The Karamazov Brothers

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

  ‘Excuse me, you see… I… you’ve probably heard from the forester who lives here, I’m Lieutenant Dmitry Karamazov, son of old man Karamazov with whom you’re negotiating about a strip of standing timber…’

  ‘You’re lying!’ the muzhik pronounced calmly and steadily.

  ‘What do you mean, lying? Surely you know Fyodor Pavlovich?’

  ‘Like hell I know your Fyodor Pavlovich,’ drawled the muzhik.

  ‘You’re buying some timber, some timber from him; wake up, snap out of it. Father Pavel Ilyinsky brought me here… You wrote to Samsonov, and he sent me to you…’ Mitya was breathless.

  ‘You’re l-y-ing!’ repeated Lurcher slowly and distinctly.

  Mitya broke into a cold sweat.

  ‘Merciful heaven, this is no joke! All right, so you’ve been drinking. All the same, surely you can talk, you can understand… otherwise… otherwise I don’t know what’s going on!’

  ‘You’re that house-painter!’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake!… I’m Karamazov, Dmitry Karamazov, I’ve got a proposition to make to you… an advantageous one… very advantageous… it’s all to do with the timber.’

  The muzhik was pompously stroking his beard.

  ‘I remember, you’ve taken on a contract and done the dirty. You’re a nasty piece of work!’

  ‘I assure you, you’re mistaken!’ Mitya was wringing his hands in despair. The muzhik continued to stroke his beard, and suddenly narrowed his eyes roguishly.

  ‘Look here, you tell me this. You tell me what law lets people play dirty tricks, go on, tell me! You’re a nasty piece of work, do you hear?’

  Mitya stepped back dejected, and suddenly it seemed as though something hit him on the head. In a flash everything became clear in his mind. As he himself put it later: ‘I saw the light, and understood everything.’ He stood bewildered, wondering how he—a sensible person after all—could possibly have fallen for such nonsense, could have allowed himself to become involved in such an escapade and persisted in it for so long, fussing over this Lurcher, wetting his face… ‘Well, the man’s drunk, smashed out of his mind, and he won’t stop drinking for another week—what’s the point of waiting? And what if Samsonov did send me here deliberately? And what if she… Oh God, what have I done!…’

  The muzhik just sat there, looking at him and smirking. In different circumstances Mitya would perhaps have killed the idiot in sheer rage, but now he felt as weak as a child. He went quietly over to the bench, took his coat, put it on, and left the room without saying a word. He did not find the forester in the other part of the hut, there was no one there. He took fifty kopecks in small change out of his pocket and left it on the table for the lodging, the candle, and the trouble. When he walked out of the hut he saw that all around there was nothing but forest. He set off blindly, not even knowing whether to turn right or left; yesterday, when he was hurrying to get here with the priest, he had not bothered to remember which way they came. There was no vengeance against anyone in his heart, not even against Samsonov. He walked aimlessly along the narrow forest track, disoriented, all his hopes shattered, without the slightest idea of where he was going. Any child could have taken advantage of him, so weak had he suddenly become in body and spirit. Somehow or other he managed to find his way out of the forest; bare, harvested fields stretched before him as far as the eye could see. ‘Death and despair all round!’ he kept repeating to himself as he strode on and on.

  He was picked up by some people who happened to be travelling in the same direction; it was a cab-driver, driving along the country road with an old merchant as his fare. When they drew level, Mitya asked the way, and it turned out they too were going to Volovya. After exchanging a few words they agreed to give Mitya a lift. About three hours later they reached their destination. At Volovya staging-post Mitya immediately ordered horses to take him to the town, and then suddenly realized that he was ravenous. While the horses were being harnessed he ordered a plate of fried eggs. He devoured them instantly, ate a large hunk of bread and some sausage that happened to be on the table, and drank three glasses of vodka. Having satisfied his hunger, he felt better, and his spirits rose. The horses galloped full pelt along the road as Mitya urged the driver on, and suddenly he conceived a new and, this time, ‘quite foolproof’ plan to obtain ‘that damned money’ before the day was out. ‘And to think that a man’s life should be ruined because of a mere three thousand roubles!’ he exclaimed disgustedly. ‘I’ll settle the matter today, and no mistake!’ Had it not been for Grushenka, whom he could not get out of his mind, and the fear that something might have happened to her, his spirits would perhaps have been completely restored. But every time he thought of her, it was like a sharp stab in his heart. They finally arrived back, and he dashed off to see her.

