 defence he could imagine.

                              Chapter 2

                           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 drily.

    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 was 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

anyone 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 humour 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 recognise 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-bye 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 3

                    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 had 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 on 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 on 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 on 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 dishevelled 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 greatcoat 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-bye!"

    "Monk in silk trousers!" cried the boy, following Alyosha with the

same vindictive and defiant expression, and he threw himself into an

attitude of defence, 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 4

                          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 everyone? 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

someone, 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 behaviour 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 anyone can see. They both

recognise 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

carolled 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 lookout 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 honoured visitor, Alexey Fyodorovitch, that he

has shown his want of wit by venturing to us after what happened

yesterday and although everyone 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 school boys 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 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 a 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

gaily. "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

anyone 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 5

                   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 someone 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 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 sympathise? 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 anyone, 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, dear

friends," she 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

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 honour 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 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 anyone else,

this would have been affected and over-strained, 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 anyone 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 anyone 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 fulfilment 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

collected 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.

    "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 theatre!"

    "In a theatre? 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-bye, 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-bye! 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-bye even to his hostess, Madame Hohlakov.

Alyosha clasped his hands.



    * Thank you, madam, I want nothing.



    "Ivan!" he cried desperately after him. "Come back, Ivan! No,

nothing will induce him to come back now!" he cried again, regretfully

realising 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 favour 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 everyone to defend him, while everyone 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-bye!"

    She turned and disappeared behind the portiere 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 favourite 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! Goodbye!"

    "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 6

                     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 someone 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-coloured

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 humour, 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 colour, 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

everyone- 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

marketplace, 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

someone 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 them quite approvingly. "That's her

character," he said, addressing Alyosha again.



                    "And in all nature there was naught

                     That could find favour in his eyes-



or rather in the feminine- that could find favour 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

Tchermomazov.... 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 shrivelled 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; everyone 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. Everyone

loves you, everyone 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 7

                         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 forever 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 marketplace," 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* 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 anyone?

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."



    * Grushenka.



    "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 schoolfellows! 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

penknife 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 stiffed 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 everyone- 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.'

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

anyone 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 someone 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

anyone 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-coloured

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 anyone- 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 anyone.' 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

honour," 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 1

                            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 offence 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-bye! 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 offence 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, 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 honour, 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 analysing

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 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 anyone 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

pique waistcoat, and a soft grey 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 anyone!"

    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 dishonourable. 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 Paissy 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-bye 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-bye!"

    And Alyosha ran downstairs and into the street.

                              Chapter 2

                       Smerdyakov with a Guitar



    HE had no time to lose indeed. Even while he was saying good-bye

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 everyone

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 sabre 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 defence. 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 behaviour, in his mind, and in his poverty. He doesn't

know how to do anything, and yet he is respected by everyone. I may be

only a soup-maker, but with luck I could open a cafe 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 someone, 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 honour 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

neighbour, 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

marketplace. 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 marketplace?"

    "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 3

                      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 gaily.

    "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-bye 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-bye. 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-humouredly. "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 drivelling

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 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 everyone

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?"



    * Professions of faith.



    "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?"

    "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 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 gaily. "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

marvellous, 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 thought 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 straight forward.

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 4

                              Rebellion



    "I MUST make one confession" Ivan began. "I could never understand

how one can love one's neighbours. It's just one's neighbours, 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 anyone 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 practised 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 favour, 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 neighbours 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 mothers 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 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 labourer 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,' everyone 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 defenceless

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 only a horse, and God has 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 be

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 defence. '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 favourable 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 honour! 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 defencelessness 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."

    "Nevermind. 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

neighbours 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 favourite hound.

'Why is my favourite 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 centre, I will say nothing. I have narrowed my subject on

purpose. I am a bug, and I recognise 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 everyone 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," murmered 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 your 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 5

                         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

Hotel de Ville of Paris in the reign of Louis XI in honour of the

birth of the dauphin. It was called Le bon jugement de la tres

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 fervour, '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 fe 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 thirty-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 fe, 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, everyone

recognised Him. That might be one of the best passages in the poem.

I mean, why they recognised 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, 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!' 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 grey 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 quid pro quo?"

    "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 fe 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, that he

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, 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 someone to worship. So long as man remains free he

strives for nothing so incessantly and so painfully as to find someone

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 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 someone 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 someone 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 agonising 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. Mankind as a whole has always striven

to organise 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 Caesar'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 Caesar, 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 saviours 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 anyone

has ever deserved our fires, it is Thou. To-morrow I shall burn

Thee. Dixi.'"*



    * I have spoken.



