Part 4

It happened one clear, warm, moonlight night in September (many years ago) five or six drunken revelers were returning from the club at a very late hour, according to our provincial notions. They passed through the “back-way,” which led between the back gardens of the houses, with hurdles on either side. This way leads out on to the bridge over the long, stinking pool which we were accustomed to call a river. Among the nettles and burdocks under the hurdle our revelers saw Lizaveta asleep. They stopped to look at her, laughing, and began jesting with unbridled licentiousness. It occurred to one young gentleman to make the whimsical inquiry whether any one could possibly look upon such an animal as a woman, and so forth.... They all pronounced with lofty repugnance that it was impossible. But Fyodor Pavlovitch, who was among them, sprang forward and declared that it was by no means impossible, and that, indeed, there was a certain piquancy about it, and so on.... It is true that at that time he was overdoing his part as a buffoon. He liked to put himself forward and entertain the company, ostensibly on equal terms, of course, though in reality he was on a servile footing with them. It was just at the time when he had received the news of his first wife’s death in Petersburg, and, with crape upon his hat, was drinking and behaving so shamelessly that even the most reckless among us were shocked at the sight of him. The revelers, of course, laughed at this unexpected opinion; and one of them even began challenging him to act upon it. The others repelled the idea even more emphatically, although still with the utmost hilarity, and at last they went on their way. Later on, Fyodor Pavlovitch swore that he had gone with them, and perhaps it was so, no one knows for certain, and no one ever knew. But five or six months later, all the town was talking, with intense and sincere indignation, of Lizaveta’s condition, and trying to find out who was the miscreant who had wronged her. Then suddenly a terrible rumor was all over the town that this miscreant was no other than Fyodor Pavlovitch. Who set the rumor going? Of that drunken band five had left the town and the only one still among us was an elderly and much respected civil councilor, the father of grown-up daughters, who could hardly have spread the tale, even if there had been any foundation for it. But rumor pointed straight at Fyodor Pavlovitch, and persisted in pointing at him. Of course this was no great grievance to him: he would not have troubled to contradict a set of tradespeople. In those days he was proud, and did not condescend to talk except in his own circle of the officials and nobles, whom he entertained so well.

At the time, Grigory stood up for his master vigorously. He provoked quarrels and altercations in defense of him and succeeded in bringing some people round to his side. “It’s the wench’s own fault,” he asserted, and the culprit was Karp, a dangerous convict, who had escaped from prison and whose name was well known to us, as he had hidden in our town. This conjecture sounded plausible, for it was remembered that Karp had been in the neighborhood just at that time in the autumn, and had robbed three people. But this affair and all the talk about it did not estrange popular sympathy from the poor idiot. She was better looked after than ever. A well-to-do merchant’s widow named Kondratyev arranged to take her into her house at the end of April, meaning not to let her go out until after the confinement. They kept a constant watch over her, but in spite of their vigilance she escaped on the very last day, and made her way into Fyodor Pavlovitch’s garden. How, in her condition, she managed to climb over the high, strong fence remained a mystery. Some maintained that she must have been lifted over by somebody; others hinted at something more uncanny. The most likely explanation is that it happened naturally—that Lizaveta, accustomed to clambering over hurdles to sleep in gardens, had somehow managed to climb this fence, in spite of her condition, and had leapt down, injuring herself.

Grigory rushed to Marfa and sent her to Lizaveta, while he ran to fetch an old midwife who lived close by. They saved the baby, but Lizaveta died at dawn. Grigory took the baby, brought it home, and making his wife sit down, put it on her lap. “A child of God—an orphan is akin to all,” he said, “and to us above others. Our little lost one has sent us this, who has come from the devil’s son and a holy innocent. Nurse him and weep no more.”

So Marfa brought up the child. He was christened Pavel, to which people were not slow in adding Fyodorovitch (son of Fyodor). Fyodor Pavlovitch did not object to any of this, and thought it amusing, though he persisted vigorously in denying his responsibility. The townspeople were pleased at his adopting the foundling. Later on, Fyodor Pavlovitch invented a surname for the child, calling him Smerdyakov, after his mother’s nickname.

So this Smerdyakov became Fyodor Pavlovitch’s second servant, and was living in the lodge with Grigory and Marfa at the time our story begins. He was employed as cook. I ought to say something of this Smerdyakov, but I am ashamed of keeping my readers’ attention so long occupied with these common menials, and I will go back to my story, hoping to say more of Smerdyakov in the course of it.

Chapter III. The Confession Of A Passionate Heart—In Verse

Alyosha remained for some time irresolute after hearing the command his father shouted to him from the carriage. But in spite of his uneasiness he did not stand still. That was not his way. He went at once to the kitchen to find out what his father had been doing above. Then he set off, trusting that on the way he would find some answer to the doubt tormenting him. I hasten to add that his father’s shouts, commanding him to return home “with his mattress and pillow” did not frighten him in the least. He understood perfectly that those peremptory shouts were merely “a flourish” to produce an effect. In the same way a tradesman in our town who was celebrating his name-day with a party of friends, getting angry at being refused more vodka, smashed up his own crockery and furniture and tore his own and his wife’s clothes, and finally broke his windows, all for the sake of effect. Next day, of course, when he was sober, he regretted the broken cups and saucers. Alyosha knew that his father would let him go back to the monastery next day, possibly even that evening. Moreover, he was fully persuaded that his father might hurt any one else, but would not hurt him. Alyosha was certain that no one in the whole world ever would want to hurt him, and, what is more, he knew that no one could hurt him. This was for him an axiom, assumed once for all without question, and he went his way without hesitation, relying on it.

But at that moment an anxiety of a different sort disturbed him, and worried him the more because he could not formulate it. It was the fear of a woman, of Katerina Ivanovna, who had so urgently entreated him in the note handed to him by Madame Hohlakov to come and see her about something. This request and the necessity of going had at once aroused an uneasy feeling in his heart, and this feeling had grown more and more painful all the morning in spite of the scenes at the hermitage and at the Father Superior’s. He was not uneasy because he did not know what she would speak of and what he must answer. And he was not afraid of her simply as a woman. Though he knew little of women, he had spent his life, from early childhood till he entered the monastery, entirely with women. He was afraid of that woman, Katerina Ivanovna. He had been afraid of her from the first time he saw her. He had only seen her two or three times, and had only chanced to say a few words to her. He thought of her as a beautiful, proud, imperious girl. It was not her beauty which troubled him, but something else. And the vagueness of his apprehension increased the apprehension itself. The girl’s aims were of the noblest, he knew that. She was trying to save his brother Dmitri simply through generosity, though he had already behaved badly to her. Yet, although Alyosha recognized and did justice to all these fine and generous sentiments, a shiver began to run down his back as soon as he drew near her house.

He reflected that he would not find Ivan, who was so intimate a friend, with her, for Ivan was certainly now with his father. Dmitri he was even more certain not to find there, and he had a foreboding of the reason. And so his conversation would be with her alone. He had a great longing to run and see his brother Dmitri before that fateful interview. Without showing him the letter, he could talk to him about it. But Dmitri lived a long way off, and he was sure to be away from home too. Standing still for a minute, he reached a final decision. Crossing himself with a rapid and accustomed gesture, and at once smiling, he turned resolutely in the direction of his terrible lady.

He knew her house. If he went by the High Street and then across the market-place, it was a long way round. Though our town is small, it is scattered, and the houses are far apart. And meanwhile his father was expecting him, and perhaps had not yet forgotten his command. He might be unreasonable, and so he had to make haste to get there and back. So he decided to take a short cut by the back-way, for he knew every inch of the ground. This meant skirting fences, climbing over hurdles, and crossing other people’s back-yards, where every one he met knew him and greeted him. In this way he could reach the High Street in half the time.

He had to pass the garden adjoining his father’s, and belonging to a little tumbledown house with four windows. The owner of this house, as Alyosha knew, was a bedridden old woman, living with her daughter, who had been a genteel maid-servant in generals’ families in Petersburg. Now she had been at home a year, looking after her sick mother. She always dressed up in fine clothes, though her old mother and she had sunk into such poverty that they went every day to Fyodor Pavlovitch’s kitchen for soup and bread, which Marfa gave readily. Yet, though the young woman came up for soup, she had never sold any of her dresses, and one of these even had a long train—a fact which Alyosha had learned from Rakitin, who always knew everything that was going on in the town. He had forgotten it as soon as he heard it, but now, on reaching the garden, he remembered the dress with the train, raised his head, which had been bowed in thought, and came upon something quite unexpected.