  3

  PROSPECTING FOR GOLD

  IT was precisely this visit from Mitya that Grushenka had been referring to with such anxiety when she spoke to Rakitin. At the time she had been awaiting her ‘message’ and had been most relieved that Mitya had not come either that day or the previous day, and she had been hoping against hope that perhaps he would not turn up at all before she left, but then suddenly there he was. The rest we know already: in order to deceive him, she at once persuaded him to take her to Kuzma Samsonov’s on the pretence that she was needed there urgently to do the accounts, and when they arrived, as they stood at the gate saying goodbye to each other, she had made him promise to come and collect her towards midnight and take her home. Mitya too was pleased with this arrangement: ‘If she’s going to be at Kuzma Samsonov’s, that means she’s not going to go to Fyodor Pavlovich… assuming she’s not lying,’ he added as an afterthought. As far as he could tell, she was not lying. Such was his jealous nature that whenever he parted from his beloved he was apt to let his imagination run wild and assume that she would be ‘unfaithful’ to him, but when he came rushing back, bewildered and dejected, convinced beyond all doubt that she had been unfaithful to him, he would regain his spirits instantly the moment he caught sight of her bright, cheerful, kindly face, immediately dismiss all suspicion and, overjoyed and ashamed, would reproach himself for his jealousy. Having taken his leave of Grushenka, he rushed back home. There was still so much to be done before the day was out! At least his mind was at rest now. ‘Only I must find out from Smerdyakov as soon as possible whether anything happened there last night, you never know, she might have gone to see Fyodor Pavlovich!’ the thought flashed through his mind. Thus, before he had even reached his lodgings, jealousy once again began to gnaw at his restless heart.

  Jealousy! ‘Othello’s not jealous, he’s trusting,’ Pushkin once noted, and this observation alone is proof enough of our great poet’s powers of understanding. Othello’s soul is shattered and his view of the world is perverted, because his ideal has perished. But Othello is trusting; he is not going to skulk behind corners, to snoop, or eavesdrop. On the contrary, he has to be led, prompted, provoked, before he even begins to suspect infidelity. That is not the way with the truly jealous. One cannot even begin to imagine the ignominy and moral degradation to which the truly jealous can manage to reconcile themselves without the least pangs of conscience. And it is not that they are all worthless and depraved souls. On the contrary, one may be noble at heart, may love with a pure and utterly self-sacrificing love, yet at the same time hide under tables, offer bribes to the most despicable of characters, and become inured to the most odious obscenity of spying and eavesdropping. Othello could under no circumstances have reconciled himself to infidelity—not forgiven, but reconciled himself to it—even though his soul was as pure and innocent as a child’s. Not so the truly jealous man: it is difficult to imagine what some jealous men can tolerate, reconcile themselves to, and indeed forgive! It is they in fact who are the most likely to forgive, and all women know this. The jealous man can, after an amazingly short period of time (preceded, naturally, by a dreadful scene), forgive for example an act of flagrant infidelity, eve
n if he himself witnessed the embraces and kisses, provided he can somehow reassure himself there and then that this is ‘for the last time’, and that henceforth his rival will vanish, disappear off the face of the earth, or that he himself can carry his beloved off to some place where his hated rival will never venture. Reconciliation, it goes without saying, would be but for an hour, because even if his rival were to vanish he would surely invent another one the very next day, a new one, and become jealous all over again. One may well ask, what is the point of love if it has to be watched so closely, what is love worth if it must be guarded so assiduously? But that is precisely what the truly jealous men will never stop to consider, and yet amongst them may be found some who are truly noble-hearted. What is also remarkable is that those same noble-hearted people, hiding in some closet, eavesdropping and snooping, although in ‘their noble hearts’ they understand perfectly the depths of shame to which they have sunk, will never, at least while hiding in the closet, feel any pangs of conscience. At the sight of Grushenka, Mitya’s jealousy would vanish, and for a brief moment he would become trusting and noble, and would even despise himself for his vile suspicions. But this merely proved that his love for this woman contained something much higher than he himself suspected, more than just sensuality, more than just that ‘curvaceous body’ of which he had spoken to Alyosha. On the other hand, when Grushenka was out of his sight Mitya would at once begin to suspect her again of all manner of subterfuge and treachery, and moreover without any pangs of conscience whatsoever.

