The Karamazov Brothers

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

  But that was only in the event of a happy resolution of the problem. He could also imagine a different decision, with another and truly dreadful outcome. Supposing she were suddenly to say to him: ‘I don’t want to see you again. I’ve decided to throw in my lot with Fyodor Pavlovich and marry him, so I don’t need you any more.’ Then… but then… In truth, Mitya was not sure what would happen then, right up to the last he did not know; this much must be said in his defence. He had no definite intentions and was not planning to commit any crime. He merely watched, spied, and suffered, but all his plans hinged upon that first, happy outcome. He refused even to consider any other possibility. But therein he encountered yet another cause for anguish, for he found a quite new, additional, but at the same time fateful and insurmountable obstacle.

  It was this: if she were to say to him, ‘I’m yours, take me away,’ how exactly would he do it? Where would he find the means for this, where would he find the money? It so happened that just at that time his entire income, which had consisted of a regular allowance from Fyodor Pavlovich throughout all the preceding years, had now dried up completely. Grushenka of course had money, but in this respect Mitya suddenly became inordinately proud: he wanted to take her away himself and begin a new life with her at his own expense, not at hers; he could not even imagine taking her money, the very thought disgusted him. I am not going to expatiate upon this fact or analyse it, I shall merely say: such was his frame of mind at that particular moment. Quite likely, it was all indirectly and perhaps even unconsciously the result of his secret pangs of conscience for having appropriated Katerina Ivanovna’s money: he himself subsequently admitted that at the time he thought: ‘One woman thinks I’m a scoundrel, and I’d immediately look like a scoundrel to the other one; if Grushenka finds out later, she won’t want such a scoundrel.’ And so, where was he to obtain the means, where was he to obtain that damned money? He had to get it, otherwise everything would be lost and it would all come to nought, ‘and just because I couldn’t lay my hands on some money! What a fiasco!’

  But let me anticipate a little: the whole point was that maybe he did know where to find the money, perhaps he even knew where it was kept. I shall not go into any more detail on this score, because everything will become clear later; I shall merely describe, however inadequately, his main dilemma at the time. In order to be able to take the money which was secreted somewhere, in order to have the right to take it, he would first have to return the three thousand owing to Katerina Ivanovna—‘otherwise I’d be a petty thief, I’d be a scoundrel, and I don’t want to begin my new life as a scoundrel,’ concluded Mitya, and with this in mind he decided to turn the whole world upside down if necessary, but, come what may, to return the three thousand to Katerina Ivanovna before doing anything else. He arrived at this decision during the hours following his last meeting with Alyosha that evening two days before, on the highway, after Grushenka had insulted Katerina Ivanovna; Mitya, on hearing the full story from Alyosha, had confessed to being a scoundrel and had asked that this be communicated to Katerina Ivanovna, ‘if it is any consolation to her’. That very same night, after seeing his brother, he had felt, desperate as he was, that it would even be better ‘to rob and kill someone than not to repay the debt to Katya’. ‘I’d rather stand before my victim and everyone else as a robber and a murderer and go to Siberia, than give Katya cause to say that I betrayed her, stole her money, and used it to run away with Grushenka to begin a new life of virtue! That I could never do!’ Thus said Mitya, gritting his teeth, and sometimes he really felt he would end up with inflammation of the brain. But for the time being he battled on…

