The Karamazov Brothers

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

  ‘Probably not even five hundred,’ Mitya retorted gloomily in response, ‘wish I’d counted at the time, was too drunk, more’s the pity…’

  On this occasion Mitya was sitting at the side of the room, his back to the curtains, listening gloomily with a sad, tired air, as if to say: ‘Huh, you can testify anything you want, it makes no difference now!’

  ‘More than a thousand went on them, Mitry Fyodorovich,’ Trifon Borisych corrected him firmly, ‘you threw money around as if there was no tomorrow, and they were only too happy to take it. Don’t you realize they’re a pack of thieves and swindlers, they’re horse-thieves, we’ve chased them out of town, otherwise they’d probably have testified themselves as to how much they made out of you. I saw the money in your hands myself—didn’t get around to counting it, that’s true, you wouldn’t let me—but from the look of it I’d say it was much more than fifteen hundred… well over fifteen hundred! I know money when I see it, I wasn’t born yesterday…’

  As to the previous night, Trifon Borisych declared flatly that as soon as Dmitry Fyodorovich had arrived, he himself had announced that he had three thousand roubles on him.

  ‘Come now, Trifon Borisych,’ Mitya objected, ‘did I really say in so many words that I had three thousand on me?’

  ‘You did, Mitry Fyodorovich. Andrei was there. Here’s Andrei now, he hasn’t left yet, he can confirm what I say. And inside, when you were treating the gypsy chorus, you shouted out for all to hear that you were into your sixth thousand—I took you to mean that that included what you’d already spent the previous time. Stepan and Semyon heard you, and Pyotr Fomich Kalganov was standing next to you at the time, perhaps he’ll confirm it too…’

  The reference to the sixth thousand was greeted with the utmost interest by the interrogators. This new version sounded most convincing: three and three make six, hence, three thousand on that occasion, plus three thousand now, and there you are—six, clear as can be.

  Stepan and Semyon, the two peasants whom Trifon Borisych had mentioned, were questioned, as were the driver Andrei and Pyotr Fomich Kalganov. The peasants and the driver readily confirmed Trifon Borisych’s evidence. Moreover, particular care was taken to record Andrei’s account of his conversation with Mitya during the journey: ‘Where do you think I, Dmitry Fyodorovich, will end up, in heaven or in hell, and will I be pardoned in the next world or not?’ The ‘psychologist’ Ippolit Kyrillovich listened with an enigmatic smile, and finished by advising that this statement as to where Dmitry Fyodorovich was going to end up should also be ‘entered on the record’.

  Kalganov, who was called next, entered reluctantly, behaved sullenly and capriciously, and addressed the prosecutor and Nikolai Parfenovich as though he were seeing them for the first time in his life, whereas in fact he had long been a regular acquaintance of theirs. He began by saying, ‘I know nothing about this, nor do I wish to know.’ It turned out, however, that he had heard Dmitry’s remark about the sixth thousand, and he had to admit that he had been standing close by at the time. When questioned as to the amount of money that was in Mitya’s hand, his response was ‘I don’t know how much.’ Regarding whether or not the Poles had been cheating at cards, he testified in the affirmative. In answer to repeated questions, he also explained that after the Poles had been ejected, Mitya’s situation with regard to Agrafena Aleksandrovna had really improved and that she had told him that she loved him. He spoke of Agrafena Aleksandrovna with reservation and respect, as though she were a lady of the highest standing, and did not allow himself to refer to her as ‘Grushenka’ even once. In spite of the young man’s evident reluctance to testify, Ippolit Kyrillovich questioned him at length, and it was from him that he learned the full details of what amounted to Mitya’s ‘romance’ that night. Mitya did not interrupt Kalganov once. At long last the young man was allowed to go, and he departed with unconcealed indignation.

