The Karamazov Brothers

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

  ‘Suddenly, a new Major arrived to take over the battalion. He assumed command. The old Lieutenant-Colonel fell ill suddenly, and couldn’t move; he stayed indoors for two days and didn’t hand over the battalion funds. Our Doctor Kravchenko informed everybody that he was really ill. But here’s what I knew for a fact, and had known for some time: after each annual audit, the money would disappear for a while, and this had happened four years running. The Lieutenant-Colonel lent it to a most trustworthy man, a local merchant by the name of Trifonov, an elderly widower with a beard and gold-rimmed spectacles. He’d go to the fair, use the money for his own purposes, and would then return the whole sum to the Lieutenant-Colonel with interest, and also give him some presents. Only this time (I heard this quite by chance from Trifonov’s slobbering son, his heir, a depraved youngster if ever there was one), this time Trifonov came back from the fair and returned nothing. The Lieutenant-Colonel rushed round to see him. “I’ve received nothing from you and couldn’t possibly have done so,” was the answer he got. Well, our Lieutenant-Colonel sat at home with his head wrapped in a towel while all three women applied ice to his brow; suddenly an orderly arrived with the accounts book and an order to “Hand over the battalion funds at once, promptly, within two hours.” He signed the book (later I saw this signature), stood up, said he was going to put on his uniform, rushed into his bedroom, took down his double-barrelled shotgun, loaded it with a live cartridge, took off his right boot, put the weapon to his chest, and tried to pull the trigger with his toe. But Agafya, remembering my words, suspected something and followed him: she rushed in, grabbed him from behind and clasped her arms around him, the gun went off and the shot hit the ceiling, harming no one; the others ran in and seized him, took the weapon away, and held him by his arms… I learned all these details later. I was at home, it was dusk and I had just decided to go out; I put on my coat, combed my hair, put some perfume on my handkerchief, and picked up my fur hat, when the door suddenly opened—and there before me stood Katerina Ivanovna.

  ‘Strange things happen: no one had noticed her in the street on her way to me, no one in the town knew of her visit. I rented the rooms from two civil service widows, two very old women, who also looked after me. They were very respectful towards me, trusted me implicitly and would have taken a secret to the grave if I’d asked them. Of course, I realized the situation at once. She entered and looked straight at me with an expression of determination, even harshness in her dark eyes, but in her lips and the set of her mouth I could detect uncertainty.

  ‘ “My sister told me you’d lend me four thousand five hundred roubles if I came for it… if I came myself. Here I am… give me the money…!” She broke down, gasping, terrified, her voice broke, and her lips and her whole mouth began to tremble. Alyosha, are you listening or are you asleep?’

  ‘Mitya, I know you’re going to tell me the whole truth,’ said Alyosha apprehensively.

  ‘Certainly I am. If it’s the whole truth you want, then this is how it happened, I won’t conceal a thing. My first thought was—a Karamazov one. Once, Alyosha, I was bitten by a scorpion, and for two weeks I was confined to bed with fever; and that’s what I felt then—the sudden sting of a scorpion in my heart, an evil insect, you know? I eyed her up and down. You’ve seen her! She’s beautiful, isn’t she? But it wasn’t just her beauty then. What made her particularly attractive at that moment was that she was pure and I was a scoundrel, she was magnificent in her generosity and in her sacrifice for her father, and I was just a louse. And she was now utterly dependent on me, louse and scoundrel that I was, she was at my mercy, body and soul. I had her cornered. I don’t mind telling you that that thought, the insect’s thought, was the sweetest thing I ever experienced. It seemed as if there could be no question of any struggle: why stop now, why not just go ahead like the louse, like the evil tarantula that I am, without the slightest compunction… I couldn’t breathe. Listen: of course, it goes without saying that the next day I’d have asked for her hand in marriage, to bring the matter to an honourable conclusion, so to speak, so that no one would ever have known anything about this business. Because, all my base desires apart, I still claim to be a man of honour. And then suddenly at that very moment it was as though someone whispered in my ear, “But she’s the sort who wouldn’t have anything to do with you if you went to her tomorrow with a proposal of marriage, and what’s more, she’d get her coachman to throw you out on your ear. ‘You can drag my name in the mud through the whole town,’ she’d say, ‘I’m not afraid of you!’” I looked at the girl, the voice was not lying; that was certainly how it would be. Her face said it all; I’d be out on my neck. I was suddenly in a rage. I felt I wanted to play the lowest, most swinish trick on her, some tradesman’s trick: give her a look of derision and then, as she stood there before me, humiliate her, saying in the tone of voice only market traders use:

