The Karamazov Brothers

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Dmitry Fyodorovich stood up almost in a frenzy, he seemed as though he were drunk all of a sudden. His eyes had suddenly become bloodshot.

  ‘Do you really want to marry her?’

  ‘If she’ll let me, I’ll marry her at once, and if she doesn’t, I’ll stay with her anyway; I’ll be her odd-job man. Alyosha, do you… do you…’, he faltered, seizing him by the shoulders and shaking him, ‘do you realize, you innocent child, that all this is delirium, sheer delirium, because this is a tragedy! You know, Alyosha, I may be a base creature, a lost soul, prey to base passions, but a thief, a pickpocket, a common thief, Dmitry Karamazov could never be. Well now, you can see I’m a thief, a pickpocket, a common thief! Just as I was going to Grushenka’s to give her a hiding, that very morning Katerina Ivanovna sent for me in great secrecy so that no one would know (I don’t know why, she must have had her reasons), and asked me to go to the provincial capital and post three thousand roubles to Agafya Ivanovna in Moscow—I was to post it from there so that no one in our town would know. I arrived at Grushenka’s with that three thousand roubles in my pocket, and that was the money we went to Mokroye with. Afterwards I pretended I’d been to the town, but I never gave her the postal receipt: I told her I’d sent the money and would bring the receipt, but I still haven’t done it, because I conveniently “keep forgetting”. Now, what do you think, suppose you went to her today and said, “He sends his regards,” and she said, “And what about the money?” Then you could reply: “He’s a despicable debauchee, a vile creature, uncontrollable in his urges. He never posted your money, he spent it, because, just like an animal, he couldn’t control himself,” and you could have added for good measure: “However, he’s not a thief, here’s your three thousand, he’s returning it, you can post it to Agafya Ivanovna yourself, and by the way he sends his regards.” But as it is, all she’ll be able to say is, “Well, where’s the money?”

  ‘Mitya, you’re unhappy, that’s obvious. But things are not as bad as you think. Don’t let despair get the better of you, for heaven’s sake!’

  ‘What do you imagine I’m going to do? Shoot myself if I don’t get the three thousand to pay her back? Well, I shan’t shoot myself. I haven’t got the courage at present, later perhaps, now I’m going to see Grushenka… And let the world go to blazes!’

  ‘And when you get there?’

  ‘I’ll be her husband, I’ll prove my worth, and if a lover comes I’ll go into another room. I’ll clean the muddy boots of her admirers, I’ll fan the embers under the samovar, I’ll run errands…’

  ‘Katerina Ivanovna will understand,’ said Alyosha solemnly. ‘She’ll understand the depth of your sorrow and she’ll forgive you. She’s a very understanding person, she’ll see for herself that no one could be more miserable than you.’

  ‘She won’t forgive everything,’ Mitya grinned. ‘There are some things, my young brother, that no woman can forgive. But you know what would be the best thing to do?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Return the three thousand.’

  ‘Where would you get hold of such a sum? Listen, I’ve got two thousand, Ivan will give you another thousand, that makes three. Take it and give it to her.’

  ‘But when could I have it, your three thousand? You’re still a minor, and it’s absolutely essential that you go today and break off the engagement on my behalf, money or no money, because things have come to such a pitch that I can’t put it off any longer. Tomorrow would be too late. Go to father for me.’

  ‘To father?’

  ‘Yes, go to father before you go to her, and ask him for three thousand.’

  ‘But Mitya, you know he won’t give it to me.’

  ‘Of course, I know only too well he won’t give it to you. Aleksei, do you know what despair is?’

  ‘Indeed I do.’

  ‘Listen, legally he owes me nothing. I’ve had it all, I know that. But morally he owes me something, doesn’t he? After all, he made a hundred thousand from my mother’s twenty-eight thousand roubles. Let him give me three thousand out of the twenty-eight, only three, and he’ll save my soul from damnation; that will atone for a lot of his sins! As for me, I shall be content with the three thousand, I give you my solemn word on that, and I shan’t bother him ever again. I’m giving him one last chance to be a father. Tell him that God himself has sent him this chance.’

  ‘Mitya, he won’t give it to you whatever I say.’