Over the hurdle in the garden, Dmitri, mounted on something, was leaning forward, gesticulating violently, beckoning to him, obviously afraid to utter a word for fear of being overheard. Alyosha ran up to the hurdle.

“It’s a good thing you looked up. I was nearly shouting to you,” Mitya said in a joyful, hurried whisper. “Climb in here quickly! How splendid that you’ve come! I was just thinking of you!”

Alyosha was delighted too, but he did not know how to get over the hurdle. Mitya put his powerful hand under his elbow to help him jump. Tucking up his cassock, Alyosha leapt over the hurdle with the agility of a bare-legged street urchin.

“Well done! Now come along,” said Mitya in an enthusiastic whisper.

“Where?” whispered Alyosha, looking about him and finding himself in a deserted garden with no one near but themselves. The garden was small, but the house was at least fifty paces away.

“There’s no one here. Why do you whisper?” asked Alyosha.

“Why do I whisper? Deuce take it!” cried Dmitri at the top of his voice. “You see what silly tricks nature plays one. I am here in secret, and on the watch. I’ll explain later on, but, knowing it’s a secret, I began whispering like a fool, when there’s no need. Let us go. Over there. Till then be quiet. I want to kiss you.

Glory to God in the world, Glory to God in me ...

I was just repeating that, sitting here, before you came.”

The garden was about three acres in extent, and planted with trees only along the fence at the four sides. There were apple-trees, maples, limes and birch-trees. The middle of the garden was an empty grass space, from which several hundredweight of hay was carried in the summer. The garden was let out for a few roubles for the summer. There were also plantations of raspberries and currants and gooseberries laid out along the sides; a kitchen garden had been planted lately near the house.

Dmitri led his brother to the most secluded corner of the garden. There, in a thicket of lime-trees and old bushes of black currant, elder, snowball-tree, and lilac, there stood a tumble-down green summer-house, blackened with age. Its walls were of lattice-work, but there was still a roof which could give shelter. God knows when this summer-house was built. There was a tradition that it had been put up some fifty years before by a retired colonel called von Schmidt, who owned the house at that time. It was all in decay, the floor was rotting, the planks were loose, the woodwork smelled musty. In the summer-house there was a green wooden table fixed in the ground, and round it were some green benches upon which it was still possible to sit. Alyosha had at once observed his brother’s exhilarated condition, and on entering the arbor he saw half a bottle of brandy and a wineglass on the table.

“That’s brandy,” Mitya laughed. “I see your look: ‘He’s drinking again!’ Distrust the apparition.

Distrust the worthless, lying crowd, And lay aside thy doubts.

I’m not drinking, I’m only ‘indulging,’ as that pig, your Rakitin, says. He’ll be a civil councilor one day, but he’ll always talk about ‘indulging.’ Sit down. I could take you in my arms, Alyosha, and press you to my bosom till I crush you, for in the whole world—in reality—in re-al-i-ty—(can you take it in?) I love no one but you!”

He uttered the last words in a sort of exaltation.

“No one but you and one ‘jade’ I have fallen in love with, to my ruin. But being in love doesn’t mean loving. You may be in love with a woman and yet hate her. Remember that! I can talk about it gayly still. Sit down here by the table and I’ll sit beside you and look at you, and go on talking. You shall keep quiet and I’ll go on talking, for the time has come. But on reflection, you know, I’d better speak quietly, for here—here—you can never tell what ears are listening. I will explain everything; as they say, ‘the story will be continued.’ Why have I been longing for you? Why have I been thirsting for you all these days, and just now? (It’s five days since I’ve cast anchor here.) Because it’s only to you I can tell everything; because I must, because I need you, because to-morrow I shall fly from the clouds, because to-morrow life is ending and beginning. Have you ever felt, have you ever dreamt of falling down a precipice into a pit? That’s just how I’m falling, but not in a dream. And I’m not afraid, and don’t you be afraid. At least, I am afraid, but I enjoy it. It’s not enjoyment though, but ecstasy. Damn it all, whatever it is! A strong spirit, a weak spirit, a womanish spirit—whatever it is! Let us praise nature: you see what sunshine, how clear the sky is, the leaves are all green, it’s still summer; four o’clock in the afternoon and the stillness! Where were you going?”

“I was going to father’s, but I meant to go to Katerina Ivanovna’s first.”

“To her, and to father! Oo! what a coincidence! Why was I waiting for you? Hungering and thirsting for you in every cranny of my soul and even in my ribs? Why, to send you to father and to her, Katerina Ivanovna, so as to have done with her and with father. To send an angel. I might have sent any one, but I wanted to send an angel. And here you are on your way to see father and her.”

“Did you really mean to send me?” cried Alyosha with a distressed expression.

“Stay! You knew it! And I see you understand it all at once. But be quiet, be quiet for a time. Don’t be sorry, and don’t cry.”

Dmitri stood up, thought a moment, and put his finger to his forehead.

“She’s asked you, written to you a letter or something, that’s why you’re going to her? You wouldn’t be going except for that?”

“Here is her note.” Alyosha took it out of his pocket. Mitya looked through it quickly.

“And you were going the back-way! Oh, gods, I thank you for sending him by the back-way, and he came to me like the golden fish to the silly old fishermen in the fable! Listen, Alyosha, listen, brother! Now I mean to tell you everything, for I must tell some one. An angel in heaven I’ve told already; but I want to tell an angel on earth. You are an angel on earth. You will hear and judge and forgive. And that’s what I need, that some one above me should forgive. Listen! If two people break away from everything on earth and fly off into the unknown, or at least one of them, and before flying off or going to ruin he comes to some one else and says, ‘Do this for me’—some favor never asked before that could only be asked on one’s deathbed—would that other refuse, if he were a friend or a brother?”

“I will do it, but tell me what it is, and make haste,” said Alyosha.

“Make haste! H’m!... Don’t be in a hurry, Alyosha, you hurry and worry yourself. There’s no need to hurry now. Now the world has taken a new turning. Ah, Alyosha, what a pity you can’t understand ecstasy. But what am I saying to him? As though you didn’t understand it. What an ass I am! What am I saying? ‘Be noble, O man!’—who says that?”

Alyosha made up his mind to wait. He felt that, perhaps, indeed, his work lay here. Mitya sank into thought for a moment, with his elbow on the table and his head in his hand. Both were silent.

“Alyosha,” said Mitya, “you’re the only one who won’t laugh. I should like to begin—my confession—with Schiller’s _Hymn to Joy_, _An die Freude_! I don’t know German, I only know it’s called that. Don’t think I’m talking nonsense because I’m drunk. I’m not a bit drunk. Brandy’s all very well, but I need two bottles to make me drunk:

Silenus with his rosy phiz Upon his stumbling ass.

But I’ve not drunk a quarter of a bottle, and I’m not Silenus. I’m not Silenus, though I am strong,[1] for I’ve made a decision once for all. Forgive me the pun; you’ll have to forgive me a lot more than puns to-day. Don’t be uneasy. I’m not spinning it out. I’m talking sense, and I’ll come to the point in a minute. I won’t keep you in suspense. Stay, how does it go?”

He raised his head, thought a minute, and began with enthusiasm:

“Wild and fearful in his cavern Hid the naked troglodyte, And the homeless nomad wandered Laying waste the fertile plain. Menacing with spear and arrow In the woods the hunter strayed.... Woe to all poor wretches stranded On those cruel and hostile shores!

“From the peak of high Olympus Came the mother Ceres down, Seeking in those savage regions Her lost daughter Proserpine. But the Goddess found no refuge, Found no kindly welcome there, And no temple bearing witness To the worship of the gods.

“From the fields and from the vineyards Came no fruits to deck the feasts, Only flesh of bloodstained victims Smoldered on the altar-fires, And where’er the grieving goddess Turns her melancholy gaze, Sunk in vilest degradation Man his loathsomeness displays.”

Mitya broke into sobs and seized Alyosha’s hand.

“My dear, my dear, in degradation, in degradation now, too. There’s a terrible amount of suffering for man on earth, a terrible lot of trouble. Don’t think I’m only a brute in an officer’s uniform, wallowing in dirt and drink. I hardly think of anything but of that degraded man—if only I’m not lying. I pray God I’m not lying and showing off. I think about that man because I am that man myself.

Would he purge his soul from vileness And attain to light and worth, He must turn and cling for ever To his ancient Mother Earth.

