Part 13

At the sight of Grushenka, Mitya’s jealousy vanished, and, for an instant he became trustful and generous, and positively despised himself for his evil feelings. But it only proved that, in his love for the woman, there was an element of something far higher than he himself imagined, that it was not only a sensual passion, not only the “curve of her body,” of which he had talked to Alyosha. But, as soon as Grushenka had gone, Mitya began to suspect her of all the low cunning of faithlessness, and he felt no sting of conscience at it.

And so jealousy surged up in him again. He had, in any case, to make haste. The first thing to be done was to get hold of at least a small, temporary loan of money. The nine roubles had almost all gone on his expedition. And, as we all know, one can’t take a step without money. But he had thought over in the cart where he could get a loan. He had a brace of fine dueling pistols in a case, which he had not pawned till then because he prized them above all his possessions.

In the “Metropolis” tavern he had some time since made acquaintance with a young official and had learnt that this very opulent bachelor was passionately fond of weapons. He used to buy pistols, revolvers, daggers, hang them on his wall and show them to acquaintances. He prided himself on them, and was quite a specialist on the mechanism of the revolver. Mitya, without stopping to think, went straight to him, and offered to pawn his pistols to him for ten roubles. The official, delighted, began trying to persuade him to sell them outright. But Mitya would not consent, so the young man gave him ten roubles, protesting that nothing would induce him to take interest. They parted friends.

Mitya was in haste; he rushed towards Fyodor Pavlovitch’s by the back way, to his arbor, to get hold of Smerdyakov as soon as possible. In this way the fact was established that three or four hours before a certain event, of which I shall speak later on, Mitya had not a farthing, and pawned for ten roubles a possession he valued, though, three hours later, he was in possession of thousands.... But I am anticipating. From Marya Kondratyevna (the woman living near Fyodor Pavlovitch’s) he learned the very disturbing fact of Smerdyakov’s illness. He heard the story of his fall in the cellar, his fit, the doctor’s visit, Fyodor Pavlovitch’s anxiety; he heard with interest, too, that his brother Ivan had set off that morning for Moscow.

“Then he must have driven through Volovya before me,” thought Dmitri, but he was terribly distressed about Smerdyakov. “What will happen now? Who’ll keep watch for me? Who’ll bring me word?” he thought. He began greedily questioning the women whether they had seen anything the evening before. They quite understood what he was trying to find out, and completely reassured him. No one had been there. Ivan Fyodorovitch had been there the night; everything had been perfectly as usual. Mitya grew thoughtful. He would certainly have to keep watch to-day, but where? Here or at Samsonov’s gate? He decided that he must be on the look out both here and there, and meanwhile ... meanwhile.... The difficulty was that he had to carry out the new plan that he had made on the journey back. He was sure of its success, but he must not delay acting upon it. Mitya resolved to sacrifice an hour to it: “In an hour I shall know everything, I shall settle everything, and then, then, first of all to Samsonov’s. I’ll inquire whether Grushenka’s there and instantly be back here again, stay till eleven, and then to Samsonov’s again to bring her home.” This was what he decided.

He flew home, washed, combed his hair, brushed his clothes, dressed, and went to Madame Hohlakov’s. Alas! he had built his hopes on her. He had resolved to borrow three thousand from that lady. And what was more, he felt suddenly convinced that she would not refuse to lend it to him. It may be wondered why, if he felt so certain, he had not gone to her at first, one of his own sort, so to speak, instead of to Samsonov, a man he did not know, who was not of his own class, and to whom he hardly knew how to speak.

But the fact was that he had never known Madame Hohlakov well, and had seen nothing of her for the last month, and that he knew she could not endure him. She had detested him from the first because he was engaged to Katerina Ivanovna, while she had, for some reason, suddenly conceived the desire that Katerina Ivanovna should throw him over, and marry the “charming, chivalrously refined Ivan, who had such excellent manners.” Mitya’s manners she detested. Mitya positively laughed at her, and had once said about her that she was just as lively and at her ease as she was uncultivated. But that morning in the cart a brilliant idea had struck him: “If she is so anxious I should not marry Katerina Ivanovna” (and he knew she was positively hysterical upon the subject) “why should she refuse me now that three thousand, just to enable me to leave Katya and get away from her for ever. These spoilt fine ladies, if they set their hearts on anything, will spare no expense to satisfy their caprice. Besides, she’s so rich,” Mitya argued.

As for his “plan” it was just the same as before; it consisted of the offer of his rights to Tchermashnya—but not with a commercial object, as it had been with Samsonov, not trying to allure the lady with the possibility of making a profit of six or seven thousand—but simply as a security for the debt. As he worked out this new idea, Mitya was enchanted with it, but so it always was with him in all his undertakings, in all his sudden decisions. He gave himself up to every new idea with passionate enthusiasm. Yet, when he mounted the steps of Madame Hohlakov’s house he felt a shiver of fear run down his spine. At that moment he saw fully, as a mathematical certainty, that this was his last hope, that if this broke down, nothing else was left him in the world, but to “rob and murder some one for the three thousand.” It was half-past seven when he rang at the bell.

At first fortune seemed to smile upon him. As soon as he was announced he was received with extraordinary rapidity. “As though she were waiting for me,” thought Mitya, and as soon as he had been led to the drawing-room, the lady of the house herself ran in, and declared at once that she was expecting him.

“I was expecting you! I was expecting you! Though I’d no reason to suppose you would come to see me, as you will admit yourself. Yet, I did expect you. You may marvel at my instinct, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, but I was convinced all the morning that you would come.”

“That is certainly wonderful, madam,” observed Mitya, sitting down limply, “but I have come to you on a matter of great importance.... On a matter of supreme importance for me, that is, madam ... for me alone ... and I hasten—”

“I know you’ve come on most important business, Dmitri Fyodorovitch; it’s not a case of presentiment, no reactionary harking back to the miraculous (have you heard about Father Zossima?). This is a case of mathematics: you couldn’t help coming, after all that has passed with Katerina Ivanovna; you couldn’t, you couldn’t, that’s a mathematical certainty.”

“The realism of actual life, madam, that’s what it is. But allow me to explain—”

“Realism indeed, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. I’m all for realism now. I’ve seen too much of miracles. You’ve heard that Father Zossima is dead?”

“No, madam, it’s the first time I’ve heard of it.” Mitya was a little surprised. The image of Alyosha rose to his mind.

“Last night, and only imagine—”

“Madam,” said Mitya, “I can imagine nothing except that I’m in a desperate position, and that if you don’t help me, everything will come to grief, and I first of all. Excuse me for the triviality of the expression, but I’m in a fever—”

“I know, I know that you’re in a fever. You could hardly fail to be, and whatever you may say to me, I know beforehand. I have long been thinking over your destiny, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, I am watching over it and studying it.... Oh, believe me, I’m an experienced doctor of the soul, Dmitri Fyodorovitch.”

“Madam, if you are an experienced doctor, I’m certainly an experienced patient,” said Mitya, with an effort to be polite, “and I feel that if you are watching over my destiny in this way, you will come to my help in my ruin, and so allow me, at least to explain to you the plan with which I have ventured to come to you ... and what I am hoping of you.... I have come, madam—”

“Don’t explain it. It’s of secondary importance. But as for help, you’re not the first I have helped, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. You have most likely heard of my cousin, Madame Belmesov. Her husband was ruined, ‘had come to grief,’ as you characteristically express it, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. I recommended him to take to horse-breeding, and now he’s doing well. Have you any idea of horse-breeding, Dmitri Fyodorovitch?”

“Not the faintest, madam; ah, madam, not the faintest!” cried Mitya, in nervous impatience, positively starting from his seat. “I simply implore you, madam, to listen to me. Only give me two minutes of free speech that I may just explain to you everything, the whole plan with which I have come. Besides, I am short of time. I’m in a fearful hurry,” Mitya cried hysterically, feeling that she was just going to begin talking again, and hoping to cut her short. “I have come in despair ... in the last gasp of despair, to beg you to lend me the sum of three thousand, a loan, but on safe, most safe security, madam, with the most trustworthy guarantees! Only let me explain—”

“You must tell me all that afterwards, afterwards!” Madame Hohlakov with a gesture demanded silence in her turn, “and whatever you may tell me, I know it all beforehand; I’ve told you so already. You ask for a certain sum, for three thousand, but I can give you more, immeasurably more, I will save you, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, but you must listen to me.”

Mitya started from his seat again.

“Madam, will you really be so good!” he cried, with strong feeling. “Good God, you’ve saved me! You have saved a man from a violent death, from a bullet.... My eternal gratitude—”

“I will give you more, infinitely more than three thousand!” cried Madame Hohlakov, looking with a radiant smile at Mitya’s ecstasy.

