Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  “Ah! Live as you may!” he shouted; “what’s past is gone and done with. Fill up the heavy goblet, fill it up, that it may smite the rebellious head from its shoulders, that the whole soul may be dead with it! Lay me out for the long night that has no morning and let my memory vanish altogether. What is drunk is lived and done with. So the merchant’s wares have grown stale, have lain by too long, he must give them away for nothing! but the merchant would not of his free will have sold it below its price. The blood of his foe should be spilt and the innocent blood should be shed too, and that customer should have laid down his lost soul into the bargain! Fill my goblet, fill it again, Katerina.”

  But the hand that held the goblet seemed to stiffen and did not move; his breathing was laboured and difficult, his head sank back. For the last time he fixed his lustreless eyes on Ordynov, but his eyes, too, grew dim at last, and his eyelids dropped as though they were made of lead. A deadly pallor overspread his face... For some time his lips twitched and quivered as though still trying to articulate — and suddenly a big hot tear hung on his eyelash, broke and slowly ran down his pale cheek....

  Ordynov could bear no more. He got up and, reeling, took a step forward, went up to Katerina and clutched her hand. But she seemed not to notice him and did not even glance at him, as though she did not recognise him....

  She, too, seemed to have lost consciousness, as though one thought, one fixed idea had entirely absorbed her. She sank on the bosom of the sleeping old man, twined her white arm round his neck, and gazed with glowing, feverish eyes as though they were riveted on him. She did not seem to feel Ordynov taking her hand. At last she turned her head towards him, and bent upon him a prolonged searching gaze. It seemed as though at last she understood, and a bitter, astonished smile came wearily, as it were painfully, on her lips....

  “Go away, go away,” she whispered; “you are drunk and wicked, you are not a guest for me..,” then she turned again to the old man and riveted her eyes upon him.

  She seemed as it were gloating over every breath he took and soothing his slumber with her eyes. She seemed afraid to breathe, checking her full throbbing heart, and there was such frenzied admiration in her face that at once despair, fury and insatiable anger seized Ordynov’s spirit....

  “Katerina! Katerina!” he called, seizing her hand as though in a vice.

  A look of pain passed over her face; she raised her head again, and looked at him with such mockery, with such contemptuous haughtiness, that he could scarcely stand upon his feet. Then she pointed to the sleeping old man and — as though all his enemy’s mockery had passed into her eyes, she bent again a taunting glance at Ordynov that sent an icy shiver to his heart.

  “What? He will murder me, I suppose?” said Ordynov, beside himself with fury. Some demon seemed to whisper in his ear that he understood her... and his whole heart laughed at Katerina’s fixed idea.

  “I will buy you, my beauty, from your merchant, if you want my soul; no fear, he won’t kill me!.. A fixed laugh, that froze Ordynov’s whole being, remained upon Katerina’s face. Its boundless irony rent his heart. Not knowing what he was doing, hardly conscious, he leaned against the wall and took from a nail the old man’s expensive old-fashioned knife. A look of amazement seemed to come into Katerina’s face, but at the same time anger and contempt were reflected with the same force in her eyes. Ordynov turned sick, looking at her... he felt as though someone were thrusting, urging his frenzied hand to madness. He drew out the knife... Katerina watched him, motionless, holding her breath....

  He glanced at the old man.

  At that moment he fancied that one of the old man’s eyes opened and looked at him, laughing. Their eyes met. For some minutes Ordynov gazed at him fixedly.... Suddenly he fancied that the old man’s whole face began laughing and that a diabolical, soul-freezing chuckle resounded at last through the room. A hideous, dark thought crawled like a snake into his head. He shuddered; the knife fell from his hands and dropped with a clang upon the floor. Katerina uttered a shriek as though awaking from oblivion, from a nightmare, from a heavy, immovable vision.... The old man, very pale, slowly got up from the bed and angrily kicked the knife into the corner of the room; Katerina stood pale, deathlike, immovable; her eyelids were closing; her face was convulsed by a vague, insufferable pain; she hid her face in her hands and, with a shriek that rent the heart, sank almost breathless at the old man’s feet....

  “Alyosha, Alyosha!” broke from her gasping bosom.