  And so he was consumed yet again with jealousy. He knew above all that time was of the essence. First and foremost, he had to scrape together some money to tide him over, at least for the present. The nine roubles from the day before had nearly all been spent on the trip, and without money, of course, there was nothing he could do. But along with his ‘new plan’, it had suddenly occurred to him, while travelling on the road this morning, where to lay his hands on enough money to tide him over for the present. He owned a brace of fine duelling pistols, together with cartridges, and the only reason he had not already pawned them was that he treasured them more than anything else in his possession. Some time before, in The Stolichny Gorod, he had struck up a passing acquaintance with a young clerk and had learned that this clerk, who was a bachelor and was very well off, had a passion for weapons, and collected pistols, revolvers, and daggers, which he would hang on his walls and show off proudly to his friends, and could describe precisely the action of a gun, how to load it, how to fire it, and so on. Without a moment’s hesitation Mitya went to see him and offered to pawn the pistols to him for ten roubles. The clerk was happy to oblige and tried to persuade him to sell them outright, but Mitya refused, and the clerk gave him ten roubles, adding that under no circumstances would he charge any interest. They parted great friends. Mitya was in a hurry and, in his anxiety to see Smerdyakov as soon as possible, rushed off to his vantage point in the summer-house beyond the bottom of Fyodor Pavlovich’s garden. Therefore, it was possible subsequently to establish that only some three or four hours prior to a certain incident (of which I shall speak later), Mitya did not have a single kopeck to his name and had pawned his favourite possession for ten roubles, whereas suddenly, three hours later, he had thousands in his hands… But I anticipate.

  At Marya Kondratyevna’s (Fyodor Pavlovich’s neighbour), some very surprising and disturbing news awaited him—Smerdyakov was ill. He listened to the story of the fall in the cellar, the epileptic fit, the doctor’s arrival, and Fyodor Pavlovich’s solicitousness; he was also interested to learn that his brother Ivan Fyodorovich had already departed for Moscow that same morning. ‘Must have passed through Volovya before I did,’ thought Dmitry Fyodorovich, but Smerdyakov’s illness worried him no end. ‘What now, who’ll keep an eye out for me, who’ll be my informant?’ He began to question the two women avidly as to whether they had noticed anything the night before. They knew very well what he meant and put his mind at rest: no one had been there, Ivan Fyodorovich had spent the night there, ‘nothing had happened’. Mitya had to think hard. There was no doubt about it; from today, he had to mount a watch, but where—here, or at the gate to Samsonov’s house? He decided it would have to be in both places—depending on circumstances—whereas right now, right now… The thing was that right now he had in mind that latest, that ‘new and quite foolproof’ plan that he had devised while travelling on the road, the implementation of which could not be delayed. Mitya decided to devote an hour to this. ‘One hour’ll be enough to settle the whole thing, I’ll find out everything, and then, then, first of all I’ll go to Samsonov’s to check if she’s still there, then I’ll dash back here and wait till eleven, after which I’ll return to Samsonov’s to take her back home. That’s what I’ll do.’

