She was unable to restrain herself in front of Alyosha, nor did she wish to do so.
‘She ought to be flogged on the scaffold by a hangman, publicly!…’
Alyosha started backing towards the door.
‘Good God!’ Katerina Ivanovna suddenly yelled out, clasping her hands. ‘As for him! How could he have been so despicable, so cruel! He told that creature what happened on that fateful, accursed, for ever accursed day! “You went to offer your beauty for sale, my darling lady!” She knows everything! Your brother’s a scoundrel, Aleksei Fyodorovich!’
Alyosha wanted to say something, but he could find no words. His heart was convulsed with pain.
‘Go away, Aleksei Fyodorovich! I’m so ashamed, I feel dreadful! Tomorrow… I implore you on my knees, come tomorrow. Don’t judge me, please forgive me, I still don’t know what I might do to myself!’
Alyosha went out reeling into the street. He felt a strong urge to weep, like her. Suddenly the maid caught up with him.
‘The mistress forgot to give you this letter from Miss Khokhlakova, she’s had it since lunch-time.’
Alyosha automatically took the small pink envelope and, not giving it another thought, thrust it into his pocket.
11
ONE MORE RUINED REPUTATION
IT was just over a verst from the town to the monastery. Alyosha hurried along the road, which was deserted at this hour. It was almost night and at thirty paces objects were difficult to distinguish. Halfway along there was a crossroads. There, under a solitary willow tree, he caught sight of a figure. Alyosha had hardly reached the crossroads when the figure suddenly emerged from the shadows and pounced on him with a furious yell.
‘Your money or your life!’
‘It’s you, Mitya!’ Alyosha exclaimed in surprise, nearly jumping out of his skin.
‘Ha-ha-ha! I caught you by surprise. I thought to myself: where shall I wait for him? Near her house? There are three roads leading from there, and I might have missed you. In the end I thought I’d better wait here; you were bound to pass by here because there’s no other way to the monastery. Well, let’s have the truth, come straight out with it, even if it kills me… But what’s the matter?’
‘Nothing, Mitya… you frightened me. Oh, Dmitry! You really hurt father, you drew blood…’ Alyosha burst into tears; he had wanted to cry for a long time, and now it was as if something had snapped inside him. ‘You nearly killed him… you cursed him… and now… you’re playing practical jokes… “Your money or your life!”’
‘So what? Is it bad form or something? Inappropriate in the circumstances?’
‘No, it’s not that… only I—’
‘Listen. Just look at the sky: see what a foul night it is, all those clouds, and the wind has picked up! I was hiding under this willow lying in wait for you, and a thought struck me, as God is my witness: why carry on struggling, why wait any longer? Here’s a tree, I’ve got my scarf and my shirt that could be twisted into a noose, my braces too, and… I won’t be a burden on this earth any longer, I won’t continue to degrade it with my despicable presence! Then I heard you coming—Lord, I thought in a flash, there’s someone even I can love, after all: and here he is, here’s that someone, my dear brother, whom I love more than anyone on earth and who is the only person I love! And I loved you at that moment, I loved you so much that I said to myself: I must give him a hug! And then this stupid thought came to me: let me play a joke on him, give him a fright. So I called out like an idiot: “Your money!” Forgive my foolishness… it’s all such nonsense, but deep down… it isn’t inappropriate at all really… But to hell with all that! Tell me, what happened? What did she say? Don’t spare my feelings, don’t spare me! Did she fly into a rage?’
‘No, it wasn’t like that… It wasn’t like that at all, Mitya. In her house… I found them both in her house just now.’
‘What do you mean, both?’
‘Grushenka was there with Katerina Ivanovna.’
Dmitry Fyodorovich was thunderstruck.
‘Impossible!’ he exclaimed. ‘You must have been mistaken! Grushenka, in her house?’