  The old man seized her in his powerful arms and almost crushed her on his breast. But when she hid her head upon his heart, every feature in the old man’s face worked with such undisguised, shameless laughter that Ordynov’s whole soul was overwhelmed with horror. Deception, calculation, cold, jealous tyranny and horror at the poor broken heart — that was what he read in that laugh, that shamelessly threw off all disguise.

  “She is mad!” he whispered, quivering like a leaf, and, numb with terror, he ran out of the flat.

  CHAPTER III

  WHEN, at eight o’clock next morning, Ordynov, pale and agitated and still dazed from the excitement of that day, opened Yaroslav Ilyitch’s door (he went to see him though he could not have said why) he staggered back in amazement and stood petrified in the doorway on seeing Murin in the room. The old man, even paler than Ordynov, seemed almost too ill to stand up; he would not sit down, however, though Yaroslav Ilyitch, highly delighted at the visit, invited him to do so. Yaroslav Ilyitch, too, cried out in surprise at seeing Ordynov, but almost at once his delight died away, and he was quite suddenly overtaken by embarrassment half-way between the table and the chair next it. It was evident that he did not know what to say or to do, and was fully conscious of the impropriety of sucking at his pipe and of leaving his visitor to his own devices at such a difficult moment. And yet (such was his confusion) he did go on pulling at his pipe with all his might and indeed with a sort of enthusiasm. Ordynov went into the room at last. He flung a cursory glance at Murin, a look flitted over the old man’s face, something like the malicious smile of the day before, which even now set Ordynov shuddering with indignation. All hostility, however, vanished at once and was smoothed away, and the old man’s face assumed a perfectly unapproachable and reserved air. He dropped a very low bow to his lodger.... The scene brought Ordynov to a sense of reality at last. Eager to understand the position of affairs, he looked intently at Yaroslav Ilyitch, who began to be uneasy and flustered.

  “Come in, come in,” he brought out at last. “Come in, most precious Vassily Mihalitch; honour me with your presence, and put a stamp of... on all these ordinary objects..,” said Yaroslav Ilyitch, pointing towards a corner of the room, flushing like a crimson rose; confused and angry that even his most exalted sentences floundered and missed fire, he moved the chair with a loud noise into the very middle of the room.

  “I hope I’m not hindering you, Yaroslav Ilyitch,” said Ordynov. “I wanted... for two minutes...”

  “Upon my word! As though you could hinder me, Vassily Mihalitch; but let me offer you a cup of tea. Hey, servant.... I am sure you, too, will not refuse a cup!”

  Murin nodded, signifying thereby that he would not. Yaroslav Ilyitch shouted to the servant who came in, sternly demanded another three glasses, then sat down beside Ordynov. For some time he turned his head like a plaster kitten to right and to left, from Murin to Ordynov, and from Ordynov to Murin. His position was extremely unpleasant. He evidently wanted to say something, to his notions extremely delicate, for one side at any rate. But for all his efforts he was totally unable to utter a word... Ordynov, too, seemed in perplexity. There was a moment when both began speaking at once.... Murin, silent, watching them both with curiosity, slowly opened his mouth and showed all his teeth....

  “I’ve come to tell you,” Ordynov said suddenly, “that, owing to a most unpleasant circumstance, I am obliged to leave my lodging, and...”

  “Fancy, what a strange circumstance!” Yaroslav Ilyitch interrupte
d suddenly. “I confess I was utterly astounded when this worthy old man told me this morning of your intention. But...”

  “He told you,” said Ordynov, looking at Murin with surprise. —

  Murin stroked his beard and laughed in his sleeve.

  “Yes,” Yaroslav Ilyitch rejoined; “though I may have made a mistake. But I venture to say for you — I can answer for it on my honour that there was not a shadow of anything derogatory to you in this worthy old man’s words....”

  Here Yaroslav Ilyitch blushed and controlled his emotion with an effort. Murin, after enjoying to his heart’s content the discomfiture of the other two men, took a step forward.

  “It is like this, your honour,” he began, bowing politely to Ordynov: “His honour made bold to take a little trouble on your behalf. As it seems, sir — you know yourself — the mistress and I, that is, we would be glad, freely and heartily, and we would not have made bold to say a word... but the way I live, you know yourself, you see for yourself, sir! Of a truth, the Lord barely keeps us alive, for which we pray His holy will; else you see yourself, sir, whether it is for me to make lamentation.” Here Murin again wiped his beard with his sleeve.