“Infinitely? But I don’t need so much. I only need that fatal three thousand, and on my part I can give security for that sum with infinite gratitude, and I propose a plan which—”

“Enough, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, it’s said and done.” Madame Hohlakov cut him short, with the modest triumph of beneficence: “I have promised to save you, and I will save you. I will save you as I did Belmesov. What do you think of the gold-mines, Dmitri Fyodorovitch?”

“Of the gold-mines, madam? I have never thought anything about them.”

“But I have thought of them for you. Thought of them over and over again. I have been watching you for the last month. I’ve watched you a hundred times as you’ve walked past, saying to myself: that’s a man of energy who ought to be at the gold-mines. I’ve studied your gait and come to the conclusion: that’s a man who would find gold.”

“From my gait, madam?” said Mitya, smiling.

“Yes, from your gait. You surely don’t deny that character can be told from the gait, Dmitri Fyodorovitch? Science supports the idea. I’m all for science and realism now. After all this business with Father Zossima, which has so upset me, from this very day I’m a realist and I want to devote myself to practical usefulness. I’m cured. ‘Enough!’ as Turgenev says.”

“But, madam, the three thousand you so generously promised to lend me—”

“It is yours, Dmitri Fyodorovitch,” Madame Hohlakov cut in at once. “The money is as good as in your pocket, not three thousand, but three million, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, in less than no time. I’ll make you a present of the idea: you shall find gold-mines, make millions, return and become a leading man, and wake us up and lead us to better things. Are we to leave it all to the Jews? You will found institutions and enterprises of all sorts. You will help the poor, and they will bless you. This is the age of railways, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. You’ll become famous and indispensable to the Department of Finance, which is so badly off at present. The depreciation of the rouble keeps me awake at night, Dmitri Fyodorovitch; people don’t know that side of me—”

“Madam, madam!” Dmitri interrupted with an uneasy presentiment. “I shall indeed, perhaps, follow your advice, your wise advice, madam.... I shall perhaps set off ... to the gold-mines.... I’ll come and see you again about it ... many times, indeed ... but now, that three thousand you so generously ... oh, that would set me free, and if you could to-day ... you see, I haven’t a minute, a minute to lose to-day—”

“Enough, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, enough!” Madame Hohlakov interrupted emphatically. “The question is, will you go to the gold-mines or not; have you quite made up your mind? Answer yes or no.”

“I will go, madam, afterwards.... I’ll go where you like ... but now—”

“Wait!” cried Madame Hohlakov. And jumping up and running to a handsome bureau with numerous little drawers, she began pulling out one drawer after another, looking for something with desperate haste.

“The three thousand,” thought Mitya, his heart almost stopping, “and at the instant ... without any papers or formalities ... that’s doing things in gentlemanly style! She’s a splendid woman, if only she didn’t talk so much!”

“Here!” cried Madame Hohlakov, running back joyfully to Mitya, “here is what I was looking for!”

It was a tiny silver ikon on a cord, such as is sometimes worn next the skin with a cross.

“This is from Kiev, Dmitri Fyodorovitch,” she went on reverently, “from the relics of the Holy Martyr, Varvara. Let me put it on your neck myself, and with it dedicate you to a new life, to a new career.”

And she actually put the cord round his neck, and began arranging it. In extreme embarrassment, Mitya bent down and helped her, and at last he got it under his neck-tie and collar through his shirt to his chest.

“Now you can set off,” Madame Hohlakov pronounced, sitting down triumphantly in her place again.

“Madam, I am so touched. I don’t know how to thank you, indeed ... for such kindness, but ... If only you knew how precious time is to me.... That sum of money, for which I shall be indebted to your generosity.... Oh, madam, since you are so kind, so touchingly generous to me,” Mitya exclaimed impulsively, “then let me reveal to you ... though, of course, you’ve known it a long time ... that I love somebody here.... I have been false to Katya ... Katerina Ivanovna I should say.... Oh, I’ve behaved inhumanly, dishonorably to her, but I fell in love here with another woman ... a woman whom you, madam, perhaps, despise, for you know everything already, but whom I cannot leave on any account, and therefore that three thousand now—”

“Leave everything, Dmitri Fyodorovitch,” Madame Hohlakov interrupted in the most decisive tone. “Leave everything, especially women. Gold-mines are your goal, and there’s no place for women there. Afterwards, when you come back rich and famous, you will find the girl of your heart in the highest society. That will be a modern girl, a girl of education and advanced ideas. By that time the dawning woman question will have gained ground, and the new woman will have appeared.”

“Madam, that’s not the point, not at all....” Mitya clasped his hands in entreaty.

“Yes, it is, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, just what you need; the very thing you’re yearning for, though you don’t realize it yourself. I am not at all opposed to the present woman movement, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. The development of woman, and even the political emancipation of woman in the near future—that’s my ideal. I’ve a daughter myself, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, people don’t know that side of me. I wrote a letter to the author, Shtchedrin, on that subject. He has taught me so much, so much about the vocation of woman. So last year I sent him an anonymous letter of two lines: ‘I kiss and embrace you, my teacher, for the modern woman. Persevere.’ And I signed myself, ‘A Mother.’ I thought of signing myself ‘A contemporary Mother,’ and hesitated, but I stuck to the simple ‘Mother’; there’s more moral beauty in that, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. And the word ‘contemporary’ might have reminded him of ‘_The Contemporary_’—a painful recollection owing to the censorship.... Good Heavens, what is the matter!”

“Madam!” cried Mitya, jumping up at last, clasping his hands before her in helpless entreaty. “You will make me weep if you delay what you have so generously—”

“Oh, do weep, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, do weep! That’s a noble feeling ... such a path lies open before you! Tears will ease your heart, and later on you will return rejoicing. You will hasten to me from Siberia on purpose to share your joy with me—”

“But allow me, too!” Mitya cried suddenly. “For the last time I entreat you, tell me, can I have the sum you promised me to-day, if not, when may I come for it?”

“What sum, Dmitri Fyodorovitch?”

“The three thousand you promised me ... that you so generously—”

“Three thousand? Roubles? Oh, no, I haven’t got three thousand,” Madame Hohlakov announced with serene amazement. Mitya was stupefied.

“Why, you said just now ... you said ... you said it was as good as in my hands—”

“Oh, no, you misunderstood me, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. In that case you misunderstood me. I was talking of the gold-mines. It’s true I promised you more, infinitely more than three thousand, I remember it all now, but I was referring to the gold-mines.”

“But the money? The three thousand?” Mitya exclaimed, awkwardly.

“Oh, if you meant money, I haven’t any. I haven’t a penny, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. I’m quarreling with my steward about it, and I’ve just borrowed five hundred roubles from Miüsov, myself. No, no, I’ve no money. And, do you know, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, if I had, I wouldn’t give it to you. In the first place I never lend money. Lending money means losing friends. And I wouldn’t give it to you particularly. I wouldn’t give it you, because I like you and want to save you, for all you need is the gold-mines, the gold-mines, the gold-mines!”

“Oh, the devil!” roared Mitya, and with all his might brought his fist down on the table.

“Aie! Aie!” cried Madame Hohlakov, alarmed, and she flew to the other end of the drawing-room.

Mitya spat on the ground, and strode rapidly out of the room, out of the house, into the street, into the darkness! He walked like one possessed, and beating himself on the breast, on the spot where he had struck himself two days previously, before Alyosha, the last time he saw him in the dark, on the road. What those blows upon his breast signified, _on that spot_, and what he meant by it—that was, for the time, a secret which was known to no one in the world, and had not been told even to Alyosha. But that secret meant for him more than disgrace; it meant ruin, suicide. So he had determined, if he did not get hold of the three thousand that would pay his debt to Katerina Ivanovna, and so remove from his breast, from _that spot on his breast_, the shame he carried upon it, that weighed on his conscience. All this will be fully explained to the reader later on, but now that his last hope had vanished, this man, so strong in appearance, burst out crying like a little child a few steps from the Hohlakovs’ house. He walked on, and not knowing what he was doing, wiped away his tears with his fist. In this way he reached the square, and suddenly became aware that he had stumbled against something. He heard a piercing wail from an old woman whom he had almost knocked down.

“Good Lord, you’ve nearly killed me! Why don’t you look where you’re going, scapegrace?”

“Why, it’s you!” cried Mitya, recognizing the old woman in the dark. It was the old servant who waited on Samsonov, whom Mitya had particularly noticed the day before.

“And who are you, my good sir?” said the old woman, in quite a different voice. “I don’t know you in the dark.”

“You live at Kuzma Kuzmitch’s. You’re the servant there?”

“Just so, sir, I was only running out to Prohoritch’s.... But I don’t know you now.”

“Tell me, my good woman, is Agrafena Alexandrovna there now?” said Mitya, beside himself with suspense. “I saw her to the house some time ago.”

“She has been there, sir. She stayed a little while, and went off again.”

“What? Went away?” cried Mitya. “When did she go?”

“Why, as soon as she came. She only stayed a minute. She only told Kuzma Kuzmitch a tale that made him laugh, and then she ran away.”