  The Poles too were interrogated. Even though they had shut themselves in their bedroom they had not slept a wink all night, and with the arrival of the authorities they hurriedly got dressed and smartened themselves up, knowing full well that they would definitely be asked to testify. They presented themselves with dignity, although with some trepidation. The short gentleman, the ‘boss’, turned out to be a retired civil servant of the twelfth grade* who had served as a veterinary surgeon in Siberia and rejoiced in the name of Mr Mussjalowicz. Mr Wrublewski, on the other hand, turned out to be a jobbing toothpuller. At first, in spite of the fact that Nikolai Parfenovich was asking the questions, they both directed their answers to Mikhail Makarovich, who was standing a little apart from the others; they mistakenly took him for the highest-ranking and principal personage present, and addressed him after every second word as ‘Pan Colonel’. Only after they had been corrected several times by Mikhail Makarovich himself did they realize that they should direct their answers to Nikolai Parfenovich. It transpired that, apart from the pronunciation of a few words, their command of spoken Russian was very good indeed. Touching upon his relationship, past and present, with Grushenka, Mr Mussjalowicz began to hold forth with pride and passion, so much so that Mitya lost his temper at once, and shouted that he would not allow a ‘scoundrel’ to talk like that in his presence. Mr Mussjalowicz immediately latched on to the word ‘scoundrel’ and asked for it to be entered into the record. Mitya boiled with rage.

  ‘Scoundrel, yes, scoundrel! Go on, put it down, I couldn’t care less about your record, I still say he’s a scoundrel!’ he yelled.

  Although Nikolai Parfenovich entered it in the record, he nevertheless displayed a most praiseworthy professionalism and command of the situation during these tense exchanges: after strictly reprimanding Mitya, he immediately put an end to all further questions regarding the romantic aspect of the case, and hastened to turn to substantive matters. Among the substantive matters was one piece of evidence given by the Polish gentlemen which aroused extraordinary interest in the interrogators: Mr Mussjalowicz said that when they were in the small room Mitya had attempted to bribe him and had offered him three thousand roubles to clear off, seven hundred there and then, and the remaining two thousand three hundred ‘tomorrow morning, first thing, in the town’, and that he had sworn to do this on his honour, saying that he didn’t have that amount on him here in Mokroye, but that he’d left the money in town. Mitya remonstrated passionately that he had not said he would definitely give him the money in town the next day, but Mr Wrublewski confirmed the evidence, and after a moment’s reflection Mitya himself morosely agreed that the facts were probably as the Poles had said; he had been agitated at the time, and could well have said exactly that. The prosecutor immediately pounced on this admission: it appeared quite clear to the investigators (and that is how it was subsequently represented, in fact) that half, or a part, of the three thousand which Mitya had laid his hands on could well still be hidden somewhere in the town, or even somewhere there in Mokroye, which in turn served to clarify what was still an awkward fact from the investigators’ point of view, namely that Mitya had been found with only eight hundred roubles in his possession—a point which, though isolated and rather insignificant in itself, nevertheless spoke in Mitya’s favour to some extent. Now, however, even this last remaining piece of evidence in his favour was evaporating into thin air. In reply to the prosecutor’s question: where was he thinking of getting the other two thousand three hundred roubles to give to the Polish gentleman in the morning, seeing that he himself maintained that, in spite of his promise to the Pole on his word of honour, he only had fifteen hundred on him, Mitya said firmly that he had wanted to offer ‘the Polack’ not money, but a formal assignment of his title to the estate in Chermashnya, those same rights which he had offered to Samsonov and Khokhlakova. The prosecutor could not resist a smile at ‘the naïvety of the scheme’.

  ‘And do you think he’d have agreed to accept that “title” instead of the two thousand three hundred roubles in cash?’

  ‘Certainly he’d ha
ve agreed,’ Mitya retorted excitedly. ‘Just think, he could have made not just two, but four, even six thousand profit out of it! He could have summoned his lawyers immediately, the Poles and the Jews, and they’d have screwed not just three thousand out of the old devil, but the whole of Chermashnya.’

  Mr Mussjalowicz’s testimony was, of course, entered in the record in the minutest detail, after which the Polish gentlemen were allowed to go. The card-sharping incident was hardly even mentioned; Nikolai Parfenovich was only too satisfied with their evidence as it was, and he did not wish to bother them with trifles, all the more so as it had all been just a stupid drunken quarrel over cards and nothing more, what with all the revelry and riotous behaviour that night… Thus the money, the two hundred roubles, remained safely in the Polish gentlemen’s pockets.

