The Karamazov Brothers

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

  ‘Play cards?’

  ‘So, perhaps they haven’t gone to sleep after all, if they’ve started playing cards. I’d say it was just coming up to eleven now, no later.’

  ‘Faster, Andrei, faster!’ Mitya shouted again, frantically.

  ‘There’s something I was meaning to ask you, sir,’ Andrei began again, after a pause, ‘only I wouldn’t like to offend you, sir.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Fedosya Markovna was on her knees just a while ago, begging you not to harm her ladyship or anyone else… so you see, sir, now as I’m taking you there… I do beg your pardon, sir, if in all conscience perhaps I’ve said something silly.’

  Mitya suddenly grabbed him from behind by the shoulders.

  ‘Call yourself a coachman, do you?’ he began furiously

  ‘Yes…’

  ‘Don’t you see, you should give way. Just because you’re a coachman doesn’t mean you can charge on regardless and run people over, as though to say, watch out, here I come! No, that won’t do, my good man! You’ve no right to trample the poor sods under hoof, you mustn’t run people into the ground; and if you ruin someone’s life—you must pay the penalty… the minute you trip someone up, the minute you ruin someone’s life—take what’s coming to you, and never show your face again.’

  Mitya was nearly hysterical as the words came tumbling forth. Andrei was puzzled, but he kept up the conversation.

  ‘True enough, Dmitry Fyodorovich, sir, you’re so right, it wouldn’t do to run people over, nor torture them either, nor any other living creature, because all creatures—are God’s creatures. Take the horse for example, there’s folk that never know when to stop, even some coachmen… There’s no holding the fellows back, they’ll just go on and on regardless.’

  ‘All the way to hell?’ Mitya interrupted suddenly, and gave vent to a characteristically unexpected burst of laughter. ‘Andrei, you honest soul,’ he grabbed him firmly by the shoulders again, ‘tell me: will Dmitry Fyodorovich Karamazov end up in hell or not, what do you think?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know, sir, it depends on you, because you… You see, sir, when the Son of God was crucified on the cross and died, He came down from the cross and went straight to hell* and freed all the sinners who were being tortured there. And hell groaned mightily on account of this, thinking that no one, no more sinners would come there. And then the Lord said unto hell: “Groan not, hell, for henceforth you will be visited by all manner of moguls, rulers, high judges, and rich men, and you will be filled just as plentifully as you have been from time immemorial, until the day of my coming again.” Indeed, those very words were spoken…’

  ‘A folk legend. I like it! Give the one on your left a lash, Andrei!’

  ‘So that’s who hell is meant for, sir.’ Andrei lashed the horse on his left. ‘But to us, sir, you are like a small child… that’s how we look upon you… Short-tempered you may be, sir, no getting away from that, but the Lord will forgive you on account of your honest heart.’

  ‘And what about you, Andrei, will you forgive me?’

  ‘I’ve nothing to forgive, you haven’t done anything to me.’

  ‘No; on behalf of others I mean, on behalf of everyone, you alone, now this very minute here on the road, would you grant me forgiveness on behalf of everyone else? Speak up, you honest soul!’

  ‘Oh, sir! I’m almost too scared to take you any further, you do say such weird things…’

  But Mitya was already oblivious to this. He was praying ecstatically, muttering wildly to himself.

  ‘Lord, take me in all my transgressions, but judge me not. Let me pass without being subject to Your judgement… Judge me not, for I’ve already passed judgement upon myself; judge me not, for I love You, Lord! I am vile, but I love You: and should You send me to hell, I shall continue to love You there too, and will keep proclaiming that I’ll love You for ever and ever… But let me have my fill of love too… here, let me have my fill of love, five more hours and then let Your searing ray strike… For I love the queen of my heart. I love her and cannot help loving her. You can see for Yourself what I’m like through and through. I’ll rush up to her and prostrate myself at her feet and say: “You were right to ignore me… goodbye, and forget your victim, never trouble yourself any more!”’

  ‘Mokroye!’ shouted Andrei, pointing ahead with his knout.

  Through the pale cover of the night the dark solid shapes of widely scattered buildings suddenly appeared. The village of Mokroye contained some two thousand souls, but at this hour everyone was already fast asleep, and only here and there could one discern the odd light twinkling through the gloom.