Alyosha told him everything that had happened from the moment he had entered Katerina Ivanovna’s house. He spoke for about ten minutes, giving, if not a coherent and fluent account, at least a clear one, emphasizing the most important words, the most significant gestures, and vividly indicating, often with just the barest suggestion, what his own feelings were at the time. Dmitry listened in silence, staring with a dreadful intensity, but it was obvious to Alyosha that he understood everything and had the measure of the whole situation. As the story progressed, however, his expression grew not so much dejected as menacing. He frowned and ground his teeth, the look in his eyes became ever more fixed, implacable, and terrible… It was all the more unexpected when, with incredible rapidity, his wild and angry demeanour suddenly changed, the tightly pressed lips relaxed, and Dmitry Fyodorovich burst into the most uncontrollable, spontaneous laughter. He literally roared with laughter and for a good while was even unable to speak.
‘So she never kissed her hand! Never kissed it, and ran off just like that!’ he cried, almost doubling up with delight. Had his outburst not been so spontaneous, one could almost have said that he was gloating. ‘So she called her a vixen? She is a vixen! She must be flogged publicly, must she? Yes indeed she must, I quite agree. It should have been done a long time ago. Let her be flogged but you see, Alyosha, I’ve got to sort myself out first. I know her, she’s the queen of insolence, that refusal is absolutely typical of her. What an infernal hussy! She’s the queen of all the infernal hussies you can imagine in this world! You’ve got to admire her in a way! So she ran off home, did she? Wait… oh… I’ll join her! Alyosha, don’t be too harsh on me, I quite agree, strangling would be too good for her…’
‘What about Katerina Ivanovna?’ Alyosha asked sadly.
‘I can see through that one, too, right through her, as never before! This is like discovering all four, I mean five continents in one go! What a woman! And this is that same Katenka, the sweet little schoolgirl who didn’t hesitate to approach a grotesque, uncouth army officer in a noble attempt to save her father, at the risk of being severely humiliated! What pride, though, what recklessness, what a leap into the unknown! If that’s not tempting fate, I don’t know what is! You say that aunt of hers tried to restrain her? That aunt, you know, is pretty wilful herself, she’s the sister of that General’s widow in Moscow and used to put on even more airs than the girl, but when her husband was caught embezzling government funds and lost his property and everything he had, the proud woman quietened down and she’s never been the same since. So she was trying to restrain Katya, and Katya would have none of it? “I can triumph over everything,” she must have said to herself, “nothing’s impossible for me; if I want to, I’ll cast a spell on Grushenka too”, and she must have believed it all and made a fool of herself, so who’s to blame? You think she had deliberately planned to kiss Grushenka’s hand with some kind of ulterior motive? Not at all; she really had, she well and truly had fallen in love with Grushenka, I don’t mean with Grushenka as such, but with her own image, her own fantasy of Grushenka—because it’s my image, my fantasy! Poor Alyosha, how ever did you manage to get away from those two? Just picked up your cassock and ran for your life, did you? Ha-ha-ha!’
‘I don’t suppose you realize how much you’ve hurt Katerina Ivanovna by telling Grushenka what happened that time—she didn’t hesitate to fling it in her face that she “visited gentlemen on the sly, offering her beauty for sale”! Mitya, what could be more insulting?’ Alyosha was tortured by the thought that his brother might be pleased at Katerina Ivanovna’s humiliation, though of course such a thing was impossible.
‘Ah!’ Dmitry Fyodorovich suddenly exclaimed, knitting his brows and striking his forehead with the flat of his hand. Only now did he fully realize what he had done, though Alyosha had told him the whole story, including the insult a
nd Katerina Ivanovna’s exclamation: ‘Your brother is a scoundrel!’
‘Yes, I may well have told Grushenka about that “fateful day”, as Katya likes to call it. Yes, that’s right, I did tell her, I remember now! It was that time we were in Mokroye, I was drunk, the gypsy girls were singing… But I was weeping, I was on my knees, I was worshipping Katya’s image, and Grushenka knew this. She understood, I remember it clearly now, she was in tears herself… Oh, to hell with it all! It was bound to end like this! That time she wept, but now… a dagger through the heart! That’s women for you.’
He lowered his gaze and was lost in thought.