  After that, the old man Maksimov was called. He was timidity itself, and approached with mincing steps, looking dishevelled and very downcast. He had been downstairs all this time, huddled next to Grushenka, sitting silently beside her and every now and again ‘starting to snivel over her, wiping his eyes with his little blue-chequered handkerchief’, as Mikhail Makarovich later recalled. In the end, it was she who was comforting and consoling him. The little old fellow immediately admitted, with tears in his eyes, that it was his fault for borrowing ten roubles from Dmitry Fyodorovich ‘on account of my impecuniousness’, and that he was ready to return the money… Questioned specifically on this point by Nikolai Parfenovich—had he noticed precisely how much money Dmitry Fyodorovich was holding in his hands, since, while he was borrowing the ten roubles he had been ideally placed to observe him holding the money—Maksimov replied most resolutely that the sum in question was ‘twenty thousand’.

  ‘And have you ever seen twenty thousand anywhere before?’ asked Nikolai Parfenovich with a smile.

  ‘Certainly I have, only it wasn’t twenty, it was seven—when my wife mortgaged my little estate. She let me have a glimpse of it, but not close up, ever so proud she was. A very sizeable wad it was, all in hundred-rouble notes. The ones Dmitry Fyodorovich had were all hundreds, too…’

  He was soon allowed to go. Finally, it was Grushenka’s turn. The investigators seemed to be apprehensive about the effect her presence might have on Dmitry Fyodorovich, and Nikolai Parfenovich even muttered a few cautionary words, to which Mitya inclined his head in silence, indicating that there would be no outbursts. Mikhail Makarovich himself led Grushenka in. She entered with a grave and dejected expression, outwardly almost calm, and, as instructed, sat down silently on a chair opposite Nikolai Parfenovich. She was very pale; she seemed to feel the cold, and clutched her magnificent black shawl tightly around her shoulders. In fact, this was the onset of a fever—the start of a protracted illness which was to set in at the end of that day. Her stern air, direct and serious expression, and calm demeanour produced a very favourable impression upon everyone. Nikolai Parfenovich even found himself somewhat ‘captivated’. Later, during various conversations, he would admit freely that not until that moment had he realized how ‘magnificent’ the woman really was; formerly, although he had seen her occasionally, he had always regarded her as something of a ‘local Jezebel’. ‘She has the most aristocratic manners,’ he once blurted out ecstatically when talking to some ladies. The ladies affected to greet this with the utmost indignation, and he was immediately pronounced a ‘wag’, which pleased him no end. On entering the room, Grushenka glanced only fleetingly at Mitya; he, for his part, looked at her with apprehension, but her expression reassured him immediately. After the initial obligatory questions and admonitions, Nikolai Parfenovich, faltering slightly, but nevertheless with the utmost courtesy, asked her about her relationship with Ex-Lieutenant Dmitry Fyodorovich Karamazov. To this, Grushenka replied softly and firmly:

  ‘We’re acquainted, he’s been calling on me for the past month.’

  In response to further personal questions, she declared promptly and with all candour that although she had been fond of him ‘on and off’, she had not really loved him, but had led him on out of ‘shameful wickedness’, and the ‘poor old fellow’ too, that she had noticed that Mitya was very jealous of Fyodor Pavlovich, as he was of everyone else, but that this had only amused her. She had never had any intention at all of going to Fyodor Pavlovich, but was just having him on. ‘During the last month my mind’s been on something quite different; I was expecting another man, one who had wronged me… Only it seems to me’, she concluded, ‘you ought not to be prying into this, nor should I be answering you, because it’s my own private business.’

  Accordingly, Nikolai Parfenovich promptly refrained from probing into the ‘romantic’ aspects of the relationship, and concentrated instead on the crucial question of the three thousand roubles. Grushenka confirmed that the amount spent in Mokroye a month ago had indeed been three thousand, and that though she had not counted the money herself, Dmitry Fyodorovich had said that it was three thousand.

  ‘Did he tell you that in private, in the presence of someone else, or did you merely overhear him telling others?’ the prosecutor immediately wanted to know.

  Grushenka replied that she had heard him say this to other people, and that he had told her both in the presence of others and when they were alone.

  ‘Did he tell you this privately once or on several occasions?’ the prosecutor enquired further, and learned that it had been on several occasions.

  Ippolit Kyrillovich was highly satisfied with this testimony. From subsequent answers it also transpired that Grushenka knew where the money had come from, namely, that Dmitry Fyodorovich had got it from Katerina Ivanovna.

  ‘And did you ever hear it mentioned, even if only once, that the sum squandered a month ago was not actually three thousand, but less, and that Dmitry Fyodorovich had kept no less than half of the original sum for himself?’