“You’re lying, damn you!” roared Mitya.

“Aie! Aie!” shrieked the old woman, but Mitya had vanished.

He ran with all his might to the house where Grushenka lived. At the moment he reached it, Grushenka was on her way to Mokroe. It was not more than a quarter of an hour after her departure.

Fenya was sitting with her grandmother, the old cook, Matryona, in the kitchen when “the captain” ran in. Fenya uttered a piercing shriek on seeing him.

“You scream?” roared Mitya, “where is she?”

But without giving the terror-stricken Fenya time to utter a word, he fell all of a heap at her feet.

“Fenya, for Christ’s sake, tell me, where is she?”

“I don’t know. Dmitri Fyodorovitch, my dear, I don’t know. You may kill me but I can’t tell you.” Fenya swore and protested. “You went out with her yourself not long ago—”

“She came back!”

“Indeed she didn’t. By God I swear she didn’t come back.”

“You’re lying!” shouted Mitya. “From your terror I know where she is.”

He rushed away. Fenya in her fright was glad she had got off so easily. But she knew very well that it was only that he was in such haste, or she might not have fared so well. But as he ran, he surprised both Fenya and old Matryona by an unexpected action. On the table stood a brass mortar, with a pestle in it, a small brass pestle, not much more than six inches long. Mitya already had opened the door with one hand when, with the other, he snatched up the pestle, and thrust it in his side-pocket.

“Oh, Lord! He’s going to murder some one!” cried Fenya, flinging up her hands.

Chapter IV. In The Dark

Where was he running? “Where could she be except at Fyodor Pavlovitch’s? She must have run straight to him from Samsonov’s, that was clear now. The whole intrigue, the whole deceit was evident.” ... It all rushed whirling through his mind. He did not run to Marya Kondratyevna’s. “There was no need to go there ... not the slightest need ... he must raise no alarm ... they would run and tell directly.... Marya Kondratyevna was clearly in the plot, Smerdyakov too, he too, all had been bought over!”

He formed another plan of action: he ran a long way round Fyodor Pavlovitch’s house, crossing the lane, running down Dmitrovsky Street, then over the little bridge, and so came straight to the deserted alley at the back, which was empty and uninhabited, with, on one side the hurdle fence of a neighbor’s kitchen-garden, on the other the strong high fence, that ran all round Fyodor Pavlovitch’s garden. Here he chose a spot, apparently the very place, where according to the tradition, he knew Lizaveta had once climbed over it: “If she could climb over it,” the thought, God knows why, occurred to him, “surely I can.” He did in fact jump up, and instantly contrived to catch hold of the top of the fence. Then he vigorously pulled himself up and sat astride on it. Close by, in the garden stood the bath-house, but from the fence he could see the lighted windows of the house too.

“Yes, the old man’s bedroom is lighted up. She’s there!” and he leapt from the fence into the garden. Though he knew Grigory was ill and very likely Smerdyakov, too, and that there was no one to hear him, he instinctively hid himself, stood still, and began to listen. But there was dead silence on all sides and, as though of design, complete stillness, not the slightest breath of wind.

“And naught but the whispering silence,” the line for some reason rose to his mind. “If only no one heard me jump over the fence! I think not.” Standing still for a minute, he walked softly over the grass in the garden, avoiding the trees and shrubs. He walked slowly, creeping stealthily at every step, listening to his own footsteps. It took him five minutes to reach the lighted window. He remembered that just under the window there were several thick and high bushes of elder and whitebeam. The door from the house into the garden on the left-hand side, was shut; he had carefully looked on purpose to see, in passing. At last he reached the bushes and hid behind them. He held his breath. “I must wait now,” he thought, “to reassure them, in case they heard my footsteps and are listening ... if only I don’t cough or sneeze.”

He waited two minutes. His heart was beating violently, and, at moments, he could scarcely breathe. “No, this throbbing at my heart won’t stop,” he thought. “I can’t wait any longer.” He was standing behind a bush in the shadow. The light of the window fell on the front part of the bush.

“How red the whitebeam berries are!” he murmured, not knowing why. Softly and noiselessly, step by step, he approached the window, and raised himself on tiptoe. All Fyodor Pavlovitch’s bedroom lay open before him. It was not a large room, and was divided in two parts by a red screen, “Chinese,” as Fyodor Pavlovitch used to call it. The word “Chinese” flashed into Mitya’s mind, “and behind the screen, is Grushenka,” thought Mitya. He began watching Fyodor Pavlovitch, who was wearing his new striped-silk dressing-gown, which Mitya had never seen, and a silk cord with tassels round the waist. A clean, dandified shirt of fine linen with gold studs peeped out under the collar of the dressing-gown. On his head Fyodor Pavlovitch had the same red bandage which Alyosha had seen.

“He has got himself up,” thought Mitya.

His father was standing near the window, apparently lost in thought. Suddenly he jerked up his head, listened a moment, and hearing nothing went up to the table, poured out half a glass of brandy from a decanter and drank it off. Then he uttered a deep sigh, again stood still a moment, walked carelessly up to the looking-glass on the wall, with his right hand raised the red bandage on his forehead a little, and began examining his bruises and scars, which had not yet disappeared.

“He’s alone,” thought Mitya, “in all probability he’s alone.”

Fyodor Pavlovitch moved away from the looking-glass, turned suddenly to the window and looked out. Mitya instantly slipped away into the shadow.

“She may be there behind the screen. Perhaps she’s asleep by now,” he thought, with a pang at his heart. Fyodor Pavlovitch moved away from the window. “He’s looking for her out of the window, so she’s not there. Why should he stare out into the dark? He’s wild with impatience.” ... Mitya slipped back at once, and fell to gazing in at the window again. The old man was sitting down at the table, apparently disappointed. At last he put his elbow on the table, and laid his right cheek against his hand. Mitya watched him eagerly.

“He’s alone, he’s alone!” he repeated again. “If she were here, his face would be different.”

Strange to say, a queer, irrational vexation rose up in his heart that she was not here. “It’s not that she’s not here,” he explained to himself, immediately, “but that I can’t tell for certain whether she is or not.” Mitya remembered afterwards that his mind was at that moment exceptionally clear, that he took in everything to the slightest detail, and missed no point. But a feeling of misery, the misery of uncertainty and indecision, was growing in his heart with every instant. “Is she here or not?” The angry doubt filled his heart, and suddenly, making up his mind, he put out his hand and softly knocked on the window frame. He knocked the signal the old man had agreed upon with Smerdyakov, twice slowly and then three times more quickly, the signal that meant “Grushenka is here!”

The old man started, jerked up his head, and, jumping up quickly, ran to the window. Mitya slipped away into the shadow. Fyodor Pavlovitch opened the window and thrust his whole head out.

“Grushenka, is it you? Is it you?” he said, in a sort of trembling half-whisper. “Where are you, my angel, where are you?” He was fearfully agitated and breathless.

“He’s alone.” Mitya decided.

“Where are you?” cried the old man again; and he thrust his head out farther, thrust it out to the shoulders, gazing in all directions, right and left. “Come here, I’ve a little present for you. Come, I’ll show you....”

“He means the three thousand,” thought Mitya.

“But where are you? Are you at the door? I’ll open it directly.”

And the old man almost climbed out of the window, peering out to the right, where there was a door into the garden, trying to see into the darkness. In another second he would certainly have run out to open the door without waiting for Grushenka’s answer.

Mitya looked at him from the side without stirring. The old man’s profile that he loathed so, his pendent Adam’s apple, his hooked nose, his lips that smiled in greedy expectation, were all brightly lighted up by the slanting lamplight falling on the left from the room. A horrible fury of hatred suddenly surged up in Mitya’s heart: “There he was, his rival, the man who had tormented him, had ruined his life!” It was a rush of that sudden, furious, revengeful anger of which he had spoken, as though foreseeing it, to Alyosha, four days ago in the arbor, when, in answer to Alyosha’s question, “How can you say you’ll kill our father?” “I don’t know, I don’t know,” he had said then. “Perhaps I shall not kill him, perhaps I shall. I’m afraid he’ll suddenly be so loathsome to me at that moment. I hate his double chin, his nose, his eyes, his shameless grin. I feel a personal repulsion. That’s what I’m afraid of, that’s what may be too much for me.” ... This personal repulsion was growing unendurable. Mitya was beside himself, he suddenly pulled the brass pestle out of his pocket.

“God was watching over me then,” Mitya himself said afterwards. At that very moment Grigory waked up on his bed of sickness. Earlier in the evening he had undergone the treatment which Smerdyakov had described to Ivan. He had rubbed himself all over with vodka mixed with a secret, very strong decoction, had drunk what was left of the mixture while his wife repeated a “certain prayer” over him, after which he had gone to bed. Marfa Ignatyevna had tasted the stuff, too, and, being unused to strong drink, slept like the dead beside her husband.