‘Yes,’ he said suddenly, in a gloomy voice, ‘I’m a scoundrel! No doubt about it, a scoundrel. What does it matter if I wept or not, I’m still a scoundrel! Tell her I accept her verdict, if that’s any consolation. Well, that’ll do, goodbye, enough of this talk! Not a very cheerful topic. You go your way, I’ll go mine. Can’t say I want to see you again, except perhaps when it’s all up with me. Goodbye, Aleksei!’ He shook Alyosha’s hand vigorously and, without raising his eyes or head, turned abruptly and set off swiftly towards the town. Alyosha followed him with his eyes, in disbelief that he could depart just like that.
‘Just a moment, Aleksei,’ Dmitry Fyodorovich turned and said suddenly, after he had taken only a few steps, ‘one more confession, only to you! Look at me, look hard. Do you see, here, just here—there’s something dreadfully shameful being hatched here.’ (Saying ‘just here’, Dmitry Fyodorovich struck his chest with his closed fist in a strange manner, as though this shameful ‘something’ were indeed there, in that spot, in a pocket perhaps, or sewn into something and hanging round his neck.) ‘You know me, a scoundrel, a self-confessed scoundrel! But remember, whatever I may have done in the past, am doing now, or will do in the future—nothing, nothing can be as despicable as the villainy that I’m harbouring here now, that I carry in my heart this very minute, here, just here, this villainy—active and developing—which I’m fully capable of stopping, which I can stop or let it take its course, be sure of that! Well, you might as well know, I shan’t stop it, I shall let it take its course. When we talked earlier I told you everything, but not this, because even I didn’t have the gall for that! I can still stop myself; and if I do, tomorrow I’ll recover half of my lost honour, but I’m not going to stop myself, I’m going to carry out my terrible intention, and you can be my witness that I’ve said so deliberately in advance! Iniquity and hell let loose! No need to explain, you’ll find out when the time comes. The stinking alley-way and the infernal hussy! Goodbye. Don’t pray for me, I’m not worth it, there’s no need, no need at all… I don’t need your prayers! Let me be!’
And he walked off abruptly, this time for good. Alyosha turned towards the monastery. ‘How can I… how can I possibly not see him again?’ he wondered in desperation. ‘What does he mean? I’ll certainly see him again. Tomorrow! I’ll go and look for him, I’ll go specially, just to find out what he means!…’
He walked round the outside of the monastery, straight through the pine copse and into the hermitage. The door was opened for him, although no one was normally admitted at this hour. His heart was beating fast as he entered the starets’s cell. Why, oh why had he gone out today, why was the starets sending him ‘out into the world’? Here was peace and sanctity, whereas out there—confusion and darkness, in which one wandered and lost one’s way.
In the cell he found the novice Porfiry and Father Païsy, who had been dropping in every hour throughout the day to enquire about Starets Zosima, whose condition, Alyosha was shocked to learn, was deteriorating rapidly. Even the customary evening assembly of the monks could not take place on this occasion. Usually, every evening after the liturgy, the monks would gather in the starets’s cell before retiring for the night, and each of them would confess to him his wrongdoings, his sinful thoughts and desires, his temptations, and even the quarrels he may have had with his brother monks. Some confessed on their knees. The starets made his pronouncements, conciliated, counselled, imposed penance, gave his blessing, and dismissed them. It was these communal ‘confessions’ that the opponents of the cult of startsy objected to, denouncing them as violations of the sacrament of confession and nothing short of sacrilege (they were wrong of course). It was even suggested to the diocesan authorities that such confessions, far from being of any benefit, actually led directly to temptation and sin. Many, it was said, were reluctant to go to the starets, and went only because others did so and to avoid being accused of the sin of pride and spiritual defiance. There were stories of some monks going to the evening confession having previously agreed amongst themselves: ‘I’ll say I lost my temper with you this morning and you confirm it,’ merely in order to have something to say and be done with it. Alyosha knew that this did actually occur sometimes. He was also aware that there were some amongst the brethren who took great exception to the custom whereby even the letters which the monks at the hermitage received from their relatives were first brought to the starets to be opened and read, before being handed over to the addressee. The intention was, of course, that all this should be done openly and sincerely, from the heart, in the name of voluntary humility and spiritual edification; in practice however much insincerity—indeed, contrivance and hypocrisy—would result. The older and more experienced monks stood their ground nevertheless, arguing that ‘whosoever has sincerely entered these walls in order to attain salvation will undoubtedly find all these acts of obedience and sacrifice salutary and beneficial; on the other hand, he who finds them burdensome and who complains ought not even to be considered a monk and has no business in the monastery, his proper place being in the world outside. And since no one can be safe from temptation or the devil in the Church any more than in the world at large, it follows therefore that the guard against sin must never be relaxed.’