But the difficulty is how am I to cling for ever to Mother Earth. I don’t kiss her. I don’t cleave to her bosom. Am I to become a peasant or a shepherd? I go on and I don’t know whether I’m going to shame or to light and joy. That’s the trouble, for everything in the world is a riddle! And whenever I’ve happened to sink into the vilest degradation (and it’s always been happening) I always read that poem about Ceres and man. Has it reformed me? Never! For I’m a Karamazov. For when I do leap into the pit, I go headlong with my heels up, and am pleased to be falling in that degrading attitude, and pride myself upon it. And in the very depths of that degradation I begin a hymn of praise. Let me be accursed. Let me be vile and base, only let me kiss the hem of the veil in which my God is shrouded. Though I may be following the devil, I am Thy son, O Lord, and I love Thee, and I feel the joy without which the world cannot stand.

Joy everlasting fostereth The soul of all creation, It is her secret ferment fires The cup of life with flame. ’Tis at her beck the grass hath turned Each blade towards the light And solar systems have evolved From chaos and dark night, Filling the realms of boundless space Beyond the sage’s sight. At bounteous Nature’s kindly breast, All things that breathe drink Joy, And birds and beasts and creeping things All follow where She leads. Her gifts to man are friends in need, The wreath, the foaming must, To angels—vision of God’s throne, To insects—sensual lust.

But enough poetry! I am in tears; let me cry. It may be foolishness that every one would laugh at. But you won’t laugh. Your eyes are shining, too. Enough poetry. I want to tell you now about the insects to whom God gave “sensual lust.”

To insects—sensual lust.

I am that insect, brother, and it is said of me specially. All we Karamazovs are such insects, and, angel as you are, that insect lives in you, too, and will stir up a tempest in your blood. Tempests, because sensual lust is a tempest—worse than a tempest! Beauty is a terrible and awful thing! It is terrible because it has not been fathomed and never can be fathomed, for God sets us nothing but riddles. Here the boundaries meet and all contradictions exist side by side. I am not a cultivated man, brother, but I’ve thought a lot about this. It’s terrible what mysteries there are! Too many riddles weigh men down on earth. We must solve them as we can, and try to keep a dry skin in the water. Beauty! I can’t endure the thought that a man of lofty mind and heart begins with the ideal of the Madonna and ends with the ideal of Sodom. What’s still more awful is that a man with the ideal of Sodom in his soul does not renounce the ideal of the Madonna, and his heart may be on fire with that ideal, genuinely on fire, just as in his days of youth and innocence. Yes, man is broad, too broad, indeed. I’d have him narrower. The devil only knows what to make of it! What to the mind is shameful is beauty and nothing else to the heart. Is there beauty in Sodom? Believe me, that for the immense mass of mankind beauty is found in Sodom. Did you know that secret? The awful thing is that beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and the devil are fighting there and the battlefield is the heart of man. But a man always talks of his own ache. Listen, now to come to facts.”

Chapter IV. The Confession Of A Passionate Heart—In Anecdote

“I was leading a wild life then. Father said just now that I spent several thousand roubles in seducing young girls. That’s a swinish invention, and there was nothing of the sort. And if there was, I didn’t need money simply for _that_. With me money is an accessory, the overflow of my heart, the framework. To-day she would be my lady, to-morrow a wench out of the streets in her place. I entertained them both. I threw away money by the handful on music, rioting, and gypsies. Sometimes I gave it to the ladies, too, for they’ll take it greedily, that must be admitted, and be pleased and thankful for it. Ladies used to be fond of me: not all of them, but it happened, it happened. But I always liked side-paths, little dark back-alleys behind the main road—there one finds adventures and surprises, and precious metal in the dirt. I am speaking figuratively, brother. In the town I was in, there were no such back-alleys in the literal sense, but morally there were. If you were like me, you’d know what that means. I loved vice, I loved the ignominy of vice. I loved cruelty; am I not a bug, am I not a noxious insect? In fact a Karamazov! Once we went, a whole lot of us, for a picnic, in seven sledges. It was dark, it was winter, and I began squeezing a girl’s hand, and forced her to kiss me. She was the daughter of an official, a sweet, gentle, submissive creature. She allowed me, she allowed me much in the dark. She thought, poor thing, that I should come next day to make her an offer (I was looked upon as a good match, too). But I didn’t say a word to her for five months. I used to see her in a corner at dances (we were always having dances), her eyes watching me. I saw how they glowed with fire—a fire of gentle indignation. This game only tickled that insect lust I cherished in my soul. Five months later she married an official and left the town, still angry, and still, perhaps, in love with me. Now they live happily. Observe that I told no one. I didn’t boast of it. Though I’m full of low desires, and love what’s low, I’m not dishonorable. You’re blushing; your eyes flashed. Enough of this filth with you. And all this was nothing much—wayside blossoms _à la_ Paul de Kock—though the cruel insect had already grown strong in my soul. I’ve a perfect album of reminiscences, brother. God bless them, the darlings. I tried to break it off without quarreling. And I never gave them away. I never bragged of one of them. But that’s enough. You can’t suppose I brought you here simply to talk of such nonsense. No, I’m going to tell you something more curious; and don’t be surprised that I’m glad to tell you, instead of being ashamed.”

“You say that because I blushed,” Alyosha said suddenly. “I wasn’t blushing at what you were saying or at what you’ve done. I blushed because I am the same as you are.”

“You? Come, that’s going a little too far!”

“No, it’s not too far,” said Alyosha warmly (obviously the idea was not a new one). “The ladder’s the same. I’m at the bottom step, and you’re above, somewhere about the thirteenth. That’s how I see it. But it’s all the same. Absolutely the same in kind. Any one on the bottom step is bound to go up to the top one.”

“Then one ought not to step on at all.”

“Any one who can help it had better not.”

“But can you?”

“I think not.”

“Hush, Alyosha, hush, darling! I could kiss your hand, you touch me so. That rogue Grushenka has an eye for men. She told me once that she’d devour you one day. There, there, I won’t! From this field of corruption fouled by flies, let’s pass to my tragedy, also befouled by flies, that is by every sort of vileness. Although the old man told lies about my seducing innocence, there really was something of the sort in my tragedy, though it was only once, and then it did not come off. The old man who has reproached me with what never happened does not even know of this fact; I never told any one about it. You’re the first, except Ivan, of course—Ivan knows everything. He knew about it long before you. But Ivan’s a tomb.”

“Ivan’s a tomb?”

“Yes.”

Alyosha listened with great attention.

“I was lieutenant in a line regiment, but still I was under supervision, like a kind of convict. Yet I was awfully well received in the little town. I spent money right and left. I was thought to be rich; I thought so myself. But I must have pleased them in other ways as well. Although they shook their heads over me, they liked me. My colonel, who was an old man, took a sudden dislike to me. He was always down upon me, but I had powerful friends, and, moreover, all the town was on my side, so he couldn’t do me much harm. I was in fault myself for refusing to treat him with proper respect. I was proud. This obstinate old fellow, who was really a very good sort, kind-hearted and hospitable, had had two wives, both dead. His first wife, who was of a humble family, left a daughter as unpretentious as herself. She was a young woman of four and twenty when I was there, and was living with her father and an aunt, her mother’s sister. The aunt was simple and illiterate; the niece was simple but lively. I like to say nice things about people. I never knew a woman of more charming character than Agafya—fancy, her name was Agafya Ivanovna! And she wasn’t bad-looking either, in the Russian style: tall, stout, with a full figure, and beautiful eyes, though a rather coarse face. She had not married, although she had had two suitors. She refused them, but was as cheerful as ever. I was intimate with her, not in ‘that’ way, it was pure friendship. I have often been friendly with women quite innocently. I used to talk to her with shocking frankness, and she only laughed. Many women like such freedom, and she was a girl too, which made it very amusing. Another thing, one could never think of her as a young lady. She and her aunt lived in her father’s house with a sort of voluntary humility, not putting themselves on an equality with other people. She was a general favorite, and of use to every one, for she was a clever dressmaker. She had a talent for it. She gave her services freely without asking for payment, but if any one offered her payment, she didn’t refuse. The colonel, of course, was a very different matter. He was one of the chief personages in the district. He kept open house, entertained the whole town, gave suppers and dances. At the time I arrived and joined the battalion, all the town was talking of the expected return of the colonel’s second daughter, a great beauty, who had just left a fashionable school in the capital. This second daughter is Katerina Ivanovna, and she was the child of the second wife, who belonged to a distinguished general’s family; although, as I learnt on good authority, she too brought the colonel no money. She had connections, and that was all. There may have been expectations, but they had come to nothing.