    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 Paissy's teaching?"

    "No, no, on the contrary, Father Paissy 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.

    "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

Muisov- and which Dmitri pounced upon so naively 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-bye, 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 6

                    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 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." 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 realises,

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-humoured, 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 neighbourhood 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 recognise the real cause of his growing dislike and he had only

lately realised 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 honour 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 realising, 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 anyone.' 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 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 honour 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 honour 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 honour 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 honour, 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 humour 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 paralysed 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 honour 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 carelessnes

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. Anyone 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 7

          "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-bye!" 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 anyone 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 paralysed 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

someone. 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

someone to knock. Ivan went out on 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 honour 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 humour 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 anyone 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;* 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?"



    * i.e. setter dog.



    "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-bye, 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 realised 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 pure and cool, 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 gaily.

    "You may depend on it he won't." Mitri 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 everyone 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

decending 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

neighbours 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 everyone concluded that

the same thing would happen, as had happened a year before, when he

accidently fell from the garret. They remembered that ice 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 1

                   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 Paissy 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 Paissy 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-bye to him, he would not have believed

perhaps even in death, but would still have expected the dead man to

recover and fulfil 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 Paissy, Father Mihail 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 anyone. 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-humoured woman to be given "to someone 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 Paissy. 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 marvellous, 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 Paissy'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 marvellous 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

school-fellows, though he never quarrelled, 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 your 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 marvellous 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."

    Everyone 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 anyone 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, everyone 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 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 dishonoured 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

everyone, 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 marvellous 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 potsherd- 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 mould 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 heart 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 earthly life is in touch with a new

infinite, unknown, but 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 anyone 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, unrecognised

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 skilfully. 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

foId. 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 travelled 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

marvellously 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 2

          (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 honour of the regiment, but no one of us had

any knowledge of the real meaning of honour, and if anyone 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 favour and my heart was aflame at such an idea.

Later on I saw and fully realised that I perhaps was not so

passionately in love with her at all, but only recognised 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 neighbouring 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

anyone 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- 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 duelling 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 humour,

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 by 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 honour... sir, what are you doing? Am I worth it?"

    And he burst out crying as I had done before, hid his 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 honour 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

gaily, 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

gaily.

    "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 had 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 is 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 everyone 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?" everyone 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 favour?"

    "I can, with the greatest pleasure, and I shall look upon it as an

honour." 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 anyone 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 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 everyone, 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.

Everyone 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 though 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

everyone 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-realisation 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 neighbours much less

frequently. Besides, my vogue was somewhat over. I say this, not as

blame, for they still loved me and treated me good-humouredly, 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 fervour 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 someone."

    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

realised 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 anyone 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 everyone 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

everyone 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 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 neighbour

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-bye, 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 recognise 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, realising

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

12, 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, 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 10, 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-bye,

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 add sombre. 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 anyone. On that day he always had a great

gathering, everyone 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: everyone was amazed and horrified,

everyone 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-bye 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 anyone 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 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 3

           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 labour 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 suprised 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, honour 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 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 marvelled 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 honourable 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, recognised 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 become of your fortune?" he asked.

    "I gave it to the monastery," I answered; "we live in common."

    After tea I began saying good-bye, 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 cornerstone 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 everyone

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?" Everyone 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 marvellously

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 defenceless 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 labour. For we must love not only occasionally, for

a moment, but for ever. Everyone 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 everyone 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 anyone. For no

one can judge a criminal until he recognises 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 honour those

whom they have slain. You are working for the whole, 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 lifting

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 than 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

offence 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 realised 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 1

                       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 Paissy, 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 Paissy 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 Paissy 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 everyone 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 Paissy 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 Paissy 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 Paissy 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 Paissy 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 despatched Rakitin to the hermitage, to keep a careful look

out and report to her by letter ever 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 Paissy 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 Paissy 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 Paissy

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 Paissy 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 Paissy

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 neighbourhood. I may

add here, for myself personally, that I feel it almost repulsive

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 someone

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 everyone 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 Paissy 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 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 Paissy, 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 Paissy 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 favourite 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 colour 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, which 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

recognise 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 everyone 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 Paissy 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 grey 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 Paissy 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 Paissy 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 Paissy, 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 anyone 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 worshipped 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 Paissy, 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 Paissy 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 Paissy 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 cantical,"* 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 Paissy, following Father Ferapont on

to the steps, stood watching him. 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 someone

had cut him down, fell to the ground with a loud scream.



    * 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.