  ‘I know he won’t, I know that perfectly well. Especially now. What’s more, I also know that very recently, perhaps only yesterday, he recognized for the first time seriously (notice I say “seriously”) that Grushenka may not actually be joking and that she might rush into marriage with me. He knows what a minx she is. So, how on earth could he give me the money to enable that to happen when he’s crazy about her himself? But that’s not all, I’ve got something else to tell you: I know that five days ago he got three thousand roubles in one-hundred-rouble notes from the bank and put the money in a large envelope sealed with five seals and tied both ways with a red ribbon. You see, I know all the exact details! On the envelope it says: “To my angel Grushenka, if she will come to me.” He wrote that himself in the utmost secrecy, and no one knows he has all that money in his house, except his servant Smerdyakov, who’s scrupulously honest as far as he’s concerned. And he’s been waiting for Grushenka for the last three or four days, hoping she’d come for the envelope, because he told her about it and she sent a message in reply saying that she “might come”. So, if she goes to the old man, I can’t marry her, can I? Now do you understand why I’m hiding here and keeping watch?

  ‘For her?’

  ‘Yes, for her. Foma rents a little room here from the old women who own the house. He’s from these parts, he’s an old soldier. At night he works as a watchman for them, and by day he shoots blackcock. That’s how he earns his living. I’m staying at his place for the moment: neither he nor the owners know the secret—that is, that I’m keeping watch.’

  ‘Only Smerdyakov knows?’

  ‘Yes. He’ll let me know if she goes to father.’

  ‘Did he tell you about the envelope?’

  ‘Yes. It’s a big secret. Even Ivan doesn’t know about the money or anything. Father wants him to go on a trip to Chermashnya for two or three days. A buyer has turned up who’ll pay eight thousand roubles for the timber and fell it, so father keeps asking Ivan to help him out and go there for two or three days. But it’s just to get him out of the way when Grushenka comes!’

  ‘So he’s expecting Grushenka today?’

  ‘No, she won’t come today, at least I don’t think so. In fact I’m sure she won’t!’ Mitya cried suddenly. ‘That’s what Smerdyakov thinks too. Father’s getting drunk now, sitting at the table with Ivan. Listen, Alyosha, go and ask him for the three thousand…’

  ‘Mitya, my dear fellow, what’s the matter with you?’ exclaimed Alyosha, jumping up and staring at Dmitry Fyodorovich’s frenzied expression. For a moment Alyosha thought he had lost his reason.

  ‘Don’t worry! I haven’t gone mad,’ said Dmitry Fyodorovich, fixing him with a penetrating, solemn gaze. ‘Don’t be afraid; I want you to go to father and I know what I’m doing: I believe in miracles.’

  ‘Miracles?’

  ‘The miracles of divine providence. God knows my heart, He sees all my despair. He sees this whole scene. Surely He won’t allow anything bad to happen? Alyosha, I believe in miracles. Off you go!’

  ‘I’ll go. Will you wait here?’

  ‘Yes. I realize it’ll take time, that you can’t ask him straight out as soon as you get there. He’s getting drunk now. I’ll wait three, four, five, six, seven hours even—but just remember that today, even if it’s at midnight, you must go to Katerina Ivanovna with or without the money and give her my regards.’

  ‘But Mitya! Suppose Grushenka were to come today… or if not today, then tomorrow or the day after?’

  ‘Grushenka? I’ll be watching for her,
I’ll burst into the house and stop her…’

  ‘But if…’

  ‘In that case, someone’s going to get killed. I won’t stand for it.’

  ‘Who’s going to get killed?’

  ‘Father. I wouldn’t kill her.’

  ‘Mitya, do you realize what you’re saying!’

  ‘I don’t suppose I do, I’m not sure… Perhaps I wouldn’t kill him, perhaps I would. I’m afraid that the moment I set eyes on him, his face will become loathsome to me… I hate his bulging gizzard, his nose, his eyes, his shameless mockery. I feel a physical revulsion. That’s what I’m afraid of, that I wouldn’t be able to control myself…’

  ‘I’ll go, Mitya. I believe that God will ensure that everything’s for the best and won’t allow anything bad to happen.’

  ‘And I’ll stay here and wait for a miracle. But if there isn’t one, then…’

  Alyosha set off for his father’s house deep in thought.