“Yet, when the young lady came from boarding-school on a visit, the whole town revived. Our most distinguished ladies—two ‘Excellencies’ and a colonel’s wife—and all the rest following their lead, at once took her up and gave entertainments in her honor. She was the belle of the balls and picnics, and they got up _tableaux vivants_ in aid of distressed governesses. I took no notice, I went on as wildly as before, and one of my exploits at the time set all the town talking. I saw her eyes taking my measure one evening at the battery commander’s, but I didn’t go up to her, as though I disdained her acquaintance. I did go up and speak to her at an evening party not long after. She scarcely looked at me, and compressed her lips scornfully. ‘Wait a bit. I’ll have my revenge,’ thought I. I behaved like an awful fool on many occasions at that time, and I was conscious of it myself. What made it worse was that I felt that ‘Katenka’ was not an innocent boarding-school miss, but a person of character, proud and really high-principled; above all, she had education and intellect, and I had neither. You think I meant to make her an offer? No, I simply wanted to revenge myself, because I was such a hero and she didn’t seem to feel it.

“Meanwhile, I spent my time in drink and riot, till the lieutenant-colonel put me under arrest for three days. Just at that time father sent me six thousand roubles in return for my sending him a deed giving up all claims upon him—settling our accounts, so to speak, and saying that I wouldn’t expect anything more. I didn’t understand a word of it at the time. Until I came here, Alyosha, till the last few days, indeed, perhaps even now, I haven’t been able to make head or tail of my money affairs with father. But never mind that, we’ll talk of it later.

“Just as I received the money, I got a letter from a friend telling me something that interested me immensely. The authorities, I learnt, were dissatisfied with our lieutenant-colonel. He was suspected of irregularities; in fact, his enemies were preparing a surprise for him. And then the commander of the division arrived, and kicked up the devil of a shindy. Shortly afterwards he was ordered to retire. I won’t tell you how it all happened. He had enemies certainly. Suddenly there was a marked coolness in the town towards him and all his family. His friends all turned their backs on him. Then I took my first step. I met Agafya Ivanovna, with whom I’d always kept up a friendship, and said, ‘Do you know there’s a deficit of 4,500 roubles of government money in your father’s accounts?’

“‘What do you mean? What makes you say so? The general was here not long ago, and everything was all right.’

“‘Then it was, but now it isn’t.’

“She was terribly scared.

“‘Don’t frighten me!’ she said. ‘Who told you so?’

“‘Don’t be uneasy,’ I said, ‘I won’t tell any one. You know I’m as silent as the tomb. I only wanted, in view of “possibilities,” to add, that when they demand that 4,500 roubles from your father, and he can’t produce it, he’ll be tried, and made to serve as a common soldier in his old age, unless you like to send me your young lady secretly. I’ve just had money paid me. I’ll give her four thousand, if you like, and keep the secret religiously.’

“‘Ah, you scoundrel!’—that’s what she said. ‘You wicked scoundrel! How dare you!’

“She went away furiously indignant, while I shouted after her once more that the secret should be kept sacred. Those two simple creatures, Agafya and her aunt, I may as well say at once, behaved like perfect angels all through this business. They genuinely adored their ‘Katya,’ thought her far above them, and waited on her, hand and foot. But Agafya told her of our conversation. I found that out afterwards. She didn’t keep it back, and of course that was all I wanted.

“Suddenly the new major arrived to take command of the battalion. The old lieutenant-colonel was taken ill at once, couldn’t leave his room for two days, and didn’t hand over the government money. Dr. Kravchenko declared that he really was ill. But I knew for a fact, and had known for a long time, that for the last four years the money had never been in his hands except when the Commander made his visits of inspection. He used to lend it to a trustworthy person, a merchant of our town called Trifonov, an old widower, with a big beard and gold-rimmed spectacles. He used to go to the fair, do a profitable business with the money, and return the whole sum to the colonel, bringing with it a present from the fair, as well as interest on the loan. But this time (I heard all about it quite by chance from Trifonov’s son and heir, a driveling youth and one of the most vicious in the world)—this time, I say, Trifonov brought nothing back from the fair. The lieutenant-colonel flew to him. ‘I’ve never received any money from you, and couldn’t possibly have received any.’ That was all the answer he got. So now our lieutenant-colonel is confined to the house, with a towel round his head, while they’re all three busy putting ice on it. All at once an orderly arrives on the scene with the book and the order to ‘hand over the battalion money immediately, within two hours.’ He signed the book (I saw the signature in the book afterwards), stood up, saying he would put on his uniform, ran to his bedroom, loaded his double-barreled gun with a service bullet, took the boot off his right foot, fixed the gun against his chest, and began feeling for the trigger with his foot. But Agafya, remembering what I had told her, had her suspicions. She stole up and peeped into the room just in time. She rushed in, flung herself upon him from behind, threw her arms round him, and the gun went off, hit the ceiling, but hurt no one. The others ran in, took away the gun, and held him by the arms. I heard all about this afterwards. I was at home, it was getting dusk, and I was just preparing to go out. I had dressed, brushed my hair, scented my handkerchief, and taken up my cap, when suddenly the door opened, and facing me in the room stood Katerina Ivanovna.

“It’s strange how things happen sometimes. No one had seen her in the street, so that no one knew of it in the town. I lodged with two decrepit old ladies, who looked after me. They were most obliging old things, ready to do anything for me, and at my request were as silent afterwards as two cast-iron posts. Of course I grasped the position at once. She walked in and looked straight at me, her dark eyes determined, even defiant, but on her lips and round her mouth I saw uncertainty.

“‘My sister told me,’ she began, ‘that you would give me 4,500 roubles if I came to you for it—myself. I have come ... give me the money!’

“She couldn’t keep it up. She was breathless, frightened, her voice failed her, and the corners of her mouth and the lines round it quivered. Alyosha, are you listening, or are you asleep?”

“Mitya, I know you will tell the whole truth,” said Alyosha in agitation.

“I am telling it. If I tell the whole truth just as it happened I shan’t spare myself. My first idea was a—Karamazov one. Once I was bitten by a centipede, brother, and laid up a fortnight with fever from it. Well, I felt a centipede biting at my heart then—a noxious insect, you understand? I looked her up and down. You’ve seen her? She’s a beauty. But she was beautiful in another way then. At that moment she was beautiful because she was noble, and I was a scoundrel; she in all the grandeur of her generosity and sacrifice for her father, and I—a bug! And, scoundrel as I was, she was altogether at my mercy, body and soul. She was hemmed in. I tell you frankly, that thought, that venomous thought, so possessed my heart that it almost swooned with suspense. It seemed as if there could be no resisting it; as though I should act like a bug, like a venomous spider, without a spark of pity. I could scarcely breathe. Understand, I should have gone next day to ask for her hand, so that it might end honorably, so to speak, and that nobody would or could know. For though I’m a man of base desires, I’m honest. And at that very second some voice seemed to whisper in my ear, ‘But when you come to-morrow to make your proposal, that girl won’t even see you; she’ll order her coachman to kick you out of the yard. “Publish it through all the town,” she would say, “I’m not afraid of you.”’ I looked at the young lady, my voice had not deceived me. That is how it would be, not a doubt of it. I could see from her face now that I should be turned out of the house. My spite was roused. I longed to play her the nastiest swinish cad’s trick: to look at her with a sneer, and on the spot where she stood before me to stun her with a tone of voice that only a shopman could use.

“‘Four thousand! What do you mean? I was joking. You’ve been counting your chickens too easily, madam. Two hundred, if you like, with all my heart. But four thousand is not a sum to throw away on such frivolity. You’ve put yourself out to no purpose.’

“I should have lost the game, of course. She’d have run away. But it would have been an infernal revenge. It would have been worth it all. I’d have howled with regret all the rest of my life, only to have played that trick. Would you believe it, it has never happened to me with any other woman, not one, to look at her at such a moment with hatred. But, on my oath, I looked at her for three seconds, or five perhaps, with fearful hatred—that hate which is only a hair’s-breadth from love, from the maddest love!

“I went to the window, put my forehead against the frozen pane, and I remember the ice burnt my forehead like fire. I did not keep her long, don’t be afraid. I turned round, went up to the table, opened the drawer and took out a banknote for five thousand roubles (it was lying in a French dictionary). Then I showed it her in silence, folded it, handed it to her, opened the door into the passage, and, stepping back, made her a deep bow, a most respectful, a most impressive bow, believe me! She shuddered all over, gazed at me for a second, turned horribly pale—white as a sheet, in fact—and all at once, not impetuously but softly, gently, bowed down to my feet—not a boarding-school curtsey, but a Russian bow, with her forehead to the floor. She jumped up and ran away. I was wearing my sword. I drew it and nearly stabbed myself with it on the spot; why, I don’t know. It would have been frightfully stupid, of course. I suppose it was from delight. Can you understand that one might kill oneself from delight? But I didn’t stab myself. I only kissed my sword and put it back in the scabbard—which there was no need to have told you, by the way. And I fancy that in telling you about my inner conflict I have laid it on rather thick to glorify myself. But let it pass, and to hell with all who pry into the human heart! Well, so much for that ‘adventure’ with Katerina Ivanovna. So now Ivan knows of it, and you—no one else.”