    "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 Paissy 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 Paissy guessed what a great change was taking place in

him at that moment.

    "Have you, too, fallen into temptation?" cried Father Paissy. "Can

you be with those of little faith?" he added mournfully.

    Alyosha stood still and gazed vaguely at Father Paissy, but

quickly turned his eyes away again and again looked on the ground.

He stood sideways and did not turn his face to Father Paissy, 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 Paissy, looking

after him with sorrowful surprise.

                              Chapter 2

                          A Critical Moment



    FATHER PAISSY, 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 Paissy'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 agonising 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 apologise 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 apologise 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 everyone 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 everyone 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, everyone in the monastery cherished the same

thought and the same hope, even those whose intellects Alyosha

revered, Father Paissy 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

everyone in the whole world, that man, instead of receiving the

glory that was his due, was suddenly degraded and dishonoured! 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 marvellous 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 someone? 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... 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 'dishonourable.' Well! I should like to see what your

talents and sense of honour 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. H'm! 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 be 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 3

                               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 everyone 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 the girl's protector.

It was said that the jealous old man's object in placing his

"favourite" 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 rumours that she had been at seventeen betrayed by someone,

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 favours 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 favours. 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 tyrannised 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 protegee,

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 everyone 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 anyone 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 someone, 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 someone. 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 recognised 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, recognising 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 gaily 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 offence!" 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.

    "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 realised that he had now the strongest

armour 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 anyone 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 your realise 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.' 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.' 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-humour. 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 everyone 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 hardhearted, 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 reading 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 anyone 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 anyone 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... there may be a treasure in that

soul...."

    Alyosha stopped, because he caught his breath. In spite of his

ill-humour Rakitin looked at him with astonishment. He had never

expected such a tirade from the gentle Alyosha.

    "She's found someone 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 took

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 anyone. 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

someone like you, I knew that someone like you would come and

forgive me. I believed that, nasty as I am, someone 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, someone 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-bye!

Good-bye, 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 4

                           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 Paissy, 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 Paissy 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 Paissy 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 Paissy. "And the mother of Jesus was there; And both 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 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 bear 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 Paissy without his noticing it. Father Paissy

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 everyone 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, his life long, could Alyosha forget that minute.

    "Someone 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 1

                            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 analyse

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 pick-pocket, 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

someone than fail to pay my debt to Katya. I'd rather everyone 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 rumour,

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 fervour 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 everyone 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 armchair, 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 lustres

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 honoured 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 everyone'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 of 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 summarise 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 honoured 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 honour, my honour, 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... save me, in fact... for a good, I

might say an honourable action.... For I cherish the most honourable

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 2

                               Lyagavy



    SO he must drive at full speed, and he had not the money for

horses. He had forty copecks, 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 watch maker 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 anyone 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 neighbouring 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 realise 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, realising 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 favourable

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-bye. 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 favour."

    The forester, scratching himself, went back to his room without

a word, and Mitya sat on the bench to "catch the favourable 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 dishonourable 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 realised 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 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

copecks 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 realised 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 3

                              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-bye 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 duelling 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 arbour, 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 that 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 lookout 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, 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 someone 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 Turgeney 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, dishonourably 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 realise 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 quarrelling with my steward about it, and

I've just borrowed five hundred roubles from Miusov, 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, recognising 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 someone!" cried Fenya, flinging

up her hands.

                              Chapter 4

                             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 neighbour'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

bathhouse, 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 arbour, 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 recognised him; it

was he, the "monster," the "parricide."

    "Parricide! the old man shouted so that the whole neighbourhood

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 recognised 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-humoured 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. Someone invited her and

horses were sent to fetch her."

    Mitya left him, and ran like a madman to Fenya.

                              Chapter 5

                         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 realised 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 bloodstained 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 colour 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-bye. 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 banknotes 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-coloured 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, watermelons, 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," Pyotr 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 bloodstained face and the trembling blood-stained

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

child-like unconsciousness that was astounding. Pyotr Ilyitch

listened, frowning.

    "Well, you must have been up to something; you must have been

fighting with someone," 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 someone? 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.

    "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

someone?"

    "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 everyone 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 honour 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 Phoebus, 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

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 Phorbus 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 someone 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 everyone 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, demoralising 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 someone. 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 neighbourhood 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 savouries, 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 travelling 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 anyone 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 Phoebus 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, everyone 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-bye, Pyotr Ilyitch, don't remember evil against me."

    "But you're coming back to-morrow?"