  Ordynov almost turned sick.

  “Yes, yes, I told you about him, myself; he is ill, that is this malheur. I should like to express myself in French but, excuse me, I don’t speak French quite easily; that is...”

  “Quite so...”

  “Quite so, that is...”

  Ordynov and Yaroslav Ilyitch made each other a half bow, each a little on one side of his chair, and both covered their confusion with an apologetic laugh. The practical Yaroslav Ilyitch recovered at once.

  “I have been questioning this honest man minutely,” he began. “He has been telling me that the illness of this woman....” Here the delicate Yaroslav Ilyitch, probably wishing to conceal a slight embarrassment that showed itself in his face, hurriedly looked at Murin with inquiry.

  “Yes, of our mistress...”

  The refined Yaroslav Ilyitch did not insist further.

  “The mistress, that is, your former landlady; I don’t know how... but there! She is an afflicted woman, you see... She says that she is hindering you... in your studies, and he himself... you concealed from me one important circumstance, Vassily Mihalitch!”

  “What?”

  “About the gun,” Yaroslav Ilyitch brought out, almost whispering in the most indulgent tone with the millionth fraction of reproach softly ringing in his friendly tenor.

  “But,” he added hurriedly, “he has told me all about it.

  And you acted nobly in overlooking his involuntary wrong to you. I swear I saw tears in his eyes.”

  Yaroslav Ilyitch flushed again, his eyes shone and he shifted in his chair with emotion.

  “I, that is, we, sir, that is, your honour, I, to be sure, and my mistress remember you in our prayers,” began Murin, addressing Ordynov and looking at him while Yaroslav Ilyitch overcame his habitual agitation; “and you know yourself, sir, she is a sick, foolish woman; my legs will hardly support me...”

  “Yes, I am ready,” Ordynov said impatiently; “please, that’s enough, I am going directly...”

  “No, that is, sir, we are very grateful for your kindness” (Murin made a very low bow); “that is not what I meant to tell you, sir; I wanted to say a word — you see, sir, she came to me almost from her home, that is from far, as the saying is, beyond the seventh water — do not scorn our humble talk, sir, we are ignorant folk — and from a tiny child she has been like this! A sick brain, hasty, she grew up in the forest, grew up a peasant, all among bargemen and factory hands; and then their house must burn down; her mother, sir, was burnt, her father burnt to death — I daresay there is no knowing what she’ll tell you... I don’t meddle, but the Chir — chir-urgi-cal Council examined her at Moscow. You see, sir, she’s quite incurable, that’s what it is. I am all that’s left her, and she lives with me. We live, we pray to God and trust in the Almighty; I never cross her in anything.”

  Ordynov’s face changed. Yaroslav Ilyitch looked first at one, then at the other.

  “But, that is not what I wanted to say... no!” Murin corrected himself, shaking his head gravely. “She is, so to say, such a featherhead, such a whirligig, such a loving, headstrong creature, she’s always wanting a sweetheart — if you will pardon my saying so — and someone to love; it’s on that she’s mad. I amuse her with fairy tales, I do my best at it. I saw, sir, how she — forgive my foolish words, sir,” Murin went on, bowing and wiping his beard with his sleeve— “how she made friends with you; you, so to say, your excellency, were desirous to approach her with a view to love.”

  Yaroslav Ilyitch flushed crimson, and looked reproachfully at Murin. Ordynov could scarcely sit still in his seat.

  “No... that is not it, sir... I speak simply, sir, I am a peasant, I am at your service.... Of course, we are ignorant folk, we are your servants, sir,” he brought out, bowing low; “and my wife and I will pray with all our hearts for your honour.... What do we need? To be strong and have enough to eat — we do not repine; but what am I to do, sir; put my head in the noose? You know yourself, sir, what life is and will have pity on us; but what will it be like, sir, if she has a lover, too!... Forgive my rough words, sir; I am a peasant, sir, and you are a gentleman.... You’re a young man, your excellency, proud and hasty, and she, you know yourself, sir, is a little child with no sense — it’s easy for her to fall into sin. She’s a buxom lass, rosy and sweet, while I am an old man always ailing. Well, the devil, it seems, has tempted your honour. I always flatter her with fairy tales, I do indeed; I flatter her; and how we will pray, my wife and I, for your honour! How we will pray! And what is she to you, your excellency, if she is pretty? Still she is a simple woman, an unwashed peasant woman, a foolish rustic maid, a match for a peasant like me. It is not for a gentleman like you, sir, to be friends with peasants! But she and I will pray to God for your honour; how we will pray!”