Dmitri got up, took a step or two in his excitement, pulled out his handkerchief and mopped his forehead, then sat down again, not in the same place as before, but on the opposite side, so that Alyosha had to turn quite round to face him.

Chapter V. The Confession Of A Passionate Heart—“Heels Up”

“Now,” said Alyosha, “I understand the first half.”

“You understand the first half. That half is a drama, and it was played out there. The second half is a tragedy, and it is being acted here.”

“And I understand nothing of that second half so far,” said Alyosha.

“And I? Do you suppose I understand it?”

“Stop, Dmitri. There’s one important question. Tell me, you were betrothed, you are betrothed still?”

“We weren’t betrothed at once, not for three months after that adventure. The next day I told myself that the incident was closed, concluded, that there would be no sequel. It seemed to me caddish to make her an offer. On her side she gave no sign of life for the six weeks that she remained in the town; except, indeed, for one action. The day after her visit the maid-servant slipped round with an envelope addressed to me. I tore it open: it contained the change out of the banknote. Only four thousand five hundred roubles was needed, but there was a discount of about two hundred on changing it. She only sent me about two hundred and sixty. I don’t remember exactly, but not a note, not a word of explanation. I searched the packet for a pencil mark—n-nothing! Well, I spent the rest of the money on such an orgy that the new major was obliged to reprimand me.

“Well, the lieutenant-colonel produced the battalion money, to the astonishment of every one, for nobody believed that he had the money untouched. He’d no sooner paid it than he fell ill, took to his bed, and, three weeks later, softening of the brain set in, and he died five days afterwards. He was buried with military honors, for he had not had time to receive his discharge. Ten days after his funeral, Katerina Ivanovna, with her aunt and sister, went to Moscow. And, behold, on the very day they went away (I hadn’t seen them, didn’t see them off or take leave) I received a tiny note, a sheet of thin blue paper, and on it only one line in pencil: ‘I will write to you. Wait. K.’ And that was all.

“I’ll explain the rest now, in two words. In Moscow their fortunes changed with the swiftness of lightning and the unexpectedness of an Arabian fairy-tale. That general’s widow, their nearest relation, suddenly lost the two nieces who were her heiresses and next-of-kin—both died in the same week of small-pox. The old lady, prostrated with grief, welcomed Katya as a daughter, as her one hope, clutched at her, altered her will in Katya’s favor. But that concerned the future. Meanwhile she gave her, for present use, eighty thousand roubles, as a marriage portion, to do what she liked with. She was an hysterical woman. I saw something of her in Moscow, later.

“Well, suddenly I received by post four thousand five hundred roubles. I was speechless with surprise, as you may suppose. Three days later came the promised letter. I have it with me now. You must read it. She offers to be my wife, offers herself to me. ‘I love you madly,’ she says, ‘even if you don’t love me, never mind. Be my husband. Don’t be afraid. I won’t hamper you in any way. I will be your chattel. I will be the carpet under your feet. I want to love you for ever. I want to save you from yourself.’ Alyosha, I am not worthy to repeat those lines in my vulgar words and in my vulgar tone, my everlastingly vulgar tone, that I can never cure myself of. That letter stabs me even now. Do you think I don’t mind—that I don’t mind still? I wrote her an answer at once, as it was impossible for me to go to Moscow. I wrote to her with tears. One thing I shall be ashamed of for ever. I referred to her being rich and having a dowry while I was only a stuck-up beggar! I mentioned money! I ought to have borne it in silence, but it slipped from my pen. Then I wrote at once to Ivan, and told him all I could about it in a letter of six pages, and sent him to her. Why do you look like that? Why are you staring at me? Yes, Ivan fell in love with her; he’s in love with her still. I know that. I did a stupid thing, in the world’s opinion; but perhaps that one stupid thing may be the saving of us all now. Oo! Don’t you see what a lot she thinks of Ivan, how she respects him? When she compares us, do you suppose she can love a man like me, especially after all that has happened here?”

“But I am convinced that she does love a man like you, and not a man like him.”

“She loves her own _virtue_, not me.” The words broke involuntarily, and almost malignantly, from Dmitri. He laughed, but a minute later his eyes gleamed, he flushed crimson and struck the table violently with his fist.

“I swear, Alyosha,” he cried, with intense and genuine anger at himself; “you may not believe me, but as God is holy, and as Christ is God, I swear that though I smiled at her lofty sentiments just now, I know that I am a million times baser in soul than she, and that these lofty sentiments of hers are as sincere as a heavenly angel’s. That’s the tragedy of it—that I know that for certain. What if any one does show off a bit? Don’t I do it myself? And yet I’m sincere, I’m sincere. As for Ivan, I can understand how he must be cursing nature now—with his intellect, too! To see the preference given—to whom, to what? To a monster who, though he is betrothed and all eyes are fixed on him, can’t restrain his debaucheries—and before the very eyes of his betrothed! And a man like me is preferred, while he is rejected. And why? Because a girl wants to sacrifice her life and destiny out of gratitude. It’s ridiculous! I’ve never said a word of this to Ivan, and Ivan of course has never dropped a hint of the sort to me. But destiny will be accomplished, and the best man will hold his ground while the undeserving one will vanish into his back-alley for ever—his filthy back-alley, his beloved back-alley, where he is at home and where he will sink in filth and stench at his own free will and with enjoyment. I’ve been talking foolishly. I’ve no words left. I use them at random, but it will be as I have said. I shall drown in the back-alley, and she will marry Ivan.”

“Stop, Dmitri,” Alyosha interrupted again with great anxiety. “There’s one thing you haven’t made clear yet: you are still betrothed all the same, aren’t you? How can you break off the engagement if she, your betrothed, doesn’t want to?”

“Yes, formally and solemnly betrothed. It was all done on my arrival in Moscow, with great ceremony, with ikons, all in fine style. The general’s wife blessed us, and—would you believe it?—congratulated Katya. ‘You’ve made a good choice,’ she said, ‘I see right through him.’ And—would you believe it?—she didn’t like Ivan, and hardly greeted him. I had a lot of talk with Katya in Moscow. I told her about myself—sincerely, honorably. She listened to everything.

There was sweet confusion, There were tender words.

Though there were proud words, too. She wrung out of me a mighty promise to reform. I gave my promise, and here—”

“What?”

“Why, I called to you and brought you out here to-day, this very day—remember it—to send you—this very day again—to Katerina Ivanovna, and—”

“What?”

“To tell her that I shall never come to see her again. Say, ‘He sends you his compliments.’”

“But is that possible?”

“That’s just the reason I’m sending you, in my place, because it’s impossible. And, how could I tell her myself?”

“And where are you going?”

“To the back-alley.”

“To Grushenka, then!” Alyosha exclaimed mournfully, clasping his hands. “Can Rakitin really have told the truth? I thought that you had just visited her, and that was all.”

“Can a betrothed man pay such visits? Is such a thing possible and with such a betrothed, and before the eyes of all the world? Confound it, I have some honor! As soon as I began visiting Grushenka, I ceased to be betrothed, and to be an honest man. I understand that. Why do you look at me? You see, I went in the first place to beat her. I had heard, and I know for a fact now, that that captain, father’s agent, had given Grushenka an I.O.U. of mine for her to sue me for payment, so as to put an end to me. They wanted to scare me. I went to beat her. I had had a glimpse of her before. She doesn’t strike one at first sight. I knew about her old merchant, who’s lying ill now, paralyzed; but he’s leaving her a decent little sum. I knew, too, that she was fond of money, that she hoarded it, and lent it at a wicked rate of interest, that she’s a merciless cheat and swindler. I went to beat her, and I stayed. The storm broke—it struck me down like the plague. I’m plague-stricken still, and I know that everything is over, that there will never be anything more for me. The cycle of the ages is accomplished. That’s my position. And though I’m a beggar, as fate would have it, I had three thousand just then in my pocket. I drove with Grushenka to Mokroe, a place twenty-five versts from here. I got gypsies there and champagne and made all the peasants there drunk on it, and all the women and girls. I sent the thousands flying. In three days’ time I was stripped bare, but a hero. Do you suppose the hero had gained his end? Not a sign of it from her. I tell you that rogue, Grushenka, has a supple curve all over her body. You can see it in her little foot, even in her little toe. I saw it, and kissed it, but that was all, I swear! ‘I’ll marry you if you like,’ she said, ‘you’re a beggar, you know. Say that you won’t beat me, and will let me do anything I choose, and perhaps I will marry you.’ She laughed, and she’s laughing still!”