  It was very strange. One would have thought that having made such a decision, there would be nothing left for him but despair; where was a pauper like him suddenly to lay his hands on so much money? Nevertheless, he continued to hope till the very last that he would get hold of that three thousand, that the money would somehow materialize of its own accord, perhaps even fall out of the sky. But that is usually the way with those who, like Dmitry Fyodorovich, know no better than to spend and squander the money that they have inherited without having the least idea of how it was earned. Immediately following his meeting with Alyosha two days previously, his head reeling with the most unlikely schemes which left him totally confused, he had come up with the craziest idea of all. Maybe, in just such circumstances, people like him do in fact consider the most impossible and outlandish schemes to be the most feasible. He had suddenly decided to go to the merchant Samsonov, Grushenka’s patron, and propose a certain ‘plan’ to him, on the strength of which the latter would give him the whole of the required sum. He did not doubt the commercial viability of his plan in the least, his only doubt was how Samsonov would react to his proposition if he decided to consider it from anything other than a purely commercial standpoint. Though Mitya knew this merchant by sight, he was not acquainted with him and had never even spoken to him. For some reason he had, as it happens, concluded long ago that this old libertine, who already had one foot in the grave, might not object if Grushenka were to turn over a new leaf and marry someone ‘reliable’, and that not only would he not object, but, were an opportunity to present itself, would even actively encourage it. Some rumour that he had heard, or something that Grushenka had let slip, had made him think that perhaps the old man might prefer him to Fyodor Pavlovich as a match for Grushenka. Perhaps many readers of our tale may consider it rather naïve and low of Dmitry Fyodorovich to rely on such help, and to be willing to accept his bride straight from the arms of her benefactor. I can only say, however, that to Mitya Grushenka’s past appeared to be well and truly over. He regarded this past with infinite compassion, and believed with the full ardour of his soul that were Grushenka to say that she loved him and would marry him, this would immediately mark the beginning of a totally new Grushenka and, for that matter, a totally new Dmitry Fyodorovich, both free from all vices and having only virtues to their credit: they would forgive each other and start a completely new life together. As for Kuzma Samsonov, Mitya regarded that man from Grushenka’s vanished past as someone who had played a fateful role in her life, but whom she had never loved and who, most important of all, was now quite ‘spent’, finished, as though completely irrelevant. Moreover, Mitya could not even look upon him as a man now, for it was known to all and sundry in the town that he was just a pale shadow of a man, whose relationship with Grushenka was, as it were, purely platonic, quite unlike what it had been previously, and that this had been the case for a long time, in fact almost a year. It might be said that this pointed to a considerable naïvety on Mitya’s part; in spite of all his vices, he was very naïve. It was this naïvety, incidentally, that led him to believe that old Kuzma, in preparing to depart from this life, would feel genuine repentance for his past association with Grushenka, and that she now had no more devoted friend or benefactor than this harmless old man.

  The day following his conversation with Alyosha in the field, Mitya hardly slept the whole night, and then turned up at Samsonov’s house at about ten in the morning and asked to be announced. The house was an old, bleak, very spacious, two-storeyed building with an annexe and some outhouses in the yard. On the lower floor lived Samsonov’s two married sons with their families, and also his elderly sister and one unmarried daughter. The annexe was occupied by his two stewards, one of whom had a large family. His children as well as the stewards lived in cramped conditions, whereas the old man occupied the upper floor all by himself and would not even share it with his daughter, who looked after him and who, in spite of suffering from breathlessness, had to dash upstairs not only at regular intervals but also whenever he chose to summon her. This top floor contained many large reception rooms furnished in the old-fashioned merchant style, with long, monotonous rows of ugly mahogany chairs and armchairs ranged along the walls, crystal chandeliers shrouded with dust-covers, and gloomy pier-glasses between the windows. All of these rooms remained empty and unused, because the fr
ail old man had confined himself to only one small room, a tiny, separate bedroom, where he was looked after by an old woman servant, her hair gathered under a kerchief, and a servant boy, who was usually to be found stretched out on a bench in the entrance hall. On account of his swollen legs the old man was hardly able to walk at all, and would only occasionally get up from his leather couch; the old woman, holding him under his arms, would walk him once or twice up and down the room. He was strict and taciturn even with this old woman. When the ‘Captain’ was announced, he immediately gave orders to refuse admittance. But Mitya persisted and asked to be announced once more. Kuzma Kuzmich questioned the lad closely: ‘What does he look like, is he drunk? Is he violent?’ And the answer was: ‘He’s sober, but he insists on seeing you!’ The old man still refused to see him. Thereupon Mitya, who had foreseen all this and had purposely taken a piece of paper and a pencil with him, wrote one line, in his clearest handwriting, on the scrap of paper: ‘On a very urgent matter closely concerning Agrafena Aleksandrovna,’ and requested that it be given to the old man. Having pondered a while, the old man told his lad to admit the visitor into the hall and sent the old woman downstairs to summon his youngest son to come up immediately. This youngest son, a man of enormous height and strength, with a clean-shaven face and dressed in the German fashion (Samsonov himself wore a caftan and sported a beard), appeared forthwith and stood in silence. They were all terrified of their father. The father had summoned the strapping youth not exactly because he was afraid of the Captain (he was not of a particularly timid disposition), but more to have a witness present—just to be on the safe side. Supported on either side by his son and the young lad, he finally shuffled into the hall. It would be correct to assume that he felt a certain degree of curiosity. The hall in which Mitya was waiting was an enormous, bleak, depressing room with a double row of windows, a gallery, imitation marble-panelled walls, and two huge, shrouded crystal chandeliers. Mitya was sitting on a chair by the door, waiting impatiently for his fate to be resolved. When the old man appeared at the opposite entrance, about twenty-five paces from Mitya’s chair, the latter immediately sprang to his feet and went forward to meet him with long, firm, military strides. Mitya was dressed for the occasion in a fully buttoned frock-coat, and was holding a top hat in his black-gloved hands, just as he had been about three days before, when visiting the starets in the monastery on the occasion of the family gathering with his brothers and Fyodor Pavlovich. The old man stood stern and imperious, and as Mitya approached he felt he was being scrutinized from head to toe. He was also astonished to see how badly swollen Kuzma Kuzmich’s face had become lately: his lower lip, which was thick at the best of times, now resembled a kind of sagging doughnut. After bowing gravely and silently to his guest, he motioned him towards an armchair near the settee and, leaning heavily on his son’s arm, began slowly, with painful groans, to lower himself on to the settee facing Mitya, so that the latter, seeing the old man in such pain, immediately felt he wanted to apologize and was even sensitive enough to feel embarrassment at his own insignificance before a person of such dignity.