  He flew home, washed, combed his hair, brushed his clothes, dressed, and set off for Mrs Khokhlakova’s. That, alas, was his ‘plan’. He had resolved to borrow three thousand roubles from this lady, for he had suddenly become totally convinced that she would not refuse him. One might perhaps wonder why, if he was so sure, he had not gone to her earlier, since she belonged, as it were, to his social circle, instead of going to Samsonov, a man of a different ilk with whom he had nothing in common. The fact was, however, that in the past month he had rather lost contact with Mrs Khokhlakova, with whom incidentally he had not been particularly well acquainted before, and moreover he was perfectly well aware that she could not abide him. This lady had taken a particular dislike to him from the outset, simply because he was Katerina Ivanovna’s fiancé, and for some reason she wanted Katerina Ivanovna to drop him and marry the ‘charming, chivalrous, well-educated Ivan Fyodorovich, who had such exquisite manners’. As for Mitya’s manners, she abhorred them. Mitya used to make fun of her, and on one occasion had even remarked that the lady was ‘as lively and uninhibited as she is uneducated’. And this morning, on his way back to the town, a brilliant idea had struck him: ‘If she’s so against my marrying Katerina Ivanovna, if she’s so opposed to it (he knew that she was hysterically opposed to it), surely she won’t refuse me the three thousand that would enable me to break off with Katya once and for all and leave the district for ever? Once these spoilt, society ladies set their capricious minds on something, they’ll stop at nothing to achieve it. Besides, she’s so rich,’ argued Mitya. As for the ‘plan’ itself, it was just the same as his previous one, namely, he was going to offer to assign to her his rights to Chermashnya, but not on commercial terms, as he had suggested to Samsonov the day before, nor by trying to entice her with the possibility—the way he had approached Samsonov—of doubling her money to about six or seven thousand roubles, but simply by offering her a gentleman’s security on the loan requested. Developing this new idea of his, he grew more and more elated, but that was his way in all undertakings born of sudden decisions. He always abandoned himself without reservation to any new idea. Nevertheless, when he stepped into the porch of Mrs Khokhlakova’s residence he suddenly felt a cold shiver run down his spine: it was only then that he suddenly realized, with total certainty, that this was now his final chance, that if this were to fail there would be nothing else left for him in the world, ‘except to cut someone’s throat and rob him of three thousand, and that’s all…’ It was about half past seven when he rang the bell.

  At first, fate seemed to smile upon him; as soon as he announced himself he was admitted immediately. ‘As though she was expecting me,’ the thought flashed through Mitya’s mind, and then suddenly, no sooner had he been shown into the drawing-room, than the lady of the house entered the room quickly and confirmed that she had indeed been expecting him…

  ‘I’ve been expecting you, I really have! You must agree, there was no reason whatsoever for me to suppose that you’d come to see me, and yet I was expecting you; you may marvel at my intuition, Dmitry Fyodorovich, but I was convinced the whole morning that you’d come today.’

  ‘That, my dear lady, really is amazing,’ said Mitya, as he a
wkwardly took a seat, ‘but I’ve come on an extraordinarily important matter… desperately important for me, that is, my lady, for me alone, I haven’t much time…’

  ‘I know you’ve come on an extraordinarily important matter, Dmitry Fyodorovich, that’s no longer even intuition, nor even a superstitious hankering after miracles (have you heard about Father Zosima?); it’s as clear as two and two make four—after all that happened with Katerina Ivanovna, it was inevitable you’d come, you couldn’t help it, it was a foregone conclusion.’

  ‘It was the stark reality of life, my dear lady, that’s what it was! Allow me to explain, however…’

  ‘Reality, to be sure, Dmitry Fyodorovich. I’m all for reality, I’m a bit long in the tooth for miracles now. Have you heard that Father Zosima is dead?’

  ‘It’s the first I’ve heard of it,’ Mitya sounded a little surprised. Alyosha’s image flashed in his mind’s eye.

  ‘Last night, and can you imagine…’

  ‘My dear lady,’ interrupted Mitya, ‘all I know is that I’m in the most desperate plight, and that if you won’t help me everything will collapse around my ears. I’m sorry if my words sound a bit dramatic, but I’m frantic, I’m in a real panic…’

  ‘I know, I know, you’re in a panic, I know everything, you couldn’t possibly be in any other state of mind, and whatever you might say, I know everything in advance. I’ve long been interested in your situation, Dmitry Fyodorovich, I’ve been investigating it and studying it… Oh, believe me, I’m an experienced spiritual healer, Dmitry Fyodorovich.’

  ‘My dear lady, if you’re an experienced healer, I’m an experienced patient,’ Mitya forced himself to be polite, ‘and something tells me that if you’ve been taking such an interest in me, then you’ll help me in my hour of dire need and allow me at last to explain to you the plan which I have the temerity to submit to you… and what I’m expecting from you… I have come, my dear lady…’