  ‘“Four thousand! You didn’t really fall for that little joke of mine, did you, ma’am? You’re too credulous, my dear lady, to believe in a thing like that. I could let you have a couple of hundred, perhaps, the pleasure would be all mine, but four thousand—that, madam, is not the sort of money that one splashes about. You’ve come on a fool’s errand.”

  ‘Of course, you can see, I’d have lost everything, she’d have run away, but that sweet moment of vengeance would have been worth it. Afterwards I know I’d have wept with remorse all my life, but I still wish I’d gone through with it. You may not believe it, but in all my life nothing of the sort had ever happened to me before, not with any woman, I had never looked at any woman with such hatred—I swear by all that’s holy, I looked at her then for two or three seconds with a terrible hatred—a hatred that’s only a hair’s breadth away from love, from the most desperate love! I walked over to the window, pressed my forehead against the frosted pane of glass, and I remember that the ice burned my skin like fire. I didn’t keep her waiting long, don’t worry; I turned round, went to my desk, pulled out a drawer and produced a five-thousand-rouble, five-per-cent promissory note au porteur (it was there, between the pages of my French dictionary). I showed it to her, didn’t say a word, folded it and gave it to her. Then I opened the door for her, took a step back and bowed, respectfully and correctly, I can assure you! She stared at me for a second, trembling all over and as white as a sheet, and then all of a sudden, also without a word, softly, gently, quietly, went down on her knees at my feet, her forehead touching the ground, not like a schoolgirl, but in the traditional Russian way! Then she jumped up and fled. When she ran out I had my sword on me; I unsheathed it and was going to run myself through with it there and then; why—I don’t know. Of course it was utter stupidity, but it must have been from sheer ecstasy. Do you realize, there are times when one can kill oneself from ecstasy? But I didn’t kill myself, I just kissed the sword and replaced it in its scabbard—anyway, I shouldn’t have told you that. It seems to me now that in describing all these struggles of mine, I’ve laid it on a bit thick to present myself in the best light. But never mind, what will be will be, and to hell with all who pry into the human heart! So there, that was the “incident” between Katerina Ivanovna and myself. Only Ivan knows about it, and now you—no one else.’

  Overcome by emotion, Dmitry Fyodorovich got up, took one step and then another, pulled out his handkerchief, wiped the sweat from his brow, and then sat down again, not where he had just been sitting but on a bench against the opposite wall so that Alyosha had to turn right round to face him.

  5

  CONFESSIONS OF A PASSIONATE HEART. ‘IN FREE FALL’

  ‘FAIR enough,’ said Alyosha, ‘now I’ve got some idea of what all this is about.’

  ‘That’s good. The first part’s a drama and it happened in another town. The second part’s a tragedy and it will take place here.’

  ‘I can’t say I understand anything of the second part,’ Alyosha said.

  ‘What about me? Do you think I can?’

  ‘Wait a moment, Dmitry
, there’s one thing that’s really important. Tell me, are you still engaged? You are, aren’t you?’