But Grigory waked up in the night, quite suddenly, and, after a moment’s reflection, though he immediately felt a sharp pain in his back, he sat up in bed. Then he deliberated again, got up and dressed hurriedly. Perhaps his conscience was uneasy at the thought of sleeping while the house was unguarded “in such perilous times.” Smerdyakov, exhausted by his fit, lay motionless in the next room. Marfa Ignatyevna did not stir. “The stuff’s been too much for the woman,” Grigory thought, glancing at her, and groaning, he went out on the steps. No doubt he only intended to look out from the steps, for he was hardly able to walk, the pain in his back and his right leg was intolerable. But he suddenly remembered that he had not locked the little gate into the garden that evening. He was the most punctual and precise of men, a man who adhered to an unchangeable routine, and habits that lasted for years. Limping and writhing with pain he went down the steps and towards the garden. Yes, the gate stood wide open. Mechanically he stepped into the garden. Perhaps he fancied something, perhaps caught some sound, and, glancing to the left he saw his master’s window open. No one was looking out of it then.

“What’s it open for? It’s not summer now,” thought Grigory, and suddenly, at that very instant he caught a glimpse of something extraordinary before him in the garden. Forty paces in front of him a man seemed to be running in the dark, a sort of shadow was moving very fast.

“Good Lord!” cried Grigory beside himself, and forgetting the pain in his back, he hurried to intercept the running figure. He took a short cut, evidently he knew the garden better; the flying figure went towards the bath-house, ran behind it and rushed to the garden fence. Grigory followed, not losing sight of him, and ran, forgetting everything. He reached the fence at the very moment the man was climbing over it. Grigory cried out, beside himself, pounced on him, and clutched his leg in his two hands.

Yes, his foreboding had not deceived him. He recognized him, it was he, the “monster,” the “parricide.”

“Parricide!” the old man shouted so that the whole neighborhood could hear, but he had not time to shout more, he fell at once, as though struck by lightning.

Mitya jumped back into the garden and bent over the fallen man. In Mitya’s hands was a brass pestle, and he flung it mechanically in the grass. The pestle fell two paces from Grigory, not in the grass but on the path, in a most conspicuous place. For some seconds he examined the prostrate figure before him. The old man’s head was covered with blood. Mitya put out his hand and began feeling it. He remembered afterwards clearly, that he had been awfully anxious to make sure whether he had broken the old man’s skull, or simply stunned him with the pestle. But the blood was flowing horribly; and in a moment Mitya’s fingers were drenched with the hot stream. He remembered taking out of his pocket the clean white handkerchief with which he had provided himself for his visit to Madame Hohlakov, and putting it to the old man’s head, senselessly trying to wipe the blood from his face and temples. But the handkerchief was instantly soaked with blood.

“Good heavens! what am I doing it for?” thought Mitya, suddenly pulling himself together. “If I have broken his skull, how can I find out now? And what difference does it make now?” he added, hopelessly. “If I’ve killed him, I’ve killed him.... You’ve come to grief, old man, so there you must lie!” he said aloud. And suddenly turning to the fence, he vaulted over it into the lane and fell to running—the handkerchief soaked with blood he held, crushed up in his right fist, and as he ran he thrust it into the back pocket of his coat. He ran headlong, and the few passers-by who met him in the dark, in the streets, remembered afterwards that they had met a man running that night. He flew back again to the widow Morozov’s house.

Immediately after he had left it that evening, Fenya had rushed to the chief porter, Nazar Ivanovitch, and besought him, for Christ’s sake, “not to let the captain in again to-day or to-morrow.” Nazar Ivanovitch promised, but went upstairs to his mistress who had suddenly sent for him, and meeting his nephew, a boy of twenty, who had recently come from the country, on the way up told him to take his place, but forgot to mention “the captain.” Mitya, running up to the gate, knocked. The lad instantly recognized him, for Mitya had more than once tipped him. Opening the gate at once, he let him in, and hastened to inform him with a good-humored smile that “Agrafena Alexandrovna is not at home now, you know.”

“Where is she then, Prohor?” asked Mitya, stopping short.

“She set off this evening, some two hours ago, with Timofey, to Mokroe.”

“What for?” cried Mitya.

“That I can’t say. To see some officer. Some one invited her and horses were sent to fetch her.”

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

Chapter V. A Sudden Resolution

She was sitting in the kitchen with her grandmother; they were both just going to bed. Relying on Nazar Ivanovitch, they had not locked themselves in. Mitya ran in, pounced on Fenya and seized her by the throat.

“Speak at once! Where is she? With whom is she now, at Mokroe?” he roared furiously.

Both the women squealed.

“Aie! I’ll tell you. Aie! Dmitri Fyodorovitch, darling, I’ll tell you everything directly, I won’t hide anything,” gabbled Fenya, frightened to death; “she’s gone to Mokroe, to her officer.”

“What officer?” roared Mitya.

“To her officer, the same one she used to know, the one who threw her over five years ago,” cackled Fenya, as fast as she could speak.

Mitya withdrew the hands with which he was squeezing her throat. He stood facing her, pale as death, unable to utter a word, but his eyes showed that he realized it all, all, from the first word, and guessed the whole position. Poor Fenya was not in a condition at that moment to observe whether he understood or not. She remained sitting on the trunk as she had been when he ran into the room, trembling all over, holding her hands out before her as though trying to defend herself. She seemed to have grown rigid in that position. Her wide-opened, scared eyes were fixed immovably upon him. And to make matters worse, both his hands were smeared with blood. On the way, as he ran, he must have touched his forehead with them, wiping off the perspiration, so that on his forehead and his right cheek were blood-stained patches. Fenya was on the verge of hysterics. The old cook had jumped up and was staring at him like a mad woman, almost unconscious with terror.

Mitya stood for a moment, then mechanically sank on to a chair next to Fenya. He sat, not reflecting but, as it were, terror-stricken, benumbed. Yet everything was clear as day: that officer, he knew about him, he knew everything perfectly, he had known it from Grushenka herself, had known that a letter had come from him a month before. So that for a month, for a whole month, this had been going on, a secret from him, till the very arrival of this new man, and he had never thought of him! But how could he, how could he not have thought of him? Why was it he had forgotten this officer, like that, forgotten him as soon as he heard of him? That was the question that faced him like some monstrous thing. And he looked at this monstrous thing with horror, growing cold with horror.

But suddenly, as gently and mildly as a gentle and affectionate child, he began speaking to Fenya as though he had utterly forgotten how he had scared and hurt her just now. He fell to questioning Fenya with an extreme preciseness, astonishing in his position, and though the girl looked wildly at his blood-stained hands, she, too, with wonderful readiness and rapidity, answered every question as though eager to put the whole truth and nothing but the truth before him. Little by little, even with a sort of enjoyment, she began explaining every detail, not wanting to torment him, but, as it were, eager to be of the utmost service to him. She described the whole of that day, in great detail, the visit of Rakitin and Alyosha, how she, Fenya, had stood on the watch, how the mistress had set off, and how she had called out of the window to Alyosha to give him, Mitya, her greetings, and to tell him “to remember for ever how she had loved him for an hour.”

Hearing of the message, Mitya suddenly smiled, and there was a flush of color on his pale cheeks. At the same moment Fenya said to him, not a bit afraid now to be inquisitive:

“Look at your hands, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. They’re all over blood!”

“Yes,” answered Mitya mechanically. He looked carelessly at his hands and at once forgot them and Fenya’s question.

He sank into silence again. Twenty minutes had passed since he had run in. His first horror was over, but evidently some new fixed determination had taken possession of him. He suddenly stood up, smiling dreamily.

“What has happened to you, sir?” said Fenya, pointing to his hands again. She spoke compassionately, as though she felt very near to him now in his grief. Mitya looked at his hands again.

“That’s blood, Fenya,” he said, looking at her with a strange expression. “That’s human blood, and my God! why was it shed? But ... Fenya ... there’s a fence here” (he looked at her as though setting her a riddle), “a high fence, and terrible to look at. But at dawn to-morrow, when the sun rises, Mitya will leap over that fence.... You don’t understand what fence, Fenya, and, never mind.... You’ll hear to-morrow and understand ... and now, good-by. I won’t stand in her way. I’ll step aside, I know how to step aside. Live, my joy.... You loved me for an hour, remember Mityenka Karamazov so for ever.... She always used to call me Mityenka, do you remember?”

And with those words he went suddenly out of the kitchen. Fenya was almost more frightened at this sudden departure than she had been when he ran in and attacked her.

Just ten minutes later Dmitri went in to Pyotr Ilyitch Perhotin, the young official with whom he had pawned his pistols. It was by now half-past eight, and Pyotr Ilyitch had finished his evening tea, and had just put his coat on again to go to the “Metropolis” to play billiards. Mitya caught him coming out.

Seeing him with his face all smeared with blood, the young man uttered a cry of surprise.

“Good heavens! What is the matter?”