‘He’s become weaker and sleeps most of the time,’ Father Païsy whispered to Alyosha after he had blessed him. ‘It’s even difficult to wake him. But there’s no need to. He woke up for about five minutes and asked that his blessing be sent to the monks and that they remember him in their evening prayers. He intends to receive Holy Communion once more in the morning. He asked after you, Aleksei, whether you had gone away, and we told him you were in the town. “He has gone there with my blessing; that is where he ought to be just now, rather than here”—that is what he said about you. He spoke of you with kindness and concern—you realize what an honour that is? Only, why did he instruct you to go out into the world for a while? It surely means he has foreseen something in your life! Remember this, Aleksei, that even if you do return to the world, it will be in obedience to your starets’s will, and not to indulge in vain pursuits and worldly pleasures…’
Father Païsy left the cell. That the starets was failing, Alyosha was in no doubt, although he might live for another day or two. Overcome with emotion, Alyosha definitely decided—in spite of his promise to go and see his father, the Khokhlakovas, his brother, and Katerina Ivanovna—not to leave the monastery at all the next day, but to remain with his starets until he died. His heart was overflowing with love, and he reproached himself bitterly that while he was in the town he could have forgotten, even for a moment, this man whom he revered more than anyone else in the world, and could have left him lying on his deathbed in the monastery. He went into the starets’s tiny bedroom, knelt down, and bowed to the ground in front of the sleeping figure. The starets was lying silent and motionless, breathing regularly and almost imperceptibly. His face was peaceful.
Alyosha went back to the room in which the starets had received his visitors that morning and, taking off his boots and hardly undressing any further, lay down on the hard, narrow, leather-covered settee on which he had for so long been accustomed to sleeping with only a pillow under his head. He had already quite some time ago given up using the mattress that his father had referred to. He simply used to take off his cassock and cover himself with it in place of a blanket.
But before falling asleep, he went down on his knees and prayed for a long time. In his ardent prayer he did not ask God to resolve his confusion, but yearned only for inner joy, the joy that he always experienced in his soul after praising and glorifying God, which was usually the sole content of his prayers before going to sleep. This joy, which filled his soul, would invariably induce a deep and peaceful sleep. While praying, he suddenly felt in his pocket the little pink envelope that Katerina Ivanovna’s maid had handed to him as she caught up with him on the road. He felt uneasy, but finished his prayer. Then, after some hesitation, he opened the envelope. It contained a letter to him, signed ‘Lise’, that same young daughter of Mrs Khokhlakova’s who had teased him in front of the starets that morning.
‘Dear Aleksei Fyodorovich,’ she wrote. ‘No one knows that I’m writing to you, not even my mother, and I know how deceitful that is. But I couldn’t possibly survive unless I told you what is going on in my heart, though only we two should know about it for now. But how am I to tell you what I so much long to tell you? They say that paper does not blush, but I assure you that this is not true and that it is blushing just as much as I am now, all over. My dear Alyosha, I love you, I’ve loved you since childhood, since our Moscow days, when you were quite different from now, and I’ll love you for life. I have chosen you with all my heart, chosen to be united with you, and to live all our days together—of course, on condition that you leave the monastery. As for our ages, we’ll wait as long as the law prescribes. By then, I’m sure to be cured, I shall be able to walk and dance. There can be no doubt of that.
‘You see, I’ve thought of everything; however, one thing worries me: what will you think of me after you’ve read this? I’m always laughing and misbehaving, and earlier today I made you angry, but I assure you that before I put pen to paper just now I prayed before the icon of the Holy Virgin, and I am still praying, almost in tears.
The Karamazov Brothers Page 26