  ‘We didn’t get engaged immediately, but three months later. The day after it all happened, I told myself that the whole thing was over and done with and that was the end of it. To propose to her then would have seemed to me a vile thing to do. And for the whole of the six weeks that she lived in the town after that, I never heard a word from her, except, however, on one occasion. The day after her visit, their maid turned up at my lodgings and, without saying a word, handed me an envelope. It was addressed to me. I opened it and found the change from the five thousand roubles. Only four and a half thousand had been needed, but it cost over two hundred roubles to cash the promissory note. She returned two hundred and sixty roubles in all, I think, I don’t remember the exact amount—no message, no explanation, not a word. I examined the envelope for any pencil marks—nothing! So I went on a spree with the rest of my roubles, so much so that the new major eventually felt obliged to reprimand me. As for the Lieutenant-Colonel, he duly paid over the outstanding money, much to everyone’s surprise, as no one believed he still had it. As soon as he had handed it over, he fell ill, took to his bed and stayed there for about three weeks, after which softening of the brain set in and he died five days later. He was buried with full military honours, as he hadn’t actually retired yet. Within ten days of their father’s funeral, Katerina Ivanovna and her sister moved with their aunt to Moscow. And just before they left, on the very day of their departure (I hadn’t seen them at all in the meantime and hadn’t gone to say goodbye), I received a little note, a small blue sheet of fancy paper, with one line written in pencil: “I’ll write to you. Be Patient. K.” That was all.

  ‘Now I’ll explain everything to you briefly. In Moscow their situation changed with the speed of lightning and the unexpectedness of an Arabian tale. Her nearest relative, a General’s widow, suddenly lost both her heirs, her two nieces—they both died the same week of smallpox. The grief-stricken old woman greeted Katya’s arrival with as much joy as if she were her own daughter, and turned to her as to a star of salvation. She changed her will in her favour—that was for the future; but in the meantime she gave her eighty thousand roubles in cash, saying, “Here, this is for you, it’s your dowry, do what you like with it.” A highly eccentric lady, as I had occasion to discover for myself later in Moscow. Well, next thing I knew, I received out of the blue by post four thousand five hundred roubles: of course, I was dumbfounded. Three days later the promised letter arrived. I’ve got it now, I keep it on me all the time, I shall take it to the grave with me—shall I show it to you? You must read it: she offers to marry me, offers herself to me: “I love you hopelessly,” she says, “it doesn’t matter that you don’t love me, just be my husband. Don’t worry, I shan’t be an embarrassment to you in any way, I’ll be like a piece of furniture, I’ll be the carpet under your feet… I want to love you for ever and ever, I want to save you from yourself…” Alyosha, I’m not worthy even to repeat these lines in my own shameless words, in my own disgraceful tone of voice, that shameless tone of voice that I always use, that I’ve never been able to rid myself of! That letter pierced me to the quick, and do you think I’ve got over it yet, to this day? I sent my reply at once (I couldn’t possibly go to Moscow in person). I wrote it with my tears; there’s one shameful thing that still haunts me though, I mentioned in the letter that she was rich now and had a dowry, while I was nothing but a penniless humbug—I mentioned the money! I should never have done that, but it slipped from my pen. Then I wrote at once to Ivan in Moscow and explained everything to him, everything I could put in a letter, six pages of it, and asked him to go and see her. Why are you looking at me like that? Well, Ivan fell in love with her, he’s still in love with her. I know that in your eyes and in the eyes of the world I did a foolish thing, but perhaps it’s just that foolish thing that will save us all now. Surely you can see why she looks up to him and respects him? Surely, when she compares the two of us, she can’t love someone like me, especially after all that’s happened?’

  ‘I’m sure it is someone like you she loves, and not someone like him.’

  ‘It’s her own virtue she loves, not me,’ Dmitry Fyodorovich suddenly burst out almost with bitterness, in spite of himself. He laughed, but a moment later his eyes glinted, he flushed and struck the table hard with his fist.