  6

  SMERDYAKOV

  AND, indeed, he found his father still eating—in the sitting-room as usual, even though there was a perfectly adequate dining-room in the house. The sitting-room was the largest room in the house, furnished with outmoded stylishness. The furniture was extremely old, of white-wood and upholstered in faded red satin. Pier-mirrors between the windows were mounted in elaborately carved, old-fashioned frames, painted white and gilt. On the walls, on which the white wallpaper was already torn in several places, hung two large portraits—one of a certain prince who, about thirty years before, had been the local governor-general, the other of an archbishop, also long since deceased. In the corner nearest the entrance were several icons, in front of which a lamp was lit at night—not so much in devotion as to provide a source of light in the room. Fyodor Pavlovich went to bed very late, at two, three or four o’clock in the morning, and until then he would pace up and down the room or sit in an armchair and think. Such was his habit. He quite often spent the night completely alone, having sent the servants to the outhouse, though Smerdyakov would generally stay with him at night and sleep on a chest in the entrance hall. When Alyosha arrived, dinner was over and coffee and preserves were being served. Fyodor Pavlovich loved to have something sweet with his brandy after dinner. Ivan Fyodorovich was also at the table, drinking coffee. The servants Grigory and Smerdyakov were standing nearby. Both master and servants were in a state of unusual jollity. Fyodor Pavlovich was roaring with laughter; Alyosha could hear that shrill voice which was so familiar to him from the porch, and he concluded that his father was still far from drunk, and merely in a convivial mood.

  ‘Here he is, here he is!’ yelled Fyodor Pavlovich, delighted at the sight of Alyosha. ‘Come and join us. Sit down and have some coffee—don’t worry, look, it’s black, piping hot, it’s just been made! Won’t offer you brandy—you’re fasting, but you’d like some, wouldn’t you? No, I’d better give you a drop of liqueur instead, it’s very nice! Smerdyakov, go to the cupboard; it’s on the second shelf on the right—here are the keys, stir yourself!’

  Alyosha refused the liqueur.

  ‘We’ll pour it anyway, if not for you, then for us,’ Fyodor Pavlovich beamed. ‘By the way, have you had dinner?’

  ‘Yes, I have,’ said Alyosha, who, truth to tell, had eaten only a crust of bread and a glass of kvass in the abbot’s kitchen. ‘But I’ll gladly have a cup of coffee.’

  ‘Excellent, my dear boy! He’ll have a cup of coffee. Should we heat it up? No need, it’s still hot. It’s excellent coffee, Smerdyakov made it. When it comes to coffee or fish pie Smerdyakov’s an artist and no mistake, the same goes for his fish soup. You must come one day and have some fish soup, but let me know beforehand… Wait a minute though, didn’t I tell you to bring your mattress and pillow and come home this very day? Have you brought your mattress? He-he-he…’

  ‘No, I haven’t,’ Alyosha smiled.

  ‘But you were frightened this morning? You were, weren’t you? Ah, my dear boy, I wouldn’t hurt you for the world. Look, Ivan, look at the way he fixes you with his eyes and smiles, it’s just too much. It really is. All my insides turn to jelly. I really do love him! Alyosha, let me give you my paternal blessing.’

  Alyosha stood up, but Fyodor Pavlovich had already thought better of it.

  ‘No, no, I’ll just make the sign of the cross over you for now, there you are, sit down. And now, you’re going to enjoy this—it’ll make you laugh. Our Balaam’s ass* has spoken—and on a subject close to your heart. And can he talk, my word, can he talk!’

  ‘Balaam’s ass’ turned out to be Smerdyakov. Still a young man, only twenty-four years old, he was thoroughly surly and unsociable. It was not that he was shy or in any way embarrassed; on the contrary, he was arrogant by nature and seemed to despise everyone. But at this point it is impossible to avoid saying something about him. Marfa Ignatyevna and Grigory Vasilyevich had brought him up, but, as Grigory put it, the boy had grown up “without the slightest gratitude”, and had turned into a wild, unsociable youth who regarded the world as if trapped in a corner. As a child he had loved to string up cats and then bury them with full ceremony. He would dress up in a sheet, to represent a chasuble, and chant while swinging some imagined censer over the dead cat. He would do this very secretly and surreptitiously. Grigory caught him at it one day and gave him a good birching. The boy slunk off into a corner and remained there for a week, glaring sullenly at everyone. ‘He doesn’t love us, the monster,’ Grigory would say to Marfa Ignatyevna. ‘In fact, he doesn’t love anyone… You can’t be human,’ he once addressed Smerdyakov outright, ‘You’re not human, you’re the spawn of bathhouse slime, that’s what you are…’ Smerdyakov, it turned out later, never forgave him for these remarks. Grigory taught him to read and write, and when he was twelve started to teach him the Scriptures. But it soon proved to be a wasted effort. One day, during only his second or third lesson, the boy suddenly burst out laughing.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ asked Grigory with a thunderous look from under his glasses.