  When he had finally settled himself the old man spoke slowly, distinctly, with gravity, but politely: ‘How can I be of help to you, my dear sir?’

  Mitya started. He jumped to his feet, but sat down again. Then he at once began to speak loudly, quickly, nervously, waving his arms about in dire distress. It was clear he was at the end of his tether, he knew the situation was hopeless and he was clutching at straws, and that if he did not succeed, he would be sunk. Samsonov had probably realized all this in a trice, but his face remained impassive and cold as a mummy’s.

  ‘Esteemed Kuzma Kuzmich, you’ve probably heard a lot already about my dispute with my father Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov, who robbed me of my inheritance after the death of my mother… the whole town’s talking about it already… because they all gossip here about things that don’t concern them… You might have heard about it from Grushenka, too… I beg your pardon—from Agrafena Aleksandrovna… from Agrafena Aleksandrovna, whom I honour and respect so deeply…’, thus began Mitya, and broke off in mid-sentence. But we shall not attempt to repeat the whole of his speech word for word, only the gist of it. The fact was that as long ago as three months he, Mitya, had by design (he said ‘by design’ rather than ‘purposely’) consulted a lawyer in the county town, ‘a famous lawyer, Kuzma Kuzmich, one Pavel Pavlovich Korneplodov—you’ve probably heard of him? Huge forehead, almost intelligent enough for a statesman… he knows you… spoke very highly of you…’ Mitya faltered for a second time. But he was undeterred and, after a moment’s hesitation, continued in full spate. This Korneplodov, having questioned Mitya carefully and examined such documents as he could produce (when it came to documents, Mitya became vague and would not dwell on the subject), observed that, as far as the village of Chermashnya was concerned, which he should have inherited from his mother, it would be perfectly possible to file a lawsuit and thereby teach the old reprobate a lesson… ‘Not all doors are shut, the law can get round that.’ In other words, one could expect another six thousand or so from Fyodor Pavlovich, perhaps even seven, because Chermashnya had to be worth not less than twenty-five thousand, ‘that is, probably twenty-eight, thirty, thirty, Kuzma Kuzmich, and yet, would you believe it, I didn’t even get seventeen from that old skinflint!… Well, I let the matter drop then because I don’t really understand much about the law, but when I came back here I was knocked sideways—there was a counter-claim waiting for me (here Mitya faltered again, and once more went off on a different tack). So, esteemed Kuzma Kuzmich, how would you like to take over my claim against that villain, and let me have just three thousand in return?… There is not the slightest chance of your losing, I swear to you on my honour, on my honour; quite the reverse, you stand to gain about six or seven thousand for your three thousand… The main thing is, it must be settled before the day’s out. I’ll go and see the lawyer for you, or whatever… In fact, I’ll do anything, I’ll give you all the documents, whichever ones you want, I’ll sign anything… we could draw up an agreement in no time, and if possible, if at all possible, before the morning’s out… If you were to give me the three thousand… I mean, in this wretched tinpot town there’s no one who can hold a candle to you as a businessman… and thereby you’d save me from… in a word, you’d save my neck, and then I could do a noble deed, one could even say a sublime one, in fact… because I nourish the noblest of sentiments towards a certain lady whom you know only too well and whose welfare is a matter of disinterested concern to you. Otherwise I wouldn’t even have come if it hadn’t been disinterested. And you might say that we’re involved in a three horse race here, because fate is a frightening thing, Kuzma Kuzmich! No, let’s be realistic, Kuzma Kuzmich, realistic! Since you’ve been out of the running for a long time, only two horses remain, as I’ve already put it, clumsily perhaps, but then I’m not a man of letters. What I mean is, I’m one of the runners and the other’s the villain. And so you must decide: me or the villain? Everything’s in your hands now—three destinies and two choices… I’m sorry, I don’t know what I’m saying, but you understand… I can see it in those venerable eyes of yours, that you understand… and if you don’t, I’ll go and drown myself, this very day, there you have it!’