    "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. Everyone 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 anyone, the silly fool won't hurt anyone 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-bye, 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 humour 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 scepticism.

    "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 realised 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 humour 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 halfway 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; everyone 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 clamour.

    "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 6

                         "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 agonising 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 Phoebus."

    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 someone 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 anyone, 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

anyone'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 everyone, for everyone, you here alone, on the road, will

you forgive me for everyone? 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 honour! 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,

everyone in the neighbourhood was in debt to him. From the

neighbouring 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 traveller, 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. Miusov 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

travelling with this young relation of Mr. Miusov."

    "Is that all?"

    "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. Miusov'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, savouries, 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," 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 7

                     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."



    * Pan and Panie mean Mr. in Polish. Pani means Mrs., Panovie,

gentlemen.



    "Why, it's you, Dmitri Fyodorovitch! What do you mean?" answered

Kalgonov 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 gaily,

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 shamefull Why are you crying? As

though you had anything to cry for!" she added enigmatically,

emphasising 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.

Everyone 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. Kalgonov

took it from him and poured out the champagne.

    "Another! Another bottle!" Mitya cried to the inn-keeper, 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 anyone 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 everyone, 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 everyone 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 demeanour 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 moustaches, 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 everyone 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," Kalgonov

began suddenly, as though divining his thought, and pointing to

Maximov.

    Mitya immediately stared at Kalgonov 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.

    Kalgonov 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 someone 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 wilful, 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 Kalgonov 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.



    * Scoundrel.



    "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." Kalgonov 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!"

    Kalgonov 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 diffcult to imagine what Kalgonov 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 everyone..."

    "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-git Piron qui ne fut rien,

                   Pas meme academicien,*



    * Here lies Piron, who was nothing, not even an Academician.



    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, raisin, 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 quarrelling!" 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.

    Everyone 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!" Kalgonov 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 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, apologising 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 anyone 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 honour?' 'To my honour, 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

honour 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 honour, for

Polish honour. 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 everyone, he moved

right up and crossed himself hurriedly under the table. Mitya won. The

rouble won, too.



    * Little miss.



    "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 Kalgonov 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 anymore. 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."cried Grushenka.

    "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-bye,

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 instalment, and two thousand

five hundred to-morrow, in the town- I swear on my honour, 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, recognising 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 quarrelling, 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 please 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," Kalgonov 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-bye."

    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 8

                               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 marvellous entertainment

such as they had enjoyed a month before. Mitya remembered their faces,

greeting and embracing everyone he knew. He uncorked bottles and

poured out wine for everyone 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 honour-

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. Kalgonov did 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 everyone

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 Kalgonov 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?"

    Kalgonov 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.



    Kalgonov 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.

Kalgonov 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

"sabotiere."

    "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 naive 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 anyone but Mitya. It consisted of nothing but

skipping and hopping, kicking the feet, and at every skip Maximov

slapped the upturned sole of his foot. Kalgonov 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 anyone," 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 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

Kalgonov 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 anyone? 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 anyone 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 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

Kalgonov 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 everyone

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 vigour 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 everyone: '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.

Everyone in the world is good. Everyone- 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 everyone, 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

everyone 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 everyone 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... Podvysotskis! 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 honourable... it shall be

honourable 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 back to her, 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 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. 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 clamour 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 someone 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 someone 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 recognised 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 behaviour 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 1

             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 houseporter 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 someone. 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? 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 anyone 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-bye 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 thats 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 sence 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 2

                              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. Someone 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 recherche, 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. 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 everyone 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 to 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

practise 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 realising 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 everyone 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 realised 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 Smerdyashtchaya!" 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 someone..."

    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-coloured 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 neighbour, Marya Konndratyevna. 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 vinager, 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 conformation 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 someone 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 anyone

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 3

                       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

heart-rending 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 knockdown blow. But

who has killed my father, who has killed him? Who can have killed

him if I didn't? It's marvellous, 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

Vasilyevitch. 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 everyone, 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 skilful lawyer, I see, Nikolay Parfenovitch," cried

Mitya, laughing gaily, "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 honour and pleasure of meeting you,

Nikolay Parfenovitch, at my kinsman Miusov'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- everyone 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, anyone

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 seemed 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 everyone, 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 everyone 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. 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 everyone 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 honour, a man of the highest

honour; 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, honourable 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 honourable, that

I was, so to say, a martyr to a sense of honour, 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

gaily. 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 honourable 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 4

                          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 grey 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 honour 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 honour. In any

case, allow me to look upon you as my best friends at this moment of

my life, at this moment when my honour is assailed. That's no

offence 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 honour 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 dishonourable 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-humouredly. 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 realised 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 someone to do it," they stopped him

again and noted down that he had "meant to murder someone." 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 recognise this object?" he asked, showing it to Mitya.