  ‘Faster, faster, Andrei, here I come!’ Mitya called out, as though in delirium.

  ‘They’re still up!’ Andrei shouted again, pointing with his knout at the Plastunovs’ inn, which stood right at the approach to the village and where six windows overlooking the street were brightly lit.

  ‘They’re still up!’ Mitya echoed cheerfully. ‘Let them know we’re coming Andrei, roll up in style, at full pelt, raise the roof! Let them all know who’s here! It’s me! Here I come!’ Mitya shouted ecstatically.

  Andrei lashed the exhausted horses into a gallop and really did roll up with a clatter at the lofty porch, where he pulled his breathless, steaming bays to a dead halt. Mitya jumped off the carriage just as the innkeeper, who had been on his way to bed, emerged on the steps, curious to find out who on earth had driven up like that.

  ‘Trifon Borisych, is that you?’

  The innkeeper leant down, peered intently, ran down the steps hurriedly and with obsequious joy rushed towards the visitor.

  ‘My dear Dmitry Fyodorovich! Can it really be you again?’

  This Trifon Borisych was a well-built, healthy-looking muzhik of medium height, with a somewhat fleshy face and, especially when dealing with the Mokroye peasants, a severe and uncompromising expression, but with the gift of being able to alter his expression instantly to the most obsequious one possible, whenever he felt he could make a quick rouble. He dressed in the Russian style, a shirt buttoned down across the shoulder, worn under a poddyovka. He already possessed considerable capital, but strove constantly to acquire even greater wealth. More than half the peasants were in his clutches and up to their necks in debt to him. He used to buy and lease land from the estate owners, and the peasants would till this land for him in order to clear their debts, and would never quite manage to do so. He was a widower with four grown-up daughters; one was already a widow and lived in his house with her two small children, his granddaughters, and worked for him as a hired hand. Another one, although a simple peasant woman, was married to a government clerk, a sort of superior pen-pusher, and on a wall in one of the rooms of the inn one could recognize, among some family photographs, a miniature portrait of this clerk in his uniform with epaulettes. For church festivals the two younger daughters would put on their fashionable green or light-blue dresses, which were tight at the back and had trains a yard long, and call on friends and neighbours, but come the morrow they would be up at the crack of dawn, as on any other day, sweeping the rooms with a birch broom and removing the washing water and rubbish left by the visitors. In spite of having thousands of roubles already stashed away, Trifon Borisych was very fond of fleecing the revelling visitor and, recalling that it was less than a month since he had made over two hundred roubles, if not three, in a single night from Dmitry Fyodorovich on the occasion of the latter’s spree with Grushenka, he now rushed up to him and greeted him joyfully and effusively, sensing from the very manner in which Mitya rolled up to the porch that there would be profit in it for him again.

  ‘My dear Dmitry Fyodorovich, can it really be our good fortune to welcome you again?’

  ‘Wait, Trifon Borisych,’ Mitya began, ‘first things first: where is she?’

  ‘Agrafena Aleksandrovna?’ The innkeeper, peering closely into Mitya’s face, immediately realized the situation. ‘She’s here, too… staying…�
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  ‘Tell me, who’s she with!’

  ‘Some visitors… One’s an official, very likely a Pole, judging by the way he speaks; he’s the one that dispatched the horses from here to fetch her. The other’s his friend, or just another traveller: who can tell? They’re not in uniform…’

  ‘Are they having a party? Are they rich?’

  ‘A party? Not really! They’re nothing to worry about, Dmitry Fyodorovich.’

  ‘Honestly? Well, what about the others?’

  ‘Two gentlemen from the town… They were on their way from Chernya and stopped here. One’s a young man, a relative of Mr Miusov’s, I’m told, I can’t think of his name for the moment… and you probably know the other one too—the landowner Maksimov—they say he dropped in at your monastery to attend a service, since when he’s been travelling about with this young relative of Mr Miusov’s…’

  ‘No one else?’

  ‘No one.’

  ‘Hold on a minute, Trifon Borisych, now tell me the most important thing of all: how does she seem? What’s she doing?’

  ‘She arrived with them earlier, and she’s sitting with them at the moment.’