  Here Murin bowed very low and for a long while remained with his back bent, continually wiping his beard with his sleeve.

  Yaroslav Ilyitch did not know where he was standing.

  “Yes, this good man,” he observed in conclusion, “spoke to me of some undesirable incidents; I did not venture to believe him, Vassily Mihalitch, I heard that you were still ill,” he interrupted hurriedly, looking at Ordynov in extreme embarrassment, with eyes full of tears of emotion.

  “Yes, how much do I owe you?” Ordynov asked Murin hurriedly.

  “What are you saying, your honour? Give over. Why, we are not Judases. Why, you are insulting us, sir, we should be ashamed, sir. Have I and my good woman offended you?”

  “But this is really strange, my good man; why, his honour took the room from you; don’t you feel that you are insulting him by refusing?” Yaroslav Ilyitch interposed, thinking it his duty to show Murin the strangeness and indelicacy of his conduct.

  “But upon my word, sir! What do you mean, sir? What did we not do to please your honour? Why, we tried our very best, we did our utmost, upon my word! Give over, sir, give over, your honour. Christ have mercy upon you! Why, are we infidels or what? You might have lived, you might have eaten our humble fare with us and welcome; you might have lain there — we’d have said nothing against it, and we wouldn’t have dropped a word; but the evil one tempted you. I am an afflicted man and my mistress is afflicted — what is one to do? There was no one to wait on you, or we would have been glad, glad from our hearts. And how the mistress and I will pray for your honour, how we will pray for you!”

  Murin bowed down from the waist. Tears came into Yaroslav Uyitch’s delighted eyes. He looked with enthusiasm at Ordynov.

  “What a generous trait, isn’t it! What sacred hospitality is to be found in the Russian people.”

  Ordynov looked wildly at Yaroslav Ilyitch.

  He was almost terrified and scrutinised him from head to foot.

  “Yes, indeed, sir, we do honour hospi
tality; we do honour it indeed, sir,” Murin asserted, covering his beard with his whole sleeve. “Yes, indeed, the thought just came to me; we’d have welcomed you as a guest, sir, by God! we would,” he went on, approaching Ordynov; “and I had nothing against it; another day I would have said nothing, nothing at all; but sin is a sore snare and my mistress is ill. Ah, if it were not for the mistress! Here, if I had been alone, for instance; how glad I would have been of your honour, how I would have waited upon you, wouldn’t I have waited upon you! Whom should we respect if not your honour? I’d have healed you of your sickness, I know the art....You should have been our guest, upon my word you should, that is a great word with us!..

  “Yes, really; is there such an art?” observed Yaroslav Ilyitch... and broke off.

  Ordynov had done Yaroslav Ilyitch injustice when, just before, he had looked him up and down with wild amazement.

  He was, of course, a very honest and honourable person, but now he understood everything and it must be owned his position was a very difficult one. He wanted to explode, as it is called, with laughter! If he had been alone with Ordynov — two such friends — Yaroslav Ilyitch would, of course, have given way to an immoderate outburst of gaiety without attempting to control himself. He would, however, have done this in a gentlemanly way. He would after laughing have pressed Ordynov’s hand with feeling, would genuinely and justly have assured him that he felt double respect for him and that he could make allowances in every case... and, of course, would have made no reference to his youth. But as it was, with his habitual delicacy of feeling, he was in a most difficult position and scarcely knew what to do with himself....

  “Arts, that is decoctions,” Murin added. A quiver passed over his face at Yaroslav Ilyitch’s tactless exclamation. “What I should say, sir, in my peasant foolishness,” he went on, taking another step forward, “you’ve read too many books, sir; as the Russian saying is among us peasants, ‘Wit has overstepped wisdom...”