“I’ve come for my pistols,” said Mitya, “and brought you the money. And thanks very much. I’m in a hurry, Pyotr Ilyitch, please make haste.”

Pyotr Ilyitch grew more and more surprised; he suddenly caught sight of a bundle of bank-notes in Mitya’s hand, and what was more, he had walked in holding the notes as no one walks in and no one carries money: he had them in his right hand, and held them outstretched as if to show them. Perhotin’s servant-boy, who met Mitya in the passage, said afterwards that he walked into the passage in the same way, with the money outstretched in his hand, so he must have been carrying them like that even in the streets. They were all rainbow-colored hundred-rouble notes, and the fingers holding them were covered with blood.

When Pyotr Ilyitch was questioned later on as to the sum of money, he said that it was difficult to judge at a glance, but that it might have been two thousand, or perhaps three, but it was a big, “fat” bundle. “Dmitri Fyodorovitch,” so he testified afterwards, “seemed unlike himself, too; not drunk, but, as it were, exalted, lost to everything, but at the same time, as it were, absorbed, as though pondering and searching for something and unable to come to a decision. He was in great haste, answered abruptly and very strangely, and at moments seemed not at all dejected but quite cheerful.”

“But what _is_ the matter with you? What’s wrong?” cried Pyotr Ilyitch, looking wildly at his guest. “How is it that you’re all covered with blood? Have you had a fall? Look at yourself!”

He took him by the elbow and led him to the glass.

Seeing his blood-stained face, Mitya started and scowled wrathfully.

“Damnation! That’s the last straw,” he muttered angrily, hurriedly changing the notes from his right hand to the left, and impulsively jerked the handkerchief out of his pocket. But the handkerchief turned out to be soaked with blood, too (it was the handkerchief he had used to wipe Grigory’s face). There was scarcely a white spot on it, and it had not merely begun to dry, but had stiffened into a crumpled ball and could not be pulled apart. Mitya threw it angrily on the floor.

“Oh, damn it!” he said. “Haven’t you a rag of some sort ... to wipe my face?”

“So you’re only stained, not wounded? You’d better wash,” said Pyotr Ilyitch. “Here’s a wash-stand. I’ll pour you out some water.”

“A wash-stand? That’s all right ... but where am I to put this?”

With the strangest perplexity he indicated his bundle of hundred-rouble notes, looking inquiringly at Pyotr Ilyitch as though it were for him to decide what he, Mitya, was to do with his own money.

“In your pocket, or on the table here. They won’t be lost.”

“In my pocket? Yes, in my pocket. All right.... But, I say, that’s all nonsense,” he cried, as though suddenly coming out of his absorption. “Look here, let’s first settle that business of the pistols. Give them back to me. Here’s your money ... because I am in great need of them ... and I haven’t a minute, a minute to spare.”

And taking the topmost note from the bundle he held it out to Pyotr Ilyitch.

“But I shan’t have change enough. Haven’t you less?”

“No,” said Mitya, looking again at the bundle, and as though not trusting his own words he turned over two or three of the topmost ones.

“No, they’re all alike,” he added, and again he looked inquiringly at Pyotr Ilyitch.

“How have you grown so rich?” the latter asked. “Wait, I’ll send my boy to Plotnikov’s, they close late—to see if they won’t change it. Here, Misha!” he called into the passage.

“To Plotnikov’s shop—first-rate!” cried Mitya, as though struck by an idea. “Misha,” he turned to the boy as he came in, “look here, run to Plotnikov’s and tell them that Dmitri Fyodorovitch sends his greetings, and will be there directly.... But listen, listen, tell them to have champagne, three dozen bottles, ready before I come, and packed as it was to take to Mokroe. I took four dozen with me then,” he added (suddenly addressing Pyotr Ilyitch); “they know all about it, don’t you trouble, Misha,” he turned again to the boy. “Stay, listen; tell them to put in cheese, Strasburg pies, smoked fish, ham, caviare, and everything, everything they’ve got, up to a hundred roubles, or a hundred and twenty as before.... But wait: don’t let them forget dessert, sweets, pears, water-melons, two or three or four—no, one melon’s enough, and chocolate, candy, toffee, fondants; in fact, everything I took to Mokroe before, three hundred roubles’ worth with the champagne ... let it be just the same again. And remember, Misha, if you are called Misha—His name is Misha, isn’t it?” He turned to Pyotr Ilyitch again.

“Wait a minute,” Protr Ilyitch intervened, listening and watching him uneasily, “you’d better go yourself and tell them. He’ll muddle it.”

“He will, I see he will! Eh, Misha! Why, I was going to kiss you for the commission.... If you don’t make a mistake, there’s ten roubles for you, run along, make haste.... Champagne’s the chief thing, let them bring up champagne. And brandy, too, and red and white wine, and all I had then.... They know what I had then.”

“But listen!” Pyotr Ilyitch interrupted with some impatience. “I say, let him simply run and change the money and tell them not to close, and you go and tell them.... Give him your note. Be off, Misha! Put your best leg forward!”

Pyotr Ilyitch seemed to hurry Misha off on purpose, because the boy remained standing with his mouth and eyes wide open, apparently understanding little of Mitya’s orders, gazing up with amazement and terror at his blood-stained face and the trembling bloodstained fingers that held the notes.

“Well, now come and wash,” said Pyotr Ilyitch sternly. “Put the money on the table or else in your pocket.... That’s right, come along. But take off your coat.”

And beginning to help him off with his coat, he cried out again:

“Look, your coat’s covered with blood, too!”

“That ... it’s not the coat. It’s only a little here on the sleeve.... And that’s only here where the handkerchief lay. It must have soaked through. I must have sat on the handkerchief at Fenya’s, and the blood’s come through,” Mitya explained at once with a childlike unconsciousness that was astounding. Pyotr Ilyitch listened, frowning.

“Well, you must have been up to something; you must have been fighting with some one,” he muttered.

They began to wash. Pyotr Ilyitch held the jug and poured out the water. Mitya, in desperate haste, scarcely soaped his hands (they were trembling, and Pyotr Ilyitch remembered it afterwards). But the young official insisted on his soaping them thoroughly and rubbing them more. He seemed to exercise more and more sway over Mitya, as time went on. It may be noted in passing that he was a young man of sturdy character.

“Look, you haven’t got your nails clean. Now rub your face; here, on your temples, by your ear.... Will you go in that shirt? Where are you going? Look, all the cuff of your right sleeve is covered with blood.”

“Yes, it’s all bloody,” observed Mitya, looking at the cuff of his shirt.

“Then change your shirt.”

“I haven’t time. You see I’ll ...” Mitya went on with the same confiding ingenuousness, drying his face and hands on the towel, and putting on his coat. “I’ll turn it up at the wrist. It won’t be seen under the coat.... You see!”

“Tell me now, what game have you been up to? Have you been fighting with some one? In the tavern again, as before? Have you been beating that captain again?” Pyotr Ilyitch asked him reproachfully. “Whom have you been beating now ... or killing, perhaps?”

“Nonsense!” said Mitya.

“Why ‘nonsense’?”

“Don’t worry,” said Mitya, and he suddenly laughed. “I smashed an old woman in the market-place just now.”

“Smashed? An old woman?”

“An old man!” cried Mitya, looking Pyotr Ilyitch straight in the face, laughing, and shouting at him as though he were deaf.

“Confound it! An old woman, an old man.... Have you killed some one?”

“We made it up. We had a row—and made it up. In a place I know of. We parted friends. A fool.... He’s forgiven me.... He’s sure to have forgiven me by now ... if he had got up, he wouldn’t have forgiven me”—Mitya suddenly winked—“only damn him, you know, I say, Pyotr Ilyitch, damn him! Don’t worry about him! I don’t want to just now!” Mitya snapped out, resolutely.

“Whatever do you want to go picking quarrels with every one for? ... Just as you did with that captain over some nonsense.... You’ve been fighting and now you’re rushing off on the spree—that’s you all over! Three dozen champagne—what do you want all that for?”

“Bravo! Now give me the pistols. Upon my honor I’ve no time now. I should like to have a chat with you, my dear boy, but I haven’t the time. And there’s no need, it’s too late for talking. Where’s my money? Where have I put it?” he cried, thrusting his hands into his pockets.

“You put it on the table ... yourself.... Here it is. Had you forgotten? Money’s like dirt or water to you, it seems. Here are your pistols. It’s an odd thing, at six o’clock you pledged them for ten roubles, and now you’ve got thousands. Two or three I should say.”

“Three, you bet,” laughed Mitya, stuffing the notes into the side-pocket of his trousers.

“You’ll lose it like that. Have you found a gold-mine?”

“The mines? The gold-mines?” Mitya shouted at the top of his voice and went off into a roar of laughter. “Would you like to go to the mines, Perhotin? There’s a lady here who’ll stump up three thousand for you, if only you’ll go. She did it for me, she’s so awfully fond of gold-mines. Do you know Madame Hohlakov?”