  ‘No, I never heard that,’ testified Grushenka.

  In due course it even transpired that over the last month Mitya had told her frequently that he hadn’t got a kopeck to his name. ‘He was expecting to receive some money from his father,’ Grushenka concluded.

  ‘And did he ever say in front of you… accidentally, perhaps, or in a temper,’ Nikolai Parfenovich suddenly dropped the bombshell, ‘that he intended to make an attempt on the life of his father?’

  ‘Yes, he did!’ sighed Grushenka.

  ‘Once or on several occasions?’

  ‘He said it several times, always when he was in a temper.’

  ‘And did you believe that he would carry out his threat?’

  ‘No, never!’ she replied firmly. ‘I relied on his sense of honour.’

  ‘Allow me, gentlemen,’ exclaimed Mitya, ‘allow me to say just one word to Agrafena Aleksandrovna in your presence.’

  ‘Go ahead,’ acquiesced Nikolai Parfenovich.

  ‘Agrafena Aleksandrovna,’ Mitya half rose from his chair, ‘as God is my witness, I am not guilty of the blood of my father who was murdered yesterday!’

  Having said this, Mitya sat down on his chair again. Grushenka got to her feet and, facing the icon, crossed herself devoutly.

  ‘Thank God!’ she said with heartfelt relief, and, still standing but turning now towards Nikolai Parfenovich, she added: ‘You must believe what he has just said! I know him: he’ll say anything off the top of his head to raise a laugh perhaps, or sometimes just to be awkward, but if it’s a matter of conscience he’ll never lie, he’ll tell the truth straight out, believe me!’

  ‘Thank you, Agrafena Aleksandrovna, you have comforted my soul!’ said Mitya in a tremulous voice.

  When asked how much money he had had on him the previous day, she replied that she did not know, but that she had heard him say many times that he had brought three thousand roubles with him. As to where he had got the money from, he had told her that he had ‘stolen’ it from Katerina Ivanovna, and she had replied that he hadn’t stolen it at all and that he really ought to return it the next day, without fail. The prosecu
tor demanded to know which money he had been talking about when he said that he had stolen it from Katerina Ivanovna—the money he had had yesterday, or the three thousand he had squandered a month ago—and Grushenka thought that he had meant the money that he had had a month ago, or that was what she had understood, anyway.

  Grushenka was finally dismissed, and Nikolai Parfenovich hastened to assure her that she could return to the town immediately if she so wished, and that if he, for his part, could be of any assistance, for instance in the matter of providing horses or, if she happened for instance to want an escort, then he… for his part…

  ‘You are most kind,’ Grushenka bowed to him in acknowledgement, ‘but I’ll go with that old gentleman, the landowner, I’ll take him home, but meanwhile I’ll wait downstairs if you’ll allow me, to see what you decide about Dmitry Fyodorovich.’

  She left. Mitya was calm and even fully alert, but this was short-lived. A strange physical weakness was coming over him more and more with every passing second. His eyes closed from exhaustion. The questioning of the witnesses was finally over. The final drafting of the record was in progress. Mitya got up from his chair and went into the corner by the curtain, stretched himself out on a large household chest covered with a rug, and immediately fell asleep. He had a strange dream, quite unrelated to both the time and the place. He dreamt he was travelling somewhere across the steppe, somewhere where he had once served in the army, in a carriage pulled through slushy snow by a pair of horses driven by a muzhik. Mitya felt the cold, it was the beginning of November, and the snow kept coming down in large, wet flakes which melted as soon as they touched the ground. The driver, however, valiantly urging his horses on, kept up a brisk pace; with his long, reddish beard, he was hardly an old man, only about fifty, and dressed in a shabby grey zipun. * And there, not far ahead, was a village, its huts black as pitch, half of them burned down, with only the charred beams sticking out. And peasant women lined the road into the village, lots of them, all in a row, every one emaciated, haggard, with peculiarly brown faces. Beyond the crowd he noticed one in particular, tall and gaunt, looking about forty but probably no more than twenty; her face was drawn and ashen, and in her arms she held a crying infant, and her breasts seemed to be so shrunken that there could not be a drop of milk in them. And the child cried incessantly, stretching forth its bare little arms, clenching its fists, which were quite blue with the cold.