    "Oh, yes," he laughed gloomily. "Of course, I recognise 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 drily 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 someone is hunting me, someone 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, at all!" Mitya flared up again, though his

outburst of wrath had obviously relieved his heart. He grew more

good humoured at every word. "You may not trust a criminal or a man on

trial tortured by your questions, but an honourable man, the

honourable 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 5

                           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.

    Mitya dropped his eyes and was a long time silent.

    "My story, gentlemen? Well, was like this," he began softly.

"Whether it was like this," he began softly. "Whether it was someone'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 chiselling 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 anyone 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 honour 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 anyone it could be, whether it's the hand of

Heaven or of 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 everyone 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 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 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 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 marvellous,

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 honour. 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.

    "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 6

                     The Prosecutor Catches Mitya



    SOMETHING utterly unexpected and amazing to Mitya followed. He

could never, even a minute before, have conceived that anyone 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 everyone 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 anyone. 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 everyone 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 recognise 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 favour, 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 7

              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 lawyer's 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 anyone count it?"

    "Why, you told everyone 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, everyone 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 anyone 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 someone

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 someone, 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 honour; 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 favourable 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 everyone 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, although 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 and I was jealous; I

thought then that she was hesitating between me and him. So I kept

thinking everyday, 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 honour. 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, 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 honourably

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 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 everyone 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 favour. 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 window.

    "May I look out of 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 "Phoebus 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,

straightforward 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

favourable 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 8

               The Evidences 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 everyone turned out to be against Mitya. There was

not one in his favour, 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-humoured, 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, realising 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

Vrubelvsky 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 favour. Now this one piece of evidence in his favour 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 dishevelled 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

anyone 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-coloured notes. And Dmitri Fyodorovitch's were all

rainbow-coloured..."

    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 favourable impression on everyone. 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 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

everyone 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 someone 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 procceded to a 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 grey 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 colour, 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 gaily 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 9

                        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 defence, 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-bye, 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-bye 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 defence.... 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 recognise that you are, at bottom, a young man of

honour, 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-bye' 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-bye 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 humour and greatly disliked

the task that had been laid upon him.

    "Good-bye, 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-bye, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, good-bye!" 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-bye, 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 1

                           Kolya Krassotkin



    IT was the beginning of November. There had been a hard frost,

eleven degrees Reaumur, 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 rumoured 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 rumour in

the school that he could beat the teacher, Dardanelov, at arithmetic

and universal history. Though he looked down upon everyone, 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

neighbourhood; 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 favour, 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 honour 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

behaviour 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 2

                               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 everyone 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 someone 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 anyone?"

    "It can kill anyone; 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-grey colour. 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-bye, 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 3

                            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 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, greyish, 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 analyse 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 of 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, worshipped 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 naively 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 criticise 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 everyone 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-bye, Matvey."

    "Good-bye."

    "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-bye, Matvey."

    "Good-bye. 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

marketwoman shouted at him.

    "I am so glad it's Marya. Good-bye!"

    "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-bye!"

    "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, snivelling 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

clamour 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-bye, peasant!"

    "Good-bye!"

    "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 recognise 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 4

                             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 "criticised" what he heard about Alyosha.

But secretely 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 grey 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 wellcut 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-humoured expression; but

there was a gentleness and serenity in his good-humour. 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 for 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 realise 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 anyone 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 centred 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 libellous 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 theatre 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 theatre; 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 5

                         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, thats 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 everyone 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 armchair, who was very

ill-humoured 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 behaviour made an extremely favourable

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 agonised

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 vigourously 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 everyone: 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 anyone!" he explained,

to the captain, to his wife, to Alyosha and then again to Ilusha.

"He used to live in the Fedotovs' backyard. 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 realised 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 anyone 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

touchhole 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 someone 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 mammal" 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 saltpetre, 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.

    "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 everyone. 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

mole-hill 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 someone, 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 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 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 everyone 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, 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 everyone. 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?" 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 6

                              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

someone 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 someone told you

so!" cried Alyosha.

    "I say, what makes you think I read it? And certainly no one

told 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,* 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."



    * Let the women knit.



    "What do you mean? Answered whom? Has someone 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

anyone. 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 book case, 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, grovelling 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 wilfulness, 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 anyone 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 everyone is laughing at me, the

whole world, and then I feel ready to overturn the whole order of

things."