“I don’t know her, but I’ve heard of her and seen her. Did she really give you three thousand? Did she really?” said Pyotr Ilyitch, eyeing him dubiously.

“As soon as the sun rises to-morrow, as soon as Phœbus, ever young, flies upwards, praising and glorifying God, you go to her, this Madame Hohlakov, and ask her whether she did stump up that three thousand or not. Try and find out.”

“I don’t know on what terms you are ... since you say it so positively, I suppose she did give it to you. You’ve got the money in your hand, but instead of going to Siberia you’re spending it all.... Where are you really off to now, eh?”

“To Mokroe.”

“To Mokroe? But it’s night!”

“Once the lad had all, now the lad has naught,” cried Mitya suddenly.

“How ‘naught’? You say that with all those thousands!”

“I’m not talking about thousands. Damn thousands! I’m talking of the female character.

Fickle is the heart of woman Treacherous and full of vice;

I agree with Ulysses. That’s what he says.”

“I don’t understand you!”

“Am I drunk?”

“Not drunk, but worse.”

“I’m drunk in spirit, Pyotr Ilyitch, drunk in spirit! But that’s enough!”

“What are you doing, loading the pistol?”

“I’m loading the pistol.”

Unfastening the pistol-case, Mitya actually opened the powder horn, and carefully sprinkled and rammed in the charge. Then he took the bullet and, before inserting it, held it in two fingers in front of the candle.

“Why are you looking at the bullet?” asked Pyotr Ilyitch, watching him with uneasy curiosity.

“Oh, a fancy. Why, if you meant to put that bullet in your brain, would you look at it or not?”

“Why look at it?”

“It’s going into my brain, so it’s interesting to look and see what it’s like. But that’s foolishness, a moment’s foolishness. Now that’s done,” he added, putting in the bullet and driving it home with the ramrod. “Pyotr Ilyitch, my dear fellow, that’s nonsense, all nonsense, and if only you knew what nonsense! Give me a little piece of paper now.”

“Here’s some paper.”

“No, a clean new piece, writing-paper. That’s right.”

And taking a pen from the table, Mitya rapidly wrote two lines, folded the paper in four, and thrust it in his waistcoat pocket. He put the pistols in the case, locked it up, and kept it in his hand. Then he looked at Pyotr Ilyitch with a slow, thoughtful smile.

“Now, let’s go.”

“Where are we going? No, wait a minute.... Are you thinking of putting that bullet in your brain, perhaps?” Pyotr Ilyitch asked uneasily.

“I was fooling about the bullet! I want to live. I love life! You may be sure of that. I love golden-haired Phœbus and his warm light.... Dear Pyotr Ilyitch, do you know how to step aside?”

“What do you mean by ‘stepping aside’?”

“Making way. Making way for a dear creature, and for one I hate. And to let the one I hate become dear—that’s what making way means! And to say to them: God bless you, go your way, pass on, while I—”

“While you—?”

“That’s enough, let’s go.”

“Upon my word. I’ll tell some one to prevent your going there,” said Pyotr Ilyitch, looking at him. “What are you going to Mokroe for, now?”

“There’s a woman there, a woman. That’s enough for you. You shut up.”

“Listen, though you’re such a savage I’ve always liked you.... I feel anxious.”

“Thanks, old fellow. I’m a savage you say. Savages, savages! That’s what I am always saying. Savages! Why, here’s Misha! I was forgetting him.”

Misha ran in, post-haste, with a handful of notes in change, and reported that every one was in a bustle at the Plotnikovs’; “They’re carrying down the bottles, and the fish, and the tea; it will all be ready directly.” Mitya seized ten roubles and handed it to Pyotr Ilyitch, then tossed another ten-rouble note to Misha.

“Don’t dare to do such a thing!” cried Pyotr Ilyitch. “I won’t have it in my house, it’s a bad, demoralizing habit. Put your money away. Here, put it here, why waste it? It would come in handy to-morrow, and I dare say you’ll be coming to me to borrow ten roubles again. Why do you keep putting the notes in your side-pocket? Ah, you’ll lose them!”

“I say, my dear fellow, let’s go to Mokroe together.”

“What should I go for?”

“I say, let’s open a bottle at once, and drink to life! I want to drink, and especially to drink with you. I’ve never drunk with you, have I?”

“Very well, we can go to the ‘Metropolis.’ I was just going there.”

“I haven’t time for that. Let’s drink at the Plotnikovs’, in the back room. Shall I ask you a riddle?”

“Ask away.”

Mitya took the piece of paper out of his waistcoat pocket, unfolded it and showed it. In a large, distinct hand was written: “I punish myself for my whole life, my whole life I punish!”

“I will certainly speak to some one, I’ll go at once,” said Pyotr Ilyitch, after reading the paper.

“You won’t have time, dear boy, come and have a drink. March!”

Plotnikov’s shop was at the corner of the street, next door but one to Pyotr Ilyitch’s. It was the largest grocery shop in our town, and by no means a bad one, belonging to some rich merchants. They kept everything that could be got in a Petersburg shop, grocery of all sort, wines “bottled by the brothers Eliseyev,” fruits, cigars, tea, coffee, sugar, and so on. There were three shop-assistants and two errand boys always employed. Though our part of the country had grown poorer, the landowners had gone away, and trade had got worse, yet the grocery stores flourished as before, every year with increasing prosperity; there were plenty of purchasers for their goods.

They were awaiting Mitya with impatience in the shop. They had vivid recollections of how he had bought, three or four weeks ago, wine and goods of all sorts to the value of several hundred roubles, paid for in cash (they would never have let him have anything on credit, of course). They remembered that then, as now, he had had a bundle of hundred-rouble notes in his hand, and had scattered them at random, without bargaining, without reflecting, or caring to reflect what use so much wine and provisions would be to him. The story was told all over the town that, driving off then with Grushenka to Mokroe, he had “spent three thousand in one night and the following day, and had come back from the spree without a penny.” He had picked up a whole troop of gypsies (encamped in our neighborhood at the time), who for two days got money without stint out of him while he was drunk, and drank expensive wine without stint. People used to tell, laughing at Mitya, how he had given champagne to grimy-handed peasants, and feasted the village women and girls on sweets and Strasburg pies. Though to laugh at Mitya to his face was rather a risky proceeding, there was much laughter behind his back, especially in the tavern, at his own ingenuous public avowal that all he had got out of Grushenka by this “escapade” was “permission to kiss her foot, and that was the utmost she had allowed him.”

By the time Mitya and Pyotr Ilyitch reached the shop, they found a cart with three horses harnessed abreast with bells, and with Andrey, the driver, ready waiting for Mitya at the entrance. In the shop they had almost entirely finished packing one box of provisions, and were only waiting for Mitya’s arrival to nail it down and put it in the cart. Pyotr Ilyitch was astounded.

“Where did this cart come from in such a hurry?” he asked Mitya.

“I met Andrey as I ran to you, and told him to drive straight here to the shop. There’s no time to lose. Last time I drove with Timofey, but Timofey now has gone on before me with the witch. Shall we be very late, Andrey?”

“They’ll only get there an hour at most before us, not even that maybe. I got Timofey ready to start. I know how he’ll go. Their pace won’t be ours, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. How could it be? They won’t get there an hour earlier!” Andrey, a lanky, red-haired, middle-aged driver, wearing a full-skirted coat, and with a kaftan on his arm, replied warmly.

“Fifty roubles for vodka if we’re only an hour behind them.”

“I warrant the time, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. Ech, they won’t be half an hour before us, let alone an hour.”

Though Mitya bustled about seeing after things, he gave his orders strangely, as it were disconnectedly, and inconsecutively. He began a sentence and forgot the end of it. Pyotr Ilyitch found himself obliged to come to the rescue.

“Four hundred roubles’ worth, not less than four hundred roubles’ worth, just as it was then,” commanded Mitya. “Four dozen champagne, not a bottle less.”

“What do you want with so much? What’s it for? Stay!” cried Pyotr Ilyitch. “What’s this box? What’s in it? Surely there isn’t four hundred roubles’ worth here?”

The officious shopmen began explaining with oily politeness that the first box contained only half a dozen bottles of champagne, and only “the most indispensable articles,” such as savories, sweets, toffee, etc. But the main part of the goods ordered would be packed and sent off, as on the previous occasion, in a special cart also with three horses traveling at full speed, so that it would arrive not more than an hour later than Dmitri Fyodorovitch himself.

“Not more than an hour! Not more than an hour! And put in more toffee and fondants. The girls there are so fond of it,” Mitya insisted hotly.

“The fondants are all right. But what do you want with four dozen of champagne? One would be enough,” said Pyotr Ilyitch, almost angry. He began bargaining, asking for a bill of the goods, and refused to be satisfied. But he only succeeded in saving a hundred roubles. In the end it was agreed that only three hundred roubles’ worth should be sent.