  ‘Does she seem cheerful? Has she been laughing?’

  ‘Don’t know about laughing, not really… Rather sad if anything, she was combing the young man’s hair.’

  ‘What, the Polish officer’s?’

  ‘He’s hardly young, and he’s no officer either; no, sir, not him, I meant that young chap, Miusov’s nephew… keep forgetting his name.’

  ‘Kalganov?’

  ‘That’s the one.’

  ‘Good, leave it to me. Are they playing cards?’

  ‘They were, but not any more; they were drinking tea, now the Pole’s asked for some liqueur.’

  ‘That’ll do, Trifon Borisych, my friend, that’ll do, leave it to me. Now, tell me the most important thing of all: no gypsies?’

  ‘There’s no gypsies left in the district at all, Dmitry Fyodorovich, they’ve been driven out by the authorities; but there’s some Jews over at Rozhdestvenskaya, they play the dulcimer and the violin, we could even send for them now if you like. They’ll come.’

  ‘Send for them, of course, you must!’ Mitya exclaimed. ‘Can you wake the girls up, like the other time, especially Marya, Stepanida as well, and Arina. Two hundred roubles for the chorus!’

  ‘I’ll get the whole village up for that much, even if they’ve all gone to bed. But, my dear Dmitry Fyodorovich, are the local peasants worth such favours, or the girls for that matter? To spend such a sum on those scurvy ruffians! Whoever heard of our muzhiks smoking cigars, and that’s what you treated them to last time. They stink, the bastards. And all the girls are full of lice, every one of them. Look, I’ll wake up my own daughters for you for free, never mind such a sum, even if they’ve gone to sleep, I’ll kick their backsides and they’ll sing for you all right. And did you really have to give the muzhiks champagne to drink that time, for heaven’s sake!’

  It was hypocritical of Trifon Borisych to be solicitous of Mitya: he had kept back half a case of champagne for himself on that occasion, and had picked up a hundred-rouble note from under the table, which he had crumpled in his fist and purloined.

  ‘Trifon Borisych, I blew a good few thousand here that time. Do you remember?’

  ‘You did, my dear sir, how could I forget, you spent not much short of three thousand.’

  ‘Well, I’ve brought just as much this time, too, see?’

  And he pulled out his wad of money and waved it right under the innkeeper’s nose.

  ‘Now listen, and listen carefully: in an hour the wine, food, and sweets will arrive—I want the whole lot taken upstairs at once. And that case that Andrei’s got over there, take it straight upstairs now, and start pouring the champagne… But the main thing is—the girls, the girls, and make sure Marya’s there…’

  He turned towards the carriage again, and removed the case with the pistols.

  ‘Let’s settle up, Andrei! Here’s fifteen roubles for the troika, and fifty for vodka… for your willingness, for your kindness… to remember your master Karamazov by!’

  ‘You shouldn’t, sir…’, wavered Andrei, ‘five roubles will do for a tip, I won’t take any more than that. Trifon Borisych is my witness. It’s silly of me, I know, but there you are…’

  ‘What are you scared of?’ Mitya looked him up and down. ‘Well, to hell with you, if that’s the way you want it!’ he shouted, flinging five roubles at him. ‘And now, Trifon Borisych, you’d better take me in unannounced, but first of all let me have a good look at them, but make sure they don’t spot me. Are they in the blue room?’

  Trifon Borisych looked apprehensively at Mitya, but carried out his request obediently and without hesitation: he led him cautiously into the hallway, went straight ahead into a large room immediately next to the one in which the guests were seated, and brought out a candle. Then he quietly escorted Mitya inside and led him to a dark corner, from where he could easily observe the occupants of the adjoining room while remaining out of sight himself. But Mitya did not observe them for long, he was in no mood to scrutinize the company. He had caught sight of her, and his heart started to thump, everything began to spin in front of him. She was seated beside the table in an armchair, and next to her, on a settee, sat the young and handsome Kalganov; she was holding his hand and appeared to be laughing, whereas he, his eyes averted, was saying something in a loud, somewhat exasperated voice to Maksimov, who was seated across the table from Grushenka. Maksimov was laughing heartily at something. But he was sitting on the settee, while on a chair next to the settee sat another stranger. The man on the settee was leaning back and smoking a pipe, and from what Mitya could discern, he was short of stature, stoutish, with a broad face, and appeared to be annoyed about something. The other stranger, his companion, struck Mitya as being enormously tall; but more than that he was unable to make out. The sight of them almost took his breath away. He could not stand still for a second, he placed the case with the pistols on the sideboard and, with bated breath and with cold shivers running down his spine, marched straight into the blue room to join the party.