    "And you worry everyone about you," smiled Alyosha.

    "Yes, I worry everyone 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 everyone 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,, 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 everyone else," said Alyosha, in conclusion,

"that is, like very many others. Only you must not be like everybody

else, that's all."

    "Even if everyone is like that?"

    "Yes, even if everyone is like that. You be the only one not

like it. You really are not like everyone 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 everyone

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 before hand!" 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 gaily.

    "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 7

                                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

    "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, SiciIy 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

    "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?"* repeated the doctor, perplexed.



    * i.e. a chime of bells.



    "He hears the bell, but where it is he cannot tell. Good-bye, 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-bye!"

    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, found 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-bye, 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-bye!

    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,

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-bye, 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 1

                            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 anyone 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 quarrelled 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 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, everyone 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, than 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

up a dozen pies 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 everyone 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 everyone 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 anyone, 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 anyone 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-bye 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 2

                           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 deshabille. Alyosha

had once noted with innocent amusement that, in spite of her

illness, Madame Hohlakov had begun to be rather dressy- topknots,

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 someone,

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

realised, 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 Agrfena Alexandrovna's."

    "At... at that woman's? Ah, it's she has brought ruin on everyone.

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 rumours 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 everyone. 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, 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 criticising 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 apologised. '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. 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 honour 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 realised 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.

(You know, this affair and your father's terrible death.) 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 3

                            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 apologise."

    "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 anyone 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 someone, 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 everyone would find it

out. Everyone 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 humour or jesting in her face now, though, in old

days, fun and gaiety 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,

everyone 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

everyone loves his having killed his father."

    "Loves his having killed his father?"

    "Yes, loves it; everyone 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 everyone," 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 honourably," 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 anyone," Alyosha went on. "Only he does not

believe anyone. 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 anyone

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. Everyone else may

punish me and trample me under foot, everyone, everyone, not excepting

anyone. For I don't love anyone. Do you hear, not anyone! 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 4

                         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

tete-a-tete.

    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 favourably 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 kindhearted 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, everyone 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 anyone. 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.



    * There's no disputing ideas.



    "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. 'Everyone 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 honour 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, underground, 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 someone 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 snivelling 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 Freemason. 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 Caesar! 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 anyone'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 goodwill,' 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 a 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-bye!"

    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 5

                          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 recognised him as his brother. So

he was just coming from Katerina Ivanovna.

    "Ah, it's only you," said Ivan dryly. "Well, good-bye! 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 honourably," said Alyosha; "that's

all that's wanted."

    "Women are often dishonourable," 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 quarrelling.

    "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 minds?" Ivan asked in a 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 recognised 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 anyone!"

    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 neighbour 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 6

                 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 anyone

else. Quite the contrary, he was angry and proudly scornful of the

charges against him; he was continually firing up and abusing

everyone. 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.

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

honour been back long?" he added patronisingly, 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 defence 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 everyone 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 colour 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? Anyone 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-bye. 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-bye. 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 analyse

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

someone, 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 7

                    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-coloured,

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 everyone. 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 someone else to do it, that was just what you

did want."

    "And how coolly, how coolly he speakst 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 anyone 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

everyone, and if I can't borrow it, I give you my word of honour I

shall go to my father and break his skull and take the money from

under the pillow, if only Ivan has gone. It 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. Farewel!

    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, farewel!

    P.P.P.S.- Katya, pray to God that someone'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 favour, 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 realised 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 recognised 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 8

             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 realised 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 wont 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? We 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 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."

0    "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 moming 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

Tcherinashnya? 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 lookout!' 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 anyone 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 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 someone 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 everyone 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 anyone 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 anyone-

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-bye!"

    "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 selfsatisfaction

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 agonising 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 9

                     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, anyone 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. Someone 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 grey 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 overclean and his wide scarf was very threadbare. The

visitor's check trousers were of excellent cut, but were too light

in colour and too tight for the present fashion. His soft fluffy white

hat was out of keeping with the season.



    * Fiftyish.



    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 anyone, though, of course, not in a place of honour. 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 recognised as such," the visitor began in an

access 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."*



    * I am Satan, and deem nothing human alien to me.



    "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."



    * It's new, isn't it?



    "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 soiree 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 fancy,

150 degrees below zero! You know the game the village girls play- they

invite the unwary to lick an axe 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 axe and it would be the

end of it... if only there could be an axe there."

    "And can there be an axe 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 axe?" the guest interrupted in surprise.