Dmitri leapt up with a sort of fury. He seemed all at once as though he were drunk. His eyes became suddenly bloodshot.

“And do you really mean to marry her?”

“At once, if she will. And if she won’t, I shall stay all the same. I’ll be the porter at her gate. Alyosha!” he cried. He stopped short before him, and taking him by the shoulders began shaking him violently. “Do you know, you innocent boy, that this is all delirium, senseless delirium, for there’s a tragedy here. Let me tell you, Alexey, that I may be a low man, with low and degraded passions, but a thief and a pickpocket Dmitri Karamazov never can be. Well, then; let me tell you that I am a thief and a pickpocket. That very morning, just before I went to beat Grushenka, Katerina Ivanovna sent for me, and in strict secrecy (why I don’t know, I suppose she had some reason) asked me to go to the chief town of the province and to post three thousand roubles to Agafya Ivanovna in Moscow, so that nothing should be known of it in the town here. So I had that three thousand roubles in my pocket when I went to see Grushenka, and it was that money we spent at Mokroe. Afterwards I pretended I had been to the town, but did not show her the post office receipt. I said I had sent the money and would bring the receipt, and so far I haven’t brought it. I’ve forgotten it. Now what do you think you’re going to her to-day to say? ‘He sends his compliments,’ and she’ll ask you, ‘What about the money?’ You might still have said to her, ‘He’s a degraded sensualist, and a low creature, with uncontrolled passions. He didn’t send your money then, but wasted it, because, like a low brute, he couldn’t control himself.’ But still you might have added, ‘He isn’t a thief though. Here is your three thousand; he sends it back. Send it yourself to Agafya Ivanovna. But he told me to say “he sends his compliments.”’ But, as it is, she will ask, ‘But where is the money?’”

“Mitya, you are unhappy, yes! But not as unhappy as you think. Don’t worry yourself to death with despair.”

“What, do you suppose I’d shoot myself because I can’t get three thousand to pay back? That’s just it. I shan’t shoot myself. I haven’t the strength now. Afterwards, perhaps. But now I’m going to Grushenka. I don’t care what happens.”

“And what then?”

“I’ll be her husband if she deigns to have me, and when lovers come, I’ll go into the next room. I’ll clean her friends’ goloshes, blow up their samovar, run their errands.”

“Katerina Ivanovna will understand it all,” Alyosha said solemnly. “She’ll understand how great this trouble is and will forgive. She has a lofty mind, and no one could be more unhappy than you. She’ll see that for herself.”

“She won’t forgive everything,” said Dmitri, with a grin. “There’s something in it, brother, that no woman could forgive. Do you know what would be the best thing to do?”

“What?”

“Pay back the three thousand.”

“Where can we get it from? I say, I have two thousand. Ivan will give you another thousand—that makes three. Take it and pay it back.”

“And when would you get it, your three thousand? You’re not of age, besides, and you must—you absolutely must—take my farewell to her to-day, with the money or without it, for I can’t drag on any longer, things have come to such a pass. To-morrow is too late. I shall send you to father.”

“To father?”

“Yes, to father first. Ask him for three thousand.”

“But, Mitya, he won’t give it.”

“As though he would! I know he won’t. Do you know the meaning of despair, Alexey?”

“Yes.”

“Listen. Legally he owes me nothing. I’ve had it all from him, I know that. But morally he owes me something, doesn’t he? You know he started with twenty-eight thousand of my mother’s money and made a hundred thousand with it. Let him give me back only three out of the twenty-eight thousand, and he’ll draw my soul out of hell, and it will atone for many of his sins. For that three thousand—I give you my solemn word—I’ll make an end of everything, and he shall hear nothing more of me. For the last time I give him the chance to be a father. Tell him God Himself sends him this chance.”

“Mitya, he won’t give it for anything.”

“I know he won’t. I know it perfectly well. Now, especially. That’s not all. I know something more. Now, only a few days ago, perhaps only yesterday he found out for the first time _in earnest_ (underline _in earnest_) that Grushenka is really perhaps not joking, and really means to marry me. He knows her nature; he knows the cat. And do you suppose he’s going to give me money to help to bring that about when he’s crazy about her himself? And that’s not all, either. I can tell you more than that. I know that for the last five days he has had three thousand drawn out of the bank, changed into notes of a hundred roubles, packed into a large envelope, sealed with five seals, and tied across with red tape. You see how well I know all about it! On the envelope is written: ‘To my angel, Grushenka, when she will come to me.’ He scrawled it himself in silence and in secret, and no one knows that the money’s there except the valet, Smerdyakov, whom he trusts like himself. So now he has been expecting Grushenka for the last three or four days; he hopes she’ll come for the money. He has sent her word of it, and she has sent him word that perhaps she’ll come. And if she does go to the old man, can I marry her after that? You understand now why I’m here in secret and what I’m on the watch for.”

“For her?”

“Yes, for her. Foma has a room in the house of these sluts here. Foma comes from our parts; he was a soldier in our regiment. He does jobs for them. He’s watchman at night and goes grouse-shooting in the day-time; and that’s how he lives. I’ve established myself in his room. Neither he nor the women of the house know the secret—that is, that I am on the watch here.”

“No one but Smerdyakov knows, then?”

“No one else. He will let me know if she goes to the old man.”

“It was he told you about the money, then?”

“Yes. It’s a dead secret. Even Ivan doesn’t know about the money, or anything. The old man is sending Ivan to Tchermashnya on a two or three days’ journey. A purchaser has turned up for the copse: he’ll give eight thousand for the timber. So the old man keeps asking Ivan to help him by going to arrange it. It will take him two or three days. That’s what the old man wants, so that Grushenka can come while he’s away.”

“Then he’s expecting Grushenka to-day?”

“No, she won’t come to-day; there are signs. She’s certain not to come,” cried Mitya suddenly. “Smerdyakov thinks so, too. Father’s drinking now. He’s sitting at table with Ivan. Go to him, Alyosha, and ask for the three thousand.”

“Mitya, dear, what’s the matter with you?” cried Alyosha, jumping up from his place, and looking keenly at his brother’s frenzied face. For one moment the thought struck him that Dmitri was mad.

“What is it? I’m not insane,” said Dmitri, looking intently and earnestly at him. “No fear. I am sending you to father, and I know what I’m saying. I believe in miracles.”

“In miracles?”

“In a miracle of Divine Providence. God knows my heart. He sees my despair. He sees the whole picture. Surely He won’t let something awful happen. Alyosha, I believe in miracles. Go!”

“I am going. Tell me, will you wait for me here?”

“Yes. I know it will take some time. You can’t go at him point blank. He’s drunk now. I’ll wait three hours—four, five, six, seven. Only remember you must go to Katerina Ivanovna to-day, if it has to be at midnight, _with the money or without the money_, and say, ‘He sends his compliments to you.’ I want you to say that verse to her: ‘He sends his compliments to you.’”

“Mitya! And what if Grushenka comes to-day—if not to-day, to-morrow, or the next day?”

“Grushenka? I shall see her. I shall rush out and prevent it.”

“And if—”

“If there’s an if, it will be murder. I couldn’t endure it.”

“Who will be murdered?”

“The old man. I shan’t kill her.”

“Brother, what are you saying?”

“Oh, I don’t know.... I don’t know. Perhaps I shan’t kill, and perhaps I shall. I’m afraid that he will suddenly become so loathsome to me with his face at that moment. I hate his ugly throat, his nose, his eyes, his shameless snigger. I feel a physical repulsion. That’s what I’m afraid of. That’s what may be too much for me.”

“I’ll go, Mitya. I believe that God will order things for the best, that nothing awful may happen.”

“And I will sit and wait for the miracle. And if it doesn’t come to pass—”

Alyosha went thoughtfully towards his father’s house.