  ‘Nothing, sir. God created light* on the first day, and the sun, the moon, and the stars on the fourth day. So where did the light come from on the first day?’

  Grigory was dumbfounded. The boy looked mockingly at his teacher. There was even something arrogant in his look. Grigory could not contain himself. ‘This’ll teach you where from!’ he shouted in a fury, and slapped his pupil across the cheek. The boy suffered the slap without a word, but retreated to his corner again for several days. A week later he suffered the first of the epileptic fits which afflicted him for the rest of his life. Hearing of this, Fyodor Pavlovich suddenly seemed to change his attitude to the boy. Previously he had been fairly indifferent to him, although he never scolded him and always gave him a kopeck when he saw him. When he was in a good mood, he sometimes sent the boy sweetmeats from the table. But now, on hearing of his illness, he began to show a genuine concern and sent for the doctor to treat him, but the illness turned out to be incurable. On average, the attacks occurred about once a month at irregular intervals. They also varied in severity—some were slight, while others were extremely violent. Fyodor Pavlovich absolutely forbade Grigory to inflict any corporal punishment, and gave the boy permission to come up to the house. He also stopped all lessons for the time being. But one day, when the boy was about fifteen, Fyodor Pavlovich noticed him lurking near the bookcase and reading the titles of the books through the glass. Fyodor Pavlovich had a large collection of books, over a hundred, but no one ever saw him open one. He promptly gave Smerdyakov the key to the bookcase. ‘Well, if you want to read, go ahead, you can be my librarian. Rather than loiter about in the yard, it’s better that you sit down and read. Here, have a look at this one,’ and Fyodor Pavlovich took down Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka.*

  The boy read it, but remained unimpressed; it did not so much as produce a smile on his face, on the contrary, after finishing it he scowled.

  ‘Well? Didn’t you find it funny?�
�� asked Fyodor Pavlovich.

  Smerdyakov said nothing.

  ‘Answer me, you fool.’

  ‘None of it’s true,’ muttered Smerdyakov with a smirk.

  ‘Well, go to hell! This is just the sort of thing a lackey would say. Wait, here’s Smaragdov’s Universal History;* that’s true enough for you. Read that.’

  But Smerdyakov did not even read ten pages of Smaragdov; it bored him stiff. So the bookcase was locked up again. Soon Marfa and Grigory informed Fyodor Pavlovich that Smerdyakov was gradually becoming terribly fastidious; he would sit at the table, take a spoon and, with head bent, would stir his soup intently, as if searching for something, then lift a spoonful and hold it to the light.

  ‘What is it, a cockroach?’ Grigory would ask.

  ‘A fly perhaps,’ Marfa would comment.

  The fussy youth never replied, but did exactly the same thing with bread, meat, and all kinds of food; he would take a morsel on his fork, hold it up to the light and subject it to microscopic scrutiny, taking a long time to make up his mind, before at last venturing to put it into his mouth. ‘Look at that,’ Grigory would mutter, watching him, ‘thinks he’s a proper little gentleman.’ Fyodor Pavlovich, on hearing of Smerdyakov’s new habit, promptly decided that he should be a cook and sent him to be trained in Moscow. He spent several years in training, and returned quite changed in appearance. He had somehow suddenly aged extraordinarily; his skin was wrinkled and yellow quite beyond his years, and he had the appearance of a eunuch. Emotionally, there was almost no change; he returned much as he had left, just as unsociable and not demonstrating the slightest desire for company. It turned out that in Moscow too he had kept himself to himself all the time; Moscow as such had interested him hardly at all, so that while he did not exactly ignore everything about it, he certainly did not manifest much interest in the city. He did go to the theatre on one occasion, but came home morose and disgruntled. To do him justice, however, he returned from his stay in Moscow well dressed, wearing a clean frock-coat and a spotless white shirt; he brushed his clothes carefully, as often as twice a day, and, using a special English wax, took great delight in polishing his elegant calfskin boots to a deep shine. He turned out to be an excellent cook. Fyodor Pavlovich paid him a salary, nearly all of which he spent on clothes, pomade, perfume, and the like. But he seemed to despise women as much as men, and was very reserved with them—indeed almost unapproachable. Gradually, Fyodor Pavlovich began to revise his opinion about him. The fact was, his epileptic fits were getting worse, and on those occasions the food had to be prepared by Marfa Ignatyevna, which did not suit Fyodor Pavlovich one little bit.