    "Yes, what would become of an axe there?" Ivan cried suddenly,

with a sort of savage and insistent obstinacy.

    "What would become of an axe in space? Quelle idee! 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 axe; 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 of 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, 'none 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."



    * The devil does not exist.



    "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

predestined '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 superstellar life, all the ranks and honours,

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 someone 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."



    * I think, therefore I am.



    "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 kilometres 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 kilometres?" 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 honour 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 kilometres, 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 kilometres? 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 kilometres 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 honourable 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-humoured 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?"

    "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 pere,' answers the sinner with tears

of penitence, 'Ca lui fait tant de plaisir, et a 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-"



    * Ah, my father, this gives him so much pleasure, and me so little

pain!



    "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, agonisingly 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 asthetic

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 aesthetically 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, 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 honour 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 fulfil 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 honourable

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 a 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. Everyone 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, everyone who recognises 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 slaveman, 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 bete 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."



    * But after all, that's stupid.



    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 a ne pas mettre un chien

dehors."*



    * Does the gentleman know the weather he's making? It's not

weather for a dog.



    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 10

                      "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 anyone." 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 colour.... 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 a 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 someone 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 offence. "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 anyone 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 anyone?

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'enigme 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

everyone 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 1

                            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 emphasise 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 apologise. 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,

everyone was surprised at it, too. We all knew that the affair had

aroused great interest, that everyone 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. Everyone 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 everyone, 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 favour 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 anyone 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 quarrelled violently with their husbands over

differences of opinion about the dreadful case, and it was that the

husbands of these ladies, far from being favourably 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 was 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 someone 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 rumours

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 defence. 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 Borrissovitch; 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

grey 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 grey-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, grey 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

unfavourable 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 defence, 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-

Miusov, 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 2

                         Dangerous Witnesses



    I DO NOT know whether the witnesses for the defence 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 defence 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 defence had to rely upon. Everyone realised

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. Everyone, 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 defence 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. Everyone 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 anyone, having some idea of his

own in the background, some concealed weapon of defence, 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 defence positively fastened

upon him when his turn came to question him. It must be noted that

Grigory entered the trial 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 colours. 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 everyone, 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 anyone; 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 defence 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 anyone "till

everybody was talking about it." This question about the envelope

Fetyukovitch put to everyone 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 everyone

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

anyone 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 Aesop too."

    "What Aesop?" 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 defence 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, Rakatin'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 ardour, made a slight blunder, of

which the counsel for the defence 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 defence, 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 everyone 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 elite of the

youth of the neighbourhood, 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 anyone 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 honour 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 honour," 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. Kalgonov 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 3

               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 defence 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 defence

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 grey and bald old man of seventy, of middle

height and sturdy build. He was much esteemed and respected by

everyone 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 everyone 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 criticised 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 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 everyone 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 promised, 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, 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 defence

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 abberation 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, everyone 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."*



    * Promenading.



    "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 everyone..."

    "Apples?"

    "Oh, no, no. You have a dozen of apples, not a pound.... No, there

are a lot of them, and call little. You put them in the mouth and

crack."

    "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 recognised, 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.' 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 favourable impression on

the public. But the chief sensation in Mitya's favour was created by

the evidence of Katerina Ivanovna, which I will describe directly.

Indeed, when the witnesses a decharge, that is, called the defence,

began giving evidence, fortune seemed all at once markedly more

favourable to Mitya, and what was particularly striking, this was a

surprise even to the counsel for the defence. 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 4

                       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 honourable, 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 recognised that the three thousand roubles had become almost an

obsession with Mitya; that 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 that 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; someone had heard something, someone 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 honour, 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 favourable. 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 favour. 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 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 shamefaced 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 everyone- 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, "everyone 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.

"Everyone 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 anyone here of it, he is so

dreadfully ashamed of me."

    This fact was a complete surprise to everyone; 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 5

                         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 lustreless; 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 defence 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-humoured. 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.



    * Bread and circuses.



    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 everyone 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 everyone 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 recognised, 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 honour 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 honour 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 dishonouring 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 anyone, 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.' 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

programme 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 defence 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

honour 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 everyone 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 forever 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 overwrought 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

minimise 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 honour 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 simplehearted 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 defence 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.

Everyone was excited, everyone was electrified by the late

catastrophe, and all were awaiting the speeches for the prosecution

and the defence 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 6

            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'oeuvre, the chef-d'oeuvre 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 thee

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

everyone. 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 dishonourable in soul. In silence, alone

with his conscience, he asks himself perhaps, 'What is honour, 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* 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 excess of childish and naive

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...."