Chapter VI. Smerdyakov

He did in fact find his father still at table. Though there was a dining-room in the house, the table was laid as usual in the drawing-room, which was the largest room, and furnished with old-fashioned ostentation. The furniture was white and very old, upholstered in old, red, silky material. In the spaces between the windows there were mirrors in elaborate white and gilt frames, of old-fashioned carving. On the walls, covered with white paper, which was torn in many places, there hung two large portraits—one of some prince who had been governor of the district thirty years before, and the other of some bishop, also long since dead. In the corner opposite the door there were several ikons, before which a lamp was lighted at nightfall ... not so much for devotional purposes as to light the room. Fyodor Pavlovitch used to go to bed very late, at three or four o’clock in the morning, and would wander about the room at night or sit in an arm-chair, thinking. This had become a habit with him. He often slept quite alone in the house, sending his servants to the lodge; but usually Smerdyakov remained, sleeping on a bench in the hall.

When Alyosha came in, dinner was over, but coffee and preserves had been served. Fyodor Pavlovitch liked sweet things with brandy after dinner. Ivan was also at table, sipping coffee. The servants, Grigory and Smerdyakov, were standing by. Both the gentlemen and the servants seemed in singularly good spirits. Fyodor Pavlovitch was roaring with laughter. Before he entered the room, Alyosha heard the shrill laugh he knew so well, and could tell from the sound of it that his father had only reached the good-humored stage, and was far from being completely drunk.

“Here he is! Here he is!” yelled Fyodor Pavlovitch, highly delighted at seeing Alyosha. “Join us. Sit down. Coffee is a lenten dish, but it’s hot and good. I don’t offer you brandy, you’re keeping the fast. But would you like some? No; I’d better give you some of our famous liqueur. Smerdyakov, go to the cupboard, the second shelf on the right. Here are the keys. Look sharp!”

Alyosha began refusing the liqueur.

“Never mind. If you won’t have it, we will,” said Fyodor Pavlovitch, beaming. “But stay—have you dined?”

“Yes,” answered Alyosha, who had in truth only eaten a piece of bread and drunk a glass of kvas in the Father Superior’s kitchen. “Though I should be pleased to have some hot coffee.”

“Bravo, my darling! He’ll have some coffee. Does it want warming? No, it’s boiling. It’s capital coffee: Smerdyakov’s making. My Smerdyakov’s an artist at coffee and at fish patties, and at fish soup, too. You must come one day and have some fish soup. Let me know beforehand.... But, stay; didn’t I tell you this morning to come home with your mattress and pillow and all? Have you brought your mattress? He he he!”

“No, I haven’t,” said Alyosha, smiling, too.

“Ah, but you were frightened, you were frightened this morning, weren’t you? There, my darling, I couldn’t do anything to vex you. Do you know, Ivan, I can’t resist the way he looks one straight in the face and laughs? It makes me laugh all over. I’m so fond of him. Alyosha, let me give you my blessing—a father’s blessing.”

Alyosha rose, but Fyodor Pavlovitch had already changed his mind.

“No, no,” he said. “I’ll just make the sign of the cross over you, for now. Sit still. Now we’ve a treat for you, in your own line, too. It’ll make you laugh. Balaam’s ass has begun talking to us here—and how he talks! How he talks!”

Balaam’s ass, it appeared, was the valet, Smerdyakov. He was a young man of about four and twenty, remarkably unsociable and taciturn. Not that he was shy or bashful. On the contrary, he was conceited and seemed to despise everybody.

But we must pause to say a few words about him now. He was brought up by Grigory and Marfa, but the boy grew up “with no sense of gratitude,” as Grigory expressed it; he was an unfriendly boy, and seemed to look at the world mistrustfully. In his childhood he was very fond of hanging cats, and burying them with great ceremony. He used to dress up in a sheet as though it were a surplice, and sang, and waved some object over the dead cat as though it were a censer. All this he did on the sly, with the greatest secrecy. Grigory caught him once at this diversion and gave him a sound beating. He shrank into a corner and sulked there for a week. “He doesn’t care for you or me, the monster,” Grigory used to say to Marfa, “and he doesn’t care for any one. Are you a human being?” he said, addressing the boy directly. “You’re not a human being. You grew from the mildew in the bath-house.[2] That’s what you are.” Smerdyakov, it appeared afterwards, could never forgive him those words. Grigory taught him to read and write, and when he was twelve years old, began teaching him the Scriptures. But this teaching came to nothing. At the second or third lesson the boy suddenly grinned.

“What’s that for?” asked Grigory, looking at him threateningly from under his spectacles.

“Oh, nothing. God created light on the first day, and the sun, moon, and stars on the fourth day. Where did the light come from on the first day?”

Grigory was thunderstruck. The boy looked sarcastically at his teacher. There was something positively condescending in his expression. Grigory could not restrain himself. “I’ll show you where!” he cried, and gave the boy a violent slap on the cheek. The boy took the slap without a word, but withdrew into his corner again for some days. A week later he had his first attack of the disease to which he was subject all the rest of his life—epilepsy. When Fyodor Pavlovitch heard of it, his attitude to the boy seemed changed at once. Till then he had taken no notice of him, though he never scolded him, and always gave him a copeck when he met him. Sometimes, when he was in good humor, he would send the boy something sweet from his table. But as soon as he heard of his illness, he showed an active interest in him, sent for a doctor, and tried remedies, but the disease turned out to be incurable. The fits occurred, on an average, once a month, but at various intervals. The fits varied too, in violence: some were light and some were very severe. Fyodor Pavlovitch strictly forbade Grigory to use corporal punishment to the boy, and began allowing him to come upstairs to him. He forbade him to be taught anything whatever for a time, too. One day when the boy was about fifteen, Fyodor Pavlovitch noticed him lingering by the bookcase, and reading the titles through the glass. Fyodor Pavlovitch had a fair number of books—over a hundred—but no one ever saw him reading. He at once gave Smerdyakov the key of the bookcase. “Come, read. You shall be my librarian. You’ll be better sitting reading than hanging about the courtyard. Come, read this,” and Fyodor Pavlovitch gave him _Evenings in a Cottage near Dikanka_.

He read a little but didn’t like it. He did not once smile, and ended by frowning.

“Why? Isn’t it funny?” asked Fyodor Pavlovitch.

Smerdyakov did not speak.

“Answer, stupid!”

“It’s all untrue,” mumbled the boy, with a grin.

“Then go to the devil! You have the soul of a lackey. Stay, here’s Smaragdov’s _Universal History_. That’s all true. Read that.”

But Smerdyakov did not get through ten pages of Smaragdov. He thought it dull. So the bookcase was closed again.

Shortly afterwards Marfa and Grigory reported to Fyodor Pavlovitch that Smerdyakov was gradually beginning to show an extraordinary fastidiousness. He would sit before his soup, take up his spoon and look into the soup, bend over it, examine it, take a spoonful and hold it to the light.

“What is it? A beetle?” Grigory would ask.

“A fly, perhaps,” observed Marfa.

The squeamish youth never answered, but he did the same with his bread, his meat, and everything he ate. He would hold a piece on his fork to the light, scrutinize it microscopically, and only after long deliberation decide to put it in his mouth.

“Ach! What fine gentlemen’s airs!” Grigory muttered, looking at him.

When Fyodor Pavlovitch heard of this development in Smerdyakov he determined to make him his cook, and sent him to Moscow to be trained. He spent some years there and came back remarkably changed in appearance. He looked extraordinarily old for his age. His face had grown wrinkled, yellow, and strangely emasculate. In character he seemed almost exactly the same as before he went away. He was just as unsociable, and showed not the slightest inclination for any companionship. In Moscow, too, as we heard afterwards, he had always been silent. Moscow itself had little interest for him; he saw very little there, and took scarcely any notice of anything. He went once to the theater, but returned silent and displeased with it. On the other hand, he came back to us from Moscow well dressed, in a clean coat and clean linen. He brushed his clothes most scrupulously twice a day invariably, and was very fond of cleaning his smart calf boots with a special English polish, so that they shone like mirrors. He turned out a first-rate cook. Fyodor Pavlovitch paid him a salary, almost the whole of which Smerdyakov spent on clothes, pomade, perfumes, and such things. But he seemed to have as much contempt for the female sex as for men; he was discreet, almost unapproachable, with them. Fyodor Pavlovitch began to regard him rather differently. His fits were becoming more frequent, and on the days he was ill Marfa cooked, which did not suit Fyodor Pavlovitch at all.

“Why are your fits getting worse?” asked Fyodor Pavlovitch, looking askance at his new cook. “Would you like to get married? Shall I find you a wife?”

But Smerdyakov turned pale with anger, and made no reply. Fyodor Pavlovitch left him with an impatient gesture. The great thing was that he had absolute confidence in his honesty. It happened once, when Fyodor Pavlovitch was drunk, that he dropped in the muddy courtyard three hundred-rouble notes which he had only just received. He only missed them next day, and was just hastening to search his pockets when he saw the notes lying on the table. Where had they come from? Smerdyakov had picked them up and brought them in the day before.