“Well, you may go to the devil!” cried Pyotr Ilyitch, on second thoughts. “What’s it to do with me? Throw away your money, since it’s cost you nothing.”

“This way, my economist, this way, don’t be angry.” Mitya drew him into a room at the back of the shop. “They’ll give us a bottle here directly. We’ll taste it. Ech, Pyotr Ilyitch, come along with me, for you’re a nice fellow, the sort I like.”

Mitya sat down on a wicker chair, before a little table, covered with a dirty dinner-napkin. Pyotr Ilyitch sat down opposite, and the champagne soon appeared, and oysters were suggested to the gentlemen. “First-class oysters, the last lot in.”

“Hang the oysters. I don’t eat them. And we don’t need anything,” cried Pyotr Ilyitch, almost angrily.

“There’s no time for oysters,” said Mitya. “And I’m not hungry. Do you know, friend,” he said suddenly, with feeling, “I never have liked all this disorder.”

“Who does like it? Three dozen of champagne for peasants, upon my word, that’s enough to make any one angry!”

“That’s not what I mean. I’m talking of a higher order. There’s no order in me, no higher order. But ... that’s all over. There’s no need to grieve about it. It’s too late, damn it! My whole life has been disorder, and one must set it in order. Is that a pun, eh?”

“You’re raving, not making puns!”

“Glory be to God in Heaven, Glory be to God in me....

“That verse came from my heart once, it’s not a verse, but a tear.... I made it myself ... not while I was pulling the captain’s beard, though....”

“Why do you bring him in all of a sudden?”

“Why do I bring him in? Foolery! All things come to an end; all things are made equal. That’s the long and short of it.”

“You know, I keep thinking of your pistols.”

“That’s all foolery, too! Drink, and don’t be fanciful. I love life. I’ve loved life too much, shamefully much. Enough! Let’s drink to life, dear boy, I propose the toast. Why am I pleased with myself? I’m a scoundrel, but I’m satisfied with myself. And yet I’m tortured by the thought that I’m a scoundrel, but satisfied with myself. I bless the creation. I’m ready to bless God and His creation directly, but ... I must kill one noxious insect for fear it should crawl and spoil life for others.... Let us drink to life, dear brother. What can be more precious than life? Nothing! To life, and to one queen of queens!”

“Let’s drink to life and to your queen, too, if you like.”

They drank a glass each. Although Mitya was excited and expansive, yet he was melancholy, too. It was as though some heavy, overwhelming anxiety were weighing upon him.

“Misha ... here’s your Misha come! Misha, come here, my boy, drink this glass to Phœbus, the golden-haired, of to-morrow morn....”

“What are you giving it him for?” cried Pyotr Ilyitch, irritably.

“Yes, yes, yes, let me! I want to!”

“E—ech!”

Misha emptied the glass, bowed, and ran out.

“He’ll remember it afterwards,” Mitya remarked. “Woman, I love woman! What is woman? The queen of creation! My heart is sad, my heart is sad, Pyotr Ilyitch. Do you remember Hamlet? ‘I am very sorry, good Horatio! Alas, poor Yorick!’ Perhaps that’s me, Yorick? Yes, I’m Yorick now, and a skull afterwards.”

Pyotr Ilyitch listened in silence. Mitya, too, was silent for a while.

“What dog’s that you’ve got here?” he asked the shopman, casually, noticing a pretty little lap-dog with dark eyes, sitting in the corner.

“It belongs to Varvara Alexyevna, the mistress,” answered the clerk. “She brought it and forgot it here. It must be taken back to her.”

“I saw one like it ... in the regiment ...” murmured Mitya dreamily, “only that one had its hind leg broken.... By the way, Pyotr Ilyitch, I wanted to ask you: have you ever stolen anything in your life?”

“What a question!”

“Oh, I didn’t mean anything. From somebody’s pocket, you know. I don’t mean government money, every one steals that, and no doubt you do, too....”

“You go to the devil.”

“I’m talking of other people’s money. Stealing straight out of a pocket? Out of a purse, eh?”

“I stole twenty copecks from my mother when I was nine years old. I took it off the table on the sly, and held it tight in my hand.”

“Well, and what happened?”

“Oh, nothing. I kept it three days, then I felt ashamed, confessed, and gave it back.”

“And what then?”

“Naturally I was whipped. But why do you ask? Have you stolen something?”

“I have,” said Mitya, winking slyly.

“What have you stolen?” inquired Pyotr Ilyitch curiously.

“I stole twenty copecks from my mother when I was nine years old, and gave it back three days after.”

As he said this, Mitya suddenly got up.

“Dmitri Fyodorovitch, won’t you come now?” called Andrey from the door of the shop.

“Are you ready? We’ll come!” Mitya started. “A few more last words and—Andrey, a glass of vodka at starting. Give him some brandy as well! That box” (the one with the pistols) “put under my seat. Good-by, Pyotr Ilyitch, don’t remember evil against me.”

“But you’re coming back to-morrow?”

“Of course.”

“Will you settle the little bill now?” cried the clerk, springing forward.

“Oh, yes, the bill. Of course.”

He pulled the bundle of notes out of his pocket again, picked out three hundred roubles, threw them on the counter, and ran hurriedly out of the shop. Every one followed him out, bowing and wishing him good luck. Andrey, coughing from the brandy he had just swallowed, jumped up on the box. But Mitya was only just taking his seat when suddenly to his surprise he saw Fenya before him. She ran up panting, clasped her hands before him with a cry, and plumped down at his feet.

“Dmitri Fyodorovitch, dear good Dmitri Fyodorovitch, don’t harm my mistress. And it was I told you all about it.... And don’t murder him, he came first, he’s hers! He’ll marry Agrafena Alexandrovna now. That’s why he’s come back from Siberia. Dmitri Fyodorovitch, dear, don’t take a fellow creature’s life!”

“Tut—tut—tut! That’s it, is it? So you’re off there to make trouble!” muttered Pyotr Ilyitch. “Now, it’s all clear, as clear as daylight. Dmitri Fyodorovitch, give me your pistols at once if you mean to behave like a man,” he shouted aloud to Mitya. “Do you hear, Dmitri?”

“The pistols? Wait a bit, brother, I’ll throw them into the pool on the road,” answered Mitya. “Fenya, get up, don’t kneel to me. Mitya won’t hurt any one, the silly fool won’t hurt any one again. But I say, Fenya,” he shouted, after having taken his seat. “I hurt you just now, so forgive me and have pity on me, forgive a scoundrel.... But it doesn’t matter if you don’t. It’s all the same now. Now then, Andrey, look alive, fly along full speed!”

Andrey whipped up the horses, and the bells began ringing.

“Good-by, Pyotr Ilyitch! My last tear is for you!...”

“He’s not drunk, but he keeps babbling like a lunatic,” Pyotr Ilyitch thought as he watched him go. He had half a mind to stay and see the cart packed with the remaining wines and provisions, knowing that they would deceive and defraud Mitya. But, suddenly feeling vexed with himself, he turned away with a curse and went to the tavern to play billiards.

“He’s a fool, though he’s a good fellow,” he muttered as he went. “I’ve heard of that officer, Grushenka’s former flame. Well, if he has turned up.... Ech, those pistols! Damn it all! I’m not his nurse! Let them do what they like! Besides, it’ll all come to nothing. They’re a set of brawlers, that’s all. They’ll drink and fight, fight and make friends again. They are not men who do anything real. What does he mean by ‘I’m stepping aside, I’m punishing myself?’ It’ll come to nothing! He’s shouted such phrases a thousand times, drunk, in the taverns. But now he’s not drunk. ‘Drunk in spirit’—they’re fond of fine phrases, the villains. Am I his nurse? He must have been fighting, his face was all over blood. With whom? I shall find out at the ‘Metropolis.’ And his handkerchief was soaked in blood.... It’s still lying on my floor.... Hang it!”

He reached the tavern in a bad humor and at once made up a game. The game cheered him. He played a second game, and suddenly began telling one of his partners that Dmitri Karamazov had come in for some cash again—something like three thousand roubles, and had gone to Mokroe again to spend it with Grushenka.... This news roused singular interest in his listeners. They all spoke of it, not laughing, but with a strange gravity. They left off playing.

“Three thousand? But where can he have got three thousand?”

Questions were asked. The story of Madame Hohlakov’s present was received with skepticism.

“Hasn’t he robbed his old father?—that’s the question.”

“Three thousand! There’s something odd about it.”

“He boasted aloud that he would kill his father; we all heard him, here. And it was three thousand he talked about ...”

Pyotr Ilyitch listened. All at once he became short and dry in his answers. He said not a word about the blood on Mitya’s face and hands, though he had meant to speak of it at first.