  ‘Ai-ai!’ Grushenka, who was the first to notice him, screeched in terror.

  7

  THE FORMER AND INDISPUTABLE ONE

  MITYA walked quickly, with long strides, right up to the table.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he said in a loud voice, almost shouting, and stuttering over every word, ‘I… I don’t mean to disturb you! Don’t worry. I’m not, you know, I’m not…’, he suddenly turned to Grushenka, who had leaned over in her armchair towards Kalganov, and was tightly clasping his hand. ‘I… I’m just passing through. Only here till the morning. Gentlemen, would you let a passing traveller… join your company till the morning? Only till the morning, for the last time, here in this room?’

  These last few words were addressed to the fat little man sitting on the settee and smoking a pipe. With pompous solemnity, the man removed the pipe from his mouth and said officiously:

  ‘Panie,* here is private. Surely, there are other places.’

  ‘Good heavens, Dmitry Fyodorovich! What are you doing here?’ Kalganov suddenly interjected. ‘Good evening, come and sit down!’

  ‘Good evening, my dear fellow… how very kind of you! I’ve always had the greatest respect for you…’, Mitya responded cheerfully, eagerly extending his hand to him across the table.

  ‘Ouch, that hurt! You nearly broke my fingers,’ laughed Kalganov.

  ‘He always shakes hands like that, always!’ Grushenka’s voice sang out, and she smiled apologetically and seemed suddenly reassured by Mitya’s demeanour that he was unlikely to make a scene; she was gazing at him, still anxious, but consumed with terrible curiosity. Something about him astonished her greatly; the last thing she had expected of him was that he would arrive at such a moment and address them like that.

  ‘Good evening,’ the unctuous voice of the landowner M
aksimov chimed in from the left. Mitya turned to him too.

  ‘Good evening, you’re here too, I see, I’m so glad to see you! Gentlemen, gentlemen, I…’ He turned again to the man with the pipe, evidently considering him to be the most important person there. ‘I hurried… I wanted to spend my last day, my last hour, in this room, in this very room… where I too have adored… my queen!… I beg your pardon, sir!’ he gabbled, ‘I rushed here, and I swore… Oh, don’t worry, this is my last night! Let’s drink to friendship, sir! The wine’s on its way… I brought this along.’ For some reason he suddenly produced his wad of banknotes. ‘Allow me, sir! I want music, noise, let’s bring the roof down, like the other time… But the worm, the worthless worm will slither along the ground and will be no more! On this, my last night, I want to celebrate my day of happiness!…’

  He was fighting to get his breath, and although he wanted to say many, innumerable things, all that emerged were these strange utterances. The Polish gentleman sat perfectly still, looking now at him, now at the wad of notes, now at Grushenka; he was clearly baffled.

  ‘If my królowa will allow…’ he began.

  ‘ “Krulova”, my foot, does he mean queen?’ Grushenka suddenly interrupted. ‘You make me laugh, you lot, the way you talk. Sit down, Mitya, what were you saying? Please don’t make a scene. You won’t make a scene, will you? You’re welcome, but you frighten me…’

  ‘Me, frighten you?’ Mitya cried out, raising his arms. ‘Oh, don’t mind me, take no notice of me, I shan’t get in your way!…’ And suddenly, to everyone’s consternation, his own included, he slumped into a chair and burst into tears; his face was turned towards the opposite wall and he was clutching the backrest of the chair as though hugging it.

  ‘Well now, come on, just look at you!’ Grushenka said reproachfully. ‘He always used to be like that when he came to see me. He’d start saying something, and I wouldn’t have a clue what he was on about. And on one occasion he burst into tears just like now, this is already the second time—how embarrassing! What are you crying for? As if there was anything to cry about!’ she added mysteriously, stressing her words with a note of irritation in her voice.