  ‘I swear, Alyosha,’ he exclaimed with a rush of unfeigned anger at himself, ‘believe it or not, but as God is holy and Christ is Our Lord, I swear that although I was mocking her noble sentiments just now, I know that my soul is a million times inferior to hers, and that those elevated sentiments of hers are as sincere as those of an angel in heaven! The tragedy is that I know it perfectly well. What harm is there in a bit of melodrama? Am I not being melodramatic? And yet I’m sincere—really sincere. As for Ivan, I understand perfectly how he must be cursing the whole of creation, especially with his intelligence! Who is it who’s been shown preference? A swine like me, who’s engaged to be married and when all eyes are upon him still refuses to cease his debauchery—and in front of his fiancée, his fiancée no less! It’s monstrous for someone like me to be preferred while he’s rejected. And all because a young girl wants to ruin her life and her future out of gratitude! It’s absurd! I’ve never said anything about this to Ivan, naturally, and Ivan hasn’t said a word to me, not the slightest hint; but fate will run its course, he who is worthy will have his day and the unworthy one will slink away and hide himself in a back alley for ever—in his own dirty little back alley, in his beloved back alley, his home, and there in the filth and the stench he will perish of his own free will and with the greatest delight. I’m getting carried away, I’ve run out of words, I’m ranting, but it’ll be as I’ve said. I’ll perish in my iniquity and she will marry Ivan.’

  ‘Listen, Mitya,’ interrupted Alyosha once more in extreme agitation. ‘You know there’s one thing you still haven’t explained. You’re engaged, you are still engaged to her, aren’t you? How can you break it off if your fiancée doesn’t want to?’

  ‘I am her fiancé, our engagement has been blessed, it all happened in Moscow after I arrived there—we had a ceremony with icons, in the grandest style. The General’s widow gave us her blessing and—can you believe it—even congratulated Katya: “You’ve made a good choice,” she said, “I can see he’s a fine man.” And, can you imagine, she took a dislike to Ivan and treated him with disdain. While I was in Moscow I talked a lot to Katya and told her everything about myself, honestly, in all sincerity, omitting nothing. She listened to all I had to say:

  And there was sweet confusion,

  There were tender words…*

  Well, there were defiant words too. She made me promise solemnly to mend my ways. I promised. And now…’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Now I’ve stopped you, now we’re here, this day of the week, this month—mark it well!—in order here and now to ask you to go this very day and see Katerina Ivanovna for me, and…’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Tell her that I shall never see her again and tell her that I send her my regards.’

  ‘You can’t do that!’

  ‘No, I can’t. That’s why I’m sending you in my stead. I couldn’t possibly do it myself.’

  ‘And where will you go?’

  ‘Back to the gutter.’

  ‘To Grushenka, you mean!’ Alyosha exclaimed sadly, holding up his hands. ‘Was Rakitin telling the truth after all? And I thought she was just a passing infatuation and that it was all over.’

  ‘Can a husband-to-be have passing infatuations? Is it possible with such a fiancée and so openly? After all, I do still have some sense of honour. From the moment I started seeing Grushenka that was the end of my engagement and I ceased to be a man of honour, that much I understand. Don’t look at me like that! You see, at first I only wanted to give her a good hiding. I had found out, and now I know for sure, that the Staff Captain,*
who was father’s go-between, had taken a promissory note of mine to Grushenka with the idea that she should demand payment from me in order to put me down and shut me up. They just wanted to frighten me. So I went straight to Grushenka to give her a beating. I had seen her around before. She isn’t stunning to look at. I knew about that elderly merchant of hers, who was ill and senile by then and was going to leave her a nice little nest egg. I knew also that she liked to make money, that she lent at an exorbitant rate of interest, and that she was a cheat and a merciless bitch. I went to her place to give her a hiding, but instead I stayed with her. The thunder crashed, the fever struck, I caught it and it’s still in my blood; I knew straight away that my fate was sealed, and that that was the end of the matter. The wheel had turned full circle. So there I was. And then suddenly, out of the blue, this miserable wretch had managed to come by three thousand roubles. The two of us went straight to Mokroye, that’s about twenty-five versts from here, I invited some gypsies along, together with all the peasants, their wives and daughters, brought bottles of champagne and ended up drunk; I got through thousands of roubles. In three days I was cleaned out but undaunted. And do you think it got me anywhere? Not a bit of it. She never let me get near her. I tell you—that figure of hers! The body of that hell-cat of a woman is nothing but curves from top to bottom, right down to the little toe on her left foot… I saw that toe and I kissed it, but that’s all, I swear. She said, “If you want, I’ll marry you, pauper as you are. Just say you won’t beat me and you’ll let me do what I like, and then perhaps I will marry you.” She laughed—and she’s still laughing!’