They began a third game, and by degrees the talk about Mitya died away. But by the end of the third game, Pyotr Ilyitch felt no more desire for billiards; he laid down the cue, and without having supper as he had intended, he walked out of the tavern. When he reached the market-place he stood still in perplexity, wondering at himself. He realized that what he wanted was to go to Fyodor Pavlovitch’s and find out if anything had happened there. “On account of some stupid nonsense—as it’s sure to turn out—am I going to wake up the household and make a scandal? Fooh! damn it, is it my business to look after them?”

In a very bad humor he went straight home, and suddenly remembered Fenya. “Damn it all! I ought to have questioned her just now,” he thought with vexation, “I should have heard everything.” And the desire to speak to her, and so find out, became so pressing and importunate that when he was half-way home he turned abruptly and went towards the house where Grushenka lodged. Going up to the gate he knocked. The sound of the knock in the silence of the night sobered him and made him feel annoyed. And no one answered him; every one in the house was asleep.

“And I shall be making a fuss!” he thought, with a feeling of positive discomfort. But instead of going away altogether, he fell to knocking again with all his might, filling the street with clamor.

“Not coming? Well, I will knock them up, I will!” he muttered at each knock, fuming at himself, but at the same time he redoubled his knocks on the gate.

Chapter VI. “I Am Coming, Too!”

But Dmitri Fyodorovitch was speeding along the road. It was a little more than twenty versts to Mokroe, but Andrey’s three horses galloped at such a pace that the distance might be covered in an hour and a quarter. The swift motion revived Mitya. The air was fresh and cool, there were big stars shining in the sky. It was the very night, and perhaps the very hour, in which Alyosha fell on the earth, and rapturously swore to love it for ever and ever.

All was confusion, confusion, in Mitya’s soul, but although many things were goading his heart, at that moment his whole being was yearning for her, his queen, to whom he was flying to look on her for the last time. One thing I can say for certain; his heart did not waver for one instant. I shall perhaps not be believed when I say that this jealous lover felt not the slightest jealousy of this new rival, who seemed to have sprung out of the earth. If any other had appeared on the scene, he would have been jealous at once, and would perhaps have stained his fierce hands with blood again. But as he flew through the night, he felt no envy, no hostility even, for the man who had been her first lover.... It is true he had not yet seen him.

“Here there was no room for dispute: it was her right and his; this was her first love which, after five years, she had not forgotten; so she had loved him only for those five years, and I, how do I come in? What right have I? Step aside, Mitya, and make way! What am I now? Now everything is over apart from the officer—even if he had not appeared, everything would be over ...”

These words would roughly have expressed his feelings, if he had been capable of reasoning. But he could not reason at that moment. His present plan of action had arisen without reasoning. At Fenya’s first words, it had sprung from feeling, and been adopted in a flash, with all its consequences. And yet, in spite of his resolution, there was confusion in his soul, an agonizing confusion: his resolution did not give him peace. There was so much behind that tortured him. And it seemed strange to him, at moments, to think that he had written his own sentence of death with pen and paper: “I punish myself,” and the paper was lying there in his pocket, ready; the pistol was loaded; he had already resolved how, next morning, he would meet the first warm ray of “golden-haired Phœbus.”

And yet he could not be quit of the past, of all that he had left behind and that tortured him. He felt that miserably, and the thought of it sank into his heart with despair. There was one moment when he felt an impulse to stop Andrey, to jump out of the cart, to pull out his loaded pistol, and to make an end of everything without waiting for the dawn. But that moment flew by like a spark. The horses galloped on, “devouring space,” and as he drew near his goal, again the thought of her, of her alone, took more and more complete possession of his soul, chasing away the fearful images that had been haunting it. Oh, how he longed to look upon her, if only for a moment, if only from a distance!

“She’s now with _him_,” he thought, “now I shall see what she looks like with him, her first love, and that’s all I want.” Never had this woman, who was such a fateful influence in his life, aroused such love in his breast, such new and unknown feeling, surprising even to himself, a feeling tender to devoutness, to self-effacement before her! “I will efface myself!” he said, in a rush of almost hysterical ecstasy.

They had been galloping nearly an hour. Mitya was silent, and though Andrey was, as a rule, a talkative peasant, he did not utter a word, either. He seemed afraid to talk, he only whipped up smartly his three lean, but mettlesome, bay horses. Suddenly Mitya cried out in horrible anxiety:

“Andrey! What if they’re asleep?”

This thought fell upon him like a blow. It had not occurred to him before.

“It may well be that they’re gone to bed, by now, Dmitri Fyodorovitch.”

Mitya frowned as though in pain. Yes, indeed ... he was rushing there ... with such feelings ... while they were asleep ... she was asleep, perhaps, there too.... An angry feeling surged up in his heart.

“Drive on, Andrey! Whip them up! Look alive!” he cried, beside himself.

“But maybe they’re not in bed!” Andrey went on after a pause. “Timofey said they were a lot of them there—”

“At the station?”

“Not at the posting-station, but at Plastunov’s, at the inn, where they let out horses, too.”

“I know. So you say there are a lot of them? How’s that? Who are they?” cried Mitya, greatly dismayed at this unexpected news.

“Well, Timofey was saying they’re all gentlefolk. Two from our town—who they are I can’t say—and there are two others, strangers, maybe more besides. I didn’t ask particularly. They’ve set to playing cards, so Timofey said.”

“Cards?”

“So, maybe they’re not in bed if they’re at cards. It’s most likely not more than eleven.”

“Quicker, Andrey! Quicker!” Mitya cried again, nervously.

“May I ask you something, sir?” said Andrey, after a pause. “Only I’m afraid of angering you, sir.”

“What is it?”

“Why, Fenya threw herself at your feet just now, and begged you not to harm her mistress, and some one else, too ... so you see, sir— It’s I am taking you there ... forgive me, sir, it’s my conscience ... maybe it’s stupid of me to speak of it—”

Mitya suddenly seized him by the shoulders from behind.

“Are you a driver?” he asked frantically.

“Yes, sir.”

“Then you know that one has to make way. What would you say to a driver who wouldn’t make way for any one, but would just drive on and crush people? No, a driver mustn’t run over people. One can’t run over a man. One can’t spoil people’s lives. And if you have spoilt a life—punish yourself.... If only you’ve spoilt, if only you’ve ruined any one’s life—punish yourself and go away.”

These phrases burst from Mitya almost hysterically. Though Andrey was surprised at him, he kept up the conversation.

“That’s right, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, you’re quite right, one mustn’t crush or torment a man, or any kind of creature, for every creature is created by God. Take a horse, for instance, for some folks, even among us drivers, drive anyhow. Nothing will restrain them, they just force it along.”

“To hell?” Mitya interrupted, and went off into his abrupt, short laugh. “Andrey, simple soul,” he seized him by the shoulders again, “tell me, will Dmitri Fyodorovitch Karamazov go to hell, or not, what do you think?”

“I don’t know, darling, it depends on you, for you are ... you see, sir, when the Son of God was nailed on the Cross and died, He went straight down to hell from the Cross, and set free all sinners that were in agony. And the devil groaned, because he thought that he would get no more sinners in hell. And God said to him, then, ‘Don’t groan, for you shall have all the mighty of the earth, the rulers, the chief judges, and the rich men, and shall be filled up as you have been in all the ages till I come again.’ Those were His very words ...”

“A peasant legend! Capital! Whip up the left, Andrey!”

“So you see, sir, who it is hell’s for,” said Andrey, whipping up the left horse, “but you’re like a little child ... that’s how we look on you ... and though you’re hasty-tempered, sir, yet God will forgive you for your kind heart.”

“And you, do you forgive me, Andrey?”

“What should I forgive you for, sir? You’ve never done me any harm.”

“No, for every one, for every one, you here alone, on the road, will you forgive me for every one? Speak, simple peasant heart!”

“Oh, sir! I feel afraid of driving you, your talk is so strange.”

But Mitya did not hear. He was frantically praying and muttering to himself.

“Lord, receive me, with all my lawlessness, and do not condemn me. Let me pass by Thy judgment ... do not condemn me, for I have condemned myself, do not condemn me, for I love Thee, O Lord. I am a wretch, but I love Thee. If Thou sendest me to hell, I shall love Thee there, and from there I shall cry out that I love Thee for ever and ever.... But let me love to the end.... Here and now for just five hours ... till the first light of Thy day ... for I love the queen of my soul ... I love her and I cannot help loving her. Thou seest my whole heart.... I shall gallop up, I shall fall before her and say, ‘You are right to pass on and leave me. Farewell and forget your victim ... never fret yourself about me!’”

“Mokroe!” cried Andrey, pointing ahead with his whip.

Through the pale darkness of the night loomed a solid black mass of buildings, flung down, as it were, in the vast plain. The village of Mokroe numbered two thousand inhabitants, but at that hour all were asleep, and only here and there a few lights still twinkled.

“Drive on, Andrey, I come!” Mitya exclaimed, feverishly.

“They’re not asleep,” said Andrey again, pointing with his whip to the Plastunovs’ inn, which was at the entrance to the village. The six windows, looking on the street, were all brightly lighted up.