    * Gogol.



    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 Apres moi le deluge.* 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 defence 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.



    * After me, the deluge.



    "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 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 marvellous 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 defence 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. Honour, 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 anyone. 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 scrutinising 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

marvellous 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

analysed? 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 7

                         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 worshipped

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, characterised 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 honour, 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 programme 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 everyone,' 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 absense, 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 then 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 vigour 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

realised for a month past that any object of the kind would serve as a

weapon, so he instantly, without hesitation, recognised 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 everyone realised that, although he professed to

despise that suspicion, he thought the subject of great importance.

                              Chapter 8

                       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 Svyetslov 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 realised 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 skilful 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 wrongdoing 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 everyone 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 anyone 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 anyone 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 everyone saw, on the contrary, that his master was

fond of him and honoured 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 kindhearted

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 everyone, 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

minimise them. But he was far from distorting or minimising 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

anyone.' 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 everyone, 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

anyone 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 dishonourable: it's

dishonourable 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 programme of the

murder. Why, then, are we looking for any other programme? The crime

was committed precisely according to this programme, 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 9

       The Galloping Troika. The End of the Prosecutor's Speech



    IPPOLIT KIRILLOVITCH had chosen the historial 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 everyone,

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 honourable 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,'

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 defence, 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 defence 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 uttered with such premature haste- 'if not I'- the animal

cunning, the naivete 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 sceptical 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 defence 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 storytellers 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 anyone 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 someone

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 honour.' Oh, we are glad to believe it, we are

eager to believe it, even if only on his word of honour! Are we

jackals thirsting for human blood? Show us a single fact in the

prisoner's favour 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 defence," 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 re-echo 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 civilisation. 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 I

    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."

    Everyone 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 defence 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 offence. 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 Parliment 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 10

     The Speech for the Defence. 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 everyone realised 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 lookout for it, and quivered with

enthusiasm.

    He went straight to the point, and began by saying that although

he practised 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 favour. 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 economising 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 defence. 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 recognise 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

clue 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 recognise 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 centred 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 11

              There Was No Money. There Was No Robbery



    THERE was one point that struck everyone 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-coloured 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 axe, 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 everyone 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 what 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 easygoing 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 gaiety, 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 honour? Yes, he has a sense of honour, 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 anyone; 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 everyone, 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 programme 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

programme, 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 12

                    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 anyone. 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 quarrelled with a shopman in the tavern, because

a Karamazov could not help quarrelling, 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 quarrelled 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 anyone. 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-defence,

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

this 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 rumours 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 defence. 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 naivete, 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-coloured 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-coloured 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 realised his security from

detection. Oh! these sudden and irresistible impulses come so often

when there is a favourable 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 anyone 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 someone 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 everyone 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 13

                        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 everyone, 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 defence 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 kindhearted 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 anyone train him

to be reasonable? Was he enlightened by study? Did anyone 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 defence 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 honourable, '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 authorised 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 favourable 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 fulfil 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 anyone

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

behaviour 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 14

                       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

defence 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 defence; 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 defence too modest in asking

only for the acquittal of the prisoner? Why not found a charity in the

honour 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

defence, 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 defence 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,

a 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 defence, 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 defence

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 neighbourhood, 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?"

    "Splended!"

    "And about mysticism, too!"

    "Oh, drop mysticism, do!" cried someone 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 everyone had reckoned upon a recommendation to mercy,

at least. The death-like 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 realise 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 heart-rending 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 1

                       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 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 honour 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 etape 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 etape. 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 quarrelling. He had just gone downstairs, but seeing you I

made him come back; do you remember? Do you know what we were

quarrelling 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

quarrelling about it at once and quarrelled for three days. We

quarrelled 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 someone 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 honourable 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

dishonourable, 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

realises 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 realises 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.' 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 anyone?" she said suddenly, in a low voice,

turning white again.

    "That's just why you must go now, to avoid meeting anyone. 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 2

                  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 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 someone, 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 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 etape* 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."



    * Stockade.



    "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-bye 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 grey,

fretting for Russia. I dare say they won't recognise 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

pulsively 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 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 3

              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 horrer!"

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 chiselled in marble. There

were flowers in his hands and the coffin, 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 anyone, 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 anyone, 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 anyone! 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-bye 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 grey 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 someone 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 everyone, 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.

    Someone 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

quarrelled 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 heart-rending 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 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

kindhearted, brave boy, he felt for his father's honour 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 honour 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 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 cruellest 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

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