“Well, my lad, I’ve never met any one like you,” Fyodor Pavlovitch said shortly, and gave him ten roubles. We may add that he not only believed in his honesty, but had, for some reason, a liking for him, although the young man looked as morosely at him as at every one and was always silent. He rarely spoke. If it had occurred to any one to wonder at the time what the young man was interested in, and what was in his mind, it would have been impossible to tell by looking at him. Yet he used sometimes to stop suddenly in the house, or even in the yard or street, and would stand still for ten minutes, lost in thought. A physiognomist studying his face would have said that there was no thought in it, no reflection, but only a sort of contemplation. There is a remarkable picture by the painter Kramskoy, called “Contemplation.” There is a forest in winter, and on a roadway through the forest, in absolute solitude, stands a peasant in a torn kaftan and bark shoes. He stands, as it were, lost in thought. Yet he is not thinking; he is “contemplating.” If any one touched him he would start and look at one as though awakening and bewildered. It’s true he would come to himself immediately; but if he were asked what he had been thinking about, he would remember nothing. Yet probably he has, hidden within himself, the impression which had dominated him during the period of contemplation. Those impressions are dear to him and no doubt he hoards them imperceptibly, and even unconsciously. How and why, of course, he does not know either. He may suddenly, after hoarding impressions for many years, abandon everything and go off to Jerusalem on a pilgrimage for his soul’s salvation, or perhaps he will suddenly set fire to his native village, and perhaps do both. There are a good many “contemplatives” among the peasantry. Well, Smerdyakov was probably one of them, and he probably was greedily hoarding up his impressions, hardly knowing why.

Chapter VII. The Controversy

But Balaam’s ass had suddenly spoken. The subject was a strange one. Grigory had gone in the morning to make purchases, and had heard from the shopkeeper Lukyanov the story of a Russian soldier which had appeared in the newspaper of that day. This soldier had been taken prisoner in some remote part of Asia, and was threatened with an immediate agonizing death if he did not renounce Christianity and follow Islam. He refused to deny his faith, and was tortured, flayed alive, and died, praising and glorifying Christ. Grigory had related the story at table. Fyodor Pavlovitch always liked, over the dessert after dinner, to laugh and talk, if only with Grigory. This afternoon he was in a particularly good-humored and expansive mood. Sipping his brandy and listening to the story, he observed that they ought to make a saint of a soldier like that, and to take his skin to some monastery. “That would make the people flock, and bring the money in.”

Grigory frowned, seeing that Fyodor Pavlovitch was by no means touched, but, as usual, was beginning to scoff. At that moment Smerdyakov, who was standing by the door, smiled. Smerdyakov often waited at table towards the end of dinner, and since Ivan’s arrival in our town he had done so every day.

“What are you grinning at?” asked Fyodor Pavlovitch, catching the smile instantly, and knowing that it referred to Grigory.

“Well, my opinion is,” Smerdyakov began suddenly and unexpectedly in a loud voice, “that if that laudable soldier’s exploit was so very great there would have been, to my thinking, no sin in it if he had on such an emergency renounced, so to speak, the name of Christ and his own christening, to save by that same his life, for good deeds, by which, in the course of years to expiate his cowardice.”

“How could it not be a sin? You’re talking nonsense. For that you’ll go straight to hell and be roasted there like mutton,” put in Fyodor Pavlovitch.

It was at this point that Alyosha came in, and Fyodor Pavlovitch, as we have seen, was highly delighted at his appearance.

“We’re on your subject, your subject,” he chuckled gleefully, making Alyosha sit down to listen.

“As for mutton, that’s not so, and there’ll be nothing there for this, and there shouldn’t be either, if it’s according to justice,” Smerdyakov maintained stoutly.

“How do you mean ‘according to justice’?” Fyodor Pavlovitch cried still more gayly, nudging Alyosha with his knee.

“He’s a rascal, that’s what he is!” burst from Grigory. He looked Smerdyakov wrathfully in the face.

“As for being a rascal, wait a little, Grigory Vassilyevitch,” answered Smerdyakov with perfect composure. “You’d better consider yourself that, once I am taken prisoner by the enemies of the Christian race, and they demand from me to curse the name of God and to renounce my holy christening, I am fully entitled to act by my own reason, since there would be no sin in it.”

“But you’ve said that before. Don’t waste words. Prove it,” cried Fyodor Pavlovitch.

“Soup-maker!” muttered Grigory contemptuously.

“As for being a soup-maker, wait a bit, too, and consider for yourself, Grigory Vassilyevitch, without abusing me. For as soon as I say to those enemies, ‘No, I’m not a Christian, and I curse my true God,’ then at once, by God’s high judgment, I become immediately and specially anathema accursed, and am cut off from the Holy Church, exactly as though I were a heathen, so that at that very instant, not only when I say it aloud, but when I think of saying it, before a quarter of a second has passed, I am cut off. Is that so or not, Grigory Vassilyevitch?”

He addressed Grigory with obvious satisfaction, though he was really answering Fyodor Pavlovitch’s questions, and was well aware of it, and intentionally pretending that Grigory had asked the questions.

“Ivan,” cried Fyodor Pavlovitch suddenly, “stoop down for me to whisper. He’s got this all up for your benefit. He wants you to praise him. Praise him.”

Ivan listened with perfect seriousness to his father’s excited whisper.

“Stay, Smerdyakov, be quiet a minute,” cried Fyodor Pavlovitch once more. “Ivan, your ear again.”

Ivan bent down again with a perfectly grave face.

“I love you as I do Alyosha. Don’t think I don’t love you. Some brandy?”

“Yes.—But you’re rather drunk yourself,” thought Ivan, looking steadily at his father.

He was watching Smerdyakov with great curiosity.

“You’re anathema accursed, as it is,” Grigory suddenly burst out, “and how dare you argue, you rascal, after that, if—”

“Don’t scold him, Grigory, don’t scold him,” Fyodor Pavlovitch cut him short.

“You should wait, Grigory Vassilyevitch, if only a short time, and listen, for I haven’t finished all I had to say. For at the very moment I become accursed, at that same highest moment, I become exactly like a heathen, and my christening is taken off me and becomes of no avail. Isn’t that so?”

“Make haste and finish, my boy,” Fyodor Pavlovitch urged him, sipping from his wine-glass with relish.

“And if I’ve ceased to be a Christian, then I told no lie to the enemy when they asked whether I was a Christian or not a Christian, seeing I had already been relieved by God Himself of my Christianity by reason of the thought alone, before I had time to utter a word to the enemy. And if I have already been discharged, in what manner and with what sort of justice can I be held responsible as a Christian in the other world for having denied Christ, when, through the very thought alone, before denying Him I had been relieved from my christening? If I’m no longer a Christian, then I can’t renounce Christ, for I’ve nothing then to renounce. Who will hold an unclean Tatar responsible, Grigory Vassilyevitch, even in heaven, for not having been born a Christian? And who would punish him for that, considering that you can’t take two skins off one ox? For God Almighty Himself, even if He did make the Tatar responsible, when he dies would give him the smallest possible punishment, I imagine (since he must be punished), judging that he is not to blame if he has come into the world an unclean heathen, from heathen parents. The Lord God can’t surely take a Tatar and say he was a Christian? That would mean that the Almighty would tell a real untruth. And can the Lord of Heaven and earth tell a lie, even in one word?”

Grigory was thunderstruck and looked at the orator, his eyes nearly starting out of his head. Though he did not clearly understand what was said, he had caught something in this rigmarole, and stood, looking like a man who has just hit his head against a wall. Fyodor Pavlovitch emptied his glass and went off into his shrill laugh.

“Alyosha! Alyosha! What do you say to that! Ah, you casuist! He must have been with the Jesuits, somewhere, Ivan. Oh, you stinking Jesuit, who taught you? But you’re talking nonsense, you casuist, nonsense, nonsense, nonsense. Don’t cry, Grigory, we’ll reduce him to smoke and ashes in a moment. Tell me this, O ass; you may be right before your enemies, but you have renounced your faith all the same in your own heart, and you say yourself that in that very hour you became anathema accursed. And if once you’re anathema they won’t pat you on the head for it in hell. What do you say to that, my fine Jesuit?”

“There is no doubt that I have renounced it in my own heart, but there was no special sin in that. Or if there was sin, it was the most ordinary.”

“How’s that the most ordinary?”

“You lie, accursed one!” hissed Grigory.